Our controversial nuclear legacy and questions about health, truth and future risks
By Nicole Hoepner
Sleeping dragons. Stirring the thin blankets of secret cold-war facilities, nuclear power plants and feebly stored radioactive waste. We quietly sneak around their massive shadows. We tell our children fairy tales of mankind’s control over technology, over nature. The story of The Atom That Is Keeping Us Safe, but then the unexpected happens and unspeakable horrors awaken and unleash their terror.
People in Southern California have such a sleeping dragon right in their neighborhood: the San Onofre Nuclear Power Plant. Although shut down, it is home to 1,631 tons of radioactive waste. The waste (a witches brew containing plutonium, uranium and cesium, which will be harmful for over 250,000 years) is stored in ill-designed temporary caskets. No one has any long-term plans for this waste. Scientists have confirmed that San Onofre sits in a tsunami zone, on a fault line known to produce a magnitude of 8 (or larger) earthquakes, although the plant was designed to withstand only a magnitude 7 earthquake.
You could look to Fukushima or Chernobyl and draw your own conclusions of risk. You could look to the ongoing debate over how safe nuclear power really is and how we think we’re in control of nuclear technology, but refuse to prepare for the unexpected. A government, in case of a nuclear disaster like the Chernobyl explosion, always leans towards insistent denial, cover-ups and reckless disregard for the life and health of its own citizens.
The melt-down at Three-Mile Island, Pennsylvania in 1979 is generally considered the worst nuclear disaster in U.S. history, but it wasn’t. In 1959 just north of Los Angeles at Santa Susana Field Lab (SSFL), where researchers performed top-secret nuclear tests, a partial melt-down released massive amounts of radioactivity into the atmosphere for days. Cancer rates of residents in Simi Valley and other neighborhoods close by were and continue to be 60 % higher than the US.. average. The accident was kept secret for 20 years.
Even worse is the radioactive contamination at Rocky Flats in Colorado. Built in 1951 this secret cold-war facility just 16 miles west of Denver was one of the biggest nuclear weapons plant in the U.S. 70,000 plutonium pits were manufactured here. Each pit (roughly the size of a grapefruit) by itself is an atomic bomb and has the lethal strength of the plutonium bomb that destroyed Nagasaki.
People in Colorado were never informed about the activities at Rocky Flats. Rumor had it that the plant manufactured cleaning supplies such as “scrubbing bubbles.” Families moving to the Denver suburbs right next to Rocky Flats thought they were raising their families in a perfect, pristine environment with views to the Rockies and crisp mountain air. Workers were forbidden to talk about their jobs. To this day many of them feel it would be unpatriotic to speak negatively about Rocky Flats since it was an important part of the Cold War and our national defense. Many of these workers have experienced illnesses that can be linked directly to Rocky Flats.
The plant was badly mismanaged for decades and several tons of plutonium have gone “missing.” Rocky Flats illegally released toxic and radioactive materials into the ground water, burned plutonium waste and experienced hundreds of fires, two of them (in 1957 and 1969) devastating in their size and scale. Radioactive smoke drifted over the Denver suburbs, yet no one was warned, evacuated or informed.
In addition to the pollution caused by the plutonium fires, 5200 barrels of radioactive and chemical waste were stored outdoors, exposed to extreme weather for over a decade. The barrels rusted and leaked. Plutonium, americium, cesium and hundreds of chemicals seeped into the ground water and ended up in the drinking water of some Denver suburbs.
Notoriously severe winds blowing off the Rockies towards Denver and the Great Plains picked up contaminated dust and plutonium particles that were inhaled by residents and animals downwind of the Rocky Flats. The chemist Glenn Seaborg, after discovering plutonium in 1941, called it “fiendishly toxic” even in the most miniscule amounts. Once inhaled or ingested, plutonium will emit radiation for the rest of the lifetime of that person. Physicist Jeremy Bernstein declared plutonium “the world’s most dangerous element.”
