Riverbend Station near New Roads/St. Francisville forced into emergency shut down

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Entergy's nuclear plant north of Baton Rouge was forced into temporary emergency shutdown

Entergy’s River Bend nuclear power plant near St. Francisville was forced into a temporary emergency shutdown over the weekend due to a technical issue, but was brought back online the following day, officials said.

The shutdown, known as a “SCRAM” incident and which saw control rods dropped into the plant’s reactor core to halt its nuclear reaction, occurred on Saturday.

“Shortly before midnight Friday, River Bend was raising power from 30 percent following a prior shutdown,” said Victor Dricks, spokesperson for the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

“Control room operators noticed a problem with the plant’s feedwater heating system, which preheats water before it is recirculated back into the reactor. Procedures required a manual shutdown so that plant safety parameters are not challenged. All control rods fully inserted with no complications and on Saturday the plant was completely shut down. The licensee was able to correct the feedwater issue and restarted on Sunday.”

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The emergency shutdown occurred just six days after the NRC told Entergy officials that the River Bend plant will receive a notice of violation for failing to obtain an amendment to the reactor’s operating license before changing its internal rules for how to supply emergency cooling water to the plant in the event of a major accident.

According to the NRC violation notice, Entergy’s license requires it to have a 30-day cooling capacity available in the event of a major accident. That 30-day capacity must be enough for the accident to be evaluated and corrective action to be taken.

In March, testing during refueling of the River Bend reactor found that leakage in a standby system providing reactor cooling water was significant enough to render the heat sink system inoperable, in part because it would require additional water after 22 days. There were no actual consequences to the reactor or to public health from that incident, either.

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