From 1957 to 1996, 131 nuclear reactors were licensed to com-mercially operate in the United States. 27 of those reactors are now permanently closed. Because of accidents, deterioration of equipment and the tremendous costs associated with splitting the atom to boil water, these reactors were forced to shutdown before the end of their 40-year licenses. Almost overnight, the dangerous busi-ness of nuclear-generated-electricity is being transformed into a timeless radioactive liability of colossal proportions.

Eventually, every nuclear power station will shut down. The generators, federal and state regulators and the reactors' host communities will be faced with decisions regarding the future of the onsite accumulation of highly radioactive fuel, residues, mas-sive quantities of radioactive equipment and components, mixed hazardous wastes and a mountain of contaminated con-crete and debris making up the reactor building. Even the earth and groundwater beneath the facility must be surveyed for radiation contamination.

The long-term manage-ment and clean up of these closed reactors is known as "de-commissioning." The various methods and timing for decom-missioning a nuclear power sta-tion can widely differ. Responsible decommissioning involves managing the closed facility and eventually dismantling and caring for the radioactive and hazardous wastes to ensure their isolation from the environment. It involves a combination of technical, financial, and regula-tory challenges over processes that can adversely affect worker safety, public health, and environmental quality far into the future.

THE METHODS OF DECOMMISSIONING

As with many aspects of the nu-clear power industry, electric utilities moved to commercialize the technology before many fundamental questions and issues affecting public health and envi-ronmental protection were re-sponsibly addressed. The indus-try, federal regulators and af-fected communities alike now face numerous problems involv-ing the unresolved policy and technical issues of license termi-nation and clean-up within our communities and ultimately long term nuclear waste management. None of the currently recognized options for decommissioning adequately address all of the is-sues raised by nuclear waste. All of the current options provide that with the closure of the reactor, on-site federal inspectors are removed from the nuclear site and any further on-site federal oversight activity is at the discretion of the electric utility.
There are three decom-missioning methods being recog-nized by the NRC. DECON is the rapid dismantlement of the reactor; SAFESTOR puts the reactor in mothballs for several decades, while ENTOMBMENT is, like it sounds, essentially creation of a nuclear grave (see sidebar).
Generally speaking, reactor operators are combining the SAFESTOR and DECON options. After a cessation of station operation, the licensee schedules the reactor for a short storage period for planning purposes. The licensee then strips the reactor of its large radioactive components (steam generators, reactor internals, large diameter piping, etc.) for transport to a "low-level" ra-dioactive waste dump. The re-maining structures are placed into long-term storage to finish decontamination and the dis-mantlement process at a future date at which they can apply to NRC for a license termination.
Under the SAFESTOR, DECON, or ENTOMB scenarios, all of the irradiated reactor fuel or "high-level radioactive waste" is removed from the core. This high-level radioactive fuel is constantly cooled and guarded for a minimum of five years underwa-ter in on-site storage ponds. One NRC study published in 1997, "A Safety and Regulatory Assessment of Generic Boiling Water Reactors and Pressurized Water Reactors Permanently Shutdown Nuclear Power Plants," noted that after the reactor vessel is defueled, the traditional accident sequences that dominate the operating plant risk no longer apply. However, new risks occur with placing this irradiated fuel into fuel pools. This wet storage re-quires constant vigilance to as-sure that fuel cooling circulation and underwater radiation shielding are maintained. After sufficiently cooling the irradiated fuel to approximately 400 degrees Fahrenheit, the "high-level" nu-clear waste may be moved into concrete and steel dry storage casks and parked on-site. These "Dry Storage Casks" are licensed for 20 years with up to four license extensions. Significant controversy over lack of federal regulatory oversight and numerous problems with the quality of fuel-loaded casks has occurred after less than 15 years of cask use. Under a streamlined NRC cask certification, licensing and oversight process, newer cask designs seek to accommodate both a dry storage function and an additional transportation function for removal from the reactor site to a yet-to-determined and potentially vulnerable "away-from-reactor" storage facility.

