ML19340D157
| ML19340D157 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | McGuire, Mcguire  |
| Issue date: | 12/15/1980 |
| From: | Curtiss J NRC OFFICE OF THE EXECUTIVE LEGAL DIRECTOR (OELD) |
| To: | Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel |
| References | |
| NUDOCS 8012290209 | |
| Download: ML19340D157 (11) | |
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x UNITED STATES OF AMERICA NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION BEFORE THE ATOMIC SAFETY AND LICENSING BOARD In the Matter of
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DUKE POWER COMPANY
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Docket Nos. 50-369
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50-370 (William 8. McGuire Nuclear
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Station, Units 1 and 2)
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NRC STAFF RESPONSE TO CESG'S " ADDITIONAL CONTENTIONS" I.
INTRODUCTION On November 25, 1980, the Licensing Board in this proceeding issued two memoranda and orders regarding (1) CESG's motion to reopen the record to consider contentions related to the matter of hydrogen-generation-control.1 i
and (2) Applicant's motion for summary disposition _with respect to issuance of a license authoriHna fuel load initial criticality, zero-power physics testing and low-power t sting.2/
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Duke Power Company (William B. McGuire Nuclear Station, Units 1 and 2),
Memorandum and Order Regarding CESG's Motion to Reopen Record, Slip Op.
l (November 25,1980).
2/
Duke Power Company (William 8. McGuire Nuclear Station, Units 1 and 2),
i Memorandum and Order Regarding Applicant's Motion for Summary Disposition, Slip Op. (November 25,1980).
8012290geic,
With respect to CESG's motion to reopen the record, the Bnard, upon finding that the four contentions proffered by CESG for consideration "may well shed significant light upon key safety findings which are required to be made before the operation of McGuire Units 1 and 2 could be authorized,"
ordered that the proceeding be reopened for the purpose of considering those contentions.
With respect to the Applicant's motion for summary disposition, the Board granted the motion in part, finding that insofar as the activities regarding fuel loading, initial criticality, and zero power physics testing are con-cerned, neither the Staff nor CESG has raised a genuine issue of material fact. Accordingly, the Board ruled, the Applicant is entitled to summary disposition as a matter of law on these three issues. On the fourth issue, low-power testing, however, the Board found that CESG has raised a genuine issue of material fact with respect to whether excessive amounts of hydrogen will be generated during low-power operations and, accordingly directed the parties to submit, by December 15, 1980, a proposed schedule leading to the 1
i commencement of an evidentiary hearing on this issue. The Board further i
directed the Applicant and Staff to respond, by December 15, 1980, to two 1
additional contentions raised by CESG in its November 7,1980 reply to Applicant's motion for summary disposition.
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See "CESG's Revised Motion to Reopen the Operating License Proceeding; Motion to Deny Applicant's Request for Fuel Loading, etc.; and Revised Contentions" (August 15,1980).
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Memorandum and Order, supra note 1, at 4.
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. e II.
CESG'S " ADDITIONAL CONTENTIONS" The Board's Order of November 25, 1980 admitted the following 4 CESG con-tentions:
Contention 1 - The licensee has not demonstrated that, in the event of a loss-of-coolant accident at McGuire:
1.
substantial quantities of hydrogen (in excess of the design basis of 10 CFR section 50.44) will not be generated; and 2.
that, in the event of such generation, the hydrogen will not combust; and 3.
that, in the event of such generation and combustion, the containment has the ability to withstand pressure below or above the containment design pressure, thereby preventing l
releases of off-site radiation in excess of Part 100 guide-line-values.
Contention 2 - Neither licensee nor NRC staff has demonstrated that a McGuire ice containment will not breach as the result of the rapid combustion of quantities of hydrogen which a dry con-tainment would withstand.
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Contention 3 - Neither licensee nor NRC staff has demonstrated that the emergency planning radius of 10 miles is sufficient for protecting the public from the radioactive releases of a low pres-sure, ice condenser containment ruptured by a hydrogen explosion.
Contention 4 - Licensee and NRC planning do not provide for crisis relocation which would be required as a result of containment breach and radioactive particle release.
As noted above, the Board further directed responses from the Applicant and Staff on the following 2 contentions:
5.
Under current practice the NRC is required to issue an environmental impact statement as to the consequences of Class 9 accidents.
Such an environmental impact statement i
is required for McGuire.
