ML040220039
| ML040220039 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Oyster Creek |
| Issue date: | 01/22/2004 |
| From: | Tam P NRC/NRR/DLPM/LPD1 |
| To: | Skolds J AmerGen Energy Co |
| Tam P, NRR/DLPM, 415-1451 | |
| References | |
| TAC MB9725 | |
| Download: ML040220039 (11) | |
Text
January 22, 2004 Mr. John L. Skolds Chairman and CEO AmerGen Energy Company, LLC 4300 Winfield Road Warrenville, IL 60555 SUBJECT OYSTER CREEK NUCLEAR GENERATING STATION (OCNGS) - AUDIT OF THE LICENSEES MANAGEMENT OF REGULATORY COMMITMENTS (TAC NO. MB9725)
Dear Mr. Skolds:
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 OCNGSs commitment management program was performed at AmerGens office in Kennett Square, PA, on January 7, 2004. The NRC staff concludes that, based on the audit (1) OCNGS had implemented NRC commitments on a timely basis; and (2) OCNGS had implemented an effective program for managing NRC commitment changes. 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 No. 50-219
Enclosure:
As stated cc w/encl: See next page
ML040220039 OFFICE PDI-1\PM PDI-1\LA PDI-1\SC NAME PTam SLittle RLaufer DATE 1/22/04 1/22/04 1/22/04 AUDIT REPORT BY THE OFFICE OF NUCLEAR REACTOR REGULATION (NRR)
REGULATORY COMMITMENTS MADE BY THE LICENSEE TO THE NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION (NRC)
OYSTER CREEK NUCLEAR GENERATING STATION (OCNGS)
DOCKET NO. 50-219
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, which cites the definition from NEI-99-04, a regulatory commitment 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 at AmerGen offices in Kennett Square, PA, on January 7.
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. For commitments that had not yet been implemented, the NRC staff aimed to ascertain that they have been captured in an effective program for future implementation.
Enclosure
2.1.1 Audit Scope Before the audit, the NRC staff searched ADAMS for the licensees licensing action and licensing activity submittals dated in the last 3 years. Some of these submittals contain regulatory commitments, but 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.
OCNGS commitments are tracked by a total of three programs: Plant Information Management System Commitment Tracking, Passport, and Lotus Notes. The proliferation of tracking programs has to do with the fact that ownership of OCNGS was acquired from the former owner and transferred to AmerGen, an Exelon subsidiary. AmerGen/Exelon is continuing the effort of converting the processes, including the commitment tracking programs, to the Exelon way. The NRC staff, thus, aimed to ascertain that commitments had not fallen thru the crack because of multiple tracking programs, and the past transfer of ownership. During the audit, the NRC staff reviewed reports generated by all three tracking programs, and other documents related to the commitments.
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 (bulletins, generic letters, etc.). Accordingly, the audit excluded the following types of commitments:
(1) Commitments as a result of Licensee Event Reports (LER)s - 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. Fulfillment of these commitments was indicated by the licensee having taken timely action in accordance with the subject requirements.
2.1.2 Audit Results The NRC staff reviewed reports generated by one or more of the three tracking programs for the commitments listed in Table 1 to evaluate the status of completion. The NRC staff found that the licensees commitment tracking programs had captured all the regulatory commitments that were identified by the NRC staff before the audit.
The NRC staff also reviewed plant procedures that had been revised as a result of commitments made by the licensee to NRC. These procedures are identified in the right-hand column of Table 1. The NRC staff noted that some of the revised procedures have annotations to refer to commitments. These annotations would serve to prevent future procedure writers from inadvertently deleting or altering an item without having gone thru the commitment change process. The NRC staff noted that some revised procedures had not yet been annotated, but the licensee showed that they were all in the process of being revised again to have annotations added if the commitments are relatively recent. The licensee indicated that the former owner and operator of OCNGS did not have requirements for commitment annotations in the procedures; however, the cost to retrofit all the procedures with commitment annotations would be prohibitive, according to the licensee. The NRC staff has no reason to dispute this claim, and has no reason to insist on such retrofit.
Table 1 summarizes what the NRC staff observed as the current status of licensee commitments.
2.2 Verification of the Licensees Program for Managing NRC Commitment Changes The NRC staff reviewed the licensees procedure entitled Commitment Management, LS-AA-110, Revision 2, against NEI 99-04. In particular, in regards to managing a change or deviation from a previously completed commitment, Subsection 4.5.1 specifically refers to the guidance of NEI-99-04. Attachments 1 and 2 of LS-AA-110, Revision 2, provide details regarding making changes to a commitment. In general, LS-AA-110, Revision 2, follows closely the guidance of NEI-99-04: it sets forth the need for identifying, tracking and reporting commitments, 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 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 or is tracking for future implementation regulatory commitments; and (2) the licensee had implemented an effective program to manage regulatory commitment changes.
