NRC to Hold Public Meeting on Anti-Oyster Creek Petition
The public can phone in to listen to the meeting on Thursday, Jan. 3
A public meeting will be held on Thursday, Jan. 3 on the recent petition submitted by anti-nuclear advocates on the impact of Hurricane Sandy to Oyster Creek Generating Station, Nuclear Regulatory Commission spokesman Neil Sheehan said.
The petition, filed in November, called on Gov. Chris Christie to intervene and ensure that “major flaws” at Oyster Creek Generating Station are addressed prior to the nuclear power plant returning online.
Oyster Creek began a regular refueling and maintenance outage on Oct. 22 and returned to service on Dec. 4.
The petition submitted by Grandmothers, Mothers and More for Energy Safety, the New Jersey Environmental Federation and Beyond Nuclear, sought to keep the nuclear plant offline until safety measures were implemented to address certain problems.
During the refueling and maintenance outage, “indications” (precursors to cracks) were found in the reactor nozzle and a pinhole leak was located in the reactor vessel neither of which was related to Hurricane Sandy, according to the NRC. Both were repaired prior to returning Oyster Creek to service.
According to the activists involved in the petition, the following are new safety concerns at Oyster Creek:
- The intake canal was inches away from flooding pumps key to the cooling system
- The pre-Sandy evacuation plan fails to address the post-Sandy reality of new population centers in evacuation shelters and other places, clogged streets with debris and construction vehicles, and displaced emergency responders
- Sandy proved the design basis (how strong a storm the plant can withstand) inadequate
- The barrier island’s natural physical defenses are now weaker and make Oyster Creek more vulnerable than before Sandy
- Inspections during the outage revealed new cracks or precursors to cracks in and/or around the reactor vessel and control rods
- 33 of 43 emergency sirens were inoperable at the height of Sandy
The Petition Review Board met on Nov. 26 to review the activist’s request for immediate action regarding a lack of adequate protection of safety at Oyster Creek.
The activists asked for the following conditions to be met prior to Oyster Creek returning online:
- The evacuation plan is updated to reflect the new reality post-Sandy
- The design storm for flood defense purposes is update to reflect the recent spate of storms and climate change and, additional flood protection is put in place as appropriate.
- The “indications” are investigated and the public assured through release of additional data and analysis they pose no additional risk of a nuclear catastrophe
- Exelon reviews whether the indications were predicted by its modeling and whether it can predict that no problematic indications will develop before the next inspection cycle and proof of ability to predict fatigue accurately is released to the public.
- The NRC and the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection’s Oyster Creek advisory panel hold public meetings that satisfactorily answer the public’s concerns.
“The Petition Review Board denied the request for immediate action to take emergency enforcement action to prevent Oyster Creek from starting up from its refueling outage, because there was no immediate safety concern to Oyster Creek, or to the health and safety of the public,” a letter from John Lamb of the NRC to the activists said.
After the Petition Review Board denied the request for immediate action, the activists requested that a meeting be held.
The meeting will take place at the NRC’s headquarters in Rockville, Md. but members of the petition and the public will be able to phone in to listen. A phone number will be provided at a later date.
The meeting is not a public hearing or an opportunity for members of the petition to question the Petition Review Board on the merits of their decision, the letter from Lamb said. Members of the petition will be given the opportunity to provide an additional explanation or support for the petition.
The public is invited to observe the meeting and will be able to ask questions about the petition process after the activist’s presentation is complete. Email John.Lamb@nrc.gov to obtain a telephone number and passcode.
The NRC will transcribe the meeting by a court reporter and a webcast will be made available for the public.
Tim O C
7:49 am on Tuesday, December 11, 2012
Shut this pig down and replace it with Nat Gas plant,solar and wind
thats right all 3 ppl
butch cassidy
9:56 am on Tuesday, December 11, 2012
how do i sign? please close this plant now!
Uncle Moe
11:02 am on Tuesday, December 11, 2012
It's not a matter of if, but when. This is an ancient reactor design. I'd like to see solar and wind replace it, as those are sustainable LONG TERM unlike Natural Gas and its pollution. CLOSE THIS PLACE NOW!!!
