Press Release-91-003, NRC Staff Proposes to Fine Tennessee Valley Authority $30,000
| ML003702071 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 01/02/1991 |
| From: | Office of Public Affairs |
| To: | |
| Category:Press Release | |
| References | |
| Press Release-91-003 | |
| Download: ML003702071 (1) | |
Text
No. 91-3 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Tel. 301/492-0240 (Wednesday, January 2, 1991)
NRC STAFF PROPOSES TO FINE TENNESSEE VALLEY AUTHORITY $30,000 The Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff is proposing to fine the Tennessee Valley Authority $30,000 for failure to comply with overtime requirements and for inadequate management control of overtime work during the last refueling outage at Unit 2 of the Sequoyah nuclear power plant near Soddy Daisy, Tennessee.
The staff determined, during an inspection conducted from October 6 to November 5, 1990, that 22 operations personnel performing safety-related work on Units 1 and 2 worked more than 72 hours8.333333e-4 days <br />0.02 hours <br />1.190476e-4 weeks <br />2.7396e-5 months <br /> during the week of October 8-14, 1990. Further, for 21 of the employees, approvals to work The overtime were signed without the required supporting documentation (such as justification for exceeding overtime guidelines) on the Overtime Limitation Exception Report. For the other individual, no approval or documentation was obtained.
Controlofovertimeforindividuals performing safety-related workisanactivitywhichaffectsquality, andtheNRCrequires that activities affecting quality be prescribed by procedures and accomplished in accordance with those procedures. The TVA's procedure implementing this requirement states, in part, that an employee performing safety-related work may work no more than 72 hours8.333333e-4 days <br />0.02 hours <br />1.190476e-4 weeks <br />2.7396e-5 months <br /> in a seven-day period without the required documentation and the written approval of the Plant Manager or Duty Plant Manager on the Overtime Limitation Exception Report.
This violation has been categorized as Severity Level IV (Level I is the most serious, Level V the least serious), a level at which a fine is not normally proposed. However, the NRC's Enforcement Policy provides for fines for Severity Level IV violations that are similar to previous violations for which the licensee did not take effective corrective action. In this case, overtime problems have been recurring over a considerable period of time and the previous corrective action plans that TVA submitted to the NRC staff have failed to adequately address the problem.
TVA has 30 days from receipt of the notice of the proposed fine to either pay it or to protest it, in whole or in part.