ML030850203

E-mail S. Long, NRR, to B. Wetzel, NRR, Fwd Davis Besse & INES Rating W/Att e-mal 03/14/02 S. Long, NRR, to B. Wetzel, NRR, Lochbaum'S e-mail Dropped Acid at Davis Besse

ML030850203
Person / Time
Site:	Davis Besse
Issue date:	03/14/2002
From:	Long S Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation
To:	Wetzel B Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation
References
FOIA/PA-2003-0018
Download: ML030850203 (4)

Text

aeg 1A From: Steven Long To: Beth Wetzel Date: 3/14/02 9.26AM

Subject:

Re: Fwd: Davis Besse & INES Rating Beth, I did see it and sent the attached comment to Ken. thanks for thinking of me; sorry I didn't do the same for you. Steve

/

Steveni L~ong - Fwd. Lochbau6s E-mal uDropped Acid'at Dav's-Besse Page 1a From: Steven Long To: Beth Wetzel, Douglas Pickett, Stephen Sands; Steven Bloom Date: 3/14/02 3:31PM

Subject:

Fwd Lochbaum's E-mail "Dropped Acid at Davis-Besse" CC: Allen Hiser; Andrea Lee; Bill Bateman; Jack Strosnider; Kenneth Karwoski; Richard Barrett

SStvenL:o ng-_, Dr p ed A id-at Davis-Besse .....

. I From: "Dave Lochbaum" <Ilochbaum@ucsusa org>

To: <OPA3@nrc.gov>

Date: 3/13/02 8:26AM

Subject:

Dropped Acid at Davis-Besse Attached is the NRC's Preliminary Notification of Occurrence on the acid dropped at the Davis-Besse nuclear plant.

Last year, the NRC required all potentially vulnerable plants to inspect their CRDM nozzles by the end of 2001. The folks at Davis-Besse urged the NRC to allow them to run until their normally scheduled outage this spring The NRC turned a blind-eye to safety and permitted it on the flimiest of lame excuses Davis-Besse inspected and found 5 of the 19 CRDM nozzles cracked.

The cracks on two of the nozzles were so bad that borated water leaked out When the water evaporated, the result was boric acid. This acid ate a 4" by 4" by 6" hole in the reactor vessel. Only 3/8" of metal prevented a loss of coolant accident larger than seen at Thee Mile Island.

There's no question that the NRC will turn a blind-eye to safety again and allow Davis-Besse to restart with only band-aid fixes to its badly broken reactor vessel The only question is whether the NRC will use the same eye or use the other eye this time Dave Lochbaum Nuclear Safety Engineer Union of Concerned Scientists 1707 H Street NW Suite 600 Washington, DC 20006-3962 (202) 223-6133 x1 13 (202) 223-6162 fax

SStevenLong~

- al-es-as-n d Page I March 8, 2002 PRELIMINARY NOTIFICATION OF EVENT OR UNUSUAL OCCURRENCE -- PNO-III-02-006 This preliminary notification constitutes EARLY notice of events of POSSIBLE safety or public interest significance The information is as initially received without verification or evaluation, and is basically all that is known by the Region Ill staff on this date Facilit y Licensee Emergency Classification Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Plant Notification of Unusual Event FirstEnergy Corporation -Alert Oak Harbor, Ohio -Site Area Emergency Docket 50-346 General Emergency x Not Applicable

SUBJECT:

SIGNIFICANT METAL LOSS OBSERVED IN REACT OR VESSEL HEAD DESCRIPTION:

During recent ultrasonic examination of vessel head penetration (VHP) nozzles required by NRC Bulletin 2001- 01 "Circumferential Cracking of Reactor Pressure Vessel Head Penetration Nozzles," dated August 3, 2001, the licensee identified that five VHP nozzles required repair due to cracking in the nozzle adjacent to the J-welds which attach the VHP nozzles to the vessel head The repair procedure involved machining the cracked portion of the tubes and placing a new weld between the tube and the vessel head On March 5, 2002. during VHP nozzle repair activities, the licensee identified an unexpected rotation and lateral movement of one of the nozzles during the machining operation On March 6, the licensee removed the VHP nozzle and discov ered significant metal loss in the head adjacent to the VHP nozzle The area of the metal loss is not easily observable because of permanent insulation on the exterior of the vessel head The licensee has begun to assess the extent of the damage and has formed a root cause team to investigate the cause of this phenomenon Repair or replacem ent options are being consider ed The resident inspect ors are monitoring the licensee's ongoing assessm ent activities Region Ill (Chicago) will conduct follow-up inspect ions which will focus on extent of condition, causal factors, and repair or replacem ent activities.

The reactor is currently in a refueling outage, in Mode 6 (Refueling), and depressurized.

The State of Ohio will be notified The information in this preliminary notification has been reviewed with licensee management There has been news media interest in the licensee's VHP nozzle inspect ion activities This information is current as of 4 00 p m (CST) on March 8, 2002 CONTACTS:

Melvin Holm berg John Jacobson 630/829- 9748 6301 829- 9736