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Environmental activists want the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to stop allowing aging power plants to stay open unless the agency beefs up safety inspections. They say the government should start at Oyster Creek in New Jersey - one of the oldest nuclear plant still in service.
Joel Rose reports.
JOEL ROSE: Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station went online in 1969. The fight over the plant really started in the 1980s - that's when water apparently seeped into the reactor where it wasn't supposed to and caused corrosion. How much corrosion is the subject of debate, but it's clearly too much for Janet Tauro who lives about 12 miles from the plant.
JANET TAURO: Any person, any rational person hearing that the steel containment of the nuclear reactor is rotting and corroding, you would think they would be up in arms.
ROSE: For a while it looked like Oyster Creek's owner would simply shut the plant down when its original license expires next year. But then a new company bought this plant on the Jersey's shore and three years ago, Exelon decided to apply for a 20-year extension which would keep the plant operating until 2029.
Company Vice President Mike Gallagher says the corrosion problem was fixed years ago.
MIKE GALLAGHER: Basically, every component can be replaced. And as long as we can, you know, be anticipatory, we can continue to safely operate the plant.
ROSE: Gallagher says the length of the original 40-year license was based on economics, not technology. But Janet Tauro and other activists are not convinced. They raised the corrosion issue at a hearing last year, although a government panel ruled against them. And that left the plant's opponents with few options. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission only looks at the aging physical plant and environmental concerns when it decides whether to relicense a power plant.
For Janet Tauro, that's not enough.
TAURO: The NRC is left sight of its mission. Its mission is to safeguard our public safety, and instead, they're safeguarding the profit margins of the nuclear industry.
ROSE: They are just over a hundred commercial nuclear plants in the country. The NRC has extended the original licenses of 48 of them without rejecting a single application.
Richard Webster is an attorney for the Eastern Environmental Law Center in New Jersey.
RICHARD WEBSTER: That to us tends to indicate that the NRC is not looking too hard for problems.
ROSE: But NRC Spokesman Neil Sheehan says the numbers are misleading. For one thing, a handful of plants have decided to go offline and Sheehan says those that do seek an extension, invest millions of dollars in safety upgrades and years of effort.
NEIL SHEEHAN: We can send dozens and dozens of request for additional information to the companies; they have to respond to those. If we're not happy, we'll ask more. So, a lot of issues get resolved along the way.
ROSE: Yet, even the NRC's internal auditor has raised concerns about ties between the commission and the nuclear industry.
In a report released in September, the office of the inspector general found that NRC staff members were apparently copying big chunks of their safety reports from the very people they were supposed to be regulating.
Environmental lawyer Richard Webster says that doesn't look good.
WEBSTER: You know, (unintelligible) of the report samples they reviewed, 42 percent were word for word; the same as the application. So, there's just no evidence that the inspectors, when they go in, are really doing a thorough job.
ROSE: This month, Webster filed a petition urging the NRC to stop the relicensing process for Oyster Creek, along with plants near New York City and Boston, until it can show that it's doing rigorous inspections.
NRC Spokesman Neil Sheehan admits the safety reports have been, quote, "less than ideal." But he says the problems are in the writing, not the quality of the inspection.
SHEEHAN: NRC has about 3,000 employees and they take their jobs very seriously. To imply that they would somehow just rubber stamp an application because this is something that the industry is interested in, I think, really, self-insure.
ROSE: Sheehan says the NRC inspectors even crawled into the reactor at Oyster Creek during a temporary shut down to inspect for corrosion.
The NRC could reach a decision on whether to extend the plant's license in the few months. Though, everyone seems to agree that a federal appeals court may have the final say.
For NPR News, I'm Joel Rose.