6.
The emergency plan for McGuire must, due to the special circumstance of close proximity to a large population center, be revised to provide an emergency response for the city of Charlotte in the event of a Class 9 accident.
With respect to Contention 5, CESG is simply in error as a matter of law.
On June 13, 1980, the Commission published in the Federal Register a State-ment of Interim Policy entitled " Nuclear Power Plant Accident Considerations
Under the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969,"E/ wherein the Commission announced the following policy:
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is revising its policy for considering the more severe kinds of very low probability accidents that are physically possible in the environmental impact assessments required by the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).
Such accidents are commonly referred to as Class 9 accidents, following an accident classification scheme proposed by the Atomic Energy Commis-sion (predecessor to NRC) in 1971 for purposes of implement-ing NEPA....
It is the Commission's position that its Environmental Impact Statements shall include considerations of the site-specific environmental impacts attributable to accident sequences that lead to releases of radiation and/or radioactive materials, including sequences that can result in inadequate cooling of reactor fuel and to melting of the reactor core.6/
The Commission went on to note, however, that:
It is the intent of the Commission in issuing this Statement of Interim Policy that the staff will initiate treatments of accident considerations, in accordance with the for2 going guidance, in its ongoing NEPA reviews, i.e., for any proceed-ing at a licensing stage where a Final Environmental Impact Statement has not yet been issued.7/
The Final Environmental Impact Statement for the McGuire facility was issued by the Staff in April of 1976, long before the June 13, 1980 trigger date referred to in the foregoing Statement of Interim Policy for including l
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45 Fed. Reg. 40101 (June 13, 1980).
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Supra note 5, at 40101.
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Id. at 40103 (emphasis added).
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" Final Environmental Statement Related to Operation of William B. McGuire Nuclear Station, Units 1 and 2," NUREG-0063 (April 1976).
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Class 9 analyses in environmental impact statements. Thus, consistent with this Statement of Interim Policy, the McGuire Final Environmental Statement need not include a discussion of the consequences of Class 9 accidents.
Accordingly, the Staff opposes admission of Contention 5 to this reopened proceeding.
With respect to Contention 6, three points of clarification are.in order.
As presently framed, Contention 6 suggests that the emergency plan for the McGuire facility must be revised to account for the potential consequences of "a class 9 accident." Although the Commission, in formulating the emergency planning rule, fully recognized the need to consider a wide spectrum of accidents in emergency plans, the rule itself is not specifically coupled to the accident classification scheme referred to by CESG in Contention 6.
Indeed, the Task Force charged with the responsibility for developing a planning basis for emergency plans " recognized from the start that there is no specific design basis accident or Class 9 accident scenario which can be isolated as the one for which to plan because each such accident would have different consequences, both in nature and degree."El In endorsing the Task Force report, the Commission specifically noted "that it is appropriate and prudent for emergency planning guidance to take into consideration the 9/
" Planning Basis For the Development of State and local Government Radiological Emergency Response Plans in Support of Liaht Water Nuclear Power Plants," NUREG-0396, EPA 520/1-78-016 (December 1978),
- p. III-2.
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principal characteristics...of a spectrum of design basis and core melt accidents."N The final emergency planning rule promulgated by the Commissionb ncorpo-i rates the foregoing " planning basis" by establishing 2 emergency planning zones (EPZs) around nuclear plants, one of about 10 miles for airborne exposure and one of about 50 miles for contaminated food and water. Within each of these EPZs, the exact size and shape of which may vary, the Commis-sion now requires predetemined protective action plans. These protective action plans are not, however, directly linked to the accident classification scheme referred to by CESG.
Rather, as noted above, emergency plans now consider a wide spectrum of accidents. Thus, to the extent that Contention 6 is read to suggest that emergency plans must account for specific Class 9 accidents, the Staff notes its disagreement.
In addition, the Staff reiterates its earlier views that this Contention, as well as Contentions 3 and 4, are merely succeeding steps in the hydrogen generation scenario postulated by CESG in Contention (s) 1 (and 2) and are therefore dependent on a threshold finding on Contention (s) 1 (and 2).
Thus, although the Staff agrees that the McGuire emergency plan should account for the consequences of such an event (hydrogen generation followed i
1_0f 44 Fed. Reg. 61123 (October 23, 1989).
