Washington (Platts)--18Feb2009

Xcel Energy is changing its procedures and its employee training to avoid
a repeat of an October incident in which a piece of equipment shipped from
Minnesota to Pennsylvania was found to have radiation levels above federal
limits, Scott Northard, the plant manager for Xcel's Prairie Island nuclear
station, said Wednesday.

In a February 10 letter and accompanying inspection report released
Tuesday, the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission issued a preliminary "yellow"
finding to Xcel for the incident. Yellow, the second-highest of the four
levels in NRC's scale, indicates "substantial safety significance."

But in the inspection report, NRC said that "an overexposure to a member
of the public would not be plausible based on the location of the radiation
levels and the corresponding dose rate."

According to the NRC and Northard, a piece of Westinghouse-owned fuel
testing equipment that had been used at Prairie Island was packaged and loaded
onto a truck at the Minnesota plant.

After it arrived at Westinghouse's Waltz Mill, Pennsylvania, facility,
the box was removed from the truck and tested for radiation. A small area on
the bottom of the box was found to exceed the radiation limits set by the US
Department of Transportation for the surface of the package.

A small radioactive particle was found embedded in a cable that had not
been properly secured before the trip.

NRC said the package was "not sufficiently designed [or] prepared," and
the agency faulted the training of the people involved in the loading of the
package.

Northard, in an interview, said Xcel had responded "aggressively." It now
uses a different type of packaging and conducts a more extensive survey to
look for radioactive particles, he said.

The company is also using a different kind of truck for such shipments--a
closed container truck rather than an open transport trailer, he said.

Xcel has requested a meeting with NRC to discuss the incident and the
company's response to it, Northard said. That is one of the options NRC
provided in the letter notifying Xcel of the yellow finding.

--Daniel Horner, daniel_horner@platts.com