A recent inspection at a shuttered New York nuclear power plant revealed that the facility’s radiation protection program did not meet federal regulations, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said in a letter to the company decommissioning the site.
NRC’s Sep. 30 inspection at Indian Point Energy Center found that plant owner Holtec International failed “to develop and implement a radiation protection program” to minimize worker exposure to residual radioactivity at the site, the agency said in a letter to the company dated Nov. 17 and published Monday.
In particular, NRC noted that Holtec “did not have an adequate procedure or engineering controls” to ensure that potentially radioactive airflow would not escape from an equipment hatch at the Buchanan, N.Y., plant during radiological work.
The commission said that it was considering Holtec’s transgression a ‘non-cited violation’ under its enforcement policy, meaning that the company has already resolved the issue and that NRC won’t penalize it.
Other decommissioning activities, including work at Indian Point’s independent spent fuel storage installation, met federal regulations, NRC said in its report.
Meanwhile, NRC asked Holtec Oct. 21 to clear up what it said was “conflict” in its master trust fund agreement for the plant, which the agency said appears to give the company the power to direct investments from Indian Point’s multi-million-dollar decommissioning account. Federal regulations contradict such authority, NRC said.
Camden, N.J.-based Holtec took ownership of the Indian Point plant after it shut down in April 2021. The company has said that it could finish decommissioning the facility by 2027 or so.
