The Coalition for a Nuclear-Free Mississippi River educate Minn. Public Utility Commissioners at Hearing
The Nukewatch-inspired Coalition for a Nuclear-Free Mississippi River* crashed the February 18 meeting of the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission in St. Paul, and several members boldly interrupted the proceedings. The PUC was considering Xcel Energy’s so-called Integrated Resource Plan for long-term electric power generation. Speaking out against Xcel’s nuclear-power-heavy plans, Sarah Martin, with coalition partner Women Against Military Madness, George Crocker with the North American Water Office, and Nukewatch’s Kelly Lundeen forced the commission to recess three times after continuing to speak out about the PUC’s endangerment of public health and the environment by permitting the accident-plagued Monticello and Prairie Island nuclear reactors on the Mississippi River to operate.
Speaking without notes, Crocker said to the commissioners in part: “You are regulating a murderous set of machines, that kill three to six or more people every month, according to CDC analysis, in Wright, Sherburne and Goodhue Counties. You are culpable, and we are here to inform you that we will not tolerate your culpability in the murder — the serial killings as it were of our friends and neighbors — by the routine, radioactive releases that occur in order to continue operating those nuclear reactors….”
*The growing coalition so far includes: Indigenous Earth Protectors, North American Water Office, Rainbow Warrior Collective, RISE Coalition, Women Against Military Madness, Women’s International League for Peace & Freedom, and Nukewatch.
The Lies Have It: Xcel Energy Wins Operating Extension
I.F. Stone famously said, “All governments are run by liars and nothing they say should be believed.” The aphorism applies equally well to nuclear reactor operators, including Minneapolis-based Xcel Energy.
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has granted Xcel a second license extension for operating its 53-year-old Monticello reactor on the Mississippi River in Minnesota. The decision will permit this General Electric jalopy, a Fukushima clone, to run until it’s 80 years old — a dangerous feat that’s never been done in the history of nuclear power. The NRC received over 3,000 public comments mostly critical of the extension, but the commission has rubber-stamped 87 of 92 similar requests, so call the NRC “Never Really Concerned.”
The NRC nod is based partly on the commission’s Final Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the re-licensing, even though the document confirms that Xcel repeatedly made false statements about its massive 2022-23 leak of radioactive cooling water. According to a March 16, 2023, Associated Press (AP) story, Xcel’s first public response to the major leak was, “There’s no danger to the public.” Xcel then proceeded to understate by more than half the leak’s actual volume, estimating it was only 400,000 gallons.
Xcel eventually acknowledged that the volume of the leak, from an old corroded underground pipe, was 829,000 gallons, and that the groundwater plume of reactor cooling water — some of which would later reach the Mississippi River — had a radioactive footprint of some fourteen curies of tritium — a very large amount. (For reference, the 1979 partial reactor meltdown at Three Mile Island released an estimated 15 curies of gaseous radioactive iodine-131 to the Pennsylvania atmosphere. Other radioactive materials went into the Susquehanna River.)
Xcel’s 829,000-gallon leak was always a direct threat to drinking water because — as the company’s own 2023 Annual Radioactive Effluent Release Report states on page 13 — “It is assumed groundwater continuously flows to the river…” The Mississippi is the drinking water source for 20 million people, including Minneapolis, St. Paul, and their surrounding suburbs 37 miles downstream from the leaky reactor.
The fact that Xcel’s radioactive groundwater plume would automatically move toward the Mississippi meant the leak posed a gargantuan public relations problem. Lying about it was Xcel’s and the NRC’s first action. One NRC spokesperson, Victoria Mitlyng, told WCCO TV News, March 17, 2023, “There is no pathway for the tritium to get into drinking water.”
This mis-step was so blatant that, following pressure from Nukewatch, NRC Senior Environmental Project Manager Stephen S. Koenick publicly apologized for the fudge, at an NRC open meeting in the city of Monticello, May 15, 2024. Koenick told the gathering, “I know we had meetings in which we reported there were no indication[s] of a tritium leak making it to the Mississippi. However, in our Draft Environmental Impact Statement, we do say, we do conclude there were some very low concentrations of tritium in the Mississippi River.”
Curies and picocuries: code language helps to confuse
When these radioactive accidents take place, public relations language is employed by the industry to confuse, befog, and try to trivialize their size, scope, and potential health and environmental effects. Xcel reported to the NRC Dec. 15, 2022 that its leaked cooling water contained 5,020,000 “picocuries of radioactive tritium per liter,” sometimes written as “picocuries/liter.” This concentration is 251 times the EPA’s allowable limit for drinking water.
