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Jul 12 - McClatchy-Tribune Business News Formerly Knight
Ridder/Tribune Business News - Kori Walter Reading Eagle, Pa.
More than 40 people living in the shadows of the Limerick Generating Station's twin cooling towers showed up for an open house Tuesday night to learn more about what could become their newest nuclear neighbor. Safety was the main concern of most of the people at the open house in the Limerick Township municipal building. After grilling Exelon employees, watching demonstrations about how the storage system would work and picking up brochures on nuclear fuel storage, most of the people left the meeting satisfied that at least their questions had been answered -- even if their fears were not completely erased. Helen M. Wells and her husband, Richard C. Sr., live less than 3 miles from the nuclear plant, which has been operating since 1986. Helen Wells said she was unsure about the safety of storing used nuclear fuel outside the plant. After listening to Exelon employees and representatives from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission vouch for the safety of the system known as dry cask storage, Wells said she felt a little more comfortable. "It appears that it will be safe," she said. "They said the concrete and the steel they will use will be very safe." But Wells and others acknowledged they have little power to stop Exelon from building the storage facility. "They are going to do it whether I want them to or not," she said. The five Limerick Township supervisors plan to vote Thursday night on a land development plan for the 10,000-square-foot concrete pad that would hold the vaults and two related buildings for equipment storage. Supervisor Renee K. Chesler said the township's jurisdiction will be limited to whether the storage facility plans meet drainage, traffic control and other municipal codes requirements. "Our role is not really to decide if dry cask storage is the best method," Chesler said. That will be the task of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which licenses all nuclear facilities. Robert J. Prince, a health physicist with the commission's materials safety division, said more than 800 casks of spent nuclear fuel have been stored at 40 sites across the country since the 1980s. Prince said it's highly unlikely radiation contamination from the casks would occur even if the facility is hit by a terrorist attack. That was the same conclusion of a commission report released after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. "It is highly unlikely that a significant release of radioactivity would occur from an aircraft impact on a dry spent fuel storage cask," the report stated. Prince also cited the storage system's spotless safety record. "We've never had a radiation leak or contamination from fuel in storage," Prince said. The Limerick station has been storing spent fuel indoors in steel-lined concrete pools of water since it began operating. But the plant needs additional storage because the indoor storage area will reach its maximum capacity by 2009. And a national underground storage facility proposed for Yucca Mountain, Nev., is not expected to open until 2015. W. Wesley Huff moved to a new housing development in Limerick in November from Lynchburg, Va. He figures that driving on Route 422 is more risky than the threat of a nuclear disaster in his neighborhood. "It's safe, it's secure and it will do the job," Huff said of the concrete-reinforced storage vaults. "I have confidence in the nuclear industry. If I didn't, I wouldn't have moved to within 2 miles of a nuclear power plant." But Limerick resident Cathy M. Regan was not as convinced about the safety of the storage facility. She believed the nuclear industry could have developed more current techniques to store spent fuel. "I understand why they (Exelon) need it," Regan said of the facility. "But I still don't feel comfortable with it, and I don't want it." |
Officials detail Limerick plan for spent fuel: People who live nearby are assured above ground storage is safe, but not all are convinced