Trump Promises To Quickly Stop Heroin Entering USA

Better build the wall first....

Promises to liberate from the drug cartels!

Expensive Green Electricity Price Is Setting The Price Of All Electricity.

If you are a utility executive worrying about the drastic decline with the price of electricity caused by the fracking miracle, expensive green electricity is a way to support and increase your profits in the realm of deflationary nature gas prices.

All our federal and state subsidies for green energy is designed to boost the price of electricity of us all?

  

Block Island Wind Farm: Windfall for the politically connected

Published August 20. 2016 6:38PM | Updated August 21. 2016 7:23AM

By David Collins  Day staff writer

d.collins@theday.com  DavidCollinsct  

It's hard not to admire the five spanking new windmills off the southeast coast of Block Island, America's first offshore wind farm.

They seem to be getting good reviews on the island, too, where anxiety about how they would look seems to be subsiding.

The windmills, as seen in a series of mesmerizing aerial photos last week from The Day's Sean Elliot, are actually quite beautiful. From the air, the five look like a graceful art installation, statuesque sentinels staggered in a line just off the island's shoreline.

They are a gift to the island, a project that will replace an aging and derelict system of diesel power generators, running off fuel brought by ferry, that now produces the most expensive electricity in the country.

The island will not only see a drastic reduction in electric rates but also will be connected by cable for the first time to the mainland, a $100 million umbilical cord that also will bring high-speed internet.

The greatest beauty of the wind farm, though, may be seen by political observers, who can't help but marvel at the way this economic windfall has gone to the politically connected — millions of dollars in profit collected in little increments from all of Rhode Island's electric users.

The deal making for this at the highest levels of Rhode Island politics has gotten only scant attention in the extensive news coverage of the creation of America's first offshore wind farm.

One outspoken critic was the former attorney general of Rhode Island, Patrick Lynch, who cried foul about the above-market rates guaranteed for the windmill-generated kilowatts, while running for governor, a race he eventually abandoned.

"The 'demonstration project' off Block Island would demonstrate how easy it is to make money off Rhode Island," Lynch once complained.

One of the best explainers about the politics of this money-making clean energy deal appeared in Forbes last spring, under the headline: "Is America's First Offshore Wind Farm A Real Revolution Or Just Another Green Boondoggle?"

The long piece by staff writer Christopher Helman explains how the project got its guaranteed above-market electric rates after intervention by state lawmakers and then-Gov. Donald Carcieri.

Under the deal engineered by Carcieri, Rhode Island's regulated utility, National Grid, will be required to pay 24.4 cents per kilowatt hour for the windmill power — more than twice current market rates.

Sweetening the deal even more, there are price escalators of 3.5 percent a year, so that by the end of the 20-year contract period, National Grid will be paying 50 cents per kilowatt hour from the wind farm.

Forbes calculated that the wind farm eventually would generate some $900 million, and with $100 million in energy tax credits, the investors in the project are looking at a return on investment on the order of 7.5 percent.

"It is a legally guaranteed, risk-free money machine," Forbes noted.

And how did it happen?, Forbes asked.

"Connections," the magazine said, explaining that the farm developer, Deepwater Wind, is run by none other than Jeff Grybowski, former chief of staff to Gov. Carcieri.

Dead Ender Junk Plant Pilgrim On The Way Back Up

The Cape Cod Times. Do you think these guys have to abide to a set of rules, such that they can get free stories from Entergy and the NRC.

Why didn't they ask or why didn't the Cape Cod Times say Entergy declined to answer our question with what component failed? They only thing I can think of with this response was employee sabotage. They want the culprit to brag about it first?

Sheehan said the faulty parts have been replaced.

“The company has shipped the removed parts to the valve vendor for further examination,” Sheehan said. “We will review those results as soon as they are available.”

?

Don't you think its a little arrogant, with Entergy and NRC not explaining what caused the slow MSIV timing before they began the start-up?

It sounds like they changed out the air actuator for the valve?

Junk Plant Watts Bar 2: New Plant Scram On Unreliable Equipment.

Power Reactor	Event Number: 52194
Facility: WATTS BAR Region: 2 State: TN Unit: [ ] [2] [ ] RX Type: [1] W-4-LP,[2] W-4-LP NRC Notified By: DAVID ALLEN HQ OPS Officer: JEFF HERRERA	Notification Date: 08/23/2016 Notification Time: 15:30 [ET] Event Date: 08/23/2016 Event Time: 13:56 [EDT] Last Update Date: 08/23/2016
Emergency Class: NON EMERGENCY 10 CFR Section: 50.72(b)(2)(iv)(B) - RPS ACTUATION - CRITICAL 50.72(b)(3)(iv)(A) - VALID SPECIF SYS ACTUATION	Person (Organization): ERIC MICHEL (R2DO)

Unit	SCRAM Code	RX CRIT	Initial PWR	Initial RX Mode	Current PWR	Current RX Mode
2	M/R	Y	43	Power Operation	0	Hot Standby

Event Text

MANUAL TRIP DUE TO A LOSS OF MAIN FEEDWATER "On August 23, 2016, at 1356 EDT, Watts Bar Nuclear Plant [WBN] Unit 2 reactor was manually tripped due to a loss of main feedwater. "Concurrent with the reactor trip, the Auxiliary Feedwater system actuated as designed. "All control and shutdown rods fully inserted. All safety systems responded as designed. The unit is currently stable in Mode 3, with decay heat removal via Auxiliary Feedwater and main steam dump systems. Unit 2 is in a normal shutdown electrical alignment. "The cause is currently under investigation. "This is being reported under 10CFR 50.72(b)(3)(iv)(A) and 10CFR 50.72(b)(2)(iv)(B). "There was no effect on WBN Unit 1. "The NRC Senior Resident Inspector has been notified."

Junk Plant Fitzpatrick: Power at 45% For Three days

Power been at 85% since they destroyed one of their giant condensate pumps.

Junk Plant Cook: Steam Lines Vibration Cause Giant Leak

What does that say about their problem detection program before the component fails? I'd be looking for some recent increase of vibration causing a rapid failure.  

