ML20055A101
| ML20055A101 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Shoreham File:Long Island Lighting Company icon.png |
| Issue date: | 07/13/1982 |
| From: | Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel |
| To: | |
| References | |
| ISSUANCES-OL, NUDOCS 8207150476 | |
| Download: ML20055A101 (197) | |
Text
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NCCI.IAR RE C TORY COMMISSICN e h tu h a t m
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BEFORE THE ATOMIC SAFETY,AND LICENSING BOARD s
In de.410::ar ef:
LONG ISLAND LIGHTI.?G COMPANY DOCKET NO. 50-322-OL (Shoreham Nuclear ?ower Station)
CA"'E:
July 13, 1982 PAGES:_ 6413 - 6605 AT:
Riverhead, New York l
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1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 2
NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
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3 BEFORE THE ATOMIC SAFETY AND LICENSING BOARD i
4
-x 5
In the Matter of 6
LONG ISLAND LIGHTING COMPANY s
Docket No. 50-322-OL 7
(Shoreham Nuclear Fower Sta tion) 4 8
- - - - - - - - - - -x 9
10 Riverhead County Complex 11 Legislative Hesring Room 12 Riverhead, New York 11901 13 Tuesday, July 13, 1982 f
14 The hearing in the above-entitled matter l
15 convened, pursuant to notice, a t 10430 a.m.
16 BEFOREs 17 LAWRENCE BRENNER, Chairman 18 Administrative Judge 19 PETER A.
MORRIS, Member 20 Administrative Judge 21 WALTER H.
JORDAN, Assistant to the Board 22 Administrative Judge 23 24 25 O
ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY,INC, 400 VIRGINIA AVE S.W., WASHINGTON. O.C. 20024 (202) 554 2345
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AreEARANCES, 2
On behalf of Applicants 3
ANTHONY F. EARLEY, Esq.
4 T.
S.
ELLIS III, Esq.
5 W.
TAYLOR REVELEY, III, Esq.
6 Hunton C Williams 7
707 East Main Street 8
Richmond, Va.
23212 9
On behalf of the Regulatory Staffs 10 EDWIN REIS, Esq.
11 RICHARD RAWSON, Esq.
12 Washington, D.C.
13 On behalf of Suffolk County:
O 14 LAWRENCE COE LANPHER, Esq.
15 (irkpattick. Lockhatt, Hill, 16 Christopher & Phillips i
17 1900 M Street, N.W.
18 Washington, D.C.
20036 l
19 20 21 22 23 24 25 O
i ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY,INC, 400 VIRGINlA AVE., S.W.. WASHINGTON, O C. 20024 (202) 554 2345
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casseuxS 2 WITNESSES:
DIRECT CROSS REDIRECT RECROSS O
xehok C. Thedeni (Ce11ed) and 4
Themis P.
- Speis, 5 Walter P. Haass, Marvin W. Hodges, 6
C.
E. Rossi, James H. Conran, Sr.,
and 7 Robert Kirkwood (Resumed)
By Mr. Reis 6452 8
By Mrs Lanpher 6470 9
(Afternoon Session..... page 6474) to Ashok C. Thadani, 11 Themis P.
- Speis, Walter P.
- Haass, 12 Marvin W. Hodges, C.
E.
- Rossi, James H. Conran, Sr., and 14 Robert Kirkwood
(. Resumed)
By Mr. Lanpher 6475 15 16 17 MATERIAL BOUND INTO THE TRANSCRIPT PAGE 18 Professional Qualifications of Ashok C. Thadani 6453 19 20 21 RECESSES:
22 Morning - 6451 23 Noon - 6473 O
24 Afternoon - 6541 25 O
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i taa tta1ans 2
(10:30 a.m.)
3 JUDOE BRENNER:
Good morning.
As we had
{
4 previously announced a number of weeks ago, Judge 5
Carpenter is not here today and he is not expected to be 6
here tomorrow.
He is involved in a special prehearing 7
conference in another proceeding, and we will be 8
proceeding under the quorum rule with Judge Morris and 9
myself.
10 I just want to take a very brief moment and 11 check my own listing of the dates of cross examination 12 plants that we were to receive today, and the other one 13 scheculed for next week.
And one thing that confused me r
14 a little were the th ree plans that the staf f gave me 15 today.
16 I had on my schedule cross examination plans 17 on the two safety relief contantions due today.
That 18 is, Suffolk County 22 and Suffolk County 28(a)(vi) and 19 only those two.
Is that co rrec t?
20 MR. LANPHER:
That is our understanding.
I 21 JUDOE BRENNER:
The staff, which we were happy 22 to receive also, provided Suffolk County 25, which is 23 reactor pressure vassal integrity and testing, but my 24 listing indicates that we have not yet scheduled a due 25 date for that cross examination plan, is that correct?
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1 HR. REYELEY:
Judge, we thought you had.
2 JUDGE BRENNER:
I am not sura, and that is why 3
I am asking.
But I don't believe I had.
4 MR. EARLEYs Judge, as I recall, there was a 5
discussion about whether the second SRV contention --
6 and I don't recall which one it was -- and the RPV 7
integrity contention had actually been put in line for 8
hearing.
So, it may have been our misunderstanding that 9
in that discussion it was to be included in the filing 10 today.
11 JUDGE BRENNER:
I recall the discussion.
I 12 don't recall whether it was scheduled.
I only raise it 13 to indicata that I guess if I don't see a filing from a C) 14 party on tha t con te n tion, Suffolk County 25 and the 15 count / indicates it won't have one -- there may have 16 been sufficient ambiguity, for which I apologize.
17 MR. LANPHER4 Judge, our records indicate that 18 it hasn't been scheduled at all.
That one, I believe.
19 JUDGE BRENNER:
Well, that was my record, 20 too.
I think what happened was I jumped ahead to the 21 other one because it was related to the SRV.
22 MR. LANPHER:
I think the next one, just from 23 memory, is Suffolk County 19, the procedures, which I 24 think we scheduled for July 19.
i 25 JUDGE BRENNER:
The 20th.
That is the other l
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1 reminder I wanted to make, which you just did.
2 Well, I won't schedule Suffolk County 25 yet,
(~T 3
for anyone who has not made a filing.
And when we do
\\w) 4 schedule a date, we are happy to have the ones we have, 5
and anyone who wants to supplement it, as always, can do 6
it.
I think we have a bit of time.
We may talk more 7
about the time flow in the next few days, I am not sure, 8
and not just related to cross examination plans.
l 9
The other brief preliminary matter is the 10 emergency planning.
We have received the staff's filing i
11 on its position and also, the county's response to I
12 LILCO's objections.
We gave the county -- the county 13 will have in opportunity to further address the staff 14 objections if it wishes.
I will leave it up to the 15 county as to whether it will be done orally in writing 16 or both.
17 If you to it in writing, we would like to 18 schedule, if it is convenient for the parties, 19 discussion of the emergency planning contentions and 20 objections thereto for next Tuesday.
I suspect it will 21 take the better part of the day.
I am not sure.
22 Certainly, there douli be no need to have witnesses here 23 prior to the afternoon.
24 5R. LANPHER Judge Brenner, if I could just 25 check with my colleagues at the break or at lunch.
I O
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1 don 't believe that is any problem at all next Tuesday, 2
but I just want to make sure for their schedules.
3 JUDGE BRENNER4 Fine.
I was going to put in
[}
if we haven't finished with this panel by 4
one caveat 5
them.
Which will raise problems a lot more serious than 6
just scheduling the emergency planning discussion.
We 7
will discuss whether or not we should continue with the 8
panel or other aspects related to whatever contention we 9
are in the middle of.
So it could push over to later 10 Tuesday or Wednesday.
But absent particular 11 circumstances, we would like to set it definitely for 12 the starting time on Tuesday.
f-s 13 MR. LANPHER:
I will get their schedules for t
14 all next week.
I have their schedules for this week; I 15 thought you might have wanted to schedule it for this 16 week.
17 JUDGE BRENNER:
The other point is if you wish 18 to file any written responses to the staff's objections 19 which, of course, you did not see before the filing of 20 your previous submittal, the county can provide a 21 Writing to us on Mondsy, or can just orally argue it on 22 Tuesday.
And you should judge by how extensive and new 23 your argumant would have to be.
If it will help us 24 better focus the oral discussion, then a writing would 25 be appreciated.
If there are no brand new points but O
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1 serely some elabotation on points previously made, you 2
could save that for the oral discussion.
/'%
3 MR. REIS Mr. Chairman, as you indica ted, the V
4 staff would strongly support putting off any argument on 5
this until after this panel is finished.
The six people 6
have been away f rom other duties f or a long time, and as 7
you indicated, tha t would probably be done, and we 8
appreciate that.
9 JUDGE BRENNER:
We will discuss what is 10 involved because it would be a Tuesday, and it may be 11 more productive f or the panel's time to come back here a 12 day late.
In other words, let's see what the situation 13 is.
14 MR. REIS:
Yes, I understand.
15 JUDGE BRENNER:
It is not as if they will be 16 here the day before the argument.
I don't want to get 17 into it, but I certainly hope we finish the panel by 18 then.
In fact, before the end of this week.
19 (Board conferring.)
20 JUDGE BRENNER:
There is one other matter 21 relating to emergency planning.
We have received 22 LILCO's motion to compel discovery on emergency 23 planning.
I haven't digested it enough to know if the 24 response would have to be extensive and, too, whether it 25 should be in writing also.
()
l ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY, INC, 400 VIRGINIA AVE., S.W., WASHINGTON, D.C. 20024 (202) 554 2345
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1 It would, I am sure, assist the Board to have 2
a written response in our hands very early on Monday 3
from the county and the staff, if it wishes to take a
[
4 position, so that we can include it in the emergency 5
planning discussion.
6 As I say, I haven't made a preliminary 7
judgment as to whether the response or argument is 8
extensive, and if the county believes that the response 9
is very simple and straightforward, its written filing 10 can reflect that.
It can be a brief outline of the 11 discussion that the county would want to have on it.
12 If it is extensive, then we would appreciate 13 the legal support and so on very early Monday, because s_/
14 we need Honday to work on it.
It makes a big difference 15 on Mondays for the Board for getting a document close to 16 9s00 a.m.
as distinguished from 1:00 p.m.
So we would 17 really require prompt service on any written filings on 18 emergency planning that the county is going to make.
19 That is all we have.
We are prepared to 20 proceed with matters related to 7B.
21 MR. REIS:
Mr. Chairman, if I might be heard 22 at this time.
In view of the Board's comments at the 23 and of Friday, we have with us today Mr. Ashok Thadani, 24 who is Branch Chief of the Reliability and Risk 25 Assessment B ra nch, and in the pleading we submitted O
ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY. INC.
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1 yesterday, we indicated that he would be available to 2
answer those areas which the Boa rd indicated it had
/"%
3 special interest in.
V 4
We had previously set forth our position on I
5 these matters generally and our views of the PRA 6
testimony and its place in the proceeding as far as the 7
sta ff was concerned, in its pleading of June 14, 1982, 8
which dealt with LILCO's 7B testimony.
And I think we 9
set it out pretty clearly there.
10 However, at this point, I would like to ask 11 that Mr. Ihadani be made available for the Board's 12 questions that they were propounding on Friday so that 13 he be able to answer those questions.
And we have Os t
14 particularly made him available today because of the 15 B oa rd 's concern.
We have taken him out of other things 16 he is involved in -- a national reliability evaluation 17 program wo rk sho p this week.
He is working on 18 pressurized thermal shock this week, which is urgent.
I 19 And also, the precursor report that you might have seen l
l 20 in the New York Times last Tuesday, I guess it was, that 21 appeared in the New York Times, and there was an article l
22 about it.
1 l
23 As you are aware, and as the staff has said in 24 the past, it is difficult with this flexible scheduling 25 often to have witnesses available, and it is not just a l
I C:)
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1 question of them being able to do work here and written 2
work; it is consulting with people, directing things.
3 And especially one who is Branch Chief of the
(}
4 Reliability and Risk Assessment Branch of the Division 5
of Safety rechnology.
There are paticular conflicts.
6 So in an effort to be responsive to the Board 7
but looking at the other work of NRR and the staf f as 8
well, we are trying to make an accommodation.
For that 9
reason, I would like to make Mr. Thadani available now 10 to testify on the matters we indicated on page 2 of our 11 submittal.
Essentially, the policy regarding 12 requirements for review of PRAs; and in that, why this 13 differs from the Limerick proceeding; how PRAs will be 14 used in decision-making processes; the staff's position
'~
15 on the use of the draft Shoreham PRA; and the principal 16 strengths and weaknesses of PRA, which, of course, is a 17 subject generally for cross examination.
I don't look 18 to Mr. Thadani just to be available for the Board 19 questions, but on the general question of the strengths 20 and weaknesses of PRA.
As I say, this has been set 21 forth before -- our general position on this matter --
22 in the June 14th filing.
23 Let me say one other thing.
l 24 JUDGE BRENNER:
Could you tell me what the 1
25 June 14th filing is?
I am not focused on it.
