Inspectors find safety violations at Salem nuclear plant

• The Nuclear Regulatory Commission recently found five violations at the Salem/Hope Creek nuclear facility.
• No citations were issued because of the violations.
• A spokesman said they have begun correcting the issues identified in the reports.

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission found five safety violations at the Salem/Hope Creek nuclear facility along the Delaware River, according to reports.

In a report issued for the Salem Nuclear Generating Station Units 1 and 2, the NRC found four violations, characterized as having "very low safety significance."

Alleged offenses include failure to maintain an appropriate preventive maintenance schedule for containment cooling fans; failing to properly test equipment; the removal of a barrier designed to prevent the release of radiation; and lack of preventive maintenance on the facility's ventilation radiation monitor.

Separately, the NRC found one violation at Hope Creek section, also characterized as "very low safety significance." The government agency alleged workers did not follow proper procedures to document and correct an issue related to the loss of heat and air conditioning in the main control room during station blackout. An extraordinary rare event, a station blackout occurs when the plant losses both onsite and offsite backup emergency power.

Radioactive tritium found in ice outside Hope Creek

More hearings set for Salem nuclear plant expansion

PSEG Power, of Newark, New Jersey, owns the three-reactor Salem/Hope Creek complex on Artificial Island along the Delaware River southeast of Port of Penn.

The company also identified a low safety significance to the NRC. That violation was a failure to implement a security plan for eight shipments of radioactive disposal from Salem Units 1 and 2 between 2010 and 2014. PSEG has already entered corrective actions to resolve this violation.

No citations were issued because of the violations, according to the NRC report.

The violations are rated as Green, the lowest level on the four-color scale the NRC uses to rate safety offenses, but were all four described as "more than minor."

"Green doesn't mean any safety significance, just low-level safety significance," said Neil Sheehan, a spokesman for the NRC.

PSEG spokesman Joe Delmar said they have begun correcting the issues identified in the reports.

"Each of the findings are for gaps previously identified," Delmar said. "Once identified, we enter these items into our corrective action program. Upon receiving the NRC's official finding on these gaps, we do an additional review to ensure that we have taken appropriate measures that we outlined in our corrective action program."

Because the violations were labeled as "low-level," the NRC will give PSEG time to address the issues without follow-up until the next inspection, Sheehan said. If a company is slow to correct the violations, the NRC would then pursue additional enforcement action. Sheehan said in some cases, companies have already begun to resolve the NRC's concerns before to the release of the safety report.

Although, the infractions were not viewed as particularly dangerous, Sheehan said the number of violations found at the Salem portion of the plant, which houses reactor Units 1 and 2, were more than what is typically found during an inspection.

"Four is higher than you usually see," he said. "Usually, you only see one or two violations."

Safety concerns were raised in 2014, when workers found that all of the dozens of bolts used to secure water-moving impellers had broken or sheared off in all four of Salem's 30-foot reactor coolant pumps. While some bolt-heads and pieces had not yet been found after a month, others were found in the bottom of the reactor core itself. The NRC allowed PSEG to investigate and complete the necessary repairs without putting a formal hold on operations.

More hearings set for Salem nuclear plant expansion

The latest concerns raised by the NRC come as PSEG prepares for next month's mandatory regulatory review of its proposal to build one or more nuclear plants just north of the Salem/Hope Creek complex.

Scheduled for March 24, the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board will conduct a hearing on PSEG's early site permit application in Rockville, Maryland.

Contact Jeff Mordock at (302) 324-2786, on Twitter @JeffMordockTNJ or jmordock@delawareonline.com.