South Texas Project Response To Survey

[Bob&Liz Logan <golfer@intertex.net>]

>>Fermi 2 is conducting a survey of Power Reactor facilities concerning the 
>>access of visitors into their Radiological Restricted Areas (RRA).  We are 
>>looking at revising our procedures for the access of visitors/vendors into
the 
>>RRA to perform work in non-posted areas.  Our present policy is that an 
>>individual must have "Full Radworker" training to perform any work in the
RRA. 
>> The survey questions are as follows: 
>> 
>>(1) Does your plant have an access category for visitors/vendors? If so.
>
>        Yes... (1) Working Visitors - Onsite to perform work
>                  (2) Tourists - Onsite for plant tours
>. 
>>(2) Can the visitor/vendor perform work in non-posted areas?
>
>        Yes. Anyone can work outside the radiologically controlled area
>        without rad worker training. Our General Access Training for
>        Security purposes has some basic rad worker concepts.
> 
>>(3) Is the visitor/vendor escorted? 
>
>        If a Security visitor - Yes at all times in protected area
>        If a Rad visitor - No outside RCA
>                                  Yes inside RCA
>
>>(4) What is the minimum training needed for access to the RRA?
>
>        For tourists, read and sign a informal briefing sheet
>        For working visitors, a formal briefing from an RP supervisor
> 
>>(5) What type of dosimetry and what limits are given to the visitor/vendor?
>
>        Depends on areas to be access. ED for all visitors and tourists
>        A TLD for working visitors if enerting an HRA
>        Dose limits for visitors = 50 mrem for year (10% of fed limit for
monitoring
>
gotta think of the kids)
>        Dose limit for working visitors = 100 mrem/yr (Member of the public)
> 
>>(6) Is the visitor/vendor given initial and exit whole body counts? 
>
>        If entering a contaminated area, entrance & exit whole body count.
>        Otherwise, no whole body count
>
>Here is a little more information that you may find interesting.....
>
>During refueling outages, we hold "Family Days" where our workers
>can bring their families into the radilogically controlled area, including
>the reactor containment building to see what goes on. We maintain our
>containment as a clean area during both power operations and during
>refueling outages. Over the past three refueling outages, we have had
>over 1,000 family members come see what the insides of those "great
>big domes" look like. Our tourists also also visit the Fuel Handling Building
>to see where the long term storage of fuel occurs. The parent signs a
>short form indicating that they are responsible for the visitors and will make
>sure that they stay safe. Minimum age limit for tourists = 10 years old.
>
>Response has been overwhelming. The families of our workers walk away
>with a better appreciation of how safe and clean the plant really is. Our
>workers get a chance to "brag it up" about the importance of their jobs
>and how we keep our buildings so clean that anyone can come visit us.
>This is not for everyone, but it sure goes along way to building good will
>and increasing the comfort level. Heck, we even let the Press in to see
>how it is really done!
>
>We have a site exit survey that we have folks fill out as they receive an
>exit whole body count. The basic wording is similar to "I would like the
>station radiation protection manager to know how I feel about the
>radiological protection I received during my stay at STP." They have
>two choices to answer (1) I have no concerns or (2) I have the following
>concerns.... I answer each concern with a formal letter. This also goes a
>long way to increasing the comfort zone of our workers.
>
>We do not issue TLDs to folks not expected to receive in excess of 100 mrem/yr.
>We are the only station still not issuing TLDs to everyone. We use ALNOR
>Rad-80 dosimeters and the reliability is outstanding (less than 2 valid
failures per
>10,000 uses). We do not have fuel failure, we do not have exotic isotopic
mixes,
>and we have well trained rad workers. We have prepared a technical bases paper
> (prepared by my CHP for external and internal dosimetry) justifying the
practice. 
>The paper is approved through the vice-president, nuclear generation.
>
>During power operations our reactor containment building is posted as a
Radiation
>Area. The high rad areas, locked high rad areas, and contaminated areas are
posted
>locally within the containment. We make several entries into the
containment building
>each week to perform online maintenance. This has saved literally thousands
of man-
>hours on RP coverage and puts the postings closer to the hazards. Also does
wonders
>helping maintain the materiel condition of the plant between outages.
>
>Just completed our 5th refueling outage in Unit Two. Took 17 days, 14
hours, 8 mins.
>Received 111.5 person-rem performing full core offload/onload, eddy current
testing
>of all four S/Gs (100 bobbin coil, 20% MRPC), plugged 1,000 tubes, RCP seal
>replaced, 600 work orders completed, etc. In other words, a full-blown
refueling
>outage. Workers did great, plant looks great, should run for another 18
months with
>little problem...
>
>That's about all. I hope I passed on some good information and maybe encouraged
>you to look for some process improvements. With radiation litigation being
one of our
>most formidable challenges of the future, we need to do everything we can
to prevent
>litigation, not simply mitigate it.
>
>Bob Logan
>Radiation Protection Manager
>South Texas Project, Units One & Two
>