ML20032A003
| ML20032A003 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Point Beach  |
| Issue date: | 10/26/1981 |
| From: | Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel |
| To: | |
| References | |
| ISSUANCES-OLA, NUDOCS 8110280138 | |
| Download: ML20032A003 (22) | |
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8110280138 G11026 POR ADOCK 05000266 T
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1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 2
NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 3----
x 4 In the Matter of s a
5 WISCONSIN ELECTRIC POWER COMPANY Docket No. 50-266-OLA 50-301-OLA 8 POINT BEACH NUCLEAR PLANT 7 Units 1 and 2 s
8--
9 In the Offices of Alderson Reporting Co.
10 400 Virginia Avenue, S.W.
Washington, D.C.
11 Monday, October 26, 1981 12 A telephone conference in the above-entitled 13 matter was convened, pursuant to notice, at 4:05 p.m.
14 BEFORE:
If PETER B.
BLOCH, Board Chairman Atomic Safety and Licensing Board 16 HUGH C. PAXTON, Ph.D., Member 17 Atomic Safety and Licensing Board 18 APPEARANCES:
19 On behalf of Wisconsin Power Company 20 BRUCE CHURCHILL, Esq.
Shaw, Pittman, Potts E Trowbridge 21 18 00 M S tree t, N.W.
Washington, D.C.
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ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY,INC, 400 VIRGINIA AVE, S.W., WASHINGTON, D.C. 20024 (202) 554-2345
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PETER ANDERSON, Esq.
114 Lewis Ca rroll Street 3
Madison, Wisconsin 53703 4
On behalf of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission 5
STUART TREBY, Esq.
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CHAIRMAN BLOCHs Good afternoon.
This is Peter 3 Bloch, Chairman of the Licensing Board for Point 9each 4 Nuclear Plant, Units 1 and 2, Docket Number 50-266-OLA and 550-301-OLA.
6 This is an on-the-record special prehearing 7 conference in this case.
The transcript may be ordered at 8 the close of the formal conference f rom the reporter, whom I 9 will ask to remain on the line.
10 The roll has been called before the conference 11 began.
I would ask that the reporter note the attendees in 12 the record.
13 There are two principal issues to be discussed 14 today.
One is a brief discussion of Applicant's change in 15 plans and the continuing need for a demonstration during 16this fall's outage.
And two is further clarification of the 17 nature of the show cause proceeding.
The second issue is 18 one which I have raised on my own motion, and the first 19 issue arose a result of a filing by Applicant which I 20 received this morning and which I think we ought to discuss 21 at least briefly this afternoon.
22 Mr. Churchill, would you like to begin with a 23 presentation on the change in Applicant's plans?
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24 MR. CHURCHILL:
Yes, thank you.
This change in 25 plans, the only real change in planr is the change from our O
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1 plans to do the full scale sleeving of Unit 2 in March of 2 1982.
That will have been put off for a year.
And in fact,
/'3 3 I think it would be safe to say that the decision being put
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4 off pending the completion of t'ne demonstration ' rogram, it p
5 does not change our need to sleeve Unit 1; nor does it 6 change or have any effect whatsoever on the need to do the f
7 sleeving demonstration program.
8 The reason for that is that Unit 1 will have to be 9 sleeved during its f all outage next' year.
That full scale 10 sleeving program has to be preceded by a demonstration 11 program on Unit 1, and the only possible time for'that 12 demonstration program on Unit 1 is the current refueling 13 outage.
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14 CHAIRMAN BLOCHa.
Mr. Churchill, why can't it be 15 preceded by a demonstration program on Unit 2 during the 16 spring o uta ge?
17 MR. CHURCHILL:
Because there has been no decision 18 yet whether to do any sleeving whatsoever in Unit 2.
I 19 should point out that Unit 1, having operated the longest, I
20 has many more steam generator tube degradation problems than l
i 21 Unit 2.
And Unit 1 is the one that is most critical to do l
22 the work on.
Unit 1, for example, does have the plug tubes, Z3 which would be unplugged during the demonstration program.
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CHAIRMAN B10CHs Mr. Churchill, I notice that in 24 25 the letter to the Wisconsin Commission, the Public Utility
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ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY,INC, 400 VIRGINIA AVE., S.W., WASHINGTON, D.C. 20024 (202) 554 2345
208 1 Commissicn, I think you mentioned the possibility that if
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2 the demonstration doesn't go well, you migh t have to install 3 new steam generators in their entirety.
It makes it hard O
4 for me to understand the completeness of your answer to our 5first four questions in the first set of questions, in which 6 we tried to ask what the importance of the program was.
I 7 just feel that I don't have a full understanding of what the 8 areas of uncertainty are that you are trying to resolve.
9 MR. CHURCHILLs Let me see if I can explain that a 10 little better.
The areas of uncertainty really do not go to 11 the questions of whether the sleeving is adequate per se, 12 that is adequate to maintain the integrity of the secondary 13 to primary pressure boundary.
