Duke Power - CATAWBA NUCLEAR STATION - 10 CFR Violation - Failure to Adequately Identify and Correct a Main Steam Line Leak = SGTR Issue

by Bob Meyer

This is a great lesson learned for operations to identify, document and fix issues. Operators are licensed by the Federal Government to protect the health and safety of the public. Intollerance for equipment issues is a fundamental that needs to drive the station to fix important issues. 

In a letter dated July 23, 2010 to J. R. Morris, Site VP, the NRC stated that a violation of 10 CFR Part 50, Appendix B, Criterion XVI, Corrective Action, was identified for the licensee’s failure to adequately identify and correct a steam leak on a safety-related portion of the Main Steam system.

If this leak was left uncorrected the steam leak could degrade and exceed the value used in the existing analysis for a Design Basis Steam Generator Tube Rupture and also could affect manual operation of equipment during execution of emergency and abnormal operating procedures. 

This violation had a crosscutting aspect in the corrective action program component of the area of problem identification and resolution because the steam leak was not identified completely, accurately, and in a timely manner.