"Small Steps at Fort Calhoun" July 13

http://www.omaha.com/article/20110713/NEWS01/707139892
DIRECT QUOTE:

"The Omaha Public Power District has begun taking steps to resume operations at the Fort Calhoun Nuclear Station, said Dave Bannister, chief nuclear officer. The plant, about 20 miles north of Omaha, has been offline since early April, first for maintenance, then because of flooding.

"Bannister said workers have begun some of the tasks needed to get the nuclear plant running again, such as recalibrating equipment that was being worked on as part of the maintenance outage.

OPPD faces a number of hurdles before it can restart the nuclear plant, including:

>> River levels must drop below 1,004 feet and remain reliably below that. That isn’t expected to happen for weeks. On Tuesday, the river was at 1,005.9 feet.

>> OPPD must clean up, repair and disinfect affected equipment.


>> The utility has to complete the refueling and maintenance work interrupted by the flooding.


>> It must replace $1 million in switchgear damaged by a fire at the onset of flooding.


>> It must get federal inspection and approval.


— Nancy Gaarder

MAJIA HERE: TStorms are in the forecast for tomorrow.
It is going to be a long time before this plant is online.

Ready for another season of heavy flooding to create a station blackout capable of precipitating a nuclear meltdown...