ML20133G241
| ML20133G241 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 10/01/1985 |
| From: | NRC COMMISSION (OCM) |
| To: | |
| References | |
| REF-10CFR9.7 NUDOCS 8510150278 | |
| Download: ML20133G241 (85) | |
Text
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-..q ORIGINAL 4
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
/
NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
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In the r.latter of:
'A COMMISSION MEETING
..i
.~4 Discussion of Plant
'I" Issues with Regional Administrators b
(Public Meeting)
~ ' '
Docket No.
f(
Location: Washington, D. C.
Date: Tuesday, October 1, 1985 Pages:
1 - 81 8510150278 851001 PDR 10CFR PDR PT9.7 ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES
/
Court Reporters j
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1625 I St., N.W.
Suite 921 Washington, D.C.
20006 (202) 293-3950 1
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1 D i SCL A I M ER I
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4 5
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6 This is an unofficial transcript of a meeting of the 7
United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission held on
- Tuesday, f
3 October 1, 1985 6.n the Commission's office at 1717 H Street.
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9 N. tJ., tJa sh i n g t on,
D.C.
The meeting was open to 'public I
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i i
10 attendance and observation.
This transcript has not been i
i j
11 reviewed, corrected, or edited, and it may contain 4
12
- naccuracies.
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13 The transcript is intended solely for general l
1 14 informational purposes.
As provided by 10 CFR 9.103, it is 6
j 15 not part of the formal or informal record of decision of the i
l 16 matters discussed.
Expressions of cpinion in this transcript i
17 do not necessarily reflect final determination or beliefs.
No l
l 18 pleading or other paper may be filed with the Commission in l
19 any proceeding as the result of or addressed to any statement f.
l 20 or argument contained herein, except as the Commission may 1
21 authorire.
4 22 t
i 23 4
I-
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24 25
1 1
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 2
NUCLEAR REGULATORY CCMMISSION P
3 4
DISCUSSICN OF PLANT IS3UES WITH REGIONAL ADMINISTRATORS 5
5 PUELIC MEETING 7
Room 1130 8
1717 H Street, N.W.
9 Washington, D.C.
10 Tuesday, October 1,
1985 11 The Commission met, pursuant to notice, at 2:05 p.m.
12 COMMISSIONERS PRESENT-13 NUNZIO J.
PALLADINO, Chairman of the Conrai s s i on i
\\
14 JAMES K.
ASSELSTINE, Member 15 THOMAS M.
ROBERTS, Member 16 LANDO W.
- ZECH, JR.,
Member 17 STAFF AND PRESENTERS SEATED AT CCMMISSION TABLE:
18 M.
Malsch H.
Denton 19 W.
Dircks R.
Martin 20 J.
Martin J.
Taylor 21 J.
DeYoung 22 AUDIENCE SPEAKERS:
23 H.
Thompson E.
McKenna 24 25
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1 P ROCE ED I NG S
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2 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO; Good afternoon, ladies and l
3 gentlemen.
This afternoon the Commission meets with the i
1 f
4 Agency's Regional Administrators from Regions IV and V; a i
i 5
meeting with Administrators of Regions I,
II and III was held j
i j
l 6
on September 10, 1985.
The Commission intends to hold such 1
7 meetings on a periodic basis to discuss topics of mutual i
8 interest.
l t
9 We have at the table today with us the EDO and j
10 Regional Administrators, Martin and Martin, from Regions IV
(
11 and V.
The plan for today's meeting is to have each regicnal i
12 administrators conduct a 30-minute discussion about the major f
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j 13 accomplishments, problems and methods of achieving consistency 1
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14 in the region's activities, as well as matters of interest on 15 specific plants in the region.
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16 During each of the administrators' presentations l
17 today, I would appreciate any thoughts about trend of plant l
18 safety in their region during 1985.
I would also appreciate 19 their comments about any problem plants and whether such 20 plants are isolated examples or indicate a trend.
I f
j 21 To each of you I say since you are intimately 1
i 22 involved in the daily operations of the plants, your thoughts l
1 23 will be valuable input which will provide a basis for-24 Commission perspective.
I have asked the EDO to make any 1
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25 preliminary remarks that he may have and then have him call on I
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each of the regional administrators.
Also, if you have any 4
2 comments, E111, on general safety trends we would be prepared 3
to hear them.
4 Let me ask first whether other Commissioners have 5
any opening remarks.
1 i
i i
6
[No response.]
l 7
CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
All right, then let me turn the i
8 meeting over to Mr. Dircks.
9 MR. DIRCKS:
Well, this is essentially a i
10 continuation of the meeting we had some weeks ago with the 1
11
-regional administrators from I,
II and III We want to make 12 sure the Commission is aware of the views of the regional 13 administrators and the office directors, Harold Denton and 14 Jim Taylor, on the facilities in the various regions.
5 15 There are facilities that we pay particular i
i 16 attention to in view of their operating records, and I think 17 those are the facilities that we'll be concentrating on, t
i 18 At the same time, I think we want to recognize that i
19 the facilities that we don't mention are probably those 20 facilities that are operating in an above normal manner in 21 terms of operation and safety.
There will alway be some that f
I 22 we want to pay more attention to and I think that's the 23 essence of being a regulator.
We don't necessarily praise the 24 good; we always look for those trouble spots.
So I think in 25 these meetings we have to keep that in b a l a n'c e.
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Jack will cover two of the plants I believe that we i
2 mentioned in our grouping of five or six plants that we 3
notified the Commission about sometime ago, and Bob, you will 4
cover the one plant in your region.
5 I don't have any other comments to make, but I think 6
what we've tried to do is to present you just the outstanding 7
items so that you're aware and can share in some of the 8
problems that the regional administrators and the office i
9 directors have.
10 I think we should have Region IV first and then go i
i 11 on to Region V.
12 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
Okay.
13 MR.
R.
MARTIN:
In preparing my comments for this i
14 meeting, I recognized that I am approaching my first year's 15 anniversary at Region IV in a couple of weeks, so I Icoked 16 back over the last year and looking forward i n the year to 17 come I note that there has been a very dramatic change in the i
18 character of the workload in Region IV.
l 19 During the last year, three NTOL's were licensed, 20 and any NTOL represents a significant workload on the region.
21 Three of them simultaneously represented a very drastic
' 22 workload.
In that regard, I believe that the year coming up, 23 in terms of the general status, the staff will be able to 24 focus its attention a lot more towards the routine operation i
25 of the region and somewhat away from the reactive demands that I
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1 usually occur in the NTOL plants.
2 As a point of reminder, the area that the three 3
plants that were involved were Waterford 3 and Wolf Creek, and 4
both of these units have hit 100 percent power and are, in 5
essence, in routine operation and running well.
Without going 6
through a long discussion of the details, both plants are 7
basically running well from our perspective.
Waterford did 8
have an extended outage because of some turbine-related 9
problems and the like, but from safety-related system 10 problems, they're running well 11 River Bend is currently in the last phases of its 12 testing prior to going critical, but in any event, there is, 13 if you will, a predictability and more of a stability in terms 14 of the workload appearing in the Region IV area for the 15 upcoming year.
16 Over the last year, Region IV also had, again 17 because we had a large number of NTOL's, a fair amount of 18 experience with the non-programmatic type of inspections where 19 we did follow-up to licensee responses to allegations of such 20 things as drug use or other improper behavior, so we gained 21 quite a bit of experience in terms of commitment of resources 22 to those kinds of things.
23 And in Region IV we also had the opportunity and saw 24 fit to conduct a number of, again, non-programmatic 25 inspections in looking into the functioning of employee l
s 6
1
~ concern programs at plants in Region IV.
This still remains a 2
difficult area.
We are aware of the fact, and support, the 3
efforts by the program offices to bring those policy matters r
4 before you.
And we do understand that those are working.
I 5
would just point out that we did have a fair amount of i
j 6
experience with that kind of workload you regularly 7
In terms of a plant which you have i
8 receive -- briefings on, and that is Comanche Peak, by Vince 9
Noonan, the Comanche Peak project director, I thought I would 10 point out that relative. to Comanche Peak, the relation _of 4-11 Region IV to the program office and to the Comanche Peak i
12 Project has re-established almost entirely the normalcy of i
13 relations between the regional office and the program office 1
14 relative to Comanche Peak.
We have resumed responsibility for i
15 inspection at that facility.
l 16
-Right now, the staff I have assigned to Comanche 17 Peak onsite is one supervisor and nine full-time permanent j
i l
18 inspectors.
I'm supplementing that with nine full-time 19-consultants and two part-time consultants.
Now that workload j
20 and that staff size is predicated on the rate at which the I.
21 Texas Utilities was planning on implementing their various 22 inspections and recovery actions relative to Comanche.
Their l
f 23 program plan.
24 We expect to revisit and reassess on an almost 25 monthly basis, if not an almost continual basis, whether or
l l
i '
7 l
l 3 -
1 not we need those resources there all the time.
But right 2
now, that's the si:e of the commitment we've made.
3 We have also resumed responsibility for the -- not-4 necessarily the technical handling, but the managerial 5
oversight and handling of the allegations, all additional i
l 6
allegations that now come in against Comanche Peak.
The 7
technical people who resolve it would depend on the nature of l
l 8
the allegation and who was the right one to do it.
But that 9
is, in the main, normally a regional responsibility for
}
10 allegations that are generated in the field.
So the normalcy l
11 of operation in that regard is pretty much resumed.
I 12 The other point that I thought I would mention to I
13 you.is the Uranium Recovery Field Office.
I do have that i
14 responsibility under my wing.
It's located in Denver.
And I j
15 thought I would point out that in the last year we have i
16 increased the amount of blending of the licensing technical 1
17 talent with the inspection technical talent in looking at 18 uranium recovery operations.
And I would say that the doing i
I 19 of that in the inspection-related responsibilities has 20 improved the quality of inspection very substantially at 21 uranium recovery facilities.
22 We've been able to identify substantive technical 23 problems in the implementation of.the rules and regulations 24 that we would not have'found. I believe, as efficiently or as 25 effectively if we had not blended together both the inspection l
. ~..
8' 1
and licensing functions together.
So that aspect is working 2
well 3
COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE.
Bob, could you expand a 4
little bit on what you mean by the blending?
I take it both 1
5 the licensing and the inspection people were in the Denver 6
office.
l 7
MR.
R.
MARTIN:
Yes.
There was a staff developed I l
8 believe probably approaching two years ago; the staff that was 1
9 originally developed.
The expertise was hired, and basically 10 the skills were developed to serve in the licensing arena.
11 I&E has always had an inspection responsibility in the fuel 12 facilities area.
We actually took one inspector, about a year 13 and a half ago, and transferred him to Denver to think of 14 managing the inspection function out of that area.
15 But it turned out that as the expertise developed in 4
16 the uranium recovery skills amongst the staff, we would send 17 the licensing people out along with the inspection people 18 after we had trained them in the fundamentals of inspection j
i 19 and the inspection program as such, and so the people who had 20 been involved in making certain key licensing decisions 21 actively participated in the inspection of those facilities.
22 So there was'a much better appreciation of what the thinking, 23 planning and evaluation was that went into setting the various 24 requirements for the mills and processing operations than l
25 necessarily would have been retained by an inspector who just l
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l 9
1 reviewed the record.
2 So if you will, putting them to double duty in that i
3 respect allowed us to improve substantially the quality of the I
i 4
inspections that we've performed, 5
I think you also recently got briefed by the i
6 American Minin'g Conference on, amongst a number of other j
7 things, the fact that there has been a general downturn in the 8
uranium industry.
9 We have just completed, Region IV and the staff at 10 URFO, have just completed a very successful series of meetings 11 with NMSS in re-defining the workload for UEFO, and we will'be 1
12 picking up an expanded responsibility in the implementation 13 parts of the Title I and Title II work under UMTRA.
- Again, 14 the field people would be looking at implementation aspects 15 while, of course, the policy aspects would be retained by the l
16 program office, as we do in other types of inspection 17 responsibilities.
So we've had a re-definition of that I
18 workload and that's been useful 19 CCMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
How many active operating 20 mills do we have as our licensees?
It can't be more than just 21 a very few, is it?
22 MR.
R.
MARTIN:
I think I would be surprised if it's 4
23 a half a dozen.
I think it is probably less than.
It's on 24 that order of magnitude; it's not a large number.
1 2S COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
So most of our work really l
i
10 t
i 1
is shifting over now to getting towards the stabilization of 2
the piles, whether they're at operating malls or ones that are I
3 now inactive.
4 MR.
R.
MARTIN:
From my perspective.
In the field
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5 perspective I see the major part of the uranium recovery, l
6 related work is really site restoration.
You are correct, i
?
CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
Could you get us the data on i,
8 the number of active licenses that exist, and any oversight 9
that you have responsibility far on the inactive ones?
