Fort Calhoun nuclear plant
THE WORLD-HERALD
Published Saturday April 2, 2011
It would almost be funny if it didn’t involve a nuclear power plant.
On Friday — April Fools’ Day, no less — the Nuclear Regulatory Commission posted its daily log of problems reported by nuclear facilities around the country.
Two of the five items logged involved Fort Calhoun Nuclear Station, located about 20 miles north of Omaha.
It turns out that someone threw an empty, airline-size liquor bottle into a portable toilet at the plant. That’s a potential violation of federal regulations on fitness for duty.
In addition, a worker in the past few days opened a pair of 4-inch electrical pipes in the wall of a building and didn’t reseal them. That building houses equipment critical to the plant’s safe operation and is one of two buildings at Fort Calhoun that are under federal scrutiny for flood preparedness.
The Omaha Public Power District reported both problems to the NRC on Thursday, and the problems were made public Friday. Thursday also was the day that the NRC chairman told Congress that Fort Calhoun was among a handful of reactors nationally that are of most concern to regulators.
Dave Bannister, chief nuclear officer at Fort Calhoun, said workers should have known to plug the electrical pipes after opening them to work on them. The pipes could not have been open for more than several days, because OPPD inspectors routinely check the worksite, he said.
“Obviously there was a mistake,” Bannister said, adding that the openings didn’t pose a flood risk.
They were sealed Friday, he said, and OPPD will remind workers to seal such conduits each day when completing a job.
About 800 people work at Fort Calhoun. Six hundred are OPPD employees and the rest are contract workers.
And the little liquor bottle?
“We don’t know who brought it in. We don’t know if it had alcohol in it when it came on site,” said OPPD spokesman Jeff Hanson.
A contract worker would be fired for such an offense, he said, and an OPPD employee would face personnel action that could include firing.
Contact the writer:
402-444-1102, nancy.gaarder@owh.com
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