Press Release-II-11-006, NRC Schedules Meeting to Discuss Crystal River Restart

Press Release-II-11-006: NRC Schedules Meeting to Discuss Crystal River Restart

ML110630200
Person / Time
Site:	Crystal River
Issue date:	03/04/2011
From:	Office of Public Affairs Region II
To:
Category:Press Release
References
Press Release-II-11-006
Download: ML110630200 (1)

Text

NRC NEWS U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office of Public Affairs, Region II 245 Peachtree Center Ave., NE Suite 1200 Atlanta, GA 30303-1257 Site: www.nrc.gov Blog: http://public-blog.nrc-gateway.gov No. II-11-006 March 4, 2011 CONTACT: Roger Hannah (404) 997-4417 E-mail: OPA2@nrc.gov Joey Ledford (404) 997-4416 NRC SCHEDULES MEETING TO DISCUSS CRYSTAL RIVER RESTART The Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff has scheduled a meeting in Crystal River, Fla.,

to discuss the restart of the Crystal River nuclear plant, located on the west coast of Florida about 80 miles north of Tampa.

The meeting is scheduled for 1 p.m. on Tuesday, March 22 in Room 150 of the Crystal River nuclear plant training center, 8200 West Venable Street in Crystal River, and will be open to members of the public and the news media. NRC and Progress Energy officials will discuss the companys preparations and readiness to restart the plant. NRC officials will also be available to answer questions after the discussion.

The Crystal River plant shut down in the fall of 2009 for a planned refueling outage that included replacement of the steam generators. To move the large steam generators into the containment building, workers removed concrete to create the necessary opening. During that work, the plant staff discovered a separation or gap in the concrete containment wall. The Crystal River plant has been shut down since then while Progress Energy investigated the cause of the gap and repaired the concrete containment.

The separation did not increase the risk to people living near the plant because the companys analyses and our inspections found that the gap was created by the work done after the plant was shut down, said NRC Region II Administrator Victor McCree.NRC inspectors have conducted many inspections and reviews of the companys analyses and repairs, and the plant will not restart until the repaired containment building meets all safety requirements.

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 website.