ML20093M954
| ML20093M954 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Crane  |
| Issue date: | 10/29/1984 |
| From: | Trowbridge G GENERAL PUBLIC UTILITIES CORP., SHAW, PITTMAN, POTTS & TROWBRIDGE |
| To: | |
| References | |
| CON-#484-807 ALAB-738, ALAB-772, ALAB-7728, CLI-84-18, SP, NUDOCS 8410310097 | |
| Download: ML20093M954 (16) | |
Text
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DCCKETED USta October 29, 1984
.g4 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION BEFORE THE COMMISSION-
'In the Matter of
)
50-289$b METROPOLITAN EDISON COMPANY
)
Docket No.
)
(Restart)
(Three Mile Island Nuclear
)
Station, Unit No. 1)
)
)
LICENSEE'S REPLY-TO UCS AND TMIA'S COMMENTS IN RESPONSE TO CLI-84-18 In accordance with CLI-84-18 Licensee submits its reply to the comments filed by'UCS and TMIA in response to that order.1/
For the most part the comments of both UCS and TMIA repeat 1/
Licensee is not filing a reply to the comments of the n
Aamodts or the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
Most of the lM Aamodt comments deal with matters outside the scope of b.
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania comments ig-nore most of the Staff findings in Supplement No. 5 to NUREG-0680, and the Commonwealth does not give even lip service to the Commission's direction that in commenting l
on CLI-84-18 the parties should address the traditional standards for reopening the hearing.
The Commonwealth would apparently have the parties embark on lengthy dis-covery and hearings without a showing of significant new information~likely to cause the Licensing Board to reach a different result.
8410310097 841029 PDR ADOCK 05000289 i
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b earlier comments filed by those organizations and are adegrate-ly. addressed by the comments already filed by Licensee and the NRC Staff.
Licensee confines these reply comments to those items where additional response appears to be in order.
The reply comments follow the headings and sequence of the matters discussed la CLI-84-18.
ALAB-772 1.
Training Neither the UCS nor the TMIA comments address the threshhold issue before the Commission as to whether the Appeal Board erred in remanding the training issue for further hear-ings.
The remand was unnecessary and incorrect.
The Licensing Board recognized from the outset the importance of training, received voluminous testimony on the subject and met first hand not only with Licensee's expert consultants but with virtually all of Licensee's personnel in charge of the training program.
The Board was fully capable of evaluating the information de-veloped in the reopened hearing on cheating without recalling
-Licensee's consultants.
It presented its extensive evaluation in its second management decision and, taking into account Li-censee's commitments and additional conditions imposed by the Board, reaffirmed the adequacy of Licensee's training program.
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In any event, should the Commission decide to continue the remanded hearing on cheating, the Commission has ample basis for lifting the immediately effective suspension ordered over five years ago and a legal obligation to do so.
Both Licensee and the NRC Staff referenced in their comments a large number of evaluations and inspection reports which provide a solid basis for' concluding that Licensee has a sound training pro-
_ gram.
Many of those evaluations are ignored by UCS and TMIA.
UCS is simply wrong in its legal position that in lifting the suspension the Commission can consider only a formal adju-dicatory' record.
The decision to lift a suspension which was itself imposed without a hearing does not require a formal hearing and need not be based on a formal adjudicatory record.
Due process requires at most that interested persons have an opportunity to comment on the material on which the Commis-sion's decision relies.
That opportunity has been fully pro-vided.
Licensee has previously addressed UCS's legal position in a brief entitled " Licensee's Reply to UCS Comments on TMI-l Restart," dated August 10, 1984.
For the convenience of the Commissioners a-copy of 7.icensee's brief is enclosed as Attach-ment A.
The balance of UCS' and TMIA's comments on training largely repeats arguments previously filed with the Commission which are sufficiently countered by Licensee's October 9 u
i s-4 comments.2/
,2.
Dieckamp Mailgram UCS does not address the mailgram issue.
