ML060050496
| ML060050496 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Hope Creek  |
| Issue date: | 01/11/2006 |
| From: | Stewart Bailey Plant Licensing Branch III-2 |
| To: | Levis W Public Service Enterprise Group |
| Bailey S N,NRR/DLPM,415-1321 | |
| References | |
| TAC MC6283 | |
| Download: ML060050496 (11) | |
Text
January 11, 2006 Mr. William Levis Senior Vice President & Chief Nuclear Officer PSEG Nuclear LLC-X04 Post Office Box 236 Hancocks Bridge, NJ 08038
SUBJECT:
HOPE CREEK GENERATING STATION, ISSUANCE OF AMENDMENT TO ELIMINATE REQUIREMENTS TO PROVIDE MONTHLY OPERATING REPORTS AND ANNUAL OCCUPATIONAL RADIATION EXPOSURE REPORTS (TAC NO. MC6283)
Dear Mr. Levis:
The Commission has issued the enclosed Amendment No. 161 to Facility Operating License No. NPF-57 for the Hope Creek Generating Station. This amendment consists of changes to the Technical Specifications (TSs) to delete TS requirements for annual Occupational Radiation Exposure Reports and Monthly Operating Reports, in response to your application dated January 11, 2005.
A copy of our safety evaluation is also enclosed. Notice of Issuance will be included in the Commissions biweekly Federal Register notice.
Sincerely,
/RA/
Stewart N. Bailey, Senior Project Manager Plant Licensing Branch I-2 Division of Operating Reactor Licensing Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation Docket No. 50-354
Enclosures:
- 1. Amendment No. 161 to License No. NPF-57
- 2. Safety Evaluation cc w/encls: See next page
Mr. William Levis January 11, 2006 Senior Vice President & Chief Nuclear Officer PSEG Nuclear LLC-X04 Post Office Box 236 Hancocks Bridge, NJ 08038
SUBJECT:
HOPE CREEK GENERATING STATION, ISSUANCE OF AMENDMENT TO ELIMINATE REQUIREMENTS TO PROVIDE MONTHLY OPERATING REPORTS AND ANNUAL OCCUPATIONAL RADIATION EXPOSURE REPORTS (TAC NO. MC6283)
Dear Mr. Levis:
The Commission has issued the enclosed Amendment No. 161 to Facility Operating License No. NPF-57 for the Hope Creek Generating Station. This amendment consists of changes to the Technical Specifications (TSs) to delete TS requirements for annual Occupational Radiation Exposure Reports and Monthly Operating Reports, in response to your application dated January 11, 2005.
A copy of our safety evaluation is also enclosed. Notice of Issuance will be included in the Commissions biweekly Federal Register notice.
Sincerely,
/RA/
Stewart N. Bailey, Senior Project Manager Plant Licensing Branch I-2 Division of Operating Reactor Licensing Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation Docket No. 50-354
Enclosures:
- 1. Amendment No. 161 to License No. NPF-57
- 2. Safety Evaluation cc w/encls: See next page DISTRIBUTION PUBLIC CHolden TechBranch MGray, RGN-I LPL1-2 Reading DRoberts TBoyce GHill(2)
ACRS SBailey CRaynor OGC Package: ML Amendment: ML060050496 Tech Specs: ML OFFICE CLIIP LPM NRR/LPL1-2/PE NRR/LPL1-2/PM NRR/LPL1-2/LA NRR/LPL1-2/BC NAME WReckley TValentine SBailey CRaynor DRoberts DATE 9/15/2005 1/11/06 1/10/06 1/11/06 OFFICIAL RECORD COPY
Hope Creek Generating Station cc:
