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-07-022 April 18, 2007

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

Neil Sheehan, 610/337-5331

NRC TO DISCUSS 2006 ASSESSMENT FOR R.E. GINNA NUCLEAR PLANT

AT PUBLIC MEETING SCHEDULED FOR APRIL 25

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s annual assessment of safety performance at the R.E.

Ginna nuclear power plant, in Ontario, N.Y., will be the subject of a public meeting on Wednesday,

April 25.

NRC staff will meet with representatives of plant owner Constellation Energy, 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 Ontario Town Hall, 1850 Ridge

Road, Ontario.

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

public on the performance of the Ginna 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

25th, members of the public will receive information about how we go about that review process for

Ginna 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 Ginna is available on the NRC web site at:

http://www.nrc.gov/NRR/OVERSIGHT/ASSESS/LETTERS/ginn_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 ML071010234. The meeting slides are

available under accession number ML071010226. 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, the Ginna plant 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. At the conclusion of last year, all of the performance indicators for Ginna were

determined to be “green.” Because all of the performance indicators for the plant were determined to

be “green” and there were no inspection findings greater than “green” at the end of 2006, the facility

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

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

performance at Ginna to be inspected this year by NRC specialists are activities associated with

containment sump modifications, radiological safety, emergency preparedness and component design

bases.

Current performance information for the Ginna plant is available on the NRC web site at:

http://www.nrc.gov/NRR/OVERSIGHT/ASSESS/GINN/ginn_chart.html .

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