ML20245G980
| ML20245G980 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 06/01/1989 |
| From: | NRC COMMISSION (OCM) |
| To: | |
| References | |
| REF-10CFR9.7 NUDOCS 8906290340 | |
| Download: ML20245G980 (97) | |
Text
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.s UNITED STATES OF AMERICA NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMIS SION Tf(1@*
PERIODIC BRIEFING ON OPERATING REACTORS AND FUEL FACILITIES
.LOCatiOD: ROCKVILLE, MARYLAND Date:
JUNE 1, 1989 Pages:
93 rices i
NEALR,GROSSANDCO.,INC, l
COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 Rhode Island Avenue, Northwest Washington, D.C.
20005 (202) 234-4433
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DISCLAIMER This is an unofficial transcript of a meeting of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission held on June 1, 1989 in the Commission's office at One White Flint
- North, Rockville, Maryland.
The meeting was open to_public attendance and observation.
This transcript has not been reviewed-corrected or edited, and it may contain inaccuracies.
The transcript is intended solely for general
'l informational purposes.
As provided by 10'CFR 9.103, it is not part of the formal or informal record of decision of the matters discussed.
Expressions of opinion in this transcript do not necessarily reflect final determination or beliefs.
No pleading or other paper may be' filed with the Commission in any' proceeding as the result of, or e
addressed to, any statement or argument contained herein, except as the Commission may authorize.
,8 h e, HEAL R. GROSS cover eseoareas AND TaAuscamas 1313 rho 0E 13LAMO AVENUE, N.W.
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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION PERIODIC. BRIEFING ON.0PERATING REACTORS' AND FUEL FACILITIES PUBLIC MEETING Nuclear Regulatory Commission one White Flint North Rockville, Maryland Thursday, June 1, 1989 L. _
The Commission met in open session, pursuant to notice, at 2:00 p.m.,
Lando W.
- Zech, Jr.,
- Chairman, presiding.
l COMMISSIONERS PRESENT:
Lando W.
- Zech, Jr.,
Chairman of the Commission Thomas M.
Roberts, Commissioner Kenneth M.
Carr, Commissioner Kenneth C.
Rogers, Commissioner James R.
Curtiss, Commissioner i
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. s STAFF SEATED AT THE COMMISSION TABLE:
SAMUEL J.
CHILK, Secretary WILLIAM C.
PARLER, General Counsel VICTOR STELLO, JR.,
Executive Director, Operations
'DR. TOM MURLEY, Director, NRR ROBERT BERNERO, Director, NMSS
-BILL RUSSELL, Region I Administrator BOB MARTIN, Region IV Administrator DENNY ' CRUTCHFIELD,
Associate Director of Special Projects, Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulations STEWART EBNETER, Region II Administrator
'(
JOHN MARTIN, Region V Administrator BERT DAVIS, Region III Administrator 1
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P-R-O-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S
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2 2:00 p.m.
1 1
3 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Good afternoon, ladies and 4
gentlemen.
5 Today's meeting is a periodic meeting by the-6
.NRC staff concerning the status of operating reactors 7
,and fuel-facilities.
8 NRC senior managers meet biannually to 9
review the performance of NRC licensees.
During 10 today's briefing, the NRC staff will discuss those 11 licensees who were determined during the May meeting, 12 at NRC senior management meeting, which was held in 13-
- May, to ' warrant increased NRC attention and NRC 14 resources.
15 In addition, the Commission has requested-16 that the staff also point out those plants that 17 warrant reduced NRC oversight activities based on 18 overall good performance.
19 I
welcome each of our regional 20 administrators who are here with us today and are 21 available to answer any questions the Commissioners 22 may have.
I'd particularly like to welcome Mr. Stuart 23 Ebneter, who is here today for the first time in his 24 capacity as the Region II administrator.
25 Welcome, Mr. Ebneter.
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MR. EBNETER:
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
b 2
CHAIRMAN ZECH:
And also Mr.
Denny 3
Crutchfield, who is the Associate Director of Special 4
Projects in the Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation.
5 So, we welcome you here today too, Mr.
~ 6 Crutchfield.
7 MR. CRUTCHFIELD:
Thank you.
8
_ CHAIRMAN ZECH:
I understand that copies of 9
slides are available as you enter the room, but 10 there's a few slides that are still being printed that 11 will be passed out later.
12 Is that right, Mr. Chilk?
13
'Do any of my fellow Commissioners have any 14 opening comments before we begin?
15 If not, Mr. Stell.o, you may proceed.
16 MR. STELLO:
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I'm 17 pleased to be here this afternoon to report on the 18 results of our now seventh meeting as senior managers.
19 I have found that these meetings have been extremely 20 useful to all of us as a staff and provide a forum for I
21 us to evaluate rather thoroughly the status of each of 22 the operating reactors and identify those for which we 23 need to do more, one way or another, about.
24 We have added as part of these meetings, as C
25 you are aware, trying to look at what we are also l
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doing in NMSS facilities.
I think we've made some 2
significant improvements in our ability to do that and 3
we'll also be reporting on that this afternoon.
4' We will also describe to you, and I will 5
turn very briefly in a moment here to Doctor Murley, 6
on looking at those plants which we have identified 7
some time in the past as needing additional attention 8
and tracking their performance.
Doctor Murley will 9
describe how that's come out.
I guess I'll steal a 10 little bit of his thunder by saying we're pleased with 11 our results of looking at that.
As we look now at 12 plants where we've identified plants with 13 difficulties, we see the performance improving.
\\
14 We'll tell you about the plants that we have 15 some difficulties with, why, and those for which we 16 now believe the performance has improved and can back 17 off.
18 Doctor
- Murley, with the
' Commission's 19 permission, we'll give you a brief overview of the 20 results of the meeting followed by Mr. Bernero, who 21 will give you a brief overview from the MS facility 22 side.
Then we will go region by region, who will 23 describe in some detail each of the facilities.
If 24 that's acceptable --
25 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Fine.
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'. :1' MR. STELLO:
-- we'll proceed on that basis.
.y %
2
' CHAIRMAN ZECH:
That's excellent.
3 MR. STELLO:
Tom?-
4 CHAIRMAN ' ZECH:
You'may proceed, Doctor 5
Murley.
6 DOCTOR MURLEY:
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
L 7
One of the NRC's major initiatives in. the 1
8 past few years has been to improve nuclear safety by l:
9 focusing regulatory attention on improving operational 10 things.
That is, improving the general quality of 11
' operations at nuclear plants.
12 There are firm indicators that show that the h
13 average o!erating performance W improving among the.
14 plants in the United States and we're pleased with 15 these trends.
l 16 Without diminishing that achievement, 17 however, I should caution that there's a great deal of 18 room for improvement.
Even though the average 19 operating performance among U.S.
plants is improving, 20 there are some plants whose performance is declining.
21 A natural question then is why has the 22 performance at some plants decreased in recent months 23 or are we simply changing our standards?
We don't 24 believe so.
It's hard to give precise reasons, but we
./
25 think that some of the structural weaknesses in a NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W.
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I plant's operational organization have been present'for 2
years.
Those. weaknesses have been masked, or even 3
compensated, by very strong management leadership at 4
'the plant.
But when that management changes or.it's l-6 distracted by outside activities, then these l
6 underlying weaknesses can lead to reduced' performance 7
over a period of time.
It's that that we think we 8
have seen in recent months.
9 You'll hear today of some. plants where this 10 seems to have happened, including one two unit station 11 that we have added to our watch list.
Still, I think 12 we'can take some satisfaction that we're on the right 13 path..
dur methods for assessing licensee performance p-
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14 are effective.
We're identifying the problems early, 15 before they're revealed through a serious operational-16 event or even an accident, and we're communicating
~
17 those views to the licensees earlier so that they can 18 correct their own problems.
19 The keystone of the staff actions to improve 20 operational safety, we believe, are the meetings with 21 the senior NRC managers that we have twice each year.
22 As you mentioned, Mr. Chairman, we've just 23 had our seventh senior management meeting at Glen 24 Ellyn, Illinois on May 17th and 18th.
This meeting 25 provides the focus for pulling together all of the r--
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.1' experience and the information from NRR, from AEOD, 2
from Research and from the regions.
3 It's also a
good.means' for transferring 4'
lessons among the regional administrators themselves 5
and they find it so useful.
6 In preparation for this senior management 7
- meeting, I
met with each of the regional 8
administrators and AEOD and our staff in March.
We 9
reviewed each plant in t'h e country and from those 10 screening meetings we selected the plants to discuss.
11 in Glen Ellyn.
It takes about two months of intense 12 staff effort between the screening meetings and the 13 senior m'anagement meetings to prepare the analysis for 14 these discussions.
,15
- Now, before turning to discuss the 16 individual plants, which of course you're going to 17 emphasize problems, I'd like to lend some balance to 18 the discussion by describing some of the overall 19 improving trends that we see in plant operations.
20 Ed Jordan's office has completed the 21 evaluation now of the 1988 data.
It shows several 22 things, a continuing decline in the average number of 23 automatic trips in U.S.
plants.
In fact, it's less 24 than one half of the rate in 1985.
25 It shows a reduced number of safety system l
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actuations.
The forced outage rate-is down I
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i 2
substantially in 1988.
The average number.of 3
significant events has leveled off somewhat in 1988, 4
although it's less than 40 percent of the rate in 5
1985.
So,
- overall, it's down but seems to have 6
leveled out.
One indicator has - shown only a modest 7
improvement since 1985, and that is the average number 8
of safety system failures.
9 Another valuable measure of operational 10 experience comes from the accident sequence precursor
~
11 study that is also sponsored by AEOD.
This program 12 looks at' all of the licensee event reports in the 13 United States.
Several thousand it screened.
The L_
~I 14 LERs then are screened and those that are judged to be 15 the most risk significant are studied in more detail.
16 An analysis is made using risk assessment methods to 17 project how close each event came to being a more 18 serious accident, like a core damage accident.
19 So, this analysis.then is somewhat different 20 from a PRA because it takes actual operating data and 21 makes a projection.
The analysis shows a significant 22 decrease in the average inferred core damage frequency 23 over the years.
In fact, it shows a factor of 20 24 decrease since the TMI 2 accident.
25 This precursor data also shows about one-I L._
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. half of the core damage precursor events involved q
2 human errors.
We believe that this confirms the
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3 importance. of our continuing the focus on improving.
4 operational safety.
5 One set of data that we examined closely is 6
the performance indicator set for individual plants 7
that were formerly on our watch list but have been 8
taken off because of their improved performance over 9
the years.
For
- example, the La Salle
- Plant, 10 Palisades, Fort St.
Vrain, Davis-Besse, Dresden and 11 Rancho Seco.
Although they all have a ways to go, we 12
.are quite encouraged, as Mr.
Stello said, 'that the 13 plant an'd the management improvements that led the NRC 14 to take them off the watch list have been effective in 15 improving performance trends and the SALP ratings at 16 those plants.
17 The commission also asked us to discuss 18 whether there were some plants who sustained good 19 performance warranted reduced regulatory oversight.
20 We discussed that briefly and we reaffirmed our 21 actions of a few years ago where we took action at 22 that time to reduce inspection oversight at five 23 plants, namely, Yankee Rowe, Kewaunee, Monticello and 24 Prairie Island 1 and 2.
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'are'close in quality of operations to that group that 2'
also had good performance,- but h a s n o t-.q u i t e -been 3
sustained long enough.that.we will feel comfortable in
'4 substantially reducing' inspection effort at this time.
5
'Some examples. of those plants in that category would 6
belSusquehanna 1 and 2 and' Saint Lucie 1 and 2, just 7
to mention. some examples.
We discussed a number of r.
8 other plants'that'we think are close in quality to'the 9
second group.as well.
10 In. addition, the Commission asked the staff 11:
to examine whether there were. examples of particularly
- 12 good safety programs at some plants that were worthy 13 of emule' tion.at'all plants.
We realize that we're not
~~
'14 able to be comprehensive in this, simply because ' we i
15
-did not have the time t o '- delve into all of the 16 programs across the country.
But let me mention three 17 examples of good licensee programs that came to our 18 attention.
19 The first two programs are risk management-20 programs.
The first one is at Pennsylvania Power and 21 Light, the Susquehanna 1 and 2 stations.
The second 22 program, somewhat different but having the same focus, 23 is at North East Utilities, which of course has the 24 Millstone site, Millstone 1,
2 and 3 and the Haddam 25 Neck site.
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The common threads of these successful risk 2
management programs are the interest of upper 3-management at the utilities in using risk assessment 4
to minimize core damage frequency and down time.
They 5
integrate the plant and the corporate staff in the 6
development of these risk insights and the utilities 7
aggressively use these findings to resolve safety 8
issues on their own.
9 A
third program is actually an improved 10 maintenance training facility at Comanche Peak.
As 11 you know, the Comanche Peak facility is not yet in 12 operation.
So, we haven't yet seen the efficacy of 13 the training program there, the maintenance training 14 program.
Nonetheless, this is a world class facility.
