ML19249D945
| ML19249D945 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Crane  |
| Issue date: | 07/20/1979 |
| From: | Harold Denton Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation |
| To: | Gilinsky V, Hendrie J, Kennedy R NRC COMMISSION (OCM) |
| Shared Package | |
| ML19249D941 | List: |
| References | |
| NUDOCS 7909250583 | |
| Download: ML19249D945 (9) | |
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[4'f,e NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION UNITED STATES
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JUL 2 0 69 b OA.
i'.EI:0RA!!DU!1 FOR: Chai.an Handrie -
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Commissioner Gilinsky Comissioner Kennedy Coclissioner Bradford-Comissioner Ahearne FRGt:
Harold R. Denton, Dirc< tor Office of iluclear Reactor Regulation I
"(5:imcc.D T. A. nehr' ' -
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v Lee V. Gossick Executive Director for Operations g
SUBJECT:
STAFF VIEUS OF TECS!ICAL AREAS OF CO:lCERil TO BE CO?tTAIT ED' Ill CC!"1ISSIO;i'S FURTHER ORDER Ill Ti:E THREE 11ILE ISLN!D- '
UrlIT 1 SUSPEllSI0il
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3 On July 2,1979, the Comission ordered that the Three flile Island Unit 1 reactor remain in cold shutdown condition until further order of'the Cor:- -
J' mission itself.
The Order also provided that the Comission uculd issue a further order within thirty days-specifying in detail the bases for its con-carns, and the procedures to goyern the h:aring tihich the Cornission directed >
be i. eld prior to restart of the facility.
liRR was asked to provide a listing of the areas of technical concern to be resolved in connection with any re-start of Three Itile Island Unit:-l.
The Offile of'the Executive Legal-Director has already provided the Cc.:iissior with a draft of the procedural portions of the Corr.lission's fun.nor order. t!c iiave retyped that draft (except for Section IV wilich is purely procedural),
inserti71g what we believe to be the appropriate technical content. The inta-grated draft is, attached.
He are prepared to discuss it with the Comissioni at your convenience.
r@d Q:ed ty s G.n Cs.cn Harold R. Oc.kton, Director Ofrice or iluclear Reactor Regulation cc: OPE
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7 909 250 M2 b
1019 325
~I 17ocket No. 50-346 Metropolitan Edison Company, Three Mile Island Nuclear Station, Unit No. 1 b 2-f ORDER AND NOTICE OF HEARING The Metropolitan Edison Company (the licensee) is holder of Facility Operating I.
License No. DRR-50 which authorizes the operation of'the nuclear power reactor kt.own as Three Mile Island, Nuclear Station, Unit No.1 (the facility or THI-1),
at steady state power levels not in excess of 2535 megawatts thermai (rated '
The facility is a Babcock and Wilcox (B&W) designed pressurized water power).
reactor (PWR) located at the licensee's site ten miles southeast of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.,
On July 2,.1979, the Comission. ordered that the facility.emain in a cold II.
shutdown condition until further order of the Comission and stated that a hearing The Comission herein will be conducted prior to any restar: of the facility.
the basis for its con'cerns and the procedures to govern specifies For the reasons later set forth, the Com-further proceedings in this matter.
mission has determined that satisfactory completion of certain actions and resolutr of;various concerns described herein are required to provide reasonable assurance that the facility can be operated without endangering the health and safety of The Comission has determined that certain additional long-term the public.
actions are, for the reasons given below, required to be completed as promptly as practicable in order to provide reasonable assurance that th:2 facility can This Order and notice of earin3 further be operated safely over the long term.
establishes procedures for a hearing and decision on the particular issuer 1019 326
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identified in Section IV of this Order. Tht. Comission has determined that hearing and decision (with review thereof) on the issues relating to the actions required prior to restart of the facility must be completed prior to any Com-mission Order lifting the suspension of operation.
Accordingly, the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board designated to conduct this
, proceeding should give priority to consideration of those issues which are related directly to suspension of operation. To the extent feasible, the Board should defer on the issues related to the longer-term actions until after the '
rendering of a. partial initial decision regarding the suspension-related issues.
