Meigs [government] schools dismiss after Watts Bar alert

KnoxNews.com ^ | November 21, 2006 | News Sentinel staff

[dhuffman@awod.com]

The Meigs County school system is dismissing students around 9 a.m. this morning due to an issue at the Watts Bar nuclear plant, although TVA said the issue has been resolved.

TVA declared an "unusual event" at 6:15 a.m., when a water leak in the plant’s cooling system was suspected.

That’s standard procedure in the event of a suspected leak, spokesman Gil Francis said, and includes notifying the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

"The investigation showed there was no water leakage and, therefore, the (unusual) event was canceled," Francis said.

The alert was canceled at 7:35 a.m.

[dhuffman@awod.com]

Tagline... Promulgation of ignorance is more important than grubbermint skrule eddykashun. PHUI

either we are equal or we are not. Good people should be armed where they will, with wits and guns. NRA KMA

[NonValueAdded]

So let's get this straight ... alert at 6:15 AM, kiddies presumably coming to school, alert cancelled at 7:35 AM, kiddies continue to arrive, parents off to work, school decides to dump the kiddies back into the environment at 9 AM? Isn't the safe place for the kids during that initial time perion locked down and not out in the environment? Why close the schools 90 minutes AFTER the all clear?

[TNdandelion]

Early THanksgiving holiday?

[Aleighanne]

Instead of a snow day they get a radiation day.

[A_TN_VOL]

Meigs county is east of the plant across the Tennessee river. Good deer hunting.

[SargeK]

maybe it's a quibble, but the article is misleading, and reflects a muddled understanding of the emergency levels. An "Unusual Event" has a specific meaning - it is the lowest of the emergency classifications and certainly doesn't require closing schools.

"Alert" is the second level - maybe, just maybe, one might close schools immediately adjacent to the plant boundary, but that is probably over-reacting. An "Unusual Event" is NOT an "ALERT".

There follows then "Site Area Emergency" - which is when you may definitely want to close the schools in the immediate vicinity - there is an actual release of radioactivity, or the strong potential for one, that is confined within the boundaries of the plant.

"General Emergency" means that radioactivity is escaping beyond the plant boundaries, or there is a strong possibility that it will - that is when TSHTF and everyone bugs out.

"Unusual Events" happen all of the time - just look at the NRC event reports.

[chimera]

Yeah, we had one when an employee leaned against an alarmed fence when taking a break. Set off the perimeter intrusion alarms, which were tuned to a very sensitive setpoint. Another time we had an overhead light bulb get broken but since it was in a secured area and posted for removable contamination, it was an "event".

In this case, someone made an arithmetic error on calculation of coolant inventory during a tabletop emergency exercise. Looked like they were low on coolant and even though the plant was down for a planned outage, it had to be reported as an "unusual event". Sheesh...

[chimera]

Not bloody likely...