I have often blogged about the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington State which is one of the most radioactively contaminated sites on Earth due to the nuclear weapons program that spent decades creating and dumping radioactive materials with little regard to safety. There are areas in many countries that are contaminated with radioactive materials from a variety of causes. Today, I am going to blog about such areas in the country of Spain.
       There are six zones in Spain that are listed with the Nuclear Security Council (NSC) as containing radioactive materials. Although the government is fully aware of these sites, none are official listed as being contaminated because Spain has not yet generated a formal list of sites affected by leaks of radioactive materials. There was a royal decree to draft such a list but that was ten years ago and the list still does not exist.
       The NSC says that the existing Nuclear Energy Law will have to be amended before the inventory of contaminated sites can be generated. Since 2008, there has been no action on the part of the Spanish government. The NSC says that these sites do exist but they are not recognized as officially contaminated sites.
       At Palomares in southeastern Spain, a U.S. B-52 bomber collided with a refueling plane in January of 1966. As a result of the midair collision, the B-52 dropped four hydrogen bombs. Fortunately, the bombs did not explode but they did strew plutonium across the area.
        The Juan Vigón National Nuclear Energy Center is located on the campus of Madrid’s university. In Novermber of 1970, about nine gallons of highly radioactive liquid from a spent nuclear fuel reprocessing facility at the Energy Center leaked into the sewer system and then flowed into the Manzanares river. It continued on to the Jarama River, the connected irrigation canal and finally reached the Tagus River.
       The fascist regime of Franco was working on an atomic bomb and they kept the leak secret. They did drain the Jarama irrigation canal and collect the contaminated soil lining the canal which contained cesium-137 and strontium-90. The sludge from the canal was ultimately buried in eight ditches that had been dug beside the canal. There are no warning signs where the waste is buried.
       There are two more contaminated sites along the Tinto River which runs through the Huelva Province in southwestern Spain. There is one site in the marshes of Mendana located on the estuary of the Tinto River. It contains large amounts of cesium-137. The other spot is located where the Tinto River joins the Odiel river. This site contains high levels of radium-226.
      El Hondon is a rural area in Cartegena which is in southeastern Spain. A phosphate sludge containing uranium-238 can be found there. The Ebro reservoir is located in northeastern Spain near the town of Flix in the provice of Catalonia. A phosphate sludge containing uranium-238 was also present there but the CSN claims that the sludge has already been removed.
       The CSN recently issued a press release that said that the Ecological Transition Ministry was working on making the legal changes that were required before an official list of sites in Spain contaminated with radioactive materials could be drawn up. The release also said that “There are several sites showing radioactivity originating from human activity. It is estimated that there is no significant radiological risk.” Which is what governmental bodies usually say when confronted with evidence of radioactive contamination.
       Environmental groups in Spain are protesting the lack of government action on the contaminated sites. They recently demonstrated at the site of one of the ditches along the Jarama irrigation canal. They said: “A mere visual inspection of the site clearly shows how easy it is to access. This lack of oversight has meant that, over the years, some of the earth may have been moved around, causing a possible risk of radioactive contamination to the local population. Right now there is no guarantee whatsoever that this toxic waste hasn’t been moved and scattered. In fact, some of the sites are in the same spots as infrastructure such as the A-4 bypass, roads and transmission towers.”

Ambient office  = 116 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient outside = 123 nanosieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = 136 nanosieverts per hour

