Here is the communication the plant put out.
Point Beach waiting to finish refueling outage
May 27, 2005
While most work has been completed, the Point Beach Unit 2 outage remains unfinished pending resolution of questions about replacing the unit’s reactor vessel head. The outage, which began in early April, includes installation of a new head, as well as scheduled maintenance and refueling.
Before the outage began, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) had requested more information about the plant’s analysis of its heavy load-lifting capability. Subsequently, it was determined that Point Beach had incorporated a 1982 analysis into its Final Safety Analysis Report (FSAR) dealing with heavy load/reactor vessel head drop evaluation.
As a result, Point Beach management put an “administrative hold” on heavy load lifts, including removal of the old Unit 2 head and installation of the new one. After additional dialogue between NRC and NMC, the old head was safely and successfully removed April 17.
The NRC has not ordered Point Beach to delay installation of the new head. However, the agency continues to have questions about the adequacy of the plant’s analysis of a potential drop of a heavy load, such as the reactor vessel head. As a result, work on lifting the new head remains on hold—at the directive of Point Beach Site Vice President Dennis Koehl—until heavy load lift issues are resolved.
Koehl stated, “The analysis involved is ours to resolve and I am confident that we will. In addition, the health and safety of the public also remains at the top of Point Beach’s priority list.”