 

Bridgman Nuclear Plant Finds Cause Of July Shut Down

By Rebecca Thiele • 8 hours ago

 

Officials at D.C. Cook Nuclear Plant in Bridgman may have found what caused a steam pipe to burst in July. The plant was shut down for a week last month after pressure from a faulty steam pipe wore a hole in the wall of the turbine building. 
Turbines help power the plant - which Nuclear Regulatory Commission officials say ultimately keeps the reactor cool. Tom Taylor is the resident inspector at D.C. Cook for the NRC. He says the supports holding the steam pipe up likely weren’t sturdy enough, causing the steam pipe to vibrate and crack.
“Over time some vibrations might have caused some weakening of some of the joints that then led to the failure,” he says.
D.C. Cook Communications Manager Bill Schalk says the pipe was fixed before the plant came back online, but plant workers hope to have a more permanent solution by the fall.
“When we are shut down in October there’ll be a more comprehensive modification to that so that either there won’t be that vibration or that there’ll be sufficient hardening of that particular area so the vibrations wouldn’t result in any failure of the pipe,” says Schalk….

 

Cover-Up In Hinsdale, NH: Vt Police Agencies Overwhelmed With Heroin Cases and Carfentanil Suspected

But Hinsdale is OK...

With Overdoses Increasing, Vermont Adds New Drug Detectives

Vermont State Police and Sen. Patrick Leahy announced a federal grant will add personnel to the Drug Task Force

The Vermont State Police and Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont, announced Monday that a federal Justice Department grant funded six new positions on the Vermont State Police Drug Task Force. 

The $1.4-million grant will pay for five detectives and one intelligence analyst, who will focus on disrupting the sale of heroin in Vermont, the commander of the Vermont State Police said.

The expansion increases the number of Task Force investigators from 19 to 24, according to Vermont State Police and Sen. Leahy. 

"In my years in the Senate, and in my years before it as a prosecutor, I've never seen anything like this," Leahy said of the opiate addiction epidemic. "I've never had anything that's torn at me as much as this does."

Vermont Health Commissioner Dr. Harry Chen said Monday on average, emergency services teams in Vermont are now seeing an average of 2.2 or more overdoses a day from heroin or prescription pill abuse. While those overdoses aren't all fatal, that's a big number in a small state, Chen said. 

The addition of powerful painkillers like fentanyl and carfentanil, which is used to sedate elephants and large animals, is adding new dangers to the national heroin epidemic, Chen noted. 

"We are, quite frankly, overwhelmed at the moment on the law enforcement end of things with the amount of heroin that's coming into the state currently," said Col. Matt Birmingham, the commander of the Vermont State Police. "Our investigations are up about 70 percent this past year on heroin alone."

Junk Plant Pilgrim: The "C" MSIV Has At Least Been Broken For Six Months

Originally posted on 8/19, reposted because on new information.

Update 8/21

Today at 11:14 AM

Michael Mulligan <steamshovel2002@yahoo.com>

 To allegation@nrc.gov allegation@nrc.gov

Dear Sir,  

Could you past pass this onto the direct supervisor of the Pilgrim Plant NRC inspectors. It is my opinion the current NRC residents in Pilgrim are doing an exemplary job and are heroic in nature against the tremendous negative forces of Entergy. I give the NRC my permission to pass this e-mail onto Entergy.  

Mike Mulligan  

Hinsdale, NH

 

Dear Sir,

Better yet, could you put my preceding degraded MSIV e-mail on the docket?

 

Thanks,

Mike Mulligan

Hinsdale, NH 

Proposing rust particles degrading MSIVs in safety compressed air indicates they had known this was a widespread problems seen in other components. All safety components supplied by safety related compressed air should have been called inop. That would get them to fix it.

Was the recent MSIV testing part of the normal scheduled testing, or was Entergy suspicious something was wrong with this valve? 

As I told the inspector, this MSIV issue is the exact pattern leading to the SRV failures. How could the NRC let them get away with this?

I ask the inspector to look into the similarities of the C main steam line SRV degradations and C MSIVs timing degradation and air tube crack . 

My god, look at how deeper C SRV degraded and the much shorter time the C SRV was in the plant compared to A? You now need to do a evaluation on all the C SRV leakages from new installation in 2011. Was there some mysterious forces going on in the C SRV causing this guy to degrade faster and deeper.

Main Steam Safety Relief Valves Determined to be Inoperable Following Evaluation

On January 27, 2015, during winter storm Juno,

On March 12, 2015, after further evaluation of system performance of SRV-3A and SRV-3C, along with results of valve internal conditions identified during physical inspection, the valves were determined to have been inoperable for an indeterminate period during the last operating cycle. Specifically, SRV-3C was determined to be inoperable based on its on-demand performance at low reactor pressures, as well as the visual conditions that were identified during the inspection process. SRV-3A was considered inoperable based on it having similar internal indications as SRV-C when it was disassembled and inspected. SRV-3A was installed in May 2011 and SRV-3C was installed in October 2013.

Remember, Dead-Ender plants like Oyster Creek and Pilgrim are exempt from federal regulations.

If this inops all MSIVs retroactively, there is going to be hell to pay???     

Update

The NRC resident told me half the problem are the weaselly rules of the NRC. Didn't have proof it was inop.

Why in the world is the NRC allowing the plant to operate till the weekend.

My theory is abnormal vibrations in the Main Steam Lines...

***This is from the inspector...they are pissed as hell.

They basically got quarterly test cycling of the main steam isolation valve. This is the same valve that failed a year ago. Three quarters ago, this MSIV failed testing. I asked the inspector, well why didn't they shutdown. Pilgrim came back with, we think is a particle in the valve or air system causing the valves testing failure. We cycled the piss out of the valve, we're good now...we think we blew out the particle. A bunch of valve position cycling came within tech specs. I think she said after, one quarter testing showed normal timing, while the other showed within tech specs, but longer than normal times. The latest then failed testing leading to the shutdown.

