Waterford - Dominion has repaired a system that houses barriers designed to prevent radiological releases at Millstone Power Station.

No actual radiological releases occurred as a result of the condition, Dominion spokesman Ken Holt said Monday. Neil Sheehan, a spokesman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, confirmed that.

Company operators were conducting an inspection between 2 and 3 a.m. Friday morning at the Unit 3 reactor when they identified three tears in two rubber covers that seal the holes pipes make cutting through a wall in the emergency safeguard features building, Holt and Sheehan said.

The building is adjacent to the containment building, which houses the reactor.

The covers, also known as "flexible boots," are part of the reactor's Supplementary Leak Collection and Release System, which acts a backup for radiological releases and helps to contain them.

The company had 24 hours in which to fix the condition or shut down.

Dominion repaired the damaged covers Friday afternoon, Holt and Sheehan said. The reactor did not have to be shut down to complete the repairs, Holt said. The tears were due to normal wear and tear, he added.

The danger of having tears in the covers is that, if there were an emergency, the covers would not have worked, Holt added.

Dominion is now conducting a more indepth engineering analysis of the situation, Sheehan said. "It was good they caught it," Sheehan said. "We'll be following up on this through our normal inspections."

p.daddona@theday.com