IR 05000220/1992008
| ML17056B754 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Nine Mile Point  |
| Issue date: | 03/21/1992 |
| From: | Joseph Furia, Pasciak W NRC OFFICE OF INSPECTION & ENFORCEMENT (IE REGION I) |
| To: | |
| Shared Package | |
| ML17056B755 | List: |
| References | |
| 50-220-92-08, 50-220-92-8, 50-410-92-09, 50-410-92-9, NUDOCS 9204030018 | |
| Download: ML17056B754 (14) | |
Text
e U. S.
NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
REGION I
50-220/92-08
"'P" 50-220 Docket Nos.
50-410 DPR-63 License Nos.
.Licensee:
Nia ara Mohawk Power Cor oration 300 Erie Boulevard West S racuse New York 13202 Facility Name:
Nine Mile Point Units 1 and
Inspection At:
L comin New York
Inspection Conducted:
March 16-20 1992 Inspector:
g-7I-14 J.
F ria, Senior Radiation Specialist, date Facilities Radiation Protection Section (FRPS),- Facilities Radiological Safety and Safeguards Branch (FRSSB), Division of Radiation Safety and Safeguards (DRSS)
Approved by:
W. Pasciak, Chief, FRPS, FRSSB, DRSS Areas Ins ected:
Inspection of the licensee's radiological protection programs during outages including:
management organization, ALARA, radiological controls and implementation of the above programs.
$'-23-9z date Results:
Improved radiation protection performance was observed at Unit 2 during the second refueling outage (compared to the first refueling outage), particularly in ALARA planning and implementation, control of work activities in radiological areas, and pre-planning of work.
No safety concerns or violations of regulatory requirements were identified.'he licensee committed to provide to the Senior Resident Inspector, beginning in June 1992, a monthly report of its review of active radiological dosimetry records.
9204030018 920324 PDR ADOCK 05000220
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Personnel Contacted DETAILS 1.1 Licensee Personnel I
I
- W. Allen, MATS Radiological Assessment, Manager
- D. Barcomb, Radiation Protection Supervisor, Unit 2
- C.
Beckham, Quality Assurance Manager, Unit 2
- R. Cole, Radwaste Supervisor, Unit 2
. K. Dahlberg, Plant Manager, Unit 1
- L. Dick, Quality Assurance Supervisor C. Leon, Radiation Protection, Dosimetry
- M. McCormick, Plant Manager, Unit 2 A. Moison, Radiological Engineer, Unit 2
- J. Pavel, Licensing Engineer
- K. Rowe, ALARA Supervisor, Unit 2 N. Serino,'rywell Chief Technician, Unit 2
- P. Smalley, Radiation Protection Supervisor, Unit 1
- P. Swafford, Radiation Protection Manager, Unit 2 1.2 NRC Personnel
- R.. Laura, Resident Inspector W. Ma'ttingly, Resident Inspector W. Schmidt, Senior Resident Inspector
- Denotes those present at the exit interview on March 20, 1992.
I 2.
~Pur ose The purpose of this safety inspection was to review the licensee's programs for radiological protection during both the second refueling outage at Unit 2, and during a forced outage at Unit l.
3.
Radiation Protection Unit 2 Unit 2 entered its second refueling outage at the end of February, 1992, and expected to be back on line by mid-May.
In support of the outage, the licensee had augmented its.
radiation protection operations staff with 25 contractor technicians, and had.also added personnel to its ALARA staff.
Senior technicians and technical staff were assigned to act as drywell, refuel floor, reactor building and turbine building chief technicians and coordinators.
These personnel were:given overall direct responsibility for their assigned areas, including job coverage, housekeeping, and ALARA.
3.1 Radiolo ical Controls Outa e
As part of this inspection, direct observation of work
being performed in the drywell was conducted.
The bulk of the work being performed was preparation for later outage work, such. as erection of scaffolding, removal of insulation, and shielding of identified hot. spots.