Not at 10 the moment, but maybe sometime later.
11 MR.
R.
MARTIN:
- Yes, I'd be glad to get it for you.
12 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Inactive ones being ones 13 that currently hold a license but they're just not doing any i
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14 work.
I think you're right, though, I think it may be 15 substantially less than six.
I 16 MR.
R.
MARTIN:
I will do that.
4 17 In terms of obviously, I've broadened the charter 18 somewhat from the request that was made with regard to plant 1
1 19 status activities because Region IV at least has some unique 20 responsibilities, so I thought I would touch base on that
_21 status point.
i 22 In terms of certain plant issues that I felt would 23 be of interest to you, again, the first I was going to touch 4
24 base on is Fort St. Vrain.
In terms of the technical issues 25 and the operational performance of that plant, I believe you 1
11 1
have just recently received information from the program 2
office which coordinated comments from both the field and 3
program headquarters personnel on St Vrain, and I wasn't 4
thinking of revisiting those subjects.
5 But I did want to point out to you that the project 6
manager responsibility for Fort St. Vrain is transferring back 7
to NRR.
It is effective Friday of this week, October 4th I 8
believe is the effective date.
And I wanted to identify to you that we felt that, in discussions with Harc1d and other a
10 key members of his staff, that looking at the pilot program 11 aspect of running the St Vrain project management function at 12 Region IV we believe was successful We demonstrated that it 13 could be done.
We also learned those things that would need 14 to be done should the Commission decision to decentralize the 15 project management function be revisited at a later date.
But 16 since the decision was made not to further decentralize, we 17 thought it made more sense to return it back to NRR, once we 18 we sure that the pilot program -- we had learned everything we 19 needed to.
So that's being done now.
20 We are now planning in the near future to have a 21 senior manager level meeting between Region IV personnel, NRR 22 personnel and the licensee to make sure that no major or minor that we review all of them with the licensee to 23 issues 24 assure that everything has been transferred and that nothing 25 drops in a crack er is lost during the transition.
But we've
= -_
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1 been working closely towards that purpose for about the last l
2 six months, t
3 In terms of River Bend --
4 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO.
Before you leave Fort 5
St, Vrain, could you refresh my memory on where we stand on 6
the equipment qualification?
1 7
MR.
R.
MARTIN:
The equipment qualification-related i
i 8
aspects has primarily been handled by NRR.
I believe the i
I 9
issue has progressed far enough that we have-permitted j
10 think it was just late yesterday -- resumption of operation of 11 St. Vrain limited at 8 percent power.
I don't know whether 12 they have gone critical yet.or not.
r 13 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
That's the drying out 14 phase?
15 MR. DENTON:
Let me ask Hugh Thompson to respond to 16 both of those questions, 17 MR. THOMPSON:
Hugh Thompson, NRR Staff.
We have j
18 received a request for an exemption or extension cf the entire 19 EQ issue with Fort St. Vrain.
They are addressing the 20 environment that they need to operate in, in a fairly 21 significant way.
Probably more significant than any other EO 22 extension that we have to date.
23 So we received it late last week and we currently 24 are reviewing that. and will be submitting that down to the i
1 25 Commission.
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In the meantime, we have evaluated their request to 2
go to 8 percent power for drying out and evaluated the 3
equipment necessary for that and we found that to be j
i 4
satisfactory.
i 5
CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
Are they just getting around to 6
looking at the environment question?
}
7 MR. THOMPSON:
I can't say just getting around to 8
it.
I think we're looking at it in considerably more detail 9
now than we did previously.
It had been an area that we had 10 looked at for -- I guess several years ago.
They looked at i
j 11 it; there was some question about the environment that it 1
j 12 would need to be operating -- operator action time.
We made i
a j
13 some decisions that they relied on, I believe, about a i
14 10-minute operator action and we're revisiting -- a 15 four-minute operator action as opposed to 10 minutes, and we 16 are re-evaluating the basis for that decision at this time.
17 MR. DENTON:
The plant has a lot of unique l
18 characteristics, but this is an attempt to treat it equitably 19 in comparison to light water plants.
l 20 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
Treat it what?
21 MR. DENTON:
Treat it equitably, in a manner that 22 reflects the different characteristics.
But they do have, in 23 some areas, quite unique EO problems because they are a higher 24 temperature plant 1
25 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
Well, we'll probably be getting 1
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1 more detail on this when you come with your recommendation.
2 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE.
I take it we'll see this 3
one j ust as we'll see all of the extension requests in the 4
4 normal course of the next few weeks.
i I
5 MR. THOMPSON:
If, in fact, it turns out to be an 6
extension request you'll -- you will see it one way or the i
7 other.
It may, in fact, be an exemption because they are 8
fairly unique, and although we are trying to treat it like a j
9 PWR they may want to be treated somewhat differently because i
10 of the unique environment that they operate in.
I i
11 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO; Okay, thank you.
12 MR.
R.
MARTIN:
The next point I thought I would 13 mention is that during the granting of the low-power license 14 authorization for River Bend and some of the discussions, some 15 interest was evidenced by the Staff and by the Commission with j
i 16 regard to the interface problems that might evolve at River 17 Bend, because a fair amount of construction work in certain 18 areas would be continuing while the plant was entering into 19 operation.
20 We specifically had been monitoring instances of i
I 21 those kinds of problems, and there's been an amazing. absence a
22 of them at River Bend.
There have been a few, but they have i
23 been relatively minor.
At least from my perspective, there 24 was nothing untque about those compared to the kinds of things 25 that might occur with maintenance workerews in the plant while 1
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the plant is undergoing testing or other activity.
2 So we found nothing unique at all to report at this 3
point as to there being a particular problem that they're 4
dealing with.
1 5
I will say that in anticipation of it, the River 6
Bend organization put in what they call a Work Control Group, 7
which is primarily to control those activities.
I am told by I
8 my staff that the company is so pleased with the effectiveness i
9 of that Work Control Group, they may maintain that methodology 10 into outages, to control work during outages, because they i
11 feel it's so successful here.
12 From our perspective, there's been a minimum number 13 of problems from construction going on at the same time.
4 14 MR. DIRCKS:
Could I just go back to Fort 15 St. Vrain?
There might have been some confusion whether that 4
16 is an exemption or an exception or extension.
We will get it 17 down to the Commission.
16 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
We'll see it either way.
4 19 MR. DIRCKS:
You will see it either way, right.
l 20 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
Could you give us a better clue 21 on this work control?
Is that work control on the 22 construction side?
23 MR.
R.
MARTIN:
Yes.
It is a control group of 24 knowledgeable operations, maintenance, construction, 25 engineering talent, which is brought to focus on a particular i
i
16 A
1 work control activity that is going to go on.
Then they 2
establish a set of controls and make sure that they are 3
comfortable that they have the necessary scope of controls 4
that the work can take place without impacting the plant.
5 So rather than turning the issue over, if you will, 6
to the Shift Supervisor, where he has to almost do that 4
7 analysis by himself in the extreme case, they have essentially 8
done it beforehand, so that he knows the boundaries, he knows 9
what systems, if any, will be ' impacted or what work activities 10 will be going on.
11 It's just a~ management scheme that they have i
12 instituted for analyzing the potential impact on operation 13 before the work starts, a function in a smaller sense which is 4
4 s
l l
14 often left to the Shift Supervisor in a normal maintenance i
15 activity.
They have just expanded the scope of coverage that i
16 they provide to those activities.
17 COMMISSIONER ZECH:
That might be something to look 4
l 18 into for an expanded use.
A lot of our problems are caused by 19 surveillances and testing and maintenance during plant i.
20 operations.
We do, indeed, lay a lot on the Supervisor in the 4
21 control room, a lot of decision-making.
I have seen that l
22 throughout the country in various plants.
So I think that's 23 an innovation that might merit your review and maybe an 24 evaluation to the EDO and perhaps to the Commission, to see if
[
]
25 it might have wider application.
i 1
17 1
CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
Does this team report to or 2
give their information to the Supervisor?
3 MR.
R MARTIN:
The exact mechantes of how the work 4
is controlled and.information flow is handled. I really can't 5
speak to.
6 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
I'm just getting to the point well, I shouldn't comment 7
that you don't want to set up 8
that way.
I 9
I want to make sure that the person who is 10 responsible, that has the role in what's being done, so that 11 things aren't going on around him.
12 MR. R.- MARTIN:
No.
There is no question at all i
j 13 that the Shift Supervisor, the responsible manager for that J
r 14 plant operation, is aware of the work activity that's going i
15 on.
He is supported in the decisions as to whether or not to i
l 16 permit that work activity by a very substantial group.
But he 17 is aware of it.
It has not taken that authority or awareness I
18 away from the-responsible operational manager.
19 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Bob, when I was at the l
20 site awhile back, the sense I had from the company was that l
21 while they had a fair amount of construction work that they i
j 22 wanted to do after the startup of the operation and testing i
23 program, that they had planned those efforts to be largely in 24 areas of the plant that would not affect directly operations 25
-- for example, the additional cooling towers, the office or
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18 i
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Administration Building, some of those kinds of things.
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Has that been that way it's worked out, and could
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3 you give me a feel for how much of the construction activity I
4 has been in areas that have a potential to affect the i
5 operation of the plant, say as compared with other plants, and 6
how much is in these removed areas outside of the reactor 7
building and those kinds of areas where it would have more of 8
an impact?
j 9
MR.
R.
MARTIN:
With the scheduling of the licensing 4
d j
10 of the plant and when it, in fact, took place, a number of the 11 work that they anticipated to have going on simultaneously 12 with fuel loading, the delays that occurred relative to their t
]
13 licensing, they-got a lot of that work completed and out of l
14 the way.
j 15 I went to the site just shortly before a license was 16 authorized to load fuel and go critical, I really could not i
j 17 tell the difference, being on that site, from the amount of l
l 18 workerews that were there than I could from almost any other I
19 site that has any kind of maintenance work going on.
i 20 So it is not a huge amount of construction, labor i
21 forces, inside the-protected area, you know, doing a lot'of 22 things.
It just does not give that image at all.
It.looks 1
i l
23 like there are maintenance ~ crews working in various areas.
It 24 turns out that these are. construction rather than maintenance 1
25 crews.
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So it's really quite limited in any safety-related 2~
activities, or close to, but they still utilize the same 3
controls to make sure that something has not been overlooked.
4 And it seems to be effective at this point 5
MR. DENTON:
I think we had flagged that as a 6
potential problem about a year ago, but they gave at a lot of 7
attention, and by inspection and the project manager, and when 8
I was down there, I got satisfied, just like Bob did, that the 9
amou'nt of work being left that was safety-related was really j
10 minuscule.
I don't remember the percentages, but we had long 11 meetings going thrcugh all their lists, and I think we were 12 certainly satisfied before we issued the license, I think, i
13 that they would accomplish the few things that were left 14 safely.
15 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Yes.
j-16 MR.
R.
MARTIN:
The next item that I thought I would i
17 bring up for your information is that, as you know, some time 18 ago there had been a lawsuit between Houston Light & Power, 19 the South Texas site / owner / operator, against Brown & Root, and 20 that that court case was settled.
It was settled out, and it
'1 was a cash settlement.
I i
22 That left an issue for which I had discussions with 1
23 Houston Light & Power management about what information might i
24 be contained in the court record.
After a series o f-25 discussions, HL&P came and offered to conduct a detailed
..~
20 i
1 review of the court record for the purpose of determining 2
whether or not there night be information contained in 3
documents prepared for the court record and for the lawsuit i
4 which would contain technical or safety-related information i
t 5
which we should have known about and did not know about.
l 6
We have since had a series of meetings with HL&P, j
i j
7 and those meetings have been in Region IV, but that have
[
8 involved ISE, NRR, ELD, and Region IV, and Houston Light &
9 Power has now come in with a formal submittal as a result of i
10 the interchange that occurred at those meeting, with a program I
11 which they are starting forth to implement at their own risk, j
l 12 but for the purpose of assurir.q themselves that we have been 13 informed and they have been informed of any safety-significant k
i 14 information that might be appropriate, i
15 A review is now being conducted within I&E, NRR, and I
i 16 ELD and Region IV for the purpose of giving them any last I
{
17 comments back that we might have, by which they could shape l
18 their program, i
i i
19 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
Is anybody from NRC l
20 participating in this review of the court records?
l 21 MR.
R.
MARTIN:
No.
We are going to monitor i
22 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
You say no?
i 23 MR.
R.
MARTIN:
We are going to monitor the i-24 actions.
I have already had some Inspection personnel j
i 25 attending a training session for some of the consultant staff l
l
~-
21
'I
[
1 that they are retaining to do some of the preliminary parts ~ of 2
the evaluation work.
