IR 05000244/1991017
| ML17250B232 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Ginna  |
| Issue date: | 08/23/1991 |
| From: | Lance R, Oconnell P, Pasciak W NRC OFFICE OF INSPECTION & ENFORCEMENT (IE REGION I) |
| To: | |
| Shared Package | |
| ML17250B231 | List: |
| References | |
| 50-244-91-17, NUDOCS 9109040079 | |
| Download: ML17250B232 (12) | |
Text
U. S.
NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
REGION I
Docket No.
50-244 License No.
DPR-18 Licensee:
Rochester Gas and Electric Cor oration 89 East Avenue Rochester New York 14649 Facility Name:
Ginna Nuclear Power Plant Inspection At:
Ontario New York Inspection Conducted:
Au ust
16 1991 Inspectors:
P. O'onnell, Radiation Specialist date R. Lance, Radiation Specialist
~x Jg
date Approved by:
W. Pascxak, Chief, Facilities Radiation Protection Section, DRSS date Ins ection Summar
- Inspection on August
16, 1991 (Report No. 50-244/91-17).
Areas Ins ected:
The inspection was a routine, unannounced inspection of the radiological controls program on site.
Areas reviewed included organization, control room habitability, operation of area radiation monitors, control of high radiation areas, contamination controls and control of radioactive material, and ALARA.
Results:
Within the scope of this inspection no violations were identified.
9109040079 910823 PDR ADOCK 05000244
1.0 Personnel Contacted 1.1 Licensee Personnel S.
Adams, Technical Engineering Manager
- W. Goodman, Health Physics Technician Foreman A. Harhay, Health Physics and Chemistry Manager
- A. Herman, Health Physicist
- K. Lang, Health Physicist
- N. Leoni, Senior Chemist/Quality Control Specialist R. Marchionda, Superintendent, Support Service
- T. Marlow, Superintendent, Ginna Production
~ F. Mis, Health Physicist
- J. St. Martin, Corrective Actions Coordinator
- W. Stiewe, Electrical Quality Control Engineer R. Watts, Director, Corporate Radiation Protection J.
Widay, Plant Manager.
le2 NRC Personnel
- T. Moslak, Senior Resident Inspector N. Perry, Resident Inspector
- Denotes attendance at the exit meeting on August 16, 1991.
2.0
~Per oee The inspection was a routine, unannounced inspection of the radiological controls program on site.
Areas reviewed included organization, control room habitability, operation of area radiation monitors, control of high radiation areas, contamination controls and control of radioactive material, and ALARA.
3.0 Or anization A significant organizational change was recently made in the Health Physics (HP) organization with the appointment of a new HP and Chemistry Manager.
This position was given to the individual who previously held the position of Chemistry Services Manager.
Because this individual did not, meet the experience requirement specified in Technical Specification 6.3.1, the licensee has ensured that members of the HP organization who do meet the minimum qualifications are involved in Plant Operations Review Committee (PORC)
meetings, Plant ALARA Committee meetings, review of technical procedures and other functions as applicable.
Discussions with plant personnel and the results of this inspection indicate that the turnover of the HP and Chemistry Manager position is progressing smoothly.
The inspector reviewed the licensee's organization chart and noted that one of four professional level Health Physicists recently left, leaving one position vacant.
The individual who left was responsible for internal dosimetry and instrumentation.
These duties have been split between the remaining three Health Physicists until a replacement is hired.
The licensee stated that the HP Department recently received corporate approval to initiate the employment screening process for new applicants.
The only other organizational change in the HP Department since the last inspection was the appointment of a new Quality Improvement Specialist.
Discussions with this individual and review of his previous experience. indicates that the individual is knowledgeable of the position requirements and qualified to fillthe position.
4.0 Control Room Habitabilit The inspector reviewed the licensee's program for ensuring the operability of the control room emergency air treatment system.
The inspector reviewed procedures and test results for the annual calibration and monthly performance testing of the particulate, iodine, noble gas, ammonia, and chlorine monitors.
No discrepancies were noted in this area.
The inspector reviewed documentation detailing the method the licensee uses to determine'the alarm set points for the above mentioned monitors.
The licensee has established and implemented conservative alarm set points for the monitors in comparison to the Technical Specification limits.
The inspector reviewed procedures and test results for testing the filters on the control room emergency air treatment system.
Licensee procedure PT-47.3,
"Control Room Air Handling Unit Filtration System Efficiency Test",
Rev.
4, dated January 9,
1991 is the governing procedure for the filter testing.
PT-47.3 specifies, in part, that testing is to'be performed every 18 months or after 720 hours0.00833 days <br />0.2 hours <br />0.00119 weeks <br />2.7396e-4 months <br /> of charcoal adsorber system operation.
The testing includes dioctyl phthalate testing of HEPA filters, halide leak
testing, and pressure drop testing across the filter banks.
The inspector brought to the'licensee's attention that PT-47.3 does not address licensee Technical Specification 4.5.2.3.6 which requires, in addition to the above mentioned tests, that a laboratory analysis be performed on a carbon sample which shows 904 or greater radioactive methyl iodide removal.
The licensee reviewed this matter and determined that when PT-47.3 was last revised in January 1991 the section on methyl iodide sample testing was inadvertently removed.
Revision 3 of PT-47.3, dated September 4,
1990 did contain a
section detailing this requirement.
The licensee provided the inspector with documentation verifying that when the filters were last tested in January 1991 the methyl iodide test was performed even though the procedure did not require the test.
The licensee stated that they would immediately revise the procedure to be consistent with Technical Specification requirements.
The inspector noted that the revision to PT-47.3 had been approved by the Plant Operations Review Committee (PORC).
