Controversy At The Pilgrim Nuclear Plant

Feb 12: I added the below to the NRC Blog

Additional Scrutiny at Pilgrim Nuclear Power Plant Set to Continue

‘Controversy at the Pilgrim nuclear plant’ 

Here is another Brian Williams moment. The Pilgrim spokesman and NRC Public Affairs Office Neil Sheehan rope-a-doping the antis. 

Pilgrim Spokesman Lauren Burm “The shutdown occurred safely as plant operators were reducing power in response to the onset of a historic storm. Plant conditions were stable and there was never any threat at all to the safety of plant workers or the public.” 

The NRC’s PNO: “On January 27, 2015, Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station experienced an automatic scram following a turbine trip due to a partial loss of offsite power. The station was experiencing high winds and heavy snowfall during a severe winter storm when the station began experiencing degrading switchyard conditions.”

At 4 am when the plant tripped Boston had 24” of snow on the ground. They were past the middle of the blizzard and these were the exact same grid instability they’d seen in Juno. They were getting control room annunciators of shorts on the line for an hour or more indicating a duel line trip was approaching. It got so bad, they were in an emergency procedure to bring them into a shutdown condition as fast as they could. They showed astounding incompetence in the shutdown as it was started too late…one line had tripped and everyone knew that plant wouldn't get to a safe shutdown condition on one line. Nuclear professionalism dictates you never accept an automatic protection…you manually insert the scram before the automatic action.

Mr. Sheeheen is supposed to be the neutral third party here…why didn't he explain the true conditions of the plant scram. I do understand it is against the NRC policy to never interrupt a licensee’s spokesman no matter how bad the Brian Williams moment is?

Millstone Power Station site Vice President John Daugherty slept on a cot in his office at the plant during storm Juno. The new guy sees the light. Did the equivalent (top dog) at Pilgrim ever show such concern for his employees and his plant? You are putting the individual safety of your employees at risk by forcing them to run around the plant like chickens with their heads cut off by allowing your plant to scram with a high potential of a LOOP in the middle of historic blizzard.     

Personally, in the condition they were in, the evacuation would have needed to occur after 6 to 8 hours. They weren't anywhere close to that. Core cooling was never impaired, but a lot of the safety systems had been stripped away from the plant Pilgrim is in a terrible state.

I am thinking the NRC fears if Pilgrim collapses...then Indian Point will soon follow... 

Does anyone think this is true:(Entergy)"were reducing power in response to the onset of a historic storm."

My interpretation would be they were responding to the shorting lines and  control room annunciators of troubles on the lines. This was hours from the onset of the storm.They were getting instrumentation indications that line trips were moments away.  

Posted to the NRC page: 

This is what I got a problem with…everyone only showing the most prettified version of self. Not the most completely accurate version of events. The selective release of information that only creates the most handsome profile of self. The Brain Williams in the nuclear industry? 

"During winter storm Juno, operators observed that water level indicators at the plant water intake were non-functional.” 

Why didn’t the NRC admit this was missed by Entergy in storm Nemo? Why didn’t the NRC catch it in 2013? If you had a special inspection in 2013, you would have caught it then and preventing its reoccurrence in 2015? 

 What are you guys going to do if another blizzard knocks Pilgrim into another LOOP in 2015? I am predicting one diesel generator failure this time due to the accumulation to all the fast start-ups creating excessive stress on these machines. How many fast start-ups are these machines designed for considering all the LOOPs at this site and the integrated eccs testing ? 

Don’t even get me talking about the broken meteorological tower I caught in Nemo…it being unreliable for a long period of time before this. This impaired a possible evacuation.  I got it on the Pilgrim docket. 

I do admit the water level is kind of insignificant in the big picture…but not knowing the limitation of your indications in a big event is bad.   

The Enterprise New: 

Controversy at the Pilgrim nuclear plant 

By Frank Mand Posted Feb. 11, 2015 at 5:00 AM

PLYMOUTH – Did Pilgrim come within minutes of sounding its sirens during the recent blizzard, dubbed Juno, or was it just a matter of tempers nearing the boiling point in the week after the nuclear power plant shut down at the peak of the historic storm? 

