Pulling Apart The Numbers on Jeff Donn's AP Story on Nuclear Safety Inspections

I wanted to return to Jeff Donn's piece from earlier this week concerning nuclear safety inspections. As I mentioned in a post from last night, I've been working with NEI's Jim Slider on taking a closer look at it. Jim is an old pro who has worked in the nuclear industry for more than 35 years, beginning his career at NRC's Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation as a design basis accident analyst.

One of the first things I asked Jim about concerned the figures that Donn cited in his report. According to the story, the GAO report AP obtained a copy of said that NRC cited 10,776 "low-level" violations and 257 "higher-level" violations at U.S. nuclear plants between 2000 and 2012 (see page 3 of the AP story that was posted at ABCNews.com for the aggregate numbers).

Those data points puzzled Jim because according to the Reactor Oversight Process (ROP) that NRC instituted in 2000, NRC categorizes inspection violations from 1 (most significant) to 4 (least significant). The terms "higher-level" and "lower-level" simply aren't used. Given that AP refused to share the GAO report with us, we don't have any way to resolve this discrepancy.

The ROP was instituted to help plant operators and NRC identify problems with the highest level of safety significance in order to prioritize corrective actions (work on violations rated "1" first and take care of the rest in order of safety priority).

Now back to the raw numbers. There is one thing we can be sure of -- that when you add up 12 years (!) worth of statistics you can compile some scary numbers. I'm sure plenty of readers blanched at the figure of 10,776 "lower-level" violations cited by NRC inspectors. But when you realize that those violations were tabulated for 12 full years across 104 U.S. reactors, the numbers look a lot less scary.

Let's just do the math:

• 10,776 "lower-level" violations / 12 years = 898 violations per year / 104 reactors = average of 8.6 "lower-level" violations per year per reactor or less than .75" lower-level" violations per month.

To drill down further, let’s look at one plant site that's come under closer scrutiny of late, Entergy's Indian Point Energy Center:

• 380 "lower-level" violations/12 years = 31.66 per year /2 reactors = average of about 15 "lower-level" violations per year, or around 1.25 per month.

If you reported the numbers in that fashion, it would be a heck of a lot harder to scare the public. Given Donn's history of reporting on our industry, I can't say I'm terribly surprised the numbers were presented that way.

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SEJ Honors AP Report Criticized by Columbia Journalism Review

We just got the news a few minutes ago that the Society of Environmental Journalists (SEJ) has presented an award for in depth reporting (3rd place) to Jeff Donn of the Associated Press for his series on the safety of nuclear energy facilities. When the series first appeared in June 2011, NEI had this to say:

The coverage has factual errors, fails to cite relevant reports on safety that contradict the reporting, and raises questions about historic operating issues while ignoring more recent evidence of improved performance in areas that it examines.

As it turns out, we're not the only ones who found the series wanting. Specifically, I'm referring to the prestigious Columbia Journalism Review:

[T]he AP series, while it tackles a critically important public policy issue, suffers from lapses in organization, narrative exposition, and basic material selection, what to leave in and what to leave out. Too much is left to rest on inconclusive he-said-she-said exchanges that end up more confusing than illuminating for readers.

CJR's Irene M. Wielawski also concluded: "Reading it was, for me, a hugely frustrating experience." Something tells me she wasn't the only one.

POSTSCRIPT: Click here for additional material we published here on NEI Nuclear Notes, including links to other third party sources that found the AP's work less than convincing. NEI's Chief Nuclear Officer, Tony Pietrangelo, outlined his objections to the reporting in a video report that can be found here.

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Nuclear Industry’s Emergency Preparedness Programs Fully and Adequately Test Response Capabilities

The Associated Press published a misleading article in newspapers across the country last week in which it largely calls into question some of the nuclear energy industry’s emergency preparedness programs. The article suggests that new changes to federal regulations were passed behind closed doors and fail to adequately test evacuation procedures. This mischaracterization in reporting, not a far cry from its faulty four-part series that was critiqued by the Columbia Journalism Review last year, could not be further from the truth as it blatantly disregards the latest scientific evidence on how accident scenarios could potentially unfold at nuclear energy facilities and the rigorous drill cycles conducted annually at the nation’s nuclear plants.

At issue here are changes that were approved last August by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to enhance the nuclear industry’s emergency preparedness regulations. Sue Perkins-Grew, NEI’s director of emergency preparedness, provides us with a quick overview of the changes:

Nuclear plant licensees are required to enhance their drill and exercise programs by incorporating a wide range of scenario elements, including hostile action. Scenarios used in the biennial evaluated exercises must be sufficiently varied to prevent participants from “anticipating” a response. To accommodate the added scenario elements in biennial exercises, the cycle was expanded to eight years from six years.