In the neighborhoods surrounding Rocky Flats, unsuspecting families soon began to note a higher rate of leukemia in children. Other cancers (testicular, thyroid, lung and bone cancer etc.) also spiked. Local farmers reported extremely high rates of infertility and birth defects in their livestock.
In 1981 the local County Health Director opposed housing development near Rocky Flats after studies linked off-site plutonium contamination and adverse health effects. He was forced to resign.
Finally, in 1989 the FBI had enough evidence of violations of federal environmental laws. The FBI raided Rocky Flats. For the first and only time in our history, one government agency (the FBI) raided another (the Department of Energy or DOE). The following two decades saw a whirlwind of messy problem-solving attempts: local groups, government and state agencies were quarreling over Rocky Flats’ link to illnesses in workers. People living close by were trying to set “acceptable levels of plutonium” in the soil surrounding the plant. A complicated grand jury investigation took place, then a class-action suit was filed and finally a controversial “clean-up” effort happened.
The clean-up was originally estimated to take 70 years, but the DOE gave the contract to the lowest bidder and settled for a partial clean-up for 20% of the original cost estimate. The contractor rushed through the “clean-up” in just 10 years. The US government declared the clean-up complete in 2005. Part of the site, however, is so contaminated that it will remain off limits to the public forever. Plutonium, after all, has a half-life of 24,000 years.
In 2007 Rocky Flats and a thin buffer zone surrounding the original plant site was handed over to yet another government agency, The Fish and Wildlife Service, who now calls it “Rocky Flats Wildlife Refuge.” People moving to Denver see this lovely and innocent name on zoning and school district maps and are thus made to believe that their new suburb sits right next to a pristine wildlife refuge. They plant gardens in their backyard and the children play outdoors. The wind blows fiercely down from the mountains as they have done for thousands of years. And they will continue to blow, over the dusty, radioactive soil at Rocky Flats, down to Denver and beyond, lulling us all back to sleep.
_______________________
Sources:
Full Body Burden-Growing up in the Nuclear Shadow of Rocky Flats by Kristen Iversen
Plutonium inventory differences at Rocky Flats and their relationship to environmental releases. by Thomas B. Cochran, Ph.D.
A ‘Toxic Tour’ of Denver-Working for environmental justice at the grassroots by Camille Colatosti on www.thewitness.org
What you need to know about Rocky Flats and about Plutonium by the Rocky Flats Nuclear Guardianship
The Worst Nuclear Disaster in US History That You’ve Never Heard About on www.antimedia.org
Earthquake and tsunami risks on www.sanonofresafety.org
What lies beneath by Scott C. Johnson in Foreign Policy (www.foreignpolicy.com)
________
Nicole Hoepner was born in Germany and is a teacher, environmental activist and a published illustrator. Nicole and has lived and worked in Asia, Europe and currently resides with her husband and daughters near Denver, Colorado. She was just 15 years old when the infamous Chernobyl accident brought radioactive fallout over her home and much of Europe. Her passion for raising awareness towards global and local environmental concerns fuels much of her volunteer work.
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It is good to see how increased media exposure has begun ‘connecting the dots’ between the multiple utility catastrophic events which have not been prevented in California by regulatory agencies, and extreme hazards caused by careless practices from San Bruno gas explosion (2010), San Onofre Replacement Steam Generator Debacle (SONGS), SONGS Decommissioning Plan, and the ongoing uncontained methane gas leak at Aliso Hills (Porter Ranch).
I am among 8.4 million other public stakeholders in southern California who are already threatened by unmitigated risks from lack of proper oversight applied by regulatory agencies (NRC, CPUC and others) responsible for public health and safety mandates at San Onofre (SONGS) reactor which was prematurely retired in June 2014.
