NRC says Entergy didn't stay up to date

NRC says Entergy didn't stay up to date

Jul 17 - McClatchy-Tribune Regional News - Bob Audette Brattleboro Reformer, Vt.

The owner and operator of Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant in Vernon has failed to keep up to date on industry knowledge related to cooling tower failures, said Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman Dale Klein, during a meeting with the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee in Washington, D.C., Wednesday morning.

"The staff, when it did review this, found that the licensee has not complied with some of our regulations in regard to keeping up with the industry information about the ability of this kind of problem to fail," said Klein.

Earlier this week the cooling towers were pulled off line after technicians discoverd a leak in the water supply line that runs along the top of the east tower.

Last year, Entergy Nuclear Vermont Yankee was cited for not incorporating industry experience in its cooling tower inspection procedures after a cooling cell in the west tower collapsed. The August 2007 collapse was blamed on rotten wooden supports that weren't found due to shortcomings in the inspection and maintenance procedures for the cooling towers. The leak discovered this week was due to a "faulty design," said a Yankee spokesman, in the upgrades designed to address last year's collapse.

"The performance deficiency is that Entergy did not incorporate readily available operating experience into the cooling tower inspection process and procedures to detect degraded structural components," wrote NRC staff in November 2007.

The NRC report that was issued last year and Klein's comments Wednesday "embarrassed and saddened" one nuclear expert who served as a start-up engineer at Vermont Yankee prior to the reactor going on line in 1972.

"They need to explain to everyone -- the Public Service Board, the Legislature and the general public -- why they didn't keep up with the industry experience on the cooling towers," said Howard Shaffer, of Enfield, N.H., who wrote a test procedure for the cooling towers during his time at Yankee.

There is an easily observable pattern here if anyone cares to look, said a consultant to the New England Coalition on Nuclear Pollution, which opposes the relicensing of the power plant for another 20 years of operation. If Entergy doesn't receive approval from the NRC, the Vermont Public Service Board and the state Legislature, it will be forced to close the plant in 2012.

"Entergy apparently considers itself above learning anything from its peers in the industry," said Ray Shadis. "Had it paid attention to industry experience it would have replaced the structural and design defective towers as part of preparing for uprate."

In March 2006, Vermont Yankee received approval to increase power output by 20 percent. One of the conditions imposed for the uprate was the replacement of 125-horsepower fans in the cooling towers with 200-horsepower fans.

At the time, many opponents to the uprate complained the increased vibrations from the larger motors would cause problems with the towers. Since then though, no evidence has arisen that the larger motors were the cause of the collapse last year or the leak this week.

After the cell collapsed last August, Entergy received a "green" inspection finding -- the lowest citation issued by the NRC -- for "a failure to effectively incorporate readily available industry operating experience into the tower inspection program and processes."

During Wednesday's Senate committee hearings, Sen. Bernard Sanders, I-Vt., wanted to know why Entergy wasn't fined for August's cooling cell collapse.

"Did Entergy pay any penalty for this glaring mistake?" asked Sanders. "They did not pay one nickel ... for that mishap."

Klein told Sanders that because the failure wasn't considered safety related, the NRC had no authority to issue fines.

That's beside the point, said Shaffer.

"This is not a safety issue. But the NRC does require them to keep up to date to prevent inadvertent challenges to safety systems."

One cooling cell in the west tower is necessary to safely shut down the plant in case of an emergency. It is reinforced to withstand a seismic event that might take down the rest of the tower.

The NRC inspection team indicated to Vermont Yankee engineers that it had no concern with the operability of the safety cell, said Rob Williams, spokesman for Yankee.

"The NRC special inspection team conducted an extensive review of the issue associated with the non-safety related cooling tower leak and concluded that the issues were not applicable to the safety-related cell," he said.

The west cooling tower was put back on line Wednesday morning at 5 a.m., said Williams. By later in the day, it was running at 50 percent of capacity.

"However, work on the east cooling tower continues and therefore river flow will dictate the overall power increase until that work is completed," he said.

Despite the NRC's assurances, said Sanders during the hearing, the general public is concerned about Entergy's management of the plant.

"People's confidence in the ability of that company to run that plant is not particularly high," he said.

By telling people not to worry because this is not a safety issue, people's confidence in the NRC oversight process is also affected.

"Can we assure the American public the nuclear power plants aren't being guarded by the foxes?"

--Bob Audette can be reached at raudette@reformer.com or 802-254-2311, ext. 273.