Entergy Watch: FitzPatrick, Indian Point, Palisades, Pilgrim, Vermont Yankee

FitzPatrick

As Reuters reports, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has increased oversight and inspections at Entergy's upstate New York reactor (a Fukushima Daiichi twin, GE Mark I), after degrading its safety status:

"At FitzPatrick, the NRC is concerned about the number of unplanned power changes per 7,000 hours of operation, the agency said.

If the number exceeds six during the period, the indicator moves from 'green' to 'white' and the NRC steps up oversight. FitzPatrick's rolling average was tallied at 6.5 at the end of the fourth quarter of 2012."

FitzPatrick's immediate neighbor nuke, Nine Mile Point Unit 1, owned by Constellation/Exelon, is likewise in hot water with NRC.

Indian Point

Lowhud.com has reported that the population in the 10-mile emergency planning zone surrounding Indian Point's twin reactors increased by 4.3% between 2000 and 2010, and that a new report commissioned by Entergy estimates it would take 5 hours and 25 minutes to evacuate 90% of those residents during a radiological disaster.

As the article reports:

'Rep. Nita Lowey, D-Harrison, last week panned the overall plan during a visit to the plant with NRC Chairwoman Allison Macfarlane. She said more of the same in a statement Thursday.

“In the 40 years since Indian Point was built, the population in the Lower Hudson Valley has grown to such an extent that a facility like Indian Point would never be built there today,” she said. “It is clear that in the case of an emergency at the facility, a safe, speedy evacuation of the surrounding area would be nearly impossible.”'

The article also reports: 'Phillip Musegaas of Riverkeeper, a longtime Indian Point foe, said he planned to review the new report. He said Riverkeeper has “longstanding, major concerns about emergency planning” for Indian Point, including the Tappan Zee Bridge, often a traffic bottleneck, being overlooked because it is outside the 10-mile zone.'

Lohud.com also reported that NRC and Entergy admitted workers unwittingly drained Indian Point's steam generators, mistakenly forcing an unplanned reactor shutdown. 

In a recent UBS Financial analysis, Indian Point's future -- or lack thereof -- was discussed, in light of challenges by environmental groups such as Riverkeeper and Clearwater, as well as the State of New York Attorney General's Office, against the 20-year license extension sought by Entergy. For one thing, the State of NY's environmental agency is demanding Indian Point install cooling towers, to decrease the harmful thermal heat discharges the reactors pour into the Hudson River on a continual basis. The price tag? Hundreds of millions of dollars.

Palisades

Palisades' latest "leak per week," which has yet again shut the reactor down, involves the safety-significant component cooling water system. Apparently, the leak had been going on for at least 11 days, before NRC or Entergy got around to informing the public. But this is nothing new -- Entergy and NRC kept the public -- and even NRC's own chairman, during his tour of Palisades! -- in the dark about a leak into the safety-critical control room (full of electrical circuitry and equipment which must remain dry at all times) for over a year, until courageous whistleblowers, their attorney Billie Pirner Garde, and U.S. Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA) brought it to light.

Last month, a man in Michigan was sentenced to five years in prison for making false reports to the FBI and U.S. Marshall's Service about bomb plots, including against Palisades. While delivering his sentencing decision, a federal judge in Kalamazoo, less than 40 miles downwind of Palisades, stated "the false reports required both the FBI and USMS to waste time and resources conducting extensive investigations of what, if true, would have been extremely serious plots." (emphasis added)

There are lots of activities in west Michigan regarding Palisades. On Wed., Feb. 27th a grassroots organizing meeting will take place in Kalamazoo. On Sat., March 2nd, a grassroots organizing meeting will take place in South Haven. David Lochbaum, Union of Concerned Scientists' Nuclear Safety Project Director will speak in both Kalamazoo and South Haven on Thurs., April 11th on "Preventing an American Fukushima." Beyond Nuclear has posted an announcement page on its website, with more details about all these events.

