ML20244C913

Transcript of 890328 Meeting in Rockville,Md Re Discussion/ Possible Vote on Full Power Ol.Pp 1-65.Supporting Documentation Encl

ML20244C913
Person / Time
Site:	South Texas
Issue date:	03/28/1989
From:	NRC COMMISSION (OCM)
To:
References
REF-10CFR9.7 NUDOCS 8904210043
Download: ML20244C913 (91)

Text

{{#Wiki_filter:. _ _ - 1 .w {,z UNITED ~ STATES OF AMER ~ICA NUCLEAR REGULATORY.COMMIS SION I bO DISCUSSION /POSSIBLE VOTE ON FULL POWER OPERATING LICENSE FOR SOUTH TEXAS, UNIT 2 Location: ROCKVILLE, MARYLAND bd(6l-MARCH 28, 1989 Pages: 83 NEALR.GROSSANDCO.,INC. COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 Rhode Island Avenue, Northwest Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 234-4433 .;.l i YD$ h00& 05000499 890328 Tl l T .4 i 3 FNU .. 'g ._.__,.___m

9 DISCLAIMER This is ar$ unofficial transcript of a meeting of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission held on March 28, 1989 in the Commission's office at one White Flint North, Rockville, Maryland. The meeting was open to public attendanc,e and observation. This transcript I has not been reviewed, corrected or edited, and it may contain inaccuracies. The transcript is intended solely for general g.,.

n 1 informational purposes.

As provided by 10 CFR 9.103, it is e not part of the formal or informal record of decision of the matters discussed. Expressions of opinion in this transcript do not necessarily reflect final determination or beliefs. No pleading or other paper may be filed with the Commission in any proceeding as the result of, or addressed to, any statement or argument contained herein, i except as the Commission may authorize. ,c: uj NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 rho 0E 15 LAND AVENUE, H.W. (202) 234-4433 WASHINGToH, D.C. 20005 (202) 232-6600

pr i UNITED STATES OF AMERICA S-1 2 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 3 4 DISCUSSION /POSSIBLE VOTE ON FULL POWER 5 OPERATING LICENSE FOR SOUTH TEXAS. UNIT 2 6 7 PUBLIC MEETING 8. 9 Nuclear Regulatory Commission 10 One White Flint North 11 Rockville, Maryland 12 C ^ 13 TUESDAY. MARCH 28, 1989 14 15 The Commission met in open session, pursuant to 16 notice, at 2:00 p.m.. the Honorable LANDO W. ZECH. JR.. 17 Chairman of the Commission, presiding. 18 19 COMMISSIONERS PRESENT: 20 LANDO W.

ZECH, JR.,

Chairman of the Commission 21 THOMAS M. ROBERTS, Member of the Commission 22 KENNETH M. CARR, Member of the Commission 23 KENNETH C. ROGERS, Member of the Commission 1 24 JAMES R. CURTISS, Member of the Commission L-25 (202)234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS & COMPANY, INC. (202)232-6600 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N.W., WASHINGTON. D.C. 20005

2 I 1 STAFF'AND PRESENTERS SEATED'AT THE COMMISSION TABLE: 9 W 2 SAMUEL J. CHILK,. Secretary 3 JOSEPH SCINTO, Deputy General Counsel-4 . VICTOR.STELLO, JR., Executive Director for Operations 5 JAMES SHIEZEK, Deputy. Office Director, NRR .6 GEORGE DICK, Project Manager 7 RICHARD MARTIN, Administrator, Region IV 8 . JOSE CALVO',. Project Director for South Texas., 9 10 FOR HOUSTON. LIGHTING AND POWER' COMPANY 11' DON D. JORDAN, Chief Executive Officer '12 JEROME H. GOLDBERG, Group Vice President, Nuclear j 13 GERALD =VAUGHN, Vice President, Nuclear-Operations-14 WARREN H. KINSEY, Plant Manager 15 16 17 18 19 - 20 21 '22' 1 1 23 c'g -, 24 %.] 25 (202)234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS & COMPANY, INC. (202)232-6600 .1323'RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N.W., WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005 .i

3 1 .P_ 1 0 C_ E.E R I N G_ S_ AO 2 (2:00 p.m.); 3 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Good afternoon, ladi'es and 4 gentlemen. .5 The purpose of this afternoon's meeting is for 6 the staff and the Houston Lighting ;and Power Conpany. to 7 brief the Commission concerning the readiness ?of' South '8 ' Texas Project, Unit 2 to receive a full power license. 9 At the conclusion of the meeting, the Commissio'n> 10 may vote to authorize the Direct of NRR,.after making the 11-appropriate findings, to issue full power operating 12 license for' South Texas Project, Unit 2. i 13 The Commission will first be briefed by Houston p. 14 Lighting and Power Company, and then by the NRC staff. 15 Copies of the slides to be used during the 16 briefing should be available at the entr.ance of the 17 meeting room. 18 Do.any of my fellow Commiss'ioners have any-19 opening comments, before we begin this afternoon? 20 (No response) 21 CHAIRMAN ZECH: I would like to welcome all of 22 you here from the Houston Lighting and Power Company. 23 Mr. Jordan, are you going to start off? .24-MR. JORDAN: Yes. N?L 25 CHAIRMAN ZECH: You may proceed. (202)234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS & COMPANY, INC. (202)232-6600 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N.W., WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005

4 ,: e i 'l

MR.

JORDAN: Thank you, Mr.

Chairman, and D

2 members of.the Commission. 3 I'am Don Jordan, Chairman of the Board and Chief 4 . Executive Officer of.. Houston Lighting and Power Com'pany. 5 With your permission, I would like to first introduce some 6 ofLthe people who are here today. 7 Representing the co-owners, scheduled to be 8 here, although they may.be-a minute or two late, are Mr'. 9 Arthur Von Rosenburg, General Manager of - the City Public 10 . Service Board of San Antonio, and Mr. Tom Shockley,. 11 President of Central Power and. Light Company. The key 12 members of our nuclear organization with me today are h 13 Jerry Goldberg, our Group Vice President of Nuclear; Mr. 14 Ge r al-d Vaughn, our Vice President of' Nuclear Operations, 15 and Mr. Warren Kinsey, our Plant Manager. 16 Also representing Houston Lighting and Power 17 Company, along with those who will have an active part.in 18 the program, includes Dr. Ed Bishop, President Emeritus of 19 the University of Houston, a member of our Board of 20 -Directors, and a member of the Nuclear Committee of our a - 21 Board. 1^ (. 22 Mr. Chairman, it is again a pleasure to appear 23 before you, this time to ask your approval for a full 24 power authorization for Unit No. 2 of the South Texas g-d) ' 25 Project. It was just about a year ago that we met with (202)234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS & COMPANY, INC. (202)232-6600 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N.W., WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005 i o___.___________.___.____

5 e 1 you to request a similar approval for Unit No. 1, and you 2 expressed your confidence by authorizing the issuance of a 3 full-power license. 4 You wisely warned us at that time, Mr. Chairman, 5 that one of the biggest challenges ahead was the 6 transition from a construction to an operating 7 organization. They are,

indeed, two very different 8

worlds. 9 Although we have had.some bumps along the way, l 10 our operational experience in Unit 1 and the start-up of 11 Unit 2 shows that we have learned a great deal and 12 continue to make significant progress through the V' 13 transition. When we met with you last year, I described the 14 15 extremely difficult early years in the design and l 16 construction of STP, but I expressed my conviction that we 17 were better for having had that experience; especially in 18 having made certain changes in Houston Lighting and Power 19 Company and Contractor Management, which turnsi out to be 20 crucial. 21 More importantly, I told you of my confidence 22 that we had built a good plant. That has been borne out in 23 the operation of Unit 1, and in the start-up of Unit 2. 24 Repeated reviews, audits and inspections have established p c4 25 that STP has been completed in compliance with the (202)234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS & COMPANY, INC. (202)232-6600 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N.W., WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005 l

e . regulatory requirements and,.' equally important, we think, -1 h* p '2 in"accordance with our own high expectations.for quality. l 3 The performance in Unit 1 thus far has been-l. 4 good; it compares favorably with first year experiences in 5 other.large nuclear units. Obviously, there is'still-room 6 for improvement; however, we know that it will always be 7 the case. Unless an organization is constantly improving, 8 to meet rising standards ~of excellence, it will inevitably 9 fall behind, and we are absolutely determined not to-let 10 that happen at STP. 11 There are also other lessons to be learned from 12 'STP. First, quality objectives are not inconsistent.with ({ .13 productivity. In

1982, seven years ago, our new 14 architect-engineer, Bechtel, developed a schedule which-15 projected that Unit 2 would begin fuel loading in December 16

1988, and that schedule was met.

Unit 2 received its 17 operating license and began.to load fuel on December the 18 16th. We remain on schedule for commercial operation this 19 June. 20

Second, there is no doubt that the success of 21 Unit 2 is, in large part, attributable to the lessons 22 learned from Unit 1.

Design changes in Unit 1, and other 23 corrective actions, were incorporated in Unit 2, before 24 fuel loading. O 25 In

general, overall productivity in the (202)234-4433 NEAL R.

GROSS & COMPANY, INC. (202)232-6600 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N.W., WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005

y ,,+' 7 1 completion of Unit 2' was helped enormously by the 2 experience gained during the construction. of Unit No. 1. 3 I might-add, Mr. Chairman, that this argues persuasively 4 for the standardization policy which I know you have done 5 so much to encourage. 6 We expect parallel experience on the operations 7 side. Performance _thus far on Unit 2 has generally been '8 good.c We are applying the lessons learned from the 9 'startup of Unit 1, and anticipate a higher level of 10 performance in Unit.2. The management programs which we 11 successfully implemented on Unit 1 are being applied 12 effectively to Unit 2. 13 While our-track record so far has been good, it 14 is limited. It is obviously too early to tell you that we 15 are a mature nuclear utility. That sort of complacency 16 can be devastating in this business. Our management 17 . recognizes that no matter how well we perform, tomorrow 18 presents another day of challenge. 19 We are keenly aware that involved leadership is 20 essential to ensure that complacency does not set in.at 21 any level of organization, and that responsibility starts 22 with me. 23 I h' ave personally conveyed to our employees the 24 importance of each individual's contribution to the safety a 25 of plant operations. I have emphasized the need for (202)234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS & COMPANY, INC. (202)232-6600 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N.W., WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005

3 1 unremitting attention - to detail, to discipline, to e, J 2 formality in the conduct of operations, and the absolute 3 necessity for personal as well as organizational integrity 4 and accountability. 5 To assure that each new employee' hears that 6 message from the top, I have made a. short videotape 7 covering these points, which is part of the general 8 training given to-every new project employee. 9 I am also proud of the fact that our Board of 10 Directors is actively involved in South Texas; that the

• 11 project continues to be on the agends of every board 12 meeting, and our Nuclear Committee, headed by former NRC y

13 Chairman Joe Hendrie, does a very effective job of 14 overviewing the management of our nuclear program. Our I 15 Nuclear Committee also meets monthly, and the entire 16 Committee makes quarterly inspections of the plant. 17 Our employees remain the key ingredient, of. 18

course, to our success.