Licensee (SCE Edison) secured premature approval by NRC under false pretenses for expensive Replacement Steam Generators a decade ago, without processing a formal License Amendment, by applying false pretense that project is a ‘like-for-like replacement’. Evidence from internal SCE records show the utility already had internal technical warnings which were disregarded, and concealed from public. An internal Memo from a decade ago from R. Nunn proved recent evidence existed the utility was aware a decaded ago that SCE’s proposed design specification changes for replacement steam generators had changes with readily foreseeable design risks which caused excessive tube vibration, void faction, excessive steam, tube to tube wear patterns which led to plant shutdown in January 2012, following Unit 2 radiation leak.
San Diego stakeholders are grateful that SD Free Press devoted a small extent of publicity in this recent column about safety threats confronted by residents and ratepayers in southern CA from another new threat caused by defective interim dry cask storage HOLTEC UMAX casks. On exposed coastline, 5/8″ thin metal casks which will be located only inches above mean sea level, within 125′ feet from the existing seawall for storage of millions of metric tons of highly radioactive spent nuclear fuel where imminent sea level rise and bluff erosion rates are expected to expose partially underground, unenclosed 5/8″ thin metal casks to constant marine moisture, and conditions conducive to stress corrosion cracking.
Since the HOLTEC UMAX casks selected by Licensee have not been fully tested, or proven through years of ongoing operational experience, regulatory agencies have approved permits based only upon unproven verbal’assurances’ by Vendor (HOLTEC) of cask performance capabilities, service life, and structural integrity.
Stakeholders in southern California are threatened, many have credible concerns which have been disregarded, better alternatives exist for German ductile cask designs used successfully over 40 years in Europe (14″-20″ thick), with performance capabilities which allow spent fuel inside casks to be inspected, monitored (real time), removed if necessary, and spent fuel in casks will be readily retrievable during service life, and transportable safely for removal to alternate location for disposal at federal interim consolidation site, or permanent respository, located far from highly populated area(s).
Stakeholders in southern California would very much like to see SD Free Press more thoroughly examine ongoing public safety issues, extreme cost issues, alternatives and other potential action in the near future.
In the meantime, viewers are encouraged to examine technical information contained in website prepared by Donna Gilmore, http://www.sanonofresafety.org.
Here is a “Partial Listing” of the #SanOnofreGate debacle:
SCE asks for & gets a Power Uprate which started destroying the Original Steam Gen. (SG’s)
SCE tells the CPUC that its new Replacement SG will save a billion dollars & last 40+ years.
SCE self designed the RSG without a NRC 50.90 review (Major Technical Review)
SCE gets to use the NRC 50.59 (like-for-like) loophole, thanks to their good friends in NRC Region IV (who don’t have a working knowledge ofRSG design).
SCE picks MHI because they will do anything SCE wants, even thought they have NO experience building big RSG .
SCE keeps MHI from talking to anyone about the RSG design w/o SCE’s permission.
SCE did not fully disclose to the NRC all the changes they were doing in the RSGs.
SCE accepted the RSG as soon as they were installed, thinking they were perfect.
SCE did not determine the cause of the Dings & Dents signals that occurred in the RSGs.
SCE ran Unit 3 over its “redline” thinking it was constructed “Better” than Unit 2, in violation of their NRC license.
SCE realized that something caused the leak but downplayed it before they knew, just like TEPCO did at Fukushima.
SCE realizing the scope of their problem, started clamping down on all employees in the know.
SCE made deals with the NRC, the CPUC and probably MHI to downplay what happened, to protect all involved.
SCE came up with a poorly written Root Cause report, as did the NRC AIT and other experts friendly to SCE and the nuclear industry.
SCE gets egg on their face when the NRC Independent Consultants issue their report critical of all the other reports, but SCE gets it buried for a year+.
SCE starting hiring lots of friendly outside experts to build a big cover for themselves and to spread the time out.
SCE came up with a Unit 2 restart plan that was ridiculous, since they could not even explain how it would work safely to the NRC Atomic Safety Licensing Board (ASLB).
SCE failed to have someone smart testify for them before the NRC and the ASLB, which made them look bad again.