4.0 LICENSEE PERSONNEL CONTACTED FOR THIS AUDIT D. Helker D. Robillard Principal Contributor: P.S. Tam Date: January 22, 2004
TABLE 1 (page 1 of 2)
AUDITED: WRITTEN COMMITMENTS AND RELATED INFORMATION (2000 THROUGH 2003)
OCNGS NRC NRC Issuance Summary of Commitment, and Licensee Submittal TAC Licensees Tracking Number** Implementation No. Status 9/15/00, MA8492 Amend. No. 216, Revise the 10 CFR 50.65 Maintenance Rule Complete 2130-00-20240 10/25/00 Performance Criteria to ensure excess flow check valve performance remains Maintenance Rule consistent with extended surveillance Controlled Database interval. under System 247, which is controlled by 00032.01 procedure number OC-7, "OC Work Performance Standard 4/4/01, MB1747 Amend. No. 223, Revise procedure to (1) prevent heavy load Complete*
2130-01-20042 1/23/02 travel over hot fuel; (2) minimize length of travel of heavy load over spent fuel; (3) Procedure 2400-continue to follow guidelines of NUREG- SMM-3891.04 0612, Phase 1.
01037.01 11/27/02 MB6920 Amend. No. 237, (1) Establish contingency plans in Complete*
4/4/03 procedures to obtain and analyze highly radioactive samples; (2) Develop capability (1) Procedure 831.4, to classify fuel damage events; (3) Develop 7, 9, 10, 11 capability to monitor radioactive iodine (2) Procedure 831.8 species. (3) EPIP-OC-10 and -
11 A2028361 1/23/03, MB7349 Letter, D. Pickett to J. AmerGen will provide final copies of the Complete 2130-03-20026 L. Skolds, 10/28/03 trust agreement to the NRC.
Exelon letters of A1405939 3/19/03 and 7/29/03, signed by Gallagher 3/10/03, MB7989 Under review Change the Nuclear Emergency Plan and Commitment to be 2130-03-20057 procedures to reflect NRCs approval of the tracked when the revised Emergency Action Levels requested approval is issued.
4/21/03, MB8481 Under review Revise existing commitment to IEEE Commitment to be 2130-03-20058 Standard 450, IEEE Recommended tracked when Practice for Maintenance, Testing, and requested Replacement of Vented Lead-Acid Batteries amendment is for Stationary Applications, to reflect issued.
commitment to the 1995 edition of IEEE Standard.
TABLE 1 (page 2 of 2)
OCNGS NRC NRC Issuance Summary of Commitment, and Licensee Submittal TAC Licensees Tracking Number** Implementation No. Status 12/9/03, MB9832 Waiting for licensees Submit a revised application for amendment Pending 2130-03-20274 amendment using the alternate source terms and application revised analytical methodology by 12/31/04.
AR00189765 12/2/03, MC1453 Under review Within 60 days of issuance of the requested Commitment to be 2130-03-20250 amendment, establish the Technical tracked when Specification Bases for Surveillance requested Requirement 4.0.2 to reflect the amendment is amendment. issued.
12/9/03, MB9832 Under review Implement plant procedures by 3/31/04 Pending 2130-03-20274 regarding use of self-contained breathing apparatus when chlorine is detected in the Control Room Envelope.
A2065041 12/9/03, MB9832 Waiting for licensees Submit an application for amendment to Pending 2130-03-20274 amendment add a new Section 6.0 administrative application program requirement for control room habitability by 9/30/04.
189765
- Except that the cited procedures will need to be annotated (i.e., marked with commitment number) such that future procedure writers would not inadvertently delete or alter items covered by commitments without going thru the commitment change process.
- The tracking numbers show three different styles, reflecting three different tracking programs used by the licensee.
Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station cc:
Chief Operating Officer H. J. Miller AmerGen Energy Company, LLC Regional Administrator, Region I 4300 Winfield Road U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Warrenville, IL 60555 475 Allendale Road King of Prussia, PA 19406-1415 Senior Vice President - Nuclear Services AmerGen Energy Company, LLC Mayor of Lacey Township 4300 Winfield Road 818 West Lacey Road Warrenville, IL 60555 Forked River, NJ 08731 Site Vice President - Oyster Creek Senior Resident Inspector Generating Station U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission AmerGen Energy Company, LLC P.O. Box 445 P.O. Box 388 Forked River, NJ 08731 Forked River, NJ 08731 Director Licensing Vice President - Mid-Atlantic AmerGen Energy Company, LLC Operations Nuclear Group Headquarters AmerGen Energy Company, LLC P.O. Box 160 4300 Winfield Road Kennett Square, PA 19348 Warrenville, IL 60555 Manager Licensing - Oyster Creek and John E. Matthews, Esquire Three Mile Island Morgan, Lewis, & Bockius LLP AmerGen Energy Company, LLC 1111 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW Nuclear Group Headquarters Washington, DC 20004 Correspondence Control P.O. Box 160 Kent Tosch, Chief Kennett Square, PA 19348 New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection Oyster Creek Generating Station Plant Bureau of Nuclear Engineering Manager CN 415 AmerGen Energy Company, LLC Trenton, NJ 08625 P.O. Box 388 Forked River, NJ 08731 Vice President - Licensing and Regulatory Affairs Regulatory Assurance Manager Exelon Generation Company, LLC Oyster Creek 4300 Winfield Road AmerGen Energy Company, LLC Warrenville, IL 60555 P.O. Box 388 Forked River, NJ 08731 Vice President - Operations Support AmerGen Energy Company, LLC 4300 Winfield Road Warrenville, IL 60555
Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station cc:
Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary AmerGen Energy Company, LLC 2301 Market Street, S23-1 Philadelphia, PA 19101 Pete Eselgroth, Region I U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission 475 Allendale Road King of Prussia, PA 19406-1415 Correspondence Control Desk AmerGen Energy Company, LLC 200 Exelon Way, KSA 1-N-1 Kennett Square, PA 19348