COURTESY PILGRIM NUCLEAR POWER STATION
PLYMOUTH – NRC Officials have found nine new security violations at the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station in Plymouth.
They were identified during a routine inspection last month at the plant and sent a letter with the findings to Pilgrim’s owner, Entergy Corp.
The violations were classified as low-risk but six of them were found by NRC inspectors and three by plant operators.
“Before we left the site, the company had to at least put in place compensatory measures or fix the problems prior to us leaving the site and we ensured that, that occurred,” said NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan.
The report says that Entergy did not effectively implement error reduction tools, maintain equipment availability, challenge unusual conditions, use prudent decision making and maintain complete and accurate documentation.
“We did identify a number of issues and now it’s going to be incumbent upon Entergy to address them and we’ll be following up to ensure that, that’s occurred,” said Sheehan.
Details of the other violations were not included in the report.
“We take all NRC inspections, reports and findings seriously,” said Entergy spokesman Patrick O’Brien. “The safe and secure operations of Pilgrim are of the upmost importance.”
O’Brien adds that they are making sure that the problems found by the NRC during the inspection don’t happen again.
“All of the issues have been put into our corrective action program so we can look at the causes and ensure that they are corrected,” said O’Brien.
A letter from the leader of the inspection team last month was made public and said that the staff at the plant was overwhelmed and it listed a number of problems with the site.
NRC officials are currently conducting a separate inspection on Pilgrim that is scheduled to wrap up soon.
The NRC is also planning a public safety meeting with Cape and Islands legislators to answer questions about the plant.
By JUSTIN SAUNDERS, CapeCod.com Newscenter
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