Thread: Nebraska nuclear plants prepared for flood, SAFE - Update

Regulators: Neb. nuclear plants prepared for flood

By Josh Funk, Associated PressPosted 1h 11m ago |

OMAHA, Neb. — Federal regulators say the utilities running both of Nebraska's nuclear power plants have taken the steps needed to protect them from flooding from the Missouri River.

The Fort Calhoun nuclear power station in Fort Calhoun, Neb., currently shut down for refueling, is surrounded by flood waters from the Missouri River, Tuesday, June 14, 2011.

Nuclear Regulatory Commission spokesman Victor Dricks said Friday that Omaha Public Power District's Fort Calhoun plant near Blair and Nebraska Public Power District's Cooper plant near Brownville are safe.

Floodwaters are already surrounding the Fort Calhoun plant. The river has risen 1.5 feet higher than Fort Calhoun's 1,004-foot elevation above sea level, but the water is being held back by an 8-foot-tall flood barrier.

Dricks says the Omaha Public Power District's preparations would keep Fort Calhoun safe if the river rose another 8.5 feet. The river is not expected to rise more than 1 foot above its current level.

http://www.usatoday.com/weather/floods/ ... lood_n.htm

Nebraska nuclear reactor dry though surrounded by flood

By David Hendee
OMAHA, Neb | Fri Jun 17, 2011 4:00pm EDT

OMAHA, Neb (Reuters) - The Fort Calhoun nuclear power station in Nebraska remains shut down due to Missouri River flooding, but the plant itself has not flooded and is expected to remain safe, the federal government said Friday.

The rising river "has certainly affected the site, but the plant itself, the actual reactor is still dry," said Scott Burnell, Nuclear Regulatory Commission spokesman.

The 478-megawatt plant north of Omaha shut April 9 to refuel, and has remained shut because of the flooding, said Omaha Public Power District spokesman Jeff Hanson.

"When the river reaches 1,004 feet above mean sea level, we shut down," said Hanson. "We don't have any idea when we'll be able to start again."

The Missouri River, swollen by heavy rains and melting snow, has been flooding areas from Montana through Missouri. Residents have been shoring up levees around towns as federal officials widen flood gates to allow record or near-record water releases to ease pressure on reservoirs.

The Fort Calhoun station is owned and operated by the Omaha Public Power District and supplies power to Nebraska's largest city. Contractors at the plant have completed construction of an earthen berm around the plant's switch yard and are protecting the plant and other facilities with large temporary structures filled with water.

According to the NRC's Burnell, the added flood barriers will protect the plant even if the river rises beyond where it is currently projected to go. Within that flood barrier, the plant has taken steps to provide additional protection for emergency diesel generators, Burnell said.

Burnell said that all information available to the NRC indicates the plant will remain safe. "The Missouri River flooding has appropriately been accounted for and the plant will be able to deal with it in a safe and appropriate way," Burnell said.

About 60 miles south of Omaha near Brownsville, Neb., the Cooper Nuclear Station, run by the Nebraska Public Power District, remains in operation, providing power to all of Nebraska, including Omaha while the Fort Calhoun plant is down, according to Mark Becker, media relations specialist for the NPPD. The river level there is at 896.6 feet above sea level.

Becker said the plant would not declare a "notice of an unusual event" to the NRC until the level reached 899 feet, and would not shut down the reactor until 902 feet. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has predicted the crest there will likely reach 899.6 feet.

Becker said the preparation for the flood has included sandbagging around the plant. The plant is also barricading off some switch yards that bring power into the plant. The plant also has three back-up diesel generators.

The areas around the plant is flooded, which means employees come in through one entrance. "It's a longer drive in the morning," Becker said.

He said the reactor for the 800-megawatt plant had to shut down in 1993, when flooding washed out roads, which would have inhibited implementation of an emergency evacuation plan.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/ ... Z120110617

Officials: Nuclear plant safe

Nebraska complex won't be reactivated until flooding ends.

