The NRC didn't pick it up on their own...I discovered it first and reported it to the NRC.
Basically this was a addendum to my Safety Relief Valve 10 CFR 2.206.
Inspection finds broken backup tower
Plant uses meteorological data for emergencies
By Christine Legere
clegere@capecodonline.com
Posted Oct. 1, 2015 at 11:29 PM
PLYMOUTH — If a radiation leak had occurred at the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station, on eight occasions over the last three years, operators would have been forced to rely on the National Weather Service in Taunton to provide the meteorological information needed to tell them which regions were in danger of contamination.
A routine check at the plant done in August turned up four negative findings. While all four were considered of lowI believe the finding should have been much higher.
1) Risk consist if the component fails and how it impact the accident.
2) The met tower questions the competence of Pilgrim to understand problems and fix them early, this competence issue with the met towers, it is more global site wide...constitutes large risk.
3) Entergy with global safety competency issues as in #2...a tiny competency risk affecting a fleet of plants globally turns into a huge risk.
4) The NRC with global issues as in #2...a tiny global risk associated with a regulator's competency across a fleet of 100 plants turns into a humongous risk.
Risk is multidimensional and the NRC treats it as a isolated issue...this is a feedback mechanism. The agency and public never sees the real risk, thus becomes a inappropriate feedback mechanism.
safety significance, one of the more serious ones was related to plant security — something the Nuclear Regulatory Commission cannot publicly discuss — and the other was related to the plant's meteorological towers. Entergy, Pilgrim's owner-operator, was notified of the inspection results Thursday.
Pilgrim, which has already been downgraded to among the three worst performing reactors in the country, has two towers on the property: a 220-foot main tower and a 160-foot backup. Their purpose is to provide continuous readings on wind speed and direction, and air temperature. In December 2011, Entergy canceled preventative maintenance on the backup tower and it became nonfunctional, according to the NRC’s letter to Pilgrim’s owner-operator dated Thursday.
“As a result, on eight occasions between March 12, 2012 and Aug. 15, 2015, when the 220-foot primary meteorological tower was non-functional for various reasons, Pilgrim did not have instrumentation available on either tower for continuous readings,” the letter said.
NRC spokeswoman Diane Screnci said operators would have been forced to rely on the National Weather Service for data, should a radiological emergency have occurred.
In its finding, the NRC noted the lack of the backup tower resulted in a lack of assurance that Entergy could “protect the health and safety of the public in the event of a radiological emergency.”
This isn’t the first time Entergy has been cited for the broken backup tower. The NRC had first noted the tower’s status following a routine inspection in late 2013.Right, I hammered on the NRC in early 2013 with the Met Tower.
At the time, federal officials said the finding was rated as low in safety significance because nothing bad had happened as a result.
Pilgrim spokeswoman Lauren Burm on Thursday acknowledged the company’s lack of action. “The NRC accurately determined that the station response to restoration of back-up meteorological monitoring was not timely,” Burm wrote in an email. “Since the issuance of the finding, the completion of the new MET Tower is well underway. “In accordance with our emergency procedures, we utilized the National Weather Service as backup.”
Scenci said the August inspection was routine, something the NRC does every 18 months.
The NRC spokeswoman noted the results of that inspection were significant because they reinforced the NRC’s decision to place Pilgrim in the lowest performance category in which the agency allows plants to continue to operate. The only other plants in the category, which is for reactors with frequent violations of federal standards, are Entergy’s two reactors at its Arkansas location.
While Burm is not allowed to elaborate on the security infraction found in August, she did make a comment:
“For the identified security related issues, it was noted that we did not respond in a timely manner to an equipment performance issue of very low safety significance,” Burm wrote. “The NRC did conclude, however, that actions were in place to ensure the station remained secure. “
Another criticism in the report was the tendency of Pilgrim operators to close corrective action reports prior to specified corrective actions being completed.
Burm said Entergy was taking the inspectors’ findings very seriously. “Pilgrim has modified our already comprehensive and significant site-wide program to address the gaps in our Corrective Action Program that are noted in this latest report,” she wrote. “Safety and quality performance are the first and foremost goals for each employee every day.”
Entergy is currently calculating the cost of the upgrades and inspections that will be required for the Pilgrim plant to move up from its position at the bottom of the performance list. Burm recently said that if the corporation finds the cost of making the improvements exceeds the value of the plant, it may consider permanently shutting Pilgrim down.
Entergy has 30 days to respond to the NRC’s latest inspection report.
— Follow Christine Legere on Twitter: @ClegereCCT.
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