Brunkswick "Cape Fear River" Is Exspected To Exceed 23 Feet Above Sea Level

Hurricane Day Sept 14

Burnell, Scott (NRC spokesmen)	Thu, Sep 13, 3:38 PM (16 hours ago)
to me

Hello Mr. Mulligan;

Based on available information, impacts from storm surge, winds and flooding at Brunswick and other plants in Florence’s path will fall well below the plants’ design parameters. One reactor at Brunswick has started shutting down; both Brunswick reactors are expected to be fully shut down hours before hurricane-force winds could affect the site. All U.S. nuclear power plants have the additional resources (such as pumps and generators) and procedures required by the NRC after the Fukushima accident to maintain key safety functions after any severe event. Available information indicates the plants can remain safe during the storm without the post-Fukushima equipment. Following normal NRC procedures, the agency has dispatched additional inspectors to plants in the storm’s path. The NRC staff will continue inspecting plants’ storm preparedness and response actions as conditions require.

Scott Burnell

Public Affairs Officer

Nuclear Regulatory Commission

Mike Mulligan <steamshovel2002@gmail.com>	Thu, Sep 13, 8:04 PM (12 hours ago)
to Scott

Mr. Burnell,

I think you are a good guy. 

But somebody has been giving you bum and inaccurate information.

State officials project the "Cape Fear River" is going to exceed their record of 23 feet. That is a measly three feet with a not tested safety margin. The complexity of this thing is one-off event and is too difficult to comprehend. As we speak, Hurricane Florence is struck for 24 hours in the Gulf Stream. The hurricane is strengthening. 

I give it a 50% of a meltdown.

75% chance of a NRC and industry shattering event. The Republican are pissing their pants over of the possibility of loosing their elections and the House and Senate. We are in a terrible position with Trump and a restless nation. The political blow back like TMI is going to be horrible.

Big congressional investigation of NRC and industry after the blue wave. Matter of fact, I think the republican have been so vulnerable and insecure...they will investigation crazy to save their ass.

We got the new media to document the industry's and NRC's spin. We are very happy with that. Do you realize the precipice you are in? Got CNN's Anderson Cooper to park his ass just miles from the Brunswick for the duration of the hurricane.

Biblical flooding all over the high concentration of nuclear plants in the South. I'd be watching for dam failures in this area and unforeseen local flooding on site. Precipitation beyond the design and licensing of the plants. Four or five hurricanes line up behind Florence. There might be another hurricane hitting this area?

         

Honestly, I am praying for all of you.

Sincerely,

Mike Mulligan 

Hinsdale, NH 

CNN's John Berman is in Wilmington NC and on TV right now. Hurricane rain and wind has been pelting him all night. Twenty two inches of rain has already fallen on Wilmington. The total rainfall is expected to be over 40 inches. John is about to go through the first eyewall. The hurricane is running down the coast. He is facing biblical precipitation and hurricane surge. Wilmington is 30 miles north of the Brunswick plant. We are actually seeing what the Brunswick plant is going go through. The Brunswick plant will enter and exit the eye wall too. The eye is going to go right over the Brunswick plant. North of Wilmington is now on the extreme surge side of the hurricane. They are having biblical surge flooding right now. This going to be a extremely prolonged hurricane event. It is an extremely slow moving hurricane. Wilmington just picked up 4" of rain an hour. The biblical surge wall is scheduled to begin to hit the Brunswick plant at around midnight. They are expected to go though two or three or more tidal cycles during the hurricane surge. On each tidal peak surge, the total surge gets worst and worst.    Then, the river surge from upstream rain will occur in two or three days. Update: The hurricane Florence's eye wall just made landfall six miles north of Wilmington.              

***Will they not follow public warning regulations in the name of altruism. We don't want to disrupt the rescue and recovery activities. They probable have reductant ocean level detectors and alarms in the control. At this Ocean level we got to heighten the site activities and at this ocean level we got declare an Unusual Event. This first emergency notification is when you are required to notify the state officials and NRC. The more serous the event, you do more things and bring in extra people. I mean you got biblical flooding and a host of other issues. It is almost a guarantee you are going to quickly overwhelm the state and federal officials the developing nuclear crisis. So Duke, the NRC and state official, in secrecy, might withhold public notion towards the greater ends of serving the community. Think how disruptive this will be for Duke?  Really serving their own ends.

Matter of fact, in Fukushima, with the intensification of the nuclear crisis, then meltdown, they might have been withholding the public notification of the conditions of the plant so as not disrupt the tsunami rescue and recovery effort. We they do that in the USA?          

