ML20237L789

Discusses Insp on 870424-0506 & Forwards Notice of Violation & Proposed Imposition of Civil Penalty

ML20237L789
Person / Time
Site:	Oyster Creek
Issue date:	08/24/1987
From:	Russell W NRC OFFICE OF INSPECTION & ENFORCEMENT (IE REGION I)
To:	Fiedler P GENERAL PUBLIC UTILITIES CORP.
Shared Package
ML20237L792	List: ML20237L789 ML20238A004
References
EA-87-092, EA-87-92, NUDOCS 8708280249
Download: ML20237L789 (5)

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Docket No. 50-219 License No. DPR-16 EA 87-92 GPU Nuclear Corporation i ATTN: Mr. P. B. Fiedler ]

Vice President and Director Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station P.O. Box 388 Forked River, New Jersey 08731 i

Gentlemen:

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SUBJECT:

NOTICE OF VIOLATION AND PROPOSED IMPOSITION OF CIVIL PENALTY i (NRC Inspection Report No. 50-219/87-16)

This refers to the special NRC team inspection conducted on April 24 - May 6, l 1987 at the Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station to review the circumstances )

associated with an event which occurred at the facility on April 24, 1987. The j event, which was identified by a member of your staff and reported to the NRC, i involved the tying open of two suppression chamber - drywell vacuum breakers for approximately 3h hours, while the reactor was being shut down but was still at 3 power, to facilitate deinerting of containment. This condition was a significant degradation of plant safety since it would have led to a loss of significant pressure suppression capability and a probable failure of containment in the event of a loss of coolant accident. During the inspection, violations of NRC

, requirements were identified. The inspection report was sent to you on June 1, l 1987. On June 10, 1987, an Enforcement Conference was conducted with you and I members of your staff to discuss the violations, their causes, and your corrective actions.

The first two violations, which are described in Section I of the enclosed

Notice of Violation and Proposed Imposition of Civil Penalty (Notice), involve j the April 24, 1987 event in which the Group Shif t Supervisor (GSS) initiated a i temporary variation request to allow two suppression chamber-drywell vacuum l breakers to be blocked open to assist in deinerting containment while the  !

reactor was being shut down. Since the reactor was still at power (23%) and  !

the reactor temperature exceeded 212 F, this condition was contrary to the configuration required by technical specifications in that these breakers were to be capable of closing by gravity. Although the GSS and the Shift Technical Advisor (STA) completed forms to indicate that they had performed a safety review of the variation prior to its implementation, neither individual apparently recognized at the time that blocking open of those vacuum breakers would result in a condition contrary to the technical specifications concerning containment integrity, and they approved this temporary variation and allowed the breakers to be opened without any technical justification for this variation.

l CERTIFIED MAIL RETURN RECEIPT REQUESTED B708280249 870824 PDR ADOCK 05000219 0FFICIAL RECORD COPY CP PKG OYSTER CREEK 8/19 - 00L1,0.0 0 PDR 08/2I/87

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GPU Nuclear Corporation 2 This failure to perform an adequate safety review constitutes a violation of NRC requirements (Violation I.A) and demonstrates (1) an apparent lack of recognition by both the GSS and STA of the technical specification requirements associated with these vacuum breakers, and (2) an apparent lack of independence between these two individuals during their performance of the safety review

! prior to implementing the temporary variation. Furthermore, the tying open of ,

the suppression chamber-drywell vacuum breakers resulted in the plant being in an unanalyzed condition that significantly compromised the pressure suppression  ;

capability of the suppression chamber, a condition which required reporting to the NRC Operations Center within one hour of its occurrence in accordance with 10 CFR 50.72. However, the NRC Operations Center was not notified until three days af ter the event (Violation I.8). The NRC acknowledges that the NRC resident inspector was informed within four hours of the event.

The failure to properly implement the procedures for performing safety reviews and making temporary variations to the normal configuration of plant equipment was not isolated to this event but was indicative of programmatic weaknesses.

In a sampling of temporary variations reviewed during this inspection, numerous cases were noted of inattention to detail and inadequate reviews, thereby (1) demonstrating that management review and oversight of the program for making temporary variations was inadequate, and.(2) resulting in numerous examples of violations of procedural requirements governing safety reviews of temporary variations (Violation II).

In addition to the tying open of the suppression chamber-drywell vacuum breakers, and the procedural violations concerning temporary variations, the NRC is also concerned about another practice which has been ongoing at Oyster Creek since 1977 involving the tying open of other vacuum breakers (reactor building-suppression chamber) during reactor shutdowns (while containment integrity was still required) so that the suppression chamber could be deinerted. Although these vacuum breakers were continuously manned and administratively controlled while they were blocked open, and the redundant pneumatically operated valve in each line remained operable, the NRC is con-cerned that this practice was incorporated into procedures in 1977 without an adequate safety review of the effects of this practice on the technical speci-l fications (Violation III). Manual actions are not a substitute for the auto-matic capability of systems or components provided for by design. Schedular pressures to complete the deinerting process may have contributed to this violation and Violation I.

j To emphasize the importance of (1) thorough understanding and proper con-l sideration of the technical specifications and the plant safety design bases ,

by operations staff and Shift Technical Advisors, (2) thorough and technically adequate safety reviews of temporary variations and other nonroutine activities l

at the facility, notwithstanding any schedular pressures, and (3) development of, and adherence to, adequate plant procedures to ensure the plant is operated safely and in accordance with the technical specifications, I have been authorized, after consultation with the Director, Office of Enforcement, and the Deputy Executive Director for Regional Operations, to issue the enclosed Notice of Violation and Proposed Imposition of Civil Penalty in the cumulative amount of Two Hundred Five Thousand Dollars ($205,000) for the violations described in the enclosed Notice.

