ML15342A469

Notification of NRC Design Bases Inspection (05000498/2016007 and 05000499/2016007) and Initial Request for Information

ML15342A469
Person / Time
Site:	South Texas
Issue date:	12/08/2015
From:	Thomas Farnholtz Region 4 Engineering Branch 1
To:	Koehl D South Texas
G. George
References
IR 2016007
Download: ML15342A469 (9)

See also: IR 05000498/2016007

Text

UNITED STATES

NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION

REGION IV

1600 E. LAMAR BLVD.

ARLINGTON, TX 76011-4511

December 8, 2015

Mr. Dennis L. Koehl

President and CEO/CNO

STP Nuclear Operating Company

P.O. Box 289

Wadsworth, TX 77483

SUBJECT: SOUTH TEXAS PROJECT - NOTIFICATION OF NRC DESIGN BASES

INSPECTION (05000498/2016007 and 05000499/2016007) AND INITIAL

REQUEST FOR INFORMATION

Dear Mr. Koehl:

On January 13, 2016, the NRC will begin a triennial baseline Design Bases Inspection at the

South Texas Project, Units 1 and 2. A seven person team will perform this inspection using the

NRC Inspection Procedure 71111, Attachment 21M Design Bases Inspection (TEAM).

The inspection focuses on components and operator actions that have high risk and low design

margins. The samples reviewed during this inspection will be identified during an information

gathering visit and during the subsequent in-office preparation week. In addition, a number of

operating experience issues will also be selected for review.

The inspection will include an information gathering site visit by the team leader and a senior

reactor analyst, and two weeks of onsite inspection by the team. The inspection will consist of

five NRC inspectors and two contractors, of which six will focus on engineering and one on

operations. The current inspection schedule is as follows:

Onsite Information Gathering Visit: January 13, 2016

Preparation Week: January 19-22, 2016

Onsite Weeks: January 25-28, 2016, and February 8-11, 2016

The purpose of the information gathering visit is to meet with members of your staff to identify

potential risk-significant components and operator actions. The lead inspector will also request

a tour of the plant with members of your operations staff and probabilistic safety assessment

staff. During the onsite weeks, several days will be needed on the plant-referenced simulator in

order to facilitate the development of operator action based scenarios. Additional information

and documentation needed to support the inspection will be identified during interviews with

engineering managers, engineers, and probabilistic safety assessment staff throughout the

inspection

D. Koehl -2-

Our experience with these inspections has shown that they are extremely resource intensive,

both for the NRC inspectors and the licensee staff. In order to minimize the inspection impact

on the site and to ensure a productive inspection, we have enclosed a request for information

needed for the inspection. The request has been divided into three groups. The first group lists

information necessary for the information gathering visit and for general preparation. This

information should be available to the regional office no later than January 11, 2016. Insofar as

possible, this information should be provided electronically to the lead inspector. Since the

inspection will be concentrated on high risk/low margin components, calculations associated

with your list of high risk components should be available to review during the information

gathering visit to assist in our selection of components based on available design margin.

The second group of documents requested is those items that the team will need access to

during the preparation week in order to finalize the samples to be inspected. The third group

lists information necessary to aid the inspection team in tracking issues identified as a result of

the inspection. It is requested that this information be provided to the lead inspector as the

information is generated during the inspection. Additional requests by inspectors will be made

throughout all three onsite weeks for specific documents needed to complete the review of that

component/selection. It is important that all of these documents are up to date and complete in

order to minimize the number of additional documents requested during the preparation and/or

the onsite portions of the inspection. In order to facilitate the inspection, we request that a

contact individual be assigned to each inspector to ensure information requests, questions, and

concerns are addressed in a timely manner.

The lead inspector for this inspection is Gerond A. George. We understand that our licensing

engineer contact for this inspection is Rafael Gonzalez. If there are any questions about the

inspection or the requested materials, please contact the lead inspector by telephone at

817-200-1562 or by e-mail at Gerond.George@nrc.gov.

This letter does not contain new or amended information collection requirements subject to

the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (44 U.S.C. 3501 et seq.). Existing information

collection requirements were approved by the Office of Management and Budget, control

number 3150-0011. The NRC may not conduct or sponsor, and a person is not required to

respond to, a request for information or an information collection requirement unless the

requesting document displays a currently valid Office of Management and Budget control

number.

