IR 05000220/2002001

2002 Annual Assessment Letter - Nine Mile Point Nuclear Station (Report 50-220/02-01 and 50-410/02-01)

ML020630530
Person / Time
Site:	Nine Mile Point
Issue date:	03/04/2002
From:	Blough A Division Reactor Projects I
To:	Conway J Nine Mile Point
References
IR-02-001
Download: ML020630530 (6)

Text

rch 4, 2002

SUBJECT:

ANNUAL ASSESSMENT LETTER - NINE MILE POINT NUCLEAR STATION (REPORT 50-220/02-01 AND 50-410/02-01)

Dear Mr. Conway:

On January 29, 2002, the NRC staff completed its end-of-cycle plant performance assessment of Nine Mile Point Nuclear Station. The end-of-cycle review for Nine Mile Point involved the participation of all technical divisions in evaluating performance indicators (PIs) for the most recent quarter and inspection results for the period from April 1 through December 31, 2001. The purpose of this letter is to inform you of our assessment of your safety performance during this period and our plans for future inspections at your facility so that you will have an opportunity to prepare for these inspections and to inform us of any planned inspections which may conflict with your plant activities.

As discussed in our previous annual assessment letter dated May 31, 2001, this inspection and assessment cycle consisted of three quarters (i.e., the second, third, and fourth calendar quarters of calendar year 2001) instead of the usual four quarters. This change was implemented in order to align the inspection and assessment cycle with the calendar year beginning on January 1, 2002.

Overall, Nine Mile Point operated in a manner that preserved public health and safety and fully met all cornerstone objectives. Plant performance for the most recent quarter was within the Regulatory Response Column of the NRCs Action Matrix, based on two performance indicators (PIs) which crossed the threshold from GREEN to WHITE (increased regulatory response band) in the initiating events and mitigating systems cornerstones. At Unit 1, the mitigating systems PI for Safety System Unavailability, High Pressure Injection System, exceeded the WHITE threshold, and at Unit 2, the initiating systems PI for Unplanned Scrams, changed to WHITE.

We understand that your staff has initiated corrective action program Deficiency/Event Reports to address these WHITE PIs. We have scheduled supplemental inspection procedure 95001 to be conducted in May 2002, to address each of the PIs, in accordance with the NRC Manual Chapter 0305, Action Matrix. This inspection procedure is conducted to provide assurance that the root and contributing causes of risk-significant performance issues are understood, the extent of condition is identified, and the corrective actions are sufficient to prevent recurrence.

The enclosed inspection plan details the inspections scheduled through March 31, 2003, and is provided to minimize the resource impact on your staff and to allow for scheduling conflicts and

John personnel availability to be resolved in advance of inspector arrival onsite. Routine resident inspections are not listed due to their ongoing and continuous nature. The schedule for the last six months of the inspection plan is tentative and may be revised at the Mid-Cycle Review meeting.

Immediately following the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the NRC issued safeguards advisories recommending that nuclear power plant licensees go to the highest level of security, and all promptly did so. With continued uncertainty about the possibility of additional terrorist activities, the Nation's nuclear power plants, including Nine Mile Point, remain at a high level of security. On February 25, 2002, the NRC issued an Order to all nuclear power plant licensees, requiring them to take certain additional interim compensatory measures to address the generalized high-level threat environment. These additional compensatory requirements will provide the NRC with reasonable assurance that public health and safety and the common defense and security continue to be adequately protected in the current generalized high-level threat environment. These requirements will remain in effect pending notification from the Commission that a significant change in the threat environment occurs, or until the Commission determines that other changes are needed following a more comprehensive re-evaluation of current safeguards and security programs. To date, we have monitored Nine Mile Point actions in response to the terrorist attacks through a series of audits. With the issuance of the Order, we will evaluate Nine Mile Points compliance with these interim requirements.

In accordance with 10 CFR 2.790 of the NRCs Rules of Practice, a copy of this letter and its enclosure will be made available electronically for public inspection in the NRC Public Document Room or from the Publicly Available Records (PARS) component of NRC's document system (ADAMS). ADAMS is accessible from the NRC Web site at http://www.nrc.gov/NRC/ADAMS/index.html (the Public Electronic Reading Room).

If circumstances arise which cause us to change this inspection plan, we will contact you to discuss the change as soon as possible. Please contact Michele G. Evans, Chief, Reactor Projects Branch 1, at 610-337-5224, with any questions you may have regarding this letter or the inspection plan.

Sincerely,

/RA/

A. Randolph Blough, Director Division of Reactor Projects Docket Nos. 50-220, 50-410 License Nos. DPR-63, NPF-69 Enclosure: Nine Mile Point Inspection/Activity Plan cc w/encl: M. Wallace, President, Constellation Generation Group

John