Three Florida nuclear plants are on a federal list of 27 reactors that could need upgrades to withstand earthquakes, but regulators and utilities downplayed the risks.
Florida Power & Light's St. Lucie 1 and St. Lucie 2 reactors appeared on the list, along with Progress Energy's Crystal River plant on the west coast.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which compiled the list, did not rank the plants by seismic risk. In a statement, the NRC said, The results of the GI-199 safety risk assessment should not be interpreted as definitive estimates of plant-specific seismic risk because some analyses were very conservative, making the calculated risk higher than in reality.
FPL said its nuclear power plants, including two others at Turkey Point, are outside of known "high hazard" earthquake zones, as defined by the United States Geological Survey.
"Because our plants are not in high-hazard earthquake zones, the risk of an earthquake-related tsunami in our service area is also very remote," FPL said in a statement.
"Each of our plants has been specially designed to withstand a variety of natural events such as earthquakes, storm surges and flooding associated with hurricanes, tornadoes and high winds -- all without losing the capability to perform safety functions," the FPL statement continued.
"In fact, the robust nature of our plant construction was clearly demonstrated when our Turkey Point site dealt successfully with the direct impact of Hurricane Andrew -- a Category 5 hurricane."
Heather Danenhower, a spokeswoman at Progress Energy's Crystal River plant, said the utility was participating in an industry-wide effort to determine what effects the geological review might have.
But, noting that Crystal River also is in a seismically inactive region, Danenhower said Progress did not anticipate the need for any backfitting at the facility.
"The plant was designed for worst-case scenarios for the area," she said, adding that the facility was rated to withstand earthquakes stronger than a 6 on the Richter scale.
The NRC report came in the wake of a 5.8 earthquake that shook Virginia and portions of the Northeast last month.
The temblor jolted 115-ton concrete containers holding spent nuclear fuel at the North Anna power plant in Virginia, shifting some of the casks one to four inches.
The plants operator, Dominion Virginia Power, told the Washington Post last week that all of the containers were intact and safe.
An Associated Press review of NRC data and previously unreleased agency e-mails claims that the Virginia plant is 38 percent more likely to suffer core damage from a rare, massive earthquake than it appeared in an analysis 20 years ago.
In a March 15 e-mail, an NRC earthquake expert questioned releasing data to the public showing how strong an earthquake each plant was designed to withstand.
The NRC does not require plants to re-examine their seismic risks to renew operating licenses for 20 years, and the agency report concluded that currently operating nuclear plants in the U.S. remain safe, with no need for immediate action."
In another safety development, the NRC last week approved a rule requiring nuclear operators to provide updated estimates of how long it would take to evacuate nearby communities in an emergency.
Utilities would have to update their evacuation estimates after every decennial census, or when changes in population would increase the estimated time by at least 30 minutes, the Associated Press reported.
Since 1980, populations around some nuclear plants have more than quadrupled -- with St. Lucie County among the biggest gainers -- but some evacuation-time estimates have not been updated in decades.
The new rule does not alter the 10-mile radius evacuation zones set in 1978.
--
Contact Kenric Ward at kward@sunshinestatenews.com or at (772) 801-5341.
