Bill McCollum, chief operating officer of TVA
The massive ash spill at the Kingston Fossil Plant in Kingston, Tenn., on Dec. 23, 2008, is shown the day following the spill. No one was physically hurt in the spill of coal ash from a Tennessee Valley Authority plant storage pond into the Emory River and across some 300 acres in the Swan Pond community about 35 miles west of Knoxville. But property owners in the area say they have been hurt financially.TVA’s chief operating officer and No. 2 man announced Wednesday that he will retire on June 30.
The retirement of William R. “Bill” McCollum Jr., 60, comes on the heels of a number of nuclear problems coming to light at all three of the utility’s operating plants.
On Tuesday, TVA disclosed that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has raised another safety flag on its nuclear plants — a white finding, the lowest safety rating, at Watts Bar Nuclear Plant’s security division.
Sequoyah Nuclear Plant outside Chattanooga received a white finding last month after having too many unplanned reactor shutdowns in less than a year, and since summer, Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant in Alabama has been under a red rating — the NRC’s worst rating before it shuts down a plant, something it has never done.
Under NRC’s color-coded inspection findings, white is least serious, then yellow, then red. A plant operating with no safety problems is coded green.