ABC News Says They Made An Error In Reporting Fort Calhoun Evacuation, Demands Story Be Scrubbed From Internet

Alexander Higgins Blog

ABC says they made an error in reporting that an evacuation zone was issued around the Fort Calhoun Nuclear power plant and have since redacted the story and they have now issued a take-down order demanding that all references to the story be removed from the internet.

After ABC news initially reported that a 10 mile mandatory evacuation zone was issued at the Fort Calhoun Nuclear plant the story was scrubbed from all online news sites.

http://blog.alexanderhiggins.com/2011/06/28/fort-calhoun-nuclear-plant-underw…
ABC news has since contacted me telling me they made an error in reporting the story and they redacted the story.

They have ordered that story be taken down from YouTube apparently under the impression that I posted the copyrighted video on my YouTube account which I did not.

They have also ordered that I remove the story and any references to it from Twitter and anywhere else that the story was online.

Unfortunately, I can not help them in removing the video from YouTube but will do my best to get the word out that they made an error in reporting the story and are ordering that it be scrubbed from the Internet.

Here is the message that was left on my answering machine.

 

Fort Calhoun Nuclear Plant Underwater- References of 10 Mile Mandatory Evacuation Area Scrubbed From News Sites

The head of the NRC toured the Fort Calhoun Nuclear plant which is now underwater. A 10 mile evacuation around the plant has been ordered, but all references of the evacuation have been scrubbed from online news sites.

Fort Calhoun Nuclear Plant Main Building Underwater, 10 Mile Mandatory Evacuation Area

The head of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said a Nebraska nuclear power plant is safe from flood waters a day after a protective berm failed leaving key parts of the facility surrounded by overflow from the Missouri River. NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko visited the Fort Calhoun plant Monday, and a commission spokeswoman said he found the plant to be in safe condition. Federal officials will continue to oversee steps to control flood waters from the swollen Missouri and plan to conduct a follow-up inspection. “We do have robust systems in place to protect public health and safety,” NRC spokeswoman Lara Uselding said. Mr. Jaczko’s visit came 8 hours after a protective berm collapsed early Sunday, causing water to surround the containment buildings and key electrical equipment at the Fort Calhoun plant. Local officials in towns around the plant, which is 19 miles north of Omaha, weren’t concerned about safety at the plant Monday, saying operators there had the situation under control. The plant is operated by the Omaha Public Power District. Rod Storm, the city administrator of Blair, said officials in the town of about 8,000 people near the plant are more worried about keeping the city’s wastewater treatment facility running so it can pump about 10 million gallons of water a day to local industries. The facility sits on the bank of the Missouri River. “We’ve got a lot to worry about and the event at the nuclear facility is the least of our worries,” Mr. Storm said.

These days we don’t hear too much about the ailing nuclear reactors in Fukushima Japan, but make no mistake the situation at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant remains very serious. Now the U.S. is dealing with it’s own potentially serious nuclear situation in Nebraska. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) said the breach in the 2,000-foot inflatable berm around the Fort Calhoun station occurred around 1:25 a.m. local time. More than 2 feet of water rushed in around containment buildings and electrical transformers at the 478-megawatt facility located 20 miles north of Omaha. Reactor shutdown cooling and spent-fuel pool cooling were unaffected, the NRC said. The plant, operated by the Omaha Public Power District, has been off line since April for refueling. Crews activated emergency diesel generators after the breach, but restored normal electrical power by Sunday afternoon, the NRC said. Buildings at the Fort Calhoun plant are watertight, the agency said. It noted that the cause of the berm breach is under investigation.

But a Google news search for 10 mile fort calhoun evacuation shows no results about the evacuation, only articles talking about how hard it would be to evacuate a 10 mile radius around many of the US nuclear plants.

There also has been an Fort Calhoun evacuation map posted on the (NEMA) Nebraska Emergency Management Website. However, Google shows that it has been there since at least the 17th of June and that indicates officials saw this coming.

 
The page also has detailed instructions on how to evacuate away from a radiation plume from different parts of the state.

Salt TV reports that the water is now up to 2 feet high around the sides of the building, but the NRC says there is no danager.

Jaczko toured the station 19 miles north of Omaha to see the flooding at the nation’s smallest nuclear power plant, the Omaha World-Herald reported. The river was more than 2 feet up around the building with months of flood conditions remaining.
“It’s certainly clear that this is not an issue that’s going to go away anytime soon,” Jaczko said.

Yes… this NRC.

