Press Release-III-03-069, NRC to Discuss Safety Significance of Loss of Offsite Power Event at Palisades

Press Release-III-03-069: NRC to Discuss Safety Significance of Loss of Offsite Power Event at Palisades

ML033250251
Person / Time
Site:	Palisades
Issue date:	11/21/2003
From:	Office of Public Affairs Region II
To:
Category:Press Release
References
Press Release-III-03-069
Download: ML033250251 (2)

Text

NRC NEWS U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 801 Warrenville Road Lisle IL 60532 Web Site: http://www.nrc.gov No. III-03-069 November 21, 2003 CONTACT: Jan Strasma (630) 829-9663 E-mail: opa3@nrc.gov Viktoria Mitlyng (630) 829-9662 NRC TO DISCUSS SAFETY SIGNIFICANCE OF LOSS OF OFFSITE POWER EVENT AT PALISADES The Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff will meet with representatives of Nuclear Management Company on November 25 in Lisle, Illinois, to discuss the safety significance of the loss of offsite power which occurred March 25 when a signpost damaged a cable as the post was being driven into the ground. The facility is located in Covert, Michigan.

The NRC staff has completed a preliminary assessment of the event and concluded that it had a low to moderate safety significance. The meeting, called a Regulatory Conference, will allow the utility to provide the NRC with any new information pertaining to the event and to present its view of the events safety significance. The NRC will then use this information to arrive at a final evaluation of the events significance.

The meeting will be held at 9 a.m. (CST) in the NRCs Region III Office, 801 Warrenville Road, Lisle. Visitors should report first to the Second Floor reception area. The meeting is open to public observation; before the meeting is adjourned, members of the public may ask questions of the NRC staff and provide comments.

The meeting will also be available for viewing by video conference in Room T-2-B5 of the NRCs Headquarters Office, Two White Flint North, 11545 Rockville Pike, Rockville, Maryland.

NRC inspectors found that the loss of offsite power incident resulted from the utilitys failure to establish administrative policies and procedures for digging or excavating activities.

The utility has taken corrective actions designed to prevent recurrence of the incident.

NRC inspection findings are evaluated using a four-level scale of safety significance, ranging from green for a finding of minor significance, through white and yellow to red, for a finding of high safety significance.

The NRCs preliminary evaluation determined the Palisades electrical problem to be a white finding. Information presented by the utility in the Regulatory Conference will be used by the NRC staff, along with its inspection findings, to determine the final safety significance of the problem. The final determination of the safety significance will be posted on the NRCs web site at:

http://www.nrc.gov/what-we-do/regulatory/enforcement/current.html#reactor White inspection findings can lead to additional NRC inspections.

The inspection findings, which are discussed in Inspection Report 2003-05, and a letter describing the preliminary white finding are available online in the NRCs electronic reading room at: http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams/web-based.html . The inspection report can be viewed by entering the accession number ML031390384 as the search term; the letter to the utility is under accession number ML032760180.