NRC Closes Out Pilgrim Nuclear's 'White' Inspection Finding

The United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission announced today that it lifted a "White" finding (low to moderate safety significance) at Pilgrim Nuclear found during an event on May 10, 2011.

During last year's event, "control room operators at the plant failed to properly carry out their roles and responsibilites and adhere to appropriate reactivity control standards, resulting in an automatic scram (shutdown) of the reactor. The issuance of the "White" finding resulted in increase oversight...," stated the NRC in a press release.

The press release continues:

"The purpose of the supplemental inspection was as follows:

1.) to ensure Entergy had performed a thorough root cause evaluation of why the problems had occurred;

2.) to determine if the company had checked for possible impacts of the problems on other systems and programs; and

3.) to gauge the effectiveness of the corrective actions put in place by the company in response to the event, including whether they are sufficient to prevent a recurrence.

"The reviews included NRC inspector interviews with plant control room personnel and observations of a crew simulator evaluation and crew activities in the control room.
 
"Our inspectors found that the company has satisfactorily addressed the relevant issues. (Our inspectors did note some observations regarding the company’s root cause evaluation and the extent and quality of Entergy's corrective actions, but they were not deemed to be significant weaknesses.)

"As a result, the “White” finding will be closed out. That means the plant will no longer be in the Regulatory Response Column of our Action Matrix (which dictates our level of oversight) but will transition back to the Licensee, or normal, Response Column: http://www.nrc.gov/NRR/OVERSIGHT/ASSESS/actionmatrix_summary.html ."