ML19340E367
| ML19340E367 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Yankee Rowe |
| Issue date: | 01/02/1981 |
| From: | Harold Denton Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation |
| To: | AFFILIATION NOT ASSIGNED |
| References | |
| LSO5-80, NUDOCS 8101140181 | |
| Download: ML19340E367 (3) | |
Text
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m an Docket No. 50-29 L505 Rowe Nuclear Conversion Canpaign Box 3-2-1 Rowe, Massachusetts 01367
Dear Sirs:
Your letter of October 6,1980, to the Chairman and Comissioners concerning the operation of the Yankee Rowe Nuclear Power Station has been referred to me for response.
In your letter, you request that the Comission secure the cooperation of the NRC licensee, Yankee Atomic Electric Conpany, specifically with regard to your ability to ask questions of the Conpany and its responsibility to answer those questions. The NRC does not require licensees to answer ques-tior3 from citizens' groups, except when such groups are parties to a formal sceeding, and in such proceedings, questioning.is governed by rules of discovery and cross examination.
Since there is not any proceeding involving Yankee Atomic either undergy or contenplated, the licensee's responses to your concerns would be voluntary with respect to NRC requirements. However, we are planning a meeting with Yankee Atomic in the near future at a location in the vicinity of the plant. This meeting will be an open meeting to which the public will be invited to attend and members of ny staff will be available to further discuss these as well.
We will keep you informed as to the loca-tion and time of this meeting, as well as the subjects to be discussed. -
It should be noted, however, that the licensing proceeding for the Yankee Rowe station, as well as informational exchanges between the NRC staff and the licensee, are part of the public record.
They are available to anyone for review in the local public document room, located in the Greenfield Cormunity College Library.
Your letter also requested that a public hearing be held prior to the restart of Yankee Rowe, but you set forth no facts concerning any sub-stantive issue or condition which would warrant su.ch a hearing.
Your statement that "a number of issues have been raised about the continued operation of this 20 year old nuclear plant" does not specify any unsafe conditions at the plant and does not allege any specific violations of the rules and regulations of the Comission, or of the conditions of Yankee Atomic's license.
As you stated, Yankee Rowe was shutdown by the licensee in a normal fashion in February after the failure of a couponent in the turbine generator.
While the damage done was costly to repair and resulted in a long outage, the turbine generator is not part of any safety system and we, therefore, determined that no reason existed to delay the restart of the plant.
We are continuing to review Yankee's efforts to repair the turbine, even though we do not consider operation of the turbine to be a hazard, because we desire to better understand the causes of the original failure b
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. During the telephone conversation on November 17, we informed you that the plant had alreacty started up, and you also expressed further interest in an explanation of the turbte failure at Yankee Rowe, and our letter to Yankee Atomic Power Cogany of December 28, 1979, which requested that they inspect their turbine discs. The following is a sumary of cur discussion during that telephone conversation.
The low pressure turbine at Yankee Rowe consists of a steel shaft, called a spindle, which is designed to hold 12 discs. These discs hold the turbine blades (see attached drawing). The high pressure turbine is similarly constructed.
In our Decerter 28, 1979 letter we asked Yankee to inspect the discs for cracks but, at that time, they could not cogletely inspect all areas of all discs on the low pressure rotor because the design of the turbine would not permit access to all parts of the first, second and third stage discs. After the turbine was damaged in February, Yankee removed both the first stage and second stage discs from the low pressure rotor and inspected the third stage discs that they had not previously inspected. They found no cracks in the third stage discs they inspected. They subsequently installed baffle segments on the spindle in place of the first and second stage turbine discs which had been removed and, as a result, the capability of the turbine to generate electric power was reduced from 185 HWe to 159 MWe.
You also had a question concerning the license issuance dates for Yankee Rowe.
On July 9,1960, the Atomic Energy Comission issued Provisional Operating License No. DPR-3 to Yankee Atomic, and converted it to a Full Tem License on June 23, 1961.
If, in the future, you feel that an unsafe condition exists at Yankee Rowe, you should submit a request for action under the provisions of Paragraph 2.206 of the Comission's Rules of Practice (copy enclosed) and should set forth specific facts that constitute the basis for your request.
I hope this answers your questions. We appreciate your concern and want to assure you that every effort is being made to ensure the continued protection of the health and safety of the public.
Sincerely, l
Harold R. Denton, Director Office of Huclear Reactor Regulation
Enclosures:
1.
Comission's Rules bec:
Rep. Silvio 0. Conte of Practice Ms. Elaine Parmett (19 CFR Part 2) 2.
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DISTRIBUTION:
Docket PPAS NRC PDR Stavanaugh Local PDR (EDD-9739)
TERA GErtter NSIC (ED0-9739) & 9899 EDO Reading DNottingham NRR Reading (EDD-9739)
ORB #5 Reading DCrutchfield HDenton RCaruso ECase OELD DEisenhut SECY (3)
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D U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE: 1979 289 369 N2C FCRM 318 (9 76) NRCM 0240
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