ML19220D020
| ML19220D020 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Crane  |
| Issue date: | 04/05/1979 |
| From: | Scinto J NRC OFFICE OF THE EXECUTIVE LEGAL DIRECTOR (OELD) |
| To: | Christenbury E NRC OFFICE OF THE EXECUTIVE LEGAL DIRECTOR (OELD) |
| References | |
| NUDOCS 7905160191 | |
| Download: ML19220D020 (6) | |
Text
57^-320 April 5,1979 Note to Mr. Christenbury Re: Processing of Board Notices There has been some question concerning the delay in processing requests for Board Notifications, particularly with respect to the March 6 request concerning Midland and Dr/is-Besse (and other B&W reactors) mentioned in Mr. Shapar's note of March 29, 1979. The follcwing pro-vides general background on the problems associated with processing of Board flotices and brief outline of the specific facts concerning the March 6 Notice and the others outlined in your note to Mr. Shapar dated March 29, 1979.
Background
Until February of this year Board Notices were handled by each individual case lawyer upon notification from the Chief Hearing Counsel's office.
This system resulted in difficulties in keeping track of such notices in individual cases and in delay in processing notices in each case. We attempted a number of methods to rectify these problems including assigning Ms. Jollensten and later Mr. Paton to keep follow-up of such notices. However, none proved very satisfactory.
During discussions concerning the delay in processing the Board Notice for the Lewis Committee report, Mr. Engelhardt suggested we look into the use of the Word Processing equipment to provide Board Notices directly.
I asked the sections to provide service lists to the Word Processing Unit on February 6,1979. The m was some delay in getting all of the service lists to the Word Process;.co Unie. There was then the time needed to get all this infomation into the machines and to get all the " bugs" out.
I was informed finally that Word Processing was ready to type service lists and labels for all our cases around March 21, 1979.
I requested tnat Mrs. Stotler get me five sets of labels for all cases by the end of the next week (March 30) so that I could be sure to get everything out by the end of March.
Davis-Besse, Midland and Other BAW Reactors On March 6,1979, Mr. Vassallo fon<arded to us a request by I&E to forward certain ccmments by a Region III inspector concerning B&W reactors.
The inspector indicated the notice should be sent to the Davis-Besse and 7905160 / P/4
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-2 Midland boards. Mr. Vassallo added Perkins, Erie, Pebble Springs, Greene County, and Three Mile Island 2.
Although the request was assioned to me on March 8, I first looked at i t on March 20 or 21. This delay was due to the unusually busy period ir. which I was engaged which began on March 8.
On March 8, NECO informed us that it was acandonin'y the Sheffield site. This involved a great deal of activity on March 8.
Starting on March 9 I was called to work with the Staff on March 9 through 13 on the shutdown of the five reactors for seismic considerations.
On March 13, I flew to San Francisco for discussions at Livermore on the SJP program, on I returned on March 15. On March 16 and 17, I assisted in the work on' the NEC0 Show Cause Order. On March 19, we met to organize the teams for the Show Cause; I spent some time working on the Radon brief; and I worked with Mr. Barth' on the Perkins notice on the CE rupture-strain model.
During this period I looked _at my In-Box only for urgent stickers.
I read the request on March 20 or 21 The memoranda from the I&E super-visors ed Mr. Vassallo did not indicate that the matter had any signifi-cance.
Nevertheless, I started to work on processing it on March 23 (drafted a proposed cover letter and a note to the lawyers).
Mr. Creswell
.callad me on Ma rch 23, 1979 and asked about whether or not we were going to forward his memorandum to Davis Besse and Midland.
I informed him that we were plannina to fonvard it promptly to those Scards and to several other Boards in whic. there were B&W reactors pending.
I infort:ed them that I wanted the individual case lawyers to review it to see if they wanted to handle it in any special fashion.
I explained that I expected that this would involve a lot of copying and some effort to get address lists and labels.
I told him that I hoped to get all the address lists end labels out by the end of the next week, March 30.
Mr. Creswell did not indicate that he was unhappy at such date. He asked' me for a copy
~
of the Board letter.
On Saturday, I rethought this and decided that rather than wait for the individual lawyers to comment, the general discussion of Board notices at the Tuesday staff meeting would be adecuate.
