After 3 unplanned shutdowns at Turkey Point nuclear plant, feds launch ‘special inspection’

After three unplanned nuclear reactor shutdowns over three days this month, federal regulators have launched a “special inspection” at Florida Power & Light’s Turkey Point plant.

In a statement issued Monday, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said it was inspecting the plant this week to determine why one of the reactors in the two-unit facility “tripped” or shut down three times between Aug. 17 and Aug. 19. Such visits from the federal agency that oversees nuclear power plants aren’t unheard of but are unusual.

The NRC said FPL had supplied different explanations for each event.

On Aug. 17, Turkey Point operators manually shut down the reactor, running at 90 percent output, responding to “rising steam generator water levels.” On Aug. 19, the plant’s protection system automatically shut down the reactor during startup when an instrument sensed higher-than-expected neutron activity in the reactor core. On Aug. 20, operators manually shut down the reactor after the loss of a steam generator feed water pump, the NRC said in the statement.

“The inspectors will review the circumstances of each trip, assess the company’s response, operator performance, corrective actions, and evaluate the application of industry operating experience,” the NRC statement said, adding the plant was not operating at full capacity when the shutdowns happened.

FPL spokesman Peter Robbins said the plant’s safety systems worked as designed at the plant, which is located east of Homestead on the southern shore of Biscayne Bay.

“In all three cases, the reactor was shut down in a matter of seconds, and all safety systems responded as designed,” he said.

“We welcome this opportunity to share the details of equipment performance and the actions operators took to keep Turkey Point in a safe condition during the recent unplanned shutdowns,” Robbins said.

Edwin Lyman, director of nuclear power safety at the Union of Concerned Scientists, called the number of scrams “very unusual,” in a whole year, much less a few days. He said the NRC has a specific set of criteria plants must meet before they need a special investigation.

“These inspections are fairly rare events,” he said. “This could be a sign that they think there is some increase in risk to the public.”

The NRC last conducted a special inspection at Turkey Point in 2017, after the failure of safety-related electrical equipment led to an alert. At least three Turkey Point employees were fired this year for falsifying safety records, the Sun Sentinel reported.

Special inspections are the lowest level of NRC reactive inspections beyond regular checks. Although they are not common, there has been an average of six special inspections at nuclear power plants over the past five years, according to NRC’s news releases on its website.

In addition to the special inspection at Turkey Point announced today, there were two other at nuclear facilities in the US this year, at River Bend nuclear generating station in Louisiana in May and Cooper nuclear station in Nebraska in January, according to the NRC’s website. Last year, there was just one special inspection, while the regulator conducted five special inspections at nuclear plants in 2018.

A five-person NRC inspection team including a senior reactor analyst is at Turkey Point today. The on-site inspection is expected to last a week, and a report documenting the results is expected to be issued 45 days after the end of the investigation, the NRC said.

Over the past few years FPL has faced criticism and legal challenges over Turkey Point’s aging cooling system, a unique canal network that doesn’t exist anywhere else in the U.S. The problems from the leaking canal water, which created a saltwater plume encroaching into the adjacent freshwater aquifer, have led state and county regulators to cite FPL for polluting the waters in Biscayne Bay.

The plant last year won federal approval to continue to operate through at least 2053 — an unprecedented decision by regulators to extend the operating lifespan of nuclear reactors to 80 years.

The extended approval also brings up concerns of sea level rise and the increased storm surge that comes with it. By the end of this plant’s current license, Miami-Dade is planning for just under two feet of sea-level rise. Turkey Point is planning for between a half foot and a little over a foot by 2050.

Critics have pushed Turkey Point and the NRC to take sea rise impacts more seriously, Lyman said.

“We think nuclear plants need to be protected not only against the flood hazards that are reasonably expected today but far into the future, especially plants that have a license renewal like Turkey Point,” he said. “Unfortunately, the NRC today is not interested in increasing regulatory requirements for its current fleet.”