United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission

Office of Public Affairs, Region I

475 Allendale Road King of Prussia, PA 19401

Phone: 610/337-5330 Fax: 610/337-5241

Internet: dps@nrc.gov or nas@nrc.gov

I-97-100 August 6, 1997

Contact: Diane Screnci FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Neil A. Sheehan

NRC REGION I ADMINISTRATOR APPROVES RESTART OF SALEM UNIT 2

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s administrator for the

Northeastern United States has approved the restart of Salem

nuclear power plant Unit 2, following a more than two-year

shutdown of the Hancocks Bridge, N.J., facility.

NRC Region I Administrator Hubert J. Miller notified plant

owner and operator Public Service Electric & Gas (PSE&G) Company

of the decision in a letter sent today. Mr. Miller noted the NRC

has conducted a multidisciplinary review involving numerous

inspectors and found the unit to be ready for restart. This

determination is based on significant enhancements in the unit’s

material condition, improvements in plant programs and processes,

and the extensive corrective actions accomplished to date.

But the administrator also stressed that the agency will

continue to monitor the unit as it returns to service, probably

within the next several days. As part of that oversight, the NRC

has established holdpoints for the plant power ascension program.

Those holdpoints will occur at three power levels -- 25, 50 and

90 percent -- to allow an assessment of Unit 2 performance.

Salem Unit 2 has been out of service since June 7, 1995.

Salem Unit 1 was shutdown on May 16, 1995 and is expected to

remain off-line until some later date. The extended outage at

both units was needed to address the causes of multiple

programmatic problems, to repair degraded equipment and to

improve corrective action processes at the 1,100-megawatt

pressurized-water reactors.

After the units were shutdown by PSE&G, the NRC issued a

Confirmatory Action Letter to the utility on June 9, 1995,

spelling out the changes the company agreed to make to improve

the plant and requiring that the reactors remain off-line until

those commitments were met. In addition, the NRC established a

group of managers from various headquarters and regional offices

to coordinate the agency’s inspection and assessment efforts and

to focus on the progress of performance improvements at both
units.

Subsequently, PSE&G submitted an overall restart plan to the

NRC on November 24, 1995. It was accepted by the agency on

February 13, 1996. After soliciting input from the public and

state officials, the NRC’s assessment group independently

developed the NRC Restart Action Plan, which was published on

February 23, 1996.

Mr. Miller wrote to PSE&G that the NRC has performed many

inspections at the plant since June 1995 to evaluate utility

progress in resolving performance issues.

“These activities included augmented resident inspector

staff inspections, specialist review of discrete areas by

regional and headquarters staff, and multidisciplined team

inspections,” Mr. Miller stated. “Additionally, detailed

inspections were conducted of the Integrated Test Program. These

efforts also included inspection of 45 technical and 24

programmatic restart issues and the independent review of nine

Salem restart plans per revision 4 of the Restart Action Plan.

Two major design inspections were completed, including a Final

Safety Analysis Report (FSAR) team inspection and a Safety System

Functional Inspection (SSFI) in December 1996 and January 1997,

respectively.

“Two public meetings were conducted, in March and May 1997,

to solicit public input on Salem Unit 2 restart,” he continued.

And an NRC Readiness Assessment Team Inspection (RATI), which

involved two weeks of on-site review by 14 inspectors, and a

related public exit meeting were conducted in June 1997.

All told, the NRC expended approximately 17,000 hours on

inspections and approximately 13,000 hours on reviewing licensing

matters at the unit.

“Notwithstanding the numerous reviews ..., the NRC will

continue to closely monitor activities at Salem. We intend to

maintain the SAP (Salem Assessment Panel) in an active oversight

role until sustained improved performance has been demonstrated

for both Salem units. The SAP will continue to monitor

performance and adjust NRC resources applied to Salem activities,

as appropriate,” Mr. Miller said.

Besides the power ascension holdpoints, the NRC plans to

perform a final assessment after about two months of full power

operations.
The NRC will consider the restart of Unit 1 separately.

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