15 It has a large laboratory facilities.
It's tied in 16 with the simulator.
It has large classroom 17 facilities.
It is clearly -- they have spent a number 18 of resources on it and we expect that it will lead to 19 very good maintenance program at that facility once 20 they start operation.
21 I will discuss briefly the plants that we're 22 going to cover in more detail by the regional 23 administrators today.
We place them in three 24 categories, as you know.
Category 1 are those plants 25 that have improved to the point that there's no NEAL R.
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2 current level of attention.
Here we have Sequoyah 1 3
and 2, Fermi 2 and Fort Calhoun that have been removed 4
from our watch list.
5 In Category 2 are those plants that are 6
authorized to operate but that have weaknesses that we 7
believe warrant increased NRC headquarters and 8
regional attention.
On this list are Calvert Cliffs l' 9
and 2, Nine Mile Point 1 and 2, Turkey Point 3 and 4.
10 Pilgrim Plant and the Peach Bottom 2 and 3 plants have 11 moved up into Category 2 from Category 3 last time.
12 In addition --
13 CHAIRMJ ZECH:
Category 3 last time?
14 DOCTOR MURLEY:
Category 3 last time.
15 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Yes.
Thank you.
16 DOCTOR MURLEY:
Yes.
In addition, the Surry 17 1 and 2 units have been added to our watch list this 18 time and they are in Category 2.
19 In Category 3 are those plants that are shut 20 down due to significant weaknesses and that require 21 NRC authorization to restart.
The only plants 22 remaining in this category are Browns Ferry 1,
2 and 23 3.
24 That concludes my introduction on the 25 plants.
I believe Bob Bernero --
s.
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.1 COMMISSIONER ROGERS:
Can I
ask a
g -
2' question just before we go'on --
3 DOCTOR.MURLEY:
Yes.
4-COMMISSIONER ROGERS:
Just so I understand 5
Category 1 - completely, the statement is that, "No 6'
further attention' is necessary beyond the regional 7
office's current level of monitoring to ensure - "
8 Is that an enhancement though by itself, the 9
current level?
10 DOCTOR MURLEY:
Generally it is somewhat of 11 an enhancement but it falls within what I call the 12 normal distribution of inspection attention of a 13 plant.
Within our normal range, there's probably. 50 14 percent'or more variation from the low maybe a 15 factor of 2 even, from the lowest to the highest 16 within a region.
We would say that it would fall on 17 the high side of that inspection attention, but it is 18 not so great that it requires headquarter's attention 19 or --
20 COMMISSIONER ROGERS:
But there is a 21 difference between a plant in Category 1 and a plant 22 not in any category?
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23.
DOCTOR MURLEY:
Probably yes.
f 24 COMMISSIONER ROGERS:
Okay.
4 25 MR. BERNERO:
Okay.
If I could turn to the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W.
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. in fuel cycle facilities, I'd like to say
)
1 material' 2
that the senior management meetings are a valuable
(
3 opportunity to discuss the NMSS regulatory program, t
4 over a broad range of issues as well as the individual 5
facilities and licensees that may or may not warrant 6
extraordinary attention.
In this last senior 7
management meeting, we had a lot of good discussion of 8
things such as the well logging source issue that we 9
discussed with the Commission recently.
10 Now, we too have an interest in the NMSS 11 regulatory program to assess licensee performance.
12 I'd like to say just a few words on that because it's 13 a more difticult thing with the high number of 14 licensees in the broad range of type of licensees.
15 In our last report from the senior i
16 management meeting, we told the Commission about the 17 performance evaluation factors that are in trial use 18 in the field now.
We cortinue to have good results 19 with that.
We will be making a special report to you 20 around the end of this summer because we will have 21 completed the one year trial period.
Those are good 22 performance evaluation factors but they tend to become 23 very licensee specific qualitative features by the way 24 they are applied.
They don't generate compilations of
- 2. 5 data.
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S o,- we.are also trying to look at data 2
sourcen that are uurt.
tn indicate-need for 3
additional-attention,
- problems, to discern 4
difficulties and to discern improvements where we are 5
giving extraordinary resources.
6 Now, I have some slides.
I think you have 7
copies of them there.
One is entitled,
" Material 8
Licensing Inspection Data."
The source of this is 9
from our national program review where we work with 10 the regions to generate the number of licenses and the 11 number of inspections and so forth.-
If you look at 12 the' trends indicated in that, the number of licensees, 13 there's a column there.
You see a step reduction 14 after 1986.
That merely reflects new agreement 15 states.
As agreement states come in, material 16 licenses transfer.
States l'i k e Illinois have come in 17 recently.
18 But if - you look at the inspection column 19 next to it, you see a clear upward trend reflecting 20 the increased attention coming from the field for the 21 material licensees in general and it's reflected as an 22 increase in the number of inspections.
If you look at 23 the next
- column, the ratio of inspections per 24
- licensee, it's gone from 0.2 to 0.34 in
- 1988, i
25 reflecting a clear increase of attention.
Now, that
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.I' was distributed generally over the general material 2
licensees with perhaps some additional emphasis on 3
radiographer.
4 In'1989, when we next have. data, you'll see 5
the increase in the medical-. inspections.as well
-6 because this
- year, as you
- recall, we 'have added 7
resources.there and increased attention on medical 8
inspection.
9 There is a column on the far right of this 10 slide on violations discovered in these inspections.
11 If you look at the evident decrease in that, it is 12 somewhat satisfying to see that decrease,.but a word 13 of caut' ion.
There is a mixture here of what we
'-~
14
.believe is actual improvement in the-state of 15 licensees as we find them.
But
- also, with the 16 increased attention, we have a
tendency to have 17 additional follow-up inspections to verify corrective 18 action.
Of course, a follow-up inspection would be 19 far less likely to discover violations than an initial 20 inspection after some substantial period.
21-But it does appear that we have an 22 improvement in the licensees, at least evident from 23 that.
24 If you go to the next slide that I've 25 provided for you, we have non-reactor events reports i
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18 g
'l that we can get through the Office of Analysis and
[.
2 Evaluation of Operational Data.
The data we.have here.
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'3 may-be showing. some
- trends, but it's a
lot more 4
difficult to interpret.
A. word of warning.
We don't 5
have a denominator in our equation'in all cases.
For 6
instance, we can determine the number of licensees who 7
are licensed to practice radiography but we don't have 8
reporting or reported data on how many radiography 9
procedures were conducted during the year.
That will, 10 of
- course, flow with business and the number of 11 licensees and so forth.
12 So, if you look at the
- column, "Over 13 Exposure'," there is an evident decrease.
We think 14 that some. of that is a genuine improvement, a trend 15 downward in the mistakes, in the over exposures.
But 16 at the same time, we should acknowledge that in the 17 industry in the United States, there was probably 18 something on the order of a 20 percent reduction in 19 the practice of radiography and the number of 20 radiography procedures.
That's about the best we can 21 estimate it.
22 If we look at things like lost sources, we i
23 see a trend there and it's a concern to use that we're 24 focused on.
You see the increased trend in the later 25 years going up to 47, then two years in a row 67 lost l
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sources.
The data and our evaluation of it seems to 2
indicate this is noisture density gauges.
These 3
things that are used to measure pavement and things 4
like that and that warrants our extra attention, and 5
we have been giving extra attention to that.
6 Abandoned sources are things like well 7
logging sources that are lost down hole.
There has 8
been a
significant decrease in the well logging 9
business and that downward trend there may be 10 reflecting that.
11 The last
- column,
" Leaking Sources,"
we 12 interpret that as just a random distribution and not.a
~
13 trend one way or the other.
It's a fairly low number.
~~
14 So we don't see much of an indication there at all.
15 COMMISSIONER CARR:
Is it exclusive of 16 medical licensees?
17 MR. BERNERO:
No, this includes.
18 COMMISSIONER CARR:
Includes.
Okay.
19 MR.
BERNERO:
The last slide I have is an 20 occupational exposure average annual dose curve for 21 two sample exposures, or two sample types of workers.
22 The source of this is the Office of Research annual 23 radiation exposure compilation.
I would add the new 24 Part 20 reporting is going to give us better data in 25 this in terms of equivalent whole body dose.
We will I
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I be looking at that closely.
2 If you look at this, there are just 'two 3-samples there.
One is radiography: workers average
-4 exposure.
.So, this is normalized for the number of-5 workers.
And if you look at that. closely, there may 6
be a
subtle improvement, but it may be just a
7 horizontal line.
It's reasonably well controlled 'at 8
.3 REM per year.
9 If you look in contrast at fuel fabrication, 10 a lot of attention has been given there and the fuel 11 fabrication is showing a noteworthy improvement.
12 So, we're very conscious of the need to'look 13 for performance data that can give us a good basis for 14 the application of resources and these are just 15 samples of what-we're doing.
You'll be hearing more 16 on this from time to time.
17
- Now, as far as the facilities warranting 18 extraordinary attention, we don't have the same 19 categories 1,
2 and 3.
It's either a
priority 20 licensee or it isn't.
There is a list in your slides 21 of five priority licensees.
These are the ones that 22 warrant the extra attention.
They will be discussed 23 by the affected regional administrators in Regions I 24 and III.
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Radiation Sterilizers.
- Also, a separate slide is 2
attached on the additional facilities that were 3
discussed and are no longer considered justifying 4
extraordinary attention.
They're analogous to the 5
' Category 1 for reactors.
They.are the Pharmacy Sincor 6
in' two locations, B&W Lynchburg, the Naval Fuel 7
facility there and the U.S.
Testing
- Company, a
8 radiography company with headquarters formerly in 9
Modesto, California.
10 So, I would like to turn it over to Bill-11 Russell of Region I to carry on.
12 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Thank you.very much.
~
- r-13 COMMISSIONER CURTISS:
Before you do that,
~
14 let me --
15 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Yes, go ahead.
16 COMMISSIONER CURTISS:
On the previous chart 17 with the abandoned sources
- column, in the earlier 18 briefing on abandoned well logging sources, there was 19 some concern that that number might go up as the well 20 logging companies went out of business.
Is this 21 declining trend reflective of what's really happening 22 out there or do you think we're short of data?
23 MR.
BERNERO:
These are the ones that go 24 down the hole and don't come out and they get 25 plugged -- you know, there's a procedure for plugging i
la.-
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1 them and placarding.
2 These are not abandoned in the sense of cast 3
at a roadside.
So, don't read this as data in that 4
regard.
5 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
All right, Mr. Russell, you 6
may proceed.
7 MR. RUSSELL:
I'm going to take the plants 8
and discuss them in the same order they appear in the 9
Commission paper.
10 Nine Mile Point, Unit I and 2 first.
Nine 11 Mile Point Unit 1 was shut down in December of 1987 12 for feed water control problems.
It was identified as 13 a facility requiring agency-wide close monitoring in 14 June of 1988.
In December of 1988, we added Unit 2 15 onto the list of facilities receiving close agency-16 wide monitoring, principally because of the problems 17 during the early start-up phases of operation, the 18 number of reactor trips and events.
19 I'd like to highlight the significant 20 changes at this facility since the last briefing of 21 the Commission.
Most importantly, they have completed 22 a restart plan and submitted that plan to the staff.
23 We've completed most of the review of that plan.
24 There are two areas of weakness that the licensee will l
25 be supplementing the plan.
They deal with training of i
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1 the staff _and' management follow through on commitments
~,
2 and how they're going _to improve in those two areas.
3
'But for the most part, we: concluded that the plan was 4
a reasonable plan to proceed to obtain improvement if.
5 effectively implemented.
6' A special. team inspection was conducted by 7
the Of fice _ of Nuclear Reactor Regulation at the 8
facility.
Similar to an AEOD diagnostic inspectic.1, 9
but at the same time somewhat different.
This team 10 inspection -- at the time we went in, the licensee had 11-not completed implementation of its plan.
They knew 12 what problems they had that-they were continuing to 13 work on.
14 But tne team did confirm that a number of 15 prior problems still existed and that implementation 16 of some of the corrective actions taken have not had a 17 lasting effect, that there were weakness in 18 communication with respect to information flow of 19 problems within the organization, problems with 20 procedure adherence, engineering support and, in fact, 21 attitude problems between operating elements at the 22
- station, principally the Unit 1 operating staff, 23 licensed operators and the training department.
24 Overall, it was concluded that there was not 25 as much progress made as had been expected.
But a NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W.
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1 very significant finding, in our view, was the finding 2
that there were no new problems identified.
That is, 3
the licensee had identified a complete plan and had 4
identified the actions it needed to take to, in fact, 5
turn around performance.
6 As it related to Unit 2,
Unit 2 restarted 7
from an outage April 2'nd.
They did have two reactor I
8 scrams during the month of April and have operated i
9 since the 3rd of May without further problems.
10 Prior to their start-up, after the special 11 team inspection, we did request additional training on 12 the use of procedures and procedure compliance.
That 13 training was conducted and the NRC inspected and 14 verified the adequacy of that training.
15 We have also completed a
systematic 16 assessment of licensee performance.
