newjerseynewsroom.com

BY ROGER WITHERSPOON

NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

Operators of the Oyster Creek nuclear power plant have been granted a year’s delay in their required emergency drill in South Jersey because their state emergency counterparts are still occupied with the aftermath of a summer hurricane and an early fall snowstorm.

Michael Pacilio, president of Exelon Nuclear, which operates the plant, was notified by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission that the exercise originally scheduled for Sept. 27, 2011 could be postponed until the end of June, 2012. By then, state and Ocean County emergency offices should be finished cleaning up after real disasters and able to concentrate on simulated safety efforts.

But the postponement raises questions bout the legitimacy of emergency drills which are only conducted when conditions and personnel staffing are optimal. Emergency planning in New York City prior to the 9/11/01 attacks, in New Orleans prior to Hurricane Katrina, and at Fukushima Daiichi prior to the earthquake and tsunami all failed to take into account the impact of multiple emergencies either in proximity or simultaneously.

The nuclear emergency drills test the cooperation between plant officials and state and local emergency operators and their ability to evacuate thousands of people from regions threatened by spreading radiation. Federal law requires drills involving plant and community emergency organizations every two years at each of the nation’s 104 commercial reactors. These are observed and graded by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The NRC observes and grades separate drills of internal plant safety systems. Oyster Creek, which had its last monitored, public safety drill October 6, 2009, was required to hold a drill before the end of calendar 2011.

John Lamb, of the NRC’s Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation, noted in his letter to Pacilio that “Hurricane Irene passed through New Jersey on August 28, 2011, causing widespread damage and flooding in the surrounding area, and that the event required the response of the NJ State Office of Emergency Management, the Ocean County Office of Emergency Management, and the Division of State Police…

“New Jersey OEM has indicated that it is not feasible to reschedule the specific offsite functions that remain to be exercised prior to the end of calendar year 2011.”

In granting the stay, the NRC noted that Oyster Creek personnel have not been idle, and portions of the emergency plan, encompassing a 10-mile zone around the nuclear plant, have been reviewed with local emergency organizations. Since the 2009 exercise, Lamb wrote, Oyster Creek “has conducted 16 training drills/ exercises/ demonstrations and 32 training sessions that have involved interface with State and local authorities.

“These drills and training sessions did not exercise all of the proposed rescheduled offsite functions, but they do support the licensee’s assertion that it has a continuing level of engagement with the State and local authorities.”

The 2009 exercise did not go smoothly. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which oversees the drills and grades them, gave Exelon a failing grade because during the simulated emergency, several municipalities were not notified of the release of radiation and the need to evacuate or shelter their residents. A remedial drill was held in January, 2010.

These types of drills were considered routine prior to the terrorist attacks in September, 2001. They are not, however, full scale drills: towns or neighborhoods are not evacuated the way public schools are totally emptied during their periodic fire drills. Instead, these “table top drills” use symbolic stand-ins which may not always be appropriate.