Morning Report for May 15, 2001

                       Headquarters Daily Report

                         MAY 15, 2001

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                    REPORT             NEGATIVE            NO INPUT
                    ATTACHED           INPUT RECEIVED      RECEIVED

HEADQUARTERS        X
REGION I            X
REGION II                              X
REGION III                             X
REGION IV                              X
PRIORITY ATTENTION REQUIRED  MORNING REPORT - HEADQUARTERS MAY 15, 2001

MR Number: H-01-0034

                           NRR DAILY REPORT ITEM
                           GENERIC COMMUNICATIONS



Subject: Issuance of Regulatory Issue Summary 2001-11

NRC Regulatory Issue Summary 2001-11: Voluntary Submission of Performance
Indicator, data, dated May 11, 2001

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission is issuing this regulatory issue
summary (RIS) to inform power reactor licensees that the NRC has endorsed
Revision 1 of NEI 99-02, "Regulatory Assessment Performance Indicator
Guideline", for addressee use in the collection and reporting of
performance indicator (PI) data to the NRC.

Technical contacts: Serita Sanders, NRR
                    301-415-2956
                    E-mail: sxs5@nrc.gov

Accession No. ML011240144

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REGION I  MORNING REPORT     PAGE  2          MAY 15, 2001

Licensee/Facility:                     Notification:

New Hampshire Yankee                   MR Number: 1-01-0011
Seabrook 1                             Date: 05/15/01
Manchester,New Hampshire
Dockets: 50-443
PWR/W-4-LP

Subject: CORE CONFIGURATION ISSUE - FUEL ASSEMBLY THIMBLE PLUG NOT
         INSTALLED


Discussion:

During spent fuel pool mapping (conducted in response to industry
operating experience) on May 11, 2001, Seabrook staff discovered a
thimble plug in a spent fuel assembly which should not have been located
in the assembly.  Based on a review of refueling records for the last
refueling outage, Seabrook determined that this thimble plug should have
been inserted in a fuel assembly in the reactor core.  As a result,
Seabrook has preliminarily concluded that one assembly located on the
periphery of the core has no thimble plug insert.

Seabrook completed a preliminary operability determination and concluded
that operation of the cycle 8 core with one thimble plug not inserted
does not result in operation outside the core flow design basis.  This
conclusion was based in part on analysis that determined the increased
core bypass flow for an assembly without the thimble plug would be about
42 gpm and that the cycle 8 measured core flow provided an excess flow
margin of 15,000 gpm.  Also, the location of fuel assembly is in a
relatively low power location (on the core baffle), and all surveillance
tests performed on the cycle 8 core met their acceptance criteria.  The
licensee evaluation is ongoing and includes an event review team.

Resident inspectors have reviewed the preliminary operability
determination and are conducting additional inspections into the cause
investigation and the final operability determination.

Regional Action:

None.

Contact:  Curtis Cowgill             (610)337-5233
          Glenn Dental               (603)474-3589
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