Governor Corzine, et al.
vs. Oyster Creek Nuke Plant
Gov Corzine speaks in favor of the environment at the Clearwater Festival, Asbury Park, NJ Aug , 06
Dear Governor Corzine:
Thank you for opposing the re-licensing of the very old and very toxic
Oyster Creek nuclear plant.
Oyster Creek was designed for a maximum life of forty years. Radioactive bombardment and high temperature weaken all materials. It is highly probable that this nuclear plant has completely lost its structural safety although it is less than forty years old. There are defects due to poor maintenance.
Before waiting for the total design life to be reached an immediate independent safety assessment of Oyster Creek is essential for the safety of New Jersey residents.
Ray Shadis, who was involved in an independent safety assessment of the Yankee nuclear plant in Maine, reported Oyster Creek defects to the Jersey Shore Nuclear Watch.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) will not do an independent safety assessment unless you insist on it. It was due to the insistence of the governor of Maine that an independent assessment of the Yankee plant was conducted. Although the plant’s management felt that the Maine plant was perfectly OK, the assessment proved otherwise. The Yankee plant is in the process of being decommissioned as a result.
Without your insistence on an independent assessment with a blue ribbon panel of experts, the NRC will allow this plant to continue operating and will then rubber stamp approval of re-licensing for another 20 years.
The experts must be chosen by local officials with community involvement that includes the mentioned Jersey Nuclear Shore Watch.
The NRC has a rule which says that licensing or re-licensing does not require assessment of security against a terrorist attack. This is not only stupid but it is treason! There are so many ways Oyster Creek is vulnerable that it is scary.
The safety assessment by independent experts must include…
1) A review of ALL operating and safety systems
2) A review of ALL plant maintenance
3) A rigorous analysis of safeguards against terrorism
4) A rigorous review of evacuation beyond the ten miles that the industry is satisfied with
5) A rigorous analysis of corrosion, high temperature and radioactive bombardment weakening, including underground safety system wiring
Oyster Creek is a Potential Weapon of Mass Destruction
Dr. Edward Teller, father of the hydrogen bomb, wrote “a nuclear plant is potentially more lethal than a hydrogen bomb.” He wrote that nuclear plants do not belong on the face of the earth. Reference: "Energy From Oil and From the Nucleus" Journal of Petroleum Technology - May, 1965 - page 306. He advocated burying nuclear plants deep underground as a safety precaution. As an above ground entity, Oyster Creek clearly stands as a potential Weapon of Mass Destruction, a terrorist's dream come true.
The spent fuel rod pool is even more vulnerable than the active reactor. The pool at Oyster Creek contains much more deadly radioactivity than is in the reactor. The pool is covered by a flimsy roof which could easily be penetrated in a manner that would result in a deadly fuming melt-down.
I received a letter from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) which asserted that the 10 mile evacuation zone limit is “reasonable.” That “reasonable” report was approved by Michael Brown, the same man who presided over the Katrina disaster. The notion that a mere 10 mile evacuation zone is reasonably adequate is almost unbelievable wishful thinking and does not square with actual experience in meltdowns.
The poisons from the Chernobyl nuclear plant traveled all around the world. Many doctors in India are convinced that over the years, the fall-out from Chernobyl has killed a million children. In the opposite direction, heavy deposits fell in Finland. In Austria, certain crops are not allowed to be harvested. Shortly after the accident, the Bergen Record reported that at least a million Soviet people had to be given some medical treatment. The documentary movie “Chernobyl Heart“ showed ghastly birth defects still occurring 18 years after the Chernobyl accident. Doctors testified that after all this time only 15 to 20% of the children born in Belarus are healthy.
Yet the nuclear industry says that hardly anyone was harmed. These are bold-faced lies.
After the Three Mile Island nuclear plant accident in Pennsylvania, that came within a half an hour of a full scale melt-down, radiation chemist Dr. Chauncey Kepford took independent readings distant from the stricken plant. The further away he went, the higher his readings were.
There were no offsite measuring devices installed by the utility. Three Mile Island released far more radioactivity than the nuclear establishment will admit. Farmers encountered still born and genetically deformed animal births, something which rarely occurred throughout generations of farming. Many residents suffered classic radiation poisoning with a high increase in cancer and deaths. There is further documentation in my book, “Asleep at the Geiger Counter,” (Blue Dolphin Publishing, Inc., c 2002)
Seized al Quaida records showed that nuclear power plants are on the agenda for future acts of terrorism. Who would have thought the World Trade Center could be destroyed?
A Little Known Hazard
In addition to well-known hazards there is another that most people are unaware of. Even the NRC overlooked it. During the Congressional hearings that reviewed the Kemeny Commission investigation of the Three Mile Island nuclear plant accident, this risk was discovered.
When there is a complete power failure at a nuclear plant, a meltdown can occur. The transcript of this discovery is quoted in Asleep at the Geiger Counter.
Heaven help us if such a complete failure occurs. There have been problems with back-up generators at nuclear plants. The Federal Los Alamos nuclear laboratory has criticized cooling pump clogging problems as viruses ravage computers worldwide.
The complacent attitudes of utility companies and the NRC and FEMA are not reassuring. The NRC has proven they cannot be trusted for one day, let alone until 2009, the year Oyster Creek is presently licensed until.
