Fire Hazard

[Guest guest]

http://www.alternet.org/envirohealth/19488/

 

Fire Hazard

By Anne-Marie Cusac, The Progressive

 

Posted on August 9, 2004,

http://www.alternet.org/story/19488/

 

On June 16, the commission charged with investigating

the events of September 11 announced that Al Qaeda's

early attack plans had included " unidentified nuclear

power plants. " You might think the Bush Administration

would respond by doing all it could to prevent a

terrorist-triggered disaster at these plants.

 

Think again. The Bush Administration is actually

relaxing the fire safeguards there.

 

Instead of insisting that the plants have

heat-protected mechanical systems in place that will

shut down reactors automatically in case of fire,

which is the current standard, the Bush Administration

would actually let the power companies rely on workers

to run through the plants and try to turn off the

reactors by hand while parts of the facilities are

engulfed in flames.

 

" The result could be catastrophic, " says a March 3

letter from Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA), and Rep. John

Dingell (D-MI), to Nils J. Diaz, chairman of the

Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). " This would

assign reactor personnel the duty of rushing directly

to the shutdown equipment located throughout the

reactor complex to shut down the reactors manually,

and would potentially take place in station areas

affected by smoke, fire, and radiation and possibly

under attack by terrorists. "

 

Inside the NRC, the idea of people dodging flames and

possibly high radiation areas to try to avert a

meltown has raised some eyebrows. In a September 2003

meeting, one member of a panel on reactor fire safety

repeatedly pointed out that relying on humans to do

work in dangerous conditions and under stress was

asking for trouble. It's difficult to prepare

operators, said Dana Powers, a member of the Fire

Protection Subcommittee of the Advisory Committee on

Reactor Safeguards. " How do you do that? " he asked.

" How do you simulate smoke, light, fire, ringing

bells, fire engines, crazy people running around? "

 

So why is the NRC proposing to relax the fire safety

standard? Amazingly, because many nuclear power plants

have not been abiding by current regulations to put up

proven fire barriers. Rather than demanding better

fire safeguards or insisting that nuclear power

companies at least abide by the current ones, the NRC

wants to let them off the hook. It's as if car drivers

were regularly going 90 mph, so the government raised

the speed limit to 90.

 

" It appears that after discovering that many reactor

licensees were out of compliance with the automatic

safe-shutdown fire regulations, the commission has

decided to gut these regulations rather than force

nuclear power plant operators to comply with them, "

says the Markey and Dingell letter. The NRC made its

decision, according to Markey, " at the behest of the

nuclear industry. "

 

Current regulations require plants to maintain two

sets of electrical circuitry that enable the reactor

to shut down automatically in an emergency. These

cables either must be encased in proven fire-retardant

materials or must be separated by a distance of 20

feet with no combustible materials in between. That

way, if one electrical system burns up, the plant can

turn itself off, even if the fire is so destructive

that no staff members are left to do that work.

 

The NRC introduced a proposed rule change on November

26, 2003, the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. It said

that, instead of putting in fire barriers, nuclear

plants could rely on personnel to turn the plant off

by hand in the event of a fire that threatens the

reactor. The rule change may go into effect as early

as next spring.

 

The rulemaking started after the NRC met with the

Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI), an industry group,

which admitted that many of its members did not have

the required safeguards in place. " NEI indicated that

the use of unapproved operator manual actions in the

event of a fire is pervasive throughout the industry, "

noted William D. Travers, then the NRC's executive

director for operations, in describing the proposed

rule to the commissioners. (Procedures for shutting

down a reactor by hand are called " operator manual

actions. " )

 

Faced with resistance from industry, the NRC found

itself in a predicament. " A concerted enforcement

effort, " wrote Travers, " creates a prospect of

significant resource expenditure without clear safety

benefits. " He warned that the NRC could be flooded

with requests for exemptions from the rules.

 

Fires are not uncommon at nuclear power plants.