O I
l l
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1 MR. REIS1 It was the NRC staff response to 2
the Suffolk County Motion to Strike Portions of the 3
LILCO contention, where we very much set out our limited
)
4 use of PRAJ th a t we would not require probabilistic risk 5
assessments; that we didn't think the PBA had to 6
particularly be gone into in any depth.
7 JUDGE BRENNER:
That was in the nature of 8
legal argument, though?
9 HR. REIS:
Yes.
Much of this is policy, and 10 as a result, is appropriate for legal argument.
When we 11 set out these things we, of course, represent the 12 position of the staf f as a policy matter as well as 13 legal argument.
d 14 On one other matter before we consider that 15 that I don't want to get lost in the shuffle -- I 16 mentioned a document on Friday, and I said I would make 17 it available if it was not an internal document.
Since 18 then I have inquired of the Commission through the 19 Secretary's of fice and of the Executive Director of NPC 20 is to the locument, and it is an internal document and 21 we will not be able to make it available.
22 Ihe Commission is considering an allied ma tter 23 tomorrow, and they certainly don't want the document
(~N (m) 24 made available, we are informed through the Secretary's 25 office.
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1 JUDGE BRENNER:
I will be honest with you.
As 2
one Board member, I never focused very well on what the 3
nature of that document was, other than a proposal with 4
respect to safety goals.
5 ER. REIS:
That is right.
And in it, by the 6
way, is discussed PRA and the use of PRA in the 7
licensing process.
8 JUDGE BRENNER:
Well, I am not prepared to 9
discuss its production or non-production any further at 10 this point because I don't know enough about what is in 11 it, and therefore, I don't know enough about how 12 important it is.
And I certainly don't know enough as 13 to whether a decision that it could not be made 14 available in some fashion to this proceeding is a 15 correct one or not, and I don't know enough to want to 16 raise that matter right now sua sponte.
17 But any decisions not to turn things over that 18 later become pertinent or importan t present risks later 19 on to the litigation posture and schedule, and I will l
20 leave it at that.
21 MR. REI5:
Right.
I just wanted to close the 22 loop on th a t, because I lef t it open.
23 24 25 l
l.
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1 JUDGE BRENNER:
What was the basis as to why 2
it could not be disclosed?
3 MR. REI5:
Essentially it is an internal
}
4 working document.
5 JUDGE BRENNER:
Do you mean under the Freedom 6
of Information Act?
7 MR. REIS:
And 744, as reference to the 8
exceptions, and 790 makas thosa exceptions relevant.
9 JUDGE BRENNER.
Which exception are you 10 claiming?
11 MR. REIS:
It is Exception 5.
12 JUDGE BRENNER:
Is tha t th e decision-makin g?
13 MR. REIS:
That is decision-making documents O
14 and internal documents going to decision-making.
As I 15 said, I had discussions yesterday with the secretary's 16 office on that matter, and with the executive director's 17 office.
18 (Whereupon, the Board conferred.)
l 19 JUDGE BRENNER:
Well, the Board doesn't plan 20 to pursue it further at this time.
I will leave it at 21 that, on our own.
Mr. Reis, in coming back to your 22 filing, first of all, you indicated you filed it 23 yesterday.
I received it in the airport lounge this O
's /
24 morning, approximately half an hour before boarding the 25 plane, and I understand it was delivered to the Board's
(
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1 offices after 5:15 yesterday, so I didn ' t k now about it 2
or set eyes or hands or anything else on it until this 3
morning.
In addition --
4 MR. REIS:
We tried to call at ten of 5:00.
5 JUDGE BRENNER:
Well, I just related when I 6
received it, and when I first knew about it.
In 7
a ddi tion, the cover letter, the package includes two l
l 8
other documents, two SECY papers, and there is no 9
inkling of why they are included or what purpose the 1
10 staff would make of them.
11 MR. REIS:
Mr. Chairman, perhaps I could 12 elucidate that now.
Those SECY papers essentially 13 indicate and are the staff's position that it has g
O 14 transmitted to the Commission on the use of PRA in the 15 licensing process and in view of the Board's continual 10 questions of how this dif f e rs f rom the Lime rick 17 proceeding.
We think they a re particularly appropriate 18 to that, and they show the position we have taken on 19 that, I guess, since January of this year, and they are 20 pertinent to that, particularly.
Let me say this.
They l
21 were also delivered to two of the members of the Board i
1 22 in the Limerick proceeding, though they might not have 23 been focused on it.
Some time ago they were delivered.
24 We don't intend to put them in evidence.
They 25 are just for the information of the Board.
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1 JUDGE BRENNER:
Well, that is my question.
I 2
can't do anything with it as a Board member in this 3
proceeding unless they are either put in evidence or
[}
4 used in the cross examination, or used in the 5
proceeding, so we have received them, and they are 6
available.
I read them on the plane.
I indeed have 7
read them before, some time ago, although not very 8
focused.
For your information, in Limerick they were 9
included in a stack of documents about two feet high.
10 So, I don 't know what to do with them in this 11 proceeding, and you haven ' t helped me.
12 MR. REIS:
Well, Mr. Chairman, if somebody 13 does cross examine on them and they become pertinent,
(*
U 14 and there is a real issue that is developing, then at 15 that point we would put them in evidence.
We though t we 16 should make them available to the Board and the parties, l
17 though, at this point.
18 JUDGE BRENNER:
Yes.
I apprecia te tha t.
I am 19 wondering -- you don't plan to put them in evidence?
1 20 MR. REIS:
I don't plan to put them in 21 evidence.
22 JUDGE BRENNERs You don't plan to use them?
23 Well, it is possible, I suppose, that you might --
b s/
24 MR. REISs I might on redirect.
Something 25 might come up where I might want to use it.
Right now O
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1 it is not within our contemplation to use them.
2 JUDGE BRENNER4 All right.
I understand now.
3 3r. Lanpher, do you want to respond to the
(-)
%J 4
proposal to add Mr. Thadani to the panel?
And also, if 5
roa wish, the provision of the two SECY documents, SECY 6
81-25 a nd SECY 81-19 5, and the titles are disclosed in 7
the documents we have.
8 MR. LANPHER:
Well, Mr. Reis has explained 9
wha t his purpose was with respect to the SECY 10 documents.
I wish I had had them earlier, frankly, or 11 focused on them earlier somewhat, but if they are not 12 planning to use them for evidence or attach them to 13 their testimony, I don't think there is a need to O
14 address that further at this time.
15 With respect to the motion, we oppose the 16 motion for several reasons.
So the record is clear, I 17 did not receive the motion or this package of documents 18 until I boarded the plane this morning.
Mr. Rawson had 19 informed me that they were planning to file a motion 20 yesterday afternoon.
He did not tell me about the SECY 21 documents, but that is fine, but the motion, I knew 22 about.
I ildn't (now the bases or whatever until this 23 morning.
I think the staff could clearly have focused
()
24 on this or their perceived need to add Mr. Thadani prior 25 to this weekend, prior to the events of last Friday.
I O
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1 think it was very clear, if not before May 25, certainly 2
with the filing of the LILCO testimony on May 25, that 3
PRA would be a f ocus, or certainly af ter our motion to 4
strike portions of the LILCO testimony was denied 5
around, I guess, June 15 or whenever the testimony on 7B 6
by LILCO commenced.
7 S o, I think it is far out of time to have 8
filed this motion to supplement.
9 Second, it strikes me as a motion which goes 10 beyond mere supplementation of the panel, such as LILCO 11 has been doing.
It appears to me that Mr. Thadani is 12 being sponsored to add additional testimony, presumably 13 with his expertise regarding staff policy and how PRA's i
14 will be used, and that should have been done in writing, 15 and to hear for the first time today from Mr. Thadani, 16 or whenever the Board would tske it, I think, is 17 inappropriate.
l 18 Ihird is, I don't know why Mr. Thadani is 19 here.
I think the person that should be here is Mr.
20 Israel, the person who draf ted the answer to Question I 21 think it was 38, which was described last week as sort 22 of the central aspect or the key or whatever of the 23 staff PRA testimony.
He would be a far more appropriate
()
24 person to attempt to add, it seems to me, to this panel, 25 since he was the one that d raf ted tha t answer.
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1 A fourth comment, and this may be a little 2
personal peak, frankly, but the last sentence of the 3
motion, "The staff believes it will be helpful to the 4
Board and the parties," I wish people would stop telling 5
se what will be helpful to my clients.
I m ean, if they 6
think it is helpful for themselves, fine, but I don't 7
think I need to be told what is helpful for my client.
8 I would just like that t5 be on the record.
9 JUDGE BRENNERs In reading that phraso, I 10 substitute, "And if this helps you, it will be helpful 11 to the particular parties whose view what might help 12 them in the record."
So I don't think we have to add, 13 and I think all parties put things close to the way the O
14 staff put it in the motion, and obviously as an advocate 15 it also consists of their view of what would be helpful 16 to them.
I don't think we need to discuss that one 17 further.
18 MR. LANPHER:
I wasn't planning to address it l
19 in detail.
A further comment.
I heard for the first i
20 time today that they want to propose Mr. Thadani to be 21 here today and then disappear.
Well, 7B, as we have 22 learned from the examination of the LILCO panel, and I l
j 23 think it wo uld be true here, the parts all relate 24 to2 ether a great deal.
The portion of the testimony 25 that we are focusing on is the alternate methodology O
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1 s ec tion, which also includes systems interaction and 2
other factors.
I would be very much opposed to having 3
Mr. Thadani here for only a certain set of questions and 4
then not be available potentially for other questions 5
that may come up through Board qu'stioning later or e
6 through other issues which we address or through the 7
Denton memo, which I know we will be addressing at some 8
point.
9 I don't think it is sppropriate to bring a 10 witness in for one narrow aspect and then to dismiss 11 thst witness sad not have him availa ble, so if he is 12 going to be here, I think he should be available for the 13 entire examination.
O 14 JUDGE BRENNER:
Well, on the last point -- I 15 will let you finish, but just on the last point, do you 16 sean for the entire examination of the panel, no matter 17 what sequence the subjects are taken up in, or for the 18 entire examination of PR A-related ma tte rs, which we 19 agreed we would to the fullest extent practicable take 20 up first?
21 MR. LANPHER:
My position is that he should be 22 here for the full 7B panel, because I think that they 23 are interrelated far more so with respect to the staff
()
24 testimony, frankly, than with respect to the LILCO i
25 tastimony hara.
They have interrela ted systems O
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1 interactions and PRA and alternate methodologies 2
section, which in my view relates to much of their 3
testimony.
To the extent possible, and particularly to 4
accommodate some west coast persons for LILCO, we are 5
trying to take it up first, but I am not sure that 6
questions don't come up later that would be relevant for 7
Mr. Thadani, and tha t frankly is my concern.
8 I would do everything in my power to get all 9
of those questions out up front, but I am not sure that 10 that will necessarily be possible.
Certainly he should 11 be here through all PRA and systems interaction related 12 matters, but frankly, I was not necessarily intending to 13 take up these systems interaction aspects, the 14 unresolved generic safety issues, which I guess is the 15 last portion of the staff testimony, right after we go 16 through the alternate methodologies section, but I can 17 see where Mr. Thstani might be quite relevant to that 18 also.
19 Finally, I do have inquiry and maybe this is 20 better to wait until the Board rules on the fundamental 21 motion as to what Mr. Thadani's involvement was in this 22 testimony, what his involvement has been with Shoreham 23 and the Shoreham PBA particularly.
I don't have that
()
24 clear an idea what benefit he is going to supply in 25 answer to the questions that this panel already can't O
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1 supply.
2 JUDGE BRENNERs Does LILCO have a response?
3 HR. LANPHER:
Judge Brenner, before LILCO 4
goes, frankly, if the staff believes this is important 5
testimony for him to offer, we think it should be 6
offered in writing.
It should be prefiled, and it 7
should be considered at a later time.
I would likely 8
oppose that also, because I think it is out of time.
I 9
have been fairly unsuccessful in those motions or those 10 positions, but to bring them in at this late time in 11 this manner I think is inappropriate, and so I don 't 12 think he should be here today, and if the Board believes 13 tha t his participa tion is importan t, he should be asked 14 to prefile testimony and come back at another time.
15 JUDGE BRENNER:
On your last point, if we did 16 that, what about your disconnection problem, your 17 problem that his testimony is also important as part of 18 the whole panel?
19 HR. LANPHER:
Well, we will have to see what 20 he files at that point.
I don't know what he would 21 file.
I really can't address that until I see what 22 precisely he intends to say, and tha t supplemental 23 testimony, if it were offered in that fashion, might
()
24 require bringing back the entire 7B panel for the 25 staff.
I nean, it might prompt LILCO to want to bring O
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I back some of their people for supplemental testimony.
I 2
just don 't k now.
I don't think it is appropriate to
/
3 offer the testimony at this late time without seeing it 4
in writing, and having an opportunity to prepare cross 5
examination.
6 JUDGE BRENNER:
Incidentally, you put the SECY 7
papers aside in your discussion, given the staff's 8
indicated use or non-use of them.
I imagine they could 9
give rise to cross examination questions from the county 10 also.
11 HR. LANPHER:
Judge Brenner, I made it through 12 about half of those, okay?
On the plane coming up this 13 aorning.
And, yes, I can see them giving rise to cross 14 examinstion.
I haven't had a chance to consult with Mr.
