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CommunityCalvert Cliffs nuclear plant performs hostile-action drill
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
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Bay District Volunteer Fire Department along with the St. Leonard Volunteer Fire Department and Calvert Cliffs Fire Brigade fire truck simulate putting a fire out at Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant on July 15 for a hostile-action drill.
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The scenario of intentional damage done to the plant, a type of drill nuclear plants are federally mandated to run since 2005, and nuclear plants are required to have an emergency response plan, said David Fitz, senior corporate communications consultant at Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant.
It’s an unlikely event, but plants need to be able to work together with the community to respond to this type of event, he said.
‘‘We had a lot of support, and I noticed how well everybody worked together,” Fitz said. Communications were working well with all agencies, and officials said they were impressed with the communications with all agencies involved, he said.
A lot of preparations were made prior to the drill and it’s a great team effort with a drill this magnitude, said Lou Larragotie, manager of nuclear safety and security at Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant.
‘‘The purpose of drills is to see how well agencies that we don’t normally act with work with each other. The level of participation and performance is indicative that we’ve been drilling before,” Larragotie said.
‘‘We have been blessed with active participation from emergency response, local agencies and the sheriff’s office.”
The drill was a non-graded event, said Fitz, adding, ‘‘it is not being evaluated, but we are taking a lot of lessons.”
Several V.I.Ps, including the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) Commissioner, Gregory Jackzko and Federal Emergency Management Administration Administer (FEMA), David Paulison, came from Washington, D.C., to observe the drill, he said.
The people observing, the players and peers act as evaluators and offered an integrated critique of the drill, Larragotie said. The hostile action drill will be graded in 2010 by NRC and FEMA, he said.
‘‘Early in 2010 we will be running the drill with clear expectations,” he said.
The actual hostile action was kept secret to make the drill as real as possible, said Bob Fenwick, Emergency Management and Safety Division Chief of Calvert County. Fenwick manned the Emergency Operations Center that was located in the basement of the Calvert County District Court.
‘‘We want to make sure that people are taking their proper roles and make sure that the phone systems, cell phones and hertz communications work properly,” he said. ‘‘It’s a multi-management effort.”
A joint information center was set up at the Calvert Cliff Nuclear Power Plant’s Industrial Park office on Route 231 and representatives from agencies communicated with on-site officials who handled response and operations at the plant, the site of the hostile action.
The idea is to identify the challenges in the drill response and fix what needs to be fixed and make it better, Fenwick said.
Normally the plant runs drills once every two years to test county interactions for FEMA and the Nuclear Energy Institute, and the plant runs security drills six to eight times a year, Larragotie said.
First the agencies discuss the drill and emergency response plans at table tops, and then the drills put the plan into action to see the challenges, he said. Drills of this large magnitude engage many agencies and allows security and operational efforts to work in concert with emergency response, he said.
A lot of preparation and a great team effort went into this drill, he added.
Nearly 50 agencies participated in the drill, with employees from many county departments and volunteer rescue and firefighters from Calvert and St. Mary’s counties.
