ML20163A695

Bpg Presentation on TVA SCWE Final 2

ML20163A695
Person / Time
Site:	Sequoyah
Issue date:	06/12/2020
From:	Garde B - No Known Affiliation
To:	Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation
Hon A
References
2.206
Download: ML20163A695 (21)

Text

1 2.206 Petition Regarding TVAs Safety Conscious Work Environment BILLIE PIRNER GARDE, ESQ. Presented to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission 1828 L STREET, NW - SUITE 600 2.206 Petition Review Board WASHINGTON, D.C. 20036 June 12, 2020

June 4, 2019 2.206 Petition On 2 TVAs Safety Conscious Work Environment Advises NRC that the wholesale removal of the current Employee Concerns Program representatives, along with the presentation of a new ECP model, has contributed to a chilled work environment at the TVA plants and a reduced SCWE.

Requests that the NRC take specific actions, as follows:

1. Immediately issue an announcement to all TVA employees, reiterating their rights and responsibilities to raise any safety-related concerns, that doing so is a legally-protected activity, and prominently provide the NRCs telephone number and email address to all employees. If there is a significant safety-related concern or complaint of retaliation, employees much know there is a viable alternative avenue to raise it, instead of remaining silent in the fact of this debacle.

2. Immediately require TVA to stop its ECP program conversion; until it can demonstrate to the NRC a management of change process that ensures any program change maintains the necessary independence of any process to honestly, without interference by TVA management, report the truth of any findings.

3. Demand that TVA present an alleged new program to the NRC and the public for review, hold a public meeting, and then provide feedback to TVA on whether its proposal is consistent with the expectations that have been established by the Confirmatory Orders and ECP best practices.

Petitioner Disagrees With the Initial Determination 3 That Petition Did Not Meet MD 8.11.§ III.C.1(b) Criteria In April 2019 - nine months after the petition calling for immediate intervention the PRB did not accept the petition on the basis that the issues raised in the petition have been the subject of a facility-specific or generic NRC staff review and, none of the circumstances of § III.C.1(b)(ii) apply.

WE DISAGREE: All of the circumstances apply here:

• The prior staff reviews did not resolve the issues raised by the petitioner;

• The resolution of the issues only marginally applied to the facts provided by the Petitioner originally in support of the requested actions;

• The Petitioner is providing significant new information that the staff did not consider in the prior review.

Meeting Provides Opportunity to Clarify or 4 Supplement Original 2.206 Petition, which meets the requirement of MD 8.11 §III. C.1(b)(ii).

1. The prior staff reviews did not resolve the issues raised by the Petitioner, as analyzed by David Lochbaum in his presentation to the Board, and supplemented here.

2. The resolution of the issues only marginally applied to the facts provided by the Petitioner originally in support of the requested actions, and supplemented here.

3. The Petitioner is providing significant new information and/or that the staff did not consider in its review, and is referenced or supplemented here.

5 Clarification on Issue 1: Communications About Rights and Responsibilities to Raise Concerns Remains Valid Issue Initial June 2019 request was in response to TVAs removal of the entire ECP department employees in a publicly humiliating way, without a replacement program in place, that addressed the basic industry best practices for ECP programs for independence; and the continual public statements by TVA management about the ECP program changes simply worsened the situation.

Because the NRC did not react to the immediate request, the situation at TVA has devolved, and the SCWE issues remain.

CLARIFICATION ON ISSUE ONE: The lack of SCWE at the TVA facilities still requires additional intervention by the NRC; insuring TVA employees and contractors are provided information about their rights and responsibilities to raise any safety-related concerns to the NRC.

NRC Staff Took no Immediate Action in Response 6 to Petition Request # 1 Initial June 4, 2019 request, and follow up, sought immediate Intervention by the NRC, asking the NRC to take additional actions, beyond the posting of the 10 CFR 50.7 poster to ensure that employees would have an avenue to raise concerns outside of the internal ECP process.

My letter asks for IMMEDIATE action by the NRC in order to ensure that employees are fully aware of the NRC as an alternative avenue.

June 7, 2019 E-Mail from Billie Garde to Lisa Marie Jarriel This initial request was effectively denied by the failure of the NRC staff to take any immediate action.

The NRC expects that all NRC-regulated sites have an environment where employees fee free to raise any safety concerns, but each licensee decides how best to ensure that it exists.

June 7, 2019 E-Mail from Lisa Marie Jarriel to Billie Garde

NRC Took No Action in Response to 7 Petition Request # 1 August 21, 2019 Letter from NRC Chairwoman Kristine Svinicki to the Honorable Edward Markey, U.S. Senator, reiterates that the NRC took no immediate action; but maintained that its regular regulatory actions were sufficient:

The NRC staff has communicated and continues to communicate with the TVA employees that they can raise concerns to the NRCthe NRC requires licensees to prominently post NRC Form 3, Notice to Employees, which describes protected activities and explains how allegations of licensee violations can be reported directly to the NRC.... Based upon the use of these avenues to raise concerns by employees at TVAs plants, the NRC believes these communications are effective.

