ML20235A727
| ML20235A727 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Braidwood  |
| Issue date: | 06/30/1987 |
| From: | NRC COMMISSION (OCM) |
| To: | |
| References | |
| REF-10CFR9.7 NUDOCS 8707080520 | |
| Download: ML20235A727 (87) | |
Text
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OkuiNAL c.
v UNITED STATES OF AMERICA NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION d
a
Title:
Discussion /Possible Vote on Full Power Operating License for Braidwood-l l
Location: Washington, D. C.
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Date: Tuesday, June 30, 1987 l j
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Pages: 1 - 70 i
Ann Riley & Associates Court Reporters 1625 l Street, N.W., Suite 921 Washington, D.C. 20006
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(202) 293-3950 8707080520 070650 PDR T
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/ 1 D I SCLA I MER
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. S 4 ,
5 6 This is an unofficial transcript of"a meeting of[the 1
7- United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission held on S 6/30/87 . . . In the Commission's office at.1717 H Street, .
9 'N.W., Washington, D.C. The meeting was'open to pubfic (
10 attendance and observation. This transcript has'not been 11 reviewed, corrected, or edited, and it may contain 12 Inaccuracies.
13 The transcript is intended solely for general i 14 informational purposes.
As provided by 10 CFR 9.103, i t_ is .
15 not part of the formal or informal record of decision of the 16 matters discussed. Expressions of opinion in this transcrip't 17 do not necessarily reflect final determination or beliefs. No 1
18 pleading or other paper may be filed with-the Commission in !
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19 any proceeding as the result of or addressed to any statement B
- 20 or argument contained herein, except as the Commission may I l
21 authorize.
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24-25 1
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1 UNITI.:L" STATES': OF AMERICA 2- NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 3 ***- 1 I
.4 DISCUSSION /POSSIBLE VOTE ON FULL POWER OPERATING LICENSE
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5 FOR BRAIDWOOD-1 1
6
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7 PUBLIC MEETING 8 *** -)'
9 Nuclear Regulatory Commission 10 Room'1130 11 1717 H Street, Northwest 12 Washington, D.C.
13 14 Tuesday, June 30, 1987 15 l
16 The commission met in open session, pursuant to ,
i 17 notice, at 2:05 o' clock, p.m., the Honorable Lando W. Zech, j 18 Jr., Chairman of the Commission, presiding. l l
19 COMMISSIONERS PRESENT:
20 LANDO W. ZECH, JR., Chairman of the commission !
21 THOMAS M. ROBERTS, Member of the Commission >
22 JAMES K. ASSELSTINE, Member of the Commission 23 FREDERICK M. BERNTHAL, Member of the ' Commission 24 KENNETH CARR, Member of the Commission en hi) 25 l
2 1 STAFFANDPRESENTERSSEATED'ATTHECOMMI$5IONTABLE:
2 t
3 SAMUEL CHILK 4 WILLIAM PARLER 4 5 VICTOR STELLO 6 JAMES O' CONNER, CECO
.7 EUGENE ~FITZPATRICK, CECO l
8 CORDELL REED, CECO 9 THOMAS MURLEY, NRR 10 JANICE STEVENS, NRR 11 A. BERT DAVIS, REGION III 12 CHARLES NORELIUS, REGION III 13' O:. 14 AUDIENCE SPEAKERS:
15 i
16 JACK HAYES, NRR 17 18 19 20 21 22
~23 24 ye
3
- 1. PROCEEDINGS
.2 (2:05 p.m.]
3-3 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.
4 . The purpose.of today's meeting is for the
- 5. Commonwealth Edison Company.and the Staff to brief the 6 Commission concerning the readiness of Braidwood Unit 1 to-7 receive a-full power license. This meeting includes 8 considerations of the immediate effectiveness review of.the
'9 Licensing Board's decision on Braidwood Unit'1. At thef ;
10 conclusion of the meeting, if the Commission is ready, we will
-11 -- we intend to vote on whether or not to issue an order 12 declaring the-immediate effectiveness of the Licensing Board's' 13- decision on Braidwood and to authorize the Director of NRR, the O 14 . Nuclear Reactor Regulatory Office,.after making the appropriate 15 findings, to issue a full power operating license for Braidwood 16 Unit 1.
17 Since this licensing proceeding involves a pending l 18 appeal, I will ask that the General Counsel closely monitor the !
i 11 9 proceeding to assure that today's discussion does not touch on j 20 contested issues that may later come before the Commission.
21 I understand that copies of the slides of the 22 presentation are available at the back of the room.
23 Do any of my fellow Commissioners have any opening 24 comments to make.
() 25 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: No.
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1-' . CHAIRMAN ZECH: If not, Mr. O' Conner, you may proceed
. f2' with your presentation.
3 'MR. O' CONNER: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and 4 good afternoon, gentlemen.
5 I am James O' Conner, Chairman, President, and Chief 6 Executive Officer of Commonwealth Edison Company, and wi'th me 7' at'the table today at my right is Cordell Reed, recently 8 appointed our Senior Vice President, who is responsible for our 9 nuclear operations, and to my left is Mr. Eugene Fitzpatrick, 10 who is the Station Manager for Braidwood.
11 We very much appreciate this opportunity to be here.
12 I will make a few opening remarks and describe the basis for my 13 belief that<Braidwood Station is ready to receive a license for 14 full-power operation.
15- Cordell Reed will discuss our nuclear management.
16 reorganization, regulatory performance at our other Edison 17 stations, and succession planning for our management personnel.
18 Mr. Fitzpatrick will discuss the Braidwood shift 19 staffing and experience.
20 Today's presentation represents the culmination of
[21 fifteen years of effort. I am here today to confirm that the 22 safe and reliable operation of our nuclear plants and the 23 successful completion of our nuclear construction program have 24 .been the dominant priorities throughout my entire career with 25 Edison and have been the principal focus of my personal
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5 1 activities since I was named President of the company almost' 2' ten years ago.
3 Commonwealth Edison has an extremely strong project 4 management system to build our nuclear plants. The individual .j 5 who directs.the construction of these plants.has reported 6 directly to me for the past seven years. This was deliberately done to assure that there could be no mistake in anyone's mind
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7 8 in our company as to the importance that we attach to the 9 quality, construction, and completion of our nuclear power 10 plants.
11 My contact with the Manager of Projects has been on a 12 daily basis, including weekends and oftentimes several times a
. 13 day. We would discuss progress, problems, and personnel. I
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-14 think it is fair to say that I have participated in or reviewed 15 every personnel assignment at a senior level that has taken 16 place at Braidwood in the past-seven years.
17 In addition, we expect our quality assurance 18 organization at Commonwealth Edison to provide a strong third-19 party, independent monitoring of our nuclear stations' 20 ,
construction and operations. Quality assurance overviews at 21 Braidwood demonstrate compliance with tha' station's procedures 22 and requirements. I might not parenthetically that the Manager 23 of Quality Assurance for the company also reports directly to 24 me.
25 I have made frequent trips to the site to meet with
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- 1. .the: project management. team and often with the senior
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management of the contractors.. Neither the Manager of Projects 3 nor, for that matter, any senior management at the site has 4 over been reluctant to inform me of'the status of the project.
5 or to seek assistance in those instances where they felt that I
.l 6 might be helpful'.
7 Also the business at our' monthly Board-meeting was a 8 discussion of the status of construction at our nuclear plants.
-l 9 Our Board has traditionally taken a special interest in our '
10 nuclear plants under construction as well as those in 11' operation. In the case ~of Braidwood, has twice visited the !
12 site.
13 In addition, we have a special Board Committee on O. 14 Nuclear Operations, which is composed of retired Admiral Dennis i
1 15 Wilkinson, former NRC Commissioner, Dr. Edward Mason, and Dr.
16 Thomas Martin, President Emeritus of the Illinois Institute of l l
17 Technology, who remain especially close to our nuclear 18 activities.
19 Braidwood Unit I is a proven design. it's a replica 20 .. of the two units now in operation at our' Byron Station. I'm 21 pleased to report that Braidwood Unit I is critical. Low power l 122 testing has been completed. The unit is ready to proceed in i 1
23 its power ascension program. We do not anticipate'any 24 difficulties through the remainder of the start-up testing i 25 program.
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4 7
1 When Cordell Reed was here five-months ago for the
( 2 meeting on Byron, he discussed the superior start-up that Byron 4
3 Unit II was having. He attributed that in part to experienced i
4_ station management, a strengthening of corporate support and '{
5 the vast 1 experience that we gained from the start-up of Byron 6 Unit I.
7 The start-up of Byron II has continued to be-very
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,8 successful and is close to completion today. Byron Unit I i
generated more power than any other nuclear unit in the country 9
10 -in 1986 and sustained a 133 day' continuous run during its_first 11 cycle. In the. Spring of this year, INPO gave Byron its highest' '
i 12 rating. In addition, Byron's training program has been fully 13_ accredited and Byron is now a full member of the National j 14- Academy for Nuclear Training. Finally, Byron received a very 15 positive ~SALP report during the most recent rating period.
16 The reason I mention all of these positive aspects 17 about Byron is because much of the success attributable to 18 improvement programs initiated in the area of operations, l 19 radiation protection, security and maintenance. The major 20 elements of all these programs have been incorporated into the 21 directives and procedures for Braidwood as well.
22 I believe this effort along with a proven plant. !
23 design which is a duplicate of Byron's, will assure that 24 Braidwood will also be a top performer.
25 Finally, with respect to Braidwood's readiness, we
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1 1 are in'the position to accept a full power operating license. l f f-' 2 The existence of a strong on-site management organization has 3 provided firm control of construction activities and has 4 established the proper direction for successful completion of 5 the station.
6 As a result, both units at Braidwood have been on 7 schedule for completion of every significant construction and i
8 I testing milestone since they were established in late 1985. o 9 That's without exception. Successful completion of milestones j 10 on Unit I such as the reactor coolant system, cold hydro, the 11 integrated hot functionals, the emergency core cooling system, 12 full flow, and integrated leak rate testing, were accomplished 13 as scheduled and led to fuel load on October 25, 1986.
14 These activities were performed in an exemplary 15 manner with no sacrifice of quality.
16 We have made every effort to assure full confidence 17 in the construction quality of Braidwood. One major effort 18 that we organized to accomplish this was the Braidwood 19 construction assessment program or BCAP. BCAP provided a 20 comprehensive program of re-inspections and reviews. Its focus 21 on past construction provided an additional basis for my 22 confidence that the past, ongoing and future safety related 23 work at Braidwood has resulted in completed systems that meet 24 the HEC's requirements.
25 Tom Maimon, who was our Vice President and Manager of f
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1 Projects, is now our Vice President, Corporate Vice President, 2 in charge of PWR operations. As a consequence, he will have 3 direct oversight at the corporate level of the Braidwood 4 Station. He brings with him the working knowledge of the 5 construction of Byron and Braidwood and the attributes that ,
6 made the Byron and Braidwood project orgEnization so 7 successful. ,
8 I would now like to call on Cordell Reed who will 9 then be followed by Gene Fitzpatrick, our Braidwood Station 10 Manager. Gene has extensive experience in both Naval and 11 commercial nuclear power. He will explain the current status 12 of the plant and our plans to start up Unit I. Based on his 13 background and demonstrated performance, I have full confidence O.
14 that he will operate the Braidwood Station in a safe and 15 reliable manner.
16 Thank you, gentlemen. Cordell?
17 MR. REED: Thank you, Jim.
18 As Jim said, when I was here five months ago, I 19 talked about the very excellent start-up we were having on 20 Byron Unit II and that experience has continued. Outside of 21 having a super station staff, which we have a great staff that 22 learns well, part of our success I felt was the strengthening 23 of our corporate support.
