Well, a New York Times article did what no local news could figure out how to do, or dare to do. It straight up told us the level of flooding at the plant in elevation as of yesterday. That figure, 1007 feet.
The article goes on to explain that OPPD fought kicking and screaming since 2009 to only need to protect the plants operations to 1009 feet. Boy is it a good thing the NRC stepped in and forced them to reconsider their flood defenses last year. As of last year the NRC had found that:
"at flooding levels above 1,008 feet, the plant would experience a loss of offsite power and loss of intake structure and water pumps providing essential cooling water to the plant. In that case, "the plant would be incapable of reaching cold shutdown" with normal operations"
But this has since been rectified this year and this is what NRC spokesman Victor Drakes has now said, "Today the plant is well positioned to ride out the current extreme Missouri River flooding while keeping the public safe."
1010 feet is noted as the 500 year flood mark, and the plant is supposed to be operational to 1014 foot, although this has never been tested.
Here's the whole article, and I gotta say, finally some decent journalism. Trying to nail down real elevations of critical systems, versus floodwaters. Bravo New York Times!
Which brings up the point of where has the World Herald been on this story???
Anyway, here is the link to the Times story: http://www.nytimes.com/cwire/2011/06/24/24climatewire-a-nuclear-plants-flood-defenses-trigger-a-ye-95418.html
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