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Mar 30 - Chicago Tribune
Exelon has drawn up plans to start removing water with radioactive tritium from the ground near a nuclear power plant in Will County, company officials said Wednesday. The plan, part of what will be a larger cleanup effort at Braidwood Generating Station, requires Exelon to obtain a county work permit, the application for which is under review by State's Atty. James Glasgow. "We don't want any major work beginning with a county permit until the residents are fully appraised of the need and appropriateness of that conduct," Glasgow said. "They've already had too many unwelcome surprises." Exelon plans to hold a four-hour "community information night" starting at 4 p.m. on April 6, company officials said. Exelon, the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency and the Illinois attorney general's office are working on a court order that would detail the initial cleanup efforts at the plant, said Assistant Atty. Gen. Matthew Dunn, chief of environmental enforcement. That order, now under negotiation, would have to be entered before work begins, Glasgow said. Two weeks ago, Illinois Atty. Gen. Lisa Madigan and Glasgow sued Exelon over the groundwater contamination. The court order would be part of the lawsuit, but it would not be the final order in the case, Dunn said. Removal of the contaminated water would start within three weeks of approval, said Neal Miller, the plant's spokesman. Exelon hopes to complete the work within a year, he said. It would involve pumping water from a contaminated pond Exelon bought this year, months after announcing it had discovered elevated levels of tritium in groundwater at the plant and outside its boundaries. Once that water is pumped out, it is expected that groundwater with tritium would flow into the pond, which is near the station, where it in turn would be pumped out, Miller said. The goal, according to Miller and state officials, is to halt the spread of the contamination and possibly reduce it. Officials at Exelon Nuclear, which owns and operates the Braidwood plant, discovered elevated levels of tritium in the groundwater last year, after state EPA officials asked them to test for it. The company then disclosed tritium had spilled from an underground pipe at the plant four times between 1996 and 2003. Though groundwater at the plant contains levels of tritium that exceed federal limits, elevated levels of tritium were found in only one local private well, Exelon Nuclear officials said. Those levels, found earlier this year at a nearby horse farm, were well below drinking water limits, they said. Tritium, a byproduct of nuclear generation, can enter the body through ingestion, absorption or inhalation. Exposure can increase the risk of cancer, birth defects and genetic damage, but state and federal officials have said the contamination at the plant poses no threat to public health. Once the water is removed from the pond, it would be pumped into the underground pipe, where it would be diluted to levels found in nature before being sent into the Kankakee River, Miller said. Exelon Nuclear, meanwhile, has ensured there are no breaks or leaks in the pipe, Miller said. It also plans to install monitors on valves along the pipe from which tritium spilled each of the four times, he added. "We are confident that the steps we have taken ... will successfully remove the tritiated groundwater and, at the same time, ensure the health and safety of our neighbors," said Keith Polson, Braidwood site vice president. hdardick@tribune.com ----- Copyright (c) 2006, Chicago Tribune Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News. |