The Price Anderson Act
A federal law called the Price Anderson Act limits the liability of a nuclear utility to a microscopic fraction of the damage they can cause. Utilities are afraid to operate without the protection of this law.
But if there is no risk, as the owners of these plants always say, there is no justification for the existence of the Price Anderson Act. This law abolishes the property rights of all Americans in order to protect the property rights of utilities. The utilities’ insistence that we need this law proves they in the industry do not believe their assurances about health and safety. WHY SHOULD YOU BELIEVE THEM?
These are only a few of the many reasons why the Oyster Creek Nuclear Plant MUST be given an independent safety assessment. To do otherwise is reckless and unconscionable. Please do the right thing and demand it.
Very truly yours,
Sidney J. Goodman, P.E., M.S.M.E
licensed Professional Engineer
(201) 327-5158 or (973) 973- 616-7300 gizmogink@mindspring.com
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A letter to the NRC
from New Jersey
Members of Congress
Dr. Dale E. Klein, Chairman
Nuclear Regulatory Commission
11555 Rockville Pike
Rockville, MD 2085
Dear Dr. Klein:
It has come to our attention that Exelon, the operators of Oyster Creek, has failed to properly inspect and monitor water leakage and subsequent corrosion found in the main containment wall of the reactor. Eight years ago, upon assuming ownership of the plant, Exelon made a commitment to monitor the corrosion, as well as the water draining down from the outside of the steel containment wall, and to take appropriate steps to prevent further leakage.
According to recent information provided by the NRC, Exelon has not lived up to these commitments. Furthermore, recent reports indicate that during an NRC inspection, containers used to capture the water had been emptied, preventing inspectors from conducting testing to determine the origin of the leaks.
It is imperative that all questions and uncertainties about the structural integrity of this plant be answered. Exelon has stated they conduct routine visual inspections of corroded areas.
However, corrosion occurring on scales measured in fractions of inches are extremely difficult to detect with the naked eye. As a result, Exelon has agreed to conduct ultrasonic testing on one percent of the lower sand bed region to determine whether the thickness of the containment vessel meets current safety margins.
We remain concerned that this is not a large enough sample area to make this determination and that corrosion may have already occurred beyond established safety margins. We understand that no testing of the thickness of the metal in the embedded region is scheduled even though some experts believe that region could now be experiencing the most rapid corrosion.
Please indicate why the NRC believes the containment wall is not in a dangerous state. Explain what additional measures the NRC has taken, or intends to take during the remaining relicensing period, to ensure the structural integrity of the containment walls have not been, or will not be, compromised.
Resolution of this matter could be aided if a third party, such as the Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards (ACRS), was allowed to conduct their own analysis of the state of the containment structure.
Redundancy becomes a necessity when deciding whether a vital safety structure has been allowed to corrode beyond its safety margins in light of the fact that violations of the operating license went unnoticed by the NRC for eight years.
We look forward to your response.
Sincerely,
Christopher H. Smith,
Robert E. Andrews, Rush Holt,
Bill Pascrell, Jr.
Members of Congress
To concerned citizens
from Richard Webster
The Coalition to Stop the Relicensing of Oyster Creek has strong evidence to back up its claims about the condition of the radiation barriers.
We know that in some areas, the steel drywell shell at Oyster Creek corroded from 1.154 inches to 0.603 inches between 1969 and 1992. The epoxy coating applied to protect the shell in 1992 had a service life of about 10 years. Water has continued to leak onto the outside of the shell.
The shell is less than 0.02 inches from failure, based on AmerGen's own assessment. We also know that corrosion rates of more than 0.03 inches per year were experienced before 1992. Based on the evidence the shell could rapidly corrode to beyond current safety margins during any license extension period. Such corrosion could lead to collapse of the shell and a major accident in the worst-case scenario.
AmerGen's current monitoring and assessment methods are inadequate. They have monitored only 1 percent of a degraded area of the shell, and therefore failed to measure how much of the shell area is severely degraded. AmerGen has never monitored an area at the bottom of the shell termed the embedded region, an area some corrosion experts believe could now be experiencing the highest corrosion rates. AmerGen's last round of measurements in 1996 turned out to be inaccurate, so now the only measurements we have are about 12 years old.
The shell could buckle during the license renewal period.
(Richard Webster is attorney for the Coalition to Stop the Relicensing of Oyster Creek and is affiliated with Rutgers Environmental Law Clinic.)
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?Governor Corzine said he is against the relicensing of Oyster Creek nuclear power plant for another 20-year term.
"I don't think this should be relicensed for 20 years under any circumstances, just because there's been too much concern about breakdowns," Corzine said.
Oyster Creek, located in Lacey, NJ, is operated by AmerGen Energy Co., which is owned by Illinois-based Exelon.
The governor stated he was "more troubled” now than a year ago at some of the things he sees “happening on a consistent basis" at the plant.
Corzine said his administration has asked the NRC to commission an independent safety study at the plant, but so far that has not been done.
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For more on Oyster Creek contact:
Jersey Shore Nuclear Watch,
P.O. Box 3085, Toms River, NJ 08756
732-240-5107 gbur1@comcast.net
www.jerseyshorenuclearwatch.org