The NRC And The Seagull
Once upon a time, long ago in the reign of Carter, in a far off magical kingdom known as San Onofre, there was a nuclear reactor. It was beautiful reactor on the sea with a tsunami wall a ways off from the beach with guard towers on it, home to The Big Guys With Guns. On the bluff above the beach, was Richard Nixon's ranch. In a strange fit of populism quite at odds with his other elitism and restrictiveness, Nixon demanded the beach remain open to the public despite the security threat during his presidency and it stayed that way afterward. Perhaps he wanted to show that the power plant was safe by letting sunbathers be there despite the threat to his person. Perhaps he wanted a good killing zone with no cover for the pinkos and surfers. We'll never know.
As everyone knows, where there are reactors you get NRC inspectors. This is the story of a young inspector, let's call him Bob, who was far too diligent for his own good.
It was standard practice for inspectors to visit on the backside of shifts at the natural circadian "naptimes" in hopes of catching operators asleep at the metaphorical wheel or lazy techs cutting corners at the end of their day. Bob showed up in the late afternoon and made his inspection of the plant and found nothing particularly wrong. In fact, it was a very pretty day and he enjoyed the view out over the tsunami wall to the setting sun and the twinkling of the Pacific. It was then that he saw the fisherman on the public beach, casting out into the surf. Bob, showing spunky can do spirit, had an idea for how to do a spot inspection for potential bioaccumulation of outflow contamination from the giant pipes that ran a mile and half out into the ocean. He would wait for the man to catch a fish and then he would survey the fish with his meter.
I would like you to imagine this scene. An elderly Asian gentleman with very little English is fishing, alone, on a beautiful beach next to a nuclear reactor. As he comes into focus, walking down the beach getting closer to the old man, is Government Man Come From The Government, The Government Sent Him wearing a brown polyester government flunky suit and white hard hat emblazoned with "NRC" and carrying a geiger counter. For some reason, the old man seems nervous. Through some pantomime, they establish that the Government Man would like to do something to his fish if the old man should happen to catch one.
And so they wait. Watching the sunset together. On the tsunami wall, a Big Guy With Gun has taken an interest and is watching them.
Then there is a tug on the line. The old man reels in a tiddler, a 4" long fish fit only to be bait in hopes of catching something larger. The old man is disappointed but Bob is thrilled. He flips his meter on so he can survey the fish...
The meter is clicking like mad. The closer he gets to the fish, the faster the meter clicks. And the closer Bob gets to the fish, the more the old man recoils from him in horror. Eventually, the old man scuttles away from Bob and nothing can convince him to give up the fish. Bob is left now alone on the beach with a meter he is not entirely sure works, no fish for proof, and a couple Big Guys With Guns now watching from the guard tower.
So Bob takes a moment to verify that his meter works. He goes back to his car to get a second backup meter just in case and some paper to document this survey. He then begins a long back and forth survey up and down the beach, recording the radiation levels wherever he went. Eventually, he gets to a tide pool and sees a seagull in the water flailing around. Thinking that he was perhaps watching a seagull in its death throes from acute radiation sickness, and since he didn't get the fish, he decides he has to catch the bird.
He flings his jacket over it and surprisingly manages to catch it. He then tucks the jacket around the bird to restrain it, managing to not lose an eye in the process. Bob then sees what the problem really is; the seagull has a fishook through the lower beak and the rest of the bird is tangled up in fishing line. A little short on hands to control the bird, he tucks it under one arm, graps the head with the other hand, and then bites the line off, frees the fishook, and lets the bird go.
Meanwhile, in the guard towers, The Big Guys With Guns are watching with rapt attention...some through scopes.
Bob returns to the power plant to find the supervisor. Let's call the supervisor Cletus.
Bob: We've got a problem here, Cletus.
Cletus: You certainly do.
B (simultaneously 1): Contamination isn't my problem, Cletus. It's all over your beach.
C (simultaneously 1): I've got calls from the Department of Fish & Game because you were molesting a seagull.
B (simultaneously 2): WHAT!?!?
C (simultaneously 2): WHAT!?!?
In the end, it seems that the resin beds for the water filters and retention tanks for the reactor didn't have secondary containment. So every time some very radioactive resin escaped, it ended up washing into the output pipe and got dumped well offshore. Unfortunately, the littoral drift of the Pacific Coast drug that resin right up and dropped it on the beach. If you've never seen resin bed material, you'll have to take my word that it is almost indistinguishable from sand. At the time, there was no de mimimus level for decontamination, so SoCal Edison kept carting away truckload after truckload of sand...burying it in Nevada. They had to build dams to hold the sea back and pump the ocean away the excavated so much beach, but they kept finding more resin.
