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'JNITED STATES GOVERNMENT Memorandum
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l Harold L. Price To
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Dip ctor of Regulation FROM n
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Div sion of Public Information CUBJECT: PG&E AND GENERAL EECTRIC STATEMENTS ON PROPOSED BODEGA BAY REACIOR DPI;JF Attached for your information are recent statements made by Pacific Gas and Electric Company und the General Elect.ric Company concerning the proposed Bodega Bay re-actor.
The PG&E atatecent was unde after it had asked the California Public Utilities Commission to deny a petition to reopen hearings filed by the Northern California Associ-ation to Preserve Bodega Head and Harbor.
General Electric's letter and statement on Iodine 131 offects from power reactor operations was sent to the Petaluu Co-op Cresmery for distribution to members and dairymen of Sonoma, and Marin Counties and followed a letter to dairymen from the Consumer Information and Pro-tective Committee of Berkeley, Inc. We transmitted 'a g3 copy of that letter to you on April 8.
' You n4ay wish to have these etetements reproduced for -thel
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2 information of the Commission.
Attachment cc: R. Lowenstein, IAR H. Shapar, OGC F. Pittman, DRD F.ec'd Of,.Dir. d M 4h3
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ATOMIC kWER EQUIR1CNT DEPAR'ItWil' 175 CURTHER AVENUE CAN JOSE, CALIl0RNIA i
April 23, 1963 i
Mr. Gene Benedetti, Manager Petaluma Co-op Creamery Petaluma, California Dear Mr. Benedettit The General Electric Company, which will furnish the atomic reactor. for Bodega Bay, has designed the boil.ing water reactors now in service at the Vallecitos Atomic Laboratory, near Livermore; at Eureka, Califorula; at Dresden, near Chicago; plus one each in Michigan and Germany.
In addition, for 16 years the Company has operated, for the Atomic Energy. Commission, the Hanford Works in the state of Washington, which involves eight reactors and two chemical sepa-rations plants.
This long experience in the operation of nuclear facilities, and data secured over several yesrs from boiling water reactors similar to that to be provided at Bodega Bay, indicate that operation of this plant will have no effect on milk pr M uced in Senema and Marin counties. Further information bearing on this is attached.
Very truly yours, L. H. McEwen, Manager Nuclear Safety Engineering i
i cee Attach.
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ENVIRONMENTAL ASPECTS OF BCILING WATER NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS Atomic fission involves generation of radioactive isotopes such as iodine-131 and strontium-90.
In weapons testing, these materials-are released directly to the atmosphere and ultimately deposit on the ground.
In nuclear power reactors such materials are instead retained within fuel elements inside the reactor itself.
Radioactive isotopes are released from the fuel elements when they are ultimately dissolved in acid, in what is termed a chemical sepa-rations plant, or when fuel is taken apart for study in an atomic laboratory; the facility to be built at Bodega Bay does not involve operations of this sort.
This important distinction between power reactors and chemical separations plants may not be generally understood.
Those unfamiliar with the atomic industry might therefore mistakenly interpret the release of radioactive materials from chemical separations plants as referring to reactor operations.
One can see what this difference amounts to by looking at some figures from the chemical separations plants at Hanford and from the Dresden Nuclear Power Station of the Commonwealth Edison Company, a large boiling water reactor near Chicago, which has been in operation for over three years.
l For many years, iodine-131 has been released to the atmosphere at the Hanford chemical separations plants. This release, which is under continuous careful control, is currently such that the amount deposited on vegetation is indistin-guishable from background mere than three miles from the stack.
It is easier to measure iodine in milk than in grass, yet the Hanford contribution of iodine-131 in the nearest milk production area, 15 miles away, cannot be distinguished.
In 1962, emission of iodine-131 from the Dresden reactor was about 5000 times less than t'aat from the Hanford separations plants. We cannot make a more precise estimate because such releases are extremely difficult to measure; the amounts from Dresden are far too small to be measured on vegetation or in milk.
