ML20195J682
| ML20195J682 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Sequoyah  |
| Issue date: | 01/20/1988 |
| From: | NRC COMMISSION (OCM) |
| To: | |
| References | |
| REF-10CFR9.7 NUDOCS 8801280661 | |
| Download: ML20195J682 (72) | |
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'E UNITED STATES OF AMERICA NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Title:
Briefingun status of Sequoyah Restart Location:
Washington, D. C.
Date:
Wednesday, Ja nua ry 20, 1988 Pages:
1 59 Ann Riley & Associates Court Reporters 1625 i Street, N.W., Suite 921 Washington,.D.C. 20006
'V (202) 293-3950 g22 880120 PT9.7 PDR
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4 1
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This is an unofficial transcript of a meeting of the 7
United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission held on s
1/20/88 In the Commission's office at 1717 H Street, 9
'N.W.,
Washington, D.C.
The meeting was open to public 10 attendance and observation.
This transcript has not been 11 reviewed, corrected, or edited, and it may contain f'
12 I n a c cu r a c*i es.
13 The transcript is intended solely for general 14 informational purposes.
As provided by 10 CFR 9.105, it is 15 not part of the formal or informal record of decision of the 16 matters discussed.
Expre.isions of cpinion in this transcriot l
l 17
,do not necessarily reflect final datermination or beliefs.
No i
18 pleading or other paper may be filed with the Commission in 19 any proceeding as the result of or addressed to any statement 20 or argument contained herein, except as the Commission may 21 authorize.
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1 1
1 UN.ITED STATES OF AMERICA r~x
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2 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 3
4 PUBLIC MEETING 5
BRIEFING ON STATUS OF SEQUOYAH RESTART 6
7 8
Nuclear Regulatory Commission 9
Room 1130 10 1717 H Street, Northwest 11 Washington, D.C.
12 13 Wednesday, January 20, 1988 14 15 16 The Commission met in open sension, pursuant to 17 notice, at 10:05 a.m.,
the Honorable LANDO W.
ZECH, Chairaan of 18 the Commission, presiding.
19 20 COMMISSIONERS PRESENT:
21 LANDO W.
ZECH, JR.,
Chairman 22 THOMAS M. ROBERTS, Commissioner 23 FREDERICK M. BERNTRAL, Commissioner
)c KENNETH M. CARR, Commissioner 1_)
25-KENNETH C.
ROGERS, Commis'sioner
.y -
t 2
1 STAFF AND PRESENTERS SEATED AT COMMISSION TABLE:
2 SAMUEL J.
CHILK, Secretary 3
WILLIAM C.
PARLER, General Counsel 4
DENNIS DAMBLY, Office of the Gen. Counsel 5
VICTOR'STELLO, JR., Executive Director 6
for Operations 7
S.
EBNETER 8
E. McKENNA 9
S. RICHARDSON 10 B.D.
LIAW 11 J. AXELRAD 12 S. RICHARDSON 13 G.
ZECH 14 P. McKEE 15 K. BARR 16 F. McCOY 17 R. PIERSON 18 B. HERMAN 19 A. MARINOS 20 21 22 23 24 q_)
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PROCEEDINGS f%'
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CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.
3 Both units at the Tennessee Valley Authority's 4
Sequoyah site were voluntarily shut down by the TVA 5
organization in August of 1985 because of questions about the 6
environmental qualification of electrical equipment.
7 Additional questions and numerous concerns were 8
subsequently raised about th's overall adequacy of TVA's nuclear 9
program.
Sequoyah has remained shut down since that time 10 pending resolution of these questions and completion of 11 necessary corrective actions.
12 The purpose of today's meeting is for the Office of, 13 Special Projects to brief! the Commission concerning the status 14 of Saquoyah Unit 2.
The Office of Special Projects had 15 previously briefed us on this subject on July 23rd, 1987.
I 16 understand that copies of a recent staff paper, and also the 17 slides to be used by the staff during the briefing today are 18 available on the table at the back cf the room.
19 Do any of my fellow Commissioners have any opening 20 comments?
21 (No response.)
22 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
If not, Mr. Stello, you may proceed.
i 23 MR. STELLO:
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
24 It has been a considerable, long and difficult road
(_)
25 to get to the point we are today with the commission.
The I
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4 1
bottom line of the briefing today of course deals just simply I^
2 with the Sequoyah unit, but we and TVA have come'to resolve the 3
issues.
There are no longer any questions on how to resolve j
4 them.
There is still quite a bit of work to be done, but we 5
believe that a schedule that points to a restart of Sequoyah on 6
February 23rd is achievable.
7 We are scheduled to look at all the remaining issues 8
so that we hopefully will be able to resolve them, with the 9
caveat that as you get closer and closer there are always 10 uncertainties that may change that date, but we think it 11 clearly is achievable.
During the briefing you will hear which 12 of the issues that remain may in fact affect the schedule.
13 With the startup of the Sequoyah unit leaves the 14 question open as to how then we continue to deal with the 15 issue.
I have with me today the Director of the office of 16 Special Projects, Stu Ebneter who, the Commission is aware, has 17 made considerable sacrifice to accept a reassignment now for in 18 excess of a year from our Region I Office.
And what that 19 particular milestone achieved is a restart of Sequoyah and we 20 can look for how to start to move these projects back into the 21 usual operation of the agency, which is our regional offices 22 and NRR.
23 We have had at least a preliminary discussion for 24 that purpose.
The scope of the plan is to, when we can get the
(_j 25 Sequoyah unit back on the line,.we would look for moving the l
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i 5
1 Office of Special Projects wi' thin the NRR organization.
,I 2
Following that particular move, we look to a transition then as 3
these reactors start up and we gain a confidence to move them 4
back into the routine organizational structure over a span 5
obviously of many months.
As you are aware, the spacing of the 6
completion of these projects spans some considerable time.
7 But the most significant issue that we are faced with 8
of course is the restart of Sequoyah.
9 With that, I will ask Stu to brief you on the status.
10 We are not here to suggest that this is the last discussion 11 with the Commission, but rather to give you the status of where 12 we are and, as we now get close to the date, that the 13 commissign would schedule a subsequent meeting where the 14 Commission trould hear from TV?. management itself on why they 15 think it is e.Say, and hspefully that meeting would be scheduled 16 sometime toward the middle of February if the schedule remains 17 as it is today.
18 With that, then, let me ask Stu to give you a 19 briefing on where we are on the status, and to particularly pay 20 attention to those items for which we clearly had issues where 21 we did not yet have a solution identified which we now have, 22 and many of the issues in fact have been disposed of and I will 23 ask Stu to make sure that we identify those to the Commission 24 in the briefing.
q) 25 So, Stu, I will'ask you to introduce the other 4
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6 1
members of',your team that are h,ero at the table, as'well as in w'
2 the audience, and then get on with the briefing.
3 MR. EBNETER:
Thank you.
4 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Stu, before you begin, let me just 5
emphasize also that this is strictly a briefing today.
It is 6
not a restart decision.
We would, as the Executive Director 7
for Operations has just pointed out, expect to have another S
meeting at which time we would hear from TVA management as well 9
as the staff prior to any restart decision.
10 EDO has told us that they plan.right now to have a 11 restart about the 23rd of February, or sometime shortly before 12 that then we would. expect the staff and the TVA management to 13 come to the Commission and present their recommendations.
So 14 today's briefing is a status report as to where we stand and, 15 with that, Mr. Ebneter, you may begin.
16 MR. EBNETER:
Thank you, sir.
17 (Slide.]
18 MR. EBNETER:
Good morning, everyone.
19 We have had some significant. changes in the 20 organization since we last met with you, so I would like to 21 introduce the staff, my staff.
22 Jane Axelrad is my Deputy.
I replaced Ken Kepler/
l 23 who retired.
Jane is my Deputy.
Steve Richardson, to my l
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24 right, is the Project Director for TVA now.
He replaced me in l
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25 that capacity.-
B.D. Liaw is our Assistant Director for
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1
1 Technical Programs; and Eileen McKenna up at the far'left is
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our Senior Project Manager.
3 I have some other staff members'in the audience.
I 4
would like you to introduce yourselves.
Those are Tech Staff 5
people in the event you have acme specific qucations.
We have 6
enough support to answer those.
Ken.
7 MR. BARR:
My name is Ken Barr.
I am the Acting 8
Assistant Director for Inspections Programs.
9 MR. McCOY:
My name is Frank McCoy.
I am the NRC 10 Section Chief for Sequoyah.
11 MR. ZECH:
Gary Zech, Assistant Director for Projects 12 here at Headquarters.
13 MR. PIERSON:
Bob Pierson, Plant Systems Branch 14 Chief.
15 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Say that again, would you, please.
16 We didn't hear that very clearly.
17 MR. PIERSON:
Bob Pierson, Plant Systems Branch s
~
18 Chief.
i 19 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Thank you.
20 MR. HERMAN:
Bob Herman, Engineering Branch Chief.
21 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Say that again, too, would you 22 please?
Sorry.
23 MR. HERMAN:
Bob Herman, Engineering Branch Chief.
24 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Thank you.
(,)
25
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MR. MARINOS:* Angelo Marinos.
I am the Chief of the
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~1 Reactor Operations Branch.
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,5 2
CHAIRMAN ZECH:
One more time.
3 MR. MARINOS:
Angelo Marinos, Chief of the Reactor 4
Operations Branch.
5 MR. EBNETER:
Thank you.
6 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
All right.
Thanks, very much.
7 MR. 2BNETER:
All right.
Thank you.
8 I would like to make just a few comments.
We have 9
had excellent support from the interfacing NRC offices.
NRR 10 has been very supportive on the IDI inspection.
Region II has 11 been excellent on providing support for general inspections of 12 the plant.
Region I has supported us on independent NDE VAN j
13 inspections and other inspections.
And research, by the way, I 14 don't want to leave them out; they have supported us on the 15 NUREG 1150 issue.
So we have had very good support in 16 resolving our issues.
17 (Slide.)