24 The most significant change at our corporate
() 25 structure management level at that time was the establishment
10 1 of two Division Vice President positions within our Nuclear 2 Division. One overseeing our newer stations, LaSalle, Byron 3 and Braidwood, and the other overseeing our older stations, i
4 Dresden, Quad Cities and Zion.
5 We chose two of our most experienced and succ,essful 6 station managers to be our Division'Vice Presidents. They 7 spent three to four days a week at our nuclear stations. This l
8 has provided stability in corporate direction and has ensured 9 effective corporate support.
10 On June 5th, we made a further improvement in the 11 organization of our corporate management. I have been elevated
, .l 12 to Senior Vice President and two Corporate Vice Presidents have
- 13 been appointed to direct our PWR operations and our BWR 14 operations. Three station managers and an engineering manager 15 report in line to the Vice Presidents of Operation.
16 Additionally, the Division Vice Presidents I rentioned earlier 17 now remain General Managers, have functional control over the 18 station managers and also report to the Vice President.
19 We still utilized our leadership and experience three 20 to four days a week in our stations. I have also reorganized 21 our Nuclear Services to more effectively integrate these 22 general office departments into our station operations. All of 23 our Nuclear Services' managers and G,0 department heads have 24 extensive station experience.
25 I would like to review the performance of our nuclear
7 11 l 1 operating units. Our mission is to achieve excellence in our J
2 operations, and we define-excellence as achieving performance
'3 s in the upper quartile of INPO industry performance. data. This 4 is'just not a snappy slogan, but is a carefully developed 5 strategic plan for achieving excellence in our, operations. The 1 I
6 plan was not developed by consultants, but rather the mission
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i 7 and policies and objectives were developed by me and my senior )
8 managers.
I 9 More importantly, the action plans for achieving the {
10 . objectives-were developed by the stations and support j 11 departments. This process took over a year in planning. We 12 did not set any goals'that we can't reasonably be expected to 13- achieve. It will require a substan'tial improvement in our
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'14 operations over the next five years, but our strategic plan.is 15 the master plan for our stations and GO-goalsetting.
16 Let me now relate how we're doing in our operations.
17 I am sure that management by exception for you necessarily le makes you aware of mostly the weaknesses in our plant 19 performance. However, let me tell you a few positives about j 20 our operations to help in your appreciation of our total 21 operations.
22 As Jim said, Byron Unit 1 generated more electricity' 23 in 1986 than any other nuclear unit; however, Zion Unit 1 came 24 in third in the country. Zion Station has generated more 25 lifetime electricity than any multi-unit station in the l
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- 11 country,'and in terms of SCRAMS, INPO data show that last year 2 Quad. Cities Unit 1 was fourth best in the country, and three 3 CECO units were in the best quartile in SCRAM performance.
4 Seven out of our nine CECO units had zero safety system 5 actuations:in 1986,-and in terms of c,1vil penalties from the 6 NRC, Zion Station has gone three years without a civil penalty, 7 Quad cities has gone two years, and prior to this year, Dresden 8 had gone two years.
9 Now we receive two major ovaluations of our stations 10 each. year. One is from the INPO plant evaluation, and the 11 other is from the NRC SALP review. In terms of INPO, this is 12- how they view our stations. INPO views Quad Cities, Zion and 13 LaSalle in the broad middle of their performance ratings.
O 14 Although.this is good, it does not fulfill our strategic plan 15 'for.being.in the upper quartile of INPO's performance standards 16 by 1991. And I am proud to report, as Jim has related, that 17 Byron Station has achieved our goal, being rated in the top 16 performance rating that INPO has to offer.
19 In August 1986, INPO conducted a plant evaluation at 20 Dresden that identified a number of weaknesses and resulted in 21 a low rating.. Since that time, we have initiated extensive 22 corrective actions to address the concerns and to better manage 23 our station. These include significant personnel changes, 1 24 including a new Station Manager. In addition, Dresden
() 25 Station's performance has benefitted significantly from the 4
1 J
113 1 enhanced company emphasis on new practices, such as an error-() 2 free startup plan which involves added precautions to assure-3 that things are done right the first time and an increased 4 station and corporate involvement in our day-to-day activities, 5 which I described earlier. .
6 As a result, we are beginning to see substantial 7 improvement in station operations and are confident that 8 Dresden will do well at the next evaluation in July. INPO has 9 made short visits to the station to follow up on their 10 evaluation, and they have noted progress.
11 In February, LaSalle was removed from the Region III 12 list of troubled plants. We have had two years of very solid 13 progress at LaSalle.
14 Byron Station has set the standard for excellence for 15 all of our nuclear stations, and we have developed a major 16 program to improve the facilities at all of our nuclear 17 stations to meet this standard.
la Now last, I would like to discuss our succession 19 planning program for our nuclear operations personnel. The 20 objective of the program is to develop a reference list of 21 candidates for key jobs who are either ready now or could be 22 ready in two to five years for the necessary developmental 23 assignments. The succession planning in my area is done in i
24 conjunction with the corporate program, which includes I
() 25 executive positions and goes down to Station Managers. I have 1
o 14 1 expanded on the corporate program in my area to include many r
2 more key positions in the nuclear stations and the GO office 3 departments.
4 In the stations, we include our top positions, but we 5 also include positi,ons like Master Mechanic, Tech Staff 6 Supervisor, and Shift Control Room Engineer. The key to this 1
7 program is.that the initial list of candidates is developed by 8 the person currently holding the job, thereby allowing 9 grassroots input.
10 Finally, there is a management development program 11 administered by a Corporate Management Development Committee. ;
12 The committee is headed by Jim O' Conner, our Chairman, and 13 .
consists of ten officers of the company, including myself. The l
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14 committee identifies individuals early in their careers who I 15 have shown the potential for top job assignments, such as 16 department heads, Station Managers, and officer. The committee 17 meets monthly and tracks about 150 people. The status and 18 progress of each individual is reviewed at approximately six-19 month intervals, and developmental moves are planned by the 20 committee.
21 These.are our key management development programs,
'22 and we put a great deal of effort into this ' endeavor.
23 And now I would like to introduce Gene Fitzpatrick, 24 our Station Manager. Many of you have visited the plant where 25 Gene is at, and I think his pride and his commitment to
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1 excellence:is evident.
2 " Gene? <
3 MR. FITZPATRICK: Thank you, Mr. Reed.
4 My name is Gene Fitzpatrick, Braidwood Station l 5 . Manager. ,I will discuss Braidwood's operational readiness in. :
6: terms-oftour' organization and staffing, including'expe'ience' r
- 7 levels of our i.ey personnel.
8 The Unit 1 and Unit 2 schedules are: Unit 1 9 performance'since fuel load, two key plans that we have 10 implemented.in association of our startup, our lessons-learned l 11 program, and the status-of our model spaces program.
12 Braidwood Station'is organized like our five other 13 _ operating stations. Two Superintendents report to the Station O,3 14 ' Manager, a Production Superintendent who has responsibility for 15 operations, maintenance and station star _ tup and work planning' .
16 and a Services Superintendent who is responsible for technical 17 services, including'the radiation chemistry groups, quality 15 centrol, and the technical staff, plus training, security, 19 administrative
- functions, and regulatory assurance.
l 20 I would like to stress that we have implemented 21 within our organization a strong regulatory assurance approach :
22 which we feel provides the proper interface and upfront 23 attention with the NRC and other industry and company auditing 24 and evaluation groups. The idea is never to get to a situation 25 where a regulatory improvement program becomes necessary.
4 16 1 LCurrently, our organization consists of 676 company 2 employees, 389 contracted security personnel, and 287 3 contracted consultants, including over 100 technicians under 4 station direction who perform instrument calibrations in 5 s,upport of Unit 2.
6 Our senior personnel at the station and our 7 operations people down through our shift supervision are all-8 well experienced. For example, our top seven managers average 9 17 years of nuclear experience. Our Operating Engineers 10 average 14 years, and our shift supervision averages over 11 11 years.
12 All but our most experienced licensed operators
'13 completed a hot license participation program, primarily at 14 Zion or Byron. We have also supplemented our personnel on
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15 shift with contracted personnel who participated on shift 16 during the Unit 1 startup at Byron. -
17 Braidwood Unit 1 has achieved a significant set of 18 milestones over the past year and a half, starting with fuel 19 receipt in December 1985. Throughout 1986, we met an 20 aggressive testing schedule and loaded fuel in October within 21 four weeks of the date established in the fall of 1985. We 22 achieved initial criticality on Unit 1 on May 29,.1987 and 23 completed low-power testing on June 12th, three days ahead of 24 schedule.
25 Unit 1 is currently critical at normal operating temperature
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'l and pressure.
) .2 Pending issuance of our full-power license, our 3 schedule for. entering Mode 1 is July 4th with the completion of 4 all Unit 1 testing by September 19th and commercial operation
,5- by September 26th. ,
l 6 We have also made significant progress on Unit 2
-7 while awaiting the ASLB decision on Unit 1. The start of Unit 8 2 integrated hot functional testing is scheduled for this week 9 with fuel load scheduled for mid-December 1987.
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10 our operational performance on Unit l'to date has !
11 been very good. We had an error-free fuel load, as well as 12 error-free mode changes, initial criticality and low-power 13 testing. We have been conservative in our approach to
.14 operations when problems, mostly minor in nature,'have arisen, 15 and we've taken the time to thoroughly investigate and resolve 16 these problems before proceeding.
17 Since the issuance of the fuel load license in 18 October 1986, our regulatory performance has also been very 19 good. We continue to see a decrease in the number of personnel 20 errors, LERs, only two in the past three months.
i 21 Since fuel load, there have been a few violations 22 against the operating station. We believe these are isolated 23 occurrences for which we have corrective actions complete or 24 underway to prevent recurr;nce.
( 25 While our last SALP ratings were good, we believe l
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1 'that we have continued to improve in the interim in all areas. l 2' We' have had good success at Braidwood ideittifying our 3 goals and then' implementing these plans. There'are many- l 4 examples of'this which have worked well.- One of thess is our
. l 5 error free plan for start-up. The concept for this plan was.
6 developed at LaSalle for their 1986 start-ups following' 7 outages. The plan helpc.d LaSalle achieve error free start-ups 8 on'both units. Subsequently a similar plan was also successful' ]
9 for the Dresden Unit III start-up following their 1986' outage.
10 -
We adopted the essence of these plans at Braidwood. '1 11- because they represented a sound method of doing business. !
12 Included in our plan are special executive level reviews conducted by our corporate office and periodic meetings chaired 13 O 14 by an executive in which Byron and Braidwood personnel both '
l 15 I participate. )
16 The plan also provides for establishing during 17 periods of increased activity, a senior manager on shift, 18 adding additional SROs and Ros when necessary, around the clock 19 maintenance coverage, a shift test director in the control room 20 and enhanecd control over construction activities.
21 The shift release process adopted as a part of this 22 plan has been especially beneficial. We bring our shift l 23 -licensed personnel in a full hour before shift change. The 24 first 20 to 30 minutes are devoted to the individuals walking l 25 their areas and reviewing plant status.
r 19 1 (Whereupon, at 2:30 p.m., Commissioner Roberts left 1
2 .the room.)
3 MR. REED: Following this but prior to relief, these 4 personnel get together and jointly review the plant status and 5 other information they have collected. .These meetings are also 6- attended by maintenance foremen, the rad-waste foremen and the 7 rad-chem foremen. After the exchange, the operators conduct 8 the on-station shift relief.
9 Essentially, this error free plan focuses on 10 communications among the various personnel on shift and serves !
i 11 as a team building tool as well.
12 A second plan we have adopted at Braidwood is our 13 plan for managing Unit I and Unit II concurrent activities.
14 The intent of this plan is to help assure that appropriate 15 attention, direction, supervision and control exists for taking 1
16 Braidwood Unit I through its power ascension start-up program, 17 at the same time Unit II is undergoing pre-operational testing.
