ML20133H677
| ML20133H677 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Diablo Canyon  |
| Issue date: | 08/01/1985 |
| From: | NRC COMMISSION (OCM) |
| To: | |
| References | |
| REF-10CFR9.7 NUDOCS 8508090452 | |
| Download: ML20133H677 (77) | |
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1 O I SC LA I M EP O
3 4
5 6 This is an unofficial transcript of a meeting of the 7 United States Nuclear Regulatory Commis,sion held on Thursday, 3 August 1, 1985 in the Commission's office at 1717 H Street, 9 N.W., Washington, D.C. The meeting was open to public 10 attendance and observation. This transcript has not bean 11 reviewed, corrected, or edited, and it may contain f
k., 12 i r.accurac i es .
13 The transcript is intended solely for general 14 informational purposes. As provided by 10 CFR 9.108, it is 15 not part of the formal or informal record of decision of the 16 matters discussed. Expressions of opinion in this transcript 17 do not necessarily reflect final determination or beliefs. No ,
18 pleading or other paper may be filed with the Commission in 1
19 any proceeding as the result of or addressed to any statement l 1
l 20 or argument contained herein, except as the Commission may !
21 authorize.
22 23
\
ss 24 25
1 1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 2 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 3 - - -
4 5 DISCUSSION /POSSIBLE VOTE ON FULL 6 POWER OPERATING LICENSE FOR DIABLO CANYON-2 7 (PUBLIC MEETING) s - - -
0 Nuclear Regula. tory Commission 10 Room 1130 11 1717 "H" Street, N.W.
12 Washington, D.C.
13 14 Thursday, August 1, 1985 15 -
16 The Commission met in open session, pursuant to 17 notice, at 10:37 o' clock a.m., NUNZIO J. PALLADINO, Chairmap 18 of the Commission, presiding.
19 COMMISSIONERS PRESENT:
20 NUNZIO J. PALLADINO, Chairman of the Commission 21 THOMAS M. ROBERTS, Member of the Commission 22 JAMES K. ASSELSTINE, Member of the Commission 23 FREDERICK M. BERNTHAL, Member of the Commission s
24 LANDO W. ZECH, JR., Member o the Commission 25
e s
2
(% l-1 STAFF AND PRESENTERS SEATED AT COMMISSION TABLE:
- 2 3 S. CHILK 4 W. DIRCKS S H. PLAINE 6 M. MALSCH 7 J. MART 1H 8 H. DENTON 9 N. JENSEN 10 T. NOVAK 11 N. BELL 12 . 3. MANEATIS 13 H. FRIEND 14 B. NORTON 15 J. SH2F'/ER 16 i
j 17 AUDIENCE SPEAKERS: i i
- )
18 l
2 19 D. BECKHAM j 1
20 l l
21 4
22 23 24 25
3 1 P ROCEED I NG S 2 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Good morning, ladies and 3 gentlsmen. The purpose of today's meeting is to discuss and 4 decide whether or not a full jower license should be granted 5 for the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant unit "2."
6 On April 26, 1985 the NRC issued a low-power license 7 for the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant, unit "2", authorizing fuel 8 load pre-criticality testing and low-power operation for power 9 levels up'to five percent of full power.
10 By letter dated July 16, 1995 the licensee, Pacifio 11 Gas and Electric, indicated that initial criticality is 12 scheduled for August 6 and completion of low-power testing is 13 scheduled for August 16, 1985.
14 Therefore, the Commission will decide today whether 15 to authorize the staff to issue the full power license given 16 satisfactory criticality and continued low-power testing.
17 The NFC staff has prepared a presentation. I 18 understand that other members of the NRC staff as well as 19 representatives of Pacific Gas and Electric are available in 20 the audience to answer any questions we might have.
21 A representative of the Government Accountability 22 Project has requested an opportunity to speak at today's 23 meeting and the Commission has decided to grant this request.
24 We also will provide the licensee an opportunity to speak.
25 Therefore, at the completion of the staff's
- - - - --.y+---e ye, , - - . . - -
9 1 presentation, five minutes will be allotted to GAP and to the 2 licensee.
3 I note that there are two adjudicatory items pending 4 before the Commission on Diablo Canyon. These are the joint 5 intervenors petition to review AL.AB-811 and their request for 6 a stay of effectiveness of a full-power license authorization.
7 Our normal practice is to discuss adjudicatory items 8 in a closed meeting. However, in this instance I propose that 9 we take up the adjudicatory matters as the last item of the 10 public meeting.
11 If we get into significant detailed discussion on
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12 this issue, and the Ccmmission wishes to close the meeting, we 13 will take that up at that time.
14 At the completion of discussion, the Commission may 15 wish to recess for ten minutes to deliberate on the pending 16 decision.
17 Upon reconvening, I would poll the other 18 Commissioners to determine whether or not we should authorize .
19 t.h e staff to issue Diablo Canyon Unit "2" full-power license 20 given the staff's finding of satisfactory criticality and 21 continued low-power testing.
22 If the Commission decides to authorize issuance of a 23 license, then I will ask for the Commission to vote on the 24 draft order to address any adjudicatory matters and other 25 contested issues.
1 Today's meeting was originally scheduled for ten 2 a.m. The Commission apologizes for any unavoidable delay. We 3 postponed it to accommodate travel plans from our 4 Commissioners. I understand Commissioner Asselstine has been 5 delayed but should be here shortly.
6 Let me ask at thir time if other Commissioners have 7 any opening comments?
8 (No response.)
9 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Then let me turn the meeting 10 over to Mr. Dircks.
11 MR. DIRCKS: As you mentioned, Mr. Chairman, we will i We have a very 12 be picking up frop the last briefing in April.
13 summary update type of baiefing since the April briefing. So 14 we won't be covering evesything we covered in April but this 15 will be an update since April 16 Tom Novak is the briefer today and Jack Martin is -
17 here to cover the operational readiness of the plant.
18 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Let me ask the Secretary, is 19 somebody from Region V listening in on the telephone?
20 MR. CHILK: Yes.
9 21 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Who is that, the resident 22 inspector?
23 MR. CHILK: I believe so.
24 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: One-way?
25 MR. CHILKi One way.
9 1 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: All right, Thank you.
2 MR. NOVAK: Thank you, Bill May I have the first 3 slide, please?
4 (SLIDE.)
5 MR. NOVAK: We plan to give you a very brief update 6 of the status of the Diablo plant and mention a few other 7 items and primarily ask Jack Martin to discuss the operational 8 readiness of the plant.
9 May I see slide two, please?
10 (SLIDE.)
,11 MR. NOVAK: As the Chairman noted, the plant has f- ,
k 12 completed much of the work in preparation for fuel load. It 13 was completed on May 15. A certain number of pre-op tests are 14 continuing and the target date is still for initial 15 criticality next Wednesday.
16 With regard to Unit "1," we have noted that the unit 17 did go commercial on May 7 and since that time through about 18 the middle of July, the availability and the capacity of the 19 unit is reflected by these numbers which would indicate a 20 rather good availability of this unit and it is continuing to 21 operate at this time with this similar type of performance.
22 With regard to emergency planning, since our last l
23 discussion we do have a commitment from the licensee to in 24 effect abide by the GUARD decision. That is, he will comply 25 with any Commission requirements in response to the GUARD t
1 remand.
2 He has identified that the local and regional 3 medical facilities, he has indicated that those in his 4 emergency plans as to where a treatment for radiation exposure 5 is available. We are satisfied and we will be identifying 6 this commitment as being acceptable in a supplement.
7 May I have the next slide?
8 (SLIDE.)
9 MR. NOVAK: One of the t.hings that we have done on 10 Diablo Canyon is, in effect, combined the technical 11 specifications. These plants are very similar. The unit "1" 12 tech specs were issued late in 1981 There has been s 13 substantial amount of work done since that time on 14 Westinghouse type tech specs.
15 Unit "2" represents what I would call the latest 16 version of 4 ose technical specifications and during the 17 period of time in the last few months, the licensee has 18 proposed really to update the unit "1" tech specs to unit "2" 19 so that we would have a common set of tech specs and then just 20 identify those small differences in the design of the plant.
21 It has been done by a number of utilities who 22 operate duti unit stations and they see it as an advantage and 23 the staff is supportive of it.
24 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Do we have a set of tech specs 25 that apply to unit "2" for full-power?
4
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1 MR. NOVAK: Yes, sir. When we are authorized to 2 issue the full-power license, we would be issuing these common 3 sets of tech specs. So, in effect, very small change has 4 occurred to the unit " 2 ',' tech specs that are in existence 5 today.
6 Our procedure is with Commission authorization to 7 issue a full-power license, we would then issue a not set of 8 tech specs for both units representing, in effect, mostly the 9 same tech specs that apply to unit "2" with some small 10 changes, but the majority of the changes would reflect unit 11 "1" changes.
I 12 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: I guess I am still not clear.
13 You are going to have a combined
- common set of tech specs.
14 MR. NOVAK: Yes, sir.
15 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: But then you said that there 16 are changes between unti t "1" and unit "2."
17 MR. NOVAX: Unit "1" tech specs are typical of the 18 tech specs that we issued for Westinghouse plants in 1981, 19 -They centinue to be applied.
20 The applicant wants to combine and operate from a 21 common set of tech specs. So he proposed, in offeci, to 22 update the unit "1" tech specs to more reflect what unit "2"
?. 3 is operating at today.
24 We agree and we have done this on other units. So 25 what we are proposing te do then is issue a common set of tech
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4 1 specs. With the authorization to issue a full-power license, 2 we would then issue a NUREG which has the technical 3 specifications applicable to units "1" and "2."
4 For unit "1," however, we are required to issue an 5 amendment to that license but the mechanics are, you operate 6 from a single --
7 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Is there any difference between 8 the two tech specs when they are done?
9 MR. NOVAK: Just to reflect only the slightest 10 detail differences.
11 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: And what will be covered?
I 12 MR. NOVAK: They are identified really by spelling 13 it out.
