ML20081G053

Forwards Civil Penalty in Amount of $850,000 as Evidence of Good Faith Notwithstanding Differences Re 830505 Notice of Violation & Proposed Imposition of Civil Penalties

ML20081G053
Person / Time
Site:	Salem
Issue date:	10/28/1983
From:	Selover R Public Service Enterprise Group
To:	Deyoung R NRC OFFICE OF INSPECTION & ENFORCEMENT (IE)
References
EA-83-024, EA-83-24, NUDOCS 8311040088
Download: ML20081G053 (10)

Text

-

.g g

Public Service Electric and Gas Company R. Edwin Selover 80 Park Plaza, Newark, NJ 07101201-430-6450 Mailing Address: P.O. Box 570, Newark, NJ 01101 Vice President and General Counsel October 28, 1983

. Mr. Richard C. DeYoung, Director Office of. Inspection and Enforcement U. S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Washington, D. C.

20555 Re:

Notice of Violation and Proposed Imposition of Civil Penalties Docket Nos. 50-272, 50-311, License Nos. DPR-70, DPR-75 EA 83-24

Dear Mr. DeYoung:

Public Service Electric and Gas Company (the

" Company") is in receipt of your letter dated September 29, 198 3, and the Order Imposing civil Monetary Penalties (the

" Order")

and Appendix attached thereto (the

" Appendix").

Said Order requires payment of civil penalties in the amount of $850,000 by October 29, 1983 or a formal request for hearing addressed-to the NRC.

l l

After consideration of the costs which would be involved in pursuing this matter

further, especially in light of. the considerable deference which would be paid to the NRC's position in any appeal, we are enclosing a check for such

' amount as evidence of our good

faith, notwithstanding the differences which remain in respect of

(

the May 5, 1983 Notice of Violation and Proposed Imposition N

Obb2 G

PDR ff ( tl

'h

of Civil Penalties (the

" Notice")

in this matter.

In determining not to formally pursue this matter further, we 1

also recognize, as we have indicated

before, that the standard expected by the NRC of its licensees is more stringent than virtually every other standard of conduct imposed by other regulatory schemes, whether under federal or state law.

Thus, this settlement of the matter, subject to any further review which you may deem appropriate as a result of the comments below, will have no application in other forums.

As indicated in the Appendix, the NRC proposed the civil penalties in this case on the belief that they would contribute to continued efforts toward long-term compliance with Commission requirements by the Company and other licensees, i.e.

that there is a rational nexus bett:cen the imposition of such-civil penalties and the potential improvement of

conduct, either of the licensee or other

-persons in similar positions.

The penalties are further thought by the NRC to be necessary to emphasize the significance that it attaches to the Salem events.

As indicated previously, we are fully aware that the events which occurred on February 22 and 25, 1983 at Salem Generating Station

(" Salem")

Unit No.

1 are both significant and far-reaching for the Company and the entire I

y

'T 2 -

nuclear industry. Irrespective of any civil penalties, and in. advance of their proposed imposition,.

the Company undertook and will diligently follow through on strong corrective actions-with respect to the equipment responsible for-the February

failures, the related operating and maintenance procedures, and the execution of such procedures

'by personnel.

It is

apparent, as recognized by the Commission 1/,

tihat the Company's actions will serve as a guideline to the nuclear industry in responding to the generic implications of the Salem events.

We cannot comment on the effect that the civil penal ties will have on other licen' sees, but the principal L

effect of ' the civil penalty on our nuclear operations was t-h

' demoralization. The Company's corrective a'ction program was ll not adopted in-response to the Notice, and cur commitment to the highest performance standards' exists irrespective of NRC enforcement actions.

We respectfully suggest that the Commission reconsider its overall enforcement policy with a view ~toward ' making it an effective regulatory tool for inducing ~ innovative solutions to the industry's problems.

t-L 1!

See e.g.

NRC Generic Letter 83-28 dated July 8,

1983 l

entitled'

" Required Actions Based on Generic Implications of Salem ATWS Events."

I e

c.

