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. 97-180 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

(Wednesday, December 10, 1997)

NRC PROPOSES $2.1 MILLION IN FINES

FOR VIOLATIONS AT MILLSTONE STATION

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff has proposed fines

totaling $2.1 million against Northeast Nuclear Energy Company

for numerous violations of NRC requirements at the company’s

Millstone Nuclear Power Station in Waterford, Conn. It is the

largest civil penalty ever proposed by the NRC.

This enforcement action results from a number of inspections

at all three Millstone units from October 24, 1995, through last

December 31, by members of the NRC Region I staff in King of

Prussia, Pa., as well as by a special team made up of members of

the NRC headquarters staff.

In his letter informing Northeast of the civil penalty,

L. Joseph Callan, NRC Executive Director for Operations, said

that while the violations did not result in actual consequences

to public safety, many of them were “longstanding and indicative

of a deficient safety culture, fostered by plant and corporate

management, which neither set high standards nor actively

encouraged workers to identify and report safety issues or act

upon issues when they were reported.” He said the violations are

representative of “the systemic nature of the significant

regulatory problems” at Millstone.

Mr. Callan noted that, earlier this year, NRC fined

Northeast $650,000 as a result of similar inspection findings at

the company’s Haddam Neck facility, which the utility is now

moving to decommission. In addition to the significance of the

violations at Millstone itself, Mr. Callan said NRC is taking
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this enforcement action to ensure that effective management and

oversight are maintained to prevent similar problems from

occurring at the company’s Seabrook plant in New Hampshire and to

indicate the seriousness with which the agency views the safety,

regulatory and employee concerns problems at the Millstone

station.

Mr. Callan also told Northeast that the total civil penalty,

which closes out a significant number of NRC inspections,

reflects the degree of NRC’s regulatory concern in this case. “I

note,” he wrote, “that but for the extended shutdown of all three

units, the civil penalties may have been higher.”

All three Millstone units are shut down, Unit 1 since

November 1995 and the other two units since early 1996. Since

January 1996, Millstone has been on the NRC’s “Watch List” of

plants under special scrutiny by the agency. In June of that

year, it was placed in the “Watch List” Category 3, requiring for

each reactor specific authorization from the Commission before

any operations can resume. Orders issued by NRC have required

Northeast to arrange for independent, third-party review of its

corrective actions for plant configuration and design, and for

oversight of a comprehensive plan for reviewing and dealing with

employee safety concerns in such a way that workers do not fear

retaliation. The NRC has established a special projects

directorate to oversee all inspections and licensing activities

at Millstone, including oversight of Northeast’s independent

corrective action verification activities.

NRC has categorized many of the violations in two areas:

(1) longstanding deficiencies in engineering programs and

practices; and (2) failure to have effective programs and

practices to correct problems once they were found. NRC also

found a number of violations of the plants’ operating license

technical specifications, as well as several failures to assure

that the plants were operated in accordance with design

requirements in the plants’ Final Safety Analysis Report when

they were licensed.

The formal Notice of Violation lists the violations and the

associated civil penalties in these terms:

Inadequate Engineering Violations -- $500,000

* Failure to establish adequate design measures, to

verify the adequacy of design and translate design
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features into work instructions---14 violations

affecting such areas as the Unit 1 spent fuel pool

cooling system, the Unit 3 service water system, and

the operability of a backup feedwater pump.

* Inadequate or missing safety evaluations and failures

to update the Final Safety Analysis Report---numerous

instances of changes being made in plant systems

without a safety evaluation being performed, on many

occasions putting them at variance with the Final

Safety Analysis Report; 17 violations affecting

components that include standby diesel generators,

safety-related electrical cables, and the hydrogen

monitoring system that would be used in case of a

severe accident.

Corrective Action Violations -- $1 Million

* Failure to assure that significant problems were

promptly identified and corrected, to determine their

causes, and to prevent recurrence---17 violations which

affected conditions ranging from the amount of reactor

cooling water in storage tanks to the reliability of

coolers for a vital electrical switchgear room in case

of an earthquake.

* One instance in December 1995 when Northeast sent NRC a

letter with inaccurate information about whether the

company had analyzed the root cause of deteriorating

material conditions of the Millstone Unit 1 radioactive

waste facilities.

Technical Specification Violations -- $500,000

* Eight technical specifications (part of the operating

license) were violated, some on multiple occasions.

Systems rendered either inoperable or unreliable by

these conditions included a gas turbine generator which

provides backup emergency electrical power, the Unit 2

emergency core cooling systems, and a Unit 3 steamdriven auxiliary feedwater pump.

Quality Assurance Violations -- $100,000
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* Five quality assurance requirements were violated, some

on multiple occasions, affecting various components

ranging from feedwater pump bearings in Unit 3 to

shutdown cooling piping cross-connected with the spent

fuel pool cooling system in Unit 1.

Northeast has 30 days to pay the civil penalty or to appeal.

Note to Editors: A copy of the Notice of Violation and the

cover letter sent to Northeast Utilities has been placed on the

NRC Internet homepage at: http://www.nrc.gov/OPA/reports/ms.htm

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