The additional emergency drill scenarios are incorporated into the existing drill cycle. The eight-year cycle amounts to something that looks like this:

• Four biennial exercises that include the following scenario variations (new scenarios denoted in blue):
• Hostile action directed at the plant site involving the integration of offsite resources with onsite response
• An initial classification of or rapid escalation to a “Site Area Emergency” or “General Emergency”
• No radiological release or an unplanned minimal radiological release that requires the site to declare a Site Area Emergency, but does not require the declaration of a General Emergency
• Off-hours and an unannounced exercise
• Demonstration of post-plume or ingestion pathway response
• A radiological release and declaration of a General Emergency that results in protective actions for the general public
• Additional drills and table top exercises that demonstrate a licensee’s ability to perform all key safety functions within an emergency response organization.

The added regulations complement the already comprehensive set of periodic drills that are conducted at the nation’s nuclear energy facilities. Some highlights of these drill programs are listed below.

• Approximately six to eight times per year, operators are evaluated on their ability to respond to a variety of accident events presented in a plant simulator.
• Operators are also tested by NRC inspectors on a biennial basis.
• Each nuclear plant site conducts routing training and drills to help their Emergency Response Organization members develop and maintain proficiency with assigned functions.
• Many training sessions and drills that include participation by state or local officials.
• One biennial exercise integrated with offsite public safety organizations that is evaluated by NRC and Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) evaluators.

Given the already rigorous drill cycle and the additional scenario elements that have been incorporated as part of the NRC’s revised emergency preparedness rule, the nuclear energy industry believes that the new requirements further enhance the industry’s emergency response capabilities.

Perkins-Grew commented on the completeness of these reviews in a letter to the editor published over the weekend:

New requirements have been added to make these important integrated exercises less predictable. The new scenarios include: terrorist attacks; fires or explosions damaging large areas of a power plant; events that require activation of emergency responders but do not yield a significant radiological release, and events that escalate within 30 minutes to the highest emergency levels.

The new requirements build on existing emergency preparedness and response capabilities to add another layer of safety that is informed by the latest science.

Bottom line: Every U.S. nuclear energy facility has a comprehensive plan to respond to a wide range of scenarios.

Not only do the new NRC regulations require an increased frequency of drills on various challenging, high-risk scenarios, but they also layer in new scientific evidence that highly suggests that severe accidents at nuclear energy facilities will unfold more slowly than previously anticipated, resulting in a decreased potential for widespread dispersal of radioactive materials. The State-of-the-Art Reactor Consequence Analyses (SOARCA) report, released in February, offers the following preliminary findings:

• Existing resources and procedures can stop an accident, slow it down or reduce its impact before it can affect the public;
• Even if accidents proceed uncontrolled, they take much longer to happen and release much less radioactive material than earlier analyses suggested; and
• The analyzed accidents would cause essentially zero immediate deaths and only a very, very small increase in the risk of long-term cancer deaths.

Given this new scientific evidence on the likely progression of a nuclear plant accident, the new NRC requirements call on emergency planners to focus on the two-mile radius where the public would most likely be impacted, an issue that The AP disagrees with.

Taking issue with the news report, the NRC published a “For the Record” last week that defended its approach:

Extensive research shows health risks from an accident would be greatest within two miles of a plant, so guidance for the new rule focuses on that close-in population. Getting the “two-mile” people relocated first is more effective than potentially clogging evacuation routes with people further away, and can ensure resources are available for protective actions within 10 miles of the plant. Other research, announced earlier this year, provides additional insight into how successful EP [emergency preparedness] procedures, combined with the slow-developing nature of a reactor accident, can keep the public safe.

This measured approach to evacuations ensures that responders can protect the health and safety of the public most at risk first in the unlikely event of an accident, while still monitoring for radiation and informing the public within a 10-mile emergency planning zone around the nuclear energy facility. In the event of a release of radiation, state and local governments will extend radiation monitoring and sampling out to a 50-mile radius to ensure that radioactive materials do not enter the food or drinking water supply.

Aside from the years of research and planning among the industry and federal regulators in testing, developing and implementing the new federal emergency preparedness requirements, The AP also wrongly asserts that the public was not involved in this thorough process. To this point, the NRC reinforced its commitment to transparency by explaining the many opportunities for which the public could comment:

The NRC discussed the proposed changes at public conferences in 2007 and 2008, and the agency issued draft rule language in early 2008. Additional public meetings on the draft language in 2008 were followed by a proposed rule published in the Federal Register for public comment in May 2009. The NRC took public input on the proposed rule for five months, holding a dozen public meetings and gathering several hundred comments. Staff from the NRC and FEMA briefed the Commission on Dec. 8, 2009, and May 3, 2011, both of which involved a panel of external stakeholders, regarding the proposed rule.

