NRC NEWS

 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 

 Office of Public Affairs, Region I

 475 Allendale Road, King of Prussia, Pa.

www.nrc.gov

 

No. I-07-013 April 4, 2007

Contact: Diane Screnci, 610/337-5330 E-mail: opa1@nrc.gov

Neil Sheehan, 610/337-5331

NRC TO DISCUSS 2006 ASSESSMENT FOR THREE MILE ISLAND NUCLEAR PLANT

AT PUBLIC MEETING SCHEDULED FOR APRIL 11

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s annual assessment of safety performance at the Three

Mile Island Unit 1 nuclear power plant, in Middletown, Pa., will be the subject of a public meeting on

Wednesday, April 11.

NRC staff will meet with representatives of plant owner AmerGen Energy Co., LLC, at 7 p.m.

to discuss the assessment, which covers the period from Jan. 1 to Dec. 31, 2006, and was documented

in a March 2nd letter to the company. The session will take place at Londonderry Town Hall, 738 S.

Geyers Church Road in Middletown.

Before the meeting is adjourned, NRC staff will be available to answer questions from the

public on the performance of the Three Mile Island Unit 1 plant, as well as the role of the NRC in

providing oversight of plant safety.

“Each year we take a step back to size up plant performance during the previous calendar year,

with the overarching goal of ensuring that facilities are achieving the levels of safety that are essential

to protecting the public and the environment,” said NRC Region I Administrator Samuel J. Collins,

who noted the agency also conducts mid-year assessments of performance. “At the meeting on April

11th, members of the public will receive information about how we go about that review process for

Three Mile Island and other nuclear power plants across the nation. The NRC staff will also be

prepared to answer questions from attendees.”

The annual assessment letter for Three Mile Island Unit 1 is available on the NRC web site at:

http://www.nrc.gov/NRR/OVERSIGHT/ASSESS/LETTERS/tmi_2006q4.pdf . The notice for the

meeting, with agenda attached, is available in the NRC’s Agencywide Documents Access and

Management System (ADAMS) under accession number ML070851468. The meeting slides are

available under accession number ML070851386. ADAMS is accessible at:

http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html . Help in using ADAMS is available via the NRC’s Public

Document Room at 1-800-397-4209 or 301-415-4737, or by e-mail at PDR@NRC.GOV .

Overall, Three Mile Island Unit 1 operated safely during 2006. The NRC utilizes color-coded
inspection findings and performance indicators to assess nuclear power plant performance. The colors

start with “green” and then increase to “white,” “yellow” or “red,” commensurate with the safety

significance of the issues involved. Because all of the performance indicators for the Three Mile Island

Unit 1 were determined to be “green” and there were no inspection findings greater than “green” at the

end of 2006, the plant will receive the baseline, or routine, level of inspections in 2007.

Three Mile Island Unit 1 did have a “white” inspection finding open during the first quarter of

last year. That finding was related to the untimely conduct of required annual classroom retraining for

some members of the plant’s emergency response organization. The issue was identified during a

November 2004 emergency preparedness program inspection. From Feb. 27 to March 14, 2006, the

NRC conducted a supplemental inspection to determine whether AmerGen had made sufficient

progress in addressing the problem. When the agency concluded that was the case, the finding was

closed out in the first quarter of 2006.

Routine inspections are performed by two NRC Resident Inspectors assigned to the plant and

by inspection specialists from the Region I Office in King of Prussia, Pa. Among the areas of plant

performance to be inspected this year by NRC specialists are containment sump modifications,

emergency preparedness and radiological protection.

Current performance information for Three Mile Island Unit 1 is available on the NRC web site

at: http://www.nrc.gov/NRR/OVERSIGHT/ASSESS/TMI1/tmi1_chart.html .

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