On Tuesday, March 27, after the general matter of Board Notices was dis-cussed and it was clear that we were to expedite all notices I again pressed for the labels on all cases to assure that all outstanding notices would be out by the end of the week (March 30).
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. Licensee Regulatory Perfdrmance Evaluation On November 22', 1978, Mr. Vassallo sent over an I&E report on this subject indicating he could not identify any relevancy (and thus did not identify any cases). He sent it for our determination'of relevance.
(fir. Stello made a similar statement cn November 27,1978.)
I infomed Mr. Vassallo on December 8,1978 that I believed that the material may be relevant to the issue of technical qualifications and identified a list of cases for his evaluation. On December 22. 1978, Mr. Vassallo indicated his opinion that the material was not in fact significant to any individual. case. He said that "if the decision is to provide documentation...," that'it be provided to "all Boards simply for informa tion."
This office subsequently decided to send the material despite Mr. Vassallo's determination of non-significance. On January 17, 1979, we requested the sections to identify the minimum number of copies that would be needed. Af ter a few weeks with only a few responses, Mr. Paton ordered 500 copies early in February.
Copies became available at the end of February, when Mr. Paton was deeply involved in Black Fox.
He turned the matter over to me.
At this point I began to hound Mrs. Stotler for labels and service lists from Word Processing. They became available at the end of March, and 500 copies were dispatched on March 30, 1979.
Since 500 copies was not sufficient to provide to Docketing and Service, extra copies were ordered and are to be dispatched this week.
BWR'BD/ECCS Exceriments On October 19, 1978, we were sent a Board Notice for BWR cases related to the captioned subject. The notice asserted non-conformance with Appendix K and stated that " continued use of the currently approved model is acceptable...."
I informed Mr. Vassallo on November 8,1978 that I thought that this statement was misleading and that I couTd not forward such a statement to any Board without a caveat that the con-tinued use of the model may not confom to the provisions of the Conrnission's regulations.
I also indicated that they may prefer to w$lt for resolution of the conformance questicn needed for testimony in Black Fox which was expected in a week or so. My note stirred up some concern at the division director level.
Mr. Olmstead and i met somewhat later with around 20 rembers of the staff, Mr. Mattson, Mr. Stello and Mr. Case. Since no one could identify any regulation involved, it was requested at the meeting that we get the facts straight before notifying people erroneously.
Eventually, early in February Black Fox testimony was completed on this problem which discusses it at length and indicates that it did not involve non-conformance with Appendix K.
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! asked Mr. Stello and Mr. Vassallo on February 8,1979 whether they wished to notify the other BWR Boards of the Black Fox testimony.
fir. Vassall i on February 13, 1979 recommended that the Skagit Board be notified.
(rie noted that Hartsville, Hope Creek, Montague and Phipps Bend had recently been deleted from the list as radon-issue-only cases.)
On February 27, 1979 Mr. Christenbury indicated his preference that all five Boards be no'ified.
This was reconfirmed af ter he met with Mr. Ross and Mr. Rosenthal to discuss Board Notices on March 13, 1979.
It was dispatched to live Boards on March 30, 1979.
Seabrook Desian Deficienc' On February 28, 1979, Mr. Vassallo recomended that we notify a number of Licensing Boards of a deficiency report at the Seabrook facility.
This was troublescme since Mr. Vassallo had previously (on January 8, 1979) recommended that we not notify the Seabrook Board of the same defect.if I waited to discuss this with Mr. Brenner and he looked into the matter.
When I returned from travel and the busy period from March 8 through March 19, Mr. Brenner and I agreed that Seabrook should be infortred as well as the ones indicated on Mr. Vassallo's note of February 28, 1979.
I informed the case lawyers on March 20, 1979 giving them until March 29, 1979 to indicate wnether they 1 referred to handle it as a custom notice for their case.
The notice was sent out in Seabrook on March 28, and in the other cases on March 30, 1979.
Pool Dynamics On March 5,1979, Mr. Vassallo recomended that we forward to Skagit Board a copy of testimony filed with the Black Fox Board on February 5, 1979. Since this information relates to all other Mark III's which have been dcleted from the list because they are now radon-only cases, I discussed this with Mr. Christenbury who had indicated his wish not to limit notices in the raden-only cases. After his meeting with Mr. Rosenthal on March 13, 1979, he indicated his wish to get this notice out to all Boards and when I came back from travel starting around March 20, 1979 I checked to make sure I could identify Mark III cases.
