Madras Atomic Power Station - Unit One

Accident
The story of how a scientific issue is being
converted into an issue of governance?
Dr V Pugazhenthi MBBS

TuNo Media - 30 minutes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PF-Fw5M2Mrw

The dome structure that you see behind me is the Madras Atomic Power
Station (MAPS). This generates electricity which is then supplied to an
organisation called Southern Regional Load Dispatch Centre (SRLDC) along
with the information about the daily generated amount. If some problem
occurs to this generation, that information is also shared by MAPS to SRLDC.
This information is available at the web site www.srldc.in/dailyreport.

It is in this Madras Atomic Power Station - Unit 1, a problem occurred and its
electricity generation was stopped on 8.1.2018. SRLDC’s website tells us that
this was due to an unexpected event called ‘forced outage’. That’s how the
event was categorically registered in that website. Secondly, one of the the
reason given for this was ‘emergency maintenance’. Actually, that doesn’t tell
the whole truth.Usually, the website registers the reasons for the stoppage of
generation as a problem in the boiler, turbine or in the core fuel rods etc. We
don’t find such a mention in this particular event.

Meanwhile, I received an information (from the workers in the plant) that this
time an anomalous event had occurred; an increase in the level of radiation
was found this time; but the source of leak could not be identified.

I tried to register this information I had personally received with the media and
I encountered many difficulties; however, www.vikatan.com published it. This
I think, would have worried the officials. This would have pressed them to find
the reasons for the increase in the radiation level as early as possible. On
22.1.2018 they claimed that they had rectified the fault; that is they had found
a leak in the Delayed Neutron Monitoring Sensor Tube and had rectified it;
and subsequently electricity generation at the reactor had started once again.
Through vikatan.com I then raised a question: “they (MAPS) claim that they
have found the source of the leak, but we do not know whether this is the
whole reason; only when we restart the reactor, we would know whether this
was the complete or the partial reason for the leak”. “Actually, when they were
increasing the pressure in the reactor, the leak reappeared. So, the electricity
generation at MAPS was stopped once again on 30.1.2018”. Even now,
SRLDC website declares that the shutdown was for “urgent maintenance”. So
we need to understand that they have revealed only the partial reasons for
the plant shutdown and not the complete ones.

A similar event had occurred previously. On 9.5.2017, there was a radiation

leak - a leak of heavy water - at the same MAPS reactor unit. Then, the
reason for the leak was detected and clearly spelt out. But this time, the
reason for the radiation leak was not spelt out so clearly. When the reactor
was shutdown again on 30.1.2018, it was noted to have happened
unexpectedly, and was registered under the forced outage category.

From that day on up till today, that is upto 22 March, 2018, the officials have
not detected the reason or the source from where the radiation leak has
occurred.

As the SRLDC website had registered this as an “emergency, urgent

maintenance”, Advocate Venkatesan wanted to know the reason for it and
had requested the answer from the nuclear administrators using the Right To
Information Act. The answers given to these questions by the Department of
Atomic Energy showed clearly that the reason for the radiation leak was in
fact not found out. “Did you identify the source of leak? What is the source of
leak?” were the third set of questions filed by him. The answer given to these
questions by the management was, “The investigation to identify the source
of leak is in progress”.

MAPS has faced such crisis before; but then, the reason for the crisis could
be detected and registered. So, what is the difference between the problems
that have occurred before from the one that has occurred on 8.1.2018 and
30.1.2018? This is the first time the reason for the radiation leak could not be
established for more than 2 months despite best efforts by scientists. One
can say, that in the entire history of Indian Nuclear Establishment, this is the
first instance where the reason for the radiation leak could not be found for 2
months. So this is the difference between the previous events and the one
that had occurred on 30.1.2018.
If a radiation leak occurs at MAPS, we need to know how the radioactive
waste is evacuated from the nuclear reactor. Generally, it would be evacuated
into the atmosphere through the smoke stacks or outflow pipes into the sea.
Such evacuated radioactive waste have the potential to create environmental
and health hazards. However, MAPS administration claims that no hazard
has occurred so far to the people living around its reactor site. Now the
question is, whether this claim is actually true?

