ML19207B861
| ML19207B861 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Marble Hill |
| Issue date: | 07/06/1979 |
| From: | Harold Denton Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation |
| To: | |
| Shared Package | |
| ML19207B857 | List: |
| References | |
| NUDOCS 7909050438 | |
| Download: ML19207B861 (8) | |
Text
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION OFFICE OF NUCLEAR REACTOR REGULATION HAROLD R. DENTON, DIRECTOR In the Matter of
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PUBLIC SERVICE COMPANY OF INDIANA, INC.
Docket Nos. STN 50-546 WABASH VALLEY POWER ASSOCIATION, INC.
STN 50-547 (MarbleHillNuclearGenerating Station, Units 1 and 2)
DIRECTOR'S DECISION UNDER 10 CFR 2.206 By a filing which was referred to the Director of Nuciear Reactor Regu-lation by the Atomic Safety and Licensing Appeal Board, E
- r. Thomas M. Dattilo M
as attorney for Save the Valley /Save Marble Hill (STV) requested that the safety hearing held in connection with the application for construction permits for the two-unit Marble Hill facility be reopened. Mr. Dattilo addressed additional letters to the Director received April 4 and dated April 19, 1979, respectively, which requested that certain other information be considered by the Director as a basis for either reopening the safety hearings E or for issuance of an order to show cause to revoke or suspend the Marble Hill construction pennits.
The various filings of STV have been considered as a request for action pursuant to 10 CFR 2.206 of the Commission's regulations.
Notice of receipt of STV's motion which the Appeal Board referred to the Director and of STV's April 4th request was published in the Federal Register. 44 Fed. Reg. 23137 (April 18,1979).
STV'S MOTION TO THE APPEAL BOARD In the motion referred to the Director by the Appeal Board, STV asserted as Sl.41 hi
-~1/ Public Seri; ice Company of Indiana, Inc. (Marble Hill, Units 1 and 2), ALAB-530 (March 19, 1979).
The Appeal Board denied the motion for lack of jurisdiction.
y STV has requested the Director himself to reopen the safety hearings. The Director, however, does not have the power to reconstitute the Licensing Board or Appeal Board to conduct further proceedings on the matters which STV raises. The Director could recommend to the Commission that the hearings be reopened or the Director could issue an order based on the matters raised by STV under which interested persons may have a right to request a hearing.
7909050 h38 h
bases for its request to reopen the safety hearings that subsequent to the issuance of construction permits I (1) the herbicide "2,4,5-T" has been banned by the Environmental Protection Agency and (2) the Lewis Report (NUREG/CR-0400, Sept.1978) has-criticized the Rasmussen Report (WASH-1400) as a basis for reliance on the probability and consequences of reactor accidents.
STV's request then asserted, without citation to the record or decisions in the Marble Hill proceeding, that 2,4,5-T and WASH-1400 were " fundamental determinants" in the Licensing Board's decision to grant construction permits, and therefore the safety hearing must be reopened to evaluate these matters. As discussed below, based.upon the Staff's review of the record and decisions in this proceeding, STV is incorrect in its assertion.
There was very little reliance on the matters identified by STV in the_ proceeding below, and such reliance as there was is not materially changed by the matters set forth in STV's request. Therefore, for the reasons detailed below, STV's request is denied.
In order to have a hearing reopened on the basis of new information, as STV seeks to do, the Appeal Board has held that new information must identify a signi-ficant unresolved safety issue or a major change in facts material to the resolution I Although the Director in considering a request for of major environmental issues.
3] Construction pemits were issued in April,1978.
~4/ Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Corp. (Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Station),
TLAB-124, 6 AEC 3'58 (1973); Conmonwealth Edison Co. (La Salle, Unitt 1 and 2),
ALAB-153, 6 AEC 821 (1973).
The Director of NRR has previou sly applied this standard in denying another petition under 10 CFR 2.206 which requested suspension of construction permits pending reconsideration of the need for power issue after the proceeding on issuance of construction pemits for the facility had been closed Georgia Power Company (Alvin W. Vogtle Nuclear Plant, Units 1&2),00-79-4, 9 NRC (April 13,1979) (Docket Nos. 50-424 & 50-425)
- 3. bid /17 action under 10 CFR 2.206 is not bound by the Appeal Board's standard for re-opening a licensing proceeding on the basis of new infomation, this standard is perstiasive in considering requests under 10 CFR 2.206 because, as the Cormission has indicated on another occasion, "[P]arties must be prevented from using 10 CFR 2.206 procedures as a vehicle for reconsideration of issues previously decided...."
Consolidated Edison Co. (Indian Point Units 1-3), CLI-75-8, 2 NRC 173,177 (1975).