That has just 17 recently been issued.
We concluded that there was not 18 significant improvement
- and, in
- fact, there were 19 declines in the area of maintenance and surveillance 20 operations in engineering and technical support, and 21 we rated them as Category 3 -- this is under the SALP 22 rating process -- in four of seven areas.
23 On the second -- we have concluded that 24 continued agency-wide close monitoring is appropriate 25 for both Nine Mile Units 1 and 2.
NEAL R.
GROSS 1323 Rhode Island Avenue, N.W.
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20005 (202) 234-4433
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(
discuss. is l'
The second facility I'd like to 2
Peach-Botton Units 2
and 3.
I will update the 3
Commission since the April 17th Commission meeting on 4
Peach Bottom when you approved the restart of that-5 facility.
6 Unit 2 achieved criticality on April 27th.
7 They have conducted low power testing and they did a 8
number of cold plant critical approaches for training.
9 They did have some maintenance difficulties, equipment 10 problems.
They replaced some intermediate range 11 monitors and safety relief valves.
But, in fact, we 12 found that their approach to maintenance activities l
~
13 and control of operations were quite good.
11 L-14 I
mentioned earlier that they had an j
15 informal hold point of their own that was by their 16 plant manager.
The most recent one was the hold point 17 which he had established prior to placing the reactor 18 mode switch to run.
There was a meeting between the
-u 19 NRC staff and the licensee at which we were briefed on j
20 the results of his review.
We found it to be quite j
21 thorough and in depth.
They concluded that it was l
22 appropriate to start up the facility and go to run.
l 23 They did have a reactor trip from about 18
)
24 percent power.
It was associated'with an electrical
')
i 1
25 fault in a switch associated with the feed reg. valve
]
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1 controller.
They did replace the defective switch and 2
they've started up and have operated satisfactorily 3
since then.
They're currently operating at about 32 4
percent power with all of the balance of ' plant 5
equipment in service.
6
- Overall, we've concluded that the restart 7
and low power operations was well controlled.
It was 8
very deliberate and cautious and we found that 9
corporate and plant management oversight has been 10 effective and that the company has demonstrated a 11 conservative approach to operations and safety.
Very 12 importantly, the new shift managers and the senior 13 reactor' operators have demonstrated a
very good 14 control of operations and a conservative approach to 15 conduct of operations.
16 The staff has been kept very well informed 17 by the licensee throughout the start-up.
We're seeing 18 a very different licensee from the one prior to the 19 shutdown order.
20 The next facility I'd like to discuss is the 21 Pilgrim station.
Again, for expediency, I will update 22 the Commission since the last briefing of the 23 Commission which occurred on December 21st, when you 24 approved a phased, controlled restart of the facility.
25 On December 30th, I approved their operation NEAL R.
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--d I
up to five percent power and they completed that low 2
power operational phase on the 3rd of March.
3 operations during that period of time between initial 4
criticality and five percent were performed well and 5
safely.
They did have a number of hardware problems, 6
intermediate range monitor problems and some air 7
supply problems to an air operated valve, the Taurus 8
to reactor building vacuum breaker.
9 On March the
- 3rd, we approved their 10 operation up to 25 percent of power.
The first 11 portion of that, between March 3rd and April 12th, was 12 performed quite well.
During this period of time, the 13 licensee" had augmented the management oversight 14 activities involved.
15 On April 12th, however, in the process of.
16 performing surveillance on the reactor core isolation 17 cooling
- system, they had an event which over 18 pressurized or had the potential for over pressurizing 19 a portion of the piping.
This event had a number of 20 root causes associated with tagging of equipment for 21 performance of the surveillance, pn the supervision 22 and control of the testing and, in fact, the staff 23 concluded that there were multiple opportunities to 24 have prevented the event.
Principally, we felt it was 25 a failure to follow procedures.
The licensee did I
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28 j..
I disciplina two individuals that were involved in that j
2-event.
3 There was a second event involving personnel 4
problems on May the 3rd.
A reactor scram occurred as 5
a result M improper control of troubleshooting of a 6
feed water regulating valve problem.
It resulted in 7
the valve fully opening, causing a high water level in 8
the reactor turbine trip and subsequent reactor scram.
9 We have found the licensee management 10 response to these two
- events, their root cause 11 analysis and follow-up to have been exceptionally 12 good.
The operator response in the control room, 13 particul'arly the second one for the scram on May 3rd, 14 was very calm.
It was professional and NRC staff was 15 present.at the time, including the senior resident.
16 The facility is currently operating at 25 17 percent.
We expect to meet next week with the 18 facility to receive their review of their readiness to 19 operate up to 50 percent power.
20 I might mention also the Commission asked to be kept informed of the status of emergency 22 preparedness in the communities around the Pilgrim 23 Station.
There continues to be substantial progress 24 being made particularly in the areas of training and L
25 completing reviews of implementing procedures.
We NEAL R.
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expect soon that there will be an announcement from 2
the Commonwealth in Massachusetts for a schedule for'n 3
full scale exercise of the emergency plan.
4 The last reactor facility to discuss in 5
Region I,
Calvert Cliffs, Units 1 and 2.
Calvert 6
Cliffs had been. discussed at three prior senior 7
management meetings and it was decided at the December 8
1988 meeting that the performance had declined to the 9
point where agency-wide close monitoring was 10 appropriate.
11 We alsa decided at that time that a
12 comprehensive plan was needed from the company to 13 address "the declining performance and that we should L __
14 conduct
.a special team inspection similar to the 15 inspection we conducted at Nine Mile Point. Units 1 16 and 2.
17 The special team inspection report has 18 recently been issued.
It identified a number of 19 concerns with respect to procedural errors, failure to 20 follow procedures, ineffectiveness of the quality 21 control organization, communications, difficulties in 22 leadership weakness within the organization.
23 Following the close of that inspection, we 24 had a continuation of events that indicated continuing 25 problems with procedural cor: t r ol and work control, i
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specifically some events associated with establishment of containment integrity during core configuration or 3
4
- Overall, from the team inspection and the 5
events shortly thereafter, we have reached a
g,...
6 conclusion that in fact there was a
culture that 7
developed at the facility in which job completion, 8
that.is production, was given a high priority and that 9
safety and quality suffered as a result.
10 We did find, and there was an issue ihat 11 Doctor Murley alluded to, in this case the skill of
. 12 the craftsman and the staff at the facility were 13 compe n s a't in g,
in our view, for weak procedures and 14 weak management
- controls, such that as changes 15
- occurred, people were being relied on rather than 16 institutionalizing programs to affect control over 17 time.
18 Licensee management early in May came to an 19 independent conclusion that they did not have control 20 of work that was in progress.
The new vice president, 21 a Mr. Creel, met with the staff and in a meeting with 22 me he indicated that he believed that their problems 23 related to an over emphasis on schedule, that there l
24 was too much work going on at the time and there wau 25 too much work which bypassed the formal planning NEAL R.
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1-process.
2 As a result, the licensee has made decisions 3
to reduce substantially the contract ~ work force that 4
was assisting them with the Unit 2 outage and they i
5 have ' reduced that ' work force by approximately 50 6
percent.
They have extended the outage and they are 7
completely replanning it.
They are also looking.at a 8
number ~of issues as it relates to control.of work, use 9
of procedures and other activities which they have 10 proposed a
plan to us which we have subsequently-11 confirmed by confirmation of action letter and the 12 licensee has agreed to meet with me prior to restart 13 of either unit.
14 Those are the four reactor facilities in 15 Region 1.
I'd like.to shift at this point to --
16 J0MMISSIONER ROGERS:
Just before we leave 17 Calvert Cliffs, I've kind of raised this issue before, 18 but I think it doesn't hurt to keep looking at it.
19 They received a good OSART inspection report no more 20-than a year ago.
I wonder if we can learn anything 21 from the fact that that report was quite a
22 satisfactory one as I recall.
And since that time, 23 things have developed thet give us considerable pause.
24 Does it tell us anything about what the 25 OSART team looked at and didn't look at?
Have you i
L_._
NEAL R.
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' reviewed that OSART report to see whether there are 2
any suggestions in it whatsoever of hints of problems L
3 to come?
j 4
.InLother words, I'm a little disturbed with 5
a situation such as this where we have an 6
international group that comes in and takes'a look at 7
a plant and give as it pretty good marks.
Then we l
8 find that.somehow, a year later, they're in the some 9
difficulties.
10 Now, I know that the OSART team doesn't look 11 at the same things that we do and they don't look in 12 the same detail.
But one then asks whether one should 13 put any[ credence in the OSART report then if it's not 14 going to suggest something where there is an incipient 15 problem.
16 But I think it's worthwhile to use this as a 17 test case in a sense because we have another OSART 18 team inspection coming up of a U.S.
plant.
It's just 19 a little question of to what extent this experience 20 that we've had here should be communicated to IAEA in 21 their inspection program, whether it's a test in any 22 way of the validity of what they've done.
We have a 1
23 comparative study here now and I wonder if there's 24 something we can't learn from it.
25 MR. STELLO:
Let me address that if I may, 1
L.
NEAL R.
GROSS l
1323 Rhode Island Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C.
20005 (202) 234-4433
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- Commissioner.
I ' think that that's a very important 2
question'and-.one that I think we ought to'take to task 3-and be happy to of.taking a good, hard look exactly at n
- 4 what the OSART team looked at, what they wrote about, 5
where.we looked that they didn't and providing lessons 6
learned report-both to the Commission and we'll send 7-it back over to IAEA.
-8 I think that trying to do that without going 9
through that very careful study might leave some 10 impressions that perhaps are not right.
I would 11 prefer --
12 COMMISSIONER ROGERS:
- Well, I'm not 13 expecting *an answer right now.
to look very carefully and 14 MR. STELLO:
15 methodically and we'll do that and provide a report 16 both to the Commission and we will, with the 17 Commission's peruission --
18 COMMISSIONER ROGERS:
It's a useful measure 19 of something.
20 ifR. STELLO:
We will do that.
21 MR. RUSSELL:
I think that there is another 22 element that's possibly even broader.
The NRC has 23 been inspecting this facility throughout this period 24 also.
It really wasn't until the significant events 25 of last summer and last fall with the enforcement NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W.
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actions leading up through the fatality event and j
2 while we were concerned and we had been discussing the 3
facility at' senior management. meetings and we had seen 4
things that eare going on, I know I have questioned my 5
own staff and myself as to whether we were as 6
effective as we could have been in alerting the 7'
utility to our concerns and getting the message across 8
as to the trends that we were seeing.
9 So, I think there's also some introspective 10 looking that we need to do as it relates to our own 11' programs and not just the OSART review.
It is 12 somewhat of. an enigma as to how this facility has 13 changed."
14 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Let's proceed.
15 MR. RUSSELL:
The two material facilities in 16 Region I,
Safety Light Corporation's facility in 17 Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania.
This is a facility which
'10 has two NRC licenses.
One license is a possession 19 only license that does have conditions that require 20 cleanup of the facility.
The other license is a 21 license for 350,000 curies of tritium, principally for 22 use in the manufacture of light sources.
23 The facility is contaminated with radium, 24
- cesium, strontium, tritium and other isotopes from 25 past operations, principally in the late 1950s and i
l NEAL R.
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'1960s.-
The buildings.at'the facility.are not in use.
{
2 1 Some are deteriorating-and are not adequately secured 3-and 'there's : essentially. been no progress 'on site-4 cleanup.
'5 We have issued an order to the' facility.-
E 6
That's a two part order.
One-is a demand for certain
-7
.information that relates to ownership, chain of title'
'8 to the property and also financial data to. ascertain 9
what resources - are available to physically clean up 10.
the facility.
The other is an order to actually take 11 some short-term actions to control access to the' site 121 as well as' actions to physically commence' cleaning up
- 13 with the' facility.
~~
14' Safety Light Corporation and the -parent 15 corporation, U.S.
Radium Industries, and a number of 16 successor firms, have responded to the order.
The 17 short-term actions at the facility are to be completed 18 by the 15th of June and we have an inspection planned-19 shortly after that to confirm that those actions have 20 been taken.
21 The order also provided for a comprehensive
. 22 plan to characterize the sight to identify the types 23 of isotopes and the extent of contamination.
Progress 24 has been made on that.
I dfd grant an extension until 25 June the 2nd for submitting that plan.
The company is o
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GROSS 1323 Rhode Island Avenue, N.W.
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contracting with International Technology Corporation 4.( ' i 2'
to ' do - that site ~ characterization' work and we expect.
_ # *4 3
thatt.that plan will be submitted' tomorrow'and we have.
4 had-discussions with the' company as recently as. the-
'5-Eday before yesterday.
l-L 6
As it' relates to the. demand for.information, 7
all of the '. financial data has been provided ' that's-8 available and there is. a potential' that. there are 9
insurance companies involved. and the company has 10 agreed to. provide us the insurance policies which'may 11 provide funds f or. cleanup.
We expect that that.
12 material will also be provided tomorrow.
