ML20246Q030
| ML20246Q030 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Vermont Yankee, Yankee Rowe, 05000000 |
| Issue date: | 08/10/1989 |
| From: | Rebelowski T, Strosnider J, Winters R NRC OFFICE OF INSPECTION & ENFORCEMENT (IE REGION I) |
| To: | |
| Shared Package | |
| ML20246Q018 | List: |
| References | |
| 50-029-89-14, 50-271-89-10, 50-29-89-14, NUDOCS 8909110311 | |
| Download: ML20246Q030 (11) | |
See also: IR 05000029/1989014
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U.S.-NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
REGION I
Report N'os.
~50-029/89-14
50-271/89-10
Docket Nos.50-029
,
50-271
. . .
. License Nos'.-
DPR-28-
'Licen see s': .
. Yankee Atomic Electric Company
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580 Main Street-
Bolton, Massachusetts 01740-
Vermont-Yankee Nuclear Power Corporation
~RD 5, Box 169, Ferry Road
Brattleboro, Vermont 05301
. Facility Names:' Yarikee Nuclear' Power Statdon
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Vermont Yankee Nuclear power Station
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Inspection At: Bolton, Massachusetts-
Rowe, Massachusetts
.Brattleboro, Vermont-
Vernon, Vermont-
' Inspection Dates: July, 17-21, 1989
Inspectors: d M
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T. Rebeloyski, Senior Reactor Engineer, OPS,
/ date '
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OB, DRS, Region I
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R.'W. Winters, Reactor Engineer, MPS, EB,
date
'DRS, Region If
LApproved by: YM,mMN 1
t
. J. R. M osnider, Chief, MPS,
date
Engineering Branch, DRS, RI
. Inspection Summary: Routine announced inspection on July 17-21, 1989 (Report
Nos. 50-029/89-14 and 50-271/89-10)
1 Areas Inspected: Corporate engineering and offsite support for the plants and
implementation of modifications.
. Results: No violations or deviations were identified.
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DETAILS
1.0L Persons Contacted
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Yankee Atomic' Electric Company, Bolton, Massachusetts
R. Berry, Assistant to Vice President Operations
B. Drawbridge, Vice President and Manager of Operations
D. Hansen, Director, Plant Engineering Department
(1)
J. Haseltine, Project Director, Yankee Project
(1)
J. Hoffman, Engineering Manager, Vermont Project
'(1)
W. Jones, Engineering' Manager, Yankee Project
(1)
A. Kadak, President, Yankee Nuclear Power Corporation
G. Mcdonald, Manager, Quality Service Group
(1)
S. Miller, Project Manager, Vermont Project
J. Robinson, Director, Environmental Engineering
A. Shepard, Director, Quality Assurance
(1)
J. Thayer, Project Manager, Yankee Project
Yankee Atomic Electric Company, Rowe, Massachusetts
J. Falconieri, Maintenance Engineer
(2)
T. Henderson,-Assistant Plant Superintendent
(2)
J. Kay, Technical Services Manager
(2)
D. King,-Maintenance Support Supervisor
(2)
R. Mellor, Technical Director
(2)
R. Mitchell, Maintenance Manager
(2)
N. St. Laurent, Plant Superintendent'
' Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Corporation
K. Casey, Manager, Employment and Compensation
R. Grippardi, Supervisor, Vermont Yankee Quality Assurance (YAEC)
R. Lopriore, Maintenance Supervisor
M. Mete 11. Engineering Support Supervisor
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(1,3)J.'Pelletier, Plant Manager, Vermont Yankee
D. Reid, Manager, Operations Support
T. Schimelpfenig, Director, Procurement and Information Systems
D. Stafford,' Technical Training Supervisor
United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission
(2)
M. Markley, Resident Inspector, Yankee Rowe,
______________________..__________ .__________________________________
(1) ' Denotes those attending the exit meeting July 19, 1989 in Bolton,
(2) Denotes those attending the exit meeting July 21, 1989 in Rowe,
(3) Denotes those attending the exit meeting July 21, 1989 in
Brattleboro, Vermont
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The inspectors also contacted other administrative and technical personnel-
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during the inspection.
