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EPA OKs nuclear storage site

More than 700 residents from Jinshan, Shihmen, Sanchih and Wanli townships protest in front of the Environmental Protection Administration yesterday against Taipower’s plan to build a storage facility to store spent nuclear fuel in dry casks in their neighborhoods. PHOTO: CNA

Despite angry protests by more than 700 Jinshan Township (金山) residents in front of the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) yesterday, spent fuel from the First Nuclear Power Plant will be stored in dry casks in the Taipei County township for the next 40 years, or until a permanent storage site is found.

“The [government] had already made up its mind before the meeting even took place — the township people may protest again,” Jinshan representative Hsu Fu-hsiung (許富雄) said.

The level of controversy over the issue is evident in the fact that the case has been reviewed nine times by the EIA case committee. Yesterday marked the third EIA panel meeting and a decision was reached after three hours of fierce debate.

The Taiwan Power Co (Taipower), citing an Atomic Energy Council (AEC) evaluation, said, “The [safety levels] of the storage facility were ‘acceptable,’” and the radiation levels were under safety levels.

“There is a certain time constraint for this facility to be built, and its delay may affect the nation’s industrial safety,” it said.

“With the First Nuclear Power Plant on the left and the Second Nuclear Power Plant on the right, no township in the world has shittier luck than Jinshan — [the EIA committee] are experts in their field and would know about any potential harm better than we do.”

— Hsu Chun-tsai, Jinshan mayor

Environmental groups and township residents, however, slammed Taipower for not being transparent on health and radiation risks as well as emergency response mechanisms.

“With the First Nuclear Power Plant on the left and the Second Nuclear Power Plant on the right, no township in the world has shittier luck than Jinshan — [the EIA committee] are experts in their field and would know about any potential harm better than we do,” Jinshan Mayor Hsu Chun-tsai (許春財) said.

“The Jinshan area lies on a fault that has the potential for earthquakes measuring seven on the Richter scale, which could be catastrophic if radioactive waste is stored there,” Taiwan Environmental Protection Union chairwoman Gloria Hsu (徐光蓉) said.

“I plead with the EIA members to carefully consider the case. If Taipower employees or EIA committee members will live in Jinshan and prove that the spent fuel is safe, I will have no more to say,” township representative Hsu Fu-hsiung said.

The legality of the operation of the plant’s current spent fuel storage pool has also been subject of much debate.

After nuclear fuel is used, spent fuel rods are first placed in specially designed water-filled pools. They are then moved to dry casks after some of the shorter-lived isotopes decay.

The plant never had to go through an Environmental Impact Assessment because it began operations in 1978, before the Environmental Impact Assessment Act (環境影響評估法) was enacted, said Taipei County Environmental Protection Bureau EIA planning director Cheng Hui-fen (鄭惠芬).

“In 1995, Taipower proposed that a spent fuel pool be built for 2,470 sets of spent fuel rods … However, in 1998, the AEC, without any environmental impact difference analysis, gave the company the go ahead to alter the pool so that it would accommodate more rods — as such, the pool now contains more than 2,500 rods. Who knows what kind of impact the increase would have on the environment?” Cheng said.

The EIA panel passed the dry cask storage facility construction plan pending four conditions and one recommendation.

First, an environmental impact difference analysis for the plant’s spent fuel pool should be submitted to compare its current capacity against its originally capacity, Minister of the Environmental Protection Administration Steven Shen (沈世宏) said.

A nuclear safety and health risk analysis report on the plant should be provided to the EPA, Shen said, adding that Taipower must agree that the interim dry cask storage facility would not become the terminal disposal site for the waste.

A supervisory committee, consisting of country government representatives, Jinshan residents and experts must be formed to safeguard waste handling, he said.

“There should be checks and balances — while township residents express a lot of feelings, Taipower is offering [cold] facts; a group of experts who both sides trust should be formed,” a committee member said.

Shen said the panel also recommended that Taipower buy a residence, which is just 103m from the plant, so that the owners could move away from the site.
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