Outage planned for Indian Point reactor after water leaks

Indian Point Energy Center operators planned a shutdown of the Unit 3 nuclear reactor beginning Sept. 14 to replace lid seals that have been leaking for weeks.

The leakage occured between the inner and outer seals separating the lid and vessel of the reactor. The replacement is “out of an abundance of caution,” according to a statement from Entergy Corp., owners of the Buchanan-based power plant.

Jerry Nappi, a spokesman for Entergy, said the inner seal was observed to be leaking shortly after the unit’s planned refueling outage in March and the outer seal began leaking in July.

Operators responded by setting up a water collection line and a tank, Nappi said, adding plant workers “were able to closely track [the leak] and monitor it continuously from the control room.”

The water leak did not pose any threat to the health and safety of workers or the public and there was no radiation released, according to Entergy.

The work to replace the seals requires help from a specialty vendor and Entergy had to coordinate schedules to plan the outage. Nappi said the work is expected to take two weeks.

This is the sixth time the Unit 3 reactor has shut down this year and, of those six, the second time the reactor went offline for planned maintenance. The four other times Unit 3 went offline were unexpected automatic or manual shutdowns for a pipe leak, transformer failure, electrical disturbance and fluctuating water levels.