ML20206N748

Responds to Re NRC Regulatory Oversight of Maine Yankee Atomic Power Station.Although Staff Does Not Agree with Charges That Staff Acted Inappropriately & Ineffectively,Ltr Referred to NRC OIG for Action

ML20206N748
Person / Time
Site:	Maine Yankee
Issue date:	12/15/1998
From:	Miller H NRC OFFICE OF INSPECTION & ENFORCEMENT (IE REGION I)
To:	Lochbaum D UNION OF CONCERNED SCIENTISTS
Shared Package
ML20206N754	List: ML20206N748 ML20206N760
References
NUDOCS 9812210346
Download: ML20206N748 (4)

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December 15, 1998 l

Mr. David A. Lochbaum Nuclear Safety Engineer -

i- Union of Concerned Scientists  ;

} 1616 P Street, N.W., Suite 310

! Washington, D.C. 20036-1495

Dear Mr. Lochbaum:

1 i l am responding to your letter of October 13,1998, regarding the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory l

, Commission's regulatory oversight of Maine Yankee Atomic Power Station (Maine Yankee). I appreciate you sharing your concerns regarding NRC oversight of Maine Yankee during the last I two years. I believe this letter is responsive to them. The following paragraphs restate your i concems and provide the NRC analysis.

i in your letter, you referred to NRC's October 8,1998, enforcement letter to the Maine Yankee 4

licensee that cited a large number of violations of NRC requirements. You objected to the i l NRC's decision to not impose a civil penalty for the cited violations and suggested that the NRC 1

should have imposed a substantial civil penalty, and then suspended the penalty because it would place an undue burden upon Maine Yankee ratepayers and/or stockholders, imposition of a substantial civil penalty for the violations cited in the October 8,1998, Notices of Violation  !

l was seriously considered. After consultation with the Commission and in view of all the factors l 1' discussed in my letter of October 8,1998, accompanying the Notices of Violation, however, it 1 was determined that a civil penalty was not warranted. You singled out the replacement of licensee management as the most significant factor in the staffs decision. As explained in my

letter of October 8,1998, the. staffs decision was based on many factors, only one of which was a change in management at Maine Yankee.

You suggested that the NRC allowed undue risk to public health and safety during operation of Maine Yankee from September through December 1996. The staff has previously addressed

this issue in numerous letters to you and others. The violations associated with the i Independent Safety Assessment (ISA) were identified in several inspection reports in late 1996 4

and early 1997, and were discussed at an enforcement conference, which was open for public l-_

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observation, at the Maine Yankee site in March 1997. Concems identified during the ISA that affected either operability of safety-related equipment or safe operation of the facility at the t licensed power level of 2440 MWt were addressed during the July-August 1996 outage and 2- were resolved before the September 1996 restart of Maine Yankee. Before permitting Maine i Yankee to start up in September 1996, the staff considered all problems identified during the

, independent Safety Assessment, and concluded that Maine Yankee had corrected those 3 problems such that any remaining reduction in safety margins did not pose an undue risk to \

[ public health and safety. Contrary to your suggestion, the staff did not know of the cable j separation problems before December 1996, when Maine Yankee reported those problems 4

pursuant to 10 C.F.R. Section 50.72. Nonetheless, based on all the information available to us,

! we cannot conclude that the cable separation problems at Maine Yankee caused operation of the facility to pose an undue risk to public health and safety. v j O fQ

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a Mr. David Lochbaum )

in summary, operation of the facility after the ISA through December 1996 did not pose any l undue risk to public health and safety.

You stated that the NRC failed to act in a timely manner on the findings of the 1996 ISA of Maine Yankee Following the March 1997 enforcement conference regarding the ISA-related violations, the staff admittedly took several months to develop the proposed enforcement package. The lengthy development time was both due to the complexity of the package and the fact that additional violations were identified after the conference that had to be factored into the l package. The package was developed by July and the review and approval process was near completion in early September 1997. On August 7,1997, the licensee announced its decision to permanently retire the facility. At that time, it was decided that all pending enforcement

! regarding operation of Maine Yankee would be integrated into one final package. Accordingly, i integration of the staff's concerns related to Maine Yankee's application of RELAPSYA in support of the licensee's small-break loss-of-coolant accident (SBLOCA) analyses as well as other findings by the NRC's Office of Investigations of wrongdoing at the site took several additional months. The complexity of the issues associated with the SBLOCA concems and the required coordination between the NRC and the U. S. Department of Justice, resulted in unforeseen delays, as discussed in Chairman Jackson's letter to you dated July 16,1998.

i Although enforcement action for the violations associated with the ISA and the RELAP5YA l SBLOCA analyses was delayed, action necessary to address the safety implications of the violations was taken promptly by the NRC staff.

You expressed concern that the NRC lacks objective criteria to determine when eroded safety I margins require a nuclear power plant shutdown. In a letter to you on February 27,1997, Mr.

Samuel J. Collins, Director of the Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation, noted that the appropriate regulatory response to identified deficiencies can and should vary. The wide variation in design of U.S. nuclear plants would make the development of objective criteria to determine when eroded saf.ety margins require a facility shutdown a daunting task. The NRC must consider all information germane to an identified degradation and exercise its professional l judgement in determining whether continued operation of a particular plant would pose an l

undue risk to public health and safety. As you know, the staff is working with its stakeholders to develop more objective licensee performance assessment measures to identify declining performance and enhance oversight earlier in the process. We look forward to working with you in this activity.

You requested that the NRC convene a public meeting between NRC staff and Maine Yankee stakeholders to discuss the events of the past two years. During the past two years the staff has conducted public meetings with Maine Yankee stakeholders regarding the ISA findings, the apparent violations related to the ISA, the proposed restart of Maine Yankee and the decommissioning of Maine Yankee. The issues discussed in the Notices of Violations have already been discussed in several public meetings and in numerous letters. Therefore, the additional public meeting you requested to revisit these issues woula not be an effective use of limited staff resources. However, ongoing communication with stakeholders throughout the e

l Mr. David Lochbaum l plant's decommissioning process is important, and the staffis communicating regularly with the

Maine Yankee Community Advisory Panel, as well as with others as needed, about issues and

. activities relevant to the plant's decommissioning.

Finally, although the staff does not agree with your charges that the staff had acted inappropriately and ineffectively in a manner constituting numerous " regulatory failures," your letter has nonethe: ass been referred to the NRC Office of the inspector General (OlG) for whatever action the OlG deems appropriate.

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Sincerely, Hu J. iller N Regional Administrator 2

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Mr. David A. Lochbaum l DISTRIBUTION:

DOCKET (50-309)

PUBLIC (w/ incoming) '

W. Travers, EDO F. Miraglia, DEDR ,

J. Blaha, AO/EDO K. Cyr, OGC ,

S. Collins, NRR J. Lieberman, OE B. Boger, NRR B. Sheron, NRR J. Zwolinksi, NRR D. Dorman, NRR I H. Miller, RI i R. Blough, RI .

J. Goldberg, OGC OPA OCA SECY (CRC-98-0951)

OlG DOCUMENT NAME: G:\lochbaum.cmy wmioVT ENCLOSURES "E" = COPY WITH ENCLOSURES "N" OGCpd# Rl/DNMS g OFFICE NRR:DRPEg 6 ""9 "

NAME JZwolinski f JLiebernM GLongoMh,f DATE 12/ [ /98 :12/$ /98 4W If[Jo/98 OFFICE Rl/RA l / l / l l NAME HMiller7WJA DATE 12/9F/98 (nh(/ 12/ /98 12/ /98 12/ /98 12/ /98 0FFICIAL RECORD COPY