OK, Cooper is on the shores of the "Cape Fear River" near or in Southport NC. Just gave Duke's spin on the plant. With that, Duke just destroyed the nuclear industry if the barriers get over-topped and the NRC lost their integrity. Remember on a recently shutdown nuclear plant there still is tremendous decay heat. They can still make up to 10% power with the plant shutdown. Also, Fukushima was shutdown just prior to the meltdown, much like Brunswick.  

He is in North Myrtle beach. I wish I paid attention with Cooper.   

CNN's Anderson Cooper just now says Brunswick's "Cape Fear River" is expected to exceed the hurricane surge record of 23 feet. His station for this hurricane is going be just a few miles from Brunswick. Three feet of surge level is a terrible safety margin. I think he is in Southport NC. 

As I said, what is your definition of sea level? There is many definitions for a assortment of purposes.      

Brunswick is built at an elevation of 20 feet above sea level and designed to withstand a storm surge of 22 feet, which would leave the plant’s emergency generators high and dry.

The barriers are designed to repel a storm surge of 26 feet, said NRC spokesman Scott Burnell, citing documentation submitted by Duke Energy. 

Will Duke Energy’s Brunswick nuclear plant’s flood barriers stop Hurricane Florence?

By John Murawski

jmurawski@newsobserver.com

September 12, 2018 12:25 PM

Hurricane Florence is shaping up to be the most powerful storm to ever threaten Duke Energy’s 1970s-era Brunswick nuclear plant, a 1,200-acre energy complex sitting in the path of the monster storm.

And it will be the first major test of the safeguards installed at the dual-reactor plant, about 30 miles south of Wilmington, since the 2011 nuclear disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi plant in Japan, which is the same generation and design as the Brunswick plant.

Seven years ago, a tsunami swamped Fukushima’s emergency backup generators, cutting off power that was needed to pump water to constantly cool the facility’s radioactive nuclear fuel. The loss of power caused nuclear fuel to overheat in three reactor cores, triggering hydrogen explosions and spewing radioactivity into the atmosphere.

Brunswick is one of about two dozen U.S. reactors that relies on General Electric nuclear technology that dates back to the 1960s, designed at a time when engineers underestimated the vulnerability of nuclear facilities during natural disasters.

The nuclear industry has learned about the limitations of its early optimism the hard way: at Three Mile Island, at Chernobyl, at Fukushima; and also during periodic forced shutdowns in this country when nuclear plants were repeatedly fined by regulators for falling short of safety standards and posing unacceptable risks to the public.

The Fukushima disaster raised questions about the Brunswick plant’s capability to withstand massive flooding, and caused the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission to determine that is not fully safe without modifications. As a result, Brunswick’s emergency plan now calls for installing nine temporary flood barriers in advance of a hurricane, to compensate for deficiencies in the original design.

“The good news is, because of Fukushima, the plant is better prepared,” said Dave Lochbaum, director of the nuclear safety project for the Union of Concerned Scientists, a watchdog group. “If it hadn’t been for Fukushima, that vulnerability would not have been identified.”

Nuclear plants have consistently proven hardy against hurricanes. Hurricane Andrew, a Category 5 storm, passed directly over the Turkey Point plant in Florida in 1992, causing extensive damage to communications systems and the fire protection system, but the nuclear safety infrastructure remained intact, according to the Union of Concerned

Apples and oranges. Hurricane Fran passed inland many miles north of Brunswick. The highest speed winds and surge totally missed the Brunswick nuclear plant. It was very fast storm. It was conducive to a small surge. While Florence is a huge storm and it is almost going to be stationary as it goes over or passes east of the plant. This is conducive to a big storm surge.  

Scientists. Several storms have passed close to Brunswick, including Hurricane Fran in 1996, which made landfall as a Category 3 hurricane.

During Hurricane Matthew in 2016, wind speeds never reached hurricane force at the Brunswick site and there was no flooding, said Duke spokeswoman Karen Williams.

A modern fortress guarded by armed security, the Brunswick plant is touted by Duke as one of the most robust type of structures standing in the Unites States. But a year after the Fukushima incident, Duke Energy discovered scores of potential areas of leakage and water penetration at Brunswick that had to be fixed. Duke identified the problems as missing seals, missing or corroded bolts, broken links or pressure plates, corrosion, open terminal boxes, gaps in weather stripping on doors and inadequate repairs for previous leakage.

