Transparent, Participate, and Collaborate
The Office of Investigations, an independent investigative office within the NRC, has recently put out its latest annual report. The report includes information on significant investigations in FY 2011, including:
• FitzPatrick Nuclear Power Plant – A former radiation protection technician was found to have prepared, signed and submitted records to the NRC that falsely documented NRC-required tests that were not conducted.
• St. Lucie Nuclear Power Plant – Two radiation protection technicians were found to have falsified health physics surveys and one of the two was found to have bypassed the radiation reader station at the entrance to the radiation-controlled area of the plant.
• Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant – A former operator was found to have violated radiation protection procedures and technical safety requirements by not adhering to radiation protection procedures when moving a contaminated object within the plant.
• Arkansas Nuclear One Nuclear Power Plant – A security officer was found to have falsified NRC-required security logs and did not perform required security checks.
The Office of Investigations develops policy, procedures, and quality control standards for investigations of licensees, applicants, their contractors or vendors. It conducts investigations of all allegations of wrongdoing by other than NRC employees and contractors, and makes referrals of substantiated criminal cases to the Department of Justice.
The investigations are conducted by special agents who are specially trained, with extensive background and experience in federal criminal investigations. They are assisted by a highly experienced cadre of professional support staff.
Brian Sentz Office of Investigations
Recently the NRC received recognition in two areas and we are very proud of the achievement!
First, the NRC was recently ranked #10 in the 21st Annual “Top 20 Government Agencies” in Woman Engineer Magazine. The readers of Woman Engineer magazine selected the top agencies in the country for which they would most like to work or whom they believe would provide a positive working environment for women engineers. This list is the result of an annual reader survey mailed to randomly selected readers of Woman Engineer magazine.
Second, the NRC was honored as a 2012 Secretary of Defense Employer Support Freedom Award Semi-Finalist in the Public Sector category. The Freedom Award is the highest recognition given to employers by the Department of Defense (DOD) for exceptional support of their Guard and Reserve employees. Nominations are from Guard and Reserve members or family members acting on their behalf. In 2012 there were 133 semi-finalists nationwide out of an impressive pool of 3,236.
We are proud of this recognition and wanted to share it with you!
Kim English Outreach & Recruitment BranchAfter nearly eight years on the Commission, I am announcing my resignation as Chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, effective upon the confirmation of my successor. My responsibility and commitment to safety will continue to be my paramount priority after I leave the Commission and until my successor is confirmed.
After an incredibly productive three years as Chairman, I have decided this is the appropriate time to continue my efforts to ensure public safety in a different forum. This is the right time to pass along the public safety torch to a new chairman who will keep a strong focus on carrying out the vital mission of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
During this last year alone, the agency has responded with an impressive focus on safety under my leadership to a number of diverse challenges including the accident at the Fukushima Da-ichi reactors in Japan, and a number of severe incidents at reactors in the United States ranging from flooding, an earthquake and tornados to damaged plant structures and steam generator problems. In addition to this vigilant oversight, together we identified and began to implement lessons learned from Fukushima and completed our rigorous safety reviews for the first new reactor licenses in 30 years.
Throughout my time on the Commission as both Chairman and Commissioner, the agency finalized regulations to ensure new reactors are designed to withstand an aircraft impact, completed the development and implementation of a safety culture policy statement, enhanced our focus on openness and transparency, and enhanced awareness of and worked to resolve some of the most long-standing generic issues facing the nuclear industry, including sump strainer issues and fire protection. Beyond the power reactor work, substantial progress was made in establishing a more transparent and effective oversight program for fuel cycle facilities. In addition, radioactive sources of concern are now fully protected with our new security regulations and source tracking system. We stand as a stronger and more decisive regulator now because of these years of efforts. I am truly humbled by the agency’s success.
Serving the American people as the Chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has been an honor and privilege. The mission of this agency – protecting people and the environment, and providing for the common defense and security – could not be more clear, or more critical. Our collective focus on that mission was, I believe, one of the primary reasons the Nuclear Regulatory Commission was one of the best places to work in the federal government throughout my tenure. The highly talented and dedicated professional staff, including dozens who have served on my personal staff over the years, have been instrumental in fulfilling the agency’s mission.
I will always be grateful for the opportunity of having served alongside the staff for all of these years, and for all that we accomplished together. I am looking forward to bringing all I have learned from my work and focus on safety at this agency with me as I move forward.
Note: Transcript of later press conference 0524nrc1652
“Keyhole” evacuation diagram
Lately, there has been some media interest in our updated emergency preparedness regulation, finalized last year. We welcome this interest and the opportunity to explain our most recent changes.