13 Each of the parties did, in fact, request.a 14 hearing on the order.
The purpose of the hearing was 15 to. preserve their right.to request a hearing. in the 16 future should they need - one and have agreed at this
.17 point in time that there's not a need and would, after 18 a hearing board is established, propose to delay that.
19 I have assigned a senior manager in the 20 region to manage the activities end coordinate our 21 review of this facility with headquarters.
To date, 22 we see that things are progressing well under the 23 order.
24 The last facility in Region I is Combustion k
25 Engineering.
Combustion Engineering holds a license NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W.
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'I 1-to fabricate low enriched uranium fuel for use in 2
commercial reactors.
They-have approximately 250 3
employees.
We've conducted a material licensee SALP 4
report for the two year period, July 1986 through June 5
1988.
We concluded that their performance in 6
operations, radiological
- controls, emergency 7
preparedness, management gontrols and licensing were 8
at Category 3.
9 There has been significant and substantial 10 improvement at the facility over the last 10 to 12 11
- months, particularly.
in the area of radiological 12 controls where they have improved substantially by 13 construc' ting stainless eteel containments around the
.t.
< L ~~ '
14 devices in the pellet shops, the presses, the mixing 15 machines.
There's been a substantial reduction'in the 16 waste volume and they have installed new ventilation li systems.
10 Our concerna with respect to criticality in 19 the facility have been addressed and they have 20 reviewed the modifications that were previously made 2 'i and they've made additional modifi:ations to better l
22 control criticality.
They have reorganized and 23 provided improved management oversight of the l-24 activities.
They are developing an emergency plan 25 which right now focuses principally on the fuel r-f NEAL R.
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38
,~
1 fabrication building 17 but is being integrated into a-2 Combustion Engineering site-wide plar.
.3 There's been a substanti eduction in the 4
on-site waste volume-with the exception of one area 5
which.is awaiting completion of inspection activity.
6 We have some open items on material control and 7
accountability and how to determine the amount of 8
potential special nuclear material that may be in 9
these forms of waste.
We expect that that will be 10 completed shortly.
11-There are some concerns, however, with some 12 of the longer term activities on the part of the 13 licensee.
We're concerned that some of their 14 schedules may be slipping.
We are in the process of 15 preparing for a mid-SALP cycle review.
We've proposed 16 a two year corrective action plan.
We are going to be 17 meeting with them later in June.
To date, over the 18 last six months or so, we heve expended over 800 hours0.00926 days <br />0.222 hours <br />0.00132 weeks <br />3.044e-4 months <br /> 19 of inspection activity at this facility.
20 That covers the Region I facilities unlena 21 there are any questions.
22 MR. STELLO:
Mr. Chairman, do you want to go 23 region by region and ask questions or do you want us 24 to keep going through?
25 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Well, I think we'll see if NEAL R. GROSS 1323 Rhode Island Avenue, N.W.
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i 1
we have any questions here first and then we'll I~
2 proceed.
i 3
Any questions on Region I at all?
i 4
Let's proceed to Region II then.
Mr.
5 Ebneter?
6 MR.
EBNETER:
Thank you.
Good afternoon, 7
gentlemen.
Just a comment.
The Chairman mentioned 8
this is my first time here and I would like to observe 9
that the process we go through is very beneficial.
It l
10 was very beneficial to me, the interface I had with 11 the other senior managers and the similarities in the 12 plants that we discuss I think is extremely good 13 meeting ahd process for the Commission.
14 So, I have two plants to discuss, the Turkey 15 Point plant and the Surry Point.
16 I'll start with Turkey Point.
Just an i
17 observation.
Turkey Pcint has been on this list since 18 we first started in 1986.
It's still here.
We are 19 concerned about thet and we noted that in our letter 20 to the senior managers at Turkey Point, that the rate 21 of progress is not satisfactory to the Commission.
22 The performance is erratic at Turkey.
It 23 tends to go up and down.
When you get one thing 24 corrected, the others seem to go down.
You can't seem 25 to keep attention focused on all the areas at one f
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1 time.
This is a concern to us.
I would like to say l
d f~ ~
1 2
that they have made some good improvements.
They did l
)
3 reorganize.
They brought some outside people in.
A 1
'l 4
major concern to us is one of these individuals, the 5
senior vice president, left recently and I'd like to 6
address that in a minute.
1 7
But they did make major improvements in the 8
Engineering Department.
They have a new engineering 9
manager.
They have upgraded all the control room i
10 drawings.
They have a new design process.
They have i
11 90 engineers on site at Turkey Point.
Now, this is a l
12 major change.
In 1985, Florida Power and Light only 13 had 100 e'ngineers for everything and now they have 90 14 at Turkey Point.
I don't think we're seeing the full 15 benefit of this yet though.
It's taking time for us 16 to see that.
17 But they are upgrading the plant in general.
38 Turkey has some significant* vulnerabilities in the 19-electrical
- system, diesel generators and the 20 electrical distribution.
Both of those are in 21 redesign and scheduled for a 1990 time frame to be 22 instituted.
I think that's a major upgrade.
23 The general plant condition, material 24 conoition of the plant is improving.
The one major 25 item that's beneficial to us and the site, I think, is NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W.
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the standard tech. spec. conversion.
Turkey Point did 2
have a
customized tech.
spec.,
very
- weak, very 3
difficult to use.
That process has been going well.
4 I interviewed several of the operators and they think 5
that's a good c.tange.
6 So, those are some improvements, but they 7
have taken a long time to get them in place.
8 There are still significant weaknesses at 9
Turkey Point and one of them is the instrumentation 10 and control.
A very large turnover in that 11 department.
It's a significant department at the 12 plant because it contributes to some of the personnel
)
13 errors.
Security is still a problem for us.
It has
'~~
14 been perennially.
It's some changes, some management 15 changes in there.
16 Two big changes this time, with the leaving 17 of the senior vice president who was brought in from 18 the outside of the Florida Power and Light 19 organization.
That caused another major 20 reorganization, some instability in the organization.
21 This was a major concern to us because it did bring 22 people in from outside of that organization, some new 23 blood that brought new ideas.
So, we were concerned 24 about that.
That position is still unfilled and the 25 executive vice president is in an acting capacity.
I r.
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But I must say that the reorganization that' 2
occurred as a result of that, I view and the staff 3
views as now the site management is significantly l
'4
' stronger than ever.
We now have a site vice president f
5 experienced from a good performer, Saint Lucie, - has
-6 been moved down there.
He has underneath him. an 7
experienced manager from outside of the FP&L 8
organization.
He came from Grand Gulf.
He's a~ very 9
strong individual and then we have a strong operations
'10 supervisor.
11 So, this departure of the senior vice 12 president may be really a blessing in disguise for us 13 because'we now have a very strong site management.
14 An anomaly here, as Doctor Murley mentioned, 15 two of the plants we considered as being 3 sod 16 performers, one of them is Saint Lucie, a sister plant 17 to this and completely different performance 18 characteristics than this uait.
19 So, those are major things I
wanted to 20 address.
What are we doing, the NRC?
We've assigned 21 a third resident to the site.
We now have three 22 residents on site.
It puts more attention to the 23 site.
L 24 We have augmented inspection program.
We l'
25 are doing several team inspections.
At Turkey Point NEAL R.
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a :o e
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cwe have.in ' the order of about -100. allegations of l
p.m 2
various concerns at the site.
We did
.a. major team i
'l 3
inspection down there.to identify any' safety concerns ~
~
!'l i
4 from that.
We. did not identify. any..
Turkey Point l
5' being. located' in the Miami vicinity, we have been 1
6 concerned about some. allegations of fitness for duty.
~
1 7
We~just recently did a fitness for duty-inspection to'
- j 8
assure ourselves there were no major. problems.
9 We.do have regular management meetings with 10 FP&L. Recently they have been running on the order of 11 several per month.
12 The last item I wanted to talk about was our 13 requal. ptogram at Turkey Point.
In the briefing that i
14:
the Commission had on ' the operator requal. program, i
15 the Chairman issued a staff requirements memo asking i
16
.us to address that.
So, if you will, I'll take a few-17 minutes to tell you where we're at on the requal.
18 program at Turkey Point.
19 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Please do.
' 20 MR.
EBNETER:
We did an inspection down 21 there in the operator examination area, the requal.
22 exams in March, March 13th to 20th.
As a result of 1
23 that 12 of 24 operators failed and three of six crews 24 failed and two evaluators were judged as unsat.
All i
~E 25 of those violate the criteria for satisfactory requal.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W.
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1
' program.. So we.have categorized the program as.unsat.
~
k
'2 We met with ' the' licensee and we issued, a 3.
confirmatory l action letter to keep.the-plant shut down 4
until they removed the' operators from shift, did.some 5z remedial training and did some reconstitution'and crew 6
training.
The. final aspect of that, that the..NRC 7
would do.
another examination to determine the 8
qualification of those - operators.
9 That has all been done.
We have done'since 10 then two inspections of the crews.
The first one did 11 not-go too.well.
We still had some problems with the 12.
ability of' the operators to interpret emergency
^
13' classifications.
That was more related to a
14 procedural problem and that has been overcome.
. 15 The final requal. exam that-the staff gave, 16 we'now have four full-time crews at Turk,+y' Point that I
17 can operate the station.
We did one training j
18 inspection in addition to. that which was a broader 19 based inspection to look at the total scope of 20 training.
We found significant problems with that.
21 The instructo'rs are not Turkey Point specific.
22 They're sort of - generic instructors.
We're in the 23 process of -- Turkey Point is changing that.
We found 24 that the way they constitute examinations left a great L
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found'there,was' lack of management' involvement.'in the 2
training process itself and that has been largely 3
overcome with the Turkey Point management.
4 '.
Full recovery to get a ' fully satisfactory 5-program, however, will probably take until-the spring 6
of 1990 to correct-all the long-term issues.
That's 7
.the status of where we're at on that requal. program.
8 Are there any questions in that area?
9 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
That's fine.
Thank you.
10 You may proceed.
11 MR. EBNETER:
Any questions on Turkey Point?
12 If not, I will move on to the Surry plant.
13
' CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Go ahead.
14 MR.
EBNETER:
The Surry station was first 15 discussed at the senior management meeting in December 16 of 1988.
Both of those units are presently shut'down 17 with restart scheduled for about mid-June on Unit i le and probably early July on Unit 2.
These units are 19 oliter units, aging.
A lot of equipment and design 20 issues because of the very concentrated look at the 21 plant configuration.
i 22 It's interesting, the history of Surry.
l 23 Just a year ago, Surry was rated primarily Category 2s 24 in the SALP process.
But the last year and a half has k
25 seen a lot of enforcement actions.
Last year we had NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N.W.
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_(.
I four-major civil' penalties and we just issued a very.
2 large one a week or so ago in' relation to -design and 3
equipment issues at Surry.
4 They have done a third party -inspection bv 5
the MAC Corporation and it has identified problems in i
6-the corporate area and interfaces with the station.
7 They identified they needed to do'more teamwork.
Most 8
of these are also issues that we have also identified 9
and had concerns with.
10 Since the last
- meeting, there have been 11 significant changes and improvements, some of them 12 very good improvements at Surry.
There is a new CEO
-13 at Surry', Doctor Rhodes, and he does have some nuclear i
14
-background.
There is a new senior vice president in 15 charge of totally the nuclear department.
This is 16 good.
We now have a dedicated management structure l
17 for just the nuclear department itself.
They have put 18 new emphasis on the engineering department and have 19 started some new
- programs, a
design basis 20 reconstitution program to upgrade the configuration of 21 that plata.
i.
1 22 We still have many problems,
- however, in 1
23 technical
- areas, MOVs, control room environmental l
24 temperatures, cable separations.
Most of these are l
l' 25 being reworked now and we would hope that the bulk of l
l
~
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1 them will be solved in the next few months.
2 The material condition of these plants, Unit 3
1 looks very good.
They have put a significant amount 4
of effort into cleaning Unit 1
up.
'I t looks a
5 significant improvement "over Unit 2.
A major concern 6
of mine is to make sure that they do the same process 7
over on the Unit 2 side of the house.
8 So, our major concerns with Surry at this 9
point is to make sure that the actions that they're 10 instituting will be done, particularly on a long-term 11 basis.
We have seen much better interface with the 12 NRC since the reorganization and the appointment of 13 the senior vice president.
We have much t,etter L
I4 communication with the resident staff.
We do see much 15 improved planning and a more willingness to share with 16 us the problems that they're seeing as they go through 17 the upgrades at the station.
So, it does look 18 hopeful.
19 What we have done from Region II standpoint 20 and the NRC in general, we have added a third resident 21 to that station also to give us increased inspection 22 oversight.
We have done additional team inspections 23 at Surry and in relation to Surry we've had many, many 24 management meetings.
They're willing to come and 25 share their progress with us and we've had some at the i
A..
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. site.
So, we still have many problems there, but we 2
do see that things are improving somewhat.
3 That's all I have on Surry.
4 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Thank you.
.5 Any questions of my-fellow Commissioners 6
before we move along?
