I come from a dying little town named Apollo. Apollo has only two distinguishing features: Its dormant nuclear power plant, owned by Babcock & Wilcox and its disproportionate number of funeral homes.

Ground samples show that the area within a 500 yard radius of B & W has been contaminated by radiation -- an area including 50 houses and 150 residents. One of these residents was my grandmother.

I find it very difficult to reconcile the deadly, destructive reality of nuclear energy to that of the safe, clean, environment-friendly fantasy the government wishes to extend. As a child, my cousins, my brother and I frequently played in my grandmother's yard while she would garden. Imagine my surprise when one independent contractor recently came forward and advised against eating or playing in the dirt. Uranium, in amounts higher than normal, has been discovered in the soil on my grandmother's property.

Certainly nuclear power plants, such as B & W, have safety regulations to which they must adhere. Unfortunately, these standards do not necessarily lead to safety. During the creation of these stipulations, much remained undiscovered about radiation and its effects. Despite increases in knowledge, this still holds true.

Consequently, the '60s standards pertaining to nuclear waste disposal were much laxer than those of the present day. Previously, nuclear power plants needed neither special permission nor prior approval to bury radioactive waste. They only needed to bury the waste 4 feet deep and make certain the total radiation count did not exceed 1.2 curies. However, because previous approval remained unnecessary, plants could easily disregard even these simple regulations.

In light of new findings regarding radiation and its effects, these regulations have undergone alterations 40 years later. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission now requires companies to obtain advanced approval before disposing of waste. Also, the acceptable radiation levels have been decreased 1,000 times.

Unfortunately for the residents of Apollo, B & W operated in the days prior to the new, stricter stipulations.

Surely, the question of safety rests heavily when so much uncertainty shrouds nuclear energy. What previously existed within the boundaries of safety now poses a safety hazard. How can safety be ensured when it can not even be consistently defined?

While disposal rules continued in their laxness, maintenance regulations did not even exist. Most companies did not monitor the stability of the buried waste. Many simply abandoned it, leaving it entirely untended.

These shifting standards and shoddy maintenance present a serious problem when it comes to clean up. To make matters even more confusing, no standard method of clean up even exists. This leaves companies with a choice of four options to employ.

In theory, the waste could simply remain buried if proven stable and safe in its present state. Ironically, this has never been the case. As another alternative, the company could cap the trenches. While this prevents rain water from washing away the soil, it can not prevent the common problem of seepage.

The last two options involve digging up the existing radioactive material, thus openly exposing the carcinogens and aggravating the conditon further. One involves repacking the waste and reburying it at the same site. The other requires hauling the waste away to another site entirely. Yet none of these methods promise to permanently eliminate the waste.

Many times, the best possible clean up for the plant in question goes unemployed because of the high cost. Companies who complied to all the now- outdated rules do not wish to pay the price for what they consider appropriate behavior. Clearly this pits expense against environment, and the environment is losing.

Despite all the uncertainty surrounding radioactive waste disposal, one thing remains certain -- radiation poses a serious threat to humanity. Radiation exposure can lead to 18 different kinds of cancer such as lung, ovarian, liver and breast cancers. Radiation can also lead to genetic defects.

While companies quibble about dollars and cents, the fate of an entire town hangs in the balance. Although the state Department of Health has assessed that cancer within the region persists at normal levels, many residents doubt the accuracy of these statistics due to the large size of the area surveyed.

In an attempt to alleviate people's fears, The Valley News Dispatch conducted an informal patch survey. This survey narrowed the area studied to that immediately surrounding the B & W plant. Startling, the cancer rate of Apollo was over double the rate in a similar section of near-by Creighton, which does not house a nuclear facility.

Many residents fear for their health and wish to flee their Apollo homes. However, the combination of a high poverty level and low property values make it difficult for most to escape. And regardless of the state Department of Health findings, the stigma attached to radiation prevents new buyers from even considering Apollo, thus lowering property values even further.

Nuclear energy should not be considered as a means of power until it is fully understood. Like fire, nuclear energy can provide warmth and security, or it can create a hell.