ML20056C839

Forwards Notice of Violation & Proposed Imposition of Civil Penalty of $12,500 for Insp Repts 70-1257/93-02 & 93-05 on 930419-22

ML20056C839
Person / Time
Site:	Framatome ANP Richland
Issue date:	07/02/1993
From:	Faulkenberry B NRC OFFICE OF INSPECTION & ENFORCEMENT (IE REGION V)
To:	Frain R SIEMENS POWER CORP. (FORMERLY SIEMENS NUCLEAR POWER
Shared Package
ML20056C840	List: ML20056C839 ML20056C841
References
EA-93-085, EA-93-85, NUDOCS 9307260006
Download: ML20056C839 (7)

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UNITED STATES

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• ,8 1450 MARIA LANE WAl. NUT CREEK, CAUFORNIA 94596-5368 July 2, 1993 Docket No.

70-1257 License No.

SNM-1227 EA 93-085 Siemens Power 2orporation ATTN:

Mr. R.

G.

Frain, Vice President Manufacturing 2101 Horn Rapids Road Post Office Box 130 Richland, Washington 99352-0130

SUBJECT:

NOTICE OF VIOLATION AND PROPOSED IMPOSITION OF CIVIL PENALTY OF $12,500 (NRC INSPECTION REPORT NOS. 70-1257/93-02 AND 70-1257/93-05)

This refers to the special URC inspection conducted on April 19-22, 1993, at your Siemens Power Corporation facility in Richland, Washington.

The inspection included a review of the findings identified during the onsite Augmented Inspection Team (AIT) inspection (Report No. 70-1257/93-02) conducted on February 9-12, 1993.

The purpose of the AIT inspection was to review the circumstances of an event that occurred on February 7,

1993, involving the inadvertent discharge of approximately 124 kilograms of low enriched uranium powder from a process system into a lexan enclosure.

The discharge was a result of1 taping a safety related interlock that prevented it from performing its intended function.

NRC Inspection Report No. 70-1257/93-05 identified four examples of failure to follow NRC requirements which have been grouped into two violations.

These violations are described in the enclosed Notice of Violation and Proposed Imposition of Civil Penalty (Notice).

The details of the AIT findings and the apparent violations were mailed to you by letters dated March 10 and April 30, 1993, respectively.

Although you identified and reported the February 7, 1993, event, and you documented it in an investigation report provided to the NRC, we identified the two examples of the second violation.

On May 17, 1993,.an enforcement conference was conducted with you and members of your staff in the Region V office to discuss the circumstances surrounding the violations, their causes, your corrective actions, and your actions to prevent recurrence.

The details of the enforcement conference (Report No. 70-1257/93-06) were sent to you by letter dated June 2,

1993,

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-2 Violation I, described in the enclosed Notice, describes two.

i examples of failure to comply with established operating procedures.

The first example involved the failure to comply I

with procedures for modification of systems that involve fissile material.

Modifications were made to the powder preparation I

system (PPS) by the addition of interlocks through the use of a

" Work Order," contrary to your procedures specifically requiring l

the use of an " Engineering Change Notice" for modifications that involve fissile material.

The second example involved the failure to comply with operating procedures prohibiting the bypassing of interlocks.

Immediately after the February event it was self-evident that the interlocks on the discharge tube of the feed hopper from the blenders on the Line 2 and Line 3 PPS had r

been taped (bypassed).

As a result, the powder transfer process was not automatically shutdown after the transfer tube dislodged l

from the feed hopper.

j The examples in Violation I are of particular concern because they indicate that you did not maintain rigorous control over modifications to your fissile material process systems.

One of l

the most troubling aspects of this event was the bypassing of the interlock switches, as it is indicative of an environment where operators fix production problems without fully understanding the impact of their actions and without informing management of the problems, indicating a lack of effective communication of management expectations to operators.

