ML20235D830
| ML20235D830 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Nine Mile Point  |
| Issue date: | 07/01/1987 |
| From: | NRC COMMISSION (OCM) |
| To: | |
| References | |
| REF-10CFR9.7 NUDOCS 8707100316 | |
| Download: ML20235D830 (85) | |
Text
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ORIGINAL.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Title:
Discussion /Possible Vote on Full Power Operating License for Nine Mile Point-2 Location: washington, D. c.
Date: wednesday, July 1, 1987 Pages: 1 - 65
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Ann Riley & Associates Court Reporters I
1625 i Street, N.W., Suite 921 Washington, D.C. 20006 (202) 293-3950
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5 6 This is an unofficial transcript of a meeting of the '
J7 United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission held on (
e 7/01/87 .. In the Commission's office at 1717 H Street, 9 'N.W., Washington, D.C. The meeting was open to pubille 10 attendance and observation. This transcript has not been 11 reviewed, corrected, or edited, and is may contain 12 inaccuracies.
13 ine transcript is intended solely for general 14 Informational purposes. As provided by 10 CFR 9.103, it is 15 not part of the formal or informal record of decision of the 16 matters discussed. Expressions of opinion in this transcript.
17 do not necessarily reflect final determination or beriefs. No 18 pleading or othhe paper may be filed with the Commission in 19 any proceeding as the result of or addressed to any statement 20 or argument contained herein, except as the Commission may 21 authorize.
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'l l UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
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l 2 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 3 *** '
4 DISCUSSION /POSSIBLE VOTE ON FULL POWER OPERATING 5 LICENSE FOR NINE MILE POINT-2
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6 ***
7 PUBLIC MEETING j B ***
9 Nuclear' Regulatory Commission 10 Room 1130 11- 1717 H Street, Northwest 12 Washington, D.C.
13 1 14 , Wednesday, July 1, 1987 15 16 The Commission met in open session, pursuant to 17 notice, at 8:30 o' clock a.m., the Honorable LANDO W. ZECH, 18 Chairman of the Commission, presiding.
19 COMMISSIONERS PRESENT:
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20 LANDO W. ZECH, Chairman of the Commission 21 TUOMAS M. ROBERTS, Member of the Commission 22 FREDERICK M. BERNTHAL, Member of the Commission 23 KENNETH CARR, Member of the Commission 24 t
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2 1 STAFF AND PRESENTERS SEATED AT COMMISSION. TABLE:
- ,: 2 .'S. Chilk I 3 W. Parler <
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4 W. Donlon 5 c. Mangan ';
6- R. Abbott c 7 .T; Murley Q,(
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9 D. Neighbors 3
10 W. Russell {'$[
11 W. Cook i ,.
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.. 3 l' PROCEEDINGS 2 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.
3 The purpose of today's meeting is for the Commission to c nduct 4 a review of the Nine Mile Point unit 2 and possibly to vote to 5 authorize the director of NRR after making the appropriate ;
- 6. findings to issue a full power operating licenpe.
7 The Commission will be briefed by Niagara Mohawk 4 8 Power Corporation and by the NRC staff. During the 9 presentations, I would like both Niagara Mohawk and the staff 10 L specifically discuss the current status of the control room i 11 decorum at Nine Mile Point-2 and any plans that may be in place 12 to further improve the professional atmosphere of the control 13 room and '.he overall management of the facility.
14 I understand that copies of the slides are availablo 1b at the back of the room. Do any of my fellow Commissioners )
I 16 have any opening comments this morning?
17 (No response.f 18 CHAIRMAN ZECH: If net, Mr. Donlon, you may proceed. l 19 MR. DONLON: Thank you and good morning, gentlemen, 20 and it is indeed a pleasure for us to be here this morning and 21 approach this milestone in the life of Nine Mile Point Unit 2.
22 My name is William J. Donlon, president of Niagara 23 Mohawk Power Corporation. We are a utility that serves 24,000 24 square miles on upstate New York in which lives approximately 25 six Willic- co4 users.
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.. 4-1 With me this morning are Charles V. Mangan, our ;
2 senior vice president of our nuclear division, and Richard B.
3 Abbott, who is the station superintendent of Nine Mile Point 4 Unit 2.
5 We appreciate this opportunity to make this 6 presentation today concerning the Nine Mile Point Nuclear 7 Station Unit 2's readiness for full power operation. Niagara S Mohawk has constructed and will operate the unit for itself and 9 four co-owners, namely, Rochester Gas and Electric 7orporation, 10 Central Hudson Gas and Electric Corporation, the New York State 11 Electric and Gas Corporation and Long Island Lighting Company.
12 Our boards of directors and officers recognize the 13 great responsibility which accompanies your authorization to
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14 bring this station into full service operation and thus provide 15 another source of dependable electric generation to the people 16 of New York State.
17 I assure you Shat we will maintain proper management 18 attention and adequate resource for this most demanding 19 activity. Involvement in the management of the Nine Mile 20 Pcint-2 project is company-wide. It starts with our chairman 21 of the board and through me extends to most of our principal 22 officers as a matter of fact.
23 Personally, I have had significant involvement in the 24 construction of the unit and its preparation for fu!.1 power 25 operation. Since 1983, Nine Mile-2 has never been very far
5 1 from my personal mind, believe me. I have had no higher 2 priority and have totally committed my time and energy to the t
3 project.
t 4 As you are aware, Niagara Mohawk is a company with 5 considerable experience in the nuclear power industry and, in 6 particular, in the operation of boiling water reactors. Nine 7 Mile Point Unit 1 is a 610 megawatt BWR and has been operating 8 since 1969. Our personnel were also responsible for 9 preoperational activities, start-up and initial operation of 10 the New York Power Authority's James A. Fitzpatrick Power 11 Station, an 821 megawatt BWR, also located at Nine Mile Point. '
12 our Unit 2 management has an average of 13 years of f
13 power plant experience and each of the 52 licensed operators 14 have an average of 11 years of experience. These individuals 15 gained their experience from our unit 1 station, from other 16 Niagara Mohawk generating facilities and from prior assignments 17 with the Fitzpatrick plant or the U.S. Navy's nuclear power l
18 program.
19 Our early experience with nuclear power required our l
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20 participation in industry groups and bodies involved with {
21 developing nuclear standards. For example, in 1953 we helped 22 establish the Atomic Power Development Associates, formed by 23 utilities to research and develop commercial nuclear power 24 generation.
25 In 1959, Niagara Mohawk established its own nuclear i
, 6 i l' power _ division and a year later jointed the Empire' State Atomic 2 Development Associates where our engineers helped design an 3 experimental GE nuclear reactor located in California.
I 4 By'1961, we had purchased a 1,500-acra site on the i 5 shore of Lake Ontario and with our own nuclear engineering 6 group became the first investor owned utility to design and 7 engineer a nuclear power generating station.
8 Our nearly two decades of operating experience led to 9 the development of special expertise in the nuclear area. For 10 example, we led the nuclear industry in the replacement of 11 sensitized stainless steel piping and Niagara Mohawk initiated.
-12 cable separation criteria at unit 1 even before it became a 7 13 regulation of this commission.
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14 The result of these innovations and endeavors can
'15 best be exemplified by looking at 17 years of successful 16 operation. In 1978, in 1980 and again in 1985, Nine Mile-1 had 17 the highest availability factor of all boiling water reactors .
I 18 in the United States.
19 NiagaraMohywkhasledtheindustryinextending 20 refueling cycles and Nine Mile-1 is on its fifth two year f 21 refueling schedule. We intend to implement a similar program 22 at unit 2. ;
23 Today, unit 1 entered its 309th consecutive day of ;
24 operation, surpassing its own former record. We think that is 25 reflective of many things concerning the operation and the
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. .c lL' attitudes of our personnel.
To be candid, I must report that the early experience 2
3- withinuclear power, with all of its advantages, has also 4 brought its share of challenges which we, as well as other 5 utilities, similarly situated are now facing.
6 The intensity of NRC regulations, requirements, 7' guidance, review and oversight has increased significantly- ;
8 between the licensing of' unit 1 and unit 2. Consider that the 9 FSAR for unit 1 consisted of two volumes,.while that for unit 2 10 includes 28 volumes. But I assure you that ar these materials- j 11 increased in quantity, so has management attention.
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We have.taken steps required to assure that our staff 13 in all positions at the site, in engineering, certainly in all
\ 14 engineering support and likewise, top management, that we 15 appreciate this new era and the additional responsibilities 16 placed on each of us.
17 .These efforts will continue over the life of the j 18 station as they have for nearly 18 years at unit I where we 19 have demonstrated our ability, we believe, to operate a safe
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20 and efficient plant. In spite of the pressures of increasing
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21 cost and delays at unit 2, safety has always been and remains 22 our principal and fina3 goal.
23 At this time, I would like to introduce some of the 24 members of the management team that will guide the operations l j
l 25 of Nine Mile-2. Mr. Mangan, seated to my left, has been with
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- 1. Niagara. Mohawk since.1963 and brings to our company 24 years of 2 . total experience.in the field of nuclear construction and 3 operation.
4 In his present assignment as senior vice president, 5 ha'is' responsible for overseeing our complete nuclear division' 6 includingLthe operations, engineering and licensing 7 dept.rtments . -
8 Also reporting directly to me is James A. Perry, vice 9 president of quality assurance. Mr. Perry has worked on the 10 project since 1984 and became a company vice president in 1986.
11 He brings with.him 28 years of quality assurance experience.
12 Jim, would you:just stand up.
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.g Beyond these two qualified individuals is a nuclear i'
14 team of 465 professionals and 1,049 union or represented !
l 15 employees, all committed to maintaining Niagara Mohawk's 16 remarkaLle record of safety and dependability.
17 We are proud Of the Nine Mile Point Nuclear 18 facilities and the number of features and refinements in unit 2 19 which directly resulted from our previous experience in the 8 a.
20 operation cf boiling water reactors. One prime example is the 21 increased size of the primary containment at unit 2.
22 As you are aware, one place where we tried to make an 23 improvement but ran it.to problems involved the main steam 24 isol,ation valves. While the concept was a good one, the design 25 in total type testing fell short.
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-. 9 1 1- We have now, of course, completely corrected the 2 situation by replacing the units with more conventional why '
3 pattern globe valves. We believe the new valves will serve us 4 well throughout the life of the plant. 5:
5 The message I bring to you today is simple. We have 6 experienced people at all levels of our operations. The 7 operators, the nagineering, maintenance and support personnel, 8 are all trained and ready to take on the duty of operating and 9 maintaining another full service nuclear station.
10 The facility is ready. The procedures, test programs ,
11 and emergency plans are ready. Management is ready, ready to 12~ take this plant into full power operation. We have mapped out f
13 a comprehensive plant to meet that objective and to ensure its
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14 safe and reliable operation over its complete life time.
