IR 05000271/1987015

Insp Rept 50-271/87-15 on 870817-21.No Violations or Deviations Noted.Major Areas Inspected:Radiological Controls During Outage Operations,Including Outage Planning & Preparation & Control of Radioactive Matl

ML20235W715
Person / Time
Site:	Vermont Yankee
Issue date:	10/01/1987
From:	Gresickcioffi, Loesch R, Shanbaky M NRC OFFICE OF INSPECTION & ENFORCEMENT (IE REGION I)
To:
Shared Package
ML20235W669	List: IR 05000271/1987015 ML20235W665
References
50-271-87-15, NUDOCS 8710160377
Download: ML20235W715 (5)

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l U. S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION REGION I ,

Report No. 87-15

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Docket N License N DRP-28 Priority Category C  ;

Licensee: Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Corporation

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Yb-5, Box 169, Ferry Road Brattleboro, Vermont 05301 i

Facility Name: Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Station l Inspection At: Vernon, Vermont Inspection Conducted: August 17-21, 1987 i

Inspectors: 44+k ( Cb - -

/0/'ff7 j date

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J,A.Gresick-Cioffi,RadiationSpeggflist i h<nb-- W ~

y M. Loeschi Radiation SpeciaAitt

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l0lll[ 7 date Approved by: M, f /, A /e[/!f, '

M. M~. ShanbaKy, Cnief / ~date Facilities Radiation Protection Section Inspection Summary: Inspection conducted on August 17-21, 1987 Report N /87-15 Areas Inspected: Routine, unannounced inspcction of radiological controls during outage operations, including: outage planning and preparation; control I of radioactive material; internal and external exposure controls; and ALAR I In addition, LPRM cutting and diving operations were observe Results: No violations or deviations were identified in the revie I 8710160377 871006 l PDR ADOCK 05000271 G PDR,

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I DETAILS 1.0 Personnel Contacted .

1.1 Licensee Personnel

• R. G-ipard 0A Supervisor

• R. Leach Radiation Protection Supervisor

• J. McCarthy . ALARA Engineer R. Morrissette Plant Health Physicist

• J. Pelletier Plant Manager M. Thornhill Health Physicist

• R. Wanczyk Operations Superintendent Other licensee and contractor personnel were also contacte !

1.2 NRC Personnel +

• D. Haverkamp, Reactor Licensing Engineer i

• denotes attendance at the exit interview on August 21, 198 .0 Status of Previously Identified Item _ss 1 (Closed) 83-33-02 (Inspector Follow-Up). Review the formalization i of the ALARA progra The final step in formalizing the ALARA program was accomplished in March of 1987, with the establishment of two administrative procedures, A.P. 0535, "ALARA Documentation, Records, and Reports,"

and A.P. 0536, "ALARA Implementation for Design Changes and Work Analysis." Inspector review of these documents found 3cceptable mechanisms in place for planning and execution of work packages with respect to dose reduction and dose-saving materials and technique This item is close .2 (Closed) 85-39-04 (Inspector Follow-Up) Review licensee's assessment of C & HP procedures, policies, and other administrative control The inspector reviewed an independent assessment of the licensee's l

Chemistry / Health Physics procedures, policies, and administrative controls, performed between July 11 and September 26, 1986 i

(VYSR86-35). The assessment was comprehensive and thorough in the

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review of the organization, staff qualifications, procedures, training, and departmental communications. As a result of the assessment, the licensee reorganized the Chemistry / Health Physics department into two separata departments, and has begun to implement other assessment recommendations (i.e. reviewing and updating staff qualifications, upgrading and enhancing training, and writing and rewriting necessary Health Physics procedures). This item is close _ _ - _ - _ _ - _ _ _ - _ _ _

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L 3 l 2.3 (Closed) 87-03-01 (Violation). Failure to adhere to licensee procedure for body burden analysis (A.P. 0533), resulting in L misidentification of internal uptak ;

The inspector reviewed the licensee's corrective action as stated in the licensee's reply to the violation, dated April 17, 1987. The a inspector verified that the licensee's corrective actions were  !

complete. This item is close <

2.4 (Closed) 87-03-02(Unresolved). Review the status and effectiveness of training in internal dosimetry and review the final determination  ;

of whole body counter count tim The inspector reviewed the training records for the Whole Body &

Respiratory Systems Engineer and the Plant Health Physicist. The -

licensee provided an internal dosimetry course taught by' Canberra 4 Industries, to these individuals and other plant staff member Discussions with various personnel who attended the course indicated that the course was effective in providing an understanding of whole body counting and internal dosimetr The inspector also reviewed A.P. 0533, Revision 6, " Body Burden

' Analysis" and interviewed whole body counting technicians. The licensee increased the count time to five minutes for all whole body counts. The inspector also reviewed the whole body counting log for anomalous data and found no further instances of false positive counts recorded. This item is close .5 (Closed) 87-03.03 (Unresolved). Review RWP procedure (A.P. 0502)

upgrad l The inspector reviewed the newly issued RWP procedure (revision 18).

