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‘Substantial weaknesses’ in TVA safety culture at new nuclear plant

NRC inspection finds ‘substantial weaknesses’ in TVA safety culture at new nuclear plant, Times Free Press, November 1st, 2016 by Dave Flessner   The Tennessee Valley Authority has improved the environment for workers to raise safety concerns at its newest nuclear plant, but a new regulatory review of TVA’s work environment at the Watts Bar Nuclear Plant concludes the utility still is not maintaining an adequate safety culture.

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission met with 136 workers in 17 focus groups at Watts Bar this summer after concluding in March that TVA had “a chilled work environment” at the Spring City, Tenn., plant that could discourage employees or contractors from raising safety concerns.

“Focus groups within and outside of the operations department indicated the existence of broader, previously unrecognized challenges to the maintenance of a positive safety culture, which continued to challenge the safety conscious work environment,” Alan Blamey, branch chief of reactor projects in the Atlanta office of the NRC, said in a letter to TVA last week. “The (NRC inspection) team identified substantial weaknesses in various attributes which were found to be pervasive across various work units.”

Blamey said nearly half of those interviewed by the NRC at Watts Bar “believed retaliation was a potential outcome for raising concerns.”

“In addition, most employees did not believe that concerns were promptly reviewed or appropriately resolved, either by their management or via the corrective action program,” Blamey told the TVA………. http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/business/aroundregion/story/2016/nov/01/nrc-inspectifinds-substantial-weaknesses-tvsa/395354/

November 4, 2016 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | safety, USA