ML20133E206

Discusses Insp Repts 50-277/96-07 & 50-278/96-07 on 960805-09 & Forwards NOV

ML20133E206
Person / Time
Site:	Peach Bottom
Issue date:	01/03/1997
From:	Miller H NRC OFFICE OF INSPECTION & ENFORCEMENT (IE REGION I)
To:	Danni Smith PECO ENERGY CO., (FORMERLY PHILADELPHIA ELECTRIC
Shared Package
ML20133E209	List: ML20133E206 ML20133E219
References
EA-96-370, NUDOCS 9701100242
Download: ML20133E206 (5)

See also: IR 05000277/1996007

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3 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION

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g 475 ALLENDALE ROAD

g ,o*# KING oF PRUSSIA. PENNSYLVANIA 19406-1415

January 3,1997

EA 96 370

Mr. D. M. Smith, President

PECO Nuclear

Nuclear Group Headquarters

Correspondence Control Desk

Post Office Box 195

Wayne, Pennsylvania 19087-0195

SUBJECT: NOTICE OF VIOLATION AND EXERCISE OF ENFORCEMENT DISCRETlON

(NRC Inspection Reports No. 50-277/96-07 and 50-278/96 07)

Dear Mr. Smith: '

This letter refers to the NRC inspection conducted at the Peach Bottom Nuclear Power Plant.  ;

between August 5 9, 1996, for which the exit meeting was held on August 9,1996. The

inspection report was sent to you on October 9,1996. Based on the inspection, an apparent

violation of NRC requirements was identified. On November 15,1996, a predecisional l

enforcement conference was conducted with you and members of your staff to discuss the  !

apparent violations identified during the inspection, their causes, and your corrective actions.

Based on our review of the inspection findings, and information provided during the

conference, one violation is being cited and is described in the enclosed Notice of Violation

(Notice). The violation involves the failure to establish, for several structures, systems, and

components (SSC), adequate performance criteria to monitor the effectiveness of preventive

maintenance, as required by 10 CFR 50.65(a)(2). For those criteria that were established,

several were found that you had not justified as adequate for monitoring of SSCs in

accordance with the Maintenance Rule. Specifically, although you had indicated that you

would fo!!ow Regulatory Guide 1.160 and the guidance in NUMARC 93-01, entitled, " Industry

Guideline for Monitoring the Effectiveness of Maintenance of Nuclear Power Plants," as the

method by which PECO Nuclear demonstrates the effectiveness of preventive maintenance,

you did not implement that guidance in the selection of performance criteria for certain classes I

of systems, nor did you justify an alternate approach. For example, at the time the inspection I

was performed, you did not have availability criteria for numerous systems, such as the '

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reactor protection system, and did not use the appropriate criteria of unplanned capability loss

factor for some systems. The details of the violation are described in the enclosed Notice.

Since this violation involved multiple exqmples of f ailures to establish, or adequately establish,

performance criteria pursuant to 50.65(a)(2), and these f allures indicate a programmatic f allure k

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to implement a key aspect of the Maintenance Rule, the violation has been categorized at

Severity Levellilin accordance with the " General Statement of Policy and Procedure for NRC

Enforcement Actions," (Enforcement Policy), NUREG 1600. ph

9701100242 970103

PDR ADOCK 05000277

G PDR

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PECO Nuclear 2

These findings demonstrated that management had not taken effective action to assure

adequate implementation of new requirements atthe f acility. Additionally, theinspection team

found weaknesses in nearly all parts of your Maintenance Rule implementation program.

The Commission determined that a Maintenance Rule was necessary to assure licensees

continuously monitor the effectiveness of maintenance to minimize the likelihood of failure of

safety-significant equipment that could initiate or adversely affect a transient or accident.

Even though the final rule was issued in July 1991, it did not become effective until July

1996. Within this five year period, the Commission provided the staff and the industry the

first two years to develop implementation and inspection guidance and the remaining three

years for licensees to implement the requirements such that by July 10,1996, all

requirements would be satisfied.

During the five years of guidance development and implementation, the staff and the industry

worked in concert to assure licensees had developed good guidance and clearly understood

the manner in which NRC would inspect implementation, once the rule became effective. This

was accomplished through multiple public workshops and a pilot inspection program. Results

from these activities were documented and shared with the industry.

Although the NRC has previously assessed overall maintenance performance at Peach Bottom

to be excellent, and the material condition of the systems examined was generally very good,

your actions taken to implement the Maintenance Rule were weak, in that the Rule was not

fully integrated into the existing maintenance program at Peach Bottom. For example, while

system managers frequently possessed thorough knowledge of their systems and performed

very good management of their systems' material conditions, the performance criteria that

were established by your staff,in accordance with the Rule, were not always fully understood

by the system managers. As discussed above, there was a general problem of not fully  !

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documenting a justification when Maintenance Rule methods and processes did not follow the

guidance in Regulatory Guide 1.160 and NUMARC 93-01. At the conference, you

acknowledged program deficiencies and noted that implementation of the Maintenance Rule

program did not meet your expectations.

