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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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