NRC CAL – NOV (White)

On April 16, 2015, the NRC issued a Notice of Violation associated with a White Significance Determination Process finding to NextEra Energy Duane Arnold, LLC (licensee) for a violation identified at its Duane Arnold Energy Center involving the failure to comply with 10 CFR 50, Appendix B, Criterion IX, "Control of Special Processes" which required the licensee to maintain measures to assure that special processes are controlled and accomplished by qualified personnel using qualified procedures in accordance with applicable codes, standards, specifications, criteria, and other special requirements. Specifically, between November 5 and 10, 2012, the licensee did not adequately control the application of the torus coating, a special process, because the requirements associated with wet film thickness measurements and conditions for recoat application were not contained in design specifications and vendor documentation, nor were they included in qualified procedures. The licensee’s failure to establish adequate quality controls during the application of a torus coating resulted in an unqualified torus coating in excess of the emergency core cooling system suction strainer design debris loading margin. This finding did not present an immediate safety concern because the unqualified torus coating in excess of the design margin was removed during an outage before the reactor resumed operation.