ML042780467

G20040668/LTR-04-0607 - Rep. Sue W. Kelly Ltr Re Cable and Raceway System at Indian Point 2

ML042780467
Person / Time
Site:	Indian Point
Issue date:	09/17/2004
From:	Kelly S US HR (House of Representatives)
To:	Diaz N NRC/Chairman
Walker T, NRC/RI/ORA, 610-337-5381
References
CORR-04-0204, G20040668, LTR-04-0607
Download: ML042780467 (7)

Text

EDO Principal Correspondence Control FROM: DUE: 10/13/04 EDO CONTROL: G20040668 DOC DT: 09/17/04 FINAL REPLY:

Representative Sue W. Kelly Chairman Diaz FOR SIGNATURE OF : ** PRI ** CRC NO: 04-0607 Chairman Diaz DESC: ROUTING:

Cable and Raceway System at Indian Point 2 Reyes (William Lemanski) Virgilio Kane Merschoff Norry Dean DATE: 09/30/04 Burns/Cyr Dyer, NRR ASSIGNED TO: CONTACT: Rathbun, OCA RI Collins SPECIAL INSTRUCTIONS OR REMARKS:

Ref. G20040464.

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OFFICE OF TIHE SECRETARY CORRESPONDENCE CONTROL TICKET Date Printed:Sep 30, 2004 10:38 PAPER NUMBER: LTR-04-0607 LOGGING DATE: 09129/2004 ACTION OFFICE: EDO AUTHOR: REP Sue Kelly AFFILIATION: REP ADDRESSEE: Nils Diaz

SUBJECT:

The Commission's handling of the concerns by former Indian Point 2 employee William Lemanski...plant's cable and raceway system ACTION: Signature of Chairman DISTRIBUTION: RF, OCA to Ack LETTER DATE: 09/17/2004 ACKNOWLEDGED No SPECIAL HANDLING:

NOTES: Commission Correspondence FILE LOCATION: ADAM'S DATE DUE: 10/15/2004 DATE SIGNED:

0 EDO -- G20040668

SUE W. KELLY PLEASEREPLYTO:

19Tm DISTRICT. NEW YORK a 1127 LONGWORTH HOUSE OFFICEBUILDING WASHINGTON, DC 20515 COMMITTEE ON FINANCIAL SERVICES, VICECHAIR (202) 225-5441 CHAIRWOMAN. SUBCOMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT SUBCOMMITTEE SUBCOMMITTEE AND INVESTIGATIONS ONFINANCIAL ANDCONSUPMAER INSTITUTIONS CREDIT ON CAPITALMARKETS, INSURANCE Qongrttq of tlje Nnittb §tata; E 21 OLD MAIN STREET,ROOM #107 FiSHKILL, NEW YORK 12524 (845) 897-5200 AND GOVERNMENT SPONSORED ENTERPRISES o a fA pr nttb !

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AGRICULTURE AND TECHNOLOGY ASSISTANT MAJORITY WHIP September 17, 2004 Dr. Nils J. Diaz Chairman U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission

--Washington;-DC-20006-

Dear Chairman Diaz:

The commission's handling of the concerns raised by former Indian Point 2 employee William Lemanski continues to trouble me. I am very disappointed that despite repeated requests for a complete walk-down of the plant's cable and raceway system, that this proposal has not yet been supported by the NRC.

Mr. Lemanski remains unsatisfied with the level of scrutiny given to this matter. The attached letter from David Lochbaum from the Union of Concerned Scientists seems to further underscore these concerns and compels me'to once again urge the NRC to appropriately address this issue. At a time when plant security and safety is of paramount concern to communities surrounding the Indian Point Energy Center, it is critically important that the NRC do everything it can to ensure the safe operation of this facility.

Again, I urge your support for an immediate and thorough inspection of the plant's cable and raceway system.

Your prompt attention to this request is greatly appreciated.

Sincerely, PRINTED ON RECYCLED PAPER

Union of Concerned Scientists Citizens and Scientists for Environmental Solutions September 17, 2004 Mr. Brian E. Holian, Director Division of Reactor Projects United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission Region I 475 Allendale Road King of Prussia, PA 19406-1415

SUBJECT:

- -ELECTRICAL CABLE SEPARATION SAFETY ISSUES AT INDIAN POINT ENERGY CENTER

Dear Mr. Holian:

NRC Inspection Report No. 50-247/2004009 dated August 20, 2004, documents the findings from the NRC's inquiry into the allegations made by former employee William Lemanski about cable separation issues affecting safety at Indian Point Unit 2. The NRC inspectors identified three violations of federal regulations that NRC characterized as Green in the reactor oversight process.

From January 1980 until August 1983, I worked for the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) at their Browns Ferry nuclear plant - the site of the infamous 1975 fire that disabled all of the safety systems used to cool the Unit I reactor and the majority of those systems on Unit 2. The near miss forced the NRC to promulgate Appendix R to 10 CFR Part 50 with expanded requirements for cable separation and fire protection. In researching TVA's extensive files on that pivotal event, I learned that the NRC's cable separation and fire protection regulations had been violated at Browns Ferry and that both TVA and the NRC had known about the many violations for a long time before the fire. TVA and NRC tolerated these many longstanding violations because they were deemed insignificant from a safety perspective - at least until the fire proved otherwise.