The NRC is assuming the valve was inop and incapable of working since the first failed test 6 months to 9 months ago. It might never been operable since last shutdown.

 This is a big deal.

Let play this out. Lets say the Entergy explains to the NRC, we are shutting the plant down because we think something is wrong with the C inboard MSIV. The NRC would emediately think this is suspicious. Lets say they pop open the valve finding significant damage imparing long term operability. Then the NRC would come back asking well, what is your evidence the valve was impaired leading to the testing causing the shutdown. They would be looking for a falsification issue.

Now a ginned up failed test a day ago, might get them cover to enter a shutdown and repair of valve, with the prying questions of the NRC...

I questioned her on the SRVs. Are there any leaks and abnormal tailpiece temperature indications. She said there were none. I asked, are they going to yank out the SRVs and do pressure lift testing. She said its not required and she does expect Pilgrim to do this testing. But the NRC is requiring Pilgrim to cycle the SRVs during this cool down or shutdown. The NRC is going to be in the drywell to observe the testing results. The is highly abnormal.

Dead-Ender Oyster Creek-NRC Rules Don't Apply To Them

Dead Ender Oyster Creek has three white findings recently. Two of them has ended with "it beyond not within Exelon’s ability to reasonably foresee and correct" or its a not justifiable old design issues. Basically the violation. don't get put in their report card. The third one is pending...

Do you see a pattern here?

Oyster Creek still running is all you have to know about to explain the USA's great decline...  

Oyster Creek Won’t Receive Extra Scrutiny for ‘White’ Finding

By Daniel Nee

The Oyster Creek Nuclear Plant in Lacey Township. (Courtesy of Exelon)

LACEY – Federal officials, in a quarterly report released recently on the Oyster Creek Generating Station, said they will use their discretion and not further scrutinize the plant following an incident which garnered a minor safety violation, known as a white finding.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission issued its quarterly report on the plant August 3. In the report, the federal agency detailed the “white” finding – spurred by an incident of “low safety significance,” the agency said – which involved a failed electrical relay for one of the plant’s emergency diesel generators.
Neil Sheehan, spokesman for the NRC, said the white finding was spurred by a routine test of the emergency diesel generator on November 9, 2015.
The faulty relay would have prevented the generator from starting, a condition that existed since it was previously run and shut down on October 26, 2015. Exelon completed repairs and returned the generator to service on November 10, 2015. Oyster Creek’s technical specifications state that if one of the plant’s emergency diesel generators become inoperable during power operation, the reactor may remain in operation for a period not to exceed seven days.
“Although this issue constitutes a violation of NRC requirements, the NRC determined that the relay failure which caused the emergency diesel generator to be inoperable was not within Exelon’s ability to reasonably foresee and correct,” the report said, referring to the plant’s owner. “As a result, the NRC did not identify a performance deficiency associated with this condition. The NRC’s assessment considered Exelon’s maintenance practices, industry operating experience, vendor and industry maintenance and testing recommendations for the failed relay as well as similar components, and Exelon’s corrective actions to prevent recurrence of the issue. “
The inspection report also contains a “green” finding – one of “very low safety significance,” Sheehan said – for a failure involving the incorrect reassembly of a reactor recirculation pump during a planned maintenance outage. This led to an unexpected increase in Reactor Coolant System unidentified leakage and a subsequent manual scram, or shutdown, of the reactor on April 30, 2016.
Oyster Creek, the nation’s oldest active nuclear power plant, is scheduled to shut down permanently in November 2019. Officials are currently looking into future options for the plant site, which constitutes a large share of Lacey Township’s tax base. Options include the potential for the site to have an expanded role as a natural gas plant.

Troops On The Boarder Protecting Us From Massachusett Heroin?

 Wonderful and current reference information on the epidemic

NH1 News Investigates: Taking back NH from the drug crisis

Lawrence and Holyoke Ma is where 90% of the heroin comes from in the Surrounding Hinsdale area.

N.H. candidate’s antidrug plan: Post National Guard on Mass. border

By Joshua Miller Globe Staff  August 19, 2016

American politicians often campaign with promises to send troops to the Mexican border.

Donald Trump has, infamously, called for building “a great wall” and making Mexico pay for it.

But now Jeanie Forrester, a New Hampshire state senator and gubernatorial candidate, has a different kind of idea: troops to protect the Granite State from drug dealers from Massachusetts.

Aiming to fight the scourge of opioid abuse and staunch the flow of heroin, Forrester said she would consider deploying the New Hampshire National Guard to patrol the state’s southern border with Massachusetts, according to the Concord Monitor newspaper.

Mike Dennehy, a senior strategist for the campaign, told the Globe Forrester wasn’t available to chat Friday. He said her original idea was to deploy the New Hampshire Guard, with other states and federal approval, to the Texas-Mexico border.

But he said Forrester wouldn’t hesitate to use the National Guard to support law enforcement in their interdiction efforts with drugs coming in from other states.

Jeanie Forrester, a New Hampshire state senator and gubernatorial candidate.

“The bottom line is that Jeanie takes this issue very seriously and is thinking outside the box,” he said. “The same old politicians coming up with failed ideas that

Yep, same old response from politicians for a unprecedented crisis. NH is the hot bet of heroin nationwide. Did I hear it right, if the NH rate was the same nation wide we would have a death rate of 100,000 a year.

aren’t working won’t cut it, especially in Manchester where they are overwhelmed. The drug issue in New Hampshire is a crisis and needs to be treated like a crisis. And she will be the governor who begins the rollback and end to our present drug crisis.”

But one of Forrester’s top opponents for the GOP nomination for governor brushed aside the idea of sending troops to the border with Massachusetts.

“I don’t think that’s a well thought-out plan,” said Ted Gatsas, the mayor of Manchester, the state’s biggest city. “Putting National Guardsmen on the border — are you going to stop every car coming from Massachusetts? It just doesn’t make sense.”

Gatsas said he’s tough on drug dealers, proposing increasing penalties. But he also supports other approaches, such as instituting a seven-day initial prescription limit on opioids, similar to a law passed this year in Massachusetts.

