The inleakage of radioactive and acidic water into the control room at Entergy Nuclear's Palisades atomic reactor has shed light on related problems.

As explained by nuclear engineer Dave Lochbaum, director of the nuclear safety program at Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), if radioactive water can leak into the control room during "normal operations," air must also be able to leak in.

 

Entergy Nuclear submitted a license amendment request to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission on August 21, 2007. Entergy sought to revise its technical specifications for what is called the "control room envelope" at Palisades. The "control room envelope" is the area within which reactor operators and other personell must work during both "normal" as well as disaster situations. At page 39 of 47 in the document, Entergy provides the proposed bases for the Control Room Ventilation Filtration technical specification.

As Lochbaum concludes, "Inleakage is a problem."