Jocassee Dam topic for Duke-NRC meeting

An earthquake can happen almost anywhere, and the NRC requires every nuclear plant to be designed for site-specific ground motions that are appropriate for their locations. A meeting takes place this month near Washington for a discussion of Duke Energy’s seismic review of its Jocassee Dam. The dam is located upstream of Duke’s three Oconee reactors. The meeting involving Duke and Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff takes place Tuesday, September 24 at the NRC headquarters in Rockville, Maryland. The end game is safeguards against the potential for flooding at the Oconee plant, if there were a dam failure. And the meeting apparently is just what Duke wants, considering that earlier this year an NRC spokesman said, “They have asked for monthly meetings with the NRC staff to ensure that we are aware of how they are proceeding and provide guidance as needed.”