THERE GOES THE NEIGHBORHOOD

...If the reactor were operational, there would also be guards...

...A spokesman for that organization says the deductible clause is there "to give the educational institution a little added risk and thus obligate them to take some added safety measure...

...But there is currently no system for separating the uranium from the zirconium hydride alloy in TRIGA fuel rods, and it may not be worth developing a procedure unless many of these reactors are in operation around the country...

...A spokesman for TRIGA's manufacturer, General Atomic, a San Diego company owned jointly by Gulf Oil and Royal Dutch Shell, says this is the first time installation of one of its reactors has aroused such controversy...

...At 250 kilowatts, admittedly, Columbia's reactor is in a different category from MIT's, and one-ten-thousandth the size of a standard power reactor...

...New York City's Office of Civil Preparedness is equally concerned because it is not equipped to evacuate large sections of the city...

...This was a direct response to the Columbia case because, says Dr...

...Nor is the possibility of an accident ruled out...

...In fact, one department report, guaranteed not to win friends among humanists on the faculty who have tried to block the reactor, claims that "it is probably more necessary for a good educational program in nuclear engineering to have a reactor than for a music department to have a piano...

...It hasn't made headlines like those Jane Rockman, a New York free-lance journalist, has written for The New York Times, New York magazine, and Pacific News Service on urban affairs...

...A spokesman says the organization is ready for "anything from simple leafletting to civil disobedience...

...If there were a nuclear accident, Hogan admits, "We would play it by ear...

...Columbia's nuclear engineering department insists that a working reactor on campus is essential to its teaching program...

...But it is still a nuclear installation, and acclimating ourselves to one research reactor here, another there, is a way to wind up with nuclear proliferation at the neighborhood level...

...At that point, the university maintains, spent fuel probably would be stored in the outer part of the reactor pool, later to be trucked away...

...It is cement-covered, and one can stand on a grid at the top and look down through the pool of cooling water into the core...

...Referring to neighborhood and environmental groups that have been protesting against the reactor and other scientific experiments, McGill warns that "local community groups cannot be the arbiters of what scientific research is done...

...Any breach of the reactor core," says Solon, "whether by sabotage or accident, has the potential for causing thousands of latent cancer deaths if it releases radiation into the environment...

...However, upstate legislators with power company ties are expected to keep such bills from passing...

...All nuclear reactors must be insured up to $500 million...

...Twenty-six TRIG As and forty-two other types of research reactors are operating in the United States, but none in areas as populous as New York City...

...Court of Appeals, but the decision was upheld, and the Supreme Court subsequently refused to hear the case...

...Says Dr...

...Area lawmakers are also trying to deal with this issue in New York's state legislature where, for the second straight year, several bills are pending to prohibit reactors in cities of one million people or more...

...generated by the nuclear protests in Seabrook, New Hampshire, but this is a potentially precedent-setting controversy...

...Last April, the U.S...

...But this is not necessarily an indication of how the Supreme Court would handle a ju-risdictional dispute involving a research facility — particularly a dispute involving public health considerations...

...Instead, the spent rods may be buried indefinitely in Federally designated areas^ A spokesman for the nuclear Regulatory Commission says reactor operators must have Government-approved on-site storage for spent fuel, and a contract for its eventual disposal...

...The court concludes that the Federal Government has exclusive authority under the doctrine of preemption to regulate the construction and operation of nuclear reactors," wrote Federal Judge Robert Ward...

...Critical Mass supports New York City's position against the reactor, claiming that it could endanger all five boroughs and New Jersey...

...Leonard Solon, director of New York City's Bureau for Radiation Control, isn't so sure...

...But concern over nuclear facilities has been growing year by year — 52 per cent of those questioned in a recent NBC/Associated Press poll were against building nuclear plants, with only 39 per cent in favor — and this case could lead to similar efforts elsewhere, particularly where such an-tinuclear groups as the Clamshell Alliance of New England, the Shad Alliance of New York, and the Palmetto Alliance in the South are active...

...One of the city's fears is also expressed by FBI Director William Webster, who notes that the United States is not immune from the political violence that has afflicted other countries...

...When that decision was overturned on appeal the following year, the local intervenors went to the U.S...

...It isn't just the amount of uranium involved — 2.5 kilograms dispersed among some sixty-five fuel rods...

...The reactor now sits in the second basement of Columbia's Mudd Engineering Terrace —just a few steps off Broadway — where locked doors with steel-plated glass windows lead to an anteroom full of television monitoring equipment and security sensors...

