ML20195D862
| ML20195D862 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | South Texas  |
| Issue date: | 05/30/1986 |
| From: | Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards |
| To: | |
| References | |
| ACRS-T-1516, NUDOCS 8606050145 | |
| Download: ML20195D862 (186) | |
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k W /5/8 9-ygg O UNITED STATES 9 4 99 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION IN THE MATTER OF: DOCKET NO:
ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON REACTOR SAFEGUARDS SUBCOMMITTEE ON SOUTH TEXAS UNITS 1 & 2 O
LOCATION: BAY CITY, TEXAS PAGES: 1 - 184 DATE: FRIDAY, MAY 30, 1986
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Official Reporters 444 North CapitolStreet Washington, D.C. 20001 y co m .3 .
NATIONWIDE COVERAGE
1 ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON REACTOR SAFEGUARDS O 2 3 X 4 In the Matter of :
5 HOUSTON LIGHTING & POWER :
7 (South Texas Project Units 1 & 2) :
8 X 9 Best Western Hotel 10 Bay City, Texas 11 12
() 13 Friday, 30 May 1986 14 15 The hearing in the above-entitled matter was 16 convened, pursuant to notice, at 8:30 a.m.,
17 18 BEFORE:
MR. CHARLES WYLIE 19 DR. CHESTER SEISS DR. CARSON MARK 20 MR. JESSE EBERSOLE l MR. MEDHAT M. EL-ZEFTAWY
! 21 22 23 25 l TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713) 222-7177
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(!P 1 PROCEEDINGS
/,,N V 2 MR. MARK: Good morning. The meeting will now 3 come to order. This is a continuation of the meeting of 4 the Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguard Subcommittee 5 from South Texas Units 1 and 2.
6 I'm Carson Mark, Subcommittee chairman. Unless 7 there are things which people want to raise at this moment, 8 I'll call on Mr. Wisenburg to -- for a presentation.
9 MR. WISENBURG: Thank you, sir.
10 I have only very brief remarks to make relative 11 to the open items remaining to be resolved for the South 12 Texas Project license.
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() 13 As the SER shows, there are seventeen open 14 items. They break down into two categories, those which 15 are open awaiting completion of NRC staff review and those 16 which HL&P owes additional information to the NRC prior to 17 providing NRC the basis to complete their review.
18 None of these seventeen open items involved any 19 areas of controversy between NRC Staff and HL&P. We would 20 expect to be able to support NRC Staff review of eight of 21 those items in sufficient time to include their resolution 22 in supplemental a SER to be issued approximately in August 23 of this year.
g~ 24 Unless the Committee has any specific questions V
25 of HL&P on the open items, I know the NRC project manger is TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713) 222-7177
3 1 going to summarize them all for you and I don't want to go
\) 2 through that twice. I really don't have any further 3 remarks to make on the open items.
4 DR. MARK: I guess -- Charlie, should I suggest 5 we just wait for the Staff to go down the list and report 6 the status, then, from their point of view; at which point, 7 it would seem appropriate if Mr. Wisenburg wanted to 8 elaborate on some item or another as it is called out.
9 MR. WISENBURG: We'd be happy to do that, sir.
10 DR. MARK: Thank you. As you say, you didn't 11 propose a very long discussion. And in that case, is there 12 anything else the Applicant would like at this particular
() 13 point to add any comments on? I'm not aware of anything to 14 call for.
15 MR. WISENBURG: We do have some responses to 16 questions raised yesterday that we weren't able to provide 17 you with --
18 DR. MARK: Would this be a good time to check 19 those off?
20 MR. WISENBURG: Yes, it would, sir.
21 DR. MARK: Let's do that.
j 22 MR. WISENBURG: Mr. Dotson will present the 23 answers to several of the questions from yesterday's
<3 24 discussion.
'b My name is Erroll Dotson, manger of i 25 MR. DOTSON:
TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713) 222-7177 I
4 1 engineering. One question was on the pressurizer power t,T U
2 operated relief valves.
3 On the qualifications, they are Class 1-E fully 4 qualified under IEEE 323-1974, they're Westinghouse 5 manufactured, supplied and tested valves.
6 MR. EBERSOLE: Does this include all the 7 circuitry and wiring that goes to them to maintain them 8 open under --
9 MR. DOTSON: Yes, sir --
10 MR. EBERSOLE: Okay.
11 MR. DOTSON: -- fully qualified.
12 There was another question regarding the t3
(_) 13 component cooling water system, the surge tank operation 14 particularly regarding leakage and it has a fairly 15 complicated circuitry that I'd like to describe.
16 The tank itself has several alarms. But above 17 the baffles there is a level make-up controled by local 18 make-up switches which actuate on a higher low level alarm.
19 And since this level is made up before an alarm condition 20 is reached, the only way to determine leakage is through 21 the QDPS or the Quality Display Processing System trending 22 displays in the control room, which shows the surge tank 23 level over a time period, which I think you saw on the I
(~g 24 tour.
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25 However, if the tank level continues to drop and TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713) 222-7177
5 1 the make-up cannot stay up with that leakage, there are
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2 further alarms. For example, at low level, if the level 3 continues to drop, the nonsafety portions of the component 4 cooling water system are isolated.
5 If it continues to drop, then the headers are 6 isolated and the alarm -- now the tank levels are below the 7 baffles and you've actually formed three tanks and there 8 are low and low level alarms for each of the three tanks 9 then and the operator has to take action from there.
10 MR. EBERSOLE: Uh-huh. Is there any way to 11 inject water from the raw service system into the component 12 cooling in the event you loose the central point of g 13 vulnerability of the whole system which is that tank?
14 MR. DOTSON: Not from the well water system, no.
15 You can make up to the --
16 MR. EBERSOLE: There are many plants that don't 17 even have component cooling as a requirement as an 18 intermediate loop, you know, they just use raw water. And l
19 then they get past that three or four stainless failure l 20 problem one way or another with -- against raw water.
21 And it, you know, suggest dependence on a focal 22 point to maintain that coupling. And one tank is some l
l 23 what more deserving of some critical attention.
r'g 24 MR. DOTSON: Well, as the level drops, like we U
25 say, we actually form three tanks --
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6 1 MR. EBERSOLE: Yeah.
O 2 MR. DOTSON: -- and the systems are isolated so 3 that three systems --
4 MR. EBERSOLE: Three tanks and one shell, isn't 5 it?
6 MR. DOTSON: That's correct, sir, yes, sir.
7 MR. EBERSOLE: So if I want to turn it over with 8 an earthquake or something, I'm in trouble. So the 9 margines of safety on tbat tank have got to be pretty good 10 because that's the -- that in fact it's a vital coupling 11 linked to the outer world, isn't it?
12 MR. DOTSON: Yes, sir, it is.
O) 13 MR. EBERSOLE: And it's one of the very few, in
(_
14 fact. I can't find another offhand. Are there others?
15 MR. DOTSON: That's probably one of the more 16 vital ones.
17 MR. EBERSOLE: You know, I'm just saying that 18 tank design now is at a new level of importance since it is 19 a focus point of thermal coupling to the ultimate heat i
20 sink.
t 21 I can't find any specific argument other than it 22 better not turn over or --
23 MR. DOTSON: That's right, yes, sir.
l s 24 Another question in that same -- somewhat
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25 similar vein was the -- along the lines of the refueling TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713) 222-7177 l
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7
,s 1 water storage tank.
N-] 2 MR. EBERSOLE: Yeah, but you don't need that to 3 shut down.
4 MR. DOTSON: That's correct. We may have 5 researched the wrong tank a little bit. But we did do some 6 research last night on the recooling water storage tank and 7 have looked at it in this vein, seismic margins and the 8 seismic capacity are defined using different analytical 9 techniques.
10 But in the detail review for South Texas 11 Project, we haven't performed this frigility (phonetic) 12 analyses but a preliminary review indicates that the median n seismic capacity for the recooling water storage tank is in
(_) 13 i
14 the range of about 0.5 to 0.7 G's. So, considerable margin 15 there.
16 MR. EBERSOLE: What about -- have you looked at 17 the component cooling surge tank in that context?
18 MR. DOTSON: No, we didn't, sir.
19 MR. EBERSOLE: I think maybe that would be worth 20 your review.
21 MR. DOTSON: Yes, sir.
22 MR. EBERSOLE: By the way, I think it might be 23 nice if you had a big fire hose at the top of that tank 24 just in case.
25 MR. DOTSON: Fourth item, there was a question
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8 l on the reactor coolant pump seal bypass line. We have the 7_
O 2 model 100A, which does not have the seal bypass line. The 3 older model 93A did.
4 For this plant we have a seal injection filter, 5 two micron filter, and the flow divides above the bearing 6 rather than below, as the old model did. And on low 7 pressure, the seal return line is closed and so we don't 8 have seal flow. So I think there is a considerable 9 difference in the design between the two pumps.
10 MR. EBERSOLE: Fine.
11 MR. DOTSON: That's all.
12 MR. EBERSOLE: I might make a point of p
13 clarification about my earlier arguments about the RHR pump
' _)
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14 being inside. I admit that's just professional preference.
15 I think you have alternative answers to what happens if you 16 can't use the RHR pumps involving the invoking of the ECCS 17 pumping system and rejection of heat to the secondaries.
18 MR. DOTSON: Yes, sir.
19 MR. EBERSOLE: And so, correct me if I'm wrong, i
! 20 you have an anser to every question I might raise about, 21 failure, say, the RHR pump?
, 22 MR. DOTSON: Yes, sir.
23 MR. EBERSOLE: Although the recourse might be l f- 24 complicated.
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25 MR. DOTSON: We can maintain the plant safe TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713) 222-7177
9 1 without recourse.
2 MR. EBERSOLE: So it's just a matter, you know, 3 of engineering preference, I think.
4 MR. DOTSON: Yes, sir. And getting the plant 5 to cold shutdown on a closed loop.
6 DR. MARK: Are there other questions at this 7 point?
8 I'm afraid this is expressing ignorance of my 9 own, might be easy to comment on, though. You are using 10 the Westinghouse steam generators type E, I believe. Has 11 there been experience with those troubles or successes or 12 anything that makes one happy to have the E on board?
() 13 I know I should know the answer to that question 14 myself, but I don't today.
15 MR. POOLE: My name is Bruce Poole, I'm the lead 16 engineer of Houston Lighting & Power and I follwed some 17 model E steam generators for about five, six years now and 18 I would say that we're happy with the generator as it is, 19 particularly after we made modifications to the preheater 20 with the tube expansion to avoid the vibration problems.
21 DR. MARK: It was something of that sort that I 22 was remembering needed attention or had given some concern 23 at least in previous experience and I'd forgotten where.
gm 24 You say you're aware of that and you have had a 25 modification made which you think looks relevant?
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10
,.s 1 MR. POOLE: es, sir, we did. We were part of (J \
2 the owners' review group that for about a year and a half 3 went in detail with several other utilities who have D4 and 4 DS equipment which is very similar to the model E and we --
5 also in the group was the people from Belgium at the Bell 6 Four and Gohonish III units, and we -- I'm sorry?
7 DR. MARK: You really answered the question that 8 I had. And maybe it was covered yesterday and I just 9 slipped by.
10 MR. POOLE: And just as an added assurance, Bell 11 Four just finished their run and part of that they did full 12 scale testing in the generator with accelerometers to show O)
(_ 13 they had no tube vibration problems after the fix was made 14 an we're quite happy with that.
15 DR. MARK: Thank you. And I guess I have one 16 other offbeat question. The machine here is -- perhaps not 17 identical, but very much like the -- what -- RESAR 41, 18 which I think has not got a companion in this country but 19 does have in Paluel, I think --
20 MR. DOTSON: And Belgium.
21 DR. MARK: -- and Belgium. Are there important 22 differences that it would be easy to mention between the 23 European versions and your version?
fw 24 MR. DOTSON: The version in Belgium, I believe is O And as I mentioned 25 essentially identical to ours.
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11 1 yesterday, we have a man stationed over there. And as
(_<) Bruce just indicated, we're keeping close tabs on those 2
4 DR. MARK: Well, I think there is more than a 5 steam generator, there's --
6 MR. DOTSON: Well, on the rest of the plant --
7 DR. MARK: -- and the whole plant. And Paluel, 8 is it running yet?
9 MR. DOTSON: Paluel units are running, yes, sir; 10 three of the four are.
11 DR. MARK: And you're follwing the experience 12 they have and it's relevant to what you might expect to --
r
(_)) 13 MR. DOTSON: Yes. Our man is also visited Paluel 14 already and he makes periodic visits down there.
15 DR. MARK: I think, although this isn't the time 16 to go into it, it might not be out of order to call 17 attention to the fact that you do have and are getting data 18 or information or confirmation from those machines and i 19 mention whatever differences seem important for our l
- 20 disecusion next week.
21 Very brief, but just -- because there aren't any 22 in this country doesn't mean that you aren't getting a l
23 chance to observe what's happening.
24 I have nothing else for this phase of things.
l 25 In which case, I'll call on Mr. Kadambi of the NRC staff.
l TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713) 222-7177 l
1 12 1 MR. KADAMBI: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'd like
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2 to have Mr. Noonan, who's the project director, begin the 3 Staff presentation.
4 MR. NOONAN: Good morning, gentlemen. Just as a 5 matter of introduction for the NRC staff, my name is Vince 6 Noonan, the NRC project directer for the South Texas. With 7 us this morning we have Mr. Rossi, who's the assistant 8 directer for technical support and Mr. Carl Burlinger, the 9 branch chief of reactor system branch. Mr. Les constable, 10 the Region IV representative will be making a presentation 11 to the committee, as will Mr. Kadambi, who's the project 12 manager for South Texas.
()
/
13 In support of the Staff, we have Mr. Steve Long, 14 who's the backup project manger for South Texas; Mr. Jerry 15 Wilson the reactor systems branch representative; Jerry 16 Mock, the electrical instrumentation control system branch 17 representative and Mr. Art Boling, who's the consultant for 18 EG&G Idaho.
19 We'll try to reepond to your questions as you 20 ask them. We'll start off the presentation with 21 Mr. Kadambi and he'll go through to the Staff presentation.
22 DR. MARK: Thank you.
23 MR. KADAMBI: Good morning. My name is Prasad 24 Kadambi. I'm the project manger for NRR on the South Texas 25 Project. I was responsible for the issuance of the Safety TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713) 222-7177
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13
'l Evaluation Report, which was issued in April. I th, ink i
V 2 ,
that's enough time for everybody to have gone over it cover 3 to cover by now. -
4 My presentation will be primarily on the open 4
5 items and the confirmatory items, which are traditionally 6~ listed in the SER.
7 I'd li'<e. tombegin by informing you what my 8 perception 'of open items and confirmatory items are. This 9 is to indicate what; differentiates perhaps an open item 10 from a confirmatory item.
11 As I see it, an open item is something which, if 12 not adequately resolved with the Applicant, could lead to a D)
(_ 13 range of possibilities. On onerend of the range would be 14 that we could withhold the license from the Applicants,
~15 perhaps. On the other range -- on the other' end would be
~
16 the possibility that we could impose a license condition of 17 some sort on f4s Applicant.
18 .. c y en items are generally quite serious; they 19 have some significance.
20 Now, there are seventeen open items' listed in 21 the SER as Mark pointed out. He pointed out the number 22 which requires Staff action first. I would begin by i 23 poi'nting out the number which has Applicant action first.
24 DR. MARK: You didn't mention the possibility 25 that an open item might, after further discussion, be TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713) 222-7177 4
14 l
,_ 1 resolved by the Applicant changing the procedure or you l
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2 changing your point of view or something of that kind. ;
3 MR. KADAMBI: Yes, I -- when I refer to 4 resolution with the Applicant, the process of resolution 5 includes either the Staff compromising on some aspect of 6 the standard review plan requirements, perhaps, or the 7 interpretation of the regulation or the Applicant changing 8 design or providing some more information about the design 9 which you didn't have.
10 DR. MARK: I was merely concerned that you 11 left -- that there were only two options.
12 MR. KADAMBI: I defined the end of the spectrum n
f x_,) 13 of options. Usually what happens is something in between.
14 By the time the license is issued most of these --
15 DR. MARK: No problem.
16 MR. KADAMBI: -- resolved.
17 of the seventeen open items, we feel fourteen 18 require some significant action on the part of the 19 Applicant. And five require significant action on the part l
20 of the Staff. And the overlapping is becaust on some 21 issues, we both have to work on it and get it resolved.
22 The confirmatory items, on the other hand, are 23 those which I see as issues which have substantially been 24 resolved on the technical basis; the technical issues have i
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l 25 been resolved but there may be items of documentation where TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713) 222-7177
15 1 the Staff has not seen the final documents in order to say l C 2 that we are confident that it meets the regulation.
3 Now the SER lists thirty-four confirmatory 4 items. By the way, I would like to point out that the 5 seventeen open items are about normal for a plant.
6 Generally I believe the range is fifteen to twenty. So the 7 seventeen open items are okay, I think.
8 The thirty-four confirmatory items I believe 9 based on an examination of previous SER's is below average, 10 But of course to some extent this number is open to 11 question.
12 As I go through my presentation I will be p)
(_ 13 peinting out two corrections, two errors that I think 14 should be made in the table and perhaps if you look closely 15 at each confirgatory item there may be some adjustments 16 which I will address when I get to that point.
17 In addition to these that are listed in the SER, 18 license conditions. At this point we have, the Staff has 19 found three license conditions that we will -- we are 20 considering putting into the license when it is issued. Of 21 these, two I believe are relatively standard ones which the 22 Staff generally looks -- or in the past has used as 23 conditions on other licenses. One of them is rather unique
(~s 24 to South Texas and I will be addressing that in more
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25 detail.
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16 1 The next is a tabulation of the TMI action plan (2) 2 items. The SER itself shows where these TMI action plan 1
3 items are addressed in the body of the report. There are 4 some on which I have shown asterisks to indicate that we 5 haven't fully completed the review or we have not addressed 6 it in the SER.
7 On these, I guess, there are eleven asterisks in 8 that table. The tesolution of these I see as occurring 9 when the Staff review is completed or when the Applicant 10 sumbits the required information in some cases or, in some 11 of these, if one looks at the item itself closely, they are 12 covered by either an open item or a confirmatory item and
() 13 there is a considerable overlap in the technical issues 14 involved in thece.
15 Or in some cases, they could be put in as 16 technical specification items.
17 The SER in addition has a tabulation of the technical specification items in Chapter 16 which we are 18 19 now considering. And as we go through the review of the 20 propsed technical specification, it's possibly that the
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21 table will change.
22 The first supplement to this SER is due out in 23 August of 1986. And in this first supplement I see g- 24 resolution of quite a few of the confirmatory items and b
25 updating the review to cover the more recent submittals TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713) 222-7177 l ._
17 1 from the Applicant. Because of the relatively long period i,,_si V of time that goes into the total review of the FSAR, we are 2
3 not always up to date in addressing all the Applicant 4 submittals in an SER.
5 Now, moving the actual issues. What I'd like to 6 do is cover what I think are the more important of the open 7 items and the confirmatory items. I chose not to cover all 8 of them because many of them I think you're quite familiar 9 with from other projects and they're not much different on 10 South Texas.
11 Now, the first one I'd like to address is tha 12 license condition we have listed as No. 2 on the
() 13 qualification of the RHR system, which Mr. Ebersole 14 expressed considerable interest on.
15 When the design was first presented to the 16 Staff, we noted that the RHR system was within containment 17 and the first question we asked was, "Will it survive an 18 accident?"
19 And the Applicant at that point provided 20 justification in terms of using other means for cooling the 21 core which the Staff was unwilling t'o accept. And at that 22 point, they agreed to actually qualify the RHR or provide 23 other means if they are not able to qualify the RHR by the 24 time the license is issued, the proposed other means to 25 tide them over until the time when they will be able to TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713) 222-7177
18 1 qualify the system. And they agreed to do this because the
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2 Staff interpretated this to be a requirement for 10 CFR 3 1546.
4 MR. EBERSOLE: Well, has the Staff envisioned 5 any condition if they lose the RHR pumps while they're in 6 service that the Applicant cannot turn around and back up 7 and use ECCS pumps and the secondaries to get the heat up?
8 Are there any lockouts that you know of?
9 MR. KADAMBI: I'm not aware of any.
10 MR. EBERSOLE: I'm not aware of any either, it's 11 just that kind of a preferred --
12 MR. KADAMBI: Yes.
) 13 MR. EBERSOLE: All right.
l 14 MR. KADAMBI: We've had many detailed 15 discussions on the design options and how they meet the 16 regulations, and we were satisfied with the time schedule 17 that they proposd tr quaiify the RHR system.
18 So at this point, we are awaiting a submittal in l
19 the third quarter of 1986 which will allow the details of
{ 20 the design and also update the schedule. And if I l
l 21 understand correctly, perhaps we can'look forward to a i
l 22 qualified system in time for fuel load.
23 Now to deal with some of the open items, I don't 24 know if everybody has access to the table I'm looking at.
(~))
s Each of these numbers refers to the Table 1.4 in the open 25 I -
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19
_ 1 items list.
V 2 Number 3 has to do with jet impingement 3 consideration, higher and NG line grades. This requires 4 action on both sides, with the current action primarily 5 being on the part of the Staff because we are considering 6 in-house a change to the standard review plan requirement 7 in this area, which would probably -- if the Staff acts 8 favorably on this, it would result in approval of the 9 system as it currently exists with no additional analysis 10 required.
11 We are looking for submittals in the area of 12 flooding and a detail jet impingement analysis which is
() 13 something'that usually happens I believe later on in the 14 licensing process as they walk the systems down.
15 The next item is No. 6, and it has to do with 16 QDPS, which I think you got a good look at yesterday. It 17 is a microprocesser based system in which both the software 18 and the hardware need to be reviewed together. And it has 19 required rather specialized attention from the Staff 20 because we have not done this kind of a review before.
21 And we have chosen to conduct a review through 22 audits, interim audits. We are expecting, if all goes on 23 as schedule, the audits and the Applicants' activities, a rs 24 final report in October of 1986.
N)
- 25 The next item is -- has to do with conformance TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713) 222-7177
20 l
1 to Regulatory Guide 1.97. And based on the discussions
(_; -
2 we've had, it appears that the Staff has, you know, 3 conformance was demonstrated except in these three cases 4 listed: The pressurizer heater current monitoring; 5 containment atmosphere temperature and containment sump 6 water temperature.
7 In these cases, we have had discussions with the 8 Applicant and we're awaiting a submittal which will detail 9 the justifications they propose their current design. I 10 don't expect that this will be a major hurdle.
11 The next item is the safe and alternate shutdown 12 systems. This is related to the fire protection review.
(x
(,) 13 The Staff ~had relatively long and detailed discussions on 14 fire protection with the Applicant because initially the ,
15 Applicant proposed an approach to fire protection which was 16 unusual from the Staff's point of view.
17 And as we went through the details of it and we 18 understood better where the Applicant proposed essentially 19 sprinkler systems which will protect against spread of 20 fires, we were able to resolve our concerns in all the 21 areas with respect to the fire protection aspect itself.
