Coalition defends its challenge against risky steam generator replacements at Davis-Besseo

Terry Lodge speaks out against 20-year license extension at Davis-Besse at Oak Harbor High School in Ohio, August 2012On June 21st, a U.S.-Canadian environmental coalition represented by Toledo attorney Terry Lodge (photo, left) re-asserted its challengeagainst risky steam generator replacements at FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Company's (FENOC) Davis-Besse atomic reactor near Toledo. The filing rebutted June 14th attacks byFENOC as well as the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) staff on the coalition's standing, as well as the merits of its contentions.

The coalition, comprised of Beyond Nuclear, Citizen Environment Alliance of Southwestern Ontario, Don't Waste Michigan, and the Sierra Club, launched its intervention petition on May 20th. The coalition's expert, Fairewinds Associates, Inc's Chief Engineer, Arnie Gundersen, also serves as Friends of the Earth's (FOE) expert in the San Onofre defective replacement steam generator proceeding, which recently resulted in the permanent closure of two reactors. FENOC has taken similar short cuts on safety as did Edison International, which resulted in the San Onofre engineering catastrophe that put 8 million southern Californians at radiological risk, and has resulted in a $2.5 billion boondoggle.

Davis-Besse's "San Onofre-like" shortcuts on safety with steam generator replacements focus of NRC public meeting

Terry Lodge speaks out against Davis-Besse in August 2012 at an NRC public meeting held at Oak Harbor High SchoolBeyond Nuclear set up an info. table at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission's (NRC) "annual performance review" public meeting in Carroll Township, Ohio, just a few miles down the road from FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Company's (FENOC) problem-plagued Davis-Besse atomic reactor. Beyond Nuclear was there to let the public know about the ongoing resistance by an environmental coalition to Davis-Besse's 20-year license extension, and its recently filed intervention against FENOC's San Onofre-like shortcuts on safety regarding its proposed 2014 steam generator replacements.

Toledo attorney Terry Lodge (photo, left) represents the coalition, and Fairewinds Associates, Inc's Chief Engineer, Arnie Gundersen, serves as its expert witness. Gundersen also serves as Friends of the Earth's (FOE) expert, which just successfully forced Edison International to permanently shutdown the San Onofre 2 & 3 atomic reactors due to fatally flawed replacement steam generators.

The coalition includes Citizen Environment Alliance of Southwestern Ontario, making it bi-national.

WTOL's Jennifer Steck quoted Beyond Nuclear's Kevin Kamps (print article; television report):

'..."We want to prevent a Chernobyl or Fukishima on the shoreline of the Great Lakes," said Kevin Kamps, of Beyond Nuclear. "There is no reactor in this country that's come closer to that as many times as Davis-Besse has."

Davis-Besse is licensed for operation through 2017, and in the process of a 20-year license renewal. Delaying that renewal and preventing a steam generator replacement in 2014 are the main goals of Beyond Nuclear.

"We've long strived to shut down Davis-Besse, and we're not going to give up now," Kamps said. "We're just going to re-double our efforts."...'

The Toledo Blade's Roberta Gedert also quoted Kevin:

“They went way out of their way to avoid a license amendment on this major organ transplant,” said Kevin Kamps, radioactive waste watchdog for Beyond Nuclear. “If they have made any mistakes, they have wasted hundreds of millions of dollars because we are going to challenge them at every turn.”

Update on June 13, 2013 by admin

The June 12, 2013 Fairewinds Energy Education podcast, featuring Arnie and Maggie Gundersen, is mostly focused on last week's permanent closure of San Onofre Units 2 & 3 in CA. But beginning at minute 23:00, Arnie applies the lessons learned at San Onofre -- where he serves as Friends of the Earth's expert witness -- to the new "leader of the pack" regarding the San Onofre like-for-like issue: Davis-Besse in Ohio. 

San Onofre 2 & 3 had insisted that its old steam generators and its new replacement steam generators were like-for-like. In this way, Edison International avoided the very public license amendment proceedings that likely would have revealed the replacement steam generator design and fabrication defects that have now proven fatal at San Onofre 2 & 3.

Ironically, FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Company (FENOC) has followed Edison International's unwise path. FENOC has convinced the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) that its proposed 2014 steam generator replacement is "like-for-like," thus far avoiding a public license amendment proceeding. But a coalition of environmental groups, including Beyond Nuclear, is challenging this. They have retained Arnie Gundersen as their expert witness.

Dr. Gordon Edwards on the in's and out's of radioactive steam generators

Given all the attention being directed at steam generators due to San Onofre 2 & 3's closure, Dr. Gordon Edwards (photo, left), President of the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility, has prepared a backgrounder on the subject. In doing so, he has shown yet again why he was awarded the Nuclear-Free Future Award in 2006: "for his enduring role in demystifying nuclear technology helping the public to understand its radioactive predicament."

In 2010, tremendous controversy was generated throughout the Great Lakes, in both the U.S. and Canada, as well as in Europe, when Bruce Nuclear Generating Station in Kincardine, Ontario proposed shipping 64 radioactive steam generators, by boat, to Sweden. Bruce wanted to "recycle" the radioactive steam generators' outer shells into the metal recycling steam. Bruce CEO, Duncan Hawthorne, admitted at Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission hearings in Sept. 2010 that there were no emergency plans in place if one of the shipments sank. 