In every way, operation of tha Dresden reactor has indicated that large,
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direct-cycle boiling water reactore will have no significant radiation effects j
on the surrounding area.
For example, Dresden plant operation, throughout the entire year of 1962, created a maximum radiation exposure for any person living near the plant of about 1/1000 of the permissible dose established by international authorities on I
radiation protection.
This dose from Dresden operation was about 0.5 millirem, which may be compared with the ever-present natural background radiation, to which all people are, and have been always exposed, of about 150 millirem per year.
- As a matter of information, the reader may be interested in knowing that part of this natural background radiation arises from the consumption of food.
Edible things of all kinds, including grass, hay, and milk, have always contained radio-activity.
This comes from potassium, a naturally occurring element found in soil and commonly an important ingredient of fertilizers. All forms of potassium contain potassium-40, a radioactive isotope with a half life of about one billion years. For example, alfalfa contains about 20 micromicrocuries of radioactive potassium-40 per gram; it was thus long before atomic energy was dreamt-of.,
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2-The results of field measurements of radioactivity near the Dresden plant in 1962 may be also of interest. As expected, milk samples from three nearby farms, and from vegetation in the area showed radioactivity consistent wien i
aamples taken'in other areas by the National Surveillance Network, indicating no detectable contributions attributable to the nuclear power station. Air-borne radioactivity from the plant was indistinguishable in measurements made at 18 monitoring stations up to 15 miles from the plant.
Likewise, samples
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of river water and mud from upstream and downstream of the plant showed no measureable increase in radioactivity from plant operations.
Calculations show that the plant increased the natural background radioactivity in the I
river by less than one percent.
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Experience at General Electric's Vallecitos Atomic Laboratory is simi19r. At this laboratory, the Vallecitos Boiling Water Reactor is operated with inten-tionally defected fuel to determine what would happen in a power plant under
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these circumstances. Also, fuel elements are taken apart for study in special
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1 laboratories; iodine-131 is released under such conditions.
Measurements show t
that grass in the laboratory area contains from one-tenth to one-half of one micromicrocurie of iodine-131 per gram. That is, from one-tenth to one-half of one millionth part of one millionth part of one curie.
Since this is such I
a minute level, determination of the portions of this which came from weapons i
testing and from plant operations have not been made.
The bulk of that which has come from plant operations is ascociated with disassembly of fuel in the laboratories and not from the reactor.
Study of the records will show two instances where iodine-131 and strontium-90 were emitted from atomic reactors in significant quantity.
Because longer half-life isotopes, such as strontium-90, happen to be far less volatile than iodine, these were emitted in far smaller quantity; the amount of strontium-90 was less than 1/1000 that of the iodirts.
Both cases, one in England and one in Idaho, pertained to reactor accidents.
These two accidents were in reactors importantly different from modern boiling water reactors, especially in that they were provided with no containment.
Power reactors, such as that to be built at Bodega Bay, are provided with con-tainment facilities, or provisions to contain and hold any radioactive materials which might escape from a reactor under accident conditions.
The containment features of the Bodega Bay reactor are exceptional; whatever radioactive materi-als could conceivably leak from the containment pass not to the outside, but to a structure which features special equipment which will remove iodine-131 and strontium-90. The possibility that significant quantities of either isotope could be released from the Bodega Bay reactor under accident conditions is virtually zero.
l eb April 25, 1963 I
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840 MARKQT OTRQnT CAN FRANCl*CD C. calif'.
TELEPHO*8E SU f 42f t 6 es. usa i,,
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Ri&E DENIES HIDING FACTS ABOUT A-PLANT af y
I PG&E fired back today (Thursday) at opponents of its
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odega Bay atomic power plant as it asked the California Public h
Utilities Cnmmission to deny a Petition filed last week b{ the Nortliern California Associattori to P 5
ega Head and Harbor.
