ML20055F694
| ML20055F694 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Calvert Cliffs  |
| Issue date: | 06/17/1990 |
| From: | Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation |
| To: | |
| Shared Package | |
| ML20055F693 | List: |
| References | |
| NUDOCS 9007190046 | |
| Download: ML20055F694 (79) | |
Text
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ORIGINAL WP4Ai :
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~7 OFFICIAL TRANSCRIIYT OF PROCEEDINGS D'4
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i gengt: Nucicar Regulatory commission l
Public Meeting to Receivo l L
Title:
commento oie calvert cliffs Performence Improvement Plan and Implementation Program i
Docket No.
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[ 10 CAT 10N: Solomons, Maryland DATE: k'edne sd ay , June 2 7, 1990 PAGl'S: 1 - 78 t
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i ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
-[ 1612 K St. N.W, Suite 300
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Washington, D.C. 20006
, (202) 293-3950 a
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'I g3 1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA ;
/ i (j, 2 NUCLEAR REGUIATORY COMMISSION I
l 3 OFFICE OF NUCLEAR REACTOR REGULATION
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L 4 U 1 5 -----------------x 6 In ret l
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7 PUBLIC MEETING TO RECEIVE COMMENTS: j 8 .ON CALVERT CLIFFS PERTORMANCE : i 1
9 IMPROVEMENT PLAN AND f l.
10 IMPLEMENTATION PROGRAM : )
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( .13 Holiday Inn i
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i 14 Hunting Creek Room ;
15 Route 2-4 16 Solomons, Maryland '
17 Wednesday, June 27, 1990 18 The above-entitled matter came on for public 19 hearing at.7:05 p.m., pursuant to notice.
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2 1 APPEARANCES
-2 3 On behalf of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission:
4 5 BRUCE A. BOGER 6 Assistant Director for Region Reactors 7 Division of Reactor Projects 8 office =of Nuclear Reactor Regulation 9 Rockville, Maryland 10 11 JAMES T. WIGGINS 12 Deputy Director 13 Division of Reactor Projects 14 NRC Region I 15 King of Prussia, Pennsylvania 16 17 CURTIS J. COWGILL 18 Chief 19 Projects Section 1A
- 20 Division of Reactor Projects 21 NRC Region I 22 King of Prussia, Pennsylvania 23 24 25
4 3
1 ROPERT A. CAPRA F
2 Director 3- Project Directorate I-1 4 office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation 5 Rockville, Maryland ,
6 7- LARRY NICHOLSON 8 NRC Senior Resident Inspector 9 Calvert Cliff 3 Site 10 11 DANIEL G. McDOllALD, JR. .
12 Senior Project Manager for Calvert Cliffs 13 Project Directorate I-1 14 office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation 15 Rockville, Maryland 16 17 ROBERT M. GALLO 18 Chief 19 Operations Branch 20 Division of Reactor Safety 21 NRC Region I 22 King of Prussia, Pennsylvania 23 24 25
t 4
,s 1 MARIE T. MILLER
-( )
~- 2 NRC Region I State Liaison Officer 3 King of Prucsia, Pennsylvania 4
5 DR. RONALD R. BELLAMY 6 Chief 7 Facilities Radiological' Safety and Safeguards 8 Branch 9 Division of Radiation Safety and Safeguards 10 NRC Region I 11 King of Prussia, Pennsylvania ,
12 s
13 FREDERICK C. STURZ 14 Project Manager 15 Irradiated Fuel Section
< 16 Fuel Cycle Safety Branch 17 Division of Industrial and Medical Safety 18 NRC Office of Nuclear Materials Safety and 19 Safeguards 20 Rockville, Maryland i 21 22 ROBERT SUMMERS 23 Project Engineer !
. fs 24 Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation
. \) 25 Rockville, Maryland l
o e 5
.m 1 SARITA. SANDERS As ._- 2 office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation 3 Rockville, Maryland 4
5 VIC McCREE 6 Resident Inspector i
7 Calvert Cliffs Site 8
9 ALAN HOWE
~10 ,
Resident Inspector 3.1 Calvert Cliffs Site L 12
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- 13 T.J. KIM 14 Resident Inspector 15 Calvert Cliffs Site 16-17 on behalf of the State of Maryland 18 L 19 RICH McLEAN 20 State of Maryland 21 Department of the Environment l 22 l
I 23 PAUL PERZYNSKI
/~'N 24 State of Maryland
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i 25 Department of the Environment l'
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l - . _ . _ . . _ _ _ . _ _ __ _ . _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __ . . _ _ . . _ . _ __ . _ . . _ _
6- i
, _ , 1 On behalf'of the publict i 2
3 RICHARD OCHS .
4 SANDY CANINE i 5 ELISE MEYER-BOTHLING l
6 Maryland Safe Energy Coalition [
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'i 8 HOWARD L. AIKEN 9 Calvert County Citizens Advisory Board ,
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11 TOM JOHNSTON ,
12 Charles County Government Division of Energency/ Risk ManagGment
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15 DR. MOHIB N. DURRANI 16 17 j 10 l
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1- P R O'C E E D I N-G S 2 (7:05 p.m.)_
3 MR. BOGER: Good evening.
4 My name is Bruce Boger. I am an Assistant 5 Director for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, out of the 6- Rockville, Maryland, office.
7' I wanted to welcome you this evening to a meeting 8 that's being held to discuss the Performance Improvement 9 Plan being implemented at Calvert Cliffs.
-l
.10 The Performance Improvement Plan was developed by-11 Baltimore Gas and Electric Company and has been provided to i
12 - the NRC'for review. We have not completed our review and 13- are here_ tonight to receive your comments on the Performance 14 Improvement Plan.
15 With me this evening are severa'l members of the 16 NRC staff, both from the headquarters office'in Rockville, 17 Maryland, and also from the regional office in King of 18 Prussia, Pennsylvania. I'll introduce them in a moment.
(Slide.)
19 20 - MR. BOGER: The format of the meeting will be for 21 me to provide a brief agenda, such as this, to explain the 22 meeting logistics. We'll follow that with a summary of 23 plant background and status by Curtis Cowgill and then an i
24 overview-of the Performance Improvement Plan and the 25 implementation program by Dan Mcdonald. (
4 8
1: ~After the opening comments, we will open the floor 2 to.public comments or questions on the Performance 3 ImprovementLPlan.
'4 Let me introduce the other NRC participants.
5 At the table is Jim Wiggins, Deputy Director in.
f 6 Region I; Curtis Cowgill, Project Section Chief in Region I; i 7 and Bob Capra, who is a Project Director in headquarters.
8 Also, we have Dan Mcdonald, who is the Project fr- Manager for'the Calvert Cliffs plant, out of headquarters; 10 Larry Nicholson, who is the Senior Resident Inspector at the ll- Calvert Cliffs plant; Ron Bellamy, who is Chief in Region I,
- 12. Radiological Safety and Safeguards Branch'; Marie Miller, who 113 is the' State Liaison Officer; Bob Summers, Project Engineer.
14 in Region I; Bob Gallo, who is the Branch Chief in the
.15 Operations Branch in Region I;~and Fritz Sturz, who is a 16 Project Manager in headquarters.
17 Also this evening, we have two of the other 18 Resident Inspectors, Vic McCree and Alan Howe, and Sarita
- ' 19 Sanders from the Office of NRR headquarters, also. T.J. Kim 20 also is a Resident Inspector. He snuck by me.
m 21 I'd also like to recognize two representatives of 22 the State of Maryland. We have Rich McLean from the 23 Department of Natural Resources and Paul Perzynski out of 24 the Department of the Environment.
25 (Slide.)
s ,
9
,_ , 1. MR. BOGER: I hope everyone.had the chance to grab:
s,f s 2' a copy o'f the handouts. I realize that the print is a
- 0. 3 .little hard to read. So, if you have the handouts, then.you 4 can follow along with the slides.
5 In our advertisements, we identified that we would L 6 be placing the Performance Improvement Plan in several- ,
1:
7 ' locations to make it a little more available. It's
/
8 available-in the local public-document room, which is in the 9 Calvert County Library. That's our normal depository for 10 NRC documents, any correspondence related to CalvertfCliffs.-
l L '
11 We have also located it in five other local libraries: St.
l 12 Mary's College, St. Mary's County Library, Dorchester County l /~v 13 Public Library, and the Charles County Public Library.
(V)
- 14. In addition, I believe we have a couple of extra 15 copies at the front table, if you wanted to review tnam L
16 ton'ight.
17 .As~you may notice, the meeting is being 1,
18 transcribed. This provides us with a formal record of the l 19 meeting and also will assist us after the meeting to review ,
20 'the' comments that are made tonight.
21 What I would ask that you do is, sometime after my 22 introductory remarks, if you feel that you are going to make 23 a' comment for the record, that you would come up and take a
:24 3-by-5 card and write your name on it. That will give us a
'~#
25 way of ordering the presentations or the comments. It will
4 S 10
.1 'also allow the recorder, for the record, the correct 12- spelling of your name.
3 I'll ask you, if you would, to come to the 4- microphone when you are called or when you have your 5 comments. .It's not intended to intimidate you, but it does
- 6- make it easier for everyone to hear. I'd also ask that you 7~ be mindful of-the desires of.other people to speak and ask 8 that you limit your comments to 5 or 10 minutes at the 9 start, until everyone has had a chance to make their 10 comments,-and then we'can come back after that time, if you 11 have additional. comments. .
12 711de.]
~13
. BOGER: For those of you who would prefer to
- 14. digest t;;.lght's meeting and provide written comments, we 15 can take'them at the address listed. It indicates to 16 provide them by July 2nd. I think, in view of the short 17 time between now and July 2nd, that we would certainly be 18 willing to take comments over the next several weeks.
19 The transcript of this meeting will be available 20 in the same libraries as I indicated that have the copies of 21 the Performance Improvement Plan and should be available 22' within 2 weeks.
23 [ Slide.]
24 MR. BOGER: What I'd like to now is provide you a 25 brief outline of how the staff has conducted its review or
t e .
- a. .
11.
-1 will' conduct 11ts. review of the Performance Improvement Plan.
2l As a little. bit'of background, the senior NRC 3 ' managers meet about every 6 months to discuss the 4 performance of the Nation's nuclear power plants. One 5 objective of that meeting is to identify plants that may be G having or may be experiencing a declining performance, so 7- that that performance can be addressed as soon as possible.
8 In D9cember of 1988 -- the slide says 1989 --
9 December of 1988, the senior managers place Calvert Cliffs 10 on what's termed the " watch list". What this means is it's 11 designated ~as a facility that warrants additional monitoring 12 by the NRC.
13 As you may be aware, the senior managers met again 14 recently and presented to the Commission their 15 recommendations /for the next 6 months. Calvert Cliffs is 16 still on that watch list.
17 Even though we have seen signs of improvement, we 18- need to see signs of sustained performance before it can be 19 removed from that list. That's what is typically required.
20 As Dan Mcdonald will speak in a few moment, t
21 Baltimore Gas and Electric performed its analysis of its 22 declining performance and submitted its improvement plan to 23 the NRC in April of 1989. In July of 1989, it nrovided its 24 implementation program. So, those are the two base document 25 that we're using. They have been updated since that time.
L
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4 1E In June of 1989, we decided that it would be best
, ;2 for the regional and'the headquarters staffs to integrate
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3 the review effort. As such, we created a' panel called the 4 - Calvert Cliffs Assessment Panel. Most of the people that 5 are here tonight are members of that panel. I am the
'6 Chairman of the panel.
