ML20081A353

Submits Suppl to 830901 Comments on Idvp Final Rept & Sser 18 Re Reissuance of Suspended License for Fuel Loading & Low Power Operation.License Reissuance Opposed. Certificate of Svc Encl

ML20081A353
Person / Time
Site:	Diablo Canyon
Issue date:	10/24/1983
From:	Reynolds J CENTER FOR LAW IN THE PUBLIC INTEREST, JOINT INTERVENORS - DIABLO CANYON
To:	Gilinsky V, Palladino N, Roberts T NRC COMMISSION (OCM)
References
ISSUANCES-OL, NUDOCS 8310260236
Download: ML20081A353 (14)

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GEOFFREY COWAN ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICER MARSHA M. KWALWASSER viSmNG rELLO.S LAWRENCE A. GOLOSERG October 24 I 1983 JOCElvN O. L AftMIN CvNTMI A D. 90B elNS ET M A N p. SCHULMAN BY FEDERAL EXPRESS

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Nunzio Palladino, Chairman Victor Gilinsky, Commissioner Thomas Roberts, Commissioner James Asselstine, Commissioner Frederick Bernthal, Commissioner United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission Washington, D.C. 20555 Re: In the Matter of Pacific Gas and Electric Company (Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant, Units 1 and 2), Nos. 50-2750L, 50-3R30L

Dear Chairman Palladino and Members of the Commission:

This letter is submitted on behalf of the Joint Inter-venors to the above-entitled proceeding in anticipation of the October 28, 1983 briefing scheduled by the Commission. It supplements their letter dated September 1, 1983 commenting on the Independent Design Verification Program ("IDVP") Final Report and the NRC Staff Supplemental Safety Evaluation Report

("SSER") No. 18 pertaining to reissuance of the suspended license for fuel loading and low power operation of Pacific Gas and Electric Company's ("PGandE") Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant ("Diablo Canyon") , Unit 1.

The Joint Intervenors continue to believe that Commission consideration of relicensing of Diablo Canyon is premature.

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Members of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission October 24, 1983 Page 2 design -- and, specifically, whether the verification program provides requisite assurance of such adequacy -- are scheduled to commence on October 31st. Those hearings, and the conclusions of the Appeal Board based on the evidence adduced, bear directly on the Commission's contemplated decision on relicensing. That being so, we find dismaying irideed the f act that the Commission has scheduled for October 28th a briefing to consider lifting the suspension, apparently in anticipation of a Commission vote on the matter without regard to the l

hearings which its own Appeal Board has concluded are legally required.

l Given the complexity of the disputed issues surrounding l the verification effort, and considering PGandE's checkered history in this lengthy and heavily contested proceeding, the l

Joint Intervenors believe that the adjudicatory hearing scheduled to commence in one week is the proper forum in which to develop a reliable and accurate hearing record as the basis for a licensing decision. It is, moreover, the forum in which Congress, in enacting S 189 (a) of the Atomic Energy Act, 42 U.S.C. S 2239 (a) , intended such critical disputed matters to be resolved. Particularly under the circumstances of this case, a premature decision by the Commission to relicense Diablo Canyon in disregard of the October 31st hearings would be not only unlawful but senseless.

Further, the critical issue of Diablo Canyon construction has not been addressed. The discovery within the past month and a half of a previously undisclosed and highly critical

Members of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission October 24, 1983 Page 3 independent audit of PGandE's principal piping contractor conducted in 1977 has provided compelling new evidence of quality assurance deficiencies in construction activities at Diablo Canyon. Repeatedly, PGandE has assured the Commission and its Staff of its confidence in the actual construction of the plant -- the physical hardware as distinguished from the design. Even though construction and design activities were governed by the same quality assurance program under identical PGandE management, PGandE has dismissed as totally unjustified any suggestion by the Joint Intervenors or the Governor that the kinds of deficiencies now conceded by all parties to have characterized PGandE's design practices at Diablo Canyon apply to its construction practices as well.1/ The recently disclosed audit by Nuclear Services Corporation (now Quadrex) contradicts those assurances by documenting a major breakdown in the quality assurance / quality control program of one of PGandE's principal construction contractors since 1971, a breakdown l

found by the auditor to have occurred throughout the period I when Diablo Canyon was constructed (1971-1977) in a program that PGandE has proudly cited as a model of quality assurance l compliance.2 /

i 1/ The Commission should also be aware of the numerous quality assurance problems experienced in connection with recent construction activity at Diablo Canyon by the Howard P.

