The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) issued a Confirmatory Order to the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) on July 27, 2017. An NRC team inspecting the Watts Bar Nuclear Plant in fall 2016 determined that TVA failed to comply with elements of another Confirmatory Order that NRC had issued to TVA on December 22, 2009. Specifically, the 2009 Confirmatory Action required TVA to implement measures at all its nuclear plant sites (i.e., Watts Bar and Sequoyah in Tennessee and Browns Ferry in Alabama) to ensure that adverse employment actions against workers conformed to the NRC’s employee protection regulations and whether the actions could negatively impact the safety conscious work environment. The NRC inspection team determined that TVA was not implementing several of the ordered measures at Watts Bar.
To be fair to TVA, the agency did indeed develop the procedures to ensure adverse employee actions did not violate NRC’s employee protection regulations.
To be fair to NRC, its inspectors found that TVA senior management simply did not use those procedures when taking adverse employee action against several TVA employees and contractors.
To say that TVA has a nuclear safety culture problem is like saying the sun is hot.
After determining that TVA failed to implement mandated in its December 2009 Confirmatory Order, the NRC issued another Confirmatory Order to TVA in July 2017.
How many Confirmatory Orders it will take to get TVA to establish and sustain proper nuclear safety cultures at its nuclear power plants?
I don’t know. But at least we are now one Confirmatory Order closer to that magic number. Perhaps before too many more years roll by, workers at Watts Bar, Sequoyah, and Browns Ferry will actually be protected the way they are supposed to be by NRC’s regulations.