TMIA's comments ignore the central point made by Licensee and the NRC Staff that the Board had before it the testimony of Mr. Moseley and that the basis for.his testimony included his interview with Mr. Dieckamp.
As to TMIA's emphasis on the question "whether Mr. Dieckamp should have known the facts and whether he made any effort to discover them," the Moseley interview brought out Mr. Dieckamp's deep involvement at the TMI site in the post-accident reconstruction and analyses, including operator interviews.
The relevant excerpts from the Moseley testimony are enclosed as Attachment B.
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UCS does make one new argument alleging that the restora-tion to H of two weeks pay is inconsistent with written policies and assurances that.the highest standards of in-tegrity are enforced throughout Licensee's training pro -
gram.
Following the Licensing Board's decision in the re-opened cheating hearing Licensee accepted the Board's conclusion that H had cheated on a company exam and so ad-vised H.
He was given the choice of accepting the two week suspension without pay _ recommended by the Board or of being removed from licensed operator duty.
He chose the two week suspension as clearly the lesser penalty.
Subse-quently, at the insistence of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Licensee agreed to remove H from licensed operator duties.
Since this action resulted in a more se-vere penalty than the suspension without pay and consid-ering the choice previously offered to H, Licensee con-cluded that the only fair course of action was to restore H's lost pay. Fairness to employees is hardly inconsistent with high standards of integrity.
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4 3.
TMI-l Leak Rate Testing Reviews of the evidence are unanimous that leak rate test manipulation or falsification'did not occur at TMI-1.
OI, in i-its report and supplement, " concluded that there was no system-atic pattern of falsification of leak rate surveillance tests at'TMI-l during the time period in question nor can we prove that any individual operator knowingly and willfully attempted to' manipulate leak rate surveillance test results."
The r.taff has now concurred in these conclusions, stating, "[T]he evi-dence does not support a finding that there was any willful or systematic pattern of manipulation or falsification of leak rates at TMI-1."
NUREG-0680, Supp. 5, at 4-14.
The Stier. -
port arrives at the same conclusion:
"The overwhelming weight
- of the evidence demonstrates that TMI-l personnel did not ma-nipulate or otherwise improperly influence the outcome of reac-tor coolant inventory balance tests."
Report of Edwin H.
Stier, TMI-1: Reactor Coolant Inventory Balance Testing (Stier Report), at 9.
Notwithstanding the results of OI's investigation re-garding leak rate manipulation or falsification at TMI-1, the Appeal Board, in ALAB-772, while itself recognizing that "[t]he overall conclusion of the [ investigative] reports is favorable to Licensee [and] neither a systematic pattern of falsification nor a motive to falsify.the leak rate data was discovered,".
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'a nonetheless ignored its own conclusion and ordered the Licens-ing Board to review all leak rate testing practices at TMI-1.
One can only presume that the Appeal-Board did so, having al-ready come to a conclusion on the basis of Board Notifications, now shown to have been. inadvertently misleading, which had sug-gested the possibility of leak rate manipulation at TMI-1.
UCS and TMIA by way of their Comments now follow and com-pound the error.of the Appeal Board.
In the face of not only the OI report which was before the Appeal Board but also the Stier Report and NUREG-0680, Supp. 5 that have been issued since, all of which find no evidence of leak rate falsification or manipulation, UCS and TMIA nonetheless misstate facts and draw false inferences wrongly suggesting that such leak rate
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falsification in fact occurred.
Without refuting each and every misstatement or improper inference, Licensee feels com-
.pelled nonetheless to correct by way of example a few of the false impressions left by UCS and TMIA.
Both UCS and TMIA suggest that the act of adding hydrogen to the make-up tank during a leak rate test was in and of
-itself nefarious.
TMIA states: "[H]ydrogen additions [were made] in. amounts which would have no other purpose but to ef-fact a change in leak rate results."
TMIA Petition for Revoca-tion of License, at A-212.
UCS similarly speaks of hydrogen additions during leak rate testing, "all of which affect leak k
^
rate' calculations."
