ML17347B209

Forwards Constituent E Siegel Ltr & Encl Miami Herald Article,Dtd 871006,concerning Violations at Plant.Response Requested

ML17347B209
Person / Time
Site:	Turkey Point
Issue date:	07/06/1989
From:	Fascell D HOUSE OF REP.
To:	Kennedy J NRC OFFICE OF GOVERNMENTAL & PUBLIC AFFAIRS (GPA)
Shared Package
ML17347B208	List: ML17347B206 ML17347B209
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NUDOCS 8908070050
Download: ML17347B209 (11)

Text

DANTE B. FASCELL

~ IBZlI DISTRICT, FLORIDA

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FOREIGN AFFAIRS COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN ARMS CONTROL, INTERNATIONAL SECURITY AND SCIENCE SUBCOMMITTEE CHAIRMAN SELECT COMMITTEE ON NARCOTICS ABUSE AND CONTROL MEMBER AIISI<SS Sf thC 'SIIii:Ck Stat<S Souse of Reptesentati0es

%ashittgton, BK 20yly CHARLES R. O'BEGAN ADMINISTRATIVEASSISTANT COMMISSION ON SECURITY AND COOPERATION IN EUROPE MEMBER NORTH ATLANTICASSEMBLY CHAIRMAN HOUSE DELEGATION CANADA-UNITEDSTATES INTERPARLIAMENTARYGROUP MEMBER, U.S, DELEGATION July 6, 1989 Mr. Jerome Kennedy Director, Congressional Affairs Nuclear Regulatory Commission 1717 "H" Street, N.W.,

Room 9204 Washington, D. C.

20555

Dear Mr. Kennedy:

Enclosed is a copy of correspondence from one of my constituents.

It would be greatly appreciated if you would accord the comments in the letter every consideration and provide me with a report on the matter.

Many thanks for your assistance.

cerely, TE BE FASCELL Member of Congress DBF/BT Enclosure S908070050 S90726 PDR ADOCK 05000250 H

PDC

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'0 Tuesday, October 6; 1987 Th M

'H Section B s ec ors to, mori. oi RIl NRC could order key Point closed, E

'By STEPHEN K. DQ[G

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The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, provoked by another incident at Florida Power gr, Light's trouble-plagued Turkey Point power plant.

has sent ln a team of inspectors to monitor the plant's control room operators around the clock.-

The phnt's two reactors could be ordered shut down-temporarily If the inspectors aren't satisfied that the operators can run Turkey Point properly.

according to David Verrelll, the NRC's overseer of "FPL "That's always an option,",, Verrelll said Monday afternoon.

"If they were to,'have

another,

'nddent....

Well, I thinkwe'e that close."

,Verrelli said he.expected the NRC to announce a long-term program of increased'regulatory surveil-lance at Turkey Point before the end of this week.

Outside.experts would probably be bro'ught in to analyze phnt management..

'We. want them to develop a plan to do an independent assessment of their whole manage-"

ment structure at Turkey Point," Verrellisaid.

The special NRC inspection-team arrived Sept.

'26. Verrelli said that such detailed scrutiny of control room operations is rare.

FPL spokeswoman Stacey

Shaw, although' acknowledging the seriousness of the NRC's scrutiny, said Monday that a shutdown of Turkey

. Point hadn't been threatened by the NRC.

"I don't think that was a viable part of the Please turn to NRC/2B

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Shaw said. "Of course, jf anything else significant, happens at Turkey Point, we

'ertainly are aware that the NRC is looking very closely. We don't intend to let anything happen."

Such action tsn't unprecedented.

In March. for instance, the NRC summarily shut down the Peach Bottom nuclear 'plant in Pennsylvania after an inspector found the phut operators sleeping on duty.

The latest management lapse at Turkey Point occurred Sept.

13, when a licensed control room operator allowed a supervised but unlicensed shift technician to operate one of the control buttons, according to Verrelliand Shaw.

FPL supervisors learned of the vtolation, mspend& the operator aad promptly notified the NRC. The correct button was touched, Verrelli said, but the incident was a violation of NRC regulations.

It was also another straw on the proverbial camel's back.

In 1986, FPL was fined a total of $475,000 for a variety of problems.

Then, early thIs year, Turkey Point's Unit 4 reactor had to be shut down for five months to clean up corrosion caused by a leak of cooling water saturated with boric add. FPL was fined

$100,000 for fatling to detect the 'corrosion, followed by a $75,000 fine for several security lapses that occured over the past two years.,

Next, in

July, a

Turkey Point techntcian unwittingly disabled a valve necessary to activate the plant's emergency back-up cooling water system. The error, which wasn't caught for 20 hours2.314815e-4 days <br />0.00556 hours <br />3.306878e-5 weeks <br />7.61e-6 months <br />. might result In another fine.

Then came the control room incident.

By contrast, FPL's St. Lude twin-reactor power plant is considered a model fadttty with one of the best records among the more-than 100 nudear reactors operating around the country.

Shaw noted that Turkey Point a~agement has.

been concentrating for the past several years on major hardware upgrades at the plant.

She conceded that trainlag and supervision seem to have slipped.

"We probably haven't devoted eaough attention to people performance," Shaw said."We recognhe that we have to devote greater attention to the human performance factor aad aot just the equipment."

In August FPL made veteran nuclear engineer John Odum vice-president In charge of nudear operations at Turkey Point. Odum, a 44-earwtd graduate of the US. Naval Academy,

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Business School and the Navy's nuclear submirtnc program. has been with FPL since 1974.

Shaw said Odum. has begun to institute new tratatag and supervisloa procedures.

"We have made great strides, but not fast, enough," Shaw said. "I tMak our entire manage-ment'aow has sort of'otally focused their attention oa meeting the performance goats we have outlined."

