Your Chance Next Week to Support or Fight a License For a Second Nuclear Reactor at Watts Bar

NRC ADVISORY SUBCOMMITTEE TO MEET AT WATTS BAR

NUCLEAR PLANT AND AT NRC REGION II OFFICE

An advisory subcommittee of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has scheduled two meetings in late July in Tennessee and in Atlanta. 

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards’ Plant Operations and Fire Protection Subcommittee has scheduled the first meeting for Tuesday, July 28, from 1-4:30 p.m. in the training center at the Watts Bar nuclear plant, located near Spring City, Tenn., between Knoxville and Chattanooga.  During that meeting, the ACRS subcommittee members will hear presentations from Tennessee Valley Authority officials about TVA efforts to finish construction and seek an operating license for Watts Bar Unit 2.  The meeting is open to the public and those attending will have an opportunity to provide comments.

The subcommittee’s second meeting, also open to the public, is scheduled for Thursday, July 30, from 8 a.m. until 3 p.m. in the NRC’s Region II offices on the 24^th floor of the Sam Nunn Atlanta Federal Center, 61 Forsyth St. SW in Atlanta.  That meeting will allow NRC Region II staff to provide an overview of regional activities related to Watts Bar Unit 2 as well as other construction projects and operating plants.  That meeting will also feature a period for public comments near the end.           

The ACRS is composed of experts representing many technical perspectives who provide independent advice to the Commission on reactor licensing and other regulatory matters. The meeting will provide information for the ACRS’s recommendations on the Watts Bar operating license

Media representatives and others planning to attend the meeting at the Watts Bar site are urged to email or call TVA’s Gail Franklin gfrankl@tva.gov or 423-365-2351 with full name and vehicle tag number to expedite processing through the plant’s security checkpoint.

TVA submitted the original application for the two Watts Bar units in 1976. TVA finished Unit 1 and the NRC issued a license in 1996. TVA deferred completion of Unit 2 in the mid-1980s, but restarted construction with NRC oversight in 2007.