ML033070402
| ML033070402 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Nine Mile Point  (DPR-063, NPF-069) |
| Issue date: | 12/10/2003 |
| From: | Tam P NRC/NRR/DLPM/LPD1 |
| To: | Katz P Nine Mile Point |
| Tam P, NRR/DLPM, 415-1451 | |
| References | |
| TAC MB9723, TAC MB9724 | |
| Download: ML033070402 (8) | |
Text
December 10, 2003 Mr. Peter E. Katz Vice President Nine Mile Point Nine Mile Point Nuclear Station, LLC P.O. Box 63 Lycoming, NY 13093
SUBJECT:
NINE MILE POINT NUCLEAR STATION (NMPNS) UNIT NOS. 1 AND 2 - AUDIT OF THE LICENSEES MANAGEMENT OF REGULATORY COMMITMENTS (TAC NOS. MB9723 AND MB9724)
Dear Mr. Katz:
On May 27, 2003, the Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation Office Instruction LIC-105, Managing Regulatory Commitments Made by Licensees to the NRC [Nuclear Regulatory Commission], was published. LIC-105, which is publicly available electronically from the Agencywide Documents Access and Management Systems (ADAMS) Public Electronic Reading Room on the Internet at the NRC web site (Accession Number ML022750041),
provides the NRC staff and its stakeholders with a common reference for handling regulatory commitments made by licensees for commercial nuclear reactors to the NRC staff. The guidance is consistent with the industry guidance prepared by the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI), NEI 99-04, Guidance for Managing NRC Commitment Changes. LIC-105 specifies that once every 3 years, the NRC staff will audit a licensees commitment management program.
An audit of NMPNSs commitment management program was performed onsite and in the NRC office. The NRC staff concludes that, based on the audit (1) NMPNS had implemented NRC commitments on a timely basis; and (2) NMPNSs program for managing NRC commitment changes is effective. Details of the audit are set forth in the enclosed audit report.
Sincerely,
/RA/
Peter S. Tam, Senior Project Manager, Section 1 Project Directorate I Division of Licensing Project Management Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation Docket Nos. 50-220 and 50-410
Enclosure:
As stated cc w/encl: See next page
ML033070402 OFFICE PDI-1\\PM PDI-1\\LA PDI-1\\SC NAME PTam SLittle RLaufer DATE 11/14/03 11/13/03 12/03/03
Enclosure AUDIT REPORT BY THE OFFICE OF NUCLEAR REACTOR REGULATION (NRR)
REGULATORY COMMITMENTS MADE BY THE LICENSEE TO THE NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION (NRC)
NINE MILE POINT NUCLEAR STATION (NMPNS), UNIT NOS. 1 AND 2 DOCKET NOS. 50-220 AND 50-410
1.0 INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND
On May 27, 2003, the NRR Office Instruction LIC-105, Managing Regulatory Commitments Made by Licensees to the NRC, was published. LIC-105, which is publicly available electronically from the Agencywide Documents Access and Management Systems (ADAMS)
Public Electronic Reading Room on the Internet at the NRC web site (Accession Number ML022750041), provides the NRC staff and its stakeholders with a common reference for handling regulatory commitments made by licensees for commercial nuclear reactors to the NRC staff. The guidance is consistent with the industry guidance prepared by the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI), NEI 99-04, Guidance for Managing NRC Commitment Changes.
According to LIC-105, a regulatory commitment as defined in NEI 99-04 and also for the NRC staff, is an explicit statement to take a specific action agreed to, or volunteered by, a licensee and submitted in writing on the docket to the NRC. LIC-105 further directs the NRR Project Manager to audit the licensees commitment management program by assessing the adequacy of the licensees implementation of a sample of commitments made to the NRC in past licensing actions (amendments, reliefs, exemptions, etc.) and activities (bulletins, generic letters, etc.). The audit is to be performed every 3 years.
2.0 AUDIT PROCEDURE AND RESULTS Since no such audit was performed before issuance of LIC-105, the NRC staff defined the period covered by this audit to go back approximately 3 years from the date of the audit. The audit was performed onsite on October 15, 2003; in-office work was performed before and after the audit.
