| The Nuclear Regulatory Commission
has begun a special inspection to evaluate the recent failure of an emergency
diesel generator at the South Texas Project nuclear plant near Bay City, Texas.
During monthly testing December 9, one of three emergency diesel generators
suffered a mechanical failure. The same diesel generator experienced a failure
in 1989. The diesel generators are used to supply power to safety-related
plant systems in the event of a loss of off-site power.
The cause of the failures may or may not be similar, but the agency has
decided to conduct a special inspection. The bases for this decision include
the potential generic implications of the event; the potential that the failures
may be repetitive; and the significance of a diesel failure along with the
potential that the cause of the diesel failure could affect other diesels
at the same plant.
The team is led by a senior reactor inspector and includes the resident
inspector from the South Texas Project. The team will review the adequacy
of the licensee’s response to the event, its root cause determinations
and corrective actions.
An inspection report will be issued about four weeks after the inspection.
It will be available on the NRC’’s web site: http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams/web-based.html
and through the Agencywide Document Access and Management System (ADAMS).
Help in using ADAMS is available through the NRC Public Document Room at 1-800-397-4209.
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