Health and Safety
Executive / Commission
Nuclear
LLC reports
This report is issued as part of the Health and Safety Executive's commitment to make information about inspection and regulatory activities relating to the above site available to the public. It is for distribution to members of the Hunterston B Local Liaison Committee and covers activities associated with the regulation of safety at Hunterston B Nuclear Power Station. These reports are distributed quarterly. Site Inspectors of HM Nuclear Installations Inspectorate normally attend LLC meetings and will respond to any questions raised there or subsequently by members of the LLC. Any other person wishing to inquire about matters covered by this report should contact the HSE, Nuclear Directorate Information Centre on 0151 - 951 - 4103.
Hunterston B was visited for site inspections on four occasions during this quarter, the visits having both a routine element and reactive element. The dates were as follows:
9 - 10 April; 22 - 26 April; 27 - 31 May; 24 - 28 June.A significant number of additional inspections involving specialist NII staff were also carried out.
The routine inspections for this quarter, covering a range of aspects of plant operation, maintenance, and management were completed. In addition, where necessary, reactive inspection has been carried out, with the more significant items reported below. In areas where opportunities for improvement were identified, remedial work has been agreed with station management, with the intention of achieving improvements to current station arrangements in those areas.
Two NII specialist inspectors attended site, with the site inspector, to observe a further demonstration of the site emergency arrangements. The Superintending Inspector for Hunterston B attended site to attend the station annual review of safety meeting. An ND specialist inspector attended site, with the site inspector, to inspect for site readiness to implement Technical Specifications to replace Operating Rules and Identified Operating Restrictions. Three NII inspectors attended site to assist the site inspector carry out an enhanced inspection of station compliance with the site licence compliance arrangements. The NII conventional safety specialist attended site to carry out an inspection to assess compliance with the requirements of the Improvement Notice issued to Hunterston B in respect of the event involving asbestos bearing material. A specialist inspector visited the site to carry out an inspection of site arrangements for matters relating to radiological protection. Some of these matters are referred to in greater detail in the following sections of this report.
The following non-routine events were considered during visits to the station and at other meetings:
The station commenced the triennial periodic shutdown of reactor 4 and turbogenerator 8 on 22 June 2002. The station have carried out maintenance, inspection and testing work during the outage. The NII and other independent agencies have planned to inspect outage activities to confirm compliance with appropriate regulations and arrangements. During this outage, there will be a short combined R3 and R4 outage, to allow essential maintenance of plant; particularly electrical equipment. The station plan to return the reactor to service on 29 July 2002, following Consent to restart from the NII.
As reported in a previous LLC report, an Improvement Notice was issued to BEG(UK)L requiring improvements to the site arrangements for risk assessment. The notice required remedial measures to be completed before the end of May 2002. The NII conventional safety specialist inspector visited site in May, and confirmed that sufficient remedial work had been done to deem the notice complied with.
The station invited a team of NII inspectors to visit site to review training records and observe a further demonstration of the site mustering arrangements to complete the 2001 level 1 exercise. A team of NII inspectors attended site on 9-10 April 2002, inspected the improved site arrangements for mustering and activities at muster stations, the station training records in respect of the revised arrangements and observed the further demonstration. The demonstration observed was considered to be adequate and this was reported after completion of the exercise.
The NII Approved the appropriate sections of the Hunterston B Technical Specifications on 3 May 2002 following completion of the evaluation process by NII staff. The NII work included specialist assessment, site inspection and a final readiness inspection carried out at the site immediately prior to granting the Approval. The operating organisation also carried out a separate assessment of readiness prior to NII. The station implemented Technical Specifications at Hunterson B on 8 May 2002, following NII approval.
An enhanced inspection of the adequacy of the site licence compliance arrangements and the extent to which station observe them, was carried out from 28-30 May by four NII inspectors. The inspection revealed that many of the declared arrangements documents were outside the required revision times and did not correspond to current station practices. The outcome of the inspection has been that station have been required to provide a programme of work to rectify the position, and to complete the work before the company Work Management System is implemented on the site (currently November 2002). The station have been notified formally of these requirements in a letter from the NII
Station contributed to the recent level 2 exercise, carried out periodically, to test off-site responses to an event centered on Hunterston B with off-site consequences. The station ECC was manned to provide information to the off site locations which were participating, and they performed this function.
Approval No: 28 of sections of the Hunterston B Technical Specifications was granted by NII.
An Improvement Notice requiring improvements to the arrangements for risk assessment issued to BEG(UK)L was deemed complied with.
Published on the HSE web site 8 October 2002