ML20005E664
| ML20005E664 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 12/20/1989 |
| From: | Holtzman R, Schumacher M, Wiedeman D NRC OFFICE OF INSPECTION & ENFORCEMENT (IE REGION III) |
| To: | |
| Shared Package | |
| ML20005E663 | List: |
| References | |
| CON-NRC-30-83-647, REF-QA-99990003-891221 99990003-89-10, NUDOCS 9001100071 | |
| Download: ML20005E664 (6) | |
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Performance Appraisal for the NRC/ State of Wisconsin Environmental Monitoring Cooperative Agreement Report No. 9999-0003/89010 Cooperative Agreement No. NRC-30-83-647-Docket No. 9999-0003
' Facility:
State of Wisconsin, Department.of Health and Human Services Section of Radiation Protection and State Laboratory of Hygiene Appraisal At:
Madison, Wisconsin Appraisal Conducted:
November }5 and 16,1989 (0nsite)
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- Appraisal Team Members:
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M. C. Schumacher Radiological Controls and Date Chemistry Section Appraisal Summary Anraisal Conducted on November 15 and 16,1989 (Report No. 9999-0003/89010 (HSS)) (IP 1415)
Areas Appraised:
Adherence to the requirements of the cooperative agreement;
. organization structure and management support; technical staffing and training; i
facilities, analytical equipment and counting instrumentation; sampling and analytical procedures and laboratory performance; quality assurance / quality
-i control; data storage and assessment; reports. (IP 1415)
Results:
The program has continued from the period of the previous report to monitor the environmental program of the Kewaunee Nuclear Power Plant, Point Beach Nuclear Power Plant, and the Lacrosse Boiling Water Reactor.
The Annual Reports for each of the plants for the years 1986, 1987, and 1988 were submitted to the NRC in their respective required time frames.
The State of Wisconsin's performance related to this cooperative agreement was satisfactory and has progressed since the previous appraisal.
Management's support for the program appears to be satisfactory.
The laboratory moved into improved quarters, and the radiochemical analytical procedures were finalized; the capabilities are good and improving.
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DETAILS J1.
Persons Contacted
-#T.'Vierima, Ph.D., Chief, Section.of Radiation Protection (SRP), Bureau l
of Environmental Health (BEH), Division of Health (DOH), Department of 1
Health and Human Services
- D. Hassemer, Chief, Section of Clinical Chemistry and Radiation Protection L
SCCRP), State Laboratory of Hygiene (SLH), University of Wisconsin (UW) l
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- P. Hintzman, Assistant to the Director, SLH, UW
- L. West, Chemistry Supervisor I, SCCRP, SLH, UW t
- D. Hendrickse,. Radiation Consultant, SRP, BEH
- P. Schmidt, Environmental Engineer-Supervisor 5, SRP, BEH
- Attended' exit interview on November 15, 1989.
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- Attended exit interview on November 16, 1989.
l 2.
General-(IP 1415)
This appraisal was conducted to review the performance of the environmental monitoring program by the State of Wisconsin under the NRC/ State of Wisconsin Cooperative Agreement (NRC-30-83-647).
Under this agreement, the State performs environmenta~1 monitoring and exchanges the NRC TLDs in the vicinity of.the Point Beach Nuclear Power Plant, Kewaunee Nuclear Power Plant, and the Lacrosse Boiling Water Reactor. The program serves to compare and verify the results of the programs-conducted by the licensees.
l The State also conducts' other environmental monitoring programs in Wisconsin in the vicinities of the Zion Nuclear Power Plant located in i
Illinois and the Prairie Island Nuclear Power Plant located in Minnesota, i
although these programs are not covered by the agreement.
i This appraisal consisted of interviews with staff members of the Section of. Radiation Protection (SRP) of the Department of Health and Social Services (DHSS) located in Madison, Wisconsin, and with members of the State Laboratory of Hygiene (SLH) on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus.
The review covered the period of January 1985 through November 1989.
3.
Summary and Recommendations Based on its review, the appraisal team recommends continuation of the existing cooperative agreement between the NRC and the State of Wisconsin.
Overall, the program has operated well and satisfied the objectives and conditions of the agreement.
Improvements have been made since the previous NRC appraisal (January 1985).
The gamma-counting procedure has been completed and implemented.
The laboratory moved to more spacious quarters, and the data management system has been expanded and computerized.
