ML12181A082

License and Relicense

ML12181A082
Person / Time
Site:	Pilgrim
Issue date:	05/18/2012
From:	Wilson R Harvard Univ
To:	Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards
References
Download: ML12181A082 (68)

Text

HARVARD UNIVERSITY Prof. Richard Wilson Office Tel: (617) 495-3387 Department of Physics Office Fax: (617) 495-0416 Harvard University website: http://physics.harvard.edu/-wilson 17 Oxford Street, Jefferson Physical Laboratory Room 257 email: wilson5@fas.harvard.edu Cambridge, MA 02138 DATE: May 1 8 th 2012 Mailing Address U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Washington, DC 20555-0001 1-800-368-5642, 301-415-7000 TTD: 301-415-5575 11555 Rockville Pike Rockville, MD 20852

Subject:

Pilgrim Nuclear Power Plant license and relicense

Dear Irs,

I know that you have been considering the relicense of this power plant since the application in 2006. That is a period of time longer than even the first license hearing!

I had the honor of being asked to bechairman of a special advisory board reporting to Governor King of the Commonwealth of Massachussets , in January 1990. I attach a copy of the report The report implicitly accepted the federal preemption in matters of safety. I believe that every one of the rccommendations is still applicable today, have urged everyone concerned to consider them and while asking NRC to address appropriate questions and issues, to do so in a timely ashion and to recognize the reasons for federal preemption.

I am at your service to discuss this 1970 report, the safety of the neighboring nuclear power plants and the adequacy of the responses of the NRC commissioners and staff to the challenges produced by faced by the Tsunami in Japan If there is a way of following the progress of this slow process, please let me know Yours sincerely Richard Wilson Mallinckrodt Professorof Physics, (emeritus)

End. 1980 report 1

Januar. 1980 Advisoru Panel to the Governor and Cabinet Task Force On Nuclear Safety Following the Accident at the Three Mile Island Nuclear Power Station Commonwealth of Massachusetts Richard Wilson (Chairman)

Harvard University George Rathiens Massachusetts institute of TechncloSi Susan Wiltshire League of Women Voters

PAGE 2 Contents Inrtroductior. +4.4..,., . +.+. .. .too##..... .3 2.

Suimarv of' Recomirieradations, * .......... 6

• Kemen*Reor . . . . .. . . . . . . .. . . . . . 1

4. 0:-eratoTr irr"1 5*

Accidernt F' eti ,6 6, Radiation Monitorinfa in Massachusetts..,°°..°....17 7, Radiation at Pilgrim I,..... ............... 21 Accident Maraaemrt ',..

9. Emergenrav Plans of Massachusetts°. .... ...... ,..0.24

10. Communications in the Event of an Accider,#t.*.....26 114 Transportation of Radioactive Materials...-....29

12. Waste risPosal ,32

13. Suitability of Plimouth as a Site for Pilgrim 11*33 Appendix I+ Events at Three Mile Island ... .. ,....36 APPendix II. Review of Reports and List of Reports...,...47 Appendix III. List of People at Meetings ..... *4,* .. ,4 *.352 Appendix IV Gossarv.

V. Letter reived.i#to***+*+* *# 63 Appendix

PAGE 3

1. Introduction All o-f the United States was shaken by the reactor accident at Three Mile Island, near Harrisbura, F'ennsylvania on the mornins; of Wednesday, 28 March 1979. The reactions of the Power companý;Y the neithborhood, the state and. federal..-.ove rnments., the regu].atory.

authorities, and the media (newspapers, radio, and TV) in the followinn days showed major deficiencies in Preparedness for a major nuclear accident.

It is essential to learn what we can from the accident at Three Mile Island to help Prevent a future, accident w'ith more *rave conseouencest Several studies arid investi.ations have alreads been initiated+ A committee appointed by President Carter and chai.red by John G. Kemenry, Fresident of Dartmouth Colleve, has reported to the President; the Nuclear Reulat.opr- Commission (NRC) is conductirng on-Soin_ detailed reviews; and the Electric Fower Research Institute (EPRI), the research arm of the electrical utility industry, has set up a Nuclear Safety Analysis Center j."hich makes and Publishes reports and analyses.

Each state which his or contemplates a nuclear Power Plant also has a responsibilitu to address the Problems of Public safety raised by Three Mile Island. In this context, Governor Edward Kir, of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts established a Special Nuclear Cabinet Task Force to review the situation. The Cabinet Task Force is composed of the heads of the state agencies which have responsibility in the area: the Executive. Office of Human Servicesp the Executive Office of Public Safety, the Executive Office o? Environmental Affairs and the Massachusetts Office of Energy Resources.

Governor King also appointed this three Person. Panel Statinq in a Press release:

'The reason for creatinr, this Panel...is to assess those.

reactor safety issues that will, have an impact on the future of nuclear ener*y in Massachusettso..

'No region of the country is more dependent on nuclear energy, and no treater Potential exists for stabilizin. our costs than the nuclear option. In fact, nuclear enersy Provides us with one third of our electricity needs and has saved New England consumers $500 million and 80 million barrels of hi.h-Priced residual fuel oil since its inception.

The benefits are worth rursuins as lonr as the 5eneral P.u.bl.ic is confident that this technology does riot Pose u.iacceptable

.risks to our Public health and welfare...

'However...in light of the Three Mile Island incident, arti further actions with retard to this state's involvement in licernsini new reactors should not occur until we pro certain

PAGE 4 that every measure involvins public safety and health, which could have Precluded the incident it, Pennsylvania, is in place in Massachusetts..

"As a resulty I have appointed this distinruished Panel and asked them to review the NRC's investilation of the Three Mile Island incident and report their findinrs to the Lesislature and the Cabinet-level task force that I have appointed as soon as Possible,"

Discussions with the Governor, and with the Ener*y Committee of the Lemislaturey made it clear that the Pannel was to be independent of the lenislative and executive bodies; and, that, within the broad respornsibil.ities outlined in the Governor's Press statement. the committee was to determine its own frVme of reference. The Panel retarded its responsibility as a task of Prime imp'ortance.

As in the K~emeny study (report Page 4) we did not attempt to reach a conclusion as to whether, as a matter of Public Polics, the devel.opi.ment oif commerical nuclear power should be continued or should not be continued. That would renuire" a much broader investination involvinr economic, environmental, and Political considerations. This Panel did not review the merieral status of nuclear Power in Massachusetts. We felt that that larmer ouestion also involved too many issues for us to consider Properly*

Because 33% of electric Power in New Er,*land is now tenerated by nuclear Plants we did make an initial'assumption that nuclear Power is likely to continue as a source of electricity in this state+ In addition we Proceeded on a Premise that the Seneration of electricity by nuclear Power involves a Potentially danrerous technolohy which reouires continuous and rigorous care in its use.

If in the course of our deliberations we had felt it was clear that the necessary care would be impossible, that the nuclear hardware would be so liable to failure that it should not continue to be used, or that human beinas are so fallible that they could not operate this technolovy. we would have said so. Without noinr this far, we do say that People can be careless, that enuipment may fail and that bad Judlements are sometimes made. Our task was to Point out approaches which misht minimize the number of failures by people or machines and Prevent the results of any failure from causins harm to the citizens of the Commonwealth.

Since the Panel had limited Personnel time and no fr',dinil or staff, it was not realistic for us to undertaL.e the thorouh independent review necessary to certify the adenuacy of various state and util.ity actions and Prosrams. Rather it was decided that the most useful contribution we could make within our resources would be to Provide advice to the Cabinet Task Force about their

PAGE 5 work and additlional actions which could be considered, To carrs out this task, the Panel met with the Cabinet Task Force or, May 15i 1979 arnd July 14, 1979, had three open Public meetinris on October 12. 1979Y November 19, 1979 and December 14, 1979 as well as several other workini mdeeltirmsi We have reviewed a number of documents and solicited aid and clarification from state am.enciesy Power corrpanies, and the ereneral public. A review and list of these documents and a list of letters are in the apperndices.

Althoush mans officials in the responsible state amencies have been work.irns dilimently to! u,'rade the Preparedness of the Commonwealth for nuclear emer~encies, the decision makinr; level of the Cabinet Task Force is still in the early state of its work.

Therefore, in most cases our recommendations form a work .rotram for the Cabinet Task. Force.

We believe that the Commonwealth in its accident Preve-,ticon manaement Plans and evacuation Plans must act in a prudently cautious marnner arnd assume that accidents such as Three Mile Island can lead to meltdown arid under some circumstances mieltdownr can lead to release of an, appreciable fractiorn of the radioactivits inr the

core, Finallv, we wish to stress that nuclear safety demands continuous visilance. It should not take a Three Mile.Island in Massachusetts to ensure that the Problem is treated with the needed

uroencv,

PAGE 6

2. SuJmmary of Frinci~al Recommerndations The -panel has reviewed the report of the President's Commrission on the accident at Three Mile Island (Kemeny Commission) and awrees with its recommendations almost in their entirety.

In most casesy our recommendations are based on the Kemeny recommendations Poiritrin, out those actions appropriate to the Commonwealth. After each rec6mmendation, we note the section in which tthe subJect of the recommendation is discussed in the detailed report which follows. The order in which our recommendations are listed-follows the order of the Kemeny report.

1, *The Cabinet Task Force should find out what actions the Nuclear Resulatorv Commission (NRC) is taking, in respect to Kemenu Commission recommendations A4a (F', 63) and C2 (P. 70) that the NRC operator and supervisor licensing functions be uJpgraded. The Cabinet Task. Force should decide irn the light of this information whether or not to suPPort the Proposal of the Department of Public Safety to.

widen the scope and increase the fre*,uerncy of state licernsing examinations, Our reading of the Kemerey recommendations and the Present NRC role is that the NRC examinations will cover the nuclear aspects of the Power system. If that is the case, the state examiraotiori emphasizirs ordinary steam Power operations is not a duplication and might therefore usefully be retained and strenrihtened. Possible use might be made of the large reservoir of talent in the Boston area to help in these examirnations. (Section 4 of this report.)

2. The Cabinet Task Force should satisfy, itself that the Ernerg. Facilities Sitirng Council of the Commonwealth has the competence to address the sitiri issues disciuissed in Kemerny recommendations A6 (P. 64). The Kemerny report recommends that to the extent feasibley reactors be located remotely from corncentratiorns of Populations The existing. reactors in Massachusetts were 'Arardfathered' (previous approval not re-examined) when the Sitirng Council was established. The Pilgrim II site was also graridfathered as an adjunct to Pilgrim I. However, Pilgrim II was not. -randfathered under NRC rules and although testimony has been closed in the N.R.C. hearint' the Cabinet Task Force should consider whether the Sitiri, Council or other asencies of the Commonwealth should take a Position before the N.R.C. hearin, board if this issue is reopened. (Section 13 of this report.)

3. The Cabinet Task Force should take a hard look, at the

PAGE 7 Kemern. recommendation A1OA (P. 65)5 that duplicate consideration of issues be avoided whenever F.ossible, and see to what exter,t the issues of importance to the Commonwealth carn and should be considered at the same time, P.ossibly in a Simuiltaneous hearing with the considerations of those issues by the NRC.

4. The Cabinet Task Force shoul.d satisfy itself that Kemenv recommendations All a and b (F'. 66) that there be systematic safety evaluation and assessment of ex.Perience in existingi reactors, are bei.ng, Prroperl irmp-lemented. On paper these Programs were already takinrg Place before Three Mile Island, but the experiernce of Toledo Edison Co.

in, September 1977 which miaht have prevented mistakes by the Three Mile Island operators was not adecuately used.

If the Task Force is not satisfied, it should take further action--such as includirnn these matters on the agenda of an independent safety committee established by the Commonwealth (see recommendation 6 below).

5, The Parnel notes that the two nuclear Power Plants in the Commonwealthy Yankee Rowe and Pilgrim' I, as well as Vermont Yankee, have separate safety groups reportin.r to high level management as recommended by Kemeny B2 (P.

68). We recommend that the committees include members with different trairninr and backlground than r,ormally -found in utilities--such as a Physicist arnd a chemical . ennirneer arid include members who obtain no more than 20% of their salary from the nuclear industry so that there can be rio reasonable doubt about their independence. (Section 5 of this report.)

6. The Cabinet Task Force should review the safety committees rnoted above, and if they consider them iriadeauate should set uP a Comm7ionwealth safety committee. This committee should be a Professional committee with adeauate compensation. If Kemenry recommendation A3b (F'P 62) is implemented, that the Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards (ACRS) of NRC not review individual reactors, this review- could be a charge to a Commonwealth Safety Committee. (Sections 3 and 5 of this report.)

.7- If a safety committee is set up by the Co.,'rimmonwealth it should include in its review t.h issues of recommendation B5 d of lKemeny (F'. 69) that the utilities arid suppliers systemratically resolve safety Ouestions in Plant operations.

PAGE 8

8. We Particularly endorse the Kemeny recommendartions B 3 (Q.

69) that there be clearly defined roles and responsibility both durins ordir,yr. operation, and durinr an emervencvy, and that the responsibil ity for operations durri,. art emer-ency rests with the utility com.pany. The Cabinet Task. force should satisfy itself that these recomimendations are implemented and that the rules and responsibilities be not merely defined but also written down., agreed to and understood by each and everv Person who is likely to be involved in an incident or its aftermath, includino not only utilitv company emplowees but also the emp-loyees of every anenrcw of state government concerned. (Sections 8, 9 and 10 of this report.)

9, The Cabinet Task Force should satisfy itself that the rate settirns board of the Department of Public Utilities is allowirngl reasonable saf1ety related charnes to be reflected in the rate base.

10. The representatives of the utility companies informed us that they are imProving operator trairirs in accordance with Kemeriy recommendation C 3d (F. 71) by increasir,n- the freeuenc. of simulator trairning from once a Year to twice a year and by haviro accident scenarios incorporated in the simulator. We urge continued attention to this aspect of operator trainirng. (Section 4 of this report.)

11. The Commonwealth, through its Departmernt of Public Health and the Advisory Council orn Radiation Protection should maintain its capability to monitor the exposure to radiation of various Pop*ulatiorn groups in addition to° the research Proposal recommended by Kemens (Elc, P. 74) to be coordinated by the National Institutes of Health (Section 7 of this report).

12. The Cabinet Task Force should determine whether there is adeauate trairnirng for health Professionals and emergerncy response Personnel in radiation Problems in the Commonwealth as recommended by Kemerny E3 (P. 74) and whether the Personnel irn the Nuclear Incident Advisory Teams (NIAT) are adeu-uately trained and their level of trairinr is known to those who would be in command in a nuclear incident. (Sections 6 arid 9 of this report.)

We recommend that this Prosram of education also be extended to those employed in the industry. Ir, particular, employees should be altered to the ways they can reduce their own exposurey for example, by avoidinS high radiation areas, and this awareness should be

PAGE 9 reinforced reularlvt (Section 7 of this report.)

