EFMR Monitoring Group

TMI: Summary of Conference Calls to Discusses Tube Inspections (ML113550167)

2012-01-16T17:40:00.002-05:00

THREE MILE ISLAND NUCLEAR STATION, UNIT 1 - SUMMARY OF CONFERENCE CALLS WITH EXELON GENERATION COMPANY, LLC TO DISCUSS 2011 STEAM GENERATOR TUBE INSPECTIONS
(TAC NO. ME7229)

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TEPCO Believes Mission Accomplished & Regulators Allow Radioactive Dumping in Tokyo Bay

2012-01-16T17:33:00.001-05:00

TEPCO Believes Mission Accomplished & Regulators Allow Radioactive Dumping in Tokyo Bay from Fairewinds Energy Education on Vimeo.

The Fukushima black box

2012-01-16T17:18:00.003-05:00

From The Economist:

There is a breathtaking serenity to the valley that winds from the town of Namie, on the coast of Fukushima prefecture, into the hills above. A narrow road runs by a river that passes through steep ravines, studded with maples. Lovely it may be, but it is the last place where you would want to see an exodus of 8,000 people fleeing meltdowns at a nearby nuclear-power plant.
Along that switchback road the day after the earthquake and tsunami on March 11th 2011, it took Namie’s residents more than three hours to drive 30km (19 miles) to what they thought was the relative safety of Tsushima, a secluded hamlet. What they did not know was that they were heading into an invisible fog of radioactive matter that has made this one of the worst radiation hotspots in Japan—far worse than the town they abandoned, just ten minutes’ drive from the gates of the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant. It was not until a New York Times report in August that many of the evacuees realised they had been exposed to such a danger, thanks to government neglect.

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New York State Wins Review of Nuclear Plant Accident Plans

2012-01-16T17:16:00.000-05:00

From Environment News Service:

In the context of Indian Point's relicensing, the attorney general's office argued that the NRC has the obligation to require Entergy to complete analyses of cost-beneficial measures, or to require that the measures be adopted - consistent with NRC's own regulations, as well as those of the National Environmental Policy Act and the Administrative Procedure Act.

On July 15, the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board issued a decision, agreeing with the attorney general that Indian Point cannot be relicensed without completing the legally-required analyses of its severe accident mitigation measures.

Now, Schneiderman says, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission must require Indian Point's owner, Entergy, to either adopt cost-effective upgrades that would improve responses and control the impact of a severe accident, or provide a compelling reason why it will not do so.

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New York State Wins Review of Nuclear Plant Accident Plans

2012-01-16T17:12:00.001-05:00

From Environment News Serivce:

In the context of Indian Point's relicensing, the attorney general's office argued that the NRC has the obligation to require Entergy to complete analyses of cost-beneficial measures, or to require that the measures be adopted - consistent with NRC's own regulations, as well as those of the National Environmental Policy Act and the Administrative Procedure Act.

On July 15, the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board issued a decision, agreeing with the attorney general that Indian Point cannot be relicensed without completing the legally-required analyses of its severe accident mitigation measures.

Now, Schneiderman says, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission must require Indian Point's owner, Entergy, to either adopt cost-effective upgrades that would improve responses and control the impact of a severe accident, or provide a compelling reason why it will not do so.

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Peach Bottom takes 15 years to identify transformer problem

2012-01-16T16:19:00.002-05:00

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, before he died, said that December 7th would live in infamy.

He certainly won't say the same about December 15th, since he's dead, but if he weren't he might.

Attached are two licensee event reports both dated December 15, 2011.

One is for Peach Bottom in Pennsylvania and the other is for Perry in Ohio. Both involve violations of federal safety regulations (Criterion 17 in Appendix A to 10 CFR Part 50) requiring two or more connections between a nuclear power plant and its offsite electrical grid. Both times, there were one or fewer connections.

On October 18, 2011, Perry was preparing to restart from an outage. At 12:12 am (way early in the morning), workers performed a surveillance test to verify that two or more connections to the offsite power grid were available and operable. At 4:19 pm that afternoon with the reactor being started up, workers found that one of the required offsite power connections had been disconnected and Danger tags hung. Workers fixed that illegal configuration within an hour or so.

On November 16, 2011, workers at Peach Bottom belatedly figured out that a modification installed at the plant in the mid-1990s to "upgrade the reliability of the offsite sources" actually failed to do so due to "an inadequate design of the auxiliary power" to the new transformer. Basically, that new transformer used the same auxiliary power source as another transformer, such that failure of that auxiliary power source disabled both transformers. [The transformers in questions were connections between the offsite electrical grid and the plant --- they increased the voltage of outgoing electricity to that of the grid and decreased the voltage of incoming voltage to that of the plant.] The LER was submitted because Peach Bottom had counted operability of these two transformers as satisfying the federal safety regulation for two or more offsite power sources, when in fact they were but a single source due to their lack of separation/independence.

Where's the beef?

Safety studies generally rely on the backup power supply from onsite emergency diesel generators and take little credit for the normal power provided by the electrical grid. But there's a caveat --- the reliability of the offsite electrical grid is a factor in the safety studies. The less reliable the offsite grid, the more reliability the emergency diesel generators must be. Also, the now well-known station blackout event (e.g., the Fukushima script) ends when either an onsite emergency diesel generator is recovered or offsite electrical power is restored. Having two or more connections to the offsite power grid BEFORE the station blackout event is considered in determining how long it'll take to restore one of them.

Once again, U.S. federal safety regulations protect Americans from disasters such as that occurring at Fukushima last March.

Or rather, these regulations would provide that protection if only they were met.

Thanks,
Dave Lochbaum
UCS

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NRC Seeks Comment on Extended Storage of Spent Nuclear Fuel

2012-01-16T16:16:00.000-05:00

No. 12-001
January 3, 2012

NRC SEEKS PUBLIC COMMENT ON ASSUMPTIONS FOR ENVIRONMENTAL STUDY OF EXTENDED STORAGE OF SPENT NUCLEAR FUEL

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission seeks public comment on a report updating preliminary assumptions for an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) the agency will develop to analyze the effects of storing spent nuclear fuel from the nation’s commercial power reactors for as much as 200 years.

The EIS will be part of the agency’s effort to update its Waste Confidence Decision and Rule, last updated in 2010. The report being made available for comment is an early effort to obtain public input about the general scope of the EIS before the NRC formally initiates the EIS “scoping” process. The EIS will include analyses of environmental impacts that are directly related to the long-term handling, storage and transportation of commercial spent fuel and high- level waste.

The report discusses several storage scenarios, including at nuclear power plants, regional or centralized storage sites or a combination of storage and reprocessing of spent fuel. A key assumption is that extended storage would be managed under a regulatory program similar to current regulation of spent fuel. To analyze the impacts associated with the scenarios, the staff will develop generic, composite sites for each scenario, and these sites will account for a range of characteristics of actual reactor and storage sites.

The report, entitled “Background and Preliminary Assumptions for an Environmental Impact Statement – Long-Term Waste Confidence Update,” was posted Jan. 3 on the NRC website. The report updates assumptions first laid out in SECY-11-0029, dated Feb. 28, 2011.

As revised in 2010, the Waste Confidence Decision and Rule included the Commission’s confidence that spent fuel can be safely managed until it undergoes final disposition. At the same time, the Commission directed the staff to prepare a long-term update to the Waste Confidence Decision and Rule that would cover extended storage of spent fuel. This long-term update is to
be informed by the analysis and conclusions of the EIS anticipated in the current report.

Comments on the report may be filed by email to WCOutreach@nrc.gov or by U.S mail to Christine Pineda, Project Manager, Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards, Mailstop EBB-2B2, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001.

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News releases are available through a free Listserv subscription or by clicking on the EMAIL UPDATES link on the NRC homepage (www.nrc.gov). E-mail notifications are sent to subscribers when news releases are posted to NRC's website. For the latest news, follo

TMI: Summary of Conference Calls with Exelcon (ML113550167)

2012-01-16T15:46:00.003-05:00

THREE MILE ISLAND NUCLEAR STATION, UNIT 1 - SUMMARY OF CONFERENCE CALLS WITH EXELON GENERATION COMPANY, LLC TO DISCUSS 2011 STEAM GENERATOR TUBE INSPECTIONS
(TAC NO. ME7229)

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Agency Smackdown, Round 2: A Critique of ‘the Nuclear Party’

2011-12-31T23:05:00.001-05:00

From the New York Times:

The chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, whose four fellow commissioners complained about him to the White House, saying that he had been withholding information from them and wielding too much power, drew a spirited defense on Wednesday from a predecessor at the agency.

Peter A. Bradford, who was a commission member from 1977 to 1982, was speaking with reporters in a conference call on another topic, whether the recent approval of a new reactor design by the commission represented a major step toward a “nuclear renaissance.” (It doesn’t, he said.)

Mr. Bradford never led the Nuclear Regulatory Commission but can be considered an expert on multimember agencies; he later served as the chairman of the public utility commissions of New York State and Maine.

In the course of the call, Mr. Bradford said that the four commissioners were trying to give the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s chairman, Gregory B. Jaczko, “a push toward the door.”

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TMI: Meeting to discuss Inspection Results (ML113480100)

2011-12-31T23:03:00.001-05:00

Forthcoming Meeting with Exelon Generation Company, LLC, and Entergy Operations, Inc. to Discuss Steam Generator Inspection Results at Three Mile Island, Unit 1 and Arkansas Nuclear One, Unit 1

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TMI: Third Inservice Inspection Interval Relif Requests (ML113410469)

2011-12-31T22:57:00.002-05:00

THREE MILE ISLAND NUCLEAR STATION, UNIT 1 (TMI-1) - THIRD INSERVICE INSPECTION INTERVAL RELIEF REQUESTS RR-11-01 AND RR-11-02 (TAC NOS. ME5670 AND ME5671)

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Peach Bottom: Information Needed Re Use of Neutron Absorbing Inserts (ML113260295)

2011-12-31T22:53:00.001-05:00

Peach Bottom Atomic Power Station, Units 2 and 3 – Supplemental Information Needed for Acceptance of Requested Licensing Action Re: Use of Neutron Absorbing Inserts in Units 2 and 3 Spent Fuel Pool Storage Racks (TAC Nos. ME7538 and ME7539)

ADAMS Accession No.: ML113260295

Letter Regarding Petiton from Paul Gunter to Suspect OLs of BE BWR Mark I Units

2011-12-31T22:48:00.002-05:00

G20110262/EDATS: OEDO-2011-0269 - Acknowledgment Letter Regarding 2.206 Petition of April 13, 2011 from Paul Gunter to Immediately Suspend OLs of GE BWR Mark I Units

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PPL's Water Use Plan for Bell Bend Nuclear Power Plant (Epstein Testimony, SRBC, 12/15/11)

2011-12-31T22:46:00.001-05:00

Testimony of Eric Joseph Epstein
Before the Susquehanna River Basin Commission
December 15, 2011
__________
Re: PPL’s Conceptual Proposal to Develop and Implement
A Corporate Storage Asset Pool for Consumptive Use
Mitigation Presented to the SRBC on June 23, 2011

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Regulatory Meltdown

2011-12-31T22:41:00.003-05:00

Regulatory Meltdown: How Four Nuclear Regulatory Commissioners Conspired to Delay and Weaken Nuclear Reactor Safety in the Wake of Fukushima

Prepared by the Staff of Congressman Edward J Markey (D-MA)

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Fukushima Reactor(s) Leaking Again; Hydrogen Building Up

2011-12-31T22:25:00.002-05:00

From Huntington News:

Although the initial accident took place in the Spring, the reactors at Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant again have mounting pressure from hydrogen. Workers are trying to reduce the pressure by spraying nitrogen. Should hydrogen levels go too high, additional explosions could occur. This Youtube video is based on a release from Toyko Electric Power.
In late October, Tokyo Electric Power Company began extracting gases from the containment vessel of the No.2 reactor to remove radioactive substances. During the work, TEPCO found hydrogen accumulating in parts of the reactor at a density of up to 2.9 percent.

TEPCO started pumping nitrogen into the pressure vessels of the No.1, 2, 3 reactors on Thursday to lessen the concentration of hydrogen.

The density of hydrogen accumulating in the containment and pressure vessels is thought to be below 4 percent, the level where an explosion could occur.

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Sundance 2012: Images from THE ATOMIC STATES OF AMERICA

2011-12-31T22:24:00.000-05:00

With the announcement of the 2012 Sundance Film Festival in-competition line-up comes a whole bunch of images from the upcoming films. In this edition, we’ll cover four documentaries: The Atomic States of America, Escape Fire: The Fight to Rescue American Healthcare, The Other Dream Team, and Marina Abramović The Artist is Present. Click here to view the images.

