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 Heysham Power Stations’ Local Community Liaison Council (LCLC) and covers activities associated with the regulation of safety at Heysham 1 & 2 Nuclear Power Stations. These reports are distributed quarterly and are also available on the HSE’s web site at http://www.hse.gov.uk/nuclear/llc/index.htm. Site Inspectors of HM Nuclear Installations Inspectorate (NII) attend LCLC meetings and will respond to questions raised there by members of the LCLC. Any other person wishing to enquire about matters covered by this report may contact the HSE’s Nuclear Directorate on 0151 951 3484/3290.
Nuclear Safety Directorate
Health and Safety Executive
Redgrave Court
Merton Road
Bootle
Merseyside
L20 7HS
The Nuclear Installations Inspectorate (NII) Site Inspectors and other inspectors made inspections at Heysham on the following dates during the quarter:
| Heysham 1 | Heysham 2 | |
|---|---|---|
| 10, 23 & 25 | Oct 2007 | 8, 9, 10, 12, 23 & 24 |
| 2, 14,15, 20, 21, 26 & 28 | Nov 2007 | 13, 14,15,28 & 29 |
| None | Dec 2007 | 19 & 20 |
Inspections are undertaken at site as part of the process for monitoring compliance with:
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 licensee is 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 on site covered:
In general the arrangements made and implemented by the stations in response to safety requirements were deemed to be adequate in the areas inspected. However, where improvements were considered necessary, satisfactory commitments to address the issues were made by or are being sought from the licensee, and the site inspectors will monitor progress during future visits. Where necessary, formal regulatory intervention action may be taken to ensure that appropriate remedial measures are implemented to reasonably practicable timescales.
NII and Station held the annual safety review meeting on 15 November 2007 to review the station’s last period of operation, discuss plans for the period ahead and to progress any outstanding safety issues. Prior to the meeting the NII team inspected various parts of the plant. The Station gave several commitments aimed at enhancing its safety performance and NII confirmed these in a letter to the Station Director. These included commitments to reduce work backlogs in respect of safety related plant and to establish a strategy for final disposal of radioactive waste desiccant and lubricating oil currently stored on the licence site.
Heysham 1 Annual Emergency Exercise "FALCON"
On 21 November 2007 a team from the Nuclear Directorate (ND), comprising NII and OCNS Inspectors, attended Heysham 1 Power Station to observe the Level 1 demonstration emergency exercise “FALCON”. The primary purpose of the exercise was for the station to demonstrate the adequacy of its arrangements for responding to an accident or emergency. NII judged Emergency Exercise “FALCON”, which tested the station’s response to coincident nuclear safety and security scenarios, to have adequately demonstrated Heysham 1's emergency arrangements. ND expects BE to ensure that the lessons from this exercise are used to enhance the robustness of the emergency response arrangements at all of its stations.
A requirement of the site licence is that Station performs a major review of safety every 10 years. The PSR requires a review of the existing safety case, a comparison of the plant with modern standards and identification of ageing related phenomena that may affect safety. The NII then independently assess the outcome from the review and decide on future operation of the Station. The planned submission for the BE PSR to be furnished to NII is December 2008 with the so-called NII “decision date” being due in December 2009. Station completed a report of its preliminary review in November 2007 and this has identified many issues that will be considered in greater detail in 2008; none of these issues is deemed to be of high safety significance by the Station.
A team of NII inspectors observed the Heysham 2 annual demonstration emergency exercise on 24 October 2007. NII concluded that the Station had given an adequate demonstration of its emergency preparedness arrangements. Some learning opportunities were also identified and these points were communicated in a letter to site. The issue with the proper functioning of Station’s radio communications equipment was again raised. As a result actions will be undertaken by BE staff to further enhance the Station’s response capability.
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. Matters of particular note considered during the period include the following:
A children’s nursery had operated for many years on the licensed site but outside the securely fenced area. However, for the last 2 years it has been closed. Station has now contracted a nursery provider to take over the building for the use mainly of children of power station staff. NII sought legal advice and was informed that the nusery would require HSE consent to the re-opening. Station applied for consent and this was duly granted in November 2007. The main concern for the children would be in the event of a nuclear emergency and the Station has reviewed and improved the arrangements in this regard. The nursery periodically participates in emergency exercises and the usual response is to evacuate the children as soon as it is practicable; a rota of drivers and vehicles is maintained to effect any evacuation.
The station reported three nuclear reportable events during this quarter:-.
On 20 October BE reported to NII that the planned extensive radiographic examination of Hartlepool Reactor 1’s Boiler Closure Units (BCUs) revealed a number of unexpected observations. BE recognised that these have implications for the other reactors with the same BCU design and took the decision to shutdown the operating Unit 1 at Heysham 1. Unit 2 was already shutdown for a planned refuelling outage. BE and NII are engaged in regular discussions on BE’s strategy for responding to these observations. However, the Station Director has advised NII that under the arrangements for complying with the Site Licence, BE will seek agreement from the NII before returning each unit to service. NII is satisfied that the station has taken the appropriate action and is keeping the Inspectorate informed on progress with its recovery plan, which includes additional detailed examination of all BCUs at Heysham 1.
On 8 July the fuelling machine lifted a control rod in an abnormal manner. The operators stopped control rod movements and initiated a Significant Abnormal Condition Investigation (SACI) to establish the root cause of the event and propose appropriate corrective action. The station did not report the event to NII. After presenting the outcome of the SACI to the Corrective Action Review Board (CARB) the station conceded that NII should have been informed. On 19 October the BE Duty officer reported the event to NII. The Site Inspector is scheduled to discuss the event with relevant station personnel during his January visits.
On 19 October routine weekly plant configuration checks revealed that the cooling supplies to the available dump condenser were isolated in contravention of the safety case. Initial enquiries established that the system was isolated on 10 October to permit work on the condenser but that re-commissioning of the plant had failed to reinstate cooling supplies. The station immediately reinstated the supplies, initiated an Abnormal Condition Investigation (ACIN) to establish the apparent cause of the event and informed NII. The Site Inspector is scheduled to discuss the event with relevant station personnel during his January visits.
During routine maintenance of the reactor 8 MUS in December 2007 Station detected that one of a pair of rubber seals had failed. These seals form part of the containment for reactor gas when refuelling the reactor at low power. There are several seal pairs on the MUS joints a safety case was provided by the Station to justify the use of the MUS until May 2008. NII has requested that Station replace the seal earlier than that originally proposed. NII awaits the Station’s response to its written request. In the interim more onerous limits and conditions have been applied to the use of the MUS.
Under Health and Safety legislation NII Site Inspectors, and other HSE Inspectors, may issue formal documents to ensure compliance with regulatory requirements. Under nuclear site licence conditions 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.
Four LI were issued to Heysham during the quarter: -
No enforcement notices were issued during the reporting period.