ML19329F287
| ML19329F287 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Midland |
| Issue date: | 08/04/1978 |
| From: | Vassallo B Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation |
| To: | Harold Denton Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation |
| References | |
| NUDOCS 8006240652 | |
| Download: ML19329F287 (6) | |
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UNITED STATES 8
NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION o
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,s ASHINGTON. D. C. 20555 AUG 4 WS
%,.....,o fe D 9 MEMORANDUM FOR: Harold R. Denton, Director Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation THRU:
Roger S. Boyd, Director, Division of Project Manageman
.0ffice of Nuclear Reactor Regulation FROM:
D. B. Vassallo, Assistant Director for Light Water Reactors, Division of Project Management, NRR
SUBJECT:
SUMMARY
OF MEETING WITH APPLICANTS TO DISCUSS REVIEW SCHEDULE MATTERS At the request of Mr. Harold Denton, Director, NRR, a meeting was held in Bethesda, Maryland on August 1,1978 with the group of applicants identi-i fied in Enclosure 1.
The purpose of the meeting was to discuss review schedule matters and staff resources.
Mr. Denton opened the meeting with some general remarks by stating that this meeting was somewhat of an experiment in apprising applicants of review schedule problems and eliciting their collective views on establish-ing the accuracy of plant construction completion and fuel loading dates for operating license applications. Mr. Denton explained that the staff's primary interest in these dates is to establish priority of review to meet the staff's conunitment of completing the operating license review by the fuel loading date (i.e., the date construction of the facility has been completed in accordance with the application).
Mr. Denton explained that in order to provide the staff with real'stic completion dates, we have utilized the NRC's Caseload Forecast Panel. The Forecast Panel, assisted by NRR Project Managers and Inspection and Enforcement Inspectors, has made numerous visits to plant sites to discuss schedular matters with utilities and attempt to independently arrive at a construction completion date. Mr. Denton said that because in many cases there was a disparity between the Panel's projection and that of the utility, he has found some utility concern with the staff's attempt to establish construction completion dates. Many of the utility representatives present indicated some apprehension in having the staff develop taese dates and publish them because there are many other considerations involved in a utility establishing and trying to adhere to a scheduled fuel load date.
Mr. Denton stated that, nevertheless, we need such information to establish a priority review list since we have to allocate the available staff re-sources to higher priority reviews. Mr. Denton explained that operating plants have the nighest priority, but after that the next highest priority is for operating license reviews with the objective of preventing delay of staff review beyond the scheduled fuel loading date. Copies of the staff's (vf '.
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3 Harold R.-Danton AUG '
current priority listing for casa work (Enclosure 2) were distributed to the participants-. Mr. Denton stated that he recognized that this was an early attempt at listing the priorities, but had called this meeting to share with the utilities the difficulties of scheduling reviews and to ask their input or help in establishing a priority listing acceptable to applicants and the staff.
Mr. Denton and other members of the staff present explained how the staff is attempting to use the priority listing. Dr. Mattson explained that for the Division :;f Systems Safety he has forecast the resources of each j
reviewer six months in advance, consistent with the Division of Project Management's priority. He explained how this is broken down to establish how each reviewer spends his or her time on a weekly basis over a six-month period..
After this, Mr. Denton turned to the matter of resolving safety issues which appear to consistently recur on current operating license reviews and seem to be the pace-setting items in completing the review in time for fuel loading. Mr. Denton explained that there are a number of these common problems.which seem to be delaying operating license reviews and suggested that the applicants singly or collectively put more effort into resolving these matters.
Some of the issues which were used as examples are environ-mental qualification of safety equipment, asymmetric loads and computer protection systems. The staff explained that around 1975, DSS needed about 500 man days to review an operating license application.
Since the issuance of the Standard Review Plan, and with the increased involvement of the public, and the experience from a growing number of operating plants, DSS review now requires about 1700 man days. Dr. Mattson explained, however, that for Arkansas Unit 2, his staff review required 2400 man days, the main i
reason being the complexity of the core protection calculation system review.
Mr. Denton explained that the staff could just not afford to continue to put this heavy involvement in one review area. Mr. Denton suggested that applicants can help in reducing this effort by improving the timeliness of their input to the staff and assuring that it is complete and responsive.
Mr. Denton then suggested that the industry participants discuss amongst themselves how they might assist in establishing review priorities or other means for improving the licensing process.
After the meeting was reconvened with the staff, a spokesman for the group present stated that they had prepared a consensus recommendation. The participants stated that they appreciated the opportunity to meet in this manner and requested that this open discussion practice continue in the future. The group recomendations are as follows:
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!'arold R. Denton AUG 4 1978 (1) NRR has the responsibility to industry to review applications to meet utilities' fuel load dates and the responsibility to apply NRR resources to accomplish this.
(2) Applicants have the obligation to maintain the most realistic schedule hfonnation to the NRR.