14 The areas of uncertainty go to the feasibility of 15 whether we can physically go in there and perform all these 16 operations in a time 3 7 manner.
If, for example, as a result 17 of the sleeving demonstration program, we would see that for i
18 any effective f ull scale sleeving, the plan t would have to l
l 19 be shut down for months on end for reasons we had not j
20 anticipated, this would significantly affect the decision as 21 to whether or to what ex;ent to go ahead with sleeving, and 22 on which unit.
23 CHAIREAN BLOCH:
Could you tell me very briefly,
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24 if you know the answer now, what the reason is that a 25 demonstration on Unit 1 wouldn't give you the information (Z)
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1you need concerning sleeving of Unit 27 2
MR. ANDERSON:
If I could interject, my name is V
3 Peter Anderson.
Do you mean it the opposite way around?
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4 CHAIRMAN BLOCH
-- that a demonstration on Unit 32, which will be done in the spring, wouldn't give you the 6 information you need concerning Unit 1.
7 MR. CHURCHILL I think there are two answers to 8 that.
One is we have to make the decision much sooner than 9 that, and I think we would want to make the decision now in 10 order to know whether to go ahead, especially if there's the 11 possibility that the steam generators for one of the units 12 sight have to be replaced.
13 CHAIRMAN BLOCHa Mr. Churchill, you were going to 14 be able to make the decision based on a demonstration now 15 f or doing sleeving in the spring.
How come you need so much 16 more time now?
17 MR. CHURCHILL:
I guess this gets very 18 complicated, and I think it has to de with lead times on 19 o rdering parts, whether or not lead times in having steam i
20 generators available and so on.
21 The other part of my reason is that there are much 22 better candidates for a sleeving program within the Unit 1 23 steam generators than there are within the Unit 2 steam
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24 generators.
25 CHAIRMAN BLOCH:
You mean you don 't have six O
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Q 1 degraded tubes in Unit 2?
2 MR. CHURCHILL:
I don't know.
We may very well l
3 have, but they might not be as dagraded, or there might not 4 be placed properly.
There never was planned to be a i
I 5 demonstration program on Unit 2.
Unit 1 gives us every type 6of sleeve we need, the two differen t types of plugs, for 7 example, some sleeves which are degraded below the plugging 811mit and some which haven 't yet reached the plugging limit.
9 CHAIRMAN BLOCH:
One other question before I allow 10 the other parties to commen t.
That is, I don't understand 11 from the filing what the reason was for this delay.
12 MR. CHURCHILL For putting off the decision on 13 Unit 2?
14 CHAIRMAN BLOCH:
Right.
For putting off the 15 demonstration on -
18 MR. CHURCHILL:
No, we're not putting off any 17 demonstr ation.
18 CHAIRMAN BLOCH:
I'm sorry.
It's for putting off 19 the full scale sleeving of Unit 2.
20 MR. CHURCHILL Okay.
Well, one of the reasons 1
21 for putting off the full scale sleeving of Unit 2 is because 22 the company has to decide whether or not to go ahead with 23 the Unit 2 demonstration, and they can't do that until they O
24 hewe done this.
25 Now the company originally though t they were going O
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I to go ahead with the Unit 2 demonstration, but the closer we 2 get to it, the more it looks like they are uncertain wh e the r 3 or not it's feasible to go ahead and sleeve Unit 2, which
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4 does not have quite the steam generator tube problems that 5 Unit 1 does.
And I'm af raid this gets into technical l
6 judgments and best guesses by technical oxperts as to how 7 long it would be before Unit 2 would have to be sleeved.
S Some people believe never; other pecple believe that maybe 91t should be sleeved.
10 CHAIRMAN BLOCH:
I think it might make the Board 11 f eel more comfortable in being able to act to know really 12 what considerations have been important to Applicant in 13 planning its demonstration originally and how those O
14 considerations have changed.
Unless we understand that, it 15 gives us the uncomfortable feeling of acting somewhat in a 16 vacuum.
17 I think that you've raised the principal outlines 18 o f the respor-se, but I'm no sure it's enough to give us l
19 great comfort that we understand f ully what's happening.
Do 20 you understand the problem, Mr. Churchill?
21 MR. CHURCHILLs I think I do.
I guess the best I Z2 could do at this point would be to get back to you later 23 with more complete informatim..
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24 CHAIRMAN BLOCHs Well, unless the parties persuade l
25 me otherwise, we could wait until Milwaukee for that.
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1Mr. Anderson like to comment?
2 MR. ANDERSuW:
Before I do, just so the 3 transcriptual record is accurate, I think when you said a 4 demonstration on Unit 2 earlier, Mr. Churchill, you meant to 5say on Unit 1?
6 MR. CHURCHILL Yes.
There's no demonstration on 7 Unit 2.
8 MR. ANDERSON:
Let me make an observation, if I 9 may, which I would not want to be construed as agreeing with 10 Hr. Churchill that a demonstration on Unit 2 would not be 11 adequate for the purpose of evaluating the Unit 1 full scale 12 sleeving.
