Smells like Toxic Seabrook

March, 14th 1990 – Washington D.C.
“The subcommittee on General Oversight and Investigation will come to order. The subcommittee meets this afternoon to review the Nuclear Regulatory Commission implementation of nuclear licensing safeguards mandated by the Congress with a specific focus on the extraordinary manner in which the agency has proceeded at the Seabrook Nuclear Power Station. Since 1972 when the New Hampshire Public Service Company made its first application for its certificate site for its facility Seabrook has served as the nation’s test case for issues relating to safe operation of nuclear power plants in this country. Unfortunately, after eighteen years there is considerable evidence to suggest that this test case has turned out to be a mad scientist experiment akin to Frankenstein’s Monster.”

Representative Peter Kostmayer Democrat Pennsylvania from the House Interior and Insular Affairs Subcommittee on General Oversight and Investigation hearing concerning the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s licensing procedures of the Seabrook nuclear power plant.

And despite those opening remarks, Seabrook was still allowed to open in August of that same year. I mean it wasn’t all so bad, the plant employed 650 people including my Great Grandma, Grandma, Pawpa, and my Mama for a period of time. Great Grandma Bertha was hired to be the lead of the custodial department when the plant first opened in 1990. It was considered a big deal in 1990 that a woman was going to be leading a whole department in a $17 billion-dollar facility – even if it was only a bunch of janitors. G’Gma Bertha hired my Grandma Bobbi when she was 18 and Bobbi met my Pawpa back in 2014. Grandma and Pawpa got married right on Hampton Beach right across from the Hampton Beach Casino. After the ceremony they kicked off their honeymoon by seeing Extreme (an old 90’s band,) rock out on their Pornograffiti tour. Things started to get a little weird in ’22 with the beginning of the V Wars, but Seabrook wasn’t shut down and still needed cleaning so Grandma Bobbi hired Mama in 2039. We laugh about it now, but we called ourselves a real nuclear family.
 
You know back in 2013 good old Seabrook contributed $535 million dollars to New England and generated $1.4 billion (BILLION, with a B) to the U.S. economy. Yeah, days like that are few and are far between these days in 2071. Rumors swirl that something started to seep into the Seacoast region right around 2012 when a small earthquake shook the region. Strangely, it took nine more years before studies reported odd sediment in the concrete. I guess that’s why people in and around the area are a bit different. I mean at first glance everything seems normal, right up until you walk down the strip and you see a guy with tentacles for an arm, or a girl with a silver sheen that reflects the light in brilliant ways. Than you start to say to yourself what is going on around here? Must be something in the water – old cliché I know, but in this case the sayings are true.
 
I don’t pretend to know science, my line is security, but I know enough to understand that tiny radioactive particles seeped into the groundwater from the faulty concrete at Seabrook. No matter what governmental oversight committee studied those politicians looked the other way when the money started getting handed out. Those particles apparently started to mutate people’s DNA, you know the spiral helix thing? Then right around 2040, Mutants started to bloom in the New Hampshire Seacoast Region. They call us Mutants, because that’s what we are, our DNA has mutated – some for the good and some for the bad.
We have support groups and stuff. I mean, I’ve known nothing but love my whole life. ‘Cept my Dad, but eff him, right? Grandma Bobbi and Mama have always been there for me. Even Pawpa right up until he died of Cancer back in 2057. I guess he was mutated too, I’d rather take what happened to me than to be riddled with that god-awful disease. I mean when the best Mutant healers in the area can’t even touch it than what’s worse? Turning into a humongous tree man or being laid up in a hospital bed while your blood kills you from the inside?
 
Crazy thing is even with all of this Cancer and Mutant stuff happening the government still didn’t shut down Seabrook. That puppy kept on pumping out energy. Yeah, I know, we probably should’ve moved, but we’re stubborn people. Hampton’s our home, we got roots here – some more than others. Grandma owns the home, just over the border of the good side of town. Seabrook has become a source of pride for the area. New Hampshire’s always been the “Live Free or Die” state, ain’t no government agency going to tells how to regulate. Especially when they had their chance and they effed it up the first time.
 
It was a bloody day when the IERA tried to bully their way into Seabrook back in ’68. Where do they get off? The plant followed their instructions to the letter back in ’55 when they changed all the regulations and had all of the hearings with their new Oversight committees. Seabrook was still producing and the area was still reaping the benefits – even if it came with some unintended consequences. Maybe the IERA didn’t realize what was happening around Seabrook. The Vanishing War kind of overshadowed everything, but after what happened in Waco in ’59 our community knew we had to be ready.
 
In New England it is widely known that we protect our own, and protect it we did. I may have flipped a few Humvees that day – not trying to brag or nothing. But the IERA certainly wasn’t ready for the response they got. I don’t know what they thought was going to happen when they convoyed right down Ocean Boulevard trying to set up shop. Hampton Beach ain’t no police state. They licked their wounds pretty shamefully that day. They learned that diplomacy might be a better tact. There’s been a wary peace, but hey we had done everything they had asked – and still do – back the fuck off right? But shit, did you hear what went down in NYC? And right in the middle of the summer concert season – Fuck my life.