NRC Staff Recommends Exemption for Kewaunee

The NRC Staff are recommending that Dominion’s exemption request for emergency preparedness regulations for the Kewaunee Power Station be granted, according to the Staff’s SECY letter to the Commission yesterday. Exemptions at decommissioning sites have made headlines recently after Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and Edward Markey (D-Mass.) criticized the NRC for granting too many at the cost of safety and security. The Staff reasoned in the letter that because the station has been powered down and successfully defueled, it does not need the regulations normally required for an operating reactor. “The exemption request is consistent with previously granted exemptions and is commensurate with the risk associated with the facility,” the SECY letter said. “The changes in regulatory requirements are appropriate because the traditional accident sequences that dominate operating reactor risk are no longer applicable. Requiring the licensee to maintain its current level of EP imposes an unnecessary regulatory burden.”