"If self preservation is elemental in human nature, so is a capacity for accepting risk when something is wanted enough. Portuguese sailors traveled 15,000 miles to fill small wooden boats with oranges and cinnamon. The cravings of the race are closer to home now, and the people...are locked in solid to a requirement for electric power, perhaps at risks that would beggar the exploits of the merchant Portuguese."
-John McPhee, The Curve of Binding Energy, 1973.

On September 10, 1998, three members of the Chattooga River Watershed Coalition (CRWC) filed a Petition to Intervene in the relicensing proceedings for the Oconee Nuclear Station1. Since the entire Chattooga River watershed lies within the nuclear station's 50-mile evacuation zone, naturally we were interested when Duke Energy Corporation announced they were applying for a 20-year extension of the nuclear station's operating license, which currently is set to expire in 2013. We filed the Petition because we were concerned about "common sense" issues, such as plans for managing the facility's highly toxic spent fuel, now stored on site in spent fuel pools that are near full capacity. We were also concerned about the integrity of the old reactor vessels and their containment structures, as well as the increased risk to public health and the natural environment from continuing to operate the aging facility beyond its planned 40-year life span . By filing a Petition, we introduced these concerns into the only forum available for citizens to have a voice in the resolution of these important safety issues.

The venue for this forum is "in-house," as it is controlled by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). Here, the agency invokes a rigid adjudicatory process, and appoints members of its bureaucracy to the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel, who serve as judges in deciding the merit of the issues raised. The CRWC was the only party to meet the filing deadline for submitting specific issues to the hearing docket for the Oconee Nuclear Station relicensing proceedings. It is likely that most people were unaware of the September 10th deadline, as it appeared in an obscure notice in the Federal Register. Later, a public meeting on October 19th in Clemson, SC-over a month after the filing deadline-was sponsored by the NRC and Duke to inform citizens about the potential relicensing of the nuclear station. The timing of these events was curious, as it obviously was a barrier to encouraging meaningful public participation.

The outcome of the Oconee Nuclear Station relicensing proceedings has the capacity to affect virtually everything within the bounds of the Chattooga watershed, immediately and for quite some time into the future. For instance, if the relicensing application is denied, then alternative energy sources would need to be developed to meet our rapacious appetite for electricity. Yet, if the relicensing application is approved, then everyone within the 50-mile evacuation zone will continue to live with the specter of a worst-case scenario: the event and repercussions of a major radiological accident. Meanwhile, accidental releases of even relatively small amounts of radiation into our air and ground water may manifest negative health effects on the surrounding communities. However, we don't know, because comprehensive scientific studies for populations within the 50-mile evacuation zone have not occurred.

In order to participate in this important occasion, citizens must adhere to the exacting rules created by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for their litigation-oriented process. The most recent version of these rules was published in the Federal Register on August 11, 1998. They are recent because the potential relicensing of our nation's aging nuclear power plants is new and uncharted territory. The most prominent emerging issues are engineering strategies to manage the years of "wear and tear" on nuclear reactor operating systems, such as cracking of the concrete containment structures, and cracking and embrittlement of the reactor vessel. The management of large quantities of spent fuel, which has been called "the world's most poisonous substance," is another huge and contentious problem. Nobody wants to have high-level nuclear waste permanently stored in their community. To date, these issues are largely unresolved. Indeed, in order to side step the nuclear waste issue, the NRC has recently declared that nuclear waste management will be completely eliminated from the scope of the Oconee Nuclear Station's relicensing proceedings.

Represented by such organizations as the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) and the Babcock and Wilcox Owner's Group (B&WOG), the nuclear power industry has been preparing for the relicensing of their power stations for several years. Since nuclear power stations are so expensive to build and operate, utility companies such as Duke Energy Corporation have a keen interest in recouping their start-up investment, and maximizing their profit margins by prolonging the station's life. Thus, during the past few years the NEI and B&WOG have prepared many topical reports that are intended to provide technical justification for relicensing. For example, one report addresses the theoretical management of aging effects for the reactor vessel; and another, the theoretical management of aging effects for reactor containment building. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission's technical staff is charged with reviewing these reports, which usually means requesting additional information on their contents, and then giving them their final stamp of approval. The Executive Vice President of Duke's Nuclear Generation program has stated that the "final disposition of these reports is of paramount importance to the technical analysis and conclusions set forth in Duke's application for relicensing the Oconee Nuclear Station." Currently, this review process is incomplete. In spite of this, relicensing proceedings are on a fast-track forward. The NRC has mandated that the nuclear station's relicensing proceedings must be expedited, in order to avoid "injury" to the industry.

