SNRC-1651, Requests NRC Approval to Cease Offsite Emergency Planning & Preparedness Activities & Implement Defueled Emergency Preparedness Plan for Facility,Per 10CFR50.54(q).License Amend Request & Other Supporting Info Encl.Fee Paid
| ML19332G152 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Shoreham File:Long Island Lighting Company icon.png |
| Issue date: | 12/15/1989 |
| From: | Steiger W LONG ISLAND LIGHTING CO. |
| To: | NRC OFFICE OF INFORMATION RESOURCES MANAGEMENT (IRM) |
| Shared Package | |
| ML19332G153 | List: |
| References | |
| SNRC-1651, NUDOCS 8912200230 | |
| Download: ML19332G152 (7) | |
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9-LONG ISLAND LIGHTING COMPANY v
SHOREHAM NUCLEAR POWER STATION Ma m,mme P.o. sox eie. NORTH COUNTRY ROAD
- WADING RIVER. N.Y.11792 WILLIAM E. STEIOER. JR.
' ASSbtCNT V CE PRESIDENT-NUCLE AR OPERATIONS
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DEC i 51989 3-U.S.. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Attnt' -Document Control Desk Washington, D.C.
20555 Request to-Cease Offsite Emergency Preparedness Activities and to Implement the Defueled Emergency Preparedness Plan for the Shoreham Nuclear Power Station Docket No. 50-322 Gentlemen:
.Long. Island ~ Lighting Company-(LILCO or the Company) hereby re-quests NRC approval to (1) cease all offsite emergency planning and, preparedness activities and (2) implement.the attached Defueled Emergency Preparedness Plan (DEPP), in place of LILCO's current onsite plan, for the Shoreham-Nuclear Power Station
- (Shoreham).- The regulatory and' technical bases for LILCO's re-quest L are provided.in. the. attached documents, described below.
1 I.-Introduction UnderLthe-Settlement Agreement between itself and New York State, LILCO is. contractually bound never to operate Shoreham.
Under the Settlement Agreement,.LILCO will cooperate with the Long Island Power Authority (LIPA) in seeking NRC approval to transfer Shoreham'to LIPA.
In anticipation of this eventual' transfer,
. LILCO-has removed - the' fuel from. the plant's reactor and placed it
.in-the-spent. fuel pool.
Pending the plant's. transfer, LILCO is obligated to meet all of the requirements imposed on it by NRC regulations,. including the emergency preparedness requirements of 10 C.F.R.
S 50.54(q).
LILCO'is also required to meet the terms of its operating license, including certain-conditions requiring the Company to maintain and drill on'a quarterly basis the Local Fmergency Response Organiza-tion,(LERO),
Given, however, the legal prohibition on LILCO's
.ever operating Shoreham, the plant's defueled condition, and the limited period.of Shoreham's low power operation, there is no j
. health'and safety need to maintain the level of emergency pre-paredness that currently exists at Shoreham.
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- SNRC-1651
)Page.2-i At the: meeting between LILCO-management personnel and the NRC Staff on September 28, 1989,.LILCO indicated, that. it would likely
- seek; relief from certain of the NRC's emergency preparedness re-j J
'quirements.
At that-time, Dr. Thomas Murley, the. Director of Nu-1 clear Reactor Regulation, expressed his views concerning such a request as follows:.
You talked about possible request for a relief of off-site emergency preparedness.
And while we might agree.with you that the safety risks are11ow-when the fuel is in the spent-fuel pool, in fact, Ewe don' t have a regulatory sys-tem for backing up.
The risks may be low, but they are not zero.
And so we are going to rely on you to develop whatever story l
it is that you come in to us with.
-Transcript ofiUpper Management Conference between Nuclear Regula-tory Commission Staff and Long Island Lighting Company at 81
.(September 28,:1989).
This submittal is' LILLO's explanation why the Company should be relieved from the emergency preparedness requirements of S-50.54(g).
LILCO believes that, under existing NRC practice, there'is, in fact, a sound regulatory basis for granting the re-lief:the Company is' requesting.
,l LILCO asks for the NRC's prompt approval of the present requests.