Licensee and contractor personnel were observed:
dressing out in protective clothing; being briefed on
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Radiological Work Permit (RWP) requirements for the
.tasks to be performed; being briefed on the radiological conditions in the areas where work was to take place; and, job coverage by radiation protection technicians.
The= licensee had established a work control access point for the reactor building, where personnel could be briefed on the RWP under which work was to be performed, and to ensure'hat adequate radiation protection support would be available to cover the job.
Dress out areas were established on the 328'levation of the Reactor Building to support entry to the refuel floor, and on the 261'levation to support drywell entries.
Due to a relatively high rate of incidence of personnel contaminations experienced during the first two weeks of the outage, all personnel required to be dressed out in full Protective Clothing (PC), were required to wear a Tyvek coverall under their PCs.
This was based upon the licensee's initial determination that many of the contaminations were the result of contamination passing through the PCs.
Since this new requirement was instituted, the rate of personnel contaminations was noticeably reduced.
The licensee continued to be somewhat hampered by the design of the drywell.
Due to the cramped space.
provided, personnel were often required to crawl over or under components,, conduit and piping in order to traverse the drywell levels.
This problem was especially noticeable on the 240'levation, where essentially all areas have less than a 4'ead room, which combined with high contamination levels on the floor, can lead to a high potential for personnel contaminations.,
In spite of these difficulties, the licensee was approximately 20 Person-Rem lower than projected for the outage at the time of this inspection.
In general, housekeeping in the drywell was good, with few instances of loose materials, i.e. hard hats, face shields, rags, present in the drywell.
One weakness identified to the licensee was the general failure of personnel to examine their protective clothing for rips or tears prior to donning.
This poor worker practice could contribute to further personnel contaminations, and the licensee considered having someone from their General Employee Training-group conduct a surveillance
of dress out practices.
Tours'f the Radwaste, Reactor and Turbine Buildings'ere also conducted as part of this inspection.
In the turbine Building, the licensee experienced several personnel contaminations, which after careful licensee, investigation, were found to have been caused by an inadequate radiation survey of a work area.
After the licensee took prompt corrective action, no further personnel contaminations were experienced in this area.
During a tour of the Reactor Building, two instances of PCs left on the floor, inside a posted contaminated area were observed.
In both instances,. the licensee had failed to provide for a laundry and/or trash receptacle at the Step Off Pad (SOP), for the collection of used PCs.
This is an item which had been brought to the licensee's attention during previous inspections, although not at the same locat'ions as identified during this inspection.
With these two noted exceptions, housekeeping in the Radiologically Controlled Areas was determined to be generally good, and an improvement over the last refueling outage.
The licensee established an annual ALARA goal for 1992 at 380,Person-Rem, with a goal of 300 Person-Rem just for the refueling outage.
Prior to the outage, Unit 2 exposure was approximately 16.4 Person-Rem, and for the outage was approximately 40 Person-Rem.
The 40 Person-Rem was approximately 20 Person-Rem less than projected for this point in the outage.
The outage goal of 300 Person-Rem was 149 Person-Rem less than the total dose received during the first refueling outage.
Prior to the start of the refueling outage, the licensee published the "Nine Mile Point Unit 2, 1992 Refueling Pre-Outage ALARA Report", which documented all major dose intensive jobs to be performed during the outage, along with dose and Man-Hour projections, references to ALARA packages, and lessons learned from previous experience.
High dose jobs to be performed included, in 'service inspection, snubber reduction, Valve Operation Test and Evaluation System (VOTES)
testing, drywell painting, replacement of 28 CRDs and replacement of 10 Main Steam SRVs.
The licensee, at the Vice President and Plant manager level down through the ALARA Supervisor and staff have made a
significantly stronger commitment to ALARA during this outage than was present during the first refueling outage.
