NRC: News Release - 2002-117 - NRC Will Hold Public Meeting October 30 in Tennessee To Discuss Tritium Production

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NRC NEWS U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Office of Public Affairs	Telephone: 301/415-8200
Washington, DC 20555-0001	E-mail: OPA.Resource@nrc.gov
www.nrc.gov

No. 02-117

October 3, 2002

NRC WILL HOLD PUBLIC MEETING OCTOBER 30 IN TENNESSEE
TO DISCUSS TRITIUM PRODUCTION
Printable Version

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) will hold a public meeting on October 30 in Dayton, Tennessee, to discuss the recently completed NRC safety evaluations for tritium production. Tritium production is planned for the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Watts Bar nuclear power plant, near Spring City, and the Sequoyah nuclear power facility, near Chattanooga.

The October 30th meeting will be held at the Rhea County Welcome Center’s Community Room, located at 107 Main Street in Dayton, from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m., with an open house starting at 6 p.m. It will feature open discussion among all attendees, including a question-and-answer session.

The United States has not produced tritium -- a radioactive form of hydrogen used in the fusion stage of nuclear weapons -- since 1988, when DOE closed a special production facility at its Savannah River Site in South Carolina. Current short-term tritium needs are being met by recycling tritium from dismantled nuclear weapons. The DOE is responsible for establishing the capability to produce tritium by the end of 2005, in accordance with a Presidential directive. DOE contractors will fabricate the tritium-producing burnable absorber rods and ship them to the Watts Bar and Sequoyah plants. DOE will then ship the irradiated rods to its Tritium Extraction Facility at the Savannah River Site.

NRC issued a license amendment authorizing tritium production at Watts Bar on September 23, and similar amendments for the Sequoyah facility on September 30.

Copies of the safety evaluation reports will be publicly accessible from the NRC’s Agencywide Documents Access and Management Systems (ADAMS) Public Electronic Room sometime in October. Help in using ADAMS is available from the NRC Public Document Room at 301-415-4737, or 800-397-4209.

For more information on the October 30 meeting, please contact Mark Padovan at 301-415-1423, or via e-mail at Mark.Padovan@nrc.gov.

NRC news releases are available through a free listserv subscription at the following Web address: http://www.nrc.gov/public-involve/listserver.html. The NRC Home Page at www.nrc.gov also offers a Subscribe to News link in the News & Information menu. E-mail notifications are sent to subscribers when news releases are posted to NRC's Web Site.