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A ~/'9 GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY PROJECT Institute for Policy Studies 1901 Que Street N.W., Washington, D.C. 20009 (202)234-9382 September 4, 1982 y;py -- -,.--.~.i.:..
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Mr.' James Keppler Sy.NTf*~~h Regional Administrator 733,9I,';""~ E;h j
U. S. Duclear' Regulatory Commission
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Dear Mr. Keppler:
After reviewing my. notes from the August 24 1982 meeting and Commonwealth 3
Edison's (" CECO") August.24 written package, I am submitted these comments on:
behalf of M'r. Howard and Ms. Marello. We were pleased with some results to date, such as the impressive qualifications of,certain Braun personnel, and the consensus for Braun to submit its first report simultanecusly to CECO and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission '("NRC").
In general, however, we were disappointed that NRC officials at the meeting did not aggressively probe the specifics of the presentation, as at earlier sessions. Since we were all operating at a handicap and without a chance to carefully study Braun's August 20 proposal, the following specific concerns l
may be helpful as you review the final Braun proposal:
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I.
INDEPENDENCE 1
l Braun representatives presented their proposal at the August 24 l
meeting. But CECO officials answered most of the followup questions about how Braun would implement the specifics of its plan. This pattern raised questions about independence. We have seven specific concerns:
1.
Initially, CECO controls the timetable of the Braun investigation.
The August 20 proposal states that "the final report of our findings will be submitted to CECO by September 15, 1982 or subsequent date as directed by l
CECO."
(August 20 proposal, at 1-3.)
In other words, Braun can investigate beyond September 15 only with CECO's consent.
All parties must concede that realistically it is unlikely Braun will be finished by September 15.
CECO's ability to stop the investigation beyond that date eliminates any notion of independence. Braun has been chosen on the basis its qualifications and prior independence; that premise should continue.
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- O Mr. James Keppler September 4, 1982
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In the final plan, Braun should have the freedom to control its own tl'IEetable.
If there' is some necessity for outside approval of time extensions, the NRC sheuld assunte that responsibility.
2.
Braun has not demonstrated that the personnel assigned to the project are free from conflicts of interest. It is insufficient for the company to be free of conflicts if the key factfinders and decisionmakers are not.
Unfortunately, the Braun pledge that its personnel are free of "sub-stantial interest in CECO or Zack Co" (August 20 proposal, at 1-3) raises more questions than it answers. It does not include a definition that distinguishes a " substantial" interest from one that is insubstantial. Nor is there any definition of " interest." This raises questions'such as: Would a few shares of CECO stock disqualify a Braun employee? Similarly, what is the status of Braun pe,rsonnel who previously worked for a subcontractor on a CECO job?
These questions are partik:ularly; relevant, in view of the wide experience disclosed in the relevant Braun resumes.
It seems only reasonable that Braun should guarantee and demonstrate the absence of any conflicts of interest on -the organizational and individual levels. Insignificant conflicts should be fully disclosed and explained,.
subject to NRC approval.
t 3.
CECO has ultimate control of the Quality Assurance ("QA")' procedures in tne investigation.
The August 20 proposal states, "...Braun will provide for CECO approval of the Braun Quality Assurance Manual and ~QA 'Ibpical Report, and Braun's Security Screening Procedure._"
(August 20 proposal, at 1-3.)
That means CECO has veto power over the basic groundrules for the project, again an absolute loophole to tailor the QA program to the utility's interests.
,We would not object if CECO,had reviewed Braun's QA Manual as part of the initial selection-process.
Ind'eed, we protested that CECO'had not taken j
that basic step. At this point, however, Braun's organization is supposed to l
have been approved and accepted. After CECO's resounding note of confidence l
in Braun's track record, utility-imposed changes in the QA Manual for this l
project would be suspect. Braun still should submit its QA Manual and Topical
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Report for approval, but to the NRC rather than to CECO.
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4.
Braun's report may be dominated by the utility's own findings of fact. At the August 24 meeting, a Braun representative stated that his firm would rely on previous CECO, ConAm and NRC inspections and material tests.
