NRC TO DISCUSS RESULTS OF SAFETY CONSCIOUS
WORK ENVIRONMENT INSPECTION AT PEACH BOTTOM
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Nuclear Regulatory Commission officials will meet with Exelon Generation Co. representatives on Tuesday, April 15, to discuss the results of a “safety conscious work environment” inspection conducted at Peach Bottom. The plant, operated by Exelon, is located in Delta, Pa.

Following the discussion of the NRC inspection findings, Exelon will discuss the status of the “safety conscious work environment” surveys it plans to conduct at its nine other operating reactor sites. The meeting will begin at 5:30 p.m. at the Peach Bottom Inn, 6085 Delta Road, in Delta, Pa. The meeting is open to the public for observation. The public will have the opportunity to communicate with the NRC staff after the business portion of the meeting.

The inspection was conducted by six NRC inspectors during the week of March 24th. The NRC requires that NRC license-holders maintain an environment in which safety issues are promptly identified and effectively resolved and employees feel free to raise safety concerns.

In late September, the NRC sent an Augmented Inspection Team to Peach Bottom to look into assertions that security officers were inattentive while on duty at the plant. Through that inspection, the NRC confirmed there had been multiple occasions on which some security officers were inattentive. A follow-up inspection in November determined that Exelon and Wackenhut, which was then the plant’s contract security provider but has since been replaced by an in-house security force, missed opportunities to identify such behavior via the behavioral observation program. However, due to the defense-in-depth nature of security at the site, the NRC determined that the plant’s security program was not significantly degraded as a result.

In October, the NRC issued a Confirmatory Action Letter (CAL) to ensure continued security plan effectiveness. In the CAL, Exelon committed to take a number of additional steps to address the inattentiveness issue and to monitor the transition from a contract to an Exelon guard force. Exelon also committed to conduct safety conscious work environment surveys of its security guard force at all of its sites.

Under the NRC's reactor oversight program, a plant's performance determines the level of inspection conducted at the site. To provide additional oversight, the agency can decide to deviate from the process and conduct further inspections, etc., when warranted by the given situation. Any such plans are proposed in a memo, called a “deviation memo.”  In this case, on Nov. 28, the agency’s Executive Director for Operations, Luis Reyes, approved additional NRC oversight to assess Peach Bottom security performance. An inspection of the safety conscious work environment at Peach Bottom was among the additional activities the NRC listed in the memo because the behavior and interactions within the security organization did not encourage the free flow of information related to raising safety issues.

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Thursday, April 10, 2008