ML20132D464
| ML20132D464 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 12/16/1996 |
| From: | NRC COMMISSION (OCM) |
| To: | |
| References | |
| REF-10CFR9.7 NUDOCS 9612190398 | |
| Download: ML20132D464 (117) | |
Text
__ __ ._ --- ___ - - . .. . _
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 6
\
- s. l
! l 1
Title:
BRIEFING ON INSPECTION CRITERIA, i
, EVOLUTION OF ASSESSMENT, AND SALP i
i SYSTEM - PUBLIC MEETING l 1
I j
Location: Rockville, Maryland '
I 4
i Date: Monday, December 16,1996 i i
i l
- l Pages: 1 - 88 O >
/ q r)
' L, ej--
ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. -
t' 1250 I St., N.W., Suite 300 '
1900G7 **'E"off"'!!ad" 9612190398 961216 PDR 10CFR PT9.7 PDR
\
. .t lI ll;(N'l];i,L., iYA MA 'i--)-
l
<.gn,j/ItlVii(tyIUr~.,
I DISCLAIMER This is an unofficial transcript-of a meeting of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission held on December 16, 1996 in the Commission's office at One White Flint North, Rockville, Maryland. The meeting was open to public attendance and observation. This transcript has not been reviewed, corrected or edited, and it may contain inaccuracies.
The transcript is intended solely for general informational purposes. As provided by 10 CFR 9.103, it'is not part of the formal or informal record of decision of the matters discussed. Expressions of opinion in this transcript do not necessarily reflect final determination or beliefs. No pleading or other paper may be filed with the Commission in any proceeding as the result of, or addressed to, any statement or argument contained herein, except as the Commission may authorize.
t
i 1
1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 2 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION ,
1 3 *** l 4 BRIEFING ON INSPECTION CRITERIA, 1
. 5 EVOLUTION OF ASSESSMENT, AND SALP SYSTEM I l
6 *** l 7 PUBLIC MEETING 8 ***
l l
9 Nuclear Regulatory Commission l 10 Room 1F-16 11 One White Flint North 12 11555 Rockville Pike i 1
13 Rockville, Maryland 14 15 Monday, December 16, 1996.
16 17 The Commission met in open session, pursuant to 18 notice, at 10:00 a.m., the Honorable SHIRLEY A. JACKSON, 19 Chairman of the Commission, presiding.
20 COMMISSIONERS PRESENT:
21 SHIRLEY A. JACKSON, Chairman of the Commission 22 KENNETH C. ROGERS, Member of the Commission 23 GRETA J. DICUS, Member of the Commission 24 NILS J. DIAZ, Member of the Commission 25 EDWARD McGAFFIGAN, JR., Member of the Commission l
ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034 1
2 1 STAFF AND PRESENTERS SEATED AT THE COMMISSION TABLE:
2 l I
3 JOHN C. HOYLE, Secretary )
4 KAREN D. CYR, General Counsel
. 5 JAMES TAYLOR, Executive Director for Operations I 1
6 R. WILLIAM BORCHARDT, Chief, Inspection Program 7 Branch, NRR 8 FRANK MIRAGLIA, Acting Director, NRR 9
10 11 12 13 14 15 i
16 l l
17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034 l
3 1 PROCEEDINGS 2 [2:02 p.m.)
3 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Good afternoon, ladies and 4 gentlemen.
. 5 The purpose of this meeting is for the NRC Staff 6 to brief the Commission on the NRC's assessment processes 7 including the systematic assessment of licensee performance 8 or SALP system.
9 This briefing is a direct result of a need 10 identified during the Maine Yankee independent safety 11 assessment presentation for the Commission to better 12 understand these processes and their evolutions.
13 I believe that the issue is NRC assessment 14 capability and potential improvements therein. That's been 15 at the heart of several recent high visibility issues at 16 some of our power reactors. As these issues played out, a '
17 recurring question has been why didn't our assessment of the 18 available information provide a more timely warning of the 19 issues?
20 It is a good question that goes to the heart of 21 our responsibilities as regulators.
22 We must improve our ability to identify facilities 23 whose performance is declining so that we can bring the 24 appropriate focus and resources to bear. Part of 25 accomplishing this may require examining and perhaps re- ;
l ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
4 1 examining the tools we use to assess reactor licensee 2 performance.
3 I am told that copies of the presentation slides 4 are available at the entrance to the room.
5 If my fellow Commissioners have no further .
6 comments at this point, Mr. Taylor, I'll let you proceed.
7 MR. TAYLOR: Good afternoon. With me at the table 8 are Frank Miraglia, the Acting Director of NRR, and Bill 9 Borchardt, Chief of the Inspection Program Branch in NRR.
10 As you will hear today, SALP was initiated 11 following the Three Mile Island accident to provide a system 12 for assessing the overall programmatic significance of NRC 13 inspection and enforcement findings as well as other 14 dealings with the licensees and to help the Agency focus its 15 limited resources on those licensees with the greatest 16 performance problems.
17 This process has been reviewed by the Commission 18 many times since its inception incu ding major reviews in 19 1990 and 1993. As a result, definitions c' rating 20 categories, length of SALP cycles, content of the 'LP 21 reports, and management participation have all evolved wlu. ,
l 22 regard to the SALP. l 23 Other processes that will be mentioned today 24 include the Senior Management Meeting and Plant Performance !
25 Reviews. ,
ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. i Court Reporters l 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 i Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
5 1 They were developed and added as assessment tools 2 in the mid and late 1980s to improve our overall process.
3 I'll now turn the briefing over to Frank Miraglia.
- i 4 MR. MIRAGLIA: Thank you, Jim. Good afternoon,
. 5 Madam Chairman, Commissioners. i 6 May I have the first slide, please. :
1 7 ISlide.]
l 8 MR. MIRAGLIA: I would just like to give an 9 overview of the presentation objectives today. As the 1
10 Chairman indicated, the primary focus is to describe the 11 SALP Program, its background and evolution and what the 12 current processes, rating definition, and functional areas l l
13 that are evaluated are used. i 14 As Mr. Taylor has indicated, the program was 15 implemented after the Three Mile Island accident and has 16 undergone review and evaluation and refinements with time.
17 In the early years the SALP Program focused on the 18 establishment of licensing programs and procedures. The 19 focus today and more currently has been on the licensee j 20 safety performance. 1 21 The primary objective of the SALP program is to do 22 a long-term assessment of licensee performance such that 23 allocation of NRC resources and licensees' resources may be 24 directed on problem areas and issues.
25 It is also intended to provide the basis for the ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
6 1 NRC to communicate with licensees and the public its view of 2 licensee performance.
3 In addition to the SALP Program we'd like to 4 briefly describe the NRC Inspection Program and the other 5 assessment processes mentioned by Mr. Taylor that are .
6 currently being used.
7 Licensees are responsible for the safe operation 8 of their facilities. The NRC inspects to verify conformance 9 to its requirements on an audit basis. The inspection 10 results are reviewed and assessed and real time activities 11 .and actions are taken based primarily on the inspection 12 process.
13 The NRC inspection processes integrate and trend 14 safety performance with the objective of identifying 15 declining performance.
16 As indicated by Mr. Taylor, there are a number of 17 performance assessment tools that we use. The plant 18 performance reviews are done in the regions by regional 19 management with NRR management involved and predominantly 20 viewed on a regional basis and a certain level of management 21 involvement.
22 Senior management meeting process is another 23 assessment process that is used and in conjunction with that 24 the PPR reviews feed the screening meetings, which are 25 utilized to identify plants to be discussed at the senior ,
ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
l ,
1 7
l 1 management meeting.
I 2 This is another higher level of management review 3 and integration of information to develop a national l
,. l l 4 perspective.
\
l , 5 I'd like to turn the briefing over to Bill ;
l ,
l 6 Borchardt now and he will walk through a number of the )
i 7 issues for background and the current processes.
i 8 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Before you do that, let me ask 9 the following question. Do we have any ongoing or automatic 10 feedback loop where we look at the effectiveness of our 11 assessment processes? You know, you mentioned the various 12 pieces. I know you have this pyramid in here that you will 13 talk about, but what kind of a feedback loop do we have that 14 allows us te look back and say, well, are those assessment 15 processes, as opposed to, say, the Commission spurring a l 16 review -- you know, a built-in process that says we look 1
17 back and we look at the feedback and we know that this is 1
18 working and that is not working. I 19 Do we do this on a going forward pro forma basis?
20 MR. MIRAGLIA: There's two basic answers to that, 21 Madam Chairman. I 22 One is that in a number of instances from either 23 BETS, from lessons learned, from corrective actions we have 24 indicated why didn't we find certain things either in a 25 timely manner or did we have this information, and so we 1
( ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
i Court Reporters l 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
8 1 have conducted those kinds of assessments in a look-back 2 based on response to events, Commission direction, 3 experience.
4 In addition, we have in the inspection program, 5 and I don't believe Bill is going to discuss this in any .
6 great detail, we do go back and we assess -- we, 7 headquarters -- access the implementation of the inspection 8 process by the regions where there is a headquarters 9 evaluation of how the program was evaluated.
10 We look in terms of -- at the performance of one 11 or two plants in the regions. The concept that was embodied 12 in the Integrated Performance Assessment Program will be 13 those kinds of evaluations done out of headquarters to say 14 would an independent group from headquarters assess, 15 reaffirm, or find differences in its assessment of 16 performance versus the program as dictated and came out of 17 the region, so that is an ongoing process that has been used 18 for the last two years, some on a pilot basis and more in 19 the future would be on a more routine type basis, but 20 primarily in the past it's always been in terms of the 21 assessment or the implementation of the program by the 22 headquarters office.
23 MR. BORCHARDT: Well, good afternoon. I'll have 24 Slide 3, please.
25 [ Slide.) ,
ANN RILEY & ASSOCTATES, LTD.
Court Reporters ,
1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 l Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
9 1 MR. BORCHARDT: SALP, the main subject of today's 2 briefing, is an important element of the NRC's regulatory 3 process but it is only one part of a continuum of activities 4 that are designed to assess licensee performance and provide
, 5 a basis for the allocation of Agency. resources.
6 The first portion of this presentation will 7 attempt to provide some history.and background on the 8 inspection program so that-when we focus on SALP it will be ,
9 clearer how SALP fits into the overall process.
10 This slide shows some of the major milestones that 11 have led to the current operating reactor inspection 12 program. Since the early '70s there has been a continuing-13 shift toward performance and results based inspections and 14 away from program, process, and procedure reviews.
15 SALP and the rest of the inspection program have 16 undergone many reviews and revisions over the years and we 17 expect that there will be future revisions.
18 Each time we take a critical look at any of these 19 programs we gain new insights and hopefully make the process 20 incrementally better.
21 The initiation of the resident inspector program 22 in the late '70s, the merging of NRR and the Office of 23 Inspection and Enforcement in 1987, along with the N plus 1 24' resident inspector policy each demonstrated an intention to 25 take a closer look at actual performance of activities and a ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
10 1 direct inspection of operational safety.
2 More recently the plant performance reviews have 3 ben strengthened and directives have been prepared covering 4 the senior management meeting process and the Agency's 5 integrated assessment process. Slide 4, please. .
6 (Slide.)
7 MR. BORCHARDT: The current inspection program 8 attempts to evaluate the operational safety performance of 9 licensees through a sampling process that includes 10 performance-based reviews and inspections. In recognition 11 of the finite Agency resources the inspection program is 12 designed to sample activities in each of the major 13 functional areas at least once during a SALP period.
14 Other areas, such as control room operations, are 15 reviewed on almost a daily basis.
16 Within the guidelines and requirements of the 17 overall inspection program there is an attempt to allocate 18 NRC inspection resources based upon our understanding of 19 licensee performance. This means that the best-performing 20 licensees, those that seem to have the best safety 21 performance, get the least amount of NRC inspection effort, 22 and conversely, those that are viewed as not having as good 23 a safety performance receive more Anspection effort.
24 There is a continuing effort to increase the use 25 of risk insights in both the planning and analysis of ,
ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
_ m . . . . - . _ . . . _ _ = _ _ _ _ __. . _ _ _
11 1 inspection activities. The staffing and training of the 2 senior reactor analyst function, two in each region and two 3 in headquarters, is an important first step or at least an i 4 early step in being able to use to those PRA insights. ;
. 5 The inspection program evaluates information from l
6 a wide range of sources. Findings and insights from the 7 resident inspections, region-based and headquarters-based 8 inspections, licensee self-assessments, LERs and AEOD 9 studies are all valuable sources of information that 10 contribute to our assessment capability.
11 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Let me stop you on that slide 12 for a second.
1 13 I note that one of the objectives that you have 14 listed for our current inspection program is to identify 15 significant declining trends in performance, but yet I noted 16 in reading through some of the historical development that 17 declining and improving trends were removed from the SALP 18 awhile back. l 19 Can you kind of tell us a little bit about how 20 that happened?
21 MR. BORCHARDT: What was really removed was --
22 many years ago -- there was a numerical grade SALP 1, 2 or l 23 3, assigned, and the Staff experimented with the use of 24 identifying a declining or improving trend along with that 25 numerical grade.
ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
12 1 After a couple years of practice using that 2 system, it was changed to remove that trend identification 3 associated with the numerical score, but what continued to 4 be emphasized was that if there was a clear trend identified 5 by the Staff, in the SALP Board meeting for example, that .
6 that would be specifically discussed within the SALP report, 7 so we didn't change really our practice of identifying 8 significant trends but rather we separated it from the 9 numerical grade. Slide 5, please.
10 [ Slide.]
11 MR. BORCHARDT: The inspection program and the 12 procedures that make up the program are divided into three 13 major categories. The core program constitutes the minimum 14 inspection effort at any given facility. Completing-the 15 core will ensure that each of the four major functional 16 areas will receive some inspection effort during the 12 to 17 24 month SALP period.
18 The majority of the core inspection effort is 19 conducted by the regional inspection staff, although there 20 are certain inspection procedures that are typically 21 conducted by regional specialists.
22 The regional initiative inspections are conducted 23 as a result of either previous inspection findings that 24 indicate the need for additional insights, or as a result of 25 a plant event or condition that deserves specific NRC ,
ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
- ~ . - . - - . - . . - _ . - . . - . . . . . . . - - . . - . . . . - . .
13 l
1 follow-up. )
2 MR. TAYLOR: Bill, excuse me. I think you said 3 the core is conducted by regional -- it's by resident, isn't 1
4 it? '
. 5 MR. BORCHARDT: I'm sorry, it's conducted mostly 6 by resident inspection staff and it's supplemented, there q 1
7 are a few inspection procedures that are done -- l 8 MR. TAYLOR: -- that require regional help. Excuse 9 me.
