UNITED STATES

NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION

WASHINGTON, D.C. 20555-0001

OFFICE OF THE

INSPECTOR GENERAL

April 29, 2015

MEMORANDUM TO: Mark A. Satorius

Executive Director for Operations

FROM: Stephen D. Dingbaum /RA/

Assistant Inspector General for Audits

SUBJECT: STATUS OF RECOMMENDATIONS: AUDIT OF NRC’S 

OVERSIGHT OF SPENT FUEL POOLS (OIG-15-A-06)

REFERENCE: DEPUTY EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR FOR REACTOR AND 

PREPAREDNESS PROGRAMS, OFFICE OF THE 

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR FOR OPERATIONS

MEMORANDUM DATED MARCH 18, 2015

Attached is the Office of the Inspector General’s (OIG) analysis and status of 

recommendations 1, 2, 3, and 4 as discussed in the agency’s response dated 

March 18, 2015. Based on this response, recommendations 1, 2, 3, and 4 are resolved. 

Please provide an updated status of the resolved recommendations by October 30, 

2015. If you have questions or concerns, please call me at 415-5915, or Sherri Miotla, 

Team Leader, at 415-5914.

Attachment: As stated

cc: B. Dean, NRR

M. Galloway, OEDO

B. Pham, OEDO

J. Arildsen, OEDO

C. Haney, NMSS

M. Johnson, OEDO

EDO_ACS Distribution Resource
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Status of Recommendations

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Recommendation 1: Provide a generic regulatory solution for spent fuel pool 

criticality analysis by developing and issuing detailed licensee 

guidance along with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission 

(NRC) internal procedures.

Agency Response Dated

March 18, 2015: The staff agrees with the recommendation.

In September 2011, the Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation 

(NRR) published an interim staff guidance, DSS-ISG-2010-01, 

“Staff Guidance Regarding the Nuclear Criticality Safety 

Analysis for Spent Fuel Pools,” regarding nuclear criticality 

safety analysis for spent fuel pools. The interim staff guidance 

was the first step in developing a more durable guidance 

document as described in NRR Action Plan, “On Site Spent 

Fuel Criticality Analyses.” As a result of ongoing engagement 

with industry stakeholders, the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) 

volunteered to work with the NRC and industry to develop a 

detailed guidance document. The resulting document, NEI 12-

16, “Guidance for Performing Criticality Analyses of Fuel 

Storage at Light Water Reactor Power Plants,” is currently 

under NRC staff review. If the document is found to be 

acceptable, the NRC plan would be to endorse NEI 12-16 in a 

regulatory guide.

After publishing a final regulatory guide, the NRC will update 

NUREG-0800, “Standard Review Plan for the Review of 

Safety Analysis Reports for Nuclear Power Plants: LWR 

Edition,” accordingly. Where appropriate, the updates to 

NUREG-0800 will inform corresponding revisions to the 

inspection guidelines for decommissioned reactors and for the 

Reactor Oversight Process. The Office of Nuclear Material 

Safety and Safeguards (NMSS) and the Division of Inspection 

and Regional Support (DIRS) within NRR are responsible for 

the inspection program governance documentation that could 

be affected by these changes to spent fuel pool oversight.
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Status of Recommendations

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Recommendation 1 (cont.):

Planned Action: Upon a satisfactory conclusion to the NRC’s 

review of NEI 12-16, the staff will incorporate this detailed 

guidance into NRC internal processes through a regulatory 

guide and through revisions to NUREG-0800, “Standard 

Review Plan for the Review of Safety Analysis Reports for 

Nuclear Power Plants.”

Target date for completion: December 2017

CONTACT: Amrit Patel, NRR/DSS

(301) 415-5893

OIG Analysis: The actions proposed by the agency meet the intent of the 

recommendation. This recommendation will be closed upon 

NRR’s issuance of the regulatory guide and revisions to 

NUREG-0800.

Status: Resolved.
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Status of Recommendations

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Recommendation 2: Develop and implement spent fuel pool inspection guidance at 

operating reactors.

Agency Response Dated

March 18, 2015: The staff agrees with the recommendation.

As described in the current version of Inspection Manual 

Chapter (IMC) 0308, “Reactor Oversight Process Basis 

Document,” the NRC recognizes the importance of spent fuel 

pool safety during licensee refueling activities and its impact 

on operational safety at operating reactors. Accordingly, the 

NRC staff implements Baseline Inspection Procedure 

71111.20, “Refueling and Other Outage Activities,” to monitor 

refueling operations at operating reactors, including the 

adequacy of spent fuel cooling systems, fuel handling 

operations, and spent fuel pool storage.

To further enhance spent fuel pool oversight, NRR/DIRS staff 

will develop and implement discrete inspection procedure(s) 

that will describe how NRC inspectors should monitor spent 

fuel pool safety at operating reactors. The NRR/DIRS staff will 

coordinate this effort with the regional offices and various 

divisions within NRR and NMSS that are responsible for spent 

fuel pool oversight. In so doing, the staff will ensure technical 

consistency and alignment in the overall oversight strategy of 

spent fuel pool safety at both decommissioning and operating 

reactors.

