DATE: Wednesday, September 3, 1997          TAG: 9709030509

SECTION: BUSINESS                PAGE: D1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY AKWELI PARKER, STAFF WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:   49 lines

VIRGINIA POWER SURRY PLANT MUST PAY $55,000 FOR LATE PAPERWORK

Paperwork procrastination has cost Virginia Power $55,000 for failing to meet a Nuclear Regulatory Commission rule regarding nuclear power plants.

The company can appeal the fine but has decided to pay it, said Jim Norvelle, a spokesman for Virginia Power's nuclear division. Shareholders, rather than ratepayers, will foot the bill.

Both the rule's name - ``Requirements for Monitoring the Effectiveness of Maintenance at Nuclear Power Plants'' - and its federal designation, 10 CFR 50.65, are a mouthful. So folks in the nuclear power industry simply refer to it as ``the maintenance rule.''

The fine comes nearly nine months after an NRC inspection of the utility's Surry nuclear power station turned up inadequate implementation of the rule.

Virginia Power admits it dropped the ball on the rule.

``The failure to implement fully the maintenance rule by its original date was not up to our standards,'' said James P. O'Hanlon, senior vice president-nuclear for Virginia Power.

Designed to make sure nuclear plants have an effective system for keeping tabs on repair and maintenance, the rule has been in effect since July 1996. Virginia Power and other nuclear licensees have known since 1991 that such a rule - in one form or another - was coming.

A letter from NRC southeastern region administrator Luis Reyes cited ``poor management oversight and control'' of the company's program to get the management rule into place.

Virginia Power recognized its shortcoming after an internal audit in 1996. The NRC conducted its assessment in January of this year.

In March, Virginia Power officials were summoned to NRC regional headquarters in Atlanta to discuss the transgressions.

``By the time we had that meeting we already had a team in place to fix it,'' Norvelle said.

Norvelle said the company has positions dedicated to maintenance rule compliance at its Surry and North Anna nuclear stations.

Virginia Power subsidiary VPS Communications Inc. named Gregg T. Kamper as its first general manager. The subsidiary, launched earlier this year, will provide wholesale access to its fiber-optic network starting later this month.

Kamper has held several positions with telecom giant GTE Corp., including manager of corporate strategy and development.

He comes from Stamford, Conn.-based Citizens Communications, a division of Citizens Utilities. At Citizens, which provides retail and wholesale telecommunications service to 830,000 customers, Kamper led the company's market research, planning, forecasting and brand management efforts.

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