ML14339A641

LTR-14-0623 - E-mail Response to Richard Andrews Email Watts Bar and Tennessee Valley Authority'S Regulatory Performance Record

ML14339A641
Person / Time
Site:	Watts Bar
Issue date:	11/17/2014
From:	Jessie Quichocho Watts Bar Special Projects Branch
To:	Andrews R - No Known Affiliation
Quichocho J
Shared Package
ML14300A500	List: ML14339A641
References
LTR-14-0623
Download: ML14339A641 (2)

Text

From: "Quichocho, Jessie" <Jessie.Quichocho@nrc.gov>

To: "dick0645@yahoo.com" <dick0645@yahoo.com>

Sent: Monday, November 17, 2014 12:50 PM

Subject:

Follow-up to your email to NRC on Watts Bar Nuclear Power Plant

Dear Mr. Andrews,

I am responding to your email to the NRC dated October 23, 2014.

The NRC closely monitors TVA's performance via the Reactor Oversight Process. The Reactor Oversight Process is designed to focus on those plant activities most important to safety. The NRC will issue an operating license to Watts Bar 2 only after thorough review and inspection determining that there is reasonable assurance for safe operation of the Watts Bar 2. The Reactor Oversight Process will also be used to monitor performance of Watts Bar 2 if an operating license is issued.

NRC's thorough licensing process and inspections will ensure that TVA's performance at the Watts Bar site will continue to be monitored and assessed.

All power reactors, including Watts Bar 2, must be designed to safely withstand a set of natural events including earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, and floods. The NRC staff is currently completing the review of the Watts Bar Unit 2 operating license application, which includes the ongoing review of the site-specific flooding analysis.

In response to the lessons learned from the 2011 accidents at Fukushima, the NRC requested TVA, and all other licensees of operating reactors, to reevaluate the seismic and flooding hazards at their sites. The reevaluation activities and the associated NRC staff assessments are complex and will take several years to complete at which point the NRC will determine if safe operation requires additional regulatory action such as updating the licensing basis or requiring modification of the facility. In the Watts Bar Unit 2 operating license application review, the NRC is holding TVA to a schedule for completing the seismic and flooding reevaluations that is consistent with the schedules for Watts Bar Unit 1 and all other operating reactors.

More information about Watts Bar Unit 2 licensing and inspection activities is available here, http://www.nrc.gov/info-finder/reactor/wb/watts-bar.html, including a brief history capturing the NRC's issuance of the Watts Bar Unit 1 operating license.

Thank you for your interest in the NRC's regulatory activities at the Watts Bar Nuclear Plant.

Jessie Quichocho, Chief Watts Bar Special Projects Branch Division of Operating Reactor Licensing Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation 301-415-0209 1

Dr Frankenstein is Back!

Richard Andrews <dick0645@yahoo.com>

Thursday, October 23, 2014 4:46 PM NRCExecSec Resource Watts Bar TVA's Dr. Frankenstein is at it again! The good doctor has already brought back one old nuclear power plant from the dead at TVA and is now hooking up another for resurrection. The Watts Bar nuclear units (Units 1 & 2) were designed a half-century ago. Unit 1 finally entered service in 1996. TVA is planning to get Unit 2 running late next year. These old nuclear plant fossils were designed at the same time as the stricken Fukushima reactors in Japan. To their credit TVA has replaced some unused old equipment at Unit 2 with new equipment. Unit 1 has operated quite successfully since its start-up, logging two continuous operating runs of 512 and 437 days prior to 2008. But the downside is TVA's poor regulatory performance record. Both nuclear units have been assessed large civil penalties (and we know who pays those) for falsifying documents; for using noncertified parts; for retaliating against an employee for raising safety concerns; for withholding adverse information on potential flooding; & for multiple challenges to a safety system. Another civil penalty was narrowly avoided because the TV A "lawyered-up" and got an out-of-court settlement with the NRC. More recently the TVA has been granted an extension of time to complete a flooding reevaluation at the site. This evaluation must assume catastrophic earthen dam failures upstream from the site. Not an easy evaluation as there are 17 upstream dams involved. Based on TVA's poor handling of prior flooding analyses, a complete independent evaluation of TV A's analysis should be performed before the NRC authorizes the start-up of Unit 2. In my opinion the TVA has gone overboard on expensive nuclear power. TVA is behaving like a moth drawn to a flame. And we know who pays the price for that too!

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