U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION

Region III Office of Public Affairs

801 Warrenville Road, Lisle IL 60532-4351

NEWS ANNOUNCEMENT: RIII-96-28 June 24, 1996

CONTACT: Jan Strasma 708/829-9663

Angela Dauginas 708/829-9662

E-mail: opa3@nrc.gov

POINT BEACH NUCLEAR PLANT RATED 'GOOD' IN THREE AREAS AND

'SUPERIOR' IN A FOURTH AREA IN LATEST NRC ASSESSMENT REPORT

The Point Beach Nuclear Power Station has received

performance ratings of "superior" in plant support and "good" in

operations, maintenance, and engineering in the Nuclear

Regulatory Commission staff's latest Systematic Assessment of

Licensee Performance (SALP) report for the facility.

The SALP report was issued to Wisconsin Electric Power Co.,

which operates the facility near Two Rivers, Wisconsin. It

evaluates the plant's performance from September 18, 1994,

through April 27 of this year.

The NRC staff and Wisconsin Electric officials will discuss

the assessment during a meeting at 2 p.m., July 10, in the Two

Creeks Town Hall located at State Highway 42 and Tapawingo Road

north of Two Rivers, Wisconsin. The meeting is open to public

observation.

NRC systematic assessment reports rate licensees in four

functional areas -- plant operations, maintenance, engineering,

and plant support -- and assign ratings of Category 1, 2, or 3

depending on whether their performance in those areas was

superior, good or adequate. The report on Point Beach gives a

"Category 1" rating in plant support, indicating superior

performance. It assigns a "Category 2" rating in operations,

maintenance, and engineering, indicating good performance.

NRC Regional Administrator Hubert J. Miller, in a letter to

the utility, said: "It is my view that the overall conduct of

nuclear activities at Point Beach was good. However,

improvements noted in some key areas were counterbalanced by

emerging weaknesses, including concerns regarding the technical

rigor and questioning attitude of your staff in the operations

and engineering areas."

He noted improvements had been seen in operator conduct,

control room professionalism, and work control, areas that were

noted as weaknesses in the previous SALP report.
Mr. Miller observed that a number of equipment condition

issues had been found by NRC inspectors during the assessment

period and that correction of these issues was slow.

"While reliability and availability of safety-related

equipment may not yet be affected, materiel condition

deficiencies are often a precursor to future performance

problems," he said.

"Overall performance in plant support was excellent," he

continued. He cited strengths in the radiation protection

program and the chemistry program as well as improvements in the

security program. Early in the assessment period, the emergency

preparedness program was excellent, but performance declined due

to inadequate staffing, he added.

The ratings for each functional area of this report and the

previous report were:

Functional Area Current Period Previous Period

Operations 2 2

Maintenance 2 2

Engineering 2 2

Plant Support 1 1

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NOTE: A copy of the full report may be obtained from the Region

III Office of Public Affairs at the telephone numbers or e-mail

address above.

SALP reports are now available on the internet at:

<http://www.nrc.gov/OPA>. Reports for all plants in the U.S. may

be obtained when they are issued through an internet e-mail

subscription. Send an e-mail addressed to listproc@nrc.gov with

the following message: subscribe salp yourfirstname

yourlastname.