(3) NRR shou'Id give applicants the schedules for its review, report progress against those schedules and propose corrective actions.
(4) Utilities request the NRR to furnish a list of specific areas where the utilities could aid the NRR in improving and shortening the licensing process.
(5) Applicants will schedule individual meetings with the Directors of DPM and DSS (Roger Boyd and Roger Mattson) to review the status of their plant licensing review, problem areas and solutions to the problems.
With respect to the above reconnendations, Mr. Denton stated that he appreciated these views.
Further, he stated that the participants might wish to reflect on this further and later submit written comments. Mr.
Denton indicated that he has scheduled meetings for August 9 and 10,1978 with two other groups of applicants for the same purpose and that we would await their views before attempting to establish any different method for setting review priorities.
With respect to Reconnendation No. 3, Mr. Denton inquired whether receiv-ing copies of the Blue Book schedules would be helpful. The group indi-cated that this would be very helpful. Mr. Denton said that we would consider making the Blue Book available to the public, although some modi-fications might have to be made to it to make it more understandable.
Mr. Denton also encouraged utility management meetings with the staff management, particularly during the latter course of a review, to resolve major outstanding review issues. Through past experience, the staff has found this ta be a very effective. mechanism.
Both the staff and utility representatives seemed to think that this was a productive <tiscussion.
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- 4. B. Vassallo, Assistant Director for Light Water Reactors Enclosures (2)
Division of Project Management As stated cc w/ enclosures:
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ENCLOSURE 1 ATTENDANCE LIST UTILITY MEETING WITH H. DENTON ON SCHEDULING AUGUST 1, 1978 NRC H. Denton E. Case D. Crutchfield R. Boyd R. Mattson R. DeYoung D. Vassallo UTILITIES Gene A. Blanc PG&E Earl Borgmann Cincinnati Gas & Electric Herb Brinkmann James D. Flynn Tom Anderson Westinghouse Dan Call T. J. Martin PSE&G Co.
R. L. Mitti Ed Gray TVA Stephen H. Howell Consumers Power Co.
Gilbert S. Keeley William J. Fahrner Detroit Edison Wayne H. Jens P. B. Haga OPS A. R. Collier K. P. Baskin Southern California Edison David R. Pigott A,_W. Wofford LILCO B. R. McCaffrey L. C. Dail Duke Power l
W. O. Parker l
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ENCLOSURE 2 LWR PRIORITY LISTING - CASEWORK Priority Case Next Event 1
Davis Besse 1 Operating plants still under Cook 2 cognizance of LWR.
North Anna 1 TMI-2 Hatch-2 2
ANO-2 OL 3
Diablo Canyon 1&2 SER Supplement 4
McGuire Hearing 5
Shoreham SER 6
Zimmer SER 7
Sequoyah SER 8
Salem 2 SER 9
San Onofre 2&3 SER 10 Midland Q2 j
11 Allens Creek SER 12 New England 1&2 ACRS l
13 RESAR-414 ACRS 14 Davis Besse 2&3 ACRS 15 Erie 1&2 ACRS 16 LaSalle Q2 17 Watts Bar Q2 18 Summer Q2 19 Fermi-2 Q1 j
y 20 SWESSAR/BSAR-205 SER i
21 B0PSSAR Rev.
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22 Farley 2 N/S 23 Palo Verde 4&5 N/S i
24 GIBBSAR Q1 25 Haven N/S 26 WPPSS 2 N/S 27 Susquehanna 1&P N/S 28 Grand Gulf 182 N/S 29 South Texas 1&2 N/S 30 Comanche Peak N/S 31 Bellefonte N/S 32 ESSAR N/S 33 GATSSAR N/S i
34 kcS Hold In addition, the following plants are in hearing with limited issues.
Required work on these cases will necessarily be of high priority but should be very limited in scope.
Pebble Springs 1&2 l
Skagit Black Fox 1&2 Yellow Creek Griene County i
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MEETING SUMARY DISTRIBUTION Central Files J. Knight NRC PDR D. Ross LDCAL PDRs of Utilities R. Tedesco NRR Reading Involved R. Bosnak H. Denton S. Pawlicki E. Case I. Sihweil R. Boyd K. Kniel R. DeYoung T. Novak D. Vassallo Z. Rosztoczy D. Skovholt W. Butler
-W. Ganmill V. Benaroya J. Stolz Chief, ICSB R. Baer V. Moore
- 0. Parr R. Vollmer S. Varga M. Ernst W. Haass F. Rosa R. Houston EP Branch Chief L. Crocker D. Bunch D. Crutchfield J. Collins F. Williams W. Kreger R. Mattson G. Lear D. Muller B. Youngblood M. Grossman J. Stepp IE (7)
L. Hulman ACRS (16)
C. Heltemes L. Rubenstein TIC R. Denise Utility Attendees (see list)
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