Planned Action: The staff will develop and implement 

inspection procedure(s) discussed above.

Target date for completion: September 2015

CONTACT: Juan Peralta, NRR/DIRS

(301) 415-2858
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Recommendation 2 (cont.):

OIG Analysis: The actions proposed by the agency meet the intent of the 

recommendation. This recommendation will be closed upon 

NRR’s issuance of updated inspection procedures addressing 

spent fuel pools. 

Status: Resolved.
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Status of Recommendations

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Recommendation 3: Develop an enforceable neutron-absorbing material aging 

management program.

Agency Response Dated

March 18, 2015: The staff agrees with the recommendation.

For the past decade, aging management of neutron-absorbing 

materials has been a focus of the NRC’s oversight of spent 

fuel pools. For example, the NRC staff developed guidance 

on the elements that should be included in an adequate 

neutron-absorbing material aging management program. This 

guidance was incorporated into NUREG-1801, “Generic Aging 

Lessons Learned Report.” The NRC staff also began to 

require enforceable monitoring programs for credited neutronabsorbing materials for all new license amendment requests 

associated with spent fuel pool criticality, either through a 

technical specification program or a license condition. These 

monitoring programs ensure the existence of a minimum 

standard by which the licensee must comply within their aging 

management program. The NRC staff also approached the 

industry’s Technical Specifications Task Force to discuss the 

development of a “traveler” (i.e., a standard technical 

specification change) that adds monitoring of neutronabsorbing materials in spent fuel pools to the standard 

technical specifications.

For licensees that have not submitted a request to change 

their spent fuel pool licensing basis in recent years, imposing 

an enforceable neutron-absorbing material aging management 

program would constitute a backfit, subject to the provisions in 

Title 10 of the Code of Federal Regulations 50.109. In order 

to address this issue on an industrywide basis, the staff is in 

the process of finalizing a generic letter for issuance to all 

licensees that operate spent fuel pools. This generic letter will 

request the information necessary to enable the staff to 

evaluate each site’s neutron-absorbing material aging 

management program for regulatory compliance. This 
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Recommendation 3 (cont.):

information will also allow NRC staff to determine what 

regulatory actions may be needed to ensure continuing 

compliance with NRC requirements, including any backfitting 

implications. The staff expects to issue the generic letter this 

fiscal year. A full evaluation of the responses and initiation of 

any necessary regulatory actions is not expected to be 

completed for about one year after all of the licensee 

responses have been received.

The staff will communicate any relevant insights from the 

collected information to NRR/DIRS and NMSS for potential 

incorporation into future revisions of inspection program 

governance documents.

Planned Action: The staff will use the generic letter process to 

collect information and determine what regulatory actions are 

necessary to ensure compliance with NRC requirements, then 

initiate the regulatory actions.

Target date for completion: May 2017

CONTACT: Scott Krepel, NRR/DSS

(301) 302-0399

OIG Analysis: The actions proposed by the agency meet the intent of the 

recommendation. This recommendation will be closed when 

NRR completes its analysis of the generic letter responses 

and develops an enforceable neutron-absorbing material 

aging management program based on the analysis.

Status: Resolved.
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Recommendation 4: Update Inspection Manual Chapter 2561 and Inspection 

Procedure 60801.

Agency Response Dated

March 18, 2015: The staff agrees with the recommendation.

NMSS staff initiated a review of IMC 2561, “Decommissioning 

Power Reactor Inspection Program,” in 2013 and began the 

revision process in 2014. The staff has completed 

approximately 30 percent of the review and update of the 

approximately 40 inspection procedures associated with IMC 

2561. The targeted completion date for this project is the end 

of calendar year 2015. NMSS has been coordinating the 

revision of the inspection manual chapter and inspection 

procedures with the regional offices and the program offices 

(NRR, NMSS, and the Office of Nuclear Security and 

Response). NMSS is coordinating the revision of Inspection 

Procedure (IP) 60801, “Spent Fuel Pool Safety at Permanently 

Shut down Reactors,” with NRR/DIRS to ensure that the new 

revision, and any associated changes to IMC 2561, aligns with 

the new IP being generated for spent fuel pool inspections at 

operating reactors. NMSS will issue the revised IP 60801 

within the same timeframe as the rest of the IMC 2561 revision 

project unless further review or coordination is needed with 

NRR to address ongoing changes to spent fuel pool criticality 

analyses and inspection requirements and guidelines or 

neutron-absorbing material aging management 

considerations.

Planned Action: NMSS will continue to manage the revision of 

IMC 2561 and implement inspection procedures (including IP 

60801) as planned and scheduled. 

Target date for completion: December 2015

CONTACT: Bruce Watson, CHP, NMSS/DUWP

(301) 415-6221
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Recommendation 4 (cont.):

OIG Analysis: The actions proposed by the agency meet the intent of the 

recommendation. This recommendation will be closed when 

NMSS issues the revised versions of IMC 2561 and IP 60801.

Status: Resolved.