Thursday, February 11, 2016

Fitz SRVs: NRC Selective Enforcement of Regulations Based On The Buddy System

I guess the regulator isn't interested in a 64% failure rate?
 
A responsible federal regulator would asked:
 
Is the magnitude of the failures out of bounds in this LER. Could 100% of the valves fail and the NRC would just consider it a generic issue.
 
Does this repeat every cycle?
 
From cycle to cycle, is the magnitudes increasing?
 
Are there replacements out in the market where these valves don't have illegal set point accuracy problems? (there is).
 
The NRC is satisfied with the unacceptable status quo with these unreliable valves. Repeated problems like this and the agency selectively enforcing  the rules intimidates the employees of the plants. It degrades the safety culture of the plant.  
 
February 10, 2016

SUBJECT: JAMES A. FITZPATRICK NUCLEAR POWER PLANT - INTEGRATED INSPECTION REPORT 05000333/2015004 AND INDEPENDENT SPENT FUEL STORAGE INSTALLATION REPORT 07200012/2015001
 
FitzPatrick personnel had removed all 11 S/RV pilot assemblies during the previous refueling outage (R-21) and identified that seven S/RV pilot assemblies had as-found lift set-points above the tolerance limit allowed by TS 3.4.3.1. FitzPatrick staff’s root cause analyses for this and previous S/RV set-point drift issues determined that the most probable cause of the out of tolerance S/RV setpoints was corrosion bonding between the S/RV pilot disc and seat, which has been an industry generic problem.
 
TS 3.4.3 requires that at least nine S/RVs shall be operable in operating modes 1, 2, and 3. Contrary to this, on June 1, 2015, FitzPatrick personnel identified that the plant had operated in these modes during cycle 21 with less than nine operable S/RVs. FitzPatrick personnel documented this condition in CR-JAF-2015-02493.
 
FitzPatrick personnel had removed all 11 S/RV pilot assemblies during the previous refueling outage (R-21) and identified that seven S/RV pilot assemblies had as-found lift set-points above the tolerance limit allowed by TS 3.4.3.1.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

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