A few years earlier, the same nuclear establishment had conducted a

research study to know whether the people living around the reactor site were
affected by radiation from the reactors. The study was conducted by one
Dr.Manjula Datta. This study concluded that no one living around the reactor
site was affected by Leukaemia. But that conclusion was faulty.

Actually, during the period when that study was being conducted, a woman
named Mahalakshmi of Kalvaikarai near Sadurangapattinam had died due to
leukaemia. And recently, two more have succumbed to Acute Myeloid
Leukaemia and both have died. One was a 11 year old girl called Shifa
Parveen of Sadurangapattinam who died on 23.2.2015. A 43 year old woman
named Anjalai of Manamai village had died on 16.8.2017.

Even though the nuclear establishment has denied the health hazard caused
by radiation to the local people, there are clear evidences that prove the close
relationship between nuclear radiation and leukaemia. The evidences of
death due to malignancy prove to us that when such accidents happen at the
reactor site, the evacuated radioactive waste has the real potential to cause
health hazards.

At least from now on, the nuclear energy establishment should conduct a
formal research study on these deaths and accept the responsibility for these
deaths and provide the necessary compensation to the kin of the deceased
ones. Elsewhere in other countries, there are separate laws to compensate
the radiation affected ones. We do not have such a law. I would like to state
here that we require such laws in India.

Does this Unit One of the Madras Atomic Power Station follow safety
procedures or not is the key question.

An example can be cited to show how this Unit had not followed the safety
protocols. The workers of this Unit in particular, are not provided with the
necessary safeguards.
On 9.5.2017, MAPS Unit One was under maintenance. At the end of the first
shift at about 1.45 PM, there was a leak of 3 tons of heavy water. When the
radioactivity level was measured during the second shift, it was found to be
4003 DAC-hour1. DAC-hour means Derived Air Concentration Hour.
According to the Technical Specifications of the plant, if the radioactivity level
reaches 1000 DAC-hour, declaring Plant Emergency is mandatory; but during
this event, Plant Emergency was not declared. Also, during such an event, it
is mandatory to display openly (to all the plant workers) the currently existing
radiation levels; but during the event of 9.5.2017, the radiation levels were not
displayed openly. During that event, a senior engineer named Mr.Parthiban
was involved in clearing the leaked heavy water. When one is involved in an
activity to reduce the radioactivity levels, he would be provided with a
protective dress. That dress is known as Ventilated Plastic Suite or VP Suite
in short. On 19.5.2017, the Trade Union for the employees of MAPS had
written a letter to the head of the MAPS Unit One, in which they had
mentioned the lapses that were present when handling this situation; “while
handling such an event, ample ventilation needs to be maintained, but the
administration had not taken steps.” Similarly, they had written that “the air
flow pathway of the Ventilated Plastic Suite is mired with problems”. To be
frank, what they have written in that letter was” Is it a Ventilated Plastic Suite?
or a killer suite?” They had used such extreme words. “Even though the
protective suite had a fault, the management has not taken any steps to
rectify it” was their accusation. So, the safety procedures had been flouted by
the establishment.

Let’s talk about another important issue. There is a group of professionals

known as Health Physicists whose job is to monitor the amount of radiation
received by each worker in the reactor site. Earlier, they were under the
control of the Department of Atomic Energy. Later they were brought under
Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL), and it is NPCIL that is
operating MAPS. These health physicists have to report to the authorities of
MAPS. In such a structure, how can you expect the truth to come out? The
Trade Unions themselves have stated this in their letter sent to the
management.