18 The overriding priority as stressed in this plan is 19 maintaining Unit I license requirements. The plan is really an 20 extension of the error free plan. Several of the error free 21 plan elements such as the corporate overviews, the shift 22 augmentation and the shift relief process are directly 23 applicable.
24 Additionally, however, we have further augmented our 25 staff to deal with concurrent Unit I and Unit II activities.
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. 20 i 1 For example, we have established a Unit II control room testing 2 supervisor manned by a Braidwood licensed SRO, who reports to 3 our Station Control Room Engineer and who supervises testing 4 activities on Unit II.
5 Another aspect of this plan is to carefully monitor 6 control room access including numbers and traffic patterns to 7 minimize control room distractions and congestion. So far 8 during Unit I initial criticality and the lower power testing a
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9- program, this plan has worked well. )
10 We also believe very strongly at Braidwood in
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11 learning from the experience of others. Our Regulatory 12 Assurance Department deals with lessons learned from Byron, 13 other plants and the industry in general.
14 For example, following the Byron Unit I start-up, a 15 task force was formed to review and document with' i
16 recommendations problem areas that arose. At Braidwood, we i i
17 have resolved each of those areas in advance of our start-up.
18 We have also reviewed all Byron deviation reports including 19 LERs, NRC inspection reports, NRC notices of violation, I 20 modifications, temporary alterations and even caution cards, to 21 assess applicability to Braidwood. These efforts will continue 22 into the future as new information becomes available.
23 One of the programs we are extremely proud of at 24 Braidwood is our model spaces program. Each of you that 25 visited Braidwood commented favorably. We started this program
21 1~ to establish an' objective standard of excellence for f2 ' housekeeping and material condition significantly above the 3 acceptable level. We believe that a clean painted plant helps 4 preserve the equipment, makes it easier to. clean up, makes 5 decontamination-practical, has extremely positive effects on 6 morale and attitude and improves safety by lowering the 1 7 threshold of visible problem areas that otherwise could 8 possibly go undetected.
9 Completion of this program will result in Braidwood 10 being one of the very best in the area of housekeeping.
11 (Whereupon,_at 2:33 p.m., Commissioner Roberts re-12- entered the room.)
13 MR. R2ED: In conclusion, we have the right attitude, 14 the dedication, the ability and the confidence to operate 15 Braidwood safely and reliably. We have set our standards and 16 our goals high. Simply-sthted, we intend to~be the best.
17 Mr. Chairman and Commissioners, Braidwood is prepared 18 in all respects to receive the full power license.
19 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Thank you very much. Questions from l l
20 my follow Commissioners?
21 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: Just a couple. Cordell, I 22 appreciate your covering the operating experience for all of 23 your stations. That was one area I was interested in 24 exploring. As you know, that is one we talked about quite
() 25 extensively about five months ago, b
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22 1 -One thing I am interested in; you mentionedTthe'INPO ~
). - ~ 2 ' assessmentsand where your. plants stood. Could you.give'me a 3 .little= perspective irt terms of trends?. In which direction are 4 they moving? Are they all moving in an upward direction?
5 MR. REED: INPO just started their numerical' ratings.
6- At least, there was one before this. . There is a new system. -l 7- For some of these plants, it is the first time through. It's 8 hard to say with respect to LaSalle, Zion and Quad Cities. . We 9 are in the middle. We want to be on top.
10 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: Dresden took a downward 11 -turn in terms of the August, 1986 evaluation. When are you due 12 again?
13 MR. REED: In July; next month. Dresden had received 14 . acceptable ratings prior to. It's no excuse but we had come 15 out of a nine month piping replacement outage on Dresden.
16 There was some slippage in performance during that' period of 17 time. 3 18 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: You talked about the 19 corporate reorganization, and I gather it has just taken place 20 within the past month or so. What advantages do you see from 21 that new organization, particularly in focusing attention on 22 your older stations and I guess LaSalle to a certain extent, ,
23 the ones that appear on the lower and of the scale, and '
24 particularly on Dresden?
() 25 MR. REED: What I see is attention to detail. Denny
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1 Galley who formerly was in charge.of all six plants will have 'f
('2 three. We have broken up Engineering so it is more responsive 3- to the station. With Danny Galley and his Division Vice 4 President, they will be able to be in these stations many. days 5 during the. week and similarly, Tom Maimon. Tom has run our 6 very successful construction and start-up of the Byron and ,
7 Braidwood units.
8 Again, it-is having more talent to look at pieces of 9 the action that they can look at in detail.
10 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: One last question on your 11- operators. Can you give me an assessment of your operators' 12; performance in-terms of licensing exams? You talked about 13 ' operating experience. How have you done in terms of preparing 14 your operators for their licenses for Braidwood? l i
15 MR. FITZPATRICK: -We feel we have done extremely 16 well. We put 66 people up for license and we licensed 63 of 17 those people. Included in that were a few re-exams. If I look 18 at the system as a black box, we licensed 95 percent of the 19 people we intended to license.
20 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: What has the pass / fail, rate
- 21. been overall in terms of first time?
.22 MR. FITZPATRICK: I believe it is about 85 percent.
23 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: That covers my questions.
24 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Commissioner Bernthal?
25 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: I don't really have any
24 4
1 technical questions with respect to the plant. It has been a 2 while since I was out to visit the plant. I was curious as to 3 the progress of your designated areas or whatever.
4 MR. FITZPATRICK: Model spaces.
5 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: Model spaces for 6 housekeeping. Whati's your schedule to extend that project 7 throughout the plant? The second part of that question is 8 housekeeping appearance is essential, of course, and you may 9 have mentioned this, and if you did,,I would appreciate your 10 repeating or perhaps elaborating on the maintenance goals with 11 respect to preventive maintenance versus required maintenance. 4 12 I'm just curious about this special program you have.
13 MR. FITZPATRICK: First of all, let me address the I O' 14 model spaces quertion. We have carried that forward since the i
15 time you were at the station. We have gone about it and I
16 approached it from let's get the guts of the plant done first.
17 That is where we are going to get the biggest payoff, being 18 able to decontaminate, for example. We have essentially 19 completed all of the Unit I equipment cubicles and all of the 20 Unit I areas adjacent to containment and all of the Unit I 21 valve aisles, with minor exceptions.
1 22 The general areas in Unit I, in the auxiliary 23 building, we have let go to last on purpose. I can do those 24 and not unnecessarily expose people and still gain the benefits 25 of being able to decontaminate in those areas we have done.
1
25 1 We have progressed very far along. We have the 1 2 program scheduled out through the end of August at this point 3 in time. We should by that time have all of the Unit I areas 4 complete.
5 The additional areas listed for Unit II are by )
6 priority and we will attack those and schedule them as they 7 come up.
8 In addition to the Unit I areas, I would like to say 9 we have also prioritized the areas that are common to both 10 units. . Gas decay tank areas, for example, we have completed.
11 The rad-waste evaporator areas that are common, we have 12 completed. We have made significant progress across the board. i 13 As far as PM goes, we feel we have a very viable PM 14 program. We are aware of the concerns about maintenance across 15 the industry. We of course are aware of the INPO guidelines. )
l 16 We review all of those guidelines and each of our stations is I 17 committed to a self evaluation. Those self evaluations have 18 started. Braidwood's is scheduled to start on July 13th.
19 Preventive maintenance will be one of the activities that is 20 looked at during that evaluation.
21 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: Do you have a goal for how 22 much of your maintenance effort, percentages have to be rough,
'23 I realize, how much of that effort and time devoted per year 24 should be devoted to preventive versus required maintenance?
l 25 Have you set a utility-wide goal or plant goal?
)
i j
I 26 1 MR. FITZPATRICK: I don't know of any goal that has
( 2 'been set in that area.
3 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: 30 percent, 50 percent? I 4 have herrd 80 percent in some cases, which is surprisingly 5 large. There are countries that do that.
6 MR. FITZPATRICK: If I had to render a guess, I would i 7 probably fall within the bracket you said; I would have said 8 somewhere between 30 and 50 percent.
9 MR. REED: We have not set a goal. Interestingly, at 10 Dresden, we are going to be one of the utilities where INPO makes a site visit to do a very detailed looking at Dresden's i
11 12 preventive maintenance. From that input and from looking at 13 all of our plants, we will make any adjustments in our program 14 that is needed. I can't hazard a guess as to what percentage 15 will be PM.
16 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: Unrelated to this plant but 17 I'm also a little concerned as you are, I'm sure, about what is 18 going on at Dresden, do you have any preliminary analysis there l
19 of why they should have had this apparent slippage? Is it too l 20 soon to tell?
21 MR. REED: I think we were trying to do a lot of 22 things at one time. One of the things about INPO when they 23 come'in, they want to see a station that is continually making 24 progress. I must admit we had some long term equipment things !
() 25 that we were going to get around to doing, like replacing the l
)
27 1 make up demineralizer and the heating system. I think INPO l 2 caught us in a period of time when we weren't going to do that 3 because we had Unit III apart. They call them like they see 4 them. .They are a very good motivational force.
5 What it has caused us to do at Dresden is to do a' lot l 6 more than we had originally intended to do. We are using the 7 Byron Station as the example. Our paint up program is directed a to get a station that is going to look like Byron. More 9 important than painting is to improve the material condition of
'10 the station. That is one of the reasons we are focusing 11 Engineering the way we are, to focus in directly on Dresden and 12 Quad Cities and those problems. .
13 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: The complaints were primarily Ca) 14 fairly objective hardware things that they wanted to see done 15 or thought were going to be done earlier and that had not been 16 carried out yet? Is that a fair statement?
17 MR. REED: Yes. Three basic areas. One was !
l 18 chemistry. Our chemists were not inquisitive enough to follow !
19 abnormal chemistry results. The second is rad-protection.
20 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: Water chemistry? )
21 MR. REED: Water chemistry. In rad-protection, they 22 found too many evidences where people weren't following the {
l 23 rules. INPO will go out and stand at a step-off pad and stand 24 there for three hours. They will count 70 people and see how 25 many of them do their frisking properly.
4 28 4,
1 The:other thing they said that was'maybe most I) .
21 profound was they felt the station management didn't get out in-3 the plant enoughland to set their standard ~as to what they 4- wanted to; happen.
-5 'It was a number of things that bothered them..
6 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: That was two plants ago, and
.7 not when I visited Braidwood, but I think when I was at Byron 18 earlier, that I got a sense of your personal concern about the 9 level of independence that each plant had. I think that is a 10 problem that you, I trust, are long past. . Nevertheless, here 11 is a utility that'is used to running a numb'er of plants and by l
12- and large has done a competent job of doing that, and yet one 13 plant seems to be a problem point.
O 14 Do you.have any sense as to the reason why? Is it 15 just that your energies'have been focused and your personnel 16 focused cut the other plants? Why should that be?
17 MR. REED: I just cannot answer that question. It 18 seems like in a plant's lifetime, they seem to cycle. At times 19 the chemistry is not right.
'20 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: This is not water chemistry.
21' MR. REED: No, this is the chemistry of the 22 personnel. .Dresden has gone through periods where it has 23 performed quite well and then it will'get a lot on its platter 24 and do poorly. A part of where we are going with our
() 25 organization here with attention'to detail and our top managers
.o 29 1 looking in great detail is we cannot allow that to happen
) 2' again. Whether it is resources or whatever is needed, we think 3 we are not going to let our plants fall below our standards for 4 excellence.
5 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: Thank you very much.
6 CHAIRMAN ZECH: I have a question on the model spaces 7 program. You commented briefly on it. I trust you are going 8 to continue that program. Ehy don't you describe it a little 9 bit for us. I'd like to hear your intentions to continue it.
