The Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Monday began its third and final increased oversight inspection at the troubled Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station in Massachusetts.
In a conference call Monday with reporters, agency managers leading the inspection said there are no immediate safety concerns at the plant, but that the team of about 20 NRC officials will conduct a thorough on-site examination, which is scheduled to wrap up Jan. 13.
“If we are not done, then we are not done,” said inspection team leader Don Jackson, noting that the effort could very well extend past its scheduled closeout date. “If there are other issues we need to come to a resolution on, I don’t have a stopwatch against me saying okay you’ve got to stop now. We’re going to dig as far as we need to dig.”
During the inspection, the NRC will evaluate plant owner Entergy’s plan to address safety performance issues, including the quality of the site’s procedures and its corrective action program. Jackson said the crew will assess Pilgrim’s safety culture, equipment, maintenance process, and risk determination process.
Pilgrim has recorded a long list of complications and unplanned shutdowns. The 44-year-old facility, which is scheduled to close in 2019, was downgraded in 2015 to Column 4 of the NRC’s Action Matrix, the lowest safety rating a plant can have while remaining in operation. The NRC’s decision to finalize a white inspection finding (low to moderate safety significance) followed several unplanned shutdowns and the discovery of safety relief valve issues dating to 2013.
The agency this year has completed two of three increased oversight inspections, registering separate green findings (very low safety significance) in both visits. The first finding concerned water leakage from the core spray system, and the second a maintenance procedure failure for a salt service water pump. Pilgrim’s most recent unplanned shutdown occurred in September, when complications with a fluctuating feedwater regulating valve led to excessive water levels in the plant’s reactor vessel.
As in the first two inspections, the results of the third review is due to be released within 45 days of the formal conclusion of the inspection. The agency will also issue a confirmatory action letter to Entergy to record the company’s commitments to improving plant performance and identify actions needed in order to transition back to normal levels of oversight.
Jackson said it would take at least two years for Pilgrim to transition from Column 4, meaning it will probably remain one of the lowest-graded nuclear power plants in the country until its closure in 2019. NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan said the type of inspection applied to Pilgrim is not common, as the agency has conducted about a dozen in 15 years.