3 We have reviewed their proposed plan, and that 4
review is underway, and we anticipate using resources to i
5 monitor their progress and to sample, probably pretty I
6 substantially in the early phases, and then on some sort of a 7
sampling basis in the later phases throughout the life of the I
t 8
program to assure ourselves that they are implementing the 9
program that.they've set out to do, so that we have a fair 10 degree of comfort that, in fact, it has achieved the purpose i
11 that it was intended to do.,
12 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
What de you mean by sampling?
13 You mean, they are actually going to look at a piece --
I' 14 MR.
R.
MARTIN:
We will go as we do an inspection i
t 15 of any other process, we'll go in and grab some number of 16 samples.
We'll look at those documents.
We'll see what they l
\\'
\\
l 17 have and have not identified for further review.
We'll 18 probably track several of those through the review process to i
19 see if we agree with'the conclusions thht have been drawn, l
20 interview the people who are conducting the work an j
21
-inspection process similar to what we utilize in other 22 inspection areas.
l 23 MR. TAYLOR:
You may want to mention the size of j
24 this effort and the type of effort that the company is 25 devoting.
We have heard the company's proposal They intend I
22 1
-- and their proposal is quite rigorous -- to go through this s
2-huge volume, s
3 Bob, maybe you can give an idea of size.
4 MR.
R.
MARTIN:
If I recall the numbers correctly, 5
it is something like 40 FTE, 40 full-time personnel working I would think now about six to eight months, 6
over the next 7
with cn expense of somewhere between six and twelve million 8
dollars, depending on what is required, you know, what evolves 9
from it, and what further work is required and needs to be 10 done.
11 The document by which they have described the 12 program when they sent it in to us also contains background 13 history on all the other reviews that have been done.
In 14 looking at our view of how much this record needs to be 15 inspected to assure ourselves that the process is working, it 16 has to be done with a recognition of all the other review work 17 that has also been done relative to the South Texas project 18 that came about as a consequence of the change of architect 19 engineer from Brown & Root to Bechtel, and there was an 20 extensive amount of project review work done during that 21 period, for which we expended I don't know -- several 22 thousands of inspector hours monitoring that transitional i
23
- process, So there have been several detailed reviews, This 24 25 is another detailed review.
But nonetheless, we're still
- - =
.. ~.
i 23 2
i j
1 going to monitor it, and we're still reviewing the program.
i l
i 2
COMMISSICNER ASSEbSTINC.
Dob, I take it that this f
3 includes basically all of the discovery materials that had j
4 been generated, pretrial kinds of things?
5 MR.
R.
MARTIN:
It includes the population of j
6 documents against which they start the process.
It includes i
I 7
everything that was filed with the court, every document that j
8 was fi.ed with the court as part of the record for the case.
r 9
I may not be getting all the legal terms correct.
I keep i
10 getting lost when they get described to me.
But in essence, t
j 11 everything that was filed with the court by any party to that 12 lawsuit constitutes the starting record.
3 l
i j
13 There are a large number of records which are i
14 removed from consideration because of their basic nature, i
15 They-may be purely financial records, the results of financial i
l 16 books and things of that sort, which contain no technical f
17 information or are financial They will be removed.
10 There are many things which are copies of 19 information already contained within the official records, the i
i 20 quality records of the project.
Therefore, this would be a i
l 21 duplicate of records that have already been reviewed by other i
22 mechanisms, and they will be removed.
I f-23 So little by little, there is a weeding down.
But i
if I recall, something like four billion l
24 there is something i
25 pages of material is the starting point of this record.
[
. _. _ _ _..... ~.
i 24 1
b 1
CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
What was that?
Billion or 2
million?
3 MR.
R.
MARTIN:
I believe -- every time I say it, I
1 i
I i
4 believe I've gotten it wrong, but I don't think I have i
1 5
believe it's four billion pages.
It is a huge record.
But 6
much of it is material, which of and by itself is not germane 7
to the subject that we're l o o lc i ng at it for.
So those are 8
being set aside.
i l
9 But nonetheless, part of the program is the i
l 10 determination of whether it is or is not to he reviewed by the 11 process.
If it's questionable, it goes into the review I
e 1
12 process.
13 So we are, at least at this juncture, barring any l
1 I
14 final comments, we are reasonably comfortable with the process I
i 15 by which this has taken place, i
16 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
I'm impressed when it gets up i
17 to hundreds of thousands of pages.
I i
18
[ Laughter.1 1
4 l
19 MR.
R.
MARTIN:
I hope I'm not being held
{
l k
'O accountable for it, but I'm pretty sure.
For some reason, !
1 9
21 had an image of a dollar a page relative to the lawsuit that t
22 was conducted.
i 23 MR. DENTON:
I understand it's much larger than the j
24 TMI lawsuit record.
If you recall, we put in six man-years or 25 more in reading that and even more into analyzing it, t
!__-__~.-._.._..,_,.
25 1
COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
How close were they to 2
trial when the case was settled?
3 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
I have no idea, sir 4
Different people had different perspectives.
I think that the 5
few perspectives I heard, I think were measured in years; not 6
in months or weeks, but in years.
But I don't know if that 7
was somewhere between one and ten.
8 MR. DENTON:
I think we had not flagged this issue 9
very much before.
I think it was in some written material, 10 but I think it is important to get your agreement that we are 11 going to overview the process and audit it and are not going 12 to attempt to read that file as a part of our preparation for 13 this case.
14 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
How big a sample are you 15 going to start with?
Do you have an idea?
16 MR.
R.
MARTIN:
We have yet to define that.
We know 17 what they are starting on.
We haven't really defined it, 18 because we have to get some estimate of how large the material 19 volume is.
20 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Is there any way to try, 21 either for them or for us, to try and target the kinds of 22 information or kinds of documents, if there was anything of 23 real safety significance in there, that it would be most 24 likely to be in those kindst 25 MR.
R.
MARTIN:
As a matter of fact, that was part
i I
26 i
l that was an inherent part of the initial l
1 of the original 2
screening process excuse me -- for the documents.
The
}
t i
3 screening process has weeded out a large number of documents, i
i 4
which are supplementary or complementary to information we 4
1 5
already have.
j i
I i
6 What remains are those that potentially could I
i f
7 contain, in our perspective and theirs, such information.
8 Those are the ones that are being focused on.
4 4
9 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
It might be useful 1
j 10 to just have a little information paper that sort of l
11 highlights, you know, your plan, as soon as you get it i
12 formulated, for how you are going to go about auditing, what
[
l l
13 size of the sample you think you're going to start with, what i
i 14 kinds of triggers would lead you to conclude that you have to 1
15 get more involved, or what kinds of things would lead you to i
l l
16 conclude that the program is working fairly effectively, and i
l 17 then what kind of monitoring role you would have after that.
4 l
l 18 That might be useful.
l l
19 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
If we took our whole agency and i
j 20 assigned them this project, each member of the agency would i
f 21 have a million pages to read.
l j
l 22 MR.
R.
MARTIN:
If all of it were read.
I 23 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
If all of it were read; you're I
i 24 right.
l l
25 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
When the transition
(
L
27 1
occurred, given the prospects of the lawsuit that developed, 2
was it a fairly smooth transition, or did Erown & acot just 3
basically walk off the job and say, you know, "We're going to 4
take all of our information with us, because we know we're 5
going to end up suing youS" 6
MR.
R.
MARTIN:
Well, I am not sure, at the time of 7
the transition, that the lawsuit issue was that well defined, 8
because as you may recall, I believe they were being replaced 9
by Bechtel as architect engineer, but the company wanted to 10 retain Brown & Root as constructor.
And at that point, Brown 11
& Root decided not to remain as constructor, which partially 12 triggered the issue of the lawsuit 13 It's my understanding that one of the issues in the 14 selection of Bechtel as the architect engineer was and I 15 believe it has to do, I'm sure, with insurance and other l
they' insisted that Bechtel assume the 16 legal requirements 17 role of the engineer of record for the entire plant, including 1
18 all work previously done by Brown & Root, all engineering work 19 previously done by Brown & Root, which meant that Bechtet went 20 all the way back through the entire design, as I understand 21 it, and reconfirmed for themselves that all of the design work 22 done up and to that point for completed work was sattsfactory, 23 because they, then, would be held accountable for any defects 24 found in design later, even though the fundamental dec1gn had 25 been done by Brown & Root
2 i
26 i
)
1 So that resulted, if you will I don't know if one 2
would call that a smooth transition, but it certainly 1
j 3
represented a comprehensive transition from the Brown & Root i,
e j
4 responsibilities to the Bechtel responsibilities, I
l 5
So right now, from a conceptual standpoint, if there f
6 were any questions raised about any aspect of the design on I.
7 South Texas, we approach those questions to Bechtel, not to i'
8 Brown & Root at all 9
So that was a laborious effort, but I think 10 represented from an information standpoint, a smooth 11 transition.
I 12 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
How did they go about i
i l
13 verifying the adequacy both of design and of construction work 14 in the pre-Bechtel timeframe?
How did Bechtel go about, when 1
I understand that they now have the responsibility and 15 they 16 accountability for the work, but how did they go about I
17 verifying the quality of the work that was done before they 18 took over?
19 MR. DENTON:
I remember they gave this area a lot of l
20 planning and we had several meetings with them and ultimately i
j 21 concurred in the plan, but it must have been several years 22 back now that all that took place and I don't remember the l
23 exact details.
Except I think we did concur with the ultimate i
24 process by which they stepped into that role, 25 MR, TAYLOR:
Wo actually had an inspector.at Houston l
lL-.-.--.---..-
.- O
29 0
who one of the fellows, I believe his name was Brow i
1 2
took up residence for a while in Houston while the engineering 3
and design transition was taking pitee And tha real object 4
was to monitor how that whole big process was going.
And 5
Bechtel was assuming responsibility.
6 1 don't recall the details of how the turnover of how all that was followed, but 7
partly completed systems 8
that's what Harold is referring to.
9 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
A fair amount of work had to been done.
11 MR. TAYLOR.
Yes.
But the design thing was 12 overviewed by a man named Dave Brow; I don't know whether he's 13 still with the agency, and that goes back more than two years 14 ago.
15 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
Okay.
Do you want to go on?
i 16 MR.
R.
MARTIN:
Another subject which has been 17 discussed from time to time is the impact of some of the rate 18 issues that are going on at some of the plants.
Perhaps the 19 most visible in recent time has been the rate issues relative 20 to the Middle South Utilities, 21 I would only point out that very recently, Arkansas 22 Power and Light settled with the Arkansas Pubite Service 23 Commission on a rate structure.
Louisiana Power and Light, 24 the two of the Middle South units that are in my region, has i
25 not yet settled, but I wanted to point out that we've been i
-n.
c
30 1
sensitive, both at Arkansas and at Louisiana Power and Light 2
plants, to anything that would lead us to ccncern that any 3
austerity that they were having to impose was impacting on the 4
quality of the work being done.
We have observed no such 5
problem.
Things that need doing at the plants have been 6
getting done to our satisfaction.
7 So at least at this juncture we're not seeing any 8
impact; we're just continuing to observe and monitor that.
9 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE.
We see projections in the 10 papers from time to time about impending bankruptetes of some 11 of the Middle South companies, depending upon whether the 12 PUC's stick by their guns or whether they back down on some of I
13 these things.
Do you have any sense for the timeframe that 14 may be involved in some of those things?
When resolution 15 needs to occur so that there's a continuing source of funding 16 for the individual member companies?
3 17 MR.
R.
MARTIN:
Not truly, sir.
I have learned from 18 the little bit of time that I've been an observer there is a 19 great deal of rhetoric associated from all quarters relative 20 to those issues.
And no, we're not knowledgeable enough at 31 least I'm speaking for myself and I believe my staff We're 22 not knowledgeable enough of all the inner workings of the 23 financial discussions that go on to really be able to give you 24 a responsible estimate of anything of that sort 25 The rhetoric, at least from my perspective, just
. _ _. _ _ _ ~... _... _.
l 31
[
1 clouds that issue substantially.
I focus more on the i
2 performance at the plants, and if the pericamance is still 3
holding good I assume they're solving their other. rhetoric 4
problems in another fashion.
But I try not to get into those I
i 5
estimates.
I 6
COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE; How about in the one
[
i f
j 7
instance where there is now a settlement, Arkansas, any idea 1
l 8
at this point about what the impact of that settlement is 9
likely to be over, say, the next five er ten years of i.
l 10 operation at their two nuclear units?.Because the sense I get 1
1 11 from reading the trade papers on the settlement is that it at 12 least is a substantial step back from what the Middle Scuth 1,
13 system had been asking for originally.
T 14 MR.
R.
MARTIN:
It is certainly a step back from I
15 what they had been asking for.
I have no way of assessing
}
16 what it is they really needed, how much more they asked for 1
17 than what they needed, and how well they'll be able to
. I l
18 reprogram for their own use.
