ML20235J438
| ML20235J438 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Beaver Valley |
| Issue date: | 07/08/1987 |
| From: | NRC COMMISSION (OCM) |
| To: | |
| References | |
| REF-10CFR9.7 NUDOCS 8707150560 | |
| Download: ML20235J438 (95) | |
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ORIGINAL UNITED STATES OF AMERICA ! XUCL3AR R2EJLA70RY COMM35:ON l l l I l
Title:
Discussion /Possible Vote on Full-Power Operating License for Beaver Valley-2 1 Location: Washington, D. C. Date: wednesday, July 8, 1987 l Pages: 1 - 68 1 i 1 Ann Riley & Associates Court Reporters 1625 1 Street, N.W., Suite 921 Washington, D.C. 20006 (202) 293-3950
1 D I SC LA 1 MEA 2 3 i l l l 6 This is an unofficial transcript of a meeting of the ' 1 1 7 United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission held on I a 7/08/87 .. in the Commission's office at 1717 H Street, 9 N . tJ . , Washington, D.C. The meeting was open to public s 10 attendance and observation. This transcript has not been 11 reviewed, corrected, or edited, and it may contain 12 inaccuracies. 13 The transcript is intenced solely for general 14 informational purposes. As provided by 10 CFR 9.105, 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 beliefs. No j I 18 pleading or other paper may be filed with the Commission in i 19 any proceeding as the result of or addressed to any statement 20 or argument contained herein, except as the Commission may , l i 21 authorire. 22 _ 23 1 i 24 25 . 1
4 1 1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 2 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 3 *** 4 DISCUSSION /POSSIBLE VOTE ON FULL-POWER OPERATING 5 LICENSE FOR BEAVER VALLEY-2 6 *** 7 PUBLIC MEETING 8 *** 9 Nuclear Regulatory Commission 10 Room 1130 11 1717 H Street, Northwest 12 Washington, D.C. 13 14 Wednesday, July G, 1987 15 16 The Commission met in open session, pursuant to 17 notice, at 10:10 o' clock, a.m., the Honorable LANDO W. ZECH, 18 Chairman of the Commission, presiding. 19 COMMISSIONERS PRESENT: 20 LANDO W. ZECH, Chairman of the Commission 21 FREDERICK M. BERNTHAL, Member of the Commission 22 KENNETH CARR, Member of the Commission 23 24 25
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4 4 2 1 STAFF AND PRESENTERS SEATED AT THE COMMISSION TABLE: 2 ! l 3 S. CHILK 4 V. STELLO 5 B. RUSSELL 6 P. TAM 7 J. ARTHUR 8 J. CROCKETT 9 S. LACEY 10 J. FITZGERALD 11 T. MURLEY 12 S. VARGA l 13 J. BEALL 14 J. CAREY 15 J. SIEBER 16 17 18 l i 19 1 20 l 21 22 23 24 25 I
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1 S 3 j l 1 PROCEEDINGS l 2 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. 3 I apologize for the delay. 4 The purpose of today's meeting is for the commission 5 to be briefed by the Duquesne Light Company and the NRC Staff 1 6 concerning the readiness of Beaver Valley Unit 2 to receive a l 7 full-power license. The Commission will not vote today l 8 concerning the issuance of a license for Beaver Valley Unit 2. l l l 9 The public meeting this morning has been scheduled l I 10 somewhat in advance of our usual practice r.o account for 11 scheduling considerations and to provide the opportunity for -- 1 12 to assure that we have the opportunity for a public meeting. 13 Prior to issuance of the full-power license, the 14 Staff is requested to provide notification to the Commission 15 regarding initial operating experience of this unit. At that l 16 time, the Commission will be in a position to consider ! l 17 authorizing the Staff to issue the full-power license. 18 I understand th'at copies of the slides are at the 19 back of the room for those interested in them. 20 Do any of my fellow Commissioners have any opening 21 comments? 22 [No response.] 23 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Then, Mr. Arthur, would you proceed, 24 please? 25 MR. ARTHUR: Thank you, Chairman. 3
i l . l 4 1 1 1 Chairman, Commissioners, I'm John Arthur, Chairman of 2 Duquesne Light. We are here today, as you mentioned, to talk 3 about the Beaver Valley No. 2 Unit. It's an 833 megawatt l 4 nuclear unit. Construction started in 1976. We have spent 5 about $4.5 billion on the unit. It is jointly owned by Toledo 6 Edison, Ohio Edison, Cleveland, and Duquesne Light, and again, i 7 as you know, Duquesne Light is the operator / constructor. { i 8 We think this is a quality plant. The workmanship is { 9 outstanding, and like Beaver Valley No. 1 Unit, it is going to 1 10 perform very well. I l 11 Now I'd like to introduce our top nuclear person, the 12 Senior Vice President of Nuclear, Jack Carey. 13 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Thank you. You may proceed, please. l 14 MR. CAREY: Thank you, Chairman. 15 Beaver Valley has been in construction for over ten 16 years, and we now are at the point where we will be shortly 1 17 ready to bring the plant commercial and put it on the line, 18 probably about the 1st of August. 19 Duquesne Light Company has operated the Shippingport 20 Atomic Power Station since 1957 and Beaver Valley No. 1 Unit 21 since 1976. 22 We have had no Interveners in either the construction l 23 permit or the operating license for Beaver Valley No. 1 Unit -- 24 for Beaver Vallay No. 1 or No. 2 Units. We did have some 25 interested parties in No. 1 Unit, but they did not wish the 1 e l i
5 1 1 plant not to be licensed, but they wanted some safety concerns l 2 settled back in the early days. Since then, there have been no 3 Interveners with respect to the Beaver Valley licensing 4 procedures. 5 We attribute that to the fact that we have 6 successfully operated Shippingport and Beaver Valley-1 for 30 7 years now, and we are, in fact, loaded with experienced 8 operating and engineering people with respect to nuclear l t 1 9 plants. I 10 We have met all of our milestones during the startup 11 of Beaver Valley. He've met them within 30 days, which we feel i 12 is a reasonably close -- the hot functional testing program was 13 completed seven days earlier than anticipated. We loaded fuel, 14 once again, just about 30 days from the -- behind the original 15 schedule that was established back at the end of 1984. The l l 16 fuel-loading sequence took approximately 58 hours, due mainly 17 to the fact that we had been utilizing nothing but experienced 18 people on this startup of Beaver Valley No. 2 unit. We intend 19 to carry that practice through the operation of the plant. 20 We have had some interesting surprises that have 21 occurred to us. We had to changeout or main steam isolation 22 valves. We had procured ball valves, and while the ball valves 23 themselves were certainly a very fine design, the operator 24 would do everything that we wanted him to do, but we find that 25 even though the specifications specified certain leak tightness
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6 1 of the valves, that the vendor had never actually hot tested 2 those valves prior to trying to place them into service in both 3 Beaver Valley and another nuclear unit. 4 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: Excuse me. That was the 5 question I had. This sounds vaguely reminiscent of a meeting 6 we had a couple of weeks ago. 7 Was this the same vendor and the same valve? 8 MR. CAREY: Yes, it was. 9 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: I see. 10 MR. CAREY: There were three sets of valves that were 11 sold in this country. One was at Midland, one at Nine Mile, 12 and one at Beaver Valley. 13 At the time we purchased the valve, we had a fine ; l 14 specification, and we also believed that those other two plants ] 15 would have started up prior to Beaver and that we would, in l 16 fact, be able to gain from their early operating experience. 17 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: And I take it you did, and 18 that you replaced yours after you saw what happened at Nine 19 Mile? Or did you decide before then to do it? 20 MR. CAREY: We participated very closely with the 21 Niagra Mohawk on the final testing of the valve, and shortly 22 after they decided to replace the valves, we had previously 23 explored the alternatives and located valves and felt that we 24 had to make the decision immediately in order to avoid any 25 severe slippages in our schedule. 1
4 7 1 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: Sometimes it pays to be 1 2 second. 3 MR. CAREY: We also, during the design and 1 4 construction phase at Beaver Valley, implemented the WHIPJET, 5 the program we called WHIPJET, which -- we did this in 6 conjunction with EPRI, Stone & Webster Engineering Corporation, 7 and R.L. Cloud Associates, and this permitted us to eliminate 8 certain high-energy pipe whip restraints. We believed that l 9 this program was an innovative one and certainly feel that it ; 10 will save the industry money during the operating phases of all j l 11 of our plants. 12 We have also conducted a very thorough design 13 confirmation program to ensure that all of the design 14 requirements for the plant have, in fact, been met in the 15 engineering and equipment selection of the plant. 16 We believe that Beaver Valley is a very high-quality 17 plant, and it is staffed with experienced people. We have 18 conducted a quality concerns resolution program from the middle a 19 of 1986, and we have developed what we feel are extremely 20 significant statistics that we have received less than -- we've 21 interviewed 8600 people and received 263 concerns. Out of 22 these 263 concerns, only 15 were substantiated safety-related 23 concerns, and none of them have required any major rework. ! i 24 There are presently, out of these 263 total concerns } 25 that have been received, there are presently 20 investigations e !
