ML18025A737
| ML18025A737 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Susquehanna  |
| Issue date: | 06/16/1979 |
| From: | Lemanowicz I Citizens Against Nuclear Dangers |
| To: | Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation |
| References | |
| Download: ML18025A737 (7) | |
Text
UNITED STATES OF AliERICA NUCLEAR REGULAT RY COKIISSION In the Matter of PENNSYLVANlA PO'(fER AND LIGHT CO. Docket Nos. 50-387 ALLEGHENY ELECTRIC COOPERATIVE, INC. 5O-Z88 (Berwick Atom1c Power Plant)
(Susquehanna Units 1 and 2 )
CITIZENS AGAINST NUCLEAR DANGERS TO THE INTERROGATORIES 'EPLIES OF THE NRC STAFF AND THE APPLICANTS AND OT'XR k<TTZRS
~+/ cc~-.va VSHRO JUN19 1M~
$ acHe5 The people living in the v1cinity of Berwick, Pennsylvania were informed. by government officials to be prepared to somehow, impossibly, accommodate tens of thousands of fleeing refugees from the Harrisburg area, if a melt'-down and steam explosion at Three-Mile-Island necessitated total mass exacuation. Berwick is only about 65 air miles from Three-Nile-Island, 1n a northeast direction.
The people of Berwick also 11ve very near to a construction site where the. Pennsylvania Power and Light Company is proceeding with plans to br1ng the atomic'nightmare of Three-Mile-Island to their doorstep; There is, therefore, a growing alarm and concern over the threat to public health and safety that will be visited upon the citizenry by the Berw1ck atomic power plant. For government representatives to.ignore this deep concern would be a grave mistake. The problems of TMI'illnot go away. It can never be business as usual again for the atomic industry anywhere in the Susquehanna Valley.
According to correspondence from the counsel for the NRC, dated May 21, 1979, and the counsel for the Applicants, dated May 25, 1979, the Citizens Against Nuclear Dangers (Cit1zens) Berwick, Pa., are requested to reply to approximately two-hundred itemized interrogatory.
questions by June 29, 1979.
The initial response by the Citizens is as follows: The Citizens w111 presently submit a motion before the U.S. Atomic Safety and L1censing Hoard requesting a ruling in the form of an Order announcing a suspens1on of the preliminary t1metable for discovery requests and interrogatories, etc., decreed in the Hoard' Special Prehearing Conference Order, dated March 6, 1979.
The reason for th1s motion is twofold. The first reason is associated w1th the announcement issued on/or about May 21, 1979, by the NRC in 'rlashington, D.C. declaring a 90 day suspension (and possibly a longer. duration) on certain licensing proceedings because of the Three-Nile-Island (TMI) d1saster. The C1tizens presume that such rulings by the NFC supersede the orders of the several licensing panels functioning nationw1de, including the proceedings at Docket Nos. 50-387 and 50-388, the Berwick app11cations. Therefor e, the Citizens believe that the interrogatories presented by the NRC staff and the. Applicants are, at the very least, premature and inappropr1ate at this t1me beceuse of the NRC licens1ng morator1um wh1ch is now 1n force.
The second reason deals with the perplexities of the general and specific interrogatories relative to the admitted contentions, The Cit1zens propose that the NRC and the Applicants retract their t E i I V t~l\. bl I t
and/or are misdirected to the 1nterveners in general, as stated in their first round, discovery requests. The Citizens also regard the choice of most questions directed at the 1nterveners as arbitrary and, out of order due to their misdirection.
The NRC should be directing thei,r penetrating questions about the Berwick atomic power plant at the Applicants. The burden of proof 1s on the Applicants to show that the Berwick facility will not become another Three-Mile-Island disaster. The interveners are not on trial, we represent the American people. But the capability of the Pennsylvania Power and Light Company is; and the credibility of the NRC is)
It is only'air to announce at this po1nt that the Citizens hereby request from the President's Special Commiss1on on TMI, the Governor' Commission on TMI, the appropriate select and standing committees of Congress {plus the GAQ), and the General Assembly of Pennsylvania studying TMI and NRC lioensing in general, that cash group ~sub oena the entire record of NPC Docket Nos. 55-387. and 55-388 from at least hugust, 1978 (when the interventions began) onward as material evidence 1n their proceedings. The serious m1stakes of the TMI licensbs are occurring all over again with the Berwick operating license case.
The Citizens Against Nuclear Dangers categor1cally obJect to each and every interrogatory question subm1tted by the NAC, and. categorically obJect to each and every interrogatory question submitted by the Applicants. The Cit1zens'bJections are as follows:
The Lioensing Board panel, or their agents, authored or edited, almost beyond recognition, most of the so-called admitted contentions by using some esoteric methodology. The Citizens did not concur with the Board's revision1st contentions. Nor, are the Citiznes willing to be caught in some legalistic entrapment inherent in the apparent rigged.
interrogatories.
The interveners did not have time to appeal these dubious, yet, apparently official revised contentions, or the contentions reJected outright, because the prescribed time limit--a mere five days-- had passed by the time the 85 page Order of March 6, 1979, was sh1pped through the mails and received by the interveners. There simply wasn't t1me to appeal, yet the Board allowed this to transpire.'h1s clearly violated legal standards of fairness.
The Citizens further obJect to the interrogatories because some of them are unanswerable unt11 the list of documents the Citizens recently requested from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the Applicants arrive and are carefully analyzed. Ve are setting no arbritrary time limit on our requests. '>le are allowing a reasonable amount of time because the interveners are more concerned about getting at the true facts 1n determ1ning if the Berwick atomic plant can be operated 1n a safer manner'han TNI. 1rr egardless of construction timetables, wh1ch
~ ~
seems to be an obsession w1th some other parties.
