ML20212G213
| ML20212G213 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Fort Saint Vrain  |
| Issue date: | 02/26/1987 |
| From: | NRC COMMISSION (OCM) |
| To: | |
| References | |
| REF-10CFR9.7 NUDOCS 8703050289 | |
| Download: ML20212G213 (104) | |
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i UNITED STATES OF AMERICA NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Title:
Briefing on Status of and Possible Vote on Restricted Power Levels for Fort St. Vrain (Public Meeting) 1 4
Location:
Washington, D.
C.
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Date:
Thursday, February 26, 1987 i
Pages:
1 - 72 i
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Ann Riley & Associates Court Reporters 1625 1 Street, N.W., Suite 921 Washington, D.C. 20006 (202) 293-3950
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6 This is an unofficial transcript of a meeting of the 3
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7 Un i ted Sta tes Nuc lear Regu la tory Ccani ss ion held on
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- 2/26/87, In the Commission's office at 1717 H Street, I
.W'J., Washington, D.C.
The meeting was'open to pubtic 9 !"X N
to
- attendance and observation.
This transcript has not been*
11 reviewed, corrected,' or edited, and it may contain e-g "
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12 Inaccuracies.
13 The transcript is intended solely for general 14 informationai purposes.
As provide'd by 10 CFR 9,1OS, It is t
15 not--part of the formal or informal record of decision of the s
-s 16 matters discussed.
Expressions of opinion in this transcript 17 do not necessarily reflect. final determination or beiiefs.
No 9 J 18 pleading or other paper may be filed with the Commission in l
19 any proceeding as the result of or addressed to any statement 20 or argument contained herein, except as the Commission may 21 authorize.
l 22 23 24 I
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1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
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.2 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
-3 4
Public Meeting 5
6 BRIEF$NG ON STATUS OF AND POSSIBLE VOTE 7
ON RESTRICTED POWER LEVELS FOR FORT ST.
8' VRAIN.
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9 10 1717'M Street, N.W.
11 Room 1130 12 Washington, D.C.
13 14 Thursday, February 26, 1987 15 16 The Commission met at 10:00 a.m., pursuant to 17 notice, the Honorable Lando W. Zech, Chairman of the 18 Commission, presiding.
19 20 COMMISSIONERS PRESENT:
21 Lando W.
Zech, Jr., Chairman 22 Thomas M. Roberts, Commissioner l
23 James K. Asselstine, Commissioner 24 Frederick M. Bernthal, Commissioner l
l 25-Kenneth M.
Carr, Commissioner l
l l.
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/
2 l-STAFF AND PRESENTERS SEATED AT COMMISSION TABLE;
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l-2 R. Walker,.Public Service Company of Colorado 3
R. Williams, Public Service Company of Colorado 4
D. Warembourg, Public Service Company of Colorado 5
C. Fuller, Public Service Company of Colorado 6
H. Brey, Public Service Company of Colorado 7
P. Tomlinson, Public Service Company of Colorado 8
S.
Chilk, Secretary to the Commission 9'
W.
Parler, Office of General Counsel 10 R. Martin, Region IV 11 F. Miraglia, NRR 12 E. John, NRR k'" 1, K. Heitner, Project Manager 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23
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P R O C E E D I N.G S (c
2 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
Good morning, ladies and 3
gentlemen.
i 4
Today we will be briefed on-the current status of 5
Fort St. Vrain Nuclear Power Plant,_ operated by the Public 6-Service Company of Colorado.
7 The Commission was briefed by the Licensea and the 8
Staff on October the 17th, 1986, on the status of the programs 9
to prepara the Licensee and the plant for operation.
I 10 I understand that the Licensee will tell us that 11 they have completed the work necessary to satisfy the NRC 12 operational readiness concerns, and to implement the Fort k;
13 St. Vrain performance improvement programs, and that Region-IV 14 and the Staff will address us today on their views as to the 15 status of the plant, and the readiness to resume operations.
16 After reviewing the material I have been presented 17 prior to this briefing, it is my view -- and I understand that 18 perhaps my fellow Commissioners might agree with me -- that we 19 should consider the information being presented here today and 20 then perhaps because of some of the uncertainties, at least as t
21 I see them, we should not make a decision today on restart',
22 but that we should hear what you have to say, be confident 23 that those uncertainties are resolved, and then vote.
At leastthatismyview,beforewestart[hisbriefing,andas 24 25 we get into the briefing today, I would ask my fellow 4
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Commissioners to-see if they would share that view, and if t.
they do, at the end of the meeting I will ask them to see 2
3 whether or not we should allow restart at the commission 4.
meeting today, cn whether we should, in my view,-at least as I 5
see it, we should take some short period of time at least to 6
reflect'on some of the things that still need to be done.
At 7
least that is my view, and I will ask my fellow Commissioners 8
to think about that during the course of the briefing today.
9 Do any-of my fellow Commissioners have any opening 10~
remarks?
4 11 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
I would just add, Lando, 12 my feeling is exactly the same as yours, at least going into 13 the meeting.
I will be interested in hearing what information k.
14 we have, but my present feeling is I am not prepared to vote 15 at this time.
i 16 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
All right.
If there are no 17 other remarks, then I would ask Mr. Walker to please proceed.
4 18 MR. WALKER:
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Good morning.
19 I am Dick Walker.
I am chairman of the board and chief 20 executive officer of the Public Service Company of Colorado.
21 Our purpose here today is to secure Commission i
22 approval to start Fort St. Vrain and to operate it at various 23 power levels, subject to the Commission Staff approval before 24 exceeding certain specified power level which are in our 25 power ascension plan.
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We feel we are ready to go.
We.are' anxious.. We'are
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very enthusiastic that we have made significant improvements 3
.in the plant, and we hope today to convince you that we are
-4 ready to go.
5 As you know, the NRC EQ inspection.has been 6
completed, and we have made significant commitments and 4
7 expenditures to get us to the point that we are today.
8 Our staff is fully prepared to start.the plant, and 9
we are well along in what we call the non-nuclear dryout of 10 the plant to get the moisture down and the helium, and we are
'll doing this without problem at this particular time.
12 We are certainly committed to operational excellence "3
13 of the plant.
Our record has not teen that good in the past, 14 but we are determined, and it is one of my four corporate 15 goals as a corporation, to have operation excellency at this 16 plant.
We are fully committed to do everything necessary to 17 have a safe and, effective operation at this plant.
18 Sore of the things we have done -- and the slide 19 does show an example -- we have added to the plant investment 20 in the last two years, we have increased the plant investment 21 by some 27 percent, in improving and correcting systems. 'Even 22 more important, we have added to the staff a 54 percent l.
'23 increase in staff in the last two years.
24 I know numbers aren't everythi g, but certainly we 25 need qualified and we need more people, and,we,have,provided 1
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those people.
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- 2 As.I.have indicated on this slide, we have made 3
.those investments, a 27 percent increase in investments and 54-4
. percent in numbers of employees..
5_
We have also looked at.our management team, and as 6
you know, the nuclear operation in our organization reports 7
directly to me as chairman and the chief oxacutive officer 8
of the company.
Mr. R. DJ Willirms, my vice president of 9
Nuclear Operations, is responsible for all aspects of the 10 nuclear activities of the company, reporting directly to me.
11 I have a president and chief operating officer.that handles 12 the affairs of the rest of the company, and except for some 13 general counsel and executive -- general counsel area, he 14 handles the rest of the company for me.
So I am permitted to 15 devote a great deal of my time to the operation of this 16 nuclear plant.
17 You will notice on the chart we show the organization 18 diagram, and it is not on the agenda, but I do need to call to 19 the Commission's attention an item that has occurred this 20 week.
The man that was the manager of the station, manager of l
l 21 nuclear production, the bar that's shosn over there, Mr. G'ahm, 22 did resign on Monday effective immediately for personal reasons 23 in his job.
24 What Mr. Williams and I have done, we notified 25 Region IV immediately of this event, and Mr. Willia _ms will be
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the. acting manager as well as his job as the vice president of 2
Nuclear Operations.
3 Both Mr. Williams and I have been on the phona and 4
we are ' actively seeking a replacement for that job, and it is 5
our intention to' fill that from outside the company, and we 6
will'do that as soon as we rossibly can.
7 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Was Mr. Gahm the senior 8
man on the site?
9 MR. WALKER:
He had -- he was the man, as you note 10 from the diagram, he was really the site man that ran the 11.
plant.
We did have engineering and QA people there also.
12 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
So he was really the e'
13 senior --
l, 14 MR. WALKER:
He was the operations, right, senior
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15 man at the plant.
16 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
I think, quite frankly, 17 part of my concern, and perhaps that's what the Chairman was l
l 18 alluding to, also, is our concern about the organization, and l
19 particularly the management team in place, given the removal 20 of Mr. Gahm.
For myself, at least, that's an item of real 21 concern.
Now he was the senior guy on'the site, and I think 22 one of the cancerns I have -- and I hope at some point you can 23 address it -- is how your management team is going to function, 24 particularly having taken out now or had to remove the senior 25 guy at the site.
8 1
MR. WALKER:
Mr. Williams will address some of that r~~.
I 2
3 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Great.
4 MR. WALKER:
-- and the strength that we have down 5
in the technical area, with the team approach we are using.
6 We obviously need to replace this.
7
. CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
Well, it is indeed one,of my 8
concerns..
9 MR. WALKER:
I suspected it was, Mr. Chairman.
10 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
So proceed, please.
11 MR. WALKER:
I should also mention that yesterday 12 the U.S. Attorney did hand down indictments against Mr. Oscar 13 Lee who, as you recall, was a vice president of Electric 14 Production, whom I suspended back in December of 1985.
Also 15 another person that worked for us, named Cary Goodrow, who 16 worked for Mr. Lee, was indicted.
Jack Gahm was also indicted, and one other person, the father of Cary Goodrow.
17 18 The U.S. Attorney did hand down this indictment 19 yesterday against these four people.
Let me give you just'a 20 bit of the background.
l 21 Back in 1985, our internal auditing and legal people
~
began to have some suspicions about the conduct in Mr. Lee's 22 23 area, particularly as it had to do with flyash contracts-in i
24 our fossil area.
They brought this mat er to my attention in 25 the early part of December.
I didn't have,any, concrete
9 1
evidence, but there was enough suspicion there that I suspended
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Mr. Lee immediately..That occurred on December 6th.
We went 3
into a more intensive investigation, using our auditing, our 4
legal department, and some outside help, to see what we could 5
uncover,.so that suspicions could be turned into something 6
concrete.
7 We p,roceeded with this investigatiqn and confirmed 8
that our suspicions, but we had no concrete evidence that 9
would allow us to continue with-any prosecution.
So on 10 February the 25th of 1986, I did fire Mr. Lee and terminated 11 his employment.
12 We then turned all of this information over to the 13 U.S. Attorney.
We were not able, with our limited resources,
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14 to do the kind of investigation that can be done by the 15 U.S. Attorney.
So we turned it all over, so in March of 1986, i
16 the U.S. Attorney proceeded with this investigation, using the 17 Federal Bureau of Investigation and the IRS, and using our 18 evidence, and this was -- they did have the Grand Jury, they 19 did come down with the indictments yesterday.
20 We cooperated wholeheartedly with them, and I might 21 just read from the U.S. Attorney's press relief, which was 22 issued yesterday, about 4:00 o' clock, and I have given to the 23 Region IV people a complete copy of thi, as well as a copy of 24 the indictment, which is a very long document, and I quote 25 from the press release.
It said:
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"No employees were implicated in this scheme other 2
than those mentioned in the indictment.
Public Service 4
3 Company is described in'the indictment as an enterprise 4
throu"'t which the racketeering acts were conducted.
The 5
company itself is not a defendant and played no role in the 6
alleged offenses except as a victim and a vehicle for execution 7
of the alleged schemes by Oscar R., Lee and other defendants.
8 Consulting and maintenance contracts for Fort St. Vrain Nuclear 9
Power Plant are described in the indictment.
Kickbacks are lo alleged to have been paid in connection with these contracts.
l 11-The investigation revealed no evidence whatsoever that the
+
12 safety or integrity of the plant was affected by this scheme."
13 That ends my quotation from the U.S. Attorney's 14 press release on this matter.
This is an unfortunate incident for us, but I think 15 16 the company did act in a responsible way in uncovering this, 4
17 getting it started, and I'm frankly glad that this 18 investigation has come down to the end, and the indictments 19 have been issued.
So I wanted -- that's not on the agenda, 20 but I wanted you to know about that.
l 21 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
I appreciate that.
I think we 22 all do.
Thank you.
23 MR. WALKER:
And I made available a copy of this to 24 Mr. Martin this morning.
25 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Good..I,, hope th_ey will 4
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get it to us quickly.
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MR. WALKER:
I got it just before I got the airplane.
3 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Yes,-I understand.
Okay.
14-
.One question.
You obviously had concern about 5
.Mr. Lee, and you dismissed him earlier in last year.
Did you 6
have any idea that Gahn was involved, or that there were 7,
questions about Gaha's conduct and, if so, why didn't you at 8-least move him out of the nuclear organization?
9 It seems to me he occupied a very key role in your 10 organization, was a key part of the management team for the 11 operation of the plant from now on.
If you had concerns, why-12 didn't you get him out of there?
