ML20042A220
| ML20042A220 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | 05000142 |
| Issue date: | 03/15/1982 |
| From: | Cormier W CALIFORNIA, UNIV. OF, LOS ANGELES, CA |
| To: | |
| References | |
| NUDOCS 8203230217 | |
| Download: ML20042A220 (12) | |
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4 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 5
BEFORE THE ATOMIC SAFETY AND LICENSING BOARD 6
7 8
In the Matter of )
9 ) Docket No. 50-142 THE REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY ) (Proposed Renewal of Facility 10 OF CALIFORNIA ) License Number R-71)
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11 (UCLA Research Reactor) ) March S +198 ,
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14 ht:rg;j .~ .j CURRENT STATUS REPORT ON DISCOVERY PJtOCEEDINGS x s
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17 18 DONALD L. REIDHAAR 19 GLENN R. WOODS CHRISTINE HELWICK 20 590 University Hall 2200 University Avenue 21 Berkeley, California 94720 Telephone: (415) 642-2822 Attorneys for Applicant THE REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY 24 OF CALIFORNIA 25 Q 26 3 27 j /
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As requested by the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board
, n 2h (Board) in its order of January 25, 1982, The Pegents of the il 3 3 University of California (Applicant) is providing a status 4 report on discovery between Applicant and the other parties to h
5 this proceeding. As a convenience to the Board some background
- 6) to the discovery which has already occurred is provided.
7]d 8' I. INTRODUCTION 9
i At a special prehearing conference convened on 10 l
September 25, 1980, the Board admitted four of the contentions (Contentions II, III, IV and VII) submitted by the Committee to 12 Bridge the Gap (Intervenor). Because of certain ambiguities i
13h and redundancies that appeared in the remaining contentions the I4hBoarddirectedthepartiestoconfertoattempttoreach b
15 agreement on the language of the contentions and the admissibility
't 16 At a second special prehearing conference convened on 1
l7 bofeach.
February 4 and 5, 1981, the Board considered the remaining 18 contentions and issued its ruling on March 23, 1981 admitting 19 certain of those remaining contentions and setting a discovery 20 jschedule.
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22 [ Due to the very extensive discovery which had occurred li 23 0 in this proceeding and the several discovery disputes which
{I 24ll arose between the parties, the discovery schedule set by the s
25 Board was suspended by the Board in its order of July 1, 1981.
I 26l, A revised discovery schedule was set in the Board's order of H
27 l August 24, 1981, and modified in one respect in its order of l
28[ September 4, 1981.
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l 1;; II. INTERVENOR'S DISCOVERY 2 l i
3 A. Written Interrogatories C
4:
Sj Intervenor served its first set of interrogatories to 6 A Pplicant on October 9, 1980. That set of interrogatories was 7 related solely to Intervenor's Contention II (" Wrong Class of 8 , License") . A dispute arose between the parties concerning the i
9 j clarity of certain of Intervenor's questions and the sufficiency 10 of Applicant's responses to those questions and resulted in 11 Applicant's clarification of its initial responses in two sets 12 ,of further answers dated January 22 and June 11, 1981.
13 / Intervenor served a set of follow-up interrogatories to the b
14[ further answers on July 1, 1981, and Applicant's responses to F
15 L the (set one) follow-up interrogatories were served September 18, L
16 h 19 81.
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ll Intervenor's second, third and fourth sets of 18li interrogatories, which relate to all admitted contentions 19 [t i
jincludingContentionII, were served April 20, June 10 and l
20 ij hOctober 5, 19 81, respectively. Applicant's responses and 21 h
[ supplemental responses to these interrogatories appear in 22 h hdocumentsdatedMay20, June 29, August 14 and November 9, 1981 23 [
dandMarch3, 1982. Additional information was presented in 24!'
idocuments dated June 29 and August 26, 1981, responding to 25 ;'
pIntervenor's motion to compel and its " updated" motion to compel 26h
[ further answers to its second set of interrogatories.
