ML20049J216

Answer Supporting Citizens for Fair Util Requlation 820223 Motion for Voluntary Withdrawal & Response to ASLB Invitation for Views on Contentions.No Contentions Warrant ASLB Sua Sponte Consideration

ML20049J216
Person / Time
Site:	Comanche Peak
Issue date:	03/10/1982
From:	Horin W, Reynolds N DEBEVOISE & LIBERMAN, TEXAS UTILITIES ELECTRIC CO. (TU ELECTRIC)
To:	Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel
Shared Package
ML20049J217	List: ML20049J216 ML20049J224
References
TASK-1.C.1, TASK-2.K.3.30, TASK-TM NUDOCS 8203120271
Download: ML20049J216 (11)

Text

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March 10, 1902 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA U$$I9 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION BEFORE THE ATOMIC SAFETY AND LICENSING BOARD p jj fn p)

In the Matter of )

)

TEXAS UTILITIES GENERATING ) Docket Nos. 50-445 and COMPANY, et al. ) 50-446 ,

)

(Comanche Peak Steam Electric ) (Application for Y

Station, Units 1 and 2) ) Operating Lice S' ECElvgg 3 APPLICANTS' ANSWER TO CFUR'S MOTION FOR -, 9 MAR)2798pg,j VOLUNTARY WITHDRAWAL AND RESPONSE TO BOAR 6 INVITATION FOR VIEWS ON CONTENTIONS y as Pursuant to 10 C.F.R. S 2.730(c), Texas Utilities Generating Company, et al. (" Applicants") hereby serve their answer to the Motion of Citizens for Fair Utility Regulation

("CFUR") for Voluntary Withdrawal of Contentions Two, Three, Five and Seven, filed February 23, 1982. Applicants also set forth below their response to the Board's invitation in its February 9, 1982 Order Cancelling Scheduled Evidentiary Session for the parties' views on the appropriate disposition of CFUR's contentions. In view of the Board's March 5, 1982 Order (Granting Summary Disposition of Contentions 2 and 7),

Applicants' response is limited to matters concerning Contentions 3 and 5. For the reasons set forth below, Applicants urge the Board to grant CFUR's motion for voluntary withdrawal f rom the proceeding, to dismiss CFUR as a. party-intervenor, and dismiss Contention 3.

l 8203120271 820310 PDR ADOCK 05000445 G PDR

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• I. ANSWER TO CFUR's MOTION FOR VOLUNTARY WITHDRAWAL On June 16, 1982, the Board issued its Order Subsequent to the Prehearing Conference of April 30, 1980, in which twenty-five contentions were admitted to this proceeding.

Of those twenty-five contentions, CFUR was the sole sponsor of Contentions 1-3 and 6-9 (7 Contentions) and joint sponsor of Contentions 4 and 5.

Thereafter, on December 31, 1980, the Board issued a Memorandum and Order consolidating the intervenors. In that Order the Board designated CFUR lead party-intervenor for the seven contentions for which it was sole sponsor, and for one of the contentions (Contention 4) for which it had been joint sponsor. 1/ The Board subsequently accepted CFUR's withdrawal of Contentions 1, 4, 6 and 9 from further consideration in this proceeding, 2/ dismissed Contention 8, 3/

and recently summarily dismissed Contentions 2 and 7. 4/

1/ The other joint sponsor of Contention 4 was ACORN, which was dismissed as a party by the Board's Memorandum and

. Order of July 24, 1981.

2/ See December 18, 1981, Order Subsequent to Prehearing Conference of December 1, 1981 concerning dismissal of Contention 9 following Stipulation; See also January 25, 1982 Order Dismissing Contentions 1, 4 and 6.

3/ See July 28, 1981, Memorandum and Order.

4/ Order (Granting Summary Disposition of Contentions 2 and 7),

March 5, 1982.

Thus, the sole issue remaining with respect to the status of CFUR's Contentions is the disposition of Contentions 3 and 5.

Since CFUR has been the sole intervenor to press Contention 3,'

the Board should grant CFUR's motion tor withdrawal with respect to that Contention. 5/ Further, in view of the Board's severance of the consolidation ot CASE and CFUR on Contention 5, 6/ the Board should grant CFUR's motion for withdrawal with respect to Contention 5 and designate CASE the sole party sponsor of that Contention. Accordingly, Applicants address only Contention 3, below.

II. RESPONSE TO (1) CFUR'S REQUEST THAT THE BOARD ADOPT CONTENTION 3, AND (2) THE BOARD'S INVITATION FOR VIEWS ON RETENTION OF CONTENTION 3 A. Background CFUR requests in the instant motion that the Board investigate and adopt Contention 3. Also, the Board has invited the views of the remaining parties on the appropriate disposition of CFUR's contentions. See February 9, 1982

, Order, supra. Applicants respond to botn requests below.

