Violation at Oconee Nuclear Station reported

A June 30 inspection at Oconee Nuclear Station identified three findings of what the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) called “very low safety significance.” Sister station WGOG reports that an additional finding by the inspectors led the NRC to document a Severity Level IV violation. NRC spokesman Joey Ledbetter says no fine is being proposed, but it was a violation the government watchdog takes seriously. “We did a special inspection at Oconee Nuclear Station related to the discovery of a disconnected cable to a transformer. That particular disconnected cable caused an emergency power path to not be available, and it was not available for 21 minutes,” said Ledbetter. The violation arose, he said, when Duke Energy failed to report the incident within eight hours. Instead the company made a written report within 60 days. The NRC account of the Dec. 7, 2015, incident says, “This performance deficiency impacted the ability of the NRC to perform its regulatory oversight function and was dispositioned using traditional enforcement.” Duke Energy has the right to contest the findings within 30 days.