15 As an example, we are implementing a critical self 16 appraisal program. Wewerethesixthutilityinthenationdo 17 be fully accredited by she National Academy of Nuclear 18 Training. We have a modern training facility and plant 19 specific simulators for both Nine Mile 1 and 2.
a2 20 We have established a formal agreement with the Japan 21 Atomic Power company for the exchange of technological and 22 other programs. As I said at the outset of my remarks, it is a !
23 pleasure to be here today on what marks the end of a long road 24 for us, but more importantly, the beginning of a new one and I 25 thank all of you for your attention.
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. . . 10 1 HMr. Mangan will now provide additional details
' i 2 regarding Nine Mile-2 and its readiness for full power )
l 3 operation and after his remarks Mr. Mangan and Mr. Abbott and I I 4 ~are prepared to answer any questions you may have.
5 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Thank you. Proceed, please.
6 MR. MANGAN: Good morning. As Bill said, I am Chuck-7 Mangan, senior vice~ president for Niagara Mohawk. During my 24 8 years with the company, I have held various positions in 9 engineering and the rest of the nuclear division. '
10 This morning I will discuss our readiness for 11 operation for Nine Mile Point Unit 2. I will focus on some of 12- the unique features that we have and I will also touch on some
- 1. 13 recent. developments.
l 14~ As Bill'said, Niagara Mohawk is ready to operate 15 safely the unit 2 facility. Preoperational testing and the 16 operational testing necessary to proceed beyond five percent 17 have been successfully sempleted. We are within days of being 18 ready to go. The facility is ready. Our operating and support 19 personnel are ready.
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20 Nine Mile-2 is located in Oswego County, New York.'
21 It is next to the Nine Mile Point Unit 1 and approximately one-22 quarter mile from the Fitzpatrick plant on the same site. The 23 area surrounding the plant is of generally low population and 24 has experienced a low growth rate over the last several years.
25 It is a BWR-5 series plant with a MARK II
. 11 1 containment. It has a rating of 3323 megawatts thermal and 4
2 1080 megawatts electric. Our application for construction 3 permit was filed in June, 1972 and the permit was granted in 4 ' June of 1974.
5 The operating license was filed in April of 1983 and 1
6 the low power license was received at the end of October last 7 year. We have a number of special design features which grew 8 out of our operating experience with the other two units.
9 For example, we have large lay down areas and post 10 spaces for heat exchangers and these have been strategically 11 located throughout the plant. We built a larger containment to 12 give access during construction, operation and maintenance and 13 we have already benefited from that during our replacement of
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14 the main steam isolation valves.
15 Because of the timing of the design of Nine Mile 16 Point Unit 2 containment, we were able to take advantage of 17 test data and design information not available to other MARK II 18 owners. Therefore, the Nine Mile Point design uses stainless 19 steel downcomers of g eater thickness than the other licensees 20 have.
21 As a result, the extensive bracing that people use in 22 the MARK II's is not necessary at Nine Mile Point Unit 2. This 23 bracing can itself lead to excessive design problems and lead 24 to additional dynamic forces during accident conditions. l 25 During the operating license review, the staff raised
.- 12 1 a number of questions about the design of the downcomers. They 2 included a license condition to assure' resolution of this 3 matter. On May.15th of this year, we submitted additional 4' analyses which demonstrated to us that the present design is 5 acceptable. We will discuss these analyses with the staff in i
6 the coming months.
7 As I have already stressed, Niagara Mohawk is an 8 experienced company, particularly with-boiling water reactors.
9 As Bill said, we have operated unit 1 for over 17 years and we 10 operated-Fitzpatrick for the New York Power Authority. We l
11 currently have 26 licensed senior reactor cperators and 26 12' licensed reactor operators for unit 2.
p 13 All nine of our shift supervisors have held senior
' k- 14 reactor operator licenses either at unit 1 or the Fitzpatrick 15 plant. They averaged 12 years of commercial BWR experience.
l 16 All-of our licensed reactor operators have held reactor 17 operator licenses on unit 1.
18 The operators are currently on a six shift rotation 19 which includes training as well as operating assignments. Each 20 shift has a minimum of two licensed senior operators, four 21 licensed reactor operators and about ten auxiliary personnel.
22 In addition, each shift includes five rad waste 23 operators, six firemen and five individuals roughly from the 24 chemistry and radiation protection departments and that can 25 vary depending on the work load. Maintenance and other support
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.. 13 1 personnel are assigned around the clock as needed.
2 Now a matter which you have already brought up, 3' Chairman Zech, was the control room and that has come up in 4 both. commission meetings and staff meetings. This includes 5 reduction of unnecessary noise and traffic in the control room.
6 .We have taken a number of steps to assure that 7 operators are not distracted from their primary role. Verbal 8 and written instructions were given to all site personnel to
-9 limit the number of people in the control room. We established ;
10 an operations support office one elevation below the control 11 room where permits, work requests, equipment tag-outs and so on 12 can be processed rather than in the control room the way it was 13 previously.
14 We have stationed an operator at the main entrance to 15 the control room to screen unauthorized personnel' requesting 16 entrance. Anyone coming into the control room has to stop 17 there and get permission' to go any further and that is right i 18 inside the door.
19 Within the ontrol room, we have placed barriers 20 around the at the controls area and basically, you don't go in 21 that area to get to the station shift supervisor any longer.
i 22 We are also looking at changing various storage spaces both in 23 the control room and across the hall to accommodate support 24 personnel, those not immediately involved with reactor 25 controls.
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14 1 The steps already taken have resulted in improvement.
J' 2 We plan to make more changes and will continue to monitor the 3 control room environment. Mr. Abbott and other managers 4 regularly tour the control room for this purpose. This is a 1 5 specific area we are looking at during our self assessment 6 program that I will get to in a few minutes.
7 I would like to say a few words about our experience 8 during the fuel loading and low power operation. We began 9 loading fuel on November 2nd and finished on November 15th, 10 1986. We subsequently had problems with the main steam ,
11 isolation valves and that led to their replacement this spring.
12 After the replacement of the valves, unit 2 achieved i
6 13 initial criticality in May of this year, late May. We have t 1
14 been operating at low power levels since then performing the 15 various tests and so on. 1 1
16 Since initial criticality, we have had 13 licensee I 17 l
event reports and two unintentional scrams. The first scram i
18 was caused by a feedwater control valve problem and resulting I 19 cold water injection.
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The second scram resulted from a spurious signal in '
21 the redundant reactivity control system. This is a relatively 22 new system for boiling water reactors and we are performing 23 extensive testing to assure that it will function properly.
24 our experience with the use of the plant technical 25 specifications has generally been good. We have established a
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15 1 formal mechanism for insuring that interpretations of technical 2 specifications are available to the operators in the control 3 room. Except for a change to reflect the replacement of the 4
main steam isolation valve, no changes have been necessary to f
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5' the specifications. 1 6 We have, in cooperation with the staff, made a number 7 of improvements to the full power specifications. There are 8 eight of these. The most significant is the removal of the I
9 fire protection technical specifications. i This removal was j 10 recommended by the NRC's technical specification improvement !
11 study and is consistent with action taken on other licensees.
12 We have completed our review of the full power 13 specifications and I have certified their accuracy.
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14 Now as I said earlier, we put a self assessment 15 program into place. The team is headed up by a quality {
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assurance manager and includes much of site management plus a 17 few off site people. They report directly to me and to other 18 senior management.
19 The purpose of the program is to evaluate to unit 2 20 operations and support during the power ascension testing. i
, 21 This will be through test condition two as a minimum. This 22 program, the self assessment program, is intended to provide 23 senior management, me and others, including Bill Donlon, with 24 an evaluation of the effectiveness of the programs which are 25 now in place. It will also identify areas requiring management j
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16-11 attention.
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- 2? The NRC staff will be.kept informedfof;the progress-3 .during this evaluation. A report will be prepared and we will.
i 4 meet with the regional staff at the and of test' condition two i
5- and will resolve any problems that we may have or that they'may 6 have.
l 7 Now Bill stated that we recognize theLimportance of I 8 t2un involvement of senior management. I recognize it i 9 specifically in the self appraisal program. The activities of
- 10. the team which was.put together are closely monitored by me and 11 the rest of the oversight committee.
12 That oversight committce is chaired by me and it !
! . 13= includes the vice president of nuclear generation, the vice L
14 president of quality assurance and some other manag6 ment '
15 people. The keynote of this program is direct observation by 16 members of the self appraisal team.
17 Various membehs of the oversight committee including 18 me have gone along with some team members during their 19 observation tours. These joint inspections will continue for n d* l 20 the life of the program. !
'21 In addition, we brought two INPO people in to both !
l 22 brain the team for observation, for training, and to 23 participate in some of the initial observations. We see this
-24 program as a very positive step in insuring a safe and 25 efficient start-up program.
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, 17 1 I would like to touch now on allegation management.
2 Niagara Mohawk established an allegation management program in 3 1984. We call it Quality First. Company or contractor 4 employees can get in touch with the Quality First program and 5 bring concerns to the group in strict confidence.
6 We use scheduled exit interviews, 24-hour telephone 7 and mail. All concerns are followed up by this independent i 8 Quality First organization. Those which relate to the quality 9 assurance organization itself are escalated directly to Mr.
10 Donlon.
11 The program has been ordered internally and by NRC.
12 Overall, the assessments were pretty positive. The concerns p 13 that did come up were fairly minor and have been corrected. We 14 received a recent allegation from a former quality assurance
'15 technician. We have kept the staff informed of this. We 16 received the allegation but we have kept the staff informed of 17 this investigation of cars every step of the way.
18 On June 16th, he wrote us a letter and in that letter 19 he claimed that a welder had worked at Nine Mile Point and had 20 been fired from a subsequent job for poor welding. He did not 21 claim that he knew of any welding problems at Nine Mile Point 22 itself.
23 We contacted the alleger who finally gave us the name 24 of the welder last Friday. We reviewed the welder's work and 25 have looked at the results of non-destructive testing including l
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, 18 1 radiographs. The Commission staff has reviewed our 2 investigation and has done their own review. Based on our 3 reviews, we are confident of the quality of the welds. We 4 found nothing. There was no suspicious weld.
5 Before concluding, I would like to discuss a little 6 bit why the Commission meeting was delayed for the last two 1
7 weeks. It relates to electrical equipment supplied by the 8 General Electric Company, specifically, the interface between 9 parts that are considered safety related or lE and those which 10 are non-safety related.
11 This issue had been the subject of a license review 12 by the staff before the low power license. It resulted in a l g- 13 license condition requiring enhanced protection between IE and 14 non-lE components.
15 I would like to note that the design of our systems 1
16 are very similar or identical to the systems of other plants, 17 other boiling water reactors, licensed over the last 15 years.
18 These systems have operated effectively and without problems I
19 from these non-lE interfaces.
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20 While the matter is a generic one, we are not waiting 21 for generic resolution. It was raised on our docket and we 22 have taken action to resolve the matter in a timely fashion.