7 (Slide.)
8 MR. BOCER: Our charter is to verify that the 9 Baltimore Gas and Ulectric plan identified problem areas and 10 root causes for thoue problems that led to the decline in 11 performance at Calvert Cliffs. Furthermore, we will s 12 evaluate the' Licensee's corrective action plans to resolve 13 those' problems and determine whether a process is in place 14 to verify the effectiveness of those programs and the 15 corrective actions.
16 We'll conduct reviews of the Licensee's activities 17 and, also, independently perform inspections to confirm the 18 appropriateness of the actions, completion of verification 19 activities.
20 As part of the review, we are soliciting comments 21 both-from the State and from the public, and that's why 22 we're here tonight, is to obtain any public comments that 23 .you may have on the Performance Improvement Plan.
24 After we have completed our process of addressing 25 the comments made by the State and the public and completed :
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a t 13 -[
' g-sc 1 our! review and inspections, we'll issue a document which
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b/ )~ 2- contains the.results of our effort, and that will include 3- how we address the comments that we hear tonight. This-4 document will be made publicly available.
5 After that time, we will enter into a long-term 6 evaluation program, which is the enhanced monitoring of the 7 Resident Inspectors and other. regional and headquarters 8 staff.
9 At this time, I'd like to introduce Curt Cowgill, 10- who will talk about the plant background and status.
111 (Slide.).
[
12 MR. COWGILL: Good evening, ladies and gentlemen.
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13 My name is Curtis Cowgill.
I am a Project Section 1
14 Chief in Region I, and I am responsible for the Calvett 15 Cliffs plant. ,
16~ I would like to, tonight, talk a little about the-17- background information and the history of Calvert Cliffs for 18 ~ about the last 18 months.
19 [ Slide.)
20- MR. COWGILL: As you have been told, the Calvert 21 Cliffs plant was placed on the NRC's list for those plants L
L 22 who needed additional attention in December 1988, and in
[ 23 response to the request of the Commission at that time, the l\j p (} 24 Licensee -- excuse me -- the c'ompany developed a Performance 25 Improvement Plan in April of 1989 and submitted that to the l:'
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$r. .14-p E l' 'NRC.
2 Also, in March of that year, the NRC decided to
- t conduct an independent verification -- send a team to
. .4. Calvert Cliffs to conduct an independent verification
-5 . inspection to independently evaluate the problems at the 6 plant. As a result of that inspection, we confirmed that 7 .there were communications problems at the site, within~and 8' between departments; there were organizational and' 9' structural and management control problems at the facility;
- H10 and that the team felt-that there was, on the part.of Elli management, a philosophy that projected production over 12 safety and quality.
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,13 In March of 1989, the facility shut down Unit 2 14- for a normal refueling outage, and as a part of that outage, 15 they' conduct a wide variety of inspections, and in May of H16 1989, during.an inspection of the pressurizer, they found 17 some leaks around some of the heater tubes.
18 Also durinq this time period, there had been some 19 further operational problems with Unit 1. The utility 20 decided to shut down Unit 1 and investigation the Unit 1 i
21 pressurizer to see if the leaks-were also present in the 22' Unit 1 pressurizer. They also decided that, while they were 23 shut down, they would evaluate and correct some of the
.24 operational problems that had been identified earlier that 25 year.
+
15
-1 We, Jn a= letter to them, after they had shut down,.
2 confirmed that they would remain shut down until they had ,
3= determined the problem associated with the pressurizer tube-4 heater leaks, corrected problems associated with work 5 control, systems status, and procedure use'and some of their 6 procedures.
7 After'they had received the special-team 8 inspection report and had an opportunity to evaluate the 9 ' problems that they shut down for, we met with them in June 10 of 1989,.and they proposed and we agreed to certain detailed 11- corrective: actions for the problers that had been identified 12 that they would complete prior to restarting one of their 13 two units.
14 (Slide.-]
15 MR. COWGILL: NRC's review of the utility's 16 corrective actions for the problems identified at Calvert 17 Cliffs took really two parts.. One was an integrated team
'18 look and one was & detailed review of short-term -- their
.19 short-term corrective actions.
20 The broader look was conducted as a team
-21 inspection in November, which was formed to take a broad.
22 overview of the utility's activities to determine whether 23 their performance had been raised to a level that would
~24 allow them to start the plant up and operate safety --
25 excuse me, safely. I
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- 1. This. readiness team inspection identified a number 2 of: improvements in safety assessment. They identified an 3 improvement in operations and a satisfactory control of.
4 _ plant status. Some problems remain, however, in the areaaof 5 safety 1 tagging and corrective actions systems.-
6 In January of 1990, a new issue was developed, .
7 concerning their low pressure over-temperature protection 8' system, which raised question about the utility's management 9 of commitments made to the NRC. As a result of that 10' problem,.the licensee committed to performing a review of 11 past commitments made to the NRC to determine if any
.12 significant_ issues had been left unresolved or had been 13 missed.
14 Licensee -- excuse me, the' utility performed that 15 review and concluded that they had not missed any safety-
- 16. significant commitments.that had not already been known.
17 The NRC, in March, conducted an inspection that confirmed 18 this and concluded that there was reasonable assurance that 19 safety commitments had been adequately addressed. Also 20 during this timeframe -- timeframe, there was an intense NRC 21: . review of the-short-term corrective actions.
. 22 [ Slide.)
23 In April, the NRC concluded that the Calvert 24, Cliffs' unit one was ready for restart, based on a number of 25' things that the utility had done, including the significant
, =. - .. =.- .- . _ . .--
17-
-;f-Ly >1 management improvements that it had made in 1989; that our l I
\E :2 -assessment -- overall assessment of their performance had 3 concluded that significant improvement had been made in key 4- areas near the SALP period, and that we had satisfactory-1 5 results of two major incpections:' A maintenance team
'6 inspection, conducted in February of 1990, that confirmed 7 that the improving trend in their maintenance activities was 8 continuing, also the positive conclusions of the commitment 9- management-inspection that I referred to.
10 They, as a part of their start-up agreed to ,
11 conduct an independent assessment of their activities. They 12 started up, operated for about a two-week period-and then O) s v
13 shut down-for a routine required inspection-of their steam 14 generator' tubes. We, the NRC, performed an augmented 15 inspection of that start-up and operational activity and our 16 -- the conclusions of our team noted general improvement in 17 their performance; however, we did identify some problems in.
18 the area of communications and some drawing control 19 problems.
- g. 20 In a meeting with the utility, subsequent.to that 21 operating period, after we had received their assessment 22 reports, our assessment and their assessment of their-23 performance and their operating period were essentially the same.
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25 We also, during this timeframe, had a satisfactory l
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.1 requalification training-program review. As I stated, they 2 shut down -- the: utility shut down in_ April, for a planned 3 stem generator tube inspection. And currently, their unit 4 one start-up is some time in the month of August; and unit 5 two should restart late in the year 1990.
6 '~ And at this time I'd like to turn the program.over 7 to Dan Mcdonald, the Project Managar, for a discussion of-8- the performance improvement plan.
9 MR. MCDONALD: Thank you, Curtis.
10 I just intend to give a very brief overview of the 11 Performance Improvement Plan and the implementation program, 12 which BG&E has documented in the two subject documents that 13 . we're here to discuss tonight.
14 As previously noted by Bruce Boger, the Calvert 15 Cliffs Assessment Panel is in the process.of reviewing these 16 documents.
17 (Slide.)
18 The-Performance Improvement Plan was provided to 19 the NRC staff in April of '89. In the document, BG&E
- 20 identified the objectives, their focus and the development 21 of the improvement plan.
22 The objectives of the plan is to address the 23 causes in the decline in performance at the Calvert Cliffs 24 facility, also to institutionalize processes to address the 25 . problem areas: identify problems, provide a means for
- 19
- [ timely. resolution of problems and to provide mechanism for 2 systematically monitoring progress in implementing these 3 improvements.
'4 The monitoring process is also intended to 5 determine that the desired results are being obtained and, 61 if necessary, to redirect and refocus effort to address the 7 problems. In addition, the objective is to develop and-8 implement-lasting improvement at the Calvert Cliffs 9 facility. This is both in the overall performance'of the 10 staff and the physical plant.
11 To obtain these objectives, BG&E focused on the 12 effectiveness of management, their organizational
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- 13 effectiveness, and the necessary policy changes needed to 14 attain the desired improvement.
15 In the Performance Improvement Plan, they started 16 out by identifying and developing the identification of the 17 symptoms or causes of the potential problem. In doing this,
- 18. BG&E used the various documents and reports that were 19 available, both as a result of their own.self-identification 20 of problems, the reports and documents of the NRC, in their 21 overview, as documented in inspection reports and others, 22 and also reports from third-parties that identified 23 potential problems or concerns at Calvert Cliffs.
24 Once they had determined the symptoms of the 25 problems, the next step was a root cause determination. In
O
- 20
- ~x_ g jl- this process, they identified what they considered the 11 v\ b
- N -I -2 root causes that led to_the problems.
3- '(Slide.)
4- I'll put up-a slide,-it's included'in your-5 handout.
6 (Slide.)
7 MR. MCDONALD:- _I won't go through these particular 1
8 root causes, but you can look at them for your information. l l
9 Once they identified the 11 root causes,.they l l
E 10 correlated'them with the previously-identified systems of l l
11 the problems and developed plans to establish corrective 12 actions. ~l q %)
. 4, ,
13 The corrective actions were documented in task-
- 14 action plans. The task action plans defined a problem, 3 15 identified the desired results or goals to correct the-16 problems, the methods for getting the results desired, 17 'necessary resources, the responsible' individuals, and a llB; verification process.
i J19 The initial document identified 37 task action
- 20 plans that were related to the 3 *. root causes. In some.
21 cases, there was more than'one root cause that was relative 22 to a given task action plan.
l 23 They grouped these in three major groupings:
q 24 expectations, accountability, and communications, or 25 management issues, if you may; their ability to identify and
- _ = _ _ _ _ - - _ - _ _ _ - _ _ _ _ - _ _ _ _ . . --.
4 e p ' 21-
- 411 'correctLproblemst and the adequate use and resource 2' allocation.
t '3 (Slide.)
4 MR. MCDONALD: In July of '89, they provided an 5 update of the Performance Improvement Plan and the
- 6. Implementation program.
7 (Pause.).
8 MR. NcDONALD: The updated version was a reformat 9 df'the task action plans that were initially identified in 10 the plan, and they were reorganized based on their
-11 functional relationship. They also provided some additional 12 details relative to the plans. In addition, they provided 13 the details for implementing.the plans.
14 As a result of the restructuring of the task 15 action plans, they grouped _them into four major categories:
16 management process, organizational. dynamics, assessment 17 capability, and activity control.
18 Included in the updated' plan for the 19 Limplementation programs are details' relative to the 20- development of a three-part verification process. They also 21 address those issues identified in a special-team 22 inspection, which was previously addressed by Curtis, to 23 assure that all the items identified in the special-team 24 inspection were included in their Performance Improvement 25 Plan.
5
22 1 The three-part verification process was divided 2 into~-- the first one, to be assured that all-the t'ask 3 action plans were implemented; that is, all required actions 4 orLactivities were in place. That's the first step.
5 The second step was to assess feedback to observe 6 resulting trends as making these changes, to have management 7- observations, and to get employee feedback to determine if 8 the desired results were being met.
