ML20197H420

Forwards Rev 3 to Trpr 20.0, Duty Technical Advisor Program, Per Generic Ltr 86-04 Re Changes Planned to Meet Intent of Commission Policy Statement on Engineering Expertise on Shift.Util Re NUREG-0578 Cited

ML20197H420
Person / Time
Site:	Point Beach
Issue date:	05/12/1986
From:	Fay C WISCONSIN ELECTRIC POWER CO.
To:	Colburn T, Harold Denton NRC, Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation
Shared Package
ML20197H425	List: ML20197H420 ML20197H444
References
CON-NRC-86-43, RTR-NUREG-0578, RTR-NUREG-578 22, GL-86-04, GL-86-4, VPNPD-86-214, NUDOCS 8605190165
Download: ML20197H420 (6)

Text

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WNSCOnSin Electnc eom couem 231 W. MICHIGAN, P.O. BOX 2046. MILWAUKEE, WI 53201 l

VPNPD-86-214 l NRC-86-43 May 12, 1986 Mr. Harold Denton, Director Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation U. S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Washington, D. C. 20555 Attention: Mr. T. Colburn Licensing Project Manager Point Beach Nuclear Plant Gentlemen:

l DOCKETS 50-266 AND 50-301 ENGINEERING EXPERTISE ON SHIFT POINT BEACH NUCLEAR PLANT, UNITS 1 AND 2 Generic Letter 86-04 dated February 13, 1986 requests information ,

as to the changes planned for the Shift Technical Advisor (Duty l Technical Advisor) program based on the options available as a result of the Commission's Policy Statement on Engineering )

Expertise on Shift. Our letter of October 20, 1979 (C. W. Fay to H. R. Denton), which discussed the implementation of NUREG-0578, included a detailed discussion of fulfilling the Appendix X intent of the position. Review of this letter will provide an historical perspective on the Duty Technical Advisor program at j Point Beach Nuclear Plant. j Attachment 1 outlines the Duty Technical Advisor program at Point Beach Nuclear Plant. The program meets the intent of the Policy Statement and provides the necessary expertise on a timely basis to the operating crew during any off-normal situation.

Our Duty Technical Advisor program does not utilize an

" equivalency" criteria to an engineering degree. See Attachment 1 for details.

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PDR ADDCK 05000266 P PDR l

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• D Mr. Harold Denton May 12, 1986 Page 2 We plan no changes to the program as described in Attachment 1.

If you have any questions about this program at Point Beach, please contact us.

Very truly yours, 4

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I [kd C. W. Fay /

Vice President Nuclear Power Attachments Copy to F. Rowsome U. S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Division of Human Factors Technology Resident Inspector

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ATTACHMENT 1 DUTY TECHNICAL ADVISOR PROGRAM POINT BEACH NUCLEAR PLANT Program Details The complement of Duty Technical Advisors (DTA) now consists of Nuclear Plant Engineers or supervisory personnel with a i, Bachelor's degree in an engineering or physical science j discipline. Each member of the program must have at least 18 i months of nuclear power plant experience of which a minimum of l 12 months has been at Point Beach. The remaining six months of l experience may be obtained from a similar nuclear power plant l (PWR), a military, or production facility. These

qualifications are evaluated on a case-by-case basis. The DTA must have completed a Duty Technical Advisor training program prior to the assumption of the duties and responsibilities of 1 the position.

The primary responsibilities of the DTA are to contribute to the pool of expertise in the control room during off-normal events. This includes being available to the Shift Superintendent in the control room, to diagnose off-normal

events, and to provide advice on the actions needed to terminate or mitigate the consequences of such events. These duties, among others, could include the monitoring of critical safety functions, review of offsite consequences of radioactive releases, or communication of plant specific information to the NRC duty officer. During Emergency Plan activation situations, i those DTAs not on call'are designated to provide similar technical expertise in the emergency response facilities. ,

j Each DTA stands a 24 hour2.777778e-4 days <br />0.00667 hours <br />3.968254e-5 weeks <br />9.132e-6 months <br /> shift on a 10-to 18 day rotation

depending on the number of qualified DTAs. The on-duty DTA may have normal duties not directly associated with the operation of the plant. However, during the duty period-the DTA must be within 10 minutes of the control room at all times. The DTA is involved in a detailed turnover of relevant information from the previous day's DTA. The oncoming DTA also reviews logs of 1 the previous few days and discusses planned plant evolutions for the duty day with the operating crew. This discussion and turnover includes discussion-of equipment out of service and any equipment maintenance or outage that might result in the plant entering a limited condition of operation under the plant 1' i Technical Specifications. Checks of monitoring equipment in i each of the Emergency Response facilities is made some t2me i

during the duty day. A plant tour is made as appropriate to

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the condition of.the plant equipment. If during the duty day, the DTA is not within the facility protected area, the DTA must