7-COMMISSIONER CURTISS:
I do have-two
~~
8 questions --
9 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Yes.
Go ahead.
10 COMMISSIONER CURTISS:
-- one on each of the 11 plants.
12 In the case of a plant like Turkey Point
'13 where it" appears repeatedly on the list over a long 14 period of time and we continue to see the kinds of 15 troubling indications that they're operating too close 16 to the margin.for too long a period of time, I guess 17 I'd be curious to know what sort of thinking goes into I
'18 the discussion at the meeting and the process that you 19 go through in deciding whether. that plant ought to 20 continue to be a Category 2 versus a Category 3 plant.
i 21 MR. EBNETER:
Well, we consider generally do l-
~
L 22 we think the plant is safe.
We do feel that they're
.i 23 capable of operating the plant, but we are concerned 24 that the identified vulnerabilities and concerns that
(-
25 we have, they correct one and then the next period the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W.
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49 1
next period the other one goes down.
2-This is a major concern with the training 3
issue, Commissioner C u rt i s s'.
They should have known--
4
'that.
This should not have come as a surprise to S_
them.- "If we had been effective in getting them to be 6-more-diligent in identifying problems and self-7 assessments, that. training problem should not have-8 arisen as it did.
9 But we do look at the total scope of the 10
. plant and the management and we did have many good 11-indications that Turkey Point was moving up.
I went 12 down to the plant and I had a significantly better q
13 impression of the plant after visiting it than I had t._.J 14 when I heard people talk about it.
But it is still a 15 concern to us.
How do we make them move faster and to 16 accelerate, improving in all areas?
17 DOCTOR MURLEY:
If I
could add a point l'8 -
there.
One of the things we discussed, because we 19 asked thks very question of ourselves, Commissioner, 20 is are they making progress.
Does it look like l
21 they're on the right track 1 For several meetings now, 22 they seem to have been making progress.
We see them 23 drop back from time to time and I think one of the 24 things we asked ourselves this time, are we focusing 25 on the right problem?
We, I guess, didn't have an
- s "L_
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1 answer.
2 But it's clear that they have taken some 3
steps to improve the site management.
As Stu Ebnetter 4
said, this is'probably the strongest site management 5
that they've ever had there.
If that doesn't change 6
things, then I think we'll have to ask ourselves is 7
there some other problem that we're not seeing that is 8
.the cause of why they're not really making strides in 9
improvement.
10 MR. STELLO:
Another way to say it is we're 11 having another meeting again in six months.
If we 12 don't see progress, we're going to be scratching our 13 heads re'a1 long about how long do you keep them on the 14 list before you do something else.
We're struggling 15 with that this time.
We're very disappointed that 16 they've remained on our list as long as they have.
We 17 don't see the sustained progress that would have said 18 by now they should have corrected the problems.
So, 19 maybe we haven't really hit the problem.
20 COMMISSIONER CURTISS:
On the Surry plant, 1
21 just one quick question.
As I -- and you alluded to 22-it.
In looking at the SALPs over the past four or 23 five, six cycles, Surry doesn't jump out at us from 24 the SALP process as a plant that would wind up on the 25 problem plant list.
What does that tell us and how NEAL R.
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1 much -- when we look at the indicators, especially the 2
early warning indicators, that might lead to tell us 3
that a plant is heading -in the direction of the 4
problem plant designation, how valuable is the SALP 5
process in your view and in particular in view of the 6
situation with Surry?
7 MR. EBNETER:
Well, I think the SALP process 8
is extremely valuable.
It's probably the best 9
assessment process outside of the senior management 10 that we have.
It's not perfect however and we do -- I 11 think typically when we see some issues coming and we 12 follow up on them, we get more focused and we find 13 more.
On an older plant, an older plant such as Surry 14 is particularly vulnerable to this.
As you start 15 doing more in depth inspections, you find more and 16 more issues.
I think that's what we're seeing at 17 Surry.
l IS I might comment that the SALP I'm talking l
l 19 about occurred under a differecit organizational 20 regime.
We definitely believe that when they made 1
i l
21 their reorganizat ion about two years ago, that a lot l
l 22 of the management attention placed on Surry dropped by l
23 the wayside.
What you're seeing in those SALP 2s l
24 there was characteristic, I think, of that previous 23 management.
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52 1
CHAIRMAN ZECH:
- Well, let me just make a 2
couple comments too before we move along then.
3 First of all, on Surry, I would only note 4
that from the way I understand the meeting results, 5
management meeting results, it looks to me like Surry 6
is the only plant that we've added to your list.
7 Other plants that have previously t,een on the list 8
have either moved up or remained in the same category.
9 But Surry looks to me like the only one that's been 10 addud to the list and placed in Category 2.
11 I believe that's correct.
Is it not?
I 12 believe that's correct.
So, that means that Surry has to'our attention.
Certainly I would hope, from 13 come 14 what you've told us here to, that the Surry management 15 could treat this seriously, as I'm sure they will, and 16 show us, as they have in the
- past, that they've 17 performed in a reasonably good manner and hopefully 18 take actions that are necessary to remove themselves 19 from this concern category of ours 20 On Turkey
- Point, it is a
disappointment 1
21 because as I read the list of these management meeting 22 results, we've been doing this now for about three 23 years.
I think we said it's the 7th meeting we've 24 had.
Turkey
- Point, I
- believe, has been on some 25 category, one of these categories, on every list.
I x.
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.think' that, if I read ~it right too, Peach Bottom has
.y
(
-2 also been on every list.but is at least, as you've
.3 determined, moving in an improving direction now.
4 COMMISSIONER ROBERTS:
Pilgrim's the same.
5 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
And Pilgrim also has been on 6
every list, as I understand it.
But again, like Peach 7
Bottom, is at least moving'in the right direction.
8 So, Turkey Point seems to be one that has 9
been consistently of a concern to us. -
I don't know 10 how long the Commission can continue to essentially 11 monitor Turkey point with improved or increased 12 resources, which of course we've been doing for some 13
- time, and be satisfied that some progress is being 14 made.
15
. So, I think that Turkey Point Florida 16 Power and Light organization should recognize that the h
17 Commission's patience is wearing very thin and that we 18 expect to see some certain results from Peach Bottom.
19 Mr. EBNETER, I know you've been there only a 20 short time, but I'd hope you would give this your 21 personal attention too.
We would certainly expect to 22 see some more significant improvement in Peach Bottom 23 than we've seen over these past three years.
Turkey 24 Point has not shown us much, has been consistently k
25 having problems and those are the kind of plants that NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W.
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.1
- do. concern the ' commission, ' especially when we. don't i
s;
2
-see improving trends and we don't see-too - much in-
'3
. Turkey'Pointi.
~
We' hear what you say,. Mr.
EBNETER, about 4
5 managemer.t.
I'm well aware-of what.they've done'.down 6
there too.
But we're looking for results and we want
'7 to see them.
'8 Unless there are other-comments,-I.think we-19-
'can' move on.
i 10 COMMISSIONER ROGERS:
Just one question.
Do
- 11 they still have that quality improvement program at 12 Turkey Point?
13
'MR. EBNETER:
Yes.
Yes, they do.
14 COMMISSIONER ROGERS:
Has it been effective 15.
at'all?
It seemed to me when I was there tp.at they 16 have an enormous investment in that and it was very 17-pervasive, It seemed to involve everyone in some way
. 18 and there seemed to be a great deal of hope for it.
19
.And yet we still-see tlese problems.
y
'l 20 MR. EBNETER:
Well, I --
'21 COMMISSIONER ROGERS:
Diverting your 22 attention from the real problems?
23 MR. EBNETER:
Well, that may be the case.
I I
24 think the company thinks it's very effective, but I i
25.
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- 1' consuming and pervasive that it' diverts the staff from 2-doing other. quality items.
]
3 MR. STELLO:
We're trying to get an answer.
4 to'that question.
Some of us feel that may'in fact be
.5 the-case.
6 CHAIRMAN-ZECH:
Any other comments before we 7
move along?
8 All right.
Are we ready to go to Region 9
III?
Mr. Davis?
10 MR. DAVIS:
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
11 I will be discussing two nuclear power 12 plants, Fermi and Perry and I will be discussing three 13 materials cases, 3M, Advanced Medical Systems, and 14.
then I'll - be discussing WESF capsules which are used 15
.at four locations, two companies and four locations.
16 Three companies at four locations in the United 17-States.
18 We concluded, as has been stated during the l
l 19 senior management meeting, that Fermi would be removed 20 from the list of problem facilities this time.
As you 21 recall,. Fermi has been on the problem list since April 22 of 1986.
At our last Commission briefing on this 23 subject, we made the following significant points I 24 felt with respect to Fermi.
l
'l(/
25 One was that the plant had appropriate NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE N W.
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.a.
l '-
management overview and resources.
Actions were,being I
2 taken' to address the performance problems.
3 Performance was not where we wanted it, but that it 4
was improving.
5 We felt the management team had not yet 6
demonstrated overall effectiveness and needed to 7
improve in working as a team.
Weaknesses continued in
\\
8 a number of areas.
For example, routine operations,-
9 understanding technical specifications, operating 10 without damaging equipment and they had a problem in 11 their training department.
12 So, taking all that together, we determined 13 the last time in December that Fermi should remain on 14 the plant status list as Category 2.
15 In the last six months, Fermi has continued 16 to - improve.
The Fermi management team continues to 17 become more effective, in my view.
Additional line 18 supervisors and staff with nuclear experience have 19 been obtained.
They have added a new operations 20 superintendent with nuclear experience, a new outage 1
21 manager.
They have 22 of their 25 system engineers 22 positions filled now, and they recently added a person 23 to the second level of management in the training 24 department.
So they have made some improvements 25 there.
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57 1
Both the company's and the NRC's performance 2
indicators and SALP have improved.
Our performance 3
indicators show improvement for the last two periods.
4 The chief executive officer, the president 5
of the company and the nuclear committee of the board 6
of directors continue to closely monitor the 7
performance of the plant and they're all quite 8
knowledgeable on both the improvements and the 9
problems that exist.
Tom Murley and I met for the 10 second time with the nuclear committee of the board of 11 directors with the CEO and president and all of the 12 key senior vice president and vice presidents there.
13 It was a' good meeting and I felt that they're all 14 right on top of the facility and they're providing the 15 resources and the management attention to improve 16 things.
17 Now, I don't want to leave the impression 18 that all problems are behind them.
For example, 19 maintenance and engineering and technical support, I
20 these two functional areas in SALP are still rated 21 Category 3.
In my view, they have gotten a late start 22 in planning for their fall first refueling outage.
23 And based on that, I can't predict right now how 24 efficient that outage will be.
k-.
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occurring, and some enforcement issues remain to be
,s 2
completed.
3 We do plan to do some inspections.
In 4-response to one of the questions that was asked 5
_ earlier, the new inspection program does allow the 6
regional administrator significant discretion.
During 7
this outage, I plan to do an inspection, a maintenance 8
team inspection.
I plan to do inspections in the 9
engineering and technical support area, particularly 10 focusing on-modifications.
Since this is their first 11 refueling outage, we will be looking at refueling 12 activities, containment degrade testing and on the 13 start-up ' we'll be looking at the start-up and core 14 physics and that sort of thing.
15 So, we are planning -to continue to follow 16 the plant under the discretion given in the inspection 17 program.
18 Now, I talked about the positive aspects and 19-I expressed some of the problems that still exist.
We 20 balanced these at the senior management meeting, the 21 problems against the accomplishments and decided that 22 the facility should be removed from the problem list 23 based on demonstrated improved performance.
24 That concludes what I have to say on Fermi.
iU
,25 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
All right.
Let's proceed, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W.
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1 MR..STELLO:-
Bruce', I suggest that we hold
^
ow 9e,h.
h ntil we have a chance to go through all the 2
3 regions.
And-if we have a chance,.we'll come back to 4
some of the other facilities we discussed.
5 MR. DAVIS:
Okay.
6 MR. STELLO:
But let's just do the ones that 7
are on a list and the materials licenses first, if we 8
can.
9 MR. DAVIS:
Fine.
Let me move onto 3M then.
10 We concluded during the senior management meeting that 11 3M will continue to require close NRC attention.
3M 12 became a concern because of widespread leakage of 13 their polbnium 210 static eliminators.
This resulted, 14-in an order which suspended distribution of the static 15 eliminators, required 3M to show cause why its 16 distribution license should not be revoked, and 17
. required recall of all static eliminators from general 18 licensee customers.
19 There was also an order to the general 20 licensees requiring return of the static eliminators lease 21 at the end of the 12 month boek period.
22 Then there was a second order to 3M which 23 suspended distribution of the static eliminators but 24 did permit them to do research and development on s-25 static eliminators at their facility but not to dc any NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W.
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~,7 I
distribution or any research and development outside 2
of their facility.-
3 To date, out of about 55,000 devices -that 4
were out in the marketplace, about 3100 have not yet t
-5 been returned.
