San Diego Union-Tribune: Levin introduces nuclear waste inspection bill
Rep. Mike Levin, D-San Juan Capistrano, has introduced a bill on Capitol Hill that would require the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to keep an inspector at decommissioned nuclear power plants across the country when the facilities transfer nuclear waste from wet storage pools into canisters.
The proposed legislation comes after Levin’s call for a full-time inspector to be stationed at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station during the plant’s transfer operations was turned back by the NRC last year.
“While the NRC refused to take that necessary measure at San Onofre despite multiple safety incidents, we can learn from that failure and improve safety at other decommissioning plants across the country,” Levin said in a statement.
The San Onofre nuclear station, operated by Southern California Edison, has not produced electricity since 2012 and is in the process of being decommissioned by the NRC.
At commercial nuclear plants, after fuel used to generate electricity loses its effectiveness, operators place the assemblies in a metal rack that is lowered into a “wet storage” pool, typically for about five years. Once cooled, the fuel can be transferred to a “dry storage” facility, which is generally considered a safer place for it.
In August 2018, while Edison was in the midst of transferring dozens of canisters filled with spent fuel from wet storage to a newly built dry storage facility at San Onofre, a 50-ton canister was left suspended inside a storage cavity about 18 feet from the floor for about 45 minutes.
The canister, left unsupported by the rigging and lifting equipment intended to shoulder its weight, was eventually lowered without falling. The incident led to a special inspection by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which fined Edison $116,000.
Transfers resumed after Edison instituted a series of safety improvements and in August of this year, the 73rd and final canister was lowered into its storage cavity at the north end of the plant.
In 2019, Levin called on the NRC to place an inspector at San Onofre to monitor transfer operations but NRC chairwoman Kristine Svinicki said employing a full-time inspector “is not necessary,” adding that activities at a plant going through the decommissioning process “present fewer radiological and/or nuclear safety hazards” than a plant that is producing electricity.
Earlier this year, after assembling a task force that included a former NRC chairman, Levin said he would introduce legislation calling for inspectors for transfer operations at all U.S. plants going through decommissioning.
The bill, called the Increasing Nuclear Safety Protocols for Extended Canister Transfers (INSPECT) Act, is co-sponsored by Rep. Katie Porter, D-Irvine, and Harley Rouda, D- Laguna Beach.
By: ROB NIKOLEWSKI
Source: San Diego Union-Tribune