July 29, 2004
EUREKA, Calif. (AP) - Four pounds of radioactive nuclear fuel went missing from a shuttered nuclear power plant near Eureka.
Pacific Gas and Electric workers are looking for three pieces of a nuclear fuel rod that may be among hundreds placed in a deep storage pool at the Humboldt Bay Power Plant before it closed in 1976.
Plant workers have been using robotic equipment and underwater cameras since July 7 to search a pool where spent fuel is stored. The pool is 26-to-30 feet deep and measures 22-by-28 feet. About 390 used fuel assemblies are stored in the pool.
PG&E spokesman Jeff Lewis said the utility remains confident the missing rods eventually will be found in the pool.
"We have to search the pool very slowly and methodically using underwater cameras and remote-controlled tools on long poles," he said.
Despite the unsuccessful search so far, PG&E believes there's no public danger from what Lewis characterized as essentially a "case of conflicting documentation."
He said there's no chance the missing nuclear rods might have managed to get into the wrong hands, a scenario that anti-terrorism experts fear.
"We just don't believe that's possible," Lewis said.
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