SCE has the their SanO keys taken away from them (ASLB Verdict: No reactor restart without direct NRC permission).
SCE made the behind closed doors CPUC Peevey Settlement deal & hid it from everyone.
CPUC (and SCE) starts holding Settlement “Dog & Pony” shows.
SCE starts laying off rank and file union workers and hiring lawyers, lots of Lawyers.
SCE got the OK from Peevey & his good friend Gov. Brown to shutter SanO.
SCE announces the Decommissioning of SanO and seeks immediate access to the Billions in the SanO Decommissioning fund.
SCE creates phony Community Engagement Panel and populates it with SCE shills.
SCE starts to again to do everything on the cheap, which angers locals which start to dig deeply into how SCE’s proposes to deal with all its tons of nuclear waste.
SCE chooses cheap waste casks that are very poor choice that will cause later problems.
SCE tells the Navy everything is wonderful at SanO, no contaminated land anywhere.
SCE gets caught having “behind closed door” settlement meeting with the CPUC.
SCE sits by, as a few head roll, as the CPUC hires $800/hour lawyers to protect themselves.
SCE has to cough up emails and admit to ex parte discussions between themselves and many including the CPUC ALJ.
SCE welcomes M. Picker to the CPUC, thanks to Gov. Brown protecting SCE’s interests.
SCE get new friendly ALJ assigned thanks to Picker, as ALJ Darling retires.
SCE starts to have to respond to many requests for info from MSM.
Coming SOON:
SCE will have to revisit Settlement Investigation
SCE will agree to paying a greater percentage of SanO costs (if not all costs) but will demand that they are held harmless.
SCE will demand and the CPUC will agree to halt all investigations into wrongdoing.
SCE will get Gov. Brown’s word to pardon any and all connected with #SanOnofreGate.
Seen the latest:
Aguirre & Severson LLP ==> Letter to Chairperson Gatto 2-8-16 signed
#SanOnofreGate
**Spread this around, it could not come at a better time:**
CPUC (California Public Utilities Commission) will be having a Public Participation Hearing meeting at Scottish Rite Event Center TONIGHT
:
1895 Camino Del Rio South (off I-8), in Mission Valley, San Diego, CA
at 6PM, Wed. February 10, 2016.
***Please attend and SPEAK OUT about your views, you can be sure that SDG&E will have all it’s “friends” (who have received SDG&E donations) telling everyone how wonder SDG&E is to its ratepayers.***
Actually Units 2 and 3 could be started up with minor mods to the seismic restraint system. Here is a recap on why the S/G’s had to be replaced in the first place and why the RSG’s failed. Had nothing to do with SCE and MHI. The fault was Bechtel’s after review of the manner in which the Nuclear Steam Supply System was pinned and sprung.
When power operation commenced in SONGS Units 2&3 with their older System 80 Inconel 600 S/G’s (OSG’s) and Reactor Vessel, there were severe vibration problems observed. A vibration problem existed in their S/G’s and even the reactor vessel. Look at the tube sheet maps for both S/G’s E-088 & E-089. The vibration problem was largely located along the AVB supports exactly where the problems were documented in the newer MHI S/G’s. A resonance condition developed as their Seismic Snubbers started to unload and fail. The snubbers were used to dampen seismic motion and not designed for vibration flow induced shaking around the tube U bank. Several internal forcing functions existed within the S/G’s at resonance. The first was that noted by Foster and Wheeler in 2005, where it was noted that acoustics pressures could be as high as 200 times that which was used in design. I cannot locate that document, it may have been classified, however I still retain a hard copy, as I mailed it to Region 4. A more tamed version was published in 2010 and you access it at:
http://pressurevesseltech.asme…
The other forcing functions was in the Reactor Coolant Pump’s Vane passing frequency at 100 hz on the S/G tubes, up near the U bend region, and the other anomaly was discovered in the S/G’s Feed Water Level Control System.
