[NukeNet] APP July 26 Oyster Creek faces new challenges

[Edith]

 1993 Tests have failed to back up AmerGen’s claims that Epoxy paint has   arrested the liner rust .They are faulty.

Jersey Shore Nuclear Watch is one of the six challenging groups. 

Edith 


Oyster Creek faces new challenge

Activists file barrier safety concerns to judges
Posted by the Asbury Park Press on 07/26/06

BY NICHOLAS CLUNN
STAFF WRITER

Commitments on how the operator of the Oyster Creek nuclear power plant will monitor a corroded radiation barrier have been deemed inadequate by a coalition of activist groups opposed to a renewed license for the Lacey reactor.

The assessment was part of a legal argument submitted Tuesday to a three-judge panel of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the federal agency that will decide whether Oyster Creek could be run safely during a proposed 20-year license extension.

If the panel accepts the new contention, it could call an administrative law hearing and eventually force plant operator AmerGen Energy Co. to strengthen its monitoring program for the barrier as a condition of a license renewal.

At issue is the thickness of a portion of the barrier called the drywell liner.

Shaped like a light bulb, the 100-foot-tall metal structure surrounds the reactor vessel, a container in which atoms are split to make heat.

During a serious emergency, the liner would be expected to prevent highly pressurized and highly radioactive steam and gas from entering the environment.

AmerGen spokeswoman Rachelle Benson said company officials received a copy of the filing Tuesday afternoon and needed more time to review it before commenting.

Both AmerGen and NRC staff now have an opportunity to file a response with the panel.

In the contention, the six environmental and anti-nuclear activist groups that make up the coalition say AmerGen's monitoring program might not work because the company does not know what safety margins exist today.

The most recent measurements of the liner's thickness were taken in 1996, but AmerGen has promised to conduct new ones in October and every two years thereafter.

"In a nutshell, AmerGen is putting the cart before the horse," the activists wrote.

AmerGen has also promised regulators that it would measure certain areas of the liner. But in the filing, the activists wrote that AmerGen should measure additional sections to provide a more comprehensive sampling area.

Plant opponents have been concerned about the liner because water leaks from an upper floor of the plant caused the liner to rust and thin before then-operator GPU Nuclear discovered the damage in the early 1980s.

AmerGen maintains that an epoxy coating applied to the corroded areas in 1993 prevented further damage and continues to work today.

Nicholas Clunn: (732) 643-4072 or nclunn at app.com
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