ML19247B261
| ML19247B261 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Skagit |
| Issue date: | 06/29/1979 |
| From: | Gotchy R Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation |
| To: | |
| Shared Package | |
| ML19247B252 | List: |
| References | |
| NUDOCS 7908080249 | |
| Download: ML19247B261 (5) | |
Text
UN. ED 5TATES OF AMERICA NUCLEAR REGULATCRi COMMISSION BEFORE THE ATOMIC SAFETY AND LICENSING BOARD In the Matter of
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Docket Nos. STN 50-522 FUGET SOUND POWER & LIGHT
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(Skagit Nuclear Power Project
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Units 1 and 2)
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SUPPLEMENTAL TESTIMONY OF DR. R. L. GOTCHY REGARDING HEALTH EFFECTS ATTRIBUTABLE TO C0AL AND NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE ALTERNATIVES June 29, 1979
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70 0808 0 f-9 Since June 21, 1978, when I presented stri+. ten testimony regardir.g potential health impacts for the coal and nuclear fuel cycles (following Tr.10. 493),
few changes have been made in the current state-of-the-art regarding health effects assessments of the<e two fuel cycles.
The belief expressed in my testimony that the flational Acade.ny of Sciences study (Attachment 1, refer-ence 37 of my testimony) by tha Committee on fluclear and Alternative Energy Systems (C0flAES) would be comp' eted by fall of 1978 (Tr.10,510) was overly optimistic.
The C0flAES study, which was due to be completed in June,1977, is still not published.
At this point, the staff is unable to predict when the report will be published.
As a result, I have no reason to revise ny 1978 testimony on the impacts of the coal fuel cycle, except as roted below.
The only revision which I have made in my testimony since my June 21, 1978, appearance relates to my use of the WASH-1400 analyses of serious reactor accidents.
This revision is necessitiated by the findings of an Ad Hoc Group (the so-called Lewis Committee) which prepared a report (NUREG/CR-0400) to the Commission in September,1978, which was critical of the WASH-1400 report in a few key areas. is a staff statement prepared by the Office of fluclear Reactor Regulation, which describes how those findings could affect the comparison of health effects for the coal and nuclear fuel cycles.
That response, which demonstrates the relative insensitivity of my testimony to very large increases in the probability of a serious reactor accident, should be added to my testimony (e.g., Table 1 and la, and p. 8 under "Other Cor.siderations", where the Reactor Safety Study is discussed).
The results of Enclosure 1 de not affect the conclusions contained in my previously filed testimony.
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. For the information of the Board and parties, I would also like to comment on my review of the.iraf t National Academy of Sciences report prepared by the Advisory Committee on the Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation (BEIR III) and the impact of that report on my previous estimates of health effects from the nuclear fuel cycle.
It should be noted that a minority report in the draf t document was critical of the findings of the majority of the Committee (6 out of 16).
Since the draf t was released for review, the minority group has now become a majority (9 out of 16) and the draft report will be revised somewhat during the summer before final publication.
Hew-ever, it is clear the results of such revisions will result in a reduction in the cancsr mortality estimations now in the draf t.
It is gratifying to note that even those estimations (68 - 293 cancer deaths per million persen-rem) are smaller than in the 1972 BEIR report (87 - 460 cancer decths per million person-rem).
In fact, the geometric mean of the range of health ef fects estimators for continuous low level exposure is 141 cancer deaths 6
per 10 erson-rem, which is essentially the same as the 135 value the NRC staff has been using since 1975, based on the WASH-1400 analysis.
As a result, the staff believes there is no reason at this time to revise the prior testimony on health effects fran the nuclear fuel cycle.
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EfiCLOSURE 1 In July, 1977, the NRC organized the independent Risk Assessment Review Group to:
(1) clarify the achievements and limitations of the Reactor Safety Study (RSS), (2) assess the peer comments thereon, and tha responses to those comments, (3) Study the present state of such risk assessment methodology, and (4) recommend to the Commission how and whether such methodology ca be used in the regulatory and licensing process.
The results of this study were issued in September 1978 While praising the RSS's general methodology and recognizing its contribution to assessing the risks of nuclear power, the Review Group found that they were unable to determine whether the absolute probabilities of accident sequences in UASH-1400 are high or low.
They did conclude that the error bounds on those estimates are, in general, greatly understated.
On January 19, 1979, the Commission issued a statement of policy concerning the Reactor Safety Study and Review Group report.
The Commission accepted the findings of the Review Group and concluded that the RSS's numerical estimates of the overall risks of reactor accidents should not be regarded a; reliable.
U.S. NRC Risk Assessment Review Group Report, NUREG/CR-0400, September 1978.
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2-The importance of this uncertainty can be given some perspective by considering the effects of an increase in the risks of reactor accidents on the estimated overall mortality rate associated with the nuclear fuel cycle.
Assuming the reactor accident risks to be 100 times that estimated in the RSS (which would roughly correspond to an upper-bound value based solely on statistical analysis of the observation of no core melts in about 500 reactor yaars of commercial LWR cperation), the upper-bound of the range of mortality per reference reactor year presented in this document from the nuclear fuel cycle could increase from 1.7 to 3.7.
On the other hand, if the risk of such accidents were lower than estimated in the RSS, the lower bound of the range of mortality would not change appreciably.
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