Workers falsified fire inspection records at SC nuclear plant, feds say
Two contract workers at the V.C. Summer atomic power plant falsified records last year to show that they were making fire safety checks, even though they had not done so, according to a federal nuclear oversight agency.
In a Feb. 13 letter to plant owner Dominion Energy, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said the utility violated federal rules by failing to ensure fire safety checks were done as required.
Dominion did not respond to questions about whether the two contract employees still worked at the power plant near Columbia. But a federal official said they didn’t get the job done.
“They provided inaccurate information,’’ NRC spokesman Roger Hannah said.
An inspection report accompanying the agency’s Feb. 13 letter says federal inspectors found problems with records used to document that workers had made fire safety checks inside an auxiliary building at the Summer nuclear site in Fairfield County.
Workers were supposed to conduct regular fire watch checks every 20 minutes while fire suppression systems in a section of the plant were shut down for repairs.
“Inspectors reviewed the completed logs for Sept. 26, 2019, and discovered multiple discrepancies when compared to the observations that the inspectors made’’ in the auxiliary building, the inspection report said. “The fire watch log readings were recorded as being completed at times and locations when the NRC inspectors observed that fire watches had not been conducted.’’
The problem was caught and corrected before any major problems arose, according to Dominion. Hannah also said the failure to make fire checks occurred in an area of the plant that does not include the nuclear reactor.
While it’s unlikely the NRC will issue a fine against Dominion, Hannah said the problem was of enough concern for the NRC to issue a Level 4 violation.
A Level 4 violation is the least serious of four violation levels used by the NRC to document problems at nuclear plants. Level 4 violations are more like misdemeanor offenses when compared to higher violation levels, said nuclear safety expert David Lochbaum.
Lochbaum, formerly with the Union of Concerned Scientists, said it is understandable how the problem occurred. Making fire safety checks can be monotonous, involving regularly walking through areas when fire suppression systems are not operable. As a result, workers may be tempted to cut corners, he said.
But the requirement is there for a reason, he said. The idea is to make extra checks until the fire systems are back in operation. He also said not all problems identified in nuclear plants end up with a violation like the one Dominion got.
“You do the work and the paperwork, not just the paperwork,’’ he said, noting that the workers were probably held accountable for their actions. “This a good reminder that there are consequences for taking shortcuts.’’
Fires are a concern at nuclear plants because the facilities contain radioactive material that can be harmful to the public. From 1995 to 2011, the U.S. averaged about 10 fires at nuclear plants each year, according to ProPublica, an investigative news outlet. Among those was a fire in 2010 at the H.B. Robinson nuclear plant near Hartsville. A high voltage cable blew up, which temporarily disabled a cooling pump, ProPublica reported in a 2011 story.
The V.C. Summer nuclear reactor is in the community of Jenkinsville, about 25 miles northwest of Columbia. The reactor has been operating since the 1980s and is one of Dominion’s major sources of power to customers. The plant is adjacent to a site where SCE&G, the former owner, had planned two more reactors before deciding to abandon the expansion project in 2017.
A Dominion spokesman said the company corrected the problem swiftly, re-establishing the fire safety watch.
“Protecting the health and safety of the public is our number one priority,’’ Dominion spokesman Darryl Huger said in an email. “We take any challenges to that, no matter how minor, very seriously and take immediate action to improve our performance.’’
While officials say the V.C. Summer plant has generally not had major problems, it has had differences with the NRC before.
The agency’s Level 4 violation notice follows a radioactive water leak in 2019 that prompted Dominion to shut the plant down while repairs were made. The company said the water came in contact with reactor fuel, but never escaped the plant’s containment building. The leak occurred in piping that connects the nuclear reactor with steam generators, The State reported last year.
In none of the cases was the public in danger, the NRC says. The NRC’s most recent report shows that other fire protection measures were in place, despite the contract workers’ failure to make the proper checks.
This story was originally published February 24, 2020 at 9:40 AM.
