9/13/2011 Fort Calhoun Nuclear Generating Station Update

Fort Calhoun Nuclear Generating Station is the nuclear power plant run by the OPPD (Omaha Public Power District) which was very close to being overwhelmed by a flooding Missouri river.  Water levels have since subsided but the nuclear power plant has been downgraded by the NRC (Nuclear Regular Commission) and inspectors are investigating the fire which occurred at the facility back in in June, 2011.  According to the Omaha World Herald article "June fire at nuke plant probed":

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has sent a special team of inspectors to Nebraska to learn more about a fire that disrupted power to the Fort Calhoun Nuclear Station's spent fuel pool in June.

The pool was without electricity for about 90 minutes, which halted active cooling of the pool. According to federal regulators and the Omaha Public Power District, the fuel wasn't in danger of overheating, because the pool retained more than 80 hours of residual cooling ability.

[...]

The NRC has said the plant will not be allowed to resume operations until it's known what caused the fire.

OPPD has estimated that equipment replacement related to the fire could cost $1 million.The plant has been downgraded and is under intense review by regulators for two other problems, one having to do with flood preparations and the other having to do with a bad electrical connector. Dricks said this special team is unrelated to those problems.

7/30/2011 Flood damage in North Korea

Source: NHK World
Date: Sunday, July 31, 2011 09:00 +0900 (JST)

North Korea's state-run media have reported that heavy rain which brought serious damage to South Korea also caused flooding in the North.

The state-run Korean Central News Agency reported on Friday that in Hwanghae Pukdo in the southern part of the country, more than 650 hectares of farmland was inundated, and roads and public facilities were destroyed.

Korean Central Television aired video of flood damage, which is said to have been shot between Tuesday and Friday.

In the video, which is believed to have been taken in the city of Kaesong, close to the border with South Korea, people were walking with umbrellas in water up to their knees and moving cars were splashing water.

Other video footage, said to have been taken in Hwanghae Pukdo, showed farmland covered with mud, a destroyed bridge, and a tilted and stalled bus on the road side.

North Korea reportedly suffered from a serious shortage of food last summer due to flooding in a wide area. This summer's flooding may cause a further shortage of food.

7/30/2011 Torrential rain hits Niigata, Fukushima

Source: NHK World
Date: Sunday, July 31, 2011 01:07 +0900 (JST)

Torrential rain has caused rivers to overflow in Niigata and Fukushima prefectures in northern Japan.

About 207,000 people in 15 municipalities of the 2 prefectures are taking shelter, as of 8 PM on Saturday, following authorities' evacuation orders or advisories.

At least 3,000 houses have been flooded in the prefectures.

In Niigata's Sanjo City, more than 10,000 people were ordered to evacuate after a dike collapsed.

2 men in Niigata Prefecture was found dead. 4 people are missing in the region.

NHK's aerial footage shows a destroyed bridge of East Japan Railway's Tadami Line, which connects Fukushima and Niigata prefectures. Only the bridge's columns can be seen in the overflowing river.

680 millimeters of rain has been recorded in Fukushima's Tadami Town in the 72 hours since Wednesday, while more than 620 millimeters fell on Kamo City, Niigata. Sanjo City in Niigata has gotten more than 1,000 millimeters.

These points have recorded more than double the amount of rain it gets in an average July in just 3 days.

The rain has been gradually easing, but some parts of northern Japan are still seeing showers.

The Meteorological Agency says the amount of rainfall in the 2 prefectures has exceeded a downpour 7 years ago that killed 16 people there.

7/27/2011 Dramatic video of heavy floods, deadly landslides in South Korea

Source: RT News
Date: 7/27/2011



A blast of heavy rain sent landslides barrelling through South Korea's capital and a northern town on Wednesday, killing at least 32 people, including 10 college students doing volunteer work. The heavy rain also left about 620 people homeless and flooded 720 houses and about 100 vehicles throughout South Korea, the National Emergency Management Agency said in a statement.
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7/14/2011 Los Alamos National Lab prepares for monsoon flash flooding

Date: 7/14/2011

Los Alamos National Lab, America's premier nuclear weapons research and development facility/factory, seemed to weather the Las Conchas wildfire without a major nuclear incident (e.g. the potential threat of fire releasing dangerous levels of radiation in to the air from various Material Disposal Areas or lab facilities). A new threat exists now, but this time from flash floods potentially washing contaminated soil in to the Rio Grande river, the source of drinking water for many New Mexico communities including the capital Sante Fe. [1] According to a July 11, 2011 article by Reuters:

...
The soil in the canyons above Los Alamos National Laboratory, the linchpin of American's nuclear weapons industry, contains materials with trace amounts of radiation and hazardous chemicals such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) that were dumped there decades ago, said Fred deSousa, spokesman for the lab's environmental control division.

