ML20054H808

Responds to FOIA Request for Documents Re Exemption from 10CFR50 App E Emergency Planning & Preparedness Requirements.Dg Eisenhut 820122 & 0203 Ltrs Encl

ML20054H808
Person / Time
Site:	Oyster Creek
Issue date:	06/10/1982
From:	Toms N NRC OFFICE OF ADMINISTRATION (ADM)
To:	Watkins M DEBEVOISE & LIBERMAN
Shared Package
ML20054H809	List: ML20054H808 ML20054H812
References
FOIA-82-216 NUDOCS 8206240477
Download: ML20054H808 (1)

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M 2 ;S McNeill Watkins, Esquire N b Debevoise & Liberman m g 1200 Seventeenth Street, N.W. IN RESPONS Washington, DC 20036 TO F01A-82-216

Dear Mr. Watkins:

The two documents listed below are relevant to your recent F0IA request,82-216. These documents surfaced after our letter had been sent to you.

Should you have any questions, please contact me at 492-8133.

1 Note to T. Novak from Darrell G. Eisenhut, 1/22/82.

2. Letter to P. B. Fiedler from Darrell G. Eisenhut, 2/3/82.

Sincerely, W

Nina L. Toms Freedom of Information and Privacy Acts Branch

Enclosures:

As stated 4

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NOTE T0: T. Novak The attached provides a terrible performance record for the NRC.

The U. S. Government cannot be in a situation where we simply don't reply to a licensee's request.

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Please discuss the attached letter with Brian Grimes and work out an appropriate response.

l As a separate, but related matter, recall that we are contracting with ORNL and LASL to provide us assistance in determining which l LWR Post-TMI requirements are applicable to this HTGR. This effort was initiated in response to a request from the ACRS. Please explain i

how that contractor was utilized in this decision, how such efforts w'ill be factored into our efforts in the future, and explain NRR's involvement (or lack thereof) in developing an answer for PSC and in answering their correspondence.

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' ' Darre . {'.-n (hu . (frector is Division of Licensing cc: H. Denton R. DeYoung B. Grimes /

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- p- 1 January, 8,1982 Fort St. Vrain 9, hr Unit #1 o P-82006 .f Mr. Brian Grimes, Director Emergency Preparedness Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation U. S. Nuclear, Regulatory Commission Washington, D.C. 20555

SUBJECT:

Fort St. Vrain Unit No. 1 Early Warning Alert System

Dear Mr. Grimes:

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On December 3, 1981, we were informe y duringanon-site f

meeting with the Nuclear Regulatory Comm sion ~ and ORNL that our

i. request for relief from the Early Warning Arert (EWA) requirements had been denied. We were further informed that on the basis of this denial that the February 1, 1982, date for implementat' ion of the Early Warning Alert System presently proposed by 10CFR50 would be applicable to Fort St. Vrain.

This oral communication was of serious concern to us, and as you are aware, prompted our request for the December 15, 1981, meeting with the Emergency Preparedness Group as well as other Nuclear Regulatory Commission representation.

We came to the December 15, 1981, meeting with two main concerns:

1. The basis for the oral communication was not clear in that l

we have received nothing in writing. We were interested in determining the extent of the review of our position as well as the basis for denial.

2. The late date of the denial places us in an untenable position with reference to meeting a February 1, 1982,

- implementation date.

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With reference ta our first concern we are still of the opinion that considered on a technical basis.

our position was not adequatelyat Fort St. Vrain are very predictable and take Accident situations reactor much longer to develop than similar accidents in light water technology. ORNL reached this same conclusion in their report on the did applicability of NUREG 0737 to Fort St. Vrain and, although ORNL not make any specific time recommendation, they did specifically * '

state that we should be afforded more time in an alert situation than that allowed for light water reactors. Because we have a first-of-a-kind plant our original accident analysis went far beyond those accidents considered to be credible and many of the analyzed accidents were non-mechanistic.

In spite of all these accidents, coupled witt) conservative assumptions, we were able to show that exposures from all accidents remained well below 10CFR100 limits.