18 MR. EBNETER:
What I would like to do first is give yod an overview of some perspective of the total recovery 19 20 aspects of the TVA program, and address each of the units, 21 The priority units of course were Sequoyah, with 22 Sequoyah 2 being the lead unit.
As Vic mentioned, the startup 23 date is projected for February 23 of this year.
That is an 24 achievable date in the even't we have no serious tech spec q j/
25 problems or other serious technical issues that arise in this
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e 9
1 time frame.
I 2
Heatup should start this week.
It is projected for 3
tomorrow, or Friday at the latest, again assuming no technical l
i 4
issues.
5 Following that unit, Sequoyah Unit 1 would come up 6
about six months later, and that would be in the August-7 September time frame.
And the Browns Ferry Unit 2 then would 8
assume the next priority.
i 9
Brown Ferry Unit 2 was scheduled for the fall of 10 1988.
I want to mention there is an awful lot of work going on 11 at Browns Ferry by TVA.
Commissioner Bernthal asked last time
~
l 12 some questions in that area, but our focus t'oday is on 13 Sequoyah, but there is a lot of work going on.
i 14 Then the other Browns Ferry units which are in layup 15 and defueled would come on in sequence.
Browns Ferry 1.in the 16 summer of '89; Browns Ferry 3, summer of 1990.
I want you to 17 recognize that within the next 6-to 8-month period there is a 18 tremendous amount of work if TVA can even come close to 19 achieving this schedule, and that the staff will also have to 20 parallel those efforts, and we do plan to sequence the staff 21 resources onto the Sequoyah 1 and then Browns Ferry.
22 The Watts Bar units are the third priority.
There is 23 not an awful lot of effort going on, although TVA has. assigned 24 a team to identify the scope of the problems that are existing 25 and that would have to be resolved before lican'aing of those t
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' units.
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2 The projected schedule for those are the fall of 1990 3
and Unit 2 in 1991.
4 The Bellefonte Units were not part of our shutdown 5
memorandum to TVA.
Those units are B&W units.
They are 6
scheduled for the mid-1990s, and that is the general status on 7
those.
8 Any questions on the general overview?'
9 COMMISSIONER ROGERS:
Yes.
Is there any interaction 10 between the dates of thesa different units?
In other we'rds, 11 does the date of any of them depend on an earlier date of 12 something else happening?
Or are they all independenn 13 activities that go on on their own separate schedules?
14 MR. EBNETER:
They are comewhat independent, but a l
15 lot of the work that wns done on the corporate review and some 16 of the programs done at Sequoyah are identical to some of the 17 things that are going on at Browns Ferry, but they are being
, 18 pursued as individual startups.
19 COMMISSIONER ROGERS:
So a shift in any one of these 20 dates need not bump any of the other dates?
Is that it?
21 MR. EBNETER:
It could from the standpoint of TVA's 22 researces.
They have to parcel those out under the budget i
23 constraints.
24 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
Well, the question is, for
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25 example I se., that from the standpoint of TVA resources y~ou
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4 11 1,
have Browns Ferry Unit 2 scheduled for the fall of this year,
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which would appear to be at the same time, assuming the 3
Sequoyah Unit comes on line sometime here in late February or 4
early' March.
It would be about the same time frame.
Are they 5
in shape to starc op both at the same time, or less?
6 MR. EBNETER:
It is possible.
Bic there will he some 7
resource constraints; that's for sure.
Now these are TVA 8
schedules that we are working with.
Thest are the ones that 9
Mr. White has projected that he can meet.
10 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
All right.
Let's proceed.
i 11 (Slide.)
12 MR. EBNETER:
This is our key issues' chart.
We have 13 adopted the same format that we had in a previous presentation 14 to you.
We have kept the same categories because those are the 15 ones that were defined in the performance plan submitted by TVA 16 and agreed upon by the staff.
17 There are significant differences on this chart.
Let
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18 me note first that we have categorized them into A',
B, and C 19 categories.
In our last presentation to you there five items 20 in the C category.
Those items have now moved over into those 21 categories which reflect general agreement among the staff TVA.
22 There is still some uncertainty in those B categories, and I 23
. will discuss those individually for you.
24 The ones that changed, though, design esiculations 25 review moved from a C to a B.
The cable installation, which
)
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1 was a major controversy, moved from a C to an A.
. Fuse 2
replacements moved from C to A.
Hydrogen analyzer operability 3
moved from C to A.
And NUREG-1150, based on inputs from 4
Research, has now moved from C to A.
Those are the changes in 5
the C categories.
6 There were two items that were in A categories that, 7
as a result of--one of them is a result of the IDI and moved to 8
a B category, and the other one in that area was the--I think i
9 that was the electrical civil cales.
In tech specs we moved 10 from A to B.
11 I would like to discuss with you individually these B 12-category items, and I will take the B1 categories first, which 13 are the ones that TVA owes us some information on.
If we go 14 down the list of these, the first one on the're is the 15 electrical calculations.
There is some uncertainty in there 16 because of unverified assumption in the design process.
TVA 17 has stated to us they have the answer to that.
18 However, they have not officially submitted that for 19 the record.
That has to be resolved before the staff can make 20 a conclusion.
21 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
Let me ask one question here 22 about the C category.
23 MR. EBNETER:
Yes, sir.
24 COMMISSIONER BERNTRAL:
About two weeks ago we had a 1
25 meeting here on so-called problem plants a'nd sequoyah was
13 1
listed as one of our problem plants, in which category we had
()
2 the descriptive phrase, something to the effect that "adequate i
3 program for resolution of problems are not yet in place."
Now
<4 that is not an exact quote.
5 I took some issue with ths.t characterization at the 6
time, and I see that in two weeks now they no longer apparently 7
have such problems where a resolution is not in place.
Would 8
someone care to explain that?
9 MR. EBNETER:
I can comment on it.
We had an 10 objection to that particular letter that was sent out, also, 11 and TVA had some disagreement with that.
12 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
Okay.
13 MR. EBNETER:
They have submitted program plans for 1
14
- he resolution of corporate problems at Sequoyah and Browns 15 Terry.
Those are-Volumes I, II, and III.
They have not L
16 submitted one on Watts Bar.
Perhaps that is why it was 1
17 characterized that way, but the units in question do have 18 program plans.
l 19 We have approved the program and issued the SER for 20 the corporate plan, and we are issuing the SER with 39 of 46 21 issues addressed.
That should go out this week for Sequoyah 2, 22 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
So in your judgment at least 23 that characterization with respect to Saquoyah was 24 inappropriate two weeks ago?
25 MR. EBNETER:
Yes.
But Vic is grabbing the mike.
l
e.
14 1
- MR. STELLO
Let me,make clear that'at the time that' f
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comment was made, there were in fact issues which were not 1
3 resolved.
We didn't have the plan.
The cable issue was 4
specifically cited as an issue.
We were not yet ready to move 5
out of the C category that was citad
- 9 e.n exampic.
6 Now having said that, I think that the language is 7
unfortunate.
We will deal with that before we brief the 8
Commission.
Perhaps a better way to characterize the plants 9
that we described last time is to simply say we are not 10 prepared to recommend to the Commission that the plant be 11 allowed to start up.
Maybe that would simplify things a great
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12 deal.
That in essence is in fact the case.
We just simply are 13 not prepared to recommend to the commission that it allow the i
14 plant to restart.
Perhaps that is a clearer definition of what 15 it is.
16 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
All right.
Let's proceed.
17 MR. EBNETER:
Fine.
18 The <>ther areas that TVA has the lead on at this 19 point are tech 0pecs.
This is a major category.
We will not 20 allow the plant to restart, or recommend to the Commission 21 restart unless the plant is in full compliance with the 22 technical specifications.
Theso are ongoing concerns as we 23 move closer and closer to'startup..
24 We now have two or three major losues that involve
( -
,25 tech specs' that have to be resolved before *: hey can move into 4
9
15 1
mode four.
These are generally--I will just describe them--the.
I 2
emargency diesel gen'erator operability.
Just last night we had 3
a concern raised on the ice condenser operability.
And the 4
other one is the control room HVAC system.
Those technical 5
issues have to be resolved, or a tach.=, ace change accomplishod 6
in order to meet startup requirements.
7 COMMISSIONER CARR:
Why wouldn't there be an X in 8
both columns on that item, then?
Don't we have to approve 9
them?
10 MR. EBNETER:
We do, but right now the burden is up 11 to TVA to submit those.
They have submitted the one on the 12 control room issue.
However, their approach is to resolve it 13 technically, if possible, and we do have it in process for a 14 tech spec change.
15 COMM[SSIONERCARR:
But what you are telling me is 16 that X can only move to the right?
17 MR. EBNETER:
Yes.
That's true.
18 COMMISSIONER CARR:
Okay.
19 MR. EBNETER:
So that is our issue on those.
20 The hydrogen analyzer is required for mode two.
That 21 is still under ^JA court.
They owe us a submittal on that.
22 Restart testing, we need additional surveillance 23 tests.
TVA has a lot of work to do here, and we have a lot of 24 work, and your comment, Commissioner Carr, is probably 1 (
appr'opriate there, tob, becaur,e we also have a role in the 25
)
16 1
restart test. program.
I 2
There are 15 special tests that have to be done; 12 3
of them have been done so far; 125 surveillances, and about 80 4
of those'have been done.
So it is well on its way.
5 The operational readin'ess is in TVA's area.
The same 6
comment.
We have a lot to do in there, but at present it is in 7
their area.
We are working in parallel with them.
8 Some items there--and I will discuss part of them a 9
little later--is the TVA operational readiness review.
We've 10 identified a significant number of concerns, one in procedural 11 compliance and another in control room decorum.
12 We need to have a public meeting in that area fo'r TVA 13 to address all the concerns that were identified by their 14 review and INPO's; and we need to finally close it out by our 15 own observations during the heatup phase.
So restart and 16 operational readiness is a significant area for us.
17 One other item that is a C there for TVA is 18 exemptions, or a B prove, TVA's exemptions.
That really we h've resolved.