Duke Energy Corporation's renewal application, which is laced with cross references to the above-described topical reports, is also undergoing a like process of NRC review. Concerning the contents of the application, the NRC has issued a large number of Requests for Additional Information, totaling 349 individual requests to date. For example, the NRC's technical staff wants to know:

Þ Why cracking of reinforced concrete elements, including reactor building internal structures, is not treated as an aging effect?

Þ What is Duke's plan for managing the aging effects of corrosion of structural steel and rebar that is embedded in concrete, due to accumulation and ingress of water through concrete cracks?

Þ Why thermal fatigue has not been identified as an aging effect for the components of the Containment Heat Removal System?

Þ What is the aging management program for the reactor vessel flow stabilizers and the potential cracking of stainless steel weld cladding in reactor vessel forgings (whose functions are inextricably linked to the "integrity of the reactor vessel")?

Þ What are the combined effects of high temperatures and radiation on the structural properties of: the reactor cavities; the steam generator cavities; the spent fuel (auxiliary) buildings; concrete walls; concrete reactor supports; steel supports; and, anchor bolts? And, what are the aging management programs for these effects?

Þ Why new one-time inspection programs, which will verify the presence or absence of degradation to certain critical components, are not advanced in schedule?

The CRWC learned about these issues by examining primary source documents, including Duke's 1,600 page renewal application, and the NRC's 349 Requests for Additional Information. Then, we presented all of our concerns as a Petition to Intervene, which is the format required by the NRC's "rules of conduct" for their mandatory adjudicatory process. However, we believe that the NRC's clear intent to force litigation on these issues is premature, because the projected resolution of these and other important safety issues is timed to occur long after the NRC's rigid adjudicatory deadlines. Obviously, the NRC wants to dispatch their hearing process, in order to expedite license renewal. Duke Energy Corporation is a global energy business with more than $20 billion in assets, and they have retained five lawyers whose sole goal is to have the CRWC's concerns dismissed from further consideration. Precedent indicates that the NRC is predisposed to serve the industry's interests, and will rule in their favor.

Meanwhile, on December 9, 1998, the national Better Business Bureau called on the Nuclear Energy Institute to stop running advertisements that "flatly assert" that nuclear power is "environmentally clean." Indeed, the potential relicensing of our nation's fleet of nuclear power stations cannot be disassociated from the fact that the generation of electricity in this manner is inherently risky, and produces lethal waste that will remain so for over 200,000 years. Furthermore, the enormous problem of managing the nuclear industry's cache of high-level waste, which includes over 40,000 tons stored at civilian nuclear power plants in 35 states, is now the taxpayer's problem.

Recently, the Supreme Court refused to protect the federal government from lawsuits filed by utility companies seeking damages over the government's inability to take charge of high-level nuclear waste. After 12 years and $6.5 billion, the Department of Energy (DOE) is still trying to settle on a viable High Level Waste (HLW) repository. Numerous studies of the intended national HLW repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, continue to raise serious questions about the suitability of the site. Yucca Mountain also lies in an active earthquake zone, and the state's elected officials including every member of their congressional delegation, have vowed to fight against making Yucca Mountain the nation's high level nuclear waste dump. Now, the Department of Energy is worried that the Supreme Court decision will leave the $15 billion federal nuclear waste trust fund "vulnerable to claims by nuclear utilities."

In our rush to plug in and switch on, it's time to stop and fully illuminate the salient issues surrounding our continued reliance on commercial nuclear power plants. The CRWC will persist in tracking these issues as they relate to the Oconee Nuclear Station relicensing decision, and relay this information to citizens. We all have a right to know, as well as an obligation to participate.

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