ML20129G772

Submits Resident Inspector Commentary for Aug 1980, Including Resident Inspector Overview During Sept 1979 - 1980

ML20129G772
Person / Time
Site:	05000000, South Texas
Issue date:	09/10/1980
From:	Phillips H NRC OFFICE OF INSPECTION & ENFORCEMENT (IE REGION IV)
To:	Seidle W NRC OFFICE OF INSPECTION & ENFORCEMENT (IE REGION IV)
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Download: ML20129G772 (7)

Text

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4 September 10, 1930 t

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i MEMORANDUM FOR: W.,C.'Seidle,Chie<f,RC&EiBranch i

THRUi W. A. Crossman. Chief, Projects Section i

FR04:

H. S..Phillies, Resident Reactor Insoector, STP I

SUBJECT:

RESIDE!!T.IhSPECTOR'S CONME.'ITAPY - AUGUST'1980 1

Insoection Period i

j The Resident Inspector (RRI) was on site duriro regular duty ho.urs from.

1 Aucust 1-00 and 25-26 and was on site during the weekend of August 16-17, j

1980.. The RRI was offsite during mgular hours:. (1) Leave on August Sth for four hours and on' 2288 for eight hours; (2) Public Meeting on August i

19th; (3) Resident Inspector M eting Augu,st 27-29, 1980.

Hichlichts of the " Inspection Period I

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. HL&P and SSR [4anagement advised RRI on. August 1,1980 'that a B&R j

Auditor, involved with audit impasse,.would be transferred.

'.RIVInvestigatorsEx,it-Conf 1411egationthatPPS!Recordswere falsified.

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. B&R Auditor told:the RRI. that Stainless Steel Fuel Pool Liner was I

being contaminated by contact with carbon steel. RRI stated that I

the liner is not safety related-and did not acree with the technical j

concern. RRI contacted'RIV Project Inspector who agreed with RRI

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i position, in that, this had previously been alleged and investigated at another site..

. HL%P QA Manager met with CRI to discuss a situation where B&R OA i

Auditor tried to hold up a placement / pour because of tho stainless i

steel issue.

. PP'4 co-alleger contacted the RRI to fi6d out' how to contact Dick Herr, NRC Investigator.

. On August.6 at 9:00 a.m.. RIV reauested careents on the Show Cause Order Resconse by 12:00 noen.

i Note: The RRI recuests HQs to cive more lead tire for such reviews

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t i t-ce it it irnanihle +e niva.in W 9ata com ent on a three inch

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'4mo to Seidle ~

Secterber 10, 1980

. Contacted HL?4P licensing for latest fuel load date and % complete.

Gave imput to RIV.

. Gulf Coast under hurricane warnino.

Evacuation encouraged on Friday Austst 8, 1980.

RRI evacuated 130 miles inladd. Hurricane Allen came in between Brownsville and Corpus Christi. Texas on August 10, 1980.

RRI heard that the warning was lifted on Auoust 10th at approximately 6:00 p.m.

Returned to duty station on August 11, 1980.

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. Telephone service dead on August 12, 1980.

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. B&R Project Manager requested a meeting to discuss actions taken on PPM falsification of records.

. From 14-17 of August RRI worked intemittenly on Public Meeting physical arrangements, agenda, and securing center for additional day.

1 This included telephone conversations and meetings with Service i

Center, audio visuai company and police department personnel.

. Public Meeting 18-20 August.

. Region IV Task Force on site on 20th' August to continue inspection follow-up effort to assure corrective action stated in licensee responces.

Follow-up plan accomplished as well as assignment of 1

open items to inspectors. Memo was given to HL&P QA Manager sfiowing assigned RIV inspectors and open items; memo also requested identi-fication of all items now ready to close out.

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. RRI Meeting August 27-29.

Construction Status Work activity remains low in Reactor Containment (RCB) Buildings. RCB-1 l

still is being sandblasted on the inside to remove and replace the coating.-

Concrete placement activity remains high in both Ausiliary Buildings.

Stop Work Orders (self imposed) are still in force relative to safety related welding (except PPM) and complex RCB concrete placements.

j As of August 12, 1980, HL&P licensing stated that Unit 1 is approximately 58% complete while Unit 2 is 21%. The fuel load date for Unit 1 is projected to be September 1983 and September 1985 for Unt't 2.

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Construction Deficiencies Reported (10 CFR 50.55e)

Twentynine(29))

Fourteen (14 The number of construction deficiencies reported r.4nain high.

i deficiencies were reported from 09-22-75 until I'-31-79.

have been reported during the first 8 months of.980. This represent a 1

significant increased workload.