" Typical nuclear power plants will have three to four

significant fires over their operating lifetime, " says

a 1990 NRC document. " Fires are a significant

contributor to the overall core damage frequency. "

 

Fire itself will not blow up a reactor, say critics

and industry representatives alike. But if the

electrical cabling burns and the pumps that cool the

reactor core become disabled, the core could begin to

overheat, and the reactor could melt down. Millions of

people could then be exposed to radiation.

 

Shearon Harris nuclear power plant sits about

twenty-two miles south of Raleigh, North Carolina, in

one of the fastest growing population centers in the

United States. So I give Progress Energy, the company

that runs the plant, a call. " Fire protection is such

a mundane issue, " says Rick Kimble, manager of general

communications for the company. And he suggests that I

shouldn't worry about fires at nuclear reactors

because the facilities, built of concrete and rebar,

are unlikely to burn and are designed to shut down

automatically. Nevertheless, he sets up a meeting with

me at the plant's visitors center, a common field-trip

destination for local school groups. He says I'll be

able to see " images of the plant, basics of how the

plant works, cutouts showing the amount of concrete

and steel rebar. " He even recommends a hotel. I tell

him I will make a plane reservation now that I have a

confirmed meeting with him.

 

But the following week, several days before I am

scheduled to fly out, Kimble calls to say that our

meeting is cancelled. No one from the plant will meet

with me. And, unlike the school kids, I am not welcome

at the Shearon Harris visitors center. Fire

prevention, says Kimble, is an industry-wide issue.

" We don't think we should be singled out, " Kimble

explains. Anyhow, he says, " there would not be a

catastrophic fire in a nuclear plant. " That's because

nuclear fuel is not flammable. Even if there was a

meltdown, it would be contained, says Kimble.

 

" That's a ludicrous statement, " replies David

Lochbaum, nuclear safety engineer for the Union of

Concerned Scientists. " Browns Ferry was also made out

of concrete and steel. "

 

One day in 1975, some workers were checking a seal on

the secondary containment building at the Browns Ferry

nuclear plant in Alabama. They accidentally started a

fire. The fire " was in the insulating material around

the cables. It was in a cable tray, " says Craig

Beasely, a communications specialist at the plant. The

fire began in a part of the plant Beasely calls " the

cable spreader room, " which he defines as " the place

where the cables come together. " The fire lasted

" about seven hours, " says Beasely. Some of the cables

that caught fire, he confirms, " did control some

cooling " to the reactor core.

 

" Temperatures as high as 1500°F caused damage to more

than 1600 cables routed in 117 conduits and twenty-six

cable trays, " says a draft report by the Sandia and

Brookhaven Laboratories. " Of those, 628 cables were

safety related, and their damage caused the loss of a

significant number of plant safety systems. "

 

A 1976 paper by the Union of Concerned Scientists was

entitled " Browns Ferry: The Regulatory Failure. "

Observing that the fire rendered all safety equipment

inoperative and that thick smoke, loss of control over

the reactor, and " inadequate breathing apparatuses "

interfered with the operators' attempts to save the

plant, the paper sums up the event in these words:

" TVA nuclear engineers stated privately to the authors

that a potentially catastrophic radiation release from

Browns Ferry was avoided by 'sheer luck.' "

 

Company protests to the contrary, Shearon Harris

merits attention. The most recent NRC fire inspection

describes more than 100 manual action shutdown

procedures that, in case of fire, would send personnel

out to turn off the plant and prevent a meltdown.

" We've not seen any numbers higher than that, " says

Paul Gunter, director of the Reactor Watchdog Project

for the D.C.-based Nuclear Information and Resource

Service.

