Saturday, October 20, 2012

NRC IS A BROKEN AND CORRUPTED AGENCY


Letter to Capt Clyde Stagner, Retired, concerning tritium emissions from Palo Verde Nuclear Plant in Arizona.



UNITED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION REGION IV
1600 EAST LAMAR BLVD ARLINGTON , TEXAS 76011 -.511

October 17, 2012
 
SUBJECT: CONCERNS YOU RAISED TO THE U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION (NRC) REGARDING THE PALO VERDE NUCLEAR GENERATING STATION

Dear Mr. Stagner:

The NRC has completed its follow up in response to the concerns you brought to our attention on July 6 and 7, 2012, regarding the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station and radiological monitoring in the Phoenix area. Your concerns were specifically related to tritium monitoring.

The NRC's mission is to license and regulate the Nation's use of byproduct, source, and special nuclear materials in order to protect public health and safety, promote the common defense and security, and protect the environment. The NRC allegation program handles declarations,
statements, or assertions of impropriety associated with NRC·regulated activities, the validity of which has not been established. It is important to ensure that only items that meet the NRC's definition of an allegation are placed in the allegation process, so that they may be acted upon efficiently, effectively, and responsively.

Your first concern, that Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station should have a lower detection limit, falls outside of the allegation program because they are meeting NRC requirements for lower limits of detection and, thus, the validity of the issue is known. Specifically, Palo Verde's Annual Radiological Environmental Operating Report for 2011 specifies a typical lower limit of detection of 271 pCi/liter for tritium in water. The licensee has committed (to the NRC) to meeting the requirements of NRC's NUREG 1301 , "Offsite Dose Calculation Manual Guidance:

Standard Radiological Effluent Controls for Pressurized Water Reactors." In Table 4.12·1 , NUREG 1301 specifies a required lower limit of detection of 2000 pCi/liter for environmental samples of tritium in water. The NRC has no legal basis to require them to analyze tritium at a lower level than what is set forth in the requirements.

Your second concern, related to monitoring tritium concentration of rainfall in Phoenix, is not under the NRC's jurisdiction. Specifically, the NRC regulates effluent discharges from nuclear power plants.

Licensees  operating a nuclear power plant must keep releases of radioactive material to unrestricted areas during normal operation as low as reasonably achievable, as described in 10 CFR 50.36a, and comply with radiation dose limits set forth for the public in 10 CFR 20.1301.

Provided the licensee's effluent releases at the site boundary meet the regulatory requirements and releases are conducted and evaluated in accordance with the licensee's effluent monitoring and radiological environmental monitoring programs, no additional monitoring of the environment is warranted within the context of the NRC's mission.

The NRC also received your emails of August 3,12, and September 9, 2012. These issues regarding wastewater for the Phoenix water treatment facility are for Arizona State regulatory agencies to address. Because these issues are not associated with NRC-regulated activities, they do not fall within the purview of the NRC's allegation program.

Thank you for informing us of your concerns. Allegations are an important source of information in support of the NRC's safety mission. We take our safety responsibility to the public seriously and will continue to do so within the bounds of our lawful authority. We believe that our actions have been responsive to your concerns. If, however, new information is provided that suggests that our conclusions should be altered, we will evaluate that information to determine if additional action is required.

You should note that final NRC documents may be made available to the public under the Freedom of Information Act subject to redaction of information pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act. Requests under the Freedom of Information Act should be made in accordance with 10 CFR 9.23, Requests for Records.

Information is accessible from the NRC's
website at hUp:llwww. nrc.gov/reading-rm/foia/foia-request.html#how.

Should you have any additional questions, or if the NRC can be of further assistance, please contact Mr. Cale H. Young, Senior Allegation Coordinator, at the Region IV toll-free number 1-800-952-9677, extension 1245, Monday - Friday between 8 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. Central time. Information in writing may be provided to the address listed in the letterhead.

Sincerely,
IJames F. Drake, Chief
{I Plant Support Branch 2

Majia Here: This letter is an example of a regulatory agency's COMPLETE DISREGARD FOR ITS OPERATING MISSION to protect HUMAN HEALTH.