I 10 MR. BORCHARDT: The generic safety issue 11 inspections constitute the follow-up of generic letters, 12 bulletins, and special area of emphasis inspections.
13 CRAIRMAN JACKSON: Before you go, can you give us 14 some insight as to how the core inspection program has 15 evolved or changed over the years?
16 MR. MIRAGLIA: I'll take a crack at it and Bill 17 can fill in some of the more details in history.
18 When we looked the core initially in the '87 '88 19 timeframe, it was thought that about one-third of the 20 program should be diverted to core, a third to 40 percent.
21 We worked with the regions, all the regions and the program 22 office, to define that minimum amount of inspection that had 23 to be required.
24 We agreed on the scope of that core and in the 25 implementation of that program found that it varied in terms ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
14 1 of time and activity effort early on to maybe 50 to 60 2 percent. So that core program has been identified and re-3 evaluated periodically between the program office and the 4 regions, defining what that minimum set is.
5 As we went to four functional areas was another .
6 focal point where we had to look at it to say how do we have 7 to redefine the core because we have changed the program, so 8 it's been an iterative type of process and been a dynamic 9 process.
10 The terms of the regional initiative is really the 11 regional directed activities and that's based upon what 12 comes out of the inspection program in the regional offices, 13 the regional administrator, and the regional staff's 14 perspective of where particular issues lie, where more 15 information is needed to make an assessment, so that is the 16 thrust of the program.
17 When we started this activity it was like one-18 third, one-third, one-third. I think it's more now like 40 19 percent in the core --
20 MR. BORCHARDT: Actually, it's more like 60 l 21 percent core now, almost about 37 percent regional 22 initiative and only 3 non-generic safety issues.
23 MR. TAYLOR: In the way of history, this core, 1
24 having nothing to do with the reactor core, but the heart of j 25 the inspection program was changed with the placement of ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
.i 15 1 residents at the sites, and that meant we could have day-l 2 to-day type evaluation whereas in the past most of the 3 inspection process was conducted out of the regions by 4 visiting inspectors.
'l
. 5 When we shifted -- the beginning was just before 6 the accident and then after the accident NRC began a very 7 large hiring and placed residents at all sites. I can't i
8 remember the specific year and month that we achieved that, 9 but it was in the early 1980s.
l 10 The program was then --
f 11 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Yes, indeed --
I 12 MR. TAYLOR: -- then rewritten -- excuse me, 13 Chairman -- to recognize that you had people on the site and t
i 14 it was very much geared in the beginning to oversight of 15 operations because in those early days we could even walk I
16 systems and find safety systems out of alignment -- that is, 17 not ready, you know, shut valves here and there -- those i
18 were, as people became more sophisticated, those began to 5
i 19 disappear and this program though has traditionally tried to 20 keep an operational safety type focus and I think that is 21 still very much part of the core program.
22 Do you agree, Bill?
23 MR. BORCHARDT: Yes.
24 MR. TAYLOR: With we evolved from experience 25 through the '80s and so on to --
ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
)
16 1 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Let me ask you some questions.
2 One is, is the core inspection program pretty 3 much the same from region to region, from plant to plant, 4 from inspector to inspector, and second, can you define to I 5 the Commission what you mean by operational safety? .
6 MR. BORCHARDT: I'll take the first one, it's 7 easier. The co-inspection procedure is specifically 8 delineated and in manual chapter, the number if 25.15, which 9 identifies 18 inspection procedures that make up the core 10 and they're broken up by SALP-functional area basically.
11 So there's a periodicity for each of them and they 12 each have to be done at least one in a SALP-cycle, the 13 assurance being that at the end of a SALP-cycle, we have 14 enough basis on which to, in fact, write a SALP report, have 15 an overall assessment of licensee performance.
16 The operational safety question is not as clearly 17 defined, but what I think we mean by that is that there's a 18 clear focus in the inspection program on looking at the 19 plant operations, the things that affect the day-to-day 20 operation of the reactor facility and to a lesser degree, 21 the activities associated with more engineering design basis 22 activities.
23 Although they're not completely ignored, clearly 24 the focus is on control room operations, on maintenance 25 activities that affect plant equipment, IMC surveillance ,
ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300
- Washington, D.C. 20005 l (202) 842-0034
T 2
17 i i l 1 tests that have an impact on the day-to-day operation, the l
\
2 subpoints in the reactor protection system.
3 It's those kinds of activities that directly 4 impact day-to-day operational safety, is where the focus of
- 4. 5 the inspectional program rests. I 6 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Does that then include or track 7 into some of the engineering and maintenance from the point i
- 8 of view of operator workarounds, the fold operator i 1
9 workarounds?
10 MR. MIRAGLIA: Yes, clearly. Operational 11 workarounds are something that, especially the resident 12 inspector staff, has a very close view on because it impacts 13 how those operators do their job and it's not infrequent i 14 that you'll see in an inspection report a discussion about a l
15 particular workaround adversely impacting, usually when we i 16 write about it, the ability of the plant to be operated in 17 the way it was intended, control room indications which are 18 alarms which induce alarms and how responsive is engineering l 19 and maintenance to the concerns raised by the operator.
20 That's the operational focus as Bill has explained.
21 It's a way from looking at programs but more to i 22 say how is the plant functioning on a day-to-day basis in 23 terms of looking at the triangle between operations, 24 maintenance and engineering, what are those interfaces, are 25 they supporting the operation such that the operator's job ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
18 1 -- by the operator's we mean not only the licensed operators 2 but the auxiliary operators, the maintenance folks, do they 3 have the tools to do the job such that they could support 4 safe operations on a daily basis, including operator 5 workarounds, material in the backlog, things of that nature. .
6 So that would be the focus.
7 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Where and how do you feel 8 engineering and design basis activities or issues overlap 9 with what you'd call operational safety issues?
10 MR. MIRAGLIA: I think where they come in and 11 where they manifest themselves is in the day-to-day 12 operations such as things that are confined within the 13 technical specification or licensee commitments that certain 14 functions have to be done and they have to make operability 15 determinations, they have to make the decisions on their 16 meeting their commitments.
17 It requires engincering support and if there's not 18 a solid underpinning and understanding o'f what the 19 engineering design basis is for that facility, that's where 20 things can go awry. So that's how they manifest themselves 21 in terms of the support of operations, in terms of meeting 22 regulations and requirements in the technical 23 specifications, and I think that's where the engineering 24 aspect and the interface lies.
25 MR. TAYLOR: They observe surveillance tests to ,
ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
]
19 1 see if it's degraded, batteries and that type of thing, when 2 they do the discharge type test.
3 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN: Could I ask a question 4 at this point and you tell me if you're going to cover it
. 5 later? It really comes from one of the backup slides.
6 In the history of the SALP process, given how 7 important the core is, at one point senior residents played
, 8 a major role in the SALP process, were on the board, as I i 9 understand, did a lot of the drafting.
i 10 Now, it's process only involves SES folks from the l
11 region and from headquarters, not that they don't make i 12 inputs, but their role has changed. Could you describe --
j 13 it's probably covered in the backup charts, but could you -
14 MR. BORCHARDT: We can do it now. The impact of j 15 the senior resident inspector especially was a sensitive 16 subject with the industry to a large extent and I think we 17 agreed that this was a very important position, the senior 18 resident inspector, the individual who knew more about the 19 day-to-day operation of the facility, but that the agency's 20 overall assessment needed to be balanced and that if you had 21 the SALP essentially being only the senior resident 22 inspector's input and being solely report, that you wouldn't 23 necessarily force that agencywide interaction and 24 perspective to occur.
25 That's why there were a number of steps taken, ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
. . .. . - .. - __ ~ ~ - _ . .- .-. ..
20 1 including ultimately to where we are today where we have 2 only three SALP board members and none of them being a 3 senior resident inspector, although as you mentioned, you 4 couldn't write a SALP without the senior resident.
5 MR. MIRAGLIA: It was an evolutionary process, .
6 Commissioner McGaffigan, in terms of the principles 7 involved, were the resident and to a lesser degree but 8 involved the project managers early on.
9 In terms of the reg impact survey the Commission 10 did in 1989 and 1990, concerns were raised by the industry 11 of being captive to their resident, that their residents 12 could impact their SALPs and SALPs were important.
13 It was something that was discussed publicly, with 14 a view to public understanding and it needed to have more 15 consistency, more management control. It was an issue that 16 was raised cgain in the context of the Tower-Perrin report 17 which was 1991-1992.
18 As a result of some of those kinds of changes that 19 when we reevaluated the SALP program, we looked at that to 20 try to balance that. While they are not a member of the 21 board, the resident manager and the project inspector, they 22 do provide key inputs and are available at the board 23 meetings to solicit input and to provide input to the board 24 members for consideration.
25 The discussion among the senior managers in coming ,
ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
21 ,
1 up with this change -- by the senior managers, I mean the 2 senior managers of the agency, including the regional 3 administrators -- it was looked at that the SALP report 4 ought to constitute the regional administrator's view and
. 5 discussion and communication with the licensee of what the 6 region assessment of that licensee's performance was 7 relative to others.
8 That's where that decisionmaking process was to 9 say SES as board members, voting members, yet to have the 10 input of not only the residents and the project manager, but 11 other regional inspectors as well, to round out that kind of !
i 12 thing. !
l 13 So it was an evolving type of process and that's 14 where we stand right now with the process and that's how the 15 process got to its current state. I 16 COMMISSIONER.McGAFFIGAN: But it was industry 17 pressure that was the initial motivation?
18 MR. MIRAGLIA: With industry concern and then 19 there were examples, perhaps, where you could point to SALPs 20 being " unduly" influenced one way or another. So it's tried 21 to maintain that type of balance and objectivity over an 22 assessment of licensee performance and having some degree of 23 management, oversight, and control over the process, the 24 issue of consistency and across the region and across the 25 country has always been an issue in the context of any our ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
22 1 assessment processes, be they SALP or senior management or 2 any other process, even enforcement.
3 MR. BORCHARDT: Slide 6, please.
4 [ Slide.]
5 MR. BORCHARDT: In addition to the more routine -
6 inspection activities, the staff has the ability to send 7 special team inspections when more information is needed to 8 understand a particular event or to improve our 9 understanding of a particular licensee's performance.
10 These team' inspections typically receive a higher 11 level of management attention and involve more NRC resources 12 and licensee resources to conduct.
13 The initiation of a new industrywide major team 14 inspection requires Commission approval before 15 implementation.
16 Slide 7, please.
17 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: How many such inspections do we 18 end up performing per year and how has that been trending 19 over time?
20 MR. MIRAGLIA: We can give you a more accurate 21 answer but I can answer somewhat off the top of my head. I 22 believe on diagnostic evaluation team inspections, they are 23 on the order of 14.
24 MR. TAYLOR: They started them --
25 MR. MIRAGLIA: With the context of the senior .
ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034 ,
I 23 j 1 management meeting process, sometime in the 1988, 1989 time l l
2 frame.
l 3 CHAIRMAN JACKSON.: You mean there have been 14 4 total or 14 per year?
- , 5 MR. MIRAGLIA
- No, 14 total. That's a good point. )
6 MR. TAYLOR: We could never afford 14 per year. j
, 1 1 7 They were spread out over that period of time. ;
, 8 MR. MIRAGLIA: The most we did in one year, I l 9 believe, were four in one year. 1 1
10 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: What about AITs?
11 MR. MIRAGLIA: AITs, I would say trend on the l 12 order of 8 to 12 a year, and again, these are statistics we i 13 could provide to the Commission on that kind of a basis.
I 14 MR. TAYLOR: Because they are all loaded. Those l 15 are a lesser inspection.
i 1 16 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Have they been trending down or 17 flat or up?
18 MR. BORCHARDT: I don't think there's really a 19 trend. There's eight, I believe, in 1996; three in 1995; 20 and at least six in 1994. My list doesn't go back through 21 all of 1994.
22 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Commissioner Dicus, you had a 23 question?
24 MR. MIRAGLIA: And incident investigation things 25 are rarer occurrences, but we have had a number of those.
ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
24 1 COMMISSIONER DICUS: I'm not clear on what some of 2 the differences are among these types of inspections.
3 Clearly, some of them, it's obvious incident investigation 4 and so forth, but it would be helpful if you could give me 5 some examples of two things, first of all, what might be a .
6 diagnostic evaluation, team inspection as opposed to a 7 special evaluation team inspection. How do these 8 interrelate, how might one inspection lead to another kind 9 of inspection?
10 MR. MIRAGLIA: The first three on the viewgraph 11 are actually described in a management directive. I'm not 12 sure what exact number that directive is. The diagnostic 13 evaluation team was used to support the performance 14 assessment process and it was a decision that was made 15 normally within the context of the senior management 16 meeting.
17 At the senior management meeting, three principal 18 questions -- do we understand what the licensee's 19 performance is, and which way is it trending; have we 20 adequately communicated that to the licensee; and does the 21 licensee have corrective action programs in place that are 22 addressing those kinds of problems. If all the answers were 23 yes, then we had enough to answer that kind of cuoution.
24 What we found in some of the earlier senior 25 management meetings is that we couldn't answer each of those ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
25 1 questions with a definitive yes or a definitive no, and we
- 2 needed to have more information.
. 3 When we got to a plant that had that kind of 4 characteristic, it became a candidate for a diagnostic i
-. 5 evaluation team. this would be a broad-based team, managed 6 by the Office of Operational Evaluation of Data, reporting l 7 to the EDO and would have multidisciplines covering 8 management and various functional areas and result in a team 1
9 report that would make findings relative to the licensee's 10 performance.
11 And also, as an outgrowth of that process, would 12 also perhaps indicate when NRC programs should be I
13 reevaluated or looked at for corrective actions, refineinent s 14 and improvements as well. That's the context of a DET.
15 As I said, we've done approximately 14 of those 1
16 since the program was put in place. The first few were i 17 really pilots. We weren't even sure whether we could do
- 18- such a thing like that, so we looked for some plants and did l J
l 19 it on a pilot, voluntary basis. It wasn't that we really 20 had concerns about the plant, but we wanted to test the 21 technique, so we met 14 or some of those type inspections.
22 An augmented inspection team is something that 23 comes out of an event at a facility. Did it have a 24 complicated SCRAM, did all the equipment work as it was !
25 designed, do we understand all the contributing factors and ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
26 1 the root causes and are there any questions or uncertainties 2 in our mind with respect to how the event was handled, how 3 emergency response was held, and those kinds of things.
4 The incident investigation team has the same 5 elements of an augmented inspection team except that it's -
6 got broader impact and broader concerns and higher degree of 7 perhaps failures. For example, the Davis-Besse event was an 8 IIT because it had multiple system failures and equipment 9 failures.
