Beaver Valley nuclear drill shows cracks in emergency preparedness

FirstEnergy’s Beaver Valley nuclear power station found communication and operational problems in responding emergency agencies in to Ohio and West Virginia during an emergency preparedness exercise on April 19-20. The federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission said a malfunctioning button on a hand-held two-way radio prevented the Ohio Emergency Management Agency’s field coordinator from telling two field teams about a mock release of radiation.

A deficiency letter was sent to the West Virginia Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management that said emergency responders with the Weirton Fire Department did not show they were able to monitor and decontaminate evacuees and their vehicles in the case of a disaster. Hancock County Emergency Management Agency Director John Paul Jones said the findings "caught us off guard." "It was a surprise. ... Through the years, the Weirton Fire Department has been flawless," he said. Jones believes the issues were with “planning, training, and procedure,” but says they are “correctable issues.”

Emergency workers in a 10-mile radius of the plant should have been notified to take potassium iodine tablets during the drill. While Weirton does not fall in that radius, evacuees likely would be taken there if such a disaster occurred. Chief of the technological hazards branch for the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Region Five office, Bill King, said “Two of the three emergency teams from Ohio did not receive the information about the radiation release or the potassium iodine and were in the simulated plume, causing unnecessary exposure and a health and safety issue.”

Every two years FEMA conducts mock emergency preparedness exercises and every six years, full-scale exercises to assess preparedness of local and state emergency response agencies. Paul Howard, director of operations for West Virginia’s emergency management agency, said the Weirton Fire Department is working with FEMA and FirstEnergy to correct monitoring and decontamination procedures. He also said they will be conducting a redemonstration exercise. Weirton Fire Chief Dave Lashhorn said the department will do a "dry run" of the exercise before the end of June.

The deficiencies noted for Ohio and West Virginia are the most serious of three FEMA assessment classifications since they involve risks to the health and safety of either the general public or, as in this case, emergency responders. Regardless, King said he considered the Ohio program “sound” despite the deficiencies. “In this instance, what happened was not serious to the general public, but we also need to consider the emergency workers’ health and safety,” he said.

Tamara McBride, spokeswoman for the Ohio Emergency Management Agency, said the deficiency is the state’s first in 20 years. She said the agency is revising its emergency communications policy and procedures to require confirmation of electronic field team transmissions, and a FEMA-required “redemonstration” of the new procedures is set for July 22.

“It’s really important we exercise and test our plan,” McBride said.