13 But with that caveat, as I understand it, Mr.
14 Churchill, you are going to be having a continuation of th e 15 plants under the confirmatory letter, which I think has 150 16.eff ective f ull power day inspection, does it not?
17 ~
MR. CHURCHILL:
I'm not sure exactly when the next 18 f u11 power inspection is, but that sounds about right.
19 MR. ANDERSON 4 If we could go on that basis for s l
20 moment, that would seem to imply that either one will be 21 taken down prior to next fall refueling for purposes of 22 ins pecting the steam genrerators.
23 MR. CHURCHILL I was not aware that that would be
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24 the case, Pe ter.
I think that Unit 1 is planned to be 1
25 operating to -- I don't know.
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1 MR. ANDERSON:
Well maybe perhaps you might want 2 to think about that, and to the extent that's the case, and 3 to the extent that it were, for the sake of argument true 4 that a Unit 1 demonstration is necessary for a Unit 1 full 5 scale sleeving, tha t might be the time when the 6 demonstration could go forward.
7 HR. CHURCHILLs Well, I'm not sure that it's 8 necessarily related to whether the Unit 1 demo program is 9 necessarily related to Unit 1 full scale sleeving.
The demo 10 program is necessary, I believe, for any sleeving.
And the 111ogical plant to do a demo on is Unit 1, and the only time 12 we can do the demo in Unit 1 and still proceed on any kind 13 of a reasonable basis f or sleeving Unit 1, which is the one O
14 ohat would most probably have to be sleeved, as opposed to 15 Unit 2, would be at this outage.
16 The only thing we did do is defer this full scale 17 sleeving of Unit 2, and that does not affect our plans or 18 our need to conduct the Unit 1 demonstration at this time a t 19 all.
I 20 MR. ANDERSON The only other comment that I would 21 have is tha t we, when I ran through the letter that we did 22 finally receive this af ternoon, the same questions that were 23 asked by the Chairman were questions that occurred to us as
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24 well.
I won 't repeat them for that reason.
25 CHAIRMAN BLOCH:
Does Mr. Eachmann or Mr. Treby CE)
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1have a comment?
2 MR. TREBYa This is Mr. Treby.
My understanding 3 of the value. of a demonstra tion program is that it does 4 provide very useful information for going f orward with a 5 full scale sleeving program.
And I would agree that we 6 would like to have as much information and as much time 7 before the f ull sleeving program commenced to analyze the 8 demonstration material.
9 So for those reasons, I could see a reason why it 10 would be helpful to go forward with the demonstration 11 program at this outage.
12 Other than that, I have no other comment.
13 CHAIRMAN BLOCHs We have of course raised some 14 questions which were partially answered.
I think the 15 relevance of this issue is that, depending on the importance 16of having this demonstration at this time and this 17 particular unit, that could affect the balance with respect i
18 to show cause.
Obviously if it is very important, as Mr.
I 19 Treby has just said, that it be conducted at this time, the 20 burden on showing cause would be slightly higher.
21 On the other hand, if we were to find that it were I
22 not as important as Mr. Treby represents after we cet the l
23 f ull answers f rom Mr. Churchill, the burden migh t be a 1 ()
2411ttle less.
25 Are there any other important comments on this f
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I change in scheduling?
2 MR. ANDERSON:
Peter Anderson speaking.
If we 3 understand the company 's in terp retation of the technical 4 specifications correctly, the interpretation would allow the 5 sleeving to go forward without inhibition, but would not 6 allow return to service with sleeves on tubes which exceed 7 the plugging limit.
8 And the value of the demonstration program which 9 has been stated so far relates to the ability to get in 10 there, the ability to work the equipment and so forth, and 11 to the extent that that were done and the tube was plugged 12 af ter that testing and demonstration was adequa tely 13 performed, you would not need a technical specification O
14 change if the plug was put in afterwards.
15 It would seem to me that this basically speaks to 16the showing required for the interim coproval really is not 17 there.
I'm not sure we understand what the need for the 18 hearing is because there is basically no showing for a need l
19 f or an interim approval, 20 CHAIRMAN BLOCHs Mr. Churchill, would you comment 21 on that?
22 MR. CHURCHILLs Peter Anderson is correct in that f
23 a technical specification change is not necessary to
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24 actually go in and perform sleevin'q.
This I think we have 25said in previous conference calls anu have mentioned it in ALDERSoN REPORTING Co4PANY,INC, 400 VIRGINIA AVE., S.W., WASHINGTON, D.C. 20024 (202) 554-2345
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1 one or two papers that ha ve been fi'_ed.
2 We would not be tilowed to return to power with 3 the six tubes sleeved that exceeded the plugging limit 4 unless we first plugged them up.
We do not want to sleeve 5 the tubes, in essence repair the tubes, and then have to 6 plug them up.
It makes no sense.