8 1 currently in progress, and we expect to have those l 2 investigations completed over the next month to six weeks. But 3 the high success of this quality concerns resolution program 4 has reinforced our opinion that Beaver Valley is, in fact, a 5 very high-quality plant. 6 When we are ready to receive our full-power license, 7 we are confident that we will be able to conduct a very 8 successful power ascension test program. 9 I would like to turn this over to Mr. Sieber, Jack 10 Sieber, who is our Vice President-Nuclear. He will discuss a 11 couple of our other programs. 12 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Thank you very much. You may 13 proceed. 14 MR. SIEBER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 15 I'd like to talk about two items this morning, the 16 first being fitness for duty and the second being an overview 17 of our total organization for operation of the plant. 18 With respect to fitness for duty, Duquesne Light l 19 Company has adopted and is following the NUMARC guidelines, 20 which are based on the Edison Electric Institute guidelines for { 21 developing and implementing a drug and alcohol abuse program. 22 The program elements basically consist of, first of all, a 23 written policy that is not only for the Nuclear Group, but in 24 addition an extensive policy for all persons who work for 25 Duquesne Light Company. l l
6 9 1 That policy keys in on the fact that drug and alcohol 2 abuse is a disease, and it provides for rehabilitation for 3 individuals who admit that they have a problem and will 4 cooperate with the program that we have established. In the i 5 event that a situation would occur where an individual was 6 found unfit for duty without voluntarily entering into the 7 program, of course, he would be subject to disciplinary action 8 which could lead to discharge. 9 The second major component of the fitness for duty 10 program for us is the establishment of an employee assistance 11 program. Now our employee assistance program, even though it 12 keys in on drug and alcohol abuse is very comprehensive in that 13 it also treats psychological difficulties, medical 14 difficulties, marital problems, legal problems that an 15 individual may have, and it is an anonymous service that the 16 company provides to try to steer our employees in the right 17 direction to make them productive and safe personnel in all of 18 our plants. 19 Beyond that, of course, and as mart of the NUMARC and 20 EEI programs, we have a behavioral observation program where 21 all of our supervisors are trained to detect the behavioral 22 aspects of individuals to be able to determine if they may be 23 impaired by substance abuse of one sort or another, our 24 supervisors are, of course, not medical doctors or 25 psychologists. On the other hand, there are certain traits s
10 1 that individuals exhibit that can be observed where they can be 2 detected and followed up through other action. 3 We also include in behavioral observation an audit of 4 employee records. For example, you can determine by patterns 5 of lateness, patterns of sickness, accidents on the job and so 6 forth, whether an individual may be potentially impaired due to 7 some kind of substance abuse. l 8 Beyond that, we do have chemical testing, which 9 ' includes reemployment or first-access testing for employees 10 and also testing for cause. 11 And lastly, the last part of our program is, we do l 12 conduct onsite searches using dogs that are trained to detect 13 the odors of illegal substances. 14 Basically we feel that the program is in compliance 15 with the NUMARC guidelines and the Edison Electric Institute 16 and we also believe it has been effective so far. 17 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: May I ask one question about 18 that? We have from time to time, I think all of us, when we ' 19 visit utilities, and inquire about the fitness for duty { 20 program, I should say, by the way, all the. flack this 21 Commission has taken for going with a policy statement rather 22 than a rule, at the outset, I would just note that most 23 utilities have programs in place at this point and I suspect a 24 fairly large namber of them would still be sitting and waiting 25 for the Commission if we had gone down the rulemaking path, but
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1 11 l 1 that's a separate issue. A plug for the Commission here. 2 We often inquire about such programs and how the 3 implementation is going. One of the issues that has arisen l 4 now, strangely enough, is one that involves legal l 1 5 considerations as much as anything, I suppose, and that issue 6 is whether it would actually be a help to you at this point or l 7 in your judgment to the utilities generally, for the Commission 1 8 to issue a rule, so that it is very clear as a legal matter l l l 9 that you are within your legal rights and bounds and under 10 compulsion by the Commission to carry on with the program that l 11 you have. l l 12 Do you care to make any comment on that? l l 13 MR. SIEBER: Actually, I'm not a lawyer but I'm not 14 in a position really to address that. There are a couple of l 15 cases that are going through arbitration on I think the issue 16 of random testing. I have not noted a concern from our labor 17 unions for pre-employment or pre-access testing nor for testing 18 for cause. I think the labor force recognizes as well as ! 19 management and the entire industry that fitness for duty is 20 important, not only in the nuclear business, but all other 21 kinds of industries such as transportation, airlines and so 22 forth. 23 I'm not at all sure that it would be an aid to have a l 24 rulemaking. It certainly would move things along faster. It 25 may spur more litigation and not provide us with the time that
I 12 1 it takes to negotiate these kinds of arrangements with the 2 various labor groups. 3 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: At this point, you have had 4 no legal challenges or difficulty in implementing your program? 5 MR. SIEBER: No, sir. 6 Next, I'd like to talk a little bit about our overall 7 organization. If I could have the first slide, please. 8 [ Slide.] 9 MR. SIEBER: Our organization actually goes back 10 about 33 years, when we first began the construction of the 11 Shippingport Atomic Power Station, and has evolved as the 12 nature of the industry and the complexity of the plants have 13 changed. Our last major change in structure of the nuclear l 14 group at Duquesne Light Company occurred in about 1981 through 15 1983, when we developed a sophisticated and large staff, all 16 located at the plant site to support the operation of Beaver 17 Valley I and the eventual operation of Beaver Valley II. 18 At the present time, we have an authorized Duquesne 19 Light employment of about 1,218 people; about 50 percent of 20 which are technical, technician type workers, operators, 21 maintenance men, radiation technicians and so forth. The other 22 50 percent are either supervision or professionals. 23 As you notice on this chart, the nuclear group is 24 basically divided into two major components. On the left, 25 reporting to the senior manager of Nuclear Operations which is ! l
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13 } 1 Jim Crockett to my left. You will find basically all the i 2 operational aspects including the plant manager, planning and 3 outage management, technical services and radiological controls 4 manager. The aggregate total of those people is about 665, 5 that are directly involved with the operation of the plant. 6 In addition, on the righthand side, there are a l 7 number of support functions which report to me. Basically, 8 they include the Shippingport Decommissioning office, which has 9 three people; Nuclear Construction; the training, which 10 includes emergency planning; Administrative Services, which is 11 basically the office force, and the Industrial Relations 12 Personnel and the Security force; Nuclear Safety, which is ' J 13 basically licensing and the independent safety evaluation group 14 and our nuclear engineering department. The total of employees i 15 on the righthand side of the chart is 444. The remainder being i l 16 the budget section and the quality assurance unit which I
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17 includes 99 individuals. i l 18 We have gone through a number of studies and a lot of 19 iterations to develop this kind of an organization. We find it 20 is very suitable for the operation of Beaver Valley I. of l l 21 course, it has been augmented by about 50 percent where the ! 22 manual workers, operators, maintenance people and so forth for l 23 Unit II and by about 25 to 30 percent in the area of management l 24 and professional help to bring on the second unit. 25 Our workforce is very stable. We do not have a lot i 1
! 14 1 of people moving in and out. We encourage growth from within, l 2 which retains the experience levels that we have. 3 Our ultimate goals are to be able to provide 4 essentially all of the operation and engineering and 5 construction skills from within our own organization whether 6 than being highly dependent upon outsiders, contractors, 7 architect engineers and other vendors for the services. 8 of course, we can't set a goal that would make that 9 exclusive because there may be special skills from time to time f 10 that we don't have that we need to get and also outage times 11 require a large increase in the craft labor force to accomplish 12 all the work that needs to be done in a reasonable amount of 13 time. 14 I think the main points of our organization are in my 1 15 opinion, it is ample to properly conduct the operation of 16 Beaver Valley Units I and II. It includes 33 years of total 17 corporate nuclear experience and 11 years in the operation and 18 maintenance of a large, modern, commercial contral station, ( 19 nuclear power station. 20 Another feature which we feel is extremely'important 21 is that all of the nuclear group people with the exception of 22 two individuals are located on the site and in close proximity 23 of the work which aids extensively in our ability to 24 communicate with one another and to focus on the critical jobs 25 that need to be done.
15 I 1 I'd like to introduce next Jim Crockett, who is the 2 Senior Manager of Nuclear Operations. Jim? 1 3 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Thank you very much. You may 4 proceed. Good morning. 5 MR. CROCKETT: Jack has pretty much covered the 6 organization. I have two areas I would like to cover, which is 7 some of the operations organization and the functions we carry 8 out in the operations side of the house and I have also been l 9 asked to go over a short presentation on our operational self ! 10 assessment program. 11 As Jack has indicated, on the lefthand side of the j 12 organizational chart is the operations side, where we have the ; 13 four major groups that are involved in day to day operation of 14 the plant. The Manager of Planning Outage Management Services, 15 that group provides services in the area of day to day planning 16 and scheduling for work activities and also handles refueling 17 outage management services and planning. 18 The Plant Manager located in the plant, working for 19 him are the maintenance, the I&C functions, testing plant 20 performance, who support the day to day activities working for 21 the Plant Manager. 22 The Manager of Technical Services, handling 23 purchasing, storing, materials management, chemistry, technical 24 advisory engineering, the results engineering, a procedures 25 section.
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1 The Manager of Radiological Controls, the other major 2 group that supports day to day plant operation. There are { i 3 about 120 people in that organization. That group also is ) i 4 responsible for the industrial safety function. 5 [ Slide.] 6 MR. CROCKETT: The next slide has a lot of I 7 information on it. It happens to be out of technical ) l l 8 specifications, but it shows underneath the Plant Manager, the 9 only group missing on the operations side is Planning and 10 Outage Management. It shows the groups directly under the 11 Plant Manager, the Assistant Plant Manager, who is responsible 12 for day to day operations of both units. At this point in the 13 organization, we have a split and a definite responsibility for l 14 each of the units, for operation of Unit I and Unit II, under a l 15 Nuclear Operating Supervisor for each unit, reporting to that 16 individual are the nuclear shift supervisors, the operating 17 foremen who are the individuals with the second SRO license in 18 the control room, plus the nuclear control operators, who are 1 19 the individuals that hold the reactor operator license and the 20 nuclear operators. 21 Additionally, also within the Operations Department, 22 we have a Supervisor of Operations support. That individual 23 handles primarily radwaste and also operations coordination l l 24 with the maintenance departments, tagging and clearance 1 25 activities. i 1
4 17 1 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Who handles operational training? 2 MR. CROCKETT: Training is under Mr. Sieber. There 3 is a Manager of Training reporting to Mr. Sieber. 4 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Where is he in this organization? 5 MR. CROCKETT: If I could have the previous slide, 6 please. 7 (Slide.] 8 MR. CROCKETT: On the righthand side under Support 9 Services, there is a Vice President, Nuclear, Mr. Sieber. 10 Reporting to him on the center block is the Manager of Nuclear 11 Training. 12 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Where are you on this block? 13 MR. CROCKETT: I am the Senior Manager of Nuclear 14 Operations. 15 CHAIRMAN ZECH: You have a dotted line between you 16 and the Vice President, Nuclear. Tell me how you interface 17 with the trainers. 18 MR. CROCKETT: First of all, we have an accredited 19 training program, 7 of our 10 training programs, built into the 20 accreditation program is operational feedback and assessment of 21 training, where we are very closely tied on results oriented 22 training and feedback to the Training Department for training 23 needs. Secondly, all of the operations side of the house, 24 working in the Operations Department, those individuals are all 25 licensed and participate in license re-training and overview
4 18 1 that training. They spend a lot of time with the Training 2 Department making sure the training is going along well to 3 support the operators. 4 CHAIRMAN ZECH: How many trainers are SRO licensed? 5 MR. CROCKETT: Ten. 6 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Do you ever have the trainers go back l 7 to the Operations Department, back and forth? 8 MR. CROCKETT: Yes, sir. They do stand shifts in the 9 control room. 10 CHAIRMAN ZECH: How long does that take place? Do t 11 they go back for a year or two and come back and forth? How 12 does that work? 13 MR. CROCKETT: They stay in the Training Department. ) i 14 The requirements are now that the trainers, a certain number ! 15 have to be SRO licensed and secondly, that they have fairly l 16 extensive training and instructional skills and in order to 17 maintain that qualification, they have to stay in the training ' 18 program. They do spend quite a bit of time in the plant on 19 shift and also during outages. 20 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Does the arrangement that you have, 21 the organization that you have, give you as a Senior Manager 22 for Nuclear Operations, enough confidence that training is 23 responsive to your operational needs? 24 MR. CROCKETT: Yes, sir. I participate with the 25 trainers extensively on feedback and training lessons and s
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- l 19 )i 1 things that I think through the Plant Manager we should provide f i
2 for continual training, incidents in the industry, our own in-3 house assessment. We spend quite a bit of time on that. l 4 Training is one of our most important functions that we have in 1 5 operations to make sure it is going right. 6 CHAIRMAN ZECH: It's a different part of your 7 organization. I 8 MR. CROCKETT: Yes, it is. We have a very close knit 9 organization. 10 CHAIRMAN ZECH: You are satisfied that if you want i 11 something emphasized in training, it will be executed?
