NRC MONITORING EVENT AT MILLSTONE 3
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The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is monitoring activities at Millstone Unit 3 nuclear power plant in Waterford, Conn., following the declaration of an "Alert" at the plant at 8:42 a.m. today (4/17/05). The plant is operated by Dominion Nuclear.

Just before 8:30 this morning, the plant automatically shut down and a steam generator safety relief valve lifted and failed to close, causing the company to declare an "Alert." The safety relief valves are located on each steam line and are used to control pressure on the lines. The main steam lines carry steam from the steam generators to the turbine to produce electricity. The main steam line safety valves are designed to release steam to the environment. The plant is stable. Radiological monitoring by the company to this point indicates there have been no detectable releases of radioactivity from the plant.

An "Alert" is the second lowest emergency action level in the NRC required emergency response plan for nuclear power plants.

In response to the "Alert," the NRC has staffed its incident response center in the Region I office in King of Prussia, Pa., and is following developments from its operations center in Rockville, Md. The NRC Resident Inspectors responded rapidly to the plant, where they are monitoring Dominion’s response to this event.

Wayne Lanning, who is coordinating the NRC’s response from the Region I Incident Response Center is King of Prussia, PA., said, "The NRC is following this event closely. There has been no impact on public health and safety."

Neither Millstone Unit 1 nor Unit 2 were affected by this event. Unit 2 is in a refueling outage and Unit 1 is permanently shut down.

The States of Connecticut and New York have been notified.

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Thursday, February 22, 2007