15 Hubbard about it.
He hasn't had an opportunity to read 16 them.
I don 't expect any cross examina tion this morning 17 or probably this afternoon or possibly tomorrow with 18 respect to those, just so we have a chance to digest.
19 JUDGE BRENNER:
LILCO?
i 20 MR. ELLIS4 LILCO has no objection to the 21 supplementation of the staff panel to add Mr. Thadani to I
22 support the prefiled testimony that the staff has 23 already filed.
We also have -- take no position or have 24 no objection to the order in which he goes.
I should 25 advise the Board and Mr. Lanpher that we appreciate very ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY, INC.
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(_)
1 auch doing the alternative methodologies first.
That 2
was our plan last week.
We were holding Dr. Burns and
(~}
3 Dr. Yaksimovich here.
As matters turned out, we didn't
%_)
4 scratch tha surface, and we were unable to get them 5
back, but we have made arrangements for us to 6
comm unicate with them every evening, and they will be 7
able to advise us.
We still hope that that can be 8
done.
9 JUDGE BRENNERs I appreciate your mentioning 10 that, because I did not see their presence here, and was 11 going to ask you, and that explains it.
Mr. Ellis, 12 since you are quite familiar with the testimony and the 13 gory detail for the large number of weeks we have been 9
14 spending on this contention, and looking at the points 15 outlined on Page 2 of the staff's motion to add Mr.
16 Thadani, do you agree with the staff that this merely 17 illuminates their prefiled testimony, or do you agree 18 with Mr. Lanpher that these are new points not in the 19 prefiled testimony and therefore distinguishable from 20 LILCO's motions to add witnesses?
21 MR. ELLIS:
I think it can oe con strty.d bo th 22 ways.
It is a matter of degree.
23 JUDGE BRENNER:
We are going to put you in the C')
(,/
24 diploma tic service after this hearing.
25 (General laughter.)
7s ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY,INC, 400 VIRGINI A AVE., S_W., WASHINGTON, D.C. 20024 (202) 554 2345
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1 JUDGE BRENNER:
I take it you don't want to 2
take a position on that.
3 MR. ELLIS:
May I have a moment, please?
4 JUDGE BRENNER:
Yes.
I am asking because, as 5
I said, your advice could be helpful in the sense that 6
you are intimately familiar with all of the testimony, 7
and I infer that your position is not necessarily 8
aligned with one side or the other, because depending 9
upon where the examination goes, adding or not adding 10 the witness could each present different problems for 11 LILCO.
I should say adding or not adding the witness in 12 the fashion and on the schedule suggested by the staff 13 could present problems.
14 (Whereupon, counsel for LILCD conferred.)
15 MR. ELLIS:
On Page 33 of the staff's prefiled 16 testimony, they review in Question 38, which I think is 17 the question that Mr. Lanpher was interested in, and the 18 one, I think, as to which he elicited the names of Mr.
i 19 Israel and Mr. Thadani -- I may be wrong -- or just Mr.
20 Israel in that answer, I think the staff covers their l
21 policy, or at least mentions the policy regarding l
l 22 requirement for a review of PRA's, and the staff's 23 position regarding Number 3, the staff's position
)
24 regarding use of the Shoreham draft PRA and the 25 Licensing process.
I think they have made their
(~)
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vo=1tio= =a 1=t a a1r c1e r to
- t ther 1 tead to 2
do.
Namely, they do not intend to use it in the 3
licensing process.
4 Number 4, the principal strengths and 5
weaknesses of PRA, I believe that is -- I think it is 6
covered perhaps in some fashion.
I don't want to 7
characterize the fashion, but there is some coverage of 8
that subject in the attachments to the supplemental 9
testimony filed by the Board.
I am very sensitive to 10 the problem of going beyond the prefiled testimony.
I 11 do think that the Number 1,
2, 3, and 4 are sufficiently 12 general tha t one can find portions of the prefiled 13 testimony that arguably fall within ' hem, and I think it 14 is a matter of degree.
15 I had intended to be diplomatic, but I think 16 there is also some substantive basis for that.
17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 O
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1 JUDGE BRENNER:
Give us a moment, please.
2 (Board conferring.)
3 NR. REIS:
Mr. Chairman, may I be heard in gg U
4 rebuttal, if you think it appropriate, about a minute's 5
worth?
6 JUDGE BRENNER:
All right.
7 MR. REIS:
A, there is much question and 8
focusing on question 38 and Mr. Isra el.
Let me say that 9
question 38 is policy; it is an answer to a policy 10 question, principally.
And who, particularly, put it 11 together represents the policy of the branch and of 12 NRR.
Particularly, the head of the branch is most 13 knowledgeable to speak to that policy.
It is what we 14 will do, what we plan to do.
15 And Mr. Thadani here is essentially here in 16 policy matters, though question 4 goes beyond that.
It 17 is particularly -- we produced him particularly as to 18 matters that the Board inquired about, and it was our 19 view, as we set forth before, that we would not put on 20 anymore depth in these matters because we weren ' t going 21 to do that.
The Board kept pressing us and we brought 22 him here because of the Board's pressure.
Thank you.
23 JUDGE BRENNER:
Incidentally, I haven't seen
()
24 anything from the staff as a f urther cla rification, if 25 you will, of what witnesses prepared which portions of O
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I the te s ti m o n y.
(
2 MR. REI3:
We hsve sgsin reviewed that and we 3
find th a t what we have set out, wi th the possible
(~}
V 4
exception of number 38 and 36 and 37, are correct.
5 However, there are problems where there are policy 6
tstters be:suse they are polished by very many people 7
throughout the answers on thes.
And that was 8
communicated to Mr. Lanpher yesterday.
9 (Bosed conferring.)
to JUDGE BRENNER:
Wcli, I want to say at the 11 outset that the staff has put us in a very difficult 12 position by the timing of this motion.
The timing in 13 the larger context and the timing in the last few days, 8
14 also.
15 First of all, staff, understandably, -- and I 16 would, too, if I was naking the staff's presentation --
17 ties this to our comments on Friday.
However, we agree 18 with Mr. Linpher that where this litigstion vss going on 19 this contention was certainly apparent weeks bef ore 20 Fridays perhsps bsck st the initial filing of the 21 testimony, but certainly as soon as the e xa mina tion 22 began, or shortly after, some weeks ago.
So the need 23 should have been there.
p\\lj 24 And all I believe I did -- any my Board 25 nenbers agrae -- wss summsrize where the litigation was
'm)
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1 going rather than raise any new matters.
And that is 2
the larger timing problem.
3 The immediate timing problem is we have a 4
motion that we have got to look at this morning, 5
regardless of when -- the receipt was initially late the 6
evening before.
Actually, let me step back.
There is 7
no distinction.
We would have the same problems even if 8
it was 5: 00 o' clock the day before.
9 And then, th e witness is here, he has put on a 10 plane, he has been brought here, and we have to decide 11 whether to take him now.
And the staff further attempts 12 to have its cake and eat it, if I am right, by putting 13 him in at the last minute and then saying he is leaving 14 at the end of the day.
15 We think, based upon where we think the record 16 was going, his testimony can be helpful.
We also think 17 it crosses the line into new matter.
Mr. Ellis made the 18 best argument possible in terms of the connection to the 19 pre-filed testimony, and the way to make that argument 20 is to tie the rather general categories in the motion in l
21 the testimony, and even as to some of that, it had to be l
22 tied to the memos, which is not so such testimony as 23 mwerely other places where the same assertions are 24 found.
There is still no illumination of the matter.
25 As soon as the questioning starts to relate l
~
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1 these general topics to systems interaction and systems 2
classification and the Shoreham PRA, we are into new 3
matter which is not contained in the testimony.
I don't 4
know to what extent becuase, of course, it depends on 5
the anrwer, but we are into new matter.
6 We hope that all of the parties, including the 7
staff, keep in mind that the comments of Friday were in 8
the context of this contention, and that is the way I 9
read these genersl topics.
Wa are not interested in 10 e ve ry thing about the PRA here or in Limerick, and we 11 are, frankly, somewhat less interested in policy than we 12 ara in the expert testimony of witnesses with expertise 13 as to what assistance PBA work done could have in k
14 response to identifying systets intersctions and systems 15 classifications.
16 We are certainly well aware of the staff's 17 legal position that it wasn't required, but we are 18 trying to decide the conten tion.
Certainly, expert 19 testimony and policy ovsclap at some point, and I only i
20 made that coument to make sure the emphasis doesn't 21 shift too f a r the other way, because some policy has 22 elements of it that, frankly, cannot be our concern, in i
23 terms of resources and so on and so forth, as to why
()
24
- ertain da:isions were made.
25 Now, to the extent those decisions also have a
(
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I technical estionsle, we tra cartainly very interested in 2
hearing that.
So we have a lot of problems.
3 We would be amenable, subject to one important 4
clarification, to allowing Mr. Thadani to take the stand 5
now to answer questions on it, and to give everyone --
6 snd it might not be just the county; it might be LILCO 7
and it might be the Board; it might even be the staff --
8 to give everyone an opportunity to review the testimony 9
that we hear.
10 And to the extent that it is testimony that 11 reasonably is new -- and I am not saying there might not 12 be some connection to some sense in the original 13 testimony, but new in the sense of a reasonable new O
to give the parties an 14 approach, newly important 15 opportunity to review that record and have the witness 16 or witnesses, to the extent it is tied up with other 17 witnesses' testimony, recalled; similar to what we did 18 with Dr. Lucks.
19 That is not perfect, and frankly, if Mr.
that is, having flown 20 Ihadani was not sitting here, 21 out in anticipation of the motion being granted at the 22 sste time the motion is filed, and rather late-filed at 23 that -- our ruling might have been different.
But we 24 have to take the situation as we find it.
25 However, the one important caveat is that if ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY, INC, 400 VIRGINIA AVE., S W. WASHINGTON, O C. 20024 (202) 554 2345
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1 he is going to leave at the end of the day, no matter 2
what, then you might as well not put him on.
Our ruling r~T 3
would be tha t he is to be here through the PRA-related V
4 sitters; that would not be the entire 7B panel.
And 5
because we are going to allow a recall to the extent 6
other matters come up latar, that could affect whether 7
or not we need him back, and the staff would be taking 8
thst risk in not keeping him here, but we would not 9
require that he stay through the entire 7B panel.
But 10 he would be required to stay during the entire time we 11 are focusing on PRA-related matters.
And I am not about 12 to guarantae that that is going to be today.
13 (Counsel for staff conferring.)
9 14 JUDGE BRENNER:
We have got a lot of busy 15 people who have been spending a lot of time here, also.
16 MR. REIS:
I am quite aware of that, and I 17 appreciate the Board 's indulgence.
I did not b ring M r.
18 Thadani here to pat pressure on the Board; it was, 19 rather, to be responsive to the Bosrd.
We talked about 20 when he was available --
21 JUDGE BRENNER:
Let me just interject.
We 22 could have had a conference call yesterday when there 23 vss tima to decide whether he should come down today or p
(_)
24 not, and I will leave it at that.
And there are rapid 25 means of communication in this modern age.
And where
/^T
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1 circumstances are th ru st upon us where there is short 2
notice, as we recognize happened to the staff here, we 3
don't want to discourage the filing of things that might
(~~)
V 4
assist the parties' view of what will be necessary in 5
the record, but there are better ways to do it than this 6
kind of hearing.
7 We want to deal with the situation as we have 8
it in the best way we can.
9 HR. REIS:
I am sorry I did not consider a 10 conference call yesterday.
Frankly, it didn't cross my 11 mind.
Mr. Thadani is essentially -- now, I don't want 12 to limit people either, but in looking at the limited 13 extent of cross examination, we were first told by 9
14 Suf f olk County that they would be through and would get 15 to the staff in two days.
16 JUDGE BRENNER:
Let me cut this short.
That 17 is our ruling.
We cannot guarantee that he leaves at 18 the end of the day.
So if yo have to guarantee that, 19 then we have a problem.
20 MR. REIS:
If he would be through by the end 21 of tomorrow, I would be satisfied.
That is my 22 scheduling problem.
23 JUDGE BRENNER4 I would hope so, but I am not
,m
()
24 going to quarantee it.
25 MR. REIS:
Well, I would like to hear from Mr.
/~'s V
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1 Lanpher on that, a nd M r. Ellis, because I think they 2
know more about this than I think the Board does, 3
frankly.
4 JUDGE BRENNER:
Let me just add -- maybe I 5
shouldn't but I can't resist if you hav'e a r<sn whose 6
time is that valuable, how can you put him on a plane 7
wit hout no tice, without knowing as to whether any 8
purpose would be served, in case our ruling had been the 9
other way?
Well, I will leave it at that.
10 All you are going to get Will be time 11 estimates, I can tell you.
My own judgacnt is that two 12 days should be safe because we have an interest in 13 naking sure that we are not going to spend all week, and
(~)
k/
14 certainly not beyond this week, on this entire panel.
15 Ani you are going to stsrt hesting about that as the 16 days go on, if the days go on.
17 But I will let you get tha t estimate, but that 18 is what it's going to be.
Mr. Lanpher?
19 MR. LANPHER:
I can't do any better than what 20 you said.
I think two days is safe.