It would, in a case where 7 we are vanting to maximize flow through the core, it doesn't 8 seem to me that it would be a good idea to plug tubes up 9tha* no longer have to be plugged because they are repaired.
10 Now this doesn't say that this would reduce core 11 flow to any degree where we would be bumping up against 12 other technical specifications, but it just is that in 13 general, especially if the need to plug tubes should occur 141n the future, we want to have as few tubes plugged as 15 possible.
16 The other reason that we would want to have tubes 17 that are sleeved not repaired is that we would like to 18 observe and learn as much as we can about the behavior of 19 these sleeved tubes in opera tion.
20 We have always recognized that it might be 21 necessary if for some reason we did not obtain permission to 22 plug the tubes up, we think that that would not be a good 23 thing.
We think that there would be information that could
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24 be de rived, if not necessarily helpful or necessary for 25 health and safety, certainly information that would be of O
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1 interest for optimum reactor performance.
2 Also, we just do not believe that it is prudent or 3 even appropriate to plug tubes which don't have to be 4 plugged, and cut down reactor coolant flow any more than it 5 is.
6 CHAIRMAN BLOCH:
Mr. Anderson, do you have a 7 comment on that?
8 MR. ANDERSON I think to go into it at any length 9 would perhaps abuse what a conference call really is 10 intended to accomplish.
I would just briefly note that we 11 don 't view the nuclear reactors as an experimental 12 laboratory, which I think Mr. Charnoff's comments connote.
13 It certainly would be nice to find out what the real life
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14 operation of a sleeve tube is, but I think that the idea of 15 wouldn 't it be nice if it poses a substantial risk, that has 16 to be balanced and it's not being balanced.
That's number 17 one.
18 Number two, I think that that which would be nice 191n terms of actual experience of the sleeve in operation, 20 we're going to i arn more over time in a very short period 21 that would be involved at Point Beach, and the longest 22 period of time we're going to have to evaluate sleeves in 23 operation is at San Onofre.
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24 So even if you think or believe that it's like a 25 laboratory experiment, that wouldn't it be nice is all O
ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY, tr4C, 400 VIRGINIA AVE., S.W., WASHINGTON, D.C. 20024 (202) 554-2345
218 1 right, you would look, I think because of the time f actor 2 being more critical, to the San Onof re experience which has s
3 been in operation with sleeves I think since April of this 4 year, rather than to a much shorter period of time at Point 5 Beach.
6 CHAIRMAN BLOCH:
I think I understand the 7 positions of both private parties.
Mr. Treby, do you have a 8 final comment?
9 MR. TREBY:
Yes.
It is true, as Mr. Anderson 10 says, that you would cet a lot of information by repairing 11 the tubes through a sleeving process and then flood them 12 bef ore you went up to opera tion.
The staff, though, thinks 13 1t would be valuable to have the information that you would p
V 14 get f rom the actual operation of a sleeve tube.
15 The other comment I would make is that it is true 16 that San Onofre did undergo this process some time ago.
t 17 However, San Onof re has been shut down for other purposes I l
18 don't believe related to the steam generator tube, for most 19 of the time since April, and I'm not sure we have much 20 operatino information from San Onofre.
21 And secondly, there are some small differences 22 between San Onofre and Point Beach, so that not all the 23 inf ormation is totally transferable.
O 24 caAranAn Bt0ca.
1 thinx these erguments v111 set 25 the stage for our discussions on Thursday.
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1 The other item that I wish to discuss was prompted 2 by reviewing Decade's most recent filings related to the 3 order to show cause, and I thought I would want it surfaced
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4 as quickly and as early as possible what I perceive to be 5some difficulties, apparent difficulties at least in 6 Decade'r understanding of what we had meant by showing cause.
7 For that purpose, I have reviewed our records and 8 have attempted and am now going to attempt to summarize the 9 most important things that have been said about the show 10 cause process, and where necessary to interpolate some 11 explanations.
12 The first mention of show cause in this proceeding 13 occurred on page 9 of our October 1,1981 order.
In that O
14 ordGr, we timed the showing of cause to permit response to 15 Wisconsin Electric's answers to our questions.
We stated, i
16 and in reading this if you compare it to the original 17 sta tement, you will see that I am interpolating a couple of l
l 18 b racketed remarks.
19
" Decade and the staff would have 14 days from 20 receipt of Wisconsin Electric's answers to the first set of 21 Board questions, to show cause why an order authorizing 22 immediate operation with up to 12 tube sleeves should not be 23 issued.
Cause might consist of legal argument or of a
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24 substantive matter which should be pursued before the Board 25 can reach a reasonable conclusion concerning the safety and l
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1 environmental acceptability of the portion of the amendment 2 dealing with the demonstration program."
3 I just inserted that this is about the 4 demonstration program because I believe that was what was S intended.
6 "Cause could include comment on whether the 7 demonstration proposed by Wisconsin Electric is important to Sits overall sleeving program.
It would be understood that a 9 showing of good cause would require that something important 10 be shown, but that given the fact that W.E. could have 11 alleviated the urgency in this matter by filing earlier, the 12 Board will listen receptively to attempts to show cause."
