By Anna Simon
asimon@greenvillenews.com

After finding radioactive water leaks at five nuclear plants in three states, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and nuclear power industry met Wednesday to find ways detect and stop the problem.

Inadvertent releases of tritiated water into the groundwater at plants in Illinois, New York and Arizona posed no health hazard to the public or to animal or plant life but are being taken seriously, said Scott Burnell, a commission spokesman in Washington, D.C.

The reported leakage into the groundwater at the five plant sites was well below NRC and Environmental Protection Agency limits, Burnell said.

No leaks have been reported at Oconee Nuclear Station in Upstate South Carolina, Burnell said.

Duke Power Co. was at the meeting Wednesday in order to fully understand what is going on at these other plants, said Rita Sipe, a Duke spokeswoman.

Those kinds of leaks have not occurred at any Duke nuclear plants, Sipe said.

Duke has environmental monitoring programs that have been in place since opening of each plant to insure public health and safety, she said.

In light of what is going on in the industry, Duke is assessing possible further enhancement and safeguards on their processes, Sipe said.

Tritium, a weak radioactive element, is a radioactive isotope of hydrogen and is a byproduct of the fission process used to create nuclear energy, Burnell said.

The tritium sometimes bonds with the oxygen molecules in water used for cooling and is collected and periodically released under controlled conditions into large bodies of water, such as lakes and rivers, where it is diluted and creates no health hazard, he said.

However the unmonitored releases "are unacceptable," Burnell said.

A task force has been created "to examine what lessons can be learned from the inadvertent releases of radioactive materials at plants across the country," Burnell said.

During normal operations at Oconee Nuclear Station, there are controlled releases of radioactive effluents, including tritiated water into Lake Keowee. These periodic releases, typically done weekly, are continuously monitored under stringent release requirements with NRC oversight, Sipe said.

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