10 It became a "close call," had broader 11 ramifications and an IIT is a sort of elevation of an AIT to 12 a much higher level.
13 MR. TAYLOR: In fact, I think that's when it was 14 born at the Davis-Besse. We just needed to get an 15 independent investigation and all the processes grew out of 16 that. We sent a multidiscipline team in there for quite a 17 period of time.
18 COMMISSIONER DICUS: So it's going to be a much 19 larger team?
20 MR. TAYLOR: Yes, and very strict procedures. We 21 had maybe 15 people or something like that on it.
22 MR. MIRAGLIA: Yes, 15 to 20.
23 MR. TAYLOR: Somewhere in that range of people.
24 There is a manual that describes that, how you would conduct 25 it. It's quite formal in its own way. ,
ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034 i
i
27 1 Excuse me for interrupting.
- 2. MR. MIRAGLIA: The other diagnostics that are here 3 are really special subsets of.these two to indicate some of 4 the evaluations and team inspections that have been done.
. 5 The SET was one that was done in terms of Cooper j 6 and instead of doing a DET, they did their own self-7 assessment and we evaluated that self-assessment.
8 In the independent safety assessment, that's the I
9 type of assessment we just did with respect to the Maine 10 Yankee facility and the independent safety inspection would 11 be the activity that we're conducting relative to Dresden.
12 Then design or other type of team inspections are 13 special team inspections that we come to the commission and 14 see approval for, looking at special, focused kinds of areas 15 in terms of inspection.
16 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN: Do these -- there would 17 normally be one of these others and we sort of ad hoc it?
18 you said you had manuals for the first three as to how to 19 conduct them and procedures. On these other types, there 20 aren't?
21 MR. BORCHARDT: There are usually special charters j 22 that are established for them but what they do is include by 23 reference established inspection procedures. So, under the 1 24 umbrella of a special evaluation team inspection, they will 25 say, perform the following five regional initiative ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
28 1 inspections. So there is always a reference to go to, to 2 guide the inspection activity but it is specially 3 constructed for the circumstance of that inspection.
4 MR. TAYLOR: The design inspections have 5 traditionally been some form of a vertical slice through a .
6 specific system or one or two systems using this safety 7 system functional inspection type process. I believe almost 8 without fault it has been that type of sample review by 9 taking a safety system, it could be a fluid system and then 10 an electrical system like the batteries or the -- you know, 11 the various major electrical or control systems.
12 '1R . MIRAGLIA: Yes, we come to the Commission and 13 outlined the program and say this is something we intend to 14 do on all of the --
15 MR. TAYLOR: And for a considerable time service 16 water was in bad shape at a lot of the plants so we ran a 17 service water design related inspection because the service 18 water is such a variant across all the stations. I forget 19 the exact name of that process of inspection.
20 MR. MIRAGLIA: The acronym was SYSWAPI but I am 21 not sure I could quite repeat all of the --
22 MR. BORCHARDT: Slide 7, plcase.
23 [ Slide.]
24 MR. BORCHARDT: In addition to the issuance of 25 inspection reports and enforcement actions, there are ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
1 29 1 several actions available to the agency to address 2 unacceptable performance when it is identified. The basis 1 3 for these actions would be the inspection findings and
. l 4 conclusions that are part of the day-to-day conduct of the I
. 5 inspection program. The type of actions shown on this slide l
6 result from a real time integration of inspection results 7 and interaction between regional and headquarters staffs. i 8 Under no circumstances would the staff actions be needlessly )
9 deferred until one of the agency's periodic assessment !
10 processes like SALP or PPR or a senior management meeting 11 could be held.
12 Slide 8, please.
l 13 CRAIRMAN JACKSON: Before you go, you talked about 14 these actions. What are the -- where does the confirmatory 15 order fall within here, or orders of any kind?
i 16 MR. MIRAGLIA: I would say on the last bullet, )
i 17 modify, suspend or revoke. That could be either orders to 18 show cause or confirmatory type orders.
19 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Are there orders other than i
20 confirmatory?
21 MR. MIRAGLIA: There are orders to show cause as 22 well.
23 MS. CYR: Orders are orders. The confirmatory 24 order really means that the licensee has agreed to undertake 25 particular actions but, as a legal matter, an order is an ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
30 1 order. We have one particular provision in terms of issuing 2 our orders.
3 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: And what is the legal status of 4 the confirmatory action letter?
5 MS. CYR: It's closest to sort of a show cause. I .
6 mean, it is an agreement of the licensee to undertake 7 certain actions and our agreement to inspect against those 8 particular actions such that if they don't take it then the 9 next step for us would be an order.
10 MR. MIRAGLIA: Issue an order.
11 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Okay. j 12 MR. BORCHARDT: Slide 8, please.
l 13 [ Slide.) i l
14 MR. BORCHADT: There are three periodic processes l 15 beyond the routine activities that are intended to integrate 16 all of the available sources of information and come to l 17 conclusions regarding licensee performance and make 18 recommendations regarding future NRC resource expenditures.
l 19 A description of the overall process is provided in a 20 recently issued management directive, 8.13.
21 The plant performance review, senior management 22 meeting and SALP will each be discussed later in the 23 presentation and, although each process uses essentially the 24 same kinds of objective information, the differences between 25 them include the time period or the duration of the ,
ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
1 J
31 1 assessment, the management level involved and whether it is 2 the review is done on a site-specific, on a region-wide or i
3 on a national perspective.
I .
4 Slide 9.
. 5 [ Slide.] l l
6 MR. BORCHARDT: The PPR or plant performance 1
7 reviews are conducted every six months and it reviews the 8 licensee performance over the previous six to 12 months.
9 The goal is to evaluate inspection results and other l 10 objective information to assess licensee performance in each 3
11 of the four SALP functional areas and to identify any trends i I 12 in performance that may warrant an adjustment to planned I 13 inspection activities.
14 Although the PPRs were started in 1988, we have i 15 recently placed an increased emphasis on standardizing the 4
16 conduct and output of the PPRs. The use of a plant issues 4
l j 17 matrix is still evolving but it is proving to be a useful -
18 - it is proving to be useful in helping to focus discussions 1
19 on the assessment of objective information.
=,
q 20 Now, there are two principal outgrowths of the 1 4
21 PPR. One is the six-month inspection plan which is sent to 22 the licensees. It identifies all significant inspection 23 activities planned by both headquarters and the regions i 24 other than the resident inspectors' specific activities over 25 the next six months; and the PPR report, which serves ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
32 1 several purposes including management visits to the site, 2 screening meetings in preparation for the senior management 3 meeting.
4 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Are the results of the plant 5 performance reviews communicated to the licensees? .
6 MR. BORCHARDT: Along with the inspection plan 7 over the next six months, the approach we are taking right 8 now is if there is a significant message to be sent, that we 9 could do that in that cover letter. But it is not currently 10 formatted to take the place or to serve as a miniature SALP.
11 We are not mandating each of the four functional areas, only 12 when there is a significant message to be made. And the 13 licensees can really get an indication of what the staff 14 thinks about performance by looking at the adjustments to 15 the inspection plan.
16 If the licensee sees that there is two team 17 inspections of two or three people planned to go look at 18 maintenance activities that weren't previously planned, 19 that's a very clear indication that the staff has concerns 20 about the activities in the maintenance area. Convereely, 21 if they saw that some previously inspected activity wem 22 taken off the list, they could believe then that there was 23 some indication that NRC's view of their performance has 24 improved.
25 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: What drove these major ,
ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
33 1 improvements that.you are talking about, the standardization 2 of the conduct -and output of the PPRs?
3 MR. MIRAGLIA: I was going to say several things.
4 In terms of, as I said, there have been a number of
, 5 diagnostics that indicated concerns. Where were we, why did 6 we find certain activities. And one of the things that we 7 went back and looked at in terms of the -- I believe it was 8 the South Texas DET and perhaps the Quad Cities and there 9 were a couple at that period of time.
10 And what we found at that time, Madam Chairman, 11 were that when we went back and say, well, what did our 12 program miss in terms of the inspection program, what we 13 found is that if we went back and looked at the findings in 14 the inspection reports, it was there. It is just that we 15 had to put it all together and integrate it in such a manner 11 6 that clearly articulated the picture.
17 In other words, the inspection program, the 18 individual inspectors, either the residents or the regional 19 inspectors, were finding these types of things and we just 20 had to piece them together in an integrated kind of way to 21 tell the right kind of story. That led to a number of 22 improvements from the perspective of we developed the IPAP, 23 the integrated performance assessment process. We went to 24 try to go to a six-week report from the resident inspectors 25 to try to collect more information over a broader period of ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034 l
34 1 time and it led to those kinds of improvements, l
2 In addition, about that same point in time, the l l
3 Commission and the Chairman and the Commission has 4 articulated that we needed to make our performance 5 assessment processes more transparent both to the licensees .
l 6 and to the public and look at m;jective information and the 7 like. And so that was another impetus behind looking at how 8 these processes would come together.
9 So all of that was happening in the '96/'95 time 10 frame and so all of this is being examined in that kind of 11 context in there.
12 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Can you speak a little bit more 13 about the plant issues matrices that are used then?
14 MR. MIRAGLIA: The plant entry matrix was an 15 outgrowth of an activity that I believe started in Region II 16 and Region II used it, I believe, initially on Crystal River 17 and it was a process where the region was attempting to 18 integrate, answer the question how could we best integrate 19 information. And at that time, what we said to each of the 20 regions, this is a concern that we have. Look at various 21 techniques and see what would work in your area.
22 So each region went off and did different things 23 in terms of PPR and different types of processes. And they 24 developed a site issues list I think is what they called it, 25 where they looked at what were the findings, what functional ,
ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
35 l
1 area in SALP were they related to, was it identified by the l
2 licensee or by the NRC or by event and they had this type of 3 information and it was found to be a useful kind of tool to 4 try to integrate that type of information and so we shared
. 5 it among the other regions and each of the regions have 6 attempted to use it in various ways.
7 What we have been trying to do now is to try to I 8 coalesce the best from all of the regional attempts at that l 9 and try to get some standard format and guidance out. It is 10 an evolving issue. We're not there yet. I think we are a ;
i 11 lot better this year than we were the previous year and I )
1 12 think next year we will be even better at trying to define 13 that, to integrate that type of information. It is all )
l 14 there and it is all information that is docketed information !
15 in terms of if it comes out of an inspection report or a 16 licensee self-assessment or an LER and it is trying to put i l
17 all of that objective information in a way that gives some l 18 kind of coherent picture and that is sort of the evolution l
19 of that. We are now calling it plant issues matrix. I i
20 MR. BORCHARDT: It's only within the last year 21 that we have really formalized the requirements for it and I l i
22 wouldn't say we are there yet with having the right answer.
23 COMMISSIONER DIAZ: The requirements for what?
24 MR. BORCHARDT: For the plant issues matrix.
25 There is a threshold question I don't think we ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
36 1 have the right answer to yet, although we have clearly 2 specified that everything that is in the plant issues matrix 3 has to come from an inspection report or some public 4 document. It could come from an LER.
5 But we don't know where the right balance is .
6 between having enough information and having too much. We 7 need that in a form that can be digested easily by all of 8 the different audiences that it is trying to serve.
9 MR. MIRAGLIA: Should you put positive 10 observations or only negative. And these are things that we 11 are -- and the threshold question is what's something that 12 should get on the list and this is an evolving kind of thing 13 that we are going to try to find an answer to.
14 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Have you found or do you have 15 any metrics that show you that the use of these plant issues 16 -- the use of the plant issues matrix has made the plant 17 performance reviews more robust, more objective or easier to 18 do?
19 MR. BORCHARDT: Only feedback from the regional 20 participants and from our own staff that go out and observe 21 PPRs. When we see them being used, we think they are highly 22 effective. The interesting thing is there is not 100 23 percent consistency from one region to another or even from 24 one plant to another sometimes because we are still working, 25 to some extent, on where within the overall inspection ,
ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
l 37 1 program is the best position to control and add information 2 to the plant issues matrix.
3 Some regions have the resident staff do it others t .
l 4 have a project engineer and we, frankly, at this point, l
J
!. 5 don't know what the right answer is and we are still in the I 6 middle of a job task analysis on.the regional inspection l
7 function which we hope will get some insights. I don't know I l
l 8 if we will get the answer or not but we will have at least j 9 something to base our view on.
10 MR. MIRAGLIA: This first set of screening 11 meetings that we did in November, early November, was the 12 first time where we actually had the plant issue matrix used 13 by each region and, as Bill said, there's variations of 14 that. I 1
15 I found it to be useful and I think some of the i 16 other managers found it to be useful to, if a judgment of 17 performance was made in saying, well, gee, I red the matrix !
18 of being perhaps more positive in that area, and it did 19 focus. So I think it is going to be a useful tool. I think 20 we are still shaping the tool and it is going to be a while i
21 before the tool is going to be able to be honed to the level l l
22 we want. But I think it is a step in the right direction l l
23 and I think we are going to -- it is going to be an l 24 iterative process in working with the regions to try to sort 25 out what the best techniques used by each of the regions are l ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
38 l 1 and to try and get some consistency. It is just the first 2 step, as Bill was indicating.
3 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN: Could I ask, you say it 4 is led by regions. Who actually does the plant performance 5 review? Is it -- again, what's the role of the resident .
6 tier? Is there a formal process with boards or is it 7 informal and --
8 MR. BORCHARDT: Well, it's fairly formal. The PPR 9 is conducted, usually headed by the Division of Reactor 10 Projects division director or sometimes a branch chief in 11 the region. Participation is open to the rest of the 12 regional staff, as needed to discuss inspection findings 13 from the previous six months.
14 Typically, the resident staff is called in and 15 brought in on conference call and each plant is discussed 16 for maybe an hour. It varies. It depends how good of a ,
l 17 performer that licensee is seen to be. A good performer may l 1
18 get -- will certainly get less discussion time than a weaker l l
19 performer and it is, I think, typically not viewed as 20 practical to bring the resident staff in for each plant.
21 Most regions now are doing like a branch so maybe 22 six or seven plants in a day, take an entire afternoon or l
23 morning and discuss that branch and so over the course of a 24 week the entire region is discussed, each plant within the 25 region is discussed.
ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. .20005 (202) 842-0034
39 1 Slide 10, please.
2 (Slide.]
3 MR, BORCHARDT: There is a special assessment 4 underway to evaluate the senior management meeting and I
. 5 understand there was a future Commission meeting being 6 scheduled to discuss that.