Japan’s Nuclear Fallout Unlikely to Reach the U.S., NRC Official Says

The head of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission expressed confidence on Monday that there’s little chance of radioactivity from Japan’s badly damaged nuclear power plants reaching the United States.
Source: The National Journal

Nebraska Nuclear Threat: As Predictable as Fukushima

Global Research

Nuclear accidents - like oil spills and financial meltdowns - happen because big companies push to make more money by cutting every safety measure in the books.

The accident at Fukushima was predictable.

Likewise, the potential problem at the Fort Calhoun reactor in Nebraska was predictable. (For background, see this and this.)

As Ketv reported in March:

Fort Calhoun's nuclear power plant is one of three reactors across the country that federal regulators said they are most concerned about.

Last year, federal regulators questioned the station's flood protection protocol. NRC officials said they felt the Omaha Public Power District should do more than sandbagging in the event of major flooding along the Missouri river.

OPPD officials said they have already made amends and added new flood gates.

"We updated our flood protection strategy and have tested and re-tested our new strategy. The issue is operationally resolved, and at no time was there a threat to public safety or was public health at risk," OPPD President and Chief Executive Officer Gary Gates said.

The New York Times noted yesterday:

Last year, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission cited the Fort Calhoun plant for not being adequately prepared for floods and rated the safety violation in the “yellow” category, the second most serious. The agency ordered changes because it said that under the plan in place at the time ...

After initially contesting the findings, the plant’s operators, Omaha Public Power District, said that the problems had been resolved.

The Daily Mail writes today:

A nuclear plant was inches away from being engulfed by the bloated Missouri River after several levees in the area failed to hold back its surging waters, raising fears it could become America's Fukushima.

Dramatic pictures show the moment the plant was threatened with being shut down today, as water levels rose ominously to within 18 inches of its walls.

The river has to hit 902 feet above sea level at Brownville before officials will shut down the Cooper Nuclear Plant, which sits at 903 feet. It stopped and ebbed slightly yesterday, a reprieve caused by levee breaches in northwest Missouri - for now.

Flooding is a major concern all along the river because of the massive amounts of water that the Army Corps of Engineers has released from six dams. Any significant rain could worsen the flooding especially if it falls in Nebraska, Iowa or Missouri, which are downstream of the dams.

The river is expected to rise as much as five to seven feet above the official 'flood stage' in much of Nebraska and Iowa and as much as 10 feet over in parts of Missouri. The corps predicts the river will remain that high until at least August.

***

The river has risen at least 1.5 feet higher than Fort Calhoun's 1,004-foot elevation above sea level. The plant can handle water up to 1,014 feet, according to OPPD. The water is being held back by a series of protective barriers, including an 8-foot rubber wall outside the reactor building.

(See the Daily Mail article for photos.)

Likewise, the Cooper nuclear reactor - also in Nebraska - is threatened by the flooding as well.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission reports that flooding has already caused oil to spill:

Facility: COOPER
Region: 4 State: NE
Event Date: 06/19/2011
Event Time: 19:40 [CDT]

RELEASE OF OIL TO THE MISSOURI RIVER

Notification is being made to the Nebraska Department of Environmental Quality regarding the release of oil to the Missouri River from the Cooper Live Fire Training Facility. Currently, levees separating the Training Facility and the Missouri River are being over topped due to flooding of the Missouri River. This condition has resulted in flooding of the burn pits in the fire training facility, with the subsequent release of the residue which includes unburned fuel oil. Any release of this water containing oil to the Missouri River is uncontrolled at this time. Then is no radiological contamination in this area.

The Lincoln Journal Star notes:

Nebraska Public Power District officials are concerned rising flood waters could force them to shut down the nuclear power plant if the river reaches a level of 902 feet above sea level...

The highest reading at Cooper on Sunday was 900.6 feet above sea level, [Nebraska Public Power District] spokesman Mark Becker] said.

WOWT says that a levy near the Cooper reactor is about to wash away:



And Action 3 News reported on Monday:

A levee on the other side of the border into Missouri is dangerously close to breaking. Atchison County authorities say it's only a matter of time before a flood of water washes through areas surrounding Highway 136.

Project Flood: Fort Calhoun nuclear power plant under serious flood threat

Examiner
Deborah Dupre

This picture indicates Fort Calhoun Nuclear power
plant cask building partially underwater

After the Army released near record water from six major reservoirs, levees have failed to hold the Missouri River so flooding now poses a "serious threat" to Fort Calhoun Nuclear Power Plant according to today's International Business Times article.

IBTimes Staff Reporter reported at 4:17 AM EDT that "Fort Calhoun nuclear power plant was reportedly very close to getting engulfed by the floodwaters, raising fears of a crisis similar to Japan’s Fukushima disaster."

The nuclear plant declared the event as “unusual.”