23 Thir came up in April of this year during a design review by 24 Niagara Mohawk personnel.
25 We found apparent isolation discrepancies in the i
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, 19L 1- reactor protection system. This' system is different'from -
2' others because:it'.is powered from a non-1E~ source.
We informed.
3 the. Commission staff and instructed GE to perform a failure 4 modes analysis. . We voluntarily submitted this to the NRC in 5 May.
6 The analysis concludes there is no' adverse' safety l
7 impact, however, the. staff as~a result of:their review 8 questioned the compliance of some GE equipment to the IEEE 279 9 standards.
10 In order to' thoroughly understand the issue prior to 11 making a recommendation'for full power operation, it was 12- necessary..to delay this~ meeting. During this delay Niagara l r., 13 Mohawk and' staff representatives met several times and resolved -
1 14 this' issue at the Nine Mile Point Unit 2.-
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15- We have concluded that an adequate basis exists for 1
16 the position that components are, in fact, equivalent to lE 17 components. This resolution has permitted us to complete our 18 low power testing condition, that is, the non-1E components 19 that had come up previously.
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20- The neutron monitoring system is a specific system ]
21 that really is a special case. This system has connections to 22 several non-1E devices. We have committed to provide approved i
23 isolation devices by the first refueling outage.
24' In the interim, a failure modes and effects analysis {
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25- has been conducted to show that the system, in fact, can l
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1 withstand any failures and it will not defeat the ability of 2 the system to perform its safety function. This resolution '
3 process has been recognized in the operating license with an 4 exemption to operate until the first refueling outage. i l
5 In summary, I repeat Mr. Donlon's statement that we 6 (
are ready, the operators are ready, support personnel are ready I 7 and certainly we, the management of this plant, are ready and 8 with that, we are open to any questions you have. ]
9 CHAIRMAN ZECH: All right. Thank you very much.
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10 Questions from my fellow Commissioners? Commissioner Roberts.
11 COMMISSIONER ROBERTS: No.
12 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Commissioner Bernthal.
7 13 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: I must say that I appreciate 14 your candor regarding some of your difficulties and I think 15 that is the best approach. I wanted to inquire just a little 16 further with regard to what you have done to implement and ;
17 carry our your Quality first program.
18 As you know, it is very important that investigations 19 of any complaints be followed up thoroughly and professionally.
20 One of the senses that I received is that your investigative 21 I
efforts may require some improvement and I wondered whether you 22 wanted to comment any further on that.
23 Have you had any difficulties in feeling that you are 24 .really getting to the bottom of facts and getting a thorough 3
25 and professional review when you get a complaint from an
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21 1 employee?
2 MR. MANGAN: My feeling is as far as the 3 investiga: ion of any complaints we get from employees are not a 4 problem. We have -- I can give many instances where we have 5 diligently gotten various people within our organization 6 involved including our security department, the Quality First 7
people and depending on the issue, the quality assurance 8 department. i 9 We have had some problems particularly on unit 1 in 10 the past in getting problems escalated. These are not really 11 allegations or complaints but really things that people just 12 don't bring forward and we have taken steps to address that.
,- 13 We have instituted problem reports and other things 14 and it appears to be successful.
15 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: Do you have -- and it 16 wouldn't be a very large group, I hope a large one isn't needed 17 -- but do you have trained or at least semi-professional 18 investigators following up on these matters or do you generally 19 assign plant personnel to carry out such investigations?
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20 MR. MANCAN: It depends on the matter that is at 21 hand. We have had allegations and complaints that we have 22 gotten our security department involved and they are trained 23 investigators. Virtually, all of them are.
24 I think we have had a pretty successful track record 25 using that kind of approach. Our Quality First people have
, 22 l' been. trained now in investigative techniques and those are the 2 two primary areas where we follow up on allegations and so on.
3 If it is a technical matter, generally speaking we 4 involve our technical people to follow up as opposed to an 5 investigative team and that really constitutes most of the 6- concerns as opposed to a real investigation. It is more 7 looking at the technical and of the -- I don't want to classify 8 it as all complaints because they are not.
9 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: Thank you.- I want to applaud 10 you by the way for instituting that program in the time frame 11 that you did. I think it is important that it be a good one.
12 I would also like to have you elaborate for us just a little g, 13 bit here on the downcomer issue.
14 You said that you completed a review of it'in May, I 15 guess. As you know that is an issue that has been kicking 16 around this table for some time. You commented today that this 17 thicker stainless steel,' thicker gauge stainless steel, that 18 you are using, the study apparently shows that it is actually 19 superior under some accident conditions.
,52 20 Can you comment just a little bit further and also 21 comment specifically on how you find its behavior should be 22 under the conditions of an earthquake, for example?
23 MR. MANGAN: It depends on how much detail you want
- 24. to get into but basically coming out of the hydrodynamic loads
,. 25 and the various other containment programs, you had low 1
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- 1 definition reportsLand" essentially all MARK II, depending on '
s 2 the~ design, but MARK II's1had to design to meet those loads.
3 Now we chose to be different because.we were later, 4 but we still meet the same loads, we still have to accommodate
- 5. the same loads whether they be seismic or chugging or the 6 condensation' isolation loads that we talked about in the 7 definition report.
8 So we chose a different way to meet the same design i
9 criteria.
10 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: Are you saying that'the y i
11 objections, well, they weren't necessarily objections, they. ;
12 were questions, were largely based on engineering judgment and g: 13- .that now:you re-analysis or your analysis that you completed in I
t 14 'May.re-confirms your initial' engineering design?
15 MR. MANGAN: The analysis that was completed in May 16 reconfirms our original engineering design. There was 17 substantial technical disagreement between the staff and our 18 designers as to the detailed calculations and so on. So it was. j i
19 down in to the detail.
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20 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: You had this re-done then 21 essentially and it reconfirms the initial engineering design 22 analysis is what you are saying?
23 MR. MANGAN: The latest one most definitely does.
24 There was also some interpretation of just what the loads were 25 that we had to meet early on and that goes back some time.
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1 COMMISSIONER BERNTEAL: All right. Maybe staff couldL 2 comment a little more on that. One more question. I am- ,
- 3. curious to know what the progress has been in your implementing:
4 the Commission's fitness for duty policy statement. !
5 I haven't heard that you have had any problems of 6- that kind up there although I may have missed something but 7- what sort of program have you instituted.in' response to that 8 policy statement?
9 MR. DONLON: Commissioner, we implemented a program 10 in April of this year whi'ch really is' system wide and by that I 11 mean it involves all of our entire corporation with emphasis on 12 the nuclear division.
(' 13 All applicants for employment have to be tested for 14 drugs as part of their pre-employment physical. All employees 15' on an annual basis at the nuclear site who are required to have 16- annual physical examinations and this would include just even 17 those who need the need the examinations with respect to the 18 use of respirators, for instance, and not just the other 19 people.
20 So really it incorporates great masses of people at 21 the site. I want to go back to that one in a moment and put a 22 qualifier on it. In addition, all management pre-promotional 23 physical examinations include testing for drugs. All 24 contractor personnel with unescorted access to vital areas in
~25 either of the two units have to pass a drug screening test.
.. 25 l'
In addition to these four let's say overall 2 guidelines although they are in concrete and incorporated in a
)
l 3 formal policy which has been signed by myself and issued 4
throughout the corporation, we do have two arenas if you will !
i 5 where we screen for drugs or alcohol depending upon the 6 circumstances.
7 For instance, any employee who appears unfit for duty 8
.in the eyes of his or her supervisor, will have to undergo a 9 test for drugs and/or alcohol. Any employee involved in an 10 industrial type or occupational type of accident in the plant 11 where any personal injury or equipment damage has occurred will 12 likewise be tested for drugs and possible alcohol problems, f-13 .That is a real overview of what the guts of the 4 14 program are. With respect to the second item involving random '
15 testing of all of our employees requiring physicals which 16 basically is just about all of our employees on the site on an 17 annual basis, that item'was grieved by the union.
18 In addition, they threatened to seek in the court an 19 injunction in order t prevent us from implementing that phase 20 of the program. We, in turn, determined that if they would 21 agree to expeditiously movs forward through the grievance 22 procedure with the ultimate outcome being decided in 23 arbitration so it really is an accelerated arbitration process 24 which we expect to have completed by September, then we would 25 hold off that implementation and in turn, they would not go to l
________________O
26 1 court if you will.
2 COMMISSIONER ROBERTS: But it is in arbitration now?
3 MR. DONLON: It is now, yes, Commissioner.
4- COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: Let me ask a question I may ;
5 have asked when I visited last fall but I am not sure. Would 6 it be of any assistance to you in this area if the NRC were to 7 promulgate a rule and I am asking about legal assistance really l l
8 here? The policy statement, I think, has had the desired i 9 effect and possibly more rapidly than if we had taken a year or Rl'O two to write a rule in this agency but strangely enough now, 11 the issue comes around rather as one of possibly being able to 12 carry the day in the courts and I don't want or need you to
- 13 comment in detail on something that still could ultimately end 14 up in the courts for you, but just generically, is it your 15 sense that it may bolster such programs if there were a rule 16 written by this Commission.
17 MR. DONLON: I believe that the guidelines as issued 18 by the Commission has provided us with the ability to interface ,
19 both with the union and personnel themselves. I think the test
~
20 in a court situation as to whether a given utility or a given 21 company has proceeded appropriately and legally if you will and 22 lawfully with respect to its employees can frankly best be l
23 accomplished by the utility being very careful in the way it 24 does implement the program.
25 So I think I am saying to you, Commissioner, I don't '
i
N l'
.: 27 el think.that would necessarily help us.
2 COMMISSIONER.BERNTHAL: All right. I guess that is 3- all for now. I have a few other questions for the staff.
4 Thank you.
5 CHAIRMAN ZECH: All right. Commissioner Carr.
6 COMMISSIONER CARR: .I only have one area of concern s, 7 and that is I get a sense from' reading the briefing material 8 that you might have had a slackening in attitude during your 9 wait to replace your MSIVs. Do you sense that at all?
10 MR. MANGAN: I certainly do not. I think once we-11 have the main steam isolation valves replaced, I think the 12 operators have done a ocod job in going right back into the-13 startup. I have not heard that and I certainly have not seen 14 it and I am up there' pretty regularly and talk with all levels.
1 15 I.have not seen that.
16 COMMISSIONER CARR: all right.
17 MR. DONLON: We made it very clear and Chuck was very 18 active, I might say, Commissioner, as we moved into that-19 replacement process while we were very much concerned with 8 a.
20 schedules, emphasis was placed without any doubt in the minds 21 of all the personnel including the crafts that we wanted that 22 things done right and right the first time, done safely 23 regardless of schedule. We were concerned going in that that-24 could happen but it did not in our opinion.
25 COMMISSIONER CARR: Do you want to talk a little bit
___-___-_______w
o
. 28 1 about your operator training program and the successes or lack
'~ 2 of successes you might have had with that?