13. The Commonwealth should veri:fy that the moriitorir, of radiation is adeauate in all circumstances as recommended by Ke-nen. E4 (P. 75). We are. Particularly concerned that the Present stac*c. &as. monitors will: overload durins accident conditions (E4a). (Section 6 of this report.)

14. We recommend the Commonwealth obtain a suply of Potassium iodide (or other th.roid block.ingE1 agent) and decide where it should be located (Kemenry recommendation E5, P. 75).

Note. should be taken of the fact that although Potassium iodide has been approved as a drum by FAr, it should riot be taken unless necessary because Possible side effects are unknown. (Section 6 of this report.)

15, The emer.ency .plars of "the Commonwealth have recently been revised in accordance with Kemenry recommendation F1 (P.

76). The Panel urne Particular attention to clear and consistent delineation of the actions Public officials and utility company officials should take+ This deline-atiorn should also be well advertised so that the coordination recommended in Flc carn be achieved. We also recommend that the Dep-artmernt of Public Health, clearly identify the criteria su-nested in Keiriermy F2n anrd that the Cabinet Task.

Force review that effort. (Section-s 8, 9 arid 10 of this report.)

16. We have some reservations about the Practicality of Kemerny

.recommendat:ion Gla (P. 78) that the utility comPan* be responsible for the disseminationi of information duri n- an emer-encs. The utility company has the responsibility to determine the status of the Power Plant, whether, for example, a meltdown is Possible or likely. However, evern if inrformation, should be disseminated clearly by the hilhest Possible technical official of the comparny we arre concerned about whether or not the information will be accepted as reliable due to the Present lack of Public confidence in utility companies. We ariticipae that, as at Three Mile Island, an NRC official may have more Public credibility, but irn any case we do not feel there is a major role for the Commonwealth irn dissemination of information about the status of the Plant itself.

(Section 10 of this report.)

17.. In respect to recomimerndatiori GIb, we believe that everyone concerned ir, the Commonwealth should be clear irn advance who should Provide the information about radioloAical releases arid evacuation Plans. Several times in this

PAGE 10 report we suavest ci rcumstances where orne or another agerncy of the Commonwealth--usually the Departmen,t of Public Healthy should be officiall- desinnated the lead agenc y!

18. We concur in the recommendation of Kemen.y F4 (PF 77) that the Public must be informed about nuclear Power. At Present Public information is often unreliable and incomplete. The Principal role we see for the Commonwealth in this is education about emerg*ency and Public health Planrning arid we applaud the actions alreadv beinr taken by the Civil Defenrse director arnd the Department of Fublic Health in addressirig Public meetinns, responding to nuestions and Providing information.

(Section 10 of this report.)

We feel it is a greneral responsibility of technically informed People to share their information with others and encourage them to do so,

19. We conrcur with the recommendationr G3 (P. 79) of Kemenr, that the newsmedia should improve their ability to cover a nuclear emergency in accordance with their responsibilities. In addition to the detailed list in Kemersy, we suggest that the media should be asked to Print verbatim the official Press releases of NRC and state officials as well as any interpretations the media may wish. The official releases are likely to be more complete and easily understood by the technical Public than the Press interpretations. The genieral Public will turn for information analysis to those technical individuals in whom they have confidence, and the supplyinr of reliable and detailed information to the technical community is an important Part of dissemination of information, (Section 1.0 of this report.)

20+ We recommend, in the event that Pilgrim II is licensed, that *the Cabinet Task Force consider whether the Dlepartrmenit of Public Safety should be asked to inspect the work in Progress as the D.P.S, suJests, (Section 13 of this report.)

21. The Cabinet Task Force should examine the relationship of the Commonwealth with the adjacent states (in particular, Vermont) :ir-i which a nuclear Power Plant exists. We have no food way of *Jud-ino the existing situation with respect to emergenlcy responses, operator trainingy arid " reactor safety, but what we have heard suosests that the interests of the Commoniwealth may be served by a cooperative effort

PAGE II to improve safety, (Sections 4 throush 12 of this report.)

22, In view of the hearinr of the U.S. Departmernt of Transportation scheduled - for February 1980, we are disappointed that the .relevarit a~encies in the Commonwealth, the Depar.tmenrt of Public Health, the Department of Transportation and the Massachussets Turnpike Authority do riot appear, to have made arn effort to resolve-differenrces they have with respect to a nuclear trarnsportation Policy. We are encquraed however, by the statements of. December 14, 1979 that they will now meet and try to arrive at. a common aPProach. We su'sest 5uide]iines for this in Section. 11 of this report*

23. Under current Practice spent fuel is beinr stored at the reactor site arid will remain there until there is a Plan to reprocess the fuel or store the fuel elsewhere. This is a situation riot envisaved in the orifi.nal Plans. We recommend, therefore, that the Cabinet Task. Force reexamine the situation to see whether the conseauences of any possible accidents at these Pools should be included in emerenic_ Planninrs. (Section 12 of this report.)

24. Althoush riot directly related to reactor safety, the panel notes that the Commonwealth is at the mercy of decisions made b, others when it sends wastes to repositories in other states. We accordinisly recommend that the Cabinet Task Force consider whether it is appropriate to develop a repository within the state or resion for low anid/or medium level wastes--mostl hospital and laundry wastes with half lives less than 100 years, The analysis misht be carried out in conjunction with the consideration of

.toxic waste disposal now. in Prosress by the Executive office of Environrmenital . Affairs. (Section 12 of this report...)

.25. The Cabinet Task Force should review the Problems of theft and sabotabe at the nuclear reactor sites and the recommendations about this of the Rathieris committee.

(Section 13 of this report.)

26. The Cabinet Task Force should consider whether a stack Aas monitor be installed to read directly into a state buildin_, to live an immediate indication .of Problems.

(Section 6 of this report.)

PAGE 12

3. The Kemeny Report The Kemerny Report, on which we have based most of our recommendations should be carefully read by all those in the industry and state sovernment who have the responsibility for nuclear safety.,

We note that the report emphasizes the human element at Three

.Mile Island, The statements by Herbert Diekamp, President of General Public Utilitiesy that the operators and staff at Three Mile Isl*nd were trained as well as any in the industry seem to be true as far as paper cualifications are concerned. However, the repeated statements of these same operators to the Kemeny Comm,issiorn that they did not understand what was 5oin orn in, the first 3 hours of the accident are a damnin, indictment of the traininr,. We discuss this further inr section 4 on operator trainingl.

Amorns the mar*y comments on reaulation in the Kemeny report, it was noted that both in industry and in the NRC there is a Preoccupation with meetins reaulations, rather than addressinr, the safety issues directly, The Parnel saw this clearly in its open meetings, as both k~' industry and NRC represerntatives kept discussins whether or not the reoulations had been met before and evern instead of addressing the safety issues themselves. This is a darnerous trend but to a very considerable extent it is inevitable. One consecuence of this

.Method is the insistence ona incorporatir,_ arny safety idea into a resulatiori, before actins upon it. Writing a remulationi and establishinri its lenality and workabilits: arid abolishinS or modi fyin, regulations when appropriate ore necessary arnd appropriate activities. However in, this Process both regulated and resulators ma- tend to fornet the orisiral objective of the regulation. We see a very useful role for the Commonwealth here, both irn the licensinrs hearini*s and in continuous review subseuentl.. That is: to be certain the objective of *ublic safet_ is not lost in, the maze of Procedure but is constantly used as the standard for measurins any action or resulation.

It appears to this Panel that an independent review of crucial issues by a committee appointed by and responsible to the Commonwealth sunwested in recommendation 6 above may be useful even when c handes in regulations are not an issue. We envisae activities similar to those of the Advisory Committee on Reactor Safegua rds (ACRS) of the Nuclear Regulato:r Conmission. In contrast to the ACRSP a state committee would 52 expected to o.t o, matters specific to one Particular n~uclear facility ra;ther than on Sener-ic issues, and Primaril - to address those areas over which the state has some Ju.ri sdi ction. The committee members should not be full time state empl.oaees, but drawr'i from the la-rger Pool of talent available in Massachussets arnd they should be recom,'on.ern.ed for their

PAGE 13 services ini the same~ wau as federal :Eoverri1Tent advisors.

PAGE 14

4. Operator Trainirsi The Kemenya Commission emphasizes the humrarn errors involved in the Three Mile Island accident. We note here that Dr. Herbert Dieka Tp, President of General Public Utilitiesp in a Press statement commentin, on the Ke.eny report noted that the operators were trained as well as anr *ir the industry, This statement is based on ex'amirnation Performance in the Nuclear Resulatorv Commission exa.mination.,

It is, of course, conceivable that the operators and staff irn the utility. comrarnies in Massachusetts are better trained and better Qualified than those at Three Mile Island. It appears to us to be a role of the Commonwealth to ensure that this is true.

Alread.. Massachusetts has a separate ex-amination for Power Plant operators. The Department of Public Safety which is in char.e of this li.cernsin.ri* emphasized to us that accident Preventiorn depends uporn-m*ood trairiinm in steam systems and rnot specifically onr nuclear matters, This is not extensively covered in the federal licensiri*

Process* While this distinction is to a lar5e exteht true, there is rio analonue in a coal fired Power Plant to the necessity of keePir1 the core covered at all times. Before the accidcrrt at Three Mile Island, the Massachusetts operators were trained in unusual oeratin, conditions but rot irn accident conditions. This is done on a computer simulator at Morris, Illinois for PilArim I and Vermont Yankee. and at Keyesport, Pennsylvania for Yankee Rowe; Seabrook. wi011 have its own. The staff for Pilbrim are trained with their own computer code to reflect the Particular Plant they have*

Only since the accident at Three Mile Island have accident scenarios been Placed on the simulators. Kemeny noted that failure of a Pressure relief valve to reseat was onlv Put on the .abcock and Wilcox simulator in, April 1979, after the Three Mile island Accident. The Parnel was irnfojred that some of the accidenit seQuences in the Rasmussen report (see Appendix II) are now on the General Electric simulator. We recommend that they all be on the simulator as soon as Practical 4 .

We note and applaud the fact that the American Nuclear Society is up-radinrm its recommerndation orn admirnist rative control Procedures, operator selection, and simulator trairinn, The nature of operator trairiir, in the nei.hborinr states of Vermont and New Hampshire is unclear. we recommend that the Commonwealth make common cause with Vermont and New HamPshire, Possibly with commiorn testin, Procedures.

If, as we believe is the casey operator licersinr: in Massh'..-_hsetts should continue: then the examiners "themselves shiould be trained on the -simulators, and the " Commonwealth should apProPri:ate funds for that Purpose.

PAGE 15 The Executive Office of Public Safety has drafted a bill to improve the state licensirng p rocedure and we recommend that the Cabinet Task Force consider it seriously.

We recommend. that the Executive .:.Office of Public Saf etv consider makinig use of the large rese~rvo:i.r of independent talent :in Massachusetts to help structure a .rigorous testingi procedure.

Althoug.h our detailed recommendations are opern for discussion, we

.suggest that this could irnclude:

1. review of the 80 odd event tree senuences for serious accidents, such as those outlined in the Rasmussen report and review of the operator actions necessary in -these cases*

2. simulator trainirng on these and other accidents.

3, oral examination in which the operator explains safety to an independent expert#

PAGE 16 5, Accident. Prevention The IKemeny-i Commission recommended that each utilitV companv have a safety review group rePortir, directly to top mana*ement, The Panel in its open meetinr on November 19thy 1979 ascerta:ined that both Boston Edison. and the Yankee Atomic 5rouP have such review groups and details of their composition were given to us.

We recommend that these groups should each include one o~r two members with a wider ranre of expertise than normally found in the utilits compnanies--such as a-chemical onsineer or Physicist.

It is also important that: the saflety groups include among.

their membership some Persons who derive less than 20% of their salary from the nuclear industry to assure there carn be no reasonable doubt about, their independent?.

.We are concerned that there be su'. s3fety groups for reactors close to Massachusetts borders: Verron, Vt. and Seabrook, NH.

Althoush these are now Part of the Yankee Atomic croupy the situation is in, a state of flux, and we are concerned that if they become totally inidePendent they may have too little internal expertise to draw on. The adenuacv of these in house safety arouPs i should be reviewed b' the Cabinet Task Force as suigested in recommendation 6.

We sulnest. that the Commonwealth consider establishini a safety review committee of competent Professionals able and willinJ to work hard. The Prototspe for this committee would be the Advisor v Committee for Reactor Safenuards (ACRS) to the Nuclear Re~ulatorve Commission. This committee has a high reputation, (recommendation 6)

We make a sumestion to the Cabinet Task Force not covered by the Kemeny Commission that they consider establishingi an anonymous letter office associated with this review committee for safety.

nuestions.

We are fully aware of arnd share, the deep ard natural repugnance of Americans for anonymous letters which uuestion the honesty and competence of individuals, Private citizens, Public officials or Politicians* But in the matters of Public safety we feel there might be some modification of this absolute stand+ It should be made clear that any letter will be transcribed before beingi Passed on; that no attempts will be made to locate the sender, bu.t that the contents may be acknowled*cd :in the Public Press+ Of course, anyone violatiris the anonsmit_ should be subject to-appropriate civil Penalties.

PAGE 17

6. Radiation Monitoring The N'ucl.ear ReauJ.atory Commission reports, especially NUREG 0558, indicate that the amount of radioactivity released to the public at Three Mile Island was not larve, and it was released through filters out of a tell stack, and dispersed throughout the surrounidingi.* area.

As a result, the effects on Publicnhealth are predicted to be miniscule. While this is very reassurinAr, we asked the fol].owing euestiors of the. Power Plant operators in Massachusetts and of t~he agencies of the Commonwealth:

1. .Is monitorinr adeauate to ensure understanding of the small releases of radiation in ordinary operation?

2. Is the monitorirng adeuuate to make an e..-, Post facto

- imeasurement of radiation dose in the event of an acc:ident in which the releases are the size of those-at Three -Mile Island?

3, Is the mor-uitor.rin adec.uate to measure radiation releases in real timer so that indications car- be Viveri of whether and how to evacuate?

On October 12, 1979 at ar- open- meeting, the Panel .discussed these euestions with representatives from the power companies, the NRC, the Department of Public Health, the Department ofi Environmental Quality En.aineeriru, the Department of Public SafetA and the Advisory Committee or- Radiatior- Protection.

It seemed clear that most of the monitoring is heared to releases in ordinary operation and that a mood Job car- be done under ordinary conditioris..

In accident conditions the situation is likely to be less satisfactory. At Three Mile Island the stack -as monitor saturated, and as the incident Prooressed no on-e was oble to tell how much radioactivity was beirng released. This could onlr-l be deduced from meteorological calculations ar-d doses measured in the field. Although doses in the field are in the final analysis what we need to know, this leaves out ar- im~ortant Piece of information which would be Particularly useful for immediate Prediction of hazard in the event of ari accident to aid a decisior-i about whether or not to order ar- evacuation+

We were told that it would take over a Year to install e nuiprti er-nt a t Bostoni Edison Co. F'i]._rim Reactor "that would rnot saturate under accident conditions, i.e., instruments capable of indicating the levels of radiation that mizht be exrp-ected inr- the event of a serious accident. While we believe that this may: be

PAGE 18 true for a buJreaucratically acceptabl.e monitor--one which has been approved in advance (on Paper),. is fireproofy an.d so on--it, seems to us th'a,"t a temporary one that could measure the un,usually large amounts of radioactivity in an accident could and should be avai].able- in a: week. We urge that such a monitor be obtained Promrptly and that the Department of Public Health assure itself that this did take Place.

