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NRC cluelss to leak extent at DB



DB "assumed" the leak was small & we all know what 'assume' means.



Why was DB management  so intent on putting short term economic gains

ahead of safety???



norm





Article published December 5, 2002

DAVIS-BESSE

Regulators clueless to leak extent

After year, NRC explains delay in shutdown order



By TOM HENRY

BLADE STAFF WRITER



OAK HARBOR - Senior Nuclear Regulatory Commission officials suspected

there might be minor leakage on

the reactor head at the Davis-Besse nuclear plant, but they rejected a

staff recommendation that the plant shut

down immediately late last year because they considered the public risk

"acceptably small," according to a

report released yesterday.



In hindsight, the agency has repeatedly admitted, it was caught off

guard by the magnitude of the what was

found during an inspection after the reactor was shut down Feb. 16 for

refueling: the most serious corrosion

ever seen on a reactor head in the United States.



The extent of the damage was so severe that the NRC and other nuclear

experts have since concluded that

deterioration at Davis-Besse was the nation’s closest brush with a major

nuclear accident since Three Mile

Island in 1979.



Davis-Besse’s carbon steel reactor head had been eaten away in

one-half-foot area to the point that only a

stainless steel liner less than a quarter of an inch thick had prevented

a disastrous leak of the reactor’s

radioactive steam into the concrete containment building - the last line

of defense protecting the public.



The discovery was made almost three weeks after FirstEnergy Corp. shut

down the plant for refueling on Feb.

16, a date which utility officials had successfully negotiated after

being threatened last November with what

would have been the government’s first emergency shutdown order of a

nuclear plant since 1987.



Now, a year after the decision to allow the utility to keep operating

until early 2002 - and after a great deal of

prodding by anti-nuclear activists, some members of Ohio’s congressional

delegation and concerned residents

- the NRC has put in writing its technical justification for making that

compromise.



The report shows NRC officials suspected there might be some type of

minor leakage with one or two of the 69

reactor-head nozzles. Uranium–enriched fuel rods are lowered and

raised in the reactor to control the

nuclear fission process.



But the NRC report contends the agency did not have a clue as to the

extent of the corrosion from boric acid

leaking out of the nozzles and onto the reactor head.



"To their credit, they based it [the report] on what they knew then,"

said David Lochbaum, a nationally

recognized nuclear-safety engineer for the Union of Concerned

Scientists..



But he added yesterday’s report did little to convince him that the NRC

lived up to its mandate to ignore

economic considerations and hold safety tantamount.



Mr. Lochbaum is one of several activists long convinced that

FirstEnergy’s intensive lobbying efforts in

Washington last fall persuaded the NRC to back off an immediate shut

down as recommended by the staff.



Instead, the NRC let Davis-Besse keep running until Feb. 16, a date they

view as an arbitrary halfway mark

between the proposed Dec. 31 shutdown date and the normal refueling

outage cycle that the company had

originally planned for March 30.



"I think they just didn’t have the spine to back up their order to shut

down the plant," Mr. Lochbaum said.



Paul Gunter, spokesman for the Washington-based Nuclear Information and

Resource Service, agreed.



"These are the same excuses the agency offered previously," said Mr.

Gunter, who lobbied the NRC for months

to put its rationale in writing.



The NRC’s criminal investigation unit, as well as its Office of

Inspector General, are among those still trying to

determine what the NRC knew in advance of the shutdown and whether

FirstEnergy illegally withheld

photographs of the corrosion and other information so that the plant

could remain open. FirstEnergy has denied

such assertions.



Article published December 5, 2002

DAVIS-BESSE

Regulators clueless to leak extent

After year, NRC explains delay in shutdown order



By TOM HENRY

BLADE STAFF WRITER



OAK HARBOR - Senior Nuclear Regulatory Commission officials suspected

there might be minor leakage on

the reactor head at the Davis-Besse nuclear plant, but they rejected a

staff recommendation that the plant shut

down immediately late last year because they considered the public risk

"acceptably small," according to a

report released yesterday.



In hindsight, the agency has repeatedly admitted, it was caught off

guard by the magnitude of the what was

found during an inspection after the reactor was shut down Feb. 16 for

refueling: the most serious corrosion

ever seen on a reactor head in the United States.



The extent of the damage was so severe that the NRC and other nuclear

experts have since concluded that

deterioration at Davis-Besse was the nation’s closest brush with a major

nuclear accident since Three Mile

Island in 1979.



Davis-Besse’s carbon steel reactor head had been eaten away in

one-half-foot area to the point that only a

stainless steel liner less than a quarter of an inch thick had prevented

a disastrous leak of the reactor’s

radioactive steam into the concrete containment building - the last line

of defense protecting the public.



The discovery was made almost three weeks after FirstEnergy Corp. shut

down the plant for refueling on Feb.

16, a date which utility officials had successfully negotiated after

being threatened last November with what

would have been the government’s first emergency shutdown order of a

nuclear plant since 1987.



Now, a year after the decision to allow the utility to keep operating

until early 2002 - and after a great deal of

prodding by anti-nuclear activists, some members of Ohio’s congressional

delegation and concerned residents

- the NRC has put in writing its technical justification for making that

compromise.