13 MR. WALKER:
As I indicated a moment ago, 14 Commissioner Asselstine, thiu started over in the fossil fuel 15 area.
e.5 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Yes.
17 HR. WALKER:
In the hauling of flyash, with Mr. Gahm 18 being over in the nuclear, he had no involvement there.
In 19 all candor, I knew that Mr. Gahm worked for Mr. Lee, that they j
20 were good friends; but so were a lot of people that had done 21 that, and I think one has to be very careful when you go 22 firing or suspending without, you know, good evidence.
j 23 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Okay.
i f
i 24 MR. WALKER:
There was no evidence that I could see j
25 brought to me by my internal investigation pha$ ind_icated that l
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12 1
he was involved.
Q.
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2 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Okay.
3 MR. WALKER:
There was enough on Mr. Lee that even 4
though there wasn't concrete evidence, the violation of 5
procedures and some of the things that came up that are in the 6
indictment are things that we were unable to discover within 7
our limited resoqrces and investigative powers.
8 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Okay.
So you really 9
thought it was a non-nuclear problem until the indictments 10 came down?
11 MR. WALKER:
We did know that there was a possibility 12 of one nuclear and -- contractor, and right after we suspended 13 Mr. Lee we did cancel that one contractor.
14 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Okay.
Is that the one 15 that is identified by the U.S. Attorney?
16 MR. WALKER.:
Yes, it's one that -- there were 17 actually three different ones; a flyash contract, some -- what I
18 are called scrubber balls, which go with our scrubbers on our
~
19 fossil plants, and then there's the contracts on Fort 20 St. Vrain.
There are three different areas of kickback, and 21 the last one being with an organization that has done 22 maintenance and some of the work up at Fort St. Vrain.
23 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Okay.
24 COMMISSIONER ROBERTS:
Is that the one you 25 terminated?
I m.
13 O-1 MR. WALKER:
I terminated them because we didn't 2
have -- we didn't know that they were directly involved, but 3
it is a contract that had been put together, and when I got in
-l i
4 the plant, why, we did terminate the Zachary Corporation that 5
was involved in this.
6 COMMISSIONER ROBERTS:
What was the name?
'7
,MR. WALKER:
Zachary Industries.
8 COMMISSIONER ROBERTS:
Are they named in the 9
indictment?
10 MR. WALKER:
No.
11 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Are they identified?
12 MR. WALKER:
Yes, they are identified.
13 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Not identified --
14 MR. WALKER:
No.
15 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
-- but identified.
16 MR. WALKER:
They are identified.
They were one of 17 the mechanisms.
There were just individuals that were 18 indicted.
19 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Okay.
When did you 20 terminate their contract?
Just month.
21 MR. WALKER:
It was either December of '85 or 4
22 January of
'86.
And it took some time to move them off and 23 get a replacement for them.
t 24 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Okay.
Were they involved 25 at all in the performance enhancement progrym?.
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14 1
.MR. WALKER:
Yes, sir.
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-2 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
What did they do?
3 MR. WALKER:
They helped -- they did some consulting 4
work to. help set it up, and did a fine piece of work on that.
5' I have no quarrel with the work that they did, it was good 6.
Work.
And then the -- and they did, they provided people on I
7 some of the jobshop things.
They did a reasonable job on 8
that.
9 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
I take it the allegation 10 was not on the quality of work, or whether they delivered 11 services --
12 MR. WALKER:
No.
13 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
But it's on the question w,
14 of whether there were kickbacks.
2 15 MR. WALKER:
Right.
Absolutely.
16 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
All right, proceed, please.
i 17 MR. WALKER:
Okay.
I will turn it over to 18 Mr. Williams now to go through the things that we have done.
19 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
All right.
Thank you very 20 much.
21 MR. WILLIAMS:
Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman, f
22 I have with me at the table some of the staff that I
23 you see shown on the chart.
Chuck Fuller is our station' 24 manager.
I know that some of you have ad the opportunity to 25 meet him and tour the plant with him, and.I,have hi,m with me
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to deal with some of our plant issues.
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2 Don Warembourg, at my left, is our manager of 3
Nuclear Engineering Organization.
4 To Dick Walker's right is Larry Brey, who is our 5
manager of Licensing & Fuels.
6 And on the far right is Phil Tomlinson, who is the 7
manager of Quality Assurance, who we brought into the 8
organization from the River Bend Plant in October of this 9
year.
Phil comes from the Nuclear Navy, so he's got a 10 combination of that experience, together with commercial 11 nuclear reactor experience.
12 seated behind us, of course, we have some of our S
13 other staff members who are available for -- if we get into 14 certain details, we would be able to call on them.
15 You will notice that I have an assistant identified 16 on the left box there.
That assistant to me brings more the 17 business and organizational development, organizational change 18 kind of skills that I feel I need on my staff to do a number 19 of the things that we are carrying out.
20 j
You also notice on here, we have a little atomic 21 symbol that we have used to identify the performance 22 enhancement program, that is those things that have been 23 changed as a result of the performanco nhancement program, 24 and that you will see throughout the briefing charts, and I 25 would call your attention to those as they comp yp._
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In response to your question with respect to the
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2 early involvement that you asked about this contractor, my 3
review of the initial PEP documents as I came onboard in July 4
was that work was -- really entailed the essential project 5
organization of those projects.
They were then factored out 6
into the organization with specific people in the organization 7
having responsibility.
8 So principally the work there was to create a 9
project structure, identify it, and set up a project management 10 methodology, rather than any direct and active involvement in 11 the PEP itself.
12 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
So they're more like an AE 13 kind of consulting operation, rather than a hands-on --
14 MR. WILLIAMS:
There was no hands-on actual work, as 15 far as I could see in there.
It was essentially a setting up 16 of the project structure that the organization itself carried 17 out.
18 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Could you refresh my 19 memory, how long have you been with the company now?
20 MR. WILLIAMS:
I have been with the company since 21 July of 1986, July lat.
22 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
July of
'86.
And how much 23 time up until now -- you know, say days per week -- have~ you 24 spent out at the site, as opposed to at headquarters?
25 MR. WILLIAMS:
I probably average pbqpt. half my time
~
17 1
at the site and half at headquarters.
~
2 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Okay.
3 MR. WILLIAMS:
And I would comment that -- and as 4
'you will see later in our presentation, part of our planning '
5 was for the entire management team -- that would be all of the 6
people that you see at the table today -- intensifying our 7
direct involvement with the operational features of she 8
plant.
So while this change does represent a perturbation, 9
does mean we've got some other actions to take, it's certainly 10
,in terms of my personal time and activities, is consistent 11 with our intended plan,. anyhow, that we would all be devoting -
9 12 far more time to specific attention to the plant and the plant 13 restart.
14 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Is at least one option 15 that may be available your devoting even more time and perhaps 16 more time at the site than you've been doing previously?
17 MR. WILLIAMS:
That is my intention.
That is my 18 current intention, is to have a far more --
19 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
All right.
Still a mix, 20 or essentially full time at the site, or are you still thinking 21 about it?
22 MR. WILLIAMS:
Well, I would probably be full time 23 during the day at the site, and then sw ng by my downtown j
office and take care of the mail in the early evening, and 24 l
25 then -- a day like that.
Some of us understan# tho.se days.
l
i 18 1
(Laughter.)
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2 MR._ WILLIAMS:
And that's not too different than I 3
do today when I -- if I'm at the site all day, then I go by 4
the office at headquarters to pick up the mail.
5 COMMISSIONER ROBERTS:
I'm just curious, where had 6
you been prior to going to Public Service?
7 MR. WILLIAMS:
I was with Rockwell' International for 8
32 years.
Prior to that I was with Westinghoure at the Bettis 9
Laboratory, worked on the Nautilus, started my work there.
10 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
You were at Rocky Flats, 11 right, before you --
l 12 MR. WILLIAMS:
Yes, that's part of my famous past,
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13 Rocky Flats.
For seven years I operated the Rocky Flats 14 facility.
15 MR. WALKER:
I apologize for not appropriately 16 introducing Mr. Williams.
17 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
Well, I think some of us recall 18 the background we've heard, but I think it helps us to refresh 19 on that, and I appreciate it very much.
20 MR. WILLIAMS:
Mr. Chairman, in your opening remarks f
21 you commented on the October meeting and the meeting today, 22 and I well remember the October meeting, and the purpose of I
u 23 that meeting, of course, at that time, was to view our progress i
24 in EQ, to address our progress in addressing management and i -
25 SALP issues, and I think we -- the discuss (pn.At.that time was
19 1
very beneficial in terms of my receiving your views.
I think p'-
2 we indicated at.that time we found ourselves in good agreement 3
in terms of the fact that the performance of the organization 4
had to improve, we wanted it to improve, and we were certainly 5
committed to its improvement.
6 As Dick Walker points out, our chairman, we have as 7
an organization -- and I think we a're probably one of the few 8
organizations in Public Service that stand out in the Public 9
Service corporate plan as a very clear, specific goal for 2J Fort St. Vrain, and that is excellence, we are striving toward 11 that, and we believe that in the intervening months since our-12 last meeting, we have made a number of accomplishments in both 3
13 technical areas and the management performance area, and we 14 would like that presentation today to show you those things.
15 In particular, I recall we discussed a number of 16 things that were considered technical issues, both identified 17 by us and identified by the Staff.
There were four in 18
'particular that related to "had to be completed before 19 start-up."
We had to address those issues and have them out 20 of the way before start-up.
21 There were other issues which'had to have sufficient i
22 resolution for the Staff to be comfortable for us to go 23 forward on.
s' 24 What we have identified on this first chart are 25 those four key issues that had to be resolvsd,,and obviously s
l
..-- -. --..-.-------------------------~~-------~A
20 1
the environmental qualification program had to come to a s
2 successful conclusion before start-up.
3 There were reanalyses for safe shutdown cooling i
4 issues and resolution of electrical independence.
5 I am going to have Don Warembourg in a moment speak 6
to those three issues as technical issues so t, hat you can get 7
a little more depth perspective on those, but as you see, and 8
what I am pleased to report today is, we put " completes" on 9
those things.
I think that is what we were all looking for in 10 October.
That's the approach that we have taken.
We really 4
11
-- we pressed on making those things happen.
12 (Commissioner Bernthal entered the room at 10:25.)
13 MR. WILLIAMS:
Chernobyl was not explicitly 14 identified, but I think implicitly in our discussions and so 15 on identified, as we need to continue to visit the Chernobyl 16 issue for us to stay abreast of those things that were 17 happening, and they are for us to go back and relook and 18 reaffirm that those early analyses that we did immediately l
19 after Chernobyl reaffirmed to the Staff that those analyses l
20 were still valid analyses, and that there were no new findings 21 out of Chernobyl that could impact the findings that we had 22 initially.
I 23 We do understand, obviously, that Chernobyl is 24 graphite and Fort St. Vrain has graphite, and we, I think, 25 determined pretty well that in the sense oC,the engineering
{
21 1
and physical configurations and so on, that is basically the
- Q 2
only similarity there, the fact that the graphite is a common j
i 3
equation, and it ja no more linked than that.
4 Obviously both the Commission, and I know that the 5
nuclear industry, is also looking at other possible 6
implications of the Chernobyl event in terms of operational 7
procedures and a' number of activities like that.
We are 8
continuing to stay abreast of those, and will continue to f
9 fully support any of the actions that come out of either the 10 NRC recommendations or the industry recommendations which are
' ll going on in parallel.
So we feel at this point when 1 indicate 12
" complete," that we are r aying we are complete with respect to kgm certain commitments that we felt we had made with respect to a 13 14 revisit of our earlier analysis, but I want to assure you that 15 it is not completely closed, but it is something that we will
{
16 continue to watch and watch carefully.
17 The environmental program, of course, has been the 18 key driver for us for quite some period of time.
We shut down l
19 May 31st of last year, 1986, to bring the plant into 20 compliance.
We had, as you recall, from the commission a 21 schedule exemption that was granted in' November of 1985.
In f
22 1986, the Staff approved 35 percent operation, which was an i
23 operation with a particular cooldown system, which Dan 24 Warambourg will talk about in a moment again in connection 25 with our new plans for restart.
ne,-n,
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.This. year in January we have completed our work 0
2 sufficiently that the IEE inspection of the EQ program could 3
take place.
We fcel that that was,a very good inspection, 4
that we were not -- we were at a point where there were no 5
issues that were open that we and the IEE inspection team 6
didn't see resolution to, and we essentially walked away from 7
that exi't interview, and I was at that interview, and we had a i
8 matually acceptable set of resolutions to everything that the 9
I&E team said were open issues, and again Don Warenbourg will 10 talk in some detail on that.
11 As you can see, we have certain final actions that 12 need to be completed.
We expect all of those to be completed m,
13 approximately March 15th, which on all of our planning 14 documents is our target, and I will say ready-for start-up.
I i
15 want to emphasize that that's our flag that says we are ready, 16 and we are working toward that date, and all these items, 17 including the EQ certification, will be complete by that time, 18 and that is according to our start-up plans of March 15th, 19 ready for start-up date.
Our organization is working directly 20 toward that direction.
4 21 At this point I would like to' turn the discussion i
22 over to Don Warembourg, who will go into some of these 23 technical issues that we had with us in october, and which we
(
24 feel are very effectively being resolved, or are resolved at 25 this point.
i
23 1
MR. WAREMBOURG:
Good morning, gentlemen.