Over the weekend, about 1,200 cubic yards of contaminated soil was removed primarily from two canyons -- Los Alamos and Pajarito -- that run through lab property, deSousa said.

The erosion control effort, which included the installation of 600 feet of water diversion barriers, will continue this week, he said.[1]
...

In a recent PressTV interview (below), Willem Malten of the Los Alamos Study Group states "there is a frantic community effort under way with mainly Native Americans sandbagging their own homelands while the [The Los Alamos National] Laboratory just removed 12,000 cubic yards of contaminated soil from the canyons."

PressTV: 'Monsoon rain could flood Los Alamos with contaminants'


Some key points were raised in the interview. Approximately 4 minutes in to the interview Malten states that a year long Associated Press investigation has found that the NRC (Nuclear Regulator Commission) has allowed aging nuclear power plants to run beyond their natural lifespan by relaxing previously set safety standards. Also of note is the segment of the interview starting at 7 minutes 7 seconds. Here Malten says that there has been "too cozy of a relationship between the nuclear industry, regulators and politicians for too long." The Obama administration received $210,000 in campaign contributions from the nuclear industry according to Malten.

Sources:
[1] Contaminated soil a concern at Los Alamos lab, Reuters
[2] 'Monsoon rain could flood Los Alamos with contaminants', PressTV

7/13/2011 Missouri River Flood: Alert Lifted at Cooper Nuclear Power Plant

Source: Gather News (gather.com)
Date: July 13, 2011 07:45 PM EDT
by: Angela Tague

On July 12, the Nebraska Public Power District lifted the "notification of unusual event" put in place at the Cooper Nuclear Station south of Omaha, Nebr. just last month. The Missouri River flood waters are finally starting to recede, causing plant workers to breathe a bit easier this week.
...
Read full article here

Editor's Note: Here is the current action plan at Cooper Nuclear Station.

7/3/2011 As Missouri floods, anger spills over at Army Corps

Source: McClatchy Newspapers
Date: Sunday, July 3, 2011
by: Dave Helling and Scott Canon

Rising waters flood a farm in the spillway of Missouri farmland after the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers breeched the levee near Cairo, Illinois | E. Jason Wambsgans/Chicago Tribune/MCT

YANKTON, S.D. — Gary Schaeffer's grandkids ran to an overlook of Gavins Point Dam.
"Ooh, man. Ooh."
Schaeffer followed and looked down in disbelief. A riot of water roiled where he'd spent a lifetime of lazy fishing.
"I've never seen anything like it," he said. "Nothing even close."
Eight years out of a decade, 1,440-foot-wide floodgates spill not so much as a bucket of the brown water into the Missouri River.
Now, with the Missouri flooding at record levels over the past two months, enough is barreling out of Lewis and Clark Lake to cover a football field three-and-a-half feet deep every second. Water will race through the dam at that record rate, ultimately swamping farms and towns for hundreds of miles downstream, through August.

...

Read full article here

7/1/2011 (Map) Levee blown causing several inch rise in Missouri river level

Date: 7/3/2011 published

On 7/1/2011 at approximately 10 AM CST, the privately owned Vanmann #30 agricultural levee was demolished via dynamite which caused a surge in the Missouri river level of several inches. The levee is just North of the Boyer Chute National Wildlife Refuge as per the following KETV Omaha Channel 7 video:


Based on the map in the above video, I mapped the busted levee (dynamite exploding icon) showing its relative positioning to Fort Calhoun Nuclear Generating Station (nuke icon at top) and Cooper Nuclear Station (nuke icon at bottom):

View Live Ustream Radiation Detectors in a larger map

The blown levee is slightly downstream (Southeast) from Fort Calhoun Nuclear Generating Station and upstream (North) of Cooper Nuclear Station.

Here is the river level at Blair, Nebraska where Fort Calhoun Nuclear Generating Station is located:

Click here for current Missouri river level

Here is the river level at Brownville, Nebraska where Cooper Nuclear Station is located:

Click here for current Missouri river level

Although the levee being purposely blown is alarming, it did not cause the Missouri river to rise to previous high levels.

