March 19, 2004 ENCLOSURE P Region I Items of Interest Week Ending March 19, 2004 Management Meeting on Salem/ Hope Creek Safety Conscious Work Environment On March 18, 2004, the Region I Regional Administrator and Regional and Headquarters staff met with senior management from the Public Service Electric and Gas (PSEG ) to discuss the company’s plans to assess and improve the work environment at its Salem and Hope Creek plants. In late January 2004, the Regional Administrator had sent a letter to the Chairman of PSEG providing interim results of an ongoing NRC special review of this issue and requested that PSEG conduct its own in- depth review. The company provided its review plan on February 27 and further described it at the March 18 meeting. The PSEG’s self- assessment will integrate input from three discrete, independent activities: a survey of the work environment performed by Synergy Survey in December 2003; an assessment performed by Utilities Service Alliance ( USA) in early March 2004; and an ongoing Independent Assessment Team ( IAT) staffed with a number of industry and former NRC personnel that began in mid- February 2004. PSEG expects to communicate the detailed results and an action plan in mid- May. However, because the results thus far have indicated that the licensee's safety conscious work environment and corrective action program implementation are well below industry norms, the company has began a number of near- term remedial actions. The NRC staff expects to continue its heightened monitoring of this issue through planned interactions with PSEG management, frequent NRC management visits to the site, and resident inspector oversight.