Press Release-III-03-031, NRC to Meet with Officials from Nuclear Management Company to Discuss Safety Performance at Palisades

Press Release-III-03-031: NRC to Meet with Officials from Nuclear Management Company to Discuss Safety Performance at Palisades

ML030990302
Person / Time
Site:	Palisades
Issue date:	04/08/2003
From:	Office of Public Affairs Region II
To:
Category:Press Release
References
Press Release-III-03-031
Download: ML030990302 (2)

Text

NRC NEWS U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 801 Warrenville Road Lisle IL 60532 Web Site: http://www.nrc.gov No. III-03-031 April 8, 2003 CONTACT: Jan Strasma (630) 829-9663 E-mail: opa3@nrc.gov Viktoria Mitlyng (630) 829-9662 NRC TO MEET WITH OFFICIALS FROM NUCLEAR MANAGEMENT COMPANY TO DISCUSS SAFETY PERFORMANCE AT PALISADES The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff will meet with officials from the Nuclear Management Company on Friday, April 11, to discuss the results of NRCs annual assessment of the Palisades nuclear power plant, located in Covert, Michigan.

The meeting will be held at 2 p.m. at the Holiday Inn Express, 1741 Phoenix Street, South Haven, Michigan. The public is invited to observe the meeting, and NRC officials will be available before the conclusion of the meeting for questions and comments from the public.

A March 4 letter from the NRC to the Nuclear Management Company addresses plant safety performance during the previous year and forms the basis for the meeting discussions. The letter indicates that, overall, Palisades operated safely.

The letter also indicates that an issue of low to moderate safety significance, identified in 2001, was successfully resolved by the company in the first two quarters of 2002. This finding was associated with improper location and installation of smoke detectors. There was another issue of low to moderate safety significance associated with the plants performance during emergency drills. The NRC conducted a supplemental inspection on this issue in February, 2003. Its results are documented in Inspection Report 2003-03, which can be accessed on the NRCs web site at:

http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm.html. Enter accession number ML030650686.

The letter mentions that the utilitys corrective actions in the area of human performance successfully resolved this cross-cutting issue, identified in the previous years assessment letter.

However, the area of problem identification and resolution, also identified in last years assessment, "will continue to be a substantive cross-cutting issue."

The letter is available from Region III Public Affairs Office and on the NRC web site at:

http://www.nrc.gov/NRR/OVERSIGHT/ASSESS/LETTERS/pali_2002q4.pdf.

In addition, the letter notes: "As you are aware, since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the NRC has issued several Orders and threat advisories to enhance security capabilities and improve guard force readiness. We have conducted inspections to review your implementation of these requirements and have monitored your actions in response to changing threat advisories. For calendar year

2003, we plan to continue these inspections and conduct portions of the security baseline inspection program, as well as perform additional inspections to evaluate your compliance with new requirements that may be ordered."

Current performance information for Palisades is available on the NRC web site at:

Http://www.nrc.gov/NRR/OVERSIGHT/ASSESS/PALI/pali_chart.html.