Coalition defends its challenge against Davis-Besse Shield Building cracks, gaps, and rebar damage

Environmental coalition attorney Terry LodgeAn environmental coalition, represented by attorney Terry Lodge of Toledo (photo, left), has filed a defense of its contention alleging that FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Company's (FENOC) Davis-Besse atomic reactor on the Lake Erie shore should be denied a 20-year license extension by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). Most recently, Davis-Besse's concrete containment Shield Building has exhibited ever more severe cracking, steel reinforcement damage, as well as wall gap 80% of the way through its 2.5 foot thickness (an air space, or void, through 24 of 30 inches of the wall). The filing rebuts challenges against the contention by FENOC and NRC Staff.

As official intervenors in the NRC Atomic Safety (sic) and Licensing Board (ASLB) proceeding, the coalition, comprised of Beyond Nuclear, Citizens Environment Coalition of Southwestern Ontario, Don't Waste Michigan, and the Ohio Green Party, has resisted Davis-Besse's 20-year license extension since the end of 2010. Davis-Besse's 40-year operating license expires on Earth Day (April 22), 2017. This is the coalition's sixth contention filed.

"Time to change the kitty litter!"

Arnie GundersenAs posted on the Fairewinds Energy Education website:

CNN called Arnie Gundersen to learn about the use of kitty litter at the DOE’s Waste Isolation Pilot Project facility in New Mexico, which is being blamed for radiation leaks. Out with the new kitty litter, back to the tried and true.

"Michigan lawmakers step up fight against nuke dump"

As reported by John Flesher of the Associated Press, a group of Michigan State Senators has introduced a slate of bills intended to turn up the heat against a proposal by Ontario Power Generation to bury all of the province's so-called "low" and "intermediate" level radioactive wastes at the Bruce Nuclear Generating Station in Kincardine, Ontario, less than a mile from the shoreline of Lake Huron.

The Times Herald has posted a video of the State Senators' news conference announcing their proposed legislation.

State Senator Pavlov (Republican, 25th District), Vice Chairman, Senate Committee on Natural Resources, Environment and Great Lakes, has launched an online petition opposing the Great Lakes nuclear dump.

Update on June 11, 2014 by admin

The package of bills and resolutions was passed unanimously by the Michgian State Senate on June 11th.

"Scientist sheds new light on proposed nuclear waste site on Lake Huron"

Michigan Radio's host of Stateside, Cynthia Canty, interviews Frank Greening, a nuclear scientist who has worked for Ontario Power Generation (OPG) at the Bruce Nuclear Generating Station. When Greening checked the figures for how much radioactivity OPG proposes to bury in a Deep Geologic Repository (DGR) at Bruce in Kincardine, Ontario, less than a mile from the Lake Huron shore, he found that OPG had underestimated some radionuclides by a factor of two or three, while others were low-balled by a factor of 100 or even 1,000.

[Note, Bruce Nuclear is 110 miles northeast of Port Huron, MI -- not 11 miles, as Cynthia Canty reported.]

Greening also found that OPG had depended on calculated values, rather than a vast data base of actual measurements -- many of which he himself had made.

OPG's error -- which Greening has called to the attention of the Canadian Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO, which OPG dominates), the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC), the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency CEAA), and the Canadian federal Joint Review Panel (JRP) overseeing the DGR's environmental assessment -- has caused him to call for an "extent of condition," to see if additional errors have been made elsewhere on the project.

Despite OPG, NWMO and CNSC's admission that Greening is correct, they have nonetheless stood by the "safety case" of OPG's DGR proposal. Greening, however, doesn't take "trust us, we're experts" as good enough, given their admitted error on radioactivity levels.

Greening questions the wisdom of burying radioactive waste on the Great Lakes shoreline. "Why tempt fate?" he asks.

"Senators Markey, Boxer and Sanders Introduce Legislation to Increase Safety at Nuclear Plants"

U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Chairwoman of the Environment and Public Works CommitteeU.S. Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA, photo at left), Chairman of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works (EPW), Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Senator Edward J. Markey (D-MA) introduced three bills today aimed at improving the safety and security of decommissioning reactors and the storage of spent nuclear fuel at nuclear plants across the nation. 

The three bills address safety of spent fuel storage and decommissioning plans. They are entitled: Safe and Secure Decommissioning Act of 2014; Nuclear Plant Decommissioning Act of 2014 (see the bill, Sen. Sanders' press release, and a one-page summary); Dry Cask Storage Act of 2014. To learn more, see the press release at Sen. Markey's website.

The EPW Committee will hold and webcast a hearing entitled “Nuclear Reactor Decommissioning: Stakeholder Views” on Wed., May 14th, at 10 AM Eastern. Witnesses include CA and VT officials, and spokespeople from NRDC and NEI.

Please urge your two U.S. Senators to support these three bills. You can contact your Senators via the U.S. Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121.

Update on May 15, 2014 by admin

An archive of the hearing webcast, as well as the witness statements, are posted at the EPW website.

Sens. Boxer, Markey, and Sanders have also issued a press release, making a public a letter they've written to NRC Chairwoman Macfarlane, citing wildfires near the San Onofre nuclear power plant in southern CA. The fires erupted on the same day as the hearing. Southern California Edison evacuated a dozen workers from San Onofre. As the Senators mentioned in their letter, San Onofre's storage pools were designed for 1,600 irradiated nuclear fuel assemblies, but now contain 2,600. The Senators cite a report NRC Chairwoman Macfarlane herself co-authored in 2003, documenting the potentially catastrophic risks of pool fires. They urge that NRC cease and desist from exempting decommissioning reactors from emergency preparedness and security requirements, due to ongoing high-level radioactive waste storage risks.