ML19262C641
| ML19262C641 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Arkansas Nuclear  |
| Issue date: | 01/30/1980 |
| From: | Eisenhut D Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation |
| To: | Simmons J AFFILIATION NOT ASSIGNED |
| Shared Package | |
| ML19262C642 | List: |
| References | |
| NUDOCS 8002150211 | |
| Download: ML19262C641 (5) | |
Text
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NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
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January 30, 1980 Dockets Nos, 50-313 and sW3-368 Ms. Joyce Siirmons Rt, 2 Dover, Arkansas 72837
Dear Ms. Simmons:
Your telegram to President Carter and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has been referred to this office for reply.
Your telegram urged that Arkansas Nuclear One (ANO) be kept shutdown.., accide (1) the plan:
because of your contentions that:
the plant has poorly trained operators, (3) there is a critical waste problem, (4) Unit No.1 is a D&W reactor, (5) infant mortality rate is rising in Pope County and (6) the ECCS is flawed.
uy S. Vissing, the NR; Project Manager for ANO 1 & 2, discussed your Mr.
12, 1980.
You indicated to him that your conc"rns with you on January concerns were with the nuclear power option in general, with the t
Mile Island majt operation of AMO in particular and with the accident at TireL (TMI).
Enclosure No. I provides a response to each specific concern indicated in We trust that this is responsive to your concerns and that your telegram.we have provided you with a degree of assurance that through acti from the TMI-2 accident, the license requirements of ANO 1 & 2, and the Federal regulations, the health and safety of the public is protected.
If you wish to request a particular action with regard to ANO 1 & 2, you may file a request in accordance with 10 CFR Part 2.206, a copy of which is enclosed (Enclosure No. 2).
Gincerely,
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k"Qh h{dMLL D M. Eisenhut, Acting Director Division of Operating Reactors Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation
Enclosures:
1.
Response to Specific Concerns 2.
5/31/79 Notice of Authorization to Resume Operation 8002150
nc osure 9
RESPONSES TO SPECIFIC CONCERNS 1.
The plant is accident prone.
Ms. Simons contentions on the subject relate to the frequency that ANO 1 & 2 are required to shut down because of problems.
The number of shutdowns which a plant experiences is not necessarily a measure of the safety of the plant.
On the contrary, most shutdowns are directly for the health and safety of the public. The plant nay be shutdown because the operating conditions are not as required by the Technical Specifications (TS) of license to operate.
Shut-downs may be required because safety related equipment is found to be inoperable.
At least once every 12-18 months a plant is shutdown for an extended period for refueling. During this time many tests are perfomed and extensive maintenance is scheduled.
AND-2 is a new plant undergoing startup testing which involves frequent planned shutdowns. ANO-1 has been required to remain shutdown during periods of the last year to make modifications as ordered by the Commission.
These orders were a result of the Three Mile Island Unit No. 2 (TMI-2) incident.
ANO-1 is presently shutdown as a result of a Comission Order to make modi-fications as a result of the lessons learned from the TNI-2 incident.
ANO-2 will shutdown on February 1,1980 for the same purpose.
2.
The plant has pcorly trained operators.
This contention relates directly to the TMI-2 incident during which the operators were not able to cope with the events followine the transients.
c--s As a result of the lessons learned from the TMI-2 event, the opera _ rs at ANO-1 & 2 have received training relating to the TMI-2 event.
This included for the oper-ation of Unit No.1, hands on training on the B&W simulators in handling small breaks and other transients tnat could lead to the loss of heat removal.
Our evaluation (Enclosure No. 3) to Arkansas Power and Light Company's response to the Comission Order dated May 12, 1979 providas the results of our review of the ANO-1 training program and modifications which were made as a requirement of the Order.
3.
There is a critical waste problem.
This concern is related to the general concern of disposal of radioactive waste.
Radioactive wastes are separated into two broad classifications:
high-level wastes" and "other inan high-level wastes." High-level wastes are radioactive wastes produced in the first solvent extraction cycle of fuel reprocessing operations and spent fuel elements should they be discarded.
