Dominion Virginia Power ends notification of unusual event at its North Anna Power Station near Mineral, Virginia, after completing equipment inspections; Aug. 23 earthquake automatically shut down nuclear reactors

Rachel Carter

RICHMOND, Virginia , August 24, 2011 (press release) – Dominion Virginia Power ended the Notification of Unusual Event at its North Anna Power Station near Mineral, Va., at 1:16 p.m. today after completing all walk-down inspections of equipment that are most susceptible to seismic activity. The inspections found that the equipment was in satisfactory condition.

A Notification of Unusual Event is the least serious of four Nuclear Regulatory Commission emergency classifications.

Earlier today, the company ended the Alert, the second to least serious of the four NRC classifications after starting a reactor cooling pump for each of the two units. The Alert was terminated at 11:16 a.m.

The station's two nuclear reactors shut down following an earthquake near the station that occurred at 1:51 p.m. EDT Tuesday. The reactors shut down automatically and no damage has been reported to systems required to maintain the station in a safe condition. Several aftershocks felt in the region did not affect the station.

Dominion (NYSE:D - News), headquartered in Richmond, Va., is one of the nation's largest producers of energy. For more information about Dominion, visit the company's Web site at www.dom.com.

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