I am Don
. (N
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2 Warenbourg, thq manager of Nuclear Engineering.
I want to 3
provide you just a brief synopsis of the three technical 4
- issues that Mr. Williams referred to, just to give you a 5
better background of where we've been.
6 As Mr. Williams indicated, we shut down in May of 7
' 1986, May 31st, to be exact, to begin our implementation of 8
our environmental program.
Since that time we have brought 9
underneath that program 1654 tagged items which we qualified.
10 That involved some 1275 work packages, 250 modifications, 11-which touched on about 6000 items at the plant.
Those are 12 documented now in 46 equipment binders and 37 cable binders la which essentially is the elements of our EQ program.
14 our program is probably very similar to those that-15 you have seen other people have.
We do have one rather unique 16 characteristic in our plant in that we have a 1000 degree, 17 2400 pound steam system.
As a result of that, a high energy 18 line break creates a very harsh environment very rapidly.
In 19 order to survive that kind of an incident, we did have to 20 design and install a steam line detection isolation system, so
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21 that we could isolate that steam line break very quickly,'and 22 that would allow us then to use some of the industry test data 23 to qualify some of our equipment, as well as to permit reentry
/
24 back into the building.
25 The work for the SLRDIS system is, essentially I
l
0 24
.o 1
complete..We ran into some problems with a couple of relays p.
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.2 which are coming in on delivery, but we fully expect to have 3
that system operational and tested by mid-March.
4 (Commissioner Roberts left the room at 10:30.]
5 MR. WAREMBOURG:
In terms of the EQ inspection, as 6*
Mr. Williams indicated, we felt we had a very favorable 7
inspection.
If the open items that were left with us from 8
that inspection, we have completed seven of the eight binder 9
revisions.
We have completed three of the five cable binder
~
10 updates.
The remainder of the work is scheduled for completion j
11 by March 3rd.
12 We have submitted to the Staff a status of our
-'s 13 program.
That was submitted to them on the 25th.
It indicates 4
!.. l 14 that we are about 98 percent complete on final actions of our 15 EQ program.
We do have some final construction work which we i
16 j
are cleaning up in terms of motor-operated valves and the 17 MOVATS work.
We have committed in that letter to provide the I
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18 Staff with the letter certification prior to start-up, which j
j-19 will be on or about March 15th.
20 The I&E audit also, of course, confirmed that our 21 ongoing program for compliance for EQ -- that program is l'n 22 place and is implemented by an executive policy, and most i
23 certainly all of the activities that we are undergoing right 24 now are being handled by that ongoing p ogram.
25 In terms of total investment in EQ project, we are l
25 1
looking about $40 million.
p TJ 2
COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Is the SLRDIS work the 3
pacing item?
4 MR. WAREMBOURG Right now it's a tie between the 5
SLRDIS work and motor-operated valve work, and it's very close 6
between those two items.
7 As a result of the EQ program, we did go back in an$
8 reevaluate some of our safe shutdown cooling models.. As a 9
result of that reanalysis, we discovered some disparities in
~
10 the original design input of the Fort St. Vrain safety 11 analysis.
We determined that there were some disparities, 12 both in cooldown with the reheater sections, which is a 13 separate part of our steam generators, as well as the
^
14 evaporator economizer superheater section in terms of the 15 design input of that design analysis.
16 Immediately upon discovering that, we went back and 17 performed an analysis of the safe shutdown cooling, using 18 historical plant operations.
You recall we have been 19 restricted to 70 percent most of the time during Fort 20 St. Vrain's life.
We went back and looked at that situation, 21 as well as the emergency procedures that were in place.
We 22 did another safety analysis to assure that we could have 23 safety shut down Fort St. Vrain even though we had identified i
24 those disparities, and that analysis did confirm that we could 25 have accomplished that.
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Then we procecdad'to look at in more detail lat both ;
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s 2
these cooldown proceitses. - We looked at the reheater in' detail' jl 3
and finally determinnd that-the reheater cooldown would not 4
support 'any power levels much above 39 percent' power, as far s
5 as safe shutdown cooling.
t 6
The reheater at Fort St. Vrain ham'always been'~ sort
\\
7 of a back-up position, anyway, and so we have' submitted,tr 8
technical specification to remove the reheater from certain s
9 design base events for consideration of Fort St. VraiW, e
10 relying on the EES, two-loop EES section instead.
.i i !
11 We also evaluated then the evaporator economizar i
12 superheater section, and ve did' identify thatlwe were going to
-13 have some choke flow conditions ar, a result'of steaming of the
.: i 14 steam generators following a 90-minute interrupted loss'of 15 floor circulation.
16 As a result of that, we defined two modifications
[
17 that we have to put in, which involve two new sid inch vent
\\
18 lines off the main steam headers.
The analysis Indicites that 19 that modification will support an 87-1/2, percent pctier level.
20 That modification is in progress.
We are fabricating the pipe ij l
21 and the valves and overything is on site.
We 4xpect that 22 project to be complete by March the 10th.
t 23 Although not a part of our res,tvicted start-up, we 24 did look at our shutdown models which w have submitted to the Staff,andtheyarelooNingatthis,andthatissuehasnot l
25 1
I l
1
---_-_____,_?.._,.-._-
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e 27 p!C l'
.'*been resolved at this point in time, but we did look at those y,,
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\\ i' 3T models and determine that in fact they are the controlling j
3-models of the plant, and really serve as the basis for the 82
,4 percent power request, rather than the evaporator econcalzer r
5 superheater section.
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,6 We have submitted a power ascension plan, which 7
Mr. Williams will discuss in more detail 14ter on, but j
8 basically that plan takes us to a 10 percent power regime, i
9 where we have a hold.
We will clear that hold and then go on
~
10 up to 35 percent.
The operation between zero and 35 percent 11 power will be based on the line of cooling system which was 1
)
12
" previously evaluated by the Staff and served as the basis for
(, (;"i' our operation in the May 1986 period.
1 13 47\\
14 Beyond 35 percent power, then, we will be utilizing 4.
' 15 the. analysis which we sent to the Staff that they are presently 16 evaluating to support the 82 percent power level with the new l
17 six-inch vent lines, and then beyond that, we have identified 2
l-18 varicus options to take this to 100 percent power.
Those I
' options have yet to be analyzed and submitted to the Staff.
19 20 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Did those require further i
21' modifications to the plant?
Or is it in the --
l 22 MR. WAREMBOURGt There's two options right now.
One 23 is a modification option.
The most prevalent one right now is t
24 an analysis based on fuel temperatures that we have defined 25 within the plant, and based on test data.
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28
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1 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Okay.
So what you are 1
f%
2 reallysuggestingisauthorityltogoto35percentwhile'the l
l firstanalysisisbeingreviewed-$ytheStaff,baseduponthe l
3 4
vent line modifications, and then once that is done, 82 1
5 percent, and;then subsequent to that, whatever proposals you 6
make being reviewed and approved by the Staff?
7 MR. WAREMBOURG:
That's true.
8 The finalLissue in terms of the technical issue that 9
was before us as restraints for start-up involved our on-site 10 emergency power system.
As you can see there,.our system is 11-really set up with two diesel engines, each one having a 1210 -
12 kW capacity.
They are tied to the 40 volt buses, each one of
'g 13 them'having a dedicated bus tied to the diesel generator.
14 On the other side of this scheme, and not 15 particularly shown on the slide, because it gets too confusing, 16 is the DC control power source is also set up in a similar 17 fashion, in that we have got two station batteries furnishing 18 three DC buses.
19 (Commissioner Roberts entered the room at 10:37.]
20 MR. WAREMBOURG:
As the requirement for shutdown at
(
21 Fort St. Vrain, we need to pick up two'of three buses, the' 22 loads on any two of the three buses, which necessarily then 23 involves a swing bus scheme.
24 At a result of that swing bus, we did have circuitry which had to talk back and forth to each otf.er,that,would tell 25
29 1
the diesel generators which one was going to be assigned the f,
t 2
swing bus, in terms of which one came up to'apeed and started 3
and had voltage, and those kinds of things.
And that' circuitry 4
did, as we analyzed it, we did find some single failure 5
criteria because of that cross talk type of situation that we 6
had to develop.
7 So we went back,in, reanalyzed both the AC and the 8
DC circuitry that associated with that system, identified all 9
of the single failure points in that system.
We have 10 modification packages, put them out on the street.
All the 11 construction work is complete to resolve those single failure.
12 criteria.
The system is under final test at this point in 13 time.
14 In the long term we took a look at that situation 15 and we would like in the long term to try to provide a third 16 station battery for that three Dc bus arrangement, because we 17 think that will provide us with a lot better reliabili'ty of 18 our system.
19 We are going to evaluate that with reference to the 20 loads that exist at Fort St. Vrain.
We are working very 21 closely with the Staff on that issue, and we would hope to~
22 have that final design submitted to the Staff by June of this 23 year, and have all final designs hopefully ready to go by 24 January of 1988 for our next refueling utage, and that would 25 be a long-term fix for the three-bus arrangement.,
i l
30 1
And with that, those are the synopses of the three
/~N t
2 technical issues.
3 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
All right.
Thank you very much.
4 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
You had described -- I 5
apologize, I was late here, trying to get ready for a long 6
trip.
Did you describe'at all the steam line rupture detection 7
isolation SLRDIQ system?
In particular,.my question is what 8
provisions you have for diagnostics on that, and can you give 9
me just a general view of how that works, and what assurances 10 you have of performance when required?
11 MR. WAREMBOURG:
Yes, it is -- it's set up on a 12 two-loop system.
It's one out of two logic taken twice.
We
.(~\\
have-a set of thermister cables located both in the reactor 13 14 building and in the turbine building, which are in separate 1
15 sensing loops.
As those thermister cables, in event of a 16 steam line break, see a rate of rise in temperature -- and 17 that rate of rise is now keyed to 55 degrees per minute rate 18 of rise -- as that rate of rise is sensed by the cable, it 19 changes resistance and sends a signal back into these control.
l 20 panels.
21 The system is set up so that we have two separate' 22 panels based on a loop isolation type system, that when one 23 loop receives a signal, it closes the valves in that loop, and 24 then it takes the other loop to close -
the other signal to 25 close the opposite loop.
So that on a spurious trip, the most x
l l
l
31 1-you'can' experience is loop isolation.
f.
2 The panels are set up that we can test the panel
'3 system and everything on a surveillance test on line.
Now 4
obviously we cannot generate a 55 degree rise on the thermister 5
cables.
We can generate a signal which represents a resistance 6
change to those thermister cables, but we cannot actually 7
induce,the temperature on the thermister cables themselves.
8 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
But there is not really a 9
redundancy, then, in the system.
In other words, if one of 10 those fails, then the system doesn't work; right?
11 MR. WAREMBOURG:
If any thermister cable fails, it's, 12 failed to open.
It does not cause any spurious alarm at that 13 point in time.
Tne thermister cable fails open and alarms the k-},
14 panel at that point in time.
So you cannot operate with a 15 thermister cable failed.
16 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
Okay.
Thank you.
I 17 appreciate that.
l 18 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Proceed, please.
19 MR. WILLIAMS:
The chart that I have up here shows 20 our organization in somewhat more depth than the original 21 chart, and it particularly focuses on what we call our senior 22 planning team, which as you recall in the October meeting we 23 had only recently started the activities of that group.
24 That's a group which meets with me regularly each week to 25 review a number of items that are issues for us.
i
r 32 1
As you can see, the group represents about 18 of my ps 2
staff..
It's the,-- those direct reports to me, together with 3
their direct reports, and one of our approaches in this was to 4'
- address that very key issue that was ~ coming through in many of 5
the SALP evaluations and our own self-assessment as well, that 6
we did not have that sense of team.
We were functioning, I 7
think I mentioned in October, more as four separate entities, 8
had been for quite a while, and we feel that this has made 9
some significant changes.
10 You probably also noticed on there a number of those i
11 positions that you see as new positions on there were as a 12 result of the PEP program.
(--
13 As I mentioned, the team is directing itself to
(
improving the communications in the organization, to identify 14 15 and highlight key issues, to develop action plans, look for 16 results.
I think the kinds of things we are seeing here today in terms of'our accomplishments are the things that are. coming 17 18 out of those activities where we are really tracking those on 19 a regular basis.
And we are tracking not only the plant 20 performance and the EQ outage and the other outage parameters, 21 but we also track on there our relationship with the NRR S'taff 22 in terms of licensing.
So we have a full spectrum of all of 23 those things that we need to be doing.
And all of our internal 24 projects are tracked on there.
Our performance enhancement 25 program is also being tracked on a regular basis
_e take a W
s
33 1-key issue, we're going after l't, and we. check it every week
)
2-until we get it where we want it.
And that's the kind of.
3 approach that we're taking, and we're seeing this kind of 4
results, we think, in many of our performance areas, in 5
many of the areas that we've particularly addressed with 6
respect to the results that came out of our last SALP meeting.
7 And as we indicated to you, we had no quarrel with 8
that rating.
Our own self-assessment said those were areas 9
that neaded attention, and we were going after them.
So I 10 think the team management approach, where we get the 11 accountability, we get the visibility, we get the controlled 12 feedback, and we did have the pleasure of having commissioner 3
13 carr at one of those meetings, and he had an opportunity to 14 see us interacting as a team, and evaluating some of these 15 kinds of performance.
16 Independently, I might add that the Region, looking 17 fot how was this flowing into the rest of the organization in I
18 terms of how was -- if you went down and checked on the floor, 19 as some people like to do, and they went down and interviewed 20 100 of our people.
The Region sent in a special team 21 inspection.
They did that interview, and I think they came 1
22 back indicating that, yes, they were seeing right on the floor 23 that kind of accomplishment taking place.
24 So we are making progress, and we do attribute a lot s
25 of the success that we've had between the.0,ctoper t_imeframe, l
34
-l when we discussed our' progress and concern over where we were m
I I
2 going to make that progress, we feel that these things are 3
making the difference.
4 Looking at the -- some of the SALP areas, we have 5
highlighted those in which we all identified in october as 6
being the real worrisome ones that were in the 3.
We have 7
also included operations there because we feel that is always 8
an important area to be looking at.
And so we have identified 9
some of the improvements that we have in there.
10 In operations in particular there have been a number 11 of physical improvements in the control room and so on, which -
12 for those of you who have had the opportunity to visit the 13 plant, it is a substantial improvement over the earlier CS,
- 2. )
14 control room configuration, in terms of noise level, the 15 ability for operator attention, more human factors in there.
16 Obviously conditions can be continued to improve, but we feel 17 we have a very, very effective control room at this point, and 18 ene in which we get maximum operator attention to the plant 19 operation activities, and a minimum disturbance from other 20 sources.
21 We have gone through all of our procedures on our 22 operations and looked at those on a human factors side, to 23 factor some of those things in.
We had that kind of resource 24 available to us through consultant help and so on, but we are 25 really paying a lot of attention to the humpn factors.
=.
35 1
I would like to point out that on some of the things
/"';.
t; 2
that we have come up with, we were recognized by INPO.
INPO 3
selects every once in a while something they see one plant 4
doing, and they say that is something everybody ought to do, 5
and that's called a good practice,.and we have identified two 6
of those; one in terms of the availability of schematics and 7
so on at local plant sites, and those controlled and up-to-date.
8 so you know absolutely that what you've got there is what you 9
need to have, and the other was in the control room itself, the 10 display of how do you respond to an alarm.
That is it gives i
11 you the various conditions.
You choose an alarm condition and 12 then you can call up very quickly the actions and read them 13 off, and that's again a very good area.
s 14-These are just highlights of a number of detailed 15 things that we are doing.
We are really putting a lot of 16 attention on having a vary quality operation, a high quality 17 operation.
I think the entire staff is really dedicated to 18 the excellence of that operation.
I think we are seeing that, 19 as we have commented on there, on non-nuclear dryout.
We are 20 seeing very good operation on the part of the staff, very good 21 response in general on how we are operating there.
22 Maintenance, I think we won't put this next to 23-godliness, but housekeeping, I think, is a place to start with 24 all of that.
I think you really do have to start with an x
25 attitude of we're going to have a shipshapq,pg,erati_on.
We are i
j
36 1
goihg to start with everybody paying attention to how the i
2 place looks.
That starts to have an effect on attitude, the 3
way we go at our jobs and so we have really put a tremendous 4
-- and I put this under maintenance and I know that in the 5
SALP review this was identified as a very significant plus 6
finding for us under fire protection.
But we see it as 7
impacting maintenance and all of the other things that we have 8
going on there as well, and we think in particular in the 9
maintenance area, our attitudes toward our plant and our pride 10 in our plant is going to make a starting tremendous difference.
11 We have again gone through procedures in 12 maintenance.
We have looked at the kind of recommendations we 13 get from vendors and so on, on equipment.
We have revisited 14 all of those things.
We have revisited a number of the l
15 guidelines on maintenance, and have upgraded a lot of those 16 procedures.
' 17 I have shown those as two key things in maintenance, 18 and I would like to then move to that next item, which is 19 outage control, which we see as being, you know, one of the 20 major factors there is planning, and the overall effect of 21 planning of the entire organization.
22 I mentioned --
23 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Befo e you leave 24 maintenance, could you tell us a little bit about what your 25 backlog is on corrective work orders?
37 1
MR. WILLIAMS:
We reviewed that the other day in b
a 2
erms of the SSRs.
Chuck?
3 MR. FULLER:
Yes, we have reviewed all of the 4
outstanding SSRs for operational considerations and technical
~5 specification and considerations.
We do that on an-6 item-by-item basis.
Approximately three months ago we had 7
identified 450 SSRs that we should complete prior to restart.
8 Of those 450, we have in various stages of completion 120 9
left.
10 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Okay.
Also how about the 11 rate of generating work requests?
Are you generating more now 12 than you were say a year or so ago?
Are people turning up
^
13 more things that need to be corrected?
14 MR. WILLIAMS:
You might want to talk -- let me just 15
. speak generally on that, and then Chuck can talk specifically.
16 What we have got is the enhanced operations and 17 maintenance together -- you have to look at both of those to 18 answer that, because the operating people are being a lot more 19 attentive, and I think starting to -- and Chuck's numbers, I 20 think, will indicate that we have got a real strong interaction 21 between the two organizations in terms'of attention to the' 22 plant.
23 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
That's what I'm getting 24 at.
i 25 MR. WILLIAMS:
Chuck?
38
> MR. FULLER:
Yes, over the last year we have 2
approximately tripled the number of SSRs that are_both 3
generated and completed.
41 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Okay. _So you feel that 5
you are changing the culture in terms of identifying problems 6
and getting them fixed?
7 MR. FULLER:
Most definitely.
No doubt about it.
8 MR. WILLIAMS:
Well, I think the other significant 9
area -- and it is identified, of course, and we categorize 10
~this under the_SALP rating or our SALP functional 11 classification of outage control, and probably the key thing 12 is to focus control, the planning process that we have, the y;
~deintegration of the entire organization into top level 13 14 planning, and the very detailed planning of the work, the 15 coordination of the work planning with the plant configuration 16 and all of those kinds of activities.
They do come right back 17 up and have a strong positive effective on maintenance.
When 18 the maintenance people really do -- are able to walk out to 19 the job and can do the job, rather than walk out and find the 20 plant conditions are not correct or they don't have the parts 21 and so on.
So we have felt that the whole outage management 22 activity would have a strong impact on -- or positive impact 23 on our maintenance as we developed our outage management.
i
/
24 We have adopted an outage manager approach.
We have 25 a person assigned, a person very knowledgeable in the plant,
[
39 1
SRO shift super who is one of one we have pulled off to work'
.g x s-2 that, and we have adopted throughout the organization a 3
standardized scheduling system so that they all talk to each 4
other that way on the computer, and that each of the 5
organizations can input their requirements there.
6 That, we think, has made a tremendous positive use 7
for us in all of these areas.
8 Security, we are really pleased that we did 9
accomplish those physical modifications to the security 10 system.
I sat through the exit review of that -- the final 11 checkdown on that whole system, and I was very, very pleased.
12 with the discussions that we had in that exit interview with k-,
13 respect to not only those things that we put in to comply with 14 the requirements, but those things that we had done on our own 15 to enhance that system, and we feel that we have got probably, 16 we would like to think today, maybe one of the best systems l
17 around.
So we are very pleased with that.
l 18 We also recognize that what has to go with that, and 19 where we got into trouble before is we weren't paying attention 20 to the possible degradation of the system.
So we have enhanced 21 the surveillance, we have added maintenance -- specific 22 maintenance engineer to that security system, and dedicated 23 technicians to support that maintenance of that whole system.
24 So we are going to keep that up to snuff.
We have got a good 25 system now, we want to keep it that way.
40 1
There are a number of other improvements in security (L
2 that we have also made, but I think that's our-- what we think 3
is our key milestone for the year.
4 Emergency preparedness is an ar'ea that we are 5
continuing to work very hard in.
We recognize that that was a 6
difficult area, but we had an evaluation, as you recall, in 7
the SALP report, and then shortly after that, had another 8
exercise, and had not seen the improvements we wanted.
9 Particularly we think we were probably not paying the kind of 10 attention to that in terms of total organizational commitment 11 that we needed to have.
We have changed the structure of --
i 12 and we have dedicated people to the planning, execution of the 13 day-to-day work in that, so we have fully committed full-time
(
14 people to that.
We are committing the organization, we are 15 getting successful exercises.
We are training, we are testing, 16 and we are preparing ourselves for a full-blown exercise of 17 being -- of far better performance than we have seen in the 18 past.
19 Part or this includes actual physical changes to 20 certain of our facilities, and the addition of a paging system 21 to assure our ability to fully mount any kind of an exerci~se 22 or any kind of an emergency requirement.
And we think that 23 paging system, as it's coming in, we are currently training peopleonitrightnow,andthatwillbIfullyimplemented 24 I
j 25 probably in the next month or so.
So that is going to make a
41 1
significant difference to us there in our ability to respon'd 2
there.
3-COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
When is the next exercise?
4 MR. WILLIAMS:. I believe it is scheduled for August.
5 And that last year's exercise was a minimal involvement between 6
the state and county and ourselves.
7.
COMMISSIONER ROBERTS:
How many counties are 8
involved?
9 MR. WILLIAMS:
We have one county, Well County, and 10 the State of Colorado.
And.I think we have a very -.you 11 know, I've had two lives in Colorado.
I guess I have to say 12 I'm very pleased with Colorado's attitude with respect to 13 emergency preparedness.
They had a Big Thompson flood, and I 14 think that changed their whole attitude on that whole subject.
15 Some of you might recall that.
16 COMMISSIONER'ASSELSTINE:
So this is a full 17 participation, this August one?
18 MR. WILLIAMS:
This coming year will be a full i
19 participation and, of course, last year we had, I think, the 20 first participation with the Region where the Region came in 21 and participated under the NRC plans. 'And we were working out 22 some bugs in that.
So a lot of interaction there, and I think it's very important that all of us work together and develop a 23 24 real team and a real understanding of t e roles, the-25 transitions, and the responsibility, accountability that has m..,_.,._..
_, _ _. _ _....... _. ___..-...._..__,.1
42
'l to occur there.
And it's one that takes a lot of work and 7,,
2 dedication.
We are dedicated to making that a-success.
We 3
hope to be able to show you that this summer.
'4-In licensing, we have really worked hard, I have put 5'
a lot of personal time into -- from the point of time that I
~
6 got onboard, to working on our both our staff relationship and 7
our internal management of our activities, and really getting 8
these things identified, determining what the issues are, 9
getting our plans together, getting a schedule for those 10 things, and working on those things.
We think we have made a 11 lot of progress in that.
12 The performance of the organization as a team, I 13 guess -- I think I have to say that has improved significantly 11 4
'there.
That used to be a lot more issue than it is for us 15 today.
We do work as a team in defining these things, so that 16 we are getting licensing and engineering, operational quality 17 input to the solutions that we come up with, the 18 recommendations that we send to the Staff.
They don't hear 19 from one piece of us, and then another piece.
These days we 20 get a single voice there, and I think we are showing them that 21 we can live up to the commitments and dates that we come up 22 with, and that's been important to us, to be able to reflect l
23 that.
I 24 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
What is a passive
(.
25 commitment?
'43 1
MR.-WILLIAMS:
A passive commitment, we have logs A
.s-2 which;anything that is identified as a commitment goes on a 3
log.
We break -- for example, a letter that might come in 4
would have several subactions associated with it.
Each one of-5 those would be identified as a commitment against the total 6
thing, so that we could track that.
And then some things come 7
in and, for example, there are a number of things that.I have 8
to do that are on a tickle file, if you will.
That's passive 9
commitment.
You and I don't talk about it all the time,-but I 10 know that every quarter, for example, I've going to check on 11 the security system, and that pops up on this computer,_and I.
12 go into my security system check.
That's an example of a 13 passive system.
So there are a number of things like that.
3 14
^ There's a long list, and it's all through the organization.
15 Also, anything that we have in our procedures which 16 represents, for example, a letter of commitment where we've 17 said we're going.to do something, whether it be internally 18 generated or something that we have agreed to with NRC, that 19 gets a flag on the procedure.
You can't change that part of o
20 the procedure, because you've got to go back and see why you 21 put it there.
It's a variety of things like that that 22 represent that commitment, and we feel we have a very, very 23 good tracking system.
24 We also, by the way, have put our entire document inventory on computer so that we can come u,p by key word, 25 s
l
44 1
' key phrase, and locate anything with respect to any of these 73,
2 items as well,'very rapidly.- And we think that's provided a 3
tremendous enhancement to our ability to respond to and look 4
at issues in a very broad-based way.
5 Quality assurance, as I pointed out today, we have a 6
new manager of Quality Assurance.
We have done tremendous 7
staff enhancements of from 44 to 62 over the -- say from 1985 8
to today.
In particular, I think the quality of people we 9
brought in, the particular positions, we have -- in the area 10 of auditing we were really_way down on the curve on there.
11 That was showing up in our performance.
We have put a lot of 12 effort into enhancing that, not only enhancing the auditing, 13 enhancing the corrective action commitments of the 14 organization.
It had gotten to the point where corrective 15 actions were -- they just sort of sat there, and they just 16 weren't moving.
We aggressively attacked those things.
We 17 got to the point where I am now at this today able to say I am C
18 looking at a lot of those things entirely by exception.
That 19 is, I am not tracking to the detail that I've had to over the 20 last several months.
We are down to where we've got zeroes on 21 all these things that we are tracking, entirely on exception 22 i
now, and it is not popular in our meeting to come up on that 23 exception list.
So that's --
24 COMMISSIONER ROBERTS:
What was that?
25 MR. WILLIAMS:
I say it's not popular in our regular
. =
45 l
e f
1-meeting to come up on that exception list.
So we are down
(
2 there and we've_got that under control, and we' feel very good 3
about that,'and we're going to maintain that, and we've got 4'
some goals for ourselves in terms of action, and so on, and we 5
are going to pursue those vigorously.
6 I think, as well, though,.I'd like to say that the 7
whole organization, I think, is getting a better sense of 8
quality, what we need, what we mean by that.
It's not just 9
the quality assurance organization.
They certainly have their 10 role, and we are doing everything we can to enhance that.
But 11 we did a quality survey, and I think generally we are finding.
12 a strong commitment in the organization to quality.
'13 I'm going back to the housekeeping.
All of those 14 things you can couple together, and we are doing that, and i
15 it's a dynamic thing, but I think we are getting that sense of 16 quality throughout the organization in the;way we perform.
17 Those were the areas that we had utrong concerns 18
- on.
In training we did not have a strong concern about --
l 19 well, we've had concerns, certainly, but it was not getting as 20 low a mark as a number of the other areas.
But we are pleased 21 with the performance over this last year.
The implementation 22 of the entire INPO series.
We have had three of the programs, 23 the SRO, the RO, the nonlicensed operator programs have been 24 accredited by INPO.
I have been invclv d with the 25 accreditation process there.
We have the other seven programs
,,,---,-------w,, - - - - - - - - - - -
, - -. - - - - ~ ~ ~ - - ' - ~ * * - ' ' ~ - ' " " ' ' ~ ' ' ' ' ' ' ' " ' ' ' ' " ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' '
"~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ' ~ ~ ' ' ~~
~~
46 1
that were on the INPO schedule have all been submitted and s
2.
accepted and we are awaiting -- as'you may be aware, they'have 3:
a tremendous backlog schedule, and so I think the entire 4
industry is going-to'have to be doing some wait for that final 5
accreditation on a number-of these programs.
But we are 6
pleased with where we are on that, and we think we might see 7
that next year, or later this year, I guess, in fact.
When I
~
8 say next year, I'm already into
'87, so October of
'87, we 9
expect that.
We made a lot of investment in that.
I think 10 it's -- we are starting to see the payoff already.
A lot of 11 people have said this is an excellent way to go, the training.
12 is really paying off, and we are focusing there on those' key 13 INPO things, but I might add that we now have about 1600 14 specific modules of training for the entire staff.
They vary 15 j
across the needs and requirements of the total staff.
So we 16 are really devoting a lot of attention and time to that.
4 17 I'd like to turn now to -- Don mentioned that our 18 approach, when you look at it in terms of power ascension, has 19 that 10 percent which allows us to do dryout.
It also allows 20 us to do a number of the low power tests that we need to be 21 doing, and it also allows our own and particularly the Region's 22 evaluation of how are we doing.
And so we see that as kind of 23 a collective hold point.
We want to be good and solid and sure 24 that we -are ready to go beyond 10 perce t before we recommend 25 or hope to see Region IV recommend us doing that.
47 i
l' Going beyond'lO porcent, as Don pointed out, we have fv y
2 a 35 percent hold point which is geared to the liner cooling,
~
3 which was geared to the last order that the commission gave us 4
with respect to limiting the power operation.
And I might add 5
we fully intend to stay under 35 percent at that point.
I 6
will make a very strong exclamation mark on that.
7 You will notice that there are a number of test's in 8
there, particularly with respect to control rod drives, 9
because remember we had control rod drive problems.
We had a 10 complete refurbishment overhaul.
In our mind, that's a 11 pay-attention-to area.
We've got a very intensive program 12 there to assure ourselves that we've got a good solid handle 13 on our reactivity issues there.
And also the core physics 14 testing will also give us some -- where we are doing some 15 reruns of tests that we have there.
16 These are selected -- there's a lot longer list of 17 this.
There are a number of surveillances and so on, but I 18 wanted to highlight those kinds of things that we are going to 19 pay particular attention to.
20 Now how are we going to do that?
And I think I 21 mentioned earlier, and I said I would comment on it, it ha's 22 already been my intention to start focusing, as we are starting 23 to get these things coming together, as the EQ starts to' wind 24
- down and other issues are starting to be resolved, we've got to i
25 focus on the operations.
It was my intent that I and the
48 1
senior staff start to really do a lot more intensive focus on l
2 the operational side of the activities.
That top level 3
. management review of everything that's going on there, while we 4
are looking at things on a weekly basis, we certainly want that 5
to be a lot more intense during the start-up and operations, so-wearegoingtostartmovinhintothatmode.
6 7
So the issue with respect to my -- whe're am I going 8
to be, I fully intended to start to shift my gears to be a lot 9
more into the plant and on the activities like that as we move 10 into the operational phase.
So that's not inconsistent.
11 We are going to have a lot more active role in QA, 12 lot more walk-arounds on their part, things that we think we L ('
13 can do there, and still maintain as we go up through here the Q:,
14 plant conditions, testing and so on, surveillances, still'use 15 our outage manager to coordinate all those, and as we get into 16 any particular start-up activity, we will have our senior 17 people, including myself, right there.
I've kind of done that 18 over a lot of years, and found it's always paid off for me.
19 So we intend to do that.
20 Chuck Fuller, our station manager, is of course 21 very, very actively involved in all of'our planning, and h'e is 22 going to be doing the confirmations that he needs to satisfy i
23 himself.
And then we said, well, now, we want to make darn l
t 24 sure that the operators aren't being overmanaged in the sense 25 that they need to have a certain sense of management of their
49
.1 destiny.
So we are looping them in in terms of they know
.L' 2
what's going on,-what the changes are, what the total plant 3
start-up plan is, and they are looking for results from other 4
parts of the. organization, so that they are on top of things, 5
and not just responding to the rest of us, but rather taking 6
the kind of charge of the place that they need to as we move 7
back into that operational phase..Whi~ch isn't to say that 8'
they haven't been involved.
They have been very, very actively 9
involved in all of our work, and I think have made strong 10 contributions to the successes we have seen today in terms of 11 their design reviews, review of work, review of operability of 12 designs and so on.
And so we have had that input, but I think 13 as this transition period that we are in right now where we
~ 3
~
14 really want them to be our driving force, and to be our -- they 15 call a halt if they don't see it being what they want.
So we 16 are moving into that particular mode.
17 And in conclusion, as Don indicated, by start-up we 18 will have a letter of certification of compliance with 10 CFR i
19 49.
There are some work items that we still have in that 20 don't permit us to do that today.
Certainly as I look at 21 things, I am not prepared to sign the letter today.
I wan't to 22 be absolutely certain that we are in compliance, that we will, 23 when we certify, we will be fully assured of that.
24 We believe a number of these issues that we 25 collectively talked about in October and we addressed in s.
1
\\
50 1.
October, we_think many of those issues have been addrsssed,
.s L_-
2 resolved, and'we think all of'those issues were in connection 3
with restart..
0bviously there were some items we talked about 4
that we and the Staff recognized would go beyond restart in 5
terms of full resolution.
But those things that_were up for 6
restart have fully been resolved.
7 We think our performance with respect to SALP, we 8
made some significant improvements.
Now this is our 9
self-assessment -- and, by the way, I am not assessing myself 10 at 1 -- and my stick keeps going up higher.
Every time I get 11 somebody to jump so high, I move it.
So we are constantly 12 pushing it.
We are not satisfied with where we are, and that 13 is, as Dick Walker pointed out, a corporate goal for us to 14 increase that.
15 I think we are at a point where -- not where we were 16 talking about in October.
I think we are a better organization 17 and I think we are going to start to see the marks in at least 18 the mid-band, and we are striving for the movement up beyond 19 there.
So we are working at that.
20 We think we have got some very prudent plans toward 21 the approach to power, and we are going to carefully monitor 22 those things.
We are going to have a strong senior staff 23 input, and we expect to see, and I'm counting on, a great 24 performance by our operating staff.
I think they are ready, l.
25 and they're ready to go.
And with that, I would like to say e-w----e q
e n-m no.---
e
,,,-----,,-m---n---
,----m---_-n-n~m----,
-,--r, m.--
e a
9 51 I
that we do feel we are ready to operate.
I heard your remarks
. f%
t-2 in October.
As you pointed out, the schedule we. indicated to 3
you at that time was far more aggressive than we, I think,
!~
4 could have accomplished.
It was what we saw in the tea leaves 5
at the time in terms of the planning we had.
I think today 6
I'd say our planning is far superior, and we are target toward l
7 a mid-March readines's to initiate the power operation, or 8
certainly restart the plant, pull rods, and we feel that we 9
have come a long way since October.
10 Thank you very much.
11 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Thank you very much.
{
12 Before we call on the Staff, are there any questions
' 's 13 from my fellow Commissioners?
Commissioner Roberts?
14 COMMISSIONER ROBERTS:
Well, I don't want to put you 15 on the spot.
I know you have to work with the Staff on a 16 daily basis.
How much of your EQ. problems would you attribute 17 to the fact that you are one of a kind?
Maybe you don't want 18 to answer that.
19 MR. WILLIAMS:
Don might want to comment on that.
I I
20 think some of our EQ problems we find ourselves being in the 21 same line as everyone else in the system.
22 For example, on motor-operated valves.
And there 23 are some specific things.
24 Don, do you -- might want to comment on that?
\\
25 MR. WAREMBOURG:
I think basically a good portion of
52 1
our equipment was very similar to other plants, now even with
(..
A 2
the SLRDIS system our profiles ended up being a little bit 3
higher than the industry standards.
It created work on our 4
part in terms of thermal lag analysis and those kinds of 5
things, which represented a significant amount of work to us.
6 And we did in some instances have some unique equipment, first 7
of a kind equipment that was not qualified that we had tx) t 8
test.
So -- but in general we found that a good deal of our 9
equipment was covered by industry standards.
10 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Commissioner.Asselstine?
l 11-COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Just one question.
Could 12 you give us a sense for where you are with your performance 13
}.
enhancement program?
And I guess what I'm particularly 14 interested in are the major elements that you think still need 15 to be accomplished, things that are still underway, and how i'
16 much more work needs to be done, and what your plans for 17 wrapping it all up are.
18 MR. WILLIAMS:
Well, I -- as I looked at the program, i
19 a number of items have been identified.
Your concluding 20 comment was how close am I to wrapping it up.
21 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Or to having it fully --
22 MR. WILLIAMS:
I don't see myself wrapping it up.
23 It is becoming a -- it is, and we are using it, and I have i
24 adopted it, as a management vehicle for us to capture a key N.
25 issue, capture a key area, put focus on it,,and as you can
53 1
see, we have -- we have added categories.
We now have a 2
category added to cover quality.
We have a category -- a 3
number of things were done beyond the original performance 4
enhancement program, which was called the_ total responsibility
'5 of management.
I think Commissioner Zech, Chairman Zech, was 4
6 with us at the plant and saw some of those items.
7 We have captured and are trying to capture those.
8 Probably 30 or 40 particular things we have just wrapped into 9
a very -- what we feel is a very effective management 10 development and succession planning progress that essentially 11 captures a number of issues that have come up.
12 So we see that as a dynamic program.
It is one that 13 we get what we believe to be a solution, and then tracks that 14 solution.
Is that really doing the job that we said it was 15 going to do?
Go back and visit what we started out trying to 16 do.
It's too easy sometimes to just think that you have done 17 a program, well, it's in place, let's forget it, and that's 18 not the way we want to do business.
We are going to track all 19 those things, and I'd.just PEP is alive, well, and going to 20 continue to -- as long as I'm there, that's going to happen.
l 21 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Okay, thanks.
22 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Commissioner Bernthal?
23 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
I've heard a lot of good 24 things today.
I'd like you to tell me, if you can, what you l'
25 consider to be say the two biggest problems that,you still l
~0 m,;
1 y
54
/
I have.
k) 2 MR. WIT 1IAMS:. Well, I think we pointed out in 3
November that our planning was'an area that wc" wre not --
4 were not happy with.
We continue to improve that, and I guess 5
I see on a daily, wsekly bacis it. continues to be an area that I want to really drive us on, plannipg and very clear and
~
6 x
'7 precise goal-setting. :And I would say_that from my
?,-
8 perspective, doing those two things well is -- and goal-setting g
asaresultofaverycarefulassessmentand'knalysisofwhat 9
^
10 it is you want to do and so on.
I think that whole area l's oca 11 that represents to me the two biggest issues that I still have 12 on my plate, and obviously there are many, many cther things f,
13 that people might come up with, but I see those as driving us, }
a \\
14 as an organfzation.
. 15 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
Ars'there any plant design 16 or hardware issues that you come in in the morning and you 17 say, you know, I really wich"that would be a little bit'better 4
4
(
18 or a little different?
What would you list there?
19 MR.' WILLIAMS:
Well,'I think you start out with 20 anyone from Fort St. Vrain, and even a newcomer like myself, 21 and the one thing when you are operating a circulator, you 22 always operate carefully, and I think all of us have a --
t 1
23 that's high on our wish list, that that were different.
