The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has spent nearly six months reviewing FirstEnergy Corp.'s explanation of how several long cracks formed in a concrete structure that shields the nuclear reactor at its Davis-Besse power plant. Tonight, the NRC is expected to announce at a meeting in Oak Harbor that it agrees with FirstEnergy that water and snow from the blizzard of 1978 caused most of the defects.
NRC officials also are likely to say that the strength of the concrete in the structure has not been compromised. But that assurance may not put all residents near the plant at ease.
Davis-Besse has confronted a series of significant problems since it began operating in 1977. Those problems raise question about whether other wear-and-tear issues remain to be discovered. Those questions apply to all 104 of the aging nuclear plants that the NRC regulates.
In a meeting Wednesday with The Blade's editorial board, NRC administrator Charles Casto, whose region includes Davis-Besse, said the commission is issuing nine recommendations for improvements at the plant, including more sampling and better documentation. He acknowledged Davis-Besse's checkered past, and said the NRC kept it in mind as it responded to the cracking incident.
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The NRC previously claimed to be dumbfounded that the shield building, one of the largest and most important structures along Lake Erie, never had weather sealant applied to it. FirstEnergy says it is preparing the building for a first layer of sealant next week. It says it will apply two more by next month.
Although the NRC thought Davis-Besse's shield building got weather sealant during construction, it never made that a requirement. Most other nuclear plants also are situated near major bodies of water, but the NRC still has not made an inventory of which of their shield buildings have sealant.
Requiring sealant for all buildings would be a relatively low-cost improvement. It should be done, as climatologists predict more violent storms as the Earth's temperature continues to warm.
Transparency is also an issue. The NRC and Justice Department accused First-Energy of a cover-up a decade ago, when Davis-Besse's original reactor head nearly burst. Now the NRC is deciding whether to reprimand the utility because it did not immediately disclose that some cracks in the shield building preceded those at issue by 18 months.
But the NRC, which now says it had the same information in its files, did not make that public either. Even two members of Congress whose districts are near the plant didn't know.
FirstEnergy deserves credit for bringing Davis-Besse back from near-disaster a decade ago, and for satisfying the NRC on other issues. The NRC, to its credit, continues to fight against complacency. Yet as FirstEnergy seeks to extend the plant's operating license, the NRC must continue to exercise vigorous oversight.
First Published August 9, 2012, 4:00 a.m.