A picocurie is one-trillionth of a curie. Anything in the world divisible by one trillion is naturally very large, and a curie is a very large cache of radioactivity indeed. One curie amounts to 37 billion atomic disintegrations-per-second.
The NRC’s final EIS states on page 3-48, “Monticello reported an abnormal discharge to the
Mississippi River from tritium contaminated groundwater of 0.167 curies of tritium between 07/27/23 and 12/31/23….”
The figure “0.167 curies” may give the impression of a small amount, but this amount of tritium contamination leaked to the Mississippi translates to 167 billion picocuries. Again, 20,000 picocuries-per liter is the current EPA allowable drinking water limit.
Over seven million gallons of groundwater has been pumped from Xcel’s onsite wells to try and keep more tritium from reaching the Mississippi. The final EIS says about this pollution at page 3-206 “For the period from January 1, 2023 to December 31, 2023, a total of 0.388 Ci [curies] of tritium (released via natural evaporation from the temporary tanks and the groundwater remediation pond) was reported during calendar year 2023.” This is to say 388 billion picocuries of tritium were sent floating around Minnesota’s Wright and Sherburne counties. This underreported and unplanned, emergency stop-gap response poses some risk for the surrounding residents who breathe.
Xcel’s estimated leak of 14 curies of tritium will contaminate the moving groundwater for a very long time. Its radioactive half-life is 12.3 years, so the tritium will persist for about 12 decades while it decays to helium-3 (radioactive substances are considered hazardous for ten half lives). Once tritium contaminates water, it is impossibly expensive to remove. A new textbook on tritium reports, “its half-life is short enough that it is extremely radioactive. For a given mass, it is, for instance, about 150,000 times as radioactive, in terms of disintegrations per unit time, as plutonium-239. One teaspoon of tritiated water would contaminate about 100 billion gallons of water to the U.S. drinking water limit.”
Alarmingly, when tritium is internalized (ingested or inhaled) it can result in problem pregnancies, miscarriages, and birth abnormalities because this machine-made radioactive poison crosses the placenta where it threatens the fetus. Yet the NRC has neither imposed a penalty nor even issued a rebuke to Xcel for its enormous leak or for its public lying that still paints a false picture of its consequences.
Xcel’s home website seen Jan. 8, 2025 still includes the uncorrected notice of March 16, 2023 that claims, “Xcel Energy took swift action to contain the leak to the plant site, which poses no health and safety risk to the local community or the environment,” and in the next paragraph it still says, “the leaked water is fully contained on-site and has not been detected beyond the facility”. Of course, Xcel knows that nothing “contains” groundwater which is constantly moving willy nilly. This company’s public pronouncements must not be believed.
The Coalition for a Nuclear-Free Mississippi River, made up of regional environmental, climate, and justice groups has vowed to see the reactor closed before the achy, breaky Monticello unit causes a more catastrophic radiation release.
— John LaForge and the Coalition for a Nuclear-Free Mississippi River, Lindsay Potter contributed research to this report.
— Sign the petition to shut down Monticello at https://www.change.org/p/demand-the-closure-of-monticello-nuclear-reactor
Protesters Vow to Shut Down Xcel’s Monticello Nuclear Reactor
Editor’s Note: Nukewatch is a founding member of the Coalition for a Nuclear-Free Mississippi River which held its first rally to commemorate the two-year anniversary of the most recent tritium leak at Xcel’s Monticello nuclear reactor at the Xcel Energy offices in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Ta Pe’juta Wi’chac’pi Win, Erica Crazy Hawk (Star Medicine Woman), member of the Crow Creek Sioux Tribe and Indigenous Earth Protectors, said of the radioactive leak that reached the Mississippi River and Bdote, the sacred Dakota site of creation: “We were driven from this sacred ground through genocide, a tragedy echoing in places like Palestine today. Now, to see these waters and lands poisoned with radiation adds another layer of unbearable desecration. It is my heartfelt prayer that someone will rise to the occasion and make the morally correct decision and action.”
By Sarah Martin
MINNEAPOLIS — On Thursday, November 21, 50 members of the newly formed Coalition for a Nuclear-free Mississippi River and their supporters rallied in front of Xcel Energy headquarters on Nicollet Mall in the heart of downtown. They demanded the energy company keep to its 2030 shutdown date for the Monticello nuclear reactor because of serious threats posed to public health, the Mississippi River, and drinking water for millions.
As rush hour traffic passed by, motorists and pedestrians saw protesters holding signs reading, “Don’t nuke our river.” Chants like “Xcel let’s be clear, Monticello reactor is not wanted here” were loudly amplified by the surrounding buildings. After chanting for a half hour, demonstrators heard from several speakers.