^ ! In its present form, it serves only as a club. Rather than a civil penalty payable to the United States Treasury, one direction which might be considered would be to permit a licensee to expend an equivalent amount towards accomplishing a desired goal for the nuclear industry and make the results of the program generally available.

Our more specific comments with respect to the Appendix follow.

As stated in. the Appendix, the reactor trip system did not automatically perform its intended safety function when called upon to wor k.

However, the manual trip provides an additional means to shut down the plant.

As indicated by the NRC in the Federal Register of September 28, 1983 at page 44288:

"...Tne RTS [ Reactor Trip System] is designed to initiate automatically the reactivity control system (control rods) to shut down the reactor, thereby assuring. that acceptable fuel design limits are not exceeded, and is designed to failsafe for most internal component failures.

The RTS can also be actuated manually by operator action.

t

... Safe control of anticipated operating transients is strongly dependent on the reliable and fast operation of reactor trip, either automatically or manually."

[ Emphasis added.]

Our operators acted promptly in response to both February i

y-r l events (despite very complex plant conditions in the case of February 22),

thereby demonstrating the importance of the manual reactor trip function as an equally valid part of the reactor ' trip system.

This action resulted in a prompt, safe plant shutdown in both cases, despite'a type of common mode

- f ailure ~ which was not anticipated by the NRC, the nuclear industry or the Company.

In fact, the NRC has indicated that advance warning of the Salem events may have required

" hindsight" and that future Licensee Event Report requirements will be designed to assist the industry in the recognition of the generic' implications of failures.2/

The Appendix claims that the January 6,

1983 reactor trip-breaker ' failure at Salem 2

was the third failure of_an undervoltage trip attachment at Salem, yet no comprehensive investigation as to the cause of the failures was undertaken.

As recognized, the first failure was in February 1979 in start-up testing of Unit 2,

before the circuit breaker had been declared operable.

During any shake-down of. a major generating unit, numerous problems

- occur and must be resolved -prior to declaring a

unit operable.- Although these occurrences.are not taken lightly,

- 2!'

NUREG 1000, " Generic Implications of the ATWS Events at the Salem Nuclear Power Plant", Volume 1, at_page 3-24.

.. their. validity in establishing any trend of failures is questionable'2/

Thus, the failure in August 1982 (which was the second

failure, but only the first after commercial operation),- was treated as an isolated event.1/

Because the January 6,

1983 failure was the second in less than six

months, the Company was quite concerned and promptly

' requested Westinghouse, on a priority basis, to provide E/

The fact that the Company was concerned about such matters even prior

.to start-up testing may.

be illustrated by the fact that when the Atomic Energy Commission ("AEC") notified the Company by letter in December 1971 that failures had occurred at two operating plants using Westinghouse-type DB-50 circuit breakers (the AEC sent the body of -IE Bulletin No. 71-2 to utilities with nuclear units under construction),

the-Company promptly wrote-to Westinghouse and indicated that since Salem would also use DB-50

- breakers, Westinghouse should advise if the problems related by the NRC still exist and are applicable to Salem, notwithstanding the fact that the letter from the _ AEC indicated that no action was required on the Company's part. The Company also requested Westinghouse to inform as to what information had been transmitted to the AEC on the matter, as well as any changes anticipated for the Salem plant if a problem still existed.

Westinghouse responded by sending NCD-Elec-18 to the Company and indicated in a

letter dated January 26, 1972 that a Westinghouse Nuclear Energy Systems engineer would supervise the replacement of all

~

eight undervoltage trip attachments on Salem 1 and 2 as a result.

A/

The August 1982-failure was also on Unit 2.

The

- Company had been operating Unit 1 commercially since June 1977 and Unit 2 since October 1981 without any

. failures _of the undervoltage trip attachments.

i.

I r

c 7

y y

y g - +v 9'v,'ev-ev-yyyg w-Wr sy ywTFF"'M"T7W'"-9'-W'*

- ' " * " ^ *

'WN'*'F"

=""*WNWN- - - -

• "'TT TT7--TC-'M'"'"8'N'-*'2'N-'*'"N'"

8

• *. maintenance assistance on all of the breakers on Salem 1 (which was at that time out of service for refueling) and requested the Westinghouse representative to provide an appropriate preventive maintenance procedure.