2.1 Verification of Licensees Implementation of NRC Commitments The primary focus of this part of the audit is to confirm that the licensee has implemented those commitments made to the NRC as part of past licensing actions/activities.
2.1.1 Audit Scope NMPNS commitments are computerized under the title Nuclear Commitment Tracking System (NCTS). The NCTS database can be sorted to produce a variety of reports. The NRC staff reviewed a computer-generated report listing an estimate of thousands of commitments made over the last several years and selected a number of items to be audited. However, LIC-105 limits the audit of commitments to those made in writing to the NRC as a result of past licensing actions (amendments, exemptions, etc.) or licensing activities (bulletin, generic letter, etc.).
Accordingly, the overwhelming majority of the commitments listed in NMPNSs NCTS do not qualify as commitments as defined in LIC-105, and were thus not audited for one or more of the following reasons:
(1)
Commitments as a result of Licensee Event Reports (LER)s - These commitments constitute a large portion of the licensees NCTS listing. These commitments are controlled by the licensees LER process, which is imposed by Title 10 of the Code of Federal Regulations (10 CFR) Section 50.73.
(2)
Commitments made on the licensees own initiative among internal organizational components.
(3)
Commitments that pertain to milestones of licensing actions/activities (e.g., respond to an NRC request for additional information by a certain date). Fulfillment of these commitments was indicated by the fact that the subject licensing action/activity was completed.
(4)
Commitments made as an internal reminder to take actions to comply with existing regulatory requirements such as regulations, Technical Specifications, and Updated Final Safety Analysis Reports (UFSARs). Fulfillment of these commitments was indicated by the licensee having taken timely action in accordance with the subject requirements.
Instead of using the licensees NCTS database to identify audit items, the NRC staff searched the licensees licensing action and licensing activity submittals dated in the last 3 years. The NRC staff found that commitments meeting the definition in LIC-105 are few in number. Table 1 lists most, if not all, of the licensees commitments.
2.1.2 Audit Results The licensees NCTS can produce a report on each commitment. Each report is identified by a commitment number. The NRC staff reviewed the reports for each of the commitments listed in Table 1 to evaluate the status of completion of various components of each commitment. In general, each commitment comprises multiple components, such as revising appropriate plant procedures, revising appropriate sections of the UFSAR, revising training manuals, and training personnel. The NRC staff reviewed the information associated with each commitment to determine the status of completion. The NRC staff found that the licensees NCTS captured all the regulatory commitments that were identified by the NRC staff before the audit.
The NRC staff also reviewed other sources of information, in particular licensee submittals, to verify implementation of commitments. The review results are shown in the last column on the right of Table 1, where appropriate.
Table 1 summarizes what the NRC staff observed as the current status of licensee commitments. The NRC staff has no basis to dispute the implementation status of these regulatory commitments.
2.2 Verification of the Licensees Program for Managing NRC Commitment Changes The NRC staff reviewed the licensees procedure entitled Interface with the NRC, NIP-IRG-01, Revision 22, against the NEI guidance identified as Guidelines for Managing NRC Commitment Changes, July 1999. In particular, in regards to managing a change or deviation from a previously completed commitment, Subsection 3.7.4 specifically refers to the guidance of NEI-99-04. In general, NIP-IRG-01 follows the guidance of NEI-99-04: it defines NRC commitment similar to regulatory commitment is defined in the latter, it identifies persons responsible for managing and tracking commitments, it sets forth the need for identifying, tracking and reporting commitment, and it provides a mechanism for changing commitments.
The effectiveness of a procedure can be indicated by the products that are produced by the procedure. As set forth in Section 2.1 above, the NRC staff found that the licensee had properly addressed each regulatory commitment selected for this audit. As a result of review of the licensees NCTS information, as well as information from other sources, the NRC staff found no reason to differ from the licensees reported status of the audited commitments.
Thus, the NRC staff surmises that the procedure used by the licensee to manage commitments is appropriate and effective.