22 MR. EBERSOLE: I'd like to ask a few questions.
23 I have sone notes here to ask about this fire protection rs 24 business at large. For one, do they use carbon dioxide in
(
25 this plant anywhere?
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_ 1 MR. KADAMBI: I don't believe they do. Somebody U 2 correct me if I'm wrong.
3 MR. WISENBURG: We do not use carbon dioxide.
4 MR. EBERSOLE: Nowhere. So you use wet pipe or 5 dry pipe or foam or whatever, Halon?
6 MR. KADAMBI: Halon, I believe. I'm not aware 7 of aware of any foam either.
8 MR. DOTSON: There is some Halon in --
9 MR. EBERSOLE: Is the Halon -- does it come from 10 tank farms that are then prorated according to the cubical 1
11 volume that's being served? We've had a few cases where a 12 large tank farm has blown up the protected space, you know,
() 13 where you have a large tank farm and you then prorate with 14 timed discharges, the designers have neglected to make the 15 time discharge safety grade and this has resulted in blow 16 out of doors and walls.
17 MR. DOTSON: I don't believe we have that 18 condition.
19 MR. EBERSOLE: You have a --
20 MR. DOTSON: At the present, we have smaller 21 tanks and we have them in very few areas.
22 MR. EBERSOLE: Yeah. Better to have a fixed 23 fixed volume serving a fixed volume. So that's the kind g-) 24 you have.
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25 I see that you --
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22 1 MR. DOTSON: Yes, sir.
l 2 MR. EBERSOLE: You have automatic wet pipes that 1 3 look at the cables. But then you have automatic dry closed 4 head sprinklers that looked at switch gear. Was the object 5 there to deny seismic activation and damge switch gear over 6 the place concurrently.
7 MR. KADAMBI: Mr. Ebersole, I can not address 8 the detail review. I --
9 MR. EBERSOLE: Let me ask the owner then.
10 You know, there's a particular degree of 11 selectivity here --
12 MR. DOTSON: Not particularly seismic, but any O)
(_ 13 inadvertant actuation.
14 MR. EBERSOLE: Well, that's just the one I could 15 think of.
16 MR. DOTSON: That would be one in particular.
17 MR. EBERSOLE: Do you invoke the thesis because 18 you have wet pipes, that you can wet all the cables at one 19 time?
l 20 MR. DOTSON: Well, the thesis is twofold. One, 21 yes, that's one and the other is there is no consequences 22 in inadvertant actuation.
i 23 MR. EBERSOLE: Of all the critical cables?
24 MR. DOTSON: All the heavily concentrated cable
(~)}
25 areas.
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- 1 MR. EBERSOLE: No, matter what channel you're 2 looking, at you're willing to wet them all down after 3 they're thirty years old or forty; is that right?
4 MR. DOTSON: Yes, we're willing, we don't prefer 5 it but we're willing.
6 MR. EBERSOLE: And that implies a degree of 7 surveillance on the cables to be assured they aren't 8 cracked and depreciated and et cetera. You know, the aging 9 problem, you carry that burden.
10 I don't know, Charlie, can you say anything 11 about this notion or not of wetting all the cables down 12 after forty years?
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'(,) 13 MR. WYLIE: Certainly the program the NRC is 14 engaged in the research program is to confirm the ability 15 of the cables to withstand that type of environment at the 16 end of forty years, if that be what the license of the 17 plant is, or they got to replace cable. So there is no 18 consequence of what comes out of it.
19 MR. EBERSOLE: But you do protect the swith gear 20 by being selective and where you want them; is that 21 correct?
22 MR. DOTSON: That's correct, sir.
23 MR. EBERSOLE: There was a somewhat disturbing 24
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(s statement in here on Page 9.46 of the SER. It says, 25 "However," this is the Staff's words, "because all cables TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713) 222-7177
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24 1 are IEEE 383 qualified, the Staff expects any fire 7- ,
L) 2 involving the cable to devlope slowly and with low heat 3 release rates."
4 I think that's in contradiction to the findings 5 by Sandia Laboratory of a comparatively recent date, that 6 if you get a, fire at sufficiently high temperature and with 7 sufficient volumes of cable, it propagates quite gleefully.
8 Are you aware of those findings and can you contradict that 9 statement?
10 MR. KADAMBI: I'd like to request Jerry Wilson to 11 address the question.
12 MR. EBERSOLE: They had some particular test of
) 13 the so called qualified -- IEEE has always said " fire 14 resistant," but that's a very muddy word.
15 MR. WILSON: Jerry Wilson, NRC Staff. We're 16 going to get our fire protection engineer to answer that 17 question and so if we could defer that to the Full 18 Committee meeting.
19 MR. EBERSOLE: Okay. You might investigate 20 Sandia's findings, because I don't think have been 21 published yet. In fact, the new cable burns quite well if 22 you get a big enough fire.
23 They use as initiating source, once quart of r^s 24 Acetone in the corner of the control cubical. And once (j ^
25 you -- you know, it's like a reactor, once you get it TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713) 222-7177
25
,_ 1 critical, it goes supercritical.
'y'#? :
2 The other thing is, you mention that you were 3 unhappy about unprotected cable in HVAC penetration into 4
the supposedly separated three trains of safety-related 5 switch gears. All right --
6 M,R . DADAMBI: That's right.
7 MR. EBERSOLE: They were presumably separated, 8 yet they were penetrated by common, potentially common 9
sources of influence, namely the duct work and the 10 unprotected cable.
11 They're separated other than that by three-hour 12 fire barriers except for these penatrations. Do you have
() 13 any -- it seems that you rested your case on this thesis of 14 383 cable wouldn't burn. But it will.
15 MR. KADAMBI: I'm afraid I'm going to have to 16 refer to our fire protection --
17 MR. EBERSOLE: Okay.
18 MR. WILSON: Can I address that for just a 19 minute, sir? The issue wasn't on the cable burning, it was 20 issued of separating fire areas within one train of making 21 the switch gear room a separate fire area from the cable 22 spread area and so forth. So it's not -- that was the 23 issue not whether the cable could burn or not.
3 24 MR. EBERSOLE: I see.
t (O , ,
25 The next point -- there was an old -- a very old TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713) 222-7177
26 1
issue September 19, 1975, this is a Staff statement that O 2 they were unhappy about the position and capacity and 3 nature of the diesel storage tanks above the diesels.
4 It says here that -- well, the Committee wants 5 to be kept informed and the Staff is looking into the 6
diesel engine building design and location of the storage 7 tanks.
8 You've got some, three 70,000 gallon tanks 9 _
located above the diesels. Those are big tanks. And 10 they've got, of course, foam fire protection and they have 11 got the works.
12 But nevertheless, they're big tanks and they at
() 13 least bring up the hypothosis that maybe sometime during 14 the filling of such a tank or whatever, when there is 15 combustible vapors above the consumed fuel, I don't know 16 whether you sweep it out or you inert it or what you do, 17 that you don't get just a placid burning you can put out, 18 you get a soft explosion that invalidates your thesis of 19 separation and you have a fire like you see in the news of 20 a petroleum based fire that involves a much larger complex 21 than you had hoped would be the case.
22 What are your arguments that you can't by virtue 23 of presence of these tanks, blow down the separation
(-)
\-)
24 between these hypothetical three independent channels of 25 power which would not be important unless you carried away TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713) 222-7177
27 7s 1 the shutdown circuits from offsite power?
's) 2 Are you protected if you blow away your diesels 3 by having the shutdown boards at a sufficiently distant and 4 protected point where you still have offsite power?
5 MR. DOTSON: The answer is yes to the later part 6 of that question, but we believe we're also protected from 7 not having the event occur. We are constantly venting that 8 area -- there is the foam systems that you mention.
9_ MR. EBERSOLE: You mean the sweep the air space 10 above the --
11 MR. DOTSON: Yes, sir.
12 MR. EBERSOLE: -- above the fuel in the tanks?
()
tm 13 MR. DOTSON: Yes, sir.
14 MR. EBERSOLE: And you monitor that process like 15 you do the battery emissions and so forth?
16 MR. DOTSON: It's a Class 1-E fan.
17 MR. EBERSOLE: One fan? How do you know when it 18 quits?
19 MR. DOTSON: I'll have to get back to you on the 20 details of that.
21 MR. EBERSOLE: You know, it sounds a little bit 22 like the battery room problem, where you have to sweep out 23 hydrogen.
(- ) 24 MR. DOTSON: Similar to that, yes, sir.
\S 25 MR. EBERSOLE: Why don't you just give us a TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713) 222-7177
28
,,, 1 little explanation in defense of your tank location against
( )
2 what I'll call " soft explosions."
3 DR. SEISS: Let me ask if either of the 4 Applicant or the Staff recalls what the issue was at the 5 construction permit stage? This was a Staff issue at the 6 CP stage on the diesel engine building design and location 7 of storage tanks for the diesel fuel.
8 This is eleven years ago, but somebody ought to 9
remember what the issue was and what the resolution was.
10 I don't inow why Vince is turning around, he's 11 been around here longer than the guys behind him.
12 MR. NOONAN: I don't have the answer to that, f3
(_j 13 but I would check into it and find out what the Staff 14 concern was and get back to the Committee.
15 DR. SEISS: There were two items of concern at 16 that time that the ACRS said they wanted to be kept 17 informed of. And I suspect we were probably a couple of 18 years later, but if we were I've forgotten.
l 19 The other one, incidentally is ECCS evaluation 20 and I don't think we need to be updated on that one.
l 21 MR. EBERSOLE: Well, that can be taken up at the 22 full Committee, as far as I'm concerned.
23 MR. KADAMBI: I will make sure that you get l
l 24 answers to these questions from the Staff perspective at s
25 the full Committee meeting next week.
1 l
l TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713) 222-7177
29 1 The next item is Open Item No. 12 and has to.do (9
'~'
2 with the aux feedwater reliability study. This is an item 3 in which the main action is on the Staff's part. We have a 4 contractor conducting the review and it is scheduled, due 5 to be completed in June, this coming month.
6 In the evaluation that we have documented in the 7 SER we have included the new information which came out of 8 some design problems that the Applicant identified as 9 _
recently as February of 1986 when they had to change their 10 posture from -- well, for a brief while anyway they had to 11 change their posture from saying that they could bring the 12 plant down to cold shutdown using one steam generator to
() 13 saying that they might need two steam generators to cool 14 the plant down.
15 After further study, they decided that operator 16 action, which the Staff found to be acceptable, with the 17 operator interceding, the plant could be brought down with 18 one steam generator.
19 DR. MARK: Was the operator action which the i g.
20 Staff found to be acceptable -- what'does the Staff find to 21 be acceptable providing it is okay to have it done in 20 22 minutes or 30 minutes or --
23 MR. KADAMBI: I believe it's 20 minutes.
r~) 24 DR. MARK: It's acceptable if it's 20 or,more l
\J j 25 minutes?
i TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713) 222-7177
30
,_, 1 MR. KADAMBI: That's right. Am I correct, k) 2 Jerry?
3 MR. EBERSOLE: In that sense, do you have any 4
operator emergency response criteria you could lay out in 5 front of us? I mentioned in the tour, I have yet to hear 6 from anybody the recipe at which point you deside operator 7 action can be taken adequately or you must automate. And 8 we need that. And maybe you can contribute to the general 9_ cause by deciding when something should be automated or 10 manually responded. But I didn't hear anything, but 11 we'll -- we'll leave that for an open discussion on it.
12 MR. KADAMBI: From a regulatory point of view, I (O
_j 13 don't believe we have a consistent regulatory approach.
14 MR. EBERSOLE: There are no organized thought 15 processes that I know of that have been put on paper about 16 when you automate and when you don't, but yet we face it 17 all the time. And I find it astonishing that there isn't a 18 sort of general philosophy about when you do and when you 19 don't.
20 Let me ask about this AFP water reliability in 21 the light of San Onefre and its check valve failures.
22 Is that the right project?
23 It is, below all the safeties, not long ago.
24 Of course, the reverse flow checks on main Oi 25 feedwater are a vital part of the aux feedwater system, TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713) 222-7177
31 1 aren't they?
7-O 2 When the main feedwater system quits, the checks 3 are supposed to close and then you have a closed 4 environment to inject aux feedwater.
5 Do you consider the reverse flow checks on the 6 main feedwater system as a vital part of the aux feed 7 system? Therefore, they're safety related and they must 8 close and yet at that plant they all fall apart. And do 9_ you have criteria that say if I have a spectacular upstream 10 accident in the main feedwater system and an extremely 11 abrupt closure of these valves takes place and they're just 12 swing checks, that they don't commonly fail under impact
() 13 loads? Are you with me?
14 MR. KADAMBI: I understand your question, but I 15 don't know enough to provide an answer. I'd like to ask if 16 anybody --
17 MR. EBERSOLE: This has been pumped to the 18 surface by the San Onefre valve failures which occurred 19 when they came to part load and they started flapping and 20 they wore out.
21 MR. ROSSI: This is Ernie Rossi of the Staff.
22 You know, that issue on the check valve is being looked at 23 generically --
24 MR. EBERSOLE: Yes, I take,it you didn't point 25 the problem here.
l TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713) 222-7177
32
,- 1 MR. ROSSI: -- the San Onefre event. Also the
~
2 later plant designs have considerably more in the way of 3 feedwater isolation and that kind'of thing and separation 4 and so forth then did the older San Onefre Unit 1.
5 MR. EBERSOLE: Can this plant tolerate the 6 hypothetical loss of reverse flow checks and still maintain 7 aux feedwater in the boilers? All four, or any one of 8 them, all four.
9 _
MR. ROSSI: This plant, I believe, and the 10 Applicant can verify this, has a separate auxiliary feed 11 water nozzle in the steam generators, do you not --
12 MR. EBERSOLE: Yeah, but it doesn't do any good p)
( 13 if you got an open hole in the steam generator.
14 MR. WISENBURG: Also recall our auxiliary 15 feedwater system is not normally cross connected. That is, 16 we've got four trains --
17 MR. EBERSOLE: But isn't the main feedwater cross 18 connected always?
19 MR. WISENBURG: Main feedwater is connected.
20 MR. EBERSOLE: So if becomes an open system, then 21 you are cross connected to discharge?
l 22 MR. ROSSI: Well, clearly the failure of all the 1
23 lines isn't the design basis of --
- g-) 24 MR. EBERSOLE
- You know, for this failed main l %/
25 feedwater header, if I can't close it I'm in trouble, am I l
[ TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713) 222-7177 i
33
-_ 1 not?
[\
2 MR. WISENBURG: I might comment that we do have 3 motorized stop check valves instead of plain check valves, 4 which would enable us to --
5 MR. EBERSOLE: Okay. Then you motorize to close?
6 MR. WISENBURG: Yes, sir.
7 MR. EBERSOLE: And then you do so slowly under 8 the presence of a hypothetical full reverse flow feedwater?
9 See, if I want to cause trouble by invoking pipe breaks, 10 I'll do it upstream with these check valves, not out in the 11 primary cooling system where I've got a system to protect 12 me.
O
'(,) 13 So tell me what happens if I blow a main
~
14 feedwater line and these check valves attempt to close l
15 against the reverse pressure of 1100 PSI, reverse full 16 pressure. That's a lot of water coming out. Are you 17 prepared for the dyanamic loads and the rapid closure on 18 the seams?
l l 19 All I'm trying to do is protect the individuality 20 of the steam generators.
21 MR. DOTSON: That's what those valves are 22 designed to do, sir, and they are trying to protect the 23 closing valves.
r3 24 MR. EBERSOLE: Are they modulated to close slowly l \-]
25 under this tremendous assist load to close?
l TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713) 222-7177
34 1 MR. DOTSON: Semi-modulated in the sense they do (3
2 close in five seconds.
3 MR EBERSOLE: I guess I'd like to have you, maybe 4 for the benefit of the business at large, explain the 5 dynamic performance of these valves -- maybe at the Full 6 Committee -- under these hypothetical conditions.
7 You can invoke, if you wish, the control valves 8 as an assist in the process although they're not 9_ safety-related, and any other ways of stopping the flow.
10 But I'm only trying to, you know, look at the roots of 11 individuality of the steam generators and the aux feed 12 system. And with that, I'm done on that topic.
/"N
() 13 MR. KADAMBI: Moving along to the next open item 14 I'd like to address, it's No. 15. The boron dilution 15 event. This is one in which the Applicant has to provide 16 an analysis for the Staff to review and consider the 17 consequences of boron dilution under the modes 4 and 5.
18 The criterion over here that the Staff uses is that the 19 operator have a minimum of 15 minutes for action. We 20 expect the Applicants' analysis in the third quarter of 21 '86.
22 The next item is No. 16, and has to do with the 23 adequacy of predicting the small grade LOCA accident. The i r3 24 Applicant has used a code which the Staff has not reviewed l
- i,-)
25 for this purpose. And the Staff has reviewed and approved l TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713) 222-7177 l
l
35
,_ l for Westinghouse plants a code called NOTRUMP. ,
( )
^
2 The Applicant is planning to use NOTRUMP for the 3 first hour of the accident and then this code called TREAT 4 for subsequent operator actions. And the Staff is awaiting 5 information on which to base approval or otherwise of the 6 code.
7 And this primarily has to do with fulfilling the 8 environment of the II.K.3.30, & 31 of the PMI.
9 _
DR. MARK: Where did the -- do I understand this, 10 the Applicant has, up until now, been relying on the 11 answers they got from the TREAT code, I suppose. Where did 12 the TREAT code come from?
() 13 MR. KADAMBI: TREAT is, I believe, a Westinghouse 14 code, and they have used it as my understanding goes, for 15 their emergency response diagrams for operators. I'm 16 speculating a little bit, but I believe it was developed 17 for that purpose.
18 MR. WISENBURG: We can help you out there. We 19 have a Westinghouse engineer who can speak in detail 20 about TREAT.
21 MR. MONTY: Bruce Monty for Westinghouse. I 22 won't speak in detail, but the TREAT code is a code that 23 .was derived from the NOTRUMP code which the Staff mentioned 24 is the approved small grade code. And we used in the
(-)s
\_
l 25 development of emergency operator actions because it is TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713) 222-7177
36 i
1 interactive and it runs in real time.
\'~'/
2 And we are studying for South Texas a very small 3 break scenario which we will rely on some operator actions 4 to recover and it's going to be a long transient so that is 5 why we recommend using the TREAT code versus the code the 6 Staff is familiar with, which is the NOTRUMP code.
7 DR. MARK: TREAT has not yet been submitted for 8 approval; is that the situation?
9_ MR. MONTY: That's correct. At the same time we 10 submit the analysis that we are doing, we will submit the 11 TREAT code.
12 DR. MARK: And you would expect that -- at least r~N
() 13 there some reason to expect that it would be approved when 14 it can be looked at and considered?
15 MR. MONTY: Right 16 MR. KADAMBI: Thank you.
17 Moving on to the list of confirmatory items, I 18 would like to make some important corrections to the table 19 1.5, which is a table of confirmatory items.
20 In my listing of these, I failed to recognize 21 that Items 14 and 15 really cover the same technical issue.
- 22 And they should be included as one confirmatory item. And 23 it has to do with either justification for operator actions j
r-)
(J 24 or the automatic operations of safety injection 1.n case of l
l 25 certain breaks.
I l
TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713) 222-7177
37
()
1 There should be added a confirmatory item on the
~
2 reactor coolant pump trip issue, which in 15.6.5.1 we have 3
described the review that the Staff conducted and described 4 information that we are looking for to confirm the 5
acceptability of the Applicants' response to this generic 6 letter, 85-12.
7 The first supplemant will close out some of these 8 items and some of the items in the confirmatory item table 9_ should really be included with open items. For example, 10 Item No. 13, which has to do with the analyses of 11 nonisolable small grade LOCA's, that's really part of the 12 open item No. -- that's No. 16.
() 13 So some adjustments like this will probably alter 14 the confirmatory items table. But after going through all 15 the positives and negatives, I believe that the next number 16 will still remain roughly the same.
l 17 I'd just like to briefly touch upon some of the 18 confirmatory items. No. 2, in which the Staff is doing and 19 independent analysis of the performance of the essential 20 cooling pond as required by the standard review plan, the 21 Staff expects to complete the analysis in time for the 22 first supplement.
23 No. 3, having to do with the geotechnical rS 24 monitoring program, the Staff is looking for documentation U
j 25 on the subsidence monitoring program that the Applicant has TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713) 222-7177
38
, 1 said that they would have.
( )
2 No. 4, the staff had to do a relatively detailed 3
review on the main coolant reservoir because of concerns we 4 had regarding meeting Regulatory Guide 1.59, Revision 2. '
5 And we found that the design is accaptable. But the only 6 residual concern we had was, we don't really have the data 7
to base our conclusions once the reservoir is filled to the 8 level of 49 feet, which is what the Applicant had told us 9
_ would be the ultimate level on it.
10 MR. EBERSOLE: I don't recall what Reg Guide 1.59 11 is. Could you explain briefly what the safety issue is 12 here?
13 MR. KADAMBI: The issue has to do with scour and 14 erosion situations in case of a breach in the dike.
15 MR. EBERSOLE: Erosion of what?
16 MR. KADAMBI: Of --
17 MR. EBERSOLE: This is flooding, the question 18 was --
19 MR. KADAMBI: The area that is flooded.
20 j MR. EBERSOLE: This is a failure of the dike from 21 the cooling teservoir that would flood the plant?
22 MR. KADAMBI: Right, and it has to do with a 23 postulated breach in a section of the reservoir which could I
r3 24 cause the soil to erode and thereby lead to a safety
! (_)
! 25 problem.
TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713) 222-7177 l
t
39 1 MR. EBERSOLE: And the safety problem would be
[]
\
2 not related to the reservoir, which isn't a safety --
3 MR. KADAMBI: No, it has to do with the 4 structure.
5 MR. EBERSOLE: So it would come into the 6 structure and you have structures or door closures that 7 prevent against an ingress into the building? You have to 8 invoke some emergency messures, don't you, to close up the 9
house?
10 MR. KADAMBI: That's right, the emergency 11 messures relating to flooding we found to be acceptable.
12 MR. EBERSOLE: You have to close up the house,
() 13 then, to protect against how many feet of water above the 14 threshhold of the doors?
15 MR. KADAMBI: My understanding is that the design 16 basis flood -- let's see, I can't remember the height --
17 MR. WISENBURG: I'd like to make some comment if 18 I could maybe clear up some confusion. The design basis 19 flood level and the hydrostatic and hydrodynamic forces on 20 the safety-related structures which face the main cooling 21 reservoir are based on a breach of the reservoir 22 embankment.
23 At the time that that work was done, the 24 applicable Staff regulatory guide did not require any
)
wJ 25 consideration other than those effects associated with the i
TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713) 222-7177
40 1 design basis flood.
( \
2 Subsequently, the regulatory guide was revised to 3 include consideration of the scour and erosion effects 4 which would be associated with a design business is flood.
5 For the south sections of the plant, those that 6 are you facing the reservoir, scouring erosion would 7 involve undercut of the foundations to some degree, by 8 water which would be released from a reservoir breach.
