Failings identified in nearby nuclear plant’s emergency response

Tuesday 09 February 2021

Several failings have been identified in the emergency response plans of a nuclear plant located 30 miles from Jersey.

Inspectors from the French Authority for Nuclear Safety (l’Autorité de Sûreté Nucléaire) visited Flamanville in January and asked employees to carry out a simulation involving heavy snow falls blocking access to the plant and disrupting the reactor’s cooling system.

Both reactors at the plant, which is run by state-owned electric utility company EDF, have been under increased monitoring since September 2019, over ongoing maintenance and oversight problems. 

The exercise aimed to simulate the plant’s internal emergency plan, which officers concluded could be improved.

In their report, they noted that local authorities had been alerted too late during the exercise. While it started at 23:15, with the first on-call personnel arriving at the crisis just before midnight, it wasn't until 01:25 that the departmental authority was contacted with the EDF’s national crisis centre following at 02:05. 

Pictured: The Flamanville Plant. (Google Maps)

The officers also noted that the information provided to the authorities was incomplete and concluded that the site was not currently able to react “efficiently and quickly” to a similar emergency. 

Other failings noted during the inspection included using data relating to a separate exercise scheduled for the day after, employees not being able to log into the plant’s online system or to access data from the reactor, as well as difficulties making phone calls. 

The site manager couldn’t log into the crisis system and had to wait two hours after the exercise started for other colleagues to help him.  

The inspectors said response times were too long and that they had to make suggestions about which actions to take. They also noted that some of the on-call employees arrived very late, with others not coming at all. However, they commended the professionalism of those who did attend. 

In their report, they also wrote about how one of the employees was unable to take a laptop into the crisis centre because it was protected with an anti-theft device for which he didn’t have the password. He then had to take notes and input the information back into the system, which inspectors said could lead to errors and a waste of time.  

Following the exercise, the Chief Inspector has made a number of recommendations and asked the plant to inform him of the necessary actions they will take as a result within the next two months.