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Iit Altogether, Intervenor submitted interrogatories U
2li containing 3,429 questions and subparts of questions, clearly an ll 3 excessive number of questions. Moreover, a large number of 4
Intervenor's questions were unclear, imprecise, ambiguous, or 5
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!otherwise confused and Applicant has had a vexing time in trying 6r to make sense of such questions. However, except for those 7
interrogatories for which Applicant's protective order request was 8
sustained by the Board and remains in place (Board's order of 9 l July 1, 1981) and one interrogatory for which a protective order l
10 'will be requested, Applicant has responded to each of Intervenor's 11 interrogatories and, in many cases, has responded two and three 12 l times to the same interrogatory.
13 l i
i 14 B. Production of Documents 15 l Applicant has made available to Intervenor for lexaminationabout40,000pagesofApplicant'src;crds, documents and other correspondence. A stack of the particular pages of 18 !
I those records copied by Applicant at the request of Intervenor 19 w uld measure about ten inches high. A list of the principal 20 lI g l technical documents and records offered by Applicant for 22 Intervenor's examination appears as " Exhibit A" attached to 23 l Applicant 's May 20, 1981 answers to interrogatories. Applicant 24 has also produced the past 20 years of accounting ledgers and 25 l records for the NEL facility. Intervenor has requested numerous 26 q assitional miscellanous documents and records. With few t
27 exceptions, Applicant has produced the records and documents in 28 its possession that have been requested by Intervenor. For the i
- benefit of Intervenor Applicant has arranged for document examination j
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i-F 1 sessions of approximately seventy (70) hours in total duration.
L 21 The sessions occurred principally during the months of April, i
3ll May, June and November, 1981, and January, 1982.
4 4
H S C. Inspecting, Testing and Photographing 6h ll In September, 1981, Intervenor served two separate 7 'i
! requests to inspect, test and photograph Applicant's NEL facility.
9 hl Initially, Applicant opposed these requests in pleadings dated I October 9 and 19, 1981, because the scope of the inspections 10h n
In subsequent 111 b proposed was unclear and apparently unlimited.
f discussions Intervenor clarified its request and agreed to 12 h.
4 certain conditions that Applicant imposed to preclude any 13 ll h unnecessary disruptions to facility operations. As a result I
of this agreement, Applicant arranged for a tour and inspection h of the facility which took place on November 17, 1981, and 16 ly Details of the inspection were re-17ll which lasted five hours.
!! ported to the Board in Applicant's letter of November 23, 1981.
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b 19 1 During the inspection on November 17, 1981, Intervenor 21 ll< took over 200 photographs of the facility and its equipment.
Q According to procedures that has been previously agreed to by 22 a p
23 the parties to provide Applicant some protection against the 24 release of any photograph (s) that might compromise the scendy of de fachy, Applicant took custody of the 25 undeveloped film and had it processed. In its letter of 26 November 19, 1981, Applicant requested a meeting with 27 Intervenor to discuss the release of specific photographs.
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m 1l A meeting took place on February 9, 1982, to discuss several
. y 2h outstanding discovery matters. At that meeting the parties n
3 agreed to the terms of a stipulation which was to govern the 4 h release of 194 of the photographs (Applicant objected to i;
5[ release of 21 of the photographs on security grounds) . When c
6 h the stipulation which Applicant has reduced to a writing and h
7 has sent to Intervenor is signed and returned the 194 12 8,! photographs will be released.
9 10 D. Discovery Conferences 11 12 As directed by the Board Applicant and Intervenor have I
13,l met on several occasions "to consider agreement on any matter 14[ arising in dispute between them" (Board's Order of August 24, F
15] i 1981; repeated in Board's Order of September 4, 1981). The 16 first such meeting occurred September 17, 1981 and the last h
17 February 9, 1982. In all, about twenty (20) total hours were 18 spent in six different meetings attempting to resolve disputes.
19 Despite that effort a number of matters remain unresolved and 20J it is unlikely that anything productive can be accomplished 21 by holding additional meetings.
22 l
III. APPLICANT'S DISCOVERY 23 gl 24 Mindful of the restrictions placed on discovery of the 25:
l NRC technical staff, Applicant requested permission of the NRC 26 1
! Staff to serve fourteen short questions relating essentially 27d
[ to whether Staff was misled by certain information contained 28L
- in Applicant's license renewal application. The Staff agreed j to answer the questions and the answers were received (in the l .
