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Home > Electronic Reading Room > Document Collections > Commission Documents > Commission Meetings, Slides, Transcripts, Meeting SRMs, and Full Written Explanation for Closed Meetings > 1997
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02/04/1997
1
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
***
BRIEFING BY MAINE YANKEE, NRR AND REGION I
***
PUBLIC MEETING
***
Nuclear Regulatory Commission
One White Flint North
11555 Rockville Pike
Rockville, Maryland
Tuesday, February 4, 1997
The Commission met in open session, pursuant to
notice, at 9:33 a.m., the Honorable SHIRLEY A. JACKSON,
Chairman of the Commission, presiding.
COMMISSIONERS PRESENT:
SHIRLEY A. JACKSON, Chairman of the Commission
KENNETH C. ROGERS, Member of the Commission
GRETA J. DICUS, Member of the Commission
NILS J. DIAZ, Member of the Commission
EDWARD McGAFFIGAN, JR., Member of the Commission
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STAFF AND PRESENTERS SEATED AT THE COMMISSION TABLE:
JOHN C. HOYLE, Secretary
MARTY MALSCH, Deputy General Counsel
HUGH THOMPSON, JR., Acting EDO
EDWARD JORDAN, Deputy EDO
FRANK MIRAGLIA, Director, NRR
HUBERT MILLER, Region I Administrator
DAVID FLANAGAN, Chairman of the Board, Maine
Yankee
MIKE SELLMAN, VP-Operations at Waterford, Maine
Yankee, Chief Nuclear Officer (designee)
DON HEINTZ, President and Chief Executive Officer,
Entergy Operations
PAUL STOVER, President, UWUA, Local 497
GRAHAM LEITCH, VP-Operations at Maine Yankee
MARY ANN LYNCH, General Counsel and Vice President
for Law at Maine Yankee
JERRY YELVERTON, Chief Operating Officer, Entergy
Operations
MIKE MEISNER, Director of Nuclear Safety and
Licensing, Entergy
PAT LYDON, Vice President for Finance, Maine
Yankee
DOUG WHITTIER, Vice President for Engineering,
Maine Yankee
. 3
STAFF AND PRESENTERS SEATED AT THE COMMISSION TABLE:
[continued]
BOB BLACKMORE, Plant Manager, Maine Yankee
DON DAVIS, Chief Executive Officer, Yankee Atomic
DAVID LOCHBAUM, Engineer, Union of Concerned
Scientists
WILLIAM S. LINNELL, II, Town Councilman, Cape
Elizabeth, Maine, Committee for a Safe Energy
Future
RAYMOND SHADIS, Information Coordinator, Friends
of the Coast Opposing Nuclear Pollution
DANA CONNORS, President, Maine Chamber and
Business Alliance
PETER WILEY, Director, Special Projects for the
Governor, State of Maine
ULDIS VANAGS, Special Projects for the Governor,
State of ME
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P R O C E E D I N G S
[9:33 a.m.]
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Good morning, ladies and
gentlemen. The purpose of this meeting is for the
Commission to be briefed on the status of activities at
Maine Yankee.
This morning we will hear from the licensee, from
the NRC Headquarters and Regional Staff, and from interested
members of the public.
In late May of 1996 I initiated a charter with
which the Commission concurred for special inspection of
Maine Yankee, primarily to provide an independent safety
assessment of the conformance of the Maine Yankee plant to
its design and licensing basis.
This inspection was unique in its scope,
independence, and coordination with state representatives.
The Commission had the opportunity to review the report
prior to its issuance and the Commission was briefed by the
ISA, the Independent Safety Assessment Team, on October 18th
of 1996.
We were briefed on the process used, the
significant safety findings, and associated root causes and
aspects of regulatory lessons learned that the inspection
team gleaned which can be used to improve NRC processes.
During that Commission briefing I requested a
. 5
follow-on Commission briefing once Maine Yankee had
responded to the Independent Safety Assessment Team report.
That response was submitted on December 10th of 1996.
The NRC Staff is continuing its review of that
document along with comments received from interested
members of the public.
The Commission is very interested in the
licensee's response to the Independent Safety Assessment of
their site, how they are correcting the root cause
deficiencies and how they are verifying progress.
The Commission is aware that the utility must
satisfy requirements of a confirmatory action letter and its
supplement prior to restart of the facility.
The Commission is also interested in the Staff's
summary of actions taken since the ISAT report.
Finally, the Commission has reviewed other views
regarding the ISAT process and NRC actions regarding Maine
Yankee in general and to that end has approved four speakers
today to express their views.
Copies, I understand, of the presentations are
available at the entrance to the meeting. If none of the
Commissioners have any comments, we will proceed with
hearing from the licensee, followed in turn by the NRC
Staff, and members of the public who have been approved to
speak today.
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Mr. Flanagan, you may proceed.
MR. FLANAGAN: Thank you very much, Madam
Chairman.
I would like to thank you and the Commission for
the opportunity to appear here today and address the kinds
of issues that you have outlined. I also would like to
thank you for the courtesy that you extended in deferring
the date until we had an opportunity to better define our
relationship with Entergy before coming down here to meet
with you.
This morning with me at the table are, from my
right, Mike Sellman, who is the President-Elect of Maine
Yankee, currently at Waterford; and Don Heintz, the CEO of
Entergy Operations; our General Counsel and Vice President
for Law, Mary Ann Lynch of Maine Yankee; and our Vice
President for Operations, Graham Leitch; and Paul Stover,
who is President of Local 497 of the UWUA at the plant.
Also with us today, sitting behind us, are -- and
I'd ask them to stand as I say the names -- is Jerry
Yelverton, who is COO of Entergy Operations, Mike Meisner,
who is Director of Nuclear Safety and Licensing for Entergy;
Pat Lydon, our Vice President for Finance at Maine Yankee
along with Doug Whittier, Vice President for Engineering;
and Bob Blackmore, who has the critical role as Plant
Manager.
. 7
I am also pleased to have here with us for the
first time Don Davis, who is the new Chief Executive Officer
for Yankee Atomic.
With that, Madam Chairman, I would like to get
directly to the issues that you identified at the outset.
The first one is our response to the root cause
analysis presented in the October 7th report.
What I want to tell you and the other
Commissioners is that Maine Yankee agrees with the root
cause analysis that was conducted by the NRC. With respect
to economic pressure, Maine Yankee has been a low cost
producer in a high energy cost region. Our management at
the plant recognized the need for cost competitiveness but
on reflection and after considerable discussion internally
we agree that we focused so much on this aspect of our
responsibilities that we failed to keep up with advances in
the industry.
As we thought about it, we realized that that
first cause, root cause, really led to the second root cause
that you identified, which was a culture of complacency.
It's not complacency in the usual, normal sense of the word,
but what happened we believe is that line management came to
feel that requests for additional expenditures not related
to safety were unwelcome, and as a result work-arounds and
backlogs began to increase.
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But I don't want to leave you with the
misimpression that these were universal characteristics and
universally applied in all circumstances. Safety
expenditures always got the highest priority at Maine Yankee
and we always had a workforce that was characterized by
having a lot of people in it who had a questioning attitude
and were willing to innovate.
Indeed, I should tell you in case you don't know
it already, that Maine Yankee itself had already started
identifying the complacency issue in the cultural assessment
report that we did on our own initiative that was released
in May of 1996, so we were capable of taking initiatives and
some important ones were done.
Nonetheless, the bottom line is we concur with the
two points, the two root causes you identified, and, by the
way, we certainly also concur with the ultimate finding of
the Committee that the plant was safe to operate.
In a moment I am going to introduce Don Heintz and
Graham Leitch, who will talk about some major new
developments at the plant, but as Chairman of the Board I
think it is my responsibility to identify for you three
responses we have taken at the Board level to address the
root causes that you identified.
Those are in the areas of finance, governance, and
management.
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Speaking to finance first, you expressed a concern
about the lack of economic resources being applied to the
plant.
In contemplation and expectation of responding to
the ISA on December 10th, we had a special Board meeting at
the end of November, and at that time after a day-long
discussion involving all the Board members, we agreed to a
$38.5 million incremental O&M and capital expenditure for
1997 to cut into that backlog and to bring to bear the kinds
of personnel resources the problems appear to require.
That is over and above the $144 million budget
that already had been planned for 1997.
I want you to know that is not a one-shot deal.
At the same time the Board explicitly discussed and
authorized, going into the December 10th letter, a
commitment to future incremental expenditures in subsequent
years to make sure that those backlogs do not recur.
On an even longer term basis, we also adopted for
the first time in our history a business plan which provides
a template for what priorities should be for spending over
the next several years, so that it is not a one-shot deal,
it's not a two-year deal, it's a long-term budget reform
that we have in mind.
If I could make one aside on this, because I think
it is important, there was some concern expressed at the
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Commission that we do not deal appropriately with retained
earnings and that somehow that was related to the economic
resource issue at the plant.
I want to assure you that that is not the case.
In fact, one of the advantages Maine Yankee has over other
organizations is that it has sponsor agreements, binding
sponsor agreements, with the 10 companies that own the plant
that allow it to call for capital as required, as is
evidenced by our current situation with cable separation and
the additional expenditures needed to deal with that.
It would be an inefficient use of capital to
retain earnings in Maine Yankee when it has access to the
resources of the sponsor companies on a ready basis.
So the first issue we dealt with as a Board was
the economic resources, the financial wherewithal to deal
with backlogs and work-arounds.
The second issue is governance. If you want to
correct issues, you ought to start at the top and one of the
things, one of the first things we did when we saw these
issues emerging was take advantage of a part-time Maine
resident, Tom Murley, a man with considerable expertise both
in regulation and in the industry, and we were fortunate
enough to get Tom to agree to serve as an independent member
on our Board of Directors at Maine Yankee and further to
serve as a member of the newly-constituted Nuclear Committee
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of the Board -- and that is the second governance change
that we have made.
We have reconstituted our old Oversight Committee
into a Nuclear Committee of the Board that has this charter.
It is, again in direct response to your inquiry, it is to
monitor our progress with respect to fulfilling the ISA
commitments, to fulfilling the business plan commitments, to
fulfilling our commitments to INPO and to tracking our SALP
scores and the cultural assessment team report that was done
internally at the plant so that we have an ongoing regular
reporting schedule for progress on that and accountability
for it.
The third thing we did besides creating a
committee with this charter was to equip it with some
nationally-recognized outside experts, again both to give us
advice and also to combat the notion that we were insular or
introspective and disinterested in what the rest of the
country was doing.
Ed Fuller, Bob Martin -- who was formerly with
Region IV, John Townsend, who is with Diablo Canyon, and Bob
Bradford, who is a Human Resources expert, serve on that
panel and I can tell you that they have already given us
substantial assistance in shaping the ISA response that we
submitted to you.
The final thing that we have done in terms of
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governance is dramatically increase the number of Board
meetings to keep us, the full Board, abreast of developments
at the plant.
I think three or four years ago we were having
four regularly-scheduled Board meetings a year. In 1995 we
had seven. In 1996 we had nine and as Chairman I can tell
you I expect that pace and that level of involvement and
informed involvement to continue.
So finance, governance -- two of the key issues.
But perhaps the most fundamental change is in the
area of Management. We are very privileged to have with us
today Don Heintz from Entergy, and I think the concept of
taking a single unit plant in a relatively-isolated part of
the country and bringing it into a circumstance where it can
take advantage of some of the opportunities for learning and
mutual consultation that a multi-plant system that is at the
state-of-the-art and is well-respected and has turn-around
experience could be a tremendous advantage to us, so the
most important thing we have done is enter into this
agreement with Entergy to give us assistance in the
operation and the management of the plant.
We have also made internal changes in the
management, both at Maine Yankee and, as Don Davis's
presence indicates, at Yankee Atomic, and we will be
assessing further changes in this quarter, but again I want
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to stress the high caliber and the dedication of the
overwhelming majority of our employees and the good fortune
we believe we have in having a constructive working
partnership with our labor union.
The physical and cultural changes that we have
already initiated as part of the ISA process will be
described in more detail by Graham Leitch, our Vice
President for Operations, so I would just like to conclude
at this point by saying that under the leadership of Bob
Blackmore, we fully and I believe efficiently cooperated
with the ISA team while they were on site. We acknowledged
the validity of the root causes that were identified. We
submitted a comprehensive, achievable, measurable responsive
plan on December 10th.
We have already made fundamental changes in
finance, in governance, and in management, and we have got
physical changes and backlogs underway and ahead of
schedule.
We are committed to operating Maine Yankee safely
and in full compliance with the expectations of the NRC.
That concludes my presentation, Madam Chairman,
and I would be glad to answer any questions or defer to Mr.
Heintz.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Thank you. Is Dr. Murley the
only member of your Board with specific nuclear experience?
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MR. FLANAGAN: No. One of the representatives of
Public Service of New Hampshire, Ted Feigenbaum, makes his
career in nuclear areas and in nuclear plants, and I think
that's the other --
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Is Mr. Feigenbaum associated
with Northeast Utilities?
MR. FLANAGAN: He runs the Seabrook plant.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Was Entergy involved in your
December 10th ISAT response and is it evaluating the
adequacy of it -- and/or is it evaluating the adequacy of
that response?
MR. FLANAGAN: No, it was not involved in the
preparation of the response. That was done by an internal
team at all levels of Maine Yankee in consultation not only
with the Nuclear Oversight Committee that I mentioned but a
number of other consultants that were brought in and with
Yankee Atomic as well.
It was in that period that we concluded that our
best course of action might be to see what the opportunities
for association with an existing multi-unit organization
might be and we started exploring those options which
brought us together during the month of December with
Entergy.
Since that time Entergy of course has been fully
apprised of both the ISA report, our response, the business
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plan, and other related documents and they are in the
process of assessing them.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: So they actually are in the
process of making an assessment of that response, as we
speak?
MR. SELLMAN: Well, we will be soon. I'm going to
be on-site Monday full-time. A number of people are joining
me on Monday and we will be into a full-throttle assessment
starting Monday.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: I have to ask you this
question, Mr. Flanagan.
Leaving aside the quality of the Entergy
organization, from a structural perspective what in your
mind distinguishes the relationship that you have
established with Entergy and what are the strengths inherent
in it compared to what seemed to be an implied criticism of
your relationship with Yankee Atomic and the kind of
separation in terms of ownership that that implied?
MR. FLANAGAN: I think they are two quite
different relationships.
The one we contemplate with Entergy is much more
comprehensive than the one that exists with Yankee Atomic.
Yankee Atomic essentially provides engineering
services for Maine Yankee and has of course a historical
memory of the various changes and design changes and initial
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design, and also provides fuel engineering services for us.
We are looking to Mike Sellman and hopefully Mike
Meisner and other people from Entergy to be involved with an
across-the-board comprehensive management of all aspects of
the plant's operation and management, as any management team
would be.
I think the advantages from our point of view, so
they are not -- they are not comparable relationships.
We are looking forward to a relationship with
Entergy because of the depth of their bench, you might say,
the availability of experts in a wide range of fields to
come up as needed, the depth of experience they have had,
how they have dealt with issues at four PWI plants under
their jurisdiction, their turnaround experience, both at ANO
and River Bend which we found to be very impressive, and the
management philosophy that I think Mike Sellman would bring
to the operation.
So we see a number of advantages and, to the
extent the Commission staff was right in thinking that Maine
and New England were too isolated from what was going on in
the rest of the country and what was going on with the state
of the art, this seems like a transfusion that will be of
more immediate help than if we went out and tried to pull
together a management team ala carte, one by one, over a
period of time.
. 17
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: You expect this to be an
ongoing relationship for the indefinite future?
MR. FLANAGAN: There is a three-phase agreement.
First, we had a memorandum of understanding which we signed
early in January just to get started. Now we are in the
process of signing a Phase I agreement that will carry us
through this year and our contemplation is to have a Phase
II agreement which will be a multi-year contract the
duration of which hasn't been finally established yet.
But long term is a key characteristic that we see
to our mutual advantage.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: I am going to ask the staff,
when they do their presentation, to tell the Commission what
regulatory approvals they think do or do not need to occur.
But I want to ask you, whom should the Commission consider
our licensee to be?
MR. FLANAGAN: Unequivocally Maine Yankee. It is
our intention to take advantage of the expertise and
consultative services and contractual services of Entergy.
But it is crystal clear to both parties that the Maine
Yankee board and the Maine Yankee owners will continue to
have all the responsibilities of a governing board, that
Mr. Sellman will report directly to us, that he will come to
us for approval on budgets, that we will elect the officers
of a company and choose them and they will serve at our
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pleasure and all the incidents of ownership and board
governance will remain as they are by mutual agreement.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: If you concur in the ISAT's
assessment in any sense that economic pressures played a
role in getting you to where you are, what is there
structured in your agreement with Entergy, which presumably
is not doing this for free, that can give the Commission
comfort that that kind of a tension may not be inherent in
the contractual relationship?
MR. FLANAGAN: The contract can only work if it is
mutually advantageous. It is mutually advantageous if the
plant is on line and operating. We recognize that that
requires financial commitments in order to eliminate this
backlog, eliminate the work-arounds and meet the
expectations of the NRC and that's a condition of the
agreement.
