NRC SCHEDULES CONFERENCE TO DISCUSS SUMMER NUCLEAR PLANT

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff has scheduled a predecisional enforcement conference with South Carolina Electric & Gas Company officials in Atlanta on August 17 to discuss regulatory concerns regarding the V. C. Summer commercial nuclear power plant, operated by the company near Jenkinsville, about 30 miles north of Columbia.

The meeting will be held from 10:00 until 11:30 a.m. in the NRC offices located on the 24^th floor of the Sam Nunn Federal Center at 61 Forsyth Street, S. W. It will be open to observation by interested members of the public and news media representatives. NRC officials will be available at its conclusion to answer questions from observers who attend.

NRC officials said the conference, which was requested by the company, is being held to discuss an apparent violation at the plant due to a past practice of disabling special doors to a switchgear room near high energy steam lines during maintenance activities without first performing a required safety evaluation. NRC officials said the practice, discontinued in February of 1999, had the potential to render emergency AC power to safety-related equipment inoperable during an accidental break in one of these lines while the doors were removed.

The decision to hold a predecisional enforcement conference does not mean that a determination has been made that a violation has occurred or that enforcement action will be taken. The purpose is to discuss apparent violations, their causes and safety significance, to provide the licensee with an opportunity to point out errors that may have been made in the NRC inspection report and to enable the company to outline its proposed corrective actions.

No decision on the apparent violations or any contemplated enforcement action, such as a civil penalty, will be made at the conference. Those decisions will be made by NRC officials at a later time.

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Thursday, February 22, 2007