Shearon Harris update

In April, public officials representing Orange County, Chapel Hill, Carrboro, Hillsborough, Chatham County, and Pittsboro met with Rep. David Price to ask his help in getting an investigation started of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's enforcement actions (or lack thereof) at the Shearon Harris nuclear power plant. (Mark Kleinschmidt represented the Town Council.) Yesterday brought this news from NC WARN:

GAO Will Study Enforcement of Nuclear Plant Fire Regulations

Statement from NC WARN Executive Director Jim Warren:

Today, Congressman David Price announced that the Government Accountability Office (GAO) has accepted his request to study the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s enforcement of fire safety standards at U.S. nuclear power plants.

The GAO, the investigative arm of Congress, will now assemble a team for the study, which is expected to begin in September. This is a very important juncture in the years-long campaign by public interest groups to force nuclear power plant owners to stop cutting corners on vital safety issues. Fire represents a leading risk factor for meltdown at nuclear plants.

NC WARN encourages the people of North Carolina to thank Representative Price, and the many local and state officials who sought his involvement in this issue due to particular concerns about violations at the Shearon Harris Nuclear Plant in Wake County.

Since last fall, the regional public has increasingly voiced concern to public officials and Progress Energy management based on reports by NC WARN and others about 14 years of violation at Harris, and the company’s plans to delay compliance for years longer.

Shearon Harris update

Last Friday, my Council colleague Mark Kleinschmidt and other local officials met with Rep. David Price about the situation at Shearon Harris. "After a frank and robust discussion, Congressman Price agreed to encourage a Government Accountability Office study of fire safety enforcement by the NRC." Let's wish him luck.

Shearon Harris: NRC hearing

Carrboro alderman Dan Coleman has a brief report of the NRC meeting in Washington yesterday in which NC WARN, SURGE, et al. were allowed to make the case why their petition under sec. 2.206 of the applicable federal regs should be heard. He and I and others were there via conference call. I think what we heard from the NRC hearing board was at least a tacit (if not more) admission that the Shearon Harris facility is out of compliance with the regulations, but that the agency is giving them a pass, for essentially as long as they need, on the promise that they will come into compliance eventually. When the petitioners' attorney John Runkle pointedly accused the NRC of letting Progress Energy call the shots, there was no response. Throughout, Progress had very little to say. "In all, it was not a reassuring hearing," concluded Pete McDowell of NC WARN. It will be interesting to review the transcript (promised by Thanksgiving) in order to follow all the subtle leaps of logic that the board engaged in.

The only encouraging moment was when they said they would consider holding an information meeting here in the Triangle.

Sound the alarums

The latest from NC WARN on the continuing Shearon Harris/Progress Energy story:

Tough Week for Progress Nuclear Plants

Monday: Sirens at Shearon Harris: All 81 emergency sirens in the Harris 10-mile emergency zone were reported to NRC as being inoperable for at least two hours. Progress Energy says the cause was failure of a device that signals the sirens via a communications tower. Progress said that in an emergency, operators could manually override the device and activate the sirens.

Tuesday: Harris siren system fails again – all sirens were inoperable for several hours due to the same equipment failure. The tower, located on the Owner Controlled Area, is apparently the same one that an intruder hung a large flag on a year ago, when Progress downplayed the tower's importance.

Wednesday: Emergency declared at Brunswick Unit II due to an “unusual event” caused by a transformer failure that caused loss of offsite power and primary cooling to the reactor, located south of Wilmington. Most safety systems responded correctly (two required operator help), including the emergency diesel generators.

Thursday: Brunswick Unit I powers down. When one of the emergency generators malfunctioned, the Unit I reactor was required by regulations to be powered down for 12 hours until another generator was connected to the backup cooling system.

NOTE: Although this week’s siren malfunctions apparently happened for a different reason, Harris and Brunswick have suffered multiple siren failures in recent years due to loss of power associated with severe weather – higher risk occasions when sirens could be needed. Sometimes a large number of sirens have been inoperable for many hours. Since mid-2005, Progress has been saying it plans to install backup power for the sirens. After a quarter of the Harris sirens failed in June, the company said it will be late 2007 before backup power is installed at the plant.

Shearon Harris: beneath the spin

In response to this week's events, the community relations manager of Progress Energy was kind enough to write yesterday in an effort to persuade me that the Shearon Harris plant is safe and law-abiding. But I am sorry: this version doesn't fit the facts. Here is Mr. Clayton's memo, annotated by Pete MacDowell of NC WARN.

To: Sally Greene
Chapel Hill, Town of

From: Marty Clayton
Progress Energy

September 22, 2006

The Harris Plant has been in the news this week and we want to make sure you have the facts.

