ML19248D406
| ML19248D406 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Crane  |
| Issue date: | 06/25/1979 |
| From: | Stello V NRC OFFICE OF INSPECTION & ENFORCEMENT (IE) |
| To: | Gunter B FLORIDA, STATE OF |
| Shared Package | |
| ML19248D407 | List: |
| References | |
| NUDOCS 7908150748 | |
| Download: ML19248D406 (4) | |
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JUN 2 51979 Mr. Bill Gunter State Treasurer and Insurance Comissioner Office of Treasurer State of Florida Tallahassee, Florida 32304
Dear Mr. Gunter:
I am pl. eased to respond to your letter of April 9,1979, to Chaiman Joseph Hendrie regarding NRC surveillance over the operations of the four nuclear power plants licensed to operate in the State of Florida.
As part of the ongoing NRC inspection and enforcement program administered by the NRC Office of Inspection and Enforcment, the four nuclear power plant facilities in Flcrida that hold operating licenses receive numerous on-site inspections. These inspections, which include both announced and unannounced ins?ections, are conducted by NRC inspectors based in NRC Region II in Atlanta, Georgia.
Additionally, the sites for Florida's St. Lucie Plant Unit 1, Turkey Point Station Units 3 and 4, and Crystai River Plant Unit 3 operating nuclear power plant facilities have been identified as sites to be staffed by a NRC resident inspector for this fiscal year.
Under the ongoing inspection program two types of inspections are conducted at operating reactor facilities including the four Florida facilities--
rvutinc or preventive inspections, and reactive inspections.
The former are done on a recurring basis, and they include inspection of functional areas of the licensee management control and quality assurance program.
Qualification, training, calibraticn, surveillance, maintenance, procedures and plant operations are examples of functional dreas inspected.
Reactive inspections are done in response to an event or condition that has occurred at the plant or other plants that may be applicable to a Florida plant.
These inspections focus on the specific i vent, its safety signifi-cance, cause, corrective action and generic impl cations.
Event followup enables the inspector to verify adequate licensee management control to the extent that the event " exercises" the licensee's system.
As a result of the incident at Three Itile Island, the NRC has initiated actions to assure that similar incidents do not occur at otner operating power reactor facilities.
These actions, as they apply to the four Florida facilities, are presented in Enclosure 1.
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Mr. Bill Gunter Conduct of the NFC inspection program at the nuclear facilities located in Florida, as supplemented by our special inspections resulting from the incident at Three Mile Islar.d, indicate that the nuclear pcwer reactors located in your state have met, or are in the process of meeting, those actions which the NRC has included in Inspection and Enforcement Bulletins resulting from the Three Mile Island incident. Crystal River Unit 3, which like Three Mile Island has a reactor designed by Babcock and Wilcox, is presently shutdown for refueling and is under order by the NRC to remain shutdown until specific actions, based on lessons learned at Three Mile Island, are satisfactorily completed.
I trust that this reply is responsive to your concerns.
If you have further questions, please de not hesitate to contact me.
Sincerely, k'.'
x Victor Stello, Jr. [^
Director Office of Inspection and Enforcement
Enclosure:
Action Taken at Florida Nuclear Plant Faci'ities as a Result of the TMI Incident.
cc w/ incoming:
The Honorable Bob Graham, Governor of Florida Mr. Jake Varn, Secretary Flordia Dept. of Enviromental Regulation
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Actions Taken at Florida Nuclear Power Plant Facilities as a Result of the TMI Incident Shortly after the Three Mile island (TMI) incident the NRC issued a series of Inspectio,1 and Enforcement (IE) Bulletins addressing the lessons learned.
The IE Bulletins provided information about the series of events that had occurred at TMI and required each licensee, consistent with the reactor design, to make changes to certain equipment and operating procedures and te conduct special operator training.
The licensee was requested to provide F, in writing, the details for completion of the immediate actions and pl m fcr completion of tha longer *erm items required by the Bulletins.
NRC is currently evaluating this information, on a plant-by-plant basis, to ensure the proposed action is suitable for each individual plant.
The reactors for the four operating Florida facilities are cf the pressurized, light water reactor design.
Of the four, only Crystal River Unit 3 has a nuclear reactor designed by Babccck and Wilcox (B&W), who is the reactor designer for the Three Mile island facilities. The reactors for Turkey Point Units 3 and 4 are designed by Jestinghouse Elec+ric Corporation and the St. Lucie reactor is designed by Combustion Engineering.
Although these reactors are of the same basic design as the B&W reactor there are major differences in detailed design.
These differences resulted in the B&W reactor being more sensitive to certain cperating transients.
IE Bulletins 79-05 dated April 2,1979,79-05A dated April 5,1979, and 79-055 dated April 21, 1979, were issued to Florida Power Corporation and other B&W pressurized water reactor facility oporators.
These Bulletins require the Crystal River Unit 3 operator (Florida Power Corporation) to conduct reviews of facility operations and procedures, perform engineering evaluac Mns of the facility design, and implement any changes that may be required to ensure that factors which contributed *.o tne TMI incident do not exist at the Crystal River facility.
Areas requiring actior. by these Bulletins are subject to review and verification by the inspector assigned to the Crystal River site and NRC staff.
To provide assurance that B&W facilities are being operated safely in light of the events at TMI, inspectors were 'ssigned full time at these facilities, which includes the Crystal River plant.
Their efforts are directed toward providing di: act and ii, dependent NRC verification that the operation of these facilities is in conformance with license conditions, with particular emphasis given to assuring that actions and reviews required by applicable IE Bulletins are comoleted.
IE Bulletin 79-06 dated Aoril 11, 1979, was issued to the Florida Power and Light Company and other ocerators of pressurized water reactors other than B&W desicned plants.
This Bulletin requires the operator (Florida Pcwer and Light Ccmpanyl of Turkey Point Units 2 and 3 and St. Lucie Unit I to perform a series of soecific reviews and actions regarding aspects of the TMI incident that nave generic acoli-cability to these facilities.
IE Bulletin 79-06A, applicable to Westinghouse cesicned reactors, and IE Bulletin 79-06B, applicable to Combustion Enginee,
'g desicned reactors, were later issued to clarify the actions recuired by Bulletin 79-06 as they acoly to specific reactor designs.
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To reinforce the urgency placed on this effort, during the period of April 18 through April 23 six teams, each comprised of an IE team leader, an NRC examiner from the Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation and a third member from the IE Regional Office, visited all operating pressurized water reactor facilities, except S&W facilities.
The purpose of each visit was to discuss wit <. the licensee's operation personnel and station management the chronology of the TMI incident and to clarify licensee actions specified in the applicable IE Sulletins.
Special instructions to the NRC inspectors have been issued requiring follow-up inspections, on a priority basis, of the actions taken by the licensees in response to the Bulletins.
These inspections will ensure that the actions proposed by the licensee are in fact carried o'?'.
In sumary, the NRC has taken steps to identify the specific cause of the TMI accident rod to require imediate upgrading of equipment, training and operation.
A detaileo evaluation is continu ng on the need for additional long term changes.
i A special on-site inspection effort at each plant continues to assure that nec-essary actions have been put into effect.
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