Sundance 2012: Images from THE ATOMIC STATES OF AMERICA

2011-12-31T22:20:00.001-05:00

'No Errors' in Nuclear Crisis

2011-12-31T22:16:00.001-05:00

From the Wall Street Journal:

More than eight months after disaster struck at its Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, Tokyo Electric Power Co. said an internal investigation, its first public assessment of its handling of the crisis, found no evidence of significant errors in its response.
But the plant operator also conceded it still didn't have answers to some key questions about the disaster, in the latest reminder of how little is still known about how the March 11 accident unfolded and what the current status of the plant is.
The findings were part of an interim report on the accident that Tepco released Friday.

The report supports Tepco's line that its plant complied with earthquake safety standards. But Tepco acknowledged it hasn't yet resolved a fundamental problem: pinpointing the source of continued leaks of irradiated water from the plant. It also said it doesn't know why radiation releases spiked four days into the crisis.

Complicating the picture, the utility retracted an earlier statement that an explosion took place in Unit 2 of the plant on March 15, the day of the radiation increase, removing one possible cause for the higher radiation levels. Tepco initially said there were two explosions on March 15, one believed to be inside the suppression chamber of Unit 2 and another near the rooftop of Unit 4. This followed explosions at Unit 1 on March 12 and at Unit 3 at March 14.

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Exelon: Threshold Determination Under 10 CFR 50.80

2011-12-31T22:12:00.000-05:00

Exelon Generation Company, LLC – Threshold Determination Under 10 CFR 50.80 – (TAC Nos. ME6269 – ME6287)

ADAMS Accession No.: ML112450212

Markey to NRC: Pump Problems Plague Palisades Power Plant

2011-12-31T22:08:00.000-05:00

For Immediate Release Contact: Giselle Barry 202-225-2836
December 1, 2011
http://markey.house.gov/

Markey to NRC: Pump Problems Plague Palisades Power Plant

Congressman queries NRC about series of failures at Palisades, other nuclear power plants involving steel used in water pumps for cooling nuclear reactors

WASHINGTON, D.C. – A recent investigation by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) found that the failure of a water pump due to the corrosion of certain kinds of stainless steel components caused an August shutdown of the Palisades Nuclear Generating Station in Michigan. Despite scientific findings and industry experience reporting its vulnerability to cracks and corrosion, the types of stainless steel –known as 410SS and 416SS – continues to be used in water pumps used to provide cooling water to critical safety-related equipment such as component cooling water, diesel generators, and containment vessel air coolers for nuclear power plants throughout the U.S. Today, Congressman Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), senior member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, sent a letter querying the NRC about the vulnerability of these metals to corrosion cracking and their continued use despite two decades of failures in nuclear power plants. Despite NRC alerting licensees about issues with these pumps, failures continue and licensees have not been required to take any action or even report back to the NRC regarding what they are doing to identify, mitigate or prevent corrosion cracking that could cause component failures.
“They say there was never a good knife made of bad steel. Similarly, you can’t have a safe nuclear reactor made of bad steel,” said Rep. Markey. “I am concerned that U.S. nuclear power plants using components made from 410 and 416 steel may be subject to failures of critical safety equipment and at risk of shutdown. NRC must ensure that it requires licensees to take steps to identify and mitigate any corrosion of its components in order to demonstrate that they will perform satisfactorily in service, especially for critical safety-related operations.”
A copy of the letter to the NRC can be found HERE.
In the letter, Rep. Markey asks the NRC to respond to questions that include:

Which U.S. nuclear power plants currently use 410SS and 416SS components and what are the known uses of 410SS and 416SS?
Will the NRC undertake a review of 410SS and 416SS steels to determine if additional periodic inspections and mitigation efforts are warranted?
What regulatory actions will be undertaken in order to assess, require licensee reporting and inspection of, and address problems involved in 410SS and 416SS components?

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Cesium from Fukushima plant fell all over Japan

2011-12-31T22:05:00.000-05:00

From Asahi Shimbun:

Radioactive substances from the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant have now been confirmed in all prefectures, including Uruma, Okinawa Prefecture, about 1,700 kilometers from the plant, according to the science ministry.

The ministry said it concluded the radioactive substances came from the stricken nuclear plant because, in all cases, they contained cesium-134, which has short half-life of two years.

Before the March 11 Great East Japan Earthquake, radioactive substance were barely detectable in most areas.

But the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology's survey results released on Nov. 25 showed that fallout from the Fukushima plant has spread across Japan. The survey covered the cumulative densities of radioactive substances in dust that fell into receptacles during the four months from March through June.

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Recission of Reactor Security Orders

2011-12-31T21:52:00.002-05:00

Holders of Licenses for Operating Power Reactors: Rescission or Partial Rescission of Certain Power Reactor Security Orders Applicable to Nuclear Power Plants

ADAMS Accession Number: ML111220447

Three Mile Island Unit 1 Returned to Service

2011-12-31T21:46:00.000-05:00

Contact:

Ralph DeSantis FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Three Mile Island Generating Station
717-948-8930

Three Mile Island Unit 1 Returned to Service

Thousands of Equipment Upgrades and Maintenance Tasks Completed Safely, Additional Workers Bring Economic Boost to Region

LONDONDERRY TWP., PA (November 27, 2011) – Following a safe and successful refueling outage, station operators placed Three Mile Island Unit 1 back in service on Friday, Nov. 25 at 3:50 p.m. and the plant reached full power this afternoon. During the outage, workers replaced nearly a third of the reactor’s fuel and safely performed more than 17,000 inspections and maintenance activities on a variety of plant components and systems. This year, workers also upgraded the plant’s main electrical generator and installed a new digital control rod drive system.

“TMI’s refueling outage was a big success thanks to the dedication and talent of our full-time personnel and the many supplemental workers who supported us,” said Site Vice President, Glen Earl Chick. “We completed a host of maintenance activities and equipment upgrades that will help us run the plant safely and efficiently for many years to come.”

Three Mile Island used the talents and expertise of more than 1,700 supplemental workers to support this year’s refueling outage. Many of these workers traveled to Three Mile Island from outside the area, providing a significant boost to the local economy.

Three Mile Island Unit 1 generates 852 megawatts of carbon free power - enough electricity for about 800,000 homes. Electric customers were not affected by the plant being off line.

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Exelon Corporation is one of the nation’s largest electric utilities with more than $18 billion in annual revenues. The company has one of the industry’s largest portfolios of electricity generation capacity, with a nationwide reach and strong positions in the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic. Exelon distributes electricity to approximately 5.4 million customers in northern Illinois and southeastern Pennsylvania and natural gas to approximately 490,000 customers in the Philadelphia area. Exelon is headquartered in Chicago and trades on the NYSE under the ticker EXC.

TMI & Peach Bottom:Additonal Information Regarding 6-day Response

2011-12-31T21:44:00.001-05:00

BRAIDWOOD STATION, UNITS 1 AND 2; BYRON STATION, UNIT NOS. 1 AND 2; CLINTON POWER STATION, UNIT NO.1; DRESDEN NUCLEAR POWER STATION, UNITS 2 AND 3; LASALLE COUNTY STATION, UNITS 1 AND 2; LIMERICK GENERATING STATION, UNITS 1 AND 2; OYSTER CREEK NUCLEAR GENERATING STATION; PEACH BOTTOM ATOMIC POWER STATION, UNITS 2 AND 3; QUAD CITIES NUCLEAR POWER STATION, UNITS 1 AND 2; AND THREE MILE ISLAND NUCLEAR STATION, UNIT 1 BULLETIN 2011-01, "MITIGATING STRATEGIES" REQUEST FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION REGARDING 60-DAY RESPONSE (TAC NOS. ME6402, ME6403, ME6409, ME6410, ME6416, ME6427, ME6428, ME6444, ME6445, ME6446, ME6447, ME6460, ME6465, ME6466, ME6473, ME6474, AND ME6493

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Susquehanna: Ammendment regarding Surveillance Requirements (ML11292A137)

2011-12-31T21:14:00.000-05:00

SUSQUEHANNA STEAM ELECTRIC STATION, UNITS 1 AND 2 -ISSUANCE OF AMENDMENTS RE: CHANGE TO TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS (TSs) SURVEILLANCE REQUIREMENTS (SRs) 3.4.3.1 TO REVISE THE LOWER SURVEILLANCE TOLERANCES (TAC NOS. ME5050 AND ME5051)

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TMI: Decommissioning Fund Status Report

2011-12-31T21:06:00.002-05:00

Three Mile Island Nuclear Station Unit 2 - 2011 Decommissioning Fund Status Report - Request for Additional Information, License: DPR-73, Docket: 50-320.

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2.206 Petition Regarding Boiling Water Reactors

2011-12-31T20:51:00.002-05:00

2.206 Petition Regarding Boiling Water Reactors with Mark I and Mark II Containment Designs

ADAMS Accession No.: ML112800606

TMI: NRC Initial Operator Licensing Examination Report 05000289/2011301

2011-12-31T20:38:00.002-05:00

THREE MILE ]SLAND NUCLEAR STATION, UNIT 1 - NRC INITIAL OPERATOR LICENSING EXAMINATION REPORT O5OOO289/2011301

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TMI: NRC Integrated Inspection Report 05000289/2011004

2011-12-31T20:08:00.002-05:00

Three Mile Island -Three Mile Island Station, Unit 1 - NRC Integrated Inspection Report 05000289/2011004

ADAMS Accession No. ML113080106

NRC INVESTIGATION REPORT NO. 1-2011-034

2011-12-31T19:29:00.002-05:00

From the NRC:

Dear Mr. Collins:
This refers to the investigation by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission's (NRC) Office of Investigations (Ol) that was conducted at Exelon's Three Mile lsland (TMl)facility, and completed on July 7, 2011. The investigation was conducted to determine, in part, whether you, a contractor employee, deliberately failed to report a June 2010 arrest on a personal history questionnaire (PHQ) you completed on July 28, 2010, to obtain unescorted access authorization (UAA) to the site. Based on the results of the Ol investigation, the NRC has concluded that you deliberately violated Title 10 of the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) Section 73.56(dX2), "Personal history disclosure," which requires, in part, that any individual who is applying for UM shall disclose the personal history information that is required by the licensee's access authorization program, including any information that may be necessary for the reviewing official to make a determination of the individual's trustworthiness and reliability. The PHQ required that you disclose all legal actions; however, you failed to record that you had been arrested on drug-related charges on June 13,2010.

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Susquehanna: Audit of the Licensee's Management of Regulatory Commitments

2011-12-31T18:58:00.001-05:00

Susquehanna Steam Electric Station, Units 1 and 2 – Audit of the Licensee’s Management of Regulatory Commitments (TAC Nos. ME7014 and ME7015)

ADAMS Accession No.: ML11264A002

Susquehanna: Audit of Licensee's Management (ML11264A002)

2011-12-18T17:38:00.001-05:00

SUSQUEHANNA STEAM ELECTRIC STATION, UNITS 1 AND 2 - AUDIT OF THE LICENSEE'S MANAGEMENT OF REGULATORY COMMITMENTS (TAC NOS. ME7014 AND ME7015

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New Norwegian report says Fukushima radiation releases twice initial estimates

2011-12-18T17:35:00.001-05:00

From Bellona:

The estimate of much higher levels of radioactive caesium-137 in the atmosphere comes from a worldwide network of sensors that was studied by the Norwegian Institute for Air Research in a report authored by Andreas Stohl .
The Norwegian study says the Japanese government estimate came only from data in Japan, and that would have missed emissions blown out to sea. Its says that Fukushima Daiichi radioactive releases equal 40 percent of those from the Chernobyl disaster in 1986.
A study by the French Institute for Radiological Protection and Nuclear Safety also stated that the amount of caesium-137 that flowed into the Pacific from the coastal plant is some 30 times more than was estimated by the plant’s owner, Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO).

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Cancer, nuke site study begins; Trying to find risks of living nearby

2011-12-18T17:29:00.000-05:00

From USA Today:

As the nation explores whether to invest more in nuclear energy, the National Academy of Sciences has begun a study of cancer risks faced by people living near nuclear facilities -- a study it admits is worrisome.

A patchwork of state and local mortality reports, inconsistent data on illnesses and pollution combined with an American population that has moved around quite a bit in the past 50 years are just some of the challenges, said John Burris, chairman of the cancer-risk study committee.

Proving scientifically whether long-term exposure to low doses of radiation around the nation's 104 nuclear facilities has meant a higher rate of cancer for those living nearby will be a daunting task, Burris said.

"If you show living near a nuclear facility increases your chances of getting cancer, there will have to be radical changes, but that is not up to the committee," Burris said at a public meeting in Tennessee this month. The study, called for by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, is planned to update a 1991 National Cancer Institute study that found no danger in living near nuclear plants. President Obama has called for $36 billion in federal loan guarantees for nuclear power plant construction.

