ML26058A327
| ML26058A327 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Palisades  (DPR-20) |
| Issue date: | 02/23/2026 |
| From: | Marlayna Vaaler Doell Plant Licensing Branch III |
| To: | Keith Miller, Schultheis M, Steffic K Palisades Energy |
| Wall S | |
| References | |
| EPID L-2026-LLE-0010 | |
| Download: ML26058A327 (0) | |
Text
From:
Marlayna Doell To:
"Michael Schultheis"; "Kami Miller"; "Kyle Steffic" Cc:
Justin Poole; Ilka Berrios Bcc:
Tyler Cox; Jim Anderson
Subject:
RE: DRAFT Request for Additional Information RE: Third Exemption from Part 26 Work Hours Requirements L-2026-LLE-0010 Date:
Monday, February 23, 2026 3:44:00 PM Attachments:
Palisades Third Part 26 Subsequent Exemption Request RAIs.pdf
- All,
By letter dated February 13, 2026 (Agencywide Documents Access and Management System (ADAMS) Accession No. ML26044A123), Holtec Palisades, LLC submitted a third exemption request for the Palisades Nuclear Plant. The proposed exemption request would allow the temporary use of less restrictive work hour limitations under 10 CFR Part 26, Fitness for Duty Programs, in support of the Palisades restart effort.
On February 20, 2026, the NRC staff sent the licensee DRAFT RAIs to ensure that the questions were understandable, the regulatory basis was clear, there is no proprietary information contained in the RAIs, and to determine if the information was previously docketed. On February 23, 2026, the NRC and the licensee held a clarification call to discuss the upcoming submittal and the DRAFT RAIs.During the call, a date of February 27, 2026, was agreed upon to respond to the RAIs.The attached is the final version of the RAIs. These RAIs will be put in ADAMS as a publicly available document.
Thank you and please let me know if you have questions or need anything additional, Marlayna
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Project Manager U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission NRR/DORL/LPL3
Phone: 301.415.3178
REQUEST FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION PALISADES ENERGY, LLC PALISADES NUCLEAR PLANT DOCKET NO. 50-255 Third Request for Exemption from Requirements of 10 CFR 26.205, "Fitness for Duty Programs - Work Hours" By letter dated February 13, 2026 (Agencywide Documents Access and Management System (ADAMS) Accession No. ML26044A123), Palisades Energy, LLC (Palisades, the licensee) requested an exemption from Paragraphs (d)(3) and (d)(7) of Section 26.205, Work hours, of Title 10 of the Code of Federal Regulations (10 CFR) to use the less restrictive work hour limitations described in 10 CFR 26.205(d)(4) for a duration of 60 days starting on March 9, March 16, or March 28, 2026, respectively, for various covered site personnel to support continued plant restart activities at the Palisades Nuclear Plant (PNP).
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (Commission, NRC) staff is reviewing your submittal and has identified areas where additional information is needed to complete its review.
Request for Additional Information:
- 1. Section 26.9, Specific exemptions, of 10 CFR states, in part, that the Commission may grant an exemption from the requirements in 10 CFR Part 26, Fitness for Duty Program, if it determines the exemption is authorized by law and will not endanger life or property or the common defense and security, and is otherwise in the public interest.
Paragraph (e) of 10 CFR 26.23, Performance objectives, states, in part, that Fitness-for-duty programs must provide reasonable assurance that the effects of fatigue and degraded alertness on individuals abilities to safely and competently perform their duties are managed commensurate with maintaining public health and safety.
The NRC staff is unable to determine, based on the information provided in the exemption request, whether the effects of cumulative fatigue over the current outage period, which would be extended by the proposed exemption, are being managed sufficiently to provide reasonable assurance that public health and safety is being maintained.
Additional information that the NRC staff seeks in order to make this determination includes the following, as well as any other mitigating strategies or other actions the licensee is considering to provide reasonable assurance that the most highly impacted work groups and individuals are fit for duty, free from the effects of fatigue, and will not endanger life or property:
- a. PNP has been in an outage status for approximately six months, starting on August 25, 2025. Palisades stated that they have had to continually re-assess the need for additional exemption requests from portions of 10 CFR 26.205 due to the changing schedule for the completion of restart activities. Throughout the two previous 10 CFR 26.205 exemptions and the proposed third exemption, covered individuals assigned to several projects have continued, or will continue, if the third exemption is approved, to work above the maximum average weekly work hours of 54 hours6.25e-4 days <br />0.015 hours <br />8.928571e-5 weeks <br />2.0547e-5 months <br /> as specified in 10 CFR 26.205(d)(7).
