IR 05000269/2006009

NRC Inspection Report 05000269/2006009, 05000270/2006009, & 05000287/20060009

ML060520422
Person / Time
Site:	Oconee
Issue date:	02/21/2006
From:	Casto C Division Reactor Projects II
To:	Brandi Hamilton Duke Energy Corp
References
EA-05-228, IR-06-009
Download: ML060520422 (5)

Text

ary 21, 2006

SUBJECT:

OCONEE NUCLEAR STATION - NRC INSPECTION REPORT 05000269/2006009, 05000270/2006009, AND 05000287/20060009

Dear Mr. Hamilton:

The purpose of this letter is to provide you with the Nuclear Regulatory Commissions (NRCs)

final significance determination for a finding at Duke Energy Corporations (DECs) Oconee Nuclear Station involving the failure to promptly take adequate corrective actions to resolve tornado-related concerns with the Unit 3 control room wall. As documented in our Choice Letter dated December 19, 2005, this finding was qualitatively assessed under the significance determination process as a preliminary greater than Green issue (i.e., an issue of at least low to moderate safety significance), as well as identified as an apparent violation (AV 05000287/

2005012-01) of 10 CFR Part 50, Appendix B, Criterion XVI, Corrective Action. The Choice Letter offered you the opportunity (via regulatory conference or in writing) to give us your assessment of the risk significance and the associated apparent violation so that we would have a complete understanding of this issue prior to determining the final significance.

At your request, an open regulatory conference was conducted with members of your staff on February 6, 2006, to discuss DECs position on this issue. The enclosures to this letter include the list of attendees at the regulatory conference, and copies of the material presented by your staff and the NRC at the regulatory conference. During the conference, DEC provided the results of its risk analysis, concluding that the finding was of very low safety significance. As presented, DECs risk analysis consisted of a quantitative assessment of tornado missile damage to the Unit 3 north control room wall, which probabilistically accounted for a peak/bounding missile inventory and tornado-related standby shutdown facility human error (i.e., consideration of operator action reliability to align the standby shutdown facility auxiliary service water system following a tornado strike on the plant). In addition, DEC agreed with NRCs characterization of the finding as a violation of regulatory requirements, and advised of its plans to modify the Unit 3 north control room wall by December 31, 2007, rather than relying on a probabilistic solution.

After considering the information developed during the inspection and the information DEC provided at the conference, the NRC has concluded that the inspection finding is appropriately characterized in the mitigating systems cornerstone as having very low safety significance

DEC 2 (Green). Additionally, the finding was also determined to be a violation of NRC requirements, as delineated in the Choice Letter and presented during the regulatory conference (see Enclosure 3). However, because of its very low safety significance and because the issue was entered into your corrective action program, the NRC is treating the finding as a non-cited violation (NCV) consistent with Section VI.A.1 of the NRC Enforcement Policy.

In accordance with 10 CFR 2.390 of the NRC's "Rules of Practice," a copy of this letter and its enclosures will be 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).

For administrative purposes, this letter is issued as NRC Inspection Report No. 05000269,270, 287/2006009, and the above violation is identified as NCV 05000287/2006009-01: Failure to Promptly Identify and Correct a Long-Standing Discrepancy Between the Unit 3 Control Room and its Tornado Licensing Basis Specified in the Updated Final Safety Analysis Report.

Accordingly, the associated apparent violation AV 05000269,270,287/2005012-01 is closed.

Should you have any questions regarding this letter, please contact Michael E. Ernstes, Chief, Reactor Projects Branch 1, at (404)-562-4540.

Sincerely,

/RA/

Charles Casto, Director Division of Reactor Projects Docket Nos.: 50-269, 50-270, 50-287, 72-04 License Nos.: DPR-38, DPR-47, DPR-55 Enclosures: 1. List of Attendees 2. Material presented by DEC 3. Material presented by NRC cc w/encls: (see page 3)

DEC 3 cc w/encl:

B. G. Davenport R. L. Gill, Jr., Manager Compliance Manager (ONS) Nuclear Regulatory Issues Duke Energy Corporation and Industry Affairs Electronic Mail Distribution Duke Energy Corporation 526 S. Church Street Lisa Vaughn Charlotte, NC 28201-0006 Associate General Counsel Duke Energy Corporation Peggy Force 526 South Church Street Assistant Attorney General Mail Code EC 07H N. C. Department of Justice Charlotte, NC 28201-1244 Electronic Mail Distribution Anne Cottingham Distribution w/encl: (See page 4)

Winston & Strawn LLP Electronic Mail Distribution Beverly Hall, Acting Director Division of Radiation Protection N. C. Department of Environmental Health & Natural Resources Electronic Mail Distribution Henry J. Porter, Assistant 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

ML060520422 OFFICE RII:EICS RII:DRP SIGNATURE CFE MEE NAME CEvans MErnstes DATE 02/17/06 02/16/06 2/ /2006 2/ /2006 2/ /2006 2/ /2006 2/ /2006 E-MAIL COPY? YES NO YES NO YES NO YES NO YES NO YES NO YES NO

LIST OF ATTENDEES Duke Energy Corporation D. Coyle, Oconee Operations Support Manager G. Davenport, Oconee Regulatory Compliance Manager R. Freudenberger, Oconee Engineering Supervisor M. Glover, Oconee Engineering Manager B. Hamilton, Oconee Site Vice President D. Herrick, PRA Engineering Supervisor R. Jones, Nuclear Operations, Senior Vice President L. Kanipe, PRA Engineer J. Robertson, Oconee Senior Engineer D. Stewart, Duke Public & Community Affairs Manager R. Hester, Oconee Senior Engineer Nuclear Regulatory Commission R. Bernhard, Senior Reactor Analyst (SRA), Division of Reactor Safety (DRS), Region II (RII)

R. Carroll, Senior Project Engineer, Division of Reactor Projects (DRP), Branch 1, RII C. Casto, Director, DRP, RII H. Christensen, Deputy Director, DRS, RII

• C. Doutt, Sr. Reliability & Risk Analyst, Division of Risk Assessment (DRA), Nuclear Reactor Regulation (NRR)

M. Ernstes, Chief, DRP, Branch 1, RII

• M. Franovich, Chief, PRA Operational Support, DRA, NRR

• S. Jones, Balance-of-Plant Branch, Division of Safety Systems, NRR M. King, Project Engineer, DRP, Branch 1, RII

• J. Kramer, SRA, DRA

• L. Olshan, Oconee Project Manager, NRR C. Payne, Chief, Engineering Branch 2, DRS, RII

• N. Salgado, SRA, DRA M. Shannon, Oconee Senior Resident Inspector J. Shea, Deputy Director, DRP, RII S. Sparks, Sr. Enforcement Specialist, Enforcement & Investigations Coordination Staff, RII L. Trocine, Office of Enforcement

• Participated by telephone Enclosure 1