ML20247M055
| ML20247M055 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 05/11/1998 |
| From: | Deegan G NRC OFFICE OF NUCLEAR MATERIAL SAFETY & SAFEGUARDS (NMSS) |
| To: | Bangart R, Paperiello C, Thompson H NRC OFFICE OF NUCLEAR MATERIAL SAFETY & SAFEGUARDS (NMSS), NRC OFFICE OF STATE PROGRAMS (OSP), NRC OFFICE OF THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR FOR OPERATIONS (EDO) |
| References | |
| NUDOCS 9805260157 | |
| Download: ML20247M055 (6) | |
Text
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May 11,1998 MEMORANDUM TO: Management Review Board Members Hugh L. Thompsoi., Jr., DEDR Richard L. Bangart, OSP i
Carl J. Paperiello, NMSS Karen Cyr, OGC Richard Barrett, AEOD FROM:
George Deegan, NMSS Team Leac5r, Ril Review
SUBJECT:
DRAFT MINUTES: APRIL 23,1998 MEETING Attached are the draft minutes of the Management Review Board (MRB) meeting, held April 23,1998. These minutes are submitted for your approval at an upcoming MRB meeting.
If you have any questions, please contact me at 301-415-7834.
Attachment:
As stated i
cc:
Luis Reyes, Ril
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DISTRIBUTION:
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MLesser MWeber, Rlli
.LRakovan DBunn, Ca!if.
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To receive a copy of this document. indicate in the box:
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UNITED STATES
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l May 11,1998 4
MEMORANDUM TO: Management Review Board Members Hugh L. Thompson, Jr., DEDR Richard L. Bangart, OSP-Carl J. Paperiello, NMSS Karen Cyr, OGC Richard Barrett, AEOD FROM:
George Degan, NMSS Team Leader, Ril Review
SUBJECT:
DRAFT MINUTES: APRll 23,1998 MEETING I
Attached are the draft minutes of the Management Review Board (MRB) meeting, held April 23,1998. These minutes are submitted for your approval at an upcoming MRB meeting, if you have any questions, please contact me at 301-415-7834.
Attachment:
As stated cc:
Luis Reyes, Ril
DRAFT MINUTES: MANAGEMENT REVIEW BOARD MEETING DATED APRll 23.1998 These minutes are presented in the same general order as the items were discussed in the meeting. The meeting was a video conference conducted from NRC Headquarters, Region ll (Ril), and Region ill (Rlll). The attendees were as follows:
Hugh L. Thompson, Jr., DEDR Carl Paperiello, NMSS Richard Bangart, OSP Karen Cyr, OGC Richard Barrett, AEOD Ray Paris, State of Oregon Luis Reyes, Ril Douglas Collins, Rll Mark Lesser, Ril George Deegan, NMSS Michael Weber, Rill Donald Bunn, State of California Lance Rakovan, OSP Lance Lessler, NMSS Garrett Smith, NMSS Donald Cool, NMSS William Brach, NMSS Scott Moore, NMSS Sami Sherbini, NMSS John Thoma, EDO Kevin Hsueh, OSP Gary Purdy, NMSS 1.
Convention. Hugh Thompson, Chair of the Management Review Board (MRB),
convened the video conference at 1:00 p.m. Participants were introduced.
2.
Old & Future Business. Because of a delay in establishing the connection with Ril, Hugh Thompson modified the Agenda and covered old business ano.oiure business at the beginning of the meeting. He asked for discussion of any outstanding old business.
Lance Rakovan noted that the minutes for the Mamchusetts MRB meeting would be presented for approval at the Arizona MRB. The Massachusetts report was completed within the required time period. George Deegan stated that the Ri MRB minutes will be I
available soon. He suggested that the RI minutes could be discussed and approved in l
conjunction with these Ril minutes. Mr. Rakovan stated that the next MRB meeting would be held on April 28,1998, and that the New York IMPEP would be discussed at that time. He distributed schedules for future 1998 IMPEP reviews.
3.
New Business. Region 11 Review. Mr. Deegan led the Integrated Materials Performance Evaluation Program (IMPEP) team for the Region 11 (Rll) review. Mr.
Deegan introduced the team members, and provided copies of certain Appendices that had been inadvertently left out of the proposed final report. He discussed the status of past IMPEP recommendations, as covered in Section 2 of the report, indicating that 11 out of 12 items were closed out. With respect to the one open item, he noted that NMSS should complete guidance on event follow up in the next revision of the irradiator inspection procedures. Donald Cool explained that the revised inspection procedures do address this issue, and their issuance is expected within the next month. Mr.