6/26/2011 Berm fails causing temporary electricity outage at Fort Calhoun Nuclear Generating Station

Date: 6/26/2011

According to the AP one of the berms holding back flood waters at Fort Calhoun Nuclear Generating Station failed at 1:30 AM Sunday (June 26, 2011):

...
The 2,000-foot berm collapsed about 1:30 a.m. Sunday, allowing the swollen river to surround two buildings at the plant. The NRC says those buildings are designed to handle flooding up to 1014 feet above sea level. The river is at 1006.3 feet and isn't forecast to exceed 1008 feet.[1]
...

This resulted in backup generators being temporarily used to power both the already shut down main reactor (having been shut down since April) and spent fuel cooling systems, as the main power was cut. Quoting a second AP article:

...
The berm's collapse didn't affect the reactor shutdown cooling or the spent fuel pool cooling, but the power supply was cut after water surrounded the main electrical transformers, the NRC said. Emergency generators powered the plant until an off-site power supply was connected Sunday afternoon, according to OPPD.[2]
...

According to CNN news wire the berm was punctured by machinery:

...
Some sort of machinery came in contact with the berm, puncturing it and causing the berm to deflate, said Mike Jones, a spokesman for the Omaha Public Power District (OPPD), which owns the Fort Calhoun plant.[3]
...

In this case there was not any lengthy electrical outage as the power was diverted immediately to working backup generators and reconnected promptly from the outside. Unfortunately, at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant once battery backup systems were exhausted, the diesel generators had been damaged and made non-functional by the tsunami.  No external power was able to be brought in to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant until the cores had already melted.

For further reading: another article from CNBC, or this article from Omaha World Herald.

Sources:
[1] Flood berm collapsed at Nebraska nuclear plant, AP via Action 3 News
[2] Flood berm collapses at Nebraska nuclear plant, AP via Victoria Advocate
[3] Flood berm bursts at Nebraska nuclear plant, CNN news wire

6/24/2011 | Good site tracking Fort Calhoun and Cooper nuclear power plants flooding

Source: http://www.cartoradiations.fr/Fort_Calhoun.php
Date: Site is updated periodically
Good site tracking the flooding at Fort Calhoun Nuclear Generating Station and Cooper Nuclear Station:

Click here for news and photos

6/24/2011 | Levee Fails Upstream From Cooper Nuclear Station

Source: Nebraska.StatePaper.com
Date: 6/24/1970

Authorities: Don't worry
A levee three-miles upstream from the Cooper Nuclear Station at Brownville failed Thursday night, but authorities said the incident presented no threat to the nuclear plant. The failed levee, in Atchison County, Missouri, was breached at about 9 p.m.

Atchison County borders Nemaha and Otoe Counties in Nebraska. The Cooper plant, operated by the Nebraska Public Power District, is in Nemaha County.

An emergency evacuation was ordered for Atchison County west of I-29, including Landgdon, Watson, Phelps City, and Nishnabotna.

“This is a large breach and water will be moving rapidly. Persons should stay out of this area if previously evacuated due to danger,” the Atchison County Emergency Management office said in a prepared statement.

6/22/2011 | Update on Fort Calhoun and Cooper nuclear power plants from an NRC perspective

Source: NRC (Nuclear Regulatory Commission)
Date: 6/22/2011

This is the official NRC (Nuclear Regulatory Commission) news release as of today:
NRC TRACKING FLOODING AT TWO NEBRASKA NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS_11-030.iv
Download document from NRC site
Check left side bar for locations of the NRC Preliminary Event Notifications and actual Event Notification reports.

6/19/2011 | * IMPORTANT * Cooper Nuclear Station triggers Notification of Unusual Event due to Missouri river water levels rising above 42.5 feet

Date: 6/19/2011 12:13 PM CST
by: Jason Chan

Missouri river water levels have risen to a point (at present 43.7 feet as of 12:14 P.M. CST) which according to the NPPD (Nebraska Public Power District) flood emergency preparedness plan should have caused them to issue a NOUE (Notification of Unusual Event) for Cooper Nuclear Station.  The NOUE is the lowest of four emergency classes used within the United States.  Here is the graphic snapshot from the NPPD site which shows their flooding action plan and what water levels will trigger what event notifications to the NRC (Nuclear Regulatory Commission):

Cooper's Emergency Preparedness Plan (Flooding) View water levels at Brownville

Disclaimer: Cooper Nuclear Station measures the Missouri River's water elevation at the mean sea level. Conversions to depth of river in feet are placed in parentheses behind these levels. It is also important to note that changing river conditions, mountain snowmelt, and precipitation, all play a role in the fluctuating river levels. Procedure-required steps are noted with an asterisk.
Station management continuously tracks the river's level and anticipates precautionary measures for protecting plant equipment from flooding conditions.