They had better. Verreitt suggested strongly.

"ln Turkey Point's case," he said, "the question ts whether they can get out of the bole."

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outage that lasted through ofthe firsthalfofthis year.

ey management doesn't mean they should hold li-censes ifthey can't requalify."

InAprilcame the second blow.

John Conway, a highly regarded nudear phnt expert that FPL had brou tinhst eartolea gh y

d Turkey Point's hoped-for renaissance, was hired away by another utility.Along In fact, Turkey Point had a good operating record in 1988, showing signiGcant progress in tbe key per-formance indicators used by the NRC to spot problem phnts.

lt seemed that FPL Qnally had overcome the series of equipment, training and security problems that had cost the phnt more than $ 1 mil-lionin NRC fines since 1983.

But then, this spring, Turkey Point was hit with a double wham-j

rAV First, inMarch,a dosen ofTurkey Point's reactor operators failed an annual license requaliQcation exam.

Operators take the exam, part of which is performed in the plant's control room simuhtor, in four-member teams. Ifone member of a.

team does something wrong, all team members faiL Unfortunately for FPL, the com-pany allowed several Turkey Point managers who had licenses but no longer worked reguhr shifts in the control room to take the Much xaam without extensive re-fresher training. Rusty from hck of recent experience, the managers made errors that caused their teams to faiL "We should have known better,"

Hudiburg admits. "That was a real setback."

Since then, the regular shift oper-ators have requaliQed. But the dam-age in the eyes of the NRC was done.

"Even if they don't regularly workcontrol room shifts, those peo-ple were licensed to operate the re-actor." says Ernst, of the NRC.

"Just because th are V ',iV v Vv v v V ll v'Vl VV V'

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THE MIAMIHER

. SUNDAY. JUNE 25. 1989 F 2 Rn s oveI'r Utoown e

oint FPLg FROM 1B fuel surcharges for each residential customer.

A long<erm Turkey Point shut-down would leave FPL with little margin to spare in generating enough power to meet Florida's growing demand forelectricity.

With the generating capacity. of its 13 plants and itscontracts to pur-chase outside power, FPL can sup-ply a maximum of 16,070 mega-watts of power to its customers across Florida.

That total capacity leaves a fairly comfortdble 19.9 percent m""gh above the record peak system load of 12,876 megawattL But without the 1,292 megawatts supplied by the Turkey Point reac-tors, that margin drops to 12.9 per-cent.

And if any other plants have an equipment problem, or if growth and hot weather push electricity de-mand to new highs, FPL would be strained to the limit.

"The stakes are high, no question about it," says C.O. Woody, FPL's executive vice president.

Despite the corportte and cus-tomer disruption an indefinite shut-down would cause, FPL's top execu-tives aren't fooling themselves that the NRC will go easy on Turkey, Point. They acknowledge the depth ofthe NRC's exasperation.

"We are a troubled plant," says Ken Hams, the new vice president in charge of Turkey Point. "The NRC knows we'e done good things at"'-~, butw. haven't been able to sustain a good solid operation."

Hudiburg agrees.

"They are tired oferratic behav-ior." Hudiburg says of the NRC.

"They want to see consistency.

They don't want to see new pro-grams they wantperformance."

Despite Turkey Point's reputa-tion, Hudiburg insists that during the next six months FPL can satisfy.

the NRC that three years of im-provements in equipment and man-ngement reniiy are beginning te pny "Nothing demonstrates perfor-mance better than a smoothen-t ning plant," Hudiburg sap. "Ithinki both units [at Turkey PointJ willop-i crate wellthis year."

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'This is the most serious problem this.

company has. We are disappointed we haven't done a better job.'ohn

Hudiburg, FPL's chief executive oficer with the exam failures, tne NRC staff cited Conway's departure>s a troubling management instability in deciding to keep FPL on the NRC's watch listforanother six months.

Losing Conway could help FPL in the longer run.

Forced to find strong manage-ment for Turkey Point m a hurry, Hudiburg looked to St. Lucie, FPL's other nuclear plant.

In contrast to Turkey Point, which was built in the early 1970s, the newer St. Lucie phnt is widely acknowledged to be one of the best in the nudear industry. Its Unit 2.'eactor, for instance, operated day and night without a hitch for a re-'.:

cord 14 months before GnaGy being shut down forrefueling inJanuary.

e learned a lot of lessons from Turkey Point that we applied to St. "

Lucie," Woody says in exphnation'f the dramatic differences between the records ofthe twoplanta

'udilerg tapped Hams, St. Lu-cie's chief, to go run Turkey Point..

Hams, a veteran FPL nuclear exeo utive with extensive previous expe-

'rience at Turkey Point, b ought"-

with him seve'ral key St. Lucie man-agers.

"The site management is signi6-cantly stronger than ever," Stuart.:.

Ebnetter, the NRC's regional ad-ministrator, said at the3une 1 NRC..

meeting. "The departure of tCon-...

way) may be really a blessing in dis-guise>>

Hams says he understands the

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major problems remaining at Tur-

-'ey Point:

~ An outdated security system that relies too heavily on guards-who occasionally have been caught sleeping rather than on electron-icsensors. Anew multimillioadolhr security system will be installed withintwo years.

0 A maintenance backlog that, al-though shrinking, remains uncom-fortably hrge. Harris says, howev-er, that the emphasis finally is shifting to preventive maintenance, ratl: r than the past practice of de-fening maintenance until an out-right repair was needeL

~ Alack ofexperience among the instrument and control teciuticians who maintain the plant's equipment..

Harris said he is actively recruiting experienced technicians.

These problems can be solved, Hams is certain.

But the fixes willtake timeand

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the time for fixes is running out for',

Turkey Point.

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