Jason
6:54 pm on Tuesday, December 11, 2012
Nuclear energy is the cleanest and safest source of power since inception. Wind is not the answer. It would take a wind farm half the size of the state of New Jersey to create a fraction of the power that Oyster Creek generates. Solar is in the same boat. A natural gas, combined cycle plant will be built once shut down in 2019. Until then enjoy your low tax rates people. Do you not see the taxes in the rest of the state and wonder why Lacey Township is more than half the rate? Oyster Creek is your answer. The highest rateable in the county! It was here WAY before anyone lived here and yet you want it gone? Typical NIMBY mentality. Why not move next to an airport and petition for it to close? Same difference.
Favorite Teacher
6:44 pm on Wednesday, January 2, 2013
we built our home in the 50's Oyster Creek was built in 1969.
smart1
7:44 pm on Tuesday, December 11, 2012
Yup, the TAXES, they will be REAL LOW when one of those swiss cheese rusty pipes blow and they have a controlled release over Lacey, Anyday now, all your taxes will be LOW. And remember there is NOOOO INSURANCE for this!!!!!!! STUPID PEOPLE. Nuke waste in your town forever.ever,ever,ever, Nothings forever U say? Think Again. Just wait, they just got REAL Lucky this time.
Jason
8:03 pm on Tuesday, December 11, 2012
Is any mechanical device built with zero maintenance in mind? Power plants have scheduled outages for maintenance and that is exactly what took place. If anyone thinks that the NRC will pick Oyster Creek as the only plant they ignore, then I can't argue with ignorance. Once again, Nuclear is safe and clean. Lets also not forget that hundreds of Lacey residents are employed from Oyster Creek and Combined Cycle (gas) plants only employ an average of 20 people. But I guess you don't care about people having jobs, do you? Age old argument, but nobody will admit they moved and bought here due to the low tax rate as a direct result of the plant. Hippocrates.
butch cassidy
9:11 am on Wednesday, December 12, 2012
wont matter when south jersey disappears from this disaster waiting to happen
Favorite Teacher
9:58 am on Wednesday, January 2, 2013
Our town was well established long before Fukashima East (aka Oyster Creek) was built. Highway 9 was underwater at the State Marina during Sandy...so the only way out on Hwy 9 was to go was past the uranium soup Oyster Creek pumped out onto the roadside...Widespread systemic corruption is the cause of NJ tax woes. Lacey is not even on the list for a new gas fired plant... Do you live in town? Or work for Oyster Creek? If so, "hippocrates" is spelled wrong.
Bill Shipp
10:44 am on Wednesday, January 2, 2013
No accidents, no deaths. Contributes to community projects. Employs 100's. And kicks in 12 Million a year. And guess what? Ten years from now, we'll all laugh at the stupid things you stupid anti-nukes said. "Fukashima East". Is it legal to be that stupid?
Favorite Teacher
7:55 pm on Wednesday, January 2, 2013
BS: Laughing? Ten years from now Fukushima will still be contaminated. Hilarious!
October 2012, during Hurricane Sandy, Oyster Creek was flooded with six and a half feet of water as a result of the storm surge. The plant, already down for maintenance, lost its electrical power from the grid. Backup generators were used to keep cooling the reactor. Flood waters just SIX inches higher could have knocked out pumps that circulate coolant water through the nuclear reactor to keep it from melting down. We were 6 inches away from a possible Fukushima.
March 2011: Fukushima Reactors 1, 2 and 3 experienced full meltdown. Why? Emergency generators powering coolant systems failed, cutting power to pumps.
A reaction between the nuclear fuel metal cladding and the remaining water produced explosive hydrogen gas... several hydrogen-air chemical explosions occurred. Concerns about the repeated small explosions, the atmospheric venting of radioactive gasses, and the possibility of larger explosions led to a 20 km (12 mi)-radius evacuation around the plant. Measurements by the government 30–50 km from the plant showed caesium-137 levels high enough to cause concern, December 2011, authorities declared the plant stable - it would take decades to decontaminate the surrounding areas.
butch cassidy
10:58 am on Wednesday, January 2, 2013
thats if we are here in 10 years from now...should we even start with the cancer that could be caused with leaks etc into streams water systems fish we eat...
ed crowley
11:36 am on Wednesday, January 2, 2013
Most of the people complaining moved into the area after the plant was built. Why would you move to a place with something you don't like? I have read about there being a problem with the plan during an emergency. Do you apply the same standard to the schools? The schools always assume access to all doors. I wonder if there was a fire that blocked an access would the students and staff no what to do. I guess the plan also does not take in to consideration snow.