UCS Response to CLI-84-18, at 34.
In truth, "there were legitimate operational reasons why hydrogen was added.to the RCS MUT periodically".and "none of the [ hydro-gen] additions would have affected leak rates in such a way that if the additions were not made, the limits for RCS leakage would have been exceeded."
NUREG-0680, Supp. 5, at 4-6.
- Thus, UCS and TMIA in their Comments mischaracterize the hydrogen ad-dition issue to leave the false and misleading impression that hydrogen additions were per se improper and that leak rate
' tests were manipulated by the addition of hydrogen.
They do so notwithstanding the clear and unambiguous evidence that hydro-gen additions were made legitimately without any intent to alter leak rate test results.
Both TMIA and UCS also mischaracterize the practice at TMI-l of discarding leak rate tests whose results bore no rela-tion to actual plant conditions at the time of the test.
Both
.intervenors-imply that there was something evil or false asso-ciated with the discarding of these results and that the prac-tice was designed to cover up excessive leakage.
In fact, only those tests deemed " invalid" were not kept.
" Invalid" tests were those which were "not indicative of actual plant condi-tions" and "were caused by several factors such as plant oscil-lations or transients during the test; operator actions, such as water additions or pumping of the reactor coolant drain L
7-s tank; computer input error by the operator performing the test; instrument errors; and possible problems with the computer pro-gram itself."
NUREG-0680, Supp. 5, at 4-12.
Far from at-tempting to conceal matters to conceal derogatory information about plant' conditions, invalid tests were discarded because they were not indicative of true plant conditions.
"[T]he evi-dence does not support a finding that operators were either performing those actions as a deliberate attempt to conceal ac-tual leakage that was in violation of TS acceptance criteria or attempting to' conceal this intention from the NRC."
Id. at 4-13.
Ucs also improperly suggests that leak rate falsification can be inferred from the acceptance of negative leak rates within one gpm as. valid.
At times during the operation of TMI-1, the standard deviation associated with the leak rate test ranged approximately from 0.2 to 0.7 gpm.
As a result, assuming no unidentified leakage or a very low unidentified leakage, one would expect close to half of all leak rate tests to be negative.
In other words, due to the inheront variability of_the test, negative leak rates were simply indic-ative of low levels.of unidentified leakage and their retention clearly does not suggest the falsification or manipulation of leak rate tests.
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4.
Mr. Husted Licensee agrees with UCS that the Commission has the au-thority to require that individual Licensee personnel be sepa-rated from-safety-related work upon a finding that the separa-tion is required to protect the public health and safety.
There could indeed be circumstances (not in Licensee's view present in the case of Mr. Husted) where the Commission would be justified in making the separation immediately effective in the interest'of public safety to be followed promptly by an op-portunity for hearing.
We disagree however, with UCS's charac-terization of the Appeal Board's decision as a finding that re-moval of Mr. Husted from supervision of non-licensed' operator training was necessary in order that operation of the plant will not unduly risk public health and safety.
The Appeal Board certainly did not say so, much less explain the basis for any such finding.
ALAB-738 1.
TMI-2 Leak Rate Testing With respect to leak rate testing at TMI-2, Licensee feels obliged to respond to certain general comments made by interve-ncrs.
First and foremost, TMIA and UCS complain that Licensee has not admitted that-TMI-2 leak rate tests were falsified.
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TMIA characterizes this as " dishonest" and UCS says that Li-censee " continues to-deny that leak rate falsification took place."
In fact, as intervenors are well aware, Licensee has not had the basis to admit or deny the allegations of leak rate falsification because the-factual investigation of these alle-gations is not yet complete.
During the pendency of the crimi-nal case, neither Licensee nor the NRC was able to interview those individuals intimately. involved in leak rate testing at TMI-2.
At the completion of the criminal case, Licensee en-gaged Mr. Stier to conduct an independent investigation of leak rate practices.
The investigation of TMI-2 practices is well under way and the results will be made public.