1_1f 10 CFR 50.47.
by combustion and containment failure) if indeed such an event proves possi-ble, this latter question is the issue directly raised in Contention (s) 1 (and 2).
Accordingly, the Staff submits, the Board must first make a finding with respect to the threshold issue raised in Contention (s) 1 (and 2) before addressing the subject matter of Contention 6.
Finally, the Staff understands the event referred to by CESG in Contention 6 to be the hydrogen generation scenario posited in Contention (s) 1 (and 2).
Accordingly, should the Board find there to be some possibility of the scenario posited in Contention (s) 1 (and 2) actually occurring, Staff submits that the issue raised by CESG in Contention 6 is a narrowly-focused one, i.e., whether the McGuire emergency plan adequately accounts for the conse-quences of the posited hydrogen generation scenario, and thus is subsumed under Contentions 3 and 4.
If, on the other hand, CESG now seeks to raise the broader generic issue of the adequacy of the McGuire emergency response plan, the Staff submits that CESG has not met the standard for reopening set forth in Kansas Gas & Electric Company (Wolf Creek Generating Station, Unit No.1) ALAB-462, 7 NRC 320, 338:
As is well settled, the proponent of a motion to reopen the record has a heavy burden. Duke Power Co. (Catawba Nuclear Station, Units 1 and 2), ALAB-359, 4 NRC 619, 620 (1976).
The motion must be both timely presented and addressed to a significant safety or envirorrnental issue.
Vemont Yankee Nuclear Power Corp. (Vemont l
Yankee Nuclear Power Station), ALAB-138, 6 AEC 520, 523 (1973);
l id., ALAB-167, 6 AEC 1151-52 (1973); Georgia Power Co. (Alvin W.
Togtle Nuclear Plant, Units 1 and 2), ALA8-291, 2 NRC 404, 409
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Beyond that, it must be established that "a different result would have been reached initially had [the material sub-mitted in support of the motion] been considered." Northern Indiana Public Service Co. (Bailly Generating Station, Nuclear-1),
ALAB-227, 8 AEC 416, 418 (1974).
Staff therefore objects to the admission of Contention 6, so interpreted, to this reopened proceeding.
III. CONCLUSION For the reasons stated herein, Staff objects to the admission of Contention 5 to this reopened proceeding.
Furthemore, Staff submits that Contention 6 either (1) merely restates the issue already raised by CESG in Contentions 3 ond 4, and therefore need not be separately admitted, or (2) if intended as a separate contention, fails to satisfy the Commission's standard for reopening proceeding and, accordingly, should not be admitted.
o Respectfully submitted, M*)
ames R. Curtiss Counsel for NRC Staff
D UNITED STATES OF AMERICA NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION BEFORE THE ATOMIC SAFETY AND LICENSING BOARD In the Matter of
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DUKE POWER COMPANY Docket Nos. 50-369 l
50-370 (William B. McGuire Nuclear Station, Units 1 and 2)
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CERTIFICATI 0F SERVICE I hereby certify that copies of "NRC STAFF RESPONSE TO CESG'S " ADDITIONAL CONTENTIONS" dated December 15, 1980, in the above captioned proceeding, have been served on the following, by deposit in the United States mail, first class, or, as indicated by an asterisk through deposit in the Nuclear.
Regulatory Commission's internal mail system, this 15th day of December,1980:
- Robert M. Lazo, Esq., Chairman Mr. Jesse L. Riley, President Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Carolina Environmental Study Group U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission 854 Henley Place Washington, D.C.
20555 Charlotte, North Carolina 28207
- Dr. Enmeth A. Luebke J. Michael McGarry, III, Esq.
Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Debevoise & Liberman U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission 1200 Seventeenth Street, N.W.
Washington, D.C.
20555 Washington, D.C.
20036 Dr. Cadet H. Hand, Jr., Director W. L. Porter, Esq.
Bodega Marine Lab of California Associate General Counsel P. O. Box 247 P.O. Box 2178 Bodega Bay, California 94923 422 South Church Street Charlotte, North Carolina 28242
- Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Washington, D.C.
20555
- Atomic Safety and Licensing Appeal Panel U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Washington, D.C.
20555
- Secretary U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission ATTN: Chief Docketing & Service Br.
Washington, D.C. 20555
/441 { -
James R. Curtiss lt Counsel for NRC Staff l'
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