I really can't say.
l l
19 MR. DIRCKS:
You know, we sent letters to Louisiana,
(
4 l
20 Mississippi and Arkansas, taking note of the PUC actions, and i
[
21 asking them to pay particular attention to certain critical l
l l
22 areas and trying to get from them their reassurance of actions I
i 23 in those areas -- maintenance, training, operations and so on.
f 24 Yesterday-1 saw a reply from Arkansas that assured j
25 us that they were not cutting-back in these areas; they were fi 4
-,.--,__,.-___...m.,,,-.-_,,--,,-,__.m__,-
-_.__,r..
m m
,.m-
.. _ __~_-~,,_, -.---,.,-
o 32 1
well aware of our concerns.
But I think they were also put on 2
notice that we were going to track these ere na quate cloself, 3
and I think we were also trying to send a signal to the PUC's 4
that we were concerned about these areas.
5 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Yes.
I think that's a 6
worthwhile thing to do in this particular case.
I know from 7
talking to some of the PUC members and the International 8
Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners that 9
sentiments run quite high on these cases.
And the states' 10 rights versus federal issue is one that I think is not yet 11 dead in this case.
And this m1y be the !!rst skirmich in 1 i
12 long series of battles rather than the end of the war, so to 13 speak.
14 MR. DIRCXS:
I think in this area, we're dealing in 15 the safety area and we probably have a very strong right to be 16 where we are.
And I think we do want to tell the PUC's that 17 we are concerned about any actions they take that may 18 interfere with the safety of those plants.
19 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
Do you have other items?
I'm 20 sorry.
21 MR. DIRCKS:
I will send down, as we get replies in 22 I'll make sure the Commission gets copies of the replies.
23 MR.
R.
MARTIN:
The only other point that I wanted 24 to briefly touch on was a few materials issues that I think which I think represent, 25 radioactive materials areas
~
33 a
I 1
although they're not reactor issues I think they represent 2
evidences of extremely good working relationships between us 3
and the states, at least using examples in Region IV.
And I a
4 thought I would bring these to your attention.
5 One I'm sure you're generally familiar with and that 6
was the train accident, truck / train accident which spilled i
i i
7 some yellowcake in North Dakota.
There we offered assistance t
8 to the state of. North Dakota, we sent some people, we had them i
f 1
9 up there about 10 days helping, and wherever we could be I
10 helpful certainly with support from NM35'and coordination with 11 some o f_
the national labs -- Oak Ridge -- for scae meaaurement 12 studies.
And when they didn't need our help anymore we backed 13 off and we went back home.
But they did well, and they did j
i 14 quite well.
And apparently, the Governor of North Dakota was i
j 15 pleased enough to write both me and Dale Smith at URFO 16 thanking us for the participation.
I was very pleased by that 17 exercise.
I 18 Then another case in Kansas where an individual was I
19 importing something from Japan which was meant to be a f
20 refrigerator deodoriser but it actually contained more thorium.
I I
21 in the individual packages, the saleable packages, not in the 1
22 overall shipment restrictions, but in the individual packages 23 than should have appropriately been loaded into them for 4
24 general distribution.
And with cooperation from the state of 25 Kansas, the man decided not to try to market i t ;. he had not l
l
-..., -. -. -. -.,,. ~. -
.. =.
..... = ~
34 i
i been successful anyway, in marketing more than a half a dozen 2
I think he gave away to various people.
4 i
3 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO-What was he making?
I 4
MR.
R.
MARTIN:
It was a thorium-impregnated plastic i
i 5
being marketed as a refrigerator deodori:er.
You hang it in 6
your refrigerator.
And it seemed to have very little 7
technical merit, if any.
j 8
[ Laughter.]
9 But the state of Kansas worked with us very closely.
10 and we with each other, and arranged for the individual to 11 stop importing it.
He had no kacwleds, th.t he was doing ai 12 anything he should not have been doing.
Returned the matoriti
]
i j
13 to Japan, stopped importing it.
We cooperated'with l
14 international programs to inform the State Department to ask i
15 them to notify Japan, and it was just an excellent in a 16 very short period of time it was just excellent cooperation 17 across a number of areas.
18 In the same light again, --
]
j-19 COMMISSIONER ROBERTS:
Helping the balance of trade.
4 20
[ Laughter.]
21 MR.
R.
MARTIN:
In the same light, we're currently l
22 working with the technical staffs in trying to develop some l
l 23 draft memoranda of understanding and perhaps some contractual 24 agreements-that we'll approach the states of Louisiana and i
25 Texas with to assist us in conducting offshore inspection of J
l l
l
- l..... _, _., - _ _ _ _
~.
b 4
3G I
1 radiography operations.
2 This is an area that has not been practical for us f
i f
3 to do in the -- I'm not sure of the legal term, but -- the 4
territorial waters offshore where there's oil rigs and we have t
5 federal responsibility for inspection.
We feel the likelihood i
6 of the state being aware of the activtties, possible 7
radiography activities, would be much greater than ours i
1 8
because of the current mechanics of the system, and they may 1
t j
9 conduct inspections for us.
And we're looking through the i
10 mechanics of doing that, now.
r 11 OOMM I S S I O!!EP. AS 3EL ST :I!E.
Which activities would w2 1
4 12 have responsibility fer inspecting
- Bacause both Louisiant i
13 and Texas are agreement states, and we don't regulate i
14 radiography.
I'm just interested in which ones are ours 1
15 MR.
R.
MARTIN:
As I understand, beyond a certain i
16 point, those activities fall back under federal jurisdiction.
17 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
That's right, okay.
It's i
j 18 outside the limit, the three-mile limit or whatever it is.
l 19 MR.
R.
MARTIN:
Territorial limits.
i 20 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE.
Then it's in i
21 U.S.
territory but it's not in the territory of the' state, I.
22 okay.
}
l 23 MR.
R.
MARTIN:
That's correct.
But using their j
24 participation in doing that.
So I think we may be able to i
25 address that issue.
l
36 1
COMMISSICNER ASSELSTINE:
Are we doing a n'y 2
inspections in those areas now ourselves<
3 MR.
R.' MARTIN:
I know of none in Region IV that 4
have ever been conducted on off-shore rigs, of radiography.
5 The difficulty is that you often will receive notification 6
that a radiographer is going to be working in the area over 7
the next 60 days or 90 days, but you never know what day he's 8
going to be on what rig.
So the likelihood of ever chancing 9
upon a radiographer on a rig is extremely small 10 We believe the states have a closer working 11 relationship with the cil companies and ;an deternias
,th a n, in 12 fact, work is going en at a particular rig and te able to get 13 out there.
14 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
I think both Louisiana and 15 Texas are quite aggressive in their radiography inspection 16 program.
17 MR.
R.
MARTIN.
Yes, they are.
18 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE.
They have some very 19 innovative techniques for finding where the radiographers are 20 and tracking them down and watching what's going on.
Good.
I 21 think that's a good idea.
22 MR.
R.
MARTIN.
That was the spectrum of issues that 23 I wanted to discuss 24 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
Do you have any comments about 25 any general trends on safety within the region, reactor safety
37 2
t particularly?
Good, bad or indifferent 3 3
MR.
R.
MARTIN From mv perspective, fcr the plants 3
for the year that I h vr e o 'a s e r*r e d them, I do not hvin?
'o mind 4
any plant whose performance I think has dropped ott over the I hate tc use 5
past year.
And I can think of at least one 6
that word because then people will start thinking that's the 7
only one, but the one that comes to mind is I think the ANO 8
performance over the last year has, improved substantially in a 9
number of areas, despite our prior discussion about the 10 concerns about rates and support But I think thn performance il there has improved sub.Lantially 12 And I'm very pleased bs2ically with th. cporation at 13 Waterford and at Wolf Creek.
Calhoun has been very reliable.
14 Cooper has improved.
Cooper has come out of an outage, a 15 long, extended outage for replacement of recirculation 16 piping.
Came out with a minimum of difficulty; resumed 17 operation with a minimum number of problems.
I'm very 10 positive.
I'm feeling very, if you will, upbeat about the 19 performance of almost all of the plants in Region IV.
20 CHAIRMAN P A L L A D ItJ O :
Other comments or questtons?
21 COMMI S S I O?lER ASSELSTINE.
I have one, or I guess a 22 couple.
Let me ask you a little bit about Fort St
- Vrain, 23 because i guess my sense both from seeing it a few years ano 24 and from looking at the comments and actions and concerns that 25 we've expressed from time to time is it has not been a strong
3G 1
performer.
That may even be an understatement That there 2
hasn't been the kind of management oversignt and involvement 3
and attention to r.
tail and suparvision and care that we'd 4
like to see in a commercial reactor operation.
We talked 5
about this a little bit before in a previous meeting.
6 And I'm interested in what gives you the sense of --
?
your sense of confidence, or if you have a sense of confidence 8
now that they're beginning to start back up, that some of 9
those problems really have changed, that attitudes have 10 chsnged, the capabi11 ties are somehow diiferent than they 11 swemed to have bwea 1 iter.1ly
'er
.=<=1a; yv.44 in the past 12 I know it's a smaller roe:tsr and I kncw that thtr2 13 are differences in responte time, but I think the gist of the 14 discussion we had before when Harold was here was that they 15 haven't really operated in many respects like a commercial 16 reactor, and that that's what we ought to be expecting and 17 indeed, insisting on them.
And I'd be interested in your i
18 perspective in where you see them now, and now that they're 19 starting up again what basis you have for confidence, if you 20 do have confidence, that they're going to be able to run the 21 plant adequately.
22 MR.
R.
M A RT Ill :
Well, in the first case I do have 23 the confidence that they will be able to I believe they have 24 set in motion, through their performance improvement program, 25 enhancement program, the right tools and mechanisms to get
39 1
them there.
A number of those things are going to take time 2
to bear fruit 3
Recently, in tha timeframe of this spring i belteve, 4
I was accompanied by Jim Taylor and by Gus Lainas along with 5
several staff members during the presentation of their 6
program.
It's very clear that they had gone through a fairly 7
agonizing reappraisal as to how they were doing business and 8
who was doing business.
They were going to have to add staff, 4
9 which is a recruiting problem, to bring in the additional 10 resources that they need to do it.
1:
Sa sea, a; i n er.& r.-/
cf thesc p e r f o r:r. :, n : c 12 improvement programs, I see a perted of t t re e t r-whteh e*erycne 13 is working hard but the results seem to languish; nothing 14 seems to occur because a fair amount of time is being spent 15 putting the right tools in place.
I continue to believe and 16 do believe that they are putting the tools in place.
I 17 believe we 1.sve not been able to see the resvits because we're 18 still in that early phase.
19 I feel optimistic.
I see nothing going on that 20 leads me to believe that that performance improvement program 21 shouldn't yield the results it was intended to yield, either 22 on the part of the commitment, on the part of the company or 23 to putting the right kind of people in place.
24 Now those are generalized terms, I recognize, but I j
25 have that general sense of confidence that they're going to
40 1
do well.
They are dealing with some difficult technical i
2 assues, and they have Itmited resources in terms of on-hand 3
talent to be able to address those technical issues.
But I j
1 4
think they're doing it.
5 The specifies of the EQ issue I think is a very 1
6 complex one, and being worked.
The other issues are not that i
7 complex but they will take time.
]
8 COMMISS IONER-ASSELSTINE :
Do you have a sense for 9
whether they're going to be able to attract, obtain and then l
10 retain the kind of talent that they need*
One o f-the concerns 4
11 I have is it's a n.a l l plant, it's had a checkered operating 12 past, then movo=c..ts off and on to shut the plant down, even j
i 13 questions by the utility itself about whether they wanted to I
1 14 continue to operate the plant, it's the only plant of its type 4
1 15 in the country, it doesn't appear that there's going to be j
16 another one of that type for the foreseeable future.
An l
}
17 organisation like that, how do they attract and retain the 1
l 18 kind of people that they really need to run the plant right, i
19 to change some of the approach that they have had in the past' i
i 20 MR.
R.
MARTIN:
I've seen different companies use i
(
21 different techniques for attracting people.
Sometimes it gets
)
1
}
22 expensive or difficult, but I think if they're motivated and 1
23 they rise to the challenge they usually succeed in doing that.
)
24 I think that similar plants, not necessarily by 1
l 25 design but either by geographical location or general climate
{
i l
?
}
41 1
-- I recognize that I wouldn't want to work there but there 2
are a lot of people who very possibly would.
It's a questson
?
of finding *he right individut! with the rich' +stentt 4
Again, a generalized response I know, but I don't feel that 5
negative towards their ability to do it 6
COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
You mentioned when you 7
were talking about the transfer back to headquarters that 8
well, this had been a pilot effort and since the Commission 9
had decided not to transfer further licensing responsibilities 10 for reactors to the region, that this was cening back to 11 headquarters I guess quite frankly in n y own mind.