About 1800 of this 3100 are reported 6
by general licensees to have been lost.
3M-is 7
continuing its efforts, through letters and telephone i
8 calls, to the holders of non-returned devices to'try 9
to get all of them back.
10 3M has surveyed 4200 sites where the static 11 eliminators had been used.
Fifteen hundred of these 12.
sites were those which had leaking devices which were 13 returned.
Whenever they receive the devices back they 14 do a smear test to determine whether or not they are 15 leaking.
Three hundred and forty-three of these were 16 found to have some contamination and they were 17 decontaminated.
18 So, progress is being made by 3M in 19 recovering these and in surveying the sites from which 20 they received lenkers.
We expect them to continue 21 their efforts until they have received back as many as 22 they have.
There will be some lost sources which 23 won't be returned.
24 Enforcement action remains to be determined 25 in this case and this will be discussed with the NEAL R.
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/ '
1 Commission in a special paper in'the near future.
2 That concludes what I was going to say about 3
3M.
4 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
All right.
Let's proceed.
5 MR. DAVIS:
WESF Capsules.
WESF stands for 6
Waste Encapsulation Storage Facility, which 'was a DOE 7
facility where the capsules were made.
We concluded 8
at the' senior management meeting - that the use and 9
disposition of these capsules continue to require 10 close NRC attention.
11 The capsules were fabricated at Hanford from 12 about 1974 to 1983.
We first became aware of problems 13 with the'se capsules when a l'eak developed at Radiation i
14 Sterilizers' Decatur, Georgia facility on June 7th, 15 1988.
These capsules have been or are being used in 16 four locations in the country, the one at Decatur, 17 Georgia that I
just mentioned, another Radiation 18 Sterilizer facility in Ohio, IO Tech, Incorporated in 19 Colorado which is an agreement
- state, and Applied 20 Radiant Energy Corporation in Lynchburg, Virginia.
To 21 date, only one capsule has been found to have leaked 22 and that is the one at Decatur, Georgia in 1988.
23 The capsules at the two Radiation Sterilizer 24 facilities in Georgia and Ohio are no longer being 25 used for radiation.
But there are still about 300 of I.
L_
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1 3:
1" these capsules store'd underwater at, these two
]
1 2
facilities, awaiting shipment back to DOE at Richland, 3-Washington.
4 The shipment of the capsules by DOE. has 5
slipped several times.
Before the capsules are-6 shipped, they are given three separate tests and there 7
' is also a review of fabrication documentation.
If' 8
everything f rom the tests and ' the - review of the J
1 9
documentation is all
- right, the capsules are-10
' designated ~as special form.
This means that the 11 capsule integrity is such that the capsule itself.can 12 stand transportation events and there are nine casks 13' available'to ship special form capsules.
So, there's 14 an advantage if they're special form.
15 If they don't pass the test, however, or if 16 there are questions from the fabrication history, they 17 must be classified as normal form.
It just means you 18 must rely on the shipping cask to protect against 19 transportation events and there's only one of those 20 types of casks.
So, it takes awhile to get them 21 shipped back.
At the IO Tech facility, the capsules 22 are used and stored in air.
They're only put under 23 water in case somebody has to go into the facility for 2 4 --
some kind of r.lintenance.
l 25 At the Applied Energy Corporation facility,
)
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63 1
)
1 the capsules are stored and used underwater.
So, at f
2 these two facilities, the capsules not being taken in 3
and out of the water frequently, they do not suffer 4
the thermal gradience and the change in thermal stress 5
as a result of that cycling.
6 So, DOE has advised these two companies that
~
7 continued use of the capsules is satisfactory.
I 8
understand they're going to readdress that subject 9
about the middle of next year.
10 That concludes what I wanted to say about 11
. WESF capsules.
We do play to continue following them 12 until they are all sent back to the facility.
13
' CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Thank you very much.
Does 14 that complete Region III's report?
15 MR. DAVIS:
That completes it.
16 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
All right.
We'll go to 17 Region IV, unless there are --
18 MR. DAVIS:
No, no, I have Advanced Medical 19 Systems.
20 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
All right.
Let's finish up 21 Region III then before we move along.
22 MR. DAVIS:
I almost missed it.
t 23 We concluded during the senior management l
24 meeting that Advanced Medical Systems will continue to 25 require close NRC attention.
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64 4
o l'
concern due to the contamination-of its source-r^
2-f abrication f acility and the need for facility 3~
modifications.
4 There was also a problem with the servicing 5.
~ of its teletherapy units at medical. f acilities, but 6
this has been resolved from a technical standpoint.
7 With respect to the source fabrication 8
facility, an' order was issued in 1987 which required 9
facility decontamination,- facility redesign, and 10 modification and program upgrading.
The licensee has 11 made
'ignificant progress in decontaminating its 12' facility, except we still have some concern about'the 13' levels which remain in the hot cell and we will be 14 pursing this with the licensee further in the near 15 future.
16 We must also resolve a couple of other 17
-things.
Facility modifications, we need to tie down a 18 schedule for completion of those modifications and l
l 19 also we need to look at design details.
The 20
'information we have looked at so far has been not as 21 detailed as we feel we need to see.
l 22 We have a couple organizational concerns in 23 that they have recently lost their radiation safety 24 officer and service manager.
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I his~ ability to handle things other than routine 2
operations.
3 We have also had some concerns with the 4
proposed frequency of surveys that they will conduct 5
now that they have the facility decontaminated.
We 6
are interested in their plans and program to keep the 7
facility in the decontaminated state that it is now 8
in.
9 We plan to work closely with the licensee in 10 the next couple of months to resolve these concerns 11 that we now have.
That concludes my comments.
12 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
All right.
Thank you very 13 much.
L _.
14 Any comments from my colleagues before we 15 move along?
16 If not, we'll go to Region IV.
Mr. Martin?
17 MR. BOB MARTIN:
The facility I'm going to 18 discuss is the Fort Calhoun facility.
As Doctor 19 Murley has already mentioned, the Fort Calhoun 20 facility has been designated at this most recent 21 meeting as in the 1st category, that is a plant being 22 removed from the list of plants of concern.
23 Fort Calhoun has been on this list of 24 plants concerned for approximately a year.
If I may 25 remind you, the essential issues that the concerns at I
L ~
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- ("
1 Fort Calhoun 'were categorized as their ability to-2 withstand the stress of complex change, be it complex 3
technical challenges or broad scope issues that had to 4
be managed on a broad front.
That was one of our 5
concerns.
6 The other concern was the operational focus
?
of the operating staff to keep the plant running and 8
that may have led to non-conservative judgments, 9
decisions or approaches to engineering challenges that 10 they faced.
11 In the last year, they, have developed a-12 safety enhancement. program.
That ' program in the 13 result o'f independent studies that they had done using, 14 their own resources, independent outside groups, that 15 engineering group that they brought in to do' a 16 comprehensive look, and synthesizing the results of 17 the concerns that we had expressed through inspections 18 and other activities.
.They put together a program 19 which had 70 some basic elements to it with a large
(
20 number of subelements.
If you will, a fairly complex, 21 broad program that would result in changes across a 22 very broad scope of their operations.
23 The have executed that program over the last 24
- year, virtually keeping all essential elements of it 25 on schedule.
They
- have, in
- fact, if you
- will, i
1 i
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demonstrated an enhanced capability to be able to
(,
2 handle complex issues and keep them on schedule and 3
manage them.
4 In terms of their conservative approach to 5
evaluation of engineering issues that have arisen, 6
they have demonstrated over the last year that the 7
. engineering modifications and technical modifications i
8 that they've put into their organization, both 9
increased staff as well as increased technical 10 capabilities in system engineers and other 11 methodologies, resulted in a very conservative 12 approach towards dealing with engineering problems.
13 They have' not demonstrated, if you will, a steaming j
14 attitude towards operation of the plant.
When they 15 resumed operation this time, they've taken the plant I
16 down a few times for issues that needed to be dealt 17
- with, a difference if you will from a previous 18 approach that they had used during the course of their 19 operation.
20 They are not completed with the 21 implementation of their program.
They're still 22 continuing to implement it.
But sufficient confidence 23 was developed during the last senior management 24 meeting that we felt warranted placing them in 25 Category 1.
We have the confidence that the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N.W.
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'l resources are committed. and that the ' management-e.>g
-2 commitment is '.there from.the management of OPPD to 3
keep r. hat' program. going.;
4-On th8t basis, it was decided to take the 5
plant and move them into a Category 1.
6 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
All right.
Thank you.
7' Anything else from Region IV?
8 MR. BOB MARTIN:
No, sir.
That completes 9
Region IV.
10 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Any questions from my 11 colleagues or comments?
12
-We'll move to Region V, Mr. Martin?
13
'MR.
JOHN MARTIN:
I have no plants that are 14 on the problem list or were taken off.
So, I thought 15 I'd give you a short progress report on Rancho Seco.
16 There's some interesting things happening there.
17 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Fine.
Appreciate that.
1 18 MR. JOHN MARTIN:
During this report period, 1
1 19 I'd say they have operated acceptably.
Not perfectly 20 but acceptably.
The thing I've been most struck by is 1
21 the attitude and posture of the staff as a whole.
22 They seem to be quite capable of learning from 23 mistakes, in very stark contrast to the previous state p
24 of affairs, have been very cautious in operating the k
25 plant.
I see no hesitation at all to shut down if NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N.W.
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they felt they needed to.
So, the last six months or l
2 so has
- been, I
would
- say, a
quite acceptable l
3.'
operation.
4 Hanging-over.this whole thing though is the 5.
referendum which will-be voted on next
- Tuesday, 6
whether the plant should' continue operation-or not.
7 COMMISSIONER ROBERTS:
Is it that simple, of 8
straight up and down?
9 MR. JOHN MARTIN:
Straight up and down.
And 10 it's a yes or no vote.
The --
11 COMMISSIONER CARR:
Is it worded like most 12 California referendums, you can't tell what you're r-13 voting o'n?
14 MR. JOHN MARTIN:
No, no.
This is worded 15 very clearly.
You know, "Do-you want the plant to 16 operate?
Check yes.
If not, check no."
It's 17 complicated because it's really the only thing on the 18 ballot.
There's one other animal rights issue.
19 COMMISSIONER ROGERS:
A what?
20 MR.
JOHN MARTIN:
An animal rights issue.
21 So, the population of people who will be attracted to 22 the election is probably not large and probably those 23 who have an intense interest in either animal rights 24 or Rancho Seco.
So, how it will come
- out, the
- 25 predictions are who knows.
But as far as I can tell, i
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I see no evidence that at the site all of this has 2
affected the operation in an adverse way.
Over the well, we've maintained three 3
next week or so 4
residents at the site right along and intend to 5
continue that.
For the next week or so, I intend to 6
augment that even further with some of our security 7
people and the licensee has put on some additional 8
coverage to keep track of that.
9 If the vote goes against the plant, I expect 10 they'll shut down.
They have made some arrangements, 11 talked to their managers.
Nobody expects a mass 12 exodus or anything to be done suddenly that could 13 jeopardizb the plant.
But it's a rather suspenseful 14 situation that we'll all have to watch very carefully 15 over certainly the next week and maybe some weeks 16 beyond that.
That's all I have to report.
17 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
All right.
Any comments 18 from my colleagues about Region V?
19 Yes, Commissioner Rogers?
20 COMMISSIONER ROGERS:
Yes, on Rancho Seco.
21 I have a point.
One is if the referendum is a 22 favorable one for continuation of the plant, I hope 23 there's something we can do about that board 24 resolution on a performance requirement.
25 That is something that I think we all NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W.
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/ 1-
'J
'I have'been very uncomfortable with.
In my view, and' 2
I'm sure others'as well, it's a very bad, b'ad way.to-3 proceed, one of the worst in the country as far as I 4
know.
I wonder if we really shouldn' t try to take 1
5 some initiative if the plant does operate to have that j
~6 reviewed because I think its a very bad message to 7
the staff, i
8 MR. STELLO:
We'll make a recommendation to i
9 the Commission after the --
10 COMMISSIONER ROGERS:
The other thing is 11 that at the
- hearing, the Senator Breaux-Simpson 12 Committee hearing, the testimony of one of the Board 13 members - there, M r '. Smelloff, indicated to me that he 14 hadn't heard anything that we've told him when he met 15 with us earlier in the spring with respect to 16 directions that this Commission had given to that 17 board.
18 I don't think there's any point in doing 19 anything about that right now, but if that referendum 20 again is one that's favorable towards the 21 continuation, I certainly hope that we will go back to 1
22 that issue and pick up on it and make it very clear to 23 that board that when this Commission speaks to them, 24 that they should be listening.
Obviously he hadn't 25 heard anything that was told him.
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CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Well, Mr. Martin, I'm sure 2
.you're well-aware when'this SMUD-Board did.come back.
.i 3'
before-the Commission - here - not too long ago,.
that 4
incentive' issue did come up.
I addressed it,'I think, 5
forthrightly 'and told him' that there 'should. be
'n o f
.6 doubt, but the Commission does not agree with those-7.
type of incentives that would perhaps impact 8-negatively on..the safety.of operations.
