"Just trust us!" wears thin at Davis-Besse

An NRC inspector examines recently revealed cracks at the Davis-Besse concrete shield buildingTom Henry, editorial writer and columnist at the Toledo Blade, has published commentary entitled "Safety of Davis-Besse comes down to a question of faith." Henry, a board member of the Society of Environmental Journalists, and reporter of record on the 2002 Davis-Besse hole-in-the-head fiasco -- the nearest miss to a major nuclear accident in the U.S. since the 1979 Three Mile Island meltdown -- attended a standing room only January 5th U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) public meeting, successfully demanded by U.S. Representative Dennis Kucinich (Democrat-Ohio), about recently revealed cracks in Davis-Besse's radiological containment concrete shield building. Beyond Nuclear's Kevin Kamps also testified at the NRC meeting, and then, on behalf of an environmental coalition, spearheaded a 60 page contention about the cracking in opposition to FirstEnergy's application for a 20 year license extension at the problem-plagued Davis-Besse atomic reactor.

Fox News Toledo's Jennifer Steck covered Beyond Nuclear's street theater skit at Davis-Besse atomic reactor before the Jan. 5th NRC meeting, as did Northwest Ohio's WNWO and the Toledo Blade. The Cleveland Plain Dealer reported on the NRC meeting, as did the Sandusky Register, Port Clinton News Herald, Cleveland Fox 8, NPR station WKSU, Toledo ABC, and WTOL.

On January 25th, NRC announced a major delay in the publication of its Supplemental Draft Environmental Impact Statement for the Davis-Besse license extension. This was due to FirstEnergy Nuclear revising its Severe Accident Mitigation Alternatives (SAMA) analyses in its 20 year license extension application. Beyond Nuclear and an environmental coalition including Citizens Environment Alliance of Southwestern Ontario, Don't Waste Michigan, and the Green Party of Ohio successfully intervened against the license extension by raising SAMA concerns over a year ago, and has defended its contentions ever since.

Palisades: "It's an accident waiting to happen"

In August 2000, Don't Waste Michigan board members Michael Keegan, Alice Hirt, and Kevin Kamps called for Palisades' permanent shut down, with its cooling tower steam, as well as Lake Michigan, visible in the background.On January 15th, Tina Lam of the Detroit Free Press published an exposé on the long problem-plagued Palisades atomic reactor in Covert, Michigan on the Lake Michigan shoreline. Owned by Entergy Nuclear (which operates such other controversial reactors as Vermont Yankee, and Indian Point near New York City), Palisades suffered 5 "un-planned shutdowns" in 2011 alone, the most serious of which involved a U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) "Yellow finding" of "substantial safety significance" regarding an "electrical fault." Translated from euphemisticly misleading Nukespeak, this meant the near electrocution of a worker, and the loss of half of the control room's functions, figuratively leaving operators half-blinded, half-deaf, and half-paralyzed as they raced to adequately cool the hot reactor core. Both the pressurizer and the steam generators were a mere 9 minutes away from "going solid" -- filling completely with liquid water -- and thus losing their ability to cool the hot reactor core. One more mistake, or break down in systems, structures, or components, could have spelled disaster. Incredibly, as reported by the Freep, "It began with a light bulb...". Lam also broke the story on Palisades' five year overdue replacement of its severely corroded reactor lid.

The article quoted Beyond Nuclear's Kevin Kamps, 20-year watchdog on Palisades, as saying: "If all these failings and accidents line up in just the right way, we could have a very bad day at Palisades," said Kevin Kamps, a Kalamazoo native and staff member at Beyond Nuclear near Washington, D.C. ...Kamps said opponents of the plant wanted it shut down instead of winning a 20-year extension. "It's an accident waiting to happen," he said.

A large coalition of Michigan and Great Lakes environmental groups, led by Don't Waste Michigan and Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS), opposed the Palisades 20 year license extension. It was rubberstamped nonetheless by NRC in 2007, despite Palisades having the worst embrittled reactor pressure vessel in the United States, at risk of a pressurized thermal shock "hot glass under cold water" fracture and consequent loss of coolant accident.

In addition to the front page article, the Freep linked to a 101 page long NRC inspection report on the "electrical fault"; an NRC "White finding" of "low to moderate risk significance" involving "the improper greasing of a knife edge on the overspeed trip mechanism which contributed to a failure of the turbine driven auxiliary feedwater pump (pump P-8B) during surveillance testing on May 10, 2011"; yet another NRC "White finding" regarding the August 9, 2011 failure of "a safety-related service water pump (P-7C)," a repeat of a 2009 incident; a listing of "Recent problems at the Palisades nuclear plant," including one in which "A supervisor walks off the job in the control room without permission, apparently after an argument, which leads to a violation notice"; and finally, an article about new proposed reactors, including Fermi 3 in Michigan (Beyond Nuclear has helped lead an environmental coalition in opposition to that plan).

What is really behind the "witch hunt" targeted at NRC Chairman Jaczko?

U.S. NRC Chairman Gregory JaczkoRyan Grim of Huffington Post, in an in-depth investigative report, documents that U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commissioner (NRC) William Magwood IV and top Nuclear Energy Institute lobbyist Alex Flint have worked together before to "take down" Democratic political appointees in the nuclear energy field. Andrew Cockburn had also previously reported on this story at Counterpunch, quoting Beyond Nuclear's Kevin Kamps:

“[NRC Chairman Jaczko's] not ‘our guy’ by any means, he has voted to re-license plants that should probably be shut down” says Kevin Kamps of Beyond Nuclear.  “But he does care about safety, in ways that the [other NRC Commissioners] do not.”