14 MR. DENTON: We think,this offers a number of 15 advantages in operator training and familiarity with the plant 16 and so we have already noticed the proposed amendment of the 17 unit "1" license and following our usual practice, whenever 18' the Commission would approve the issuance of a full-power 19 license, that is when the unit "2" tech spec full-power tech 20 specs would go into force.
21 Now they are operating under the low-power set of 22 tech specs so this, in effect, gives them a set of tech specs l
23 which is nearly ' identical for most aspects of th plant for
- 24 both units and identifies the slight differences between the 25 two of them.
10 t j i CHAIPMAN PALLADINO: That is what I was interested 2 in. Thank you.
3 MR. NOVAK: The only other item I would point out is 4 with the exception of just two recently licensed reactor 5 operators, all of the operating staff today are licensed for 6 both plants and they will be operating on a five shift 7 rotation.
8 The staffing is there and the experience is there.
9 With the issuance of a full-power authorization, for example, 10 there are no shift advisors required. They have all of the 11 operating experience they require.
i 12 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Even though these people are 13 cross-licensed, do you have shifts dedicated to each unit?
14 ME, NOVAK: Yes. I think Mr. Martin can speak 15 further to that and we have dedicated crews. In a sense if 16 you were to into the control room, there are operators that 17 are working on unit "1" versus unit "2" but all of the 18 personnel that are operations can operate either unit.
19 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: But the assignments are made 20 per unit?
21 MR. NOVAK: Per unit.
22 MR. NOVAK: Jack, maybe you would like to amplify 23 how the utility is actually operating in that regard?
24 MR. MARTIN: Although the crews as I understand it 25 stick together, they have a rotation scheme to where they
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1 periodically not only rotate which shift they work, but they 2 also rotate among the two units periodically.
3 It is 4 scheme that the company has elected to 4 pursue that seems to be working acceptably. I am not aware 5 that that is done at other plants in the region but we have a 6 pretty small region so I don't know if that is typical of 7 elsewhere or not.
8 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Do you f i r.d this an acceptable 9 practice?
10 MR. MARTIN: It seems to be producing properly, yes.
11 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: I guess occasionally they would 12 have to operate both plants otherwise, they can't maintain a 13 license on both of them.
14 MR. DENTON: One advantage of it, it does give 15 whoever is running "2," has had the advantage of operating 16 unit "1" now all the way through up to full-power. So, in 17 .effect, they have an experienced crew on unit "2." If they 18 kept them strictly separate, they would have a green crew on 19 unit "2" and experienced on "1," so I think there are pros and .
20 cons but that is at a micro-management level and we find what 21 they are doing to be an acceptable way to do it.
22 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: All right. Thank you.
23 MR. NOVAK: May we have the next slide, please?
24 (SLIDE.)
25 MR. NOVAK: Jack, this is yours.
a 12 s
1 MR. MARTIN: On operational readiness, I think in 2 summary since the meeting that we had in April we have found 3 no significant problems in either unit "2" or unit "1" nor 4 have there been any significant self-revealing type problems.
5 In looking over and preparing for this meeting, I 6 made a list of all the items that have risen to the threshold 7 of having to be reported and since April, there have only been 8 two on unit "2," neither one of them very significant.
9 In looking at unit "1," it has been into power 10 operations during this entire period and there are a dozen or 11 so items, some equipment failures and personnel mix-ups, none 12 of which are terribly significant.
13 We have taken an approach during this period of 14 being very critical on these items and diving pretty deeply 15 into them, getting the utility to critique them all and 16 getting the lessons learned fed back into the system in hopes 17 of creating a pretty self-critical atmosphere right from the 18 very beginning.
19 So I think that is why the slide says "more 20 attention to detail." We are trying to foster that type of an 21 attitude and it seems to be taking pretty well People 22 respond fairly thoroughly to things that come up and there 23 haven't been a lot of repeat type items.
24 So I would say that unit "2" has not had many 25 problems at all and unit "1" during this time period has been
13 1 qui,te acceptable.
2 Unit "2" system turnover is essentially all the
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3 systems are turned over. The company has proceeded quite 4 slowly and deliberately on cleaning up open items and getting 5 all the systems turned over. So, in fact, they are ready to 6 operate.
7 The numbers of open items on these systems are quite 8 low compared to others that I am aware of and they expect to 9 oven have all those worked off here in the next few days.
10 So the readiness of the systems is good.
11 COMMISSIONER ZECH: Could I go back just a minute to 12 the inspection program where you talk about the need for more 13 attention to detail?
14 MR. MARTIN: Surely.
15 COMMISSIONER ZECH: It was noted during fuel load 16 operations, could you elaborate just a little bit on that and 17 the specifics of that, please?
18 MR. MARTIN: I could go through a number of the 19 kinds of items.
20 COMMISSIONER ZECH: Just as an example is what I am 21 looking for.
22 MR. MARTIN: For an example, a man was sent to pull 23 a fuse in a turbine control system in unit "2" and he 24 misunderstood the order and went and pulled the fuse in the 25 turbine control system of unit "1" which caused an abnormality
(; 14 1 in power. Nothing bad happened.
2 Nonetheless, it is the sloppiness in the operation.
3 So we have worked with them to critique them and the 4 corrective action was to be more effective in the way they ,
5 .give the orders and do it more like you would do on a 6 submarine where the guy has to repeat back the order so you 7 are sure that he understands what it was he was told to do.
8 These are the kinds of items.
9 COMMISSIONER ZECH: More formality, you mean?
10 MR. MARTIN: More formality and in a sense comes 11 from experience.
4 12 COMMISSIONSR ZECH: Right.
13 MR. MARTIN: These are obvious after they happen.
14 COMMISSIONER ZECH: But that is the kind of thing 15 you mean when you talk about more attention to detail, 16 MR. MARTIN: Exactly.
17 COMMISSIONER ZECH: The small things that can be 18 corrected with formality and a little more tiscipline perhaps 19 and a little more attending to business.
?O MR. MARTIN: That's right.
21 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Was that a reportable event and 22 was it reportable for "1" or "2?"
23 MR. MARTIN: Let me see. I was looking here.
24 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: The reason I asked, the 25 briefing information we had shows that the rate of reported
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1 events for a two month period was zero for Diablo "2."
2 MR. MARTIN: This on unit "1" that this would have 3 been reportable. There are about of dozen of those. Yes, I 4 think that is on here. That was one that rose to the level of 5 a reportable event.
6 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: But for unit "1" rather than 7 unit "2."
8 MR. MARTIN: Yes. There was a similar allied 9 situation wnere during a surveillance a fellow started the 10 wrong diesel generator again over a confusion as to what he 11 was told to do.
12 COMMISSIONER ZECH: Communications.
13 MR. MARTIN: Yes.
14 CHAIRMAN.PALLADINO: Wouldn't that be a reportable 15 event?
16 MR. MARTIN: Yes, it was. That was again for unit 17 "1."
18 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Oh, unit "1?"
19 MR. MARTIN: Yes. Since April, there have only been 20 two reportable events on unit "2." One had to do, you know, 21 about half the state down there has been on fire the last 22 couple of months with the brush fires and whatnot and part of 23 that, there was the company had elected to switch to some 24 other transmission lines and in that switching, there was some 25 electromagnetic interference that caused the control room
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16 1 isolation system to actuate. That was reportable but it is 2 not terribly significant.
3 There was another case where there was a similar 4 miscommunication between an operator and an I&C technician on 5 blocking a reset button. The technician thought he heard over 6 the phones to reset it rather than to block the reset and that 7 caused an unusual situation but it was during testing. But 8 those are the only two that have happened on unit "2."
9 Out of those, they typically convene a critique and 10 a technical evaluation of several of the managers involved and
,11 the. people that were involved and feed this back into the 12 system.
13 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Has PG&E really given attention 14 to making sure that orders are given clearly, that they are 15 acknowledged and then confirmed that the action has been 16 taken?
17 MR. MARTIN: That is what this was all about. I am 18 convinced that that has improved now. There are some other 19 things that they are thinking about that they haven't done yet 20 that might on reflection be a good idea where you have a 21 couple of plants that are similar perhaps, things should be 22 done on a different colored paper or something.
23 They are looking even further long range as to how 24 to further improve this but the immediate problem of people 25 being not sure what they heard, whether they have been told to
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i do it on unit "1" or unit "2," + hat seems to have been cleared 2 up.
3 So I am satisfied with that. The rest of these 4 items, there was a fellow forgot to radiologically survey an 5 area around a steam generator prior to a maintenance person 6 entering to pick-up a tool he just dropped, a couple of 7 surveillance irregularities.
8 The numbers of these items are small and compare 9 favorably to what one sees elsewhere.
10 The thing that most impressed me was that when we 11 have pushed for critiques of these items with an eye towards 12 learning as much as possible out of them, that has been very 13 well received and is becoming part of the culture of the 14 organization.
15 MR. DENTON: I think we talk often about 16 standardization and we do see it in the second unit. This is 17 where you get the benefits of standardization. They have over 18 70 operators licensed who can work on either plant so I think 19 that is why there is a certain paucity of unusual events.
20 Part of that must be the fact that it is a duplicate of unit 21 "1" and they have taken unit "1" through the start-up and up 22 to full-power.
23 We have seen the same sort of thing on other two 24 unit plants.
25 COMMISSIONER ZECH: My review of both unit "1" and
4
" 18 1 "2" to date has proved that they really have performed very 2 well. My only point is, even these small things as 3 insignificant as 4 hey may be, there are lessons to be learned 4 from them and I hope that the region and the utility are 5 working to take advantage of even these small things because 6 the record has been as far as I can tell very, very good but 7 there is always room for improvement and I hope that is the 8 attitude that prevails.
9 MR. MARTIN; That is the idea and my experience is 10 the first several months are so significant, I mean the 11 attitude of the organization --
- 12 COMMISSIONER ZECH: That is right.
13 MR. MARTIN: -- gets sat so I think a good healthy, 14 generalizing these things beyond the specifics is a good thing 15 to do and I hope that it will pay off down stream.
