Radioactive cargo runs through Pembroke:
Spent fuel rods travel on tracks in front of UNCP

By Chris Nicolini
Web Editor

Most students around Pembroke have been inconvenienced by passing trains countless times, patiently waiting to cross the tracks that divide the campus from town; but few are aware of the hazards those rails are carrying.

Progress Energy, formerly CP&L, transports spent fuel rods from their two Brunswick power plants near Wilmington through Pembroke en route to storage at the nation’s largest radioactive waste storage pool in the country, Shearon Harris near New Hill.

A spent fuel rod is the by-product of a depleted uranium rod used to generate energy in nuclear power plants. Spent fuel rods are close to 100 times more radioactive than before the uranium rod was loaded into the nuclear reactor. A typical rail cask shipment of high-level nuclear waste contains more than 200 times the long-lived radiation (cesium and strontium) than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

“What they call ‘spent fuel’ is among the most dangerous materials on Earth,” according to Jim Warren, executive director of North Carolina Waste Awareness and Reduction Network (NC WARN). “Those trains are very vulnerable, not just for the spent fuel rods, but for other things that are transported. There is no way that they can be adequately protected. There have been indications in the past that shipments and transport lines generally are being considered as (terrorist) targets, and we know that nuclear facilities in particular have been identified as possible targets, and we’re concerned about all sorts of political containers approved by the NRC for the transportation of spent fuel rods. The IF-300 is approved for two usages, or shipments, monthly. The NRC certifies the casks for use until Sept. 30, 2005.

Critics of Progress Energy’s shipping practices point out that the casks which hold spent fuel rods are not safe enough. The walls of the casks are 5-6 inches thick and made out of steel and concrete. There are weapons readily available that can penetrate much deeper than that into solid steel.

“One of the key concerns for a long time has been the durability of the casks,” Warren said. “There is a very large amount of radioactive material on each shipment. There are a lot of other things that are transported on rail lines that are of concern,” Warren said. “In terms of widespread social and economic damage, there are studies that show a shipment (of spent fuel) carries enough that could contaminate dozens of square miles and be a risk to communities and workers as well as first responders and people like that.”

Both IF-300’s have the capacity to hold 21,000 pounds (63,637 kilograms) and have a cavity size of 180.2 inches by 37.5 inches. The cask is certified for shipment of irradiated uranium-oxide fuel assemblies and has three types of fuel baskets, which can be interchanged to accommodate various fuels.

“This fuel does not burn; it does not explode,” Progress Energy spokesperson Rick Kimble said. “It’s very hot, radioactive-wise, but as far as if there were a train wreck or something like that, you’re not going to have a major atomic reaction. You would have a very hot spot (if the cask leaks) that would have to been cleaned up, but it would be cleanable. You would have a contaminated spot if you had some sort of a breach of this container, but it would not be an ooze or any kind of thing that would spread over the masses.”

Progress Energy’s Kimble pointed out that there are many other hazardous materials shipped by rail every day that do not have half the safeguards that are in place when shipping spent fuel rods.

“The Harris plant was built to be a four-unit plant (meaning that there would be four reactors, or power plants). It ended up being only one unit, but the infrastructure was designed and already constructed for four units, so the spent fuel pool is one of those things that had already been constructed,” Kimble said. “So you’ve got the space there to use wet storage, which is a very good means of storing any of your spent fuel, and so it made sense to transfer some from Brunswick, which is an older plant, so it has more (spent) fuel in its pool to Harris. Because if you don’t, you have to go to what’s called dry storage, and that’s where you take it out and put it into canisters out on the yard that are protected. Eventually we will do that.”

Progress Energy recently announced that the shipping of spent fuel rods will cease sometime in 2005, but for now the shipments continue. The company could not reveal exactly how often these shipments occur, citing security issues, but they would confirm that these shipments do, in fact, go through the town of Pembroke and the campus of UNCP.

“We have said publicly that it averages once a month,” Kimble said. “There are factors involved that change the (shipping) schedule. For example, in an orange threat level, when the nation goes to the orange threat level, we do not ship at all.”

The orange threat level is the second-to-highest level, warning of a high risk of possible terrorist attacks. The United States Department of Homeland Security decides the level of the Homeland Security Advisory System that consists of five different color coded levels of alert: green (low risk of terrorist attacks), blue (guarded, general risk of terrorist attacks), yellow (elevated, significant risk of terrorist attacks), orange (high risk of terrorist attacks), and red (severe risk of terrorist attack).

“There have been indications in the past that transport lines are being considered as (terrorist) targets,” Warren said. “We know that nuclear facilities in particular have been identified as possible targets. We’re concerned about all sorts of political groups, right-wing groups in this country as well as suspect terrorists.”

In the event that a train disaster does somehow remove the spent fuel rods from the IF-300, the unshielded fuel would deliver a lethal dose of radiation in two minutes to a person standing three feet away and could potentially contaminate dozens of square miles.

The campus of UNCP would certainly be affected if such a disaster took place in the nearby vicinity, let alone if it occurred on campus.

“I have no personal knowledge of the fact that fuel rods are being shipped by (through) our campus on the railroad track,” said Vice Chancellor for University and Community Relations Glen Burnette, Jr. “But if that is actually the case we do have about four plans in place that would address that issue.”

The plans include a Disaster Preparedness Plan that outlines guidelines to follow in the event of a disaster, a Crisis Action Plan which assesses unplanned events that potentially present risk to persons and facilities, a business continuity plan outlining changes that would be made to ensure the continuation of normalcy after a disaster, and most recently, an automated alert notification system called City Watch that notifies all faculty, students and staff simultaneously through telephone and email in the event of a crisis.

UNCP’s Disaster Preparedness Plan, available online at the University and Community Relations Policies and Procedures web page http://www.uncp.edu/relations/policies/index.htm, mentions that accidents involving chemical spills, leakage and emission of gasses, radioactive material or other dangerous substances are to immediately be reported to the university police department.