Oyster Creek Nuclear Power Plant opponents are hosting a forum next Tuesday to discuss an upcoming study looking at the health risk associated with living near U.S. nuclear power plants.

A new Oyster Creek siren next to an old one
A new Oyster Creek siren next to an old one (Jason Allentoff, Townsquare Media NJ)
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The study is being conducted by National Research Council of the National Academies of Science (NAS).

"This is one of the really first major studies being done, essentially by the government, to determine whether there are elevated cancer rates around nuclear power plants," Janet Tauro, of the New Jersey Environmental Federation, says.

Tauro says the keynote speakers are members of a doctor's family who lived near a nuclear power plant in Illinois. She says neither the family nor residents in their surrounding community were told about a tritium leak from the plant that allegedly leached into their major water source.

"And they drank that water for seven years and bathed in it and cooked with it and many people in the area developed cancer. Tauro says their daughter, Sarah, developed a brain tumor."

The Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station in Lacey Township, the nation's oldest operating plant, is one of six being included in the NAS study. Tauro says they're pleased it will be included because low level radiation has long been thought to have a cumulative affect on public health.

"Ocean County has been exposed to continuous levels of low level radiation for the longest period of time."

The meeting takes place on Tuesday, July 23rd, at the Bishops Memorial Library, 101 Washington Street, Toms River starting at 6:30 pm. (Next to the Toms River Branch of the Ocean County Library)

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