9 The final phase of the three-part verification 10- process is the measure of the effectiveness. This is to ,
11 assure that the desired results,~previously identified, were 12 being met and to look at trends und other-documents to 13 . determine if, indeed, there is a lessening of problems in a 14 given area that'the task action plan was put into place to 11 5 correct.
16 They also defined details on the management and 17 controls necessary to implement the program for the 18 improvement plan. In that, they identified the 19 prioritization, resources necessary, and schedules. They 20 also included the status of the task action plans.
21 In summary, the first Performance Improvement Plan 22 identified the symptoms, the associated root causes, and
- 23. initial set of task action plans. The July '89 submittal
,. 24- reformatted, provided more details relative to the task
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'25 action plans, provided details on implementing the
.1 l
- l 23 I i
i J2"N l- corrective actions,. addressed the special-team inspection j
' (~,3 <
2 issues,1and_also provided an update of the status of'their 1
4 3~ effort.
4 Since the July '89 submittal, there have been two
]
5 more revisions,-one in March of this year, the second one in 6 April. The transmittal letters indicated that these were F l 7 both upgrades of the initial submittal and the second i i
8 submittal, wh'ich included some' changing in the task action 9 plans. Where resources were necessary or it was too j 10 intense, they subdivided and initiated an additional task' 11 action plan, 12 They have indicated they believe that the initial
, . (Q
-.\ ,) - 13 Performance Improvement Plan still did identify all the <
14 symptoms and the root causcs adequately. j 15 To date, the status -- there are 40 task action i
i 16 plans, of which 10 have been completed or in the process of 1
i L 17 _being verified. Twenty-six are scheduled for completion ,
18 this year, additional nine scheduled for completion in '91, 19 and five of the task action plans extend beyond 1991.
L 20 That is just a brief overview of the two L 21' documents, y - 22 I'd like to turn the meeting back over to Bruce l
L 23 Boger.
l.. 24 Thank you.
LV l 25 MR. BOGER: At this point in time, I'd like to ask 1
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g -- - ~ . -
t 24
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f, .s 1 -for comments from the public. I have one card at this point 1 1_
'ks/! -
- 2. in: time.. I; guess I'll just remind you that it'would make it 3- a lot. easier for us if you would sign up, so I can have'the 4 correct ^ spelling of your name.
5 It's Richard ochs?-
6 MR. OCHS: That's correct.- I represent the 7- Maryland Safe Energy Coalition. Can you hear me?
8 I have some questions, or we have some questions 9 about the Performance Improvement Plan. Since management at 10 Calvert Cliffs admitted in George Creel's report of July of 11- '89, which-appeared on the screen here, that there were r
12 insufficient standards, insufficient definition of rules, ah i
f 13: insufficient responsibility, and so on and so on; 11 .
f 14 insufficiencies. Why is there a double standard? !
15 When the management-of Peach Bottom Power Plant
'16 were cited for poor management, they were fired. But, 17 nobody was fired from Calvert. Cliffs. You had some 4 18- . management that were moved-around. But, I'd like to know if 19 anybody took a pay cut.
20 We don't think it's good enough just to fine the l 21 . power plant or BG&E, because those fines are just past 22 through and paid for by the rate payers. So the company 23 doesn't suffer any punitive action. And if these managers 24 admitted to, and it's recognized by the NRC and the public,
.[~'}
V 25 to gross deficiencies; why weren't these people fired, as
~
b D 1 25 ]
~. - .1 they were.at Peach Bottom? This is a-double standard. )
'I h.
hs / 2 And unless they get fired or some punitive action )
3- -- pay cuts, or what have you, they'll be not disincentive
'4 er incentive for future better action by management.
5 The second example of a double standard, also 6 compared to Peach Bottom Power Plant. Part of the restart I
1 7 permit required that they had to put more money into l 8 emergency management evacuation planning. Well, the restart 9 permit here for Calvert Cliffs, did not require any new 10 resources or monies into emergency evacuation management 1 11 procedures. l L 12= For example, at Peach Bottom, they had to pay- I
, 13 $11,000 more per year. But, BG&E is not required to pay 14- -anything more. Right now, Maryland gets $250,000 a year --
15 the-State of Maryland, from the utility, for emergency 16 procedures. But most of that doesn't go to emergency i
l 17 planning, it goes to monitoring. And it's my understanding f 18- that that monitoring is not real-time monitoring, it's after I 19 the fact.
- l. 20 We would like to see a requirement that money goes l 21 to the State of Maryland for real-time monitoring and :
i 22- monitoring at the vents, at the stacks and the place where 23- the radiation and the venting occurs. And also that that i.
24 money would go to the Departmeht of Environment, which 25 oversees emergency planning.
l'
26-1 Right now, you can compare that $250,000, it 2 sounds like a lot of money; but Delaware gets $600,000 from 3 a plant that's not even in Delaware, it's in New Jersey, for 4 emergency planning.
5 -So, that's just a=few points. 'How much more time 6 do I have?
7 There's also some other deficiencies in the 8 Performance Improvement Plan that we see. For instance, the 9 question of venting, of so-called low-level radiation; 10 .which, any level of radiation causes cancer, that's proven.
11 We don't consider that an improved performance.
12 The plans to store high-level r'adioactive wastes 13 outside the containment vessel and to continue to store, on-14 site high-level radiation wastes. We don't consider that 15 good management or an improvement.
16 The secrecy that NRC has in their hearings, based 17 on proprietary information, where the public was not allowed
- 18. at hearings, where Babcock and Wilcox were there to talk 19 'about the pressurizer vessel that cracked, presumably 20- because of trade secrets. ;
21 We think that the public health and safety comes 22 before any proprietary information of companies and we feel 23 the public should be allowed at these hearings, to find out 24 what went wrong and what could be improved with these things 25 that are breaking down at the plant. We don't consider that
27 1 to'be-performance. improvement,.to have secret hearings.
2 Also, we would like to know what the criteria are 3 of NRC to continue this. nuclear power plant at Calvert 4 Cliffs,.and what the criteria are for the retirement of this 5 plant and the decommissioning of this plant. In the absence
.6 of such criteria, we don't think that the company -- we 7 f.on't have the confidence that BG&E has -- can be held to 8 any performance improvement.
9 And lastly, who oversees-the parts manufacturing 10 on-site? Since BG&E can't get the parts from Bechtel, who 11 built the plant, they have to make their own parts. And 12 what kind of oversight is done on that, in terms of 13 performance. improvement?
14' So, I think that that's all I want to say right 15 now. We have some other members of our committee, who would 16 also like to make some conments on some recent. leaks of gas 17 and water at the plant.
18 Since the management has admitted to past L
19' deficiencies;-since then there has been more leaks at the 20- plant. And we'd like to find out how is that in the
= 21 performance improvement. Our coalition does not have the 22 confidence that, based on all these things, that there is a 23 performance improvement plan in process that we have 24 confidence in. Thank you.
25 MR. BOGER: Thank you, Mr. Ochs. I think that l
. _ = _ . . . -- - .
E k
p 28
, 1 several of the issues that you raised are_ones of -- that go i e N-
' ( ,). _
'2 beyond the scope of the performance improvement plan itself.
3 They were issues that the NRC has under consideration, for 4 instance, decommissioning. There is a rule for 5 decommissioning. ,
6 As I understand it, the licensees are required to 7 present a funding plan sometime in July,_all licensees, and f
^\
8 then later'on their lifetimes, identify the actual plans for 9 ultimate disposition of the facility. That is an area where 10 we have rules yet.
11 It's not something-that we considered necessary to 12l review-for the purposes of the Performance Improvement Plan.,
O i i 13 You did) raise _an issue about recent leaks at the plant. I
-Q 14 think there have been some recent inspections conducted at 15 the plant'in those areas ~and we may be able to-give you some 16 insights as to what we found out during those inspections.
1 17 Curtis?
18 MR. COWGILL: During the operating period during 19 the augmented inspection that we conducted for the plant
.20 operation, we did identify two problems that involved 21 radioactive liquids or gases.
22 On one occasion, about 1700 gallons of water 23 overflowed one of the spent fuel pools into a tank within 24 the auxillary building that's designed to collect and keep 25 that fluid from passing directly into the environment.
p
. 4
~
29 j 'N 1- There were some-system safety tagging and drawing control f' ) .
-l problems associated with that that were reported in our.
' ' 2 e
3 inspection, e
-4 The utility is evaluating and taking corrective 5 actions for that particular problem. Also, on one occasion, 6 the utility vented the wrong waste gas decay tank'due to a 7 series of errors by operators at the plant. The amounts of 8 radioactive material that were released were very small and
- s
+
9 well within all the utilities administrative and regulatory 10- limits.
11 However, we considered that a significant enough.
12 ~ problem that we did issue a notice of violation to the
/~'T
~( ,) 13 utility in our inspection report. The utility has been i 1
14 involved.in evaluating this problem and are required to-15J respond to our notice of violation with the actions that l
16 they intend to take'to correct this problem, including those 17- actions which will prevent it from happening in the future.
18 MR. CAPRA: Mr. ochs, you also mentioned an issue 19 which I think we need to clear up with' respect to 20 proprietary meetings. I think that over the past three 21- years of so that I've been associated with Calvert Cliffs, I 22 recall only on two occasions -- although there may have been 23 one or two more -- where we've had meetings where 24 proprietary information was discussed.
25 In those particular cases, you have to recognize
f 30
~
1 that's not an NRC policy. That is -- trade secrets are, in 2' fact, protected by regulation and by' law.
We have to make 3 an evaluation and a finding, whether we believe that there 4 are trade secrets involved.
-5 In those two cases, we've made those findings. We
'6 had a meeting with the utility. It was not open to the 7 public. Normally, those typca of meetings and most all 8- = meetings we have with the utility are open.
9 When we have a meeting where we discuss 10 proprietary information, any material that is discussed that 11 is of a non-proprietary nature .s , in fact, included in-the 12 meeting summary that is publicly available. So, the only 13 issues.in those meetings that were discussed that precluded 14 public participation were really of-a technical nature.
15 In the case of the' pressurizer repair, it was the 16 technique that they were using to.actually-repair the 17 pressurizer. Certainly, the safety significance of that was 18 made available in our review of that particular event, or 19 that particular problem with the pressurizer.
20 It was the same with the independent spent fuel 21 storage installation, which I think was the other meeting 22 you were referring to. You know, we do make an attempt to 23 leasonably accommodate public participation or at least 24 public observation of any of our meetings.
25 MS. CANINE: If you manufacture those parts on , !
it;)
31 1 site now --
'2 MR. BOGER: Could you come up to the microphone?
'3 MS. CANINE: My.name is Sandy Canine. If they 4- have to manufacture their parts onsite now, they've asked
, 5 for a, machine shop to-do this, because they can't get parts
'6 for-this -- for the reactor. How much of a trade secret can 7 it be anymore, if you have to hire people to make these 8 parts?
9 MR. CAPRA: Are you talking about parts with 10 raspect to the pressurizer heater sleeve? The repair 11 process that they're using? 12 , MS. CANINE: Yes.
' 13 ' MR. CAPRA: They have contractors that are doing 14 that. .I'm not sure if there are parts actually being 15 manufactured onsite. There may or may n'ot-be.