9 We determined that analyzing that degree of 10 undercut was a very complex and difficult task and chose as 11 an alternative to demonstrate the margin which existed in 12 the reservoir embankment that faces the plant.
(G) 13 MR. EBERSOLE: There's a preferential.
14 MR. WISENBURG: Yes, sir.
15 MR. EBERSOLE: So you invoke that it won't fail 16 there; they'll fail somewhere else?
17 MR. WISENBURG: That's correct, sir.
18 MR. EBERSOLE: Okay. But you still have to face 19 the static oil load.
20 MR. WISENBURG: That is correct. The flood 21 levels remain the same; the flood protection previsions 22 relative to closing of various water-tight doors or 23 maintaining closed all the time are existant in the 7- 24 procedure.
Q))
25 MR. EBERSOLE: How high does the water get above TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713) 222-7177
41 1 the threshhold of those doors in feet, more or less?
O 2 , You know, it must be some feet like four feet, 3 eight feet, whatever?
4 .MR. WISENBURG: Grade level is about twenty-six 5 feet. The flood level is about fifty feet. So there are 6 some doors that would be under water completely.
7 MR. EBERSOLE: So you have a potential 8 twenty-five' foot grade cover?
- 9 MR. WISENBURG
- Yes, sir.
10 MR. EBERSOLE: Would that be persistant or would 11 it go away pretty quick? '
12 MR. WISENBURG: It would go away very quickly.
(_m) 13 MR. EBERSOLE: What's the standing groOnd water 1,4 level against these subterranean walls; anything? Right at 15 the top of the water? I'm getting at whether you know 16 whether your structual seals are effective below but more 17 importantly above grade which are not doors. Normally you 18 wouldn't put seals above grade.unless you've thought of 19 this longer than that. I'm talking about copper seals like
~
20 you have between floors.
21 MR. WISENBURG: That's correct, but the flood s
22 levels that we/re dealing with here are nothing new, Th'ey 23 were set relatively early on in the: design.
gs 24 MR. EBERSOLE: Therefore did you build a b
25 superstructure as though it were subterranean in context TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713) 222-7177
42
, 1 with seals? I doubt it.
/si
() 2 MR. EBERSOLE: We do have water joints in the --
3 or water seals in the construction joint.
4 MR. EBERSOLE: Above grade?
5 MR. WISENBURG: Above grade, yes, sir.
6 MR. EBERSOLE: So you were prepared to build a 7 boat from day one?
8 MR. WISENBURG: That's correct, sir.
9 MR. EBERSOLE: Can you stand the uplift?
10 MR. WISENBURG: Yes, sir.
11 MR. EBERSOLE: It's a very big boat.
12 DR. SEISS: Let me pursue this a little bit. I
() 13 didn't quite understand it. It's not a question of the 14 water getting out of the reservoir but it's a question of 15 where it gets out and how fast it flows?
16 MR. WISENBURG: That is correct, sir.
17 DR. SEISS: Now, your resolution is it's going to 18 come out somewhere else or that the scour will not endanger l 19 the structures?
l 20 MR. WISENBURG: The resolution was to demonstrate 21 the margin which existed in the embankment. which, if it l
l 22 were to fail, would cause scour and erosion of concern; l
j 23 that is it would undercut any safety-related structures, g- 24 assuming that if we could demonstrate the margin there,
\_))
25 even if it didn't exist anywhere else in the reservoir TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713) 222-7177 l
43
,s 1 embankment, that we would satisfy the safety objective.
'_)
\
2 DR. SEISS: And you're going to assume some sort 3
of an opening in the dike, let the water flow through at 4 some velocity in the worse possible place and show that the 5 scour will not affect the stability of the structures; is 6 that correct?
7 MR. KADAMBI: I believe the analysis they chose 8 not to do. And in place of that, they chose to demonstrate 9
that the breach will not happen in that particular 10 postulated location.
11 DR. SEISS: Well, that's what I asked you.
12 That's not the answer I got. You're going to show that the
() 13 dike is stronger opposite the plant then it is somewhere
- 14 else?
15 MR. WISENBURG: We did very detailed analysis of 16 the dike where, if it failed, it would cause the safety 17 concern. We did no detailed analysis of the other sections 18 of the dike. So I can't answer your question straight out, 19 that it's stronger in one place than the other. We know 20 it's strong enough where it's of concern, sir.
l 21 DR. SEISS: Strong enough not to break or strong 22 enough --
23 MR. WISENBURG: To provide sufficient margin 24 over --
v
-) ,
25 DR. SEISS: I mean if you could take a dike and TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713) 222-7177
44 1
- 1 wipe it out as we have done some dams in flood analyses, V
2 that's probably the best possible condition you've got; 3 you've got the water spread all over South Texas. But if I 4 break the dike opposite the plant, it comes out with a 5 fairly high volocity, that could scour.
6 MR. WISENBURG: Yes, sir, that's the concern.
7 DR. SEISS: Now, you must be assuming the dike 8 will fail or you wouldn't be providing the flooding 9
protection. But you're saying that -- what I'm hearing you 10 say is that you're trying to prove it won't fail in that 11 location.
12 Now to prove it won't fail in one location, 13 you've got to prove it will fail somewhere else. If you 14 prove it won't fail anywhere, we don't need to worry about 15 flooding, so I'm sort of confused.
16 MR. WYLIE: I thought you had preferentially said 17 it's going to fail somewhere else?
18 DR. SEISS: I know there's such a thing as steel 19 plugged. I guess you could put it on a dike.
20 MR. WISENBURG: The flood levels were set very 21 l early on in the design process. We chose to maintain that 22 following the analysis that I've just spoken about.
t 23 We don't assume the embankment fails, but the '
! r- 24 flood level remain the same, that design basis did not b) 25 change. So in effect what we're doing is providing against l
TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713) 222-7177 i
45
,_s 1 the contingency of that flood in hydrodynamic /hydrostati,c
( )
2 and water height, and also have done the analysis to 3 provide extra assurance that the failure would not occur in 4 the most critical location.
5 DR. SEISS: Okay. So your argument now is that 6 it's really not going to fail.
l l
7 MR. WISENBURG: That is correct, sir.
8 DR. SEISS: But if it does fail, even if it fails 9 in the best possible manner, you're protected against the 10 static effects and you're not protected against the scour 11 effects or you don't know whether you're protected against 12 scour effects because nobody knows how to calculate them, I
(_) 13 guess; it's easy to ask the question rather than answer it, 14 certainly.
l 15 MR. WISENBURG: That's correct, sir.
16 DR. SEISS: Is this a probabilistic basis or i 17 you're saying there is no change of failure or you're l
l 18 trying to establish a probability of not failing?
19 MR. WISENBURG: This -- the analyses that we did 20 were to look at what margin we had against liquefaction in 21 a seismic event, what the static stability of the reservoir l
22 was, et cetera.
23 DR. SEISS: I think I understand your question. l l l l rw 24 MR. EBERSOLE: Let me take up the static effects
(_)
25 again, which you knew long in advance. I think I heard l
l TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713) 222-7177 l
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46 1 something like twenty-five feet of water above grade. Is O 2 that right?
3 MR. WISENBURG: That's approximately right.
4 MR. EBERSOLE: So you're going to close some 5 doors and they will be totally inundated. I take it this 6 phenomenon is going to be one of these fast local 7 neurological problems with ice and rain and whatever pretty 8 much dumped on top of the general plant area without any 9 real interval of forecastable -- any really knowledge of 10 knowing that's is coming a number of hours in the future, 11 is there? There's no predictability to amount to anything 12 for this sort of thing. How many hours have you got to O
!s_) 13 gear up to this, and get closed?
14 MR. WISENBURG: The plant remains in a condition 15 which would provide maximum protection. Those doors are 16 closed, sir.
17 MR. EBERSOLE: You're always sealed against 18 twenty-five feet of water?
19 MR. WISENBURG: That's correct.
20 MR. EBERSOLE: And the -- what's the normal --
21 what's the ground water level normally? It's at the top of 22 the ground, pretty much.
23 MR. WISENBURG: Very, very close.
gS 24 MR. EBERSOLE: So you know you've got working
(_)
25 seals below grade?
TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713) 222-7177
I 47 7 1 MR. WISENBURG: That's correct.
2 MR. EBERSOLE: You don't know whether you've got 3 working seals below grade. I believe you came from Browns 4 Ferry, didn't you?
5 MR. WISENBURG: I did, sir.
- 6 MR. EBERSOLE: You remeber they kept the ground i
7 water sucked down and then found they didn't have seals 8 when they lost the subground pumps? I'm asking you that 9 _
question --
10 MR. WISENBURG: I recall that, sir.
11 MR. EBERSOLE: -- about the above grade seals.
12 You know you had a QA program on above grade seals so your n
(_) 13 walls don't leak?
14 MR. WISENBURG: If you recall yesterday, we had a 15 discussion of construction quality assurance yesterday.
16 The design is there and the quality assurance was provided 17 to ensure that the --
18 MR. EBERSOLE: So you did build a boat?
19 MR. WISENBURG: We built a boat.
20 MR. EBERSOLE: And what about the influx from 21 drains that normally have to be -- well, you don't have any
- 22 gravity drains, there's no place to drain. Is that 23 correct?
24 MR. WISENBURG: We have specifically evaluated 25 each an every drain.
TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713) 222-7177
48 7- 1 MR. EBERSOLE: Okay.
U 2 MR. WISENBURG: As a matter of fact, in response 3 to a Staff question, we found that there were some that we 4 missed and added the appropriate protection.
5 MR. EBERSOLE: But in essence, you're sitting in 6 water all the time?
7 MR. WISENBURG: Yes, sir.
8 DR. SEISS: But if the bank breaks, how long does 9_ the water stay at that flood level?
10 MR. WISENBURG: Several hours, sir.
11 DR. SEISS: Several hours.
12 MR. EBERSOLE: That would get your switch yard, r
(,b/ 13 wouldn't it, and you would depend on the diesels. Am I 14 correct?
15 MR. WISENBURG: That's correct, sir.
16 MR. EBERSOLE: So your diesels have been a 17 special point of interest under these circumstances?
i 18 MR. WISENBURG: And they are also protected 19 against that water ~.
20 MR. EBERSOLE: I was assuming that the only hole 21 outdoors.
22 MR. KADAMBI: I'd just like to point out that one 23 of the open items in the open item list has to do with
(~~T 24 internal flooding analysis and it's there where we will 7
k-)
l 25 look at the adequacy of the drain.
i I
TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713) 222-7177 i
49
,_ 1 Moing on, the next confirmatory item I'd like,to 2 point to is No. 11, and it has to do with capability for 3 natural circulation. The Staff considers that South Texas 4
is in the same situation as the others which have reference 5 to Diablo Canyon test.
6 MR. EBERSOLE: Is it typically true that these 7 plants get natural circulation on one steam generator?
8 MR. KADAMBI: What cirulation, sir?
9 MR. EBERSOLE: Natural circulation for cool down 10 on one steam generator.
11 MR. KADAMBI: I believe the South Texas Project 12 concern is as that's all they need.
()
p 13 MR. EBERSOLE: Well, we said that earlier.
14 MR. KADAMBI: Yes.
15 Confirmatory Items No. 14 and 15. What the Staff 16 is looking for as confirmation that either certain 17 automatic actions will occur or if operator actions are 18 required that they are properly justified.
19 No. 17, this is sort of a unique one for South 20 Texas. We found during the review that the design as 21 presented in the FSAR provided for closure of the main 22 steam isolation valves upon any safety injection signals.
23 And the Staff was concerned about this and as a 24 result of discussions, I guess we were able to convince 25 them that they ought to perhaps consider going back to the TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713) 222-7177
50 1 standard Westinghouse design in this case and they have
('-,)
2 committed to altering their design to be consistent with or 3 the same as other Westinghouse plants.
4 They have not yet, however, provided us the 5 details of the instrumentation and we would look for 6 confirmation that South Texas will in fact perform as we 7 expect.
8 MR. EBERSOLE: About the main stream isolation 9
valves, if I could go back to a another Westinghouse set of 10 plants of which there are four, these were the Sequoyah I 11 floor plans.
12 when one exam the hypothosis of main steam line
() 13 failure at the header or some place, it was found in 14 detailed examination of the reverse flow checks to preclude 15 blow down on more than one boiler into the containment if 16 not anywhere else, that the repetitive closure under these 17 reverse flow loadings were such that they had to completely 18 modify the valves to keep them from shattering.
19 How about your valves? Have you looked at them 20 against the dynamic flows of a hypothetical full steam line 21 break?
22 MR. WISENBURG: Main steam isolation valves are 23 not -- did I hear you say " check valves"?
J
-) 24 MR. EBERSOLE: Whatever the valve,s are that lock 25 out blow down for more than one steam generator.
TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713) 222-7177 l
51
,_ 1 MR. WISENBURG: Main steam isolation valves have 2 been analyzed against the blow down forces --
3 MR. EBERSOLE: From a hypothetical full cross 4 section failure of the steam line?
5 MR. WISENBURG: Yes, sir.
l 6 MR. EBERSOLE: I think there's a following 7 orafice some place, isn't it, in those lines, that holds 8 the flow down from a full --
9 MR. WISENBURG: Yes, sir.
10 MR. DOTSON: There is at Diablo steam generator, 11 but they're anyalyzed for flow in both directions.
12 MR. EBERSOLE: Does the flow serve the valve to
( -)s 13 close or to -- it's either way. Depends on where the break 14 is. It either assists the close or fights the closing, one 15 or the other depending on where the break is, am I correct?
16 But it will serve to close at a moderate and adequate rate 17 in any case, am I correct? I don't want to put words in 18 your mouth.
l 19 MR. WISENBURG: No, you are correct, sir.
l l 20 MR. DOTSON: It's a five second closing valve.
1 21 MR. EBERSOLE: In spite of whatever flow --
22 MR. DOTSON: Yes, sir.
l 23 MR. EBERSOLE: -- it's encountered. Okay, thank 24
(-)
N/
you.
25 MR. KADAMBI: Moving along, the next confirmatory I
l TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713) 222-7177
\
i 52
}
7, 1 item has to do with conformance to the ATWS rule and the
( ')
2 Staff has not completed the review on the details of 3 this design yet and I believe we are going to review this 4 as part of the generic defense against ATWS for 5 Westinghouse --
6 MR. EBERSOLE: Well, in this case, you know, our 7 classic event was the Salem 1, in which the finding the 8 DV50 failed, and then I thought a more interesting aspect 9 of that when the operator tried to trip them manually, the 10 handle came off the switch. That was an interesting 11 subsequent event.
12 Are you -- this plant will certainly start with O
(_j 13 shunt trips?
14 MR. KADAMBI: I believe they are going to install 15 the shunt trips.
16 MR. EBERSOLE: And does the Applicant consider 17 looking any further into guaranteeing automatic scram, like 18 going to the ex station circuitry or whatever. Or is he
- 19 letting the Staff drive him to a conclusion here?
l 20 MR. KADAMBI: I'd like to have the Staff or the l
21 Applicant respond to that.
( 22 MR. EBERSOLE: Does the Applicant have any plans 1
23 in his own right to look at this scram reliability 24 business, or are they going to follow the Staff's, moderate l
(-]
Ns 25 Staff requirements; minimum Staff requirement?
j TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713) 222-7177
53
_ 1 MR. WISENBURG: There are so many ways that one V 2 can start to reply to this question. i 3 MR. EBERSOLE: I know. I'm waiting for you to 4 pick the best way.
1 5 MR. WISENBURG: The switch gear that we have at l 6 South Texas is of course different from the Salem. It will 7 have the appropriate shunt trip feature installed.
8 MR. EBERSOLE: Will you know when the breaker 9 trips whether it was the shunt or the UV?
10 MR. WISENBURG: Not immediately. But upon test, 11 you can find out.
12 MR. EBERSOLE: And you are going to periodically (qj 13 exam?
14 MR. WISENBURG: And you do periodically test both I
15 of those trip features with a --
16 MR. EBERSOLE: Okay. So that's an evolving 17 matter, I take it from what the Staff says, as to what will l
18 ultimately be done, am I correct or has it been fixed in i
j 19 your view? It's just going to be a shunt trip?
20 MR. WISENBURG: I think the shunt trip goes a i 21 long way towards fixing the problem. But that's not the l
22 end of it. The testing programs for preventive maintenance
- 23 will provide additional assurance for indications of any l
24 further problems.
\.
25 MR. EBERSOLE: Well, there's a lot of comfort to TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713) 222-7177
54 fs 1 be derived in prompt operator response to get the switches k' J) 2 on the MG sets or whatever. How fast can you do that on an 3 ATWS case? Five seconds?
4 MR. WISENBURG: The trips are in the control room 5 on the distribution panel. Procedure is already written to 6 handle that contingency.
7 MR. EBERSOLE: And the set screws are tight on 8 the pistol grip switches?
9 MR. WISENBURG: They were yesterday, yes, sir.
10 MR. EBERSOLE: Okay.
11 MR. WYLIE: Could I ask a question? These are 12 what, DS416 breakers? .
l
) 13 MR. WISENBURG: They are DS416's, yes, sir.
14 MR. WYLIE: And they have been here quite a 15 while, I suppose?
16 MR. WISENBURG: They have been here for some
- 17 time, yes, sir.
l l
! 18 MR. WYLIE: And the undervoltage device has been 19 refurbished?
! 20 MR. WISENBURG: They have been, sir.
1 21 MR. WYLIE: You found deficiencies in those?
! 22 MR. WISENBURG: There were some deficiencies, but l
l 23 all the devices were refurbished irregardless.
l , 24 MR. EBERSOLE: Is there rigid control of the 25 lubricants and maintenance and set points and calibrations, TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713) 222-7177
l 55 '
/
, 1 et cetera. You know, these are sensitive things and they O 2 deserve an unusual amount of personal maintenance 3 considerations, which is unfortunate.
4 MR. WISENBURG: Yes, the preventive maintenance 5 procedures --
6 MR. EBERSOLE: Well --
7 MR. WISENBURG: -- to provide extremely rigid 8 control of the --
9 MR. EBERSOLE: I recently read a report where 10 they put a grease on the contact, which decided to stay 11 where it was and never move into the point of needed use 12 and in short just ran dry. Although there was a lot of
() 13 grease around where -- he thought he was doing it good, but 14 there was none at the point of use.
15 So I take it these matters are tightly controled ,
16 with the fluidity of the lubricants and so forth is under 17 control and --
18 MR. WISENBURG: Well, we're also aware of that 19 situation and have attempted to provide appropriate 20 lubricating procedures to prevent it. The continual 21 testing or periodic testing does provide some degree of 22 assurance that you're going to detect those problems early 23 on.
g- 24 MR. EBERSOLE: You're going to maintain a written
. g 25 record of the margins of force to get the function done; am TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713) 222-7177
56
,_ 1 I correct?
.]
2 MR. WISENBURG: That is correct.
3 MR. EBERSOLE: Okay.
4 MR. KADAMBI: I'd like to move along so we can 5
get the Region IV staff also to present their perspective 6 proposal before we run out of my time.
7 The last item on here has to do with the South 8 Texas approach to the independent design verification 9
_ program that NRC has used or has seen on other projects.
10 i The Staff has been involved in this engineering 11 assurance program of the South Texas Project for some time 12 now and we expect -- the progress has been satisfactory and
() 13 the completion is expected sometime in early 1987.
14 So that concludes the NRR part of the Staff 15 presentation. I'd like to invite Les Constable from the 16 Region IV staff next.
17 MR. CONSTABLE: Good morning. Is the mike 18 working?
19 My name is Les Constable and I'm Chief Reactor l
20 Projects Section in NRC Region IV. I am responsible for 21 the overall inspection activity at the South Texas Project.
22 This morning I thought I'd describe to you my l
l 23 inspection staff; talk about our inspection program status f- 24 in terms of where we are with respect to completion of the I
t 25 programs, just generally some of the inspection results l TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713) 222-7177 1
57 1 including the recent Staff results the past few years.
[._)
2 I'd briefly mention the allegation status and 3 then give some final overall observations and of course 4 answer any questions you might have.
5 I have reporting to me seven full-time inspectors 6 who are spending all their time on the South Texas Project.
7 In addition to that, there is approximately ten other 8 inspectors inspecting various areas that assist us from 9 time to time.
10 I have four positions on the South Texas site.
11 Two senior inspector positions, one for construction and 12 one for operations. We're in the process of filling the n)
(, 13 senior inspector positions for operations now.
14 I have with me today Claude Johnson, the Senior 15 Resident Inspector for construction at the South Texas 16 Project and Don Garrisen the Resident Inspector for 17 construction of the South Texas Project.
18 The resident inspector cooperation who has been 19 on site for a couple of years is presently on vacation and 20 not here today.
21 In part, because of the, shall I say colorful 22 regulatory past with South Texas Project, we have put in 23 quite a lot of inspection hours compared to what we would fs 24 normally put in at another facility.
N-] l 25 As you can see, we already have in the order of TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713) 222-7177
58 I 1 over 20,000 hours0 days <br />0 hours <br />0 weeks <br />0 months <br /> of inspections. Just to give you a
(_
'^'
)
2 comparison of a facility like the River Bend Project, 3 between beginning of construction up through licensing 4 would take only approximately 10,000 hours0 days <br />0 hours <br />0 weeks <br />0 months <br />.
5 I would estimate that probably this year we may 6 put in almost 10,000 hours0 days <br />0 hours <br />0 weeks <br />0 months <br /> just during this one year in 7 part because we have a high interest in this project.
8 To give you an idea of how this has progressed 9 over the past few years: In 1984, we put in approximately 10 2,000 hours0 days <br />0 hours <br />0 weeks <br />0 months <br /> inspection. In '85, the Region put in 11 approximately 4,000, doubling what we did in '84. And in 12 addition the CAT team had their resident put in another
() 13 2,000 hours0 days <br />0 hours <br />0 weeks <br />0 months <br />. And so far in 1986 we have approximately 14 4,500 hours0.00579 days <br />0.139 hours <br />8.267196e-4 weeks <br />1.9025e-4 months <br /> already of inspection efforts going into the 15 facility.
16 As you can see, there is a number of other items.
17 Most of those are old investigations that we spent quite a 18 lot of hcurs. Of course, we're increasing our effort in 19 the startup operations area. And I've shown a breakdown on 20 how much time has gone into Unit 1, Unit 2 and in general 21 our program status, as we indicate, is roughly 70 to 80 22 percent complete on Unit 1 and 40 to 50 percent on Unit 2.
23 we have quite a few major inspection efforts up and coming, g-) 24 In the preoperational area, we are just getting
\,_/
25 started is probably the best description of where we are.
TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713) 222-7177
59 1 We have principally been reviewing test procedures for the 2 system testing and we call that approximately 15 percent 3 complete. It's only been very few tests actually 4 completed.
5 With regard to the future operation of the plant, 6 we have begun looking at the operating procedures, 7 emergency procedures, maintenance procedures and such as 8 that.
9 We've began reviewing technical specification and 10 the organization staffing and training is all in progress 11 at this time.
