Jul 26 - The Tribune (San Luis Obispo, Calif.)
Familiar concerns about the safety of highly radioactive spent fuel at Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant dominated public inquiries at two meetings of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Tuesday in San Luis Obispo. The discussion was sparked by the ongoing construction of a dry cask storage facility at the plant that will store the fuel beginning next year in an aboveground location behind the plant. A federal appeals court ruled recently that the agency was wrong when it refused to consider the possible environmental impacts of a terrorist attack on Diablo Canyon's dry cask spent fuel storage facility. Several people said that they are concerned about the safety of the storage facility and the plant in general in light of recent global unrest and the heightened risk of terrorism, particularly the possibility of someone crashing an airplane into the plant. "I frankly don't see how we can protect a location like Diablo Canyon in an affordable manner," Bruce Severance of Arroyo Grande said. At the daytime meeting and an early evening public forum, area residents peppered a panel of NRC officials with questions about the precautions the agency is mandating to make the plant safer. As at past meetings, NRC officials said that nuclear plants are well guarded and they are confident that the spent fuel storage pools and the planned dry cask facility are "robust." "I pity the person who would try to get into a nuclear power plant," said Bruce Mallett, administrator of the NRC's regional office in Arlington, Texas. "I wouldn't want to be that person." As a result of public input, NRC regulators have asked nuclear plant operators to examine how they would react to attacks using aircraft and assaults against spent fuel storage installations, Mallett said. Previously, the agency had concentrated on preventing attacks, rather than responding to them. Local nuclear activists have petitioned the agency to stop Pacific Gas and Electric Co. from building the dry cask facility until the court ruling has been satisfied. NRC officials have until Aug. 31 to decide if they will appeal the ruling, and the commission is under no timeline for considering the local stop-work request but has promised a decision sometime before Diablo Canyon workers begin loading the first casks a year from now. Workers at the plant are in the process of pouring 7-foot-thick concrete pads on which the dry casks will be mounted. PG&E has poured the first of seven of these pads and plan to pour the second in August. At the daytime meeting, NRC officials told PG&E managers that the plant was operated safely in 2005 with the exception of several incorrect reports of the results of safety drills. Reach David Sneed at 781-7930. ----- Copyright (c) 2006, The Tribune, San Luis Obispo, Calif. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News. |
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