16 But that's unusual. What they're doing is; they 17 found that the design of the original' pressurizer heater 18 sleeves can be improved with an improved material that's 19 resistant to the_ type of corrosion and cracking that had. 20 MS. CANINE: You mean becoming irradiated? Do you mean this new stuff istant to becoming irradiated? 22 MR. CAPRA , has nothing to do with 23 irradiation. The i se of the problem was primary 24 water stress cracking corrosion, which is a technical term 25 for the type of corrosion that led to the cracking that they I 1
32 .i'- 1 had. 2 Part of the repair process is putting in different. 3- types of sleeves in the pressurizer that has a better design 4 and is made out of a different type of material that is a 5 newer type of material that is more resistant to that type 6- of corrosion cracking. The only thing that was proprietary
-7 about it is the type of design and the material itself that 8- the repair parts or replacement parts are being made out of, 9 the reason being that this -- that the people that 10 manufacture that or came up with the repair technique, spent 111 an awful lot of money and effort in developing this new 12_ technique and would certainly like to sell it other j 13 facilities, be they nuclear, non-nuclear or whatever.
14 It was a fairly extensive capital investment on 15 their part. In this particular case, it met the criteria of
-16 the. regulations for being withheld from public disclosure, 17 the repair technique itself.
18 MS. CANINE: You are saying that they are 19 manufacturing these parts right onsite at Calvert Cliffs? 20 MR. CAPRA: I don't know if there are any parts of 21 this that are being manufactured. It's certainly being 22 assembled and the work is being done onsite. 23 MS. CANINE: You feel certain that this can be 24 done there with the workers at Calvert Cliff? 25 MR. WIGGINS: Let me try to address your question
33 f-'s 1 more generally. I think my u- ~; standing of your question
-v 2 'is that it is-a more general question.
i 3 Let me rephrase it and see if it's right. It's; 14 does the NRC recognize the utility's ability to manufacture 5 parts to be used in the nuclear powerLplant onsite without 6 having to have to get them from somewhere else? t 7 The answer is yes. Let me explain a little bit. , 8 I will grant you that the vast majority of parts 9 and materials that most people would recognize as parts and t 10 materials are procured; in other words, purchased.. They're 11 purchased off of vendors. -These vendors are either 12 qualified vendors or they are not qualified vendors, and the 13- utility, in both cases, has the obligation to conduct the u !! 14 qualification activities necessary to assure that those p
-15 parts are suitable for use. We overview that.
o 16 We, on an audit basis, assure that the utility is, j 17 in fact, living up to their licensed obligation to go out L 18 and verify that that vendor is able to make that part L l: 19 correctly and represents that part accurately, or if the L 20 vendor is a commercial vendor, which these people have to 21 use occasionally, that the utility is doing those actions 22 necessary. L 23 However, the NRC rules do not preclude utilities
'(
?
24 from manufacturing or fabricating their own parts. There s-25 are rules, however, regarding what quality of material must l
6 t 34 1 be used in the plant, and.those rules apply to whether a. 3- . I u- 2. vendor makes'it or whether the utility makes it.
-3 We expect the util'ity to have a quality-assurance-4 program and what's called an ASME code program in place. We 5 have regulations on both scores.
6 Those regulations require that utility to have'in 7 place a process to assure that'those materials are made to-8 an acceptable level of' quality for use, as designed. We 9 overview that. We don't look at everything, but on an 10 auditing basis, we check it. 11 I will tell you, in terms of the pressurizer, we 12 have been involved in not only the licensing-level technical:
}r~% : review of the repair activity and the plans for the repair.
n M() 13 14 We have been involved from an inspection-basis in the
- 15. activities have been conducted, looking at the leaks, 16 looking at the weld geometries, looking at what the field 1 I
17 would have to do in order to make the repair, and we do 18 intend to continue to look at the actual repairs to the l l 19 Unite 2 pressurizer, when they take-place.
'20 MS. CANINE: And you three gentlemen are there on-L 21 site? l 22 MR. WIGGINS: I am not, no, but I have people that 23 work for me that are. The Senior Resident and two Resident I
yr~N 24- Inspectors are on-site full-time. l g b 25 In this particular matter, dealing with the 1 s
35 7 'y 1 pressurizer, it requires a level of specialization that we lL ('- ') 2 would typically have people from a regional office come who 3 have expertise in that type of activity. 4 Those are the type of people who have been here in 5 the past, and those are the types of people who will be here l 6 in the future. l l 7 MS. CANINE: Is it your assessment that this is an
- 8 aging nuclear plant that will and up needing more and more 9 and more? I mean this is just -- there was two generators 10 last year, the leaking heater sleeves, and now the 11 pressurizer vessel on one. And who knows about the other i 12 one?
N l4 ,) 13 It just seems to me that this is an aging nuclear ,
1 14 plant. Fifty percent of BG&E's investment is in this plant, l 15 and the idea, the thought of production over safety is i 16 really too much, I think, for the people in this county and 17 the State of Maryland. I 1 18 I mean I really do think, now, it's just time to look at this plant and maybe say, either, BG&E invest 19 20 something other than this plant, or if something else 21 happened. 22 I hope you're there doing your job really well. 23 MR. DOGER: I think we'll try to do the best job 24 we can.
~
25 I would like to point out one other difference 1 l l
E l G \ L i 36-
,_x 1 between the Peach Bottom situation and the Calvert Cliffs )
[ \ i
\_,/ -2 situation. !
4 3 Peach Bottom -- the NRC lost confidence in that 1 4 Licensee's ability to operate the plant safely. We ordered l l , 5 it shut down. I i 6 In this case, as identified, the NRC viewed a i 7 decline in performance, and that did not warrant a shutdown i 8 at that time. ' 9 So, there was a significant difference in how we 10 viewed the problems at Peach Bottom versus the problems at 11 Calvert Cliffs. 12 Let no assure you that we'll take a look at these n l 13 issues and see how they factor into our review of the PIP, 14 and we'll address them. 15 Is Howard Aiken here? 16 MR. AIKEN: I'm Howard Aiken. I was a guest 17 requested to come in by the Calvert County citizens Advisory 18 Commission. 19 I want to thank you for your time to come out here 20 and tell us in the County a little bit more about our energy 21 plan. 4 _, 2 2 As you know far greater than I, and we're well 23 aware of it in this County, that energy is on an increasing
- ( 24 demand curve, and I don't know if wc can keep up with it oc 25 not. That's not my problem, but as a consumer, it is, and
c: L' I 37 1 m 1 as a citizen in the County, we're very concerned about our !
/ \
m- 2 particular plant. 3 over the years, before retirement, I lived very 4 close to several plants, and we appreciated having them l 1 5 there. I guess, even as a sidelight, I can say I appreciate 1 i 6 being here, because I was ready to go into southern Japan in 7 World War II. 8 With reference to Unit 1 and Unit 2, I understand 9 one is approximately 15 years old and the other one is 17 i 10 years old. It has been said and we are cognizant of the 11 fact that we're going to have decommissioning. But . 1 12, recently, I saw an article in one of the papers that said ' (O)
'y J 13 the Nuclear Commission is now considering extending the life ,
14 of a number of plants, which makes sense. 15 I guess the question is -- and'in the interest of 16 tax, because in this County -- we're a small county. We're 17 only a few miles wide, as you )...ow, and about 35 miles long ; 18 and lot of people, not too much industry. So, we need the 19 tax base; very, very seriously need this tax base. And I , 20' guess the question is, and maybe there is not an answer here 21 this evening, but if we are near decommissioning, how soon 22 and how long, and will it be considered for an extension, 23 because in long-term planning for this County, it's a very, '
'. 24 very vital question.
i
;V 25- The other point, I believe, rests with the Federal P
38 1 Government, and it's in their lack of coming forward for a 2 proper storage unit for the rods. I am afraid that we're
;3 talking about a political situation, much like President 4 Carter in his decommissioning and trying to store rods or 5 afraid somebody was going to steal them and break them down 6 into plutonium and so forth. But I recall, in about the 7 1960s, with owens Illinois, we were on a project; we were 8 thinking about putting them in glass. And I read where 9 that's coming back again and so forth. It's either the 10 glass, dumping all this in a big ravine out in the ocean, or 11 someplace to put it.
12 Presently, as you know, the res'pective plants are 13 storing them on premise. At best, that's not good in the 14 long term. 15 It re,ts now with the Federal Government to come 16 up with a plan that they were charged to come up with, but 17 haven't. And I think that's a very vital issue that must be 18 faced immediately, just as much as you face the issues of 19 this particular plant, right here. A big issue is storage. 20 Thank you. 21 MR. BOGER: Yes Sir. Let me -- I' guess -- we 22 weren't-really prepared to talk about some of those issues; 23 but we might be able to provide you some insights as to ,- 24 where the NRC is on a couple of those issues. 25 In particular, the -- the issue of life extension i
kN' 39 :
. ir} 1 of a nuclear power plant, is one that the commission is l
~'
2 seriously considering right now. It's developing rules and 3 procedures to handle that. As part of that, it does address j i 4 the aging of plants: what has to take place in order to 5 certify that the plant has the ability to operate a little l 6 longer than its current license. 1 1 7 That will include the -- I guess, the regulations, l 1 8 the inspections, the requirements on licensees, in order'to j 9 apply for that. That's something that the Ideensee would do 10 near the end of its life. But we're trying to establish the
. )
11 rules and regulations now, so that any aging concerns or any , 1 12 other certification concerns can be handled at-this point in
- 13 time, or at least in the near future.
1 14 But that is something that the Agency is actively 15 pursuing. 16 MR. AIKEN Thank you. 17 MR. BOJER: In particular, the question -- 18 MR. AIKEN: What is the expected average lifetime? 19 MR. BOGER: The -- a normal operating license is 20 issued for 40 years. The period that's under consideration l 21 for life extension, I believe, is an additional 20 years. 22 And a decision on that needs to be made by a utility for 23 replacement power purposes, at least probably 10 years in . Y 24 advance of the expiration of their license, at around the
-[
'\_-
25 30-year point.
40 1 There are two facilities right now, which are in 2 pilot programs for the plant life extension, and as Bruce 3 mentioned, there is currently rulemaking, which is about to 4 be issued, or a proposed rule on plant life extension that - 5 should go out this summer. 6 MR. CAPRA: Yes. Bruce. { 7 MR. WIGGINS: To further add to this. As was 8 stated, the NRC issues operating licenses for facilities 9 that have a term of 40 years. There are two real types of 10 extensions that are being looked at today. One is the one 11 you've just heard about, which is the broader general issue 12 of whether these plants could operate greater than 40 years. 13 Others -- another one which exists and we are 14 granting right now, is a -- more or less, a legal situation. 15 There is a 40-year life, as I said. It's for older plants, 16 such as Calvert, I would believe. That 40-year time starts 17 at the first issuance -- the issuance of the first license, 18 which from these plants, is what we call a construction 19 permit. It's the authorization we gave to build the plant l[ 20 in the first place. 21 During that period of construction, the plant' 22 really did not have any service -- any significant service-23 related degradation. So we are generally, positively 24 viewing requests for extension of the operating life for 9 25 that period of time, during which the plant was constructed.
