U.S.-Canadian environmental coalition bolsters case against Davis-Besse cracked concrete containment
An NRC inspector investigates cracks in Davis-Besse's concrete containment, Oct. 2011The U.S.-Canadian environmental coalition battling against the 20 year license extension proposed at the problem-plagued Davis-Besse atomic reactor near Toledo, Ohio -- on Lake Erie, just tens of miles from Ontario -- has filed a supplement to its cracked concrete containment contention. FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Company first admitted its concrete shield building, an integral part of its radiological containment, was cracked in October 2011. This most recent filing cites FENOC's own May 16, 2012 revised root cause analysis report to highlight multiple forms of cracking and other degradation across the shield building, rather than the nuclear utility's preference to exclusively focus on sub-surface laminar cracking at the outer steel reinforcement layer. FENOC blames those cracks on the Blizzard of 1978, and the fact that the shield building, the most safety significant concrete structure on site, was never weather sealed, even though its own dome, and other less safety significant concrete buildings, were sealed. The coalition has revealed that FENOC's revised root cause analysis report admits for the first time in 36 years that cracking was observed on the shield building dome in August 1976, nearly a year and a half before the Blizzard of 1978. The intervening groups, including Beyond Nuclear, Citizens Environment Alliance of Southwestern Ontario, Don't Waste Michigan, and the Green Party of Ohio, is represented by Toledo attorney Terry Lodge.
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U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH)U.S. Representative Dennis Kucinich (D-OH, photo at left) has written an op-ed, published at Huffington Post, entitled "If You Lived Downwind from this Power Plant, Would You Be Concerned?" about the problem-plagued Davis-Besse atomic reactor upwind of his congressional district in northern Ohio. In it, he cites Beyond Nuclear's cracked concrete containment contention against Davis-Besse's proposed 20 year license extension, as well as his own request to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that FENOC's downplaying of the cracking's significance to its own investors be investigated for improperly misrepresenting the facts.