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Fallout forensics hike radiation toll

2011-12-18T17:26:00.001-05:00

From Nature:

The disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in March released far more radiation than the Japanese government has claimed. So concludes a study¹ that combines radioactivity data from across the globe to estimate the scale and fate of emissions from the shattered plant.

The study also suggests that, contrary to government claims, pools used to store spent nuclear fuel played a significant part in the release of the long-lived environmental contaminant caesium-137, which could have been prevented by prompt action. The analysis has been posted online for open peer review by the journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.

Andreas Stohl, an atmospheric scientist with the Norwegian Institute for Air Research in Kjeller, who led the research, believes that the analysis is the most comprehensive effort yet to understand how much radiation was released from Fukushima Daiichi. "It's a very valuable contribution," says Lars-Erik De Geer, an atmospheric modeller with the Swedish Defense Research Agency in Stockholm, who was not involved with the study.

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Correction Letter for Peach Bottom: Safety Evaluation (ML112911410)

2011-12-18T17:22:00.001-05:00

CORRECTION LETTER FOR PEACH BOTTOM ATOMIC POWER STATION, UNIT 3 - SAFETY EVALUATION REGARDING SAFETY LIMIT MINIMUM CRITICAL POWER RATIO VALUE CHANGE (TAC NO. ME6391)

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Panel proposes widening nuclear evacuation perimeter to 30 km (18 miles)

2011-12-18T17:20:00.000-05:00

From Kyodo News:

The secretariat of the Nuclear Safety Commission of Japan proposed on Thursday expanding the maximum evacuation perimeter around a nuclear power plant to a 30-kilometer radius from the current 10 km in the event of a future nuclear accident.
The secretariat also proposed newly designating a 5-km radius around a nuclear plant as a zone from which people should immediately be evacuated following a plant accident.
The proposal was shown to the commission's working group reexamining evacuation rules for nuclear accidents in the wake of the disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Fukushima Prefecture triggered by the massive earthquake and tsunami in March.

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Susquehanna: Correction Letter RE: Transmittal of Accident Sequence Precursor Analysis

2011-11-16T17:13:00.000-05:00

SUSQUEHANNA STEAM ELECTRIC STATION, UNIT 1 - CORRECTION LETTER RE: TRANSMITTAL OF ACCIDENT SEQUENCE PRECURSOR ANALYSIS FOR SUSQUEHANNA STEAM ELECTRIC STATION, UNIT 1

Adams Accession No. ML11286A202

TMI: Decomissioning Funding Status Report - Request for Additional Information

2011-11-16T15:09:00.001-05:00

Three Mile Island Nuclear Station Unit 2 - 2011 Decommissioning Funding Status Report - Request for Additional Information, License: DPR-73, Docket: 50-320

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Gov't releases new radiation map for Tohoku, Kanto districts

2011-10-19T12:21:00.001-04:00

From the Mainichi Daily News:

The Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) has released a new map showing the spread of radiation from the crippled Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant across 10 prefectures, including Tokyo and Kanagawa.

The map released on Oct. 6 shows levels of radioactive cesium (cesium-137 and cesium-134) that have accumulated in soil in the prefectures of Yamagata, Miyagi, Fukushima, Tochigi, Gunma, Ibaraki, Saitama, Chiba, Kanagawa and Tokyo.

The map shows 30,000 to 60,000 becquerels of radioactive cesium per square meter of soil in the areas of Higashikanamachi, Mizumotokoen and Shibamata in Tokyo's Katsushika Ward, as well as some parts of Kitakoiwa in Tokyo's Edogawa Ward.

Gov't releases new radiation map for Tohoku, Kanto districts

2011-10-19T11:34:00.000-04:00

From the Mainichi Daily News:

The Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) has released a new map showing the spread of radiation from the crippled Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant across 10 prefectures, including Tokyo and Kanagawa.

The map released on Oct. 6 shows levels of radioactive cesium (cesium-137 and cesium-134) that have accumulated in soil in the prefectures of Yamagata, Miyagi, Fukushima, Tochigi, Gunma, Ibaraki, Saitama, Chiba, Kanagawa and Tokyo.

The map shows 30,000 to 60,000 becquerels of radioactive cesium per square meter of soil in the areas of Higashikanamachi, Mizumotokoen and Shibamata in Tokyo's Katsushika Ward, as well as some parts of Kitakoiwa in Tokyo's Edogawa Ward.

GE warns nuclear reactors could struggle in earthquake

2011-10-19T11:22:00.001-04:00

From NJ.com:

A manufacturer of dozens of boiling water nuclear reactors in the country, including many on the East Coast, warned the Nuclear Regulatory Commission last year and reiterated last week that earthquakes could hinder its reactors from shutting down.

GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy, which manufactured the boiling water reactors at Oyster Creek, Hope Creek and two plants in Pennsylvania, said that an earthquake could prevent rods that cool the reactor from being inserted.

Peach Bottom: Issuance of Amendments Re: Liquid Nitrogen Storage

2011-10-03T15:12:00.000-04:00

Peach Bottom Atomic Power Station, Units 2 and 3 – Issuance of Amendments Re: Liquid Nitrogen Storage (TAC Nos. ME4131 and ME4132)

ADAMS Accession No.: ML112570049

Peach Bottom: Issuance of Amendment Re: Safety Limit Minimum Critical Power Ratio Value Change

2011-10-03T15:08:00.001-04:00

Peach Bottom Atomic Power Station, Unit 3 – Issuance of Amendment Re: Safety Limit Minimum Critical Power Ratio Value Change (TAC No. ME6391)

ADAMS Accession No.: ML111860015

Summary of June 14, 2011, Meeting with Exelon

2011-10-03T15:02:00.001-04:00

Summary of June 14, 2011, Meeting with Exelon Re: Proposed Amendment Request to Implement an Extended Power Uprate

ADAMS Accession No.: ML111740739

Recipe for Disaster: Time to Make Nuclear Power Safer

2011-10-03T14:57:00.000-04:00

From the Union of Concerned Scientists:

History has shown—most recently with the Fukushima disaster in Japan—that accidents happen. But those responsible for U.S. nuclear power safety and security—Congress, the White House, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and the nuclear industry—continue to offer overly optimistic assurances that everything is fine and everyone is safe.

In fact, they could and should be doing much more to protect Americans from a nuclear accident, and their failure to address known threats is a recipe for disaster. For example:

Radioactive fuel rods are stored in hazardous conditions at all 104 U.S. nuclear reactors

More than 40 of the 104 reactors fail to meet basic fire safety standards that have been in place for years

A dozen plants have not even fully implemented terrorism prevention requirements—10 years after 9/11

Nuclear reactors currently supply nearly 20 percent of America's electricity needs, and that won't change anytime soon. What has to change is the attitude of the people entrusted with keeping Americans safe.

TEPCO sell-off to cover damages

2011-10-03T14:51:00.002-04:00

From the Daily Yomiuri:

Tokyo Electric Power Co. has begun preparations to sell off assets, including company residences and recreation facilities, through four trust banks to raise money for compensation related to the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant crisis, it has been learned.

Initially, TEPCO intends to sell about 40 pieces of real estate for about 10 billion yen. Later, the utility will designate further assets to sell, coordinating with the government's TEPCO Management and Finance Investigation Committee, a third-party panel monitoring the company's restructuring efforts.

Eventually, the company hopes to raise about 600 billion yen through sales of real estate and stock.

According to sources, TEPCO will commission four trust banks to sell the assets. They are Mitsubishi UFJ Trust and Banking Corp., Mizuho Trust and Banking Co., The Chuo Mitsui Trust and Banking Co. and The Sumitomo Trust & Banking Co.

The utility will begin by selling employee residences in Setagaya and Meguro wards, Tokyo, and Ichihara, Chiba Prefecture; dormitories in Chiba's Chuo Ward and Sodegaura, Chiba Prefecture, and Konan Ward, Yokohama; recreation facilities in Atami, Shizuoka Prefecture, and in the Shukugo district of Utsunomiya. These assets are expected to be sold relatively easily.

The bidding for these assets is expected to take place from early to mid-October with winning bidders likely to take over the properties beginning in November.

It is important for TEPCO to raise money quickly to compensate people affected by the crisis at the Fukushima power plant. The firm's operating costs have also increased, as TEPCO, with its idled nuclear power plants, has to purchase fuel for thermal power generation.

TEPCO will sell its assets before beginning compensation payments in October. Originally, TEPCO planned to sell them around August, but coordination with the government committee took longer than expected, delaying the sales.

TEPCO plans to consider other assets it can sell over the next one or two years with a goal of raising about 100 billion yen.

Aside from real estate, the company plans to raise about 270 billion yen through securities and about 230 billion yen via the sale or liquidation of group companies.

Fairewinds Introduces a Japanese Language Edition and Identifies Safety Problems in all Reactors Designed Like Fukushima

2011-10-03T14:46:00.000-04:00

Fairewinds Introduces a Japanese Language Edition and Identifies Safety Problems in all Reactors Designed Like Fukushima from Fairewinds Associates on Vimeo.

Siemens to quit nuclear industry

2011-10-03T14:42:00.000-04:00

From BBC News:

German industrial and engineering conglomerate Siemens is to withdraw entirely from the nuclear industry.

The move is a response to the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan in March, chief executive Peter Loescher said.

He told Spiegel magazine it was the firm's answer to "the clear positioning of German society and politics for a pullout from nuclear energy".

"The chapter for us is closed," he said, announcing that the firm will no longer build nuclear power stations.

TMI: Issuance of Amendment Re: Maximum Allowable Power

2011-10-03T14:39:00.000-04:00

Three Mile Island Nuclear Station, Unit 1 – Issuance of Amendment Re: Maximum Allowable Power with Inoperable Main Steam Safety Valves (TAC No. ME4808)

ADAMS Accession No.: ML112360581

Peach Bottom: Request for Additional Information Regarding License Amendment Request

2011-10-03T14:28:00.000-04:00

Peach Bottom Atomic Power Station, Unit 3 - Request for Additional Information Regarding License Amendment Request for Safety Limit Minimum Critical Power Ratio Change (TAC No. ME6931)

Download ML112380605

Susquehanna: Amendment Re: Adoption of TSTF-514

2011-10-03T14:22:00.000-04:00

SUSQUEHANNA STEAM ELECTRIC STATION, UNITS 1 AND 2 -ISSUANCE OF AMENDMENT RE: ADOPTION OF TSTF-514, REVISION 3 (TAC NOS. ME6036 AND ME6037)

Download ML11221A271

PPL's nuclear plant marked down in NRC safety check

2011-10-03T14:18:00.001-04:00

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) - Pennsylvania's Susquehanna nuclear
power plant faces tougher scrutiny from federal regulators following
a national review of plant safety.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission said Tuesday all of the nation's
104 plants are operating safely, but that problems at Unit 1 of the
Susquehanna plant in Luzerne County made it 1 of 5 with the worst
recent safety performance. No serious problems were detected at
Pennsylvania's four other nuclear plants in the latest assessment.

The low grades reflect four unplanned shutdowns at Susquehanna
Unit 1 between April 2010 and January 2011, including one
necessitated by a faulty gasket that caused 1 million gallons of
river water to leak into the turbine building.

NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan says the agency will conduct at least
one special inspection of the plant later this year.