Entergy can walk away if they are not satisfied
that those commitments are being met. On our side, you
know, we are looking to an agreement that only -- only
rewards Entergy if the plant is operating safely and
efficiently.
So I think that there is a mutuality of interest
and it is also consistent with and dependent on the
interests of the NRC being met, satisfied.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Is correcting any of the
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problems or correcting any issues, dealing with the issues
specifically in your response to the NRC, a part of this
agreement with Entergy? Or is it -- I guess what I'm trying
to get at, is it phrased having to do with how much the
plant runs as opposed to correcting the problems?
MR. FLANAGAN: The Phase I agreement that carries
us through this year is a flat, unconditional agreement for,
in a sense, a retainer agreement that is not dependent upon
operation. I can tell you that Entergy -- they can speak
for themselves but I anticipate that Entergy will not be
interested in a long-term agreement if we hadn't addressed
the CAL issues to the satisfaction of the Commission.
In the longer term agreement, I believe it will be
incentivized both by safety considerations and by economic
performance, production considerations.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: You haven't worked that out
yet?
MR. FLANAGAN: It hasn't been finalized. The
long-term agreement hasn't been finalized. We are dealing
with Phase I.
I should also tell you, I should have said in my
presentation that we have also -- one of the changes that we
have made is for the employee compensation arrangement to
make it clear that safety performance is essential in order
to have a payoff. If there is production but no safety,
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there is no payoff. If there is safety but no production,
there still can be a payoff.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Mr. Heintz, would you like to
speak to this?
MR. HEINTZ: Yes. We have been studying this sort
of relationship for a number of years, about 18 months to
two years. One of the things that we realize is that we
probably have different incentive programs with each utility
or any utility that we became involved with.
But very early on, you know, we made a commitment
that we would not be interested in signing an agreement that
was just based on cost because there are so many other
things associated with safely operating a well-operated
nuclear plant.
So even though we haven't worked out those details
yet, it will be related to how well the plant is operated in
the eyes of the regulator and safety indicators, along with
operating a plant efficiently. So that would just be one of
the measurements.
MR. FLANAGAN: Madam Chairman, another point I
should have made that is very important is that one of the
expectations in that Phase I contract is that Entergy will
implement the ISA response proposals so since those -- since
the very things you are talking about are already in our
December 10 letter, I think it's covered.
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CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Commissioner Rogers?
COMMISSIONER ROGERS: No questions.
COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN: I would like to follow.
On this financial issue, your response says
basically it's not a structural problem, that the 38 million
you have come up with in additional funds for the coming
year points out it is not a retained earnings issue. And in
looking at the response we received back in December, the
Enclosure 7 of it, the retained earnings in Maine Yankee is
only $3.8 million, so 38 million is a factor of 10 larger
and it is probably not practical to expect retained earnings
to solve these sorts of problems.
Nevertheless, there is this question as to why the
financing wasn't provided sooner. What was it that kept --
implied in the press has been, and Mr. Frizzle, the former
president, basically has said it's my fault, I didn't ask,
if I had asked I would have gotten the money I needed to
deal with these backlogs and to deal with these problems.
Why was the financing issue not dealt with
earlier.
MR. FLANAGAN: As I indicated earlier, Maine
Yankee has been a low-cost provider in a high-cost region
and that's been an important factor to the benefit of the
New England economy. We have wanted to run the plant as
efficiently as we could, at the same time meeting the
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expectations of our industry and our regulators.
Commissioner, we had, until the last year, we had
been under the impression that we were meeting those
expectations, that the level of expenditures was consistent
with our obligations to the NRC and to the industry.
As I say, I think we did not keep up with the
state of the art and we were too isolated from, maybe, from
what was going on in the rest of the country. But I'll tell
you, personally, since I became chairman, I have gone to
ever SALP exit interview, I've gone to every INPO exit so
that I could hear, unfiltered, whether there were any
concerns that we should be addressing.
The management was making recommendations based on
their judgment of what was needed to operate the plant
safely. The objective indicators we were getting from
outside were consistent with the recommendations and they
were operating the plant in a way that was making a
significant contribution to the economy of our state.
So if one of those factors had changed, in fact,
you know, some people at the NRC have said don't -- we don't
want to judge you by your words, we want to judge you by
your actions.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: That's me.
MR. FLANAGAN: Okay.
[Laughter.]
. 23
MR. FLANAGAN: Somebody in the highest authority.
And as soon as the ISA report started indicating some issues
where there was Commission dissatisfaction, we didn't even
wait for the October 7th report to come out. Graham and Bob
and Doug had started working in the summer on things that
were identified by that team or were in collaboration with
that team or SALP identified in the ISA process. And we've
done it. We've tried to be very responsive.
What I've outlined here has tried to be very
responsive in a very timely way when the NRC said, you know,
that they weren't satisfied. But that was not the case up
until 1996.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Let me see if I can follow on.
This is an interesting question that the Commissioner has
raised because a question I had for you was, other than the
steam generator sleeving, the money for that, you know, had
management specifically asked the board for anything above
the kind of residual level of financing.
But the more important question really relates to
this: Of course, we would like you to be regulatorily
responsive but the real question though is, now that the
threat has been pulled, there are all these emergent issues
that are the subjects of confirmatory action letters and
supplements to them. And so it says there were some real
issues there that were not discovered.
. 24
And so the real question is not so much are you
jumping through hoops because we have given attention to you
but, rather, you know, your own true belief and
understanding as to whether there is something missing in
terms of how you discover your own problems and address
them. You know, and that would give me more comfort than
your coming here and saying that, because, you know, the NRC
is giving you all of this attention and "coming down on you"
that you are doing this, this, this and this.
MR. FLANAGAN: Right.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Because, in the end, you have
to run the plant. And so if we have to come along and find
things through special teams, then there is some fundamental
problem there.
MR. FLANAGAN: I quite agree, Madam Chairman, and
I just want to understand the distinction you're drawing.
I just wanted to respond to the Commissioner that
there wasn't some irrational, arbitrary and capricious
course of action that we were engaged in.
But to get to your point, as I said, this concept
of complacency was never universal. And, in fact, besides
the cultural assessment team that was already under way, we
also have had under way and have just completed this
January, for some 18 months they have been working on what's
called a learning process which, I think, in the usual
. 25
parlance is a corrective action program and one that now --
Paul can speak to this better than I can, but any employee
of the plant at any level, down to the security guy, can
access and put concerns or issues into the -- into a
computer and require a response or an analysis. So we are
trying to get everybody -- we want to be self-critical, we
don't want to be complacent. Both from the top down and
from the bottom up we are making fundamental changes.
This learning process, the cultural assessment
from the bottom up, the nuclear committee, the nuclear
oversight assistance that we have gotten and bringing in
some national experts are all intended to change the
corporate culture and assure that there is, going forward, a
universe -- not a spotty, not a sporadic but a universal
critical attitude of making assessments.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Do you believe that there
are -- that you have real safety issues that could have and
should have been identified before? Or do you believe that
you are in a position where you are just having to respond
to regulatory pressure?
MR. FLANAGAN: I have to defer to others here who
have expertise on safety-related issues to be able to make
an assessment. I'll tell you this, I understand -- I
understand the concept that I think was articulated at the
Wiscasset exit meeting that what's important is having a
. 26
margin of safety.
I think one of the people on your staff used the
analogy or the metaphor of a key in a lock and the tumblers,
you know, normally will be in such -- so many permutations
that you can't get the key in there and turn it and cause a
problem. But some things can be all lined up and you can
have all the tumblers lined up and the key will operate and
you can have a problem.
So that I think it's important that we increase
our margins of safety and I understand the importance of the
backlog reduction, the work-around reduction and some of the
changes, the physical changes that have been proposed as
achieving that goal. But as to the specific safety
significance of specific actions, I would have to defer to
Graham on that.
MR. LEITCH: I believe we have both. I think
there have been some issues that have been bona fide safety
issues. I think particularly with some of the work we did
related to 96-01, Generic Letter 96-01, the logic system
testing where we found that a contact in the HPSI circuit
had not worked properly, perhaps for a number a years.
That, I think, clearly speaks to a safety issue.
There were issues related to the qualification, the
environmental qualification of the equipment in the
containment where the post-accident flood level would have
. 27
submerged some of that instrumentation post accident.
There have been a number of cable separation
issues. The linkage between those cable separations and
safety is a little less clear, perhaps, in my mind.
Nonetheless, the -- what we're talking about here is margin
to safety and clearly we have to make those cable separation
issues right and get those issues resolved as well, although
the apparent impact of those on safety in my mind is
somewhat more remote than the other two situations I
described.
So I would say we have had both, both real safety
issues as well as other things that we need to do to improve
our compliance with regulation, improve the margins to
safety.
COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN: May I follow up just a
little longer?
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: All right.
COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN: Last year, as this issue
of what level of power you could operate at and all these
issues started to emerge, was there additional money
provided by the board last year above the previous years'
level or is this $38 million increment for '97 the first
major increment in funding provided?
MR. FLANAGAN: No. We made some incremental
expenditures in 1996, mid way during the year, as I recall.
. 28
MR. LEITCH: Yes.
MR. FLANAGAN: As we started dealing with some --
MR. LEITCH: There was an additional $10 million
added to the 1996 budget and, as I recall, the budget
overran by on the order of $2 million. Perhaps Mr. Lydon
can clarify that situation. So what I am saying is, all
told, the expenditures were of the order of $12 million
greater than budgeted in 1996, although those problems
occurred somewhat late in the year.
COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN: Could I also ask on the
governance issue -- is it --
COMMISSIONER DIAZ: Go ahead.
COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN: The structure of your
board is largely made up of the representatives of the
owners, is that correct?
MR. FLANAGAN: Yes.
COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN: With only until recently
Mr. Feigenbaum, someone with nuclear experience?
MR. FLANAGAN: No, no, there has always been
someone with nuclear experience on the board.
COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN: But the vast majority of
the board is made up of people with primarily, would it be
fair to say, economic experience, management, running
company experience?
MR. FLANAGAN: Well, there is a regulatory
. 29
attorney on the board, Lillian Coco. There are some chief
executives on the board, there are some financial officers
and there are some other -- some other counsel on the board.
COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN: The question really goes
to, on these governance changes, which look to me to be very
sound, having a nuclear committee, having some real focus on
nuclear issues. That is good. Is part of the root cause
analysis that perhaps, in the past, I mean, given you are
making that change, there wasn't enough sensitivity to
nuclear issues or safety issues among the board members?
Mr. Frizzle could possibly have received a financial focus
when he went before the board more than a safety focus?
MR. FLANAGAN: Commissioner, we, prior to this
time, recognizing that we didn't have very many people on
the board with direct nuclear experience, we had had a
former nuclear oversight committee to try to give us that
perspective that was made up entirely of people with nuclear
experience. But the -- that was not a very effectual
committee and I think one of the reasons for that was it
reported to the board as a whole, rather than to a
subcommittee with a specific charter, the way this one does,
and a specific focus.
They just -- either those particular individuals
just looked at the technical issues and thought they were
fine or somehow they weren't able to convey -- either didn't
. 30
have or weren't able to convey a message of you ought to be
looking at some of these underlying design issues or things
that hadn't been looked at for 20 years.
So I think this new -- I know -- I think -- I
know, this new committee is a lot more robust and I know
that the input they gave on preparing the ISA response was
extremely relevant and extremely helpful in making sure this
squarely addressed the concerns you had raised.
You have to forgive me, I'm kind of disorganized
and I failed to point out at the outset that Mr. Hinson is
here to talk about Entergy's perspective and Mike Sellman
would be glad to talk about his philosophy for running the
plant and Paul Stover, you might be interested in the
perspective of the employees in the plant, about how they
look at the new management and the cultural changes that we
are talking about.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: No, I will. We will.
Commissioner Diaz?
COMMISSIONER DIAZ: Yes.
Mr. Flanagan, early in your testimony you actually
stated and I might be paraphrasing that, although there was
a deterioration in overall performance in the plant probably
due to root causes as have been identified, you said
something like, throughout this period there was always a
focus on safety and safety issues.
. 31
Looking at the question by Chairman Jackson and
your response, I would like to ask specifically the
question, was there a continuous focus on safety issues?
And let me be very specific, okay? We are talking of those
structures, systems and components, that are important to
safety or any and all of those systems that can prevent or
mitigate the consequences of an accident.
Was there a continuing focus on those systems
although we have identified two or three issues that
certainly have safety significance?
MR. FLANAGAN: Commissioner, that is my belief.
We have had a lot of discussion about that in the last
couple of months as we have tried to reflect on all of these
developments and I am advised that operations always got
priority and that operations got the funds and resources it
needed in order to do what it felt was necessary to meet the
safety requirements for the plant.
But I have to defer to Graham and Doug Whittier,
our engineering VP, and Bob Blackmore, who runs the plant
who can tell you more authoritatively than I can.
MR. LEITCH: Let me say that in the incident that
I referred to earlier, that is the severed wire in the HPSI
circuit, when that came to my attention, which was within 45
minutes of the discovery of that situation, I immediately
ordered the plant to cold shutdown because I didn't fully
. 32
understand the integrity of the rest of the wiring and I
felt that the conservative operating decision was to take
the plant immediately to cold shutdown and that was what we
did. So I think that is a clear indication of our safety
perspective.
Another issue that I think is in the same vein is
in July, in fact, while the ISA team was on site, we were in
the process of doing design review and we found a scenario
where in a post-accident situation, the primary component
cooling system inside containment might be overpressurized.
It lacked thermal relief protection. Once again, the plant
was immediately ordered to cold shutdown in that
circumstance.
Again, even more recently, when we were dealing
with the cable separation issue, in the initial phases of
that, the plant was being maintained at hot shutdown and we
found an error in the cable separation that would call into
question the integrity of our emergency core cooling systems
and the plant was there, again, ordered to cold shutdown.
It was already in a hot shutdown configuration and it was
taken to cold shutdown. That was on December 31.
So I would say that, through this entire period,
what I have cited is three incidents, one in July, one in
the September time frame and one in the December time frame
of 1996 where I believe conservative operating decisions
. 33
were made with a focus on plant safety.
COMMISSIONER DIAZ: I thank you very much.
I would like to probe a little deeper and ask you
in the same sense that Chairman Jackson did, do you agree
with the statement of Chairman Flanagan that even amongst
this deteriorating performance in a series of areas, the
plant overall continued to have focus on safety?
MR. LEITCH: Yes, absolutely. Yes.
COMMISSIONER DIAZ: Thank you.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Commissioner Rogers?
COMMISSIONER ROGERS: Just to follow up on that a
little bit more, you gave three examples but they are within
the last year or so.
Do you have any examples prior to the time in
which increased focus on Maine Yankee's operations came
about through the NRC where you behaved the same way? It
seems to me that's really the heart of the question here.
MR. FLANAGAN: I think Bob Blackmore --
COMMISSIONER ROGERS: Whether you were performing
conservatively before this increased attention fell upon
you.
MR. FLANAGAN: This is Bob Blackmore, our plant
manager.
MR. BLACKMORE: Good morning. My name is Bob
Blackmore. I am currently plant manager of the plant. I
. 34
was previously the plant manager and I also was the team
manager on the INPO response team with an INPO loanee
assignment in between there. But I think that, as David
indicated, from the beginning of time, there has been a very
strong focus on operations.
If you go back to the '91 -- '90-'91 time frame,
we actually received commendation from the NRC for our
actions on a relatively fast developing steam generator tube
rupture that was something that had not been seen in the
industry and, in fact, kind of flew in the face of the North
Anna curve that had been developed and had, up to that point
in time, been believed to be what you could expect from a
tube rupture.
So I think that, notwithstanding the events of the
recent past, like I say, I was on assignment with INPO
immediately prior to the ISA and came back to the plant to
serve as the team manager for that inspection and I can tell
you that the ISA response team that worked directly for me
during that period of time was totally involved with the ISA
team in trying to get at some of these issues. We did
everything that we could do to try to identify everywhere
that there was an issue.
We had 25 people at the plant that were extremely
bright, extremely talented and expertise that you don't see
every day. And it was one of our goals to learn as much
. 35
from that inspection as we could learn with the definite
intent of making improvements in areas that were identified.
COMMISSIONER DIAZ: Excuse me. If I may
piggy-back on Commissioner Rogers's excellent questions, I
would like you to be a little more specific. You say the
focus was on operations.
The question is, is the focus on the safety of
operations?
MR. BLACKMORE: Yes. As a matter of fact, if you
look at even the budgeting process, which has had quite a
bit of discussion here, the prioritization system that we
had for capital budgets, projects, it was always focused on
safety. Any issue that was a regulatory issue or a
safety-related type issue always got priority over
everything else.
That is really one of the problems that resulted
in some of the backlogs that we had because some of the less
important projects were deferred.
COMMISSIONER DIAZ: And that contributed to --
MR. BLACKMORE: That contributed to the backlog,
right.
