NRC TO DISCUSS SAFETY SIGNIFICANCE
OF LOSS OF OFFSITE POWER EVENT AT PALISADES
Printable Version

The NRC staff has completed a preliminary assessment of the event and concluded that it had a “low to moderate safety significance.” The meeting, called a Regulatory Conference, will allow the utility to provide the NRC with any new information pertaining to the event and to present its view of the event’s safety significance. The NRC will then use this information to arrive at a final evaluation of the event’s significance.

The meeting will be held at 9 a.m. (CST) in the NRC’s Region III Office, 801 Warrenville Road, Lisle. Visitors should report first to the Second Floor reception area. The meeting is open to public observation; before the meeting is adjourned, members of the public may ask questions of the NRC staff and provide comments.

The meeting will also be available for viewing by video conference in Room T-2-B5 of the NRC’s Headquarters Office, Two White Flint North, 11545 Rockville Pike, Rockville, Maryland.

NRC inspectors found that the loss of offsite power incident resulted from the utility’s failure to establish administrative policies and procedures for digging or excavating activities.

The utility has taken corrective actions designed to prevent recurrence of the incident.

NRC inspection findings are evaluated using a four-level scale of safety significance, ranging from “green” for a finding of minor significance, through “white” and “yellow” to “red,” for a finding of high safety significance.

The NRC’s preliminary evaluation determined the Palisades electrical problem to be a “white” finding. Information presented by the utility in the Regulatory Conference will be used by the NRC staff, along with its inspection findings, to determine the final safety significance of the problem. The final determination of the safety significance will be posted on the NRC’s web site at:

http://www.nrc.gov/about-nrc/regulatory/enforcement/current.html#reactor

“White” inspection findings can lead to additional NRC inspections.

The inspection findings, which are discussed in Inspection Report 2003-05, and a letter describing the preliminary “white” finding are available online in the NRC’s electronic reading room at: http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams/web-based.html. The inspection report can be viewed by entering the accession number ML031390384 as the search term; the letter to the utility is under accession number ML032760180.

NRC news releases are available through a free listserv subscription at the following Web address: http://www.nrc.gov/public-involve/listserver.html. The NRC Home Page at www.nrc.gov also offers a Subscribe to News link in the News & Information menu. E-mail notifications are sent to subscribers when news releases are posted to NRC's Web Site.

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Monday, December 08, 2008