These Acoustic Pressures that were used in design were relatively small in magnitude, but at resonance are considerably higher; say 200 times higher. The pressure disturbances act like shock waves over a range steam flow mach speeds. Now look at the area of all those tubes (even more in the newer S/G’s) and multiply that area by the elevated differential pressure across the U bank by the elevated acoustic pressure. It’s one heck of a hugh jolting blow to the Steam Generator tubes, support structures and shell, which causes a violent shaking of the S/G’s. This shaking displaces the reactor vessel via the hot and cold legs from and to the S/G’s (as the snubbers become inoperable from this abnormal non seismic shaking). I observed this as spiking on the excore detectors, and in some cases resulted in a reactor trip. This caused the fuel to shake and rattle in the reactor vessel causing an enormous fuel flea problem in the plant. There WAS shaking of the reactor vessel and fuel assemblies as seen from the neutron excore spikes on the Core Protection Calculators and knowledge of their spatial arrangement. Spikes on 2/4 channels would cause a reactor trip. There were pretrips all the time. But as I recall, there were two reactor trips associated with this scenario. It was very frustrating to management. They could not exactly find the source of the problem, so the CPC neutron detector circuits were altered to electronically filter the noise as the shaking of the reactor vessel continued, now un-noticed. Think of the safety significance.
The severe fuel flea issued was hushed up on a gag order in the Tang vs SCE case. The shaking was well noted when a containment entry at power was made to service the damaged snubbers. A worker was holding a hefty snubber in a fashion like Rambo with a gatling gun, while another worker was pinning it to the S/G and support structure. The steam generator lunged (shook violently) and nearly sent “Rambo” to his death over the scaffolding railing. The Steam Generators were actually shaking placing huge cyclic loads on the hot and cold legs between the reactor vessel and steam generators, This not only resulted in support and tube damage in the steam generators, but also the shaking of the reactor vessel and damage to the fuel assemblies This observation was never reported to the NRC as far as I know. The cyclic loads placed on the hot and cold legs increased the probability of a large break loss of coolant accident resulting in the design basis high energy blowdown of the primary system. With damage and wear associuated with the Steam Generator tubes (primarily located in the AVB (anti-vibration bar area), the high energy blowdown of the primary system would cause these tubes to whip as the primary blowdown is directed around the U bend of the tube bundle. This would result in very high rarefaction stresses in the worn tubes and cause multiple steam generator tube ruptures along with a loss of the primary coolant. The secondary unborated steam flow and condensate back into the reactor vessel would cause steam binding in the core and present the operators with a core where the peak cladding temperatures would cause the zircaloy cladding to melt establishing an uncoolable fuel array and fission product release via the stuck or blown off S/G safeties and/or header. This scenario is what I presented to the NRC-ACRS in the 1980’s. The whole idea behind all this madness is to maintain a coolable array in the core. Without primary to secondary coolant system integrity, that is an impossible task even with high pressure and low pressure safety injection. The NRC told me upon my request, they would have to get a court order to inspect the primary for cracks and even the spalled concrete around the base of the S/G hold-down bolts.
This is why I wrote the California Senators and House Members and warned them that SONGS was about to experience an identical radiological mess as they did in the 1980’s, but much more severe, after SCE refused to meet with me to discuss this and other issues at the Cornell Institute of Conflict Resolution, as directed by the NRC. Now let us look at the newer designs and their legal liability to SCE and the NRC. The failed fuel issue at San Onofre was gagged, in court, while operating with the older CE units. The same thing was happening with the newer MHI S/G’s. Same shaking, but more severe due to a larger size and greater inertial mass. They were seeing, not only S/G tube wear, but failed fuel too in the newer MHI units. SCE could never correct this failed fuel problem as they never addressed this older issue I presented to the NRC on March 26, 2013. I also gave oral testimony to the NRC on Dec 19, 2011, and before that to the USNRC, ACRS.