In accordance with the Enforcement Policy, a base civil penalty in the amount of $50,000 is l

considered for a Severity Level ll1 violation. Your facility has been the subject of escalated

enforcement actions within the last two years, (namely, a Severity Level til violation without

a civil penalty was issued on January 13,1995, for violations of 10 CFH Part 26 (EA 94-254).

Therefore, the NRC considered whether credit was warranted for identification and Corrective

Action, in accordance with the civil penalty assessment process in Section V1.B.2 of the

Enforcement Policy. Credit is not warranted for identi// cation because the violations were

identified by the NRC. Credit is warranted for Corrective Actions because your corrective

actions, once the violations were identified by the NRC, were considered prompt and

comprehensive. These actions, which were discussed during your presentation at the

conference, include, but are not limited to (1) revision of your governing document for the

Maintenance Rule to reflect the guidance in NUMARC J3-01;(2) revision and validation of the

Maintenance Rule program, including revision of performance criteria, and additional review

and documentation of the bases for Rule compliance;(3) transfer of program ownership from

the maintenance program core team to the system managers, and reinforcing expectations that

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PECO Nuclear 3

the system managers own the Rule and the core team acts as a consultant to the system

managers; (4) consideration of integration of existing programs for trending declining

equipment performance (such as the Performance Enhancement Program and the Equipment

Performance and Material Condition Focus List) into the Maintenance Rulo; (5) plans to

perform an independent assessment of the program by April 1997; and (6) plans to benchmark

the program by June 1997, against plants recognized by the NRC as having good programs.

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Therefore, to encourage appropriate implementation of the Maintenance Rule, a civil penalty l

in the amount of $50,000 would normally be issued for this violation. However, I have been l

authorized, after consultation with the Director, Office of Enforcement, and the Deputy i

Executive Director for Nuclear Reactor Regulation, Regional Operations, and Research, to l

exercise enforcement discretion and not propose a civil penalty for this violation because of l

the overall excellent materialcondition of the plant and because Peach Bottom has a verygood

performance record in the maintenance area. For exampla, during the last SALP issued on

December 5,1995, you received a Category 1 rating in the maintenance area, and the letter

transmitting the SALP report noted that site management's aggressive attention to

maintenance and surveillance activities continued and contributed to excellent performance. l

That letter also noted strengths in the planning and execut, ion of corrective maintenance,

equipment outages, and on-line maintenance. In addition, the NRC has observed good results i

in region-based and resident inspections, including limited and well-managed maintenance

backlogs, and few examples of performance-based maintenance problems. Therefore, by

exercising discretion and not proposing a civil penalty in this case, the NRC is balancing your

programmatic failure to comply with the Maintenance Rule with your strong overall

performance in the maintenance area.

You are required to respond to this letter and should follow the instructions specified in the

enclosed Notice when preparing your response. In your response, you should document the

specific actions taken and any additional actions you plan to prevent recurrence. After

reviewing your response to this Notice, including your proposed corrective actions and the

results of future inspections, the NRC willdetermine whether further NRC enforcement action

is necessary to ensure compliance with NRC regulatory requirements.

in accordance with 10 CFR 2.790 cf the NRC's " Rules of Practice," a copy of this letter,its

enclosure, and your response will be placed in the NRC Public Document Room (PDR).

Sincerely, .

/'

H ert J. Miller

Regional Administrator

Docket Nos. 50-272, 50-311, 50 354

License Nos. DPR-70, DPR 75, NPF 57

Enclosure: Notice of Violation

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PECO Nuclear 4

cc w/ encl:

G. Hunger, Jr., Chairman, Nuclear Review Board and Director, Licensing

T. Mitchell, Vice President, Peach Bottom Atomic Power Station )

G. Rainey, Senior Vice President, Nuclear Operations l

D. Fetters, Vice President, Nuclear Station Support i

T. Niessen, Director, Nuclear Quality Assurance l

C. Schaefer, External Operations - Delmarva Power & Light Co.

G. Edwards, Plant Manager, Peach Bottom Atomic Power Station

G. Lengyel, Manager, Experience Assessment

J. Durham, Sr., Senior Vice President and General Counsel

P. MacFarland Goelz, Manager, Joint Generation, Atlantic Electric

B. Gorman, Manager, External Affairs

R. McLean, Power Plant Siting, Nuclear Evaluations

J. Vannoy, Acting Secretary of Harford County Council

R. Ochs, Maryland Safe Energy Coalition

J. Walter, Chief Enginuer, Public Service Commission of Maryland

L. Jacobson, Peach Bottom Alliance

Commonwealth of Pennsylvania

State of Maryland

TMI - Alert (TMIA)

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PECO Nuclear

DISTRIBUTION:

PUBLIC

SECY

CA

JTaylor, EDO

JMilhoan, DEDR

JLieberman, OE

HMiller, Rt

FDavis, OGC

FMiraglia, NRR

RZimmerman, NRR

Enforcement Coordinators

RI, Ril, Rlli, RIV

BBeecher, GPA/PA

GCaputo, 01

DBangart, OSP

i HBell, OlG

EJordan, AEOD

OE:EA (2)

NU90CS

DScrenci, PAO RI

NSheehan, PAO RI

LTremper, OC

Nuclear Safety Information Center (NSIC)

NRC Resident inspectors - Peach Bottom

e-

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