Source: U.S. Nuclear regulatory Commission
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff has scheduled a meeting in Crystal River, Fla., to discuss the restart of the Crystal River nuclear plant, located on the west coast of Florida about 80 miles north of Tampa.
The meeting is scheduled for 1 p.m. on Tuesday, March 22 in Room 150 of the Crystal River nuclear plant training center, 8200 West Venable Street in Crystal River, and will be open to members of the public and the news media. NRC and Progress Energy officials will discuss the company’s preparations and readiness to restart the plant. NRC officials will also be available to answer questions after the discussion.
The Crystal River plant shut down in the fall of 2009 for a planned refueling outage that included replacement of the steam generators. To move the large steam generators into the containment building, workers removed concrete to create the necessary opening. During that work, the plant staff discovered a separation or gap in the concrete containment wall. The Crystal River plant has been shut down since then while Progress Energy investigated the cause of the gap and repaired the concrete containment.
“The separation did not increase the risk to people living near the plant because the company’s analyses and our inspections found that the gap was created by the work done after the plant was shut down,” said NRC Region II Administrator Victor McCree.“NRC inspectors have conducted many inspections and reviews of the company’s analyses and repairs, and the plant will not restart until the repaired containment building meets all safety requirements.”
