ML20199A216
| ML20199A216 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | River Bend  |
| Issue date: | 01/05/1999 |
| From: | NRC OFFICE OF INSPECTION & ENFORCEMENT (IE REGION IV) |
| To: | |
| Shared Package | |
| ML20199A167 | List: |
| References | |
| IA-98-004, IA-98-4, NUDOCS 9901120387 | |
| Download: ML20199A216 (6) | |
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ENCLOSURE 1 NOTICE OF VIOLATION l
l Mr. A. Davey Wells lA 98-004 During an NRC investigation conducted which concluded on December 31,1997, a violation of NRC requirements was identified. In accordance with the " General Statement af Policy and Procedure for NRC Enforcement Actions," NUREG-1600, the violation is listed below:
10 CFR 50.5(a)(2) states, in part, that any employee of a licensee may not deliberately submit to the NRC information that the person submitting the information knows to be incomplete or inaccurate in some respect material to the NRC.
Contrary to this requirement, on Octote 15,1997, Mr. A. Davey Wel s, an employee of Entergy Operations, Inc., a licensee, submitted to the NRC information that he knew was inaccurate in some respect material to the NRC. Specifically, M. Wells provided the NRC senior resident inspector a radiation work permit (RWP) tha t Mr. Wells knew was inaccurate regarding a potential violation of RWP requirements. Mr. Wells knew that the RWP that he provided had been revised and did not reflect the requirements i
that were in place when an RWP violation was observed on October 10,1997, by the NRC. This information was material to the NRC because the NRC was evaluating whether a violation had occurred. (01013)
This is a Severity Level ill violation (Supplement Vil).
The NRC has concluded that information regarding the reason for the violarion, the corrective actions taken and planned to correct the violation and prevent recurrence and the date when full compliance was achieved is already adequately addressed on the docket in the following letters: Undated letter from Davey Wells to Ellis Merschoff with accompanying affidavit dated February 24,1998; February 23,1998 letter from John McGaha to Ellis Merschoff; June 22, 1998 letter from Davey Wells to Ellis Merschoff; June 25,1998 letter from John McGaha to Ellis Merschof t; July 1,1998 letter from John McGaha to Ellis Merschoff; and July 8,1998 letter from Rick King (Entergy) to Art Howell(NRC). However, you are required to submit a written statement or explanation pursuant to 10 CFR 2.201 if the description therein does not accurately reflect your corrective actions or your position. In that case, or if you choose to respond, clearly mark your response as a " Reply to a No' ice of Violation,* and send it to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commbsion, ATTN: Document Control Desk, Washington, DC 20555 with a copy to the Regional Administrator, Region IV,611 Ryan Plaza Drive, Suite 400, Arlington, TX 76011, and a copy to the NRC Resident inspector at the f acility that is the subject of this N]tice, within 30 days of the date of the letter transmitting this Natice of Violation (Notice).
l If you contest this er,forcement action, you should also provide a copy of your response, with the basis for your denial, to the Director, Office of Enforcement, United States Nuclear i
j Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001.
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l 9901120387 990105 l
PDR ADOCK 05000458 G
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. If you choose to respond, your response will be placed in the NRC Public Document Room
-!(PDR). Therefore, to the extent possible, the response should not include any personal privacy, L proprietary, or safeguards information so that it can be placed in the PDR without redaction.
L-1 Dated this 5th day of January 1999.
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ENCLOSURE 2
SUMMARY
OF INDIVIDUAL'S POSITION l
l During the February 27,1998, predecisional enforcement conference, you stated that you had l
provided inaccurate information to the NRC, but you did not intend to misrepreser,t the facts or l
mislead the senior resident inspector in any way. You stated that you were new in your position, having been appointed Superintendent a few months prior to the event, and had spent part of your time visiting another facility abroad and receiving training away from the site; that l
you had spent little time in the plant in previous positions and were not fully familiar with the i
wording of protective clothing requirements in RWPs; that you did not commit to memory the l
specifics of RWP requirements, nor did you know the details of how RWPs were revised or
" edited." in relation to the October 15,1997, meeting with the senior resident inspector, you noted that a refueling outage was in progress and you were very busy. You did not recall the inspector identifying the issue as a potential violation, so when you were informed by a i
representative of the RBS regulatory affairs organization that the issue was being considered as a potential violation, you requested a meeting with the senior resident inspector and requested that a member of the radiation control staff provide you with computer-printed copies of all the RWPs which the involved technician had used during the several days preceding
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l Oc'ober 15. You stated that because of the time frame involved, you had little time to prepare for the meeting and did not verify the accuracy of the computer-generated RWPs. You stated that your intent for the meeting was not to argue that a violation did not occur, but to merely j
understand the circumstances. When the senior resident inspector requested a copy of the applicable RWP, you provided him with the computer-generated RWPs including RWP 97-0002, which the NRC had considered was violated. It was the wrong version of RWP 97-0002, but you stated you did not recognize this until your interviuv with the NRC Office of l
Investigations.