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2.0 Objectives
The objectives of this inspection were to assess the adequacy of the
licensee's program for engineering support of plant operations including
design and configuration control, interfaces with other internal and
external organizations, management-support, staffing levels and experience,
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training, procurement, Quality Assurance, and responses to NRC requirements
and requests.
3.0. Licensee Commitments
The licensee's commitments and documents reviewed are listed in
Attachment "A" to this report.
4.0 Yankee Atomic Electric Company (YAEC)
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The Yankee Rowe plant is operated by YAEC and is located on the Deerfie.d
River in Rowe. Massachusetts.
The plant was placed in commercial oper.O Jn
in 1961 and has been in full operation since that time except for maintenance
and refueling shutdowns. The unit is rated at 185 megawatts (gross).
The Vermont Yankee plant is operated by the Vermont Nucleae Power Corporation
and is located on the Connecticut River in Vernon, Vermont. The plant was
placed in commercial operation in 1972.
In 1988 the plant operated with a
capacity factor of 93%. The unit is rated at 626 megawatts (gross).
In 1968, the Securities and Exchange Commission authorized YAEC to organize
a Nuclear Services Division (NSD) under the Company's corporate structure.
The Nuclear Services Division has a staff of approximately 400 engineers
who provide engineering services in all aspects of nuclear power plant
construction and operation including Nuclear Engineering, Environmental
Engineering, Operations, Quality Assurance, Plant Engineering and Fuel
Management. Services are performed on a cost basis for the Yankee Rowe
plant, Vermont Yankee, Maine Yankee, and Seabrook. YAEC is a small utility
with total employment of approximately 700 people including the 200 assigned
to the operation of Yankee Rowe.
5.0 YAEC Organization
YAEC is_ organized into two Divisions, one is Plant Operations Divisinn
consisting of the Yankee Rowe plant, the other is Yankee Nuclear Services
Division (YNSD) that includes the balance of the organization. YNSD
consists of eight major functions that provide services to the operating
plants. These services include the following:
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Projects - Reporting to a Vice President
Yankee Rowe
Vermont Yankee
Maine Yankee
Seabrook
Quality Assurance
Quality Services
Audits
Vendors
Plant Engineering
Nuclear Engineering
Environmental Engineering
Computer Services
Material Management and Control
Purchasing
Fuel Management
Cost Control
Legal
Finance and Administration
Accounting
Administration
Finance
6.0 Projects Organization
The inspectors interviewed YAEC management and staff personnel and reviewed
personal qualification records to determine that individuals were qualified
to perform the assigned functions.
In the YNSD organization a Project is
defined as the engineering section assigned responsibility for engineering
services to a plant.
Each Project is organized with a Project Manager and
Engineering Manager. The Projects are further divided into disciplines,
e.g. systems, mechanical, instrumentation and control, and electrical that
com,nlement the requirements of the plants. The performance of the work is
controlled by individual Project Manuals that encompass both administrative
and engineering functions.
Requests for support from the plants are received by the Project Manager
and may include design changes, safety evaluations, contractor services,
and other engineering support required. When a request is received by the
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Project Manager it is initially reviewed to determine the safety significance,
cost, schedule, and impact on the plant. After initial review, meetings
are held with the requester to establish the priority, scope, and schedule
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for each request.
Engineering support is followed by the assigned Project
personnel from inception through final acceptance by the plant operating
personnel.
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The inspectors determined that the engineers in the Project organizations
were qualified in accordance with ANSI 18.1 in the appropriate disciplines.
For example,.in the Vermont Yankee Project organization the 27 engineers
held 39 engineering degrees and had an average of approximately 11 years
of nuclear experience.
Personnel turnover was very low (approximately 1%)
in the YAEC organization indicating a stable workforce and continuity of
engineering services.