3 MR. MANGAN: The initial operator training was not 4 very successful and we had about a 51 percent pass rate.
5 overall now, that has for the first time, I believe, running at 6 71 percent similar to others, however, with the people, going ,
7 back through, we have had 95 percent of our people going 8 through the second time but this 95 percent of our people have, 9 in fact, passed their operator exams.
10 Now things have improved and there is no question 11 that there were problems in the beginning and we have made 12 changes to the operator training and also there were some, I g- 13 believe, some perhaps attitude problems on some of the people 14 taking the exams plus being too busy, 15 COMMISSIONER CARR: All right. That is all I have.
16 CHAIRMAN ZECH: You can certainly be proud of your 17 unit-1 309 day continues critical power operation record. I 18 would only say there though as I am sure you are proud of that 19 record and justifiably so, but sometimes it is very important
,s .
20 in that kind of an operational run to make sure that the 21 maintenance is being done, the surveillance is being done and 22 the other operations that permit that kind of safe run to take 23 place are being looked at and being looked at very carefully.
24 In other words, I hope you are not extending that run 25 without a very cautious and careful look at the necessity for
- 29 1 maintenance and solid equipment performance during that run. I l:j '
2 would only say that it has been my experience that sometimes 3 one gets carried away with the days and the run itself and I 1
L 4 would only caution you and exhort you to make sure that you are 5 looking at a.'.1 the equipment it takes to keep that run going 6 and make sure that that equipment is staying in good solid 7 condition as regards to maintenance as well as operation.
8 Your self assessment program, I think, that I would 9 like to hear the staff comment when they come to the table. I 10 believe that is very important. As you take on added ,
11 responsibilities for unit 2 now during the operational phase, 12 it is awfully important to make sure that you are not only 13 focusing on unit 2's start up period, but you are focusing on
\ 14 continuing hard look at unit 1 so that it will continue to be 15 maintained properly and be able to run safely and reliably.
16 The control room decorum did concern me when I 17 visited the plant as you know. I appreciate the things that 18 you have done since then and I listened attentively to the 19 changes you have articulated.
20 Iwoulddiketohearfromthestaffonthat, too, 21 when they come to the table. I recognize that I visited the 22 plant at a vr,rf busy time.
23 On the other hand, the control room is so important 24 to the overall safety of operations, in my view control room
(- 25 operations should be quiet, they should be disciplined, they
, 30 1 should be professional, they should be formal, they should have a business-like attitude, attention to detail, all those are 2
3 important features to bring into control rooms so that when one 4
enters a control room, he senses a very serious respect for 5 nuclear power. That is very important.
6 That does not come without management attention. It 7 does not come without management attention, so I would 8
encourage you to continue that type of management supervision 9 and leadership to make sure that your control room decorum is 10 something that you can be proud of.
11 It reflects in my judgment overall performance of 12 your plant. When you walk in the control room and you see L
(- 13 people that are really attentive and business-like and N 14 confident but not over confident, you get a sense of a plant 15 that probably runs real well outside of the control room, too.
16 In my judgment, it usually does.
17 But I hope that you will focus on that control room 18 atmosphere and more than in a cosmetic sort of way but in a 19 very deep sort of attitudinal sort of way. That permeates the s ..
20 whole organization in my judgment when you have control room 21 people that really are in charge. The* maintenance people know 22 they are in charge. The training people know they are in 23 charge. You know they are in charge when you come in there.
24 That is professionalism. It doesn't come about 25 though without management involvement and management attention
- _ _ - _ _ _ _ - _ _ _ _ - _ _-- 1
31 1 in my judgment. So I would encourage you to continue your l
2 watch on the control room. Unless there are any other 3 questions from my fellow Commissioners, we will ask the staff l
4 to come forward. Commissioner Bernthal. l 5 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: Just one. Commissioner Carr 6 mentioned a point that I guess I would like you to just comment 7 on and that is the painful issue of the main steam isolation 8 valves.
9 At one time you were pointing with pride to this 10 special globe type or whatever it was called that you had 11 installed and I am sure you have Monday morning quarterbacked 12 yourselves many times on that.
13 How did it happen? What went wrong there? Can you
( 14 give us some sense of how something that looked to be better 15 and more desirable, how it happened that it didn't work?
16 MR. MANGAN: Well, as you said, we were, in fact, 17 proud of trying to make'an advance in the industry to solve a 18 problem that had been plaguing industry including Nine Mile 1 19 and Fitzpatrick when we operated that plant, so we went to the 20 ballvalvewhichhe1[lotsofpromise, double seals and all 21 that and ball valves did exist, they weren't brand new although 22 now used in this application.
23 Last summer we had problems with the actuating 24 mechanism. Up until that time the valves had operated 25 extremely well. They had closed in the time that they were
, 32 1 supposed to with no problems and the leak tightness was 2 established several times.
3 They sat there for several months and then last !
4 summer for our own reasons we decided to test the valves again, 5 simply probably because they were sitting there and they did 6 not work as well as they should have. They didn't close in the 7 time they were supposed to.
8 over the next several weeks, we did several tests on 9 them including a leak test and found out that the leakage 10 wasn't as good as it should be either. It wasn't way out but ;
11 it was not meeting the specifications.
12 So ve had two basic problems that we had to address g
r 13 and we attacked these problems and felt we had them resolved by 14 last December.
15 In parallel with that, we also started a full scale 16 prototype test, first cold and then hot with steam, and we did 17 the hot testing in February of this year and at that time we 1
18 discovered another problem unrelated to the previous two and we 19 worked on that for a hile but to put it bluntly, we finally 20 gave up.
21 I have no doubt in my mind that given enough time we 22 would have solved the problem. It was a packing problem and I 23 just can't conceive of not being able to solve that problem but 24 we just had no way of knowing when.
25 So in the interest of time primarily, we replaced the i
_______________D
I f
.1 33 1 valves.' Wo.had valves backing them up. We had done thatllast I
/- 2 summer when we first had the problems and then'we replaced.them 1
]
3 -and the replacement by the way went extremely well.
4 What went wrong with'the valves?' If I look back, I l l
'5 probably would have done full scale. testing under hot 6 conditions. We had done smaller scale testing, eight inch 7' valves versus!24. They obviously did not turn up the problems C we ended up with so I would have done more testing on the 1
9 valves. l 10 Any time you put in something new, I guess that-is 11 the lesson, I'have learned.
- 12. COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: Is that the largest valve of
(,13-14 that type to your knowledge that has ever been applied in industry? !
i 15- MR..MANGAN:
i For that type of service, yes. Those 16 types of valves were put in Beaver Valley and also one of the {
t 17 Swiss plants which were'both ahead of us so we felt that any I 18 problems, start-up type problems, would have been discovered 19 there, too. We were not the only ones.
3 ;.
20 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: I see. Thank you.
21 KR. DONLON: I might add that we felt that we had 22 every reason to accept the assurances of the manufacturer who 23 . designed that valve which was Gulf and Western at the time and J 24 they gave us every assurance that the valve would operate as 1 25 designed. That obviously did not come to be.
1
34 1 CHAIRMAN ZECH: All right. Any other questions?
2 (No response.)
3 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Thank you very much gentlemen. We 4 will-ask the staff to come forward, please.
5 MR. DONLON: Thank you, Commissioners.
6 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Thank you very much. Dr. Murley, you 7 may proceed.
8 MR. MURLEY: Thank you,.Mr.' Chairman.
9 (SLIDE.)
L 10 MR. MURLEY: The NRR staff and the Regional staff 11 will discuss our views on licensing and operations and I 12 construction of the plant. We will talk specifically about the 1
g .. 13 questions that you asked on the self assessment program, the
( 14 downcomer design and particularly the control room decorum. We 15 appreciate your views on that matter.
16 I want to start off with a few remarks about the 17 history of this plant because it had a history of problems 18 during construction, probably the most troubled plant in Region 19 I, I would say.
,s a.
20 Because of those problems, we asked a construction 21 assessment team to go in in 1983 and look at the overall 22 aspects of construction which they did and found a number of 23 problems and in retrospect, I can say that the cause of the 24 problems is that they were not managing their contractors at 25 the time and they were headed for problems of a serious nature.
. 35 1 I think it is the kind of problems that South Texas, 2
Comanche Peak had and that even could have led to the kinds 4 i
3 that you don't recover from like Zimmer or Midland or whatever.
4 Nonetheless, they responded to those. We issued a 5 $100,000.00 civil penalty at the time and I think more i
6 importantly, we issued them an order which required them to get 7 an outside audit of their operations both at unit 1 and at unit 8 2 construction. .
l 9 They did that. They brought in some auditors and as 10 a result about the 1984 period they made a number of management 11 changes and at the same time, they decided to go back and 12 validate the past work that they had done, welds, that sort of g- 13 thing and also, at the same time, improve the quality of the
(- 14 work in progress.
15 So they had a massive undertaking, all of this while 16 they had some 5,000 to 7,000 workers on the site. So you can 17 imagine, it was a difficult management problem and it had its 18 rough edges during that time.
19 The performance on unit 1 was mixed during that 3 _.
20 period. Bill Russell will talk about that. They had a pipe 21 replacement outage. They were the first BWR to replace their 22 large bore piping in 1982 and 1983. That was done by in large 23 fairly well but when they came out of the outage, they had kind 24 of lost their edge and there were a number of operator errors 25 that we found that also at the same time led to some civil
, -36 11 pienalties.
2 Slowly then they got on top of their problems of 3 management in 1984 and 1985 and 1986. They were under severe 4 financial' strains e.nd'I think it is important to notice that 5 they at least in our judgment, they did not cut corners even 6 though they were under these pressures.
7 The project received the personal attention of Bill 8 Donlon, the president, during this time and I kept.in close 9 contact with him and he was always responsive to the region's 10' concerns and headquarters concerns.
11 So that brings us up to today and Steve Varga is 12 going to lead the discussion on that.
13 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Thank you very much.
7-14 MR. VARGA: My name is Steve Varga. I am the 15 division director with the plants in region I and region II and 16 I just want to comment on the transition that has taken place.
17 When we were here before on the low power license, Mary Haughey 18 was the project manager and Eleanor Adensan was the project 19 director.
.,s ;.
20 Since that time, as you know, we have had a 21 reorganization and I just want to assure you that there has 22 been no loss of continuity in the review that we have had and 23 the open items and the items that took place and had to be i 24 reviewed between low and power and the full power license where 25 we are today.
i I
37 1 Mary went on administrative leave, mt.ternity leave, 2 in May and we assigned Don Neighbors to the project and had a i
3 transition time with Mary and we have had frequent discussions 4 about specific things, so in addition not only with Mary but 5- with the previous project director and the division director.
6 Don is an experienced project manager, was with Surry 7 for a number of years and was recently with the Indian Point-3 8 plant and he has now taken over and has brought the project to
\
9 where we are today. So I am going to turn it over to Don now 10 to continue.