I During the February 27 conference, you also stated that there was no benefit to you if the situation were cited or not because your performance is not evaluated on the number of violations. You stated that your actions were careless because you did not verify the accuracy of the information provided to the NRC senior resident inspector (the revised RWP). You also described the disciplinary actions that your company had taken for your carelessness.
By letter dated May 7,1998, we informed you that the NRC was deferring a final decision in your case until we conducted a predecisional enforcement conference with your employer, Entergy Operations, Inc., for an apparent violation of 10 CFR 50.9. We also provided you with a copy of the letter we sent to Entergy which summarized your position at the February 27
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conference and provided the circumstances that might have indicated that you willfully committed the violation.
By letter dated June 22,1998, you provided additional f acts and changed your positions on certain items, in particular, that you had, in fact, provided accurate information to the senior resident inspector. You noted that, on October 10,1997, the technician had been signed onto RWP 97-9002 during the entire shift (this RWF applied to drywell activities), and not RWP 97-0002 (which applied to the fuel building where the technician had reached across the barrier with only a cotton glove liner). At the time it was common practice for radiation protection technicians assigned to major control points to perform varied tasks in multiple locations while logged in on an RWP for general activities. and therefore the technician could be signed on l
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RWP 97-9002 and conduct activities in the fuel building under certain circumstances. As a result of this practice, you asserted that RWP 97-9002 was the " operative" RWP, and therefore you and the senior resident inspector inappropriately focused on RWP 97-0002 during the i
October 15,1997 meeting.
' It was noted that RWP 97-0002 had been revised to change the minimum protective clothing requ,rements on October 12,1997, and the technician had signed onto it on October 14,1997.
It was provided to the senior resident inspector on October 15,1997. Because the copies of l
the RWPs (including RWP 97-0002) that you provided to the senior resident inspector were the correct revisions for the dates on which the technician logged in on them, you asserted that you provided complete and accurate documentation to the senior resident inspector during the October 15 meeting. Your employer also made the same assertions at the predecisional enforcement conference.
l in addition, your June 22 letter reiterated your position that you do not commit to memory the protective clothing requirements from general RWPs, and are unfamiliar with the exact wording of those requirements notwithstanding the number of times you have signed on to them. You stated that you obtain the specific requirements for each controlled access area (CAA) from the radiation protection techniciar; at the CAA control point at the same time that you reviewed the radiological surveys. In its June 25,1998, letter prior to the conference, your employer stated that your level of knowledge about the details of the dress requirements of any particular RWP is consistent with Entergy's expectations of you as a department head.
We also noted that af ter reviewing the circumstances, Entergy concluded that you did not remember or associate the RWP revisions you requested with the information you provided the senior resident inspector until you were shown both revisions of RWP 97-0002 by Ol during your interview on October 29,1997.
SUMMARY
OF NRC'S RESPONSE 1.
In response to the observation on October 10,1997, on October 11-12,1997, you discussed with your staff the specific wording of RWP protective clothing requirements, including the requirement for minimum booties and gloves, and held discussions with the technician involved with the incident. The essence of the discussions with your staff during this time were to revise the wording of the RWP minimum proiective clothing requirements so they are not so restrictive that they require " minimum booties and gbes." You decided the RWPs should be revised to allow flexibility for the radiation l
protection technicians to set the dress requirements. On about October 12, you agreed to the wording, " dress requirements to be set by RP," and instructed that all a'ctive RWPs be revised to include this wording.
l During the October 15,1997, meeting with the NRC senior resident inspector, you discussed the issue of which RWP was applicable and mentioned RBS' practice of allowing radiation protection technicians to work under other RWPs without signing on to them on a given day. You showed documents which indicated that on October 10, the i
technician was signed in on RWP 97-9002, which applied to drywell activities and it was noted that the technician was observed in the fuel building, where, you stated, RWP 97-0002 "could' apply. Although you claim you did not know which RWP had been revised l
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i by the time you met with the senior resident inspector, you had recently directed that the wording for minimum protective clothing requirements be changed for all active RWPs.
In fact, the revision of RWP 97-0002 that you showed the senior resident inspector had the new wording which you had recently reviewed. This wording was being adopted for the first time at RBS, and you signed on to RWP 97-0002 the day before and the day after the RWP was revised, on October 12,1997.
2.
Although you stated that the potential violation was not a high priority for you, you asked for the meeting with the senior resident inspector and had sufficient tirne to prepare for the meeting. Further, you could have postponed the meeting if you needed to gather more information.
3.