41 j
,-~ , 1- Also, clarification of where the 40 years came s i \- / 2 from. As far as I can determine in everything I've seen 3 that year, that nu.sber is purely arbitrary. It was -- let's l I
l 4 -- we need to pick a year. We need to pick a time for which 5 this license will be good for, because we all knew that it 6 was not going to be good for ever, but we knew that it was l 1 7 going to be good for.some period of time. So 40 was a 8 decided. It was just an arbitrary number. 9 And the designs of the facilities, similarly used l 10 40 as, in fact, an arbitrary number to use in any design 12 calculations and whatever, that they needed to do. That's 12 all it is. There's nothing particularly technically ( j 13 significant about the number. So, the argument or the 14 consideration for extending the life, in my mind, is not 15 really as technically challenging as one might think. 16 There's nothing in the 40-year license that meant 17 in the 41st year, things would really be going wrong. We 18 believe that there's a lot of margins in the facilities than 1 19 have been for a long time-20 In terms of what BG&E, what Baltimore Gas and 21 Electric intends to do, we don't know that. We are, as 22 Bruce said, are getting ready and establishing the processes ; 23 for review, if a utility would come and ask us. We don't [~'h 24 know if -- what Baltimore Gas and Electric, right now, Sj 25 intends to ask us for an extension. And if you have l
l l 42 s 1 questions about that, I would suggest that you talk to i ' (,,, 2 Baltimore Gas and Electric. They would be probably better - 3 - better able to answer that point. 4 From the NRC's point of view, we're just getting 5 ready to set up our processes for what would happen if 6 someone would ask. i 7 MR. CAPR/. That first type of license extension l 8 that Jim mentioned, recouping the time between construction 9 permit issuance and operating license issuance, has already 10 been granted for Calvert Cliffs. That was granted at least 1 l l 11 two or three years ago, and Calvert Cliffs was one of the ! 12 first ones to recoup that time on their operating license. A 13 MR. AIKEN: What about Federal storage? ; 14 MR. BOGERt All right. The question was, what l 15 about Federal storage? Mr. Aiken, we have someone here 16 tonight that can give you some insights on that. I don't l 17 think we're prepared to give you any -- any detailed 18 analysis of that, but if I could ask Fritz Sturz to share
'19 what he can tonight.
20 MR. STURZ: Any Federal storage that the 1 l 21 Government would be thinking about would be done by the i i 22 Department of Energy. And right now, the Department of i 1 23 Energy has planned for a monitored retrievable storage
-w 24 facility that they're continuing to develop. '-- 25 However, at this time, the MRS is linked to the l
l
43 1 repository schedule. And so, right now, it's a political 2 problem, to decouple that linkage, to get it -- an MRS 3 operational by 1998, when DOE has commitments to take title 4 to fuel. 5 MR. BOGER: Okay. Elise Meyer-Bothling? 6 MS. MEYER-BOTHLING: Thanks for the opportunity. 7 Oan you hear me? I didn't really know the agenda of the 8 meeting very long ago, so Idm not really prepared. But I 9 didn't get what the abbreviation NRR stands for? 10 MR. BOGER: It's the Office of Nuclear Reactor 11 Regulation. 12 , MS. MEYER-BOTHLING: Okay. I'm used to NRC.
; 13 Anyway, I'm not sure if you're the ones who can answer about 14 maybe -- BG&E -- I don't know if BG&E is here, but, we were 15 wondering if the management -- if that was one of the 11 16 , problems that were listed? Mismanagement -- if any of the 17 managers hook any pay cuts, as a result of mismanagement?
18 can anyon- answer that? 19 MR. BOGER: I don't know. And.that's not 20 something we would normally -- 21 MS. MEYER-BOTHLING: There's nobody from BGEE 22 here? 23 MR. BOGER: This is an NRC meeting and so -- Okay. 24 MS. MEYER-BOTHLING: Excuse me. 25 MR. BOGER: Okay. ___________c._ , ,
44
<~ss 1 MR. CAPRA: There are -- let me just mention, as
( )
'x / 2 Bruce said, we certainly don't know whether any managers 3 took a pay cut as a result of any performance problems they 4 had. Part of the corrective actions that have been taken 5 over the course of the last year or so, is that management 6 has reorganized the site in severhl cases, brought in some 7 new individuals to take certain positions within the 8 organization. ,
9- So there have been a fairly significant number of 10 management changes in the utility itself. For example, 11 Baltimore Gas and Electric replaced their Vice President, 12 Nuclear Energy, shortly after the plant w'as placed on a ()
,-s !
13 watch list. More recently, they added a Vice chairman of 1 14 the Board, who reports to the Chairman of the Board, to l ! l 15 oversee the facility at Calvert Cliffs. l L 16 There have been several changes within the Mcnager a 17 level, which is right below the Vice President. They have a l 18 new Plant Manager at the facility, they have a new Manager l l L 19 of Quality Assurance. They created two new departments 20 within the site, instead of having three departments, they 21 now have five. Two of those new managers are currently 22 there. l 23 So there have been a lot of management changes and l
\ 24 reorganization over the course of the last year.
[C 25 MR. BOGER: I guess I would add to that that part l
i 45 j 7- 1 of the Performance Improvement Plan was to establish some l ( ). N/- 2 accountability within those managers. And what Baltimore j 1 3 Gas and Electric has done is to, in each, I guess employee's 4 or each manager's performance dppra sal throughout the year, ) l 5 they are graded on how well they implement the Performance 6 Improvement Plan. I 1 7 So there is an active movement by the licensee to 1 I P make sure that people are held accountable for implementing 9 the program and doing their job. The licensees report to j 10 us, and their bonuses or salaries are related to us. ! 11 ' MS. MEYER-BOTHLING: Okay. Thanks. I understand l 12 that in the NRC, people come from the industry and take 13 positions in the NRC. So, I don't know how much contact you ) (N,s 14 have about'the salaries of the managers and so forth. But - 15 - 16 MR. BOGER: We're certainly not prepared to 17 address that. - 18 MS. MEYER-BOTHLING: Yes. We appreciate you'll 19 coming down and -- it's just a real serious business, the 20 power plant, especially the waste. And I'm sure you . 21 understand this, that's why this is such a serious meeting 22 and we're all dressed up really well. 23 And for ti:e electricity to run to cool this room,
/ 24 we're making that waste, only not now when the plant's shut
( 25 down. And this waste is going to be around for generations _ _ ~. _ . _ _
l i 46 , l 1 and we have to keep our eye on it and take care of it, so to ! [ ) 2 speak. ! Ky 3 I'm kind of disappointed at the turn-out myself. 4 But I think -- and this isn't your job or anything, it's 5 just a comment; but since BG&E -- and this isn't your 6 responsibility, but just a comment -- BG&E has to buy that ; l 7 power -- buy replacement power for Calvert Cliffs when it's ! I 8 down. And if we could just wear cooler clothes, we wouldn't i 9- have -- like everybody, a lot of people here are wearing 10 suit jackets. If we wore shorts and sandals, we could turn l 11 the air conditioning down and we wouldn't have to be using 12 all that electricity; but I guess thac's the way our society 13 is going these days. Anyway, not much content here. Thanks l 14 a lot. 15 MR. BOGER: Thank you for your comments. I think 16 that the number of representatives and I -- our dress is 17 more just to show you that we're serious about this too and, 18 you know, we're going to bring the people to listen to your 19 comments and we treat this very seriously as well. Thank 20 you for your comments, as well. 21 Thank you for your comments 22 We don't have any other cards from anyone. Was 23 anyone elte reluctant to sign a card that would otherwise f 24 like to speak? 25 Well, okay. I do again thank you for coming out
47 i i this evening. 2 MS. CANINE: Can I just ask one more question? 3 MR. BOGER: Yes. 4 MS. CANINE: You, as NRC inspectors, have you ever 5 been threatened by BG&E verbally or physically that you 6 couldn't perform your jobs and make sure that this plant can 7 run well? 8 MR. WIGGIN$: I'm not aware of any -- of anyone in 9 the NRC, since I've been associated with the plant, 10 reporting anything in that regard. 11 MS. CANINE: There was an article in the paper 12 last year saying such things were going on and I just 13 wondered if you were -- 14 MR. WIGGINS: Going on where? 15 MR. CANINE: At the Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Plant. 16 MR. WIGGINS: I'm unfamiliar with that article. 17 If you can clarify it a bit, maybe we can respond. 18 MS. CANINE: It was an article in The Recorder 19 saying that there were some problems that the NRC officials 20 were having -- inspectors were having inside the plant with 21 plant employoes thwarting thom on their inspection duties. 22- Were you at the plant last year? 23 MR. WIGGTNS: I was responsible -- my -- in the 24 current position I hold, I've been associated with the 25 oversight of the Calvert Cliffs Inspection Program since
48 1 August of 1987. And since that -- in that period of time, I 2 am not aware at all of our inspectors being impeded, 3 threatened, harassed, intimidated, or anything like that. 4 We take that very seriously. 5 MS. CANINE: Yes. 6 MR. WIGGINS: It's a -- in fact, this is going to 7 sound kind of funny -- it is a Federal offense for that type 8 of activity to take place. And we are serious about that 9 because we, as management in the NRC, are concerned about 10 our employees and our employees' safety. 11 And I'd like to tell you that, you know, we deal 12 with a lot of utilities, BG&E included, and the people we 13 deal with in utility management, and it's equally serious on 14 their part. They don't want their employees behaving like 15 that either. They're responsible citizens, as far as I can 16 determine. 17 No. I'm not aware of anything like that. I wish 18 you -- I wish you can give me more clarification; or if you 19 could send us the article or something in that regard, I'd 20 try to see if we could have comeone put in context what 21 happened, but without any more specifics -- 22 MS. CANINE: There wouldn't ever be a time where 23 you were not -- you would not be allowed to do your duty -- 24 do your job as inspectors at the plant?
