2 nuke articles

[ensho]

http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2011/08/second_water_leak_in_a_week_sh.html

Second water leak in a week shuts down Nine Mile Point 2 nuclear plant

For the second time in less than a week, a water leak forced operators to shut down the reactor at Nine Mile Point 2.

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Saturday’s incident involved a leaking valve on a reactor coolant pump, said Nuclear Regulatory spokesman Neil Sheehan. The leak was traced to bolts on a pump that had not been properly tightened, he said.

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The area where the leak took place, the drywell in the reactor building, made hadn’t been entered by workers since the plant’s most recent refueling 14 months ago, said plant spokeswoman Jill Lyon.

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Sheehan said a weld failed on the pipe.
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2 human errors

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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/12/nuclear-regulatory-commission_n_923098.html

Critics Question Competency Of Inspector General's Office At Nuclear Regulatory Commission

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Since its formation inside the NRC in 1989, the OIG has fielded thousands of whistleblower complaints and conducted a compelling list of investigations, many exposing abuse and neglect both at the NRC and within the nuclear power industry that led to Congressional investigations and subsequent agency reform. The OIG became legendary for preparing exhaustively detailed, and publicly available, reports of its investigations.

Now, Mulley -- along with numerous freelance and non-profit nuclear safety advocates who for years relied on the IG's office as a vital backstop against lax nuclear oversight at the NRC -- all say that the IG's office appears to be broken.

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Some of these critics also say that a weak OIG raises questions about the reliability of other investigations beyond Byron, including its most recent investigation of the NRC's chairman, Gregory B. Jaczko, whose decision to shut down the agency's review of a long-debated nuclear waste facility at Yucca Mountain in Nevada was deemed illegal by critics. The OIG's 7-month investigation questioned Jaczko's sometimes imperious management style, but it didn't find that he acted illegally, a conclusion that Republicans heavily criticized during a June hearing on the investigation.

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Chief among the omissions from the OIG's final report: that NRC staff had known since at least 1990 that the pipes in question inside the Byron nuclear power plant had been corroding, but had consistently failed to take steps to force the plant operator to correct the issue until the pipes ultimately sprung a leak.
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the whole article should be read to get the full horrible story

[enough]

1. That Huffington Post article is very long and detailed, unlike a lot of their stuff. Recommended.

Not a pretty picture.