Why is this so hush, hush? Cause SCE continued operation with this failed fuel problem, with the NRC’s approval for a considerable period of time. They would rather choose “void fraction, fluid elastic instability” and the likes of “botched codes” than admit the truth. One thing about “botched codes”. These codes assumed that the NSSS (Nuclear Steam Supply System) was pinned and sprung properly. It was not. This was not SCE’s fault period. It was a design problem, not by MHI, but by Bechtel.
Dan Johnson
Dan–face it—-Edison lies !
I do not think so. They bought two approved System 80 CE Nuclear Steam Supply Systems. Contracted Bechtel to install them. Bechtel screwed up in the design of their Seismic Restraint System and other systems. Bechtel should have issued a “recall notice” and fixed the system (similar to the Steam Bypass Contro0l System) when it was presumably brought to their attention by an Engineer.
I hear they have an Integrity problem within Senior Management. Not sure if they lie, but cover ups are common, serving their own interests, while subtracting from the General Public’s Interest.
Dan You are so far off base that your comments are just silly.
The NRC, the NRC ASLB and many other have said that the RSGs were not designed properly and the NRC Independent Consultants even went further and said that SCE’s operation of Unit 3 differently (exceeded its redline) from Unit 2 was a major factor in the radioactive leak, which ended up shuttering San Onofre.
Get informed before you try and make SCE look good, because it just makes you both look BAD.
Not really. Ever worked there? Why were the steam generators shaking, as observed visually?
NRC had no idea this was taking place…..Obviously, your experience and technical knowledge is zero. This will be found, to be the root cause when said is done. There were forcing functions in the primary secondary systems that caused this damage. The design, transport, and delivery of the RSG’s had nothing to do with this. The reactor vessel was being tossed anywhere from 2″ pre-trip to about 3-4″ Trip on the CPC’s lower core LHR calculations.
That little BS blog you got going on in Twitter is a farce, and loaded with inaccurate statements. EXPERIENCE rules all, and the NRC found that out.
I would not rely on anything the NRC says…….”fluid elastic instability”, void fraction, dry out, and then botched codes”. Read MHI’s paper, understand it, and get back with me.
SCE wanted larger S/G’s, but the technical downsides to this was not fully understood till 2005. There was nothing illegal about that.
It is really is devastating to see Fukushima, Chernobyl, Santa Susana, San Onofre… and Rocky Flats all together in the same title, discussed in the same article. AFterall, Rocky Flats was only 16 miles northwest from where I live in Denver now. We want to think these things happen far away, or happened far in the past and don’t effect us. But as is the case of Rocky Flats Downwinders, we seeing the the long term health effects of iodizing radiation exposure in the population now. Children are most susceptible to radiation (and other toxic) exposure. Neighborhood children had no protective gear yet played in the streams, lakes, and hills near the most contaminated building in America. These children and now midlife and many are reporting illnesses, cancer and death of loved ones. Please visit http://www.rockyflatsdownwinders.com to add you name to our list. A health survey is the first step to show the shared health problems we are all experiencing. I for one will not be lulled back to sleep. Thanks Nicole for this informative article.
Great article. Thanks for reporting.
But, hey, “Free Market”! Business, industry, and investors don’t need no stinking regulations. “FREEDUMB!”
Again we see the weak link in this technology is not technology per se but the human. It is the human denialism and obfuscation that makes any exceedingly complex technology fraught with frailties.
When the KISS principle was first promoted for human design, I scoffed. But time has shown that KISS is real and critical. The US Tax Code is exemplary of the intrinsic fallacy of complexity. Nuclear engineering is not apart.
Thank you for an excellent article. Keep up the good work!
Hello Nicole:
Very good article. I’m glad to see you know of Rocky Flats Nuclear Guardianship. Many of my writings are posted there. There’s a renaissance of activism re. Rocky Flats.
I live in Boulder and would like to meet you. Send me a note.
Best, LeRoy Moore
Hello LeRoy. I would love to meet you in Boulder and learn more about your work and the Rocky mountain Peace & Justice Center. (Contact me on facebook)