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. I h response of the NRC Staff dated May 20, 1981). Applicant's d
n 2j discovery on the NRC Staff is complete.
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3 ll
!l 4a Applicant served its initial set of interrogatories I
SL on Intervenor on April 20, 1981. A follow-up set of li 6h interrogatories was served on September 22, 19 81, which, for h
7 ! the most part, requested updated responses to certain of 8 Applicant's questions appearing in the initial set. With its 9 'l questions Applicant sought more specific statement of 10 Intervenor's claims and the technical support for those claims.
l 11 I i
In particular, Applicant sought identification or description 12 of any studies, analyses, reports, calculations or technical F
13 opinions which had been made by any of Intervenor's 14 qualified experts or consultants respecting the various U
15 l safety parameters of Applicant's reactor facility or questioning 16 the technical information introduced by Applicant or the NRC.
17 l However, in responding to the interrogatories Intervenor has n
18 not produced any technical information of, nor identified any 19 '
documents prepared by its qualified experts or consultants.
20 hi 21 As a result of being unable to obtain information 22 on the technical support that may exist for Intervenor's ll 23 !l claims, information to which it is entitled during discovery, L
24L Applicant is in a quandary concerning whether or not it should D
25 h pursue discovery on Intervenor and risk further delays in these , .
j 26 proceedings.
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, 1[ IV. UNRESOLVED DISCOVERY MATTERS 2
I 3j Applicant has made timely responses to all of d
4 ;i Intervenor's formal discovery requests. Moreover, Applicant b
5;! has met with the attorneys and representatives of Intervenor T:
6l on numerous occasions in good faith attempts to resolve l
7l disputed discovery matters. Applicant has received clarification 8 of certain of Intervenor's discovery requests and has responded.
9o Applicant has also supplemented numerous of its interrogatory 10 responses to resolve ambiguities or to update with newly 11 acquired information. Applicant's discovery efforts have 12 resulted in unreasonable burdens being placed on Applicant's Despite these efforts certain 13] small technical staf f.
14;l matters remain unresolved.
H 15,
'li 16" A. Amendments to the Application h
17 l 18 As Applicant has informed the parties, Applicant is jg developing an emergency response plan to comply with 20 li research reactor emergency response criteria recently adopted I
21 l by the Commission. The new plan will be submitted as an amendment to the relicensing application. In addition, as a 22 23 result of the publication last summer of the generic studies of 24 0 Argonant reactors (NUREG/CR-2079 and NUREG/CR-219 8) , Applicant i
! intends to amend its safety analysis report to adopt the 25,I t
s 26: NUREG/CR-2079 fuel-handling accident as the "maxinium credible 27 i
accident" for emergency planning purposes at Applicant's 28 3 facility. Finally, Applicant intends to amend certain
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! non-technical narrative parts of its application describing
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i 1 NEL facility usage and costs of operation by substituting 2h portions of the more current and precise information provided J
3[ in the D.C. Rebok (UCLA Finance Office) letter to J.R. Miller h
4 (NRC) of January 25, 1982, a copy of which was previously sent 5l",toIntervenor.
6!
S 7" The new emergency response plan is a document that 8 " speaks-for-itself" and will not require extensive discovery.
9 0 The other amendments to the application will not introduce any P
10 substantially new information. Most of this information has II '
previously been provided in one form or another.
12 13 L B . Security Matters 1:
14[ In the Board's July 1, 1981 order Applicant was b
15l 16 h; granted protection from answering certain questions that would Ihaverequireddisclosingpartorallofthesecurityplanfor 17 L
! the facility or that were otherwise related to physical 18 l N security matters. The Board stated that if Intervenor wished 19
! to pursue discovery on physical security matters it was to 20 i follow the guidelines set forth by the Appeal Board in the 21 I o Diablo Canyon proceeding (Pacific Gas and Electric Company 22i' h (19 77) , ALAB-410, 5 NRC 1398). The Board was very explicit 23 ;
in its July 1, 1981 order about the steps Intervenor was 24; ll required to take:
25h "The first step is for the Intervenor 26 ' to fully identify who they propose to qualify as a witness possessing the ;
27 l,l necessary technical competence with 28j regard to the security system for the evaluation of the other parties and the Board. If the first step is b achieved, the next step is the acceptance .
