Physicians Group Requests Evaluation of Point Beach Nuclear Reactor Shutdown
August 11, 2021 
See PSR WI's Point Beach Nuclear Power Plant information page, here.
See PSR WI's August 6th emailed request to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) for an Augmented Inspection Team to be sent to Point Beach to investigate, posted below.
The PSR WI press release links to an expert analysis by Arnie Gundersen, Chief Engineer at Fairewinds Associates. Gundersen's analysis identified four separate problem areas associated with a July 31, 2021 scram at Point Beach, or "Manual Reactor Trip of Unit 1," as the NRC Event Report refers to it.
PSR WI's request further investigation of the events leading up to and after the scram by an NRC Augmented Inspection Team, dated August 6, 2021, happened to be sent on the 76th annual commemoration of the Hiroshima atomic bombing.
NRC's initial response to the request (see the August 12th NRC email, posted below) ignored Gundersen's focus on the age-related degradation aspects of the root cause of the scram.
The scram took place just two days after the NRC's Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel -- although acknowledging PSR WI's legal standing to intervene against Point Beach's application for an 80-year operating license -- had all rejected four contentions, backed by three expert witnesses, which PSR WI had filed. PSR WI plans to appeal the ASLB ruling.
One of the witnesses, Gundersen, included contentions focused on age-related degradation safety risks at the half-century old reactors. NRC subsequent license renewal proceedings, for 80-year operating permits, are largely limited to considering a very narrow range of aging-related safety matters.
PSR WI's legal counsel in the proceeding is Terry Lodge of Toledo, OH.
Beyond Nuclear is honored and privileged to serve as a consultant in the vital PSR WI intervention.
Lake Michigan, on the shore of which Point Beach nuclear power plant is located, is the drinking water supply for 40 million people downstream, in 8 U.S. states, 2 Canadian provinces, and a very large number of Indigenous Nations. It is a primary headwaters of the Great Lakes, which comprise 21% of the entire world's surface fresh water, and 84% of North America's.
Gundersen has previously warned what a Fukushima-scale nuclear catastrophe taking place on the Great Lakes shorelines could look like. His essay, "Downstream," was published on July 16, 2015 -- which happened to be the 36th annual commemoration of one of the worst radiological releases into the environment in U.S. history. It happened near Church Rock, New Mexico, when a uranium mill tailings holding pond burst through an earthen dam. The radioactive and toxic wastewater flood flowed down the Puerco River, the sole source of drinking and irrigation water for Navajo/Diné shepherds downstream, at the Red Water Pond Road Community. The contamination was never cleaned up.
Even NRC, in a 1982 report it commissioned, acknowledged that 500 acute radiation poisoning deaths ("Peak Early Fatalities"), 9,000 radiation injuries ("Peak Early Injuries"), 7,000 latent cancer fatalities ("Latent Cancer Deaths"), and $41.4 to $43.8 billion in property damage (expressed as 1982 dollar figures) would result, if either one of the cores melted down, and released even a fraction of its ionizing radioactivity contents into the environment at Point Beach.
Presumably, a twin-meltdown at the site would at least double casualties and property damage, as reported by NRC's commissioned report in 1982.
At Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan, a triple reactor meltdown began on March 11, 2011, domino-effect style.
A June 2011 AP investigative four-part series, "Aging Nukes," by Jeff Donn, pointed out that populations have soared around nuclear power plants like Point Beach, since the 1982 NRC commissioned report. So casualty figures would be much worse now. And adjusted for inflation alone -- not even considering further economic development in surrounding areas since 1982 -- property damages would now exceed $112.55 to $119.07 billion dollars for a single core meltdown, as expressed as Year 2020 dollar figures.
The series also cited neutron-embrittlement of pressurized water reactor (PWR) reactor pressure vessels (RPV) as its top example of NRC regulatory retreat in the U.S. In 2013, NRC acknolwedged that Point Beach Unit 2 is the single worst example of RPV embrittlement in the U.S. (see Page 5 of 15 on the PDF counter in this NRC document, Point #4).