COMMISSIONER DIAZ: Thank you.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Tell me the order in which
people --
COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN: Do I get to ask another
. 36
question?
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Well, I don't know.
[Laughter.]
COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN: This goes to earlier you
said you had attended all of the INPO and SALP briefs and
implicit -- and also your own nuclear committee.
Implicit in that is that perhaps INPO and NRC and
your own previous nuclear committee may have let the board
down a little in providing good information. Was it a goal
of the board that you get INPO 1, SALP 1 scores? Was that
articulated to Mr. Frizzle and were you hearing that you
were -- I honestly don't know what your previous SALP and
INPO scores were. Were you getting close to that and was
this whole incident a total surprise? What is your
perspective about various -- you mentioned three different
groups now that could have been scoring you.
MR. FLANAGAN: Right.
Our last SALP score was 1.5 in October of 1995. I
think we had two 1's and two 2's as I recall, the 1's being
in operation and engineering.
Our expectations were that what we articulated for
expectations was that we should try -- we should strive to
improve our SALP scores and industry ratings. I don't think
we ever set out a specific goal of getting all 1's but that
we should be trying to improve. And that one of the things
. 37
I thought we should do more of is to have -- as happened
with Bob Blackmore, is to have more involvement with INPO
circulating people around and getting them out of the state.
But we are also -- we are trying to make that
balance that -- between how much to stress those and how
much to stress continuing the operation of the plant on an
economic basis. There was no question about it. There was
no -- we were always conscious of the economic costs. I
think that's probably true of anybody trying to run an
enterprise, that any kind of enterprise you don't just give
a blank check to.
So we were trying to improve our SALP ratings.
When we found -- when things were said to be wrong, for
example, there was dissatisfaction with security and fire
protection in October '95, we tried to take steps to correct
those but we tried to do it in an efficient and economic
manner.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Any other questions? I think
we should move along, but if you have a burning question.
COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN: It is just to follow up
on that, I have been shown charts primarily by people who
are in the SALP 1 category that show that safety pays. If
you actually do get to SALP 1, you probably are also going
to be low cost.
Do you accept that?
. 38
MR. FLANAGAN: Absolutely. Absolutely. Not only
now but always. That is one of the reasons that we thought,
if we learn more from the industry and strove to improve our
scores that we would be better off. That's always been the
case -- or, I don't want to say always; for several years
that's been the case.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Who else are you planning for
us to hear from?
MR. FLANAGAN: What I would like to do is have Don
Heintz speak about Entergy's contemplated role and to
introduce you at least to Mike Sellman, our president-elect.
And I do think that you would be interested in the views of
Paul Stover, the head of our union. If time permits, Graham
can talk about some of the physical changes, the fact that
we are ahead of schedule on meeting those ISA physical
change and backlog issues, if that would be of interest.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: And that's the order in which
you would like to go?
MR. FLANAGAN: Yes.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Okay.
MR. HEINTZ: I will try to be short.
Madam Chairman, Entergy is pleased to be here to
address the Commission today as part of the Maine Yankee
team. I noticed on my placecard here they have me as the
President and CEO of Entergy. I am the President and CEO of
. 39
Entergy Operations, and we take a lot of pride in that
Entergy Operations is completely dedicated and focused on
the safe operation of nuclear plants, and I think Ed
Lupberger, the Chairman and CEO, would be upset if he
thought I was trying to take over the rest of Entergy.
[Laughter.]
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Let the record show that you
corrected that.
MR. HEINTZ: Although Entergy has not done an
extensive evaluation of Maine Yankee at least up to the
present time, so I really can't speak to any specific
challenges facing the plant, but I have had extensive
discussions with Dave Flanagan and other members of the
management team, and I do believe that there is a common
vision of how Maine Yankee does need to be operated in the
future. That is to be operated at the highest standards of
the industry, so we feel that we are aligned on how that
plant should be operated and believe that we would get the
support from the Maine Yankee Board to be a successful
operation.
I would like to also say that we at Entergy are
fully committed to support Maine Yankee, and I believe
there's a number of things that we can bring to Maine
Yankee.
We do have the bench strength and the management
. 40
depth to provide people that have been very successful in
the nuclear business. These are people like Mike Sellman
and Mike Meisner, who is with us today, and Mike will be
speaking shortly.
The other thing is I think we really do have two
core competencies in Entergy operations that I think are
particularly important to Maine Yankee, the plant. Those
two core competencies are I think we are a recognized leader
in the development of management strength, not only
providing management at the Entergy nuclear plants but we
have been heavily recruited and we have a number of the
Chief Nuclear Officers at the other plants in the industry
and other senior management and they have been successful,
so I think we have done a good job.
We do bring some people in from outside our
organization but a very high percentage of them have been
developed and groomed within the Entergy organization.
I think the other core competency that is
extremely important to the situation that we have at Maine
Yankee is we have been successful in turning around
operations at nuclear plants, both the boiling water reactor
and pressurized water reactor.
In the early days of EOI, shortly after it was set
up, we took over the Arkansas Nuclear I plant that had just
received a diagnostic evaluation and the results were very
. 41
concerning to Entergy, and we put together an extensive,
comprehensive three-year improvement program and today that
plant does operate we believe at some of the highest
standards in the industry and has been selected by a
nationally-known magazine as the most improved nuclear plant
in the country.
The second case was as a result of the merger with
Gulf States Utility at the end of 1993 we did take over the
operation of the River Bend Nuclear Plant, again a plant
that had struggled in the regulatory area and a plant that
did not have very good operational performance capacity was
quite low.
Again using some of the very same tools that we
used at ANO we put together a comprehensive improvement
program where we tried to identify everything that was
needed, all the way from the management issues to processes
improvement to improving the material condition of the
plant, such that today River Bend is operating very well
with minimal shutdowns, well planned outages, and so I think
we have shown that we can take a plant that is struggling
both in the regulatory area and in operational performance
and turn around that in a relatively short period of time
through a comprehensive assessment of the plant and a
comprehensive improvement program.
I think both of those core competencies that we
. 42
think Entergy has I think are both very applicable to the
situation as I understand it that we have at Maine Yankee.
Also, in the case of Mike Sellman, who is the
President-Elect at Maine Yankee, he has been involved in a
very critical role in both of those turn-arounds. He was
the General Manager at Arkansas Nuclear I through part of
that turn-around, and was one of the first people that we
put at River Bend in the General Manager position when we
took over the operational responsibilities for River Bend,
and more recently he had been moved to Waterford because
there was some culture changes that we wanted to bring
around at the Waterford plant, so I think we are bringing to
the Maine Yankee organization a very experienced person that
has experience in turning around the performance of nuclear
plants not only in the operational performance but in the
regulatory performance.
With that, I would like to turn it over to Mike
Sellman, who is President-Elect at Maine Yankee.
MR. SELLMAN: Thanks, John. Good morning
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Good morning.
MR. SELLMAN: I'll be brief also.
As Don said, we have not had a chance to go to
Maine Yankee and do a detailed evaluation yet. I have met
with all the employees. I have talked to the management
team. I am looking forward to arriving on site Monday
. 43
full-time.
There's a few reasons I'd just like to highlight
that I think Entergy can be successful at Maine Yankee and
can add value. Don mentioned experience and we do have
people available that can come, that can help who have been
through turn-around situations at our ANO and River Bend
sites.
I want to introduce Mike Meisner now because Mike
has just taken a trip up to Maine and he's agreed to join me
there on Monday.
Mike, do you want to stand up?
Mike has played a key role through the years with
Entergy, first at -- well, he worked at Grand Gulf for a
number of years -- in charge of licensing -- and now he is
in charge of licensing for all of Entergy.
On Monday he will be in charge of licensing for
Maine Yankee. This is a position that has not existed in
the past at Maine Yankee and we think it is absolutely
critical.
A third strength that we think Entergy will bring
is that we have proven processes in place and we can
directly transpose those to Maine Yankee.
Fourth, we are going to try to do a lot of mixing
of people. We talked earlier, David mentioned earlier some
insularity, and Entergy is a fairly large organization. We
. 44
want to have complete involvement of people Maine Yankee in
a number of support groups that currently exist at Entergy.
We have peer groups where, for example, all the
Operations Managers get together on a quarterly basis to
talk about issues. Maine Yankee will be a part of that.
We have assessments where we bring in people from
all our plants to assess one plant, and Maine Yankee will be
part of that. I think that will help.
Let me just mention briefly philosophy. There's
certain key principles that I found to be true at all the
plants that I have been at, and I began with Prairie Island
and then through ANO, River Bend, and Waterford.
I keep my philosophy in a little wallet-sized
card. I'll be happy to give you a copy of this, but just to
highlight a few points, the first key principle is
ownership.
We need to make sure that everybody at the site
owns the plant just as if it was their own home.
The second one is improving staff competence. We
do that with a very effective, try to install a very
effective training program, and in addition make sure that
we have good supervision and we give good performance
appraisals to people.
The third and one that I think is one I have
always had a lot of focus on is maintaining the equipment in
. 45
absolutely top-notch working order.
There's three parts to that. One is that you need
to have a very low corrective maintenance backlog so that
you can be proactive in addressing equipment issues and you
do that through the second part, which is a very good
preventive and predictive maintenance program, and a third
one is equipment obsolescence.
We all know that when you build a plant in the
early '70s after awhile it becomes hard to find parts for
certain components and we need to have an ongoing program
where we replace equipment that becomes obsolete.
Those are the things that have been tried and
true, proven true at the Entergy sites and we will continue
those at Maine Yankee.
Another principle is to run safe, effective,
timely refueling outages. As you know, you can get into
some trouble in outages if you don't carefully preplan them
and look at the risks associated with what you are doing.
Fifth principle is to write technically correct
procedures, human factor procedures and make sure people
follow them. It isn't uncommon for plants to have very
cumbersome procedures. In fact, you often develop lengthy
procedures because you are building in procedural
work-arounds, procedural solutions to problems rather than
physical solutions. That is what we will try to avoid.
. 46
Sixth principle -- operate conservatively. Don't
be afraid to shut the plant down. Put the operators first.
They are the customer. We need to make sure that operators
don't have to work around problems. If they have got
problems we have got to eliminate the problems, make it
easier for them to operate the plant.
Seventh and I would say most important, be
self-critical and being self-critical means that we'll find
our own problems. Once we find the problem we will have to
get to the root cause, and aggressively pursue solutions
that are in the broadest sense, and that's what we intend to
do.
When we arrive on site on Monday we are going to
begin to develop a comprehensive improvement plan. That
plan will build on the Maine Yankee response to the ISA and
on the business plan, which we think are pretty good
documents, but we are going to bring in a number of people
and do our own assessment and couple what we find with those
two documents and come up with a comprehensive improvement
plan.
We will prioritize the efforts in that
comprehensive improvement plan. We'll establish key
milestones. We'll develop a reporting process so we can
brief you and Maine Yankee on progress and make sure we are
successful.
. 47
Finally, and probably most importantly, we'll
assess the effectiveness as we go, and if we need to check
and adjust, we'll do that.
In conclusion, I would just like to say that we
intend to apply the same principles at Maine Yankee that we
have applied and have proven successful at the four Entergy
sites. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Thank you. Let me ask you this
quick question.
If I look at your timeless principles, have you
had the opportunity to make an assessment relative to Maine
Yankee on where they stand in each of these areas?
MR. SELLMAN: All I know right now is what I have
read. It probably wouldn't be fair. I can answer that
question a lot better a month from now, if you can wait that
long.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Okay. We'll ask you a month
from now.
[Laughter.]
MR. FLANAGAN: During that month I would like to
introduced
[Laughter.]
MR. FLANAGAN: -- Paul Stover, who is President of
Local 497, and we thought it might be helpful to have the
perspective of a worker, and Paul, step forward. We thought
. 48
it might be a good idea.
MR. STOVER: As noted, I am part of the Utility
Workers Union and we have a Local 497 at the facility.
I have held the position of President for the past
12 years. We represent operators, maintenance workers, and
technicians within the group.
As President, as Dave had noted, I asked for the
opportunity to come forth to address two issues and very
briefly.
One of the issues at Maine Yankee is the permanent
staff is highly trained, educated and dedicated to the
facility. I have spent the last 20 years working at the
facility myself as a Radiation Controls Technician and I can
say that we are committed both personally and as a group to
the safety of the facility.
On a personal note, I chose to live in the
Wiscasset area, raise a family, and build a home all within
two and a half miles of the plant. I consider Maine Yankee
extremely safe.
Number two, and in conclusion -- I don't want to
take away from Graham's thunder -- the workers at our
facility and within our bargaining unit look to the
relationship with Entergy as vital for the facility, as well
as fostering a new partnership between the union and
management.
. 49
We can build a team and bring Maine Yankee back to
the position that he once held.
With that said, I'll turn it over to Graham
Leitch, who is the Vice President, Operations, at Maine
Yankee.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Before you do that --
MR. STOVER: I knew you were going to say that --
[Laughter.]
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: I am becoming too readable. I
am not inscrutable enough. I'll have to work on that.
Let me ask you this question. Why do you feel the
relationship with Entergy is vital? What is it going to do
for you?
You said that the permanent staff is highly
trained with a dedicated safety focus. What is it that you
need from Entergy and what is it that Entergy is going to do
for you that wasn't already going on?
MR. STOVER: It was already going on with the
former management staff. It's vital in the cause that our
union, which is 140 members, if Maine Yankee fails, we fail.
If Maine Yankee shuts down, we shut down. We have a vested
interest for all the goals, and that is what I meant by
vitally important that we foster a good partnership.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: And so you feel you have to get
through this process successfully?
. 50
MR. STOVER: We have to learn from it, not only
get through it, but learn from it.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Let me ask you this one other
question. Has Management specifically asked plant staff to
bring forward any and all potential safety concerns?
MR. STOVER: Through my office we have -- and the
union hierarchy -- we have a system where employees can and
often do bring forth safety concerns, and while I have been
President I have had the opportunity to work with five plant
managers. Each one has always taken any issue that I brought
forward with a keen respect and putting it higher on their
priorities.
Now, although I am going to be put out of business
because of the learning process, employees can go to a
terminal and punch in a problem or an issue and get
resolution that way.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Okay.
MR. STOVER: It is all-encompassing.
COMMISSIONER ROGERS: May I ask a question?
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Commissioner?
COMMISSIONER ROGERS: Yes. I wonder if you could
just comment on your feelings about, as a radiation
protection technician, how the level of radiation exposure
at the plant fared for the average worker?
MR. STOVER: Well, through the years in the
. 51
implementation of the ALARA department our dose per employee
has drastically been reduced.
The emphasis now on ALARA is extremely important
and all the workers take that to heart, so I think we are in
a downward trend. The thresholds have been lowered and it
is down to the working guy on the floor.
COMMISSIONER ROGERS: Have you looked at other
comparable plants to see where you stand?
MR. STOVER: I have not, no.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Commissioner Dicus, do you have
any questions?
COMMISSIONER DICUS: No.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Commissioner Diaz?
COMMISSIONER DIAZ: Yes. Somebody said ask the
question three times and be ready to be surprised.
Do you believe that throughout this last period
and even before union members or all of the members of the
Maine Yankee workers had safety focus that was adequate to
provide protection to the health and safety?
MR. STOVER: Commissioner Rogers asked a similar
question on operator safety and I can address that in a very
few sentences.
Within our group we have the operations and the
ROs, the reactor operators, with a license.
Prior to standing watch they are all required to
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go and have a personal interview with Graham Leitch to check
on philosophies and how conservative they will be to operate
the facility.
A couple of them came to me and asked me about
this. It is a practice that gives Graham the warm and fuzzy
feeling that the plant itself is going to be run in a very
conservative manner and that safety is paramount above
everything else, so that is built into our philosophy.
COMMISSIONER DIAZ: So you agree that this
philosophy is there?
MR. STOVER: It is there. Yes.
COMMISSIONER DIAZ: Thank you, sir.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Commissioner McGaffigan?
COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN: No.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Okay.
MR. FLANAGAN: Our final presenter is Graham
Leitch, who will bring you up to date on the actual physical
and programmatic changes that we have already undertaken in
the ISA.
MR. LEITCH: Madam Chairman, Commissioners, I will
attempt to be brief as well.
The ISA report was issued on October 7 and our
response was submitted on December 10. I know that you are
more interested in our actions than in our words and how we
deliver on our commitments.
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Since that time and, in fact, well before the time
of our response, even while the ISA team was still on site,
we were beginning to address a number of the issues that
were raised and we have been aggressive and vigorous in
responding to those findings since the time the ISA team was
there. That response, that vigorous response, continues
even until today.
We have been able to make substantial progress on
most issues. We were able to accelerate some issues due to
the current outage situation. During the outage, the plant
is in a configuration that certain issues are able to be
worked now whereas our previous plan was not to work those
issues until the refueling outage in the fall of this year.
However, with the plant down now and the head off the
reactor, that gives us the opportunity to work certain ISA
issues that were not planned until later in the year.
And I can report today that 95 of 373 tasks are
complete. If I can call your attention to the pie chart,
you will see that in addition to those 95 that are complete,
there are 263 items that are on schedule and only five at
this point that are behind schedule.