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Plant Life Extension Program (PLEX)
The inspectors discussed the PLEX program with management personnel and
determined that the initial studies indicate that obtaining data for the
reactor pressure vessel is the first priority. The operating license for
the Yankee Rowe plant is scheduled to expire July 9, 2000. YAEC was awarded
a combined Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) and Pepartment of Energy
(DOE) contract to participate as the lead PWR to demonstrate the feasibility
of operating nuclear plants beyond their 40 year operating licenses. As a
result, the licensee has established a group of approximately 20 engineers
supplemented by an equal number of contracted engineers to establish the
feasibility of extending the plant life for another 20 years.
Conclusions
The ' organization of engineering services into Projects, each responsible
for service to a specific plant prc,vides continuity for the plants.
Each
Projects group was organized by engineering discipline and was well staffed
with experienced and knowledgeable engineers. The low turnover of engineer-
ing talent assures continuity of the services provided to the plants and
reduces the training required to maintair. proficiency in the YAEC methods.
The establishing of e.he PLEX program is a major undertaking for.a utility
the size of YAEC. While the contract with EPRI and DOE is valuable, YAEC
will be required to fund approximately half the total cost.
7.0 Quality Assurance
The Quality Assurance (QA) organization reports through a Director to the
YAEC President. The inspectors reviewed selected audit reports and inter-
viewed individuals to determine the quality and adequacy of audits and the
YAEC's program as defined in the Operational Quality Assurance Manual.
The Operational Quality Assurance Manual, YOQAP-1-A was approved by NRC
letter dated August 3, 1988. Tnere are three groups in the QA section
with responsibilities as follows:
Quality Services Group
The Quality Services Group provides QA/QC services to the plants. These
services include plant surveillance, NDE training and certification,
inspections, inspection agency interface, corrective action verification,
nonconformance report reviews, and staff training coordination. The QA/QC
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personnel located at the piants report to the Quality Services Group thus
maintaining the required independence and providing flexibility of having
experience personnel that can be transferred from one plant to another as
the workload changes.
Vendor QA Group
The Vendor QA group is responsible for maintaining the approved vendor
list, performing vendor surveillance, auditing vendors, performing design
change and procurement reviews, and reviewing vendor nonconformance reports.
Audit Group
The audit group is responsible for the development of the QA program,
inplant audits, YNSD audits, technical procedure reviews, preparation of
QA procedures, and NRC commitment tracking.
The inspectors reviewed an
internal audit of the Vermont Yankee Project and additional audits of the
Vermont Yankee plant were reviewed. These audits included radiation
protection, local leak rate testing, housekeeping, fire protection, and
Technical Specifications. The audits were found to be thorough, and included
significant attributes. The audit findings reflected meaningful concerns.
A review of the May 22, 1989, Plant Audit Discrepancy Status Report indicated
that two of thirteen findings listed were overdue for corrective action.
In the case of the two overdue items both were observations that did not
indicate program deficiencies.
8.0 Plant Engineering Organization
The Plant Engineering section reports to the Vice President and Manager of
Operations and has three sections.
The responsibilities of these sections
are as follows:
Engineering Services
The Engineering Services group is responsible for maintaining the corporate
procedures, Engineering Manuals, Engineering Instructions, and Topical
Reports for the four operating plants. This includes assuring the biannual
review of these procedures for inclusion of industry and regulatory require-
ments, and the inclusion of user comments.
Mechanical Services
The Mechanical Services group provides the corporate NDE services including
certification of NDE examiners and inspectors.
In addition this group
provides corporate fire protection engineers, inservice inspection program
review and contracted inspection services.
Engineering support is provided
for welding in the form of procedure qualification records. The infrared
thermography engineer also reports to this group.
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Drafting
The Drafting group is responsible for servicing the various Projects for
new and' revised drawings. .This group is also. responsible for maintaining
- the drawings at. the operating plants.
9.0 Nuclear Engineering Organization
The Nuclear Engineering organization reports to a Vice President and YAEC
maintains a staff of' engineers concerned with'the engineering associated
with core physics, transient analysis, LOCA analysis, and safety assessment.
'These~ engineers.are concerned with the four plants and perform their: duties
- as requested by the plant.