But at this point, 21 until I have heard what he is going to say, I am not 22
- oing to make an exact estimate.
You have seen my cross 23 examination plan, Judge Brenner.
()
24 JUDOE BRENNER:
That is part of the problem, 25 Mr. Reis.
We don't know what he is going to say.
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1 MR. REIS:
I realize that.
2 JUDGE BRENNER:
The other option is not to put 3
him on at this time.
And I will allow the staff the 4
option, if you are worried about his time that much, to 5
pre-file the testimony as rebuttal, which I think it 6
borders on.
Call it what you like, but additional 7
testimony; pre-file it and we will have the examination 8
at some la ter point, recognizing that you might have to 9
involve other members of this panel in that approach.
10 Frankly, I don't prefer that because it could 11 create some re d und a ncy.
That is asking similar 12 questions later to get the other perspective, and it is 13 the very type of thing we have tried to avoid by O
14 combining panels here.
15 But, you weigh the schedule of this proceeding 16 along with your other schedule.
17 (Counsel for NRC staff conferring.)
18 MR. REIS:
I think balancing things, we feel 19 Mr. Thadani should put in his testimony now and be added 20 to the panel on the limited amount of issues that we 21 want him, or are sttempting to address here.
And we did 22 not -- w e can, we do have questions we can ask if that 23 is the Bosed 's pleasure.
()
24 But we did essentially make him available to 25 answer what the Board has asked us from a more O
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1 authoritative source, and we were looking to make him 2
available that way.
However, to get things started, we 3
can ask a few questions, if the Board wishes.
4 JUDGE BRENNERs I think that would be 5
helpful.
And let me emphasize again I do not view them 6
as questions from the Board so much as in a summary 7
perhaps poorly done and off the top of my head, but 8
an attempted summary of where the litigation had been 9
going, rather than any new matters.
10 One thing we are going to be interested in --
11 it is not expressly written here on page 2 -- will be --
12 and this I think is a summary of where the litigation is 13 going, also -- the different efficacies, if you will, of
'l 14 focusing on systems interactions, and thereby, systems 15 classifications, by the PRA type techniques used to date 16 on Shoreham and the more standardized techniques.
And I 17 inferred from Ites 4,
although it is stated -- Item 4,
18 page 2 of your motion, although it is stated much more 19 broadly than just systems interaction -- that that would 20 cone withia that.
21 But I think your suggestion of asking a few 22 questions at the beginning would be helpful.
23 HR. REIS:
Why don't, then, I take it I have
()
24 the Board's permission and they wish to swear Mr.
25 Thadani.
I would like that done at this time.
We will O
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1 ask a few questions of him to get matters started, and 2
it is -- I have before me I think four or five questions.
3 JUDGE BRENNER:
All right.
Now that we have 4
resolved the matter as to how we are going to proceed, 5
Mr. Thadani can attempt to get comfortable up there.
6 And while he is doing that, I want to point out that 7
notwithstanding all of this discussion of the procedural 8
problems with the mo tion, we would normally welcome this 9
type of prasence on the panel.
Had it been earlier 10 done, it would have been auch more efficient we think, 11 and we will try to deal with satters as they are now.
12 And we will be quite liberal in granting 13 requests if there are further q uestions af ter pa rties 14 have had an opportunity to review the record.
15 HR. LANPHER:
Judge Brenner, if I could bring 16 up maybe two things.
The staff counsel indicated he is 17 going to ask a few questions to get the thing started.
18 Whatever questions they want to ask in the nature of 19 direct examination ought to be asked now.
20 Number two, my understanding is that they have 21 vritten questions and answers on this matter for Mr.
22 Thandani, and if so, I would like to request a copy.
23 HR. REIS:
I can ask you to switch chairs with
()
24 Mr. Hubbard and look at my copy.
That is what I have.
25 JUDGE BRENNER:
Are they typed questions and O
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1 answers, Mr. Reis?
Are they typed questions and answers?
2 MR. REIS:
Yes.
Mr. Thadani typed them up 3
yesterday when we were discussing it after we met early 4
in the morning to talk about'it, and we typed them up.
5 Essentially, the questions are as set out, although not 6
in question form, in 1,
2, 3,
4, on page 2.
They are 7
the matters there, and they are just put in question 8
form.
9 It says, one, the staff policy -- or, what is 10 the staff policy.
11 JUDGE BRENNER:
Don't go into them now.
12 MR. REIS4 But that, in essence, is the 13 question that I have in front of me.
\\-
14 JUDGE BRENNER:
It is going to take initia tive 15 to keep this proceeding moving, and that is the kind of 16 thing that could have been provided wi th th e motion, if 17 not first thing this morning, to assist in the 18 argument.
We don't like to take a break on a short 19 morning, but unless you have any objection, I think it 20 would be helpful and important for the county to have a 21 copy, and the Board and LILCO, also.
22 HR. REIS:
Frankly, Your Honor, I don't knov 23 whether the answers are the same.
I know t he questions 24 are going to be the same but I don't know whether the 25 answers are going to be the same or whether he has any O
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changes.
And as I say, we did this very early.
2 JUDGE BRENNER:
He is hearing the material for 3
the first time, and it is always helpful to have that in 4
w ri ting in f ron t of you while that is going on, if you 5
can't have it in advance, which is the preferred 6
approach.
And unless you feel that it is material that 7
you do not want to disclose in terms of notes to the 8
witness or attorney work product or that kind of thing, 9
notwithstanding the fact that they might vary, let's 10 aske it avsilable to everyone.
11 We will take a quick break.
There are copying 12 machines very close.
13 MR. REIS:
I do find I have everything written 14 down but the last question.
Another copy that I had --
15 JUDGE BRENNER Let's take -- I guess we had 16 better sllow ten minutes to get copies for everyone.
17 All right, we will be back at 11:35.
18 (A short recess was tsken.)
19 20 21 22 23 0
2<
25 O
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1 JUDGE BRENNER:
Mr. Thadani, now that you have 2
gotten comfortable, would you please stand up?
3 Whereupon, 4
ASHOK THADANI 5
was called as a witness by counsel for NRC staff and, 6
after being first duly sworn, took the stand and was 7
examined and testified as follows:
8 Whereupon, 9
THEMIS P.
- SPEIS, 10 WALTER P.
- HAASS, 11 MARVIN W. H0DGES, 12 C.E.
- ROSSI, 13 JAMES H. CONRAN, SR. and O
14 ROBERT KIRKWOOD, 15 the witnesses on the stand at the time of recess, 16 resumed the stand and, having been previously duly 17 sworn, were examined and testified further as follows:
18 DIRECT EXAMINATION 19 BY MR. REIS:
20 0
Mr. Thadani, what is your position with the 21 Nuclear Regulatory Commission?
22 A
(WITNESS THADANI) I am Branch Chief of the 23 Reliability and Risk Assessment Branch.
24 0
And I show you a copy of your professional 25 qualifications that was attached to the sta f f 's mo tion ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY, INC, 400 VIRGINIA ANE S.W., WASHINGTON, D.C. 20024 (202) 554-2345
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i to uo91e eat vitae oeae1 oa sc coateatio
><d) aaa 2
SOC Contention 19(b).
I would ask you to review that 3
and I ask you whether that is your statemen t of 4
professional qualifications, and if it is true and i
5 correct.
6 A
(WITNESS THADANI) It is true and correct.
7 MR. REIS:
Mr. Chairsan, I ask leave to have 8
that statement bound into the record and I will give the 9
reporter copies at the noon break, of tha.'c statement.
10 JUDGE BRENNER:
Fine.
11 (The Professional Qualifications of Ashok 12 Thadani follows :)
13 0
14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 l
22 23 24 2S l
l O ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY, INC, 400 VIRGINIA AVE., S.W., WASHINGTON, O C. 20024 (202) 554 2345
'th. # /
Ashok C. Thadani PROFESSIONAL QUALIFICAT!0t45 O
i I am a Branch Chief of the Reliability and Risk Assessment Branch, Division o f Safety Technology in the Office of fluclear Reactor Regulation.
I have l
held this position since August,1980.
In this capacity I supervise, direct, and coordinate the personnel and programs of the Reliability and Risk Assess-i nent Branch which is responsible for activities pertaining to the reliability i
and risk assessment of the functional capabilities of nuclear power plant l
safety systems, equipment, and procedures needed for safe plant shutdown 1
j following transient and accident %.,.ditions.
i O
i rece<<es 8 cseier er sc4eece oe9ree i# 1 9 6 s t r e m t h e u,4 v e r s 4 t r o r Tennessee and a flaster of Science Degree in 1967 from the Catholic University.
Both of these degrees are in Chernical Engineering.
From 1967 to 1968. I was employed by Melpar Co. where I performed Research and Development studies on coal utilization and air pollution control.
From 1968 to 1969 I continued my studies towards a Doctor of Philosophy Degree in Chemical Engineering at the Catholic University of America.
l l O i
. _=..-- - -_
J.
i During 1959 to 1972, I was a Senior Engineer with Westinghouse Electric Corporation where I was initially involved in developing mathematicil models for the cooldown of the NERVA reactor. Subsequently I was involved in code development efforts and accident analysis.
From 1972 to 1974, I was a staf f engineer at the Singer Simulation Products where I was involved in real time simulation of nuclear power plant behavior during normal and accident conditions.
I was also responsible for directing Research and Development activities in modeling techniques.
i In February 1974, I accepted employment with the Atomic Energy Comission i
(now the Nuclear Regulatory Commission) in the Reactor Systems Branch.
I was responsible for reviewing and coordinating the review of the Anticipated b
t Transients Without Scram for Light Water Reactors.
In addition I reviewed the safety systems of both PWR and BWR designs.
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1 3Y MR. REIS (Resuming) 2 0
Mr. Thadani, what is the current NRR policy 3
regarding the requirement for review of PRAs as a part 4
of the licensing process?
5 A
(WITNESS THADANI) I would like to go back and 6
discuss some background.
And that background is 7
discussed and described in SETY 81-25, which was issued 8
about a year and a half ago.
9 Basically, in this SECY paper, the staff had 10 looked at 93 sites and grouped them in various 11 ca teg ories.
The categories were average, agove average, 12 substantially above average, below average and 13
'substantially below average.
14 JUDGE MORRIS:
Mr. Thadani, we are having a 15 little trouble hearing you.
Could you move the 16 microphone closer.
17 WITNESS THADANI:
Yes.
Can you hear me better 18 now?
19 JUDGE MORRIS:
Yes.
20 WITNESS THADANI At that time, the decision 21 was made to pursue plants which were in the 22 significantly above average category in terms of looking 23 at probabilistic risk assessments for these plants.
The
()
24 plants in that category were Indian Point, Zion and 25 Limerick.
Then there were eigh t plants which were in r
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that category called above average category -- and
(,)
2 again, these averages referred to what is considered r~3 3
population density and the dispersion factors, to give (ul 4
an indication of what the site-specific features might 5
how they might influence risk.
6 The eight plants in the above average category 7
included two plants which had not proceeded very far in 8
terms of construction, and these were Millstone Unit 3 9
and Bailly.
The staff has required tha t probabilistic 10 risk assessments be performed for Millstone Unit 3.
For 11 the remaining six plants in that category, the staff 12 intention was to go back and do some probabilistic 13 studies, but not necessarily on a schedule which would 14 be compatible with the licensing of these units.
15 Included in that category was the Shoreham 16 plant.
It was out intention to pick up Shoreham under 17 what we call the National Reliability Evaluation 18 Program.
The intent of that program is to look at l
19 essentially all of the o pe ra ting reactors to get some 20 estimates of what the risks migh t be from these plants.
l 21 And the program was supposed to be done in a phased way, 22 several plants every year.
23 And again, our intention was to pick up I
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_)
24 Shoreham amongst the first group of these NREP plants.
i l
25 I am certainly very happy that LILCO decided on their I 'N l
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1 own to go ahead and perform a probabilistic risk 2
assessment for their plant.
Obviously, one learns a (3
3 great deal from these studies, and we would certainly V
4 take their risk study and review it.
5 Basically, that is the background as to how 6
the staff came to the conclusion as to where the studies 7
should be required and where we didn't think the studies 8
could be done in a reasonable timeframe.
And plus, the 9
consideration of the construction for Shoreham had gone 10 substantially, and it wasn't obvious to us that the 11 timing of the study wa s tha t critical.
12 BY MR. REIS (Resuming):
13 0
How would PRAs be used to assist the decision 9
14 ma'<ing in the licansing process?
What is the intent of 15 the NRC staff in that regard?
16 A
(WITNESS THA DA NI) To date, we do not have any 17 yardstick against which to compare these probabilistic 18 risk studies.
As you all are familiar, the Commission 19 did issue a statement on proposed safety goals for 20 public comment.
The staff has been working toward 21 developing an implementation plan, and until such time 22 as the Commission comes forth with specific criteria 23 against which these PRAs could be compared, the staff (Q) 24 approach has been to learn from these studies, to learn 25 if there are any areas which we ought to pursue further fm, wY ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY, INC.
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1 that might not have been identified as a pa rt of our 2
deterministic studies.
3 It must be recognized, however, that there are 4
large uncertainties in these calculations, and that we 5
don 't have any specific benchmark to compare the studies 6
against.
