MONTICELLO, Minn. — The license for the nuclear plant in Monticello is up for renewal in September 2030.
It’s something that’s done every 30 years, which is why leaders with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission were in town Wednesday evening, meeting with residents to discuss the environmental impacts of the plant.
A discussion which couldn't have come at a better time, to discuss the plant’s recent radioactive leak.
Members of the community met with leaders from the NRC seeking answers after finding out last week, 400,000 gallons of tritium, a byproduct leftover after the creation of nuclear energy, leaked from pipes at Xcel’s Monticello nuclear plant.
"They’re not frequent but they do happen, these are operating plants…equipment will occasionally break, they have to do maintenance on them," said Valerie Myers, a physicist and inspector with the NRC.
Myers says the leak, which happened back in November has been contained to the site, never reaching outside groundwater or drinking water.
The commission has spent the last four months trying to source a cause.
"They will be taking out a section of pipe here, in a little bit we’ll find out more information and assess that at that time," said Myers.
But perhaps the biggest question still lingering for many... is why it took four months to notify the public.
"There is no reason to have concern for their safety over this," said Myers.
"These sites are operating plants so there’s lots of little things that they have to deal with day in and day out, and if we tried to do public notifications on everything nuclear because everything seems scary right for nuclear, we would be just bombarding everybody," explained Myers.
This is why residents like William Fair say he’s finding comfort in trusting the work of federal regulators.
"I would just like to make sure that as this progresses that the term nuclear leak or radiation leak doesn’t become a dog whistle to create havoc in the community," said Fair.
Xcel Energy says 30 percent of the tritium has been removed from the ground.
The rest will be removed over the course of the next year.
For more information on the plant's license renewal and information on future public input meetings, click here.