News:
Christmas Color on Carters Creek, December 1999
(SYNERGY Principal takes top honors!)
The following has been reprinted from the the weekly
Rappahannock Record:
The vessel North Star achieved its aim to "light up the night" during the first Carters Creek Christmas boat parade. Boat owners
Hank and Seale George and their crew took top honors for the best lighted
vessel and the best of show for the colorful Christmas tree, which sailed
80 feet above the water. Photo by Randall Kipp.
Click on the image at the left to read
more about the North Star!
Nuclear Regulatory Commission Denies Petition at Diablo Canyon
March, 1999
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) denied a petition by the Union of Concerned
Scientists (UCS) to require Pacific Gas & Electric Company (PG&E) to hire an
independent firm to evaluate and monitor the safety culture at PG&E’s Diablo
Canyon Nuclear Power Plant (DCPP). In a decision issued by the Director of Nuclear Reactor
Regulation, NRC found that " the licensee has proactively taken actions to address
safety culture issues, thereby avoiding degradation of the safety culture environment to a
level where NRC involvement would be needed." UCS had alleged that the work
environment did not support employees raising safety concerns without fear of retaliation.
PG&E management had recently taken action to remove a licensed operator from duty
as a result of the Company’s fitness-for-duty determination. This action had created
an adverse reaction by many in the workforce, in particular, by employees in the
Operations department. The operator contended that he had been subject to discrimination
because he had raised safety concerns. UCS’s petition was based upon concerns that
PG&E’s actions to remove the operator had created a "chilling effect."
The NRC found that PG&E had already evaluated the Safety Conscious
Work Environment (SCWE) at the DCPP through a comprehensive assessment completed by SYNERGY
Consulting Services Corporation in late 1998. PG&E had commissioned SYNERGY to
independently characterize the organizational culture at the DCPP, including the
environment for addressing employee concerns. SYNERGY’s experience had
included having performed over sixty similar assessments covering more than thirty nuclear
facilities and corporate locations.
The UCS petition represents an effort to convince the NRC to Order similar independent
oversight activities required of the Northeast Nuclear Energy Company in 1996 at their
Millstone nuclear facilities. The NRC’s denial of UCS’s petition at DCPP is
significant because it establishes a precedent that NRC will not invoke such Orders if
licensees have taken "proactive measures" such as commissioning the SYNERGY
Comprehensive Cultural Assessment methodology and taking any indicated corrective actions.
A key objective of SYNERGY’s assessment was to
confidentially survey employees at the DCPP using the combined techniques of a written
questionnaire and interviews. These feedback mechanisms and reviews of selected
documentation provided the basis for understanding:
- Characteristic cultural values, behaviors and practices that have shaped and
self-reinforced the DCPP organization's capabilities, infrastructure and environment for
both nuclear safety and general business performance;
- Employee attitudes and perceptions of the effectiveness of the Employee Concerns Program
(ECP) and related processes;
- General cultural, environmental or programmatic areas that may have an interdependent
relationship with the Nuclear Safety Culture (NSC);
- General applied leadership, management and supervisory characteristics having a bearing
on culture and performance; and
- Opportunities for further organizational development.
SYNERGY’s methodology, results, recommendations and conclusions were
presented at a public meeting in Avila Beach, California in January 1999. SYNERGY
concluded that "the site-wide Nuclear Safety Culture at DCPP was in the
"adequate to good" range, placing the DCPP in the middle of the nuclear
facilities surveyed by SYNERGY."
With respect to the environment at DCPP for raising potential nuclear safety issues or
concerns, SYNERGY concluded that, "employees are generally very comfortable
with the openness and receptivity of their peers, their immediate supervision and their
immediate management (90-94% positive). However, employees perceive the general work
environment at DCPP to be less open and receptive than their own immediate work
environment (70-82% positive)." The vast majority of employees would "take
action to inform their supervisor (97% positive) and/or to write an Action Request (89%
positive)," if they identified a potential nuclear safety issue or concern. Most
employees would "push for resolution and escalate a concern to management, if they
were not satisfied with their supervisor’s response (89% positive)."
SYNERGY concluded that the General Culture and Work Environment (GCWE) is in the
"adequate" range, and appears to have declined over the past year."
Perception of the GCWE varies for specific DCPP organizations, with four organizations
rating the GCWE as "less than adequate." SYNERGY concluded that
deliberate action will be needed to preclude further decline and/or to achieve improvement
in the GCWE.
SYNERGY Awarded DOE Enforcement Program Support Extension in January 1999, DOE
awarded SYNERGY a one-year extension for support to DOE’s Office of
Enforcement & Investigation for expert technical support to evaluations, legal and
regulatory support to key policy decisions, and support to DOE and contractor workshops.
The level of assistance is approximately 3-1/2 man-years of support over the current
fiscal year.
DOE Institutes Evaluations of Contractor Price Anderson Programs – Over the
first two years of DOE’s fledgling enforcement program, it has focused on evaluating
relatively significant events that occurred due to breakdowns in compliance with
regulatory requirements. Beginning in February this year, the Office of Enforcement and
Investigation has undertaken a series of on-site evaluations of contractor’s efforts
to self-assess themselves for adequacy of regulatory compliance,
screen issues for reportability, and implement effective corrective actions to prevent
recurrence. DOE generally only gives a few weeks notice of its intent to conduct such an
evaluation at a particular site. Most contractors have viewed these as relatively benign
activities because they are not labeled as "investigations." However, these
evaluations can lead to enforcement actions from the findings DOE uncovers in its review,
particularly where the contractor has not been aggressive in uncovering such problems, has
not been forthcoming in reporting them to DOE, and/or has not been aggressive in resolving
the problems that the contractor has found. Such evaluations have been completed for the
Pantex Plant, the Waste Isolation Pilot Project, and Sandia Laboratories. Reports of these
evaluations are available on DOE’s Enforcement and Investigation Web page (http://tis-nt.eh.doe.gov/enforce/) as
Enforcement Letters. Contractors should expect such evaluations to continue as a routine
part of DOE’s regulatory activities.
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