OMAHA — The nation’s top nuclear-power regulator said Monday that both of Nebraska’s nuclear power plants have remained safe as they battle floodwaters from the bloated Missouri River.
Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman Gregory Jaczko visited the Fort Calhoun and Cooper nuclear power plants in eastern Nebraska this week to see how the utilities that run them are coping with the flooding. Both plants sit along the river.
Omaha Public Power District’s Fort Calhoun plant, about 20 miles north of Omaha, is the subject of more public concern because the floodwaters are closer to that plant. Nebraska Public Power District’s Cooper plant, about 75 miles south of Omaha, is more elevated.
Jaczko’s visit to Fort Calhoun on Monday came one day after an 8-foot-tall, water-filled temporary berm protecting the plant collapsed. Vendor workers were at the plant Monday to determine whether the 2,000-foot berm can be repaired.
“We don’t believe the plant is posing an immediate threat to the health and safety of the public,” Jaczko said.
Omaha Public Power District spokesman Jeff Hanson said pumps at Fort Calhoun were handling the problem and that “everything is secure and safe.”
The plant has been closed for refueling since April. Hanson said the berm’s collapse didn’t affect the shutdown or the spent-fuel pool cooling.
Floodwaters seeped into the turbine building at the Fort Calhoun plant Monday, but plant officials said the seepage was expected and posed no safety risk because the building contains no nuclear material.
Jaczko said the Army Corps of Engineers doesn’t expect the river to rise enough to cause additional significant problems at either of the nuclear plants in Nebraska.
Flooding remains a concern all along the Missouri because of massive amounts of water the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has released from upstream reservoirs. The river is expected to rise as much as 5 to 7 feet above flood stage in much of Nebraska and Iowa and as much as 10 feet over flood stage in parts of Missouri.
The corps expects the river to remain high at least into August because of heavy spring rains in the upper Plains and substantial Rocky Mountain snowpack melting into the river basin.
Meanwhile, in Minot, N.D., where the rain-swollen Souris River peaked over the weekend, the water was more than half a foot lower and moving steadily downward.
Still, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said it would be mid-July before it would consider the danger over. Corps officials said they were “guardedly optimistic” there would be no further damage but warned that rain could change the outlook.
