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To the Editors:

Recent news accounts of radioactive tritium leaks at Exelon’s Braidwood, Dresden and now Byron nuclear reactors finally expose nuclear industry claims of nuclear power being “emissions free” as utter nonsense. While certainly putting Exelon in hot water, the leak revelations also expose just how vacuous, inconsistent and ineffective nuclear power regulation has become, providing the illusion of public protection without the substance.

Exelon’s incompetence in dealing with its tritium leak problems not once, but numerous times at several reactors, is matched only by its reticence to inform the public and local officials of the leaks for eight years. Now that the cat is way out of the bag at Braidwood, Exelon “voluntarily” acknowledges the new leak problems at Dresden (third time) and Byron. Exelon’s excuse for keeping quiet? “…[the] 1998 [Braidwood] pipeline leak wasn’t thought at the time to contain significant amounts of radioactive material….” stated an Exelon spokesperson on January 25th. Just what would discharge pipes designed to release radionuclides for dilution into the environment contain?

Federal regulators haven’t behaved much better. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) – quick to reassure us it has “resident inspectors” with watchful eyes stationed at all operating US reactors – admits Exelon “informally told” NRC officials about the leaks at the times they occurred, but required no “formal” [i.e. “written”] notification, “…because it was assumed no radioactive substances were released into the environment…” according to an NRC Region-III spokesperson. “Assumed” by whom, and why? And again, if not radioactive substances, then what?

Each new tritium report repeatedly demonstrates the Stan-and-Ollie nature of the relationship between Exelon and NRC, each covering for the other, requiring little in terms of meaningful remediation, and each over the past eight years keeping the public and their duly elected officials as far away from acknowledgement of these events as possible.

Illinois – the most nuclear reliant state in the US – cannot tolerate the continued bumbling of “good neighbors” like Exelon, which aspires to build new reactors, and extend operating lifetimes for its eleven old ones. Nor can it tolerate a regulator with an allergy towards assertive regulation.

If reactors can’t be “emissions free” as the industry boasts, they should be closed, and not allowed to further pollute the air, water and land. If NRC won’t regulate assertively, it should be abolished, saving ratepayers $700+ million per year.

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Tritium

Letter to the Chicago Tribune Editors, Feb 17th, 2006

To the Editors: