ML20011D450
| ML20011D450 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 12/06/1989 |
| From: | Holtzman R, Schumacher M, Wiedeman D NRC OFFICE OF INSPECTION & ENFORCEMENT (IE REGION III) |
| To: | |
| Shared Package | |
| ML20011D449 | List: |
| References | |
| CON-NRC-30-83-648, REF-QA-99990003-891211 99990003-89-09, 99990003-89-9, NUDOCS 8912270246 | |
| Download: ML20011D450 (6) | |
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'U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION L
REGION III F
-Performance Appraisal for the NRC/ State of Iowa Environmental Monitoring Cooperative Agreeraent p
. Report No. 9999-0003/89009(DRSS)
Cooperative Agreement No. NRC-30-83-648 Docket No. 9999-0003 Facility: ' University of Iowa University Hygienic Laboratory Appraisal At:
Oakdale Campus, Iowa City, Iowa O
Appraisal Conducted:
November 6 and 7, 1989 (Onsite)
Appraisal Team Members:
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Date 4//'9 -
G. Wiede Date' YYh!'?
O Approved By:
M. C. Schumacher
-Radiological Controls Date and Chemistry Section
- Appraisal Summary
- Aparaisal~ Conducted on November 6 and 7, 1989 (Report No. 9999-0003/89009(DRSS))
s (I) 1415)
Areas = Appraised: Adherence to the requirements of the cooperative agreement; organization structure and management support; technical staffing and training; facilities,: analytical equipment and counting instrumentation; sampling and analytical procedures and laboratory performance; quality assurance / quality control;; data storage and assessment;-reports. (IP 1415)
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Results: The environmental monitoring program has continued from the period
-of.the previous report. -The Annual Reports for 1986, 1987, and 1988 were
' submitted,to the NRC in their respective required time frames.
The University Hygienic Laboratory's (UHL) performance related to this cooperative agreement was satisfactory.
Management's. support for the program appears to be
- satisfactory.
Due tn turnover of personnel in both the laboratory and and licensee' organizations,' the contractor had difficulties in properly splitting samples with the licensee.
While some weaknesses were noted, the laboratory s radiochemical analytical capabilities appear to be satisfactory and improving.
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DETAILS 1.
Persons Contacted
- W. Hausier,-Ph.D., Director,- University Hygienic Laboratory,
-(UHL)
- I.
Schwabbauer, Coordinator, Bureau of Environmental Quality and Control, UHL
- P. Elkmann, Health Physics Supervisor, UHL
- M. Mehrhoff, Chemistry Laboratory Supervisor, UHL D. Rodgers, Laboratory Technician, UHL
- Attended exit interview on November 7, 1989.
2.
General-(IP 1415)
This-appraisal was conducted to review the performance of the University of Iowa Hygienic Laboratory (UHL) for the State of Iowa's environmental c.
monitoring program under the NRC/ State of Iowa Cooperative agreement (NRC-30-83-648).
The UHL has an environmental monitoring program and exchanges the NRC TLDs in the vicinity of the Duane Arnold Energy Center (DAEC).
This program _ serves to compare and verify the results of the programs' conducted by the licensee.
This appraisal consisted of interviews with staff members of the UHL Bureau of Environmental Quality and Control (BEQC) in Coralville, Iowa.
The review covered the period of January 1985 through November 1989.
3.
Summary-and Recommendations Based on its review, the appraisal team recommends continuation of the existing cooperative agreement between the NRC and the State of Iowa.
-The program has generally operated well; the main deficiency in the
. operation has been lack of some samples that were to have been split with the licensee. -This deficiency appears to have been poor communications between the UHL and the licensee, due, in part, to the use of only oral agreements combined with the turnover of personnel at both the UHL and the licensee.
The UHL personnel are arranging a meeting to resolve the problems with the licensee.
4.
Organization, Staffing, and Training The organization is unchanged since the previous appraisal.2 The Cooperative Agreement is administered by the Coordinator of the Bureau of Environmental Quality and Control, who reports to the Director of the 1 Region III Appraisal Report No. 9999-0003/85044(DRSS) 2
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University of Iowa UHL.
