ML19296C055
| ML19296C055 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Black Fox |
| Issue date: | 02/11/1980 |
| From: | Gallo J, Gibbs M ISHAM, LINCOLN & BEALE, PUBLIC SERVICE CO. OF OKLAHOMA |
| To: | NRC COMMISSION (OCM) |
| Shared Package | |
| ML19296C015 | List: |
| References | |
| RTR-NUREG-0348, RTR-NUREG-0625, RTR-NUREG-625 ALAB-573, NUDOCS 8002250132 | |
| Download: ML19296C055 (11) | |
Text
2/11/80 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 11UCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Before the Commission In the Matter of the Application of
)
Public Service Company of Oklahoma,
)
Associated Electric Cooperative, Inc.) Docket Nos. STN 50-556 and
)
STN 50-557 Western Farmers Electric Cooperative )
)
(Black Fox Station, Units 1 and 2)
)
APPLICANTS' RESPONSE TO INQUIRY BY APPEAL BOARD CONCERNING THE NEED TO CONSIDER THE CONSEQUENCES OF CLA'S 9 ACCIDENTS IN THIS PROCEEDING Public Service Company of Oxlahoma ("PSO") Associated Electric Cooperative, Inc. and Western Farmers Electric Coope ra tive
(" Applicants") file this response to the direc-tive of the Atomic Safety and Licensing Appeal Board (the
" Appeal Board") in its decision dated December 7, 1979,1/
that the NRC Staf f inform the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (the "NRC" or the " Commission") of the reasons why the consequences of Class 9 accidents should or should not be considered in the instant proceeding.
As will be denon-strated infra and in the attached Affidavits of Messrs.
Conrad and Fuller, the NRC Staff is correct in concluding that there are no special circumstances which warrant an 1/
Public Service Company of Oklahoma (Black Fox Station, Units 1 and 2), ALAB-573, 10 NRC (December 7, 1979)
(Slip op. at 32).
8002250 inquiry into the consequences of Class 9 accidents in the Black Fox docket.2/
I.
Introduction The instant matter arises out of an appeal taken by Citizens' Action For Safe Energy, Laurence Burrell and Ilene Younghein ("Intervenors") from an adverse partial initial decision of the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board (the " Licensing Board") in this proceeding.3/
The partial initial decision concerned only the environmental and site suitability aspects of the application for the Black Fox Station,4/ and based upon favorable findings with respect to such matters, the Licensing Board authorized the issuance of a Limited Work Authorization.
Although radiological health and safety matters in the Black Fox proceeding are pending before the Licensing Board, the normal decision-making process in this docket has come to a halt as a result of the licensing pause imposed by the Commission due to the accident at Three Mile Island.
The Class 9 accident issue was brought before the Appeal Board by Intervenors, who filed a supplemental brief
-2/
Simultaneously with the submission of this Response, Applicants are filing with the Commission a " Motion To Dismiss Class 9 Accident Inquiry. "
3/
Public Service Company of Oklahoma (Black Fox Station, Units 1 and 2 ),
4/
The Black Fox Station will consist of two boiling water reactors to be located 23 miles cast of central Tulsa, Oklahoma.
complaining that the Licensing Board had failed to consider that category of accidents in its review of the Black Fox Station.5/
While concluding that a general consideration of Class 9 accidents was excluded by present Commission policy, the Appeal Board directed, based upon its reading of the Commission's decision in Offshore Power Systems (Float-ing Nuclear Power Plants), CLI-79-9, 10 NRC (September 14, 1979), that the NRC Staff advise the Commission promptly of the reasons why the Staff believes that the consequences of Class 9 accidents should or should not be considered in the Black Fox proceeding.
The other parties were afforded the opportunity to express their views on this question to the Commission as well.
The NRC Staff submitted its response to the Appeal Board directive on January 7, 1980.
In that statement, the Staff informed the Commission that there were no special circumstances which required that the consequences of Class 9 accidents be considered in the Black Fox proceeding.
On January 17, 1980, Intervonors filed their response with the Commission, in which they asked that the NRC Staff's conclu-sions be rejected and that an order be entered directing that the environmental consequences of Class 9 accidents be
~5/
The history of the consideration of Class 9 accidents in the Black Fox proceeding is discussed in detail in Appli-cants' " Motion to Dismiss Class 9 Accident Inquiry" at 7-10.
As Applicants demonstrate in that pleading, the Licensing Board did in fact admit contentions which encon-passed a consideration of Class 9-type accidents.
_4_
ccasidered in this docket.