Susquehanna: Mid-Cycle Letter

2011-10-03T14:12:00.001-04:00

Susquehanna Steam Electric Station Units 1 and 2 - Mid-Cycle Letter for Susquehanna Steam Electric Station Units 1 and 2 (Report 05000387/2011006 and 05000388/2011006)

ADAMS Accession No. ML112430469

TMI: Mid-Cycle Letter

2011-10-03T14:10:00.001-04:00

Three Mile Island Nuclear Station, Unit 1 - Mid-Cycle Letter for Three Mile Island Nuclear Station, Unit 1 (Report 05000289/2011006)

ADAMS Accession No. ML112420674

Peach Bottom: Mid-Cycle Letter

2011-10-03T14:04:00.000-04:00

Peach Bottom Atomic Power Station - Mid-Cycle Letter for Peach Bottom Atomic Power Station (05000277/2011006 AND 05000278/2011006)

ADAMS Accession No. ML112411345

Analysis Of Cancer Risks in Populations Near Nuclear Facilities: Phase 1

2011-10-03T13:42:00.001-04:00

Project Title:			Analysis Of Cancer Risks in Populations Near Nuclear Facilities: Phase 1
PIN:			DELS-NRSB-10-02
Major Unit:			Division on Earth and Life Studies Institute of Medicine
Sub Unit:			Board on Health Sciences Policy Nuclear and Radiation Studies Board
RSO:			Crowley, Kevin
Subject/Focus Area:			Energy and Energy Conservation; Environment and Environmental Studies; Health and Medicine

Project Scope
The National Academies will provide an assessment of cancer risks in populations living near U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission-licensed nuclear facilities. This assessment will be carried out in two consecutive phases:   A Phase 1 scoping study will identify scientifically sound approaches for carrying out the cancer epidemiology study that has been requested by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. It will address the following tasks:  1. Methodological approaches for assessing off-site radiation dose, including consideration of:  • Pathways, receptors, and source terms • Availability, completeness, and quality of information on gaseous and liquid radioactive releases and direct radiation exposure from nuclear facilities  • Approaches for overcoming potential methodological limitations arising from the variability in radioactive releases over time and other confounding factors • Approaches for characterizing and communicating uncertainties.  2. Methodological approaches for assessing cancer epidemiology, including consideration of:  • Characteristics of the study populations (e.g., socioeconomic factors, all age groups, children only, and nuclear facility workers)  • Geographic areas to use in the study (e.g., county, zip codes, census tracts, or annular rings around the facility at some nominal distances)  • Cancer types and health outcomes of morbidity and mortality • Availability, completeness, and quality of cancer incidence and mortality data • Different epidemiological study designs and statistical assessment methods (e.g., ecologic or case-control study designs) • Approaches for overcoming potential methodological limitations arising from low statistical power, random clustering, changes in population characteristics over time, and other confounding factors  • Approaches for characterizing and communicating uncertainties.  The results of this Phase 1 scoping study will be used to inform the design of the cancer risk assessment, which will be carried out in Phase 2.  Note (05-02-2011): The Project Scope has been revised for clarity. The updated version is shown above.   The project is sponsored by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.  The approximate start date for the project is 09/01/2010.  The Phase 1 report is expected to be issued in early 2012.


Project Duration:			18 months
Provide FEEDBACK on this project.
Contact the Public Access Records Office to make an inquiry, request a list of the public access file materials, or obtain a copy of the materials found in the file.

Cumulative US Commercial Spent Nuclear Fuel Inventory

2011-10-03T13:15:00.001-04:00

NRC CLARIFIES EARTHQUAKE MEASUREMENTS AND DESIGN CRITERIA

2011-08-25T21:16:00.001-04:00

From the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission:

This year has seen a dramatic increase in a question people regularly ask the Nuclear Regulatory Commission: “What magnitude earthquakes are U.S. nuclear power plants designed to withstand?” The answer, however, does not include a specific “magnitude.”

The NRC requires U.S. reactors to withstand a predicted level of ground motion, or acceleration, specific to a given site. Ground acceleration is measured in relation to “g,” the acceleration caused by Earth’s gravity.

An earthquake’s magnitude, often described on the Richter scale, is an expression of how much energy the quake released. It’s not possible to transform a given magnitude alone to ground acceleration at a site. Several important factors affect the relationship between an earthquake’s magnitude and associated ground acceleration, including the distance from the earthquake, the depth of the quake and the site’s local geology (i.e., hard rock or soil). A small earthquake close to a site could therefore generate the same peak ground acceleration as a large earthquake farther away.

The NRC’s requirements call for a nuclear power plant’s design to account for ground acceleration that is appropriate for its location, given the possible earthquake sources that may affect the site and the makeup of nearby faults, etc. Existing U.S. plants were designed on a “deterministic” or “scenario earthquake” basis. In other words, examination of an area’s seismological history provides an understanding of the largest earthquake and associated ground acceleration expected at a plant site.

Later this year, the agency expects to provide existing plants a seismic analysis tool based on work related to applications for new plants, along with the latest information on earthquake sources, so that the plants can perform an updated review. Applications for new nuclear power plants have taken a “probabilistic” approach to determining seismic hazards, looking at a wide range of possible quakes from sources that could affect a given site. The NRC has spent several years examining how these newer techniques can be used to re-evaluate existing nuclear power plant sites.

NRC PRESENTING AT NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES MEETING AUG. 29 ON NRC-SPONSORED CANCER RISK STUDY

2011-08-25T21:14:00.000-04:00

From NRC News:

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission will present information during the National Academy of Sciences’ (NAS) fifth committee meeting on the NRC-sponsored study, “Analysis of Cancer Risks in Populations Near Nuclear Facilities: Phase 1.” The meeting’s public session will run from 1:20 p.m. – 5 p.m. on Monday, Aug. 29, at the Pew Charitable Trusts Conference Center, 901 E St., NW in Washington, D.C.

The NRC will outline potential next steps for the study and describe the agency’s public outreach and communications efforts. NRC staff will also be available to answer committee member questions. The Environmental Protection Agency will also present information to the committee. The public is welcome to attend and will have the opportunity to comment prior to the end of the meeting. The NAS asks members of the public to register for the meeting, and the NAS website has additional details, although they are subject to change. General questions on the study can be sent via e-mail to: crs@nas.edu.

The NAS project will update the 1990 U.S. National Institutes of Health – National Cancer Institute (NCI) report, “Cancer in Populations Living Near Nuclear Facilities.” The NRC uses the 1990 NCI report as a primary resource when communicating with the public about cancer mortality risk in counties that contain or are adjacent to nuclear power facilities. In the new study, the NRC is asking the NAS to evaluate cancer diagnosis rates, in addition to mortality risk, for populations living near decommissioned, operating and proposed NRC-licensed nuclear facilities. Phase 1 of the NAS study will determine whether a technically defensible approach to meet the goals of the study request is feasible – and if so, the approach will be developed using scientifically sound processes for evaluating cancer risk that could be associated with nuclear facilities.

All Four Exelon Nuclear Mid-Atlantic Plants Operating Safely Following Regional Seismic Activity

2011-08-25T21:09:00.001-04:00

Exelon Nuclear

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

KENNETT SQUARE, PA. (August 23, 2011) - None of Exelon Nuclear's four Mid-Atlantic nuclear energy stations was affected by this afternoon’s seismic activity in Virginia, and all continue to operate safely at this time. An “Unusual Event” was declared at each of the stations following the seismic activity, in accordance with plant procedures: Peach Bottom Atomic Power Station, Three Mile Island Generating Station and Limerick Generating Station in Pennsylvania, and Oyster Creek Generating Station in New Jersey.

Plant equipment continued to function normally at each of the Exelon Nuclear stations. Operators are currently performing "walk-downs" to identify any potential affects from the seismic activity, but no damage to equipment or plant operations has been identified at this time. Each plant continued to operate at normal power level throughout the event and no evacuations or additional safety measures were required.

Nuclear energy plants are designed specifically to withstand the impact of earthquakes and other severe acts of nature. The earthquake, reported to be at a magnitude of 5.9 on the Richter Scale, did not challenge the engineered design of the Exelon facilities.

An “Unusual Event” is the lowest level emergency classifications as determined by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

TMI: Relocation of Equipment Load List (ML112150486)

2011-08-25T20:59:00.001-04:00

Three Mile Island Nuclear Station, Unit 1 – Issuance of Amendment Re: Relocation of Equipment Load List From Technical Specifications to Updated Final Safety Analysis Report (TAC No. ME4732)

Download ML112150486

New Data Supports Previous Fairewinds Analysis, as Contamination Spreads in Japan and Worldwide

2011-08-25T20:56:00.000-04:00

New Data Supports Previous Fairewinds Analysis, as Contamination Spreads in Japan and Worldwide from Fairewinds Associates on Vimeo.

Fukushima Evacuation Zone areas uninhabitable, PM to apologize

2011-08-25T20:50:00.001-04:00

From Majirox News:

Parts of the 20-kilometer (12.42 mile) Evacuation Zone around the radiation-leaking Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant are close to being declared uninhabitable and the ban on entering the area maintained, possibly for decades, according to the Yomiuri newspaper on Aug. 21.

Prime Minister Naoto Kan is poised to explain the situation to local government leaders from the affected leaders and apologize for evacuation from the area becoming long-term rather than temporary.

Excess radiation dozens of times greater than the acceptable annual safety level in parts of the zone is behind the moves, which thwart national government plans to reopen the area by January next year upon achieving a cold shutdown of the plant, which went into meltdown after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami that hit the Tohoku Region.

June 2011 Susquehanna River Basin Commission Meeting Minutes

2011-08-25T20:45:00.001-04:00

To Whom It May Concern:

Attached are the Minutes of the June 23, 2011 Susquehanna River Basin Commission meeting. Please let me know if you have any problems opening the document, or wish to be removed from this email list.

Thank you for your interest.

Ava A. Stoops

Download PDF

Nuclear Regulatory Commission recommends further review of Beyond Nuclear petition for emergency enforcement actions at Fukushima-style US reactors

2011-08-25T20:38:00.000-04:00

PRESS RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: August 19, 2011

CONTACT: Linda Gunter, Beyond Nuclear, 301.455.5655

Nuclear Regulatory Commission recommends further review of Beyond Nuclear petition for emergency enforcement actions at Fukushima-style US reactors

[Takoma Park, MD] The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has accepted several emergency actions for further agency review that were requested in a petition filed by Beyond Nuclear on April 13, 2011. The Beyond Nuclear petition seeks to suspend the operation of the dangerous and seriously flawed General Electric Mark I Boiling Water Reactors, 23 of which still operate around the U.S. and which are almost identical to the Fukushima reactors that melted down in Japan. The petition was co-signed by national and regional anti-nuclear groups as well as more than 5,000 individuals.

The Beyond Nuclear petition to the NRC asks that the Mark I reactors cease operations until several emergency actions are taken. The actions accepted by the federal agency for the further review include; 1) the NRC revoke the 1989 prior approval for all GE Mark I operators to “voluntarily” install the same experimental hardened vent systems on flawed containment structures that the Fukushima catastrophe demonstrates to have a 100% failure rate and; 2) that the agency immediately issue Orders requiring all U.S. Mark I operators to promptly install dedicated emergency back-up electrical power to ensure reliable cooling systems for the densely packed spent fuel pools. The GE BWR fuel pools are located at the top of the reactor building and currently do not have backup power if offsite and on-site electrical power were lost simultaneously.

“Fukushima demonstrates that a nuclear catastrophe can result from these same fundamental flaws in the Mark I reactors operating in the United States,” said Paul Gunter, director of the Reactor Oversight Project at Beyond Nuclear. “We are spotlighting these dangerous reactors to test the NRCs’ willingness to take enforcement action to protect public safety rather than protect the nuclear industry bottom line,” he said.

On July 19, 2011, NRC released its own “Near-Term Task Force Review of Insights from the Fukushima Dai-ichi Accident.” While the Task Force addresses the same two action items found in the Beyond Nuclear petition that were accepted by the review board, the Task Force’s conclusions are considerably weaker.

First, where NRC task force recommendation 5 states that the agency consider issuing an Order to Mark I operators to upgrade hardened vent systems on the containment, the public petitioners have requested the agency revoke all prior approval of the “voluntary” installation of the controversial venting system. The vents were seen to fail at Fukushima and are only in place to save the containment which is too weak to withstand a severe accident. The containments were retrofitted in the 1990’s to instead temporarily vent explosive gas, steam pressure and radioactivity to the outside atmosphere to save the containment component.

“Given the catastrophic failure demonstrated at Fukushima, these same designs should not be allowed to operate with experimental vents on containment,” said Gunter, “The GE reactor was originally licensed with the claim of a ‘leak tight’ containment so this after-thought of installing a vent for accident conditions is in fact a violation of that same license,” he said.

Scott Portzline, security consultant to Three Mile Island Alert, Harrisburg PA said, ”The NRC’s Task Force on Fukushima has also recommended that the Mark II design reactors, like the one at Limerick PA, also be ordered to change over to a reliable vent system. The Peach Bottom Reactors would be affected by such an order since they are of Mark I design.”

In its petition, Beyond Nuclear additionally asked that the NRC then provide the public with full hearing rights to first independently review any further experimental modifications to the acknowledged weaker and substandard Mark I containment system.

Secondly, where NRC task force recommendation 7 states that emergency back-up power should be provided to ensure make-up for water boiled off of overheated spent fuel pools following loss of offsite power, the petitioners’ request that reliable back-up power be provide to assure reliable cooling to prevent the pools from boiling off. The petitioners remain concerned about the unintended consequences of condensation from a spent fuel pool boil off affecting safety-related systems like electrical circuits and sump systems.

The NRC review board further recommended that the agency “reject” in part Beyond Nuclear’s requested actions for any further review to include; 1) “Immediately suspend operating licenses of all GE BWR Mark I units pending full NRC review with independent expert and public participation from the affected emergency planning zone communities,” and; 2) “Conduct public meetings within each of the ten-mile emergency planning zone for each GE BWR site for the purpose of receiving public comment and independent expert testimony regarding the reliability of hardened vent system or direct torus vent system.”