Effective communication of a

management expectations, including management confirmation that I

those expectations are being met, is vital for safe operation.

t Violation II describes two examples of weaknesses in your Criticality Safety Analyses (CSAs).

The first example involves l

the failure to evaluate in CSAs your modifications to safety controls (i.e.,

installation of interlocks on the discharge tubes of the feed hoppers), and the second example involves the fa'ilure to maintain an evaluation to demonstrate that liquid moderating systems do not pose a criticality safety concern with your unfavorable geometry powder preparations systems.

Both examples are safety significant.

The first example is safety significant because addition of the interlocks to the CSAs, Criticality Safety Specifications (CSSs), and operating procedures would have l

alerted operations personnel to the switches' importance (to ensure that uranium powder is retained within the process system and not subject to moderating spray or flooding).

The second example is safety significant because the evaluation you performed in response to our February 12, 1993, Confirmatory Action Letter (CAL) clearly found that a single accident involving flooding or spray from a water line break in the vicinity of your powder preparation system could pose a criticality concern within a short time, independent of the new interlock switch.

This is a concern to the NRC because the 2

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1 applicable CSAs, CSSs, and operating procedure for the powder preparation system did not specify physical or administrative controls for mitigating such an accident.

We have grouped the violations as a Level III problem.

'j Collectively, these violations represent a potentially i

significant lack of attention toward licensed responsibilities-and are cause for significant regulatory concern.

Based on our r

review of your program involving the engineering _ process for the.

installation of the interlocks, and on our review of the failure i

to notify operations personnel that the-interlocks had been installed, we have concluded that the violations were caused by' management's failure to assure rigorous attention to regulatory requirements and to insist on discipline in modifying systems _

important to criticality safety.

Management must assure that all s

personnel understand that formality is required for all modifications to equipment installed to mitigate accidents, and that the criticality safety program can and does assure such formality in dealing with this equipment.

1 The NRC notes that as a result of the powder spill, you shut down all three powder preparation and affected vacuum transfer lines,-

created an Incident Investigation Board, established a " Generic Implications" Task Team, revised your Work Order and' Engineering Change Notice procedures, reviewed the use of interlocks plant wide, provided additional training to the operations staff and initiated other improvements that were discussed during the enforcement conference.

During the enforcement conference you stated that you disagreed with both examples of the second violation.

Specifically, you argued that you rigorously evaluated the. installation of the

-j interlocks and reasonably concluded at the time that they should q

not be included as criticality safety controls in the CSA.

In particular, you stated that. failure to update the CSA associated

_i with the addition of the interlock switch should not be a violation since, prior to the modification, a criticality l

specialist had determined that addition of the switch was within the bounds of the existing CSA.

You also stated that failure to i

evaluate moderation exclusion controls in applicable CSAs should not be a violation since the existing CSAs included appropriate controls, assuming that plant operators would take manual action

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to shut down the process path.in the event of any unforeseen j

moderator intrusion.

You concluded by noting that although CSA license condition requirements were not violated, the existing CSAs did not meet current management expectations and were being revised to address the concerns noted by the NRC.

In this regard, your staff stated that a citation'for these problems was inappropriate under the NRC Enforcement Policy because the problems represented conditions for which corrective actions related to prior enforcement action were already underway.

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We responded to these statements during the enforcement conference.

In particular, we_noted that regardless of whether the CSAs had previously been considered adequate, they had not established appropriate criticality controls'for potential moderator intrusion (a conclusion supported by your analysis l

performed in response to our February 12,-1993, CAL).

Furthermore, we noted that while the Enforcement Policy provides; l

discretion to refrain from citing violations that were licensee identified as part of the corrective action for a previous escalated enforcement action, the current problems in the CSAs were not licensee identified as part of the' corrective actions -

for the October 1992' enforcement action (i.e., commitment to review and upgrade existing CSAs); instead, the NRC' identified the problems in response to a self-revealing event.

j The NRC - taff recognizes that your investigation surfaced the-problems that led to the February 7th event, and that.you promptly initiated corrective actions to preclude recurrence of:

i similar events.