10 It does seem like an excellent program and one you have put a 11 lot of attention into. Why don't you describe it a little bit? '
12 I would like to hear about your intentions for the future.
13 MR. FITZPATRICK: What we tried to do initia'lly was O, ,
14 come up with an objective model so we could show people what 15 the standard was. It's very difficult to explain in words. We 16 figured if we could take a space and clean it from the top to 17 the bottom and paint it out from the top to the bottom, we 18 could use it as an objective demonstration of what we expected 19 the rest of the plant to look like. '
20 We started with the make up demineralizer room, which 21 is a difficult space to start with because you have a lot of 22 acid and caustic skids in that particular space, and we did 23 just that. We cleaned it from top from bottom, we painted it 24 from the top to the bottom. i 25 We used that as a demonstration. We took all our i
i 9
30 1 plant people through that space, including the clerical people,
( 2 and said, this is our standard at Braidwood Station and what we 3 expect our spaces to look like. We expanded the program on a 4, priority. type basis, picked up additional spaces, and we are 5 continuing to move in that direction.
6 Our intention is to in the enclosed spaces, make all 7 of them look exactly like the first model space, which is an 8 enclosed space. Some of the more wide open areas in the 9 auxiliary building, of course, will be done all the way around, I
10 ceilings, walls and floor. In the turbine building, we won't 11 go quite that extensive, we don't intend to paint the ceiling 12 in our turbine building. There will be treatment done in the 13 turbine building that will be very similar. The turbine 14 building right now on two levels looks just like the model 15 space, except not quite as extensive.
16 Our intent is to continue that effort throughout the 17 plant.
18 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Good. One last question on Unit I 19 and Unit II. You have different tasks being performed on both 20 those units now. You mentioned earlier you figured you have 21 the wherewithal and the management skills and experience ,
22 capability to do that.
23 I would expect you to say that. I would just say it 24 is a challenge. I hope you have enough personnel and you have
, i k[,) 25 looked at that rather carefully. With the power ascension of q
- o.
31 L 1 Unit I and the' pre-operational testing of Unit II, you are
,2 'doing different things ~and you need different kinds of people.
3 it'is a challenge. I presume you have figured you have looked' 4 at that carefully and you are ready to meet it. .
5 MR.-FITZPATRICK: We have looked at that. We intend' 6 to continue to look at it. You can set out the best of -
\
7 schedules but that will have to be' looked at'on a day by day, 8 shift by shift basis.
-l 9 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Yes, you will have to watch it' 10 continuously. Any other questions from my fellow L 11 Commissioners?
( 4 12 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: I would just make one
( 13 comment. I have mentioned the preventive maintenance thing. I L >
14 would urge you to establish a goal, a fairly aggressive goal, 15 for ratio of preventive maintenance. A number of utilities 16 have done that. When I hear 80 percent, frankly, I'm 17 surprised. When you think about 30 to 50 percent, that 18 basically means you are going to wait for half the things to 4 19 break. Based on what one sees in Japan and elsewhere and I 20 know some of you have been to Japan and other countries and you 21 know the vast majority of their effort is spent on preventive L
22 maintenance and it pays off.
l 23 It is just a thought. I thought this was a fairly j 24 commonly accepted theorem at this point. I don't want to over 25 simplify it. It is sort of like changing florescent lights,
32-5 1- when you.are in a big building, you do it all at once. You
() 2 just do it because you don't'want to wait for each one to burn 3 out separately. That's an over simplification.
4 MR. REED: We will do that, Commissioner Bernthal. I
~
5 will feed back to you what we think that goal is.
6 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: I think INPO has some general 7 policy directions in that regard, although I am not familiar 8 with~them in detail.
9 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Anything else?
10 (No response.)
11 i CHAIRMAN ZECH: Thank~you very much. We appreciate 12 it. We will ask the staff to.come forward now, please.
13 (Pause.]
14 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Mr. Stello, you may proceed.
1 15 MR. STELLO: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
16 I will introduce Tom Murley, the Director of NRR, and i
'17 Bert Davis, our Region III Administrator, and they in turn will 18 introduce other people who will be making the presentations.
19 There are two brief points that I think are important 20 that I wanted to make at the outset. One is that we're here 21 gecausewearenowsatisfiedthatalltherequirements 22 necessary for the issuance of the license have been met, and 23 < we're' prepared to go forward.
24 But there's another point that I think is important,
( ) 25 and it's one that the Commission was discussing a moment ago
a !
i j 33 1 .with the Licensee that I wanted to also bring up, and that is ,
( '2 to make sure that the-commission understands that we are fully 3l ~ aware'that a number of plants at this. facility will represent 4 as -- ILthink the tenth'in operation within the company, and l S. that is a fairly substantial responsibility that we are -- and i
6 I will ask'Bert later to identify some of the things that we i
.7 will do to assure that all of those plants have an even and 8 steady period of operation and that we can see that the trends 9 are clearly there to. improve.
10 But more significantly, we are going to be very 11 careful to watch,when we see indications that the experience 12 that we saw with Dresden, where they were backing off, and we 13 are going to try to make sure that we can identify that early 14 and bring that to the Licensee's attention to avoid periods of l 15 uneven operation for which they're clearly -- I think Mr. Reed 16 correctly pointed out that that does happen, and I think the 17 important thing is to recognize that it is happening and turn 18 that around carefully.
19 .I have asked Bert, who will later bring up some 20 , examples of some of the things that we are doing, and we spent 21- a great deal of time concerning ourselves with that issue and 22 will continue to do so in the future.
23 With that, I'll ask Tom Murley to begin.
24 MR. MURLEY: Yes. Jan Stevens, the Project Manager, 25- will talk about the plant design and the licensing aspects, and i
1 i
34 1 then Chuck Norelius from the-Region will talk about 2 construction and startup testing and progress.
3 I should say, I was out at the plant last week, and 4 Bert and I spent the day walking around the plant with his 5 staff and the Senior Resident Inspector, and so I've got some 6 observations that I'd like to share at the end as well.
7 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Fine. Thank you.
8 MR. MURLEY: Jan?
9 MS. STEVENS: Good afternoon.
10 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Good afternoon.
11 MS. STEVENS: Commonwealth Edison is the owner and 12' operator of Braidwood Station, as well as five other nuclear 13 stations. Siting -- there is no unique siting features for O? . 14 this facility.
15 Could I have Slide 2, please?
16 (Slide.) ;
J 17 All the emergency planning onsite and offsite 18 licensing requirements have been completed at this time. A i
19 full participation emergency exercise was conducted on November 20 6th of 1985. No deficiencies were identified during this 21 exercise.
22 A partial emergency exercise was conducted on March 23 18th of this year. Two minor deficiencies were identified, and 24 they have been subsequently resolved by FEMA.
( h 25 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: Who participated in the a
55 1- partir.1 exercise?.
( '2- MS. STEVENS: It was full participation by the State 3 of Indiana, partial by the State of Illinois, and several 4 counties also participated..
S COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: Okay.- Thank you.
15 MS. STEVENS: The two deficiencies had to do with 7 problems with the participation by Kankakee County.
'8 Slide 3, please.
9' (Slide.] ,
10 Braidwood Station is a standard four-loop 11 Westinghouse PWR. The architect engineer was Sargent & Lundy, 12 and Commonwealth Edison served as the general contractor. It 13 uses.a Westinghouse nuclear steam supply system, which has a 14 rated power of 3411 megawatt thermal. The containment consists 15 of a reinforced concrete cylinder with a steel liner. It has 16 sufficient free volume to precl'ude the need for any pressure 17 suppression devices.
18 There are no unique design features for this 19 facility, but it is important to note that it is a duplicate 20 plant design with Byron Station, as has been noted previously.
1 21 The applications for the licenses for both Byron and '
22 Braidwood were filed under the standardization policy of 1978, r .
j 23 specifically the duplicate plant option. The duplicate design 24 features include the Westinghouse nuclear steam supply systems, 25 the balance-of-plant systems, as well as associated auxiliary
I 36 l 1 systems.
2 The site-specific features include certain site-3 related characteristics, changes from the Byron Station design, 4 and utility-oriented safety-related matters. I The site-related 1 1
5 characteristics include seismology, hydrology,. meteorology, and 4 1
1 l
6 certain foundation engineering issues. The changes from the j l
7 Byron Station design include offsite power systems, just due to '
8 the different locations on the grid and the water systems due 9 to the different sources of water. The essential service water lo and ultimate heat sinks are provided by a cooling pond for 11 Braidwood Station versus cooling towers for Byron Station.
12 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: As a practical matter, how 13 much difference is there in terms of the hardware in the plant?
14 Pretty much identical? ,
15 MS. STEVENS: Very identical. Liko I said, the major ;
16 difference is due to the different sources of water and the 17 ultimate heat sinks and essential service water.
18 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: Right.
19 MS. STEVENS: Slide 4.
20 [ Slide.]
21 The evidentiary hearing was conducted for two 22 separate contentions, emergency planning and harassment and 23 intimidation. The hearings commenced on October 29, 1985 and 24 were completed on November 26th of '86. Their official record 25 was closed, then, on December 17th of '86.
37 1 .The hearing for the emergency planning contention
( 2 spanned three hearing days, and the QA contentions spanned a 3 total of 97 hearing days.
4 The initial decision issued by the Board on emergency 5 planning was issued on May 13th of this year, and the initial 6 decision on the harassment and and other discrimination issue 7 was issued on May 19th. The ASLB decision authorized issuance 8 of the full-power license pending Commission approval.
9 A Notice of Appeal has been received by the 10 Intervenors on June 1 concerning the ASLB decision on 11 harassment and other discrimination.
12 The licensing milestones include the following. The 13 construction permit was issued on December 31st of 1975. A zero 14 power license was issued on October 17th of '86. This was a 15 special license issued under 10 CFR 50.57(c) due to the impact 16 of the hearing process on licensing.
17 Fuel loading was completed on November 3rd of '85. A 18 ,
low-power license was issued on May 21st of this year following 19 the ASLB decision, and initial criticality was achieved on May 20 29th.
21 Slide 5, please.
22 (Slide.]
23 There are two exemptions noted in the license for 24 Braidwood Station. One concerns a criticality alarm system,
( 25 and the other concerns the containment airlock testing. Both
38 1 of these are found in most licenses today.
( 2l The only plant-specific license condition concerns 3- Reg Guide 1.97. The preliminary evaluation of this review has 4- ~been submitted, and a final report will be submitted within six 5 months of our approval of the DCRDR report. It was tied to the 6 DCRDR review.
7 Slide 6, please.
8 (Slide.)
9 There is a total cf 1,341 personnel at the station.
10 The operators are on 8 hour9.259259e-5 days <br />0.00222 hours <br />1.322751e-5 weeks <br />3.044e-6 months <br /> shifts with a total of 6 crews.
11 The shift composition is as noted in the table. You will 12 notice that actual staffing exceeds the tech spec requirements 13 in each case. There are a total of 63 licensed operators. As 14 I note on the slide, the Braidwood operating experience is 15 enhanced by individuals who have actual operating experience at 16 Byron. The Byron shift advisors, which were required on Byron 17 Unit I, are being used at Braidwood, although they are not 18 required at Braidwood.
19 Also some of the Braidwood operators actually 20 received their hot functional testing at the Byron site as well 21 as the Zion site. One of the shift foremen at Braidwood was 22 formerly a SCRE at Byron.
23 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: They have at least an SRO 24 with the sufficient hot operating experience and then they are 25 using the advisors as well?
(
, 1 39 l 4
1 MS. STEVENS: That's right; voluntarily. At least ,
2 one per shift at.this time.
3 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: How often do they rotate .)
4 shifts as'a matter of curiosity? Is it sort of a standard two 5 weeks or weekly?