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12 MR. CROCKETT: Yes, I am. 13 MR. SIEBER: Perhaps I can add to that. I guess one 14 of the reasons why Training reports to me is I used to be in 15 charge of Nuclear Training for Shippingport and spent a number 16 of years training operators there. 17 We do a number of things including an on-the-job 18 phase where our trainees go back into the plant and even though 19 instructors cover that, they must perform to the satisfaction 20 of the operations supervision in the plant to perform all the 21 ( functions they are required to do. l t 22 In addition to that, in our license re-training 23 program, for example, during the last phase of that, the 24 operations supervisor and now we have renamed that pcaition to 25 Assistant Plant Manager, he actually conducted part of the
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20 1 session. In other words, he brings with him the items that he 2 sees as part of the operational concerns he has to the training i 3 sessions and actually presents them. 4 Our simulator, the person in charge of our simulator ' 5 department was a former operations supervisor for Beaver Valley 6 Unit I. We try to integrate as best we can people with a lot 7 of control room experience into our instructional staff, so 8 that number one, they are aware of the intricacies involved. l I 9 Secondly, they can relate well to the people that have to 10 perform the job and they are attentive to the needd of Mr. 11 Lacey and Mr. Crockett with regard to the conduct of the 12 training program. 13 I fully well realize that training will not be 14 effective if it is not responsive to the needs of the plant, if 15 it does not address the issues that come into the plant. I 16 think we conduct that operation with those factors in mind. 17 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Having Training report to the Vice 18 President of Nuclear is certainly an understandable 19 relationship. It does give him a position of strength in many 20 ways, so when you look at that, as far as I'm concerned,.it 21 looks fine. On the other hand, the execution is what would 22 concern me, and that depends on, of course, the people, as well 23 as your organization. 24 So, it is inportant that your trainers and your 25 oporations people werk very closely together. I've seen e
i i 1 l 21 j l 1 training placed in various parts of utility organizations and I i 2 submit that there is nothing wrong with that, as long as it j 3 gets the emphasis that, at least I believe, it should have. 4 So, I just would expect, with your particular 5 interest and experience in training that your organization is 6 probably very satisfactory; but, from the operations 7 standpoint, I think that it is important that you receive the 8 benefit of the training, and you have a say in anything that 9 you would like emphasized so that that dotted line really means j 10 that you have not only coordination but that you have some 11 authority for influencing the training program. 12 I think that it" looks fine, but I'd just say the ! 13 execution is the important thing, and the results are what 14 count, so it depends on how you two gentlemen work together and l 1 j 15 if you are working together like you tell me you are doing, I l l 16 believe, then certainly I'd be well satisfied, but training is I 17 so important to operational safety that the operations leader, 18 in my judgment, has to be completely satisfied that you are 19 being served properly by the trainers and that's why I 20 emphasized this point. 21 All right; thank you. 22 MR. CROCKETT: Yes, Mr. Chairman, I share your 23 concerns, but I do think that we work together very well. 24 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Fine. 25 MR. CROCKETT: I've been very pleased with it since
22 1 I've been here, and it seems to be working very well. 2 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Well, I hope Mr. Arthur will make 3 sure that this kind of relationship continues. 4 MR. ARTHUR: Absolutely. 5 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Thank you. 6 MR. CROCKETT: Next slide, please. 7 [ Slide.] 8 MR. CROCKETT: As I indicated, this slide is that of 9 tech specs. Those show the plan organization. Again, 10 Operations with a definite split for units I and II and 11 management for units I and II on shift workers, and also the 12 day workers on support functions; the maintenance department, 13 for mechanical and electrical maintenance, with the foremen, 14 engineers, and the crafts, electricians and mechanics; the I&C 15 Department, the Director, also a computer supervisor, I&C 16 maintenance supervisors and calibration supervisors, and I&C 17 techs; testing and plant performance director, primarily 18 concerned with surveillance testing. 19 We also have the technical service manager who 20 reports to me shown on that chart on the right. He supports 21 the plant manager in a day-to-day manner; naterial management, 22 chemistry, technical advisor engineering, and then the rad con 23 manager on the left, with the rad con staff and rad techs. 24 That pretty much covers the organization on the j 25 nuclear side of the group. I do have a short presentation on
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. l 23 1 our operational self-assessment program, if I could have the ;
2 next slide, please. 3 [ Slide.) ) 4 MR. CROCKETT: Back in mid-May, we had a meeting with 1 5 Region I management, and NRR management, and discussed the 6 program, the recommended program to handle an in-house i 7 operational self-assessment of Beaver Valley Unit II during the 8 start-up testing phase, roughly to start from fuel load and run 9 through 50 percent power ascension, to look at what was going l 10 on in Unit II, to factor in our experience, put some mid-course i 11 correction in if necessary. I 12 We submitted that document on what our plan was, and i 13 this is an outline of that document, and that was submitted 14 last week. 15 The objective of the operational self-assessment 16 program is, number one, to evaluate our overall station 17 operations during this period, and to assess our effectiveness 18 of operations for safe plant operations, essentially from fuel 19 load on through 50 percent power. 20 The evaluation itself, we are going to key on some 21 areas to look into, where I know that there are problems. We j 22 could have problems during this period, being a new plant. 23 Even though we do have experienced people, it is a new plant. 24 It's the first start-up of the unit; we expect to have some 25 problems and we need to evaluate those, so the first area is
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24 1 organizational interfaces amongst construction, engineering, 2 the AE, various other groups on-site, our configuration control 3 process for managing design change, procedure changes, and the 1 4 whole configuration control issue. I 5 Plant procedures, this is a good test, a final test i 6 of the plant procedures even though they've been gone through 1 7 in pre-op testing and looked at, and the surveillance testing 8 procedures have been run through, you are going to have to go 9 through them again, many of them for the first time. You can i 10 only do this when the plant is hot with fuel. I 11 We are going to evaluate teamwork and communications 12 among various groups. Our operational QA surveillance program 13 is a valuable area to evaluate to see how effective that is. 14 Engineering and construction support arms, control and 15 operations specifically, and training, the effectiveness of 16 training and the feedback of our experience, and also the 17 start-up results as we go through the various start-up 18 milestones, the areas to be evaluated. 19 The method of evaluation that we are looking at, it 20 involves a number of programs that we have on-site, plus some 21 processes that we have and we intend to follow. One is our on-22 site safety committee, which is the committee required by tech 23 specs. They do very specific safety functions, and they have 24 functions that they do plus review, and they are advisory to 25 the plant manager. So, we're going to use them for review on I
25 1 some targeted areas as necessary. 2 Our ISEG, or our Independent Safety Evaluation Group, 3 we've had them factored in. We are going to use our program of 4 -- those acronyms stand for " Unit Op Normal Reports," or 5 " Instant Reports," which is our in-house, internal operations 6 reporting system to get events or incidents investigated, 7 licensee events, reports that are issued. We have a SCRAM 8 reduction, a formal SCRAM reduction program, a trend reporting 9 system. 10 TCH stands for " Test Completion Reports." I think 11 that's good information when we complete the various testing 12 plateaus to see how well the test program is being conducted, 13 and if the design is, in fact, met. 14 Our OQA, or Operational Quality Assurance 15 Surveillance Program, provides very valuable information. 16 And, finally, our nonconformance and report system. 17 I would also mention that a key part of this -- these 18 are the processes that we have in place now. Some of those are 19 in place on Unit I; most of them are in place on Unit I, some 20 of them are slightly different on Unit II, because it is a 21 newer plant. 22 Those are the processes that we have. We also have l 23 key involvement by our senior management on-site, as Jack 24 Sieber indicated. The total nuclear group is on-site, so we're 25 within, I'm within five minutes of unit, I'm probably three s
26 1 minutes from the Unit II control room, and three minutes and 2 five seconds from the Unit I control room, depending on which 3 way I go, so we are on-site quite frequently on our own. 4 We plan on observations of the plant manager, myself,. 5 Jack Sieber, Jack carey, the other senior managers who are on-6 site; spend time observing the test program and watching what's 7 going on in the plant, and we think that's a very important 8 feedback mechanism into this process. 9 The next slide, please. 10 [ Slide.) 11 MR. CROCKETT: The assessment function essentially is 12 to review the evaluation results of what I previously 13 mentioned, the processes, plus our own experience with 14 observing Unit II during operation; secondly, to assure root 15 cause evaluation is properly done on things that occur in the l 16 plant. We do have problems. 1 17 Look at our corrective action programs. I think that 18 is very important on a new plant, on start-up so that you don't ;i 19 have the same problem over again and over again. We have 20 learned a lot from Unit I, and a lot of that information is ' 21 factored into the design, in the fact that the units are so 22 similar, and that's a very strong point in Unit II. ! 23 And, finally, the assessment function really is to 24 determine conformance to the INPO performance objectives and 25 criteria for both NTOLs and operational plants. That document
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27 1 provides a wealth of information for a benchmark of 2 performance. 3 The method that we have selected, and what we think 4 is the most effective to conduct this assessment, final 5 assessment, a weekly review by senior management. That 6 involves the senior vice president, the vice president and 7 myself, the plant manager, the manager of nuclear safety, the 8 manager of nuclear engineering, and the manager of quality 9 assurance.
- .0 We intend to conduct at least weekly review meetings 11 of all the evaluation data so that we can keep up with it, and 12 factor our own experience into the process so that we 13 understand what's going on with Unit II-and are satisfied and 4 14 concur on the plant schedule that we intend to meet.