STV's motion provides no explanation, by reference to the record or other-wise, why the two matters it identifies supports reopening of the record under this standard. This failure would justify denial of the request at the outset because the petitioner has not, as required by 10 CFR 2.206, specified the facts that constitute the basis for the request. N owever, the Staff has conducted H
its own review of the record in the Marble Hill proceeding in light of STV's request to reopen and has found no instance where matters concerning "2,4,5-T" or WASH-1400 were relied upon in the record leading to the two decisions of the Licensing Board involving radiological health and safety aspects of the Marble Hill construction permit proceeding. 6] Accordingly, in the absence of any basis articulated by STV or ascertained by the Staff, the request to reopen the Marble Hill safety hearing must be denied.
Although not raised as an issue in STV's request to reopen the safety hearings, the environmental record leading to the Licensing Board's LWA-1 Partial Initial Decision U contains references to WASH-1400, and the decision itself references y See also the Director's denial of a petition under 10 CFR 2.206 in Duke Power Co. (0conee Nuclear Station, Units 1, 2 and 3), DD-79-6, 9 NRC (May 24, 1979)
TDocket Nos. 50-269, 50-270 and 50-287).
6] Those decisions were: " Partial Initial Decision--LWA-2", 6 NRC 1101 (December 9, 1977), and " Initial Decision--C", 7 NRC 573 (April 4,1978).
7] 6 NRC 294 (August 22,1977).
Sl4.i M use of 2,4,5-T and other herbicides. Therefore, the Staff has reviewed the environmental record to determine whether it is appropriate to reconmend that the environmental record be reopened or order suspension of the Marble Hill 6
construction permits.
Herbicides The potential hazards of use of 2,4,5-T and other herbicides were dis-cussed in 6 4.3.1.t of the Staff's Final Environmental Statement for the Marble Hill facility (NUREG 0097) published in September,1976.
In addition, the use of herbicides for the maintenance of. transmission line rights-of-way was a litigated contention in the environmental proceeding.
6 NRC at 318-19.
Strict conditions on the use of all herbicides were recommended by the Staff in the FES and were incorporated by the Licensing Board as conditions of the limited work authorization (and later the construction permits).
FES, ll 4.3.1.2 and 4.5.2; 6 NRC at 318, 346-47.
Significantly, the Licensing Board explicitly found that the Applicants' use of herbicides will be in adherence to the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency guidelines adopted pursuant to the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act of 1972.
6 NRC at 318.
To the extent use of 2,4,5-T is prohibited by the EPA's action, it simply means that the Applicants will not be able to use this particular herbicide.
The Applitants can use other herbicides which are approved by EPA (some of which were listed in FES, 9 4.3.1.2) or other methods of defoliation which were approved in the FES (e.g., selective mechanical clearing to the fullest extent practicable).
WASH-1400 Although it was not expressly referenced in the environmental decision, WASH-1400 was referenced in the environmental record in two separate contexts.
The Staff's Final Environmental Statement only references the study for its existence and states:
3J.<12.49
- ,' As with all new information developed which might have an effect on the health and safety of the public, the results of these studies will be assessed on a timely basis within the Regulatory process on generic :,r specific bases as may be warranted.
[FES, page 7-2].
As is obvious from Chapter 7 of the FES, and as is expressly illustrated by the above quotation, no reliance was placed upon WASH-1400 for the Staff's conclusions on the environmental impacts of postulated accidents.
Rather, the Staff relied upon the accident assumptions and guidance issued in the proposed Annex A to then Appendix D of 10 CFR Part 50 (now 10 CFR Part 51).
As part of its consideration of the contested issue of the alternative generation of electricity by a coal-fired facility, the Licensing Board considered the NRC Staff's testimony presented by Dr. R. L. Gotchy on the comparative health effects of coal versus nuclear.
6 NRC at 321-323; see also Dr. Gotchy's testi-mony following Transcript at 4972. The Licensing Board found that:
"Notwithstanding conservatisms in the extensive analysis by the Staff, it is clear that the nuclear fuel cycle is considerably less harmful to man than the coal fuel cycle.
The Board so finds.
Indeed, the coal alternative may be more harmful to man by factors of 4 to 250, depending upon the effect being considered, than the all-nuclear uranium fuel cycle, or factors of 3 to 22 with the assumption that all of the electricity used by the uranium fuel cycle comes from coal powered plants (Staff Test., post Tr. 4972,
- p. 11)."
[6 NRC at 322).
The upper bounds of these two ranges of factors (250 and 22) represent the excess mortality comparisons of coal and nuclear from Table 1 of Dr. Gotchy's testimony.
The lower bound of these two ranges of factors (4 and 3) represent excess morbidity and injury comparisons from Table 2 of Dr. Gotchy's testimony.
3)U1259 Dr. Gotchy used the probability and consequences of reactor accidents, as set forth in WASH-1400, to derive the excess mortality factor (Gotchy testi-mony Table 'la) for his comparative health effects testimony.