Althou,_Jih the 2 nuclear Plants in the Commonwealth are no better euuipped to measure stack was effluenfts duriri* an accident

• thanr w.ere those in the State of Fenrnsylvarniay t~hey have been better einuipped to measure releases at distances remote Prom the Plarnt in the event of arn occident and the Provisions have beer, recenrtly improved. Detailed Plans exist to use the results from ground base monitorirng to ouickly estimate the margnitude of. the radioactivity release. Twice as marny radioluminescent dnsimeters are n, ow ir, Place around F'ilirim I as were around Three Mile Island, The companry the NRC and the state separately maintain dosimeters which are checked adainst each other, When it comes to on-line monitoring the situation is less clear. No statiors exist with continuous record:i.n;* monitors.

Moritoririd depends upon radiation moniitoring teams which can be sent out at the first sion of trouble.

This ensures that calibrated monitors are used, but it depends entirely oF; word of mouth for immediate feed'back., In retrospect this worked at Three Mile Island, but we have so;rme missivinrs about whether the feedback is adecuately Prompt and whether r'adiation survey teams will be -enrt out early enough.

At Three Mile Island the operators realized there was trouble by 6 a.m., the radiation level in; the corntedrment went up to 25 mr/hr*, more than, fifty times normal, at 6:35 a.:m., but not until.

6:54 a.m. was a site emerkency called and Tradiation monitorinri teams dispatched. Bu this time the radiation level in the containmernt had risern to 400 mr/hr (it rose to OOY,0O0 mr/hr C= 100 R/hr] by 7:2)."

Although the nuclear erngirneers at Three Mile Island (incorrectly) measured a high dose of 40 R/hr inF, the containment at 6:55 a.m. and calculated a dose in Goidsborounh of 40 R/hr. due to the Presence of noble _ases, it was not invtil 7:48 a.m. that accurate measurements were made cor, firmir,_i a lou dose. Part c:,.r the delayi was in checkinri ee,.Jipmert--which couild have beer; checked anrytime in the Previous 3 hours3.472222e-5 days <br />8.333333e-4 hours <br />4.960317e-6 weeks <br />1.1415e-6 months <br /> if the moritori.nr teams had been aler'ted.

..Althou,. we ouestioned the Power comp'arny ,representativesy it Q is not clear to us that if an emergency ocemurs ir, Massachjsetts there will be anY more rapid respornse. We we re riot told of the existernce of Procedures which ider-ti fs speci.Tiic evenr 4 s th.at woulJd

PAGE 19 lead to:

I. Summoring a radiatiorn survey team to the site

2. Checking* instruments and ersurinrýI that a vehicle is available

3. -Sending out radiation survey teams We r ecommend that this asp'ect of e mereicy readiness be clarified and improved, A suggestion, was made to us that a stack.

was monitor be installed to read directly into a state buildiriny so that there is immediate indication of P.roblerms. Such a readout may be useless unless it has well defined Points which. tri.,er a response. The Power companies arSue that the information s,..,.ru lied could be mis,,sed by an overls ex'uberant Public relations official.

Yet .it. would be a safeguard agairnst failure to obtain adeeuate information from the reactor operators. This m!ki*t occur,. for example. if sabotag.e and terrorism were the cause of the accident.

We urge that this ouestion be re-examined by the. Cabinet Task Force.

At the Present time, the Department of Public Health is responsible for emergenccy mornitorini* while the Departneit of Envi ronimental Quality Enrineering reads some of the thermolumiriescert dosimeters for the Departmernt of Public Hea].th.

This we believe to be a sensible and Proper arrarngement. The Department of F'ublic Health has monitored radiation devices for many years and has expertise and staff who rbutinely_ monitor radiation sources such as medical x-ray enuipment, and thus their skills arid eeuipmerit are k.ept up-to-date. All of their staff is available in an, emeroercw.

The reasons for the assignmernt of this responsibility to the Department of Fublic Health man not be obvious to the executive arid legislature in the future and we recommend that the Department of Public Health be formally designated the lead a.eric. to avoid Possible confusion.

We note that there are a number of Personnel throughout the state who have traininS in radiation monitorinA who can be called uPonr some of whom form the NIAT teams discussed earlier, However they may riot be Present durini the critical earl. staSes of an accident#

We note that in a major nuclear accident, the total ,Janrtity of- the noble cases and also a large fraction of the iodine, tellerium or cesium Present as fission Products in the fuel mi-ht tz," be released, It is these last three elements that account for estimates of large Possible hazards to Public healthy since thee are absorbed by the human body and iodine Concentrates in the

PAGE 20 C..

thyroid. Althou5Eh it is reassurir;_ that at Three Mile Island ornIi.y

• 15 curies out. of 30 milliorn curies of iodine Present were released?

(because of chemical Plate--out and bec-ause of filters) it is possible that in a major accident such filterin, Processes would be rapidly saturated.

The iodine which has a half life of 8 dams can be an important contributor to the short term hazard and the Possibility of its release would dominate any evacuationr Plans. This is made very cleaTr in a report for the Couricil on, Enviroronment.l Quality b- Dr Jan .evsea of F'rinteonn. and irn a 1978 NRC report (MUREG CR-1131 ) b, Aldrich et al of Sandia laboratories.

Tellerium and cesium are Particeu.ates and to be released reouire evaporation, of core Products. Their release is less likely than the iodine releases but they are. also important and are a lonrler term hazard.

For Purposes of judsins evacuation Plans, therefore, a rapid measurement of iodine and Particulatc- releases seems to be very important. This is rnot made clear in the N.R.C. Guides on emerenc. Planninnr° There are Present:ly rio adeRuate monitors which these

.distinuishreleases, al.thouth we were told that they are forthcominoi, and the important distinction between releases with arnd without Particulates is not included i.n, anv of the emerleri-ev plans Presented to us. We recoimenid that all Personnel involved with measurement of radiation? and with Possible evacuation, learn and understand the distinction, between the effects of noble was release, iodine release and Particulate release.

Two mitinatina features are worth nrotini, First, if People are exposed to iodine? some of the effects can be reduced by takinG medication--such as Potassium iodide--that blocks the uptake of iodine in the thyroid, The Commonwealth should ensure that in the case of accident it has access to an, adenuate supply of such medicine within 24 hours2.777778e-4 days <br />0.00667 hours <br />3.968254e-5 weeks <br />9.132e-6 months <br />.

Secondi the cesium arnd tellurium release is a lonrs term hazard for which Prompt evacuation is not essential. Evacuation arid/or decontamination subsenuenit to the accident can Pr udently be postponed until radioactivity levels are actually measured.

PA~GE 21.

7,. Pil.rim I O1-,eratinr Staff Radiation Exposures There has been somne discussion about unusual levels of exposure of workers to radiation at Fi]..lrim I.

Cobalt steel in a reactor vessel becomes radioactive as a result of' neutron bombardment. Some of it leaches into the reactor coolant s.steim-arnd is conveyed to all Parts of the reactor. This radioactivity should be removed b .filters, but it aPpears that these filters were closled in the first Year of operation of PFi.Jri.m I and radioactive cobalt, ha]lf life of 10 vears, was deposited on manu Parts of the reactor coolant system. This Produced unnecessary radiation exosure to the reactor staff. This was clear.ly: a major error on the Part of the Boston Edison Company.

A fraduate student at Harvard, Mr. Hul'fman, has measured radiation at several Places near the reactor and confirms that indeed it is dominated by cobalt 60. We are informed that over the Past two years a massive effort has been in Pro~ress to identify, replace, or shield radioactive -ipin.,

The occupational ridiation dose, added up over all employees, was 2.00 Person rems in 1977, and this fell to 800 Person rern;s in 1979. The Orininal hish radiation doses were a sirn of sloppy manamement. However the doses have remained within the standards recommended by the International Committee on Radiolo.ical Protection and have now been reduced,. We urge-continued efforts in this direction. in addition to cleaninirt and replaciri5 Pipes, we urge that the operatirn staff continue to pay attention to the level of their own exposure to radiation. Staff members can reduce

.their own exposure levels, by careful.avoidence of Places with hish radiatiorn levels but Boston Edison must Provide the framework in which this car, take Place+

PAGE 22 8, Accident Manaemer, t At Three Mile Island an incident was allowed to escalate into an accident. Everyrone seems to agree that operator training is the Primary cure and improved Plant control. desion a secondary cure; we address at this time a third issue of responsibil.ity during the accident.

Mr. Olson, of the Department of F'Pblic Safety, told us that the law is clear. General Law 146 of the Commonwealth states that the shi-ft engineer has complete resronsibi:i.ty and in his absence the shift supervisor, and then the most senior operator takes over.

If they think it is appropriate, they can ask "for anyone Present to leave the control room.

If an accident develops, additional Personnel are sent to a technical support center, separate from the control room. When radiation is released,, an emergency control center is established and it is to this center that radiation monitorinr, teams report arnd where a Department of Public Health official toes.

We are concerned that not everyone is clear on the chain of authority. In view of what happ-.ened at Three Mile Island we believe this can be a ver.; serious Problem. We understand the authority and responsib.il:ity to be as follows.

To operate the reactor the chief ensineer-or his delegate as above. To measure radiation: whoever is in charge at the emer..ency control center; to assess radiation and whether to recommend arn evacuation: the Departmerit of Fublic Health through its representaive at the emerTencv control center. To carry out an evacuat.iori Civil Defense from an emergerncy control center in town.

A reactor operator at Three Mile Island decided to release radioactive- las out of a storage tank at 9 a.m. orn Friday, March

.30th to Prevent a more serious situatiori from develoPinO it was his authority to do so, but he did not inform those monitorin-ri radiation to e-.ect a suddenl .increaser causirn urirnecessary alarm, If a reactor operator in Massachu.sett decides to initiate such a release he should discuss it with the represenitative of the Department of Public Health and to give as much warninrg as Possible to avoid confusion, although he is not recuired to do so.

We recommend that Procedure relative to chairn of command dur:ing. an accident be clarified arid that it be made k.riowri to all who mig.Sht be involved. In our meeting of November 19th we were not convinced that everyone sa'reed to who has authorits for what. In oir view this is iiexcuseable and we cal. it to the attention of Lthe Cabinet Task. Force.

It appears that at Three Mile Island the operators were

PAGE 23 reluctant to call]. in help. Irn our meeting of November 1.9th it became clear that most operators would be so reluctant--indeed it is a natural human characteristic which can be'found in other situations. it was represented to uW that after a transient the operators must first brirn the reactor to a stable condition before reportirs: the si'tuatior,* that the solution to the operator errors at Three Mile Island is better operator training. and that after such trainrin-. operatoCr Judgement will be as good as that of a supervisor. We are reluctant to accept this.

That 5 o-erators, in a time of stres- should all make the same incorrect dcionsis f.or 2 1/4 hours does not surprize us since "they wer.e work-.i' t:.g.ether in the same siti*ation. It is Possible, altho,.*,:h far from certa.in, that another Person cominr int fresh to the situation and Possibly with a different trainir, could find their error.

-We find it stranie that an *operator carn turn off an emeriencV system (the HFCI) without imrmediatel" calling his supervisor, or mavbe his supervisor being called aitomatically. This type of Practice needs reexamination and we recommend a Procedure whereby_

supervisors would be immedi*atel.* called without Judgement on the Part of the operator under certain circumstanrces.

PAGOE 24

9. Emerslencv Plans The Parnel met with the Civil Defense Director arid his staff P to:1ether with represer-tatives of fostoni Edi sorn ComPany,, the Department of Public Health and the Dep'artmernt of Public Safetuy at the Civil Defense hea.diJ*rters in Framir, ham, Mass. or, 16th of Julu and with representatives of the Power companies,, the Civil Defense Dir.ctor, the local communities, NRC arid the state agencies CDepartment of Public Health, Departmernt of Enviroimental Qualitt En.-.:mirieerin-. and Civil Defense) on Fridauy October 121 On brief examiination, it ap-ears that Massachisetts has a good Veneralemer.er.eicu Planr which has beer, well tested; There have beeri four recent incidents in the Commonwealth involvin.i; evacuation.

These are:

1. Blizzard ir, the Boston area Februarv 6 and 7 1978

2. Hurricane Belle in Cape Cod arnd the Islands, Aug. 9 and 10, 1976

3. Chlorine tank car overturned in . Western Massachusetts, March 9,1966

.4. Propane tank accident at Tewksburu, Feb 9,1972 Burinr Hurricane Belle, 17,000 People were evacuated within 4 hours4.62963e-5 days <br />0.00111 hours <br />6.613757e-6 weeks <br />1.522e-6 months <br /> from the initial decision# Prompt evacuation after hurricane warnings has saved many lives. in the U.S. in the Past.

Altho'..i1h the situations are similar, there are important differences. In the case of hurricanes there is advanced warning of the storm and the decision to evacuate will not riormaliv catch People ur, aware# Of courser this need riot happen in a nuclear incident. It is reasonable to expect at least 2 hours2.314815e-5 days <br />5.555556e-4 hours <br />3.306878e-6 weeks <br />7.61e-7 months <br /> notice of a major radiation release, and limited windspeeds can Provide more time,. At Plymouth the local authorities feel the. car- alert everyo*,e within 10 miles within one hour, with a street by street, home bw homey notificattion, The vast majoritv of People would be notified within a shorter time.

This suggests that evacuation carn be complete before high radiation doses occur, Provided that the initial warnirngs based either on radiolog~ical measurements or reactor operation from the reactor staff are Prompt and Provided that People are adeauately informed in advance about what action to take#

There is a Problem with evacuation in nuclear incidents which we feel has riot been; adeeu..atelu addressed; Psychological conicern for nuclear events is far treater than that for other events of similar calculated risk, We have oril_ to compare the casual media coverag-e of the Canadiaii evacua-tion of 250,000 from a regiorn of a

PAGE 25 spilled chlorine tank car to the coverage of the Three Mile Island incident to know that there will be more tra.,aia in, the nuclear inc:idernt, This man.:: hinder evacuationt The pane*] Asked for detailed.., reports:, orn each of these incidents with a. discussion of: the suecesses and fta:ilures of the P.lan.S, We were .i.sa*rpointed that we only got Press summaries of some of themnp altho.4h one was more thorounhlu: reviewed.

The Cabinet Task. Force could ask . that the Civil De:rernse authorities carry out POtMOMS or each evc-..a:tion iIn-ci, dent and on the Practice dril].s and. w recommend, that tl.e Power coimpFanies be pasked to inrclude. these Post mortei reports in; Personnel trainring, Althou.h then can "then- be accused of merelw beii~nA ready to fi.hLt the last wary that is better than not being re.wdu to fi.~ht a war at all.

