By John Stang
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission as of Friday had approved three exemptions for nuclear plants to exceed federal limits on work hours to ensure they remain operational during the COVID-19 pandemic.
All three facilities are owned by Chicago-based power company Exelon: the Limerick Generating Station in Montgomery County, Pa., on April 3; the Ginna Nuclear Power Plant in Ontario, N.Y., on Monday; and the Quad Cities Nuclear Power Station’s Units 1 and 2 in Cordova, Ill., on Wednesday.
Each exemption will expire after 60 days, according to similar letters sent to Exelon by Craig Erlanger, director of the NRCs Division of Operating Reactor Licensing. Licensees are allowed to request extensions if needed.
“Due to the impacts that the COVID-19 [public health emergency] has had on the licensee’s ability to comply with the work hour controls of 10 CFR 26.205(d), the importance of maintaining the operations of Limerick Generating Station, Units 1 and 2, and the controls the licensee has established, the NRC finds that granting the requested exemption is in the public interest,” Erlanger wrote last week in the first letter to Exelon.
On Friday, the NRC said it had received a fourth exemption request from Exelon’s Braidwood Generating Station, in Braceville, Ill. Management wants a 60-day exemption starting April 20. The agency had not announced a decision on the matter at deadline.
In a post Thursday afternoon, Exelon reported three confirmed cases of COVID-19 at Limerick during a current refueling and maintenance outage for its reactor Unit 1. Another 43 outage personnel were in quarantine.
News reports on COVID-19 among personnel at commercial nuclear power plants have been sporadic. One case was confirmed last week at Quad Cities, according to local reports, while no cases have been identified at Ginna. Requests for information directly to Exelon were not returned by Friday’s deadline.
Six cases have been confirmed among workers building two new reactors at the Vogtle nuclear complex in Georgia, with results on 11 tested employees not in yet, according to a Friday news report.
The NRC unveiled the coronavirus-related work-hour exemption measures on March 28.
In its requests to the agency, Exelon Generation said its plants were not able to meet work-hour limits for five positions: operators, health physics and chemistry, fire brigade, maintenance, and security. It noted that nuclear power plants are on the Homeland Security Department’s list of critical infrastructure that should sustain operations during the federal public health emergency.
The company’s requests did not discuss details of the staffing situation at each plant, and Exelon did not respond to queries this week.
Exelon said it would obey the work limits laid out in a March 28 memo from the NRC to nuclear industry stakeholders: no employee can work more than 16 hours over a 24-hour period; 10-hour breaks are required between expanded shifts; 12-hour shifts are prohibited beyond 14 days; and workers must be off work at least six days of any 30-day stretch.
The industry regulator determined the requests would not pose “an undue risk to public health and safety,” according to Erlanger’s letters. Specifically, he wrote, the agency does not believe the exemption would increase the likelihood of potential accidents or the impact of a potential event.
Also, Exelon showed in the three exemption requests that it could no longer meet federal work-control requirements, Erlanger found.
Under the NRC directive, licensees should make the requests as soon as developing COVID-19-related staffing problems become apparent and no less than 24 hours prior to a regulation-breaching shortage occurring, according to the NRC’s March 28 memo.