11 CHAIRMAN ZECH: All right. Thank you very much. You 12 may proceed.
13 MR. NEIGHBORS: Good morning. I am Don Neighbors, 14 the project manager for Nine Mile-2 and I will start through !
15 the slides and the first one will be rather brief because a lot 16 of this information was already covered, so if I could have 17 slide three, please? .
18 (SLIDE.)
l 19 MR. NEIGHBORS: This information was covered by Mr. l 20 DonlonandMr.Mangk[andtheonlypointonthisslidethat 1 21 remains here is there are no OL hearings on this plant.
l' 22 Slide fcur, please.
23 (SLIDE.]
I 24 MR. NEIGHBORS: The location and population has been l 25 covered. The point I want to make on this slide is that as far
~ .
.. 38 1, as emergency planning goes, the onsite and offsite licensing 2 requirements have.been completed. There was a full 3 participation emergency exercise in November of 1985 and a 4 partial exercise in October of 1986 which were successful.
5 Slide five, please.
6 (SLIDE.]
7 MR. NEIGHBORS: This slide covers plant design. Most 8 of the information has been covered. The first part I want to 9 discuss under unique design features is the lateral supports on-10 downcomers which Commissioner Bernthal had a question on.
11 i
We do have a license condition in the low power 12 license in regard to this issue which grants until the first
., 13 , refueling outage for the licensee to demonstrate the adequacy 14 of the design of these downcomers. i 15 We do have a new analysis in house that is being 16 reviewed and we have completed our review at this time and this
]
17 review will be complete and the results given back to the 18 licensee before expiration of the licensing exemption that they 19 have and we do have adequate basis for operating during this
,, a.
20 period of time.
21 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: Let's see. I guess I would 22 like to hear just a touch more than that. I gather they have 23 now finished a second review, that is beyond the initial 24 design?
25 MR. NEIGHBORS: Yes, sir, we have that in house now
_ - _ _ _ . - - . _ - _ _ _ . . _- . - - _____=__ ______ - _ - - ___-_- _ _ -
' 39 l 1 and it'is under review. U
' i 2 COMMISSIONER ROBERTS: It is under review by the l 3 staff? !'
4 MR. NEIGHBORS: Yes, by the staff. We have not 5 completed our review at this time.
6 MR. VARGA: Let me comment on that just a comment.
7 That is an issue that we have spent a great deal of time on 8 because of the unique features of it and going back for quite 9 some time and we had discussions about the proper load 10 combination, the proper load itself, the pool swell problem, 11 the seismic design fatigue analysis and I think we have pretty 12 well worked our way through most of those items.
,. 13 It is the combination that we have, I think, of 14 lingering concern and wherein we are still under review. With 15 a double ended guillotine break, of course, you have the high 16 pull well and that is one load that is exerted on the 17 downcomers. '
18 Then you have the seismic event. If you have a 19 seismic event, it also imposes. It is the combination. We 20 believe that for either load, there is sufficient margin 21 involved in the design. I think we are satisfied. It is the 22 combination.
23 As unlikely as it might be, the combination of the 24 seismic event with the double ended guillotine break, we think 25 it may be marginal, however, we believe that the likelihood of
t-
- 40 1 that combination and the time that we need to review it, we 2 have given them until the first refueling for us to complete 3 our review and for any necessary modifications.
1 4 Whether we need modifications will depend upon our f 5 review. But I think we are pretty well satisfied with the 6 capability for this period of time for the downcomers while we 7 complete our review.
8 COMMISSIONER BERNTRAL: Well, let's see. You have 9 not finished your review but is there anything new or is there 10 a element, an additional element in this latest analysis or is 11 it a verification of the earlier analysis?
12 MR. NEIGHBORS: I think the analysis provides new g 13 information on that. We have technical staff here if you have 14 any specific questions on the review.
15 MR. VARGA: I think it is an amplification and 16 clarification. There were some judgmental, I think, judgmental 17 aspects of it which now have been given more quantitative 18 values.
19 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: All right. Well, I think we 20 ought to get more d that on this question.
21 MR, NEIGHBORS: Other unique features listed here are 22 the tech spec limits on the leakage through the MSIVs and they 23 have six standard cubic feet per hour compared to 11 for other 24 BWR's and they also have no MSIV 3eakage control system.
25 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: What does that mean and why?
. 41 1 MR. NEIGHBORS: They have demonstrated to us that 2 they have adequate measures to take care of leakage in the 3 avant this leakage should occur and such things as passive 4 steam line drain lines and other measures.
5 Slide six, please.
6 (SLIDE.]
7 MR. NEIGHBORS: Slide six has been covered. Initial 8 criticality was May 23rd, I believe, 1987. I do have an error 9 on this slide as far as construction permit date. That should 10 be 1974 instead of 1973.
11 CHAIRMAN ZECH: All right.
12 MR. NEIGHBORS: Slide seven, please.
13 (SLIDE.]
f 14 MR. NEIGHBORS: This slide covers the issues that are 15 covered by the full power license. We have no open SER items.
16 TMI action plan items status, the licensee has completed all 17 the TMI actions. The only thing remaining is for some i
18 inspection follow up on a couple of items.
19 There are two license conditions related to this.
20 One is the SPDS and the other is the detailed control room 21 design review and these license conditions are carried over 22 from the low power license, carried forward.
23 Exemptions, we have several exemptions here, i 24 criticality alarm, exemptions to Appendix J, exemptions to 25 Appendix A, related to control rod drive hydraulic system.
~* -
l1 42 1 These are typical exemptions that you would find probably on 2 other plants.
l 3 There are several schedular exemptions, three to be 4 exact. One is on downcomers that we have been discussing.
5 Another one is on the use of redundant fuses for transformers 5 l
6 and these two are carried over from the low power license. l I
7 The new exemption here under 10 CFR 50.55a(h), the 8 one that Mr. Mangan was discussing about the neutron monitoring 9 system and this gives them to the first refueling outage to 1
10 resolve that class 1E-non/ class 1E interface problem.
11 There are several plant specific license conditions.
12 One is related to turbine system maintenance program, one
- g. 13 related to in-service inspection program and one related to
( 14 operation with reduced feedwater temperatur'e.
15 Slide eight, please.
16 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Are you satisfied that those 17 conditions will not result in anything other than problems that 18 can be accommodated and the plant can be operated safely, is 19 that what you are telling us?
.. , a .
20 MR. NEIGHBORS: Yes, sir.
21 MR. VARGA: Yes, sir.
22 CHAIRMAN ZECH: All right.
23 (SLIDE.]
24 MR. NEIGHBORS: Slight eight is the Niagara Mohawk 25 organization chart showing the offsite and onsite management
.: 43 1- relationships and you met several of the people here this 2 morning and I won't go over this any further.
3 CHAIRMAN ZECH: No, that's fine. Go ahead.
4 MR. NEIGHBORS: At this. time Mr. Russell'will j 5 continue with the presentation. 1 6 !
CHAIRMAN ZECH: All right. Proceed, Mr. Russell.
'7 MR. RUSSELL: I have also with me Bill Cook, the 8 senior resident inspector for Nine Mile Point Station 2.
-9 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Welcome to both of you.
10 MR. RUSSELL: Dr. Murley reviewed some of the earlier 11- construction problems but rather than going over that again, I I 12 thought it would be useful to focus on what has been done since !
p 13 the QA management reorganization in 1984 in particular focusing f t' 14 on the NRC's activities to ensure the construction quality. i; 15 We have had a construction team inspection in 1984.
16 Also, in 1984 we had the non-destructive examination van on 1 a
17 site. We compared our results to theirs and there was good 18 agreement for some minor deficiencies.
19 As a resul , we sent the van back in 1985 when there l
20 was much better agreement. We did not identify that the 21 earlier problems continued.
22 We also in 1986 did an in-depth as built verification 23 and concluded that the installation met the design requirements 24 and was consistent with the licensing documents.
25 MR. NEIGHBORS: Excuse me, Bill. I think you need to
44 1 ask for the slide.
2 MR. RUSSELL: Oh, slide nine, please.
i 3 (SLIDE.) !
4 MR. RUSSELL: I am focusing on the June 1984 to 5 August 1986 bullet in the slide. '
6 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Fine.
7 MR. RUSSELL: We have put in over 12,000 hours0 days <br />0 hours <br />0 weeks <br />0 months <br /> of 8 inspection activity related to quality of construction prior to 9 initial licensing and criticality.
10 May I have slide ten, please?
11 (SLIDE.]
12 MR. RUSSELL: With respect to preoperational testing, 13 I want to focus on one issue that I think is somewhat unique 14 and significant and that is that during the preoperational 15 testing, they actually developed their surveillance procedures 16 and they had procedures which they used to fine tune and better 17 improve on those procedures.
18 This, we think, has provided additional confidence in 19 the quality of the procedures that we used for subsequent 20 testing. Itwasaukiqueaspect. Other aspects of 21 preoperational test program are fairly standard.
22 Slide 11, please?
23 (SLIDE.)
24 MR. RUSSELL: The fuel loading activities from the 25 time of the low power license until completion of fuel loading
s
- . r
., 45 1 was 24 days but the actual loading itself was about 14. This 2 compares very favorably with other plants that have averaged 21 3 days for this activity. '
4 We did have some concern, however, in the operations 5 area with respect to understanding and conforming to the 6 technical specifications early on. This was described in the 7 SALP.
8 one example which we felt was quite significant was 9 not having the source range instrumentation fully operational 10 in one quadrant of the core during the loading of fu'el. There 11 were some other items which indicated that there-needed to be i
l 12 more attention to'tachnical specifications early on.
13 With respect to licensee event reports, they are
( I 14 comparable to other BWR's. The licensee discussed that and we l 15 have no further comments in that area.
16 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: Let me ask a question about l
17 that. You, I gather, and compared really to the other BWR MARK 18 5 or BWR 5 MARK II containments --
q 19 l MR. RUSSELL: That is correct. 1 l
20 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: -- which, I think, we have 21 LaSalle and WNP-2. Would this look so good if you through in l
22 plants like-Susquehanna, other plants which are BWRs but 23 perhaps not quite the same generation? It looks like you are 24 picking a rather limited set for comparison?
25 MR. MURLEY: In terms of performance, Commissioner?
\ '
l 46 1 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: Yes.
2 MR. MURLEY: We didn't deliberately pick that. I can 3 comment a bit on Susquehanna because I was up there. They had 4 not a trouble free startup.
5 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: Or Limerick, for example.
L 6 MR. MURLEY: Limerick, also, did not have a trouble 7 free start up. They each had their problems. Both of them are 8 now running very well but my guess is that Nine Mile-2 would be 9 comparable with both Limerick and Susquehanna 1 and 2.
10 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: Thank you.
11 MR. RUSSELL: The question came.up earlier about 12 performance during the period of the MSIV replacement and some j- 13 of the things that we observed was a backsliding somewhat from '
14 the activities that they had put in place to control decorum 15 within the control room.
