By Roger Witherspoon
The Journal News (Westchester County, NY)
May 1, 2003 Thursday
New study focuses on Indian Point 2 operations in 1990s
The Journal News
Operating conditions at Indian Point 2 deteriorated alarmingly throughout the 1990s,
and only intensive intervention by the regional Nuclear Regulatory Commission
office, beginning in 1995, halted the downward spiral, according to a report released
yesterday by the agency's inspector general.
Yet, the report also notes that senior NRC officials refused to allow the regional
administrator, Hubert Miller, to place the Buchanan plant on a special "watch list,"
despite the fact that there was no sign of improvement and a litany of continuing
management and performance problems. They include broken and malfunctioning
equipment, lax training, and a Feb. 15, 2000, steam generator tube rupture that
triggered the plant's only nuclear emergency. The plant shut down for a year after
the accident while the defective steam generators were replaced.
At the time, the plant was owned by Consolidated Edison, which sold the plant to
Entergy Nuclear Northeast in September 2001.
Only after the rupture did the NRC place Indian Point 2 on its watch list, which meant
the plant would continue to have a heightened level of oversight. The plant was
given a "red" safety designation for the incident, the worst of four in the agency's
color-coded safety system, and was ranked as the least safe plant in the nation for
two years. The "red" designation was removed last year as a result of improvements
in equipment and training by Entergy. The plant still receives the NRC's highest level
of oversight.
Con Edison spokesman Joe Petta said the company has not had time to study the
report and could not comment. Inspector General Hubert Bell and Miller also declined
to comment.
The report, begun two years ago, found that there was no lax oversight on the part
of the NRC, despite serious problems with Indian Point 2's operation. It also found
that Con Edison repeatedly pledged to improve the plant's performance and
developed elaborate "correction action programs," or CAPs, which it did not carry
out.
"Between 1995 and 2001," the report states, "IP2 experienced a series of operational
problems, attributed in large part to deficiencies in IP2's CAP. Between April 1995
and February 2001, NRC conducted 20 special team inspections at IP2, logging 5,870
inspection hours. ... However, despite heightened levels of NRC attention to these
weaknesses, problems at IP2 remained unresolved."
Some concerned with safety at Indian Point 2 yesterday challenged the report's
conclusion that the NRC acted effectively.
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., who has been pressing Bell for months to
release the report, said she was concerned that the inspector general "appears to
have found the NRC less than effective in bringing about necessary improvements in
plant performance, including at Indian Point. We need to ensure that these nuclear
power plants are held to the highest standards for safety and security. Unfortunately,
despite its continued efforts, it appears that the NRC may not be holding plants to
these standards, and that must be corrected."
Jim Riccio, nuclear analyst for the environmental group Greenpeace, said the
regulatory system relies heavily on the ability of companies to identify and fix their
own problems, while the NRC monitors their progress.
"You cannot expect a licensee to self-identify problems that have the potential to
shut down their reactor," he said. "They are not going to do it, and the NRC cannot
in good conscience say Indian Point 2 is safe. They just don't know."
Among the major problems facing Indian Point 2 under Con Edison's ownership that
were cited in the report are:
* Incorrect wiring of the reactor protection system. It is responsible for shutting
down the reactor within seconds. Engineers at the plant had filed 13 internal
"corrective reports" between 1998 and 2000 noting the improper wiring. Bell's report
found Con Edison had "appropriate plans in place" to correct the wiring but did not
carry them out.
The NRC, however, acted properly in monitoring Con Edison's actions and testing the
protection system to make sure it would work properly even though it was not
correctly wired, the report says. The agency's position did not change, even though a
malfunction in the system in 1999 led to a shutdown.
* Most of the plant's major operating systems did not conform with license diagrams
and specifications. Con Edison sent sworn letters to the NRC in 1997 and 1999 that it
would bring all systems into compliance within two years. This was not done. The
inspector general found that the NRC did nothing wrong by allowing Con Edison to
push back its own deadlines. Entergy launched a $20 million project shortly after
taking over the plant to bring all systems into compliance. That is scheduled for
completion by the end of this year.
* Con Edison did not correct problems identified since 1995 and showed a persistent
inability to identify the causes of mechanical and electrical breakdowns. This resulted
in a backlog of thousands of broken or improperly functioning items.
Bell found that this inability to solve problems led Miller to push for additional
oversight of the plant. Miller operated properly, the report concludes, though the
heightened scrutiny failed to improve the plant's safety margins.
* Miller tried since 1997 to have Indian Point 2 placed on the NRC's "watch list" but
was overruled at management meetings because he "did not identify a situation
where the plant was unsafe, a safety system was inoperable or adverse trends were
apparent."
Reach Roger Witherspoon at rwithers@thejournalnews.com or 914-696-8566.
Plants returning to full power level
The two nuclear plants at Indian Point are expected to return to full power
production today after being shut down in separate incidents this week. Indian Point
2's shutdown Monday afternoon was triggered by a Consolidated Edison power
outage in the Buchanan area. Jim Steets, spokesman for Entergy Nuclear Northeast,
which owns the plants, said the plant resumed operations about 2 p.m. yesterday.
Indian Point 3 shut down about 3 a.m. Tuesday when a fire broke out in the
insulation around the high-pressure blades in the electric generating turbine. The fire
was in the non-nuclear section of the plant, but area officials and the U.S. Nuclear
Regulatory Commission were notified. Steets said Indian Point 3 resumed operating
about 7:30 a.m. yesterday. The plants are powered up in stages.