COVERT TOWNSHIP, Mich. (AP) — Many workers at Palisades Nuclear Plant in southwestern Michigan are afraid to raise concerns with managers or challenge their decisions, according to a report commissioned by the plant's owners and released Tuesday.
New Orleans-based Energy Corp. owns the plant in Van Buren County's Covert Township and retained consultants earlier this year to examine Palisades' safety culture. Palisades has been designated by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission as one of the nation's four worst-performing nuclear plants. Entergy provided a summary of the consultants' findings to the NRC, which released it.
It calls for more consistent policies for preventing human error and says most employees don't trust managers to make good choices or mean what they say.
"The results of this assessment do indicate that the Palisades Plant has issues with respect to a safety conscious work environment," said the summary by Conger & Elsea Inc., a system safety and risk analysis firm based in Woodstock, Ga. "While the majority of employees believe that management says that retaliation would not be tolerated, there is also a widespread perception of fear and punishment across the plant."
In a July 9 letter to the NRC, Entergy site vice president Anthony Vitale said the company began working on safety culture improvements last fall and had already identified many of the problems noted in the consultants' report.
Senior leaders at Palisades are meeting with small groups of staff members to discuss steps already taken toward improvements and determine what else needs to be done, Vitale said.
Also Tuesday, the NRC said its inspectors had concluded that an apparent leak in a refueling water storage tank at the plant poses no danger to public health and safety.
Operators shut down the reactor June 12 to repair the leak and brought the plant back online July 11. A small amount of water continues to seep from around the tank but it is not escaping into the environment, the NRC said. Staffers will declare the tank inoperable if the amount of water leaking reaches 38 gallons per day.
The aluminum tank contains water mixed with boron, which helps slow the fission process and cool the reactor when the plant's nuclear fuel is being replaced. It also can be used to cool the core during an emergency.