In Neneral we found the written, emer.iency Plans to be incomplete and lackinsc inr detail. Our confidenyce that they will be adeouat, stems more from oral discussion thapr; from the writlen, submissions. Since Personnel maw charnge and ccan only be e-pected to read the written words and not the minds of Itheir Predecessorsy written Plans are i.mportant.

We have been informed that evacuation P.lans are now being rewritten to inrte:rate all aspects of emerý.eprc Plan-,nin- in one document, listing clearl- the assigned resPonr-miblities, We hope that this Plan will answer these concerns. Thie Cabinet Task.. Force should satisfy itself that this document is comiplete.

PAGE 26 C

10. Review of the Communircatiorns in the Event of an Accident.

One of the maJor problems irn the Three Mile Island accident was iif0orr:in.-il the -ublic.

There were, failures by the Power compan*y, the Nuclear Reaulato.ry Commission and of the Press and media i.ene ra 1 3.

Power company Press releases were not sufficiently detailed.

Press statements were made which appeared to be contradicted by NRC official.s on the spot anrd in the Bethesda heacd.uarters, and there was a lack of uniderstan.di:nrg, b. the P ress, radio and TV#

In retrospect the. official Press releases of the Nuclear Resulatoru Commission were _ood. Them were brief, precise, and accurate, But they were hard to obtain, The Public would have been well served if the Press had Printed them verbatim. One of the T'ecommenrdationsr, then, of this Parnel is that the Press be reeuestedy in an emerencry 'to PrJ.nt official Press releases verba.tim (and m-ke whatever additional comments they choose to make seParately).

Alsoy it is import.ant that the Power compar,ny have a Procedure for s'ivin, adeauate Press releases and not merely leave this to the Nuclear Re_.,latory Commissionr since the Power company is.

responsible for the Planrt, not the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

The Kenmeny Commission recommenreded that irn the event of an accident, the util:ity comparny should continue to have responsibility for operation and for dissemination of information to the Public. In Principle we a.*ree, but have SOle Gualms about the ability of the utility compariy to Properly inform the Public.

Accord:ins].y we recommend th.t the responsibilties of Public communicati.ons be hand].ed by Personrs more technicallu .ual ified than the usual Public relat:ions staff. This Person or Personrs should be technically competent, have access to all informatior, know the special skills of each member of the Nuclear Safety Advisory Center set up by the Electric Power Reseach Institute: and develop an or-vio:Lnv rapport with the Press.

.In the days subsecouent to' the Three Mile Island accidenty the issue that caused the most conrfusionr and Panic was that of the was bubble (or bubbles) in the reactor vessel.

At about 5 p~m. orn Wednesday, March 28, the reactor was rePressurized and shortl.y thereafter the reactor coolant pumps were restarted. The reactor Pressure did not rise instantaneously as water was added showinr,! the Presence of a 5as bubble. The Aas was slowly b.ed frT'om the re].ief valve at the top of the Pressurizer, but even when, all avail:].able .'s had beer bl..d, measuremernts of the K-*' change of Pressure with amount of lioi.,id showed a residijal bubble.

On Thursday, March 29, the chairman of the Nuclear ReWulatory

PAGE 27 Commission, Dr. Joseph Hendrie, asked a series of reasonable arnd Proper Questions, What is the Nas? Could it be hydrogen? Could it be an explosive mix.:ture of hydrog:eri arid oxuSnen, disassociated from water by radioactive bombardmenrt? We now know that. it could riot have been hy. rogen arid oxaeni, but do rnot know whether the gas was hdroeni or steam or in what Proportions.

The NRC staff, under Dr. Roaer Mattson, made calculations, arid said that the bujbbl]e could be composed of hydromer, arid oxy-enr.

This led to cornsid e rati :..orn of the Poss ibili iity of an exp-losioon in. the reactor vessely la'rge ernoi..ugh to crack the corntasinm(,ent vessel.

There was a f'lurry of activity, at NRC which got their contractors to calculate ab initio the Probability of each of these.

Nct until Sunday, A}pril i, was it Clear to the NRC staff that they ha*- made a mistake in, the calculation; that a mixture of hydrogen and o...er could not have been present; that if it had igrnition was in arny case urilikel, and that aon explosion consiumTling all the Ass would not have cracked the cbntainment, Irn subseeuent conrressional hearinnls, the NRC staff and in particular Dr. Ro:er Mattson apolosized for the error. Meanwhile on Fridav, March 30, the Governor of Fernnsylvanria arid his staft were in confusionr riot kniowiri. what to do or whether to order arn evacuation. Some Q citizens were close to Panic.

In retrospect also, an exaii:inatiori of the calculations in the NRC report of Aldrich et al already referred to? which was already available in 1978, suggest that even if a. complete core meltbwn, with containment violation, had occurred on Friday March 30th, rio immediate evacuation beond i2 miles would have. been called for.

The short ].ived 'radioactive elenerits had decayed, arid since Three Mile Island II had only operated at full Power for three months, the lons lived ones had not built up.

What should. we hope for in these circumstances? We want to encourase those we charge with ., rotectini us to ask reasonable arid Proper Questions. The answers will not always be accurate, But there were men at Babcock and Wilcox, at the Electric Power Research Institute and Metropoli tan Edison Co. who had thoukht.

through the Problems before arid knew the right.answers . Some others steadfastly maintained (correctly) that there was rio Problem. Moreover some of the NRC contractors knew the answers...

This Pariel does not know whether, how soon, and in what way the ri.*ht answer was  !:liveri to NRC bw Babcock arid Wilcox and the Electric Power Research Institute. The answer may have been too brief and without the backup' necessary to be believed of it may

.have reached an overl.yw tired or rPugnac ious NRC staffer.T It seems to us, however:' that in these days of telephones, TV and Jet aircraft, that 3 days is too long a time for this and that there was a commuiiniic.ati.orns foui-l-up of maJor Proportions. The F'rimarY.

resporesibi.!it_ must lie with the ut:iL.ity compan,* the Presidernt of

PAGE 28 Metrop-ol itanr Ed~ison Co.y, who wa in char92 of the reactor andA did rnot ensure thaut technic'al cn'.estions' got adeo'jate technical answers inicludA.ing sujffici~ent d~etail1 to ens~ure accep-tanice+

PAGE 29

11. Transportatiron of Radioactive Materials There are several *levels' of radioactive waste which must be shipped:

It High level waste--mostly spent fuel from reactors which is to a large extent a future Problem.

2. Low level wzaste--e..+, workers' clothing. with small amounts of T'* d. oact :.vi tu*

3. Trarisuranic wastes where the level is low but the half-lives are lorns.

Radioactive sources for medical and industrial use are also shipped in the Commonwealth and have characteristics similar to 2 and 3 above. The rules for trarisp-ortation of these sources are, and Probably should continue to bey the same as those for transportation of waste.

The hish level wastes are the ones which represent a Potential major hazard. These wastes contain the fission Products and the transuranic elements from fission.

Hish level shipments that can be foreseen in and throush the Commonwealth of M.ssachusatts are of complete spent fuel rods.

These will contain all the waste inside the zircalloy tubes under normal ci rcumstances. The spent fuel will not move from the reactor site for manv months--or even vears--after removal from the reactor, and much of the short lived radioactivity (particularly the gaseous iodine 131 and xenon) will have decayed. However the resulations should anticipate that if there is a reactor accident where the fuel rods are cracked open as at Three Mile Island, earlier transportation may be desireable. In the even-t of a transportation accident, most of the material may be expected to stay. in Place, with .a Possible exception of cesium isotopes.

Traisfer of radioactivity to the biosphere might take Place as a result of dissolvino in water; or airborne dispersion by means of an (externally caused) explosion and fire.

To suard against such events, unlikely thouth they mav bey the hilh level wastes, including fuel rods, must be transported in specially desisin-ed containers which are not lik.ely to break in the event of collisionsy droppins- immersion in water or fire; The specific criteria are spelled out in rules of the U.S. Department of Transportation.

The U.S. Departmvnt of Transportation rules also specify that

• ,L" the shi-irpmret shall travel by a route thaUt avoids population centers as much as Possible, This is an obvious rule to avoid Problems in the event of an accident. The Problems could be of two types : a

PAGE 30 real sPi]. 1lase--a-- event cons:i.dered to be very unlikely; or an accident where the truck is destroved, but the shippirid cask remains ir,tact. It is .importan-t to realize that evern in the latter casey there will be Considerable disturbance before it is ascertained that no radioa'ctivity is spilled. Thus in either case it is desirabl.e to take a route which mirnimizes the accident robbabi.lity. More than one desi.rated route is necessary to allow for closed roads and so forth.

At the present tie, the Department of Fublic Heal.th is informed of evers shipmertnt involvin, nuclear fuel arid medium or hilh level wastes (but not irc].,jdind the numerous shipments of low level medical wastes.) In the event of at, accident it is then Prepared to send the appropriate Personnel and moritorini euip.ment to check for sPiillae of radioactivity.

A Public heariri of the U.S. Department of Transportation has been- scheduled in earl.y 1980"to discuss this matter further. It seems likely that the Preference for direct routinds will be confirmed. Some shipments (from the LIniversitH of Lowell and MIT reactors) will probably be made within a year thereafter.

A cuestion about direct routirds arises because the Massachusetts Turrnp'ike is Privately ow-ned. The Turnpike Authority=_

feels art oblimation to bondholders not to allow any carmo to travel alorid the Turnpike for which there is not adeuate liability insurance, About 5 Hears ado, subseouerit to the licerisini. hearings_ orn Maine Yankee Atomic Power Plarty the Maine Turnpike alreed to allow shipments of waste or, a renular basis .loonr the Maine Turnpike from Brunswick to Kittery. This was at the reuest of the state, niade throt-h its Attorney GaetFra]. and with st, understanrdinr* that the state would .Provi.de all necessary

. Police escort and reim..burse the turnpike authori ty for arny clean up expenses and anry lost revenue ir, case of an accident. This was based orn a business judqelr;t not ontly is the frenuceric of road accidents on the Turnpike less than oan city roads, the c].eart up costs in the countryside are less than iJn a city, About five Years ado also, the New Hampshire Turnpike made a similar arrar:dement, and Dr. Alan Altshuller, then Secretary of Transportation in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts made representations to the Massachu..setts Turnpike Authority, We have rno record of the result. but in :1.975, MIT had to ship spent fuel from its reactor alonr rouJte 20 instead of the Preferred route, the Massachusetts Turnpi5k. In 1.75Y the committee set up by Governor Sa*Tent, and report:i.,n- to Governor Duk.akis (the Rath.iens committee) also recommelnded that the Turnpi*:i.e be used when it is the most direct route,

PAGE 31 Mr. Driscoll of the Massachussets TurnPike Authority raised the auestibn of liability to bon dholderis both in writing and o rally at our Dexymber" 14th meeting arnd comminted that his insurance costs would increase were radioactive shipmern ts to be Permitted.. We have symPathy with the Problems of "the Tui'EIp ike Authopity. but are concerned that it has no Positive .sugestions about how these corncerns mi.i-ht be resolved. The Massa.chc- sets Turnpike Authority has some obligatiorn to the residents of the Commonwealth in return for the unrdertakirng of the legislature not to Permit a comPetir-i east west ifreewa.

While the Price-Anderson Act specifies that there shall be

$560 million inr insurarnce to cover accidents to life,.limb arid loss of prokerty., Whether lost. r-.venues. would be recovered will be determined in the courts as various claims resulting, from the acciderit at Three Mile Island are liti.lated; Ae uestion, has been raised by the Massachussets Turnpike Authori ty and the Massachusetts Department of Trar-sportatiopi, whether $560 million is erenoush to coveTr costs of a severe trarnsportatoion accidenti. The accident with th:i most severe consenuences would Probably be one resultirin from sabotage, with ian explosive frag*mentation of the load. It seems Probable that this would be less severe than the most ser-ious reactor accident since only a few Percent of the total fuel inventory would be carried at any one time, and then u.sueliv only mans. years after removal from the reactor. Issues such as this, should be raised in the forthcoming hearinig of the U.S.

Department of' T.ranisportatiorn, Most of the above discussion is specifically relevant to the transportation of high level wastes. In our view the s~rie criterion, avoiding Populated centers when Possible,. could well apply to all radioactive material, irncluding radioactive sources for use in medicine and industry, It is im.portant that at the forthcoming hearing o-' the U0S.De:iartmen, t of Trarisportation, that the agencies of Massaqhussets should speak with a united voice if Possible and if not that each has a thoroug*h urnderstarndirng of the concerns of' al-l other sta:te agencies involved, At our December 14 meetir,*_ Dr.

Parker for the Department of Public HealthMs Murray for the Departmenit of Transportation, a*rd Mr Driscoll for the Massachussets Turnpike Authorit- agreed to try to develop a common aPProach.

We recommend that.-a listinr of these recommended routes be kept in the appropriate state offices to avoid the cofusiori now created by the circulation of inaccurate Private lists.

PAGE 32

12. Waste Disposal in the Commonwealth A lar*Y"..iH. a-mount of radioactive waste is generated in the Commonwealth; although the focus is primarily on the waste venerated by the Power Plants,. there is a significant amount Aenerated by hospitals and research laboratories.

The classification of waste bv radioactivits--hi~h, medium, and low-- corresponds approximately to a classification by half life*. The medium rand low level wastes are usual]ly fission products of half l ives less than 20 years, whereas the hih level wastes contain also some transuranic elements with half-lives of thousands of Years.

At the moment, the high level waste is retained, in fuel rods on the site of each Power reactor (the fuel of the research.

reactors at NIT and Lowell University are transorted out of states). Although some of tLhe low level waste is kep.t on reactor site for a.whiley most is transported to a federal repository,* and all the medrical and research waste is so transported.

Or:*irlls' industry Planned to remove the fuel to a central reprocessin, Plant to extract residual uranium and useful plutonium*, and to leave separated wastes for ultimate burial. The desire to limit the free availability of Plutonium, and financial.

constraints have led the U.S. Government to foreso this Procedure until adeauate safesuards against theft of Plutonium and international Suarantees. a-ainst Proliteration of nuclear wesaons are available. Until there is reprocessing or Provision for Permanent disposal, the fuel rods will Probablyrnot be removed from the 'eactor spent fuel Pits and this method of storage will continue to be Permitted for as lons as the reactor site remains operational Since this was not the scenario Planned for when the Plants were built we recommend the Cabinet Task Force satisfy itself that ade&suate attention has been given t6 the safety implications of the chanle in Plans.

The relationships between Massachussets and other states would be much improved if Massachussets had its own storage site located within the state or region for low level waste, which are mostly of half lives less than 100 uears, Accordingly we concur in a recommendation of tLhe Advisory Council on Radiation Protection, that the Commonwealth explore, Probably in concert with nei£hbour'.rin. states, the settig ;up such a rep:ositor-. This could be done in conri.jur:ct ion with toxic waste di sp-osal1'hich is now beirn*

corhsidered by the Dep'a rtment of Env iron*erntal Affa.i rs.

