The Nuclear Regulatory Commission will not take disciplinary action against the operator of a California nuclear power plant despite finding that it ran afoul of federal regulations governing the storage of radioactive materials, the agency said in a letter Monday.
Although NRC’s Sep. 30 inspection of Diablo Canyon Power plant revealed that operator Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) violated regulations “with respect to large components containing category 2 quantities of radioactive material stored in robust structures,” the agency will not enforce the violation because PG&E has already met its corrective action requirements, the commission said in a letter dated Monday.
The agency’s inspection found that eight steam generators and two reactor vessel heads, which had been moved to a storage building from the plant’s containment facility between 2008 and 2010, did not comply with its regulations concerning Category 2 material in large structures.
Category 2 radioactive material refers to radioactive sources that could cause permanent injury to a person handling them for a short period. According to NRC enforcement guidelines for Category 2 material found in large structures, the agency could elect not to enforce a violation if the offending licensee has taken corrective actions such as identifying the offending structures and developing a written security plan.
An NRC spokesperson told the Exchange Monitor via email Tuesday that the “minor violation” was noted because PG&E did not implement “minimal security requirements” for the stored components. The utility has “since implemented the security requirements and entered the violation in their corrective action programs,” which is why NRC decided not to take enforcement action, the spokesperson said.
NRC’s storage regulations for irradiated reactor components like those at Diablo Canyon requires, among other things, that they be kept behind a locked and alarmed door or gate with “continuous physical barriers” preventing easy access.
PG&E was, until recently, slated to take the San Luis Obispo, Calif., Diablo Canyon plant’s two reactors offline in 2024 and 2025, respectively.
However, efforts to keep the facility running have mounted in recent weeks. PG&E in September bid on a federal bailout for the facility through the Department of Energy’s civil nuclear credit program, and California’s state legislature in late August passed a bill authorizing a roughly $1.4 billion state loan to prop up Diablo Canyon for an extra five years.
