Released : August 08 2006

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(Jackson, WY) - Jackson-based Keep Yellowstone Nuclear Free, joined by Idaho-based Environmental Defense Institute and David McCoy, sued the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) today in federal district court in Cheyenne seeking documents the DOE has refused to release relating to the safety of the Advanced Test Reactor (ATR), a 40-year old nuclear reactor located at the Idaho National Laboratory. The groups filed suit today under the Freedom of Information Act, seeking safety and engineering documents that have either been withheld entirely or substantially redacted by the DOE.

"The DOE is withholding critical information from the public in an attempt to conceal serious safety vulnerabilities at the ATR, an aging reactor with sub-standard safety systems that poses a serious threat to the communities in eastern Idaho and western Wyoming as well as to the national treasures of Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks," said KYNF attorney Mark Sullivan. "The public has the right to know that the ATR is highly vulnerable to seismic and engineering failure, and must be fully apprised of the likelihood and severe consequences of an accident at the ATR," he said.

KYNF, EDI and McCoy requested the withheld documents from the DOE in an attempt to better understand the possible risks associated with DOE's $300 million plan to manufacture plutonium-238 at the ATR. The plutonium would be used to make radioisotope power systems, or "space batteries," for use in deep-space probes and other applications. Under the proposal, the ATR, already well beyond its life expectancy, would continue to operate for another 35 years.

KYNF has examined DOE’s proposed plutonium production project at the ATR for nearly two years. In that time, numerous safety shortcomings have been uncovered at ATR, including, according to DOE’s own engineers, the possibility that the ATR’s Emergency Firewater Injection System (EFIS), designed to flood the reactor core in the event of a loss-of-coolant accident, would fail in the event of a moderate seismic event.

The failure of the EFIS could lead to a total loss of coolant in the reactor, resulting in a reactor core meltdown and a massive radiation release into the atmosphere. DOE engineers have stated that the radioactive inventory of the ATR’s reactor core is 175,000,000 curies. A release of that magnitude would be second in world history only to the radiation released during the Chernobyl accident of 1986.

The INL site which contains the ATR sits in an active seismic zone. The largest earthquake ever recorded in the U.S. – the Yellowstone quake of 1959 – had its epicenter just 137 miles from where the ATR now sits.

“We discovered that even DOE’s own people who worked closely with the ATR had serious concerns about the facility,” said KYNF Executive Director Mary Woollen. For example, in comments made concerning “Safety of Reactor and Nuclear Facility Operations” at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, Dave Richardson of ATR Operations stated that “once you get below the surface, operations at ATR are not headed in the right direction.” Richardson noted that “ATR has about 75 man-years of maintenance backlog without design basis reconstitution.”

“With 75 man-years of maintenance backlog at the ATR, it is totally irresponsible for DOE to propose expanding the mission of this 40-year old reactor to produce one of the deadliest substances known to man,” said Woollen.

“When we read those comments, we started digging further. Unfortunately, DOE is afraid to tell the public what the situation at the ATR really is and has refused to turn over documents related to the safety shortcomings and accident scenarios at the ATR. What are they hiding?” said Sullivan.

DOE has withheld all or part of a eleven separate documents, claiming that their release would jeopardize national security and potentially enable a terrorist attack on the ATR. While their content cannot be known, the documents include memoranda and reports that carry titles such as "Upgraded Final Safety Analysis," "Combination Fire Hazard Analysis and Fire Safety Assessment," and "Update of ATR Break Spectrum and Direct Damage Loss of Coolant Accident Frequency Analysis."

"It is shameful that the DOE is hiding behind the specter of terrorism in an effort to conceal serious safety problems at this 40-year old nuclear reactor,” said Sullivan. “There is no lawful justification for withholding these documents. Government secrecy is anathema to our open and democratic society. The Freedom of Information Act is one of the most important bulwarks against such unwarranted secrecy. The DOE is flouting the law in order to conceal the vulnerabilities of the ATR,” he said.

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