Editor's Note: This corrects the story that ran Saturday, April 18, which mischaracterized Millstone's bill to the NRC in 2014.

Dominion Resources paid $2.55 million to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in 2014 for routine inspections plus the cost of three special inspections that came as a result of safety violations uncovered at the Millstone Power Station.

Neil Sheehan, spokesman for the NRC, said that the costs charged to Dominion were the highest for any of the 17 nuclear reactor sites in the Northeast for that year. The $2.55 million covered the costs of the three NRC resident inspectors, routine inspections, plus special inspections for three “white” findings. The NRC uses a four-tiered, color-coded system to categorize safety findings, with green being the lowest, followed by white, yellow and red. The special inspections alone cost Dominion $535,894 for the special inspections. Sheehan said there were 2,030 hours of special inspections at Millstone in 2014. Millstone spokesman Ken Holt, however, said there were 1,943 hours in that year.

Dominion was not fined for the three “white” findings, but the costs of special NRC inspections that result from inspections serve as a strong motivation for plants to avoid safety violations, he said.

“There’s no question it can serve as a financial incentive to get problems addressed quickly,” he said.

Holt said the special inspections costs were borne by the company and cannot be passed on to ratepayers.

“It didn’t show up in people’s electric bills,” he said.

He said that while the cost of the inspections is significant, the company spent larger sums that year on plant maintenance and improvement projects, including $10 million to build and furnish a concrete dome with emergency equipment that would be needed in extreme, worst-case scenario disasters.

“But we didn’t go into 2014 anticipating even one special inspection,” Holt added.

NRC special inspectors spent 9,150 hours in 2014 at the two working reactors at Millstone on routine and special inspections, Sheehan said. Next highest in the Northeast in 2014 was the Indian Point Energy Center in Buchanan, N.Y., which logged 8,280 hours of routine and special inspections in 2014, followed by the Susquehanna Nuclear Generating Station in Berwick, Pa., which had 7,860 hours of routine and special inspections that year, Sheehan said.

Two of the white findings at Millstone pertained to problems with a backup pump that provides cooling water to the Unit 3 reactor. The third finding resulted from the unplanned shutdown of both plants last May.

In addition to the white findings in 2014, the NRC this month issued a “greater than green” finding for a security-related violation at Millstone. Because the issue pertains to security, the NRC is not specifying the severity level other than that it is “greater than green” The finding will not result in a special NRC inspection.

Sheehan said the security finding was uncovered during the NRC’s evaluation of a “force on force” security exercise in which mock intruders test plant defenses.

Bill Sheehan, chairman of the Nuclear Energy Advisory Committee, the citizens group that oversees Millstone, noted that in addition to the costs, the special inspections also require significant staff resources. He and Neil Sheehan are not related.

“There’s also a significant amount of time the staff has to spend getting ready for the inspection, when they could be doing other things,” Bill Sheehan said. “It’s not uncostly.”

He also noted that in addition to John Daugherty, the site vice president at Millstone since December, there are two or three other recent hires in upper management at the plant, indicating that Dominion is making changes to ensure that the run of safety violations does not continue.

The special inspections bill from the NRC, he added, will be more than covered by the savings Dominion will see this year from the reduction in the assessed value of the Millstone plant, property and equipment. According to the town assessor's office, the assessed value of Millstone for 2014 is $1.044 billion, compared to $1.085 billion in 2013.

"It's less than the depreciation Millstone had, which will reduce their tax rate this year," he said.

j.benson@theday.com