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Radioactive tritium has leaked from three-quarters of U.S. commercial nuclear power sites, often into groundwater from corroded, buried piping, an Associated Press investigation shows.

The number and severity of the leaks has been escalating, even as federal regulators extend the licenses of more and more reactors across America. Tritium, which is a radioactive form of hydrogen, has leaked from at least 48 of 65 sites, according to U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission records reviewed as part of the AP's yearlong examination of safety issues at aging nuclear power plants. Leaks from at least 37 of those facilities contained concentrations exceeding the federal drinking water standard — sometimes at hundreds of times the limit.

While most leaks have been found within plant boundaries, some have migrated offsite. But none is known to have reached public water supplies. STORY: Regulators weaken safety standards for nuclear reactors At three sites — two in Illinois and one in Minnesota — leaks have contaminated drinking wells of nearby homes, the records show, but not at levels violating the drinking water standard. At a fourth site, in New Jersey, tritium has leaked into an aquifer and a discharge canal feeding picturesque Barnegat Bay off the Atlantic Ocean.

After the nuclear catastrophe that followed the earthquake and tsunami in Japan last spring, some Central Virginia activists cautioned that a similar nightmare could unfold right here at the Dominion-operated North Anna nuclear generating plant in Louisa County. Despite Dominion's assurances that the plant made it through the August 23 earthquake unscathed, activists contend that the quake, which measured 5.8 on the Richter Scale and had an epicenter just eleven miles from the plant, may have been more catastrophic than anyone is admitting. New information bolsters their fears.

On Monday, August 29, the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission announced that the quake may, in fact, have produced force that exceeded the North Anna plant's specifications and that the Commission is sending a special Augmented Inspection Team to assess the damage.

Initial reviews determined the plant may have exceeded the ground motion for which it was designed," says the release, which also assures that "no significant damage to safety systems has been identified."

No more gas masks, because it does not work anymore. Tepco secretly measured tritium from sea water on 9/12 and announced it on 10/15. 2,400 Bq/L at sub-drain of reactor 2. (Plus, all kinds of beta nuclides were measured.) 470 Bq/L at intake of reactor 1~4.(Plus, all kinds of beta nuclides were measured.) (Source)(Source) They have not announced why they took one month to publish the data. Tritium is radioactive hydrogen.

It is in the form of H20. Once it comes out of the reactor, it comes up and fall down in the air as rain, and it goes back to the sea again. It repeats the cycle. Half life time is 12 years. It is the main material of hydrogen bomb. In normal times, it’s less than 1 Bq/L in the sea. It easily comes into tap water, and your own cells as water and cause severe internal exposure. It’s impossible to filter it out. Dr.C Busby explains: If you put sea water into the reactor, the reactor becomes a tritium producing machine.

Note,the PDF file of the data was locked to upload by Tepco,so I had to upload the screen shot instead.I have no idea why.

Gentilly reactor [in Quebec, Canada] releases 200 trillion becquerels of tritium every year Tritium is a chronic problem No way it can be filtered out of [drinking] water Becomes a part of all living things Beta particle goes ripping through nearby molecules Sometimes manifests itself as cancer

Radioactive water has been found underneath a nuclear power plant in southeast Georgia, but officials said Friday that the leak does not pose an immediate threat to public health and is unlikely to contaminate any drinking water

The Atlanta-based Southern Co. learned of the leak beneath Plant Hatch in Baxley on Wednesday when it identified radioactive tritium in two test wells about 25 feet below the ground, said Dennis Madison, a utility vice president who oversees the plant. Workers guided by ground-penetrating radar were planning to dig Friday to identify the source of the leak. Exposure to tritium increases the risk of developing cancer. But it emits low-level radiation and leaves the body fast, making it one of the least-dangerous radioactive elements. Madison and state environmental officials say it is unlikely plant workers or residents will be exposed to the radiation because it is confined to an area within the facility and was not headed toward any drinking water supplies.

"This water is totally contained right under the industrial footprint of our plant," Madison said. He said the utility hoped to identify the source of the leak no later than Sunday afternoon and intended to have it repaired early next week. While the size of the leak was unknown, it was enough to raise the water table in the wells about five feet. Both reactors at the site were functioning normally and showed no other signs of water loss. "We really don't know what the rate is," Madison said. "We know it's more than a drip." Tritium is a radioactive form of hydrogen that gets created as a byproduct inside nuclear reactors. It is commonly found in water. The maximum concentrations of tritium reported inside the wells was more than 200 times the limit set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for drinking water, according to a report that Southern Co. officials filed with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. So far, testing by the utility shows no signs that tritium from this leak has gotten into aquifers that supply drinking water or into the nearby Altamaha River, which provides cooling water for the nuclear plant.

MONTPELIER, Vt. — Vermont health officials say radioactive tritium from the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant has reached the Connecticut River. Dr. Harry Chen, the state health commissioner, said late Wednesday that samples of water taken July 18 and July 25 from the river — at the point where contaminated groundwater flows from the shoreline into the river — confirmed the migration of the substance. Chen says health officials have been tracking the plume of tritium-contaminated groundwater as it moved towards the river and that the readings confirm it has reached the river.

