IR 05000245/1990008
| ML20058L388 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Millstone  |
| Issue date: | 07/23/1990 |
| From: | Martin T NRC OFFICE OF INSPECTION & ENFORCEMENT (IE REGION I) |
| To: | Mroczka E NORTHEAST NUCLEAR ENERGY CO. |
| Shared Package | |
| ML20058L389 | List: |
| References | |
| EA-90-111, NUDOCS 9008070136 | |
| Download: ML20058L388 (4) | |
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July 23, 1990
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Docket No. 50-245 License No. DPR-21
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EA 90-111 Northeast Nuclear Energy Company ATTN: Mr. E.~J. Mroczka Senior Vice President - Nuclear Engineering and Operations P.O. Box 270 t
Hartford, Connecticut 06141-0270 Gentlemen:
Subject: NOTICE OF VIOLATION AND PROPOSED IMPOSITION OF CIVIL PENALTY - $50,000 (NRC Inspection Report No. 50-245/90-08)
This refers to the NRC special inspection conducted at the Low Level Waste Disposal Site, Barnwell, South Carolina (Barnwell), and in the Region I office on May 10-25, 1990 to review the circumstances associated with an incident involving the shipment of a package containing irradiated waste from Millstone Unit 1 to Barnwell on May 7, 1990 with free standing liquid (water) in the package in excess of the regulatory limit.
This condition constitutes a violation of NRC requirements as set forth below.
The inspection report was
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sent to you on May 30, 1990.
On June 15, 1990, an enforcement conference was conducted with Mr. W. Romberg and other members of your staff to discuss the violation, its causes and your corrective actions.
The violation, which is described in the enclosed Notice of Violation and Proposed Imposition of Civil Penalty, occurred on May 7, 1990 when a Trans-nuclear, TN-RAM shipping cask containing approximately 16,000 curies of waste irradiated hardware (sheared control rod blades and power range monitors) was L
delivered to a carrier for transport to Barnwell, South Carolina.
This waste had previously been stored in the Unit 1 Spent Fuel Pool. On May 9, 1990, while the cask was being prepared for offloading at the waste facility, approximately 75 gallons of contaminated water spilled from the cask resulting
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i in the contamination of the offloading equipment and the surrounding ground area.
Subsequently, when the cask was completely dewatered at the waste facility, it was found to have contained approximately 196 gallons of slightly contaminated water (approximately 40*4 of the total cask volume).
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The NRC is concerned that prior to the release of the shipping cask to the l-carrier for offsite shipment, adequate management and procedural controls were l
not in place to ensure that the cask was properly dewatered and dried.
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Specifically, although the vendor procedure utilized for conducting the
" dryness verification" of the cask was reviewed and approved by the Plant Operating Review Committee (PORC), the procedure was inadequate in that (1) it did not contain a method for quantifying the amount of water drained from the cask; and (2) there was a discrepancy between the Safety Analysis Report (SAR)
for the cask and the procedure, and this discrepancy resulted in vague OFFICIAL RECORD COPY CP PKG MILLSTONE TRANS-1 - 0001.0.0 07/19/90 9008070136 900~/23 PDR ADOCK G5000245
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Northeast Nuclear Energy Company-2-acceptance criteria for the " dryness verification" test being incorporated into the procedure.
Specifically, the SAR called for the test to be conducted at a vacuum of tes mbar, while the procedure soecified a " minimum" vacuum of ten mbar. This change from the SAR required value resulted in the test being conducted at whatever value above ten mbar the operator chose, and led to an inaccurate interpretation of the test results by the operator.
If these deficiencies in the procedure had been identified and corrected, you would likely have recognized that there was still a significant amount of water in the cask before releasing it to the carrier for transport.
In addition, when planning for this evolution, you did not adequately consider the possibility of the cask drain lines becoming blocked by particulates during the draining of the cask.
The NRC is particularly concerned that this incident represents another example of a recent trend at M111storie involving management's failure to ensure that adequate overs 1 ht and controls are provided during the handling of radioactive
material (including the preparation of packages containing radioactive material for offsite shipment and disposal) so that these activities are performed safely and in accordance with regulatory requirements. A transportation violation occurred in September 1989 (Inspection Report Nos. 50-245/89-23; 50-336/89-22;
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and 50-423/89-23) in which an offsite shipment was made with radiation levels
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measured at the surface of the package in excess of the regulatory limits.
On August 31, 1989, a $25,000 civil penalty was issued to you for transportation
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violations that resulted from your loss of control of radioactive material (Reference EA 89-124). On March 30, 't990, a $3,750 civil penalty was issued to you as the result of the shipment of a package containing radioactive materials
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to another nuclear facility with surface radiation levels on a portion of the package in excess of regulatory limits (Reference EA 90-023).
