IR 05000255/2003001

Annual Assessment Letter - Palisades Nuclear Plant. (Report 05000255-03-001)

ML030640425
Person / Time
Site:	Palisades
Issue date:	03/04/2003
From:	Grant G Division Reactor Projects III
To:	Cooper D Nuclear Management Co
References
IR-03-001
Download: ML030640425 (8)

Text

rch 4, 2003

SUBJECT:

ANNUAL ASSESSMENT LETTER - PALISADES NUCLEAR PLANT (REPORT 50-255/03-01)

Dear Mr. Cooper:

On February 11, 2003, the NRC staff completed its end-of-cycle plant performance assessment of Palisades Nuclear Generating Plant. The end-of-cycle review for Palisades involved the participation of all technical divisions in evaluating performance indicators (PIs) for the most recent quarter and inspection results for the period from January 1, 2002, through December 31, 2002.

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 that may conflict with your plant activities.

Overall, Palisades 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 Licensee Response Column of the NRCs Action Matrix, based on all inspection findings being classified as having very low safety significance (Green) and all PIs indicating performance at a level requiring no additional NRC oversight (Green).

While plant performance for the most recent two quarters was within the licensee response column of the Action Matrix, plant performance in the first two quarters (01/01/02 - 06/30/02) was in the Regulatory Response Column of the Action Matrix. This was based on a WHITE inspection finding in the Mitigating Systems Cornerstone that was identified in the third quarter of 2001, and based on a WHITE Drill/Exercise Performance Indicator in the first quarter of the assessment period (01/01/02 - 03/31/02). Regarding the White inspection finding, the NRC conducted a supplemental inspection in July 2002 and determined that your corrective actions appeared reasonable to prevent recurrence. In February 2003, the NRC conducted a supplemental inspection for the WHITE Drill/Exercise Performance Indicator. The results of this inspection will be transmitted to you by separate correspondence.

In our annual assessment letter dated March 4, 2002, we advised you of a substantive cross-cutting issue in the areas of Human Performance, and Problem Identification and Resolution.

During this assessment period the NRC conducted inspections of your performance in these

areas and noted improvement. Regarding human performance, we noted that you have completed extensive corrective actions and no findings involving human performance as a cross-cutting issue have been identified since the first quarter of the assessment cycle. As a result, this area is no longer considered to be a substantive cross-cutting issue. However, problem identification and resolution will continue to be a substantive cross-cutting issue. Though some improvement has been observed in this performance area, we continue to identify findings involving corrective action implementation issues. Also, some corrective action program improvements have only recently been implemented and therefore their effectiveness could not be fully assessed.

The enclosed inspection plan details the inspections scheduled through March 31, 2004. In addition, we also plan to conduct inspections of your independent spent fuel storage facility. The specific dates of this inspection will be coordinated with your staff. The inspection plan is provided to minimize the resource impact on your staff and to allow for scheduling conflicts and 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 inspections in the last 6 months of the inspection plan are tentative and may be revised at the mid-cycle review meeting.

As you are aware, since the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, the NRC has issued several Orders and threat advisories to enhance security capabilities and improve guard force readiness.

We have conducted inspections to review your implementation of these requirements and have monitored your actions in response to changing threat conditions. For calendar year 2003, we plan to continue these inspections, conduct portions of the security baseline inspection program, as well as perform additional inspections to evaluate your compliance with new requirements that may be ordered. Based on our final determinations in this regard, we will notify you of any inspection plan changes.

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/reading-rm/adams.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 me at 630-829-9600 with any questions you may have regarding this letter or the inspection plan.

Sincerely,

/RA/

Geoffrey E. Grant, Director Division of Reactor Projects Docket Nos. 50-255 License Nos. DPR-20 Enclosure: Palisades Inspection/Activity Plan cc w/encl: R. Fenech, Senior Vice President, Nuclear Fossil and Hydro Operations L. Lahti, Manager, Licensing R. Anderson, Chief Nuclear Officer, NMC A. Udrys, Esquire, Consumers Energy Company S. Wawro, Nuclear Asset Director, Consumers Energy Company W. Rendell, Supervisor, Covert Township Office of the Governor Michigan Department of Environmental Quality Department of Attorney General (MI)

The Honorable George Sink L. Nielsen, City Manager of Bangor The Honorable Ted Johnson P. Munich, City Manager of Hartford The Honorable David Paull A. Vanderberg, City Manager of South Haven K. Higgs, Administrator, Allegan County Courthouse B. Koops, Allegan County Sheriff B. Brunett, Allegan County Emergency Management Coordinator J. M. Henry, Berrien County Coordinator L. P. Bailey, Berrien County Sheriff M. Bradley, Berrien County Emergency Management D. Hanson, Van Buren County Board Chairman D. R. Gribler, Van Buren County Sheriff Sergeant Alaine Svilpe, Van Buren County Emergency Preparedness Coordinator The Honorable Daniel P. Schofield, Jr.

The Honorable Patricia Beezley INPO