One of Jaczko's (pictured, left) greatest "transgressions" against the nuclear power industry and its right wing political supporters -- earning their eternal wrath -- seems to be his carrying out of President Obama's policy decision to phase out the Yucca Mountain high-level radioactive waste dump. Before becoming an NRC Commissioner, Magwood had advocated for opening the Yucca dump.

Media coverage of this "mutiny" at the highest levels of the NRC began on Friday, December 9th with U.S. Representative Darrell Issa's (Republican-California) public release of a letter from NRC Commissioners Magwood, Svinicki, Ostendorff, and Apostolakis to President Obama that was clearly marked "Not for Public Disclosure," and has continued up to the present, as documented, with links to the articles, at the State of Nevada Agency for Nuclear Project's What's News page.

The webcast of the 3 hour, 30 minute long hearing on these matters, conducted on Dec. 15, 2011 by the U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, chaired by U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA), featuring the five NRC Commissioners as the sole witnesses, is archived online.

Congressman Kucinich successfully demands NRC public meeting on cracked Davis-Besse shield building

U.S. Rep. Kucinich (D-OH) is closely monitoring the cracked Davis-Besse atomic reactor shield buildingU.S. Representative Dennis Kucinich (Democrat-Ohio) has successfully demanded from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission a public meeting regarding the recently revealed, widespread cracking in FirstEnergy Nuclear's Davis-Besse atomic reactor shield building.

Kucinich stated in a press release on December 23rd: “The NRC is right to give the public the chance to ask questions of FirstEnergy about the questionable structural integrity of Davis-Besse.  I have already uncovered significant new information which has raised new questions about the cracks in the shield building through my own investigation.  I look forward to a frank discussion with FirstEnergy on January 5.”

As described in an NRC announcement, the meeting will take place on Thursday, January 5, from 6:30 to 9:30 pm Eastern, at Camp Perry, a military base near Davis-Besse in Port Clinton, Ohio. Beyond Nuclear, which is helping lead an environmental coalition intervention against the problem-plagued Davis-Besse's 20 year license extension, encourages all who can attend the meeting in person to do so. For others around the country, NRC is providing a toll-free phone line for calling in: "Members of the public interested in participating in the meeting can attend in person or by calling the toll-free teleconference number 800-369-1122 and entering passcode 7687149."

Congressman Kucinich has taken a lead role in questioning the safety significance of Davis-Besse's shield building cracks, and NRC's rash decision to allow the reactor to re-start before the cause and extent of the problem is even understood.

As revealed by an NRC-commissioned, Sandia National Lab-conducted study from 1982, a major radioactivity release at Davis-Besse could cause 1,400 "peak early fatalities," 73,000 "peak early injuries," 10,000 "peak cancer deaths," $84 billion in property damages. Those property damages would top $185 billion when adjusted for inflation; population increases in the past 40 years have not been accounted for in NRC's 1982 casualty figures, as they were based on 1970 U.S. Census data.

Is Palisades the Upper Big Branch Coal Mine of the nuclear power industry?!

Michael Keegan, Alice Hirt, and Kevin Kamps of Don't Waste Michigan call for Palisades' shut down at the 2000 Nuclear-Free Great Lakes Action Camp, with the reactor's cooling tower steam and Lake Michigan visible in background.Blogger Mike Mulligan of Hinsdale, NH recently made this comparison in his "The Entergy-Palisades Upper Branch Coal Mine" post at the Brattleboro Reformer. Mulligan, who lives all too near Entergy's Vermont Yankee atomic reactor in the Vermont/New Hampshire/Massachusetts tri-state area, argues that the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) -- on whose watch 25 miners perished in an explosion at Massey Energy's West Virginia coal mine owned by Don Blankenship in April 2010 -- so obviously weak and woefully inadequate, is, frighteningly, actually a stronger regulator than the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission: at least MSHA exacts monetary fines against industry offenders to reflect the seriousness of the safety violations, while NRC usually just "throws colors" at them (green, white, yellow, or red "findings") but all too rarely punishes with fines.

As shown by an NRC-commissioned report, however, a large-scale radioactivity release at Palisades could kill a lot more than 25 workers: the 1982 Sandia National Lab-conducted CRAC-2 study predicted 1,000 "peak early fatalities," 7,000 "peak early injuries," 10,000 "peak cancer deaths," and $116 billion in property damages (when adjusted for inflation) downwind and downstream from a major accident at Palisades.

Watchdogs on Entergy's Palisades in southwest Michigan do fear that the more than four decade old atomic reactor is an accident waiting to happen. In 2011, Palisades suffered five "unplanned shutdowns," most recently on December 14, 2011 due to "MANUAL REACTOR TRIP DUE TO LOSS OF BOTH MAIN FEEDPUMPS." Watchdogs are concerned that the resultant "atmospheric steam dump" may have included radioactivity. However, NRC allowed Palisades to immediately re-start its problem-plagued reactor and return to 100% uprated power levels, even though the cause of the problem had not yet been determined.

On Jan. 11, 2012, NRC Region III in Lisle, IL will meet with Entergy about not one, but two, significant safety violations: a "yellow finding" (NRC's second most severe, below only "red") regarding "the loss of the left train of direct current power on September 25, 2011"; and a "white finding" of "moderate safety significance" regarding "the failure of a safety-related service water pump (P-7C) on August 9, 2011."

The environmental movement of Michigan was united in its opposition to the 20 year license extension at Palisades, but NRC rubberstamped it anyway in 2007.