NRC TO HOLD MEETING ON APRIL 2 IN MIDDLETOWN, PA., TO DISCUSS
ANNUAL ASSESSMENT OF THREE MILE ISLAND 1 NUCLEAR PLANT
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Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff will conduct a public meeting on Thursday, April 2, regarding the agency’s annual assessment of safety performance for the Three Mile Island 1 nuclear power plant.

The meeting will begin at 7 p.m. at Londonderry Town Hall in Middletown, Pa. The building is located at 738 S. Geyers Church Road. Prior to its conclusion, NRC staff will be available to answer questions from the public on the plant’s performance, as well as the agency’s oversight of the facility.

Three Mile Island 1 is a pressurized-water reactor located in Middletown (Dauphin County). It is owned and operated by Exelon Nuclear.

Overall, Three Mile Island 1 operated safely during 2008. At the conclusion of last year, as assessed by the NRC Reactor Oversight Process, there were no performance indicators for the plant that were other than “green” and no inspection findings that were “greater than green.”  Therefore, for the rest of 2009, Three Mile Island 1 will receive the very detailed inspection regime used by the NRC for plants that are operating well. In 2008, the NRC devoted approximately 5,900 hours of inspection to the facility, including three major team inspections.

“In 2008, all but one of the 26 commercial power reactors in Region I, which covers the Northeastern United States, fully met our clearly defined performance criteria. Three Mile Island 1 was among those plants achieving those objectives. That means those plants will receive the normal level of NRC oversight this year if they continue to meet the high safety benchmarks set out for each site,” said NRC Region I Administrator Samuel J. Collins. “That said, our inspectors will remain on the lookout for any problems or adverse trends that might indicate a change in performance. As always, we will not hesitate to act should we identify any safety concerns.”

The NRC utilizes a combination of color-coded inspection findings and performance indicators to measure plant performance. The colors start with “green” and then increase to “white,” “yellow” or “red,” commensurate with the safety significance of the issues involved. The agency issues reports on performance at specific plants twice a year: During the mid-cycle, or mid-point, of the year, and at the conclusion of the year. Inspection findings and performance indicators are also updated on the NRC’s web site, www.nrc.gov, each quarter. Following the release of the annual reports every March, the NRC meets with the public in the vicinity of each plant to discuss the results. The meetings are in keeping with the agency’s commitment to transparency with regard to its activities.

The annual assessment for the Three Mile Island 1 plant is available on the NRC web site at: http://www.nrc.gov/NRR/OVERSIGHT/ASSESS/LETTERS/tmi_2008q4.pdf. The notice for the annual assessment meeting is available in the NRC’s Agencywide Documents Access and Management System (ADAMS) under accession number ML090780385. ADAMS is available at: http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams/web-based.html. Help in using ADAMS can be obtained via the NRC’s Public Document Room at 1-800-397-4209 or 301-415-4737, or by e-mail at PDR.Resource@NRC.GOV.

Routine inspections are carried out by the two NRC Resident Inspectors assigned to the plant and by inspection specialists from the agency’s Region I Office in King of Prussia, Pa. Among the areas at Three Mile Island 1 to be inspected this year by NRC specialists are steam generator replacement activities, operator licensing, radiological safety, emergency preparedness and the plant’s radiological environmental monitoring program.

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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Wednesday, April 01, 2009