NRC ORDER – ORDER

On November 16, 2010, a Confirmatory Order (effective immediately) and a Notice of Violation (NOV) were issued to Nuclear Fuel Services, Inc. (NFS) to confirm commitments made as a result of an Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) mediation sessions held on October 4, 2010. This enforcement action is based on the failure of NFS to provide complete and accurate information to the NRC, as required by 10CFR70.9(a), on two occasions. Specifically, (1) on November 25, 2008, NFS submitted a response to a previously issued NOV stating that all fire dampers in Procedure NFS-GH-22 were inspected in September 2008 and all passed the inspection, when 12 of the fire dampers had not been inspected; and (2) in August 2009, during an inspection to verify the corrective actions as documented in the response to the previously issued NOV, a former NFS employee created and provided a document to an NRC inspector that indicated that all but one of the dampers had been fully inspected in 2008, when in fact more than one of the dampers had not been fully inspected. The NRC concluded that these actions were willful and associated with the same former employee. As a result of the ADR agreement, the licensee agreed to a number of actions, including: (1) issuance of a NOV as part of the Confirmatory Order; (2) conducting an effectiveness review within one year of each corrective action to the NOV; (3) performing an assessment of the effectiveness of its corrective actions by an independent group to assure adequacy and accuracy of information submitted to the NRC; (4) developing and implementing an appropriate safety culture improvement plan and conducting periodic integrated safety culture assessments; and (5) assessing its current corrective action program (CAP) against NQA-1-2008 and submitting a license amendment request within nine months incorporating the CAP into its license. In recognition of these actions, the NRC agreed to refrain from proposing a civil penalty for this matter.