When you leak 400k gallons of radioactive water and don't say anything publicly for months...

[Olds442]

Nuclear power plant leaked 1.5M litres of radioactive water in Minnesota - National | Globalnews.ca

Officials in Minnesota say a nuclear wastewater leak at the Xcel Energy plant near Minneapolis happened in late November, but the incident wasn't made public until Thursday.

globalnews.ca

Officials in Minnesota are monitoring the cleanup of a massive spill of radioactive water from a nuclear power plant just outside Minneapolis. About 1.5 million litres (400,000 gallons) of nuclear wastewater leaked from the plant back in late November, but the incident wasn’t made public until Thursday.

Whoopsie?

 

[Guy Named Sue]

 

[six-string]

I leaked that much radioactive water after last weekend's tequila binge!

 

[SteveGangi]

You want Godzilla?

Because that's how you get Godzilla.

 

[Marshall & Moonshine]

On the ships, first thing they teach you is “report it to the authorities”.
You don’t have to tell the public shit.
Accidents happen.
It’s dishonesty that gets you in trouble.

Edit to add:
That’s on AMERICAN ships. The foreign flags will try to get away with it, every time.
We were all union. None of us were gonna risk our livelihoods and credentials for the company’s fuckups. If there was negligence involved, then yeah… you ain’t gettin out of that.
But we had a seawater-cooked (lol… “cooled”, not cooked….) oil cooler crack and leak about 700G out the overboard (over time) and nobody got in trouble except the chief engineer who got fired.
And why did he get fired??
Because he didn’t report it right away.
It’s the stupidest thing, because that oil was environmentally friendly. It wasn’t motor oil. It’s designed to be ok in case of a spill or leak.
Fuckin dumbass.
I was glad he was gone.

 

[disaffected]

 

[WaywerdSon]

Classic case of "Let's throw up a headline that scares everybody to get clicks"
ALWAYS read the article and ignore the headline

"They say they have recovered about 25 per cent of the spilled tritium so far and the levels of tritium in the water are below federal thresholds."

"Tritium emits a weak form of beta radiation that does not travel very far and cannot penetrate human skin, according to the NRC. A person who drank water from a spill would get only a low dose, the NRC says."

 

[Bobby Mahogany]

Classic case of "Let's throw up a headline that scares everybody to get clicks"
ALWAYS read the article and ignore the headline

"They say they have recovered about 25 per cent of the spilled tritium so far and the levels of tritium in the water are below federal thresholds."

"Tritium emits a weak form of beta radiation that does not travel very far and cannot penetrate human skin, according to the NRC. A person who drank water from a spill would get only a low dose, the NRC says."

Oh so that's fine.
Tell that to the fish quickly then!


It's OK, fish. You don't have to mutate!

 

[KSG_Standard]

Classic case of "Let's throw up a headline that scares everybody to get clicks"
ALWAYS read the article and ignore the headline

"They say they have recovered about 25 per cent of the spilled tritium so far and the levels of tritium in the water are below federal thresholds."

"Tritium emits a weak form of beta radiation that does not travel very far and cannot penetrate human skin, according to the NRC. A person who drank water from a spill would get only a low dose, the NRC says."

Good on you for helping to contain the meltdown!

 

[Roberteaux]

I once worked as a member of a labor union located in Oswego, NY. As a result, I worked at a couple of nuke plants on the shore of Lake Ontario. The general area is almost exactly nine miles from Oswego and was/is known as "Nine Mile Point".

During reactor maintenance shutdowns, I'd be sent in to do the laundry. That is, I'd go around to various workstations to retrieve barely-irradiated protective gear used by the techs who went to work in "hot" places, and I'd wash the damned clothes, boots, gloves, and etc. that were left in the work station bins after use.

I was informed at one point that even though the clothing I was laundering was so barely irradiated as to even be detectable, the water being used in the process was now "nuclear waste". The tech telling me this stuff pointed out a railroad spur that ran up to the plant and a fleet of tank cars sitting on a siding.

What that was all about was that part of the maintenance program which required a full shut-down of the reactor also called for the entire reactor core to be flooded with water. This stuff was "slightly hotter" than the laundry I was doing. But once the flood-job was completed, they'd be pumping the irradiated water into the tank cars out on that railroad spur and would then spirit the water off to God-knows-where.

You know what was cool, weird-- and a bit scary-- about that water?

There were these two gigantic horizontal "doors" up there which, when opened, provided a view of the entire inside of the reactor from the very top on down. So, at one point, near the very end of whatever else they had going on in there, they would slide those two massive covers off the top of the egg-shaped reactor core.

One day, while those doors were open, one of the really friendly, gabby techs brought us into the area where the door-things were. He said we'd get a look at something we might find startling.

In attendance at this gathering were techs, a few of we laborers, and a gaggle of power company suits, who were wearing only lab coats and hardhats over their business attire.

That was the tip-off that this demonstration we were about to witness wasn't something that would give us all leukemia in five minutes or something.

What they did was to click off all the lights-- the ones down there in the reactor, as well as the overheads in this service area. And then we got to see that the water was actually glowing... it was a very faint, very dim blue... kind of swimming pool colored, but nowhere nearly as bright or luminescent as a lighted swimming pool.