I would like to discuss with you on the next
viewgraph --
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Please, no, you first.
COMMISSIONER DICUS: Back to the pie chart?
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MR. LEITCH: Yes.
COMMISSIONER DICUS: Of the issues and the tasks
that you have been addressing, could you characterize them
in terms of their difficulty to complete or their safety
significance and so forth? Basically, what I am going
toward, the ones that have been completed, were they the
easier ones to do, were they the less significant ones to
do? And of these that are behind, are they particularly
safety significant?
MR. LEITCH: We have -- certainly there are a
number in the done column, the complete column, that are
relatively easy things to do. But I would also say that
there are a number of issues that are completed that are
very difficult issues to do.
An example of one of those is an issue that came
up during the ISA concerning the performance of the HPSI
pump at run out. It is very difficult to confirm whether
that was or was not problematic, particularly with the head
on the reactor.
This current outage gives us an opportunity to
confirm that situation and we have tested the HPSI and found
it to be acceptable. That was a considerable amount of --
considerable amount of work. It required a very detailed
procedure, required perhaps two days of critical path time
to implement that procedure. So that was a very significant
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piece of work.
I know another issue that is particularly of
significance is the reliability of what we call P.25.B, the
auxiliary steam-driven feed pump and we have spent a great
deal of time attempting to improve the reliability on that,
at this outage installing a new controller, making other
modifications to that piece of equipment which we believe
will significantly improve the reliability of that
component.
The proof of that issue is still in the balance.
We have to operate the plant and continue to take data on
that to be sure that the expected reliability improvements
have actually been achieved. So I would say there are some
in that grouping that are very, very significant issues. We
have not just been dealing with the easy ones, although
frankly there are some easy ones in there too. But there
are also some very difficult ones that we have been dealing
with in that situation.
COMMISSIONER DICUS: What about the five that are
behind schedule?
MR. LEITCH: The five that are behind schedule are
largely due to prioritization of work associated with the
cable separation. Right at the moment, we are saturated, if
you will, with electrical work. We have been doing a great
deal of work on 96-01 logic system testing, which is
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intensive electrical work. We have also been doing a great
deal of work on cable separation. Again, intensive
electrical work. We are going to relocate some devices
inside containment, switches, instruments, again electrical
work.
So we are behind on some of our electrical work.
That is behind schedule. Those are not actually late at
this point and we believe the schedule is still recoverable
but we have to focus on that as soon as we get out of the
current cable separation issues.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: This is actually related. The
fact that you have completed 26 percent of the issues, does
that imply then that you have completely defined the scope
and depth of your response to each of the ISAT findings and
is there concurrence between you and the NRC staff on that?
MR. LEITCH: No. I think we have not, we have not
reached that level of concurrence. I think we would apply
sort of a weighting factor. In other words, this represents
26 percent of the items that are done. If your question
related to have we assigned a weight to those and is that a
weighted --
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: No, no. In terms of what the
scope and depth of what the fix is and is there concurrence
between --
MR. LEITCH: We have not, in all cases, we have
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not had detailed discussions with the NRC staff in that
regard. In a few of these cases, we have. For example, the
HPSI issue that I have mentioned before, that testing was
done under the direct observation of an NRC inspector so the
NRC staff is well aware of exactly what was done in that
regard.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: I guess what I am really trying
to get at is with the things that you have completed, is
there agreement that they are complete and in terms of what
you are planning to do on those that are not completed, is
there agreement that what your proposed response is will
resolve the issue?
MR. LEITCH: No, we have not resolved those issues
on a line-by-line basis with the staff at this point.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Okay, so perhaps the staff is
going to speak to that when they talk to us.
Have you assessed the impact of the ISAT findings
on the remainder of the plant? More specifically, what
implications do you draw from the report as to the adequacy
of the structures, systems and components that were not
inspected as part of the ISAT?
MR. LEITCH: That, I think, goes to a very large
extent to our response which we plan to submit in a day or
two to the 5054(f) letter. In that response, we commit to
review, to do basically a design basis reconstitution of
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safety-related systems which have not recently had a design
basis reconstitution and we have committed in that 5054(f)
letter to complete that design basis reconstitution of all
safety systems by the last quarter of 1998.
The -- I believe in order to fully assess the
impacts, the type of things that we found in ISA on the rest
of the system, that work needs to be completed. Let me say,
however, that we are also doing a margins review. That is
one of the issues that was pointed out in the ISA is that at
a number of places in the plant designs -- in the plant
design, our margin was quite small.
As you know, we are operating at 2440 megawatts
thermal and we have committed in the ISA response that,
before we seek permission to exceed 2440 megawatts thermal,
we will have completed our margin review to confirm that
other systems have adequate margin.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: So you will also then be
addressing the accessibility and retrievability of your
design basis data for those safety-related systems as part
of the design basis constitution?
MR. LEITCH: Yes. Yes.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Let me ask you this, has your
quality organization or, for example, your independent
assessment of the environmental qualification area raised
any new issues beyond those that have already been spoken
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to?
MR. LEITCH: The independent assessment of the
environmental qualification?
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Right, or just in terms of any
other assessments or self-assessments or through your QA
organization or whatever.
MR. LEITCH: It appears, if we are looking for
some common threads here, it appears to me at least that
there is a common thread that lies through modifications
that were done in the early 1980s. It is not an absolute
correlation but it seems to me that we have a great deal of
difficulty and many of our problems have been discovered in
work related to those modifications that were done in the
early 1980s or in the power upgrade immediately following
that time frame.
I believe that the post-TMI period when there were
a number of modifications that were installed in the plant
appeared to have stressed the organization's ability both to
design and to install modifications in a high-quality
manner. So it looks to me as though we need to take a hard
look and, in fact, we are taking a very hard, in depth look
at modifications and, in fact, in the issue of cable
separation, for example, we are finding that a very high
percentage of the cable separation issues are associated
with those modifications.
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CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Let me ask you two other quick
questions.
You mentioned that you had completed 95 of 373
issues but the pie chart shows 363. Are there 10 missing
ones or is that just a mislabeling?
MR. LEITCH: I misspoke.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: So is it 363 or 373?
MR. LEITCH: It's 363.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: But, of more import perhaps,
the ISAT report identified that you were tracking 3,200 open
issues at that time using a large number of different
tracking systems. So the question is from me to you is, how
have you gotten your hands around those 3,200? Have you
prioritized them in terms of safety and what assurance or
decisionmaking can you provide or have you been able to do
as to a judgment in terms of whether each issue that's been
identified should be resolved prior to restart from your
current outage?
MR. LEITCH: We have looked at those issues and
the safety-related issues are being loaded into the learning
bank. That is, the new learning process. We have taken --
what I am saying is the learning process started on January
6 and is going forward with new issues. On the old issues,
we are loading those issues into the learning process and,
as we do that, we are reviewing the prioritization of those
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issues. That work is not yet complete at this time.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Commissioner?
COMMISSIONER DIAZ: A quick question.
In this backlog reduction program, you stated that
the level of backlogs will be reduced to minimal level, you
think, to operating cycles. Do you have a specific
quantitative target that addresses that?
MR. LEITCH: We are in discussions with INPO in
that regard. The issue is that different people count
backlogs in different ways. We are trying to be sure that
our performance indicators are consistent with industry
tracking systems and working to establish a goal, a specific
numeric goal that will be reflective of industry practice.
We have a work order system that in some cases has
several different work orders for one activity. For
example, one work order might be to install scaffolding,
another to remove insulation and a third to make a repair.
We're not sure that that practice is entirely consistent
with industry practice and we are verifying that situation
to be sure that we are consistent and then we will establish
goals in accordance with the best plants in the industry.
COMMISSIONER DIAZ: I just want to make sure that
the word "minimal," you have a specific target area?
MR. LEITCH: Yes, yes. We do plan to establish a
specific numerical goal.
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COMMISSIONER DIAZ: Thank you.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: When do you think you will have
your hands totally around all of this?
MR. LEITCH: I'm not --
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: I'm thinking of, you know,
the -- when you will have --
MR. LEITCH: The numerical goal for the
maintenance backlog?
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: That's right, and have the
total assessment of these 3,200 open issues done.
MR. LEITCH: We -- I would say the maintenance
item is going to be sooner than the total assessment of the
3,200 issues. I would expect the maintenance item, and I am
not familiar with the specific of the schedule that we have
for that but I believe that it would be within about two
months that work could be done. The 3,200 items, I don't
have a specific schedule. That activity has not been
specifically scheduled.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Let me ask you about a specific
issue having to do with your off-site power supply
capability.
MR. LEITCH: Yes.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Last November, you experienced
a complete loss of off-site power.
MR. LEITCH: Yes.
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CHAIRMAN JACKSON: And my understanding is that
the ISAT team had previously questioned whether the off-site
power system satisfied the facility design and licensing
basis. Now, I know that the NRC staff has this issue under
review and has corresponded with you. And I note with some
viewgraphs that you didn't use that you had indicated that
you expect that the design change -- the design change
relative to that to be completed before startup.
There is also an issue having to do with the tech
specs.
MR. LEITCH: Yes.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: And you also intend to have the
tech spec change done and approved.
MR. LEITCH: That's correct.
The tech spec change will require two operable
lines and prescribe allowable out-of-service time with one
line out of service and allowable out-of-service time with
the second line out of service. The first time, I believe,
is 72 hours and the second time is 24 hours.
We are preparing that tech spec change this week
and that tech spec change should be submitted within a week.
That is, the application for that tech spec change. There
is a modification in the plant to facilitate the operation
of our feed pumps in that configuration and that
modification will be installed during the current outage.
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Although there is not a direct correlation between that and
the tech spec, but it is an operating preference issue that
we want to install a modification on the autostart of the
feed pumps.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: So this was not an issue though
that had been previously identified. Will this then be the
kind of thing, with your looking at your -- dealing with
your design basis issues, that is likely to be uncovered?
MR. LEITCH: It is my understanding that, speaking
quite frankly, that that is an issue that has previously
been identified and, frankly, for years has been somewhat of
a bone of contention between the NRC staff and Maine Yankee.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Until you had the loss of
off-site power event?
MR. LEITCH: That certainly heightened -- that
certainly heightened interest in it.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Okay.
Commissioner?
COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN: I'd like to ask one
question. Really, this might bring Mr. Sellman back into
the conversation. But he introduced a colleague who is
going to be in charge of licensing as of next week.
MR. LEITCH: Yes.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: And he said that was a function
that you didn't previously have or at least a position you
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didn't previously have.
MR. LEITCH: Mr. Meisner is going to be in charge
of licensing.
COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN: Mr. Meisner, right. He
introduced Mr. Meisner, who will be in charge of licensing.
How was that function carried out in the absence
of a person like Mr. Meisner in the current organization and
was that the part of the problem that emerged in the last 18
months?
MR. LEITCH: Doug Whittier is our vice president
of licensing and engineering and what we are doing here by
this move is separating out that responsibility so that
there would be both a vice president of licensing and a
separate individual as vice president of engineering.
MR. FLANAGAN: Commissioner, that was one of the
first steps that the board itself recommended taking in
response to the ISA report. We decided in our first
reaction to the ISA report to establish a separate licensing
position at a higher level in the organization so that
licensing and compliance would be a full-time occupation for
an officer level individual.
COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN: So that was something
you were planning to do irrespective of Entergy --
MR. FLANAGAN: That's right. But in fact we had
interviewed a number of candidates, very good candidates.
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But hopefully the board will support the election of
Mr. Meisner and we can get started very quickly. We are
going to have a board meeting on February 10 and I am
optimistic of his chances.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: You will have embarrassed him
if the board doesn't.
[Laughter.]
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Do you have a system
engineering group?
MR. LEITCH: We do not now. In fact, that is one
of the actions that we are embarking upon and in fact I
referred to that at the bottom of my last slide. We do, at
the moment, we have appointed someone in charge of that
system engineer group and we are just in the early stages of
putting together a system engineering group.
One of the things that we have requested in that
regard is a special assist visit from INPO because we want
to get their insights with regard to how a system
engineering group should be organized, exactly what their
responsibilities should be. There have been some people who
have done system engineering concepts rather poorly. There
have also been some that have done it very well and we want
to be sure that we get the benefit of all of that experience
and we are looking to INPO as well as some other folks that
are familiar with the system engineering concept.
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We have a plan in mind as to how we think it
should be organized but we want to test that plan out with
some other industry experts before we proceed to actually
implement that. But that is part of our commitment and we
are moving forward with that process.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Any other questions?
[No response.]
MR. FLANAGAN: If I could just sum up, Madam
Chairman, I would like to make five points.
The first is that we have already taken a number
of significant steps, both organizationally, financially, in
terms of management, in terms of physical changes to address
the issues that have been identified and we look forward to
the opportunity to meet and collaborate with the regional
staff on how well we have done in squarely meeting the
concerns on that.
The second point I would like to make is we are
going to be emphasizing and concentrating on teamwork now
with Entergy. We have a challenge here to integrate their
culture, their processes, their skills with those that
already exist at the plant and that is something that I look
forward to working with Don and Mike and Jerry Yelverton and
other people at Entergy on. I am sure we can do it.
In fact, one of the reasons we got together with
Entergy was we saw some commonality of values and visions.
. 68
The third is, and I want to emphasize this, Madam
Chairman, we are trying all the things we can think of to
ensure the institution of a long-term self-critical culture
at Maine Yankee. That is why we brought in a new board
member, that's why we brought in an oversight committee,
that's why we brought in a whole new management team from
another part of the country. That's why we got the team --
the learning process and why we are trying to make the
cultural changes that we have identified. We are very, very
serious about that.
I would also like to point out that we continue to
put an emphasis on conservative decisionmaking and I think
Graham and Bob have indicated some specific instances of
that.
Finally, I want to assure you that we are not
jumping through hoops. We are focusing on results here.
The mandate of that nuclear committee of the board really is
to track progress on these various issues and to verify that
the changes we made aren't a sham but result in the --
produce the results that are wanted by both the NRC and by
ourselves.
So I think that, in summary, we are doing all we
can think of in what we believe is a very comprehensive
program to respond to the issues that have been identified
and make the changes that are necessary. I want to thank
. 69
you for the time and consideration you have given us here
this morning.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Well, thank you for your
presentation. It has been quite detailed. I am not going
to lecture you about anything. I think that -- and I am not
going to talk about whether you have three safety-related
issues or safety-significant issues or 300. The point
really has to do with your own ability to look outside, to
benchmark, to not be insular, to identify your own problems,
understand their safety significance and to correct them
with the spirit of safety first in mind.
And in the end, results are what always matters.
I told my staff I wouldn't use my hackneyed phrase but I
will use it anyway, which is performance is as performance
does. So we will be looking forward to seeing your progress
and results.
MR. FLANAGAN: Thank you.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Thank you.
I think we will now hear from the NRC staff. At
the rate we are going, we will be here all day.
Mr. Thompson.
MR. THOMPSON: Chairman Jackson, Commissioners, it
is always nice to fill a warm seat.
[Laughter.]
MR. THOMPSON: At the table with me this
. 70
morning --
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: As long as it's not a hot seat.
MR. THOMPSON: That's right. I was worried about
that myself.
COMMISSIONER DIAZ: But it might get hot.
[Laughter.]
MR. THOMPSON: I'm sure it will.
With me today, slide one shows you the NRC
executives who are here to respond to you.
For those of you who are here in the audience who
may not know them, Ed Jordan, who is the Deputy EDO for
regulatory effectiveness, also led the ISAT team which was
the subject of quite a bit of the discussion. To my right
is Frank Miraglia who is the acting director of NRR and Hub
Miller who is the regional administrator for Region I and,
as you know, Region I has the lead responsibility for
oversight of the restart activities along with the specific
support from NRR.
I would also like to take this opportunity to note
that there are two representatives from the state of Maine,
Mr. Wiley and Mr. Vanags, and they are here today.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Please. I will invite you to
the table.
MR. THOMPSON: Now joining us at the table.
They had, as far as I know, no specific prepared
. 71
remarks but they certainly have been a part of our oversight
and observing what we have done before.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Welcome.
MR. THOMPSON: As you have heard, we really have
focused our activities on a number of things. The Maine
Yankee response to the ISAT report findings and, of course,
some of the design issues that have arisen since that. And,
of course, we have a process in place to look at those
issues, evaluate the safety significance of them as they are
found and, in essence, we have identified a number of
specific issues which we believe we will require to be fixed
prior to restart. Those will be addressed, as well as the
process that we have in place to look at all the other
issues. As we said, there were many issues that are ongoing
today and we will address those.
So, with those opening remarks, I would like to
turn it over to Frank Miraglia who will discuss some of the
NRR and headquarters perspectives.
MR. MIRAGLIA: Thank you, Hugh.
Good morning, Madam Chairman, Commissioners.
May I have slide three?
This is a brief background and I think we have
covered much of it in the conversations up to this point.
As a point of departure, December of '95, an allegation
regarding code and use of codes for small break LOCA
. 72
analysis was brought forth to the Commission and, as a
result of that, the agency -- Commission issued an order on
the 3rd of January that restricted power operations to 2440
megawatt thermal.
