Meetings Tuesday
The next round of meetings about the Davis-Besse Nuclear
Power Station will be held at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. Tuesday at the
Camp Perry Clubhouse in Port Clinton. Both are open to public.
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OAK HARBOR -- A letter released Wednesday by the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission said the risk associated with continued
operation at Davis-Besse last December was "acceptably small."
That, however, was before workers at the nuclear power station
found a hole in the reactor head, caused by leakage of boric acid
from the very cracks the NRC suspected in 2001 were problematic.
The letter, from John Zwolinski, director of licensing project
management in the office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation, was directed
to Lew Myers, chief operating officer of the FirstEnergy Nuclear
Operating Co., which is the parent company to Davis-Besse.
In it, Zwolinski explains the reason for allowing Davis-Besse to
continue on last winter despite concerns of possible cracking and
leakage stemming from an industry-wide problem.
Last fall the NRC asked officials from FirstEnergy to provide
reasons why the Carroll Township plant should continue operating
until its scheduled March shutdown.
The request was a result of an industry-wide warning regarding
the potential for dangerous circumferencial cracks in control rod
drive nozzles, which are located on the top of the reactor head and
essentially help control the nuclear reaction.
And while cracking has been seen before in the control rods,
circumferencial cracking was a different phenomenon -- and experts
feared it could result in one of the nozzles literally popping off
the reactor head.
The warning was sent to all operators of pressurized-water
reactors, such as Davis-Besse, and asked for information from visual
inspections to the control rods and top of the reactor head.
After several meetings in No-vember and December, FirstEnergy
officials convinced the NRC -- despite the federal agency having
drafted a shutdown order -- to let the plant continue operating
until a mutually-agreed to date of Feb. 16.
The utility company also agreed to run at a lower heat until that
date.
Basically, the NRC concluded that the likelihood of an accident
because of a control rod drive being ejected from the reactor head
between Dec. 31 and the shutdown on Feb. 16 was "acceptably small."
Originally published Thursday, December 5, 2002