If this action plan is being followed to the letter Cooper Nuclear Station should still be operational.

According to Omaha, Nebraska NBC Affiliate WOWT (Channel 6) the NOUE (Notification of Unusual Event) was indeed issued at 4:02 AM Sunday June 19, 2011:

...
As the Missouri River rises, the Nebraska Public Power District has declared a “Notification of Unusual Event” for the Cooper Nuclear Station. The notification was made at 4:02am Sunday. It is part of the safety and emergency preparedness plan that the station follows when certain flooding conditions are present.
...[1]

The AP also has an article going in to further detail:

...
Mark Becker, a spokesman for the Columbus-based utility, said the "notification of unusual event" sent to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission was expected as the river swells above record levels. The declaration is the least serious of four emergency notifications established by the federal commission.
"We knew the river was going to rise for some time," Becker said. "It was just a matter of when."
The plant was operating Sunday at full capacity, and there was no threat to plant employees or to the public, he said.
...[2]

Cooper Nuclear Station is three miles southeast of Brownville, Nebraska along the Missouri River.

Here is a description of the four emergency classifications the United States uses, starting from the least severe to the most severe taken from the NRC's (Nuclear Regulatory Commission) Backgrounder on Emergency Preparedness at Nuclear Power Plants:

...

Emergency Classification

Emergency Classification is a set of plant conditions which indicate a level of risk to the public. Nuclear power plants use the four emergency classifications listed below in order of increasing severity.

Notification of Unusual Event - Under this category, events are in process or have occurred which indicate potential degradation in the level of safety of the plant. No release of radioactive material requiring offsite response or monitoring is expected unless further degradation occurs.

Alert - If an alert is declared, events are in process or have occurred that involve an actual or potential substantial degradation in the level of safety of the plant. Any releases of radioactive material from the plant are expected to be limited to a small fraction of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) protective action guides (PAGs). Additional information regarding PAGs can be found on the EPA Web site at: http://www.epa.gov/radiation/rert/pags.html .  

Site Area Emergency - A site area emergency involves events in process or which have occurred that result in actual or likely major failures of plant functions needed for protection of the public. Any releases of radioactive material are not expected to exceed the EPA PAGs except near the site boundary.

General Emergency - A general emergency involves actual or imminent substantial core damage or melting of reactor fuel with the potential for loss of containment integrity. Radioactive releases during a general emergency can reasonably be expected to exceed the EPA PAGs for more than the immediate site area.
...

Note that there is also a 7 level international nuclear event scale, which is described in the following Wikipedia entry: International Nuclear Event Scale.  The reports sited are not based on the international scale.

Sources:
[1] Declaration at Cooper Nuclear Station, NBC WOWT (Channel 6) News
[2] Neb. nuke plant notifies feds of Missouri flooding, AP via ctpost.com

6/16/2011 | Rising water, falling journalism

Source: Bulletin of The Atomic Scientists
Date: 6/16/2011
by: Dawn Stover

Every evening, my father climbs the levee along the Missouri River in Council Bluffs, Iowa, and peers down into the black water that swallows the road. The water is rising, and the Army Corps of Engineers says the levee has never faced such a test. Dad, a retired professor, is packing his books and papers. If the levee doesn't hold, his one-story house could be underwater for months.
...
Read entire article here (it is very good)

6/15/2011 | Ft Calhoun Spent Fuel In Ground Pools, Flooded Already?

Source: rense.com
Date: 6/15/2011

Jeff -

Ft. Calhoun is the designated spent fuel storage facility for the entire state of Nebraska...and maybe for more than one state.*
...
Read full article here

6/14/2011 | No Fly Zone Over Fort Calhoun Nuclear Plant Due to “Hazards”

Source: NC Renegade
Date: June 14, 2011

The Federal Aviation Administration issued a temporary flight restriction over the Fort Calhoun Nuclear Power Plant until further notice due to “Hazards”. This would normally be a precautionary measure after an electrical fire disabled cooling for the spent fuel rod pool as outlined below. The question is why is this still in effect?