Beyond Nuclear and the co-petitioners will be provided an additional public meeting before the NRC’s Petition Review to present supplemental material and challenge agency recommendations to reject requested emergency actions. The date for that meeting has not been established.

-30-

Markey Statement on NRC Vote To Act On Fukushima Task Force Recommendations

2011-08-25T20:34:00.000-04:00

For Immediate Release
Contact: Giselle Barry 202-225-2836
August 19, 2011

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, Congressman Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), the top Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee and a senior member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, released the following statement after the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) directed its staff to complete several actions within the next 45 days in response to recommendations from the NRC’s Near-Term Task Force.

“I am encouraged that all the NRC Commissioners have agreed with Chairman Greg Jaczko to act within 90 days on 11 of the 12 safety recommendations of the Near Term Task Force. It is urgent that the NRC address vulnerabilities to America's nuclear fleet that were starkly revealed by the Fukushima meltdowns.

“Unfortunately, Commissioners Magwood, Svinicki, and Ostendorff did not agree even to a prompt up-or-down vote on the very first, common-sense recommendation of the Task Force - to replace the current patchwork of safety regulations with a logical, systematic, and coherent regulatory framework. Now is not the time for 18 additional months of redundant study of the first recommendation, which was made by a Task Force with 135 years of collective experience at the NRC and with full access to NRC staff.

“The Task Force’s recommendations, if adopted, would go a long way towards ensuring the safety of America’s 104 nuclear reactors if the rest of the Commissioners also agree to support Chairman Jaczko on the substance of all 12 recommendations of the Task Force. I urge them to do so.”

Peach Bottom: Document Access (ML111860054)

2011-08-25T20:30:00.001-04:00

Peach Bottom Atomic Power Station, Unit 3 – Individual Notice of Consideration of Issuance of Amendment to Facility Operating License, Proposed No Significant Hazards Consideration Determination and Opportunity for Hearing and Order Imposing Procedures for Document Access to Sensitive Unclassified Non-Safeguards Information (TAC No. ME6391)

Download ML111860054

TMI: Weld Overlay of the Pressurizer Spray Nozzle (ML112140397)

2011-08-25T20:26:00.001-04:00

Three Mile Island Nuclear Station, Unit 1 – Proposed Alternative RR-10-02 Regarding Weld Overlay of the Pressurizer Spray Nozzle to Safe-End and Safe-End to Elbow Dissimilar Metal Welds (TAC No. ME4795)

Download ML112140397

Japan eyes global nuclear compensation treaty: report

2011-08-25T20:23:00.001-04:00

From Reuters:

Japan is considering joining a U.S.-led global nuclear compensation treaty in a bid to fend off excessive overseas damage claims related to nuclear accidents, the Nikkei newspaper reported on Sunday, without citing sources.

The U.S., Morocco, Romania and Argentina have agreed to the Convention on Supplementary Compensation for Nuclear Damage, but the treaty needs at least five countries in order to go into effect.

The newspaper said Japan would start discussions with the United States in the coming week over the pact, which defines the rules for trials for damage claims in countries where accidents happen.

Peach Bottom: Safety Limit Minimum Critical Power Ratio Change (ML111860025)

2011-08-25T20:21:00.000-04:00

PEACH BOTTOM ATOMIC POWER STATION, UNIT 3 - REQUEST FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION REGARDING LICENSE AMENDMENT REQUEST FOR SAFETY LIMIT MINIMUM CRITICAL POWER RATIO CHANGE (TAC NO. ME6931

Download ML111860025

US Blue Ribbon Commission goes on tour

2011-08-25T20:05:00.001-04:00

The US government’s Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future (BRC) will be hosting public meetings to solicit feedback on the draft commission report, in association with state regional groups that work on high-level radioactive waste policy.

Whilst much of the testimony to the BRC was given in Washington, DC, now the BRC is going on tour with a series of one-day meetings to present the draft BRC report (issued on July 29, 2011), and to hear feedback.

The current schedule is:

September 13, 2011: Denver, CO (Embassy Suites, 1420 Stout Street)
October 12, 2011: Boston, MA (Harvard Medical School Conference Center, 77 Louis Pasteur, Longwood Harvard University, Cambridge)
October 18, 2011: Atlanta, GA (Marriot Marquis, 265 Peachtree Center Avenue)
October 20, 2011: Washington, DC (Hilton Garden Inn, 815 14th Street NW)
October 28, 2011: Minneapolis, MN (Hyatt Regency, 1300 Nicollet Mall)
Other dates and locations are to be determined.

The meetings will begin with a briefing from Commission staff on the draft report, followed by comments from elected and appointed state and regional representatives. The latter portion of the meeting will be devoted to a facilitated and interactive breakout opportunity for all who attend, and will conclude with a public comment period.

All public are welcome to attend. Pre-registration will be strongly encouraged but not required. Transcripts (not webcasts) of the meetings will be made available on the website, along with all written comments anyone chooses to offer.

The draft full commission report has been published for comments (see file attachment) until 31 October 2011. Directions on how to comment are contained in the document.

The draft commission report , commission activity details, and pre-registration details are available at WWW.BRC.GOV

TMI: Exelon Cyber Security Plan (ML111861341)

2011-08-25T17:40:00.000-04:00

BRAIDWOOD STATION, UNITS 1 AND 2; BYRON STATION, UNIT NOS. 1 AND 2; CLINTON POWER STATION, UNIT NO.1; DRESDEN NUCLEAR POWER STATION, UNITS 2 AND 3; LASALLE COUNTY STATION, UNITS 1 AND 2; LIMERICK GENERATING STATION, UNITS 1 AND 2; OYSTER CREEK NUCLEAR GENERATING STATION; PEACH BOTTOM ATOMIC POWER STATION, UNITS 2 AND 3; QUAD CITIES NUCLEAR POWER STATION, UNITS 1 AND 2; AND THREE MILE ISLAND NUCLEAR STATION, UNIT 1 ISSUANCE OF AMENDMENTS REGARDING THE EXELON CYBER SECURITY PLAN (TAC NOS. ME4298, ME4299, ME4300, ME4301, ME4302, ME4303, ME4304, ME4305, ME4306, ME4307, ME4308, ME4309, ME4310, ME4311, ME4312, ME4313, AND ME4314)

Download ML111861341

Nuclear Waste Piles Up—in Budget Deficit

2011-08-25T17:33:00.000-04:00

From the Wall Street Journal:

Imagine a football field packed 20 feet high with highly radioactive nuclear waste. That's about the volume of the 65,000 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel stranded at dozens of nuclear sites across the U.S.
It isn't just a potential public health hazard, as Japan's recent nuclear disaster showed, but a growing burden on the federal government's groaning finances.

A decades-old promise to dispose of the waste has become another unfunded liability, starting with a $25 billion ratepayer fund gone astray and $16 billion or more in estimated legal judgments to compensate utilities for their storage expenses. The costs of the ultimate disposal project also are sure to rise, with no plan in sight to replace the now-canceled plan to entomb the waste at Nevada's Yucca Mountain.

Three Mile Island Nuclear Station, Unit 1 - Proposed Alternative Regarding Control Rod Drive Housing Examinations

2011-08-25T17:29:00.001-04:00

Three Mile Island Nuclear Station, Unit 1 - Proposed Alternative Regarding Control Rod Drive Housing Examinations

Download ML112061711

Lethal Levels of Radiation at Fukushima: What Are the Implications?

2011-08-25T17:24:00.000-04:00

Lethal Levels of Radiation at Fukushima: What Are the Implications? from Fairewinds Associates on Vimeo.

TMI & Susquehanna: Updates

2011-08-25T17:14:00.001-04:00

Three Mile Island

July 20 – The NRC granted requests from TMI operator Exelon for relief and allowed it to use alternative procedures to certain requirements for in-service examination of components and steam pressure tests conducted during 10-year intervals. The requests were part of the fourth 10-year inspection that began on April 20, 2011 and ends no later than April 19, 2022.

The NRC staff concluded that that the proposed alternatives for some of the requirements “provide an acceptable level of quality and safety” as outlined by Exelon.

The staff also noted that Exelon had “demonstrated that it is impractical to comply with the specified” American Society of Mechanical Engineers code requirements for one issue and “that the proposed alternative testing will provide reasonable assurance of leak tightness of the subject components.”

July 27 - The NRC staff issued a letter on its inspection of TMI for the quarter running from April through June 2011. The staff said no findings of significance were identified.

The report added that inspectors determined “that corrective actions to address configuration control performance deficiencies from the first half of 2010 and transient material control deficiencies from all of calendar year 2010 continued to be effective.” It added that the number of configuration control deficiencies identified in the first half of 2011 “were notably reduced from the first half of 2010.”

But the report noted that inspectors “identified several instances for which corrective action timelines was not commensurate with potential significance of degraded equipment conditions.” It added, “Station management acknowledged the issues, verified they were captured in the corrective action program, and initiated several significant station-wide actions to reemphasize worker performance fundamentals. The inspectors determined these correction actions were appropriate and observed improved worker fundamental performance through the end of June 2011.”

Susquehanna Steam Electric Station in Berwick

July 20, 2011 – The NRC issued a letter on the completion of its triennial (every three years) fire inspection of Units 1 and 2 at the plant.

Based on the inspection, two findings of very low safety significance were identified. The NRC said it would treat the findings as non-cited violations because they were entered into the plant’s corrective action program and they were of very low safety significance.

One of the violations involved the failure of plant operator PPL to adequately implement “a fire water supply system with two redundant 100 percent capacity fire water pumps and three sources of supply water.”

“Design flow rates could not be achieved and maintained by a single fire water pump for all required sprinkler systems,” the report said. “PPL performed an operability evaluation and determined the affected sprinkler systems were capable of performing their intended functions at lower flow rates and for a shorter duration than originally specified by plant design. In addition, the Unit 2 cooling tower basin was determined to be inoperable as a sole source of supply water for the fire water system.”

“From initial plant conduction until present,” the report added, “PPL failed to provide two redundant fire water pumps that could be supplied from any of three separate water sources.” The NRC said the issue was entered into PPL’s corrective action program.

The other finding involved the failure to implement all provisions of the approved fire protection program. “Specifically, PPL established acceptance criteria in the fire pump performance tests that were non-conservative compared to design basis requirements and the test acceptance criteria were insufficient to demonstrate that the fire pumps could provide sufficient pump pressure to satisfy required sprinkler system hydraulic needs.”

The report added, “PPL’s corrective actions program required fire protection deficiencies be identified and corrected. The team determined that PPL had not adequately implemented the required quality assurance criteria for fire pump testing, in that the combined tests did not demonstrate that pump performance conformed to design requirements or would perform satisfactorily in service.”

U.S. nuclear waste: where to now?

2011-08-25T17:01:00.000-04:00

From Smart Planet:

Radioactive waste has been accumulating at sites across the United States for decades. The 75,000-metric-ton problem isn’t going away (well, not for a million years or so). And as of now, it’s not going to Nevada’s Yucca Mountain either. Tasked with finding long-term solutions to this disposal issue, the Blue Ribbon Commission released a draft report on Friday.

Critical of the government’s handing of the issue thus far, the almost 200-page report asks for a new federal organization, separate from the Department of Energy, that would deal with transporting, storing and disposing of nuclear wastes of various kinds and radioactivity levels.

Fairewinds examines the fundamental advantages and disadvantages of splitting atoms to boil water

2011-08-25T17:00:00.000-04:00

Nuclear Power 101: Fairewinds examines the fundamental advantages and disadvantages of splitting atoms to boil water. from Fairewinds Associates on Vimeo.

N.R.C. Lowers Estimate of How Many Would Die in Meltdown

2011-08-25T16:54:00.001-04:00

From the New York Times:

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is approaching completion of an ambitious study that concludes that a meltdown at a typical American reactor would lead to far fewer deaths than previously assumed.
The conclusion, to be published in April after six years of work, is based largely on a radical revision of projections of how much and how quickly cesium 137, a radioactive material that is created when uranium is split, could escape from a nuclear plant after a core meltdown. In past studies, researchers estimated that 60 percent of a reactor core’s cesium inventory could escape; the new estimate is only 1 to 2 percent.
A draft version of the report was provided to The New York Times by the Union of Concerned Scientists, a nuclear watchdog group that has long been critical of the commission’s risk assessments and obtained it through a Freedom of Information Act request. Since the recent triple meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in Japan, such groups have been arguing that the commission urgently needs to tighten safeguards for new and aging plants in the United States.