Since January 1986, the Laboratory has been under the-direction of the Health Physicist who reports to the Coordinator.
As of September 1989, the Laboratory has been supervised by the Laboratory Supervisor.. She appeLrs to be qualified for the position with a bachelor's degree in medical-technology with a minor in chemistry; she worked as a technologist for 12 years, and as a Chemist in this laboratory for about one'and one half years.
The Health Physicist aids in operation and direction of the laboratory.
The laboratory has two technicians and support from other laboratory L
-groups; samples are collected by the UHL limnologist and other laboratory
. personnel.
o The training program for the staff appears to be minimal with funds-very N
limited.= The Supervisor spent some time in February 1989 at the U.S. EPA laboratory in Las Vegas and has subsequently consulted with them on some analytical problems, ney are looking for other possible courses for her.
Overall, the UHL personnel appeared to be qualified.
5.
Management Support Management is committed to continuing the program, and has implemented a program to improve the radioanalytical instrumentation, such as the upgrading of the alpha-beta counters.
The team discussed additional instrumentation upgrades that would be very desirable (Section 8).
6.
Conformance with the Requirements of the Cooperative Agreement The NRC appraisers reviewed the sample collection and analytical results in the environmental reports for the pariod 1986, 1987, and 1988, to determine if the UHL met the objectives in Attachment 1 of the cooperative agreement.
State personnel were responsible for the sample collections and performed all sample preparations and analyses in the state radiochemistry laboratory.
State personnel also exchanged the TLDs in the NRC TLD direct radiation monitoring network and submitted them to the NRC Region I laboratory for processing.
The state also had its own TLD placement and measurement program with TLDs at 19 locations.
The sampling programs met most of the requirements of the cooperative agrecment, with some discrepancies noted.
The 1986-1988 annual reports met the specific requirements of the cooperative agreement by reporting the gross beta and gamma isotopic results of the airborne particulate and radioactive samples, gamma isotopic and tritium measurements of surface waters, gamma isotopic and iodine measurements of milk, and gamma isotopic measurements of shoreline sediment samples.
In addition, the reports also contained the results of the direct radiation measurements from the NRC TLD's.
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Q Fish'were sampled,.when available, and the gamma isotopic results reported, 1
but these were not necessarily split with the _ licensee twice a year as required by-the contract.
A similar problem occurred with food products when the' licensee collected these samples without the split.
These deficiencies were identified and the laboratory agreed to correct this problem in the 1989 report.-
7.
Iowa Annual Environmental Monitoring Reports Pursuant to the Cooperative Agreement, the UHL submitted the annual reports in a timely manner (within 120 days of the end of the respective calendar
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_ years).
These reports included summaries of the analytical results compared to those of the licensee (DAEC), sampling and analytical L
procedures, and evaluations of any significant differences between the results of the UHL and those of the plant.
The reports included explanations of missing data, a description of the UHL results for the EPA crosscheck, and a table of UHL's lower limits of detection (LLD).
The report was distributed to State and Federal Agencies, as well as to the licensee.
The team members reviewed the Annual Reports (1986-1988).
They were generally good and appeared to fulfill the requirements of the Agreement.
In addition to the deficiencies noted in the previous section, some suggestions were made for changes to be incorporated into future reports, such as:
a.
The'LLDs for tritium while in conformance with the Agreement, were somewhat higher (2000 pCi/ liter) than those of the licensee's (330 pCi/ liter).
Laboratory personnel noted this difference and stated that they were in the process of acquiring a now liquid scintillation counter; they would revise their procedure to reach c
the -lower level.
b.
The report should have a table of missing or defective _ samples, with a-short explanation.
c.
The pages should be numbered.
d.
The laboratory should consider revising the page formats to place the data vertically, rather than horizontally, similar to that in
.the licensee's reports (Teledyne).
Also, where there is extensive data, such as for the gross beta air samples, the results should be summarized quarterly (mean and standard deviation (SD)), so that better comparisons could be made with the licensee data.
e.
The air volumes should be reported.
f.
More care should be given to proof reading the reports, e.g., in one table the water sample data are given in units of both pC/L and pCi/m3 4
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In the milk samples the K-40 values were substantially lower than the licensee's, due to problems the UHL had with K-40 calibration in the early part of the year. Notes addressing this should--
accompany the results.
Other discrepancies in the K-40 results g
L were also present in fish and food samples.
Laboratory personnel p
are looking into resolving these differences.
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A positive aspect of the program ~ is the reporting of the K t
-results.
This is important, as it is often the only direct comparison of results between the laboratories in the absence of plant nuclides.
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-The Annual Reports are generally good and the UHL representatives noted that they will consider revising the program to make the suggested changes.
8' Facilities and Equipment The appraisal team visited the radiochemistry laboratory and counting room.. The radiochemistry laboratory was well equipped with adequate n
bench space and two fume hoods.
The housekeeping was good.
'The counting room had sufficient instrumentation to do the required analyses, although some of the equipment was quite old.
They have one shielded Ge(Li) detector and.one Nal(T1) (poor resolution), both operated by.a new PC-operated-Canberra Model 100 Multi-Channel Analyzer with 2000 channels per detector. The Ge(Li) detector has been redrifted several times and has a relatively poor resolution. The gross alpha counting is Edone in a 10-sample Ludium Model 148-2 Zns alpha scintillation counter and
- in a ' low background Nuclear Chicago gas flow proportional counter with sample changer.
A Searle system, essentially identical to the latter system, is used for low-level beta counting.
The UHL is in the process of replacing the latter two systems with a new Canberra 2404 Low Background Alpha / Beta Counter with sample changer.
The laboratory is in the process of replacing the 24 year old Beckman Liquid Scintillation Counter used for tritium analyses.
The laboratory facilities appear to be adequate for the analyses required
'for this' program.
9.
Quality Assurance / Quality Control in the Laboratory The QA/QC program in the laboratory appears to be adequate.
The laboratory is certified by the EPA for environmental analyses, so that
-much of.this program is mandated by EPA procedures.
The technicians are-required to do various blind standards and other performance samples prior.to and during the analysis of a set of samples.
Periodically, they also analyze EPA interlaboratory samples with mixtures of nuclides.
Control charts are also maintained on performance check sources, precision (duplicate measurements), and backgrounds of the counters.
The FWHM parameter at the Cs-137 peak (661 kev) was also followed for the Ge(Li) detector.
The charts had control limits of three standard deviations (SD) and warning limits of two SD.
The sample tracking program appeared to be good.
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The reviewers noted some concerns about QA/QC program in the counting
. room.. These were mainly that:
a.
~the Ge(Li) detector performance check was based on a fixed E
Region of Interest (ROI), rather than on the more realistic h
operating conditions of the analyzer's own: identification of the peak region at the 661-kev Cs-137 peak; b.'
the total of only 5500 counts in the peak was low, which resulted in poor statistics, i;e.'the variabilities were mainly due to radioactive decay, rather than to instrumental variabilities; the check should have at least=10,000 counts, so that the relative standard deviation of the radioactive decay is about +1%;
c.-
.the check energy was also low, the 661-kev peak does not provide a check on the upper energy range of the instrument, as would a Co-60 peak;
- d..
the statistical parameters of the charts (mean and 50 values) were determined only infrequently.
These appeared to be based on about 20 pieces of data taken at the beginning of the year.
The statistics should be calculated at more frequent intervals, such as monthly or e
quarterly, and the calculated parameters tested to note changes using statistical tests, i.e., Student's t-test (for mean values) and the variance ratio test (F-test) for variances (SD2),
The laboratory representatives noted that they would consider these suggestions.
'The QA/QC programs appear to need some development; however, the program presently in place appears to ensure reasonable results.
10.
Exit' Interview
'The appraisal team members discussed the scope and findings of the appraisal at-the conclusion of the appraisal on November 7, 1989.
Possible improvements in the upcoming Annual Reports were discussed (Section 7), and improved training for the laboratory staff.
- Overall, the laboratory program appears to be satisfactory, but the team noted
'some deficiencies in the QA/QC program and the aging counting instrumentation.
Also discussed was the formalization of the collection program with the licensee personnel, to more regularly split samples, as required by the contract.
Overall, the program appears to be satisfactory and the UHL is working to correct deficiencies and to conform to the cooperative agreement.
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