butch cassidy
2:44 pm on Wednesday, January 2, 2013
i was a child when this was built had no say then...i know it brought jobs but so did ciba geigy and what a mess that was found out to be until we the people were more educated on the dangers etc...nuclear plant same thing just dif kind of danger
Favorite Teacher
7:14 pm on Wednesday, January 2, 2013
Seriously? Schools? You compare schools to nuclear reactors? Schools don't explode and spew radiation. Oyster Creek was built in 1969 with the same design as Fukushima, built in 1967. We built our home in Lacey in 1955.
Favorite Teacher
2:44 pm on Wednesday, January 2, 2013
@ ed.We built our home in 1955, plant opened in 1969.
@ BS...Stupid? Oyster Creek and Fukashima share the same design! D'oh!
"Oyster Creek, like Japan's Fukushima plant, is a General Electric boiling-water reactor with Mark 1 containment system. But unlike Fukushima, Oyster Creek and all U.S. plants with this design have so-called "hardened" vent systems designed to prevent the dangerous buildup of pressure inside the containment dome in case of an accident. After Fukushima, in response to doubts raised about these systems, the U.S. industry pledged to implement improvements to ensure the vents were accessible and reliable" ...
"In the wake of Fukushima, the U.S. nuclear industry has pledged to bring additional backup equipment such as generators, pumps, hoses, and batteries to keep plants operating in case of loss of power or water, but that deployment is still under way. Some critics have raised concerns about the safety of spent fuel at Oyster Creek and other nuclear plants, noting that the cooling pools where it is stored are not required to have backup power. Spent fuel rods are still radioactive and continue to generate significant heat for decades. Without cooling, the pools would boil away, leaving the fuel vulnerable to damage and to causing a radioactive release. Exelon says, however, it has "numerous, redundant backup cooling" for its spent fuel ponds." http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/energy/2012/10/121029-nuclear-plants-brace-for-hurricane-sandy/
Pogo
4:29 pm on Wednesday, January 2, 2013
I think that some people have been reading too many Marvel Comics.
Favorite Teacher
7:35 pm on Wednesday, January 2, 2013
2010 population within 10 miles of Oyster Creek = 133,609, increase of 35.8 percent since 2000. The population within 50 miles was 4,482,261, an increase of 10.4 percent since 2000. Cities within 50 miles include Atlantic City, Toms River, Lakewood, Asbury Park, Cherry Hill.
The NRC defines two emergency planning zones around nuclear power plants: a plume exposure pathway zone with a radius of 10 miles ( 133,609,people) concerned with exposure to, and inhalation of, airborne radioactive contamination, and an ingestion pathway zone of about 50 miles, concerned primarily with ingestion of food and liquid contaminated by radioactivity. (4,482,261 people)
ed crowley
7:44 pm on Wednesday, January 2, 2013
The people who moved here should have been aware of the plant. The home you speak of sounds like it was your parents home. You could move elsewhere if the concern is so great.
ed crowley
7:48 pm on Wednesday, January 2, 2013
As for my comment about schools I was pointing out emergency plans do not account for additional problems. The complaint about the plan is that it did not factor in the storm.
Favorite Teacher
8:07 pm on Wednesday, January 2, 2013
According to researchers at Stanford, when the nuclear industry says that it can withstand conditions “beyond that historically reported,” we should want to know a lot more, Phillip Lipscy, Kenji Kushida, and Trevor Incerti measured the vulnerability of nuclear plants built near water, by comparing their defenses to historical data on earthquakes, landslides, and hurricanes. In the Washington Post, they assessed the effects of Sandy and said their data “suggested that several U.S. nuclear power plants are unprepared for high waves.”" In our database, the United States came in second, behind Japan, as the country with the largest number of inadequately protected nuclear power plants. The 1938 New England hurricane triggered a storm surge as high as 25 to 30 feet, considerably higher than waves generated this week by Sandy. A wave that tall would easily overtake many nuclear plants on the East Coast, which on average lie about 20 feet above sea level, with minimal sea wall protection." Part of the problem is that the United States is simply too young to know much about its physical past, “the risk to plants in this country is probably understated” because American records go back only about three hundred and fifty years.