PHMSA has rubberstamped 40 shipments of large, radioactive nuclear components in the past!

British Nuclear Group America (formerly British Nuclear Fuels, Ltd., BNFL, and now part of EnergySolutions) designed this 25 foot by 13 foot “Type B” transport container for the Big Rock Point reactor vessel in 2002, and had it shipped from the manufacturer in Pennsylvania to Michigan on a 205-foot trailer. The reactor vessel was loaded into this shipping container intact, as it was highly radioactively contaminated from the experimentation, and broken fuel rods (including Mixed Oxide Plutonium, MOX) that took place inside Big Rock Point’s reactor core over its 35 years of radiologically messy operations. Keeping the reactor vessel intact was a safety measure deemed “vital” to protect decommissioning workers and innocent passersby from even worse radiation doses that could have occurred if the reactor vessel had been chopped up into smaller pieces, and shipped in smaller transport containers.Beyond Nuclear has just obtained a copy of an email from the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT), sent to a concerned citizen in Michigan who questioned Bruce Power's proposed shipment of 16 radioactive steam generators on the Great Lakes to Sweden for so-called "recycling" (that is, contamination of the metal recycling stream with hazardous radioactivity). DOT's Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) -- infamous for large-scale oil pipeline leaks in rivers, deadly natural gas pipeline explosions, and the cozy relationships between its top officials and the very industries and even companies it is supposed to regulate -- is the U.S. federal agency that must approve Bruce Power's shipment before it enters U.S. territorial waters on the Great Lakes. 

Dated Oct. 1, 2010 and written by DOT radioactive waste transportation specialist Rick Boyle, the email documents some 40 shipments of large radioactive nuclear components approved by PHMSA in the past. These 40 shipments included 16 water-borne vessel shipments; 23 shipments by road/rail; and 1 shipment by vessel/road.

The water-borne vessel shipments transported 21 radioactive steam generators; 12 reactor vessel heads; 2 radioactive pressurizers; and 3 radioactive reactor vessels. The road/rail shipments transported 31 radioactive steam generators; 12 radioactive reactor vessel heads; 2 radioactive pressurizers; and 5 radioactive reactor vessels. The single vessel/road shipment transported 1 radioactive reactor vessel. Altogether, 52 radioactive steam generators, 24 radioactive reactor vessel heads, 4 radioactive pressurizers, and 9 radioactive reactor vessels have been transported, with approval by PHMSA.

Judging from the nuclear power plant locations where the water-borne vessel shipments originated, and the ultimate destinations, it appears that the Great Lakes, rivers, bays, and sea coasts across the U.S. were used as waterways for shipping large, radioactive nuclear components. This "normalization" of radioactive shipping risks on the waterways -- including the Great Lakes, drinking water supply for 40 million people -- could lead to the shipment of even more risky high-level radioactive wastes, which would include the risk of nuclear chain reactions due to underwater submersion accidents: water could act as a neutron moderator, just as it does in a reactor core, sparking an inadvertent criticality in the fissile contents of the irradiated nuclear fuel rods (U-235 and Pu-239). Such an underwater nuclear chain reaction -- such as on the bottom of the Great Lakes -- would dramatically worsen hazardous radioactivity releases into the environment, and would make emergency response a potential suicide mission given the gamma and neutron radiation fields being given off.

Rather than concern regarding the risks, DOT's Boyle expressed pride, bragging "As you can see, we have quite a bit of experience moving large contaminated objects." What he fails to mention, though, are the accidents that such transports have already been involved in, or caused.

For example, the Big Rock Point radioactive reactor vessel shipment by road and rail, from Michigan to South Carolina for burial in an unlined ditch, experienced a number of incidents, and caused not one but two train derailments in its wake. It seems that the 290 ton weight of the shipment damaged the train tracks in Grand Blanc, Michigan, as well as at another spot in the Carolinas, causing follow on trains to derail. Such risks must be addressed by PHMSA before rubberstamping any further such shipments, including Bruce Power's proposal!

Beyond Nuclear, and a coalition of scores of environmental groups, are demanding PHMSA undertake a Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS) before rubberstamping approval for Bruce Power's proposed shipment of 16 radioactive steam generators on board a single boat on Lakes Huron, Erie, and Ontario, and the rivers and canals that connect them. Bruce's proposed shipment is twice the size of the biggest radioactive steam generator shipment by water listed in DOT's email.