U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION

Region III Office of Public Affairs

801 Warrenville Road, Lisle IL 60532-4351

NEWS ANNOUNCEMENT: RIII-96-46 August 15, 1996

CONTACT: Jan Strasma 630/829-9663

Angela Dauginas 630/829-9662

E-mail: opa3@nrc.gov

NRC STAFF PROPOSES $50,000 FINE AGAINST CONSUMERS POWER COMPANY

FOR FIRE PROTECTION VIOLATIONS AT THE PALISADES NUCLEAR PLANT

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff has proposed a

$50,000 fine against Consumers Power Company for failing to take

prompt action to correct fire protection deficiencies at its

Palisades Nuclear Power Station.

The plant is located near South Haven, Michigan.

In late 1994 Consumers Power began an extensive review of

the Palisades plant to find instances where equipment design and

installation failed to meet NRC fire protection requirements.

In March and April of this year NRC inspectors found

significant fire protection deficiencies which had been

identified during the utility's review but which had not been

adequately and promptly corrected.

In notifying the utility of the proposed fine, NRC Regional

Administrator A. Bill Beach said, "Our review has indicated that

your staff's corrective actions for those issues were not

effective and were not implemented within a time frame consistent

with the potential safety significance of the deficiencies."

He added, "Our inspection also revealed that in instances

where all corrective actions had been completed, the corrective

actions were not sufficiently rigorous to adequately resolve the

issues."

One example of the failure to adequately and promptly

correct deficiencies was the coordination of fuses in the

electrical circuitry for an emergency diesel generator. Fuse

coordination means assuring that a fuse protecting a subsystem

would blow first without affecting the fuse for the entire

system.

This fuse deficiency could have made the diesel generator

inoperable under certain conditions. The NRC inspection found

that the utility failed to give adequate guidance to plant

operators to allow them to take prompt action to recover the

diesel generator in the event of fuse failure.
"While the probability of a fire occurring as described in

NRC regulations is low, the consequences of such an event

occurring at Palisades could have been high," said Mr. Beach.

"The ability to maintain the plant in a safe shutdown condition,

as required by the fire protection regulations, could only have

been achieved by significant operator actions, troubleshooting,

and repair activities to compensate for the design deficiencies."

Once the deficiencies in the corrective actions were

identified in the NRC inspection, the utility began extensive

activities to improve its corrective action process and to

correct the fire protection deficiencies. These actions included

modification of the diesel generator circuitry to correct the

fuse coordination problem.

Consumers Power Company has until September 12 to pay the

fine or to protest it. If the fine is protested and subsequently

imposed by the NRC staff, the utility may request a hearing.

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NOTE: The area code for the NRC Region III office has been

changed to 630.