Monthly testing at Massachusetts' Pilgrim nuclear plant found that an emergency communications link to federal regulators was not functional in the control room and other parts of the plant.
Dedicated phone lines and other systems can connect nuclear plants directly with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in an emergency. On Thursday, the NRC released a notification from Entergy that the Emergency Notification System was found to be unavailable in the control room and the Technical Support Center/Operations Support Center. Additionally, the Health Physics Network, the Reactor Safety Counterpart Link and the Protective Measures Counterpart Link were inoperable from the latter facility. All four systems remained available at the plant's Emergency Operations Facility.
"Immediate actions are being taken to restore the system to functional status and applicable plant procedures have been entered to determine any further mitigating actions. Members of the Emergency Response Organization have been notified of the failures and the need to utilize commercial phone lines as a compensatory action. The NRC Operations Center has been contacted and informed of these communication system failures," the NRC report read. "It cannot be determined at the time of this notification as to when the system will be restored to full functional status."
The single-unit plant near Plymouth, Mass., was operating normally at full power as of Thursday.