16 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: I am looking at one of the 17 enclosures that you had here, a table of recorded events and I 18 am kind of listening with one ear here and looking at this 19 table with the other and I recognize that you have been taking 20 here obviously about events that are not reportable, small 21 things as you indicate.
22 It is true that Diablo Unit "2" with zero comparing
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23 with some other notable cases that frankly I would rather talk 24 about right now but it is not the time where we have a "15 per 25 month" or "11 per month" or a dozen per month, an average of
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1 seven or eight per month of 50.72 and LER's for the various 2 plants here and Diablo, we have zero.
3 My understanding is that Diablo has yet to go 4 critical. Am I misunderstanding that? -
5 MR. MARTIN: That is a good observation. You are 6 right. Typically, when we get to this stage there is a little 7 bit more operation under the belt. I think at Palo Verde, for 8 example, they had been critical for a week or so and they have 9 another few days here before they do go critical so there is 10 still plenty of opportunity to that list. I hope it doesn't 11 happen.
12 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: Have these other plants 13 nevertheless racked up quite a few reportable events before 14 they went criti, cal so that Diablo still looks pretty good?
15 MR. MARTIN: As I look back, we went through this 16 same analysis for unit "1" and as I recall there weren't more, 17 certainly no more than eight or ten items.
18 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: Total or per month?
19 MR. MARTIN: Total 20 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: I see.
21 MR. MARTIN: It is a fairly small number and the 22 number of things that we measured were number of trips,
. 23 numbers of LER's and they were pretty small 24 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: That's good.
25 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Your question was a little
r
/q 20
\ /
1 different and it would be interesting to get an answer. I 2 think your question related to how many reportable events did 3 other plants have before they go critical?
4 MR. NOVAK: 'I would make one comment, sir. For 5 example, unit "2," the security plan is in operation. It has 6 been there. Typically, new plants, the first unit, I think 7 you always have that shake down period and I think you see 8 some of that number missing.
9 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: Security events.
10 MR. NOVAK: Yes. That. can occur at any time and
. 11 probably earlier so I think there are a number of things that i s
, 12 go into the equation.
13 We do think that they are fairly responsive to this 14 plant.
15 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: It strikes me that ten days 16 is pretty tight going to get all the low-power testing done up 17 to five percent but we can talk about that later and I assume 18 you will talk about it.
19 MR. NOVAK: We didn't plan on it but, for example, 20 on unit "1," they did complete it in seven or eight days and 21 actually the second unit low-power testing is slightly less.
22 So if things work according to schedule, they could probably 23 complete it within a week.
24 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: I see.
25 MR. NOVAK: That is a pressurized water reactor
-s 21 1 MR. DENTON: That is after the fuel is loaded.
2 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: All right.
3 MR. MARTIN: I didn't have much more to say on 4 operations other than things have been going pretty well both 5 on unit "1" and unit "2."
6 Could we have the next slide, please?
7 (SLIDE.)
8 MR. MARTIN: The next item that I wanted to cover 9 was allegations and basically since April all of us, NRR, the 10 region and 01, have continued to work on the backlog that wo 11 had so that the numbers of new allegations we have received i
i 12 have been. pretty small.
13 So as it stands right now, we have received 1,720 14 allegations -- I am sorry, this is as of June 30. The figures 15 have changed slightly since then but we had received 1.720 16 allegations.
17 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Is that for both plants?
18 MR. MARTIN: Both plants, and we have resolved all 19 of them and documented all but 325 on unit "2" and 250 on unit 20 "1 21 Out of those numbers, about 200 of those are in the 01 area which you talked about last week. So we are talking 22 23 in the order of 125 or so that they staff still has and are 24 working off on at units "1" and "2." There isn't anything 25 really new to report there other than we are making steady
22 1 progress in documenting and resolving these.
2 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: How many do you have that 3 relate to technical adequacy of the plant?
4 MR. MARTIN: Let's see.
5 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Roughly.
6 MR. MARTIN: For unit "2," there is 128 still open 7 that the staff has that-would relate to technical issues. Of 8 that, 31 the region is working on and we are in the final 9 stages of looking at those and documenting them and we don't 10 see anything in there that would call the plant into question.
11 They are the typical questions on records and l
12 different observations and claims by people that we are 13 working off.
14 The remaining 95 are in NRR's area. Do you fellows 15 want to characterize those?
16 MR. NOVAK: Yes, I think I can very simply. After 17 November 1984 if we received an allegation on Diablo Canyon, 18 we would treat it as an allegation against both units. So 19 from November of 1984 to today, any allegation that we 20 received we review it as if it could apply to both units.
21 Prior to November of 1984, we reviewed the 22 allegation more or less unit specific. So there are a number 23 of allegations that were reviewed before November of 1984 24 specifically for unit "1."
25 What we are in the process of doing now is going
'5 23 i back and looking at those allegations for their applicability 2 for unit "2" and we are carrying it as an open allegation.
3 That ir the thrust of the effort yet to be done with 4 regard to this.
5 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: I guess what I am trying to get 6 a feel for is how the staff can go forward in view of these 7 . allegations. I don't know if the answer is that you have 8 screened them and you know that the issue is. I would like to 9 get a feel for how you can go' forward in view of these 10 allegations relating to technical matters.
11 MR. MARTIN: Now that I understand the question, let 12 me go through that. Yes. Each of these allegations has been 13 screened by a review board to decide whether it rises to the 14 level of the criteria that we have established and are 15 documented in SSER-22 for that type of an item that needs to 16 be resolved prior to proceeding.
17 These were the kinds of things that the review board 18 screened the items against. None of these rise to that level, 19 but nonetheless, they are the sorts of things that we should 20 check out and complete our review of and document.
21 So each of these 128 items have gone through the 22 review process and none of them are the types of items that 23 would demand investigation and resolution prior to decision 24 making.
25 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: Thus far, this is awfully
., 3, 24
\'
i
~ .3 1 qualitative. Could you tell us how many of these whatever 2 100-odd allegations that we have discussed to far here and 3 also last week, first of all raised items that had not been 4 considered before that really looked and appeared to be .
5 something new to you, what fraction of those, and secondly, 6 how many individuals that you are aware of stepped forward 7 with allegations that had not heretofore presented allegations 8 whether similar or different just to get a feeling for whether 9 there is novelty here or not.
10 Is'that too tough a question?
11 MR. MARTIN. I think that is too detailed a l
-' 12 question. I know that information is available but I don't 13 have it right here where I could definitively go through it.
14 i have 31 items that my impression are none of them involve, 15 for example, a case where somebody says, "I know whe: J there 16 is something wrong in the plant." These are all items that by 17 in large involve speculation on irregularities in paperwork or 18 items that somebody remembers a non-conformance report of some 19 sort that he didn't like the way it got handled.
20 All of those that involve somebody wi-th something 21 specific that "I know where there is something wrong in the 22 plant," none of them rise to that threshold.
23 My impression is that the same is the case with the 24 design items, are they not? I know of no new types of 25 allegations that are of a different type than we have talked
f-^T 25 i <
1 before that have come up since April 2 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: That is really the question.
. 3 MR. MARTIN: This is basically a continuing to work 4 off the backlog of things that we have talked about time and 5 time and time again. First we came in with hundreds of them 6 open and now we are down to like 100 and continuing. I do not 7 believe that there is anything new or unusual in there. That 8 is why I didn't come with a big stack of details this time.
9 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: What about the source cf the 10 allegations? Have there been new individuals that are 11 presenting the allegatiens? i am just trying to get a sense 12 of whether there is something and many of these have come in 13 on July 15, I guess, or something like that. The question is 14 one of what is new on this, what is the fraction?
15 MR. MARTIN: I think what we are talking about there 16 is somewhere in the middle of July, OI was handed a stack of 17 affidavits of material that was going to be used and I am not 18 sure where it was going to be used. There was no cover letter 19 or anything but our understanding was that it was going to be 1
20 used with the public service commission and it was four or 21 five affidavits dealing with the claimed irregularities at the 22 plant.
23 I had staff members who were familiar with these 24 allegers, there were four i n+1 o l v e d , who were familiar with 25 and know, read these affidavits and with that in mind, is
,,~~ 26
(
1 there anything in here that we haven't seen before. I would 2 estimate there is like 150 pages worth of material involved, 3 120 to 150 pages, and our conclusion is there may be a half 4 dozen or less wrinkles on things that we haven't thought of 5 before but it is by in large a reproduction of things we have 6 already looked at.
7 MR. DENTON: Our experience is the same. I think 8 there maybe has been one new individual that has brought forth 9 allegations that we haven't discussed with you in the past but 10 I think the area in which he brought them up was in the 11 Pullman area, very similar to ones that had been looked into, i
5 12 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: New individuti but not new 13 material is what you are saying.
14 MR. MARTIN: It is a new alleger but he is someone 15 who we dealt with persona'11y and resolved his concern almost a 16 decade ago. It has come up again as well I didn't really 17 agree with the way that was handled. That is why I say that 18 it is people that we have dealt with and are familiar with and 19 fortunately the inspector who did the work is back with the 20 agency and we had him read through the material and pull out 21 the inspection reports and concluded, yes, that was 22 responsibly dealt with.
23 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: Harold, did you hav,e other 24 comment on that or should that do it?
25 MR. DENTON: No. We reached the same conclusion
. 27 1 that none of them that we had rise to the level of the 2 criteria we have set for it to preclude licensing.
3 We will continue to work them and document our 4 resolution of them and if anything changes, we will get back l l
l 5 to you but they are all in areas in whic:- we have done a lot 6 of looking as wa have described over the years sc we are 7 comfortable going forward in spite of these record and data 8 keeping issues that are here.
9 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: All right.
1C MR. MARTIN: I think that is all that we really have
, 11 to present. .