In support of its " request," CFUR attached, as an Exhibit to its motion, an explanation of its concerns regarding Contention 3. These " concerns" allegedly provide justification 5/ Applicants agree that CFUR's withdrawal is withoUt prejudice to the Stipulations reached with respect to Contentions 1 and 9.

6/ See, December 18, 1981 Order, supra.

for the Board's adoption of CFUR's Contention. To the contrary, Applicants demonstrate below that no serious safety or environmental matters exist with respect to Contention 3. Accordingly, the Board should deny CFUR's request that the Board adopt that Contention, and dismiss the Contention from this proceeding.

Further, as to certain " concerns" discussed in CFUR's Exhibit I which raise new issues unrelated to CFUR's Contentions, Applicants demonstrate below that good cause does not exist for accepting those matters as Board questions.

Thus, the Board should also deny CFUR's request to investigate and adopt those matters.

B. Sua Sponte Authority of Licensing _ Boards Atomic Safety and Licensing Boards may examine, sua sponte, issues which are not in controversy only if an affirmative finding is made pursuant to 10 C.F.R. S 2.760a that "a serious safety, environmental, or common defense and security matter exists." See Texas Utilities Generating

. Company (Comanche Peak Steam Electric Station, Units 1 and 2),

CLI- 81-3 4, NRC (December 29, 1981). Further, that the issues stem from Contentions which were previously admitted does not alter the Board's obligation to make the appropriate findings pursuant to 10 C.F.R. S 2.760a before exercising its sua sponte authority. Id., slip op. at 4. As demonstrated

below, CFUR has not presented information with respect to Contention 3 or its extraneous concerns that suggests that serious safety, environmental or common defense and security matters exist that warrant exercise of the Board's sua sponte authority. Accordingly, the Board should dismiss the Contention from further consideration in this proceeding and deny consideration of those concerns.

C. Extraneous Issues In the list of concerns attached to its motion, CFUR brushes over three issues that, although discussed under the heading of " Contentions Two and Three Statement," are wholly unrelated to any contention it has raised. CFUR notes that it made no attempt to categorize the issues according to contention and, in fact, CFUR would be unable to do so since the issues are not relevant to its Contentions.

Specifically, CFUR briefly discusses " uncertainties due to i steam generator tubes containing defects," makes several unsupported claims regarding the proposed use at Comanche Peak of hafnium as a control rod absorber material, and expresses a " concern" regarding the deletion of the boron injection tank at Comanche Peak. In contrast, Contention 3 l

involves various concerns regarding the adequacy of l

i computer codes used in Comanche Peak safety analyses. In that these new topics are wholly beyond the scope of l

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CFUR's Contention, and are raised at this late date in the proceeding, they should be rejected for failure to establish

" good cause" for consideration of late-filed contentions.

CFUR has not made any demonstration of good cause for raising new issues in this proceeding, as required by 10 C.F.R. S 2.714(a)(1). In fact, CFUR raises such issues only as it is leaving the proceeding, accompanied only by broad and unsupported assertions. In addition, CFUR would have the Board pursue the matters, rather than do so itself.

Such concerns fail to satisfy the requirements for acceptance of late-filed issues under 10 C.F.R. S 2.714. Even if CFUR had demonstrated " good cause," the statement of concerns does not satisfy the requirements of basis and specificity for admission of contentions in the first instance, 10 C.F.R. S 2.714(b), let alone satisfy the more demanding demonstration that a serious safety or environmental concern exists as required before the Board adopts the issue sua

_sponte. See Comanche Peak, CLI-81-36, supra, slip op. at 4.

~

Simple fairness to the remaining parties, as well as the i

I public interest that NRC licensing proceedings be conducted in an orderly fashion, demand that the Board be "very chary" in admitting new claims at this phase of the proceeding.

South Carolina Electric and Gas Company (Virgil C. Summer l

Nuclear Station, Unit 1), ALAB-642, 13 NRC 881, 886 (1981).

i Indeed, even if the issues raised by CFUR had been shown

to relate to Contention 3, they clearly extend the limits of that Contention and thus must still be accompanied by a demonstration of good cause for raising the issues at this late date in the proceeding. Summer, supra, 13 NRC at 891. CFUR did not make such a demonstration. Accordingly, the Board should deny CFUR's request that the Board adopt and investigate these topics.

D. Contention 3 Contention 3 provides, as follows:

The computer codes used in CPSES/FSAR must be tested and, if necessary, modified to accept the parameters reflecting the sequence of events at Three Mile Island and then to realistically predict plant behavior.

