Posted on 03/18/2023 4:12:04 AM PDT by fluorescence
Minnesota regulators said Thursday they're monitoring the cleanup of a leak of 400,000 gallons of radioactive water from Xcel Energy's Monticello nuclear power plant, and the company said there's no danger to the public. The leak was first detected in November of last year.
"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," the Minneapolis-based utility said in a statement.
While Xcel reported the leak of water containing tritium to state and federal authorities in late November, the spill had not been made public before Thursday.
"If at any point there had been concern for the public safety, we would of course, immediately have provided more information," Chris Clark, president of Xcel Energy-Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota, told CBS Minnesota on Thursday. "But we also wanted to make sure we fully understood what was going on before we started raising any concerns with the public around us."
State officials said they waited to get more information before going public with it.
"We knew there was a presence of tritium in one monitoring well, however Xcel had not yet identified the source of the leak and its location," Minnesota Pollution Control Agency spokesman Michael Rafferty said.
"Now that we have all the information about where the leak occurred, how much was released into groundwater, and that contaminated groundwater had moved beyond the original location, we are sharing this information," he said, adding the water remains contained on Xcel's property and poses no immediate public health risk.
"The groundwater beneath the facility, it's been determined that it moves in the direction of the Mississippi River, slowly, but that's the direction that it flows, or moves, underground," Doug Wetzstein ... told CBS Minnesota.
(Excerpt) Read more at cbsnews.com ...
Other perspectives:
An Olympic competition swimming pool holds about 500,000 gallons.
400,000 gallons over 4 months is a rate of less than 2.5 gallons per minute, or about a fifth of the flow from an average garden hose.
It’s fun to remind the anti-nuke folks that their bloodstream contains radioactive potassium. You can see them get itchy.
So, basically the writer didn't give us any useful information? LOL - not surprising when I think about it. I'm thankful you're here Robert - engineers keep the world running and conversations sane.
More great perspective - thanks - also, check out Robert A Cook’s reply #25 - you’ll enjoy it.
I know why I enjoy this site so much... more perspective - and also ‘on the money’ - thanks Mulligan. Also, check out Robert A Cook PE’s reply #25 - you’ll enjoy it.
400,000 gallons of radioactive clean energy huh Moe.
Most everything has some level of radioactivity— concrete foundations, cinder blocks and granite countertops are some of the more significant examples of everyday sources.
It’s not a health concern at low levels. As always, “the dose makes the poison.”
It’s probably not enough to kill bacteria. Could make for some interesting mutations, maybe.
I would be interested to know what concentrations they are finding; although, from my 30 years of work experience in the environmental health field, I know that tritium is found in many drinking water supplies, in very low levels, and can be used as an indicator of relatively recent aquifer recharge. The presence in groundwater is due to the prevalence of hydrogen bomb testing in the 1950’s or so, which put this form of hydrogen in the atmosphere. It is not considered a contaminant of concern at these low levels, but more more of a helpful tool to age-date groundwater.
I agree with other posters who have a problem with the fact that that Xcel and the state agencies are just coming clean now when they knew of the situation in November. It’s no wonder people are distrustful of large industry and government.
The Pepsi Syndrome II
In perspective, it's essentially nothing. but it's !!!!RADIATION!!!! ... the fastest way to make the ignorami panic.
A few thoughts after reading the article and the posts:
1)every article has an agenda.
2) very little information is given except to tell you how to think.
3) We don’t live in a perfect world. You can live in mud huts or have a light bulb. choose.
We should be reprocessing and reusing all that "spent" (no, it isn't) reactor fuel. You can thank BLAME that worthless POS Jimmy Carter, and EVERY PRESIDENT SINCE HIM, for our failure to do so.
Even people. However, one person does not give off enough radiation to harm another.
Therefor, sleeping with one woman is perfectly fine ... but sleeping with two women can be very dangerous.
;'}
Half life of tritium is 12 years. The 1950s were at least 5.58 half lives ago. Tritium was released during atmospheric thermonuclear weapons testing has decayed to at most 0.021 of its original amount.
Now that’s just plain funny
And: Members of the press are stupid.
Yup. Drastically reduced, but still detectable.
400,000 gallons of radioactive water is really not that much if you think about it.
Just an aside, I read once that they were able to culture a strain of bacterium in the water around the fuel rods in a nuclear reactor. Somehow the bugs had developed resistance to the intense radiation. Sorry don’t have a source for that.
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