I truly hope that there's a difference between Indian Point Unit 2 today and Browns Ferry then other than the fact that Indian Point has not yet had a fire test its deficiencies.-But'l-do not see much in the NRC inspection report to give me that hope. The violations at Indian Point that the NRC characterized as having "very low safety significance" are no less egregious than the violations the NRC knew about prior to the Browns Ferry fire. Because comparable "very low safety significance" violations at Browns Ferry would have prevented the 1975 fire from causing serious damage had they been corrected instead of tolerated, perhaps you can understand why no one living around Indian Point should take comfort in the NRC downplaying chronic cable separation violations at Indian Point. After all, TVA could claim ignorance of the fact that "very low safety significance" violations could contribute to a major accident.

Entergy cannot claim ignorance given Browns Ferry's notoriety, leaving maybe only an insanity plea if a fire were to ravage Indian Point.

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September 17, 2004 Page 2 of 3 Some specific comments on the NRC's inspection report:

1. The NRC licensed Indian Point Unit 2 in the 1970s. At that time, the electrical cables were supposed to be properly separated. Numerous reviews and evaluations have been conducted since then to re-verify cable routing such as following the issuance of Appendix R following the Browns Ferry fire, during the 1989-1995 Cable Separation Program, and during the development and issuance of IP2-DBD-222, "Design Basis Document for Cable Separation," Rev. 1, December 17, 2003 (see page 5 of the inspection report). Despite these initial and subsequent efforts, cable separation violations continue to be found, demonstrating that Indian Point has never been in compliance with the federal safety regulations.

2. On page 7, the NRC stated, "Simply put, ECRIS, which is used at other plants, is not readily compatible with IP2's specialized cable separation criteria." On page 1, the NRC stated "An NRC inspection was conducted ... to review issues associated with Entergy's conversion from WIARS to ECRIS." [NOTE: WARS and ECRIS are acronyms for computer-based systems for tracking the routing of electrical cables.] On page 14, the NRC wrote, "They also acknowledged the existence of a large number of data errors in WARS." So, Entergy took the WARS database that was known to contain a large number of errors and converted it to ECRIS that was known to be incompatible with the cable separation schemes employed at Indian Point Unit 2. Collectively, the findings in the NRC inspection report strongly suggest that Entergy made a bad situation at Indian Point worse.

3. On page 14, the NRC stated "Because WVARS and ECRIS are not relied upon in the manual cable routing process at IP2, the cable separation experts had confidence that the DVTR anomalies were not indicative of actual cable separation issues." Later in the very same paragraph NRC stated "The IP2 designers and engineers were in general agreement that WARS had been a valuable tool in aid them in developing the design modif cation drawings (DMDs) that acted as cable separation routing schedules needed to install cables at the plant." So, WARS was not used during the manual cable routing process, but the drawings developed from WARS were used. If WARS is flawed, then the drawings developed from corrupted WARS are also suspect.

Thus, any cables routed using WARS, ECRIS, and/or the drawings developed from WARS/ECRIS may violate the cable separation criteria unless independently verified by field walk-downs.

4. On page 14, NRC stated "Because WVARS and ECRIS are not relied upon in the manual cable routing process at IP2, the cable separation experts had confidence that the DVTR anomalies were not indicative of actual cable separation issues." On page 16, NRC states "IVARS and ECRIS provide the only tool capable of generating cable schedules for IP2, and as such are useful as long as engineers and designers are sensitive to the inaccuraciesin the data." Several points:

a. First, the statement on page 14 appears false. If WARS and ECRIS are the only tools for generating cable schedules, then WARS and/or ECRIS would have to be relied upon in the manual cabling routing process. [NOTE: A cable schedule is essentially the Rand McNally roadmap explaining how a cable is routed from Point A to Point B. The "roads" specify conduits, cable trays, and cable raceways.]

b. On page 13, NRC stated "The inspectors determined that training on the use of WARS was not provided to engineers and designers in a timely or systematic manner prior to the termination of the use of WARS in May 2002." It is extremely difficult for engineers and designers to be "sensitive to the inaccuraciesin the data" unless they receive proper training, which clearly did not occur at Indian Point Unit 2. The statement about the engineers and designers being untrained but sensitive appears little more than a gratuitous attempt to gloss over a safety problem.

September 17,2004 Page 3 of 3 The NRC inspection report documented several unresolved cable separation problems that violated federal safety regulations. But since none of the few cable separation problems resolved so far revealed a major safety problem, NRC assumed that no major safety problem exists in the remaining unresolved problems. Whether NRC's guess is right or wrong is not the point. The burden is on the plant's owner to comply with regulations because compliance provides assurance of acceptable safety. Entergy has not met that burden. And the NRC is Entergy's accomplice by improperly shifting the burden from Entergy to workers like Mr. Lemanski who must now not only find cable separation violations, but find ones so significant as to shake NRC from its Rhett Butler approach to safety. Absent full compliance (and the large inventory of cable separation problems at Indian Point Unit 2 makes full compliance impossible), no one knows if the plant has acceptable safety levels.

In other words, the NRC is gambling today with known violations at Indian Point as it did in the 1970s with known violations at Browns Ferry. When the NRC lost the gamble with the 1975 fire at Browns Ferry, it reacted by promulgating more regulations. Law-making is futile when the NRC seems unable, or

-*unwilling, to prevent law-breaking.

Sincerely,

<ORIGINAL SIGNED BY>

David Lochbaum Nuclear Safety Engineer Washington Office

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THIS MAILING WAS PREPARED, PUBUSHED, AND MAILED AT TAXPAYER EXPENSE Dr. Nils J. Diaz Chairman U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Washington, DC 20006 I,