Press Release-IV-13-037, NRC Monitoring Event at Arkansas Nuclear One

Press Release-IV-13-037: NRC Monitoring Event at Arkansas Nuclear One

ML13343A160
Person / Time
Site:	Arkansas Nuclear
Issue date:	12/09/2013
From:	Office of Public Affairs Region IV
To:
Category:Press Release
References
Press Release-IV-13-037
Download: ML13343A160 (1)

Text

No: IV-13-037 December 9, 2013 CONTACT: Victor Dricks (817) 200-1128 Lara Uselding (817) 100-1519 NRC Monitoring Event at Arkansas Nuclear One The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has activated its incident response center in Arlington, Texas, following the declaration of an Unusual Event at the Arkansas Nuclear One nuclear power plant.

The plant, operated by Entergy Operations, Inc., is located in Russellville, Ark.

The Unusual Event was declared by operators at 8 a.m. CST after Unit 2 experienced a transformer explosion in an electrical switchyard. The interruption of electrical power to Unit 2 caused protective systems to shut down the reactor.

Operators will keep the Unit 2 reactor offline while the cause of the explosion is investigated and a determination is made on what repairs are necessary. Unit 1 remains operating at about 95 percent power.

No radiation releases have been reported. Power is being supplied to Unit 2 by an emergency diesel generator and one source of offsite power and plant conditions are stable. There are normally two sources of offsite power.

An Unusual Event is the lowest of four nuclear emergency classifications and means events indicate a potential degradation of the level of safety of a plant. The NRCs senior resident inspector assigned to the site is inside the plants control room monitoring the licensees response to the event.