Press Release-II-12-018, NRC Schedules Regulatory Conference to Discuss Apparent Violation at North Anna Nuclear Station

Press Release-II-12-018: NRC Schedules Regulatory Conference to Discuss Apparent Violation at North Anna Nuclear Station

ML12107A445
Person / Time
Site:	North Anna
Issue date:	04/11/2012
From:	Office of Public Affairs Region II
To:
Category:Press Release
References
Press Release-II-12-018
Download: ML12107A445 (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 Web Site: www.nrc.gov No. II-12-018 April 11, 2012 CONTACT: Roger Hannah (404) 997-4417 E-mail: OPA2@nrc.gov Joey Ledford (404) 997-4416 NRC SCHEDULES REGULATORY CONFERENCE TO DISCUSS APPARENT VIOLATION AT NORTH ANNA NUCLEAR STATION The Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff has scheduled a regulatory conference with officials of Dominion on Friday, April 20 to discuss an apparent violation of plant technical specifications associated with a gasket failure on one of the North Anna plants emergency diesel generators.

NRC and Dominion officials will discuss the significance of the inspection finding, which was identified when a gasket failure prevented one of the diesel generators from performing its function following the earthquake in late August 2011. The failed gasket was not caused by nor related to the earthquake. The gasket was replaced the same day and the problem was not found on the plants other diesel generators. However, NRC inspectors found that the plant staff did not have adequate procedures for installing the gasket.

The regulatory conference is scheduled for 1 p.m. EDT in the NRCs Region II office, located at 245 Peachtree Center Ave., NE., Suite 1200, in Atlanta. The public is invited to observe and NRC officials will be available to answer questions.

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 NRCs preliminary evaluation determined that the inspection finding at North Anna was greater than green, which means the actual significance has not been finalized, but it is greater than low safety significance.

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

The NRC inspection report in which the apparent violation is documented is publicly available online at www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html. The number to access the report is ML12082A045.

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