6 MS. STEVENS: l I'm not sure I can answer that. I know 1 7 they have two crews on each of the day shifts and one in the 8 evening shift and then they have one that is always in 9 training.
10 CHAIRMAN ZECH: We can ask the licensee.
11 MR. MURLEY: We have our Senior Resident Inspector, 12 too.
13 MR. FITZPATRICK: Essentially rotation is on a weekly 14 basis.
15 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Thank you.
16 MS. STEVENS: At this time, Bert Davis and Chuck 17 Noreliur will continue the discussion.
18 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Thank you very much.
19 MR. NORELIUS: I would like to introduce a couple-20 other Region III people before I start. Bill Little is the 21 Director of our Braidwood Project. Tom Tongue is the Senior 22 Resident for Operations. Wayne Kropp is the Senior Resident 23 for Construction.
24 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Thank you.
25 (Slide.)
4 40 1 MR. NORELIUS: To give a little bit of the 2 construction history at the Braidwood site, Braidwood 3 essential 1y began'their construction in about 1975. There was 4 a work stoppage in late 1979/1980, which I think may have 5 contributed to some of the problems that came up after that.
6 Any time you have'a stoppage, there is a discontinuity in 7 ' records. Re-staffing is a problem. I think that may have 8 contributed to some of the problems we found in early 1982.
'9 At that time, deficiencies were discovered in that 10 written and approved procedures had not been used for the 11 installation and inspection of major safety related mechanical 12 equipment. That was an issue for which we issued a civil 13 penalty of $100,000 and that at this point has been the only 14 escalated enforcement action taken at the Braidwood site.
15 The company did develop a rather comprehensive 16 program of corrective action for that particular issue at that 17 time.
18 In 1983 and 1984, we identified other construction 19 deficiencies. I guess the most significant one had to do with 20 the question of the verification of whether correct material
'21 was used for piping. That again resulted in a substantial L
22 corrective action program, including inspection by the National
'23 Board of Boiler and Pressure Vessels and a number of things the j 1
24 utility did.
]
L(])25 At the conc 1usion of that, we decided that the
41 IV hardvare problems were not.really that substantial. We did not
)' -2 issue an escalated enforcement action when all was said and 3 done.
4 The company did develop a multitude of corrective 5 action programs during that time to address all of the problems 6 that had been identified by us and their own QA organization.
7 We conducted some major inspections, the construction-8 appraisal team, conducted-by the office of Inspection and 9 Enforcement, in late 1984 and 1985. . While they found several 10 individual violations, they concluded there was not a 11 programmatic type of breakdown that related to construction.
12 We had the NE VAN which was there in the Spring of 13 1984 and again while they found a few violations, they were" 14 basically satisfied with the results of their findings as well.
15 The independent design review was done a little 16 differently at the Braidwood site. We had performed an 17' independent design inspection at Byron, a duplicate site, and 18 .an independent design review by a contractor who looked also at 19 ' Byron and separately at Clinton, which has the same architect 20 engineers, Sargent & Lundy. For the Braidwood station, they.
-21 took all of the problems that were identified in these other 22 inspections and submitted to us a plan for addressing the 24 corrective actions and then a team went out from Headquarters 24 to assure they had taken the corrective actions. That is the
( ) ' 25 way that area was handled at the Braidwood site. We were
? A:
42 Il satisfied with their actions.
, 2 -. ' The major ' action undertaken by the utility .to give 3 added assurance as to the adequacy of construction was the BCAP 4 program, Braidwood construction assessment program. They 5 commented generally on what it involved. I might just
.' 6 - -elaborate a little more.
7 There were three basic elements t,o that program. One 8 was to go back and' inspect a sample of completed work to assure 9 that past work had been done properly. The second was to 10 review procedures of all the contractors they had on-site, to 11 assure they had in them the appropriate design specifications.
12 That was more forward looking, to assure that work from that 13 point on would be done properly. Third, they reviewed a sample 14 of the major corrective action programs that they had ongoing 15 separate from BCAP, to give it an overview, to assure those 16 programs would in fact correct the problems and lead to a .i 17 proper conclusion.
18 That program was carried out by inspectors who had 19 not been involved in the original work. It was performed under 20 the Commonwealth Edison QA program. In addition, they had an i 21 independent overview committee, a group from a consultant, 22 Evaluation Research Corporation, which independently overviewed 23 that program.
i 24 As far as the Region is concerned, we assigned one
() 25 full-time inspector to overview the BCAP program and he was on
-43 1 that assignment for about one year. We also had specialist
,,/ 2 inspectors who reviewed the Sargent & Lundy resolution of 3 deficiencies that were identified with that program, to assure 4 we agreed with the resolution of those.
. 5 We also conducted monthly public meetings with the 6 utility to review the results on an ongoing basis so we kept 7 track of that. We felt that was a good program and did in fact 8 satisfy the goal of giving added assurance that the 9 construction at Braidwood was adequate.
10 With regard to allegations, since 1983 we've had 11 about 68 total allegation files. Ten of those remain open.
12 Five are open because of OI considerations, and one has to do 13 with the Department of Labor. In all' cases, we have looked at 14 the technical details, the technical allegations that have been 15 involved and have satisfied ourselves that there are no safety 16 issues which remain open at this time.
17 Could I have the next slide?
18 [ Slide.) -
19 The preoperational startup testing has gone very well 20 at Braidwood. They mentioned their schedule, and I would not 21 reiterate the schedule, but just say that in our experience, I 22 think it's probably the best we have seen in terms of setting 23 out a schedule for the final year of operation and meeting that j 24 schedule. We think they did an excellent job in that area.
( 25 They also talked, I believe, about their dedicated
44 1 startup organization. Just a few points there. They'had 30 2 people in that group. It was headed by an Assistant 1
3 Superintendent with a Braidwood SRO license. We felt that this i
~;.
)
was positive in taking a lot of the burden off the operating 4_
]
1 5- and tech"ical staff for planning related to startups. We j 6 thought that.was very positive in'that program. .,
7 'We did give them a Category 1 rating in the pre-op 8 testing area in our last SALP report.
9 Could'I have the next slide, please.
10 (Slide.)
11 This is a summary of the last SALP report, and this. -!
12 was for the period of December 1985 through November of 1986.
13 There were three areas where we gave them' Category 1 ratings.
14 I've already mentioned the pre-operational testing area. We 15 also give them a 1 in operational readiness, and this was 16 related to their planning for fuel loading and the actual 17 loading of fuel that was involved. Their error-free operation 18 plan that they had initiated early on, their scheduling, their I I
19 control room decorum, if you will, the way they handle 20 activities in the control room,.we thought those were all 21 positive indicators, and we gave them a Category 1 in that 22 rating.
l 23 The other area had to do with the quality control and j 24 administrative controls, and that was basically given to them
'25. because of the management changes that they made to plan for J
o 45
'e li 'and carry out the multiple activities, and I believe they
() discussed most'of those with'you when they were up here, so 3' I'll not repeat those.
4 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: Could I just focus on maybe 5 one of those'or two?
'6 One would think with their.large organization and, 7 capability -- for. example, training and qualification ought to 8 be 1 instead of a 2. Why is it'a 27-I believe at the time we looked into 9 MR. NORELIUS:
10 the pass rate of operators during that particular SALP period, 11 and that was about at the national average at that point in 12 time.
. 13 [Whereupon, at 3:10 o' clock, p.m., Commissioner
.14 Roberts left the hearing room.]
15 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: I see. So that was the 16 predominant -- that's the predominant indicator that you use?
17 MR. NORELIUS: Well, we look at a number of things.
18 We have looked at their aggressiveness in meeting the INPO 19 schedule in terms of submittal. We tend to look-at feedback 20 that goes from how they handle events and how that gets fed 21 back into the operating area or maintenance.
22 So in part, of cours's you're dealing with a time when 23 the plant was not operating there, so in that area, wg probably l
24 did not have a lot of data on which to base a judgment. '
25 MR. DAVIS: The other thing that we consider.more in
-p 46
-1 operating plants than this one is the personnel errors. That's I 2 another factor, in, addition to those that Chuck said.
3 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: Let me pick one more. What 4_ about security? What does that mean? Why is that a 2 instead
'5> of a 17 Is that just based on the number of events that come
'6 through to the monitor or the duty officer or what,?
7 MR. NORELIUS: Normally we would look at the 8 organization as it's set up, the corporate security support, 9 the site security group.
10 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: Regulatory performance?
11 MR. NORELIUS: Yes, except again, at this point, 12 before they have the license, they don't have a regulatory 13 basis, so we tend to look at where there. are weaknesses in 14 staffing up. Just prior to the issuance of the license and 15- shortly thereafter, Braidwood'did have some security events, 16 and there were some weaknesses that we had identified in the 17 program.
18 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: One other question, a page ,
19 back here, I guess, but is your broad judgment that this 20 dedicated startup organization has been a great assist here? I 1
21 would think so and hope so.
22 (Whereupon, at 3:12 o' clock, p.m., Commissioner 23 Roberts reentered the hearing roca.]
24 MR. NORELIUS: Yes. I think this was the first plant 25 where we had seen that done that way. ThAy also did another
47 4
1- thing in the-construction side. They had appointed a Unit 1
() 2 Construction Manager and a Unit 2 construction Manager, which 3 seemed,to give more' organizational management attention to E 4 . construction.
5 They also had a project startup -- project test 6 group,,which helped them -- and that was ,at separate group, and
- 7. that helped them make the transit' ion in getting systems from 8 construction through pre-op testing to operations.
9 And so yes, we thought that this and their other 10 organizations were rather innovative and positive.
11 COMMISSIONER CARR: What happens to the startup team 12 .after they're through starting up?
13 MR. NORELIUS: As I recall, they have. moved -- they 14 moved some people from the project organization, some they 15 -integrated into the plant, but some have gone over to work now 16 on the Unit 2 startup. But beyond that, you may have to ask 17 the utility. '
i 18 CHAIRMAN ZECH: All right. Proceed.
i 19 MR. NORELIUS: We can go to the next slide, please. 1 l
20 (Slide.] )
i 21 The fuel loading and initial criticality were handled 1
22 very well at the Braidwood Station and really without any )
I 23 incident at all. l 24- We did an operational readiness team inspection at
( ) 25 the site during the first week of June, and we had seven i
_ . _ _ _ J
48 3 1 inspectors, including specialists from our office, and three ;
( 2 Senior Resident Inspectors. We had the Senior Resident from 3 Callaway and Byron, like plants, and also from the Kewaunee 4 plant, which has had a good operating record. And the team 5 looked at operations, maintenance, nuclear engineering, 6 radiation protection and chemistyy activities.
7 While they had some suggestions in areas that they 8 gave to the plant to look at and follow up, the overall 9 conclusion was that the plant was in really good shape and 10 ready for getting a full-power license. They came away very 11 pleased, and it was a rather positive report.
12 There have been no major LERs, Licensee Event Reports 13 that have been issued. There were a couple that I might just 14 mention that we followed, some during the period when they were 15 waiting between getting the fuel in the pot and getting the 16 reactor going.
17 At one point, the lost component cooling water which 18 gave them a loss of the residual heat removal system, and this 19 was caused by a problem with a valve that leaked by and an 20 alarm that did not work at an appropriate level. That's been 21 reviewed in terms of design concerns, as well as their 22 corrective action, and we're satisfied with that at this time.
23 They had another one where they were doing some 24 cleaning in the cable-spreading room over the reactor, over the
( ) 25 control room, and water backed up and ran over and got some of
i 49 1 the instrumentation wet, and that was of some concern. And
) 2 they took actions to modify their system for assuring that 3 drains are unplugged that could affect control room operations.
f 4 , Then another issue related to rocker arms in the
.5 diesel generators that exhibited some cracking. This came 6 about because of -- there was a seizure.of what they' call 7 crossheads in the diesels that caused the initial problem.
