Press Release-II-10-017, NRC Schedules Meeting to Discuss Turkey Point Nuclear Plant Spent Fuel Pool Issue

Press Release-II-10-017: NRC Schedules Meeting to Discuss Turkey Point Nuclear Plant Spent Fuel Pool Issue

ML100970614
Person / Time
Site:	Turkey Point
Issue date:	04/07/2010
From:	Office of Public Affairs Region II
To:
Category:Press Release
References
Press Release-II-10-017
Download: ML100970614 (2)

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-10-017 April 7, 2010 CONTACT: Roger Hannah (404) 562-4417 E-mail: OPA2@nrc.gov Joey Ledford (404) 562-4416 NRC SCHEDULES MEETING TO DISCUSS TURKEY POINT NUCLEAR PLANT SPENT FUEL POOL ISSUE The Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff has scheduled a joint regulatory and enforcement conference with Florida Power & Light Co. officials to discuss an issue with Unit 3 spent fuel pool racks at the Turkey Point nuclear power plant near Homestead, Fla., about 20 miles south of Miami.

The conference is scheduled for Wednesday, April 14 from 9:30 to 11:30 a.m. in the former NRC Region II office located on the 24th floor of the Atlanta Federal Center at 61 Forsyth Street SW in Atlanta. The Region II office is moving to a new downtown location April 12, but is using the previous office space for this meeting. The public is invited to observe and NRC officials will be available to answer questions. Anyone wishing to participate in this meeting by toll-free audio teleconference should contact the NRC's Marvin Sykes at 404-562-4629 or Marvin.Sykes@nrc.gov .

In December 2009, the NRC became aware that the neutron-absorbing material called Boraflex in the Unit 3 spent fuel pool had degraded below the levels spelled out in the plants design basis documents. Although FPL has taken compensatory measures including the addition of boron, the design basis documents did not reflect the current spent fuel pool conditions.

Earlier this year, the NRC staff issued a confirmatory action letter to FPL designed to ensure that the company implements a number of actions to address the issue, including submitting a license amendment request, changing some administrative controls, increasing the amount of boron and revising the plants safety analysis report. The NRC will verify through further inspections that the items in the letter have been successfully completed.

The NRC evaluates regulatory performance at commercial nuclear power plants with a color-coded system which classifies findings as green, white, yellow or red, in increasing order of safety significance. The NRC's preliminary evaluation determined that this issue at Turkey Point is "greater than green," meaning it has more than very low safety significance. The NRC has also identified three apparent violations.

No decisions on the final safety significance or possible enforcement action will be made at the conference. Those decisions will be made by NRC officials at a later time.

News releases are available through a free listserv subscription at the following Web address:

http://www.nrc.gov/public-involve/listserver.html. The NRC homepage at www.nrc.gov also offers a SUBSCRIBE link. E-mail notifications are sent to subscribers when news releases are posted to NRC's Web site.