On Nuclear Pollution
POST OFFICE
Contact: Robert L. “Jake” Stewart -802-276-3095
Clay Turnball – 802-365-7049
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Coalition Issues “Yellow” Finding to
Nuclear Regulatory
Commission for Incompetent
and Derelict Oversight
on Entergy
Hours in advance of a U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission
(NRC) public meeting designed by NRC to explain its role in review of a series
of cooling tower structural failures at the Vermont Yankee Nuclear power
station, New England Coalition, through its Technical Consultant,
|
NRC NEWS – WW.NRC.GOV |
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No.
I-08-055 |
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October
7, 2008 |
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CONTACT: |
Diane Screnci (610) 337-5330 |
E-mail: opa1@nrc.gov |
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NRC TO SPONSOR PUBLIC MEETING ON OCT.
14 IN |
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Nuclear
Regulatory Commission staff on Tuesday, Oct. 14, will sponsor a meeting with
the public to provide information regarding the cooling towers at the Vermont
Yankee nuclear power plant. The meeting
is scheduled for 4 to 6:15 p.m. at the Latchis
Theater, at During the
meeting, the NRC staff will discuss its oversight of the safety-related
aspects of the cooling towers and the results of a Special Inspection it
conducted with respect to tower leakage. Vermont Yankee’s owner and operator,
Entergy, will present information on its evaluations and maintenance of the
towers, as well as its plans for assuring future tower reliability. Members
of the public in attendance will have an opportunity to ask questions of NRC
staff regarding the inspection and the towers prior to the meeting’s
adjournment. Entergy representatives will also be available to answer
questions. |
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New England Coalition’s assessment mirrors NRC’s own Reactor
Oversight Process grading protocol in which power reactor safety infractions
are graded by assigning various colors – Green, White, yellow, Red. As
the colors progress toward Red, they indicated rising levels of safety
significance and more intensive levels of required hands-on oversight.
“We would have issued NRC a Red, said Shadis, but we are
modeling NRC’s color-in-the-boxes program in which you generally don’t get a
Red finding until you toast the countryside.’
New England Coalition’s “Yellow” finding is based on NRC’s
failure to intervene following first notice of degraded conditions in Vermont
Yankee’s cooling towers during extended power uprate review (2004-2006) and
failure to take adequate steps to prevent the succeeding structural failures in
2007 and 2008.
“NEC” Shadis said, “raised the issue of cooling tower rot,
unanalyzed modifications, and unknown additional stresses introduced due to
power uprate, as a contention before the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board.
Both Entergy and NRC staff responded with inspections during 2006 in which they
represented that they found everything okay: robust, strong, well-maintained.”
“ But the facts”, he said, “are these: Entergy’s own
internal reports (2003-2006) identified unanalyzed structural issues and
modifications, as well as structural supports in need of near term repair or
replacement. Entergy (through experience at other Entergy-owned
facilities) and NRC (through NEC intervention) were well aware of numerous
design defects and even total collapse events in towers of similar or identical
design. Each time there was a cooling tower event at VY, NRC inspected, met
with plant managers, and then issued reassurances to the public and each time
NRC failed to adequately assess the condition of Entergy VY’s maintenance,
engineering, quality assurance, and management programs that permitted degraded
conditions and poorly designed and analyzed modifications to be made.
Significantly, these programs are one and the same programs that control
quality and safety of the components and systems within the reactor
building. NRC’s failure to assess root cause and failure to demand
effective corrective action are what has earned the agency a “Yellow” finding.
What is troubling in addition is NRC’s failure to reevaluate
the proposition that structural and piping failures in the cooling tower’s
non-safety related cells cannot propagate into, or impact the function of, the
safety-related cooling tower cells. Entergy has admitted that the 2007 collapse
was the result of a five-foot column of water getting dumped on the fan deck,
but no one has shown us an analysis of what would happen if a similar water
load were dumped on the upper deck of the safety-related cells. No one has
shown us an analysis of what would happen if rubble from collapsed cooling
towers diverted falling water away from VY’s cooling tower basins preventing
recirculation to cool the reactor.”
New England Coalition intended to issue its “Yellow” finding
notice to NRC by week’s end along with a letter to the agency’s Office of
Inspector General requesting a formal investigation into the NRC’s oversight
actions and effectiveness at Vermont Yankee. In its requests New England
Coalition charges that the NRC has displayed regulatory incompetence and has
been derelict in its duty to assure public health and safety.
END