We are providing them with 19 educational and career development opportunities, which 20 are essential in attracting and retaining a highly 21 professional staff. I believe strongly that education is 22 one of the keys to a rewarding career. Jerry Goldberg 23 will discuss the status of our college degree program for 24 STP employees. This emphasis on education is enly one of t/ 25 several initiatives which I know you, Mr. Chairman, and 1 (202)234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS & COMPANY, INC. (202)232-6600 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, 11. W., WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005 L._____1___ c

m p 9-p L-1 other members ~ of the Commission have stressed over ' the ,.h 2 past five' years. h j1 3 Now, I.would_like to digress for just a moment, -4 Mr. Chairman, to acknowledge th'e contribution 'which you 5 and = the staf f. have made in so. many critical areas, by 6 stressing the importance o f. fitness f or

duty, 7

professionalism in the conduct of plant operations,- and 8 other performance-based programs. I would also like to - 9 thank you for your visits to the s i t e', and in'taking the 10 . time to meet our people personally. They were further imp'rtance of their contribution to their 11 reminded of the o 12 country's energy needs. 13. I would like to leave you with just a few 14 general impressions. When I go to Bay City, and I hope 15 you have had the same experience, I come away with the 16 feeling that STP is a project of which Texas and the 17 entire nation may'be proud. As you know, South Texas has 18 been selected by the NRC as the US plant to be represented 19 .in the upcoming information exchange with the Soviet Union .20 regarding Nuclear Plant Design, pursuant to the agreement 21 which you, Mr. Chairman, signed in Moscow. I might also 22 mention that we will exchange technical information with 23 other nuclear units in Western Europe that have design g 24 features similar to STP. w.- 25 We also expect to benefit from participating in (202)234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS & COMPANY, INC. (202)232-6600 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N.W., WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005

10 1 the World Association of Nuclear Operators. The 2 development of the Association is progressing well, and I 3 will have the honor of traveling to the Soviet Union to 4 sign, on behalf of Houston Lighting and Power Compar.y, the 5 charter governing the activities of this organization. 6 Thank you for your attention, Mr. Chairman, and 7 members of the Commission. And now other members of our 8 management team will discuss the status of South Texas and 9 cur readiness to begin full power operations in Unit No. 10 2. I 11 Mr. Goldberg. 12 MR. GOLDBERG: Mr. Chairman, members of the [ 13 Commission, I am Jerry Goldberg, Nuclear Group Vice 14 P re si-dent, Houston Lighting and Power Company. i 15 My purpose this afternoon is to outline for you ~ 16 the reasons why I believe the South Texas Project Unit 2 l 17 is ready to.begin its ascent to full power. My 18 conclusions are based on self-assessments of our readiness 19 which have been documented and submitted to the 20 Commission. I will summarize the high points of those \\ 21 self-assessments. 1 22

First, the plant meets regulatory requirements 23 relating to design, construction and engineering.

This I 24 was demonstrated during both the p're-critical and low- } 25 power testing periods. We derive additional assurance of l (202)234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS & COMPANi, INC. (202)232-6600 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N.W., WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005 J

11~. e ~ 1 safety.from our-SAFETEAM Program, which provides the means 2 for-STP. employees'to identify ; any. concerns.that they may '3 have in regard to nuclear safety or quality. .4 SAFETEAM includes 'a staf f of interviewers. and-5 investigators who ' determine the' validity. of. concerns 6 promptly. As

a. matter of fact, the' Texas Public Dtility

'7 Commission recently forwarded a letter from a former'HL&P '8 amployee who expressed a v a r i e t y.' o f concerns about.the 9 South Texas Project. SAFETEAM' has investigated each of 10 those' concerns, and showed that none had.any-safety 11 significance. The results of that SAFETEAM investigation 12 have been'provided to the NRC. 13 . South ' Texas Unit 2 has been relatively free of 14 significant design,. or operational problems during its 15 startup. I will discuss two specific-problems, however, 16 before we close. 17 South Texas meets regulatory criteria governing-18' . personnel and training, as well as -procedures and-19 technical specifications. We have a total of 49 licensed L 20 Senior Reactor Operators, and 27 licensed Reactor I 21 Operators, all of whom have been trained on a plant-h 22 specific simulator and many of whom have had operating L 23 experience at power on Unit 1. 24 All plant personnel are subject to a stringent ,,b L 25 Fitness for Duty program with strong emphasis on random I L l l (202)234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS & COMPANY, INC. (202)232-6600 1323:RHODE ISLAND AVENUE,-N.W.,-WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005 = _ _ ____

12 1 drug and alcohol abuse testing. This program, which has ~ 2 been in. place since 1986, will be in compliance with the 3 proposed rule currently under consideration by the NRC. 4 During your visits to the site, and in our 5 previous full power meeting, Mr. Chairman, we discussed 6 our plan to provide further educational opportunities to 7 qualified and motivated personnel. The University of 8 Maryland Nuclear Science Degree Program got underway 9 initially at STP with 40 employees enrolled in the 10 program. Those on the operations staff are given first 11 priority. However, any employee has the opportunity to 12 gain entry to this program. We are strongly encouraging _ } 13 the reactor operators to obtain college degrees, so that 14 they will have additional career opportunities, including 15 entry into corporate management. We believe this program 16 will assist us in attracting and retaining highly I 17 qualified and motivated people. 18 We have a formal policy which defines what we 19 expect to see from a true professional at STP, and we do 20 not intend to accept anything less from our people. 21 (Slide) This slide highlights some of the 22 elements of our policy on professionalism. Although we 23 discussed our policy last year, I would like to point out 24 a few elements which I particularly emphasize, those p, V 25 being: attention to detail, learning from mistakes, (202)234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS & COMPANY, INC. (202)232-6600 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N.W., WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005

1 3 '13 ^ 1' personali-in'tegrity. and candor, the need' to f ace facts y'. %v ' 2 ' squarely and deal with their implications,.and;above all, 3 not to be satisfied-with mere - compliance and to strive ~to-4 meet higher standards. 5 In addition,- the operators have ~ d e v e l o p e d ' a n d 6 obtained management concurrence on 'an " operator code of. 7 ethics" which is consistent with ? the INPO principles of 8 professionalism and the recent NRC policy statement. 9 Procedures governing operations, maintenance and 10 surveillance tests'have been prepared for Unit 2. These 11 are, in' essence, the same procedures that have served us 12 well over the last year on Unit 1, and they are entirely 13 adequate for safe operation of the power plant. There is, 14 howeVer, an ongoing procedure upgrade program to further 15 enhance these procedures. 16 I would now like to discuss a few examples of 17 how lessons learned from Unit 1 have been applied to Unit 18 2. We had several design problems which held up the 19 operation of Unit 1. These included dealuminization of the 1 20 essential cooling water system cast valves and fittings; 21 flow-induced vibration in the auxiliary feedwater system; 22 flow-induced vibration in component cooling water heat 23 exchangers; and destructive overspeed of a turbine-driven 24 feedwater pump. These events provided a real challenge to C-25 our engineers and operators. They had to support power (202)234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS & COMPANY, INC. (202)232-6600 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N.W., WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005 i

14 1 ' plant operations by resolving tough, complex problems ~ 'S-) 2 cutting across several disciplines. These problems, which 3 were identified on Unit 1, were all corrected on Unit 2 4 prior to issuance of the low power license. 5 When I spoke to you last year, I described the 6 actions being taken on Unit 1 to prevent leakage in the 7 Bottom Mounted Instrumentation thimble tubes involving the 8 installation of flow limiters. I also mentioned our plans 9 to inspect the tubes at intervals, to verify the 10 effectiveness of our actions. Those inspections found 11 that the thimble tubes were experiencing unacceptable 12

wear, despite our design changes.

We took actions, s5 13 including repositioning of some thimbles and plugging oth'rs, to prevent the initiation of leakage. To mitigate 14 e 15 the effects of leakage, should it occur, we installed 16 isolation valves and check valves in the Unit 1 thimble 17 tubes. All the Unit 1 thimble tubes will be replaced 18 during the first refueling outage, with a new tube design 19 which does not require flow limiters. 20 That new design of thimble tube is already 21 installed on Unit 2. The design utilizes stiffer tubes 22 which, during prototype testing, did not vibrate. We will i 23 retain the manual isolation valves and automatically 24 closing check valves. We plan a confirmatory inspection 25 of the Unit 2 thimbles during the first cycle, to verify (202)234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS & COMPANY, INC. (202)232-6600 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N.W., WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005

15 i \\ 1 that the new design performs as expected.

• ~ ~ -

2 Another technical issue which was resolved, 3 prior to fuel load for Unit 2, is the effects of thermal 4 stratification in the pressurizer surge line. This issue 5 was identified by the NRC staff during the middle of 1988, 6 based on observations at another operating plant. We were 7 able to collect data from Unit 1 and perform the detailed 8 analysis necessary to demonstrate the adequacy of the Unit 9 2 pressurizer surge line. 10 I would now like to discuss other indice. tors 11 that point to our readiness to proceed. Security 12 problems, hardware and training, you may recall delayed = 13 the issuance of the operating license for Unit 1. These 3 14 have -been thoroughly resolved. The security program for 15 both units is functioning effectively. 16 Since the operating license for Unit 2 was 17 issued on December 16th, 1988, nine Licensee Event Reports 18 have been submitted on that unit. On Unit 1, 32 such 19 reports were initiated in the comparable time period 20 between issuance of the operating license and receipt of 21 the full power authorization. I believe this further 22 demonstrates that the lessons learned fr6m Unit 1 are 23 being effectively integrated into our Unit 2 program. 7 24 Fraudulent material is a significant concern to 25 all licensees. Not only has HL&P acted swiftly to deal (202)234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS & COMPANY, INC. (202)232-6600 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N.W., WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005

'16 : 1 with: those items, identified to.be potentially fraudulent. a 2 within ; the. industry,. we~ have participated: in: industry-3 . programs. with NUMARC, INPO and EPRI in developing.. 4 strategies to detect fraudulent material.- 'In the case.of-5 fraudulent flanges, HL&P participated in the NUMARC 6 . program to test. flanges.to demonstrate their adequacy for 7 use in their intended service. The.NRC staff reviewed and 8 concurred with our approach. 9 The area of molded case circuit breakers is'also <10 being ' resolved. As part of our Startup test program, we 11 performedLtests'on safety-related breakers, prior to their .12 use in,the' plant. This has given us confidence that the [ 13 breakers will function properly. Typically, we purchase 14 our replacement safaty-related breakers from those. 15 equipment suppliers who originally provided the saf ety- '16 related equipment to us. Since it is possible, however, 17 for fraudulent material to ' be furnished by a dishonest '18 supplier, we.are proceeding expeditiously to perform those 19 additional actions recommended by.the NRC, to determine if 20 any irregularities exist. 21 As I mentioned previously, there were two 22 problems I would discuss further. First, we experienced a L 23 fire adjacent to,the Unit 1 generator which was triggered 24 by a loss of generator hydrogen rotor cooling. We 25 determined that the most likely cause was loose lead to (202)234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS & COMPANY, INC. (202)232-6600

17 1 the cooling water temperature regulator, which controls 2 cooling of the hydrogen. Without. adequate cooling, the i 3 . hydrogen pressure inside the generator began to rise, 4 until gas escaped through a bearing seal and ignited just 5 outside the seal. As a result, we have made a number of 6 improvements in the balance of plant design, maintenance 7 and operation to enhance plant reliability, as well as 8 protect our investment. 9 We also discovered last November, shortly before 10 issuance of the fuel load license for Unit 2, that the 11 vortex suppression devices which should have been 12 installed in the containment sumps in both units were not 13 installed. Unit 1 was immediately shut down. A thorough 14 investigation established that this oversight was an 15 isolated event; that other comparable devices had in fact 16 been installed as required. This was independently 17 confirmed by our Nuclear Safety Review Roard. The vortex 18 suppression devices were installed in both units, and Unit 19 1 resumed operation. 20 The NRC staff has recently cited HL&P for a 21 level three violation and proposed a civil penalty in 22 connection with this incident. Our response to the 23 proposed penalty will be submitted by April 17th.

i...

