Thursday, May 28, 2015

NRC Pulling their Punches: "Pilgrim nuclear plant may need more oversight, regulators says"?

This is a very good article!

Pilgrim nuclear plant may need more oversight, regulators says 

“Before that storm, Pilgrim did poorly in a supplemental inspection conducted by NRC investigators in December. Inspectors returned earlier this month and repeated that inspection. Results will be released in June.”

I wonder how many inspectors did this inspection(May)...was it similar to the first? They characterized the 23kV line in the 2013 Nemo Plant trip in this inspection.

Special Inspection: 4) The 23kV line remained operable and vital buses were powered by the EDGs, but there were intermittent alarms associated with the 23kV line.

They are basically obscuring the magnitude of the problems at Pilgrim last winter...the NRC should have had enough manpower to include the switch yard inspection in the special inspection.

I think the violation level keys on the operability of the 23kv line...that is why it is extremely important to document all the conditions and alarms on the 23kV line. The NRC needs to make an independent determination on the operability of this line because the violation level keys off of this. They NRC is well aware of this. I bet you in this months inspection they will spend some time explaining the operability of this line.

The idea the special inspection treated the 23kV line “intermittent alarms” so skimpily indicates the NRC was engineering the violation level...pulling their punches to protect their own image and Pilgrim.
It is like NRC upper management told the special inspectors...we want this inspection to go no higher than a "white" level. Remember the House Republicans are watching us closely. The violation will key off the 23kV line, we need the 23 kV line to be was operable. Only cover the 23kV lightly in the special inspection so we can say the line is operable.  






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