The reactors were shut down several weeks ago for regular maintenance, said spokesman Gene Terwilliger. But six large water valves were discovered to be improperly installed. Removing and reinstalling them will mean a much longer shutdown than inspection crews had at first anticipated.The "transferring the students" part is what says it'll be a long shutdown. Reading between the lines, this is just a standard example of Naval Reactors being their normal anal selves -- which, in nuclear power, is a Good Thing (especially for the land-based prototypes).
``Normally, we would have been back up by now,'' Terwilliger said.
He said the valves would have operated normally but may have malfunctioned over the long term had the problem not been discovered and fixed. He said the issue did not pose any safety risk, to workers at the site or to the public.
But it does pose an inconvenience for 80 Navy personnel who had been training at Kesselring. Kesselring is operated by Lockheed Martin on a contract with the Navy to train sailors how to operate nuclear reactors that power submarines and aircraft carriers. Eighty personnel training in Milton were transferred to another training site in South Carolina, Terwilliger said.
And since a lot of the staff there won't be as busy for the foreseeable future as they would have been with students around, they might have more time to contribute to the Veteran's Day 2006 Fundraising Drive for Project Valour-IT -- there are only a couple of days left, and Team NAVY has a very tight lead to defend. And most importantly -- you don't have to be from NPTU Ballston Spa to contribute by hitting the "Make A Donation" button on the right.