Eventually, they filled the beach back in with fresh sand. Thirty years later, they still talk about the NRC inspector that "molested the seagull".
As everyone knows, where there are reactors you get NRC inspectors. This is the story of a young inspector, let's call him Bob, who was far too diligent for his own good.
It was standard practice for inspectors to visit on the backside of shifts at the natural circadian "naptimes" in hopes of catching operators asleep at the metaphorical wheel or lazy techs cutting corners at the end of their day. Bob showed up in the late afternoon and made his inspection of the plant and found nothing particularly wrong. In fact, it was a very pretty day and he enjoyed the view out over the tsunami wall to the setting sun and the twinkling of the Pacific. It was then that he saw the fisherman on the public beach, casting out into the surf. Bob, showing spunky can do spirit, had an idea for how to do a spot inspection for potential bioaccumulation of outflow contamination from the giant pipes that ran a mile and half out into the ocean. He would wait for the man to catch a fish and then he would survey the fish with his meter.
I would like you to imagine this scene. An elderly Asian gentleman with very little English is fishing, alone, on a beautiful beach next to a nuclear reactor. As he comes into focus, walking down the beach getting closer to the old man, is Government Man Come From The Government, The Government Sent Him wearing a brown polyester government flunky suit and white hard hat emblazoned with "NRC" and carrying a geiger counter. For some reason, the old man seems nervous. Through some pantomime, they establish that the Government Man would like to do something to his fish if the old man should happen to catch one.
And so they wait. Watching the sunset together. On the tsunami wall, a Big Guy With Gun has taken an interest and is watching them.
Then there is a tug on the line. The old man reels in a tiddler, a 4" long fish fit only to be bait in hopes of catching something larger. The old man is disappointed but Bob is thrilled. He flips his meter on so he can survey the fish...
The meter is clicking like mad. The closer he gets to the fish, the faster the meter clicks. And the closer Bob gets to the fish, the more the old man recoils from him in horror. Eventually, the old man scuttles away from Bob and nothing can convince him to give up the fish. Bob is left now alone on the beach with a meter he is not entirely sure works, no fish for proof, and a couple Big Guys With Guns now watching from the guard tower.
So Bob takes a moment to verify that his meter works. He goes back to his car to get a second backup meter just in case and some paper to document this survey. He then begins a long back and forth survey up and down the beach, recording the radiation levels wherever he went. Eventually, he gets to a tide pool and sees a seagull in the water flailing around. Thinking that he was perhaps watching a seagull in its death throes from acute radiation sickness, and since he didn't get the fish, he decides he has to catch the bird.
He flings his jacket over it and surprisingly manages to catch it. He then tucks the jacket around the bird to restrain it, managing to not lose an eye in the process. Bob then sees what the problem really is; the seagull has a fishook through the lower beak and the rest of the bird is tangled up in fishing line. A little short on hands to control the bird, he tucks it under one arm, graps the head with the other hand, and then bites the line off, frees the fishook, and lets the bird go.
Meanwhile, in the guard towers, The Big Guys With Guns are watching with rapt attention...some through scopes.
Bob returns to the power plant to find the supervisor. Let's call the supervisor Cletus.
Bob: We've got a problem here, Cletus.
Cletus: You certainly do.
B (simultaneously 1): Contamination isn't my problem, Cletus. It's all over your beach.
C (simultaneously 1): I've got calls from the Department of Fish & Game because you were molesting a seagull.
B (simultaneously 2): WHAT!?!?
C (simultaneously 2): WHAT!?!?
In the end, it seems that the resin beds for the water filters and retention tanks for the reactor didn't have secondary containment. So every time some very radioactive resin escaped, it ended up washing into the output pipe and got dumped well offshore. Unfortunately, the littoral drift of the Pacific Coast drug that resin right up and dropped it on the beach. If you've never seen resin bed material, you'll have to take my word that it is almost indistinguishable from sand. At the time, there was no de mimimus level for decontamination, so SoCal Edison kept carting away truckload after truckload of sand...burying it in Nevada. They had to build dams to hold the sea back and pump the ocean away the excavated so much beach, but they kept finding more resin.
Eventually, they filled the beach back in with fresh sand. Thirty years later, they still talk about the NRC inspector that "molested the seagull".