Mr. Michael P. Gallagher Vice President - Eng/Tech Support PSEG Nuclear P.O. Box 236 Hancocks Bridge, NJ 08038 Mr. Dennis Winchester Vice President - Nuclear Assessments PSEG Nuclear P.O. Box 236 Hancocks Bridge, NJ 08038 Mr. George P. Barnes Site Vice President - Hope Creek PSEG Nuclear P.O. Box 236 Hancocks Bridge, NJ 08038 Mr. George H. Gellrich Plant Support Manager PSEG Nuclear P.O. Box 236 Hancocks Bridge, NJ 08038 Mr. Michael J. Massaro Plant Manager - Hope Creek PSEG Nuclear P.O. Box 236 Hancocks Bridge, NJ 08038 Darin Benyak Director - Regulatory Assurance PSEG Nuclear - N21 P.O. Box 236 Hancocks Bridge, NJ 08038 Jeffrie J. Keenan, Esquire PSEG Nuclear - N21 P.O. Box 236 Hancocks Bridge, NJ 08038 Ms. R. A. Kankus Joint Owner Affairs Exelon Generation Company, LLC Nuclear Group Headquarters KSA1-E 200 Exelon Way Kennett Square, PA 19348 Lower Alloways Creek Township c/o Mary O. Henderson, Clerk Municipal Building, P.O. Box 157 Hancocks Bridge, NJ 08038 Dr. Jill Lipoti, Asst. Director Radiation Protection Programs NJ Department of Environmental Protection and Energy CN 415 Trenton, NJ 08625-0415 Brian Beam Board of Public Utilities 2 Gateway Center, Tenth Floor Newark, NJ 07102 Regional Administrator, Region I U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission 475 Allendale Road King of Prussia, PA 19406 Senior Resident Inspector Hope Creek Generating Station U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Drawer 0509 Hancocks Bridge, NJ 08038
PSEG NUCLEAR LLC DOCKET NO. 50-354 HOPE CREEK GENERATING STATION AMENDMENT TO FACILITY OPERATING LICENSE Amendment No. 161 License No. NPF-57 1.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (the Commission) has found that:
A.
The application for amendment filed by PSEG Nuclear LLC dated January 11, 2005, complies with the standards and requirements of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, as amended (the Act), and the Commissions rules and regulations set forth in 10 CFR Chapter I; B.
The facility will operate in conformity with the application, the provisions of the Act, and the rules and regulations of the Commission; C.
There is reasonable assurance: (i) that the activities authorized by this amendment can be conducted without endangering the health and safety of the public, and (ii) that such activities will be conducted in compliance with the Commissions regulations set forth in 10 CFR Chapter I; D.
The issuance of this amendment will not be inimical to the common defense and security or to the health and safety of the public; and E.
The issuance of this amendment is in accordance with 10 CFR Part 51 of the Commissions regulations and all applicable requirements have been satisfied.
- 2.
Accordingly, the license is amended by changes to the Technical Specifications as indicated in the attachment to this license amendment, and paragraph 2.C.(2) of Facility Operating License No. NPF-57 is hereby amended to read as follows:
(2)
Technical Specifications and Environmental Protection Plan The Technical Specifications contained in Appendix A, as revised through Amendment No. 161, are hereby incorporated into the license. PSEG Nuclear LLC shall operate the facility in accordance with the Technical Specifications and the Environmental Protection Plan.
3.
The license amendment is effective as of its date of issuance and shall be implemented within 60 days.
FOR THE NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
/RA/
Darrell J. Roberts, Chief Plant Licensing Branch I-2 Division of Operating Reactor Licensing Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation
Attachment:
Changes to the Technical Specifications Date of Issuance: January 11, 2006
ATTACHMENT TO LICENSE AMENDMENT NO. 161 FACILITY OPERATING LICENSE NO. NPF-57 DOCKET NO. 50-354 Replace the following pages of the Appendix A Technical Specifications with the attached revised pages. The revised pages are identified by amendment number and contain marginal lines indicating the areas of change.