7 The objectives, as the process currently exists, 8 is to perform a senior level review of safety performance at 9 selected plants. The screening meetings conducted between 10 the regional staff and the Director of NRR with 11 participation from AEOD, Office of Enforcement, discusses 12 each and every plant during the screening meetings, but then 13 only those plants that warrant specific discussion at the 14 senior management meeting are discussed at the semi-annual 15 meeting.
i 16 The objective is to communicate concerns to the 17 licensee with poor performance and to ensure a coordinated 18 course of action and develop Agency-wide future inspections, 19 if necessary, for those selected plants.
20 The outputs are a superior performer recognition, 21 problem plant, and trending letters and then the 22 identification of any special actions that the senior 23 managers feel is warranted, such as special meetings with 24 perhaps the Board of Directors to discuss the Agency's 25 concerns regarding operations at that facility.
ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
40 1 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: How many times have we had 2 those kinds of meetings with Boards of Directors?
3 MR. TAYLOR: We can provide that. We will have to 4 go back and run a count but they have been used as seemed to 5 be appropriate, but it's been with numbers of Boards. .
6 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: The special assessments, are 7 they of the type already discussed?
8 MR. MIRAGLIA: They are the DET types.
9 MR. BORCHARDT: DETs, definitely.
10 MR. MIRAGLIA: Or the special inspections.
11 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Are the plant performance 12 reviews used as input to the screening meetings?
13 MR. BORCHARDT: Yes, the plant performance review 14 report prepared for each plant is the material that is 15 provided to all the screening meeting participants 16 beforehand and then is the material that is available for 17 discussion at the screening meeting itself.
18 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN: When you just answered 19 my earlier question, the project manager here in i
20 headquarters and the headquarters staff didn't sound like 1 21 they were involved. What if you have a disagreement?
22 MR. BORCHARDT: That was my omission.
23 The project manager participates in both the PPR 24 in the region and in the screening meetings. l l
25 COMMISSIONER DICUS: The problem plant list -- do l
ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
l Court Reporters '
1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
41 1 you think that's effective?
2 MR. MIRAGLIA: I think it's shown to be effective 3 over time. There's been a number of issues that have come 4 out of the problem plant list in terms of impact on the
. 5 particular utility or utilities.
6 There was a report I guess by the Office of a
7 Planning and Policy that indicated that while it was 8 effective it was a large pill to put someone -- a big action T
9 to try to put a utility on, on the list, and that resulted i 10 in the trending letter that we characterized sort of a i 11 warning shot across the bow. !
i 12 I think this is indicative of our processes 13 becoming -- looking for issues that are finer ground. In 14 other words if you are looking at a screen if you go back in 1
15 the early times of the watch lists, significant events led 16 to the plant's being on that -- there was not too much of --
17 MR. TAYLOR: It was easier.
18 MR. MIRAGLIA: There wasn't a lot of objective 19 discussions.
l l
20 MR. TAYLOR: There was a large number of plants on 21 the list too, on this first list.
22 MR. MIRAGLIA: And they all had significant events 23 or some significant programmatic --
24 MR. TAYLOR: Very significant events.
25 MR. MIRAGLIA: -- failing that resulted in that.
ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
- . - . = _ . - .- . . - _- . . - - _ - _ _
42 1 As the industry improved, and as our techniques 2 improved, what we are looking for is to try to identify that 3 declining performance earlier and earlier, and trying to 4 stay ahead of the curve and that goes to the timeliness 5 question is would we have gotten there eventually or not and .
6 that kind of thing.
7 So I think that both of those things are working 8 and that the industry has significantly improved and that 9 there's over 100 plants out there and what we are looking at 10 is a small percentage of those plants that are at the lower 11 part of the lower quartile, so to speak, to try to identify.
12 MR. TAYLOR: In some cases we have used the 13 problem plant process and then found even with that we 14 needed to do more and we have gone to the Board of 15 Directors.
16 In the particular case of Turkey Point, Turkey 17 Point had been on the problem plant list for some long 18 period of time and we really didn't see enough progress and 19 as I recall, and I can't remember the years that we did it, 20 but we then -- and we talked a great deal to management in 21 the company.
22 We went to the holding company, Florida Power &
23 Light, and we had a session with the Board of Directors, at 24 which I was present, and I would say that activity then 25 precipitated the changes. ,
ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
l 43 1 It took awhile, but Turkey Point then shifted 2 direction in a plant that consistent operational problems 3 and so it took a combination of these various tools.
4 We had lots of teams and reviews down there
. 5 through the years with them, but today I believe they are 6 almost a SALP 1 performer.
7 MR. MIRAGLIA: Brunswick was another facility that 8 was --
l 9 MR. TAYLOR: There are just numbers like that. j 1
10 Pilgrim was -- the types of things where plants -- I think 11 the problem plants, Peach Bottom, Davis-Besse -- I could go 1
12 down the list of the problem plants. I think it's a very -- l 1
13 Frank says it's a big pill. I think that's right, but it I 14 has helped change plants that frankly performance for years 15 had not been very good.
16 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: How long was Turkey Point on 17 the watch list?
18 MR. TAYLOR: It was long time, Chairman. l l
19 I think I'll have to go back and -- j 20 MR. MIRAGLIA: My guess is it's, I think it was on 21 the list for four years or so.
22 MR. TAYLOR: Three or four years.
23 MR. MIRAGLIA: We can provide that.
24 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: What does it mean to the plant 25 or the company? What does it mean in terms of us -- for the ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
44 1 plant to be on the watch list?
2 MR. MIRAGLIA: Well, I think it has a number of 3 manifestations. Just like any of our performance assessment 4 processes, even SALP, in terms of it gives public attention 5 and view to the plant because it has negative connotations .
6 to it so that increases public interest, public concerns.
7 It has potential financial impact on the facility.
8 It does get management attention and focus and it usually 9 results in significant expenditure of resources on the part 10 of the utility to try to improve the process.
11 My recollection of the OPP report was that it took 12 a significant -- once the plant was on the list in order to 13 show the improvement to get off required a sustained period 14 of improvement and a significant expenditure of capital and 15 other resources to get that level of improvement and then 16 sustain it, so it does have that type of impact.
17 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: How do we decide when enough is 18 enough, where we do take the next regulatory action?
19 MR. MIRAGLIA: This is an issue that is a tough 20 one, Madam Chairman. From my perspective it's that if we 21 have got a plant that we feel is acceptable, if I could use 22 a personal analogy having teenage -- having survived two 23 teenage boys and I'm still surviving one -- is when someone 24 comes home with C's on their report card and you think that 25 they are capable of doing better -- C is passing but perhaps ,
ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
. . - . - - - . . - ~ . - - - - . . . . - . - - - _ _ . - - - - . - - . . - . . . . -
! i
! 45 l L
i 1 you would like them to do better, and I think from the-l' i 2 perspective of where we are in terms of a regulatory process I
j 3 we have to have some significant safety concern or basis to j .
[ 4 direct -- to have a basis in the regulations to tie it to a:
. 5 safety and that puts the burdens on us -- and so we have to 6 have some clear concerns and indications for that. That is 7 the case that has to be made in each of the instances.
8- MR. TAYLOR: The other thing, the problem plant j- 9 -requires more expenditure of NRC resources. That is, we
[
10 shift and the plant is much more inspected than the average j 11 plant.
i 12 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Is a soft point for us the fact l
13 that -- and presumably some of these changes in the various j 14 evaluative mechanisms and tools is part of that -- but is a
{ 15 soft point for us an ability to on a basis of taking an l
16 integrated'look in the absence of some triggering event to l
17 say that while I_ don't have some big piece of equipment j 18 that's safety-related that I can declare inoperable, that 19 net / net things are limping along so much or there's not 20 sufficient progress that I have to call a halt at a certain 21 point, that that call is very difficult for us to make?
22 MR. TAYLOR: I think that's right.
23 MR. MIRAGLIA: I think that's a fair comment in 24 ' terms of that we don't ' ak at everything. We audit pieces 25 and it's very difficult for us to perhaps find, as I said, ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
46 1 that the screens are getting, the material is getting finer 2 and finer, so we have to look harder and harder to pick up 3 those declining performance kinds of trends and that kind of 4 thing.
5 It's a question of how to spread the resources and .
6 in what area. If we look harder here, it's probably meaning 7 that we are not going to look hard either at another 8 facility or another area, and so that is the constant trade-9 off.
10 I guess it's the nature of the beast and a soft 11 spot that we have to deal with.
12 MR. TAYLOR: If you go back in the performance 13 indicators that were developed by the Agency, you know, it's 14 parallel really to those that are used by INPO and so forth, 15 but if you go back to the early years the numbers of trips, 16 the numbers of safety system challenges, the number of l'7 safety system failures -- all of those are indicative of 18 those were a little bit easier to spot than, frankly, as the 19 general performances have improved as time has gone on.
20 Yet there are still plants out there struggling 21 with problems. Otherwise we talked about this with 22 Commissions over the years, which is one of the reasons why 23 we said, gee, the Commission's suggested that we look to try 24 to find somebody before they sort of fall down even further.
25 That is how we started the trending, and we felt a little ,
ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
i l
l 47 l 1 awkward, but that actually had an effect.
2 I can't remember all of the plants that we have 3 issued trending letters to but Perry was one, as I recall, 4 and that helped to stimulate a performance improvement.
5 Cooper was another. Help me out, Frank, I can't recall all l 6 of the trending but those very definitely -- that process 7 which we have used on occasion where people who we see are 8 beginning to decline and maybe not have hit bottom, we 9 really have utilized that on a case basis.
10 I don't mean to digress but there's sort of all 11 these activities associated with the senior management 12 meeting and in some cases we have seen visits with Boards of 13 Directors help to make a big difference and in other cases 14 they don't.
15 COMMISSIONER ROGERS: Well, isn't to some extent 16 the problem one that we are allowing a plant to continue to 17 operate so in principle that means that our judgement says 18 that it is not so unsafe that it can't operate but -- then j 19 the question is what does the "but" mean?
20 It always seemed to me that what you are really 21 talking about is that you are operating within a band that 22 is acceptable but there's a margin to that band in some way, i
23 and this is your kind of safety margin that you want to have '
24 some comfort about because once you get down to the bottom 25 of that, then it doesn't take much to create a really ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
48 1 serious problem.
d 2 The difficulty is being able to measure that i
3 nargin in some way so, you know, the problem is that a plant 4 which we feel is -- we feel uncomfortable about is losing 5 its margin and it's either gotten so small or it's gong .
6 down fast on margin but still there is no one thing you can I
7 point to and say, well, this is really sufficiently 8 important at this moment that everything has to cease until 9 they straighten it out.
. 10 So you have got a couple of issues. One is try to 11 find some way of measuring the margin, and the other one, of i
} 12 course, is rates of change of that -- rate of decline or 13 improvement, if it is improving, which then causes you to 14 take another look at it.
15 It is wrestling with these issues of very
! 16 important considerations but things that don't lend i
17 themselves immediately to some quantification, and the i
i 18 judgment has to be an element in this and that that, it i 19 seems to me, you are never going to be able to avoid that, 20 and that it's going to be a judgment call and the judgment 21 call of whether the safety margin is large enough or not 22 large enough and whether it is improving or declining.
23 I don't know that we are ever going to find any 24 set of numbers that unambiguously tell us where we are.
25 MR. MIRAGLIA: I think that is a fair assessment .
ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
49.
1 and a challenge that we have been struggling with.
2 The answer to the "but" that we do have that comes ;
3 out of the assessment processes. A SALP 3 is acceptable E
4 "but" -- licensee, the message is, you need to spend more
. 5 time in that area to focus resources, to improve and it is 6 also NRC, we need to focus more, so the "but" is that we are i
7 calling attention to it, expecting the licensees to address 8 that and also because of the concern that we have raised ,
9' internally ourselves.
I 10 We are providing additional resources to look at 11 those kinds of areas, but again,'are we looking wide enough, !
12 as the Chairman suggested, over a broad enough basis and 13 that is a judgment and a resource allocation kind of 14 question that has to be decided on each of these cases.
l 15 When we are dealing with a large number of 16 f aci?.ities , that becomes difficult -- it's certainly a 17 challenge.
18 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Did you have a question?
- 19. COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN: Again, this may be out 12 0 of order but the INPO evaluations that are done, is it fair 21 to say, and this is a question that Nils and I got --
22 Commissioner Diaz and I got at our confirmation hearing --
23 they have been out in front of us in a few cases in 24 identifying plants with declining trends and we have been 25 out in front of them, the INPO said to me, you.know, in ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
50 1 other cases -- South Texas was one they mentioned.
2 How can we make better use of INPO data heading 3 into senior management meetings? I know we have to sort of 4 independently invent it but is there anything to be learned 5 from comparing ourselves to INPO? .
6 MR. MIRAGLIA: We have done a number of things in 7 that regard, Commissioner McGaffigan, and number one is many 8 of the senior managers have accompanied INPO evaluation 9 teams to look at how they evaluate plants and their 10 evaluation process is different from ours. It's very 11 focused over a two week, three week period of time and then 12 findings come back and the message that's sent, and so we 13 have an appreciation for what they do and how they do it.
14 I think it's accurate to say that they perhaps 15 identified some facilities before we did and that we have 16 identified -- so it's hard to say what is the right answer.
17 They are both providing an appropriate type of 18 answers.
19 In terms of our process, what we do do is we look 20 at self-assessments. We do look at, the resident inspectors 21 do look at the findings from the INPO evaluation and then we 22 look at it and determine based upon our own independent 23 inspection of findings do we have concerns or issues that 24 need to be followed up in that kind of context.
25 So we have an awareness of what the issues that .
ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
51 1 are being raised by INPO and we have independent, our own 2 independent inspections that are raising concerns, or if 3 there's a concern that we don't have enough to do that 4 perhaps that -- maybe that needs to be looked at at some
, 5 point in time, so it's not --
it is considered and it is 6 part of the process.
7 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN: I will tell you INPO did 8 tell me that they tell the licensee to believe the worst -- 1 l
9 and that is the right -- '
I 10 MR. MIRAGLIA: And that is probably a 1 11 reasonable position.
12 MR. TAYLOR: They look at a broader sense of 13 things in some cases than we do.
14 MR. BORCHARDT: Slide 11, please.
I 15 [ Slide.]
16 MR. BORCHARDT: I include just one chart on SALP 17 here, just to round out the overall process description. i l
18 There are several slides later in the package.
19 The objectives being that SALP is our long-term 20 integrated assessment of licensee performance. We use it as 21 one of the major vehicles for allocating NRC resources and 22 it's one of the principal communication devices for both the 23 licensee and the public to reflect the Staff's overall l
24 assessment of each licensee.
25 Slide 12, please.
O ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
52 1 [ Slide.)
2 MR. BORCHARDT: This figure illustrates a number 3 of points, the first being that the lower two levels consist 4 of those processes that accumulate the performance and 5 objective information that is subsequently utilized by the .
6 other evaluation processes.
