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	NRC NEWS U. S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION OFFICE OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS, REGION III 801 Warrenville Road, Lisle IL 60532
	CONTACT:	Jan Strasma (630) 829-9663/e-mail: rjs2@nrc.gov
		Angela Dauginas (630) 829-9662/e-mail: opa3@nrc.gov

NEWS ANNOUNCEMENT: RIII-97-09 January 29, 1997

The Palisades Nuclear Power Plant, operated by Consumers Power Co., has received performance ratings of "good" in operations, maintenance, engineering, and plant support, the four areas of review in the Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff's latest Systematic Assessment of Licensee Performance (SALP) report for the facility. The plant is located near Covert, Michigan.

The assessment covers the period from May 28, 1995, through November 23 of last year.

The NRC staff and Consumers Power officials will discuss the evaluation during a meeting set for 10 a.m. EST on February 7 at Lake Michigan College, Upton 101-102, Benton Harbor, Michigan.. The meeting will be open to public observation. NRC officials will be available afterwards to speak with reporters, state and local officials, and members of the public.

NRC SALP reports rate utilities in four functional areas -- plant operations, maintenance, engineering, and plant support -- and assign ratings of Category 1, 2, or 3 depending on whether their performance in those areas is superior, good or acceptable. The report on Palisades gives the plant a "Category 2" rating -- indicating good performance -- in operations, maintenance, engineering, and plant support.

NRC Regional Administrator A. Bill Beach, in a letter to the utility, said that the utility's performance at Palisades was good during the assessment period with no change in the ratings from the previous assessment period.

"Initiatives to further improve performance in all areas were evident in this period," he said. "However, the rate of performance improvement lessened considerably [from the previous period], particularly in the area of plant operations."

He concluded, "In summary, while Palisades' overall performance was good in all functional areas, persistent personnel errors and lack of aggressive and effective corrective action continued to occur. These weaknesses continue to inhibit further improvements at Palisades and require your continued attention."

The ratings for each functional area of this report and the previous report were:

Functional Area Current Period Previous Period

Operations 2 2

Maintenance 2 2

Engineering 2 2

Plant Support 2 2

The full SALP report is available on the NRC's internet web site at: <http://www.nrc.gov/OPA>. SALP reports for all nuclear plants are also available as they are issued through an electronic mailing list. To receive these reports send an e-mail message to listproc@nrc.gov with no subject and with the following message: subscribe salp yourfirstname yourlastname.