Remove Pages Insert Pages xxiv xxiv 6-17 6-17 6-18 6-18 6-20 6-20
SAFETY EVALUATION BY THE OFFICE OF NUCLEAR REACTOR REGULATION RELATED TO AMENDMENT NO. 161 TO FACILITY OPERATING LICENSE NO. NPF-57 PSEG NUCLEAR LLC HOPE CREEK GENERATING STATION DOCKET NO. 50-354
1.0 INTRODUCTION
By letter dated January 11, 2005, PSEG Nuclear LLC (the licensee) submitted a request for changes to the Salem Nuclear Generating Station, Unit Nos. 1 and 2 (Salem), Technical Specifications (TSs) and the Hope Creek Generating Station (Hope Creek) TSs (Agencywide Documents Access and Management System (ADAMS) Accession No. ML051090207). The proposed change will delete TS requirements for annual Occupational Radiation Exposure Reports and Monthly Operating Reports as described in the Notice of Availability published in the Federal Register on June 23, 2004 (69 FR 35067).
2.0 REGULATORY EVALUATION
Section 182a. of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, as amended (the Act), requires applicants for nuclear power plant operating licenses to state TSs to be included as part of the license. The Nuclear Regulatory Commissions (NRC or the Commission) regulatory requirements related to the content of TSs are set forth in Title 10 of the Code of Federal Regulations (10 CFR)
Section 50.36, ?Technical Specifications. The regulation requires that TSs include items in five specific categories, including: (1) safety limits, limiting safety system settings, and limiting control settings; (2) limiting conditions for operation (LCOs); (3) surveillance requirements; (4) design features; and (5) administrative controls. However, the regulation does not specify the particular requirements to be included in a plants TSs.
The Commission has provided guidance for the content of TSs in its ?Final Policy Statement on Technical Specification Improvements for Nuclear Power Reactors (58 FR 39132, published July 22, 1993), in which the Commission indicated that compliance with the Final Policy Statement satisfies Section 182a of the Act. The Final Policy Statement identified four criteria to be used in determining whether a particular item should be addressed in the TSs as an LCO.
The criteria were subsequently incorporated into 10 CFR 50.36 (60 FR 36593, published July 19, 1995). While the criteria specifically apply to LCOs, the Commission indicated that the intent of these criteria may be used to identify the optimum set of administrative controls in TSs.
Addressing administrative controls, 10 CFR 50.36 states that they are ?the provisions relating to organization and management, procedures, recordkeeping, review and audit, and reporting necessary to assure operation of the facility in a safe manner. The specific content of the administrative controls section of the TSs is, therefore, related to those programs and reports, that are not adequately covered by regulations or other regulatory requirements and that the Commission deems essential for the safe operation of the facility. Accordingly, the NRC staff may determine that specific requirements, such as those associated with this change, may be removed from the administrative controls in the TSs if they are not explicitly required by 10 CFR 50.36(c)(5), and are not otherwise necessary to obviate the possibility of an abnormal situation or event giving rise to an immediate threat to the public health and safety.
The impetus for the monthly operating report (MOR) came from the 1973-1974 oil embargo.
Regulatory Guide 1.16, Revision 4, ?Reporting of Operating Information - Appendix A Technical Specifications, published for comment in August 1975, identifies operating statistics and shutdown experience information that was desired in the operating report at that time. In the mid-1990s, the NRC staff assessed the information that is submitted in the MOR and determined that while some of the information was no longer used by the NRC staff, the MOR was the only source of some data used in the NRC Performance Indicator (PI) Program of that time period (see NRC Generic Letter (GL) 97-02, ?Revised Contents of the Monthly Operating Report). Beginning in the late 1990s, the NRC developed and implemented a major revision to its assessment, inspection, and enforcement processes through its Reactor Oversight Process (ROP). The ROP uses both plant-level PIs and inspections performed by NRC personnel. In conjunction with the development of the ROP, the NRC developed the Industry Trends Program (ITP). The ITP provides the NRC a means to assess overall industry performance using industry level indicators and to report on industry trends to various stakeholders (e.g., Congress). Information from the ITP is used to assess the NRCs performance related to its goal of having ?no statistically significant adverse industry trends in safety performance.
The ITP uses some of the same PIs as the PI Program from the mid-1990s and, therefore, the NRC has a continuing use for the data provided in MORs. The NRC also uses some data from the MORs to support the evaluation of operating experience, licensee event reports, and other assessments performed by the NRC staff and its contractors.