Currently spent fuel is not being reprocessed on a commercial basis in the United States.
Spent fuel for nuclear power plants, as is the case for ANO-1, is stored in spent fuel storage facilities at each plant.
The spent fuel will remain in these facilities until it can be moved to permanent disposal repositories which have not been completed yet.
As the plants find that their facilities will not handle the accumulated spent fuel, the licensees have expanded their storage capacities to accomodate the projected needs for years ahead.
It is expected that by the time the expanded facilities become full there will be pemanent repositories available.
'2-Radioactive wastes other than high-level are buried in near-surface shallow trenches, usually in the containers in which they are shipped.
There is no intent to recover the wastes once they are buried.
There are presently six comercial facilities in the United States licensed to bury low-level radio-active wastes.
They are located in West Valley, New York; Morehead, Kentucky; Sheffield, Illinois; Beatty, Nevada; Hanford, nachington; and Barnwell, South Carolina.
At the present time, oniy the latter three sites are receiving waste for burial. The West Valley and Paxey Flats sites are closed. The Sheffield site is filled to its licensed capac."y.
A contested application for expansion of the Sheffield site is currently under review.
Burial of trans-uranium nuclides is linited at all bet one of the sites.
Five of the six comercial burial grounds are located in Agreement States and are regulated by the states.
However, at two sites, the NRC licenses special nuclear material because the quantities authorized for possession by the comericial operator exceed those which the Agreement States may license under their agree-ments.
The Sheffield, Illinois site, located in a nonagreement state, is regulated by the NRC although the state licenses and controls activities at the site concerning naturally occuring and accelerator-produced radioisotopes which are not subject to NRC control.
The sites are-all commercially operated.
The states have assumed responsibility for long-term care of the sites.
4.
Unit No.1 is a Babcock & Wilcox (B&W) reactor.
c Soon after-the TMI-2 incident, the NRC staff began a reevalua-of the design features of B&W designed reactors to detemine whether additi.
safety corrections or improvements were necessary.
It was found that B&W design-eactors appeared to be unusually sensitive to certain transient condi..as origi-nating in the secondary system.
As a result of these findings and after a series of. discussions between the hRC staff and the licensees of B&W designed plants, the licensees agreed to shutdown the plants and keep them shutdown until actions which were identified by the Commission could be completed.
The agreement was confirmed by a Commission Order to each licensee.
Authorization to resume operation was issued for AND-1 by letter dated May 31, 1979 (Enclosure
- 3) since Arkansas Power and Light Company had completed the short-tenn actions and the NRC staff completed an onsite verification of the plants readiness to resume operation.
In addition to the modifications to be impletemented promptly, each licensee also proposed to carry out certain additional long-term modifi-cations to further enhance the capability and reliability of the plant systens to respond to transient events.
Since some of the long-term modifications involve tne design, procurement, and qualification of safety grade hardware, not all of the actions of the long-term portion of the Order have been completed.
NRC staff involvement will continue te assure that the licensee completes each long-term action of the Order "as promptly as practicable" and the Order is closed out by prompt acceptance review.
5.
Infant mortality rate is rising in Pope County.
This contention relates to Ms. Simmons personal observations and her concern about the routine emissions of radioactivity from ANO 1 & 2.
The Comission has always subscribed to the general principle that, within established radiation protection guides, radiation exposure of the public should be kept as low as reasonably achievable.
This general principle has been a central one in the field of radiation protection for many years.
Operating licenses include provisions to limit and control radioactive effluents from the plants.
As defined, the term "as low as is reasonably achievable" requires taking into account the state of technology, the economics of improvements in relation to benefits to the public health and safety, and societal and socioeconomic consi-derations, and the general relationship of these to the utilization of atomic energy in the public interest.
The adoption of numerical guidelines on routine emissions of radioactivity was the subject of a Commission rulemaking action.
