ML20040C343
| ML20040C343 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Crane  |
| Issue date: | 01/26/1982 |
| From: | Smith I Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel |
| To: | |
| References | |
| NUDOCS 8201270551 | |
| Download: ML20040C343 (10) | |
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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA o
a NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION liEczivan
'62 Jr.L! 26 P159 JAN271985
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ATOMIC SAFETY AND, LICENSING BOARD 8
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Before Administrative Judges:
7, an'K a naoa 7m Ivan W. Smith, Chairman b
Dr. Walter.H. Jordan OE0YEC yn,'bj p%
s Dr. Linda W. Little J
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In the Matter of METROPOLITAN EDISDM COMPANY )
Docket No. 50-289
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(Three Mile Island Nuclear
)
(Restart)
Station, Unit No. 1)
)
January 26, 1982 MEMORANDUM AND ORDER MODIFYING PARTIAL INITIAL DECISION OF DECEMBER 14, 1981 i
I.
Licensee's December 30, 1981 Motion for Reconsideration On December 14, 1981, the Board issued its Partial Initial Decision (PID) on Plant Design and Procedures, Separation, and Emergency Planning
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Issues. The PID was officially served on December 16, 1981.
By motion dated December 30, 1981 Licensee moved the Board to reconsider in particular 11935 and 970, and other findings in Part II.0 (Plant Design, Modifications a.nd Procedures:
Addition &l LOCA Analysis).
There the Board specified as a condition for restart that an analysis be performed of a
' reactor coolant ' pump suction break and that the analysis be submitted to the NRC Staff for its review.
The motion is based upon the grounds that
.the condition had not been the subject of litigation and that it is unnecessary.
No party opposes the motion.
The NRC Staff supported the motion in its answer dated January 8,1982. We grant the motion as a petition and supple. ment the December 14, l'981 PlD accordingly.
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~ Petitions for reconsideration of licens,ing boards' initial decisions are authorized under Commission rules, the motion is timely, and-this Board continues to have jurisdiction to consider the motion.
Consumers Power Company (Midland Units 1 and 2), ALAB-235, 8 AEC 645 (1974);
Commonwealth Edison Company (Byron Units 1 and 2), ALAB-659 (November 19,1981), Slip op. n. 2; 10 CFR Sections 2.717(a) and 2.771.E
Background
The subject of Section II.0 of-the December 14 PID (11921-70) was the adequacy of the analyses to show that there is adequate protection for the entire spectrun of small break locations at TMI-1. The issue had been adopted by the Board from Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS)
Contention 8 when UCS dropped that contention.
Both the Licensee and the NRC Staff presented testimony and witnesses were examined by the Board and -
parties including UCS.
PID 11 921-22.
-The Board was satisfied that the concern raised by UCS Contention 8 had been satisfied.
PID 11 924-32. Ilowever, on June 4,1981, after the relevant evidentiary session, licensee transmitted to the Board and the parties new inf6rmation in the form of a letter from Babcock & Wilcox to GPU Service Corporation, dated March 25, 1981, on the subject,
" Reactor _ Coolant Pump Suction Small Break LOCA." Licensee also prcvided its own letter of May 26, 1981, transmitting the B&W letter to the NRC Staff, and providing Licensee's evaluation of the information.
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Sectio.s 2.771 provides that parties may petition for reconsideration of a final decision of the Commission.
In AL'AB-235, 8 AEC at 646-47,,
the Appeal Board imputed to licensing boards the jurisdiction to decide petitions for reconsideration of their initial decisions.
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' The B&W letter of March 25, 1981 addresses analyses performed following the TMI-2 accident to develop operator guidelines for certain small break accident scenarios. The letter points out that the analyses assumed, as a worst case, a small break at the reactor coolant pump discharge line.
Analyses which have been conducted for the pump discharge break condition demonstrate that operator actions to start emergency feedwater flow in 20 minutes will result in acceptable conditions. B&W did not ettempt to determine in each case what the maximun delay in emergency feedwater (EFW) flow could be without unacceptable core conditions.
The B&W letter indicated that, where high pressure injection does not actuate automatically and EFW is delayed, a reactor coolant pump suction line break can result in a greater loss of coolant inventory.
B&W had not performed an analysis to determine if a 20-minute delay in EFW flow will result in acceptthle conditions-for th4 pump suction break l
condition, although B&W states there is certainly some delay in EFW i
actuation which will result in acceptable conditions.