NEI also wanted to ensure that its key audiences were given the facts when it came to the nuclear energy industry’s exhaustive emergency preparedness procedures, which is why we videotaped the interview between Tony Pietrangelo, NEI’s chief nuclear officer, and an AP TV producer.

The U.S. nuclear energy industry is trained, tested and held accountable to its emergency response procedures by one of the world’s most stringent nuclear regulators. Without a doubt, our nation’s nuclear energy facilities are prepared for the unthinkable, despite The AP’s example of selective and incomplete reporting.

For more information, see NEI’s fact sheet on emergency preparedness at nuclear energy facilities.

Photo credits: Times Free Press. Great article and video on the newspaper’s website on a recent emergency drill conducted at TVA’s Watts Bar Nuclear Plant.

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Some Questions About AP's Pulitzer Nominee

Yesterday the winners of the 2012 Pulitzer Prizes in journalism and the arts were announced. Though it failed to win a Pulitzer, a series by the Associated Press (AP) on safety at American nuclear plants was nominated in the national reporting category. We were a little taken aback by the news considering some of the criticism that was directed at the series by the Columbia Journalism Review earlier this year:

[T]he AP series, while it tackles a critically important public policy issue, suffers from lapses in organization, narrative exposition, and basic material selection, what to leave in and what to leave out. Too much is left to rest on inconclusive he-said-she-said exchanges that end up more confusing than illuminating for readers.

CJR's Irene M. Wielawski also concluded: "Reading it was, for me, a hugely frustrating experience." One wonders whether the Pulitzer committee might have come to the same conclusion.

POSTSCRIPT: Click here for the formal response to the AP series from NEI's media team. Click here for additional material we published on NEI Nuclear Notes, including links to other third party sources that found the AP's work less than convincing. NEI's Chief Nuclear Officer, Tony Pietrangelo, outlined his objections to the skewed portrayal of plant safety in a video report that can be found here.

UPDATE: Craig Nesbit, Vice President of Communications with Exelon Generation passed along this note:

Nice blog post on the AP. You may not be aware that any news piece can be nominated. Pulitzer nominations are submitted by the organization that owns the publication, not by the Pulitzer panel or some other third party. What's meaningful in the Pulitzer competition is being named a finalist (there are three for each category) and, of course, winning. It is, indeed, unfortunate that AP chose to nominate one of the most factually flawed, confusing and thinly evidenced pieces it has ever run, and I say that as a former chairman of Virginia Associated Press Newspapers and current nuclear industry spokesman.

Indeed, Craig is correct in that the piece in question was named a finalist. Thanks for the clarification.

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When Asked for Proof, the Associated Press and Arnie Gundersen Come Up Empty

It's been a full week since we first raised some questions about a claim made by Arnie Gundersen about soil samples he took in Japan recently. Gundersen claims the lab results he obtained indicated that the soil would be classified as radioactive waste here in the U.S. -- a statement that was reported by the Associated Press in a subsequent story. We had our doubts about the story, so NEI decided to do some investigating of its own.

24 hours later, we sent an email to the AP asking questions about how they went about reporting the story. We wanted to know how they were able to verify Gundersen's claims without working with a radiation protection professional who could properly interpret the data. We wanted to know why the story lacked any specifics about the lab results that Gundersen provided to the AP. We were also concerned that the AP identified Gundersen as a "nuclear consultant" when in fact he has long track record as an anti-nuclear activist and is currently employed by the state of Vermont as it seeks to close the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant.

AP responded to our note with a one-line response that there would be no correction, but didn't include any additional details concerning their reporting. We sent a followup note asking additional questions, and 48 hours later we've yet to receive any response. Yesterday, we sent a note to Gundersen challenging him to publish his test results so a third party might be able to verify them. We also requested the name of the lab and the name of a contact there so we could ask them some questions too. We heard back from Fairewinds this afternoon, and they're refusing to share the results of the lab tests with us.

So what can we learn from all this? First, when it comes to the AP, there seems to be a surprising lack of consistency in generally accepted standards of journalism. According to the Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics, reporters should "Test the accuracy of information from all sources and exercise care to avoid inadvertent error." From where we sit, there isn't any proof that the AP did anything to verify Gundersen's claims. Absent any specific test results or the identity of the lab that did the testing, one is almost forced to conclude that nothing was done to provide independent verification of Gundersen's claims at all prior to publication.

