RICHLAND, Wash. – The Columbia Generating Station was shut down early Thursday morning after operators identified problems with the pumps responsible for circulating water through the reactor’s core.
The nuclear power plant, located north of Richland, has not experienced an unplanned outage in nearly a decade. Energy Northwest released a statement saying that the facility is currently in a safe and stable condition.
It remains unclear when the power plant will return to operation. In the meantime, technical staff are concentrating on evaluating the reactor recirculation pumps.
Nine months ago, the power plant was last offline for its routine refueling process. A week after it was reconnected to the grid, operators disconnected it for several days to rebalance its turbines.
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