Part 1 of 2 Parts
NextEra Energy owns the Seabrook Nuclear plant and it is proposing changes to its emergency response plan. Advocates and lawmakers in New Hampshire and Massachusetts have raised concerns about whether it would reduce protections in the case of a nuclear emergency.
NextEra has filed a proposal with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to standardize emergency plans for four nuclear power plants. These include the Seabrook in New Hampshire, Point Beach in Wisconsin, and St. Lucie and Turkey Point in Florida.
The NextEra proposal includes 49 changes characterized as potential “reductions in effectiveness.” In the filing, they say they’ve provided “detailed justification” for those requested changes. They added that the plan “continues to provide an adequate response to radiological emergencies.”
Changes described as potential reductions in effectiveness in the proposal include NextEra seeking to reduce the number of staff assigned to particular emergency functions. They want to increase response times for certain emergency response positions from 60 minutes to 90 minutes.
Scott Burnell is a spokesperson for the NRC. He said that “reduction in effectiveness” refers to a proposed change that would be less effective than the company’s current plan. However, he noted that regulators would “reject any changes that would fail to effectively protect the public. The NRC requires nuclear power plants to have emergency preparedness procedures that will effectively protect the public if necessary. A plant's existing procedures can exceed that standard, so a "reduction in effectiveness" in that case will continue to effectively protect the public. A "reduction in effectiveness" cannot result in an ineffective plan.”
Bill Orlove is a spokesperson for NextEra. He said that a reduction in effectiveness “does not imply that the change is degrading emergency preparedness. In fact, most of the changes that are in that list are consistent with current NRC guidelines or industry standards, but we must still characterize them as reductions, compared to the last emergency plan that was approved by NRC.”
Sarah Abramson leads the C-10 Research and Education Foundation (CREF). It is a group that advocates for safety for people who live near the Seabrook plant. She says her group is concerned about the changes. She specifically mentioned the potential reliance on people working remotely if an emergency were triggered by a storm.
Abramson said, “Weather events have coinciding consequences. They cause widespread power outages. They can affect cellular communication. The more you place reliance on remote wireless communication as your sort of sole singular plan to communicate in an emergency, I think we're walking down a dangerous road of having many single points of.”
For Abrahamson, a “reduction in effectiveness,” whether bureaucratic terminology or not, is a cause for concern.
She added that, “We want to see Chairman Hanson and the rest of the commission, when they're looking at this type of proposal, or this one specifically, to reject anything that would reduce the effectiveness of an emergency plan. Even one reduction in effectiveness is unacceptable, let alone 49.”
Please read Part 2 next