Activists seek city opposition to renewing license for Davis-Besse

Attorney Terry Lodge and other protestors demonstrate outside the Toledo Edison building at Levis Square in downtown. They were there to bring attention to a resolution they are proposing that would speak to the need for independent inspection at the Davis-Besse nuclear power plant, as well as protection of public health and public safety and alternative energy. THE BLADE/DAVE ZAPOTOSKY Enlarge | Photo Reprints

Emboldened by the recent discovery of a 30-foot, hairline crack in a concrete outer structure at the Davis-Besse nuclear plant, anti-nuclear activists on Wednesday delivered a resolution to Toledo City Council that, if adopted, would state city opposition to renewing the plant's license in 2017.

"There's a lot of unanswered questions that should be addressed before there is even any consideration to allow that plant to restart," local lawyer Terry Lodge, who is leading a challenge to FirstEnergy's 20-year license renewal application, said during a rain-swept news conference outside Toledo Edison offices in Levis Square. Davis-Besse's license is set to expire in 2017.

City Councilman Steven Steel, who met with the group of about a half-dozen protesters, said later in the morning that while he had not yet read the resolution, "in principle I'm in agreement" with shutting down Davis-Besse.

"There are really frightening safety concerns at Davis-Besse," Mr. Steel said, citing a history of trouble that includes the near-failure of the plant's reactor head in 2002 and the more recent breakdown of reactor nozzles that prompted the installation of a second replacement head.

"We keep coming closer and closer and closer to catastrophe," he said. "We need to transition away from things that are pollution and to renewable sources of energy."

Anita Ross, a co-chairman of the Ohio Green Party who is running for City Council's District 4 seat, said the group plans to present similar resolutions to leaders of other cities around Lake Erie.

Attorney Terry Lodge and other protestors demonstrate outside the Toledo Edison building at Levis Square in downtown. THE BLADE/DAVE ZAPOTOSKY Enlarge | Photo Reprints

Mr. Lodge said the Davis-Besse crack was discovered under circumstances similar to those found recently at the Crystal River nuclear plant in Florida — cracks for which $500,000 in repairs have already been made, and for which the total cost has been publicly estimated at between $900 million and $1.4 billion.

Mr. Lodge said fixing Crystal River could cost even more than that, and such expense would be of dubious value, particularly in light of the increasing effectiveness and declining cost of less dangerous energy sources.

FirstEnergy, which has disputed the similarity between Crystal River's problems and the crack discovered at Davis-Besse, said yesterday that any judgment concerning that crack is premature.

Utility experts "are performing a methodical, thorough evaluation" to determine the cause and extent of the crack to recommend a response, spokesman Jennifer Young said.

"Those suggesting the Shield Building indication is cause for shutting down Davis-Besse clearly are doing so without having the facts around the issue," Ms. Young said. "Our assessment of the [crack] indication continues and the team has arrived at no conclusions at this time."

Ms. Young denied an assertion from Mr. Lodge, the attorney for four groups opposing the plant's license renewal, that multiple "micro-cracks" have been identified in the concrete structure, which the utility calls the Shield Building but is also referred to as an outer containment structure.

One "barely visible, crack-like indication" runs vertically along reinforcing steel near the building's surface and "veers a bit horizontally" near the top of an opening that a First­Energy contractor cut in the concrete Oct. 10, Ms. Young said.

A FirstEnergy contractor used hydro-demolition — high-pressure water jets — to make the opening through which the replacement reactor head is to be passed into the reactor chamber. A matching hole in the plant's steel containment building, inside the concrete, remains to be cut "in the next several days," the spokesman said.

Other work necessary for the head replacement also continues on schedule while the concrete investigation continues, Ms. Young said.

"FirstEnergy and Davis-Besse place the highest value on safety, and we will have a full understanding of this indication, its implications, and actions we must take — if any — before the end of our scheduled outage," Ms. Young said.

Davis-Besse has been shut down since Oct. 1 for the reactor head replacement. FirstEnergy has an application pending before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to extend the plant's operating license until 2037.

The initial license was valid for 40 years.

Mr. Steel said later yesterday that he had already contacted some City Council colleagues for informal discussion about the draft resolution.

"I'm not sure when we'll have formal discussion," he said.

City Council President Wilma Brown said last night she had yet to see the proposal and thus could not react to it.

Contact David Patch at: dpatch@theblade.com or 419-724-6094.