nuclear-news

Radioactive threats to the Great Lakes

Nuclear worries abound in Great Lakes region. Do solutions?, Medill News,  BY RORY KEANE, JAN 26, 2012 “..…The report, titled “Too Close to Home,” cites numerous articles that followed the unfolding disaster at Japan’s Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear power plant and concerns in the U.S., including a series of Associated Press stories dating from summer of 2010.

According to the report, over 10 million Americans in Great Lakes states, excluding Indiana and Minnesota, receive drinking water originating within 12 miles of a nuclear power plant. The AP stories cited focused on radioactive isotopes that could leak into drinking water.

Great Lakes residents might zero in on that section of the report,
where warning flags are thrown up about the possibility of a
radioactive form of hydrogen, known as tritium, leaking into
groundwater from nuclear power plants.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission oversees the safety operations for
all of the nuclear power plants in the U.S. There are two inspectors
at each plant. However, “tritium leaks have occurred with great
regularity at U.S. nuclear plants,” according to the report. It goes
on to cite the AP stories, which claim that tritium leaks “have
occurred at 75 percent of U.S. plants, and that a great number of them
have taken place in the past five years.”…..
Beyond the stir over potential tritium leaks via underwater piping,
there is controversy over the storage of spent nuclear fuel.

Since the federal government’s long-term storage facility for spent
nuclear fuel in Yucca Mountain, Nevada was scrapped, nuclear plants
along the Great Lakes have had to continue storing fuel onsite.

“The used fuel has been stored at the plant sites, and it has been for
50 years or so,” said Singer. “We’re hoping that the federal
government will honor its obligation to safely store it in the
future,” he said, noting that the blue ribbon commission on spent fuel
management would release a finalized report on Jan. 29.

There are 11 operating nuclear power plants along Great Lakes
shorelines in the U.S. Of those 11, four are located within one mile
of Lake Michigan’s shoreline. The newest of these four reactors,
Donald C. Cook in southwestern Michigan, was granted an operating
license in 1977.

“Lake Michigan alone faces some of the major safety violations in the
country,” said Kevin Kamps of Beyond Nuclear, an activist group. He
said “the opinion of the NRC and company was…‘dilution is the
solution.’ We call that delusional.” …..
http://news.medill.northwestern.edu/chicago/news.aspx?id=199262

January 27, 2012 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Canada, USA, water