The report production has been simplified by accumulating the data in spreadsheets; the reports have been submitted in a timely manner.
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Organization,' Staffing, and Training The organization is unchanged since the previous appraisal.2 -The Cooperative Agreement is administered by the Chief,.Section of Radiation Protection-(SRP), who reports to the Deputy Director, Bureau of Environmenta'l Health. The' Chief,-SRP, is new to this position, but she and-the recently added Environmental _ Engineer Supervisor are experienced in-radiation protection and radiological environmental monitoring.
The
' Radiation. Consultant, who reports to the Supervisor,.has extensive experience in' operating this program since it started.
i The Section Chief, Clinical Chemistry and Radiation Protection, State Laboratory of Hygiene (SLH),
has a Master of-Science in Clinical Chemistry and 17 years experience at the SLH.
The Chemist Supervisor is supported by two degreed Chemists.
Dr. Showalter, Professor of Radiochemistry _at the UW-Stevens-Point, continues to provide consulting services and training to the laboratory.
The SRP personnel visit the SLH at least weekly to provide consultation in sample analysis and' counting problems and to review the finished data from'.the laboratory.
The SRP personnel and the Lacrosse Health Department collect samples at LACBWR, and the Manitowoc Public Health Department collects samples at the Kewaunee and Point Beach plants.
The Section Chief noted that they were looking for training courses in environmental monitoring for their personnel, such.as the RESL course in Idaho.
Overall, the State personnel, in both the SRP and laboratory, were experienced, knowledgeable, and otherwise well qualified.
5.
Management Support
. Management has supported the program and is committed to continuing the program.
6.
Conformance with the Requirements of the Cooperative Agreement The NRC appraisers reviewed the sample collection and analytical results in'the environmental. reports for the period 1987 and 1988 to determine conformance with the objectives in Attachment 1 of the cooperative agreement.
The licensees, Wisconsin Public Service (Kewaunee), Wisconsin Electric (Point Beach), and Dairyland Power Cooperative (LACBWR) conduct their own environmental monitoring programs or contract with a vendor laboratory to collect samples and perform analyses.
State personnel are responsible for all sample preparation and analyses which are done in the SLH in Madison, Wisconsin.
State personnel exchange the TLDs associated with the NRC TLD monitoring network and send them to the NRC Region I office for processing.
The State also has its own TLD placement and measurement program with TLDs at 15 locations in Wisconsin near the Zion Nuclear Power Plant.
They are collected by state personnel and analyzed by their contractor (Teledyne).
Region III Appraisal Report No. 9999-0003/85-01.
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. The sampling programs met most of the requireme_nts of the cooperative 4
- agreement:. food products and shorelinet sediment samples with isotopic gamma j
. measurements; reported in the:1987-and 1988 annual reports-satisfied the
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- specific requirements of the cooperative agreement.. Although they were
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- not' true split samples, the milk collections essentially met that requirement; because of logistics problems, the State's samples were collected-on the:same days and from the same tanks as the licensees'.
1 The other measurements showed some discrepancies with the requirements or i
E other deficiencies:
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I a.
The airborne particulate and radiciodine. samples with gross beta l
and gamma isotopic measurements met the specific requirements of the i
agreement, but the State's results in the Kewaunee area were routinely greater than the licensee's. The appraisers recommended that the f
D State discuss this discrepancy with the licensee to assess the sources of the differences, such as in collection and/or analytical techniques.
l b.
The agreement requires the collection of two weekly surface water samples from each facility split with the licensee, one from the
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immediate area of plant discharge and one from an upstream control location.
A gamma isotopic analysis is required on a monthly sample composited from the weekly collections and a quarterly tritium analysis composited from the monthly samples. However, at Kewaunee i
and LACBWR, collections were made monthly, rather than weekly. The J
state committed that in the future, monthly water samples from Kewaunee and LACBWR will be composited from weekly samples.
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problems were noted with the collection frequency at Point Beach, c.
The fish sampling program met most of the requirements of the 1
s agreement of gamma-isotopic analyses of two samples annually of a commercially or recreationally important species in the vicinity of the respective discharge areas of each plant.
However, some of the specimens attributed to the Kewaunee discharge area were collected in Lake Michigan near the Point Beach plant and were not necessarily representative of those in the local Kewaunee area. Further, it was determined that the fish samples caught by the State were not split with Kewaunee as required by Attachment 1 of the agreement.
d.