Mr. Harold Denton, Director May 12, 1986 Attachment 1 - Page 2 be available by telephone, radio pager, or duplex radio system as well as be within a 10 minutes of the control room. The DTA is required to sleep in the Site Boundary Control Center living quarters. Response times from this facility, with the DTA asleep, have been less than 10 minutes after the call for response. A four-wheel drive vehicle with high clearance is available for the use by the DTA during inclement weather to ensure timely response to the control room from the Site Boundary Control Center.

The DTA fills an advisory role in the process of post-trip reviews. This role includes performing an engineering evaluation to determine the cause of the trip and the advisability of returning to criticality and/or power.

The DTA is not in the line of authority established for the operating crew, and as such, he has no authority to direct manipulation of controls. The DTA role is only advisory to the Duty Shift Superintendent and/or Duty and Call Superintendent.

The DTA reports to his regularly assigned plant group head during normal plant operations when not on duty.

Training The DTA position requires a working knowledge of fundamentals in the areas of reactor physics, fluid mechanics, and heat transfer, in addition to the specifics of transient accident analysis and other safety analysis as applied to Point Beach Nuclear Plant.

See Attachment 2 for details on the specific courses and evaluation techniques used in the training program for DTAs.

Note that a significant amount of time is spent with hands-on training in a simulator. The simulator time is spent learning both normal and accident response.

In January of this year we submitted the Self-Evaluation Report of our DTA initial and continuinri training program to INFO.

The accreditation team performed its site visit in April and we expect to meet with the Accreditation Board this fall.

Corps Experience, Knowledge, and Overall Program Philosophy The present corps of 12 DTAs have an average of five years' experience at Point Beach Nuclear Plant. There is presently a class of six trainees expected to be qualified during the fall of 1986. The breadth of experience is also of note. The DTAs are from groups with responsibility in operations, mechanical l

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Mr. Harold Denton, Director May_12, 1986 Attachment 1 - Page 3 engineering, electrical engineering, maintenance and construction, instrument and controls, training, quality assurance, inservice inspection, and licensing. See Attachment 3 for a tabulation of this experience.

The DTA as a matter of normal information distribution or formal training on important documents reviews the following:

a. Safety significant modification requests;

b. Operating procedures, major maintenance procedures, major I&C procedures, emergency operating procedures, emergency plan implementing procedures, and the emergency plan;

c. Point Beach Nuclear Plant Licensee Event Reports, Significant Operating Events, and other applicable Licensee Event Reports;

d. Point Beach Nuclear Plant periodic reports to Federal and state regulatory bodies;

e. Manager's Supervisory Staff Meeting Minutes;

f. Refueling and other major outage planning documents.

With this experience and knowledge base it is the intent of Point Beach Nuclear Plant to maintain an independent corps of DTAs. They each have and will maintain a high level of awareness of the status of equipment and detailed knowledge about operation of the plant. They will, however, maintain a degree of independence from the operating crews. We believe r this last point to be most important during a severe accident situation. The ability to take a look at plant conditions and recommend mitigating actions from an independent platform is important. We believe the design of the DTA program ensures this perspective. We do, however, stress the teamwork that must be maintained under a transient accident environment.

Training sessions and drills held in the simulator have demonstrated how successful this approach is.

In an emergency, our augmentation plan includes notification of all DTAs including those offsite. The longest response time from home by any existing DTA would be 35 minutes under normal travel conditions. The average response time for DTAs from home to the plant is approximately 16 minutes.

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Mr. Harold Denton, Director May 12, 1986 Attachment 1 - Page 4 Our experiences over the past several years in those instances when the DTA was called have been good. At any time of the day or night, he has arrived in the control room within ten minutes, when needed. With the implementation of the critical safety parameter feature of the Emergency Operating Procedures, he has had a focused task to, first of all, assure plant safety; second, to verify proper safety equipment operation, i.e., post-trip review; and, third, aid in emergency plan classification and notification. In those cases when the DTA has been called since this critical safety parameter implementation, he has performed as required.

We believe that the DTA program at Point Beach Nuclear Plant meets and, in some cases, exceeds the intent of the Policy Statement of the Commission. The program ensures that engineering and accident assessment expertise is available not only in the control room, but also in the other emergency response facilities.

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