ML19254F770

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Forwards IE Bulletin 79-06A,Revision 1, Review of Operational Errors & Sys Misalignments Identified During TMI Incident, & Draft Ltrs
ML19254F770
Person / Time
Issue date: 04/18/1979
From: Moseley N
NRC OFFICE OF INSPECTION & ENFORCEMENT (IE)
To: Grier B, James Keppler, James O'Reilly
NRC OFFICE OF INSPECTION & ENFORCEMENT (IE REGION I), NRC OFFICE OF INSPECTION & ENFORCEMENT (IE REGION II), NRC OFFICE OF INSPECTION & ENFORCEMENT (IE REGION III)
Shared Package
ML19254F764 List:
References
NUDOCS 7911160554
Download: ML19254F770 (3)


Text

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~.%*g egmTA?dAT RECORD 00P1 UNITED STATES v Vl4 3"s 4

NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION

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WASHINGTON D. C. 20555

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April 18, 1979 MEMORANDUM FOR:

B. H. Grier, Director, Region I J. P. O'Reilly, Director, Region II J. G. Keppler, Director, Region III K. V. Seyfrit, Director, Region IV R. H. Engelken, Director, Region V FROM:

Norman C. Moseley, Director, Division of Reactor Operations Inspection, IE SUBJECT-IE Bulletin No.79-05A REVISION NO. 1, REVIEW OF OPERATIONAL ERRORS AND SYSTEM MISALIGNi'ENTS IDENTIFIED DURING THE THREE MILE ISLAND INCIDENT The subject Bulletin revision should be dispatched for action on April 18, 1979, to all pressurized water power reactor facilities of Westinghouse design with an operating license.

Facilities with a construction permit, Ft. St. Vrain, BWR's and the Combustion Engineering and the B&W facilities with an operating license should receive the subject Bulletin revision for information only.

The text of the Bulletin revision and draft letters to licensees are enclosed for this purpose.

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/orman.,C.Moseley, Dire lctcr d

N Division of Reactor Operations Inspection Office of Inspection and Enforcerent

Enclosure:

1.

Draft Transmittal Letter to Westinghouse designed PWR Operating Licensees 2.

Draf t Transmittal Letter to Operating Licensees of GE, CE and B&W plants, Ft. St. Vrain and all Construction Permit Holders y

3.

IE Bulletin No.79-06A lJ4/

23l Revision No. 1 CONTACT:

H. A. Wilbur, IE 49-28180 7911160

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6 (Draft letter to all B&W, CE, and GE power reactor facilities with an operating license and all power reactor facilities with a construction permit and Ft. St. Vrain.)

IE Bulletin No.79-06A (Revision No. 1)

Addressee:

The enclosed Bulletin No.79-06A Revision No.1, is forwarded to you for i nfo rma ti on.

No written response is required.

If you desire additional information regarding this matter, please contact this office.

Sincerely, Signature (Regional Director)

Enclosure:

IE Bulletin No.79-05A Revision No. 1 1347 232

(Draft letter to Westinghouse designed pressurized water power reactor facilities with an operating license.)

IE Bulletin No.79-06A (Revision No. 1)

Addressee :

Enclosed is IE Bulletin No.79-06A Revision No.1, which requires action by you with regard to your Westinghouse designed pressurized water reactor facility (ies) with an operating license.

Should you have any questions regarding this Bulletin revision or the actions required by you, please contact this office.

Sincerely, Signature (Regional Director)

Enclosure:

IE Bulletin No.79-06A Revision No.1 1347 233

UNITED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION OFFICE OF INSPECTION AND ENFORCEMENT WASHINGTON, D.C.

20555 April 18, 1979 IE Bulletin No.79-06A (Revision No. 1)

REVIEW 0F OPERATIONAL ERRORS AND SYSTEM MISALIGNMENTS IDENTIFIED DURING THE THREE MILE ISLAND INCIDENT IE Bulletin 79-06A identified actions to be taken by the licensees of all pressurized water reactors designed by Westinghouse.

Item No. 3 of the actions to be taken, as stated in the original bulletin, was:

"3.