During cross-examination on possible uncertainties in the probability of reactor accidents, Dr. Gotchy testified that a factor of ten increase in accident risks assumed in his analysis would only change the overall uranium fuel cycle excess mortality rate per reference reactor year by approximately a factor of two (from 0.48 to 0.84 in Table la).
(Tr. 5013) The WASH-1400 probabilities were not used to derive the excess morbidity and injury factors; therefore the lower bound of these two ranges of factors (4 and 3) would not be affected by changes to WASH-1400.
The Risk Assessment Review Group (Lewis Report, NUREG/CR-0400), while supporting the genei-al methodology of WASH-1400 and recognizing its contribution to assessing the risks of nuclear power, found that it was unable to detennine whether the,absolt e probabilities of accident sequences in WASH-1400 are high or low.
The Lewis Report concluded that the error bounds on those estimates are, in general, greatly understated.
If we assume a factor of 100 increase in the probability and consequences of reactor accidents from WASH-1400 in order to account for the uncertainties discussed in the Lewis Report, then the excess mortality from Table la would increase by a factor of five (0.48 to 2.44).
By increasing this factor, the factors by which the coal alternative is more harmful to man than nuclear would change from ranges of 4-250 (all nuclear) and 3-22 (all coal power) to ranges of 4-49 (all nuclear) and 3-15 (all coal power).
Therefore, even if we assume a large increase in WASH-1400 accident risks, this change does not have a material effect on Dr. Gotchy's conclusions or the Licensing Board's findings that, "the nuclear fuel cycle is considerably less S JA E 50-harmful to man than the coal fuel cycle." 6 NRC at 322.
Accordingly, I wuld not recommend suspension of the construction permits or reopening the Marble Hill record for reconsideration of issues involving 2,4,5-T or WASH-1400.
STV'S REQUESTS CONCERNING THE THREE MILE ISLAND ACCIDENT STV's April 4th and April 19th letters raised safety concerns related to the accident at Three Mile Island Unit No. 2.
STV alleged that these concerns serve as a further basis for either reopening the safety hearings or for issuance of an order to show cause to suspend or revoke the construction permits.
The NRC Staff is currently conicting a thorough investigation of the March 28, 1979, accident at the Three Mile Island Power Plant, Unit No. 2.
This investigation includes study of potential design deficiencies in the plant, plant operator response to the accident including operator errors ar.d/or misinterpre-tation of plant instrumentation, and all other aspects of the accident which might lead to information that would improve the safety of nuclear power plants.
For obvious reasons, the major emphasis of the current stafI effort is focused on nuclear power plants that are presently licensed to operate.
However, the results of the Staff's investigations will also be applied to plants that are currently under construction and plants for which construction permits have been applied for but not yet issued.
It should be noted that the Marble Hill Station will utilize a Westinghouse reactor while the Three Mile Island plant utilizes a Babcock and Wilcox reactor.
Therefore, some of the results and reconmendations of the Statf's investigation may not be directly applicable to the Marble Hill Station.
Any new requirements for construction or operation of nuclear facilities that the Commission deems necessary as a result of the investigation of the Three
$dT.[2
. Mile Island accident or any etner MC erfort will t>e apel s ea to a w oie
- c. i r t Station to the extent applicable. These matters will be included in our review of Public Service Company of Indiana's request for an operating license, which was tendered on June 1,1979.
Therefore, based on a preliminary assessment'of the factors which contributed to the Three Mile Island accident and on a determination that any new requiremer.ts can be incorporated as necessary in the operating license review of Marble Hill, I do not find it necessary to stop construction or recommend the reopening of the safety hearing for Marble Hill at this time on the matters raised by STV regarding the accident at Three Mile Island.
CONCLUSION For the reasons stated in this decision, I have determined that there exists no adequate basis for instituting a proceeding to suspend or revoke the Marble Hill construction permits or taking any further action to supplement the record in the Marble Hill proceeding wi,th respect to the matters raised by STV.
The requests of Save the Valley /Save Marble Hill are hereby denied.
A copy of this decision will be placed in the Commission's Public Document Room at 1717 H Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20555 and the Local Public Document Room for the Marble Hill Nuclear Generating Station, lcoated at the Madison-Jefferson County Public Library, 420 West Main Street, Madison, Indiana 47250.
A copy of this decision will also be filed with the Secretary of the Commission for review by the Conmission in accordance with 10 CFR 2.206(c) of the Commission's regulations.
In accordance with 10 CFR 2.206(c) of the Commission's regulations, this decision will constitute the final action of the Comission twenty (20) days after the date of issuance, unless the Comission on its own motion institutes a review of this decision within that time.
_ Harold R. Denton, Director Bethesd Maryland Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation Datedgdayofh,3,1979.
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