Crimini mushroom from Central Market = 119 nanosieverts per hour

Tap water = 69 nanosieverts per hour

Filter water = 60 nanosieverts per hour

       The La Creusot Foundry is owned by Framatome which is a unit of the French state-controlled utility EDF. The Foundry has a huge forge which is one of the few in the world that can handle the creation of a reactor containment vessel for a nuclear reactor.
       Framatome is constructing a new nuclear reactor at the Flamanville nuclear power plant in Flamanville, France. The reactor being constructed at Flamanville is important to the European nuclear trade because it is a new design called a European Pressurized Reactor that was being developed for global export. If it had been completed on schedule, it would have been the first EPR in the world. However, there are other EPRs under construction in other countries that may be finished before Flamanville.
       The vessel for the nuclear reactor being constructed in Flamanville, France was found to be made of sub-standard steel by the French nuclear regulatory agency (A
SN). The steel contained too much carbon and that meant the it was half as strong as it needed to be.
       When another reactor vessel made at La Creusot was found to also contain weak steel, an audit of the company records was ordered. It turned out that there were many components manufactured at La Creusot were also defective or made of poor steel. The staff at the Foundry knew about the problems but hid the information from regulatory authorities and customers.
       The revelation of problems at the Foundry reverberated throughout the global nuclear industry. There are nine nuclear reactors in the U.S. alone with parts from La Creusot. Fortunately. they don’t appear to be defective. Other countries carried out inspections on their reactors with La Creusot parts. Production is being closely monitored at La Creusot to prevent similar problems from reccuring.
       It was first noticed in 2015 that there were problems with the welding in the steam transfer pipes at Flamanville. The French nuclear regulatory agency (ASN) made resumption of welding work at Flamanville contingent upon regulatory conditions. They said, “These pipes have been the subject of design and production deviations about which ASN communicated.” 
       Now the ASN has found that the welding done after the 2015 investigation has not been monitored properly in spite of the complaints of the ASN. Now the ASN is asking for a broader probe into welding done at Flamanville. In a communication to Framantome, ASN “therefore asks EDF to extend the review on the quality of equipment installed on this reactor. The review should notably be based on in situ controls and documentary reviews, complementary to those carried out during construction and assembly operations.”
       In the middle of 2017, Framantome put off the estimated completion date for the EPR at Flamanville to some time in 2019 because of the welding issues. They said at that time that they would have to rewelded fifty of the welds in the secondary circuit of the steam transfer system but that about ninety of the welds were done correctly according to the specifications in the regulations.
       I have often criticized companies in the nuclear industry for not observing regulatory agency guidelines. Nuclear reactors are extremely complex and can be extremely dangerous if not constructed properly to tight specifications. Framatome appear to be one of the worst violators in the world. Not only was their forge making substandard parts for years, there reactor construction unti cannot even weld properly. What is especially concerning is the fact that even after their incompetence was discovered and they were instructed to do things properly, they continued to violate regulations. This seems to me to go beyond incompetence and suggests willful intent to avoid following regulations. This sort of behavior will not help the floundering global nuclear industry.

Ambient office  = 114 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient outside = 102 nanosieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = 108 nanosieverts per hour

Red bell pepper from Central Market = 91 nanosieverts per hour

Tap water = 112 nanosieverts per hour

Filter water = 91 nanosieverts per hour

       I have often blogged about the high cost of constructing nuclear power plants. Not one nuclear power plant built in the U.S. has ever been completed within the original cost estimate and within the original schedule. After decades, the U.S. started constructing four new commercial nuclear power reactors, two in South Carolina and two in Georgia. One pair was abandoned recently because of incompetence and rising costs. The other pair is in serious trouble because of rising costs.
       David Petti is a fellow at the Idaho National Laboratory. He contributed to a report on nuclear plant construction that was recently released by MIT. He said, “interviewed both the failed projects and the successful projects, and our recommendation was that we need an increased focus on using proven construction-management practices to increase the probability of success in the execution and delivery of new nuclear plants.”
       Cost overruns and scheduling delays are often blamed on what supporters of nuclear power call burdensome government regulation. There are many factors that contribute to expense of constructing nuclear power reactors but here are three major reasons aside from regulation mentioned in the MIT report.
       One big problem in the construction of a nuclear power plant has to do with the design. Nuclear contractors in the U.S. have often started construction before the design is complete. This is backward from best construction practices which say that a design should be finalized before any construction begins. A project for a vitrification plant at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation was halted for years because construction began before the design was finished. This cost millions of extra dollars.
       Petti said, “Making sure that the design is complete, making sure that you have fabricators and constructors on your design team early so that you know that what you design can be built. This was not done for certain projects.”
       Obviously, it is important to have competent management of construction projects. If the people managing the project are not capable of handling the complexity, there are unanticipated cost increases and schedule delays. Construction of the two nuclear power reactors in South Carolina was stopped because the contractors were not capable of handling the management of the project.
       Petti said that nuclear construction can be improved by “making sure everyone has skin in the game, making sure the process can deal with and adapt quickly to change, because change is inevitable in something as complex as this. As construction schedules drag out you’re paying interest and you’ve got a lot of people on the site that are not being productive.”
       Reactor construction has basically halted in the U.S. and Western Europe. Because of this, the required network of trained workers and spare parts suppliers has been withering away. Without a readily available supply of workers and parts, construction and operation of nuclear power plants becomes much more difficult. Petti says, “There have been problems, there’s been an atrophy in the West because we haven’t built a plant, whether it be in Europe or the United States, in 30 years. The successful vendors have really strong supply chains, like South Korea.”