Peach Bottom: Request for Withholding Information From Public Disclosure (ML11860036)

2011-08-25T16:42:00.000-04:00

Peach Bottom Atomic Power Station, Unit No. 3: Request for Withholding Information From Public Disclosure (TAC No. ME6391)

Download ML111860036

Susquehanna: Correction Letter (ML112070068)

2011-08-25T16:39:00.001-04:00

Susquehanna Steam Electric Station, Units 1 and 2 - Correction Letter Re: Replacement Pages for Issued Amendment Nos. 255 and 235 for Cyber Security Plan (TAC Nos. ME4420 and ME4421)

Download ML112070068

TMI: Third Inservice Inspection Interval Relif Requests (ML111990112)

2011-08-25T16:30:00.001-04:00

Three Mile Island Nuclear Station, Unit 1 – Request for Additional Information Regarding Third Inservice Inspection Interval Relief Requests RR-11-01 and RR-11-02 (TAC Nos. ME5670 and ME5671)

Download ML111990112

Whistleblowers Say Nuclear Regulatory Commission Watchdog Is Losing Its Bite

2011-08-25T16:22:00.001-04:00

From the Scientific American:

When he retired after 26 years as an investigator with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Office of the Inspector General, George Mulley thought his final report was one of his best.

Mulley had spent months looking into why a pipe carrying cooling water at the Byron nuclear plant in Illinois had rusted so badly that it burst. His report cited lapses by a parade of NRC inspectors over six years and systemic weaknesses in the way the NRC monitors corrosion.

But rather than accept Mulley's findings, the inspector general's office rewrote them. The revised report shifted much of the blame to the plant's owner, Exelon, instead of NRC procedures. And instead of designating it a public report and delivering it to Congress, as is the norm, the office put it off-limits. A reporter obtained it only after filing a Freedom of Information Act request.

The Value of a Life

2011-08-25T16:01:00.001-04:00

To the Editor [of the New York Times]:

Your article about the value of human life that federal agencies use in cost-benefit analyses reported that the Office of Management and Budget “recently warned agencies that it would be difficult to justify the use of numbers under $5 million” (“A Life’s Value? It May Depend on the Agency,” front page, Feb. 17).

Someone should tell the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

The N.R.C. has been using the same value — $3 million — since 1995. If the agency were to increase that value to the $5 million to $9 million per life that other agencies use, it would have a major effect on nuclear plant license renewals and new reactor approvals. Plant owners would have to add safety features that the N.R.C. now considers too expensive because it lowballs the value of the lives that could be saved.

N.R.C. calculations need to be brought in line with those of other agencies.

Edwin Lyman
Senior Scientist
Union of Concerned Scientists
Washington, Feb. 17, 2011

Susquehanna: NRC Triennial Fire Protection Inspection Report (ML112010427)

2011-08-25T15:58:00.000-04:00

SUSQUEHANNA STEAM ELECTRIC STATION: NRC TRIENNIAL FIRE PROTECTION INSPECTION REPORT NO. 05000387/2011007 AND 05000388/2011007

Download ML112010427

Susquehanna: Issuance Ammendment (ML11152A009)

2011-08-25T15:34:00.002-04:00

Susquehanna Steam Electric Station, Units 1 and 2 – Issuance of Amendment Re: Approval of the PPL Susquehanna, LLC Cyber Security Plan (TAC Nos. ME4420 and ME4421)

Download ML11152A009

TMI: Fourth Inservice Inspection Interval Relief Requests (ML111730475)

2011-08-25T15:16:00.001-04:00

THREE MILE ISLAND NUCLEAR STATION, UNIT 1 - FOURTH INSERVICE INSPECTION INTERVAL RELIEF REQUESTS 14R-02, 14R-03, 14R-04, 14R-05, AND 14R-06 (TAC NOS. ME4519, ME4520, ME4521, ME4522 AND ME4523)

Download ML111730475

Pictures—Ten Oldest U.S. Nuclear Plants: Post-Japan Risks

2011-08-25T15:13:00.001-04:00

From National Geographic:

The world's largest nuclear energy producer, the United States, Tuesday aired its first detailed public examination of whether stronger safety standards are needed in light of Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster.

Although the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) task force concluded that the sequence of events that caused Japan's crisis was unlikely to recur in the United States, the panel has urged a new focus on preparing for the unexpected.

Update on the Cooling Water Intake Structures Proposed Rule

2011-08-25T15:11:00.000-04:00

CONTACT:
Enesta Jones
jones.enesta@epa.gov
202-564-7873
202-564-4355

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 19, 2011

WASHINGTON – In response to requests from stakeholders and to encourage additional public comment, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is extending the public comment period by 30 days for the cooling water intake structures proposed rule. This change will not affect EPA’s schedule for issuing a final rule by July 27, 2012.

This proposed rule, based on Section 316 (b) of the Clean Water Act, aims to protect billions of fish and other aquatic organisms drawn each year into cooling water systems at large power plants and factories.

The original 90-day public comment period was originally set to expire on July 19, 2011. EPA will publish a notice of this 30-day extension in the Federal Register.

More information: http://water.epa.gov/lawsregs/lawsguidance/cwa/316b/index.cfm

A.G. SCHNEIDERMAN WINS FED RULING ON INDIAN POINT, IMPACTING RELICENSING

2011-08-25T15:10:00.000-04:00

News from Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman
From: Emily Arsenault
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 15, 2011

New York City Press Office / 212-416-8060
Albany Press Office / 518-473-5525
nyag.pressoffice @ ag.ny.gov
Twitter: @AGSchneiderman
A.G. SCHNEIDERMAN WINS FED RULING ON INDIAN POINT, IMPACTING RELICENSING
Indian Point Cannot Ignore Severe Accident Measures & Licenses Cannot Be Renewed Before Review Of Upgrades Completed
Any Decision Not To Upgrade Severe Accident Measures Must Be Explained In Full
Latest Success In AG’s Work To Improve Nuclear Regulation & Enforcement
NEW YORK – New York State Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman today announced a significant federal ruling in ongoing efforts to improve Indian Point’s accident preparedness, and ensure the protection of public health and the environment of the surrounding region.
The Atomic Safety and Licensing Board issued a decision, agreeing with New York that Indian Point cannot be relicensed without completing the legally-required analyses of its severe accident mitigation measures. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) must require Indian Point’s owner, Entergy to either adopt cost-effective upgrades that would improve responses and control the impact of a severe accident, or provide a compelling reason why it will not do so.
“Severe accidents cannot be treated as impossibilities, and this critical ruling confirms that Indian Point must follow regulations to protect the public and control the effects of a potentially severe nuclear accident,” Attorney General Schneiderman said. “We will not permit the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and Entergy to procrastinate or limit the relicensing review with the hope that full responsibility for protective measures can be avoided. My office will continue to take the action necessary to ensure Indian Point complies with all applicable laws and regulations, and that the surrounding communities are protected.”
As part of the relicensing proceeding, nuclear power plants are required to identify the environmental impacts that could be caused by a severe accident and provide analyses of upgrades that facilities could make to protect the public if one were to occur. The measures include plant upgrades -- such as improvements in equipment, training or procedures that could help limit or contain the impacts that could result from a severe accident. In its environmental review, Entergy identified 20 such measures at Indian Point Units 2 and 3, including flood protection and auxiliary power improvements.
Despite its responsibility, the NRC did not require Entergy to complete analyses of those measures, or to require that the measures be adopted - thereby violating NRC’s own regulations, as well as those of the National Environmental Policy Act, and the Administration Procedure Act. Despite an obligation to conduct a full review, both Entergy and the NRC sought to limit the severe accident analyses to a narrow set of components.
The Board rejected this logic as uninformed, and wrote:
“The NRC is bound to take a hard look, consistent with [applicable law] at all [severe accident mitigation alternatives] … before deciding whether to grant a license renewal application.” The full decision is available here, and the Attorney General’s original motion is available here.
The ruling marks the first successful motion of its kind filed by an intervenor in such a proceeding and confirms the Attorney General’s argument that the NRC’s environmental review violated the law. It is the Attorney General’s latest success raising such issues. Earlier this week, the NRC accepted New York’s petition for fire safety enforcement at Indian Point.
Attorney General Schneiderman has taken several actions that would improve regulations and safety at Indian Point, and that could impact plants nationwide. In February, he sued the NRC for authorizing the storage of radioactive waste at nuclear power facilities for at least 60 years after they close – without first conducting the necessary environmental, public health and safety studies. The lawsuit was filed just one month before spent fuel threatened emergency response efforts at the Fukushima nuclear facility in Japan.
Recently, Schneiderman joined a petition urging the NRC to reexamine operating limitations at the aging Indian Point reactors and lower the reactors’ operating temperatures to increase safety and reduce the risk of meltdown in the event of an accident. The Attorney General has also called upon the NRC to undertake a comprehensive, transparent and fair review of seismic risk before completing the Indian Point relicensing proceeding.
The initiative is being handled by Assistant Attorneys General John Sipos, Janice Dean, Lisa Feiner and Adam Dobson of the Attorney General’s Environmental Protection Bureau under the supervision of Bureau Chief for Environmental Protection Lemuel M. Srolovic and Executive Deputy Attorney General for Social Justice Janet Sabel.
# # #
Emily Arsenault
Director of Intergovernmental and Community Affairs
Office of the NYS Attorney General
(212) 416-8579
__._,_.___

2011-08-25T14:54:00.001-04:00

Peter Crane / 6545 27th Ave. NW / Seattle, WA 98117 / kinderhook46@yahoo.com / 206-783-8485 (home), 206-819-2661 (cell)

July 18, 2011

MEMORANDUM FOR: Chairman Gregory B. Jaczko
Commissioner Kristine L. Svinicki
Commissioner George Apostolakis
Commissioner William D. Magwood, IV
Commissioner William C. Ostendorff

FROM: Peter Crane
Counsel for Special Projects, USNRC (retired)

On July 13, the NRC issued press announcements on two unrelated matters: the public release of the report of the NRC staff’s Task Force on the Fukushima accident (news release No. 11-127), and the Commission’s directive to the staff “to examine feasibility and need of study on radiation doses to public from nuclear medicine” (news release No. 11-128).

The Task Force report touches on, though only very minimally, the use of potassium iodide (KI) as a thyroid blocking agent; the directive on nuclear medicine relates directly to the issue of the release of patients with high doses of radioactive iodine-131 in their systems. Both as an NRC employee and as a retiree, I have been involved with these two subjects for many years – nearly 30 years, in the case of KI, and almost 20 years, with respect to radioactive patients – and I have considerable institutional knowledge in these areas.1 I feel obligated to the current Commissioners, the agency, and the public, to share some of this history with them, and explain why the July 13 issuances are problematic. Since I see that the schedule calls for the Task Force to brief the Commission on July 19, I will in the interest of time deal with the first today and the second in a memorandum to be submitted in the near future.

The charter of the NRC staff Task Force on Fukushima was set forth in a March 23, 2011, tasking memorandum from Chairman Jaczko to R. W. Borchardt, the Executive Director for Operations (Appendix B to the report, p. 77), and the March 30, 2011, memorandum from Mr. Borchardt to Martin Virgilio and Charles Miller (Appendix C to the report, p. 79). The Task Force was given the specific task of considering, among other things, “Emergency preparedness (e.g. emergency communications, radiological protection, emergency planning zones, dose projections and modeling, protective actions).” [Emphasis added.]

Protective actions include, as the report acknowledges, potassium iodide. The following seem
like obvious questions: How widely was potassium iodide distributed in Japan? How far away from Fukushima did radioactive iodine show up in foodstuffs, water, and air? What kind of radiation doses to the thyroid were received by Japanese citizens, especially children, and at what distances from the reactors? What does this suggest about the need for KI beyond the 10 mile radius in which the NRC now offers it?

These are all questions that can be answered, to a greater or lesser extent, by any informed citizen who reads the newspapers and has access to a computer, but anyone whose only source of information is the NRC Task Force, which was in theory addressing such issues, would be out of luck. Indeed, such a person would not even realize that these issues existed, for the Task Force has tiptoed around them.

The Task Force must surely be aware that the NRC has come under sharp criticism for its role in preventing the implementation of a law, Section 127 of the Public Health Security and Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response Act of 2002, which would have extended the availability of KI out to a 20-mile radius. A January 2008 decision by the President’s Science Advisor, Dr. John H. Marburger III, declined to implement that portion of the Act. The Task Force must also know that a bipartisan group of some 30 Members of Congress, including Rep. Ed Markey, the law’s sponsor, has called on the President to revisit that decision and authorize the broader stockpiling and distribution of the drug, and that this issue is under reconsideration by the Administration.

