Union Of Concerned Scientists Releases Report On US Nuclear Plant Safety, Finds NRC Oversight Weakness At Indian Point NPP

From a just released report by the Union of Concerned Scientists, focusing on US Nuclear Power Plant oversight by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. “Many of the serious safety or security lapses at U.S. nuclear power plants in 2010 happened because plant owners — and often the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) — failed to address known safety problems.” And something potentially concerning to Buchanan, NY residents where Indian Point NPP is located: “the NRC did not always serve the public well in 2010. This report analyzes serious safety problems at Peach Bottom, Indian Point, and Vermont Yankee that the NRC overlooked or dismissed. At Indian Point, for example, the NRC discovered that the liner of a refueling cavity at Unit 2 has been leaking since at least 1993. By allowing this reactor to continue operating with equipment that cannot perform its only safety function, the NRC is putting people living around Indian Point at elevated and undue risk.” The report’s conclusion: “when the NRC tolerates unresolved safety problems — as it did last year at Peach Bottom, Indian Point, and Vermont Yankee — this lax oversight allows that risk to rise. The more owners sweep safety problems under the rug and the longer safety problems remain uncorrected, the higher the risk climbs.”

Indian Point section from the report:

The Indian Point nuclear plant in New York features two pressurized water reactors (PWRs). To refuel a PWR, workers flood the refueling cavity with water, which allows them to remove irradiated fuel assemblies from the reactor core and replace them with fresh fuel assemblies. The water both removes decay heat from the irradiated fuel assemblies and shields the radiation they emit, protecting the workers.

The Final Safety Analysis Reports (FSARs) submitted by the plant owner with the application for an operating license for Unit 2 stated that the refueling cavity was “designed to withstand the anticipated earthquake loadings,” and that “the liner prevents leakage in the event the reinforced concrete develops cracks.” When the NRC issued the operating license for Unit 2, the leakage prevention function of the liner for the refueling cavity became part of the licensing basis. However, NRC inspectors at Indian Point recently found that the liner has been leaking 2 to 20 gallons per minute since at least 1993 (NRC 2010v), and that the plant owner has not yet delivered on repeated promises to fix the leak. That means the device installed to prevent leakage after an earthquake is leaking before an earthquake even occurs. The liner has no other safety function. Yet NRC managers have dismissed the longstanding problem, noting that the refueling cavity leaks only when it is filled with water (NRC 2010o).

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