'9
.The Commission agreed with.me at that time
- 10 unanimously'and I'm sure still does.
So, there should 11-not be any' question in the'SMUD. Board's view as to' the 12' view oflthis~ Commission as regards those incentives.
13 We are ' opposed to those. unanimously,- believing that
- 14 they could impact on the safety of operations and'in' 15 such circumstances, this Commission is opposed-to any 16 incentives of that kind.
17 I
feel confident that the entire board 18 understood that at the time they were here before tne 19 Commission, but I
was surprised, as Commissioner 20 Rogers points out, to hear Mr. Smelloff at the Senate 21 hearing indicate that he was in doubt as to-the 22 Commission position.
At that time, I reaffirmed the 23
. commission's position at the Congressional hearing.
24 My colleagues again at that time agreed with me.
b 25, So, there shouldn't be any doubt as to how l
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' that ' board. understands this Commission's -position on fi 2.
that issue.
I hope that you-will help us to convey i
3 that to the SMUD Board so that there's no doubt in 4
their mind that we do not agree with those kind of 5
incentives for perhaps having an impact on safety that 6
would be negative.
7 MR. MARTIN:
No, I agree with that.
I think
'8 the Commission has been quite clear repeate,dly on 9
that.
After.this election, I think that can be taken 10 care of.
11 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
And then what we need, Mr.
12 Stello, is if that position needs to be enunciated in 13
'a more. f'ormal manner, why we would appreciate the 14 recommendation.
I think that's what commissioner 15 Rogers suggested and I certainly would agree with that 16 and.I think my colleagues would too.
There shouldn't 17 be any question, but we do not agree with any kind of 18 incentive that would impact negatively on safety or 19 would be a deterrence from shutting down the plant, 20.
for example, if it would appear that that would be the 21 appropriate thing to do rather than trying to operate 22 it if there's any concern about safety.
23 So, if you feel that anymore formal 24 enunciation or view should be expressed by the i
25 Commission in any other forum, please make such a NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W.
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2' it appropriate.
3 COMMISSIONER ROBERTS:
And we certainly will 4
do it in consultation with the General Counsel.
'S CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Are there any other -- yes, 6
we have Mr. Crutchfield, I know.'
But any other 7
comments from the colleagues before we move to the 8
special projects?'
9 Mr. Crutchfield, welcome again and you may 10 proceed.
11 MR. CRUTCHFIELD:
Thank you.
12-As you are aware, the Sequoyah.and Brown's 13 Ferry uni *ts have been charter members of the senior 14 management list since they both shut down in 1985.
15 We're recommending that Sequoyah go to a Category 1 16 facility.
They've restarted Unit 2 in May of last 17 year.
After a few more problems and trips, they had a 18 relatively successful run until they shut down as 19 planned for a refueling outage earlier this year.
The 20 outage went relatively smoothly.
They came back 21 again, had a few feedwater difficulties, but continue 22 to appear to be running smoothly.
23 We have recently completed our SALP 24 evaluation of the facility.
They were all Category 2s
'k 25 with the exception of engineering technical support NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W.
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s 75 j
~l 1
I which is a Category 3 with an improving trend.
-d 1
1 2
What we see from Sequoyah is that attention
]
3 has been focused to the unit.
They have put in place 4
- programs, they have implemented nd c e ::n:-
i 5
they have turned the performance around.
i 6
It's clear that Operations there is in
.I 7
charge of the facility.
They hatte learned lessons j
8 from Unit 2 that they've applied to Unit 1 and Unit 1 9
restarted in November and has had a very successful 10 operation also.
11 Programs have been put in place.
The 12 implementation has been relatively consistent for 13 those programs.
They've had a few occasions when 7--
~~
14 they've had to slip dates of completion of activities, 15 but it hasn't been serious or regular.
16 They've had some management changes there.
17 Mr.
- Smith, who is the plant manager, has recently l
18 announced his resignation.
He will be leaving 19 effectively the 16th of June.
One of the areas we 20 need to consider and continue to watch is the nverall 21 management of the facility.
I J
22 Another concern for us ia stability at that 23 facility.
There's been a great deal of turnover of 24 number of managers, intermediate managers, et cetera.
'j 25 So, we're to continue to watch that.
i la e
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.s
- l Mr. Kinglsey and the TVA Board have recently 2
announced some organizational. changes where they've
-3 reduced staffing levels in Sequoyah.
They've gone
.4 down from about 2600 and they plan to be down to about 5
2100' by the end' of the year.
- Again, this is of 6
concern to us.
The view is that they have cut areas 7
where there's been' duplication and avoided things like 8
that.
They've copied other additional efficiencies.
9 So, it's something we're to continue to watch but we 10 don't see at this time that there's any significant 11 prob 1' ens.
Consequently, we've reted them a Category 12.
1.
They will be coming off the list.
13 Brown's Ferry is the other facility.
They 14 defueled in 1985.
We recently, at the beginning of 15 the year, allowed them to reload the fuel in Unit,2.
16 It wasn't a clean reloading.
They had some problems 17 with a monitor cord situation, where they weren't 18 getting the proper number of counts.
19 We're seeing that they're having difficulty 20 in transferring the lessons learned from Sequoyah.
21 It's not as smooth as we would have thought.
At one 22 point it's almost like dealing with two separate 23 utilities, a Sequoyah utility and a Brown's Ferry 24 utility.
The lessons are beginning to be transferred 25 over to Brown's Ferry.
Major issues that they're NBAL R.
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looking at are cable separation, cable impassity l
2 questions which have to do with heat'up of the cable 3
and its degradation of the. insulation, EQ and fire 4
protection.
We recently completed a fire protection l'
5 audit-down there and things look reasonably well for i
6 the facility.
So we're. pleased of that.
7 INPO recently completed their evaluation 1
8
-also of the facility and found 18 weaknesses, none of
(
9 which were new to either us or to TVA.
The programs'
{
10 appear to be appropriately in place.
They have a lot 11 of work to go ahead of them for implementation..
12 Seismic area, for example.
They understand where 13 their problems are.
Now it's a
question of L._
- supports,
.f d
14 redesigning the modifications, redesigning 15 implementing those supports.
So, they're all very 16 time consuming.
17 They're scheduled to restart in September of i
18 this year, but work has been slipping and some of our 19 inspections have been delayed at the request of the l
20 utility.
We anticipate that date is going to slip
]
21 substantially.
It could be toward the end of the year 1
22 or further on.
We'll continue to closely monitor
)
i 23 that.
24 Consequently, we're continuing to look at 1
]
25 it.
- Again, at Brown's
- Ferry, there's been a
i l'
)
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(.
I substantial cut of resources and staffing levels at 2
Brown's Ferry.
We will continue to monitor that.
3 What we want to be careful of, especially 4
with Sequoyah and at Brown's Ferry also is complacency 5
setting in.
TVA has achieved a level of success with 6
Sequoyah.
We want to make sure that they continue
'7 that level of success and continue to go forward.
I 8
think. one of the best ' factors that we have to get 9
their attention has been the SALP process and these 10 senior management meetings.
It gets the attentions of 11 the utility in some cases better than we can in other 12 vehicles.
13 That's all I have to say on Brown's Ferry.
14 MR. STELLO:
We're through, Mr. Chairman.
15 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
All right.
Thank you very 16 auch.
17 Questions of my fellow Commissioners?
18 Commissioner Roberts?
19 Commissioner Carr?
20 COMMISSIONER CARR:
Well, I need to add my 21 comments on Turkey Point.
That's one of the early 22 plants I visited and I was worried at the time and I 23 told them, but I think I join that group that can get 24 their attention.
25 It's interesting that we've been giving them i
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1 three -; years. to get well.
Normally if you shut. them 2-down, 'it only. takes.them,two years.to get well.
So, we could.haveJ elped them'.more maybe'if we'd acted.
-I h
3 -.
4 agree with Mr. Stello that1they'11.certainly'be on my 5
watch list for the next mix months.
6-COMMISSIONER ROBERTS:
I think he' was c.
4
'7 hinting -at some more. draconian
- measures, but
-I 8
. wouldn't speak for Vic.
9 CHAIRMAN $ECH:.
Commissioner Rogers?
10' COMMISSIONER ROGERS:
No.
11 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Commissioner Curtiss?'
12 COMMISSIONER CURTISS:
I just have two quick r-
~ 13 -
questions, one on the issue of economic ' incentive-14
_ regulations.
I did a quick review of the plants on
. 15 the watch list and for all the plants at one point or
' 16 another, they either now have or have had an effect, 17 economic performance based incentive regulatory 18 schemes, some more onerous than others.
I guess-the 19 Nine Mile Point limit on' construction costs comes to 20 mind.
21 In looking at the situation with the watch 22 list plants, I guess I'd be curious at some point, not 23 just for Rancho Seco, but beyond that, for the other 24 plants and perhaps across the board on that kind of 25 incentive based regulation, whether that's been a
i t.
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problem, whether it's something that we see more often 2
'or in a more onerous' way at the watch list plants.
3 MR.
STELLO:
There's another ~ side of the 4
question and I
don't-know whether it-ties back 5
directly to PUCs or not that's.
troubling me, 6'
especially the last few days when it's become more and.
.7 more apparent.
8 Remember one of the things we' mentioned 9
about Calvert Cliffs is it was s' company utility that 10 started getting other
- business, real
- estate, 11
' financial.
They took one of their very good managers, 12 because he'was a bright, upcoming manager, and put him 13 over o n' this side of the business.
This is not 14 unique.
There are other utilities that are doing the 15 same sorts of things.
16 The question becomes, why are they doing 17 this?
Are they doing it because ' they need to find 18 another mechanism to make some profit to deal with the 19 problem of the PUCa?
Is
- there, as some have 20 suggested, a
change in utility management where 1
21 they're bringing in bright, energetic CEOs who are 22 anxious to get into new exciting things and cause the 23 company to divest, or other reasons perhaps?
l 24 But I
wonder now if there is perhaps a
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'l into other business and how this may-dilute their.
2 management attention to.the facilities and is there, 3
in fact, a connection between some of these facilities 1
L 4
that have had difficulties either as a
result of l:
1 5
utilities diversifying or in the case of Nine Mile, 6
where they really had some questions about getting 7
very.close to the edge on bankruptcy issues because of L
8 the Nine Mile Plant 2 issue and what the PUC did, n
9 As Bill has mentioned, the more recent
-10 issue, I don't know --
11
- Bill, I
don't remember whether you did 12
-mention it.
13 MR. RUSSELL:
I should have mentioned it.
L._
14 MR. STELLO:
Maybe you want to hear the most 15 recent thing on Nine Mile which maybe is going to even 16 get you more concerned.
17 MR. RUSSELL:
I have met within the last two 18 months with director and deputy director level within 19 the New York Public Service Commission in the regional 20 offices.
I reviewed the results of those meetings at 21 the senior management meeting.
l 22' The company is in a
difficult financial 23 situation at this point in time.
Most recently, there 24 has been a request to retain -- forgive me, I don't 25 get the financial jergon right, but it's essentially f"-~
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'l' over $55 million dollars.
The company proposed to.not
'2 collect for fuel adjustment costs during the Unit 1 3
shutdown.
They filed the appropriate papers with the i
4 Security Exchange Commission and entered into an 5
agreement with the Public Service Commission.
l 6
That has resulted in the company funding the 7
replacement power costs.
This is causing a serious 8
drain of their resources at this time.
There is a 9
proposal to allow them to retain some. earnings or 10 recover some of those funds to the tune of 11 approximately $55 million dollars.
12 The New York Department of Law has filed in 13 that case not objecting to them retaining the funds 14 provided they change management within the utility.
15 We're concerned as to what kind of a signal that sends 16 and that's currently a significant issue in the press 17 and activities in the Syracuse area.
18 There is a
real concern of whether the 19 diversion of attention to financial matters and to 20 problems with the operation of Unit 2 resulted in Unit I
21 l's performance significantly degrading.
We have a 22 concern.
There has been Public Service Commission l
23 staff essentially on
- site, the equivalent of a
24 resident inspector almost, at that facility for some 25 five or six years.
They are very involved and it has NBAL R.
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' raised questions.in.the past.
2
-COMMISSIONER CURTISS:
Well, I guess I share
'3
'the
. concerns that Commissioner Rogers expressed 4
already about that.
I know we've taken a look at that 5-in the past and perhaps at some point here in the near 6
- future, as we look ' at the situation at Rancho Seco 7
after the referendum, it would be useful to revisit 8
and update the staff's analysis of those questions.
9 It does seem to me that particularly on the problem 10
. plants where you see so many of these --
11 I realize the arrangements are common to a 12 lot of plants, but I guess I would be interested in r-13 the staff's views on how common they are and which L
14 ones are the more onerous ones, what's changed in the 15 last couple of years since we've looked at it recently 16 and perhaps what our options
- are, as Commissioner 17 Rogers has suggested, in terms of approaching those.