8 Upon investigation, Cooper-Besmer indicated that some of the 9 replacement rocker arms had a lower tensile strength and 10 therefore may have caused some of that cracking or have 11 contributed to it. And they had a couple of other failures 12 that were unexplained later on.
13 We were involved in reviewing that, as was the Vendor 14 Branch from Headquarters in Cooper-Besmer, and they replaced 15 those that indicated cracking, and they then went back, and 16 they have since done the 100-hour runs which were recommended 17 by Cooper-Beamer. They were inspected after that~ time and 18 ' found not to exhibit further cracking, and the vendor believes 19 they are satisfactory. The utility is planning, however, to 20 replace those with the lower tensile strength, and they have 21 ordered those replacement parts. They just arrived onsite 1
22 today, I believe, or late last week. ~
23 And no we will be following the replacement of those 24 and make sure there is not any further problem with the diesel ,
I 25 generators.
l 1
1
i 50 1 Subsequent to the criticality, I think there was one
) 2 LER, one event that we thought had some significance. They had 3' the main steam isolation valve, one of them, that was gagged
~
4 shut while they were working on it, and the gag did not hold it 5 shut, and.it came open. This cleared an alarm in the control 6 room which,-although an operator recognized the change in 7 condition, he talked to someone who had just been down in the l
8 area and had seen the gag on it and said, "That can't be, 9 because it's' gagged shut," and as a result, which I think is 10 really a communications problem, they violated some of their 11 limiting conditions for operation timewise.
12 And so that is an issue chere we are still reviewing 13 it and have'not yet determined the appropriate enforcement O. 14 action.
15 overall, I don't think you can compara LERs to other 16 plants because the time involved with this station has been so 17 much different. As a generality, comparing it to Byron I, I 18 would say I would think they are better than Byron Unit I was.
19 They are not as good as Byron Unit II was.
That'might be 20 expected with the new plant and with new people involved.
21 That is sort of how we would see their events. l 22 overall, with regard to Unit I, I would say that is 23- in a higher state of operational readiness than any other plant 24 I have seen in the last four or five years. I think it is
' 25 ready to go. The time that they couldn't operate probably
51 11; helped them in a sense in getting a lot of backlog. caught up 2 and those things. We believe they are ready to go.
3 You expressed questions to them about how they were 4 .' managing Unit I_versus Unit II.
They have described.that' .
5 program-for you. The only thing I.would add.is we are' aware..of
)
6 that,, concern also. We are planning augmented inspection 7 coverage as.soon as the license is approved and'they begin-8 their power ascension testing. This will include some around 9 the clock coverage and after we do that for a few days, we will '
10 back down'to something less than that, but where we will still 11 cover all the shift turnovers for several more days until we 12 feel comfortable they are doing that.
13 our residents also have and will continue to attend 14 their plan of the day meeting. If they think there is too much 15- that is going on, they will feel free to raise that issue with 16 the utility.
17 MR. DAVIS: Also, Chuck, I think we decided that if 18 on the plan of the day meeting, we saw a lot of activity on 19 Unit I and Unit II at the same time, we.would go back onto the
~
20 shifts.
21 MR. NORELIUS: Right.
22 MR. DAVIS: Vic asked me to say'a few words on what 23 we are going to be doing to try to make sure that the 24 Commonwealth operating plants don't go back into sine waves or 25 cycles as Mr. Reed said.
i f
I 52 1 .I' guess there are a number of-things. You are aware 2 of the management meetings that Mr. Stallo has, where we
. . I 3 concentrate on the plants that need further attention. That 4' will direct us towards performing additional inspections, not 5 only regional inspections but NRC inspections at these plants i
6 ,, ,
in order to try'to' diagnose their problems and help to see that i 7- the problems get solved.
8 -We also, of course, as you know, have reorganized-9 from a regional perspective. I see quite a bit of attention on 10- plants now from NRR, not only via telephone calls but by the 11 presence of NRR people in the region and at the plants.
.12 From the-regional perspective, we are doing several 13 things. With our workload on pre-operational testing of plants C 14 going down, it provides the management and the inspectors with 15 more time to spend on operating plants. The rather large crew 16 that we had in a section that was applied _to pre-operational 17 testing now can be put into monitoring operations. We are 18 continuing something that we began a couple of years ago and I 19 think probably it began mostly with Byron I, and that is to 20 have periodic meetings at the branch chief level with plants, 21 to review their performance and generally most of our plants 22 have performance indicator books now that they publish monthly.
23 -We plan to do that on a monthly basis, particularly 24 with the new plants and those plants that are having problems.
25 In' addition, either Mr. Norelius or my Deputy Regional
53-e 1- Adainistrator-or I intend'to participate in those meetings !
( ~2 quarterly, unless it is indicated more frequently, and there is 3 one plant in the region now that I am planning to meet monthly _
4 on. ~
5 That is the type of thing we will'do in order to try ,
6 to make sure the plants don't go through adverse cycles.
i 7 CHAIRMAN ZECH; Do you have a conclusion to give us? l 8 MR. STELLO:- Mr. Murley is going to give that and he 9 has some additional comments.
10 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Fine.
11 MR. MURLEY: I would mention that Bert and I kicked
~
12 around the plant Saturday. There were some observations I 1
s 13 would like to' share. .j 14 We mentioned earlier and we have learned from 15 experience that we can see good performance and poor 16 performance within the same company. The key, I believe, is 17 the station manager. Here, I'm satisfied that Mr. Fitzpatrick
~
18 is setting the right tone for the plant. I think all the signs 19 that we saw or I-saw is he is on top of the activities at the
- 20. plant, he is clearly following the details. He has given his 21 staff the right kind of guidance, putting safety first and so 22 forth. We sensed a positive attitude and they are responsive 23 to NRC. I find the signs quite good.
24 Another indicator, which I will use because I think
( ) 25 some of you have seen it when you were out at the plant, is a ;
54 l
a 1 device called a microelectronic surveillance and calibration
) 2 unit, MESAC. It is a self contained unit that you can wheel up l
3 and plug into the cabinets to do surveillances. They have l
. l 4 developed this. It goes well beyond our regulations. They are 5 quite proud of what they have done. I think it is a good idea.
6 I think it is clearly going to improve safety at that plant. !
l 7 It is something I would recommend be adopted overall.
8 Their experience is it cuts down surveillance. testing I 9 time by about a factor of ten, from 1,000 hours0 days <br />0 hours <br />0 weeks <br />0 months <br /> to 200 hours0.00231 days <br />0.0556 hours <br />3.306878e-4 weeks <br />7.61e-5 months <br /> a 10 month, since there is no lifted leads and that sort of thing.
11 There is much less opportunity for human error in surveillance 12 testing. That is a thing that we find contributes to a number 13 of events and accidents at plants.
14 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: If that is as good as you say 15 it is, why doesn't everyone have one?
16 MR. MURLEY: Somebody has to do it first, I think.
17 My understanding is that Westinghouse is developing it for 18 sale. I suspect we will see it marketed. It is such a good 19 idea that I can't imagine it won't get done. I wish we had the !
20 foresight to put it in our regulations.
21 I have one potential concern, and it has been 22 mentioned. I will just reiterate it. Escalating power of Unit 23 I, while they are in the last stages of pre-op testing and j I
24 getting ready for start-up of Unit II, is going to be a
() 25 challenging job. They intend to load fuel, as you probably i
o
,y 55 1 know, in December of this year. Keeping on top ~of that is a I '2 challenge for any one person. In fact, either the' power 3 escalation or.the pre-op testing can demand full timeoof one 4 individual.
~5 As Bert said, we won't hesitate if we see anything-6 developing to step in and make sure.the operation of Unit I 7 takes first priority.
1.
8 Our conclusion is the licensee satisfies all 9 requirements for the issuance of a full power license for 10 Braidwood Unit I.
11 CHAIRMAN'ZECH: Tha,nk you very much. Any questions 12 from my fellow Commissioners? Commissioner Roberts?
13 COMMISSIONER ROBERTS: No.
14 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Commissioner Asselstine?
15 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: I guess one of the things'I 16 would like to do is get a sense both from you,'Bert, and from 17 you, Tom, as well, for your evaluation and assessment of 18 Commonwealth's system-wide performance now. We talked a bit 19 about this five months or so ago. I would be interested in 1 20 your assessment of what the trends are and in particular, I 21 would be interested in your evaluation of Dresden, where you
.22 think we stand now on Dresden. !
23 MR. MURLEY; Let me mention from our perspective, we j 1
24 talked quite a bit about this in our management discussions. I
( 25 get back to my emphasis on plant managers. I think from what I J
's 56
_1 have.seen so far, a lot depends in the commonwealth system on l
( -2 the plant _ manager himself, the station manager. They have a 3 fair amount of autonomy. We see mixed results. I think we are 4 going to be taking a look at Dresden pretty carefully. I don't 5 know the causes there. I'm_too new to it. Certainly, there 6 are some problems there. ,
7 MR. DAVIS: I guess I could give you my perspective i 8 on the different plants. I will start with Dresden. Dresden's 4
9 performance has not been good, as explained by Mr. Reed. They 10' have made a number of changes in order to improve. Those 11 changes include the changes from corporate management that Mr.
12 Reed discussed as well as a number of changes at the plant.
13 They have changed the plant manager. They switched the 14 Assistant Superintendent of Operations,and the Assistant 15 Superintendent of Planning. They have brought in an Assistant 16 Superintendent for Maintenance from. Quad cities. They have 17 added a QC Supervisor, an INPO Coordinator, a new master ;
)
18 mechanic and several others. They have made a number of i
19 changes at the plant. In addition to that, they have a number i 20 of corrective action programs that are underway.
i 21 With respect to improvement in performance, I guess !
i 1
22 my view is the jury is still out. I see improvements in 23 housekeeping. I see improvements in radiation protection. I 24 see the possibility of improvements based on these programs 25 they have but I would rather wait and watch them before I make
i 6
57 1 a comment any further than that.
2 With respect to Quad Cities, it has been a good 3 performer for the last couple of years. We have just mailed 4 out a SALP report the other day that the company may or may not 5 have received yet. It was a good SALP report. It had three.
6 Category _l's, in radiological control, surveillance and 7 licensing activities and the rest Category 2. Quad Cities has 8 not.been a plant of concern to me lately.
9 Byron, you heard Mr. Reed talk about Byron. I think 10 I would agree with most of what he said. Byron I got off to a 11 poor start. The Region put a lot of attention,on Byron.I to 12 help improve it. I think the performance on Byron II is a 13 reflection of the success of turning that situation around.
14 ~ LaSalle, we had major concerns with LaSalle a couple l 15 of years ago. We spent a lot of time with the company on 16 LaSalla. In fact, Mr. O' Conner himself got involved. The last 17 SALP that we wrote on LaSalle was very good. It showed major I
18 improvements.
19 LaSalle I still think bears watching, because 20 although it showed major improvements, I sometimes think maybe 21 our SALP ratings were influenced by the amount of improvement, l
22 rather than exactly where they are. So although I support the i 23 SALP ratings, I feel that we need to continue to watch LaSalle.
24 With respect to Zion, I spent a day at Zion here a
( 25 . couple of weeks ago with Mr. Reed and Mr. Maimon, Mr. Maimon
l 58 s
1 being the new Vice President there, and we toured the plant.
() 2 The reason I did that was, in some meetings that my staff had 3 had, these monthly meetings that I.was talking about, why there 4 were-some concerns raised that I felt that I wanted to tour the 5 plant with Mr. Reed and Mr. Maimon.
6 My view -- and I had been to LaSalle about a year
- 7. before -- I'm sorry -- Zion about a year before. My general.
