Before I review Point Beach, let’s keep a couple things in mind. First, this is only my 2nd nuke plant and 6th outage. I prefer the BWR with the Mark I containment as opposed to the “cans” that most nuke workers like (wimps). Also, I understand that much is changing at PB since FPL took over and transition can be tough. Lastly, I am a craft, so I do not see the plants the way many of the bloggers on here do that are engineers, RP’s, or deconners. That being said, I believe the reviews I give are fair.
For the crafts, the hours were few, the rules ludicrous, and many of us will be hard pressed to go back. The safety stand downs didn’t seem to solve much except lose FPL money by making 80 workers sit around all day to be scolded. With the exception of the workers that hit the mercury switch, almost shutting the plant down prematurely, most issues should have been addressed in private with warnings. Maybe then FPL wouldn’t have been so concerned about their bottom line. Ha, funny.
The RP’s were informative and patient, I actually felt like they were looking out for me instead of just trying to tell everybody what to do! They even shared some pizza with me when I hadn’t been able to buy food for my lunch (thanks guys!). Security isn’t as tight as some plants, so you get a little breathing room there and they seem pretty friendly as well. As for the plant itself, it’s clean, but not by any means spotless, especially if you’re the one crawling around, looking for components. If you are looking for a valve or other component, good luck, I’m used to grid or column lines with elevations and azimuths, none of which we had here. As for pay, I took a 13% cut but wouldn’t have minded if the hours had been there. The DZNPS supervision was fair, especially considering that they had to constantly bend to FPL’s will and when we were running short on harnesses, they rectified the problem expeditiously.
I don’t understand the almost heavy handed way FPL ran the show at PB, numerous travelers said that the FPL relationship with contract labor at other plants wasn’t nearly so adversarial, even when the contractor was DZNPS. Maybe it’s because they’re still in the middle of transition, I don’t know. Word on the street was that a lot of old WE employees left with inexperienced workers to fill the positions. Hopefully, if I decide to return for the fall outage, things will have calmed down by then. But that’s a big “if”.
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