The following report was received by phone and email from the licensee:
At 1705 EDT, [the licensee] called the HOO to report a violation of MIT Reactor (MITR) Technical Specification (TS) 7.1.3 (2) on Staffing requirement: 'Whenever the reactor is not secured, two persons shall be onsite, one of whom shall be a licensed senior reactor operator. An operator or senior operator shall be present in the control room.' Between 0900 EDT and 1010 EDT on [April 24, 2021], the MIT reactor was operated at 5.7 MW (95 percent of the licensed full power of 6 MW) with less than the minimum staffing requirement.
At 0817 EDT, the incoming senior reactor operator (SRO), also the reactor supervisor, received a turnover from and relieved the outgoing SRO. The incoming SRO proceeded to the reactor control room, received a turnover from and relived the outgoing operator (RO). The outgoing RO left the site at 0900 EDT. The incoming RO, was originally scheduled to report to the reactor at 0800 EDT, arrived the reactor site and went directly to the control room at 1010 EDT. During the duration without the minimum staffing requirement, the reactor operated at steady state 5.7 MW with no abnormal conditions or alarms. The SRO remained in the control room, while an operator trainee qualified to respond to abnormal reactor conditions was also present in the control room. The incoming RO was available within ne mile to the reactor site, while the outgoing RO within 3.5 miles.
The verbal report was made in accordance with MITR
TS 7.7.2(1), Reportable Occurrence Reports, for which a verbal report is to be made to the NRC Headquarters Operations Center within
24 hours2.777778e-4 days <br />0.00667 hours <br />3.968254e-5 weeks <br />9.132e-6 months <br /> of a reportable occurrence. [The licensee] will submit a written report within ten working days of the occurrence.