DURHAM - Carolina Power & Light has packed too many bundles of irradiated fuel rods into cooling pools at the Brunswick nuclear plant, and plans to overload at its Robinson and Shearon Harris plants in the next few months if two new pools at Harris are not opened.  At Brunswick, located near Wilmington, NC, the company has already exceeded its own safety limits, loading both pools beyond the point where a reactor core off-load could take place in the event of an emergency.

NC WARN learned of the situation from documents in CP&L's legal battle with Orange County over plans to bring the new pools on line at the Shearon Harris plant in Wake County.  In legal briefs, CP&L argued vigorously to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) that Orange County's persistent quest for safety hearings and an environmental impact study (EIS) must be denied, saying that further delay "severely limits operational flexibility in the unlikely event of a problem with the reactor vessel or associated piping."

"This is more evidence that CP&L is willing to gamble with safety," said NC WARN Director Jim Warren today.  "It also explains CP&L's badgering the NRC to let them move ahead without safety hearings and an environmental impact study.  They've increased the risk of a nuclear accident by overloading the pools at Brunswick - and they plan the same for Shearon Harris and Robinson."

At each plant, CP&L has a self-imposed safety limit, called a Prudent Operating Reserve, because of the potential need to empty all fuel rod assemblies out of the reactor in a relatively short period of time.  Many scenarios could necessitate rapid de-fueling, including a crack discovered in a cooling pipe.*  If waste pools have insufficient room to allow placement of assemblies from the reactor core, CP&L would have to make emergency arrangements to obtain enough dry storage or shipping casks in order to unload the core.**

Warren said that, if prudent, the nuclear giant would have developed a safe contingency plan, especially after learning last August that an NRC licensing board was strongly considering conducting the hearings and calling for the EIS, which would take at least a year to complete.  He said CP&L should have reverted to dry storage.  "Years ago, Germany rejected high-density pool storage due to accident risks - but CP&L wants to save a little money.  Now they've crossed the line and put the public at even greater risk by surpassing safety limits."

Rev. Carrie Bolton of Pittsboro said today,  "This raises even more suspicion and fear about CP&L's priorities - and its plans at Shearon Harris if the expansion is allowed to go forward."  Bolton has led nonviolent civil disobedience to protest CP&L's blocking of safety hearings on the Harris expansion, and she warned that there will be more citizen action ahead.

Warren scoffed at any suggestion that opponents of the waste expansion could be blamed for CP&L's lack of capacity.  "It is CP&L's responsibility to ensure the safety of its nuclear plants.  CP&L has repeatedly endorsed the NRC's closed-door review process - and has itself caused the delays by spending over two million dollars to avoid debating Orange County's experts in a formal hearing."

In overloading the nuclear waste pools, CP&L also risks declines in power production because, if fuel assemblies cannot be offloaded in the event of an emergency, the reactor could remain shut down for a long period. "Maybe we'll hold a bake sale and buy CP&L some dry storage casks," joked Warren.

Presently, Orange County is seeking a discretionary order for a safety hearing by the five-member NRC Commission.  An investigation is underway by the NRC's Inspector General into charges that the NRC staff and licensing board succumbed to CP&L pressure to approve the expansion without hearings, and that the actions by the two arms of the agency lacked scientific integrity.

Meanwhile, Bolton, NC WARN and their allies are raising even more public pressure for U.S. Senator John Edwards to insist the NRC Commission use its discretionary authority to conduct the hearings.  Edwards' staff insists The Daily Tar Heel misquoted them last Friday in saying Edwards would await action by the NRC.  Told today that an Edwards spokeswoman said  the senator is still "carefully following the process," Rev. Bolton replied she's hoping Edwards will continue to lead, not follow.

*  At the VC Summer plant (not owned by CP&L) in South Carolina, a four-inch crack was found last fall, with only luck preventing a pipe rupture very near the reactor.  Such a rupture at that location could well have exceeded the ability of back-up cooling systems to prevent a core meltdown.  (With such a rupture, an emergency offload might not be possible).

**  In such a case, the fuel assemblies directly out of the core would have to be placed in the pools, but only after older assemblies were removed from the pools and placed in dry casks or shipping casks.