On 9.5.2017, there was a leakage of 3 tons of heavy water at MAPS Unit 1. A

senior engineer named Mr.Parthiban was involved in its cleanup. As he was
returning from this cleanup work, he suffered a cardiac arrest and died. If you
compare the health status before and after his work of clearing the leaked
heavy water, either the radiation or the problem in the ventilated suite might
be suggested as the possible cause for his death. The protective suite is
capable of providing protection only by a factor of 50. A rigorous investigation
about the cause of his death could have brought out the real cause of his
death, but it is sad to know that such an investigation was not carried out.
Atomic Energy Regulatory Board has declared that out of the total radiation
received by the workers 90% should be external and the remaining 10%
should be internal; but at MAPS, the 50% permanent workers themselves
state with great grief that they have received an internal radiation of 30%.
They consider this to be the cause of death for many of their fellow workers.
For example one Mr.Ravi had died at the age of 54 because of Brain Tumour.
We should also remember that Mr.Parthiban had met his death at the age of
51. So, we need to state here that the safety procedures have been flouted at
MAPS. AERB has specified that the maximum level of radiation that could be
released through the smoke stacks during the day time as 271 Curies. But on
9.5.2017 and 10.5.2017, they have released more than this value. On
9.5.2017 it was 485.97 Curies and on 10.5.2017 it was 391.96 Curies. So the
possibility of causing a heath hazard to the people living around exists and
the safety procedures are being flouted by MAPS. This is the history of the
safety track record of MAPS.

I had mentioned earlier about 4003 DAC-hour of radiation that was due to a
leak on 9.5.2017. This is not a reading taken directly; but a reading taken
from a distance; that is, it was taken from a remote sample. If you look at this
in general from the past track record of MAPS, the real value would be 5
times more than this. And, even when the radiation level had gone 20 times
than the stipulated norm, no internal plant emergency was declared.

When an atomic reactor remains shutdown, its administrators would be

looking for the problem that the reactor had faced and the ways by which this
could be overcome. In the case of MAPS Unit One, there was an increase in
the level of radiation, and despite the efforts taken, they could not find out the
source of leak till today. It is assumed that the leak could be near the fuel
bundle. Three places near here namely channels P10, Q9, Q10 are
presumed to be the places from where the leak would have occurred. Despite
efforts, these continue to remain as assumptions and no real cause has been
found till today. Now we have a question: Let’s assume that a leak had
occurred somewhere; which means, some maintenance work would have
been carried out in that place; during such a maintenance work, has someone
generated a report that stated that a leak could occur there again? Despite
the presence of such a report, did the establishment fail to take the
necessary preventive measures? The nuclear establishment should come
forward and give the answers for all these questions. Because, had they
taken these preventive measures, the radiation leak could have been
avoided.
The loss accrued by the Government for one day of shutdown of MAPS
reactor is Rs.1 Crore. This is people’s tax money. Hence for two months, the
loss is about Rs.60 Crores.

First of all, you will have find out the source from where the leak had occurred
and once that had been found out, a tender needs to be floated for fixing that
leak. However, a tender worth Rs.27 Lakhs has been floated here, even when
the place from where the leak has occurred has not been established. How
can this be correct?

We can not conclude that such things happen only at MAPS. At a reactor at
Kakrapar in Gujarat, such an event had occurred previously. On the
anniversary of the Fukushima nuclear accident in 2016, such an event
occurred at Kakrapar and soon became a major issue. However, unlike the
present MAPS event, ’nodal corrosion’ was found to be the reason in that
case. Because of the gravity of that issue, it was declared that it would take
another 5 years for that reactor to resume its generation of electricity. Similar
events have occurred in Rajasthan and Tarapur. So, it is not unique to MAPS.
But in all these places, unlike the events of 8.1.207 and 30.1.2017 at MAPS,
the cause for radiation leak could be detected. It is only in the case of MAPS,
the cause of leak remains elusive.

