NRC ORDER – NOV (White)

On April 30, 2014, the NRC issued a Notice of Violation to Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), as a result of the failure to maintain plant staffing levels in accordance with the radiological emergency plan at Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant. This White finding, an issue with low to moderate significance to safety, which may require additional NRC inspections, involved the failure of the licensee's process for maintaining minimum emergency response shift staffing to adequately maintain staffing of the Shift Technical Advisor and Incident Commander to ensure initial accident response in all key functional areas. Additionally, NRC identified two examples of a violation of 10 CFR 50.9 based on the licensee's failure to provide complete and accurate information associated with emergency response on-shift staffing requirements and a violation of 10 CFR 50.90 for the failure to submit an application requesting an amendment to their operating license concerning on-shift staffing levels. On May 1, 2014, the NRC issued a Confirmatory Order to TVA to formalize commitments made as a result of an ADR mediation session. The commitments were made by TVA as part of a settlement agreement between TVA and the NRC regarding the violation(s) of 50.9 and 50.90. TVA agreed to a number of corrective actions, including correcting the Conduct of Operations procedure to reflect adequate staffing levels and comprehensive fleet-wide and plant-specific corrective actions.