It was noted that the NRC TLD results of the direct radiation levels were not listed in the annual reports. While this was not a requirement of the agreement, the State representatives agreed to include them in future annual reports to the NRC.
The State agreed to try to resolve these problems and to correct future Annual Reports.
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Wisconsin Annual Environmental Monitoring Reports Pursuant to the Cooperative Agreement, the State through the SRP submitted t
the_ annual reports in a timely manner (within 120 days of the end of the respective calendar years).
These reports included summaries of the analytical results compared to those of-the respective licensee's (Kewaunee, Point Beach and LACBWR), sampling and' analytical procedures, and evaluations of any significant differences between the results of the=
SRP and.those of the plant.
The reports included explanations of missing data, a description of the State QA/QC Program, i.e., results of-the EPA crosscheck.
The reports are distributed to State and Federal-agencies, as well.as'to the licensees.
The. team members reviewed the Annual Reports (1987 and 1988).
They were' generally good and appeared to fulfill.the requirements of the Agreement.
Rather than report the low-level results as "less than the LLD" of the Agreement, they report the actual values determined, along with their-associated uncertainties.
The method is acceptable; it meets the LLD criteria and is actually a more statistically correct and useful-way to present the data.
The reviewers noted also that the K-40 results are very useful; in the absence of plant nuclides in split samples, they provide the'only comparison between the laboratories.
In addition to the deficiencies noted in the previous section, some suggestions were made for changes to be incorporated into future reports:
Where there is extensive data,.such as for the gross beta air samples, the results should be summarized quarterly (mean and standard deviation (SD)) so that better comparisons could be made with the licensee data.
The air volumes should also be reported.
Maps of the sampling points should be incorporated into the reports.
In the discussion of " Dose to an Average Individual,"
in the reports (e.g., Page 12 in the 1988 Kewaunee Report), it is stated that these doses are below the State and Federal standards of 500 mrem / year.
This should be changed to 25 mrem / year which is U.S. EPA standard from 40 CFR 190 for environmental radiation and the basic standard to be attained.
The Annual Reports are generally good, and the SRP representatives noted that they will consider revising them with the suggested changes.
8.
Facilities and Equipment The appraisal team visited the radiochemistry laboratory and counting room.
The laboratory was well-equipped with adequate bench space and four fume hoods.
The housekeeping was good.
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The counting room had sufficient instrumentation to do the required.
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analyses..They have two shielded Ge(Li) detectors both operated.by a j
Canberra Series 85 Multi-Channel Analyzer.
The gross alpha and beta counting is done in a 10-sample Berthold LB 770-2 low background alpha-beta O
counter and a-Tennelec counter with sample changer.
A Packard Model 1500 e
liquid scintillation counter is used for tritium analyses.
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The laboratory facilities appear to be adequate for the analyses required forithis program.
9.
Quality Assurance / Quality Control in the Laboratory The QA/QC program in the laboratory appears to be adequate. The laboratory is certified by the EPA for environmental analyses, so that much of this L
program is mandated by EPA procedures.
The analysts are required to do various blind and other performance samples prior to and during'the.
analysis of a set of samples.
Periodically, they also analyze EPA inter-laboratory samples with mixtures of nuclides.
Computerized control
-charts are also maintained on performance check sources, precision p
(duplicats ineasurements), and counter backgrounds.
The only problem noted was that some of the vertical scales on the control charts should be
. expanded to better demonstrate variabilities of the results. Laboratory
. representatives stated that this part of the program is reviewed by a consultant statistician; they will consider this suggestion.
The reviewers. noted that while the LLDs for tritium were in conformance with the 2000 pCi/ liter required by the Agreement, they were higher-than the 330 pCi/ liter reported by the licensees.
It appears that by using-longer-term background measurements, the effects of background variability
. on the LLD could be substantially reduced.
Laboratory personnel noted that they will consider this possibility.
The sample tracking program appeared to be good.
The QA/QC programs appear to be properly implemented to ensure reasonable results.
10.
Exit Interview The appraisal team members discussed the scope and findings of the appraisal with Laboratory and SRP personnel on November 15, 1989, and with SRP personnel at the conclusion of the appraisal on November 16, 1989.
Possible improvements in the upcoming Annual Reports were discussed (Section 7) and improved training for the laboratory staff.
Overall, the program appears to be satisfactory, and the SRP is working to correct deficiencies and to conform to the cooperative agreement.
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