Press Release-III-13-004, NRC Schedules Regulatory Conference to Discuss Apparent Violation at Prairie Island Nuclear Station

Press Release-III-13-004: NRC Schedules Regulatory Conference to Discuss Apparent Violation at Prairie Island Nuclear Station

ML13050A470
Person / Time
Site:	Prairie Island
Issue date:	02/18/2013
From:	Prema Chandrathil, Viktoria Mitlyng Office of Public Affairs Region II
To:
Category:Press Release
References
Press Release-III-13-004
Download: ML13050A470 (1)

Text

NRC NEWS U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office of Public Affairs Region III 2443 Warrenville Road Lisle IL 60532 No. III-13-004 February 18, 2013 Contacts: Viktoria Mitlyng 630-829-9662 E-Mail: opa3@nrc.gov Prema Chandrathil 630-829-9663 NRC SCHEDULES REGULATORY CONFERENCE TO DISCUSS APPARENT VIOLATION AT PRAIRIE ISLAND NUCLEAR STATION The Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff has scheduled a regulatory conference with officials of Northern States Power Company, Minnesota, on Monday, Feb. 25, to discuss a preliminary inspection finding in the emergency preparedness area. The two-unit plant is located in Welch, Minn., 28 miles southeast of Minneapolis.

NRC and company officials will discuss the significance of the inspection finding, which involved the failure to follow and maintain the effectiveness of the plants emergency plan. The finding did not represent an immediate safety concern.

The meeting is scheduled for 12:30 p.m. CST in the NRCs Region III office, located at 2443 Warrenville Road, in Lisle, Ill. The public is invited to observe and NRC officials will be available to answer questions.

The NRC evaluates regulatory performance at commercial nuclear power plants with a color-coded system which classifies findings as green, white, yellow or red, in increasing order of safety significance. The NRCs preliminary evaluation determined that the violation at Prairie Island was white, which means it has a low to moderate safety significance.

No decisions on the final safety significance or other NRC actions will be made at the conference. Those decisions will be made by NRC officials at a later time.

The NRC inspection report in which the apparent violation is documented is publicly available on the NRC website http://www.nrc.gov/ . The number to access the report is ML13024A420.

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.