3.0 CONCLUSION
The NRC staff concludes that, based on the above audit, (1) the licensee had implemented NRC commitments on a timely basis; and (2) the licensees program for managing NRC commitment changes is effective.
4.0 LICENSEE PERSONNEL CONTACTED FOR THIS AUDIT S. Leonard, Licensing Supervisor K. Embrey, Licensing Engineer Principal Contributor: P. S. Tam Date: December 10, 2003 TABLE 1 AUDITED: WRITTEN COMMITMENTS AND RELATED INFORMATION (1999 THROUGH 2003)
NMPNS NRC TAC NRC Summary of Commitment Imple.
Submittal Number Issuance Status*
6/7/02, NMP2L 2061 MB5276 Amend. No. 106, 8/9/02, for Unit 2 Establish contingency plans in procedures to obtain and analyze highly radioactive samples; develop capability to classify fuel damage events; develop capability to monitor radioactive iodine species.
Complete (Commitment No. 504480) 6/28/02, NMP1L 1671 MB5272 Amend. No. 174, 8/26/02, for Unit 1 Establish contingency plans in procedures to obtain and analyze highly radioactive samples; develop capability to classify fuel damage events; develop capability to monitor radioactive iodine species.
Complete (Commitment No. 504482) 10/7/02, NMP1L 1693 MB6421 Amend. No. 182, 6/3/03, for Unit 1 Establish Technical Specification (TS) Bases to reflect the amendment regarding missed surveillances.
- Complete, letter NMP1L
- 1782, 10/23/03 (Commitment No. 504491) 2/3/03, NMP2L 2082 MB7331 Amend. No. 108, 2/21/03, for Unit 2 Repair or replace the vacuum breaker 21SC*RV36B test cylinder before or during Refueling Outage 9, and resume testing per SR 3.6.1.7.2.
Complete (Commitment No. 504501) 6/24/02, NMP2L 2064 MB5271 Amend. No. 107, 10/2/02, for Unit 2 Establish TS Bases for Surveillance Requirement 3.0.3 (regarding missed surveillance) to reflect the requested amendment.
Complete (Commitment No. 504481) 11/15/02, NMP1L 1697 MB6687 Amend. No. 183, 10/27/03, for Unit 1 Submit the report on RPV neutron fluence benchmark measurements by 1/15/03.
- Complete, letters NMP1L 1708, 1/15/03; NMP1L1773 (9/15/03)
(Commitment No. 504508) 9/3/03, NMP2L 2099 MC0623 (Under review)
Establish the TS Bases as adopted with the amendment (regarding mode change limitations).
Ongoing (Commitment No. 504514)
- Implementation status as shown in the licensees NCTS database, or other documents.
Nine Mile Point Nuclear Station, Unit Nos. 1 and 2 cc:
Regional Administrator, Region I U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission 475 Allendale Road King of Prussia, PA 19406 Resident Inspector U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission P.O. Box 126 Lycoming, NY 13093 Supervisor Town of Scriba Route 8, Box 382 Oswego, NY 13126 Mr. James R. Evans LIPA P.O. Box 129 Lycoming, NY 10393 Charles Donaldson, Esquire Assistant Attorney General New York Department of Law 120 Broadway New York, NY 10271 Mr. Paul D. Eddy Electric Division NYS Department of Public Service Agency Building 3 Empire State Plaza Albany, NY 12223 C. Adrienne Rhodes Chairman and Executive Director State Consumer Protection Board 5 Empire State Plaza, Suite 2101 Albany, NY 12223-1556 Mark J. Wetterhahn, Esquire Winston & Strawn 1400 L Street, NW Washington, DC 20005-3502 Mr. Michael J. Wallace President Nine Mile Point Nuclear Station, LLC c/o Constellation Energy Group, Inc.
750 East Pratt Street Baltimore, MD 21202 Mr. James M. Petro, Jr., Esquire Counsel Constellation Energy Group 750 East Pratt Street, 5th Floor Baltimore, MD 21202 Mr. Peter R. Smith, Acting President New York State Energy, Research, and Development Authority 17 Columbia Circle Albany, NY 12203-6399