Last year, when tritium was discovered in ground water at Vermont Yankee, health officials said it was likely it had reached the river but that it couldn’t be confirmed in testing of the river water.

Workers have identified an underground pipe leaking radioactive water beneath a nuclear power plant in Georgia

Southern Co. spokeswoman Amoi Geter said Monday that workers were seeking to determine if that pipe below Plant Hatch in Baxley is the sole cause of a leak of radioactive tritium that was first discovered Wednesday. Tritium is a radioactive form of hydrogen that is created inside nuclear reactors. So far, the utility and state environmental officials say the water containing tritium has not spread beyond a small area on the grounds of the nuclear power plant. They say it is not a threat to the public. Southern Co. officials have said they hope to have the leak repaired early this week.

you would think the Japanese government would be doing everything in its power to contain the disaster. You would be wrong—dead wrong.

nstead of collecting, isolating, and guarding the millions of tons of radioactive rubble that resulted from the chain reaction of the 9.0 earthquake, the subsequent 45- to 50-foot wall of water that swamped the plant and disabled the cooling systems for the reactors, and the ensuing meltdowns, Japanese Environment Minister Goshi Hosono says that the entire country must share Fukushima’s plight by accepting debris from the disaster.

an estimated 20 million tons of wreckage on the land, much of which—now ten months after the start of the disaster—is festering in stinking piles throughout the stricken region. (Up to 20 million more tons of rubble from the disaster—estimated to cover an area approximately the size of California—is also circulating in the Pacific.)

During the 1970s and 1980s, at the peak of the nuclear reactor construction, organized groups of protestors mounted dozens of anti-nuke campaigns. They were called Chicken Littles, the establishment media generally ignored their concerns, and the nuclear industry trotted out numerous scientists and engineers from their payrolls to declare nuclear energy to be safe, clean, and inexpensive energy that could reduce America’s dependence upon foreign oil. Workers at nuclear plants are highly trained, probably far more than workers in any other industry; operating systems are closely regulated and monitored. However, problems caused by human negligence, manufacturing defects, and natural disasters have plagued the nuclear power industry for its six decades. It isn’t alerts like what happened at San Onofre that are the problem; it’s the level 3 (site area emergencies) and level 4 (general site emergencies) disasters. There have been 99 major disasters, 56 of them in the U.S., since 1952, according to a study conducted by Benjamin K. Sovacool Director of the Energy Justice Program at Institute for Energy and Environment  One-third of all Americans live within 50 miles of a nuclear plant.

At Windscale in northwest England, fire destroyed the core, releasing significant amounts of Iodine-131. At Rocky Flats near Denver, radioactive plutonium and tritium leaked into the environment several times over a two decade period. At Church Rock, New Mexico, more than 90 million gallons of radioactive waste poured into the Rio Puerco, directly affecting the Navajo nation. In the grounds of central and northeastern Pennsylvania, in addition to the release of radioactive Cesium-137 and Iodine-121, an excessive level of Strontium-90 was released during the Three Mile Island (TMI) meltdown in 1979, the same year as the Church Rock disaster. To keep waste tanks from overflowing with radioactive waste, the plant’s operator dumped several thousand gallons of radioactive waste into the Susquehanna River. An independent study by Dr. Steven Wing of the University of North Carolina revealed the incidence of lung cancer and leukemia downwind of the TMI meltdown within six years of the meltdown was two to ten times that of the rest of the region.

Although nuclear plant security is designed to protect against significant and extended forms of terrorism, the NRC believes as many as one-fourth of the 104 U.S. nuclear plants may need upgrades to withstand earthquakes and other natural disasters, according to an Associated Press investigation. About 20 percent of the world’s 442 nuclear plants are built in earthquake zones, according to data compiled by the International Atomic Energy Agency. The NRC has determined that the leading U.S. plants in the Eastern Coast in danger of being compromised by an earthquake are in the extended metropolitan areas of Boston, New York City, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and Chattanooga. Tenn. The highest risk, however, may be California’s San Onofre and Diablo Canyon plants, both built near major fault lines. Diablo Canyon, near San Luis Obispo, was even built by workers who misinterpreted the blueprints.  

Federal regulators have been working closely with the nuclear power industry to keep the nation's aging reactors operating within safety standards by repeatedly weakening standards or simply failing to enforce them, an investigation by The Associated Press has found.Officials at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission regularly have decided original regulations were too strict, arguing that safety margins could be eased without peril, according to records and interviews.The result? Rising fears that these accommodations are undermining safety -- and inching the reactors closer to an accident that could harm the public and jeopardize nuclear power's future.

Examples abound. When valves leaked, more leakage was allowed -- up to 20 times the original limit. When cracking caused radioactive leaks in steam generator tubing, an easier test was devised so plants could meet standards.Failed cables. Busted seals. Broken nozzles, clogged screens, cracked concrete, dented containers, corroded metals and rusty underground pipes and thousands of other problems linked to aging were uncovered in AP's yearlong investigation. And many of them could escalate dangers during an accident.