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'Dio to Seidle Sootember 1% 19SO

!,.The following construction deficiencies were reported during August:

'. Consip Pump Shaft Failure.

. Inadeouate Desian of Auxiliary Feedwater Pumps.

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. Steam Generator Supports manufactured per code case for Class 2 & 3 vs. Required Class 1.

I would like to document the work on receiving these reports, however, I understand there is an agreement not to document potentially reportable items. Please consider some way to allow documenting such inspection work (PRI)inmonthlyinspectorreports.

4 Resident Inspector Procram Results

.The RRI spent 63 hours7.291667e-4 days <br />0.0175 hours <br />1.041667e-4 weeks <br />2.39715e-5 months <br /> on the following:

Module

, Subject

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t Hours.

30702 Managepnt Meeting as needed 10 30703 Entrance / Exit Meetings 3

j 92702 Follow Up Inspeett6cn-

, 45

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92706 Independent Inspection 5

1 Excluding leave and the.RRI meeting time at Region IV, one hundred and thirty two hours Wcespent on site. Approximately 50% of the time was j

spent on inspection as listed above, howeser, little of this could be considered "C" inspection effort.

The balance of available site time (69 hrs.) was spent on (1) A11egers came to the RRI to give infomation (2) Construction Deficiency Reports j

i Documenting previous month's inspection, memos for file, etc.

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Review of mail (5) Briefing RIV on potentially sensitive matters i

Hurricane preparation ie. taping windows, covering fins, books and furniture to protect from blowing rain. A.1so had to remove the same.

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Comunications between RIV and Site j

The RRI has noticed an improvement during the last two months, however.

the following were areas where improvement may, be possible:

. Fax the Inspection Plan to site especially, if the trip is on j

short notice.

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. Fax the RRI agenda if time does not pemit sending it in the i

routine mail.

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. Fax from the site to Region are either not taken to the construction branch in a timely manner or are lost in the shuffle elsewhere, j

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. Several Fax transmissions, which were lengthy, were sent.

In one j

case, after 3 pages were sent,the Resident's secretary called to verify transmission and Region IV verified transmission. Tha secretary stated that 7 pages would follow. About I hour after

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l Mero to Seicle Sectember 10.19U:

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the transmission the RRI was contacted by a Recion IV inspector to see if he had received all panes.

He had only received 5 pages.

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. Site Fax to other locations are good but are low ouality to RIV.

Therefore the site must double space and double the cost.

Could this be a technical. problem? If so, it is causing real problems.

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., Telephone service was out one full day.

It is still cuite comon j

to get cut iff in,the middle of a sentence.

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RESIDENT INSPECTOR'S OVERVIEW, SEPTEMBER 1979 - 1980 s

I have been on site for one year as of September 4,1980.

Since the resident program is new. I think it is valuable for each resident to l

_ write a personal assessment of the resident program.

4 Condition No. I i

Being on the South Texas Nuclear Project, Matagorda, Texas has certainly i

been a challenge. My first day on site September 4. 1979, I partici-

, pated in a RIV investigation. At the time.I remember thinking, "Is

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i this the way things wi.11 be during this assignment"7' My question was

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soon-to be answered. Four or five persons came to my office and gave j

an endless list of allegations. This investigation lasted nearly 1

four months. Documenting results and enforcement actions probably consumed a month or two Follow up and meetings consumed nearly a

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month and will consume more time.

It was ironic that en September 4 j

1980 I was preparing a statement for the Matagorda County Sheriff j'

relative to an allegation which c,ould be criminal. Eight allegations i

made during the 79-19 investigation and five individual allegations mede recently remain' open. Several other allegations have been made and investigated by RIV during the last six months.

j Reconmonded Imorovement i

There s no reason to believe that no further allegations will be made, i

However, someone in the NRC should give guidelines relative to esta(-

I lishing a threshold because chasing rumors and wild stories is severily impacting the NRC inspection program.

4 Condition No. 2 I am firmly convinced that the NRC is sevenly understaffed and will never be able to perfo m adequate QA reviews and inspections under l

current circumstances, g

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Recongnended Improvement l

Regional managers, supervisors, and project inspectors should be re-quested and encouraged to identify inspections that have been missed because of inadequate manpower. They should use this infomation to i

alert top management who would then have to accept the condition "as is" or use the data to justify and obtain more inspectors.

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N Meco te Seidle NSeptember 10, 1930 1

Condition No. 3 e

j This one year assignment as resident.insoector at STP has been a very traumatic experience. As a Department of Defense QA Manager, I l

managed and supervised 61 inspectors and this included 12 resident l

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offices similar to NRC resident offices.