The B&W letter suggested that additional analyses' are unnecessary because of the applicable operator guidelines and upgrades to the EFW system.
See PID 15 933-34.
During the preparation of the initial decision the Board focused on the B&W 'etter.
We believed that the absence of an analysis of a pump l
suction break with delayed EFW flow rendered the overall B&W LOCA analysis i
inadequate.
We were also concerned that the Staff's principal witness on the adequacy of the TMI-l small break LOCA ~ analysis, Walton Jensen, Jr.,
s had not taken into account the B&W report on the pump' suction break in his i
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testimony.
We noted our regret that the matter had not been raised during the evidentiary hearing.
We then ordered that such'an analysis be per-fohmed and submitted to the NRC Staff for 'its review prior to restart.
PID 11 935, 970.
In the meantime counsel for the Licensee submitted the same B&W report to the Appeal Board in the Sacramento Municipal Utility District
-(Rancho Seco Station),2/ proceeding which also involved a B&W
. reactor in a similar context. The Rancho Seco Appeal Board, in ALAB-655, Memorandum and Order dated October 7,1981, also viewed the B&W LOCA anal.ysis as incomplete insof ar as it did r.ot consider a " pump suction break / delayed AFW" scenario.
Noting.that B&W suggests that further analysis is unnecessary, and noting that the utility witnesses in the Ranche Seco proceeding stood by their testimony in that hearing, the Rancho Seco Appeal Board nevertheless requested the Staff (and invited other parties) to comment on the B&W pum'p suction break letter of March j
25,.1981. ALAB-655, Slip Op. at 18, 33.
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In response to the request in Rancho Seco, the Staff on December 11 submitted to the Appeal Board Mr. Jensen's affidavit of November 24, 19'81.
Mr. Jensen's affidavit was provided to this Board for the first time as an attachment to Licensee's motion for reconsideration.
In his affidavit
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The same legal counsel represented the licensees in this proceeding and in Ra'ncho Seco.
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- Mr. Jensen concluded that the information "in the B&W letter is not significant with regard to continued. safe operation of Rancho Seco.3_/ The emergency procedures are neither time nor break-loca-tion dependent; thus an f analys'is of a RCP suction break is not necessary for the purpose of modifying the procedures.
Mr. Jensen states in the affidevit that the operator is instructed to actuate HPI for any small break that does not cause its automatic actuation and to restore feedwatier flow if that is not available.
Mr. Jensen gave his reasons for believing that the difference in time available to the operator to take actions to assure adequate core cooling is not expected to be significant for breaks at the.RCP suction and discharge.
However the Board was not able to follow Mr. Jensen's reasons through to his conclusion. Therefore telephone conferences ~were conducted during which. Mr. Jensen was request'ed to supplement his affidavit with additional explanations.M Mr. Jensen's affidavit of January 22, 1982, attached to the Staff's supplement of the same date, among other, things,
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Mr. 'Jensen has advised Staff Counsel that he agrees with Licensee's observation (Motion at 11, n.11) that the Staff's position on Rancho Seco'would apply equally to TMI-1.
Staff answer at 2.
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Conference calls were held on January 13 and 20,1982.
The first involved the Chairman, the tecnnical advisor to the Board and respective counsel for the Staff and Licensee.
The second involved Mr. Jensen, respective counsel and aavisors to the Staff and Licensee, the members of the Board and the Board's technical advisor.
No other party had answered Licensee's motion for reconsideration; therefore no others'were included in the conferences.
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m explains in satisf actory detail why the operator has at least twenty minutes to actuate HPI regardless of the location of a cold. leg-piping small break.
Discussion Licensee's argument.that we may not, over its objection, impose the challenged license condition based upon off-the-record information.is entirely cprrect.
The significance of the March 25, 1981 B&W letter did not rise to the surface of the Board's attention until late in the decision-writing process and we were unwilling to ignore what we saw to be an important safety issue.
The opportunity to petition for reconsideration is very appropriately exercised by Licensee in this-instence.
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s Licensee's second argument is not persuasive.
It is true, as Licensee states, that the Board found that the TMI-1 EFW system will be safety grade at restart for small break LOCAs and loss of mainfeedwater.
PID 1 943 n.115, 1 1057.