That was related to exemptions on GDC-55 and -
19 a
20 56 on containment isolation.
We have resolved that, and we 21 have OGC approval and we have issued the exemptions in that 22 area.
23 In conjunction with that, we did send TVA a letter on 24 December 31st to address these and make sure they were aware of
(
25 what specific documentation we needed in these areas.
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17 1
The,NRC items in the' Category B2, the-IDI issue I p
2 want to--I have a separate slide on that, so I will defer that.
3 It is one of the more important ones.
i 4
COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
Stu, just one comment.
I may 5
have been distracted and you may have mentioned it.
The 6
leading issus--and Mr. Stello again mentioned it--for some time 7
here in the technical area, at least one of the leading issues, 8
appeared to be the silicon cabling.
Is that under cable 9
installation, then?
l 10 MR. EBNETER:
Yes.
11 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
So that we're all--
)
12 MR. EBNETER:
I have a separate slide on that, sir.
13 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
Okay.
And.at what point did 14 you reach the conclusion that we were all in agreement on their 15 program, and that things were proceeding smoothly?
16 IGl. EBNETER:
About a week ago.
17 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
About a week ago?
Okay.
18 Thank you.
19 MR. EBNETER:
I have a separate slide on that and I 20 can elaborate some more on it.
21 The civil cales in our area.
Civil cales has been a 22 major problem.
TVA had serious problems in those.
Many of 23 them were paperwork issues.
Regeneration of the cales are in 24 progress.
Generally, as a result of that regeneration, they
( j' 25 did ha've to change and modify 200 pipe supports in order to e
e e
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18 i1 meet operability requirements; but civil cales we feel will be 2
resolved before startup.
3 Heat code traceability, TVA has responded to us.
4 That was an issue where they had misapplied classifications of 5
pipe, of Class II piping, for example, to a class I 6
application.
We have the response.
It is under review by the' 7
staff.
We don't see any major problems with that.
8 The employee concerns and allegations are in our 9
area.
They are the two biggest pieces of work that we have to 10 contend with.
We have in the employee concerns' area 317 11 reports to be reviewed.
We have reviewed many of them; 56 of 12 them do have to be resolved before--56 of them have to be 13 resolved before startup.
We think we are going to meet 1
14 schedules on those.
15 We have 178 allegations, and we are about 40 percent 16 finished on the allegations.
I need to mention to you that 17 there is an interrelationship betwee'n the employee concerns and 18 the allegations.
Some items that are employee concerns have 19 become allegations, so the resolution of one takes care of the 20 other.
So even though the numbers indicate a significant 21 backlog, we feel we are confident that we can meet those.
22 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
Are these primarily technical 23 questions and concerns?
Or are there other matters involved?
24 MR. EBNETER:
The H&I is in there.
Management
()
25,
concerns.
Technical issues.
The cable issue came out of these
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19 1
employee concerns.
We have I think 60-some allegations from (3
2 Dallas Hicks on the electrical area.
So there is a mixture of 3
them, but the bulk of then are technical issues.
4 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
But nothing there that could 5
be resolved, or has been resolved by the independent IG that 6
TVA now has?
l 7
MR. EBNETER:
He has resolved some of these through 8
the H&I proceas.
If you need something on that, we can discusa l
9 this.
10 (Slide.]
11 MR. EBNETER:
The IDI Chart, Integrated Design 12 Inspection.
Just quickly, we performed July-September an 13 independent inspection led by NRC/NRR team leader.
It was an 14 excellent job.
Gene Embro did that work for us.
It was 15 i
complemented by an as-built hardware inspection that was 16 conducted by Frank McCoy, who is in the audience here with us 17 on cur staff.
18 We issued the restart issues' letter on October 9th.
19 The vu-graph there shows 64 restart issues.
Actually, there 20 were only 61.
There was a total of 64.
Three of them came out 21 of the additional final report which was issued Fovember 6th.
22 A major concern of that inspection was the civil 23 structural area.
There is a significant--there is a very good 24 reasori for that.
The other areas at TVA, the mechanical, i
is 25 nuclear, and electrical design areas had all been reviewed
20 1
extensively by TVA.
They went back and redid the essential
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(
2' calculations and in those design areas we are in fairly good 3
shape.
4 They did not do that for the civil area, and 5
therefore our team found eignificant problems in ability of 1
6 them to retrieve design input data, in ability to retrieve 7
calculations, and this became a major issue for us.
We have 8
received from 'iVA a response.
We are in the process of 9
evaluating it.
We have received in the interim--we have done a 10 follow-up inspection in November coordinated with thi TVA 11 staff.
By the way, TVA has been very cooperative in this 12 effort, to their benefit of course, but they have been'very 13 suppcrtive.
14
- We generally agrea with TVA's conclusions, corrective 15 actions, and appraisals in this area.
However, we still have a 16 lot of work to do.
We have a follow-up inspection to do by the 17 team.
That will be conducted the first week in February.
18 Generally, as I say, we feel we are in good shape on 19 that unless something develops on the on-site inspection; but 20 right new, we don't anticipate that.
We have 25 of those items 21 that have to be resolved before heat-up which is this week, and 22 we will meet those.
23 We dj$ issue a letter this. Week--or we will issue it 24 tomorrow--in TVA's response to the IDI report, the answer to k) 25 all the specific technical issues.
Howev'er, in the cover 8
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latter we identify four programmatic areas that we felt needed
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2 add {essing.
One of them was design implication.
Another one 3
wadthe operations interface.
One was related to corrective 4
action, and the other one was related to the establishment of a 5
systems' intearation typo proof !!hich TVA likes.
The need for 6
more systems' orientation, by the Way, appears in the 7
maintenance assessments that we've done; it appaars in INPO 8
reports, and in our reports.
TVA is looking at that area.
9 Now in relation to this, we have some other 10 interesting developments.
Dr. Myers from the Congressional 11 Staff has submitted to us two different memorandums through the 12 Congressional Staff to'our Congressional Affairs Office.
One 13 of those is 18 pages of questions--approximately 143 questions 14 that Dr. Myers has submitted to us.
15 We are reviewing that.
The staff has that.
We are 16 reviawing all--many of those questions, by the way, take a 17 familiar sequence of has TVA done something?
Has the NRC ctaff 18 looked at it?
And has the NRC staff documented it?
We are 19-preparing a matrix of these to cross-reference where we have 20 addressed the issues to satisfy ourselves that all the issues 21 have been resolved to our satisfaction.
So that is in 22 progress.
23 The other one Dr. Myers submitted to us through 24 Congressional Affairs and is another memorandum related to a i
)
25 specific inspection report on the design baseline' verification g
,.v.
,.,,.4
,,-rwrm-r----,
e 22 1
program.. This was Idspection Report 87-31. 'He h'ad specific '
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concerns on grammatical content, format--one of his statements 3
I believe was that the conclusions were not substantiated by i
facta.
5 We are in the prc:ss; Of reviewing that and identifying the areas where it needs clarification, any 6
7 corrections that need to be made, and we will issue.a 8
supplemental report to that report.
9 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
I have a copy of at least one 10 of those memos here, the 18-page one that you referred te.
11 sometimes I wonder if we shouldn't hire Mr. Myers; we might get 12 these things finished sooner.
But the point I would make is 13 that some thought might be given to talking in further detail 14 with him about these and learning, if possible, which of these 15 he believes the information is at hand; that is, if there are 16 things there that he feels we do not have the information, or 17 there is something wrong, it would be nice if we could 18 highlight those perhaps in a conversation with him and cut 19 through those, because if there is a dispute and a disagreement 20 at the outset on any of,these matters, it seems to me we ought s
21 to know about that quickly.
22 MR. EBNETER:
I agree with you, sir.
We have met 23 with Dr. Myers in the past--
24 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
Good.
),25 MR. EBNETER:
--and we have had some telephone e
=
23 1
conversations with him.
f.\\
?
2 COMMISSIONER BERNTRAL:
But you will try and s
3 ascertain which of these he believes a problem exists, as 4
opposed to those which are simply inquiries for information?
5 MR. EBNETER:
Some of thtt tre just where did you 6
address that.
7 COMMISSIONER BERNTRAL:
Or suggestions, for example.
8 MR. EBNETER:
Yes, we will do that.
9 Are there any other questions on this particular lo area?
11 COMMISSIONER ROGERS:
Well, just in the 12 civil / structural area.
Are the problams mostly related to 13 piping?
14 MR. EBNETER:
No.
Let me give you some examples.
15 COMMISSIONER ROGERS:
What are they?
16 MR. EBNETER:
The staff had a question on design for 17 shear of the building walls.
TVA could not retrieve the 18 calculations during the inspection.
Subsequent to the inspection, they did find the calculations--245 of those 19 20 calculations.
They ha'd to regenerate about 8 of them.
So we 21 did find them.
22 Another one had to do with the jay structure that is 23 out in the river.
The fill for that is large aggregate.
There 24 was a problem that they couldn't substantiate the coefficient
(_)
25 i
'of friction, and thd's guarantee stability of tbel structure.
\\
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24 1
They subsequently found a report from the Corps of Engineers, I\\
2 which the Corps had done tests and they did have the 3
coefficient of friction available.
4 Now that does say someth.ng about the retrievability 5
of records, but these were in the early 1970 time frame and we 6
have had this consistent problem with rotrievab: tity of early 7
records from TVA.
8 Those are two examples.
Would you like some more?
9 Rebar location is another one.
10 COMMISSIONER ROGERS:
But no --
11 KR. EBNETER:
We had a disagreement with them, and 12 that was a specification interpretation.
Subsequently wo" 13 resolved that.
Anchors, concrete anchors we had some problems l
14 with, but those have been resolved.
15 COMMISSIONER ROGERS:
But no problems once you got--
16 they could ultimately --
17 MR. EBNETER:
I wouldn't say "no problems."
They did 18 have to make some changes.
19
. COMMISSIONER ROGERS:-
No outstanding problems as of 20 now.
21 MR. EBNETER:
We have them recolved, and any 22 correctivo actions will be in place, An example was on tank 23 dynamics.