So what does Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker think of the idea of a neighboring state’s chief executive deploying troops to the common border to protect the Granite State from opioids?

Baker spokesman Brendan C. Moss wouldn’t say. But in a statement Moss noted that Baker recently led a group of almost 50 governors in signing a compact about fighting opioid addiction, “calling for a coordinated approach between states to combat the opioid epidemic, including collaboration with law enforcement to end opioid trafficking.”

A spirited campaign for governor is underway in New Hampshire, which elects its chief executive every two years. Governor Maggie Hassan, a Democrat, is running for US Senate so the gubernatorial race is for an open seat and has drawn several Republican and Democratic candidates.

The primary is Sept. 13.

Joshua Miller can be reached at joshua.miller@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @jm_bos and subscribe to his weekday e-mail update on politics at bostonglobe.com/politicalhappyhour

Legalized All Drugs: Insanity

Honestly, this sounds like a libertarianism. Librarians are government haters and are out to destroy government. They are all around us.

I think pot is relatively harmless. It certainly is a lot safer than booze. I am for legalization. Regulated like booze. I think this would take the pressure off cops and reduce crimes.

In excess of 50% to 75% of the jail population are people who have mental condition. So he says 90% of the jail population is related to drugs. The high functioning mentally ill generally are riddled with addictions of all sorts.

There are methadone programs all over the place. I would agree to a heroin maintenance program if the government ran it. We going to have to feed and house them too? Why not go off welfare to get on the gravy train of heroin. You talking about open heroin stores. They would have to trade giving their identities and DNA to the feds…get it on a government data base. The way this will play out is it would be administrated and the councilors would be barely be trained. All these clinics would be fly-by-night operations. The methadone programs are really expensive to the uninsured. I would agree to if if heroin users on a maintenance program were required to live responsible lives and try to better themselves. I think the cartels response to this would be ever lower prices of heroin and higher concentrations. These guys would be supplementing their government supplied heroin with really cheap on the street heroin.

I would favor a new safe heroin intoxicant that would disrupt the cartels. It would have to be a intoxicant creating a better high than heroin. The people who become addicted to heroin are basically trying to blot out their lives.

Remember prohibition came about because of wide spread abuse of alcohol. There were drunks lying all over the place. We used alcohol at a much higher rate in the beginning of the 20th century than today. I think the anti heroin conservatives would gain a lot more political leverage over this than the liberals.

I think we need to pick a few large heroin producing countries…then crush them as example to everyone else. Remember the apex of terrorism occurs in un-governable heroin areas throughout the world.

Van Wickler speaks out against war on drugs


By Xander Landen Sentinel Staff | Posted: Friday, August 19, 2016 12:00 pm

Richard Van Wickler, the superintendent of the Cheshire County jail, remembers when he first questioned the war on drugs. He was working his first job as a correctional officer in the Merrimack County Department of Corrections in the 1980s, when one day, he was tasked with putting a man accused of homicide and a young contractor accused of marijuana possession in the same holding cell.

“I’m looking at this contractor, who is frightened to death, who is about to be convicted next this person who has just committed homicide. ... It was that moment that I realized that there’s something very odd about these types of laws,” Van Wickler said in an interview with The Sentinel.

Today, Van Wickler’s open about his opinions on U.S. drug laws. He believes all illegal substances should be decriminalized and that no one should be put in jail for possession or use of drugs.

He also believes that without enough government-funded treatment centers and services for drug addicts, the job of rehabilitation has fallen unfairly on the criminal justice system.

Van Wickler spoke about his opinions and advocacy against today’s drug policy at a meeting of the Kiwanis Club at The Pub Restaurant Wednesday.

His comments come as New Hampshire contends with a opioid crisis, and an unprecedented number of people in the state dying of drug overdoses.

Van Wickler also suspects that 90 percent of people currently serving sentences in the Cheshire County jail are doing so for crimes connected to their addictions or drug use. Among inmates who report to be drug users, the majority say they abuse heroin, he said.

Van Wickler told about 20 people at the meeting that since laws targeting drug users became stricter under the Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan administrations, the government’s effort to create a drug-free society — also known as the war on drugs — hasn’t come close to reaching its goal.

According to data he cited at the meeting, one in three Americans today admits to using an illegal drug at some point in his or her lifetime.

“If the solution to create a drug-free society is to find these people, arrest them, incarcerate them and hope that when they’re released, they never use again, it’s not working,” Van Wickler said at the meeting.

If the war on drugs has succeeded in doing anything, he said, it’s putting people in jail. While the U.S. contains only 5 percent of the world’s population, it holds 25 percent of the world’s inmates due, in part, to laws that target drug users, according to Van Wickler.

Ideally, he said, he wants drugs to be legalized, which he claims would dramatically decrease both the number of people in jail and crime rates throughout the country. But he thinks a more realistic first step would be to decriminalize drugs throughout the country.

He’s also a member of an organization called Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP), which shares that same view. The group is comprised of 80,000 supporters — including police, prosecutors, judges and corrections officials — who support the decriminalization of drugs not only because of the effects drug laws have on users, but also the effects they have on law enforcement officers.

The group believes legalizing drugs would sharply reduce the amount violence that officers face in the field every day.

“The Drug Enforcement Agency has determined that the majority of gang violence and the reason why gangs exist is over illegal drug marketplace disputes,” Van Wickler said.

He serves as LEAP’s chairman of the board of directors as well as one of LEAP’s speakers, who represents the organization at public events. He said he’s the sole LEAP speaker who’s an active member of law enforcement, as many officers who participate in the organization fear disapproval or judgment from their colleagues.

Van Wickler said he’s never experienced any of that.

“The opposite is true. There’s great admiration. When I speak to law enforcement officers ... most of them agree. It’s not working,” he said.

Van Wickler stressed that although LEAP supports the legalization and decriminalization of drugs, neither he nor the organization are pro drug use. Members just believe the benefits of striking down the current drug laws would far outweigh its costs, he said.

Multiple Kiwanis Club members at the meeting were skeptical of the idea of a society in which drug users could not be punished and drugs could be obtained legally.

