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Radioactive Water Spill from Fermi 2

Everything’s back to normal at the Fermi 2 nuclear power plant in southeast Michigan after a spill last week.

A drain valve for a filtering system failed and 100,000 gallons of slightly radioactive cooling water overflowed a holding tank. The water contaminated the shoes and outer clothing of some plant workers, but no one was harmed.

Guy Cerullo is with DTE Energy which owns and operates Fermi 2. Cerullo says most of the water was contained inside the plant... but about 100 gallons of that water escaped through a bathroom drain into the Monroe County sewer system. He says some sewage outside the plant had trace amounts of radiation. But he says it was well below federal limits.

There is absolutely no danger to the public or even to plant employees even who responded to the overflow. Absolutely no danger whatsoever.

To find out what government regulators have to say about the safety of Fermi 2, I talked with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission'sViktoria Mitlyng.