...
Read full article here

6/7/2011 | Fire at Fort Calhoun Nuclear Power Plant in Nebraska Temporarily Disables Spent Fuel Pool Cooling

Date: Published 6/11/2011
by: Jason Chan


View Live Ustream Radiation Detectors in a larger map

The Fort Calhoun nuclear power plant, which is near the Missouri river has been shut down since April 9th, for refueling and due to Missouri river flooding concerns.  There has been flooding reported at the Fort Calhoun nuclear power plant parking lots but not within the facility itself.  Quoting the Omaha World Herald:

...
Nuke plant: No floodwater has breached the nuclear power plant at Fort Calhoun, say officials from both the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Omaha Public Power District. NRC spokeswoman Lara Uselding and OPPD spokesman Mike Jones said Thursday that some floodwater is pooling in some of the plant's parking lots, but there had been no confirmed reports of floodwater entering the currently idle plant, they said.
... [1]

At nuclear power plants, spent fuel is often stored on site in large pools of water which have pumps which circulate the water in order to keep the temperature down so that the spent fuel rods do not heat up and catch on fire or melt down. The spent fuel rod pool cooling was temporarily lost resulting from a fire affecting some of the safety systems. On June 7, 2011 9:30 AM a fire alarm sounded and non-essential workers were evacuated. At 9:40 AM an alert was raised with the NRC (Nuclear Regulatory Commission) regarding a fire starting in a room containing electrical equipment. Per the NRC's own Preliminary Notification of Event or Unusual Occurence report PNO-IV-004:

...
DESCRIPTION: At approximately 9:40 a.m., Tuesday, June 7, 2011, the Fort Calhoun Station
(FCS) declared an ALERT due to a fire in an electrical switchgear room. Automatic fire
suppression systems operated as expected. Licensee fire brigade personnel, the Blair Fire
Department, and the Fort Calhoun Fire Department responded to the fire. The fire was
confirmed extinguished at 10:20 a.m. The plant was already in a cold shutdown condition following completion of a planned refueling outage and was maintained safely in cold shutdown. [2]
...

At 1:15 PM the alert was terminated and the evacuated workers returned. [3]  No alerts of this seriousness have been issued by the Fort Calhoun nuclear power plant since 1992 when electrical problems and a faulty valve resulted in 20,000 gallons of reactor coolant being dumped in to the basement of the containment building. [3]

According to Pro Publica the nuclear power plant did have a backup spent fuel pool pump which was not needed in this case:

...
Mike Jones, a spokesman for the plant's owner, the Omaha Public Power District, said Fort Calhoun has a backup pump to provide water to the spent fuel in case the main system is lost. That pump, which runs on a separate power supply from the rest of the plant, was inspected and standing by on Tuesday, but plant operators restored main power to the pool before the emergency pump was needed, he said. [4]
...

Although the fire was quickly extinguished within an hour of the initial fire alarm, two fire departments were called in which indicates external help was needed to get the fire under control.  Nuclear engineer and industry expert Arnie Gundersen in a recent interview with Robert Knight of the a-Infos Radio Project said that he felt it was fortunate that a full scale disaster was averted, but that this was mostly due to luck rather than good planning.  The situation could have gotten much worse according to Mr. Gundersen, who stated that had all cooling systems failed it would have taken about 80 hours for the water to evaporate and put the spent fuel rods in jeopardy. [5]

Sources:
[1] Omaha World Herald: The latest on flooding
[2] NRC (Nuclear Regulatory Commission) PN (Preliminary Notification)  Report:

PNO-IV-11-004

06/07/2011

Fort Calhoun Station: Fort Calhoun Station Declaration of an ALERT Due to Fire Affecting Plant Safety Systems

[3] Omaha World Herald: Rare alert triggered at nuclear plant
[4] Pro Publica: Electrical Fire Knocks Out Spent Fuel Cooling at Nebraska Nuke Plant
[5] Radio4all.net: NEBRASKA NUKE DISASTER - Flood, Fire and Heat

Note: I am including a link to the NRC Preliminary Notification Reports in the left sidebar which should ideally be scanned on a daily basis considering the flooding going on does place many nuclear power plants in harm's way.

6/6/2011 JST | Water treatment system tested

Source: The Japan Times
Date: Monday, June 6, 2011

Kyodo

Workers on Sunday began checking devices that will help decontaminate the radioactive water that is flooding the Fukushima No. 1 power plant, officials said.
...
Read full article here