"# 25 MR. WIGGINS: No. That's prohibited by law. The
I 49 i utility cannot do that. We have requirements that they give
~!g
) 2 our inspectors what we call " unfettered access" to that
.(/
3 facility. And if they -- 4 MS. CANINE: And at all times there is an 5 inspector there? 6 MR. WIGGINS: No. Not at all times. We're not 7 there 24 hours a day. We don't believe that's necessary. 8 . We're there a considerable period of time, but we're not , 9 there 24 hours a day. 10 We have access to anything we need to have access 11 to to do our job. And if we do not have access to it, there 12 , are administrative methods for us to gain access to it. r 13 Tha'.#s not happening here, in my knowledge. I'm not aware
.( \
14 of any circumstances. 15 MS. CANINE: Could we request that -- an NRC l 16 inspector, I mean, do shifts and one be there all the time? 17 MR. WIGGINS: You certainly could request it, but 18 we're not going to grant it, because it's not necessary. , 1 19 MS. CANINE: It is not necessary? 20 MR. WIGGINS: No, it is not. l 21 MS. CANINE: The 11 insufficiencies that they l 22 stated in the assessment of their problems, I mean, one of I 23 them -- what really concerns me is that they can't assess 24 the problems that come up. And I think this is the, you 25 know, when you have an aging nuclear plant and you don't l
50 1 have people that can assess the problems it's rcelly -- that 2 scares me. 3 And I would think, you know, in a plant that's 4 being run now like this, and it is on the watch list, that 5 at least an inspector would be there -- at least a shift of 6 inspectors, to -- 7 MR. WIGGINS: Well, as I said, we have resident 8 inspectors assigned to the station full-time, as much as --- 9 it's a full-time job. 10 MS. CANINE: A lot of these accidents happen at 11 3:00 o' clock in the morning. That's when TMI, that's when 12 Chernobyl went -- 13 MR. WIGGINS: Let me -- let me explain to you what 14 the Agency's position is on that. We have asked that of 15 ourselves in the past, as we set up the resident program 16 and, in fact before that, when he actually set up an 17 inspection program to begin with. 18 And we've been asked that in a number of other 19 similar settings as this. And our answer -- here's as 20 factually and as truthful as I can give it to you, okay. s 21 This plant and any plant -- any nuclear power plant, 22 operates in this country because there's a law that says 23 that the -- that these plants are a good thing. 24 The Atomic Energy Act says that there are 25 legitimate peaceful uses of nuclear energy, and to carry oct a
c 51 i 7~ 1 that law, the AEC and now the NRC was established in order ! x_, 2 to support that will of Congress, that there would be ; 3 methods of which peaceful uses of nuclear energy could be ; 4 carried out safely. 5 But what the law does is puts.the onus and the 6 primary responsibility for operation of the facility safely, 7 on the owner utility. The NRC is in a monitoring role, it's 8 in an oversight role, okay. That's why we can man these 9 stations and inspect them with two or three people, where I , 10 the utility may have a thousand people on site doing things. 11 ' The utility is held strictly accountable for 12 what's going on at the facility. We -- we perform an () 13 14 auditing function. When we find problems, when we find concerns, we take actions to make sure the utility fixes the 15 problems and property identifies and addresses them. 16 When the utilities do not properly identify and 17 address problems, we take more severe action, case in point . 18 is the Peach Bottom event. At Peach Bottom, we did, as 19 Bruce said, lose confidence. In fact, we issued them an 20 order that essentially suspended their license, okay. 21 We don't believe it's necessary for our people to 22 be here 24 hours a day. The utility is primarily 23 responsible. We have an auditing function to make sure that fg 24 they -- execute those responsibilities correctly. ('~'l 25 We have administrative mechanisms to make them do
i 52
\
l 1 it if they -- if we think they are not doing that properly ! 2 and we have other requirements, such as reporting 3 requirements, emergency planning, notification requirements. ! 4 There's a whole laundry list of things that are imposed on 5 the utility that makes them tell us that something is not 6 going right at the facility. 7 So, we don't see any rieed for us to be there 24 l 8 hours a day. 9 MS. CANINE: And you're absolutely confident that 10 those people in place now, as managers, can run this plant 11 safely? J 12 MR. WIGGINSt We made a finding--- well first, we l G l 13 never made a finding that by -- activities Calvert Cliffs 14 were unsafe, ever. We have not done that, otherwise we 15 would have taken actions similar to Peach Bottom. 16 The NRC's concern and the concern of the senior 17 management of the Agency is chat we were seeing performance 18 declining at this facili":y, and we were seeing that decline 19 not being arrested. And we wanted to head off that decline 20 before things did get to a -- an unsafe condition. We never 21 got there in our estimation. 22 We intervene -- we intervene before a significant 23 safety problem did result, in our way of thinking. And we n 24 believe that we have worked with the utility to achieve a f ) 25 level of confidence in their ability to operate the
l I 53
,, 1 facility, such that we agree to the restart of Unit 1 when !
I s.
,, 2 we did back in April. j 3 That letter that gave them the agreement, had a
]
4 couple of other provisos in it. We agreed that they could j 5 restart Unit it but we had asked, and they had agreed to 6 provide us with several pieces of information before they're 7 completely out of this augmented coverage that we're ! 8 providing. I 1 9 MS. CANINE: The Unit 1 is the one with the i 10 pressurizer variance, right? l 11 MR. WIGGINS: No. No, Unit l's pressurizer's
)
12 okay, as far as we can de* ermine. o 13 MS. CANINE: That pressurizer's been checked out { 14 100 percent that -- 15 MR. WIGGINS: The pressurizer's been inspected by 16 BG&E and we're satisfied, based on the results of the 17 inspection, that they've conducted in the overview we've 18 performed, that it's okay. 19 MS, CANINE: So there was not an NRC inspector 20 there, but-you were taking BG&E's word? 21 MR. WIGGINS: No, we've got people watching. 22 MS. CANINE: Okay. + 23 MR. WIGGINS: We've got people there too. 24 MS. CANINE: Okay. ( A 25 MR. WIGGINS: But, we -- this is not unusual, this
l i 54 . 7_ 1 is the way we handle component problems in any facility.
^( \
(_) 2 Like I said, the utility's responsible for it, not -- 3 they've got first order of responsibility. NRC's in an 4 auditing function. 5 We believe, based on the results of our review, ; 6 that BG&E has done a responsible assessment of the Unit 1 ; 7 pressurizer and the Unit 1 pressurizer is okay for that 8 plant to operate. So -- Unit 2 is not done yet. 9 MS. CANINE: Okay, Unit 2 was --- j 10 MR. WIGGINS: That's the one where the actual l 11 leaks were. 12 MS. CANINU: The leaks in the pressurizer vessel? t'
; 13 MR. WIGGINS: Where the heaters penetrate the l
, \ l 14 pressurizer, yes. 15 MS. CANINE: The heater sleeves, you're talking ! i 16 about -- 120 heater sleeves, and they were all replaced? 17 MR. CAPRA: Yes, they're all being replaced. 18 MR. WIGGINS: They will be replaced. 19 MR. CAPRA: They were not all leaking, however, i 20 they were all being replaced. 21 MS. CANINE: So then, you were just concerned, in 22- Unit I with the small crack in the pressurizer heater 23 vessel; is that correct? r"'s 24 MR. WIGGINS: There was no indication that there 25 was any leakage at all on Unit 1, out of the heaters. The
. 55 1 original leakage problem was found by the utility when they 2 were examining, under an examination program that we 3 require, in Unit 2. That's where they found it.
4 The utility asked themselves, and we think it's 5 the right thing for them to do, since Unit 1 and Unit 2 are 6 so similar, is it not unreasonable to wonder whether there's 7 a similar problem in Unit 1. They shut Unit 1 down, which 8 was a responsible action on their part. They went in and 9 looked, they did not find leaks in Unit 1. 10 They did an assessment scrc carefully of the 11 differences between the two and they made -- the came to 12 some conclusion as to why Unit 2 is leaking and Unit 1 is 13 not. They presented those results to us; we reviewed them 14 and we agree. 15 So Unit 1, as far as we're concerned, is not a 16 problem to operate today. 17 MS. CANINE: So there's absolutely no problem with 18 the pressure variances of that vessel -- it could hold? 19 MR. WIGGINS: Well, there's no, guarantees in life, 20 but, based on the information that's provided, we believe 21 that Unit l's pressurizer is in a condition to support safe 22 unit operation. That is not what is a -- that's not a 23 concern right now. 24 MR. CAPRA: When you're saying pressure vessel, 25 you do recognize we're not talking about the pressure
l 56 1 vessel,.that holds the reactor fuel, that's a different type ! 7~ I (- 2 of pressure vessel. We're talking about the pressurizer, 3 which is a component that's half filled with water, half 4 filled with steam, that maintains a pressure on the system. i I 5 Even the -- the Unit 2 heaters that failed were ] 6 slow leaks. That's why they were not detected to begin 7 with, you know, it was not a catastrophic type of failure. ; l 8 There's a -- there was a very rational reason why Unit 2 j I l 9 heaters leaked and Unit i did not. I L 10 When they were installing, you know, Unit 1 was 11 built first, and when they installed the heater sleeves in I 12 the pressurizer, there was a tight fit, trying to get these (p) 13 sleeves.inside the pressurizer.
\ /
14 Well, in Unit 2, they did not want to have the 15 same problem, with respect to getting the heater sleeves and 16 the difficulty they experienced on Unit 1, getting them in 17 side the pressurizer; so they reamed the heater sleeves out. 18 While in the process of reaming the heater sleeves, it set 19 up some stress risers within the heater sleeves themselves, 20 that were eventually the spawning sites for this stress 21 cracking corrosion. 22 They did not go through that same process on Unit 23 1, and that is the main reason why Unit 2 has the problem (~~' 24 and Unit i did not have the problem. It was a very detailed (
\ 25 technical evaluation that was done on that, and it was
g _ __ -__ . . . _ _ . - _ . _ _ _ _ _ _ 57
,. 1 reviewed by the NRC and it is publicly available in the s,
2- public document room. 3 MS. CANINE: And they did have to replace those 4 120 heater sleeves? 5 MR. CAPRA: They are in the process of replacing 6 them now. l 7 MS. CANINE: Okay. The reason I'm asking about ! 8 Unit 1 is, I read a -- 9 MR. WIGGINS: Unit 2, Unit 2 that is. 10 MS. CANINE: Yes. Unit 2. 11 MR. WIGGINS: Yes. . I 12 MS. CANINE: And the reason I'm asking about Unit [ 13 1 is that I had read where there was a pressure variance. N 14 And, I don't know what you were talking about before, you 15 were talking about a steam variance or steam. And I had 16 read that there was a -- a variance of pressure that this 17 containment maybe would be compromised. You know, I don't 18 know about the, you know, holding -- I'm not talking about 19 the -- the overall containment, but the containment of this 20 pressurizer of the reactor vessel. This is what I read. f 21 I read this-in a report by the NIRS, that said 22 that this is one of the -- this Unit 1, that it has been 23 known that this Unit 1, over awhile, has had this problem in
-- 24 temperature variances.
25 MR. WIGGINS: Oh, I think we -- I think we
58 1 understand what you're talking about now. ( j) 2 MS. CANINE: Okay. 3 MR. WIGGINS: NIRS -- who is that? 4 MS. CANINE: Nuclear Information Resource Service 5 had written a paper on the aging of nuclear power plants. 6 And they cited Calvert Cliffs, Unit 1, I believe. Yes, Unit 7 1, as having this pressure variance that the NRC knew about. 8 That's what I'm asking. 9 MR. WIGGINS: There is something that we are 10 concerned -- we are aware of that somewhat fits the 11 explanation you provided. And that's what Curt Cowgill , 12 referred to, when he was talking about a low-temperature I 13 overpressure protection system. 14 MS. CANINE: Okay. 15 MR. WIGGINS: That's -- let's see how we can set , 16 this up. The -- when you look at the types of reactor 17 plants that Calvert Cliffs is, and you look at their reactor 18 vessel, that reactor vessel has a susceptibility to certain 19 types of failures when the temperature of the water in that 20 vessel ic lower than what you expect during normal 21 operation. 22 These vessels -- well, all of the vessels in all 23 of the nuclear power plants, have certain failure or , ,s
, 24 fracture characteristics that you, you know, if you were a 25 materials engineer, you could discuss a lot -- but you can
I 59 _.. 1 plot out certain temperature pressure relationships; that if i 7 2 you're above that pressure for a given temperature, you may 3 cause a problem to occur. 4 As I said, in these pressurized water -- in the 5 types of reactors that Calvert Cliffs is, there are 6 scenarios that can develop at low temperatures, where you 7 would raise the reactor pressure vessel pressure about these 8 limits, based on certain things happening to the plant's 9 systems. 10 We were aware of those problems -- the NRC was 11 aware that those problems could exist in the mid to late 12 '70's, and we issued generic requirements for utilities to 13 go out and look at the -- at the situation and develop a 14 management, or a technical strategy to defend against this 15 type of thing occurring. 16 In as early as 1978, Baltimore Gas & Electric told 17 us what they had intended to do. We revisited that issue in 18 detail in the late '80's and find some problems in what 19 they'd intended to do. In' fact, they did not completely 20 implement things that they said they were going to and then 21 we revisited again in 1990 and find again, that they did not 22 do everything they said they were going to do from '78 to , 23 '87, to '90. p) V 24 That is the 1990 problem that you're reading 25 about, okay. That problem precipitated a concern, on our
i 60
)
1 part, on the ability of that licensee organization to manage (j 2 commitments they make to us about significant safety issues. 3 That's what made us go back and have them -- and elicit from 4 them a commitment which they did make and did fulfill; to go 5 back and look at those types of commitments that they,made. 6 They did that, reported to us that they didn't 7 find anything significantly missed that we didn't already 8 know about; which were about -- there were three types of 9 items in that. 10 We went back because we were so concerned. We 11 elected to independently go through an assessment, which we j 12 did. It was done under Curt's auspices and -- and under an 13 additional regional manager was involved, to lead that -- 14 lead that team. And we concluded, at the end of it that the 15 utility had done a responsible job; so we thought they had l 16 done enough in that commitment area to allow that, or allow i l 17 us to agree to a restart. 18 So, yes there were problems. There were problems 19 in this -- in these -- in the way the utility arranged 20 systems when the plant was shut down, to prevent this type 21 of a low-temperature problem from occurring. And that's why 22 we took some pretty significant enforcement action against 23 them. They corrected those problems and are still reviewing p 24 that issue to see if there's anything further they need to i 25 do.