Harris Plant outage

The Harris Plant tripped offline at approximately 10 a.m. Tuesday morning when a relay device inside the plant’s generator failed. Nuclear plants are designed to automatically shut down when components fail in order to protect plant equipment and to ensure the health and safety of the public. Shutdowns are the result of properly functioning safety systems.

The cause of the outage was an electrical problem, similar to tripping the breaker in your home, and was not related to the reactor or the nuclear side of the plant. After conducting extensive precautionary testing on the relay and other nearby components to ensure the relay was the sole cause of the outage, the device was successfully replaced Thursday afternoon.

The plant began startup procedures Thursday evening, and began making and sending power to our customers again early this morning.

Petition to suspend the Harris Plant’s license

NC WARN and others filed a 2.206 petition on Wednesday, which is a mechanism the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) established to allow the public to be involved and engaged in its oversight process. We expect the NRC will review the petition to determine its merit.

Progress Energy and the Harris Plant will work with the NRC in the appropriate manner to address this petition.

Fire safety at the Harris Plant

Allegations of inadequate fire safety at the Harris Plant are simply not true.

It’s interesting that he is saying the company regards their fire safety as “adequate.” Unlike spokesperson Julie Hans, he is not claiming here that they are in compliance with the fire regulations.

There are multiple layers of fire protection barriers in place at Harris. (Multiple layers of inadequate fire barriers that don’t meet safety regulations is not the path to safety. I wouldn’t walk into a fire in a multi-layered paper fire suit – regardless of the number of layers.) Fire-sensitive cables are wrapped in fire retardant material (that is Hemyc, which failed to meet NRC requirements), surrounded by automatic detection devices (fire detection is not fire suppression) and sprinkler systems (sprinkler systems do not satisfy the regulations), and are located in rooms separated by thick concrete to prevent the spread of any fire (the Thermolag, Hemyc, and MT retrofitted and inadequate fire barriers were installed to make up for the fact that cable trays were too close together and were in the same rooms). Additionally, we employ human fire protection, with an on-site fire brigade and teams of individuals (six to eight per shift) who work around the clock, walking the plant in search of fires or fire hazards (these are roving fire detection people who may be in a given area a minute or two an hour and plant firefighters who are hardly an adequate substitute for required in-place fire barriers).

Over the last several years, the NRC’s regulations for fire protection have changed – the Harris Plant has been responsive to the NRC’s requests every step of the way and is making modifications to meet new NRC requirements in the time allowed by the NRC. With compensatory measures, the NRC considers the Harris Plant to be within guidelines for safe operation. (The basic fire safety regulations have not changed and Progress Energy has fought coming into compliance every step of the way. The NRC’s willingness to not enforce its own fire safety regulations for the last 14 years is the ultimate problem. It is the public that is at risk. And it is the public that has to effectively insist that this potentially catastrophic risk is minimized.)

It is our responsibility to ensure the health and safety of the public and we take that responsibility seriously, as do the nearly 450 highly qualified and experienced plant employees. They work here and raise their families in this community. The last thing our employees would accept is an operating condition that presents a danger to themselves or the public.

If you have additional questions about these or other issues, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Thank you,
Marty

Marty Clayton
Manager - Community Relations
Progress Energy
919-878-5300

Fair WARNing

Tonight I went to the briefing in Pittsboro on the Shearon Harris nuclear power plant, its serious and repeated fire safety violations, and the legal action that was taken today by NC WARN, the Nuclear Information and Resource Service, and the Union of Concerned Scientists to seek an emergency enforcement action from the NRC. Here's the demand:

As industry watchdogs on behalf of the public, we hereby submit a 2.206 Emergency Enforcement Petition, concluding and demanding that the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission must:

Issue an Order requiring the immediate suspension of the operating license for the Shearon Harris Nuclear Power Plant until such time that all fire safety violations affecting safe shutdown functions as designated under current law are brought into compliance. This shall be accomplished without reliance on regulatory bypasses, such as indefinite compensatory measures.

Or in the alternative:

Issue penalties to the Shearon Harris Nuclear Power Plant for the maximum allowable amount of $130,000 for each and every violation for each day the plant operates until compliance with the fire protection regulations is achieved and verified by NRC.

Said environmental lawyer John Runkle on behalf of the petitioners, "It's an unprecedented step, but it's been an unprecedented risk for 14 years." Based on its research, NC WARN calls Shearon Harris one of the most dangerous nuclear power plants in the nation. Four serious fires have happened in its history already.