PAGE 33 1.3, Suj.tabil:ity of Plymouth as a Site for F'il.,irim II One obvious o'Jestioon which it raised as a result of the accident at Three Mile Island is whether Flymouth is a. suitable site for a second reactor, The Proposal to build this Plant was made several Years avoy and althounha. c-bnstruction Permit has not yet. been issued b* the Nuc].ear ReulIato orv Comm'ission-y the licensin hearint, has alread- been the ].onnest licensind hearin.r-! in history.

Many issues are brousiht out cl.early_ by the 'F'roposed fi.fndin.s of fact anrd conclusions of law" submirtted by the Attorney General's office of the Comionwealth of Massachussets orn November 5th 1979.

These issues are:

I. Financial Qualifications of -Bostorn Edison Co. to construct a power Plant, II. .The adec.'iacy of the oualitu assurance of the Bef-'htel Corporaton and of-Boston Edison Co.

III. The need for power, IVt. Al.ternative enervy sources.

V. Alternative sites.

VI. Risks of theft or sabotage.

Issues on which no testimony has been submitted:

VII. EmeT'5eri ec IParr,ir,*,

VIII, Cost benefit analyses.

IX, Safety issues subseuuent to Three Mile Island. (The numberinr I-Vi is that of the Attorney Generaly and VII-IX is oLIrs.)

The Panel feels a duty to comment on those aspects which have a bearins, orn safety.

Orn issue I, the Attorney General noted that the Boston Edison Company does not have cash in hand to complete F'ilbrim IH? and depernid.s with some opti¶i:i.mism orn cash becomir n avi lable The safet*'

concern is that a comprany which is short of c ::.sh mi :-ht be tem:ptLed to cut corlniers an..d to T'*Js.h to commence op'erati.ons b(.fore it is We recommend that the Commonwealth exercise due vi.vi]lernce Probably throusch the Dlepartment of Public Safetuy to ensujre that nro corrn:ers are cu..t if -'i].ar'ire IT is lice.ns-d. T.. . bint Task. Force should review. the s..a....n of the r7Qnt of ie:. i.T11P F--c&t

PAGE 34 that they intensify their inspection efforts in this eventuality.

The issue II on .ualitt assurance is much more serious. The past perfo rmance of Bechtel Co rpo ration and of Boston Edison Coiir-aniv which between themi constructed Pil~rim I y must be coinsidered in speculation about their possible future Perform;ance for Pilypim II.

There is no doubt that both Bechtel and Boston Edison Comiania made mistkes.

Orne of these we noted in section 10 on Radiation at Pilgrim I.

There have been several violations of regulatiors, for One of which the Nuclear Regulatory Commission fined Boston Edison Company

$12,000.

We hope that both Bechtel and Boston Edison have learned from their. mistakes. If PilgArim II is licensed this should be watched carefully by the DePartment of Public Safety.

Issue III the need for mowery and issue IV alternative enermY sources, have inr our" view little direct imp'act on the current safetu of nuclear Power arid we chose not to discuss them. To Csatisfactorily the erowth of el'-r discuss ectricity these muesti~ons we would-*have to consider conisumpttioni both in the Boston Edison region and in the whole New Eng~land Power Pool (NEPOOL), We would have to consider the desireability of replacing imported oil, the Possiblity of importing hydroelectric Power from Quebec and whether and how soon renewable energy sources such as solar Power and wood can be used. We would also have to take into account the safety and health effects of each of alternatives.

Issue V cr, .a!ternitave sites and issue VII on emergency Plannin. are very much the direct concerns of this panel. We have in section 9 of this report discussed the emergency Plannimr,_ for Pilg.rim I. Pilgrim II is Planned to have twice the-power of Piljrim I.

Whether another site would be Preferable for Pilgrim II is more comp-.lex eiuestion,. There are many aspects of site selection and the Possibilty of a severe accident is only one of themy although it is the one we consider here. Would the choice of another site be significarntly better in the event of an accident?

It was already clear from a close study of appendix VI of Rasmusseni's re.oT't anrd is underlined bu the more recent work of BeyFea and of Aldrich referred to earlier, that in the event of the most severe accident. there would be few aer ra.liti.,.s a.round some sites than others. The reactors at Indian, Point- N.Y. and Z:ior,,

Illinois are close enou-"h to the Population centers of New York anrd Chica-o respectively that an accident durinig a northerly wind could cause moanr, more than the rnumbe r of latent cancers calcuJlated by

PAGE 35~

Rasmussen for. an averae of the 50 reactor sites used in 1974, Orn the other hand.y the nearest Popul.ati.on center to Maine Yankee is Bathp and even, with a northeast wind the latent cancer rate would be 10 times less than averamot The Pl::,'mouth site lies i b-etween these ext re m(7S and the results of Rasmrrussen app]ly almost directly to it. ,iricipal The corncern is the lar'e Populationr that lies to the northwest. A

.reat deal, of attention has beern focused recently on the auestion of siting as a safety issue. We t'.e the Cabinet Task Force to follow the discussin closely.

Issue VIII has no. direct safety cone, uencee arid issue IX is discussed, e-tensivel. throughout the rest of this report#

The cuestior, of sabotge anrd theft of nuclear materials which is the substance of issue VIy remairns very imp-ortant. The RathJens Commfi ttee of a few years ado made recommen-.d3tions on, these subjcts, which we call to the attention of the Cabinet Task Force and the Util.ity comrpanies. Professor Rathjens testified on this subject at the Pil.grim II licensir, hearing. We were Pleased to be told that the Depar"tment of F'ublic Health has studied these c.uesti.onrsy arid has been briefed ' in secrecup by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. We s,.._est that this also be reviewed b0 some members of the Cabinet Task Force,

PAGCE 36 Appendix I. The Three Mile Island Accident To determine which state actions are now appropriate it is useful to follow in some detail the course of events between 4 a.m.

on Wednesday; March 28, 1979 arnd the fo].lowing Sunda.y, April 1, 1979.. There are several voluminous re Ports on. this, arnd we cor~dense from these a simplified account. This summary is intended not to replace these more comprehensive and, therefore, more accurate accounts, but to place in clear language the problems as they arose so that the reader of this report can see the Perspective of the recommendations.

Three Mile Island is 20 miles south of Harrisburg in the middle of the Sus.uc:hannr River. Two nuclear Power Plants are loccated there, Three Mile Island 1 arid Three Mile Island 2. The nuclear steam seneratinr systems were in each case desioned by Babcock and LWilcox Co, The reactors are Pressurized water reactors and .the relevant Parts are shown in a simplified diagram in f'i*ure 1.

The nuclear reactor core consists of about 30,000 fuel rods about 1/2 inch in diameter and 16 feet I.ona; each rod is a tube of zirconium ial.l,.:y (zircallow) filled with mans ceramic Pellets of-f" uuranium oxide-, 1/2 inch in length. During operation nuclear fission takes Place wi.th:in the fuel rods, releasinr energy withirn them. The zircallow tubes are filled Oith helium under Pressure and sealed to contain the radioactivity, The whole is surrounded by water. Neutrons from the nuclear fission escape from their tubes, are slowed down by collision with the water, arid the slow neutrons reenter the tubes where most start a new fission in new uranium nuclei..

The fuel rods heat U'P as a result of the nuclear reactions Producing a total  :.-owar of 2772 megiawatts m-aximum arid water flowirng around the rods is heated by them to 600 F; the water is pressurized to 2155 Pounds Per s.uare inch (psi) (150 atmospheres) to Prevent boil,.irig. The water is Pumped to a. heat exchanger, called a onc.e through steam generator (OTSG) where much of the heat in the water is removed. The w'-ater then Passes back to the bottom of the reactor vessel. There are two such reactor cooling looPs, each with 2 Pumps, All of this is inside a concrete containment vessel desi'ned to contain anr radioactivity that would be released if the barriers of the zircallo, fuel rod and the reactor cooling system were to break.

Steam is Produced in the steam .renerators, where the water is at a lower Pressure of 900 Psi, arid Pa-ssed to the turbine, where it is used to yenerate electricity, The. steam is condensed back to water in the condenser, arid flows throug.h the condensate Pumps and

- *the feedwateTr Pumps back to the steam 5enerator, These two usecorndary." loops Pass through a Penetration in the containment vessel to the turbine room.

C I,->

I EXHAUST CONTAIN MENT BUILDING FAIL TO RESEAT Pressure Relief Valve Steam Rupture Disc / TURBINE BUILDING AUXILIARY BUILDING (4)

Circulating Water Pump Radioactive Waste Storage System FAIL TO ISOLATE CONTAINMENT EARLY Ion SWITCHED OFF TOO SOON Figure 1 page 36

PAGE 37 Various safety systems exist to insure that the radioactivity alwas stays withirn the fuel rods; this is done by ensuring that the generated heat is always removed and the fuel does not crack or melt. To shutdown the nuclear reaction (SCRAM the reactor) boron shuttdown Iods can be T'8Pid1v. inserted into the reactor core; this can happen either manually or automatically.

Although the nuclear reaction can be (and was at Three Mile Island) shut down in less than a second, the radioactive fission PFrodi.icts corntirn ue to P'rovide some heat (decay heat). Immediately aafter shutd.own this is almost 8% of full Power or 200 menawatts at Three Mile Island.

If the main feedwater Pjumps fail, there are 3 auxiliary Pumps to Provide water to the steam Generators. Two are electrically controlled, arnd one is operated by the steam turbine. If the reactor  ;-ressure vets too hi.*h, there are Pressure relief valves; one - can be controlled from outside the containment (electromagnetically operated- relief valve EhoV) .and two others which cannot be op'erated from outside the containrent vessel are set at a slightly hither Pressure in case the first fails to operate.

If the water in the reactor evaporates so that coolins slows down, a number of emer-ency core coolinr devices exist to Put water back in the core. This water is borated to ensure that the nuclear reaction ceases° On March 28Y 1979, Just before 4:00 aom., Unit No. 2 at Three Mile Island was operating at 97% of full Power, under automatic contrdl and had been for three weeks. Three of the operating crew of 4, the shift foreman and two operators, were enaned it, transferrin* resin from a condensate Polisher tank to a reserieration tank, and Produced a block in the transfer line.

Probably as a result of action to clear the resin block.-e, the Pl -a-nt suffer-d a total loss of feedwater, which wutomaticallY_

Ot-i.er"d a turbine tri-, (i.e. a switch off of the turbine) at 04:00 and. 37 seconds. All emersency feedwater PUmiPs started, as thev were supposed to do and this starting was noticed by the operator. The reactor continued to operate at full Power, arid since the heat was no lonier beini taken away as rapidly as normal, the reactor operatins temperature and Pressure rose, So far, the response to the transient was as anticipated.

The sub se,-uent behavior can be seen most readily by e-amirnation of several fig'ures and tables. In Fi.ure 2 are the out.pu.its of several strip chart recorders durirs the first 10 minutes after the transient, In figure 3 these and other recorders are shown over a Period of 16 hours1.851852e-4 days <br />0.00444 hours <br />2.645503e-5 weeks <br />6.088e-6 months <br />, and both figures show tLimes of crucial events,

f 2400 AUXILIARY REACTOR TRIP FEEDWATER ON RELIEF VALVE OPENED PSIG REACTOR PRESSURE 2200

/

2000 /

/

N STEAM GENERATOR LEVEL (no scale) 1800 2 4 6 8 MIN. after accident

\--ECCS (HPI) START Fiqure 2. page 37

REACTOR PRESSURE rco ren-A.0o 0

A0 0 0Nl 0 80 8*:

o, K > 3 I

moti x*o* COOLANT A PUMPS OFIF z > COOLANT B PUMPS O)Z 4 _

_ _ OFF /,.

0 I m-- Fri )" CONTAINMENT z ISOLATED clC) 0> I>

oc

-__ -- CORE FLOOD TANKI o I

---

28 psig SPIKE IN CID CONTAINMENT '-

-- ic o-m t0 >

--4.

I z

! .I1*

3N 0 0 8 0 0 8 8 REACTOR COOLANT TEMP. ---- OF

PAGE 33 Approxi mately 8 seconds after the accident, the electromerieticall. op.erated Pressure relief valve (EMOV) opened, at a set point of 2255 Psi to relieve the pressure. The reactor system Pressure conrtirnued to rise, until the set Point of 2300 psi was reached when the reactor tripped accordirs to desirni anrd the control rods were injected, stoppinr the nuclear reaction.

We Pause rand note some Problems that had developed. For safeto, it would have beern desireeble (and Possible) to have the reactor trip in the event of feedwater interruptiorn. Were this the case, in mawr, incidents the relief valve would not need tc operate (althounh in this Particular incident it would have).

After the reactor tripped, reactor system temperature fell; the Pressure fell as steam was vented throunh the relief valve.

The relief valve was supposed to close a*airn as the Pressure fell to 2100 psi (13 seconds after the accident) but it failed to do so.

This failure was nirinoticed by the operatinru crew? because failirus temperature also leads to a drop inrpressure (althouh a slower drop).

The reactor Pressure continued to fall and when it reached 1600 Psi (after 2 mirnutes) emerwency Pumps (high Pressure core G* injection or HF'CI) started to inject more water into the reactor.

If this had been allowed to corntinue the reactor would be irtact--arid PT'obabl.y operatins--today.

Unforturatelv the operators were watchinr, another indicator--the Pressurizer level. The Pressurizer is a small tank, normally half filled with reactor watery and covered by Pressurized ritromen has. This has enables the system to cope with small volume chanc-es without larbe Pressure chanres. The operators are trained not to allow the Pressurizer to be completely filled with water for this riormr.ally irndicates that rio Bas is Present. Control of the reactor is difficult in that case. (This is referred to as a 'solid" Plant.) The Pressurizer besari to indicate a hish level of water., because of a combination, of release of .as from it throuh the relief valve and formatioon of steam voids elsewhere in the reactor system, These steam voids formed because the Pressure became low enou*h for the water to boil. The operators mistakenly thouht that the reactor system had too much water and made the terrible mistake of turrinr off the emerdercy Pumps which add water to the system; these PumfiPs were turned orn arid off throunhout the day, actior,s which showed a complete lack of ijnderstrandirs of the status of the reactors It appears that this lack of understandiris has beer, widespread throu:..4hout the nuclear irdustry* Navel reactor operators also are t.u:ht to follow the Pressurizer l-vel.