Thompson, and the MRB concluded, stated that since sufficient progress has already been made toward resolution of this issue, the final version of the report should consider this recommendation to be closed.
Mr. Deegan led the discussion for the first common performance indicator, Status of Materials inspections, summarized in Section 3.1 of the report. No recommendations 1
i r
were made for this indicator. Mr. Thompson noted that there have been 182 extensions, and 32 reductions of inspection intervals in this time period. He asked if this system worked well. Ril indicated that the system is working well, and that there are good
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criteria in place for extending the inspection frequencies. _ Richard Bangart noted that although these criteria were used in Region I (RI), a different inspection frequency extension pattem was seen. There were significantly more inspection extensions in Ril as in RI in the same time period. He asked if that reflected real differences in the inspection programs. Carl Paperieilo stated that there had been an initial reluctance to decrease inspection frequencies in some regions, and he thought that there may be different thresholds in use in RI to change insp3ction frequencies. Mr. Moore added that the guidance in this area is quite explicit, but that the RI extension / reduction pattem was different from the other regions. In response to a suggestion from Mr. Thompson, Dr.
Cool said that his staff would take a deeper look at the trend across all four regions.
Karen Cyr noted that Ril had increased ' inspections on eye applicator licensees, and
" asked if eye applicator licenses were confined mainly to Rll. Mr. Deegan answered by noting that 20 of the 23 eye applicator licenses are in Ril. Mr. Deegan recommended that Ril performance for this indicator be found satisfactory, and tne MRB agreed.
Donald Bunn discussed the second common performance indicator, covered in Section 3.2 of the report, Technical Quality of Materials inspections. He reviewed about 5% of all inspections conducted during the review period., He found that all inspections'were performed well and covered all necessary elements. Mr. Bunn made one recommendation.: He recommended that survey instruments used by inspectors during the inspections be calibrated at the same frequency as that required for the licensee being inspected. He found two instruments that had not been so~ calibrated. Ril agreed with the recommendation. Ril is developing a program to address the problem using a combination of a data base and notices posted in the instrument issue areas.
Mr. Bunn suggested that guidance for Sr-90 eye applicator inspections should be j
developed by NMSS. Mr. Reyes volunteered Ril to develop this guidance, since Ril had 1
the expertise.-- Ril offered to submit a draft to NMSS for review. Dr. Cool also noted that j
the NMSS Generic Assessment Panel was looking into the matter of whether eye
)
applicators had actually been properly calibrated. Dr. Paperiello added that there are no professional societies to oversee or provide guidance in this area. Mr. Thompson noted that the panel agreed with the team's recommendation, and found Ril performance satisfactory for this indicator,
- Mr. Deegan discussed the third indicator - Technical Staffing and Training. There were
.no recommendations in this area, but the team did identify a Good Practice. He noted that Ril had constructed a skills list that helped them identify the needs for each position, which helped them find and cross-train qualified people. After a brief discussion, the MRB agreed with the team's recommendation, and found Ril's -
' performance to be satisfactory.
Michael Weber discussed the fourth indicator - Technical Quality of Licensing, Section 3.4 of the report. He noted that every Ril licensing document is reviewed by 2
4 management. But he also found minor clerical errors, as well as minor deficiencies in licensing applications that were not identified in the review stage. He suggested institution of a better quality assurance review process. He added that he found an obsolete license condition still being used in licensing documents, and he also noted that in some cases the incorrect date for I; censing completion was entered in the Licensing Tracking System. Overall, he found the licensing actions were thorough, j
complete, consistent, and of acceptable quality with health and safety issues properly addressed. He recommended a satisfactory finding for this indicator. Mr. Bangart noted that there appears to be some confusion in the use of tie-down conditions, and believed that licenses may be unclear, unless Ril does a betterjob in identifying the portions in the tie-down documents that are to be included or excluded in the license. He asked why this was not made as a suggestion by the team. The MRB supported Mr. Bangart's comment, and instructed the team to add this as a suggestion for Rll in the final report.
Mr. Reyes stated that Ril had already started taking corrective actions. Rll is implementing a licensing peer review process, and has alerted licensing reviewers to the obsolete license condition, which will be removed from licenses as they are amended or renewed. Ril will also review the words used in its tie-downs. The MRB supported the team's suggested finding of satisfactory for this indicator.
