November 11, 2009
Company blames old
guard
by Terry Myers
Like something out of the old East Bloc, the new guard at AECL has laid
the blame for the shutdown of the NRU reactor squarely at the feet of
the previous regime.
In a report to the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission last week, AECL
said the problems with NRU were the result of low standards and “less
than adequate management oversight.”
The report does note that the “mission and planned life” of NRU have
changed “several times over the past two decades.”
The report also notes that the reactor has been under pressure to
continue producing medical isotopes, making a long term outage to do
“preventative” maintenance “very difficult to plan and schedule.”
But the report goes on to say that a “lack of questioning attitude” by
AECL staff led to “symptom-based problem-solving” where the focus was
only on the short term and not on the “root causes” of problems with
the reactor.
The report also fingers “ineffective use of operating experience” and
“low standards and acceptance of plant operational problems.”
“Historically CRL management did not ensure high standards for
operation and that strong barriers were in place to prevent events,”
the report says.
“The organization’s culture had evolved to being complacent and
unchallenging, where 'bad news' was often not communicated.
“With such a culture, an organization is overly optimistic, industry
standards for operation may not be followed, minor events are not
reported, equipment degradation may not be noticed or challenged, and
work groups tend to be insular as the need for external support is not
recognized.”
NRU has been shut down since May 15 after a small heavy water
leak was detected.
The leak was later traced to an area of corrosion near the base of the
reactor vessel.
AECL vice-president and chief nuclear officer Bill Pilkington was in
Saskatoon last Thursday to give members of the safety commission an
update on the NRU repairs.
Pilkington said the technical cause of the leak has been confirmed to
be nitric acid in the “J-rod annulus,” a gap between the reactor vessel
and the light water reflector that surrounds the reactor core.
Pilkington explained back in June that, knowing there was a light water
leak from the reflector into the annulus, AECL filled the space with
carbon dioxide.
The idea was that the water would combine with the CO2 to create weak
carbonic acid.
Instead, he said, air has been getting into the annulus, and nitrogen
from the irradiated air combines with the water to create powerful
nitric acid, which eats away at the vessel wall.
Pilkington said the company plans to take measures to reduce the
chances of the same problem occurring in the future, such as cleaning
the annulus drainage lines, replacing the CO2 distribution system, and
taking steps to reduce both the amount of air and water getting into
the space.
But when it comes to the “organizational root cause” of the leak,
Pilkington said the responsibility “has to rest with senior management.”
Pilkington said the company has been taking steps since about 2005 to
instill a “safety culture” in the organization.
“We take this event very seriously, and we are using the results to
further enhance and focus our improvement efforts,” he said.
Commission member Dr. Christopher Barnes was skeptical.
“These, to me, are (just) words,” he said. “You could apply them to
General Motors or any organizational failure.”
Barnes said NRU is more than 50 years old - “it's been there a long
time” - and AECL has been well aware it's an aging reactor and needs
additional attention.
“It's a surprise to me to see these very basic organizational failures
coming forward, and the fairly weak response,” he said.
He questioned how AECL would be able to turn things around in the next
few months before NRU comes back online.
“It's not that easy to fix,” he said.
“Without an ongoing process, I see a danger that you won't achieve what
you want to achieve, which is a fundamental change in the
organizational culture.”
Pilkington said the problems with NRU present an “urgent opportunity to
make changes and to get the attention of the organization.”
He said the company has been promoting “higher levels of
accountability” and encouraging staff to take a more “questioning
attitude.”
At the same time, he said, the company is putting together a
comprehensive action plan to continue to move forward.
“Cultural change takes a significant period of time,” he said.
“We need to be continually reinforcing the change we want to see and in
fact, living the change we want to see.”
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