15 We intend to complete this at about the 50 percent 16 power plateau, and we will prepare an assessment report at that 17 time, so that is our program that we have laid out to do that. 18 Are there any questions on that? 19 CHAIRMAN ZECH: No, thank you very much. 20 MR. CROCKETT: Thank you. 21 I would like to now introduce Mr. Steve Lacey, who is , i 22 the plant manager for Beaver Valley Power Station. 23 May I have the first slide back again, on 24 organization? 25 (Slide.) l
28 1 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Mr. Lacey, you may proceed. 2 MR. LACEY: Thank you. Good morning, gentlemen. 3 Can I have the next slide after that, the one with 4 the plant organization? 4 5 [ Slide.] 1 6 MR. LACEY: Okay. As you can see, in the operations I 7 organization, the assistant plant manager reports directly to 8 me. To him, reporting to the assistant plant manager, will be 9 two nuclear station operating supervisors; one for each unit. 10 Assigned to each unit will be six nuclear shift supervisors and i 11 six nuclear station operating foremen, as Mr. Crockett had 12 mentioned. 13 The nuclear shift supervisor will -- 14 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Say that again. Excuse me. Say 15 those numbers again, please. Each shift. 16 MR. LACEY: Assigned to each unit will be -- 1 17 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Each unit. I see. Yes. Okay, fine. 18 _Go ahead. 19 MR. LACEY: Okay. The nuclear shift supervisors will ; 20 have a minimum shift complement of one foreman, two nuclear 21 control operators, and two nonlicensed auxiliary operators per 22 unit, and there will be one STA in the control room to cover i 23 both units. 24 Now on our staff, Unit 2, we presently have 18 25 licensed SROs and 10 licensed Ros. Out of the 38 licensed _ __ __ _ _ _ _ . _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ . _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ . _ _ _ . _ _ _ _ . . _ _ _ _ _ . _ .__ __. .._. _ ________. I
29 1 personnel who staff Unit 3, 34 have been previously licensed on 2 Unit 1 There are two ROs and nine SROs with B.S. degrees. 3 Unit 2 reactor operators have an average of three 4 years experience performing licensed duties, and an average of 5 5.8 years overall power plant operating experience. 6 Unit 2 SRos have an average of five years operating 7 experience performing licensed duties, and an average of 10.5 8 years overall power plant operating experience. 9 14 of the non-degreed licensed person'nel have each 10 achieved approximately 32 college credits toward a B.S. degree 11 through our mutual program with Penn State University. 12 The control room organization at the present time is 13 made up of five shifts. We set up these shifts on a team 14 concept. The makeup of shifts is done through an evaluation 15 performed by the supervision so that the team members are 16 complementary. That goes for both the supervisors and the 17 actual reactor operators. 18 The teams train together, they go to the simulator 19 together. I think the concept, although there are some cons to 20 it -- the pros outweigh the cons, as far as having the team 21 concept on shift. I think the communications are better. I 22 think when you promote professionalism and promote a I 23 professional attitude and professional conduct, I think it's 24 much easier to do that with a team than it is if you had shifts 25 that crossed different boundaries, and the supervisors only s
- - _ _ - _ - _ _ _ _ - 1
i 30 1 worked with the other shift personnel say three out of five l l 2 days or five out of 10. 3 I think professional conduct is mandatory in our 4 business. As part of our training programs, we address this 1 5 conduct, and why we feel that it's a plus. ) 6 I feel that the Beaver Valley operators and 1 1 7 supervisors understand this need for professional conduct and l 1 8 professionalism, in all facets of the business, as far as the 9 use of procedures, their communications, their dress and their i j 10 decorum in the control room. 11 The last item I would like to cover here is the 12 status of plant start-up. We are presently in Mode 5. We are 13 in the final stages of testing on recirc spray, the diesel 14 generator, and we have some rod drop tests we have to backtrack 15 and complete. The reason we have to go back and complete these 16 rod drops is we had a spray valve that had a problem and 17 couldn't maintain system pressure. That's fixed, and we'll be 18 repressurizing and completing our full flow rod drops. 19 Presently for entering into Mode 4, we have 127 open 20 items we have to complete. 21 Does anybody have any questions? 22 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Not at this stage. But does that 23 complete your presentation? l 24 MR. LACEY: Yes, it does. U 25 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Well, then, I will ask my fellow s
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e 31 1 Commissioners if they have any questions. 2 Commissioner Bernthal? 3 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: We talked for a bit about 4 training here, and I had one question specifically about 5 training. As I look at your record of reactor operator exams, 6 it is pretty good, but it's not -- I notice in many cases you 7 had a number of failures. I see one here, for example, in 2 of 8 '86, where you had 11 applicants, four passed and seven failed. 9 That's not pretty good, I would say. Broadly speaking, I agree 10 that you have a very experienced and fairly senior operating 11 corps. That was one particularly memorable occasion, I'm sure. I 12 On another instance here, we had 12 RO applicants; i 13 seven passed and five failed, in mid '86, and in '87 so far you 14 had two where the percentages have been fairly good. 15 Can you give me some sense of why you had two or 16 three times such a high failure rate back in 1986? 17 MR. SIEBER: Actually, if you go further back in the i 18 record than that, you will find that up until the 1986 exam I 19 period, we had a success rate of about 85 percent. On the last 20 four exams, we have asked ourselves the same question that you 21 are asking me right now, to the extent that we have hired two 22 independent contractors to look at not only our programs, but 23 the examinations, to determine where the fault really lies. We 24 have done preliminary work, and we have developed what we 25 believe are corrective actions regardless of what the problem
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32 1 may be. We intend to upgrade our programs. 2 on the other hand, we are really not in a position to 3 determine exactly what all the factors are that have caused the 4 problems that we see. 5 We do know that the screening exams for the 6 candidates are the same and have not been compromised. We know 7 that the program.is the same as it has been, when we achieved a 8 better record, and we know that our staff is essentially the 9 same or perhaps even enhanced by experience and numbers since 10 that period of time. 11 On ths other hand, the statistics would indicate to l 1 12 me that we have to put a greater effort into making sure that 13 the students fully understand all the requirements for the 14 operator licenses. j 15 We have noticed some declining trends in our own 16 exams, but not nearly as sharply as the NRC examination results 17 would show. 18 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: Have you compared the NRC 19 exam or had your contractors take a look at the NRC exams 20 themselves to see whether there was consistency in our 21 examinations -- roughly, I mean; they are different, of course i 22 -- but whether there is apparent approximate consistency in the ! I 23 exams? l 24 MR. SIEBER: Yes, sir, we have. 25 COMMISSIONER SERNTHAL: And you find that there is? I
l . 1 33 1 MR. SIEBER: We -- each exam that is administered, we 2 have an opportunity to review, and to provide comments to the 3 operator licensing branch on the content of the exam, and 4 basically those are all docketed letters from me to the Region 5 I licensing people. 6 We have found some instances where the examining 7 process is not perfect, but in my own experience with other I 8 federal agencies, for example, the Federal Aviation Agency, who i 1 9 examines roughly -- and has licensed about 700,000 people -- 10 theirs la not perfect, either. And I think that that's 11 probably part of the nature of examinations for licensed 12 positions. The company's position is that we, of course, will j 13 train and qualify people to meet the requirements, number one; 14 and secondly, to the extent that we can contribute to making i 15 better the licensing process, we will do that, and volunteer 16 that service to the Commission, if they would so desire it. 17 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: Thank you. 18 The Staff may want to comment on that further. 19 Training and education are somewhat separate and 20 different, as I'm sure you know. On the education side, I have 21 noticed that you have gone a long way toward achieving what the 22 Commission, or at least a majority of the Commission, has 23 proposed with regard to degreed SROs. The numbers that I have 24 are that of your 18 SRos, you have one with a master's degree, 25 15 with bachelor's degrees, and two with associate degrees. s
34 1 That's a pretty impressive showing there. How did you do that? 2 Has this been a long-standing policy of the company? Have you 3 found that this has diminished the pool of people that you can 4 draw from, or the morale of your operation? Could you comment 5 a little bit on that? 6 MR. SIEBER: We do not have a policy that would put 7 degreed people in the SRO category, and we do have a program 8 for non-degreed SRO licensed people with Pennsylvania State 9 University where the company will provide for them on their own 10 time, but at the company's expense, ourse work leading to a 11 degree in engineering. 12 I think that the trend nowadays is, particularly as 13 senior reactor operators, is for people with degrees to seek 14 these positions. The industry's contention, and I guess our 15 experience may back it up, that degreed people see a future 16 beyond the control room and don't want to spend the rest of 17 their lives there. l 18 l on the other hand, as long as there are potential i 1 19 openings for non-degreed people at the shift supervisor level, 20 I think that there is the " care" out there that would cause 21 people and motivate people to do their very best to achieve ! 22 that level in their own personal careers. 23 I feel that having a degree is an asset to being able , I 24 to competently run a shift, but I don't believe that it would l
)
25 he required to do so and, in fact, some of our best operators 1 i I i
= 1
)
35 1 through the years do not have degrees. 2 I also believe that we need to have engineering l 3 expertise on shift, and that's why Duquesne Light has elected 4 to retain the shift technical advisors as part of the shift 5 crew. 6 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: But it sounds like in summary 7 you have had a fairly successful and -- I don't know how 8 aggressive, but at least a program that has been successful in 9 encouraging your operators to get degrees in conjunction with 10 Penn State, if I'm hearing what you're saying. You attribute 11 some of this high degree ratio to that program? 12 MR. SIEBER: I think the fact that we provide the 13 program to those who are interested and can perform the work -- 14 and it's a lot of work to work full time shift work and go to 15 college at the same time -- 16 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: That's right. 17 MR. SIEBER: -- that they see that the company 18 desires or finds it valuable to have degreed people. But I 19 can't ascribe all those motivations to people, I can't read 20 their minds. 21 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: Sure. But a number of them 22 have got the degrees via that -- 23 MR. SIEBER: Well, they're on their way. 24 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: Yes. 25 MR. SIE3ER: They're about halfway through. 1 E_______________.__.__._______.____________ ___ _ _ _ _ . _ _ _ _ _ _ . _
36 1 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: Good. 2 Well, I applaud you in that aspect of your program. 3 It's good to see that someone has managed to achieve a high ! 4 number of degreed people among the SRO cadre, and it seems to 5 work. And I'm not surprised they want to go on to higher 6 positions in the company, but in my judgment, that isn't all 7 bad. In fact, that's a desirable outcome of having degreed 8 operators, that people with plant operations end up in 9 management positions within the company. 10 One or two other questions. I noticed that both of 11 your plants are the subatmospheric containment type, which is i 12 similar to the Surry plants in Virginia. The Surry plants, as 13 you probably know, or at least one of them, was the subject of 14 the so-called NUREG-1150 PRA analysis on plant containment 15 capability and integrity. 16 Do you have any plan to carry out a similar analysis 17 of your plants at some point? Have you looked carefully at 18 that analysis yet and drawn any conclusions? 19 MR. CAREY: We have looked very carefully at the 20 analysis. In fact, we have referred to the analysis for many 21 probability studies on Beaver Valley Unit I. Beaver Valley II 22 is similar but slightly different. We are considering what 23 might have to be done to specify the probability for the 24 relatively few different scenarios that could occur on Beaver 25 II. We think we may move in that direction.