13 Our October 13 order also made the following 14 commen t, which is rel3vant to the meaning of show cause.
15 " Af ter discovery is completed, Decade will have the burden 16 of coming forward to demonstrate that there are one or more 17 genuine issues of f act related to this contention.
18 Wisconsin Electric Power Company will then have the burden 19 of pursuasion concerning the existence of the genuine issue
? burden of persuasion on 20 of f act, and will of course have -'
21 any issue admitted for hearing."
22 Now this is a new matter:
" Although we are at an 23 early stage of this proceeding, and allowances must be made
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24 f or Decade not being completely informed, it must 25 nevertheless carry the burden of showir' us that there are 1
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1 one or more important issues concerning the demonstration 2 program which should be admitted to a hearing.
For cause to 3 be shown, Decade must demonstrate that there is an important
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4 genuine issue.
It can do this by showing that there is an 5 important issue that is not fully determined by the record 61n this case."
7 At pages 122 and 123 of the transcript, we a1.r.o 8 had this to say, quoting myself, Chairman Blochs "It is the 9 responsibility of the person who is supporting a contention 10 to come forward with a prima f acie case that includes the 11 bssis for that contention."
12 Mr. Barth:
"I assume that they have a basis prior 13 to your admitting the contention."
O 14 Chairman Blochs
" Generally they would, but 15 depending on how discovery goes, the grounds for that basis 16 may disappear, and there may no longer be a genuine is.m.e of 17 f act."
18 Transcript pages 153 and 154 and 157 also are 19 helpf ul.
We have stated that the standard for showinc cause 201s higher than the standard for admitting contentions.
We 21 also sta ted that "it is going to be the intervenor that has l
22 to come forward and show that there are material issues of 23 f act or tha t they have met the criteria in the show cause
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24 o rd e r. "
25 We also stated that the hearing on the show cause
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1 order would clarify what material issues of f act were in 2 dispute and would need to be tried.
3 We believe Decade also should be guided by other 4 portions of the October 13 crder, as well as by the conduct 5of the Board in phrasing its own questions for Applicant to 6 answer.
In the October 13 ordor, we ruled that the 7 admissability of contentions may be judged in light of the 8 full procedural context.
In that order, we ruled that the 9 basis for the contentions had to be judged prior to the 10 filing of the Westinghouse report and prior to the filing of 11 a supplementary af fidavii.
12 Obviously, we also judged the basis for 13 con tentions without reference to the answers Wisconsin O
14 Electric has filed to the Board's questions.
15 Furthermore, we indicated in parentheses on page 5 16 0f that order that subsequent Applicant filings may have 17 drawn into quest.on the basis for Decade's contentions.
18 Reference to the Perry case, the Cleveland 19 Electric Illuminating case, cited on page 3 of the October 2013 opinion, also is important here.
In tha t case the Board 21 required intervenor to reply to detailed responses provided 22 by Applicant.
That is why the Board attempted to assist in 23 the resolution or issues in this case by addressing specific
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24 questions to Applicant 's filing.
25 It is intervenor's task to raise reasonab2e O
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1 questions.
We intend to require that Decade show us that 2 there are serious questions remaining in this case 3 concerning the demonstration program, in light of the entire
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4 record of the case to this point.
5 In this regard, citations to technical source 6 materials or the use of depositions may prove to be 7 essential to the showing of good cause.
Although it is 8 possible that logical argument may show gaps in the 9 application, without resort to expert opinion, Decade should 10 be aware that mere speculation about gaps will not in itself 11 be adequate to show good cause.
12 Decade should also be aware that potentially 13 important nuclear safety issues such as possible O
14 embrittlement of reactor vessels, are not admissable in this 15 proceeding unless thera is a f actual basis for rela ting then 16 to the specific license amendment before us.
17 On the other ha;.d, we wish to stress that there is If,no prejudgment implied in these rem a rk s.
In particula r, 19 several of Decade's interrogatories appear to be highly 20 pertinen t.
In addition, there are some Board questions 21 which were not as fully. answered as we wish, which we mar 22 need to pursue further in Wisconsin.
23 If Decade can show that omissions in Applicant's
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24 responses are importe.nt, it may be able to show cause.
We 25ask of Deade that if Wisconsin Electric provides answers to O
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2 be prepared to state why those answers are not satisf actory, 3 or for what specific reasons it requires additional time 7,V 4 bef ore being able to respond adequately.
5 I would like comments.
I'm sure that Mr. Anderson 6 would like to comment first.
7 HR. ANDERSON:
Let me be quite f rank, if I ma y, 8 M r. Bloch.
Our ability to proceed at the pace that the 9 Applican t's time requests seek is simply not there.
It is 10 our belief that the ability to proceed sa that time frame 11 that the company is seeking is predicated upon a party 12 ha ving two or three counsel and a very large technical staff 13 and support staff, with the facility to put aside all other
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14 work for a several week period in order to prepare.