Brunswick is built at an elevation of 20 feet above sea level and designed to withstand a

NOAA says you can expect with a cat 4 hurricane three to greater six inches ocean surge over-topping the facility. Honestly, I don't trust NOAA with their computer modeling of hurricane surge levels...I don't trust the NRC's and the licensee modeling of the storm surge and anything associated with the licensee analysis of the storm surge. There is too much self interest involved with in all of this.

storm surge of 22 feet, which would leave the plant’s emergency generators high and dry. Brunswick, which is four miles inland, can withstand maximum sustained winds over 200 miles per hour of a Category 5 hurricane, Williams said. 

Florence is expected to make landfall as a Category 4, which ranges from 130 mph to 156 mph; but Galen Smith, the plant’s on-site resident inspector with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, said flooding poses the greater threat to the facility.

As far as wind damage goes, Smith said that the structures containing Brunswick’s twin nuclear reactors are virtually impenetrable, enclosed in walls several feet thick that are cast from concrete and rebar.

Emergency generators are a nuclear plant’s artificial life support, fired up when a nuclear facility is put in mandatory shutdown mode during a hurricane that can knock out the power grid, which would be the plant’s normal source of juice. The generators operate the pumps that supply the water needed to cool the reactor core and keep radioactive fuel rods from overheating and triggering a runaway nuclear reaction.

“We have verified the capability to withstand a total loss of electric power to our plants,” Williams said. “We have verified our capability to withstand flooding and the impact of floods on systems inside and outside the plant.”

At least two NRC inspectors will ride out the storm inside the plant, Smith said, and they have been making rounds daily to monitor the progress as plant operators prepare for the storm. Smith said Brunswick has five on-site diesel generators that are backed up by two additional generators installed at elevated levels to stay dry if high waters defy all estimates.

“They have everything they need to operate the plant safely,” Smith said. “It’s just a matter of executing at this point. Even if the storm is bad, they should do fine.”

The temporary flood barriers, called “cliff edge barriers,” hint at the remote potential for catastrophe inherent to the business of splitting atoms to make electricity. In nuclear parlance, a “cliff edge” effect refers to a small variation in plant conditions that can trigger an abrupt change, pushing a nuclear plant over the cliff, from normal functioning to a critical state.

Brunswick’s “cliff edge” barriers will be installed to prevent sea water from gushing through doorways that protect safety equipment and sensitive areas of the plant. The barriers are designed to repel a storm surge of 26 feet, said NRC spokesman Scott Burnell, citing documentation submitted by Duke Energy.

Each barrier consists of an aluminum plate fasted to the wall with stainless steel anchors and backed by a rubber strip to create an waterproof seal. They will be installed at nine doors in the diesel generator building, control building and in the reactor building’s airlock doors. It takes workmen up to 2 1/2 hours to install each barrier, and Duke begins setting up the barriers as soon as a hurricane watch is issued. 

The cliff edge barriers are not considered some crude patch job, but a high-tech upgrade. Burnell characterized them as part of Brunswick’s long-term strategy for “dealing with events that might exceed the plant’s original design basis.”

urric

Cape Fear River Height and Weather Data: USGS Data at Highway 74/133 Near Brunswhick Nuclear Plant

USGS 0210869230 NE CAPE FEAR R AT US HWY 74/133 AT WILMINGTON, NC

Estuary or ocean water surface elevation above NAVD 1988, feet

Most recent instantaneous value: 2.00 09-13-2018   12:00 EDT

A lot of good weather and river level indication. It is few miles upriver from Brunswick nuclear plant. y

NRC And BWROG Taking Greater Interest In SRVs, Or Angling to Hide Problems

They should invite me to this meeting?

LER Reduction, they guys make me laugh. It is probably the only reason of this meeting. These guys constantly violate tech specs and don't shutdown when required.

If they change their Teck Specs, they won't fix the problem. They will just hide the problem from outsiders. On the positive, they won't ruin the integrity of the employees by constantly violating meaning and intent of the tech specs.

