This newspaper article appeared on the front page of the Syracuse, New York, Post Standard of October 2, 1999. I am not really sure if it should go here or on the deregulation forum since I believe it has information which could possibly impact Y2K issues re "lapses in management", and it contains deregulation issues, too. Perhaps it should be in the New York State energy news on this site, instead? (Rick, feel free to move the below news transcript wherever you believe it is most appropriate.)

NRC: NiMo's Nukes Geting Worse

Extra reviews planned; utility ordered changes

By Tim Knauss, Staff Writer

Federal safety regulators will increase their scrutiny of Niagara Mohawk's nuclear operations over the next six months as a result of the utility's worsening performance at the Nine Mile Point reactors in Oswego County.

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission issued a semi-annual performance review this week that raised concerns about several issues at the plants, including "long-standing equipment reliability" problems, "shortcomings in maintenance procedures" and "mixed" engineering performance.

"Performance declined in several areas," wrote Richard Crlenjak (pronounced SIR-lin-jack), NRC deputy director in the division of reactor projects. "Accordingly, we plan to conduct additional inspections...to better understand the causes contributing to the decline."

Niagara Mohawk officials agreed with the generally dour tone of the report, acknowledging the plants had suffered from lapses in management.

On Sept. 24 the utility announced it would undertake a significant program aimed at improving its nuclear operations. The effort involves several management reassignments, and Niagara Mohawk will hire PECO Energy of Philadelphia to provide management advice. PECO is a partner in the company that has made an offer to buy the Nine Mile plants.

"We fully agree with the assessment" of the NRC, said Niagara Mohawk spokeman Robin Burtch.

There were a couple of positive notes in the NRC review. Inspectors applauded Niagara Mohawk's repair of cracks in the Nine Mile core shroud, saying technical oversight of that project was "well performed." And regulators said Nine Mile operators generally controlled the plants in a "safe and conservative" manner.

But by and large the NRC evaluation was critical. The agency cited several problems, some of which it attributed to weaknesses in management oversight. Among the problems:

*Shortcomings in maintenance procedures, planning and work control. The NRC said Niagara Mohawk's poor maintenance effort contributed to several lingering problems, including repeated instances where operators were unable to read the position of a check valve in the reactor core isolation cooling system, a key safety component.

*Poorly coordinated engineering, particularly during a series of efforts to repair the reactor core isolation cooling system. The system was declared inoperable several times during the past two years.

*Inadequate self-assessments after automatic shutdowns of the plants. The NRC said Niagara Mohawk's "limited" reviews of these events delayed the identification of weaknesses in operator performance. Equipment problems during the shutdowns exposed weaknesses in teamwork, communications, and use of procedures, the NRC said. [End of article]

NiMo is my electric provider. As you can imagine, this article did not provide any comfort. The problems of "poor maintenance effort", "poorly coordinated engineering", "shortcomings in maintenance procedures, planning and work control" and "inadequate self-assessments" could as easily apply to Year 2000 work as it does to the issues mentioned. It's difficult for me to believe that top-quality planning, oversight, and work was done for Y2K in the absence of it being done in other areas. Not to mention that "weaknesses in teamwork, communications, and use of procedures" doesn't up my confidence in the value of manual contingency plans if any potential Y2K problems do arise. Also, the report that some of the good news included operators "generally" controlling the plant in a safe and conservative manner didn't exactly make me feel comforted. The most recent 10Q for Niagara Mohawk provides other information on both Y2K issues and deregulation matters but I'll put that in a separate thread to keep the length of this post down.

-- Anonymous, October 04, 1999

Answers

Bonnie,

This is a very interesting, timely, and important posting. I am especially taken with the "lapses in management" charge, which the management agreed with. This suggests that they really had themselves hung way out on the matter and had no option other than to agree and cooperate. We have seen the clues that point to this sort of problem in many other places in the electric utilities industry. The EDG reliability issue is only one of the most obvious. Perhaps the NRC is going to spotlight these worst case operators in preparation for a shutdown for the rollover period. I fully expect that at least *some* nukes will be ordered to shutdown. Of course the NRC doesn't want to remove any more than absolutely necessary, but the recent "lapses of management" controls in Japan points to the danger of poor procedures.

-- Anonymous, October 04, 1999