 

The NRC's 2002 Triennial Fire Inspection of Shearon

Harris describes some of these operator manual

actions. One, the NRC says, involves " excessive

challenges to operators, " including " exposure to smoke

that would leak past the door and to the fire brigade

who would be opening the door, entering the narrow [15

inches wide] energized electrical cabinet, and using a

metal screwdriver inside the cabinet and seven feet

above the floor with poor visibility and poor

labeling. . . . Operators may not be able to start the

auxiliary feedwater pump. "

 

Jim Warren, executive director of the Durham-based NC

WARN (North Carolina Waste Awareness Reduction

Network), characterizes the procedure this way: " Get

the step ladder and go up in the closet in the

darkness, and hope you don't fry yourself. "

 

The inspection noted that one operator " may be

required to complete as many as thirty-nine manual

actions. " The inspection found nine fire safety

violations altogether. In a March 2004 presentation

the government made at an annual assessment meeting on

the Shearon Harris reactor, the NRC described these

" fire protection issues " as " potential significant

findings. "

 

Nevertheless, the NRC inspection did not come down

hard on Shearon Harris. " The finding was of very low

safety significance because of the low fire initiation

frequency, " it said. That is, the NRC doesn't think a

fire is likely.

 

Kimble says the reactor has dealt with the violations.

" We have made corrections, done everything that has

been suggested by the NRC, " he says. But Warren is not

so sure. " Absent any evidence from Progress [Energy],

either in person or documented, that they have

corrected those problems, I'm left to assume that

they're still there, " he says.

 

Papers released as part of a Freedom of Information

Act request reveal that some fire violations at

Shearon Harris have gone on for years, either without

correction or with corrections that the NRC later

determined were inappropriate.

 

In April, the plant informed the NRC that the fire

barriers were missing entirely from cables that power

twenty-one valves used to control the flow of cooling

water to the reactor core. The plant informed the NRC

that it would take two years to fix the problem. The

violations date back to 2002.

 

So I keep my plane ticket. I decide to get a look at

the cooling tower and a feel for the evacuation zone,

the ten-mile radius surrounding Shearon Harris.

 

I drive in a downpour, on an afternoon when tornadoes

lift the roofs in nearby towns, to the hotel Kimble

suggested.

 

The hotel sits in Apex, a town with the slogan " the

peak of good living, " though there are no mountains,

or even hills, in sight.

 

Warren and I drive around the zone, seeking a view of

the reactor. We pull over at Jordan Lake, where we get

a glimpse of the tower, its feet in the trees and its

head in the clouds. Aesthetically, it's a graceful

structure, a triumph of modern design out in the

woods. " That cooling tower is over 600-feet tall, "

says Warren.

 

Jordan Lake is a popular weekend destination for

people in the Triangle region. Below the parking lot

where we stand is a dam. The U.S. Army Corps of

Engineers controls the inflow and outflow of water,

says Francis Ferrell, a Corps engineer who wanders out

to the parking lot to meet us. " We actually have a

contingency plan " in case of a nuclear emergency, he

says. " We're supposed to go out on the lake and tell

people, " obtain geiger counters after a rendezvous on

Highway 64, and report back measurements. " I think our

boss is trying to get that taken out of our job

descriptions, " he says. " That would be fine with me. "

 

We drive to the other side of Shearon Harris to the

front entrance, where we get out and walk on the road,

stopping short of the " Private Property " signs. But

the guards notice us, jump into their truck, and drive

up to inform us that we can't stand there, that we

need to cross the highway. The guards are armed. When

Warren tells them I am a reporter, they tell me to

call the PR office. Then they sit in their truck,

watching, until we turn the car around and leave. " At

least we know they're paying attention, " says Warren.

 

A 2003 study put out by Orange County, North Carolina,

which is near Shearon Harris, determined that " total

evacuation [of the six-county region along the

Interstate 40/85 corridor] would take 5.8 days,

assuming that all interstate lanes would be directed

for outbound traffic. "

 

" I reconcile myself that I may lose everything, " says

Judy Hogan, a writer, teacher, and activist who lives

in Moncure, just a few miles from the plant. " For a

while, I was keeping my unpublished books on disks in

the trunk of my car because that would be my biggest

loss. " Now that she owns a truck, she keeps the disks

in a briefcase in her bedroom. In that room, Hogan

also has a tone alert radio, which she says Progress

Energy gave to her because she lives within five miles

of the plant. The radio, she says, will sound an alarm

for bad weather, as well as for nuclear emergencies.

