Nuclear industry ignores red flags

In June, the Associated Press (AP) released a four-part series of investigative reports on the re-licensing of nuclear power plants. The findings are dismal: Nuclear reactors rarely comply with the original safety and operating standards set by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Instead, 30- to 40-year-old reactors continue running as regulators adjust the safety standards to accommodate the nuclear industry or neglect to enforce standards at all.The country began building and using nuclear power plants in the 1960s and 1970s. The majority of the existing 104 plants in the United States were built during this time and intended to be replaced with improved models before the expiration of the 40-year licenses of operation. That never happened. The 1979 accident at Three Mile Island, massive cost overruns, massive debt and high interest rates ended new construction. In the meaintime, the population of America is increasing around the previously remote areas that plants were built in to seclude them from the general public. In the past 30 years, the population around a 10-mile radius of plants has increased by 62 percent. Sen. Robert P. Casey Jr. stated in a letter to the U.S. government accountability office, “Many nuclear plants were intentionally built away from population and economic centers. As our country has grown, more of our citizens live in proximity of those plants. These new demographic realities require a reexamination of our security protocols.”This re-examination has yet to commence and 66 of the 104 units are being relicensed for 20 more years with little attention to growing safety issues. The safety concerns reported by the Associated Press are brittle vessels that are prone to cracking; already cracked tubing; corroded piping underground, which is hard to replace; and leaking valves. The malfunction of any one of these parts threatens to release harmful radioactivity into the air, ground and water. The NRC continues to adapt safety regulations to accommodate power plants operating past their original expiration dates. In 1999 for example, the NRC changed the rule that allowed leaky valves to release radioactive steam at a rate no more than 11.5 cubic feet an hour, upping the release rate to 200 cubic feet an hour. Even with this large increase, many plants are still unable to meet the standards. The Associate Press recently found that a site in Georgia had radioactive steam leaking from its old pipes at a rate of 574 cubic feet an hour — 50 times the original limit.Currently the public’s biggest concern is tritium, which has already leaked from three-fourths of the nation’s nuclear power plants. The substance is a radioactive form of hydrogen that, while not nearly as dangerous as other radioactive materials the plants could potentially release, raises the risk of cancer in those exposed to it. Tritium is leaked through the ground and poses the greatest risk to the public when it enters the drinking water supply. While tritium has not leaked into any public water supplies, three sites have contaminated water that has entered into the drinking water wells of homes neighboring the plants. The AP findings got the attention of Democratic Reps. Edward J. Markey (Massachusetts) and Peter Welch (Vermont), who asked the congressional auditing arm, the Government Accountability Office, to conduct its own research into why nuclear power plant operators haven’t figured out how to quickly detect leaks.Independent Rep. Bernie Sanders (Vermont) took issue with VermontYankee attempting to block its relicensing after tritium leaks were discovered 125 times the EPA drinking water standard. The NRC has ignored Vermont’s lawful block on relicensing and granted the plant a license extension of 20 years. The NRC and the nuclear power industry deny the AP findings. But the AP’s investigative series is shining a much needed spotlight on the problem. As nuclear power plants continue to age without repair or safety updates, public concern about the issue will increase. Rep. Sanders says, “Safety at our nuclear plants should be the top priority at the NRC, particularly after what we saw happen in Japan. They should not answer to the nuclear industry; the NRC must answer to the public.” The NRC is, after all, a taxpayer funded government agency whose purpose is to oversee and regulate the nuclear power industry. Sage Hahn is a recent graduate of Northwestern Regional High School in Winsted. She is attending Bennington College in Vermont in the fall. She has worked as an intern in the Office of the Community Lawyer for the past three years.