Basically I have been working on this for many years. Do a google search on Popperville Town Hall and Mike Mulligan

BWROG/NRC Meeting September 12, 2018
Copyright 2018, BWR Owners’ Group, All Rights Reserved
BWROG Target Rock SRV Performance Improvement Committee
2
History/Scope
Formed in 2016
Committee Scope:  address the common causes of repetitive Target Rock 2-stage SRV as-found set-point test failures in the fleet. • Technical Exchange Meetings:  share site set point drift performance, best practices, roadmap planning • 2-stage valve focus • Scope focused on setpoint drift
Membership:  DTE/Fermi, Duke/Brunswick, Exelon/FitzPatrick, NPPD/Cooper, PSEG/Hope Creek, TVA/Browns Ferry
Copyright 2018, BWR Owners’ Group, All Rights Reserved
3
2017/18 Activities
• Industry-shared IBAD procedure (application of Platinum to disc surface) • Autoclave Screening Test - used to help develop sputtering application process of Platinum on test coupons and comparison to IBAD.  Obtained positive results. • Plasma Enhanced Magnetron Sputter Coating of (Quantity 3) pilot discs with Platinum.  Performed steam validation testing with positive results. In process of obtaining BWROG product for utilizing Sputtering for application of Platinum on SRV pilot discs. • Static Autoclave Material Screening - baseline conditions of corrosion bonding with control group and screening other materials. (Started Aug. 24, 2018)
Copyright 2018, BWR Owners’ Group, All Rights Reserved
4
2019 Planned Activities
Test different thickness of (sputtered) Platinum coated on pilot discs in valve lift tests. • Sputtering opens process space for different thicknesses of Platinum Coating. • Potential for fleet usage – Know that current thickness of Platinum coating provided step-improvement in set point drift performance.  – Does increase in thickness provide more protection from corrosion bonding?

LER Reduction 

Initial scoping effort to understand current Tech Spec Limits and alternative licensing approaches. • Not a funded project at this time. • Initial discussions among multiple BWROG committees.

NOAA Says The Two Plant Bunkswhick Nuclear Plant Are Heading For a Meltdown in a Cat 4 Hurricane

Still working on this

Cat 4 Hurricane Hugo had a storm surge of 18 feet in North Carolina. I don't know if it was in the high or low end of a Cat 4 hurricane? Remember Florence is 21 feet about sea level. You know, what is your definition  sea level?  There is many of them. I got my measurement of Brunswick's above sea-level height of 21 feet from google earth. I kinda thought over topping the Brunswick's site was not probable in a Cat 4 or 5 hurricane. I did not believe these plants could be constructed so closes to sea-level. I figured these plants could easily survive high in the Cat 5 level. I now know it is probable ocean overtopping the site in a cat 4 or 5 is a certainty. I totally believe the NOAA's cat 4 or 5 storm surge calculations. Remember the hurricane ocean over topping is 3 feet at Brunswick per NOAA.

I am shocked at this latitude this plant is so poorly situated. I suspect more plants are in the same situation.

Now I consider it a high probability there will be a guaranteed of meltdown at Brunswick in a cat 4 or 5 hurricane. This is our Fukushima. Are the reactor building, turbine building, diesel generator rooms or the switchyard are not designed for a 6 feet or more ocean over-topping of their site. Can the flex system over come this kind of defect with a 6 feet or more over-topping of their site. In the best of any ones computer models, they is just too much uncertainty.

I think the turbine building and reactor building would quickly fill up with ocean water rendering all ECCS inoperable. I think the ECCS safety busses are on the ground floor. They would become inoperable. As far as the diesel generators, they are probrably on the ground floor. Certainly the diesel generator's local breakers are on the ground floor. There is your blackout where the flex system being useless too. You going to helicopter a flex system big DG or pump into 6 feet of water?  

I make the case in climate change, these big hurricanes will be much more probable.

Questions

1) Is it in plant licensing all US are nuclear plant are supposed to survive all cat 4 and 5 Hurricanes without a meltdown?

2) Think about the movement and safety of operators on site in a over-topping conditions. There would be no movement.

3) Would the hardened vent be usable or accessible?

I request a emergency investigation on this Hurricane ocean surge issue on a Cat 4 and 5 levels at Brunswick. Can this plant survive a Cat 4 or 5 hurricane without a meltdown? Is there a extremely high likelihood these plants would not meltdown? Actually, if a plant can't survive a Cat 4 or 5 hurricane without meltdown, these plants should be emediately shutdown in the greater interest of the USA?

I am considering a 2,206?

Sincerely,

Mike Mulligan
Hinsdale, NH

Cell: 1603 209-4206
steamshovel2002@ yahoo.com            

September 12, 2018 Contact: Roger Hannah, 404-997-4417                Joey Ledford, 404-997-4416 NRC  

Preparing for Hurricane Florence The Nuclear Regulatory Commission resident inspectors at nuclear plants in the Carolinas and Virginia are reviewing the plant operators’ preparations in advance of Hurricane Florence, currently projected to make landfall in the Southeast later this week. 

