The company Xcel Energy announced this Thursday that it had detected and treated a water leak contaminated with tritium -a radioactive isotope of hydrogen- at a nuclear power plant in the northern United States in November, specifying that it did not represent “any risk” for the inhabitants and environment.
The leak was limited “to the plant site” in Monticello, near Minneapolis, and the contaminated water “was not detected outside the facility or in local drinking water,” Xcel Energy said in a statement released.
The situation “does not represent a risk to the safety and health of the local population or to the environment,” the company added.
Discovered last November
This leak was confirmed on November 22, Xcel Energy said, claiming to have immediately notified the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and the state of Minnesota, where the plant is located.
Local officials are “monitoring Xcel Energy’s efforts to clean up” this water spill, the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) said in a separate statement.
“The leak has stopped and has not reached the Mississippi River or contaminated drinking water sources,” it added.
Only 25% of the released tritium was recovered
Chris Clark, an official with Xcel Energy, said the company continues to “collect and treat potentially affected water, while regularly monitoring nearby groundwater sources.”
Xcel Energy estimates that it has so far recovered approximately 25% of the released tritium. The leak came “from a pipe that runs between two buildings,” he said.
In 1971, a water reservoir at the Monticello plant overflowed, releasing 190 cubic meters of contaminated water from nearby Mississippi. The city of Saint-Paul’s water supply system had been affected.
Source: BFM TV
