ML052710481
| ML052710481 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Palo Verde  |
| Issue date: | 09/28/2005 |
| From: | Fields M NRC/NRR/DLPM/LPD4 |
| To: | Overbeck G Arizona Public Service Co |
| Fields M B ,NRR/DLPM,415-3062 | |
| References | |
| TAC MC4380, TAC MC4381, TAC MC4382 | |
| Download: ML052710481 (10) | |
Text
September 28, 2005 Mr. Gregg R. Overbeck Senior Vice President, Nuclear Arizona Public Service Company P. O. Box 52034 Phoenix, AZ 85072-2034
SUBJECT:
PALO VERDE NUCLEAR GENERATING STATION, UNITS 1, 2, AND 3 -
AUDIT OF LICENSEE REGULATORY COMMITMENT MANAGEMENT PROGRAM (TAC NOS. MC4380, MC4381 AND MC4382)
Dear Mr. Overbeck:
On September 7, 2004, the Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation Office Instruction LIC-105, Revision 1, Managing Regulatory Commitments Made by Licensees to the NRC [Nuclear Regulatory Commission], was published. LIC-105 provides the NRC staff and its stakeholders with a common reference for handling regulatory commitments made to the NRC staff by licensees for commercial nuclear reactors. 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 regulatory commitment management program.
An audit of the Arizona Public Service Company (APS) regulatory commitment management program was performed at the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station on October 6-8, 2004.
The NRC staff concludes that APS has an adequate program to implement and manage regulatory commitments. Details of the audit are provided in the enclosed audit report, including our observations and recommendations.
Sincerely,
/RA/
Mel B. Fields, Senior Project Manager, Section 2 Project Directorate IV Division of Licensing Project Management Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation Docket Nos. STN 50-528, STN 50-529, and STN 50-530
Enclosure:
Audit Report cc w/encl: See next page
Mr. Gregg R. Overbeck September 28, 2005 Senior Vice President, Nuclear Arizona Public Service Company P. O. Box 52034 Phoenix, AZ 85072-2034
SUBJECT:
PALO VERDE NUCLEAR GENERATING STATION, UNITS 1, 2, AND 3 -
AUDIT OF LICENSEE REGULATORY COMMITMENT MANAGEMENT PROGRAM (TAC NOS. MC4380, MC4381 AND MC4382)
Dear Mr. Overbeck:
On September 7, 2004, the Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation Office Instruction LIC-105, Revision 1, Managing Regulatory Commitments Made by Licensees to the NRC [Nuclear Regulatory Commission], was published. LIC-105 provides the NRC staff and its stakeholders with a common reference for handling regulatory commitments made to the NRC staff by licensees for commercial nuclear reactors. 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 regulatory commitment management program.
An audit of the Arizona Public Service Company (APS) regulatory commitment management program was performed at the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station on October 6-8, 2004.
The NRC staff concludes that APS has an adequate program to implement and manage regulatory commitments. Details of the audit are provided in the enclosed audit report, including our observations and recommendations.
Sincerely,
/RA/
Mel B. Fields, Senior Project Manager, Section 2 Project Directorate IV Division of Licensing Project Management Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation Docket Nos. STN 50-528, STN 50-529, DISTRIBUTION:
and STN 50-530 PUBLIC PDIV-2 Reading
Enclosure:
Audit Report RidsNrrDlpmLpdiv (HBerkow)
RidsNrrPMMFields cc w/encl: See next page RidsNrrLADBaxley RidsOgcRp RidsAcrsAcnwMailCenter RidsRegion4MailCenter (TPruett)
RidsNrrDlpmLpdiv2 DCollins ACCESSION NO.: ML052710481 NRR-106 OFFICE PDIV-2/PM PDIV-1/LA PDIV-2/SC(A)
NAME MFields DBaxley DCollins DATE 9/28/05 9/28/05 9/28/05 OFFICIAL RECORD COPY
AUDIT REPORT BY THE OFFICE OF NUCLEAR REACTOR REGULATION REGULATORY COMMITMENTS MADE BY THE LICENSEE TO THE NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION ARIZONA PUBLIC SERVICE COMPANY, ET AL.