The NRC is also sending additional inspectors to those plants and will activate its regional incident response center in Atlanta, to provide around-the-clock staff support during the storm. 

Duke Energy’s Brunswick nuclear plant south of Wilmington, N.C., could face hurricane-force winds, major storm surges and heavy rain. Other plants near the storm’s projected path are also taking precautions.

Nuclear plant operators would declare an emergency if conditions are expected that would require that declaration.

Plant procedures require operators to shut down the reactor well before hurricane-force winds arrive on site. In preparing for Hurricane Florence, the staffs at Brunswick, Surry in southeastern Virginia, Harris near Raleigh, N.C., Robinson near Hartsville, S.C., and some other plants are working through their severe weather procedures, including ensuring that all loose debris and equipment have been removed or secured, and conducting walk-down inspections of important systems and equipment. 

NRC inspectors are verifying that all preparations have been completed, and the plants’ emergency diesel generators are available with ample fuel if the storm affects off-site power. 

The NRC has also been in touch with officials at the Global Nuclear Fuels-America facility near Wilmington, N.C., the research reactor at North Carolina State University in Raleigh and other NRC licensees in the area to verify their preparations for the storm. 

From the NRC Region II incident response center in Atlanta, NRC staff members will monitor Hurricane Florence while remaining in contact with plant operators, NRC on-site inspectors, the NRC’s headquarters operations center, and state emergency officials in the Carolinas, Virginia and all potentially affected states. 

The additional NRC inspectors will remain at the nuclear plant sites and the incident response center will remain staffed as long as conditions require. 

Ok, do a google satellite search on the two plant Brunswick nuclear facility. Carefully memorized the  two canal entrench and discharge from the plant. This is very important. Then do a search on Southport NC on the NOAA hurricane surge page. Increase the magnification all the way down to where you can only see the street level detail on the map. You do not want to see any of the colors of the hurricane surge levels. Carefully going a little north, find the canals ends going into the plant. They erased any indications of the plant for bogus security consideration. All you can see is the canals ends. Or it is plainly a cover up with the risk of a possible meltdown risk. Find the two ends of the canals...the empty space between the canal ends is the plant. Remember what you seen in the google street search. Now decrease the magnification until the hurricane surge color levels appear on the NOAA page. On the top of the NOAA page are links to the Cat 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 hurricane  surge levels. Click on the cat 3, 4 and 5 hurricane surge levels. Now do you see the site water inundation level. It says the site is going completely covered on cat 4.    

Update Sept 12

NOAA says for a Cat 4 hurricane, the site is going to be inundated by 3 feet water. A cat 3 might not get inundated but it will be a close call.

Should the site now be in a anticipatory site area emergency in preparation for a two plant meltdown. They would absolutely change the nation. 

It will be like Fukushima where the meltdown overwhelms the recovery actions.    

Wrightsville Beach might get a 13 feet surge. Multiple tide surges. Cape Fear river. The might regret building those intercoastal canals to the plant? 

The plant is 23 feet above sea level. 

AP: In simulation, Category 4 hurricane devastated East Coast

Florence is much worst than the simulation. They guy might hang around the region for 3 to 5 days in a stalled condition, or more. They are talking about 30 inches of rainfall. What is going to happen Friday is just too complicated to predict. All they are talking about now is primitive probabilities  It is looking like it is siding more south right now.  

In simulation, Category 4 hurricane devastated East Coast

By JEFF MARTIN Associated Press

Sep 11, 2018 Updated 15 min ago 

ATLANTA (AP) — Just months ago, disaster planners simulated a Category 4 hurricane strike alarmingly similar to the real-word scenario now unfolding on a dangerously vulnerable stretch of the East Coast.

A fictional "Hurricane Cora" barreled into southeast Virginia and up the Chesapeake Bay to strike Washington, D.C., in the narrative created by the Federal Emergency Management Agency and Argonne National Laboratory.

The result was catastrophic damage, which has some experts concerned that Hurricane Florence could produce a disaster comparable to 2005's Hurricane Katrina and in a part of the country that is famously difficult to evacuate.


The simulated hurricane knocked out power for most gas stations in the Mid-Atlantic region, damaged a nuclear power plant and sent debris into major shipping channels, among other problems, according to a Department of Energy simulation manual.

"What they were trying to do was create a worst-case scenario, but it's a very realistic scenario," said Joshua Behr, a research professor at Virginia's Old Dominion University who is involved in disaster modeling and simulations.