8 conclusion after the tour was that Zion had improved over what 9 it was a year before, but the rate of improvement was'not as I 10 would like it to be. At the rate that'I saw, it would take too 11- many years to get it'up to the point where it should be.
12 I think Mr. Maimon and Mr. Reed agroad with that, and 13 I think they intend to try to increase the slope of
' 14 improvement.- So that's kind of my assessment of the plants.
15 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: Okay. How about the 16 regulatory performance, say, over the past six months or.so?
17 Any civil penalties; any major enforcement actions on the 18 Commonwealth system?
o 19 MR. DAVIS: Well, we had a civil penalty at -- I 20 can't remember the last -- we had one at Dresden for an
~
21 uncontrolled heat-up with the containment open.
22 We had a civil penalty action at Byron probably more 23 than six months ago, although I'm not sure, where they put a 24 valve together improperly.
() 25 MR. NORELIUS: I think that was for an older issue.
l l
4 -
r 59 1- The recent civil penalty issued at Byron was for an' issue that 2 occurred back maybe 18 months, a year to 18 montha ago.
3 There's been intervening correspondence back and forth. But 4 the Dresden one.is more recent.
5 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: In terms of the management 6 changes that Cordell Reed described, it sounds as if those are 7 responsive to the kinds of concerns that we've had for some 8 time, but I'd be interested in your assessment.
9 What do you think those'are going to do? Do you view 10 them as a positive change? Are they going to address some of f 11 the concerns that we've had about the overall system management 12 over the past several years? Does it give you a higher comfort 13 level in terms of the overall quality and depth of management 14 attention that's going to be brought to bear to these operating 15 plants?
16 MR. DAVIS: The answer is yes. I see this as an 17 improvement. I saw the institution of the Division Vice 18 Presidents that Mr. Reed talked about as an improvement, and I j 1
19 think they caused -- they've been in effect for awhile, and I 20 think they have caused some improvements to occur at the 21 plants. 1 l
22 In my judgment, the recent change that they made with 23 Mr. Maimon,.who I think has demonstrated success at Byron, and '
\
24 he's been certainly involved in the Braidwood successes lately, 25 I think that's a good move, to have somebody of his caliber and
60 1 experience and demonstrated successes take over part of the
() 2 plants. And then that allows a smaller number of plants to be 3 under Mr. Gally. And I think it's a step in the right 4 direction.
l t
5 Now is it enough to have two people at that level j 6 with the total number of plants? I guess you have to wait and 7 see. But I think it's an improvement.
8 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: Just a couple of questions j
9 on the SER. In the fourth supplement, fire protection is i 10 listed as an open item. That's the last supplement in the 11 draft, in the book.
(
12 could you tell me what's still open on fire
{
13 protection?
O 14 MS. STEVENS: It's listed as a license condition, and l
s
\
15 that's strictly referring to the generic license condition out I' 16 of 8610.
17 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: Okay.
18 MS. STEVENS: Some Project Managers do not list it as 19 such, but I have it formally listed in my SER.
20 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: Okay. And also on that 21 supplement on page 6-1, there's some discussion of the
~22 atmospheric cleanup systems, and apparently the charcoal
]
l 23 adsorber doesn't satisfy some of the ANSI standards.
24 How much are we giving up by not satisfying their ]
( 25 original license commitment?
61
'4 .
1 MS. STEVENS: 'I have asked Jack Hayes, my Technical
) 2 ' Reviewer in this area, to be here today, thinking he might be 1 3 -able to address that.
'4 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: Great.
5 MS. STEVENS: Jack?
6 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: I guess what I'm
- 7. particularly interested in is how close to the 5 rem dose you 8 get to, given the -- .
9 MR. HAYES:- The charcoal adsorber system that is ;
10' utilized is for the thyroid dose, and the major means of 11 cleaning up the control room ventilation system is the 12 emergency pressurization system, which is a four-inch deep bed 13 system. The system which we're talking about here and
'~
14 referring to in the supplement is the. recirculation charcoal 15 adsorber, which was utilized to clean up the remaining portion, 16 -the recirculation air and any of the pressurization flow that 17 was sent to the main control room.
18 So the emergency pressurization system still filters 19 99 percent of the incoming air, and the system which is on 20 ' internal recirculation is still at the 90 percent level.
21 So what we were giving up is -- were the criteria for 22 N-510 is plus or minus 20 percent, we're at around 30 to 34 --
23 well, it's less than 30 percent; it's 28 percent. So the I 24 residence time has increased a little bit from a quarter of a
() 25 second to -- or decreased from a quarter of a second down to
62 o .
' l' .195, so it's a small decrease.
) 2 . COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:. Great. Thanks.
3' one last question on the SERs. This is a duplicate,
~
- 4. as you pointed out.
- 5. MS. STEVENS: Yes, it is.
6' COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: For Byron. When I looked 7 at the SERs, Byron is this much, and Braidwood is this much 8 [ indicating), pretty close.
9 MS. STEVENS: What you're missing is -- i 10 COMMISSIONbRASSELSTINE:- What I'm wondering is, what 11 did we gain from standardization here?.
12 (Laughter.)
13 MS. STEVENS: What you're missing there is five 14 additional supplements that were issued on Byron, and that's 15 equally that same thickness.
16 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: Okay. So we did gain 17 something?
18 MS. STEVENS: We gained a tremendous amount. And 19 I that's not even indicative of the savings, because my initial D 20 SER on Braidwood heavily referenced the Byron SER up through 21 Supplement 3. So you'll note on many pages in there, it just i
22 simply refers back to the Byron SER, "same as." ;
23 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: Great.
24 MS. STEVENS: Okay. And then after issuance of my 25 initial SER, it was deemed too difficult to cross-reference 1
63 1 between the later Byron supplements, and so in order to have a
) 2 neat, stand-alone package, both the Byron Project Manager and 3 myself duplicated many of the reviews from that point forward 4 in each of.our supplements.
5 But, indeed, there was tremendous savings.
6 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: Good, good. !
7 My last point, and I don't have any more questions, 8 Lando; I have just a few comments on the plant.
9 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Go right ahead.
10 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: Generally, I thought -- I'm 11 pretty pleased with what I've heard about the testing and the 12 startup performance of the plant so far. I was pleased when I g 13 visited the plant a few months ago at what I saw. I thought 14 .that the people were quite good, and I think I was particularly 15 impressed with the site management team at this plant.
16 I-agree with your comment, Tom, on this surveillance 17 testing, this automated surveillance testing system. It's a 18 neat idea, and it's something I think that a lot of other folks 19 ought to pick up on, too. It really is a good way to tackle 20 the big problem of surveillance testing errors throughout the 21 industry. I think any time you can avoid having to go in those 22 cabinets and lifting leads, you're much better off, and this' 23 system avoids that, and it just really seems to be an excellent 24 idea.
'25 I think it's particularly encouraging that the
64 1 company's -- the plant's staff took the initiative to develop 2 this, and I think that's a good, positive sign.
3 MS. STEVENS: I might make a simple note that my 4 Technical Reviewer happened to stop by my office this morning 5 and specifically asked about this particular system, as he ;
6 found out about.it. He's very interested in discussing this 7 with the utility'and gettin,g additional information.
8 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: Yes, it's really a neat 9 system.
10 MS. STEVENS: Yes, it really is.
11 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: And an excellent idea.
12 I thought the appearance and the condition of the !
- 13 plant was quite good as well when I was out there, and I share 14 the comments you made earlier, Lando, on the model space 15 program. It's an excellent idea. It's a good, positive step 16 forward, and it would be nice to get to the point where Dresden 17 looks like the model spaces in Braidwood now.
18 Also, I have the same concern, Tom, that you 19 expressed on the Unit 2 activities in Unit 1. It's quite clear 20 that Unit 2 is moving along quite rapidly, and I think you're 21 absolutely right to pay particular attention to the operation 22 of Unit 1. That has to take priority, and I hope the conpany 23 will take that to heart as well.
24 Whatever pressures there may be on Unit 2, the good 25 operation of Unit 1 ought to take top priority. It really has
-65 4
1 to.
) s 2 Maintenance, I guess just one comment in response to 3 Fred's earlier comment. It does seem to me that that scenario I 4 could use some additional attention in terms of looking at the j 1
5 role that preventive maintenance ought to play. And I guess I 6 find it a little bit disturbing that the country's largest 7 nuclear utility doesn't yet have a target or a goal on the role 1 8 that preventive maintenance ought to play.
9 And I guess for myself, that's sort of a further 10 indication that I think there's a continuing need for a 11 stronger regulatory involvement in the maintenance issue.
12 . In terms of the overall performance of the, company in 13 the nuclear system, I am pletsed as welJ. from what I heard from 14 you, Bert, and also from the company. I have been tracking the 15 performance of the Commonwealth plants. I think Byron really 16 is doing well. The change is dramatic from what we saw a 17 couple of years ago when that plant started up. The trends 18 seem to be in the right direction for some of the other units, 19 LaSalle as well, as another one I have been tracking.
20 I do think there is room for improvement at the older l
l 21 stations. I think there is considerable room for improvement 22 at Dresden. I think my own gut reaction has been that for some 23 time at least, the older existing operating plants didn't get 24 as much attention within the Commonwealth system as they should
() 25 have, particularly probably due to the large construction
A 4
66 1- program that was going on and the focus of attention on that.
2 I think in the past one of the comments we have made 3 has.been that at the corporate level, management has been a 4 little thin in terms of numbers. There has been a need to beef 5 that up. I'm encouraged by the management changes that have.
6 taken place earlier this month. As you said, Bert,.it looks to 7 me as that is responsive to the kinds of concerns we have 8 raised-in the past.
9 Maybe just one more note and then I will be quiet 10 until we vote. I would just note that I voted for all of the 11 Commonwealth plants up until this point, going back.to LaSalle 12 I, back to my first year on the Commission. Unfortunately, I 13 am not going to be able to vote for this plant because of the 14 Commission's handling of the quality assurance issues. In my 15 mind, there were valid quality assurance issues that should 16 have gone to hearing. The Licensing Board was prepared to go 17 to hearing on them. The fact that the Commission foreclose 18 those issues from litigation forces me to vote against the 19 plant in this case. That is what I will be doing when we get 20 to the vote.
21 I just wanted to give you my overall comments on the ,
22 '
plant and on the condition of the plant and people and based 23 upon the meeting today.
24 That is all I have to say.
25 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Commissioner Bernthal? !
l
C 4
67 1 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: I would just make the comment N
(jy 2 that aside from the litigative procedural issue, I believe this 3 will be Commissioner Asselstine's last meeting. He is more 4 lavish with praise than perhaps he might be otherwise because 5 we will have to live with the consequena.ts.
6 (Laughter.]
7 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: In any case, for those of us 8 who wi21 atill be here, we are sometimes more circumspect. I 9 agree generally with the appraisal Jim has made of the utility 10 and its progress. I think some of the utility management has 11 gotten higher. There may be some others that say we really 12 don't want them to be average because they are the biggest and 13 they ought to be the best, in my judgment. They have resources-O. 14 to be the best. They are now drawing to the close of a 15 construction program which will sap any entity, I think, or 16 would sap any entity, even the biggest.
17 /
In the years shortly ahead, I woul'd certainly hope 18 and expect that they would also top the list on performance, 19 not just in size.
20 With that, Mr. Chairman, I've had most of my 21 questions answered at this point.
22 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Thank you. Commissioner Carr?
l 23 COMMISSIOKER CARR: No comments, Mr. Chairman. )
24 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Let me just make one brief comment on 25 Commissioner Asselstine's last comment on the procedural I
I 68
.1 concern that he has had. As far as I am concerned, the-2 Commission proceeded responsibly and deliberately and carefully 3 and exercised our legal and policy responsibilities on this
- 4. issue. .There were a number of things that had to be looked at 5 very carefully. I think we did that. I think we acted 6 responsibly.
