Nuclear regulators want updated inventory of uranium 235 at Indian Point

Nuclear regulators want updated inventory of uranium 235 at Indian Point
By GREG CLARYTHE JOURNAL NEWS
(Original publication: July 24, 2007)
BUCHANAN - Federal nuclear regulators are requiring Indian Point officials to open a nearly 20-year-old storage container for radioactive parts to verify that a tiny quantity of uranium 235 is accounted for properly.
The unstable form of uranium can and has been used to make atomic bombs, though Nuclear Regulatory Commission and Indian Point officials said the amounts in question at the nuclear plant are many thousands of times too small to make a bomb.
Still, the NRC wants to make sure it knows the exact locations and quantities of all the radioactive material under its control.
"We're especially concerned about any material that's in a spent fuel pool," NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan said. "This material needs to be tightly controlled."
The NRC has not cited Indian Point on this issue and Sheehan said the agency would wait until the container is opened next month before deciding on possible enforcement.
"These containers are supposed to be opened on an annual basis, unless they have a tamper-resistant seal," Sheehan said. "We wouldn't be looking at this if this weren't part of the regulation. They should have done a better job of maintaining records of what they had in the pool."
Jim Steets, a spokesman for Entergy Nuclear Northeast, which owns Indian Point, said there are eight used detectors, in 2- to 3-foot sections, located in a bolted container in the spent fuel pool of Indian Point 3.
The rods are part of old mechanisms used by the previous owners to check the power levels of the nuclear reactor.
Steets said the 32 parts contain 8/10,000s of a gram of uranium 235 each. Combined, they make .025 percent of a gram.
According to the Web site "The Nuclear Weapon Archive," (nuclearweaponarchive.org), the atomic bomb dropped at Hiroshima on Aug. 8, 1945, and known as "Little Boy," used 700 grams of uranium 235 in nuclear fission, to create an explosion equivalent to 15,000 tons of TNT dynamite.
Since the storage container predated the company and was bolted shut, company officials believed it didn't need to be opened as part of their annual inspection of the pool, Steets said. NRC records indicate that the container was filled in 1988-89.
Steets said company officials only recently learned that the NRC expected containers such as this one to be inspected because though the container is bolted, it is not completely tamper-resistant.
Because of the small amount of uranium 235 and the complex process of opening the container, the company opted to check the contents during its annual inspection next month.
NRC officials approved that schedule, Sheehan said, because of the danger of working in the spent fuel pool and the need for proper equipment and expertise, which agency officials said sometimes takes time to bring in to the plant.
With the heightened level of public interest in Indian Point since workers there discovered radioactive tritium and strontium 90 leaks, NRC officials have been notifying local and federal elected representatives of all developments at the nuclear plant.
Rep. Nita Lowey, D-Harrison, has been trying to get the plant closed down for years and is fighting its relicensing application. She said the latest development is a result of poor management of the plant.
"At a time when intelligence indicates security risks are at critical high, we can't afford to have loosey-goosey security measures at nuclear power plants located in the most densely populated areas of the country," Lowey said. "The incompetence at Indian Point imperils an entire region and absolutely requires that the plant be shut down."
Reach Greg Clary at 914-696-8566 or gclary@lohud.com.


