NRC Generic Letter 1986-15
UNITED STATESNUC`LIAR REGULATORY COMMISSIONWASHINGTON, O. C. 20555SEP 2 2 1986TO ALL LICENSEES AND HOLDERS OF AN APPLICATION FOR AN OPERATING LICENSEGentlemen:
SUBJECT: INFORMATION RELATING TO COMPLIANCE WITH 10 CFR 50.49, "ENVIRONMENTALQUALIFICATION OF ELECTRIC EQUIPMENT IMPORTANT TO SAFETY FOR NUCLEARPOWER PLANTS", (GENERIC LETTER 86-15)Generic Letters, Bulletins, and Information Notices have been issued toprovide guidance and clarify the intention of 10 CFR 50.49, "EnvironmentalQualification of Electric Equipment Important to Safety for Nuclear PowerPlants". Generic Letter 85-15, issued August 6, 1985, provided informationrelated to the deadlines for compliance with 10 CFR 50.49 and possible civilpenalties should licensees operate in non-compliance with the rule. Thepurpose of this letter is to provide additional guidelines on appropriatelicensee actions in situations where environmental qualification of equipmentis suspect and on current NRC policy with regard-to enforcement of 10 CFR 50.49.When a licensee discovers a potential deficiency in the environmental qualifi-cation of equipment (i.e., a licensee does not have an adequate basis toestablish qualification), the licensee shall make a prompt determination ofoperability, shall take immediate steps to establish a plan with a reasonableschedule to correct the deficiency, and shall have written justification forcontinued operation. This justification does not require NRC review and approval.The licensee may be able to make a finding of operability using analysis andpartial test data to provide reasonable assurance that the equipment will performits safety function when called upon to mitigate the accidents for which it isneeded. In this connection, it must also be shown that subsequent failure of theequipment under accident conditions will not result in significant degradation ofany safety function or provide misleading information to the operator.If the licensee is unable to demonstrate operability:A. For inoperable equipment included in systems covered by planttechnical specifications, the licensee shall follow the appropriateaction statements. This could require the plant to shut down withina limited period of time (or remain shut down).B. For inoperable equipment not covered by the plant technicalspecifications, the licensee may continue reactor operation:1. If the safety function can be accomplished by other designatedequipment that is qualified, or2. If limited administrative controls can be used to ensure thesafety function is performe The licensee should also evaluate whether the findings are reportable under50.72, 50.73, Part 21, the Technical Specifications or any other pertinentreporting requirements, particularly if equipment is determined to be inoperable.Enclosed is a copy of enforcement guidance related to Generic Letter 85-15.This letter does not require any response and therefore does not need approvalof the Office of Management and Budget. Comments on burden and duplication maybe directed to the Office of Management and Budget, Reports Management Room 3208,New Executive Office Building, Washington, D.C. 20503. Should you have anyquestions, the staff contacts are Gary Holahan for technical questions andJane Axelrad for enforcement questions. Mr. Holahan can be reached on(301)492-4410 and Ms. Axelrad can be reached on (301)492-4909.
Sincerely,Original Signed By:Richard H. VollmerHarold R. Denton, DirectorLI Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation
Enclosure:
As statedDISTRIBUTIONCENTRAL FILEORAS FILEJCARTERMVIRGILIOGHOLAHANRVOLLMERHDENTONNOTE:SEE CONCURRENCES ON "GENERIC LETTER ON EQUIPMENT QUALIFICATION" AUGUST 6, 1986MEMO FROM H. R. DENTON TO J. H. SNIEZE ENCLOSUREENFORCEMENT CRITERIA FOR EQ ENFORCEMENTApplication of the NClearly knew, or should have known" testThe staff believes it is unlikely that licensees will be identified that"clearly knew" they had equipment for which qualification cannot be established.The staff believes from discussions with licensees that all licensees who wereaware before November 30 that they had equipment for which qualification couldnot be established elected to shut down rather than operate in noncomplianceunder the daily penalty provision. Thus, the issue in most cases will be forthe staff to determine whether the licensee uclearly should have known" thatits equipment was not qualified. The staff will examine the circumstances ineach case to make the determination. The factors the staff will examine include:1. Did the licensee have vendor-supplied documentation that demonstratedthat the equipment was qualified?2. Did the licensee perform adequate receiving and/or field verificationinspection to determine that the configuration of the installedequipment matched the configuration of the equipment that was qualifiedby the vendor?3. Did the licensee have prior notice from any source that equipmentqualification deficiencies might exist?4. Did some licensees identify similar problems and correct them beforethe deadline?To illustrate how these factors would be applied in specific cases, the staffwill use as an example in the discussion which follows deficiencies in thequalification of the internal wiring of certain valve operators recentlyidentified at several plants. Vendor