The Nuclear Regulatory Commission's top official in the southeast, Luis A. Reyes, will brief Atlanta area reporters from 1 until 2 p.m. at the Sam Nunn Federal Center in Atlanta on Monday, October 5 on regulatory safety functions performed across the southeast by personnel from the agency's Atlanta regional office.

The briefing will include an overview of safety functions carried out by NRC inspectors in the southeast at 18 commercial power plant sites containing 33 nuclear power reactors, four nuclear fuel fabrication plants and numerous users of licensed radioactive material in medicine and commerce. Demonstration equipment from the NRC's Technical Training Center at Chattanooga will include a sample reactor fuel bundle, a radiography camera used in commercial construction, a soil moisture density gauge used by construction and highway personnel, and a technetium generator used to produce the radioactive isotope for medical purposes.

Reyes, administrator of the NRC's Region II office in Atlanta, will explain the program under which states such as Georgia enter into agreements with the NRC which provide for the state to license and inspect users of radioactive material used in commerce and medicine. He will also take reporters through the agency's incident response center where inspectors monitor problem events at commercial reactors related to operating events or natural disasters such as hurricanes and floods.

The news conference is being held as part of an NRC program to make senior officials available to meet with news media representatives on a periodic basis to provide briefings on subjects of current interest. Reyes will be available following the briefing to answer questions from reporters who attend.

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