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If I were working as a Lowey press agent, or as an anti Indian Point press flack, here's how I might proceed. First off, I would make sure not a day went by without some Indian Point "news" getting put out. If I had two concurrent stories about IPEC, I'd hold one back a few days, so as to get the annoying repeat rythm going, (and not get Lowey confused.) Next, after having seeded a steady drip, drip, drip of anti-IPEC faux "news" I could now point to the "Problem Plagued history" of IPEC...... pointing to the exact stuff I myself had exaggerated, and planted, as supposed proof of some "fact" (actually a factoid) that existed only within my PR campaign's wish list. So the technique is 1) Plant Indian Point stuff.....2) Refer back to the planted stuff. To those unfocused multitaskers among the public at large who are not really paying attention, it might seem that something is going on, in realtime. In actuality, its not. Its just Gannett & some pol, plus a few obedient letters-to-editors ringers, would be plastering up a papier mache' world where Indian Point is "Troubled". Note this fact: Indian Point is only "Troubled" (if at all) only by malicious, over-hyped exaggerated nonsense, taken up by second-rate politikoes in lieue of ever having a thought in their head, or some notion of what is to be done by their offices. So that's what a paid flack would do. When we see activities closely resembling such flackery, are we to ignore the prima facia evidence? Are we to blindly trust Lowey, Gannett, and nutball activist blogwacks to have something to offer us? (After all, the stature of even a Gannett newspaper is based on some authority, an internal ethical guideline, and the hope that the editorial board isn't being steered by some backroom political wheeler dealer). NRC will issue many directives to IPEC, not a single one of which is true news. It's an ongoing process. It doesn't need a Nita Lowey Shakespeare-inspired sincerity-byte to tell us "In these days of heightened public concern, with dangers assailing us from up, down and sideways, it is with great sobbing regret and smarmy anticipation that I reiterate..... Indian Point MUST EMPTY ITS TRASHCANS PROMPTLY OR HEAR FROM ME!" Indian Point is living up to all it's varied commitments without Reverend Nita, or Reverend Andy preaching a single syllable, and everybody knows it. You get power. You get silence on the Hudson. You get clean air. You get no blackouts.No smoke. No soot. No filthy coal trains or oil truck caravans. No burnt hydrocarbon haze, or stink.You get a pure clean fish-producing Hudson. You get lots of taxes and salaries. You get a hopeful, livable future. You get low crime, high pride, and a viable middle class existence, all (in part) because Indian Point is pulling its own weight (and some of yours, too). You get intelligent, well trained workers & citizens, contributing as volunteer firemen, EMT's, coaches, soldiers, church deacons & volunteer teachers. From Lowey ....what have you gotten, really? Acting lessons? Attempts to fool you? Confused anti middle class bumbling? From Spano...... what are you getting? Lots of days on the golf links? No flood plan? No immigration policy? The world's highest taxes anywhere? Trips to China? Cynicism? Bullshit? No caps on sprawl? Union busting? No plans for a decent road system? Riots in Ossining? Riots in New Rochelle? Murders in Yonkers? People thrown out third floor windows in Peekskill? Murder in the Galleria? $270,000 policemen? A bankrupt dysfunctional white elephant hospital? Cronyism? Capelli Towers? Bent-nose no-bid contracts? Arrogant uneducated backroom misunderstanding of the peoples' true aspirations & needs? Stupid lawsuits for show only? "Scientific" studies so worthless, they had to be immediately buried and hidden? (Lowey, too). Guess who's paying for all that...... You are. We can only hope that Mr. Clary, and the entire TJN editorial board, maintain their impartiality, or if they wish to be partial, be partial to the people. There's a cartoon at : https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEganSefFvwhF0D4qOZCLMrpO6XGPA8FuityH20oKU9HN0OaTbF1j7XdWeYarY_VxbFBhf9Atd3VznW1d6K0HX41XGwNdfCwT6ktXdYFzDsn-cTR4QcydmFa5zMtdqz6PNV73es1caCfqEA/s1600-h/sharkdance.jpg showing White Plains as a closed stockade.... "Fort Spano", with TJN, and Spano on the inside, and the unlucky denizens of Westchester on the outside. I can only hope that it ain't so. If it IS so, it ought to NOT be so. If Lowey, or Spano are truly without a clue, TJN ought to be complaining about it. Not covering up for them. Certainly not flacking for them.
Posted by: VP_VP on Tue Jul 24, 2007 12:38 pm

Lowey's overt stupidity is an embarrassment to our entire region.
Posted by: RPF on Tue Jul 24, 2007 8:04 am

Dear "Ball" , you are just copying my style, and very incompetently, I might add. I am not "Trying" to do or say anything. What I AM telling Mr. Clary (and not you) is that the article subject matter is a solved problem, trivial when it first came up, a simple regulatory request for updated inventory, and does not warrant being called "news". There are any number of such requests on a constant basis, and all of them are routine regulator-operator interchanges. The reason Ms. Lowey gets in on the act is obvious--- to try to look "relevant", and get her name in print, post-Kashiwazaki. The reason Mr. Clary would accommodate her in this is less clear. My intent was to alert him that he may be getting wagged, and nutball activists may be the dog. There,... get it now? Doesn't that make you feel better?
Posted by: VP_VP on Tue Jul 24, 2007 7:55 am

"dim bulb Lowey"...." ( too much information )"..."hysterical faux "news" stories"..."non existing Entergy incompetency"... "mewling and shrieking"..."Green Nuclear Butterfly"..."Nuke dive"..."decaying nuke plant"..."yellow politics/yellow journalistic"..."clueless old windbag".... What the heck is this Indian Point advocate "V P" Trying to say ? PLUTONIUM IS FOREVER!Posted by: ball on Tue Jul 24, 2007 7:34 am

Hmmm. Are you the President of Whole Foods?
Posted by: ed on Tue Jul 24, 2007 4:37 am