Junk Plant Grand Gulf: Delay Startup to Fix Safety Culture

Update 9/30:

It is utterly not safe with the apathy shown by the Louisiana newspapers over Entergy's nuclear plant's such as River Bend and Waterford. It shows you how wrapped up Entergy got the news media in that region and the south. 

"Operational performance concerns"...the most important group at the plant.

September 29, 2016 

PRELIMINARY NOTIFICATION OF EVENT OR UNUSUAL OCCURRENCE - PNO-IV-16-003 

This preliminary notification constitutes EARLY notice of events of POSSIBLE safety or public interest significance. The information is as initially received without verification or evaluation, and is basically all that is known by the Region IV, Arlington, Texas staff on this date.

Facility: Grand Gulf Nuclear Station

SUBJECT: GRAND GULF EXTENDED PLANT SHUTDOWN TO ADDRESS OPERATIONS

PERFORMANCE 

DESCRIPTION: 

On September 27, 2016, Grand Gulf Nuclear Station plant management notified the NRC of their intent to delay start-up of the plant, following a forced outage, to implement corrective actions to assess and resolve operational performance concerns. The plant completed a 16 day forced outage to replace a residual heat removal pump on September 24, 2016. Two separate operational performance issues occurred during startup preparation. Plant operators identified four valves that were inappropriately closed, rendering the alternate decay heat removal system inoperable. That system was required to be available while workers replaced a safety-related pump on the residual heat removal system. Additionally, plant operators opened a main feedwater isolation valve prior to securing the condensate system from a configuration that resulted in a rapid and unanticipated reactor vessel level increase from 33 inches to 151 inches. The timeline for a plant restart is under review by plant leadership while they determine a path forward.

NRC Region IV management received notification of this plan by a telephone call from Grand Gulf plant management at about 3:00 p.m. (CDT) on September 26, 2016. 

This preliminary notification is issued for information only and no further action by the staff is anticipated. 

The State of Mississippi has been notified. 

The information presented herein has been discussed with the licensee and is current as of  9:30 a.m. (CDT) September 29, 2016.

ADAMS ACCESSION NUMBER: ML16273A330
CONTACT: Greg Warnick at (240) 704-5884