NRC NEWS

U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION

Office of Public Affairs Region III

2443 Warrenville Road

Lisle IL 60532

Site: www.nrc.gov

Blog: http://public-blog.nrc-gateway.gov

No. III-12-006

Contact: Viktoria Mitlyng (630) 829-9662

 Prema Chandrathil (630) 829-9663

February 14, 2012

E-Mail: OPA3.RegionIII@nrc.gov 

NRC CITES PALISADES FOR THREE VIOLATIONS; 

PUBLIC MEETING SCHEDULED

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has issued three violations to the Palisades 

nuclear power plant. One violation is for a “substantial safety significance” issue and two others 

are for a “low to moderate safety significance” issue. These violations will result in additional 

NRC inspections and oversight of the facility. The plant is located in Covert, Mich., 

approximately 50 miles west of Kalamazoo and is operated by Entergy Nuclear Operations.

The NRC will also hold a public meeting Feb. 29, to discuss the plant’s performance. 

The meeting will run from 6 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. EST at the Beach Haven Event Center, 10420 

M-140 in South Haven. The meeting will be open for the public to ask questions of the NRC 

after the presentation has been made. Additional details about the public meeting will be 

available soon. 

The violation resulting in a substantial significance to safety is related to a Sept. 25 

electrical fault caused by personnel at the site which resulted in a reactor trip, the loss of half of 

the control room indicators, and actuation of safety systems that were not warranted by actual 

plant conditions. This made the reactor trip more challenging for the operators and increased the 

possibility of a serious event occurring. The NRC conducted a Special Inspection and determined 

the plant failed to have adequate work procedures for the electrical panel maintenance work to 

ensure the job was done successfully. 

The violations resulting in a low to moderate significance to safety are related to a 

coupling failure in the service water system. The system is comprised of three motor driven 

pumps which provide cooling to safety related equipment such as containment air coolers and 

diesel generators. Last August one of the service water pumps failed due to cracking in one of 

the couplings. This was a repeat of a previous equipment failure that occurred in 2009. The 

NRC conducted a Special Inspection and later concluded the plant failed to prevent recurrence of 

the cracking condition and failed to completely consider the properties of the steel used in a past 

modification of the couplings.

 
After consideration of the information the NRC staff has characterized the Sept. 25 

violation as “yellow” or as a finding of substantial significance and the Aug. 9 violations as 

“white” or having a low to moderate safety significance. The NRC evaluates a nuclear plant’s 

performance with a color coded process that classifies regulatory findings as green, white, 

yellow or red, in order of increasing safety significance. 

The yellow and white inspection findings will place the plant in the “Degraded 

Cornerstone Column” of the NRC’s Action Matrix (also known as column 3) as of the fourth 

quarter of 2011. This move in the action matrix will result not only in additional oversight at 

Palisades, but will also include a NRC supplemental team inspection to independently determine 

whether Palisades understands the root cause and contributing causes of the risk significant 

issues; has identified the extent of the condition and extent of cause; and has taken the 

appropriate corrective actions to prevent recurrence. In addition, the NRC will evaluate if the site 

considered whether any safety culture component caused or significantly contributed to the 

issues.

The NRC’s final significance letter issued to Entergy detailing the findings will be 

publically available through the AGENCY DOCUMENTS ACCESS AND MANAGEMENT 

SYSTEM (ADAMS) website. The number to access the final letter is ML120450037.

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