That's a pretty serious transgression if you ask me. After all, we're talking about a business where one old adage says, "If your mother says she loves you, check it out." Did Gundersen get a free pass? There's certainly no evidence to the contrary at this point.

POSTSCRIPT: This isn't the first time we've found fault with AP's reporting, and we're not the only ones who've identified flaws in their reporting on nuclear energy issues over the past year. Click here for a critique of the AP's reporting on nuclear energy that appeared recently at the Columbia Journalism Review. Our Chief Nuclear Officer, Tony Pietrangelo, sat down with NEI's John Keeley to discuss that AP series on our YouTube Channel.

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NEI to Arnie Gundersen: Share Your Test Results With Us

It's been about 24 hours since we sent our last note to the Associated Press concerning claims that Arnie Gundersen has made about some soil samples he took in Japan recently -- soil samples that he says would have been classified as radioactive waste here in the U.S.

While we've yet to get a response from the AP, we're going to open an additional avenue in our inquiry to get to the bottom of this story. Here's a note I sent to Arnie Gundersen at Fairewinds Associates a few minutes ago.

Dear Mr. Gundersen,

For the past week or so, many of us here at NEI have had serious questions concerning claims you made to the Associated Press about the soil samples you took in Tokyo. In order for us to resolve these questions, we'd like to ask you to provide us with a complete copy of the results of the test results you've been referencing. We'd also like to obtain contact information for the laboratory that you used, in order that we may be able to ask some follow up questions about the results and the exact methodology used to derive them.

We look forward to hearing back from you.

Thanks,

Eric McErlain
Senior Manager, Web Communications
Nuclear Energy Institute

I'll let you know if and when we hear back from him.

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AP on the NEI Challenge: A Response That Raises More Questions Than It Answers

Our readers will recall that last week we forwarded a note to some editors at the Associated Press concerning some irregularities I identified in a story that ran earlier in the week that contained a claim from anti-nuclear activist Arnie Gundersen that soil samples he took in Tokyo would be classified as low level radioactive waste in the U.S.

Late on Friday afternoon we received a one line answer from Cara Rubinsky, the AP's New England Editor: "We have reviewed your concerns and obtained a copy of the report from the lab that did the testing. We do not believe a correction is warranted."

Considering the details we shared in our message to the AP, the response seemed less than adequate. Here's the latest note I shared this morning with Rubinsky, AP Editor Evan Berland and reporter Dave Gram.

Hi Cara,

Please forgive me if I find your response to be insufficient, and hardly in the spirit or the letter of your organization's own published standards. In fact, your reluctance to provide precise details in response to my query raises more questions than it answers. With this in mind, I have several follow up questions that I must insist you answer:

1. Which laboratory performed the testing on the soil samples? Are you planning on publishing the lab report? Will you share the precise results with your readers? If not, why not? Why didn't the AP provide the precise results in your initial report?

2. How did Dave Gram go about reporting the original story? Did he obtain the lab report from Arnie Gundersen before he wrote the story, or did he simply rely on the statements that Gundersen made in the video posted at the web site of Fairewinds Associates?

3. Once you obtained the lab report, how did you go about verifying Gundersen's claims? Did Gram verify the results of the lab tests before the story was published, or did your team simply attempt to verify them after the fact once we had lodged our complaint? Your one line response to our initial query seems to imply that this might have been the case.

4. Did you consult a health physicist or other radiation protection professional at any time in the course of your reporting? If not, why not?

5. Why didn't you disclose Gundersen's role as a paid consultant for the state of Vermont? Were you and your reporter aware that Gundersen was being compensated for his work there? Other public reports claim that Gundersen is paid somewhere between $185 and $300 per hour for his work. Don't your readers deserve to know this in order for them to fully evaluate his claims?

I look forward to a more constructive response.

Best,

Eric McErlain
Senior Manager, Web Communications
Nuclear Energy Institute

As always, we'll keep you informed as to what happens next here.

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NEI Questions Associated Press Reporting on Gundersen Radiation Claims

By now I'm sure most of you have seen the AP story that ran earlier this week that quoted Arnie Gundersen saying that soil samples he took in Tokyo would be classified as low level radioactive waste in the U.S. Yesterday, I published a short blog post on the subject after speaking with NEI's Chief Health Physicist, Ralph Andersen.

After discussing the situation further with our media relations staff, we decided to take our case directly to the AP. The following note was sent to AP Editors Karen Testa and Evan Berland in Philadelphia this afternoon. We'll provide updates once we hear back from them.