The NRC hedges in this absurd letter with words like "Provided" without ever establishing whether or not Palo Verde does, in fact, meet the regulatory requirements or whether these requirements are set at a SAFE level:  
"Your first concern, that Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station should have a lower detection limit, falls outside of the allegation program because they are meeting NRC requirements for lower limits of detection and, thus, the validity of the issue is known....
"Provided the licensee's effluent releases at the site boundary meet the regulatory requirements and releases are conducted and evaluated in accordance with the licensee's effluent monitoring and radiological environmental monitoring programs, no additional monitoring of the environment is warranted within the context of the NRC's mission."

Please tell me why it is not the NRC's responsibility to monitor and regulate radiation emissions from the Palo Verde plant that end up in Phoenix sludge, waste-water, and rainfall?
"Your second concern, related to monitoring tritium concentration of rainfall in Phoenix, is not under the NRC's jurisdiction."  

This letter demonstrates that the NRC IS A CORRUPTED AGENCY. 

Capt. Clyde Stagner's analyses of tritium in sewage sludge, swimming pools, local lakes, and airborne precipitation DOCUMENT UNSAFE LEVELS OF PUBLIC EXPOSURE TO TRITIUM
 

PREVIOUS POSTS ON STAGNER'S ANALYSIS OF TRITIUM

Aug 14, 2012
Encanto Park and Radioactive Tritium. Majia here: I've posted previously about the work of Capt. Clyde Stagner, Retired. He spent much of his professional life monitoring radiation readings for government agencies. I will post ...
Sep 12, 2012
Clyde Stagner's analyses of radiation contamination in the Phoenix area caused by the Palo Verde nuclear plant in Maricopa County, AZ. Capt. Stagner is author of Hidden Tritium and has had a long, distinguished career, ...
Jul 17, 2012
Clyde Stagner, Retired. He spent much of his professional life monitoring radiation readings for government agencies. I will post links to his book, Hidden Trituim and my previous discussions of his work at the bottom of this ...
May 13, 2012
Clyde Stagner (Ret.) shared with me a letter he wrote to the Maricopa Association of Governments and the EPA. Capt. Stagner is very concerned about the lack of monitoring of tritium emitted from Palo Verde Nuclear Plant.
Mar 25, 2012
After corresponding with Ret Cap Clyde Stagner for over a year about radiation, we had the opportunity to meet last month. He and his wife are extremely scientifically minded and very well-educated. Their knowledge and ...
Jul 12, 2012
Evidence of tritium contamination can be found in Clyde Stagner's Hidden Tritium, which examines tritium emissions from spent fuel pool evaporations at the Palo Verde Nuclear power plant located near Phoenix.
Dec 12, 2011
Clyde Stagner on Phoenix Radiation: "EPA Gross Beta 2007-2010 was .0143 pCi/L^3. EPA Gross Beta Jan 3- Oct 2011 was O.O158 which is a 9.5% increase. Conversion to CPM is mathematical, but the increase will remain ...
Nov 27, 2011
Clyde H. Stagner, US Regular Army Retired. Capt. Stagner worked at the original Nevada Test Site and has years of scientific expertise in radiation monitoring and testing. He has productively employed his expertise to the ...
Oct 05, 2011
The first effort in this regard is to post part of a letter written by Clyde H. Stagner. Mr. Stagner has a very distinguished work history with the US military. He has served as Chairman of the Nuclear and Radiological Defense ...


4 comments:

  1. Hi majia - Ever since Whoopie linked a site which provides a roundup of daily nuke-news awhile ago, I skim through it when I can:

    http://nucnews.com/whatsnew.php

    Anway, here is one of the links re: an AZ Senator. Read paragraphs 3 and 4:

    http://explorernews.com/opinion/article_ad041ea6-17ed-11e2-a2c9-0019bb2963f4.html

    Dee

    ReplyDelete
  2. They have turned off the radiation detectors in Ca?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Lies, lies, and more lies is what the letter here is full of
    http://explorernews.com/opinion/article_ad041ea6-17ed-11e2-a2c9-0019bb2963f4.html

    thanks for bringing this to my attention Dee

    ReplyDelete
  4. New Order Environmental Services, LLC is a certified company offering radiological decontamination and decommissioning and GIS mapping services. In addition that it also offers drone UAV GPS Gamma Surveys and other Ariel inspection services. Our products and services are designed to provide customized solutions and support.

    ReplyDelete

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