7 There'were errors made by various groups as I recall
- 8. the issue. The majority of us felt we wanted to do the right j l
9 thing'and we looked at it carefully and I b'elieve we did the l 10 right thing. I would just like to get that down in the record.
1 11- Having said that, it is Commissioner Asselstine's 12 last meeting with-us on this Commission. No matter how he
'I 13 votes in'a minute or two, I would just like to thank him on 14 behalf of all of his colleagues for his service to our country.
15 He has disagreed with us on a number of occasions but I think 16 we'have agreed on a number of occasions, too, and probably more 17 .than we have disagreed. I would just like to let Commissioner 18 .Asselstine know that we all appreciate serving our country with 1 19 you and we wish you the very best.
20 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: Thank you, Lando.
21 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: May I just also say to Jim, 1
-22 your insight and scholarship on the issues and vigorous i 23 contributions and debates will be missed.
24 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: Thanks, Fred.
. 25 CHAIRMAN ZECH: If I may thank the Commonwealth
i 69 s.
~]
1 Edison Company for their presentation today and the NRC staff 2 for their presentation also.
I 3 If I could just' summarize very briefly, I believe' -
4 they have both told us that they believe that~upon successful 5 completion of the remaining low power testing, the Braidwood 6 Unit I will have satisfied the requirements for issuance of a 7 full power license.
8 IwouldliketoaskifmyfellowCommissionersare[
9 ready to vote at this time.
10 (Commissioners responded affirmatively.)
11 CHAIRMAN ZECH: If so, those in favor of issuing an 12 order which discusses the process of the immediate 13 effectiveness review and declares that the Commission has s
)
14 examined the relevant safety findings in the Licensing Board 15 decisions and has decided not to stay the effectiveness of 16 those decisions, and those in favor of authorizing the staff to 17 grant commonwealth Edison Company a full power operating 18 license for Braidwood Unit I, please signify by saying aya.
19 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: Aye.
20 COMMISSIONER ROBERTS: Aye.
21 COMMISSIONER CARR: Aye.
22 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Aye.
23 Opposed?
24 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: No.
25 CHAIRMAN ZECH: The vote is 4 to 1 in favor. The >
70 l' . meeting is adjourned. ,
.. 2- [Whereupon, at 3:50 p.m., the meeting was_ adjourned.]
3 4
'5 6
7 8
9 10 11 12 13 0
s 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25
4 1 .
D., 2 REPORTER'S CERTIFICATE Qi 3
4 This is to certify that the attached events of a 5
meeting of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission entitled:
6 7 TITLE OF MEETING: Discussion /Possible Vote on Full Power. Operating 8
License for Braidwood-l Washington, D.C.
PLACE OF MEETING:
9 DATE OF MEETING: Tuesday, June 30, 1987 10 . -
11 were held as herein appears, and that this is the-original 12 transcript thereof for the file of the Commission taken 13 V-stenographically by me, thereafter reduced to typewriting by 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. I 17 18
ggg- ~-~~~~~~~~~~
ey 19 20 21
- 22 Ann Riley & Associates, Ltd. '
23 -
24 25
, 6/30/87.
^
SCHEDULING NOTES -
i TITLE:' DISCUSS!dN/POSSIBLEVOTEONFULLPOWEROPERATING LICENSE FOR BRAIDWOOD-1 SCHEDULED:- 2:00 P.M., TUESDAY, JUNE 30, 1987 (OPEN)
' DURATION:- APPROX 1-1/2 HRS PARTICIPANTS: COMMONWEALTH EDISON 20 MINS
- JAMES-T. O' CONNER CHAIRMAN 0F THE BOARD AND j '
PRESIDENT
- EUGENE E. FITZPATRICK I
STATION MANAGER NRR 15 MINS'
- THOMAS MURLEY
- DENNIS CRUTCHFIELD
- JANICE STEVENS I
REGION Ill 15 MINS l A. BERT DAVIS CHARLES NORELIUS 1
4
1 ,
7 l
)
COWIISSION BRIEFING ON THE I
J FULL POWER LICENSING j 0F BRAIDWOOD STATION, UNIT 1 l
l JUNE 30,1987 1
JANICE A, STEVENS l PROJECT MANAGER x2ea3
'b e
PRESENTATION OUTLINE BACKGROUND-PLANTDESIGN HEARING / LICENSING MILESTONES LICENSE STATUS ORGANIZATION / STAFFING CONSTRUCTION HISTORY PRE 0PERATIONAL/STARTUP TESTING l
SALP 6 RESULTS OPERATIONAL READINESS ASSESSENT l
l CONCLUSION SLIDE 1 i l
, )
BACKGROUND 1
OWNER AND OPERATOR ,
l
- COWONWEALTH EDISON COMPANY " !
l EXPERIENCE .
- OWN AND OPERATE FIVE OTHER NUCLEAR STATIONS SITING
- LOCATION: NORTHEASTERN ILLINDIS, 60 MILES S.W. OF CHICAGO
- POPULATION (1980):
NEAREST TOWN: BRAIDWOOD, ILLINDIS (1 MILE) - 3,429 NEAREST POPULATION CENER: JOLIET, ILLINDIS (20 MILES) - 77,956 EERGENCY PLANNING:
ONSITE AND OFFSITE LICENSING REQUIREEES COMPLETED FULL PARTICIPATION EERGENCY EXERCISE - NOVEMBER 6,1985 ANNUAL EERGS!CY EXERCISE (PARTIAL) - MARCH 18,1987 SLIDE 2
PLANT DESIGN GENERAL
- WESTINGHOUSE PWR (4 LOOP RCS)
- ARCHITECT / ENGINEER: SARGENT AND LUNDY
- GENERAL CONTRACTOR: C0ft0NWEAll}i EDISON NSSS CHARACTERISTICS
- RATED POWER: 3411 IWr,1120 IWE CONTAINENTCHARACTERISTICS STEEL-LINED REINFORCED CONCRETE
- FREE VOLUE:- 2,700,000 CU. FT.
DUPLICATE PLANT DESIGN (BYRON /BRAIDWOOD)
DUPLICATE DESIGN FEATURES:
- NUCLEAR STEAM SUPPLY SYSTEFE
- BALANCE OF PLANT SYSTEMS
- ASSOCIATED AUXILIARY SYSTEFS SITE-SPECIFICFEATURES:
- SITE-RELATED CHARACTERISTICS
- CHANGES FROM THE BYRON STATION DESIGN
- UTILITY-ORIENTED SAFETY-RELATED MATTERS
)
SLIDE 3
HEARING / LICENSING MILESTONES OL EVIDENTIARY HEARING
- CatENCED OCTOBER 29, 1985
- CO WLETED NOVEMBER 26,1986
-- RECORD CLOSED DECDEER 17,1986
- INITIAL DECISION ON EERGENCY PLANNING MAY 13,1987
- INITIAL DECISION ON HARASSENT AND MAY19,1987 OTHER DISCRIMINATION
- ASLB DECISION AUTHORIZED ISSUANCE OF FULL POWER LICENSE PENDING COMISSION APPROVAL
- NOTICE OF APPEAL BY INTERVENORS OF JUNE 1, 1987 THE ASLB DECISION CONCERNING HARASSE NT AND OTHER DISCRIMINATION LICENSING
- CONSTRUCTION PERMIT DECEMBER 31,1975
- ZERO POWER LICENSE OCTOBER 17, 1986
- FUEL LOADING NOVEMBER 3,1986
- LOW POWER LICENSE MAY21,1987
- INITIAL CRITICALITY MAY 29, 1987 l
1 I
SLIDE 4 4
)
4 LICENSE STATUS 4
EXBPTIONS
- CRITICALITY ALARM SYSTEM (10 CFR 70.24)
- CONTAINENT AIR LOCK TESTING (10 CFR 50 APPENDIX J) {
t I
PLANT SPECIFIC LICENSE CONDITION REGULATORY GUIDE 1.97 l
1 l
J l
1 l
l SLIDE 5 I
l I
ORGANIZATION / STAFFING ORGANIZATION TOTAL STATION MANPOWER: 1341 STAFFING SHIFTROTATION: 8 HOUR SHIFTS, 6 CREWS SHIFT C0FFOSITION:
TECH, SPEC,REO.HRE. ACTUAL (BOTH UNITS OPERATING) DAY NIGHT SHIFT ENGINEER (SR0) 1 2 1 SHIFT FOREMAN (SRO) 1 4 2 SCRE (WITH DEGREE) 1 2 1 CONTROL OPERATOR (RO) 3 6 3 AUX. OPERATOR (NON-LICENSED) 3 18 9
- TOTAL LICENSED OPERATORS: 43 SR0s, 20 R0s
- BRAIDWOOD OPERATING EXPERIENCE ENHANCED BY INDIVIDUALS WITH OPERATING EXPERIENCE AT BYRON SLIDE 6
CONSTRUCTION HISTORY SIGNIFICANT CONSTRUCTION DEFICIENCIES 1982 - INSTALLATION AND INSPECTION OF ECHANICAL EQUIPMENT 1983 - MATERIAL TRACEABILITY, HVAC WELDING, SMALL BORE PIPING MAJORINSPECTIONS CONSTRUCTION APPRAISAL TEAM (CAT)
NONDESTRUCTIVE EXAMINATION (NDE) VAN INDEPENDENT DESIGN REVIEW BRAIDWOOD CONSTRUCTION ASSESSENT PROGRAM (BCAP)
ALLEGATIONS SLIDE 7
PRE 0PERATIONAL/STARTUP TESTING TESTING CONDUCTED ON SCHEDULE DEDICATED STARTUP ORGANIZATION
- TAKES PLANNING / SCHEDULING BURDEN OFF OPERATING AND TECHNICAL STAFF
- UNIQUE TO BRAIDWOOD
- CONSISTENT WI1H LESSONS LEARNED APPROACH
- 30 PERSON GROUP HEADED BY ASSISTANT SUPERINTENDEhT WITH BRAIDWOOD SR0 LICENSE PRE 0P TESTING CAT 1 IN SALP 6 l
SLIDE 8
l a
3 s
SALP 6 RESULTS FUNCTIONAL AREA RATING CONSTRUCTION 2 OPERATIONAL READINESS AND 1 INITIAL FUEL LOADING RADIOLOGICAL CONTROLS 2 PRE 0PERATIONAL TESTING 1 FIRE PROTECTION 2 EERGENCY PREPAREDNESS 2 SECURITY 2 QUALITi' PROGRAMS AND ADMINISTRATIVE 1 CONTROLS AFFECTING QUALITY LICENSING ACTIVITIES 2 TRAINING AND QUALIFICATION EFFECTIVENESS 2 i SLIDE 9
& 9 5:
- n OPERATIONAL READINESS ASSESSENT FUEL LOADING AND INITIAL CRITICALITY HANDLED WELL TEAM INSPECTION CONFIRMED OPERATIONAL READINESS LERs - NO MAJOR EVENTS I
i SLIDE 10 i
,. ,a
)
. d I
CONCLUSION i
THE STAFF CONCLUDES THAT THE LICENSEE SATISFIES ALL REQUIRDENTS FOR ISSUANCE OF A FULL POWER LICENSE FOR BRAIDWOOD STATION, UNIT 1.
I l
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SLIDE 11 j
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K _ Docun.:at Control Desk, 016 Phillips ADVANCED COPY TO:
The ? lic Document Room f DATE: _
U7 I SECY Correspondence & Records Branch FRDM:
E E Attached are copies of a Commission meeting transcript and related meeting 2;
t il document (s). They are being forwarded for entry on the Daily Accession List and No other distribution is requested or i' placement in the Public Document Room.
" required.
Meeting
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