15 So the net result is we do not have that kind of 18 resources and we don 't purport to do so, and we have not 17 been able to even finish digesting the W'AP report or the 18 other report on San Onof re, and we 've b een unable to get all 19 the interrogatories completed in this very short time frame 20 that would allow us to provide a mors evidentiary basis for 21the contentions that I understand yon're contemplating.
22 The bottom line of that all is that in the time Z3 permitted, without that kind of resources which the
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24 Applicant does have, we simply can't reach that high a 25 burden.
And I don't think it bespeaks in any way of the O
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1 lack of seriousness or genuineness of the issues.
I think 2 the fact that other parties, particularly che staff in other 3 cases, as well as the statements of the company itself in 4 the proceedings, bespeak to their importance.
But the time 5 frame is so short to attain this standard that I think 6 you 're contemplating is not going to be possible for anyone 7 f or a utility applicant.
8 From conversations we have had with the staff, I 9 understand the staff as well is having a substantial problem 10 with the time burden, and they have f ar more resources, of 11 cou rse, than we do.
12 We can endeavor to try to meet those standards, 13 Dut I would be less than frank if I didn't say -- and we've 14 tried s we've tried as much as we can.
But I don't want to 15 mislead you to think we can.
16 CHAIRHAN BLOCHs of course the level we're talking 17 about, to some extent, is to show us which questions are 18 suf ficiently open so tha t you know they must be pursued.
19 Tha t is, that you have expert opinion that there is 20 som ethin g that needs to be pursued and what the reasons are 21for thinking it needs to be pursued.
It seems to me if you 22 ca n ' t raise questions of that type --
23 MR. ANDERSON:
It's our belief, though, in terms
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24of that level, that the September 24 letter that we sent to 25 the Board relating to the bases for the contentions, does O
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1 provide tha t.
When we read the October 13 memorandum and 2 order of the Board, I think it seems to us that the soard 3 order did reflect the fact that these were very serious 4 concerns.
5 CHAIRMAN BLOCH:
I think what we tried to reflect, 6 though, Mr. Anderson, was that we were considering them to 7 he serious concerns when we blotted out from our minds part 8 of the then-existing record, and we felt that was 9 appropriate at that time.
10 But there comes a time when we can't blot that 11 record out and we have to consider whether those are serious 12 issues in light of the reports that have already been filed.
13 MR. ANDERSCas Certainly.
14 CHAIRMAN BLOCH:
Mr. Treby, would you like to 15 commen t?
16 MR. TREBY:
Yes, Judge Bloch.
17 The staff thinks it's important to distinguish 18 between the f act that the object of this hearing on the 29th 19 a nd 30th, and for which the Board has developed this show 20 cause procedure, is a demonstration project involving no 21 more than sleeving 12 tubes, up to six of which would have 22 been degragaded.
23 This is quite different from a project of sleeving
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24 thousands of steam generator tubes.
And in light of this 25 dif ference, it seems to me that what has been requested of O
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1 the interveners is that they indicate what their concerns 2 are of going f orward with this demonstration project.
And I 3 would think that that is a lesser burden than having to
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4 review f or the entire sleeving project.
5 Also, as I understand it, what has been requested 6 of intervenor is just 2or them to identify what their 7 concerns are, with some reference to some technical support 8 for those concerns.
And it seems to me that that is 9 something that they would know now without having to deeply 10 delve into the documents dealing with full scale sleeving.
11 HR. ANDERSON:
If I may, let me b riefly respond to 12 tha t, Mr. Bloch.
This is Peter Anderson.
13 CHAIRMAN BLOCH:
Mr. Anderson, I would like you to O
14 respond but I would prefer to have you be last so that you'd 15 hear Mr. Churchill first.
Is that acceptable ?
16 MR. ANDERSON:
That's certainly fine.
17 CHAIRMAN BLOCH:
Mr. Treby, have you completed?
18 MR. TREBY Yes, I have.
19 CHAIRMAN BLOCH:
Mr. Churchill?
20 MR. CHURCHILL:
Yes.
I think I agree and 21 understand what you've said.
What you've said sounds very 22 similar to the burden that a pa rty would have to respond to 23 a motion for summary disposition.
r 24 What I'm not quite clear on, and perhaps I could 25 ask this before I respond further, the way I see the O
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1 procedural situation shaping up is that we first filed a 2 motion asking permission to go ahead with this demonstration 3 project.
That is to operate with the six sleeve tubes not 4 plugged.
5 This was analygous in my mind anyway to if this 6 were a f ull scale operating license hearing, to asking 7 interim-permission to load fuel and perhaps operate at low 8 power prior to the initial decision on the total operating 9 license.
10 You then proposed a show cause proceeding and you 11 asked the parties to comment on it, and we are now 12 discussing what that means.
And in the meantime I filed a 12 motion for summary disposition based on what I thought the 14 contentions might be ultimately, because none nad been 15 admitted.
Subsequently they have been.