 

In 2003, partly in response to anxieties about

terrorism at nuclear power plants, the state of North

Carolina made potassium iodide (KI) available to

people living near nuclear reactors. Hogan went to the

local school to get them. She digs out her

foil-wrapped pills (each person gets two) from her

purse.

 

Two information sheets accompany the pills. One of

these describes potassium iodide as " an

over-the-counter medication that can protect one part

of the body – the thyroid – if a person is exposed to

radioactive iodine released during a nuclear power

plant emergency. " The sheet says to take one tablet

per twenty-four hour period, and it adds an admonitory

note: " Remember . . . taking KI is not a substitute

for evacuation. Leave the area immediately if you are

instructed to do so. Do not take KI unless public

health officials tell you to take it. "

 

The other sheet is entitled, " Frequently Asked

Questions About a Radioactive Emergency. " It begins,

" Radiation is a form of energy that is present all

around us. Different types of radiation exist, some of

which have more energy than others. "

 

Kimble is right. Fire safety is an industry-wide

issue. And Shearon Harris is not the only plant with a

long list of violations.

 

For instance, in Hutchinson Island in Florida, a March

2003 Fire Protection Baseline Inspection of the St.

Lucie Power Station found that " many local manual

operator actions were used in place of the required

physical protection of cables for equipment relied on

for SSD [safe shutdown] during a fire, without

obtaining NRC approval for these deviations from the

approved fire protection program. This condition

applied to all areas that were inspected. "

 

Rachel Scott, nuclear communications manager for

Florida Power and Light, says that this inspection

" pointed up an industry-wide " practice, where reactors

" have been implementing manual actions " against NRC

regulations. So, says Scott, the NRC decided " to allow

the licensees to substitute manual actions, as long as

the manual actions were feasible. " The NRC, says

Scott, " did determine that the manual actions " at St.

Lucie Station " were feasible, " meaning " that they

could serve safe shutdown. " Scott says the plant has

not put in fire barriers or separated the cables, but

is instead waiting for the new regulation to take

effect.

 

At another Florida reactor, this one in Citrus County,

a Triennial Fire Protection Baseline Inspection in

July 2002 discovered, according to a " Briefing

Summary, " that not only did the Crystal River plant

use " a significant number of local manual actions "

instead of automatic shutdown, but that the plant's

fire plan neglected to give adequate consideration to

some of the practical difficulties of shutting a

nuclear power plant down by hand. The omissions

included, in the NRC's words:

 

* Complexity of the new local manual actions.

 

* The number of manual actions and time available for

completion.

 

* Availability of instruments to detect

system/component mal-operations.

 

* Human performance under high stress.

 

* Effects of products of combustion on operator

performance.

 

* Available manpower, timing, and feasibility of local

manual actions.

 

Mac Harris, communications supervisor for the Crystal

River site, which is run by Progress Energy, says that

the above problems eventually received a green,

non-cited violation. " Green is considered very low

safety significance, " he says. The Crystal River

Plant, he says, " dealt with the identified issues " by

making " some revisions in the fire protection plan, " a

process it completed in May.

 

The Nuclear Information and Resource Service obtained

these records, and those from Shearon Harris, through

a Freedom of Information Act request. The records of

fire safety violations are still coming in, says

Gunter. " I'm told that when we're done, the stack will

be ten feet tall, " he says. " That's how widespread the

noncompliances are. "

 

A March press release by Markey's office provided " a

partial list of reactors that are out of compliance

with NRC fire protection regulations. " Here are the

reactors:

 

Arizona: Palo Verde Units 1,2,3

 

Arkansas: Arkansas Nuclear One Units 1,2

 

California: Diablo Canyon Units 1,2

 

Florida: Crystal River, St. Lucie, Turkey Point 3,4

 

Louisiana: River Bend

 

Mississippi: Grand Gulf

 

Nebraska: Fort Calhoun

 

New Jersey: Oyster Creek

 

North Carolina: Shearon Harris 1, McGuire Units 1,2

 

Ohio: Davis-Besse

 

Pennsylvania: Beaver Valley 2

 

Tennessee: Sequoyah Units 1,2, Watts Bar

 

Texas: Comanche Peak 1,2

 

At Davis-Besse, the Ohio nuclear reactor with a

history of safety troubles that sits twenty-five miles

from Toledo, fire protection is a problem.