CFUR presents in this Contention the position that the computer codes used in Comanche Peak safety analyses do not reflect unspecified parameters of the Three Mile Island sequence of events. In particular, CFUR identifies two items in its motion which it contends warrant Board adoption of Contention 3. The first, NRC Action Plan Item I.C.1 7/,

concerns the reevaluation of transients and accidents to develop emergency operating procedures which consider multiple failures and operator errors. CFUR Motion at 7/ "NRC Action Plan Developed as a Result of the TMI-2 Accident," NUREG-0660 (May 1980), Revision 1 (August 1980).

I Exhibit 1, p. 9. In addition, CFUR's concerns discussed under the heading " human factors," id. at 12, appear to be related to Item I.C.l. Second, CFUR cites Action Plan Item II.K.3.30 which concerns revisions to small-break loss-of-coolant-accident ("SB LOCA") analyses and verification of the analyses by comparison of analytical results with test results from the LOFT and Semiscale test series.

Responses to both Action Plan Items I.C.1 and II.K.3.30 are being prepared by the Westinghouse Owners Group ("WOG")

and are discussed below. In response to Item I.C.1 the Westinghouse Owners Group is to conduct reanalyses of transients and accidents and provide guidelines for emergency operating procedures which reflect the results of those reanalyses. 8/ Applicants will implement a program of emergency operating procedures based on those guidelines. 9/

As for the " human factors" considerations raised by CFUR, it appears such concerns are addressed by Item I.C.1 in that the revised operating procedures are to account for possible

. operator errors. 10/ Finally, with respect to Item II.K.3.30, i

l 8/ SER at 22-12 to 22-13.

9/ Id.

10/ Applicants note that CFUR's position seems to be self-contradicting. CFUR initially appears to seek

improved operating procedures, but subsequently claims that those procedures in general are not acceptable because the operators, by relying on those procedures, would not be capable of " innovation" when faced with l unexpected operating conditions.

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Applicants are committed to respond to the reevaluation of its accident analyses within the time prescribed by NUREG-0737 11/. 12/

1. Action Plan Item I.C.1 The WOG response to this item is described in the attached Affidavit of Frederick F. Cadek and the attachments thereto. In particular, the WOG has supplied the NRC with emergency response guidelines based on an analysis of various LOCA and non-LOCA transients. Affidavit of Frederick F. Cadek at 2. The analyses which support these guidelines consider occurrences of multiple and consequential failures.

Id. Additional emergency response guidelines are to be submitted in June, 1982. Id. Currently, the NRC is reviewing the WOG guidelines and has posed certain questions to the WOG as a result of their review at a Febuary 9, 19f2 meeting. Affidavit of Frederick F. Cadek at 3. These guidelines will be employed in developing procedures and training programs that er. hance the ability of operators to respond properly to transients. Id.

I 11/ " Clarification of TMI Action Plan Requirements,"

NUREG-0737 (November 1980).

12/ SER at p. 22-80.

s

2. Action Plan Item II.K.3.30 A detailed outline of the scope and schedule of the WOG response to Item II.K.3.30 is ser rorth in letters dated September 26, 1980 and November 25, 1981 from the WOG to D. G. Eisenhut, Director, NRC Division of L'icensing.

Af fidavit of Frederick F. Cadek at 4. The WOG has committed to submit a draft repcrt on its revised small-break LOCA model by April 1, 1982. Id. Specifically, as part of its effort to develop a revised small-break LOCA model, Westing-house has performed blind test predictions of LOFT experiments for verification of the total model. Id. Comparison of these predictions with the test results, taking into account variations in input data and system configurations, indicate the Westinghouse model has conservatively predicted important parameters of the results of those experiments. Id.

Post-test analyses have been performed, with appropriate parameters modified to reflect test conditions more accurately, which demonstrate accurate prediction of test results and margins of conservatism in Westinghouso small-break LOCA models. Affidavit of Frederick F. Cadek at 5.

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• III. CONCLUSION ~

For the foregoing reasons, Applicants believe that CFUR' has failed to demonstrate that either Contention 3 or any of its concerns warrant the Board's sua sponte consideration thereof. Accordingly, the Board should grant CFUR's motion for withdrawal as a party to this proceeding and deny CFUR's request for Board adoption of Contention 3 and its other concerns.

Respectful]Y submitted, f; _

Nichola$f S./'Reynolds

/

if ~

.' b-William-A. Horin (m)sw .

i DEBEVIOSE & LIBERMAN 1200 Seventeenth Street, N.W.

Washington,'D.C. 20036

- (202) 857-9817-Counsel for Applicants l

l March 10, 1982

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