Magnox North Limited - Wylfa power station report - Q1 2010

Site stakeholder group quarterly report for 1 January to 31 March 2010

Foreword

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 Site Stakeholder Group and covers activities associated with the regulation of safety at Wylfa Power Station. These reports are distributed quarterly and are available on the Internet at http://www.hse.gov.uk/nuclear/llc/index.htm. Site Inspectors of HM Nuclear Installations Inspectorate attend SSG meetings and will be happy to respond to questions raised there by members of the SSG.

Inspections

The Site Inspector made the following visits to Wylfa in the period covered by this report:

4 - 6 January 2010
20 - 21 January 2010
28 - 29 January 2010
24 - 26 February 2010
9 - 11 March 2010
17 March 2010
25 March 2010

Routine matters

Inspections at site

Inspections are undertaken at site as part of the process for monitoring compliance with:

the conditions attached by HSE/NII to the nuclear site licence;
the Health and Safety at Work etc Act (HSWA) 1974 and
regulations made under the HSWA for example the Ionising Radiations Regulations 1999 and the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999.

This entails monitoring licensee’s actions on the site in relation to incidents, operations, maintenance, projects, modifications, safety case changes and any other matters which may affect safety. The licensees/operators are required to make and implement adequate arrangements under the conditions attached to the licence in order to ensure legal compliance. Inspections seek to judge both the adequacy of these arrangements and their implementation. In this period routine inspections of (site/station) covered:

Modifications to plant, equipment and safety cases: Level 4 meetings have been held with NII inspectors and Magnox staff to reduce the hazard on site from a small number of legacy corroded fuel elements in Dry Store Cell 4. NII has welcomed the progress made by MXN to remove a number of damaged fuel elements from the store and is engaging with the licensee to consider the adequacy of proposals to make modifications to the recovery equipment to facilitate the removal of the remaining fuel elements.

Modifications to plant, equipment and safety cases: NII has accepted proposals from MXN for the trial use of Ductile Cast Iron Containers for storage of radioactive waste on site.

Examination, Maintenance, Inspection and Testing: Proposals for the maintenance of Reactor 2 during the statutory 2010 outage were presented to NII and considered to be satisfactory.

Operating Rules : An inspection of the Operating Rule limit for reactor gas pressure was completed during this period and the site inspector was satisfied that the licensee was complying with the appropriate numerical limit.

Organisational Changes : The licensee has submitted to NII proposals to make adjustments to the site organisational baseline structure under its Licence Condition 36 control of organisational Change arrangements. The adequacy of these proposals continue to be assessed by NII specialists.

Periodic safety review - Extended Generation : Wylfa is currently planned to cease generation at the end of December 2010. NII is continuing to engage with the licensee on its proposals for extending generation beyond the current planned date for ending generation. Meetings have been held between NII and Magnox North specialists on safety case submissions. As part of this project NII has given agreement to a proposal for extended retention of some fuel elements in the reactor core. This resulted in the issue of Licence Instrument 541.

Non-routine matters

Licensees are required to have arrangements to respond to non-routine matters and events. NII inspectors judge the adequacy of the licensee’s response including actions taken to implement any necessary improvements.

MXN and NII senior staff reviewed the station’s safety performance during 2009 at a meeting held in March. NII noted and welcomed a number of initatives proposed by the licensee to further improve nuclear safety at Wylfa and concluded that the station’s nuclear safety performance in the past year was adequate.
In accordance with Licence Condition 7 arrangements for the notification to NII of of incidents on site, the licensee made NII aware of some minor defects in fire hoses on the station. The site inspector concluded that the licensee had responded appropriately by putting in place corrective actions.

Other matters

Proposed Changes to the status of HSE’s Nuclear Directorate (ND)

Work is continuing to restructure HSE’s Nuclear Directorate to establish it as a Nuclear Statutory Corporation (NSC). As described in a previous quarterly report (July-September 2009), the reform of ND will result in its re-establishment as a sector-specific independent organisation but remaining under the auspices of the HSE. The purpose of this transformation is to ensure that it is best placed to deliver a new, forward thinking and world leading nuclear regulator that is fit to tackle the future challenges ahead.

The necessary change to ND’s status is being made via a Legislative Reform Order under the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Act 2006.
As part of the proposed change in status, the new organisation will adopt a new name and Government Ministers recently decided that this should be the Office for Nuclear Regulation. The restructuring, like the taking on of the new name, will not - however - alter or weaken the substance or standards of regulation or compromise the independence of the nuclear regulatory body, and will not affect the decisions it takes or the international obligations the government requires it to meet. Instead, it will create a body that is better positioned to support effectively the industry’s planned expansion and the management of legacy works whilst most importantly continuing to enforce robustly the regulations at nuclear licensed sites.

To ensure that ND is capable of operating as a NSC, an internal programme of work has been underway to plan, develop and implement the necessary changes. This programme also incorporates ND’s existing and projected work, thereby securing consistency throughout our business. ND is committed that throughout this process of transformation its stakeholders are kept fully informed of the changes and it is adopting a number of methods for engagement, including these quarterly reports, to realise this aim.

Regulatory activity

Under Health and Safety legislation NII inspectors, and other HSE inspectors, may issue formal documents to ensure compliance with regulatory requirements. Under nuclear site licence conditions HSE/NII issues regulatory documents, which either permission an activity or requires some form of action to be taken; these are collectively termed Licence Instruments (LI). In addition inspectors may issue enforcement notices to secure improvements to safety.

Date	Type	No	Description
11 March 2010	Agreement	541	Agreement under Licence Condition 22 (1) to proposals to retain fuel elements 1 and 2 to end of generation.
31 March 2010	Approval	542	Approval under Licence Condition 13 (3) of the Nuclear Safety Committee Terms of Reference.
31 March 2010	Approval	543	Approval under Licence Condition 13(11) of Nuclear Safety Committee arrangements for consideration of urgent safety proposals.