If (as you assert) you explained that not only RWP 97-0002 but other RWPs might be applicable, you did not initiate a condition report or take any actions to find out which RWP would be applicable following the meeting. You made no attempt, either prior to or after the October 15 meeting, to confirm which RWP was applicable to the inspector's October 10 observation. In fact, the meeting concluded with you asserting that no violation existed based on the version of RWP 97-0002 and the other three RWPs you presented to the senior resident inspector. Each participant present during the discussion, including two NRC inspectors and a representative of RBS' regulatory affairs organization, understood you to assert that no violation existed. This was also reflected in the "NRC issues Sheet" (a RBS internal document) which stated that the RP department does not believe a violation exists.
4.
You did not inform the senior resident inspector that you had recently directed wording changes to all RWPs and that the RWPs you presented to the senior resident inspector (en October 15,1997) were not or may not have been the RWPs in effect on October 10,1997. As a result, you contributed to the confusion over which RWP was applicable by not providing complete information.
5.
Both you and Entergy asserted that RWP 97-9002 was " operative" or applied to the technician's survey activities at the time of the observation. The NRC disagrees with this contention. RWP 97-9002, which applied to activities in the drywell, did not cover the technician's survey activities in the fuel building where the violation was observed.
We note that on October 10,1997, the inspector who observed the RWP violation asked the technician's supervisor for a copy of the RWP that was applicable, and was provided with a copy of RWP 97-0002. After the June 26 conference, Entergy stated that RWP 97-0002 or RWP 97-0011-09 were the RWPs that were applicable to the specific survey activity in question. Even if the NRC were to agree with the acceptability of Entergy's program that allows a radiation protection technician to work under an RWP without actually signing on to it (which has not yet been evaluated by the NRC), RWP 97-9002 was not the " operative" RWP for the issue in question.
6.
Both you and Entergy asserted that you presented RWPs on October 15 that were in l
effect on the days the access log indicated the technician signed in on them, and l
therefore no violation of 10 CFR 50.9 occurred. However, the NRC had identified a potential failure to follow the minimum protective clothing requirements of RWP 97-0002 on October 10.1997. During the October 15 meeting, you presented the senior resident l
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4 inspector with the version of RWP 97-0002 that had been revised on October 12,1997.
Therefore, the version of RWP 97-0002 provided to the senior resident inspector was not accurate because it did not reflect the requirements that were in place on the date the RWP violation occurred.
7.
You held multiple discussions regarding this issue prior to the October 15 meeting with the NRC. This included two separate discussions with the inspector who observed the violation, as well as discussions with your staff and the technician involved in the RWP violation to address the very issue that was the subject of the potential violation. If, as you implied, you believed the discussions at the October 15 meeting were initial discussions or thought that further discussions with the NRC would occur, you did not initiate a condition report, or verify the circumstances of the potential violation, or verify the information provided. Th' record indicates that you conducted no further review e
because you asserted no violation occurred, based on the incomplete and insecurate information you provided.
In sum, it is NRC's view, after balancing the evidence, that you knew that the version of RWP 97-0002 that you presented to the NRC senior resident inspector at the October 15,1997 meeting was not the version in effect at the time of the observed RWP violation on October 10, 1997.
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Enclosures:
.PDR 4L LPDR UDOCS SECY EC's: Rl, Ril, Rlli CA PA (0-2G4)
EDO (0-17G21)
OlG (T-5D28)
DEDE (0-17G21)
LIEBERMAN, OE (0-7H5)
OE:EAFile (0-7H5)
O! (0-3E4)
CHANDLER, OGC (0-15B18)
GOLDBERG, OGC (0-15B18)
NRR (0-12G18)
BOGER, NRR/ADP (0-12G18)
RFretz NRR/PDIV-1 (O 13H3)
OC/DAF (T-9E10)
OC/LFDCB (T-9E10)
AEOD (T-4D16)
RA Reading File GSanborn-EAFile RWise RIV Files MIS Coordinator LWilliamson, O1 CMarschall, DRP E-Mall DISTRIBUTION:
OEMAll PGwynn (TPG)
WBrown (WLB)
GSanborn (GFS)
EMerschoff (EWM)
BHenderson (BWH)
CHackney (CAH)
MVasquez (GMV)
HFreeman (HAF)
AHowell (ATH)
DChamberlain (DDC)
GReplogie (GDR)
KBrockman (KEB)
WSmith (WFS)
M3hannon (MPS1)
LRicketson (LTR) l l
I 120031 g
4 l.
DOCUMENT NAME: a:\\oecases\\98132 n
OFFICE CE W RIV M h OED h DEDE EDO p f NAME MSatorius EMerschod JLieberman f[p[ WTrd j I
DATE 12/14/98 12/th/98 12/ )$/98 12/16'/98 1
98 OFFICIAL RECORD COPY