By Nukewatch Staff

To prepare its Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) regarding Xcel Energy’s license extension application for its Monticello reactor, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission had to establish a formal information-gathering period. The data collection time-frame officially ended on August 18, 2023.

According to Xcel Energy and NRC documents reviewed by Nukewatch, the NRC seems to have coincidentally picked for its end date the very day that radioactive tritium contamination in a groundwater test well near the Mississippi River exceeded the federal EPA safe drinking water limit.

In Xcel’s December 18, 2023 response to an NRC information request on its relicense application, Xcel submitted a table documenting the results of monitoring well tests between November 21, 2022 and August 18, 2023. Xcel’s table notes that the level of tritium in monitoring well (MW)-37A between July 27, 2023 and August 18, 2023 grew five-fold until, on August 18, it exceeded the EPA safe drinking water limit of 20,000 pico-curies-per-liter (pCi/L).

The NRC is currently considering Xcel’s application for a second 20-year license extension which, if granted, would allow the Monticello reactor in Minn., to run until 2050, when it would be 80 years old.

The NRC’s data collection cut-off date omits the critical time-frame immediately after August 18, when tritium levels near the Mississippi River were still increasing.

Similarly, Xcel’s “2023 Annual Radioactive Effluent Release Report” fails to provide precise data on monitoring well test results following August 18, 2023, noting only in general terms that tests done after that date found no unsafe levels of contamination. “The NRC should demand that Xcel provide well test results from August 18, 2023, through December 31, 2023, and should then enter these into the Federal Register for public consideration,” said Nukewatch’s Lindsay Potter, who discovered the coincidence. “The DEIS and license renewal process is incomplete without this information and should not move forward without it,” she said.

The reactor caused a leak to onsite groundwater of some 829,000 gallons of tritium-contaminated cooling water beginning in November 2022. In the same reply to the NRC December 18, 2023, Xcel reported that it had doubled its estimated volume of tritium-contaminated cooling water that had leaked to 829,000 gallons, not 400,000 gallons as it first reported.

The NRC acknowledges in its DEIS: “From available sampling data … tritium activity in wells MW-29A and MW-37A, which are near the river, were above the 20,000 pCi/L drinking water standard and trending in an upward direction as of August 2023.”

Tritium is a radioactive form of hydrogen — impossible to remove from water — which crosses the placenta and can cause cancer if ingested or inhaled.

By John LaForge

Xcel Energy’s Monticello nuclear reactor on the Mississippi River has leaked some 829,000 gallons of wastewater contaminated with radioactive tritium into the groundwater on site,1 more than double the 400,000 gallons Xcel first estimated. The company has since replaced two leaking pipes, built an underground retaining wall, and is cleaning up after a second spill and its temporary reactor shutdown. Yet according to WCCO TV, for July 20, 2023, Xcel said a “small amount of leaked water may have reached the Mississippi River.”2

On March 18, 2023, the Associated Press (AP) reported that a representative of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) told them that the tritium-contaminated wastewater from the reactor couldn’t contaminate the water people drink. The AP reporters quoted NRC spokesperson Victoria Mitlyng, writing: “Mitlyng said there is no pathway for the tritium to get into drinking water.”3

In fact, there are two pathways for the tritium leak to get into drinking water. First, the tritium in the 829,000-gallon leak is now in a groundwater plume that can move beyond Xcel’s Monticello site and reach private or public drinking water wells.

Second, the groundwater plume, which moves toward the Mississippi,4 will contaminate the river which supplies drinking water to one million-plus people in the Twin Cities and their suburbs and 38 million people downstream.

