Press Release-II-11-009, NRC Cancels Crystal River Plant Restart Meeting

Press Release-II-11-009: NRC Cancels Crystal River Plant Restart Meeting

ML110800618
Person / Time
Site:	Crystal River
Issue date:	03/17/2011
From:	Office of Public Affairs Region II
To:
Category:Press Release
References
Press Release-II-11-009
Download: ML110800618 (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-11-009 March 17, 2011 CONTACT: Roger Hannah (404) 997-4417 E-mail: OPA2@nrc.gov Joey Ledford (404) 997-4416 NRC CANCELS CRYSTAL RIVER PLANT RESTART MEETING The Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff has cancelled a meeting to discuss the restart of the Crystal River plant after indications of a new separation or gap in the concrete containment.

The meeting was scheduled to be held at 1 p.m. on Tuesday, March 22 near the plant, which is operated by Progress Energy on the west coast of Florida about 80 miles north of Tampa. A similar meeting will be scheduled by the NRC in the area before the plant restarts.

Progress Energy has reported that there are indications of additional separation or gap resulting from the repair work on the original containment wall. NRC inspectors will closely follow Progress Energys analyses as well as any planned repairs.

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.

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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.