Junk Plant Grand Gulf's Annual Performance Assessment

Really, these guys are in the second highest performance classification and are declining fast... Indications of problems with the ROP?

 The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has completed its end-of-cycle performance assessment of Grand Gulf Nuclear Station, reviewing performance indicators (PIs), inspection results, and enforcement actions from January 1, 2017, through December 31, 2017.  This letter informs you of the NRC’s assessment of your facility during this period and its plans for future inspections at your facility.  The NRC concluded that overall performance at your facility preserved public health and safety.

The NRC determined the performance at Grand Gulf Nuclear Station during the most recent quarter was within the Regulatory Response Column, the second highest performance column of the NRC’s Reactor Oversight Process (ROP) Action Matrix.  This conclusion was based on a parallel PI inspection finding having low-to-moderate safety significance (i.e., White) in the Initiating Events Cornerstone, which was effective as of the first quarter of 2017.  This finding was discussed in NRC Inspection Report 05000416/2017013 (Agencywide Documents Access and Management System (ADAMS) Accession No. ML17342B130), dated December 6, 2017, in which the NRC concluded that the station’s actions in response to a White Unplanned Scrams per 7000 Critical Hours PI, which you reported for the third and fourth quarters of 2016, did not meet the objectives of Inspection Procedure 95001, “Supplemental Inspection Response to Action Matrix Column 2 Inputs.”  

Therefore, in addition to ROP baseline inspections, the NRC plans to conduct an additional supplemental inspection in accordance with Inspection Procedure 95001 to review your station’s actions to address the weaknesses described in the above inspection report as they relate to the inspection objectives.  The objectives of this inspection are: 1) To assure that the root causes and contributing causes of significant performance issues are understood, 2) To independently assess and assure that the extent of condition and extent of cause of significant performance issues are identified, 3) To assure that corrective actions taken to address and preclude repetition of significant performance issues are prompt and effective, and 4) To assure that corrective plans direct prompt actions to effectively address and