Change Notice 97-015

IM001

NRC INSPECTION MANUAL PIPB

 

	DELETED:		TRANSMITTED:
	Number	Date	Number	Date
1.	IMC 2515	07/01/97	IMC 2515	09/09/97
2.	IMC 2515, App A	07/15/97	IMC 2515, App A	09/09/97
3.	TI 2515/135	07/15/97	----	----
4.	IP 71707	06/24/96	IP 71707	09/09/97
5.	----	----	9900 Guidance Operations	09/09/97

TRAINING: No special training requirements have been identified for any documents issued with this change notice.

REMARKS:

IMC 2515 (Light-Water Reactor Inspection Program - Operations Phase) is revised to incorporate guidance from Field Policy Manual Number 19, which provides guidance for recommending third party assistance to licensees. It also restates that federal employees are prohibited from recommending third party assistance to licensees under Federal Law 5 CFR 2635.702.

IMC 2515, Appendix A (Core Inspection Program Procedures) has been revised to reflect a change in hours to IP 71707, as a result of its extensive revision.

TI 2515/135 (Steam Generator Tube Inspection Deficiencies) is deleted. Since the TI was originally drafted, the Materials and Chemical Engineering Branch has been able to gather the types of information requested in the TI, especially at the plants with active degradation mechanisms, through discussions and meetings with licensees and regional staff. Therefore continuation of the TI is not required.

IP 71707 (Plant Operations) has been revised in its entirety, and has been reformatted per IMC 0610. The revision captured some of the Millstone Lesson-Learned items including emphasis on FSAR and 10 CFR 50.59 review as well as use of the PRA/IPE results. Inspection of operator work-arounds, observation of auxiliary operator activities, and observation of simulator training of control room operators are new requirements added to the procedure. Maintenance Rule related inspection requirements are deleted as they are incorporated into IP 62707. The guidance sections have been streamlined with most of the general guidance deleted in this revision. Also deleted are the separate sections on outage inspection that is now addressed via a general requirement to choose inspection samples based on the mode of plant operation. Most of the specific references to plant systems are deleted in favor of inspection sample selection based on safety and risk significance of ongoing activities, structures, systems and components, and mode of plant operation.

Part 9900 Technical Guidance (Operations - Safety and Compliance) is issued to provide guidance in understanding the differences between "safety" and "compliance." The guidance was approved by the Commission for incorporation into the NRC Inspection Manual on August 25, 1997 (WITS: 9700242).

DISTRIBUTION: Standard

END