But 24 we have done those things that we can.
ire have got advar.ced -
I 25 studies looking at alternatives to gonfiguration we have j
i 4
b f
-.--.,.---,,-..-_..,..,,,__,,,,.--,..c,,_..,_
..,__-___-_.-,-._,-,._,__-,.,.--_._._,,_,~.--m._.o..
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g.
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+
55 f
~
l-today, and as a matter of fact, that study and the reviews of g
.,s s
2 those.ls chaired by Dick Walker.
And what we have done 7
j' 3
administratively things that we think are improvements.
We 4
have got-that part of our system as an active part or our
[,
5 simulator.
It's essentially the part of the plant that we q
6 simulate.
And --
1.
1 r
i f-7 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
You're pretty convinced that 8
the core is dry and going to stay dry now?
9 MR. WILLIAMS:
Chuck, would you like to comment on 10 core status?
11 MR. FULLER:
Yes.
The primary coolant temperature G/
12 right'ncif s about 300 degrees.
We are using secondary steam i
y, 13 to the steam generators to heat up the reactor core.
Our dew h 14 point is about a minus 38 degrees Fahrenheit right now, which 1
15 if you look from a historical perspective, is orders of 16 magnitude better than we have been able to achieve in the 17
. past.
l 18 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
So you are fairly confident 19 that you'll'be able to maintain the sort of level in the 20 future now?
.21 MR. FULLER:
Yes, as mentioned previously, the
.i 22 helium circulator auxiliaries are the Achilles heel of the 23 power plant, but we have made modifications that are going to i
24 improve that situation.
25 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
Thank you,very much.
s\\
\\>
... - - - 4 %,
w--
56 l'
CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Mr. Carr?
2
'2 COMMISS ONER.CARR:
As you remember when I was out 3'
there, I was worried about your motor-operated valve progress 4
and whether you were going to be able to get your spare 5
parts.
How about giving me a rundown on the last~thre's weeks 6
of how you are doing on getting those out of the way, and how 7
many you have got left to do?
8 MR. FULLER:
We have -- let's see, we had 16 limit 9
All of those have been L
10' disassembled.
I believe that we have two that remain, that we 11 are still awaiting parts for, small parts.
I do not see us 12 having any difficulty completing that project by the 15th of 13 March.
14 COMMISSIONER CARR:
Okay.
And the relays that you 15 are waiting for on your steam line rupture detection isolation 16 system, when are they supposed to arrive?
17 MR. WAREMBOURG:
Those are to be delivered the 3rd 18 of March, and as we see that --
19 COMMISSIONER CARR:
0.4 f::uy holding up testing now?
20 MR. WAREMBOURG:
Yes, they are holding up testing 21 now.
22 COMMISSIONER CARR:
Okay.
23 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
All right.
Well, I want to thank N
24 you very much, and I think we should let the Staff come 25 forward now.
I appreciate it.
Thank you.
s f
15 7 1
All right, let's see, Mr. Martin and Mr. Miraglia,
(~%
3.1
-2 which one of you is going.to lead off today?
3 MR. MIRAGLIA:
I'll lead off,'Mr. Chairman.
4'.
CHAIRMAN ZECH:
All right.
Thank you.
5
[ Commissioner Bernthal-left the room at 11:20.].
6 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Proceed.
-7.
MR. MIRAGLIA:
Briefly, what we would like to 8
discuss, and do'it very briefly, because it's going to 9
reiterate many of the things you have already heard, is what 10 the restart plan is for Fort St. Vrain; brief discussion of 11 background as to what brought us to this point in time; a 12 synopsis of the technical issues for restart; what we see as
. (,T 13 the management issues; and the decision we are looking for.
(,.e 14 As you already heard, the restart plan is to have 15 several hold points; one at 10 percent, one at 35 percent.
16 Each of those would require regional administrator to authorize 17 an increase of power beyond that level.
18 The next hold point would be an 82 percent hold.
f 19 Tilat would be contingent upon the Staff completing its review 20 of the analysis.provided by Fort St. Vrain.
I would like to 21 indicate we are fairly far along, and we will give you a 22 little better status a little bit later in the briefing.
l l
23 And then there will be potentially release to 100 f.
l 24 percent power, depending upon the proposal put before us by 25 Public Service of Colorado.
58 l~
The Staff fully intends to brief the commission
_ {JE.-
T 2-before moving that at the 35 percent plateau up to 82 percent.
.3 By way of. background, this plant had a number of.
4 problems dating back to t
'84.
There was Staff assessment.of.
5 Fort St. Vrain that led to many, many things being done at the 6
plant, and culminated in the performance enhancement program-
?
l 7
that has been discussed.
This here is just an indication of-8 some of the things that had been accomplished by'the utility 9
since.that assessment back in '84 '85 timeframe.
10-The main reason for the shutdown in May was for e
11 compliance with the EQ 50.49.
That program has been approved.
12 by the Staff.
The temperature profile issues have been
' {-
13-resolved. -The team inspection has been completed.
The SLRDIS
-14 system has been installed.
The Staff has approved the design.
15-Thera is technical specifications that need to be issued.
16 Those things have been reviewed, prepared, and are in the 17 -
concurrence process right now.
18 The EQ procedures have been approved, and the EQ 19 training has been completed.
20 As the Licensee indicated, there are a number of 21 items that required follow-up in the inspection, such as the 22 limit torque valves, motor-operated valves, and things of that l
23 nature, that need to be completed.
i 24 I think the issues have been c early defined.
The
\\.
25 Licensee understands what the issue is.
The path of resolution t
59 1
is clearly defined,-and we ses us progressing to the point of.
2' resolution.
It's just a matter of time right now.
3 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
How much of_that would get 1
4 done before you would propose to allow the plant to go back 5
into operation?
6 MR. MIRAGLIA:
All of those items.
All of those 7
items would be required prior to restart.
8 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Okay.- The tech specs 9
would be done, the procedures would be done?
10' MR. MIRAGLIA:
Yes, sir.
That's tech specs required 11 for the 35 percent operation.
12 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Yes.
13 KR. MIRAGLIA:
As was indicated in the course of the Ca 14 EQ evaluation, there was an issue raised with the safe shutdown 15 cooling.
Those were identified by Public Service of Colorado.
16 We_have reviewed the analysis, and I think the initial Staff 17 calculations' verify the proposed basis for 82 percent.
There 18 are a number of questions that Staff is still pursuing with 19 respect to some temperatures and material and structural 20 issues.
That process is ongoing, and appears to be going in a 21 favorable kind of direction.
22 There are additional confirmatory analyses by the i '
l 23 Staff being done.
The plant will be initially authorized to 24 operate to 35 percent on the line of cooling system.
And if l k 25 you recall, that was the basis of having the plant operate up t
60 1
until the EQ shutdown.
Actually, that kind of operation i
3
\\
-(l 2
requires no equipment to be qualified, and substantive progress 3
has:been made past the May 31st date.
And as I indicated, 4
there will be the hold points of 10 and 35 percent.
5 With respect to the emergency diesel generator issue 6-and the electrical independence, there were single failure 7
vulnerabilities identified in the system as. discussed by 8
Public Service of Colorado. 'They have proposed interim
-9 modifications requiring certain procedural and other 10 revisions.
Those have been made.
The Staff has approved 11 those.
There are longer term improvements, as they discussed,.
12 such as adding a third battery, also being discussed, and we 13 feel that the interim modifications are acceptable for restart, 14 and then the longer term proposal that had been discussed with 15 us appeared to be technically acceptable.
We have to see the 16 exact details of that long term program.
17 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Did the interim 18 modifications correct the single failures, all those done?
19 MR. MIRAGLIA:
Yes, sir.
20 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Okay.
21 MR. MIRAGLIA:
That brings us'to the management j
22 issues which are the performance enhancement program that was 23 discussed, and at this point I will turn it over to Mr. Martin D'
24 to discuss it further.
25 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
On those interim
- ~ - - -, - - -, -. - - - - - - - - -,. -. - - -. - - - - -
- - -, - ~.
,n r -
r--
61 1_
- modifications, does that require affirmation action by the A
- cY 2
operators to deal with the single failure problems?
How are 3
they doing?
4 MR. MIRAGLIA:
I think it's both -- Ken Heitner, the I
5.
Project Manager, can speak in more detail.
I think the answer 6
to that question is both.
7 COMMISSIONER ASSELS. TINE:
All right.
8 MR. HEITNER:
In our review, what we have done are 9
two things.
One is we have assured that they always have the 10 capacity of operating the system manually after the single 11 failure occurs.
And in addition to that, what they hava 12-demonstrated is that the automatic control system, even if it 13 does have single failures, will still be able to perform its 14 function.
15 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Okay.
All right.
16 MR. HEITNER:
In other words, there's enough 17 redundancy to assure that performance design function.
18 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
So does that mean that 19 this plant basically is being held to the same standards that 20 all the other plants are in terms of single failure 21 vulnerabilities?
22 MR. HEITNER:
Yes.
23 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Okay You're not giving 24 anything more away on this one?
25 MR. HEITNER:
No.
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62 11 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Okay.
2 2
CHAIRMAN ZECH:
All'right.
The answer is no, I 4
s-3 guess.
All right, proceed, please.
'4 MR. MARTIN:-- With regard to the performance 5
enhancement program,'Mr. Williams went through a rather i
6
~ detailed description of how that is being assimilated into 7
their own programs,.and we continue to-monitor it.
That would 8
purely be redundant to the comments he has already made.
9 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
All right.
10 MR.HMARTIN:
With regard to the functional areas of 11 SALP, as you are well aware, in our last SALP review of this 12 particular facility, we were particularly critical of the 13 large number of areas -- we in fact gave them six, as I 14 recall, six areas of Category 3, which is a very low 15 performance evaluation, if you will.
16 Therefore, we felt the best way to summarize our i
17 current views, based on what we have observed,,ir basically to 18 review those with you, and at the present time, bringing the 19 Staff together and performing an evaluation in each of these
{
20 areas, this is our current judgment:
21 And that is, there is really one area which we ar's 22 still concerned at the category 3 level, which is the area of 23 emergency preparedness, and I want to emphasize that the-reasonforthatisthattheyhavemadekmassivenumberof 24 T
25 plan changes.
Thus far, everything they have implemented has l
l
63 1
done well.
'p[
(
2 There are still a number of things to go to be able 3
to really' demonstrate improved performance.
In the other 4
areas we see them operating plant systems.
Although the plant 5
is not in operation, we can see them operating systems, doing 6
maintenance.
We can see them doing the stuff.
In the 4
7 emergency preparedness area, it was still in essence betting 8
on the line.
And we haven't seen enough to change our 9
judgment, but my staff is very optimistic about what they are 10 seeing.
11 So I am merely confirming that there have been 12 substantial improvements in all of the areas that we had 13 concern in before.
14 Frank.
15 MR. MIRAGLIA:
Based on the status of the review 16 that's been completed to date, Region IV and NRR Staff 4
l 17 recommend restart approval in accordance with the proposed 18 start-up plan.
19 The Staff actions that would be required prior to i
20 operation beyond 35 percent would be naturally monitor and 21 assess the plant operations, particularly at the hold points 22 and during the start-up operations; complete the licensing 23 approvals necessary for 82 percent power operation.
There 24 would be a number of tech specs that wo ld have to be 25 processed.
And certainly to brief the commission on the
i i
-e-64 e
1-status of the plant before moving beyond the 35 percent
-~
.I cJ,'
2 plateau.
3 (Commissioner Bernthal entered the room at 11:27.]
4 MR. MIRAGLIA:
That completes our prepared 5
presentation, Mr. Chairman.
If there are any questions --
4 t
6 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
All right.
Thank you_very much.
7 Comments from my fellow Commissioners?
8 Commissioner Roberts?
9 Commissioner Asselstine?
10 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
A comment more than a 11 question.
In light of the events of yesterday, I guess what I i
12 am wondering is would it be useful to ask the company to put v.
13 together in writing how it intends to modify its management 14 team for the plant given the removal of Mr. Gahm in particular,'
15 and describe how they think they are going to satisfy the 16 balance between new people with fresh ideas, like Mr. Williams 17 who has come in within about the past 10 or 8 months, and 18 retain people with knowledge and experience of the plant, and 19 then give the Staff an opportunity to review that and give us 20 their comments?
21 I don't know as another meeting is necessary, but'it
-22 strikes me that although it's still fairly early from the 23 company's standpoint after yesterday, it would be useful to havethecompanyputdownexactlyhowifintendstorestructure 24 N
25 its management team, and assure that they have got the right
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65 1
_ mix of new ideas and fresh perspectives and knowledge and-D-
Af-
.2 -
experience with the plant, and then give the Staff a-chance to 3
take a look at it.
l 4,
I think it also might be helpful -- I don't know 5
whether the appropriate person is the General Counsel or the 6
Office of Investigations or whomever -- but to get in touch
,7 with the U.S. Attorney out there and find out if he has any 8
information that would be particularly helpful or relevant to 9
us to our decision on operation of the plant arising out of 10 the events of yesterday.
11 MR. PARLER:
That is the kind of thing that I think 12 we would do, so I would do that.
If it needs to be coordinated 13 with OI, I will coordinate, but I will have our solicitor do 14 that.
15 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
All right.
It strikes me 16 that those two things might be useful, and I think for myself 17 they would give me the kind of information I need.
18 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
All right.
Commissioner Bernthal.
19 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
Well, I agree.
I think that 4
i-20 we need to have a look at these issues now that they have been 21 raised.