The staff also recognizes that you have implemented extensive program improvements,-as discussed above, to convey management expectations regarding safe operations.

You j

are commended for your efforts in these areas.

However, to

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emphasize-the importance of ensuring that activities are conducted with discipline by all personnel and that equipment j

important.to criticality safety is correctly maintained, I have been authorized, after consultation with the Director, Office of j

Enforcement, and the Deputy Executive Director for Nuclear

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Materials Safety, Safeguards and Operations-Support, to issue the i

enclosed Notice of Violation and Proposed Imposition of Civil l

Penalty in the amount of $12,500 for-the Severity Level III 4

problem.

l The base value of a civil penalty for a Severity Level III problem is $12,500.

The escalation and_ mitigation factors _in.the j

Enforcement Policy were considered.

The base civil penalty was-neither escalated nor mitigated for the identification factor.

I Although you identified the violations in Section I of the Notice i

during your investigation of the powder spill, the specific examples of inadequate CSAs were identified during the NRC inspection.

The civil penalty was nitigated by 50 percent for your prompt and planned corrective actions.

The NRC notes that in addition to the corrective actions discussed above, you had-i already initiated a comprehensive, long-tern program to review and upgrade your CSAs as a result of a previous escalated j

enforcement action (EA 92-163). JWe considered 100 percent i

escalation of the civil penalty based on previous performance problems (i.e. 26 cited and 4 non-cited violations during the-1ast two years, including those cited in EA 92-163).

However, since the violations cited in Section II of the Notice stem from i

a basic problem of insufficiently detailed or prescriptive criticality controls, a problem which you have already recognized

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and initiated comprehensive actions to correct, the civil penalty

'is only escalated 50 percent for past performance.

The other-adjustment factors in the Policy were considered, but no further j

adjustments were deemed appropriate.

You are required to respond to this letter and should follow the instructions specified in the enclosed Notice when preparing your i

response.

In your response, you should document the specific actions taken and any additional actions you plan to prevent recurrence.

You should also discuss whether the schedule' l

outlined in your Criticality Safety Analysis Program (forwarded

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to the NRC in a letter dated December 30, 1992) needs revision in light of this event.

After reviewing your response to this Notice, including your proposed corrective actions and the results of future inspections, the NRC will determine whether

-j further NRC enforcement action is necessary to ensure compliance with NRC regulatory requirements.

In cocordance with 10 CFR 2.790 of the Commission's regulations, a copy of this letter and the enclosures will be placed in the NRC's Public Document Room.

The responses directed by this letter and the enclosed Notice are not subject to the clearance procedures of the Office of Management and Budget as required by the Paperwork Reduction Act i

of 1980, Pub.

L.

No.96-511.

4 Sincerely, i

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J a ~

er i

Regional Adm nist' rat r

Enclosure:

Notice of Violation and proposed Imposition of Civil Penalty cc:

State of Washington i

L.

J. Maas, Manager, Regulatory Compliance 4

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1-Siemens Power Corporation DISTRIBUTION:

PDR SECY CA HThompson, DEDS JLieberman, OE WTroskoski, OE LChandler, OGC JGoldberg, OGC RBernero, NMSS RBurnett, NMSS JGreevs, NMSS ETen Eyck, NMSS CSmith, NMSS Madams, NMSS MKlasky, NMSS Enforcement Coordinators, RI, RII, RIII, RIV FIngram, GPA/PA WWilliams, OIG BHayes, OI VMiller, OSP EJordan, AEOD WTroskoski, OE Day File EA File (2)

DCS BFaulkenberry, RV GCook, RV DKunihiro, RV RBellamy, RI DCollins, RII JGrobe, RIII CCain, RIV DProulx, WNP-2 bec w/o enclosure:

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Smith RScal/an/

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