Nuclear foes see danger in waste

Harris plant starts relicensing process

The Shearon Harris nuclear plant has long drawn scrutiny over the safety of atomic power. But safety concerns are shifting to an emerging issue: the buildup of radioactive waste at the site in volumes never anticipated when the plant began operating 20 years ago.

Longtime nuclear critics plan to highlight the nuclear waste quandary during a two-year safety review as Progress Energy seeks to extend the Shearon Harris operating license into the middle of the century. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission will hold the first public meeting on the Shearon Harris relicensing on Wednesday in Apex.

The nuclear waste issue is gaining momentum nationwide amid growing concerns that nuclear plants are potential targets for terrorism and sabotage. With no long-term solution in sight for disposing of nuclear waste, many nuclear plants are storing three times as much waste as the temporary pools were originally expected to hold. Unlike the nuclear reactors themselves, the storage sites usually are not heavily fortified against attack.

"There's a growing recognition from the point of view of terrorism that the pools are much more vulnerable," said Robert Alvarez, a senior scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington who has studied nuclear waste security. "These pools have some of the highest concentrations of radioactivity on the planet."

Progress Energy spokesman Rick Kimble said the Shearon Harris waste pools have multiple safety backup systems and access to the water supply of Harris Lake next to the plant.

"These pools are as safe as any storage facility known to man," he said. "We have at least a dozen different methods of putting water back into that pool should you lose the primary [coolant]."

By law, relicensing hearings focus narrowly on a nuclear plant's safety components and environmental impacts as the plant ages. But critics are trying to force the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to also consider the growing risks of stockpiling radioactive waste near the country's major population centers.

Critics say Shearon Harris, about 20 miles southwest of Raleigh, has become Progress Energy's de facto regional nuclear waste depot. The site stores overflow waste from two other nuclear plants in addition to its own. The problem is compounded by the prospect of building a new reactor that would generate more radioactive waste. The site is licensed to store several dozen times as much radioactive material as the reactor core, leading to worries that a major accident involving nuclear waste could be more catastrophic than a nuclear meltdown in the reactor.

"They're going to be storing that waste for decades, and they're storing it in the most dangerous way possible," said Jim Warren, director of N.C. Waste Awareness and Reduction Network in Durham. "The potential consequences are unmatched by any other terrorist target in the United States."

Licensing opponents around the country are not seeking to block the 20-year license extension itself but instead to force nuclear plants to thin out the waste pools and store the spent nuclear fuel in reinforced dry casks above ground, as recommended by the National Academy of Sciences and other experts.

The security issue

The academy issued a report last year confirming concerns about nuclear waste buildup. State governments have also taken up the issue, fighting relicensing attempts in Vermont, New Jersey and Massachusetts. Nine state attorneys general have asked the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to consider security risks during relicensing reviews.