Answer to Question #3710 Submitted to "Ask the Experts"

During the course of normal operations do commercial nuclear power plants have standard or planned releases of radioactivity and, if so, are these releases communicated to the public?

Nuclear power plants routinely release radioactive gaseous and liquid effluents during operation and during refueling outages. These releases are typically planned releases. The plant has waste tanks designed to store the volumes of gaseous and liquid waste that are generated during normal operation. The waste is held for a period of time to allow for the radioactive material to decay to lower levels. This hold-for-decay program plays an important role in keeping radioactive discharges low. Prior to the release of the waste, it is sampled and analyzed and calculations are performed to ensure that regulatory limits will be met. Once the calculations verify that all regulatory limits will be met, the waste material is released in a controlled, monitored process.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) does not require notification to the public when these releases are scheduled. However, the plant is required to maintain records of all radioactive effluents released. This information is reported to the NRC on an annual basis and is publicly available in the NRC's ADAMS (Agencywide Documents Access and Management System) document control system Web site. The NRC also inspects the plant's compliance with monitoring and reporting of its radioactive effluent releases. The inspection reports for each plant are also publically available through the NRC's ADAMS Web site.

Steve Klementowicz
Cynthia G. Jones, PhD