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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 Greenman (630) 829-9662/e-mail: opa3@nrc.gov

NEWS ANNOUNCEMENT: RIII-98-35

May 28, 1998

The meeting, which is open to public observation, will be at 2 p.m. in the Third Floor Conference Room, NRC Region III Office, 801 Warrenville Road, Lisle, Illinois. NRC staff members will be available at the close of the meeting for questions and comments from members of the public.

The meeting will cover apparent violations of NRC fire protection requirements for the Quad Cities plant involving the capability to safely shut the plant down in the event of a fire.

In September of last year, the utility shut down Unit 2 and Unit 1 was subsequently shut down in December for reviews of shutdown procedures and systems which would be used in the event of a fire affecting normal shutdown systems.

The predecisional enforcement conference will cover the findings of NRC inspections which found deficiencies in the plant's shutdown procedures. The inspections -- conducted from October through April -- also found that Commonwealth Edison had not done the required safety review in December of a planned change to its procedures and equipment for shutting the plant down.

Following the shutdowns last year, the two units remained out of service for improvements to the shutdown procedures and systems. On May 22 the NRC staff determined that the utility had made sufficient changes for units to return safely to operation. Unit 2 has resumed operation, and the utility is preparing to restart Unit 1.

The purpose of the predecisional enforcement conference is to discuss the apparent violations and provide the company an opportunity to respond and to provide details of its corrective actions and other additional information.

The information presented in the predecisional enforcement conference will be considered in determining the appropriate enforcement action. The enforcement action will not be determined at the meeting; a decision on the enforcement action, if any, is usually issued several weeks after the conference.