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 also for distribution to members of the Wylfa Power Station Local Community Liaison Council and covers activities associated with the regulation of safety at Wylfa Power Station. These reports are distributed quarterly. Site Inspectors of HM Nuclear Installations Inspectorate attend LCLC meetings and will be happy to respond to questions raised there by members of the LCLC. Any other person wishing to enquire about matters covered by this report should contact the HSE, Nuclear Directorate Information Centre on 0151 - 951 - 4103.
Visits to Wylfa Power Station were made by HMNII inspectors on the following occasions during the period :
8 - 9 January 2002
16 - 17 January 2002
17 January 2002
23 - 24 January 2002
6 - 8 February 2002
7 - 8 February 2002
12 - 13 February 2002
13 - 15 February 2002
26 - 28 February 2002
20 - 22 March 2002
During the period, the site inspector carried out a series of planned inspections of the licensee's compliance with relevant health and safety requirements, in particular the conditions attached to the nuclear site licence and the Ionising Radiations Regulations. Overall BNFL's arrangements were found to be satisfactory, with some areas for potential improvement being brought to the attention of the Wylfa management team, although none of these was significant enough to merit the consideration of enforcement action.
The Annual Review Meeting between the Wylfa management team and HMNII, led by the Superintending Inspector for Wylfa, was held on 13 February. The purpose of these meetings is to enable the licensee to report on progress with safety related issues during the previous year and to outline future activities. Amongst the items covered in the discussions were: review of plant and reactor performance in 2001, review of incidents and lessons learned from them, review of safety case management, status of licensing issues and staffing and working arrangements. Whilst there were no significant issues arising from the meeting, it provided a good opportunity for BNFL and HMNII to 'take stock' of Wylfa's performance during 2001. Prior to the meeting, HMNII made a tour of the site and was pleased to confirm that progress continues to be made in bringing about improvements to the state of housekeeping and material condition of the plant.
The level 2 emergency exercise "GAIA" took place on 23 January 2002. Level 2 exercises such as this are designed to test the off-site response, and hence much of the activity associated with the exercise took place at the Colwyn Bay Local Emergency Centre and the BNFL Central Emergency Support Centre at Barnwood. The HMNII Site Inspector and a BNFL team were based in the Wylfa Emergency Control Centre, from which the exercise was 'driven'.
HMNII Inspections have continued on the work to complete the implementation of the Long Term Safety Review programme of improvements, including the issue of a Licence Instrument to enable the implementation of significant plant modifications to commence. Although BNFL is continuing to make progress with this work, with one significant project milestone being achieved during the quarter, in advance of BNFL's programme, problems have arisen in some areas of the work, which is a cause of some concern to HMNII. However, HMNII is satisfied that BNFL is undertaking appropriate measures to deal with the problems which have arisen.
The site inspector has continued to monitor BNFL's recording and investigation of events which occurred during the quarter and where appropriate has carried out some independent investigations to an extent warranted by the significance of the event. In general the site inspector is content with the way in which these matters have been progressed by the company. Only one event was considered to merit particular attention by HMNII, this being the discrepancy in accounting for irradiated fuel within one of the Dry Store Cells. After having examined the relevant circumstances and considered BNFL's investigation, HMNII is content that the fuel element which could not be accounted for is likely to have been despatched to Sellafield for reprocessing. HMNII is satisfied that BNFL is taking appropriate actions in order to minimise the possibility of a recurrence.
PassPort is a computer system that performs a work and compliance management function for BNFL at its Magnox power stations. The version of PassPort currently used is becoming obsolete. Having considered the options available, BNFL has decided to replace the existing version of PassPort with the version currently available from the supplier. Whilst PassPort is an off-line system, which does not directly control any plant, as it is used to manage the maintenance of safety related plant etc it does have the potential to impact on safety. Hence, BNFL is managing the implementation of the replacement version through its arrangements for safety related modifications. BNFL is planning to implement the changes in a unified manner, with Wylfa being the lead station. HMNII has assessed the Paper of Principle outlining the proposals for the replacement scheme and is content with the proposals to date. Discussions concerning the detailed implementation plans for Wylfa have commenced and are continuing.
The 1995 White Paper ' Review of Radioactive Waste Management Policy : Final Conclusions' (Cm 2919) requires operators to draw up strategies for the decommissioning of redundant plant and for HSE to review these strategies on a five yearly basis. In accordance with this, Magnox Electric has prepared a strategy for decommissioning of the Magnox reactors when they reach the end of their operational life. HSE/HMNII has recently completed its first review of this strategy and in February 2002 published a report on the outcome of this assessment. The HSE/HMNII review covers both the technical and some financial aspects of Magnox Electric's strategy for decommissioning of its nine Magnox Power stations. Overall the review concludes that Magnox Electric's strategy is satisfactory at this point in time. The HSE/HMNII report is available on the HSE website at: http://www.hse.gov.uk/nuclear/magdecom.pdf
The Inspectorate has powers under the Nuclear Site Licence to issue Consents, Approvals and Directions. In addition the Inspectorate uses Licence Instruments to issue formal Agreements and Specifications under the conditions attached to the Licence. During this period, the Inspectorate used these powers as follows :
Licence Instrument No 48 was issued on 7 January 2002 agreeing to the replacement of some control and instrumentation equipment in the safety circuits.
Licence Instrument No 49 was issued on 11 January 2002 agreeing to the placing into routine service of some completed modifications to the gas turbines control system.
Licence Instrument No 50 was issued on 1 February 2002 agreeing to the principles for the proposed replacement of the PassPort work management system.
Licence Instrument No 51 was issued on 22 January 2002 agreeing to some modifications in support of the enhancement of the seismic safety case.
Licence Instrument No 52 was issued on 25 January 2002 agreeing to an increase in the number of spent fuel transport flasks that can be filled during the commissioning of the Diverse Discharge Route from the Dry Store Cells.
Licence Instrument No 53 was issued on 5 February 2002 agreeing to the deferral of the maintenance outage for Reactor 2 in view of its prolonged shutdown in 2000/01.
Published on the HSE web site 10 June 2002