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The
NRC is constantly challenging itself to enhance its dialogue with
members of the public. A case in point is the webinar NRC’s
Region III held this week to inform the public about the results of a special inspection at
Palisades, which looked into a leak from a control rod drive mechanism in August.
We
recognized that this issue is of high interest to the public and looked
for an effective vehicle to talk to the public before the official
inspection results are issued in mid-October. In addition, we wanted to
provide participation opportunities beyond the plant’s home state of
Michigan since the interest in this issue goes far beyond state borders.
The regional office chose a webinar to meet our goals even though it’s
not been used before to talk about a special inspection at a plant.
About
70 people participated in this hour-long public meeting that consisted
of two parts - the presentation from the NRC staff and answering
questions from the public.
The
webinar was held in addition to three public meetings we conducted this
year near the plant after work hours to make it convenient for the
community. Even though two of these meetings were not required by the
NRC process, we went above and beyond our requirements in response to
the public’s concerns about the plant’s performance in 2012. We plan to
have another public meeting in November to talk about the most recent
plant performance reviews.
We
are also going beyond what’s required in terms of communicating
publically on issues at Palisades that don’t trigger a public
notification threshold. Such was the case with a
notification
Region III issued on September 25 about an essential service water
leak. We issued this public announcement in response to requests during
public meetings this year to keep people informed about leaks at the
plant that don’t represent an immediate safety concern.
Thinking
out of the box on public communication led us to raise the bar on
transparency in dealing with Palisades. We started generating summaries
of significant phone conversations between NRC and Entergy staff and
making them publically available on the NRC’s website. The first such
summary is associated with this special inspection and can be viewed at
http://adams.nrc.gov/wba/ under MI12243A519.
Our
communications initiatives at Palisades reflect the interest of the NRC
Chairman Allison Macfarlane in better, broader communication with the
public and are clear evidence of our commitment to keeping the public
informed every step of the way about issues at plants with performance
challenges.
Viktoria Mitlyng
Senior Public Affairs Officer
Region III
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