IR 05000282/2012001

Annual Assessment Letter for Prairie Island Nuclear Generating Plant, Units 1 and 2 (Report 05000282/2012001 and 05000306/2012001)

ML13060A115
Person / Time
Site:	Prairie Island
Issue date:	03/04/2013
From:	Shear G Division Reactor Projects III
To:	Jeffery Lynch Northern States Power Co
References
IR-12-001
Download: ML13060A115 (6)

Text

UNITED STATES March 4, 2013

SUBJECT:

ANNUAL ASSESSMENT LETTER FOR PRAIRIE ISLAND NUCLEAR GENERATING PLANT, UNITS 1 AND 2 (REPORT 05000282/2012001 AND 05000306/2012001)

Dear Mr. Lynch:

On February 12, 2013, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) completed its end-of-cycle performance review of Prairie Island Nuclear Generating Plant, Units 1 and 2. The NRC reviewed the most recent quarterly performance indicators (PIs) in addition to inspection results and enforcement actions from January 1, 2012 through December 31, 2012. This letter informs you of the NRCs assessment of your facility during this period and its plans for future inspections at your facility.

The NRC determined that overall, Prairie Island Unit 1 operated in a manner that preserved public health and safety and met all cornerstone objectives. The NRC determined the performance of Unit 1 during the most recent quarter was within the Licensee Response Column of the NRC's Reactor Oversight Process (ROP) Action Matrix because all inspection findings had very low (i.e., green) safety significance, and all PIs indicated that your performance was within the nominal, expected range (i.e., green).

Therefore, the NRC plans to conduct ROP baseline inspections for Unit 1.

Although plant performance was within the Licensee Response Column for Unit 1, the NRC has not yet finalized the significance of apparent violation 05000282/2012504-01, Degraded Emergency Action Level Scheme. The final safety significance determination may affect the NRCs assessment of plant performance and the enclosed inspection plan.

The NRC determined the performance of Prairie Island Unit 2 during the most recent quarter was within the Regulatory Response Column of the NRC's ROP Action Matrix because of one low-to-moderate safety significant (White) PI for Emergency Alternating Current Power Systems in the Mitigating Systems Performance Index. Therefore, in addition to the ROP baseline inspection, the NRC plans to conduct a supplemental inspection to address the performance issues associated with this PI. The inspection will be conducted in accordance with Inspection Procedure 95001, Supplemental Inspection for One or Two White Inputs in a Strategic Performance Area. In the mid-cycle assessment letter dated September 4, 2012 (ML12249A425), the NRC opened a substantive cross-cutting issue (SCCI) associated with the aspect of Conservative Assumptions (H.1 (b)).

This assessment letter stated that the SCCI will remain open until the number of findings with a cross-cutting aspect of H.1 (b) is reduced, the corrective actions taken to mitigate the cross-cutting theme prove effective, and sustained performance improvement is observed in the human performance area.

During the current assessment period, the number of findings with the cross-cutting aspect H.1(b) have been reduced to less than four. To address the SCCI, your staff performed a root cause evaluation and developed corrective actions. However, as of the end of the assessment period, not all of the proposed corrective actions were completed and no effectiveness review of those completed corrective actions has been performed. Therefore, the SCCI will remain open until the corrective actions taken to mitigate the cross-cutting theme prove effective and sustained performance improvement is observed in the human performance area. This is the second consecutive assessment letter documenting this SCCI. The NRC will continue to monitor your staffs effort and progress in addressing the SCCI by evaluating your corrective action program, the root cause evaluation for the SCCI, and performance improvement initiatives to adequately assess if positive results are obtained.

The enclosed inspection plan lists the inspections scheduled through December 31, 2014. Routine inspections performed by resident inspectors are not included in the inspection plan. The inspections listed during the last twelve months of the inspection plan are tentative and may be revised at the mid-cycle performance review. The NRC provides the inspection plan to allow for the resolution of any scheduling conflicts and personnel availability issues. The NRC will contact you as soon as possible to discuss changes to the inspection plan should circumstances warrant any changes. This inspection plan does not include security related inspections, which will be sent via separate, non-publicly available correspondence.

We also plan on conducting Inspection Procedure 71003, Post-Approval Site Inspection for License Renewal at your facility.

In accordance with 10 CFR 2.390 of the NRC's "Rules of Practice," a copy of this letter and its enclosure, will be available electronically for public inspection in the NRC Public Document Room or from the Publicly Available Records System (PARS) component of NRC's Agencywide Documents Access and Management System (ADAMS), accessible from the NRC Web site at http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html (the Public Electronic Reading Room). Please contact Kenneth Riemer at 630-829-9628 with any questions you may have regarding this letter.

Sincerely,

/RA/

Gary L. Shear, Acting Director Division of Reactor Projects Docket Nos. 50-282, 50-306 and 72-010 License Nos. DPR-42, DPR-60 and SNM-2506 Enclosure: Prairie Island Nuclear Generating Plant Inspection/Activity Plan cc w/encl: Distribution via ListServ'