ML051880218

E-mail from OPA Transmitting Press Release-I-05-021: NRC Monitoring Event at Millstone 3

ML051880218
Person / Time
Site:	Millstone
Issue date:	04/18/2005
From:	Office of Public Affairs Region I
To:
References
FOIA/PA-2005-0207, Press Release-I-05-021
Download: ML051880218 (3)

Text

Elizabeth Hayden - PH: NIHL; Monitoring Event at Millstone 3 Page 1 is)

From: OPA To: pressl Date: 4/18/05 8:17AM

Subject:

PR: NRC Monitoring Event at Millstone 3 Place: PDR

Elizabeth Hayden 021.i.wpd Pagel1 NRC NEWSU.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office of Public Affairs, Region I 475 Allendale Road, King of Prussia, Pa.

Web Site: httn://www.nrc.gov/OPA No. 1-05-021 April 17,2005

Contact:

Diane Screnci, 610/337-5330 Email: opal@nrc.gov Neil Sheehan, 610/337-5331 NRC MONITORING EVENT AT MILLSTONE 3 The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is monitoring activities at Millstone Unit 3 nuclear power plant in Waterford, Conn., following the declaration of an "Alert" at the plant at 8:42 a.m. today (4/17/05). The plant is operated by Dominion Nuclear.

Just before 8:30 this moming, the plant automatically shut down and a steam generator safety relief valve lifted and failed to close, causing the company to declare an "Alert." The safety relief valves are located on each steam line and are used to control pressure on the lines. The main steam lines carry steam from the steam generators to the turbine to produce electricity. The main steam line safety valves are designed to release steam to the environment. The plant is stable. Radiological monitoring by the company to this point indicates there have been no detectable releases of radioactivity from the plant.

An "Alert" is the second lowest emergency action level in the NRC required emergency response plan for nuclear power plants.

In response to the "Alert," the NRC has staffed its incident response center in the Region I office in King of Prussia, Pa., and is following developments from its operations center in Rockville, Md. The NRC Resident Inspectors responded rapidly to the plant, where they are monitoring Dominion's response to this event.

Wayne Lanning, who is coordinating the NRC's response from the Region I Incident Response Center is King of Prussia, PA., said, "The NRC is following this event closely. There has been no impact on public health and safety."

Elizabeth Hayden 021.i.wpd Page 2 Neither Millstone Unit 1 nor Unit 2 were affected by this event. Unit 2 is in a refueling outage and Unit 1 is permanently shut down.

The States of Connecticut and New York have been notified.