Wolf Creek restart expected next week
By The Herald Staff
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WOLF CREEK — The Wolf Creek nuclear power plant is scheduled to be restarted sometime next week.
The plant had been shut down since March for refueling but the restart has delayed by snags.
However, plant officials plan to begin powering up the plant during the first part of the week, Jenny Hageman, a Wolf Creek spokeswoman, said.
The plant is refueled once every 18 months, she said.
As the reactor is refueled, technicians carefully check over every part of the plant while it’s shut down, especially those parts that normally can’t be inspected while it’s operating, she said.
Technician found items that required repairs before the plant was restarted, she said.
“You don’t always know what you’ll find,” she said.
For refueling, the plant has to hire nearly 1,000 temporary workers to help during the outage, she said.
Many of those live in the area but some technicians have to be brought in and they stay in surrounding areas, including Ottawa, during the refueling.
“There’s a sizable economic impact,” Hageman said.
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