The inspectors identified a Green (
Severity Level IV)
NCV of10 CFR 50.72 (b)(3)(v) for the licensees failure to make a required non-emergency eight-hour notification to the NRC for a loss of safety function of a system which was required to remove residual heat from the reactor. The licensee entered this issue into their
CAP as IR 971982.The inspectors determined that the finding should be evaluated using the traditional enforcement process, since the failure to make a required report to the NRC had the potential to impact the agencys ability to perform its regulatory function. The finding was considered to be
Severity Level IV, as the
NRC Enforcement Policy states, in part, that the severity level of a violation involving the failure to make a required report to the NRC will be based upon the significance of and the circumstances surrounding the matter that should have been reported. As such, the ability of the operators to restore a train of the
residual heat removal (
RHR) system by non-extraordinary means and in a timely manner (without experiencing an unplanned mode change) to a
shutdown cooling lineup was considered by the inspectors to have mitigated the effects of the loss of functionality of the
decay heat removal system to a very low safety impact on the plant.
