Nuke plant was not required to inspect all pipes

Comment: can you believe the NRC did not require Nuke Plants to inspect pipes, pipes which contaminated water runs thru, back out to a lake or the ocean!! Leaks are a common problem with Nuke Plants, fish kills are too! The whole Nuke cycle ruins our water, air & land!!

May 7, 2009

By TODD B. BATES
Staff Writer

Nuclear regulators did not require the Oyster Creek nuclear power plant in Lacey to inspect all of its buried pipes — two of which leaked radioactive tritium — before renewing the facility's license for 20 years, according to a federal spokesman.

Oyster Creek's buried piping inspection program is "not designed to be a 100 percent inspection, according to Neil A. Sheehan, a spokesman for the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Four monitoring wells at the plant are contaminated with up to about 300 times government limits for tritium in water. Tritium — found naturally in the environment and generated by nuclear plants — is a weak isotope of hydrogen that poses a cancer risk.

The tritium has remained on site and is no threat to public or employee health, plant, federal and state officials have said.

Exelon, which owns Oyster Creek, inspected at least one of the two pipes with holes before its operating license was renewed, Sheehan said.

But it looks like the pipe was inspected in a different spot than where the hole was found, he said in an e-mail.

Plant officials discovered holes in the pipes, which carry radioactive water in a closed loop at the plant, after the license was renewed last month.

Within 10 years after a license is renewed, plants will do one or both of the following, according to Sheehan:

— Inspect portions of piping with a high likelihood of corrosion problems or piping with a history of corrosion.

— Take advantage of ongoing maintenance opportunities and inspect portions of piping if and when excavation work is done adjacent to it.

— Neither officials nor plant spokesman David Benson had a figure Friday on the amount of piping at the plant.

— Some piping was inspected before the license was renewed, according to Sheehan. — Oyster Creek's aging-management program is based on the results of inspections and operating experience at all 11 Exelon nuclear plants, Benson said.

It "isn't a static aging-management program," he said. "We use data from all the plants across the fleet to ensure every station has the most recent analysis and information for their programs."

Meanwhile, the "cause of the current leakage" at Oyster Creek has yet to be determined, according to Sheehan.

Leaks from the two pipes were stopped as soon as they were found, but "we're still checking" on whether there are other leaks, Benson said.

Enforcement officials in the state Department of Environmental Protection began investigating Friday whether Oyster Creek violated environmental laws regarding the tritium contamination, according to DEP spokeswoman Elaine Makatura.

She said she could not speculate on the fines the DEP could issue in this case.

Last year, Oyster Creek agreed to pay the state $67,859 for a fish kill in 2007 and another in 2006. The plant also reached a $1 million settlement with the state following a 2002 fish kill.

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