Dear Ms. Testa:

I am writing to you in reference to an unbylined Associated Press story that appeared in a number of newspapers earlier this week with the headline, "Vt. consultant Gundersen: Tokyo soil is N-waste." The claim made in this article by Arnie Gundersen of Fairewinds Associates that soil collected in Japan could be classified as radioactive waste does not seem to have been independently verified, and hence should not have been published by the AP in violation of long established journalism standards. I believe a correction is in order.

In order to classify an object or a substance as radioactive waste, it takes more than simply triggering a Geiger counter. In the United States, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has explicit guidelines. U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission licensees who need to dispose of items that have become irradiated -- in the case of nuclear power plants this often means water purification filters and resins, tools, protective clothing and other plant hardware -- have two options. In the first case, you can ship the waste to a certified disposal site. However, there are cases where the levels of radioactivity are so low that you can actually petition the NRC to dispose of it in an alternate manner.

However, if someone who is not a regulated licensee finds materials that have been irradiated, different regulations come into play. In the case of Japan, the levels of radiation found beyond Fukushima Prefecture -- and that includes the Tokyo metropolitan area -- are so low that our resident health physicist says that there are no regulations that would require the soil there to be disposed of. Furthermore, without seeing the report from the lab that Gundersen used, it would be impossible for any radiation protection professional to completely evaluate his claims. If a radiation protection professional with 40 years of experience in our industry wasn’t able to verify Mr. Gundersen’s claims, then how was your reporter able to do that?

In none of the articles that I have seen in various newspapers is there any specificity provided to readers on radiation levels—simply broad claims attributed to Mr. Gundersen. Furthermore, there isn’t any evidence in the articles that your reporter attempted to verify Mr. Gundersen’s claims with any independent third parties. According to the Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics, reporters should, "Test the accuracy of information from all sources and exercise care to avoid inadvertent error." In this case, it seems clear to us that the reporter failed to do either, which makes us wonder why it was ever published.

We would also dispute your characterization of Mr. Gundersen as merely a "consultant on nuclear issues." Mr. Gundersen has a long history of working as an anti-nuclear activist, and has a direct financial interest in seeing plants shut down, something he is already working actively to accomplish while in the employ of the state of Vermont as it seeks to close the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant. According to an article that appeared in the Burlington Free Press in February 2010 and is featured prominently on Mr. Gundersen's own Web site, he and his wife Margaret have been paid up to $47,000 by the state to provide just these sorts of consulting services.

Failing to fully disclose this financial relationship is a failure of reporting, and reinforces the need to vet any statement by Mr. Gundersen with a credible third party before publication.

During a conversation earlier this week with one of your Philadelphia-based editors, I learned that this article was written by AP's Dave Gram. Steve Kerekes, NEI's Senior Director of Media Relations, contacted Mr. Gram directly by e-mail about the story earlier this week. Mr. Gram has yet to respond -- a reaction that is in direct contravention of the AP's own Statement of News Values and Principles. They read, "Any time a question is raised about any aspect of our work, it should be taken seriously."

If the AP truly stands by that statement, one that was first committed to paper by your organization in 1914, you should immediately review Mr. Gram’s reporting and issue a correction to every AP member newspaper that ran the story.

Sincerely,

Eric McErlain
Senior Manager, Web Communications
Nuclear Energy Institute

Please recall that this is not the first time that we've taken issue with the AP's reporting -- and that others have noticed. More later.

UPDATE: At 5:42 p.m. I received an email from Cara Rubinsky, the AP's New England News Editor, saying that they were looking into our questions. If and when they provide any answers, I'll share them with you here.

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Groundwater Study Co-Authors Lack Scientific Credentials

Here at NEI, my colleagues and I have been batting around a press release from Environment America and U.S. PIRG claiming that nuclear power plants represent a threat ground water from leaks of tritium. The report is titled, “Too Close to Home: Nuclear Power and the Threat to Drinking Water.”

From where we sit, the story seems a lot like one that the AP pushed out in June 2011 about the subject. The public needs to know that there has been no known adverse impact on public health or safety from a tritium release at commercial nuclear power plants.

While we'll have more on that later, it's also important to point out that the four co-authors of this study lack any scientific credentials.

• Jennifer Kim of U.S. PIRG has a degree in history from the University of Michigan;

• According to her own MySpace page, Courtney Abrams of Environment America graduated with a degree in Psychology from Wake Forest;
  
  
• Her Environment America colleague Rob Kerth has a BA in history from Yale;
  

• Sean Garren has a degree in Government from Dartmouth.

How this qualifies any of them to publish a study on groundwater is a puzzle to us. In any case, we'll keep an eye on reporting concerning the study, and provide updates if and when they're warranted.

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