SHIPPINGPORT, Pa. (AP) -- A leaky valve at the Beaver Valley Power
Station spilled highly radioactive water onto a concrete floor
Monday, forcing the shutdown of the nuclear power plant's No.
2 reactor and prompting a low-level emergency.
The approximately
6,500 gallons of water remained within the four-foot thick walls
of the reactor containment building, according to a spokesman
for the plant's owner. There was no indication of a threat to
public health or safety.
The "unusual
event," the least serious of four emergency classifications,
was declared at 5:36 a.m. and ended nearly nine hours later at
2:05 p.m.
Reports from
the facility, located about 35 miles west of Pittsburgh, indicated
there had not been a radioactive release from the plant, state
and federal officials said.
At one point,
radioactive water was spilling onto the floor of the containment
building at the rate of 12 to 20 gallons a minute but had been
reduced to about 7 gallons a minute by late morning, said Neil
Sheehan, federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission spokesman. No workers
were exposed.
"We've
been monitoring the situation," Sheehan said. "We've
had a resident inspector on site since 6:30 this morning watching
developments. The utility appears to be doing what's necessary
..."
The leak appeared
to come from a 2-inch line used to drain water from the reactor's
coolant system, said Todd Schneider, a spokesman for the plant's
owners, FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Co. The system's main line
measures about 31 inches, he said.
Workers in
protective suits entered the building to troubleshoot the leak
Monday afternoon, Schneider said. An earlier attempt to reach
the valve was dropped to give the reactor time to cool, according
to the NRC's Sheehan, although the company spokesman could not
confirm that the first attempt took place.
The plant
transfers energy from the reactor to turbines through dual systems
of circulating water. The reactor superheats water that is used
to turn water in a separate, non-radioactive system into steam
to turn the plant's turbines.
The incident
began at 3:20 a.m., Sheehan said. Operators are required to investigate
a leak once the rate of escaping water exceeds one gallon a minute
and must shut down the reactor if it tops 10 gallons a minute,
he said.
"Leakage
in general is something that occurs at plants all the time,"
Sheehan said. "But when it involves the reactor coolant system,
which contains highly radioactive water, you have to deal with
it quickly."
Beaver Valley's
two reactors have operated since 1987. Each can generate 820 megawatts
of power, enough to light 500,000 homes. The plant's Unit No.
1 functioned normally throughout the incident.
FirstEnergy
took over the plant from Pittsburgh-based DQE Inc., the parent
of Duquesne Light Co., in a $1.7 billion swap of assets last December.
The company also owns two Ohio plants, the Perry Nuclear Power
Plant east of Cleveland and the Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Station
east of Toledo.
The other
three classifications of emergencies are an alert, a site-area
emergency and a general emergency. Only one general emergency
-- an incident involving serious damage and the release of radioactivity
beyond the site -- has ever been declared at a U.S. nuclear plant,
after the March 1979 accident at Three Mile Island near Harrisburg.
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