Neither your corrective actions for these incidents nor your previous p*ogrammatic enhancements in the radioactive materials handling area were sufficiently comprehensive to prevent this most recent violation.
Accordingly, the need exists for increased and improved management oversight of activities involving the handling and transportation of radioactive materials to prevent recurrence of such violations in the future. To emphasize this
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need, I have been authorized, after consultation with the Director, Office of Enforcement, and the Deputy Executive Director for Nuclear Materials Safety, Safeguards and Operations Support, to issue the enc'osed Notice of Violation and Proposed Imposition of Civil Penalty in the amrunt of $50,000 for the violation described in the enclosed Notice.
In accordance with the " General Statement of Policy and Procedure for NRC E:,forceaent Actions," 10 CFR Part 2, Appendix C (1990) (Enforcement Policy), the violetion has been categorized at Severity Level III.
The base civil penalty for a Severity Level III violation involving transporta-tion of greater than Type A quantities is $50,000.
The escalation and miti-gation factors set forth in the Enforcement Policy were considered in determining the amount of this civil penalty. Mitigation of the base civil penalty by 50% was warranted due to your corrective actions subsequent to this event, including an independent and comprehensive review of all radioactive materials process procedures currently in use, as well as the development of a procedure / checklist to provide detailed technical analysis of process control procedures for future transportation activities.
Escalation of the base amount of the civil penalty by 50*4 was warranted because of your recent poor 0FFICIAL RECORD COPY CP PKG MILLSTONE TRANS-1 - 0002.0.0 07/19/90
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Northeast Nuclear Energy Company-3-performance in the area of transportation, as described above. Your overall good performance at Millstone was considered in making the decision not to escalate the base civil penalty a full 100*4 for this factor.
Further mitigation
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for identification of the violation was not warranted because the violation was discovered by an employee at the Low Level Waste Disposal Site, not by the members of your staff. The remaining escalation and mitigation factors were considered and no further adjustment of the civil penalty was deemed appropriate.
Therefore, on balance, a $50,000 civil penalty is being proposed.
The NRC recognizes that, as a result of this incident, the State of South Carolina issued a $6,000 civil penalty to you on May 16, 1990 and suspended your South Carolina Waste Transport Permit until you demonstrated compliance with state and federal laws.
Notwithstanding this action by the State of South Carolina, the NRC has decided that further action by the NRC is warranted in view of your recent poor performance in the radioactive materials handling and transportation areas.
You are required to respond to this letter and should follow the instructions specified in the enclosed Notice when preparing your response.
In your response, you should document the specific actions taken and any additional actions you plan to prevent recurrence. After reviewing your response to this Notice, including your proposed corrective actions, the NRC will determine whether further enforcement action is necessary to ensure compliuce with NRC regulatory requirements.
In accordance with Se: tion 2.790 of the NRC's " Rules of Practice" Part 2, Title 10 Code of Federal Regulations, a copy of this letter and its enclosure will be placed in the NRC Public Document Room.
The responses directed by this letter and the enclosed Notice are not subject to the clearance procedur's of the Office of Management and Budget as required by the Paperworh Reduction Act of 1980, Pub. L.96-511.
Sincerely
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[ original signed by W. F. Kane]
l Thomas T. Martin l
Regional Administrator Enclosure: Notice of Violation and Proposed Imposition of Civil Penalty
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cc w/ enc 1:
W. D. Romberg, Vice President, Nuclear Operations S. E. Scace, Station Superintendent D. O. Nordquist, Director of Quality Services R. M. Kacich, Manager, Generation Facilities Licensing D. B. Miller, Station Superintendent, Haddam Neck Gerald Garfield, Esquire Public Document Room (PDR)
Local Public Document Room (LPDR)
Nuclear Safety Information Center (NSIC)
NRC Resident Inspector State of Connecticut 0FFICIAL RECORD COPY CP PKG MILLSTONE TRANS-1 - 0003.0.0 07/19/90
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Northeast Nuclear Energy Company DISTRIBUTION:
Region I Docket Room (with concurrences)
Management Assistant, DRMA (w/o enc 1)
DRP Section Chief
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Robert J. Bores, DRSS
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SECY J. Taylor, EDO H Thompson, DEDS J. Lieberman, OE T. Martin, RI J. Partlow, NRR D. Holody, EO J. Goldberg, OGC Enforcement Directors, RII-III Enforcement Officers, RIV-V E. Jordan, AEOD D. Williams, IG B. !iayes, 01 OE Chron OE/EA(2)
D. Rosano, OE DCS R. Capra, NRR F. Ingram, GPA/PA
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