Salem 2 was scheduled to be taken out of service about two weeks later, and it was intended that such preventive maintenance on the Salem 2 breakers would be performed during said outage.

The fact that the Company recognized the need for such a preventive maintenance program was confirmed in the NRC Region I

Inspection Report dated February 15, 1983 indicating that the. company had not closed its consideration of this matter.5_/ Further, it is clear that the vendor's maintenance instructions for the undervoltage trip attachments which were in existence at the time of the Salem events (but which had not been supplied to the Company) were inadequate.

A comparison of Westinghouse Data Letter 74-2 dated February 19, 1974 with the current detailed six page Technical Bulletin 83-02, Revision 1,

dated September 13, 1983, providing recommendations for the servicing of DB-50

' reactor trip breakers in general, and their undervoltage trip attachments in particular, vividly demonstrates such lack of proper instruction.

E/

Combined Inspection Report Nos.

50-272/82-36, 50-311/82-33, dated February 15, 1983,- at page 13.

f

,,.e-.e-+r*-=e-r=

t

=,+-+y e~,-

r-v=

.'------w-~vw-me-,-e+,.,-,++--r.-

---

s

s

.. The Appendix claims that the equipment failures at Salem 1 in' February 1983 did not result from matters beyond the Company's control and that even though work may be delegated to contractors and vendors, the Company retains responsibility for the quality of their activities for NRC purposes.

On the other

hand, the NRC has stated the following with respect to causes of the Salem failure relating to vendor performance:

" Problems with the interface between Westinghouse and PSE&G related to equipment information are discussed in Section 2.3.2.2.

There are several issues, however, which appear to be the primary responsibility of the NSSS vendor.

" Westinghouse. provided no means by which undervoltage trip attachments having the design modifications ' delineated in NDC-Elec-18 could be unequivocally identified.

This was the case for undervoltage trip attachments which were modified in the field as well as for undervoltage trip attachments originally manufactured with the modifications.

"There are significant questions concerning the lifetime of the undervoltage trip attachments which properly should have been addressed when the circuit breakers were specified for use in the i

reactor trip system by the NSSS vendor.

Sufficient verification through circuit breaker testing was not specified by the NSSS vendor to determine that the breakers (and trip attachments) were capable of lasting through the entire life of the plant.

Furthermore, the NSSS vendor did not specify tests to be performed periodically by the utility for detecting breaker degradation

and, for breaker o

trip attachment

thus, the need replacement."

[ Emphasis added.]gy N

NUREG 1000, Volume 1, at page 2--27.

\\

a m----

--sn

,o 4,

4 e

a-pM s

-g-As we '.have stated previously, the Company recognizes and l accepts its responsibility for safe operation of Salem.

We respectfully question, however, whether there can be any meaning left at all to the statement in the NRC Enforcement Policy that

" [1] icensees are not ordinarily cited for violations. resulting from matters not' within their control, such as. equipment failures that were not avoidable by l reasonable licensee quality assurance measures or management controls."M While the Company had experienced two f ailures of the reactor trip breakers after the completion of start-up testing, this experience was not in.any way atypical in the utility industry.

In fact, six other nuclear plants had experienced more than one failure of a Westinghouse reactor trip breaker through 1902, and there had been a total of 20 reported such failures in the industry to that point.E We do not believe the Company's actions differed materially

~from'those of other utilities with similar experience.

In conclusion, we wish to again confirm with the Commission our commitment to diligently follow through on M ~' General Policy and Procedure for NRC Enforcement Actions, 10 C.F.R. Part 2, Appendix C, at IV.A.

N NUREG 1000, Volume 1, at pages 3-45 through 3-47.

._.. ~

4 10 -

strong -corrective actions with respect to the equipment responsible for the February failures, the related operating and maintenance procedures, and the execution of such procedures by personnel.

Very truly yours, j.

f Vice President and General Counsel 4

D

-m..

,.py-

,y.w-,-v-t..we-r-

-,m-.-e--,ye

re 9 -- re e y v

-e

---

y5*-

--* <-