Headquarters Daily Report

                         JULY 01, 1996

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                    REPORT             NEGATIVE            NO INPUT
                    ATTACHED           INPUT RECEIVED      RECEIVED

HEADQUARTERS                           û                   
REGION I                               û                   
REGION II                              û                   
REGION III                             û                   
REGION IV           û                                      
PRIORITY ATTENTION REQUIRED  MORNING REPORT - REGION IV  JULY  1, 1996

Licensee/Facility:                     Notification:

Washington Public Power Supply System  MR Number: 4-96-0071
Washington Nuclear 2                   Date: 06/28/96
Richland,Washington                    Resident Inspector and Licensee    
Dockets: 50-397
BWR/GE-5                              

Subject: UNEXPECTED EARLY CRITICALITY DURING STARTUP OF WNP-2            

Discussion:

At approximately 7 a.m. (PDT), on June 27, 1996, the reactor achieved    
criticality at Step 8-3 in the rod pull sequence.  Criticality was       
expected at Step 12-18 of the rod pull sequence, with an acceptable range
of achieving criticality (+/- 10mk) between Steps 11-2 and 14-20.        
Achieving criticality at Step 8-3 was outside the acceptable range of    
values and was approximately 13 mk before the calculated position.       
Operators inserted a manual scram to shut down the reactor in accordance 
with their procedures.                                                   
                                                                         
The licensee's investigation into the cause of the event found that the  
nuclear engineers, who performed the calculation to determine the point  
of criticality, had selected the wrong option when using the recently    
revised software program which projects critical rod position.  The      
investigation also noted that reactor engineering personnel had          
questioned the results of the first determination of the estimated       
critical position.  Engineering reran the program and performed an       
independent calculation which had similar results to the first           
calculation.  Based on this information, the startup was initiated.      
During the startup, the control room staff recognized that the source    
range monitors were reading higher than expected but continued with the  
startup until criticality was reached because they believed that         
criticality would still occur within the acceptable range.  After the    
licensee's identification of the program selection error, review of the  
event, and calculation of a new estimated critical position, the licensee
reinitiated startup.  The reactor was critical at approximately 8 p.m. on
June 28, 1996 (at Step 7-2), very close to the predicted position (Step  
7-1).                                                                    

Regional Action:

The resident inspector is following up on the cause of the event and     
actions by the operators prior to the early criticality.                 

Contact:  H. Wong                    (510)975-0296
          G. Replogle                (509)377-2627
          D. Corporandy              (510)975-0319
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