No health or safety reason exists for delay:
r LILCO will not operate Shoreham; j
i Shoreham's fuel has been irradiated only slightly cnd now has been removed from the reactor and placed l
in-the spent fuel pool; 1]
'So long as LILCO owns Shoreham, there will be no m
credible accidents that can occur at the plant l
requiring any offsite emergency preparedness; The few accidents that can occur at Shoreham in its present defueled state justify only minimal onsite
{
If-approval is delayed, LILCO and its ratepayers will spend mil-
' lions of dollars on unnecessary preparedness.
The federal gov-ernment will also expend sums unnecessarily if prompt relief is not granted -- such as by planning for a 1990 FEMA-graded exercise for a nuclear plant that will not be operated.
Thus, LILCO respectfully requests that. the NRC review the enclosed
- materials.promptly and that approvals be issued with a minimum of
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'SNRC-1651 iPage 3-delay.
LILCO also requests that pending final action by the NRC on this request, the NRC and LILCO agree on interim relief to avoid needless expenditures.
Such interim relief would include
. postponement of planning for any FEMA-graded exercise, postpone-ment of of fsite training activities, and the postponement of any new or. renewed contracting for LILCO's offsite emergency response
- plan.
LILCC personnel stand ready to assist in any appropriate way in the NRC's review of these materials.1/
Four documents, each designated as a separate Attachment to this
-letter, are contained in the binder that accompanies this letter.
How these four interrelated pieces fit together is described below.
II. Attachment 1 - Exemption Request i
.The regulatory linchpin of LILCO's submittal is a request, filed pursuant to.10 C.F.R.
S 50.12, for an exemption from the emergency preparedness. requirements of 10 C.F.R.
S 50.54(q). The exemption from S 50.54(g) is required for two reasons.
t First,-with respect =to offsite emergency preparedness, LILCO can-l not take the actions it wants to take, such as no longer main-taining the-Shoreham Nuclear Power Station Local Offsite Ra-
'diological Emergency Response Plan and disbanding LERO, unless the NRC exempts the Company from the regulatory requirement that LILCO 1
follow and maintain in effect emergency plans which meet the standards in S 50.47(b) and Ap-pendix E 10 C.F.R..S 50.54(q).
Obviously, with no offsite plan.or. response organization in place, LILCO would not meet the 16 emergency pre-paredness-standards specified in 10 C.F.R. S 50.47(b).
- Second, with' respect to onsite emergency preparedness, an exemption is necessary because, given the changes associated with imple-mentation of the DEPP, LILCO would no longer comply with the stan-
'dards of S 50.47(b)(3), (5), and (7).
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In addition to the present requests related solely to onsite and offsite emergency preparedness matters, LILCO also is contem-plating filing with the NRC a license amendment to revise NPF-82 and Shoreham's technical specifications to reflect the plant's non-operating and defueled status.
Such an amendment request, if filed, will include a defueled safety analysis rcport, proposed changes to NPF-82 and the technical specifications, and appropri-ate analyses under 10 C.F.R. SS 50.90-50.92.
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.SNRC-1651 6
Page 4
-Tho' exemption request assesses LILCO's submittal against the regu-latory criteria of S 50.12.
The exemption request summarizes both the technical: underpinnings ~ of LILCO's submittal and the changes 11nvolved in implementing the proposed DEPP.
While LILCO requests simultaneous approval of all aspects of its request for relief, because the entirety of LILCO's submittal cannot be approved with-out LILCO's first receiving a regulatory exemption, LILCO urges the NRC' Staff to consider the exem its review of LILCO's submittal.2/ption request at the outset of III. Attachment 2 - License Amendment Request In order for LILCO to obtain the relief it is seeking, it is also necessary that the requirements imposed by certain conditions in Shoreham's operating license, NPF-82, be removed.
For instance, j
license condition C.(13) specifies that the licensee shall conduct training drills such that its offsite emergency plan is drilled quarterly with full or partial participstion by the Local Emergency Response Organization (LERO).
- NPP-82, 1 C.(13).
Clearly, even with an exemption from the re-
- quirements of S 50.54(q), LILCO cannot disband LERO and cease offsite emergency preparedness if this and other related license conditions remain in force.
Therefore, pursuant to 10 C.F.R.
S 50.90, LILCO is seeking an amendment to NPP-82 to suspend the effect of license conditions C.(9) through (13), related to emer-gency preparedness.