10.0 Environmental Engineering
The environmental engineers supply services in the areas of radiological
engineering, radiation protection, environmental sciences, emergency
planning, and environmental laboratories for analytical and dosimetry
services.
11.0 Computer Services
The computer engineers provioe user services, network operations, computer
operations, and computer applications.
12.0 Material Management and Control
The Material Management and Control.section reports to the President of
YAEC. This section is responsible for fuel procurement and limited
procurement non safety related expendable supplies for the plants.
13.0 Finance and Administration
The inspectors reviewed selected background checks to determine that
educational' qualifications and personal data as reported by the employee
was. correct. YAEC retained a contractor to provide investigation services
for these verifications. Other aspects of the Finance and Administration
section were beyond the scope of this inspection.
14.0.YAEC Support of Industry Organizations
Participation in industry related groups and societies is encouraged to
assure the company is abreast of the latest information. The company
compensates employees for attendance at various meetings. The company is
well represented on various groups.
In 1989 there were 99 YAEC personnel
involved in 174 industry organizations. This resulted in a commitment of
approximately five man years of effort. Typical organizations include
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EPRI, IEEE, Owners Groups, NUMARC, SGOG, ASME, and other professional
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societies.
In addition, the Vermont Yankee plant had 34 individuals-in 43
organizations representing another man year of effort.
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Conclusions
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YAEC is very active in the various industry, professional societies and
owners groups. The commitment of five man years to this effort is very
high considering a total employment of 400 engineers.
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15.0 Communications
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During the. performance of Project tasks the Project engineers work closely
with the plant engineers. This is accomplished by frequent plant visits
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engineers. During plant operations the discipline engineers spent approxi-
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mately 10% of their time at the plant.
During outages these engineers are
-responsible for the installation of modifications and' spend the major
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portion of their time at the plant. Management control is maintained
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through regularly scheduled project meetings that review the progress of
each request in the areas of design change status, open items, schedules
and priorities, licensing updates, and.various other efforts.
A post outage Lessons Learned Workshop is held to asses the performance of
.all parties.' This workshop includes engineering, expediting, construction,
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and interfaces between project management, design, use of contracted
personnel and improvements in interfaces.
In this meeting each cognizant
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engineer is required to present comments, and recommendations for improvements
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to be incorporated into the next outage planning. The report of the workshop
for cycle 20 at Yankee Rowe contained approximately 100 suggestions for
improvement.
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The inspectors determined that communications are well established at all
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1evels between YAEC'and the plants.
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16.0 Vermont' Yankee Corporate Functions
The inspector interviewed corporate management and staff personnel to
determine technical qualifications and responsibilities in the departments
of Procurement and Information Systems, Operations Support, and Technical
Training.
In addition the inspector interviewed the plant manager and
members of his staff and YAEC Quality Assurance personnel.
Procurement and Information Systems
The inspector interviewed the management personnel concerning the department
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realignment that is intended to decrease the time required for procurement,
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consolidate ' plant purchases, provide engineering supervision for dedication
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of commercial grade items', and coordinate purchasing with YNSD. New pro-
cedures have been developed, reviewed and approved for implementation in
August 1989. Standard material requirements have been developed for outage
requirements to reduce the need for emergency purchases.
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Contracts
A' report describing all existing contracts and anticipating' future needs
has been developed to provide timely information for planning and to provide.
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more effective inventory control.
Corporate Administrative Computer' Systems
Presently several computer systems are functioning in the plant and at'the
corporate office. This section .in conjunction with YNSD is investigating
the consolidation of these systems.
This area was beyond the scope of
this inspection.
Operation Support
The Operations Support organization of. the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Corporation
supports plant operations infmaintenance, technical services, and modifica-
tions. The Operations Support organization also provides corporate oversight
of the Vermont. Yankee plant.
The inspector interviewed menagement personnel and reviewed records of the
Operations Support organization and determined that this organization
provides the services. described above. The Operations Support organization
provides the interface between.YAEC and the Vermont-Yankee plant. .The
monthly oversight report includes plant perf ormance indicators and summaries
significant activities such as: operations,! environmental, engineering and
NRC licensing activities. The status of YAEC activities 'is reported through '
status meeting held approximately biweekly or more frequently as an outage
approaches. Technical services include safety evaluations.