But no reader of this report would realize any of that, or find a scintilla of information that might shed light on the question of whether current policy needs revision. What is more, an Associated Press story on March 31, 2011, quoted Patricia Milligan, the NRC’s senior expert on KI matters, as saying that the NRC was “absolutely confident” that the 10 mile radius for stockpiling of KI was sufficient. Considering that the accident was still unfolding rapidly at that time, this was highly premature. It was only on March 23, after all, that Chairman Jaczko had directed the staff to examine, among other things, “emergency planning zones” and “protective actions.” If the staff had completed its review of the KI issue in the intervening eight days, this was quick work indeed.2

The Marburger decision and the NRC’s role in it deserve further discussion here. As the
Commission is probably aware, the legislation authorizing the expansion of KI distribution from
10 to 20 miles from nuclear power plants was passed by an overwhelming margin in 2002 and signed into law by President Bush. The White House, in a 2002 statement, hailed the result, saying that henceforth, KI, which it called “crucial” and “critical,” would be available wherever needed, not just within what it termed the “artificial ten-mile barrier.” The Department of Health and Human Services was given the task of implementing the law, which NRC had opposed.

But to begin distribution of KI, which HHS was eager to do, for it saw a plain need to improve protection for America’s children, it was required to publish guidelines. Opponents of the law prevailed on the Office of Management and Budget to withhold its approval of those guidelines, and thereby delay implementation of the law, to the great frustration of HHS.

The same law directed the National Academies of Science to perform a study of KI. Published in 2004 under the title Distribution and Administration of Potassium Iodide in the Event of a Nuclear Incident, it made clear, inter alia, that “children are most likely to benefit from KI prophylaxis” (p. 4); that thyroids are at risk in a nuclear incident from “inhalation of contaminated air or ingestion of contaminated food or milk” (p. 3); that “KI should be available to infants, children, and pregnant and lactating women” (p. 5); that though KI distribution to date focused only on the 10-mile Emergency Planning Zone utilized by the NRC, the variation from site to site meant that “no single best solution exists,” and that a specific incident might require KI “beyond the EPZ as well” (p. 161); and that as a result, “KI distribution programs should consider predistribution, local stockpiling outside the emergency planning zone (EPZ), and national stockpiles and distribution capacity.” (p. 160, emphasis in the original)

In a November 1, 2005, letter to HHS, the NRC brazenly misrepresented the findings of the NAS report. Writing to Dr. Robert Claypool of HHS, William F. Kane, NRC Deputy Executive Director for Reactor and Preparedness Programs, asserted – purportedly on the basis of the NAS report – that the only pathway of concern beyond the 10-mile radius would be ingestion, which could be controlled by interdiction of foodstuffs, and, in a particularly egregious distortion, declared that “the Academy raised questions about the usefulness of expanded distribution of KI.”3

HHS Secretary Michael Leavitt responded with a letter to NRC Chairman Nils Diaz4, dated March 27, 2006, which though couched in superficially civil terms was an acid rebuke that made clear that NRC had quoted snippets of the NAS report out of context to produce a misleading impression. He quoted the actual words of the NAS report back to Diaz: “A specific incident might call for protective actions to be restricted to a small part of the EPZ or require that they be implemented beyond the EPZ as well,” boldfacing the last 11 words for emphasis.5 Secretary Leavitt’s letter plainly did not faze the NRC, however, which in an April 10, 2006, letter to Senator George Voinovich, responding to questions arising from a recent oversight hearing, repeated the assertion that the NAS supported the NRC position on the undesirability of stockpiling KI beyond ten miles, and attached the Kane letter.6 (The answer came in response to a question from Sen. Isakson.) By now, there was no excuse for inaccuracy. If the staff had somehow contrived to misread the NAS report at the time it wrote to Dr. Claypool in November 2005, any such misunderstanding had been cleared up by Secretary Leavitt, in his letter of March 27, 2006.

With his declared intention of implementing the law and providing KI in the 10 to 20- mile radius, Secretary Leavitt was on a collision course with the NRC and the nuclear industry. The White House was persuaded to forget or ignore what it had said in 2002 about eliminating the “artificial 10 mile barrier” to the distribution of this “crucial” and “critical” drug. On July 2, 2007, President Bush signed an order that stripped Leavitt of his authority over the law and transferred it to the NRC and to his own Science Advisor, Dr. Marburger, who would have the final say on whether to implement the law.

At Marburger’s request, a technical evaluation paper on KI was prepared by the Potassium Iodide (KI) Subcommittee of the Federal Radiological Preparedness Coordinating Committee (FRPCC), an interagency group. On October 23, 2007, FRPCC Chair Vanessa Quinn, of FEMA, transmitted the paper to Marburger, with a cover letter that made plain the leading role of the NRC staff in the effort.7

Marburger’s decision, issued on January 22, 2008, predictably found no need to implement the 2002 law. This is not the place to get into the legal question of whether his refusal to do so was consistent with Congressional intent and a proper reading of the statute, though I have strong views on that point; I would like instead to stay with the technical and policy bases for his decision.

Perhaps the most extraordinary thing about the Marburger decision was that the President’s Science Advisor felt able to issue a 13-page decision on a drug for the prevention of cancer without ever using the word “cancer.” Instead, he referred euphemistically to “adverse thyroid conditions.” From the chief scientist in the United States Government, this defies comprehension. Is it conceivable that any Government official would issue a decision on the use of Sabin vaccine without ever employing the word “polio”? Of course not. But when the subject is KI and thyroid cancer, this happens again and again.8

Let us now look at the important question of what exactly Marburger was relying on. At p. 12 of his decision, he wrote:

Some concerned citizens groups criticize meteorological analyses that assume a wind that blows constantly in a single direction, suggesting that variable trajectory models would better account for complex wind patterns, leading to accident consequences extending beyond current projections. In fact the opposite is true. The NRC and FEMA outline their strategies for emergency planning in the 2002 study Assessment of the Use of Potassium Iodide (KI) as a Supplemental Public Protective Action during Severe Reactor Accidents (NUREG 1633)fn, which addresses the effect of meteorology on accident consequences, specifically its effect on where the offsite release goes....

The footnote included a citation to this document, which states on its cover page that it was “Prepared by P. A. Milligan/NRR.”9

What Marburger evidently did not know was that officially, this document was in the dumpster. In November 2002, the Commission had decided, on a 4-1 vote, with Commissioner Dicus the lone dissenter, that it was unfit for publication, and that no more resources should be spent on bringing it up to standard. Commissioners’ comments on it were not gentle. Commissioner McGaffigan noted that although it was the 9/11 attacks that had spurred states’ interest in KI stockpiling, “the draft NUREG is silent on the subject.” Commissioner Diaz wrote:

The draft NUREG now before us is the third version we have been asked to review since mid1998. (The first version was withdrawn by the Commission and we disapproved the second one.) ... In my opinion, it’s time to pull the plug.10

I do not know where Dr. Marburger got his copy of the draft NUREG – perhaps it was not from the NRC at all – but surely he could and should have been warned by his NRC advisor that the document had been rejected by the Commissioners and therefore had no place in his decision.

Relying as it did on an invalid document, Marburger’s decision must therefore be considered at least partially tainted. Its pernicious effects, moreover, have extended far beyond the question of implementing the 2002 law. After its issuance, the interagency group that maintains the Strategic National Stockpile removed KI from the arsenal of protective drugs that comprise that stockpile, to which it had been added after 9/11.11 I am told that the group felt that it had no choice, in light of the Marburger decision.

At a time at which in every other sphere of life, America is increasing its preparedness against terrorism, the NRC has thus been instrumental in diminishing our country’s preparedness to deal with acts of nuclear terrorism or other nuclear catastrophes. It must be borne in mind what the consequences of insufficient preparedness will be, if such a disaster occurs: an increased incidence of thyroid cancer, especially in children who were very young, or still in the womb, at the time of exposure.12

I would be the last person to argue that KI is a panacea for protection against radiological disasters. Indeed, in the early days of the Fukushima accident, I went on television in Seattle to say that it would “irresponsible scaremongering” to suggest that anyone in the U.S. should now be taking KI to protect against the releases from Japan. But it is likewise irresponsible in the extreme not to have adequate supplies on hand in this country, for accidents or acts of terrorism occurring here, and of all the possible reasons for failing to stockpile it, protecting the public image of the nuclear power industry is surely the rock-bottom worst.13

The real question is whether KI would be useful in the event of a major release, for if not, there is no point in having it, regardless of its low cost. The opponents of KI stockpiling have long maintained that KI is unnecessary, because the whole problem of thyroid protection can be solved by instructing people to refrain from drinking milk after a major nuclear release. For example, in the early days of the Fukushima accident, a March 13 article in the New York Times quoted a radiation expert at Columbia, Dr. David Brenner:

Dr. Brenner said the iodine pills were protective, but were “a bit of a myth” because their use is based on the belief that the risk is from inhaling radioactive iodine. Actually, he said, 98 percent of people’s exposure comes from milk and other dairy products.

“The way radioactive iodine gets into human beings is an indirect route,” he said. “It falls to the ground, cows eat it and make milk with radioactive iodine, and you get it from drinking the milk. You get very little from inhaling it. The way to prevent it is just to stop people from drinking the milk.” He said that the epidemic of thyroid cancer around Chernobyl could have been prevented if the government had immediately stopped people from drinking milk.

I have no idea where Dr. Brenner got this 98% figure; most sources I have seen think that 70 or 80 percent of the Chernobyl exposures came from the milk pathway, not more. At any rate, once I-131 began showing up in Tokyo’s tap water, I wrote a letter to the New York Times, published on March 26, that was implicitly a slap at Dr. Brenner and the reporter who had so uncritically relied on him.14

Whether for that reason or some other, Dr. Brenner’s public position on KI changed almost instantaneously. On the afternoon of the same day, March 26, a glowing profile of him, “Countering Fears With Just the Facts,” was posted on the New York Times website (it appeared in print on March 29), which included the following:

Potassium iodide pills are widely recommended to protect the thyroid gland from radioactive iodine, but Dr. Brenner said it was better just to stop drinking milk until the threat had passed.

His message changed, however, when radioactive iodine turned up in tap water in Tokyo. Though the public was advised that babies, children and pregnant women should not drink the water, Dr. Brenner conceded that some exposure might still be hard to avoid, and that using potassium iodide was a reasonable precaution.

“I’ve been maybe a little overstrong in saying that potassium iodide doesn’t have a role to play,” he said. “But usually the problem is milk. To me, the levels in water came as a surprise.”

But is it really a “myth,” as Dr. Brenner suggested in the earlier article, that inhalation of I-131 after a radiological release is a danger?

Nearly 20 years ago, the Environmental Protection Agency issued a “Manual of Protective Action Guides and Protective Actions for Nuclear Incidents,” EPA 400-R-92-001 (May 1992)15, that included the following, at p. 5-20: “If a major release of radioiodine or respirable particulate materials occurs, inhalation dose will be the controlling pathway.” [Emphasis added.] It recommended, among other things, consideration of the use of KI. It made the point that though evacuation in an emergency is the ideal option, you can get a radiation dose while evacuating, and that automobiles offer only about 10% shielding.

The Food and Drug Administration issued guidance on KI in 2001.16 At p. 8, after noting that the post-Chernobyl exposures to radioiodines came “largely” from the milk pathway, it said:

In this or similar accidents, for those residing in the immediate area of the accident or otherwise directly exposed to the radioactive plume, inhalation of radioiodines may be a significant contributor to individual and population exposures. ... The risk depends on factors such as the magnitude and rate of the radioiodine release, wind direction and other atmospheric conditions, and thus may affect people both near and far from the accident site. [Emphasis added.]

There was also a useful report from the International Atomic Energy Agency in 2002.17 At p. 52, the joint IAEA/WHO committee that prepared it makes the point that “iodine prophylaxis is intended primarily as a protective action against inhalation,” in the short term, and suggests amending the International Basic Safety Standards to reflect this. [Emphasis added.]

In 2003, the Medical Preparedness and Response Sub-Group of the Department of Homeland Security Working Group on Radiological Dispersal Device Preparedness prepared a report saying that if terrorists detonated a radiological dispersal device containing radioiodine or a 10-kiloton improvised nuclear weapon, millions of doses of KI might be needed to deal with the fallout. It said, at p. 62: “Urgent consideration for giving KI to pregnant women (especially 2nd and 3rd trimesters) and children is appropriate.”18

On June 30, 2011, in response to a Freedom of Information Act request, the NRC placed a large number of documents relating to the Fukushima accident onto the ADAMS system.19 They include a March 25, 2011, email from Elmo Collins, Regional Administrator in NRC’s Region IV, to Linda Howell, as he prepared to leave for Japan. The subject line is “Japan,” and it reads, in its entirety, as follows: “I’ll need to pick up some KI and make sure I have my dosimetry as needed – what dose meter would be good for me to take? Thanks, Elmo.”