Posted: Saturday, June 18, 2011 12:00 am
Associated Press

OMAHA, Neb. -- The pictures of a Nebraska nuclear power plant were startling: Floodwaters from the swollen Missouri River had risen nearly to the reactor building, with the potential to climb even higher.

Coming only a few months after Japan's nuclear disaster, the Associated Press images alarmed many people who saw them earlier this week. But nuclear regulators and the utility that runs the Fort Calhoun reactor said there is little cause for immediate concern.

http://www.thonline.com/news/iowa-illin ... 3a801.html

" Media Blackout " Nebraska Nuclear Plants Flooding

http://www.alipac.us/ftopict-241239.html

Originally Posted by HAPPY2BME

Media Blackout " Nebraska Nuclear Plants Flooding

How can there be a media blackout when there are 3 articles above and several more articles right here on OTHER.

Wall Street Journal
JUNE 8, 2011, 7:21 P.M. ET.

Nebraska Nuclear Plant Lost Cooling System After Fire

By RYAN TRACY

WASHINGTON—A nuclear power plant north of Omaha, Neb., on Tuesday briefly lost the ability to cool a pool of used nuclear fuel after a fire at the site, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said.

The NRC said the plant recovered cooling ability without activating backup systems and "temperatures in the pool remained at safe levels." The public was not in danger because the plant has been shut down since early April for a refueling outage, the agency said.

Spent fuel pools in the U.S. have received increased scrutiny after a recent crisis in Japan involving potentially overheated nuclear fuel and the release of dangerous radiation.

The agency declared an alert, the second of four emergency classes, at 9:40 a.m., 10 minutes after "an indication of fire" in a building at the plant. The NRC didn't disclose the cause of the fire. Automatic fire control systems activated and the fire was out by 10:20 a.m., the agency said. The plant is operated by the Omaha Public Power District.

Write to Ryan Tracy at ryan.tracy@dowjones.com

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... lenews_wsj

River falls short of Nebraska nuke plant shutdown

By Timberly Ross, Associated Press
Updated 55m ago |

OMAHA, Neb. — The bloated Missouri River rose to within 18 inches of forcing the shutdown of a nuclear power plant in southeast Nebraska but stopped and ebbed slightly Monday, after several levees in northern Missouri failed to hold back the surging waterway.

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, Nebraska Public Power District spokesman Mark Becker said.

Flooding is a 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 5 to 7 feet above flood stage in much of Nebraska and Iowa and as much as 10 feet over flood stage in parts of Missouri. The corps predicts the river will remain that high until at least August.

Becker said the river rose to 900.56 feet at Brownville on Sunday, then dropped to 900.4 feet later in the day and remained at that level Monday morning. The National Weather Service said the Missouri River set a new record Sunday at Brownville when its depth was measured at 44.4 feet. That topped the record of 44.3 feet set during the 1993 flooding.

The Cooper Nuclear Plant is operating at full capacity Monday, Becker said.

The Columbus-based utility sent a "notification of unusual event" to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission when the river rose to 899 feet early Sunday morning. The declaration is the least serious of four emergency notifications established by the federal commission.

"We knew the river was going to rise for some time," Becker said Sunday. "It was just a matter of when."

The nuclear plant has been preparing for the flooding since May 30. More than 5,000 tons of sand has been brought in to construct barricades around it and access roads, according to NPPD.

The Army Corps of Engineers said the river level at Brownville had surged about 2 feet from Saturday morning to Sunday morning and that it continued to rise because of heavy rain on the Nishnabotna River, which flows into the Missouri River from Iowa, and due to some erosion along a levee upstream at Hamburg, Iowa, that created a water pulse.

The Cooper Nuclear Station is one of two plants along the Missouri River in eastern Nebraska. The Fort Calhoun Station, operated by the Omaha Public Power District, is about 20 miles north of Omaha. It issued a similar alert to the regulatory commission June 6.

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.

Its reactor already had been shut down for refueling and maintenance since April, and it won't be turned on again until the flooding subsides.

