U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission

Office of Public Affairs, Region IV

611 Ryan Plaza Drive - Suite 400

Arlington, Texas 76011-8064

RIV: 98-23 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT: Breck Henderson June 18, 1998

OFFICE: 817-860-8128

NRC PROPOSES TO FINE ENTERGY $110,000

FOR VIOLATIONS AT WATERFORD 3 NUCLEAR POWER PLANT

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Staff has proposed a civil

penalty of $110,000 against Entergy Operations, Inc., operator of Waterford

Steam Electric Station, Unit 3, a nuclear power plant near Taft, Louisiana,

for violations of NRC requirements concerning cooling water flow in the high

pressure safety injection system (HPSI). The HPSI system provides an

emergency source of water during a loss-of-coolant accident to keep the

nuclear fuel from overheating.

The violations were identified during an engineering team inspection

completed February 5, and were the subject of a predecisional enforcement

conference on March 26.

As a result of questions raised by NRC during the inspection, Entergy

engineers realized on December 5, 1997, that their design analysis did not

demonstrate that the flow of cooling water in the HPSI system would be

sufficient to cool the nuclear core during certain accidents. Entergy

engineers had not adequately accounted for uncertainties in test

instrumentation used to measure HPSI flow rate when the system was tested the

previous summer.

HPSI flow is one component in the analysis of emergency core cooling

capability. This assessment is part of the plant’s safety analysis, which is

used as the basis for granting an operating license. Any potential failure to

meet the requirements for emergency core cooling capability, as determined

using approved analysis techniques, must be reported to the NRC within one

hour. Entergy did not communicate that conclusion to the NRC until

specifically asked by the NRC team on December 18, 1997. It sent the required

formal report the same day.

On December 17, 1997, the NRC approved a new method of analyzing

emergency core cooling capability during accidents. Using an evaluation

based on the new method, Entergy engineers demonstrated to the NRC’s

satisfaction that flow in the HPSI system had been adequate to maintain plant

safety, and there likely were no safety consequences. A complete re-analysis

of the emergency core cooling system function during a small break loss of

coolant accident using the new method has been submitted for NRC review.

NRC also found there had been several earlier opportunities for Entergy

personnel to have identified and corrected the HPSI problem. The NRC

concluded that there was a failure of the Waterford-3 engineering program to:
(1) aggressively pursue such issues when first identified, and (2) to pursue

such issues without prompting by the NRC.

NRC staff classified these violations as a Severity Level III problem,

which carries a base civil penalty of $55,000. Because discovery of the

problem was prompted by NRC’s engineering team inspection, and the licensee’s

initial actions upon recognizing the problem were not prompt and not in

compliance with reporting requirements, and because Waterford has been the

subject of other civil penalties during the past two years (May 1997 --

$55,000) the base civil penalty in this case was doubled to $110,000.

In a letter to Entergy, NRC Regional Administrator Ellis Merschoff said,

". . . to emphasize the importance of maintaining the integrity of the

licensing basis and aggressively pursuing indications that key assumptions in

the licensing basis may have been flawed in a manner important to safety, I

have been authorized . . . to issue the enclosed Notice of Violation and

Proposed Imposition of Civil Penalty in the amount of $110,000 for the

violations involving HPSI flow uncertainties."

The NRC uses a four-level scale to rate the severity of violations, with

Severity

Level I being the most serious. Entergy Operations, Inc. has 30 days to

respond in writing to the NRC's Notice of Violation. The response must

document specific actions taken to prevent recurrence of the violations.

During this time the company may pay the fine or file a protest.

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