The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has scheduled a regulatory conference for Thursday, July 13, to discuss a preliminary “Greater than Green” safety finding at the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station in Massachusetts.
Plant operator Entergy requested the meeting to provide its perspective on the finding, which involves its apparent failure to monitor or maintain a valve installed in 2000 on a fan for an emergency diesel generator. The valve failed last year, taking the generator out of service for longer than the 14 days allowed by the NRC.
The incident was the only safety issue to rate a preliminary Greater than Green — more than very low safety significance — determination following a special NRC inspection that ended earlier this year at Pilgrim. The inspection resulted from a series of unplanned shutdowns and other incidents at the 45-year-old Cape Cod facility that landed it on Column 4 of the regulator’s Action Matrix — the lowest possible safety rating for an operational nuclear facility.
Participants at the meeting will discuss whether the apparent breach of NRC rules should result in an enforcement action, according to the conference notice.
The meeting is scheduled for 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the NRC’s Region I office, 2100 Renaissance Blvd., Suite 100, in King of Prussia, Pa. It is open to the public. Participants will include NRC Region I Administrator Daniel Dorman, the director of several NRC offices, and a number of Entergy executives and managers.
The Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station is scheduled to close in 2019.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission said Wednesday it has levied a $7,000 fine against a Puerto Rico-based medical diagnostics company for failing to carry out mandatory decommissioning activities after its NRC license expired.
Somascan Inc. was licensed to employ radiopharmaceuticals and sealed sources in providing outpatient diagnostic and therapeutic medical services at its facility in San Juan. The company’s license expired in April 2013, about a year after Somascan apparently ceased operations.
The NRC conducted inspections of the facility from December 2014 to November 2016. “The results of these inspections indicated that Somascan had not conducted its activities in full compliance with NRC requirements, in that Somascan has neither begun nor completed decommissioning within the timeframes required by NRC regulations … or secured from unauthorized removal or access licensed material that is stored in an unrestricted area,” the regulator said in a July 5 Federal Register notice.
The agency issued a notice of violation and proposed $7,000 fine in April, then followed the notice with an imposition order dated June 27.
Somascan has not responded to the notice of violation or taken steps to remedy the issues cited by the NRC, the Federal Register notice says. It has 30 days from the date of the order to pay the fine, but can also request a hearing within that time frame on the matter.
From The Wires
From Bloomberg and The New York Times: Russian hackers target U.S. nuclear power plants.
