Omaha, Neb. – The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) issued a press release today announcing additional regulatory action in assessing safety impacts to nuclear power plants in a hypothetical scenario of upstream dam failures.
Previously, the NRC had focused on contingency planning at nuclear power plants to address only the potential of the nearest upstream dam undergoing a failure mechanism and what impacts that might have on the plant and its safety.
The commander of the Omaha District of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Col. Bob Ruch, issued the following statement in response to the actions of the NRC:
"We applaud the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for implementing more rigorous safety analyses and contingency planning. We all benefit from safe nuclear power production. Safety is something that the Corps shares in common with the NRC as it is our top priority in everything we do.
"As the NRC noted, this is contingency planning. Our dams along the Missouri River main stem are safe. They performed as designed under the duress of last year's high water and could take on substantially higher flows than that if needed in the future.
"We are aggressively addressing the limited nature of damages sustained during the flood and spending an estimated $234 million on more than 100 repair projects. But none of those limit the function or soundness of the dams. The dams continue to be safe.
"During the flood, we worked extensively with the NRC as well as Nebraska Public Power District (Cooper Nuclear Station) and Omaha Public Power Station (Fort Calhoun Nuclear Station) to ensure they had the latest inundation mapping possible and the best information to make decisions regarding safety of the plants and public.
"And we will continue to work with the NRC and the local utilities."
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Release no. 20120306-001