Request for information related to the resolution of generic issue 130, ''Essential service water system failures at multi-unit sites,'' pursuant to 10 CFR 50.54(f) - Generic Letter 91-13

The essential service water system (ESWS) is important in maintaining plant safety during power operation, shutdown, and accident conditions. As part of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's (NRC) evaluation of loss of essential service water (LOSW), extensive analyses of this issue were performed at the Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL). In addition, the NRC staff performed a regulatory analysis to evaluate the safety benefits and implementation costs associated with various equipment and the administrative-type improvements that were considered. These analyses assume that the flushing and flow testing provisions of Generic Letter (GL) 89-13, ''Service Water System Problems Affecting Safety-Related Equipment,'' will be applied to the crosstie lines as part of addressees' implementation of the resolution of GI-51, ''Improving the Reliability of Open-Cycle Service Water Systems'' (GL 89-13 and Supplement 1). On the basis of results of these evaluations of this generic safety issue, the NRC staff has concluded that the following administrative-type improvements would significantly enhance the availability of the ESWS in affected plants, and their implementation is warranted in view of the safety benefit to be derived and the cost of implementation: technical specification (TS) changes contained in Enclosure 1 to enhance the availability of the ESWS as applied to the design configuration of affected plants; and improvement of emergency procedures for a LOSW using existing design features, specifically: (a) operating and maintaining high-pressure injection (HPI) pump integrity in the event of loss of reactor coolant pump (RCP) seals as a result of ESWS failure, and (b) testing and manipulating the ESWS crosstie between the units during a LOSW accident