So most of the informa tion that one gleans 7
from these studies is the knowledge one gets in terms of 8
the operation, the plant and the design of the plant, as 9
well as potentially, if there are any outlyers, what one 10 ought to do about those on some other basis.
11 0
What is the staf f 's position rega rding the use 12 of the Shoreham draft PRA in the course of licensing?
13 A
(WITNESS THADANI) I would like to take this 14 opportunity to at least indicate to you tha t it has been 15 my experience that the task of doing a probabilistic 16 risk assessment is a fairly substantial task and 17 requires a large number of people with various 18 disciplines to come together to work on this task.
19 In the process of performing and conducting, 20 various drafts are prepared, and substantial changes 21 often are made towards the end because of either 22 mistakes or lack of understanding, or having left out 23 certain things.
)
24 We have a concern with the limited resources 25 that we have that taking on the tasks of reviewing the O
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1 Shoreham PRA might not be f ruitf ul a t this stage in 2
light of our judgment at least that the drafts would 3
likely go through substantial changes.
In a positive 4
sense, if the Shoreham PRA in the final form were 5
submitted, we would, of course, review it.
Not only 6
that.
Now that we know tha t such a study is being done 7
and is close to completion, we would indeed require 8
submittal of that study for our review.
9 0
When do you expect to receive the Shoreham 10 PRA, on the present schedule?
Do you have any idea?
11 A
( WITNESS THADANI) It is my understanding that 12 the final report would be completed by the end of this 13 calendar year.
14 Q
And how long will it take the staff to review 15 that?
16 A
(WITNESS THADANI) We would expect -- and 17 again, going by our own experience up until now -- that 18 they would take on the order of a year or so to review 19 this study.
The review process includes getting support 20 from consultants, interacting with several branches and 21 sonetimes even offices within NRC, interacting with the 22 utility.
I want to make sure that is appreciated --
23 that the interaction with the utility is extremely
(
24 critical.
For us to be able to review and do an 25 adequate job we have to understand reasonably well the O
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1 plant, the procedure.
And we think the interaction with 2
the utility would, indeed, provide tha t kind of p.
3 backgrour.d.
4 So, this interactive process takes quite some 5
time for one to go through methods, for one to go 6
through data, for one to look at the question of 7
completeness and the question of uncertainty and the 8
questions on phenomenology and so on.
And we think it 9
would take on the order of a year or so to review such a 10 study.
11 Of course, I must note tha t I don 't know the 12 extent and the scope of the details of the Shoreham PRA, 13 so that estimate is an approximate one based upon our 7-14 experience.
15 0
What are the principal strengths and 16 weaknesses of probabilistic risk assessments?
17 A
(WITNESS THADANI) In my opinion, probabilistic 18 risk assessments are probably one of the very approaches 19 that we have been using to look at the plant in an 20 integral manner.
As I described earlier, the types of 21 people one needs to bring together to do such studies.
22 It is a unified look at the plant and not one section or 23 piece or system at a time.
)
24 It is, in my opinion again, a very logical 25 framework for looking at the plant a nd trying to O
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1 identify if there are any weaknesses in that design or 2
operation of that plant.
However, there are -- we again 3
recognize, there are uncertainties.
The da ta base is 4
limited; especially when one talks to low probability 5
events, the uncertainties would be larger.
And for 6
those, the reasons associated with uncertainties, we 7
would caution people on depending too heavily on the 8
bottom line estimates in these risk studies.
9 (Panel of witnesses conferring.)
10 I must note again that at least for the 11 present and for the near future, I can see probabilistic 12 risk studies are used as an adjunct to our current 13 deterministic requirements.
It is yet another look to
( )l
's 14 see if there are any things we can lea rn, and something 15 we can do something about.
We do believe our 16 deterministic requirements are adequate.
17 0
Mr. Thadani, can you enlarge on some of the 18 limitations you talked about of PRAs?
19 A
(WITNESS THADANI) I will make an attempt.
You 20 have a copy of my response to that question, but let me 21 give it a try.
22 JUDGE BRENNER:
Mr. Thadani, just in case this 23 isn't clear in your mind, we do have the copy of the
) (
24 response to the question, but it won 't get into the 25 record unless you say it.
So to the extent anything you O()
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1 say is going to depend on that, you should also orally 2
restate that portion, also.
3 WITNESS THADANI Okay.
I think it would be a 4
lot easier if you would just pass me a copy of my 5
response to that question.
6 (Counel handing document to witness.)
7 Thank you.
There are certain areas in 8
probabilistic rist studies that we are not able to 9
quantify areas which relate to a sabotage, for example; 10 areas which relate to design errors which may not be 11 identified during surveillance or operation of a plant.
12 These areas are very difficult to quantify, and they do 13 add to the uncertainties of probablistic risk O
14 assessments.
15 There are some additional deficiencies, and 16 these relate to the potential dependencies that might 17 exist in the plant, be they by design, oversight or by 18 operational considerations.
19 I would like to give you an example to give 20 you a feeling for what I am talking about.
In June of 21 1990, there was a partial failure to scram at Browns 22 Ferry Unit 3 and we took a look at WASH-1400 which 23 included an assessment of a boiling water reactor of a
)
24 similar design, and we found that that failure mode was 25 not explicitly considered i n W ASH-1400.
And this points O
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1 out the potential weaknesses in these studies.
- Again, 2
it was the limitations'of the depth at which certain 3
dependencies weta lookal st.
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V 4
I am happy to say, however, that we have made 5
progress in the last several years, and I think the 6
current approach being used on the interim reliability 7
evaluation program -- which is a program that NRC has 8
been working on for the past two years where we have 9
looked a t five opera ting nuclear power plants and done 10 limited reliability assessments -- that we have utilized 11 methods which go beyond what was utilized in WASH-1400, 12 and especially in the area of trying to develop some 13 form of dependency tables and diagrams to see if there s
14 wasn't a way we could learn more about the plant.
15 And again, I want to emphasize the key is to 16 learn how the plant is built, how it is going to 17 operate; f amiliarization is critical.
And it is the 18 search process that depends very heavily on that 19 knowledge.
20 And for that reason, on this interim 21 reliability evaluation program, we developed procedures, 22 de developad recommenistions and approaches as to how 23 one can attempt to become familiar with the plant and so
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24 on and so forth.
Again, we realized that more could be 25 done, more can always be done.
We are pursuing some O
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I techniques ourselves which we think might be helpful in 2
identifying further dependencies, if they do exist.
,e 3
It is our intention, if we do go forward with 4
our nationsl relisbility evaluation program, to look at 5
various techniques; techniques that you have discussed your event tree / fault tree techniques with some 6
here 7
sort of dependency tables, failure modes and effects 8
analyses, interactive failure modes and effects 9
analyses, and various other graphical techniques that 10 one can utilize.
11 It is our intention to look at these 12 techniques to actually apply them, and I think that is 13 the key.
We need to learn how to apply them to see if s
14 some methois are better at identifying some of the 15 dependencies, as compared to other methods.
So the key, 16 in my opinion, is not that you can't do it with one 17 method but you can do it with another method.
I think 18 the key is:
which is more efficient?
And that is the 19 area we are pursuing now.
20 (Counsel for NRC staff conferring.)
21 BY MR. REIS (Resuming):
22 0
In looking at PR A s, has any question been 23 drawn to the adequacy and sufficiency of the staff's
("(
24 present review?
i 25 A
(WITNESS THADANI) I am not sure I understand i
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1 your question.
2 0
You said that you intend to look at PRAs in 3
the future to establish and to learn.
In your review so 4
far of PRAs, has any question been drawn as to the 5
adequacy or sufficiency as to the present methods by 6
which the NRC staff reviews license applica tions ?
7 JUDGE BRENNERs M r.
Reis, let me interject.
8 And if you think it is out of line, I will let you ask 9
the question as you sought to phrase it initially.
But.
10 I think it would be -- that is a very broad question, 11 and I think the aspect we are interested in, in the 12 context of this contention, would be related to 13 identification of dependencies and classification of 14 systems.
15 3R. REIS:
Thank you, Your Honor.
I think 16 that is a very helpful suggestion.
17 BY MR. REIS (Resuming):
18 0
In relation to dependencies and j
19 classifications of systems, do you feel the staff's 20 present Itcensing reviews are sufficient?
Or must the 21 PBA methodology that you talked about be pursuedi l
22 A
(WITNESS THADANI) It is my opinion that our i
23 current requirements are sufficient, but it is also my
()
24 belief that conduct of probablistic risk assessments is -
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25 most valuable to the utility operating plan t because ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY. INC, 400 VIRGINIA AVE., S.W., WASHINGTON. D C. 20024 (202) 554 2345
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1 that is where they get additional information that could 2
be utilized -- training of the opera tors, looking at 3
procedures.
They go way beyond what deterministic 4
criteria do; potentially, the'so-called low probability 5
accidents which could result in core damage.
I do think 6
there is an advantage to doing risk studies.
7 MR. REIS Ihat is all we have.
8 JUDGE BRENNER:
We didn't plan on asking 3
anything now, but even after the last question was 10 altered, Mr. Ihadani, I am not sure of your answer.
11 Whether that was focused on that context.
Can a PRA 12 type technique -- recoonizing that PRA is a broad term 13 and tha t there are PRAs and then there are PRAs -- but O
14 within that range, can those type techniques identify 15 material tha t is important?
Adverse interactions or 16 systems, structures and components for which the presen t 17 safety classification perhaps should be re-examined?
18 Whereas, the de terministic techniques used in the past 19 might not have either identified at all or perhaps not 20 focused on the importance of them?
21 WITNESS THADANI:
It is, again, my personal 22 bc-lief tha t PRA techniques can identify dependencies, 23 so-called adverse systems interactions.
It is not, in
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24 my opinion -- the difficulty is not with the methods.
25 The dif ficult is how far you carry these methods.
Fault
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I trees can be done to varying degrees to get 2
information.
They could be limited to a certain number 3
of systems versus doing them for a larger number of O
s 4
systems.
5 So at least in my mind, the difficulty is not 6
whether ona uses event tree /fsult tree techniques and s
7 improve upon them with the so-called dependency tables 8
or graphs and so on.
I think the important thing to 9
consider is how far did the fault trees go, were they 10 fairly simplified, were they fairly detailed, dii they
~
11 go down to the component level?
Did they go beyond by 12 looking at failure modes and effects analyses.to' amplify N
x 13 what is done undet fault trees.
O 14 I think the methods are there.
The.difficcity s
15 is that it takes an enormous amount of effortsto go-16 through and do very detailed fault trees, and to include 17 a very large number of systems.
18 As I indicated earlier, what we are looking at 19 now is to see whether there are ways that we could get 20 that kind of information in parhaps a more efficient 21 manner.
We don't know that we can, but that is the area
~
22 we are working on today.
23 As to the other part of your question, that
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24 relating to systems, structures and compone$ts and their 25 classification in terms of the probabilistic studies, O
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1 essentially, you don't pay much attention to that 2
sspect.
You look at systems, components and so on and l'
3 look at data, trying to evaluate it on the basis of the 4
information that we have available to us up until now.
5 And try to estimate the unreliability of that component 8
or structure or system.
7 When you further try to estimate the 8
unavailability of that component system or structure, 9
you have to factor in things like tests, maintenance, et 10 cetera.
And thasa can have an influence on the 11 availability of the system, so it could be that 12 something that is required to be tested at certain 13 frequencies would have a higher availability as compared O
14 to a system tha t is not required to be tested at a 15 certain frequency.
16 So, you would see the effects, if you will, 17 but you don't go out with the view that here is a safety
~
18 system and here is a syster that is not a safety system,
- 10 if you will.
You try to look a t all that is important 20 from the point of view of what function has to be 21 performed, and what systems would be required to perform
~
22 that funcgion.
And specific attention is not paid to 23 whether that system is safety grade or safety related or es 24 not.
i 25 One can, of course, -- and again, this is my O
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o a vie eter r== a ve ooae tarouva aa aoae ri a 2
study, if you find out something that indicates to you 3
thit such-and-such a system is very important in terms O-4 of its influence on the results, and that system has 5
certain criteria that it has to meet, then the decision 6
still has to be made afterwards should one go beyond, 7
should one require that some other criteria be applied 8
to that system.
It would certainly be useful in that 9
context.
10 11 12 13 0
14 15 j
16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 O
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1 JUDGE BRENNER:
Again, I have some other 2
thoughts, and I as sure other people do also.
But for 3
now the Board will hold wha tever questions we might 4
have, and they might be asked in advance for others, and 5
we will go the County for cross examination, focusing to 6
the fullest extent practicable on the PRA matters.
It 7
is not firmly fixed in my mind who, other than Mr.
8 Thadani, would be involved in the answers to PRA related 9
matters.
I guess we can see where it goes or just allow 10 the mechanism of how the panel is responding to answer 11 the questions, unless the S taf f warts to offer an 12 opinion on that.
13 I suspect Mr. Conran and Mr. Speis might be 14 involved and Mr. Rossi -- I do not know about any others 15 16 MR. REIS:
On PRA matters.
I think certainly 17 M r.
Speis and Mr. Conran would be involved along with 18 t h e o th e rs.
