ML20195J732

Responds to 880518 Ltr Re N Williams Concern About Licensing of Plant & Allegations Involving Safe Operation of Plant. Allegation Identified No Substantive Safety Issue That Would Warrant Delay in Licensing of Plant

ML20195J732
Person / Time
Site:	South Texas
Issue date:	06/16/1988
From:	Stello V NRC OFFICE OF THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR FOR OPERATIONS (EDO)
To:	Mikulski B SENATE
Shared Package
ML20195J736	List: ML20195J732 ML20195J739
References
NUDOCS 8806290206
Download: ML20195J732 (4)

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ms UNITED STATES f[  %,

NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION y g 5 WASHINGTON. D. C. 20555 j

%,,,,,! June 16, 1988 The Honorable Barbara Mikulski United States Senate Washington, D. C. 20510

Dear Senator Mikulski:

On May 18, 1988, you referred the concerns of Ms. Nancy Williarrs about the licensing of the South Texas Nuclear Plant (STNP). She noted that a large number of allegations concerning the safe operation of STNP have been made by more than 50 workers involved in the construction of the plant. She further stated that, although a number of these allegations were recently reviewed, the vast majority remain unaddressed by the NRC.

Although she did not mention it specifically, it appears that the allegations to which she refers were those provided to the NRC by the Government Accountability Project (GAP). The staff's review and disposition of the allegations was reported in the "NRC Safety Significance Assessment Team Report on allegations related to the South Texas Project, Units 1 and 2," NUREG-1306, a copy of which is enclosed.

In summary, a Safety Significance Assessment Team (SSAT) was assembled to specifically investigate the allegatiens. A review of GAP's files identified approximately 700 allegations. Each allegation was reviewed and evaluated for appropricte disposition. The SSAT determined that 120 of the 700 allegations were repetitious, 240 were considered as either harassment / intimidation or as wrongdoing, and 140 more were not safety-related.

The SSAT reviewed all of the remaining 213 allegations in detail and subsequently placed allegations in categories on the basis of the discipline, equipment, and shared characteristics, (e.g., mechanical /

valves / installation; electrical-splices /Reychem). From these categories of allegations, the SSAT identified for cnsite iispection those allegations that were representative of the technical concerns conveyed by the allegers and enveloped the 213 allegations either specifically or on a generic basis. Ten such allegations were identified and designated as primary allegations. In addition, 61 secondary allegations were selected that conveyed concerns similar to those of the primary allegation.

She also expressed concern that the staff is not even considering the remaining allegations. Of the allegations remaining after identification of the 71, 119 were closed out because they were found to be duplicates of the allegations selected for inspection, or related to allegations that Of the 23 remaining were already being covered by the SSAT inspection.

allegations, 4 were found to be duplicated. The remaining 19 lacked specificity to determine whether they could be enveloped by the inspection performed by SSAT. However, the SSAT determined that the subject matter conveyed by the remaining 19 allegations involved the 8806270206 080616 PDR ADOCK 05000490 U pu

implementation of QA criteria which were evaluated by SSAT as part of its overall review of the effectiveness of the ST4P Quality Assurance Program and found to be acceptable. The SSAT, therefore, concluded that the remaining 19 allegations could not be of immediate safety significance, and are considered closed.

With respect to the sampling size, the allegations provided to the SSAT by GAP generally had a common shortcoming; i.e., the allegers were unable to provide specifics with respect to location of the alleged unacceptable conditions. Absent any specifics, the SSAT conducted a generic review of the allegations. This included selecting systems and components at random and inspecting them for any indications of the alleged deficiencies. In each of the cases, the SSAT was unable to find any of the alleged deficiencies.

The ab~sence of any findings, when viewed in light of the number of items inspected, provided an acceptable basis for concluding that there were no pervasive deficiencies within the systems / components inspected.

Prior to the STNP site visit, the SSAT undertook an extensive effort to categorize the allegations dnd identify those that could be safety related.

The SSAT was at the STNP site from January 18 through January 22, 1988, or 4.5 calendar days. In actuality, the SSAT worked extremely long hours, and put in the equivalent of eight work days on site. After performing the onsite inspection, the'SSAT spent significantly more time reviewing and evaluating inspection results and supporting data. The overall effort of the SSAT is estimated to have consumed 2,910 person-hours. On this basis, I believe that the totality of effort expended to review the allegations was sufficient to thoroughly address the concerns represented by the allegations.

There were 240 allegations of intimidation, harassment and wrongdoing.

These were referred to the NRC Office of Investigation (01) for review. The resolution of these allegations will be accomplished by 0! after GAP enables interviews with the allegers to take place. Interviews are a necessary part of the investigation and are intended to provide specificity to the allegations.

On March 21, 1988, the Comission met to discuss the licensing of S1NP. An important part of that discussion dealt with the allegations and the SSAT review of them. We concluded that the allegations identified no substantive safety issue that would warrant delay in the licensing of STNP, The Commission voted unanimously to authorize a full power license for STNP.

I Fope that this sumary information is beneficial to you. As mentioned earlier, I have enclosed a copy of NUREG-1306 which gives the details about the NRC review of the allegations.

.A Sd D-yictor St011V Victor Stello, Jr.

Executive Director for Operations Enclosure

a. a Distribution:

VStello JTaylor TRehm EDO r/f OGC TMurley JSniezek GDick OGC CA SECY 88-475 PDR f

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. OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY CORRESPONDENCE CONTROL TICKET ,

PAP $RNUMBER: CRC-88-0475 LOGGING DATE: May 25 88 ACTION OFFICE: M AUTHOR: B.A. Mikulski--Const Ref AFFILIATION: U.S. SENATE LETTER DATE: May 18 88 FILE CODE: ID&R-5 So Tx

SUBJECT:

South Texas nuclear project ACTION: Direct Reply DISTRIBUTION: OCA to Ack SPECIAL HANDLING: None NOTES: Nancy Williams DATE DUE: Jun 8 88 SIGNATURE: . DATE SIGNED:

AFFILIATION:

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