TAKING THE WRECKER BALL TO THE REACTOR BUILDING

In an effort to reduce decommis-sioning costs and potentially skim millions of dollars from decommissioning funds, the in-dustry is seeking new techniques for dismantling or entombing the large concrete reactor containment buildings. Maine Yankee Atomic Power Company, for example is proposing to "rubblize" Maine Yankee's reactor building.
"Rubblization" is de-scribed as the partial decontami-nation and demolition of radioactively contaminated buildings at reactors. The interior concrete surfaces are partially decontaminated and the entire structure (concrete, steel re-enforcement bar and other materials) is then razed to grade level into the foundation hole. The burial site is then covered over with a soil cap.
Essentially, the utility is proposing that a "low-level" radioactive waste dump can be grandfathered on the reactor site under an operational reactor license without any of the state and federal regulation and permitting processes. The utilities will provide an analysis that can "assure" that no ground water movement will occur through the radioactive burial site. The utili-ties will provide a "dose model" to "assure" the community that the radioactive site will pose no health risks to the present and future community. This analysis will also "assure" that no future human activity will disturb the site resulting in radioactive re-leases and exposures. Because of the hazardous life of the radionuclides generated during the operation of the nuclear power station, such "assurances" would need to stand a measure of time on the hundreds of millions of years for the various radionuclides that will contaminate the rubble.
Iodine-129, for example, has a radioactive half-life of 16 million years and a hazardous life of 160 million years. Despite the "assurances," the nuclear utilities fail to point out that both Maine Yankee and Connecticut Yankee, once their licenses are terminated will no longer be responsible or liable for the radioactive site. The liability for any associated environmental or public health problems arising from such a de facto radioactive dump be-comes an open question.
In fact, the two federal agencies responsible for public and environmental protection from nuclear power, Environ-mental Protection Agency and the NRC, have failed to come to agreement on a residual radioac-tivity standard for a license ter-mination of a nuclear power plant decommissioning site. EPA continues to hold out for a 4 to 15 millirem/year limit on groundwater contamination while NRC insists on releasing a site within a range of 25 mil-lirems/year up to 500 mil-lirems/year from all pathways. It is significant that the proposal to rubblize and bury contaminated buildings onsite is proceeding toward NRC approval with such a dispute and no memorandum of understanding between the two federal agencies. The rubblization process is in fact a serious abrogation of law and environmental policy as currently evidenced by Maine and Connecticut legislation mandating that there will be no "low-level" radioactive waste site in those states without voter and legislative approval respectively.

DISMANTLING THE DEMOCRATIC PROCESS ALONG WITH THE REACTOR

It is essential that every affected reactor community in the radio-active effluent discharge pathway have an opportunity to meaningful participation during the decommissioning process. The nuclear industry argues that public participation carries an economic cost to the electric utilities in schedule delays, added protective oversight and potential litigation over safety and environmental issues.
In an effort to accom-modate the nuclear industry and expedite the decommissioning process, the NRC is curtailing and streamlining its regulations and dismantling the public's right to meaningful participation in the decommissioning process.
In a controversial de-commissioning rule change, NRC has codified regulations to circumvent what was formerly an opportunity for a public hearing on the decommissioning plan and process. NRC redefined its regulations where a utility was required to change its license from an operating reactor license to a possession-only-license for decommissioning purposes and open to public scrutiny under the National Environmental Policy Act. The NRC reclassified de-commissioning as not constitut-ing a major federal activity and thus an activity than can be con-ducted under the original opera-tional license without the avail-ability of a public hearing on any potential safety issues raised by a particular decommissioning process. Utilities are now allowed to submit vague plans without any public scrutiny of their chosen process.
Prior to this rule change, the utility operating the Yankee Rowe reactor in Rowe, Massachusetts-- closed in 1991, argued that waiting through a decommissioning plan approval process with a potential public hearing might cost the utility valuable space at the Barnwell, South Carolina nu-clear waste dump. Yankee an-nounced its intention to cut up and transport radioactive reactor components prior to the submittal of a decommissioning plan. The activity effectively removed 90% of the reactor's non-fuel residual radioactivity under regulations promulgated for the maintenance of an oper-ating reactor.
The Citizens Awareness Network (CAN), formally challenged the company plan, requesting that the NRC halt the "early component removal" program until a decommissioning plan was submitted, moved through a public notice and comment process, open to public hearings and approved by the NRC. Faced with intensifying company arguments as to how the NRC could interpret the com-ponent removal program in con-text of its own rules, the Com-mission adopted the licensee's interpretation of regulations in a split vote and approved the prompt dismantlement of the closed reactor without the sub-mittal or approval of a decom-missioning plan.
CAN took the NRC to federal court where Chief Judge Juan Torruella found in CAN's favor that the NRC's adoption of the utility's interpretation was an abandonment of the federal agency's duly-promulgated law and "utterly irrational" in denying citizen requests for public hearings. Despite this ruling, which remanded the Yankee Rowe decommissioning back to NRC and a subsequent similar ruling from another appellate court, NRC formally adopted these major changes to its de-commissioning regulations in 1996. Through its own rulemak-ing process, NRC effectively cut the public out of meaningful hearings to intervene on utility decommissioning plans and pro-cesses. Neither the public nor States can challenge the utility plans until after all decommis-sioning activities are finished. The new rule has essentially turned decommissioning regula-tion over to the nuclear utilities requiring them to provide no more than an outline of what their planned activity will be.
Under current NRC rules, the public has lost its right to review and intervene in utility processes that can amount to economic short cuts and sloppy radiation controls resulting in excessive contamination to workers, the site, and uncontrolled releases into the environment.

WHAT PRICE DECOMMISSIONING?