Like, it wasn't a glow you could read a book by... it wasn't quite exactly "glowing", even. But it was faintly visible.

Even though I was well aware that I was in no danger whatsoever, it was still kind of freaky to see that IRL.

Matter of fact, I'm even a little freaked just remembering it-- though the last time I did the laundry at the NYS Fitzpatrick Nuclear Power Plant was, like, late in 1980.

Still, it was a semi-freakish sort of thing to witness.

--R

 

[SteveGangi]

...
ALWAYS read the article ...

 

[CB91710]

I once worked as a member of a labor union located in Oswego, NY. As a result, I worked at a couple of nuke plants on the shore of Lake Ontario. The general area is almost exactly nine miles from Oswego and was/is known as "Nine Mile Point".

During reactor maintenance shutdowns, I'd be sent in to do the laundry. That is, I'd go around to various workstations to retrieve barely-irradiated protective gear used by the techs who went to work in "hot" places, and I'd wash the damned clothes, boots, gloves, and etc. that were left in the work station bins after use.

I was informed at one point that even though the clothing I was laundering was so barely irradiated as to even be detectable, the water being used in the process was now "nuclear waste". The tech telling me this stuff pointed out a railroad spur that ran up to the plant and a fleet of tank cars sitting on a siding.

What that was all about was that part of the maintenance program that required a full shut-down of the reactor also called for the entire reactor core to be flooded with water. This stuff was "slightly hotter" than the laundry I was doing. But once the flood-job was completed, they'd be pumping the irradiated water into the tank cars out on that railroad spur and would then spirit the water off to God-knows-where.

You know what was cool, weird-- and a bit scary-- about that water?

There were these two gigantic horizontal "doors" up there which, when opened, provided a view of the entire inside of the reactor from the very top on down. So, at one point, near the very end of whatever else they had going on in there, they would slide those two massive covers off the top of the egg-shaped reactor core.

One day, while those doors were open, one of the really friendly, gabby techs brought us into the area where the door-things were. He said we'd get a look at something we might find startling.

In attendance at this gathering were techs, a few of we laborers, and a gaggle of power company suits, who were wearing only lab coats and hardhats over their business attire.

That was the tip-off that this demonstration were were about to witness wasn't something that would give us all leukemia in five minutes or something.

What they did was to click off all the lights-- the ones down there in the reactor, as well as the overheads in this service area. And then we got to see that the water was actually glowing... it was a very faint, very dim blue... kind of swimming pool colored, but nowhere nearly as bright or luminescent as a lighted swimming pool.

Like, it wasn't a glow you could read a book by... it wasn't quite exactly "glowing", even. But it was faintly visible.

Even though I was well aware that I was in no danger whatsoever, it was still kind of freaky to see that IRL.

Matter of fact, I'm even a little freaked just remembering it-- though the last time I did the laundry at the NYS Fitzpatrick Nuclear Power Plant was, like, late in 1980.

Still, it was a semi-freakish sort of thing to witness.

--R

Would love to see that in person.
Cherenkov Luminescence... the glow emitted when particles move faster than the speed of light *in that medium*

The water was doing its job as a moderator and protecting everyone above the pool.
They are actually using this for medical imaging now.

 

[Whom]

A plant released acceptable levels of things it is acceptably allowed to release.

News, but nothing to worry about.

Plenty of folks on this forum hold tritium directly against our skin all day long.

 

[CB91710]

A plant released acceptable levels of things it is acceptably allowed to release.

News, but nothing to worry about.

Plenty of folks on this forum hold tritium directly against our skin all day long.


View attachment 678414

Yep.
Sights
Watches

Hell of a lot safer than the Radium we used to use.

 

[KSG_Standard]

A plant released acceptable levels of things it is acceptably allowed to release.

News, but nothing to worry about.

Plenty of folks on this forum hold tritium directly against our skin all day long.


View attachment 678414

Big shout out to you too, for helping to prevent further decay in the situation.

 

[SteveGangi]

Yep.
Sights
Watches

Hell of a lot safer than the Radium we used to use.

Yes. I remember radium dial wristwatches. Everyone thought they were really cool. None of us knew any better.

 

[Olds442]

it's all fun and games until the giant catfish attack!

 

[dc007]

Classic case of "Let's throw up a headline that scares everybody to get clicks"
ALWAYS read the article and ignore the headline

"They say they have recovered about 25 per cent of the spilled tritium so far and the levels of tritium in the water are below federal thresholds."

"Tritium emits a weak form of beta radiation that does not travel very far and cannot penetrate human skin, according to the NRC. A person who drank water from a spill would get only a low dose, the NRC says."

what if it were near Patrick's house?

 

[Leee]

That is the most beautiful blue I’ve ever seen.

Never saw it in our reactors because the lights were always on during refueling.
But the spent fuel storage building rarely had anyone but us operators in it, so the lights were usually off.

Our plant regularly vented tritium to the atmosphere under our air permit.
Tried to avoid that if it was raining because it would end up on the ground instead.

Tiny amounts regardless, but ANYTHING radioactive freaks out the public.
While they are eating bananas or microwaved popcorn…

 

[lpfan1980]

Simpsons 3eyed fish for real that's absolutely disgusting behaviour.