Vermont Yankee Technical Trainino Program
The inspector reviewed the training procedure and interviewed personnel to
determine the extent and quality of training provided by the Vermont Yankee
Nuclear Power Corporation to the technical staff and managers. The Technical
Staff and Managers Training Program consists of a central technical core
training program, position specific codes and standards lessons, and eight
subsections of department specific training programs. 1he training within
the programs consists of classroom, simulator, on-the-job (0JT) training,
and self study. The simulator and OJT type instruction are accomplished
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during department specific training.
17.0 Vermont Yankee Plant
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The inspector held discussions with management and maintenance personnel
to determine the adequacy of offsite support from YNSD.
In all cases the
plant personnel were satisfied with the technical content, timeliness of
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the support of both the VY and YAEC organizations. Based on interviews
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with YAEC, VY Corporate and plant management personnel engineering super-
vision of major modifications and interfaces with the plant engineering
staff were excellent. The functional assignment of YNSD engineers to the
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plant contributes significantly to the quality of engineering support.
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_18.0 Yankee Rowe Modification Installation
The inspector reviewed the modification design package developed by YNSD
and the records developed by the plant during installation of the new 'C'
emergency battery. This battery was installed in two stages. The first
stage was the installation and temporary connection of the batteries in a
new location adjacent to the diesel generators. The final stage wos the
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permanent connection of the batteries into the emergency system. The
inspector noted that the project was well controlled and the documentation
reflected the actual installation during both phases. The inspector observed
that there was an emergency, battery operated light fixture, wall mounted
adjacent to the new installation.
The licensee established that this fixture
and the installation was seismically qualified.
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Conclusions:
The design package furnished by YNSD was complete and considered the needs
of the plant.
Consideration was given to the area in that the emergency
light was seismically qualified, and an electric space heater not seismically
qualified was moved to a location away from the battery.
In addition a
fence was placed adjacent to the batteries to prevent them from inadvertent
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damage when maintenance was preformed on the battery charger.
19.0 Management Meetings-
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Licensee management was informed of the scope and purpose of the inspection
.at the-beginning of the inspection. The findings of the inspection were
discussed with licensee. representatives during the course of the inspection
and. presented to. licensee management at the exit interviews (see paragraph
1.0 for attendees).
At no time during the inspection was written material provided to the
licensee by the inspectors. The licensee did not indicate that proprietary
information was involved within the scope of this inspection.
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ATTACHMENT A
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DOCUMENTS AND REQUIREMENTS REVIEWED
Document No.
Revision
Title
Yankee Atomic Electric Company
Audit 89-03
Feb 20, 1989 Radiation Protection
Audit 89-6B
Feb 21, 1989 Local Leak Rate Testing
Audit 89-09
Feb 9, 1989
Radwaste
Audit 89-10
Mar 13, 1989 Housekeeping and Fire Protection
Audit 89-15
May, 8, 1989 Technical Specifications
Audit VY88-06
Maintenance
VYPP-4
3
Service Requests
VYPP-6
3
Engineering Design Change Requests
VYPP-7
3
Plant Design Change Requests
VYPP-11
3
Personnel Training
YPP-4
7
Control of Service Requests
YPP-6
6
Engineering Design Change Requests
YPP-7
7
Plant Design Change Requests
YPP-11
4
Documentation of Personnel Training
Memorandum YRP I!,1/89
Results of Cycle 19 Lessons Learned
Summary Report Jan 9, 1989
Participation on Industry-Related Committees,
Groups, and Societies
Jur. 26,1989 Vermont Yankee Status Report
1989
Calendar of Training Programs, Nor, technical
Inh 3use Programs
Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Corporation
VY-OSD-106
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Operations Support Department Training
VY-OSD-112
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Service Request Procedure
TSMPD
5
Technical Staff and Managers Training Program
VYP:317
Aug 7, 1989
Purchase Order Processing Procedure
AP-6025
1
Quality Control / Independent Inspection