At that time, the staff also initiated a lessons
learned effort internal. That report will be coming to the
Commission in the near future and an action plan to respond
to those activities and the generic lessons that come out of
the ISA finding and action plan is due to the EDO at the end
of February and would be provided to the Commission shortly
thereafter.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Let me make sure I understand.
The staff initiated lessons learned efforts. Is this the
broad lessons learned from both Millstone and Maine Yankee?
MR. MIRAGLIA: No, this was a specific Maine
Yankee look and we have looked at that in concert with the
Millstone to incorporate some of the features that are
common.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Okay. Before you leave that
graph, let me just ask you, you talk about the January 3
order and it provides a basis for operation at 2440
megawatts thermal until the reanalyses have been performed
for potential operation at 2700. What is the status of the
review necessary for increasing from 2440 and specifically
then will this review be done in conjunction with the net
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positive suction head issues?
MR. MIRAGLIA: There are several aspects. In
terms of the current restart, we would be at 2440 so some of
the issues that need to be readdressed for 2440 will be
addressed prior to restart. There are long-term activities
for 2700 megawatt operation that we are dialoging with the
utility and, as you heard from Mr. Leitch, they are not even
going to even ask for that until much later on.
There are ongoing activities with Maine Yankee in
terms of some of the small break LOCA analysis and
developing an approved model. The MPSH issue, we are still
waiting for submittals and dialogue on that so it is
something that is planned activity but it stands before us,
in front of us and is further down the pike.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: So the MPSH issues, the
resolution of them relate to the 2700 megawatt thermal not
to the 2440?
MR. MIRAGLIA: In the long term, yes. The
complicating factor is that in terms of the ISA there were
some issues raised by the ISA, some questions whether there
was sufficient margin MPSH for 2440. Those were examined at
the time, those issues were -- and we will get into those a
little more in detail. Those issues were raised to the
region and headquarters staff and were dealt with in terms
of using our existing processes did those concerns raise
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operability issues that had to be dealt with.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: For 2440.
MR. MIRAGLIA: At the time of its identification
that had to be resolved.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Now, someone here, Mr. Miller,
you are going to speak to that at some point?
MR. MILLER: Yes, ma'am.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Let me ask you another
question. This order, does it relate to resolution of the
TMI action items?
MR. MIRAGLIA: In terms of the -- yes, the 2-K-30
and 31.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Right, the 2-K-30 and 330 and
331.
MR. MIRAGLIA: The small break LOCA analysis would
be once approved and then once applied in the right kind of
manner for Maine Yankee would address those issues for 2700
megawatt.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: So those relate again to
operation at 2700 megawatts not 2440 megawatts?
MR. MIRAGLIA: And the order dealt with those
issues in the context of 2400 and the basis for the order
addresses those.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: So let me make sure I
understand what you're telling us here. I don't understand
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it either.
Will they be resolved or not before the operation
of the plant at 2440 or are they the basis of operation --
they have to be resolved for operation at 2700?
MR. MIRAGLIA: Those two TMI issues had to do with
small break LOCA analysis and those LOCA analyses were
needed to confirm that the existing analysis of record for
the ECCS was bounded by large break LOCA analysis.
In issuing the order last January, we went back to
a code that goes back to the '70s, I believe, 1977. And
that code was sufficient. And based upon our experience
with the other codes, the small break LOCA was not bound and
LOCA analysis was sufficient to justify operation in terms
of 5046. so the resolution of the small break LOCA analysis
was not needed to do that; it's encompassed within the other
code. We had sufficient information.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: The one thing we are trying to
get to is, this bounding, does it cover operation at 2440?
MR. MIRAGLIA: Yes.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: All right. But it does not
bound for --
MR. MIRAGLIA: In order to go to 2700, additional
analysis would have to be done to extend that to 2700.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Did you have another question?
[No response.]
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MR. MIRAGLIA: With respect to the next slide, the
independent safety assessment inspection was an outgrowth of
some of the concerns and the Chairman instituted that
inspection last spring and it has been the subject of most
of the discussion here this morning.
There are a number of ongoing staff actions since
the ISA was conducted. The current status of the plant, it
is in a shutdown condition and a number of restart issues
have been identified. Those issues are either flowing from
concerns raised by the ISI or from further actions taken by
the utility or by the NRC.
The Generic Issue 96-01 issue was an issue that
came from the ISI -- ISA inspection and that followup and
additional testing has raised additional concerns and as the
utility has indicated to you this morning, as a result of
some of that, additional cable separation issues have been
identified and those were the subject of a confirmatory
action letter last December.
Since that time, two other issues have been
identified, the off-site power and the circ lines were
identified and it was a concern expressed by the ISA, as the
Chairman indicated toward the end of the presentation by the
licensee, as a result of those concerns the agency staff and
the licensee were exchanging information. About that time,
there was a loss of off-site power event. In further
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dialogue and the information received, the staff has
concluded that they did not meet the commitments in the FSAR
and the design basis and changes had to be made and the tech
specs had to be modified as appropriate. There has been
dialogue with the utility on that issue and they have
indicated to the staff that they will take those kinds of
actions and, as you heard from Mr. Leitch, the tech spec
amendment will be coming in in a week or so.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Let me ask you a couple
questions on it and I am not trying to put you on the hot
seat but I think we want to try to understand a couple of
things. These issues related to off-site power specifically
were issues out of the ISAT and now my understanding is that
they are restart issues today. Does that put us in the
position of being criticized for not having shut them down
with respect to those issues or, put another way, how did we
arrive at the safety significance of these issues relative
to now their becoming restart issues?
MR. MIRAGLIA: The issues at the time the
decisions were made at the ISA, the ISA raised questions
regarding that issue. There was not a definitive finding.
They were saying, we see certain discrepancies within the
FSAR and the licensing basis and our familiarity with other
plants that this deserves further review. So that was an
issue that was left to the staff for followup and further
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review and was not seen as an operability issue at that
point in time.
Since that time, we, the staff, in concert with
the region and the utility, have dialogued on that issue and
then have determined that they did not. There was a
conflict between the FSAR and the -- and how the plant was
configured and due to modifications that were made they were
not meeting the design basis in their FSAR and --
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: I guess the question becomes,
we feel it's a safety significant issue?
MR. MIRAGLIA: It has safety implications for loss
of off-site power. The issue comes down to they could make
transfers with -- I think it was on the order of six hours
and, in looking at the systems, we felt that rapid transfer
and the time was too long and we took the position that they
had to make the change. And on a relative basis it has
safety significance.
MR. MILLER: If you compare the tech specs at
Maine Yankee with a standard plant, they were far more
liberal in terms of what the licensee could do, action
statements, notifying the NRC and the like. So it was
really a combination of the importance of this line and the
vulnerabilities that the licensee talked about with respect
to its reliability under certain circumstances and it talked
about making modifications to the feed pump to help make it
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more reliable. And, coupled with that, concern about the
tech specs not being sufficiently prescriptive on what
needed to be done where there were problems with the line.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: The licensee indicated there
had been some difference of opinion between the NRC and
themselves with respect to this particular set of issues and
I guess the question becomes one of the time frame for
assessing the safety significance and then was this loss of
off-site power event that occurred in November the driver
for both you and the licensee in terms of heightening the
significance of it and therefore pushing it to the point
where it's now a restart issue?
MR. MIRAGLIA: I think the issue was raised even
prior to the loss of off-site and it was an issue that
needed to be examined in the ISA, left as an issue and that
was being reviewed by the staff even prior. The fact that
it was a loss of off-site power event gave us the ability to
perhaps look at the issue even closer and looking at the
actions and how did the systems actually perform since they
process was in place.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Mr. Jordan, did you want to
make a comment?
MR. JORDAN: No, I think the process that we went
through of identifying the issue, leaving it as a loose end,
we were unable to come to closure on whether it was
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unacceptable or acceptable so we left it as a loose end.
MR. MILLER: The part that was at contention was
really -- required going back into the deep bowels of the
bowels of the licensing basis and I don't know that there
was contention or disagreement over the safety significance
of the line. I think it ended up being in one of these very
difficult licensing issues that took some time for the
licensing staff to research. That effort was hastened
clearly by the loss of off-site power event.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Commissioner Diaz?
COMMISSIONER DIAZ: Yes. Has the staff made a
determination whether sufficient redundancy was provided by
emergency and auxiliary systems in the plant in the case of
off-site power loss?
MR. MIRAGLIA: I think one of the things that was
looked at, Commissioner Diaz, is in the context of looking
at what had to be done and the timing for a rapid transfer
and the operator actions is some of the consideration and
those were the issues where the staff felt the rapid
transfer in six hours was too much time.
In addition, there have been other issues that
have been identified with respect to the facility in the
electrical area that makes the risk significance of loss of
off-site power for this plant an important kind of
consideration. So all of those considerations were there in
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reaching the judgment that the system needed to be modified
and the tech specs needed to be upgraded.
COMMISSIONER DIAZ: I understand that but, going
beyond that, you know, in the case of off-site power, you
know, in the case, you know, you know, significant load
being imposed on a safety and emergency system. Has it been
determined that the auxiliary feed water pump and the DC
generators and all the components that are supposed to
activate in case of off-site power, are those sufficient to
provide adequate protection to health and safety?
MR. MIRAGLIA: Yes, and there was one concern with
respect to the reliability of the aux feed system that they
are talking about upgrading. So I think in the context of
that, one has to examine the issues in their totality. So
we saw them as safety significant and risk significant in
this case.
COMMISSIONER DIAZ: Thank you.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: So it wasn't just a question
of -- let me make sure I understand then, that they have a
certain capability in terms of protection of public health
and safety but are you saying that the rapidity with which
they could be loaded, the condition of certain parts of the
system is what led to the concern?
MR. MIRAGLIA: Those are all factors that were in
the consideration, yes, Madam Chairman. I think we tried to
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look at the information before us.
In terms of the question that you raised in terms
of the issue that was the decision we made in October, that
information was still yet undecided or being evaluated as
Mr. Jordan said.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Okay, so it was identified then
through the ISAT?
MR. MIRAGLIA: As an issue and we were exploring
that issue. Some of these other issues are also outgrowths
of the utility's followup and our followup to some of the
ISAT.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Commissioner McGaffigan.
COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN: Just one technical
question.
Are these other issues going to be the subject of
an additional confirmatory action letter that we are going
to deal with --
MR. MIRAGLIA: Both of those issues that are on
the slide as other issues were subject of a supplement to
the confirmatory action letter that was issued, I believe,
on the 30th.
MR. MILLER: And I will be speaking to that.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Okay. Thank you.
COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN: Thank you.
MR. MIRAGLIA: We have already addressed that
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there are longer-term followup of licensee's actions for
going to the power-up rate and I have addressed those.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: So they are not part of CAL;
they are part of the ISAT followup?
MR. MIRAGLIA: For the power upgrade to 2700?
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Right.
MR. MIRAGLIA: Yes.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Okay.
MR. MIRAGLIA: At this point, Mr. Miller will talk
about some of the activities since the ISAT.
MR. MILLER: I want to do three things. First of
all, I will talk a little bit about what we have done since
the ISAT, actually starting during the ISAT and then
subsequently, to oversee licensee efforts. Secondly, talk
about our observations, what we have seen over that period,
and then talk about next steps, where we go from here.
First of all, it is very important to point out,
and there has been a lot of discussion today about
significance of issues, actually during the ISAT, while the
team was independent of the region and of NRR, we were very
close to the ISAT and to what it was finding to assure that
at any point if there was information that called into
question the operability of equipment that that information
was assessed very promptly by the licensee and a conscious
and a technical decision was made on the impact of that on
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functioning of equipment. In other words, an operability
call was made.
I know there have been some questions about how
this is done. The NRC does not make the operability calls;
that is the obligation of the licensee.
We do, however, check very carefully, look over
their shoulder, so to speak, to determine that the judgments
that they are making are founded on -- have a reasonable
foundation. So throughout this whole effort and certainly
subsequently, as issues have emerged, such as the issues
regarding cable separation and equipment qualification, we
have been following closely what the licensee has done in
terms of assessing those issues and their impact on
operability.
MR. MIRAGLIA: May I just add to that, I think it
is important the word that has been used by the utility at
the table, by Mr. Sellman in talking about the processes.
And the processes are to deal with the issues as they are
identified. I think there have been examples of issues that
were identified by the ISA that raised questions about
degraded or nonconforming conditions and what did they mean
to operability. And Hub has examples of those in terms of
the EQ issue that was identified and dealt with and the MPSH
issue with respect to 2400. Those were dealt with at the
time.
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The licensee has provided examples today.
Mr. Leitch indicated, in following up on the logic testing,
that raised concerns and they made operability calls. So
there is a disciplined type process to look at each of these
discrepancies and deficiencies to determine what does it
mean to operations, what is the safety significance, what
are the licensing requirements bound to be and what
corrective action programs must there be. So there is a
disciplined process that exists to deal with all of these
issues.
Further, Mr. Leitch gave another example in terms
of cable separation wasn't clear. But it had issues and
questions and they took the conservative approach. So I
think it is important that the processes are also broad
enough and rich enough where the licensees identify and
evaluate and our oversight is, you know, oversight on their
primary responsibility. So it is a balanced hierarchial
kind of system that provides that kind of balance for
evaluating the safety significance and the licensing
significance of issues as they are identified.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Okay, thank you.
Mr. Miller?
MR. MILLER: We have, of course, also continued to
conduct the core inspections, the inspections of operations
and maintenance. Principally, this is the resident
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inspectors at the site and they are, of course, backed up by
specialists from the regions who conduct the inspections,
for example, in the radiological protection area and there
have been a number of events that have occurred since the
ISAT and we have, of course, followed up on those.
There was a reactor trip on October 9 and the loss
of off-site power event. What I am trying to say here is
that we have maintained the continuing normal kind of
inspection effort that goes with any plant.
We have engaged very heavily, we have been very
much engaged in assessing the findings of the ISAT with
respect to enforcement. This is often a very tedious task
because it does require you to go and look very carefully at
the licensing and design basis to assure that we are on firm
foundation when we move forward on that. And then, the last
two bullets on this slide really speak to the efforts that
we have had under way to monitor the actions that are being
taken by the licensee as they have addressed these emerging
issues.
Mr. Leitch talked about the testing of the
high-pressure safety injection pump. And he talked about
that being a very extensive undertaking and it is. We are
in the process of reviewing the details of that test as we
speak. That's an example of the kind of thing that we have
done in the region with help from the program office.
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CHAIRMAN JACKSON: In terms of this emerging issue
review by specialists, do any of these issues have the
potential of becoming restart issues and when will you know?
MR. MILLER: Yes, ma'am, I mean there is always
the potential. In fact, after the ISAT we didn't know, for
example, about the cable separation issue or the additional
equipment qualification issues which arose out of the
reviews that the company had done of calculations which
specified the flood level inside containment.
Upon revising that calculation it was found that
there were additional instruments that were submerged and
weren't qualified for that, so there are a number of
emerging issues. As they are found, we have had specialists
there that understand the significance of them and,
importantly, who understand whether the licensee is looking
broadly enough at these issues as they arise to not just
deal with the instant issue but to look for broader
patterns.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: I guess the real question has
to do with do you have some sense of when or if that will
come to closure?
MR. MILLER: I am very reluctant to answer that,
because my experience has been, and I was going to say it in
the next slide, that if a licensee is shifting from an
approach to business which doesn't get to the low level
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issues is not highly probing and questioning, then one has
to expect, as you shift to the lower threshold higher volume
problem reporting process, more aggressive testing, and the
ISAT was very critical of the testing that was done at the
station.
You have to expect that more problems are going to
emerge. Backlogs are going to go up initially and in fact I
think it would be good news when the backlogs rise initially
Now eventually they have to deal with those backlogs but I
mean I think that is the pattern really at all stations that
are engaged in some sort of turn-around.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: I guess really what I am trying
to get at is simply this -- and I understand what you are
saying -- the question then becomes do we have our own, to
paraphrase some of your comments, process in place that will
allow us to get quickly at, given that there are these CALs
on the licensee as it is, to get at what may be other
restart issues.
MR. MILLER: Yes, two things.
First of all, it's the licensee that will
determine the pace at which these things are first
identified and then resolved, but we have decided within the
last several days to invoke the manual chapter 0350 process
which really simply is a process that assures a coordinated,
integrated response between the Region and Headquarters.
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It involves things like the establishment of a
panel that is overseeing the whole scope of activities that
are involved.
It involves keeping a list, a formal list if you
will, of issues that need to be resolved prior to restart.
In other words, it forces a systematic approach
towards these things to assure, you know, that we are timely
but also complete in assessing the issues and making
determinations and judgments will be made.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Is this going to require
additional inspection resources?
MR. MILLER: I am not certain of that. I mean we
are already applying heightened attention, if you will, and
additional resources to Maine Yankee, and I think this is
honestly a bit of -- Maine Yankee is still somewhat in an
investigation and as they are discovering, I mean it's not
possible at the beginning to know all of what is needed.