Despite the problems, not a single official body in government or industry has studied the overall frequency and potential impact on safety of such breakdowns in recent years, even as the NRC has extended dozens of reactor licenses.Industry and government officials defend their actions and insist no chances are being taken. But the AP investigation found that with billions of dollars and 19 percent of America's electricity supply at stake, a cozy relationship prevails between industry and the NRC.Records show a recurring pattern: Reactor parts or systems fall out of compliance. Studies are conducted by industry and government, and all agree existing standards are "unnecessarily conservative."

Vermont Yankee could close by March 2012 * Entergy fighting for reactor survival NEW YORK, Aug 2 (Reuters) - Vermont health regulators said on Tuesday they found a fish containing radioactive material in the Connecticut River near Entergy's (ETR.N) Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant which could be another setback for Entergy to keep it running. The state said it needs to do more testing to determine the source of the Strontium-90, which can cause bone cancer and leukemia.

Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin wants the 620 megawatts reactor shut in March 2012 when its original operating license was to expire. "Today's troubling news from the Vermont Department of Health is another example of Entergy Louisiana putting their shareholders' profits above the welfare of Vermonters," Shumlin said in a statement. "I am asking my Health Department to keep a close eye on test results moving forward to determine the extent of any contamination that has reached the environment."

New Orleans-based Entergy, the second biggest nuclear power operator in the United States, however wants to keep the reactor running for another 20 years under a new license. Entergy filed a complaint in federal court to block the state from shutting the reactor next year. Officials at Entergy were not immediately available for comment. "One finding of (Strontium-90) just above the lower limit of detection in one fish sample is notable because it is the first time Strontium-90 has been detected in the edible portion of any of our fish samples," the Vermont Department of Health said on its website. The Health Department said it did not know how the Strontium-90, which is both naturally occurring in the environment and a byproduct of nuclear power production and nuclear weapons testing, got into the fish.

given the fact that a new study reports that the Columbia River will be contaminated with nuclear waste from a nuclear weapons plant for thousands—yes, thousands—of years. Even though the government has already spent billions of dollars on cleanup.

The Oregonian reports that the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, formerly a nuclear weapons production site, sits on 586 square miles of land next to the Columbia. And it has already leaked and spilled some waste into the river, contaminating the water and surrounding environment with such fun things as strontium, cesium, tritium, and plutonium. The federal government did an analysis of the damage to determine if capping and sealing off the waste would stop more of it from getting out, and also, if more waste could be imported to the site to be buried along with the original waste.

The analysis also shows that the U.S. energy department's plan to import low-level and midlevel radioactive waste from other sites to Hanford after 2022 poses "completely unacceptable" risks, [assistant director of the Oregon Department of Energy Ken] Niles said. Washington is also raising concerns about importing more waste. […] Health risks from Hanford's contamination are long-term, not immediate. They're expressed in terms of cancer cases after a lifetime of drinking well water from the site, with a one in 10,000 risk considered high. But many of the contaminant levels at the site exceed health benchmarks by wide margins.

While President Obama still favors nuclear energy after the Fukushima disaster, the New England state of Vermont wants to scrap it altogether. The Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant is slated for shutdown in March 2012.

Nestel has already been arrested 11 times in protests against the reactor. She is a member of the "Shut it down!" group, which consists of 12 women from the ages of 40 to 92. They all have the same mission: to shut down Vermont Yankee, and in doing so make Vermont a nuclear power-free state. "We have a lot to do," says Nestel. "We are always going to have protests at the reactor and we will always let ourselves be arrested. We don't leave until we're arrested. But they always drop the charges because we're so well-liked in the community."

Since the reactor, identical in construction to the one in Fukushima, went on line in 1972, it has made headlines time and again. In 2007 a cooling tower collapsed due to shabby wooden girders. When in 2010 it was discovered that radioactive tritium had seeped into the groundwater from a pipe leak, the Vermont Senate voted by a large majority to close Vermont Yankee by 2012. Differing opinions among politicians and population

Nuclear Event in USA on Tuesday, 27 September, 2011 at 03:09 (03:09 AM) UTC, RSOE EDIS [Hungarian National Association of Radio Distress-Signalling and Infocommunications (RSOE) operates Emergency and Disaster Information Service (EDIS)]:

Entergy’s Palisades nuclear plant near South Haven is venting radioactive steam into the environment as part of an unplanned shutdown triggered by an electrical accident. This shutdown, which began Sunday evening, came just five days after the plant restarted from a shutdown that was caused by a leak in the plant’s cooling system. “The steam that would normally go to the generators, that steam is now going into the environment … through the steam stack [...] This would have very low levels of tritium.” -Nuclear Regulatory Commission spokeswoman Prema Chandrithal h/t Anonymous tips, mooter, Sue-Ellen Campbell