Press Release-IV-07-040, - NRC Conducting Special Inspection at Arkansas Nuclear One

Press Release-IV-07-040 - NRC Conducting Special Inspection at Arkansas Nuclear One

ML073100824
Person / Time
Site:	Arkansas Nuclear
Issue date:	10/31/2007
From:	Office of Public Affairs Region IV
To:
Category:Press Release
References
Press Release-IV-07-040
Download: ML073100824 (1)

Text

NRC NEWS U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office of Public Affairs Region IV 611 Ryan Plaza Drive - Suite 400 Arlington, Texas 76011-4005 Telephone: (817) 860-8128 No. IV-07-040 October 31, 2007

Contact:

Victor Dricks E-Mail: opa4@nrc.gov NRC CONDUCTING SPECIAL INSPECTION AT ARKANSAS NUCLEAR ONE The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission is conducting a special inspection at the Arkansas Nuclear One plant in response to a fire there that led to the declaration of an Alert on Oct. 23. The plant, located near Russellville, Ark., is operated by Entergy Operations, Inc.

A two-person team of NRC specialists will review the circumstances related to electrical breaker problems that affected a piece of safety equipment, prompting the Oct. 23 Alert, as well as a similar electrical fire in October 2006 that also led to an Alert, the second lowest level of nuclear emergency. Both incidents occurred at the Unit 2 reactor.

The team consists of a senior project engineer from the NRCs Region IV office in Arlington, Texas, and one of the resident inspectors permanently assigned to the site. They will evaluate the licensees response to both events, the cause of the problems and corrective actions.

Although the October 2006 fire was reviewed by NRC, the team will determine whether common causes exist with the Oct. 23 fire.

The inspection will begin tomorrow and take several days. The team will write a report about 30-45 days after completion of the inspection. The report will be available on the agencys online document library at: http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams/web-based.html.

NRC news releases are available through a free list serve subscription at the following Web address:

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 Web site.