Country United States Status Operational Owner Entergy Reactor type Pressurized water reactor | Commission date September 24, 1985 Phone +1 504-363-8737 | |
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Similar Entergy, Waterford 3 Nuclear Power Pl, Occidental Chemical Corporati, Dow Chemical Co Visitor, Best Western La Place Inn | ||
The Waterford Steam Electric Station, Unit 3, also known as Waterford 3, is a nuclear power plant located on a 3,000-acre (1,200 ha) plot in Killona, Louisiana, in St. Charles Parish.
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This plant has one Combustion Engineering two-loop pressurized water reactor. The plant produces 1,218 megawatts of electricity since the site's last refuel in October 2009. It has a dry ambient pressure containment building.
On August 28, 2005, Waterford shut down due to Hurricane Katrina approaching and declared an unusual event (the least-serious of a four-level emergency classification scale). Shortly after Katrina, Waterford restarted and resumed normal operation.
The plant also shut down on October 17, 2012, for steam generator replacement. The plant returned to full power in the middle of January 2013.
Ownership
Waterford is operated by Entergy Nuclear and is owned by Entergy Louisiana, Inc.
Surrounding population
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission defines two emergency planning zones around nuclear power plants: a plume exposure pathway zone with a radius of 10 miles (16 km), concerned primarily with exposure to, and inhalation of, airborne radioactive contamination, and an ingestion pathway zone of about 50 miles (80 km), concerned primarily with ingestion of food and liquid contaminated by radioactivity.
The 2010 U.S. population within 10 miles (16 km) of Waterford was 75,538, an increase of 7.4 percent in a decade, according to an analysis of U.S. Census data for msnbc.com. The 2010 U.S. population within 50 miles (80 km) was 1,969,431, a decrease of 0.8 percent since 2000. Cities within 50 miles include New Orleans (33 miles to city center).
Seismic risk
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission's estimate of the risk each year of an earthquake intense enough to cause core damage to the reactor at Waterford was 1 in 50,000, according to an NRC study published in August 2010.