I had 12 always
=colled th4t the discussian had been that Fort i
1 13 St Vrain really was a separate matter from the transfer of 14 further licensing responsibilities for riactors to the region, 15 that that one was viewed as sufficiently unique that the l
16 justification for transferring that might operate independent 17 of what we did with light water reactors.
10 Is that basically the reason, though, for the 19 transfer back, or was there some feeling that headquarters 20 might provide a greater depth of technical support?
What were 21 the factors that went into the decision to move it back?
22 MR, R.
MARTIN:
I think it was the former.
From my 23 perspective it was the former, not the latter.
I felt that 24 our working relationship with headquarters was good.
25 Headquarters providad a lot of technical support on a lot of
42 1
issues relative to St.
Vrain.
And the region provided a lot.
2 I think there was, in fact, a distinct separatton 3
between the ragional project -- Y don't maan a nanageris!
4 separation, I mean a separation in closeness, professtonal 5
peer separation -- from the other project managers.
And after 6
coming to Region IV I sat and looked at it and I really saw 7
not much sense in continuing that kind of a relationship.
8 But I wanted, before recommending or even bringing 9
up the subject for discussion, I wanted to be sure that the 10 program office directer and I agreed that if we*re going to 11 Icok at thia 44 a pilot progtsa, as it had.volved into, that 12 it did in fact give u2 the ic. form-tion we needed to have so 13 that if this issue came up again, we would have the basis for 14 making a future decision.
15 Once having satisfied that, it just struck me that 16 the relationship between the project manager and his others, 17 the oversight responsibilities that the program office has for 18 those activities, trying to do that long distance when there j
19 are no others around, frankly it just didn't seem to make 20 sense to us, beyond a certain logical point.
And being 21 satisfied that we knew everything we needed to know about that 22 kind of a process, seemed to be the logical point to do it 23 at And that was really the reason for recommending the 24 return to NRR.
25 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
I want to point o 'J t that we've
43 1
got to break up by 4:00 o' clock We've used half the time, a
2 between ; 00 and 4.00, and every minute that we gave extra to 3
Region IV comes out of Region V 4
MR. DIRCKS:
I didn't th2nk it was necessary before, 5
but we've got two airplanes leaving at 5 00 o' clock.
6 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
Okay, that's an additional 7
incentive.
8 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE.
One quick last question.
9 Wolf Creek and Waterford, you said you think that they're 10 operating pretty well How do they compare in operating experivace, asy, in a s:at e r s of tripa, nachers
! 20tuati0n2 of 10 acergeasy tskacver features, numbers of LER's, to the 13 opersting plants in your region' 14 MR R
MARTIN:
I expected a difforent question and 15 I was thinking relative to Wolf Creek, that in the past we had 16 often discussed in terms of Calloway, because it's a sister 17 plant.
So I asked the staff to give me some information to relative to Calloway.
So if you don't mind !*ll do that one 19 only.
20 COMMISSICNER ASSELSTINE.
All rt2ht, that's fine 21 You can tell rae about the others later, 22 MR. R MARTIN.
If we talk about the reportable 23 events since the five months after fuel load, which is the 24 position that Wolf Creek is in. Wolf Creek had 80 reportable 25 events while Calloway had 93.
Wolf Creek had 57 LER's while
44 1
Calloway wrote 58 LER's.
Wolf Creek had 12, Calloway had 15 2
unplanned reactor trips 102 the Aawe period of time.
3 From my perspectiva, the operational performance of 4
the machines are following very closely to each other.
5 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE-How would those, just very 6
roughly, compare to, say, Cooper, 11 you looked at --
7 MR.
R.
MARTIN:
I don't think Region IV is f
8 substantially different than other regions.
The number of 9
reportable LER's is also a function of the age of the plant, 10 to some extent, beesuse of some of the subtlettes and 11 requirements of the technical spoetitcations 2nd thc 12 performance requirements.
Wolf Creek and Waterford are 13 reporting a higher frequency of LER's than other plants in 14 Region IV.
I believe it is not definable to additional 15 problems of substance, but rather problems of startup and 16 differences in the not consequences of the reporting 17 requirements.
18 Now, I think they're very stable compared to other 19 observables.
20 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
Let me see if other i
21 Commissioners have questions 22
[No response.1 23 Okay.
Thank you, Bob.
Are we ready to turn to 24 Region V' 25 MR.
J.
MARTIN.
Thank you.
I will try to be briof t
49 i
What I plan on doing is going through basically to start right 2
in and talk about three plants that I give considerable 3
attention to: Fancho Seco, Trojan and Palo Verda What I plan 4
on doing is just reviewing very briefly what we talked about 5
in January and then give you a progress report, if you will, 6
for what has happened in the last six to nine months.
7 I know another plant that you're interested in is 8
San Onofre Unit 1,
and my understanding is that Harold and Jim 9
Taylor briefed you last week on that, and the issues there are 10 almost entirely Itcensing issue.
From my perspective, Unit 1 11 was started up and ham operatwJ rea.onably well, ao Jan't 12 have any nia j o r input to add on San Caofre Unit 1 13 Then I had a couple of innovations we've tried; l'd 14 like to give you some sense of how they're working out, and 15 then perhaps deal with this trends question that was I
16 interesting.
17 Why don't I start right out with Rancho Seco.
Last 18 time we talked, the tone of the discussion was that Rancho 19 Seco was a plant that had had a number of difficulties for a 20 long time.
The regional inspections had repeatedly found 21 things that weren't satisfactory, the headquarters-based PAT 22 teams had found things repeatedly, INPO had found things 23 repeatedly.
None of whtoh, taken by themselves, was a major 24 issue, but in the aggregate indicated a potential for 25
- problems,
46 1
In addition, I think our relations with them in 2
inconsing were always difficult. always took a long time to
?
reach agreament on things 4
In March of 1984, we decided to initiate a dialogue 5
with the board of directors, thinking maybe that's the key to 6
the thing since we had so many repeat findings with the plant 7
staff.
And we reviewed with them in March the SALP report, 8
which was not very favorable; they had three Level 3's and a 9
couple of low 2's.
10 That was followed by another meeting in August, 11 August 14th, where ww went through with the board of directora 12 in much greater detail in public sea 2 ion our major concerna 13 with the plant, and this time focused mainly on management and 14 management attitudes.
And in that meeting we used the six or 15 seven criteria that you might remember reading that Rickover 16 used for TMI; they were easy for the board, it's an elected 17 board 18 COMMISSIONER ROBERTS:
I was going to say, how is 19 the board determined?
20 MR.
J.
MARTIN:
Well, it's a five-member elected 21 board.
I think you're familiar with and it's elected from 22 the community; there's a farmer, a housewife, a university 23 professor, a couple of other people.
They serve for a 24 five-year term, open sessions, they have rules against meeting 25 in private.
They historically in the past -- one of the 4
>l J
47 e
I 1
1 reasons f elected to go to the board is there had become a s.
2 rather difficult situation where the board and the plant 3
staff.'that runs the plant, were frequently in conflict The r
4 board was in conflict with itself; being an elected board i
5 there were different philosophies.snd that spilled over with a
f 6
conflict with the staff.
7 So my thought was it's time to get everybody 4
J 8
together; there has to be some sense of purpose, and maybe 1
3 That's what
)
9 that was the cause of some of these' difficulties.
10 we talked about at the August meeting, and it was pretty much watershed meeting where I think it became clear for the 11 of a
]
12 first time to the board that they were probably part of the
]
12 problem, if not a majority part of it.
4, J
14 And two days later, they decided to commission a l,
i 15 consultant study.
There was still some skepticism whether
}
16 everything we'd been telling them, that PAT had told them and 17 INPO had told them was really true, and they decided to 1
i 18 commission a consultant.
And as we wound up last January, I 19 told you that the consultant's report was done and confirmed j
i 20 almost everything j
21 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
What was done?
f 1
22 MR.
J.
MARTIN:
The consultant's report was i
23 finished.
I sent it down in December, I believe.
1 l
24 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Yes, you did.
i i
j 25 MR.
J.
MARTIN:
And it essentially confirmed f
4 I
-r
,,,,,,,........._..._--.-,....,,.--.m,,
48 1
everything that we had been complaining about, plus then some; 2
things that we don't normally get involved in, with very heavy 3
emphasis on the unproduotave re1attons between the board and 4
the plant staff and how that just had to get straightened out.
5 So when I left the thing in January with you, I was 6
convinced at that time that the board of directors and the 7
plant staff at least had recognized the need for improvement-3 i
8 and were determined to improve the plant, yet they were still L
9 in the process of formulating -- there were like 100 l
)
10 recommendations out of this consultant's report which we had i
11 nothing more to add, it encompassed certainly overything we i
12 were concerned abcut.
At that time, they had not yet 13 formulated completely their plan for dealing with all these i
14 items, nor had they prioritized them all.
And I said last 4
15 year that I expected it would take at least a year or so to
+
16 get all this where we would feel comfortable with it.
17 In the last several months the plant, working with 4
I 18 their consultants and the board, has developed an action plan a
19 that I think everyone is satisfied with.
I haven't heard any 20 complaints.
I'm satisihed with it.
It covers all the items 4
l 21 and they've prioritized things.
4 j
22 The thing they have been struggling with the last like Bob Martin says, these things 23 several months, and it's
?
24 always take longer than you'd thing is actually 1
y l
25 implementing that plan.
And I guess at this stage my feeling
+
..~,
.rq t-c49 1
is the top 100 or so people in the company understand it and 2
are committed to do it, and the task yet at hand is getting 3
the other 900 similarly trained and seeing things the way they 4
should be.
5 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO.
But all the top people are i
6 committed to carrying out the plan?
7 MR.
J.
MARTIN:
I think so.
That's my conviction.
8 There's been -- with that background --
9 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Aren't there some new top i
10 people?
4 11 MR.
J.
MAETIN:
There are some new top people, which 12 are easier to convince sometimes than the old tcp pacplc.
Eut the plant has 13 some of the notable things that have happened 14 been shut down a good-deal of the time since we talked in 4
15 January, so it's difficult t o' give an authoritative i
16 statement.
It shut down in March I believe and just recently 17 restarted.
- c 18 But.during that time period some things that make me 19 feel -- there are some things';that make me feel rather 20 optimistic, then there are some things that are yet to be done 21 that aren't so optimistic, and I'll just briefly touch on 22 those.
23 Some of the major concernc-I have with these plants.
24 are, you know, we ~have to rely on them ultimately to find snd P
25 correct their own problems, so I look very hard at the parts
s 50
'I 1
of the organization that are designed to find problems; l
2 quality assurance, plant safety committees, plant review 3
committees and attitude of the managers do thay raally want 1
4 people to find problems.
5 I think that's improved a great deal The quality 4
6 assurance organization has been improved; engineers have been 7
added, people that know something about plant operations, 8
people that know something about rad protection.
They're 9
actively 1'c o k i n g for a new manager for that area that I think 10 will be a very' positive step 11 Engineering, similarly, has made a conaiderable.
12 amount of progress.
A good deal of their problema can ho s
U 13 traced back to engineering performance.
They're heavily l
14 dependent upon Bechtel They have about a five-to-one Bechtel
-t 1
15 1 to SMUD -- that's Sacramento Municipal Utility engineering l
16 ratio.
They've committed to hire 100 more engineers in the 17 next 18 months to two years and try to greatly reduce their 18 dependence on Bechtel.
19 If I look at some weather vanes of engineering 20 performance, they recently completed a very thorough i
21 inspection of their equipment qualification, environmental
' 2 2,,.
qualification.
And it's my understanding that the inspection 23 team found very little wrong; it was quite good.
i 24 Followed shortly thereafter by an Appendix R L
25 inspection; a very thorough inspection of their performance in
~
4 A
-_ ; L.
G1 1
meeting Appendix R, and similarly, was found satisfactory.
(
2 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO.
You mean they passed the i
3 Appendix R inspection' 4
MR.
J.
MARTIN:
Yes.
Yes.
5 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
Good.
I had another question
-6
'with regard to recruiting.
Are their salaries consistent with 7
the salaries elsewhere in the industry?
I was 8
MR.
J.
MARTIN:
This is another item where where I'm optimistic.
SMUD is 9
going to mention that I
10 essentially a public organization.
I mean, it is very much a
11 like we are.
12 CHAIRMAM PALLADINO:
Eut de they have salary limits?
13 MR.
J.
MARTIN:
Well, yes, they do.
And one of the I
s.
14 things that they have done that I find very significant is, is 4
15 somehow some way they have found a way.of decoupling the
+
i i
16 Rancho Seco situation from the rest of the state salary I
17 structure, so they can, in fact, offer competitive salaries.
1 4
18 And that takes some doing for an organization to do that.
19 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
Yes, that does.
20 MR.
J.