For your facilities that use pressurizer water level coincident with pressurizer. pressure for automatic initia-tion of safety injection into the reactor coolant system, trip the low pressurizer level setpoint bistables such that, when the pressurizer pressure reaches the low setpoint, safety injection would be initiated regardless of the pres-surizer level.

In addition, instruct operators to manually initiate safety injection when the pressurizer pressure indication reaches the actuation setpoint whether or not the level indication has dropped to the actuation setpoint."

Information from licensees and Westinghouse has identified that implementation of this action would preclude the perfom.ance of surveil-lance testing of the pressurizer pressure bistables without initiating a safety injection.

In order to permit surveillance testing of the pressurizer pressure bistableg, the low pressurizer level bistables that must operate in coincidence with the low pressurizer pressure bistables may be restored to normal operation for the duration of the surveillance test of that coincident pressurizer pressure channel.

At the conclusion of the surveillance test of each pressurizer pressure channel, the coincident pressurizer level channel must be returned to the tripped mode defined in Action Item 3 of IE Bulletin 79-06A.

As a result, Item 3 should be revis DUPLICATE DOCUMINT Entire document previously 3

entered into system under:

ANO g

7 No. of pages 1[

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UNITED STATES 3V NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 3 (1[ %

g WASHINGTON, D. C. 20555 kl s

SEP 131979 (TO ALL OPERATING NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS)

Gentlemen:

SUBJECT:

FOLLOWUP ACTIONS RESULTING FROM THE NRC STAFF REVIEWS REGARDING THE THREE MILE ISLAND UNIT 2 ACCIDENT Over the past several months following the Three Mile Island accident, the NRC staff has been conducting an intensive review of the design and operational aspects of nuclear power plants and the emet gency procedures for coping with potential accidents. The purpose of these efforts was to icentify measures that should be taken in the short-term to reduce the likelihood of such accidents and to improve the emergency preparecness in responding to such events. To carry out this review, efforts witnin NRR were estaolishea in four areas:

(a) licensee emergency preparedness, (b) operator licensing, (c) oulletins and orders followup (primarily in the areas of auxiliary feecwater systems reliability; loss of feecwater and small break loss-of-coolant accicent analysis; emergency operating guidelines and procedures) and (a) Short-Term Lessons Learned.

It is the purpose of this letter to set forth NRR's requirements establishea to cate as a result of these efforts. Additional requirements may be oeveloped as NRR's Lessons Learnea Task Force completes its Long-Term Requirements. In addition, Comission review of the results of other investigations, including the Presidential Comission and the NRC's Special Inquiry Group, can be expected to lead to additional requirements.

Lessons Learned Task Force Report The principal element of the staff activities listed above is con-tainec in the report titled, "TMI-2 Lessons Learned Task Force Status Report and Short-Tem Recomendations" (NUREG-0578), a copy of which was previously sent to you. The Task Force report contains a set of recomendations to be implemented in two stages over the next 16 months on operating plants. The Task Force.recomencea 20 licensing requirements and three rulemaking matters in 12 broad areas.

The Advisory Comittee on Reacto-of the Task Force report. The se suDComittee on TMI-2 and the pu DUPLICATE DOCUMENT Entire document previously 47

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entered into s stem un e{:

ANO w

No. of pages:

NU REG-0578 TMI-2 LESSONS LEARNED TASK FORCE STATUS REPORT AND SHORT-TERM RECOMMENDATIONS

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  • 1347 236 Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation U. S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission

STATEMENT OF POLICY The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has instituted a Special Inquiry to review and report on the accident which took place at the Three Mile Island Nuclear Station No. 2 beginning on March 2c, 1979 The primary objective of the inquiry will be to prepare a

eport which makes factual determinations concerning the actual events which occurred and their causes, and the actions of utility and Commission personnel before and during the accident.

The inquiry will also identify areas of deficiency revealed by the accident and araas in which further investigation is warranted.

The Commission will contract with the law firm of Rogovin, Stern and Huge, Washington, D.C.,

to conduct the Special Inquiry.

The inquiry will be headed by a Director, Mitchell Rogovin.

