Tracy Primeau Snippet A

Tracy Primeau recalls a "huge" transport leak that occurred while she was working as a field operator at the Pickering Nuclear Generating Station in 1994. They had to go into the reactor and manually close a valve after the unit came offline. The event, and response, became well known in the nuclear industry and formed the basis of changes to design and operating practices. Then she experienced a reactivity event, where the unit "spiked" but then responded appropriately. It was also well-known and studied. When these events came up in discussion, she would say "Yes, I was there" and "yes, I was at that one too". She describes being able to tell the actual story from her first hand experience – and usually get a free beer at a nuclear conference.