United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission

Office of Public Affairs

Washington, DC 20555

Phone 301-415-8200 Fax 301-415-2234

Internet:opa@nrc.gov

No. 96-113 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

(Wednesday, August 14, 1996)

NRC ISSUES ORDER REQUIRING INDEPENDENT

ASSESSMENT OF MILLSTONE CORRECTIVE ACTIONS

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has issued an immediately

effective confirmatory order that requires Northeast Nuclear

Energy Company to contract for an independent assessment of the

results of programs aimed at resolving existing design and

management deficiencies at the three Millstone nuclear power

plants in Connecticut.

The licensee has agreed to obtain the services of highly

qualified and independent engineers who will independently verify

the results of the corrective action programs at the plants,

currently shut down. NRC must approve the team's qualifications

and independence of the licensee. The team's findings will be

provided concurrently to the NRC and the licensee.

The order further requires that the independent assessment

plan must include:

--An in-depth review of selected plant systems since initial

licensing.

--Risk and safety based criteria for selecting the systems.

--An audit plan to ensure that the quality of results of

problem identification and corrective action programs of selected

systems is representative of plant systems overall.

--Procedures for reporting findings concurrently to the

licensee and the NRC and for commenting on the licensee's

resolution of team recommendations.

An NRC headquarters team lead by a senior executive will

oversee the independent verification team's work and will conduct

its own inspection and review of the licensee's corrective

actions and their implementation.

The licensee is required to provide progress reports on its

implementation of the independent verification team's
recommendations to the NRC's Regional Administrator in Region I,

King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, and the Director of the Office of

Nuclear Reactor Regulation, at NRC headquarters in Rockville,

Maryland.

Millstone Unit 1 was shut down last November for refueling.

Unit 2 was taken out of service in February due to a safety

injection system being declared inoperable. Unit 3 was shut down

in March after the licensee determined that containment isolation

valves for a feedwater pump were also declared inoperable.

NRC inspections have identified significant failures to

comply with the conditions of licenses, NRC regulations and the

plants' updated Final Safety Analysis Reports. The NRC issued

letters requiring the licensee to provide, before restart,

information to assure the plants will be operated safely and in

accordance with all regulatory and license conditions. In

addition, the Commissioners will have to approve restart before

the plants can resume operation.

Any person adversely affected by the confirmatory order,

other than the licensee, may request a hearing within 20 days of

its issuance. The request should be submitted to the Secretary,

Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Attention: Chief, Docketing and

Service Section, Washington, D.C. 20555.

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Editors: The text of the confirmatory order has been posted on

the Internet at this address: http://www.gov/OPA/reports.