ML19351G190
| ML19351G190 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | 07001308 |
| Issue date: | 01/13/1981 |
| From: | Fisher W, Peck C NRC OFFICE OF INSPECTION & ENFORCEMENT (IE REGION III) |
| To: | |
| Shared Package | |
| ML19351G185 | List: |
| References | |
| 70-1308-80-05, 70-1308-80-5, NUDOCS 8102230245 | |
| Download: ML19351G190 (6) | |
Text
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- j U.S. NUCLEAR REGULA'IORY COMMISSION 4
l OFFICE OF INSPECTION AND ENFORCEMENT REGION III Report No. 70-1308/80-05 Docket No. 70-1308 License No. SNM-1265 i
Licensee:
General Electric Company 175 Curtner Avenue San Jose, CA 95125 Facility Name: General Electric Company i
Inspection At: Morris, IL i
Inspection Conducted: December 9-11 and 17, 1980 7 ) d' k }\\. joM r l
Inspector:ft.C. Peck
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l W. L.[... 4%
c Fisher, Chief,
///?/t; Approved By:
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Fuel Facility Projects and Radiation Support Section Inspection Summary i
Inspection on December 9-11, and 17, 1980 (Report No. 70-1308/80-05)
Areas Inspected: Routine, unannounced health and safety inspection, including:
fuel receipt and storage, facility changes, criticality-safety, surveillance l
. tests, training, transportation' activities, and radiation protection. The inspection required 28 hours3.240741e-4 days <br />0.00778 hours <br />4.62963e-5 weeks <br />1.0654e-5 months <br /> onsite by one NRC inspector.
Results: No items of noncompliance were identified.
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DETAILS 1.
Persons Contacted
- E. E. Voiland, Plant Manager
- T. E. Ingels, Quality Assurance and Safeguards Manager
- K. J. Eger, Senior Engineer, Licensing and Radiological Safety H. R. Strickler-. Operations Manager J. E. McGrath, Plant Safety Supervisor
- b. P. Shaikh, Oparations Engineer J. W. Doman, Operations Engineer T. E. Tehan, Senior Engineer, Field Services
- K.
A. Astrom, Field Services Specialist A. C. Shorkey, Shift Supervisor L. L. Denio, Supervisor, Analytical Services R. K. Wright, Safety Technician
- Denotes those present at the exit interview.
2.
General The inspection began at 9:30 a.m. on December 9, 1980, continued on the following two days, and was concluded on December 17, 1980.
It was learned that the licensee plans to apply for a license under 10 CFR Part 72 early in 1981.
Part 72, Licensing Requirements for the Storage of Spent Fuel in an Independent Spent Fuel Storage Installation, recently became effective. License No. SNM-1965, issued under 10 CFR Part 70, will continue in effect pending issuance of a Part 72 license. The licensee expects to submit an application for a Part 72 license early in 1981.
Recent legislation of the State of Illinois prohibits the receipt of spent fuel from any state that cannot receive spent fuel from Illinois.
In effect, this prevents the receipt of fuels from outside the State.
3.
Fuel Receipt and Storage Three fuel assembli's were received from the San Onofre nuciear power station since the previous inspection in July 1980 (Report No. 70-1308/80-04).
These were all icy shipments in an NFS-4 type cask, NAC 1-D.
There were no problera with any of the shipments.
The fuel basin inventory at the time of the inspection was 1220 assemblies.
No items-of noncompliance were identified, l
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P 4.
Facility Changes Installation of equipment in the new addition to the basin pump room continues. The room contains permanent flushing equipment for the basin coolers and a heat pump system that will use heat from storage basin water indirectly to heat occupied portions of the buildiag.
A new aluminum work platform was installed in the cask decontamination area, replacing a steel platform. The new installation will facilitate decontamination work on various types of casks.
No items of noncompliance were identified.
5.
Criticality Safety Criticality evacuation drills are conducted quarterly. A drill took place during the inspection. All personnel onsite assembled at one of the two designated staging areas, were accounted for, and had their badges checked in eight minutes.
Quarterly tests of the two criticality monitors and an annual test of the alarm have been conducted as required.
N(, items of noncompliance were identified.
6.
Surveillance Tests Records of compliance and operability tests conducted since the inspection in July 1980 were examined. Tests have been performed at the required frequencies and no test limits were exceeded. Data accumulated during some of the recent tests are presented below:
Basin Water Quality Gross Beta Activity 2.5 E-4 pCi/ml pH 5.3 Basin Leak Rate Leak Rate 0.023 liters / day Intrusion Rate 0.76 liters / day l
Low Activity Waste Vault Leak Rtte Leak Rate 3.05 ml/ day Intrusion Rate 4.97 liters / day
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9 Sealed Source Leak Check and Inventory Seven sealed sources licensed under SNM-1265 are inventoried and leak checked quarterly. The most recent test in October 1980 discle ac ne missing sources and no detectable leakage No items of noncompliance were identified.
7.