16 Now my question is thiss the show cause 17 proceeding seems to be asking the in tervenors to come 18 forward with some basis for believing that there is a 19 genuine issue of fact.
And if they did tha t, does that mean i
20 tha t the proceeding is over and the motion automatically 211oses, or does that mean that I have the opportunity to show 22 that even though he has shown an issue, I can dispose of 23 that with my witness, which I will have available at the
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24 hearing?
i 25 The reason I ask that is because the ultimate goal O
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1 is for me to try to obtain permission to go ahead with this 2 project, and losing a motion for summary disposition, if you 3 will, doesn ' t mean tha t you 've lost the battle at all, lost 4 the war at all.
It simply means that i ur next step is 5 okay, there is an issue; now I will put on my evidence to 6show that that issue is not a problem.
And I am prepared to 7 do that at the hearing.
8 So I am presuming that if they were to somehow 9 show that there is a genuine issue that really should be 10 considered by the Board before the Board decides whether to 11 approve the sleeving project, that the second part o.f the 12 Board's crder, which set forth the agenda for the hearing, 13 would then kick into effect, whereby we would determine tha t 14 issue during the course of the hearing on the 29th, 30th and 15 possibly into Saturday.
16 CHAIRMAN BLOCH:
Mr. Churchill, that was the plan 17 an my discussion of what showing cause means does not repeal 18 any portion of tnat prior order.
Whether or not we can 19 resolve the issue I think will depend on what the issue is 20 and what cause Decade may show for an inability to proceed 21 imm edia tely.
If they can proceed immediately, we ought to.
22 If they show good cause, we'll have to consider what the 23 implications are.
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24 MB. CHURCHILL:
Okay.
I understand.
I just 25 wanted to clarify that because we had intended, as you will O
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1 see when you read our hearing brief, which we are going to 2 file by 9:30 tomorrow, to make available witnesses to 3 testify on these issues as they rela te to the sleeving 4 demonstration project.
5 Having said that, I think I have no further 6 comment on your explanation of what the good cause 7 proceeding is.
I'm not sure I fully understand how it 8 relates to my motion f or summary disposition.
They may be 9 very much the same.
10 CHAIREAN BLOCH:
I do have the feeling that 11 they're very close, particularly because I'm inclined to 12 rule, as I said in an earlier report or in a parentheses, 13 that at this stage of the proceeding if someone shows that 14 there is an open issue, one on which it needs discovery, 15 tha t I would be inclined not to grant the summary 16 disposition motion but to consider it later, after the 17 attempt at discovery had gone f orward.
18 Mr. Churchill, that's the only difference I can 19 think of.
20 MR. CHURCHILLs Okay.
That is consistent with the 21 way I've been approaching this.
22 CHAIRMAN BLOCH:
Mr. Anderson, I promised you a 23 last crack.
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24 MR. ANDERSON:
Last but not least in any event.
25 As to Mr. Churchill's comment or I guess query, J
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1while I don't like the result I think I would agree with his 2 assumption that if his motion for summary disposition f alls, 3 he certainly-still is entitled to make his evidentiary case
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4 and have that heard on the merits of it.
5 I wanted to focus mostly on Mr. Treby's comments, 6and I think it really has two parts to it.
The first part 7 is one we have absolutely no problem vi'.h, and that was that 8 we should distinguish the contentions
<e have as to whether 9 they have any application of concern for a small 10 demonstration, as opposed to a full scale sleeving, from six 11 tubes up to 4,000.
That was basically how we largely 12 in terpre ted the request to us, and that was the focus of our 13 0ctober 23 filing, which spent a significant portion of the
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14 time sta ting our view of why some but not all of the 15 contentions -- for example contention number 6 would not be 16 applicable to demonstration to full scale.
But we stated 17 why we thought contentions 3, 4,
5 and perhaps, depending 18 upon the answers to discovery, 7, are equally germane to 19 demonstration as they are to full scale and I won't repeat 20 them here except to say tha t we agree with th a t, the needs 21 of a rational proceeding too for us to have done that, and 22 tha t 's what we endeavor to do.
Whether the Board ultimately a agrees or disagrees, I don't know, but that's what we tried
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24 t o d o.
25 As to the second thing, the question of an b
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1 evidentiary basis for the contentions that are applicable, 2 that are found to be applicable to demonstration, I think it 3 could be simplified somewhat in an illustrative sense.
We brs 4 had a chance to scan the Westinghouse report, for example, S and apparently, if I recall correctly, chapter 7 deals with 61nspectability of sleeve tubes.
But to recapitulate back to 7 the opening comments I made, we hava not yet had the time to 8 review the chapter 7 in that very thick volume sufficiently 0to either make a counterargument es to whether or not that 10 answers the inspectability problems or to file more specific 11 d Ascovery requests to unravel the problems.