Dr. Rossi and Mr. Hodges might have some 19 opinions as well.
20 JUDGE BRENNER:
Well, maybe Mr. Lanpher does 21 not have the problem, but if I was him, should we pick 22 somebody to address the question to basically and then 23 allow the panel to decide?
I do not whether it should
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24 be Mr. Thadani or Dr. Spels.
25 MR. LANPHER:
I am not sure that this is major
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1 problem, frankly.
I have a few questions I would like 2
to ask right now, and then I think maybe the most 3
efficient way would be to take the lunch break.
I knov 4
it has been a short morning, but I have got a cross 5
examination plan on the other stuff, and I am going to 6
try to integrate it together.
I mean we still have the 7
testimony that they prefiled on this, plus we have the 8
Conran memo and the Dircks letter plus this.
So I am 9
going to try to pull those together in an efficient 10 manner.
11 JUDGE BRENNER:
All right.
That is a good 12 suggestion.
We will let you proceed now, and then when 13 you get to the point where you think it would be more 14 efficient to put it together over the lunch break, we 15 will take the break.
16 MR. LANPHER:
I just have one or two questions 17 that I would like to ask now.
18 CROSS EXAMINATION FOR SUFFOLK COUNTY l
19 BY MR. LANPHER:
20 0
Mr. Thadani, your counsel provided us with a 21 copy of the questions and answers, and understandably 22 you paraphrased in some places and in some places you 23 did not usa the answers at all.
Were the answers l
)
24 prepared by you, sir?
25 A
(WITNESS THADANI)
Yes.
The answers were O
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1 prepared by me and discussed with my boss, Mr. Ernst.
v 2
Q M r. Thadani, in answer to the first question 3
you referenced SECY 81-25 dated January 12, 1981.
That g3
\\)
4 was provided earlier today by your counsel.
What was 5
your involvement in SECY 81-25?
6 A
(WITNESS THADANI)
I was not involved in the 7
writing of that paper.
Unfortunately, I wa s -- I had a n 8
se ident and was sway from work a few months.
9
( Pause. )
10 Let me amplif y that a little bit.
While I was 11 out, Mr. Israel, whose name you have heard before, was 12 acting in my place, and he was involved in the 13 preparation of this paper.
14 0
It was prepared for Mr. Dircks and to be 15 transmitted to the Commission, is that correct?
16 A
(WIINESS THADANI)
That is correct.
17 0
Was any, not counting -- well, Mr. Israel is 18 not here.
19 Was any other panel member -- was any panel 20 member involved in SECY 81-25 and the preparation of 21 thst?
22 (Panel of witnesses conferring.)
23 A
(WITNESS THADANI)
Not to my knowledge.
i m.()
24 0
To the best of your knowledge, Mr. Israel 25 would be the person with knowledge as to that?
n a
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1 A
(WITNES3 THADANI)
Mr. Israel and Mr. Ernst 2
were both involved in the preparation of this document.
3 I believe if you look at the paper the contact is Mr.
4 Ernst.
5 (Counsel for Suffolk County conferring.)
6 MR. LANPHER Judge Brenner, that is all that 7
I have for right now.
I can proceed f urther if you want 8
on othat aspects and some voir dire or whatever if you 9
vant to take lunch later, or we can break now.
10 JUDGE BRENNER:
If you plan next.1u st to go to 11 voir dire, we vill break.
It occurred to me that if you 12 had any preliminary questions on what Mr. Thadani has 13 stated in response to the oral supplemental testimony O
14 that we have heard that you migh t want to take a shot at 15 those and thereby have the lunch break to think about 16 both th e answers you have heard for the first time 17 already plus whatever clarifications or amplifications 18 you think will be helpful.
But if you want to take the i
l 19 break now, that is fine also.
20 HR. LANPHER:
I can ask a few questions.
My
(
21 concern, frankly, vss that I might ask one question and 22 not think of the followup, and that might not be 23 terribly efficient.
I do not mind asking a few
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24 questions on Mr. Thadani's testimony right now.
I have l
25 some na tura lly enough; but I think a review over the I
O t
t I
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teaca dreex is votae to oeaer te = ore. dut whetewer the 2
Board prefers.
q 3
JUDGE BRENNER:
Well, in light of that, I 4
think it would be best to break.
We were going to take 5
just an hour.
Do you think yo u wo uld need a little 6
more, Mr. Lanpher?
We could take an hour ar,i fifteen if 7
you would like it.
8 3R. LANPilER:
I would appreciate that.
9 JUDGE BRENNER:
And usually we take that.
to Just on Tuesdays we try to shave a little time.
11 All right.
We will be back at 1:30 then.
12 (Whereupon, at 12:15 p.m.,
the hearing was I
13 recessed, to be reconvened at 1:30 p.m.,
the same day. )
lO 14 15 16 17 13 l
i 19 20 21 22 l
23 24 25 O
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1 AFTERNOON SESSION 2
(1435 p.m.)
3 JUDGE BRENNERs Let's go on the record.
4 MR. LANPHER:
Joring lunch I talked to my 5
colleagues and next Tuesday is, from the County's point 6
of view, acceptable for emergency planning arguments or 7
whatever, or Wednesday.
8 (Board conferring.)
9 JUDGE BRENNER:
All right.
That is fine.
One 10 thing just occurred to us.
We won't know until 11 Thursday, but if this panel is finished on Thursday --
it would be perhaps better to 12 and I hope they are 13 handle emergency planning on Friday, which will be a O
14 short day like last week, rather than start a whole new 15 witness panel on Friday and the Board would be flexible i
16 and we would ask the parties to remain flexible to 17 possibly -- we will not require it, but I want to be 18 sble to, depending upon where we are midday Thursday, to 19 discuss that possibility as to what would be better, 20 depending on where we are.
21 So I hope since on the emergency planning 22 stuff we are dealing with arguments of counsel mostly, 23 if not exclusively, that pa rties can remain flexible in 24 some way.
If not, we understand.
25 MR. LANPHER:
I will convey that.
It is just
()
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1 other counsel than myself that would be handling that, 2
at least for the County.
3 JUDGE BRENNER:
To the extent we can avoid it, 4
it might be better not to bring in witnesses for all 5
parties, knowing they will have to fly back and then 6
return the following week, but we will discuss it 7
further, depending upon where we are on Thursday.
8 Whereupon, 9
ASHOK THADANI 10 IHEMIS P.
SPEIS 11 WALTER P. HAASS 12 MARVIN W.
H0DGES t
13 C. E. ROSSI O
i 14 JAMES H. CONRAN, SR.
15 and 16 ROBERT KIRKWOOD, 17 the witnesses on the stsad at the time of recess, having l
18 been previously duly sworn, resumed the stand and were 19 further examined and testified as follows:
20 CROSS EXAMINATION - Resumed 21 BY MR. LANPHER 22 0
Mr. Thadani, I would like to ask you a number 23 of questions concerning your professional qualifications
(
24 which were bound into the record.
Can you briefly 25 describe what the purposes of the Reliability and Risk O
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1 Assessment Branch, which you are the Chief of?
2 A
(WITNESS THADANI)
Yes.
The purpose is to 3
look at, and in come cases conduct, probabilistic 4
studies to determine if a specific issue is important in 5
terms of risk to public health and safety, measured to a 6
large extent by potential for core damage.
So the 7
emphasis is on potential for core damage.
8 Ihe Branch is also involved in other studies 9
which relate to things like reliability assurance and 10 systems interactions and how various other forms of 11 analyses might relate to probabilistic treatments.
12 0
Sir, you did not mention -- and I recognize it i
13 was brief -- the review of PRAs prepared by utilities.
14 Is that one of the functions also?
15 A
(WITNESS THADANI)
Yes, that is clearly one 16 and I was perhaps too brief when I said we review other 17 studies, and at times we conduct studies ourselves.
18 There is a little distinction, that issues come up and l
19 we have to do some analysis ourselves, but indeed there 20 is a big, substantial fraction of our effort today, is 21 in reviewing studies that the industry has performed --
22 probabilistic risk studies.
23 0
Sir, have you reviewed the draft Shoreham PRA?
("%
c (,)
24 A
(WITNESS THADANI)
No, I have not.
25 Q
Have you read it?
1 l
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1 A
(WITNESS THADANI)
No, I have not.
2 Q
This is a question that goes to the whole 3
panel, but maybe Mr. Speis may answer.
I asked the 4
other day whether anyone had read i t -- last Friday.
5 Has anyone now read it since last Friday?
6 A
(WITNESS SPEIS)
No, sir.
7 0
3r. Thalani, have you ever been the principal l
8 reviewer of a PRA yourself?
9 A
(WITNESS THADANI)
Now when you say "of a 10 PRA", do you mean for a plant or studies?
I have 11 conducted studies myself.
I have actually performed 12 studies myself ini reviewed them.
The question is have 13 I reviewed a total plant study by myself.
The answer is O
14 no.
15 0
You say you have. performed studies.
By 16 studies do you mean probabilistic risk assessment?
17 A
(WITNESS THADANI)
Yes, indeed.
Yes.
We can 18 go through a number of examples.
Perhaps one of the 19 ones that took a lot of my time was anticipate 20 transients without scram.
That involved trying to 21 estimate frequencies of certain kinds of transients, 22 looking at the concept, here again, was the event 23 tree-fault tree concept to look at the sequencec that we
()
24 were concerned about -- fault trees in terms of the 25 systems that were critical in those sequences and the O
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1 consequences, of course, were both in terms of core 2
damage and potential health effects.
3 Hy personal involvement was not in the health 4
effects pottion, but I was deeply involved.
In fact, I 5
have conducted a number of studies myself of trying to 6
estimate risks from an ticipa ted transients without scram 7
in various types of designs.
That is an example of the 8
sort of work I have done myself.
9 0
You describe that your Branch conducts 10 PRA-type studies.
Is that mostly studies concerning 11 particular systems as opposed to, for instance, studies 12 of an entire plant?
13 A
(WITNESS THADANI)
Tha t is correct, yes.
On s
(G
\\
14 the other hand, three members of my staff were involved 15 in plant studies as well.
These are the so-called 16 interi.n reliability e val ua tion program studies.
The 17 Office of Research collected a large number of people --
18 a large number in this case is about five or six per 19 plant study -- group s with various expertise to conduct 20 probabilistic studies for four plants.
21 I had three people f rom my branch involved in 22 evaluating two plants, so with that exception, most of 23 the work in terms of conducting studies is limited to l')
(,/
24 smaller problems and not total plant studies.
25 JUDGE MORRIS:
Excuse me, Mr. Lanpher.
I just O
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1 recently ran across a distinction in terms and I would 2
like to ask Mr. Thadani if he is using the terms in the
[']
3 way that I have heard them recently described.
The U
4 difference between risk assessment and a risk analysis, 5
and the difference that I have heard -- and I am told 6
that this was in effect promoted at a recent seminar, 7
let's call it that, at MIT on probability -- the risk 8
analysis relatin; to how you assess risk in the context 9
of total risk, whereas risk assessment would be more 10 along the terms of the probability of reaching a 11 core-vulnerable position or core melt condition.
12 WITNESS THADANI:
At least, unfortunately, the 13 terms are nisused and sometimes I know I misuse them gs D
14 also.
Risk analysis or risk assessment, at least it 15 seems to me, should indeed talk to risk, but frequently 16 we use risk analysis or risk assessment terms when we 17 just mean ge tting to core damage state and not going 18 beyond to consider what the conditions might be in terms 19 of containment integrity and of f site releases and so on.
20 I will try to state things a little more 21 clearly, and when I am talking about the core damage 22 state, I would try to state it that way, rather than 23 talking about risk assessment, because, at least in my
(
24 view, risk a sse ssm en t is indeed more than just going to 25 core damage state.
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1 JUDGE MORRIS:
I thought you had done very 2
well so far, but I just thought it might be good if all 3
of us were on the same wavelength.
4 WITNESS IHADANI:
Yes, I was aware of this 5
seminar that took place last week.
I had not realized 6
that they had attempted to make the distinction between 7
risk assessment and risk analysis.
It is not obvious to 8
me, a t least.
9 BY MR. LANPHER:
(Resuming) 10 0
Mr. Thadani, I believe you also said tha t the 11 Branch is involved in reliability insurance and in 12 systems interaction studies.
Is that correct?
13 A
(WITNESS THADANI)
Yes, I did.
O 14 0
What do you mean when you say " reliability 15 assurance?"
16 A
(WITNESS THADANI)
Reliability assurance to me 17 is understanding what systems a re important, what 18 components are important, and when I use the term 19 "important," of course, in the relative sense you can 20 develop things lite what is called critical parts list.
21 You can institute programs during the opera tion that 22 would raise flags to you if you were seeing some 23 problems and do those problems impact critical systems,
(
24 critical components, what strategy one ought to follow 25 in terms of the maintenance characteristics of a plant.
l O
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1 I will go a little bit beyond trying to put it 2
in focus ss to wha t I mean by reliability assurance.
3 Let's say I have done a probabilistic risk assessment or 4
a limited probability study tha t goes to core damage 5
state and I have identified some critical sequences, 6
again speaking relatively, the more important ones.