37 1 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: Is that an utility 2 initiative? Are you contracting that kind of analysis out? 3 MR. CAREY: I believe what we would do would be to 4 retain a ccuple of contractors and try to develop a team of our 5 own people to assist them. 6 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: I think we all would be 7 interested in hearing the outcome of that analysis. I would 8 encourage you to proceed with it. 9 Last question for now; I'm curious to know whether 10 the emergency planning has gone smoothly in every respcct. You 11 are straddling a state line there. I have not heard otherwise. 12 Perhaps you could comment for a moment on that. 13 MR. SIEBER: Beaver Valley is located in the 14 southwestern corner of Pennsylvania. The EPZ, the ten mile EPZ 15 covers Pennsylvania, West Virginia and the State of Ohio, three 16 counties and 31 municipalities. There is a lot of agencies. 17 There are two NRC regions and three FEMA regions. There are a 18 lot of agencies involved. 19 We have never failed an emergency plan drill. The 20 last drill that we had which I believe was November 19, 1986, 21 which was a full scale drill, the State of Ohio and West 22 Virginia basically had no deficiencies. Pennsylvania, the way 23 the State of Pennsylvania played it was and our emergency plan l 24 reads this way, that the Pennsylvania Emergency Management 25 Agency, if you fail to reach communications with them: they
4 I 38 1 assume duties at the county level. We played the drill that 2 way with the support of the Pennsylvania Department of 3 Environmental Resources and Bureau of Radiation Protection. ) l 4 That became a deficiency because the objectives of I l 5 the drill did not show that. It was remedied at the next drill 6 that Pennsylvania participated in. We also had one other l 7 deficiency in Pennsylvania that involved the failure of two I 8 small towns to coordinate into a single EOC, which was remedied I l t 9 and witnessed by FEMA as a tabletop exercise one evening where 10 they did actually form a single EOC and their plans were 11 changed to provide that. 1 12 We basically have gene through the bulk of the 350 l 13 process for all the emergency plans and public hearings that i 14 have been held. We believe we are doing very well in the l 15 emergency planning area. 16 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: Thank you. 17 Three states doesn't make the job any easier. I am 18 pleased to hear that things appear to be going fairly well, 19 I want to ask one more quick one. Unit I has had a 20 fairly good capacity factor record, that is, it has improved 21 over the last two to three years. I believe you are averaging 22 around 70 percent for the three years through 1986, something 23 like that. 24 Before that, it wasn't so good. Can you suggest to 25 me what has led to that improved factor? You have been on
39 1 line, full power, since 1976? 2 MR. SIEBER: Yes, sir. There are a lot of factors, I 3 think, that have evolved. Number one, in the period of 1976 4 througn 1980, we had a number of major equipment problems 5 including the loss of a boiler feed pump early on, damage to 6 our main unit transformer which took the unit out of service 7 for a number of months and a show cause order on the seismic ! 8 issue that hit five different plants in the United States. l l 9 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: What about the early 1980s? 10 MR. SIEBER: In 1981, not only did we look at a I l 11 capacity factor that was around 35 percent but we re-assessed I 12 our overall position. This is when we reorganized, brought all 13 our management on-site and basically doubled the size of our 14 staff. 15 From 1981 i:.hrough about 1986, we spent the early 16 years trying to get all of the required, regulatory required 17 modifications to the plant made as early as we possibly could 18 and those outages were relatively lengthy and a little bit 19 expensive, At the same time, we were able to train our people 20 to get ready to run the plant. 21 When the modifications with the TMI modifications 22 essentially out of the way and our now enlarged staff being 23 experienced, the capacity factors that we achieved beyond thau 24 point were significantly improved, in my opinion. We began to 25 Experience fewer equipment problems. We were able to zero in s
40 1 on the remaining problems that we had and continued to work on 2 them. 3 The third biggest impact in n.y own opinion was the 4 addition of the plant simulator. It has advantages not only in 5 helping operators respond to situations that hopefully they 6 will never see in their lifetime and be able to practice large l 7 numbers of accident scenarios, but it has also helped us to re-8 write all of our procedures for normal operations, because now l 9 you can write the procedure and try it out on the simulator to l 10 find out what the pitfalls are and what techniques are best 11 suited to minimize the stress on the plant. 12 Beyond that, critical operations, such as start-up 13 when you are switching feedwater from manual to automatic and 14 right now we are into a load following mode, which will reduce 15 our capacity factor, we are able to use the simulator to have 16 the operating crews practice specific maneuvers and in 17 addition, to use the simulator to predict what the plant 18 performance will be for certain transients so that we can 19 coordinate the various/ actions the operator would take to make 20 that transient run as smoothly as possible. 21 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: You are load-following? 22 MR. SIEBER: We are load-following this summer. 23 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: Both units? 24 MR. SIEBER: I don't know about the second unit but I 25 would expect tnat might be the case. We are load-following on s ________.______________________J
41 1 weekends. 2 Those are the three factors. i 3 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: I was hoping you would say 4 that in part at least, this was due to an enhanced preventive l 5 maintenance program. Maybe you can say that. 6 MR. SIEBER: We have put a lot of emphasis on that. l' 7 That has been a back to basics kind of a program. If you go 8 into a power plant and you see water on the floor or steam or l 9 oil on a base plata, the first place you start is to clean all 10 that up and then beyond that, you find out where it is coming 11 from and beyond that, you start whittling down the number of 12 defects there are in a plant. 13 I think we have given a lot of attention to that over 14 the last two or three years as well as the statistical kinds of 15 stuff where you track what is being done through every 16 component and every item, so that we have in fact maintained 17 the plant at a pretty high level. In my personal opinion, the 18 plant looks better now than it ever has. I 19 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: Do you have a target of any I 20 kind for preventive to required maintenance? 50 percent? j 21 MR. SIEBER: We are fairly close to that right now. 22 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: Good. That is all. Thank 23 you very much. 24 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Commissioner Carr? 25 COMMISSIONER CARR: Norhing. 1 1 1
42 1 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Just a comment or two. I, too, 2 commend you for your obvious commitment to a degreed operator 3 program. I think that is certainly something that has to add 4 value to your employees. I think that is the right approach to 5 take. 6 I must comment, too, on the initiative you took to j 7 separate your two control room units. I think that is very 8 important. I thought that was an important initiative on your 9 part. That doesn't happen all over. One could say it is maybe 10 not necessary and in your view, you obviously thought it was, 11 or it would be helpful. I think you did the right thing. I 12 think separating those units is a proper action and I think 13 your willingness to take en that physical and acoustic barrier, , 14 if you will, certainly was indicating a positive management 15 action. I commend you for that. 16 As you approach your operational status, I would 17 certainly caution you to continue the deliberative approach 18 that I believe you have taken and emphasize safety at all cost, 19 transition from a construction operation is always somewhat 20 difficult and challenging. You have already got one unit going
- 11 end you are about to move into a phase where you will have the p 22 second unit commencing its test program. No matter what 23 experience you, the senior people and your other staff have, 24 that's a challenge.
25 I would caution you to be careful, be slow, and
43 1 deliberate, and follow your' procedures. You have the 2 experience to do that. It is always a challenge. I caution 3 you as you move from construction operations, even though you 4 do have experience in that field, to be mindful of that 5 challenge you are facing. 6 Uniess my fellow Commissioners have other questions, 7 we will call the staff up. Thank you very muct for your 8 presentation. 9 Mr. Stello, you may proceed. 10 MR. STELLO: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 11 I have Dr. Murley with me on my right, Director of 12 the Office of NRR, who will introduce the other people this 13 morning, and on my left is Bill Russell, the Region I 14 Administrator. 15 We are here to talk about Beaver Valley in a somewhat 16 skewed scheduling process. Normally we would be here after the 17 plant were through low-power testing and would have the benefit 18 of providing the results of that low-power testing in our 19 recommendation to the Commission to allow us to go forward. 20 We, because as you've already pointed out, the scheduling 21 difficulties, we won't be doing that, and we will be handling 22 that problem separately, but we are confident that we would 23 have even been prepared today to go to the rather unusual step 1 24 because of the -- as you have heard, the considerable 25 experience of the company, and I think I might say for myself, e I
i 44 i 1 the period that Commissioner Bernthal was going through with 2 the changes in performance, when I visited the plant, they were l 3 having very, very considerable difficulty and have me.de, as 4 you, I'm sure, have seen in your visits, significant, 1 l l 5 considerable progress in resolving their problems, and the 6 operation of those facilities, that facility, the change has 7 been remarkable, if you look back over the data. l 1 1 8 I think this is due in large measure to the 9 recognition of the company that they, indeed -- that they did 10 have problem. They had a considerable staffing problem where ! l 11 they essentially doubled the size of their staff and took hold 12 of the problem and did a very, very thorough job, and I think 13 they need to be commended for that, and the results, I think, i 14 demonstrate that they have, in fact, done that. ' 15 The schedule that we have in our recommendation is 16 that we are prepared to allow the company to go through the 17 low-power testing program up through 5 percent power and at 18 that time would assess how well they've done, obviously before 19 we would be prepared to let them go beyond that, but we will 20 work with the Commission as to how to interface with the 21 Commission in that process. 22 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Fine. 23 MR. STELLO: The schedule suggests that there's a 24 couple weeks before criticality and then probably a week or so, 25 maybe two weeks depcnding on how things go, when they would c.
4 45 l 1 have been ready to go beyond that. We will work with the 2 Commission and get thn report that you've asked us to the 1 3 Commission in a way in which we can then deal with the ! l I 4 remainder of the problem. 5 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Fine. I l l 6 MR. STELLO: But our bottomline conc 2usion is, right 7 now we are satisfied. ; 8 CHAIRMAN ZECH: All right. 9 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: Let's see, I was confused 10 about the schedule. You say two weeks before criticality, and 11 then how long until they have completed their 5 percent testing l l 12 program? I 13 MR. STELLO: It's a PWR. Typically that could be as i 14 little as a week or two. It is not very long at all. l 15 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: Okay. So you would expect 16 around the 1st of August, then, that they would be -- l 17 MR. STELLO: Depending on how things go. 18 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: -- beginning power ascension, 19 assuming things go well. Okay, well, I would look forward to 20 hearing a report on that. 21 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Right. 22 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: As I'm sure my colleagues 23 will. 24 MR. STELLO: Yes, and we will work with the 25 Commission on how to provide that to the Comnission.
46 1 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Fine. Thank you. 2 MR. STELLO: Let me turn the briefing over to Dr. 3 Murley. I would ask that each of the speakers this morning 4 will adjust their at least planned presentations to not repeat 5 what you've heard from the Licensee and try to cover those 6 things that were not covered by the Licensee. We will do it in 7 a very summary way. 8 CHAIRMAN ZECH: All right. 9 MR. MURLEY: Yes. We will have special inspection 10 coverage during this period, which Bill Russell will talk 11 about. That will form the basis for our report to you. 12 We will discuss today the basis for our reviews and 13 our recommendations. A lot of them have been covered by the 14 Licensee. 15 I'd like.to mention just a bit of history of the 16 plant during construction, Unit 2. They had some problems, 17 and, in fact, back in 1984, our SALP showed that they had three l la Category 3s -- in piping systems, electrical systems, and in 19 engineering and construction interface. And they were headed, 20 I felt at that time, toward serious problems, because their 21 engineering design documents coming from their contractors were 22 being sent to the field. They weren't of good quality, and the 23 deficiencies and the problems were building up faster than they 1 24 were dealing with them. 25 Ue talked with the management at a SALP meeting, and s l
I ^ 47 I 1 we found that the -- we felt the root cause was inadequate l l 2 management and control of contractors. They, I think, l 3 generally agreed, took definitive steps back in 1984 to put Mr. 4 Carey, whom you've talked to today, in full-time charge of , l 5 construction of Unit 2, and Mr. Arthur himself was onsite 6 frequently, and I kept in close contact with Mr. Arthur during 7 the construction. 8 It turned out well. The performance on construction 9 improved, and they got on top of these problems and, of course, 10 gradually worked them out to the point where we think in.the 11 last two years their performance has been quite good indeed, 12 and their startup pre-op test has been on of the best in the 13 Region. 4 14 So with that, I'll turn to Steve Varga and Peter Tam, 15 who will talk about the licensing aspects. 16 CHAIRMAN ZECH: All right. You may proceed. 17 MR. VARGA: I'm Steve Varga, Division Director for 18 the Region I plants, and I just want to point out that in the i 19 information we provided you in the proposed license, there are 20 two changes. One is a deletion because the fire alarm circuits 21 that we had originally included in the proposed license have 22 since been completed. 23 There is another item that has been added that Peter 24 Tam in his discussion will point out the specifics on. So with 25 that, I'll turn it over to Peter.
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48 1 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Fine. You may proceed. 2 MR. TAM: I'm Peter Tam, the Proj ect Manager for 3 Beaver Valley Units 1 and 2. I have been FM for Unit 1 for 4 five years, and in January of '86 I was also assigned Unit 2. 5 Since Duquesne already covered most of my 6 presentation, I can very quickly skip to Slide 3. 7 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Fine. 8 [ Slide.] l 9 MR. TAM: Commissioner Bernthal mentioned about 10 emergency preparedness. I would like to point out that we have 11 in the upcoming SER Supplement No. 6, we will show that we have 12 completed review of all regulatory requirements. We do have 13 our Review Branch Chief, David Matthew, here with us today 14 among the audience. If there are any additional questions, we 15 can address those. 16 Slide No. 4, please. 17 [ Slide.] 18 This slide shows that this is a Westinghouse design. 19 The AE firm was Stone & Webster. 20 Beaver Valley Unit 2 is similar to Unit 1 and, of 21 course, it's also similar to North Anna and Surry. It is a 22 three-loop plant with loop stop valves. 23 I would like to point out that Unit 1 and Unit 2 do 24 not share a lot of inportant features. About the most 25 important thing that they do share is rhe control recm, which
49 1 has been divided by a glass' wall into two sections, and later 2 on I will show that there is no cross-licensing of Unit 1 and 2 3 operators. 4 Slide No. 5, please. 5 [ Slide.) 6 The next slide, No. 5, show the licensing milestones. 7 In about the middle of the slide, we mention the ACRS meeting. 8 The ACRS pointed out a ntnber of issuec. Recounted there are 9 about three of them. Two of the issues are generic in nature. 10 There is one plant-specific issue that the ACRS wanted us to 11 address, and that has to do with the application of leak-12 before-break to piping beyond primary coolant loop piping. And 13 we have completed the review, as Duquesne Light mentioned, that 14 -- it was called the WHIPJET program. 15 As a result of the review, we are proposing to grant 16 an exemption to Duquesne Light regarding this pipe. i 17 Also we have reported back to the ACRS Committee on 18 Metal Components on March 26th regarding our review result. 19 There is an error at the bottom of this slide. Initial 20 criticality is no longer July 6th. 21 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: Could I -- 22 MR. TAM: Yes? 23 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: I think maybe now is the best 24 time to ask a question about that exemption on pipe whip 25 restraints and impingement barriers.
