A bevy of safety violations at a New Jersey nuclear power plant under decommissioning have been resolved, the company dismantling the site told the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in a recent letter.
Since NRC on Jan. 26 slapped Holtec International with around $50,000 in fines for several security violations at Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station, Holtec has “completed the commitments” it made to correct those issues, the company told the agency in a letter dated July 26 and made public Wednesday.
Among the actions Holtec took to address NRC’s violations, the company conducted security training, not only at Oyster Creek but at all of its other decommissioning sites including Michigan’s Palisades plant, Pilgrim Nuclear Generating Station in Massachusetts and Indian Point in New York, the letter said.
The training “emphasized the importance of complete and accurate information for all required records, correspondence, and communications with the NRC and its staff,” Holtec said.
The January fine stemmed from a 2020 NRC investigation into a former security superintendent and armorer at Oyster Creek. The agency determined that the armorer “deliberately failed” to perform required firearms maintenance and falsified records related to the maintenance that were subsequently submitted to the commission.
In its July letter, Holtec also told NRC that it has “reviewed its process for performing and recording in-service and out-of-service weapons maintenance,” and evaluated possible changes for those practices at Oyster Creek in Forked River, N.J. The letter did not disclose exactly what changes were proposed.
Meanwhile, Holtec is also on the hook for another $150,000 penalty related to a separate set of unspecified security violations at Oyster Creek. NRC announced that fine in December, but did not disclose the specifics of Holtec’s misconduct, citing security reasons. Holtec has already agreed to pay both fines.
Holtec purchased Oyster Creek from Exelon in 2019. The company has said that it expects decommissioning work at the site to wrap up by 2025 or so.