4 22 Again, your presentation was very short, so I guess 23 I didn't miss very much, but I just wanted to reassure myself I
24
-- and you may have spoken briefly to this -- on the last SALP 25 report, maintenance, as you know, was a 3, considered I.
66 1
improving, and the presentation this morning from the Licensee
('s i
\\;
2 assures us that things have improved, and I gather that visits 3
by one or two of the commissions seemed to bear that out 4
somewhat.
Would you give us your opinion on where they are in 5
maintenance?
A terribly important SALP category, as far as I 6
am concerned.
7 MR. MIRAGLIA:
I'll make one observation in the 8
conduct of the EQ program.
They had to go back and revisit 9
much.of the equipment and components in the plant, and the 10 remarks that we got back from the EQ inspection which looked 11 at a substantive number of items audited a substantive number.
12 of -- I think more than they would do in normal kinds of P'
13 inspections, found the quality of that work to be very high.
14 And I think just in that kind of reexamination, I think the 15 equipment qualification aspects of it would improve the plant 16 material condition.
17 Bob, have you got any other comments?
18 MR. MARTIN:
No, I think that is the largest piece 19 of evidence, or routine work.
We feel very comfortable that l
20 they are now performing at this kind of level in their i
1 21 maintenance, as opposed to the kinds of areas we were conc'erned 22 about last year and years before that.
And this was an area 23 that had -- we had frowned upon, as I recall, in a couple of 24 succeeding years.
And those improvemen s that were being put s
25 in place last year have paid off.
Our view of their l
l l
k
67 1
maintenance now is it's very comparable to what we expect f
.2 people to be doing on a routine basis.
3 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
The other area, although 4
this may well'be in many respects, if properly run, the most 5
forgiving plant that we licensed here -- I still note that the 6
emergency preparedness is a major issue these days, as we all 7
know.
I would certainly hope that they have already -- now 8
the Staff's current view, according to this piece of paper, is 9
that they are a 3, but improved.
I'm not sure what that says lo about where they were.
But the geography there, it would 11 seem, lands itself to fairly straightforward and effective 12 emergency preparedness.
And I would hope that you can sit 13 here today and tell me that they are better than 3 at this 14 point.
Where are they?
j 15 MR. MARTIN:
Well, as I tried to indicate, Staff, 16 because of the nature of the plans and changes hat are being 17 put in, this plant has a very unique emergency plan.
It has a 18 small emergency preparedness zone.
19 MR. MIRAGLIA:
Five miles.
20 MR. MARTIN:
It has a five-mile zone, rather than a 21 10.
Because of the thermal characteristics of the plant,'they 22 are afforded a much longer time to staff up their emergency 23 centers than a pressurized water or a light water reactor
/
j 24 would be permitted.
But in our last drill, which was in 1
25 August, which was after the last SALP period, we, recognized i
l
._,,m,,_-_., _ -, -,., _ _ _ _
,,,, m.s
68' 1
that there were also a number of communications difficulties p
t 2
that did not have to do with the operation of the plant, but 3
they had to do with coordination and communication capability,
. which would have cost them flexibility in dealing with issues.
4 5
There were some issues relative to whether'or not the technical 6
support center was in fact exercising more control over 7
emergency actions than the emergency operations facility.
8 should, which is where the management function is supposed to 9
take place.
So --
10 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
If you have gone through 11 this, I don't want to repeat it for the rest of the 12 Commissioners.
13 MR. MARTIN:
The point -- that's more detail than I 14 did state before.
They have made very major commitments in 15 terms of changes, plans.
They are starting to do drills.
16 Everything we see in the drills they've been running has been 17 running well.
They still have some bigger pieces that we are 18 very comfortable in, but we haven't seen it demonstrated.
And 19 in emergency preparedness, the performance aspect is the major 20 part of how well these plans work out.
And as opposed to 21 other areas, where we can rate people by virtue of what we'see 22 in action -- routine maintenance, operation of nuclear systems 23
-- we don't get the opportunity in the emergency preparedness
(
24 except through drills to see how they run.
25 What we have seen so far makes us optimist 1c.
We 1
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are cautiously optimistic, and the Staff won't move beyond-3 p
i-2 at this -- today.
But acceptable.
They are making substantive 3
improvements over what had been acceptable before, but with k
t 4
weaknesses.
5 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
Okay.
Well, I have no 6
further questions.
I would just comment, the same comment I 7
have made many times, that this plant and this technology 8
deserves better than it's had so far, and I would hope that 9
the utility recognizes the broader responsibility that they 10 have for the plant and technology represented by Fort St. Vrain 11 than might normally be associated with running a nuclear power, 12 plant.
I want to see this plant run, and I want to see it run 13 well.
I would hope they do that.
14 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
All right.
Mr. Carr?
15 COMMISSIONER CARR:
No.
16 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Well, let me just make a few 17 comments.
18 First of all, I think the company has made some 19 rather aggressive and positive actions to improve their 20 management and their performance.
I think they are beginning i
21 to see results.
I think we can be encouraged by the strong 22 management decisions they have made and the commitment they I
23 have made to safe operations.
i 24 I do believe that the key position of nuclear v
25 production position should be resolved prior to moving ahead
70 1
.towards restart.
I appreciate the company's candid description.
~
-('s' s,
2 of-the problems that they faced here that have just developed 3
very recently, and their candid' discussion of the indictment 4
issues.
5-I agree that - -I believe their word was " unfortunate 6
situation."
I certainly agree with that.
It sounds like to me 7-that the company is apparently acting responsibly to solve that
~
)
8 problem.
9 As far as the Staff is concerned, I think the Staff 10 has reviewed the situation carefully.
I don't know, frankly, 11 if the Staff has had a chance really to involve themselves in.
12 the most recent problem with the nuclear production manager.
13
)
Have you had a chance to look into the significance of that?
14 MR. MIRAGLIA:
We were just informed of Mr. Gahm's
+
/
15 departure on Monday, and we were informed of the indictment 16 yesterday, and the indictment was just handed to us this 17 morning, so --
18 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Well, you heard my opening remarks.
6 19 It seems to me that's a rather significant development.
Would i
20 you agree that it is significant and would you want to feel 21 more comfortable that it is resolved before we proceed?
I 22 MR. MIRAGLIA:
I think Commissioner Asselstine's 23 proposal to at least get the thoughts from the utility as to 24 what it's going to do and how it's going to approach the s
25 problem at issue is one that we should take,a look,at, and l
71 9
1 offer them an opportunity to do so.
. (m 2'
CHAIRMAN ZECH:
And so that essentially bears on t
3 perhaps a change in your recommendation that we authorize 4
restart now; is that correct?
5 MR. MIRAGLIA:
I think with satisfactory resolution 6
of that matter, I think the recommendation would be unchanged.
7 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Fine.
8 Well, I would just like to say then that if I may 9
propose to my fellow Commissioners this resolution, and ask 10 for their support.
All Commissioners who believe that we need 11 more time to make a judgment on resuming restart -- that is, 12 who believe that we're ready today to support a start-up 13 decision at Fort St. Vrain, and who desire further Staff 14 reaffirmation of their recommendation, and including a report 15 from the Office of General Counsel concerning the authorization 16 indictment, and who want this -- both of these matters, the 17 Staff reaffirmation and the OGC report, prior to our 18 authorizing restart, please signify by saying aye.
19 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Aye.
20 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
Aye.
21 COMMISSIONER CARR:
Aye.
22 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Aye.
23 COMMISSIONER ROBERTS:
Aye.
B t I'm not voting for 24 another meeting.
25 (Laughter.)
s
i 72 1
CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Well, let me just say, first of all,
_gs-2 the vote is five to zero that we not vote today and we ask for 3
these issues from the Staff and the Office of General Counsel.
4 I think we can decide on another meeting later.
My personal 5
feeling is it's probably not necessary.
6 On the other hand, it is necessary that the Staff 7
and the OGC come to the Commission and give us their 8
recommendation prior to authorizing any restart.
I hope that 9
is clear.
10 Are there any other comments from my fellow 11 Commissioners?
12 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
I just wanted to comment, 13 Mr. Chairman, as you know, I don't know how long this will 14 take, this re-review by the Staff and the General Counsel, but 15 if you and the Commission Staff reach the point in the next 16 two weeks that you are prepared to go ahead with this, you 17 certainly have my proxy to proceed.
18 I do think, though, we need to take one quick relook 19 at matters, in view of what has happened in the last couple of 20 days.
21 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
All right.
Any other comments?
22 We stand adjourned.
23 (Whereupon, at 11:40 o' clock a.m.,
the meeting was i
24 adjourned.]
1 l
25
4 l'
1 2
REPORTER'S CERTIFICATE 3
4 This is to certify that'the attached events of a meeting of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission entitled 5
6 7
TITLE OF MEETING:
Briefing on Status of and Possible Vote on Restricted Power Levels for St. Vrain 8
PIACE OF MEETING:
Weshington, D.c.
9 DATE OF MEETING:
Thursday, February 26, 1987 10 11 were held as herein appears, and that this is the original 12 transcript thereof for the file of the Commission taken 13 stenographically by me, thereafter reduced to typewriting by
~
14 me or under the direction of the court reporting company, and c
15 that the transcript is a true and accurate record of the
~
16 foregoing events.
17 1
A
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1 23 i
24 25
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FORT ST. VRAIN RESTART BRIEFING R. D. MARTIN R. H. V0LLMER F. J. MIRAGLIA FEBRUARY 26, 1987 -
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OVERVIEW
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l RESTART PLAN 1
BACKGROUND l'
TECHNICAL RESTART ISSUES
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EQUIPMENT QUALIFICATION
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SAFE SHUTDOWN COOLING EMERGENCY DIESEL GENERATORS i
4 CHERNOBYL IMPLICATIONS l
j MANAGEMENT RESTART ISSUES PLANT RESTART DECISION I
i
I 3
RESTART PLAN STAFF-T0 ALLOW FORT ST.VRAIN RESTART WITH THE FOLLOWING RESTRICTIONS:
10% - FOR CORE DRYOUT AND HOLD POINT FOR REGIONAL ASSESSMENT OF OPERATIONS
- 35% - HOLD POINT FOR NRC ASSESSMENT 0F OPERATIONS #
82% - POWER WITH STEAM GENERATOR VENTS INSTALLED 100% - BASED ON STAFF ACCEPTANCE OF FUTURE
~
LICENSEE SUBMITTALS i
REGIONAL ADMINISTRATOR TO AUTHORIZE POWER INCREASE WITH CONCURRENCE OF f!RR/IE l
STAFF PLANS TO BRIEF COMMISSION ON ITS ASSESSMENT i
i 0F PLANT OPERATIONS PRIOR TO AUTHORIZING PSC TO ESCALATE TO 82%
BACKGROUND t
1 MAJOR PLANT PROBLEMS HAVE BEEN ADDRESSED AND GOOD f
PROGRESS MADE SINCE 1984 BY PSC AND STAFF CONTROL ROD DRIVE SYSTEM REFURBISHMENT TECHNICAL SPECIFICATION UPGRADE PROGRAM PERFORMANCE-ENHANCEMENT PROGRAM IN RESPONSE
^
TO THIRD PARTY AUDIT FIRE PROTECTION (APPENDIX R)
INSERVICE INSPECTION AND TESTING PCRV TENDONS e
FUEL SURVEILLANCE
^4 I
5' 1
EQUIPMENT QUALIFICATION COMPLETE TEMPERATURE PROFILE ISSUE RESOLVED TEAM INSPECTION COMPLETE SLRDIS INSTALLED TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS REVISED (T0 BE ISSUED)<
EQ PROCEDURES APPROVED AND ISSUED (MAINTENANCE AND SURVEILLANCE)
EQ TRAINING COMPLETE WORKING FOLLOWUP MINOR INSPECTION FINDINGS STAFF FINDINGS PER NOVEMBER 26, 1985 l
MEMORANDUM AND ORDER L
1 1
1 A'
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+-%
SAFE SHUTDOWN COOLING PSC IDENTIFIED DEFICIENCIES IN THEIR SAFE SHUTDOWN COOLING ANALYSIS D'JRING ONG0ING WORK, PSC REANALYZED THESE SCENARIOS AND PROPOSED AN 82% POWEP LIMIT INITIAL STAFF CALCULATIONS VERIFY PROPOSED PSC BASIS FOR 82% POWER LIMIT l
CONFIRMATORY ANALYSES BY STAFF CONTINUING PLANT WILL BE INITIALLY AUTHORIZED TO OPERATE UP TO 35% POWER BASED ON THE LINER COOLING SYSTEM UNTIL LICENSING ACTION IS COMPLETE
7' w
EMERGENCY DIESEL GENERATORS'(ELECTRICAL INDEPENDENCE)
DEFICIENCIES IDENTIFIED BY PSC
- SINGLE FAILURES
- POTENTIAL PARALLELING INTERIM MODIFICATIONS PROPOSED BY PSC PRIOR TO RESTART
- PROCEDURE REVISIONS COMPLETE
- OPERATOR TRAINING COMPLETE' LONGER-TERM PROPOSED IMPROVEMENTS (1988)
INTERIM MODIFICATIONS ARE ACCEPTABLE FOR RESTART LONGER-TERM PROPOSALS TECHNICALLY ACCEPTABLE, SUBJECT TO LATER CONFIRMATOP.Y REVIEW 8
8
C 8
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l PERFORMANCE ENHANCEMENT PROGRAM -
(PEP) i i
COMPLETE
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SIGNIFICANT ACCOMPLISHMENTS IN ALL AREAS FULL MANAGEMENT SUPPORT OF PROGRAM LICENSEE ADDITIONS TO PROGRAM
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STAFF MONITORING LICENSEE I
PROGRESS AND EFFECTIVENESS c
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SALP i
LAST CURRENT STAFF SALP VIEP OF FUNCTIONAL AREA RATING
- PFJFORMANCE "
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PLANT OPERATIONS
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2 IMPROVE?ENTS CONTINUING (2)
B.
