NEWPORT, Mich. — A 20-year extension for Fermi 2’s operating license has been put on hold because an activist group has convinced the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission to take a closer look at how potassium iodide pills would be distributed to area residents if the plant ever has a major release of radioactive steam.
Those residents living within the 10-mile emergency planning zone around the plant would get the highest priority.
The NRC originally planned to extend the plant’s license on Tuesday, according to an internal memo.
But it called a timeout because of a last-minute legal contention raised by Citizens’ Resistance at Fermi 2, or CRAFT.
The plant’s owner-operator, DTE Energy, applied for the license extension on April 30, 2014, after spending years putting together the application.
In a memo to senior NRC officials on Monday, Bill Dean, the agency’s Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation director, said agency staff has been directed to review CRAFT’s contention and provide a recommendation to the NRC’s governing board in the coming weeks. At that point, the NRC will decide how to proceed.
CRAFT’s contention was filed Nov. 21. It convinced the NRC to reopen what had been a closed record in the Fermi 2 license renewal proceeding since Sept. 11, 2015.
In its motion, CRAFT said the issue of potassium iodide pills needs to be explored in greater detail because it was not adequately addressed in DTE’s final environmental impact statement. The group asserts the utility used “incorrect input data, thus resulting in incorrect and unreasonable conclusions about the costs versus benefits of possible mitigation alternatives.”
“This contention alleges a deficiency or error which has enormous independent health and safety significance,” the motion shows.
Jessie Collins, CRAFT co-chair, said her group doesn’t expect to stop the license extension, but “has thrown a monkey wrench in both the NRC and DTE’s timetable.”
“Hopefully, DTE and the state of Michigan distribute potassium iodide to every household within the emergency planning zone like Canada is doing,” she said.
Guy Cerullo, DTE spokesman, said the utility “will ask the NRC to deny the motion to reopen the proceeding, because the contention is without merit and does not meet the regulatory criteria for reopening.”
“Distribution of potassium iodide is not within the scope of a license renewal review,” Mr. Cerullo said.
Fermi 2 is about 30 miles north of Toledo along the western Lake Erie shoreline. It began operating July 15, 1985. Its original license expires on March 20, 2025. DTE officials are trying to get the plant’s license extended into 2045.
Contact Tom Henry at: thenry@theblade.com, 419-724-6079, or via Twitter @ecowriterohio.
First Published December 1, 2016, 5:00 a.m.