They did not do dynamic calculations.
They did have 24 to go and beef up some supports on the tanks.
So there were
( )
25 some cases where 'they had to do some work.
e,-
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\\
25 1
COMMISSIONER ROGERSi 'Thank you.
I-2 MR. EBNETER:
Anything else in this particular area?
3 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Let's proceed.
4 (Slide.)-
5 MR. EBNETER:
The cable installation.
That aroso 6
from an employee concern that questioned the adequacy of cable 7
pulling practices.
TVA did some tests, voltage tests, and 8
there was a large controversy over the applicability of those 9
tests.
They had some failures.
Where we're at, the end result 10 was an order to substantiate that minimum insulation values 11 could withstand LCOA conditions at the plant.
12 TVA prepared specific specimens of reduced insulation 1;
thickness, submitted them to the Wylie Laboratories for 14 independent '-view, aged them for 10 years, put them under LOCA 15 conditions with service, voltage, and current applied, ran the 16 tests, and all the specimens passed the tests under LOCA 17 conditions.
Now on the insulation thickness we are down to 2 18 mils.
This is from a standard insulation practice of 40 mils.
19 So TVA's position was these cables are extremely good; they can 20 pass LOCA conditions with minimu:.: insulation thickness; and 21 they sent us a submittal.
22 The utaff reviewed that.
We had some contentions 23 with it.
We discussed it with them on several occasions.
24 Subsequent review was of silicon rubber.
By the way, their
(,)
25 tests also showed that silicon rubber is an excellent compound e
a y
S 26
- 1 for application in high-P.emperature radiation environments.
(,,I They had replaced some, by the way, with costly polyethylene.
2 3
What we decided was we agreed that generally the 4
insulation was adequate for service conditions and LOCA 5
conditions.
However, the tests that they ran only aged the 6
cables to 10 yeaco, and the life design of a plant is 40 years.
7 We told TVA they will have to qualify the cable to 5049 8
requirements for the life of the plant, and that that should be 9
done before the return to operation from the first refueling 10 outage, which is probably six to eight months from restart.
11 That is where we are at on the cable issue.
12 -
Are there any questions in that area?
13 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
I assume that that cort of 14 life-of-the-plant qualification is done for all other cable 15 types?
16 MR. EBNETER:
Yes.
17 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
How did it happen that this 18 typa slipped by?
19 MR. EBNETER:
Well, they originally qualified them 20 a
for 40 years.
You have to remember that with the reduced insulation thickness is what they're qualifying to, not the 40 21 22 mils.
23 Anything else in that particular area?
24 (No : esponse. )
- i.,)
25 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Let's proceed.
I 0
er-
27 1
(Slide.]
('
2 MR. EBNETER:
Operational Readiness I wanted to 3
discuss with you because that is the area where we're moving.
4 Thc'TVA operations are moving toward that.
TVA has done 5
operational assassmen+% and the NRC is doing concurrent 6
assessments.
7 Just briefly, TVA has had INPO come in.
They have 8
been there twice looking'at plant conditions, staff training, 9
simulator operations in the control room.
Mr. White appointed 10 the nine-man operational readiness review team who spent from 11 August through January making observations of the plant.
Both 12 of those teams have issued reports.
Both of them-have seme 13 negative comments.
14 Admiral White's team had 7 positive features and 13 15 negatives.
For example:
"The number of procedural, 16 compliance, and quality problems observed has the potential to 17 lead to future operational problems."
This is an issue with 18 regard to procedure compliance.
The NRC has noted this in the 19 past.
We have talked with TVA.
We do notice a good trend 20 downward where there is better procedure compliance, and this 21 has come about by supervision in the plant, training sessions, 22 and just better overall plant features.
23 By the way, Steve Smith was recently appointed as the 24 plant manager, and we have noted significant improvement in the
.)
25 total operations since that time.
But that was one.
There are e
w.
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i 28 l'
13 of these.
Many are related to concerns about reactiv'ity i
l'~\\
2 control, control room decorum; they expect a little more 3
discipline in the control room.
4 contrary to that, the INPO findings said they thought 5
the control ronw dionipline leched pretty good.
They had four i
6 positives and four negatives.
7 We are reviewing all of these aspects, and we have i
8 taken our own staff views and incorporated them.
We plan to have TVA meet with us in a public meeting in early to mid-9 10 February when we get closer and closer to the restart date, and 11 have a public meeting on the operational readiness.
At that 12 point, we will have TVA publicly address all the negative 13 comments in the operational readiness reviews, which we will be 14 doing concurrently.
15 Physical plant, I should probably mention to y'ou the l
16 plant looks very good.
By the way, Admiral White extends nis 17 invitation to any of the Commissioners would like to come 18 visit him.
The plant looks very clean.
The lighting is much 19 improved.
The plant floors, everything is very nice.
Probably 20 a better indicator of progress, though, is the' plant now has 21 only 5 percent of the total square footage that is contaminated 22 and not accessible to the radiological concerns.
So they have 23 cleaned it up from a dirt standpoint, and a radiological 24 standpoint.
We think that is a good indicator of good progress
' (,)
25 in that area.
6
29 1
They did have one problem in lineups.
They moved
()
2 into some plant lineups.
They ran into configuration control 3
problems.
They stopped the lineup on their own initiative, 4
which was good, resolved the issue, and then continued on.
We 5
are in there now.
6 Our assessments, we have been looking at the total l
)
7 plant operations for the control room regularly.
I have been 8
there a number of times.
We generally feel the staff looks 9
good.
We have done--we did not do full requal test ex'ams 10 because of the NRC position; however, we have done reviews, 11 interviews with the control room operators.
He have done li reviews of TVA's program, and we have also done extensive l
l 13 reviews of emergency operating procedures to ba sure the TVA 14 staff is familiar with those.
15 Trends, just to give you some indication:
TVA does 16 use a set of indicators.
They subscribe to the INPO 1
l 17 indicators, performance indicators.
I just received a set 18 yesterday of certain indicators.
Example CAQRs, Conditions 19 Adverse to Quality.
They are coming down.
The maintenance 20 backlog, commissioner Carr, is coming down.
21 There are a couple of reasons.
They are putting a 22 lot of attention on it.
The backlog is reduced.
Another 23 reason is they have sorted out non-critical maintenance items 24 such as bookcases, shelves, which were in the maintenance
()
25 backlogs, pulling them out,. segregating them, and getting them
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30 1
out of'the critical: safety-related. maintenance area.
So tha't
()
2 indicator is down.
3 I mentioned to you the radiological control and the 4
reduction in contaminated areas.
5 Preventive maintonancm.
In the maintanance program 6
they have shifted to preventive / predictive programs through a 7
lot of emphasis.
All the preventive maintenance programs that 8
are planned have been accocplished.
They have not missed' dates 9
on PMs.
So those are just some trending indicators I thought 10 you might be interested in that we are looking at, the TDA is 11 looking at, that all are positive in nature and show that there 12 is good attention by management.
13 Are there any questions in the operational readiness 14 area?
15 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
I think you can proceed.
16 (Slide.)
17 MR. EBNETEE:
Just some general observations, and 18 these sort of summariza what I've been telling you.
19 Engineering / construction concerns, ve see rapid 20 closure on those,to NRC's satisfaction.
21 The ahift of course is moving over to operations.
We 22 are shifting in that direction and TVA is shifting in th'at 23 directi.on.
We see increased confidence in the TVA program.
24 The maintenance program I mentioned.
These indicators give us
(,),.25 a littl'a more confidence.
n s
.-,..c--.---,n,-
---.e
31 1-Their programs are maturing.
They have'been in. place
)
2 now for a year-to a year-and-a-half.
The bugs are being 3
worked out, and we do feel much more confortable with the
~
4 programs.
5 TVA management improvementc; They have a performance 6
appraisal system'that is now in place, which was not in place 7
before.
They have had extensive management training.
There 8
are some very important management changes.
Mr. White brought 9
in a new assistant manager to himself, who has operational l
10 experience, and he put in as the plant manager Steve Smith who i
11 has extensive experience.
12 COMMISSIONER ROBERTS:
These are TVA employees?
13 MR. EBNETER:
They are TVA employees, sir.
, 14 And there are other changes, but those are the two 15 significant ones that are operations' oriented.
I can't over-16 emphasize the comments we get, particularly on Steve Smith.
17 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Is there considerable progress--is 18 that what you're telling us--regarding putting in place a 19 permanent TVA organization with permanent TVA employees?
20 MR. EBNETER:
Those are cignificant movements in that 21 area.
There are still some contract employees, however.
Some i
22 of the site directors--Browns Terry and Watts Bar are both 23 contract employees.
24 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Are there efforts being made to bring in' permanent emplo ees?
25 4
0
i 32 1
MR. EBNETER:
Yes, there are.
I don't know what f~h 2
progress has been made at Browns Ferry and Watts Bar, though.
3 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
How about at Sequoyah?
4 MR. EBNETER:
At Sequoyah, yes.
At Sequoyah I 5
believe the entire station staff now is permanent employees.
6 The site director, they put in a new deputy site director who 7
was a contract employee but who is now a TVA employee.
So to 8
my knowledge, all of the site staff are TVA employees.
9 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
All right.
Thank you.
10 MR. EBNETER:
Nuclear ethics:
We think this has to 11 ba upgraded.
We see this in various ways.
The way we looked 12 at it, we took a list of indicators or attributes that 6r.
13 Murley uses in evaluating whether a plant is a good plant or a 14 bad plant.
One of those in the attributes was nuclear ethics.
15 16 When we discussed those--an inquisitive attitude, 17 safety ethic, what-if attitudes--the staff felt there has been 18 a very great improvement from a year ago.
However, we would
' like to see additional improvements in that area, and we think 19 20 they are coming, but it is definitely an area'that Mr. White 21 and his management staff will have to continue to work on to 22 upgrade that attitude and that culture that exists.
23 I would like to mention, in relation to that safety 24 attitude, the safety oversight groups, we did receive via--
~ \\,,)
25
- originally from a newspaper man, and subsequently from TVA, a O
e 33 1
concern.by the Amer'i'can Nuclear Insurers, the insurers of TVA's
(^)
2 plants.
