Press Release-II-07-050, NRC Extends Augmented Inspection Team Inquiry at Farley

Press Release-II-07-050: NRC Extends Augmented Inspection Team Inquiry at Farley

ML072960259
Person / Time
Site:	Farley
Issue date:	10/23/2007
From:	Office of Public Affairs Region II
To:
Hannah R
Category:Press Release
References
Press Release-II-07-050
Download: ML072960259 (1)

Text

NRC NEWS U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office of Public Affairs, Region II 61 Forsyth Street SW, Atlanta GA 30303 Web Site: www.nrc.gov No: II-07-050 October 23, 2007 CONTACT: Ken Clark (404)562-4416 E-mail: OPA2@nrc.gov Roger Hannah (404)562-4417 NRC EXTENDS AUGMENTED INSPECTION TEAM INQUIRY AT FARLEY Nuclear Regulatory Commission officials have extended completion of an Augmented Inspection Team report at the Farley nuclear power plant, following an additional failure of a recently-replaced breaker undergoing a post-installation test. The original inspection began Sept.

10 and two NRC inspectors were dispatched to the plant again on Oct. 22.

The NRC said the company reported that a recently-installed breaker on a pump in the plants Unit 1 Residual Heat Removal (RHR) system failed during a post-installation test. At the time of the failure, the reactor was shut down and the reactor fuel had been moved to the plants spent fuel pool. NRC officials said the pump was not required when the breaker failure occurred. The RHR system is designed to provide cooling to the reactor cooling system water when the plant is shut down with fuel in the reactor vessel, and to inject water into that system during certain emergency conditions.

On Sept. 4 and 5, two different electrical breakers associated with component cooling water pumps on Unit 1 failed to close during testing. The NRC sent the initial AIT following those events. Subsequently, those breakers and numerous others in the plant were replaced before one of the new breakers failed.

The Administrator of the NRCs Region II office in Atlanta, Dr. William Travers, said in light of continuing breaker problems at Farley, the extended AIT will review the root cause of the most recent failure and other replacement breaker issues.

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 link. E-mail notifications are sent to subscribers when news releases are posted to NRCs Web site.