12 MR. EBERSOLE: Inspection by and large connotes
( 13 the comparison of the plant in reality versus the drawings 14 that says what it's supposed to be and the procurement 15 specs, et cetera; just a comparing proposition.
16 For a long time now we have been asking the 17 inspection be extropolated to include engineering design 18 assessment, spacial arrangements, lots of things that never 19 show on critical feature drawings because we don't make 20 composit feature drawings. You make models, and this plant 21 has got a good model.
22 In your inspection program, did you look at the 23 engineering design aspects not just the paper comparison l
24 problems. Now I'll take as a model one of my fovorite 25 topics, the battery rooms.
+ TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713) 222-7177
60 7
1 I note here in the paper work it says that you, U 2 all were bothered by the fact that the battery rooms 3 interfaced on balance of plant although they were 4 individually isolated from each other. You with me?
5 MR. CONSTABLE: Yes, sir.
6 MR. EBERSOLE: Now, this says that however you 7 say, you've got four battery rooms isolated from each 8 other. Apparently they're subjected to the common 9 influence from balance of plant. And I don't know what 10 degree of hostility that implies in common to all four 11 batteries. As you well know, if there is anything in the 12 plant that's critical, it's the batteries.
() 13 MR. CONSTABLE: Yes, sir, I'm aware of that.
14 MR. EBERSOLE: So could you give me kind of an 15 expose' of what how you think, you rationalize this 16 exposure to balance of plant hostility, whatever they may 17 be; fire, explosion, steam, turbine, whatever, and 18 rationalize that you did not find necessary fire proof 19 electrical penetrations and presumably duct work or 20 whatever else you've got that makes a commonality out of 21 what you thought were individual cells of the batteries? I l
22 That's a large question. '
23 MR. CONSTABLE: It certainly is and I'm not sure 24 I'm prepared to answer. But let me try an over all b<~ ,
25 approach which I think is appropriate here. l l
TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713) 222-7177
I 1 l
61 j
_s 1 What we do in Region IV is the inspection ,
2 process. But we work very closely with NRR who review many 3 of the design aspects of the facility. We work hand in 4 hand. We do not tell our inspectors who shut their eyes to 5 design issues, in fact, they are constantly questioning 6 design issues and calling.up our counterparts in NRR and 1
7 discussing with them what they see to make sure that the 8 ultimate outcome of all of this is a safe plant.
9 MR. EBERSOLE: I waited for you to appear on the 10 scene to pick up my battery topic as a model for your 11 discussion. So go ahead.
l 12 MR. CONSTABLE: I have a high interest in 13 batteries and such because of my electrical background.
14 But I can't really answer the details of your question 15 right now.
16 MR. EBERSOLE: I'm really looking for commonality 17 and influence for batteries which negates the thesis that l
18 they in fact are really compartmentalized or separated.
19 And I find that possible with our earlier discussion on l 20 duct work for ventilation in fact here you in fact say that i
21 you don't have fire proof penetrations and that you 22 interface with balance of plant in a commonality context.
23 All I'm trying to do is find out to what degree 24 in fact they are separated?
i
(-}
s/
I invite anyone to answer.that l 25 question, you or whoever you can find.
l TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713) 222-7177 l
l
62
,s
, 1 MR. CONSTABLE: I was going to ask for plead
(') 2 assistance, but I'm not sure we have that expertise today.
3 MR. EBERSOLE: If necessary we can leave that as 4 a topic for the full committee. I'm sure there are many 5 who would be interested in it. Maybe that's the best thing 6 to do.
7 MR. NOONAN: Mr. Ebersole, I don't believe the 8 Staff was prepared to go into any kind of. detail for you, 9 however, maybe the Applicant can address it.
10 MR. EBERSOLE: Well, it might be a topic to 11 discuss anyway.
12 MR. CONSTABLE: I need to -- whatever --
() 13 MR EBERSOLE: Does the Applicant want to talk 1 14 about compromising what is said to be the individuality of 15 the battery rooms? I guess I made that in a not to 16 favorable way, observation.
17 You know, when you say you're separated, there is 18 a host of meanings to that and a host of degrees of 19 meanings.
20 MR. ROSSI: Well, you know, the philosophical l
21 answer to your question, I think, as we have a number of 22 reg quides on things like equipment qualification and when 23 you have to consider adverse environments and how much 24 physical separation you have to have. And I think the Os 25 philosophical answer is that that those reg guides are TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713) 222-7177
l 63 1 intended to cover the kind of thing that you're asking l"') 2 about.
3 MR. EBERSOLE: Are you familiar with this thing?
4 MR. ROSSI: I'm not familiar with this particular 5 issue. I'm giving you the more general --
6 MR. EBERSOLE: Well, see I find this duct work 7 problem to be a little bit of a problem with the tin 8 dampers that are supposed to fall down to achieve a 9 separation which is generally described as that of concrete 10 walls.
11 MR. ROSSI: Yeah, of course, the other part of 12 your question is the fact that they are taking credit for
() 13 things like dampers that they're assuming work the way 14 they're supposed to work and I think the answer to your 15 question is that if it's found that the dampers don't work 16 the way they're supposed to work and the solution is to 17 make them work like they're supposed to work.
18 MR. EBERSOLE: Yeah, or get rid of them.
19 MR. ROSSI: That's the regulatory thing that 20 would be done first. If you can't make them work the way 21 they're supposed to work, then you have to have another 22 solution.
23 But as of now, the regulation would say, you
,f 3 24 know, if you can take credit for that sort of thing then L) -
25 make them work the way they're supposed to work and you TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713) 222-7177 i
r ]
64 1 depend on your QA program and testing to do that.
(~)
2 MR. EBERSOLE: But here it is said that these 3 battery face a potentially hostile environment in common 4 against which they're not protected, but they're protected 5 from each other.
6 MR. ROSSI: I'm not familiar specifcally with the 7 details --
8 MR. EBERSOLE: I'm just --
9 MR. ROSSI: -- of the hostile environment that 10 they're all possibly exposed to.
11 MR. EBERSOLE: They interface with balance of 12 plant, whatever that means. But they don't interface with
(,n) 13 each other except in the conttxt that the penetrations, the 14 electrical ones, are not fire protective, fire related.
15 All I'm trying to find out is the argument that they are 16 separate environments and in fact true and adequate degree.
17 MR. ROSSI: Again, the specific details on this 18 one, I don't know whether the Applicant has anyone here to 19 answer or whether we can look into it more between now and 20 the full committee meeting.
21 MR. EBERSOLE: You don't have fire rated seals in 22 these walls.
23 MR. DOTSON: Maybe I can -- excuse me.
gs 24 DR. MARK: I think maybe someone could give b
25 thought to this and pick up next week, I suppose. I don't TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713) 222-7177
65 1 believe we can push it further here.
'N 2 MR. DOTSON: As I understand the question, you're 3 interested, sir, in the systems interaction. I want to get 4 a little bit more of idea of addressing it next week.
5 We've explained the separation electrically and 6 so forth. I know you don't have a lot of confidence in 7 dampers. But perhaps next week if I get gist of the 8 question right, we'll explain that in more detail and our 9 ventilation systems in more detail. Would that be all 10 right, sir?
11 MR. EBERSOLE: I'm bothered by the Staff's 12 language here that says the Staff concludes that O)
(_ 13 installation of fire rated penetration seals in the 14 perimeter rooms is not necessary and yet they also say that 15 the battery rooms face not only each other but they face a 16 common balance of plant environment. So it sounds to me 17 like you've got something like a sieve around 18 these --
19 MR. DOTSON: No, that's just not correct.
l l 20 MR. EBERSOLE: Well, anyway that's a 21 discouraging --
22 MR. DOTOSN: Not, that's not correct. They are 23 in separate fire areas, they're separated electrically.
-s 24 MR. EBERSOLE: Well, it's the penetrations that i
25 counts.
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[ l
66 1
l
_ 1 MR. DOTSON: And the penetrations as well.
U 2 MR. EBERSOLE: I take it you don't have fire 3 rated seals?
4 MR. DOTSON: I think that we do.
5 MR. EBERSOLE: Then this report is wrong. Let me 6 see here.
7 I'll read it to you. "On the basis of its 8 evaluation, the Staff concludes that the installation of 9 fire rated penetration seals in the battery room perimeter 10 walls would not significantly increase the level of fire 11 safety."
( 12 MR. DOTSON: Okay, that's the same issue I (o_) 13 mentioned earlier where there was separation from other 14 epulpment in the same train, same safety related train, not l
15 with balance of plant or other trains. That's what that 16 statements deals with.
17 MR. EBERSOLE: Oh, within the same train?
l 18 MR. DOTSON: Yes, sir.
I l 19 MR. EBERSOLE: Why didn't you come up in the 20 first place?
l 21 MR. DOTSON: We lost track of the question.
! 22 MR. EBERSOLE: Well, it might be worthwhile to 23 emphasise the independece of these critical battery rooms
(~s 24 because if there is a point on which the plant rests, it's d
25 the adequacy of batteries. I don't think we need to pursue l
TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713) 222-7177
67 1 this any further here. Might make a topic out of it.
2 MR. CONSTABLE: If you have any questions.
3 Insofar as inspection findings, I'll present to 4 you the SALP results for the past few years. We are at the 5 end of that SALP rating period now at the end of June and 6 we will have a new SALP for the past year out on the streat 7 probably late August or early September.
8 The peformance of the utility overall as you can 9 see has been pretty good. I have to say quite candidly 10 though that this past year with the CAT inspection effort 11 and our own inspection effort we were somewhat disappointed 12 in what we found.
p)
( 13 I can say from their actions the utility was too l
{ 14 because they have taken very prompt and aggressive 15 corrective actions with regard to the CAT inspection 16 findings and those of our own.
17 They took the lead and responded to our 18 inspection effort even before we got our inspection report 19 out and then after the CAT inspection report was out with
! 20 was a prelimary inspection findings, they responded to 21 that. And we are presently evaluating their response and 22 our findings to determine what force of action is 23 appropriate. ,
g3 24 We are considering'whether escalated enforcement
'd 25 action is appropriate based on these findings because the TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713) 222-7177
68 1 CAT findings appeared to indicate a step backward.
!,s) 2 1 don't want to speak to the details of those 3 findings yet since they are somewhat predecisional but I 4 can say that the areas of concern involved the control of 5 the design itself and the inspection activities involving 6 individual inspectors inspecting as they go along, QC 7 inspections.
8 MR. EBERSOLE: Could you refresh my memory on 9 this grading system you've got out here.
10 MR. CONSTABLE: The 3 is considered the lowest 11 rating, a 1 is considered the highest. And 2 somewhere in 12 the middle.
(x 13
(_) Do you have any questions on the SALP results of 14 the past two years. We expect these to change somewhat 15 during this next period that we'll be evaluating. I can't 16 really predict for you now how much an what direction on 17 each of the individual basis. We have an to hold the board l
18 for that.
19 with regard to allegations, as you know as the 20 construction winds down, very often there are quite a lot 21 of allegations at a facility. There was described to you 22 carlier about the safe team the South Texas Project has, i
l 23 and I think they've taken the brunt of the allegations.
l l ~g 24 We have a number of them that are open and
(%_)
25 working and just to give you an example of how many the NRC l
( TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713) 222-7177 i
l l
l 69 l
l 1 received during the one year period, we received
/~T
\-)
2 approximately twenty-four new. allegations.
3 DR. SEISS: These are over and above safe team?
4 MR. CONSTABLE: These are over and above safe' 5 team. Sometimes we -- depending on the confidentuality of 6 the issue and whether or not it's potentially a wrongdoing
~
7 issue or something like that, we may turn back to the safe 8 team and t' hen inspect what they do.
9 DR. SEISS: Is this 19 open now? What's your.
10 total?
11 MR CONSTABLE: The total is not 19, it's the 12 total number that are open right now. We have closed out
,m
()
13 quite a large number over the years.
14 DR. SEISS: You don't know how many?
15 MR. CONSTABLE: I don't know that I could give 16 you a rough number.
17 DR. SEISS: Okay. '
18 MR. 5BERSOLE: The allegations I think tends to 19 be more of a function of nature of the regional population 20 then anything else with California being the worse.
21 Bu.t that's very few, is it not, in a relative 22 context- .
l 23 i MR. CONSTABLE: This is the number of individuals f-)
24 who have'come forward to us. And each of them would come.
%..)
25- for two or three perhaps allegations.
l l
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_ 1 This is somewhat different then my experience V 2 perhaps of the Waterford Facility where a few people came 3 forward with hundreds of allegations, and we do not see 4 that here. We see individual isolated cases of people 5 raising problems and we look into the resolutions.
6 MR. EBERSOLE: Is this plant in contest --
7 DR. SEISS: Is OL contested? It is?
8 MR. GOLDBERG: Yes.
9 DR. SEISS: What are the issues?
10 MR. GOLDBERG: At this point, there may not be 11 any further issues. We did have a hearing last summer.
12 You may recall I spoke of the Phase II OL hearing. And the (A,) 13 issue there was how Houston Power & Lighting Compan handled 14 the Quadrex report. We're awaiting the decision from the 15 Licensing Board.
16 There may or may not be a Phase III hearing. The 17 intervenor has not introduced any new issue. The Board my 18 introduce some sua sponte issues.
19 MR. CONSTABLE: In conclusion, from a regional 20 perspective based on our inspection effort, I can say that 21 overall we're very impressed the the HL&P organization.
22 They seem to have all of the right elements.
23 They are certainly dedicated to the task of completing the g 24 project in a quality manner and we're very impressed with J
25 that in all regards.
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71 1 We do have so some concern with regard to our 2 recent inspection findings and the CAT findings. We want 3 to reserve judgment until our enforcement action is taken 4 and we've had a chance to follow up.
5 We're very interested. We will be very 6 interested in the completion of their corrective actions 7 and we want to verify the effectiveness of those corrective 8 actions.
9 DR. SEISS: What is your concern? I didn't hear 10 it?
11 MR. CONSTABLE: With regard to the CAT team 12 findings.
() 13 DR. SEISS: Oh, the CAT team?
14 MR. CONSTABLE: That's right. That's the dark 15 cloud on the horizon that we have to see the recults of 16 before we'te going to be satisfied.
17 And that's all I have unless you have any further 18 questions.
! 19 DR. SEISS: I have a question to the Applicant.
20 Since we just heard about the NRC's inspection efforts, I 21 wondered if you had time to count the QA people.
22 MR. GOLDBERG: With respect to that question, the 23 total number of QA personnel on the project which compares t
g- 24 against the total number you saw yesterday of 10,100
()S 25 something is 539 and of that 539, 370 are QC inspection i TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713) 222-7177 l
72 1 personnel.
10
\,)
2 DR. SEISS: Thank you very much.
3 DR. MARK: You have used the expression 4 "en'forcement action" or something a couple of times. Of 5 what is that likly to consist? You're going to look at 6 responses to the CAT inspection findings.
7 MR. CONSTABLE: The CAT team identifies potential 8 enforcement actions which is basically a listing of their 9 findings.
10 We evaluate those and put them into the format of 11 violations and determine what severity level those 12 violations are.
() 13 In part, we're trying to determine are these 14 isloated or are they representative of an overall problem 15 and that's the process that's going on right now.
16 I mentioned that it could lead to escalated 17 enforcement action but that's another way of saying there 18 is possiblity of civil penalty being involved, but again I 19 don't want to preclude management judgment on the matter.
20 It's something that has to be decided yet whether that's 21 the appropriate enforcement action.
22 DR. MARK: I guess this is a sort of 23 philosophical question that needn't be discussed in the 24 (3
%)
context of the particular instance, whether the exercise of 25 civil penalties should not be deferred until the plant's TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713) 222-7177
73
,_ 1 actually completed.
t
'~'! 2 You can say we won't give you a license until you 3 do it. That's the civil penalty that might be most 4 appropriate.
5 MR. CONSTABLE: It's probably the most effective, 6 that's true, but we follow our group policies.
7 DR. MARK: But as I say, that deserves to be 8 discussed in a broad ssense and not in a particular case.
9 _ Does that complete the NRC Staff's presentation?
10 MR. NOONAN: Yes, sir that completes the NRC 11 presentation.
12 DR. MARK: In that case, we'll take 15 minutes
(%
(,) 13 and resume with some presentations from the Applicant.
14 (Recess.)
15 DR. MARK: The meeting will continue.
16 I believe we'll now hear from Mr. Dewease of 17 HL&P.
18 MR. DEWEASE: Yes, sir. Thank, sir.
19 Gentlemen, I'm Jerrold Dewease, Vice President 20 of Nuclear Operations. I would like to welcome you to the 21 readiness for operations portion of the presentation today.
22 Before I begin, I will describe my background.
23 I have a Bachelor of Science degree in electrical 24 engineering and 26 years of power plant experience of which l
25 18 are nuclear.
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,_ 1 Prior to joining HL&P in 1981, I was director of
(
2 operations for TVA's nuclear program, and previous to that 3 was plant manager of the Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant.
4 I am HL&P's executive representative to NUMARC, 5 a member of the Nuclear Power Division Committee in EPRI, 6 and have been the industry advisor to INPO's plant 7 evaluation teams for five plants.
8 In my presentation this morning I will describe 9 the organization that is planned to be in place for Unit 1 10 and then Unit 2.
11 First, I would like to re-emphasize 12 Mr. Goldberg's management philosophy as it pertains
() 13 to the operations.
14 The mission statement that we have selected has 15 established for operations is as follows:
16 Manage power generation and outages of the South 17 Texas Project to achieve high reliabilty and efficiency 18 consistent with good practice and prudent judgement, and in 19 compliance with of course regulatory requirements.
l l 20 This management shall include actions to:
21 Ensure the general health and safety of the public and 22 employees, and the protection of the property and the 23 environment; to document and implement a quality assurance rg 24 program which demonstrates compliance with regulatory V
25 requirements and also management direction, and requires TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713) 222-7177 L
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75
- 1 each employee to perform work right the first time.
\
'~'
l 2 of course, we're going to plan for, develop and 3 retain qualified personnel.
4 We're going to determine root causes of our 5 problems and take the necessary steps to preclude 6 recurrences.
7 of course we're going to utilize, where 8 appropriate, industry experience.
9 And last but not least, we're going to report in 10 a timely and complete manner all matters necessary to 11 satisfy the requirements of the Nuclear Regulatory 12 Commission.
() 13 My presentation will address only the operations 14 phase, organization and its activities. Please recall, 15 Mr. Goldberg discussed the project organization yesterday.
16 The planning for the organization has been based 17 on our experience, guidelines from NRC, INPO and NUMARC and 18 recommendations from outside consultants.
19 We continue to evaluate the organization in this 20 manner to ensure its completeness and effectiveness as we 21 move towards commercial operations.
22 It is anticipated that the organization will 23 remain essentially the same for one unit and then two unit l
24 operation.
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25 The reporting relationship shown on the slide l
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76' 1 will continue for the operating phase; that is, (O
2 Mr. Goldberg will report directly to Mr. Jordan, the 3 CEO for HL&P.
4 The nuclear group for operations will be 5 organized as shown. I want to just say, amplify that a 6 little bit. When I say " operations," we're talking about 7 the operations phase and not just pure operations, in other 8 words, that this is a total nuclear group under 9 Mr. Goldberg.
10 The nuclear group for operatons will be 11 organized as shown, Please note that it will consist of:
12 Plant operations; licensing; nuclear assurance; engineering n
(,) 13 and construction; a special assignments group; of course, a 14 Nuclear Safety Review Board, NSRB; and of course corporate 15 services as needed.
16 As seen on this slide, the nuclear operations 17 organization reports to me and consists of three major I
18 departments; the nuclear training, nuclear plant operations 19 department and nuclear security department.
20 Mr. Kinsey the plant manager, Mr. Cody the 21 training manager will provide details in their programs and 22 organizations later on in the presentaton.
23 I will briefly discuss the security 24 organization.
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k_/
25 The department consists of two major functions:
l TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713) 222-7177 1
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77' 1 Physical protection services and the safeguards services.
)
2 Physical protection services provides supervision of the 3 site security force and also training for the nuclear 4 security department.
5 The safeguards services is responsible for 6 preparation and maintenar.ce of the security plans, 7 maintenance of safeguard materials, the access 8 authorization program, and drug and alcohol screening 9 process.
10 Mr. Andrew Hill is the nuclear security Manager, 11 and has 15 years experience in the area of security of 12 which the last six has been in the nuclear security area.
() 13 The department will have a staff of 14 approximately 36 persons for two unit operations; expected 15 to have approximately a 120 person force security guards ca 16 site when we have two unit operations. Those will 17 be at this time a contract organization.
18 The next department is Nuclear Licensing which 19 is headed by Mr. Mark Wisenburg. Mr. Wisenburg is an 20 experienced licensing manager with over 23 years in 21 nuclear, of which 11 have been in nuclear licensing area.
22 Mr. Wisenburg is responsible for interface with 23 the NRC and the State of Texas. He is also responsible, as
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24 Mr. Goldberg said yesterday, for the license commitment 25 tracking system, the operational experience review program, TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713) 222-7177
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,, 1 and the typical licensing functions discussed by 2 Mr. Goldberg yesterday.
3 The Nuclear Licensing organization will consist 4 of approximately ten persons for one unit operation and 5 approximately twenty people for a two unit operation.
6 The Nuclear Assurance Department is managed by 7 Mr. Geiger, as you heard from yesterday, who reports 8 directly to Mr. Goldberg.
9 Mr. Geiger's organization consists of three 10 major functions: The operations quality assurance part, 11 the safe team part that you heard about yesterday, and also 12 another area of function called the independent safety
() 13 engineering group, or the ISEG.
14 Nuclear assurance will consist of approximately 15 60 persons for one unit operation and approximately 80 for 16 two unit operation.
17 Mr. Geiger will provide you additional details 18 of this operation -- his organization and operation later 19 on in the presentation.
20 The nuclear engineering and construction 21 organization is and will continue to be a composite of 22 project and engineering functions. However, it is 23 anticipated that its orgainization will be firmly
,-)
, 24 established by Unit 1 initial fuel load.
V 25 The organization will consist of four major TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713) 222-7177 l
79' I departments: Administration, Engineering & Construction
() 2 Management, Records Management / Document Control and Nuclear 3 Engineering.
4 We anticipate that the nuclear engineering and 5 construction organization will be headed by a vice 6 President. Currently that position is vacant.
7 The Administration Department is responsible for 8 the administrative activities of the nuclear engineering 9 and construction organization and will consist of 10 approximately 36 persons for two unit operation.
11 The Engineering & Construction Management 12 Department will consist of an engineering design group, a
() 13 site operations support group and a construction management 14 group.
15 The engineering design group will be responsible 16 for the design of the plant. It will consist of 17 approximately 50 persons to support a one unit and 18 approximately 100 people to support a two unit operation, 19 and currently is planned to be located in Houston.
20 The site operations support group is responsible 21 for providing direct engineering support to the nuclear 22 operations group and other functions such as as-built 23 drawings and in-service inspection. The group will consist g~ 24 of approximately 30 persons and will be located onsite.
