Press Release-I-08-023, NRC to Discuss Results of Safety Conscious Work Environment Inspection at Peach Bottom

Press Release-I-08-023: NRC to Discuss Results of Safety Conscious Work Environment Inspection at Peach Bottom

ML081000598
Person / Time
Site:	Peach Bottom
Issue date:	04/09/2008
From:	Office of Public Affairs Region I
To:
Category:Press Release
References
Press Release-I-08-023
Download: ML081000598 (2)

Text

NRC NEWS U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office of Public Affairs, Region I 475 Allendale Road, King of Prussia, Pa. 19406 E-mail: opa1@nrc.gov Site: http://www.nrc.gov No. I-08-23 April 9, 2008

Contact:

Diane Screnci 610/337-5330 Neil Sheehan 610/337-5331 NRC TO DISCUSS RESULTS OF SAFETY CONSCIOUS WORK ENVIRONMENT INSPECTION AT PEACH BOTTOM Nuclear Regulatory Commission officials will meet with Exelon Generation Co.

representatives on Tuesday, April 15, to discuss the results of a safety conscious work environment inspection conducted at Peach Bottom. The plant, operated by Exelon, is located in Delta, Pa.

Following the discussion of the NRC inspection findings, Exelon will discuss the status of the safety conscious work environment surveys it plans to conduct at its nine other operating reactor sites. The meeting will begin at 5:30 p.m. at the Peach Bottom Inn, 6085 Delta Road, in Delta, Pa. The meeting is open to the public for observation.

The public will have the opportunity to communicate with the NRC staff after the business portion of the meeting.

The inspection was conducted by six NRC inspectors during the week of March 24th.

The NRC requires that NRC license-holders maintain an environment in which safety issues are promptly identified and effectively resolved and employees feel free to raise safety concerns.

In late September, the NRC sent an Augmented Inspection Team to Peach Bottom to look into assertions that security officers were inattentive while on duty at the plant. Through that inspection, the NRC confirmed there had been multiple occasions on which some security officers were inattentive. A follow-up inspection in November determined that Exelon and Wackenhut, which was then the plants contract security provider but has since been replaced by an in-house security force, missed opportunities to identify such behavior via the behavioral observation program. However, due to the defense-in-depth nature of security at the site, the NRC determined that the plants security program was not significantly degraded as a result.

In October, the NRC issued a Confirmatory Action Letter (CAL) to ensure continued security plan effectiveness. In the CAL, Exelon committed to take a number of additional steps to address the inattentiveness issue and to monitor the transition from a contract to an Exelon guard force. Exelon also committed to conduct safety conscious work environment surveys of its security guard force at all of its sites.

Under the NRC's reactor oversight program, a plant's performance determines the level of inspection conducted at the site. To provide additional oversight, the agency can decide to deviate from the process and conduct further inspections, etc., when warranted by the given situation. Any such plans are proposed in a memo, called a deviation memo. In this case, on Nov. 28, the agencys Executive Director for Operations, Luis Reyes, approved additional NRC oversight to assess Peach Bottom security performance. An inspection of the safety conscious work environment at Peach Bottom was among the additional activities the NRC listed in the memo because the behavior and interactions within the security organization did not encourage the free flow of information related to raising safety issues.

News releases are available through a free listserv subscription at the following Web address:

http://www.nrc.gov/public-involve/listserver.html. The NRC homepage at www.nrc.gov also offers a SUBSCRIBE link. E-mail notifications are sent to subscribers when news releases are posted to NRC's Web site.