Perhaps Mitlyng was misquoted, since the NRC and the AP have both reported that the plume of tritium-contaminated groundwater can move outside Xcel’s boundary. In fact, both agencies have reported that Xcel’s stated purpose in hastily building an underground steel wall between the reactor and the Mississippi is to prevent the radioactive groundwater from entering the river.5

The AP reported March 24, 2023 that Chris Clark, the president of Xcel Energy,
acknowledged that the radioactive pollution can reach the Mississippi. The AP reported: “Even if the tritium reached the river, which Clark assured wouldn’t happen, it would dissipate within a few yards.”6 Clark’s assurance is either a mistake or a deliberate fib, because “dissipate” means to disappear or vanish. However, tritium contamination in water lasts 123 years.

Further, there is no way to remove tritium from water once it’s contaminated — as the 1.5 million tons of tritiated wastewater being pumped into the Pacific Ocean from the three-reactor earthquake/tsunami/meltdown site at Fukushima proves.

Why is Xcel’s tritium in the groundwater and the Great River such a threat to the people and animals that rely on it? As the NRC says, “This is because tritium travels as a form of water through the soil faster than other radionuclides.”7 The city of Minneapolis proudly declares, “Our water comes from the Mississippi River. Roughly 21 billion gallons of water are pumped from the river each year, and 57 million gallons of drinking water delivered every day.”8

We can’t say, “There’s nothing we can do.”

Everyone can comment to the government regarding the risks posed by Monticello’s operations, when Xcel issues (this spring) its draft supplemental environmental impact statement (DSEIS) regarding the firm’s request to extend its license and run the 54-year-old reactor until 2050, when it will turn 80.

The comment period will last four to six weeks and open after the DSEIS is released. Check Nukewatch’s website to learn when the period has opened. Use one of Nukewatch’s sample comments or your own. Plan to make your voice heard in person once the NRC schedules a public hearing on the license extension. nukewatchinfo.org/monticello.

Notes:

[1] Xcel Energy, “Subsequent License Renewal Application Response to Request for Additional Information and Request
for Confirmation of Information – Set 1 Part 2,” p. 6, Dec. 18, 2023, https://adamswebsearch2.nrc.gov/webSearch2/main.jsp?AccessionNumber=ML23352A081

and The Monticello Times, “Xcel groundwater recovery enters final phase,” Dec. 21, 2023, https://www.hometownsource.com/monticello_times/xcel-groundwater-recovery-enters-final-phase/article_7e834ce8-9ea3-11ee-8e03-9f36a6b5d962.html

[2] CBS Minnesota, WCCO Staff, “Xcel Energy: Small amount of leaked water may have reached the Mississippi River,”
July 20, 2023, https://www.cbsnews.com/minnesota/news/xcel-energy-small-amount-of-leaked-water-may-have-reached-
the-mississippi-river/

[3] Associated Press, “Regulators: Nuclear plant leak didn’t require public notice,” by Michael Phillis and Amancia Biraben, March 18, 2023, https://apnews.com/article/xcel-energy-nuclear-leak-tritium-6e522afbb12ad26925c40d833853088d

[4] Doug Wetzstein of the Minn. Pollution Control Agency told WCCO television last March, “The groundwater beneath
the facility … moves in the direction of the Mississippi River.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5c6j7UZZA0&ab_channel=WCCO-CBSMinnesota

[5] Nuclear Engineering International, “Xcel Energy to build underground barrier to contain radioactive water leak at Monticello NPP, August 22, 2023, https://www.neimagazine.com/news/newsxcel-energy-to-build-underground-barrier-to-contain-radioactive-water-leak-at-monticello-npp-11090330; Xcel illustration of its wall is at https://www.ci.monticello.mn.us/Blog.aspx?IID=59; WCCO Staff, CBS Minnesota, “Xcel Energy to begin construction on underground barrier at Monticello nuclear plant,” August 18, 2023, https://www.cbsnews.com/minnesota/news/xcel-energy-to-begin-construction-on-underground-barrier-at-monticello-nuclear-plant/

[6]Associated Press, “Minnesota nuclear plant shuts down for leak; residents worry,” by Trisha Ahmed and Matthew Daly, March 24, 2023, www.apnews.com/article/minnesota-nuclear-plant-leak-6b72b6f9cd2a1141aadd985b68654e04

