COURTESY PILGRIM NUCLEAR POWER STATION
PLYMOUTH – Members of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission conducted a regulatory conference yesterday with Entergy, in regards to an apparent violation at Pilgrim Nuclear Power Plant in Plymouth.
The violation involves one of the plant’s emergency diesel generators and has been preliminarily classified as “greater than green”, which is greater than low to moderate safety significance.
If finalized at that level, it would result in additional NRC oversight in that area.
“We believe that the meeting was really about due process, we want to give the company an opportunity to shed light on any information that we may have missed and give us a full picture of exactly what took place and what they’ve done to better understand it,” said NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan.
Emergency diesel generators provide back-up power to nuclear plant safety systems if power from the electrical grid is interrupted.
NRC investigators are looking at whether the maintenance for a redesigned component of the generator was appropriate and would have prevented the generator from being out of service for a longer-than-allowed period.
The meeting was held at the NRC’s Region 1 Office in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania and the public was able to ask questions after the discussion.
Sheehan adds that a decision on the incident will made soon by the NRC and will be publicly documented.
“We’ll have to see where this ends up, it’s really going to be a matter of us looking at all the information they presented, looking at it in a safety context, and making sure that this was not an issue that Entergy should’ve given more attention to,” said Sheehan.
By JUSTIN SAUNDERS, CapeCod.com Newscenter
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