NRC NEWS

U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION

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Site: http://www.nrc.gov

No. 09-012 January 16, 2009

NRC ISSUES SAFETY EVALUATION REPORT WITH OPEN ITEMS FOR 

INDIAN POINT NUCLEAR PLANT LICENSE RENEWAL APPLICATION 

 

 The Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff has issued its Safety Evaluation Report (SER) 

with Open Items for the proposed renewal of the operating licenses for Indian Point nuclear 

power plant, Units 2 and 3. 

 Entergy submitted an application to the NRC in April 2007 to extend the Indian Point 

licenses by 20 years. The plant, operated by Entergy, is located in Buchanan (Westchester 

County), N.Y. The current 40-year operating licenses expire Sept. 28, 2013, for Unit 2, and Dec. 

12, 2015, for Unit 3. 

The SER documents the results of the NRC staff’s review of the license renewal 

application and site audit of Indian Point’s aging management programs to address the safety of 

plant operations during the period of extended operation. Overall, the results show that Entergy 

has identified actions that have been or will be taken to manage the effects of aging in the 

appropriate systems, structures, and components of the plant and that their functions will be 

maintained during the period of extended operation. 

 In a letter dated Jan. 15, Brian Holian, director of the Office of Nuclear Reactor 

Regulation’s Division of License Renewal, provided Entergy with the SER and requested 

responses to the open items by March 16. The SER is available on NRC’s Web site at 

http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/operating/licensing/renewal/applications.html . 

 

 Issuance of an SER with Open Items is a typical milestone in a license renewal review. 

The SER identifies open items that still need to be addressed by the applicant before the staff can 

complete its review. The open items in this SER involve scoping of plant systems and 

components, aging management reviews, and aging management programs. 

 After Entergy provides satisfactory information to address the open items, the NRC staff 

will present its final conclusions on the license renewal application in an update to this SER. A 

Final SER is estimated to be issued in late July 2009. 
 The SER and the license renewal application have also been provided to the NRC’s 

Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards (ACRS), an independent body of experts that 

advises the NRC on reactor safety matters. An ACRS subcommittee is expected to discuss the 

SER with open items during a meeting in March. The meeting, which will take place at NRC 

Headquarters in Rockville, Md., will be open to the public and will be announced on the 

agency’s web site at http://www.nrc.gov/public-involve/public-meetings/index.cfm. The full 

ACRS will later issue a report discussing the results of its review. 

 A copy of the letter and the Safety Evaluation Report with Open Items will be available 

in the NRC’s Agencywide Documents Access and Management Systems (ADAMS) under 

accession number ML090150414 . ADAMS is accessible via the agency’s web site at: 

http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html. Help in using ADAMS is available by contacting 

the NRC’s Public Document Room at 1-800-397-4209 or 301-415-4737, or by e-mail at 

PDR.Resource@NRC.GOV. 

 Additional information concerning license renewal in general and the Indian Point 

application in particular can be found at 

http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/operating/licensing/renewal.html.

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