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50 1 Could you explain to me exactly where we stand on 2 this? I thought that we had one rule change in effect at this 3 point, if I'm remembering correctly, but that there is a second 4 4 generic broad rule that is still under consideration that will 5 come before the Commission in that area. , i' 6 I guess my question is, what are the principal 7 differences there, and perhaps more importantly, what happens ; 8 if something changes in the rulemaking process? I mean, isn't i 9 the utility, on the basis of this exemption, proceeding in the l 10 hope that that second rule will go through, as we all think it l 11 will? l l 12 MR. TAM: Yes. I realize that we already have a 13 revised GDC-4 in effect, which permits, if we can justify from 14 a technical standpoint using leak-before-break, permits removal 15 of primary coolant loop pipe whip restraints, and its very 16 specific. The current GDC-4 is very specific. It only applies 17 to primary coolant loop. 18 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: Right. 19 MR. TAM: The Commission does have before itself for 20 consideration what we call the " broad scope" revision of GDC-4. 21 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: The balance of plant? 22 MR. TAM: Right. That, of course, has not been 23 approved yet. 24 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: Yes. 25 MR. TAM: Now Duquesne Light, about a year or tuo
51 1 years ago, decided to try to make use of this rulemaking. At 2 that time, of course, it was not sure at what point the rule 3 would be approved, and through numerous discussions with the 4 Staff, Duquesne Light decided to assume the risk of trying to 5 use leak-before-break technology. 6 The Staff was interested and the Staff worked very 7 closely with Duquesne Light on that through about seven or 8 eight technical open meetings in 1986 and that culminated in 9 the Staff's conpletion of the review and recommended that a r 10 schedule exemption can be granted to Duquesne Light. 11 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: But I take it, the Staff is 12 confident enough of this direction that we're heading of not 13 requiring -- 14 MR. STELLO: Yes. We are satisfied that even if you 15 were not to go forward with the " broad scope" rule, if that 16 were, in fact, to fail, that the justification for the limited 17 exemption for which we have gone forward with here is still, in 18 our view, is clearly justified, even if the Commission does not 19 go forward with the " broad scope" rule. We wouldn't have done 20 I it unless we believed that were, in fact, the case. l 21 This does not depend and need to have a " broad scope" 22 rule to go forward. 23 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: There are two rather 24 different philosophies involved here, aren't there, one with 25 pipe whip restraints and another with a lot fewer, at least?
52 1 Presumably the Staff has a viewpoint that one is 2 better than the other. I would assume it's the new proposal. 3 MR. STELLO: It clearly is, and there's been 1 4 considerable debate on the need to go with this quickly, j i 5 because so many plants put in the restraints, and there's, at 6 least in the ACRS, a strongly-held view that we have gone so 7 far with these restraints that we really have detracted from 8 safety in the process of doing it, because we've interfered 9 with the ability to get in and do the kinds of inspections that 10 we have. So certainly the ACRS and others have urged to move 11 forward. 12 We have. It is our view that we ought to move 13 forward with both the " narrow scope" rule which is already in 14 place and the " broad scope" we are considering, but even 15 without the benefit of that rule, because of the scheduling 'for ) 16 this plant, if we hadn't gone forward with the exemption 17 process, that clearly then would not have been able to do it 1 18 and hence would never have had the benefit of it. 19 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: But your technical analysis l l 20 at the Staff level convinces you that theirs is the better way 21 to go at this point? 22 MR. STELLO: Absolutely, yes. 23 MR. VARGA: It should be pointed out, I think, that 24 this is a fairly limited extension. We're talking about four 25 lines, the pressurizer surge lines, and they're all within
53 1 containment. So as Victor points out, we would have gone ahead 2 without the rule. 3 CHAIRMAN ZECH: All right. You may proceed. 4 MR. TAM: The next slide, please, No. 6. 5 [ Slide.] 6' MR. TAM: This slide summarizes the unique features 7 about this license that we are proposing. First, I would like 8 to point out that when we issue the SER Supplement No. 6, there 9 will be no open issues remaining. The exemptions we have 10 already addressed. This one has to do with WHIPJET, leak 11 before break for certain piping. 12 There is another exemption which is what we call a 13 standard exemption, that has to do with air lock testing. ) 14 There are two plant specific license conditions. One is called 15 a verification and validation of plant safety monitoring 16 systems software. What this PSMS is basically, a class I-E 17 computer based digital display system. It is supposed to ) l 18 display Reg Guide 1197 variables, such as neutron flux, core 19 exit thermal couple. 20 The staff is taking a position that since it is based 21 on the software, the licensee should go ahead and try to verify 22 that indeed it is displaying the right thing. That is why we 23 are proposing this license condition. 24 The next one has to do with fire protection. During 25 Duquesne Light's testing of che fire protection system, namely
54 1 carbon dioxide system, in a number of fire areas, it was 2 discovered there were conditions of over pressure. These tests 3 were conducted in April and May of this year. The timing for 4 that, of course, is because the tests could not have been done 5 prior to completion of all the other fire protection 6 modifications, such as sealing of penetrations. 7 When the tests were done, it was discovered there was 8 over pressure conditions. Duquesne Light proposes to install a l l 9 total of five back-drop dampers in four fire areas. These are 10 located in such a way that when the pressure goes up, the I 11 dampers will open to release some of the air out and therefore, 12 that will help to ascertain there is sufficient carbon dioxide 13 in the area. 14 Duquesne Light's schedule for completing these 15 dampers will be around the end of September. If we assume the { 16 plant would need a full power license at the end of July, we 17 propose to impose a license condition to assure that this will 18 be done, all the installation will be done. In the meantime, 19 Duquesne Light will have to impose fire watches in accordance 20 with the fire protection program. 21 We have reviewed the situation and decided there was 22 no safety significance with the fire watches. l
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23 [ Slide.] 24 MR. TAM: We can skip seven and eight. Duquesne 25 already talked about those. We can also skip nina.
55 1 That basically is the end of my presentation. 2 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Thank you very much. 3 MR. RUSSELL: I will try and follow that lead. I 4 would like to give you some background on the construction 5 experience. We have put over 20,000 hours of inspection I 6 activity on construction, including use three times of 7 independent measurements using NBE. We have had two l 8 construction team inspections. We have conducted two in depth l
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9 inspections of their technical assurance audit program, which 10 is a program designed to assure the quality of construction in 11 conformance to the FSAR. In addition, this year, we have 12 completed Appendix R inspections and a confirmation of the as- j 1 I 13 built plans. ' 14 The results of those inspection activities give us 15 confidence that the plant has been built in accordance with the
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16 terms and conditions of the license and application. 17 Because we have already talked about some of the 18 history associated with the electrical work, Dr. Murley covered 19 that earlier, I will skip that. He has also discussed the i 20 engineering interface. I 21 [ Slide.] 22 MR. RUSSELL: The issue associated with the 23 completion of the test program on schedule was discussed by the 24 licensee. I wanted to highlight there were few test 25 deficiencies, not only was this done in a timely manner, but it
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R 56 1 was also done in a quality manner. We think that reflects well l 2 on their performance during the latter part of the pre-3 operational test program and construction phase. 4 The testing of ball valves -- the replacement of the 5 ball valves and testing of the replacement of MSIVs has been 6 completed. f 7 (Slide.] 8 MR. RUSSELL: I want to focus just a few moments on l 9 both the licensee's self assessment program and what the staff j 10 activities will be during the period of time and particularly 11 associated with our evaluation of criticality. l ll 12 We will be providing coverage during the criticality
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l l 13 phase with the residents and with region based inspectors. We j I 14 will also be performing a team inspection to evaluate the 1 15 quality of operations during low power testing. We would 16 intend to use those, along with our base program, as a 17 principal input to a recommendation for operation above five 18 percent. 19 Subsequent to that point in time, we will be using a 20 program to collect information that is essentially similar to a 21 small scope SALP evaluation of operations between 5 percent and 22 50 percent. We will be doing that independently, comparing our 23 evaluations to those of the licensee at a meeting with the 24 licensee which would occur around the 50 percent power point. 25 This is similar to the program I discussed with you last week i
57 1 concerning Nine Mile Point Unit II. 2 (Slide.] 3 MR. RUSSELL: This slide just documents results of 4 the SALPs. You will notice they have improved, both in the 5 construction activities from the 3's that Dr. Murley discussed 6 earlier to the situation where they are quite a solid performer 7 at this point. 8 [ Slide.] 9 MR. RUSSELL: There is one area that I did want to 10 identify that we felt has not been as strong as some of the 11 others and that's the use of quality assurance as an effective 12 management tool. Essentially, a lot of the items are being 13 identified through other programs and corrective actions. This l 14 is not a weakness. That is, the quality assurance program in 1 15 all respects meets our requirements. It's consistent with the
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16 Appendix B program. When it is compared to other aspects er 17 some of the things they have been doing in the way of 1 i 18 management involvement, it's not as strong. It's an area that 19 we have commented on in the SALP and I just wanted to highlight 20 that at this point. 21 (Slide.] 22 MR.' RUSSELL: The numbers here reflect management 23 attention on two construction activities. Particularly we j 24 would like to note there have been no civil penalties. There 25 has only been one escalated enforcement action, that was a
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58 1 reporting requirement which the Commission was notified of. We 2 issued a severity Level 3 with no civil penalties. There have ; 3 been no other escalated enforcement actions. 4 There have only been 12 allegations, which have been 5 entered into the allegation tracking system. Those are all 6 resolved technically. There is one remaining issue which has to 7 do with potential falsification of records by an individual, , l 8 which is currently being evaluated. ' 9 Slide No. 16, please. 10 I would like to have Jim Beall, the senior resident, 11 address control room environment, because at times it has been 12 quite crowded -- this has been something that's been commented 13 on, it has been addressed somewhat by the Licensee, but I think 14 some of the changes that they have put in place since the wall l 15 has been removed and other things would be useful for you to l 16 hear. I 17 Jim. 18 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Thar.k you very much. Proceed. I 19 MR. BEALL: My name is Jim Beall. I am the senior 20 resident inspector at Beaver Valley Unit 2. 21 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Welcome. 22 MR. BEALL: The unit control room is a very large 23 control room, and is fairly uniquely laid out now that the 24 Licensee has taken down a temporary wall that used to separate 25 the Unit 1 operating unit from the Unit 2 control room, which
D 59 1 was under construction. 2 They replaced this solid wall with a glass 3 partitioning which was referred to earlier by Peter Tam. It 4 serves as a noise baffle, and a point at which access control 5 could be used. The office where the shift superintendent, the 6 senior shift man, senior SRO stands his watch, nominally, is 7 not separated between the two units, as you two Commissioners 8 have seen. It allows free passage of people, as well as 9 information between the senior people on shift and would l 10 therefore allow a better interchange of ideas and of activities 11 going on. 12 It also serves to limit access to Unit 1 in a 13 practical sense, and that is even until very recently when Unit 14 1 had a license and was operating and Unit 2 was not, the level 15 of activity and personnel has been markedly different at that 16 wall. It has served to isolate the operating unit from the l 17 hubbub of activity that often is associated with a unit either 18 under construction or in the preoperational testing phase. It 19 has been effective at that. I have routinely gone in the 20 control room, about every day, sometimes more often than every 21 day, and I have noted that there is a line at which that level 22 of activity, the noise level, greatly reduces when you go 23 through there. It's almost as though it's not just a physical 24 presence, but it's a reminder to people that a plant under 25 construction is behind them, that this is an operating unit to s
n O 60 1 which you are going. 2 Now that Unit 2 has a license, but still is 3 undergoing testing, the level of work and the kind of 4 activities going on in that control room has changed. It has 5 gone from a craft worker connecting leads to painting, from l I 6 these kinds of physical movement of materials, it has gone from 7 that to the testing. The testing of the systems out in the i 8 plant, the testing of the equipment and indications on the 9 control board. 10 I have seen these testing activities, and they have l 11 been well controlled. I have witnessed the men in the control 12 room, the testing people on the control headsets following the 13 procedures that are in front of them, keeping the licensed 14 operators well informed of what their activities are and what 15 they are doing at each step. 16 I have seen technicians in the back of the control 17 room outside the operating area in the back panels, also in 18 headsets, coordinating activities associated with the meters 19 that they are working with there. 20 I have seen a use of their large space by a Licensee 21 in a constructive manner. They have established a kind of 22 rope, temporary stanchion, which would limit direct passage 23 from the entrance areas down along the control boards, and 24 instead into the area where the shift foremen and the STA desk 25 area are, so that people who might come in for a paper reason s l
r 61 1 or for a question or for a request of some sort would not go to 2 the panel where the operators themselves are handling the 3 controls of the plant.