Since CECO reports that it has already reinspected and reviewed.all relevant I
problems, there may be littleM6r Braun to do.
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,The point of the proposal is to provide a " fresh" look at the facts --
s not to publish CECO's inspection and test results under Braun's signature. We do not.J:ontend that NRC-sponsored laboratory tests should be duplicated. But
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Mr. James Keppler 3.-
September 4, 1982-the results of previous CECO self-inspections should have no more than background significance.
5.
There is still confusion whether Braun's corporate headquarters
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-internal review consnittee will forward all safety-related findings simultaneously to the NRC and CECO. At the August 24 meeting it was generally agreed that this procedure would occur anyway if a report were required under 10 C.F.R.
Part 21.
But the status of other internal review committee findings was not resolved.
The final pfan should specify that the Braun headquarters internal review committee will notify the NRC and CECO concurrently of all safety-related findings.- This step will eliminate any future questions that CECO may have modified Braun's findings, or conducted informal field repairs before forwarding the reports to the NRC.
6.
The most fundamental " independence ~ gap" involves the response to Braun's findings. In effect, the Braun proposal fails to discuss who controls.
the.results of its'investiigation. The Braun submission'did not identify whether
.or how CECO must implement Braun safety-related conclusions. In fact, the:.a is no*; even any assurance that Braun will recommend corrective action. The pro-posal calls for CECO to document and disposition Braun's findings.
(August 20 proposal, at-2-2.)
At a minimum, Braun should be required to document and reccxnmend a disposition for all its safety-related findings. The recommendations should be supported by references to 10 C.Fal. Part 50 and relevant professional codes. CECO should have the burden of proof to justify and obtain NRC approval whenever it rejects any Braun safety-related recommendations. At present, Braun has limited its role to that of an organizational research assistant.
7.
In contrast to the decisive CECO role in the project from start.
to finish, Braun still has not found any role for the whistleblowers.
Mr. Howard and Ms. Marello are a valuable resource for the investigation.
Their allegations about the Zack Company have been conceded generally, even by CECO.
CECO selected, pays and can fire Braun. At numerous stages, CECO has effective control over the "Braun" project. At a minimum, it is reasonable that Braun should talk with the whistleblowers. Its continued silence on this subject raises questions whether Braun is speaking for itself or for CECO.
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-Mr. James Kappler September 4, 1982 t
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II.
METHODOIDGY While the August 20 proposal was not a final-document, its failure to describe basic' steps in the investigation almost leaves the proposed
-methodology too preliminary to evaluate..The answers to these methodological questions are significant. As seen above, reliance on the records from CECD's own quality verification effort compromises the lidependence of the project.
We offer the following six concerns:
1.
At the August 24 meeting,-the Braun representative stated that a review of the Zack purchase orders was unnecessary. This restriction would shrink the scope of review unreasonably.
Purcha.se orders with suspect modi-fications provide the most obvious leads for material testing. There is no basis to assume that all purchase order problems already have been documented accurately, or at all (infra,' at
), on Nonconformance Reports- ("NCR"). Some necessary purchase orders may be lost entirely. That was the point of Mr.I Howard's and Ms. Marello's whistleblowing disclosure. They-r'epeat their offer to help Braun personnel-identify, locate and review suspect purchase orders.
4 2.
At the August 24 n.eeting, the Braun representative stated that the HVAC advisor would review the duct system and decide which portions need detailed inspection. He explained that the primary criteria.would be if the work was safety-related.
(See also, August 20 proposal, at 2-1.)
We were under the impression that safety-related classifications for HVAC systems already have been established. If that is correct, it seems clear that all safety-related sys.tems should receive detailed inspections. Unless this screening process is to select nori-safety-related ductwork for inspection, it
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should be eliminated.
l 3.
In several cases, Braun must provide additional specificity fo_r its tentative work plan.
At the August 24 meeting, there was considerable discussion why Braun proposed to conduct detailed reviews of the leak rate and balancing tests for "two or three" out of seven specified systems, instead of some other figure or even all the systems. Similarly, the Braun work plan proposes to classify existing NCR's and FCR's and then inspect in detail " ten to twenty percent of thgse types determined to be critical to safety...."