At 8 minu..ites into the accidenit, an operator noticed that the steam _enerators were dry of water on the secondary side, althouth the auxiliary feedwater Pumps had beer, seern to start. The operator found that these Pu..tmlps had been isolated from the system by closed

r' PRESSURIZER LEVEL 400 300 200 100 8cm 12 2 4 6 8 . 10 12 hrs Figure 4 page 38

PAGE 39 block valves, and the operator opened these valves, It still appears to be unclear who these vawIes were closedy and how long they had been closed. Alt.housh it was initially thou..t that this was 8 ma[.Jor contributor to the accident, it contributed nothing directly ex-'cept added confusion. It misled the operators into false actiorns in the first minutes of. the accident*

The reactor system temperature- and Pressure aPPeared to stabilize between 4:20 A.M. and 5:14 A.M.; this is because the water was boilinisi and the steam was Voin.. out of the relief valve.

The reactor system was by this time rapidly f¢:illinn with steam and emntvinn of water, and the ci rculatinr, PumPs were PumPirnd a stea-m/water mixture.

This steam/water mixture was still adeauate to maintain adeou.te coolirs of the fuel rodsy but the coolant Pumps are riot designed to Pump steam and began to be noisy (cavitation). The operators turned off the pums, "one set at 5: 14 am. and the other at 5:41 a.m. expectin:. that natural circulation would occur..

Natural circulatior would indeed have occuirred if the reactor system had been filled with (subcooled) water. But since it was filled with 8 boilirs water/steam mixture the decision led to a disaster. The water settled to the bottom and the steam rose to the top, mak.ring circulation impossibl.e. Only.. the bottom 2 feet cf the core was covered with water and the top part of the core was

.cooled only by steam.

Immediately after the Pujmps were turned off, the thermocouples measuringe tem*peratiJre in the coolant loops showed that the core was uncovered but the operators did not interpret them correctly. The temperature of the hot let (top) went off scale, the temperature risin: to a Poirit that at that Pressure could only indicate that the thermocouple was in Pure steom, aind the cold let cooled down showini that circulation had stopped.

The operators had created .serious Problems, althoush they still did not know what the Problems were or how they had created them. For about I hour--5:40 to 6:40 a~m.--the top of the core was uncovered and undercooled, Subsetuent detailed calculations show that the temperature in the top of the core rose to 20000F. At this temperature two phenomena occurred; the steam interacted chemically with the zirconium fuel rod claddinr, oxidizirin the cladding and releasinr hydrogen:

Zr + H*O.> ZrO + H The fuel rods, by then brittle, cracked open and released the gaseous fission Products (xenon, krypton, and iodine) to the reactor coolant water whence some left via the relief valve to the coritainmienit vessel and some to the outside ernvironmernt through leaks in the primary coolant system, Risirig radiation levels were observed as earl" as 5:20 am., a site emer:.erc. declared at 6:35 a.m and"a r - e.ricral emT'er ,c:ncH at 7:24 aom.

.PAGE 40 Fortunatelv*, at 6:18 a.m. an.oPerator noticed that the tail pipe temperature on the electromatnetically operated relief valve was 35 F h.igher than on "the adjacent safety valves, indicatinr,&

steam flow. Who this was not noticed earlier, at 5:20 a.m., when the comPuter P'rlnted out this inforlTiation on operator re'uest, (the temperature differece was then 65 F) is not clea.r. However, the block valve was closed at 6:18 A..M., isolatin, .the electroma~netical, l operated relief valve and endin- the uncorntrolled loss of coolant. The reactor besart to repressurize and continued Partial use of the emersency wacter inJection sstem recovered the core by about 6:45 p.m.

Attempts soon after to restart the circulation Pumps failed because the Pumps were filled with steam. The reactor for the next-11 hours was cooled by the boilin-s of water to steam which left by the electrom-o.rnetically operated Pressure relief valve.

.There was still rnot complete understarndini of the situation.

The emer.enc coolant water was amain turned off at.7:30 A.M#. and the reactor was Partially depressuJrized twice more in attempts to set a stable situation, until at 2:28 P~m.. the temperature in the hot l.et of coo].ant loop A came on scale awain. The reactor Pumps (A) were finally operated amairn at 7:50 P.m. and the reactor core temperature arnd Pressures stabilized.

The incident was over, although that was not clear for many more dams, The Hý_drosern Bubble As the reactor was beinr repressurized about 5 t.o 6 P~m. orn Wedresda-, March 28, 1979, it was noticed that althouh water was beins rapid.l fed into the reactor, the Pressure rose only slowly.,

This was evidence that. there was a las bubble in the reactor coolant system. Moreover the bubble wasn't steam or it would have condensed.

The ,uestions then arose:

1 Where was the bubble?

2, What was the composition of the bubble? Hvdromer, (From zirconium and water reactions)?

3. Or was the hudro*er,/oxy*.er mixture from a Photodissociatiorn of water Present?

The l.ocatiorn of the bubble was euickl. determined; it could

" only be _5as trapped il- the head of the reactor vessel, where it could not be vented by remote control, The compositicor of the bubble was orilirallY2 assUmCd to be

PAGE 41 condens:ible steamy then hdro.ern, but on Friday mornir-.- March 29, DrT. Joseph Hendrie, Chairman of NRC, asked his staff' the third nuestior,. He Not the (incorrect) an swer that it could be a hdro.:e,/:oxy.enr, mixvture. This, if truer could be alarmin g because hudrotenl and oxygen" can be i-nited Prc'.dJuciFnsA an e;.'plosion. No one was ouite sure whether that would a) des~tro-y a Purmp or b) open the reactor coolant smstem boundaries or ev-ern c) crack.. the containmqent vessel. It was feared that a) or b) could lead--even at this l.ate stase of. the accident--to a complete meltdowni of the core. Not untiil Sin.day art.errnoor, Ap-ril 1. were definitive answers available.

BuJ then it was untderstood that:

a) The Photodissociatior, of water to. hdrogen and oxygern does not take Place under these conditions. On the contrary, they recombine to form water (in ordinary oFeration,.hydroien is added as a scavenher for oxygern to Prevent corrosion). It was rnot however obvious that it is also true when fission Product gases are in the waters as they were by 8 a.m+ on Wednesday mornini, but it transpires that it was the case.

b) Subseuent calculatiorns made for NRC sugsest that art explosion would not have brok.en the coolant system boundarv anyway.

The euestion with the incorrect answer and the failure of industry to s'et the correct one rapidly to the risht Place, caused sT'eat confusion anid evera Panic from Friday to Sundav, March 30th to April 1i The release of the fission Product oases to the Primary reactor coolant systems also allowed the release of some fission product oases to the containment vessel--via the opern Pressure relief valve. Various small. leaks in the PiPini allowed radioactivity releases to the other bui.idinrss whernce some were released throu,1h a filter to a stack and the atmosphere. Short lived radioactive isotopes had mostly decayed before releaser or before -assinr over Population centers, The dominrant radioactive element released was xenon 133 with a half life of 5.27 days which emits a bets ray with maximum ener.: of 0.35 m'ov, averae 0,17 mev, arid a amm.a ra of 80 kilovolt rner.- in the case of almost every disirntegration,. This is not a very hish erner*y compared with some other radioactiie decays. Most of this xenon was released within the first few davs, before much had dvcayed. Xenon is a noble 5as which for all Practical Purposes is chemically inert. The radiat:i.on from the xenon 133 is easily absorbed. This isotope was the dominant contributor to the radiation hazard, Most of the radi.oact:i.ve iodinrie either Plated out on metal. surfaces or was trapped inr filters. In all it was estimated that of 2,000,00 curies of readioactive iodinie UI 131.) inr the main buildi,.n- 'nd 40Y000 cur'ies in' the aux i 1 ia. ry bil.1 din.s onl, 15 curies were released to the enivirormenit but that 10,000,000 curies of' noble mas, mostly xenon 133, were released in the Period March 28-APril 30, 1979Y 2/3 of it in the first 36 hours4.166667e-4 days <br />0.01 hours <br />5.952381e-5 weeks <br />1.3698e-5 months <br />,

.PAGE 42 The followirng agiencies cooperated in radioactive monitorings:

The brepartmert of Healthy Education anrd Welfare (Center for Disease Control anrd the Food and Drug Adm:inistratiorn)

The Department of Energy (Brookhaven National Laboratory)

The Ernvironmental Protection Agency The Metro~olitan Edison Company The State of PernnslIvania (Bureau of Environmental Health)

Their Preliminary findints are given in a Preliminary rePorty (with authors from several of these avencies who appear to be in alreement), and a final report is in preparation,

-The Preliminary report states that rio one Person in the gerneral Public received a dose (exposure) of more than. 100 millirems, If the dose is added up over all Persons within a 50 mile radius, the Preliminary report showed an irtenrated dose of 3500 +1500 man x rems, Later correction is made for the facts that

1. Xenon 133 is a favorable isotope and that response of people to xenon 133 is less than thermoluminescent dosimeters sugg'est 2, Peopl.e were shielded by clothes and buildinrs

3. Many peole moved away This brou.i:1ht down the estimate of total Population dose to about 2000 mnrreims or less.

The significance of-these doses can be seen by comparison.

Eishty milliremi is an average yearly back.round radiation dose at sea level.. Assumriirs a Proportional relation betwe-,en dos,:- arn d resPoo-n.a .=.nd based on observation, 5000 man rems leads to one cancer according to the BEIR (I) report.

Accordinlvy, the Three Mile Island accident will add less than 1/2 to the expected number of cancers emoro the Population within 50 miles of the site of the Power Plant, This is an increase from the norm-al numrlber of cancers expected in the area of approximately

.5--from 350Y000.0 to 350,000.5. The meinrir of the lfraction 0.5 is statistical; it is clear that it it will never be Possible to determine whether the accident at Three Mile Island Produced an add i tii.onl crice r.

It is virtually certain that the Three Mile Island accident did not and will not cause many cancer cases, althounh we believe

PAGE 43 it is irrelevant to this Prnel's work, since the main issue is whether the Commonwealth is Prepared in the event of an accident with more serious results.

PAGE 44 How Close Was the Three Mile Island Accident to a Disaster or Serious Accidentt?

The concern over Three Mile Island is for us not the accident itself but the Perspective on accidents that it Provides. Does it mean that serious accidenits are more Probable than PT'eviously suJpposed?

A c.lass IX accident is defined in the Federal Register (10 CFR 100) as one in which the ra'dietion exceeds 100 lir/hr at the site boundar." which dose w.s nort achieved at Three Mile Island. However the Nuclea*r Resulator_ Commiss:ion has stated that as far as core damake is concerned, the accident was large enou-h to be considered a class IX accident.

The 'waiver of defenses* clause in the Provisions of the Price-Anderson Act takes effect at about this level.

.In arswerins the nuestion, are serious actions more Probable, we will first discuss intermediate ouestions. How close did the reactor come to a meltdown of the fuel? How close did the reactor come to a breach o.f the cont.inment vessel and liberatior, of radioactivity?

The a nswers to these iuestions will be discusssed itn voluminous reports and hotly debated over the next several Years, However some features seem definite.

1. The reactor came closer to a meltdown than any Previous commercial reactor accident in a li_*ht water reactor.

2. It is not easy to say how close, for two reasons. On the one hand human failure was present in a was that had not been Previoiusl, takern into. accournt--..the oeperatorsp by reasoniini incorirectcIr , intensified the accident by a series of,..incorrect actions, The statistical .uestioni

.becomes: if we ima~ine 1000 irdependent accidents P-roceedirng as happened at Three Mile Islarid uip to 6:10 B

a, in how m.n. of thc:.;, would the op-erators have noticed the leaking4 relief valve--and if they had, would they therefore tak:en correct action? These euestions are hard to answer. Secondly, there is disagreement over what would have ha'perned to the reactor core if the. had not acted correctly. It seems that the coolir,.A of the top of the reactor frore 5:30 a, m. -- when it first became uncovered--to 7:00 a[, IT when it was covered a3air,, was greater than had been feared. This has led some to c l.a i:Ti th at a sma].l loss, of coolant ac:iden-rit coul.d never lead to ae.. tdo.wn nce convectiVe steam cool in- ma_ be adecuate.

3. The Probabi.itu of violatirng. containment maw still be small. -aft.e.ra. mel.tdowni occir..irPS* In reactor sofetu studdies

PAGE 45 a Probabi].it, of 1/10. has.been estimated.

4, A.II the radioactivit' wil.l, not be released even if the containmrent is violated. PFrticularlu critical are the chemical elemenrts iod:i, ne, " iel.urium and cesium; if released they interact chemically in the bod? whereas xenon does not, Filters and Plae. out mechanisms kept. the iodine release low at Three Mile Island, but in a serious accident:these filters mi.siht be overloaded; they were in fact rnot as effective as they should have beer, ot Three Mile Isl.and because they had become satujrated in pvevious Usse+

PFAGE 46 C.

Acceptability of Accidents and Their Conseauences The Panel. made no attempt to decide whether one Particular accident is Publicly acceptable or urnaccep-table. The Kemerny Commiss:iorn made a p'oint that the Presernt level of safetv--which includes the accident at Three Mile Island, must be improved.

To Prevent nuclear accidents as serious as Three Mile Island furndamerntal. charnes will be necessary in the or.anization, proc*ediures rand P.ractices--and above a.ll in the attitudes of the Nuclear Fe*au.tor: Commission and, to the extent that the institutions are t*ypical of the nuclear industry. "

It also note (P. 32 para.raph 16) that implicit amon- the calculations in the Rasmussen Re-port is an estimate of freauency of accidents similar in size to Three Mile Island. This freeuency is one -in several hundred reactor operatinr Years. We have now had nearly 500 reactor operatin-o Years and one accident of this manr-,itude. Althouih the accident at Three Mile Island was not.

Predicted by Rasmussen it wasr not in itself contrary to the Probability estimates therein. Since Rasmussen and colleanues, and manary of those who have read and understood the report, believe the resu.lts, if correct., were accep-table, it seems to us that this ass,_mptioon of the Kemeny rep-ort represents a si rnificarit departture from those past beliefs and needs examination. This is Particularl.y true when we realize that the main Public criticisms of nuclear reactor safety arid Rasmussen's report in Particular, have been based on a disbelief in the numbers--riot declared statements that even if the low accident Probability estimates are correct, reactors are still unacceptable. Discussior, by individual critics and the Public seem not to have considered adecutelv whether the results ir Rasmussen's reFort would be acceptable if true. However the nuclear. industry aand the Nuclear Reulatorv Commission Proceeded as if it were.

.Kemeniy doesn't address this discreparncy,

PAGE 47 Appendix. II+ Review of Available Reports Members of the Panel reviewed a number of reports. The most relevant are discussed below+

a) The adverse effects of ex.posure to low levels of radiation and to levels of radiatiorn likely as the result of an accident.

There have been many reports on this topic. OF these, we note in particul-or the rep orts of the Committee on Diololica]. Effects of Ioni0i.." Radiation: of the National Academy of .Sciencesq Particu.larly the first of these ir, 1972 (BEIR I) and the most recent (1979) of which only a draft is available (BEIR III)*

We note that the members of the. BEIR III committee are Presenttly disswreein, onr whether the . incidence of cancer in a populotiori is eroportional to exposure, or whether this is an overes timate of the number at low doses arid therefore an overestimate of the risk. However we also note that. there eve a few scierntists (e.51. Karl Moraen of Oa.k Ridre National Laboratory) who believe the linear hypothesis understates the risk by a factor of about 5.