1. Prior Staff Reviews Did Not Resolve 8 Issues Raised By the Petitioners NRCs regular scheduled interviews and SCWE investigation support that the work environment at TVA plants has worsened over the past year. Thus, TVA alone is unable to demonstrate an improved SCWE.

The NRCs Office of Enforcement Report dated April 29, 2020, referenced a nuclear safety culture assessment in fall 2019 (with the new ECP in place) at Browns Ferry showing a decline in worker perceptions of [SCWE] compared to results from 2018 (when the old ECP was in place.)

The Oak Ridge Assessment (ORAU) did not find an improving SCWE, and confirmed that the removal of all the ECP representatives had a significant effect on the workforces perception of retaliation for raising concerns.

Granting the Petition would provide additional regulatory assurance that TVA would take meaningful and effective actions to ensure employees are aware of their rights and responsibilities to raise concerns, including to the NRC.

2. The NRCs resolution of the new ECP program 9 only marginally addressed the original concern.

The original 2.206 request pointed out numerous issues with the lack of independence of the new ECP program, including:

The lack of independence from line management; The horrible botched roll out that exasperated the changes and undermined employee confidence in the program, and a willingness to use it as an alternative avenue; The untruthful representations about the benchmarking industry best practices and endorsement of the program from NAECP professionals; The lack of any qualifications for the as yet unselected (by management) new ECP personnel; The lack of explanation of who was going to perform HIRD investigations.

The NRC Staff did not address any of these issues or concerns in regular or SCWE inspections, taking a position that since ECPs are not regulatory required they are not reviewable.

New Information Confirms That New ECP 10 Program is not Independent or Effective Senior QC Inspector experience with new ECP program demonstrates a lack of competence and independence.

Statement of Inspector (provided to the PRB) demonstrates that new ECP program is neither competent or effective TVA employees have used, and continue to use, old ECP employees as a conduit to the NRC instead of risking using the new ECP; but NRC has not processed these issues.

NONE of these issues have been examined by the NRC.

Examples of Concern Information Not Considered 11 By the Staff Former ECP Representatives have tried to serve as a conduit for TVA employees not willing to submit concerns themselves out of fear of reprisal, do not want to use the new ECP program, but who have concerns. These concerns are NOT included in the NRCs information data base, were not pursued by the NRC, but include serious allegations and supporting details of:

1. A chilling effect in two specific departments;

2. Technical concerns related to condition reports of safety-related components;

3. Procedure compliance violation concerns;

4. Falsification of records; and

5. Unqualified personnel performing work .

Clarification on Issue 2: Require TVA 12 to Demonstrate Independence and Effectiveness of New ECP Initial June 2019 request was in response to TVAs removal of the entire ECP department employees in a publicly humiliating way, causing a chilling effect. There was no replacement program in place; the description of the new program presented to the workforce was management centric instead of independent, and numerous false contradictory, and misleading statements were made to the workforce about the new program.

CLARIFICATION ON ISSUE TWO: The NRC summary is inadequate because it does not include the request that the new program have demonstrable independence, without interference by TVA management, with competent staff, performance indicators and qualified program elements to meet TVAs uniques SCWE needs and challenges.

3. The new information provided here should be 13 considered in support of clarified 2.206 requests.

New information is provided for the PTB consideration, along with an analysis of the previous staff actions at TVA relevant to this clarified request, including:

David Lochbaums Analysis of TVA Employee Concerns Program 2.206 Petition; Statements of former Senior QC Inspector, and former ECP employees; Information from the allegations provided to the NRC but not included in the NRC assessment and data base; Results of the ORAU Assessment of the TVA Safety Culture.

Unacceptable SCWE Situation 14 Continues to Exist at TVA: Clarification TO CLARIFY: NRCs denial of immediate intervention on this SCWE issue at the three TVA plants was inappropriate at the time it initially denied the request, and remains inappropriate now.

The current ECP program is a fundamentally flawed experiment that should not be relied upon as an independent avenue for employees to raise concerns, or a substitute for requiring significant action by TVA to institute the correct safety culture.

New supporting data from both staff and ORAU survey confirm that workforce does not have confidence in the new program.

Initial request for additional NRC intervention remains valid, but is clarified to request that NRC require an independent SCWE oversight team to provide on-site, direct oversight, and an alternative avenue for the TVA workforce to raise and address SCWE issues across the TVA fleet.

Supplemental Information: NRC SCWE 15 Inspections Did Not Even Interview Former ECP Employees for Insight On Program None of the NRC inspections relied on by this Board even interviewed the former ECP employees about the inadequacies and lack of independence of the new ECP program, or the information that each received from other employees, after they were removed, indicating a lack of confidence in new program.

For example, one TVA employee stated to one of the former ECP employees, after learning the ECP had been removed:

Wow, I had a feeling that was what happened. I am sorry. I should have just sucked it up, and not spoke up about anything.

This, and other similar comments, demonstrate a lack of confidence of the TVA workforce in the new program. Yet, no NRC SCWE inspections sought or received this information, or other insights available from the former ECP staff.