The NRC currently requires nu-clear utilities to make regular contributions into special trust funds established in external accounts amounting to between 1/10th and 2/10th of a cent per kilowatt-hour from electric rate-payers. The agency requires a utility operating a pressurized water reactor (PWR) to accrue a minimum of $289 million (1998 dollars) into such funds and $359 million for a boiling water reactor (BWR).
Financing the cost of de-commissioning has long been a controversial and contentious issue. Public interest and envi-ronmental groups have con-tended that regulators and utili-ties have intentionally buried the true costs of managing nuclear power plants after closure.
In fact, estimates for re-actor decommissioning costs re-main largely unpredictable and historically inaccurate. Current government estimates for de-commissioning run as high as $3-400 million for a typical 1000-megawatt pressurized water reactor with a total cost to decommission reactors in the U.S. at some $30 billion.
However, estimated costs for decommissioning the 179-megawatt Yankee Rowe reactor, shut down in 1991 increased from $120 million price tag to $450 million. The New York Times reported in 1994 that Yankee Atomic Electric Corporation "acknowledged for the first time that they expect to raise electric rates in New England to help pay the cost of closing the reactor."
In another example, the historical estimates produced by the industry's most sought after expert on decommissioning, TLG Engineering, when reviewed over the past twenty five years demonstrates cost escalations of 600 percent.
Further complicating the issue, regulators and utilities have based the amortizing of the full amount for decommissioning funds over the projected 40-year license of a reactor. The actual industry experience reflects op-erational periods of 15 to 30 years. While two utilities have filed for a license extension of 20 years onto their original licenses, the Calvert Cliffs and Oconee nuclear power stations are optimistically making their application 15 years in advance of the end of their current licenses. Given the current industry experience of early closures, the 40-year amortization appears to be a dubious assumption for an in-dustry facing accelerated deterioration in the material condition of the reactors, mounting maintenance costs and increased competition.
Concerns over financial shortfalls in funding of ade-quate and safe decommission-ing operations loom larger as utilities face increased compe-tition under restructuring of the electricity industry. In a May, 1999 report, the General Ac-counting Office (GAO, "Nu-clear Regulation: Better Over-sight Needed to Ensure Accu-mulation of Funds To Decommission Nuclear Power Plants"), analyzed the status of decommissioning funds as of December 31, 1997 for 76 licen-sees owning all or part of 118 operating and retired power reactors.
The GAO reported "We performed this analysis because NRC had not, for its own regulatory purposes, sys-tematically collected and ana-lyzed information on its licen-sees' decommissioning funds. Our analysis showed that, un-der likely assumptions about future rates of cost escalation, net earnings on the investments of funds, and other factors, 36 of the licensees had not accu-mulated funds at a rated that is sufficient for eventual decom-missioning."
Under more pessimistic assumptions, GAO concluded that 72 of 76 licensees studied failed to accumulate sufficient funds. Additionally the report stated that NRC was opposed to accelerating decommission-ing funding to make up for potential shortfalls. The NRC cited a myriad of difficulties and said that such action would result in substantial costs to stockholders and ratepayers. Of further concern, current bank-ruptcy law does not prioritize decommissioning costs above other creditors.
A review of the early plant closures (Yankee Rowe, Maine Yankee, Trojan and the two Zion nuclear power sta-tions) indicates that electricity consumers paid for only the portion of decommissioning that accrued from utility trust funds. As much as 50% of the remaining projected final costs are left to future ratepayers or taxpayers not receiving one watt from the retired nuclear power stations. In a deregu-lated energy market, it must be of concern whether future state legislatures, public utility commissions and federal offi-cials will continue to bail out nuclear utility financial short-falls for cleaning up radioactive sites.
Clearly the NRC has a major role to play in both de-termining the final cost of de-commissioning and the envi-ronmental quality after site clean-up. Unfortunately, the agency's track record is already smeared with problems at nu-merous sites around the coun-try as a result of inadequate regulatory oversight and the various licensees' interpreta-tions and implementation of procedures and regulations.

A CLOSING WORD

It is without dispute that the permanent closure of nuclear reactors significantly reduces the risks to public health and safety and the environment. We must continue to fight for the early closure of the nuclear in-dustry.
Once a reactor is closed, however, it would be foolish to believe that the dan-ger is sufficiently reduced that the vigilance for our environ-mental protection and public safety can be relaxed. It is as foolish and slavish to believe that we can entrust the future of our communities around these closed reactors to the "better judgment" of the Nu-clear Regulatory Commission and the nuclear industry. Nothing could be farther from the actual case. The exit strat-egy for a failed nuclear power industry is just as divisive and deceitful as its entrance strat-egy. The false promises of af-fordable, safe and clean energy are now replaced with yet an-other promise for the contami-nated sites to be cleaned up to "green fields." The fight for our land, our lives and our demo-cratic process must continue even after we have closed the reactors down. -Paul Gunter