Licensees are required by TSs to submit annual occupational radiation exposure reports (ORERs) to the NRC. The reports, developed in the mid-1970s, supplement the reporting requirements currently defined in 10 CFR 20.2206, ?Reports of individual monitoring, by providing a tabulation of data by work areas and job functions. The NRC included data from the ORERs in its annual publication of NUREG-0713, ?Occupational Radiation Exposure at Commercial Nuclear Power Reactors and Other Facilities, through the year 1997, but no longer includes the data in that or other reports.
3.0 TECHNICAL EVALUATION
3.1 Monthly Operating Reports As previously mentioned, the administrative requirements in TSs are reserved for ?the provisions relating to organization and management, procedures, recordkeeping, review and audit, and reporting necessary to assure operation of the facility in a safe manner. The current use of the information from the MORs is not related to reporting on, or confirming the safe operation of, specific nuclear power plants. Instead, the data is used by the NRC to assess and communicate with stakeholders regarding the overall performance of the nuclear industry. Data related to PIs for specific plants are reported to the NRC as part of the ROP. The NRC staff has determined that the MORs do not meet the criteria defined for requirements to be included in the administrative section of TSs and the reporting requirement may, therefore, be removed.
Although the MORs do not satisfy the criteria for inclusion in TSs, the NRC staff nevertheless has a continuing need to receive the data in order to compile its reports on industry trends and to support other evaluations of operating experience. In addition, information such as plant capacity factors that are reported in the MORs are useful to the NRC staff and are frequently asked for by agency stakeholders.
The NRC staff interacted with licensees, industry organizations, and other stakeholders during the development of the Consolidated Data Entry (CDE) program (currently being developed and maintained by the Institute of Nuclear Power Operation), regarding the use of an industry database like CDE to provide data currently obtained from MORs. These discussions also involved the related Revision 1 to Technical Specification Task Force (TSTF)-369, ?Removal of Monthly Operating Report and Occupational Radiation Exposure Report. As described in Section 4.0 of this safety evaluation, the licensee is making a regulatory commitment to continue to provide the data identified in GL 97-02, following the removal of the TS requirement to submit MORs, and will, therefore, continue to meet the needs of the NRC staff for the ITP and other evaluations. The use of an industry database such as CDE is more efficient and cost-effective for both the NRC and licensees than would be having the NRC staff obtain the needed information from other means currently available. Should a licensee fail to satisfy the regulatory commitment to voluntarily provide the information, the NRC could obtain the information through its inspection program (similar to the process described in NRC Inspection Procedure 71150, ?Discrepant or Unreported Performance Indicator Data) with the licensee being charged for the time spent by the NRC staff.
The only significant changes resulting from the adoption of TSTF-369 are that the information will be provided quarterly instead of monthly (although the operating data will still be divided by month) and the form of the reporting will be from a consolidated database such as CDE instead of in correspondence from individual licensees. The change of reporting frequency to quarterly has some advantages for both the NRC staff and licensees, since it will coincide with the collection and submission of the ROP PI data. In terms of the specific method used to transmit the data to the NRC, the licensee has committed (see Section 4.0) to provide data identified in GL 97-02 on a quarterly basis. The NRC staff believes that the most efficient process for licensees and the NRC will be for all licensees to use a system such as CDE. Such systems have advantages in terms of improved data entry, data checking, and data verification and validation. The NRC will recognize efficiency gains by having the data from all plants reported using the same computer software and format. Although the data may be transmitted to the NRC from an industry organization maintaining a database such as CDE, the licensee provides the data for the system and remains responsible for the accuracy of the data submitted to the NRC for its plant. The public will continue to have access to the data through official agency records accessible through ADAMS.
