Errant Bird Caused Indian Point Shutdown? Nuclear Power Plant Remained Inoperable For Three Days Due To ‘Streaming’, Suggests Investigation [Video]

Indian Point nuclear power plant may have been shut down by a bird. The nuclear plant outside New York City remained shut for three days due to an incident officially referred to as “streaming.”

A bird, or more specifically its droppings, may have forced an abrupt shutdown at a nuclear power plant outside New York City, concluded a report. Indian Point nuclear plant remained shut for three days as engineers scrambled to find the cause and get it back online. The temporary shutdown was remedied, and the plant is now operational. However, the incident, officially classified as streaming, will undoubtedly force plant engineers to deploy additional measures to keep the birds away, reported New York Daily News.

An Indian Point reactor safely shut down for three days starting on December 14, following an “electrical disturbance on outdoor high voltage transmission lines,” according to Entergy Corp. An outdoor expert analyzing the situation hinted that bird dropping, or what is technically called bird “streaming,” was the culprit. The report describes the bird “streamer” event in colorful detail.

“Long streams of excrement from large birds that are often expelled as a bird takes off from a perch. This might have tripped a safety breaker and took a reactor at the site out of commission for three days in December.”

Explaining how bird poop might trigger a nuclear power plant shutdown, Entergy spokesman Jerry Nappi said, “If it has nowhere to send its electricity, the generator senses that and automatically shuts down.”

He was referring to the electrical activity that occurs when two wires, which should never come in contact with each other, are “shorted” by a conducting material, which, in this case, was bird poop. While bird excrement isn’t an exceptionally good electrical conductor, it had enough conductivity for the computer inside Indian Point nuclear power plant to sense something was wrong and trigger a shutdown.

"Bird poop" blamed for recent Indian Point shutdown https://t.co/qPHZB9t7z5 #NY

— Edward Banatt | @armavirumque@cyberplace.social (@ArmaVirumque) March 3, 2016

Since the wires ferrying electricity are high tension cables, they possess enough potential to cause the current to make small jumps even through the air. The phenomenon is called arching and is quite dangerous, noted the report.

“If a streamer contacts an energized conductor, the current can travel up the stream of poop back to the bird or its perch, resulting in bird electrocution, power outage and/or line trip.”

In a report to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) last month, the New Orleans-based company said the automatic reactor shutdown was apparently from “bird feces that caused an electric arc between wires on a feeder line at a transmission tower,” reported Times of Malta. The report added that at no point in time was there any leak of radiation as a direct or indirect result of the incident, and public health and safety were never in jeopardy.

BIRD POOP: Indian Point officials says bird poop was the likely cause of a Dec. shutdown. https://t.co/yPhMHSYkgC pic.twitter.com/sH4HfZFoI8

— News12WC (@News12WC) March 3, 2016

Incidentally, the report noted that there were no bird carcasses found in the vicinity of the transmission tower, reported CNN. However, according to Inhabitat, it is not just the birds that are an omnipresent threat to the power lines and nuclear plants like Indian Point.

Speaking about such wildlife related outages, Nuclear Regulatory Commission spokesman Eliot Brenner said, “They’re kind of few and far between, but they’re not uncommon. Squirrels are the biggest offenders.”

Although there are multiple protocols and techniques deployed to ensure that birds and other wildlife don’t venture too close to the power lines or power plants, plant managers at Indian Point added they are revising preventive maintenance for additional inspection and cleaning. In addition to present measures, additional bird guards are expected to be deployed on transmission towers.

“Additionally, bird guards will be installed on Entergy-owned 345 kV and 138 kV Transmission Towers to preclude the effects of bird streaming.”

Managing wildlife has always been a challenge for installations like Indian Point. However, additional guards and automated anti-avian security reduces the risk.

[Photo by Stephen Chernin/Getty Images]