The Commission's July 2,'1979 Order recited that "the Commission presently lacks the requisite reasonable assu~ ance that the... Licensee's Three Mile r
Island Unit No.1 Facility... can be operated without endangering the health and safety of the public." The bases for that conclusion (which remains valid) are:
L In the course of its evaluation to date.of the accide t a the Three Mile Island Unit No. 2 facility, which utill:es a B&W designed Ph?., the
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Nuclear Regulatory Comission. staff has ascertaintd that B&h' designed reactors api >aar to to unusually sensitive to certain eff-normal trr.nsient t
. conditions origimting in' the secondary sys:c.m
- 7.,3 is.t.:u es of t'.e
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ScR de:tlen chst centribute to this sensitivity ere:
- .) 6: sign of :Le Stes:s e.nerators to e;:2 rate with relst.vely :::.all lf c.:!d voie u: in t'm secor,d::q sider (2) the lack of direct initiation et rec = tor trip up:n h
the occurrer)ce of off-ncrr..al corditions in t.% fe@.te: syst::::: (3) re-.
liance on an integrated control systern (ICS) to au,.c..:tically res.ilate 10l9 327
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e f W ter flow; (4) actuation before reactor trip of a pilot-cperated relicf valvo en th; prir. Dry system pressuri:er (si.ic., if tha valvr.
sticks opan, can ergravnte the event); and (5) a lov : es generator elevation (relative to the reactor vessel) which pro.-ides a s: aller drivirq head for naturel circulation.
9 Because of these features, B&W designed rasetors place score rullarce an the reliability and performance characteristics of the atuilia./ fc+d-v:ter system, the integrated control syster:., and the crar:;erc/ core coel-ing system (m) porforr.ance to recover frc:r. fregem anticipctod
, transients, such as loss of offsite power a 4 less of corral feed.c:ce, than do other' FnR designs. This, in turn, places a large burden en the plant operators in the cvent of off-normal systes bc'ravior during such anticipated transients.
As a result of a preliminary review of the Three Mile Island Unit No. 2 accident chronology, the NRC staff initially identified several human errors that occurred during the accident and contributed significantly to its severity. All holders of operating licenses, except Metropolitan Edison, whose plants were already shutdown, were subsequently instructed to take a number of immediate actions to avoid repetition of errors, in accordance with bulletins issued by the Commission's Office of Inspection and Enforcement (IE).
In addition, the NRC staff began an immediate reevaluation of the design features of B&W reactors to determine whether additional safety corrections or improvements were necessary with respect This evaluation involved numerous meetings with B&W tr. these reactors.
and certain of the affected licensees.
1019 323
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'Ibe evaluation identified design features as discussed ecove which in31-cated that B&W designed reactors are unusu. ally sensitive to certain off-norr.il transient conditions originating in the sceondary systeo. As a result, an additional bulletin was issued by IE which instru:ted holriern
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of op2ratirr3 11ccnsas for B&W designed reactors to taha further actilen=,
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ineltdirs inadicto charges to decrease the receter high pressure trip P nt and increase the pressurizer pilot-operated rulief valve setting.
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_..._ 'Also, as a result of this evaluation, the tGC staff id:ntificd certain -
other safety concerns tMt wcrrented additional short-term design'and pr00.: dural changes at operating facilitics h'.ving E&W designed rea'etors,
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Thest were identified as items (a) throtsh (e) on page 1-7 of the office
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of m: lear Reae:cr Regulation Status Repet to the Ccxuission of April 25, 1979.,
In addition to the items identified for the other B&W reactors, the unique circumstances at TMI require that additional safety concerns identified by the NRC staff be resolved. These concerns result from (1) potential inter-action between Unit 1 and the damaged Unit 2, (2) the impset of the Unit 2 accident on the management and technical resources of Metropolitan Edison, (3) the operations necessary to decontaminate the Unit 2 facility, and (4) recognized deficiencies in emergency plans and station s,perating procedures.
Assurance must be provided that these items,1-4, which could have an impact on the safety of operating Unit 1 in addition to the technical features already identified for the other B&W plants, be resolved prior to restart.
1019 329 Based on the abo' e, the Comission's Director of Nuclear Reactor Regulation-v (NRR) has recommended that the following actions (the "short-tem actions")
be required of the licensee to resolve the concerns stated herein and pemit a finding of reasonable assurance that the facility can safely resume operation.
1.
The licensee shall take the following actions with respect to TMI-1:
(a) Upgrade the' timeliness and reliability of.the Emergency Feedwater (EFW) system by perfoming the items specified in Enclosure 1 of the licensees June 28, 1979 letter. Changes in design will be submitted to the NRC staff for review.