Specifically, LILCO seeks to add ' a provision specifying that con-ditions C.(9) through (13) do not apply when (1) the reactor is void of all fuel assemblies and (2) Shoreham's spent fuel, in its
.present burnup condition, is stored in the fuel pool or other ap-proved storage configuration.
This approach ensures that, under the requested exemption from S 50.54(q), neither LILCO nor any other entity holding Shoreham's operating license may begin power operations without first reestablishing adequate emergency pre-paredness.
In other words, adding the requested license condition (as opposed to simply removing conditions C.(9) through (13) from the. license)' eliminates any possibility of a regulatory " loop-hole."
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After the NRC approves the exemption and license amendment requests, Shoreham will remain in a shutdown and defueled condi-tion.
Thus, the NRC's approvals of the actions sought by LILCO will result in no environmental impacts, and the NRC is presented with no action requiring preparation of an environmental impact statement.
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'SNRC-1651 Page 5 is the license amendment request.
While the amend-ment request.is an integral piece of LILCO's total submittal, it
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is intended that the amendment request independently satisfy the
- regulatory criteria of SS 50.90 through 50.92.
Accordingly, the amendment request follows the form prescribed by NRC Genericf Let-
.ter 86-03 (Feb. 10, 1936) and includes LILCO's analysis of the issue of "no significant hazards consideration" as required by S 50.91(a)(1).
J IV. Attachment 3 - Radiological Safety Analysis for Spent Fuel Storage and Handling l
The technical underpinnings to LILCO's submittal are provided in the Radiological Safety Analysis for Spent Fuel Storage and Han-dling
(" Safety Analysis"), which has been performed by LILCO's Nu-l clear Engineering Department.
The Safety Analysis, which is also j
incorporated by reference as part of LILCO's "no significant haz-ards consideration" assessment, establishes that, given Shoreham's I
defueled condition and the negligible decay heat being generated by the.~ plant's fuel, it is not credible for an accident to occur i
inat would. require an offsite emergency response.
.V. - Defueled Emergency Preparedness Plan t
Finally, LILCO's submittal includes the proposed DEPP, which con-i stitutes a substantive revision of the current Shoreham Nuclear Power Station Emergency Preparedness Plan.
Since one of the underlying presumptions of the DEPP is that LERO no longer exists,
-the NRC cannot approve implementation of the DEPP unless at the same time it has granted LILCO's regulatory exemption request and has approved LILCO's proposed licenae amendment.
1 Should you have any questions concerning any aspect of LILCO's submittal, please do not hesitate to contact my office.
Very truly your,a, r}yf
.I W.
E.
Steig#r, Assistant Vice President Nuclear Operations Enclosures cc:
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Brown W.
Russell F.
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J UNITED STATES OF AMERICA NUCLEAR' REGULATORY COMMISSION 1
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- Long
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Docket No.-50-322
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'SHOREHAM' NUCLEAR = POWER STATION - UNIT 1
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1 I hereby certify that a copy of 1)'LILCO's Application For.An.
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' Amendment to Facility Operating LicenseLNPF-82 dated December 15, 1989, 2) LILCO's' Request For An Exemption From The-Emergency-Preparedness Requirements of 10CFR50.54 (q), 3). LILCO letter ;
i SNRC-16511 dated; December 15, 1989, 4) LILCO document NED 4170024-entitled,." Radiological Safety Analysis For Spent Fuel Storage and Handling" and 5) LILCO document entitled, "Defueled Emergency Preparedness Plan"'was. served on the-following by hand 1 deliver 3' first class,-this
/s or by'dep[osit in.the-United States mail,
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daylof JEC.
, 1989:
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Mr. Jay Dunkleberger New: York State Energy Office 2: Rockefeller Plaza F
s Albany, New York 12223
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F..Britt,. Manager 4'
Nuclear Licensing and-
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Regulatory. Affairs q
N Subscribed and sworn to before me this day of
- cede, 1989.
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4W N6tary~PublTc of New Y6rk My Commission Expires j@d[fy; JAMES A. lJULE NOTARY PUBUC. State of New York No. 488626L Suficlk Count Term Expires May 18,19 W
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Shoreham Nuclear Power Station Proposed Defueled Emergency Preparedness Plan l:
and i
Radiological Safety Analysis For Spent Fuel Storage And Handling i
Submitted By:
The Long Island Lighting Company
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