16 I think the amount of activity that they had ongoing j 17 contributed somewhat to that. The recent initiatives that they 18 put in place have some potential for improvement and we will 19 cover that in some more detail in just a few moments.
20 Therearek~wootheraspectsofthepowerascension 21 program that I think are significant. This is one advantage of 22 simulator and that is that they used the simulator to actually 23 go through and validate the procedures prior to using those 24 procedures both during the low power portion and again also for 25 the power ascension program.
.___ _A
4 47
'l COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: Why wouldn't that be something that one would normally do as standard procedure, 2
3 validate the procedures on the simulator and if it doesn't work 4 either your procedure isn't good or your simulator isn't good?
5 One or the other, right?
6 MR. RUSSELL: Well, there are some scheduling I 7 interface potential difficulties. The procedures generally 8 come together relatively late whether your sinulator is 9 available at that point in time. There were some delays in 10 construction which provided additional time for the simulator 11 to be available, some of those bugs to be worked out.
12 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: I see.
13 MR. RUSSELL: That may not always be the case.
14 However, in this instance the licensee does deserve the credit l 15 )
for having done that and done that well. '
16 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: Yes, I agree. My question is 17 about other plants. That would be a sensible to do anywhere. ,
l AS CHAIRMAN ZECH: Well, it is, and everybody ought to I 19 do it and I ask that question at almost all of my plant visits 20 dependingontheth.m,thelifecycleandsoiorth. But if I )
l 21 get there just before fuel loading which I try to do because l 22 you can see more of the plant at that time. As you know, it is 23 pretty well opened up still.
24 But I often ask the question, "Are you going to use 25 your simulator for validating your procedures?" You can have l
l
48 r
1 your same crew that is going to bring the plant critical and 2 are they going to use the simulator procedures and go down 3 there and follow through and I don't always get the feeling 4 that they hava even thought that through.
5 But it seems to me that it is very important. I 6 recommend to everyone that they do that, use the simulator, 7 that is what it is for and scheduling problems can, you know, 8 the most important thing in the start up that plant is to do it 9 correctly and I would submit that you can schedule other 10 training around that very important evolution and we should use 11 the simulator for those kinds of things. 1 12 Even after restart, even after they have been down f 13 for a period of time, it seems to me to make common sense, if I
(
14 were the plant manager, I would want my crew that is going to
-15 bring it critical to get over and go through the procedures.
16 So I think we can do better in that regard across the 17 board and I have noted 'it at a number of plants and they 18 sometimes do have reasons why they are not doing that but it i
{
l 19 seems to me that it ought to be something they ought to think l
.s ;.
20 through very carefully and they can certainly use the simulator l j
21 to go through these procedures.
I 22 So I agree that it is a very important thing to do 23 and probably we can do a lot better in that regard. The plants 24 should be encouraged to use that simulator for these kinds of 25 very important first evolutions.
i
49 1 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: It is something that INPO 2 ought to take a hard look at.
3 MR. MURLEY: We will follow up on that.
4- CHAIRMAN ZECH: Good. All right. Proceed.
5 MR. RUSSELL: The one area that we do require it, of 6 course, is for emergency procedures but there is application in 7 other areas.
8 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: Yes.
9 CHAIRMAN ZECH: We are still getting used to 10 simulators in my judgment and we are not quite getting as much 11 out of them as we can, I think, and the utilities can and I 12 think this.is an area that we can really encourage more use and 13 more effective use. Let's go ahead.
\
14 MR. RUSSELL: I would like to shift now to the Nine 15 Mile Point self assessment approach. It was described both 16 with the oversight committee, the self assessment team by the l
17 licensee and what I would like to do is add a little more to 18 that. (
I l
19 We have looked at how they are going to gather 1 l
~ l 20 information, what areas they are going to review and it is 21 l based principally on the INPO performance objectives and '
22 criteria which are used for near term cperating licenses. ;
23 In one respect, it could be considered very similar 24 to an INPO plant evaluation which is stretching out over a 25 longer period of time which is being done by the utility for 1
i
. 1
, 50 1 the purposes of self assessment.
2 We , in parallel, will be closely watching the 3 operation of the facility. We will be gathering information 4 throughout our inspection program during-power ascension. We
-5 intend to perform the equivalent of a somewhat modified SALP 6 review with the staff and to then compare our results to the 7 utility's results, the self assessment, and to meet on site to 8 evaluate what the experience has been.
9 The purpose of this is to ensure that we don't get 10 locked into just looking at the next step in sequence, that in 11 fact, there is a comprehensive review of what experience has 12 told us to ensure that the transition from construction into
( 13 operation on this facility is done well and that the lessons
(- ,
14 are learned early.
15 CHAIRMAN ZECH: That is an important initiative and I 16 think that it would be helpful for the Commission to be 17 informed from time to time how that is moving. So if you will 18 get back to Murley and he can get the word to the 19 Commissioners, I think we would be interested and I agree with 20 you that that is a very important thing to do and since the 21 Niagara Mohawk has also initiated their self assessment 22 program, I think your work in parallel would be useful for us 23 to be informed. Thank you. Go ahead. r 24 MR. RUSSELL: If I could have slide 12, please. !
25 )
[ SLIDE.) !
i 1
- . i
)
1
, 51 1 MR. RUSSELL: I will first address the operational 2 SALP results and rather than going over it, I do want to 3 provide just one footnote. In the reoperation, surveillance 4 and startup testing where we had two ratings, a two and a 5 three, that is not a'two-thirds rating. ;
l 6 [ LAUGHTER.] )
l 7 MR. RUSSELL: We had a limited area with a very small l i
8 sample and the startup testing area. There were some early l 9 deficiencies. That was a perturbation. Once the sample size
{
10 was larger and we saw what they were doing by way of evaluating .
11 it, we felt that was satisfactory. 1 1
12 In the licensing area, we have had some problems.
g 13 These were discussed with the licensee at the SALP board and 14 they related principally to communications, schedules and 15 failure to provide complete information with each submittal.
16 The licenses has made commitments in that area and 17 NRR is generally satisfied with those.
18 There are some messages, however, broad messages from 19 the SALP that I would like to focus on. We think that
,,a.
20 operations at unit 2 have been improving gradually during the 21 period. While they are two's, we think they are fairly solid.
22 However, a weakness that we see is improving 23 communications in day-to-day operations and involvement. This 24 is some' thing that has come out also in the SALP evaluation.
25 The message is not always getting through the chain of command
- . 52 1 up.to management to get issues focused on and I will give you 2 some examples of that in a few moments when I discuss our 3 operational readiness team evaluation which was conducted on 1 4 site. .
5 We think that they must become more aggressive 6 towards self improvement. We think that the self assessment 7 initiative on their part to.really comprehensively lock at 8 operations between five percent and 50 percent is intended to 9 address some of those concerns.
10 May I have the next slide, please?
11 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: Let me ask about training 12 qualifications. I assume the two there is essentially based on r 13 their rather high initial failure rate.. What do they need to 14 od better there?
15 MR. RUSSELL: The issue of overall performance, we 16 need to actually see results. I must admit in this case I 17 probably know more abou't the training facilities and training 18 program because as you will recall in a previous assignment 19 when I briefed you on the INPO accreditation program, Nine Mile
. 20 Point was the case example which I personally followed 3 21 throughout from prior to the first visit by INPO at the site 22 through the week long visit on site to subsequent follow up 23 visits and I was convinced that it was a very effective 24 initiative by industry and that the company was indeed 25 responsive.
.~ ,, 53 j
-1 So I believe that they have a good program in place I 2 and I'believe've need to see.the results of that program with 3 ' time and.see the performance. We are continuing to see a 4 number of personnel errors through licensee event reports. We 5
have seen some areas that have been identified in the SALP.-
'6. ' Recall a two' indicates the routine level of inspection.
7 There is a potential there for improvement but we 8 need to see the results before we would be willing to produce 9 them.
10 MR. MURLEY: I think I can comment a little bit ;
11 because going back in time, we concluded that they have'a 12 commitment, they have a very good facility there, those of you 13 who have seen it, they have two simulators and they have 14 commitment to funds for good training.
15 What we found when we administered the exams to one 16 of the first set of operators here was that they seemed to be 17 training for the exam, for the NRC exam, and not so much for 18 overall knowledge.
19 For one reason or another, I don't think we did it 3 _.
20 intentionally, but we switched examiners and we got kind of a 1
21 different line of questioning and we found out that what they 22 trained for was not what they were examined on so they had a '
23 high failure rate.
24 I think that is as much as anything as why we don't 25 think they are still up to where they can be.
l l.
54 1 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: All right. Thank you.
q 2 (SLIDE.)
3 MR. RUSSELL: With respect to enforcement actions, d 4' while we have had three civil penalties and Dr. Murley 5 mentioned the first one or one of them which was the multiple 6 QA problems which resulted in the construction assessment team.
7 There was also a $100,000.00 civil penalty for using trainees 8- in quality inspection and falsification of records and that was !
9 back in 1982.
i 10 Both of those preceded the QA reorganization I 1
11 activities. We did have a recent civil penalty related to unit 12 1. These were the result of some allegations'and also 13 f- information which we discovered through the inspection program 14 that had to do with the connectors associated with the nuclear 15 instrumentation underneath the vessel and that was expanded.
i 16 It did identify a number of areas within the civil 17 penalty which related t'o failure to follow procedur'es. We 18 characterized it as an omnibus collection of a number of 19 procedural deficiencies in maintenance and operations and other
,3 .
20 areas and this also is one of the reasons for the need for a 21 critical self assessment during the early phases of operation.
I 22 May I have the next slide, please?
23 [ SLIDE.)
24 MR. RUSSELL: By the way, the open allegation is the 25 one that was mentioned earlier. I am not skipping that. I am I
__ ______ _ D
- 93 i
1 trying to compress so that areas that have been covered are 2 closed.
1 3 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Fine.
4 MR. RUSSELL: Control room environment. This is an 5 area that I would like to have Bill Cook address with respect 6 to the current situation and what has been the history. I I
7 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Good. Go ahead, Bill, 8 MR. COOK: I believe we have seen sono improvement in i 9 the unit 2 control room since your visit a few months ago, s 10 Commissioner. As Mr. Mangan mentionIed earlier this morning, 11 they have taken several steps to improve the control of 12 personnel in and out of the control room and to limit '
g- 13 unnecessary personnel trafficking through and coming in for 14 work permits, tag outs and whatever.
15 I think the only thing I may add to Mr. Mangan's 16 remarks is that with the exception of the operation support 17 center being established at another level in the control 18 complex, the majority of the improvements that they have made 19 have come about mostly at the insistence of the NRC inspectors a a.
20 visiting on sita.
21 I think we may have had some difficulty in convincing 22 Niagara Mohawk that it was indeed a problem of formality in 23 control room access.