The NRC announced its decision in the rulemaking proceeding (Docket No. RM-50-2) concerning numerical guides for design objectives and limiting conditions for operation to meet the criterion "as low as practicable" for radioactive raterial in light-water-cooled nuclear power reactor effluents in the FEDERAL REGISTER on May 5,1975 (40 FR 19439).
The NRC has further amended the regulations to incorporate the term "as low as is reasonably achievable" not to reflect a change in the object.ive, but rather to use a language that more closely describes its intention.
The guides on design objectives set forth in the adopted Appendix I to 10 CFR Part 50 require that:
The calculated annual total quantity of all radioactiv0 material a.
above background to be released from each light-water-cooled nuclear power reactor will not result in an estimated annual dose or dose commitment from liquid effluents for any individual in an unrestricted area in excess of 3 millirems to the total body or 10 millirems to any organ.
b.
The calculated annual total quantity of all radioactive material above background to be released from each light-water-cooled nuclear power reactor to the atmosphere will not result in an estimated annual air dose from gaseous effluents at any location near ground level which could be occupied by individuals in unrestricted areas in excess of 10 millirads for gamma radiation or 20 millirads for beta radiation.
However, lower o-higher quantities may be speci-fied by the Commission depending on whether the level released will result in an estimated annual external dose from gaseous effluents to any individual in unrestricted areas in excess of 5 millirems to the total body or 15 millirers to the skin.
c.
The calculated annual total quantity of all radioactive iodine and radioactive raterial in particulate from above background to be released from each light-water-cooled nuclear power reactor in effluents to the atmosphere will not result in an estimated annual dose or dose commit-ment from such radioactive iodine and radioactive material in parti-culate form for any individual in an unrestricted area from all pathways of exposure in excess of 15 millirems to any organ.
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d.
In addition to the above guidelines, the radwaste system shall include all items of reasonably demonstrated technology that when added to the system can, for a favorable cost-benefit ratio, effect reductions in dose to the population reasonably expected to be within 50 miles of the reactor. As an interim measure and until establishment and adoption of better values (or other appropriate criteria) the values $1000 per total body man-rem and $100 per man-thyroid-rem (or such lesser values as may be demonstrated to be suitable in a particular case) shall be used in this cost-benefit analysis.
The guides for limiting conditions for operation set forth in Appendix I are applicable in any case in which an application was filed on or after January 2, 1971 for a permit to construct a light-water-cooled nuclear power reactor.
For each light-water-cooled nuclear power reactor constructed pursuant to a permit for which application was filed prior to January 2,1971, the holder of the permit or a license t ;horizing operation of the reactor was required to file with the Comission, by June 4,1976:
1.
Such information as necessary to evaluate the means employed for keeping levels of radioactivity in effluents to unrestricted areas as low as is reasonably achievable, including all such infornation as is required by 6 50.34a (b) and (c) not already contained in his application; and Plans and proposed TS developed for the ptrpose of TieTp'ing 2.
releases of radioactive materials to unrestricted areas during p
normal reactor operations, including expected operational occurr-j' ences, as low as is reasonably achievable.
Thus, the operations of a plant are controlled by the TS appended to the operating license so that release of radioactive materials to unrestricted areas during normal reactor operations, including expected operational occurrences, are as low as is reasonably achievable.
The potential doses are controlled by restrictions on the rate of radioactive liquid and gaseous effluent releases and are further monitored through radiological environmental monitoring programs.
6.
The ECCS if flawed.
With regards to this concern, we do not know specifically what is meant by contending that the ECCS is flawed. Both units at AN0 have redundant ECCS systems.
The TS of the operating license allows only a limited time of operation until a unit must be shutdown if one of the redundant systems were out of service. Therefore, if the ECCS system would be " flawed" the plant would not be permitted to operate. To assure that the ECCS is operable the TS require periodic tests of the systems and components.
Further, if an ECCS would be degraded the licensee is required to report this to the NRC.