EQ test reports provided to licenseeswere ambiguous regarding whether the internal wiring of the operators wasqualified by the reports. It has now been determined that vendor EQ testreports did not include qualification of the internal wiring of the operatorsand that the wiring used in the test operators could be different than thewiring installed in production units. Subsequent wiring modifications by thevalve manufacturer or by the installer have introduced additional wiring whichvias not covered by the operator qualification reports. Physical inspectionhas shown instances of unidentified or not qualified wiring installed inseveral valve operators.These operators are used on a wide variety of valves at the plants and in manycases were used on valves which were part of systems covered by technicalspecifications (TS) such as containment isolation valves. The wiring in theoperators should have been qualified by November 30, 1985. Thus, plants atwhich such significant deficiencies are identified after the deadline forwhich further testing or analysis is required to establish qualification andwhich operated in noncompliance are subject to a possible penalty of $5,000per item per day if such licensees clearly knew or clearly should have known ofthe deficiencies. In some plants, this could amount to a substantial penalt With regard to the first two factors, reliance on vendor-supplied informationon testing of equipment and performance of receiving and/or field verificationinspections, the licensees took the position that the EQ test reports providedby the vendor covered the wiring and did not perform adequate receiving orfield verification inspections to positively identify the internal wiring.We and the licensees now know that the vendor test reports did not cover thewiring in the operators.In addressing qualification by test, paragraph (f) of 10 CFR 50.49 requiresthat each item of electrical equipment important to safety must be qualified bytesting an identical item or testing a similar item with supporting analysisthat the equipment to be qualified is acceptable. It may not be reasonable torely entirely on vendor-supplied information in establishing similarity sincechanges to complex equipment are likely to occur during the manufacturingprocess and/or installation. A comprehensive receiving and/or field verificationinspection of the equipment by the licensees should be conducted to identifysignificant discrepancies between the as-installed vs. qualified configurations.With regard to the third factor, prior notice of similar problems, the resultsof one field verification inspection of equipment prompted IE to issue anInformation Notice in 1983 to alert licensees to several deficiencies affectingequipment qualification. This Notice discussed a construction deficiency reportrelated to inspection of valve operators at a plant under construction. Amongseveral specific qualification-related concerns, this Notice stated that UNoidentification was evident on certain materials internal to the valve operators(e.g., wiring, insulation, etc.)" and stated that "It is not presently knownwhether these types are qualified for the service conditions." This InformationNotice also highlighted the fact that "Information obtained from purchase orderfiles and qualification files does not agree with the installed components.'Based on the above, the staff concluded this document provided prior notice ofthe potential problems with certain valve operators. Given this information,it was unreasonable for licensees to rely entirely on the vendor reports withoutdoing additional work to ensure that the wiring was qualified.With regard to the fourth factor, some licensees did identify and correct thisproblem before the November 30, 1985 deadline. The unqualified wiring wasidentified by these licensees as a result of walkdown verification of theinstalled equipment or comprehensive review of qualification files.After consideration of all of these factors, the staff has concluded that inthe case of the wiring, licensees "clearly should have known" that the vendordocumentation was not adequate to support qualification.Time Period to be Considered for Daily Civil PenaltyOnce the staff concludes that the 'clearly knew or should have known" testis applicable, the staff must determine the appropriate period over which toassess a daily civil penalty. The staff has concluded that the appropriateperiod is from November 30, 1985 to the time the licensee completes itsevaluation and schedules corrective action. This approach should encouragetimely identification and evaluations by licensees of the qualification of theequipment. A licensee should not be penalized for each day after the problem
