(Last year's) Fires, equipment failures raise concerns at Hartsville nuclear plant

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://www.thestate.com/2011/03/20/1743543/fires-equipment-failures-raise.html

News - Local / Metro
Sunday, Mar. 20, 2011

Fires, equipment failures raise concerns at Hartsville nuclear plant

By SAMMY FRETWELL - [e-mail]

Inspectors studying safety questions at more than a dozen U.S. nuclear plants last year found the most serious concerns in South Carolina — at a 40-year-old Darlington County atomic power station that experienced two fires and equipment failures, a new report says.

The fires at Progress Energy’s H.B. Robinson nuclear plant March 28, 2010, constituted “the most significant near-miss” in the country last year, according to the report, prepared by the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Mishaps at the plant near Hartsville could have been avoided if equipment had worked properly and staff members had been more diligent at their jobs, the report also says.

David Lochbaum, the report’s author, called worker performance at the Robinson facility in 2010 “unbelievably poor.’’

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