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]]]]] NO "RUNAWAY," NO COVER-UP AT SAVANNAH RIVER [[[[[[[[
By Forrest J. Remick
(From The Wall Street Journal, 13 December 1988, p. A20:3)
(Mr. Remick is vice chairman of the Reactor Safety Advisory
Committee for the Savannah River plant and of the NRC's Advisory
Committee on Reactor Safeguards. This article is taken from one
in the CentreDaily Times, State College, Pa.)
[Kindly uploaded by Freeman 10602PANC]
My perspective is of one who has served for many years on
national nuclear safety committees, including serving currently
as vice chairman of the Reactor Safety Advisory Committee for the
Savannah River Plant of the U.S. Department of Energy.
The Savannah River reactors are operated for the Department of
Energy by E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co. In the early 1950s, Du
Pont was asked by the federal government to design, build and
operate the Savannah River Plant because it had unique
engineering capabilities. Du Pont was reluctant, but agreed to
the request as a national service; it has not received any fee
for the service through the years. A year ago Du Pont indicated
it did not wish to continue to operate the Savannah River Plant
because of the adverse political climate that has developed for
such activities in this country; Westinghouse Corp. will be the
contractor beginning in April.
It is important to realize that the Savannah River reactors
are government-owned facilities; they are not commercial nuclear
power plants. These reactors were built to industrial standards
of the 1960s, before today's standards were developed. They were
built at the height of the Cold War and under tight national
security. Unfortunately, they are still needed for national
defense. These reactors are in need of being modernized, or of
being replaced, which has been known for a number of years.
Much has been said in the press about a ``power surge'' or a
``runaway'' reactor at Savannah River this past August. As
chairman of a subcommittee that investigated that incident, I can
attest to the fact that the reactor was not a ``runaway''
reactor. A slow drift of the power level of the P reactor did
occur. This resulted in a 2% increase in power level before the
operator made an adjustment to the control rods within 20 seconds
of the beginning of the drift.
For perspective, this is equivalent to the cruise control in a
car allowing the speed to drift to 51 mph over a period of 20
seconds, instead of keeping the car at the set value of 50 mph.
Such power-level drifts occur from time to time in these
reactors; the automatic control system would have corrected the
drift if it had reached 4%, and the reactor would have been
automatically shut down if the drift had reached 6%. This
trivial occurrence was not a ``power surge'' or a ``runaway''
reactor. Although it makes good headlines, it is not responsible
reporting.
I'd like to also address the alleged cover-up of information
concerning reactor incidents at Savannah River. First, these
were incidents, not accidents. In safety parlance, it is an
incident when a person trips on a rug; it is an accident when the
person is injured as a result. As to the alleged cover-up, the
Savannah River Plant has maintained a formal reactor-incident
reporting system since 1967; provides daily and monthly
operations reports (including reports of incidents) to the DOE;
has provided semi-annual reports of reactor incidents to the DOE
for the past 20 years; and in recent years has shared reactor
information with the media.
The so-called secret report of the 30 most significant reactor
incidents (most of which happened in the 1960s and 1980s) was
prepared several years ago in response to a recommendation by the
plant's Reactor Safety Advisory Committee that plant personnel
should formally attempt to learn from past plant experiences.
The report was prepared, presented and discussed with the
committee in 1986. The information was subsequently presented to
a committee of the National Academy of Sciences. It was not a
secret report prepared by a whistle-blower, as depicted by the
press. The fact that not all Energy Department people in
Washington were aware of the report is unfortunate, but does not
constitute a cover-up; some of these people have been employed by
the department only recently.
I do not wish to imply that there are not problems with the
Energy Department's nuclear-safety oversight or that there are
not some safety-related problems at the Savannah River Plant.
The Reactor Safety Advisory Committee has been constructively
advising that these facilities have not kept up with the outside
world in all respects, partly due to their uniqueness and to
security restrictions, and partly due to some admitted
complacency resulting from more than 30 years of safe and highly
successful operation. The problems are being worked on by
competent, sincere, dedicated people at many levels.
Congress cannot escape blame for not responding to the need
for funds to address problems that have been known and identified
for some time. It is known that some politicians like to have a
whipping boy in an election year in order to get media coverage.
The media complies with such opportunities because they provide
catchy headlines and offer the opportunity for editorials that
take a holier-than-thou stance. Unfortunately, being the whipee
is much less fun and inspiring to those who have dedicated their
professional lives to operating these plants for the nation's
security.
There is ample blame to go around for any shortcomings with
these facilities. Unfortunately, there is one group that is not
receiving its full share. There are the individuals, who in the
past insisted on breaking up the old Atomic Energy Commission and
the Joint (Congressional) Committee on Atomic Energy. Their
action removed these facilities from the independent purview of
competent regulatory bodies such as the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission.
Yes, there have been incidents at Savannah River as there are
at every major industrial complex that I know of. (There are
16,700 employees at Savannah River alone.) However, during the
entire 38 years of service, there has never been an incident that
put the plant's public neighbors at risk.
In fact, there has never been an injury related to a nuclear
incident at Savannah River. Within the past several months one
of the three reactors completed 35 years of operations,
representing millions of man-hours of effort, without one lost
day of work due to an accident. Du Pont's industrial safety
records are unparalleled. Further, not one of the 30 more
significant incidents reported that have received so much media
attention resulted in a radiation injury to any employee, let
alone a member of the public. It seems as though these and
numerous other ignored facts might be worthy of more balanced
headlines, articles or editorials. Or am I an idealist?
* * *
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