Facebook Twitter Email. Asbury Park Press. Show Caption. Situated about a mile inland from the brackish inlet of the Atlantic Ocean known as Barnegat Bay, it shares the same design as Japan's tsunami-crippled coastal nuclear plant, Fukushima Daiichi. But industry officials and regulators argued today that Oyster Creek and two dozen other nuclear plants in the path of the unprecedented storm were prepared to withstand the worst.
The NRC said it expected water levels to begin to abate Monday night. Preparations began at Oyster Creek "as soon as we learned the storm had even the smallest potential of crossing our path," said Suzanne D'Ambrosio, spokeswoman for Exelon, the plant operator. The plant, in fact, is not generating power; it was shut down last week for refueling, a process that takes place once every two years.
Nevertheless, she said about workers are sequestered at the plant to shepherd it through the storm, even as many of the surrounding areas were evacuated, including Long Beach Island, the barrier island that separates the bay from the Atlantic. The NRC, which keeps two resident inspectors at each of the atomic power plants in the United States, dispatched additional inspectors with satellite communications systems to Oyster Creek and eight other power plants that lie in the forecast path of the storm in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, New York, and Connecticut.
According to the NRC, all of the plants have flood protection above the predicted storm surge. The agency said key components and systems are housed in watertight buildings capable of withstanding hurricane-force winds and flooding. Diesel generators will be prepared to run a minimum of seven days to run the cooling systems that manage decay heat in the nuclear fuel at all the potentially affected plants, said Tom Kauffman, spokesman for the Nuclear Energy Institute, the U.
It was the failure of this crucial backup cooling that triggered the nuclear fuel damage and explosions at the Fukushima power plant in Japan after the March earthquake and tsunami.
Because of radiation contamination, more than 70, people who lived within a The U. Together, they make nuclear power "a whole different ballgame" than in Japan, Kauffman maintained.
Oyster Creek, like Japan's Fukushima plant, is a General Electric boiling-water reactor with Mark 1 containment system. But unlike Fukushima, Oyster Creek and all U.
After Fukushima, in response to doubts raised about these systems, the U. When winds greater than 75 miles per hour are expected, U. Here are the top six reasons citizens, state and local officials and New Jersey's federal representatives must pay close attention to the decommissioning of Oyster Creek:. The soonest the plant will be decommissioned under the agreement Exelon reached with the state to close the plant early is If Exelon chooses to close at the end of 60 years, Oyster Creek, the oldest commercial reactor in the nation, would be years old.
Only two plants in the world, one in India and another in Switzerland, are now older. Both opened just months earlier than Oyster Creek. In a phone interview Wednesday, Pam Cowan, director of spent fuel and decommissioning for Exelon Generation, said a determination about when the decommissioning process might begin wouldn't be made until the plant closes in or shortly before then. Under NRC rules, nuclear plant owners aren't required to submit a decommissioning plan, which includes timetables, until two years after the plant closes.
Asked what factors would be evaluated in deciding when to begin decommissioning, Cowan replied that once it's safe to remove the spent fuel rods generally five to seven years , "it becomes a logistics issue, how quickly we would want to reuse the site, how quickly the Department of Energy will pick up the fuel. She said an alternative to having the spent fuel moved into dry casks for on-site storage would be for the Department of Energy to load the spent fuel into cannisters and transported directly to a federal repository.
However, such a repository, first envisioned 50 years ago, still doesn't exist, and few are optimistic a site or sites will be selected and a facility constructed anytime soon. Asked whether the prospect of not having to bear the expense of moving the spent fuel into dry casks as a first step before a federal repository might be available would be a disincentive to removing the spent fuel sooner rather than later, she said no.
The NRC typically reimburses most of the cost of transferring spent fuel into dry casks. Oyster Creek is one of just three nuclear plants with the identical design of Fukushima I, which was the first of three units to melt down. Oyster Creek, whose age has been a growing source of concern for some independent experts and activists, is among a number of older nuclear plants in the U.
Exelon is negotiating with the NRC for exemptions, largely on the basis that it will only be operating for four more years. Keeping spent fuel in elevated spent fuel pools, as is the case with older plants like Oyster Creek and Fukushima, is believed by some critics to pose greater risks than spent fuel kept in dry casks. Spent fuel contained in spent fuel pools is the leading cause for concern of those worried about the safety risks of plants that are closed but not fully decommissioned.
Cowan, the NRC and the industry disagree about the relative risk of fuel stored in the dry cask or the elevated fuel pool. The spent fuel pools are packed with highly radioactive fuel rods. Studies by the National Academy of Sciences , NRC and independent experts have shown that partial draining of the water from a spent fuel pool caused by an accident or terrorist attack could result in a spontaneous fire, the release of large quantities of radiation and widespread contamination.
We now have more tools at our disposal to save the Barnegat Bay and prevent future public and ecological harm from radiation, fish kills, and thermal pollution. Even though the plant will shut down, a majority of the work force will be employed through a decommissioning phase that could last a decade, and the security and management of the tons of accumulated radioactive nuclear waste will continue forever. Clean Water Action will continue our work as advocates with the administration and all stakeholders to restore the bay, and ensure a just transition for workers.
Over , people live within the Barnegat Bay watershed year round, with double that number due to summer. The Barnegat Bay estuary covers 42 miles of shoreline and is home to crabs, fish, birds, and other wildlife. The continued economic and environmental health of the watershed and estuary is dependent on the continued health of its waters.
The radioactive contaminant, tritium, was found at over 50 times the federal drinking water standard. Oyster Creek previously operated without cooling towers. Every day the plant sent 1. Skip to main content. Appoint community members, as well as state and local officials.
Ensure that whomever is decommissioning the plant should pay for experts hired by the review board. Order an open and transparent process to determine need for any nuclear subsidies in any given year - not a penny more and no subsidy if we do not need the power.
PSEG should pay for a third party forensic audit. Ensure closure of the Salem and Hope Creek generating stations once the current licenses expire and as the state powers up renewables within a similar timetable. Oyster Creek Background Nuclear Storage After Closure Clean Water Action has been involved in identifying and reporting various safety concerns at the nuclear plant for almost two decades.
Mechanical Problems In , federal regulators moved toward increased oversight following an unplanned, emergency shutdown after valves that control steam pressure malfunctioned.
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