Changes in Dixyland

The Atomic Energy Commission, long a prime target of criticism by environmentalists, is changing. Traditionally secretive, the commission recently surprised its detractors by offering Antinuclear Crusader Ralph Nader access to all its reports on peaceful uses of the atom. New AEC policies have also dismayed the $20-billion-a-year nuclear power industry. The commission has ordered Consolidated Edison Co. to protect fish in the Hudson River by building a costly water-cooling system at a nuclear power plant near Peekskill, N. Y. In New Jersey, the AEC has banned construction of a long-planned nuclear plant because it would have been too close to Trenton and Philadelphia for safety. The changes at the AEC are largely the work of the agency's new chairman, Dixy Lee Ray, who was interviewed last week by TIME Correspondent Sam Iker. His report:

Her manner is brisk and candid. Her taste in clothes runs to blazers and tweed skirts with knee socks and "sensible" shoes. A sturdy, affable spinster of 59, Dixy Lee Ray lives in an 8-ft.-by-28-ft. motor home that belies her $42,500-a-year salary. She parks it somewhere in rural Virginia--commuting to work by chauffeured limousine--but she keeps its exact location a secret; she has been forced to move once because of county ordinances against trailers. Wherever she goes, her miniature poodle and huge, shaggy Scottish deerhound go too. They have welcomed, and startled, many a visitor to Ray's office in the AEC headquarters at Germantown, Md.

Ray's training as a marine biologist (Ph.D. from Stanford, professorship at the University of Washington) hardly qualified her to set nuclear policy or equipped her to deal with the Byzantine ways of Capitol Hill politics. But she obviously learns fast. James Schlesinger (now Defense Secretary) strongly recommended her to succeed him when he left the AEC chairmanship to become CIA director last winter. Her greatest asset, he said, would be "balancing the demands of energy and environment." President Nixon, who had been looking for women to fill high federal posts, agreed; in February he appointed Ray to head the five-man commission.

"Many people were misled by Dixy Lee's life-style and expected her to be a character while others actually ran the show," a friend says. "Instead, she took command." Before Ray's reign, the AEC was notably reluctant to discuss the environmental impact of many key policies--except in court. To help change that situation, Ray outmaneuvered two of the agency's most effective and powerful figures, James Ramey and Milton Shaw. Ramey, an AEC commissioner since 1962, was the liaison man with Congress. Shaw, director of reactor development and technology, was the supertechnocrat who got things done. Because of their persuasive lobbying, the Senate-House Committee on Atomic Energy, originally set up to be a watchdog group, never seriously cut the AEC'S budget or curbed its plans.

Ray pared down Shaw's job, letting him run the AEC's research program, but establishing a new division to handle the vital issue of reactor safety. Shaw argued that safety was an integral part of design. But Ray insisted: "Duplication in this case can do nothing but good." Shaw quit. As for Ramey, Ray simply did not back his reappointment to the commission when his term expired in June. These acts outraged some members of the Joint Committee when Ray presented them as fails accomplis. But other committeemen were pleased by her independence. "Dixy Lee does what she believes in, and has brought a whole new vitality to the AEC," says Washington Representative Mike McCormack. Missouri Senator Stuart Symington told her: "Stick by your guns, young lady."

With Ramey and Shaw gone, Ray was free to tackle what she considers the AEC's No. 1 problem: widespread public fear of nuclear power. She has made 13 speeches on the subject since taking office, and is organizing a series of open workshops in 28 cities for people "who are not sure of this nuclear stuff." Ray has no such doubts. She insists that "no industry is more closely regulated than the nuclear-power industry." AEC standards are so conservative, she maintains, that "when the least thing goes wrong, reactors are shut down immediately. That's not the case with conventional, fossil-fired plants."

Ray nonetheless recognizes that such caution still does not satisfy opponents of nuclear plants. Critics are especially concerned about the AEC-designed emergency core-cooling system, a backup device that is supposed to supply cooling water to the hot reactor in the event that the main water system breaks down. They point out that no one--including the AEC'S own experts--is sure it will work. Reason: the system has been tested only with theoretical computer models. But, says Ray, "most big projects are designed this way. NASA did not destroy an Apollo spacecraft to test how much stress it could take."

Even so, the AEC is hedging its bets. It has ordered a study by M.I.T. Nuclear Engineer Norman Rasmussen, of the reliability of every single component in a nuclear plant. Though the study will not be completed until mid-1974, Ray says, it so far shows that mechanically "the reactors are darned good. The weakest point may be the human factor"--that is, an error committed by technicians running an atomic power plant.

Some of Dixy Lee Ray's comments on other controversial issues:

BREEDER REACTORS. These devices, which will actually create more fuel than they consume, "are probably even safer than today's generation of reactors. We are complying with a court order to do a complete environmental study of the breeder, though it's hard to do. The breeder should be an important source of energy, but we need to develop other sources, too, in a multifaceted approach to energy problems."

DISPOSING OF ATOMIC WASTES. "Most of the uproar is about wastes from nuclear power plants, which really do not produce much radioactive ash. If such wastes were evaporated and solidified, the total amount created by the year 2000 could be stored in an area about the size of a football field. Our military programs produce more, and we're still seeking a publicly acceptable way of storing them, perhaps in underground caverns. There's no imminent danger."

PUBLIC PARTICIPATION. "We must require experts to prove their expertise when they testify at our public hearings before a nuclear plant is licensed and before it goes into operation. To some people, public participation means stopping the program. The fact is that we are going to have to use atomic power as our reserves of fossil fuels dwindle, and we may as well get used to it. We can't live in a Garden of Eden and still have a technological society."

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