12 MR. NOVAX: Just to close-out, there is one 13 outstanding petition that is on GAP and in effect, it goes i
14 back to the issue of the a l l e g a t'i o n s . What we intend to do is l
l 15 early in November issue an additional safety evaluation which
-16 would then document all of the items that we have resolved,
( 17 any open allegations and at that time then make a decision 18 with regard to the petition, the 2.206 petition.
19 That is our schedule and that is our plan for 20 closing down on these " number" of open allegations.
21 Finally we have just our conclusion slide, may I 22 have that slide, please?
23 (SLIDE.)
24 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Conclusion slide?
25 MR. NOVAK: We have added one because we thought we w -
i .
r 28
)
1 were in a better position today to talk to you about the 2 conclusions.
3 CHAIRM5N PALLADINO: Is there a conclusion slide?
4 MR. NOVAK: There isn't one in your package, sir.
5 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: All right. Why don't you read 6 it then.
7 MR. NOVAK: It is a short cor.clusion. The staff 8 concludes that the licensee meets all the requirements for 9 issuance of a full-power license. We will, of course, work 10 with the region to watch the performance of initial
, 11 criticality and successive low-power testing and then as a 12 collegial body reach a decision given the Commission 13 authorizes us to issue a full-power license at the appropriate 14 time for it.
15 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Does that complete the staff 16 presentation?
17 MR. DENTON: Yes, it does, Mr. Chairman.
18 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: I have only one question.
19 Could you review the st.tus of SALP reports on number "2" or 20 number "1" or both?
21 MR. MARTIN: I locked at that before I came here and 22 it is interesting that the SALP period .-n d s today and if I 23 looked at last year's report which, of course, ended a year 24 ago the r a t i n.j s were mostly "2's" with a couple of "l's" and I 25 have started the practice of putting a little comment in the
= .- -
)
e9
.9
.)
1 margin, is it improving or decreasing so you can at least get 2 a sense of direction.
3 We have not had the SALP board meeting to review 4 this Icst calendar year's performance but I think it is .
5 certainly consistent if not improving from last year.
6 So how many "l's" and how many "2's," we have to get 7 our board 19gether to figure out, but the general consensus 8 before I left the region was that most of the areas look like 9 they are in the improving category so they will either be 10 "l's" or "2's" and some may have made the transition from "2" 11 to "1." None of them are "3's."
12 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: None of them are "3's?"
13 MR. MARTIN: No.
14 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Even on the old report?
15 MK. MARTIN: No.
16 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: I think it would be helpful in 17 the briefing packet if we included the summary table of the 18 SALP results. How about unit "1?" Do you have any?
19 MR. MARTIN: We rated them together and that would 20 be the case for both.
21 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: You rated them together?
22 MR. MARTIN: Yes, sir.
23 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Any other questions the 24 Commissioner's have?
25 COMMISSICNER ROBERTS: No.
- '1 1
l l
l l
1
'f.
t .
30 1 COMMISSIONER ZECH: No.
2 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: I guess we have discussed a 3 little bit the question of operator training and you have 4 given a pretty good report. However, I wondered if we could f
5 take the point once over lightly again at least because our 6 last time around in unit "1," that was a major issue as you 7 recall.
8 Could you give us a little better summary perhaps 9 with a few numbers at least on to what extent we are better 10 off and the whole operation there is, I hope, is considerably
,' 11 better off? What is the status of using STA's and experience
\
12 levels now and such things? Can we have a little more data on 13 that?
14 MR. DENTON: Yes. Let me ask Don Beckham to give 15 you a report on that.
16 MP BECXHAM: My name is Don Beckham. I am the 17 acting deputy director of the division of human factors 18 safety. We have been watching Diablo Canyon as they have 19 progressed primarily because of the issuet that were raised 20 specifically to Diablo Canyon.
21 We reported to you in April on the improvement that 22 we have seen in the operator licensing and training since 23 1962. We have continued to see outstanding performance in the 24 area of operator training cince then.
25 Since the licensing of unit "1," they have their
(N 31 s- l
(
1 site specific simulator which has been operational. They have 2 had a very aggressive program for training the operators and 3 the entire operating crew using the simulator. They have run 4 through start-up procedures on the simulator and they have 5 continued to perform extremely well in their examinations.
6 We reported to you last time that they had not had 7 an operator fail an examination since 1982. In the last exams 8 they did, they dropped their perfect record but they have to 9 da'te had only three operators fail exams. They were 511 10 senior operator candidates and one of those, I understand, is
,1 1 under appeal.
\
12 I would char.acterize the experience a r. d the 13 inspections and reports on the training program to be above 14 average and conti'nuing commitment to aggressive training and 15 aggressive follow-up on operational events, essentially, the 16 lessons learned not only at Diablo Canyon out at other units 17 in the training program and we have noticed a very tight tie 18 between the operations ' department and training department for 19 PG&E.
20 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: I didn't hear many 21 statistics there though. How does the overall experience 22 level on shift, what is it, five shifts or six, whate?rer it 23 is, stack up against the standard that the Commission at least 24 adopted as a matter of policy a year or two ago here?
25 MR. BECKHAM: If you remember, the Diablo Canyon
1 32 n.-
1 unit "1" started up with shift advisors. The shift advisors '
i 2 have just recently been released with the concurrence of the 3 staff. All of the operators who will be operating unit two 4 through the power ascension program have had at least the 5 experiente requirements on unit "1 6 So they will be operating unit "2" with 7 seasened crews. They have 71 dual-licensed operators at both 8 units. So they have a very large amount of operators that are 9 licensed to operate both units and all of those operators have 10 had experience both in observation and participation in a 11 training status at other units and also the direct experience 12 in the power ascension program and commercial operation of 13 unit "1."
14 They meet all of the requirements for operating 15 experience on shift and unit "2" will not be required to have 16 shift advisors for unit "2" start-up.
17 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: Sounda good.
18 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Any other questions?
19 (No response.)
20 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: All right. I suggest that we 21 excuse the staff and have Nina Bell join us at the table. We 22 are pleased to give you five minutes to make your presentation
?
23 and we will then see if wa have Commissioner questions.
24 MS. BELL: Thank you. My name is Nina Bell I am 25 speaking on behalf of Timothy O'Neill and James McDermott, who
9
~
c 33 1 are two ex-employees at the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant.
2 As former quality control inspectors at the Diablo 3 Canyon plant who are concerned with the safety of that 4 facility, we suggest that you are voting with inaccurate and 5 incomplete information supplied by your subordinates and the 6 licensee.
7 We are outraged by the performance of certain levels 8 of this Commission in addressing allegations of inspector 9 harassment, deficiencies and safety problems at the Diablo 10 Canyon Nuclear Power Plant and we respectfully suggest that 11 you have been misled by your subordinates, s
12 A recent Examples Report number 584-010 which was
' 13 released by the NRC office of investigations in February of 1985 with a cover letter from region dated July 16, 1985, in 14 15 this report the OI investigators find specific examples of 16 inspector harassment by the licensee and a subcontractor at 17 the Diablo Canyon site.
18 These include a complaint of harassment and 19 intimidation of QC inspectors which was reported to the 20 licensee's quality hot line and not investigated seriously 21 possibly because the licensee's QA supervisor is responsible 22 for oversight si contractor QA programs and would be auditing I
- 23 his own performance.
24 Two, six of eight inspectors in a group interviewed 25 by OI investigators confirmed that the assistant QC supervisor
e
(~%
(_, 34 1 "used gestapo tactics" to supervise the section.
2 Three, a threat by the same assissant QC supervisor 3 to his immediate supervisor to " bash his head in" for not 4 scheduling the assistant supervisor for overtime.
5 Four, attempts to terminate two inspectors who had 6 differing code opinions than the assistant supervisor which 7 were later resolved in favor of those individus1 inspectors 8 and threats by the assistant QC supervisor to have an 9 inspector terminated for refusing to sign documentation the 10 inspector believed to be incorrect which was also resolved in
,/ 11 favor of that inspector.
s 12 Five, attempts by the assistant QC supervisor to 13 discourage documentation of discrepant items and lastly,
~
14 unsubstantiated allegations by management of poor performance 15 as a supervisor and a " personality conflict" as the basis for 16 demoting a QC supervisor to a QC inspector.
17 ,
Finally, we quote from the report, "The assistant QC 18 supervisor admitted that he did counsel a few of them and 19 attempted to have two others terminated."
20 In the cover letter from region V addressed to the 21 licensee, the NRC concluded that "no violations of NRC 22 requirements were identified within the scope of the 23 investigation." We feel that this conclusion is unsupported 24 by the statements in the report alluded to above and suggests 25 the Commissioners review 10 CFR section 50.7 which is
5
,m 35
/
1 entitled, " employee protection."
2 The safety of the Diablo Canyon power plant is in 3 question because the allegations of conscientious inspectors 4 and workers at the plant have not been dealt with honestly, 5 forthrightly and in a manner prescribed by law.
6 There has been harassment of employees who have 7 gone to the utility or the NRC with safety concerns. Workers 8 have been fired for voicing their concerns about construction 9 methods, quality assurance and compliance with NRC procedural 10 requirements.
- 11 The licensee and subcontractors have been allowed 12 to investigate themselves and with the approval of the NRC 13 staff to address allegations.
14 It is not surprising that their conclusions have 15 been in nearly all of the cases that the allegation is 16 considered of no merit or substantiated but insignificant to 17 safety, i
18 Most disturbing of all, however, is the fact that l
19 these conclusions by the licensee have been accepted by the
\
20 NRC without appropriate scrutiny and before the facts have i
I 21 been examined.
22 We urge you to get to the bottom of this matter. We 23 respectfully suggest an investigation by the OIA into the 24 circumstances of report 584-010 and the conclusions of the 25 region V staff.
(
s 36 1 We also urge you to thoroughly investigate the 2 utilities quality hot line as this apparent conflict of 3 interest should not be allowed to replace the role of the NRC 4 when allegations of harassment and intimidation are raised.
5 We respectfully remind you that according to 10 CFR 6 50.7(c)(1) any one of the examples we have noted could be 7 cause for the denial, revocation of suspension of the license 8 referred to in this section.
