Grundy Reporter

Dresden Nuclear Power Station, Unit 2 issued the following announcement on May 28.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff will hold a public webinar on June 12 to discuss

the agency’s annual assessment of safety performance at the nuclear power plants located in

Pennsylvania. Beaver Valley 1 & 2, in Shippingport, are operated by FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating

Company; and Susquehanna 1 & 2, in Berwick, are operated by Talen Energy. Limerick 1 & 2, in

Limerick, Peach Bottom 2 & 3, in Delta, and Three Mile Island Unit 1 in Middletown, are operated

by Exelon Nuclear.

The purpose of the webinar is to provide information regarding the plants’ safety

performance in 2018 and the NRC’s oversight activities at the facilities. The online meeting is

scheduled to begin at 5:30 p.m. Participants will be able to view slides prepared by NRC staff and

ask questions either orally or in writing via a web page established to host the session. Advance

online registration is required to participate.

All of the units operated safely in 2018. For Beaver Valley, Limerick, Three Mile Island and

Susquehanna, at the end of the year, all inspection findings and performance indicators were green,

or of very low safety significance. As a result, the plants will receive the normal level of oversight

in 2019, which entails thousands of hours of inspection each year.

The NRC determined the performance at Peach Bottom was within the Regulatory Response

Column, the second highest performance column of the NRC’s Reactor Oversight Process Action

Matrix due to a white finding (low to moderate safety significance). The finding was related to

performance issues that caused a shared emergency diesel generator to be declared inoperable last

June. In addition to baseline inspections, the NRC is conducting a supplemental inspection to ensure

that the root and contributing causes of degraded performance are understood and that appropriate

corrective actions are taken.

The NRC Reactor Oversight Process uses color-coded inspection findings and indicators to

describe plant performance. The colors start at green and increase to white, yellow or red,

commensurate with the safety significance of the issues involved. Inspection findings or

performance indicators with more than very low safety significance trigger increased NRC

oversight.

Inspections are performed by two NRC resident inspectors assigned to each of the plants and

specialists from the agency’s Region I Office in King of Prussia, Pa. The annual assessment letters

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for Beaver Valley, Limerick, Peach Bottom, Susquehanna and Three Mile Island, as well as the

webinar notice, are available on the NRC website. Current plant performance information for all of

the units is also available on the website and updated quarterly.

Original source can be found here.