The licensee had revised the procedure to incorporate stronger and clearer instructions for RWP preparation which included specific instructions.on survey frequency to support the RWP conditions and instructions. The licensee chose to keep the requirements for specific work conditions as guidelines to be used in accordance with technician judgement. This item is close .0 Dutage Planning and Preparation and ALARA j The inspector reviewed the licensee's planning and preparatico for the  !

current refueling outage by review of documentation, observations made l during tours of plant activities, and discussions with licensee g rsonnel, j The licensee employed seven contractor HP personnel as ALARA coordinators to follow outage work packages and to coordinate with outage work group At the time of the inspection, this approach appeared to be effective in controlling and tracking personnel exposures. The licensee utilized l

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their house technicians as lead technicians for specific-work package However, the house technicians were not involved in the work package planning end preparatio The licensee's 1987 person-rem goal is 443 re This includes a refueling ,

outage and extensive ISI (inservice inspection) work for which the l licensee plans to spend 373 person rem. At the time of the inspection,

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the licensee had expended 85 person-rem, of which approximately 33 person-rom was outage relate .G Internal and External Exposure Controls (j The-licensee's program for internal and external exposure controls was reviewed against the applicable regulatory requirements and current industry practice The licensee's performance related to the ab;ve criteria was determined by:

- observations of above vessel LPRM work;

- observations of underwater diving operations involving steam dryer modifications;

- review of " Personnel Contamination Event Reports";

- review of applicable plant procedures;

- observations of personnel processing at HP Control Point; and

- discussions with various plant personne Within the scope of this review, no violations were identified. The {

licensee's program for internal and external exposure control appeared j adequate, although several weaknesses were observed and are discussed  !"

belo Licensee procedure RP-0520, " Personnel Decontamination Procedure,"

incorrectly derives the correction factor, F, used to convert count rate to dose rate. Use of the current value underestimates the dose rate by more than an order of magnitude which could lead to inappropriate actions f in the event of a significant contamination incident. The licensee has obtained the software program " Quince" (an updated version of Varskin) J for use in calculating skin dose. This program is adequate provided the {

proper procedural action limits are established to indicate when j additional evaluations should be performed. The inspector discussed the j above finding with licensee managemen The licensee committed to  !

revising the personnel contamination procedure. This will be reviewed in a future inspection (50-271/87-15-01)

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e i Procedure OP-532, " Chemistry / Health Physics Department Key Control,"

lacks guidanca on what actions are to be taken in the event a locked j i

l high-radiation area key is lost. In addition, the procedure improperly j l

identifies the number of keys under control of the shift supervisor. The i l inspector noted that no documentation existed for locations of the

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1 various locked high-radiation areas. Discussions with several health physics technicians revealed that although most thought they knew where all the areas are located, none could specify how many areas were accessible with the high-radiation master key .0 Control of Radioactive Material The licensee's program for the control of radioactive material was reviewe The number of exits from the RCA was reduced prior to the outage. All exits other than the central HP control point are equipped with friskers and a HP watch techniciar. All other exits are sealed off and include a lead / wire security seal. Plant QA personnel perform a daily surveillance to ensure that unmonitored exits have not been use The main access control point utilizes three new Eberline PCM-1B whole body triskers'for a more effective control on personnel contamination During the course of the inspection, the inspector received an allegation regarding contamination located outside the RCA. The individual stated that he had discovered an area next to the Radwaste Building reading .

approximately 20,000 dpm. He further stated that the soil was known by

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plant personnel to be contaminated to a depth of at least 2 to 3 fee The inspector sampled the soil and gave the sample to the licensee for analnis. The licensee's equipment identified the contaminates to be Co-60, Cs-137, Mn-54 and Zn-65 with a total activity of approximately  !

1E-2 uc/gm. These results were discussed with the licensee in subsequent telephone conversation ;

The licensee stated that a full investigation of this matter will be conducte Pending followup on the history of the contamination, the licensee's actions relative to its discovery, and appropriate corrective actions, this item will remain unresolved (50-271/87-15-02).

6.0 Exit Meeting j i

The inspector met with the licensee denoted in Section 1.1 at the I conclusion of the inspection on August 21, 1987. The scope and finding j of the inspection were discussed at that tim ]

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