NRC: News Release - Region II - 2003-042 - NRC Sends Inspection Team to Review Shutdown at Sequoyah Nuclear Plant

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NRC NEWS
U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION

Office of Public Affairs, Region II
61 Forsyth Street SW, Atlanta, GA 30303
www.nrc.gov

No. II-03-042		August 29, 2003
CONTACT:	Ken Clark (404) 562-4416 Roger D. Hannah (404) 562-4417 Joey Ledford (404) 562-4487	E-mail: opa2@nrc.gov
NRC SENDS INSPECTION TEAM TO REVIEW SHUTDOWN AT SEQUOYAH NUCLEAR PLANT Printable Version
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission officials have dispatched an Augmented Inspection Team (AIT) to review the circumstances surrounding an August 28 shutdown and alert declaration at Unit 1 of the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Sequoyah nuclear plant northeast of Chattanooga. The AIT will assess equipment performance as well as plant operator actions, and preliminary results of that inspection will be presented at a public exit meeting late next week at a time to be announced later. Sequoyah Unit 1 experienced a turbine trip during routine testing, and when control room operators saw that the reactor did not automatically trip as expected, they manually shut it down. TVA declared an alert, the second of four emergency classification levels for commercial nuclear power plants, and all plant functions during the shutdown were normal. The plant exited the alert status after a little more than four hours when plant operators determined the plant was stable and systems were performing as designed. The NRC resident inspector was at the plant and responded to the control room as the events began. After being notified, the NRC Region II staff in Atlanta manned their emergency response center to monitor the situation. The NRC’s AIT members began their inspection early Friday, August 29, and the team is comprised of the Sequoyah plant’s senior NRC resident inspector, a regional NRC manager to serve as team leader and three Atlanta-based inspectors with expertise in plant operations and systems. In addition to the public exit meeting where inspectors will discuss their preliminary findings, the NRC team will issue a written report which will be available to the public several weeks later.
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