Some of the answers given by the establishment for the questions raised
under the Right To Information Act are wrong. In an answer given to a
question, they have stated that there was no radiation leak at all. However, to
another query they had stated that on 8.1.2018 the cause for the shutdown
was because of an increase in the radiation level from 40-50 DAC-hour to
160 DAC-hour and the cause for the shutdown on 30.1.2018 was due to an
increase in radioactivity to 1600 DAC-hour. How could this increase in
radioactivity happen without the presence of a radiation leak? Secondly, to a
question that asked the reason for the increase in the quantity of radioactivity,
no answer was given. In the same way, to another question that asked for the
quantity of radioactivity released into the environment, the answer given was
‘normal’, without stating the actual quantity of radiation released. The nuclear
establishment should come forward and answer all these questions. Another
fault of theirs is they call this as a planned shutdown; that is, they had
consciously predetermined the shut down of this reactor. However, the reason
registered at the SRLDC website tells us that this was actually a ‘forced
outage’ meaning an unexpected one. So, what is the truth? To know this,
advocate Venkatesan has made a further appeal under the RTI Act. If we get
an answer under this appeal, we may get a clear picture of this event.
Instead of solving the problem that has cropped up at the reactor, the
establishment concentrates on finding out the insiders providing information
to this doctor and tries to curb their activity; because of this, those who were
providing the information earlier, have decreased their sharing of information.
Also, the establishment does not want the newspapers and magazines to
publish a news or a story about this event; because of the pressures given to
them, they are reluctant to publish anything related to this event. vikatan.com
is an internet magazine. This news has been published only in that. All the
other newspapers and magazines have failed to publish anything about this.
Another thing they do not want to face is a resistance from the people living
around the reactor site. They are seriously working to make this come true.
There is also an information, that they are trying to manipulate the views of
political parties. So, instead of rectifying the problem, they are involved in
these clandestine activities. They are disturbed to see the letter that the trade
union had written to them landing in my hands; they remain irritated. Such are
the steps taken by them. How can this be scientifically correct? They are
interested only to find out how the letter written to them by the Trade Unions
that accuses them that the basic rules of safety were being flouted had come
to me. Who is the one who shared this letter to me, they want to find out and
punish them; that remains their attitude. How can this be correct?

You are now seeing the Unit One of MAPS reactor behind me. While this
remains shut down for more than two months, and the reason for the
radiation leak that had caused this shut down is still not known, we need to
know how the people who live here and the political parties, the religious
organisations that are responding to this event.

In this region, there are people belonging to Vanniar Caste, Scheduled

castes, Islam and Fishing Community. These are the dominant population
groups living here. All the political parties related to these people are also
active in this region. The one question that needs to be asked is why in the
first place some of the workers of MAPS decided to share the information
related to the radiation leak in MAPS to me rather than the political parties or
the religious organisations that are operating in this region? The reason is,
the workers who had shared this information do not have confidence in these
organisations. They fear that these organisations and groups would not stand
by truth and righteousness and might start making money out of this
information shared to them. So, when they do not have confidence in the
political parties, they decide to share this information to people who they
consider as righteous and then share it to the larger world through them. The
political parties and religious groups have not spoken up about this grave
issue even today. So, the doubt that whether these political parties would
stand for the welfare of the affected lot crops up. What I like to state here is
that the political parties should change this attitude at least now. If you see
the people religion wise, you have Hindus, Muslims and Christians living
here. No religion asks its followers not to tell the truth. No religion ask its
people to lie.They all ask its followers to stand by truth and profess it openly.
Religious organisations of this region continue to profess religious ideas but
are reluctant to talk about the region’s problems. Do religions ask people not
to speak out truth? Even when the religions ask its followers to profess truth,
and when the followers do not speak it out, we tend to think whether it is
because of personal self interest they are not speaking up. Even praying to
God, is it for fulfilling ones own self interest? Such questions are there in the
minds of common people and also in my own mind. My friend used to say:
“Every struggle is getting converted into a bargaining ground”. I also have that
doubt now. Why the politics parties and the religious organisations have not
come forward to address this issue? is an important question. What is the
lesson that we learn from this? This event is capable of affecting every one
living around. So, the religious organisations and the political parties should
stand together for the affected ones and demand justice. This alone would be
the first step toward attaining a solution. Instead of this, if we are going to
stand divided in the name of Caste, Religion or Political Party, it would be in
favour of the State and this nuclear establishment. Many ask me, what do you
get out of this? For me, as Chomsky says, it is my “intellectual responsibility”.
There is a problem here and I need to make everyone aware about this. This
is my small contribution to the society. So, what is the first step toward solving
this event that has caused MAPS remaining shut down for more than two
months without a known cause? All the affected ones have the responsibility
to unite and raise their voice in unison. We need to overcome the divisions
among us present in the name of caste, religion, political party and unite to
take the next step. If the current event pushes the people in that direction, it
will make me happy.

1 DAC-hour (Derived Air Concentration Hour) - The product of the concentration of radioactive
material in air (expressed as a fraction or multiple of the derived air concentration for each
radionuclide) and the time of exposure to that radionuclide, in hours. A licensee may take 2,000
DAC-hours to represent one annual limit on intake (ALI), equivalent to a committed effective dose
equivalent of 5 rems (0.05 Sv).