Neither Entergy nor the NRC is mincing words.

When plant critic and EcoLaw founder Meg Sheehan tweeted, “Insider says #Entergy Pilgrim #nuclear scram during #Juno2015 on 1/27 closest ever to meltdown, within minutes of sounding evacuation sirens,” Pilgrim Spokesman Lauren Burm used social media to call Sheehan's comments “irresponsible.” 

“These claims are completely unfounded and irresponsible,” Burm later wrote in a statement. “They have absolutely no basis in fact. The shutdown occurred safely as plant operators were reducing power in response to the onset of a historic storm. Plant conditions were stable and there was never any threat at all to the safety of plant workers or the public.”

Burm’s response led to a short but passionate exchange of tweets, with Sheehan posting that “a spokesperson for Entergy lacks any credibility.” 

But the NRC weighed in shortly thereafter backing Burm, commenting both on the reports of anonymous insiders and the condition of the plant during Juno. 

“We received similar comments on our blog,” NRC Public Affairs Office Neil Sheehan said. “We have seen nothing that would have qualified as a crisis during the shutdown.” 

Its confidence in the safety of the plant was backed up by its approval for the reactor to be restarted last Saturday, Feb. 7. 

But potentially complicating the matter is a new report saying that along with the loss of power and the failure of other noncritical systems during Juno, the plant also experienced a loss of “instrument air.” 

Instrument air, according to the NRC, is a non-safety-related system used to provide control air to a number of valves and instruments in the plant. If those controls are not working, the plant has to rely on a person with their eyes on the actual conditions. 

Burm acknowledges that the plant did not report this occurrence on a timely basis. The report Pilgrim should have filed, called a 5072 Report, was issued Feb. 5, nine days after the scram, or shutdown. But Burm said the loss of instrument air did not impact safety. 

"During winter storm Juno, operators observed that water level indicators at the plant water intake were non-functional. Actual sea water levels at the intake bay did not rise above typical levels at any time during the storm,” Burm said. “Although the facility did not immediately report the issue with the water level indicators, equipment reliability was never challenged and the plant remained safe and in stable condition."
Page 2 of 2 - The NRC’s Neil Sheehan backed up Burm's statement. 

“In general, a loss of instrument air can complicate plant operators’ response to an event,” Neil Sheehan said, “but the plant can be - and was - safely shut down without it.” 

At Pilgrim, Neil Sheehan explained, “instrument air feeds level instrument bubblers used to measure the sea water intake bay level. These instruments are used by operators to assess Emergency Action Levels." 

It was the NRC that identified the issue, during the inspection that followed the Juno scram."During our Special Inspection, the NRC identified that the level instruments were not functional once instrument air was lost.” Entergy then submitted an Event Notification on the issue. 

“During the storm, the company had an operator outside in the sea water intake structure, and water levels never rose to a level that would have challenged any plant equipment,” Neil Sheehan added. “In addition, our review of tidal conditions, including worst-case forecast storm surge, determined that intake bay levels never actually exceeded an Emergency Action Level, nor were the water levels close to exceeding an Emergency Action Level.”
Was this instrument failure the basis for the allegations that the plant had come close to a catastrophic failure during the storm, and that it was within minutes of sounding its sirens? 

The Old Colony was unable to identify the “insider” who supposedly made the claim that Pilgrim had come close to meltdown and was within minutes of calling for evacuations. 

When EcoLaw’s Meg Sheehan, who tweeted the allegation after, she says, having communicated with this “insider,” was asked why the NRC would have allowed the plant to restart if there were systemic issues and what the insider knows that the NRC does not, she said she didn't want to “debate” the issue. 

She did, however, offer a personal comment. 

“Since the 1970s, I have been told by many friends and acquaintances many things about what goes on inside Pilgrim,” Meg Sheehan said. “This is just one more thing I’ve heard, and happen to believe. 

“During Juno I stayed with my elderly parents who live 8 miles from Pilgrim to make sure they were OK,” Sheehan added. “After what happened at Pilgrim, I realize acutely the danger we are all in.”