PALO VERDE NUCLEAR GENERATING STATION, UNITS 1, 2, AND 3 DOCKET NOS. STN 50-528, STN 50-529, AND STN 50-530
1.0 INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND
On September 7, 2004, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation (NRR), published Office Instruction LIC-105, Revision 1, Managing Regulatory Commitments Made by Licensees to the NRC. LIC-105, which is publicly available electronically from the Agencywide Documents Access and Management System under Accession Number ML042320463, provides the NRC staff and its stakeholders with a common reference for handling regulatory commitments made by commercial reactor licensees to the NRC staff. The Office Instruction is consistent with the industry guidance contained in 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 a licensees commitment management program by assessing the adequacy of the licensee's implementation of a sample of commitments made to the NRC in past licensing actions (amendments, relief requests, exemptions, etc.) and activities (bulletins, generic letters, etc.). An audit is to be performed every 3 years.
2.0 AUDIT PROCEDURE AND RESULTS An audit of the Arizona Public Service Company (APS, the licensee) program was performed at the Palo Verde site on October 6-8, 2004. Since no such audit was performed prior to the issuance of LIC-105, the NRC staff defined the period covered by this audit to encompass approximately 3 to 5 years prior to the date of the audit.
2.1 Verification of Licensees Implementation of NRC Commitments The primary focus of this part of the audit is to confirm that APS 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.
2.1.1 Audit Scope LIC-105 limits the audit of commitments to those made in writing to the NRC as a result of past licensing actions or licensing activities. 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.
Before the audit, a search was conducted of the APS licensing action and licensing activity submittals dated in the last 3 to 5 years. Several of the commitments contained in those submittals that met the definition in LIC-105 were selected for this audit.
2.1.2 Audit Results The NRC staff reviewed reports generated by the APSs tracking program for the commitments listed in the attached table to evaluate the status of completion. The NRC staff found that APSs commitment tracking program had incorporated all the regulatory commitments that were selected by the NRC staff for this audit.
The NRC staff also reviewed plant procedures that had been revised as a result of commitments made by APS to the NRC. The attached table summarizes what the NRC staff observed as the current status of licensee regulatory commitments for those selected.
2.2 Verification of APSs Program for Managing NRC Commitment Changes At Palo Verde, Procedure 93DP-OLC08, "Regulatory Commitment Tracking," is used for managing regulatory commitments. The NRC staff reviewed this procedure and concluded that, in general, this procedure follows the guidance of NEI-99-04 and sets forth the process for identifying, tracking, and reporting commitments, and provides a mechanism for changing commitments.
The effectiveness of a procedure can be indicated by the products that are produced by the procedure. As noted in Section 2.1.2 above, the NRC staff has found that the licensee had properly addressed each regulatory commitment selected for this audit.
As a result of reviewing APSs information, as well as information from other sources, the NRC staff concludes that the procedure used by APS for managing NRC commitment changes is appropriate and effective.
2.3 APS's Self-Assessment of the Regulatory Commitment Management Program The NRC staff requested information from APS regarding any self-assessments performed on the regulatory commitment management program. The NRC staff learned that a self-assessment had been performed at Palo Verde on September 7-9, 2004. The assessment was performed as part of a Strategic Teaming and Resource Sharing initiative and included a Diablo Canyon licensee representative on the assessment team. The self-assessment team concluded that overall the commitment management process at Palo Verde is working and no missed commitments were identified during the assessment. Some areas for improvement/recommendations were identified by this team. The major recommendation, which the NRC agrees with, is that APS should establish a single point of contact for the commitment management program to oversee the program.
2.4 Additional Observations and Recommendations (a) APS explicitly identifies regulatory commitments in outgoing correspondence to the NRC and when outgoing correspondence does not include any commitments, APS will include a statement to the effect, "There are no commitments being made to the NRC by this letter."
These explicit statements that the correspondence contain or do not contain commitments represent clear and effective communications, and is considered by the NRC staff to be a positive initiative on the part of the licensee.
(b) APS reviews all existing commitments for possible changes on an annual basis but only reports to the NRC when changes have been made to any of these commitments. The last APS letter identifying changes was dated April 19, 2002. Because commitment changes are performed so infrequently and in the interest of improving communications with the NRC, consideration should be given to providing an annual statement when there are no changes to commitments. A convenient reporting method would be to include this statement with the annual report of 10 CFR 50.59 changes.
