The Siege of Seabrook

The small town of Seabrook (pop. 5,300) is invaded annually on the Memorial Day weekend by the first wave of summer vacationers eager to enjoy New Hampshire's bays and beaches. This year invasion came early to Seabrook. For five years, environmentalists and others opposed to atomic power plants have been trying to block construction by the state's Public Service Co. of two 1.15 million-kilowatt nuclear reactors near Seabrook. Last week they took their protests into the streets. With the precision of a well-trained army, some 2,000 protesters, carrying backpacks and water bottles, occupied the construction site and set up a tent city in an attempt to halt permanently the oft-delayed project.

Polite Police. For months, the Clamshell Alliance, a Portsmouth-based organization founded by New England antinuclear groups, had been planning its strategy and training volunteers in the techniques of nonviolent resistance. Then the alliance marshaled its forces and took the offensive. As the main body of slogan-chanting demonstrators converged on the main gate of the Seabrook site, another group advanced on the area across a salt marsh. A third force arrived in boats piloted by local lobster-men--who fear that the discharge from the plant would cut their catches--and waded ashore. By the evening of the first day, the demonstrators seemed to have settled in for a long siege.

Plans for the demonstration had been viewed with alarm by Governor Meldrim Thomson Jr., and with something approaching hysteria by William Loeb, the abrasively conservative editor of the Manchester Union Leader, who likened the protesters to "Nazi storm troopers under Hitler." But when Thomson helicoptered to the site the day after the occupation, he was greeted politely by the demonstrators despite his insistence that they leave. "You have the right to an opinion opposite to that of other people, and you have come to let the world know your side," Thomson told the protesters. "But," he added, "you are violating the law of New Hampshire, and whether this is a nuclear plant or an oil refinery or a nursing home, you are trespassing." At Thomson's orders, police gave the demonstrators about an hour to leave the site. When most refused to budge, the police moved in and began making arrests.

A few protesters went limp and had to be carried from the site. But most of them listened impassively as police politely told them they were arrested; then they picked up their packs and boarded the waiting buses for the 25-minute ride to the National Guard armory in Portsmouth. Most of the more than 1,400 protesters arrested and charged with criminal trespass refused to post the required bail of up to $500.

By week's end, as judges tried to expedite handling of the cases, some demonstrators were being tried and sentenced to two-week jail terms. But the sentences did not seem to shake the determination of those yet untried. Their decision to hold out until they were released on personal recognizance posed a problem for the state of New Hampshire, which must bear the estimated $50,000-a-day cost of caring for those arrested. The occupation--and the protesters' plan to return next year with a force of 18,000--also added to the frustrations of the Public Service Co., which has been trying since 1972 to get the 48 separate local, state and federal permits needed to build the two-reactor plant. The utility has been harassed by suits brought by environmentalists, who fear, among other things, that sea water used to cool the reactors would harm marine life unless it was recooled before being discharged back into the ocean. They have received support from the New England regional office of the federal Environmental Protection Agency, which has refused permission for the plant to discharge its cooling water directly back into the ocean. As a result of these roadblocks, construction has barely proceeded beyond the excavation stage.

Members of the Clamshell Alliance hope to halt construction completely with future demonstrations. "Our intention was to occupy the site and stop construction of the plant," explained Clamshell Spokesman Harvey Wasserman, 31, an author and farmer. "We feel Seabrook in particular and nuclear power plants in general are life and death issues. We are acting in self-defense."

Premature Party. Some believe that the anti-nuclear energy forces are on the verge of victory. "I was impressed by what they did," says Daniel Ford, a Harvard-trained economist and director of the Union of Concerned Scientists, in Cambridge, Mass. "But it was like beating a dead horse. The industry has come to a halt." Others agree. Says Irwin Bupp, a lecturer at the Harvard Business School: "For all practical purposes, there is a moratorium on building plants. In effect, for a short term, the antinuclear people have won." A victory celebration, however, may be premature. Like the majority of Americans, President Carter believes nuclear power is necessary to meet America's energy needs--and has promised to push for faster licensing of plants similar to the one under siege at Seabrook.

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