24 As I noted earlier, startup and testing of Unit ~- 25 2 has been relatively trouble free. The problems that (202)234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS & COMPANY, INC. (202)232-6600 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N.W., WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005

~ 3 18-1 have - been ' encountered have' been analyzed properly; the fy W 2 follow up actions ~have'been very conservative. The fact l-3 that..our people have handled these, and other matters 4 during'startup, in a-highly' professional' manner, provides 5 additional basis f or-requesting" your authorization ' to 6 begin the ascent to full power'on Unit 2. 1 7 Of course, our power' ascension program' includes 8 lan assessment of operations prior to proceeding above 50 as.in the case of Unit-1. Experience has' 9 . percent. power,_ '10 demonstrated that moving forward in a very deliberate and 11 controlled f ashion will yield the quality ' operation we 12 must have'. h 13 In summary, Mr. Chairman and Commissioners,-I'am 14 confi' dent;that Unit 2 can and will be operated safely. 15 With your permission, I would like.Mr. Kinsey to 16 describe our operating experience during low power 17 testing. 18 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Thank you very much. 19 You may proceed. 1 20 MR. KINSEY: Thank you. Mr. Chairman, members I '21 of the Commission, I am Warren Kinsey, Plant Manager at 22 South Texas. I will cover three principal subjects: an 23 overview of operating experience during low power testing, 24 including problems we encountered and our response to C) 25 these problems, the status of our maintenance program, and (202)234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS & COMPANY, INC. (202)232-6600 1323 RHODE-ISLAND AVENUE, N.W., WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005

19 1 chift manning. '~[ 2 First, a word on the status of Unit 2. Initial 3 criticality was achieved on March 12th, at 8:50 p.m. Low 4 power testing has been successfully completed and the unit 5 is being operated at low power to give our-staff 6 additional operating experience. On Unit 1, we have 7 recently completed a 37-day outage, and are now in our 8 23rd day of operation. 9 Our schedule provided for a testing program that 10 was to lead to criticality in 12 weeks. We are pleased 11 that the testing went quite smoothly, and we were able to 12 achieve criticality cin schedule. We did,

however, 13 encounter three minor operating problems during pre-c.,

4,r ' 14 -critical testing. 15 (Slide) I will touch briefly on the highlights 16 of each event for you. 17

First, during the successful demonstration of 18 the rapid refueling system, leakage was identified in the 19 containment refueling cavity. The leakage was from seals 20 on covers which provided access to inspect the reactor 21 pressure vessel nozzles.

It was determined that access 22 without these openings was sufficient to perform the 23 required inspections. Accordir. gly, the covers were welded 24 in place and the leakage was stopped. The covers in Unit 25 1 were also welded in place during our February outage. l (202)234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS & COMPANY, INC. (202)232-6600 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N.W., WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005

.+

r. 20, 1 The second' problem encountered involved. 'se tting W t. L2 up,the turbine-drivbn auxiliary f eedwater. pump ' governor. ~ 3 valve. . The =. adjustments - and subsequent. testing,. required ' l 4 several. days to complete. fio significant ' problems. were -5 ' discovered, only ' minor ones ' inherent. in an electro- '6 . hydraulic control-. system setup. 7 The-third event:was a hydraulic' transient in'the 8 -Steam Generator. Blowdown System, during return to service 9 after'a short, system shutdown. Inspections of the system 10 . piping and. supports revealed damaged snubbers. 7t. ' was 11 determined that the transient was a result of putting high 12 temperature water into a voided pipe.too rapidly. @j 13 The damaged snubbers have'. be en repaired, the a.a_ 14 pipirig integrity has-been verified, and plant procedures 15 have been modified to slowly warm and. pressurize.the- -16 system during startup. The Unit l' steam generator-17 blowdown' system has also been inspected and similar 18 corrective action taken. 19 You may recall, for the Unit 1 briefing, I 20 described several significant engineering and operational-21 problems that had occurred during startup and. testing. In 22 comparison, the Unit 2 startup has proceeded smoothly with-23 just the problems I have noted. Of note, Unit 2 has been 24 critical for approximately two weeks and has had no ,q, N 25 reactor trips. x (202)234-4433 UEAL R. GROSS & COMPAt!Y,-INC. (202)232-6600 1323.RHODE ISLAllD AVEUUE, N.W., WASHINGTOII, D.C. 20005 M___z___________._.____

21' l' This operational his tory L demons trates,- I. ("JF 2 .b'elieve,. that. we.have-applied to ~ Unit 2 the lesson's W L 3 learned from Unit 1. '4 'I woul'd like-to briefly. discuss our Unit 2 LERs. 5 The most significant of the reported. events. -involved a 6 failure to properly restore one. train of our-three-train 7 control room HVAC system to service f ollowing..the 8 installation of'a temporary modification. This event has 9 been the only.one of its-kind to occur at South Texas. We 10 recognize the seriousness of the event, and have taken-11 steps to ensure it will not' recur. 12 We have. had five events caused by hardware .I~ 13 failur'es. Two events have~resulted from personnel errors R;.1 Ci

14 in determining proper post-maintenance testing, and one t

k 15 event was the result of a missed surveillance caused by 16 personnel error. 17 Regarding maintenance, a few points on the 18 classification program at South Texas will help put our 19 numbers in perspective. Our maintenance work order 20 classification system consists of'a priority designation 21 which determines how quickly a problem must be worked and 22 a code by which management, planners and' schedulers can 23 determine the relative ' impact on component or system-24 operation. Priority One is assigned to those activities b. 25 requiring prompt attention to maintain safe plant (202)234-4433 UEAL R. GROSS & COMPANY, INC. (202)232-6600 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N.W., WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-

\\ I 22 1 conditions, address industrial safety concerns,, and to et U 2 maintain the plant in operation. 3 Priority Two is assigned to those activities .4 requiring expeditious attention. Priority Two items are 5 usually handled within a few working days, whereas 6 Priority One items are handled immediately, expending 7 overtime and resources as required. The final general 8 classification category, Priority Three, are those 9 acoivities that can be planned for scheduled unit or 10 system outages, or to work when resources are available. 11 With this background on priorities, we can 12 further discuss the current Unit 2 corrective maintenance ) (slide). As you can 13 statistics as shown on this slide 14 see,'there are a minimal number of Priority One and Two l 15 items outstanding. 16 The " impact" codes are: "Out of Service", 17 " Degraded Service", and " Equipment Operation Not 18 Affected". As indicated, there are currently very few-19 items classified as " safety-related out of service". 20 Those items currently in this category do not impair j 21 operability of any system. The classification implies 1 22 that a component of a safety-related system is classified 23 as not operable. A good example of this type of situation l l b., 24 would be a local pressure gauge that may be damaged. The U 25 gauge is not required for overall system operability, but l l (202)234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS & COMPANY, INC. (202)232-6600 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N.W., WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005 u.-_-_ -_- - - _ - - _ -

23 1 needs to be repaired. "-l,) 'G 2 Using the same gauge as an example, if the gauge 3 was found to be out of tolerance in a region of scale not 4 normally used for operation, it would be classified as 5 " degraded in service". 6

Finally, an example of a piece of equipment 7

classified. as " system operation not affected" would be a 8 gauge which needed a new glass face plate. 9 We have found that using this classification 10 system -- that is, Priority Code plus " impact" code, 11 allows us to focus our resources on the most important 12 problems. i [ 13 The Unit 2 safety-related corrective maintenance 14 back1'og is 257 items, and the non-safety-related backlog 1 15 is 656. This compares to Unit i values at full power i 16 licensing of approximately 300 safety-related and 1200 17 non-safety-related. I 18 As a two unit site,'the maintenance discussion i 19 must include the proper utilization of ' resources to 20 support both units. I have discussed our priority system 21 and " impact" codes. This information is utilized to 22 schedule the maintenance work. Scheduling is performed 23 daily a..d on weekends, as required, by our Work Control is 24 Center, staffed by representatives from all station line 25 departments. Priorities are further refined by senior (202)234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS & COMPANY, INC. (202)232-6600 c-mm m m - oma a weamm w w wamwwwgaaw a a ennas

s 24' l' management in plan-of-the-day meetings. , p.; p ;= 2 South : Texas Project. has an aggressive L 'and '3. ' comprehensive preventive maintenance program. Our goal-is 4 to. reach a preventive' maintenance ef fort of 60 percent. 5 To ' da te, we have averaged approximately 40 percent 6 preventive maintenance which approaches the - ' industry 7, average for mature' plants. 8 The. station has a predictive maintenance program 9 which includes evaluation of equipment vibration, pump-10 performance,. heat exchanger perf ormance - and other 11 parameters to' facilitate early diagnosis of problems. We 12 have'seen benefits in terms of both safety and reliability-b 13' .as a result of this program. For example, this program 14 identified ' vit :.ation anomalies in the Unit 'l. auxiliary-15 feedwater pumps. Further investigations revealed the need 16 for. replacement of bearing

material, which was 17 subsequently accomplished, before performance of the pumps 18 was affected.

19

Finally, with regar.d to shift

manning, 20 operations at South Texas are conducted using a five shift 21 rotation.

Shifts are eight hours in length. On any one 22

day, three shifts operate ' the plant, one shift is in 23 training and one shift is off.

Extensive overtime has not 1

~

24 been required utilizing this rotation. G 25 (Slide) As shown on this slide, each shift on (202)234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS & COMPANY, INC. (202)232-6600 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N.W., WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005 I

25 1 each unit typically has a shift supervisor, one Senior 2 Reactor Operator and three Reactor Operators, while both -...a 3 units share one shift technical advisor. Operators are 4 . licensed on both units but are assigned primarily,to a I 5 single operating shift on one unit. 6 Regarding adequate staffing levels, we have just j 7 completed a major outage on Unit 1, while conducting the 8 startup testing program on Unit 2. This, we believe, is a 9 good indicator of our capability to effectively manage and 10 operate both units. I 11 The plant operations staff has gained extensive 12 experience on the use of procedures, testing, radiological 13 controls, chemistry, 'and plant performance during Unit 1 14 startup i:nd ' operation, and Unit 2 startup and low power 1 1 15 physics testing. j 16 We strongly believe we are ready for full power 17 operation on our second unit. This concludes cur 18 presentation, and we will be glad to answer any questions. 19 . CHAIRMAN ZECH: Thank you very much. 20 Any questions or comments from my fellow 21 Commissioners? Commissioner Roberts? 22 COMMISSIONER ROBERTS: No. 23 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Commissioner Carr? 24 COMMISSIONER CARR: Do you plan to go to six-vi 25 shift operation? l (202)234-4433 UEAL R. GROSS & COMPANY, INC. (202)232-6600 ) 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N.W., WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005

.26 l y ~ 1 MR. KINSEY: .No, sir,' we do not, we plan - on x.9 2 staying with five-shift rotation. m - 3 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Do-you have eight-hour shifts;or 4 12-hour shifts? '5 M R '. - KINSEY: We - have' eight-hour-shifts 6 currently. We are evaluating 12-hour shifts. 7 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Commissioner Rogers? 8 COMMISSIONER ROGERS: There were some. ORAT' 9 possible violations, ORAT inspection. C a n - y'o u say" a. 10 little bit about what you are doing with regard to. the 11

problems of procedure -

_in the area of procedures? 12 MR. KINSEY:

Yes,

, sir. In the area of-h 13 procedures,. and the one of most importance is the 14 emergency operating procedures. We have put together a .15 . comprehensive program, lasting over the next year, where 16 we have revised our operators procedure writing guide, and' 17 we are rewriting, as well as validating by log-downs and 18 independent verification, all of our emergency operating 19 procedures. That will culminate in August of next year. 20 We have verified that we have no significant 21 problems in our emergency operating procedures, that they 1 22 are minor clerical-type typo mistakes, and some nameplate i 23 differences between the procedure and what is out in the ~ 24 field. V 25 As I stated, the EOPs will be completed next (202)234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS & COMPANY, INC. (202)232-6600 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N.W., WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005 l l