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4 I have watched and witnessed people coming into the 5 control room and watched the flow of people, and they abide by 6 that informal channeling of people, j 7 The level of activity in the control room is still 8 very high. Yesterday, for example, I counted over 20 people in l 9 that control room at one time on the Unit 2 side alone. But I l l I l 10 noted that of those 23, I think it was, people that I counted 11 at one point in time, about 10 were in the area which would be 12 near the control panels, and most of them were far enough away l 13 from the control panels and on the insides of the desking area 14 so that they did not interfere with the operator and his view 15 of the panel and his ability to take control of any systems 16 that he might need to. They were generally at consoles which 17 provided information without requiring the man or the operator 18 to get close. He'd be reviewing monitors at the SPDS system, 19 at the MS system, and the various control circuits and phone 20 circuits that were there. 21 of the other people, most of them were talking to the 22 shift superintendent in that enclosed area, and were discussing 23 the activities that were going on out in the plant. 24 I would say, from my view of the control room and the l 25 activities I saw, that the activities were done in a 4
O 62 1 professional manner, and that good control was being taken of 1 2 the very large activity level of the plant. J 3 MR. RUSSELL: I think this is particularly imporrant, 4 Mr. Chairnan, because you recall when you were there, they were 5 in the process of just having taken the wall down, and there 6 was quite a bit of confusion. 7 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Yes, I do recall, i 8 MR. RUSSELL: The other items that were on Slide 16 l 9 have been covered, but there was one question that came up in 10 the discussion regarding examining of operators that I thought 11 I would address at this point. 12 There have been both extensive reviews of the results 13 of the exams by the Licensee as he commented on, and also by 14 the Regional Staff, and I am sure you are aware the NRC has l 15 been in the process of improving by changing the tirrust of its i 16 licensing exams, trying to make them more operationally-17 oriented and more of a focus.on technical specifications and 18 operating procedures, and moving away from some of the things 19 that were associated with system design, theoretical 20 calculations, to in fact make them more operationally oriented. 21 This has been going on nou for about two years. 22 The weaknesses that were identified in the most 23 recent exam were of the type that related to knowledge of 24 technical specifications and procedures and, in fact, four of 25 the eight failures which occurred in May were on the simulator, 6
63 i 1 associated with control board operations and knowledge. 2 There may be some lessons learned from this, but we 3 feel that the process of providing for both utility review and l 4 comment on the examination prior to grading and the process l 5 which exists for review of the examination administrative 1y 6 and, in fact, requesting hearings, should there be an error or 1 7 the individual candidate feels that there has been an error, l 8 provides safeguards to ensure the overall quality of the exam, 9 and we are quite conscious of the need for it to be perceived 10 as both fair and, at the same time, to be a rigorous exam to in 11 fact be a screening tool to assure that those who are operating 12 the facilities do so and have the knowledge and the technical j 13 abilities to carry out their important responsibilities. 14 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: Could I just ask the general l 15 question of whether we have ever solicited professional advice j 16 and assistance, had professional consultants in, to take a 17 broad look at our examining procedures and how we go about 18 constructing examinations? Have we ever done anything like 19 that? 20 MR. RUSSELL: Yes, we have. If I could put my hat on 21 that I had up until a few months ago, we have an extensive 22 program ongoing by way of examination improvement, and we are 23 using professionals. The same individuals that are involved in 24 other exams, PES, Professional Examining Service, we have had 25 workshops on exam writing, question development. We have also s
O G4 1 had exchange meetings with individuals from the Institute of 2 Nuclear Power Operations. We have had panels that included 3 licensed operators, providing comment on subject area for 4 examining. We have in fact promulgated extensive catalogues 5 which we call knowledgeability catalogues, which describe, 6 based upon the INPO job task analysis and the accreditation 7 process, the kinds of questions or questioning areas, along , 1 8 with their relative significance and there are actually j 1 9 numerical values assigned to the importance, what we call l 10 importance factors, and we use that in constructing an exam. 11 We also have a sampling plan that randomly samples so l l l 12 that you don't skew an examination to one area and not cover I 13 other areas. There are extensively quality assurance ' 14 checklists prior to the examination being administered, which l 15 includes not only review against the checklist and the ' 16 standard, but independent review by a second examiner, and then 17 approval by the section chief in the region prior to the exam 18 being administered. 19 So I believe that it's fair to say that there has 20 been substantial effort in this area over the last two years. 21 We have had some problems where some utilities were surprised 22 by the changes, the change in direction. I can recall a number 23 of utilities that we have discussed here with the Commission 24 where there have been questions regarding the charge in thrust. 25 And if you are no longer giving an exam that asks theory
65 1 questions and you shift to operations questions, and you probe 2 deeply in some of those areas, you find that if the candidates 3 have not been adequately prepared that there are some generic 4 lessons to be learned that need to be factored back in the 5 training program. 6 CHAIRMAN ZECH: All right. 7 MR. RUSSELL: That completes my presentation. 8 MR. STELLO: We are through, Mr. Chairman. I 9 reiterate the conclusion I started with. 10 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Yes. 11 MR. STELLO: That when they satisfactorily complete 12 their low power testing program, we would be prepared, given 13 that that is done adequately, to recommend to the Commission, 14 and will do so later, when they have completed that low power 15 testing program -- 16 CHAIRMAN ZECH: All right, fine. 17 MR. STELLO: -- and we are satisfied, we will 18 communicate that to the Commission. 19 CHAIRMAN ZECH: All right. Thank you very much. 20 Questions from my fellow Commissioners? Commissioner 21 Bernthal? 22 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: I don't have any further 23 questions. I would just make a comment or two. One is that 24 the construction SALP on this plant has been quite good, as you 25 have pointed out. s
66 1 On the other hand, the SALP for Unit 1 is acceptable, 2 quite acceptable, but clearly shows that there is room for 3 improvement, and so I would hope the utility would not only 4 find that room for improvement in Unit 1, but extend the record l 5 in Unit 2's construction SALP to the operations of Unit 2. 6 Other than that, I would just say that I will be 7 looking forward, Mr. Chairman, to hearing the Staff's a evaluation of the start-up period here the next three weeks or 9 so, and would hope that at the end of that period, all has 10 indeed gone well and that the Commission can give its final 11 approval for power ascension. 12 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Thank you very much. 13 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: Thank you. 14 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Commissioner Carr? 15 COMMISSIONER CARR: Well, I'd like to congratulate j 16 Mr. Arthur for putting a strong management team in place. I 17 think it was noticeable during my visit that they do have 18 strong management, and I would like to commend the management 19 for stressing professionalism in the control room. I think 20 that's the important piece of safety, is to make sure the s 21 operators realize that they are at the root of that. 22 I would encourage you, as I do everybody, to make ! 23 ! sure you upgrade your balance-of-plant maintenance program and i 24 bring it in line with the strict program we have in the primary 25 plant, and I await with interest the results of your low power
, 1 l ,
I
67 1 test program. 2 CHAIF09di ZECH: Thank you very much. 3 Well, let me just conclude today's briefing by -- 4 first of all, I guess I should have said at the beginning for 5 the record that Commissioner Roberts is not present with us 6 today, but I would like to thank the Duquesne Light Company for 7 a very fine presentation. I, too, commend them for the 8 management actions that they have taken to improve their 9 performance and to give the Staff and the Commission the 10 confidence that has been reflected in your SALP marks and in 11 the many things that we've heard today about your responsible 12 actions. 13 I, too, during my visit, was impressed with the l l 14 efforts that you've taken to improve the control room decorum l 15 and the control room atmosphere, which I also believe is 16 extremely important to safe operations. 17 I would like to thank the Staff, too, and all of you 18 -- the Program Manager, the Senior Resident, and other senior 19 members of the Staff that have made such fino presentation here 20 to us this morning. 21 As I stated in my opening remarks, the Commission 22 will not vote today, and we've scheduled this meeting somewhat 23 earlier than usual, a few weeks earlier than usual, to account 24 for scheduling considerations and also to provide the 25 opportunity for a public meeting prior to authorizing full s
