Nebraska: Fort Calhoun Nuclear Power Plant Unlikely To Restart Before Fall

BLAIR, Neb. (AP) — Federal regulators said Wednesday it's unlikely the Fort Calhoun nuclear power plant will restart before fall because of the extensive inspections and repairs needed.

Officials from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Omaha Public Power District met in Blair, a few miles from the plant that's about 20 miles north of Omaha. The meeting is part of the strict oversight regulators have imposed on Fort Calhoun because of problems at the plant.

The NRC's Troy Pruett said he expects the agency will be conducting detailed inspections at Fort Calhoun through the summer. After that, NRC officials will review the situation before deciding whether the plant is ready to restart safely.

"I've got a summer's worth of inspections to be done," Pruett said.

OPPD Chief Nuclear Officer Dave Bannister said the utility knows there is more work to do to get Fort Calhoun ready to restart.

"We clearly understand our need to improve our performance," Bannister said.

Fort Calhoun has been shut down since last April when OPPD began performing routine refueling maintenance. The plant remained closed last summer because floodwaters surrounded the plant for months amid massive flooding along the Missouri River.

Regulators are watching Fort Calhoun closely because it has been closed so long and because several problems were found at the plant over the past couple years unrelated to last summer's flooding.

OPPD officials faced several pointed questions from people in the audience who are concerned about the plant. Jane Heinrich said she wants to know what the utility will do to regain her trust and the trust of everyone else who lives in Blair.

"It's unsettling to live just a few miles from the plant," Heinrich said.

Bannister said his family also lives close to the plant, and he is working hard to make sure it is well run.

"The safety of the plant is first and foremost to me," Bannister said.

OPPD hired a new plant manager for Fort Calhoun from Exelon, which is the largest U.S. operator of nuclear power plants. Mike Prospero started in February.

Prospero said Fort Calhoun is ready to handle any flooding that might come this spring and summer along with Missouri River. Most of the damage from last year's flooding has been repaired, and OPPD's flood plans have been updated to reflect the lessons.

Utility officials said earlier this year that they expected to be able to restart Fort Calhoun sometime this spring. Now the restart date is unknown because the NRC will have to sign off on all the repairs and changes OPPD makes to Fort Calhoun before it can restart.

The problems at the plant don't represent a public safety threat, according to regulators and utility officials, but additional scrutiny is required because of them.

The operational problems that regulators have found include a fire last spring that briefly knocked out power to the cooling system for used fuel. That fire started in an electrical breaker that had been replaced about 18 months earlier.

During the fire, smoke and soot spread into Fort Calhoun's backup electrical system and knocked that out as well.

The NRC said OPPD officials were also too slow to notify state emergency response officials about the fire when it happened.

Regulators also found flaws in the utility's analysis of how the plant would withstand different accident conditions such as earthquakes, tornadoes or loss of coolant.

A key electrical part failed during a 2010 test at Fort Calhoun. That same year the NRC identified deficiencies in flood planning at the plant.

Recently, OPPD officials have had problems with the sirens Fort Calhoun uses to warn area residents about problems. The utility said it also has backup notification plans.

The NRC will determine whether the siren problems should also be considered a safety issue.

Another meeting on Nebraska nuclear plant planned

Federal regulators will return to Nebraska on Wednesday for another public meeting about the efforts to repair the Fort Calhoun nuclear power plant.

The meeting between the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Omaha Public Power District will begin at 6 p.m. at Blair High School. The nuclear plant is just outside Blair and about 20 miles north of Omaha.

Fort Calhoun has been shut down since OPPD began performing refueling maintenance last April. Flooding along the Missouri River forced it to remain closed last summer.

Regulators are watching Fort Calhoun closely because it has been closed so long and because several problems were found at the plant over the past couple years unrelated to last summer's flooding.

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Regulators plan another Neb. nuclear plant meeting

BLAIR, Neb. — Federal regulators want another update on the Omaha Public Power District's efforts to improve the Fort Calhoun nuclear plant and preparations to restart it.The Nuclear Regulatory Commission will meet with OPPD officials in Blair on April 4. The meeting at Blair High School will begin at 6 p.m. Fort Calhoun is about 20 miles north of Omaha.Fort Calhoun has been shut down since last spring's refueling. Flooding along the Missouri River forced it to remain closed last summer.Now OPPD is working to repair flood damage and address concerns about Fort Calhoun's operations.Regulators are watching Fort Calhoun closely because several problems were found at the plant over the past couple years unrelated to last summer's flooding.
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NRC Issues Red Finding for 2011 Fort Calhoun Fire

A fire at Nebraska’s Fort Calhoun nuclear plant last June has dealt its owner a preliminary red finding from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

On June 7, 2011, the reactor – shut down for refueling – had already declared an unusual event for flooding on the adjacent Missouri River when a fire in a switchgear room prompted operators to declare an alert, the next highest emergency category. According to the NRC, smoke and soot from the catastrophic failure of a feeder breaker disabled six of nine safety-related buses in the room and temporarily disabled spent fuel cooling. The Halon system, as well as plant and local volunteer firefighters, soon extinguished it.