Similarly, OI, now that the criminal case is over and it can freely speak to key personnel, is pursuing its own investigations of individu-als.
Once the facts have been gathered, analyzed and studied, Licensee and others will be in a position ~to tell whether or not leak rate falsification occurred at TMI-2.
In a similar vein,-UCS objects that as part of the plea in the criminal case, Licensee did not admit that leak rate falsi-fication occurred.
As part of the plea agreement with the United States, Licensee admitted that the leak rate surveil-lance procedure at: TMI-2 did not accurately measure unidentified leakage.
Its investigations and those of others provided a factual basis on which to make that determination.
b Licensee did not admit or deny that leak rate falsification oc-curred.
In fact, it could not have intelligently commented on that issue since Licensee did not have access to those individ-uals who could provide answers to the falsification issues until after the criminal case was resolved.
To complain that Licensee did not admit to charges which it did not know were true or false and to which it had not been asked to respond is preposterous.
While disciplinary action as such has not been taken, Licensee has placed restrictions on the use of TMI-2 personnel in the restart of TMI-l pending the completion of in-vestigations.
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UCS also complains that no disciplinary action has been taken against persons involved in or responsible for leak rate falsification.
It is inconceivable that UCS can expect Licens-ee to take such actions before the true facts have been devel-oped and without giving any affected employees the right to re-spond and confront any individuals speaking against them.
Certainly, notions of fundamental fairness would require Li-censee to give any affected employees these rights.
The common thrust of intervenors' comments with respect to TMI-2 leak rate testing is the failure of Licensee to admit that leak rate falsification and manipulation occurred.
What these comments fail to acknowledge, however, is that no deter-minations on the question of falsification and manipulation can..
s '
s be made until such time as the facts are fully developed..With the completion of the criminal case and the attendant new will -
ingness of individuals to be interviewed, that process is pro-coeding as expeditiously'as possible.
NUREG-0680, Supplement 5 Licensee's comments of October 9, 1984, provide a suffi-cient answer to most of the comments by TMIA and UCS on the matters covered in Supplement No. 5 to NUREG-0680.1/
The com-ments relating to Licensee's December 5, 1979, response to the NRC's October 25, 1979 Notice of Violation, however, call for additional answer.
The NRC Staff did conclude in. Supplement No. 5 that cer-tain statements made in Licensee's response, for which it holds Mr.'Wallace and Mr. Arnold responsible, were not complete or
' accurate and were contrary to other information in the posses-sion of Licensee at the time.
Licensee believes that the testimony and materials upon which the Staff relied do not support the conclusions there 3/
The TMIA comments incorporate by reference a TMIA Motion to Reopen the Record on Clean'Up Allegations filed sepa-rately on September 17, 1984, concerning allegations of harassment of TMI-2 employees.
That motion fails, howev-er, to acknowledge or address the Staff findings on this subject' contained in Supplement No. 5.
[:
6 reached.
However, since that matter has been referred by the NRC to the Department of Justice for investigation, presumably the differences between the Staff and Licensee will be resolved during the course of the Department's investigation.
Since Mr. Wallace and Mr. Arnold are no longer associated with the operation of TMI-1, it is unnecessary and inappropri-ate to resolve these differences in the context of the TMI-l restart proceeding.
Licensee reiterates, however, the belief expressed in its October 9 comments that these two individuals deserve an appropriate opportunity to air the questions in an individual forum so as to remove any cloud on their actions.
Respectfully submitted, SHAW, PITTMAN, POTTS & TROWBRIDGE
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Gpbrge F. Trowb' ridge, P. E.
Ernest L. Blake, Jr., P /C.
Counsel for Licensee Dated: October 29, 1984 o-
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. ctober 29, 1984 GCT 30Alo:yg f7o.
,e UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 94T/,.QErd c NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
~'
BEFORE THE COMMISSION In the Matter of
)
)
METROPOLITAN EDISON COMPANY
)
Docket No. 50-289
)
(Restart)
(Three Mile Island Nuclear
)
Station, Unit No. 1)
)
CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE.