Foley Company, PGandE's other major construction contractor.

For example, widespread welding nonconformances have been found in the Fuel Handling Building for Units 1 and 2 (14% and 11%

rework rates, respectively), the Hot Shop (18% rework rate) ,

and the Unit 1 Containment Building (7.8% rework rate). See Letter, Schuyler (PGandE) to Martin (NRC) (August 23, 1983).

2/ See CQA Transcript, at 605 (July 21,1983) (testimony of PGandE's Diablo Canyon site quality assurance supervisor).

\ .

1 Members of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission October 24, 1983 Page 4 This report has also revived concerns about PGandE's lack of candor with the NRC and the public. Despite the significance of the deficiencies found by the auditor and the fact that quality assurance has consistently been an issue of controversy before the licensing boards in this proceeding, PGandE failed to disclose the audit's existence to the NRC or its hearing boards considering the issue. Instead, it unilaterally discounted the audit based on its own disagreement with the findings and limited corrective action instituted in 1978. Apparently on that basis, it thereafter opposed any attempt to reopen the issue of quality assurance and, in fact, sponsored sworn affidavits and testimony directly contrary to the audit's conclusions. The Joint Intervenors believe that such conduct by a major public utility is inexcusable and, therefore, they applied last week to this Commission for revocation of the Diablo Canyon low power license (DPR-76) or, in the alternative, for continuation of the suspension, pending a full investigation of the matter and its implications.2/

Finally, PGandE has recently informed the NRC Staff of its intention to continue with modifications to Diablo Canyon structures, systems, and components, even after fuel loading.

By letter dated September 10, 1983, PGandE's John Hoch (for J.O. Schuyler) informed Darrell Eisenhut that the modifications listed in a five-page attachment would not be completed prior 2/ Joint Intervenors' Motion for Revocation of Facility Operating License or, in the Alternative, for Continuation of Suspension (October 20, 1983).

Members of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission October 24, 1983 Page 5 to fuel load. Along with continuing modifications to the annulus steel in the Unit 1 containment building, PGandE proposes the addition, modification, replacement and calibration of new and existing equipment. Approximately 22 systems are subject to such modification, including a substantial but unspecified number of modifications to the systems inside containment. The Joint Intervenors submit that such a proposal is fundamentally inconsistent with the legal requirement that a facility be substantially constructed in accord with the Commission's regulations before a license is issued. 10 C.F.R. S 50.57.S/ Moreover, given the history of this proceeding, a decision to ignore that requirement leaves the Commission and the public vulnerable to further disclosures of errors after the fact analogous to those leading to the l

initial license suspension in November 1981.

In addition to the foregoing matters of concern as well as those discussed in the September 1, 1983 letter, the Joint Intervenors and Governor Deukmejian have raised a number of specific issues with regard to the scope and implementation of the verification program that are outlined in the contentions submitted to and accepted by the Appeal Board in the reopened design proceeding. Without reiterating here each of those A!See Letter, Reynolds to Commission, at 18-23 (September 1, 1983).

k Members of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission October 24, 1983 Page 6 contentions or the testimony already filed in support of them,E/ the following are illustrative:

(1) The IDVP conclusions regarding design conformance of Diablo Canyon to the license application criteria are unjustified because based on extrapolations from samples selected through engineering judgment rather than through rigorous statistical techniques. While the NRC Order and Staff letter dated November 19, 1981 require that criteria be developed for evaluating activities of the design process, the vague and subjective standards actually applied by the IDVP undermine the objectivity and reliability of its conclusions. Because the IDVP fniled to adopt a sound statistical basis for selection of the samples, its attempt to extrapolate to structures, systems, and components that were not sampled is invalid.

E! The contentions of the Joint Intervenors and Governor Deukmejian are attached hereto as Exhibit 1. In addition, the testimony of Richard B. Hubbard, quality assurance consultant to Governor Deukmejian, is attached hereto as Exhibit 2 as an example of the detailed concerns that both the Joint Intervenors and the Governor continue to have with regard to the verification program. Other witnesses testifying on behalf of the Governor include Dr. Jose Roesset, Professor of Civil Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin, and Dr.