Junk Plant Pilgrim Shuting Down Again II

Here is my comment on the hot ocean water down power. Basically I think this is just a excuse to fix the MSIV. I think closing times were degrading...they knew it would be a few weeks at 75% power...so decided to take a look at the MSIV.

Two days ago: I suspect we will see them in repeated shutdowns and down powers for another month or more. It will beat the hell out of the plant. This environment is rich with screw-ups and breaking equipment, it is highly likely they will get a plant trip or other

The last MSIV event happened on Aug 22, 2015. I doubt this is a coincidence. Maybe something to do with summertime duty or temperatures. The main condenser cleaning down powers. the steam line vibrations from this.  

That bad boy.

Pilgrim shutting down for valve repair
Malfunctions in system have forced 2 closures in year.

By Christine Legere

Posted Aug. 18, 2016 at 6:46 PM
Updated at 9:41 AM

PLYMOUTH — Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station, already one step from being forced by federal regulators to close down based on poor performance, is now trying to figure out the cause of a malfunctioning valve designed to prevent radioactivity from leaking into the environment during a nuclear accident.

The plant was slowly powering down to full shutdown Thursday so the valve could be fixed. This is the second time in a year that a problem in the valve system has shut down the reactor.

Critics say it is further evidence that parts are wearing out and not being replaced in time at the 44-year-old reactor because owner-operator Entergy Corp. plans to permanently shutter the plant in mid-2019.

“Even with increased federal oversight, repetitive failure of critical safety equipment is yet another serious warning that Pilgrim's ongoing degradation continues to threaten our region,” Diane Turco, co-founder of the watchdog group Cape Downwinders, wrote in an email. “Pilgrim is an accident waiting to happen. Closure should be now, not in 2019.”

Eight “main steam isolation valves” regulate the flow of steam through four large lines that connect the nuclear reactor to the turbine, which spins and produces electricity.

Federal standards require that the valves close at a certain speed to prevent radioactive leaks in an emergency. Operators found during testing Tuesday that the valve at issue was closing too slowly.

This is not the first time the steam isolation valve system has malfunctioned. The plant went into automatic emergency shutdown in August 2015 to prevent a buildup of reactor pressure after a steam isolation valve closed when it should have remained open.

Just weeks after that incident, federal regulators shifted Pilgrim into its so-called Column 4 performance category — as low as a plant can go without being ordered to simply shut down.

Neil Sheehan, spokesman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, said the valve problem last summer was “one of the factors that contributed to the plant being moved to Column 4,” since it resulted in an emergency shutdown.

When Pilgrim workers discovered the valve was not closing fast enough to meet standards Tuesday, they closed one of the four steam lines and limited reactor output to 75 percent to prevent a pressure buildup. On Thursday, they were working toward full shutdown.

Sheehan said it was “too soon to tell if wear and tear is the cause of the slow closure time.”

“Entergy is evaluating the cause of the valve slowness and will have to develop a plan to fix the problem,” Sheehan said. “We will be closely following the company’s troubleshooting and repair efforts.”

Mary Lampert, director of Pilgrim Watch, said she could save the NRC the trouble of waiting for a cause to be found.

“Let me help them out,” she wrote in an email. ”The cause is a continuation of Entergy's record of poor maintenance — prioritizing their bottom line over public safety — and NRC allowing them to do so.”

After investigating last summer’s valve problem, Entergy concluded a faulty strut supporting the gas pressure line had allowed the line to drop onto the main steam line. After years of vibration, the gas pressure line ruptured and failed to open the valve.

“The August 2015 problem was, according to Entergy’s report, caused by an action pre-2001 that remained ‘hidden’ for over a decade until it caused the failure,” wrote David Lochbaum, director of the Nuclear Safety Project for the Union of Concerned Scientists, in an email.

The company checked the gas pressure lines on the other seven valves for signs of wear after the rupture.

“Entergy confined its fixes to only the specific thing that failed that time,” Lochbaum wrote. “It’s a good example of the difference between doing it right and doing it Entergy’s way.”

Lochbaum said one need only look at the NRC’s performance standards matrix, which ranks nuclear plants nationwide, to see Entergy is a poor performer in general.

“Only 11 reactors in the entire country are not in Column 1, where the NRC expects them to be,” Lochbaum wrote. “Poor performance has moved 11 reactors out of Column 1, and Entergy owns five of the 11 reactors, including all three of the worst performers.”

Pilgrim, along with Arkansas I and II, all Entergy-owned, are the only reactors in the NRC’s lowest performance column.

— Follow Christine Legere on Twitter: @ChrisLegereCCT.

Heroin, Stealing Merchandise, A Mother And A PerfectThree Year Old baby boy in Keene

They are trying to protect a heroin mother and 3 year old baby. How much money did she cost us so far?

They were trying to protect the mother and child in 2015 by allowing her to plead down from theft. The courts wanted to latch onto her in 2015 and make her go to treatment? Did it work?  

Bet you she is still a active heroin user. Imagine the power of a substance that can strip a baby from a mother? How many heroin babies have been striped from mothers in NH? I live next to a similar perfect boy. There is a high probability Dakota will be dead in a year. 

Has that beautiful little boy been taken away from her yet? Does financially impaired DCYS have that little boy?

Plead down from stealing?

637:3-a Willful Concealment. –
    I. A person is guilty of willful concealment if, without authority, he or she willfully conceals the goods or merchandise of any store while still upon the premises of such store. Goods or merchandise found concealed upon the person shall be prima facie evidence of willful concealment. Notwithstanding RSA 637:11, willful concealment shall be a misdemeanor

A perfect boy born to Dakata in 2013 

2013 : "a boy, Maddox Paul Matthew, to Dakota Keller and David Wood of Drewsville"

 Three people charged during criminal patrol Wednesday

Posted: Thursday, August 18, 2016 12:00 pm

Three people charged during criminal patrol Wednesday By Sentinel Staff SentinelSource.com

Three people were arrested on warrants Wednesday during a stepped-up criminal patrol conducted through a collaboration of area law enforcement agencies.

The patrol was aimed at those involved in heroin sales, according to a news release from Keene police.

Arrested were:

* Glen Goodwin, 24, of Fitzwilliam, charged with a felony count of sale of heroin. Goodwin is accused of selling a quantity of the drug for $200 on July 11 to a person cooperating with the N.H. Drug Task Force. He was released on $10,000 personal recognizance and is scheduled to be arraigned Sept. 1 in Cheshire County Superior Court.

* Jonathan R. Poanessa, 20, of Swanzey, charged with a felony count of sale of cocaine. He is accused of selling cocaine to another person for $100 in May. Poanessa is on probation for a 2014 drug offense and was held without bail, according to police. He will be arraigned at a date to be determined in Cheshire County Superior Court.

* Dakota A. Keller, 25, of Keene, accused of violating her probation after being convicted of willful concealment in March 2015. Police don't say how Keller allegedly violated her probation. She was held for lack of $1,500 bail and is scheduled to be arraigned Sept. 18 in 8th Circuit Court District Division in Keene.

The patrol was a collaboration among the Keene Police Department, N.H. State Police, the Cheshire County Sheriff's Office and the N.H. Attorney General's Drug Task Force. Anyone with further information on these cases is asked to call Keene police at 357-9820 and ask to speak with Detective Don Lundin or Detective Jen Ramey. Information can also be provided anonymously at www.ci.keene.nh.us/departments/police/anonymous-crime-tips.

Keene Sentinal and Mike Mulligan Develped New Series On Locale Heroin Problems.

I initiated this Keene Sentinel set of articles about heroin in Hinsdale. I talked about Hinsdale's heroin troubles to Mr. Landen... talked about these Hinsdale sorrows reflects all the communities surrounding us.

The Sentinel suggested I disclose to Hinsdale I was working on this story with them. Locale people might want to more talk to me about heroin issue after this. Give me a call or pull me over while I am biking. I will pass on the information to the Sentinel or have Mr. Landen give you a call at home. Or just listen to you. I can take whatever you got.  

I know for a fact the Hinsdale Police chief and Hinsdale selectmen have been recently inundated by phone calls from the news media and request for interviews, inquiring about the troubles of our police department.     

A glimpse into heroin's grip on local communities

Posted: Wednesday, August 17, 2016 12:00 pm

By XANDER LANDEN and CALLIE GINTER Sentinel Staff SentinelSource.com

The opioid epidemic that’s leading to unprecedented numbers of drug deaths in New Hampshire has given rise to grim statistics. But within the facts and figures is a more anecdotal claim that keeps getting repeated.

“Everybody in our state at least knows of someone who has a child or a student or someone they’re connected to who has a drug problem or has overdosed,” said Jennifer Horn, chairwoman of the state Republican Party, in an article published by RealClearPolitics last November.

In August, gubernatorial candidate Colin Van Ostern said much the same thing.

“We all know someone, some of us in our own families, who have fallen into the (devastating) opioid trap, who have fallen into addiction or a substance abuse disorder and we have to work together to overcome it,” said the executive councilor, a Concord Democrat, when he unveiled his strategy to tackle the opioid problem if elected.

But in the heart of a community weathering the crisis, how well does this assumption match reality?

The Sentinel conducted an informal survey to find out.

Of 50 people randomly selected and interviewed over a two-day period on Keene’s Main Street, 38 of them — 76 percent — said they know someone with an opioid addiction personally or through a mutual acquaintance. Twenty-seven said they’re touched by the opioid epidemic at a close range — through a co-worker, teacher, friend or family member — while the other 11 knew of an addict second-hand.

Three, including Anna Sullivan, 25, of Keene, said they’re addicted to or recovering from opioids themselves.

Sullivan’s a recovering heroin addict who said she’s been sober for two months. She said she knows many people addicted to opioids, mostly heroin, and the survey results don’t surprise her. They shouldn’t surprise other locals either, she noted.

“It’s always been around, and it’s always been a problem, and more people are doing it than you think,” she said.

Ray Lindsey, 29, of Surry, runs a coffee stand in Railroad Square. Roughly three weeks ago, he said, he called the police about two separate opioid overdoses he saw in the square on a single day.

Lindsey also has a personal connection to opioid addiction; he said a relative’s in recovery for heroin use, and spent time in jail on drug charges.

The Sentinel’s survey was unscientific and limited by a range of factors. The sample size was small, the respondents pulled from a single geographic area and the data likely influenced by people’s willingness to be candid, in face-to-face conversation, about a difficult, stigmatized subject.

But it offers insight into just how many people are being affected by the crisis, and was conducted at a time when Keene is seeing a spike in opioid overdoses.

From January through May this year, the Keene Fire Department, on average, used the opioid antagonist Narcan just under 12 times per month, to respond to overdoses for an average of approximately six patients. But in June and July, the department has used Narcan at a higher rate.

In June, the department used Narcan 21 times for 12 suspected opioid overdoses, according to a news release from Fire Chief Mark F. Howard. In July, the department responded to seven overdoses and administered Narcan 14 times.

Last Thursday alone, there were as many as five overdoses in Keene on the same day, three of which were confirmed to be linked to opioid use, according to Deputy Fire Chief Jeffrey Chickering. Keene firefighters responded to these overdoses and administered Narcan three times within an eight-and-a-half-hour period, Chickering said.

As of the fire department’s most recently released data, three people in the Elm City had died from opioids so far this year. Statewide, officials project 482 deaths from opioids and other drugs by the end of 2016.

Those interviewed in downtown Keene offered a glimpse not only into opioids’ grip on the city, but also their reach in the surrounding region, through the accounts of people from Alstead, Richmond, Harrisville, Peterborough, Troy, Gilsum and Jaffrey.

Kim Fallon, chief forensic investigator for the state’s chief medical examiner’s office, said that though The Sentinel survey’s sample size was small, the results aren’t surprising.

“It seems accurate. It seems that the problem is so prevalent that everyone knows somebody or knows somebody who knows somebody who is addicted,” she said.

