Upon successful completion of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s (NRC) Inspection Procedure 95001 in November 2015, Talen Energy’s Susquehanna Station expected Unit 1 and Unit 2 to be returned to Column 1 – the Licensee Response Column – in 2016.
Based on the inspection results, Utilities Service Alliance (USA) member Susquehanna Station recently received correspondence from the NRC that announced Susquehanna Unit 1 and Unit 2 will transition from Column 2 (the Regulatory Response Column) of the NRC’s Action Matrix to Column 1 (the Licensee Response Column) as of the first calendar quarter of 2016.
“This is a solid achievement for the Station as we head into the New Year,” said USA Board Chairman and Chief Nuclear Officer Tim Rausch. “Team Susquehanna continues to demonstrate its pursuit of excellence every day. Returning to Column 1—the Licensee Response Column—is a healthy place for us to be because it actively demonstrates we are identifying and fixing our own issues.”
As a result of successfully satisfying the objectives of the IP 95001 Inspection – which provided assurance that the root causes of the performance issues had been identified, that the extent of condition and extent of cause issues were identified, and that corrective actions for these issues were sufficient to address the root and contributing causes and prevent recurrence – the NRC concluded that overall, the inspection objectives were met and no significant weaknesses or additional findings of significance were identified.
During the 1st Quarter of 2015, the NRC identified a finding of low to moderate significance (White) related to Emergency Preparedness (EP) as a result of the Station not establishing an effective Emergency Plan to ensure a timely (within 15 minutes) event declaration would be made for an unisolable primary system leak outside of primary containment.
“Team Susquehanna worked relentlessly to analyze, correct and communicate causes associated with the White Finding,” said Site VP Jon Franke. “Thanks to the hard work of the 95001 response team led by Meghan Thorpe-Kavanaugh and the continuous improvement efforts led by EP Manager Jim Gorman and his team, that’s where we are. It’s our job to make sure we stay there by continuing to learn and never being satisfied with the status quo.”
The IP95001 Inspection was a two-part inspection. The first part was the 95001 inspection—a follow-up to the White Finding. The second part was the baseline emergency plan inspection. Both inspections were completed with results that support our transition back to Column 1.