For
nuclear inspectors, a 'boring' day is a perfect day
March 20, 2017 12:00 AM
By Daniel Moore /
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Stacey Horvitz admitted
she was a little excited on a recent morning, as the Beaver Valley nuclear
power plant quietly loomed nearby.
She checked with her
colleague, Jim Krafty, then reached for an emergency-red knob on the control
panel, a sprawling bank of buttons, switches, computer monitors and lights that
blinked dully. It would be a bit startling, she warned.
When she pulled it, several
alarms sounded at once. Green lights turned red. Indicators showed the plant’s
power generation plummeting, off-site power sources turning on, and water pumps
kicking into gear.
It was such a nightmare
scenario for Ms. Horvitz and Mr. Krafty that they seemed to take comfort in
stressing to visiting journalists that — despite this simulated control room
being a replica of the real one across the street — none of this was real.
In fact, as the two
resident inspectors at the Beaver Valley plant, they spend their days ensuring
there’s as little disruption as possible.
“A perfect day is a very
boring day,” said Mr. Krafty, the senior resident inspector, only a little
tongue-in-cheek. “Boring means 100 percent power and everything’s stable.”
The job of a nuclear
inspector is immensely important. Employed by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory
Commission, they are the public’s eyes and ears at the one hundred or so
nuclear power plants across the country.
The NRC launched the
inspector program in 1978 — just prior to the 1979 accident at Three Mile
Island in Dauphin County — to improve the agency's oversight by being able to
independently verify the performance of plant operators and equipment.
Although U.S. nuclear
plants have not suffered a breakdown of Three Mile Island magnitude since,
inspectors address plenty of issues that would otherwise go unnoticed by
reviewing equipment, reading paperwork and, occasionally, responding to an
error known as a “safety-significant event.”
The Beaver Valley
inspectors, like everyone else, begin their day by passing through security at
the 1,800-megawatt nuclear plant, which is owned by Akron, Ohio-based
FirstEnergy Corp. and sits on 453 acres along the Ohio River in Shippingport.
The inspectors get a
first status update on the plant by looking over the operators’ logs, Ms.
Horvitz said. “We’ll read the issues they’ve identified to see if anything has
safety significance,” she said. They glean more information by talking to the
operators in the control room and attending daily meetings with plant
management.
They then go about a
routine schedule of inspections, keeping in touch with the NRC’s regional
office near Philadelphia.
Each year, their work
culminates in an annual review of the plant’s performance published by the NRC,
which is discussed at a public town hall. This year’s meeting is Monday from 5
to 6:30 p.m. at the Shippingport Community and Municipal Building.
The NRC trains
prospective inspectors for months before sending them to a plant, pairing them
with other resident inspectors to learn the ropes.
The inspectors are not
licensed to operate the equipment and generally stay out of the way and let the
company work, they said. They do, however, need to understand the plant
equipment and know how to speak the lingo.
Every nuclear plant’s
control room and operations are slightly different, Mr. Krafty said. Even at
Beaver Valley, where the two reactors are both manufactured by Westinghouse,
there are subtle differences due to the evolving technology: The first unit
came online in 1976 and the second in 1987.
Mr. Krafty, who joined
the NRC in 2004, earned a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the
U.S. Naval Academy and served as a submarine officer for seven years.
Ms. Horvitz joined the
NRC in 2013, shortly after graduating from the University of Pittsburgh with a
bachelor’s in mechanical engineering. After completing the NRC’s 18-month
training program, she joined the regional office and this year was named a
resident inspector at Beaver Valley.
Despite any natural tension
between government agencies and businesses they regulate, the inspectors
described the relationship the NRC has with FirstEnergy as constructive and
respectful.
A big reason is the
inspection program itself: While strictly prohibited from socializing or
getting too close to any FirstEnergy employees, the resident inspectors are on
the ground every day with the workers.
“They see us every day,
which puts them more at ease,” Mr. Krafty said. “They know we’re not there to
make issues. We’re there to identify issues when they occur.”
“We can disagree,” he
added, “but we can be professional about it.”
In recent years, Mr.
Krafty said, inspectors have been involved in a number of incidents on a scale
of importance: In March 2015, a security officer placed an explosives detector
in service without noticing an out-of-service sign; in April 2015, a water pump
failed, forcing the plant to temporarily shut down; in January of this year, a
false fire alarm occurred in one of the reactor containment buildings.
Incidents are graded on
four tiers of emergency. For an “unusual event” — declared by the NRC for January’s
false fire alarm — is the lowest of four levels of emergency classification,
for problems that “indicate a potential degradation of the level of safety of
the plant.”
Though tasked with
alerting the public of flaws, they insist nuclear power is safe and clean. Ms.
Horvitz was surprised that a good chunk of Americans — nearly 1 in 3 in 2016,
according to public opinion polls — oppose nuclear power.
“If people were allowed
to come in and observe all of this, they would see the great lengths they go to
ensure safety,” Mr. Krafty said.
Ms. Horvitz added, “If I
didn’t think it was safe, I wouldn’t be here.”