(b)
Develop and implement operating procedures for initiating and controlling EFW independent of Integrated Control System (ICS) control.
(c)
Install a hard-wired control grade reactor trip on loss of main feedwater and/or on turbine trip.
(d)
Complete analyses for potential small breaks and develop and implement operating instructions to define operator action.
(e)
- Augment the retraining of all Reactor Operators and Senior Reactor dperators assigned to the control room including training in the areas of natural circulation and small break loss of coolant accidents includ-ing revised procedures and the THI-2 accident. All operators will also receive training at the B&W simulator on the TMI-2 accident and the licensee will conduct a 100 percent reexamination of all operators in NRC will administer complete examinations to all ligensed these areas.
perscnnel.
1019.330
2.
The licensee shall provide for NRC review and approval all applicable actions specified in IE Bulletins79-05A and 79-05B.
3.
The licensee shall improve his emergency preparedness in accordance with the following:
(a) Upgrade emergency plans to satisfy Regulatory Guide 1.101 with special attention to action level criteria based on plant parameters.
(b)
Establish an Emergency Operations Center for Federal, State and Local Officials and designate a location and an alternate location and provide communications to plant.
e (c) Upgrade offsite monitoring. capability, including additional thermo-luminescent dosimeters or equivalent.
(d) Assess the relationship of State / Local plans to the licensee plans so as to assure the capability to take emergency actions.
(e)
Conduct test exercise.
4.
The licensee shall take actions required to demonstrate that planned decon-tamination and/or restoration operations at TMI-2 will not impact safe operations at TMI-1. The licensee shall provide separation and/or isolation of TMI 1/2 radioactive liquid transfer lines, fuel handling areas, ventila-tion systems, and sampling lines. Effluent monitoring instruments shall have the capability of discriminating between effluents resulting from Unit 1 or Unit 2 operations.
1019 33;
7-The licensee. shall demonstrate that the waste management capability, includ-5.
ing storage and processing, for solid, ifquid, and gaseous wastes is adequate to assure safe operation of TMI-1, and that TMI-l waste handling capability is not relied on by operations at TMI-2.
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6.
The licensee shall demonstrate his managerial capability and resources to operate Unit 1 while maintaining Unit 2 in a safe configuration and Issues carrying out planned decontamination and/or restoration activities.
~ to be addressed include the adequacy of groups providing safety review and operational advice, the management and technical capability and training of operations. staff,, the adequacy of the operational Quality Assurance program and the facility procedures,_and the c'apability of.fmportant support
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organizations such as Health Physics and Plant Maintenance.
The licensee shall demonstrate his financial capability to operate TMI-l at
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the TMI 1/2 complex.
8.
The licensee shall comply with the Category A recomendations as specified in Table B-1 of NUREG-0578.
The Comission has additional concerns, which, though they need not be resolved prior to resumption of operation at Three Mile Island Unit 1, must be satisfactorily addressed in a timely manner. The Comission's Director of Nuclear Reactor Regulation (NRR) has recomended that the following actions (the "long-tem actions")
be required of the licensee to resolve these concerns and pemit a finding of reasonable assurance of the safety of long-term operation. These are:
1.
submit a failure mode and effects analysis of the ICS to the NRC staff as soon as practicable; 2.
give continued attention to transient analysis and procedures for management of small breaks by a formal program set up to assure timely action of these 1019 332
, matters; 3.
comply with the Category B recommendations as specified in Table B-1 of NUREG-0578; and, 4.
improve emergency preparedness in accordance with the following:
(a) modify emergency plans to address changing capabilities of plant instrumentation, (b) extend the capability to take appropriate emergency actions for the population around the site to a distance of ten miles.
In addition, the licensee shall also provide, but not prior to restart, timely response and implementation of longer term recommendations which may result from the Lessons Learned Task Force as well as recommendations that may arise from the Presidential Comission, the NRC's ongoing investigations, and'other studies unle.ss such recom-mendations are determined by the Director of the Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation to be required prior to restart.
III. Accordingly, pursuant to the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, as amended, and the Commission's rules and regulations in 10 C.F.R., it is hereby ordered that:
the licensee shall maintain TMI-l in a cold shutdown condition until satisfactory resolu-tion of the concerns, identified above, which led the Commission to suspend the licensee's authority to operate.
1019 333
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