RADIOLOGICAL CONTROLS 1
UNCHANGED (1)
C.
MAINTENANCE 3#
IMPROVED (2) i D.
SURVEILLANCE 2
UNCHANGED (2) '
E.
FIRE PROTECTION 1
UNCHANGED (1)
F.
EMERGENC PREPAREDNESS 3
IMPROVED (3)
G.
SECURITY 3
IMPROVED (2)
H.
OUTAGES 3
IMPROVED (2)
I.
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IMPROVED (2)
J.
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IMPROVED (2)##
K.
TRAINING 2
UNCHANGE6(2) 2'.
FOR SALP PERIOD 3/1/35 TO 5/6/86
~.
CURRENT STAFF JUDGEMENT BASED ON PRELIMINARY ASSESSMENT POSITIVE TREND NOTED BY SALP BOARD 2 FOR STARTUP ISSUES AND 3 (IMPROVING) FOR OTHER LICENSING ISSUFS.
CONTINUED HIGH LEVEL OF EFFORT AND ATTENTION IS REQUIRED BY PSC AND STAFF.
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i RECOMMENDATION REGION IV AND NRR STAFF RECOMMEND RESTART APPP,0 VAL IN ACCORDANCE WJTH PROPOSED STAPTUP PLAN
^
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STAFF. ACTIONS BEFORE OPERATION IN EXCESS OF 35% POWER:
- MONITOR AND ASSESS PLANT OPERATIONS
- COMPLETE LICENSING APPROVAL NEEDED TO SUPPORT 82% POWER
- BRIEF COMMISSION ON STATUS W.
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7 9
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v 2/26/87 o-pc SCHEDULING NOTES e
i TITLE:
BRIEFING ON STATUS 10F AND POSSIBLE VOTE ON RESTRICTED POWER LEVELS FOR FORT ST. VRAIN
~
SCHEDULED:
10:00 A.M., THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 1987 (OPEN)
A DURATION:
APPR0y.1-1/2 HRS PARTICIPANTS:
PUBLIC SERVICE COMPANY OF COLORADO (LICENSEE) 30 MINS
- R.F. WALKER CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS
- R.D. WILLIAMS, JR.
VICE PRESIDENT, NUCLEAR OPERATIONS
- C. FULLER, STATION MANAGER
- P. TOMLINSON, MANAGER CUALITY ASSURANCE DIVISION
- D. WAREMBOURG, MANAGER NUCLEAR ENGINEERING DIVISION
- L. BREY, MANAGER LICENSING AND FUELS DIVISION
- M. NEIHOFF, MANAGER NUCLEAR DESIGN REGION IV f
15 MINS
- R. MARTIN NRR
~15 MINS
- R. VOLLMER
- F. MIRAGLIA I
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I Nuclear Regulatory Commission g
and l
The Public Service Company of Colorado Meeting to I
Provide Information Demonstrating I
Fort St. Vrain Nuclear Generating Station's Readiness to Restart g
ll February 26, 1987 l
0 I
.g I
I PURPOSE I
Secure Commission Approval to Restart Fort St. Vrain and Operate at Power Levels Up to 100 Percent Subject to NRC Staff Approvals
,g Prior to Exceeding Specified Interim Power Levels.
I
.I I
RESTART OPERATIONAL READINESS The Fort St. Vrain EQ Program NRC Inspection is Complete I
e PSC has Made Significant Accomplishments and Improvements.
l g
The Non-Nuclear Dryout is Proceeding lI e
Operations Staff Fully Prepared for Plant Restart I
I I
l I
1
E r
FORT ST. VRAIN
[
C e
Commitment to Operational Excellence E
e Dedication to Safety and Quality E
100 90
[
1986 80 70
{
1985
{
Percent Inc.%ta:se Since 1984 50 40 30 -
20 -
10 -
O Plant Investment Overall Staffing Resource Expenditures for 1985 and 1986
EXECUTIVE ORGANIZATION CHANGES NUCLEAR OPERATIONS PUBLIC SERVICE COMPANY OF COLORADO CHAIRMAN AND C.E.O.
R.F. WALKER l
V.P. NUCLEAR OPERATIONS l
R.O. WILLIAMS
'i l
l l
QUALITY ASSURANCE l
P. TOMLINSON
{
m_
ASSISTANT TO V.P.
NUCLEAR SERVICES
.l NUCLEAR OPERATIONS COORDINATOR i
J l
l 1
,, ""lE L
}
NUCLEAR PRODUCTION NUCLEAR ENGINEERING gN FUE J.GAHM D. WAREMBOURG H.L. BREY
'N Indicates PEP Related Actions.
4 l
Indicates a New Organizational Entity Since 1984 NRC Assessment.
i
/talics Indicate Change in Function or Reporting Responsibility Since 1984 NRC Assessment.
i
I I
STARTUP ACCOMPLISHMENTS I
e Environmental Qualification issues Resolved I
e PSC Accident Reanalysis for Safe Shutdown Cooling Complete g
e PSC Resolution of Electrical Independence Complete I
e PSC Evaluation of Chernobyl Impact Complete g
I I
I I
I I
I I
I
~
I I
ENVIRONMENTAL O.UALIFICATION HISTORY I
I Fort St. Vrain Has Been Shutdown Since May 1986 l
to Bring the Plant into Compliance with 10 CFR 50.49
- I e
Commission Approval of EQ Schedule Exemption-November 1985 I
f g
e Staff Approval for 35 Percent Operation-February 1986 NRC EQ inspection Complete-January 1987 I
g Final Actions to Be Completed Prior to Startup e
- Steam Generator Vent Line Installation g
i
- SLRDIS Technical Specification and Temperature Profile l.
SERS Issued l
- Closecut of Inspection Items I
I I
I
I
~
I I
HIGHLIGHTS OF ENVIRONMENTAL l
Q.UALIFICATION PROGRAM I
,g e
1654 Items Qualified I
e Steam Line Rupture Detection / Isolation System (SLRDIS) Installed I
l e
I & E EQ inspection Exit Indicates Program Acceptable ll g
PSC Certification of Completion e
Ongoing EQ Compliance Assured Through Executive Policy and implementing Procedures l I
'l e
$40 Million EQ Investment I
I I
l
- s l
SAFE SHUTDOWN COOLING I
Steam Generator Cooling Paths Were Found to Have inadequacies in Providing Safe Shutdown Cooling I
e Analyses of Historical Plant Operations Have Confirmed that l
Safe Shutdown Cooling Could Have Been Conducted Without Undue Risk to the Health and Safety of the Public g
Resolution to Support 82 Percent Power Operation l
Technical Specification Changes for Renioval of Reheaters Submitted to NRR g
-Vent Line Installation to Provide Improved Flow Path for Safe Shutdown Cooling I
e Power Ascension Plan - Safe Shutdown Cooling Modes g
35 Percent Power Operation - Liner Cooling l
82 Percent Power Operation - Steam Generators I
I
I
~
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FORT ST. VRAIN ONSITE AC POWER SYSTEM I
Offsite Offsite Offsite Power Power Power I
252TR1 252TR2 252TR3 I
I 252BT12 252BT32
,g 5
1 2
3
^
(SW;NG BUS) lI 252DG1A 252DG1B I
.I Diesel Diesel Diesel Diesel I
Engine U
Engine Engine U
Engine 1A 18 1C 1D I
Generator Generator 1A 1B I
lI
M M
M M
M M
M M
M M
M M
M M
M M
M M'
)
SENIOR PLANNING TEAM I
VICE PRESIDENT l
M. NUCLEAR OPERATIONS l
R.O. WILLIAMS l
1 ASSISTANT TO V.P.
j NUCLEAR OPERATIONS 1
R. SARGENT 1
MANAGER QUALITY ASSURANCE P.TOMLINSON i
MANAGER QUAUTYASSURANCE M,NUCL NUCLE R PRO N
NUCLEAR EERING A D FUE M FERRET
}
H.L BREY J.W. GAHM D. WAREM80URG I
l QUAUTY ASSURANCE 10UCLEAR UCEIISIIIG SUPPORTSERVICES NUCLEARSITE SERVICES MA81AGER M"WR MANAGER Encess4WG MAllAGER T.C. PREF 0GER j
M.H. HOUAES F.J. 30118T R.L CRAUN i
QUAUTYASSURA80CE "N
FORT ST.VRAIN E)IGIIIEElllNG FOSSILMANAGER
)
$[a,[
STATION MAflAGER SERVICESMARIAGER R.E.WADAS LAI.IACBMDE C.H. FULLER L LE BLANC 1
SCHE
.g.
SERV AN R
W.
R00GERS F.J.100VACHEK M.E. 801EHOFF 1
l STAFFASSISTANT l
W.
Indicates PEP Related Actions.
'M. SPECIAL PROJECTS J.R. REESV l'
l l Indicates a New Organizational Entity Since 1984 NRC Assessment.
I I
I g
TEAM MANAGEMENT I
l Communication and Coordination of Key issues, Action Plans and Results I
e Direction and Delegation of Action Items Needed to Be Taken By:
- Individuals g
- Departments
- Task Teams I
Key Performance issues Tracked and Controlled Against Goals
!e on a Weekly Basis O
Direction, Delegation, Accountability and Planning for:
'l
- Startup Activities
- Goals Completion
- Performance Enhancement Program (PEP)
'g
- Correcting SALP Deficiencies I
I I
I
- l l
lMPROVEMENTS IN g
SALP RELATED AREAS l
O Operations g
Staff and Administrative Changes Implemented
.l Human Factors Emphasized in Revised Operating Procedures INPO " Good Practice" for Placing Piping and Instrumentation g
Drawings in Strategic Plant Locations and Tailoring Drawing Content to Pertinent Equipment I
INPO " Good Practice" for Computerized Display of I
Annunciator Response Procedure
'I O
Maintenance
!I Staff Commitment to Housekeeping lI Vendor Recommendations and New Regulatory Guidance Incorporated into Revised Maintenance and Results g
Procedures
'I O
Outage Control Outage Manager Concept implemented
'I Standardized Scheduling System Adopted lI g Indicates PEP Related Action
(
I I
IMPROVEMENTS IN I
SALP RELATED AREAS I
O Security I
Significant Upgrades in Physical Security Systems g
Staff increased to Support Surveillance and Maintenance of Systems Performance I
Dedicated Staff to Manage Emergency Planning l
Increased Emphasis on Training and Drills Accountability Process Revised, Implemented and Tested
'I Staff Augmentation Process Being Enhanced
'I O
Licensing New Licensing and Fuels Division Created g
INPO " Good Practice" for Method of Identifying, Controlling and Communicating Passive Commitments l
Enhancements to Licensee Event Reporting Processes
'I O O'uality Assurance I.
New QA Manager QA Staff increased from 44 in 1985 to 62 in February,1987 lI Significant Management Attention to Ensure Timely and l
Thorough Corrective Action System Enhanced Audit Process
@ Indicates PEP Related Action
I.
I IMPROVEMENTS IN TRAINING I
,I Requalification Program Substantially Enhanced I
I INPO Accreditation Received on Operator Training Programs I
l Seven Non-Operator Training Programs Developed, Self Evaluation g
Reports Submitted, and Now Awaiting INPO Accreditation lI l
INPO Accreditation Resource Expenditures have Exceeded 30 Man-Years and $5 Million I
'I Specialized Training Programs Developed for Technical Support Personnel I
I l
l I
PRUDENT APPROACH TO POWER ASCENSION e
PSC Selected Areas of Interest CRD Scram Testing g
Back EMF Testing CRD Temperature Monitoring g
Rerun of Core Reactor Physics Testing Management Oversight g
g Management Review of all Surveillances and Calibrations to identify Impact on Restart g
and Continued Plant Operations QA Monitoring of Startup Activities g
Coordination of Physical Work by Outage Manager g
Senior Management Observation and Assessment of Major Startup Activities
'g Confirmation by Station Manager of Completion of all Startup Activities g
Senior Planning Team Weekly Meetings g
Operations Staff Restart Preparations g
Additional Shift Supervisor on Duty for Selected Restart Activities g
Independent Verification incorporated into Startup Procedures
- g Systems Walkdown of all New and Revised Procedures by Operators g
Training of all Operations Personnel on SLRDIS, Safe Shutdown, Etc.
I
I I
CONCLUSIONS I
PSC Has Successfully Brought Fort St. Vrain into Compliance g
with 10 CFR 50.49 l
i e
Restart Issues Have Been Resolved I
I e
Significant Accomplishments Have Been Made in Management l
and sal _P Related Areas I
g Power Ascension Plans Have Been Developed and Are Awaiting a
Implementation g
I e
Public Service Company Requests a Favorable Vote to Restart l
I and Operate Fort St. Vrain I
I I
-