OFFICIAL RECORD COPY CP PKG OYSTER CREEK 8/19 - 0001.1.0 08/21/87

GPU Nuclear Corporation 3 In accordance with the " General Statement of Policy and Procedure for NRC Enforcement Actions," 10 CFR Part 2, Appendix C (1987) (Enforcement Policy),

Violation I.A of the enclosed Notice has been categorized at Severity Level l 11 because the failure to do an adequate review under 10 CFR 50.59 led to a '

significant degradation of the pressure suppression capability of the e suppression chamber which would have resulted in the containment system not  ;

being able to perform its intended safety function in the event of a loss of {

coolant accident. The failure to provide a timely report to the NRC Operations  !

Center (Violation I.8) is considered a Severity Level IV violation because the j NRC resident inspector was notified within four hours and the notification to j l the NRC Operations Center, while untimely, was made three days after the event. l The violations set forth in Sections II and III of the Notice have been [

classified each at Severity Level III. With regard to the violation set forth l

l in Section II, although procedural violations are normally classified at '

I Severity Level IV, the severity level is more appropriately classified at '

Severity Level III in this case because the numerous examples demonstrate a management breakdown in the oversight of the temporary modification program.

l The base civil penalty amounts for Severity Level II and III violations or problems are 580,000 and $50,000, respectively. The escalation and mitigation factors were considered and no adjustment to the civil penalty amount has been I deemed appropriate for the violations set forth in Sections I and II of the I Notice. The base civil penalty for the violation set forth in Section III has been increased by 50 percent to reflect the added significance resulting from the fact that the violation existed since 1977 during numerous deinerting evolutions. The NRC acknowledges that your corrective actions could be considered extensive. However, mitigation based on these actions is inappro-  ;

priate since these corrective actions were not considered unusually prompt, j and the enforcement history of Oyster Creek regarding vacuum breakers has not l been good, as evidenced by previous civil penalties issued in 1981 and 1982 l for violations of technical specification requirements concerning the vacuum l breakers. )

i Furthermore, on July 16, 1987, another event involving vacuum breakers l l occurred at Oyster Creek wherein a stepladder located in the vicinity of a 3 reactor building-suppression chamber breaker partially interfered with its j

operation. This event, although less significant than the events described I herein, is similar to the event that occurred in April 1981, and demonstrates I l that plant personnel have not attained a sufficiently widespread understanding i of the importance of, and required care for, vacuum breakers. )

You are required to respond to this letter and should follow the instructions )

specified in the enclosed Notice when preparing your response. In your l response, you should document the specific actions taken and any additional  !

actions you plan to prevent recurrence. After reviewing your response to this j Notice, including your proposed corrective actions and the results of future inspections, the NRC will determine whether further NRC enforcement action is necessary to ensure compliance with NRC regulatory requirements.

0FFICIAL RECORD COPY CP PKG OYSTER CREEK 8/19 - 0001.2.0  !

08/21/87 1

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GPU Nuclear Corporation 4 In accordance with Section 2.790 of the NRC's " Rules of Practice," Part 2, Title 10, Code of Federal Regulations, a copy of this letter and its enclosure will be placed in the NRC Public Document Room.

The responses directed by this letter and the enclosed Notice are not subject to the clearance procedures of the Office of Management and Budget as required by the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1980, Pub. L. No.96-511.

Sincerely, Original Signed By WILLIAM T. RUSSELL William T. Russell Regional Administrator

Enclosure:

Notice of Violation and Proposed Imposition of Civil Penalty cc w/ encl:

M. Laggart, BWR Licensing Manager Licensing Manager, Oyster Creek Public Document Room (POR)

Local Public Document Room (LPDR)

Nuclear Safety Information Center (NSIC)

NRC Resident Inspector State of New Jersey GPU Nuclear Corporation 0FFICIAL RECORD COPY CP PKG OYSTER CREEK 8/19 - 0002.0.0 08/21/87

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l GPU Nuclear Corporation 5 l

bec w/ enc 1:

Region I Docket Room (with concurrences) ,

Management Assistant, ORMA (w/o encl) l DRP Section Chief Robert J. Bores, DRSS SECY J. Taylor, DEDO J. Lieberman, OE W. Russell, RI .

T. Murley, NRR l D. Holody, RI ,

J. Goldberg, 0GC  !

T. Martin, DEDRO  !

Enforcement Directors, RII-III Enforcement Officers RIV-RV  !

F. Ingram, PA J. Gradburne, OGPA E. Jordan, AE00 B. Hayes, OI S. Connelly, OIA D. Nussbaumer, SLITP l OE Files (3 copies = ltr hd)

E00 Rdg File DCS l

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RI:E RI:DRS Rlh: S RJ f/

Holody Blough CdLLits, Kb 06/pj/87 06/tr/87 06/p/87 06/). /87 RI:RC #

1. '[fi" f Sb RI:RA ,h l V OE l Gu i .rrez A Russq11 Wong ,

0 87 Og/,y/87 06/ /87 06/ q/87 2 NRR OGC OE DEDO Miraglia JGoldberg JLieberman JTaylor 06 /87 06/ /87 06/ /87 06/ /87

'd jn1 cf g o e,Y OFFICIAL RECORD COPY CP PKG OYSTER CREEK 8/19 - 0003.0.0 08/21/87

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