Florence is also a Category 4 storm and is now forecast to strike the same general area. On Tuesday, the National Hurricane Center's "cone" displaying Florence's projected path included the Hampton Roads, Virginia, region where Cora supposedly made landfall.

Senior leaders from the White House, along with more than 91 federal departments and agencies, participated in the "national level exercise" in late April and early May, FEMA said.

The fictional storm made landfall in the heavily populated Hampton Roads region, bringing a 15-foot (4.5-meter) storm surge and up to 9 inches (23 centimeters) of rain to some areas within the first six hours. That cut off main routes — used for escape as well as for rescuers — in the Hampton Roads area and elsewhere.

In the scenario, Cora also slammed hurricane-force winds into three nuclear power stations. One was damaged. Thirty-three major power substations were at risk from storm surge and major flooding.

Key roads and bridges were also damaged, and debris blocked the Newport News Channel and other waterways. Coast Guard Station Cape Charles lost power, and Coast Guard Station Chincoteague was severely damaged by high winds. The ferocious fictional storm also damaged and closed Reagan National Airport in Washington.

The make-believe hurricane threatened hundreds of cell towers, and the area where power was knocked out included 135 data centers in Virginia and another 60 in Maryland.

The Cora scenario projected hurricane-force winds inflicting "catastrophic damage" to homes and significant damage to critical infrastructure within a 50-mile radius of the hurricane's center.

The manual makes no mention of deaths and injuries, focusing instead on infrastructure.

Another striking similarity between the scenario and Hurricane Florence's path: already saturated ground on that part of the Mid-Atlantic coast.

"What I fear is that saturation, combined with a storm that kind of stalls out," said Behr, who has studied vulnerable populations in the paths of Hurricane Katrina on the Gulf Coast and in the Hampton Roads region.

If parts of the East Coast are deluged with water, it could result in a catastrophe on the scale of Katrina, Behr said. And recovering from a disaster in the Hampton Roads region would also parallel Katrina's aftermath, he added.


"I believe that those patterns are also going to manifest in Hampton Roads if and when a large storm hits," he said. "The vulnerability of our populations are quite similar to New Orleans. Displacement, pain, suffering, property loss. All those things are going to play out in a fashion that has parallels to how Katrina played out."

Evacuation is known to be challenging in Hampton Roads, a coastal region inhabited by 1.7 million people in cities such as Norfolk, Virginia, and Virginia Beach.

"I've heard people say Virginia Beach is the world's largest cul-de-sac in the sense that there are not a lot of ways to evacuate," said Michelle Covi, an assistant professor of practice with Old Dominion University and Virginia Sea Grant, a science group that works with other universities in the region on coastal issues.

"You can't go north because of the Chesapeake Bay," she said. "You can't really go south, and in this case you wouldn't want to because the storm is that way. You generally want to go west, but again there are lots of water bodies."

In Charleston, South Carolina, where the average elevation is only around 11 feet (3.4 meters) above sea level, storm surge and flooding from a hurricane's drenching rain has the same effect — cutting off access, said Norman Levine, an associate professor at the College of Charleston.

"It inundates roads, and it ends up reaching the point where you become isolated little sea island communities," he said.

Junk Plant Nine Mile Point 1: Grossly Insufficient Maintenance

Grossly insufficient maintenance on the turbine control system. Run to failure. Is more troubles on the way. It sounds line steam or water got into the hydraulic system. They shifted to the standby system. It questions the readiness of all standby systems. 

Licensee Event Report (LER) 2017-002, Manual Reactor Scram Due to Pressure Oscillations

On March 20, 2017 at 02:27, Nine Mile Point Unit 1 performed a manual scram of the reactor due to pressure oscillations. This event is reportable under 10 CFR 50.72 (b)(2)(iv)(B) and 10 CFR 50.73(a)(2)(iv)(A) as any event or condition that resulted in a manual or automatic actuation of any of the systems listed in 10 CFR 50.73(a)(2)(iv)(B).
The Unit was offline and reactor shutdown was in-progress at the time of the scram. The cause of the scram was manual scram. The scram was required at approximately 4% reactor power when pressure oscillations occurred exceeding the procedurally required limit. The apparent cause of this event was Mechanical Pressure Regulator (MPR) oscillations caused by a combination of the fouling of the MPR' s pressure sensing bellows line and a bypass relay linkage passing through a worn bushing which created a friction induced sticktion of the linkage.
The event described in this LER is documented in the plant's corrective action program.