They do their own inspections, and they attended one 3
of the TVA plant operations review committees on safety 4
oversight.
They were not impressed with that safety committee.
5 We have that under review.
We are looking at it.
We 6
had some similar concerns a few months ago on the 5059 reviews 7
that we are looking at in conjunction with that, but that will 8
probably appear as a press item.
We want you to understand 9
that we are looking at it, and we are aware of it, and we will 10 investigate it.
11 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
What is the perceived 12 problem?
13 MR. EBNETER:
Well, they didn't think the PORC was 14 very effective in challenging the safety issues.
They didn't 15 think the design engineers were well versed in making their 16 presentations.
Those were typical of their comments, which 17 would indicate that you're not getting a good safety oversight 18 at that level.
I just wanted to bring that up to let you know 19 that.
That just came up yesterday, by the way.
20 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Well, we would like to hear more 21 about that when you have a chance to look at it.
22 MR. EBNETER:
The one area we do--another area we 23 think needs some strengthening is the interface, organizational 24 interfaces.
In one in particular, we do think they need a
! )
25 better system orientation, and'we do think the.
A t
34 1
design / engineering interface to the operations staff definitely I
2 needs to be strengthened.
This is particularly true when yon 3
make design changes and the effect of the design change is not 4
incorporated into operating procedures.
That we think needs 5
additional work.
6 Are there any questions?
7 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
It seems to me that was a 8
fundamental organizational difficulty-that we heard about, 9
however long this has been going on now, two or three years ago 10 and it still is not straightened out?
11 MR. EBNETER:
It is significantly improved.
The 12-matrix organization should assure that it is improved, because 13 now we have a central design organization in Knoxville and we 14 have a dedicated design organization on site.
15 Steve Smith in particular is working hard to nake i
16 sure this works.
't is part of the old cultural difficulty 17 where operations doesn't always get the same attention.
In 18 architect / engineering firms, the engineers are the kings.
But
\\
19 we have seen.a lot of improvement in that area, but it still 20 needs more.
That is our point.
It still needs some work.
21 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
One of the concerns that I had, and 22 others had too I believe, was the general lack of cocrdination 23 between the senior groups.
For example, in the corporate 24 organization, for example the designers not really following
{
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2.5 through with the engineers, the engineers not really following
~
..,. - - - -.,, _ _,, _ -..,,. ~
35 through'with those.who w'uld do the actual work, and those on 1
o (s
2 the other hand--not much of a feedback system.
3 Have you had a chance to see if there have been im'rovements in the corporate coordinating structure?
4 p
l 5
MR. EBN'TEP' Uc helievc there has.
Much of it is 6
related to the on-site design groups and maintenance groups 7
participating.
8 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
In other words, are the designers 9
when they approve a change now getting a feedback as to whether 10 or not that change was made, and whether or not it was made in 11 accordance with the original design?
12 MR. EBNETER:
Yes.
That is part of the configuration 13 control system, to make sure that when a design is done, that 14 configuration is approved, the prints are redlined, the changes 15 made, and they get fed back to the original designer.
16 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
And there is a system of keeping 17 track of exactly sh?
happened and who approved it?
18 MR. EBNETER:
Yes.
19 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
In other words, accountability as 20 well as responsibility?
21 MR. EBNETER:
Yes.
That has all been improved with 22 the engineering change-notice system; plus, a very large 23,
oversight engineering organization dedicated to overseeing the 24 design / engineering group.
)
25 MR. LIAW:
Stu?
e
36 1
MR. EBNETER:
Yes, sir.
h 2
MR. LIAW:
Could I add something to it?
3 MR. EBNETER:
Yes, sir.
4 MR. LIAW:
'I view the issue as also expressing some 5
concern in that area.
One of tho significant changes in terms 6
of operational interfaces is for those site technical groups to 7
administratively report to headquarter technical divisions.
8 Functionally they are reporting to the site director, but administratively they are reporting to the headquarters.
So 9
lo that headquarters engineering group really :re having the so-11 called "technical ownership" of the print, but in our view have 12 improved the interfaces tremendously over what happened in the la past like those pointed out, for example, Mr. Michelson and Mr.
14 Ebersole from the ACRS.
15 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
All right.
Fine.
16 At the next meeting, will you convey to the TVA 17 management that I think it would be appropriate for the 18 Commission to hear from them what they have done to improve the 19 coordination between their corporate divisions and departments.
20 This is a very important issue, as far as I as concerned.
It 21 does indeed amount to configuration control, record keeping, 22 and all the rest, but even more so it is a matter of the 23 organization itself working together as a team--and I think 24 that was the concern that some of us had a couple of years ago.
()
25 It wasn't working as sellLas it should.'
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And you are telling us now that there are e
improvements, as far as you can see, and I would like to hear 2
3 what the TVA people have done in that regard, and frankly get i
4 some kind of a commitment to en'sure that what improvements may 5
have been made will continuo.
6 MR. EBNETER:
Yes, sir.
We will do that.
7 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Thank you.
8 MR. EBNETER:
Barry. I think we had one more slide.
9 (Slide.]
10 MR. EBNETER:
This is our summary of conclusions and 11 recommendations.
12 We do think the February 23rd date is achievable.
In l
13 the absence of any other problems, we would recommend that we i
14 come back with TVA to brief you and give you our i
15 recommendations for a restart decision, and we definitely 16 could hear from TVA at that point also.
17 That is all I have, unless you have some specific 18 questions in relation to technical issues or what the staff was 1
19 doing.
20
' CHAIRMAN ZECH:
All right.
Thank you, very much.
21 Let me ask my fellow Commissioners if they have 1
22 questions.
23 Commissioner Roberts?
24 COMMISSIONER ROBERTS:
No, i,1 25 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Commissioner Bernthal?
I
38 1
COMMISSIONER EERNTHAL:.Let'Oe just ask a general' I\\
2 question here, and I am going to read frty, I guess this was a s-3 Staff Requirements' Memorandum sent to the ::taff in the wake of the meeting that we had last summer wherein-M yll, I will 4
5 paraphrase this a bit--the eta *f wac-:chcd to ak-Iress at the 6
next meeting we had, which I guess is this one, tte trends at 7
TVA in several operational areas.
8 Among those were:
maintenance item backlog, which we 9
touched on but I think I would like to hear a little bit more, 10 if you can give it to us, in the way of numbers and letails.
11 That was one point.
12 The age of corrective action documents.
Ir other 13 Words, how quickly are they responding to work reques:s and 14 whatnot for maintenance and other items.
15 And finally, a program for maintaining equipment 16 during the prolonged outage for the idle plants.
Thaj. was a thirdissuewhichtheCommissionaskedtobebroughtbp-to-date 17 18
'on at this briefing.
19
- 'Are you prepared to respond to those points?
20 MR. EBNETER:
I can give you I think some figures on 21 maintenance, CAQRs.
I can give you some general trends and the 22 like, on those.
And on the layup programs, yes.
Let m'e take 23 the easy one first, the layup programs.
24 That is preservation of equipment.
Bellefonte has an
')
25 extensive'layup program.
We have reviewed the program and
39 1
inspectec it, and we have signifi' cant problems with them 4
2 keeping up with the program.
We have an inspection report on 3
that, and TVA is addressing the issue.'
4 At Browns Ferry, Units 1'and 3 will be in dry layup 5
in general.
Those programs are in place.
Uc have inspected 6
those.
There are some small problems, but we generally feel 7
that that program is adequate.
8 At Watts Bar, dry layup in most cases; steam 9
generators are in wet layup.
We had some problems with that 10 layup system, also, which they are addressing.
That is the 11 general status.
12 We are interested, in particular, the i
13 microbiological-induced corrosion, the MIC problem.
They have 14 it at all the sites, by the way, at TVA because they are using 15 river water.
At sequoyah they had to replace some spool pieces 16 because of that on the ERCW system.
17 We are continuing to look at those layup programs, 18 and we are experiencing some problems with them.
The 19 Bellefonte one probably has the biggest problems, and it should 20 be resolved be:ause they are going to be in layup for all this 21 time.
But we are looking at them.
I can't give you any more 22 specific details at this time.
23 We have one resident inspector who does all the layup 24 inspections for us, and he is from Bellefonte.
So he has a
()
25 consistent viewpofnt and uniformity of inspection across the
~
+
40 1
whole system.
It does need some work.
A(
2 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
- Okay, well while we are 3
focusing on restarting Sequoyah, I don't need to stress too 4
much the importance that these plants that have been shut down-5
-and Browns Ferry has been shut down for a long time now, too--
6 that they not be allowed to deteriorate or we may have r,ome 7
unpleasant surprises when we think they are ready to restart.
8 Let's see.
There were a couple of others here.
9 MR. EBNETER:
The maintenance program.
10 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
Maintenance, for example.
11 MR. EBNETER:
I just briefly mentioned maintenance.
12 We have done several team inspections of the maintenance 13 program.
TVA has revised their approach.
They now have a 14 corporate office that sets policy, directives, and guidelines 15 for all of the stations so there is a uniformity-of-maintenance 16 approach.
17 The station itself now has attempted to improve it by 18 several ways.
One, they have increased the number of 19 supervisors in the maintenance area to reduce the span of 20 control.
They have attempted to put--and have been successful 21 at it, by the way--the supervisors are instIncted to do their 22 supervision in the field, not in the office.
So they actually 23 go out and watch the maintenance evolutions with their staff, 24 and that has helped to reduce the procedural problems.
( )
25 Tne p'rocedures, the maintenanca procedures have been
,,,,-r n-e.
41
~
1 going through a ma'intenance'iristruction enhancement program,
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which is a very extensive progran where the maintenance 3
procedares are all reviewed, revisad, and upgraded, and l
\\
4 particularly surveillance instructions.
This has been a very 5
good program that has resulted in better procedural controls.
6 The backlog, as I mentioned, has come down.
I l
7 believe the figure I have is 700 outstanding work orders.