Mr. Rogovin will have the authority to designate a staff of his choosing, including both NRC personnel, and staff and consultants from outside the Commission.

It is expected that in assembling a staff, the Director will draw substantially on senior Cottission staff, including Cornission personnel and censultants currently engaged in conducting an interim inquiry into the matter.

The Director will possess full independence in carrying out the inquiry and will be removable only for malfeasance or neglect of duty.

To further such independence the Director will maintain records of all discussions bearing on the inquiry between those conducting the inquiry and any nember of the Consission or a Conmissioner's personal staff.

The Commission will designate E senior !!EC official to whom it will delegate its statutory pcwer 1347 237

2

o conduct investigations, issue subpoenas, and administer oaths in order that these powers will be available to further the Special Inquiry.

The Commission will grant to the Director access to any and all documents and employees of the Commission that he deems necessary to conduct a full and complete inquiry, and will provide appropriate administrative support for carrying cut the inquiry.

It is expected that reports issued and analyses performed by other persons and organizations will be utilized where useful.

It is* anticipated that the Special Inquiry will take approximately six months.

The Special Inquiry represents a maj or phase of the Com-tission's evaluation of the accident and its implications.

It is not intended to duplicate the efforts of the President's Commis-sion on the Accident at Three Mile Island.

It is designed in-stead so that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, in order to fulfill its own regulatory responsibilities, will have the fullest

ssible understanding of the events at Three Mile Island, both fron the technical standpoint and from the standpoint of how its regulatory processes functioned.

The purpose of that evaluation is to permit the Commission to take whatever further steps may be necessary to prevent any similar accident in the future, and to i prove the NRC's ability to respond to accidents.

The specific areas which the Special Inquiry will examine include the following:

1347 238

3 the sequence of events during the accident, what was happen-ing to the reactor and the plant, including, where feasible, an assessment of important alternative sequences; the re-sponse of the operating personnel; radioactive releases and exposures; events at the plant before the accident that might be related to the accident.

the history of the NRC review of the utility's application for a license to operate Three Mile Island No. 2; NRC license conditions on TMI-2 operations, including technical specifications; the operating and inspection history at TMI-2; the operating and inspection histories of other Babcock & Wilcor plants, focused on any indications of the types of problers that arose in the TMI-2 accident; a summary of NRC past consideration of such problems; the extent to which financial or tax considerations influenced conditions in the plant in any way that night have contrit-uted to the accident; any other precursor events or analyses relevant to the accident.

the susceptibility of Babcock & Wilcox plants to accidents; unique features of TMI-2 that nay have increased or de-creased the severity of the accident; other design effects related to the TEI-2 accident.

1347 239

4 TMI-2 operations, including training and qualifications of personnel, operating procedures and canagetent overview; technical support to operating personnel and management.

emergency response to the TMI-2 accident by the utility, other utilities and utility groups, and industrial organiza-tions, including coordination with NRC and other Federal, State, and local officials, and assessment and dissemination of information..

emergency planning by, and emergency response plans approved by, the NRC; actual emergency response to the accident by NRC, including staff, ACRS and Cor; 3sioners, on site and at headquarters; NRC coordination with Federal, State, and local officials, the utility, industry sources, and the national laboratories; NRC assesstent and dissemination of information; connunications and chain of ec=nand within NRC.

The Special Inquiry will also assess the possible implica-tions of the accident at TMI-2 (including design of the facility, operations, regulatory actions, emergency preparedness) for other nuclear power plants and identify areas where further study is reconnended.

Based on these assessments and recommendations, the Connission will undertake such additional investigations, analyses and actions as it considers appropriate in the discharge of its responsibilities.

1347 240

5 The Director will keep the Cottission informed on a periodic basis of the progress of the inquiry.

Any information of inne-diate public health or safety significance will be repcrted prorptly to the Corrission.

The Commission emphasizes that it will take whatever regulatory action it deems necessary at any time, based on information available to it at that time.

By instituting the Special Incuiry, the Commission intends no sugges-tion that it will withhold regulatory action with respect to identified deficiencies until the inquiry is completed.

