Politics & Government

Minor Issues Resolved After Oyster Creek Inspection

Quarterly inspection noted three problems

Oyster Creek Generating Station is currently operating efficiently and safely following a quarterly inspection report that noted three “Green” or minor issues.

There were problems with the reactor following a recent outage, the plant stack, which detects gaseous effluents, and four “snubbers,” which support pipes. Each of these problems are rated green, which is of the lowest significance, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC)

As a result of green reports, Oyster Creek goes into a corrective action program to address the issues.

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The issues reported in the inspection report have been addressed but the nuclear plant needs to make changes to the program to ensure these problems do not occur again, said Neil Sheehan, NRC public affairs officer.

“For all of them, we have already resolved the issues as our corrective actions were immediately in place, our short-term ones, and our long-term ones are well underway now," said April Schlipp, senior communications manager at Exelon Nuclear.

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Oyster Creek’s annual report should be released within the next week, Sheehan said.

Plant Stack Gaseous Effluents

Technicians recently discovered that the line attached to Oyster Creek's stack had been disconnected for approximately four years, compromising the plant’s ability to get an accurate sample of radioactive elements released into the environment, Sheehan said.

Nuclear plants release radioactive gases at a controlled limit as part of the operation, Sheehan said. The gases are released out of the plant’s stack, which is several hundred feet tall. A line runs up the outside of that stack attaching to a tube that draws samples from the top of the stack so they can accurately determine what is being released.

The sample line was disconnected at approximately 260 feet. The technicians determined that three places in the line had problems, two areas were disconnected and the other was loose, compromising their ability to draw accurate samples.

“We looked at it in terms of their ability to adhere to the requirements, which includes maintaining a continuous representative monitoring and sampling of plant stack gaseous effluence. They failed to do that with issue of the line,” Sheehan said.

Although the condition of the line most likely existed from March 2006 to March 2010, it is of low safety significance because the plant has other ways to calculate the radioactive gases, Sheehan said.

“When [the line] was not operating properly we always had radiation monitoring in place. There was never any risk to the health and safety of the public. We have backup systems even to that,” Schlipp said.

There are other monitors at the base of the stack, and nuclear plants are required to have an environmental monitoring program that takes samples of vegetation, water, and aquatic life, Sheehan said.

The line has since been repaired, Schlipp said.

“They still are able to ascertain what was being released but nevertheless because the integrity of this line had been impacted it degraded their ability to get fully accurate readings on what was being released,” Sheehan said.

Snubber Service Life Monitoring

Following the Dec. 23 outage, Oyster Creek found that four snubbers had failed due to hardened or missing grease. Snubbers are shock absorbers for the plant piping. They support the pipes when there is a vibration or an earthquake, Sheehan said.

The NRC identified a problem with snubbers in 1994, informing plants that the lubricant used on them could have degraded when in a high temperature environment, Sheehan said.

“They failed to take in account the maintenance and testing history for these snubbers when they were determining their service life,” Sheehan said.

The snubbers are supposed to have a 40-year service life. The failing snubbers present a low risk but Sheehan said that the service life has to be looked at in consequence of history and need to be maintained just like a car.

“This is something that they could have anticipated and addressed before they failed,” Sheehan said. “We’re saying they should have taken that into account and addressed this sooner before they gotten to the point of failure.

The failed snubbers were fixed immediately, Schlipp confirmed.

Automatic Reactor Scram

The control room operators did not adequately implement plant start-up procedures after the fueling outage on Dec. 23 resulting in an automatic shutdown.

As a nuclear plant comes out of an outage, the control operators are responsible to maintain vacuum condition before raising the reactor’s pressure to ensure the highest level of efficiency and prevent corrosion, Sheehan said.

As a plant comes up in power, the operators are supposed to wait for low vacuum alarms involving the condenser before increasing the reactor pressure. The operators failed to follow the proper procedure, which resulted in an automatic scram, Sheehan said. The reactor protection system automatically shut down the reactor upon abnormal conditions.

There was no risk to the public or plant worked and the plant has taken the necessary steps to retrain their operators, Sheehan said.

Control room operators undergo years of training and regular requalification, Sheehan said. The plant has a stimulator mock up control room that subjects the operators to tests to determine how they would respond to various plant events and conditions. They also undergo written tests.

“We’ve gone through our plant procedures because the procedures were more broad. We’re just going to make sure they address every kind of guidance that would be required for this kind of situation,” Schlipp said.

The operators go through training every five weeks and the revisions to the procedures have most likely already been included in their recent training, Schlipp said.


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