George Crocker, executive director of the North America Water Office and longtime anti-nuke activist, said, “We’re here today because Xcel Energy wants to continue nuclear operations at Monticello until 2050, and that is a really bad idea for a long list of reasons. There’s equipment failure issues, like what’s going on now after a pipe corroded to pieces and almost a million gallons of [water contaminated with] radioactive tritium leaked into the environment, some of which is now contaminating Minneapolis drinking water. The potential for cataclysmic equipment failure is not diminutive, and it is mounting as reactor components age. There’s nuclear waste issues, as there is no known technology or location capable of isolating irradiated fuel and other radioactively contaminated material from Earth’s biosphere for the required geological periods of time.”
John LaForge, longtime activist with Nukewatch, spoke about the dangerous radioactive leaks at the reactor and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and media misinformation, stating, “Over and over, Xcel and the NRC told the press that the radioactive tritium did not and could not reach drinking water. They lied, but the media dutifully repeated this lie many times on the radio, in the papers, on television. Any of the reporters could have found out that all the groundwater under the reactor moves toward the Mississippi — drinking water for 20 million people.”
LaForge continued, “The record is clear, but Xcel’s and the NRC’s public statements have been lies. Nothing they say to the press should be believed. As a coalition, we must see to it that the reactor’s 2030 expiration date be enforced, and that this leaky, dangerous, accident-prone nuclear jalopy be permanently shut.”
Whitney Wildman of the Climate Justice Committee stated, “We stand with groups organizing to shut down the Monticello Nuclear plant because we know that we can’t trust giant corporations to operate with the people’s health and safety in mind because that’s not their priority. We know that under capitalism these companies plan to exploit the land and its people to the breaking point, all in the name of profits.”
The program concluded with a lively, creative street theater piece depicting the cozy and alarming relationship between the NRC and the officials at the Monticello nuclear power reactor.
The coalition held a teach-in on the dangers of the Monticello reactor and nuclear power on December 4 at the New City Center in Minneapolis.
— Published by Fight Back! News, Nov. 25, 2024
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TROUBLE on the WATER
829,000-Gallon Radioactive Leak & Xcel’s Response Should Disqualify Monticello Nuclear Reactor License Extension
- The Monticello reactor: on the Mississippi River, 35 miles northwest of Minneapolis, owned by Xcel Energy, is 55 years old, among the six oldest in the United States.
- November 22, 2022: Xcel first reported it found leaked radioactivity in onsite groundwater. The Xcel notice had no information about the volume, source, or radioactivity of the leak, YET it claimed, “There was no impact on the health and safety of the public or plant personnel.”
- Xcel later reported that about 400,000 gallons contaminated with high levels of radioactive tritium had leaked into the ground. One year later, this estimate was more than doubled to 829,000 gallons.
- March 2023: Public informed of the tritium leak four months after it occurred. While this leak was kept secret by Xcel, the State of Minn. and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Xcel applied for a 20-year operating license extension.
| This radioactivity is a threat to the Mississippi River and the people and animals that rely on it. Tritium, a radioactive form of hydrogen, and like ordinary hydrogen combines with oxygen to make water. As radioactive water, tritium can cross the placenta, posing a risk of birth defects and early pregnancy failures. Ingestion of tritiated water also increases cancer risk. Tritium contaminates groundwater under the reactor and then it can enter the food chain – and us. Tritium contaminates water and soil around the reactor and then it can enter the food chain – and us.
Tritium stays dangerous in the environment for over 100 years. There were at least five other radioactive chemicals in the leaked wastewater. These poisons are the same as those related to illnesses and deaths caused by nuclear disasters at Chernobyl and Fukushima. |
- April 23, 2024: NRC admitted that “[t]ritium detections in wells near the Mississippi Riverbank in 2023 indicate tritium-impacted groundwater likely discharged to the river.”
- May 15, 2024: NRC apologized for 1 1/2 years of misleading the public by repeating that there was no way for the leak to get into the Mississippi River.
- 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, 57 million gallons of drinking water every day.”
- How can we know what disastrous reactor accident will come next? Xcel said the leak had been stopped, but admitted March 22, 2023 the first fix failed, spilling radioactive water a second time. Xcel applied to run the Monticello reactor until it is 80 years old. It was designed to run for just 40 years. Many more age-related issues have been identified in the reactor by federal regulators.
Are you in the radiation-impacted area around the Monticello reactor?
Read Nukewatch articles HERE about the hazardous Nov. 2022 radioactive leak and previous problems.
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Read Nukewatch articles here about the hazardous Nov. 2022 radioactive leak and previous problems