Now 8
this is a significant reduction, I believo, and I am going to 9
quote--I think it was around 1200 or 1400 tbout 6 or 8 months 10 ago.
So the trending is down.
11 I mentioned the shift to the predictive maintenance 12 and preventive maintenance programs to catch problems before 13 they occur, which we think is good and we.thinc is working.
14 The indicators on that one--and I saw those yesterday--those indicators are that no preventive maintenance backlog exists.
15 16 They are covering those as they come up.
17 Now one of INPO's findings was that the maintenance 18 request process is somewhat cumbersome because of the control 19 room interface.
TVA will have to address this aspect to try 20 and enhance that.
21
>.s far as their staff goes, TVA-Sequoyah is 22 accredited in all ten areas by INPO, and that includes all the 23 maintenance technicians, and electrical, INC, and. mechanical.
24 COltMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
Do we know how many of that
(. ) 25 700, which by the way still se' ems like a big number to me,'I
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42 1
would hope that it is substantially reduced before restart, but
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2 how many of those have been identified as needing resolution 3
prior to restart?
Do you have any idea?
4 MR. EBNETER:
I don't know the exact figure, but they 5
are under constant review--
i 6
COMMISSIONER BERNTRAL:
I'm sure they are.
7 MR. EBNETER:
As I said, they had a very cumbersome 8
program where all the grounds maintenance, requesta for light 9
bulbs, shelving, and all that was included in these backlogs.
10 They are making a determined effort to try and get non-11 significant maintenance activities out of the backlog so that
'i it looks--so that it is truly representative of the plant 12 l
13 condition.
14 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
Okay.
And finally, the last 15 item here I guess was how long their corrective action 16 documents tend to sit there before action is taken.
17 MR. EBliETER:
I can't give you any exact numbers, but 18 I can tell you they had two backlogs of corrective actions.
19 One of them was related--let me say it this way.
As part of 20 the restructuring of the corporation and the programs, they 21 instituted a new corrective conditions adverse to quality 22 report system, which is the one in place today.
That was 23 instituted last February.
24 That program, there is a backlog but it resulted from
()
25 the initial implementation of the program and, the wa'y I view 5-e m
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-~.,-,-._c.--
43 1
it, the line supervisors not wanting to make the call if I
2 something truly was.significant'.
So they generated a large 3
backlog, and they have been trying to work that off.
4 There is still backlog.
I don't know what it is, but 5
I can tell you thist The 'act charts I locked at, the rate of 6
generation was less than the rate of resolution.
So the trend 7
is coming down.
8 Now they had'a very large backlog of adverse 9
corrective action reports from a.1.1 the old previous systems, a
10 huge backlog.
That has dropped significantly, and I can get 11 you some figures.
By the way, I am submitting these indicators 12 that they gave to us, to your tech assistants.
Pat Klein has 13
.specifically requested these, and I have the memo and they 14 should be down there probably in a day or two, if you want the 15 specific numbers.
I am afraid to quote them.
16 COMMISSIONER BERNTRAL:
I would like to see them, if 17 you can get them to us.
18 MR. EBNETER:
I will make sure all of your tech 19 assistants get those.
20 COMMISSIONER BERNTRAL:
Let me ask one or more so 21 here, and then let my colleagues toss a few out.
22 One of the questions which I gather has come up is 23 that of a technical specification change needed to increase 24 control room ventilation in-flow.
I don't know how thoroughly
()
25 that's been reviewed, yet as a cachnical issue it strikes me as e
44
'l the problem being that there is too much leakage I gat'er out h
(\\
2 of the control room area.
That sounds like something that has 3
the potential to affect the restart.
4 Could you give us an update on that, and let us know 5
how you view it as of this point?
6 MR. EBNETER:
Well let me put it this way, the issue 7
was known last June that there was a problem with this.
TVA 8
just recently felt they could resolve it technically.
They 9
were not able to resolve it technically.
They submitted a tech 10 spec change request in parallel, which we are processing under 11 exigent conditions, not emergency conditions.
12 Over the weekend they went out and did some 13 additional testing and identified leakage areas, and plugged 14 those areas up.
They have done some additional testing, and 15 they are very close to meeting the tech spec requirement, but 16 they're not there yet.
17 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
What is close?
Ten percent?
18 Twenty percent?
19 MR. EBNETER:
Probably ten.
20 MR. RICHARDSON:
They actually met'the tech spec 21 requirement on train A.
There are two trains of ventilation, 22 and train A met it, and on train B they were doing the tests 23 and ran into problems and stopped.
So they are in the middle 24 of trying to resolve those issues right now.
()
25.
MR. EBNETER:
There was some talk about issuing a 4
6
45 1
waiver of compliance and we absolutely refused.
They knew the I
2 problem existed six or seven months ago.
They had plenty of 3
time to address the issue.
There is no reason for the staff to 4
issue any waivers of the tech spec requirements, and that is 5
where we are today.
6 If they don't get it technically resolved, the tech 7
spec change process will probably take it to around January 30, 8
but they feel confident that they are going to demonstrate it 9
via test, and our residents are following that.
10 COMMISSIONER BERNTRAL:
Okay.
11 MR. EBNETER:
But we are requiring very rigid tech 12 spec requirements and we are not deviating from any of those.-
13 COMMISSIONER BERNTRAL:
Why don't we go on here and 14 maybe come back if there is time.
15 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Commissioner Carr.
16 COMMISSIONER CARR:
No, thank you.
17 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Commissioner Rogers.
18 COMMISSIONER ROGERS:
Just on the NUREG-ll50 19 question.
The status I understand in your report is that the 20 preliminary Sequoyah core melt results indicate that Sequoyah 21 is not an outlier.
I am just a little concerned about the word 22 "preliminary."
What is the status of those results?
And can 23 you pin that down and document it in such a way that the whole 24 thing can be put to rest without any question?
(,)
25 MR. STELLO:.Well, I am not sure yet'how long it is 3 - - - -.
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46 1
going.to take us to redo 1150, and I am not prepared-to--
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COMMISSIONER ROGERS:
I wasn't talking about redoing 3
it.
4 MR. STEL14:
Part of redoi~ng 1150 includes redoing 5
Sequoyah, so we would almost bm c t t:h-it eut of the 1150 6
process.
What was done is, if you recall, the first time this 7
issue came up there were a number of issues that.were 8
identified where we knew that we were being very pessimistic in 9
the analysis but needed more information to change it.
10 They have gone back and gotten that additional 11 information that was identified to the commission at the 12 earlier briefing and, based on that information, revised the 13 calculations which now show it is not an outlier.
I think that 14 much documentation we probably could do fairly quickly with a 15 short memorandum.
16 COMMISSICNER ROGERS:
That is really what I am 17 talking about, I think.
18 MR. STELLO:
We could do that in a matter'of days.
19 We will do it.
20 COMMISSIONER ROGERS:
You know, just pin it down and 21 clarify what that really means.
22 MR. STELLO:
We will document the changes th'at were 23 made that caused that' conclusion.
We will do that.
24 COMMISSIONER ROGERS:
Right.
That is really what I'm
(,)
25 talking about.
e e
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I think that is the only question I h'ad that hasn't O
2 already been raised.
s 3
CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Could you elaborate just a little bit 4
on the harassment and intimidation area, and give the 5
Commission some kind of a sense of how thic ctandc?
You 6
alluded to it briefly.
I would like to hear just a little bit 7
more about the status of that, and it has been a concern in the 8
past.
How does it stand now?
And ho.W do you feel about~th.at?
9 MR. EBNETER:
We have done a lot of work in that 10 area, and Steve Richardson conducted an inspection of the IG's i
t 11 office in Knoxville, so I will let Steve address where we are 12 at on that.
13 MR. RICHARDSON:
We conducted a team inspection last 14 August.
We had members trom the office of Investigations and 15 Office of Enforcement, and Special Projects.
We spent a week 16 both in the Inspector General's Office in Knoxville, and also 17 at the corporate offices and the Sequoyah site.
i 18 We reviewed their p.rocedures for dealing with 19 harassment and intimidation cases within the IG's office.
We 20 looked at all of the Sequoyah cases that they have.
They 21 number 13.
We went through each case.
In all cases we agreed 22 with the TVA conclusion and the Inspector General's overview of 23 those cases.
i 24 Me then went and talked to the Employee Concerns Site I
(_ )
25 "Representatives it Sequoyah to see how they handled those cases 4
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48 1
and were. satisfied.
So from a prcgrammatic standpoint and from
(
2 the specific Sequoyah cases that were availabls at that point, 3
we are happy.
We are continuing to monitor that.
Our 4
residents are consistently looking for indicators of problems 5
in that area.
6 In specifically have asked the Employee Concerns people on site to go back to the areas in the plant staff where 8
that was a problem and continually monitor that and see that 9
the issue has been corrected.
s 10 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
All right.
Thank you.
11 In the past there was indication, or at least the 12 perception, that TVA corporate management wasn't too e'ffective 13 in identifying and resolving problems, or in communicating with 14 each other, as I have alluded to a few moments ago.
15 You have indicated there has been improvement in that 16 area.
Could you talk just a little bit more about what 17 corporate management seems to have done to imp /ove their 18 effectiveness at overseeing specifically the Sequoynh activity?
19 MR. EBNETER:
Well, I have attended some of Mr.
20 White's staff meetings, and I can tell you that they are no-21 nonsense meetings and got to the point very quickly.
The.y have 22 1xtennt management development programs e.nd team building
??
tiat are being conducted by the training staff.
8<
sne of the most effective *of the'se is tabletop
( )
25 disc s4
.as, roundtable discussions with the r.anagers t'at h
aee
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49 i
1 idehtify problems interfaces.
So I think those are very
-m I
2 effective.
'The frequency of staff meetings is very high.
3
't 4
Admiral White has them regularly, and all the managers attend.
i They come in from the other sites.
6 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Communications have improved, you are 7
saying.
8 MR. EBNETER:
Ycs.
9 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Is it a significrat improverent over 10 the procedures that were used in the past?