Training The new 10 CFR Part 72 for Independent Spent Fuel Storage Installations requires that operating personnel be trained, tested, and certified in a program subject to NRC approval.
The licensee has an existing retraining and testing program that is administered at two-year intervals. The project manager from NRC's Spent Fuel Licensing Branch and the inspector met with licensee representatives on November 5, 1980, to discuss the training pro-gram, especially the types of test questions that would be appropriate for a training program under Part 72.
After the meeting the licensee devised a written test consisting of ques-tions in five areas important to safety. The five areas are basin operation, cask handling, health and safety, instrumentation, and utilities. Test questions are all of an expository nature requiring full explanations and sketches of systems and safety significant equipment. The test was being administered during the inspection.
Indications are that three to five hours are required for compl tion. The second part of the test, consisting of a walk-through is schedul d for early 1981.
The annual sa fety recertifica. ion test required for all operating techni-cians was scheduled for mid December 1980. This written test consists of questions on industrial and radiation safety.
No items of noncompliance were identified.
8.
Transportation Activities Three IF-300 spent fuel casks remain onsite. Certificate 9001 for the casks requires periodic testing of the cavity relief valve, globe valves, and the expansion tank relief valves for each cask, but permits testing to be omitted when the casks are inactive. There was therefore no valve testing in 1980 because the casks were not used.
l The licensee makes infrequent shipments of low specific activity wastes to licensed burial sites. The inspector reviewed the records'of the most rece t shipment, made to the burial site at Beatty, Nevada in September 1980. The shipment consisted of 51 reconditioned 17H drums and two wooden boxes containing 158 mci of radioactive material. Survey dat'a indicated that the shipment was in compliance with DOT regulations.
Survey records for the three spent fuel shipments received in August and September 1980 were reviewed. All were within DOT regulations pertaining to radiation levels and removable contamination.
Survey records of the final shipment showed an interesting example of the phenomenon commonly known as " weeping," an increase in removable contamina-tionlevelsuponsganding. Smear surveys of the cask were generally several thousand dpm/100cm on regeipt. Decontamination reduced the levels to less than a thousand dpm/100cm, after which the cask was stored for about six weeks. A survey at the end of this pegiod disclosed contamination levels again to be several thousand dpm/100cm. The cask was subjected to a final decontamination to levels of less than a thousand before its release for transport.
No items of noncompliance were identified.
9.
Radiation Protection a.
External Exposure Control The basin filter room remains a high radiation area where levels exceed 100 mR/hr. The entrance to the room is locked, and entry is seldom required. Levels above 100 mR/hr also exist at the basin coolers outside the fuel stcrage building. The coolers are enclosed by a tence with a locked gate.
TLD badge records indicate that the highest dose to any individual for 1980 through November, was 630 mrems to the skin and whole body. The licensee stated that results reported for test badges deliberately exposed were in good agreement with the measured exposures, differing by about six percent on average.
b.
Internal Exposure Control Annual whole body counts for mixed fission and activation products were administered in August 1980. Results were similar to those observed in previous counting sessions. No significant exposures were indicated. A summary of results is tabulated below.
Highest Percent of Ambient Found Percent of Radionuclide Individuals (nanocuries)
Maximum Burden-l Cesium-134 7
3 0.015 Cesium-137 60 11 0.037 l
Cobalt-58 2
1 0.034 Cobalt-60 24 12 1.1 l
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In October 1980, an air sample taken in an area where five employees were performing a routine quality assurance check on a fuel grapple indicated airborne radioactivity of about twice the maximum permissible concentration. Special whole body counts at the nearby Dresden nuclear station were arranged. No radioactivity was detected in two of the individuals. Small amounts of cesium-137 were indicated in the other three people. The maximum amount detected was six nanocuries, 0.02 percent of the maximum permissible.
Quarterly urinalyses are required for employees.
Samples are analyzed by an outside laboratory. Results of analysis in all four quarters of 1980 were all less than 2E-7 uCi/ml, the limit of detection.
c.
Respiratory Protection Employee fitness to use respirators is determined and documented each year in conjunction with an annual physical examination. Qualitative fit tests are required annually to determine eligibility to use either MSA or Welsh full-face respirators.
Respirators are cleaned and in-spected by a safety technician after each use.
Fit tests were most recently conducted in early 1980 and are scheduled to be repeated in the near future.
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No items of noncompliance with radiation protection requirements were t
identified.
13.
Exit Interview The inspector described the inspection scope with the licensee representa-tives denoted in Paragraph 1 and stated that no items of noncompliance had been identified.
The certification tests for operating technicians were discussed. The inspector acknowledged that changes in the test format were in line with the recommendation discussed in the licensee-NRC meeting on November 5, 1980 (Paragraph 7).
The inspector pointed out the importance of taking every reasonable. pre-caution to assure that drums shipped to low-level waste burial' sites are free of defects.
The inspector said that use of an IF-300 cask on site to test some monitor-ing instrumentation would not require the calibration of the cavity relief valve as would be required for actual transport.
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