Pilgrim

Wicked Local Bourne reports that local residents are campaigning to get ballot questions included for upcoming area town meetings, asking whether Pilgrim should be allowed to continue to operate, given the impossibility of evacuating Cape Cod downwinders in the event of a catastrophic radioactivity release from the Fukushima Daiichi twin (a GE Mark I). While the ballot question is on in Harwich and Dennis, Bourne Selectmen are forcing the campaigners to get a full 10% of the town's residents to sign a petition before placing the question on the ballot.

As previously reported by Wicked Local Bourne, Bourne and Sandwich "have pressed Entergy and Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency officials to include both towns in Pilgrim nuclear-evacuation planning, with marginal success this winter." Regarding the Pilgrim shutdown ballot initiative, the article reports "[t]he petition was filed by Margaret Stevens of Pocasset, a member of the Pilgrim Anti-Nuclear Action of Occupy Falmouth."

The Cape Cod Times has also reported on Cape Downwinders' efforts to get the ballot question asked at upcoming town meetings.

Meanwhile, the Plymouth Patch has reported that the Pilgrim 14, protestors arrested last May while delivering a letter to Entergy calling for the reactor's shutdown, are set for their day in court, on March 18, to face trespassing charges. In a blog post, Cape Downwinders introduces the Pilgrim 14 (including a photo from their arraignment hearing), and confirms they will introduce a "necessity defense" of "competing harms" to justify their trespass while attempting to seek Pilgrim's shutdown.

Lohud.com has reported that the population in the 10-mile emergency planning zone around Pilgrim increased by 8% between 2000 and 2010, and that an evacuation of 90% of that local population -- blocked to the east by the Pacific Ocean -- would take 3.5 hours. Many residents on Cape Cod and nearby islands would be ordered to "shelter in place" during a radiological emergency, due to the impossibility of evacuation. 

As reported by the Cape Cod Times, after being shutdown for more than a week due to Winter Storm Nemo, Pilgrim has returned to full power operations. Pilgrim relied on its emergency diesel generators on two separate occassions during the past week to run safety and cooling systems, due to problems with the off-site electric grid. U.S. Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA) documented in May 2011, shortly after the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe began, that U.S. reactors have experienced 74 instances of emergency diesel generator failure in just the past decade or so.

Cap Cod Bay Watch published an op-ed in the Wicked Local Plymouth about the risks of high-level radioactive waste stored at Pilgrim.

Vermont Yankee

WCAX-TV, Vermont Business Magazine, and the Burlington Free Press have reported that Entergy is planning to replace a third of the irradiated nuclear fuel in Vermont Yankee's (VY) core this spring, as it plans to run the reactor until 2032. This, despite the State of Vermont's and environmental groups' challenges to the NRC's 20-year license extension, including in ongoing federal and state court proceedings. The Vermont Public Service Board is also still considering whether or not to grant Entergy a needed Certificate of Public Good for doing business in the state, the denial of which could force the shutdown of VY. Entergy's confidence about running VY for two more decades also contradicts UBS Financial analysts, who have predicted VY could permanently close yet this year.

As reported by the Times Argus, Entergy's executives and lawyers are now arguing before the PSB that VY's cooling tower collapses in 2007 and 2008, as well as its tritium leaks beginning in 2009, are precluded from any state regulatory consideration, due to NRC's sole purview over radiological safety. However, Entergy seems to be extending that federal safety preemption far beyond what even the U.S. Supreme Court intended in its 1983 PG&E ruling, even into areas such as the tourism and recreation economies.

Entergy's vice president for external affairs, T. Michael Twomey, "raised eyebrows" more than once, as when he stated "Honestly, we don't want to go to court," and when he said "We didn’t bargain for legislative action.” Entergy has hired four law firms to defend itself in the PSB proceeding, and has filed multiple lawsuits against the State of Vermont and its officials in federal and state courts of law. And that Entergy was surprised by the State of Vermont Senate's 26 to 4 vote to block VY's 20-year license extension is itself surprising. As shown in Richard Watts' book Public Meltdown, Vermont has a long history of direct democracy, and citizens of the Green Mountain State do no like to be lied to by out-of-state corporations.

The Rutland Herald also reported on Entergy's bizarre arguments before the PSB.