_ -. = -. 27. 1 year. We.have just completed a review of our off-normal g 2 procedures, and they will be completed over the next year 3 and a-half. 4 And finally, we have a five-year program where 5 thu normal plant operating procedures will be reviewed and 6 revised over the next five years. 7 COMMISSIO!!ER ROGERS: Thank you. 8 Could you say something also about the simulator 9 deficiencies? There was some note of some deficiencies in 10 the simulator, and I wonder if you could touch on that? 11 MR. VAUGHN: I will address-that, Mr. 12 Commissioner. Last November, when we had the NRC in doing 13 exams on our employees, we had a large number of 14 deficiencies. We started the plant up, and we were 15 working to get these deficiencies taken care of, with the 16 simulator. It caught us early. We did up-grade the 17 simulator in December, and reduced those deficiencies by 18 70 percent. So, today our simulator is in much better 19 shape. 20 COMMISSIONER ROGERS: Could you just 21 characterize where those shortcomings are? What sorts of 22 situations do you run into trouble with? 23 MR. VAUGHN: Our operators pointed out that our 24 steam generator did not respond -- the steam generator Le 25 model did not respond like the plant. That was major. The I (202)234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS & COMPANY, INC. (202)232-6600 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N.W., WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005

28 .+ 1 other major one is our computer system is just fully 2 loaded,. and response time is slow, and it is having an ~,, - 3 impact on the timing. 4 This year -- and I have just gotten the bids in 5 -- we are doing a major upgrade on our computer, to 6 improve the timing. So those were the two large ones. 7 COMMISSIONER ROGERS: One of you mentioned 8 something about agreements with overseas plants, and I 9 would like to hear just a little bit about what you are 10 doing with respect to any formal mechanisms for sharing of 11 operational experience on similar plants. You are the 12 only RESAR 41 in the US, and it would be, I would think 13 important to have sister plants to be in touch with, just 14 so that, on a regular basis, you have someone else that is 15 sharing direct operating experience with you. 16 Could you say something about where that stands? 17 MR. GOLDBERG: I can address that, Commissioner. 18 We have entered into a formal agreement with the French to 19 exchange information with their parallel units and our 20 South Texas unit. We are just in the' early stages of 21 framing the mechanics of how that is going to proceed. 22 In parallel, we started dialogue with the 23 Belgians because the DOL 4 unit is also very similar to 24 South Texas. And we hope to have in place agreements with a 25 the Belgians as well. I can't elaborate anymore at this (202)234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS & COMPANY, INC. (202)232-6600 l 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N.W., WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005 l l

29 1 time as to exactly the mechanics of how this is going to p 2 be done. 3 COMMISSIONER ROGERS: When would you expect 4 those -- more or less-expect those to be in place? 5 MR. GOLDBERG: This summer. 6 COMMISSIONER ROGERS: This summer? 7 MR. GOLDBERG: This summer. 8 COMMISSIONER ROGERS: Fine. 9 And I wonder if you could just tell us about 10 your view on these allegations with respect to that 11 came in more or less at the last minute, of a former 12 employee, I guess, and their relationship to safety issues 13 at the plant? 14 MR. GOLDBERG: I guess I can address that. As I 15 indicated in my prepared remarks, we did thoroughly 16 investigate each of the allegations that was safety-17 related. Many of the allegations were dealing with 18 matters that had been previously investigated by SAFETEAM. 19 We were unable to substantiate any safety 20 concerns contained in those allegations. The particular '21 employee who authored those allegations was given a chance 22 before he left the site, to share any concerns with 23 SAFETEAM, he chose not to. And, of course, the first time v 24 we became aware he had any concerns was after we received i.- 25 a copy of his filed letter with the Texas Public Utility (202)234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS & COMPANY, INC. (202)232-6600 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N.W., WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005

1 .j +- -30 1 . Commission. N:t 2 COMMISSIONER ROGERS: Thank-you very much. 3 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Commissioner Curtiss? q 4 COMMISSIONER CURTISS: Just two: quick follow-up j 5 . questions. .On the simulator ' question that ! Commissioner 6 -Rogers raised, have-you actually installed the revised -7 programs for the simulator now, or is that scheduled 1for 8 some point.in.the near future? 9 MR. VAUGHN: In December we installed.a revised. 10 . program. We are : working on another one,- to pick up; ~ 11 additional-deficiencies, and will probably. install that in 12 June. So that will help keep our deficiencies low. 13 We are headed

toward, you know, the NRC ej.

14 -certi'fication of our simulator within the time frame that 15 has-been set fer that certification. 16 COMMISSIONER CURTISS: Okay. 17 MR. VAUGHN: So I think we are getting on top of 18 the deficiencies. 19 COMMISSIONER CURTISS: All right. One other l 20 question, could you briefly describe your employee concern 21 program, what you have instituted and what you have in 22-place, to respond to employee concerns? l 23 MR. GOLDBERG: Let me start with that, and maybe 24 Gerald would like to complement my remarks. We have a 25 program which we call SAFETEAM, which we initiated at the l (202)234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS & COMPANY, INC. (202)232-6600 t a-mmmmm o m o m mm m mamm m, o m.mmemommm m m ummm i

k 3 11 1 ' Sodth Texas. f acility. in-' early 1985. Since the inception f' F-2

of. that. program, L we have made a - number of. contacts,

in 3 = excess of ^ 30,000, where we pro-actively will gci - out and-4 askD employees ifIthe; have anything on their mind. 5 We ' catalog these concerns into safety-related

1..

1 6 and n on-s a f e ty-re'ta ted'. I don ' t ~ happen to.have the o q 7 curren t' s ta tis t-ic s at my fingertips, ' but since - this 8 program.was p u ', in. place, there has been, I think,'less 9 tha'nn 200 ' saf ety-related concerns subs tantiia ted and, as I-10

remember,

,,5 were ultimately found'to be very substantive. 11 And, of course, once we became aware'of that information, 12 we-were able'to take appropriate action. h 13 We are using that program, :in effect, to 14 virttially make almost every employee on that site a member-15 of our quality assurance team. It's another pair of eyes 16 and it is another mind, and. we are actively. soliciting - 17 employees to bring forth'any concerns. 18 There is a supplemental program to SAFETEAM 19-which is a suggestion box type program, which the 20 operations people have initiated. ~ 21-And, perhaps, Warren, you'd like to comment on 22 that. 23 MR. KINSEY:

Well, I might mention, yes, the 24 suggestion program, which is really 'open to any employee es d

25 who comes inside the protected area. It is usually more (202) 234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS & COMPANY, INC. (202)232-6600-

32 1 mundane issues, rather'thanithe-safety-related issues. And

r"):

s 2 then weldo have another program.that picks up -- that'. is 3 more open'than the'SAFETEAM, which'is a confidential type-4 of reporting'.- It'is, called our' Station Problem Reporting 5 Process, and'it allows-the employees to report problems of-6 any level of concern that he would like. an answer to, 7 ' technical or otherwise. That 's ' been. a very. ef f ective 8 program. 9 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Concerning the allegations, do I-10 understand;you to say that,.as far as-Houston Lightings and 11 Power is concerned, that there are no unresolved safety. j 12 issues? Is_that,your conclusion? f,j 13 MR. GOLDBERG: Yes, sir. 14 CHAIRMAN-ZECH: I would like to emphasize the 15 importance of procedures. I notice that.'was emphasized 16 during the operational readiness assessment team visit, .l 17 and I think good, understandable, usable procedures and-a 18 practi'ce .o f following those procedures is extremely. i 19 important to safe operations. 20 Have you done anything, or could you talk, 21 perhaps just very briefly, on what you are doing to make j '22 sure you are maintaining good procedures and they are 23 formal, they are providing the attention to detail, and i yp 24 the confidence that you need to assure yourself that those Q21 1 1 25 procedures, first, are good and, second, they are being (202)234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS & COMPANY, INC. (202)232-6600 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N.W., WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005

a l: 33 i: 1 -followed? g, h~ 2 MR. 'GOLDBERG: Warren', would you: like to 3 -respond? 4 MR. KINSEY:

Yes, I would.

First of ' all, : -I ' 5 -think1one.of the programs -that. enhances our operation at L i 6 the ' station. is we have what'we call a-Senior Management '7 _ Tour and Program. That program has senior managers from 8 the'. station go out'and' visit in the' field, atLdifferent 9

times,- back 'shif ts, ' day.shif ts,

evening shif ts.. They 10 observe the plant. operations staff using the procedures 11 .that are mentioned. 12 In addition.to that, our.own quality assurance. C' HT 13 staff goes out in the field and observes the-operators and. 14 techriicians using the procedures. And as a-result of one. 15 .of the audit findings, our quality assurance staff is now 16 paying more particular attention to performance-based 17 procedures. And by that'I mean that they are ensuring.that 18 when we say we are going to write procedures in a 19 formalized fashion,

that, in fact, we are accomplishing 20

.that, not, just the fact that we have a program that says 21 we will, but that the program is actually being 22 implemented in the field. 23 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Could you discuss very briefly 24 your simulator training, preparation for your startup e V 25 process? (202)234-4433 NEAL R. GRO.SS & COMPANY, INC. (202)232-6600 c- - ma - uma u -usma w w wa - waanw sa a eaana

34 1 MR. VAUGHN:

Well, as part, of course,.the

.4. .A "'~ 2 Licensed Operator. Program, there's five weeks of simulator 3 training in the licensing. 4 CHAIRMAN ZECH: I mean specifically what you 5 have done on the simulator to get ready for the startup 6 ascension program. 7 MR. VAUGHN: The operators have gone through the. 8 emergency scenarios on the simulator. They have also done 9 regular startup activities on the simulator. 10 CHAIRMAN ZECH: All shifts have done that? 11 MR. VAUGHN: Yes, sir. 12 CHAIRMAN ZECH: All right, fine. g.[ 13 Well, during my visits down there, I certainly 14 was impressed with your efforts to create an environment 15 of. prof essionalism. And I think -- I hope you will 16 continue those efforts, particularly among the operating 17 staff and others, too, but I thought those ef forts. were 18 very important to continue

and, certainly, worth 19 commenting on because I thought they were very good.

20 If we do authorize full power for your second 21

unit, what have you done to make sure you can fully 22 prepare your management and your people for coping with 23 two operating units, instead of one?

vs 24 MR. VAUGHN: Mr. Chairman, one thing that we Q 25 have recently done is completed the development of an (202)234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS & COMPANY, INC. (202)232-6600 aeae comma o m c mm m om-m m o en amem-mm a a anaw

i...