It is also correct that we found that EFW has been upgraded to safety grade auto-start (PID 1 1028) and that prior to restart operators will have safety-grade EFW flow indication in the control room IPID %1 1029, 1057).. Nevertheless we do not conclude, as Licensee requests, that these findings are inconsistent with our findings that one must assume operator action to reinitiate feedwater.
See
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PID 1934; Licensee's motion at 7, 8.
It was partly this assumption that led to our conclusion that the suction-side SB LOCA without HPI and with V
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7-c delayed _ EFW presented a scenario requiring.further analysis.
While the Board agrees with Licensee that there is much less reason today to analyze, for the purpose of operator guidance, delayed EFW scenarios,
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(Motion at 7), Licensee f ailed to discuss the Board's conclusions with respect to the general EFW reliability in Part II, Q of the PID(11.1005-67). There we found that the reliability of the TMI-1 EFW system, even with the upgrading required at time of restart, is not sufficient standing alone to satisfy the Board's concern about EFW av ail abil ity.
See Wermiel-Curry Chart at p. 239, and 11 1050,1057,1064.
Our finding that the upgraded EFW system as it will exist at restart was sufficiently reliable depended also upon the availability of a t
safety-grade HPI, appropriate and timely operator action, and the availability of the feed-and-bleed mode for core cooling.
PID 11 1050-57, 1065.
1 However, in view of Mr. Jensen's two affidavits, the Board believes
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'that there is adequate assurance that the public health and safety will be protected without the additional suction-side break analysis.
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Accordingly, we vacate that portion of the December 14 PID which requires i
that such an analysis be made.
Specifically, all language beginning with "Therefore, we specify..." in 1935 of the PID, and all of 1970 is v acated.
It follows also that the NRC Staff should be relieved of the l
directive under 1 1218 to report on its proposed method of implementing l
the now-vacated condition.
Specifically, the language under 11.0 of l
1 1218, " Licensee must complete SBLOCA analysis under revised assumptions followed by Staff review," is vacated.
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' II.
Licensee's January 4, 1982 Motion for Clarification or Amendment On January 4,1982, the Licensee moved for a clarification or amendment to four portions of the December 14, 1981 PID because, as
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Licensee states, either the Board had misunderstood some of the testimony.
or some of.the testimony was unclear.
Licensee-did. not' avail itself of the opportunity to petition for reconsideration because in Licensee's view, the points of the clarifications or amendments would not-change our ultimate conclusion on a given subject. The Staff answered the motion by supporting the first, second and fourth proposed clarifications and recommending additional clarification to the third proposed cl arification.5/ No 'other party answered the motion.
Licensee accedes to the ' Staff's recommendation.5/ We agree that Licensee's motion with the Staff's recommendation is appropriate and the Partial Initial Decision is modified as follows:
5/ Staff's answer dated January 18, 1982.
5/ Letter dated January 18, 1982 from Licensee's counsel to the Board.
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The last sentence of footnote'72 (to 1628) _is amended to state that:
The Staff has identified additional modifications to meet 'the requirements of item II.B.2 of NUREG-0737_ which must be completed by-January 1,1982, or the first outage of sufficient duration l
thereafter, but no later than July 1,1982.
2.
The last sentence of 1639 is moved to precede the two sentences now appearing immediately before it so that final three sentences of 1639 st ate:
All modifications required for existing instrumentation will be In addition it is intended to implemented prior to TMI-1 restprt.l kom me m, sung conuol signa isolate the new wide range T H signals. These signals will then be seismic Category I and separated' for use as redundant signals.
The citations appearing at the end of 1639 remain.
3.
The' Table entitled " Containment Isolation Features" appears on
- p. age 127 of the PID.
To the third category of signals under the column,
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"What happens on signal," is added: "3.
Close isolation valves in intermediate cooling water lines." Under the " reference" column is 'added -
" Staff Ex.14 at 32."
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i Under the fourth category of signals, under the " signal" column, the language, " Containment Building High Pressure (30 psig) AND" is deleted.
4.
The third category of -improvements appearing in 1 a 1 (beginning i
l with " Primary relief valves...") is cha'nged to state:
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e The PORV will have an accelerometer, and the PORV and safety relief valves will also have downstream flow measuring devices with indicators located on the main control boards.
By Order of the, Board.
FOR THE ATOMIC SAFETY AND LICENSING BOARD Ivan W. Snith Chairman ADMINISTRATIVE LAW JUDGE Dated at BetSeiao, Maryland this 26th day of January 1982.
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