FOR THE COMMI ON l

,[$Ga Samuel JJ Chilk Secretary of the Commission Dated at Washington, D.

C.

this 13th day of June, 1979 1347 241

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SECRETARIAT RECORD COPY C

IE Bulletin No. 79-06 Aptil 11,1979 7

REVIEW 0F OPERATIONAL ERRORS AND SYSTEM MISALIGNMENTS IDENTIFIED DURING THE THREE MILE ISLAND INCIDENT Distribution:

Techn1 cal Assistant, OCM (Chairman's Office)

H-1149 George Eysymontt, Technical Assistant, OCM (Gilinsky)

H-ll49 John C. Guibert, Technical Assistant, OCM (Kennedy)

H-1149 Hugh L. Thompson, Technical Assistant, OCM (Bradford)

H-ll49 George D. Sauter, Technical Assistant, OCM (Ahearne)

H-il49 H-il49 SECY A. P. Kenneke, Acting Director, PE H-1007 L. Bickwit, General Counsel H-1047 H-1016 R. F. Fraley, ACRS L. V. Gossick, EDO MNBB-6209 J. R. Shea, Dir., 0IP MNBB-8103 J. J. Fouchard, Director, PA MNBB-3709 N. M. Haller, Director, MPA MNBB-12105 G. Wayne Kerr, Asst. Dir., SA:SP MNBB-7210A MNBB-9604 J. Lieberman, ELD NL-5650 R. B. Minogue, Dir., SD G. A. Arlotto, Dir, DES :SD NL-5650 W. J. Dircks, Dir., NMSS SS-958 55-1130 S. Levine, Dir., RES H. R. Denton, Dir., NRR Phil-428 Phil-268 R. S. Boyd, Dir., DPM:NRR D. F. Ross, Deputy Director, DPM:NRR Phil-278 Phil-542 V. Stello, Dir., DOR:NRR J. R. Miller, DOR:NRR Phil-216 D. G. Eisenhut, Dep. Dir., DOR:NRR Phil-266 R. H. Vollmer, Asst. Dir., SP:00R:NRR P-514 G. C. Lainas, Chief, PSB: DOR:NRR Phil-416 B. K. Grimes, Asst. Dir., E/P: DOR:NRR Phil-370 R. J. Mattson, Dir., DSS:NRR Phil-202 P-320 W. P. Haass, Chief, QAB:0AO:NRR J. G. Davis, Acting Director, IE D. Thompson, X005:IE R. C. Paulus, X005:IE L. N. Underwood, X005:IE (Original)

H. D. Thornburg, RCI:IE G. W. Reinmuth, RCI:IE N. C. Moseley, ROI:IE E. L. Jordan, ROI:IE S. E. Bryan, ROI:IE J. H. Snie'zek, FFMSI:IE L. B. Higginbotham, FFMSI:IE E. M. Howard, SI:IE L. I. Cobb, X0MA:IE E. B. Blackwood, ROI:IE IE Files Phil-016 NRC Central Files IE Reading Files Phil-050 Mike Atsalinos, DSB:TIDC:ADM 1347 242

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IE Bulletin No. 79-06 Enclosure April 11, 1979 Paoa 3 of 3 LISTING OF IE BULLETINS ISSUED IN LAST TWELVE MONTHS Bulletin Subject Date Issued Issued To No.

79-02 Pipe Support Base Plate 3/2/79 All Power Reactor Designs Using Concrete Facilities with an Expansion Anchor Bolts OL or CP 79-03 Longitudinal Weld Defects 3/12/79 All Power Reactor In ASME SA-312 Type 304 Facilities with an Stainless Steel Pipe Spools OL or CP Manufactured By Youngstown Welding and Engineering Co.

79-04 Incorrect Weights for 3/30/79 All Power Reactor Swing Check Valves Facilities with an Manufactured by Veian OL or CP Engineering Corporation 70-05 Nuclear Incident 4/1/79 All B&W Power at Three Mile Island Reactor Facilities with an OL 79-05A Nuclear Incident at 4/5/79 All B&W Power Three Mile Island Reactor Facilities with an OL

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