Dear Mr. Stater:

Thank you for your letter of November 30, 1996. In that letter you raise two issues: (1) questions regarding the allegation process and (2) reiterated concerns over training omissions and inaccuracies. With regard to the questions you raised regarding the allegation review process, Enclosure 1 is a brochure that should answer some of your questions. This brochure presents the general overview of how safety concerns may be reported to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and our procedures for addressing those concerns. Enclosure 2, "Management of Allegations," Management Directive 8.8, provides a detailed description of the NRC procedures for handling allegations. Because your letter dated January 10, 1996 to the NRC Chairman raised potential safety concerns regarding fundamental classroom training for reactor operators, we decided to handle that letter, and your subsequent letters dated January 31, February 28, March 24, October 23, and October 25, 1996, and our responses to you in accordance with our allegation review procedures.

The allegation review process is structured to facilitate prompt review and written feedback in a non-public manner to an individual who has safety concerns. In some cases, the NRC may request clarifying information from an individual in writing or the NRC may request a meeting with the individual. As such, we are currently considering your suggestion for a meeting.

Our goal is to complete the review within 180 days. If the review is not complete at that time, we are required to periodically inform you of the status of our review until it is complete. Although our procedures do not provide for transmitting a draft response to you, information is exchanged through the interim correspondence. At the conclusion of our review, we will provide a written response to you. The response will provide the results of our review and the bases for our conclusions.

If you believe the staff has not adequately addressed your concerns or you have additional information that should be considered, you may request the staff to reexamine the issues. We consider your letters of October 23 and 25, 1996, as requests for reexamination of your concerns.

Your November 30 letter stated that we have understated your concerns in our letter to you dated November 21, 1996. You categorize issues in general as broad issues dealing with flawed training materials and basic concepts being incorrectly taught. Your letter commits to providing us a written list of concerns. To aid us in our review, we request that, to the extent possible, you support your concerns with specific instances where such

training problems exist, identify the specific problem and explain why it is a problem, and explain how the problem is safety significant, i.e., is there any documentable link to the problem(s) you identify to a safety significant event in a nuclear power plant. In this manner, we can be responsive to the specifics of your concerns.

If you believe the NRC staff has not handled your concerns in accordance with the procedures described in Management Directive 8.8, you may contact the Office of the Inspector General (OIG). The OIG Hotline Number is 1-800-233-3497.