This sounds awfully familiar.
Here in Canada the CNSC grades plant performance on a variety of issues, one of them being adherence to ALARA, and uses those grades in its decision on license re-issue -- ranging from one year to a maximum of about five years, depending on the grades.
Fortunately, the ALARA fanatics have not yet taken over quite so completely here, as they did at Davis Besse.
But its obviously asinine to keep pushing for ever-lower collective doses - especially when they're already below regulatory limits - without regard for plant health, just to make brownie-points with the regulators or outfits like INPO.
There needs to be far more emphasis on the "R" in ALARA if we don't wish to end up like DB.
Jaro
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The second, and related factor , was ALARA, The concept of minimizing
all radiation dose was so firmly ingrained at the plant and enforced by
the Radiation Control department, that the ISI (In Service Inspection,
the program which executes the inspections for ASME Section XI)
engineers who could have performed a meaningful inspection were not
allowed near the reactor vessel head. The personnel dose resulting from
such an inspection would have been well within the regulatory limits,
and within the even lower limits imposed by the plant operators.
However, the inspection was delayed for years in order to minimize
exposure. Hundreds of millions ($350+)of dollars later, the plant
operators certainly regret their strong adherence to ALARA and the INPO
low dose rating criteria in this case.