ML18332A355
| ML18332A355 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Harris  |
| Issue date: | 04/17/1975 |
| From: | Heron S Duke Univ |
| To: | Cardone A Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation |
| References | |
| Download: ML18332A355 (5) | |
Text
Puke Pnixroitg pp1NAN poolol c~oupp OLS AaTu CkT Or OCOLOOV Ook 444$ ~ COLLKOC STATION POSTAt ZOHC P)04 April 17, 1975 TCLrrkONXS Sip~4-~
C44MC N Mr. A. T. Cardone Nuclear Regulatory Commission
- Bethesda, Maryland
Dear Mr. Cardone:
I have read the report on the fault. at the'Shearon Harris site in %Fake County.
The enclosed comments represent my views
'fthe repor t.
In. spite of the apparent age of the fault of millions or even hundreds of millions of years, I am still concerned.
I cannot see taking a chance on having a large fault pass through the waste processing room of a major nuclear power plant.
Et just seems so unnecessary.
The burden of justification for such an unsound act must be fully on the shoulders of Carolina Power and Light.
%'e do not know the stress in the rocks at the Shearon Harris site and the orientation of the stress.
To me this should be determined before any final decisions are made.
h Sine er ely, S. Duncan Heron,'r.
SDH/ja
Comments on Fault Investigation Shearon Harris Nuclear Power Plant by Duncan Heron Much of the work that'has been done on the Shearon Harris site fault appears to be of high quality. I especially refer to the re-',
ports of the various consultants and to the work of the Ebasco per-sonnel on the structural aspects of the faults.
However, sections. of the report are just short of unreadable.
Much of it is poorly written, poorly organired, and essentially non-scientific in style.
In fact, it is repetitious and confusing to the point that one believes it was done so as to overwhelm the reader.
The specific accusations against the report zs that evidence or source is not cited for rather quantum conclusions.
In fact, upon continued and prolonged reading one may find the supporting evidence tucked away in a consultant report or in a study by CP and L or Ebasco services.
The reader should not be sub-
)ected to such labor as trying to figure out what is be ng said and especially what is the evidence to back i. up.
the reader is from time to tine treated as.a scientific cni a (preface Figure fl) and as an expert in everything from plate tec".on cs to low temperature geochemistry.
Meaningless repetition is rampant throughout this repoxt.
For
- example, there is very little difference between parts of Chapter III, Regional Geologic Setting and Chapter IV, Site Geologic Setting.
4 Specifically, the descriptives of the Triassic Formations on page III-6 are rephrased on page IV-6.
Why subject the reader to this needless repetition?
The site geologic setting should describe in some detail th nature of the Sanford Formation at the site xather than'repeating the general description of the Sanford Formation.
Literature is misquoted and conclusions ax e often drawn on the slimmest evidence.
Take the next to last paragraph on page III-10.
Abnormal hydrostatic pressure in the Dunbar ton Triassic Basin of
'I South Carolina-Georgia is reported by Kiersch (l972}. The writers oi the Ebasco report then 'state that "this finding is consistent with othex evidence irom geology and seismology (this evidence is not given or references cited) that the localization oi seismic activity on an align-l ment from Charleston through Columbia, South Carolina, to the Appa-lachians is a locally occurring pher.omena xelated to tectonic forces."
What the reader isn't told is that by no stretch of geography can -ne Dunbarton Basin be on an alignment from Charleston thx ough Columbia 3ut accidentally the reader may sooner or later notice Figure 7 a.i~ s=
'that the whole state of South Carolina iorms a seismic zore at right angles to the Appalachian tend (according to Bollinger).
Was this the meaning oi the sentence quoted?
Who knows, certainly not the reader.
I see no reason to labor the point anymore.
One is, however, left with the impxession that Ebasco services will go to any length to siretcn the evidence, confuse the readex',
and misquote previous
workers {to be charitable, accept tenuous conclusions of others as abso-lute fact).
'ge of Movement of the Fault In Section VI the age of the movement of the fault is discussed from five different lines of evidence.
Much of this section appears to be based on sound studies.
I do feel, however, the need to comment on Part 8, Evidence from Soil, Saprolite and Sediment Exposures.
In trench FET-19 the fault is overlain by a sedimentary deposit.
'n spite of all the speculation made, on pages VI-11-15, there is no evi-dence presente4 fox'he age of this deposit.
In fact, some of the specu-lations made (see especially the third paragraph on p-ge Vl-16) are geologically unsound and even unbelievable.
In addition there axe un-d ocumented statements made concerning the thickness of the soil profile fpar e VI-15, second paragraph) as related to the soil found in the Middle g
Coastal Plain.
The fact is that neither the sedimentary deposit in irench FET-19'or the soils developed on them or on the Triassic rocks themselves can be dated.
In Section C, Evidence from General Geology, the statement is made that faults displacing strata younger tnan Paleocene have not been found in the Carolina Coastal Plain.
Again this is an example of half txuths and/or a poor search of the literature.
Faults cutting sediments younger than Paleocene in the Carolina Coastal Plain are reported in
the literature. 'This may be a minor point, but it does illustrate how unsup ported statements are common in this document.