MARTIN:
That is something that I.think is
. 21 indicative -- it's sort of an undefinable quality of a
i 22 management volition.
I mean, are they really determined to 23 make some improvements?
And that is one, I think, that is 24 significant.
5 Y-25 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
So are you saying that they r
= _.
,m.
_,,__,...,__.__r.,m.
. =
62 1
have the capacity to pay what it takes to get the people they 2
need?
3 MR.
J MARTIN; Yes Now the problem is, you know.
4 there are current difficulties with whether candidates' wives 5
want to live in Sacramento and things like that, but --
6 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
Whether what?
7 MR.
J.
MARTIN:
Whether people want to live in i
8 Sacramento, you know, the normal geographical problems.
But 9
they seem to be making progress in not only hiring people, but 10 getting people who left the plant to come back, t
11 There have been scme major changes where the 12 organi:stion's General Manager, which is essentially the CEO 13
-- it's one step higher than the equivalent of Vice i
but who has had a long association with 14 President-Nuclear i
i 15 this plant and, I think, set a good deal of the tone over the 16 years, recently retired and was replaced with another man, who 17 does not have an extensive nuclear background, but he seems.to I
18 be quite capable.
19 Several of the other supervisory level people, like 20 the Plant Manager, the QA Manager, the Training Manager, are 21 either being hired or replaced.
22 In the meantime, they have taken the initiative and j
23 tapped Duke Power, for example, who sent a senior man there on I
24 long-term loan to help out during this transition, and I i
i l
25 understand there are some people in the pipeline from l
l.
93 1
Baltimore Gas & Electric to help out also.
2 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO.
What do you mean?
These people 3
are placed on loin fren --
4 MR.
J.
MARTIN:
Yes.
For six months to a year, to 5
help them get things like maintenance, training, some of these 6
more difficult issues off the ground and moving properly.
In 7
other words, to give them some turnaround space while they are 8
hiring and training their own people.
9 I think the last time I was here, I was still 10 somewhat incensed abcut a decorum in the control room issue li and general plant cleanlineas and orderliness, which. la my 12 estimation, has been thoroughly straightened out.
It's a very 13 clean, exemplary atmosphere, and I am satisfied with things 14 in the control room.
15 On the other hand, if we look at some of the things 16 in my mind that are a little more remote and a little less 17 directly tied to nuclear safety, there is still a long way to 18 go in rad protection, in maintenance, in training, in 19 chemistry.
Performance of auxiliary operators has been an 20 issue, particularly hard hit in the recent INPO evaluations.
21 So I guess my feeling is that there's a lot of 22 progress which has been made on the big-ticket items.
There's 23 still a lot of progress yet to be made in other parts of the 24 plant.
25 I would like to read just a paragraph from our SALP
.~.
. ~.
- ~....
94 1
1 report we just i ssued on September 9th, that I think captures l
4 2
the whole thing.
In writing the SALP report, we gave them two i
3' 1
3 Level 3s still, in enginearing and in quality I'm sorry --
4 4
engineering and in radiological protection -- and three i
5 2-minuses.
I mean, they weren't very strong 2s, but our 6
opinion was in operation that they had passed the threshold 7
and achieved the Level 2 status because of a considerable 2
8 amount of progress they have made in training new operators, 9
in reaching the shift staffing that they should have, t
i 10 improving in their adherence to procedures -- by licensed i
11 operator >, there are other auxiliary operators and equipment 1
12 attendants that still need some work.
13 Rad protection is an area where, in my estimation, j
14 the first part of the period, they were terrible, and the last 3
' 15 part, they were much better.
They still it still averages 16 out as not too good.
17 Quality programs, in my mind, made the greatest 18 improvement, but there is still a long way to go.
19 We've talked about engineering.
J i
20 And' training is something that, I guess I'm taking a 21 wait-and-see attitude.
They're hedging an awful lot on ~t he i r-4 t
22 training and accreditation activities.
We have yet to see, 23 except in the areas of engineering, quality inspectors, and
~
24 some training of rad protection people, almost no training and 1
25 maintenance, and some of the other attendants, i
i
-w, n
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--me,
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. mer v-
.u.
me
-~,w,wmv
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i 95 4
1 I guess my feeling is, what indicators I have that I 2
can measure look banacally positive, but I would like to read 3
this paragraph:
1 4-
"Our posture is that this has been a difficult l
5 period to evaluate, in that it's been one of rapid changes.
i' 6
The need to improve performance was recognized during the 7
first part of the report period, and programs and corrective i
j 8
actions were decided upon and initiated, and some demonstrated 1
o l
9 results have become evident.
In most areas, however, it is 1
10 really to early to tell if permanent improvements in terms of 11 performance are resulting."
12 And my adscnition to the utility an? the Ecard of l
13 Directors -- I've met with them basically _ every two to three 14 months for about the last year, and we begin and end every
]-
t 1
15 meeting with the admonition that, "You've got a program 16 initiated.
That's the easy part.
The hard part now is to j
17 actually get it implemented and get people to understand it 18 and comply with it over the next year and not lapse into J
19 wishful thinking."
4 20 I might make a few comments about a-recent INPO you know, I have not spoken 21 inspection, and all I know is i
23 to INPO directly on this, but INPO has been, like the rest of i
23 us, somewhat -- found it difficult to make progress at Rancho 24 Seco, and they did an inspection this summer and essentially 1
i l
25 found the topics that they're very interested in had not made t
1
,..,__.,,,_,m.._
- y..,,.
,._m.,y__
y_.__,_,
G6 1
much progress, and I agree with them, that their inspections 2
have generally been complementary of ours and deal mainly in 3
areas that our inspectron program doesn't get too deeply 4
involved in, like chemistry, maintenance, training, au ciliary 5
operators.
6 And so INPO got quite -- got to be very forceful 7
with the utility and recommended that, until they see-some 8
progress in some of these areas, they recommended that they 9
not restart the plant.
10 This led to a considerable amount of effort on the 11 utility to get seue of the major ;cspleints th&t INPO had 12 addressed, and it is my understanding th:t INPO did another 13 inspection about ten days ago and found that they had been 14 satisfactorily addressed and that they had no objections to 15 restart of the plant.
16 And that's essentially where we are.
My posture 17 remains, you know, look at the part of the job that is not yet 18 done, not get excessively complimentary on the part that is 19 done.
But I think we have to recognize that there was been 20 quite a bit of progress, and I am looking forward to more 21 progress in the future.
22 Let me just briefly touch on Trojan.
23 COMMISSIONER ZECH:
When do you expect that Rancho 24 Seco will start up?
25 MR.
J.
MARTIN:
It did already.
Unless something l
-......... -.... -. =. -. _. -. - - -
97
(
I 1
has happened overnight, they are hopefully doing some testing j
l 2
at about 40 percent power.
}
3 CHAIRMAN P M.L AD I NO -
Are thay up there, 40 percent
- 4 MR.
J.
MARTIN:
They may be higher now.
5 Trojan is a similar situation.
Again, it's a plant i
6 about ten years old, and probably if we turned the clock back 4
7 to the mid
'70s, it's operating fine, but this is now the 7
i 8
mid '80s, and I think where I left the trail at the last i
i 9
meeting is that I was still uncertain as to whether the Trojan r
i again, nothing bad has ever happened 10 plant management had I
i 11 there, _but they have wnaugh ind cators that I-felt 1t j
13 necessary to start dealing with their President and Vice I
i
}
13 President on some of these items, i
14 And I said last January that I was'somewhat 15 uncertain as to whether Trojan had really faced up to the need 1
l 16 for improvement.
I guess my feeling today is that they have, 1
i 17 and they've made a considerable number of changes.
i i
18 They have replaced their Plant Manager, and this was I
i i
j 19 the plant during like I said, I emphasize.a great deal the I
l --
20 plant's attitude toward finding their own problems and this 21 was the plant where, oh, I guess in February or so.during the f
a j
22 SALP meeting, we brought up the fact that'the QA Manager 4
1 33 wasn't even badged to get on the site, which tells you a lot i
24 of what you need to know about how aggressive the OA i
35 organi:ation might-be.
i
98 1
Those kinds of things have been addressed and dealt 2
with.
Those are the bigger issues.
And Trojan has operated 3
acceptably the last several months 4
But when I get to some of the other items like 5
training, maintenance, it's just not clear to me yet.
I think 6
we've got a lot more work to do there, and INPO has been 7
hitting them a little harder the last year as well 8
So they are still -- whereas Rancho Seco has made 9
the commitment and are going to buy a simulator, Trojan is 10 still thinking about it So they're not quite where I would 11 like to see them, yet on the other hand, I do see progress and 12 am optimistic that things will improve.
13 When I look at Palo Verde, I don't have a concern 5
14 that this is a plant that needs radical improvement What I 15 see is a very, very large project.
16 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
You say it's one that doesn't 17 need --
18 MR.
J.
MARTIN:
No.
I don't have major concerns.
19 What I see is things that trouble me some in the sense, are we 20 doing everything we can to prevent problems from developing.
21 It's a very large project.
Unit-1 is up at 80 percent power 22 now, and they still haven't completed the full-power test 23 program.
Unit-2 is coming close behind, which will be 24 followed by Unit-3.
And I think we all know from experience 25
-- at least I do at San Onofre that it's hard enough to
-w
m 59 1
start up one plant, but when you add two and then a third, 2
it's a very difficult problem.
3 I've got ftve residants at that site, and we spend a 4
lot of time scruttnizing everything that happens during the 1
5 test program to make absolutely sure that lessons are being 6
learned, and even from small items that may not even be of 7
regulatory significance.
And I'm hoping that by spending a 8
lot of time and effort with this organization, that many of 9
the problems that have been experienced elsewhere will be 10 avoided.
11 So far, they're going very sicwly, very j
12 deliberately, but they are falling into some of the traps thst I
i 13 many inexperienced utilities do, i
14 They made a major change, which I think will help a 15 lot, in that they hired the Plant Manager that went through 16 the San Onofre test program, a fellow named Jerry Hanes, in my i
17 estimation a pretty first-class guy, as their Vice President 1
18 of Nuclear.
So that should help a great deal and give them an 19 infusion of somebody that's tried this and knows where the j
4 20 problems are.
And I'm hoping that that will help a great 21 deal.
l 22 And that's essentially all I had to say about the f
23 plants.
I guess I should make a couple words about Diablo j
24 Canyon.
I don't have much to say, because nothing very i
25 noteworthy has happened.
Unit-1'has run pretty flawlessly l
l l
i
=.,-..-
- - ~.
60 1
since we last talked, and Unit-2 is going very slowly, very 2
deliberately.
They have not, I don't believe, yet completed 3
tha low-power test program.
The had a main coolant pump 4
winding failure.
They had to rewind the pump motors.
And so i
5 what activities have been going on have been trouble-free.
6 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
Can I go back to San Onofre?
7 If I recall, San Onofre-1, they had upgraded their primary 8
system to.67 g,
is that right, and then the other systems 9
they decided were good for
.5 g,
and then they were. going to 10 do some work along the way after they started up.
11 Could we get a brief status report ca where the 12 seismic activities at the plant are?
4 13 MR. DENTON:
Let me see if the Project Manager is in i
14 the room.
Maybe she can bring us up to speed on that.
15 MS. McKENNA:
My name is Eileen McKenna, Division of 16 Licensing.
17 At this time, the Licensee and their consultants are 18 doing the analyses of the remaining systems for the
.67 g 19 earthquake.
We have been working with them on the criteria, l
20 and we issued an SER September 19th on the criteria.
We have i
21 had a couple of audit reviews of the analyses, and there are 22 more scheduled.
23 The modifications are going to be implemented this 24 coming outage beginning November 30th.
25 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Is the ECCS upgraded right l
I
. ~..
61 1
now or not?
2 MS. McKENNA:
Not right now, no.
3 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE-It hasn't been for as long 4
4 as the plant has been operating?
+
5 MS. McKENNA:
That's right.
It would be difficult 6
to do while the plant is running.
7 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
But will that be upgraded?
8 MS. McKENNA:
Yes, it will be this coming outage.
9 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
The November outage.
1 1G MR. DENTON:
I think the purpose of this was to take 11 it from a half g to two-thirds g.
I 12 CHAIRMAN FALLADINO.
Well, when we mentioned Diablo-13 Canyon, seismicity was the connecting link.
s 14 Okay, thank you.
15 MR.
J.
MARTIN:
I had a couple of other things I 16 wanted to touch on and sort of wind up my part of it.
17 Three things that we have tried to do.
I've given
.I i
- thought since I've been in the Region as to how to do 18 some i
l 19 more with less or even more with the same, and two or three 20 things we've done, I think are sort of interesting.