35 1 operating. organization that we will use -. to operate both '2 units. As I mentioned, that development is completed.. I 3 will be announcing that this coming month, and then we 4 will transition to it by the time Unit 2 will be 5 commercial. 6 It is a more streamlined organization, a little 7 tighter control without matrixing, that we have in our 8 current organization. And it shortens some lines of 9 communications. It is not a major reorganization for us 10 because it keeps the functional groups that we now have, 11 that are covering the areas, it just realigns our upper 12 management. 13 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Do you intend to have your 14 opera' tors go from one unit to another, or will they remain 15 with one unit? 16 MR. VAUGHN: They will remain for a period of 17 time on one unit. Now, we may well move from one unit to 18 the other, as we need to maintain balanced shifts or, 19 periodically, we will be moving some operators. 20 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Why are you staying with five 21 shifts, instead of six? What have you decided -,what was 22 your rationale for that? 23 MR. VAUGHN: Early in life, five shifts is a 24 good operation because it reduces the number of shifts you u ;- 25 are spreading your experience over. It helps you maintain (202)234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS & COMPANY, INC. (202)232-6600 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N.W., WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005

i -i l36. i.- 1 a higher level of. experience. ' And. if-you -- 'we are; m, ?. l~'- 2 considering, as Mr. Kinsey mentioned,- going to 12-hour. 3 shift operations, l. 4 If we do go to. 12,.. the five shif ts gives you-5 essentially what the six 8-hour shifts give. So, the five 6 shift rotation is a good rotation. And we are getting our 7 training weeks in with that. 8 CHAIRMAN ZECH: How many total number of. 9 operators do you have, SROs and Ros? 10 MR. 'KINSEY: .We have 49 and 27, I believe. is- '11 what=Mr. Goldberg'said in his prepared speech. 12 I might add, Mr. Chairman,- that one of the 13 things that might not be obvious on the surface about our 14 five' shift rotation is the number of people'that we.will 15 staf f ~ on each shift. We call our shift self-relieving. 16 Most people who'use the six shift rotation use the sixth -17 ' shift as.the relieving shift. .18 What we do is we have an extra person'on each 19 shift, so ' that we can handle that vacation or that. sick 20 leave, without having to bring somebody in off the other i 21 shift. 22 COMMISSIONER CARR: According to your figures, 23 you've got five operators per shift per plant license and, 24 so, that's five shifts, that's 25 operators. So, you've g CW i .25 got 50 that you're using and you've got 76 licensed. So, (202)234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS & COMPANY, INC. (202)232-6600 acoa owma o co n am n wan-m w ma ceowmaw m o anaam

37 1 you've got another-25 doing something. "~ 2 MR. KINSEY: We've got some over'in our training 3 organization. We've got some in our support organization. 4 We've got some in our quality assurance organization. 5 Those are the total numbers, you know, for the staff. 6 COMMISSIONER CARR: Of those 25 that you're 7 going to use on Number 2, how many of those have got hot 8 operational experience on 17 9 MR. KINSEY: What we did is, we went through and 10 we split up the experience between Unit 1 and Unit 2, so 11 that we have at least one person on each shift on Unit 2, 12 with experience from Unit 1. In some cases, there's more. ~$ 13 COMMISSIONER CARR: So, one per shift, or maybe 14 two." 15 MR. KINSEY: At least, right. 16 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Your degree program, tell us a 17 little bit more about that, and how you think it's going. 23 You mentioned it briefly in your remarks.

9 MR.

GOLDBERG: We initially started with 40 20 candidates in September of last year. Since the program 21

started, we have lost four of the students.

The "2 particular program is not sanctioned by ABET, but it is a 23 five-year program -- rg 24 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Who's paying for it? G2 25 MR. GOLDBERG: Houston Lighting and Power (202)234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS & COMPANY, INC. (202)232-6600 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N.W., WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005

38 'l 1 Company. When a student completes the program, he'll.get. T 1 2 a degree in nuclear science, a Bachelor of Science. We do 3 intend to have another group starting this September and 4 it'would be anoth'er 40, and once we get the.second group 5 going, we're going to evaluate whether or not we have the 6 capacity to get a third group started. 7 I think this first' year is going to prove to be 8 perhaps the toughest because the people are werking, you 9 know, long hours on the plant, but we are doing everything 10 that we can to encourage people to -- 11 CHAIRMAN ZECH: The first year is the toughest, 12 I can assure you of that, for lots of reasons -- people 13 are.very busy with the plant and so forth, but also it's 14 been my experience that lots of people sign up for it, but 15 then when they find out it's going to be a lot of hard 16 work, come of them drop by the wayside. 17 I would suggest that management do what they can 18 to encourage people to stay in that program, and you do 19 what you can to make it as easy for them as you can 20 because, recognizing they do have a lot of work, shift l 21

work, and it's difficult, but I would encourage you to 22 give them the support that you can to keep that program

.i 23 going because the first year is kind of crucial in getting g 24 it started, it's been my experience, so, I'd encourage you 0 25 to do that. (202)234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS & COMPANY, INC. (202)232-6600 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N.W., WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005

39 <y 1 COMMISSIONER CARR: How many years-does-it take n. 2 'a guy'in that program to:get a degree? ~~~ 3 MR. GOLDBERG: Five. 4 COMMISSIONER CARR: Five years. So, our- ~5 proposed four years won't hack it then. 6 MR. VAUGHN: It would be a'little tight. In our-7 program r'ight - now, we have 11 of our licensed people in 8 operations'..Of'the 40, 11 of them are licensed people. 9 COMMISSIONER CARR: But not through that program 10-yet. 11 MR. VAUGHN: No, sir, - they are in the' early-12 stage of it, so the proposed rule would be very tight.from M 13 a timing standpoint,.for us. 14 CHAIRMAN ZECH: ' Well, I encourage you to 15 continue it, and watch it closely, and give it your 16 support because it needs that-in order to succeed. 17 I did notice in your prepared remarks, you've 18 mentioned a preventive maintenance goal of 60 percent, and 19 you're already ettaining an average preventive 20 maintenance goal of 40 percent. I commend you for that. .21 It's important, it's very good, it's a fine way to start. 22 I fully appreciate how difficult that is, and I 23 know that the tendency is to go towards corrective 24-maintenance alone but, if you don't go towards some x.h 25 preventive maintenance, in my judgment, you're making a (202)234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS & COMPANY, INC. (202)232-6600 .-m -om a mamma m o ma mmemmmm m e eaans

40, a 1 big l mistake. It's'in your best interest and the-interest

h.,J:.

2 of' safety, reliability' and efficiency of plant'. 'It just 3

makes~ ~ good common -sense,.not only from a regulator l-4 standpoint, but I would certainly think. from the utility

'S standpoint. 6. So, -I commend you for getting of f to a good 7 -start in.that maintenance program, and would ask you to-- '8 certainly, recommend that.you continue that' emphasis. .9 As' ' I recall, the recent.SALP report that I saw 10 showed indication of considerable improvement in the 11 security area. Could you talk about that f'or just -- very. 12 briefly. )- 13 MR. GOLDBERG: All right. Gerald, would you 14 like'to cover it? 15 MR. VAUGHN: I think the improvements in 16 security -- of course, a lot of it resulted from security 17 . guards gaining experience on. Unit 1 and just expanding to 18 Unit 2. 19 We have upgraded hardware that was a problem on 20 Unit 1,- and' we took our security training program and 21 applied -- while it's not in the accreditation briefing of 22 industry programs for accreditation, we applied the same 23 principles for the systematic approach to training, to the 6 24 security training program, and revamped that early while D 25 we were working hard on Unit 1, and it serves as well, I 1 (202)234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS & COMPANY, INC. (202)232-6600 cm awamo ocoawa a -mm w a mamwownanw a a anaam

y f>,.. 41 A:- 1: "

1 think,.in training'our new' security guards.

[C. ' W~ 2 So, i t ' s '. a-combination -of just ~ gaining- .3 experience, improving our equipment and, finally, it takes-4 a.while for'all of your employees _in~the plant, who_really 5' make,up your security program, to just be complying with L 6 it as 100 percent 'a s you need. So, those -are the-7 improvements. l 1, 8 CHAIRMAN ZECH: You ' re -gaining ' experience.. and ' '9 youre.getting better -- {' ~ 10 MR. VAUGHN: Yes, sir. 11 CHAIRMAN ZECH: -- and you think that's shown?. 12 Well, it looke'like it has. ra gg = 13 Commissioner Rogers? - 14 ' COMMISSIONER ROGERS: What's your experien'ce'- 15 _. with your fitness for duty program, all aspects of it, 16 alcohol'as well as illegal substances? 17 MR. GOLDBERG: Right now, o u r. random testing, '18 which we're testing approximately 30 employees a day, 19 -we've had a reject rate -- it's about a little over .6 of 20 1 percent. 21 With respect to candidates for employment where 22 there's a pre-employment screen, the rejr,ct rate has been-23 running over 2 percent, a little over 2 percent. 24 Our program is very unforgiving. Employees are s 25 advised' up front that we have a program. They have a (202)234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS & COMPANY, INC. (202)232-6600 m ene amamm a 00 oma ow-wm m = waameenaam a a anana

l 42 1 career decision to make. If they have a drug problem, .*). v: 2 they have to come forward voluntarily and ask for 3 assistance, and we will provide rehabilitation. 4 Alternatively, if they are tested positive, 5 there is no second chance; it is a termination. 6 COMMISSIONER ROGERS: What about alcohol? 7 MR. GOLDBERG: Same for alcohol. 8 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Let me just comment on the same 9 subject. As I recall, I was impressed by the Houston 10 Lighting and Power Company's aggressive fitness for duty 11 program even before the commission went to, or was even 12 considering going to a rule. During the time we had a .e. !$7 13 policy in effect, as I recall, your organization was doing 14 an eicellent job in the fitness for duty program. I think 15 I remember that when I visited your plant, and commented 16 on that. 17 As I recall, too, it was my impression that that 18 program, that strong program you had, fitness for duty, 19 did create an atmosphere of professionalism in your 20 organization, which I thought was contributing overall to 21 strong safety culture, if you will. It was a good, tough 22 program I thought -- I'm pretty sure I remember it 23 correctly -- and I would hope that you will continue that. r: 24 It would be my judgment that when our rule does O) 25 go in place, you're probably already doing what you have (202)234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS & COMPANY, INC. (202)232-6600 L amac cmmma a co a nom a manma e oo oou m m o nom a m m m n annam

.a p i

43

s ) 1 ' t o' do..- LI think you might hove. Lmentioned. that in your ) 3' j Q '2 ' remarks but, if you didn't,- it would certainly.. be my-hu, -3 understanding.that you:have done certainly, you've got 4

a. good start-in that' regard, andoI would commend you.to 5'

keep'it up, and I do think it helps to contribute to. the ~6-Professionalism of your organization..Well,-let me just offer a challenge to you, and 8 a - caution to you, again;- that.if we do authorize this 9 plant.to go to ' f ull' power, that your real. big challenge, 110 again, is-the transition'from construction to operations. 11 Now,_you've had some experience in Unit 1. You 12 have had a few' bumps, as you point out, but.you've learned 13 a lot,-I L thitik, f rom that,.in all areas, as far as I.can d ~ understand; in : reviewing your. program, but, again, now, 14 15 you've got another challenge _ and, .yes,- you have learne 3 16 f rom Unit 1, but-you've still got another baby that's 17 about'to be born, and it's different when it is born than 18 when it is unborn. 19 The plant you have now is.still to be proven, 20 and'the transition stage, from construction to operation, 21 is a very real challenge to every utility in the country, 22 and.it will be a challenge to you because you'll have two 23 to worry about now, perhaps, instead of one. 24 So, I would say, continue the lessons you've q uJ 25 learned from Unit 1, apply them vigorously to Unit 2, and (202)234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS & COMPANY, INC. (202)232-6600 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N.W., WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005

n.. 44 3.-- i. 1 do'n't be complacent. Don't'be over-confident. You're not /%: E) 2 .there~yet. 3 And,- so, take 'a conservative, careful approach '4 'to;the. transition period, from construction.to operations. 5 It 's .very : important that you' convey that to all your 6 people, 'and those.of you experienced.in it and the other 7 operational people experienced in it understand that 8 difficulty of. going from construction to operations', and-9 -it's something that experience is the greatest supporter 10 in that-area,.but it's very real. l'1 So, I would challenge you to do-the best job you 12 can there, and watch it carefully; be-conservative, be tj-13 careful, be cautious, and be safety-minded a l l' t h e. way 14 throu~gh. 15 Any other questions? 16 COMMISSIONER' ROBERTS: A quick question. 17 Refresh my memory, when did you go down there? You came 18 from Stone and Webster? 19 MR. GOLDBERG: That's right, Commissioner. 20 COMMISSIONER ROBERTS: When? 21 MR. GOLDBERG: In October of 1980. l 22 COMMISSIONER ROBERTS: October, '80? ( 23 MR. GOLDBERG: Yes, sir. ~ 24 COMMISSIONER ROBERTS: Thank you. 53 G/ 25 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Any other questions, comments? (202)234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS & COMPANY, INC. (202)232-6600 coa. -m-emocom mmemo mm me mmemmmm m a aaam i

