N.J. Salem nuke plant has an unusual event

[ensho]

http://hisz.rsoe.hu/alertmap/index2.php


An “unusual event” was declared by operators of the Salem 2 nuclear reactor here overnight after a leak of radioactive water developed during the testing of an emergency cooling system. An unusual event is the lowest of four emergency classifications as defined by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the federal agency which oversees operations of the nation’s nuclear power plants. The unusual event was declared at 8:53 p.m. Thursday and ended at 3:39 a.m. today, according to Joe Delmar, spokesman for the plant’s operator, PSEG Nuclear. There was no threat to either plant personnel or the public, Delmar said today.

The water that leaked is radioactive, but none of the workers were contaminated. Workers were performing a routine monthly venting of the emergency core cooling system’s high head safety injection piping when a leak was discovered on a valve that had been opened. It is believed a crack on a weld on the motorized valve was the cause of the leak. Over a 6-minute period, before the valve was closed, approximately 90 gallons of water leaked into the auxiliary building next to the reactor containment building at a rate of between 11 and 15 gallons per minute. Operating rules allow water leakage of up to 10 gallons per minute, but since this leak exceeded this amount, the unusual event was declared. The leak also caused the pressure in the system to drop. Operators declared the system temporarily inoperable and began to power down the plant, eventually taking it offline at 1:55 a.m. today. Salem 2 has two high head safety injection pumps. They are part of the plant’s
emergency core cooling system and would be used in the event of a loss of coolant from the reactor’s main coolant system. During an accident, it would be one of the systems that would pump borated water into the reactor vessel to ensure the nuclear fuel inside remained covered with water and cooled.

The system is supplied water initially by 8,000-gallon boric acid makeup tanks and there is a backup 400,000-gallon refueling water storage tank. Routine tests of the emergency core cooling the systems are conducted monthly to ensure they are operational in the event other systems failed. Delmar said operators were not sure when Salem 2 would return to service. Since an unusual event was declared, municipal and county officials along with emergency management officials from New Jersey and Delaware — parts of which are within the 10-mile radius of the Artificial Island nuclear generating site — were notified. NRC resident inspectors assigned to the plant will be following up on the incident to ensure PSEG Nuclear fully understand the cause of the leak and its taking appropriate steps to prevent it from happening again, according to the agency. The neighboring reactors operated by PSEG Nuclear — Salem 1 and Hope Creek — remain operating at
full power today. The three plants make up the second largest commercial nuclear power complex in the United States. They produce enough electricity to power 3 million homes.
------------------