I intend to talk in broad terms about what we are
planning to do and maybe when I do that it will answer your
questions.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Commissioner Diaz.
COMMISSIONER DIAZ: I keep hearing about cable
separation. I am getting more concerned about it.
Have we determined that this cable separation
implies some correction due to, you know, requirements of
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IEEE 279 or reactor protection system, ECCS instrumentation
and uranium safeguards instrumentation?
MR. MILLER: Yes.
COMMISSIONER DIAZ: All of the above?
MR. MILLER: Well, they have not provided the
cable separation that is required by their licensing
commitments, which are to various IEEE documents and the
like.
MR. MIRAGLIA: And until that is resolved and
looked at in some kind of detailed way, that question needs
to be further investigated and examined.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Commissioner McGaffigan.
COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN: On the resource issue
from the Region's perspective, you have -- you don't have
Millstone any longer. We have got a separate project office
which I am sure is welcome at least from a resource
perspective --
MR. MILLER: But not from my perspective --
[Laughter.]
COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN: Not from your
perspective.
MR. MILLER: I still have --
COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN: We have Salem, we have,
you know, you have a significant fraction of the plants that
are currently on the Watch List.
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Is there a resource issue as you go through this
manual 3050 process both at Salem and Maine Yankee that
needs to be called to the Commission's attention?
MR. MILLER: Well, I don't know that it needs to
be called to the Commission's attention but, yes, there is a
resource issue. The way we are dealing with that and
without getting into a lot of detail is that we are getting
contract help in several cases and in a number of the issues
in the electrical area for example contract specialists who
work for our people will be looking at those. Salem the
same way.
We have had a number of people that the program
offices release funds to help us or to augment our staff
with specialist, but it is an issue that we will be working
with.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: How many manual chapter 0350
processes do you have in Region I at the moment?
MR. MILLER: At the present time with Maine
Yankee, it will be two -- Salem and then Maine Yankee.
MR. MIRAGLIA: Millstone is not set up as a
separate thing --
MR. MILLER: Right.
MR. MIRAGLIA: But in terms of the resources, I
mean we have a programmatic -- the requests come in. We
evaluate them and we try to get help not only from our own
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resources, from contractual dollars as well, and there's the
resources that are at the other regions.
They do stress the organization overall in terms
of providing that sort of support. That support is coming
from somewhere else.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: But at this point you feel that
with that support from somewhere else you have a
methodology?
MR. MIRAGLIA: The methodology is there and the
resource. We are going to have to deal with those type of
issues. The Acting EDO indicated this morning that we
need -- when we feel that we need more, we need to make sure
we bring those issues to them.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Okay.
MR. MIRAGLIA: And I think that is clearly the
process. It's going to dislocate work and shift things
around and we'll have to look at that and it might have
programmatic impact in other areas and we'll have to -- our
responsibility is to identify those and then make the
appropriate decisions relative to prioritization.
MR. THOMPSON: And we will do that and we will
address this on an agency-wide basis as necessary.
We will work within my organization first, and I
may turn to Ed for some additional help from his
organization but we will certainly identify what our
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programs will be.
We do have some additional resources that the CFO
will be able to make available to us.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Why don't we press on.
MR. MILLER: The next slide captures I think our
observations.
First of all, I would say that in the area of
operations the ISAT was positive with respect to most
aspects of operations and we have continued to see good
performance with respect to the evaluations that have been
conducted, a number of startups and shutdowns.
They recently disassembled the reactor vessel to
deal with failed fuel and the evolutions involved with that
were well-handled, communications -- briefs and that sort of
thing.
The independent team of course was quite critical
and in fact one of the several root causes went to the
question of questioning attitude and complacency. So the
next two bullets really speak to that and our observations,
and there has been talk about the recent implementation of
the new learning process.
What we observe is what we have observed in many
other cases where a new process is installed and that is
growing pains.
The staff is struggling with how to use the system
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and how to categorize issues, what to report, what not.
Perhaps more importantly what we are following is is there a
change and a shift in questioning attitudes.
It is one thing to have a process but it's also
more important to have people who know it's expected that
problems get reported and we see some improvement there in
the recent identification of some chemical volume control
system valves that had been leaking for some time and had in
fact contributed to an event that occurred earlier in the
year were raised -- but we have seen some other instances
where practices had gone on and it was our view that they
needed to be reported and weren't.
These weren't major issues but what I am saying is
that it is the sort of thing that you would expect. While
it is getting better, it is still somewhat mixed.
With respect to engineering, it is too early to
judge what the effect of the systems engineering initiative
will be certainly, but we have noted that on some
longstanding issues, a diesel fire pump, for example, the
aux feed pump issue, the licensee formed teams that focused
on those to in a more comprehensive way attack the issues.
That seems to be an improvement to us.
The follow-up on the specific issues from the ISAT
has been by and large quite good and in fact it was an
engineer who was pursuing issues relative to logic system
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functional testing who identified the problem with cable
separations and that emerged as a whole new area of problem,
and I think that speaks to the thoroughness with which the
licensee is approaching the identification of issues in the
engineering area.
The quality of evaluations -- I think our feeling
is that it is improving but still somewhat mixed.
Some of the early responses, the first responses
to the cable separation issue in our view were not as broad
as they needed to be and the steps taken did not adequately
bound in our view the potential extent of that condition and
as a result we in fact in December issued the Confirmatory
Action Letter, which among other things required the
licensee to develop a plan and to execute a plan that more
comprehensively assessed the extent of that condition.
I won't go into the next item on equipment
problems but I can confirm that the licensee has utilized
this time of the shutdown to go after a number of the
equipment problems and the aux feed pump issue that was
talked about, the ventilation supply to the spray building
which would ice up and cause the operators a lot of grief
and difficulty -- a number of these things are being taken
care of.
During this time though, as the licensee has
looked, I mentioned the cable separation issue, another
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issue was found with respect to the failure to have proper
isolation between a safety-related electrical component and
the non-safety related equipment and it was, as these things
began to emerge and with the increased attention on the
service circuit line that we felt it important to expand the
Confirmatory Action Letter and to stipulate a number of
additional things that needed to be examined prior to -- and
addressed prior to startup.
One of the issues really is the broad question of
given the issues that have emerged with respect to design
and design control, plant configuration, we are asking the
licensee or requiring the licensee to do some sort of a
broad review of that and to evaluate its root causes, and to
determine what things, if any, need to be done prior to
restart in that broad area.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: These observations, are they
being -- are they from and being documented in inspection
reports?
MR. MILLER: Yes, ma'am. They are all part of the
public record. A number of the things that I have talked
about are so recent that they haven't been documented yet
but they will be.
Just very briefly with respect to our view of the
licensee response which was submitted in December, on
December the 10th, you have heard yourself and you can make
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your own judgments about what was presented today.
At the broad level the plan does appear to address
the issues that were raised by the safety team.
It's really a mix of things, the plan is. It's
the sort of things that Mr. Flanagan and others were talking
about with respect to commitment of funds and a number of
initiatives to deal with organizational effectiveness
issues, teamwork, communications and that sort of thing.
It also includes a plan on specific equipment.
There are milestones and schedules for addressing equipment
problems on a several cycle basis, and this next refueling
outage for example will have them deal with the atmospheric
steam dump valve capacity issue which was a fairly
significant issue in the ISAT.
But importantly also it lays out the licensee
response to broad programmatic issues such as just the whole
question of testing and how they test the plant, the margins
improvement program, configuration management and the like.
What we find is that the details are somewhat
sketchy on some of these program issues. In fact, the issue
relating to design is something that the company has
deferred to their response to the 5054(f) letter that was
issued to all the licensees, and so at this point and
knowing -- I mean the devil of course is in the details and
so we are reserving judgment on much of what is being
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presented.
We expect to have meetings with the licensee. We
will be providing a response, written response, to the
licensee on the plan, but I am certain that it will say that
we will need additional meetings, but then perhaps even more
important than that in the inspection context as we go out
to the site and really dig into the details, it would only
be then that we will fully understand the scope and have
confidence that the schedules that they are on and their
plans are indeed comprehensive.
As I mentioned, on the one area of design we did
expand because we felt it important, even before restart to
have some sense, more detail than we have now, their
direction in that area. We felt it important to stipulate
that as a condition of restart.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: So you mentioned the one area.
Are you clarifying then those areas where you do feel that
you need the detail as well as some movement before their
proposed restart?
MR. MILLER: Yes, ma'am. I mean we have
identified four or five very specific things that we can say
right now are indeed issues for restart.
If there are other things that emerge through the
0350 process those things will be identified.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: And how many of them do you
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feel will be flushed out again? It's probably the same
situation before the enforcement conference that is slated
for March.
MR. MILLER: I don't have an answer for that one.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Okay.
MR. MILLER: I just really can't say.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: All right, okay.
MR. MILLER: If I go to future plans, which is the
next slide, there is the enforcement conference that the
Chairman just referred to. That's on the schedule for March
the 11th. That will focus on the safety and the technical
issues that came from the ISAT.
There are a number of matters that are under
investigation and that will not be included in that.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Will that be a public, an
open --
MR. MILLER: This will be a public enforcement
conference held in the area to permit the public to of
course observe the meeting.
Electrical issues. The slide was written over a
week ago. As I said, we have expanded a bit the scope of
the confirmatory action letter but, of course, we will be
conducting the reviews that are necessary prior to restart
and our having confidence that the company has addressed all
those issues that are required before restart.
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I expect that also that will involve some level of
public participation, most likely a public meeting. In
fact, the confirmatory action letter does require for them
to present results to us in a meeting that will certainly be
a public meeting.
Thinking and looking very long term, we of course
will be following up on all of the issues that have arisen.
There have been a number of conversations or discussions
here regarding the size of the backlog and the like and we
obviously cannot check the status and the resolution of
every item and so we have the resource limitation and
constraint that we have talked about here. So our effort
will be a risk-informed, smart-sampling approach and
fundamentally what we are looking for, of course, is there
in fact change with respect to problem identification, with
respect to the processes that the ISAT has pointed out as
being weak, in addition to checking to make sure that
specific items are, in fact, addressed.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Who is going to be doing this
risk-informed smart sampling?
MR. MILLER: Well, this is the regional inspection
force. An example of this kind of inspection is one that
begins next week. It is an inspection that involves, of
course, folks from the region, human factors specialists
from the program office. Of course, we have our -- the
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experts who are savvy on the IPEEE and that sort of thing,
the PRA, to help inform our judgments about what to look at.
But the inspection next week that begins, we will
be looking at the whole area of corrective actions. It's
just one inspection and I expect that, as I mentioned
earlier, will be a byproduct of all the inspections that we
will do.
We have other inspections that are planned in the
area of looking at ventilation issues, the electrical issues
that I have talked about, maintenance and so on. But a
thread running throughout all of those will be an assessment
of basic corrective action and the sampling that will be
done will always be informed of what the IPEEE is telling us
about what's important.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: I know you haven't completed
your review, according to this slide, of the Maine Yankee
response to the ISAT report but do you have any preliminary
assessment as to the sufficiency of Maine Yankee's response?
MR. MILLER: I would say, as I mentioned a moment
ago, and at the broad level, it covers all of the issues and
in some areas there is a lot of detail but in some areas,
such as in the area of design, design reviews, I mean, there
are all kinds of things that can be done and talked about
with respect to configuration management and it takes really
sitting down in a detailed meeting to understand does that
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involve critical slice --
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: So it is premature to give some
in-depth assessments?
MR. MILLER: I think it is on some of the broad
programmatic issues. With respect to the individual
equipment problems, I have mentioned commitment to fix the
atmospheric steam dump valve this coming fueling outage and
it is my impression, and the staff hasn't completed their
work but on those things the staff's first cut at it is that
those plans appear to be reasonable.
But we will be completing that review and having
something back to the company sometime in February.
MR. MIRAGLIA: In response to I believe it was
your question, Madam Chairman, relative to what do all of
these design issues mean and what's in the backlog and those
kinds of issues that were addressed to the utility, there is
indication that they are still looking at those kinds of
things. I think we need to have an understanding of how
they are going to approach that and how are they going to
say what's needed before restart, what can come later and
their basis for that and do we have agreement. That
dialogue is ongoing and some of it is yet to come.
MR. MILLER: Lastly, I am glad that Peter Wiley
and Uldis Vanags are at the table. But I think there was
good cooperation with the state throughout the whole ISAT.
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We continue to be in touch and close contact with the folks
from the state and we expect to continue that, not just here
in the near term as the plant resolves the issues that need
to be resolved before restart but over the longer run as we
gauge their performance.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Let me stop you for a second.
I mean, I am going to -- have you, one of you represents the
governor and the other is the state safety officer. Have
you been satisfied with your degree of involvement,
understanding of what we are doing and plans for how things
are being monitored going forward?
MR. WILEY: Yes, absolutely, Madam Chairman.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Could you say who you are?
MR. WILEY: I am the special projects director in
the governor's office. Uldis Vanags is our state nuclear
safety advisor.
We do not come today with any prepared statement
but I would be remiss if I did not pass along the governor's
appreciation for the collegiality, the consensus building
relationship that we have developed with the NRC throughout
this process.
We are here basically today not only to observe
but to send you the message that we support and we reaffirm
the process as it is going on.
I think just a couple of points first to pick up,
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Chairman, on an analogy you used earlier. I think the ISA
has put the significant threads on the table. As those
threads have been pulled, the process continues to work. We
have seen actual improvements on safety and beginning to
restore those margins.
Secondly, and probably from our perspective most
importantly, we do feel that we have formed from a
relationship that has had to, in the cauldron of events, if
you will, over the last 18 months has gone to a different
level. It is a relationship that we do feel has the best
interests of the citizens of Maine at heart. It has been a
difficult 18 months from the -- I work with the ISA. The
work of Ed Jordan, Alice Merschov and the others our
continued, our new and our continued relationship, I am
sure, in the future with Hub Miller. We do bring to you the
confidence that your process is working.
So we look forward to the continued opportunity to
do that. I will say that I hope the intensity and
frequency, however, of that does diminish somewhat over
time. But we just appreciate the opportunity to be here
today and to have been part of this process throughout the
last year-and-a-half.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Thank you. Mr. Vanags, do you
have any comments you wish to make at all?
MR. VANAGS: I will just say a few words. I think
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the cooperation we received has been exceptional. Being
part of the ISAT was personally a very valuable experience
for myself. I have never been through such a detailed
search of a nuclear power plant looking at problems that may
be embedded. It was quite an eye opener.
I would like to say that the professionalism and
the quality of the people on the team was outstanding. I
can't say enough about that. It says a lot for NRC.
To this date, if we just continue the cooperation,
it is working very well and I hope it continues. Maybe not
at this high a level, as Peter said, but I look forward to
continuing in our close cooperation and understanding the
issues and just working forward.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Thank you.
MR. MILLER: I guess just in closure I am an
inspector so I have to put this last slide out there.
Maine Yankee is in transition. Entergy is going
to assist but still the organization is in transition and
frankly is under some stress. We know that even when
proceeding on the best of intentions and having recognized
problems, it will be a struggle. So it bears close
watching, not just with respect to the design-related issues
but from an operational safety point of view.
Are they able to both deal with the problems that
have emerged and the investigations and in the
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investigations that will continue in the design arena but
will they be able to maintain their focus with respect to
operational safety.
Lastly, I have to say that judgments, final
judgments about whether there has been permanent and lasting
change, someone earlier talked about looking for a long-term
self-critical, sort of a self-sustaining approach to life
and making judgments about that is going to take some period
of observation.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: By that, do you mean hard
inspection?
MR. MILLER: Hard inspection and -- and some time,
not just --
MR. MIRAGLIA: I might observe it is a paraphrase
of your performance is as performance does, Madam Chairman.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Right.
MR. MIRAGLIA: And I think Mr. Flanagan has heard
it from a number of places within the agency and the staff
as well.
MR. THOMPSON: That completes our prepared
presentation and we would be pleased to respond to any
questions.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Commissioner Rogers?
COMMISSIONER ROGERS: No, I have no questions.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Commissioner Dicus,
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Commissioner Diaz, Commissioner McGaffigan?
COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN: Just one question. It
may lead into the next panel.
Implicit in Mr. Flanagan's comments earlier was --
you know, he's trying to do his job as chairman of the
company and he is reading the INPO and SALP reports and
basically 1.5 was the last SALP he had gotten.
Did we and perhaps others let him down in terms of
prior to this proceeding year in terms of the vigor of our
inspections? Does anybody want to comment on that?
MR. THOMPSON: I think I will turn here to my
right for that.
MR. MIRAGLIA: I think, in a number of instances,
Commissioner McGaffigan, every time we have something like
this the question is, what did we miss.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: And how did you miss it.
MR. MIRAGLIA: And how did we miss it and what is
the significance of it, not only to this plant but to our
program. As I indicated, the allegation that came forth in
December, we took action. That action was with respect to
Maine Yankee and we put -- what does it mean from a lessons
learned from a lessons learned and what can we learn from
those type of processes.