In its inspection report published Monday, the NRC noted the plant had replaced the breakers after problems reported to the agency in 2008. They were replaced with equipment from a different vendor in late 2009, and new cradles were installed to fit the exiting switchgear. Inspectors charge that the cradles were not installed correctly and the breakers were not properly cleaned in later maintenance. According to the report: “The preliminary (red) significance was based on the high fire frequency given the short period of time that the breaker cradles had been in service, the significant damage caused by a failure, and the inability of plant personnel to enter the switchgear rooms following a postulated fire in time to successfully minimize DC loads on the vital batteries.”

The Omaha Public Power District acknowledged the finding, and on its website said it has already completed much of the work needed to address the agency’s concerns. On March 4 the utility began testing the equipment that replaced the breakers damaged in the fire.

The NRC said it delayed the special inspection related to the event so as not to divert resources at the plant while it dealt with the flooding.

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NRC sees serious safety issue at Nebraska reactor

(Reuters) - The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said a June breaker fire at the 478-megawatt Fort Calhoun nuclear plant was of "high safety significance," increasing work the Omaha Public Power District (OPPD) must complete before the troubled unit can restart.

The NRC's preliminary "red" safety violation, the agency's most serious classification, is the second for a U.S. reactor in as many years. In 2011, the NRC slapped the Tennessee Valley Authority with a red violation at its Browns Ferry 1 reactor in Alabama.

Fort Calhoun shut 11 months ago for a month-long refueling that had to be extended when rising flood water from the Missouri River surrounded the site, forcing OPPD to install water-filled berms to keep water away from key safety equipment.

On June 7, while the unit was shut, a fire broke out in one of two switchgear rooms. The fire knocked out power to systems that cool the reactor's spent fuel for about 90 minutes, the NRC said.

The NRC said a special inspection after the fire concluded that a deficient design modification and maintenance of replacement electrical equipment contributed to the fire which could have occurred when the plant was operating at full power.

"The inspection team determined that prior to the fire, your staff failed to adequately investigate the source of an acrid odor in the west switchgear room that had been present for three days," the NRC said in a letter to David Bannister, OPPD's chief nuclear officer. "A proper investigation may have prevented the fire."

The latest action follows the NRC's decision late last year to put Fort Calhoun in a special inspection category due to multiple safety problems.

The plant is subject to an NRC monitoring program reserved for stations with significant performance issues that have been shut for extended periods of time.

Scrutiny of operations at all 104 U.S. nuclear reactors has been increased in the wake of the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami that destroyed the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan.

OPPD said it has completed much of the work necessary to address the NRC's concerns stemming from the breaker fire.

Earlier this month, operators began testing equipment installed to replace the fire-damaged breaker.

"We are redesigning our electrical system to provide additional isolation of the equipment so that a problem in one system does not spread into the backup system," OPPD said on its website.

Workers have also restored equipment at a meteorological tower at the site which was knocked out by floodwater, the utility said.

OPPD gave no target date for Fort Calhoun's restart. The unit cannot restart without NRC approval.

"OPPD leadership and our board of directors are committed to doing everything possible to return Fort Calhoun Station to a high level of performance in a safe, efficient and timely manner," said OPPD Chief Executive Gary Gates in a statement. (Reporting By Eileen O'Grady; editing by Carol Bishopric)

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OPPD’s nuclear problems: how far will they go?

By Robyn Wisch, KVNO News

February 27th, 2012

Omaha, NE – Omaha Public Power District has come under heavy criticism from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in recent days over its handling of the nuclear power plant just north of Omaha: Fort Calhoun. The plant has been offline for several months as crews work to repair damage from last year’s Missouri flood. And in the interim, more problems at the plant have surfaced.

RW: So even before the great flood of 2011 hit Fort Calhoun last summer, the plant has been on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s radar for quite some time as a utility with potential problems. (The plant was cited for inadequate preparations for a flooding emergency in 2010)

But much of that only came to light when the plant actually came under threat of the Missouri waters. The plant has been offline since then – for just about a year now – and in that time the problems have only deepened. Take us back in the story to last summer.

The Fort Calhoun Nuclear Power Plant was surrounded by a sea of muddy water last summer. This picture was taken approximately June 17, 2011 and provided by OPPD.