The report shows NRC officials suspected there might be some type of

minor leakage with one or two of the 69

reactor-head nozzles. Uranium–enriched fuel rods are lowered and

raised in the reactor to control the

nuclear fission process.



But the NRC report contends the agency did not have a clue as to the

extent of the corrosion from boric acid

leaking out of the nozzles and onto the reactor head.



"To their credit, they based it [the report] on what they knew then,"

said David Lochbaum, a nationally

recognized nuclear-safety engineer for the Union of Concerned

Scientists..



But he added yesterday’s report did little to convince him that the NRC

lived up to its mandate to ignore

economic considerations and hold safety tantamount.



Mr. Lochbaum is one of several activists long convinced that

FirstEnergy’s intensive lobbying efforts in

Washington last fall persuaded the NRC to back off an immediate shut

down as recommended by the staff.



Instead, the NRC let Davis-Besse keep running until Feb. 16, a date they

view as an arbitrary halfway mark

between the proposed Dec. 31 shutdown date and the normal refueling

outage cycle that the company had

originally planned for March 30.



"I think they just didn’t have the spine to back up their order to shut

down the plant," Mr. Lochbaum said.



Paul Gunter, spokesman for the Washington-based Nuclear Information and

Resource Service, agreed.



"These are the same excuses the agency offered previously," said Mr.

Gunter, who lobbied the NRC for months

to put its rationale in writing.



The NRC’s criminal investigation unit, as well as its Office of

Inspector General, are among those still trying to

determine what the NRC knew in advance of the shutdown and whether

FirstEnergy illegally withheld

photographs of the corrosion and other information so that the plant

could remain open. FirstEnergy has denied

such assertions.



Richard Wilkins, FirstEnergy spokesman, said the utility knew it had a

leak but that it was "under technical

specifications" allowed by the NRC.



"We assumed the risk to be minimal," he said.



Another internal probe by a special NRC panel called the "Lessons

Learned Task Force" said in a report

released in October that the agency failed to live up to a commitment to

document its reasoning for the

February shutdown date.



NRC spokesman Jan Strasma had little to say when asked why the

explanation took a year to put in writing

other than to state that yesterday’s report was not in response to any

single occurrence.



"When we notified them [FirstEnergy] we were extending the time period,

we said we would be providing the

NRC’s rationale in separate correspondence. That was never done. So this

completes the commitment we had

in that letter and also responds to requests from various stakeholders,"

Mr. Strasma said.



NRC staff members had wanted Davis-Besse shut no later than Dec. 31

because they feared Davis-Besse

might have a problem much more subtle and different than a thinned-out

reactor head: tiny, circumferential

cracks in reactor-head nozzles.



Those type of cracks had not been seen in the industry until the spring

of 2001, when they were found at a South

Carolina plant manufactured by the same company that designed

Davis-Besse.



They are potentially more troublesome than vertical cracks because of

their potential to weaken nozzles to the

point they could pop off the reactor head like champagne corks, allowing

radioactive steam to fill up the

containment building, officials have said.



As it turned out, Davis-Besse had several axial cracks and at least two

of the more dangerous circumferential

type, according to laboratory results and government records.



The plant was one of a dozen identified by an industry group a year ago

as being most susceptible to having

circumferential cracks in its reactor-head nozzles.









Another internal probe by a special NRC panel called the "Lessons

Learned Task Force" said in a report

released in October that the agency failed to live up to a commitment to

document its reasoning for the

February shutdown date.



NRC spokesman Jan Strasma had little to say when asked why the

explanation took a year to put in writing

other than to state that yesterday’s report was not in response to any

single occurrence.



"When we notified them [FirstEnergy] we were extending the time period,

we said we would be providing the

NRC’s rationale in separate correspondence. That was never done. So this

completes the commitment we had

in that letter and also responds to requests from various stakeholders,"

Mr. Strasma said.



NRC staff members had wanted Davis-Besse shut no later than Dec. 31

because they feared Davis-Besse

might have a problem much more subtle and different than a thinned-out

reactor head: tiny, circumferential

cracks in reactor-head nozzles.



Those type of cracks had not been seen in the industry until the spring

of 2001, when they were found at a South

Carolina plant manufactured by the same company that designed

Davis-Besse.



They are potentially more troublesome than vertical cracks because of

their potential to weaken nozzles to the

point they could pop off the reactor head like champagne corks, allowing

radioactive steam to fill up the

containment building, officials have said.



As it turned out, Davis-Besse had several axial cracks and at least two

of the more dangerous circumferential

type, according to laboratory results and government records.



The plant was one of a dozen identified by an industry group a year ago

as being most susceptible to having

circumferential cracks in its reactor-head nozzles.







--

Coalition for Peace and Justice and the UNPLUG Salem Campaign; 321 Barr

Ave., Linwood, NJ 08221; 609-601-8583 or 609-601-8537;

ncohen12@comcast.net  UNPLUG SALEM WEBSITE:

http://www.unplugsalem.org/  COALITION FOR PEACE AND JUSTICE WEBSITE:

http://www.coalitionforpeaceandjustice.org   The Coalition for Peace and

Justice is a chapter of Peace Action.

"First they ignore you; Then they laugh at you; Then they fight you;

Then you win. (Gandhi) "Why walk when you can fly?"  (Mary Chapin

Carpenter)





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