V) 25 The construction management group is responsible TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713) 222-7177
80- ;
1 for the installation of modifications to the plant. I just
\) 2 want to add a little bit here that they will be under the 3 direction, overall direction of the management 4 organization, this is the people that actually do the 5 direct supervision of the modifications to the plant. It 6 will consist of approximately 16 people for a two unit 7 operation.
8 The Records Management / Document Control 9 Department provides day-to-day support for engineering and 10 construction management in such areas as record retention 11 and processing, and library support. It is estimated 12 approximately 44 people will be needed for that function
() 13 for the two unit operation.
14 Mr. Goldberg discussed the Nuclear Engineering 15 Department yesterday and will remain essentially the same 16 by doing the operations phase as you know it today.
17 Approximately 13 people will be assigned to the nuclear 18 fuel function of that group and approximately 35 people for 19 the analysis function of that group.
20 This slide depicts the qualifications or some of 21 the qualifications of the project personnel who will 22 eventually become the nuclear engineering and construction 23 Organization. There are 105 persons with a total of 985
(~ 24 years of nuclear experience; 102 have bachelors degrees, 42
(.))
25 have master's degrees and one has a Ph.D.
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81 1 This function called special assignments, O_ 2 Mr. Goldberg discussed yesterday, and it will continue 3 during operations phase very much as it is today.
4 The next group is the nuc.' ear group function the 5 Nuclear Safety Review Board, the NSRB. The Safety Review 6 Board will be functional in early 1987, about five months 7 before fuel up and it will consist of a full time director 8 and a membership composed of senior nuclear management 9 and/or consultants, as necessary, to meet the expertise and 10 independence requirements identified in the FSAR. Of 11 course, Mr. Goldberg can add whoever he likes to to provide 12 additional expertise and independence as he sees fit.
O)
(_ 13 Finally, the overall support provided by other 14 corporate organizations is shown as a single entity on the 15 organization chart under corporate support and services.
16 Basically those organizations that support us 17 outside of nuclear but dedicated to nuclear are:
18 Purchasing, stores, accounting, and human resources.
19 It is anticipated that approximately 80 persons 20 from these corporate services will be dedicated to nuclear.
21 Staffing for operations phase activities 22 continues essentially on schedule. This slide illustrates 23 the planned staffing for Unit 1 and then also goes on to 24 Unit 2.
25 After Unit 1 is operational, personnel to TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713) 222-7177
82'
_ 1 support the operation and maintenance of the plant will
( 2 come primarily from three sources: Project personnel 3 re-assigned after completion of their project duties, 4 trainees recruited from the local area, and craft personnel 5 from the construction area.
6 The planned staffing level projected for Unit 1 7 is about 950 persons, and of course this is included as you 8 can see, the corporate support and as if STP was set aside 9 and you have an accounting of those persons that will 10 support, will be about 950, and about 1400 for Units 1 11 and 2.
12 Notice, as Mr. Goldberg said earliar, most of G
ty 13 the resources required to operate the nuclear program is 14 located in the Nuclear Group, the top shaded area is the 15 only outside support we have from the corporation.
16 We have planned for an organization that can 17 successfully operate the South Texas Project. To ensure a 18 smooth transition from today's environment to a two unit 19 operating environment, we have established a plan that i 20 describes the functions, staffing and organizations that 21 needs to be in place each year from 1986 through 1989. We 22 want to carry it out until we've got both units commercial.
23 Further, we have compared our programs and g3 24 staffing against other similar plants and industry
()
25 guidelines such as those that NUMARC and INPO have provided TATE REPORTING SERV!CC, (713) 222-7177 l
83
_ 1 for us.
! i )
2 We also looked at ourself internally with the 3 experience we had when we used outside consultants. All of 4 those things ensure that we have in place or have planned 5 for those factors that will result in a successful j 6 operating plant.
l 7 Again I want to reiterate the fact that the 8 manager philosophy stated by Mr. Goldberg and later by 9 myself, are the foundational elements of which we are 10 establishing and planning our programs and organizations.
I 11 I think you will hear evidence of this in the 12 ensuing presentation.
- (x q) 13 This concludes my part. Are there any 14 questions? Yes, sir?
15 MR. EBERSOLE: Let me just ask one question. To 16 pick a particular point in the organizational structure, I 17 to have you say something about the man or men that have a
! 18 parental interest in your diesel engines.
19 MR. DEWEASE: In the what, sir?
I l 20 MR. EBERSOLE: Your diesel generators, your 21 diesel generators.
22 MR. DEWEASE: Oh, deisel generators?
l 23 MR. EBERSOLE: Yes. I want to find out --
l gS 24 MR. DEWEASE: You mean from a maintenance and
'\~J' 25 testing standpoint?
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84 l
l 1 MR. EBERSOLE: I want to find out if you in fact O
V 2 have real experts in these diesel engines who maybe you 3 even send to Japan where they never have diesel failures 4 and learn the essence of exellence in diesel engine 5 operability. Because you're out here in tornado country 6 and you may need those diesels more than many plants.
7 And they ought not to ever fail.
8 At least the Japanese tell us they don't have 9 any record on a statistical basis of failures to start and 10 run. They just don't have any numbers.
11 I'd invite that to be a challenge to you, you 12 know, offered to your parental interest-type maintenance A
! ,) 13 people. You've given them the very best.
14 MR. DEWEASE: Yes, sir. If you will, Mr. Kinsey 15 is going to talk details about the nuclear plant operations 16 and I think you will see that he can add to it. But he has 17 a very good discription of a maintenance program which I 18 think the diesel maintenance program and test program is 19 only part of the overall program that has to be in place to 20 ensure the excellence of operations.
21 You know as well as -- you and I both know and I 22 think many people in this room know that maintenance has 23 been overlooked in the past years generically. And we've g 24 made a tripled effort to bring the maintenance organization s-)
25 and the programs up to the level that will provide the l
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,_ 1 excellence or assurance and authorization that you speak
~
2 of.
3 MR. EBERSOLE: Well, I think we know how to get 4 the plant shut down.
5 MR. DEWEASE: I hope so.
6 MR. EBERSOLE: Now the problem is, do we know 7 how the keep the after heat coming out of them and being 8 pumped away and at the bottom of that is the fuel plant.
9 MR. DEWEASE: Yes, sir.
10 MR. EBERSOLE: Well --
11 MR. DEWEASE: Below that's the batteries.
12 MR. EBERSOLE: So I picked the diesels in
() 13 particular to talk about operating and maintenance and not 14 just generally mixing it with the other maintenance but 15 saying it's probably one of the most critical parts.
16 MR. DEWEASE: Yes, I agree with that. And 17 Mr. Kinsey will address that in his presentation concerning 18 that specific area.
19 But I just want to reiterate and emphasize again 20 that we haven't taken any maintenance lightly as we have 21 not in any part of the organization. But maintenance seems 22 like it's always been in the past the lower priority.
23 We have put it up to the priority with the rest es 24 of it and we feel very strongly because the training i N-]
I 25 program we have is comfortable with all our people and also TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713) 222-7177 I
86 1 for the maintenance organization that we will have indeed a
(,_D 2 good operating plant as well ability to shut it down in the 3 proper fashion. Is there any other questions, sir?
4 MR. EBERSOLE: No, question.
5 DR. MARK: Thank you.
6 MR. DEWEASE: Mr. Geiger will now present the 7 operations quality assurance portion of the presentation.
8 MR. GEIGER: Good morning, gentlemen.
9 My purpose this morning is to review with you 10 the activities of the Nuclear Assurance Department during 11 the operations stage at South Texas.
12 First, I'm going to discuss the operations QA
() 13 organization. Then I'm going to complete the description 14 of the nuclear assurance organization so that you'll have a 15 full picture of our activities during the operations phase.
16 The reporting arrangement that's been described 17 to you several times is also depicted again here. That is, 18 I report directly to Mr. Goldberg, who -- and turn the 19 operations OA manager reports to me.
! 20 The operations OA Division is divided into two 21 major parts, quality engineering and quality control or 22 inspection.
23 The quality engineering group has the 3 24 responsibility for all those activities associated with J
25 procedures. They are accountable for executing our audit TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713) 222-7177
87-1 and surveillance program during the operations phase; as
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2 well as assisting in trend analysis activities.
3 I'd point out that included in the operations 4 audit program will be a number of the reviess that are 5 currently being conducted by engineering staff.
6 MR. EBERSOLE: May I ask you, does this system 7 include what I'd call detailed individual accountability 8 with signatures and individuals that can be held to the 9 fire if things go wrong?
10 MR. GEIGER: Yes, sir, they certainly do.
11 MR. EBERSOLE: Is there no ambiguity as I am 12 more often than not used to in this system. You get down
() 13 to the individual, I guess eventually?
l 14 MR. GEIGER: Let me make sure I understand the i
15 question.
16 MR. EBERSOLE: I want to see an accountability 17 system which goes to the individual who did the good job or 18 the bad job.
19 MR. GEIGER: Yes, sir, we have that.
r 20 MR. EBERSOLE: You have that?
21 MR. GEIGER: Not only within our own 22 organization, but as I'm sure you will here from 23 Mr. Kinsey, within his.
24 The quality conrol or inspection group is l 25 responsib'le for performing all those various inspections l
l TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713) 222-7177 i
88 1
that are required, including, for example, those defined by
'(") 2 any" hold" or " witness" points.
3 The interface and coordination line that's 4
depicted here between the operations QA manager and the 5
plant manager is the same line I discussed yesterday during 6 the discussion of the construction quality organization and 7 that is that it's that line that represents a clear channel 8
of communication between those two individuals to assure 9
consistent interpretation and implementatin of our quality 10 philosophy.
11 The operations QA division is dedicated to 12 performing those day-to-day activities which are directly
() 13 related to the day-to-day operation of the plant. The 14 technical services division performs those other necessary 15 and important tasks to implement a comprehensive QA 16 program, but which are not in the general scheme of things 17 in the nature of day-to-day direct support.
18 The activites that tech services performs 19 include planning for major modifications and outages, 20 performing the quality engineering and inspection work for 21 those major mods and outages, performing design office and 22 procurement quality assurance as necessary and appropriate 23 as well as our vendor control activities such as vendor g3 24 evaluation and source inspection.
G' 25 I'd like to stress that the group that's TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713) 222-7177 L
89 1
reporting directly to the operations OA manager is fully k- 2 staffed now and they've had the opportunity, that is 3
certainly the bulk of them, to participate in the startup 4 and the pre-operational testing programs at South Texas.
5 They have had the benefit then of obtaining 6 familiarity with the physical layout of the plant as well 7 as detailed knowledge of the procedures that are and which 8 will be in place during operations.
9 This slide is a recap of the experience levels 10 and education of that operations OA staff. The operations 11 QA manager has over twenty years of experience in nuclear 12 quality assurance including ten years in operations.
()
\,
13 In addition, he's a professional engineer in the 14 quality engineering discipline. He has 32 professionals on 15 his staff, that have a total in excess of 100 years of 16 operations experience.
17 That 100 years represents both military as well 18 as some commercial experience. Sixteen, or one half of the 19 thirty-two, have been either been military or commercial 20 reactor operators.
21 The six supervisors have in excess of five years 22 operations experience each. Four of them are degreed in 23 either a technical discipline or engineering; and four of 24 the six were military plant operators.
v 25 This staff, in my judgment, represents a solid TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713) 222-7177
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I 90
,_ 1 core of experienced people, the kind or caliber of people k~#I 2 we need to be successful during operations.
3 These next slides are going to complete the 4 description of the Nuclear Assurance Department during the 5 operations phase.
6 I have discussed the operations QA division and 7 the technical services or the duties performed by technical 8 sevices. And as you remember from yesterday, I'm sure, 9 described our safe team program.
10 Finally, we will be adding in early '87 the 11 independent safety engineering group. That group is going 12 to be staffed by five senior operators, by five senior
() 13 level engineers with operations experience. Their 14 responsibilities will include providing continuing 15 systematic and independent assessments of plant activities, 16 including maintenance and modifications.
17 Additionally, that group will perform 18 observations of plant operations and maintenance activities 19 to provide some additional verification that such 20 activities are conducted properly.
21 The way in which I would choose to characterize 22 the ISEG, is that I look to them to provide some additional 23 insight which may lead to improvements in methods or 24 techniques that are being employed during the operations bgs 25 phase.
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91 1 DR. SEISS: Let me ask a question. Will it also 2 be the function of this group to look end analyze systems 3 for say possible system interactions or precursors to 4 instances --
5 MR. GEIGER: It will be one of their functions. I 6 don't want to mislead you and say that that's going to be 7 number one on their menu, however.
8 DR. SEISS: That is a charge to this group.
9 MR. GEIGER: Yes, sir.
10 MR. EBERSOLE: I'm certain there will ."a some 11 questions from the full committee about this topic because 12 we've been working on it for the last month or so,
() 13 the system interaction aspects which we found to be rather
! 14 weakly represented by the utilitly evaluated groups.
15 We'd be interested in the full commmittee to hear 16 your approach to system interactive considerations which 17 are not normally part of the channelized or dedicated or 18 compartmentalized engineering evaluation process including l 19 the PRA's.
l l 20 MR. GEIGER: That's correct.
21 MR. EBERSOLE: So we would like to hear how you 22 are going to overcome the standing deficiencies in our --
l i
23 MR. GEIGER: We'd be glad to address those for 73 24 you at the full committee.
O 25 MR. EBERSOLE: Great.
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92' 1 DR. MARK: Let me ask you one other question.
V 2 Is it the -- maybe this another group or this group is 3 charged with analyzing the events reports and what have you 4 to see how it affects this plant?
5 MR. GEIGER: The primary responsibility for that 6 is a different group, that's licensing. But certainly on a 7 selective basis, I think we participate, yes.
8 MR. EBERSOLE: How are you interfaced with INPO, 9 as yet? Not much.
10 MR. GEIGER: I think the fairly normal enannels, 11 We're a member -- they changed the name of that thing a 12 couple of times. It used to be The Notepad, now --
() 13 MR. EBERSOLE: Is that --
14 MR. GEIGER: We receive correspondence 15 consistently from them.
16 MR. EBERSOLE: Okay. Thank you.
17 MR. GEIGER: Gentlemen, before I leave the 18 podium, I'd like to take the opportunity, if I might, to 19 ask the Chairman -- oh, I'm sorry, I have a summary.
20 As I said, the operations QA staff is full and 21 in place; technical services is in the nature of support to 22 that organization in order to implement or assure we 23 implement a comprehensive 0A program.
s 24 The safe team is certainly in place. The plans v
25 for our independent safety evaluation group have been TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713) 222-7177 I
93 1 formulated and are currently scheduled.
O
\ /
2 An that concludes the discussion of nuclear 3 assurance.
4 I'd like to ask the chairman, if I might have 5 about five minutes of the subcommittee's time to briefly 6 discuss the methods we've used in arriving at the number of 7 QC inspectors that will are on the project 8 DR. MARK: Before you -- yes, prepare to do 9 that.
10 MR. GEIGER: Thank you.
11 DR. MARK: Have you had occassion, without 12 naming any names, to separate some vendor, subcontractor,
() 13 supplier and say his stuff, his work isn't good enough, we 14 want a better one?
15 MR. GEIGER: Yes, sir.
16 DR. MARK: Please go ahead with your remark.
17 MR. GEIGER: Thank you.
18 The number of QC inspectors, 370 -- I wanted to 19 briefly explain at least the thinking process that we used 20 in arriving at that number. And I think in general I'd 21 characterize the analysis that went into it in two parts.
22 First we wanted to address the issue of quantity 23 at the other was the issue of quality.
(3 24 In terms of the first issue, quantity, how many,
'N_)
25 We looked at it a couple of different ways, and I'm talking TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713) 222-7177 i
94 l
,_s 1 now of efforts that essentially began early '81 or '82
('~ ')
2 which of course has been updated as we've gone along.
3 We looked at other projects and we talked among 4
our members of the our staff who were from other projects 5
as well and talked in terms of ratios, how many to the 6 craftsmen.
7 We pretty much determined that that was kind of 8 interesting but not necessarily decisive.
9 The second approach which we think was much more 10 effective was to look at it by discipline. It struck us 11 and I believe experience at other places as well, led us to 12 the conclusion that there was more inspection support, if
() 13 you will, required some disciplines than others, because 14 there is simply more inspections to be accomplished. We 15 looked at that.
16 Finally, we looked at the necessity for 17 inspection timeliness. We did not want, under any 18 conditions, to have our inspection force accummulate a 19 significant backlog of completed construction work in any 20 discipline that had not yet been inspected.
21 We don't want to be forced and we're not going 22 to be in the process of having to conduct a significant 23 number of inspections at the end of the job. We want to 24 stay current, in other words.
(VS 25 All of those factors were uced. I think, the TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713) 222-7177 1
L
95 1
emphasis was placed on the last two and that's how we 9,ot U,
2 the number, and it hasn't changed.
3 The second issue, which we had to address I 4 think clearly is quality of the inspection. Assuming you 5 had the right number and the right discipline doing the 6 right stuff, you had to figure out a way to assess whether 7 what they were doing was correct. And we've done two 8 things.
9 one of the pitfalls of other projects have 10 fallen into and in fact was a problem here in the '70's, 11 was qualification and certification of inspectors.
12 We have thoroughly reviewed the qualifications
() 13 and certifications of everyone who's in an inspection 14 position on this job before they go to work and we feel 15 really confident that these people are qualified and 16 certified.
17 secondly, we talked briefly -- or I talked 18 briefly yesterday about inspection effectiveness. I don't 19 claim that's a panacea, but it is a way by reinspecting l 20 work to assess the effectiveness of that front line effort.
21 on the whole, we found that front line effort is being done i
22 properly.
23 MR. EBERSOLE: I have heard, and I guess I
, 24 believe part of it, that qualification and certification of
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25 craft people sometimes is simply bought from the union TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713) 222-7177 1
r 96'
,_ 1 system.
('-) 2 MR. GEIGER: I have heard the same thing.
3 MR. EBERSOLE: And I wonder how you cope with 4 that and what your views are on it, because it certainly --
5 it leaves a smell about the quality program if it's true.
6 Do you have your own system and investigative --
7 of competence?
8 MR. GEIGER: Not that I'm aware of, sir.
9 Let me make this point certainly. In some 10 disciplines and perhaps the easiest one to point out would 11 be welding, we at the project test and qualify each of the 12 welders before they're allowed to go to work. So if
() 13 someone came to the project with bogus certification --
14 MR. EBERSOLE: But beyond the craft steward or 15 whoever it is that certifies that, you have an overview of 16 what the quality of the work is, by proffesionals I guess?
17 MR. GEIGER: I'm not sure I heard your question.
18 MR. EBERSOLE: I say, you know, in reviewing the 19 adequacy of work and the quality level of it, you go beyond 20 the steward level level and to proffesional evaluators, the 21 workd " quality" I presume. Your QA program doesn't stop at 22 the union level.
23 MR. GEIGER: No, sir, it does not. We have, as 24 we discussed yesterday, we have spent, our own staff as 25 well as independent contractors, spent a lot of time TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713) 222-7177 i
v _
s +
97 n 1 reviewing the technical adequacy of the design, for 2 example. -
3 MR. EBORSOLE: All right. Than:t you.
4 MR. GEIGER: Thank very much.
~
5 MR. WISENBURG: Mr. Geiger, I do recal) a 6 question yesterday relative to safe team concerns and I 7 think you may be in a possession to provide'the answer to '
8 that question.
9 MR. GEIGER: I wish I was. My staff is still 10 trying to find those-numbers. Hopefully I will have them 11 by noon. "
12 MR. WISENBURG: Thank you, sir
() 13 DR. MARK: Thank you, Mr. Geiger.
14 Mr. Cody, I believe.
l 15 MR. CODY: Good morning. My name is Dennis Cody 16 and I am manager of the Nuclear Training Department.
~
17 Today, I would like to discuss four areas of our , - -
18 nuclear training effort: The organization, including l
i i 19 qualifications of key staff members; the nuclear training 20 facility; the full-Scope STP simulator; and an overview of 21 our training programs.
22 I will start my presentation with, an- overview of 23 the Nuclear Training Department organization.
24 Nuclear group training activities were
(~)3 L.
25 centralized under the department in December 1983, vi.th a TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713) 222-7177
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_ 1 charter to develop and implement required training for the d 2 nuclear group.
3 It is headquarted in the nuclear training 4 facility located on the STP site, approximately one half 5 mile from the plant.
6 The department reports to the vice president 7 nuclear operaticns and is composed of two divisions and a 8 staff group. Department strength is 44 people including 9
instructors, administrative, and simulator support 10 personnel.
11 The operations training division is responsible 12 for the development and implementation of the licensed and
(')
q_,, 13 nonlicensed operator training programs; the shift technical 14 advisor, the operator requalification and all simulator 15 training programs.
16 The division is also responsible for the 17 maintenance and modification of the full-scope STP 18 simulator.
19 The staff training division is responsible for 20 the development and implementation of the general, 21 technician and engineering training programs.
22 The program design and evaluation section is a 23 staff group of doctoral and masters level professionals 24 responsible for the design, evaluation and academic b<s 25 soundness of the NTD training programs.
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_ 1 The section is responsible for the INPO V 2 accreditation effort, coordination of site-delivered 3
corporate HRD programs, as well as the development and 4
implementation of the instructor certification program.
5 The section also provides programmatic direction 6 for the NTF library, the examination bank, and 7 administrative support activities.
8 Prior to summarizing the qualifications of my 9
staff, I will provide you with a quick sketch of my 10 background.
11 I have a' total of 18 years of nuclear power plant l
12 experience. For four years prior to joining HL&P in 1982, .
I (o_) 13 I was manager of nuclear training for a nuclear training 14 engineering consulting firm.
15 Before joining the consulting firm, I was 16 training coordinator for a period of five years at a 17 mid-west nuclear power plant which was under construction.
18 I certified as a senior reactor operator while at that 19 facility.
20 Although I served in the Navy, I attended the 21 Army nuclear power program. I have served as a shift 22 supervisor on the MH-1A, an Army floating nuclear power 23 plant that provided electric service to the Pan Canal rw 24 System in Panama and as a shift supervisor on the PM-3A, a b
25 Navy nuclear power plant that provided electric power to TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713) 222-7177
100
_ 1 McMurdo Station in Antarctica. I wintered over on 2 Operation Deep Freeze in 1972.
3 The key to the success of our organization is the 4 quality of our personnel and, as I indicated, I would like 5 to briefly summarize the qualifications of my key staff.
6 Mr. Jerry R. Walker is manager of the operations 7 training division. He has over sixteen years of nuclear 8 experience of which twelve years has been at operating 9
commercial nuclear power plants. He is a previously 10 licensed senior rector operator.
11 He has a bachelor of science degree in industrial 12 technology and engineering from Florida International
() 13 University in Miami, Florida.
14 Mr. Bruce A. Franta is manager of the staff 15 training division. He, too, has over sixteen years of 16 nuclear experience of which six years has been at a 17 commercial operating nuclear power plant where he was 18 general training supervisor.
