The owner of one of Minnesota’s two nuclear power plants said it will temporarily power down the facility on Friday to repair a recurring leak of radioactive water discovered this week, occurring as state regulators had been monitoring the effects of an initial spill four months ago.
Xcel Energy said in a news release Thursday that there is “no risk to the public or the environment” with the latest incident at the Nuclear Generating Plant in Monticello.
The company added that the leak of water containing tritium, a mildly radioactive form of hydrogen, is “fully contained on-site and has not been detected beyond the facility or in any local drinking water.” This second leak involved hundreds of gallons of radioactive water, according to the utility company, far less than the 400,000 gallons that was discovered leaking in late November.
But some Monticello residents surrounding the plant — located 38 miles northwest of Minneapolis and upstream of the Mississippi River — say they have concerns about what a recurring leak presents and the delay in finding out about the initial spill.
“I think the general public needs to be informed more about this,” Megan Sanborn, 31, who lives 6 miles upstream from the nuclear plant, said.
“My children go to school 2 miles downstream from the power plant,” she added. “If the water levels were safe the entire time like they were saying, then where was the transparency?”
Xcel Energy notified the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the state on Nov. 22, a day after it confirmed the leak, as a “non-emergency report” with “no impact on the health and safety of the public or plant personnel.” It said the origin of the leak was found about a month later from a broken pipe between two buildings, and that a temporary solution was devised to contain the water and reroute it back to the plant for reuse.
In late February, the city was informed about the leak. But it wasn’t until March 16 when state officials told the public and Xcel…
Read the full article here