l T g .45 l 1 (No response.) 1H-2 All right. Thank you very much, gentlemen. 3 We'll call on the NRC staff now, please. 4 (Whereupon', the Houston Lighting and Power 5 Company representatives left the table and the NRC staff 6 came forward and were seated.) 7 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Mr. Stello, you may proceed. 8 MR. STELLO: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'D. ask 9 Jim Sniezek to introduce the main members of the staff in 10 a moment. I wanted to make two points, first. One is 11 that we are satisfied with the status of the plant. We're 12 satisfied they meet all of our regulations and, with the 13 Commission's concurrence, we are now prepared to issue 14 full' power license to the South Texas, Unit 2 project. 15 The second point deals with -- we will, in the 16 briefing, show you the results of the startup of Unit 1, 17 and I think I listened carefully as you presented a 18 challenge to the licensee and, as I look at their chart, 19 what I would like to see is perhaps the second unit, as it 20 starts up, to do what we have seen other projects 21 worldwide do, and that's maybe go to an absolute perfect 22 startup, perhaps a goal of zero SCRAMS. They did quite 23 well in Unit 1, and I think they ought to set themselves 24 some targets that are better. 25 I would conclude by suggesting that this is a (202)234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS & COMPANY, INC. (202)232-6600 aame m mmm a m a nm a mmmoa m o ma amommm. m m anaam

w. -46 l i to learn the lessons, as you will l1 1 . utility that.'has seemed 4:p '2 'see from the data we will present, and they have done that 3 'and'done that well,' an'd we are pleased with-that kind'of 4 ~ approach. L 5 We will summarize a' number of issues that - we 1 6' think is important to get through, and I'll ask Jim to 7 make some brief introductory remarks and introduce the 8 others at the table. t 9 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Thank you v'ery much. Mr. 10 Sniezek, you may proceed. l 11 -MR. SNIEZEK: Good ' af ternoon, Mr.

Chairman, 12 Commissioners.

,[T 13 We-are here today to discuss with the Commission 14 the ' actions the staff has taken to arrive at.our 15 conclusion that South Texas, Unit 2 has been constructed 16 in accordance with the commission's regulations and will 17 be' operated safely. 18 With me at the table today, on my right, is 19 George Dick, the Project Manager for South Texas. On the -20 right of Mr. Stello is Bob Martin, the Regional 21 Administrator of Region IV, and on his right is Jose g 22 Calvo, the Project Director for South Texas. 23' Also with us today are various members of the ~ 1 24

staff, who had a key role in performing the licensing 4

cf 25 reviews and inspections at South Texas, including the (202)234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS & COMPANY, INC. (202)232-6600 come mmm m e m m am a memm m - ma mmemomm m m momma

47 1 1 senior resident inspectors at South Texas, Unit 1 and Unit 1

• ~~

2 2. They are also with us today. 3 George Dick will brief the Commission on the 4 licensing aspects of Unit 2, and Bob Martin will brief the 5 Commission on the construction and operations aspects of 6 Unit 2. 7 Before we start, I'd like to mention two matters 8 of interest, which ha~ve come up within the past two weeks. 9 One of them was mentioned by Commissioner Rogers. We have 10 recently received copies of allegations to the Texas 11 Public Utilities Commission, concerning plant 12 . construction, operations and plant management practices. 13 Mr. Martin will discuss the results of our review of those 14 issue's during his briefing. 15 The second item concerns questions raised 16 regarding the South Texas atmospheric steam dump valves, 17 which were brought about by a problem which occurred at 18 another operating unit. Mr. Dick will cover this matter 19 in his briefing. Both issues have been resolved to the 20 satisfaction of the staff. 21 I would like now to turn the briefing over to 22 Mr. Dick. George? { 23 MR. DICK: Thank you, sir. 24 A lot of the material that I have.for the first j w:- l 25 part of the briefing was covered by the licensee, so I (202)234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS & COMPANY, INC. (202)232-6600 eone comma momom a wen-m o o wa-owsmaw a a eaans

m-- 48

,s,

L1 'will.go'through the' slides quickly. Let me have: slide.2, ~ ,s 2' please. '(Slide) Slide 2 just presents.. the outline of - 3 .what-we will be-covering today. 4 Sli'de 3, please. (Slide) The one point I'd 5 likesto make on this slide-is that in addition t!o being f 6 the operator and part owner, there are'three other' owners 7 Lof-South _ Texas project, both' units. 8 Slide-4,- please. (Slide). The plant 'i s-; a 9-Westinghouse'e-PWR, RESAR 41, and I'll say a[little bit more' p 10 about that in a f ew -minutes. Just from.'an historical 11 point.of view, ~ ' originally, the architect engineer was -12 Brown and Root,_ as-well as being the. constructor. That: h 13 was until 1981. ' Af ter 19 81, then Bechtel became. the 14 'archi'tect en'gineer and EBASCO was the constructor. 15 COMMISSIONER ROBERTS : Did those two things 16 _ happen _ simultaneously? 17 MR. DICK: Very close

together, sir.

I t' 18 happened in the '81-82 time frame. 19 Slide 5, please. (Slide) As I mentioned 20 earlier, South Texas, Units 1 and 2 are the Westinghouse -21 RESAR 41 design. These two units are the only two units 22 of their design operating, or will be operating in the 23 United States. Unique characteristics of them -- they are c6 24 four-loop, three train systems. They have 14-foot cores, d.d i 25 and each unit is capable of a rated power of 3800 (202)234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS & COMPANY, INC. (202)232-6600 l

m (,_.; 49 ,'b 1 imegawatts-thermal. ?, (Slide) -This slide'just has -2 Slide.6, please. 3 ' key _. dates in the Unit 2' licensing milestones. The two' I 4 want'to mention in particular is this past December they 5 did receive the low power license on Unit-2. 'and, as was 6 mentioned earlier, they did' achieve. initial criticality on 7 March the'12th. 8 Slide 7, please. (Slide) With the license, we - 9 are issuing three exemptions. The first two ~ exemptions,. 10 Appendix J air lock testing and the criticality monitoring. 11 system are ones that are technical _ exemptions which. hade 12 been issued on.a number of plants, including.these two. W i 4 .r The decommissioning. planning rule is a scheduled ~ 13 14 exemption, and what that-will do will permit Unit 2 to-15 -submit its decommissioning plan at the same. time it 16 submits-a plan for Unit 1, which will be in July of 1990, 17 and July of 1990 is the date for all operating reactors. 18 Slide 8, please. (Slide) The items mentioned 19 on this slide have all been covered, to various degrees, 20 by Houston Lighting _ and Power, so I won't,go into them 21 individually. I will say that the staff has followed and 22 reviewed the actions of the licensee, and we-concur with 23 their findings. b 24 The one item I do want to mention that isn't on u -. and Mr. Sniezek mentioned it earlier - - - is the 25 here (202)234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS & COMPANY, INC. (202)232-6600 -c m -a e m u um n ommm m a wa memmau a s eaaas

50 1 atmospheric dump valve. This came up as a -- was brought l-o. 2 forward from a problem at one of the other units. It is-3 relevant to South Texas because the vendor that makes the 4 valves is the same in both cases. 5 We have looked into it and have-concluded that 6 the valves are of romewhat improved design. They are 7 smaller, which would prevent the problems that occurred at 8 the.other units, and. they have a different type of 9 actuator, and we feel confident that were they called upon 10 to function, that they would do so. 1 11 And with that, I'll turn it over to Mr. Martin. I 12 CHAfRMAN ZECH: Thank you' very much. Mr. ) 13 Martin, welcome; you may proceed. 14 MR. MARTIN: Thank you. Could I have slide 9, 1 15 please. (Slide) As noted, this is a very rough, quick l 16 review of some key milestones relative to the 17 construction. The permit was issued originally in 1975. 18 In response to Commissioner Roberts' question, 19 vhile I was not in Region IV at the time, my memory was 20 that the essential features were that Brown and Root was 21 replaced as the architect engineer. 22 There was a period of time at which they were i 23 going to be retained as the constructor, and they chose { 24 not to remain -- that is my understanding -- chose not to O' 25 remain in that role, and subsequently were replaced by i (202)234-4433 UEAL R. GROSS & COMPANY, INC. (202)232-6600 i aama comma a m o a nom comamoa m m mammonom m e m m ammma

l 51 -1 EBASCO. 'So, they were close. on,.but not simultaneous l2 -exchanges. '3 The inspection staff hours are identified there I this. plant, as all plants in the 4 as only. being. 15 co'nstruction-startup phase receive a magnitude of 6 inspection of this kind. 7 Two unique issues that are continuing. to be 8 reviewed, ar have been reviewed by us. A few-years back, 9 you may recall, there was a litigation between HL&P and 10 ' Brown and Root, which offered the potential of. perhaps 11 during the discovery process, producing technical 12 inforiaation. A separate review process was proposed by. ~~F r .13 .HL&P to technically review that in an independent fashion. .14 We certainly acknowledged that as a good idea, an'd we 15 monitored that process. - So, there is. litigation also now 16 going on between '-- 17. COMMISSIONER ROBERTS: Ongoing? 18 MR. MARTIN: We used that process for the Brown 19 and Root. Ongoing right'now is another litigation between 20 the operator of the plant and one of the other owners of 21 Lne.'acility. At the present time, this same litigation -22 review process is being followed relative to information 23 being brought out during that p. 24 So, we are confident that on an ongoing basis, D '25 any safety information would rapidly receive (202)234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS & COMPANY, INC. (202)232-6600 aeae comma o m a nm o wouwm o enneomaamm a a aanam

52 1 identification to-us and technical review. g ? 2 J. 2 The operator -- the next' slide, slide 1 0,- 3 please. (Slide) .This slide addresses operator staffing. 4 .I believe the. licensee has probably -- presumably,. has 5 answered the full spectrum of your questions. that you 6 raised there, so I won't linger'on this area. 7 I think, however, with regard to the operational' 8 experience, some insights that we had in looking'at the 9 startup of Unit 1 -- and albeit while this ' meeting. is 10 clearly.for authorization for Unit 2, we draw heavily on 11 our observations of the management staff performance on 12 Unit 1. Wi, aft - 13 In the main, our overall assessment is'that.ther '14 have 'shown above average performance, on the startup of 15 Unit 1. When compared to recent plants at this power 16 level and size starting up, that in many factors they'have 17 done as well as the average and better than'the average in 18 certain areas. 19 So, I think, overall, our basic assessment is, 20 they are doing better than average for recent plant 21 performance. l 22 More important to us, from certain respects, is l 23 their ability to.do critical self-assessments. They have rh.. 24 been on Unit 1, challenged a few times with some rather ra 1 25 dramatic technical challenges -- the turbine fire, the l (202)234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS & COMPANY, INC. (202)232-6600 cm mmm a a co n nm n eanma w. .mncoommame m m naamm

x 53

9 i

1 ' turbine hydrogen fire, the. destructive' failure of-the main it."

