IR 05000333/1993027
| ML20058B628 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | FitzPatrick  |
| Issue date: | 11/09/1993 |
| From: | Bores R, Joseph Furia NRC OFFICE OF INSPECTION & ENFORCEMENT (IE REGION I) |
| To: | |
| Shared Package | |
| ML20058B614 | List: |
| References | |
| 50-333-93-27, NUDOCS 9312020148 | |
| Download: ML20058B628 (1) | |
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U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
REGION I
Report No.
50-333/93 22 Docket No.
50-333 Licensc No.
DPR-59 Licensee:
New York Power Authority Post Office Box 41 Lycoming. New York 13093 Facility Name:
James A. FitzPatrick Nuclear Power Plant inspection At:
Lycoming. New York Inspection Conducted:
November 1-5. 1993 O(
Inspector:
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ah/U J. Futih, Senior Radiation Specialist date Facilities Radiation Protection Section (FRPS)
Facilities Radiological Safety and Safeguards lf Branch (FRSSB), Division of Radiation Safety and Safeguards (DRSS)
Approved by:
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R. Bores,4hief, FRPS, FRSSB, DRSS date
Areas Insoected: Areas examined during this inspection are important to health and safety
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and included: radiation protection during a maintenance outage; maintaining occupational exposures as low as reasonably achievable (ALARA); and receipt of radioactive materials.
Within the areas reviewed, the inspection consisted of selective examinations of procedures
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i and representative records, interviews with personnel, and observations by the inspector.
Results: Generally good performance in the areas of maintaining occupational exposure ALARA and in the control of work in radiologically controlled areas was observed.
One violation and several minor weaknesses were also identified, which were promptly resolved by the licensee's staff. Due to the low safety significance of the violation and the prompt action to correct it, the violation was not cited, in accordance with the NRC Enforcement Policy. However, one of the weaknesses relates to an issue previously identified by the NRC involving the sometimes inappropriate activation of flashing lights used to alert workers to high radiation areas. This matter, which is discussed in Section 2.2,
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deserves licensee attention.
l 9312O20148 931115 PDR ADOCK 050003331
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i DETAILS I
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1.0 Pemnne! Contacted
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1.1 Licensee Personnel
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- R. Barrett, General Manager - Operations T. Bergene, ALARA Supervisor
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- M. Colomb, Geneml Manager - Support Services
- R. Converse, NYPA Administration
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J. Gnojek, Radiation Proection Technician
- J. Hoddy, Licensing Engineer i
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- D. Lindsey, General Manager - Maintenance
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- J. McCarty, Senior Quality Engineer
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- M. McMahon, Health Physics General Supervisor i
T. Phelps, Radiation Protection Supervisor i'
- H. Salmon, Resident Manager J. Sipp, Radiological and Environmental Services Manager
- J. Solini, Radiological Engineering General Supervisor i
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J. Solowski, Radiation Protection Supervisor
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- G. Tasick, Nuclear Quality Assumsce A. Young, Decontamination and Shipping Supenisor i
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- A. Zaremba, ORG Manager 1.2 NRC Personnel
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J. Tappert, Resident Inspector
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- Denotes those present at the exit inteniew on November 5,1993.
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2.0 Radiation Protection Proeram On Octobcr 23,1993, the license entered a mid-cycle maintenance outage, which -
included work activities throughout the radiologically controlled area, including the drywell. No fuel movements or reactor disassembly were2 included in this outage.
In addition to the maintenance outage, the licensee continued with a fuel pool clean-up project begun in the late summer of 1993.
2.1 Maintainine Occupational Exoosure ALARA For the maintenance outage the licensee established a goal of not more than 42.995 rem total occupational exposure. Significant radiological work activities to be performed included replacement of the "K" Safety Relief Valve (K-SRV), located in the drywell, snubber inspections throughout the plant, and local leak rate testing (LLRT) on the Reactor Core Isolation Cooling (RCIC) system. Due to the nature of the outage schedule, most of the significant radiological work was scheduled for
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completion within the first two weeks of the outage. Through November 4th, most of the major activities including work on the K-SRV and the snubber inspections were i
at or near completion, with total occupational exposure less than that anticipated. The two principal reasons given by the licensee for this were improved work planning and lower than anticipated dose rates in the drywell.
The licensee has spent considerable time and effort since the plant was shut down in 1992 on significantly improving its normal and outage work planning activities.
Included in this program improvement has been the placement of several members of
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the ALARA staff into the work control center, which led to significantly earlier ALARA input into work activities. In addition, radiological work control via the radiation protection staff has also been improved through this early planning process that allows for greater planning in the distribution of radiation protection technicians in support of the scheduled work activities. For example, in evaluating valve testing and rebuilding schedules for certain areas of the Reactor Building, the ALARA group
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determined that not placing shadow shielding in the work areas would be a greater dose savings than shielding the areas, due to the small amount of time to be spent in the area, as determined by the work scheduling system. Previous outages would have had the shielding placed near these work areas. In addition, the shielding installation would not have been scheduled, and thus its installation would have delayed the
performance of the valve maintenance, as no one in either the ALARA or Radiation Protection groups would have known of the valve work prior to maintenance personnel arriving at the access point on the day the job commenced.
General area dose rates in the drywell, after the placement of shadow shielding near some high dose rate piping, ranged from 20 milliroentgen per hour (20 mR/hr) on the 268' elevation to over 50 mR/hr in some locations on the 292' elevation. Most of the drywell work was scheduled for these two elevations only, and in the case of the 292'
elevation, working areas are generally small, as this level of the drywell is well packed with piping and valves. The dose rates measured were, however, lower than
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expected based on historical data, and appeared to reflect the 14-month shutdown of
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the plant that began in late 1991, and may also be somewhat attributable to the introduction of depleted zinc into the primary system begun in early 1993.