21 One of the things that I've discovered to do is to 22 have at each plant an annual team inspection run by the Region i
23 where we essentially take a couple of safety-related. systems, 24 and we're trying to use probability risk assessments to pick 25 the ones that look they're the more important ones, and just i
1
.-..a.
s+,
,_,...--,,,,m..,,,
62 1
use them as vehicles to do a thorough examination of 2
maintenance, state of procedures, knowledge of personnel, 3
material condition, and thoroughly shake them down.
And we 4
4 have pretty much completed our first round of team inspections 5
that I think have been pretty useful, and I guess it's my 6
feeling that if there are major problems at a plant, they will 7
turn up just about everywhere, and I think we've found that 8
doing it in a team fashion is fairly productive, in that' 9
people have a chance to interact and look at the whole system 10 in a way that individuals find it difficult to do.
11 So I plan on continu1'ng to do that.
I t ' ;. also --
l 12
.since I've been in the Region, we have hired a Isrge number of 13 new inspectors.
It's also a good way to get new people off on 14 the right foot, rather than turn them Icose en their own.
15 The other thing we've done is, I've increased the 16 numbers of Resident Inspectors.
At the one-unit sites, we i
17 have at least two, and at the bigger sites, like Palo. Verde, 18 there are five.
At San Onofre, there are five, and four at 19 Diablo Canyon.
And that's been sort of useful in that on the 20 one hand, I'm finding we're getting a considerable amount more i
21 direct inspection time out of people.
A Region-based 22 inspector can only inspect about a third of the time, because 1
23
.the other third he's in travel and that sort of thing, If he i
24 lives at the site, you can expect two-thirds of the-time.
I l
25 So at least on paper, we have created another five l
l l
c---.
. - - ~. -,., _. -,, - _,
63 1
people, FTE, if you will, of inspection, and I am rather O
satisfied with that.
i 3
The only downside of it is, when you have people at 4
the sites, you have to get the supervision out more often to 5
keep track of what they're doing, and we haven't been as 6
successful as we should on that.
But I am happy with that so 7
far.
8 Another thing that I've done that I think is sort of 9
interesting
---I mentioned it before -- but on Diablo Canyon 10 and on Palo Verde, we have put together an inspection team of 11 senior people with some contractors to essentislly hava-.s 12 presence onsite and particularly in the control room during 13 initial startup for maybe three weeks, to just continually s
14 observe the interaction of people and get a sense over a-long 15 period of time of the discipline, the orderliness, whether the i
16 control room people know as much as they should, whether their 1
17 supervisors are involved, are their communications flawless, 18 and I think that's helped a great deal in that if worse 19 before they're looking, it's had an effect where the company 20 management feels they'd better be there too.
And I think 21 perhaps that's contributed somewhat to the rather trouble-free 1
~ or so.
22 startup of the NTOLs in the Region over the last year 23 Trends, I would say.certainly I don't know of any 24 plants in the Region that are deteriorating.
My feeling is 4
25 that the ones I spend time thinking about, like Rancho and o
+-
64 1
Trojan, are getting better, and my feeling is that we should 2
continue to be demanding and skeptical and not let up.
But my 3
feeling is that the trends are acceptable, and the newer 4
plants seem to be doing fine, and we will continue to be 5
vigilant on them to see that they don't get overconfident and 6
backslide.
7 That's essentially all I have.
8 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
Were any of the plants in the 9
region -- I don't know my geography that well -- but were any 10 of the plants impacted, affected, or felt the Mexican 11 earthquake
- 12 MR.
J.
MARTIN:
I may be wrong on this, but my 13 understanding is that they did not.
They may have sensed it, t
14 but there was-no real noticeable effect.
They only thing I've 15 heard was that there was some concern about a tidal wave, that 16 in fact the water level did go up about two feet or so at 17 Diablo Canyon, but that's very minor.
If you look at the map, 18 California is quite a ways away from Acapulco.
Texas is a lot 19 closer.
20 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
Well, how about Texas?
21 MR.
R.
MARTIN:
Yes.
The high-buildings in Houston 22 in South Texas reported some sense of swaying up on the upper 23' floors, but on the ground level, people didn't sense much, 24 sort of doors swinging open and shut on the upper floors of 25 buildings, but no real, very dramatic kind of response.
On i
I
65 1
the local newscasts, that's the only thing I have picked up on 2
in the local ares.
3 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
Okay.
Questions?
Comments?
4 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE-I have just a couple on 5
Rancho Seco.
6 When I went back and looked at the cenaultants' 7
report that SMUD had done, I noticed that they had really 8
hit a number of areas, and, Jack, you've touched on a few of 9
them.
10 One was this unprofessional and argumentative 11 relationship between the Board and the General Manager, their 12 equivalent of a CEO, and a wide range of =anagement and 13 organi:ational probleas.
And they hit en a bunch of things, 14 and I'll characterize some of their findings-lack of 15 leadership, lack of accountability, they don't strive for 16 excellence, they settle for the minimum, weak technical 17 competence, poor organizational attitude on quality assurance, 18 poor training, they're not communicative and not responsive to 19 a variety of groups like regulatory agencies, us.
They have a 20 weak ALARA program, and they don't implement programs in the 21 areas of maintenance, operations, and support.
22 And I wondered first whether you thought that those 23 were pretty accurate representations of the organization or 24 characterizations of the organization, at least during the 25 time period that the report covered?
66 1
MR.
J.
MARTIN:
Yes, I do.
And many of those are 2
observations we gave them and that they picked out of our 3
reports and INPC's reports, and I think that's a fairly 4
accurate assessment.
5 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
1 gather, at least at the 6
present time, that their Eoard of Directors think that those 7
concerns of sufficient gravity that, as I understand it 8
basically, they are talking about a massive overhaul of the 9
top-level organization of the company -- in essence, either 10 changing people or replacing them altogether on the top three 11 or four levels, starting with the CEO and working down into 12 the senior management of the plant staff.
13 MR.
J.
MARTIN.
Well, certainly they have replaced 14 some of the top people, and my understanding is that there are 15 plans to scrutinize very closely many of the others, but I 16 have not gotten too deeply into who goes and who stays, but 17 certainly there has been a considerable amount of shuffling 18 around already.
19 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
Is that in the nuclear part of 20 the company?
21 MR.
J.
MARTIN:
Oh, yes.
The plant manager was 22 moved, the quality assurance manager will be replaced.
They 23 are actively recruiting a rad protection manager.
Now that's 24
-- the fellow retired shortly after the report.
The training 25 managers, that's another area they realized is in deep
_ =.. - - =.. - -..... ~.. _... -..
67 1
trouble, and they are moving quite aggressively to try to find I
i 2
a training manager.
?
All these are top level positions.
So there is a i
4 half a dozen right there, that are in need of either new 5
people or better people.
i 1
6 COMMISSICMER ASSELSTIME:
I guess the better i
j 7
question I have is with those kinds of findings in the report, i
8 which we agree with, and I understand the points that are made i
2 i
1 9
in the SALP report and that you made today about progress in
]
10 some of those areas, but you also mentioned that while you l
11 think the top levels of the organization, the top 100 people, r
J 12 for example, may have changed their views and attitudes on 13 things, that they still have to go a ways with the other, i
14 whatever it is, six or eight hundred or so.
I i
j 15 Given all of that, I guess I am interested in 16 understanding what the basis is for your judgment that this j
17 isn't another Davis-Besse, that we are not in the situation we i
10 were in with Davis-Besse say in February of this year, when 19 they_had an improvement program, people were saying a lot of i,
20 good things, there were efforts to identify people in the 21 company to take responsibility for assuring that changes get j
22 made, only to find out that we had a serious operating-event l
23 just a few months after that.
l 24 What I am interested in doing is probing your 25 assurance that this isn't another Davis-Besse, that enough I
-,--...~_,..~._.;
69 1
changes have been made such that this organization is turned
~
2 around so that we won't see that in the next few months.
3 MR.
J MARTIN.
I guess my f**1ing on that, and I 4
gave quite a bit of thought on that as to what kinds of things 5
would you use as indicators.
For example, I went back and 6
1:oked at my LEES back for the 1 :t couple of years and, you 7
know, one of the things that I mentioned during the January 8
meeting that is unique about this plant is that the people 9
that run it, that actually operate it, are quite competent.
l 10 They have had quite a good operating record.
They have had l
11 some steam generator tube failures that are quite challenging, 12 operated fine, got the plant s ht t down, did the things they 17 should dc.
14 Our feeling is, not only for the old operators but 15 for the newer ones, is they are quite competent, and the 16 operations management has been quite good at running the 17 plant.
18 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE.
That was also the case, I 19 think, for Davis-Besse.
20 MR.
J.
MARTIN:
Yes.
So that supplies some 21 confidence.
22 The other area that we are reasonably happy with is 23 maintenance.
It's not perfect, but it's not bad.
We have not 24 been able to find any gross situations where things just 25 aren't being attended to, but it's like a lot of older plants,
69 1
you can't emphasize that enough.
2 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO-Do they do per' maintenance 3
testing?
I think that was One of the th:ngs --
4 MR.
J MARTIN:
They do, and here again, what post 5
maintenance testing' The ones that we look at are post 6
maintenance testing for e q u i pc.e n t, and that is directly 7
related to safety issues, and we are pretty confident there.
8 I am not so clear on post maintenance testing on 9
balance of plant stuff, or things that are not directly 10 important for safety.
I think they need improvement there.
11 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO Well, I am thinking of line-up 12 of valve 2 and various kinds of functions.
13 ME.
J.
MARTIN:
Well, for the functions related to 14 the safety-related functions of the plant, we are pretty 15 confident They have not been able to find major problems on 16 that.
Like all these plants, the level of attention given to 17 the non-safety part of the plant is not what it should be, and 18 that was one of INFO's major complaints, on things involved 19 on balance of plant.
20 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
I have a problem, I guess 21 always, I au not sure where the non-safety part of the plant 22 starts or stops.
23 COMMISSICNER ASSELSTINE:
Yes.
Look at the AEOD 24 reports and you will see instances where failure of even one 25 piece of non-safety-related equipment can wipe out a safety
70 1
system, an entire safety system.
2 MR. J MARTIN:
Yes, it's a rather fuzzy interface.
3 I guess I spent the day Thursday out crawling around the 4
plant, trying to get some sense of this problem, and looking 5
for what kinds of things had deficiency tags on them, and 6
there were a lot of deficiency taga, but it was on things like 7
the centrifuge that cleans up the lube oil for the turbine; 8
things that are pretty remote from our direct area of 9
interest.
10 A number of pumps and valves on secondary water 11 systems were in need of minor repairs and things like that.
I'm kind of a bug on 1:
If I look at other indicators 13 radiological protection.
That is something that I feel is a 14 good, strong indicator of things, and I have a lot of 15 complaints in that area.
But, on the other hand, I look at 16 their record, they run about a third to half of the exposure 17 that other utilities have.
18 So I guess it moderates some my feeling that things 19 are out of control I think what we have to do is recognize 20 that this is a plant that is in need.of improvement, it needs 21 to be brought up to 1985 type standards.
But
- 1. d o not get the 22 sense, either by their performance or things that we have run 23 into, that it is one that is being operated recklessly or that 24 people are in disregard of operating it safely.
25 There are a number of items that I think also are
71 1
indicators of first class operation that definitely need 3
improvement, but I guess ny feeling is -- and not only mine, 3
but Harold and Jim Taylor as well -- we considered this and 4
felt that it was not a threat to safety and could be operated 5
safely.
6 MR. DIRCKS:
Let me just expand a bit.
I think over 7
the years, and certainly over the past several months, we have 8
been accelerating our interest in beyond the traditional 9
regulatory areas that the Commission has always involved 10 itself in.
I think with operating facilities and we really 11 entered that era of operating plants and how do you regulate 12 operating facilities.
You don't regulate it by looking at 13 incidental pieces of. equipment and seeing whether there is 14 compliance or noncompliance.
15 I think we are trying to move into how are these 16 facilities managed to ensure safety.
17 Now, certainly Davis-Besse was an example of how we 18 should have packaged things in a much more comprehensive 19 look.
Just the interaction of people at the site, the way 20 they bring their operations together, the quality of the 21 staff, the quality of the operations after Davis-Besse, and we 22 have taken somewhat of a look I mentioned that in a memo to 23 you.
We questioned ourselves, could we be doing more in l
24 certain areas that we don't have clear guidelines in.
i 25 One area certainly is the maintenance area that we I
1 i
72 j
i have been concerned about.
Training is another area.
The way 2
that systems are managed and the way that design is managed.
3 I think you heard when Joe Williams was here from i
4 Davis-Besse the outline of the things that he found out in i
i 5
that facility from the management standpoint, the 5
configuration management scheme that he brought to your 7
attention and to his own attention.
I 8
Based on a lot of this, we have asked Jim Taylor, l
9 working with Harold Denton and others, to really do some-10 i nnovative thinking about how to expand our view of these l
11 plants in a much more comprehensive fashion.
