Lusby, MD – While it received a mostly favorable report from the federal agency that oversees its operation, Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant in Lusby has received criticism from a watchdog group unimpressed with its capability to respond to recurring events interrupting its operations.
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) reported March 4 on its “end-of-cycle performance review” of the plant’s two reactor units. “The NRC determined that overall, Calvert Cliffs Unit 1 operated in a manner that preserved the public health and safety and met all cornerstone objectives,” stated Ho K. Nieh, the NRC’s director of Reactor Projects Division. The plant’s second unit “was within the regulatory response column of the NRC’s reactor oversight process action matrix” due to the finding of “low to moderate safety significance in the emergency preparedness cornerstone.”
Nieh indicated the plant’s operators were written up for inaccurate effluent radiation monitor thresholds incorporated in its standard emergency action level scheme. Concerns with the monitoring of the data have prompted additional NRC oversight.
The watchdog group, the Union of Concerned Scientists, noted in their report that “twice within the past five years, precipitation leaked into the Calvert Cliffs Nuclear [Power] Plant and shorted out electrical power supplies, causing one reactor to automatically shut down and components to malfunction that should have protected the second reactor from automatically shutting down. Precipitation occurs all across the U.S. and its dozens of nuclear power plants, but none—except Calvert Cliffs—have experienced multiple reactor shutdowns due to similar intrusions of moisture. In other words, other plant owners have successfully prevented even one intrusion event while Calvert Cliffs has been unable to prevent repeated events.”
The group was also critical of the NRC for not properly enforcing its own regulation requiring plant operators to fix such a problem “in a timely and effective manner. If the NRC enforced this regulation, it would not take several more rainfalls to find and fix all the holes in the roof and unsealed openings in the walls at Calvert Cliffs.”
“Our corrective action program ensures that we identify and address potential issues before they impact safe and reliable operations,” said Lacey Dean, a spokeswoman for Exelon, the plant’s operator. “The NRC’s supplemental inspection report confirms that the condition was fully addressed and that our actions and responses were appropriate.”
Contact Marty Madden at marty.madden@thebaynet.com