12 The bottom line of it is, as to the second part of 13 what Mr. Treby was saying, which gets back to the Board's 14 requirements as well, or the Board 's contemplation as well, 15 ve simply are unable to do that in the time frame involved, 16 notwithstanding extremely long hours that we've been putting 171n, because of limited resources and because of the 18 inability to focus resources entirely on one issue to the 19 exclusion of all else.
I don't know what we can do about 20 t h a t, except we can do our level best, but we can't move 21 mountains.
l 22 I think there a re major issues there.
I think if 23 tine is permitted, tha t will be amply shown.
But I can't
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24 pretend to or in f act accomplish something which time does 25not permit with the resources we have available.
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CHAIRMAN BLOCH4 Mr. Anderson, I guess we'll have
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2 to take up those questions on Thursday morning.
I 3 understand your position, however.
4 There was one minor question relating to t.ie 5 precise time and the method of delivery for Wisconsin 6 Environmental Decade's papers in this case.
7 Mr. Churchill, I called about an hour before the 8 meeting, before this conference, and asked tha t you talked 9 with Decade.
Have you been able to resolve that issue?
10 HR. CHURCHILLs I think we might have, Your 11 Honor.
I talked with Mr. Anderson and told him that I was 12 going to hand-deliver our dccuments to him tomorrow morning, 13 some time before 9:30, and I hope to have the staff 14 documents as well.
I have a messanger out at Mr. Treby's 15 office waiting for his documents.
If he can intercept me at 16the airport before my plane leaves tonight, I will have the 17 staff documents.
I have not had a recent progress report on 18 t ha t, though.
19 MR. TREBYa This is Mr. Treby.
I can give you a 20 progress report, and that is that the staff did give to your 21 messanger our documents and your messanger lef t our office 22 around 4 :30.
23 MR. CHURCHILL 4 Okay.
Then in that case I assume
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24 tha t we will have those documents and can also give Mr.
25 Anderson the staf f 's documents tomorrow morning before 9:30.
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1 Now the problem remains as to how to get Mr.
2 Anderson 's documents to Washington primarily.
I can pick 3 them up when we deliver ours tomorrow morning, but I don't t
4 know how I would get them to Washington before 9:30.
5 CHAIRMAN BLOCH:
I think the Board would be 6 willing to accept what is acceptable to Mr.\\Treby.
Would 7 you like to comment?
8 MR. TREBYa Well, if we could have the intervenor 9 serve their papers to us via Federal Express, while it migh t 10not rasch us by 9:30, I suspect it should reach us some time 11 d uring the day tomorrow, and tha t would be acceptable.
12 MR. ANDERSON:
This is Peter Anderson speaking.
13 Let me ask if I could, we've been getting a lot of pressure O
14 f rom our bookkeeper about the expenses we're running up.
15 Could we cut them back by serving two copies of our filings 16 with the NRC on either the staff or the Board, and have the i
17 Board use the internal Commission routing to get the second l
I 18 copy to the other, so that we'll save the $20 involved in 19 the Federal Expressing with just having one package?
20 CHAIRMAN BLOCHs Yes.
I think you did it with one 21 package last time.
Why don't you send the one package to 22 Mr. Treby and he'll manage somehow to get it to us.
23 MR. ANDERSON:
That would be very helpful.
We
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24 would really appreciate tha t.
25 So we will also be endeavoring to serve Mr.
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1 Churchill this evening, but if that fails we certainly will 2 serve him in the exchange tomorrow morninc.
But it's quite rm 3 possible we 'll be able to do it this evening.
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MR. CHURCHILLs I should call the bus sta tion then 5 when I get to Milwaukee.
6 CHAIRMAN BLOCH:
Is there any further business for 7 this meeting?
8 MR. TREBY:
This is Mr. Treby.
I guess there is 9 one other thing I would like, and that is it would be 10 helpful if we could call Decade tomorrow morning, and for 11 them to perhaps give us a brief summary of what it is 12 they 've filed, if that would be all right with Mr. Anderson.
13 MB. ANDERSON:
Oh, sure.
G 14 MR. TREBYa Fine.
15 CHAIRMAN BLOCH:
There being no further business, 16 parties wishing to arrange for a transcript may stay on the 1711n e.
We will follow the procedure that we developed 18 earlier of sending one of the Board's copies to the 19 deposito ry in Decade's offices and they will be custodian 20 and bring them to the hearing for us.
21 There being no further business, the hearino is 22 adjourned.
23 (Whereupon, at 4:05 p.m, the telephone conference
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24 was adjourned. )
25
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NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION This is to certify that the att4ched proceedings before the ATOMIC SAFETY AND LICENSING EOARD in the matter of Wisconsin Electric Power Co., Point Beach Nuclear Plant Units 1 and 2 Date of Proceeding: October 26, 1981 Docket flumber:
50-266-OLA *. 50-301-OLA Place of Proceeding: Washington, D. C.
were held as herein appears, and. that this' is the original transcript thereof for the file of the Commission.,
Susan A. Harris Official Reporter (Typed) 0jn y
-r Official Reporter (Signature) e g _
o--_.-m-
--,.