1. ~

2 . feed pump'-- and the quality of their engineering' work and 3 their ability'to-get on tiop of-those problems,- scope the 4 . issues', and~then bring:them' to-resolution,~we considerIto .5 .be above the norm that we have seen in'most of the-plants: 6 that we deal with. So, we find that.a strong performance 7 factor for this utility. 8 Their' willingness to learn from' errors, I.think, 9 'goes along with that. We basically. find that we believe 10 -there's been'a good transfer of technology between Unit'1'. 11 .to Unit 2, and we believe iti's - being. reflected in the 12. operational experience thus far. ikh 13 Could I have' slide 11, please. (Slide) Now,.in 14 prepiring and ' trying to assess their readiness for 15 operation, in addition to the usual implementation of the f 16 inspection program, we had a series of L inspection 17 activities which were primarily focused toward their 18 readiness for operation. 19 In addition, there was an EOP inspection team. 20 If you recall, I believe you have been briefed on this 21 program separately. There is a program underway, to look 22 at all plants, at emergency operating procedures. Such a j. 23 team also went to the South Texas facility, which gave us 1 24 another dimension of readiness. Cl 25 In a number of the areas that you have already (202)234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS & COMPANY, INC. (202)232-6600

f 54 1 ~ discussed with the ' licensee, relative to. the procedures q 2 'and" procedural deficiencies which were iden.tified by-these' 3 inspections and in the.SALP report, while we did identify l .l) 4 a numb'er of areas -- and I do not want to minimize them as 1 '5 not being important because they certainly.are -- however,. 6 I think it perhaps.is. helpful'to characterize 'that teams. 7 doing these kinds of inspections, the findings.we had in 8 . South. Texas with regard to EOPs were not dissimilar from I 9 the spectrum findings that we had found at other' i 10 operating plani 11 This was perhaps the best ' prepared EOP 12 inspections, the use of these teams by the agency, over ] bh l g,7 13' the last year. It's probably the best EOP inspections. .14 that'have ever been done in the last ten years. So, we 15 - had - an ability to find flaws that we had not had in 16 previous years. 17 Therefore, the findings at South Texas - are not, I 18 while they are there and very real and have to be dealt. 19 with, we had a scope of findings similar to at other 20 operating plants. That is offered only as a matter of 21 perspective. =22 In general, we found their operational readiness 23

good, and as I believe we mentioned in your briefing p.g

-24 material that was developed, their professionalism on Unit V 25 2 high, and their performance high. So, we think they are (202)234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS & COMPANY, INC. (202)232-6600 1 1 - m ma - o m a m c omemm o e me - wnmaw e e aaaam

.s. -55' v 1 a strong operating' group.. 2 May I see slide 12, please. (Slide) This slide 3 refers to a few brief bullets on our low power operations 4 evaluation. Basically, they have gone -through fuel 5 loading, ' initial criticality, and ~ startup for low power 6 testing in a smooth fashion. They've had a few problems. l 1 7 that they.have dealt with, clearly, far smoother, not j 8 hurried but. in a nice,

smooth, orderly fashion.

9 Basically, we think this, more than anything. else,.has: l 'l 10 . demonstrated to us their ability to learn the lessons from 11 Unit 1, for the startup and operational phases, and apply .12 them to Unit 2. y 13 Could I have slide 13, please. (Slide) This 'merely shows for a selected aspect, which ~ is the 14 one 15 unplanned reactor SCRAMS, the performance of Unit 1, 16 relative to other plants. Unit -- perhaps on your slide 17 . package.you'll be able to see it more readily than you can 18 on the ' screen but, basically, for the unplanned SCRAMS, 19 they are amongst the lowest lines demonstrated on the 20 chart. So this is compared to other units in startup i 21 since they started criticality. So, in general, their l 22 performance seems good. 23 There are other parameters that the agency has 24 studied on these plants in startup, which are published, I i 25 believe, in the NUREG -- I believe someone may know which (202)234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS & COMPANY, INC. (202)232-6600

f ;i at '[ 56-l ~1 the NUREG number is but~, in.any event, there is a NUREG-- ~ I5h - 2 publishes,this: data. -3 Now, in some of those - other -comparisons, ~ South '4 Texas doesLnot look as good, but it certainly=is never the 5 outlier in terms of poor performance. It is either.within f' -6 the bulk average or is in - the lower portion. So, in '7 general, it's been a good startup. 8 CHAIRMAN ZECH: The lower portion, you mean the 9 better performer? 10 MR. MARTIN: The better performer, yes'. 11 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Thank you. 12 MR. MARTIN: -I'm sorry

yes, that'

[ 13 classification is worthwhile. 14 Could I see slide 14, please. (Slide) We did, 15-in fact, just complete the SALP process. The staff 16 completed the SALP process-up through December 31 of '88, 17 so this data is an assessment of the performance of the 18 facility against the SALP criterion and, basically, they, 19 I would say, for a new plant, are demonstrating a good 20 performance. 21 There are a number of problems. They've already 22 been discussed previously. I think several of the 23 Commissioners, or a few of the Commissioners, did raise 24 some questions from things in the SALP report, and those p$0: 25 were -- in fact, the items that were pursued were the very (202)234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS & COMPANY, INC. (202)232-6600 I

= _ _ _ _ 57 -1 on'es lthat I had originally' intended to highlight to..you, 2 so I: don't'see a,need to go through them-again. 3 Based on all of this, I fully expect -- as Mr. L4 Stelles mentioned almost as a challenge to them,. I fully -5 expect the startup of Unit 2 overall, to full power, 6 should go much more smoothly than Unit 1 went. 7 If I may,.let me now spend just a moment on;the 8 allegations that Mr. Sniezek mentioned that I would come 9 to discuss those. We did, on receipt of the allegations, -10 set a team together to.look at the information. 11 We have looked at the concerns that had been 12 identified by the alleger. Almost without exception, all 13 of those issues were known to us to one degree or another. 14 We have, in those few cases where they were not well known 15 to us, done further field inspection to satisfy.ourselves 16 that they do not present a picture or a perspective about 17 that licensee that causes us to fundamentally change our 18 view of.the licensee or the readiness of this plant to j 19 operate. 20 We have identified a few issues which we will '21 continue 'to follow-up, by using some of the-information 22 that will be developed by the licensee in their follow-up 23 of the issues. We are doing that only because that will 24 broaden our base, and we are currently confident, and I G. 25 think that will just add to our confidence. 1 I (202)234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS & COMPANY, INC. (202)232-6600

58 1 In addition to that, we have discussed with the .A. 2 alleger whether or not that information that's contained 3 in the letter he wrote is the totality of his information, 4 and whether or not he~had other concerns about safety, and 5 he has indicated that that is the totality of his 6 concerns. His concerns were more budget-oriented than. 7 they were safety-oriented, and'he had no other additional 8 information to review. 9 We are confident there is either no' change in 10 perspective or change in confidence in the ability of this 11 plant to startup, warranted by the information that was 12 provided to the Texas PUC and subsequently to us and HL&P. 13 With that, I basically come to the final slide, 14 which' Mr. Stello has already summarized. 15 MR. STELLO: We're through, Mr. Chairman, and 16 our conclusion is as stated on the slide. 17 CHAIRMAN ZECH: All right. Why don't you state 18 it for us? 19 MR. STELLO: Well, I already did. I'll do it 20 again. 21 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Do it again. 22 MR. STELLO: The staff is, in fact, now prepared l 23 to issue the full power license, if the Commission L 24 concurs. It is our view that they meet the regulations 25 and are ready to operate Unit 2 at full power. (202)234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS & COMPANY, IUC. (202)232-6600

59 ? .}' 1 CHAIRMAN ZECH: All right. Thank you very/much,; 3 nc. g36g-0 2 Q u e's t i'o n s, comments.. f r o m. m y fell'ow 4 ~3 .. Commissioners? Commissioner. Roberts? 4 COMMISSIONER ROBERTS: No. w 5 CHAIRMAN ZECH: -Commissioner Carr?. 6 COMMISSIONER CARR: 'It seemed to me in one of '7 ,the wider; inspections there,.When we turned up the' 8 labeling and. procedure prints ~ and installed ~in ' equipment '9 matching problems, that that's very important for'a plant 10 ithat's new,- inexperienced operators, and if.the prints and 11 the. labels. don' t match, it's going to cause them 'some-12 ' problems. Are th'ey going to'fix that?. 13 MR. MARTIN: The answer to that is, yes..We've si already - - 14 15 COMMISSIONER CARR: Is it already fixed? 16 MR. MARTIN: Not in its entirety. Let me ask-- .17 ' Jim, were you able to - -this is' Jim Milhoan, my Division-18 Director for Reactor Safety. If he could address that 19 issue.--- 20 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Step to the microphone and '21 identify yourself, please, to the-Reporter. -22 MR. MILHOAN: Jim Milhoan, Di*.ector, Division 23 for Reactor Safety in. Region. IV. At the time of that 24 inspection, we sat down with HL&P and discussed the 25 deficiencies with them. (202)234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS & COMPANY, INC. (202)232-6600 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, H.W.,'UASHINGTON, D.C. 20005 f. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _. _ _ _ _ ___ _ _ __ _ __ __ __ _ __ _ ___ a

1 ( 60 c 1 I might say that! we --looked at t h e.- p r o c e d u r e s m 2 from the standpoint: o f-those deficiencies, were 3 .significant, but also with the. walk-throughs and the 4 experience that we.had of exercising the operators on' 5 those procedures, we found that the state-of the training 6 of the'operat' ors was such that they could carry out those 7 procedures: reasonably well, in a satisfactory manner, even 8 given the labeling mistakes. 9 We have discussed the labeling problems. with' 10 South Texas. .They are in the process of correcting the 11' procedures to reflect the labels in the field. ~They have 12 not completed.that process as yet. ') 13 COMMISSIONER CARR: In addition,- while you're 1 14 there, the' March '89 Operational' Readiness Assessment Team 15 ,gave us a promissory note that-Region IV would confirm the 16 resolution, and correction of'those issues would be sought ' 17-before:this briefing. Has that all been accomplished? 18 MR. MILHOAN: I'm not aware of the ' statement. 1 -19 you're reading in the report, but we have conducted a 20 recent operational readiness inspection of Unit 2, and 4 T.1 that team came to the conclusion that they were ready for J 22 operation, from the result of the latest operational ) 23 readiness inspection. 24 COMMISSIONER CARR: Thank you. ) 25 CHAIRMAN.ZECH: Commissioner Rogers? f (202)234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS & COMPANY, INC. (202)232-6600 9%2% emnare T et. Ann Avnutm. w_u. mAnsvuavaw. a _ c' _ 20068

i 61 1 COMMISSIONER ROGERS: Just that these ~ 2 exemptions, these three exemptions that were granted, to 3 what extent are they really a result of shortcomings in 4 our own regulations, and to what extent are they things 5 that are minor that the licensee will correct in the 6 future? 7 MR. STELLO: The first two are clearly 3 shortcomings in the regulations. We have changes to fix 9 that. Second is an issue that we think makes sense -- 10 CHAIRMAN ZECH: The third one you mean. 11 MR. STELLO: I mean the third one -- excuse me 12 -- to combine the two plant 5 and get the answer to the 13 decommissioning issue which is due in July 1990, be 14 brought together rather than separate. We think that's 15 the proper thing to do, and have given an exemption for 16 that purpose. So, the first two, I think, are our own 17 problems, and the third, it could go either way, but our 18 view is that that's the better way to do it. 19 COMMISSIONER ROGERS: Well, it's just nice to 20 try to get some of those things cleared up so that the 21 record with regard to the application doesn't show that an 22 exemption was granted when it really is something that, in 23 a sense, is irrelevant to the particular licensing action, j 24 and it just -- it's a little fly in the ointment that G 25 doesn't perhaps have to be there. We'll have to get those (202)234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS & COMPANY, INC. (202)232-6600

62 1 out cf the way. ~ ch 2 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Commissioner Curtiss? 3 COMMISSIONER CURTISS: Sust two quick questions. 4

First, has this facility met all the post-TMI 5

modifications? 6 MR. MARTIN: Yes, they have met all the post-TMI 7 modifications. 8 COMMISSIONER CURTISS: Second question, on the 9 simulator ' issue which we talked about earlier., the SALP 10 was rather critical of the simulator tests as late as 11 November. You've heard the utility talk about the changes 12 that they have made. Have we had an opportunity to .13 examine the changes that have been implemented, and what 14 will the earliest opportunity be to look at the June 15 modifications? 16 MR. MARTIN: Let me,

again, ask Jim Milhoan 17 because the operator licensing and simulator assessments 18 are really done through his division.