7 In addition to the fact-gathering aspect of the 8 lower two levels, there is also a very important short-term 9 assessment aspect of the inspection program and this 10 assessment is done between the inspector and their immediate 11 supervisors and it is expected that the appropriate action 12 be taken based upon the significance of each of those 13 findings -- once again, without waiting for even the 14 inspection report to be issued, if the safety issue were 15 significant enough.
16 Although each level involves a different 17 combination of the time period assessed and the level of 18 management involved, they ultimately rely on the factual 19 information obtained through the reporting by the licensee 20 and the analysis of inspection findings.
21 Slide 13, please --
22 COMMISSIONER DIAZ: No -- I --
23 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Go ahead.
24 COMMISSIONER DIAZ: I have kind of been saving my 25 strength for this slide.
ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
. _ _ . . - --. . -.. - - = - - - . . -
1 53 1 (Laughter.]
2 COMMISSIONER DIAZ: I have been very quiet and 3 nice and so forth.
1 4 I'm bothered by this slide. I have always been
. 5 bothered by pyramids, whether they are a sales scheme or 4
6 not, and this pyramid seems like, you know, an escalation )
1
- 7 and a proliferation of reviews upon reviews upon reviews, 4
8 and if you are the bottom of that pyramid you feel very l
9 oppressed.
l l
1 10 I also assume that at the end of the pyramid there j 11 might be a point in there where it says " Commission" -- the l i
l 12 point this process may have to go to the Commission at some !
l 13 time.
14 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: That's at infinity.
15 [ Laughter.]
16 COMMISSIONER DIAZ: I figured it was the little l 17 point at the end of the pyramid -- but seeing as being a 18 point is never comfortable I decided to assume it was 19 someplace else.
20 But as I listened to some of the comments, you 21 know, as we went around at the different processes and which 22 one was really detailed knowledge about I found out, 23 according to Frank, that a lot of these things came out from l l
24 plant-specific events. Something came out of Dresden -- and 25 believe me, I cannot repeat their names. I am totally ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. j Court Reporters l 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 ,
Washington, D.C. 20005 i (202) 842-0034 l l
i 1
54 l 1 confused -- right now, I have got them all crossed between ,
2 IPAPs and SALPs it really very confusing, and of course we l 3 have managed to confuse the public enormously.
4 We are saying time and time again that we are 5 going to provide to the public a better indication of what .
6 our assessment are and then we continuously throw at them --
7 you know -- different names and different ways of doing 8 things and different levels.
9 My single point is isn't there a way to make this 10 a little simpler? Can we have fewer levels? Even if 11 internally we have subsets, can we actually simplify the 12 process to the point that we can really follow what each one 13 of them is doing and we can add whatever, something special, 14 there is that we want to do at any one point.
15 You know, if I go through this, and I have gone 16 through it, I am confused but I am not that confused, I get 17 to the point that these things are like continuous feedback 18 loops that go one into each other and they keep -- you 19 know -- like a self-generating prophesy. We found a 20 problem. We'll go back and I'm going to find another, I'm 21 going to find another, I'm going to find another.
22 I am very, very concerned about, you know, a 23 pyramid of studies and things and levels, okay, and you 24 know, I had an old mathematician friend of mine that used to 25 tell me that you can define any process that you want to as ,
ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
55 1 far as analysis with three steps, but he says if you get 2 seven steps then you can draw an elephant.
3 You can always disguise all you did by getting 4 more points into the process. You can lose your way.
. 5 So as we go into this, and I know we are time-6 limited, I want to leave you with the fact that there is 7 a -- my personal concern and maybe of others that this 8 process is way too complicated, it has too many names.
9 When we communicate with the public we are not 10 clear. This is the type of things -- and Madam Chairman, 11 can I take a couple more minutes?
12 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Help yourself.
13 COMMISSIONER DIAZ: For example, picking up on the 14 Region II -- is anyone from Region II?
15 I look at the SALP and I look at the language of 16 the SALP and what do I find? Do I find, you know, 17 definition of a problem or I find words like " weakness" --
18 you know, without any clear definition of what that means or 19 I find " lack of sensitivity" -- and like I said in the 20 region, is this a romantic problem, you are not sensitive to 21 me, you know? I mean what kind of a problem?
22 We never said these people have a deficiency. We 23 say they have a " weakness" like if their knees were weak or 24 something like that.
25 I believe that if we look, and I have looked at ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-003?
56 1 about 10 SALPs now, we find many common language that are 2 used that are not defining the problem. Rather than saying 3 "The management did not provide management oversight over j l
4 their regulatory process" -- we say "There was a management 5 weakness." .
l 6 Now we didn't say what it was. Okay? You know, 7 it is to me basic at this time, 1996, where we need to be 8 accountable for what we do, that we define this process, we 9 make it as simple as many -- you know, as few steps as 10 possible and use the most specific language that we can 11 find, even if the licensee doesn't like it.
12 I believe that it will help them significantly 13 once we tell them "You are deficient in establishing, you 14 know, a maintenance plan that allows your materials to be 15 compliant with safety limits" -- "You are not cognizant of 16 the processes" -- now those are words that are action words.
17 They mean something, but " weakness" and " sensitivity" it 18 just -- and then if we find a problem, what do we do?
19 We have another process and another process, and I 20 think that maybe all of these served us well throughout 21 these years and they come from Dresden and Davis-Besse and 22 Three Mile Island and Turkey Point and all the names you 23 just mentioned, but the question is are they serving us now?
24 Do they actually serve the purpose, okay, that they are 25 intended to or should we simplify them? ,
4 ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
l l
57 l 1 I'm finished. I used all my energy.
1 2 MR. MIRAGLIA: I think that is a fair comment --
3 and perhaps the pure business is not the right type of thing
, 1 4 in terms of we have developed a number of performance j
, 5 assessment tools and I think we have to try to decide what's 6 the best combination or take the best of each process 7 perhaps. I think that's a challenge that the Commission has 8 already laid at our feet in terms of one of the questions we 9 had is where are all of these process, what's the inputs to 10 them and how they relate to one another and we have tackled 11 that task.
12 The other task that is presently before us is what 13 is the objective evidence to make it transparent. So I 14 would agree with you, Commissioner Diaz, that is certainly 15 the challenge and the end result might be some integration 16 of the performance assessment techniques that take the best 17 of all and come up with a process or perhaps two processes
- 18 to stay with the power of three as opposed to seven to go 19 through something like that. But I think that could be a 20 potential outcome of the path that we are on.
21 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Well, I guess Commissioner Diaz 22 mentioned sort of going into a kind of circular logic that 23 we assess and if we find something or something happens that 24 that's not enough, we figure out another assessment 25 methodology and then if that's not enough we figure out ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
a -
a ga- s.--.. s ~ 4 - - - -
58 1 another assessment methodology and perhaps all the time we 2 are not giving the crispness, first of all, to what we are 3 saying and then I guess, you know, I would like to know what 4 are the stop points, you know, what are the hold points as 5 opposed to assess and more attention and then assess and .
6 more attention, given that, you know, even you say that we 7 are a finite resource agency. And we further say that it is 8 the licensee's responsibility to operate their facilities 9 safely.
10 But if we are assessing and giving more attention 11 and then new assessment and giving more attention and new 12 assessment and giving more attention, we seem to go against 13 those two things, that we have finite resources and that it 14 is the licensees' responsibility to operate their facilities 15 safely. That, at a certain point, we have to kick it back 16 over and say either they are or, if they are not, then 17 something has to happen until and unless they do operate 18 their facility safely.
19 MR. BORCHARDT: Slide 13, please.
20 [ Slide.]
21 MR. BORCHARDT: This and the next slide highlight 22 some of the major evaluations and changes to the SALP 23 program over the years. Ever since SALP began after the 24 Three Mile Island accident, the SALP program has been 25 undergoing periodic evaluations and revisions and although ,
ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
59 1 it was initially envisioned to be a headquarters product, it 1
2 was quickly realized that the regional offices were in a '
3 better position to take the lead in carrying out the SALP l l 4 program. !
l
. 5 The use of numerical ratings has been evaluated I l
l 6 two times previously and on both occasions it was decided to 7 retain numerical grades.
1 8 There are slides showing the definition of the 9 three SALP categories later in the briefing package and l 10 although we will discuss it a little bit later, the fact 11 that there is no SALP category for unacceptable performance 12 has, in fact, been previously reviewed. The lowest SALP 13 category, SALP 3, as we discussed a few moments ago, means 1
14 that licensee performance is at an acceptable level. In 15 1990, the Commission voted against creating an unacceptable 16 category.
17 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Was that made to ensure that I
18 the determination of unsatisfactory performance would be 19 made in the senior management meeting context or was there l
20 some other --
21 MR. BORCHARDT: No, the best that I can understand 22 from reading the correspondence back then is that there was ,
h 23 a recognition that an unacceptable SALP grade would be 1 24 really nothing more than a reflection of a historical 25 happening. If there was unacceptable performance today, the l
ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
60 1 Commission and the staff would take whatever action was 2 necessary, including possibly ordering the shutdown.
3 When the SALP happened six months in the future 4 and we gave them a SALP for unacceptable performance, there 5 was really no new information provided. I think it was .
6 really unnecessary; we weren't going to wait for the SALP 7 before we took the action so why bother. And, in fact, 8 going along with that decision was the idea that if a plant 9 was shut down, that SALP would be suspended. We would wait 10 until authorization to restart was granted before we began 11 the SALP program again. So the two kind of went hand in 12 hand.
13 COMMISSIONER ROGERS: My recollection is that you 14 are exactly correct.
15 MR. BORCHARDT: The concept of rising performance 16 standards and the use of responsiveness to NRC initiatives 17 as an evaluation criteria also received previous Commission 18 attention and despite all of the adjustments, two objectives 19 remain constant. One was to clearly communicate the 20 assessment results to the licensee and the public, which 21 apparently we don't always do very well. And the second, to 22 use SALP as a tool to evaluate and adjust agency resources.
23 Slide 15, please.
24 [ Slide.]
25 MR. BORCHARDT: Preparation for the 2?LP report ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
61 1 begins many weeks before the board convenes and consists of 2 a thorough review of licensee performance information and 3 the inspection record. In addition to this record review, 4 each SALP board member ensures that they are current and 1
, 5 personally familiar with the site through a special site !
l 6 visit if necessary.
7 The SALP board itself normally takes the better 8 part of a day and consists of three SALP board members with 9 considerable participation from regional and headquarters 10 staffs. Following discussions in each of the four 11 functional areas, the SALP board members. vote on the 12 appropriate SALP grade. Any differences in grades are 13 typically discussed to ensure common understanding of the 14 relevant issues. And the SALP report is prepared and the 15 cover letter written two weeks after the SALP board meeting 16 and then the report, in draft form, is submitted to'the 17 regional administrator for approval.
18 COMMISSIONER DIAZ: Excuse me. You said that the 19 meeting takes place in one day, correct? )
I 20 MR. BORCHARDT: Yes. !
21 COMMISSIONER DIAZ: And what is the input that 22 they receive?
I 23 MR. BORCHARDT: Each SALP report involves four 24 SALP functional areas plus there is another area typically 25 assessed, safety assessment, quality verification.
ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W.,' Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
62 1 COMMISSIONER DIAZ: I understand the categories.
2 Who prepares the input?
3 MR. BORCHARDT: Different parts of the staff. It 4 could be the resident inspectors prepare one section, a 5 member of the DRS inspection staff in the region may prepare .
6 the engineering section or the maintenance. The NRR project 7 manager may prepare the SAQV overall assessment.
8 So different members of the staff are responsible 9 for reviewing the inspection record and the performance, 10 coming up with a distillation of that information so that 11 that can lead the discussion during the SALP board meeting 12 itself. In parallel with that, the SALP board members also 13 review, to get themselves up to speed, the inspection record 14 and any other relevant information.
15 COMMISSIONER DIAZ: They go to the site?
16 MR. BORCHARDT: Yes. They will either make a 17 special visit or most of the SALP board members would 18 normally go to the site as part of their day-to-day 19 responsibility so the SALP program does not mandate a 20 specific pre-board visit. It is up to the board member to 21 make sure they are familiar with the site, what's going on 22 and have visited it recently.
23 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN: What if you have, or i
24 maybe it never happens, non-unanimous decisions in the board i 25 or violent disagreements as to whether it should be a two or !
ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034 ,
I I
l
63 1 a three. Does that end up with Frank and Jim --
2 MR. BORCHARDT: We have avoided violence.
3 [ Laughter.]
4 MR. BORCHARDT: It is not all that uncommon that
. 5 two of the members will vote for one score and the third 6 another and then there is a discussion amongst the three and 7 the regional staff participants as necessary to make sure, 8 even if there is a difference in vote, that they are all 9 dealing from the same common understanding.
10 The majority of times that I have witnessed that 11 happen, it is through a discussion of the significance that 12 each of the board members placed upon a significant event or 13 series of inspection findings and typically the one outlier 14 will come into agreement with the other two. That doesn't l l
15 always happen and sometimes it goes up with a vote of two 16 against one. And then the regional administrator makes the 17 ultimate judgment. .
l 18 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN: So the regional 19 administrator, when you are in a senior management meeting, 20 knows, you know, that there was a two-one vote to give this 21 person a two and I went along with it but you should be 22 aware that at least one person thought it should be a three.
23 MR. TAYLOR: And he documents that.
24 MR. BORCHARDT: Then there is a public meeting j 25 after the SALP report is issued publicly. That is usually ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
64 1 conducted at or near the site to maximize the participation 2 from the licensee. And then the only additional thing is if 3 there is a SALP 3 category assigned to any grade, the 4 licensee is specifically requested to respond in writing to 5 what actions would be taken. .
6 At the public meeting, the licensee is given the 7 opportunity to provide additional information or to rebut 8 the grade if they don't like it or to say what a wonderful 9 job we did if we gave them a SALP 1.
10 SALP program oversight is provided a number of 11 ways. One, in the inspection program branch of NRR, Dave 12 Gamberoni, sitting behind me, is the SAL program manager.
13 He has responsibility for maintaining the management 14 directive, overseeing the coordination of the SALP 15 observation program, which is each SALP board chairman is 16 responsible for going to at least one other region during an 17 18-month period to observe how another region does their 18 SALP board. It is a way to cross-fertilize ideas.
19 Slide 16, please.
20 [ Slide.]
21 MR. BORCHARDT: Category 1 is the highest rating 22 and is indicative of a licensee that exhibits a superior 23 level of safety performance. We would normally expect to 24 see a decrease of inspection effort if there was anything 25 beyond the core being conducted. Normally, a SALP 1 ,
ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 i (202) 842-0034 ;
l l
i i
65 1 functional area would receive the core inspection level of I 2 effort.