Mr. Rakovan introduced the fifth performance indicator - Response to incidents and Allegations, Section 3.5 of the report. He stated that the findings were generally satisfactory except that he found knowledge of the Nuclear Materials Events Database (NMED) system to be inconsistent. He recommended additional training by the Office for Analysis and Evaluation of Operational Data to correct the situation. Mr. Rakovan also suggested changing the allegation handling procedure to permit the region more flexibility in handling a wide variety of allegations. Rich Barrett agreed that good NMED training is necessary, within resource constraints. Mr. Bunn agreed that Agreement States also needed follow up training on NMED, and that NRC should consider using modern methods of communication such as e-mail to permit state input to NMED. Mr.
Barrett said that AEOD will accept any recommendations in that regard. Mr. Thompson asked if NMED now allows on-line entries to be made by the States. Dr. Cool stated that the present system does not permit such access, but that there is an effort to upgrade the system that will permit access via the internet. He added that it is unclear how well it will work, but the upgrades are expected to ba completed by June. Mr. Bunn added that this capability is important because tir fe have been situations where events take place and the media gets the information and broadcasts it before NRC is notified.
To avoid such situations, it is important to have rapid access to the system.
Mr. Rakovan continued his discussion. He indicated that Rll's responses to incidents were timely, well-coordinated, and of acceptable quality with health and safety issues addressed. He had similar findings with respect to allegations. The team recommended a finding of satisfactory for the indicator, which the MRB supported.
Mr. Deegan introduced the first non-common performance indicator, Operating Plan Performance and Resource Utilization. He stated that the region shows strong performance in this area. The materials licensing backlog of actions is falling, and there 3
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is very strong support for a number of NMSS initiatives, such as the guidance consolidation effort. Mr. Deegan also noted that although Ril was under-consuming its budgeted resources, there were no adverse effects observed. He indicated that Ril had identified five areas in which it intended to increase its efforts as part of the first quarter FY 1998 Operating Plan report. In response to these comments, Mr. Reyes stated that Ril monitors itself, and attempts to improve in areas showing a potential weakness.
With respect to resources, Mr. Deegan pointed out that Rll appears to be having more difficulty recruiting qualified engineers in the fuel cycle area than attracting health physicists in the materials area. Mr. Thompson asked if the region achieves its good performance through the use of overtime. Rll noted that it uses some overtime, but such use has not been excessive.
Lance Lessler and Garrett Smith reviewed the Ril fuel cycle program. Dr. Lessler discussed the Status of the Fuel Cycle Inspection program. He recommended that Ril take steps to ensure its program is not affected when the inspection Follow up System is terminated. Dr. Lessler then pointed out that this is not only a regional problem, but that there is now a need.to integrate the regional and headquarters follow up software.
' In discussions on fuel cycle staffing, he noted that the region's method of targeting information for emphasis during inspections worked quite well, and identified this as a i
Good Practice.
l Garrett Smith discussed the Technical Quality of the Fuel Cycle inspections. He said j
he found the reports to be well-written and well-documented, that issues received the proper enforcement attention, and that there was good follow up on previously identified j
items. He noted that eight allegations were received during the review period, and that l
all had been well-handled and closed in a proper and timely manner. Mr. Bangart asked if the reviewers had looked at the resident inspection program at the two fuel facilities in
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the region. Mr. Smith said they did not do so specifically, but they did review the j
resident inspectors' reports. Mr. Bangart questioned whether the resident inspection
- i program should be reviewed explicitly as an independent entity. William Brach indicated that the residents are treated much like the region-based inspectors. Dr. Paperiello also noted that the fuel cycle program is different from the reactor program. Mr. Smith i
recommended a finding of satisfactory for the fuel cycle indicator. The MRB supported this recommendation.
I At this point, Mr. Deegan recommended that Ril program be found fully satisfactory and l
that the next IMPEP review be scheduled two years later. The MRB agreed, but added that consideration should be given to extend this period beyond two years considering the region's good performance. Dr. Paperiello supported this suggestion, adding that much of what is gathered during the IMPEP reviews could also be obtained from reviews of the Operating Plan.
4.
Comments. Everyone agreed that the IMPEP process is beneficial for all concerned, i
including the regions, Headquarters, and the States.
i 5.
Adjournment. Mr. Thompson commended Rll, and the IMPEP team. He closed the meeting at about 2:30 p.m.
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