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1J of a proper Protective Order modeled l after the Appeal Board guidelines in 2[J ALAB-592. If these matters are resolved 1 to the satisfaction of the licensing 3 i Board, then discovery will be opened to the depth of the guidelines in 4 '; ALAB-410 as appropriate to this research reactor." (page 4).
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Gh In the nine months that have elapsed since that Board 7 ![i i order Intervenor has failed to identify any individual it 8 l l Intends to qualify as a security expert. In light of the ,
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Board's clear directive on this matter and the established case 10 law procedures, Applicant has declined to discuss with Intervenor 11 l:
! any alternative procedure. Applicant notes that the process of 12 ;
qualifying an expert, adopting a suitable protective order, and 13 o
il pursuing discovery under the protective order can be very time-14 !
I i consuming and much time has been lost already.
15u 16 V. CONCLUSION 17 18 Aside from the matters discussed above, discovery e
between Applicant and the other parties to the proceeding is 20 essentially complete. To avoid further delay, Applicant requests that the Board set a beginning date for the filing of 22 j summary disposition motions, including accepting for consideration 23 D
at that time the motion for summary dispositior. of Contention XX 24 l!
(the security contention) previously submitted by the NRC Staff 25 n April 13, 1981. Applicant notes that the use of summary 26 9
27 j disposition motions is encouraged by the Commission as a means f expediting the proceedings.
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Respecting security matters, the NRC Staff has argued 1[L 2, in its motion that much of Intervenor's security contention is-
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3,j based on a mistaken interpretation of the physical pecuritya J. g
'< k. y s 4 regulations that apply to. Applicant's research reactor faci}ity. -
5 ! Applicant agrees with the Staff's argument.
Arulingon'thfl,,, s -. .
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6] summary disposition motion at thiS 3 time will resolvesthe question [; t
- j s 7 q of the material facts, if any, that are7in dispute. The partiest
- - 3, 8 [ can then place appropriate limits on subsequent discovery an'df I s .
9i avoid having to devise overly elaborate procedures to restrfct.L.
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- 10 , the release of security information. s.
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[ Dated: March 15, 1982. , %
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DONALD L. REIDHAAR
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t 15 CHRISTINE HELWICK,&
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17 By / _ __ 'u Willian. H Cormier I , o ' [~
18! UCLA rep'r,esentativej j (
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- UtTITED STATES OF N'T.RICA NUCIEAR IEGUIldORY CCf MISSION 2
BEEDIE TE 1dUUC SAFr1Y 'AND LICDISING DCARD " .
3 4 In tie Matter of )
) Ibcket tNo. 50-142 5 ME REGETUS OF DE UNIVERSITY ) (Proposed Penewal of Facility OF CALIFOPlTIA ) Ilcense Number R-71)
G )
(LCIA Pesearch Pcactor) )
7 )
8 CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE 9 I hereby certify that copies of the attached:
10 in the atnve-captioned proceeding have been served on the follcuing by deposit 11 in the United States mail, first class, postage prepaid, addressed as in-dicated, on this date: March 16 , 1982 .
13 John H. Frye, III, Chairman Counsel for NPC Staff U.S. Nuclear Pegulatory Ccrmission Office of the Executive Icgal Director 14 Atcmic Safety & Ilcensing Board U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Ccrmissicn Washington, DC 20555 Washington, DC 20555 Dr. Ermath A. Luehke Daniel Hirsch 80 U.S. Nuclear Pegulatory Cr nission Ccnmittee to Bridge the Gap Atanic Safety & Licensing Board 1637 Butler Avenue, #230 17 Washington, DC 20555 Ios Angeles, CA 90025 18 Dr. Oscar H. Paris U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Camission 19 Atcmic Safety & Licensing Board Washington,'DC 20555 ,
Chlef, Ibcketing and Service Section (3) John Bay 21 Office of the Secretary 2261 Columbia Street U.S. Nuclear Pegulatory Ccnmission Palo Alto, CA 94306 22 Washington, DC 20555 23 24 ,
25 WilliaY H. Cormicr UCLA Representative 26 27 28
.