Until this is settled we believe it is reasonable to assume that radiation exposure causes cancers in' a population in proportion to the exposure.

Accepit.in, this arnd the estimates livern in, the BEIR I report, the expected numrber of cancers ex'pected in, the event of an accident is where the suiimmation is over the whole Populatiorn exposed (N People) and D is the exposure of the individi-al in rems.

b) The Rasmusseen Report had flaws, some of *which we list:

1+ It is not very readable 2, The executive summary does not summarize the report 3, The discussiorn of common mode failures where several safety systems fail simultareo,-.l- from the same caus is not always correct. The best known ea:.m.ple is the incorrect calcu..lation of the Pr'ob,.abil.it of core m;elt aris:i.ng from anr arnt:i.cip.auted transient without scram (ATWS) fora boili.. water reactor+

4. The ,JnceT'tairyies irn the riiur.mbers are 1 arer than Ra.:smussen

st ates.

This study was over.ly Praised by NRC arnd industry and 0overl0 damnrE:d by critics. Subseeuer.tlv. the NRC empressed reservations about it, It was misusedp includins in Congressional testimony by its authors, but insofar as we know neither it nor the methodology used in It has been, used to improve safety.

We ogree for the most Part with the conclusions (which include some of the above) of a committee.set up by NRC at the reouest of Rep.resentative Udall and chai red by Dr. H, Lewisi We agree that the basic methodolons of event tree analysis is useful. We 8ree with Dr. Lewis also in his testimony subsee,-ent to Three Mile Island that this methodology can and should be used in licensinm reactors, and trainino, and licensirim of operators.

-In Particular the Lewis review report ?aid:

1. The ERasmussen, report3 was an essential step beyond earlier attempts to estimate the risks of nuclear Power.

2. The report attained a far 'reachirng objectivecation of safety assessment, introduced a workable accident classification, and Presented a methodolog_ foy the Guantitative determination of risks.

3. The event tree/failure tree Procedure, tonether with an adeauat.e data baser has Proved to be the best available tool for the cuantification of the occurrence of low Probability accidents.

4. The importance of late fatalities and property damase was reconrized besides that of early fatalities although this is not apparent from the summary report and was riot reflected in marny of the statements Purportin, to have been based on the report, includins those by the authors, about the risks of nuclear Power.

The occurrence of an accident at Three Mile Island does not

'invalidate' the mereral conclusions of the Rasmussen report or any of these reports. Rasmussen's seneral Point that an accident fallirng Just short of a meltdown is likely once every few hundred reactor years, but that other defenses will ir the vast majority of cases prevent ar-thinr more serious, is not al t~eped al. ."toounh not necessaril.y correct.. Indeed the acc'idnt -it..sel_ 1 S *ts. the desirabil,.ity of usin5 the methodology for Pli.ant. dl-sion a.n dnotr.airinrj Ppurposes,. The specific conclusions of this report applied orlv to two specific reactors--the Surry Plant in Virbiris (for which Westirshouse Electric Corp. Provided the nuclear steam supply system) and Peach Bottom in Perrsylvani a (a ..... Electric

PAGE 49 plant). Rasmussen did not anralyze a Babcock arid Wilcox reactor, and if he had one soy it is Possible that he would have realized that the accident senuence that took place at Three Mile Island was more Probable than acceptable.

A more t'ecent reactor safety stud,2: inGermanu, chaired by Dr..

Birkhofer !of Munich is now available and the Panel had 6 copy; of the sumiary. While overcoming, some of the defects in. Presentation of the Rasmussen report, it ccmes to similar conclusions.

c) The reports of NRC on the details of Three Mile Island accident arnd the.radiation mel.asjr.mernts thereat. are thorough: seem ver_,factual. and show no bias that we could discern.

d). The best known .weneral reports. on comparative risks of nuclear and other Power sources include, the Ford-Mitre study; a report of a subcommittee on CONAES (Comm.ittee on Nuclear and Alternative Energy Sources of the National Academy of Sciences),

the risks associated with nuclear Power; and a report from Canada by Inhaber. The last of these, by Irhaber, is so full of errors that it is useless for p.olicy Purposes#

These reports Put a large uncertainty on the comparison of nuclear Power with the most obviously comparable al]ternative--coal (coal because its price is comparable, it is best burnt in larme Power Plants, and there is Plenty of it). But they all anree that unless the uncertainties all conspire to favor coalp and go adainst riuclear; nuclear Power is Probabl.y safer. It is important to note that this argument depends upon- a belief that the nuestion of disposa.l of nuclear wastes can be safely dealt with, The responsibility for the resolution of this cuestion lies with the federal Noverriment rather then an individual state.

Staff Report on the Generic Assessment of Feedwater Transients in BWR's and PWR's, NUREG-056O, May 1979, Investigatiorn into the March 28, 1979, Three Mile Island Accidnet, Ofiice of Inspection and Enforcement, Nuclear Reulatory Commission, NUREG-.0600, A'.uig.ust 1979.

TMI-2 Lessons Learned Task Force, Status Report and Short Term Recommendations, NUREG-0578, JU10 1979.

Analysis of Three Mile Island Unit 2 Accident, Nuclear Safety Arnalysis Center, NSAC-1, .July 1979, P.O.. Box 10414, Palo Alto, California 94303.

Indexed Dibliosrap'y of TMI-2, NSAC Bib, Aunust 1979.

Population Dose and Heai.th Iimact of the Accident at Three Mile Island Nuclear Station, NUREG-0558, May 1979.

PAGE 50 The Effect On popula.tions of Exposure to Low Levels of1 Ion i zirn Radiation, Report of the Advisory Committee on the Biolonical Effects oP' Ionrizin. Radiation, (BEIR I), NAS/NRC, Nov. 19724 The Effects or, Populations of Exposure to Low Levels ofi Ior-izinr-.4 Radiation (BEIR III) Draft Reportt NRC/NAS M-au 1979.

E.J. SternslOss--extensive list of references in, BEIR report.

.Mancu.isn, Kneale and Stewart, Radci atio n Ex.posures of Hanford Wo-r.rs rI:in.si From Cancer snd Other Causes, Heal.th Phusics 331:5,Y .' 36 (1977),

Mortalit. From Leukemia and Cancer irn Shipyard Nuclear Workeersy T.

Najsriart and T. Colton, Lancet 1:8072, 1018 (1978),

Reactor Safety Stud*, An Assessment of Accident Risks in U.S#

Commercial Nuclear Power Plants, 'The Rasmussen Report', WASH 1400, NUREG 75/014, October 1975.

Risk Assessment Review Group Report to the U.S. Nuclear Reoulatorv Commission, H.W. Lewisi et al., NUREG/CR-0400.

Popula tion. Dose a'nd Health Impact of the Accident- at Three Mile Isl.and Nuclear Station, NUREG 0558, May 1979.

The German Risk. Studv--Summar.* Gesellschaft fur Reaktosicherheit (GRS) mbH, Glockennasse 2Y 5000 iKolr: 1, Germany Auust 15, 1979.

Jan Beea, Some Lorno Term Con.--.eouences of Hypothetical Major Releases of Radioactivity to the Atmosphere from Three Mile Island, Frinceton, N.J., Drafty Sept. 7Y 1979.

D.Ct Aldrich, P. McGralh, N.C. Rasmussen, Exa-ination of Offsite Radiolo.ical Emersency Protective Measures for Nuclear Rector Accidents for Uuestionin-1 Core Melt; NUREG /CR-1131 or SAND 78-0454 J4G. Ke~men*y, B. Babbitt, P.E. Hasmerty, C. Lewis, PA. Marks C. Marret., L. McBride, H.C. Mc'Phersoan, R.W. Peterson, T.H.

Pisford, T.B° Tavlor, A.D. Trunk; Report of' the Presidents Commission of' the Accident at Three Mile Island. November 1979 Demo.r.phic Statistics Pertainins to Nuclear Power Reactor Sites, NUREG 0343 October 1979.

Massachusetts Commission on Nuclear Safety (Rathiens report )

DIepa rtment of FuLi ].ic Health, Cofmmoinwea lt. of

o. MassachuI.sJtts Septermbe:?r 1975 Title list, Publicly available documents Three Mile Island Unit 2, Docket 50-320 Cumulative to Mau 21 1979 NUREG 0568

PAGE 51 NIAT (Nuclear Incident Advisory Team). Hondbook  :(draft) Department of PFubl.i.c Health, Commonwealth of Massachuse'tts June 1979 New Enr.land Interstate Radiation Plan; New Enailand Radiolonical Health Committee v March 1979 Commonwealth of Massachusetts Comprehernsive Emerlency Plan, Civil Defense A.e.ncy anrd Office of Emervenc, Preparedness January 1979-Areas. around nuclear fac.ilitie.s shou].d be better Piepared for Radio].:-ical Emer*.encies, Repo rt to the Comp'troller Ge~nerel of the United States Conhress. EMD 110 March 30,1979 Plannin-..basis for the Development of State and Local Government Radiolovical Emerrency Responnse Plans. in Support of Light Water Nuclear Power Plants NRC, EPA NUREG -0.396 (EPA 520/1-78-016)

Protection of the Thyiroid Gland in the Event of Releases of Radioiodine . National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements NCRP report 55 Reulatorv nuide 1,111 Methods for Estimatins atmospheric transFport and dispersi.on of Saseou.s effluents in routine releases from light water cooled reactors NRC Rev I July 1977 Risks of Eneray Production; H. Inhaber; AECB 1119/Rev 2 Nov 1978

PAGE 52 Appendix. III. Meetinns

.The fbl].owino P'ersons were Present at meetins of the parnel; the meetis- of October 12, November 19 and December 14 were open.

Formal Presentations were made by Mr. Lydon of Boston Edison and Paul Cahill of the Civil Defense A-ercy on June 25. IrnfoT'mal discussions and response to the nuestions of the Panel were the foT'rmat of the last 3 meetings. Any Person Present was abl.e to Present. his views and on December 14 a written submission from the Scuth Shore Chamber of Commerce was made.

Many. written and oral responses to our cuestions were supplied bv the utility companies and state anencies+

We are grateful to all of these Parti.cPants for sharing with us their views and thereby helping us to form our recommendations.

-The list of attendees at the meetins_ follows.

June 25, 1979, Civil Defense Facility, Framinnham Richard Wilson, Harvard University Susan Wiltshire C. + 1W1t Thorntori, E-.ecutive Office of Environmental Affairs Al Comproni, Massachusetts Departrment of Public. Health John K, Olseny Dept. of Public Safetv George Surteli, Massachusetts Department of Public Health Edward Howard, Boston Edison Company.-n James Lydor,? Boston Edison Company William J. Bell, Mass. Dept. of Public Health (Radiation Control Prog.rm)

John Clement, Mass. Dept. of Public Health (Div. of Hazardous Materials)

Bernard Holan, Mass.. Civil Defense Amenc-,e Georne Hi. Tully, Assti Sec., Executive Office of Public Safety Lil..lri Morenstern, Mass-. Office for Er-ers. Resourses Paul Cahill, Mass. Civil Defense As.ency October 12Y 1979, Saltonstall Buildinry Boston Frank Corndel ,Nucl.ear,R-.egul ato.ry Commission

P:AGE 5,3 Ed WOJaiasp Massy Civil Defense Arencv Bernard V. Ho].an, Mass. Civil Defense AnercFC Robert H. Cunrrir,'ham, Director, Mass. Civil Defense A~encv Robert Boulaw, Mass. Civil Defense Avenc.y John L.ouerirn, Mass. Civil Defense A-ernc2 Gerald HaIes, Plymouth Civil. Defense Tom Sowdory Boston Edison Comnp.any Harrison .Balfoury Boston Edison CompF-any Fred J. Mol.olesko, Boston Edison CompFany Christine E. Dowman, Boston Edison Company Robin R, Shult, Boston Edison Company Edward Karaianr Mass. Institute of Technoloo.

James F. Wricht, Dept. of Public Safety, Div. of Irnspection Joel Brown, Consultant to Boston Edison Company R. Merlino, Consultant to Boston Edison Company Frank Archibaldy Mass. Dept. of Labor and Industries Lewis Draffer, Dept. of Environmental Quality EraineerinrEj Al Comproni, Mass. Dept. of Public Health William J, Bell, Mass. Depti of P'jblic Health Patrick Consio, Mass. Institute o-f Technology James A. MacDonald, Yankee Atomic David E. McCurd', Yankee Atomic Thomas C. Elsasser, State Liaison Officer, U.S. Nuclear Remlu]. atoru Commission Ror'nni e l.iPshutz.., Un:i.on of Concer-ned Scierttists V. Carlisle Smithy Dept. oP Public Safetu, Repo on Governor's Council on Radiol.ogi:Lcal. Protection

PAGE 54 John H. Cl ement; Mass. Delpt. of Ervirornmerntal oeualiit En, i nee r in*,

Geor:.e Swib]e, Mass. Dept, of Public Health C.J. Ma].etskos, Advisory Council on Radiation Protection

• L. Mormenstern, Mass. Office of Enrerns Resources J.S. Fitzpatrick, Directory Mass. Office of Enerl, Resources JudLy Shore, M.ass Leasue of Women Voters Mary Gorham, Senator Sharon Pollard Andrew C. Kadak, Yankee Atomic Efford H. Pierce, Rove Civil Defense Dept.

Joseph Mowey Monroe, MA 01350 Richard Wilson, Harvard University Susan Wiltshire Georne Rathiens, Mass. Institute of Technolo*;

November 19, 1979, McCormack Office Buii.dino, Boston Lillian Morsenstern. Mass. Office of Enerav Resources John Olsen, Dept. of Public Safety Georme Swihle, Mass. rDept., of Public Health C.J. M.3letslk.os, Advisory Council on Radiation Protection J.S. Fibtzptrick, Director? Mass. Office of Enerns Resources G0 Parkery IDCept. of Public Health F*S.W. Wrijht, Attorney General's Office Several represerntatives from Boston Edison Several representatives from Yankee Atomic Helen Woodman, State House News Service Georse RathJens, Mass. Institute of Technolosy Susan Wiltshire

PAGE 55 Richard Wilson, Harvard University.

plus rmnsr o-thers.

December 14, 1979, State House, Boston Gerald Parker, Mass. Diept. of F'ublic. Health C.J. Male tsos, Advi.sorv Council on Radiation Protection Georme S'.ib.le, Ma=;. Dept. of Pu'.blic Health Bob CunrII i.n .hayr Ci i. Elefense D.

