AL - Problems lead to public meeting at Alabama nuclear plant The Associated Press 7/5/00 5:02 PM

ATLANTA (AP) -- The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and Southern Nuclear Operating Company will meet July 11 to discuss two minor safety problems at the Farley Nuclear Plant near Dothan, Ala.

The Farley Nuclear Plant is expected to receive its second "white" performance indicator for the last quarter, the NRC said Wednesday. White indicators were assigned after plant staff found problems during scheduled tests in two systems.

The two systems identified in the performance indicators at Farley were the emergency AC power supply for both plant units and the auxiliary feedwater system for Unit 2 only.

Under the NRC's new reactor oversight process, the second white indicator leads to a public meeting with plant management.

"It's not a huge safety issue," NRC spokesman Robert Hannah said Wednesday. "What the system is trying to do is identify potential problems early on before they can become serious safety issues."

The performance indicators are statistical measures of plant activities. Green is normal, while, in escalating order, white, yellow and red lead to increasing NRC involvement.

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-- Doris (reaper1@mindspring.com), July 05, 2000