24 CHAIRMAN ZECH: But they have improved?
25 MR. COOK: Yes, sir, they have.
,. 56 {
1 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Are they continuing to improve?
2- MR. COOK: Yes, sir. They have an ongoing program to 3 evaluate the current controls limiting access and noise and 4 congestion in the control room and they are looking at means of 5 improving upon what they have established already.
I 6 CHAIRMAN ZECH: I hope that you will continue to l 7 watch then and let Mr. Russell know and Dr. Murley know and let 8 the Commission know. I want to make sure that they continue to 9 improve and I am counting on you to let us know.
10 MR. COOK: This is an element of their self 11 assessment program and it is an element that we have included 12 in our own evaluation and we intend to see that their progress e 13 is continuing.
14 CHAIRMAN ZECE: Good. All right. Thank you.
15 MR. RUSSELL: We have already discussed training and 16 the experience of licensed ope 4rators and operating experience 17 for unit 1 and also the' Fitness for Duty program.
18 I would like to provide some information, however, on 19 the operational read ness team inspection which was just 20 recently completed.
21 This was a ten member inspection and was multi-22 disciplined. We brought in residents and senior residents from 23 other sites and other region based inspectors. We conducted 24 the inspection over a period of 11 days including periods of 25 time of around-the-clock 24-hour coverage.
4 0 57 1 There were two positive findings in general that have 2 come out of this and one where we feel additional improvement 3 is needed. We felt that they had established an aggressive 4 radiological controls management programs and that they were 5 indeed ready to do into that aspect of operation with the new 6 unit.
7 We also felt that the operators were quite 8 knowledgeable. They took a deliberate approach to operations 9 and using their procedures and that this was quite a positive 10 finding and was noteworthy.
11 We also however concluded that the plant management 12 neede to be more effective in resolving identified problems.
13 This is tha issue of getting the information up the chain.
(.-
( 14 They did not have good control of scaffolding but they were 15 missing some jumper logs where circuits are by-passed and there 16 were other minor deficiencies.
17 These, we think, require additional attention and 18 work and are also going to be evaluated in the self assessment 19 program.
20 MR. MURL2E[ I might say that that is a theme that 21 has run through a number of problems over the years. The 22 system there does not seem to be geared to getting information 23 up and down quickly particularly problems. Any of the well run 24 operations that you see, the management is attuned to problems 25 and they look for them, they seek them out.
L _ _ - - - - - - - _ - - - - - - - - - ---
a 58 1 That'has not been the case as much the case here as 2 it should be so we are going to continue to press that message 3 on the plant management.
4 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Good.
5 MR. MURLEY: I think it is one they simply have to 6 learn and fix themselves. We can't do that.
7 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Very good.
I 8 MR. MURLEY: But it is a common theme. That 9 concludes then the NRR and regional staff's presentation.
10 (SLIDE.]
11 MR. MURLEY: The staff concludes that the licensee 12 satisfies the requirements for a full power license on unit 2.
- 13 CHAIRMAN ZECH: All right. Thank you very much.
14 Questions from my fellow Commissioners? Commissioner Roberts.
15 COMMISSIONER ROBERTS: No.
16 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Commissioner Bernthal.
17 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: On the last page here, I 18 notice that they have a five shift operation. It is more l
19 common or more desirable as I understand it to go to six 20 shifts. Isthereahlantodothat? Is that because of the 21 lack of personnel right now or are they doing something 22 different?
23 MR. MURLEY: Bill, do you know the answer to that?
{
24 MR. COOK: It is my understanding that they are 25 considering going to a six shift rotation but that hasn't been
________._m. _ _ _ _ _ _ . _ _ _ _
e 59 1 finall' zed _yet.
2 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: All right.
3, CHAIRMAN ZECH: Do you want to ask the licensee to 4 respond.to that.perhaps?
5 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: It wouldn't hurt.
6 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Let's do that.
7 MR. ABBOTT: Rick Abbott, station superintendent. We 8 are on a six shift rotation. The sixth shift is-a relief shift 9 which is standard throughout other plants. So we have a full
'10 six shift rotation.
11 CHAIRMAN ZECH: And you intend to keep it that way, 12 keep it at six?
13 MR. ABBOTT: Yes.
14 CHAIRMAN ZECH: All right. Thank you'very much.
15 MR. COOK: I might add that that relief shift does 16 not go into a cycle, the 24-hour, eight hour shift cycle.
17 MR. ABBOTT: No. They are periodically replaced for 18 vacations or other vacancies, other personnel on the shifts and 19 the people that are in the relief jobs, particularly in the
,3 a.
20 shift management, they are changed in and out of that position.
' 21 CHAIRMAN ZECH: So it is not an entire shift, per se, 22 that rotates like ordinarily a six shift rotation, each shift 23 rotates through the_ control room and all the other training 24 activities and so forth. It doesn't do that. You have one 25 shift that kind of is a reserve as I understand how you are
o 60 1 -
explaining it, is that right?
2 MR. ABBOTT: That is correct.
3 CHAIRMAN ZECH: So you have five shifts with a 4 reserves shift?
5 MR. ABBOTT: That is correct.
6
' COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: Does the reserve ever run the 7 plant?
8 MR. ABBOTT: Yes, sir. They take over positions of 9 the job.
10 CHAIRMAN ZECH: But do they take it over as a team or 11 do they take it over as a substituting individuals perhaps?
12 MR. ABBOTT: Generally substituting individuals.
13 CHAIRMAN ZECH: All right. That is kind of like a I 14 reserve but that's fine. Thank you very much.
15 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: Just a question or two on the 16 license conditions here. I notice the safety parameter display 17 system is not operational and one of the conditions is that 18 they make that operational by the first refueling outage. How 19 does it happen that that is not done at this point? It has
,1 ;.
20 been enough years.
21 MR. RUSSELL: I can respond to that from my previous 22 assignment. You just have data from operations and do 23 validation' verification of the safety parameters display 24 system. It is not just a matter of having the hardware j 25 available. i
_ . - - - . . . _ . . . - . . . . - - . - - - _ - - _ - . _ .J
61
. 1 You must actually compare and assure that the signals 2 are coming through. That portion of validation verification is 3
generally accomplished shortly after startup and through the 4 power ascension program.
l 5
The other thing is that the SPDS gets integrated into 6
the emergency procedures and we generally prefer that at the 7
time you make change to the procedures that you do that during 8
a refueling period rather than making changes in mid-stream and 9
one day using one set of procedures and the next day a 10 different set.
11 So based upon those two considerations, it is quite 12 normal to defer completion of that SPDS making it fully 13 operational and integrating it in at the first refueling 14 outage.
15 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: So this is not an unusual 16 license condition and fully operational does not refer to 17 hardware? ,
18 MR. MURLEY: The hardware is installed in the control 19 room.
20 COMMISSIONER"BERNTHAL: All right. Two items here 21 that we can just take together, the turbine system r.aintenance 22 program and in service inspection, especially, I guess, the la turbine system maintenance program. I was surprised there that.
24 f;
there is a license condition that requires that the licensee 25 submit for our approval a maintenance program.
& 62 1 Again, a question on both of those really, is that 2 unusual? I would have thought that by now that would have 3 already been done?
4 MR. NEIGHBORS: Well, there is a maintenance program 5 for the turbine valvec in the tech specs but this relates to ,
6 the missile generation probabilities and the testing of the 7 disk and the inspections and we feel that the time allowed 8 which is about three years or two and a half years now since 9 the low power license was issued, we are comfortable with that 10 time on the turbines as they exist now and that is sufficient 11 time for them to provide us with a probabilistic analysis.
12 COMMISSIONER BERNTUAL: You wouldn't expect that to 13 be done by now normally?
14 MR. NEIGHBORS: I can't really answer that. I do not 15 see any reason why it coulc} not have been.
16 COMMISSIONER BERI;. THAL: It just wasn't?
17 MR. NEIGHBORSi' But I do now know why it was not 18 done.
19 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: What about the, quote, " human 20 engineering discrepancies in the control room"? The licensee 21 is supposed 'ho correct those. What are those discrepancies?
22 MR. NEIGHBORS: As far as I know, all of the safety 23 olated HEDs l') ave been completed with the exception of one 24 which has a schedule for completion pro.bably by next refueling
- 25 and all of thepe that are listed in this license condition are
. \
b 63' 1
either completed by the fuel loading or by the next refueling 2 outage. So there is a schedule for completion.
3 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
Tell me what one of those is.
4 MR. NEIGHBORS: One of them is the temperature I 5
indication of the temperature in the suppression pool.
6 COMMISSIONER BERNTRAL: What is it that there is a 7 discrepancy? You can't read the temperature or what are we i
8 talking about?
9 MR. NEIGHBORS:
I don't believe there is a meter in 10 the control room. It is fed in the computer and can be read 11 there but as I understand it, there is no meter in the control 12 room.
, 13- COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: All right. It sounds as
( 14 though there ought to be one.
15 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Commissioner Carr.
16 COMMISSIONER CARR: No questions.
17 CHAIRMAN ZECH: .I think we have covered the questions 18 that I had quite well. I do hope that the Region I people will 19 all watch the self assessment program and your own program and 20 keepusinformedas$ohowthatisgoing. I think it would be 21 important to do that in this particular case.
22 I would like to thank Niagara Mohawk Corporation and 23 the NRC staff for their very fine presentations here this 24 morning. To summarize, I believe I have heard that Niagara 25 Mohawk Corporation and the staff have both concluded that upon
64 1
cucc?coful comp 1stion of what rcmaining prerequisites there are 2
that the Nine Mile Point Unit 2 will have satisfied the 3
requirements for issuance of a full power license.
4 Therefore, I will ask my fellow Commissioners if they 5
are ready to vote?- Are you ready to vote this morning?
6 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: Yes, I am prepared to vote.
7 I would just make a summary comment as well. This has been a 8
very long process and not a smooth process by any means and 9
this utility has had good experience at some of their other 10 facilities and I would hope that we see a distinctive smoothing 11 out here in the process and that they achieve the kind of 12 operating record in this plant that they appear to be capable 13
(.
( 14 of.
CHAIRMAN ZECH: I agree and this is what I mean by 15 asking the Region to follow through with the staff to keep us 16 informed because I think it is something that we would be 17 particularly interested i,n, following this one carefully.
18 Any other comments?
19 (No response.)
20 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Those Commissioners in favor of 21 authorizing the staff after making the appropriate findings to 32 issue a full power license for Nine Mile Point Unit 2, please 23 signify by saying aye. f 24 COMMISSIONER ROBERTS: Aye.
25 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: Aye.
o
o 1
.o 65 1 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Aye.
( 2 COMMISSIONER CARR: Aye.
3 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Those opposed?
4 -
[No response.]'
5 CHAIRMAN ZECH: The vote is four to zero in favor and 6 the meeting is adjourned.
l 7 [Whereupon, the meeting of the Commission was 8 . adjourned at 10:05 o' clock a.m., to reconvene at the call of 9 the Chair.]