In addition, Intervenors re-quested that the Commission direct all parties to submit, as a part of the safety hearings, mechanisms for Class 9 acci-dents.6/
The Attorney General of the State of Oklahoma filed a response to the NRC Staff's statement concerning Class 9 accidents on February 6, 1980.7/
While Applicants believe that the Appeal Board e rred in launching this inquiry into Class 9 accidents, and have moved the Commission to dismiss the inquiry, Applicants, in the alternative, submit this response to ALAB-573 urging that the position of the URC Staff be adopted, for there are no special circumstances justifying the consideration of Class 9 accidents in this proceeding.
II.
The Legal Principles Governing The Treatment Of Class 9 Accidents Require A Showing Of Special Circumstances To Warrant Consideration In The Black Fox Proceeding An examination of the legal principles governing the treatment of Class 9 accidents in NRC proceedings must
-6/
Class 9 accident scenarios have been submitted in this case.
See " Motion to Dismiss Class 9 Accident Inquiry,"
note 5 supra.
7/
Applicants are simultaneously filing a " Motion to Strike Response of the Attorney General to ALAB-573" based upon the Attorney General's lack of standing.
begin with the proposed Annex to 10 C.F.R. Part 50, Appendix D.
The Annex made its debut in December, 1971, in the Commission's propoecd rulemaking entitled " Consideration of Accidents in Implementation of the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969."
The proposal recognized that NEPA required a discussion of at least certain types of accidents as part of the environmental review conducted for reactor licensing. Consumers Power Company (Midland Plant, Units 1 and 2), ALAB-123, 6 AEC 331 (1973).
The proposed Annex delineated the manner in which various categories of accidents would be taken into account by dividing the theoretical spectrum of accidents into nine separate categories or classes, ranging from the most trivial to the potentially most serious.
Each class of accident is characterized by both an occurrence rate and a set of consequences.
The consequences of accidents in Classes 2 through 8 must be evaluated in environmental reports and statements.
As for the two categories of acci-dents which need not be analyzed, Classes 1 and 9, the con-sequences of a Class 1 accident are too trivial to require analysis and a Class 9 accident, while having a pctential for severe consequences, has a probability of occurrence so small that the environmental risk is extremely low.
While the Annex was never formally adopted by the Commission, the deference accorded it by the courts clearly demonstrates that the Annex provides a legally sound basis
. for determining the necessity of considering Class 9 acci-dents in licensing proceedings.
Porter County Chapter v. AEC, 533 U.2d 1011 (7th Cir.), cert. denied, 429 U.S.
945 (1976);
Carolina Environmental Study Group v. AEC, 510 F.2d 796 (D.C. Cir. 1975); Ecology Action v.
AEC, 492 F.2d 998 (2d Cir. 1974); Hodder v. NRC, Mos. 76-1709 and 78-1140 (D.C.
Cir. December 26, 1978), cert. denied, 48 U.S.L.W. 3218 (October 2, 1979).
The heart of the Annex's conclusion that the con-sequences of Class 9 accidents need not be considered is the finding that those accidents have a very low probability of occurrence.
For this reason, it has always been proper to take into account the consequences of a Class 9 accident in an individual proceeding if a showing can be made that, because of special circumstances, the probability of such an accident occurring at that station is greater than at nuclear power plants in general.
Duke Power Company (Catawba Nuclear Station, Units 1 and 2), ALAB-355, 4 NRC 397 (1976).
It is this "special circumstances" question which is at issue before the Commission today.
As the Commission recognized when it established the requirement in Offshore Power Systems that the NRC Staff identify any cases in which Class 9 accidents should be considered, it is only by a showing of special circumstances that the consequences of Class 9 accidents can be considered in the Black Fox proceed-ing.
Of course the Commission can change its policy.
How-e ve r, any re-examination of its policy on the treatment of Class 9 accidents for land-based reactors should be conducted, as announced in the Of fshore Power Systems case, through rulemaking rather than in the Black Fox proceeding.
III. There Are No Special Circumstances Which Justify The Consideration of Class 9 Accidents In The Black Fox Proceeding In order to show that the special circumstances required by NRC case law to justify a consideration of the consequences of Class 9 accidents do not exist for Black Fox, Applicants have determined that the following four areas are pertinent for consideration:
- 1) the basic design of the Black Fox Station; 2) the population distribution and density in the area surrounding the site; 3) the use char-acteristics of the site environs; and 4) the physical char-acteristics of the site.
The affidavit of Vaughn L.
- Conrad, Manager, Licensing & Compliance for Black Fox Station, at-tached hereto, describes Applicants' analysis of those areas and demonstrates that there are no unique features or special circumstances warranting the consideration of Class 9 acci-dents in this proceeding.
In the area of design, the Black Fox Station is certainly not unique.