Although tied as worst with Palisades in MI -- also on the Lake Michigan shoreline -- that reactor has announced permanent closure by May 31, 2022. However, Point Beach has applied to NRC for permission to operate 30 more years -- an application NRC appears poised to rubberstamp, despite the already high, and worsening, age-related degradation risks.
admin
From: PSR Wisconsin <info@psrwisconsin.org>
Sent: Friday, August 06, 2021 11:01 AM
To: Féliz Adorno, Néstor <Nestor.Feliz-Adorno@nrc.gov>; Cassidy, John <John.Cassidy@nrc.gov>; Vance.petrella@nrc.com; tom.hartman@nrc.gov; Hartman, Thomas <Thomas.Hartman@nrc.gov>; Venkataraman, Booma <Booma.Venkataraman@nrc.gov>
Subject: [External_Sender] Time sensitive: Request for Further Inspection
Dear Néstor Féliz, John Cassidy, Vance Petrella, Tom Hartman and Booma Venkataraman,
Physicians for Social Responsibility Wisconsin (PSR WI) urgently requests the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to send an Augmented Inspection Team to Point Beach Nuclear Reactor, Unit 1 to evaluate the root causes of a July 31, 2021, reactor trip (also called Scram). Attached is a formal request from PSR WI. If you are not the correct person to send this request to, it would be greatly appreciated if you inform us of the correct email to send it to.
As described in the attached request, the July 31 event contains several troubling signs that aging equipment and/or questionable maintenance practices might cause a mishap at Point Beach, and so we request that this inspection be undertaken quickly. We further request that the complete results and findings of the inspection team be made available and easily accessible in a timely manner to the public.
PSR WI is thankful that the operators of the Point Beach Unit 1 were able perform operations successfully to manually shut this reactor down emergently and, we presume, without excess radiation exhausted into the atmosphere of neighboring communities or into Lake Michigan.
Thank you for time,
Hannah Mortensen
PSR WI Executive Director
--
PSR Wisconsin
720 Hill Street, Suite 200
Madison, WI 53705
608.232.9945
admin
Response from the NRC
---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Féliz Adorno, Néstor <Nestor.Feliz-Adorno@nrc.gov>
Date: Thu, Aug 12, 2021, 9:53 AM
Subject: RE: Time sensitive: Request for Further Inspection
To: PSR Wisconsin <info@psrwisconsin.org>
Cc: Chandrathil, Prema <Prema.Chandrathil@nrc.gov>
Dear Mortensen,
The NRC received your email. We understand you have concerns and want to assure you that the plant is currently safe.
On July 31, Point Beach Unit 1 was manually tripped due to the loss of one main feedwater pump. The redundancy of safety systems allowed the plant operators to safely shutdown the plant as designed in response to this trip. NRC inspectors promptly responded to the plant and closely followed the plant’s actions in response. The inspectors continued to follow the licensee’s actions as they performed the necessary repairs. NRC inspectors also followed the licensee’s actions as they verified the plant was ready to be safely restarted and operated. If the NRC inspectors have any concerns, then they would promptly raise them to the plant and NRC management.
Whenever issues such as this trip occur, we look at them to understand the circumstances surrounding them. The process we used to decide the appropriate follow up actions for this event is described by Management Directive 8.3. We determined the circumstances surrounding this event should be looked into using our normal inspection process and our NRC inspectors are currently reviewing them. The details of these ongoing inspection activities are currently predecisional.
Public health and safety are a priority for the NRC. If the NRC inspectors discover any findings, we will take the appropriate steps in response. This includes documenting any findings in a publicly available inspection report.
Sincerely,
Néstor J. Féliz Adorno, P.E.
Chief, Branch 4
U.S.NRC | Region III | Division of Reactor Projects