The following violation of
Severity Level IV was identified by the licensee and is a violation of NRC requirements which meets the criteria of the
NRC Enforcement Policy for being dispositioned as an
NCV. The licensee identified that a licensed operator did not meet vision requirements in accordance with
ANSI-3.4-1983, Section 5.4.5. The operator tested 20/50 in the better eye with corrective lenses but was erroneously signed as having met the vision requirements by the site doctor in September 2010. In June 2011 the licensee submitted a
license renewal for the operator. The operators license previously had a restriction for the operator to wear prescriptive lenses. However, the licensee, believing that the individual met vision requirements, submitted the renewal to the NRC without conditions. The NRC approved the renewal. In January 2012 the licensee identified the deficient condition. The operators license was placed on hold until the operators vision was retested. The operator, using the same lenses and same testing machine, tested 20/30 in the better eye. This met the
ANSI-3.4-1983 vision requirements.
10 CFR 55.57 requires certification by the licensee of medical conditions and general health conducted by a physician, as part of the medical exam for renewal of an individual license. The licensee failed to ensure the operator met the vision requirements for a licensed operator. This is consistent with a
Severity Level IV violation in the
Enforcement policy (Section 6.4.d.1). The licensee documented this in
CR-PLP-2012-00080, coached the doctor on the ANSI requirements and informed the NRC. The inspectors reviewed the licensees corrective actions and determined this to be a
NCV in accordance with Section 2.3.2 of the
NRC Enforcement Policy. Using
IMC 0612, Appendix B, Issue Screening, the inspectors determined this issue to be of very low risk-significance since the operator met the ANSI requirements using the same lenses during a January 2012 retest; and there was no indication of the operator causing vision-induced errors in the control room.