3 Slide 17.
4 (Slide.)
. 5 MR. BORCHARDT: Category 2 is licensee attention 6 normally well focused that results in a good level of safety 7 performance.
8 Slide 18.
9 [ Slide.]
10 MR. BORCHARDT: The definition of Category 3 is 11 the subject of the greatest interest and is prone to some 12 misunderstanding. The key to this definition is, I think, in 13 the first sentence, that the performance has resulted in an 14 acceptable level of safety performance. This means, despite 15 whatever weaknesses or instances of poor performance have 16 been identified, the staff believes that the overall safety 17 performance of that licensee in that functional area is 18 acceptable for continued operation. I 19 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: And that is true even if a 20 clear understanding of the safety implications of 1
21 significant issues may not have been demonstrated. So you l 1
22 could not demonstrate a clear understanding of the safety 23 implications --
24 MR. BORCHARDT: Again, that sentence, I think, we 25 need some improvement in that sentence.
ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
66 1 What that really means, what's embedded in the 2 definition and not maybe very well stated, is that there are 3 examples of what you stated. There are instances where 4 performance has been weak or not up to expectations but that 5 for a licensee to receive a SALP 3, the SALP board has to, .
6 without doubt, come to the conclusion that performance is 7 acceptable for continued operation. If they don't, then 8 some other regulatory action should have occurred before the 9 SALP board but certainly there would be some additional 10 action taken or at least evaluated.
11 The SALP board is not intended to be the vehicle 12 for coming to that conclusion.
13 COMMISSIONER DIAZ: The first sentence is the key 14 sentence, correct?
15 MR. BORCHARDT: Correct.
16 COMMISSIONER DIAZ: So I'm a licensee, pay a lot 17 of attention to a pump. I look at it, make sure, but I do 18 nothing with it. How do you rate me?
19 Or I have significant involvement, okay, in plant 20 activities. Meaning I receive briefings, everything. But I 21 do nothing about it What is it? So, I have a problem with 22 your first phrase.
23 MR. BORCHARDT: Well, that would be indicative of, 24 in fact, unacceptable licensee performance in the corrective 25 action, identification and resolution area, which is one of 9
ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
67 1 the key aspects of the inspection program.
2 COMMISSIONER DIAZ: But see, we are driven by 3 words. These are not action words; they are passive words, 4 okay? They do not imply, okay, in your first phrase --
. 5 first phrase, and I believe that our staff will be guided by 6 this first phrase. So licensee compliance with regulations 7 and actions, you know, something that indicates that the 1
- i 8 individual has a plan, follows that plan, executes it, 9 checks it out, you know, a little bit of quality assurance 10 might not hurt in there. Okay?
l 11 You know, be specific. Involvement is a passive 12 word. It doesn't really mean, you know, that you are doing 1
13 something. We need it to be clear and define what we want.
14 And I really strongly suggest that we take a look at this 15 first phrase in Category 3 and come up with some better 16 wording.
17 COMMISSIONER ROGERS: You know, I sion't disagree 18 with your concern but I am concerned about trying to make a 19 list and to provide a definite list that these are the 20 things which give you a three or these are exactly the 21 things which give you a two. I think there has to be a 22 quality -- an element of judgment coming in and I think it 23 is very difficult to make an all-inclusive list that says if 24 you do every one of these things, you will be okay and, if 25 you don't then, you know, you don't qualify for that ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
68 1 category.
2 I think there has to be some judgment there and I 3 think the key in that first sentence is "resulted in an 4 acceptable level of safety performance."
5 I mean if, you know, maybe we should say take out .
6 " licensee attention and involvement," and say from the NRC's 7 inspections and observations, that has been the result.
8 COMMISSIONER DIAZ: I can buy that. I can buy 9 that. You know, but definitely, we can be very specific 10 about what was not adequate, okay, and definitely we can be 11 specific. Is there a real safety issue involved to bring it 12 out?
13 MR. TAYLOR: That's right and that usually comes 14 out in the inspection reports and the AIDS that preceded the 15 SAL. I mean, if there is a specific safety issue, that's 16 found not commensurate with the SALP but usually in the 17 months before and then this issue of the clear understanding 18 of the safety implications may be that they didn't go beyond 19 the immediate meaning of a valve that failed to operate, you 20 know what I mean, and does that mean other valve testing !
21 should be carried out?
i 22 MR. MIRAGLIA: I think the key, as Bill indicated, 23 is the first sentence is trying to convey that SALP 3, and I '
24 would stipulate you're correct in terms of " involvement" 25 being a passive word but the focus is SALP 3 is acceptable ,
ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
69 1 performance. I think that's the key and we need to 4
2 communicate that clearly. Bill indicated that that's a 3 definition that perhaps needs to be reexamined to clarify 4 that.
J
- . 5 I think the other points in terms of what do we 6 mean when we say " poor material condition" or " management 7 ineffectiveness"? That we need to take steps to 8 characterize what that concern is.
9 COMMISSIONER DIAZ: Or that there was attention 10 and involvement. We don't want people's attention and 11 involvement, we want people's performance that resulted in a 12 second level of safety, 13 MR. MIRAGLIA: I think what we are saying, f
14 embedded in acceptable performance is not only were they 15 involved but they had a corrective action program and they 4
16 followed the actions. But we could say that more
- 17 explicitly.
18 COMMISSIONER DIAZ: I have seen a few SALPs and we 19 put in these things per paragraph and I already sat with 20 Mr. Taylor one day and now in the same importance level we 21 are bringing things out like the famous steam-driven 22 circular feedwater pump was not operable and an operator i 23 left the control room for five minutes when there were two 24 licensed operators in the control room. I don't think they 25 are the same.
ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 a
(202) 842-0034
l l
70 J 1 So if we are going to bring something out, 2 especially when we are bringing it out to the press, you 3 know, rather than bring it out -- the small issues like in )
4 the_ Crystal River it >as brought out on the management 5 oversight and I made a point of it. On the management .
6 oversight, they came out and to the press, the first thing 7 that came out, the new president saw it, was that there was 8 lack of control of overtime. !
l 9 Now, lack of controlled overtime can be a serious
)
10 personal problem, operators can be very tired if they work i
11 24 hours2.777778e-4 days <br />0.00667 hours <br />3.968254e-5 weeks <br />9.132e-6 months <br /> a day, et cetera. But definitely that is not the 12 main issue at Crystal River.
13 So I think that definition and a specificity and 14 not an all-inclusive list but just the key things.
15 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: In a certain sense, one could 16 argue that if you look under your Category 3 definition, you 17 do have a list.
18 MR. MIRAGLIA: Right.
19 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: You know, you have said 20 licensee performance and procedure have not provided 21 sufficient control. But the issue is, how do you give 22 specificity enough to that to say why it's acceptable versus 23 when it would track to being unacceptable.
24 The self-assessment, the licensee self-assessment 25 efforts may not occur until after a potential problem .
. i ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 ;
Washington, D.C. 20005 '
(202) 842-0034 l
l
71 1 becomes apparent. I mean, if you do this and you write this l 2 down without specifically linking it to what you found, then 3 you can either cause alarm in the public when the alarm 4 shouldn't be there because you are saying it's acceptable
. 5 somehow or if there really is a problem and they are 6 tracking close to the edge, whatever the edge is, then that 7 should be apparent. But particularly if somebody has a l 8 clear understanding of the safety implications of 9 significant -- and this is significant issues -- may not 10 have been demonstrated.
11 You know, you gave an example, Mr. Taylor, that is 12 different than what could be the case for somebody else.
13 MR. TAYLOR: Yes.
14 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: And so the question becomes, 15 you know, why is it acceptable behavior. And I noted prior 16 to 1990 in this Category 3 was meets minimum --
17 MR. MIRAGLIA: Minimally satisfactory.
18 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Yes, minimum regulatory 19 requirements. Is it that you were trying to take it away 20 from regulatory requirements and put the focus on safety?
21 If you put the focus on safety, which is appropriate, you 22 have to make the case. Okay?
23 Then this last sentence here, because the margin 24 to unacceptable performance in important -- I'm using your 25 words here -- important aspects is small, NRC and licensee
, ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
l Court Reporters i 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 I
Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
72
! 1 attention is required. It suggests that if there is any l 2 margin at all then we are saying it's acceptable. I guess, i
3 you know, if I were just out in the public, that would l .
4 confuse me and I think, if I can take the risk of 9
i 5 paraphrasing Commissioner Diaz, if you are going to do .
j 6 something having to do with management inattention or lack 7 of management attention, you know, if it is, you know,
- 8 economic stress, you have to have the specific things that j 9 happen that relate back to what you are claiming is a root 1
10 cause or is a source of the problem. So, in a certain l 11 sense, I would claim that there already is a list that f 12 presumably we check against. But the issue becomes how do l
13 we do that checking against that list.
14 MR. MIRAGLIA: That is one of the challenges, to 15 make that transparent so licensees and the public understand i 16 and, clearly, we should articulate what parameters are the 17 ones of specific concern.
18 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN: Could I ask about the 19 transition from minimally satisfactory to acceptable? I 20 could understand why a plant would like to be acceptable as 21 opposed to minimally satisfactory, because minimally 22 satisfactory is more pejorative. What was the reason in the 23 late '80s for switching from the adverb-adjective 24 combination to the single adjective?
25 MR. BORCHARDT: Mr. Gamberoni has explained to me .
e ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
73 1 that it is only for public understanding of the definition.
l 2 At that time, that phrase was thought to be better 3 understood.
4 COMMISSIONER ROGERS: Well, I don't know, I think l . 5 that there are different ways of looking at this and, you 6 know, each of these are broad categories. They are not a 7 point measured; they are broad categories. And a plant 8 could be at the bottom or the top of a category and, you 9 know, you might say minimally satisfactory, that is very 10 close to the bottom of something in my view but it still 11 might -- and somebody considerably better than that would 12 still not be out of Category 3. So it is not minimally, 13 it's a little bit more than minimally, maybe a fair amount 14 more than minimally. But it doesn't meet what we are i
15 looking for for Category 2. !
l 16 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN: Does going from the ,
17 acceptable range -- I should direct it to you -- to the l 18 minimally acceptable range mean you have been put on the 19 problem.. plant list? I mean, how do you -- if you look for a 20 gradation in that bottom category, if you are really, 21 really, really close to the margin, is that the sort of 22 decision that gets made at the senior management meeting, 23 that we've really got to get these folks' attention; 24 whereas, if you are at the top of the three, you might not? l 25 How does that --
l ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
l Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 .
~
Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
74 1 MR. MIRAGLIA: I think it is in terms of turning 2 up the gain in terms of the attention and that the SALP is 3 being done at the region kind of perspective. The senior 4 management meeting is from a broader perspective and it is a 5 broader range of management saying, hey, we've told you, a .
6 SALP 3, you were told you were a SALP 3, that's input to the 7 process. And the concern is, are they moving forward in 8 that and it comes to a discussion plant or it is potentially 9 put on the list. It is trying to get the management 10 attention to deal with the performance type of issues and I 11 think it is that type of difference that I would --
12 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN: For me, it would make a 13 difference whether they were acceptable or minimally 14 acceptable. You know, I'm not arguing -- I mean, gosh knows 15 you guys have a hard enough time having three categories but 16 the -- but it's when you get down close to the bottom that I 17 would really want to know if I were the Commission or a 18 career manager.
19 MR. MIRAGLIA: I think that's what we do. We try 20 to gather at the senior management meeting all of the things 21 that indicate they are pushing away at the bottom. That's 22 equipment failures --
23 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN: So it is the SMM.
24 MR. MIRAGLIA: -- things tested that don't work 25 right, large numbers of work-arounds, operator error.
ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
i 75 1 Operator error was very important, particularly in the early )
2 years and contributed to many accidents. Lots of training, 3 simulator work has helped to reduce -- but they are still 4 there. Operator errors are still there. .
. 5 So you take all of that from all the reviews. One l
l 6 thing is the'SALP is done periodically and the senior 7 management meeting is done every six months and you gather 8 really what was before and then what's happened since and if )
9 the operator errors, the equipment failures, breakers that 10 fail and then you don't go look at other like breakers, I 11 mean, what is the failure, is it generic in that breaker?
12 Could it be happening in other vital breakers.
13 I am using just the kind of examples that make the 14 difference between people who are on top of their problems 15 and those who are not.
16 COMMISSIONER ROGERS: It's very important. You 17 know, somebody could be in the middle of Category 3 and not 18 changing at all or they could be near the bottom and 19 improving or they could be in the middle and going down.
20 Those are all very different situations and they're still 21 Category 3. l 22 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: That's true but let me ask the 23 ultimate drop the bomb in the middle of the table question 24 and we're going to be hearing gory details about it in a 25 series of meetings coming up next month.
ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
i Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
76 1 Given all that we've discussed, why did we not 2 come down on Millstone in terms of it tracking into the 3 problem plant list, and why did all of this categorization, 4 et cetera, not catch it?
5 MR. MIRAGLIA: I think in terms of the SALP, .
6 there's probably SALP 3's out there; there was discussion 7 with the board of the directions prior to that, so there 8 certainly were concerns. It gets t'o the question or the 9 issue you raised early on in the discussion, Madam Chairman, 10 in the introduction to the meeting is the timing. Should we 11 have gotten it faster and I think the admission is that, 12 well, we probably should have taken that action.
13 The thing is, we saw problems and issues, 14 corrective programs were underway and perhaps we didn't look 15 long enough or deep enough to say we bought into those 16 corrective action programs. That's the only answer that I 17 would have at that point in time.
18 I think issues were there on Millstone and we 19 recognized those issues. I think if one goes back and looks 20 at the enforcement history with respect to Millstone, it was 21 long before any of those things, it was a large number of 22 escalated enforcement actions.
23 So it was the continuum of the program that we 24 have concerns about Millstone. Certainly, yes, if we 25 articulate them in the context of the senior management i 1
i ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. !
Court Reporters l 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
77
- 1 meeting, the answer 's no and the record shows no, and 2 perhaps we should have, but in the overall context of the 3 program, had we identified performance concerns with 4 Millstone, I think the record would say we had and had we
. 5 communicated with the industry or the board of directors and 6 the licensees, and the answer would be yes.
7 But did we fully use all the tools available to us 8 in a timely way, I think --
i 9 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: In integrating them all.
j 10 MR. TAYLOR: We weren't stitching them together.
11 MR. MIRAGLIA: Yes, in terms of the special J
- 12 inspections.
?
j 13 MR. TAYLOR: These things that were merged, and
! 14 then, of course, as the Commission knows, when we saw that, 15 first of all, we said there were a couple of ther + hat made 16 us say, it's time and that was last January. That's when we i
1 17 said, we've got to go even deeper. That's why we put 18 together the team and assigned AE-trained people to the team l
4 19 under Mr Virgerio and it took us quite a bit of time to l 20 reel it in and dove into the design and engineering areas, 21 again in selected areas.
