DON'T TRUST HOLTEC
Radioactive water release from Oyster Creek nuclear plant concerns environmentalists

Amanda Oglesby, Asbury Park Press
Sun, September 18, 2022 

Editor's note: A previous version of this story incorrectly said the plant and its trust fund were sold to two companies in 2019. The plant and trust fund were sold exclusively to Holtec International.

LACEY - Water with "low-level" amounts of radiation recently was discharged from the defunct Oyster Creek nuclear power plant, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which oversees radiation-related activity at the plant.

Holtec International released about 24,000 gallons of water from the facility as part of its ongoing decommissioning activities, NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan said in an email. The water was slowly released starting Sept. 7 and took two days to complete, he said.

The water contains low levels of radiation and comes from the plant's nuclear fuel rod cooling pool, the reactor cavity and an equipment pit, Sheehan said.

The water releases are regulated by both the NRC and the federal Environmental Protection Agency in order to protect the public, he said.

The Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating station in Lacey Township in shown Tuesday, June 4, 2019

Staff at the power plant have performed such releases of low-level radioactive water throughout the facility's operating life, said Sheehan and Holtec spokesman Joseph Delmar. The action is part of routine operations, not just at Oyster Creek, but at nuclear plants across the nation, Delmar said in an email to the Asbury Park Press.

Water was integral to the functioning and safety at Oyster Creek throughout the plant's nearly 50 years of generating electricity. Steam heated by nuclear energy was used to drive the plant's turbine, converting that energy into electricity. Water also was used to cool spent fuel rods inside a large pool.

Oyster Creek produced its last electricity in 2018. The facility's age coupled with competition from inexpensive natural gas made the nuclear plant too costly to operate. In 2019, its then-owner Exelon sold the plant and its nearly $1 billion decommissioning trust fund to Holtec International.

In May, Holtec announced that the last of the spent fuel rods from decades of power generation were removed from the cooling pool and transferred to dry cask storage. Now the company is draining water from the pool, the reactor and an equipment storage pit, Sheehan said.

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"Our process for water use falls in step with our commitment to environmental stewardship," Delmar said.

The radioactive water is collected in 30,000-gallon batches and run through a series of filters and demineralizers, he said. Afterward, the water is thoroughly tested, and then reused inside the plant or diluted and discharged into canals, he said.

"Our sample results show that the canals around Oyster Creek have been, and remain, safe to swim, fish and boat in," he said.

Since decommissioning began three years ago, the plant has discharged, on average, about 64,000 gallons of treated, diluted water a month into the canals, Delmar said.

A spent fuel pool at the Indian Point nuclear plant in Buchanan, N.Y. shows uranium rods submerged in 23 feet of water. The stored rods came out of the nuclear reactor.

Holtec found discharging the water to be the best way to handle the material compared to the company's alternatives, he said.

"Evaporation releases higher levels of radioactive materials due to the concentration and lack of dilution when the water becomes a gas," Delmar said. "Shipping to another site for disposal creates a larger carbon footprint with hundreds of truck trips."

Local environmentalists say they are not reassured because plant officials did not share information about the release prior to taking action.

Janet Tauro, New Jersey chair of the environmental organization Clean Water Action, said the water release signaled a lack of transparency on the part of Holtec.

"The public was not alerted to when the releases would occur," said Tauro, who learned about the release while researching Holtec's decommissioning work at the defunct Pilgrim Power Station in Massachusetts. "They (Ocean County residents) weren’t given the opportunity to ask questions."

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Britta Forsberg, executive director of the environmental group Save Barnegat Bay, said she was watching volunteers build oyster reefs near the mouth of the Forked River just days after the plant's radioactive water release. Oyster reefs help prevent shoreline erosion, filter the bay's water and provide crucial habitat for marine animals, but Forsberg said the effects of low-level radiation on the growing oysters remain unknown.

"If I was putting myself in the water, doing all this work (building oyster reefs), I might want to ask some questions and know what's in there (the bay water)."

Edwin Lyman, director of the nuclear power safety program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said the radioactive water release raises questions about regulatory oversite of nuclear facilities.

Too little research is done on the impacts of the discharges, to know whether radiation from the releases accumulates in certain animals or concentrates into particular areas of the ecosystem over time, Lyman said.

"It's a difference between what's allowable and what's right," he said.

Delmar, of Holtec, said the company remained committed to environmental stewardship and was operating within the law and Nuclear Regulatory Commission's limits on radiation releases.

But Lyman questioned the science behind those limits.

He said, "The larger question is are the limits that the nuclear industry is allowed to adhere to, with regard to routine radioactive discharges, are those the right numbers?"

Amanda Oglesby is an Ocean County native who covers Brick, Barnegat and Lacey townships as well as the environment. She has worked for the Press for more than a decade. Reach her at @OglesbyAPP, aoglesby@gannettnj.com or 732-557-5701.

This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: Ocean residents not notified of water release from Oyster Creek plant