19 He has an associate degree in business from the 20 State University of New York and will receive his BS in 21 business from that same institution in the fall of this 22 year.
l 23 The program design and evaluation section is g^) 24 headed by Dr. Douglas A. Tomas. Dr. Tomas is a Ph.D.
1 %,) '
25 in curriculum and instruction from the University of Texas.
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1 i
i 101 ;
, i He has over fifteen yers of experience in the 2 fields of education and training, five of which are 3
directly applicable to the electric utility industry.
4 Dr. Tomas serves as a peer evaluator for the INPO 5
accreditation effort and has been involved in the 6 accreditation of nuclear training programs for four 7 operating nuclear power plants.
8 He has also served as a faculty member at the 9
University of Houston where he conducted graduate and 10 undergraduate instruction in curriculum design and 11 evaluation, and competency-based training.
12 NTD leadership possesses significant academic and
/7 (j 13 utility experience in the design, implementation, and i i
i 14 evaluation of training programs necessary to support an {
15 operating nuclear power plant.
16 DR. MARK: Within this department, are you 17 responsible or is the department responsible for selecting 18 personnel, that is you have a need for some maintenance men
, 19 or --
l 20 MR. CODY: No, sir, we are not. The selection of 21 personnel is through the nuclear operations department, 22 headed by Mr. Kinsey, the plant manager.
23 DR. MARK: Now, for various jobs, you have
(-} 24 various things laid down; he should have gotten out of high v
25 school in less than half a dozen years, and things like TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713) 222-7177 i )
102
,_ 1 that, or else he needs to have an engineering qualification I)
2 or degree. And so these people are interviewed by the 3 operations department and apart from the paper backing up 4 his claims that he's got a high school degree or whatever 5 else, they're interviewed, and in what way do you decide if 6 this is a good man to hire or not, or in what way do they i
7 decide.
8 MR. CODY: If you don't mind, I'd like to pass 9 that question to Mr. Kinsey.
10 DR. MARK: Oh, well, if it's going to come up 11 later, that's perfectly fine.
12 MR. CODY: I don't think that's a part of your
( ,) 13 presentation.
14 DR. MARK: I don't want much on it.
' 15 MR. KINSEY: My name is Warren Kinsey, I'm plant 16 manager for the South Texas Project. Very directly, all of 17 the craft people, technician level people, are all 18 pretested before they come into our program.
19 For example, the HP technicians have to pass an 20 examination in order to be hired, and each one of them --
21 those examinations are to test their skills ns well as 22 their knowledge level. In addition to that, they're all 23 interviewed by at least two people and I personally approve (S 24 the hiring after reviewing the credentials of each
\_/
25 individual that's hired in the Operations Department.
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<~N 1 DR. MARK: These testings you referred to are !
() 2 things devised by you?
3 MR. KINSEY: They are devised by us and they are 4 in some areas, for example, equivalent to the EPRI approved 4
5 test. For example -- and there's also another testing 6 series that we use to test those people. We also give i
7 them phychological tests which test their natural ability 8 skills.
9 DR. MARK: You want -- oh, wait a minute, you 10 just used the word I was looking for, maybe. Do you have i 11 anything you would classify as aptitude testing?
12 MR. KINSEY: Yes, sir, we do. Those tests we do
() 13 give are -- in addition to the phychological tests are 14 aptitude tests to the crafts people and while the people 15 are working for us, after they've been brought on board, we 16 also monitor their performance and give them a yearly l 17 performance evaluation as well as on an individual basis.
l 18 DR. MARK: What fraction of the people who l 19 present themselves are let's say screened out by this 20 process?
21 MR. KINSEY: We are seeing about 75 percent of l 22 them are being screened out; 75 percent are screened out or 23 in other words 25 percent make it through the process in 24 the area -- and I'm speaking strictly now in the area of 25 technical and crafts.
l l TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713) 222-7177
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104 1 DR. MARK: Well, that's a very complete answe,r to
'd 2 my question. Thank you.
3 MR. EBERSOLE: Well, let me ask a follow up 4 there. You addressed that to craft and technical 5 personnel. What about operating personnel?
6 MR. KINSEY: The operating personnel, the 7 operators are also tested using the EPRI "pos" test.
8 MR. EBERSOLE: Thank you.
9 MR. CODY: Thank you, Mr. Kinsey.
10 To continue, the training department, as a whole, 11 has many professionals with academic degrees. There are
! 12 seven persons with Associate degrees, ten persons who have (3 13
() earned Bachelor degrees, five with Masters degrees and two 14 individuals who have obtained their Ph.D's.
15 Although academic qualifications are important, 16 so is nuclear experience. NTD personnel have over 115 l
17 years of commercial nuclear power plant experience; 174 18 years of military nuclear experience, and 214 years of 19 other nuclear related experience.
20 Further, the department has thirteen instructors l
21 who are NRC instructor certified or who have been 22 previously licensed on commercial nuclear power plants.
l 23 Eleven of the instructors are alsoo scheduled to take the 1
{S 24 NRC licensing exams in July and November of 1986. These
%)
25 eleven licensed instructors will be available to support TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713) 222-7177
105 1 plant operations, if necessary.
2 In summary, the academic and experience 3
background of Nuclear Training Department personnel is both 4 significant and sound.
5 MR. EBERSOLE: Let me ask you a little question 6 about military nuclear, going back to Admiral Rickover. I 7
think if he had his way, he would disautomate everything in 8 a plant and have a man, a live man, standing at a helm.
9 And that philosophy must have been pervasive in all the 10 people that you inherited from the military. They don't 11 like automatics, the don't like complications, they like to 12 do things by hand. Am I wrong in that belief that, that's
( )) 13 so and do you have any counter agent thinking to that
! 14 effect?
15 MR. CODY: I think the personnel that we have 16 obtained from the Navy nuclear program have all been very 17 dynamic people.
18 MR. EBERSOLE: Yes, they have to things by hand.
19 MR. CODY: That's correct. They think about i
20 their particular task, they execute that task in most cases 21 in accordance with the procedures.
22 MR. EBERSOLE: Yes. Discipline.
23 MR. CODY: Excuse me?
, ~3 24 MR. EBERSOLE: Discipline.
D l 25 MR. CODY: Discipline yes, sir.
l TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713) 222-7177 L
106 1 MR. EBERSOLE:
But do they take and dim view
(',')
2 about all the automation and complications at your plants 3 at large.
4 MR. CODY: From a personal standpoint, I don't 5 see that. I do see that there has been a large number of 6 procedures since -- that they're probably not used to from 7 years ago. We have seen a proliferation of new procedures 8 that we train to. There has been very little resistance to 9
those increased procedures. I think in most cases they have 10 seen the value of the procedures and value of the quality 11 in those particular procedures. Also --
12 MR. EBERSOLE: What sort of general comment can i
r'
(,\) 13 you make about the relative complications of the running of
! 14 a submarine and the running of a station in the operating 15 context?
16 MR. CODY: I'd have a difficult time with
- 17 submarines. I was a shore based sailor. You know, I think I
18 there is a large difference between operation of a
[ 19 submarine and operation of a large commercial nuclear i
20 plant.
21 There are some things that we in fact do take as l 22 baseline knowledge that ex-Navy people bring to a program.
23 They bring a very dynamic personality; they bring a very 1
24 solid knowledge of theoretical concepts; they bring a very
(-]
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25 dextrous kinds of hand controls that he we use in a TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713) 222-7177 i
r 107 1 procedure plants. There are easy to teach. They want to
's'j t')
2 learn and they in fact are very quick to learn.
3 So based on what they bring to the program, they 4 fit in to our program and they're very active learners.
5 MR. EBERSOLE: Thank you.
6 MR. CODY: HL&P has made a significant and major 7 commitment to job specific, performance-based training.
8 This commitment is reflected not only in the staff which 9
has been assembled, but also in the nuclear training 10 facility, the plant-specific simulator, and the training 11 programs themselves.
12 You visited the training facility during your r
t
(,h) 13 tour of the plant site yesterday, so I will only briefly 14 review the important features of the building during my 15 presentation today.
16 It was completed in mid-1985. It is 17 approximately 40,000 square feet and is located about half 18 mile from the plant proper. The building houses a 19 full-scope, plant specific simulator, classrooms and 20 laboratories, as well as a lunchroom, staff offices and 21 necessary storage areas and reproduction equipment.
22 The ten classrooms are equipped to accommodate up 23 to 120 full-time students at any given time. Each f~ 24 classroom provides students an environment conducive to N-)3 l 25 learning and contains the latest in audio-visual equipment.
l TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713) 222-7177 ,
108 1
As you saw from your tour, the facility house.s
(')
/
2 four fully functional training laboratories: A chemistrty 3
and counting lab that contains plant testing and analysis 4 equipment which is identical to that used by the 5 technicians in the plant; an instrumentation and control 6 laboratory that contains equipment that is used to train 7 both apprentices and journeymen on the specifics of the 8 complicated instrumentation systems; an electrical 9
laboratory which is used to train electrical apprentices on 10 the principles and processes of electricity; and finally, a 11 mechanical lab that is currently in the development stage, 12 but is still being used very effectively to train
() 13 mechanical apprentices.
14 The STP control room simulator is also housed in 15 the training facility.
16 The simulator is by far the most sophisticated 17 laboratory and training tool in our array of training 18 equipment.
19 It is a plant speci fic simulator that replicates 20 the 1250 megawatt Westhinghouse four loop PWR. The 21 simulator was delivered to HL&P in January of 1985.
22 An extenseve modification project was begun in 23 February of that year as a result of control room design 3 24 review recommendations and to bring the simulator hardware (d
25 and software to a status more reflective of the actual TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713) 222-7177
r j l
l 109 1 plant, which had undergone significant changes since the O
kl 2 freeze of the original simulator design database in October 3 of 1981.
4 This modification project was completed in 5
December of 1985 and the simulator was delcared ready for 6 training in that same month.
7 A phase two modification project was started in 8
January 1986 to incorporate the emergency response facility 9
data acquisition display system, plant computer system and 10 qualifified display processing system simulation 11 capabilities into the machine. The phase two effort should 12 be completed in December lf 1986.
() 13 A phase three modification project is already 14 planned for 1987 to incorporate changes that are now 15 occuring in the actual plant's design.
16 MR. EBERSOLE: May I ask you, with your QDPS 17 system, I was almost convincing myself you didn't need this 18 controversial thing called an SPDS. But you say no, you 19 want it. So how are you going to go about getting the 20 right thing that you want? Do you have an organized 21 approach to getting SPDS now? Are you going to design it 22 yourself; are you going to have it contracted? How are you 23 going to get it?
24 MR. CODY: The simulation capability?
25 MR. EBERSOLE: No, no, no, the safety paramater TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713) 222-7177
110 1 display system; what's the status of that and what's your
(
2 views of what it will show and what it will look like?
3 MR. CODY: I'd like to ask that question to --
4 MR. BALCOM: Excuse me, Dick Balcom, ops manager 5 for South Texas.
6 MR. EBERSOLE: I think it's part of the, you 7 know, it's certainly tightly related to the simulator.
8 MR. BALCOM: The SPDS system is included in the 9 emergency response facility data acquisition system, which 10 has been designed and is presently being installed in the 11 plant. ,
12 MR. EBERSOLE: Oh, it is.
() 13 MR. BALCOM: Yes, sir.
14 MR. EBERSOLE: And it is a product of your own 15 design effort; is that right? Who built it; who designed 16 it?
17 MR. BALCOM: The system was procured from Energy >
l 18 Incorporated but all of the actual display development and i 19 listing of equipment is a product of the control room
(
20 design review effort which is a combination of engineering 21 and operations.
22 MR. EBERSOLE: Now, it's recognized it's not a j 23 1-E system.
l 24 MR. BALCOM: That's correct.
25 MR. EBERSOLE: So when you look at it and it TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713) 222-7177 L
111 1 looks funny, what do you do to back up your conclusion of b,_s 2 what it says?
3 MR. BALCOM: The system is not 1-E, however the 4
1-E variables are contained in the qualified display 5 processing system, QDPS.
6 MR. EBERSOLE: Yos.
7 MR. BALCOM: The system has built-in, 8 self-checking features. It tells you questionable data.
9 It indicates that by a question mark after the paramater 10 and includes a "B" after the parameter to say this is bad, 11 do not use it.
12 MR. EBERSOLE: It has some internal intelligence
() 13 that says it's not reasonable?
14 MR. BALCOM: That's correct, it has its own 15 self-checking features built into it to tell you if the 16 data is questionable or bad.
17 MR. EBERSOLE: Well, you know, in an emergency, 18 which is the only time it's supposed to be used, but it 19 will used for contingency all the time, that's the most 20 likely time it's going to go out of whack, because it's not 21 safety grade, independent and all those good things. Will 22 this system of qualifying response of SPDS in your view be 23 adequately backed up the qualified information systems?
r3 24 MR. BALCOM: In my opinion, it is very adequate.
()
25 The self-checking feature allows the operator to say, "I 1
TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713) 222-7177 '
112 1 shouln't rely on this parameter, I should go to QDPS or my
-] 2 control board indications." The procedures are designed to 3 provide backup indications for them.
4 MR. EBERSOLE: Thank you.
5 MR. CODY: I would like to take this opportunity 6 right at this point to attempt to address a question 7 Mr. Ebersole asked yesterday during the tour of the 8 simulator. And let's make sure I get the right question.
9 You asked how far the simulator acutally simulates an 10 event, how far it takes that particular event. I'd like to 11 try to address, that if I could.
12 MR. EBERSOLE: Okay.
I) 13 MR. CODY: The simulator of course is designed l 14 to ANSI 3.5 standards. Therefore, by design, the machine 15 will simulate an ANSI 3.5 identified event from the 16 initiation of the event to safe shutdown of the plant or to 17 cold shutdown of the plant. There are some 75 required 18 simulations by ANSI 3.5. We have over 200 more l
l 19 simulations, malfunctions, in the machine.
20 We have, in the course of performance testing of l 21 the simulator, verified that design of those 75 22 malfunctions. However other events that take a long time 23 to evolve, that is from initiation of the event, to their 24 end point, have not been verified at this time simply l (S V
25 because of the time involved in doing that.
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l l
l 113 )
l 1 In these cases, the operator is required by
~
2 procedure to take action at a given point in the event such 3 as when an indication reaches a particular value or an 4 annunciator sounds. Thus the event is terminated by 5 operator action before it can proceed to its conclusion.
6 MR. EBERSOLE: Well, let me take the case of a 7 let's say service system failure, like component cooling or 8 service water. What I had in mind was, this was not the 9 classical event when you just shift to system B, which was 10 the old notion that system B was always going to be there.
11 In the Browns Ferry fire, the operators were 12 confounded by the fact that system B wasn't there and the (m) 13 complained that was not in the scope of their training, 14 which they were right.
15 However, now it would be in the scope of your 16 training to take some action, if component cooling simply 17 disappeared or service water. And I think what I'm asking 18 is do you have a knowledge of the sequence of events that 19 occur after a hypothetical component cooling or service l
20 water failure, in order to know in advance what's going to 21 go first, what failure is irreversible and you've got to 22 take other action, what's reversible and you can recover, 23 like the diesels haven't burned up yet?
~s 24 Do you have a degrading procession of events in (d 25 your simulator which will faithfully show how bad you're TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713) 222-7177
114 i i
i getting and which way to go from one point in time?
(
- 2 By the way, this goes back 25, 30 years to a 3 gas-cooler reactor, where we knew on a chronological basis 4 what was going to go first, what was irreversible because 5 it had ruined itself, what you could start up again. And I 6 think it's critically necessary to know the process of 7 degradation and whether you can come back again.
8 MR. BALCOM: Dick Balcom, again, reactor i
9 operations manager. I think I may be able to answer your f 10 question without going into specific details of an 11 incident.
12 During the training process on the EOP's, the j
() 13 EOP's are designed to handle contingencies whereby the 14 plant does not perform as designed. And as an example, one 15 of the training scenarios I requested that they run was a 16 small break LOCA and I asked them to disable all the high 17 head SI pumps. That gave us a change to step through the 18 EOP's.
l 19 The simulator performed very well during that 20 scenario. We were able to follow it all the way to the 21 conclusion of getting the plant cooled down to the point 22 where the accumulators would inject, we could get on low 23 head SI, to proove out our procedures. And it did do that.
24 MR. EBERSOLE: In that simulation, you operated l 0,s 25 the PORV's, didn't you, or did you let them operate TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713) 222-7177
~
115
,\
1 themselves?
\) 2 MR. BALCOM: In that particular case, the 3 procedures do not lead you to the PORV's to operate. The '
4 guidelines lead you to operate the steam generator PORV's, 5 if that's what you meant. And that's correct, we cooled 6 down on the PORV's. That's the secondary choice. Also if 7 the condensor is available and the MISV's were open, you 8 could cool down via the steam --
9 MR. EBERSOLE: Wasn't that a fairly slow process 10 since the pressurizer is an outboard pressure vessel, it 11 doesn't cool down with the main stream. Didn't that take 12 quite a while to get any depressurization? Do you recall
() 13 MR. BALCOM: I think we lasted on that scenario 14 for approximately about an hour and fifteen minutes, was 15 what we actually ran through for that process.
16 MR. EBERSOLE: Thank you.
17 MR. CODY: Thank you, Dick.
18 Thre is a bottom line to where I was going. Over 19 the course of time, we will verify that the other events do 20 in fact reach their required end point. But currently, due 21 the heavy usage of the machine, it's very difficult to let 22 the machine run for long time perios just unattended to see 23 what that particular end point will be. I hope that 24 answers your question.
25 It is projected that cumulative first year usage TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713) 222-7177
r 116
,,. 1 of the simulator for training in 1986 will approach a full U 2 52 weeks if normalized to an eight hour per day schedule.
3 The simulator is an excellent training tool and 4 its use is incorporated into seven of our formal training 5 programs. It addition to these seven programs, it is also 6 used to familiarize I&C apprentices with nuclear 7 instrumentation components.
8 HL&P is currently committed to the NRC to bring 9 the simulator to Reg Guide 1.149 standards by July of 1988.
10 Given past modification performance, we see no reason why 11 that commitment should not be met.
12 DR. MARK: You acquired the simulator from (r w) 13 someone or other. I suppose you didn't build it yourself.
14 MR. CODY: No, sir, we didn't.
15 DR. MARK: Does it then require servicemen from 16 XYZ Compcny to come in and get it working again? Or are 17 you prepared to now service the simulator?
18 MR. CODY: We are completely prepared to service 19 that simulator. The phase one modification project was 20 done in house with an in house project team supplemented by 21 software personnel from contract folks. It was totally 22 managed with in house; we used our own software and l
23 hardware people for the effort. Currently we have in house l
l s 24 expertise that is in excess of the manufacturer's expertise 25 on that machine.
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r 11'7 1 DR. MARK: So you're shed of him, practically.
/~T -
~'
2 MR. CODY: Yes, sir.
3 DR. MARK: Thank you.
4 MR. CODY: The bulk of the nuclear training 5 effort consists of 22 formal training programs. These 6 training programs are being developed to systematic 7 approach to training standards in accordance with our FSAR 8 commitment and NUMARC's commitment to the NRC.
9 Ten of these programs are, of course, required to 10 be accredited through the Institute of Nuclear Power 11 Operations no later than 18 months after fuel load. We are 12 or track to meet that date.
.m l,
~
j 13 I will describe the major programs and summarize
! 14 their content in the following discussion.
15 I'll begin with the cold license operator 16 training program. It was designed to meet all regulatory 17 requirements and as can be seen from this slide, it has 18 five phases including fundamentals, systems and 19 observation, simulator training, on-site training and a 20 prelicense review series.
21 To date, three phases of the program have been l 22 completed. Phase IV, on-site training is in its final 23 stages. We currently have 44 personnel who have either gs 24 completed all three phases of the program of possess d
25 equivalent experience and training to be eligible for cold l
TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713) 222-7177
l 118 1 licensing.
l~)#
2 Phase four training started in January 1985, and 3 has consisted of the courses / modules as shown on the slide.
4 The cold license operator training program will 5 end with an audit exam to determine operator readiness to 6 sit for the NRC exams which are scheduled for July and 7 November of 1986.
8 Development of the majority of the operator based 9 programs shown on this next slide has been completed or is 10 nearing completion. The length of the programs is 11 approximate at this time. They include operator, plant 12 operator, chemical operator, licensed operator and fx qj 13 requalification, STA and fire brigade leader training 14 programs.
15 Of note is that the fire brigade leader training 16 program is classified as an operator program. This is 17 because the fire brigade leaders are chemical operations 18 personnel and as such are provided in-depth training on 19 safety related plant systems.
20 MR. EBERSOLE: May I ask, with your shift -- with l
21 your technical advisor training, you've got 24 weeks up 22 there. What are the prerequisites on which you base those t
l 23 24 weeks?
gS 24 MR. CODY: The prerequisites for an STA --
\s) 25 MR. EBERSOLE: Yes.
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119 1 MR. CODY: -- is a degreed plant staff engineer.
(1) 2 MR. EBERSOLE: Oh, a degreed plant staff 3 engineer?
4 MR. CODY: Yes.
5 MR. EBERSOLE: What about plant familiarization, 6 does he have to have that under.his belt before he starts?
7 MR. CODY: There is a 24 week program. Jerry, 8 does it it include the familiarization as part of the 24 9 weeks or is that separate. j 10 The plant familiarization is inherent in that 24 11 weeks worth of training. As a general note, there is a a 12 particular step in addition to that and that includes
() 13 general employee training and some other things required 14 prior to going into the shift technical --
15 MR. EBERSOLE: But you expect him to know the 16 plant like the back of his hand in 24 weeks?
17 MR. CODY: That's 24 weeks worth of classroom 18 instruction; doesn't include all the on the job training, 19 all the time on shift training. There is a considerable --
20 MR. EBERSOLE: It includes what you call 21 walk-down and physical observations of interrelationships?
22 MR. CODY: Yes, it does.
23 MR. EBERSOLE: Physical spacing and all that?
)
25 condensate polishers and regerneration systems, radwaste TATE REPORTING SERVICC, (713) 222-7177
143 l 1 processing systems and miscellaneous water production and
~
2 waste processing support systems. It is also responsible 3 for analyzing and maintaining chemical specifications for 4 all plant systems.
5 You were briefed earlier by Mr. Cody on the 6 chemical plant operator training program. As you will 7 recall, it is very ccnprehensive.
8 In fact, the chemical plant operator foreman and 9 the head chemical plant operator receive training not only 10 on their assigned systems, but also on many of those 11 systems for which the reactor operations division is 12 responsible because they serve as members of the station
!( ) 13 fire brigade.
14 The chemical plant operators were chosen for 15 this task to relieve the licensed plant operators of 16 additional training that might weaken their training in 17 reactor operations. This will provide the chemical plant 18 operators with a better understanding of the overall plant 19 and will enhance the interface with reactor operations 20 activities.
21 MR. EBERSOLE: Is the chemical plant operation, 22 you know, are they conversant with the facts that they 23 don't simultaneously damage active support equipment?
^
24 MR. KINSEY: Yes, sir.
s-25 MR. EBERSOLE: So they tab a little operator --
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_ 1 MR. KINSEY: I'm sorry, I didn't hear the last U 2 part.