Supplemental Information: NRC Received Allegations Do Not Correctly Identify the Actual 16 Number of Allegations Raised to NRC NRC Allegation Management program incorrectly captures information provided by other TVA employees unwilling to speak directly to the new TVA ECP or NRC.

Allegation Management program counts allegations only by PERSON, not by actual number of concerns. For example, if one individual has numerous distinct and unique concerns, they are given one allegation number, and all their concerns are counted as one. This process of numbering concerns undermines the credibility of the data reported by the NRC, and creates a false report.

Each of the 3 former ECP Staff raised 8-9 individua unique allegations with the NRC, which were accepted as 3 allegations, one for each ECP Staff. What should have been counted as 24-27 separate concerns were counted by the NRC as 3.

After the former ECP staff were removed and replaced with new ECP staff, employees who were too afraid to contact either the new ECP staff or the NRC with concerns, took their concerns to the former ECP staff, requesting that they raise the concerns on their behalf to the NRC.

For example, former ECP Staff No. 1 received at least 6 separate concerns from 6 individuals who were afraid to raise their concerns directly with the new ECP or the NRC. So, when ECP Staff No. 1 raised the 6 concerns to the NRC (after they raised their own 9 concerns), their allegations were either not accepted at all, or still counted as 1 concern.

The same occurred with ECP Staff No. 2 who received 3 separate concerns from 3 individuals who were afraid to raise their concerns directly with the new ECP or the NRC. So, when ECP Staff No. 2 raised the 3 concerns to the NRC (after they raised their own 9 concerns), their allegations were either not accepted or pursued at all, or still counted by the NRC as 1 concern.

As a result the numbers reported and relied upon by the staff are inaccurate and actually undercount the concerns reported to the NRC through the former ECP employees.

Supplemental Information: TVA SCWE 17 Attitudes Undermine Safety Culture Statement of recently retired Senior Quality Control Inspector, comments on the state of the TVA work environment and the current ECP program weaknesses:

My experience at TVA is that the atmosphere of fear and intimidation is so deeply ingrained in the management behaviors and style that few, if any, employees would be willing to speak up about serious concernsThis mindset pervades the site culture, and anyone who tried to operate in a different mindset, putting rigor into safety expectations, is beaten down by management actions and attitudes that force conformance.These management attitudes erode the commitment to safety first and make a mockery of the safety culture. I dont know what it will take to change the culture, but I got tired of continually fighting it and retired earlier this year.

June 10, 2020 Statement of retired Senior Quality Control Inspector provided to the NRC.

Clarification on Issue 3: ECP Program 18 Should be the Subject of Public Review, Comment and Oversight Initial June 2019 request was in response to TVAs removal of the entire ECP department employees in a publicly humiliating way, causing a chilling effect. There was no replacement program in place, and the new program has floundered, rendering it ineffective. New program does not address SCWE issues and is not being implemented in a manner that addresses SCWE concerns.

CLARIFICATION ON ISSUE THREE: Request a public meeting and provide feedback to TVA on whether its proposal is consistent with the expectations that have been established by the Confirmatory Order and ECP best practices.

TVA REQUIRES AN INDEPENDENT SCWE 19 OVERSIGHT TEAM WITH PUBLIC ACCOUNTABILITY

1. TVA has not significantly improved its safety culture to one in which employees are willing to raise concerns without fear of reprisal;

2. TVA management has displayed an attitude and contempt for employee concerns in general, and have little to no credibility with the workforce on the commitment to no retaliation;

3. TVA management has continually rejected the internal advice and recommendations of outside consultants, its own employees, and ECP representatives on changes necessary to improve safety culture;

4. As demonstrated by the recent enforcement actions, TVA has developed a culture of deception of the NRC and the public, contributing to a lack of safety culture; and,

5. Unless and until there is public accountability of TVAs actions to improve its SCWE, it will not change. Secrecy has promoted TVAs willingness to ignore recommendations, undermine or ignore concerns, and reject the advice necessary for a significant culture change.

Conclusion:

Grant 2.206 Request for SCWE 20 Oversight and Intervention TVA requires more attention than the NRC can provide through its regular and augmented inspection and oversight activities.

TVAs actions and lack of progress in improving its culture more than justify the intervention requested of this panel and a 2.206 action with requirements of an independent SCWE oversight panel.

The PRB should grant the request for a 2.206 Order, establishing a narrowly focused SCWE oversight panel, requiring:

Review of the new ECP program elements and performance implementation, including;

1. Performance indicators for Safety Culture and SCWE attributes which will drive change and correct behaviors;

2. Regular public disclosure of the SCWE information for accurately measuring performance and improvements; and

3. Demonstrable behavior changes to eradicate HIRD and improvement for TVAs SCWE and safety culture.

21 A wait and see if things improve at TVA attitude is unacceptable and irresponsible in face of current evidence.

There is no reasonable assurance that the TVA workforce is working with a true Safety Conscious Work Environment.