Kamps on video: NRC, nuclear industry have leak-first-fix-later philosophy

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission ignored its own rules when it neglected to assess “the adequacy of aging management programs” (for a variety of reactor systems at Vermont Yankee), including buried piping carrying radioactive water, according to Kevin Kamps, a self-described community organizer for Beyond Nuclear, a nuclear watchdog group from Takoma Park, Md.

Kamps told the House and Senate natural resources committees last week that the federal agency required the industry to inspect the integrity of systems that could cause “inadvertent leaks.”

This failure to follow through on its own requirements, Kamps said in his testimony last Wednesday, is “at the heart of the buried pipes issue.”

He was referring to the recent discovery of tritium in groundwater and test wells at the Vernon nuclear facility, which he called “uncontrolled and unmonitored” releases.

“The industry and the NRC have essentially, and unfortunately, adopted a leak-first-and-fix-later philosophy, despite the NRC requirements and previous NRC guidance,” Kamps said.

Kamps explained that nuclear power plants have a variety of buried piping systems and have anywhere from two miles to eight miles of piping.

“Buried piping has been described by the nuclear industry’s own think tank, the Nuclear Power Research Institute, as a spaghetti bowl, bending and extending over the reactor site,” Kamps said. “Because the reactor is basically a boiler, various process systems are required to clean and control water in the reactor vessel. Such reactor auxiliary systems are necessary for normal operations, as well as part of the backup system in the case of abnormal operations.”

The condensate storage system is part of this high pressure cooling system, Kamps explained.

In plants across the country, “uninspected and unmaintained” buried transfer pipes from condensate storage are already known to be the source of many of the uncontrolled and unmonitored radioactive leaks, according to Kamps.

Rep. Tony Klein, D-E. Montpelier, questioned Kamps’ repeated use of the phrase “uncontrolled and unmonitored” in his description of the leak.

“I’m sure if I had the Entergy folks sitting in the chair, or the regulator folks, they would probably take issue with that statement,” Klein said. “Will you elaborate on why you use that?”

Kamps explained that the NRC permits releases of radioactivity, including tritium from Vermont Yankee into the Connecticut River.

“What’s different here is that the (emissions from) the buried pipe are not a part of these intentional permitted releases,” Kamps said.

According to Kamps, the industry has publicly admitted that buried piping is not accessible for routine inspection and maintenance, which contradicts a 1979 NRC circular that requested that the industry take “preventive measures,” including inspections of the “integrity of systems that could cause inadvertent release.”

The nature of tritium

Kamps explained that tritium is a radioactive isotope of hydrogen. Like hydrogen, he said, the smallest and lightest element on the periodic table, tritium is “highly mobile” in the environment. It can permeate steel and rubber, he said.

Though tritium is naturally found in the environment (it’s generated by cosmic rays that interact with the earth’s atmosphere), Kamps said a significant source of artificial tritium is produced by the nuclear
power and nuclear weapons industries. It is released into the environment as a radioactive gas and as a liquid.

The half-life of tritium is 12.3 years; its hazardous persistence is 123 years, according to Kamps.

Tritium can displace hydrogen in the human body and even cause genetic damage, Kamps said.”

In nature, tritium is found in concentrations of 6 to 24 picocuries per liter, he said. (On Sunday, inspectors found readings of more than 70,500 picocuries per liter in a new test well; levels rose to 75,300 on Monday, according to a report by Susan Smallheer in the Times Argus. The federal threshold set by the Environmental Protection Agency is 20,000 picocuries per liter.)

Tritiated water is chemically identical to water, Kamps said. It can exist as liquid, ice, steam and vapor, and once it’s released into the environment, “it’s considered to be a highly effective distributor of radioactivity because … it can go everywhere water can go, which is everywhere.”

Klein asked: “What does that mean, that it’s a highly effective distributor?”

Kamps explained that tritium can incorporate itself into the tissues of plants, animals, including human beings. It can displace hydrogen in the human body and even cause genetic damage, he said.

“Once tritium is released, it can rapidly exchange with hydrogen in the biosphere, including in human bodies, opening up a number of internal exposure pathways,” Kamps said. “Predominantly these are inhalation from tritium gas and tritiated water vapor, ingestion through food and water of tritium contaminated food, and even the absorption of tritium through human skin.”

“(Tritium) is mistakenly portrayed by some as harmless to human health,” Kamps said. “But the problem is, it can integrate itself into our biology at the most intimate levels, right down to the DNA, which is the basis of our genetic material.”

Kamps said tritium is a known cancer-causing agent and can cause birth defects.

He said California is looking at limiting concentrations of tritium in water to 400 picocuries per liter. Colorado is considering a 500 picocurie per liter threshold.

Kamps cited the (2005) National Academy of Science’s “Biological Effects of ionizing Radiation Report,” which he said concluded that there is no safe exposure to radioactivity, that even at the lowest doses there is a health risk.

However, last December, he said, the NRC decided there was no connection between human health and tritium leaks across the country.

Tritium spills double or triple decommissioning costs

Kamps said tritium leaks have increased the cost of decommissioning plants around the country. The original estimate for decommissioning Connecticut Yankee, for example, was $400 million to $500 million. The Burlington Free Press reported that the final price tag was $870 million. Kamps said the

Citizens Advisory Board on decommissioning Connecticut Yankee says it cost $1.2 billion.

The industry, according to Kamps, knew plants were leaking tritium as early as 1996. Cynthia Sauer, the mother of a child with a rare brain cancer, filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency regarding Exelon Corporation’s Dresden, Ill., nuclear power plant when she discovered that five children in her daughter’s school had contracted the same form of cancer.

Her request, Kamps said, revealed a 10-year cover up involving Exelon and the state Environmental Protection Agency. The plant had been releasing millions of gallons of highly tritiated water in concentrations of millions of picocuries per liter into the groundwater, Kamps said.

Kamps wrapped up his testimony with an analysis of the high-level nuclear waste storage options for Vermont Yankee. He said that not only is Yucca Mountain, which has been a potential repository for waste from around the country, no longer an option, but also it wouldn’t have been adequate
anyway.

This year, the nation will have a total of 63 metric tons of radioactive waste in temporary storage at sites around the country, which was the maximum capacity for Yucca.

The Government Accountability Office is looking at on-site storage of 2,000 years and at a cost of $360 billion, Kamps said.

The NRC recently proposed doing away with a date for finding a repository for the waste, according to Kamps. “They … expressed confidence that 60 years post-license termination at any reactor in the country there will be an operating repository,” he said.

“We call it a con game,” Kamps said. “It’s the illusion of a solution to a problem we don’t have a solution for, and we need to stop making this waste.”