3 MR. EBERSOLE: They have a degree of operating 4 familiarity?
5 MR. KINSEY: Yes, sir, and in addition to that 6 the equipment operation that they peform is all controlled 7 by the shift supervisor.
8 MR. EBERSOLE: Okay.
9 MR. KINSEY: They have to operate very closely 10 with them, when it is possible, for information.
11 A group within the chemical plant operations 12 sectior. is responsible for the station radwaste program.
() 13 This group is led by a supervisor who has been given the 14 authority, as well as the resources, to ensure that the 15 station radwaste systems are optimally operated and that
, 16 station personnel operate other plant systems so as to 17 minimize radioactive contamination and production of 18 radwaste.
19 We have seen evidence of less than optimal l 20 performance at some operating stations in the area of l
i l 21 radwaste management. We feel that this organization will 22 allow us to optimize our performance in this area.
l 23 Even though the chemical plant operators and
(~s 24 reactor plant operators are in different divisions, their Q}
l 25 philosophy of operations is the same as the result of l
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i 145 1
1 common general administrative procedures and because they I i
\ ',)
2 both report to the plant superintendent. Additionally, the 3 chemical plant operators report to the shift supervisor for 4 direction on shift.
5 Most of the chemical plant operators have navy 6 nuclear experience or chemical plant experience. All 7 operators receive training on systems. Entry livel 8 operators go through a three-year training program.
9 As with the reactor plant operators, the 10 chemical plant operators are receiving valuable experience 11 operating the equipment assigned to them during the startup 12 testing phase.
() 13 No contract employees are utilized on the 14 chemical operations staff, thus assuring full benefit to 1
15 the permanent employees. The chemical plant operators are 16 also preparing all of their own operating procedures.
17 The chemical operations and analysis division 18 analysts are responsible for monitoring the chemistry 19 parameters of all the plant systems and providing 20 recommendations to the reactor plant operators and chemical 21 plant operators on maintaining systems within allowable 22 specifications.
23 Our analysts are highly trained and are gaining
- 24 valuable experience by supporting construction and startup
\_s 25 activities. Each must pass a three-year training course.
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146 1 The chemical analysts are also preparing their own 2 procedures and performing tests without aid of contract 3 employees.
4 The support group within the chemical operations 5 and analysis division consists of a supervisor and three 6 degreed chemists. The group is responsible for supporting 7 the chemical plant operators and chemical analysts in 8 development of their programs, system operations and 9 development of programs for and operations of the 10 radiochemistry counting room. This group is also 11 functioning without aid of contract employees.
12 One of the activities currently under
() 13 development by the support organization is a computerized 14 chemistry parameter monitoring and trending program. It 15 will be one of the first of its kind to be put into 16 operation and will help us maintain the very best chemistry 17 possible.
18 other responsibilities for the division include 19 the station radioactive and nonradioactive effluent release 20 program, the station hazardous chemical control program and 21 the station spill prevention program.
22 The technical support organization is 23 responsible for engineering support to the other line r' 24 organizations that report to the plant superintendent, as 25 well as being responsible for several line functions. This TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713) 222-7177
147 1 division consists of four sections staffed by engineers and O
\/ 2 technicians.
3 Mr. Gary Parkey is the division manager for the 4 technical support division. Mr. Parkey has a degree in 5 nuclear engineering, is a registered professional engineer 6 and has over eleven years total experience in the nuclear 7 field.
8 Mr. Parkey spent three years at the Browns Ferry 9 Platn where he was involved-in the initial startup testing 10 of Units 2 and 3 and the restart testing of Units 1 and 2 11 following the 1975 fire.
12 During his nine years on the South Texas Project
()
13 he has held various positions in engineering, startup and 14 operations.
15 The systems performance section of the technical 16 support division is responsible for monitoring plant 17 performance through testing, observation of operating 18 parameters through plant tours and review of plant 19 maintenance work requests.
20 They are also responsible for monitoring
- 21 equipment performance and trending plant problems using the l
22 nuclear plant reliability data system and our own equipment 23 history programs.
- 24 This section is responsible for the plant
%)
25 surveillance testing program and for assisting the
! TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713) 222-7177
148 1 operations and maintenance personnel in the determination O#
2 of corrective actions for malfunctioning equipment.
3 This section, as well as the division as a 4 whole, is organized around the concept of a system engineer 5 being responsible for all aspects of the operation of 6 assigned systems. The majority of the mechanical fluid 7 systems are assigned to engineers in the systems 8 performance section.
9 The reactor peformance section is responsible 10 for routine monitoring of core performance, preparation and 11 performance of special tests and for the Phase III startup 12 testing program, including fuel load and subsequent tests.
(a) 13 The engineers in this section will hold an SRO 14 license and serve as shift technical advisors. We feel 15 that the decision to license the shift technical advisors 16 will help to make them an integral part of the shift crew.
17 These engineers also serve as the system 18 engineers for systems such as incore, instrumentation, fuel 19 handling and spent fuel pool cooling and cleanup.
(
20 The performance support section consists of 21 engineers and technicians. These engineers are responsible 22 for the electrical and HVAC systems. They also manage the 23 station programs for fire protection, snubber testing and 24 vibration monitoring.
'o 25 The performannce technicians in this section TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713) 222-7177
149 1 form the backbone of the testing organization. They will b,_s 2 perform the majority of the performance and surveillance 3 testing under the cognizance of the system engineers.
4 These technicians receive formal training in the 5 principals of testing and test conduct, specific training 6 on tests to be performed and use of test equipment.
7 MR. EBERSOLE: Let me ask a question. In the 8 context of system interaction, I see here a detailed 9 presentation on system-by-system. Where do you cover the 10 intersystem relationships, their weaknesses and strengths 11 and influences?
12 MR. KINSEY: We don't specifically cover that,
(~3
( ,) 13 Mr. Ebersole, we consider that part of the attention of the 14 engineer in going about his daily duties to look for those 15 activities.
16 We are very strong on looking at root causes of 17 problems and I think that's where you are going to find 18 that most of your system interaction problems have done 19 been picked up.
20 MR. EBERSOLE: Well, the Staff has made the i
21 claim and it was contradicted by us, that they can use 22 system engineers who will look for their own interactive l
23 problems, you know, at the lower level without a broad l
24 scope overview. Are you taking that same position as the l (*)
V 25 Staff?
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150 1 MR. KINSEY: We're taking the position that the
(
- 2 system engineers are responsible for their effective 3 performance and operation of that system including such 4 effects as interaction between other systems.
5 MR. EBERSOLE: How does he look at the influence 6 of other systems on his systems?
7 MR. KINSEY: I would say that he looks for the 8 infuence of systems on his own system on his system by 9 looking for the root cause of his problems.
10 MR. EBERSOLE: After -- well, you're talking 11 about an LER review context of operation.
12 MR. KINSEY: During the operation phase, these
()
L 13 engineers, we're are not talking about --
14 MR. EBERSOLE: Yeah, but I'm talking about, you 15 know, not just compare the physical consequences but 16 anticipating the that system "X" is going to somehow undo 17 system "Y" and you don't want that to happen because you're 18 system "Y".
19 I don't see that that can really be accomplished 20 unless there's somewhere an overview function which says, 21 "I want to know systems relationships above the level of my 22 system compared to somebody else."
23 You follcw me? I'm looking at the gs 24 vulnerability. I'm talking really about a design problem.
kJ 25 MR. WISENBURG: I would remind you that IFEG TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713) 222-7177 L
151 1 that you've heard a little earlier was to perform that U 2 overview functions?
3 organizationally it's somewhat separate from the 4 group that we're talking about now. But the engineers in 5 ISEG are perhaps a little more high powered than --
6 MR. EBERSOLE: Well, then they pass on what they 7 do to the system engineers?
8 MR. WISENBURG: Most definitely, sir.
9 MR. EBERSOLE: Yeah, okay. Thank.you.
10 DR. MARK: It's a little related to what we're 11 talking about. I'm reading in the SER in the section about 12 missiles, considerations concerning missiles, that the
~
() 13 gravity missile was examined and they tried to begin for 14 falling on Class IE equipment or some particularily high 15 class o.' equipment.
16 Now, I can imagine that there must be 17 circumstances where something can fall on a pipe or a duct 18 or so, that wasn' t itself thought of as IE but it was tied 19 into one of these systems.
20 Is there any mechanism by which that could be 21 tracked down?
22 MR. DOTSON: Yes, sir, that function engineering 23 of Mr. Kinsey's talking about performing the operation rs 24 project, the engineers in my department and the design
! \s-)
25 engineers and we have a whole slurry of checklists and TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713) 222-7177 L
152 1 walkdowns for system interaction and the modificaton
,T '
2 process and certainly in the completion of the design right 3 now.
4 So, yes, we have looked at interaction of 5 nonsafety system and technically, mechanically and so 6 forth.
7 DR. MARK: It was Exactly that that I thought 8 was raissing in the words which read somewhere, as I say, in 9
the SER.
10 MR. EBERSOLE: Well, the classical insult is to 11 have the toilet bowel overflow and go down the control 12 cubical.
()v 13 MR. DOTSON: Yes. And in fact, we picked that 14 similar thing up on an interacation walkdown. We had a 15 portable water line running over a computer --
16 MR. EBERSOLE: There we go.
17 MR. DOTSON: -- and so we did, we did catch that 18 error.
19 MR. EBERSOLE: Okay. Thank you.
20 MR. DOTSON: But the interaction, we lost it in 21 two places in the description but where the primary 22 responsiblity is in my department's, which is design 23 review.
24 MR. EBERSOLE: The system man who was looking at 3
Q 25 the control cubicle would never have known about the toilet TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713) 222-7177 l
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153
,_ , 1 bowel. You had to find it and you have to --
2 MR. DOTSON: -- water line indicates the concern 3 about the computer.
4 MR. EBERSOE: Yes, thank you. Mr. Kinsey.
5 MR, KINSEY: A key function of this section is 6 coordination of the operations department portion of the 7 operating experience review program.
8 Let me briefly discuss some of the elements of 9 this program. This program is a systematic, proceduralized 10 process whereby we have reviewed operating experience from 11 other plants going back as far as 1972.
12 We have reviewed approximately 1600 items to r'\
() 13 date under this program. for each item which is applicable 14 we have developed a specific plan'of action which is 15 tracked to completion by a computerized tracking system.
16 The nuclear plant operations department program 17 is but one part of the overall station operating experience 18 review program. Other departments within the nuclear group 19 have similar programs, all of which are coordinated by our 20 licensing department.
21 As pointed out by Mr. Goldberg, we are committed 22 to learning from the experience of others. Our operating 23 experience program is an important facet of this i r~ 24 committment.
l N_)g 25 The computer support section is composed of l TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713) 222-7177 l
i L
_ _ _ _ _ ___m
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, 1 engineers and technicians having many years of experience U 2 in testing and operating power plant computers. This 3 section is responsible for the startup testing and 4
operation of the large programmable plant computers.
5 At the South Texas Project, as with all present 6 day plants, computers play an important role in plant 7 operation. We have a plant process computer, a radiation 8 monitoring computer and an emergency response facilities 9
_ data acquisition and display system computer in each unit, 10 as well as a security system computer which serves the 11 whole station.
12 This requires a large, highly qualified and
( 13 dedicated staff. We are confident that we have such a 14 staff as well as the organizational structure to support 15 it.
16 DR. MARK: In connection with your computers, 17 lots of places that use computers depend upon the IBM or 18 Burg or Sperry serviceman to put them back in gear. Do you 19 have a staff of such contractor service men or do you have 20 your own capabilities to --
21 MR. KINSEY: The staff I was attempting to l
22 describe is the staff that would do the service on our 23 computers, okay, to the limit that they can.
24 We certainly, in some cases, have to bring in
' (^S
\_)
25 the contract people to help us to treat specialized i
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i 155 l
1 problems, but these engineers and this computer support, 2 section and technicians that is their function, to maintain 3
and operate and keep those computers in good shape.
4 DR. MARK: Well, now, if you have a major 5 mainline comupter acquired from whatever you call them, how 6 are you fixed for getting an expert on board to fix what 7 has just gone wrong?
8 MR. KINSEY: We have the capability, as far as I 9
know, through our contract with those people, okay. We 10 currently are operating those computers under a warrenty 11 contract to bring them in on schedule, you know, a 12 reasonable timeframe to help us fix those computers. Our 13 intentions would be to maintain some type of contingency 14 contract with the manufacuterer of our computers to handle 15 the cases you're speaking of.
16 DR. MARK: And they would be no further away 17 then Houston, or something?
18 A VOICE: That's correct.
19 MR. KINSEY: The answer is that's correct. I 20 think I've got the manager from the area over here.
21 DR. MARK: Thank you.
22 MR. KINSEY: Thank you.
23 The next organization I wish to address is the 24 maintenance division. The maintenance division is directed 25 by Mr. Mark Ludwig.
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156
, 1 Mr. Ludwig has a degree in electrical 2 engineering and has successfully passed the 32 week 3 Westinghouse operator certification program at the SRO 4 level.
5 Mr. Ludwig has five years fossil power plant 6 experience and has been at the South Texas Project for nine 7 years.
8 Reporting to Mr. Ludwig are supervisors having a 9
total nuclear experience of over 375 years, 131 of which 10 are associated with operating commercial nuclear stations.
11 This division is responsible for the station 12 preventative and corrective maintenance programs. This is
/~s
( ,/ 13 an area which is getting a lot of attention today, due to 14 recent incidents at operating stations.
15 We are keenly aware of the regulatory interest 16 in maintenance, but more importantly we believe that a key 17 to a reliable operating facility is having a good 18 maintenance program.
19 our maintenance philosophy is fairly simple; we I 20 believe in a strong preventative maintenance program and 21 close supervision of the work. We estimate that our 22 preventative maintenance program will account for 23 approximately 60% of our expended maintenance man hours.
24 Regarding close supervision, the maintenance 25 work force is organized to optimize supervision by first TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713) 222-7177
157 1 line management. Each craft disciplien is supported by,a 2 separate group in the maintenance support section.
3 The purpose of the maintenance support section 4
is to prepare work documents, purchase materials and plan 5 work such that the line organizations need only supervise 6 the work activities, concentrating on quality and safety.
7 The traditional craft divisions of mechanical, 8
electrical and instrument and control maintenance are also 9
represented. Each craft has a journeyman to foreman ratio 10 less than or equal to eight, further enhancing the ability 11 for line management to supervise the work.
12 MR. EBERSOLE: In the instrumentation control 13 area in particular, is there something in place that tells 14 the people there that when they pt t a screwdriver in their 15 hands they may be just next door to a $1 million dollar 16 outage because they touched the wrong screw?
17 MR. KINSEY: Yes, sir, we do train these people 18 and are always telling them how important their job is and 19 to be cautious in their work. If they're not sure what l 20 they're supposed to be doing to stop and get supervision.
21 All the work that they do goes through the shift supervisor 22 and it's approved before they can actually go out into the 23 plant and do the work at this plant.
l l
(-)
\/
24 Technical supervisor positions are part of each 25 section of the maintenance organization. These positions TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713) 222-7177
158 1 are similar to assistant section supervisor positions and l
/T 1 2 give the section supervisors the ability to handle the 3 large amount of administrative work as well as monitor 4 field work. Each section has three to four technical 5 supervisor positions.
6 The maintenance organization is reponsible for 7 the station measuring and test equipment program with the 8 exception of chemical laboratory equipment and radiation 9 protection equipment.
10 The meteorology laboratory section calibrates, 11 stores and distributes measuring and test equipment to the 12 construction, startup and operations department Q3 13 organizations.
(v}
14 overall, we feel that our maintenance 15 organization is strong. Our philosophy was to hire people 16 with commercial nuclear plant experience, down to and 17 including the journeyman craft. We have been fortunate 18 enough to hire several journeymen in each craft with 19 commercial nuclear experience.
i l 20 The remainder of our staff are local people that 21 we have trained. To give you an idea of our success, let
- 22 me mention a few numbers. We have 26 electricians with 23 over 190 years of nuclear experience, 35 mechanics with 24 over 206 years of nuclear experience and 36 instrument and v
25 control technicians with over 180 years of nuclear 1
l TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713) 222-7177
159 1 experience.
O V) 2 We do employ several contract people in the 3 maintenance division. They are aiding us in procedure 4
development, procurement of spare parts and meteorology 5 equipment calibrations. Overall, however, the permanent 6 staff is gaining the experience of this period in station 7 life.
8 Before closing on the maintenance area let me 9
mention a few other facts:
10 We utilize prepared procedures for major 11 maintenance. Approximately 1400 procedures will be 12 prepared for Unit 1 operation; ON CN v
13 Corrective maintenance work requests for all 14 maintenance activities are prepared by a dedicated staff.
15 All safety related work is reviewed by our Quality 16 Assurance Department; 17 We have a broad based preventative maintenance 18 program which includes 7500 indentified activities for 19 Unit 1; r
20 Our program includes a root cause determination 21 for equipment deficiencies. All work is reviewed by our 22 technical staff. Work activities are trended to minimize 23 recurring failures; 24 We have an effective material control program.
25 It includes: Control of replacement parts, control of i
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160 1 consumable parts and control of work area housekeeping; r~) -
2 Our maintenance program is being implemented 3 prior to licensing. We have implemented preventative and 4 corrective maintenance programs during the startup testing 5 phase. And we implemented our operations QA program during 6 the startup testing; 7 Finally, we believe in and stress thorough work 8 quality, close supervision of work by line managers, 9 feedback to employees on quality of their work on a 10 continuing basis including annual performance review.
11 And let me digress here just a minute from my 12 prepared talk to address Mr. Ebersoles question earlier 13 about the diesel generators and what type of program we've 14 got planned for those diesel generators.
15 We're very proud of the program, I think, that 16 we have prepared for those diesels our maintaining and 17 operating diesel generators.
18 Some specific items. We will give our engineers 19 as well as our technicians our craft specific training in 20 those diesel generators for authorization as well as
- 21 maintenance by the diesel generater contract personnel.
22 That's upcomino, by the way.
23 We have detailed procedures for authorization as 24 well as maintenance on those diesel generators. To give 25 you an idea of what I'm talking aboaut our mentioned our t
l l
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161 1 strong suit is preventative maintenance.
2 We have at least 189 preventative maintenance 3 check plans for those diesel generators. That includes 51 4 mechancial-type items 87 electrical and 51 INC.
5 It includes such things as inspections, 6 calibrations, checks and lubrication standards. We have an 7 OER program. I mentioned that earlier in my talk.
8 That OER program enhances our ability to operate 9 those diesel generators and maintain them by learning from 10 the experiences of other utilities.
11 We have recently sent one of our system 12 engineers out to Polo Verde Plant which has the same type 13 of diesel generators that we have.
a 14 I guess our philosophy is on authorated diesel 15 generators is not to be average, not to be minimum, but to 16 be the best and we would like to say that we're going beat 17 the Japanese that you mention that have the best program.
18 DR. SEISS: Would I be correct in assuming that 19 this maintenance program is run by a computer?
20 MR. KINSEY: We have a computerized maintenance 21 scheduling program; we have a computerized history data 22 base for the maintenance program.
23 MR. EBERSOLE: In the tech spec area, do you
, fS 24 have an indexing or a maxtrix system to be sure that you
\~)
25 don't have common disabiment of function?
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,- 1 MR. KINSEY: Yes, sir, and I'm going to mention 2 something a little bit later on. I'll repeat it here if 3 you'll forgive me, but we're go to have for this station a 4 computerized technical specification system that we have 5 purchased and that will aid the operator in ensuring that 6 we don't have overlap.
7 MR. EBERSOLE: Right.
8 The remainder of the nuclear department 9 organization reports to the plant manager and provides 10 support to the previously described divisions.
11 Mr. Donald Smith is responsible for the 12 direction of the management services division. Mr. Smith
/\ has a Bachelors degree in mechancial engineering and a (j 13 14 Masters degree in computer science.
15 He is a retirednaval officer and served as an 16 enlisted man in the naver nuclear power program. Mr.
i 17 Smith's staff is a highly qualified gropu of people with 18 many years of experience in their related fields.
19 The management services division is responsible l 20 for provided personnel services, budget and cost control, 21 word processing, document control and library services and 22 data processing services.
23 Management services is a good example of one of the areas where we are striving to be well prepared for
(-)
V 24 25 station operation. In the realm of data processing, we are l
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163 l
1 developing an integrated data base program utilizing three
('~ ) 2 interconnected prime computers.
3 Some examaples of programs we have already 4 developed are: A license commitment tracking system, 5 preventative maintenance scheduling system, measuring and 6 test equipment scheduling system, radiation work permit 7 tracking system and a personnel and training data base.
8 In all, we have plans to develop some 56 9 programs to support station operations.
10 While I am on the subject of computers, I might 11 add that we have purchased a computerized technical 12 specification program to aid the operator in making 13 decisions about plant status.
14 One of the functions of this program will 15 perform will be to keep track of equipment out of service 16 for repair or test and alert the operator if the allowable 17 out of service time is approached or if a limiting 18 condition for operation will be violated. It is a program 19 that will promote safe operation of the station.
20 The next two organizations I would like to 21 briefly discuss are the facilities services division and 22 the outage management division. Both of these groups have 23 been recently formed and have only their managers in place.
,e x 24 They will be further staffed prior to Unit 1 fuel load.
b./
25 Mr. R.L. Hawkins will be responsible for the TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713) 222-7177
164
,, 1 facilities services division. Mr. Hawkins has many years 2 service in the nuclear industry in construction and 3 operations support. The facilities services division will 4 perform maintenance on nonpower block buildings utilizing 5 HL&P craft personnel. It will also manage station 6 janitorial and laundry services, decontaminations services 7 and grounds maintenance utilizing contract personnel.
8 The outage management organization will be 9 responsible for coordinating activities during unit 10 outages. Mr. Marion Smith will be the manager of this 11 division.
l 12 Mr. Smith has several years service in the navy
( 13 nuclear program, has participated in the startup programs 14 for two of the Commonwealth Edison Plants and is currently 15 serving as test group supervisor in our startup 16 organization.
17 , This organization will plan, schedule and 18 monitor plant modifications, maintenance, operation and l
19 testing and testing activities.
l 20 MR. EBERSOLE: Let me ask this, are you looking l
21 in an independent way at the Staff's motions of limiting 22 conditions for operations?
23 MR. KINSEY: Mr. Wisenberg, can you help me out 24
(-
v there?
i 25 MR. EBE iOLE: There is sort of a re-evaulation I
l
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. 1 going on about limited conditions of operations. One of
( )
the old issues used to be as you progress down the 2
3 degradation say for AC power you proceed with shutdown.
4 Well, at the end of the line, if your unit 5 represents a substantial fraction of your group capacity, 6 that was a good thing to do, because you were then faced 7 with of totality of loss of AC power.
8 I wonder if you're looking at your own notions 9
of what to do with limited conditions of operation at your 10 plant.
11 Did you follow me? I'm saying, for instance, as 12 your diesels progressively degraded eventually you had to
/'
( 13 shut down. But that might have been the worse thing to do.