D. Koehl -3-

In accordance with 10 CFR 2.390 of the NRCs Rules of Practice, a copy of this letter will be

made available electronically for public inspection in the NRC Public Document Room or from

the Publicly Available Records (PARS) component of NRCs 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).

Sincerely,

/RA/

Thomas R. Farnholtz, Chief

Engineering Branch 1

Division of Reactor Safety

Dockets: 50-498; 50-499

Licenses: NPF-76; NPF-80

Enclosure: Design Bases Inspection Request for Information

Electronic Distribution for South Texas Project

Initial Request for Information

Design Bases Inspection

South Texas Project, Units 1 and 2

Inspection Report: 05000498/2016007, 05000499/2016007

Information Gathering Dates: January 13, 2016

Inspection Dates: January 25-28, 2016, and February 8-11, 2016

Inspection Procedure: IP 71111, Attachment 21M, Design Bases Inspection

(TEAM)

Lead Inspector: Gerond A. George, Senior Reactor Inspector

I. Information Requested Prior to Information Gathering Visit (January 11, 2016)

The following information (Section I of this enclosure) should be sent to the Region IV

office in hard copy or electronic format (Certrec IMS preferred), to the attention of

Gerond A. George by January 11, 2016, to facilitate the reduction in the items to be

selected for a final list during the preparation week of January 19, 2016. The inspection

team will finalize the selected list during the prep week using the additional documents

requested in Section II of this enclosure. The specific items selected from the lists shall

be available and ready for review on the day indicated in this request. *Please provide

requested documentation electronically in .pdf files, Excel, or other searchable formats,

if possible. The information should contain descriptive names, and be indexed and

hyperlinked to facilitate ease of use. Information in lists should contain enough

information to be easily understood by someone who has knowledge of pressurized

water reactor technology. If requested documents are large and only hard copy formats

are available, please inform the inspector(s), and provide subject documentation during

the first day of the onsite inspection.

1. An Excel spreadsheet of equipment basic events (with definitions) including

importance measures sorted by risk achievement worth (RAW) and Fussell-Vesely

(FV) from your internal events probabilistic risk assessment (PRA). Include basic

events with RAW value of 1.3 or greater.

2. Provide a list of the top 500 cut-sets from your PRA.

3. Copies of PRA system notebooks, and the latest PRA summary document.

4. An excel spreadsheet of PRA human action basic events or risk ranking of operator

actions from your site specific PSA sorted by RAW and FV. Provide copies of your

human reliability worksheets for these items.

-1- Enclosure

5. If you have an external events or fire PSA model, provide the information requested

in items 1-4 for external events and fire.

6. Any pre-existing evaluation or list of components and associated calculations with

low design margins, (i.e., pumps closest to the design limit for flow or pressure,

diesel generator close to design required output, heat exchangers close to rated

design heat removal, etc.).

7. List of high risk maintenance rule systems/components and functions; based on

engineering or expert panel judgment. Include a list of structures, systems, and

components in the Maintenance Rule (a)(1) category.

8. Site top 10 issues list.

9. List of any common-cause failures of components in the last 3 years.

10. A list of operating experience evaluations for the last 2 years.

11. A list of all time-critical operator actions in procedures.

12. List of current operator workarounds/burdens and plans for resolution.

13. List of root cause evaluations associated with component failures or design issues

initiated/completed in the last 5 years.

14. List of motor-operated valves (MOVs) in the program, design margin and risk

ranking.

15. List of air-operated valves (AOVs) in the valve program, design and risk ranking.

16. Current management and engineering organizational charts.

17. South Texas Project, Units 1 and 2, IPEEEs, if available electronically.

18. Mechanical piping drawings for:

• Engineered safety features

• Emergency core cooling systems

• Emergency diesel generators

19. Electrical one-line drawings for:

• Offsite power/switchyard supplies

• Normal AC power systems

• Emergency AC/DC power systems (including 120VAC power and

125VDC/24VDC safety class systems)

-2-

20. An electronic copy of the Design Bases Documents or System Design Criteria

documents.

21. An electronic copy of the System Health Notebooks.

22. Electronic copies of the Technical Specifications and the Updated Final Safety

Analysis Report.

