'Mistakes' in incident reporting trigger media frenzy

Friday, 6 June 2008

A leaky valve caused a minor incident at a nuclear power plant in Slovenia - and also caused widespread media interest after mistakenly causing the European Union's radiological incident warning system to be activated.

 

When a coolant leak was spotted at Krsko, Slovenia's only nuclear power plant, the event was quickly brought under control. There was no risk to staff or release of radiation to the environment and the plant was shut down safely by operators according to procedure, and the Slovenian Nuclear Safety Administration (SNSA) was alerted. However, when the SNSA passed on the information to the European Community's radiological information system it triggered an European Union-wide alert more in keeping with a much more serious accident and triggered widespread media reporting.

 

It appears that the SNSA may have used the wrong form to report the Krsko incident to the European Community Urgent Radiological Information Exchange (ECURIE), erroneously giving the impression that the incident warranted a radiological alert. "The message could have been understood as a warning of an incident with the possibility of serious consequences," Slovenia's Environment Ministry said in a statement. As a result, the system designed to alert EU countries of potentially serious radiological incidents was triggered for the first time since it was established. All EU member states were alerted, and press notices were issued.

 

The Slovenian government has since reported to have apologised, but the echoes rumble on. Some commentators pointed to the fact that the incident proved that the ECURIE system does indeed work. "I prefer to have an unnecessary alert, than to have too few alerts," German environment minister Sigmar Gabriel reportedly said. However, others were not so charitable. Austria's environment minister Josef Proeli told reporters: "This places a serious question mark over our confidence in the Slovenian alarm system." Austria is strongly opposed to nuclear power and has frequently lobbied against its use by its neighbours.

 

Krsko back soon

 

Detailed inspections have confirmed the leakage was caused by the failure of a manual isolation valve on a temperature measurement line, Krsko operator NEK has now announced. The valve will be replaced and the unit is expected to restart by the middle of next week.