Jerry Ackermari, Bcot(.on Globe Andrew C. Kadak, Ya*r.ee Atomic Lincoln Clarks Jr., Mass. Institute of Technolo*w (Reactor LaboratorA)

Edmurnd C. Tarrnuz.eor, Yanskee Atoffic fLarry Carmant. Msn.. Office of Enerny Resources Frank Arch:i bald: Dt!.-t. of Labor and Industries Helen Woodanry, Staiv House News Service James W. Gosnell, l-o..-.t-on, Edison W.R. Griffin,, HMM Associates, Consultant to Boston Edison James F. Wriht, In,,t. of Fublic Safety William H. Dormer, Jr,, Dept. of' Public Safety John K. Olsen, DeptI., of Public Slfety Harrison R. Balfo,,r, Boston Edison Co.

John Murphyi, Boston' f:dison Co.

Pat Gr'nahany 36 Cr.,.don Rd,, Hinharm, MA Joy Au'.-.ejstern-St'..i",I , 33 Nantasket Ave.y, Hull MA Joe Ba,.rleirn, New !,.l. nd Courncil Elizabeth Murrau, I":F'..tive Office of Transportation Construction Lillian MocTr-renster,,, Mass, Office of Eners. Re-o-pcs

FA G,E5 6 Richard'c Wils~ori Harvard Uriversity:..

S 1-1sar1- Wi I t-s.h i Te Geor:Ee Fathjerr,-:! Ma~ss.* Institute of' TeChFa1010-91

PAGE 57 Append:ix IV. Glossary of Terms Auxi.i].ary buildinri. A structure housing a variety, of euipmient and large tanks necessary for the operation of the reactor, These in clude m .le-up PumPSy the make-up and waste gas decoy taiks arid the. reactor coolant hold-up tanks.

B*abcock. and Wilcox (MW). The compa.ny that designed and supplied the TMI-2 reactor arid nuclear steam suppl. system.

Dack..*round rardi.ation. Radiation arisinr from natural radioactive materials always Present in the envi ronment, irncluding solar and cosmic radiation arid radioactive elements in the upper atmosphere, the .roundy buildings materials and the human bode.

B eta pa.rticles,. Hi!h-ererty electrons; a form of' ionizirni radiation that normally is stopped b'-y the skin, or a vers thin sheet of metal.

Boston Edison tComparny, A local utility responsible for the operation of Pilgrim and other nuclear Power react:ors in the New Eng.lard region.

Caesicum or Cesium. A chemical element Produced in fission. Cesium of isotope 137 has a half life of 10 Years and has a mamrma of 600 key.

Chain reaction. A self-sustainingi reactioni occurs in, nuclear fission when the number of neutrons released eouals or exceeds the nrumber of neutrorns absorbed Plus the neutrons which escape from the reactor+

Cladding. In a nuclear reactory the metal shell of the fuel rod in which uranium oxide Pellets are stacked.

Collective dose. The sum of the individual doses received by each member of a certaiin_ roup or Popul.tion# It is calculated b-multi.plying the averae dose Per Person by the number of Per'son-s within a specific geographic area. ConseauerntlyL: the collective dose is exipressed ir, Person-rems. For example, a thousand People each exposed to one rem would have a collective dose of 1,000 Re rson- rems*

Corndernate booster Pumps+ Three Pumps located between the condensate Polisher and the main feedwater Pumps.

Condensate Polisher. A device that removes dissolved minerals from the water of the feedwater sstem.

Conde.:nsate Pumps. Three Pumps irn the feedwater system tihat pump water from the condensers to the condensate Polishers.

PAGE 53 Condensers. Devices that cool steam to water after the steam has Passed thro.j.h the turbine.

Contairnment bu.i lding. The structure housing the. nucleaTr reactor; intended to contain radioactive solidsy wasesy and water that mi.aht be released from the reactor vessel in an accident*

Control rod. A rod conrtairnins material that absorbs rneutrorns used to control or halt nuclear fission in a reactor*

Core- The central Part of a nuclear reactor that contains thefuJel and Produ..ices the heat.

Critical, Term used to describe a nuclear reactor that is sustairin, a chairn reaction.

Curie. A unr'it of the intensitu of radioactivity in a material. A curie is eual to 37 billion didintelratiorns each second.

Decps heat. Heat Produced by the decay of* radioactive Particles; in a nuclear reactor this heat, resultin from materials left from the fission Process.- mu.t be removed after reactor shutdown to prevent the core from overheatirna. See radioactive deca+

Emersency core cooling system (ECCS). ,A backup system designed to supply cooling, water to the reactor core in a loss-of-coolant accident.

Emergiency feedwater Pu mpS, Backup Pumps intended to supply feedwater to the steam generators should the feedwater system fail to suPply water, Also called auxiliary feedwater Pumps.

Feedwater PuJmps. Two larhe Pumps capabl.e of supply TMI-2's two steam generators with up to 15,500 oallorsS of water a minute.

Feedwater system. Water supply to the steam generators in a Pressurized water reactor that is converted to steam to drive turbines; Part of the secorndcary loop.

Fission. The splittins apart of a heavy atomic ruclus, into two or more Parts. when a neutron strikes the nucleus* The splittinrs releases a large amount of energy, Fission Products. Radioactive.nuclei and elements formed by the fission of heavy elements.

Fuel..daml.iae4 The failure of fuel rods and the re.ease of the radioactive fissiron Products tr.iped insi de them. Fuel damase can occu..ir withoujt a meltir*;* of the reactor's u ranri~um.

Fuel melt. The melting of some of the uranium oxide fuel inside a reactoTr.

PAGE 59 Fuel rod. A tube cortaininyEi fuel for.a rnuclear reactor.

Gamma rams. Hi-.h-enerly electromatic radiation; a form of ionizir;Y radiatiorhy of hither ener.y- than x-rays? that Penetrates very deep into body tissues.

Generral emer.encu. Declared by the utility when an incident at a nuclear Power Plant poses a Potentiall ser-ri.ous threat of radiation releases that could affect the gerneral Public.

General Fu..].ic Util.ities Corporation (GFLU)

• A utilit; holdin.s, CoImpF.n; Parent cororation of the three companies that own TMI Genetic defects. Health defects inherited by a child from .the mother and/or father4 Half-life. The time reeuired for half of a 5iv.er, radioactive substarnce to decay, Health Physics. The Practice of Protecting humans and their environment. from the Possible hazards oT radiation.

Hish Pressure injrect:i.or, (HFI). A Pump system, capable of Pumring up to about 0 000 _all.ons a minute into the reactor coolant system; Part of the emrergen-ce core cooli.rg system, Iodine-131. A radioactive form of iodine, with a half-life of 8.1 dawsp that carn be absorbed by the human thyroid if inhaled or irested and cause non-cancerous or cancerous s'rowths.

Ionizing radiation. Radiation ca*.able of displacing electrors from atoms; the Process Produces electrically charted atoms or ions.

Forms include ,amm, ra.s, x-raws. and beta Particles.

Isolation. Condition intended to contain radioactive materials released in a nuclear -acc'idenrt inside the containment building;.

I'sotope-, Two nuclei of the sa:me cherical element but different Krty.,ton-85. A radioactive noble Hasp with a half-life. of 10.7 Veorsy that is not absorbed by body tissues and is .soon eliminated

b. the body if inhaled or iri!ested.

Let--down system. A means of removir,ng water from the reactor coolant system, Loss of coolant accident (LOCA). Anr accident involvingq a brokern Pipe, stuck--opern valve, or other leak. in the reactor coolant system tha* results in a loss of the water cool.irng the reactor core.

Make-up system. A storage tank in the sui.liar'u building which

PAGE 60 Ptrovides water for the make-up Pump.

Meltdown. The meltinr of fuel in a nuclear reactor after the loss of coolant water. If a si.nificant Portion of the fuel should melt, the mol)ten fuel could melt through the reactor vessel and release larrse euantities .of radioactive materials into the conrtainmTenrt bui ldirn.

Metr'opol.itan Edison CobmPn n (Met Ed). Operator arnd Part owner of the Three Mil.e Isl.a-rnd rnuclear Power Plant.

Mi].lirem. I one-thousandth of a rem; see rem, Natural, cool in*. The circulation of water without Pumping by heating water in the core arnd cooling it in, the steam grenerator.

Neutron. An uncharted Particle f'ourid in the nucleus of everT atom heavier than ord:inar_ h.drc*eni. neutrons sustain the fission chairi reaction in nuclear reactors.

Noble gases. Inert gases that do not react chemicallu and are not absorbed b. body tissues, al.thouh them ma- enter the blood if inhaled into the lungs, These gases include helium, neon,, kruPton,

-enony andi radon.

Nuclear Re*u..ator'- Commission (NBC). U.S. a!encv respornsible for the licensins and regulatiorn of commericaly testy and research nuclear reactors.

Nucleus, The central core of an atom.

Person-rems. See collective dose.

'Poisons'. Materials that stroniLly a.bsorb neutrons; used to corntrol or" stop the fission reaction in a nuclear reactor.

Pilot-operated relief valve (PORV). A valve on the TMI-2 pressur'i.:ery desi.ned to open when steam Pressure reaches 2,255 Pou.nids Per snu.1are inch.

Potassium iodide. A chemical that readilv enters the thyroid Oland when in-ested. If taken in a sufficient ouantitv Prior to exposure to radioactive iodine, it can prevent the thyroid from absorbing any'of the :otentiallv harmful radioactive iodine-131.

Pressure vessel. See reactor vessel, Fressur:izer. A tank. that mainta:ins the Proper reactor coolant Pr-essure in a .ressurioed water reactor.

Pressurized wa.-ter' reactor. A nuclear reactor svstem in which reactor coolant water is kept under h~igh Pressure to keep it from

PAGE 61 boilinrs into steam.

Primrr;r sstem. See reactor coolant system.

Rad:ioactive decay. The spontaneous F rocess by which an unstable radidactive nucleus releases ener..' or varticles to become s table.

Radioactivity. The sp.ontaneous decay of an. unstable atom. During_

the decay process, ionizin. radiation..is usually Nivenr off, RFdiolus:is. The breakinFg apa-rt of a molecule b, radiationr such as the splittin, of water into hydrogen anrd-:o--enr,.

Reactor (nuclear). A device in which a fission chain reaction .can be initiated, maintained, and controlled.

Reactor cool8nt p'ump. One of four large Pumps used to circulate the water coolin, the core of the TMI-2 reactor.

Reactor coolant system. Water that cools the reactor core and carries away heat. Also called the Primary loop.

Reacto r vessel. The steel tank contairr,insA the reactor core; also cal.led the Pressure vessel.

Rem. (Roent.en .e.uivalent man) A standard unit of radiation dose, Frecuently radiation dose is measured in millirems for low--level radiation! 1YO00 millirems eeual one rem.

Respirator, A breathir,5 mask that filters the air to Protect a~ainst the inhalation of radioactive materials.

Safet --. elated. The NRC employs several broad definitions for this concept. By one. safety-related items are 'structures' systems and ompone,.nts that Prevernt or mitinate the conseauences of Postulated accidents that could cause undue risk to the health and safety of the public.' However, the NRC has no specific list of s.,y--=--reltied items. The licensee desi-nmat es what in, its Plant is considered safety--r-alted. If th- NRC disagreesy the _nuestion. is neSotiated. Safety-related items receive closer cualitv control and assurancer maintenancee and NRC. inspection.

Saturation temperature.. The temperature at which water at a given pressure will boil; the saturation Point of water at sea-level is 212 F.

Scram. The rapid shutdown of a nuclear reactor. by droppinq control rods into the core to halt flis-ior.

Secornda r. systems. See feedwate r system Site emer:en.rfc-. Declared bu the utiliti y when an6 ir, c i dert at a

PAGE 62 nuclear Power plant threatens the uncontrolled release of radioactivit.v into the immediate area of the P lant.

Solid sy~stem. A condition in which the entire reactor. coolant svstemy includint the Pressurizer, is filled with water.

Steam :e r,erator. A heat exchanner in which reactor coolant water flowinr throuLh tubes heats the feedwater to produce steam, Steam tab.le. A chart used to determine the temperature at which water will bo1e:i.l .at a l-.iven Pressu;re Tellurium. A chemical element.produced in fission. Solid under ordinary conditions.

TheTrmoluminescent dosimeter (TLr). A device to measure nuclear radiation.

TMI. Three Mile Is ].and. site of two nuclear Power reactors operated by Metropolitan Edison Company, Transient. An abnormal'condition or event in a nuclear Power system.i, Trip, A sudden shutdown of a Piece of machinery.

Turbine buildint. A structure housiny the steam turbiney generator, ard much of the feedwater system..

Uranium oxide (WO ). A chemical compound conta ininF urar, iu-n! and oxven that is used as a fuel in nuclear reactors.

Waste .as decay tank., One of two auxiliary buildin, tanks in which radioactive n.ses removed from the reactor coolant are stored.

Xenon-133. A radioactive noble vas, with a half-life of 5.3 dans, that is not absorbed by body tissues and is soon eliminated bw the body if inhaled or in,:-iested.

Ya*krKee Atonmic Group, A company formed by several New Enl.la~nd utilities to build the nuclear Power Plant at Rowe, Mass. Now also an envirneerins service ormanizatior, for the New Ensland utilities*

Zircalov-4. A zirconium a.l].ow from which fuel rod claddirs is made.

PAGE 63 Aependix< V. List of Letters 7/10/79 and i/2/79--J.T. triscoll, Mass. Turnpike Authority, Use of Turnpike with enclosures, 7/19/79--L.E. B"'s'hian, University of Lowell, Shipment from the University of Lowell Reactor.

7/23/79.--L 4 Clark, Mass. Institute of Technoloy*, Shipment from the MIT reactor.

8/13/79--G.E. Parker, Der*artment of Public Health, Funding, for DPH work with enclosures.

8/6/79--R.H. Cunninsham, Civil Defense Asencc Emergency Plans 12/14/79--R.F. Frazier, South Shore Chamber of Commerce, Need for Pil5*rim II.

8/31/79--M. B. Meoer, Attorney General's Office, Pil1irjt II hea rin,.

9/4/79--J.M. Lydon, Boston Edisony Response to Questions 10/3/79--J M. Ldony Boston Edison, (A) Manoaemrent of unusual even. (B) radiation e'xposre (C) communication flow paths.

8/30/79---N.M. Haller, NRC, response to ouestions with enclosure NUREG--C578, 9/10/79--D. E+ Vandenburmh, Yankee Atomic Electricy respons' to Questions with enclosure.

10/i 1/79.-C.j, Maletskosy Advisory Council on1 Radiation Protection, report on, emernency Plans with enclosure.

10/12/i79--JM,, Lydon: Boston Edison: Oyster Creek incident.

11/1./79--J.C, Brooks, Boston Edison, response to Questions.

12/14/79--G.E.. Parker, Department of Public Health (handed to Richard Wilson), list of TLD's.

12/17/79--J, Driscolly Mass. Turnpike Authoritv, use of turn'Pike.

Severa., letters from Mr + Harold Rafton , 9 Al d.nr Road? Anidove r" MA concerni. nr work by the Uni:on of Conce"rned c Scien*i. sts and n*lear.] ea PoweF .:'

ii..

Mr. Da*ve Mi ner (undated), a letter concerned with salbotd.¶2e of nuclear reactors+