Ambient office  = 117 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient outside = 115 nanosieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = 112 nanosieverts per hour

Carrot from Central Market = 151 nanosieverts per hour

Tap water = 80 nanosieverts per hour

Filter water = 75 nanosieverts per hour

       The Trump administration does not like government regulations. For the past two years, many different federal regulations have been eliminated by the Executive Branch. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has been removing important regulations that have to do with the health of the public and the environment. Just recently, regulations on shipment of shale oil in trains and emission of mercury by power plants are being relaxed. Now the EPA is talking about relaxing regulations that have to do with exposure to radiation.
        Current government guidelines follow the linear no-threshold model for radiation exposure. This model says that NO amount of radiation exposure is without risk and as the amount of radiation goes up, the amount of risk goes up at the same rate. Quite often, it will be argued by organizations which generate radiation that the amount they are responsible for is smaller than natural background radiation and, therefore, no threat to health. But by the linear no-threshold model, this is just wrong. ANY radiation from human sources adds to the risk of the natural background radiation.
        Supporters of new EPA proposals with respect to radiation say that the current government rules of no-tolerance for radiation damage forces companies that handle radioactive materials to spend unnecessary money to deal with possible radiation exposure resulting from accidents at nuclear power plants, industrial facilities and medical facilities.
       EPA guidelines online from this March with respect to radiation effects state, “Current science suggests there is some cancer risk from any exposure to radiation. Even exposures below 100 millisieverts” — an amount roughly equivalent to 25 chest X-rays or about 14 CT chest scans — slightly increase the risk of getting cancer in the future.” That online information was edited last July. A section was added that said that the odds of getting cancer from a small dose of radiation were very low. The new section said, “According to radiation safety experts, radiation exposures of …100 millisieverts usually result in no harmful health effects, because radiation below these levels is a minor contributor to our overall cancer risk.”
        Edward Calabrese is a toxicologist at the University of Massachusetts. He is going to be a lead witness at a Congressional hearing scheduled for next Wednesday to consider the new EPA proposal.
       Calabrese and other supporters of new EPA guidelines for radiation exposure claim that small exposure to cell-damaging radiation could act as stressors that activate the repair mechanisms of the human body. This would result in making people healthier. They say that it is comparable to physical exercise or exposure to sunlight. Calabrese has suggested that the mainstream scientific consensus on radiation exposure is based on deceptive science and needs to be corrected.
       A spokesperson for the EPA produced an email that said that the proposed rule changes were in the interest of “increasing transparency on assumptions” about the impact of different doses of dangerous substances on human health. The email also said that it “acknowledges uncertainty regarding health effects at low doses.” The EPA supports further research on this subject.
       Jan Beyea is a physicist with the National Academies of Science who has researched the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan in March of 2011. He said that the position that the EPA is now taking on radiation exposure represents ideas “generally dismissed by the great bulk of scientists.” He also said that the new EPA proposal would result in “increases in chemical and radiation exposures in the workplace, home and outdoor environment, including the vicinity of Superfund sites.”
       The EPA has been drifting away from using respected science to guide their regulatory activities. It needs to go back to being science-based before U.S. citizens are harmed by the relaxation of important limits on exposure to radiation.