The Tennessee Valley Authority submitted faulty and inadequate documentation about fire safety systems at the Watts Bar Nuclear Plant reactor under construction near Spring City, Tenn., according to federal regulators.
On the eve of firing the head of the $2.5 billion Watts Bar construction project, TVA was warned by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission last week that some of the documents submitted to regulators contained “errors and omissions” that could delay approval of the new reactor.
“Issues with the timeliness and quality of submittals continue to arise, and these issues are already impacting the schedule for completing the licensing review,” said Eric Leeds, director of the NRC’s Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation. “The staff feels that the delays have been excessive and have disrupted the review process.”
The day after receiving Leeds’ letter, TVA dismissed the head of Watts Bar’s construction program, Masoud Bajastani, and appointed Marie Gillman as interim manager.
But TVA spokesman Scott Brooks said the leadership change was not related to any problems at the Watts Bar project.
TVA has proposed a schedule for the new Watts Bar reactor to obtain a low-power license by April 2012 and to begin generating the full 1,200 megawatts of electricity by September 2012.
Brooks said Tuesday that TVA “is aware of the concerns [by regulators], and we are addressing them directly with the NRC.”
“TVA believes the process will progress in a timely manner to meet TVA’s goal to complete the project on time in 2012,” Brooks said.