The notices were sent out on March 30, 1979 along with the notice concerning the BD/ECCS tests.
1/ Although Mr. Vassallo's reasons were poor, staff counsel noted that the matter was no longer an issue in any aspect of the pending pro-ceeding, so did not challenge Mr. Vassallo's determination.
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.5-Atmospheric Discersion On April 18, 1978, Mr. Vassallo forwarded a request for Board Notice by Gammill, provided that Gammill's conclusion was deleted. On June 27, 1978, Mr. Grossman wrote to Mr. Vassallo indicating that some indication of relevance was required and indicating that we proposed to include a paragraph from Mr. Gammill's letter. On the same day, Mr. Grossman instructed all case attorneys to forward the infonnation to the appro-priate boards. Subsequently, Mr. Vassallo had problems with our change to his note (our change restored Mr. Gammill's conclusion).
I met with him on July 13, 1978 and concluded that it would require Mr. Denise (the new Assistant Director for site-related issues) to modify our position.
On August 26, 1978, Mr. Vassallo wrote indicating that this matter had developed so that the new model discussed in the earlier note was now an optional method of proceeding "which appears to negate any discussion of new models to sitting Boards."
I recall discussing this briefly with Mr. Grossman and concluding that under these changed circumstances I would agree that the earlier notice no longer be sent, which was my (mis) understanding of Mr. Vassallo's note.
Some time in early February, I met with Mr. Vassallo on some Board Notifications and Mike Williams asked about this item which their records carried as open but our's carried as closed.
I checked into this and for the first time recognized that Mr. Vassalle's note af ter indicating the changes whicn had taken place over the course of time negated "any discussion of the new model to sitting Boards," he requested that the original memorandum be sent to " appropriate Boards."
I discussed my misunderstanding with Mr. Vassallo and Mr. Denise and cn March 30, 1979 wrote to them to indicate my belief that we should revise the obsolete notice to reflect the new model changes. On the same day, Mr. Hulman called me about Mr. Grossman's letter to all attorneys of June 27, 1978 instructing them to send out the notice.
I'did not remember this note.
I checked into this and found we informed the Diablo Canyon Board on September 14, 1978 and informed that Board that we were notifying all other Boards.
But we had not. On this basis, I changed my recommenda-tion to Mr. Christenbury's, informed Mr. Vassallo and on April 2,1979, I prepared a notification for all other coastal sites on the original list (except Big Rock and Humboldt Bay which are not active cases).
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- C&E Rupture Strain This is not a board notification from Mr. Vassallo, but a notification of Mr. Vassallo by Mr. Tedesco dated February 14, 1979. Like the BWR notification, discussed ' bove, this memorandum contains certain legally a
incorrect statements.
Specifically, af ter concluding a portion of the CE model might not conform to Appendix K, the Staff concludes that it nevertheless "is in accordance with the general requirements of Appendix K...." Since there is a specific provision of Appendix K dealing with swelling and rupture, these two statements are incompatible.
I saw the Board Notice in draf t and informed the Staff of the problem.
Since the matter was urgent for testimony in Perkins, Dr. Mattson and I agreed to inform the Perkins Board immediately of the technical facts and to provide an evaluation of conformance later. This was done about February 1 or 2,1979, the day after the matter was brought to my attention.
We then developed appropriate discussion for the Palo Verde SER around the second week in February. Later we met and discussed the problem for Perkins again after the February 14, 1979 note from Mr. Tede :o.
It appeared that Perkins in fact had a sufficient evaluation and this was finally completed by Mr. Tedesco's note to Mr. Scinto dated March 13, 1979 as modified by Mr. Novak and sent to the Perkins Board on March 20, 1979. We also discussed the other two cases that may be involved -
Pilgrim and St. Lucie. These reactors are somewhat different from Perkins and Palo Verde and are under review. On March 30, 1979, I reminded Mr. Vassallo that we still need to decide on notifying these two Boards.
Indian Point On March 2,1979, Mr. Moore requested that we notify the Board of the availability of certain new aquatic studies. The case attorney initially had some question concerning the adequacy of the notice.
However, on March 30, 1979 the notice was dispatched.
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