...Supreme Court overturned several appeals court decisions that had blocked construction of nuclear power plants because of environmental considerations and insufficient provision for dealing with nuclear wastes...

...The Health Department's Dr...

...Dealing with spent fuel from such research reactors as Columbia's remains an unsolved problem, and reprocessing it for the recovery of Plutonium and unburned uranium may prove economically unfeasible...

...The Federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission granted Columbia an operating license in 1977, but New York City has refused certification on the grounds that the reactor's location is "clearly incompatible with sound public health...

...Says Deputy Director Robert Hogan, "There are no specific plans to handle a nuclear industrial problem, at this time...

...They are then utilized in the hydrogen weapon production program...

...The question is this: Does a city have the right to bar nuclear facilities for reasons of safety...

...He warns that "even a 1 per cent release of radioactivity from the reactor could lead to as many as 104,000 latent cancer deaths...

...TRIGA reactors (the acronym stands for Training Research Isotopes General Atomic) were invented in 1956 for training nuclear engineers, analyzing trace elements in biological research, and producing radioisotopes for medical research...

...The reactor is a multi-level structure, shaped something like an inverted top hat...

...Research reactors like Columbia's are insured through the Federal Government, with a $250,000 deductible clause, which Columbia covers through American Nuclear Insurors, a pool of private insurance companies set up specifically to deal with the vast sums of money that would be involved in a nuclear accident...

...We have been assured by everyone that the reactor is completely safe," says McGill, who also sees this as a dispute over academic freedom...

...uranium is regularly recovered from much smaller reactors...

...Solon points out that New York has experienced a growing number of incidents over the last few years, and while he admits that Columbia's reactor may be inherently safe, these external factors worry him...

...See "Tritium: The New Genie," by Howard Mor-land, in the February issue...

...But all of this maneuvering, as well as earlier construction delays and the campus anti-war demonstrations of 1968, meant that the reactor was still not operating by 1976 when the New York City Board of Health adopted the regulation requiring municipal certification of nuclear facilities...

...We should be isolating these sources, not bringing them in among us, and if our heads were screwed on straight, we wouldn't have them at all...

...Columbia, it turns out, has no such plans at the moment...

...Solon fears that a nuclear reactor in the heart of Manhattan would be a prime target...

...Another problem is Columbia's location on a flight path to La Guardia Airport, which means heavy air traffic and low-flying planes...

...At the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where a 5,000-kilowatt research reactor "went critical" twenty years ago, the spent fuel rods are replaced every two years...

...The university claims this would not be a problem for some ten years after the reactor went into operation, based on current projections of hours of usage...

...We have this pokey little reactor," says University Counsel John Mason Harding, "that our scientists tell us is about as dangerous as an icebox.'" But Dr...

...The Supreme Court based its ruling on the Federal Government's decision "to at least try nuclear power energy," in the words of Justice William Rehnquist, and the decision directly affected nuclear plant construction in Michigan and Vermont...

...We cannot operate a university on the basis of public hysteria...

...While a plane crashing into the reactor is unlikely, last year's mid-air collision near San Diego Airport was a reminder that the unlikely accident can happen...

...John Gofman, a leading nuclear critic: "Putting radioactive power in the middle of a city is precisely the wrong way to go...

...But Richard Pollock, director of the Critical Mass Energy Project in Washington, sees it differently: "When academic research potentially threatens health, safety, or the environment," says Pollock, "it is certainly in the public province to question the prudence and wisdom of the method of research...

...The Shad Alliance, whose Columbia chapter recently sponsored a teach-in on nuclear issues, is waiting for the appeals to be decided on the reactor before planning future moves...

...Columbia and the Federal Government sued the city, claiming exclusive Federal jurisdiction on nuclear issues, and a decision supporting their claim was handed down the day after Christmas in 1978...

...Shad Alliance is new to the scene, but neighborhood organizations from Morningside Heights and Harlem have been involved almost since 1960, when Columbia first received a National Science Foundation grant to build the reactor...

...Leonard Solon, "We felt that public health matters involving local jurisdictions* should be settled locally...

...Columbia's President William J. McGill supports the department's efforts...

...There goes the neighborhood Upper Manhattan's little reactor Jane Rockman On the upper West Side of Manhattan, home of more than 400,000 people per square mile, Columbia University has built a 250-kilowatt research reactor for its nuclear engineering students...

...The university's neighbors protested at public hearings, and in 1971 the Atomic Safety Licensing Board denied Columbia a license because of insufficient data on the amount of radiation that would be released in case of an accident...

...The city is appealing...