As of this inspection, only one job had exceeded its ALARA goal, and this was the Reactor
3.3 Disassembly work performed on the refuel floor.
Although dose rates were kept lower'han anticipated, higher staff-hour expenditures for this work caused the total dose to exceed projections by approximatedly 504.
Discussions and a post-job ALARA review were held for this job, with the results to be included in the post-outage ALARA review.
Dosimet Records As part of its preparations for implementation of a computerized radiation protection records system, the licensee undertook to conduct an audit of all active radiation dosimetry records early in 1992.
As a result of the findings of the first 19 reviews completed, the licensee contacted the NRC to discuss its preliminary findings.
Initial deficiencies identified include failure to properly fillout and document previous exposure history on NRC,Form-4, failure to provide timely dose reports to terminating employees, missing and/or incomplete dosimetry records, and improper quarterly dose extensions.
The licensee had taken short-term corrective actions to reduce the number of occurrences, and had instituted an independent record review system for all new dosimetry files.
Permanent corrective actions for new dosimetry records were to be implemented by the end of April, 1992, via the issuance of new dosimetry records procedures, and training of
'dosimetry staff to these new procedures.
Following this, the licensee was to resume its audit of all current or active dosimetry files, followed by a review of all old or closed files.
The total number of dosimetry files to be examined was estimated at 16,000, and the audit was expected to take at. least three years to complete.
As part of its action plan to correct identified deficiencies, the licensee has committed to document the results of its audit and document these in a monthly progress report.
This report will be first issued in June, 1992, covering May, 1992.
A copy will be provided to the NRC via the Senior Resident Inspector.
The inspector will continue to review the licensee's audit program and corrective actions during future inspections.
(Unresolved Item 50-220/92-08-01; 50-410/92-09-01).
4.
Radiation Protection Unit 1 Unit 1 entered a forced mid-cycle outage on February 16, 1992 following a Unit trip.
As of this inspection, the
'icensee hoped to have Unit 1 back on-line during the week
of'arch 23, and thus activities in the plant were generally geared towards that goal.
4.1 Plant Tour As part of this inspection, a tour of the Unit 1 Old Radwaste, New Radwaste and Off-Gas Buildings was conducted.
In general, areas were found to have
- improved with regards to housekeeping and amount of contaminated areas.
Areas on the lower elevation of the Old Radwaste Building, 247'nd 229', while improved, were,still posted as contaminated areas for
.the most part.
On the 229'levation, transfer pumps were observed which were leaking contaminated water onto the floor.
The problem of pump seal maintenance has previously been identified to the licensee as an area of concern in Radwaste.
Further management attention in this area is warranted.
4.2 Trans ortation Event On the morning of March 17, 1992, near the town of Mexico, New York, a Chem Nuclear Systems, Inc.
(CNSI)
tractor trailer rig with an empty 14-195H shipping cask (Serial g9) overturned while in route to Unit 1.
Although there was no licensee material on the vehicle, and the vehicle was coming to the site, not from the site, the.licensee responded by sending representatives of the Radwaste and Radiation Protection departments to the accident site.
Radiation and contamination surveys conducted by the licensee indicated that all radiation levels were at background, and inspection of the cask indicated that damage was limited to one chain used to secure the rain cover had come loose.
The tractor was severely damaged.
After being uprighted, the trailer was towed to Nine Mile Point, and brought to the Unit 1 New Radwaste Building truck lock.
Examination of the trailer and cask in the truck lock revealed that. two welds on the trailer had been broken, apparently while the trailer and cask were being placed upright at the accident scene, while the cask had only minor abrasions from sliding on its side across the road surface during the accident.
CNSI dispatched personnel to examine the cask, as well as a second tractor to return the cask and trailer to Barnwell, South Carolina for further examination and repair.
'The licensee's support to the local police and response personnel during this event was exceptional.
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5.
Exit Interview The inspector met with the licensee representatives denoted
in Section 1 at the conclusion of the inspection. on March 20, 1992.
The inspector summarized the purpose, scope and
~ findings of the inspectio