These accidents were based on expected and de s i g",, circulating activities and conservative fuel failure models.

In our meeting on December 15, 1981, we were placed infor a class EPZ's. of small light water reactors similar to the classification This classification is erroneous and is based only on size-of plant considerations with no consideration to the time required for development of accidents.

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Although we still believe that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has been remiss in the evaluation of our position we believe that further action on our part would no doubt prove fruitless as the Nuclear Regulatory Comisison appears unwilling to evaluate the technical On this basis we are proceeding with the merits of our request.

installation of a tone alert system to meet the Early Warning Alert requirements. However, we are not waiving any rights we have to appeal the imposition of the February 1, 1982 deadline. ,

Given that we are proceeding with the implementation of an Early Warning Alert system brings us to our second concern, the February 1, As we stated in the December 15, 1981,

,1982, implementation date.

meeting we believe the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has been g*

irresponsible and remiss in their action concerning our repeated Our position was first setforth efforts to resolve this matter.

September, 1979, followed by many more letters and several meetings.

any response to in' hd m Over two (2) years later we still had not received our position, and finally on December 3,1981, we were informed that had been N h)@.

our request for relief from the Early Warning Alert system denied.

• It is requested, therefore, that we be given relief from the February 1, 1982, date based on the following:

1. We initially set forth our general position on the Early Warning Alert system as early as September 10, 1979, in our letter P-79205 to Mr. Jack Roe who was then assigned as the leader of our Emergency Planning Review Team. We did not '

receive any response to this letter. On March 18, 1980, we ,.

submitted our proposed Radiological Emergency Response Plan via letter P-80083 and once again we indicated our position on the Early Warning Alert system. Following the Nuclear Regulatory Commission on-site review team visit onRegulatory May 21, receipt of Nuclear 1980,, and subsequent in the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Commission comments letter of July 23, 1980, we resubmitted our Radiological Emergency Response Plan along with our response to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission comments via our letter P-80288, dated August 28, 1980, which again set forth our position on the Early Warning Alert system.

2. This round of correspondence was followed by a meeting on

'f December 10, 1980, with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission at

\ Public Service Company's request. We found during this meeting that our letter P-80288 submitted in August had not even been reviewed by the Emergency Preparedness Group. We were informed that we would receive comments on this letter by February, 1981, comments which we finally received on December 17, 1981.

Following the December 10, 1980, meeting we submitted our 3.

initial response to NUREG 0737 in our letter P-80438, dated December 20, 1980, and once again expressed our concern about the lack of resolution to our previous correspondence.

4. Recognizing that time was becoming a major factor we then In wrote directly to the Nuclear Regulatory Commissioners.

our letter P-81009, dated January 9, 1981, we set forth a detailed technical justification for relief from the Early Warning Alert requirements. .

February 27, 1981, we submitted our Radiological

5. On Emergency Response Plan, Implementing Procedures, and the State Radiological Emergency Response Plan, via letter P-81074, and again expressed concern about the lack of Nuclear Regulatory Commission response.

- 6. On April 8, 1981, (reference P-81116) we responded to Nuclear Regulatory Commission Generic Letter 81-10 and once again we expressed concern for the lack of Nuclear Regulatory Commission response with reference to the various time tables that had been established to implement the various requirements.

7. On July 13, 1981, in response to a letter from Nuclear Regulatory Commission Region IV on the Early Warning Alert system, we once again set forth our position on the Early Warning Alert system in letter P-81184.

S. Following publication of the 10CFR50 rule extending the Earfy Warning Alert system implementation to February 1, 1982, we immediately expressed our concern to the Nuclear dated October 5, Regulatory Commission via letter P-81243, 1981. In this letter we indicated we could not meet the February 1, 1982, date and requested that the time tables and schedules for Fort St. Vrain be based on completion of the ORNL review. We were informed verbally that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission was preparing a letter to that effect, but we did not receive such a letter.