The NRC, working closely with Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), started the process to revise the EP rule after a top-to-bottom review in 2005 noted areas for improvement. The rulemaking also formalized security orders U.S. plants put in place after the events of 9/11.
The NRC discussed the proposed changes at public conferences in 2007 and 2008, and the agency issued draft rule language in early 2008. Additional public meetings on the draft language in 2008 were followed by a proposed rule published in the Federal Register for public comment in May 2009. The NRC took public input on the proposed rule for five months, holding a dozen public meetings and gathering several hundred comments. The NRC greatly appreciated and benefited from the feedback we received. Staff from the NRC and FEMA briefed the Commission on Dec. 8, 2009, and May 3, 2011, both of which involved a panel of external stakeholders, regarding the proposed rule.
The Commission approved the final rule on Aug. 30, 2011, and we issued a press release at that time. The release noted aspects of the rule, including new requirements for back-up means of alerting the public and for updating evacuation time estimates when population changes warrant. The NRC held additional public meetings around the country after the rule was published; more than 550 people participated.
Under the new rule, plants are still required to hold an NRC-graded exercise every two years, but the new rule requires the plants to have an eight-year planning cycle during which they had to insert new scenarios that, among other things, adds a level of uncertainty to the exercises.
The NRC learned an important lesson in its EP review – plant personnel and state and local officials had become so used to scenarios requiring evacuation they made decisions about evacuations long before available information would support their actions. The new EP rule addresses that by requiring some exercise scenarios to damage a plant without releasing radioactive material – this will force exercise participants to more carefully consider their decisions instead of assuming evacuations were the best option.
The new rule also requires that an exercise scenario must include one that has a security component in addition to a safety issue. (These EP exercises based on a security scenario are not to be confused with the ongoing security-based force-on-force drills the NRC also requires at every plant.)
Another change in the rule involves a revision to evacuation procedures. Extensive research shows health risks from an accident would be greatest within two miles of a plant, so guidance for the new rule focuses on that close-in population. Getting the “two-mile” people relocated first keeps evacuation routes potentially less clogged. Other research, announced earlier this year, provides additional insight into how successful EP procedures, combined with the expected timing of a reactor accident, can keep the public safe.
The NRC continues to examine EP issues in light of last year’s accident at Fukushima Dai-ichi. The agency has asked U.S. nuclear power plants to analyze their staffing needs for events involving multiple reactors at a given site. The NRC is also in the early stages of rulemaking to integrate and strengthen several categories of nuclear plant emergency procedures. The agency also continues to examine information from Fukushima to see what else can be learned regarding the size of evacuation planning zones and the use of potassium iodide.
Scott Burnell Public Affairs Officer
The NRC recently issued a report that documents how we reached the conclusion the cracks discovered in the Davis-Besse shield building do not compromise its ability to perform its safety function.
We’ve previously written about the NRC’s exhaustive efforts to ensure the cracks found in the shield building around the Davis-Besse nuclear power plant’s containment structure are not compromising current safety. This report clearly demonstrates the questioning attitude and the safety focus of our inspectors as they monitored FirstEnergy’s activities to analyze the shield building cracks and to conduct painstaking reviews of the company’s operability analysis.
Upon the discovery of the cracks, we formed a special technical review team consisting of NRC Region III inspectors and headquarters specialists. This team was tasked with ensuring a thorough and rigorous review, and they rose to the challenge.
First, the NRC inspectors monitored FirstEnergy’s testing of the shield building cracks; they verified the quality of the tests; and made sure that the extent of the testing was sufficient to evaluate the extent of the cracking in the structure. As a result of the questions raised by our team, the company performed additional tests so there was enough data to reach a valid conclusion.
Then, the NRC inspectors spent a number of weeks reviewing and questioning FirstEnergy’s analysis of shield building safety. They continued to challenge the company’s calculations, engineering assumptions and conclusions. Some members of the NRC’s team made multiple trips to Davis-Besse to make sure their questions and concerns were effectively addressed in face-to-face meetings with the site’s engineers and consultants.
Two revisions of FirstEnergy’s operability evaluation were needed before our technical team was satisfied that it was thorough enough to show that the shield building was safe for continued operation.
Our work continues with the review of FirstEnergy’s root cause report and proposed long-term corrective actions. We plan to finish the review, issue the inspection report and schedule a public meeting during the summer.
The NRC’s operability report can be accessed on the NRC website. Background information on the discovery of the shield building cracks in October 2011 and the NRC’s response to the issue can be found in the following blog posts:
There Are No Cracks in Davis-Besse’s Containment – October 24, 2011
How did the NRC decide the shield building at Davis-Besse is safe? –December 12, 2011
Viktoria Mitlyng Public Affairs Officer Region III
