Radioactive uranium has leaked through a three-inch hole in the floor at a nuclear fuel factory in South Carolina, contaminating the soil below the plant, the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission says. According to the commission, the hole goes six feet down into the soil below the Westinghouse factory’s concrete floor. While the commission cannot yet say whether the toxic substance has leached into the area’s groundwater, agency records show that the soil beneath the plant contains 1,300 times the amount of uranium typically found in soil. The commission learned of the leak on July 12, and still does not have results on recent groundwater tests, which would show whether pollution had washed into the area’s water supply. State Department of Health and Environmental Control officials said that the leak does not pose a threat to local water supplies, but activists are concerned that Congaree National Park, a vast wetland just several miles from the plant, may be contaminated.
RT 25th July 2018 read more »
An attorney for South Carolina’s Office of Regulatory Staff blasted SCE&G on Wednesday for insisting on secrecy in turning over its internal records for an ill-fated $9 billion nuclear reactor project. The publicly traded investor-owned utility doesn’t deserve much confidentiality after spending so much money on “an expensive white elephant,” Regulatory Staff attorney Wallace Lightsey told Circuit Court Judge John Hayes, referring to the failed V.C. Summer nuclear power project in Fairfield County that ratepayers still are paying for in their monthly bills.
The State 25th July 2018 read more »
