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 Dungeness A site available to the public. It is for distribution to members of the Dungeness Power Stations' Local Community Liaison Council (LCLC) and covers activities associated with the regulation of safety at the Dungeness A Nuclear Power Plant. These reports are distributed quarterly and are also available from HSE's Internet website. Site Inspectors of HM Nuclear Installations Inspectorate attend LCLC meetings and will respond to any questions raised there by members of the LCLC. Any other person wishing to enquire about matters covered by this report may contact HSE's Nuclear Directorate Information Centre on 0151 951 4103.
1. The site inspector and five other inspectors visited the
Dungeness A site during the quarter. Inspections were made on the
following days:
18 - 21 October
15 -18 November
6- 9 December
2. Inspections are undertaken for the purpose of monitoring compliance with (i) the conditions attached by HSE to the nuclear site licences, and (ii) other relevant provisions of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974, including the Ionising Radiations Regulations 1999. In this period routine inspections covered:
a. Organisational change arrangements.
b. Management of operation and maintenance.
c. Training and authorisations.
d. Annual Review of Safety.
e. Incidents on the site.
f. Radiological protection.
g. Emergency preparedness.
h. Plant modifications.
3. Annual Demonstration Emergency Exercise. NII observed the annual Dungeness A exercise on Wednesday 20 October 2004. NII found that many aspects of the exercise were adequate. However, there were two less secure features, which Dungeness A was requested to further demonstrate in a planned shift exercise in 2005. These were in the following areas:
i. Site muster/roll call and accounting for personnel;
ii. The use of the Emergency Control Centre, particularly in the area of conservative decision making over public protection and timely advice on countermeasures to the police.
4. Joint Inspection with EA Site Inspector. As part of the Memorandum of Understanding between the HSE and EA the two respective site inspectors met to share inspection plans for the near term and they also undertook a joint inspection of the solid low-level raioactive waste facilty on site, no safety issues of significant concern were identified.
5. Unplanned Reactor Shutdowns: On 11 October an error by Grid Co staff in its Switch House led to loss of electrical supplies to parts of the station's equipment. Reactor 2 shut itself down automatically. Reactor 1 was in the early stages of a start-up. The operators failed to quickly secure power to the coolant pumps, which stopped for 4 minutes in contravention of an operating rule. NII wrote to the station expressing concerns over this non-compliance and requiring a report on the Station's own investigation by 30 November 2004. The Site Inspector performed a separate investigation at site into the events. His view was that the root cause of the OR non-compliance was founded in decisions made by the reactor operators. This was later confirmed by the Station's own investigation process. The station has identified 17 corrective actions. NII has asked that these be implemented no later than April 2005.
Two further shutdowns were necessary due to problems with
different reactor fuelling machines. Reactor 1 was shutdown on 7
October because of the need to recover a suspended component and R2
was shutdown on 28 October due to an irradiated fuel element
becoming stuck within a fuelling machine.
Investigation into the two fuelling machine events revealed
mechanical failures to be the direct cause in each case. In the
first event control of a component was lost for several seconds as
a result of a slipping clutch on a service hoist main drive train.
This particular clutch was 2 months from its biennial planned
maintenance routine. Maintenance activities have been reviewed and
enhanced with a view to improving the clutch reliabiltiy. The
second event was caused by failure of some original bolts within
another mechanical transfer mechanism. All similar bolts have now
been replaced on the other three mechanisms. In both cases the
reactor was manually shutdown and the recovery operations handled
without further incident.
6. Incidents: On 18 October there was an incident
in the low level waste plant where some radioactive waste escaped
from its bagging and was spread onto the floor of the waste
reception area, some of the contamination also found its way onto a
worker's clothing. NII wrote to Site requesting a report into
the circumstances surrounding this incident. An investigation was
conducted and several corrective actions identified to prevent a
recurrence. These are mainly aimed at improving the physical
containment for the waste item and ensuring that staff training and
experience are better monitored and focused in future. NII was
satisfied with the Station's response.
7. Environmental Impact Assessment for Decommissioning
Regulations (EIADR99): The HSE is the competent authority
for the above regulations. These regulations implement the
requirement of an EC Directive for an environmental impact
assessment (EIA) for decommissioning nuclear power reactors. Before
Dungeness A can commence decommissioning it requires HSE's
Consent under these regulations.
In September 2004 ME plc submitted a scoping report and asked HSE to provide a pre-application opinion on what should be covered in the Environmental Statement (ES) required by EIADR. To help form the pre-application opinion HSE consulted with a large number of organisations, including LCLC members, on the content of the pre-application opinion report.
Taking into account all the comments received from the
consultees, HSE formed the view that it is broadly content with the
scoping report. A detailed pre-application opinion was sent to ME
plc on 21 December 2004 and will be copied to all consultees in
January. It will also be put on HSE's web site under: -
http://www.hse.gov.uk/nuclear/index.htm#consultations
On receipt of the ES in late 2005 and following a 3 month
consultation period NII will review and assess the ES. A decision
will then be made based on this assessment, taking account of the
consultees' comments.
8. As part of its regulation under nuclear site licences NII issues regulatory documents, collectively termed Licence Instruments (LI). None were issued for Dungeness A during the quarter.
2 Licence Instruments are formal documents issued under the licence conditions and arrangements, including Consents, Approvals, Directions, Specifications, Notifications, Agreements and Acknowledgements.
Published on the HSE web site 24 January 2005
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