The Seabrook Station nuclear power plant in New Hampshire is “degraded but operable,” the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said this week in response to Massachusetts lawmakers’ continued calls to close the 26-year-old facility.
State Sen. Kathleen O’Connor Ives (D), who first brought the issue up in 2013, and state Sen. Daniel Wolf (D) joined state Reps. Ann-Margaret Ferrante (D) and James Kelcourse (R) in penning a May 10 letter asking that the regulator withdraw owner NextEra Energy Resources’ operating license. The group claimed NRC does not have a firm grasp on concrete degradation issues that plague the plant’s foundation and vertical structures, including the containment building, which houses the nuclear reactor. Given that 4 million New Englanders live within 50 miles of the plant, the lawmakers contend the reactor poses “an unacceptable threat.”
“We consider the structures at the plant to be ‘degraded but operable,’” NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan said by email Monday. “That is based on the structural integrity being maintained by the thick steel rebar inside the walls of plant buildings and other factors.”
However, he added that NextEra must develop a long-term plan to deal with the concrete degradation, or “alkali silica reaction (ASR),” before a decision on renewal of the plant’s operating license, which is set to expire in 2030. Sheehan said the approval timeline is contingent on submission of NextEra’s plan.
O’Connor Ives in a telephone interview Friday described the NRC’s assessment as “offensive” to public safety. “Degraded but operable,” she said, needs to be more clearly defined and should include reassurance surrounding the structure’s rebar, not the viability of the concrete. She plans to draft a follow-up letter by the end of June, requesting that NRC host a public meeting in Massachusetts. The lawmaker said she will seek the support of all state senators and representatives within 15 miles of the Seabrook plant.
“If the ASR cannot be addressed in the long-term, then they shouldn’t be eligible for consideration for a license,” O’Connor Ives said.
“We acknowledge that there is still much more work to be done on the ASR issue,” Sheehan wrote. “Most notably, we expect NextEra to submit a license amendment request later this year that will describe its plans to addressing the ASR on a long-term basis at Seabrook. That submittal will demand an intensive review by the NRC.”
NextEra Energy Seabrook spokesman Alan Griffith said over the phone Wednesday that safety remains the company’s highest priority, and pointed out that the NRC has repeatedly confirmed that the plant is operating safely.
“The Seabrook ASR monitoring program was developed by qualified, credentialed structural engineering experts, and the plan to monitor and manage ASR for the long-term is effective and comprehensive,” Griffith said, adding that O’Connor Ives has not accepted multiple invitations to tour the facility with company representatives. O’Connor Ives said she has not received an invitation to tour the plant but expressed a willingness to accept.
The Massachusetts lawmakers listed a number of concerns in the letter, drawing particular attention to NRC’s handling of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in 2011. NRC at that time recommended that Americans in Japan move at least 50 miles away from the power plant.
“This is indicative of what the NRC really believes to be an appropriate evacuation zone,” the letter states. “We see no reason why the NRC would not apply the same protections it recommended to Americans in Japan to those in Massachusetts and New England.”
A timely and safe evacuation from the existing 10-mile evacuation zone is “impossible,” the letter argues, given summer beach traffic and winter snowstorm conditions. The lawmakers also noted that there is no plan in place for residents outside the 10-mile zone.
Sheehan explained that NRC relies on the Federal Emergency Management Agency to assess off-site emergency response capabilities at nuclear power plants, and that the agency has conveyed “reasonable assurance” that the plans will work.
“We would add that off-site emergency response agencies have the ability to implement protective actions beyond the 10-mile Emergency Planning Zone (EPZ) if they deem that necessary,” Sheehan wrote.
The letter writers claimed that NRC has failed to provide adequate oversight, due to a lack of knowledge and regulatory track record on concrete degradation. Sheehan defended NRC, saying the agency has actively engaged NextEra on concrete degradation since the issues were first discovered. O’Connor Ives also criticized a Univeristy of Texas study that the NRC has been citing in its defense. She said the study is flawed because it uses a composite material, rather than the exact concrete found at Seabrook, or similar plants.
“(NRC) work has included numerous inspections at the plant and at the University of Texas; reviews of submittals by the company on what it has found and its mitigation plans; and meetings with senior plant and NextEra managers,” Sheehan wrote, noting that NRC has issued two violations to the plant.
“Specifically, on two occasions between March 17, 2015, and Jan. 22, 2016, NextEra received information from vendors identifying non-conforming conditions adversely impacting two reinforced concrete structures at the plant and did not complete an appropriate Immediate Operability Determination or initiate a follow-up Prompt Operability Determination to evaluate the impact of the non-conforming conditions on structural performance,” the spokesman added. “The structures involved included the Residual Heat Removal System and Containment Spray System Vault Building and the Containment Enclosure Building.”
