ML20039C997
| ML20039C997 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Crane  |
| Issue date: | 12/29/1981 |
| From: | Jordan W, Weiss E HARMON & WEISS, UNION OF CONCERNED SCIENTISTS |
| To: | NRC COMMISSION (OCM) |
| References | |
| NUDOCS 8112310196 | |
| Download: ML20039C997 (10) | |
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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA C 0l M. E. TE.3 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION BEFORE THE COMMISSION
- 81 DEC 29 P4:39 Of.gf
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In the Matter of
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METROPOLITAN EDISON COMPANY
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Docket No.
50 2,9i N 7
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(Restar NY (Three Mile Island Nuclear
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Station, Unit No. 1)
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9 DECn UCS MOTION TO EXTEND DEADLINE FOR IMMEDIATE EFFECTIVENESS COMMENTS a,h n
Introduction
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_10Y On De+ amber 14, 1981, the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board issued a Partial Initial Decision (PID) on hardware / design issues, emergency planning, and the separation of THI Units 1 and 2.
By its Order dated December 23, 1981, the Commission, ncting that "[t] he Board's decision is extremely lengthy and detailed," extended the deadline for receipt of comments on whether the Board's PID should be made immediately effective.
(CLI-81-34, at 1)
However, in establish-ing the revised schedule, the Commission apparently did not consider the concurrent demands on UCS' and the other parties.' time created by the Licensing Board's retaining jurisdiction on some issues, by the schedule for filing exceptions (or seeking schedule extensions) before the Appeal Board, and by the matters discussed in the Commission's
" Memorandum for TMI-l Restart Parties," dated December 23, 1981.
UCS believes that, in light of
'n complexity of the issues litigated before the Licensing Board and the length and detailed nature of the PID, the 30 days the Commission has allowed for filing immediate
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effectiveness comments is fully justified.
To provide the tine required to address other aspects of this proceeding before the Licensing Board, the Appeal Board and the Commission and to assure that sufficient time will be available to prepare immediate effectiveness comments, UCS moves that the deadline for comments on immediate effectiveness be extended one month to February 15, 1982, and that the deadline for reply comments be extended to 7 days following receipt of the initial comments.
Based on the NRC Staff's estimated schedule for criticality given at a Com-mission meeting on December 21, 1981, this extension would not delay restart even if UCS does not prevail in its view that restart should not be permitted.
Discussion The Licensing Board has retained jurisdiction on some issues, which creates demands on UCS' resources.
First, the Board explicitly noted that its resolution of the design and procedure issues in favor of restart up to, but not exceeding, 5% power was dependent upon various commitments, requirements, and conditions which are not identified in the PID.
The Board therefore " directed the NRC Staff to report for later Board approval its plan for the implementation of the Board find-ings and to explain which commitments, requirements, and conditions should be attached to the license either as technical specifications or other license conditions."
(PID, at 5 590).
The deaaline for the The Commission has ordered that the initial comments be "in the Commission's hands by January 13, 1982."
(CLI-81-34, at 1)
The Commission did not discuss the method of service on the parties.
UCS urges the Commission to weigh carefully whether the benefit of saving a few days time justifies the cost of requiring a party to serve the comments by express mail on all other parties (e.g.,
$9.50 times the number of individuals to be served exceeds $200.00).
Io -
Staff's submittal is 45 days after service of the PID, which is approx-imately January 26, with UCS' response due February 10.
Clearly UCS will have to spend considerable time responding to the Staff's plan, but it will also have to spend considerable time reviewing both the PID and the massive record prior to the Staff's submittal in order to identify each of the numerous, perhaps hundreds of commitments, requirements, and conditions that we believe should be attached to the license or otherwise enforced.
This task will begin immediately and will interfere with the development of immediate effectiveness comments.
More importantly, even the Board itself will not have reached a conclusion by mid-February on which items should become technical specifications or license conditions or otherwise enforced.
Accordingly, it will be impossible to provide complete and useful, comments on immediate effectiveness until then, since the parties must know whether commitments will be enforced in order to evaluate the hazard posed by immediate restart.
A February 13, 1982 deadline for immediate effectiveness comments would at least allow the parties to see how the Staff intends to enforce commitments, requirements, and conditions before attempting to provide their comments on the advi sabil-ity of immediate restart.
Furthermore, we assume that the Commission would not itself render a decision permitting restart prior to receiving information concerning the commitments, requirements and conditions that must be met to provide a basis for such a decision.
Second, the Licensing Board has explicitly retained jurisdiction to consider the effect of the information developed in the reopened proceeding on cheating "on all issues considered or o
expressly left open in the Partial Initial Decision of August 27, 1981 and in this (December 14, 1981] Partial Initial Decision."
(PID, at t 2026, emphasis added)
Information developed in the reopened proceeding on cheating is, in UCS' view, relevant and significant to UCS Contention 10.
