TMI, Peach Bottom perform well on federal inspections – York Daily Record
The inspections were the first in-depth look of how plants would deal with severe events such as those that experienced in Japan.
Three Mile Island Inspection Report
York, PA – Overall, two area nuclear-powered plants performed well on a federal inspection that looked at how plants across the country would deal with severe events such as those that struck Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Station in March.
“Three Mile Island and Peach Bottom did not have a large number of issues compared to other plants,” said Neil Sheehan, a spokesman for the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. “The goal of these inspections was to make sure that these plants are positioned to deal with severe events, events that may not have been contemplated before what happened in Japan.”
On March 11, Japan was struck first by an earthquake and soon after by a tsunami that severely damaged the nuclear-powered plant in Japan.
The NRC’s inspection verified that Peach Bottom’s emergency equipment, procedures, training and other strategies will protect the plant in the event of a flood fire or earthquake, said David Tillman, a spokesman for Peach Bottom Atomic Power Station.
April’s inspections are the initial inspections conducted by the NRC to find out how plants across the nation might be improved. The final reports on the inspections should be out later this year.
“The NRC inspection report was positive and confirms that all our equipment is in good working order, the procedures are current and up-to-date and that all the people have the proper training and qualifications,” said Ralph DeSantis, a spokesman for TMI.
Last month, federal inspectors and specialists visited each plant to look at how a site would deal with a large explosion, a blackout in which the site would lose offsite power, severe flooding, fire and earthquakes.
In TMI’s report, the inspection findings refer to battery or batteries whose connectors had been degraded.
In the event of a loss of offsite power, plants typically turn to emergency generators and, if needed, batteries to keep coolant flowing to the reactor and spent fuel pool,
Peach Bottom Atomic Power Station inspection report.
Sheehan said.
Despite the degraded connectors, TMI’s battery back-up system would still work as designed, he said.
“The plant has literally hundreds of batteries,” he said. “Even if some of the connectors were degraded, that doesn’t mean that the battery system would not work as designed.”
Both TMI and Peach Bottom noted instances in which improvements could be made to equipment, especially when dealing with severe earthquakes and flooding.
Each plant, including TMI and Peach Bottom, is designed to withstand specific scale earthquakes and flood levels for the areas in which they operate.
TMI officials, during the course of an earlier inspection and confirmed by NRC inspectors last month, found that an earthquake on a scale that was beyond the plant’s design could cause some pipes to rupture leading to internal flooding, according to the report.
Peach Bottom, as part its evaluation of flooding and earthquakes that would exceed the level in which the plant is designed, found instances in which it could improve the quality of the plant’s fire suppression systems and the flood detection and sump pump systems.
“We are identifying these issues and we will decide at a later date how the regulations might change in regards to these beyond design basis threats,” Sheehan said.
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