In a strongly vor<ded reply filed with the CPUC Thursday afternoon i
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, Ri&E te$meda63-pagepetitionoftheAssociation"apotpourriofspuriousall egations and misinterpretations" that does not really seek further review of the Bod
'i controversy but instead attempts to gain further postponement of "a necessa generating plant which is already behind schedule."
The conservation group, which fights the Sonoma County plant from its l
headquarters in Berkeley, charged publicly last week that PG&E had 61ven the PUC
" false testimony" and had delivered the Atomic Energy Commission'"fal se and altered documents" in applying for' permits to build the Bodega Bay atomic pla t L
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Vice president and general manager S. L. Sibley, who recently declared that PG&E already has spent, more than $1{ million on the Bodega atomic unit
, today made it clear that Ri&E not only denies the charges but launched a pointed attack ' n jthe Association's actions during the past year.
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"This group has at'tsched the Bodega project on every conceivable angle-i l
since April,1962,"\\ Sibley said.I' 'Their interest ostensibly is in conservation, bu 2
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they apparently hnve set themselves up as experts on nuclear physics, mechanical and i
K civil engineering,.. geology,, seismology, marine biology, radiation and nuclear plant\\
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"Their publicity campaign appears to have been 4esigned to delay or postpone
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construction of the Bodega plant," he continued.
"The ctrapaign all too often has been characterized by the use of half-truths, giving misinformation to the public in an apparent attempt to create fear and mistrust about nuclear power, and endless quotation of so-called ' facts' which have been taken out of context from various documents to suit their purposes."
FG&E's formal reply echoed Sibley's condemnation.of tlie Association's t
actions.
Referring to an Association claim that PG&E had presented " misleading testimony" to the CPUC during eight days of public heariugs last year, the reply i
"Indeed, if there is a place for application of the word ' misleading,' it is said:
to those statements found in the petition which are incorrectly ' attributed to PG&E by the Association."
l The utility company's document rebutted earlier claims of the Association by pointing out that questions raised about the safety. of the plant have been con-sidered by the CPUC and that " opportunity for responsible criticism... on the subject of safety" is available in the near futuro before the Atomic Ener6y Co= mission.'
The AEC, announcing approval of the plant's safety features earlier this month by the independent Advisory' Committee on Reactor Safeguards, said that it vill. hold
, public hearings in Santa Rosa shortly on the PG&E application for a permit to build the nuclear portion of the plant.
Commenting on specific allegations contained in the Association's petitica filed May 6, the PG&E reply also:
--Pointed out that the Company has placed on public record before the CPUC all reports of its consultants, and therefore has not "been bent on deception" as the i
Association charged.
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--Reiterated that the " great emphasis placed on the ' proximity to the reactor of the San Andreas Fault" has occurred because the Association has taken out
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of context certain portions of AEC reactor citind; criteria.
PG&E quoted the~onitted portion of the criteria which says that a proposed reactor site, even if located "where unfavorable physical characteristics exint.
may nevertheless be found to
.be acceptable if the design of the facility includes e.ppropriate and adequate com-pensating engineering anfeguards," ' PG&E had testified 1,.*.st year at CPUC hearings that such compensating engineering safeguards would be included ln final design of the plant.
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--Denied that the Company had not kept its consultants informed or has; ignored the advice of consultants to consider another site, as charged by the e,
Association. PG&E quoted considerable corres;;0ndence with its consultants, declared that the letters are' matters of public record before the Commission, and that they e
show that consultants were kept up-to-date on changes in plot plans, rock depths and o other engineering considerations.
1 The latest petition filed by the Association was the sixth effort to seek a rehearing by the CPUC since the Commission granted IU5E authority to build the plant B
last November. All earlier petitions have been denied by the Commission.
Sibley, cot:menting on the forthcoming AEC hearingy, said today:
"We lock forward to presenting our case to the AEC at its earliest con-venience. Tnis agulatory body has the complete responsibility as well as the technical background to determine that a nuclear plant is designed and built to include every requimd cafeguard for the health and refety of the public.
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