Standing under the marquee of The Colonial Theatre, a retired emergency room doctor from the area who preferred to remain anonymous said his son has been in recovery from heroin for seven years. He said opioid addiction isn’t limited to people of only one class, race or background.

“It’s all walks of life. Children of doctors, children of anybody. No one is immune to this.”

Callie Ginter can be reached at 352-1234, extension 1409 or cginter@keenesentinel.com. Follow her on Twitter @CGinterKS. Xander Landen can be reached at 352-1234, extension 1420 or xlanden@keenesentinel.com. Follow him on Twitter @XLandenKS

Heroin In Hinsdale,NH: Is WalMart Eating up Police Department Resources

Update 8/18

OK, is Walmart property taxes properly flowing through the selectman office into the police department...such that the police department can fully support Walmart?

Again, the only way we are going to fix this is if we are data driven. Not secret agendas!!!

Update:

"More than 2.4 million Americans were addicted to synthetic pain relievers or heroin in 2014, according to the latest federal survey on drug use and health".

A heavy addicts spends about $200 to $300  a day on heroin.  Think about the crime wave needed to support this addiction. Maybe the total spending by addicts is about a $ 1billion dollars a day. Honestly, are we talking about $365 billion dollars a year heroin tab per year from the USA?

I wonder how much shoplifting at Hinsdale Walmart supports heroin addiction in our area? 

I estimate there are more than 12 million heroin users in the USA. Total of about 15 million users?  

I worked at the Hinsdale Walmart a few years back. I hated working there with how management pushed the conservative ideology. The police were always parading in and out of the store to contend with shoplifters. I got dinged for stealing time at Walmart in their camera'd store wide theft prevention and detection system. I was caught  purchasing snacks for lunch on the clock. This is strictly forbidden.  

When I worked there at Walmart  they was making big bucks over shoplifters. The stores would basically fine the shoplifters. When they caught the shoplifters, they would offer them a deal. Either you pay us $500 to a $1000 dollars on the spot, sign a agreement to never come in the store,  or you are going to jail. It's very time consuming transporting these guys to county jail in Keene from Hinsdale. I image at the police station, they call the court bondsman and he offers them bail. I wonder how many a year end up going to county jail? I imagine these guys got court issues before the shoplifting and the police department is compelled to give them a ride to the Keene jail and facing the court. Is the police station even manned during off business hours? I supposed they got decent cells in the new police building.

Questions I would pose to the selectman is if Walmart is carrying their local tax rates with this police support. Hinsdale is a tiny police force and this site has a lot of customers. Usually Walmart gets locale tax reductions as part of the deal to construct the new store. I wouldn't be shocked if Walmart pays zero or little property taxes as part of the deal to get the SuperCenter into the town.

Does the poorly paid employees have a draw for heroin issues in Hinsdale? The fragile poor employees moved into Hinsdale's slum ghettoes and landlords, thereby intensifying the heroin problem.  You know darling, we need milk and tampons at Walmart, don't forget to pick up the heroin at our  Hinsdale  heroin dealer too. Most of these employees are disabled in on way or another, it a requirement they find work in order to stay on Welfare. It is a hell of a tax write off for Walmart to hire a disabled employee.

The police department would have to be data driven. I doubt this police department collects any data. So they would have to collect the information on all police involvement with Walmart and record it.

The perfect storm with the intensification of heroin addiction in Hinsdale and police needs at Walmart...

Bloomberg:  Walmart’s Out-of-Control Crime Problem Is Driving Police Crazy

According to Walmart Stores executives, it’s all starting to work.

Police chiefs and their officers on the ground say that’s just not so. Ross likes to joke that the concentration of crime at Walmart makes his job easier. “I’ve got all my bad guys in one place,” he says, flashing a bright smile. His squad’s sergeant, Robert Rohloff, a 34-year police veteran who has to worry about staffing, budgets, and patrolling the busiest commercial district in Tulsa, says there’s nothing funny about Walmart’s impact on public safety. He can’t believe, he says, that a multibillion-dollar corporation isn’t doing more to stop crime. Instead, he says, it offloads the job to the police at taxpayers’ expense. “It’s ridiculous—we are talking about the biggest retailer in the world,” says Rohloff. “I may have half my squad there for hours.”

Walmart knows police departments are frustrated. “We absolutely understand how important this is. It is important for our associates, it is important for our customers and across the communities we serve,” says Judith McKenna, Walmart’s chief operating officer for the U.S. “We can do better.”

Questions I would posed to the selectman.

1) How much property taxes a year does Walmart pay to the town?

2) Is the property tax rate ethical and moral compared to the profits they gain in the store?

3) On average, how much money does it cost Hinsdale per shoplifting event (man hours)?

4) When the shoplifter cycles through the courts, they usually get jail time, more likely a big fine and court costs. Does Hinsdale get a proportion of court fines to cover the police cost?

5) Ask the police chief:  how much is Walmart a burden to the police department budgeting?

NYTs: To My Newspaper Buddies, The Sad Story Of Poor Women In Trouble.

Update 8/18
 OK, so you want me to give you my big picture on it all? We don't make life compelling, interesting and worthwhile for the bottom half. Not enough people think life is worthwhile... If you think this thing is money you are crazier than me. Most people think  life is nothing but a grueling journey to nowhere.  That is why we are into all these titillating superficial and temporary pleasures of money, drugs, alcohol and cigarettes, food addictions, worthless temporary thrills,  arrant agendas of no worth to fill up our lives and the grossly expensive citadels of bling. expensive cloths, cars, macmansion and artificial excitement to no ends. It like we are all putting our neurons in a  continuous haze titillation and diversion. We are the la, la, la, la generation till death. The more we build up these citadels of materialism and it doesn't, we work like slaves more, then double up on more materialism to bolster our poor self esteem and confidence. Why isn't life enough?   

How many generations of children pays the price for one mother in trouble?

How does this all play out for the heroin Mothers and children of today?

Number of Women in Jail Has Grown Far Faster Than That of Men, Study Says

When Dolfinette Martin was convicted of shoplifting more than $700 worth of clothes in Louisiana in 2005, she had five children, no money and an addiction to cocaine.