Jim? 19 MR. MILHOAN: Jim Milhoan, again, Region IV. We 20 have been informed by the utility that those disks have l 21 been installed. Our next opportunity to look at it is on 22 the re-examination of the operators that failed the 23 November exam. That should be next week. If scheduling 24 is accomplished as we think it will be, there will be ,,b 25 another examination class, I believe it's in August of (202)234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS & COMPANY, INC. (202)232-6600 a s2s annan mann Avemm. n u uAsurnamon. nc-noeos

63 1 this year, but I'll have to check that exam schedule. I '2 think it's in August of this year, but the earliest 3 opportunity we will go in and look at that. ~ 4 We've also requested in the examination report, 5 a formal response from HL&P, on each one of the simulator 6 deficiencies that were noted in our exam report, and we 7 will be following up on that. 8 CHAIRMAN ZECH:.Let me just say, I would like to 9 comment on Mr. Martin's review of the South Texas, Unit 2 10 plant. He mentioned the professionalism he sees there at 11 Houston Light and Power Company, and I think that's very 12 important for a relatively new utility, to get those kind >w 13 of comments this early in the stage. ~ 14 I do think -- from my personal observation down 15 there, I think they are deserved. Performance, obviously, 16 is good, and, Mr. Martin, I appreciate your own personal 17 observations there, and your people in Region IV, and your 18 comment about a strong operating organization. 19 Those are the kind of things that do give the 20 Commission confidence, and I would commend the Houston l 21 Light and Power Company. Those kind of comments don't 1 22 come from the regional administrators or from our senior l l 23 staff, to this Commission, very lightly. 24 I would ask you to certainly take those thoughts e 25 back with you, and although you certainly would appear to (202)234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS & COMPAUY, INC. (202)232-6600 l

64 1 deserve them, I would think that it would make it even j 2 more challenging for you to continue to deserve that kind those kind of high performance marks that you're l 3 of 4 getting, and your emphasis on professionalism across-the-5 board. So, I think those are things that you should 6 certainly

cherish, but you should not be,

again, 7

complacent or over-confident. 8 I think it gives you even more of a challenge to 9 show by your results now, that those comments were truly 10 deserved. So, you have even more of a challenge to show 11 us that it's not just the impression that our people have 12 of you, but it's your performance that merits that kind of 13 judgment, but, Mr. Martin, I appreciate those thoughts. I 14 know you and your people have done a fine job in reviewing 15 the South Texas, Units 1 and 2, and I commend, Mr. Stello, 16 you and your staff that have also been involved so heavily 17 in this Houston Light and Power Company important program. 18

Well, if I

could summarize

then, it's my 19 understanding that the staff has concluded that Houston 20 Lighting and Power Company and South Texa's Project, Unit 2 21 does satisfy the requirements for issuance of a full power 22 license.

23 Unless there are additional questions or 24

comments, I'd ask my fellow Commissioners if they are 25 prepared to vote at this time.

If so, all those in favor (202)234-4433 UEAL R. GROSS & COMPANY, INC. (202)232-6600 1323 RHODE ISLATID AVEtiUE, II. W., WASHINGTOM, D.C. 20005

N 65 1 of authorizing the staff, after making the appropriate '~ 2 findings, to grant Houston Lighting and Power Company a 3 full power operating license for South Texas Project, Unit l 4 2, please signify by ~aying aye. s 5 (Chorus of eyes.) 6 CHAIRMAN ZECH: Those opposed? 7 (No response.) 8 The vote is five to zero in favor. We stand 9 adjourned. 10 (Whereupon, at 3:25 p.m., the meeting was 11 adjourned.) 12 "1 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 J 25 (202)234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS & COMPANY, IITC. (202)232-6600 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N.W., WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005

m.- i CERTIFICATE OF TRANSCRIBER %.y This is to certify.that the attached events of a meeting of the United States ~ Nuclear Regulatory Commission entitled: TITLE OF MEETING: DISCUSSION /POSSIBLE. VOTE ON FULL POWER OPERATING LICENSE FOR SOUTH TEXAS, UNIT 2 l PLACE OF MEETING: ROCKVILLE, MARYLAND DATE OF MEETING: MARCH 28, 1989 were transcribed by me. I further certify that said transcription is' accurate and complete, to the best of my ability, and that the transcript is a true and accurate re, cord of the foregoing events. hki "Ll%.s.. G' g. V bl' Reporter's name: PHYLLIS YOUNG / -1 f.};y O NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANf 3fBER5 1323 RHODE 13t*ND AVENUE, N.W. (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005 (202) 232-6600

~' 3/28/89-SCHEDULING NOTES TITLE: DISCUSSION /POSSIBLE VOTE 'ON FULL POWER OPERATIllG LICENSE c-FOR: SOUTH TEXAS, UNIT 2-l SCHEDULED': 2:00 P.M.,.. TUESDAY,-MARCH 28, 1989-(OPEN)- DURATION: . APPROX 1-1/2' HRS PARTICIPANTS:- H0liSTON LIGHT 114G ' AND POWEP COMPANY (LICENSEE) 30 MINS- --DON D', JORDAN CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER - JEROME H. GOLDBERG GROUP VICE PRESIDENT,. NUCLEAR - GERALD VAUGHN VICE PRESIDENT, NUCLEAR OPERATIONS - WARREN H. KINSEY, PLANT MANAGER NRC 20 MINS - T. MURLEY, DIRECTOR, NRR - G. DICK, PROJECT MANAGER - R. MARTIN, ADMINISTRATOR, REGION IV 1' L L

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-i l c rs COMMISSION BRIEFING ON SOUTH TEXAS PROJECT, UNIT 2 FULL-POWER LICENSE MARCH 28, 1989 G i i

n:7, g ;. -., 1 c OUTLINE

• BACKGROUND PLANT DESIGN
• LICENSING MILESTONES EXEMPTIONS
• RECENT ISSUES IDENTIFIED AND CORRECTED CONSTRUCTION OPERATION
• SALP STAFF CONCLUSION l

[ ~ L. p BACKGC0!!ND. ~ * - OWNERS HOUSTON LIGHTING 8 POWER COMPANY (HL8P) CITY PUBLIC SERVICE BOARD OF SAN ANTONIO CENTRAL POWER AND LIGHT CITY OF AUSTIN, TEXAS OPERATOR HL8P LOCATION. 2 UNIT SITE IN MATAGORDA COUNTY, TEXAS 89 MILES SOUTHWEST OF HOUSTON 12 MILES FROM BAY CITY

• UNIT 1 - COMMERCIAL, AUGUST 1988-w------,-----.

t :. -PLANT DESIGN GENERAL WESTINGHOUSE PWR, RESAR 41 ARCHITECT ENGINEER BROWN 8 ROOT UNTIL11981 BECHTEL, HOUSTON AFTER 1981 GENERAL CONTRACTOR BROWN & ROOT UNTIL 1981 u EBASCO AFTER 1981 9 i

/ 4 PLANT DESIGN (CONTINUED)

• NSSS CHARACTERISTICS ONLY RESAR-41 DESIGN IN U.S.

FOUR-LOOP, THREE TRAIN SYSTEM-FOURTEEN FOOT CORE RATED POWER - 3800 MWT, 1250 MWE CONTAINMENT CHARACTERISTICS' STEEL-LINED, REINFORCED POST-TENSIONED CONCRETE t t i

L.' b

1...

1 i l STP-2 LICENSING MILESTONES CONSTRUCTION PERMIT ISSUED DECEMBER 1975 ASLB DECISION AUGUST 1986 ISSUE LOW POWER LICENSE DECEMBER 1988 FUEL LOAD DECEMBER 1988 INITIAL CRITICALITY MARCH 1989 SCHEDULE FULL POWER LICENSE MARCH 1989 9 l I

i e..- g t EXEMPTIONS 10 CFR PART 50, APPENDIX J AIR LOCK TESTING CRITICALITY MONITORING SYSTEM, 10 CFR 70'.24 DECOMMISSIONING PLANNING RULE, .10 CFR 50.33(K) AND 10 CFR 50.75 a e I

[ 1 l RECENT ISSUES IDENTIFIED AND CORRECTED PRESSURIZER SURGE LINE THERMAL STRATIFICATION SURGE LINE MEETS' CODES NONCONFORMING MATERIALS (BULLETIN 88-05) FOUND ACCEPTABLE MOLDED CASE CIRCUIT BREAKERS BOTTOM-MOUNTED INSTRUMENT THIMBLE TUBES G i

[ L 1 CONSTRUCTION 1 CONSTRUCTION PERMIT ISSUED DECEMBER 1975 WORK STOPPED UNDER SHOW CAUSE ORDER APRIL 1980 BECHTEL REPLACES BROWN AND ROOT AS ARCHITECT ENGINEER SEPTEMBER 1981 '0VER 18,600 NRC INSPECTOR STAFF HOURS ON CONSTRUCTION AND INVESTIGATION i i

l r i ^ t OPERATOR STAFFING 5 SHIFTS 5 OPERATORS PER SHIFT OPERATIONAL EXPERIENCE UNIT I STARTUP AND OPERATION AB0VE AVERAGE PERFORMANCE - CRITICAL SELF ASSESSMENT PROMPT CORRECTIVE ACTIONS 4 - WILLINGNESS TO LEARN FROM ERRORS UNIT 1 OPERATORS ASSIGNED TO UNIT 2 l

?: lx ( READINESS FOR OPERATION INSPECTIONS NOVEMBER 1988 E0P INSPECTION NOVEMBER 1988 OPERATIONAL READINESS INSPECTION MARCH 1989 OPERATIONAL READINESS INSPECTION FINDINGS - OVERALL COMPLIANCE WITH REQUIREMENTS - MINOR PROBLEMS WITH EQUIPMENT LABELS l AND PROCEDURES (BEING CORRECTED) I i i I L m --_---------a-

g. 1 ' h.- 1.' i 1 LOW POWER OPERATIONS INITIAL FUEL LOAD PROCEEDED SMOOTHLY DEMONSTRATED RAPID REFUELING CAPABILITY. CRITICALITY ACCOMPLISHED WITHOUT PPOBLEMS LOW POWER TESTING SUCCESSFULLY COMPLETED I; up i e L___-_____m-_.__.-._m.___..__._._

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q.' - i[. + k; q 3 SALP RATINGS-1/1/88 To 12/31/88 -l PLANT OPERATIONS 2 RADIOLOGICAL CONTROLS 2 - MAINTENANCE / SURVEILLANCE 2 EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS 2 SECURITY' 2 ENGINEERING / TECHNICAL-SUPPORT 2 SAFETY ASSESSMENT / QUALITY -{, VERIFICATION 1 CONSTRUCTION COMPLETION NOT RATED i i f e 1 ) a

g h j4' i 1~ 9 STAFF CONCLUSIONS THE STAFF CONCLUDES THAT THE PLANT l MEETS THE REGULATIONS AND WITH COMMISSION. CONCURRENCE WE WILL PROCEED l T0 ISSUE.THE FULL-POWER LICENSE TO THE SOUTH TEXAS PROJECT, UNIT'2 I I e

<MNNWW6dddW6WWWWWWWWWWWWpVg(;VgVgV4;V4,gyfiggggggggg t/ 1 TP.ANSMITTAL' TO: A Document Control Desk, 016 Phillips f .j ADVANCED COPY TO: The Public Document Roem. k/0 [f9 DATE: 'I FROM: SECY Correspondence & Records Branch l' Attached are copies of a Commission meeting transcript and related meeting document (s). They are being forwarded for entry on the Daily Accession List and ll, placement in the Public Document Room. No other distribution is requested or j required. Meeting Titie: /YU > /[m; Yi h- [alJL hALu k mu ( Y N> ~., k h d L /sd WL

• 2-l Meeting Date:

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