NRC discusses safety of local nuclear power plant in 2023

MONTICELLO — Staff from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) held a public meeting last week at the community center to discuss the safety performance of Monticello’s nuclear power plant in 2023, giving few specifics and leaving many questions unanswered.

The NRC determined the plant — run by Northern State Power Company, a subsidiary of Xcel Energy — operated safely throughout 2023, which was also the year the public was notified of a tritium leak at the plant.

Although the leak happened in November 2022, much resulting action took place over 2023, including a temporary shutdown of the plant and subsequent cleanup, with recovery, storage and disposal of impacted groundwater.

The radioactive tritium leak did not negatively impact the power plant’s annual assessment. In fact, the NRC said, in 2023, all inspection findings and performance indicators were green, or of very low safety significance.

The NRC uses color-coded inspection findings and performance indicators to assess plant performance, with green the top rating, followed by white, yellow, and red, which indicates the highest threat to safety.

Inspection findings or performance indicators with more than a very low safety significance trigger an increase of NRC oversight — which did not happen in Monticello in 2023.

“Northern States Power operated the plant safely and in a manner that preserved the public health and safety and protected the environment,” the report states.

These findings were shared during a hybrid public meeting on Tuesday, May 7, which had about 25 audience members in total — with just five in person and another 20 participating online over Microsoft Teams.

It was led by several representatives of the NRC, including Rick Skokowski, branch chief of the NRC’s Region III, which covers the central part of the U.S.; two of NRC’s on-site resident inspectors based at the Monticello plant, Chuck Norton and Noah Bolling; along with health physics inspector Jason Reed, a radiological expert.

Monticello Nuclear Generating Plant Manager Gregory Brown was also present, as was the NRC’s public affairs officer, Prema Chandrathil Yeaman.

Skokowski explained the role of the NRC, an independent agency created by Congress in 1974 to ensure the safe use of radioactive materials for beneficial civilian purposes while protecting people and the environment.

“Our regulations were designed to ensure safety,” he said. “And we verify that through our inspection activities and other oversight activities to ensure that the plants will be safe.”

He stressed that the NRC is a completely separate entity from the plant operator, and does not profit in any way from the facility.

“We don’t care if they make all the money in the world,” he said. “We just care that they’re safe.”

Bolling, one of the two inspectors permanently stationed at the Monticello plant, explained the framework his team uses to ensure safety, including with reactors, radiation, worker performance, emergency preparedness and more.

NRC’s baseline level of oversight entails thousands of hours of inspection each year, the NRC said. Bolling and the senior inspector, Norton, make four quarterly inspections per year and walk through the plant every day, they said.

A total of 2,559 hours was spent performing inspections and related oversight activities at the Monticello plant in 2023 — including one refueling inspection and two forced outage inspections — according to the report, which offered scant specifics.

The NRC did address the tritium leak briefly during its presentation, in its summary of effluent releases and environmental monitoring.

“NRC observed the licensee’s March 2023 shutdown to repair the pipe associated with the leak,” the presentation stated. “The NRC continues to track the licensee’s monitoring and remediation activities. The NRC requires all plants to monitor, track, and report all planned and unplanned releases. … NRC has baseline inspection procedures to inspect radioactive effluents and environmental monitoring.”

Three members of the audience — Kelly Lundeen, John LaForge and Lindsay Potter — questioned the NRC further regarding the tritium leak, which was the main issue of interest during the Q&A portion. All three are listed as staff members of Nukewatch, a Wisconsin-based environmental and peace action watchdog group.

The NRC was asked to clarify exactly how much water was contaminated and how this amount is determined, and was also asked to address safety concerns regarding drinking water, among other issues.

The NRC would not say exactly how much water was impacted or how that was quantified — “I’m not going to speak to the leakage calculation itself,” Reed said — and questions of water safety were met with fairly standard, boilerplate responses and assurances that there is no threat to public health.

“The leak itself presented no safety issue to the public,” Reed said, explaining that multiple monitoring wells on site are required to be tested periodically to ensure drinking water safety, adding that the Mississippi River is also sampled.

“You might not know the specifics of the leak downstream,” he said. “The monitoring wells provide that assurance that nothing is making its way to the public.”

He did not share the results of these tests, but instead stated that these samples will be part of an annual report.

Lundeen, for one, was not satisfied with the answers she received about the tritiated water.

“I feel sort of propagandized here, because your very first response to my question is to say that there’s no public threat at all, that there’s no safety threat to the health of the public,” she said. “And I feel like a lot of the information … in some of these other reports that you’ve put out there, suggests that, in spite of this infrastructure that you want to tell us keeps the public safe, it seems very clear that this water has made it into the river.

“And there’s 20 million people who depend on the river for their drinking water. I feel like what your saying is meant to assure the public, but I also feel like your response to my question has holes in it.”

“We found no detectable radionuclides in the Mississippi River,” Skokowski responded. “As Jason (Reed) said, it doesn’t mean they’re not there, but if they’re there, they’re at such a minute level that we are unable to detect it with our equipment.”

Following the presentation, when asked about the NRC’s responses during the Q&A, Skokowski said, “It’s a very difficult topic to explain. It’s very difficult to understand the science and the technology that we’re explaining.”

When asked, Skokowski, Bolling and Reed all said they would absolutely drink the water themselves.

They also encouraged the public to follow up with the NRC directly to better understand the issues, pointing to the NRC website at www.nrc.gov as a good resource to get more information.