A New Jersey power plant undergoing decommissioning needs to shore up its spent fuel inventory security procedures, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission found in a recent site inspection.
NRC logged three physical security violations at Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station during an August inspection of the plant’s independent spent fuel storage installation (ISFSI), according to a report dated August 26. The violations are “of very low security significance,” the agency said.
Because NRC’s inspection contains sensitive security information about Oyster Creek’s ISFSI, details of the violations were not made public, the report said.
This is the second time in as many months that NRC has had to put on its enforcement gloves for the Forked River, N.J. nuclear plant, currently being decommissioned by Holtec International. The commission said in July that it was exploring the possibility of a civil penalty for Holtec after an inspection at Oyster Creek revealed that a former site superintendent and armorer falsified records on firearms maintenance.
Meanwhile, Holtec is in the midst of a labor dispute with a local New Jersey union hall which contends that the Camden, N.J. nuclear services company violated a collective bargaining agreement when it laid off dozens of union radiation technicians last month. The company told the state labor department in June that it planned to lay off a total of 92 plant workers in August.
Holtec, which bought Oyster Creek from Exelon in 2019, has said that it expects decommissioning at the plant to be done by 2025 or so.