10 11 12 13 (n
14 i
15 l
l 16 17
18 19 3 .: .
20 21 22 23 j 24 25
1 2
REPORTER'S CERTIFICATE 1
I 3
4 This is to certify that the attached events of a 5
meeting of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission entitled:
7 TITLE OF MEETING: ~ Discussion /Possible Vote on Full Power Operating License for Nine Mile Pointv2 8 PIACE OF MEETING: Washington, D.C.
9 DATE OF MEETING: Wednesday, July 1, 1987 10 -
e .-
11 were held as herein appears, and that this is the original 12 transcript thereof for the file of the Commission taken 13 stenographically by me, thereafter reduced to typewriting by.
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.
17 -
18
_ _%%C ___._ '
Marilynn Nations 20 21 22 Ann Riley in Associates, Ltd.
23 24 25 l
-_______ _ a
^
7/1/87 SCHEDULING NOTES TITLE: DISCUSSION /POSSIBLE VOTE.ON FULL POWER OPERATING LICENSE-FOR NINE MILE POINT-2 l
SCHEDULED: 8:30A.M., WEDNEGDAY, JULY 1, 1987 (OPEN)
DURATION:. APPR0X l-1/2 HRS PARTICIPANTS:- NIAGARA MOHAWK POWER CORPORATION 30 MINS
- W.J. DONLON, PRESIDENT
- C.V. MANGAN,. SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, NUCLEAR NRC 45 MINS
- EDO J. TAYLOR
- NRR T. MURLEY S. VARGA D NEIGHBORS
- REGION I W. RUSSELL W. KANE
I J
t COMMISSION BRIEFIt'G i
ON THE l I
1 FULL POWER LICENSING OF t!INE MILE POINT NUCLEAR STATION, UNIT 2 JULY 1,1987
.s..
DON NEIGilBORS PROJECT MANAGER x28140 l
-- - ---_ D
1 1
]
I
- 2. PRESENTATION OUTLINE i
BACKGROUND SITING PLANT DESIGN LICENSING MILESTONES FULL POWER LICENSE ORGANIZATION CONSTRUCTION PPEOPERATIONAL TESTING STARTUP TESTING SALP ENFORCEMENT OPEP ATIO'NS' CONCLUSIONS
- 3. BACKGP0llND
-0WNERS
- NIAGARA M0 HAWK POWER CORPORATION (41%)
- LONG ISLAND LIGHTING COMPANY'(18%)
- NEW YORK STATE ELECTRIC AND GAS CORPORATION (18%)
- ROCHESTER GAS.AND ELECTRIC CORPORATION (14%)
- CENTRAL-HUDSON GAS AND ELECTRIC CORPORATION (9%)
OPERATOR
- NIAGARA M0 HAWK POWER CORPORATION EXPERIENCE
- OWNED AND OPERATED NINE MILE POINT 1 SINCE 1969
- CONSTRUCTED FITZPATRICK AND OPERATED 10/74 TO 6/77 N0 OL HEARING l
1 1
l
- 4. SITING LOCATION
- SCRIBA, NEW YORK
- SOUTHEAST SHORE OF LAKE ONTARIO
- BETWEEN NINE MILE POINT I AND FITZPATRICK POPULATION
- NEAREST CITY: OSWEGO, NY (6 MILES)
POPULATION: 20,000 (1980) '
- LARGEST CITY WITHIN 50 MILES: SYRACUSE, NY (33 MILES)
POPULATION: 170,000 (1980)
EMERGENCY PLANNING
- ONSITE AND OFFSITE LICENSING REQUIREMENTS COMPLETED
- FULL PARTICIPATION EMERGENCY EXERCISE NOVEMBER 13, 1985
- ANNUAL EMERGENCY EXERCISE (PARTIAL)
OCTOBER 29, 1986 ;
1'
- ENGINEER AND CONSTRICTOR: STONE AND WEBSTER ENGINEERING CORPORATION l NSSS CHARACTERISTICS
- RATED POWER 3323 MWT, 1080 MWE CONTAINMENT
--GE MARK 11 UNIQUE DESIGM FEATURES
)
- NO LATERAL SUPPORTS ON DOWNCOMERS
- STAINLESS STEEL DOWNCOMERS AND LINER FOR SUPPRESSION P0OL
- MSIV LOWER TECH SPEC ALLOWABLE LEAK RATE (6 SCFH)
)
- NO MSIV LEAKAGE CONTROL SYSTEM l
- 6. LICENSING MILESTONES 1
- CONSTRUCTION PERMIT - JUNE 15, 1973
- LOW POWER LICENSE - OCTOBER 31, 1986
- INITIAL CRITICALITY - MAY 23, 1987
\
e f ee8
7, FULL POWER LICENSE M
NO SER OPEN ITEMS TMI ACTION PLAN ITEM STATUS
- TWO LICENSE CONDITIONS EXEMPTIONS
- 10 CFR 70.24 CRITICALITY ALARM
- 10.CFR 50 APPENDIX J FOUR EXEMPTIONS
- 10 CFR 50 APPENDIX A CRD HYD LINES TO RECIRC PUMP SEAL PURGE SCHEDULAR EXEMPTIONS
-10CFR50APPkNDIXA TWO EXEMPTIONS
- 10 CFR 50.55a(h) ONE EXEMPTION PLANT SPECIFIC LICENSE CONDITIONS
- TURBINE SYSTEM MAINTENANCE PROGRAM
- INSERVICE INSPECTION PROGRAM
- OPEPATION WITH REDUCED FEEDWATER TEMPERATURE i
_ . _ _ ~ _ _ - _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ - _ _ _ _ -
- 8. ORGAN!ZATION NIAGARA MOHAWK POWER CORPORATION NINE MILE POINT PRESIDENT W. Donlon l
I VICE PRESIDENT SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT QUALITY ASSURANCE J. Perry C. Mangan i
VICE PRESIDENT MANAGER NUCLEAR GENERATION NUC. ENGR.6 LICENSING T. Lempges C. D. Terry OFFSITE en sus == se en man su num um um num saa em sus em um um m m um em m em usaumum um um um um em aus em um use um um um um m
, .ONSITE GENERAL SUPERINTENDENT T. Perkins I
I I I I TECHNICAL SUPT. SUPT. MAINT. STATION STATION SUPPORT TRAINING CHEM. & RAD. SUPT. SUPT. SUPT.
NOCLEAR NUCLEAR MANAGEMENT UNIT 1 UNIT 2 W. Drews K. Zollitsch ' E. Leach K. Dahlberg T. Roman R. Abbott SUPT. S U PT.
OPERATIONS OPERATIONS J. Aldrich M. Jones
.q e i 1
l 9, . CONSTRUCTION 1981 - CONSTRUCTION PROBLEMS BEGAN l
DECEMBER 1983 - 18E CONSTRUCTION APPRAISAL TEAM -
- MAJOR QA AND MANAGEMENT PROBLEMS MARCH 1984 - LEVEL II VIOLATION, $100,000 CP, AND ORDER FOR REVIEW 0F MANAGEMENT 1984 - QA AND MANAGEMENT RE0 ORGANIZATION
~
JUNE 1984 - AUGUST 1986 - AUGMENTED REGION I INSPECTION
- TEAM INSPECTIONS JULY 1985 - STONE AND WEBSTER ENGINEERING ASSURANCE AUDIT COMPLETED 4 J.
- 10. PREOPERATIONAL TESTING PRE 0P TEST PROGRAM COMPLETED ADEQUATELY -
FEW TEST EXCEPTIONS SURVEILLANCE TEST PROCEDURES PROOF TESTED 4
=
5 9
- r
- 11. STARTUP TESTING FUEL LOADING i l
lllll - COMPLETED 14 DAYS
- OPERATOR UNDERSTANDING 0F TECH SPECS WEAK -
TRAINING LICENSEE EVENT REPORTS - COMPARABLE TO OTHER BWR'S MSIV REPLACEMENT - BALL VALVE TO WYE PATTERN GLOBE
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POWER ASCENSION TEST PROGRAM
- SIMilLATOR USED FOR PROCEDURE VALIDATION
- NMPC SELF-EVALUATION OF EACH PLATEAU
12, OPERATIONAL SALP RESULTS FUNCTIONAL AREAS 2/85 - 1/86 2/86 - 1/87 CONSTRUCTION 2 2
.0PERATION 2 -2 REOPERATION, SURVEILLANCE AND STARTUP TESTING 2/3* '2 RADI0LOGICA!. CONTROLS 2 2 SECURITY AND SAFEGUARDS 1 1 EMERGENCY. PREPAREDNESS NR 1 LICENSING 2 3 TRAINING AND QUALIFICATION NR 2
. ASSURANCE OF QUALITY 2 2 SURVEILLANCE AND TESTING RATED SEPARATELY NR = NOT RATED
i
- 13. ENF0PCEMENT THREE ESCALATED ENFORCEMENT ACTIONS ON UNIT 2 ESCALATED ENFORCEMENT ACTION ON UtJIT 1 IEC TECHNICIAN ALLF. GAT!0NS FOUR ENFORCEMENT ACTIONS RESULTED FROM UNIT 2 ALLEGATIONS ONE OPEN ALLEGATION / INVESTIGATION 9
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9-l 14, . OPERATIONS j
l CONTROL ROOM ENVIRONMENT COMMITMENT TO TRAINING ;
LICENSED OPERATOPS (SHIFT PERSONNEL) l l
- 16 SR0s AND 26 R0s ON 5 SHIFTS
- DUAL ROLE SR0/STA i
- DEGREED SRO - 11 BACHELORS, 2 ASSOCIATES EXTENSIVE UNIT 1 OPERATING EXPERIENCE FITNESS FOR DUTY PROGRAM
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OPERATIONAL READINESS TEAM INSPECTION (JUNE 1-11, 1987)
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- 15. CONCLUSIONS I
THE STAFF CONCLUDES THAT THE LICENSEE SATISFIES ALL REQUIREMENTS FOR ISSUANCE OF A FULL POWER LICENSE FOR NINE MILE POINT UNIT NO, 2, l
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M O O O O O O N N N d W N # @ W N d W E S S S S W SpVrV;V p Sgyp(!;(flp(l(l g g l g g i g g i
Y Document Control Desk, 016 Phillips h TP.ANSMITTAL TO:
l' gl E ADVANCED COPY T0:
The Public Document Room DATE: _
16 6
- FROM:
SECY Correspondence & Records Branch Attached are copies of a Commission meeting transcript and related meeting 8; . document (s). They are being forwarded for entry on the Daily Accession List and placement in the Public Document Room. No other distribution is requested or required. .
Meeting
Title:
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Item Description *: Copies
- Advanced DCS 1"
to PDR C3 t 1 1
- 1. TRANSCRIPT, '
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- PDR is advanced one copy of each document, two of each SECY paper.
C&R Branch files the original *.ranscript, with attachments, withcut SECY papers.
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