Seven years later, in 2012, Ms. Martin became one of a growing number of impoverished women released from prisons and jails whose plight has been largely overlooked during continuing efforts to reverse mass incarceration, according to criminal justice experts.

“That cycle of poverty — not a lot of resources, not a lot of jobs, the lack of education, you kind of give up,” said Ms. Martin, 46, who now works as an administrative assistant.

*And the most common offenses that led to arrests involved drugs...

Junk plant Watts Bar 1 Power Level Jumping all Over The Place Between 84% and 95% Power

The plant and the fuel pin aren't designed for this erratic power history. These guys are designed for long term operations a 100% power.

Region 1 today has a pathetic average power history compared to the other regions. Region 1 seems to be particularly long on the maintenance tooth with all these impaired powered plants. I get it Watts Bar is in region 2.   

Dead Ender FitPatrick Plant: I Guess I Got The Wrong Radation leak?

Update 8/17

Basically the leak of high radiation resin into the tank room is just negligence. Usually the leak in the room comes from poor coordination between the rad waste operator and the clean up panel in the reactor building. Usually valves malfunction and leak during a backwash caused by insufficient maintenance, then overfills the tank and spills this resin onto the floor. It has occurred over and over again. If the NRC really cared about the rad dose of the

Fitz employees, they would figure out how to force management to keep up with the maintenance of the backwash system. They decades ago should have ripped out the resin back-wash system and replace it better designed new system.

Again, this indicates the NRC selectively enforces their regulation and the NRC has a inadequate tool bag of rules to protect nuclear industry employees against negligent rad doses.  Basically this leads to a sense of powerlessness to the rank and file front line employees seeing this poor professionalism and safe rad doses...it leads to a wider risk because the safety culture gets impaired effecting a wider risk of more components failing when needed.

And negligent fuel failures makes the resin hotter than a fire cracker. 

Well, I knew there was a radiation leak going on somewhere. The NRC is going

Dead-Ender Junk Plant FitzPatrick: Radioactive Discharge to Environment

to think I was sending them a special message about a undisclosed radiation leak. It is plausible I was trying to protect somebody.

Dead Ender Junk Plant Fitzpatrick: Ut-Oh from 85% to 70%?

Can’t you imagine all the steam and water leaks now in this poorly maintained plant.

Here above is another brainless guess. I produced a lot of recent articles on this dead ender plant. I think the natural gas prices will continue to drop making this newest deal bankrupt.

'Minor' radiation leak in FitzPatrick nuclear plant has gone unfixed for 4 years

SCRIBA, N.Y. – The owner of FitzPatrick nuclear plant has allowed highly radioactive waste to leak into a contained area of the facility for at least four years, a safety violation that poses no risk to the public but might make it more difficult to decontaminate the site after the reactor closes.

The problem was cited in the most recent quarterly inspection report by federal safety regulators.

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said the accumulation of spilled radioactive waste in the basement of a building at FitzPatrick is of "very low safety significance'' because it occurred in a locked, highly shielded area that is already highly radioactive.

"The bottom line is, we have been aware of this issue for some time, but it poses no immediate risks to any residents or the environment,'' said Neil Sheehan, speaking for the NRC.

Nevertheless, plant owner Entergy Corp.'s failure to address the leak is of "more than minor significance'' because the company knew about the problem for at least four years, the NRC reported.

Nuclear plant owners are required to minimize the accumulation of residual radioactive waste in their plants, which can "greatly increase the cost and complexity of future decommissioning'' after a reactor shuts down, according to the NRC.

Entergy officials today said they put off cleaning up the spill to avoid exposing workers to unnecessary radiation. They have made a robot to do the job instead, said Tammy Holden, speaking for Entergy.

"Cleanup of the area had not been conducted previously because we did not want to subject our employees to unnecessary radiation,'' Holden said. "We have fabricated a vacuum-type robot that will be used to remove the sludge. The removal is scheduled for this month.''

The NRC inspection report issued Friday did not quantify how much waste has accumulated on the floor of the FitzPatrick radwaste building, or how it might impact the plant's decommissioning costs. The waste consists of beads and powdered resins from filters that are used to clean up reactor coolant, said Sheehan, of the NRC.

Nuclear safety expert David Lochbaum, of the Union of Concerned Scientists, said he agreed with the NRC that the leak was of "minor significance.'' It's not uncommon for water spills to occur inside radwaste buildings, leaving waste behind, he wrote in an email. Entergy should have cleaned up the spill because the building floor is not designed to act as a backup storage tank, Lochbaum said.

"It'll be fixed soon now that the NRC (has) shone a spotlight on it,'' he wrote. "Which will demonstrate that it could have been fixed long ago."

The Nine Mile Point Unit 1 reactor experienced a similar long-term spill of radiation waste during the 1980s that was worse than FitzPatrick's, Lochbaum said.

The NRC also criticized Entergy for mistakes during a January 2016 outage that resulted in two plant workers being unintentionally exposed to high radiation levels. Both workers were alerted by alarms from their radiation dose monitors and moved to safety without becoming overexposed, the NRC said.

The NRC is treating both issues raised in the inspection report as "non-cited violations,'' which means FitzPatrick will not face penalties or increased oversight because of them.

Entergy has agreed to sell the 850-megawatt nuclear plant to Exelon Corp., which operates the nearby Nine Mile Point nuclear facility. Until the sale was announced last week, Entergy had planned to shut FitzPatrick permanently when it ran out of fuel in January 2017.

Anti-nuclear activists said the NRC report should raise concerns about the aging FitzPatrick plant, which started operation in 1975.

"These violations highlight the ongoing dangers posed by the upstate nuclear reactors and the lax enforcement by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission," said Tim Judson, of the Nuclear Information and Resource Service. "Entergy has known that this highly radioactive waste spill is a problem for four years, but the NRC has not imposed any fines or other penalties.''

The NRC rates FitzPatrick's general safety performance as "green'' in all 17 categories monitored, the best of four color-coded ratings.