TRENTON
– The Stop the Renewal of Oyster Creek Coalition announced the filing
of an amended petition before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC)
today after technical experts in the License Renewal Branch of the NRC
confirmed that rusting of the safety-critical containment liner at the
Oyster Creek Nuclear Power Station is a major concern.
NRC
revealed the new information in a recent public telephone conference
call and meeting with citizens' groups and the Nuclear Energy Institute
(NEI), a nuclear industry group.
“The
NRC conceded that even when fully functional the reactor design used at
Oyster Creek has less containment ability than would be required for a
new plant,” said Richard Webster of Rutgers Environmental Law Clinic,
attorney for coalition members. The containment liner is a steel
structure designed primarily to prevent radioactivity at nuclear power
plants from contaminating the community.
The
conference call was arranged to discuss proposed interim staff guidance
regarding corrosion of the containment liner for Oyster Creek and all
other reactors of the same design. The federal agency revealed that
corrosion of the containment liner has been discovered in at least four
nuclear plants, including Oyster Creek, but the NRC does not know the
root cause of this corrosion.
The
Oyster Creek containment liner has corroded to within less than 0.1" of
critical safety margins as a result of water leakage in the gap between
the liner and the concrete well in which the reactor is placed. In
1980, severe corrosion was discovered at the sand bed area of the
containment liner at Oyster Creek. In 1986 a corrosion management
program was established by the NRC which mandated ultrasonic (UT)
testing of the containment liner in certain areas. These tests use
sound waves to determine the extent of the thinning of the containment
liner due to rusting.
The
last UT measurement of accessible areas of the sand bed region took
place in 1995. Since then, safety inspections have relied solely on
visual testing in that area. To date, no testing of inaccessible areas
has occurred.
The
coalition members filed a request for hearing and petition to intervene
with the NRC in November, alleging that the current inspection regime
for the containment liner is inadequate. “As a mother of two and
concerned citizen living near the plant, I am not confident that visual
inspections are enough to protect us from the devastating consequences
that will happen if the containment vessel buckles,” said Janet Tauro,
a member of Grandmothers, Mothers and More for Energy Safety (GRAMMES).
After
the Coalition filed their initial petition, AmerGen offered to
undertake a one-time UT measurement program for the sand bed area, but
has resisted taking regular measurements, and has offered no proposals
to measure the
thickness of the containment liner at inaccessible areas.
When
asked how corrosion would be detected in inaccessible areas of the
containment liner under the interim guidance, Hans Asher, an NRC
expert, said that this would be done by taking UT measurements.
The
new findings of the NRC technical staff show that even the NRC believes
that the Coalition has highlighted a safety-critical flaw in Amergen's
license renewal application. “Without immediate UT testing of all areas
of the containment liner, we will never know what the root cause of the
corrosion is and if Oyster Creek is safe to operate,” said Paul Gunter,
Reactor Watchdog for Nuclear Information and Resource Service.
Additional Contacts
Peggi Sturmfels, NJ Environmental Federation –(732) 280-8988
Kelly McNicholas, Sierra Club – (609) 656-7612