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Of additional note during this outage was the increased in-plant presence of ALARA personnel observing work in progress, and reviewing the successes and failures of ALARA initiatives in the plant. During previous outages, due in part to both poor j
outage planning, and the small size of the ALARA staffin earlier years, ALARA
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personnel rarely had the time to perform such observations. With the information obtained during this outage from these ALARA observations, the licensee planned to make further improvements in its outage planning and work activities, in anticipation of the Spring 1994 maintenance outage, and more importantly for the early 1995 i
refueling outag.
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2.2 Control of Radiological Work Activities As part of this inspection, several direct observations of work activities inside the RCA were conducted by the inspector. In general, all work was conducted in a professional manner, and monitored appropriately by the radiation protection staff.
As noted above, due in part to the significantly improved work planning for this outage, no backlogs of personnel or work were observed at the access point to the RCA. Radiation Protection penonnel were able to provide Radiation Work Permits to the work crews in a timely manner, and to provide appropriate job coverage to all work crews.
The most radiologically significant work activity observed was the replacement of the K-SRV on the 292' elevation of the drywell. General area dose rates in the work area were 20-30 mR/hr after shielding, and the inspector noted that all workers on
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this job were knowledgeable of the area dose rates and made efforts to keep their occupational exposure ALARA. Due in part to this sensitivity to their own occupational exposure, this job appeared likely to be completed at or below its established goal.
Work activities were also observed in the crescent area of the reactor building (valve work), in the general area of the Reactor Building (Reactor Building Closed Loop Cooling pipe replacement), and throughout the Turbine Building. In all cases,
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appropriate job coverage was provided by radiation protection technicians in accordance with plant procedures and the radiation work permits.
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During this inspection, licensee work in the spent fuel pool continued, as part of a large project that started in the summer of 1993. This project involves the removal of various pieces of irradiated hardware stored in the pool, including control rod blades and local power range monitor (LPRM) strings. During previous inspections, activities involved in the cut-up and placement of this material into liners were observed. During this inspection, while work on the refuel floor was limited,'
I observations of the licensee receiving a Type B shipping package, the TransNuclear TN-RAM cask { USA /9233/B(U)} were made. Due to the nature of this cask's use, i.e., its submergence in spent fuel pools in order to load its liness, cask weepage is of concern, and as such the licensee treats the cask as a contaminated object. The licensee was observed inspecting the cask upon receipt, removing the rain cover, j
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removing the impact limiters, and preparing the cask for lifting to the refuel floor.
All activities observed were conducted in a professional manner.
Several weaknesses were also observed during this inspection. Of most significance was the method by which the licensee maintained its drywell activities log. This log is required in accordance with pa agraph 6.1 of Radiation Protection Procedure (RPP)-14, "Drywell Access and Wed Control". The procedure requires, in part, that a drywell access log be maintained whenever work activities are being performed in
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the drywell, and that this log includes: (1) the RWP number of each work group entering the drywell; (2) documentation of technician coverage in accordance with radiation protection procedures; and, (3) air sample screen results, GeLi results when available on all air samples that screening priority is greater.than normal. A review of the drywell log being maintained for this maintenance outage indicated that the three items listed above were not always being entered into the log, and that this inconsistency was not identified during supervisory reviews of the log. Discussions.
with the Health Physics General Supervisor revealed that the information missing from the log was available in other formats, and that the problem was that RPP-14 had not been revised to reflect these changes. The following day, prior to the exit meeting, the Health Physics General Supervisor informed the inspector that a temporary change to RPP-14 had been prepared, and at the exit meeting the inspector was informed that this temporary change had been approved. Due to the lack of safety significance of this event, and the prompt corrective actions taken by the licensee, the use of enforcement discretion is warranted in this case, and no Notice of Violation is being issued.
In addition to the above, several other weaknesses were observed. Several areas of -
the plant, especially in the lower elevations of the Turbine Building, were determined to have less than adequate radiological housekeeping, including several instances of unsecured electrical wires entering contaminated areas, and two instances of -
contaminated areas being established without adequate posting of the area boundaries.
These items were brought to the licensee's attention, and appropriate corrective -
actions taken. One longer standing issue was once again identified by the inspector, that of alarm lights remaining active and flashing when areas no longer required them. The licensee installed these lights at the entmnces to many of its High Radiation Areas as an additional warning to radiation workers. During an outage, many of these areas are no longer High Radiation Areas, and are consequently downposted to just Radiation Areas, and their locked gates left open. In several instances, especially in the Turbine Building, the lights associated with these gates remain active, and thus when the gates are left open, they remain flashing. This tends to desensitize the plant workers to the significance of these lights. The inspector first brought this issue to the licensee's attention in October of 1992.
During this inspection, this issue was again raised, this time with the new Radiological and Environmental Services (RES) Manager, who also expressed concern over this matter. The RES Manager indicated that his investigation of this problem found that the cause was the way the electrical system was connected to these lights, _
and that a long-standing work order had been placed to have a modification to the electrical system made. Due to the prioritization of work orders at the plant, this work order still had not been started. The RES Manager indicated that he would be pushing for this work order to be upgraded in priority. The inspector will continue to follow this issu,
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3.0 Exit Interview The inspector met with the licensee representatives denoted in Section 1 at the conclusion of the inspection on November 5,1993. The inspector summarized the i
purpose, scope and fmdings of the inspection. The licensee acknowledged the
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findings of the inspection.
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