Alert at Oyster Creek Nuclear plant due to flooding

[Tsiyu]

More in a moment

[Purveyor]

1. Nation's oldest nuclear plant on alert - all nuclear plants are still in safe condition

Nation's oldest nuclear plant on alert

JOSH LEDERMAN Associated Press Published: October 29, 2012 10:56PM

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The nation's oldest nuclear power plant is on alert after waters from a colossal storm reached high levels.

Oyster Creek in Lacey Township, N.J., was already offline for regular maintenance before Sandy, a superstorm downgraded Monday night from a hurricane, slammed the East Coast.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission says an "unusual event" was declared around 7 p.m. when water reached a high level. The situation was upgraded less than two hours later to an "alert," the second-lowest in a four-tiered warning system.

Federal officials say all nuclear plants are still in safe condition. They say water levels near Oyster Creek, which is along the Atlantic Ocean, will likely recede within a few hours.

http://www.the-press-news.com/ap%20washington/2012/10/29/nation-s-oldest-nuclear-plant-on-alert

[Tsiyu]

2. Thanks, my computer just went caput for a minute

I heard this on 880AM, but here's another link


http://www.simplyinfo.org/?p=8125

Oyster Creek Nuclear Station is under an alert after storm waters exceeding the high level criteria per the NRC. The NRC does not state what that level was. In our earlier reporting today we mentioned that the plant itself sits about 10 feet above sea level and the water levels at the nearby USGS station had already exceeded 8 feet today. The USGS station near Oyster Creek nuclear station has been going in and out all day. It showed the 8 foot reading, a bit of a drop below 8 feet but then the station stopped reporting before Sandy officially made landfall.

“The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission is continuing to monitor impacts from Hurricane Sandy on nuclear power plants in the Northeastern United States, including an Alert
declared at the Oyster Creek nuclear power plant in New Jersey. The plant, currently in a regularly scheduled outage, declared the Alert at approximately 8:45 p.m. EDT due to water
exceeding certain high water level criteria in the plant’s water intake structure. “
“The Alert was preceded by an Unusual Event, declared at approximately 7 p.m. EDT when the water level first reached a minimum high water level criteria. Water level is rising in the intake structure due to a combination of a rising tide, wind direction and storm surge. It is anticipated water levels will begin to abate within the next several hours”
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/news/2012/12-042.i.pdf

The area around Oyster Creek is partially out of grid power. It is unclear if the Oyster Creek nuclear station has grid power or not. Oyster Creek is currently offline for refueling but still requires AC power from either the grid or their diesel generators to keep both the spent fuel pool cool and to operate some critical plant functions.

“At the Millstone nuclear power complex on Connecticut’s shoreline, officials said they were powering down one of the two reactors to 75 percent of maximum output to maintain stability of the electric grid. Millstone spokesman Ken Holt said the grid’s stability could be affected if the unit was operating at 100 percent and suddenly went offline, which isn’t expected to happen.”
Flood barriers have been put up at Millstone

[flamingdem]

3. Arnie Gundersen predicted this on Democracy Now yesterday

He said these older plants don't have the strict backup systems -- not good

[Tsiyu]

4. These plants are up and down the coast

very scary

[flamingdem]

5. He mentioned this one as the most vulnerable n/t

[lonestarnot]

6. MSNBC just report that.