Dr. Edwards documented the radiological hazards contained in the steam generators. TheGreat Lakes and St. Lawrence Cities Initiative documented that the breach of a single steam generator, and release of even a fraction of its radioactive contaminants, could cause a federal radiological emergency in Canada, leading to the shutdown of nearby drinking water intakes. The Great Lakes are the drinking water supply for 40 million people in 8 U.S. states, 2 Canadian provinces, and a large number of Native American First Nations.

The Bruce shipping plan was stopped dead in its tracks, thanks in large part to a resolution,signed by scores of Quebec municipalities representing hundreds of thousands of residents along the St. Lawrence leg of the route, as well as pledges by Mohawk First Nations to not allow the shipment to pass through their territory.

Davis-Besse Intervention Looms Large as San Onofre Units 2 & 3 Terminated Because Of Faulty Steam Generators

Arnie Gundersen, Chief Engineer at Fairewinds Associates, IncOn May 20th, an environmental coalition, including Beyond Nuclear, petitioned to intervene against the steam generator replacement proposed at FirstEnergy's Davis-Besse atomic reactor in Oak Harbor, Ohio. The coalition's intervention petition, expert witness Arnie Gundersen of Fairewinds Associates, Inc's expert testimony, Gundersen's Curriculum Vitae, and a coalition press release are posted at this link.

Today, the coalition issued a media release, pointing out the similarities between their intervention at Davis-Besse, and the Friends of the Earth (FOE) intervention at San Onofre, CA. Earlier today, Southern California Edison threw in the towel, and announced the permanent shutdown of San Onofre Units 2 & 3, due to the fatal degradation of their replacement steam generators. Gundersen (pictured, above left) serves as FOE's expert witness at San Onofre.

On Dec. 27, 2010, an overlapping environmental coalition, including Beyond Nuclear, intervened against Davis-Besse's 20-year license extension. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Atomic Safety and Licensing Board in that proceeding has rejected all of the coalition's contentions, except for its Nuclear Waste Confidence Decision contention. That one has led to an inevitable two-year delay in NRC's finalization of the license extension, until the agency completes its court-ordered Environmental Impact Statement on the risks of long-term storage of high-level radioactive waste at on-site pools and dry casks.

Citizen Environment Alliance of Southwestern Ontario is a member of both coalitions intervening at Davis-Besse, making them binational.

Update on June 9, 2013 by admin

The Toledo Blade has reported on this story.

Great Lakes Region Nuclear Hotspots Map

John Jackson of Great Lakes United (GLU) and Anna Tilman of International Institute of Concern for Public Health (IICPH) have released an updated map of Nuclear Hotspots in the Great Lakes Region (see image, left):

"Great Lakes United and the International Institute of Concern for Public Health (IICPH) released today the Great Lakes Nuclear Hot Spots Map, providing a detailed regional, binational view of nuclear facilities in the Great Lakes Region. As the map shows, with the exception of Lake Superior, each of the Great Lakes has numerous nuclear sites related to nuclear power generation, most of which are located within one kilometre of the Lakes. This raises concerns about the cumulative impacts of radioactive releases over the years from so many sites. It also shows the numerous places where a serious nuclear accident could occur in the region.

This map marks the first comprehensive update of this information in 15 years and highlights the lack of information about radioactive releases from these facilities. In 1998, the International Joint Commission’s (IJC) Task Force on Inventory of Radionuclides released an assessment of nuclear facilities around the basin. At the time, the Task Force concluded that releases from nuclear facilities were substantial, but that the extent of knowledge about the releases and their impacts was “limited”.   http://www.ijc.org/files/publications/C131.pdf

The map includes all aspects of nuclear power production in the Great Lakes region, including the 38 operating nuclear power plants, 12 closed plants, and four new plants proposed in Canada. It also includes the facilities that process uranium ore and manufacture the pellets, as well as tailings sites from uranium mining and milling, and facilities that store, and dispose of radioactive waste. Every site on the map is a radioactive waste site, whether operating or not.

The Great Lakes Nuclear Hot Spots Map provides a critical resource for communities concerned about the potential for radioactive waste releases into the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River. Additionally, it shows the sites under consideration by the Canadian Government for storing Canada’s nuclear fuel waste. Most of the proposed sites lie within the Great Lakes basin. With the potential for new disposal sites within easy access of the Great Lakes, communities are concerned that nuclear waste could be brought in via ships, creating substantial risks of spills along Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River shipping lanes and during loading and unloading near shore.

The Citizens’ Clearinghouse on Waste Management contributed funding to this project."

The map updates work from 1990-1991 published by Irene Kock and Dave Martin of Nuclear Awareness Project.

Beyond Nuclear has also compiled a listing of major U.S. municipalities downstream of the proposed Bruce DUD on the Great Lakes shorelines of MI, OH, PA, and NY, as well as a listing of major municipalities in upstate New York directly across Lake Ontario from the nuclear power plants (Pickering, Darlington) and uranium processing facility (Port Hope) east of Toronto.