22 We went from Millstone over to Adam Neck and then 23 we saw some of the very significant engineering issues which 24 I think the Commission is aware of. So the call in January 25 was a good call and we might have made it sooner.
ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
78 1 COMMISSIONER DIAZ: I just need to correct that 2 really our inspectors, senior and resident inspectors, 3 really were never focused on the last 5 or 10 years on the 4 design basis issues. .
1 5 MR. TAYLOR: They're not trained. The design is . I 6 very complicated, it's very large.
7 COMMISSIONER DICUS: Absolutely.
8 MR. TAYLOR: As I think the Commission is aware 9 and we shifted to a more operational program. We'd pick up 10 odds and ends of these kinds of things, but not vectored to 11 that area and that was a mistake. We're seeing again that 12 we need to spend time and that's why we issued the 50.54 (f) 13 letter because we can't cover all of that.
14 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Do you think that shift in 15 focused, coupled with, as you say, it takes special 16 expertise.
17 MR. TAYLOR: It does. That's my experience.
18 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Made us, in a certain sense, 19 vulnerable to falling back on looking at the program as 20 opposed to coming after the program.
21 MR. MIRAGLIA: I think the way we looked at the 22 program is for it to reveal itself in some way in either 23 operability calls or failed surveillances and we got into it 24 in that reactive way as opposed to a systematic proactive, 25 would be a characterization of that issue.
ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. !
Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
.- - .- - _- - ._ ._ ~. - --. - _- . . _ - . . _ ~ . ..
79 1 COMMISSIONER ROGERS: Let me just bring something 2 in here. You mentioned earlier the percentage of time that l
3 goes to the core inspections and the 67 percent for that and 4 so on. Now, if the focus there is on operational questions,
. 5 we still then are not hitting the engineering design l 6 problems.
i j 7 MR. TAYLOR: We are with new special inspection 8 teams that we've created.
9 COMMISSIONER ROGERS: Yes, but that has to be a 10 conscious decision -- you have to fold that consciously into 11 your total inspection program.
12 MR. TAYLOR: Right.
13 MR. MIRAGLIA: What we're doing now is we're 14 looking at the special emphasis inspection areas to try to 15 do that, not add that burden to perhaps the residents.
16 COMMISSIONER ROGERS: Oh, yes. '
17 MR. MIRAGLIA: I think we all agree the residents 18 is an area that has to be addressed.
19 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: And folding that into the )
l 20 overall assessment. '
21 MR. MIRAGLIA: Yes.
22 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Okay.
23 MR. BORCHARDT: Slide 20, please, lists the four l l
24 SALP functional areas. l l
25 [ Slide.]
l l
l l ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters I 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034 l
l
l 80 1 MR. BORCHARDT: The only point I'll make on this 2 slide is that the safety assessment quality verification is ,
l 3 an important subject that is discussed in the SALP report
]
4 cover letter and is an integral part of each of the other 5 four SALP functional area. ,
I i
6 MR. TAYLOR: I might say, the engineering has l 7 always been engineering support ops largely in that area.
l 8 That's not engineering as executed by design. l I
9 COMMISSIONER ROGERS: Right. I 10 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Did you look carefully at the !
11 linkages between maintenance and engineering? l l
12 MR. BORCHARDT: The inspection program spends a I l
13 considerable amount of effort looking at that interaction.
14 The system engineers are in frequent contact with the 15 resident inspector staff, so it's something that's assessed i l
16 almost continually. I 17 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Okay.
18 MR. BORCHARDT: That concludes the staff's 19 presentation.
20 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: We've been quite active in 21 asking you questions. Are there any follow-on questions.
22 COMMISSIONER ROGERS: Yes. There's a lot of 23 little ones and I'm not going to give them to you, but back 24 in 1993 when we changed the SALP program, ACRS made some 25 recommendations and we sent it back to ACRS and so on and so ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. .
Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 I (202) 842-0034
81
' 1 forth.
2 One of the letters said that "The staff plans to l 3 conduct a public meeting after about two years experience l' 4 with the new program." Did we do that? Did we have a
. 5 public meeting? I'm not talking about public meetings 6 associated with a SALP, an individual plant SALP evaluation.
7 I'm talking about a public meeting to review the changes in 8 the SALP program that came about in 1993.
9 MR. BORCHARDT: I'm not aware of a public meeting, 10 but there was a Federal Register request for comments on the l
i 11 SALP changes in the SALP program that had been made, so that l 12 public comments were received, public and industry comments i
13 were received on the SALP program as a result of that.
i 14 COMMISSIONER ROGERS: What happened to those ]
15 comments?
)
16 MR. BORCHARDT: They were analyzed and there is, I 17 believe, a Commission paper that provided a summary of the 4
18 comments.
19 . COMMISSIONER ROGERS: Okay, that is how it was 20 dealt with?
21 MR. BORCHARDT: Yes.
l
]
22 COMMISSIONER ROGERS: Okay.
23 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Any other questions?
24 COMMISSIONER ROGERS: No.
25 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Commissioner Dicus?
ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
82 1 COMMISSIONER DICUS: What changes do you envision 2 the SALP program to assess licensee performance with respect 3 to design basis issues?
4 MR. MIRAGLIA: That's a matter that we're looking 5 at right now in the context of the design inspections and .
6 the responses to the 50.54 (f) letters. I think that's going 7 to suggest additional needs. I think that we've certainly 8 identified a need to do something and we have steps 9 underway. I think as.that data is analyzed and we have some 10 inputs and some experience from that, I think it will be 11 focused.
12 In terms of our dialoging between headquarters and 13 the residents and the regions, we've identified a need to 14 have the residents be more sansitive to that, that our 15 project managers need to articulate what the important 16 issues and design parametera perhaps are, and to try to get 17 some way of identification of those issues and then develop 18 appropriate training and significance and issues like that.
So we've got a number of . corrective measures underway, 19 some 20 short term, some longer term to try to address that type of 21 issue.
22 I think that will manifest itself in the SALP 23 process, but I don't think we've really figured out exactly 24 how yet.
25 MR. BORCHARDT: There's two basic approaches we're ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. i Court Reporters I 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 j Washington, D.C. 20005 j (202) 842-0034 i
\
1 83 i l
1 considering. One is to just have it go into the existing 2 engineering function because there's a limited number being i l
3 done each year in combination with the SALPs which are only '
4 conducted every 18 to 24 months typically, or just those )
. 5 plants that have special inspections have.a supplement to l 6 the SALP report. We haven't made any decision yet. !
7 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Commissioner Diaz?
4 l
8 COMMISSIONER DIAZ: When we were talking about the 9 SALP and minimally satisfactory and so forth, everybody i 10 keeps moving their hands which is a favorite method of mine 11 to make speeches. It avoids a number of words.
1 12 I was looking at it's acceptable here and it's 13 acccptable right and I was looking at the hand and the hand 14 can actually move forward. It depends on where you put your 15 hand. How do we know where they are? What is the standard?
16 MR. MIRAGLIA: I think that's a key question that 17 the agency has been dealing with for a long time, how safe '
l 18 is safe enough and the real issue, in my mind, is that it's l 19 not a pipeline in the sand and it's-a band, it's overlapping 1
20 bands, perhaps, as Commissioner Rogers alluded to, in terms 21 of the broad categories, so it's very difficult to draw that 22 bright line and say, here versus here.
23 I think there is a certain amount of judgment 24 that's in there and I don't know how to answer that any 25 better than that at this point.
l 4 .
ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
~. . - - . . .- . . . _ - _ _ - - - . . .
84 1 MR. TAYLOR: That's how the words reasonable 2 assurance have been coined.
3 COMMISSIONER ROGERS: Adequate protection.
4 MR. TAYLOR: Yes.
5 COMMISSIONER DIAZ. Which is extremely broad to .
6 define.
7 MR. TAYLOR: Yes, it is.
8 COMMISSIONER DIAZ: Which would lead me to the 9 next question. We talk a lot about risk in from and risk 10 phases, how are we making this risk assessment more and more 11 to bear into maybe an integral and satisfactory way to the 12 NRC of determining what is the level of performance.
13 MR. MIRAGLIA: I think that we have an overall 14 plan for doing that, the Commission.hac looked at it. It's 15 an incremental approach and it's going to take time, in my 16 view, to go and transition from a deterministic kind of 17 process that has evolved over 30 or 40 years to go a fully 18 risk-based, risk-informed and we have a transition.
19 We're looking at various elements, we're trying to 20 get it, as Bill indicated, into the inspection program by 21 training residents and inspectors in terms of providing them 22 with broad skills, looking at specific senior reactor 23 analysts to get that skill out there, and then we're looking 24 at how to improve the regulations in that kind of context as 25 well.
ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1250 I Street. N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
85 1 So we have a broad-based program for doing it and 2 I think it's going to happen over time.
3 COMMISSIONER DIAZ: Could we make some reasonable 4 decisions, a stepwise approach rather than a continuum? We
, 5 don't need to be there -- we cannot be there overnight, but 6 if we were to make some stepwise decisions, say this is what 7 we know now and apply it, take the chance.
] 8 MR. MIRAGLIA: I think that is what we're 9 attempting to do in the context of the PRA Implementation
. 10 Plan. We've done it with the maintenance rule and there's 4
11 four other areas that we're looking at and discussing with 12 the Commission and dialoging with the Commission. We're j,
13 looking for those incremental steps over small, bite-size 14 areas.
15 COMMISSIONER DIAZ: Is the senior reactor analyst 16 really an integral part of that?
17 MR. MIRAGLIA: It's part of the implementation 18 plan. Has anyone completed --
19 MR. BORCHARDT: They are almost completed.
20 MR. MIRAGLIA: They are returning to the regions 21 and so it was a development program that was started about 22 two years ago and we're actually putting that expertise in 23 the field so they can have those insights.
24 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Have you clearly defined for 25 yourselves, if I can just interrupt for a minute, but as an ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
86 1 add-on, what those senior reactor analysts are going to do 2 in the region, are really going to inform and be a part of 3 the assessment processes that are used?
4 MR. BORCHARDT: We had a meeting last week with 5 them in fact. They are just about at the completion of this .
6 year-long training cycle and they have a lot of ideas on 7 what they should do and how they should do it.
8 We're in the process right now of trying to gather 9 their thoughts and coming up with a coherent approach to how 10 they could be used in both the inspection planning and the 11 results of the inspection activities.
12 The one thing we know we can't afford to do 13 because there are only two per region is to send them out on 14 every inspection, so we want to use them where they can be 15 of the most benefit to the overall program. That's 16 something we're just in the relatively early stages of 17 putting together now.
18 They had, I think, very valuable training 19 experience and have a lot of ideas on how they might best be 20 used.
21 COMMISSIONER ROGERS: If I could ask, you're 22 linking them into the plant issues matrix? It seems to me 23 that's where they are needed?
24 MR. BORCHARDT: Absolutely, I think one area 25 where they had agreement last week was that at least one of ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
, 87 1 them in each region should attend each and every PPR session 2 which is where the plant issue matrix is most formally i
3 discussed.
i -
4 COMMISSIONER DIAZ: I have a series of questions
. 5 but not to be a grinch, I'll put them in writing and send j 6 them over.
{ 7 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Commissioner McGaffigan?
i 9 8 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN: No.
9 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: I'd like to thank the staff for 10 a very informative briefing. You've presented a great deal i 11 of information to us on the NRC's Assessment Program and the 12 SALP process. What you've presented will serve as a I
j 13 foundation for our future efforts in the area, a number of 14 which you've described.
j 15 As I alluded to in my opening comments, I believe 16 that improvements to these processes are critical to our 17 future success in regulating the nuclear power industry. In i 18 this regard, based on our discussion today, I would like to 19 ask the staff as you're considering potential assessments to 20 our own assessment program, specifically the SALP, that 21 perhaps at a follow-on briefing at a date to be determined, 22 you could present us with what you're doing, your 23 recommendations for first, improving the timeliness and 24 sensitivity of our assessment capabilities, enhancing our 25 ability to identify declining performance earlier. You know ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
88 1 that's always the focus.
2 Secondly, increasing the objectivity of our 3 assessments by sharpening perhaps more the distinction 4 between the various SALP categories and defining when a 5 clear transition is made between them. -
6 Third, more clearly distinguishing between 7 acceptable and unacceptable performance.
8 Fourth, a better integration of available data; 9 that if one, for the moment, accepts the pyramid -- and I 10 agree with Commissioner Diaz's comments -- that if we can 11 get some better insight into how information at one level of i
12 the pyramid currently feeds into another, or put another 13 way, how the use of the criteria in one area or one level is 1
14 fed by information from the previous levels or assessments
{
l 15 at the earlier levels. !
i 16 Fifth, how the design basis focus will be better )
l 17 incorporated into the SALP and other assessment processes.
18 Sixth, based on the discussion we just had, how to i 19 better increacc the use of risk incights in assessments.
1 20 For example, we talked about the plant issues matrix, but l
21 also how it tracks into enforcement space. l 22 If my fellow Commissioners have no further 23 comments, we're adjourned.
24 [Whereupon, at 4:03 p.m., the briefing was 25 adjourned.]
ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
l l.
l CERTIFICATE l
l .
