Please forward to your local news papers and radio stations. We do not have a way to do a national release, so unless you send this, they probably have not seen it. File also attached in WORD. Original NRC & Senate documents are posted at: http://y2k.senate.gov/news/pr991116.htm

Please forward to anyone not listed above. Thanks. ------------------------ NUCLEAR INFORMATION AND RESOURCE SERVICE 1424 16TH STREET NW SUITE 404, WASHINGTON, DC 20036

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

November 17, 1999

Contact: Mary Olson, NIRS, 706-722-8968 Paul Gunter, NIRS, 202-328-0002

Nuclear Power Regulator Reply To Senate Y2K Special Committee Questions Further Undercuts Public Confidence in Nuclear Industry and Y2K

Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS), a watchdog group tracking the nuclear power industry, applauded the U.S. Senate's Y2K Special Committee's announced efforts to "encourage additional measures" and "afford an extra level of scrutiny" at the nation's 103 operating reactors and 14 permanently closed reactors with onsite nuclear waste storage ponds, in order to protect public health and safety during the Y2K transition.

NIRS filed formal requests to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) in 1998 calling on the regulator to provide specific Y2K regulations for the operators nuclear power stations. The NRC recently rejected all three NIRS petitions for new Y2K specific regulations.

U.S. Senators Robert Bennett (R- Utah) and Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.) were responding to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's November 15th twenty-two page answer to a November 1 letter from the Chair and Vice-Chair Senate Special Committee on the Year 2000 Technology Problem. The Senate requested answers to a series of questions focused on the nuclear agency's regulatory oversight of the nuclear power industry's activities to reduce risks associated with computer and chip failure introducing the potential loss of reactor monitoring and control, the loss of offsite power and the associated loss of emergency equipment.

At the same time, the watchdog group criticized the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's response to the Senators' questions as falling far short of doing their job and so further eroding public confidence in nuclear power station readiness for the Y2K roll-over, now only weeks away. A recent Roper Starch Survey reported by Gannet News Service revealed that malfunction of nuclear power reactors is the # 1 concern adults have about the arrival of Y2K.

"Unfortunately, NRC stands for 'Never Really Confirmed' that reactor operators effectively tested that critical safety systems will work, calling into question whether the reactors really are Y2K ready," said Paul Gunter, the Director of the Reactor Watchdog Project of Washington, DC-based Nuclear Information and Resource Service.

Gunter was referring to the response to a question posed to NRC by the Senate Special Committee and also to a recommendation from the U.S. General Accounting Office focused on the conservative testing of Y2K vulnerable systems and independent validation and verification, as used by many other industries in preparing their systems for Y2K. NRC had responded that "the agency does not have a categorized list showing specifically how each nuclear power station validated Y2K readiness."

The GAO, recognizing a distinction between industry self review and independent assessment of Y2K systems recommended as early as March 6, 1998 the important inclusion of Independent Verification and Validation (IV&V) in supporting industry assurances that critical systems will be operable. The NRC and industry continue to ignore this important validation and verification process.

NIRS voiced particular concern over the agency's answer to the Senate Committee's question on NRC's proposed suspension of technical regulations. The NRC response detailed that under the agency's current Y2K contingency plan, recognizing that some software, applications, equipment and systems may remain susceptible to Y2K problems, NRC can suspend enforcement of operator violations of the reactor safety blueprints as a result of Y2K-related failure that would otherwise require a reactor to shutdown in order to keep the reactor in operation and powering the grid. Reactor operators will be able to make snap judgements and based on a phone call to NRC headquarters take the reactor into potentially dangerous areas of operation.

-- Duke 1983 (Duke1983@AOL.com), November 18, 1999

Answers

important

-- nukes (dangerous@if.malfunction), November 18, 1999.

Yes, nukes, VERY important. So why no activity on this thread?

Obviously the pollies can't respond, but hopefully, the GI's out there will take the time to pass this along to the local news media..

-- Duke 1983 (Duke1983@AOL.com), November 18, 1999.

VERY VERY Important. Please pass the KI

-- ** (karlacalif@aol.com), November 19, 1999.

*Tired sigh*

Nuclear power plants are designed to fail in the "safe" position. In other words, it takes electric power to energise safety relays and when power fails the relays, when de-energised close contacts that put the system in a safe shut down mode.

-- Cherri (sams@brigadoon.com), November 20, 1999.

**sigh**

It takes electricity and monitoring to ensure the safe cooling of the core after shutdown.

-- Duke 1983 (Duke1983@aol.com), November 21, 1999.

For what it's worth, the long range agenda of the NIRS is to eliminate nuclear power altogether. Their primary weapon in this campaign is to find and emphasize nuclear safety concerns wherever possible, and however unrealistic.

This is NOT to say that they haven't identified a valid safety concern. Only to point out that they are a lobby group specializing in anti-nuke spin, so their concerns should be weighed accordingly.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), November 21, 1999.