Palisades MFP recirc valve shutdown and restart!

Dec 17, 2011

This is not the story the NRC told me yesterday.

One day outage is third in past three months for nuclear plant

Published: Saturday, December 17, 2011 1:06 PM EST

Following repairs to the valve that caused the pumps' automatic shutdown, the plant returned to production at 11:45 p.m. Thursday, plant spokesman Mark Savage said.
From: Michael Mulligan
To: "allegation@nrc.gov"
Sent: Saturday, December 17, 2011 10:41 AM
Subject: Palisades MFP recirc valve shutdown and restart!

To Chairman Jaczko (and allegation)

By the way, the region III NRC public relation people were saying coming from the on site inspector...Palisades was allowed to startup without knowing the cause of the MFP recirc valve misoperation. As of late yesterday afternoon, they were researching the maintenance history of the valve after the startup.

Basically, they were allowed to take the broken valve off line, then immediately start up the reactor. Then trouble shoot and fix it at power. She said it was a non safety system, the NRC doesn't have any authority over this kind of plant operation.

I asked the NRC, the last DC short the NRC doesn't have the guts to declare a stop work and required a immediate shutdown to repair the DC ultra safety system before the flickering lights in the control room and the plant trip while not following procedures. So now you are saying to me the NRC didn't have the horsepower to keep the Palisades plant shutdown until everyone fully understood the broken MFP recirc valve and the organizational problems that drove it, in one of the worst operated nuclear plants in the USA. Are we going to discover in the American Fukushima the NRC had a radical reactionary stance...afraid to get ahead of the developing problem and the agency failing to assert their authority to protect our safety and security?

She said this moved them from green to white on the ROP with unnecessary shutdowns...5 shutdowns in the last year...

I hope i am not seeing the NRC and the plants being timid over the internecine warfare going on in the commissioners office...especially plant information. We are not sure what the hell is going on in NRC commissioners office, so just don't disclose anything is the safest avenue.

It seems the more trouble Entergy gets into...the more reckless they become in asserting to their investors and to the nation in general that our nuclear plant troubles will not interfere with our capacity factor!

Mike Mulligan

Hinsdale, NH

16033368320