United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission

Office of Public Affairs, Region I

475 Allendale Road King of Prussia, PA 19406Fax: 610/337-5241

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

I-98-98 August 20, 1998

Contact: Diane Screnci (610/337-5330) FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Neil A. Sheehan (610/337-5331)

NRC PROPOSES $55,000 FINE AGAINST INDIAN POINT 3 PLANT OPERATOR

FOR VIOLATION INVOLVING EMERGENCY SYSTEM DESIGN CHANGE

A $55,000 fine has been proposed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission

against the New York Power Authority (NYPA) for a violation of agency regulations at

the utility’s Indian Point 3 nuclear power plant. The pressurized-water reactor is located

in Buchanan, N.Y., to the north of New York City.

The violation, discussed with NYPA officials at a predecisional enforcement

conference on July 24, involves a lack of design control measures for a modification to

the plant’s emergency diesel generator system, which powers key safety equipment if

the facility loses off-site power. Design control measures are used to check on the

adequacy of design.

Indian Point 3 has three emergency diesel generators. Last October, during the

plant's last refueling outage, NYPA modified two of the diesel generators so that their

auxiliary support systems, including room ventilation and fuel oil supply, would

automatically be de-energized by a low-voltage condition. As a result, unless operators

manually activated them, these support systems would not work following a loss of

normal power that would trigger the use of the diesel generators. Without these

support systems, the generators could not be relied on to operate as long as necessary.

The violation was identified during a special safety inspection conducted from

May 28 through June 12 at the plant. That inspection was performed as a follow-up to

a May 28 event in which normal power to one of the electrical systems used to support

safety-related plant equipment was lost. The emergency diesel generators were

activated, but operators had to restore the support systems because of the design

change.

“This failure to remove the undervoltage trip function, and the resultant impact on

the (emergency diesel generator) auxiliary support systems, represents a significant

concern because two of three (diesel generators) would not have functioned as

designed on a loss of offsite power,” NRC Region I Administrator Hubert J. Miller wrote

in a letter to NYPA notifying it of the enforcement action. “Specifically, the (diesel

generators) would have failed due to room overheating or loss of fuel oil unless

operators recognized the loss of power to the auxiliaries and took appropriate action to
manually restore power.”

Mr. Miller pointed out that although operators successfully restored power to

auxiliary systems on May 28, “there was no assurance that the degraded condition of

the (diesel generators) would have been identified and corrected ... during a more

complex event when multiple annunciator alarms are received in the control room that

require operator action.”

The NRC gave NYPA credit for taking prompt and comprehensive action to

correct the problem once it was identified. Those actions included the removal of the

undervoltage trip function, a review of the design change package and training to

improve the translation of safety requirements into test requirements.

In addition to the $55,000 civil penalty, the NRC also cited, but did not fine, NYPA

for a violation for failing to address a degraded valve that supplies cooling to reactor

coolant pump components.

NYPA has 30 days to pay the fine or request in writing that all or part of the

penalty be withdrawn.

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