NRC will return TVA's Watts Bar nuclear power plant to normal oversight

摘要

NRC will return Tennessee Valley Authority’s Watts Bar-1 and -2 to normal oversight effective October 1 after the agency completed a supplemental inspection, NRC said in a letter to the federal power provider September 12. NRC performed the inspection, which was concluded August 1, in response to a white finding and associated violation in emergency preparedness the agency identified in February. TVA did not challenge NRC’s white finding, which resulted in both units being moved in April to column 2 of the agency's reactor oversight process (Inside NRC, 29 Apr, 6). Findings in the process are color-coded and ranked in order of increasing safety significance, with green having "very low" safety significance, followed by white, yellow and red. Plants are subject to increasingly greater oversight as they move to highernumbered columns in the five-column process.