The Nuclear Regulator Commission says Entergy employees have addressed issues stemming from a May 2011 reactor shutdown blamed on control room operators, and has ended increased oversight of the plant. 

"Our inspectors found that the company has satisfactorily addressed the relevant issues," NRC Public Affairs officer Neil Sheehan said in a statement emailed Friday. "As a result, the 'White' finding will be closed out. That means the plant will no longer be in the Regulatory Response Column of our Action Matrix (which dictates our level of oversight) but will transition back to the Licensee, or normal, Response Column: http://www.nrc.gov/NRR/OVERSIGHT/ASSESS/actionmatrix_summary.html."

Sheehan did say that NRC inspectors made observations regarding the extend and quality of Entergy's corrective actions, "but they were not deemed to be significant weaknesses."

The original finding was in response to a May 10, 2011, event when control room operators at the plant failed to properly carry out their roles and responsibilities and adhere to appropriate reactivity control standards, resulting in an automatic scram (shutdown) of the reactor. The issuance of the “White” finding resulted in increased oversight from the NRC.

According to the release, the purpose of the supplemental inspection was as follows: 1.) to ensure Entergy had performed a thorough root cause evaluation of why the problems had occurred; 2.) to determine if the company had checked for possible impacts of the problems on other systems and programs; and 3.) to gauge the effectiveness of the corrective actions put in place by the company in response to the event, including whether they are sufficient to prevent a recurrence. The reviews included NRC inspector interviews with plant control room personnel and observations of a crew simulator evaluation and crew activities in the control room.