LACEY – Township officials and residents heard an update from Holtec International concerning the status of work being performed at the defunct Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station.
Holtec representative Joseph Delmar also presented a $10,000 donation for the township’s annual Fourth of July fireworks display.
The firm owns Oyster Creek, formerly owned by Exelon. It was the oldest operating nuclear power plant in the country until its closure. Holtec is responsible for all aspects of its decommissioning.
In his report to Mayor Peter Curatolo and the Committee, Delmar said the firm was ahead of schedule in its removal of radioactive waste containers. At that time, they had removed 30 out of 33 containers. “The original schedule was to have it out by November.” He said the last three containers would be removed before the summer months.
“We are working to perform demolition at the site as we are preparing to remove spent fuel from the site. Once that is done, we will be demolishing the ancillary buildings on the site. We are working with the (township) construction office to make sure we have the necessary permits,” Delmar said.
“We are honored to provide funding for the Fourth of July fireworks celebration once again and we hope everything goes well,” he added.
Committeeman Mark Dykoff spoke about the removal of waste materials from the aged nuclear power plant saying, “it was critical to get from wet to dry. Can you explain what happens when you get all these (spent fuel) rods out of there?”
“The fluid in the (spent fuel) pool is still covering equipment. Once all the fuel is on dry storage, we look for any fuel that might still be in the pool and certify that it is all gone. We’ll be doing that over the next few months into July, about that time frame. We then have to dismantle the reactor vessel itself – the internals. We’ll be segmenting those up into smaller pieces and put into proper packaging so they can be sent off site,” Delmar said.
Delmar said from a water standpoint, “we contained all that water within one building. It is not passing from building to building. That reduces a risk from an environmental standpoint and a safety standpoint”
Committeeman Timothy McDonald said he was pleased that the company was “way ahead of schedule” but asked about the firm’s safety record.
Delmar said in the last few months the site has experienced two minor safety incidents. One involved a worker lifting a five-gallon water container on a water cooler causing him to strain his back. The second incident involved an employee working in an area with low piping and when he reached for something he stood up and hit his head on a low pipe.
“He was wearing the proper protective equipment, so no bruises, no bumps no scrapes but there was some neck compression but to be precautionary we got him into an ambulance and to the hospital and now everything is good,” Delmar said.
Township Recreation Director Jim Wioland joined the mayor and Delmar for the presentation of the ceremonial check donation for the township’s fireworks.
Incident At Oyster Creek
Five days after Delmar’s update, an incident occurred at the power plant.
According to Patrick Mulligan who serves as assistant director of the Radiation Protection Element Division of Climate, Clean Energy & Radiation Protection at the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, “on May 18, 2021, the NRC issued a Severity Level IV non-cited violation (NCV) of 10 CFR 72.172 ‘Corrective Action’ to Holtec Decommissioning International.”
“The NCV was issued for Holtec’s failure to promptly capture an equipment condition in its Corrective Action Program (CAP) in December 2020. If the condition had been captured, an incident in February 2021 involving the same component may not have resulted in unexpected leakage of contaminated water and a resulting unexpected dose to a worker,” Mulligan said.
Mulligan added, “the NCV was not issued due to the unexpected leakage and resultant dose. The NRC documents NCVs in inspection reports to establish public records of the violations but are not cited in notices of violations (NOVs) which normally require written responses from licensees.”
Clean Water Action NJ Board Chair Janet Tauro expressed her organization’s concerns about the incident and asked Mulligan about the employee exposed to the material.
Mulligan said the Holtec worker was not hospitalized as “this internal dose is significantly below the NRC dose limits for radiation workers and is not a health concern. The person was not injured and required no medical attention.”
Tauro asked him if the “unexpected leakage of contaminated water” traveled offsite and how much leakage occurred.
“The leakage occurred during a hydrostatic pressure test of a multi-purpose canister. This test is performed inside the reactor building. Per the NRC report, the water contaminated the work platform, 23-foot level, and 51-foot level of the reactor building. There is no pathway to the environment from this area of the reactor building. Therefore, there was no radiological environmental impact to soil or groundwater from this incident,” Mulligan replied.
Mulligan also responded to Tauro’s concerns about whether the leakage traveled into the aquifer. “No, the leakage was confined within the reactor building and therefore did not travel into the aquifer. The water was contained within the reactor building therefore, the community would not have been exposed to any radiation.”
“The contaminated water was spent fuel pool water diluted with demineralized water. The contaminants are the same as what is normally found the in the spent fuel pool. The concentrations would be reduced due to the addition of the demineralized water,” Mulligan said.
Tauro wanted to know if Holtec hired “lesser skilled workers to do this task. If you recall, the unions had complained that lesser skilled workers were hired by Holtec to do highly skilled work.”
Mulligan said this was not the case. “Workers who perform cask movement are Holtec Site Services employees who are specially trained to operate the dry cask equipment. This is the same labor force that performs all spent fuel operations for Holtec storage casks across the country.”
He added, “these individuals are highly skilled in the management and transfer of spent nuclear fuel to dry casks for interim storage onsite.
“Why wasn’t the public alerted when it happened?” Tauro asked.
“Since the event did not rise to the NRC’s criteria for notification and there was no offsite impact, there was no requirement for notification to any offsite agencies. Both the NRC staff and the State staff were aware of the incident,” Mulligan replied.