The project consists of two General Electric boiling water reactors (BWR/6 's ) which are identi-cal in design to reactors reviewed and approved by the NRC Staff in the preliminary design approval for the General Electric Standard Nuclear Steam Supply System (GESSAR)
Docke t No. STN 50-550.
(Conrad Af fidavit at Paragraph 4. )
In terms of reactor siting, the Black Fox Station, of course, currently meets all the requirements of 10 C.F.R. Part 100.
(Conrad Af fidavit at Paragraphs 7-9. )
The growth of the surrounding area throughout the lifetime of the plant is not expected '.o affect adversely compliance with those requirements.
(Conrad Af fidavit at Paragraph 9. )
In addi-tion, the Black Fox site meets the recommendations of the NRC's Siting Policy Task Force (NUREG-0 6 2 5 ) concerning population and density and, in general, compares favorably when ranked against the other active nuclear sites in the United States.
(Conrad Af fidavit at Paragraphs 11-12. )
These facts expressly controvert Intervenors' assertion that the present Black Fox site is "one of the worst in terms of population density. "
An analysis of the third consideration, the use characteristics of the site (surrounding industrial, trans-portation and military facilities and potential accidents),
reveals that, in view of the Black Fox design, there are no characteristics which would render the site unacceptable.
(Conrad Affidavit at Paragraph 14.)
The physical characteristics of the site (meteorol-ogy, hydrology, foundation engineering and geology / seismology) were analyzed in detail and the conclusion reached that there are no features which render the site unusual.
(Conrad Af fi-davit at Paragraphs 15-18. )
The design of the station ade-quately takes into consideration possible tornadoes and earth-quakes.
(Conrad Affidavit at Paragraphs 15, 18.)
Further-more, the groundwater characteristics of the site indicate that, even in the event of a spill from a liquid radwaste tank, the resulting concentrations of spilled radionuclides would be a small fraction of those allowed by 10 C.F.R. Part 20.
(Conrad Affidavit at Paragraph 16.)
This analysis of the design and site characteristics of the Black Fox Station demonstrates that there are no special circumstances requiring the consideration of Class 9 accidents in this proceeding.
In their attempt to justify a consideration of Class 9 accidents, Intervonors make much of the accident at Three Mile Island.
In their view, the occurrence of this accident warrants an inquiry into the general category of Class 9 accidents in this proceeding.
The affidavit of Applicants' consultant, Edward D.
Fuller, Vice President of S.
Levy, Inc., which is attached, demonstrates the fallacy of this notion.
Mr. Fuller acknowledges that prior to its occur-rence the accident scenario at Three Mile Island was consid-ered to be a Class 9 accident.
(Fuller Af fidavit at para-graph 7.)
Nevertheless, he correctly points out that the occurrence of the accident leads properly to an evaluation which would include consideration of the accident's char-acteristics within the design bases for ligt t water reactors (Fuller Af fidavit at paragraph 12), and not as suggested by Intervonors in the direction of a general consideration of that residuum of indefinable and improbable scenarios called Class 9 accidents (Fuller Af fidavit at paragraphs 6-7).
The former course of action is consonant with long-standing NRC regulatory practice, and as explained by Mr. Fuller, the practice has been used whenever new information generated a concern as to whether events previously thought to be out-side the reactor design bases should remain in that category.
(Fuller Affidavit at paragraphs 8-9, and see especially his discussion in paragraphs 10-11 concerning pressure vessel failure)
The Commission and the NRC Staff are, of course, pursuing the avenue of reviewing light water reactor design bases in the aftermath of the Three Mile Island accident.
I nde e d, the purpose of the licensing pause is to permit the Commission time to reevaluate the present licensing bases for light water reactors in light of the le ssons learned from Three Mile Island, and to nake nodifications to those bases as necessary.
(Fuller Af fidavit at paragraphs 13-15.)
Thus, the TMI-2 accident and its relationship to the NRC licensing process is placed into perspective by Mr.
Fuller.
The accident must be accounted for in the direction of reactor design.
This is being done by the NRC Staff.
Therefore, the accident has little relevance to the consid-eration to be given to that indefinable number of improbable Class 9 accidents which represent an acceptable residuum of risk to be weighed in a NEPA cost / benefit balance.
The question of reopening a general inquiry into Class 9 acci-dents is without merit.
Respectfully submitted, h e At b jydephGhllo n
1 (4 ' -
IN\\
Martha E.
Gibbs j
Two of the Attorneys for the Applicants Isham, Lincoln & Beale 1050 17th Street, N.W.
Suite 701 Washington, D.C.
20036 202/833-9730 Isham, Lincoln & Beale One First National Plaza Suite 4200 Chicago, Illinois 60603 312/558-7500 February ll, 1980