 

Phil Qualls, an NRC senior fire protection engineer,

sent an e-mail to Dennis Kubicki, a former colleague

who had worked on a report on safety at Davis-Besse.

Qualls said he went over that 1991 report, and that it

contains " some pretty outrageous stuff. Things like .

.. . complete manual actions " instead of the fire

barriers required by law, " and a variety of fire

protection issues. " He warns Kubicki, " your name is on

this document. The s___could hit the fan hard and you

may hear questions about it (or the s___ may be soft

and you never hear about it, too). "

 

The report, which identifies Kubicki as a " principal

contributor, " declares numerous fire issues at

Davis-Besse " acceptable. " For instance, previous

safety inspectors had expressed concern that a manual

action might cause reactor cooling problems because of

delays in getting the equipment to work. The report

determines that these problems " are not safety

significant as long as no unrecoverable plant

condition will occur. " It defines " unrecoverable plant

condition " as " the loss of any shutdown function(s)

for such a duration as to ultimately cause the reactor

coolant level to fall below the top of the reactor

core and lead to a subsequent breach of the fuel

cladding. " In other words, as long as the reactor does

not reach a point where it threatens to melt down, no

problem.

 

" It's a big caveat to say, 'as long as no

unrecoverable plant condition will occur,' " says

Gunter of the Nuclear Information and Resource

Service. " How do they know? "

 

Gunter blames the NRC for what he says is a dangerous

regulatory change. The government agency, he says, is

" more interested in protecting the financial interest

of the industry than in protecting those electrical

cables. "

 

For its part, the NRC says it is doing all it can to

keep the reactors safe. " The prescriptive rules "

requiring physical fire barriers " didn't allow for

flexibility, " says John Hannon, NRC branch chief in

the office of nuclear reactor regulation – the part of

the NRC that is responsible for fire protection

programs. " The rules were so inflexible they [the

plants] sometimes had trouble meeting them. " So, he

says, even from the day the rules were written, the

NRC gave out exemptions " for alternative means of

shutting the plant down that were safe and reliable.

Many of these were operator manual actions. "

 

Then, in the 1990s, as the NRC inspected plants to

make sure they had adequate fire protections, the

commission discovered " a lot of plants were using

manual actions and had not come to us for exemptions, "

Hannon says. So the NRC decided it was " prudent for us

to initiate a rule making for that, to codify

acceptance criteria to make it clear " what is

acceptable.

 

The NRC claims that all of this can be done safely.

" We're seeking the health and safety of the public, "

says Hannon. " We don't want a plant damage event to

occur that would cause a radioactive release. " The

NRC, he says, takes " fires very seriously. " And he

says the new rule will be an improvement on the status

quo. " If we leave it the way it is now, we have plants

out there that wouldn't meet the criteria, " he says.

 

" Rather than bring the industry into conformance with

the code, the NRC brought the code into conformance

with the industry, " says Gunter.

 

Jerry Brown worked as a consultant to the nuclear

industry for twenty-two years, until 1998. His

specialty was fire and radiation penetration seals,

critical safety components to nuclear reactors.

 

To exchange old rules " for new regulations to say that

we don't need these redundant shutdown systems is

criminal, " he says. " You could have a runaway reactor

with no ability to shut it down. " Brown blames the

NRC, which he says has a history of treating " fire

safety in such a negligent way. "

 

Brown, who says he is " absolutely " concerned about

terrorism in connection with fires at a nuclear plant,

gives a grim warning. " A nuclear power plant can kill

a million people, " he says. " There are more fire

barriers in a nursing home than in a nuclear power

plant. That doesn't make sense to me. "

© 2004 Independent Media Institute. All rights

reserved.

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