10-year process for nuke plant cleanup
By Long Hwa-shu Special to The News-Sun February 23, 2011 7:22PM
Looking south at the Zion Nuclear Power Station as seen from Shiloh Boulevard in Zion.
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Updated: April 25, 2011 4:46AM
ZION — The Zion nuclear plant, closed nearly 14 years ago, won’t be decommissioned or cleaned up for another 10 years, according to an official of Zion Solutions, the contractor responsible for dismantling the nuclear reactors.
“There’s work going on — nothing you would notice from the outside,” said Larry Booth, community outreach manager for Zion Solutions, a subsidiary of Utah-based Energy Solutions which has been contracted by Excelon Corp., the parent of ComEd which operated the nuclear plant before its shutdown.
Zion Solutions, according to Booth, former Zion police chief, expects to complete the project by 2021. A 2007 estimate showed that the project would cost $900 million with money from a trust funded by utilities for decommissioning projects.
Tuesday’s hearing at the Illinois Beach Resort and Conference Center near Zion was hosted by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. An earlier hearing was held in the afternoon. Each attracted a handful of people.
The Zion plant has two reactors, one closed in 1997 and the other 1998. ComEd put the first reactor on line in 1973 and the other in 1974. The twin reactors were closed after numerous safety violations were found by the NRC although ComEd had contended it closed the plant for economic reasons.
“It’s a complex operation and takes a lot of planning,” said Wayne Slawinski, NRC health physicist, of the time-consuming process.
“It must be carefully and methodically done. Multi disciplines are required and all the expertise is utilized to ensure safety, security and protection of environment,” he added.
According to him, the NRC had conducted on-site inspections twice a year that included monitoring radioactive levels since the plant’s closure. But inspection frequency has increased to “a dozen times since September,” said Slawinski. No violations, he said, have been found.
The decommissioning process involves moving used nuclear fuel rods from the plant’s fuel pool to a dry cask storage facility on the 257-acre lakefront site. Dry-cask storage calls for the fuel rods to be placed in leak-tight stainless steel canisters covered with 2- to 3-foot concrete walls which must be able to withstand natural disasters such as earthquakes, tornadoes and floods. Other spent fuel rods will be moved off site.
At least three principal buildings housing the reactors will be demolished, possibly along with trees and other vegetation, depending on their radioactive levels.
The 10-year decommissioning process may seem a snail’s pace, but it’s actually an accelerated pace, experts say. Under NRC regulations. Excelon has 60 years to complete the project from the date of closure.
When the cleanup is finally completed, the land will be reverted to Exelon for unrestricted use, according to Christine Lipa, NRC decommissioning chief.
Unrestricted use means the prime lakefront parcels may be used for residential and commercial developments.
While the plant’s closure was greeted as good news at the time because the city would be free from worries associated with a nuclear plant, the loss of jobs and property tax soon sank in. In 1996, the year before the closure, ComEd paid $19.8 million in taxes to Zion Township whose boundary lines coincide with those of the city. Since the closure, schools, the park district and other governmental entities have struggled with budgetary shortfalls.
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