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No: II-97-23 March 13, 1997 Contact: Ken Clark (404) 331-5503 Roger Hannah (404) 331-7878
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff has issued a Notice of Violation to Florida Power Company at its Crystal River nuclear power plant because of what the NRC describes as "a broad spectrum of problems" and "major weaknesses" in implementation of the plant's engineering program.
NRC officials described one group of violations as Severity Level 2, the agency's second most serious. They involved unreviewed safety questions not identified in safety evaluations done prior to plant modifications. These could result in loss of an emergency diesel generator, potential failure of a turbine-driven auxiliary feedwater pump, and potential inadequate control of boron precipitation in the core during certain postulated loss of cooling water accidents.
Two groups of violations were described as being Severity Level 3, the third most serious level. One, inadequate design control, involved failure to establish adequate measures to ensure that the plant's regulatory and basic design requirements were correctly translated into specifications, procedures and instructions. The other involved failure to establish measures to assure that conditions adverse to quality were promptly corrected with measures adequate to preclude recurrence.
Agency officials said they considered imposition of a significant monetary civil penalty for the violations but concluded that discretion would be exercised in this case because (1) the NRC issued a $500,000 fine against the company in July of last year which included engineering violations; (2) following NRC identification of the current issues, the company voluntarily extended a shutdown of the plant and developed a comprehensive program for problem identification and correction; (3) the company demonstrated that remedial action will be taken to ensure reestablishment of design (safety) margins prior to plant restart; and (4) the company's decision to restart Crystal River requires NRC concurrence.
The NRC issued a Confirmatory Action Letter to the company on March 4 to assure that FPC's corrective action will include (1) completion of a comprehensive restructuring of management; (2) completion of indepth reviews and corrective actions to ensure compliance with the design basis of the facility; and (3) implementation of broad and indepth engineering program changes.
In a letter to the company, Luis A. Reyes, administrator of the NRC's Region II office in Atlanta, said that the agency's exercise of discretion not to fine the company recognizes that FPC "has placed the unit in a safe configuration and has committed significant resources to identify and correct deficient conditions."
He said failure of the company to successfully implement improvement plans and substantially improve performance in engineering "could lead to more significant regulatory sanctions and substantially delay NRC concurrence with restart of Crystal River Unit 3.
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