Okay Folks,
A good number of you know who I am. I've worked along side many of you in the field over the past couple of decades. I swung a meter for over 20 years before I went over to "The Dark Side", so I feel I have earned the right to speak from either side of the fence. What I'm about to say may have an adverse effect on my popularity rating, but it needs to be said:
I am the guy who crunches the numbers. I am the guy who analyzes the data at Prairie Island. That's my gig these days. And numbers don't lie. This outage was scheduled for 32 days at the outside. We did it in 30. See ... the longer it takes to 'get 'er done', the longer everybody is in the RCA picking up dose. I set the dose goal for the outage at 55.7 Rem. The end result was 41.856Rem. Do the math. I'm not saying everything went perfectly. I'm not saying every decision was sound. I have limited exposure to that end of things these days. What I AM saying is that the bottom line ... the thing we, as RPs are MOST concerned with: Keeping the exposure to individuals under our auspices As Low As Reasonably Acheivable, ... the bottoom line is that exposure was limited to what I believe to be a stellar low. When I initially put out the dose goal, I was aiming at a best, case in accordance with historical data which said an average good performance for an outage .... going back 10 years ... was between 53Rem and 58 Rem. The goal was considered 'challenging' and had little likelihood of being met. They came in 13.844Rem UNDER this goal.
Now ... I can't say exactly what every single thing was that went into this unbelievable performance. I CAN say that I saw an awareness of ALARA by all involved, above any I've seen here in the past. Who gets the credit? Everybody as far as I'm concerned. I saw everyone from laborers to Sr Techs chasing down every millirem at every opportunity. I got phone calls on the order of 15 times a night from people concerned with their exposure, dose goals, work scope expansions etc. every night. THEY were letting me know what was going on before the Passport System had a chance to update the data. AWESOME!
Now ... one of the Techs who chose to leave ... you know who you are Bro ... confided in me the morning he left ... but I asked him to write down all of his issues and bring them to my office and I would personally look into all of them ... never happened. I went back over to that part of the site looking for him a couple of hours later when he hadn't gotten back to me, and he had left site. I wish he'd stayed around and seen it through. I offered my assistance in helping him get resolution and he aparrently either thought I was blowing smoke up his skirt or something else happened that I don't know about. All I can say is, I wish it would have happened differently. The only way to affect change is to participate in the remediation process. Had he hung around, at least some of his issues could have been addressed and perhaps improvements could have come out of it all.
So yes ... There were issues with the outage. Was it a management thing? I don't know. Not my gig. Bottom line. That's what I deal with for a living folks. And the numbers say, you guys did one hell of a job in the end. Workers, techs, leads and ... yes ... Management too ... all had to be doing at least something right to get that end result. More right than historical data says is probable here.
So ... Here's the money shot: I would like to thank EVERYONE that took part in our outage. I wish some of you could have had a more enjoyable experience while here and hope things are better in the future. I appreciate all of the hard work and attention to the real issues. I am thankful for a beautiful ALARA bottom line. I have no idea what the outage cost. I don't particularly care. Maybe once I make RPM I'll give a rats keaster about that kind of stuff ... but I doubt it. But ALARA ... the ONLY thing important to RP, was awesome this outage. Schedule? ... that plays into the "Time" part of "Time, Distance and Shielding" ... Like I said, the sooner the outage is over, the sooner I get everyone out of the RCA ... If they ain't in there, they ain't pickin' up no zoomies
And as far as I'm concerned, the rest of the issues were just that ... issues. There are issues with every outage ... everywhere. Yup ... Few people like my boss. That has no bearing on ALARA. Yup ... there are procedural issues ... those are being worked on and hopefully will be corrected and complete some time in the near future. The fact that they were identified says something about the program and how road techs help us all improve. Fresh set of eyes and all that. Is PI perfect? Nope. Is anyplace else? If there is a perfect plant, let me know. I'll email them my resume. Was everybody happy? YES ... at some time or another, while at Prairie Island, you were all happy ... even if only for a while.
In closing, I hope some if not all of you come back to the frozen north to visit again some day. I'll most likely be here and would love to see you again. Thank you for all you did while you were here and Happy Holidays to all of you and your's.
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