Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel To Visit Indian Point May 8

The Atomic Safety and Licensing Board (ASLB) will be examining physical configuration and key components when it visits the plant on May 8 to view areas they believe might be relevant to the admitted contentions into the approaching re-licensing proceedings. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission released a statement of notice explaining the purpose of the board’s planned visit to the Buchanan nuclear power plant and a planned tele-conference with all involved parties in April.

The notice stated:

The purpose of this site visit is to gain an appreciation for the physical configuration of the key plant components and to focus on specific elements discussed in the contentions that are external to the reactors at Indian Point. To meet these goals, the Board wishes to observe the following during the site visit and expects to discuss them during the teleconference:

1.            An overall external layout of the plant to discern the relative locations of the following:

• a.            Reactor buildings
• b.            Diesel generator building(s)
• c.            Condensate storage tank(s)
• d.            Spent fuel pool building(s) including (if accessible) observations of the spent fuel pools themselves
• e.            Independent spent fuel storage installations (ISFSIs)
• f.            Intake and outflow structures;

2.            A general location of safety-related buried pipes and tanks external to plant buildings;

3.            A sample of external access vaults for viewing non-environmentally qualified inaccessible cables;

4.            External vault/pit, surface water, and groundwater monitoring locations;

5.            A topographic pathway from the spent fuel pools to the Hudson River;

6.            External transformers important for plant safety; and

7.            Exterior views of presently operational Indian Point Unit 1 facilities.

The ASLB Board also encouraged calll participants to suggest any additional features at IPEC that might be relevant to the admitted contentions in this proceeding.