George Apostolakis, Professor of Engineering and Applied Science at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Witnesses testifying on behalf of the Joint Intervenors include Dr. Francisco Samaniego, Professor of Statistics and Assistant Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs at the University of California, Davis, and Dr. Peter Kempthorne, Assistant Professor of Statistics at Harvard University.

k Members of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission October 24, 1983 Page 7 Hence, the assurance provided by the IDVP is limited to only those structures, systems and components actually verified. Indeed, even the statistician retained by PGandE has conceded that the probabilities of a Class A or B etior5/ in the unsampled portions of the nonseismic design are "quite high, 90 percent or something."2/ Such a high probability of error is inconsistent with the IDVP's finding of reasonable assurance that Diablo Canyon is properly designed.E/

(2) The verification program has failed to verify that Diablo Canyon, Units 1 and 2 "as-built" conform to the design drawings and analyses. Various reviewers of PGandE's design control practices for its pre-November 1981 design activities found numerous examples where the as-built Diablo Canyon plant failed to conform to the design documents.EI However, the IDVP's recent review of 5! A " Class A or B error" is defined by the IDVP to include those errors for which design criteria or operating limits of safety related equipment were exceeded. IDVP Final Report, at Appendix F.

2/ Deposition of Stanley Kaplan, at 135-36 (September 26, 1983).

E/ See generally, Testimony of Kempthorne and Samaniego; Testimony of Apostolakis.

E/ See, e.g., NRC Bulletin 79-14 Review for Diablo Canyon; Brookhaven National Laboratory, " Independent Seismic Evaluation of the Diablo Canyon Unit 1 Containment Annulus Structure and Selected Piping Systems" (July 1982); Institute of Nuclear Power Operations, Report (February 12, 1983).

Members of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission October 24, 1983 Page 8 a sample of design documents resulting from the Diablo Canyon Project's ("DCP") post-November 1981 corrective action program identified a number of instances where the as-built plant differed from the design documents.

Although EOIs were issued for some af these (1120, 1121, 1123, 1124, 1133, 1135, 1137), a large number of such discrepancies were (for reasons not explained by the IDVP) never made the subject of an EOI. Examples of these undocumented configuration control discrepancies in design documents involved differences in pipe weight, piping geometry, support modeling, valve modeling, support locations, and miscellaneous other design discrepancies.

According to Richard Hubbard, Quality Assurance / Quality Control consultant to Governor Deukmejian:

The IDVP's reviews to date of a sample of the product (the design documents) result-ing from the quality assurance / quality control process of the DCP's corrective action measures demonstrate to me that con-figuration control deficiencies continue to exist at Diablo Canyon. Such configuration differences between the as-built plant and the design documents are, in my judgment, contrary criteria dix B:

to the [ requirements of Appen 1S/

3, 6, 10, 11, and 16.]

AS/ Hubbard Testimony, at 17-18.

L Members of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission October 24, 1983 Page 9 (3) The verification program failed to verify that the design of safety related equipment supplied to PGandE by Westinghouse meet licensing criteria. Although Westinghouse was the responsible design organization for over 70% of the Diablo Canyon safety-related systems, neither the IDVP nor the ITP conducted a systematic verification of the design of Westinghouse-supplied NSSS equipment or design services. Instead, the IDVP conducted only a limited review of the Westinghouse-PGandE design interface. Even in this limited review, however, errors were disclosed in 30% of the Westinghouse samples examined by the IDVP. On this basis, BNL questioned whether the sample was adequate to verify the Westinghouse qualification spectra. Therefore, because the IDVP samples of other design service contractors cannot be extended to provide meaningful conclusions as to the adequacy of the NSSS equipment or the Westinghouse design services, a thorough review of the Westinghouse design work is necessary.11!

(4) The verification program failed to identify the root causes for the failures in the PGandE design quality assurance program or to determine if such failures raise generic concerns. Although the IDVP provided a general statement regarding basic cause for the errors identified, in no case did the IDVP or the ITP correlate the basic causes cited to the identified errors as is required by 11/ Id. at 20-24.