Also, the C1tizens will have no difficulty presenting nationally renowned expert witnesses at the public hearings next year, but we are only beginning to round them up and, of course, cannot submit advance testimony that has not yet been prepared from experts that have not yet been selected, who must first examine and study the documents which the interveners have requested but have not yet rece1ved from the other parties.
Many of the submitted interrogatories are possibly intended, to cloud the r eal safety and envirnomental issues over the Berwick plant?
They are certainly intimidat1ng and an afront. The absurdity of many of the questions is that the questioners have the answers already!
The Board has previously upheld the NRC 1n denying the interveners the very government documents that contain much of the information requested.
This is definitely "Catch 22".
Tha Board itself, for six months now, has obstructed their own proceedings by denying all intervening parties individual sets of the documentation from the NRC Accession List. Four months have passed and the intervener s patiently await from the Board certified sets of the transcripts from the Special Pre-Hearing Conference. The lnterveners cannot proceed with their case uithout this vital information. Denial of this public record, which ls ln the possession of the NRC and tha Ayp1t t,l.~dil.l .d51 tl. t . it 1 t.lt due process of law!
If this pattern continues, concerned, and. aggrieved citizens, acting ln the.public interest, may have no other course of action but to file a civil action ln Federal District Court'eeking an lnJunctlon ln the Berwlck licensing case; or to file charges with the U.S. Justice Department alleging collusion to commit unlawful acts.
In ordar that the TMl Commissions, the Congress and the General Assembly understand Just how the Constitutional Rights of American citizens are being trampled upon by the NRC, the Citizens will cite the follow).ng examples.
On January'9, 1979, at "1ilkis-Barr e, Pa., a NRC appointed "Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel", having three member s, conducted a "Special Pra-Hearing Conference" on the Berwlck atomic power plant oparatlng license applications. The Four intervening groups present, without any forewarning, were each handed large sets of documents, about five minutes before the hearing began, by the NRC staff and, by the Applicants. These documents contained detailed obJections to each and evary contention ln the petitions of the lnterveners, which they presented to all parties weeks in advance. There are hundreds of citations of law permeating these documents, which were referred to axtanslvely by the NRC staff, the Applicants and the Board during
the proceed1ngs, and which weighted heavily in the deliberations.
Five minutes notice.'This 1s the type of high-handed and heavy-handed treatment Amer%.can citizens get in the NRC kangaroo court.'uring the closing morn1ng sess1on on January 31, 1979, the Board, especially, repeatedly obJected to the Cit1zens explaining from their petit1on matters related to certain health and safety issues. They obviously did not want certain statements recorded by the petitioners.
The record will show this, 1f that testimony has not been abridged. or expunged. S1nce copies of the hearing transcript have b'een withheld, the Citizens cannot be sure precisely what testimony has been recorded.
This has happened, not in the Soviet Union, but right here in the United, States)
The Board rushed through the final sess1on, cutting-off some of the most important testimony, which was never admitted, allegedly so they could catch dM, an h
earlier flight back to P -F. t.aa should be conducted over again, 8
this
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'<cwashington, t1me the proper D.C. By any reasonable Constitutidnal d
way.
So...is it any wonder that atom1c power plants like TMl get operating 11censes from the iVRC with such cursory type reviews. The C1tizons conclude by stat1ng that an 1ndependent re-evaluation of the entire Berwlck application is called for, perhaps 1n the form of a 1nvestigat1on. 'egislative
CERTlFICATE OF SERVICE I hereby cert1fy that copies of CITIZE>!S AGAlllST NUCLEAR DANGERS Re lies To The Interro atories Of The NRC Staff And The Ao licants And Other Matters have been served on the following by depos1t in the United States mail, first class, tais ~4 day of June, l979 Commissioners: Dr. Joseph Hendrie, Chm.,
James F. Ahearne, Peter A. Bradford, Victor G111nsky, Richard Commission T, Kennedy, James N. Cutchin, IV, Esquire U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Of fice of the Director Executive Legal
'8a sh ington, D. C. 2O555 U. S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Charles Bechhoefer, Esq., Chairman Washington, D. C. 20555 Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel Jay Silberg, Esq.
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Shaw, Pittman, Potts and Washington, D.C. 20555 Trowbri dge 1800 M Street, N.W.
Mr . Glenn 0. Bright Washington, O.C. 20036 Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel Dr. audi th H. Johnsrud U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Co-Director Washington, D.C. 20555 Environmental Coalition on Nuclear Power Dr. Oscar H. Paris 433 Orlando Avenue Atomic Safety and Licensing State College, PA 16801 Board Panel U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Mr. Thomas H. Gerusky, Director Washington, O.C. 20555 Bureau of Radiation Protection Department of Environmental Resources Atomic Safety and Licensing Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Board Panel P.O. Box 2063 U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Coomission Harrisburg, PA 17120 Washington, D.C. 20555 Ms. Colleen Harsh Docketing and Service Section Box 538A, RDP4 Office of the Secretary Mountain Top, PA 18707 U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Washington, D.C. 20555 Susquehanna Environmental Atomic Safety and Licensing Advocates Appeal Board Panel c/o Gerald Schultz, Esq.
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission 500 South River Street Washington, D.C. 20555 Wilkes-Barre, PA 18702 Irene Lemanowicz Chairperson