ML050610763
| ML050610763 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Oconee  |
| Issue date: | 03/02/2005 |
| From: | Travers W Region 2 Administrator |
| To: | Rosalyn Jones Duke Energy Corp |
| Shared Package | |
| ML050610762 | List: |
| References | |
| IR-05-001 | |
| Download: ML050610763 (5) | |
See also: IR 05000269/2005001
Text
March 2, 2005
Duke Energy Corporation
ATTN: Mr. R. A. Jones
Site Vice President
Oconee Nuclear Station
7800 Rochester Highway
Seneca, SC 29672
SUBJECT:
ANNUAL ASSESSMENT LETTER - OCONEE NUCLEAR STATION
(NRC INSPECTION REPORT 05000269/2005001, 05000270/2005001,
AND 05000287/2005001)
Dear Mr. Jones:
On February 8, 2005, the NRC staff completed its end-of-cycle plant performance assessment
of the Oconee Nuclear Station. The end-of-cycle review for Oconee involved the participation
of all technical divisions in evaluating performance indicators for the most recent quarter and
inspection results for the period from January 1 through December 31, 2004. The purpose of
this letter is to inform you of our assessment of your safety performance during this period and
our plans for future inspections at your facility. This will allow you an opportunity to prepare for
these inspections and to inform us of any planned inspections that may conflict with your plant
activities. The following performance review and the enclosed inspection plan do not include
physical protection information. A separate end-of-cycle performance review letter, designated
and marked as "Exempt from Public Disclosure in accordance with 10 CFR 2.390, will include
the physical protection review and a resultant inspection plan.
During the assessment period, Oconee Units 1, 2, and 3 operated in a manner that preserved
public health and safety and met all cornerstone objectives with moderate degradation in safety
performance. This moderate degradation was reflective of third quarter plant performance
within the Degraded Cornerstone Column of the NRCs Action Matrix, which resulted from two
Mitigating Systems cornerstone findings of low to moderate safety significance (White). The
first of these, which was also the reason fourth quarter performance was within the Regulatory
Response Column, was a third quarter 2004 White finding involving a failure to maintain the
licensing basis commitment for staffing the standby shutdown facility (SSF) in the event of a
confirmed plant fire. The other was a third quarter 2003 White finding involving inadequate
corrective actions to address pressurizer ambient heat losses that exceeded the capacity of the
pressurizer heaters powered from the SSF. This White SSF pressurizer heater finding also
caused plant performance during the first and second quarters of the assessment period to be
within the Regulatory Response Column of the NRCs Action Matrix.
In response to the Degraded Cornerstone performance in the third quarter of the assessment
period, a supplemental inspection will be performed under Inspection Procedure 95002. We
plan to perform this 95002 supplemental inspection in the May 2005 time frame. The
satisfactory completion of this 95002 supplemental inspection is highly dependent on your
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staffs efforts to assure adequate root cause/extent of condition reviews have been performed.
It should be noted that during the assessment period, Oconee Nuclear Station received a
Severity Level III violation (with a $60,000 civil penalty) for the failure to obtain NRC approval
prior to making a change to the facility which involved unreviewed safety questions. The
corrective actions for this Severity Level III violation, which was associated with the high energy
line break analysis, will be reviewed during a future baseline inspection. Our end-of-cycle
performance assessment also included an assessment of issues that are still under staff review
to determine their safety significance. Although we recognize that you have assessed any
operability concerns associated with the following issues, the results of our Significance
Determination Process may warrant additional supplemental inspection for issues that are of
greater than very low risk significance.
Unresolved Item (URI) 050000269/2004003-01 (Inadequate Unit 1 Reactor Coolant
Pump Seal Modification)
URI 05000269,270,287/2004002-04 (Potential Failure to Maintain RB Coatings per GL 98-04 Commitments, Resulting in Potential Loss of RBES Recirculation)
URI 05000287/2004003-02 and URI 05000287/2002007-02 (Unit 3 Control Room Wall
not Tornado Protected)
In addition, the staff is also continuing its review of licensing basis issues associated with
tornado mitigation and high energy line break analysis.
The enclosed inspection plan details the inspections (less those related to physical protection)
scheduled through September 30, 2006. In addition to baseline inspection activities and the
95002 Supplemental Inspection discussed above, the plan currently includes: (1) operator
licensing examinations; (2) routine inspections of activities associated with your Independent
Spent Fuel Storage Installation; and (3) safety issue inspections concerning pressurizer
penetration nozzles and steam space piping connections (NRC Bulletin 2004-01). The
inspection plan is provided to minimize the resource impact on your staff and to allow for
scheduling conflicts and personnel availability to be resolved in advance of the inspectors
arrival onsite. Routine resident inspections are not listed due to their ongoing and continuous
nature. The inspections in the last nine months of the inspection plan are tentative and may be
revised at the mid-cycle review meeting.
In accordance with 10 CFR 2.390 of the NRCs Rules of Practice, a copy of this letter and its
enclosure will be made available electronically for public inspection in the NRC Public
Document Room or from the Publicly Available Records (PARS) component of NRC's
document system (ADAMS). ADAMS is accessible from the NRC Web site at
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html (the Public Electronic Reading Room).
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If circumstances arise which cause us to change our inspection plan, we will contact you to
discuss the change as soon as possible. Please contact Mr. Michael E. Ernstes at (404) 562-
4540 with any questions you may have regarding this letter or the inspection plan.
Sincerely,
//RA//
William D. Travers
Regional Administrator
Docket Nos.: 50-269, 50-270, 50-287, 72-04
License Nos.: DPR-38, DPR-47, DPR-55
Enclosure: Oconee Inspection/Activity Plan
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cc w/encl:
B. G. Davenport
Compliance Manager (ONS)
Duke Energy Corporation
Electronic Mail Distribution
Lisa Vaughn
Legal Department (PB05E)
Duke Energy Corporation
422 South Church Street
Charlotte, NC 28242
Anne Cottingham
Winston and Strawn
Electronic Mail Distribution
Beverly Hall, Acting Director
Division of Radiation Protection
N. C. Department of Environmental
Health & Natural Resources
Electronic Mail Distribution
Institute of Nuclear Power Operations
700 Galleria Parkway SE
Atlanta, GA 30339-5943
Henry J. Porter, Director
Div. of Radioactive Waste Mgmt.
S. C. Department of Health and
Environmental Control
Electronic Mail Distribution
R. Mike Gandy
Division of Radioactive Waste Mgmt.
S. C. Department of Health and
Environmental Control
Electronic Mail Distribution
County Supervisor of
Oconee County
415 S. Pine Street
Walhalla, SC 29691-2145
Lyle Graber, LIS
NUS Corporation
Electronic Mail Distribution
R. L. Gill, Jr., Manager
Nuclear Regulatory Licensing
Duke Energy Corporation
526 S. Church Street
Charlotte, NC 28201-0006
Peggy Force
Assistant Attorney General
N. C. Department of Justice
Electronic Mail Distribution
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Distribution w/encl:
L. Olshan, NRR
C. Evans
RidsNrrDipmIipb
PUBLIC
PUBLIC DOCUMENT (circle one): YES NO
OFFICE
RII:DRP
RII:DRP
RII:DRP
SIGNATURE
REC1
MEE
VMM
NAME
R. Carroll
M. Ernstes
V. McCree
DATE
2/23/2005
2/23/2005
3/2/2005
E-MAIL COPY?
YES
NO YES
NO YES
NO YES
NO YES
NO YES
NO YES
NO
OFFICIAL RECORD COPY DOCUMENT NAME: E:\\Filenet\\ML050610763.wpd