Athens, AL – The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has told Browns Ferry officials that the plant's Unit 1 performance indicators are among the worst in the nation.
The commission's senior resident inspector, Thierry Ross, told officials Wednesday that the unit had five unplanned automatic or manual safety-related shutdowns since its startup in May 2007. He says that number put the unit across the yellow threshold.
Nationwide, the NRC assessed 1,900 performance indicators for the 104 nuclear reactors in the country.
The commission spent 1,800 hours inspecting Browns Ferry in 2007. The Tennessee Valley Authority restarted Unit 1 in May 2007 at a cost of 1.8 billion dollars.
Unit 1 also received a yellow rating for corrective action.
Ross says the commission also concluded the plant did not take timely corrective actions. He says the fact that Unit 1 crossed the yellow threshold does not mean it is a hazard to the public. But because of the low rating, the commission will conduct a team inspection of Unit 1 in October and continue to assess the effectiveness of TVA's program throughout 2008.
Rusty West is site vice president at Browns Ferry. The TVA hired him a month ago. West says a TVA team is analyzing the causes of the five safety-related shutdowns.
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Information from: The Decatur Daily, http://www.decaturdaily.com/decaturdaily/index.shtml
(Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)