doodledee

There were a couple of big stories in the Strib recently about how Pawlenty has been trying to get the FAA to declare the airspace around the Monticello and Prairie Island nuclear power plants a no-fly zone. I guess the idea is that since a terrorist might try and crash an airplane into the plant, if we make it illegal to fly over the plant, there's no way for the terrorists to 'legally' approach. Problem solved!

Silliness aside, the FAA has repeatedly turned down the Governor's request. This seemed bizarre to me. What's the problem? Too many people sleeping well at night knowing that our state is free from the risk of a terrorist induced nuclear meltdown? Well, not exactly.

Their logic is:

[...] The agency believes that it has dramatically reduced risks of airliner hijackings by requiring reinforced cockpit doors, putting armed sky marshals aboard flights and conducting more sophisticated passenger and baggage screening.

To permanently restrict airspace over the plants, FAA spokesman Tony Molinaro said, "we'd wind up squeezing aircraft into fewer airspace pathways. We don't want to do that, because that would create the potential for safety and efficiency problems."

Translation: Northwest Airlines would be super pissed if we told them they couldn't get as many take-offs and landings as they wanted. All hail the great and powerful Oz.

If safety was really a concern, you could just reduce the number of airplanes in the new 'smaller' space, thereby eliminating the risk. But by doing that, you've reduced 'efficiency', which I'm pretty sure means 'the ability for airlines to generate revenue by not allowing people to use their frequent flyer miles'. Or something like that.

But maybe it's not a big deal, anyways. The boys at Xcel and the NRC have promised that a plane/plant collision would trigger - at most - a small radiological leak. That almost sounds kind of cute. I'm game.

In other news, last Sunday the FAA declared no-fly zones around Disney World and Disneyland. I guess I know where I'm headed the next time planes start falling out of the sky - I'm goin' to Disney World!

Just for the churros, though, not for the protection.