This is to certify that the attached description of a meeting )
, of the U.S. Nuclear ReJulatory Commission entitled:
TITLE OF MEETING: BRIEFING ON INSPECTION CRITERIA, EVOLUTION OF ASSESSMENT, AND SALP SYSTEM - PUBLIC MEETING PLACE OF MEETING: Rockville, Maryland DATE OF MEETING: Monday, December 16, 1996 l
was held as herein appears, is a true and accurate record of the meeting, and that this is the original transcript thereof taken stenographically by me, thereafter reduced to typewriting by me or under the direction of the court reporting company Transcriber:[Ydet.( t_ tM tiolten Reporter: Jon Hundley f
l l
l
FR rec S' >
p s
$ b r, g 3 . a
% gwf
+++++
NRC ASSESSMENT PROCESSES AND THE SYSTEMATIC ASSESSMENT OF LICENSEE PERFORMANCE (SALP) SYSTEM Bill Borchardt ;
Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation Division of Inspection and Support Programs December 16,1996 i
f i
L i
- PRESENTATION OBJECTIVES
- Describe the SALP program I
Background and evolution t Current process (rating definitions and functional areas)
- Describe the NRC inspection program and processes used to assess licensee performance t
2 t
HISTORY OF THE INSPECTION PROGRAM
- Major milestones
- AEC Compliance Division - 1959
- NRC Office of Inspection and Enforcement (l&E),
regions - 1974
- Start of resident program / expedited placement of residents - 1977/1979
- Reorganization (l&E and NRR merged)- 1987
- (N+1) resident policy - 1988
- Major NRC Inspection Manual Chapter (IMC) 2515 restructure (current program) - 1988
- NRR initiates IP improvements - 1993-1996
f CURRENT INSPECTION PROGRAM e Objectives l Ensure that licensees operate safely Identify safety concerns Identify significant declining trends in performance
- Approach Selective examination (sampling), resources allocated as function of performance Performance-based (review results)
Risk informed Importance of licensee self-assessment Regions have primary responsibility for inspection implementation Continuous onsite inspection presence Support from headquarters 4
CURRENT INSPECTION PROGRAM i
e Definitions
- Core - minimum examination of licensees to confirm performance and identify early potential problems t
- Plant Specific Regional Initiative - inspection effort beyond core based on results of other inspections, licensee performance in various functional areas, and interactions with the hcensees
- Generic Safety issue - periodic, temporary inspections based on identification of emerging safety concerns, or areas requiring increased emphasis because of recurring problems 5
~
SPECIAL EVALUATIONS e Diagnostic Evaluation Teams (DET) e Augmented Inspection Teams (AIT) t e incident Investigation Teams (llT) e Other diagnostic type team inspections
- Special Evaluation Team (SET)
- Independent Safety Assessment (ISA)
- Independent Safety inspection (ISI)
- Design inspections (architect engineer) 6
NRC ACTIONS IN RESPONSE TO UNACCEPTABLE PERFORMANCE :
- Notices of violation, civil penalties
- Inoperable safety equipment t Unsafe operation ;
- Compliance e Confirmatory action letters e 10 CFR 50.54(f) letters
- Modify, suspend, or revoke license :
i
i PERIODIC ASSESSMENT PROCESSES
- Evaluative processes (NRC Management Directive 8.13)
Plant Performance Review (PPR), (NRC Inspection Manual Chapter 0304)
Senior Management Meeting (SMM), (NRC Management Directive 8.14)
Systematic Assessment of Licensee Performance (SALP), (NRC Management Directive 8.6)
- Objective performance information Inspection reports and enforcement Event assessment and risk insights Performance indicators l
Management meetings and direct site observation l
g
(
1 PLANT PERFORMANCE REVIEWS (IMC 0304) e Objectives Perform short-term integrated assessment of licensee safety performance Review and change inspection plan t
- Started 1988, major improvements 1995-96 e Process '
Semiannual performance review led by regions Assess performance in SALP functional areas Compare inspection plan with performance e Outputs Inspection plan (sent to licensee)
PPR report, used as an SMM input 8
t t
r
SENIOR MANAGEMENT MEETING (MD 8.14)
- Objectives Perform senior-level review of licensee safety performance Communicate concerns to licensees with poor performance l
Ensure that coordinated courses of action are developed and l
implemented to improve performance
- First meeting April 1986 l
- Process l
Semiannual agency performance review l
Screening meetings .
SMM decisions / regulatory safety approaches i
- Outputs l -
Superior performer recognition Problem plant list / trending letters Special meetings (board of directors) or special assessments 10 t
{
l l
l
- Objectives '
Perform long-term integrated assessment of licensee safety performance Allocate NRC resources Communicate with licensee and public
- Implemented in 1980 following the Three Mile Island accident
- Process Periodic performance review by SALP board, approved by regional administrator Integrate assessments over 12 to 24 months Identify overall changes in performance
- Outputs SALP report and ratings 11
t 1
I i
ORGANIZATIONAL HIERARCHY OF THE !
EVALUATIVE PROCESSES i
s SMM + w. ten tisi EDO [] Output
- Superior Performers ;
- Trending Letters j Management sen st.W
"***'"8* N ,, SALP
- SALP Repost l' OOutput
- IPAP Report Regional DDs gnd V
- Resource Plan i
- L Pm/ects PDs IPAP RegionalDDs
- Inspection Plan Regional 8Cs ppg [l Output
- Schedule ;
RegionalstaW input to SMM {
Region.,8c, inspection and " "*",
I',7L Analysis (PI, ASP) , , , , ,,,,, ,,,,,,
- Enforcement Actions !
S Events, Licensee Activities, l $II's^iJs*
Operational insights, Emerging issues .
I 12 i i
5 e &
l SALP PROGRAM HISTORY AND EVOLUTION e Program implemented in 1980
- Changes that occurred since implementation Pnmary implementation responsibility shifted from headquarters to the regional offices (1982)
! - Numerical rating categories were evaluated by the Commission and retained (1990,1993)
- The Commission voted against including an
- unacceptable category (1990)
- Functional areas were evaluated and modified to improve communication with licensees (1982, 1984,1985,1988,1993) 13
1 1
SALP PROGRAM HISTORY AND EVOLUTION (Continued) t l - The Commission disapproved of the concept of rising performance standards (1990)
- The Commission disapproved of using responsiveness to NRC initiatives as an evaluation criteria (1990)
- The Commission requested mandatory public meetings following all SALP evaluations (1993) 14
SALP PROCESS
- Preparation Inspection record and operating performance reviewed Functional area summaries prepared SALP board member site familiarization
- Board meeting 3 members (2 regional SES managers, NRR SES manager)
Other participants (resident inspectors, regional inspectors, regional managers, NRR project manager)
Evaluate performance Discuss inspection recommendations Vote on ratings Prepare report / cover letter
- Report Approved by regional administrator Public meeting near site 15 4
I i CURRENT SALP PERFORMANCE RATING ,
CATEGORY DEFINITIONS 1
Category 1 - Licensee attention and involvement have been properly focused on safety and resulted in a !
superior level of safety performance. Licensee i programs and procedures have provided effective i controls. The licensee's self-assessment efforts have been effective in the identification of emergent issues.
Corrective actions are technically sound, l' comprehensive, and thorough. Recurring problems are eliminated and resolution of issues is timely. Root cause ;
- analyses are thorough.
i 16
i CURRENT SALP PERFORMANCE RATING i CATEGORY DEFINITIONS (Continued)
Cateaory 2 - Licensee attention and involvement are normally well focused and resulted in a good level of safety performance. Licensee programs and procedures normally provide the necessary control of activities, but deficiencies may exist. The licensee's self-assessments are normally good, although issues may escape identification. Corrective actions are usually effective, although some may not be complete. Root cause analyses are normally thorough.
17
4 CURRENT SALP PERFORMANCE RATING
- CATEGORY DEFINITIONS (Continued)
Category 3 - Licensee attention and involvement have resulted in an acceptable level of safety performance.
l However, licensee performance may exhibit one or more l of the following characteristics. Licensee programs and l
procedures have not provided sufficient control of activities in important areas. The licensee's self-l assessment efforts may not occur until after a potential l problem becomes apparent. A clear understanding of l
the safety implications of significant issues may not have been demonstrated. Numerous minor issues combine to indicate that the licensee's 18
I' i
CURRENT SALP PERFORMANCE RATING CATEGORY DEFINITIONS (Continued) b Category 3 (Continued) corrective action is not thorough.
Root cause analyses do not probe deep enough, resulting in the incomplete resolution of issues.
Because the margin to unacceptable performance in important aspects is small, increased NRC and licensee j attention is required.
l i
l 19 :
CURRENT SALP FUNCTIONAL AREAS 1 operations i
2 Maintenance (includes surveillance) 3 Engineenng 4 Plant Support (radiological controls, emergency preparedness, security, fire protection, housekeeping)
- Safety Assessment / Quality Verification is discussed in the SALP report cover letter and as an integral part of each functional area 20
' ~ ,
P OVERALL CONCLUSIONS e Licensee performance is dealt with primarily by the inspection, enforcement, and licensing programs.
if unacceptable licensee performance is identified, it is addressed through those programs.
e The SALP program provides for periodic assessment of licensee safety performance and allocation of resources.
i e Evaluation and further improvements to the SALP program will continue.
21
_- --__-___-__ _ _ _ -- _ -_ _ _ _ _ _. _______.____a
SALP PROGRAM HISTORY e 1980, SECY-80-83, " Systematic Assessment of l Licensee Performance"
- Item 1.B.2 of the TMI-2 action plan (NUREG-0660)
- Integrated approach
- Headquarters had primary responsibility for reviewing evaluation results and plans for upgrading licensee performance e 1981, First " National SALP Report" issued e 1982, Primary responsibility for performing the SALP assessments was shifted to the regional offices BACKUP 1
l SALP PROGRAM HISTORY (Continued) e 1984-1985, SALP Review Group (discussed in SECY-86-37) t
- 1990, Reevaluation of the SALP program (SECY-90-189)
Numerical scores were evaluated and retained i
Performance category definitions were revised to !'
emphasize licensee performance results versus programs
- The Commission disapproved the concept of rising standards Responsiveness to NRC initiatives was deleted as .
an evaluation criteria BACKUP 2 i
! SALP PROGRAM HISTORY (Continued)
'
- 1992-1993, Comprehensive reevaluation of the SALP program (SECY 92-290, SECY-93-090)
Increased management involvement (SES SALP board members, regional administrator (RA) l involvement)
SALP board member site visits l
ras approve all SALP reports and conduct the SALP public meetmgs Improved timeliness and focus of reports (emphasizing recent performance and highlighting significant issues, eliminating initial report, and reducing the length of the report) i BACKUP 3 t
l i
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ . _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ . _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ____________I
SALP PROGRAM HISTORY (Continued) e 1994, SALP program feedback (SECY-94-293)
- Staff and licensee's noted significant ;
improvements (SALP reports focus on significant issues, are clear and concise, and discussions between NRC and licensee managers at the public meeting are somewhat improved) i BACKUP 4 j
" +
~
SALP PROGRAM HISTORY (Continued)
- 1995, SALP program feedback (SECY-96-005) i
- Summarized public comments (two-thirds positive, one-third neutral)
- Improvements noted in 1994 continued (changes to the SALP program have resulted in an improved program that results in focused assessments that most licensees clearly understand)
- 20 to 25 percent savings in resources expended on SALP activities (as compared to the pre-1993 version of the program) i BACKUP 5 I
SYSTEMATIC ASSESSMENT OF LICENSEE PERFORMANCE i (SALP) PROGRAM EVOLUTION YEAR RATING FUNCTIONAL CYCLE BOARD CATEGORIES AREAS LENGTH COMPOSITION 1981' - ABOVE AVERAGE 182 UP TO 2 YEARS VARIED, HEADQUARTERS
. AVERAGE LED INITIAL ROUND ONLY
. BELOW AVERAGE 1982 1 - HIGH 9 12 MONTHS VARIED, REGION LED 2 - SATISFACTORY FROM THIS REVISION 3 - MINIMALLY ONWARD AND SATISFACTORY HEADOUARTERS PARTICIPATED
! 1984 1 - HIGH 10 18 MONTHS - NOMINAL VARIED, BOTH REGIONAL 2 - SATISFACTORY AND HEADOUARTERS 3 - MINIMALLY 12 MONTHS - BASED ON BOARD MEMBERS SATISFACTORY LICENSEE PERFORMANCE PARTICIPATED PROBLEMS
- PERFORMANCE TRENDS $
' Commission comments made in September 1981 following the first round of SALP evaluations,"The adverse l' implications of ranking utilities can be avoided by adopting three categories for the assessment. The first category should identify those facilities for which more licensee and hence more NRC attention is needed. The second category should identify those facilities for which proper balance of licensee and NRC attention has been achieved.
The last category should identify those facilities for which more than adequate attention by the licensee is apparent and hence a reduction in NRC resources for those facilities can be realized."
l 2 The original 18 SALP functional areas included both functional areas and attributes.
l 3
The SALP program was changed to provide a method to document a licensee's performance trend in each functional area, even if the licensee received the same rating as the previous evaluation period. The trends were identified as either, " improving," or " declining."
BACKUP 6 i 1
1
YEAR RATING FUNCTIONAL CYCLE BOARD CATEGORIES AREAS LENGTH COMPOSITION 1985 1 - HIGH 11 18 MONTHS - NOMINAL VARIED, BOTH REGIONAL 2 - SATISFACTORY AND HEADQUARTERS 3 - MINIMALLY 12 MONTHS - BASED ON BOARD MEMBERS SATISFACTORY LICENSEE PERFORMANCE PARTICIPATED i PROBLEMS
. PERFORMANCE TRENDS 1988 1 - SUBSTANTIALLY 7 15 MONTHS - NOMIN AL 2 SES i EXCEEDS REGULATORY 12-18 MONTHS - B ASED ON 4-7 OTHERS REQUIREMENTS LICENSEE PERFORMANCE (7 NOMINAL TOTAL) 2- ABOVE REGULATORY REQUIREMENTS 3 - MEETS MINIMAL - BOTH REGIONAL AND REGULATORY HEADQUARTERS ,
REQUIREMENTS
- PERFORMANCE TRENDS 1990*3 1 - SUPERIOR 7 15 MONTHS - NOMINAL 2 SES 2-GOOD 12-18 MONTHS - BASED ON 4-7 OTHERS 3- ACCEPTABLE LICENSEE PERFORMANCE (7 NOMINAL TOTAL)
- PERFORMANCE TRENDS . BOTH REGIONAL AND "
HEADOUARTERS 8 The Commission considered including an unacceptable category, but voted against it because of the historic nature i of the rating. The SALP program does not have an objective to determine unacceptable licensee performance; other NRC programs are designed to identify it.
5 The SALP program was changed to suspend SALP evaluations for plants assigned category 3 in the Senior Management Meeting (plant shut down and requires authorization by the Commission to restart).
BACKUP 7 i
i
i L
YEAR RATING FL MTIONAL CYCLE BOARD CATEGORIES AREAS LENGTH COMPOSITION 1993* 1 - SUPERIOR 4 18 MONTHS - NOMINAL 4 SES 2-GOOD 3-ACCEPTABLE 24 MONTHS - SUPERIOR - 3 REGIONAL ,
PERFORMANCE (OPTIONAL) 1 HEADQUARTERS 1995 1 - SUPERIOR 4 18 MONTHS - NOMINAL 4 SES :
2-GOOD 3-ACCEPTABLE 24 MONTHS - SUPERIOR - 3 REGIONAL PERFORMANCE (REQUIRED) - 1 HEADQUARTERS 1996 1 - SUPERIOR 4 12-24 MONTHS 3 SES 2-GOOD 3-ACCEPTABLE 24 MONTHS - SUPERIOR - 2 REGIONAL PERFORMANCE (REQUIRED) - 1 HEADQUARTERS l
8 The SALP program was changed to eliminate evaluation criteria, attributes, and trends. The key attributes were moved to the definitions of the rating categories.
s BACKUP 8
- m