Press Release-III-11-034, NRC Begins Special Inspection at Palisades Nuclear Plant

Press Release-III-11-034: NRC Begins Special Inspection at Palisades Nuclear Plant

ML11271A164
Person / Time
Site:	Palisades
Issue date:	09/29/2011
From:	Office of Public Affairs Region II
To:
Category:Press Release
References
Press Release-III-11-034
Download: ML11271A164 (1)

Text

NRC NEWS U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office of Public Affairs Region III 2443 Warrenville Road Lisle IL 60532 Site: www.nrc.gov Blog: http://public-blog.nrc-gateway.gov No. III-11-034 September, 29 2011

Contact:

Viktoria Mitlyng (630) 829-9662 E-Mail: OPA3.RegionIII@nrc.gov Prema Chandrathil (630) 829-9663 NRC BEGINS SPECIAL INSPECTION AT PALISADES NUCLEAR PLANT The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has started a Special Inspection to review the circumstances around the work activities that led to a reactor shutdown on Sept. 25 at the Palisades Nuclear Power Plant.

The plant is operated by Entergy and is located in Covert, Mich., about 70 miles southwest of Grand Rapids.

The issue involved plant workers who were performing maintenance activities on an electrical panel when a small metal piece located inside the breaker panel came into contact with another metal piece and caused an arc. This resulted in a series of electrical issues that caused the plant to shut down and sent signals to multiple plant systems causing certain safety pumps to start and some safety valves to reposition. The plant shut down safely and will remain shutdown until plant workers determine what happened and resolve the issues. No workers were injured from this event.

The plant is in a safe shutdown condition but we have a number of questions about the complexity of the series of events that led to the reactor trip and want to better understand the actions taken by the plant staff before the reactor shutdown and in response to the event, said NRC Region III Administrator Mark Satorius.

The special inspection team began work on Tuesday and will review the sequence of events, evaluate the facts and circumstances, and review the plants actions surrounding the automatic reactor shutdown. The team will also review the plants evaluation of what happened, their corrective actions, and determine if there are any lessons to be learned from the event.

The NRCs special inspection report will be available within 45 days of the inspections completion through the NRC RIII Office of Public Affairs or through the Agencywide Documents Access and Management System (ADAMS) at the NRC website.

News releases are available through a free listserv subscription or by clicking on the EMAIL UPDATES link on the NRC homepage (www.nrc.gov). E-mail notifications are sent to subscribers when news releases are posted to NRC's website. For the latest news, follow the NRC on www.twitter.com/NRCgov.