Of course Mr. Collins provided himself with KI, and rightly so. NRC personnel are not reckless when it comes to their own safety or that of their children, nor should they be.20 But if ever there is a nuclear catastrophe in this country, whether caused by terrorism or an accident, and Americans living more than 10 miles from a nuclear power plant discover that their children have been inadequately protected against radioactive iodine owing to the NRC’s unremitting, no-holds-barred battle to prevent or limit KI stockpiling – a battle that has included misrepresenting, including to Congress, the findings of a Congressionally mandated study of the issue by the National Academies of Science, and working to ensure that the sensible recommendations of the NAS were rejected by the President – the consequences would be devastating, not only for the affected children, but also for the NRC.

What would the country say when it learned that KI had been removed from the Strategic National Stockpile, with the result that we are less well prepared to cope with the medical effects of a nuclear disaster than we were a few years ago? The NRC Chairman and Commissioners would probably find themselves having to explain their actions not only to Congressional committees but to grand juries. Under those circumstances, it is hard to imagine that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission would even survive for long, at least under that name.21 More likely, it would be abolished and replaced by some new regulatory body, as is currently happening in Japan.22

Press reports indicate that radioiodine from Fukushima has turned up in air, water, and foodstuffs far from the damaged nuclear plants.23To continue to insist that KI stockpiling in this country be limited to a 10 mile radius around nuclear plants, and then only in states which request the drug, would be irresponsible beyond measure. The sooner the NRC faces up to this reality, the better, and not only for the American public, but also for its own sake. The Task Force should be told to address the KI issue thoroughly and promptly. In addition, the Inspector General should be asked to investigate the staff’s handling of KI matters in recent years, including, but not limited to, the appearance of NUREG-1633 in the Marburger decision, the accuracy of the 2005 Kane letter to HHS, and the 2006 response to Senator Voinovich.24

What I have described in this memorandum are facts as I understand them, as informed by nearly 30 years of observing the NRC’s handling of the KI issue. It has been prepared in a spirit of trying to be of service both to the American people and to the NRC. In this case, dealing as it does with a medication, a quotation from Gotthold Lessing’s 18th Century play “Nathan the Wise” is particularly apposite: “It is medicine, not poison, that I am handing you.”

/s/

Peter Crane, Counsel for Special Projects (retired)

cc: Senator George Voinovich
Senator Johnny Isakson
Senator Thomas Carper
Representative Ed Markey
Representative Henry Waxman

Appendix -- My Service with NRC

For the benefit of Commissioners who do not know me, I joined the NRC in early 1975, when it was 10 weeks old, and spent 27 years serving the agency in various capacities. I had been hired as a legal assistant, GS-12, by Commissioner (later Chairman) Marcus A. Rowden. In those days, it was standard for Commissioners to have two assistants, one technical and one legal, and two secretaries. (The Chairman at the time had a staff of seven: one technical assistant for reactors, another for materials, a legal assistant, an executive assistant, and three secretaries.) For the first year I was there, however, Commissioner Rowden made do with just a single assistant, me, until he added Hugh Thompson as a technical assistant in 1976.

I moved to the Office of General Counsel on the expiration of Chairman Rowden’s term in 1977. Over the next 24 years (there was a one-year break in service, during which I was an administrative judge in Micronesia), I defended the NRC’s actions in court with vigor and conviction. My first case, in the D.C. Circuit, involved the Mark II containment; my last, in the Sixth Circuit, resulted in a decision upholding the NRC regulatory scheme for approving the design of dry casks for spent fuel storage.

In the Ninth Circuit, some 30 years ago, I briefed, argued, and won a case defending the adequacy of the fixes that the NRC ordered in Babcock and Wilcox reactors after the Three Mile Island accident. At one point in the 1980's, I served very briefly as Acting General Counsel, in which capacity I called on the Solicitor General, the late Rex Lee, to ask him to take to the Supreme Court a case which I had briefed, argued, and lost in the D.C. Circuit. It involved the NRC’s refusal to treat the “psychological impacts” of the resumed operation of Three Mile Island Unit 1 as environmental impacts within the meaning of the National Environmental Policy Act. Lee was fully in accord. He took the case to the Supreme Court, which reversed the D.C. Circuit and upheld the NRC position on a unanimous vote.

I was made Counsel for Special Projects in the mid-1980's and retired with that title in 1999. In 2001, I was brought on as a contractor to write speeches for then Chairman Meserve, and I continued in that function under Chairman Diaz until 2005. During my long tenure with NRC, I was privileged, in addition to my usual legal duties, to write speeches, testimony, and/or personal statements for Chairmen Rowden, Palladino, Hendrie, Zech, Jackson, Selin, Meserve, and Diaz, including Senate confirmation testimony for three of those just named.

While at NRC, I was invited to speak at a United Nations conference in Moscow in 1997 on responding to man-made disasters. In 1998, in my private capacity, I was a speaker at a conference at Cambridge University in England on the U.S. Government’s handling of the KI issue. The conference was co-sponsored by the university, the European Commission, the National Cancer Institute, and DOE. The paper I presented may be found in published form in the 1999 volume Radiation and Thyroid Cancer, edited by G. Thomas, A. Karaoglou, and E. D. Williams.

'Colossal blunder' on radioactive cattle feed / Govt officials admit responsibility for foul-up that let tainted beef enter nation's food supply

2011-08-25T14:47:00.001-04:00

From the Daily Yomiuri Online:

Officials of the Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Ministry have admitted they did not consider the possibility of cattle ingesting straw contaminated by radioactive substances emitted from the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.

"This is nothing less than a colossal blunder by our ministry. It was beyond our expectations that straw would become a source of radioactive contamination," a ministry official said.

A total of 143 beef cattle suspected of being contaminated with radioactive cesium after ingesting straw that was stored outdoors have been shipped from Fukushima Prefecture and distributed to wholesalers, retailers and consumers in various prefectures.

Livestock farmers and others in the meat industry have attacked the government for its failure to prevent the problem.

84 more Fukushima cows found shipped

2011-08-25T14:40:00.001-04:00

From the Japan Times:

A further 84 cows shipped from five beef cattle farms in Fukushima Prefecture were fed with hay containing high levels of radioactive cesium, the prefectural government said Saturday.
The cows were shipped between March 28 and July 13 to slaughterhouses in five prefectures — Miyagi, Fukushima, Yamagata, Saitama and Tokyo — and the Fukushima Prefectural Government has asked municipalities to check whether that meat has been distributed.
Fifty-three of the cows were sent to Tokyo, 19 to Fukushima Prefecture, eight to Kawaguchi in Saitama Prefecture, two to Yamagata Prefecture and two to Sendai in Miyagi Prefecture.

Siren Problems at Three Mile Island

2011-08-10T17:54:00.001-04:00

2001-2011
tmia.com

From October 5-9, 2001, “Licensee sirens in Lancaster County were inoperable October 5 through October 9, 2001, due to a radio transmitter being deenergized at the county facility. The transmitter is part of the siren actuation system. This issue is unresolved pending further investigation into the lines of ownership and maintenance of the actuation system.” (IR 50-289/01-07).
On January 11, 2002 , Siren testing at TMI encountered numerous problems: all sirens failed in York County and one siren failed in Lancaster County. AmerGen attributed to computer malfunctions.
On March 3, 2002, a siren malfunctioned in York County again. During TMI’s annual test on on January 30, 2002, all 34 sirens in York County, located within ten-miles of the plant, failed to activate.
On June 25, 2002, “...station emergency preparedness personnel discovered that the emergency planning siren base station at the site, was unable to communicate with the off site sirens, due to external radio frequency noise in the area.” (IR-50-277/02-05; 50-278/02- 05)
On December 12, 2002, TMI sirens malfunctioned in Cumberland and York counties. In Dauphin County, 28 sirens malfunctioned due to the “inadvertent” discharge of the “space bar” by a computer operator (Refer to June 22, August 15 and October 5-9, 2001 and January 11, March 3 2002, for related problems.)
On July 28, 2010, the NRC issued a report of an inspection at the Three Mile Island plant for the quarterly period ending June 30.
The NRC said it found no findings of significance. However, it noted that the TMI plant operator identified a violation that was determined to be of very low safety significance. The NRC said it would treat the violation as a non-cited violation.
The issued stemmed from the TMI Emergency Plan and the plant paging system. The report said that plant operator Exelon began testing its on-site speakers in March 2010. A total of 301 out of 405 speakers were tested, and of those tested, 108 had identified deficiencies, the report said. “Contrary to the TMI Emergency Plan, the 108 speakers would not provide immediate warning and instruction to on-site personnel during an emergency,” the report said. “Upon discovery, Exelon issued a standing order to issue blow horns to operations and security staff to notify people in areas that would need to be evacuated during an emergency.“ The report added, “The finding is of very low safety significance because prompt compensatory measures were taken upon discovery.”
June 23, 2011, Three Mile Island's emergency sirens sounded at 12:15 p.m. Thursday as part of an annual test -- but it didn't work everywhere. The 96 sirens, which cover five counties and are within a 10- mile radius of TMI, were set to sound for three minutes. They sounded everywhere except in Lancaster County.
Officials ran another test, this time just in Lancaster County, at 1:15 p.m. At that time, the sirens did work in Lancaster County. (WGAL)
A Lancaster County EMA official said Lancaster County and another county pressed the siren test button simultaneously and the system did not register the Lancaster County test.
July 14, 2011, A Three Mile Island warning siren sounded accidentally on Thursday afternoon, according to Dauphin County officials.
The TMI siren at 2nd and Hanover streets in Hummelstown inadvertently sounded at 1:19 p.m. It lasted for fewer than 30 seconds, according to Stephen Libhart, Director of the Dauphin County EMA.
Libhart says Exelon will repair or replace any components of the siren if necessary. (WGAL)

U.S. Nuclear Power After Fukushima

2011-08-10T17:07:00.001-04:00

The Union of Concerned Scientists on U.S. Nuclear Power after Fukushima:

Summary of Report

Full Recomendations

NRC’s Japan Task Force Recommends Changes To Defense In Depth Measures At Nuclear Plants; Cites Station Blackout, Seismic, Flooding And Spent Fuel Poo

2011-08-10T17:02:00.001-04:00

From the NRC Report:

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s Japan Task Force has proposed improvements in areas ranging from loss of power to earthquakes, flooding, spent fuel pools, venting and preparedness, and said a “patchwork of regulatory requirements” developed “piece-by-piece over the decades” should be replaced with a “logical, systematic and coherent regulatory framework” to further bolster reactor safety in the United States.

The report has been given to the five members of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, who are responsible for making decisions regarding the Task Force’s recommendations.

While declaring that “a sequence of events like the Fukushima accident is unlikely to occur in the United States” and that plants can be operated safely, the Task Force also recognized that “an accident involving core damage and uncontrolled release of radioactivity to the environment, even one without significant health consequences, is inherently unacceptable.” Thus, the Task Force developed a comprehensive set of 12 recommendations – many with both short and long term elements – to increase safety and redefine what level of protection of public health is regarded as adequate. It also recommended additional study of some issues.

Download PDF

Why Fukushima Can Happen Here: What the NRC and Nuclear Industry Dont Want You to Know.

2011-08-10T16:55:00.000-04:00

The well-known safety flaws of Mark 1 Boiling Water Reactors have gained significant attention in the wake of the four reactor accidents at Fukushima, but a more insidious danger lurks. In this video nuclear engineers Arnie Gundersen and David Lochbaum discuss how the US regulators and regulatory process have left Americans unprotected. They walk, step-by-step, through the events of the Japanese meltdowns and consider how the knowledge gained from Fukushima applies to the nuclear industry worldwide. They discuss "points of vulnerability" in American plants, some of which have been unaddressed by the NRC for three decades. Finally, they concluded that an accident with the consequences of Fukushima could happen in the US.

With more radioactive Cesium in the Pilgrim Nuclear Plant's spent fuel pool than was released by Fukushima, Chernobyl, and all nuclear bomb testing combined, Gundersen and Lockbaum ask why there is not a single procedure in place to deal with a crisis in the fuel pool? These and more safety questions are discussed in this forum presented by the C-10 Foundation at the Boston Public Library. Special thanks to Herb Moyer for the excellent video and Geoff Sutton for the frame-by-frame graphics of the Unit 3 explosion.

Watch Video

Shale commission report drills deeper

2011-08-10T16:44:00.002-04:00

From The Morning Call:

The attention of the Capitol's political class is now focused on July 15. That's the day that a special Marcellus Shale study commission, led by Lt. Gov. Jim Cawley, is scheduled to vote on recommendations on how to address the local infrastructure and environmental impact of Pennsylvania's booming natural gas industry.
The panel's final report, due to be released a week later on July 22, will presumably answer the one question that's been on the minds of political observers and policy-makers for months: Will the commission, which is top-heavy with industry interests, recommend that lawmakers pass a Marcellus Shale impact fee or severance tax?
Its overall findings — which also are expected to address possible changes to state regulations and local ordinances — will shape the public debate for months to come. But it may be the impact fee question that looms largest.