+s 61 -~ 1 We had them look at other things and we went in, j N, s 2 ourselves, to look to make sure they did a good job. And we 3 came out okay on all those and that's how we reached a 4 restart decision on Unit 1.
5 MS. CANINEt So, as for now, Unit 1 is okay on 6 this and it can be restarted in August, are you saying? I 7 Because I heard they have an intake pipe problem now, with l 8 the intake pike off the Bay corroded. So they have to 9 replace that too now. Do you know if that's corroded from - ( l 10 - is it Bay water, or is there any radiation in that? ) l 11 MR. WIGGINS: No. That's not a radiation-induced j 12 problem, to our knowledge. A ( \ 13 It's not an uncommon problem for plants on sea . )~ Y 1 14 coasts or bays, to wind up with the problems generated due 15 to what's in the bay naturally: silt, grass, aquatic life, 16 shellfish, actually, clams. And basically, Calvert is like 17 a number of other facilities. siey have problems with a 18 type of corrosive mechanism, it's an erosion-type problem 19 that occurs when you have problems with,-what we call, 20 fouling, clogging of the pipes, clogging of the heat 21 transfer surfaces of certain other components, due to the 22 stuff that's in the bays and stuff that's in the oceans. 23 And they need to deal with it, r' 24 MS. CANINE: That natural stuff that's in the (' 25 bays?
F I 62 t
,_ 1 MR. WIGGINS: Yes. It's there, it's everywhere. , ./ j' (s_j 2 We were on the site today and we were walking around lorking ;
3 at these pipes that you're talking about. And if you look 4 inside them, you can see what it is. It's candy silt, it's 5 clam shells, things like that. And, you know, talking to 6 Larry Nicholson, our senior, he's looked at other things and 7 other components in the facility that this system services 8 and you see things -- stuff in there. You see grass and you 9 see the same type of shells. And it's a problem. It's e. 10 problem for Calvert and it's a problem for a lot of plants. 11 MS. CANINE: So does that mean maybe this will not 12 start in August, because this whole system has to be , [\ 13 replaced also? 14 MR. WIGGINS: The whole system probably won't need 15 to be replaced. The August date, to my knowledge, considers 16 the work they need to do in the service -- in that 17 particular system. Okay, br$, you know -- it's a schedule. 18 The uti3ity controls the schedule. They develop it. 19 The NRC really has no expertise or interest 20 actually in restart schedules for facilities. In our point 21 of viow, the utility starts ip the plant when that plant's 22 safe to restart. That's all we r. rc mbout. If it's in 23 August, for Calvert Cliffs, if that's when the plant's safe g-~x 24 to restart, that's then they have this technical problems,
\
\
25 fine. If it's not August, that's fine too. l
~ . . ..
63
+
l 1 The only concern we have with schedule is kind of
/] ,
(f 2' a broad con'cern, so we can sequence the activities we think 3, we need to do so that we get it done at the right time. So, 4 you know,.if you have a schedule question, you've-got to 5 talk to the Baltimore Gas & Electric people. We don't 6- develop their schedules, we don't defend their schedules, we 7 don't get involved in how the schedule got put together. l 8 MS, CANINE: But, they can't open until you say 9 that they are allowed to open? 10 MR. WIGGINS: -Pardon me? l I 11' MS, CANINE: They cannot start until you say, l l i
-12 right?
; 13 MR. . WIGGINS: No. No, they -- for Unit 1, they
%)
14 restart when they conclude that they're ready. 15 MS. CANINE:. Then they pick -- when they pick now? 16 MR. WIGGINS: Yes.- That's what every plant does. 17' That's how every plant operates. 18 MS.. CANINE: You don't go in and see that 19 everything is properly in order? _.
-20' MR. WIGGINS: As I said, on an auditing basis, we
.21 overview the utilities actions, as we do any plant. But, 22 whether the plant is started up or not started up, is 23 typically -- and for Unit 1 and Calvert Cliffs, under the
- 24. utility's total control.
V 25- Granted, if we knew of a safety problem, the NRC
g-64 1 ' wouM .take action it needed to stop that restart. And 2 't.he*er'e. u wLt.!,a laundry list of things.we can do. It's very 3- s.ddc :. w have to use the most severe ones, but we have them 4 and we'll use them if we have to. 5 But, what I'm talking about is it's really what -- 6 they way we do business for all facilities. Again, this is 7 a long-winded discussion I'm having -- but again, going back 8 to the first point I made. L 9 MS. CANINE: Sorry. It took me awhile to 10 understand. 11 MR. WIGGINS: Going back to the first point, 12 remember, that it's the utility that has the primary 13 responsibility for safe operation of the facility and they 14 are held strictly accountable, under the law for it. 15 We are those people who. perform an auditing 16 function to make sure they are responsibly living up to 17- their obligations. 18 MS. CANINE: So, if anything does happen then, N 19 -what do the people -- who do the people -- who answers-to 20 the people? I mean, we can't answer to ---I mean, we can't
-21 point to you to say that's, you know, because you probably
-22 weren't there all the time. We can't point to BG&E, because 23 we're not sure that they know what they're doing.
.24. And they may start up, because this is a 50
.25 percent -- this is a big investment for them. Who do we i l _ _ _ _ _ .
65 have to come back to on this? l' . 2 MR. WIGGINS: In terms of what?
<< 3 MS. CANINE: I was under the impression that an 4 NRC inspector would be there all the time. I mean, this is
-5 -one thing in my head that --
! 6 MR.~WIGGINS: Not 24 hours a day. We're not there 7 24 hours a day. We're aware of what's happening at those 8 facilities. -We're aware of the significant activities on-9 the facilities. Don't -- don't take anything I've said so 10 far, to imply that there are important things going on that 11 we're not aware of we're --
., 12 MS. CANINE: Well, if I go down in the reading 13 room - .I've spent some hours in that reading room and I L14. read and I hear of leaks and I hear of. pipes failing and
-15 valves shutting. And I hear, you know, on.several 16 occasions,-not just once, the monitors are down, and the 17 monitors are down again.
18 I mean, if you read that over and over and over 19 again, what Nould you believe? I mean --
- 2 0. MR. WIGGINS: Well, it's diffi, cult from your 21 perspective, I agree, because these plants are tremendously 22 complex and the -- to understand the technnlogy is --
23 MS. CANINE: Yes. But I did expect an NRC
,, 24 inspector to be there. I mean, I had that --
25 MR. WIGGINS: As I said, the utility has an
66 1 obligation to tell us of things that are of safety 2 significance. 3 MS. CANINE: Are you confident that they will 4 always tell you? 5 MR. WIGGINS: Well, always is kind of -- we are 6 confident that they will tell us, yes. And when we find out 7 that they have not, we -- we take action to address that 8 promptly. And if it's a significant failure on their part, 9 we take significant actien. 10 That's the system. That's how the system is set 11 up in this country. That's how it works. We, as I said, 12 the utility is responsible. We expect them to implement 13 that responsibility correctly. When we find out they don't, 14 then we take action, and we have the capability of taking 15 quite strong action if we need to. 16 The utilities recognize that and that's how we 17 believe that things are -- there's a reasonable level of 18 safety in the facilities that are licensed to operate. 19 But, I guess, on who you want to go to; there are 20 a number of people that you can go to. The NRC is a Federal 21 agency. It works under a Congressional mandate. 22 Essentially, we work for the people, really. So, yes, you 23 can ask us questions and we try as best we could, given the 24 time we have, to address them. 25 It's not uncommon that the NRC gets its questions
- y. - . . - - -
~
R 67 7-qg 1 from the public or questions from citizens groups, and we i V
-\_ h 2' try to address them. I see nothing wrong with trying to get 1
3- : answers from utilities. I recogr.1ze, on your part, that you 4 might think that they have a vested interest in the answers, 5 so you may want some.other view. You can get that from us.
' fi -You can get that from, at least in this state, the State of 7 Maryland.
8 The State of Maryland, like another of other 9 states are interested in what's going on in nuclear power 10 activities in their state. ihey -- we do maintain, under a. ;
-11 policy that's bee.n existence in our agency for a long time, 12 a liaison with the State'of Maryland, we do attempt to share (n)-
13 important information with them. That's another avenue that L 14- you can go to.
-15 You know, there's a lot of aven'ues that-you can go 16 to , and it's up to you to determine which one you want to go L
17 to and who you believe. 18 MS. CANINE: Yes. I called the state several 19; times. They say everything's hunky-dory because you're 20 there. And that's what I thought. 21 MR. WIGGINS: We are there, we're just not there 22 24 hours. And I think I explained why we don't think we i 23 need to be. We have never found a need to be present 24
'~' 24 hours a day over the long-term'. We have at facilities, 25 provided 24-hour coverage during certain periods.
n s 68 a:
;l < In' fact, in the last -- in the last start-up here, 2: I assume we had some -- we had 24-hour coverage of certain 1 phases of-the operation and,-if we find a need to do that 4 again here, or elsewhere, we'll do it.
5 But we, as managers, try to .nake a determination 6 of what is necessary for us to get the information we need 7 to get. We don't believe, as a general practice, that we 8 need to present at these facilities for 24 hours. We think 9 that other -- other -- there are other requirements that 10 _ alleviate that need. 11 I think our practice has stood a reasonable test 12' of time, at least in the 1980's. - 13 MR. CAPRA: I know that Bruce has another card
-14 there that I think he's been trying to get the name of_an 15 individual.
16 MS. CANINE: Oh, I'm'sorry. 17 MR. CAPRA: Let me just mention something, while 18 we were having all-these other discussions. You initially _ 19- opened with your concerns about unfettered access, or 20- whatever, in the newspaper by an NRC inspector. Now that 21 I've had a chance to think about it a li- .a bit, I think 22 what you may be referring you -- you may have mixed up NRC 23 inspector, versus quality assurance inspector that works for 24 Baltimore Gas & Electric. 25 As I recall, and I don't remember the details; but
G/ .y 69 m 1- approximately a year to a year and a half ago, which is the 2 timeframe you.were. talking-about, there was an allegation 3 regarding harassment and intimidation of a. quality assurance-4 inspector at'Calvert Cliffs.- That may or may not have 5 ~ appeared some how in the newspaper. 6 Our Office of Investigations investigated that 7 allegation. That allegation -- that allegation was not 8 substantiated,-if-we're talking about the'same thing. 9 But, you know, I've been associated with the plant 10 for about three an a half years now, and there's never been 11 an issue of NRC inspector access; but there'has, at least, 11 2 been this issue of potential harassment and intimidation of 13 BG&E quality assurance inspector. So that may be what we 14 -were talking about. 15 MS. CANINE: Is somebody there on the radiological 16 -- like do you see the monitors that -- rate the -- on the 17 radioactivity or the things that are released in the bay?