7 This is useful information, but perhaps I can go more 8
with that information just to say now here is dominant 9
sequence, et cetera, et cetera.
10 I could institute some management programs 11 that would put focus on those systems or components and 12 how do I focus on that.
I say okay, when I go through 13 testing I would like to make sure that my tests are O) 14 indeed going to detect if there are any faults or flaws 15 there.
I night have then more frequently.
I might have I
16 a different replacement strategy.
17 It is perhaps as an onerous something trying 18 to make sure things are going as, well as they should be 19 going.
It is the assurance tha t you would like to have 20 that you are maintaining reliablity of the systems or j
21 components.
22 (Counsel for Suffolk County conferring.)
23 0
Mr. Thadani, what does the Branch do with
()
24 respect to systems interaction?
25 A
(WITNESS THADANI)
We have several functions
(
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1 ve perform in that section.
There is a section of the 1
2 Branch called Systems Interaction Section.
One aspect 3
of the work that that section does is to look at 4
specific plants and write safety evaluation reports.
We 5
are also reviewing the Indian Point-3 systems 6
interaction work that the utility is doing, both in 7
terms of programmatic sense as well as the detailed 8
technical evaluation.
9 We have several programs with the Laboratories 10 wherein we are trying to develop techniques, as I 11 described e a rlie r, which might be more efficient at 12 identifying potentially adverse systems interactions.
13
( Witnesses conf er ring. )
14 A
(WITNESS THADANI)
Of course, all of that 15 effort is in support of Unresolved Safety Issue A.17 on 16 systems interaction.
17 0
You saY all of the effort having to do with 18 systems interaction that your Branch performs has to do i
19 only with A.17?
20 A
(WITNESS THADANI)
That's correct.
That is 21 correct.
22 0
Mr. Conran, that is the part of the Branch 23 that you are a member of, correct -- the Systems
(
24 In teg ra tion -- I don 't know if it is a division.
25 A
(WITNESS CONRAN)
The Systems Interaction ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY,INC, 400 VIRGINIA AVE., S.W., WASHINGTON. D.C. 20024 (202) 554-2345
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1 Division, yes.
2 Q
Does the work also pertain to unresolved 3
safety issue A.47, Mr. Thadani -- the systems 4
interaction work?
5 A
(WITNESS THADANI)
No.
But again we are still 6
one staff and to say there is no interaction going on 7
would be incorrect.
Perhaps Mr. Conran can tell you 8
himself his interaction with people responsible for some 9
of the other unresolved safety issues, but there is some 10 interaction.
11 JUDGE BRENNER:
Can I interject for a moment 12 because I sa confused.
Do I now understand from your 13 answer, Mr. Thadani, that Mr. Conran is a member of a 14 section within your branch?
15 WITNESS THADANI:
That is correct.
16 JUDGE BRENNER:
I must admit I have trouble 17 keeping up with the organization and reorganizations of 18 the Staff, but I thought from the qualifications that 19 you, Mr. Thadani, were in something called the Division 20 of Safety rechnology within NRR, and that Mr. Conran was 21 in something called the Division of Systems Integration 22 within NRR, and because I saw two different divisions I 23 assumed you were in two different branches.
24 WITNESS THADANI:
Let me perhaps -- there is 25 some confusion.
Up until about a year ago --
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1 JUDGE BRENNER:
I an only interested in the 2
context of the systems integration issue and who is 3
doing what or the systems interaction.
4 WITNESS THADANI:
There is indeed a division 5
of systems integration, but the systems interaction 6
function is within the Division of Safety Technology and 7
it is also within the Reliability and Risk Assessment 8
Branch.
9 JUDGE BRENNER:
So, Mr. Conran, is your 10 quslifications incorrect in listing the Division?
11 WITNESS CONRAN:
No, Judge Brenner.
I was 12 just looking at how that was stated in my 13 qualifications, and under " Experience" the first item O
14 says Principal Systems Engineer, which is the position 15 title.
I was a principal systems engineer in first the 16 Systems Interaction Branch, Division of Systems 17 Integration, and then in the Beactor and Risk Assessment 18 Bra nch in the Division of Safety Technology.
So the I
19 heading should have been corrected and was not.
When I 20 updated the qualifications, I didn 't do tha t.
21 BY MR. LANPHER:
(Resuming) 22 0
Mr. Conran, is it a fair statement, based upon 23 wha t Mr. Thadani stated about the systems interaction j ()
24 workino in support of A.17, that your section's 25 involvement in the licensing process only goes to that O
l l
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1 portion of the Staff SER dealing with the unresolved 2
safety issues?
3 A
(WITNESS CONRAN)
That's true -- A.17 4
specifically.
5 0
Specifically just A.17?
6 A
( W ITN ESS CONRAN)
In a more general sense, Mr.
l 7
Lanpher.
From the beginning we have viewed systems 8
interactions involved in A.47-type control system I
9 failure effects to be under the umbrella of systems 10 interaction, but that part of the problem is so 11 difficult, and for various other reasons -- various 12 other incentives -- was given its own identity as a l
13 separate unresolved safety issue.
O 14 But in reviewing some of the material that may 15 become available to you under the FOIA request, we have 16 in the past referred to and thought of control system 17 failure effects as a part, generally, of systems i
18 interaction.
I 19 (Counsel for Suffolk County conferring.)
20 0
Mr. Thadani, on the last sentence of your 21 resume, the job prior to becoming the Branch Chief, you 22 state that you reviewed the safety systems of both PWR l
23 ind BWR designs.
Did this involve any work on the l(
24 Shoreham project, sir?
l 25 A
(WITNESS THADANI)
Yes, to a very limited
()
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1 extent.
I think I had Shoreham for about approximately 2
two months or three months and was involved in 3
developing some questions in the licensing phrase of 4
Shoreham.
This was way back, I guess '74,
'75, when I 5
joined the Agency.
6 Q
And would you characterize that as just 7
minimal involvement?
8 A
(WITNESS THADANI)
Yes, minimal.
9 Q
Other than that work or in volvement, have you 10 had any other involvement with the Shoreham project up 11 until this time?
12 A
(WITNESS THADANI)
No, I have not.
13 0
Maybe you meant to encompass this in that O
14 answer, but have you reviewed, for instance, portions of 15 the Shoreham FSAR or the Staff's SER for Shoreham?
16 A
(WITNESS THADANI)
No, I have not, except for 17 the early '74 '75 period when I did, I believe, look at 18 the FSAR and so in a very limited sense.
19 0
A re you probably referring to the PSAR in that 1
20 time perioi?
I don 't believe the FSAR was docketed.
21 A
(WITNESS THADANI)
It wasn't, so I guess it 22 must have been the PSAR.
i l
l 23 0
In your work at the Nuclear Regulatory l ('/
i 24 Commission, Mr. Thadani, have you ever yourself l
(,
25 classified or reviewed the classification system l
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1 structures or components?
2 A
(WITNESS THADANI)
I have never done that.
3 0
Going back to the first page of your resume, 4
the first paragraph, th e ne xt-to-the-la st line -- well, 5
you referred to safety systems in your branch's work i
6 pretaining to the reliability and risk assessment of the 7
functional capability of nuclear power plant safety 8
systems.
How do you define " safety systems?"
9 A
(WITNESS THADANI)
In this context, safety 10 systems would indicate systems that would be required to 11 safely shut the plant down.
12 Q
Are you familiar with the Staff terminology as 13 related in the Denton memorandum?
14 A
(WITNESS THADAN1)
Yes, I am.
15 0
Then the safety systems there would be those l
16 that Mr. Denton refers to as safety-related?
i l
17 A
(WITNESS THADANI)
No.
In this context I am I
18 talking about what might be called in that sense systems 19 im p o r ta n t to safety.
20 0
So you are talking about the broader range?
21 A
(WITNESS THADANI)
Yes.
22 Q
Mr. Thadani, can you give any example of a 23 system that you are aware of that is important to safety
()
24 but not safety-related?
25 A
(WITNESS THADANI)
Yes.
The main feedwater l
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1 System.
2 Q
Are there any other examples that come to mind
/~}
3 for a BWR?
V 4
A (WITNESS THADANI)
For boiling water reactors, 5
no, not offhand.
Most of the systems I am sort of 6
ticking off I think are all categorized as safety grade.
7 (Counsel for Suffolk County conferring.)
8 JUDGE HDRRIS:
Mr. Thadani, had you considered 9
waste treatment systems in that previous answer?
10 WITNESS THADANI No, I had not.
11 JUDGE M3RRIS:
Would that change your answer?
12 WITNESS THADANI:
I don't even know what that 1
13 classification is for waste treatment systems.
14 JUDGE BRENNER:
Mr. Thadani, it is not 15 expressed on the record, but I take it when you said 16
" main f eelvs ter" you were thinking of pressurized water 17 reactors.
18 WITNESS THADANI:
No.
I was thinking of even 19 boiling water reactors.
20 BY MR. LANPHER:
(Resuming) 21 0
Is it fair to state, Mr. Thadani, that your 22 branch isn't directly concerned with, a t least in its 23 probabilistic studies, so much with the classification 24 of systems as much as to determine in the studies which 25 you perforned whether particular system structures or O
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I components may be affected in an accident sequence?
2 A
(WITNESS THADANI)
That is correct.
[v"}
3 C
Regardiass of the classification?
4 A
(WITNESS THADANI)
Yes, that is right.
5 0
Mr. Spets, while you are not the primary 6
author of any of the sections of the testimony, you did 7
sta te the other da y, I believe, that you had reviewed 8
the alternative methodology saction as well as 9
e ve ry thing else in the tastimony.
Is that correct?
10 A
(WITNESS SPEIS)
Yes, that is correct.
11 Q
In your resume, in the first paragraph, sir, 12 you state that the activities of your present position 13 pertain to safety evaluation of reactor safety systems g-V 14 matters on proposed and operating reactors.
How do the
(
16 activities which you supervise pertain to the safety l
16 evaluations?
17 A
(WITNESS SPEIS)
In my present position, I 18 supervise three branches -- the Containment Systems 19 Branch, the Reactor Systems Branch, and the 20 Instrumentation and Control Systems Branch.
A large 21 number of the safety systems that are part of a nuclear 22 power plant are being reviewed by those three branches.
I l
23 For example, Wayna Hodgas and Dr. Rossi, who are members
(
24 of this panel, work under my supervision.
One of them 25 is in the Raa: tor Systems Branch.
The other one is in O
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1 the Instrumentation and Control Systems Branch.
2 0
What work have you done, sir, with respect to 3
the Shoreham project other than the preparation or work 4
on the preparation of the testimony which is being 5
presented here?
6 A
(WIINESS SPEIS)
My specific involvement with 7
the Shoreham view covered the time during which I was 8
the Branch Chief of the Reactor Systems Branch.
I had a 9
number of discussions with the reviewers, with the 10 section leaders who we re reviewing the Shoreham FSAR and 11 writing safety evaluations reports, because I usually 12 sign them.
I sign those evaluations and send them to 13 the Division of Licensing, where they put the whole O
14 review together.
15 I had some specific -- the specific 16 discussions that I remember that deal with this 17 testimony involved the turbine bypass system, as an t
l 18 example, and there was a question about its 19 classification and extensive discussions -- I was 20 involved ir extensive discussions with members of my 21 staff about the position that we finally took regarding 22 this particular system.
23 Q
Now has this work been done -- this work with
(
24 respect to Shoreham -- since September of 1981, sir?
25 A
(WITNESS SPEIS)
The particular work that I O
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1 mentioned regarding the classification of the turbine 2
bypass system was done prior to that when I was the 3
Chief of the Reactor Systems Branch.
In my present 4
position, Assistant Director for Reactor Safety, that is 5
since September 1981.
6 0
I'm a little bit confused by your resume, and 7
I guess you had given us that change the other day.
8 From 1970 you were in the Liquid Metal Fast Breeder 9
Branch.
From 1975 until what time period --
10 A
(WITNESS SPEIS)
I think either the end of '78 11 or the end of
'79, when the breeder program was 12 terminated by President Carter, so somewhere around that 13 time.
O 14 0
And then sometime in late '78 or '79 you went 15 to the Reactor Systems Branch?
16 A
(WITNESS SPEIS)
No.
At that time I was made 17 Chief of the Advanced Reactors Branch.
That was a 18 correction that I indicated last week.
So I was in that 19 branch until the spring of 1980, when I became the 20 Branch Chief of the Reactor Systems Branch.
21 Q
Did your work on the Shoreham project begin 22 with that position in the Reactor Systems Branch?
23 A
(WITNESS SPEIS)
I worked on a number of
()
24 projects, and Shoreham was one of the projects.
25 0
I don't mean just Shoreham, but your first O
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1 work on Shoreham commenced?
2 A
(WIINESS SPEIS)
I would like to make a 3
qualification that when I took over the Reactor Systems
/~}
V 4
Branch a substantial part of the Shoreham review had 5
already been performed and the reviewer, the previous 6
reviewer, had left the Branch and he had left behind a 7
draft safety evaluation report which was assigned to 8
Wayne Hodges and he proceeded to go through the 9
unresolved safety issues and basically finalize it.