3.2 Occupational Radiation Exposure Reports The information that the NRC staff needs regarding occupational doses is provided by licensees in the reports required under 10 CFR Part 20. The data from the 10 CFR Part 20 reports are sufficient to support the NRC trending programs, radiation related studies, and preparation of reports such as NUREG-0713. Accordingly, the NRCs limited use of the ORER submitted pursuant to the existing TS requirements no longer warrants the regulatory burden imposed on licensees. Therefore, the NRC staff finds it acceptable that the TSs related to ORER are being deleted and the ORER will no longer be submitted by the licensee.
1 In subsequent discussions between the NRC staff and the Institute of Nuclear Power Operation, the staff has agreed that the report may be provided within approximately 45 days instead of the 30 days described in the CLIIP model application. Licensees may revise their plant-specific regulatory commitments accordingly.
4.0 VERIFICATIONS AND COMMITMENTS In order to efficiently process incoming license amendment applications, the NRC staff requested each licensee requesting the changes addressed by TSTF-369 using the Consolidated Line-Item Improvement Process (CLIIP) to address the following plant-specific regulatory commitment.
4.1 Each licensee should make a regulatory commitment to provide to the NRC using an industry database the operating data (for each calendar month) that is described in Generic Letter 97-02, ?Revised Contents of the Monthly Operating Report, by the last day of the month following the end of each calendar quarter. The regulatory commitment will be based on use of an industry database (e.g., the industrys Consolidated Data Entry (CDE) program, currently being developed and maintained by the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations).
The licensee has made a regulatory commitment to provide the requested data via an industry database (e.g., the CDE) by the end of the month following each calendar quarter. 1 4.2 For sites with different reactor types, licensees should make a regulatory commitment to provide information to the NRC annually (e.g., with its annual submittal in accordance with 10 CFR 20.2206) to support the apportionment of station doses to differentiate between the reactor types. The data will provide the summary distribution of annual whole body doses as presented in Appendix B of NUREG-0713 for each reactor type and for operating and shutdown units.
The licensees facility includes Salem, a pressurized water reactor, and Hope Creek, a boiling water reactor. The licensee has made a regulatory commitment to provide information to the NRC annually to support the apportionment of the station doses to differentiate between each type of reactor.
The NRC staff finds that reasonable controls for the implementation and for subsequent evaluation of proposed changes pertaining to the above regulatory commitment(s) can be provided by the licensees administrative processes, including its commitment management program. The NRC staff has agreed that Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) 99-04, Revision 0,
?Guidelines for Managing NRC Commitment Changes, provides reasonable guidance for the control of regulatory commitments made to the NRC staff (see Regulatory Issue Summary 2000-17, ?Managing Regulatory Commitments Made by Power Reactor Licensees to the NRC Staff, dated September 21, 2000). The NRC staff notes that this amendment establishes a voluntary reporting system for the operating data that is similar to the system established for the ROP PI program. Should the licensee choose to incorporate a regulatory commitment into the final safety analysis report or other document with established regulatory controls, the associated regulations would define the appropriate change-control and reporting requirements.
5.0 STATE CONSULTATION
In accordance with the Commission's regulations, the New Jersey State official was notified of the proposed issuance of the amendments. The State official had no comments.
6.0 ENVIRONMENTAL CONSIDERATION
The amendment relates to changes in recordkeeping, reporting, or administrative procedures or requirements. The Commission has previously issued a proposed finding that the amendment involves no significant hazards consideration, and there has been no public comment on such finding (70 FR 15946; March 29, 2005). Accordingly, the amendment meets the eligibility criteria for categorical exclusion set forth in 10 CFR 51.22(c)(10). Pursuant to 10 CFR 51.22(b), no environmental impact statement or environmental assessment need be prepared in connection with the issuance of the amendment.
7.0 CONCLUSION
The Commission has concluded, based on the considerations discussed above, that: (1) there is reasonable assurance that the health and safety of the public will not be endangered by operation in the proposed manner, (2) such activities will be conducted in compliance with the Commissions regulations, and (3) the issuance of the amendments will not be inimical to the common defense and security or to the health and safety of the public.
Principal Contributor: W. Reckley Date: January 11, 2006