9 You are acting on behalf of the people of the United 10 States and their safety is in your hands.
11 The items that we have called to your attention and 12 many others are still under investigation. We feel obliged to 13 inform you that at this time you do not have the complete and 14 accurate information with which to make a decision that 15 affects the lives and property of very many people.
16 Please investigate further before you vote on this 17 license and thank you for allowing us to present this 18 information to you which was, as I said before, signed by 19 James McDermott and Timothy O'Neill 20 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Thank you, Ms. Bell One 21 question is suggested by your presentation. I gather you 22 don't believe in a hot line whereby employees can call into a 23 number within the company and register a complaint?
24 MS. BELL: First of all, this is the whistle 25 blower's statements. This is not my own. What they are
/~s 37
(
1 saying is that the quality hot line is fine but when you have 2 people making allegations of intimidation and harassment by 3 the very company that they are then reporting the allegation 4 to, something drops out there and what drops out is that there 5 is a little bit too much self-policing and NRC ought to be 6 more involved in those allegations.
7 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: I presume that the hot line 8 doesn't preclude the individual from also notifying the NRC or 9 from going to the NRC if it wishes.
10 MS. BELL: Presumably, it doesn't. I think that 11 when the utility sets up the program and encourages people to 12 use it, that probably people do. Perhaps in this case they 13 would have felt more satisfied if the NRC had showed a little 14 bit more interest themselves.
15 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: It is not clear to me whether 16 some of these things were reported to the NRC or not. I was 17 interested in whether or not you believed that it was improper 18 for people to call their own management and tell them what 19 they think is wrong.
20 As a matter of fact, I think that is the fastest way 21 to get a correction.
22 MS. BELL: I think that there is a role for both 23 having information about what may or may not be wrong with the 24 plant design and construction going both to the NRC as the 25 regulator and to the utility as the constructor but there are
38 1
1 obviously some problems with self-policing.
2 There are also problems in the fact that the NRC 3 can't put in the amount of time that it ought to in inspection 4 and in reviewing allegations and that is just a constraint of 5 your budget.
6 There are problems there. The only question is 7 whether or not the people who have made these allegations and 8 who are not anti-nuclear, they built that plant. They want it 9 to operate safety. There are questions of whether or not 10 their allegations have been paid attention to and taken 11 seriously.
12 Obviously, a lot of them feel that that was not true 13 and they also feel that they were discriminated against by the 14 licensee in the process of trying to bring these safety issues 15 to the attention of either the licensee, the subcontractors or 16 the NRC.
17 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Thank you. Other questions or 18 comments?
- 19 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: I guess I think that it 20 would be appropriate if again we could just hear 25 words or i
21 less maybe from the staff on commenting on this list that we 22 just heard. Again, I would ask the question whether there is l
23 something there that pops out as novel and needs attention or 24 are all of these items things that staff is well aware of and 25 has dealt with before and knows about. Does anybody want to
39 p
( .-
1 step forward on that?
2 MR. MARTIN: I don't know that I can do it justice 3 in 25 words or less, but I think -- let's think back. The 4 gist of what I just heard was again Isrgely colored with 5 intimidation and harassment and inability to get a straight 6 story as to what is going on at the plant.
7 I think I would just like to recap what we said the 8 last several times we have been here. From the very beginning 9 in looking into this allegation process, the staff has been 10 quite alert to develop a sense, is there an atmosphere at that 11 plant that is inhibiting people bringing forward problems?
12 Is there an overall corruption, in other words, of 13 the management and quality systems that we depend upon to know 14 what is happening?
15 I will just to recount, we have interviewed hundreds 16 of people, I can't even remember how many anymore, but 17 probably on the order of 200 people, with just that question, 18 "Do you feel inhibited?" "Do we have a situation here where 19 it is difficult to bring problems forward?"
20 The agency, not only region V but other regions, 21 headquarters, 01, OIA, we have had dozens of people at that 22 site interfacing with all kinds of folks and I have yet to 23- talk to any of them who have detected an unhealthy atmosphere 24 with regard to bringing forward problems.
25 What we have said in the past is that these
1 '
40 a .. i 1 1 construction sites are rough places. there are all kinds of i
4 2 conflicts and differing opinions and there are certainly a W
3 number of people who feel very strongly that they were dealt 4 with improperly and they may have been. I just don't know.
i 5 That is what OI and Labor has been looking into lo these many 1
6 months.
7 So of the dozen or so people including the ones that 8 have made this statement, whether they have been dealt with 1
9 unfairly, I am not really sure yet. That process is not 10 completely finished. OI is still looking at some of these 11 cases but I think we can all say that even if true, it doesn't l
i V 12 represent an overall negative comment on the management and 13 quality systems that we need to deal with this plant.
14 On the specific case involved, in the OI report, I 15 don't have it before me but if my memory serves me what the 16 report will say when you get to the conclusion part of it is 17 that there appears to have been a very strong conflict of 18 personalities between the person involved and the assistant QC 4
19 supervisor.
20 However, the investigator did not find any case 21 where and I don't believe nor did the alleger claim that he 22 was forced to do anything that he thought was wrong. So I
( 23 think there is more to the story than what was just read and I 24 would suggest that you read the entire investigator's report.
25 It doesn't surprise me that there are conflicts of
t 4g (7
1 per,sonality at the site and i t doesn't surprise me that there 2 are indiscretions and yelling and all kinds of things that go 3 on.
4 But we have to keep our eye on the ball. Do these 5 things, are they pervasive enough and do they represent an 6 overall condemnation of the systems that we rely on where 7 people can bring problems up and get them dealt with 8 responsibly.
9 We have not found that to be the case. That is more 10 than 25 words.
11 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: '
Maybe just a few more but I 12 appreciate the comment. Thank you.
13 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Any other questions?
14 (No response.)
15 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Thank you, Ms. Bell 16 At this time, could we have the representatives of 17 Pacific Gas and Electric to join us at the table.
18 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: Joe, I wonder if you could 19 indulge me one moment, I apologize for being late this 20 morning. I spent all night on airplanes.
21 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: That is what I understand.
22 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: I put my faith in Eastern s 23 Airlines and Frank Borman let me down.
24 (Laughter.)
25 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: So I had to wait a couple wy e v ws
9 r R s
42 1 of hours while they repaired a plane.
2 I had just a couple of questions that I was 3 interested in hearing from the staff on on the performance of 4 Diablo "1" over the past year. I don't know if you have 5- covered that already but it would be useful if both Region V 6 and NRR could just say a few words about the first year of 7 operation of Diablo Canyon Unit "1."
8 I would be particularly interested in things like 9 the number of trips for the unit, the number of safety 10 injections if ther+ have been any, any failures of a safety 11 system during the first year of operation and any notable 12 personnel errors either by operators or by maintenance
- 13 personnel and also how that first year of experience compares 14 with some of the other new large Westinghouse PWR's that have 15 gone into operation over the past few years including places 16 like Calloway, Salem and Byron.
17 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Can we have a staff response?
18 MR. NOVAK: This is Tom Novak of the staff. I can 19 give you part of an answer to your question, sir. Back in 20 April we did look at Diablo Canyon "1" from about November 21 through April and we compared it to plants such as McGuire
- 22 unit "2," the Summer station, San Onofre unji "3" and then the 23 second unit at St. 1,ucie "2."
24 Otnerally, Diablo Canyon unit "1" compares well to a 25 station starting up its first unit. When you compare it to a
43 3
1 plant which is bringing on its second unit, the McGuire unit 2 "2" station and the St. Lucie "2," it doesn't do as well and 3 we would expect that.
4 In terms of the number of trips, for example, at 5 Diablo during that time period, 11 were reported at Diablo 6 unit "1," 15 at McGuire unit "2," nine at Summer, eight at San 1 7 Onofre "3" and seven at St. Lucie unit "2."
8 So we have watched the performance. My personal 9 conviction is that it is probably running better than the 10 average first unit at a plant. When you compare it to the 11 second unit though we do see generally an improvement across s
s_ 12 the board.
13 I think that is generally my feeling towards unit 14 "1" operations.
15 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: All right. Do you have 16 any specific figures on the other things, for example, any 17 safety injections?
18 MR. NOVAK: I don't have it broken out. I have 19 50.72 reports and LER's. We can make those numbers available 20 to you.
21 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: How do the numbers compare 22 on LER's?
23 MR. NOVAK: For example, on 50.72 reports for 24 Diablo, 35 for unit "1," 26 for unit "2" at McGuire. Summer 25 reported 25. San Onofre unit "3" reported 64 and St. Lucie
. 1 f, 44
-(
1 unit "2" reported nine. That is why we exclude region V 2 because they have a smaller population and they might look 3 much better than San Onofre "3."
4 On LER's, Diablo unit "1" had 31. McGuire unit "2"
! 5 had 27. Summer had 37. San Onofre "3" again 38 and St. Lucie 6 "2," 13, 7 C.OMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: All right.
8 MR. NOVAK: I think generally all of these variables
, 9 suggest that general performance that they are probably doing 10 as well if not better than any that we have recently seen f 3 11 coming up but when you look at a second unit, they still have i
e*
12 a mark to try to maintain.
13 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Were those numbers for the 14 comparable stage in the operation?
15 MR. NOVAK: I think we tried to do that, sir.
16 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: So it is roughly the first 17 six to eight months of operation?
18 MR. NOVAK: Right.
19 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: All right.
20 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: Thanks, Tom.
21 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Can we now have representatives 22 from PG&E join us at the table?
i s- 23 We would like to give you five minutes to make any 1
24 statement you want and then we will see if the Commission has questions.
[ 25
45
.m ~
i
~
1 MR. MANEATIS: Good morning, Mr. Chairman and 2 Commissioners. I am George Maneatis, executive vice president 3 for facilities and electric resources development. With me 4 today are Jim Shiffer, vice president of nuclear power 5 generation, to my right, Howard Friend, vice president of 6 Bechtel and the Diablo Canyon project completion manager and 7 to the far left, Bruce Norton, our licensing attorney.
