Flood berm collapses at Nebraska’s Fort Calhoun nuke plant; facility shut down since April

“FORT CALHOUN, Neb. — A berm holding back floodwater at the Fort Calhoun Nuclear Station has collapsed.

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission says it’s monitoring the Missouri River flooding at the plant, which has been shut down since early April for refueling.

The 2,000-foot berm collapsed about 1:30 a.m. Sunday, allowing the swollen river to surround two buildings at the plant. The NRC says those buildings are designed to handle flooding up to 1014 feet above sea level. The river is at 1006.3 feet and isn’t forecast to exceed 1008 feet.

The NRC says its inspectors were at the plant when the berm failed and have confirmed that the flooding has had no impact on the reactor shutdown cooling or the spent fuel pool cooling.

NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko will visit the plant Monday.”

Source: The Republic

Recall the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has, since April, told the public the plant is safe, see NYTimes, Reuters, etc. 

According to the NRC’s Burnell, the added flood barriers will protect the plant even if the river rises beyond where it is currently projected to go. 

Recall last week, when I wrote, twice, that the FAA closed airspace above the nuclear power plant due to a fire. 

More soon. 

I blame lazy media for not picking this up. The first climate-related nuclear power plant shut down occurred in 2007(!). Since then, there have been, by my count, an additional 5 climate related shut downs in the US. Where the F*CK is the media on this? More at bottom.

A fire in Nebraska’s Fort Calhoun nuclear power plant briefly knocked out the cooling process for spent nuclear fuel rods, ProPublica reports.

The fire occurred on June 7th, and knocked out cooling for approximately 90 minutes. After 88 hours, the cooling pool would boil dry and highly radioactive materials would be exposed.

On June 6th, the Federal Administration Aviation (FAA) issued a directive banning aircraft from entering the airspace within a two-mile radius of the plant.

“No pilots may operate an aircraft in the areas covered by this NOTAM,” referring to the “notice to airmen,” effective immediately.

Since last week, the plant has been under a “notification of unusual event” classification, becausing of the rising Missouri River. That is the lowest level of emergency alert.

The OPPD claims the FAA closed airspace over the plant because of the Missouri River flooding. But the FAA ban specifically lists the Fort Calhoun Nuclear Power Plant as the location for the flight ban.

Source: Business Insider
The first climate-related nuclear power plant shut down in North America occurred in 2007. Due to extreme, unplanned for drought, one of the cooling towers to the Brown’s Ferry Nuclear Power in Alabama shut down because the lake it drew water from was too low and too hot to cool the power plant. I wrote about this incident in my article published in the International Journal of Climate Change - that the US is shamefully under-prepared for current climate conditions, never mind future climate impacts. 
Since 2007, I count 5 nuclear power plant shut downs in the US. Unbelievably unprecedented and shamefully under reported.