In accordance with the Board's Memorandum and Order dated December 16, 1981 adopting the Licensee's proposed schedule, UCS had only o'ne week to review and comment on the TMI-l reactor operator and senior reactor operator exams administered in April 1981 and October 1981, the NRC answer keys to those exams, and the answers by 32 examinees to questions relating to plant conditions necessary prior to throttling or terminating high pressure injection.
Those comments had to be (and were) hand-delivered on Christmas Eve.
UCS now has one week to review other parties comments and hand-deliver reply comments by New Year's Eve.
Until the Board resolves the question of whether to reopen the record on UCS Contention 10 and, if so, reevaluates its decision on that issue, UCS obviously cannot proceed to develop its comments on immediate effectiveness of that portion of the PID.
Furthermore, the
^
need to file comments and reply comments on this matter precludes UCS from developing simultaneously its comments on immediate effectiveness of other portions of the PID.
Finally, since we have not yet reviewed in detail the entire PID (because of the other demands on UCS' resources discussed herein),
we do not know whether the above two items are the only items that will require further filings before the Licensing Board.
Of course, UCS' attention had to be diverted from developing these reply comments to preparing this Motion.
As the Commission is aware, the rules require that any party choosing to take an appeal to the Appeal Board must file all exceptions within 10 days after service of the Licensing Board decision and a brief in support of the exceptions must be filed within 30 days there-after.
The Licensing Board itself suggested that, with the simultaneous comment period before the Commission on the issue of immediate effec-tiveness and considering the length of the PID, an extension of time for the filing of exceptions with the Appeal Board might be appropriate.
(PID, at 1 2028)
UCS made such a Motion on December 18, 1981.
- However, since the Licensee apparently did not develop its final position on UCS' extension request until the middle of the following week, UCS did not know that its Motion would be essentially unopposed until Wednesday, December 23, 1981.
As a result, UCS was forced to divert some of its attention from immediate effectiveness comments to developing exc'eptions.
The Commission itself recognized the extraordinary length of the Board's decision and the burdens it imposed on the parties when it extended the deadline for immediate effectiveness comments by 10 days in its Order of December 23, 1981.
Pursuant to that Order, the parties are to comment by January 13, 1982, not only on whether the Board's decision should become immediately effective, but also on whether the Cormission's restart decision should be deferred until the Board issues a decision on the question of Licensee personnel cheating on reactor operator examinations.
The development of those two sets of comments is a massive l
task in the absence of other burdens.
However, by Memorandum of December 23, 1981, the Secretary of the Commission has established
I..
January 13, 1982, as a deadline for additional comments that will require considerable preparation time.
The Secretary's Memorandum derives from three Commission meetings held on December 21, 1981, at which TMI-l Restart matters were discussed.
These meetings were objected to by UCS in a Motion dated December 18, 1981.
The Commission apparently takes the position that the first meeting involved contested matters on which the parties should be given an opportunity to comment, while the second did not.
The parties were requested to provide such comments by January 13, 1982.
In addition, the parties were provided with several documents related to the water level indicator issue and asked to pro-vide comments on that subject by the same date.
UCS respectfully disagrees with the Commission's evaluation of its two meetings.
We believe both involved contested issues on which some comment may be necessary.
In particular, we disagree with the General Counsel's position that this is nothing more than an enforcement proceeding to which the ex parte rule and other requirements do not apply.
As a result we will be required to expend a substantial amount of time considering and developing both legal and technical comments.
We also note that Commission has not responded to UCS request for information concerning the ex parte communications with the Staff which occurred prior to the December 21, 1981 Commission meetings.
In addition, the water level indicator issue is one of major importance to reactor safety and of major concern to UCS.
Accordingly, much of our effort will be diverted to developing those comments and to preparing for and attending the Commission's meeting of January ll, 1982, on the issue.
i 1
As a result of the additional comment deadlines established by the Commission, UCS will be prevented from developing adequately its comments on immediate effectiveness by January 13, 1982.
The total workload now imposed by the Commission with respect to this proceeding is an intolerable and unfair burden.
Accordingly, we move that the l
deadline for immediate effectiveness comments be extended to February 15, 1982 and that the deadline for reply comments be extended to 7 days following receipt of the initial comments.
He have chosen to request extension of the immediate effec-tiveness deadline rather than the other deadlines because the resulting order of hearing issues is more logical and such an extension appears to have the least chance of interfering with actual restart should the Commission decide to allow it.
According to the Staff's comments,in the Commission's meeting of December 21, 1981, TMI-l will not be ready for criticality until sometime in March 1982, and even that date does not take into account either the steam generator problem, which Mr.
Jacobs of the Staff indicated could take more than a couple of months to resolve, or the fact that the list of all items required for restart has not been developed.
Therefore, March appears to.be an optimistic estimate, with May or even later being more likely as the realistic date by which restart will even be possible.
A one-month delay in filing immediate effectiveness comments would have no effect on restart itself.
I Further, the other comments that the Commission has requested by January 13, 1982, particularly those on the water level indicator issue, involve substantive matters that may move the Commission to
impose additional requirements prior to restart.