9. On September 30, 1981, we received ORNL's evaluation of the applicability of NUREG 0737 to Fort St. Vrain, and on October 22, 1981, we provided our comments to ORNL via letter P-81263.

10. In this entire period we received no comments from the Nuclear Regulatory Commisison in response to correspondence in spite of our many attempts to obtain resolution. Then on December 3, 1981, we were informed of the denial which se still have not received in writing, and were informed that the February 1, 1982, date would be applied to Fort St.

Vrain.

a 11. It should be noted that during this time we were making preparations to install an Early Warning Alert system should our requests be denied. Early in 1980 we had an EPZ study conducted by Federal Signal Corporation to define a siren system. We obviously had major concerns about a siren system because of the turkey farms in the area as well as other concerns; however, at that time the National Weather Service did not have sufficient NOAA weather radio coverage . .

in our area for us to consider a tone alert system. The siren study was completed and the location and size of the sirens were defined. Preliminary investigations were therefore completed to permit us to proceed with the installation as expeditiously as possible should our appeal be denied. Later, in our work with the National Weather Service, we learned that a NOAA weather stattin was to be installed near Mead, Colorado, by mid 1981. This station, .

however, only provided marginal coverage in our area and a second station was planned for Point of Rocks. These two stations provided more than adequate coverage and we proceeded with the design of a tone alert system. We were out for bid on the system in November, 1981. Again our f'

efforts here were to complete all preliminary work short of

( actual purchase to allow us to proceed as expeditiously as possible should our request be denied.

We believe the items described above clearly demonstrate our efforts to resolve this issue, and clearly demonstrate our efforts of preparation for implementing an Early Warning Alert system should our request be denied. In spite of these efforts, however, we do not feel we can be expected to respond in implementing a system in less than two (2) months when it has taken the Nuclear Regulatory Commission almost twenty-seven (27) months to give us a response -

We recognize that the proposed 10CFR50 rule calls for enforcement

, action to be taken against those utilities that are not in compliance by February 1, 1982, but this action must consider timely action by the Nuclear Regulatory Commisison. It is obvious that timely action by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission did not take place. As we indicated in the December 15, 1981, meeting we not only believe that it is unrealistic to apply the February 1, 1982, implementation date to Fort St. Vrain, it is also unreasonable to apply enforcement action for failure to comply when the Nuclear Regulatory Commission played A very responsible role in leading to our failure to comply.

We have purchased the weather radios (tone alert radios), and we expect delivery early in January. We are proceeding with the development of public information brochures providing instructions

,for use and care of the radios, and we are proceeding Procedures with are being our plans developed in for distribution of the radios.

concert with the State, local government, and the National heather Service. . .

Based on our present schedule we believe we can have most efathe radios distributed by mid February. This schedule, however,' is extremely optimistic and contains very rough estimates as to the It numbers of personal contacts that can be made in a given day.

does not allow much time for situations such as people not at home, lack of or addition 51 time that may be required due to a understanding. Further, we have spent a lot of time and effort in it is developing the confidence of the public in Fort St. Vrain and extremely important that we implement our program properly to maintain this confidence. These are areas which are very difficult to estimate. Our schedule depends on procedural development by i

governmental agencies which are not under our control.

We believe a more realistic schedule, given the many tasks to be accomplished and the many unknowns associated with these tasks would i

be April 1, 1982, for total implementation. We intend to proceed as project expeditiously as possible, and we will keep our NRR management informed as to our progress.

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Optimistically we are proceeding on schedule of implementation by mid February. We are, however, requesting relief to April 1, 1982, as a more realistic basis and we are further requesting a waiver of any Nuclear Regulatory Commission enforcement action until April 1,1982.

We believe our request is justified and we request your consideration and timely response.

Very truly yours, ,

/Y Y W Don W. Warembourg #

Manager, Nuclear Production Fort St. Vrain Nuclear Generating Station DWW/alk.

cc: B. Clark G. Ku:mycz J. Collins

• DeYoung Dirkes

0. Eisenhut e

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