Joey Ledford
Public Affairs Officer, Region II
The
NRC is piloting a new oversight process for nuclear units under
construction that is reminiscent of the old riddle, “What came first,
the chicken or the egg?”
![chickenegg]()
Obviously,
the Reactor Oversight Process, or ROP, has been in effect for years.
The NRC staff recently developed a Reactor Oversight Process for
construction, known as
cROP
, designed to inform oversight of the ongoing work at Southern Nuclear Co.’s two new units at Plant
Vogtle near Augusta, Ga., and SCE&G’s two new units at
V.C. Summer near Columbia, S.C.
The
new process uses numerous features of the original ROP, including the
inspection program, assessment process and enforcement policy. But the
construction ROP has its own Action Matrix and employs a construction
significance determination process to assess the importance of
inspection findings.
Senior
officials in the Office of New Reactors, or NRO, held public meetings
near both sites this month to explain the program and gather public
comments on possible revisions to improve it. Another
public meeting
is
scheduled for Feb. 6 at NRC headquarters to evaluate the pilot, with
the goal to report to the Commission by the end of April.
The
inspection program is a joint effort of Region II and NRO. Three
construction resident inspectors are at each site, supplemented by
regional specialists in various disciplines ranging from welding to
concrete. Inspectors from headquarters monitor and review the
performance of suppliers who ship safety-related components to the
sites.
The
NRC estimates that the agency’s inspectors will perform some 30,000
hours of inspections for each new unit before the process ends.
Specifically, the inspection regimen requires the licensees to verify
they have met 875 different ITAAC, or Inspections, Tests, Analyses and
Acceptance Criteria. This comprehensive oversight program means any unit
that is built would be constructed according to all applicable NRC
regulations.
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