12 We have done one facility, using this new approach.
4 13 We are still experimenting with it, bringing design engineers,
}
{
14 engineers, inspectors, training people, to bear on a single 15 facility.
We are looking at systems within these facilities.
]
16 We have done one plant I mentioned here.
We will be i.
l 17 submitting a paper to the Commission.
I 16 This is not without some controversy.
We are going 1
j 19 to be moving beyond areas where we certainly don't have clear t
f 20 regulations on what is a good maintenance program and what is l
21 not a good maintenance program.
But by observation and i
22 inspection and digging in, we can detect when programs have J
i l
23 holes in them.
l 24 Training is another area that we have not really l.
25 gotten into, in a very in-depth way.
Certainly when we look
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i i
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73 1
at how management treats these facilities, we are going to be t
i 2
looking at how maintensnce people are trained, what sort of j
3 training program they have for control technicians.
Some of 4
this -- I know INPO and NUMARC have been working in this.
I 5
think they are not going to be alone in this area and we are a
6 going to be in it as much as they are in it.
i.
7 We don't think we need any new regulatory authority, 8
but as we bump into problems, we may be coming down and asking 9
the Commission for more regulatory authority, especially if we 10 are challenged in a vigorous way when we move into these 11 areas.
12 I don't think you want to get into it in detail, but 4
1 13 we will be asking the Commission that when we deliver a l
14 Commission paper to you on these sorts of new approaches, 15 based on some of the lessons we have learned from Davis-Besse 16 and others, Salem, I think it will be an interesting topio, j
17 and it won't be without some debate.
Certainly we don't have 18 enough time.
19 COMMISSIONER ROBERTS:
I expect that's correct.
I 20 MR. DIRCKS:
There will be debate on it, but it's 21 something that I don't think we can sit back and look at our 1
i 22 mission in a very narrow sense.
We have got to move ahead 23 with some new approaches, and certainly some of the things 4'
24 that I'm talking about preceded Davis-Besse.
But Davis-Besse l
25 did accelerate some of our thinking in this area.
Ii
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74 1
COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
I think you are absolutely 2
right.
I think that Eill as absolutely right, and I think 3
that the initial effort that the Staff took down at Turkey 4
Point is a good first step.
Either you should get your paper you know, you break it into a 5
together, either if it's 6
couple of segments and talk about an outline of the kind of 4
7 approaches that you-all have in mind. I think that would be i
I 8
useful.
9 In fact, I asked a while back for Forrest to put 10 maintenance on for our next meeting with NUMARC.
I think it 11 would be very useful to have a meeting with the Staff first to 12 talk about these areas, maintenance, operations, management, h
13 training, and get a little better sense from you-all about 14 what your feeling about those areas is and the kinds of things j
15 that we ought to b e' involved in before we talk to the industry s
16 about it.
It would be very helpful i
17 One last question on Rancho Seco:
Jack, you 18 mentioned that INPO had been active in this area, but that I
19 you, I guess, had not talked to it.
Is there something that 20 we ought to look at in terms of the information exchange, our 21 ability-to find out information, if it really bears on the f
22 safety of the plant, that may be plant-specific information i
f 23 from INPO?
Is there something more that we ought to be 24 thinking about, based upon the flow of information and i
25 communication at Rancho Seco?
.~.
75 1
MR.
J.
MARTIN:
I would find that helpful i
2 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
I think that is a subject we 3
ought to get into a bit more, and perhaps do i t with IMPO to 4
discuss their points of view and our points of view, and get a 5
working relationship that is effective.
6 CCMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Yes, I think that might be 7
a'useful thing to discuss with the Staff as well, not 8
necessarily here, but before we raise that issue as well, 9
because it does appear to me that the flow of information in 10 this particular case might not have been as good as we might I
11 have hoped and we ought to make sure that that gets ironed out i
12 for the future.
j _ f.
13 MR. DIRCKS:
We have had several conversations with l
l l
14 INPO.
I think they have a point of view and we have a point 15 of view, and we started off on this relationship with INPO, I 16 think they tried to maintain that their information flow to 17 the Commission would be in generic terms, showing, trends of 18 the industry.
I think-we are becoming increasinglyfconcerned
~
19 that we have to exchange information on specific p1 ants, on i
20 specific problems.
As we look at operating fac lities, as 21 incidents occur out there, we want to go back and see how they 22 occurred.
We want to look at causes, and many of these causes 23
- deal with training issues, and we want to know what was the 24 extent of training of some of these personnel that led'to a 25 particular incident.
I f
n 1
4 y
c
~
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,y.
76 1
I think we want to look at maintenance history and 2
maintenance facts.
3 Now INPO does collect information on those areas, 4
and I think we want to share or have a greater share in that 5
plant-specific data.
We have had some conversations, not with t
6 a great deal of success.
We are still waiting for some more 7
information from INPO to see whether we can make our point.
8 If we can't, I think we will just have to come back to the 9
Commission and ask for some help in looking at this s
10 relationship in a little more detail.
j
~
11 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
It would be very disconcerting 12 if INPO or any group found a problem that affected safety and 13 then we don't get told about it.
(_
14 MR. DIRCKS:
I think we have an understanding with 1
j 15 them that if it's a safety issue, they will come to us right 16 away.
We have to straighten out with them how they come to 17 us, but what we are looking for is a much more subtle issue.
18 Have they, in their reviews, detected some concerns on their 19 part on say the implementation of a maintenance program that 20 does require improvement?
21 It may not be below whatever standards they have in 22 mind, but certainly are there_ problems there?
4 23 Now is any one of these problems enough for a plant 24 shutdown?
And the answer is probably no, but if there is a 25 record of spotty implementation of a sound maintenance
'~
l 4
i,
77 I
1 program, I think that typo of information wo are intorosted 2
in, not for enforcement purpose, but really to get an idea of 3
whether we should be doing something'from our standpoint in 4
our own. inspection programs.
5 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
Let's make sure we remember 6
that at agenda planning, either at maybe the meeting with the 7
Staff or maybe a meeting with INPO and the Staff or maybe a 8
combination of both in sequence.
i 9
COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Let me just ask one other 10 question for information.
11 Bill, you mentioned training.
My t'ecollection on 3
12 part of the deal on the training was that we would follow up k
13 to look at both the INPO program and a few training programs
'e i 14 at some individual plants to make sure that in f a c t' - s ui t a b}1 e 15 progress was being made and the program was being carried A
16 forward as it had been represented.to us.
Have we had any 17 problems in getting access to i n f orma t i on' i n those cases?
m 18 MR. DIRCKS:
I think in those areas we have a pretty 19 good relationship.
One of our people from He'rold's staff i
20 participates in site visits.
What I'm talking about is if we 21 have a particular problem that has come to our attention, say 22 some error in the operator control room, and we are interested 23 in how did this happen, how did an operator fall into a i
24 difficulty?
1,.
25 So Harold, in pursuing this issue, will: ask say Bill S
3-(
i' N'f i
.M
78
'i~
Russell to go down and dig out some information from whatever not only from the plant, from our own records, but 2
source 3
he will ask INPO, give us information on plant X or Y or Z,
4 and we want to pursue this thread of inquiry.
And I think 5
there is some concern that we are getting involved too deeply 6
in specific issues at specific plants.
And, Harold, you may 7
want to expand on that notion.
8 MIf-. DENTON:
No, I think that's correct.
We are 1
9 having some-growing pains on these plant-specific issues, and 10 a session on that I think would be worthwhile, 11 COMMISSIONER ZECH:
It seems to me that it is 12 important to work on an improved relationship, but also I 13 think it is important to recognize that INPO is making and has 4
14 made a rather significant contribution, and they are doing
~i 15 good things, and so I think the approach to take is a positive 16
< constructive one.
I hope _that we could work out these 17 r e t a,t i ons hi p s together, but recognizing that they have indeed, s
18 at least as far as I'm concerned, made a significant i
contrfbution to plant operations.
19 20 MR. DIRCKS:
I think they are successful, and the 21 testimony as to their success is our desire to~get more 22 information from them.
I think their very success breeds more 23 of an interest in 24 COMMISSIONER ZECH:
But it helps all of us make the 25 plants operate better and more safely, r
J 4,
. /
79 e
1 MR. DENTON:
It does seem as though it has become 2
more adversarial and less cooperative over the last couple of 3
years, and that may be due to this lawsuit which is still, I 4
think, unsettled about our releasing information that they 5
released to us.
And it has gotten much more difficult to get 6
information on plant-specific issues than it was in the past, 7
CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
Well, a lawsuit will do that to 8
you.
9 COMMISSIONER ZECH:
Well, anyway, we should work on 10 it, to continue progress and improve relationships and improve 11 safety, because I think they do have intentions of doing very 12 similar things to what we are doing.
13 MR. DIRCKS:
I think they have brought about a 14 significant and dramatic change in the way the utilities are 15 managing their affairs, and I think we have to be very careful 16 that we don't provide any disincentive.
17 COMMISSIONER ZECH:
Right.
The fact of getting them l
1 18 together, they are talking and communicating better, and it 19 seems to me that that's certainly been constructive and 20 helpful.
21 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE; But I think on the 22 information flow, there are ways to deal with that particular 23 problem without saying, well, you just can't have access to l
24 the information.
25 COMMISSIONER ZECH:
Yes, that's a problem we've got
i 80 e
1 to solve.
i.-
2 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
Anything more that we should 3
cover this afternoon?
I know these gentlemen have to catch a I
4 plane.
I have a 3:30 meeting, we all have a number of people 5
waiting, and there is a group trying to come in here at 4:00 I'
i 6
o' clock.
I 7
COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
I have one quick question 8
for Harold.
Since you brought up the Mexican earthquake, are v.
9 we looking at the implications of that for our plants?
In 10 particular it'. struck me that there were a couple of i
11 interesting aspects.
One, the earthquake occurred in a place l
i 12 where a big one had not occurred before; and two, that major 13 impacts occurred very far away from the epicenter of the i
14
. earthquake due to terrain.
15 MR. DENTON:
Yes, we are.
We are just sending down, f
16 if it hasn't already gone, a report on the Chilean earthquake, i
t
.i 17 and we are sending people with USGS down to look into what the i
18 Mexican earthquake means for our program.
And probably in six l
]
19 months we will have an analysis that we can send you about 20 what it might mean for our prograu.
{
21 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
At a minimum one thing i
22 that jumps out at me is we ought not to place too much 23 confidence in the fact that big earthquakes have not occurred 24 at particular points in the past.
25 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
Well, I think that that is an I
i h
,r-,
m.
l 01 1
important point that they can look at 2
Well, Bill, will you extand our thanks to our 3
regional administrators, and I thank Harold and Jim and 4
yourself for participating as well 5
We will stand adjourned.
6 CWhereupon, at 4:00 o' clock p.m.,
the commission 7
meeting was adjourned.)
8 9
10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25
O 2
^
1 CERTIFICATE OF OFFICIAL REPORTER 2
3 4
5 This is to certify that the attached proceedings 6
before the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission, in the 7
matter of: COMMISSION MEETING S
9 Name of proceeding: Discussion of Plant Issues with Regional Administrators (Public Meeting) 10
~
11 Docket No..
12 place: Washington, D.
C.
sk 13 Date: Tuesday, October 1, 1985 14 15 were held as herein appears and that this is the original 16 transcript thereof for the file of the United States Nuclear 17 Regulatory Commission.
13 (Signature)
(TypedNameofReprter) [Su'zage B. G ng 20 21 22 23 Ann Riley & Associates, Ltd, 24 25
f$
r l
l AGENDA MEETING WITH THE COMMISSIONERS l
OCTOBER 1, 1985 2:00 p.m.
Thirty-minute presentations by each Regional Administrator l
on the following issues and topics i
Region IV (Robert D. Martin) i 1.
Status of Region i'
i o
NTOL Impact Subsiding o
Experience With Nonprogramatic Inspections o
Inspection of Commanche Peak o
Uranium Recovery Field Office Activities i
2.
Plant Status and Issues I
o Fort St. Vrain - Project Management
-l o
River Bend - Operations / Construction Interfaces o
South Texas - Litigation Review d
o Middle South Utilities - Rate issues i
3.
Materials Issues l
o North Dakota Truck / Train Accident o
Materials Events Implications Region V (John B. Martin) i f
1.
Improvements at Plants Receiving Increased Attention I
o Facilities - Rancho Seco, Trojan, Palo Verde j
o Major Concerns and Problems t
o Management Changes o
Program Changes o
Improved Operations o
On-going Actions by NRC and Licensee l
2.
Regional Innovations o
Annual Regional Team Inspections o
Increased Number of Resident Inspectors o
Operational Readiness Enhanced Inspection 3.
Performance of Diablo Canyon Units 1 and 2 Since Receipt of OL i
b h
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TRNei1TIAL 70:
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Meeting
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