11 MR. EBNETER:
I believe so, yes.
12 Those are the najor things.
At the sites, at 13 Sequoyah specifically, a few months ago they established what 14 they call a "war room."
l 15 CHAIRMAN-ZECH:
A what?
16 MR. EBNETER:
A "war roco,d w-a-r.
It is really a 17 gathering of all the managers every morning to go over
\\
18 significant issues.
It is very ofiect.ive, and even more 19 effective now under Steve Smith.
There are no excusec for 20 problems:
If somebody--he wants to know who the ownership is, 21 who has it, what's being done, and if there's any doubt at all, 22 he sends them directly out of the war room and says, resolve 33 it, and come back and tell me where we're at.
24 But it brings all the managers together:
!,)
25 engineering, design, QA, the' control rcom' shift' engineer
50
'l attends these, so it is a big communications session on
(,'
1 2
problems that are existing, and the priorities of these 3
problems.
It has been very effective in closing these 4
technical issues that we've been talking about.
5 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
In the past there have been concerns 6
expressed regarding the design basis for Sequoyah'and TVA's 7
compliance with commitments in the Final Safety Analysis 8
Report.
9 First of all, are you satisfied that Segnoyah Unit 2 s
10 as presently configured is in compliance with the design 11 requirements?
8 12 MR. EBNETER:
Yes, I am.
Generally speaking, the-m 13 and let me tell you why.
34 OHAIrd4AN ZECH:, Good.
15 MR. EBNETER:
TVA has done extensive work not only 16 with the design baseline program, which helped re-establish 17 design baseline, but alternate calculations, EQ programs, the 18 Appendix R, all of these design programs together have brought 19 together a tremendous amount of documentation and objective 20 evidence of meeting these.
So TVA has done a lot.
21 But let me tell you fro:n our Staff's view, we have 22 spent an awful lot of resources down there.
The IDI, 15 people 23 approximately for 7 months, and then the follow-up inspections 24 that we have done.
TVA has put a whole team on their
(_), 2 5 supporting that.
We have done EQ inspections on avdry binder-A l
51 1
that they have developbd to satisfy ourselves that they were
('N.'
2 meeting the design requirements.
3 We havo four full-time residents who are full-time 4
looking at the plant configuration and questioning LERs, 5
deviation from plant site conditions.
We have one full-time 6
inspector there just following the pre-op test program in which 7
TVA did a complete matrix of all the test requirements for the 8
plant, including surveillance instructions, pre-op Reg Guide 1-9 66, the total scope of tests to verify the plant.
10 We have diverse views 7n the plant.
We have used 11 contractors from many different companies and disciplines.
We 12 have gotten their reactions.
We have done independent.
13 inspections at that plant with the NDE van, and we have done 14 electrical tracing, UTM piping.
15 That doesn't mean that every time we do an inspection 16 we aren't going to find something, because we will probably 17 continue to find isolated noncompliances, but at this point in 18 time I think the work that TVA has done in our oversight--and I i
19 didn't mention the oversight by the engineer 4.ng and instre.nce 20 organization at TVA which has been substantial.
21 I believe tl.at the FSAR commitments arc essantially 22 being met.
23 C11 AIRMAN ZECH:
?.11 right.
The.nk ynu.
24 Lastly, could ycu *;alk just a little bit more about
(_)
25 the procedures for readiness and the restart procedures?
In e
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c 52 1,
other words, do you have in mind who'lo points?
D' s
2 MR. EBNETER:
Yes.
3 CHAIRMAN ZECH:~ Have you gotten into that yet, Stu?
4 or have others on our staff thought about some kind of a 5
procedure for--
6 MR. EBNETER:
I have one on my desk.
7 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
--assuring that the restart will be 8
done progressively with careful monitoring?
9 MR. EBNETER:
Yes.
10 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Can you tell me a little bit about 11 that?
12 MR. EBNETER:
Yes.
We have a startup profile, and if 13 you are interested I could send this to you, the tech 14 assistance which would give you a profile--
15 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
I think we would all be interested in 16 seeing that.
17 '
MR. EBNETER:
Fine.
We have a plan for the office of 18 Special Projects where we are planning to do augmented 19 inspections around the clock, doing the startup for a period 20 following that.
That plan is on my desk.
21 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Will the regions an-3 the residents be 22 involved in that?
23 MR. EBNETER:
Ab
'tely.
My resident staff will be 24 the lead inspectors, but ue will draw on other regions and our
\\-)
25 own staff at headquarters, and maybe'some NRR stdff to snpport s
53 1
that, because we will need additional people.
b 2
CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Good.
Right.
3 MR. EBNETER:
We may need Vic's help in getting these 4
resources, but it is for a short time period, six or eight 5
weeks.
6 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
I am sure you will get what you need.
7 MR. EBNETER:
We do have the plan.
I am working on 8
it.
We will get it out this week, and I will send you a copy.
9 We are talking about five hold points for TVA.
10 The first hold poirt is entering mode four, which is 11 the heatup.
12 The second hold point would be mode two.
13 Then mode one.
14 We have a hold point at 30 percent power, another 15 hold point at 70 percent power--or 75 percent power.
We have w'orked with TVA on this, and we fully plan to work with them on 16 17 that.
18 They cannot move out of a hold point until Mr. White 19 is fully satisfied from his staff, and that I have that same 20 assurance from my staff.
We will have a full-time--I plan to 21 have an SES manager on site doing the startup for the augmented 22 shift coverage, and he will be my contact and will bring all this together to advise me if it's acceptable to move out of 23 24
.that hold point.
That is generally how we plan to do that.
()
25 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
All right.
Thank ye very,much.
y m
y,.
54 l
1 Any other questions, my fellow' Commissioners?
I) 2 Commissioner Bernthal.
3 COMMISSICNER BERNTHAL:
I have one or two other short 4
ones here, I hope.
I have been told that there'may be a 5
problem with the emorgency diesC s, somathi"7 to do with 6
voltage droops and difficulty starting.
Could you update us 7
quickly on that?
8 MR. EBNETER:
Just quickly, you characterized 'it very 9
well.
The diesels have to come up to speed in a certain time.
10 Then you start loading sequences, and every time you put a load 11 on the voltage droops.
The diesel then has to recover.
It 12 will net overshoot by a significant amount, and it is this area 13 of recovery and overshoot where they are not able to meet the 14 tech spec requirement.
15 TVA is doing additional analysis and tests.
The 16 staff and Mr. Marinos is here, if you need more information.
17 The tech staff is going down there tonight or tomorrow norning i
18 to review the TVA actions on this.
Now'if they don't moet the 19 tech spec, they cannot go into mode four, and I am not sure 20 what sort of resolution they would have to do.
But there is a 21 potential for that to delay the heatup.
22 COMMISSIONER BERNTRAL:
When did this probl'em 23 surface?
Very recently?
24 MR. EBNETER:
Angelo, this week was it?
,,)
25 MR. MARINOS:
Yes.
Last Thursday I had a phone e
e
55 1
conference with TVA when they brought me up to date about their r's
(
2 potential probIem with the emergency diesel generators.
3 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
Mas there a comment herc?
4 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
I think our reporter got that all 5
right?
6 (The reporter nods in the affirmative.)
7 CRAIRMAN ZECH:
Thank you.
8 MR. EBNETER:
Go ahead, sir.
9 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
Okay.
Unless there is more 10 on that--I did want to ask a general questien which is not 11 specific to TVA with respect to this cabling problem.
12 We understand that TVA now has the difficulty 13 apparer.tly fairly well in hand.
Do you have a sense yet of the'
?4 generic nature of the issue?
15 MR. STELLO:
I have had one briefing and one meeting 16 with representatives both from the Office of Special Projects 6
17.
and NRR, and the sense of that meeting that I have is that thi's 18 is not a significant safaty. issue.
19 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
Because there aren't that 20 many?
21 MR. STELLO:
Well, no, because the results of the 22 testing that we have thus far clearly say the cable is, even if 23 it is in fact subjected to substantial thinning--and you 24 remember the test results went from.40 mils to 2 mils--we still
)
25-
' don't see a safety problem.
So our perception of the 4
56 1
signifi,cance of the issue is not very great at the moment'.
(
2 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
Is diminished based on these 3
tests that TVA has done?
4 MR. STELLO:
Yes, sir; that's correct.
5 COMMISSIONER BERNTRAL:
Okay.
6 I only have one last question, I guess.
We have 7
heard about a lot of things today, some of them potentially 8
uore serious I guess before the end of next month than others.
9 If you had to focus, Stu, on one or two issues that 10 you are most concerned about at this point, what would those i
11 be?
12 MR. EBNETER:
Well, the one 1 mentioned.
I think 13 there has to be additional improvements in the nuclear effort 14 within TVA.
This is that cultural change.
Substantially, they 15 have made improvements but definitely there have to be more.
16 That was the major one.
17 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
That is a management issue.
j 18 What about hardware issues?
19
- MR. EBNETER:
Hardware issues, I don't know of any 20 that I really have particular concerns about.
21 MR. STELLO:
Maybe the glib answer is the one that 22 will delay the schedule.
23 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
Any show-stoppers; that sort 24 of thing.
,j 25,
MR. STELLO:
And we're not sure we can predict which t
6
57 1
'one that might be.
/~5 t
2 HR. EBNETER:
I guess our biggest concern was in pipe 3
supports and the cables before.
The pipe supports, they 4
modified about 200 to meet operability requirements.
By the 5
way, we didn't impose any requirements on TVA that we have not 6
imposed on out of their operating manuals.
But those two 7
isst es we feel are pretty well resolved.
8 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
Okay.
Thank you very much.
9 It was a good briefing.
I appreciate it.
10 COMMISSIONER CARR:
Can I say something?
11 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Yes, please.
12 COMMISSIONER CARR:
I also want to compliment you on 13 the thoroughness of the briefing and the paper that came up.
Is.it' a fair characterization to say we probably know moro 14 15 about Sequoyah than we do any other plant right now?
16 MR. EBNETER:
That's pretty close.