The entire plant still has full electrical power for safety systems, including those used to cool radioactive waste. It also has at least nine backup power sources.

A spokesman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said the NRC thinks OPPD managers have "done everything that they need to do to respond to the current conditions" at the nuclear plant.

Over the weekend, several northern Missouri levees failed to hold back the raging floodwaters, and the hole in a Holt County levee that ruptured last week continued to grow.

Recent rain increased the amount water in the already swollen river, and floodwaters from the breached levee south of Hamburg, Iowa, rushed back into the river over the weekend through a notch cut in the levee south of the last week's break.

The floodwater in Missouri has covered thousands of acres of farmland and soaked numerous homes and cabins. The recreational community of Big Lake, which is home to a state park and less than 200 people, is being threatened by the floodwater.

Most of Big Lake's residents have already evacuated. The area 78 miles north of Kansas City has been high for the past couple weeks, has experienced major flooding in three of the last five years.

http://www.usatoday.com/weather/floods/ ... ding_n.htm

Nebraska Flooding Threatens Nuclear Plant

Shawn Humphrey– 9 mins ago

On Saturday, President Barack Obama signed an emergency declaration for Nebraska, authorizing FEMA to "mobilize, and provide at its discretion, equipment and resources necessary to alleviate the impacts of the emergency" in the wake of ongoing flooding throughout portions of the state.

Identified in the emergency declaration were the counties of Boyd, Burt, Cass, Cedar, Dakota, Dixon, Douglas, Garden, Knox, Lincoln, Morrill, Nemaha, Otoe, Richardson, Sarpy, Scotts Bluff, Thurston, and Washington.

Severe flooding and tornadoes have caused the President to issue an emergency declaration for Montana on Friday and disaster declarations for Vermont and Massachusetts on June 15. In the west, rising waters on the Missouri and Mississippi has worried regional forecasters, including some who watched flooding threaten the Cooper Nuclear Station in Nebraska. According to CNS , the facility is the largest single unit electrical generator in the state and has a net generating capacity of 791 megawatts of power.

KETV in Omaha also reported that water was pouring over levees on Sunday in Nebraska and Missouri, impacting residential safety in Brownville, Nebraska, and Watson Landing and Craig, Missouri. The nuclear reactor is near Brownville. Highway 136 was closed.

200-250 people had been warned by National Guard members to leave the area due to flooding.

The river fell short; the Missouri reached 899 feet above sea level Sunday morning, but the station is at 903 feet elevation, as noted by St Louis Today.

Severe weather remains a concern Monday night throughout eastern Nebraska, Kansas, central Oklahoma, and western Iowa and northwestern Missouri. KETV warns of tornado watch for central and eastern Nebraska until 8 pm CDT, while the previously mentioned area remains at risk for large hail and damaging winds.

The State of Nebraska has a link providing flooding information for residents, with some phone numbers for Iowa, South Dakota, and Missouri residents posted as well. The latest information from the Nebraska Emergency Management Agency posted on Sunday gave notice of the "unusual event" noted Sunday by the Cooper Nuclear Station, and listed highway closings including sections of Highway 12, 14/37, 30, 92, 159 and I-160.

River levels for the Missouri ranged from 25.21 to 44.6 feet, the highest at Brownville. All points listed along the Missouri were in excess of flood stage. The Platte was nearing flood stage or surpassing in a few places, such as Lisco, Lewellen, North Platte, and Brady.

Shawn Humphrey is a former contributor to The Flint Journal and lives near Washington D.C. in Maryland.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ac/20110620/us_ ... lear_plant

The State of Nebraska has a link providing flooding information for residents, with some phone numbers for Iowa, South Dakota, and Missouri residents posted as well. The latest information from the Nebraska Emergency Management Agency posted on Sunday gave notice of the "unusual event" noted Sunday by the Cooper Nuclear Station, and listed highway closings including sections of Highway 12, 14/37, 30, 92, 159 and I-160.

http://www.nema.ne.gov/newsroom/flooding-information.shtml

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