14 MR. WISENBURG: Marcus Burnett is the engineer 15 in charge of our technical specification program and will 16 describe for you some of the activites which we have 17 underway to optimize --
18 MR. EBERSOLE: I don't want a lengthy -- just 19 kind of a brief, how you look at this matter independently.
20 MR. BURNETT: We have looked at matters like 21 that for interaction on this plant as to how the -- as to 22 what actions we should be taking in response to the 23 conditions occurring in the plant and are we actually
(-s 24 degrading things further by following the recommended LJ 25 actions statement for the standard technical TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713) 222-7177
166 1 specifications.
( ,\
O 2 A good example of this is the technical 3 specificatoin on auxiliary feedwater on which once you've 4 lost all trains of auxiliary feedwater the actual statement 5 is not to shut down the plant. And we are participating in 6 all of the industry and NRC incentives technical 7 specification --
8 MR. EBERSOLE: That would be a case in point.
9 Thank you, I just wanted to know whether you were looking 10 at it more or less independently.
11 MR. WISENBURG: I might add, sir, that our three 12 train design here has sort of forced us to look very hard n
( 13 at the Westinghouse standards, which is of course a two 14 train --
15 MR. EBERSOLE: Right.
16 MR. WISENBURG: -- to make those type of 17 decisions which you're talking about.
18 MR. EBERSOLE: Thank you .
l l 19 MR. KINSEY: Mr. Gene Jarvela is the health and 20 safety services division manager and has over 28 years 21 experience in the nuclear industry.
22 He is retired from the naval nuclear power 23 program and was the radiation protection manager for the l
gw 24 startup of Kewannee Nuclear Station.
\_/
25 He has been at the South Texas Project since TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713) 222-7177 l
i
v 167 1 1980. The health and safety services division is
( )
2 responsible for the station emergency plan, the industrial 3
safety program, the radiological environmental sampling 4
program and the radiation protection program.
5 The station emergency plan is the responsibility 6 of the emergency planning section. The plan has been 7
developed and reviewed by the NRC Staff and a revision, 8 answering NRC round one questions has been submitted for 9 review.
_ Emergency procedures are essentially complete and 10 training has commenced for onsite and offsite personnel.
11 By now you are probably aware that the site is 12 situated in an ideal location relative to emergency 13 planning. Our ten mile zone is located solely within 14 Matagorda County and the population within the zone is 15 currently less than 2,500 people.
16 Our prompt notification sirens systems -- excuse 17 me. Our prompt notification system sirens have been 18 installed and are operational. The sirens will be 19 supplemented by tone alert radios tuned to FM radio station 20 KMKS in Bay City, Texas.
21 In addition to our ideal location, we are 22 fortunate to have state, county and city officials eager to 23 support our programs. Our emergency plan for the county is 24 e-)
- u. J but part of an overall plan developed by the county to 25 handle industrial as well as natural disasters.
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/z 1 The state plan is in excellent shape, having V 2 been developed earlier to support the anticipated startup 3 of the Comanche Peak Station.
4 Your tour of the station has shown you that the 5 emergency operation center is nearly complete. The 6 technical support center will be complete in the near 7 future and the operations support center is, of course, 8 complete as it is the administrative office building 9 currently in use by the operations organization.
10 Our station drill is scheduled for February 11 1987. To date we have had a medical emergency drill 12 administered by our outside consultant and are planning for (D:-
13
() several exercises and practice drills in the remainder of 14 the year. We also intend to have the personel from another 15 nuclear station audit our program prior to the NRC audit.
16 The emergency planning section is also 17 responsible for the station industrial safety program. We 18 currently have two degreed industrial safety engineers i
19 assigned to the operations department, increasing to three 20 as the operations work load increases.
21 This staff prepares safety procedures, review 22 procedures from other divisions for safety concerns, issues 23 permits for confined spaces and scaffolding, instructs
(~g 24 employees in good safety practices and monitors work V
25 activities.
i l
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169 l
, 1 After construction.is complete on the units and 2 the construction medical organization is no longer 3 available, our staff will included licensed nurses. The 4
licensed nurses will be supplemented by health physics 5 technicians who will be trained emergency care attendants.
6 The radiological laboratory section is headed by 7 Dr. Darrel Sherwood and is staffed by three health 8 physicists and four technicians. The radiological 9 environmental monitoring program and the dose assessment 10 monitoring program are this section's responsibility.
11 The environmental sampling program has been 12 successfully performed by the station staff for the past 13 two years and was performed for approximately eighteen 14 months by a contractor prior to that.
15 The program includes split sample agreements 16 with state and federal agencies and with other utilities 17 and it has been audited by an outside consultant in 18 preparation for operation.
19 We have written our offsite dose calculation 20 manual and have submitted it to the NRC for review. Our 21 laboratory and dosimetry program has been certified by the 22 national voluntary laboratory accreditation program 23 MR. EBERSOLE: -- critically determined on
(~s 24 immediate meteorology.
25 MR. KINSEY: As to what would occur?
TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713) 222-7177
170 1 MR. EBEROSLE: Yes,, sir, how do you track the
[3] 2 meteorlogical condition as it changes from minute to minute 3 and hour to hour.
4 MR. KINSEY: I'd like to address that question 5 by having Mr. Jarvela.
6 MR. JARVELA: Gene Jarvela, heath and safety 7 services manager.
8 Our meteorological conditions are tracked 9 through two LEP towers that are currently placed on site, 10 to the primary power and also to the backup tower.
11 Our conditions are monitored at 10 meter and 12 also 60 meter level.
13 MR. EBERSOLE: Yes. I wanted to ask, because 14 I've heard this story before, that you can take a 15 meteorological tower and by calculational methods go out 16 about a hundred miles in all directions through cities and 17 mountains and everything and determine the concentration 18 level no matter whether the wind changes or whatever. I 19 don't really believe that.
20 What do you have in the context of direct 21 measuring techniques that you would contemplate using after 22 and accident?
23 MR. JARVELA: We have an environmental program 24 which we are currently undergoing right now, that gives a 25 good firm baseline. And I could follow this up in the case TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713) 222-7177
171 1 of an incident.
We do have auxiliary vehicles to be ran by L )
2 the health physics technicians to go out into the field.
3 One of these vehicles will be totally dedicated 4
environmental van which will also include intrinsic and 5
Canadian detectors, multi-channel analyzers, totally 6 self-sufficient so we can do detailed analysis in 7 conjuction with the gross --
8 MR. EBERSOLE: That's one vehicle.
9 MR. JARVELA: One totally dedicated. We have two 10 other vehicles gross countings, capability of doing gross 11 countings.
12 MR. EBERSOLE: Are you using the aircraft or 13 contemplate the use of any, temporary?
14 MR. JARVELA: I think aircraft would be available 15 if it was needed, sir.
16 MR. EBERSOLE: Okay. Thank you.
17 DR. MARK: Are you well surrounded with 18 meteorlogical data gathering stations so that you'll know 19 if the wind has changed down a Matagorda and therefore you 20 should prepare for the fact that it's about to change up at 21 your tower?
22 MR. JARVELA: Yes, sir. We have two other 1
23 supplementary stations manned by the National Weather 24 Service, one at Victoria, Texas, and the other down.in
?
v 25 Alvin, Texas, which places them basically to the east and TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713) 222-7177
172
,, 1 to the west of us, so to speak,.
['~'E 2 MR. EBERSOLE: I've had real difficulty, you 3 know, believing that a single meteorological tower can be 4 used as a base for calculaton around a hundred mile radius 5 or so. Do you share that lack of confidence with me?
6 MR. JARVELA: Personal opinion, yes, sir, I do.
7 MR. EBERSOLE: Okay.
8 MR. KINSEY: The laboratory and staff are 9 mentioned above and they are responsible for the 10 development of the offsite gross calculation manual are 11 located in Houston at our Energy Development Complex.
12 This arrangement ensures that we can achieve the 6
(j 13 background radiation levels required for counting the low 14 level activities expected in environmental nonitoring 15 program during normal operat, ions.
16 The radiological protection sectiin is 17 responsible for implementing corporate and station policies 18 regarding radiation protection. Mr. Ref Craft is in charge 19 of the radiological protection staff and has over 31 years 20 experience in the radiation protection field.
21 Mr. Craft will have approximately 43 technicians 22 reporting to him at the time we load fuel on Unit 1. This 23 section will implement the whole body counting and 24 respiratory protection programs, issue radiation work 25 permits, perform surveys and calibrate portable monitoring TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713) 222-7177
i 173 wy 1 instrumentation. .
d 2 The technicians that form the nucleus of this 3
group receive three and one half years of training and are 4
sent to operating nuclear plants for experience.
5 Entry-level technicians, as well as technicians 6 from other utilities must successfully pass an entrance 7 examination as part of our hiring practice. Our training 8
program has been used by other utilities in the past to 9 train their technicians. The training program is 10 administered entirely in-house using senior technicians and 11 health physicists.
12 Our commitment to the concept of as low as t
g (uxJ 13 reasonably achievable, ALARA, is reflected throughout the 14 organization, including corporate management.
15 Mr. Goldberg has a set limit of five REM per 16 year as the maximum dose any individual will receive while 17 working at the South Texas Project.
18 MR. EBERSOLE: Let me ask in this connection.
19 If I go back now to the running activity level in your l 20 primary coolant, you know, specified curies per cc. and so i
21 forth, is that much of a variable infuence of the dose 22 level in maintenance or activity releases, are you fiddling i
23 with that to try to optomize it?
r
- r^x, 24 MR. KINSEY
- If you're asking if we are going to 25 try to maintain the dose level of the -- the activity in l
l TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713) 222-7177
t 174 jq 1 the reactor coolant system as low as we can, the answer is 2 yes.
3 MR. EBERSOLE: Yeah, well, I'm just saying, you 4 know, where is the optimum point. There must be some and 5 what are the bases for determining that? I would say would 6 be accident release would be one and maybe maintenance --
7 maintenance might be another?
8 MR. KINSEY: What are the other factors?
9 MR. EBERSOLE: You tell me. You must have some 10 basis for setting that activity level beyond your taking 11 for granted one of them --
12 MR. KINSEY: I think you took the two biggest (n) 13 ones away from me.
MR. EBERSOLE: Well, maybe that's all there is, i 14 15 I don't know.
4 16 MR. KINSEY: Can I have some help? Is there i 17 anything else that we consider important there?
l l
l 18 MR. DEWEASE: I guess, you know, any maintenance 19 activities proportional to the activities are in there. I 20 think the velocity other than the accident situation is
! 21 simply, you know, that we're commited to lowest reasonable 1
( 22 material and in doing so I think we will do everything we 23 can to keep the fuel in good shape and keep -- and I think
(~S 24 that's our goal rather than saying there's some particular i \sj 25 level. We're going to try to get as low as we possibly can TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713) 222-7177
175 1
n in all circumstances because the dividends -- we know; the V 2 dividends faced many times over from exposure to personnel 3 plus if you have a situation like this familiar incident 4
where you dump some of that stuff out, if they have a clean 5 core, their situation would have been a lot worse and we 6 all know that. But from an accident standpoint, it's as 7
necessary as it is from a day-by-day exposure to the 8 individual is necessary. So we want to keep it as low as 9 possible.
Now I don't know what that threshhold is --
10 MR. EBERSOLE: Well, I guess I was just, you 11 know, trying to determine if you have a really active and 12 organized program to look at those matters.
(J 13 That's all, thank you.
14 MR. KINSEY: Going back to the five REM per year 15 limit as set by Mr. Goldberg, administratively we're going 16 maintain four or less. As you are aware, this is 17 significantly more conservative than the regulatory 18 requirement.
19 We will accomplish this goal through review of 20 engineering design and effective work practices. Our 21 health and safety support organization is responsible for 22 reviewing the plant design for features that will reduce 23 doses to the workers.
'w 24 g As the plant is constructed, this staff is (V 25 performing walk-downs to verify that the design is carried TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713) 222-7177
176 1 out properly in construction apd to find ways to minimize L'"') 2 system interrelatons that would increase dose level.
3 Effective work practices including pre-job 4 planning, exposure reduction, exposure usage accountability 5 and post-job review.
6 The overall station ALARA program is monitored 7 by an ALARA Committee, chaired by the Health and Safety 8 Services Organization with memoers from each of the 9 operations divisions.
10 Some pertinent facts about the health and safety 11 organization are shown on the following slide. I won't go 12 through all of them with you now, but let me just highlight O.
L j 13 a few of them.
14 A division will have a total compliment of 56 15 personnel at fuel load of Unit 1. We currently have 35 16 employees in the division.
17 The staffs' educational experience consists of 18 one Doctors degree, three Masters, twelve Bachelors and 19 seven Associate Degrees.
20 Two health physicists are certified by the 21 American Board of Health Physics and two technicians are 22 registered with the National Registry of Radiation l
23 Protection Technicians.
24 Before I close, I would like to give you some
^5
! \,)
25 general information about the operations organization.
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l 177
,,. 1 The organization has 97 personnel with Bachelors g) 2 degrees. Forty-four of these are engineering and 26 are 3 technical or science related.
4 The department has 1,282 years cumulative 5 nuclear experience. This includes only years associated 6 with some type of operating facility. If credit were taken 7 for the years many of our employees have spent at the South 8 Texas Project or other facilities under construction, these 9 numbers would be substantially higher.
10 Managers and supervisors have 648 cumulative 11 years nuclear experience.
12 The licensed operators will be on a six-shift (s j; y 13 rotation. This gives us the flexibility to have a strong
.14 requalification program and ensures that. there are enough 15 operators available to take care of peak work demands, 16 vacation 3nd sick leave without evers"ressing our 17 employees.
18 other critical positions, such as chemical plant
! 19 operators and chemical analyst also have allowance for l
20 re-training and peak work demands by establishment of five !
21 shifts.
22 We plan to perform the majority of our 23 maintenance on two shifts, five days a week. We will have l
("n, 24 maintenance coverage on the third shift and on weekends to l
V l 25 handle priorities and to perform equipment and system TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713) 222-7177
178
, 1 testing. ,
{',,',h 2 Chemical analyst coverage will be 24 hours2.777778e-4 days <br />0.00667 hours <br />3.968254e-5 weeks <br />9.132e-6 months <br /> a 3 day, seven days a week, continuing our commitment to 4 excellence in chemistry control.
5 In summary, the nuclear plant operatons 6 organization is staffed with trained and experienced 7 personnel dedicated foremost to the safe operation of the 8 Soutn Texas Project. The Department, myself and our 9 corporate organization are ready to operate the station.
10 Are there any questions?
11 DR. MARK: A site question. An item in the 12 radiological protection, which I believe has a considerable I,., ~1. 13 effect, is housekeeping; that is, if there is a place v
14 that's going to leak that the leak can't run all over the 15 floor or anything has leaked that they can be scrubbed up 16 immediately, not tracked around.
17 That, perhaps, is implied in what you have been 18 saying but it isn't spelled out.
l
! 19 MR. KINSEY: Sir, we have got a dedicated staff 20 in the chemical operations and analysis division whose job i
l 21 is to do exactly what you're talking about. They are i
(
- 22 dedicated to minimizing radwaste to getting it cleaned up I
l 23 when we have a problem right away to training our l ~g 24 personnel, all the other safety personnel --
g\s l 25 DR. MARK: I remember hearing INPO was -- has a L L TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713) 222-7177 l
L
179
, 1 task force on this subject and they were going around the 2 country with words on that item as well as the ones you 3 have mentioned?
4 MR. KINSEY: Well, we're going to have a policy 5 as well to dictate from corporate managemenc and myself, 6 skay, what our philosophy is and what we expect out of 7 station personnel.
8 DR. MARK: Just fine. Other questions for 9 Mr. Kinsey?
10 MR. EBERSOLE: We're at the end of 11, aren't 11 we? We're at the end of the whole thing aren't we?
- 12 I just noticed a security question which I
,m
( l 13 certainly wouldn't recommend we take up here. But maybe --
v 14 DR. MARK: Well, I did want to ask -- I think 15 we've covered everything else that's listed on the agenda 16 as I have it except the security.
17 We have heard, I believe, what's necessary about 18 the physical protection. Obviously the security includes 19 safeguards and that was on at least one of the slides but 20 it wasn't discussed specifically. And as Ebersole said, we 21 don't want to go into your anti-sabotage activities here 22 and now or in public, I think.
23 Have you had any incidents at the plant which
('~h 24 you have decided did constitute a small attempt at
%)
25 industrial sabotage?
TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713) 222-7177
180
, 1 MR. KINSEY: Yes, sir, we have and I'd like to 2 introduce Mr. Andy Hill, our security manager who might 3 want to --
4 DR. MARK: I don't think we want details, but 5 they have happened and you've given it thought. Now what 6 about the more broad subject of serious sabotage as let's 2
7 say the plant -- like when the plant is operating. And 8 again, I don't want to know what provisions you've made, 9 but what level of thought has there been given to it?
10 MR. EBERSOLE: May I add something to this. I 11 never much trusted in fences and pistols and things, it's 12 the interior intruder, the fellow who gets inside.
3 13
- j MR. HILL
- A.O. Hill, manager of nuclear
,(J 14 security. Yes, sir, we have given consideralbe thought to 15 the sabotage scenario. What we do, we utilitze computer 16 raonitoring based on the instrument of adversary sequence i 17 interruptions philosophy that Sandia Laboratories has 18 presented and what we do is take the formabilities (sic) at 19 all areas of the plant from outside protective areas from 20 protected areas inside for the vital equipment of the plant '
21 and we estimate particular scenarios involved there. ;
I 22 DR. MARK: Now, in that connection, we've heard ;
23 in connection fitness for duty something about the alcohol fT 24 and drug abuse possibilities, there was also a program, I'm
'Mal 25 not sure at what stage it is just now of background TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713) 222-7177
181
,,h
. 1 investigation of employees. Is that in effect?
! J 2 MR. HILL: Yes, sir, it is. Currently we are, 3 have implemented what we call the access authorization 4 program which includes background investigation and 5 phsycological studies.
6 Additionally we tie in fitness for duties 7 program -- we have a linkage there for the continual and 8 behavoral observation program. We started that training in 9 February --
10 DR. MARK: There was a program of that sort, I 11 think, outlined within the last year by NUMARC.
12 MR. HILL: That is correct, sir. And we are t.)! 13 following both guidelines -- have commited to follow both
, 14 guidelines for specific this organization.
i 15 DR. MARK: I think unless -- I don't have any 16 further questions I was just going to drop it about there.
, 17 MR. EBERSOLE: As a security man, your function 18 has been vastly extended to include our guests. Well, let i
i 19 me ask you this: Are you acquainted with multiple and 20 point vulnerabilities in the plant to which you must
- 21 address varying degrees of security considerations?
22 MR. HILL: Yes, sir.
l As I -- I'll reiterate --
23 MR. EBERSOLE: I heard you say about Sandia.
r" 24 MR. HILL: Yes, sir. We utilizing the estimate N)b 25 of average sequence interruptions models. We are able to i
TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713) 222-7177 l-
182 1 do that. We've had several pr, int-outs that we've done that 6
g 2 actually give us a time.
3 MR. EBERSOLE: Are they oriented to your plant 4 as a unique plant? Sandia's was a general plant.
5 MR. Hill: Yes, sir, that's correct. We have to 6 because those times of course are varying an consistant 7 depending on the physical size of our plant so we have had 8 to specify --
9 MR EBERSOLE: You then have a listing or 10 knowledge, cognizant of various levels of suseptability.
11 MR. HILL: That's correct, sir.
12 MR. EBERSOLE: Yeah, okay. Thank you.
r%
L] 13 DR. MARK: Is there anything else that we call 14 for? I think not. I don't know -- Mr. Goldberg did you 15 have some additional message?
16 MR. GOLDBERG: I'll keep my closing remarks 17 brief.
18 I would like to hope that your visit to the l
19 plant and discusses with my staff in the last two days have 20 conveyed at least the following.
21 That Houston Lighting & Power Company is fully l
22 committed to completing the design construction and to go 23 on to operate South Texas in a quality manner.
! / N. 24 The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has the full 25 attention of Houston Lighting & Power. And I mean one TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713) 222-7177 o
183 1 hundred percent. .
I', '>
2 I believe our swift aggresive corrective action 3 to address the CAT findings which were discussed by 4 Mr. Constable is but one example that testifies to that 5 particular thing.
6 In my view, talk of esculating enforcement 7 action regarding the CAT is inappropriate in that it serves 8 to punish one after he has reformed. It's a matter of 9 interest on a number of indications. This project has 10 undertaken to solve problems by investigation determining 11 their underlying cause, putting in place corrective action 12 to preclude reoccurence before the NRC has even written the
(~h L. 13 problem down.
14 We have filed reports of what corrective actions 15 we've taken before notices of vitalation have been issued.
16 In affect, I think we have kind of fowled up the 17 administraative system because we are solving many problems 18 before they do get written down. And we're going to keep 19 up that pace so there won't be any *.hreat for Region 4.
20 We believe that the many obvious plant features 21 which have been incorporated in South Texas to ensure safe 22 and reliable plant operation is living proof to our 23 commitment of excellence. We put a lot of money where our g 9q 24 mouth is, as t'te expression goes.
V 25 We look forward to operating the station which TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713) 222-7177
184
, I will serve the electric power peeds of an estimated 500,000 Ag)
/\
2 Texans and hopefully set the stage for the owners to 3 recover an enourmous investment.
4 I would like to thank the Subcommittee for has 5 proved to be a very stimulating visit. We look forward to 6 meeting the Full Committee next week, 7 DR. MARK: Thank you, Mr. Goldberg. I think 8 we've felt we've had a very interesting visit also and very 9 informative.
10 I'm sure there are likely to be sequels or 11 discussions, I don't quite known for sure what they are at 12 this moment.
(rm
\_)
! 13 Unless my collegues have something else they 14 would like to have comment on.
15 MR. EBERSOLE: No, I can just say, I think I've 16 been impressed by the quality and character.
17 DR. MARK: I believe that will terminate the 18 meeting that we're having. There is a little post-session 19 I'd like to call for, but we will terminate the recorded 1
20 session of this meeting now.
21 (Recess at 1:05 p.m.)
i 22 i
23 24
(-7(
! 'q) 25 TATE REPORTING SERVIC3, (713) 222-717s
122 1 CERTIFICATE OF OFFICIAL REPORTER 0 2 3 this is to certify that the attached proceedings before the 4 ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON REACTOR SAFEGUARDS in the matter of:
5 6 NAME OF PROCEEDING: HOUSTON LIGHTING & POWER COMPANY, et al.
7 (South Texas Project, Units 1 and 2) 8 9
1 10 11 PLACE: BAY CITY, TEXAS 12 DATE: FRIDAY, MAY 30, 1986
( 13 u
14 were held as herein appears, and that this is the original ,
15 transcript thereof for the file of the Advisory Committee 16 on Reactor Safeguards.
17 18 19 M C C 20 Linda Tate 21 Official Reporter 22 Tate Reporting Service
~
23
') 24 1
25 TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713) 222-7177