17 MR. STELLO:
Significantly more.
18
[ Laughter.)
19 CRAIRMAN ZECH:
Well, let me also thank you, Mr.
20 Stello,.Mr. Ebneter, and your team here, for not only a fine 21 presentation today but for what your continuing actions on 22 Sequoyah and the TVA organization.
33 You have indicated substantial progress both in 24 resolution of complex technical issues, and in completion of 25 management and other concerns that.will be needed to be A
e
58 1
resolved prior to rentart.
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)
2 The next time I believe it'would be helpf'ul to all of 3
us if you would emphasize in some more detail perhaps your 4
operational readiness procedure that you intend to use, and 5
also discuss a bit of the operators themselves, elaborate more 6
on the training and the status as you perceive their 7
capability, not just the operators themselves but supporting 8
plant staff, maintenance people, and so forth.
9 In other words, if you will address the people side 10 as you see them moving into operations.
Frankly, I look at 11 this in a sense almost like a new construction plant because I
. 12 am continually impressed with the need to shift mentality, 13 shift emphasis frou construction to operations.
Here you have 14 been in a long layup period, and it seems to me there should be j
15 t
a focus and cr. emphasis on the operational side of it as you 16 mo'.re through this transition period.
17 So next time I would. hope that you, and also the TVA 19 organization, could discuss their efforts to emphasize and 19 change thinking from repairs and design review and engineering 20 review and all that, to an operationni mode and hopefully give 21 us the confidence that that shift to operations and emphasis on 22 operations 'Is embedded in the organization.
23 With that, let me thank you again for an excellent 24 presentation.
We 1cok forward to hearing from you and from the
(_j 25 TVA organization in the next few weeks, or whenevet you feel.
b
i 59 1
and they feel that they are prepared to recommend restart for i
.r^~
(
i 2
Sequoyah 2.
l 3
If there are no further questions or comments, we 4
stand adjourned.
l 5
[Whereupon, at 11:17 a.m.,
the meeting was 6
adjourned.)
7 8
9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 e
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1 2
REPORTER'S CERTIFICATE 3
4 This is to certify that the attached events of a 5
meeting of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission entitled:
6 l
7 TITLE OF MEETING: Briefing on Status of Sequoyah Restart 8
PLACE OF MEETING:
Washington, D.C.
9 DATE OF MEETING: Wednesddy, January 20, 1988 10 11 Were held as herein appears, and that this is the original 12-transcript thereof for the file of the Commission-taken
{
13 stenographically by me, thereafter reduced to typewriting by i
14 me or under the direction of the court reporting company, and 15 that the transcript is a true and accurate record of the 16 foregoing events.
-s
$D A
_ _ _Q_ _ _
f i
Jane W. Beach 19 l
20 q
21 i
22 Ann Riley & Associates, Ltd.
23 24
(_) 25
)
I
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n
l COMMISSION BRIEFING OFFICE OF SPECIAL PROJECTS JANUARY 20, 1988 4
STATUS OF SEQUOYAH RESTART i
+
Stewart D.
- Ebneter, Director Office of Special Proj ec ts i
1 i
.3.
O EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR FOR OPERATIONS VICTOR STELLO, JR.
JAMES M.
IAYLOR s
DEPUiY DIRECTOR OFFICE OF SPECIAL PROJECTS STEWART D. EBNETER DIRECTOR JANE A. AXELRAD DEPUTY DIRECTOR IVA PROJECTS DIVISION COMANCHE PEAK PROJ.' DIV.
STEVEN D. RICHARDSON CHRISTOPHER 1. GRIMES ACTING DIRECIOR DIRECTOR PHILLIP I. McKEE DEPUTY DIRECTOR a
ASSISTANT DIRECTOR AS$1STANT DIRECTOR ASSISTANT DIRECIDH ASSISTANT DIRECTOR ASSISTANT DIRECTOR ASSISTANT DIRECTOR
~
FOR FOR FOR FOR FOR FOR PROJECTS TECHNICAL PROGRAMS INSPECTION PROGRAMS PROJECTS IECHNICAL PROGRAMS INSPECTION PROGRAM 5 GARY G. ZECH B.D. LIAW KENNETH E. BARR JAMES H. WILSON JAMES E. LYONS ROBERT f. WARNICK o
(Acting) l
TVA RECOVERY SCHEDULE (TVA PROJECTIONS)
ESTIMATED RESTART PLANT DATE
'SEQUOYAH UNIT 2 FEBRUARY 23, 1988 SEQUOYAH UNIT 1 SIX MONTHS AFTER SQN 2 BROWNS FERRY UNIT 2 FALL 1988 BROWNS FERRY UNIT 1 SUMMER 1989 BROWNS FERRY UNIT 3
. SUMMER 199.0 WATTS BAR UNIT 1 FALL 1990 WATTS BAR UNIT 2 1991 BELLEFONTE UNITS 1 AND 2 EARLY TO MID 1990'S
e Issuo
~
'A B1 B2 C
Corporate Plan X
Sequoyah Si te ' Management X
Quality Assurance X
Integrated Design Inspection X
Design Baseline Verification Program X
Design Calculations Review
' Civil X
Electrical X
Alternately Analyzed Piping / Supports X
Heat Code Traceability X
Cable Installation X
)
Fuse Replacements X
Ampacity X
Fire Protection X
Environmental Qualification X
Welding X
Technical Specifications X
NUREG-ll50 X
Hydrogen Analyzer Operability X
Procurerunt Concerns X
j Maintenance X
Exemptions X
Post Modification ~ Testing X
Restart Test Program X
Surveil,1ance Instructions X
etailed Control Room Design Review X
Operational Readiness X
Employee Concerns X
AlIegations X
Category A - NRC and TVA are in agreement regarding how the issue is being handled and NRC's review schedule is consistent with the licensee's schedule for resolution of the issue.
Categor.y B - Issue has potential to impact restart schedule.
Category B1 - NRC and TVA are in agreement regarding how the issue is being handled and potential siippage of restart could exist based on licensee activity.
Category B2 - NRC and TVA are in agreement regarding how the issue is being handled and potential slippage of restart could exist based on NRC staff activity'.
Category C - Questions still exist regarding how the issue wil be resolved.
s
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"l INTEGRATED DESIGN INSPECTION (101)
INTEGRATED DESIGN INSPECTION i
- DESIGN INSPECTION - JULY-SEPTEMBER 1987
- AS BUILT INSPECTION - AUGUST 1987
- RESTART ITEMS IDI FINDINGS LETTER - OCTOBER 9, 1987 64 RESTART ISSUES lDI REPORT - NOVEMBER 6, 1987 ADDITIONAL RESTART ITEMS
- MAJOR CONCERN - CIVIL / STRUCTURAL AREA
- TVA CORRECTIVE ACTIONS (CA)
- TVA' PURSUED CA IN PARALLEL WITH NRC EFFORTS
- TVA SUBMITTAL.WITH MISSING DATA OR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION-
- TVA RESPONSE TO REPORT - DATED OCTOBER 29 l'87 AND' DECEMBER 29, 9
i NRC FOLLOW-UP
- REVIEW TVA SUBMITTALS FOLLOW-UP INSPECTION - TVA DESIGN OFFICE - NOVEMBER 1987
- NEXT FOLLOW-UP INSPECTION - FEBRUARY 1983 i
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CABLE INSTALLATION j
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- ORIGINAL ISSUE
- CABLE INSTAL.LATION PRACTlCES WERE IDENTIFIED BY AN EMPLOYEE CONCERN.
- JAMMING
- PULL-BYS
- VERTICAL DROPS CABLE TEST PROGRA!]S, l
- ORIGINAL PROGRAM l+/16 FA I LURES i
- REVISED PROGRAM (REDUCED VOLTAGE) 6/75 FAILURES CABLE REPLACEMENT s
- APPROXlMATELY ONE THIRD OF THE SIL1 CONE RUBBER INSULATED
$ INGLE CONDUCTOR CABLES 1NSIDE CONTAINMENT CURRENT POSITIONS
- TVA BELI EVES' REMAI N i NG CABLE ACCEPTABLE
- NRC STAFF AGREES WITH EXCEPTION THAT FULL QUALIFl CATION REQUIRED IN FUTURE o
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OPERATIONAL REdDINNSS TVA OPERATIONAL ASSESSMENTS X
INPO x
OPERATIONAL READINESS REVIEW TEAM X
SPECIAL QA MONITORING FOR RESTART X'
MANAGEMENT REVIEWS ENHANCEMENTS X
OPERATIONS FOCUS X
STAFF CHANGES X
TEAM BUILDING PHYSICAL PLANT X
VALVE LINEUPS X
UPERABILITY X
CLEAN-UP NRC ASSESSMENTS X
OPERATIONAL PROGRAMS INSPECTIONS X
BACK SHIFT INSPECTIONS X
CORRECTIVE ACTIONS AUGMENTED STAFF x
INCREASED STAFF-SHIFT COVERAGE x
DIVERSE STAFF e
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OBSERVATIONS ENGINEERING / CONSTRUCTION CONCERNS - APPROACHING CLOSURE FOCUS OF SQN RECOVERY SHIFTING TO OPERATIONS INCREASED CONFIDENCE IN TVA PROGRAMS TVA MANAGEMENT
!MPROVEMENTS NUCLEAR ETHlC - SIGNIFICAN,TLY UPGRADED BUT NEEDS FURTHER IMPROVEMENT.
ADDITIONAL' STRENGTHENING OF ORGANIZATIONAL INTERFACES a
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CONCLUSIONS
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BASED ON STATUS.OF REMAINING ISSUES, THE STAFF IS PREPARED TO COME BACK TO THE COMMISSION FOR A FINAL BRIEFING PRIOR TO THE RESTART OF SQN 2 TVA'S SCHEDULE FOR RESTART (F BRUARY 23, 1988) APPEARS REASONABLE AND ACHIEVABLE STAFF RECOMMENDS THAT THE COMMISSION RECEIVE THE FULL BRI EFIWG FROM TVA ON RESTART READi NESS G
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