[7] “NRC List of Leaks and Spills at Operating U.S. Commercial Nuclear Power Plants,” https://adamswebsearch2.nrc.gov/webSearch2/main.jsp?AccessionNumber=ML23284A16

[8] www.minneapolismn.gov, Treatment and Delivery Process, “Our water comes from the Mississippi River,” https://www2.minneapolismn.gov/government/departments/public-works/water-treatment-distribution/treat-deliver/

By John LaForge

Xcel Energy owns the Monticello nuclear reactor on the Mississippi River, 40 miles upstream of Minneapolis. This 54-year-old General Electric reactor, one of the three oldest in the country, was originally designed and built to last 40 years. It should have been decommissioned in 2010.

On Nov. 22, 2022, Xcel reported to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) that radioactivity was found in groundwater from an onsite monitoring well. Xcel’s notice said nothing about the leak’s volume, its source, or its level of radioactivity, but it did claim without evidence that, “There was no impact on the health and safety of the public or plant personnel.” The public was not informed of this “harmless” radioactive pollution until March 2023, four months later. Xcel then said that 400,000 gallons contaminated with radioactive tritium had leaked from underground pipes into the groundwater.

The company said the concentration of tritium in its leakage was “five million picocuries-per-liter,” a very high concentration at the level of primary reactor coolant. Very few tritium leaks from U.S. nuclear reactors had more tritium per liter.

At 400,000 gallons (1,761,953 liters), with five million picocuries of tritium per liter, the leak contained roughly eight curies of radioactivity. This is no small matter. The partial reactor meltdown at Three Mile Island, one of the worst in U.S. history, released 14 curies of radioactive iodine-131. As noted below, 14 curies of tritium is now Xcel’s latest radioactive pollution estimate.

This tritium is a direct threat to the Mississippi River and the people and animals that rely on it, because, as the NRC says: “After a radioactive leak or spill … tritium travels as a form of water through the soil faster than other radionuclides.”

Leak Estimate Doubled

On Dec. 18, 2023, Xcel reported to the NRC that its first leak estimate was grossly in error. Xcel now estimates that 829,000 gallons of radioactive water has leaked into the ground — not 400,000. Xcel also reported the leaking started earlier than originally thought. Xcel noted that its estimate of radioactivity leaked into the groundwater is now 14 curies.

In a May 10, 2023 letter to the NRC, Xcel also confirmed that more radioactive materials than tritium were in the 829,000-gallon leak. Xcel wrote that samples from Monticello’s laboratory “detected iodine-131, iodine-133, iodine-135, xenon-133, and xenon-135 in [monitoring well-9a].”

Uninspected 54-year-old, Corroded Pipes Leak

The wastewater leaked from two old underground pipes between the reactor building and the turbine building, which were later replaced. The company announced in March 2023 that the leak had been stopped. Later, it admitted that the fix failed when a collection system overflowed, dumping tritium-contaminated water into the ground again.

In a Nov. 9, 2023 letter to the NRC, Xcel reported that “The visual examination of the removed [carbon steel] piping sections showed that both of the CRD [control rod drive] pipes experienced severe corrosion of the external surfaces in the regions exposed to the ground water present between the buildings” and “[b]oth CRD pipes … were replaced with uncoated stainless-steel piping.” The same letter reports on Xcel’s plans for inspecting thousands of Monticello’s other underground pipes. Xcel says it “will inspect the underground stainless-steel piping … once every 10 years.”

In January 2023, two months after the original leak, Xcel applied to the NRC for an operating license extension to run Monticello until it is 80, even though the company would wait another two months before notifying the public of this pollution catastrophe and 12 months before reporting the true volume of the spill. This GE Mark I reactor is identical to the three melted and exploded Fukushima units in Japan. With Xcel’s stellar record of never endangering anyone’s health and safety, the NRC ought to rubber stamp the application, right?

— Originally published online on Feb. 2, 2024 at Counterpunch.org.