8 I would like to thank the Commission for providing 9 me with this opportunity to comment on the readiness of Diablo 10 Canyon unit "2" to begin full-power operation.
/
11 As the senior executive officer responsible for the
' - 12 completion and operation of Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant, 13 I wish to assure the Commission that unit "2" is ready in 14 every respect to receive its full-power operating license and 15 at the conclusion of the' low-power testing program to proceed 16 with operations above five percent power.
17 This assurance is based on a number of factors, the 18 most important of which.are the following.
19 Unit "2" has successfully undergone a thorough and.
20 comprehensive design review and found to meet all applicable 21 licensing criteria and regulatory requirements.
22 All construction activities necessary to support
+ ! 23 full-power cparation have been completed.
24 The low-power test program is well along and nearing 25 completion. Minor problems identified to date have been
,n. 46 I
\
1 corrected and the integrity and availability of key systems 2 and components have been confirmed.
3 Operation of unit "1" to date has been very 4 successful providing added confidence that unit "2" can be 5 operated and maintained to the high standards of the Nuclear 6 Regulatory Commission and the nuclear industry.
7 I would like to touch on our operating experience 8 with unit "1" for a moment. Since beginning commercial 9 operation on May 7, unit "1" has operated at a cumulative 10 capacity factor of 92 percent and has been available for 11 operation 97 percent of the time. This operating record has 12 exceeded our own high expectations and is indicative of our 13 ability to operate a large nuclear power plant safely and 14 reliably.
15 As pleased as we are with the operation of unit "1,"
16 we have spared no effort to insure that unit "2" will be 17 operated to the same high standards of excellence we have set 18 for unit "1."
19 Our operating organization is experienced and well 20 trained and our' facilities are being continuously enhanced to 21 further improve our training and management effectiveness. We 22 believe that we are now ready to operate both units at Diablo 23 Canyon at full-power.
24 I hope you will concur with our assessment and 25 authorize the issuance of a full-power operating license for
47
! ^.
1 unit "2" as recommended earlier by the staff.
2 That concludes my remarks and now my colleagues and 3 I will be happy to answer any questions you may have.
4 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: 7.11 right. Thank you, 5 Mr. Maneatis. I have two questions that I would like to raise 6 for a moment.
7 You heard the staff report about some of the 8 communication problems that have been brought to their 9 attention and I think you heard a couple of us at least 10 emphasize the importance of communications.
11 What sort of instructions do you give with regard to 12 giving orders, acknowledging orders, making sure that there is 13 acknowledgement of implementation? I am speaking of orders 14 within the control room particularly.
15 MR. MANEATIS: This is a matter that we have very 16 carefully reviewed at t'h e plant. I think I will ask Jim 17 Shiffer, our VP of nuclear operations, to specifically tell 18 you how we have changed our procedures to ensure more formal 19 communications, clearer communications, to all operators.
20 MR. SHIFFER: As a result of the incidents that were 21 discussed previously, I sat down here about there weeks ago, I 22 guess it was, with the senior managers at the plant and we 23 discussed this problem for several hours and tried to come up 24 with numerous potential ways to improve it.
25 I have a task force of people right now at the plant
N.
48
(.
1 taking the list that we developed of possible fixes and 2 recommending to me the ones that we ought to implement. But 3 the one that we did agree to implement at the time is simply, 4 the root problem is these verbal communications.
5 So we just insist now that every verbal 6 communication to an operator be repeated back for accuracy and 7 I believe it was Mr. Martin mentioned, we are looking at some 8 other possibilities as far as better identification of 9 equipment on the two units, use more color coding, possibly 10 doing procedures on different colored paper and lots of other
/ 11 things that have some potential merit.
12 I might also add that one of the things that was 13 brought up previously or it was questioned previously was, do 14 our operators work both units and things. Yes, they do. That 15 is done deliberately to foster a feeling that you always have 16 to pay attention to which unit you are on.
17 In other words, we are very concerned about an 18 operator who say consistently works unit "2" and then once is 19 required to go over to unit "1" and forgets that he is not on 20 his normal unit so we deliberately swap our operators back and 21 forth and our maintenance people back and forth to not get 22 people into this kind of habit, make them think every time.
23 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: With regard to the oral 24 communication, I still want to come back to that. You 25 indicated that the orders are acknowledged. Is there any
/
~' ~
49 s
1 follow-up or any requirements whereby the person who i s- to 2 carry out the order states and reports back that the order has 3 been carried out which I think is a very important point in 4 itself?
5 I am no submariner but I have spent a time on the 6 submarines and watched the people operate and I have been very 7 impressed by them.
8 MR. SHIFFER: That is routinely done.
9 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Ybu say routinely. I have 10 observed at other plants that this is not so routine.
11 MR. SHIFFER: In our plant when an operator goes out 12 to do some job, he always reports back to the control room at 13 the completion of that job that he has done it. That is 14 really not a problem with us.
15 The problem is when he goes out to do it the first 16 time, how do we avoid having him make a mistake which occurs 17 before he can report back. But it is our standard practice to 18 always report back to the control room at the completion of a 19 job like this.
20 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Is this part of the training 21 program?
22 MR. SHIFFER: Oh, yes.
23 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Next time I get out there, I 24 will go at least into the simulator and see how they report 25 back.
50 7S 1 MR. SHIFFER: That is done routinely. What we are 2 now doing and requiring is that they acknowledge these things 3 before they go out and do the occurrence which is what the 4 problem was.
5 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: My second question has to d o.
6 with the comments that Nina Bell made about the hot line. Can 7 you tell us a little bit about how your hot,line works and how 8 you guard against some of the concerns that she expressed?
9 MR. MANEATIS: The hot line is routinely used. Any 10 complaint that is made is routinely investigated and 11 dispositioned. Even I get calls direct as part of our open 12 policy of communications.
13 In training films and all, we have encouraged any 14 individual having anything to do with Diablo Canyon at the 15 site or anywhere else to'if they don't get the satisfaction 16 that they are seeking when they are bringing up a problem to 17 anybody's attention to move it right up the line right even up 18 to myself.
19 I have had calls and the moment we receive them we 20 go right into action and try to get at the facts and resolve 21 ,
them.
22 I have to say that by in large all of the matters 23 that have come to our attention have been resolved as 24 objectively and as accurately as you can possibly resolve 25 them.
% 51
./
1 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Do you or your designee ever 2 make follow-up checks to see how the system is working by 3 going in depth on a particular call? The reason I dwell on 4 this is because in another case when your investigators went 5 in they were not enamored of the hot line procedures followed 6 and the depth of the investigations that were done. I would 7 expect that the management would be interested in seeing if 8 the system was working and I was wondering if you had any 9 audit procedure to look into how well it is working?
10 MR. MANEATIS: I will ask Mr. Friend from a 11 construction standpoint and of course, we are beyond that i
1
> 12 phase and all that activity has just kind of diminished as 13 Mr. Martin has indicated substantially but Howard, do you have 14 any comments to make on how the line is monitored and audited 15 as it were to ensure that we are getting the results that we 16 are after?
17 MR. FRIEND: Yes, I would, George. First, I think 18 it is important to note that the hot line war instituted by i
l 19 the owner as a means of providing a mechanism for anyone on 20 the site to bring to our attention any abnormal or off-normal 21 activity that wanted to be registered.
22 This system has been in place now for a couple of 23 years and we believe it has operated quite satisfactorily. We l
l 24 routinely handle concerns that are registered either with the 25 identification of the concerned person or even anonymously.
9
,~)
52 i We publish our results routinely and we have.been 2 audited by the PG&E's quality assurance department and I 3 believe the Nuclear Regulatory Commission inspectors on site 4 also have looked into our program.
5 Of course, as in any of these programs, there are 6 times when the concerned person does not feel that his 7 concerns have been addressed thoroughly or accurately and in 8 those cases we have always been in the position that they are 9 able to convey their concerns to the Nuclear Regulatory 10 Commission also on site 11 We have continued to at times periodically probe the 12 system to be sure that it is accomplishing what we intend.
13 Our intent is to be sure that there are open communications on 14 the site and that management is aware of any concerns that 15 exist on the site.
16 We think that we are achieving those ends.
17 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: I don't want to imply by my 18 questioning that we don't support that kind of an approach.
19 As a matter of fact, we encourage you to improve it and the 20 question is asked in the spirit of how can it be improved.
21 Do other Commissioners have any questions?
22 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: Just a couple. Let me 23 follow up on the hot line questions you were asking, Joe. Do 24 you have technical people that do the interviews on the hot 25 line that take down the information?
s
"* 53 1 MR. FRIEND: Normally, they are quality assurance, 2 quality control individuals that take the information. But if 3 it is a technical question, then the question is referred to 4 the appropriate discipline for investigation and resolution, 5 and then conveyed back to the hot line operator and 6 communicated back to the person who made the complaint.
7 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: All right. So it is 8 somebody though that has a grounding at least in understanding 9 of the technical areas.
10 MR. FRIEND: Yes.
11 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: It is not someone from a 12 public relations firm or secretary as we have seen in a couple 13 of other places?
14 MR. FRIEND: That's right The basic person that 15 receives the call is part of our quality group and then if 16 they get too technical, we refer it to the functional f
- 17 technical groups for resolution.
18 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: Could you tell me a little 19 bit more, too, about how you follow up with'the individual 20 assuming that the individual is willing to give you his or her 21 name? Do you then sit down with them after you have done your 22 review and said, "Look, here is what we looked at. Here is 23 the kind of analysis we did. Here is the evaluation that we 24 came up with and here is the conclusion we reached and we want 25 to explain it to you so that you can understand what we have
~
i jm 4 (mil
~
1 done and get a sense for how we have tried to address your 2 concern."
3 MR. FRIEND: Yes, exactly that. We want the person 4 who is concerned to totally understand how we approached it 5 and how we resolved it and why our conclusion was reached.
