United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission

Office of Public Affairs, Region I

475 Allendale Road King of Prussia, PA 19401

Phone: 610/337-5330 Fax: 610/337-5241

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

I-96-34 May 23, 1996

Contact: Diane Screnci FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

NRC STAFF RATES PILGRIM "GOOD" IN OPERATIONS, MAINTENANCE AND

PLANT SUPPORT AND "EXCELLENT" IN ENGINEERING

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff has rated Boston

Edison Company's (BECO) Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station in Pilgrim,

Massachusetts, "good" in operations, maintenance and plant

support, and "excellent" in engineering, in its latest systematic

assessment of licensee performance (SALP) report.

SALP reports assess licensee performance in four functional

areas - plant operations, maintenance, engineering and plant

support - and assign ratings of Category 1 (superior

performance), Category 2 (good performance) and Category 3

(adequate performance). The Pilgrim SALP evaluated performance

for the period October 10, 1994, through April 6, of this year.

The NRC staff will meet with BECO officials at 1 p.m. on

June 4 in the BECO Support Building at the Pilgrim site to

discuss the SALP report. The meeting will be open to the public

for observation only.

In a letter to BECO officials, NRC Region I Administrator

Thomas T. Martin said in regard to overall plant performance:

"Although the NRC noted a continuing strong management

safety perspective, overall performance at the Pilgrim Station

declined from the previous SALP period. This resulted in lower

SALP scores in the Operations and Plant Support areas.

Mr. Martin had these comments concerning individual SALP

rating categories:

OPERATIONS

"While operations management demonstrated a proper safety

focus and operators responded effectively to plant transients and

off-normal conditions, a decline in operations performance was

reflected by operator errors made during RFO10 [refueling outage

number 10] and later in the period. Also, some training

deficiencies became evident during this assessment period. One

commonality between the RFO10 operator errors and the initial

operator license candidate performance results was a weakness in

the use of procedures and self-verification techniques.

"Further the organization, in particular, operators and
support personnel, including some managers were not always

aggressive in ensuring identified hardware deficiencies were

promptly evaluated and resolved. The operator errors experienced

during this assessment period and occasional lapses in problem

identification and resolution detracted from the otherwise strong

safety focus and effective response to off-normal and transient

conditions."

MAINTENANCE

Management oversight of the maintenance and surveillance

program was generally effective, in that, several weaknesses from

the previous SALP period were effectively resolved and strong

performance in other areas continued. The reduction of the

corrective maintenance backlog resulted from positive management

involvement.

"However, instances of weakness in the areas of work

planning, work control, supervisory oversight, and worker selfchecking occurred that resulted in maintenance performance

problems. The work control system that was implemented this

period was not yet fully effective, particularly with regard to

work planning. Late in the period, the maintenance and I&C

managers began to better trend and evaluate human performance

issues. Component failures continued to challenge operators,

although at a reduced frequency when compared to the previous

SALP period."

ENGINEERING

"Overall performance in the engineering area continued to be

superior. Management oversight and involvement were important in

achieving that level of performance. The quality of engineering

work products was very good. Self-assessment activities in the

engineering area provided for improved organizational performance

and engineering personnel displayed excellent skills. However,

some generally isolated instances of weak performance occurred

during the period.

"Those weaknesses involved an increase in the backlog of

certain administrative activities, problems in licensee review of

vendor-provided analyses and root cause assessments, and weak

initial response to some conditions adverse to quality."

PLANT SUPPORT

"Performance in the emergency preparedness, effluent, and

environmental programs remained strong. In the radiological

protection area, although technician performance remained very

good and improvements were achieved in recovery of contaminated

plant areas, problems with material controls and with ALARA

implementation were noted. Further, problems with maintenance

support for security equipment presented challenges to the

security staff. Fire protection performance remained good.

Plant housekeeping improved, with some continuing problems in

certain plant areas."
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