I thought I knew all the i

i lbardsh46s af tSa. site inspector's assignment, but I must confess I

I underestimated the hardships. The following hardships were not i

apparent:

1 a.

I could not anticipate that the South Texas Project would receive i

j national visibility and that the resident inspector would exper-

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ience the numerous pressures resulting from newsmen, congressmen.

and NRC Commissioners being interested in the site.

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The expenses incurred, aspposisately $36,000 vs. $14,000 reimbursed, was a shock when I filled out the Headquatters " Survey of Re-i i

location Costs".

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Inflated housing costs in Bay City. Texas, caused by the impact 1

of the project, ie. shortage of housing, has a great surprise.

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For example. I could have bought my old residence (7 years old j

and 2700 sq'. ft.) in Conroe. Texas for $70,000. There was.no n -

j such home in Bay City, however, a comparable home would have sold for $110,000 - $130,000.

I had to buy a 1630 sq. ft. home r

because of price differential and the possibility of a depressed t

market when the project starts _ winding down..

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Theisolationofasiteinspectorisasocialandpsychological

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pressure in the community and on site.

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My wife gave up a job with seniority. Fir'st, she was limited in I

finding a new job because of the size of the town. Many good i

jobs she might have gotten were with HL&P, CP&L or Brown & Root, i

Inc. Of course, these were out of the question. She lost six months salary before finding a job.

She also lost her four i

weeks vacation time from previous job. Consequently, I have j

not been able to take a vacation outside the Bay City area.

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The maintenance of a resident office adds adninistrative l

responsibilities. Communications and interface between the i

i Region and site office'is a necessiry but additional burden.

't Vehicles, zerox, fax, time and attendance, supervision of i

secretarial personnel, handling the mail, daily contact with i

licensee / contractor personnel are all extra duties that a pro-i ject inspector at Region does not have.

Simple tasks become major, that is, at Region one can simply turn in an MPS report 1

or talk to a su nrvisor. On site the phone or fax makes the task an ordeal when lines are busy or out of order. Many l

other examples could be listed, e

Recommended Impervment j

Compensation.

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s "e e te Seidle Sectenber 10. 1X 0 o

Cor.dition "o.

4 The MC inspection procedures for resid[nt insoector are good guide-lines, however, the procedures should be' reviewed by resident inspector hho would recomend necessary changes.

I believe the resident in'spectors (construction) are in the best position to revise the procedures and j

submit them in draft for approval.

Recomended Improvement.

l Select resident inspectors'with sufficient experience. knowledge, i

and writing abtlity who can perfom the task.

Make the procedures generic. That is, controls for welding are l

basically the same for different types of welding. f? ore insoectden emphasis should be placed on verifying control of the welding process.

l A matrix should be developed to identify and classify safety related t

systems, components, parts and items as critical, major and minor, t

This would allow managers to assure that proper allocation of inspec-i tion effort. Frequency of inspection should also be based on the classification of systems, etc.

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j Condition No. 5

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The assignment.of a resident inspector to site was a wise manacement i

decision. However, there should be one inspector per unit minimus.

Two per unit plus a senior sesident inspector is more realistic.

Recomended Improvement 1

Increase site staffing to a realistic level now that we are in the post "Three Mile Island Era".

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Conditinn No. 6 a

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The present method of documenting inspection results is too time con-staning. This time would be better spent perfoming additional i

j inspection. Doczer.tatier Recomended Impmvement-Documentation of inspection results should be reduced to checking the blocks type of fom and identifying the system, component part i

or item inspected when satisfactory, plus a general statement of i

areas inspected in the inspection' report.

i Detailed documentation of inspection results should be on'an

. exception basis, that is, when an unresolved matter, deviation or i

noncompliance is identified the write up should be in great detail.

l Exceptions to this should be rare, Condition No. 7 I

The current management infomation system does little for the inspectors or menacement relative to inspection of line items in an inspection procedure.

Recem ended Improvement i

Essed on the r' atrix of systems, compenents, parts. URC inspection of I

CMIbNd I

MeMD MNotIYN. assure that ireertant

'iero to Seidle Sectem5cr 10, 1980 Conclusion Considering that resident inspector assignments are filled with negatives, incentives and/or' additional reimbursement should be given to resident inspectors if the resident program is to succeed.

If such action is not taken, the NRC will be unable to obtain or retain highly qualified in-spectors with sufficient industry and NRC experience.

The NRC cannot perform all inspections adequately, that is, in the depth necessary to identify techaical and QA problems during early construction. Our effort at the present are geared toward reactive rather than preventative actionss.

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H. S. Phillips, Resident Inspector South Texas Project Project Section 6

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