(August 20 proposal, at 2-2.)
In each instance, the final plad should either specify or justify the scope of the work, or at least disclose fully the l
selection criteria.
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4.
Besides improperly relying on CECO inspection and test -results, Braun's methodology to-investigate welding problems is incomplete. The work plan states,."The welding / material engineer will also review the weld p:ocedure qualifications and welder qualifications associated with the ductwork fabrica-tion practices." Then it stcps. The proposel does not state that' there will be any inspections of the welds themselves. In fact, it does not speicify what i
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Mr. James Keppler 5-September 4, 1982 if anything Vill be done should the engineer find problems during his review.
These loopholes are unacceptable. A basic purpose of the project is to identify and corrcet fault workmanahip.
5.
At the August 24 meeting, the Braun representative did state that some welds would be inspected as part of a random effort to determine whether previous NCR's cover all.~ nonconforming conditions.
(See also August 20-pro-posal, at 2-2.)
The specific methodology and cope of the random inspections remains unknown, however. These details must be provided to evaluate the proposal.
Further, it is not necessary to conduct the inspections totally at 1
random. If Braun would work with the Zack whistleblowers, it could identify potential problem areas that should be inspected comprehensively.
6.
Braun properly states that "[ghe pri; nary objective of this independent review" is to verify that the HVAC system as-installed matches Sargent,and Lundy's design.
(August 20 proposal, at.1-2.)
Unfortunately, the proposal never gets around to discussing any subsidiary objectives. As mentioned in our August 13 submission, one subsidiary objective should' be to disclose any design errors identified by Braun -in the course of other activities.
III.
ACTING ON IDENTIFIED DEFICIENCIES.
As seen above, there is legitimate concern that CECO will control the corrective action effort for workmanship and material deficiencies. Beyond the issue of independence, we have three concerns about the effort to correct identified problems:
- 1. Our chief concern involves the membership on Braun's corporate i
internal review committee.
This organization speaks for Braun on the safety-'
related results of the project. In contrast to the site review committee, however, there is no guarantee of QA representation on the committee.
(August 20 proposal, at 2-2.)
Since the probe is the result of a QA breakdown, at a minimum Braun's most knowledgeable QA representative should be on the internal review connittee.
2.
Another loophole concerns dispositioning of problems previously identified on NCR's and FCR's.
The work plan-states that all these documents will be reviewed. - (August 20 proposal, at 2-2.)'
But at the August 24 meeting, a Braun representative stated the review would onli be to verify whether the NCR disposition procedure has been followed. There is no intention to second-guess the judgments in the NCR' disposition instructions.
In our opinion, this gap is inexcusable ~. It defines out a major portion of Mr. Howard's and Ms. Marello's disclosure, which challenged improper dispositioning of Nonconformance Reports. Again, they will gladly work with S
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9 Mr. James Keppler September 4, 1982 Braun to iden'tify suspect NCR " corrective action" plans.
3.
The August 20 proposal does not mention whether Braun will verify that its safety-related findings have been corrected. This is normally the last step of the QA process. It should not be excludsd from an extraordinary remedy. Braun should empirically verify that its safety-related conclusions -
have been properly dispositioned.
On balance, it is essential that the NRC help to shape and aggressively monitor the Braun program. For example, we were concerned that NRR'only plans a " quick review" of the Braun final report. Since that report currently is the last obstacle to full licensing, it should be painstakingly reviewed. That is par-ticularly true if the current lack of independence and vague methodology are not corrected.
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Mr. Keppl'er, we ' hope that you take these. suggestions seriously. All the,public participants are trying conscia.itiously to work quietly and constructively within
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the system.
Mr. Howard, Ms, Marello and I fear that the entire process is pro-ducing little more than a glorified subcontracf. 'Ihe commitment was for an independent, third-party solution that would reestablish public confidence by finally resolving the HVAC issue. We doubt that the project as currently pre-sented can accomplish that goal.
i Sincerely, 1
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c TIOMAS DEVINE Legal Director e
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