For clarity, the initial outage and exemption periods for PNP are as follows:
- Initial outage period: August 25, 2025 - October 23, 2025
- First exemption period: November 3, 2025 - January 1, 2026
- Second exemption period: January 6, 2026 - March 7, 2026
- Third exemption period (proposed): March 9, March 16, and March 28, 2026 -
May 7, May 14, and May 26, 2026 (for different work groups, respectively)
The Statement of Considerations for 10 CFR Part 26 states, in part, that the duration of the outage work hour controls would be limited to 60 days to ensure that the use of outage work hour controls would not substantively increase the potential for cumulative fatigue and fatigue-related personnel errors. The exemptions granted to 10 CFR 26.205 are limited to 60 days for similar reasons.
The NRC staff notes that the covered individuals at PNP have been in an outage work status since the initial 60-day outage and throughout the first two exemption periods, where they could have been working up to 72 hours8.333333e-4 days <br />0.02 hours <br />1.190476e-4 weeks <br />2.7396e-5 months <br /> a week, as well as during the periods of normal work hours between the exemption periods, where they could have continued working between 48 to 54 hours6.25e-4 days <br />0.015 hours <br />8.928571e-5 weeks <br />2.0547e-5 months <br /> per week. While the staff recognizes that not all individuals will have worked the maximum number of hours throughout all of these periods, cumulative fatigue has nonetheless continued to accrue which increases the risk for accidents, mistakes, injuries, and latent errors.
Because cumulative fatigue continues to accumulate during the exemption periods, as well as between the exemptions while personnel are still working, the mitigating actions for subsequent exemptions should be substantially more extensive than the previous exemptions mitigating actions.
The third Palisades exemption request from the requirements of 10 CFR 26.205 does not provide the reasonable assurance required by 10 CFR 26.23(e) based on the mitigating actions included in the submittal. The NRC staff requests that the licensee provide additional mitigating actions that ensure this exemption request aligns with 10 CFR 26.23(e).
Palisades may consider mitigative actions, such as those listed below; additional approaches may also be developed to meet the same goal:
Maintaining all staff on normal work hours for at least four weeks between exemption periods to further alleviate cumulative fatigue.
Maintaining staff at less than the proposed 50 hours5.787037e-4 days <br />0.0139 hours <br />8.267196e-5 weeks <br />1.9025e-5 months <br /> per week during the proposed 21-day to 29-day period of normal work hours between exemption periods.
Providing personnel who have exceeded the maximum average work hours of 54 hours6.25e-4 days <br />0.015 hours <br />8.928571e-5 weeks <br />2.0547e-5 months <br /> averaged over a six-week shift cycle additional rest and reset time.
Considering shifting between outage and normal work hours on a regular frequency for individuals in the covered groups with the highest cumulative hour totals (e.g., health physics, mechanical maintenance, instrumentation and controls maintenance, arc pipefitters, mechanical seconded millwrights, etc.) during the proposed exemption period.
Considering providing individuals in the covered groups with the highest cumulative hour totals over the course of the entire outage period a schedule that provides for, as an example, 4-7 consecutive days off during the exemption period.
- b. In addition to the preceding information in item (a) for the affected groups in general, the NRC staff are specifically unable to determine if the mitigating actions for the Health Physics personnel covered by 10 CFR 26.4(a)(2) provide reasonable assurance that those individuals are free from the effects of fatigue as described in 10 CFR 26.23(e). The NRC staff requests that the licensee provide additional mitigating actions that ensure this exemption request aligns with 10 CFR 26.23(e).
For example, throughout the proposed exemption period, limiting the maximum weekly work hours for Health Physics personnel at a prescribed limit below 72 hours8.333333e-4 days <br />0.02 hours <br />1.190476e-4 weeks <br />2.7396e-5 months <br /> or transitioning the personnel into outage work hours for 15 days on and 15 days off for each 30-day period of the proposed exemption (as a suggested time block).
- c. The NRC staff have approved two previous exemption requests from the requirements of 10 CFR 26.205. Due to the extended nature of the ongoing outage and the indefinite plant restart schedule for PNP, the NRC staff are unable to determine if continued exemption requests are expected. In order to manage the ongoing extended outage, Palisades should provide a fatigue recovery and monitoring plan that describes: 1) the actions the licensee will independently take outside of rest breaks specified in 10 CFR 26.205(d)(2) and minimum days off in 10 CFR 26.205(d)(4) to mitigate the continued accrual of fatigue accumulation,
- 2) how fatigue risk will be actively monitored using performance indicators, and
- 3) actions the licensee will take to ensure personnel recover from cumulative fatigue when the outage ends. This plan, including all the listed items above, should be implemented throughout the end of the outage.
- d. In the RAI response and supplement for the second Palisades Part 26 Exemption (ML25365A936), the licensee provided a regulatory commitment to enhance the Human Performance Program error prevention tools to include self-awareness of fatigue as a potential proficiency obstacle that will be assessed during pre-job briefings. The NRC staff noted this regulatory commitment was not included or listed as a mitigating strategy in the proposed third Part 26 Exemption request. Provide information that confirms the continuation of this commitment or confirms that this commitment has resulted in a permanent enhancement to the Human Performance Program to mitigate fatigue.