United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission

Office of Public Affairs, Region I

475 Allendale Road King of Prussia, PA 19406

Fax: 610/337-5241

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

I-98-39 April 13, 1998

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

Neil A. Sheehan (610/337-5331)

NRC RATES GINNA PLANT PERFORMANCE AS “GOOD” IN LATEST ASSESSMENT;

AREA OF PLANT SUPPORT DECLINES FROM “SUPERIOR” DURING PERIOD

The R.E. Ginna nuclear power plant has received ratings of

“good” in all four categories reviewed in the Nuclear Regulatory

Commission’s latest assessment of the facility’s performance.

One area of performance, plant support, saw a decline in rating

from “superior” during the last evaluation period.

Ginna is located in Ontario, N.Y., and operated by the

Rochester Gas & Electric Corporation.

Covered by the Systematic Assessment of Licensee

Performance, or SALP, report is the period from August 25, 1996,

to February 21, 1998.

NRC staff and RG&E officials will discuss the assessment

during a meeting scheduled for 10 a.m. on Wednesday, April 22, at

the Ginna Training Center. The session will be open to the

public for observation. Afterwards, NRC staff will be available

to speak with reporters, state and local officials, and members

of the public.

Four functional areas of nuclear power plant performance are

rated in NRC SALP reports: plant operations, maintenance,

engineering and plant support. Ratings of Category 1

(“superior”), Category 2 (“good”) and Category 3 (“acceptable”)

are assigned. The reports are issued roughly once every 18

months for each plant.

While Ginna retained “good” ratings in three areas -- plant

operations, maintenance and engineering -- since its last

assessment in 1996, its rating for plant support declined from

“superior” to “good” during the latest period.

From an overall perspective, Ginna’s performance was found

to be good, with improvements in a number of areas.
“Conservative decision making was evident this period,” NRC

Region 1 Administrator Hubert J. Miller wrote in a letter to the

utility regarding the report. “This performance was exemplified

by the main transformer outage in November 1996, during which the

station made progress in identifying and repairing equipment

problems, some of which were longstanding. The outage was

followed by an extended period of stable plant operation, good

plant equipment performance and improved interfaces between plant

organizations.”

NRC staff found that in the area of operations, plant

operators’ response to problems, as well as the control of

startups and shutdowns, continued to be good. Management

involvement and oversight were normally evident and were

reflected in sustained safe and stable operations. However,

there were some lapses in operators’ control of work and plant

configuration, including the inadvertent draining of reactor

makeup water to the waste holdup tank and the inadvertent opening

of a reactor coolant system power-operated relief valve.

Concerning maintenance, improvements were made to address

past weaknesses in processes. For example, the development and

launch of an integrated work schedule improved the overall

quality and timeliness of maintenance work and yielded

improvements in communication and coordination among operations,

maintenance and engineering organizations.

In the category of engineering, work was found to be

generally well controlled, as evidenced by good products and

support of troubleshooting efforts. Nevertheless, performance in

some areas was mixed, such as the completion of the motoroperated valve program and some unresolved service water items

that continued to pose a challenge.

Lastly, the area of plant support exhibited weaknesses in

radiological boundary controls early in the period, though

improvements were made through training and management oversight.

Also, security performance declined, with weaknesses noted in the

fitness-for-duty program and implementation of the Vehicle

Barrier System.

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SALP reports are available on the NRC’s Internet web site

(http://www.nrc.gov/OPA) and by e-mail subscription. To receive

SALP reports by e-mail as they are issued, send an e-mail to

listproc@nrc.gov with the following message: subscribe salp

yourfirstname yourlastname.