By Jon Camp
The latest casualty of the federal shutdown means furloughs for thousands of workers at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
In all, 3,600 workers at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission were sent home Thursday.
A spokesperson for Shearon Harris told ABC11 that none of those furloughs would affect employees there.
…
Shearon Harris has the largest spent fuel pools in the country, which hold used nuclear material being kept cool by constantly circulated water.
Anti-nuclear groups have long warned of the potential problems at facilities like Shearon Harris, and local watchdogs say the cuts at the NRC will not help.
“They’re already outgunned and behind the curve, so it’s not a good situation that they’re being pulled off the job, at all,” NC WARN’s Jim Warren said.
Warren admits that in the short term the government shutdown will not affect much at Shearon Harris, but he worries about what could happen if it continues and the thousands of NRC workers considered non-essential cannot get back to work.