-18 MR. CAPRA: The utility reports to us, on a
'19 periodic basis, releases -- emission releases from the 20- facility. The monitoring program probably can be addressed 21 more adequately'by our radiological control specialist.
- 22. MR. BELLAMY: Let me -- is-that on? One of the 23 comments earlier had to do with continuous-real-time 24- monitoring. The licensee here, as well as everywhere else 25 in this country, is required to have continuous real-time
70
'l monitoring of all radioactive effluents from the site. All of those effluents are required to be reported to the NRC 3 and we review every one of those reports.
4 We also have a program where we will send 5 ' inspectors down here to the site and we will verify, by 6 direct observation, that those measurements are accurate. 7 We will -- we -- 8 MS, CANINE: I'm sorry, When -- on what timeframe 9 was that? Is that -- 10 MR. BELLAMY: What timeframe is that? 11 .MS. CANINE: I mean, when they release they 12 report, and when do you come to read the monitors? 13 MR. BELLAMY: We don't read the monitors per se. 14 ' ' What!we will do is we wi -erify that the measurements that 15- the licensee is giving us are accurate, and we will do that' 16 by direct observation when-they calibrate those monitors.
.17 We will do that be actually giving Baltimore Gas & Electric 18 radioactive samples that we know-are traceable to the-19 National Institute of Standards and Technology. And we.will 20 also split samples with them and say, you count the sample 21 and we will count it-in our, the-NRC's radiological
- 22 monitoring van, to verify that those-measurements are 23 accurate.
24 MF CANINE: Okay. I'm sorry. Then you are the
'25 NRC?
71: 1 MR.-BELLAMY: Yes, ma'am. 1
-2 MS. CANINE: You do the monitoring? Who does the 3 readings-of the monitors. Who do you send your monitors to?
4 MR._BELLAMY: No. We do not do the monitoring,
-5 per se,. Baltimore Gas & Electric does the monitoring, and we 6 verify that those monitors are accurate.
7 MS. CANINE: I mean, who does the actual readings? 8 Who does the -- what company, or what person? Is there a 9 human being that I could say that does the reading,'or what 10 happens? 11 MR. BELLAMY: As Mr. Wiggins explained earlier, 12- that's Baltimore Gas & Electric's responsibility to do that. 13 They're charged with that responsibility. 14 MR. BOGER: Let me move on to another speaker at 15 this time. 16 Is Tom Johnston present? 17- MR. JOHNSTON: I want to thank you all for coming
. 18 down here. It is quite impressive.
19 But I just have one concern that'I would like to 20 address. When we talk about accountability. . I have an 21- uneasy feeling when I sit here and listen and you say that 22 Baltimore Gas & Electric is soley responsible and 23 accountable for their actions, when you have the okay on 24 what they say they're going to do. 25 If it isn't already, maybe in the future it needs
,=
t 72 11 to'be.- I-feel it's -- you have a very large responsibility,
;L an?important responsibility for the citizens in the counties.
3 that surround Calvert Cliffs. And, if it's not being 4 addressed already, I think that maybe is something.that'you 5 might want to consider. 6 But-I feel like there should be some 7 accountability on your end. If you're giving the carte 8 blanche to this organization, to say that they're okay to 9 go, knowing that you don't have any accountability for what 10 happens there; that doesn't sit well with me. And I don't Lil think it would sit well with many other people, if they knew
- 12. that.
13 So, maybe it's something that can't be addressed-14 here, but I think it_would have an impact on one's judgment,- 15 knowing that they are being held personally accountable for 16 what they're saying what's okay and what's not okay. Thank 17 you. 18 MR. WIGGINS: Let me, since I opened the box on 19 this, let me try to see if I could give you an answer that's 20 credible. 21- What I was trying to relate is how nuclear power 22 is, in fact, regu?ated in this country. The way it is 23 regulated and the way Congress set it up, it's the owner of 24- the facility that's responsible, primarily, for safe sr 25 operation. We -- you're right, we perform a very important
... 73-1 function for the Government and for the people.
2 We provide'an_ auditing function. We're the 3 Government's auditing function, to assure and to attempt to
- 4 confirm that the utility is responsibly living up to its 5 obligations.
'6 If you ask for who's accountable, there is 7 accountability in the NRC. There's internal accountability, 8 people, as in any other organization, people who are out 9 there doing a job, have supervisors, they're accountable to=
10 their supervisors for their activities. The managers of the 11l Agency are. accountable to the senior managers ofLthe Agency; 12 and ultimately, the Agency is accountable to Congress for
' 13 ' how it carries out its activities.
14 We-have oversight committees in_ Congress, that
'15 look at our actions and look at what we do, some favorably, 16 some unfavorably, as you probably know from reading the 17 press. But, that's who we are accountable to. We have to 18' routinely go in and defend our activities and defend what we 19' do, to the committees and subcommittees in Congress that, in 20 fact, give us our budget, give us the money and the 21- ' resources necessary to do the job that we do.
22 So there is accountability. I didn't mean to
- 23. portray that we're absolutely not involved in this thing.
.24 What I really meant to say, what I wanted to carry out is ---
25 is the way the system is set up, the utility is the primary
+
+, i 74
;,~s4 11 . person who the countryLholds accountable for safe operation.
- ? )
0\.is/ 2 If the country determined.it wanted.to do otherwise, the NRC !
'3 would be a lot larger than it is.
4 We perform an auditing function.. In our view,
- 5. that's all that's necessary. It's reasonably stood the test 6 of time, in how we conduct our business. There is 1
7 acco%ntability in NRO and the NRC is held accountable to ! T Congress. So I hope that helps a bit. V 9 It's not.that we're just here and then we go away: 10 and then we're not accountable to anyone for what we do, or 11~ we don't have an important function, or we don't take the
- 12. function's that we do have, anything less than fully fy
( -13 seriously. 14 We're very serious about what we do, and we y ' 15. , understand what our charter is, what Congress expects us to 1 L 1 g 16 do, what the people, the country expect us to do. D 17 MR. JOHNSTON: That's'what I'm asking. And you've 18 answered by question. 19 MR. WIGGINS: Thank you. , 20 MR. CAPRA: The people that you're looking at here 21 tonight, are the ones that are responsible for regulatory
-22 decisions related to Calvert Cliffs, on a day-to-day basis.
23 I mean, that's why we're here today. I mean, we're not ("'N '24- nameless, faceless people, either in King of Prussia,
'25 Pennsylvania, or Washington, D.C. I mean, that is our job, ;
,I
,75-l' you know, oversight of calvert cliffs.- -
2 MR. JOHNSTON: I understand that, I-was-just-i 3 looking for some satisfaction on that end that, yes, like
~4 this individual over here, knows that they are accountable 5 for okaying, and this individual -- eve,ryone knows that when 6 they sign something off as being okay, that if it's not 7 okay, something might come back on them, or back on the NRC 8 as a whole.
9 And that's what I was looking for and you've 10 answered my question. Thank you. 11 MR. BOGER: Dr. Durrani? . 12 DR. DURRANI: First of all, I'd like to thank all 13 of you to come over here. This reminds me of a mid-life 14 crisis that I probably have already gone through, being 40 15 years old; and that's maybe what we=are facing here at 20 16 years of the 40 years they've both mentioned earlier, for 17 the nuclear power plant. 18 My father used to say that to be prepared for old 19 age, we need to see the family history,-see what our strong 20 points are-and possibly what our weak points are. So, for 21 this particular plant, which is a PWR, are there any 22 publications or maybe-you could point out some of the major 23 issues of plants going through mid-life crisis maybe, or are 24 later or in its life. 25 Whet are the major concerns and where can we get
w s
-76 _
I 1 information about what research--is:being done on those 2 issues? Thank you. 3 MR. BOGER: I am aware of a -- there-was a 4 symposium, within the past year, that dealt primarily with , iii 5 plant aging concerns, where people.from the industry, people 2I E 6 from research, various -- various work areas, got together. ( 7- and started that -- that activity. There.may be whole l-M 8 groups -- is haybody aware of a particular contact. 9 .There is a -- I know there was a symposium that j!
' l!
10 addressed aging. It talked about electrical components, 11 mechanical components, things like that. .But I don't know 12 the.name or whether that transcript is available. Does
=
J1 13 anyone? 1 14 MR. CAPRA: One of the -- one of the documents, I-15 mean, we publish, as an Agency, a myriad of technical _ 16 documents that cover lots of issues. Certainly in our 17 . Office of Research, there is an aging program, which -- the 18 aging program is the Aging Research Program is geared to 3 3 19 supporting this plant life extension rulemaking that we were $ 20 talking about earlier, t h 21 Within the Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation, 22 which is responsible for developing plant life extension, we : 23 could certainly get you a contract that you could call and i N 24 discuss your particular question, and be glad to provide you q 25 that name.
n z
)
77-
, 13 1- In addition, as I-started to say, we publish'a g
a. (/ '2- -myriad of technical documents related to a multitude of 3 issues; some. aging related, some non-aging related, on .
)
\
I 4 various systems. We do an awful lot of studies of events 5 that happen at nuclear power plants. 6 Now, there is a consolidated listing of
~
7 publications that we publish, which ecmes out on a quarterly 8 basis, which is available in the Public Document' Room, and j l 9- it should be soon available in your local public document L
.10 room,.because they're converting that to microfiche.. And it
+
11 will not only have Calvert Cliff-specific, but 1.t will have .l
.i 12 basically, all of the documents that we publish. l L.
l.tf g) 13 And that is a document that we publish regularly, j L A ,/ ) 14 that lists all' the technical reports. I'm certainly sure j l
' 15 - that a perusal of that document, you'could come across !
16 ' documents of interest in the are looking into. )
.17 MR. BOGER: Let me ask again if anyone else has'an 18 Jissue that they would like to raise regarding the 19 Performance Improvement Plan?
20 We'd'like to.thank you once again, for coming out
]
'1 21 this evening. We recognize that a lot of times we get into 22 technical jargon and it's complex and difficult to l I
23 understand. And we appreciate you coming out and listening l l
.h 24: to us.
*h
'-~
-25 Meeting's over. Thank you.
\
-- w
, 78 1- (Applause.):
t' 2- (Whereupon at-8:55 p.m., the hearing was 3' .. adj ourned . )
~ 4 .-
5:: 6 7: 9 10 11-12 13'
.14 15 16:
17 --
- 18 ;
19-20-p .: 21 ~
-22 12 3
, 24
;25
'n h ;,
?! " ;T REPORTER'S CERTIFICATE This-is to certify that the attached proceed-ings before the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission-in the matter of:
NAME OF PROCEEDING:- C a.1 v e r t Cliffs Public Meeting DOCKET NUMBER: S 1 m ns, Maryland PLACE OF PROCEEDING: were held as herein appears, and that this-is the original transcript thereof for the file of the' United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission taken by me and.thereafter reduced to typewriting by me or under the direction of the court. report-ing. company, and that the transcript is a true and accurate-record of the foregoing proceedings.
.b]d (fb s . '
Mark H,a y Official Reporter .
-Ann Riley & Associates, Ltd..
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