Xcel Energy To Temporarily Shutdown Nuclear Plant After New Leakage

MONTICELLO, MN — Xcel Energy will begin temporarily shutting down its Monticello nuclear power plant on Friday after more tritium leakage was discovered in the groundwater, the utility company announced.

The company was planning to install a replacement pipe during its regularly scheduled refueling outage in mid-April, but moved the shutdown up to Friday. The shutdown is not expected to impact electric service in the state.

On March 16, Xcel said it was in the process of cleaning up a 400,000-gallon radioactive water spill that took place three months ago at its nuclear power plant in Monticello.

"While the leak continues to pose no risk to the public or the environment, we determined the best course of action is to power down the plant and perform the permanent repairs immediately," Chris Clark, president of Xcel Energy in Minnesota, said in a statement Thursday.

"We are continuing to work with and inform our state, federal, city and county leaders in the process."

On Nov. 22, Xcel identified the source of the leak as a water pipe running between two buildings at the plant. About 400,000 gallons of water containing tritium leaked from the pipe, according to the company.

To contain the leak, the facility began diverting the water to an in-plant water treatment system. Last week, Xcel said it had recovered about 25 percent of the tritium that was released and would continue to clean the spill site over the course of the next year.

But monitoring equipment at the plant Wednesday found that "a small amount" of new water from the original leak was reaching the groundwater, Xcel said Thursday.

Over a two-day period this week, the temporary solution was no longer capturing 100 percent of the leaking water, according to the utility.

The new leakage is expected to be in the hundreds of gallons, significantly smaller than the original spill. It will not "materially increase the amount of tritium the company is working to recover and does not pose any risk to health or the environment," the utility company said.

Community members with questions about the leak can attend one of two open houses at the Monticello Community Center:

• Friday, March 24 (10 a.m. to 1 p.m.)
• Monday, March 27 (5 p.m. to 8 p.m.)