Earthquake threat, radioactive pollution spark DHEC concerns about nuclear fuel plant near Columbia
State regulators are pressing the federal government to look more carefully at an atomic fuel plant’s potential threat to Lower Richland before giving the factory a new 40 year license to operate.
In a letter last week to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, South Carolina officials raised concerns about earthquakes, as well as previously unknown pollution they have found, at the 51-year-old Westinghouse plant southeast of Columbia.
The S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control wants the NRC to conduct a full environmental impact statement, which could delay a decision on a new operating permit for the fuel plant for a year or more. The current license expires in 2027 but the NRC, which must approve a new permit, is weighing whether to issue one sooner, perhaps as early as this year.
The NRC wrapped up a smaller study in 2019 on the environmental impact of relicensing the fuel factory, concluding that the plant won’t cause much harm to the environment in the long run. But information about contamination at Westinghouse, which has a decades-long history of environmental and safety questions, continues to surface, DHEC says.. .
In the past two years, DHEC has run across previously unknown uranium pollution on the property and recently reported more contamination in the soil. The agency notified the NRC of additional contamination in late 2019, after the federal government completed its smaller environmental study..
A full environmental impact statement would go into greater detail and likely weigh some of the pollution data DHEC is collecting at the site in eastern Richland County.
DHEC’s request sets the agency on a possible collision course with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission over the future of the plant. Whlle the NRC must approve a new license, DHEC regulates non-nuclear discharges and must make sure groundwater is cleaned up or contained..
The NRC has cited multiple problems Westinghouse has had operating the plant in recent years, including a spill of a uranium solution through a hole in the plant’s floor and a buildup of uranium in an air pollution control device.
But the federal nuclear oversight agency has been reluctant to issue fines against Westinghouse for many of those problems, saying the company has worked to correct the mistakes.
DHEC, however, has in recent years begun to investigate groundwater pollution more extensively on the property as neighbors of the plant have questioned whether their well water is safe.
Roger Hannah, a spokesman for the NRC in Atlanta, said his agency will take DHEC’s request under advisement.
“The only thing we can say is we are evaluating the information we got from DHEC,’’ Hannah said. “At some point, we will decide what path to pursue.’’
State Rep. Wendy Brawley, D-Richland, and Tom Clements, a nuclear watchdog in Columbia, said they hope the NRC grants DHEC’s request for more extensive study.
While conducting a full environmental impact statement would likely delay an NRC decision, Brawley said that’s a good thing.
“They are going for an additional 40 years,’’ Brawley said, referring to the request for a 40-year operating license. “You can take another year to do the proper amount of investigation’’
Clements said the NRC should listen to DHEC to avoid confrontation.
“What happens if the NRC says ‘we are not going to prepare a draft’’ environmental impact statement?’” Clements said. ‘’That is going to put DHEC and the NRC in a confrontational situation. I would urge NRC to avoid that and show us they will do what our state regulators have requested.’’
DHEC did not respond to questions from The State seeking more information about contamination on the site.. Westinghouse did not directly answer questions from The State about the request for a more detailed environmental study, saying only that the company has an agreement with DHEC to find and clean up pollution on the property.
The Westinghouse nuclear fuel plant opened in 1969 in a sparsely populated section of Richland County along Bluff Road. The plant, one of the only ones of its kind in the country, makes nuclear fuel rods for the nation’s atomic power plants.
Located between Interstate 77 and Congaree National Park, the plant is a major player in the Richland County economy, providing more than 1,000 jobs. The plant has a history of groundwater pollution from the early 1970s and a series of safety violations inside the plant dating back at least 20 years.
The company’s existing license to operate the plant doesn’t expire until 2027, but Westinghouse has said it wanted to start the relicensing process early because the process can be time consuming.
In DHEC’s April 27 letter to the NRC, the South Carolina environmental agency said 40 new groundwater monitoring wells, installed last summer, have provided a trove of new information, including “detectable levels’’ of volatile organic contaminants below Upper Sunset Lake and beyond.
Volatile organic compounds include an array of chemicals that are toxic to people, among them solvents that cause cancer.
The agency also has learned about uranium pollution that it says was never identified on the property until DHEC began looking more closely at pollution. Four sediment samples have shown uranium levels above federal safety standards.
The uranium pollution, in the muck of upper and lower Sunset lakes, is suspected to have occurred in 1971, shortly after the plant opened, records show. Many forms of uranium like that found on the Westinghouse property do not break down easily, in some cases taking millions of years to disappear.
DHEC says it has documented elevated levels of uranium 233, 234 and 238 in sediment. Of that, uranium 234 is the most radioactive, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
So far, DHEC has not found polluted drinking water in the nearby Hopkins community, where many people depend on backyard wells. But the agency has struck an enforcement accord with Westinghouse that requires more monitoring and cleanup by the company. Some of the new data has come out as a result of that agreement.
According to its letter, DHEC says an environmental impact statement is needed to look more carefully at the extent of pollution in the floodplain between the Bluff Road plant and the Congaree River.
Another key concern is the possibility that an earthquake could damage the plant. DHEC’s letter said the 2019 environmental assessment didn’t look carefully enough at the ability of pipes, tanks and wastewater lagoons on the property to withstand earthquakes.
“No discussion of the plant’s susceptibility to a tremor of any magnitude is included,’’ the DHEC letter said.
The Columbia area sometimes has tremors, including one this past weekend near the V.C. Summer nuclear plant in Fairfield County, about 30 miles north of Columbia.
The letter also says more sediment sampling is needed for uranium and a full study of how well infrastructure at Westinghouse would hold up if the license is renewed for 40 years, as proposed by the company. The letter did not define what infrastructure needed examination.
“This renewal, as proposed, contemplates continued operations until 2067 when the facility will be 98 years old,’’ according to DHEC’s letter, written by Ken Taylor, a top pollution cleanup official. “There is nothing in the (previously conducted environmental study) that discusses infrastructure longevity. Infrastructure longevity should be addressed.’’
This story was originally published May 5, 2020 at 11:49 AM with the headline "Earthquake threat, radioactive pollution spark DHEC concerns about nuclear fuel plant near Columbia."
