New Jersey Nuclear Plant Shuts Down for Second Time This Year

March 31, 2005

Trenton, N.J. -- Operators of the Hope Creek nuclear power plant are investigating why a weld inside a containment building failed, causing a radioactive steam leak that led to the problem-plagued plant's latest shutdown.

The slow leak began sometime in February, just weeks after the nuclear reactor went back online Jan. 26. That followed a 3 1/2-month shutdown due to a more-serious steam leak elsewhere in the plant, said Chic Cannon, spokesman for plant operator PSEG Nuclear.

"This was a very slight leak," he said. "It's a large industrial facility, so you're going to have things like this."

Cannon said no radioactivity was released outside the plant and no workers were harmed in either of the steam leaks, which he said were unrelated.

The latest leak was noticed in February inside the containment building, and the leak's volume had been increasing slowly to a maximum of about three quarts of water per minute. Plant workers cut the reactor back to 5 percent power, entered the primary containment building in protective suits and determined steam was leaking from a short, rarely used pipe welded at right angles to another pipe going to the reactor coolant system, Cannon said.

Workers later removed insulation around the pipe joint and began trying to determine what caused the weld's flaw. Cannon said the pipes were installed at least 20 years ago, before the plant came online in 1986. He said workers now are checking other pipe welds with similar configurations.

The Hope Creek plant is one of three nuclear reactors, along with Salem 1 and 2, operated by PSEG Nuclear at a complex in Lower Alloways Creek Township in Salem County along the Delaware River. One of the nation's largest nuclear generating stations, the plants together provide electricity to more than half of PSEG's 2 million New Jersey customers.

Diane Screnci, spokeswoman for the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission, said that last August the agency put all three plants under additional oversight indefinitely, requiring more frequent and more stringent inspections.

"We expect the plants to find and fix problems" promptly, she said. "Our inspections the past few years have noted issues with that."

NRC reports on the plants over the past year cite "numerous indications of weaknesses in corrective actions and management efforts to establish an environment where employees are consistently willing to raise safety concerns."

"We found examples of unresolved conflict and poor communication between management and staff, as well as underlying staff and management frustration with poor equipment reliability," state the reports.

Last week, Salem 1 reported a piping system leak that exceeded NRC limits. It allowed a small amount of water from the reactor coolant system to cross over a valve that wasn't tightly closed and into an adjoining pipe. That was quickly fixed by tightening the valve, Cannon said.