(A report from KVNO News for NPR on the flooding at both Fort Calhoun and Cooper Nuclear Power Plant last summer)

JJ: The plant’s been offline since April 9th of a year ago, 2011. At that point, it was a routine inspection situation. The plant was taken offline as intended by the utility. Then came the flooding. And because of the flooding and the concerns that the water was going to reach the plant, obviously the plant stayed shut down. Since that time though, in that interim, in June of 2011, there was a fire at Fort Calhoun, which didn’t get a lot of attention at the time. But several months later, the NRC realized the gravity of what took place at that fire, and it’s still not, I don’t think, completely clear to the public how significant that fire was because the plant was already shut down. So there was no health risk to the community as such, but the NRC made it very clear that among other things, OPPD failed to timely tell the rescue people in that area that there was a fire at the plant, and because of that the NRC pretty much gave them a slap on the back of the head and said don’t do that again.

OPPD was reprimanded by the NRC for taking too long to notify officials about an electrical fire at the plant on June 7, 2011. Regulations require notification within 15 minutes. OPPD took 16 minutes to respond. According to OPPD, the plant “temporarily lost power to a pump that cools the spent-fuel pool.”

Joe Jordan asked OPPD President Gary Gates about last year’s fire at a meeting with reporters:

And then just the other day we found out, the NRC said, even without the flooding, even if there hadn’t been a flood, the fire alone was going to be enough to keep the plant in a shutdown situation. Add the flood to the fire and other problems, and now other problems that the NRC has realized at Fort Calhoun, and we now we have a situation where we’re going on, as you said, almost a year and the plant remains shutdown.

RW: How much do we know now about the extent of the damage from the flood and how precarious the situation really was at the time?

JJ: Well, what we know now is that the plant suffered certain damage from the flood. Most recently, the NRC said its biggest concern is they’ve checked out the plant, and I think they’ve gone through what they can see above ground. Their biggest concern right now is below the ground, and how much damage was done underneath the earth where the Fort Calhoun plant sits on. And according to the NRC, they haven’t determined that yet, that’s still open for questions. There was a public hearing in Omaha in January. And some members of the public actually raised that issue, before I think we heard it from anybody else. Some people in the general public were wondering is the ground underneath Fort Calhoun secure? And now NRC is making it very clear they don’t know the answer to that yet, and they’re still trying to figure it out.

RW: So last week, OPPD came under fire at a meeting at NRC headquarters in Washington. As you reported, NRC Commissioner William Magwood said the issues at Fort Calhoun “sound like a safety culture problem.” And others wondered “what’s going on in that organization.” (Watch the briefing in full here)

To that, Gary Gates, president of OPPD responded: “We’re clearly not satisfied with our performance. We’d like to assure you we have the support of our entire company and our board per resources. Also, the majority of the workforce at Fort Calhoun are experienced, long-term employees. They have operated at a high level. We lost our edge.”

Video of Gary Gates’ remarks, edited by Nebraska Watchdog:

RW: “We lost our edge.” Quite a significant admission from the President of the company. What do you think the repercussions of this could be for the management at OPPD?

JJ: First of all, I don’t think you’ll ever hear Gary Gates or anyone from OPPD say “we lost our edge.” I think those words have probably been banned from OPPD. In terms of the impact, ultimately it’s up to the board of directors. It’s an eight-member board. Most people know that there’s an OPPD board of directors. But I venture to guess if you ask somebody to name one, they’d have a hard time doing it. So at the moment, the OPPD board seems to be okay with Mr. Gates and his management team. Could that change? Certainly it could. But for the moment, it looks like Gates’ job is safe.

(In this briefing on Fort Calhoun by Bill Borchardt, Executive Director of Operations at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, dated Feb. 22 at the “management changes” are listed as an element of a sustainability plan for Fort Calhoun)

But again, part of this will depend on further challenges by the NRC and possibly if the public steps up and says more and more, what’s going on at that plant? Then I think all bets would be off in terms of how secure some of those people’s jobs are.

Regulators Discuss Neb. Nuclear Plant Recovery

OMAHA, Neb. -- Federal regulators will get another update on a Nebraska utility's plan to repair and restart a nuclear power plant that has been shut down since last spring. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission plans to meet with Omaha Public Power District officials on Wednesday to discuss the Fort Calhoun nuclear power plant, which is 20 miles north of Omaha .This is the second such meeting since the NRC imposed tough oversight on Fort Calhoun. Regulators said several problems have been found at the plant that were unrelated to last summer's flooding along the Missouri River. OPPD has hired experts from Exelon Nuclear Partners to help oversee repairs and get Fort Calhoun ready to restart later this year. Exelon is the largest operator of U.S. nuclear

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