Certainly the Commission should hear those matters as soo.. as possible so that i
appropriate actions can be taken before a restart decision is made.
l l
l DATED:
December 29, 1981 RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED, Sh/ h: 4-Ellyn R. Weiss)A dYUhd Willianr$. Jordan, III Harmon and Weiss 1725 I Street, N.W.
Suite 506 Washington, D.C.
20006 Counsel for Union of Concerned Scientists I
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00L4E~E' UNITED STATES OF AMERICA NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
'81 DEC 29 P4:39 BEFORE THE COMMISSION 7 Mrl.
OF5;gi,h h t
C W-In the Matter of
)
)
METROPOLITAN EDISON COMPANY
)
Docket No. 50-289
)
(Restart)
(Three Mile Island Nuclear 3
Station, Unit No. 1)
}
CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE I hereby certify that copies of "UCS MOTION TO EXTEND DEADLINE FOR IMMEDIATE EFFECTIVENESS COMMENTS" have been served on the following persons by deposit in the United States mail, first class postage prepaid, this 29th day of December 1981.
- Nunzio Palladino, Chairman Dr. Walter H. Jordan U.
S.. Nuclear Regulatory Atomic Safety and Licensing Commission Board Panel Washing ton,
D.C.
20555 881 West Outer Drive Oak Ridge, Tennessee 37830
- Victor Gilinsky, Commissioner U.
S.
Nuclear Regulatory Dr. Linda W.
Little Commission Atomic Safety and Licensing Wash ing ton,
D.C.
20555 Board Panel 5000 Hermitage Drive
- Peter Bradford, Commissioner Raleigh, North Carolina 27612 U.
S.
Nuclear Regulatory Commission
' Professor Gary L.
Milhollin Washington D.C.
20555 1815 Jefferson Street Madison, Wisconsin 53711
- John Ahearne, Commissioner U.
S.
Nuclear Regulatory
- Judge Gary J.
Edles, Chairman Commission Atomic Safety and Licensing Washington, D.C.
205S5 Appeal Board U.
S.
Nuclear Regulatory
- Thomas Rober ts, Commissioner Commission U.
S.
Nuclear Regulatory Washington, D.C.
20555 Commission Washington, D.C.
20555
- Judge John H.
Buck Atomic Safety and Licensing
.* 'Iv an W. Smith, Chairman Appeal Board Panel Atomic Safety and Licensing U.
S.
Nuclear Regulatory Board Panel Commission U.
S.
Nuclear Regulatory Washington D.C.
20555 Commission Wash ing ton,
D.C.
20555
- Judge Christine N.
Kohl Atomic Safety and Licensing Appeal Board Panel U.
S.
Nuclear Regulatory Commission Washington, D.C.
20555
0 Judge Reginald L.
Gotchy Mr. Marvin,I. Lewis Atomic Safety and Licensing 6504 Bradford Terrace Appeal Board Panel Philadelphia, PA 19149 U.
S.
Nuclear Regulatory Commission Ms. Gail B.
Phelps Washington D.C.
20555 245 West Philadelphia Street York, Pennsylvania 17404 l
Mrs. Marjorie Aamodt l
R.D.
55 Mr. Robert Q. Pollard Coatsville, Pennsylvania 19320 609 Montpelier Street Baltimore, Maryland 21218 Robert Adler, Esq.
Assistant Attorney General
- *:Mr. Steven C.
Sholly 505 Executive House Union of Concerned Scientists P.O.
Box 2357 1725 Eye St.,
N.W.,
Suite 601 Harrisburg, Pennsylvania 17120 Washington, D.C.
20006 Louise Bradford
- ' Counsel for NRC Staff Three Mile Island Alert Office of Executive Legal 325 Peffer Street Director Harrisburg, Pennsylvania 17102 U.
S.
Nuclear Regulatory Commission Walter W.
Cohen, Esq.
Washington, D.C.
20555 Office of Consumer Advocate 1425 Strawberry Square
- *' George F.
Trowbridge, Esq.
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania 17127 Shaw, Pittman,.Potts &
Trowbridge Jordan D.
Cunningham, Esq.
1800 M Street, N.W.
Fox, Farr & Cunningham Washington, D.C.
20036 2320 North Second Street Harrisburg, Pennsylvania 17110
- Docketing and Service Section Office of the Secretary Thomas J Germaine, Esq.
U.
S.
Nuclear Regulatory Deputy Attorney General Commission Division of Law - Room 316 Washing ton,
D.C.
20555 1100 Raymond Boulevard Newark, New Jersey 07102 Dr'. Judith H.
Johnsrud Dr. Chauncey Kepford x
+
Environmental Coalition on j
Nuclear Power 433 Orlando Avenue
- - Hand delivered December 29, 1981 State College, PA 16801 to 1717 H St.,
N.W.,
Washington, D.C.
- William S.
Jordan, III, Esq.
- - Hand delivered December 29, 1981 Harmon & Weiss to indicated address.
1725 Eye St.,
N.W.,
Suite 506 Washington, D.C.
20006 John A.
Levin, Esq.
Assistant Counsel Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission P.O.
Box 3265 Harrisburg, Pennsylvania 17120
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