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more on davis besse
> 8/30/02
> John Mangels and John Funk
> Plain Dealer reporters
> When Davis-Besse nuclear plant workers and managers unwittingly let acid
> from leaking reactor coolant completely rot two nuts holding a key valve in
> 1998, the penalty could have stung.
> The corrosion, which percolated unnoticed for four months, violated a pair
> of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's basic operating rules and could have
> threatened the plant's safe operation, an investigation by the agency
> found. The NRC determined that the lapses warranted a $55,000 fine.
> But the regulators decided to give FirstEnergy Corp.'s nuclear division a
> break. The "effective" and "comprehensive" actions that Davis-Besse
> managers took to stop the acid leak and correct the cause of the damage
> earned them a pass on the punishment, the NRC ruled.
> Actually, though, the nuclear plant's supposed leak repairs and the
> improvements it promised in its anti-corrosion program were anything but
> effective or comprehensive, Davis-Besse's owner now acknowledges.
> At the same time the NRC was lauding Davis-Besse's newfound corrosion
> vigilance, plant personnel were ignoring numerous warnings that something
> much larger than a couple of fasteners was rusting away inside the
> containment building. These included boric acid residue on equipment
> throughout the reactor containment building.
> And they even included clumps of dried acid on the reactor's lid.
> The 1998 incident was a harbinger of a much more serious event that finally
> came to light this March - an unprecedented hole the size of a hefty
> paperback book all the way through the reactor's thick metal lid, the
> result of another long-undetected acid leak. Only a slim steel liner,
> bulging from the reactor's high-pressure coolant, prevented a major nuclear
> accident. The plant remains closed as major repairs and investigations
> continue.
> Had the NRC probed deeper four years ago rather than waiving Davis-Besse's
> fine and closing the case, some critics say, it might have headed off the
> extensive reactor lid corrosion and a brush with disaster.
> Once the agency is satisfied that a reactor operator has proposed proper
> remedies and begun the fixes, "we may not necessarily do a follow-up
> inspection" to determine how well the corrections are carried out, said NRC
> spokesman Jan Strasma.
> "In the best of all worlds, yes, we'd want to do that. Hindsight says it
> would have been nice to pursue it further," Strasma said, but the agency's
> limited inspection resources and pressing problems at other plants limited
> what more it could do at Davis-Besse.
> The RC-2 event, as the 1998 valve incident has come to be called, "was an
> opportunity for the NRC to probe a little deeper and see a serious
> problem," said nuclear engineer David Lochbaum of the Union of Concerned
> Scientists, a watchdog group that is closely following the Davis-Besse
> affair. "Had they done it, there's no guarantee it would have led to the
> discovery of the hole in the reactor's lid. But it's less likely it would
> have been overlooked."
> Said U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich, "These new reports are troubling and
> demonstrate the need to continue efforts to ensure that Davis-Besse is safe
> before it can reopen. I will be asking the NRC inspector general to
> investigate these latest findings."
> An NRC task force already is weighing the significance of the RC-2 event as
> part of a larger review of the agency's oversight of Davis-Besse. The
> nuclear division of FirstEnergy, operator of the Toledo-area reactor, has
> documented its own failings in the 1998 event as part of a sharply
> self-critical analysis of overall plant management problems.
> The report, as yet unreleased by the NRC or FirstEnergy but obtained by The
> Plain Dealer, discloses that:
> The chronic leaks of acidic coolant that caused two of the eight
> walnut-sized hex nuts holding the reactor's RC-2 valve to disappear
> happened again several months after the NRC closed its review in August
> 1999, satisfied that the company had effectively solved the problem.
> The NRC gave Davis-Besse managers credit for resolving the leaking-valve
> problem, but FirstEnergy's report says the problem's return in 2000
> "indicates the ineffectiveness of previous root cause evaluations and
> preventive actions."
> The NRC in its 1999 decision praised Davis-Besse managers for strengthening
> maintenance workers' training to recognize the harmful effects that leaking
> coolant could have on metal parts, and for improving corrosion-inspection
> plans. But the beefed-up training didn't take.
> Plant personnel allowed the boric acid that had accumulated on the
> reactor's lid since 1996 because of coolant leaks to remain and actually
> increase. Workers in April 2000 used crowbars to pry away some of the
> inch-thick "lavalike" deposits covering the lid. Managers let them leave
> what they couldn't reach. An estimated 900 pounds of the stuff had built up
> by early 2002, contrary to company and nuclear industry standards.
> Beneath this blanket, acid ate away at the lid undetected for at least six
> years. FirstEnergy now acknowledges that its anti-corrosion training was
> insufficient, and that plant staff didn't apply the lessons from the valve
> incident to the acid deposits on the reactor's lid.
> In the wake of the 1998 incident, Davis-Besse engineers were specifically
> taught that red or brown acid residue is a sign of rust damage,
> FirstEnergy's report says. But the training "was less than adequate" in
> helping personnel recognize that the red and brown on the lid meant
> corrosion there, too.
> A photo from the plant's inspection in April 2000 clearly shows long smears
> of dried acid and rust on the huge steel reactor lid, but no one figured
> out that there might be damage under way on the 6½-inch-thick dome.
> Using the lessons from the missing nuts, "we should have recognized this
> situation" with the corroding reactor lid, FirstEnergy spokesman Todd
> Schneider said. "We are developing a new boric acid control program which
> will provide a permanent remedy to problems like this. And we are taking
> steps to ensure that this program will be implemented correctly."
> If it had looked more closely at the valve incident, the NRC might also
> have recognized that the situation was more serious. FirstEnergy's new
> report shows that:
> Davis-Besse workers in 1998 reported "a lack of comprehensive actions" by
> management to fix the valve. Its leaks were repeatedly documented in 20
> repair orders spanning 22 years.
> Managers in November of that year ordered an in-depth review, called a
> "root cause analysis," but only after workers had filed six reports in five
> months warning that the leaky valve might threaten plant performance.
> Davis-Besse's quality assurance manager looked into the matter and reported
> in January 1999 that the initial response, corrective actions and
> management attention given to the leaky valve were "inadequate."
> When one group couldn't solve the problem, said the 1999 report, "no other
> organization(s) stepped up" to help.
> And when managers gave assignments, "there was confusion among
> organizations as to what responsibilities they had incurred."
> Still, the NRC concluded seven months later that the plant deserved credit
> for its corrective work and its recent violation-free record.
> Plant personnel had "a much greater sensitivity to the effects of [acid
> corrosion] on plant equipment," the NRC said at the time.
> The agency also praised workers for checking more than 500 other bolts on
> reactor equipment to ensure that they were stainless steel, and for finally
> fixing the leaky RC-2 valve.
> This time around, FirstEnergy promises that the corrections it is making
> will be better and more thorough than those it attempted after the RC-2
> event. Davis-Besse's workers will be more focused on safety, and the
> plant's all-new management will look at the big picture rather than viewing
> malfunctions as isolated events.
> And the problematic RC-2 valve, as well as many others, will be replaced
> before the reactor is restarted, Schneider said.
> The NRC's oversight also is shaping up to be far more thorough this time.
> There are five ongoing reviews that will have an impact on when the agency
> allows FirstEnergy's idled power plant to rumble back to life.
> To reach these Plain Dealer reporters:
> jmangels@plaind.com, 216-999-4842
> jfunk@plaind.com, 216-999-4138
> http://www.cleveland.com/ohio/plaindealer/index.ssf?/xml/story.ssf/html_standard.xsl?/base/news/1030699956321300.xml
>
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