In addition, the ISAT looked at not only those
issues for this facility but what did it mean to the program
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and there were specific recommendations that we're
developing an action plan that is going to go to the EDO at
the end of the month.
So in terms of did we focus and see some of these
issues, I think it would be fair. The normal performance
indicators would tell you this plant was performing very,
very well.
Mr. Vanags indicated that perhaps there were some
embedded issues and we've looked deeper. We're pulling the
threads, as Mr. Wiley said and we have a process for
evaluating where we are, what does it mean to the continued
operation of this plant, what's the safety and risk
significance of that so we can make considered judgments in
a disciplined kind of way.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: And you are bringing forth the
lessons learned.
MR. MIRAGLIA: In addition to that, yes, not only
for Maine Yankee but in the broader sense as well.
MR. MILLER: If I could add, and this really goes
to the discussion we had last week on this, many of the
issues that have come forward are really issues that require
a -- I'll call it a deep vertical slice type of inspection
and they require a certain level of expertise and I think
that there has been a lot of discussion over how the NRC's
abilities in that area and what we have done over the past
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several years has been somewhat limited. And we have
supplemented the staff with some architectural engineering
help to begin to do these vertical slice inspections at all
of the plants and at some point virtually all of them will
have some sort of a safety system functional inspection to
use one technique performed on it.
So part of it is that. Part of it is that we were
not, as a routine, looking as deeply as the ISAT did with
the large team and the kind of expertise that was there, but
not all of it. I mean, there are other lessons to be
learned and we are about learning those.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Okay.
MR. MIRAGLIA: Madam Chairman, you had a question
for the staff early on that we haven't address and it's in
terms of Entergy and what it might mean to potential
licensing activities.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Thank you. That's correct.
MR. MIRAGLIA: In brief, we have indicated to the
company at various levels that this is important to us
because it does have potential significance in terms to our
license and amendments and we need to know the extent and
scope for us to fully understand it to determine whether
there are licensing matters to be dealt with.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: But the point you are making to
me is that that is something that you intend to specifically
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review?
MR. MIRAGLIA: We have to understand in each case
where are they and what's the implication to that and I
think the company understands that. They are in a
developing kind of relationship and at the appropriate time
we will sit down and discuss it, their staff with our staff,
to determine what implications are to the licensing.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Because this has some larger
implications, not just with respect to this particular
licensee but as the industry itself is restructuring and
working out various arrangements, when you feel that you
have gleaned what issues there may be within licensing space
with respect to this licensee, it would be, I think, helpful
for you to propagate that solution.
MR. MIRAGLIA: We are looking --
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Because I think that will
inform our process in terms of what we need to do relative
to the various changes.
MR. MIRAGLIA: We are looking at this issue in the
context of that overall plan as well.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Commissioner Dicus, did you
have a comment you wanted to make?
COMMISSIONER DICUS: I think Mr. Miller partially
addressed it but maybe I'll go ahead and make that comment
or ask my question.
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In light of the fact, if we were to pick a plant
at random, a fairly good performer or average performer, and
do the kind of look that we are doing at Maine Yankee and
others, are we going to find similar problems?
MR. MIRAGLIA: I think the answer would have to be
our expectation is that issues would be identified. It is
the question of pervasiveness, degree, significance and
these kind of things. The issues, I think it would be naive
to say that we would not identify issues and problems.
The regulatory program is a process and I think
the context is that when these discrepancies, weaknesses,
deficiencies are identified, they need to be looked at and
examined as to what did they mean in and of themselves, what
did they mean in the broader context for that facility and
it is an ongoing, evolving type of process.
The design basis reconstitution was an issue that
was addressed and looked at by the Commission in '92. The
policy statement was there. It has been a longstanding
understanding that that's licensee's responsibility. We
need to go out and make sure they are fulfilling those
responsibilities.
I think the processes are in place. I think the
50.54(f) letter in that is part of our processes. So I
think we are responding to what we find and I think we have
to deal with these issues as they are identified in terms of
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number, significance and corrective actions as mandated by
the regulatory process.
MR. MILLER: Let me just add, in selecting who is
next to be the subject of these safety system functional
inspections, we have tried to pick those plants that when
you look at the processes like problem identification and
the like, where would we most likely next find it? So what
you might see is as things emerge, we are going after those
plants that -- I believe this is how we are selecting
them -- which ones would, if you were to say, might have
problems, go after those first.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: I guess my only question to you
is the 50.54(f) letter is a particular -- will provide a
particular snapshot in time and I think, as I have been
told, you know, the Commission has gone on record in terms
of its position in the past with respect to the importance
of these design basis issues and our expectation was that
licensees would be addressing them and we had stepped back
from doing the design basis inspections.
So the question becomes, once we have the 50.54(f)
responses and we use what we glean from those responses as a
basis for going out and taking these deeper looks in cases
where it seems to be warranted, then we've done that. The
question is, what is the going forward approach? Are we
going to have a heightened sensitivity in looking at the
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engineering area, particularly as it relates to operability
of key systems and use that as a basis to give us a heads up
as to where we may need to take a deeper look at some point
down the line? The real question is how do you keep a
handle on the overall envelope here without going overboard?
MR. MIRAGLIA: I think the answer to all pieces of
that question is, yes, we are looking at those aspects and
how do we redirect the inspection program to make sure that
we are testing that process. In terms of what may need to
be done in addition to that process, I think we need to see
what some of the results are.
We've done three architect engineering inspections
to date. The reports are in the process of being written.
I think we have had the exits on all three facilities. They
have found some issues, some more significant than others
and I think the results will be informative and instructive
to us as well as to the following steps. I think we have
engaged in the process and I think we need to keep moving
down the line.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: I think Commissioner Diaz has a
question.
COMMISSIONER DIAZ: Just a final thing, I heard it
three times and when something is three times, it racks my
brain. You said twice, Mr. Miller, and once, Mr. Miraglia,
that safety system function inspections are essentially at
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the core of this. Is that correct?
MR. MILLER: I think it's one of the more
penetrating kind of inspections that we do. And it is
principally because of the level of expertise that we tapped
to perform --
COMMISSIONER DIAZ: Commendable.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Mr. Thompson.
MR. THOMPSON: Although we are focusing new
attention to the aspect of design and engineering design,
that's not to say we don't focus also on operational safety.
So it's a balance we have to do. We have to obviously work
within our resources but obviously it is -- we look where
the risk-informed aspect is and that's what Hub was saying
earlier, that we will make smart decisions and we will try
to do that as best we can and, likewise, we will give
attention to operating plans that need attention to
operating plans, as you well know.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: As we well know.
Thank you very much.
We have four members of the public from whom we
will hear in turn who will go to the podium. Okay, thank
you, each for five minutes.
We will first hear from Mr. David Lochbaum of the
Union of Concerned Scientists.
MR. LOCHBAUM: Thank you. Good afternoon. I am
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David Lochbaum, Nuclear Safety Engineer for the Union of
Concerned Scientists.
I came here today for two reasons, to convey two
points, the first point being that the Independent Safety
Assessment Team's conclusions reached at Maine Yankee
regarding its primary objective are not supported by its own
findings.
The second point is that the ISAT was absolutely
wrong to use the SALP evaluation criteria in its assessment.
Slide 2, please.
Regarding the first point I would like to make
today, quoting the ISAT report, the overall goals of the
Independent Safety Assessment were "to independently assess
the conformance of Maine Yankee to its design and licensing
basis."
The ISAT report concluded that Maine Yankee was in
general conformance with its licensing basis, although
significant items of nonconformance were identified, and
also that despite uncorrected and previously undiscovered
design problems the design basis and compensatory measures
adequately supported plant operation at a power level of
2440 megawatts thermal.
Maine Yankee had not operated -- had been operated
to operate above 2440 since June of 1978 so it wasn't part
of its current licensing basis to operate at only 90
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percent.
Slide 3.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Repeat that statement.
MR. LOCHBAUM: It wasn't part of its current
licensing basis to operate at 2440. The ISAT should have
focused at was it safe to operate at 2700. That was its
current licensing basis.
On Slide 3 the ISAT documented numerous changes or
numerous problems that resulted in physical plant changes at
Maine Yankee, those that have already been made and those
that are scheduled.
Examples are the thermal release that required a
plant shutdown last summer, the EQ components that are being
relocated to keep them below the water -- or keep them above
the water level inside containment; spray building dampers
were blocked open and 15 feet of missing circuitry were
replaced on a safety pump.
The ISAT conducted this evaluation using two
vertical slice reviews, two deep vertical slice reviews of
two safety systems and vertical slice reviews to a lesser
degree of two other safety systems. There are far more than
four safety systems at Maine Yankee.
Maine Yankee is currently shut down under a
Confirmatory Action Letter to correct numerous safety
problems.
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CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Let me ask you, what is your
message with respect to the fact that there are many systems
with safety functions?
MR. LOCHBAUM: Well, it gets to a point I'm making
later is that going in and doing a sampling of four systems,
finding problems in all four systems, and then concluding
that everything else is okay just doesn't seem appropriate
and it doesn't seem to be supported by the ISAT's own
findings.
If you do a sampling and everything you looked at
is problematic, I don't see how you can conclude that the
other 36 systems were okay.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Okay.
MR. LOCHBAUM: Slide 4. The NRC still refuses to
permit Maine Yankee to operate at 100 percent power, which
is its current licensing basis due to insufficient cooling
water, inadequate suction pressure for the containment spray
pumps. That licensing basis has been in effect for 17.5
years.
The ISAT's charter was to determine if Maine
Yankee was in compliance with its design and licensing
basis, not to determine if Maine Yankee could fix those
things that the NRC brought to their attention or if Maine
Yankee could operate safety at some fraction of its license
power level.
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Slide 5. The ISAT's conclusions reflect at best
the condition of only the four safety systems evaluated, not
the other 36 some-odd safety systems.
In my opinion, it is extremely poor judgment to
conclude that these systems satisfy their design or
licensing basis at the time of the ISAT, not afterwards but
at the time the ISAT arrived on site.
It is even worse judgment to conclude that the
remaining safety systems at Maine Yankee conform with their
licensing basis based on the results from this sampling
exercise.
If I get pulled over for speeding coming up here
today, I couldn't have hoped to avoid getting a ticket by
showing the officer my speedometer is now reading zero
unless it's an NRC cop.
Slide 6. According to the ISAT -- this is the
second point where we contend that it was absolutely wrong
for the ISAT to use the SALP criteria.
Quoting from the ISAT report, "The assessment
relied on existing NRC benchmarks for assessing performance
utilized in the NRC Systematic Assessment of License
Performance program, SALP.
During the December 16th Commission briefing on
SALP and inspection programs, the Staff stated that the
reason for not have an Unacceptable SALP category is that
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the SALP lags the reporting period and that any necessary
corrections will be made prior to the time of the SALP.
We have no argument with that.
Slide 7.
However, the ISAT's charter was completely
different. It was to determine plant safety status at that
moment, not six months or 18 months previously but at that
moment. Therefore, it was wrong for the Staff to use the
SALP scoring system for such an inspection.
Unlike SALP an Unacceptable score for such an
inspection is extremely necessary, especially when
warranted. In fact, not to have an Unacceptable score for
such an inspection makes the whole effort unnecessary. Why
bother looking when the answer must be Acceptable?
In addition in conclusion the use of the SALP
scoring system corrupts the NRC's enforcement action
process.
We find it difficult to see how the NRC could turn
around and fine take civil penalties against the licensees
for behavior it finds acceptable.
Thank you for listening and considering these
remarks.
Do you have any questions?
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Commissioner Rogers, do you
have any questions?
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COMMISSIONER ROGERS: No.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Commissioner Dicus?
COMMISSIONER DICUS: No.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Diaz?
COMMISSIONER DIAZ: No.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: McGaffigan?
COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN: I would like to at least
just note commendation for UCS playing the role it did in
December of 1995, if you are the person to thank --
MR. LOCHBAUM: No, it's the organization.
COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN: The organization?
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: It's his predecessor.
COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN: Your predecessor. I do
think that obviously helped us get into the situation where
we were taking very deep looks at the facility.
MR. LOCHBAUM: I was going to appreciate that --
or acknowledge the appreciation for it but I would also like
to point out that we didn't send the allegations to the NRC.
We sent them to the State of Maine because we thought the
State of Maine was more concerned about getting the result,
the concerns resolved, so we didn't send them to the NRC.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: It's okay. You raised the
issue and that is the point the Commissioner is trying to
make.
MR. LOCHBAUM: Thank you.
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CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Thank you very much. Mr.
Linnell, who is a Town Councilman from Cape Elizabeth,
Maine.
MR. LINNELL: Chairman Jackson, members of the
Commission, ladies and gentlemen, my name is Bill Linnell.
I am a Town Councilor from Cape Elizabeth. I am the
spokesman for both the oldest nuclear watchdog group in the
state of Maine, Committee for a Safe Energy Future, although
you'll see on the letterhead we have shortened our name to
Maine Safe Energy.
I am also the spokesperson for Cheaper, Safer
Power, which you will hear about in days ahead. It is
formed with the specific intention of shutting down the
nuclear plant, and I need to just tell you that in terms of
full disclosure -- in the interest of full disclosure.
One thing I have just heard today, it sounds to me
like the contract with Entergy is not yet signed and so that
is still on the drawing board as I understand it, and that
is just a comment.
If I could have the first slide.
I think one of the issues we have to look at is
has Maine Yankee credibility been a problem?
Everyone in this room is aware of the problems
which the anonymous letter brought into the open, and what
you see on the overhead is the official company response to
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the anonymous letter, and I just think that we should not
forget what the company had to say about that.
Furthermore, I was surprised to hear today that
dealing with the steam generators was mentioned as a
proactive approach to dealing with problems at the plant.
If you look back in your files to 1990, December 17th, when
Maine Yankee had a steam generator tube rupture, you'll see
or at least the press releases were that it was a small
leak.
In fact, it rose to over a 2000 gallon a day leak
rate by the time they got the plant shut down.
I went to several of the presentations on steam
generators in Washington, so forth, when they were wrestling
with this issue and I encourage you to go back and look at
the files and I think you will see that the biggest problem
they ever had with the steam generators was not in their
presentations. When they were talking about the history of
steam generator problems at Maine Yankee it was noticeably
absent and it took me about three years to find out what I
have just told you.
Next slide, please.
The ISAT report identified economic pressures, the
first of two root causes of safety problems at Maine Yankee.
We have touched on that already to some degree. Next slide,
please.
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As we have already heard today the ISAT report
further identified the lack of retained earnings as the
cause of economics at Maine Yankee. In other words, the NRC
Staff concluded that Maine Yankee owners were taking the
profits away from the company, not leaving Maine Yankee
enough earnings to run and maintain the plant properly.
Next slide, please.
The Commissioners will perhaps recall their
October 18th discussion in which Commissioner McGaffigan
attributed the first root cause, economic pressure, to the
retained earnings issue, stating that it must come from
pressure from the owners. I certainly agree with that.
Slide 5, please.
Maine Yankee disagrees strongly with the cause of
the first root cause and has been touched on already today
the company response now is that the actual limiting factor
was management's funding requests. I'll wait to see how
you, what ultimately your decision is on that, but I find
that really hard to believe, that there wasn't some pressure
from management.
Number 6, please.
I call TMI Action Plan Items II.K.3.30 and 31 the
"mother and father of all work-arounds." Operator
work-arounds have been appropriately identified as chronic
problems, yet Maine Yankee has been allowed to work around
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these critical TMI Action Plan items, II.K.3.30 and 31.
Meanwhile, the NRC has not produced the analysis
to justify operation of Maine Yankee at any power level. I
have heard again today the bounding argument and I have
heard this -- this was explained to me by Bob Pollard and
others -- Henry Myers you have gotten a lot of literature
from -- he is a physicist also.
What they explained to me is that the assumption
that a small pipe break is covered by the large pipe break
analysis is simply wrong. They tell me you just can't do
it. I just will leave that up to you. You know better than
I.
Next slide, please.
What I would like to point out is I see it's very
difficult for the NRC to expect licensees to follow NRC
regulations to avoid work-around conditions if the
Commissioners allow the biggest work-arounds of them all to
continue. Thank you. Next slide.
I think now we all have to consider is Maine
Yankee's owners' credibility an issue. I encourage you to
ask them what replacement power costs, or what they pay for
it when Maine Yankee is shut down.
Maine Yankee's owners have been leading the public
to believe that replacement power is more costly than Maine
Yankee power. In truth, Maine Yankee power is now about 50
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percent more expensive than replacement power. CMP has been
saving over $2 million a month on replacement power
purchases.
They have been doing some interesting math at
Maine Yankee and at Central Maine Power. Apparently they
are adding their overhead costs to what they say the are
paying for replacement power. If they are willing to
deceive the public, I wonder why the NRC or anyone else
should trust them. Next slide, please.
Conclusions -- Maine Yankee's owners' excuse for
inadequate funding is simply not believable.
Number two, if the NRC intends to deal with the
first root cause of economic stress, the NRC must act
decisively and forcefully on the retained earnings issue. I
think the fact that the Chamber of Commerce is here to speak
today at a safety meeting demonstrates the degree to which
economics has negatively impacted safety. Slide 10, please.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: I thought there were 9 slides.
