Bridgman, MI, coalition of grassroots environmental and public interest organizations in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio, as well as a national watchdog on the nuclear power industry, have challenged American Electric Power’s (AEP) bid to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) for 20 year license extensions at its twin reactor Cook Nuclear Plant on the southeastern shore of Lake Michigan. The coalition identified weaknesses in Cook’s radiation containment building, risky reactor cooling procedures, the large amount of additional high-level radioactive waste that would be generated, and Cook’s vulnerability to terrorist attack as overriding reasons NRC should reject AEP’s application as part of a “Generic Environmental Impact Statement” public comment period ending today.
In late 2000, after Cook’s three-year forced shutdown due to major safety concerns, veteran NRC structural engineer Dr. Ross Landsman expressed concern that his agency was allowing the two reactors to restart without adequate containment. Landsman filed an official “Differing Professional Opinion” and “Differing Professional View” concerning a severely degraded section of the Cook containment structure missing adequate concrete and steel reinforcement beam that could dangerously decrease its ability to contain a worst-case accident.
“We fear that no substantial repairs to this ‘soft spot’ have ever been done,” said Don’t Waste Michigan spokesman Gary Karch of Niles, Michigan. “AEP simply grouted the deep hole in containment instead of using concrete and rebar, risking a breach of containment and release of radioactivity in a serious accident.”
NRC has lowered Cook Unit 2’s safety rating a notch due to AEP’s departure from standard industry operating procedure in order to prevent its reactor core temperature from !QD!ping too quickly during shutdowns. NRC limits the temperature !QD! to 100 degrees Fahrenheit per hour to avoid thermal shock to the reactor core metal. But Cook can only meet this standard by turning off its main condenser, the primary cooling mechanism. AEP instead relies on auxiliary feedwater pumps, a backup safety system, to cool the Unit 2 reactor more slowly. The cause for the rapid temperature !QD! is not known.
“Cook is the only nuclear reactor in the entire country that takes this convoluted short cut on safety,” said Michael Keegan of Coalition for a Nuclear-Free Great Lakes in Monroe, Michigan. “It’s like using your car’s emergency brake at stop signs and red lights because your brakes don’t work. The more you use it, the greater the risk that it won’t work one day.”
According to the U.S. Energy Information Agency, Cook had 1,068 tons of highly radioactive waste stored on-site at the end of 2002. The U.S. Department of Energy has reported that by 2011, enough commercial irradiated nuclear fuel will exist at reactors in the U.S. to completely fill the proposed national repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada.
“Even if the geologically unsuitable Yucca dump were to open and fill to capacity, a twenty year license extension would mean that Cook would be stuck with over 1,000 tons of irradiated nuclear fuel excess to Yucca’s capacity with no!QW! to go,” said Grant Smith, Executive Director of Citizens Action Coalition of Indiana (CACI). “Given AEP’s poor safety record at Cook, it would be better to close the plant and have NRC, with close public scrutiny, oversee the securing of waste storage to protect against accident and terrorist attack.”
CACI, as part of a coalition of environmental groups, won a July 2004 ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit requiring the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to protect public health downstream of the proposed Yucca Mountain dump against radioactive contamination in the groundwater out to the period of peak dose.
“Not only do we all live downwind from these radiation factories,” said Terry Lodge, chair of the Toledo Coalition for Safe Energy, “but we also live downstream of any nuclear disaster in the upper Great Lakes.”
The full comments sent to NRC are available on request. Contact Kevin Kamps at NIRS to receive a copy: 301-270-6477 ext. 14, cell 240.462.3216.