I hereby cortify that copies of " Licensee's Reply to UCS and TMIA's Comments in Response to CLI-84-18," dated October 29, 1984, were served upon those persons on the attached Ser-vice List by deposit in the United States mail, postage pre-paid, or where indicated by an asterisk (*) by hand delivery, this 29th day of October, 1984.
/
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/
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George / F. Trowbridge, P. R.
Dated: October 29, 1984
[.
s UNITED STATES OF AMERICA NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION BEFORE THE COMMISSION In the Matter
)
)
METROPOLITAN EDISON COMPANY
)
Docket No. 50-289 SP
)
(Restart)
(Three Mile Island Nuclear
)
Station, Unit No. 1)
)
SERVICE LIST
- Nunzio J. Palladino, Chairman Administrative Judge U.S. Nuclear Ragulatory Commission John H.
Buck Washington, D.C.
20555 Atemic Safety & Licensing Appea Soard
- Thomas M. Roberts, Commissioner U.S. Nuclear Regulatory C0mmiss U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Washington, D.C.
20555 Washington, D.C.
20555 Administrative Judge James K. Asselstine, Commissioner Christine N.
Kohl U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Atcmic Safety & Licensing Appea Washington, D.C.
20555 Board U.S. Nuclear Regulatory C =miss
- Frederick Bernehal, Commissioner Washington, D.C.
20555 U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Washington, D.C.
20555 Administrative Judge Ivan W.
Smith, Chairman Lando W.
Zeck, Jr., Commissioner Atomic Safety & Licensing Scard U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission U.S. Nuclear Regulatory C0==Lss Washington, D.C.
20555 Washington, D.C.
20555 Administrative Judge Administrative Judge Gary J. Edles, Chairman Sheldon J. Wolfe Atomic Safety & Licensing Appeal Atomic Sc.fety & Licensing Scard Board U.S. Nuclear Regulatory C==1s s U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Washington, D.C.
20555 Washington, D.C.
20555
I
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t o Administrative Judge Mr. Henry D.
Hukill Gustave A. Linenberger, Jr.
Vice President Atomic Safety & Licensing Scard GPU Nuclear Corporation U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission P.O. Sox 480 Washington, D.C.
20555 Middletown, PA 17057
- Docketing and Service Section (3)
Mr. and Mrs. Norman Aamodt Office of the Secretary R.D.
5 U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Coatesville, PA 19320 Washington, D.C.
20555 Ms. Louise Bradford Atomic Safety & Licensing Board TMI ALERT Panel 1011 Green Street U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Harrisburg, PA 17102 Washington, D.C.
20555 Joanne Coroshow, Esquire Atomic Safety & Licensing Appeal The Cnristic Institute Board Panel 1324 North Capitol Street U.S. Nuclear-Regulatory Commission Washington, D.C.
20002 Washington, D.C.
20555 Lynne Bernabei, Esq.
t Accountability Jack R.
Goldberg, Esq. (4) ro c
Office of the Executive Legal 1555 Connecticut Avenue U.S c ear Regulatory Commission Washington, D.C. 20036 Washington, D.C.
20555 Ellyn R. Weiss, Esq.
Harmon, Weiss & Jordan Thomas Y. Au, Esq.
2001 S Street, N.W.,
Suite 430 Office of Chief Counsel Washington, D.C.
20009 Capartment of Environmental Resources Michael F. McBride, Esq.
505 Executive House LeBoeuf, Lamb, Leiby & MacRae P.O. Box 2357 1333 New Hampshire Avenue, N.W.
Harrisburg, PA 17120 Suite 1100 Washington, D.C.
20036 William T.
Russell Deputy Director, Division Michael W.
Maupin, Esq.
of Human Factors Safety Hunton & Williams Office of NRR 707 East Main Street Mail Stop AR5200 P.O. Box 1535 U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Richmond, VA 23212 Commission Washington, D.C.
20555