II. Information Requested to be Available on First Day of Preparation Week

(January 19, 2016)

1. List of condition reports (corrective action documents) associated with each of the

selected components for the last 5 years.

2. The corrective maintenance history associated with each of the selected components

for the last 2 years.

3. A list of permanent and temporary modifications associated with each of the selected

components for the last 3 years.

4. Copies of calculations associated with each of the selected components (if not

previously provided), excluding data files. Please review the calculations and also

provide copies of reference material (such as drawings, engineering requests, and

vendor letters).

5. Copies of operability evaluations associated with each of the selected components

and plans for restoring operability, if applicable.

6. Trend data on the selected electrical/mechanical components performance for last

3 years (for example, pumps performance including in-service testing, other

vibration monitoring, oil sample results, etc., as applicable).

7. A copy of any internal/external self-assessments and associated corrective action

documents generated in preparation for the inspection.

8. A copy of engineering/operations related audits completed in the last 2 years.

9. Procedures used to accomplish operator actions associated with the basic events in

your PRA.

10. List of licensee contacts for the inspection team with pager or phone numbers.

III. Information Requested to be provided throughout the inspection.

1. Copies of any corrective action documents generated as a result of the teams

questions or queries during this inspection.

-3-

2. Copies of the list of questions submitted by the team members and the

status/resolution of the information requested (provide daily during the inspection to

each team member).

3. Reference materials (available electronically and as needed during all onsite weeks):

• General set of plant drawings

• IPE/PRA report

• Procurement documents for components selected

• Plant procedures (normal, abnormal, emergency, surveillance, etc.)

• Technical Specifications

• Updated Final Safety Analysis Report

• Vendor manuals

Inspector Contact Information:

Gerond A. George

Senior Reactor Inspector

817-200-1562

Gerond.George@nrc.gov

Mailing Address:

U.S. NRC, Region IV

Attn: Gerond George

1600 East Lamar Blvd.

Arlington, TX 76011-4511

-4-

ML15342A469

SUNSI Review ADAMS: Sensitive Non-Publicly Available Keyword

By: GAG Yes No Non-Sensitive Publicly Available NRC-002

OFFICE DRS:EB1/SRI C:

NAME GGeorge TFarnholtz

SIGNATURE /RA/ /RA/

DATE 12/8/15 12/8/15

Letter to Dennis L. Koehl from Thomas R. Farnholtz dated, December 8, 2015

SUBJECT: SOUTH TEXAS PROJECT - NOTIFICATION OF NRC DESIGN BASES

INSPECTION (05000445/2016007 and 05000446/2016007) AND INITIAL

REQUEST FOR INFORMATION

Distribution:

Regional Administrator (Marc.Dapas@nrc.gov)

Deputy Regional Administrator (Kriss.Kennedy@nrc.gov)

DRP Director (Troy.Pruett@nrc.gov)

DRP Deputy Director (Ryan.Lantz@nrc.gov)

DRS Director (Anton.Vegel@nrc.gov)

DRS Deputy Director (Jeff.Clark@nrc.gov)

Senior Resident Inspector (Alfred.Sanchez@nrc.gov)

Resident Inspector (Nicholas.Hernandez@nrc.gov)

Branch Chief, DRP/B (Nick.Taylor@nrc.gov)

Senior Project Engineer, DRP/B (David.Proulx@nrc.gov)

Project Engineer, DRP/B (Shawn.Money@nrc.gov)

Project Engineer, DRP/B (Steven.Janicki@nrc.gov)

STP Administrative Assistant (Lynn.Wright@nrc.gov)

Public Affairs Officer (Victor.Dricks@nrc.gov)

Project Manager (Lisa.Regner@nrc.gov)

Acting Team Leader, DRS/TSS (Eric.Ruesch@nrc.gov)

RITS Coordinator (Marisa.Herrera@nrc.gov)

ACES (R4Enforcement.Resource@nrc.gov)

Regional Counsel (Karla.Fuller@nrc.gov)

Technical Support Assistant (Loretta.Williams@nrc.gov)

Congressional Affairs Officer (Jenny.Weil@nrc.gov)

RIV Congressional Affairs Officer (Angel.Moreno@nrc.gov)

RIV/ETA: OEDO (Cindy.Rosales-Cooper@nrc.gov)