6 If the person were not satisfied and said, "Well, I 7 don't think you addressed this in enough detsil or I still 8 have this concern," we would go back and try to address that 9 concern.
10 Our goal is to resolve these matters either through 11 addressing the concern with the individual or if nece:sary
/'T i >
N' 12 physically making a modification in the plant. This is not 13 just a paper drill. It somebody brings something to-us that l
14 is truly a problem, we want to go fix it, also. But we do sit 1G down with the individual and communicate with him our process 16 and why and how we reach a conclusion.
17 MR. NORTON: Excuse me. That exchange might be a 18 little misleading. You do want to remember that almost all of 19 the quality hot lines are anonymous. They are anonymous "20 people. They don't identify themselves. Otherwise, they 21 would just walk in and sit down.
22 So it is only in the instance where they are 23 identified where you sit down.
v 24- COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: That tends to be in the 25 minority of cases on the hot line?
l .
l' l
I lr3 00 l, '
l l
1 MR. NORTON: Almost none of the hot line. They are 2 almost all anonymous.
l I
3 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: You also have the trailer i
4 where people could come in, right?
5 MR. NORTON: Right.
6 MR. FFIEND: Yes. .
7 MR. NORTON: They also have a mechanism for that 8 person to call back, the anonymous person can call back and
(
9 keep checking on the progress of his complaint.
10 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: Although I suspect that s
11 that approach generally tends to result in a more abbreviated 12 summary of what has been done rather than a more detailed l
l 13 walk-through.
l l
! 14 MR. NORTON: Yes.
15 MR. MANEATIS: To answer your question, they do call 16 back even anonymously when they speak to me and I always 17 encourage them to give me a few days and then they will call 18 back and ask what the disposition was.
19 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: Do you get a sense or a 20 feel particularly for the people who have been willing to 21 identify themselvea for the proportion that are satisfied with 22 the result of your review or the portion that are satisfied 23 that at least you have taken a careful look at it even if they 24 disagree with the result as opposed to those that just say, 25 "Well, you just didn't do what I think was necessary."
56
('}
.s .
1 MR. FRIEND: I haven't made any statistical analysis-2 along those lines but I think our feeling is that generally 3 the people are satisfied with the amount of investigation and 4 degree of thoroughness. I can't guess as to numbers but 5 certainly the majority seem to be satisfied.
6 COMMISCIONER ASSELSTINE: All right. Are each of 7 the items then documented?
8 MR. FRIEND: Yes.
9 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: In terms of having an 10 analysis that says, "Here is what we did" so that you can go 11 to one place and look at it?
/
i 12 Mk. FRIEND: Yes. We have a very thorough 13 documentation system where we record everything and the 14 resolution and disposition a n ,d so on.
15 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: On the problems that you 16 were talking about, I gather that Jack Martin had gone into in 17 detail about errors being made att in the plant, how much
~18 management supervision do those people get? Do you have 19 enough supervisors out in the plant in terms of making sure 20 that you have somebody there, a management person there, a 21 supervisor, to make sure that people understood what it was 22 that they were supposed to be doing and that they know what 23 they are doing when they are doing work?
24 MR. SHIFFER: We believe that we do. Mistakes do 25 get made but we believe that we have adequate supervision and
f (j 57 1 also, we have a very aggressive quality control program where 2 we have all major jobs worked on and inspected by quality 3 control people on the job at various hold points, 4 1 think one has to put some of these things in 5 perspective, that there are just literally thousands and ,
6 thousands of jobs and tasks going on and occasionally, there 7 is 3 mistake made and when such a DJstake is made, we 8 investigate it and try to take appropriate corrective measures. ,
1D I might also add that we follow that same procedure 11 and go through that same sequence whether the mistake is made, t
12 let's say, on a non-safety non-nuclear part of the plant 13 because it may have some generic implication for the way we 14 handle our nuclear jobs.
15 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: We are also finding, too, 16 when we look at operating experience occasionally the way 17 things are handled for a non-nuclear component can also
~
18 disable a safety item.
19 MR. SHIFFER: That's true, but many of the same 20 procedures are used and if there is a weakness in the 21 procedures that happens to surface in a non-nuclear area, you 22 want to catch it right away and apply it to the nuclear area.
23 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: I noticed that the staff's 24 briefing materials talked about differences between the tech 25 specs for the two units. Again, I apologize for not being
- s. ._ ,_
58
\_ ,
i here for that part of the discussion, but could you highlight 2 the extent to which there are differences be't ween the tech 3 specs for the two units?
4 MR. SHIFFER: There is really not very much in the 5 way of differences. What we are trying to do is to combine 6 the tech specs and in so d o i r. g , we are bringing them up to the 7 correct 1985 version' as opposed to the 1981 person but the 8 technical differences in the tech specs are relativel,( small.
9 . COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: So the set points, for 10 example, on equipment and instrumentation aren't all different 11 for the two units?
x '
1 2 '. MR. SHIFFER: Only te the extent that there are 13 slight differences in the plants themselves. Unit "2" 14 operates at a slightly highe,r power level than unit "1" and 15 that has some slight differences in set points and numerical 16 values but those are relatively minor.
17 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Jim, we discussed this in some 18 length with the staff. I want to confirm my understanding
< 19 that I got from the staff that they are going to have a common 20 set of tech specs but that common set of tech specs would 21 identify differences between "1" and "2." Am I correct in 22 that impression?
23 MR. MANEATIS: Yes, where appropriate.
24 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Where appropriate, yes.
25 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: I was just trying to get a
-. -- ,- _ - - ~ , _ . _ . .
+ !
l I
- (
l\ .
59 v
i feel for how wide the differences were given the fact that the
. 1 2 operators are cross-licensed.
3 MR. SHIFFER: What we are really talking about is 4 just the evolution of tech specs from 1981 thro _gh 1985 and 5 bringing'them up to the present standards.
6 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: All right. Thank you.
7 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Any other questions?
8 COMMISSIONER ZECH: I would just like to say that I 9 think the management involvement in some of these even though 10 rather minor problems is exactly the right approach to take 11 that Jack Martin mentioned earlier and I think you are working
/
12 with him and his people and getting into even the .< m a l l 13 problems that could result in symptoms that could involve 14 management people. .
15 That is what is important'to me because that 16 involves the people that can get something done.
17 I would also like to say that I think you are 18 getting into the communication problem and going to the point 19 of repeating back orders will pay off. It has been my 20 experience that that is a good thing to do. Some plants do it 21 and your operators get used to it. I think they will 22 appreciate it. It is an easy system to get onto and it 23 certainly gives you even in minor situations which are not too 24 significant, I think you find a pay back from that and 25 certainly you will find a pay back if you have any more I
e
. 60 l ms
i serious events.
2 Then formality and communication and the feedback 3 you have and the repeat back system you use will really pay 4 off. So I think that is the right approach and I commend you 5 for that effort.
G MR. MANEATIS: I egree. That is why we are going to 7 do it.
8 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Thank you very much gentlemen.
9 Let me touch base on another item that I covered in my opening to remarks.
11 In my opening remarks I noted that there are two 12 adjudicatory items before the Commission on Diablo Canyon.
13 They are the joint intervenors petition for the Commission to 14 review ALAB-811 and their request for a stay of effectiveness 15 of the full-power license' authorization.
16 I pointed out that our normal practice is to discuss t
17 adjudicatory items in a closed session. However, in this 18 instance I propose that we take up the adjudi,catory items in 19 the open meeting unless the Commission feels otherwise. I l
20 would propose to have OGC briefly highlight the two issues and 21 see if the Commissioners have any questions and then I would i I
- 22 propose a recess and then come back and I have two issues that j 23 I propose we vote on.
24 MR. PLAINE: Mr. Chairman, the effect of the order
. -m 25 that we have presented is t6 conclude the entire adjudicatory
61 1 proceeding and I have asked Neal Jensen, one of our assistants 2 who has worked on the order, to describe to you briefly the 3 pertinent situation.
4 MR. JENSEN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The order 5 which we had presented for your consideration essentially 6 wraps up the remaining matters with respect to Diablo Canyon 7 unit "2."
8 The two primary matters which the order concerns are 9 the joint intervenors application for a stay of the full-power 10 license and their petition for review of ALAB-811. The order 11 considers the reasons advanced by the joint intervenors for a 12 stay but finds that they don't meet the stay criteria.
13 The only remaining ALAB before the Commission is 14 ALAB-811. So the order also examines the reasons advanced in 15 the petition for review of ALAB-811 but essentially finds that 16 the appeal boa,rd decision was correct and declines review.
17 I could go more specifically into either of those 18 matters if the Commission desires.
19 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Let me see if there are any 20 questions by any of the Commissioners?
21 COMMISSIONER ZECH: No.
l 22 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: I don't have any i 23 questions.
24 MR. JENSEN: Mr. Chairman, since we sent the order 25 up late last night, a number of small revisions mostly of a
~'
/ 62 1 typographical nature have been discovered so I would request ,
2 that OGC jointly with the legal assistants could work out a 3 slightly different order from what you have before you?
4 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: There was an order attached, I 5 think it was to SECY-85-263. Then we had one dated July 31 6 that was a revision and you are saying that there are typos 7 and other revisions you want to make to this?
8 MR. JENSEN: That is correct.
9 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Is there anything other than 10 typos? Give us an example of something other than a typo just 11 to get a feel for how extensive the changes might be?
12 MR. JENSEN: The only area in which it is more than 13 a typo or a redundancy would be in the section on operating 14 experience on page nine of the order.
15 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Page nine. ,
16 MR. JENSEN: That would need to be revised somewhat 17 in light of the information presented at today's meeting.
18 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Any other questions or comments 19 on this?
20 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: I guess the only comment I 21 would make is that I am generally leery of approving orders 22 and then modifying orders after they have been approved by the 23 Commission.
24 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: During the break, could you 1
l 25 give us the changed pages?
l l
I
~ .
.O 63 1 MR. JENSEN: Yes, Mr. Chairman.
