Nuclear plant cleaning up tritium

Sep 14 - McClatchy-Tribune Regional News - Bob Vosseller Asbury Park Press, N.J.

The state Department of Environmental Protection on Monday announced the start of a tritium cleanup at Oyster Creek Generating Station.

The first phase of a cleanup of radioactive tritium that leaked from the Forked River power plant owned by Exelon Nuclear last year was outlined by DEP Commissioner Bob Martin and Exelon officials.

Tritium occurs as a by-product of nuclear power plant operations, and tritium leaks are not uncommon at nuclear power plants nationwide.

Exelon agreed to start pumping efforts this week on two monitoring wells, which are in the Cape May and upper Cohansey aquifers, and agreed to expand that effort to a third contaminated location next month.

"Radioactivity has not been measured beyond the boundaries of the nuclear plant or anywhere near a potable water source. Our intention is to make sure that never happens," Martin said.

Mike Massaro, site vice president at Oyster Creek, said, "Since the tritium leaks were discovered and repaired last year, we have worked to address the plume and we will continue to do so with our state and federal regulators.

"At no point has there been a threat to employee or public health and safety as a result of this issue," Massaro added.

Martin pledged that the DEP will carefully monitor the work to make sure it is done properly. In June, Exelon documented levels of tritium in the monitoring wells in the Cohansey aquifer that exceeded 1 million picocuries per liter. The federal Environmental Protection Agency has set a health-based standard of 20,000 picocuries.

Those levels since have declined, according to Exelon, but are still above acceptable standards, including at two locations in the Cohansey and Cape May aquifers, where the measure is nearly 700,000 picocuries.

Preliminary results from groundwater monitoring wells suggest that tritium has not reached the Cohansey aquifer and has not been detected in the even deeper Kirkwood aquifer.

The tritium plume appears to be moving toward Oyster Creek's discharge canal, but no samples taken from the canal have indicated the presence of tritium.

The plan also calls for continued monitoring of the content of the water pulled from the ground, and observation of groundwater levels in the area near the nuclear plant.

Contaminated water will be pumped into drums and transferred to a large holding tank on site, to be diluted into massive volumes of water used for cooling the power-generating process, which will bring the tritium levels below detectable standards.

In addition, scientists are developing a backup plan to supplement the work starting this week.

Bob Vosseller: 732-557-5623; rvosseller@app.com