MR. LINNELL: Should be 10.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Okay, go ahead. How many
slides do you intend --
MR. LINNELL: This is the last one, number 10.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Okay.
MR. LINNELL: It's the second one entitled
"Conclusions."
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The NRC must set a reasonable example by not
allowing Maine Yankee to restart without complete resolving
safety violations nearly two decades old.
Finally, the first root cause of safety problems
at Maine Yankee, economic pressure, is very likely to
increase because replacement power is cheaper. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Thank you.
MR. LINNELL: Any questions?
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Mr. Rogers, do you have any
questions?
COMMISSIONER ROGERS: No, I don't.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Commissioner Dicus?
COMMISSIONER DICUS: No.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Commissioner Diaz?
COMMISSIONER DIAZ: No questions.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Commissioner McGaffigan.
COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN: Let me just ask the
obvious question.
You heard Mr. Flanagan earlier today talk about
the additional resources he is putting in and the additional
resources he says the Board is willing to put in for some
very sustained period of time. I don't remember his exact
words but it was something along those lines.
Did that change your opinion in any way?
MR. LINNELL: Not really, because they certainly
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need, with all the attention that's on them, they certainly
need to throw some money at the problem and they say they
are committing $30 million or so to the issue.
There's no requirement, there is nothing in
writing that says they are going to spend $50 million next
year, $30 million the following year, and so on. I think it
strikes me as sort of a confession on the courthouse steps.
Then I'd return to the issue -- we can buy, there
are about 20 sources of power available to the New England
Electricity Grid which are cheaper than Maine Yankee. The
more they spend, the more desperate their economic situation
may become.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: You were talking about their
adding two figures together that shouldn't be added. What
were they?
MR. LINNELL: Right. Most of this is their
message to the public. When asked what they pay -- for
example, they will tell the public, well, we have got to get
that plant back on line because we are paying a thousand
dollars -- I'm sorry, a million dollars a week for
replacement power.
Well, that is half the truth. The other half of
the truth is that if Maine Yankee were on line today they
would paying about $1.5 million a week for replacement
power, and apparently when I have engaged them in
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conversation they explained to me that they are taking Maine
Yankee's fixed and I would submit uncontrollable costs and
adding them to the cost of replacement power when they talk
about the cost of replacement power.
But what they actually pay for replacement power
on the market is significantly cheaper now than Maine Yankee
power and that is a bigger reason why we are moving forward
with a referendum, because we believe their economic issue
has a lot of holes in it.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: So what is the fundamental
point that you want to make with us today or that you are
asking the Commission to address?
MR. LINNELL: I am asking the Commission not to let
the plant restart until the plant is significantly in compliance
with NRC regulations.
I am asking that the other 36 systems be looked at
and I won't repeat what Dave Lochbaum said.
I'd point out that even if Entergy came in and
worked for free for Maine Yankee that would not change the
fact that replacement power is cheaper.
I do have a question which I didn't write down. I
want to, at some point I would like to know an estimate from
the NRC what the cost of the added oversight, the being on
the Watch List, and those inspections, just a rough idea at
some point what that might be.
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I am assuming that is passed on to the licensee.
Thank you.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Thank you. Mr. Raymond Shadis,
with the Friends of the Coast.
MR. SHANDIS: Chairman Jackson, Commissioners,
good morning to you. You have my admiration for your
stamina in being able to sit this long. I am, frankly, very
much relieved to get up out of that chair. If you would
like to stretch and take part of --
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: I think the best thing we can
do is to move along.
MR. SHANDIS: Okay.
I have been asked by the 400 members of Friends of
the Coast Opposing Nuclear Pollution, most of whom reside
within the plant evacuation area, to present their
sentiments, citizen sentiments, to you, the government. I
hope that in your busy schedules you have had a chance to
read our written submissions.
I must tell you that we found a number of
typographical errors in the submission that was sent by mail
and we have placed a corrected copy with some small
amendments at your places at the table.
In the additions, we have included some additional
material on reactor embrittlement and on the condition of
welds in the primary piping, primary side.
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I want to introduce you to our attorney who is
with me today, Mr. Jon Block. He is seated right here to my
right and if any legal questions arise during our
conversation today, I hope you will ask him.
We are not here to deliver a lecture. We have
submitted detailed written submittals, both the citizen
critique of the ISAT and our comments in response to the
ISAT.
Our comments in response to the ISAT are
essentially a call to action. We have listed six different
items, two of which are solidly in the examination and
safety area, the other four, which are also safety related,
which are four items relating to the dissemination of
information to sharing information.
I was reminded in looking at the form here today
of the cry that came out of the social justice movement of
the '60s. We, too, would like a place at the table.
This is a very fluid situation and it has put me
in the position of extemporanizing today. It is a fluid
situation because a few weeks ago we would have been asking
you to put Maine Yankee on the watch list and we would have
met that obligation with the same kind of trepidation that I
feel today in trying to ask the Commission to go from the
very laudable step of examining Maine Yankee with the ISAT
to the next step, which is to finish that examination, to
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the next step which is to act on the findings of that
finished examination.
The ISAT prospected through Maine Yankee. I like
their analogy that they did a vertical slice and a
horizontal slice. They certainly did. And old-time
prospectors did very much the same thing, cut down through a
hillside, cut into the hillside, get an idea of what's in
there. That assay said that there are design problems at
Maine Yankee. Now, the task remains to find out what is in
the rest of the mountain.
I want to tell you that Maine Yankee's association
with Yankee Atomic Electric is one of the primary causes of
the problems in the ISAT. The ISAT identified two, as I
recall. One is an attitudinal thing and the other thing had
to do with the allocation of resources. But the third
problem leading to Maine Yankee's troubles was their
intimate bond with Yankee Atomic Electric, a confusion over
who held the license.
We had the CEOs of both companies testifying
before an NRC meeting, I believe in this very building, on
July 30 at which they issued conflicting statements about
who held the license for the first eight years. We have
included excerpts from that transcript in the material we
submitted to you.
They testified, some of the same officers who were
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here today, that there was a confusion of shifting
information, intermeshing at the interstices of the two
companies so that responsibilities were lost in track in
passing from one company to the other. Accountability was
lost in track.
Yankee Atomic Electric ought to be a deep concern
for this Commission. It has left a trail of devastation
across all the power plants of New England. You are now
concerned with the Pilgrim plant has some problems, Haddam
Neck has some problems, Millstone has some problems, Maine
Yankee has some problems. And if you pry up that rock, you
are going to find underneath it Yankee Atomic Electric and
their involvement as a hot-shot consulting company.
Now Maine Yankee has proposed to bring in some
other hot shots. They are going to bring in some
consultants from down south. I think they used to be called
Mid-South Utilities, if I am not mistaken. Fine. Can they
handle it, is the question.
In the meantime, the plant is shut down. The
owners are expending something on the order of $24 million a
month on the work while it is being shut down. I think CMP
said their share was 9 million, they own 38 percent. Let me
figure that backwards, about 24 million.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Mr. Shadis, you have
approximately one minute.
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MR. SHADIS: Thank you for that warning. You
could tell I was getting wound up and might carry on for a
while.
Okay.
Now you have the golden opportunity. Maine Yankee
is safer than it has been in a long time because it is shut
down. The reactor vessel head is off. Now is the time to
examine the faulty welds in the primary piping. NRC ought
to do it with contractors, not rely on the sworn testimony
of a company whose sworn testimony has proven faulty in the
past.
NRC ought to go in and take a look at the --
revisit the reactor embrittlement issue with Maine Yankee
because they depended on Maine Yankee analysis and Yankee
Atomic Electric analysis for the results on that issue.
NRC ought to do a thorough -- what we call a
global examination of Maine Yankee. There have been faulty
fasteners, there have been faulty welds. We had a steam
line break. The issues have been raised before. And I just
want to point this out to you and I'm done, if you'll allow
me.
May I?
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Make your final point, please.
MR. SHADIS: Thank you, ma'am.
This, 600 pages worth, is a Franklin Institute
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report done for the NRC, is a review of licensee's
resolution of outstanding issues from NRC equipment,
environmental qualification, safety evaluation reports. It
was done in 1983. It raises submergent issues, it raises
issues of the high-energy line break scenarios that were
also raised by the ISAT.
I want to commend the ISAT for compressing a
thorough -- we called it the world's largest, most extensive
examination of a nuclear power plant anywhere in the
world -- into a document this thick when one phenomenon and
two items got compressed into 600 pages years ago. I
believe it shows we are making progress.
Thank you very much.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Thank you.
Commissioner Rogers?
COMMISSIONER ROGERS: No questions.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Commissioner Dicus.
COMMISSIONER DICUS: No questions.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Commissioner Diaz?
COMMISSIONER DIAZ: No questions.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Commissioner McGaffigan.
COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN: No questions.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Mr. Connors from the chamber of
commerce. Thank you.
MR. CONNORS: Thank you very much.
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Chairman Jackson, Commission members, my name is
Dana Connors and it is a pleasure for me to have the
opportunity to appear before you today.
First of all, to have the opportunity to listen
and learn, it has been very instructive and I only wish that
more had the opportunity to avail themselves of this
occasion. I also thank you for the opportunity to appear to
present testimony.
I appear today as president of the Maine Chamber
and Business Alliance, Maine's largest business
organization. Our non-profit organization represents
approximately 1,000 businesses across the state of Maine
from the largest employers to the individual entrepreneurs.
We are financed entirely by dues and contributions
from private companies and for more than 20 years our
organization has supported the Maine Yankee nuclear facility
in Wiscasset, Maine.
I am pleased to appear before you today to once
again voice our support for an important economic and energy
asset in Maine. Since 1972, Maine Yankee has provided
roughly one-quarter of Maine's electricity at one of the
lowest available costs. During the plant's 25 years of
operation, its safety record has ranked it among industry
leaders, the fact which Maine citizens have come to both
rely upon and appreciate.
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In addition to the low-cost electricity that the
plant continues to provide, Maine Yankee employs over 500
Maine citizens with a 1996 payroll of $30 million.
Last year, the corporation purchased more than $30
million in state and local taxes and fees and goods and
services. As you can see, the plant represents an important
part of the state's economy and its continued operation will
mean much to Maine's overall economic health.
The environmental benefits of nuclear power are
well known to the Commission. They only observe that the
business community in Maine has made every effort to
successfully meet the requirements of the Federal Clean Air
Act Amendments of 1990. Generation of electricity that
Maine Yankee provides our state with a source of electricity
that does not add greenhouse gases to Maine's air and
generates significantly fewer ozone causing pollutants than
comparable fossil fuel electric generation alternatives.
At a time when the state may be facing additional
clean air mandates as a result of new ambient air quality
standards, continued operation of Maine Yankee allows us to
meet our federal clean air environmental obligations into
the next century as well.
I am here today because Maine citizens are
concerned about the future of Maine Yankee. As you well
know, the people of Maine have voted in three referenda over
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the past two decades, each time supporting continued
operation of the plant in the face of a vocal minority to
shut Maine Yankee down. Indeed, a January 24, 1997, public
opinion poll by the Portland Press Herald found that 54
percent of Maine people oppose an early shutdown of Maine
Yankee despite the fact that the plant's operating problems
have been in the news almost continuously over the past
several months.
I believe that Maine people continue to support
Maine Yankee while at the same time holding the plant to the
highest operating and safety standards. I repeat, holding
the plant to the highest operating and safety standards.
In that regard, recently you have placed the Maine
Yankee facility on your watch list. I understand from press
reports and certainly it has been confirmed here today that
watch list designation will require and will mean even
greater regulatory scrutiny of Maine Yankee in the months
and years ahead.
We welcome your efforts and we believe them to be
fully consonant with the desire of Maine people and the
Maine business community for safe, efficient and a well-run
nuclear plant in Wiscasset. We also view the watch list
designation as an opportunity for the plant's new operators
to work in even closer cooperation with yourselves and your
staff to guarantee that Maine Yankee will provide low-cost
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electricity and economic stability for Maine into the next
century.
Two paths lie before us in the next 10 years,
along one, a vocal minority of nuclear power opponents may
succeed in shutting down Maine Yankee prematurely. Our
organization is committed to do whatever we can in
conjunction with the Maine business community and the
majority of Maine citizens to oppose this outcome.
The other path before us leads to a difficult
period of increased regulatory scrutiny but emerges in the
years ahead with a Maine Yankee facility that leads the
nation in the safe and efficient operation of the nuclear
facility in Wiscasset. On this path, Maine's investment in
Maine Yankee is allowed to fully deliver its returns without
any compromise in safety or efficiency.
We believe that people of Maine support Maine
Yankee. We believe that this Commission is appropriately
engaged in the process of ensuring that operation of Maine
Yankee will be among the safest nuclear power plants in
America and we look forward to a day when the plant will be
removed from the watch list and will continue to produce
low-cost power to Maine citizens and Maine businesses for
years to come.
Undoubtedly, some opponents of nuclear power will
never be satisfied with the safety or continued operation of
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the Wiscasset facility. However, Maine's business community
and, I believe, the majority of Maine's citizens feel
otherwise.
We look forward to supporting this Commission's
work with Maine Yankee, Entergy, its new operators, and the
more than 500 employees of the facility as you all work
together to ensure a safe and secure nuclear energy future
for Maine.
I thank you for the opportunity to appear before
you today. I thank you for listening. I hope I have
conveyed a sense of the importance that Maine Yankee has to
the businesses, the people and the economy of Maine and the
faith that we have in the problems being able to be fixed
and that our future will be secure. And the faith that we
have, particularly in listening today, of the ability for
all of you to work together to make that happen.
Thank you once again.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Thank you very much.
Commissioner Rogers?
COMMISSIONER ROGERS: No questions.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Commissioner Dicus?
COMMISSIONER DICUS: No questions.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Commissioner Diaz?
COMMISSIONER DIAZ: Just a quick comment. I think
that it is important that we establish a little more clarity
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sometimes when we communicate to the public. I was
concerned with slide number two from Mr. Lochbaum in the way
that --
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Do you have any questions?
COMMISSIONER DIAZ: I'm sorry.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: So he's not standing there.
COMMISSIONER DIAZ: I thought we were finished.
I'm sorry.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Okay.
Thank you very much.
Go on.
COMMISSIONER DIAZ: I'm sorry.
I was drawn back to slide number two from
Mr. Lochbaum's presentation. Let me read quickly on it. It
says, despite uncorrected and previously undiscovered design
problems, the design basis and compensatory measures
adequately supported the plant to operate at a power level
of 2440 megawatts.
In the staff presentation in slide number three,
it clearly says the staff has concluded that operation is
permitted under this order and poses no undue risk to public
health and safety. I see there is a problem in here. I
think that the staff make a very good, informed decision on
an issue, they studied it thoroughly. I don't think anybody
has any problems, at least I don't, with the ISAT level of
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scrutiny and the way that they look at it.
But when it was presented, it was trying to
provide information so detailed that, in doing so, it
actually confused the issue. And this statement concludes,
operations as permitted under the order poses no undue risk
to public health and safety, is what the staff was really
concluding and trying to say.
I have tremendous trust in the capability of the
American public to catch what is the significant issue. I
think we should state clearly what our position is and then
whatever additional information is needed to support it.
But this dichotomy needs to be, I think, finished. We need
to really state it properly.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: On behalf of the Commission, I
would like to thank the licensee, the NRC staff, for
briefing the Commission on the status of actions regarding
the Maine Yankee plant. This has been a long Commission
meeting. In addition, the Commission values the public
views and does appreciate the time sacrifice and the
comments of those who attended today.
To make sure that your views are thoroughly
considered, my understanding is that they are already being
addressed, the Commission looks forward to hearing from the
staff with respect to any particular safety issues that have
been raised in the comments today.
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As an aside, I met with the governor of Maine last
week and he continues to express his interest in matters
affecting the Maine Yankee site. We briefly discussed the
status of the plant, that it is shut down and requires,
under a confirmatory action letter, certain corrective
actions prior to restart.
We also discussed the recent addition of Maine
Yankee to the NRC's list of facilities requiring increased
attention, the watch list.
To Maine Yankee and the NRC staff, you have
presented summaries of the root causes, issues and
corrective action plans relating to the various deficiencies
existing at Maine Yankee and this has helped to clarify the
picture for the Commission on how the plant declined to its
current level of performance. The Commission will continue
to follow closely the regulatory activities and actions
related to Maine Yankee. Much work needs to be done by the
licensee as well as by the staff in addressing the
corrective actions and verifying their acceptability.
To detect clearly any similar degradations at
other facilities, the Commission has asked the staff to
identify measures that can help decide where economic stress
may be impacting safety and as one aspect of this emphasis,
the Commission has recently approved for public comment a
paper entitled Establishing and Maintaining a Safety
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Conscious Work Environment. The paper addresses
cost-cutting measures at the expense of safety
considerations. This paper should be out for public comment
shortly and the Commission encourages comments.
If none of my fellow commissioners have any
additional comments, we are adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:59 p.m., the meeting was
concluded.]
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