3.0 CONCLUSION
The NRC staff concludes that, based on the above audit findings, (1) APS has an adequate program to implement and manage regulatory commitments, (2) APS has an adequate program to implement and manage changes to regulatory commitments, and (3) APS has an adequate program for identifying regulatory commitments in outgoing correspondence to the NRC.
4.0 APS PERSONNEL CONTACTED FOR THIS AUDIT Rob Roehler Ray Buzard James Proctor Tom Weber Scott Bauer Principal Contributor: Mel Fields Date: September 28, 2005
TABLE -APSS REGULATORY COMMITMENTS REVIEWED External Source Licensee Description Implementation Documents Internal Status Document/
Tracking #
APS Relief Request Document Multiple Commitments - APS letter Completed dated 4-1-2001 73DP-9ZZ17 contained several commitments that (ML011000052) would be carried out if mechanical RCTSAI # nozzle seal assemblies need to be NRC Approval dated 2372945 utilized in any of the Palo Verde 10-01-2001 Units. These commitments were (ML012680076) appropriately incorporated into plant procedures.
NRC Bulletin 2003-01 Document Multiple Commitments - Licensee Completed 40ST-9ZZ09 committed to update internal APS Letter dated procedures to provide additional 8-8-2003 RCTSAI #s guidance related to an ECCS sump (ML032310432) 262902/3/4 blockage from debris. These commitments were appropriately incorporated into plant procedures.
APS Amend. Request RCTS # Numerous Commitments - Licensee Partially dated 11-7-2002 2551124 committed to complete items Completed -
(ML023190027) contained in its submittal, and Others on repeated in the NRC SE, related to schedule NRC Approval dated the Common Qualified Platform 10-24-2003 topical report (CPC Upgrade). Audit (ML033030363) only confirmed completion of several of the commitments. The commitments audited were appropriately incorporated into the commitment tracking system.
NRC Generic Letter RCTS # 2266 Multiple Commitments - Licensee Completed 99-02 made changes to procedures to incorporate the GL 99-02 APS Letter dated requirements in advance of a TS 11-19-1999 amendment request. These (ML993340447) commitments were appropriately incorporated into the commitment tracking system.
Palo Verde Generating Station, Units 1, 2, and 3 cc:
Mr. Steve Olea Mr. John Taylor Arizona Corporation Commission Public Service Company of New Mexico 1200 W. Washington Street 2401 Aztec NE, MS Z110 Phoenix, AZ 85007 Albuquerque, NM 87107-4224 Douglas Kent Porter Mr. Thomas D. Champ Senior Counsel Southern California Edison Company Southern California Edison Company 5000 Pacific Coast Hwy Bldg D1B Law Department, Generation Resources San Clemente, CA 92672 P.O. Box 800 Rosemead, CA 91770 Mr. Robert Henry Salt River Project Senior Resident Inspector 6504 East Thomas Road U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Scottsdale, AZ 85251 P. O. Box 40 Buckeye, AZ 85326 Mr. Jeffrey T. Weikert Assistant General Counsel Regional Administrator, Region IV El Paso Electric Company U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Mail Location 167 Harris Tower & Pavillion 123 W. Mills 611 Ryan Plaza Drive, Suite 400 El Paso, TX 79901 Arlington, TX 76011-8064 Mr. John Schumann Chairman Los Angeles Department of Water & Power Maricopa County Board of Supervisors Southern California Public Power Authority 301 W. Jefferson, 10th Floor P.O. Box 51111, Room 1255-C Phoenix, AZ 85003 Los Angeles, CA 90051-0100 Mr. Aubrey V. Godwin, Director Brian Almon Arizona Radiation Regulatory Agency Public Utility Commission 4814 South 40 Street William B. Travis Building Phoenix, AZ 85040 P. O. Box 13326 1701 North Congress Avenue Mr. Craig K. Seaman, Director Austin, TX 78701-3326 Regulatory Affairs Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station Karen O'Regan Mail Station 7636 Environmental Program Manager P.O. Box 52034 City of Phoenix Phoenix, AZ 85072-2034 Office of Environmental Programs 200 West Washington Street Mr. Hector R. Puente Phoenix AZ 85003 Vice President, Power Generation El Paso Electric Company 310 E. Palm Lane, Suite 310 Phoenix, AZ 85004 May 2005