The inspector told the licensee that, it appeared that the PORC did not adequately review the procedure 'revision and better attention to detail is needed during the PORC procedure review process.
5.,0 0 eration of Area Radiation Monitors The inspector reviewed the licensee's program for ensuring that, Area Radiation Monitors (ARMs) for monitoring in plant radiation levels remain operable and calibrated.
Within the scope of this review, no violations were identified.
The Technical Specifications require that several of the ARMs, which have remote readouts in the control room, be checked daily.
This check is performed by the control room operators and the observed values are plotted on graphs which are kept in the control room.
A Health Physicist reviews the graphs on a weekly basis for trend analysis.
The inspector noted no discrepancies in the review of these graph Technical Specifications also require a monthly performance test and a calibration test every refueling cycle.
The inspector reviewed the licensee's records of performance tests for the last year and several past calibration tests.
No discrepancies were noted in this area.
The inspector noted that no portable ARMs were in use at the facility during the time of the inspection.
NRC Inspection Report Number 50-244/90-30 documented an inspector concern regarding the source checking of portable ARMs.
The station procedures, at the time of NRC Inspection No. 50-244/90-30, allowed the licensee to use a portable survey instrument that had been source checked to verify ARM response, in lieu of a periodic ARM source check with a radioactive source.
In low dose rate areas the instrument reading was verified on less than one percent of the instrument's scale and the instrument's alarm function was not tested.
During this inspection the inspector noted that the licensee revised the ARM source check procedure to require that ARMs which are in radiation fields less than 20 mR/hr must be source checked using a radioactive source.
The inspector had no further concerns regarding this matter.
6.0 Control of Locked Hi h Radiation Areas 7.0 The inspector reviewed the licensee's program for controlling access to locked high radiation 'areas (LHRAs).
Keys to LHRAs are maintained in the control room.
The inspector verified the accountability of all keys to LHRAs.
The inspector reviewed LHRA key issue logs and noted that only individuals who are qualified under the licensee's program had been issued keys to LHRAs.
Inspector review of radiological incident reports indicated that the licensee has not been experiencing difficulties in this area.
Contamination Controls and Control of Radioactive Material 7.1 Personnel Contaminations The inspector noted that the licensee had exceeded their outage= goal for limiting the number of personnel contaminations.
The outage goal of 124 personnel
contaminations was well exceeded with 231 actual personnel contaminations.'icensee management has developed and is implementing several programs to reduce the number of personnel contaminations.
Program enhancements to reduce the number of personnel contaminations include:
improving the layout at the containment personnel access hatch, closely monitoring worker practices donning and removing protective clothing and practices in the radiologically controlled areas, visiting other facilities who recently significantly reduced the number of personnel contaminations, and i
and enhancing general worker training on use of protective clothing.
Although the licensee has already exceeded the annual goal for the number of personnel contaminations, over the past two years there has been a downward trend in the number of occurrences.
With the implementation of the above mentioned improvements the licensee plans on further improving performance in this area.
7.2 Leak Testin of Sources The licensee performs an inventory and leak test of all licensed sources on a six month schedule.
The leak test consists of wet and dry smear surveys on either the external surface of licensed sources or source holders.
Inspector review of completed
"Licensed Source Smear Record" and "Leak Test Report" data sheets indicated that the licensee's program is being adequately implemented.
The inspector noted that all tests were completed as required, but several entries were not documented as required on the "Licensed Source Smear Record" data sheets.
The licensee agreed that closer attention to detail in documentation and review of smear surveys performed as leak tests would prevent these inadvertent oversight.3 Count Room Instrumentation The inspector reviewed the licensee's program for performing quality control checks on count room instruments and the whole body counter.
Control charts for the whole body counter and the method for evaluating them were also reviewed.
Nithin the scope of this inspection, no discrepancies were noted and the program for ensuring that count room instruments and the whole body counter remained operable and accurate appeared to be effective.
The inspector discussed with licensee personnel the adequacy of licensee contamination surveys for detecting radionuclides that emit only x-rays or very low energy betas.
The licensee provided the inspector with gamma isotopic analysis of several reactor coolant samples and their most recent analysis of waste streams to show compliance with 10 CFR Part 61 requirements.
Based on these results the licensee has concluded that a very small fraction of the radionuclide mix in the different waste streams fall into this category.
Based on the low abundance of these nuclides and the demonstrated capabilities of licensee contamination detectors to respond to radionuclides that only emit weak betas,, such as nickel-63 which emits a beta with an end point energy of 67 kev, the licensee concluded that their program for surveying material leaving the radiologically controlled areas is adequate.
The licensee currently disposes of "clean" waste removed from the radiologically controlled areas as radioactive material.
The inspector had no further questions in this area.
8.0 The inspector attended the post job ALARA review meeting for outage steam generator work.
Good communications were observed between the representatives of the different work groups who were involved in the work.
The discussions were focussed on improvements that could be made to reduce total cumulative exposure for steam generator work during future
Oy I
outages.
Management representatives attended and actively participated in the meeting.
The licensee was effectively making use of lessons learned from steam generator experiences during the 1991 outage.
Changes in the conduct of steam generator evolutions are planned to be incorporated into work packages and ALARA reviews for future outages.
The total exposure for steam generator work during the 1991 outage was slightly above the estimate that was established prior to the outage.
The current station cumulative exposure to date is 320 person-Rem and it appears that at the end of the year the licensee will be well below the 1991 ALARA goal of 400 person-Rem.
The preliminary 1992 ALARA goal of 250 person-Rem appears to be very challenging.
9.0 Exit Meetin The inspector met with licensee representatives at the end of the inspection, on August 16, 1991.
The inspector reviewed the purpose and scope of the inspection and discussed the findings.