By Nukewatch Staff
At a public hearing in Monticello, Minnesota, on May 15, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) apologized for public claims made by its staff that radioactive tritium in a massive 2022 leak of cooling water from the Monticello reactor, had not reached the Mississippi River. The river is the drinking water source for 20 million people including the Minneapolis/St. Paul metro area.
In opening remarks to the NRC-sponsored hearing at the Monticello Community Center, Senior Environmental Project Manager Stephen Koenick apologized for the NRC’s often-repeated assurances that the leaked tritium from the 53-year-old reactor had not been detected in the Mississippi.
In his shocking yet underreported public apology, Koenick said: “I would like to take a moment to address and clarify some miscommunication regarding the presence of detectable tritium in the Mississippi River. I know we … reported there were no indication[s] of [a] tritium leak [which] made it to the Mississippi. However … in our Draft Environmental Impact Statement, we … conclude there were some very low concentrations of tritium in the Mississippi River.” Koenick went on to say, “So we apologize for this miscommunication.”
As far as Nukewatch can tell, only the weekly Monticello Times reported on the rare public apology and the eyebrow-raising admission that radioactive tritium from the plume caused by the 2022 leak had contaminated the Mississippi. The paper published a report by Nukewatch’s Kelly Lundeen and John LaForge on the front page of its June 6 issue under the headline “NRC apologizes, changes its stance on tritium leak: Now says low concentrations got into Mississippi River.”
Xcel Energy’s 2023 “Annual Radioactive Effluent Release Report” says on page two, “Tritium was detected in newly developed MW-33A [monitoring well-33A] and MW-37A which resulted in MNGP [Monticello Nuclear Generating Plant] reporting an abnormal discharge to the Mississippi River.”
What Koenick meant by “miscommunication” were claims repeatedly made to the press that no tritium had been found by Xcel’s testing of the river. On March 18, 2023, NRC spokesperson Victoria Mitlyng even told the press, “There is no pathway for the tritium to get into drinking water.” As recently as May 7, 2024, NRC presenters at an NRC-sponsored public hearing, also held in Monticello, said on the record that Xcel had found “no detectable levels” of tritium in the Mississippi. Xcel Energy, which owns the reactor, made many similar misstatements. A company website posting still online says, “We test the river regularly for tritium and have not found any, indicating that if it is present, it is at such low levels, and is dispersing so quickly, that it cannot be detected by highly sensitive instruments.” This directly contradicts well test results that Xcel submitted to the NRC on December 18 proving they found detectable tritium levels in the Mississippi River at several points over the summer of 2023. Xcel has applied for a second operating license extension which, if granted, would allow the Monticello reactor to run until the age of 80.