18 MR. STELLO:
We'll be getting back to you.
I've asked Ed Jorden to start 19 I've got something 20 looking at the availability of information to answer 21 that question.
22 COMMISSIONER CURTISS:
Just one very narrow l
l 23 question.
Could you explain to me the difference l
24 between a
Category 2
plant that is under a
1' l
25 confirmatory action letter to remain shut down and a
- t...
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(
' l' Category. 3 plant't What's the practical difference.
2-between those two plants?
3 DOCTOR MURLEY:
Generally, I might take a 4
cut at it.
The Category 2 plant that shut down and, 5
- say, a
' regional.
administrator has issued a
6 confirmatory action letter, is generally thought to be 7
narrower, in fact quite a bit narrower in the issue 8
that we have to deal with.
9 The Category 3 plants, our feeling. is that 10 they. must have a
plan to improve that we have 11
- reviewed, that we've looked at, that we've agreed 12 with, encompasses their problems.
And furthermore, 13 they-mu'st come back to the commission itself for y
14 approval to restart it.
~15 The Category 2 plant that we're holding down 16 under a confirmatory action ' letter, it's usually a 17 narrower issue and usually the regional administrator.
18 or perhaps me or Mr.
Stello give them the okay to 19 restart.
But it's basically in the scope.
20 COMMISSIONER CURTISS:
Some of the 21 confirmatory action letters that I've seen, I guess, 22 look pretty broad and raise the question as to what 23 the real difference is. Nine Mile is a good example of 24 that and I guess Calvert seemed to me to be a pretty
'l 25 broad ranging confirmatory action letter that NEAL R.
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. expressed a troad range of concerns.-
As a practical 2
matter, I guess I was just groping for the difference 3
betwee'n plants that in both instances are shut down.
4
.It '.s clear that in the case of some of these plants,
'5-we have wide-ranging concerns that are going to 6
require corrective action plans.
7 DOCTOR MURLEY:
Yes.
The one difference 8
that I did mention is clearly for all Category 3 9
plants.
They must come back to the Commission for.
10 approval to restart.
We haven't made that requirement 11 on the Category 2 plant.
12 COMMISSIONER CURTISS:
Okay.
Thank you.
13
'MR..STELLO:
If I can take the opportunity 14 to again put - a hit on Turkey Point, which I don't 15 think is necessarily a bad idea anyway.
We believe 16 they have programs.-
We believe they've got the 17 people, although the demonstration and the results are 18 poor to make it.
But at some time this is the I
19 question I was raising.
You have to ask yourself, is 20 there really a program?
Do we really understand a 1
l 21 problem?
Then if that point comes, then they crossed 22 over the line from 2 to 3.
I think it's pretty much 23 that simple.
We get to the point where we've lost 24 confidence and we'll say, "You've got to shut it down 25 and get it squared away right."
Another way to look NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE. N.W (202) 234 4433 WASHINGTON. D C. 20005 (202)232M
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COMMISSIONER CURTISS:
It seems to me that 3
there's an intuitive > feeling that if a plant-is on the 4
- J.is t for ten years, we'd all agree that it operates
~
5 too close to the margin.
And here is a plant that's' 6
been on since we started the process and now for three 7
years.
If it is, in fact, showing improvement,- one 8
would expect it, as the Chairman has said, to come off 9
the list.
It may be improving in other areas and 10 declining in some.
But the fact is that it's been on 11 the list since 1986 and just intuitively something 12 tells me that we're reaching the point fairly quickly 13 where that deserves a close look.
14 MR.
STELLO:
.Then maybe it should become 15 Category 3.
16 COMMISSIONER CARR:
That's the point I was 17 trying to make.
You would expect a Category 2 plant 18 to get off the list in a hurry.
19 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Mr.
Stello, do you have r
j' 20 those thoughts to contemplate over and reflect with j
21 your management team?
22 MR. STELLO:
Yes, those and a few more.
l l.
23 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
All right.
Good.
Any other 24 comments from my colleagues?
Well, let me first of 25 all say that I think this management team concept is NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W.
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L__ _ _ _ __
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87:
- A a
' an! ; excellent management. tool.
It does bring the 1:
~2L senior managers from.across the country:together with'
-3:
'the headquarters staff to review with each other the 4-plants that?we.are.more' concerned-about.
I think it's-5
.an-excellent management. tool,.very,.very. helpful for
.6
'the Commission.
7
-Also, I think it 's _important '.to point out, 8'
as you did~early 'on, Mr. Stello, that we'do.have some 9
' of the plants that are operating really quite well.
10
. And.although we focus our attention-on. this meeting
~
11 generally on the plants we've talked about.on a watch 12 list, but we do know.that there are plants'that are-13 operating
- extremely well in our country'and I do think 14-that your effort to make a
balance to this 15 presentation is important.
16 Let.me just emphasize it now too, that you 17 did point out'that'we have several. plants, and I know.
18 you pointed to Yankee Rowe, I believe, and Monticello I
l 19 and Prairie Island 1 and 2 and there was another one, s
20 I think.
Kewaunee.
21 MR. STELLO:
I might add, Mr. Chairman, the 22 staff is kind of stingy in wanting the name.
23 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
- Yes, I know that and I 24 understand that.
But they're not --
)
l-1 E-25 MR. STELLO:
We're wearing the halo effect l
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88 1
that --
2 CHAIRMAN. ZECH:
Yes, and we don't want to 3
put
- a. bad -- you know, give plants a problem because 4
we've put a label on them of doing well because we 5
know sometimes,that ---
6 COMMISSIONER ROBERTS:
Almost Heisman 7
trophy.
The candidates that got on the cover of 8
Sports Illustrated never made it.
9 COMMISSIONER CARR:
I want to put them on 10 the cover of Time.
11 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
We don't want to 'give them 12 any bad luck.
13 MR.
STELLO:
At the same
- time, I
must 14' volunteer that it concerns me that a lot of those 15 plants that are really doing a good job are not 16 mentioned in this room and they probably ought to be.
17 It's unfortunate and I think the list is really much l
18 longer than the list we give you.
But there's --
19 COMMISSIONER CARR:
- Well, but standard 2C practice is to spend 90 percent of the time on ten 21 percent of your problem and your problems are 10 22 percent of the plants --
23 MR. STELLO:
That's right.
24 COMMISSIONER CARR:
and you spend 90 l
25 percent of your time trying to fix those.
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1 MR.
STELLO:.
But we didn' t mention those 2
others that are truly deserving too and I at least 3
want to make that point.
'There'are a lot of them out 4
there-doing a good job'and.--
S CHAIRMAN ZECH:
- Well, I
think it is 6
important to make that point because we do indeed 7
spend most of all of our time. on-the plants we're 8
concerned about and I think that's,
- frankly, as it i.
9 should be.
But I think we should spend even a small 10 part of our time at least recognizing that there's an 11 awful lot of plants out there that are performing very 12 well.
~
13 COMMISSIONER ROGERS:
Excuse me.
14 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Go ahead.
15 COMMISSIONER ROGERS:
Just on this point, I'
16 think there is an important point here - and that is 17 that.even those plants in Category 2 are operating and-18 they wouldn't be operating if we didn't feel they were 19 basically safe as they
- are, although we're not 20 satisfied.
21
. MR. STELLO:
That's true.
i I
22-COMMISSIONER ROGERS:
I think it's important 23 to make that point.
24 MR. STELLO:
That's correct.
Well, my point 25 was that we have a lot of plants that are truly doing l
r-t-
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1 aerea11y~ outstanding' job and they don't'get mentioned.
2
. CHAIRMAN ZECH:- Yes, that's my point t o o,: to
{
l 3
at least bring;that'into'this --
4 COMMISSIONER ROGERS:
That's a' separate 5-point.
A good one,.but I'm just'saying that I think 6.
it's irportant that the public understand. that our 7
standards are very high and ' that that Category 2 is 8
one we're watching very closely.
But if.we had any 9
serious ' doubts about the safety of those' plants, we 10 would put'them in 3.
11 MR..STELLO:
I agree.
12 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Well, also'let me' point out-13 to those ' plants that have managed to get on our watch
-14 list and now have been removed, that they deserve some 15 mention.
Fermi 2 has had a rough struggle but has 16 struggled their way of f the list and has done a l
17 commendable job and put a lot of resources into 18 efforts to do that.
Sequoyah 1 and 2,
I believe 19 you've also said have been removed from your list, as 20 well as Fort Calhoun.
21 So, those are p] ants that, I think, we 1
22.
should recognize as having been given the category of 23 putting on our watch list, attention has been focused 24 on removing themselves and they've done that and we 25 congratulate them for that.
We expect them to do 2
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91 1
that, of course, but we do note.that they put a lot of 2
effort forth into doing that and improving themselves 3
and operating more safely and more reliably.
Of 4
- course, that's what it's-all about.
l 5
- Well, let me thank all of you for a very 6
informative and an excellent briefing.
Again, I do 7
believe personally that this management meeting and 8
the effort.that you all put into it, I know it's many, 9
many months of work, is a tremendous effort.
But I do 10 think it's a
worthwhile effort.
We are indeed
'll focusing on where we should place our resources - and 12 that's what it all about, where we should put our 13 inspecto'rs, where we should put the big part of our e--
~'
14 inspection dollars in order to keep our plants 15 operating safely and to focus our attention on those 16 plants that need our attention.
17 So, I think this is a very, very worthwhile 18 effort.
It helps us to prioritize our efforts and to 19 prioritize our resources.
We don't have unlimited 20 resources, people or dollars.
It's important that we 21 handle both our people and our dollars responsibly.
22 This is an excellent effort, in my Judgment, in order 23 to try to do just that.
24 I think it's encouraging to note too that I
25 we, at least at this
- time, more plants have been i
L_
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removed fros'the list than. we've placed.on the: list.
2-That's something.-that at least-can b e ' n o t e d.-
I don't' 3
know that we need to overly. dwell on:.that point, but
4 it. :is true and perhaps the efforts that'the s t a f f.'i s
'~
5-putting forward.in this program inicoming to at least 6
some fruition.
7 I do think your reference, Doctor Murley,.
8 early on to overall improved performance across the 9'
board per operating reactor
.in
'our country is 10 important to recognize.
<The plants are overall-11 improving in their performance.
Safety is improving 12 by every parameter we measure, as you pointed out-13 earlier,' and we recognize that.
14 On the other hand, even when we seec that
'15 overall improvement, we all know that we shouldn't be 16
. complacent.
We shouldn't be overconfident.
The 17 industry, the utilitles shouldn't be over confiant
- r.
18 complacent either because there is room for 19 improvement, again, Doctor Murley, as you pointed out 20 and I agree with that.
There's rooa for improvement 21 across the board.
A lot of improvement in some plants 22 and certainly-some improvement everywhere in my 1
23 judgment.
.l a
24 But'the fact is it is improving across the 25 board in our country and that really is encouraging.
.i.
1 l
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On the other hand, I do think pointing out these 2
plants that.need our attention, are not doing as well 3
as they should, are operating too close to the margin, 4
is responsible regulatory action on our part and 5
that's,-of course, what we're trying to do.
6 So,
- again, I
ccamend the ataff for this 7
initiative, this program that's been going on there 8
few years.
I certainly commend it to continue.
I 9
think we are beginning to see the fruits of our labor, 10 the fruits of your time and effort spent on focusing 11 on how to make and how to exercise our responsibility 12 so these plants will ope. ate more safely and so the 13 public health and se'ety will be protected and that's L.__
14 our mission.
15 So, I think your efforts in this regard are 16 commendable.
I congratulate you on an. outstanding 17 effort again and I commend you to heep up this program 18 that certainly looks like it's bearing improvements 19 and showing that it is a very worthwhile program.
20 Are there any other comments from my l
21 colleagues?
22 If not, thank you very much.
We stand 23 adjourned.
24 (Whereupon, at 3:55 p.m.,
the briefing was 25 adjourned.)
I t.
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l I #,-
CERTIFICATE OF TRANSCRIBER i
This is to certify that the attached events of a meeting of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission entitled:
1 TITLE OF MEETING: PERIODIC BRIEFING ON OPERATING REACTORS AND FUEL FACILITIES PLACE'0F MEETING: ROCKVILLE, MARYLAND l
?
DATE OF MEETING:
JUNE 1, 1989 were transcribed by me. I further certify that said transcription is accurate and complete, to the best of my ability, and that the transcript is a true and accurate record of the foregoing events.
.J t
b N4,1911 l v ~
3 Reporter's name:
Peter Lynch NEAL R. GROSS COUeT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBER $
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- 6WW6h&dkCtW6WWWWWW9kW6WhfkW666kGt*******WWWWWWWMlNc0,0.g r
I h[
TP.AMSMITTAL TO:
M Document Control Desk,-016 Phillips L
ili ADVANCED COPY TO:
The Public Document Rocm 5/2d DATE:
5 FROM:
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POR is advanced one copy of each document, two of each SECY paper, C&R Branch files the original transcript, with attachments, withcut SECY ONg i
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