Nuclear Regulation

Action Needed To Ensure That Utilities Monitor and Repair Pipe Damage Gao ID: RCED-88-73 March 18, 1988

In response to a congressional request, GAO: (1) assessed the pipe degradation problems at the Surry and Trojan nuclear power plants; and (2) addressed actions that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and the utilities took to identify and correct pipe system problems.

GAO found that: (1) prior to the Surry accident, neither NRC nor the industry believed that nuclear plants were susceptible to pipe deterioration; (2) neither NRC regulations nor industry standards required monitoring of erosion and corrosion in single-phase pipes; (3) utility companies found widespread damage at Surry and widespread erosion and corrosion in both the regulated and unregulated portions of Trojan; (4) although the utilities took corrective action to replace unacceptable pipes, no industry-wide commitment exists to ensure that all utilities monitor pipe system integrity; and (5) after NRC required all utilities to report the extent of known damage due to erosion or corrosion, it identified 34 nuclear plants with some damage.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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