2 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: I agree with Commissioner 3 Asselstine on that. I feel leery of writing a blank check, 4 so-to-speak.
5 MR. JENSEN: Are you looking now at the order that 6 was sent up late last night?
7 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Yes.
8 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: Tell us which one to look 9 at.
10 CH7.IRMAN PALLADINO: Which page?
11 MI JENSEN: If you would look at that order which 12 has the changes identified in it from the original order.
13 CC MMI S S I ONER ASSELSTINE: You are now saying that 14 there are fur'her c h a r. g e s ?
15 MR. JENSEN: Yes. So you just want me to go through 16 the further changes?
17 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: Yes.
18 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: How many pages are involved 19 other than typos?
20 MR. JENSEN: Other than typos, there would simply be 21 the operating experience on page nine. 1 l
22 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: Could ycu just circulate '
23 copies of that page? f 1
24 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Just give us a copy of that 25 page marked up as you would propose it.
- - - - - - - - . _ . _ _ _ . _ _ _ , . _ ]
64
/n 1 MR. JENSEN: All right, fine.
2 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: Good.
3 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: All right. I would propose 4 then unless there are other questions that we recess and when 5 we come back, I intend to ask for a vote on the fellowing and 6 would propose two votes, one, whether or not to authorize the 7 NRC staff to issue a full power license for the Diablo Canyon 8 unit "2" upon satisfactory criticality and continued low-power 9 testing as determined by th* staff and then I would propose 10 another vote, whether or not to approve the draft order which 11 denies & petition to review ALAB-811 and a request for a stay 12 of the full-power license which sets forth the reasons for 13 resolution of other uncontested issues.
14 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: Fine.
15 COMMISSIONER ZECH: Fine.
16 COMMISSIONER ROBERTS: Shall we recess now?
17 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: How much time do we need?
18 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: Five minutes is fine.
19 <
CCMMISSIONER ROBERTS: Five minutes.
20 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: All right. Fine. We will be 21 back in five minutes.
22 (Whereupon, a short recess was taken.)
23 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Ladies and gentlemen, will you 24 please begin to take your seats. Please come to order.
25 This is a continuation of our consideration of the
I
,m 65
( i
%i i Diablo Canyon unit "2" proceeding.
2 At this time let if ask if Commissioners have any 3 other questions or comments?
4 COMMISSIONER ROBERTS: No.
5 COMMISSIONER ZECH: No.
6 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Let me poll the Commission on 7 the two questions I identified earlier and let me ask the 8 first question, do you authorize the NRC. staff to issue a 9 full-power license for the Diablo Canyon unit "2" upon 10 satisfactory criticality and continued low-power testing as
,11 determined by the staff, 12 COKMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: Joe, I think OGC might 13 have a comment before you do that?
14 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: I am sorry. I beg your pardon.
15 MR. JENSEN: I was asked during the break to bring 16 to the attention really just to the public that ALAB-782 which 17 is ref. erred to in the stay request, the time for Commission 18 review was allowed to expire last Friday so that is no longer 19 before the Commission but the letter informing people of that 20 fact has not yet gone out.
21 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Thank you. Any other comments 22 or questions?
23 (No response.)
24 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Let me ask again, does the 25 Commission authorize the NRC staff to issue a full-power
. - . , _ ____ - - ._-l. - . .. _
u 6
l J 66 l
1 license for Diablo Canyon Unit "2" upon satisfactory
- 1) 2 criticality and continued low-power testing as determined by 3 the staff?
4 All those in favor say aye.
5 COMMISSIONER ZECH: Aye.
6 COMMISSIONER ROBERTS: Aye.
7 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Aye.
8 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: Aye.
9 CHAIRMih PALLADINO: Opposed?
10 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: No.
11 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: All right. Do you have 12 additional comments?
13 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: I may just put a note in 14 the order to the effect and let me outline for just a minute 15 or two what my concerns are.
16 The reason that I am voting against authorizing the 17 issuance of a full-power license and that I will vote against 18 the issuance of the order are basically the same reasons that 19 I voted against the full-power license for Diablo Canyon Unit 20 "1."
21 The two principal concerns that I had had to do with 22 the complicating effects of earthquakes on emergency planning 23 and questions that I had about the adequacy of the seismic 24 design verification effort for the plant.
25 Quite frankly, I had hoped that over the course of
'l
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f 67 l
' .. e l 1 the past year that both of those issues would get resolved.
2 The additional verification work could be done to satisfy my 3 concerns about the seismic design verification effort and that 4 a hearing might take place on the earthquakes in emergency 5 planning issues.
6 I might add that it is not the licensee's fault that 7 those two issues have not been laid tc rest. The fault lies
- 8 with this agency and because those two concerns that I had a 9 year ago still persist today, I am voting against the issuance 10 of a full-power license for unit "2." I think it just makes
'~ 11 things worse to have two units operating rather than just one.
12 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: All right. Thank you.
13 Let me ask the next question. Do you approve the 14 draft order as modified by OGC which denies a petition to 15 review ALAB-811 and denies a request for a stay of a 16 full-power license and which sets forth the reasons for 17 resolution of other uncontested matters.
18 All those in favor, indicate by saying aye.
19 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: Aye.
20 COMMISSIONER ROBERTS: Aye.
21 COMMISSIONER ZECH: Aye.
22 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Aye.
/
23 Opposed?
24 COMMISSIONER AESELSTINE: No. I might add though 25 that in my opposition on the order, the order wraps everything
e
.. 's -
( 68 1 up together and I do not have fundamental problems with the 2 approach taken by the appeal board in ALAB-811.
3 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: All right. Thank you. Is 4 there anything further to come before us at the present tim 4?
5 (No response.)
6 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: I am going to adjourn this 7 meeting. I am going to suggest that we reconvene in ten 8 minutes in an affirmation session. We will stand adjourned.
9 (Whereupon, the' Commission meeting was adjourned at 10 12:25 o' clock p.m., to reconvene at the Call of the Chair.)
11 12 13 14 15 s
16 17 18 i I
19 20 21 l
22 23 24 25
J
.)
1 CERTIFICATE OF OFFICIAL REPORTER 2
3 4
5 This is to certify that the attached proceedings i
6 before the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission in the 7 matter of: Commission Meeting 8
9 Name of Proceeding: Discussion /Possible Vote on Full Power Operating License for Diablo Canyon-2 to (Public Meeting)
E 11 Occket No.
{ +
\'
12 place: Washington, D. C.
13 Date: Thursday, August 1, 1985 14 15 were held as herein appears and that this is the original 16 transcript thereof for the file of the United States Nuclear 17 Regulatory Commission, ts -
(Signature) .% , j, g -.--]-
(Typed Name of Reporter) Marilynn Nations 20 21 22 23 Ann Riley & Associates, Ltd.
24 25
i i
COADfISSION BREPhVG FULL-PCHER LICENSE DlABLO CANYON LWIT 2 PACIFIC GAS & ELECTRIC COMPANY AUGUST 1,1985 DIABLO CANYON 2
e 333:ENG 0";TL::XE
- DIABLO PLANT STATUS
- TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS
- 0? IRA"IONE 33AJI3SS AILEGATIONS/ INVESTIGATIONS
- CONCLUSIONS DIABLO CANYON 2 l SLIDE 1
~
STA"US UNIT 2:
COMMISSION BRIEFING ON LOWER POWER LICENSE: APRIL 23,1985 LOW POWER LICENSE ISSUED: APRIL 26,1985 FUEL LOAD COMPLETE: MAY 15,1985 UNIT 1:
DECLARED COMMERCIAL AT 100% POWER: MAY 7,1985 AVAILABILITY: 97%
CAPACITY: 91%
EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS FEMA LETTER DATED JULY 11, 1984
- LAST EXERCISE OCTOBER 30,1984 NRC vs GUARD DIABLO CANYON 2 SLIDE 2
TECIDICL S?ECIICAT"0XS AND STB..XG COMBINED / COMMON TECH SPECS FOR UNIT 1 AND UNIT 2 TO BE ISSUED WITH UNIT 2 FULL-POWER LICENSE
- PROPOSED CHANGES TO UNIT 1 TECH SPECS NOTICED IN FEDERAL REGISTER
- DIFFERENT SPECIFICATIONS, DUE TO DESIGN AND OPERATIONAL DIFFERENCES BETWEEN UNITS, ARE IDENTW1ED
- ALL SENIOR OPERATORS AND REACTOR OPERATORS, EXCEPT TWO, LICENSED ON BOTH UNITS DIABLO CANY0tl 2 SUDE 3
0:?33A"::0XA133ADIX3SS INSPECTION PROGRAM
- NO SIGNIFICANT PROBLEMS WERE IDENTIFIED, HOWEVER A NEED FOR MORE ATTENTION TO DETAIL WAS NOTED DURING FUEL LOAD OPERATIONS SYSTEM TURNOVER ALL SYSTEMS REQUIRED FOR PLANT OPERATION HAVE BEEN TURNED OVER AND ACCEPTED BY NUCLEAR POWER OPERdTIONS DEPARTMENT
- PLANT OPERATING EXPERIENCE DIABLO CANYON 2 SLIDE 4
e AL:2GA"::0XS/3YES"IGAZ:0NS
- A12Gf:0N S"A"US -
- PETITIONS PURSUANT TO 10 CFR 2.206 f
DIABLO CANYON 2 SLIDE 5 A
G i f i iffi ffi( 1h[hih[hih fqhhghghghghghphph[phhph phphgh g 12/82 TRANSMITIAL 'IO: Document Cbntrol Desk, 016 Phillips
- ADVANCED CDPY 'IO
- / / he Public Document Foan
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DATE: [/J'N/
. < cc: OPS File h p
C&R (Natalie)
Attached are copies of a Conmission meeting transcript (s) arxl related meeting docunent(s) . W ey are being forwarded for entry on the Daily Accession List and placanent in the Public Document Focm. No other distribution is requested or required. Existing DCS identification numbers are listed on the individual documents wherever known.
,E Meeting
Title:
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