Sunday, February 1, 2015

NRC special team to visit Pilgrim Monday


PREVIOUSLY REPORTED:

Following the shutdown, the high-pressure coolant injection system, which cools the reactor, was inoperable, so plant staff opened valves to release the steam into containment pools in the reactor vessel.

NRC team to inspect Pilgrim after shutdown






NRC special team to visit Pilgrim Monday

Nuclear Regulatory Commission will be here to review events related to blizzard shutdown
A special federal inspection team plans to visit Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station in Plymouth next week to learn more about what happened there during this week's blizzard, which knocked out the two main lines that transmit power out of the plant.

"The NRC has informed us that as a result of the events during Winter Storm Juno, an NRC Special Inspection Team will visit Pilgrim Station on Monday to obtain information regarding the event and perform an inspection," Lauren Burm, a spokeswoman for Pilgrim and its owner Entergy, said in a statement early Friday evening.

Burm said in an interview Saturday morning that she expects the Nuclear Regulatory Commission team to be at the station for about a week gathering information.

In her statement, Burm said Entergy "continues to investigate the root cause of the events and we will continue to share information with the NRC about our procedures and actions taken that helped assure safety at the plant before, during and after the storm."

During a mid-blizzard update on Tuesday, state Energy Secretary Matthew Beaton announced that Pilgrim had shut down after the two main lines went down and that backup generators were supplying power to the facility to make sure safety precautions in the plant continued.

Beaton said Tuesday that there was "no public safety hazard" and that it was "hard to say" when the transmission lines would be restored, but officials planned to restore the lines "as quickly as possible."

On Wednesday, during a visit to Scituate to examine storm damage, Beaton told the News Service that NSTAR workers were helping Entergy clear a switch yard area at Pilgrim "to address the overall problem."

The two transmission lines went down just after 4 a.m. Tuesday, during the blizzard, and were restored at about 4:30 p.m. on Thursday, Burm said Saturday.

Burm said plant workers and the general public were not in danger during this week's events at the Pilgrim. "Everything was safe and secure," she said.

Pilgrim remains shut down for maintenance work, said Burm, who could not offer an estimate of when the plant would be back online.

NRC officials are on track to arrive around the same time as the next storm. State officials announced Saturday that a winter storm watch is now in effect for all of Massachusetts for a snowstorm that will move into the state late Sunday night and last through Monday.

According to the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency (MEMA), about a foot of snow is expected in areas south of the Massachusetts Turnpike with gusty winds leading to near blizzard conditions at times on Monday. A frigid air mass could follow the storm, according to MEMA, with low temperatures by early Tuesday of between zero to 10 below for most of the region, and wind chills of 20 to 30 below.


http://www.capecodtoday.com/article/2015/01/31/28735-nrc-special-team-visit-pilgrim-monday







 

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