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February 25, 2006
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Obama Moves to Mandate Disclosure
The measure carries penalties for failure to make the disclosure, including revocation of the generating station’s operating license, Obama spokesman Tommy Vietor said today. Under existing law, any accidental or unintentional leak of fissionable materials is referred by the utility to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. If the notification is not made, the utility can lose its operating license. Obama’s legislation — which stems in part from his town meeting in Morris two weeks ago — expands the definition to include radioactive materials such as tritium. “If such a leak occurs and the utility doesn’t notify state and local officials, no one’s going to walk into the nuclear plant and shut them down immediately, however,” said Vietor. “Obviously, it’s not the only possibility. They wouldn’t automatically lose their license at that point, but it does give some real teeth to the legislation.” Vietor said Obama plans to introduce the bill early next week after Congress reconvenes. He said the measure may undergo a few tweaks between now and then to perfect the language. The senator’s legislation comes in the wake of Exelon Nuclear’s recent disclosure of tritium leaks at Braidwood Generating Station at Braceville, Dresden Generating Station at Morris, and Byron Nuclear Plant near Rockford. In the Braidwood incident, about three million gallons of water containing tritium leaked from an underground pipe into the groundwater inside the station’s northern boundary in 1998. The incident was discovered during an environmental monitoring program at the station late in November 2005, and made public Dec. 3, 2005. The Dresden incident occurred in early December 2004, when water bubbled up from an underground pipe at the station. The leak was immediately stopped and the water sampled, with Exelon declaring at the time no impurities were found. This incident was only recently reported as being a tritium leak. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission noted on Feb. 21 the water in the Dresden incident contained tritium, of which Region 3 NRC spokesman Jan Strasma of Lisle said Exelon was aware at the time of the leak. Tritium is a naturally occurring isotope of hydrogen that emits a very low level of radiation, and is a natural part of water. Tritium is found in more-concentrated levels in water used in nuclear reactors. Vietor said Obama was aware of the tritium leak situation from news reports and contacts by his staff with the NRC, state and local officials, and Exelon. “He began working on solutions at the time, but after the town hall meeting in Morris, he came away with a better understanding of the situation,” Vietor said. He said the legislation specifically refers to future events, and does not contain a grandfather clause should more incidents such as the tritium leaks of the past come to light. “Senator Obama’s intent is to try to prevent this from ever happening again,” said Vietor. In a prepared news brief, Obama said families in the area deserve to be notified immediately of the release of potentially hazardous materials into the environment. “As more information about these leaks comes out years later, it’s clear their relying on the federal government or a corporation — concerned about protecting its image — to disclose this information, is not enough.” Obama’s legislation would require that, when a radioactive leak occurs that exceeds limits set by the NRC, the U.S. EPA or other federal, state, and local officials are notified simultaneously with the NRC. The senator said he decided to introduce this legislation after speaking with constituents during a town hall meeting in Grundy County two weeks ago. He said the constituents were angry potentially dangerous radioactive waste had been released into groundwater in the area, and they weren’t notified about it until years later. “This is about the public’s right to know today, not eight years later,” Obama said. “Community residents, particularly state and local officials responsible for the safety and health of their constituents, should receive full and immediate notification of any contamination. “When radioactive substances are released into the environment outside of normal operating procedures, notifying state and local officials is not a courtesy or a passive presentation of documents filed in the local library. Rather, it is a responsibility, and therefore, ought to be the law.” Obama’s legislation follows a call last week by Congressman Jerry Weller, R-Morris, for intense federal scrutiny of the Braidwood and Dresden incidents. In a letter to NRC Chairman Nils J. Diaz, Rockville, Md., Weller asked the NRC to perform an independent audit of all nuclear power facilities in Illinois, with strong emphasis on system components dealing with tritium. Joliet attorney Kurt Leinweber, spokesman for a grassroots group in Godley, near Braidwood Station, began an effort to learn what the organization said is the truth behind tritium in the groundwater around Braidwood station, said today the community’s right to know is certainly an important thing. “Right to know about what, though,” he said today. “Certain disasters in the distant past should have been reported. But, according to the NRC, Exelon releases radioactive waste into the environment three times weekly since its existence — water releases into the Kankakee River and steam releases into the atmosphere which contains tritium as well,” he noted. Leinweber said the utility is licensed by the NRC to do this. “The big scandal now coming up is Exelon is accumulating tritium on-site. One of their plans is to start evaporating this waste into the air, where it can be readily breathed and such,” he said. Leinweber said he understood from a meeting with NRC spokesmen and elected officials in Weller’s office in Joliet, that Exelon has construction under way on evaporators to turn the tritium-laced water into steam for release into the atmosphere. “This is crazy to start pumping the entire production of tritium up into the atmosphere,” he said. “It’s insane, in my view. It now is safely stored, presumably, at the plant. Leave it there. Don’t release it. “I understand they can recycle it to a certain extent,” he added. “They don’t have to release it.” Leinweber said there needs to be an injunction of some sort on Exelon for releasing it into the air. “I call upon the Will County state’s attorney to enjoin them from doing this. If we’re not going to get satisfaction, we’ll start looking for private counsel to achieve that end. Leinweber said he planned to contact the state’s attorney’s office soon on the issue, as well as the office of the Illinois Attorney General. “I’m a criminal lawyer,” he said. “I have no expertise on environmental concerns.”
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