‘Unusual Event’ Shuts Down Nine Mile One

by Contributor | May 13, 2008 2:37 pm

The owners of the Nine Mile One nuclear plant in Scriba declared an “unusual event” Tuesday morning when outside power suddenly shut off to the plant.An “unusual event” is the least serious of four designations used to denote emergencies at nuclear facilities.

One of two incoming power lines failed, at the same time that the other was turned off for maintenance. It happened at around 8:30 a.m. Power was restored and the unusual event was declared over at 10:22 am, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The plant’s owner, Constellation Energy, will try to determine why the second power line failed.

“At all times, the plant was in a stable condition,” said Oswego County Emergency Management Office Director Pat Egan. “All their backup power was up and running 100% on the site. The issue was the off-site power.”

Egan said her office did not activate its emergency operations center but did notify other agencies and governments who would have needed to know about the incident. She said this is the way the county’s plan for unusual events works. All of the county’s emergency notification sirens “were up and running and doing well,” she said, though the county did not have to use them.

She said she would talk by phone with plant officials to discuss how well the unusual event plan worked and to see if there are areas for improvement.

According to the federal Department of Energy, Nine Mile One is one of the two oldest nuclear plants still operating.

Source URL: https://oswegocountytoday.com/news/fulton/unusual-event-shuts-down-nine-mile-one/

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