| The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory
Commission, Region IV, is monitoring events surrounding an Alert declared at
the Waterford 3 nuclear power plant near Taft, La. The Region IV Incident Response
Center in Arlington, Texas, was staffed today at 11:15 a.m.
Entergy Operations Inc., which operates the Waterford 3 plant, was shutting
down the reactor for a planned refueling outage when valves required to initiate
the shutdown cooling system failed to operate properly. At 10:20 a.m. today
plant operators declared an Alert condition in accordance with procedures.
Alert is the second emergency action level in the four-level, NRC-required
emergency response plan for nuclear reactors.
The shutdown cooling system valves were successfully opened and the Alert
condition was terminated at 11:50 a.m. Normal plant cooldown was resumed at
about 1:30 p.m. and the NRC closed its Incident Response Center.
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