ML19353A080
| ML19353A080 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 12/31/1980 |
| From: | Felton J NRC OFFICE OF ADMINISTRATION (ADM) |
| To: | Earley A HUNTON & WILLIAMS |
| References | |
| FOIA-80-587 NUDOCS 8101070086 | |
| Download: ML19353A080 (3) | |
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December 31, 1980 Anthony F. Earley, Jr., Esquire Hunton & Williams 707 East Main Street P. O. Box 1535 IN RESPONSE REFER Richmond, VA 23212 TO F01A-80-587
Dear Mr. Earley:
This is in reply ot your letters dated November 25 and December 15, 1980 in which you requested, pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act, (F0IA) documents pertaining to SECY-80-409, " Proposed Rulemaking to Amend 10 CFR Part 50 Concerning Anticipated Transients Without Scram (ATWS) Events," dated September 4, 1980.
Your November 25th letter quoted 51 specific statements of' conclusions contained in SECY-80-409, and you requested, essentially, all documents relied upon in making each of those statements or conclusions.
You also stated that you already had certain specified documents relating to ATWS in your possession, including Volumes 1 to 4 of NUREG-0460, and for these "the NRC need only reference pertinent pages".
Af ter receipt of your letter, a meeting was held with the staff of several NRC offices in an attempt to comply with your request within the spirit of the FOIA.
We determined at that time that due to the nature of the ATWS study, the broad scope of your request, and the manner in which SECY-80-409 was prepared, the best approach would be to make all documents relating to ATWS available for your inspection and copying so that you could determine which specific documents were of interest to you.
In a telephone conversation with Mr. John C. Carr, Chief, Freedom of Information and Privacy Branch, this plan was discussed with you.
Subsequently, further discussions were held between you and Mr. James R.
Curtiss of the NRC's Office of the Executive Legal Director, and Mr.
Curtiss suggested, as an alternative to you reviewing all documents, that you specify the documents in which you are interested.
In your letter dated December 15, 1980, you characterized our offer to make available all documents as "not adequately responsive".
In that letter, you broke your request down into three categories.
Category 1, you said, were statements for which there were "a reasonable number of 5
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easily retrievable documents". Category 2 were statements for which you wanted "'all s'ignificant_ documents and records'". Category 3 were statements for which you agreed to search the files for pertinent records yourself.
Af ter careful censideration of your request, including the category breakdown in yo;r December 15th letter, we still believe that the only reasonable course of action is that which we originally proposed, and that it is virtually impossible to attribute statements and conclusions in SECY-80-409 to specific documents. Additionally, our legal staff advises that this is not required under the F0IA.
The ATWS issue, as you are aware, has been the subject of long and intensive study, both by the NRC staff and by industry.
By way of background, in early 1969, a consultant to the ACRS pointed out that the reliability of the reactor protection system may be diminished as a result of a common mode failure.
It was at this time that the regulatory staff first turned its attention to the question of whether and to what extent ATWS events should be considered in the design and evaluation of nuclear power plants.
Substantial resources have been devoted to resolving this issue, resulting in voluminous technical data which have grown by accretion over the years as the industry and the NRC staff exchanged views, technical analyses, and other information related to ATWS events.
In September of 1980, the NRC staff submitted to the Comission SECY to Amend 10 CFR Part 50 Concerning Anticipated 409, " Proposed Rulemaking(ATWS) Events." This proposed rulemaking Transients Without Scram represents the culmination of approximately 10 years of staff effort and is based upon numerous technical documents and numerous discussions with industry sources and others over the years.
Almost all of the significant documentation that relates to SECY-80-409 is contained in the four volumes of NUREG-0460 or the references therein, all of which, except proprietary material, you have and is available in the NRC Public Document Room. Thus, the "significant" information you requested is contained in the NUREG.
While there are many other documents that relate to SECY-80-409 and the references you have specified, the information in these documents has generally been incorporated in the NUREG-0460 reports.
In additien to being repetitious, the documentation relating to AWTS is very voluminous.
The material collected to date totals approximately 10 feet of shelf space. Because SECY-80-409 represents the collegial views, conclusions, and the very thought processes of the staff generated over a ten-year period, we cannot say that any statement in SECY-80-409 is based upon a specific document or series of documents, and we most certainly cannot i
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I refer to specific pages of documents. Therefore, in a sincere desire to be as responsive as possible to your request, the staff is willing to provide all of the ATWS documentation in its possession, and a listing of any documents which may be withheld, such as those containing proprietary material, to allow you to inspect and to review the documents for relevance for your purpose.
We are now in the process of copying the documents and expect to have that task completed by January 19, 1981. At that time, we will be pleased to make arrangements for you to review them.
If you consider this to be a dental of your request, you may appeal this determination to the Commission's Executive Director for Operations within 30 days of th'e receipt of this letter. As provided for in 10 CFR 9.11, any such appeal must be in writing, addressed to the Executive Director for Operations, U. S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, D.C.
20555 and should clearly state on the envelope and in the letter that it is an " Appeal from an Ini!;ial F0IA Decision."
Sin rel J. M. Felton, Director Division of Rules and Records Office of Administration l
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