U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION

Region III Office of Public Affairs

801 Warrenville Road, Lisle, IL 60532-4351

NEWS ANNOUNCEMENT: RIII-97-62 June 24, 1997

CONTACT: Jan Strasma 630/829-9663

Angela Dauginas 630/829-9662

E-mail: opa3@nrc.gov

LATEST NRC STAFF REVIEW RATES CLINTON PLANT "GOOD" IN MAINTENANCE

"ADEQUATE" IN PLANT OPERATIONS, ENGINEERING, AND PLANT SUPPORT

The Clinton Nuclear Power Plant, operated by Illinois Power

Company, has received performance ratings of "good" in

maintenance and "adequate" in plant operations, 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 Clinton, Illinois.

The assessment covers the period from June 25, 1995, through

April 5 of this year.

The NRC staff and Illinois Power Company officials will

discuss the evaluation during a meeting set for 1 p.m. on July 2

at the Energy and Environmental Center at the Clinton Power

Station, Route 54, east of Clinton, Illinois.

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 adequate.

The report on Clinton gives the plant a "Category 2" rating --

indicating good performance -- in maintenance and a "Category 3"

rating -- indicating adequate performance -- in operations,

engineering, and plant support.

NRC Regional Administrator A. Bill Beach, in a letter to the

utility, said, "Although the safe operation of the facility was

never a question, there has been a notable decline in

performance."

The Clinton plant has been shut down since September 5,

1996, when efforts to reduce a leak from a pump seal led to the
failure of the seal and shutdown of the plant. "The event was

unique in that the operators caused the event rather than taking

the action necessary to mitigate the situation," Beach said.

Many of the conclusions in the SALP report are based on the

inspections growing out of the utility's handling of the seal

leak. The NRC's review of the September 5 incident found a

"significant procedural adherence problem," Beach said.

"Subsequent special and routine inspection identified that

procedural adherence problems were pervasive in virtually all

site organizations," he added.

NRC inspection activities also identified a number of

hardware deficiencies, including long standing problems with

feedwater check valves, inadequate maintenance on safety-related

circuit breakers, and, more recently, inadequate assessment of

degraded containment coatings.

"In each case," Beach said, "NRC intervention was required

to ensure [utility] management understanding and [that] attention

was focused on development and implementation of appropriate

corrective actions."

The SALP report recognizes that Illinois Power has made

significant improvements in the deficient areas over the past

three months.

Beach said, "Illinois Power took aggressive, effective

actions to address the procedure adherence and quality issues."

He also noted that significant efforts have been implemented to

correct the hardware issues -- feedwater check valves, circuit

breakers, and containment coatings.

The ratings for this SALP period and the previous period

are:

Functional Area Current Period Previous Period

Operations 3 2

Maintenance 2 1

Engineering 3 2

Plant Support 3 1

####
SALP reports may be viewed on the NRC's internet web site at

<http://www.nrc.gov/OPA>. The reports for all plants may be

obtained by e-mail, as issued. Send an e-mail message to

listproc@nrc.gov with no subject and the following message:

subscribe SALP yourfirstname yourlastname.