Public officials were urged to pass resolutions in support of the legal action filed today. I certainly will advocate for quick action on this at the Chapel Hill Town Council. Here's the text of the news release filed by NC Warn today:

Groups Demand N-plant Suspension, Fines for Fire Violations

NRC Plans to Allow Harris, Others Nine Years to Comply With Safety Regs

DURHAM, NC – Insisting that nuclear safety must become a priority – not just a corporate slogan – a trio of state and national watchdog groups filed legal action today calling for federal regulators to take emergency enforcement measures at the Shearon Harris Nuclear Plant. The groups revealed that Harris has been in violation of fire safety regulations for 14 years, and that the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission has arranged a scheme to let the plant study fire vulnerabilities – a top risk factor for nuclear meltdown – for at least nine more years.

NC WARN, the Nuclear Information and Resource Service, and the Union of Concerned Scientists filed a legal action against the NRC today, demanding the agency suspend the Harris license until the plant corrects multiple fire safety violations, or levy the maximum fine of $130,000 per violation for each day the plant operates. The watchdogs said Progress Energy plans to apply next month for a 20-year extension to Harris’ operating license, which currently runs until 2026, without correcting its fire violations. The groups told NRC and Progress that they will resist that plan to the fullest extent “via all available legal and civic avenues.”

“Shearon Harris is relying on last-ditch efforts – instead of front line fire protection features – basically to save money,” said Paul Gunter, Reactor Safety Director of the Nuclear Information & Resource Service.

A briefing tonight in Pittsboro for state and local elected officials will feature Gunter and another Washington-based nuclear expert, David Lochbaum of UCS. (7pm, Central Carolina Community College) The three groups released a report today, “Delaying With Fire: The Shearon Harris Nuclear Plant and 14 Years of Fire Safety Violations.” It details how the NRC has allowed dozens of nuclear plants to repeatedly delay correcting widespread flaws in fire protection equipment.

Harris ranks worst in the nation in two fire violation categories: use of failure-prone fire barriers, and reliance on illegal, unverified “compensatory measures” to bypass regulatory compliance. The groups said: “Just like the small spare tire on a car, such actions were intended to be used for hours or days – not 14 years. NRC admits these measures add risk, but allows plants to operate without restoring full fire protections as required by law.”

Fire at nuclear power plants represents up to 50% of the risk for catastrophic accidents according to federal studies, a calculation that assumes fire rules are being obeyed. Each plant contains hundreds of miles of electrical cable. Fire or shorts can cause operators to lose control of the myriad pumps and valves that operate the reactor and safety systems, leading to overheating of the reactor fuel and a large release of radioactivity.

UCS’ Lochbaum released a separate report Monday that blew a hole in industry claims that nuclear plants have grown safer over the years. His study showed that 51 plants have been shut down for at least a year to restore minimum safety levels, a scathing indictment of the NRC’s regulation of the industry. “Plant workers and the public are protected from a Shearon Harris fire – unless a fire actually occurs,” he said today. “If NRC does its job, Harris should join the list of plants shut down to restore safety levels.”

“Both Progress Energy and the NRC can act quickly when revenue is at stake,” said Jim Warren, Director of NC WARN. “After each of the nine sudden reactor shutdowns at Harris between 2002 and 2005, Progress worked expeditiously to restore operations within days or weeks.” “Delaying With Fire” notes that Progress spends tens of millions on executive salaries and influence-peddling each year, but makes a business decision to continuously delay correcting the fire safety problems. “It is apparent that safety is not the $9 billion/year corporation’s “top priority” as so often claimed by its officers and 50-person public relations team,” added Warren today.

The groups say the NRC is among the growing list of federal agencies that, in recent years, have neglected to protect the public against weakened levees, poor emergency planning, mine disasters, leaking oil pipelines and other hazards. “The industry has had so many near-misses already; will the NRC lead the next post-disaster ‘lessons learned’ exercise?” Warren asks. Harris had yet another sudden shutdown yesterday.

The groups told NRC: “We are willing to negotiate allowing the plant to remain open based on a firm timetable for Harris to correct its multiple fire violations no later than its next refueling outage in the fall of 2007. This allows sufficient time to plan the work needed to correct fire violations, and may require an extended outage … Any further ‘study’ of the Harris fire problems is irresponsible.”

“I think most people can agree that federal fire safety regulations are in place for a good reason and must be complied with,” said Margie Ellison, a Chatham community activist who works with WARN. “Our safety is more important than Progress Energy’s wish to avoid spending money to fix all these problems. That company has a lot of audacity to even suggest adding 20 years to that plant’s license without correcting its fire safety violations.”The report emphasized that if a plant isn’t protected against fire, it is not protected against internal or external attack. Paul Gunter added, “Fire protection is crucial security infrastructure at nuclear power plants. In a post 9/11 world, we cannot afford to gamble on fire safety at nuclear power plants.”

UPDATE 09/22: At last night's assembly of governments meeting, all of us vowed to support this petition as strongly as we possibly can.