-3 -is identified and appropriate corrective action is scheduled that it elects tooperate until the problem is fixed assuming a reasonable determination was madethat it was safe to allow continued operation. Imposing daily civil penaltiesuntil the violation is corrected would provide strong incentives for shutdowneven though the licensee had determined that continued operation for somereasonable period of time is not unsafe. However, if the licensee's determinationthat it was safe to operate is later found to be in error, shutdown may berequired and the licensee may be subject to daily civil penalties. Since suchpenalties are likely to quickly become abnormally high, particularly as thelength of time between the November 30 deadline and the date of inspectionincreases, the staff has determined that some cap on the possible amount ofthe civil penalty should be imposed. The staff has determined that this isappropriate especially for those cases in which the 'clearly should have known"test is applied as opposed to cases in which the licensee 'clearly knew" thatthey were not in compliance. The staff has selected a cap of $500,000 per itemor approximately the amount that would be imposed for one item that was deficientfor 100 days after the deadline. The mitigation factors would then be appliedto mitigate from $500,000 per item down if appropriate. Similarly, since thereasonableness of the schedule for corrective action is a factor to be consideredfor mitigation of the daily civil penalty, if the licensee fails to meet itsschedule, additional civil penalties will be considered.In the case of the valve operators described above, in one hypotheticalsituation, suppose that a Resident Inspector notified one licensee two weeksafter the deadline that the qualification of the valve operators was suspect.That licensee evaluated the situation and concluded that the qualification ofthe wiring could not be verified. The licensee performed a final evaluationtwo weeks later justifying continued operation with the unqualified equipmentand planned to replace the equipment at the next scheduled refueling outage intwo months. The staff would conclude that this licensee would be subject toa daily civil penalty of $5,000/item/day for 28 days.Application of the Mitigation FactorsOnce it has been determined that a licensee may be subject to a daily civilpenalty under this test, Generic Letter 85-15 specifies that the staff shouldapply certain mitigation factors to determine the amount of the proposedpenalty. The factors specified in the letter were:1. Did the licensee identify and promptly report the noncompliance with10 CFR 50.49?2. Did the licensee apply best efforts to complete environmentalqualification within the deadline?3. Has the licensee proposed actions which can be expected to result infull compliance within a reasonable time?These factors are self-explanatory. In addition, the staff would considerthe circumstances of each particular case including the significance of thedeficiencies identified, the opportunities available to identify and correct
-4 -them, the time taken by the licensee to make a determination, the qualityof the supporting analysis, and the length of time the deficiencies existedbefore identification. The following discussion illustrates how thesemitigation factors would be applied in the hypothetical case of a licenseewhich identified the valve operator problem.We assume that the licensee identified the potential problem with qualificationof the internal wiring of valve operators after conversations with the NRCResident Inspector. We assume that it immediately initiated a timelyinvestigation, determined that qualification of its valve operators was notfully supported due to problems with the internal wiring, and notified theNRC of this determination via telephone and continued to evaluate the problem.Within two weeks of becoming aware of the problem, the licensee submitted a10 CFR Part 21 report to the NRC. Included in this submittal was the licensee'sJustification for continued operation of the plant and a plan for correctiveaction.Further we assume that the licensee actively worked to achieve its 10 CFR 50.49deadline of the second refueling outage after March 31, 1982 and was able tomeet it except for some items of equipment for which justifications for continuedoperation (JCOs) had been approved. Later, NRC was notified by telephone thatall work on equipment scheduled for replacement and/or relocation and coveredby the previously approved JCOs had been accomplished. Therefore, all equipmentwithin the scope of 10 CFR 50.49 was believed to be qualified well before theNovember 30, 1985 deadline.Finally, we assume that this licensee's 10 CFR Part 21 report submitted to theNRC included a schedule for corrective actions to establish qualification ofthe wiring of all valve operators within the scope of 10 CFR 50.49 and thatthis schedule called for the replacement of existing wiring with qualifiedwiring on all affected operators within two months.The staff has concluded that this licensee would be entitled to completemitigation under these factors. However, to be fair and equitable to thoselicensees who either took appropriate actions prior to November 30 or shut downon November 30 in order to be in compliance, some civil penalty should be imposed.Thus, the staff has concluded that the daily civil penalty should be adjustedin accordance with the factors but the civil penalty levied should not be lowerthan $50,000, the base civil penalty for an ordinary Severity Level III violation,in any case in which significant deficiencies remained at the close of theinspection for which further testing or analysis was required to establishqualification and which the licensee 'clearly knew or should have known" existedbefore the November 30 deadline.Other Enforcement Regarding Violations of EQ Requirements Identified at PlantsOperating After November 30If violations of the EQ rule identified during first-round l/ inspections atplants operating after November 30, 1985 apparently existed before the deadline,then the 'clearly knew or should have known" test should be applied. If theAI First-round inspections are special team inspections to review licensees'compliance with 10 CFR 50.4 licensee meets the test, enforcement should be taken as described above. Ifthe licensee does not meet this test, no enforcement action should be taken.If the licensee could not have reasonably been expected to discover the problembefore the November 30 deadline, presumably the noncompliance could not havebeen avoided and enforcement action to deter future noncompliance would serveno purpose.If the violations of the EQ rule identified after November 30, 1985 do notrelate back to action or lack of action before the deadline; e.g., a modificationwas made in January 1986 that created the violation, or are identified afterfirst-round inspections are completed, enforcement should be taken under thecurrent Enforcement Policy. The present policy states as an example ofSeverity Level III: "2. A system designed to prevent or mitigate a serioussafety event not being able to perform its intended function under certainconditions (e.g., safety system not operable unless offsite power is available;materials or components not environmentally qualified)." Thus, no changes tothe Enforcement Policy are necessary to take into account EQ violations.Consistent with the interpretations of the Enforcement Policy in other areas,less significant violations that indicate a programmatic breakdown can also begrouped and categorized as Severity Level III violations.For licensees that were not in compliance with the rule before the November 30,1985 deadline and did not submit timely requests for extension, but which didnot operate in noncompliance after the deadline, consistent with the Commission'sdirection in response to SECY 85-220, (Memorandum from S. J. Chilk to W. J.Dircks, August 27, 1985) the staff will exercise enforcement discretion afterconsidering whether adequate JCO's were provided and whether an extension wouldhave been granted if timely file LIST OF RECENTLY ISSUED GENERIC LETTERSGenericLetter No.Date ofSubject IssuanceIssued ToGL 86-14GL 86-13GL 86-12GL 86-11GL 86-10GL 86-09OPERATOR LICENSINGEXAMINATIONSPOTENTIAL INCONSISTENCYBETWEEN PLANT SAFETY ANALYSESAND TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONSCRITERIA FOR UNIQUE
PURPOSE
EXEMPTION FROM CONVERSION FROMTHE USE OF HEU FUELDISTRIBUTION OF PRODUCTSIRRADIATED IN RESEARCHREACTORSIMPLEMENTATION OF FIREPROTECTION REQUIREMENTSTECHNICAL RESOLUTION OFGENERIC ISSUE NO. B-59(N-1) LOOP OPERATION IN BWRSAND PWRS08/20/8607/23/8607/03/8606/25/8604/28/8603/31/86ALL POWERREACTORLICENSEES ANDAPPLICANTSALL POWERREACTORLICENSEES WITHCE AND B&WPRESSURIZEDWATER REACTORSALL NON-POWERREACTORLICENSEESAUTHORIZED TOUSE HEU FUELALL NON- POWERREACTORLICENSEESALL POWERREACTORLICENSEE ANDAPPLICANTSALL BWR ANDPWR LICENSEESAND APPLICANTSGL 86-08 AVAILABILITY OF SUPPLEMENT 4TO NUREG-0933, "APRIORITIZATION OF GENERICSAFETY ISSUES"03/25/86ALL LICENSEES,APPLICANTS ANDCONSTRUCTIONPERMIT HOLDERSGL 86-07GL 86-06GL 86-05TRANSMITTAL OF NUREG-1190REGARDING THE SAN ONOFRE UNIT1 LOSS OF POWER AND WATERHAMMER EVENTIMPLEMENTATION OF TMI ACTIONITEM II.K.3.5, "AUTOMATIC TRIPOF REACTOR COOLANT PUMPS"IMPLEMENTATION OF ThI ACTIONITEM II.K.3.5, "AUTOMATIC TRIPOF REACTOR COOLANT PUMPS'03/20/8605/29/8605/29/86ALL LICENSEESAND APPLICANTSALL LICENSEESAND APPLICANTSOF CE DESIGNNSSSALL LICENSEESAND APPLICANTSOF B&W DESIGNNSSS FOR: All Project ManagersFROM: Harold R. Denton, DirectorOffice of Nuclear Reactor RegulationSUBJECT: GENERIC LETTER PROVIDING INFORMATION RELATED TO COMPLIANCE WITH10 CFR 50.49, "ENVIRONMENTAL QUALIFICATION OF ELECTRIC EQUIPMENTIMPORTANT TO SAFETY FOR NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS"The enclosed generic letter is being sent to all licensees and holders of anapplication for an operating license to provide additional guidelines, whichhave been approved by the Commission, on appropriate licensee actions insituations where environmental qualification of equipment is suspect and oncurrent policy with regard to enforcement of 10 CFR 50.49. No explicit actionor reporting is required by licensees or applicants as a result of this letter.Therefore, no MPA will be established nor will schedule negotiations be necessary.Project Managers should read the letter and become familiar with the appropriateactions to be taken by licensees when suspect or known deficiencies in environ-mental qualification are discovered. Each Project Manager should develop anappreciation for the enforcement considerations, but, since enforcement isprimarily a regional matter, you need not become completely familiar with theenforcement criteria.Original Signed By:Richard H. Vollmer161 Harold R. Denton, Director/) Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation
Enclosure:
Generic LetterDISTRIBUTIONCENTRAL FILEORAS FILETCARTERMYIRGILIOGHOLAHANRVOLLMERHRDENTONORAS91i -TJCATER:mk8 //f/86*Concurrence received by phoneORAS:BC &4#'MVIRGILIOf f/i1 /86GHOLAHAN4V/1-1,86NA'OL ERiF C /86NHC<HRDENTON7 //5/86IE*JAxelrad09/16/86