Members of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission October 24, 1983 Page 10 Criterion 16 of Appendix B to 10 C.F.R. Part 50.12/ As a result, the basic quality assurance failures leading to the individual errors were not determined and, further, potential generic concerns were either not raised or were only partially addressed.

(5) PGandE has failed to establish and implement a quality assurance program for its corrective action work adequate to ensure that all Appendix B requirements are satisfied and that the Diablo Canyon facility will meet licensing criteria. Even in the IDVP's limited review of the corrective actions instituted since November 1981, a substantial number of errors that should have been prevented by an adequate PGandE quality assurance program have been found by the IDVP. Some of these errors have been documented by an EOI; others have not. In any case, according to Mr. Hubbard, these errors lead to the following conclusions:

The results of the IDVP design product verification, as well as its design process audits, demonstrate that the ITP failed to satisfactorily execute a design quality assurance program for the design modifications developed since November 1, 1981. The results further indicate that, contrary to the requirements of Criteria 1 and 2 of Appendix B, the DCP failed to establish and execute a design quality assurance program. Further, contrary to 12/ For examples of specific EOIs for which the basic cause was not determined, see Hubbard Testimony, at 28-38.

k Members of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission October 24, 1983 Page 11 Criterion 3, the DCP's design control measures failed to assure that the Diablo Canyon design criteria were correctly translated into design documents. Indeed, the errors and potential errors . . .

demonstrate that the DCP QA program failed to adequately implement the required audits and corrective action measures contrary to Criteria 18 and 16 of Appendix B. . . .

Given the demonstrated number and nature of the errors disclosed in the IDVP's review of a sample of the Corrective Action Program, in my judgment it is reasonable to conclude that further critical errors (Class A or B) exist in the design of the plant which can only be uncovered by a rigorous and thorough verification program.

Further, the cumulative impact of the major errors (Class C) when coupled with the critical errors indicate the necessity for further verification of the post-November 1, 1981 design activites.

(6) The verification program has failed to verify fully the adequacy of the seismic redesign. Although the attached contention sets forth a list of detailed concerns, Dr. Jose Roesset has identified four principal issues that require further verification:

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--The effect of possible uplift of the mat of the containment building on vertical accelerations and the design of the equipment.

--The ability of the walls of the auxiliary building at elevation 100 feet to carry the increased forces that might result from considering a fixed base at elevations 85 feet and 100 feet, neglecting

Members of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission October 24, 1983 Page 12 the soil structure interaction effects (considering the springs at elevation 100 feet to be rigid).

--the adequacy of the rotational springs used to model the columns in the vertical analysis of the slabs of the auxiliary building in relation to the size of the finite elements.

--The adequacy of the soils work performed by HLA in relation to the deter-mination of rock and soil properties, vari-ationofthesepropertieswithdepthggp their variation with level of strain.--

Each of the matters described briefly above relates directly to issues being considered by this Commission at the October 28th briefing: whether Diablo Canyon has been designed consistent with the Commission's regulations and PGandE's licensing commitments. The appropriate forum in which to

resolve those issues is the hearing on design scheduled to commence on October 31st. Neither the public interest in safety nor the Commission's interest in avoiding further l

" surprises" would be served by a premature decision to l

reinstate the license based on an inadequate record.

12! Testimony of Jose Roesset, at 25-26.

Members of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission October 24, 1983 Page 13 Common sense, fairness, and applicable law dictate that the Commission stay its hand pending completion of the scheduled hearings and resolution of the matters discussed above. For all these reasons, the Joint Intervenors oppose reissuance of the suspended license at this time.

Very truly yours, JOEL R. REYNOLDS, ESQ.

JOHN R. PHILLIPS, ESQ.

ERIC HAVIAN, ESQ.

Center for Law in the Public Interest 10951 W. Pico Boulevard Los Angeles, CA 90064 (213)470-3000 DAVID S. FLEISCHAKER, ESO.

P. O. Box 1178 Oklahoma City, OK 73101 By %

DEL R]$0LDS Attorneys for Joint Inter-venors SAN LUIS OBISPO MOTHERS FOR PEACE SCENIC SHORELINE PRESERVATION CONFERENCE, INC.

ECOLOGY ACTION CLUB SANDRA SILVER ELIZABETH APFELBERG JOHN J. FORSTER JR:cc cc: Diablo Canyon Service List

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