G8 1 power. 2 Accordingly, I emphasize, as I did at the beginning, 3 that prior to issuance of the full-power license, the Staff is 4 requested to provide notification to the Commission regarding 5 initial operating experience. At that time, the Commission l 6 will be in a position to consider authorizing the Staff to l 7 issue the full-power license for Beaver Valley Unit 2. 1 8 Are there any other final comments from my fellow l l 9 Commissioners? l l 10 [No response.] 11 CHAIRMAN ZECH: If not, Mr. Stello do you have 12 something you wanted to say? l 13 MR. STELLO: No. -
)
14 CHAIRMAN ZECH: All right. If not, we stand 15 adjourned. i 16 (Whereupon, at 11:57 o' clock, a.m., the Commission 17 meeting was adjourned.] 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 l
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1 2 REPORTER'S CERTIFICATE 3 4 This is to certify that the attached events of a 5 meeting of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission entitled: 6 7 TITLE OF MEETING: Discussion /Possible Vote on Full-Power Operating License for Beaver Valley-2 8 PLACE OF MEETING: Washington, D.C. 9 DATE OF MEETING: Wednesday, July 8, 1987 10 . 11 l 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 f / 18 __b, use_u.s_ d r/a.a u__c_ Sbzanne B. ng 19 20 21 . 22 Ann Riley & Associates, Ltd. 23 24 25
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7/8/87 l SCHEDULING NOTES TITLE: DISCUSSION /POSSIBLE VOTE ON FULL POWER OPERATING LICENSE FOR BEAVER VALLEY-2 SCHEDULED: 10:00 A.M., WEDNESDAY, JULY 8, 1987 (OPEN) 1 DURATION: APPROX l-1/2 HRS
\
I PARTICIPANTS: DUQUESNE LIGHT COMPANY 30 MINS l
- J.J. CAREY, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, NUCLEAR GROUP l
- JAMES CROCKETT, SENIOR MANAGER OPERATIONS
- STEVEN LACEY, PLANT MANAGER ED0/NRR 20 MINS
- VICTOR STELLO
- IHOMAS MURLEY
- PETER IAM REGION I 15 MINS
- WILLIAM RUSSELL j l
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FUNCTION
- Review Evaluation ults Rec
\ Assure Root Cause E voluotion
- Monitor Corrective Acti on ETHQD- Determine Conformance to INPO Performanc i
- hieekly review try Senio e 00Jectives
- Concurrence r Managefunt Complete '
on Plant Schedule Assessment Reportat 50*. Plateau t i 4 J
/
BEAVER VALLEY POWER STATION UNIT 2 POWER ASCENSION OPERATIONAL SELF ASSESS mfT e OBJECTIVE Evaluate overall station operations Assess Operational effectiveness for safe plant operations EVALUATION AREAS TO EE EVALUATED:
- Organ 1Zational interfoce
- Configuration Control
- Plant Procedures
- Teamwark / Ccomunicottons
- OQA Surveillance
- Engineering / Construction Support
- Control Room Operations / Training
- Startup Results '
ETHOD OF EVALUATION:
- Onsite Safety Committee
- ISE6
- UONR's / IR's
- LER's
- SCRAM Reduction
- Trend Reports
- TCR's
- 00A Surveillance
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COMMISSION BRIEFING ON THE FULL-POWER LICENSING OF l BEAVER VALLEY POWER STATION, UNIT 2 JULY 8, 1987 i PETER TAM PROJECT MANAGER 492-4837 1 1 e
I 1 l PRESENTATION OUTLINE o BACKGROUND o SITING i 1 o PLANT DESIGN l 0 LICENSING MILESTONES l 0 FULL-POWER LICENSE i o ORGANIZATION AND STAFFING o CONSTRUCTION EXPERIENCE o PREOPERATIONAL TESTING o STARTUP o SALP o ENFORCEMENT o OPERATIONS o CONCLUSIONS VS OR TEM 1 a
I i BACKGR011ND I o OWNERS DUQUESNE LIGHT COMPANY TOLEDO EDISON COMPANY CHIO EDISON COMPANY j CLEVELAND ELECTRIC ILLUMINATING COMPANY o OPERATOR DUQUESNE LIGHT COMPANY o EXPERIENCE l OWNED AND OPERATED BEAVER VALLEY UNIT 1 SINCE 1976 OPERATED SHIPPINGPORT REACTOR o NO OL HEARING i SAV 2
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i l SITING q 1 o LOCATION
- SHIPFINGPORT, PENNSYLVANIA l
SHARES SAME S!TE WITH BEAVER VALLEY UNIT 1 AND SHIPPINGPORT REACTOR o POPULATION 10-MILES: 155,000 50-MILES: 3,700,000 , 1 LARGEST CITY WITHIN 50 MILES: PITTSBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA (22 MILES) o EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS ONSITE AND OFFSITE LICENSING REQUIREMENTS COMPLETED LAST FULL-PARTICIPATION EXERCISE: NOVEMBER 19, 1986 NEXT ANNUAL EXERCISE (PARTIAL): SEPTEMBER 22, 1987
- EP ZONE COVERS 3 STATES (PA, OH AND WV) 2 FEMA REGIONS PST 3
DLANT DESIGN o VENDOR WESTINGHOUSE REACTOR AND TURBINE o ARCHITECT / ENGINEER STONE AND WEBSTER o NSSS 3 LOOP NITH LOOP-STOP VALVES , l 2652 MWT o CONTAINMENT CYLINDRICAL, STEEL-LINED CONCRETE, SUBATMOSPHERIC l 0 UNIQUE DESIGN FEATURES NO PIPE-WHIP RESTRA!NTS ON CERTAIN PIPING SUR-ATMOSPHERIC CONTAINMENT l l l PST 4 l
LICENSING MILESTONES 5/3/74 CP TSS!!ED 5/18/83 FSAR DOCKETED 9/85 FINAL ENVIRONMENTAL STATEMENT (FES) ISSUED 10/85 SER ISSUED 11/85 ACRS MEETING 5/86-3/87 SER SUPPLEMENTS 1-4 5/18/87 NRC OPERATIONAL READINESS REVIEW 5/28/87 LOW-POWER OL ISSUANCE, CONCURRENT WITH ISSUAh!CE OF SER SUPPLEMENT 5 5/29/87 LOAD FUEL WEEK OF 7/6/87 INIT!AL CRITICALITY PST 5 s
i FULL POWER LICFNSE o NO SER OPEN ISSUES REMAINING (SEE SSER 6) l 0 TMI ACTION PLAN STATUS: LICENSE CONDITIOMS ON SPDS AND CRDR o EXEMPTIONS GDC 4 LEAK-BEFORE-BREAK I FOR CERTAIN PIPING
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l 10 CFR 50 APPENDIX J AIR LOCK TESTING o PLANT-SPECIFIC LICENSE CONDITIONS i i VERIFICATION AND VALIDATION OF PLANT SAFETY MONITORING SYSTEM SOFTWARE COMPLETION OF REMAINING FIRE PROTECTION MODIFICATIONS (BACK DRAFT DAMPERS) IN FOUR FIRE AREAS l PST E I
I 1 l l l I ORGANIZATION l i SENIOR V.P., NUCLEAR GROUP J. J. CAREY l V.P,, NUCLEAR OPERATION J. D. SIEBER SENIOR MANAGER, NUCLEAR OPERATIONS J. CPOCKETT PLANT MANAGER W. LACEY l ALL PERSONNEL ARE LOCATED ONSITE. i i i PST 7
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l ODERATING STAFF o UNIT 1 AND 2 WILL HAVE PARALLEL BUT SEPARATE OPERATING ORGANIZATIONS (N0 CROSS LICENSING 0F OPERATORS), o ALL UNIT 2 OPERATORS ARE FROM UNIT 1, MOST HELD UNIT 1 LICENSES, o UNIT 2 OPERATOR EXPERIENCE: I R0 - AVERAGE 3 YEARS N-LICENSED EXPERIENCE ' SR0 - AVERAGE 5 YEARS N-LICENSED EXPERIENCE q l i I PST 9
4 CONSTRUCTION EXPERIENCE o OVEPALL INSPECTION HISTOPY i
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INSPECTIONS STARTED IN 1973; ONE YEAR BEFORE CONSTRUCTION PERMIT CONSTRUCTION PROGRESS VARIED AND INSPECTION COVERAGE WAS CONSISTENT WITH WORK LEVELS SENIOR RESIDENT INSPECTOR ASSIGNED 8/81; RESIDENT l INSPECTOR ASSIGNED 10/84 NUMEROUS TEAM INSPECTIONS: SIGNIFICANTLY INCREASED INSPECTION COVERAGE DURING LATER STAGES OF CONSTRllCTION l AND PRE-0PERATIONAL TESTING PHASE o MAJOR INSPECTION ISSUES CABLE SEPARATION ISSUES ENGINEERING / CONSTRUCTION INTERFACE PROBLEMS l 0 LICENSEE STRENGTHS STRONG QC PRESENCE ON SITE 1 l -- UPPER MANAGEMENT INVOLVEMENT l STRONG FINISH FOR CONSTRUCTION AND PRE-0PERATIONAL TESTING ACTIVITIES WFK 10
i f i PREOPERATIONAL TEST!3r2 o HOT FUNCTIONAL TEST PROGRAM COMPLETED 7 DAYS AHEAD OF 42-DAY SCHEDULE. o FEW TEST DEFICIENCIES o REPLACED BALL-TYPE MSIVS FOLLOWING TEST PROGRAM WITH MINIMUM IMPACT (21 DAY DELAY) IN SCHEDULE, j l i l 1 l WFK yy
f STARTl]P I o FUEL LOAD COMPLETED IN 70 HOURS WITitollT COMPLICATION, o POWER ASCENSION TEST PROGRAM l l LICENSEE COMMITTED TO DO SELF-ASSESSMENT NRC WILL PERFORM TEAM INSPECTI0tl 0F LICENSEE READINESS FOR R0!! TINE OPERATIONS DURING TilIS TIME PERIOD i 1 l WFK 12 e
O PRFOPERATIONAL SALP RESULTS FUNCTIONAL AREA CATEGORY CONSTRUCTION 1 PREOPERATIONAL TESTING 1 FIRE PROTECTION ? OPERATIONAL READINESS 2, IMPROVING l LICENSING 1 QUALITY ASSURANCE 2 l l 1 I WFK 13 l
l l MOST RECENT SALP CONCLUSION 1 o CONTINUED IMPROVEMENT IN OVERALL PERFORMANCE I o HIGH LEVELS OF MANAGEMENT INVOLVEMENT o OVERALL CONSTRUCTION ACTIVITIES WELL MANAGED o GOOD CONSTRUCTION QUALITY LEVELS IN INSTALLED HARDWARE o REOPERATION;L TEST PROGRAM STRONG o HOUSEKEEPING AND PRESERVATION GOOD i o 0A NOT EFFECTIVELY USED AS A MANAGEMENT TOOL i i WFK 14 s
4 Of i 1 ENFORCEMENT l l 0 67 VIOLATIONS / DEVIATIONS THROUGHOUT INSPECTION HISTORY (SINCE '73), i ABOUT AVERAGE COMPARED TO OTHER REGION 1 PLANTS. o ESCALATED ENFORCEMENT 1 LEVEL III (INADEQUATE REPORTING 1 NO CIVIL PENALTY, M0 OTHER ESCALATED ENFORCEMENT OF ANY TYPE. o 12 ALLEGATIONS - SINCE '73
)
NO REMAINING OPEN TECHNICAL ISSUES ' l l WFK 15 1 e
,, \ OPERAT!ONS o PROFESSIONAL CONTROL ROOM ENVIRONMENT l 0 COMMITMENT TO TRAINING DEDICATED TRAINING CENTER 7 PROGRAMS FULLY ACCREDITED BY INP0 3 PROGRAMS AWAITING INP0 SITE REVIEW UNIT 1 SIMULATOR EMPLOYED IN TRAINING OF UNIT 2 PERSONNEL o LICENSED OPERATORS
-- 18 SROS AND 10 ROS: 5 SHIFT ROTATION
-- DEGREED SROS 1 MASTER, ;
15 BACHELORS, 2 ASSOCIATES I 0 SIGNIFICANT UNIT 1 OPERATING EXPERIENCE o FITNESS FOR DUTY PROGRAM CORPORATE AND NUCLEAR GROUP POLICIES RELATIVE TO ALCOHOL AND/0R DRUG ABUSE ARE IN ACCORDANCE WITH THOSE PROPOSED BY EE1. WFK 16
a CONCLUSIONS
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THE STAFF CONCLUDES THAT THE LICENSEE SATISFIED ALL REQUIREMENTS FOR ISSUANCE OF A FULL-POWER LICENSE FOR BEAVER VALLEY POWER STATION, UNIT 2. i l i VS OR TEM p l}}