The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is headed out to the Xcel Energy’s Monticello Nuclear Generating Plant, which the operator shut down on Saturday after water containing tritium leaked into the groundwater at the plant.
“The amount of leakage is still being quantified,” the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said in a notice posted online Monday. “Monitoring of groundwater wells has not identified any tritium outside the Monticello station boundaries.”
Xcel Energy has been assessing a similar leak at Monticello since November. The company issued a status report about the first leak early last week and had planned to repair the damaged plumbing during a scheduled outage in April, but things took a turn only days later.
On March 21, “monitoring equipment at the plant Wednesday indicated a small amount of new water from the original leak had reached the groundwater,” the company wrote in a press release.
The plant’s “resident inspectors are scheduled to observe and monitor the pipe replacement activities,” NRC wrote in Monday’s notice.