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has maintained that there was no risk of disaster. MIT graduate software engineer expert and nuclear researcher Arthur Hu has noted, however, that Fort Calhoun nuclear plant's "dry-storage bunker is half-submerged outside the condom," writes seasoned nuclear researcher/journalist Tom Burnett. (Listen to Burnett on http://rense.gsradio.net:8080/rense/special/rense_Burnett_061311.mp3 that also highlights nuclear industry veteran of over 30 years, Arnie Gundersen speaking about hot particles.)

IBTimes refers today to the Reuters report that federal officials widened flood gates last week to allow record, or near-record water releases to ease pressure on six major reservoirs swollen by heavy rains and melting snow.

"But later in the week, Missouri River floodwaters reached a levee built up to protect Hamburg, Iowa, after the main protection along the river failed, a county emergency official said."

Despite lowering nuclear power plant regulations and dismissing some safety threats, "industry and government officials defend their actions, and insist that no chances are being taken," reported Daily Mail at MailOnline today, referring to the extensive Associated Press nuclear industry investigation report recently released.

Negligence was the bottom line of the AP report. "Examples abound," Daily Mail says.

"[N]egligence is destined to to bring the plants closer to a catastrophic accident that could harm millions and jeopardize the future of nuclear power in the U.S."

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Radioactive tritium leaks found at 48 US nuke sites

'You got pipes that have been buried underground for 30 or 40 years, and they've never been inspected,' whistleblower says

A decoy sits on Bob Scamen's pond in Braidwood, Ill.,
within view of the Braidwood Nuclear Power Station in
Braceville, Ill. Braidwood has leaked more than
six million gallons of tritium-laden water in
repeated leaks dating back to the 1990s — but not publicly
reported until 2005.

BRACEVILLE, Ill. — Radioactive tritium has leaked from three-quarters of U.S. commercial nuclear power sites, often into groundwater from corroded, buried piping, an Associated Press investigation shows.

The number and severity of the leaks has been escalating, even as federal regulators extend the licenses of more and more reactors across the nation.

Tritium, which is a radioactive form of hydrogen, has leaked from at least 48 of 65 sites, according to U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission records reviewed as part of the AP's yearlong examination of safety issues at aging nuclear power plants.

Leaks from at least 37 of those facilities contained concentrations exceeding the federal drinking water standard — sometimes at hundreds of times the limit.

While most leaks have been found within plant boundaries, some have migrated offsite. But none is known to have reached public water supplies.

At three sites — two in Illinois and one in Minnesota — leaks have contaminated drinking wells of nearby homes, the records show, but not at levels violating the drinking water standard.

At a fourth site, in New Jersey, tritium has leaked into an aquifer and a discharge canal feeding picturesque Barnegat Bay off the Atlantic Ocean.

Previously, the AP reported that regulators and industry have weakened safety standards for decades to keep the nation's commercial nuclear reactors operating within the rules.

While NRC officials and plant operators argue that safety margins can be eased without peril, critics say these accommodations are inching the reactors closer to an accident.

Any exposure to radioactivity, no matter how slight, boosts cancer risk, according to the National Academy of Sciences. Federal regulators set a limit for how much tritium is allowed in drinking water. So far, federal and industry officials say, the tritium leaks pose no health threat.

But it's hard to know how far some leaks have traveled into groundwater. Tritium moves through soil quickly, and when it is detected it often indicates the presence of more powerful radioactive isotopes that are often spilled at the same time.

For example, cesium-137 turned up with tritium at the Fort Calhoun nuclear unit near Omaha, Neb., in 2007. Strontium-90 was discovered with tritium two years earlier at the Indian Point nuclear power complex, where two reactors operate 25 miles north of New York City.

 Interactive: Population within 10 and 50 miles of nuclear power (on this page)

The tritium leaks also have spurred doubts among independent engineers about the reliability of emergency safety systems at the 104 nuclear reactors situated on the 65 sites.

That's partly because some of the leaky underground pipes carry water meant to cool a reactor in an emergency shutdown and to prevent a meltdown. More than a mile of piping, much of it encased in concrete, can lie beneath a reactor.

Tritium is relatively short-lived and penetrates the body weakly through the air compared to other radioactive contaminants. Each of the known releases has been less radioactive than a single X-ray.

The main health risk from tritium, though, would be in drinking water. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says tritium should measure no more than 20,000 picocuries per liter in drinking water. The agency estimates seven of 200,000 people who drink such water for decades would develop cancer.

Still, the NRC and industry consider the leaks a public relations problem, not a public health or accident threat, records and interviews show.

"The public health and safety impact of this is next to zero," said Tony Pietrangelo, chief nuclear officer of the industry's Nuclear Energy Institute. "This is a public confidence issue."