San Onofre Checking Circuit Breakers for Possible Mislabeling

Recent equipment purchases at San Onofre nuclear power plant are being reviewed to determine if the plant was among the U.S. nuclear plants that may have bought used circuit breakers labeled as new, a Southern California Edison spokesman said Thursday.

“We are now going through all of our records attempting to determine where our breakers were purchased,” said Dave Barron, whose company is the majority owner of the San Onofre plant. “It’s a day-to-day review, and we have not yet determined anything.”

Nuclear power plants throughout the country received notices last Friday from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission warning that they may have purchased used breakers from six Southern California companies now under investigation for falsely labeling the equipment.

Circuit breakers are used to shut off power in order to prevent fires or short circuits.

Documents Seized

The notices were sent out last Friday after the NRC seized documents at the companies.

A search warrant filed in Los Angeles last week named the suspected businesses as California Breakers of North Hollywood; General Circuit Breakers and Electric Supply Co. of Arcadia; HLC Electric Supply Co. of Baldwin Park; General Magnetics/Electric Wholesale of Commerce, Calif.; AC Circuit Breakers of Los Angeles, and E/C Electronics Components Co.

Barron said he didn’t know if the San Onofre plant had received equipment from any of the six companies.

The NRC refused to say if any of the companies had sold breakers to the facility.

Henry Zangwill, an attorney representing General Magnetics/Electric Wholesale, said the company has “not engaged in any of the practices referred to in the NRC affidavit.”

“To General Magnetics/Electric Wholesale’s knowledge, the company has never sold any circuit breakers to Pacific Gas & Electric Co. or any other company for use in a nuclear power plant,” Zangwill’s clients maintained in a written press statement.

Pacific Gas & Electric operates the Diablo Canyon nuclear power station near San Luis Obispo, where the used breakers were first found and turned over to the NRC.

The breakers, which were supposed to be used in an area away from the plant’s nuclear reactor, had failed tests four months ago and were in a warehouse when they were handed over to the NRC.

Roy Zimmerman, an NRC spokesman in Walnut Creek, Calif., said the agency’s investigation does not show that General Magnetics/Electric Wholesale sold the breakers for use in a power plant.

“Those companies involved in the investigation are those that have been involved in refurbishing and selling these types of circuit breakers,” said Zimmerman, who would not say which company sold the breakers discovered at the Diablo Canyon complex. “And (a power plant) is where we received the original breakers.”

Must Be Properly Labeled

He noted that there was no indication that all six of the companies were supplying nuclear power plants with used breakers, adding that it is not a crime as long as they are properly labeled and not defective.

“There’s nothing wrong with power plants using (used) breakers,” Zimmerman said. “As long as they are operating properly, that’s fine.”

He said the nuclear power plants were notified because the NRC had discovered the faulty breakers at another one.

“We just basically wanted to apprise them of the situation,” he said. “We wanted them to check for any other possible (faulty) circuit breakers that could have been sold.”

Barron said all breakers that are purchased by the San Onofre plant are calibrated and tested before they are installed. They are retested after installation.

“We have had no problems with any of breakers thus far,” he said.

However, an NRC examination of breakers taken from the five companies concluded that it would be possible for power plant workers to believe that a breaker was new and to “upgrade a circuit breaker to safety-system use.”

Inspection of Breakers

Barron said the breakers at the plant will be inspected after Edison completes the review. He said he does not know how long the review will take.

“We have hundreds of vendors who supply us with breakers,” he noted. “All of them are pretty well qualified.”

Both Barron and Zimmerman downplayed the possibility that faulty breakers could cause a nuclear accident.

“The possibility is extremely remote,” Zimmerman said. “If the breaker were to malfunction, it may cause a piece of equipment not to function properly. Nuclear power reactors have multiple trains of equipment for protection. . . .”

“We don’t believe there would be any safety hazard based on the fact that all (breakers at the San Onofre plant) are tested,” Barron said. “And we do have backup safety systems to prevent any harm to the public.”