10 I would like to make a correction for the 11 record.
When I say " unresolved safety issues," I don't 12 imply the unresolved safety issues we are talking 13 about -- the A.17 and A.47 -- but the general issues O
14 pertaining to the review of the plant before you arrive 15 at your final safety evalua tion report.
16 (Witnesses conferring.)
17 0
What portions of the Shoreham FSAR have you 18 reviewed?
19 A
(WITNESS SPEIS)
I haven't reviewed any with 20 the exception that I remember reading a section dealing 21 with th e pump-back system.
That is a system that is 22 used to take water from the containment back into the 23 suppression pool in cases of flooding.
24 (Witnesses conferring.)
l 25 Wayne Hodges is bringing to my attention that O
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1 under my supervision the Reactor Systems Branch 2
completed Chapter 15, the review of the ECCS system, but
'N 3
that is really part of what I said earlier -- completing 4
the SER which we found in a not-completed state from the 5
previous reviewer.
6 Q
I may have used a term.too loosely when I said 7
" review."
I also include read portions of the FSAR.
8 Does that change your previous answer?
9 A
(WITNESS SPEIS)
I said the only thing I 10 remember reading was this pump-back system, but most of 11 sy work was reviewing the work of others -- SERs, 12 basically, or dealing with specific issues, specific 13 systems like Chapter 15 analyses, emergency core cooling
~'
14 system, the ROIC system and things of that sort.
15 0
And to the best of your recollection you have 16 not reviewed either Chapter 3.1 or 3.2 of the FSAR?
17 A
(WITNESS SPEIS)
No, sir.
18 0
Have you ever read any PRA?
19 A
(WITNESS SPEIS)
I have read parts of PRAs.
20 0
Which ones?
21 A
(WITNESS SPEIS)
Well, I have read -- when I 22 say a part of a PRA, I would like to state that the PRA 23 is a risk assessment study, involves a large number of O
j
(,/
24 parts, and three come to mind immediately, one of them i
25 dealing with the identification and quantification of l
(~)
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I the sequences which Ashok's branch basi ~cally deals only 2
with.
The other pa rt desis with the phenomenology where 3
one takes those sequences and proceeds to nelt the core 4
and assess the containment failure modes.
And in that 5
specific area I have done quite a bit of reading and 6
personal work as well as supervising work in the Beactor 7
Systems Branch, in the phenomenology area, like steam 8
explosion overpressuricing the containment.
9 For the completeness, I should say that tho 10 o ther pa rt of the PR A is th e health ef fects, which I am 11 not involved with.
12 0
Wo uld it be fair to state that you have been 13 involved in or at least read those portions of some, O
\\~/
14 probabilistic studies dealing with the probability side?'
s 15 A
(WITNESS SPEIS)
Not with the probability.
i 16 With the deterministic side, where one takes =the 17 sequences that are the major contributors to risk and 18 one opposes the reactor or assesses the response of the l
19 plant to that sequence.
For example, you take the s
20 sequence called ATWS or some other similar one, and then 21 you see how far the plant, the reactor syctem, the 22 containment will respond to tha t sequence, assuming that l
23 the core melts, for example.
(
24 And I have been involved in the particular 25 phenomenon dealing with the core melt processes like O
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steam explosions,' liiteraction of core materials with 2
water tha t lesds to. containment failure.
That part of 3
the PRA'I have rend and I am very familiar with, but not 4
'the f ront pa rt de'aring with probability.
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1 0
In your current work in the Division of 2
Systems Integration, is that work involved in systems
)
3 interactions analyses also?
4 A
(WITNESS SPEIS)
Yes, from a deterministic 5
viewpoint the Instrumentation and Control Systems Branch 6
deals with some aspects of systems interaction.
And Dr.
7 Rossi is here to sddress that issue.
8 0
What aspects besides -- well, one aspect is l
9 A-47, correct?
10 A
(WITNESS SPEIS)
Well, as I said, we deal with 11 the deterministic aspects.
For exam ple, we ask 12 questions about sapsrstion of instrumentation and i
13 con trol systems tha t are sa fety-rela ted.
We want to 1
14 make sure that they are separated, they are radundant.
15 That is part of our deterministic review.
e 16 (Panel of witnesses conferring.)
17 0
You have used the term " deterministic" a i
18 number of times.
What do you mean by that te'rm ?
l l
19 A
(WITNESS SPEIS)
Well, by " deterministic" I 20 mean the use of a system based upon criteria like the 21 7eneral design criteria, the standard review plan; not 22 numbers, probabilities.
The goal is to meet the opneral 23 design criteria.
That is what we mean by
(
24
" deterministic."
No numerical goals.
25 JUDGE MORRISa Dr. Speis, let me try some
(
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I words on you.
2 WITNESS SPEIS:
Let me give an example.
In 3
sssessing the response of the core to anticipated 4
operational occurrences or to accidents, we evaluate the 5
trsnsients and the accidents to make sure that they are 6
consistent with the Commission's criteria.
For example, 7
an anticipated opera tional occurrence should not lead to 8
fuel failure or to overpressurizing the system.
So I 9
call tha t deterministic.
10 JUDGE MORRIS:
Would you also characterize it 11 as realistic performance evaluation?
12 WITNESS SPEIS:
No.
No, sir.
Conservative.
13 It's design basis.
14 JUDGE MORRIS:
I'm sure you don't mean 15 un realistic ?
16 WITNESS SPEIS:
Well, I mean conservative.
17 (Panel of wi tnesses conf erring. )
18 WITNESS SPEIS:
May I get a bettar 19 clarification of your question?
i 20 JUDGE MORRIS:
I as really just trying to help 21 you tell us what you mean by deterministic, as opposed 22 to probabilistic.
23 WITNESS THADANI:
Let me give it a try.
I 24 think I understand your point, and what Themis started 25 to say was, let's take a normal operational occurrence, 1
ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY, INC, 400 VIRGINI A AVE., S.W WASHINGTON, D.C. 20024 (202) 554-2345
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1 loss of feadwatar.
That is something that is normally 2
analyzed in chapter 15 of a safety analysis report.
You 3
snslyze that event with very restrictive assumptions:
4 that the main feedwater is lost instantaneously, that 5
the power level is st 100 and some odd percent, that 6
values are specified consistent with the technical 7
specifications, whereas the plant may indeed be 8
operating st 100 percant power.
Instesd of adding on 9
the uncertainties, the loss of feedwater may not be 10 instantaneous.
11 So the realistic response of the plant may be 12 somewhat different than analyzed under chapter 15, and 13 the probabilistic analyses, to the extent you can, the O
14 emphasis is to try to do it on a realistic set of 15 assumptions, don't tack on additional conservatisms, 16 because the emphasis there really is to see i
17 realistically what would be the course of that abnormal 18 operational occurrence, if you will.
19 JUDGE MORRIS:
But the emphasis there, as I 20 detect it, is in the conservatism of the inputs and 21 assumptions, ra ther than necessarily the calculus of the 22 sequence of events following the assumed conditions.
l 23 WITNESS THADANI:
I believe it is on the
()
24 inputs and the model.
l 25 JUDGE MORRIS The model itself is also AV l
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1 conservative?
2 WITNESS THADANI Yes, I believe so.
3 WITNESS HODGES:
When I think of a 4
deterministic analysis, I think of something a little 5
bit different from what he was describinc, in that if it 6
is -- maybe better stated is, something akin to a mental 7
experiment, where you are trying to say, if you get 8
something going along with the system, what can affect 9
tha t system's operation.
10 An example would be -- or other systems' 11 operations.
An example would be a high containment 12 temperature and what can it effect.
So that you look 13 and see what wires or materials do you have in the 14 containment tha t could be a f fected by that.
And it is 15 the physically going through and checking off those 16 types of actions, or it is looking at a calculation f rom 17 a computer code and seeing how the different parameters 18 interact, as opposed to trying to do something on a 19 statistical basis.
20 To me that is what is meant by a deterministic 21 approach, and it could be conservative or 22 non-conservative or realistic.
23 (Counsel for Suffolk County conferring.)
()
24 BY MR. LANPHER:
(Resuming) 25 Q
M r. Spets, in the 8.B testimony sponsored by O
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1 the Staff, you were not the primary author of any 2
portion.
What was your function with respect to this 3
testimony?
4 A
(WITNESS SPEIS)
My function was to review it 5
for consistency, clarity.
There are a number of policy i
6 positions or S taf f positions that I was f amiliar with.
l 7
This contention is basically a broad one dealing with a 8
number of safety and regula tory aspects, and I can bring 9
sn examples for example, the use or non-use of 10 safety-related systems in the emergency ope ra ting 11 procedures.
That is an example; that, it is new.
12 0
"It is new," what do you mean by that?
13 A
(WITNESS SPEIS)
Well, I have never seen a 0
14 contention dealing with this type of situation.
This is 15 1 kind of a post-TMI requirement, where we are paying a 16 lot of attention to the emergency operating procedures.
17 And you don 't necessarily have to ha ve safety-related l
18 structures, systens and components alone to deal with 19 emergency o pera ting procedures.
So it is a kind of a 20 policy issae.
It is a Staff position that I have been 21 involved in.
22 (Counsel for Suffolk County conferring.)
l 23 0
Mr. Rossi, I would like to sddress a few
()
24 questions to you with respect to your professional 25 q ua lifica tio ns.
Dr. Rossi.
I apologize.
()
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1 It is correct that you've been the section 2
leader for the Instrumentation and Control Branch since 3
August 19817 4
A (WITNESS ROSSI)
That is correct.
5 0
And is it also correct tha t in that job you 6
are responsible for assuring compliance with regulatory 7
requirements?
8 A
(WITNESS ROSSI)
I as responsible for 9
supervising the review of plants to determine, in the 10 instruments tion and control systems area, that they meet 11 the regulatory requirements, that is correct.
12 0
Was Shoreham one of the plants you are 13 responsible for?
14 A
(WITNESS ROSSI)
Shoreham -- let me answer 15 that question by telling you very precisely what my 16 involvement at Shoreham was.
Since approximately 17 September of 1981, which is af ter the preparation of the 18 material for the first supplement to the Shoreham safety 19 evaluation report, I have supervised work on Shoreham 20 within our branch.
Again, that is the Instrumentation 21 and Control Systems Branch.
22 This work has consisted primarily of the 1
23 effort to resolve an issue that is related to the design 24 of remote shutdown capability.
I have also been 25 involved in the preparstion of the testimony for this ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY. INC, 400 VIRGINIA AVE., S.W, WASHINGTON, D.C. 20024 (202) 554 2345 l
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contention.
I have read chapter 7 of the Shoreham 2
safety evaluation report and supplement.
I have 3
discussed various aspects of the Shoreham design 4
considered in this contention with other Staff members.
5 I have referred to the final safety analysis 6
report, chapters 3, 7 and 15 for information related to 7
this contention.
I have discussed the Shoreham design 8
and the NRC Staff review with other members of the NRC 9
Staff.
I have had discussions with members of the 10 Applicant's staff, and I have referred to the final 11 safety analysis report to the extent necessary in trying 12 to arrive at my own judgment that the Shorehan design 13 analysis and the FSAR documentation and the NRC Staff O
14 review are in general consistent with those on other 15 nuclear power plants that have been recently reviewed by 16 the NRC Staff.
17 And I si a member of this panel p rima rily to 18 try to provide inf ormation on current Staf f practices as 19 related to contention 7.B.
20 0
What current Staff practices are you referring 21 to there, Dr. Rossi?
j 22 A
(WITNESS ROSSI)
Cisssification of systems, 23 structures and components important to safety, the
)
24 implementation of instrumentation and control system j
25 criteria with respect to meeting IEEE 279, separation of AV i
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1 protection systems from control systems.
Those are the 2
ones that I can think of right now.
/~g 3
0 I believe you said tha t you referred to 4
chapter 3 of the safety analysis report.
For what 5
purpose were you referring?
6 A
(WITNESS ROSSI)
Well, I looked specifically 7
at some of the sections of chapter 3 to see -- this is 8
the FSAR now.
I referred to some of the sections in 9
there to see that there was a discussion in there of the 10 way the separation criteria and the instrumentation and 11 control systems area have been implemented.
12 I have referred to it to determine that there 13 was a discussion of a review of pipe breaks and their V
14 effects on the pis n t.
I also have referred to the table 15 that gives the qualification.
I've forgotten the number 16 right now, but it is the table that is in the 17 contention, the one that is important, that gives the 18 quality assurance categories.
19 (Counsel for Suffolk County conferring.)
20 0
Do you recall whether you've reviewed chapter 21 3.1, in which -- of the FSAR, in which the general 22 design criteria are discussed?
23 A
(WITNESS ROSSI)
I have not reviewed it in
()
24 detail.
I imagine that in my looking through chapter 3 1
25 I would have referred to it from time to time.
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1 0
Now, prior to September of last year, you had 2
worked with respect to some other power plants.
I 3
believe you mentioned Callaway and Wolf Creek.
But you 4
had done no other work on Shoreham?
5 A
(WITNESS ROSSI)
That is correct.
6 Could I make one f urther comment?
I ha d done
/
no other specific work on Shoreham.
I was involved, 8
however, in the discussions and formulations of some 9
questions that were sent out on all of the near-term 10 operating license plants on f urther looks a t control 11 system problems, and Bulletin 79-27 and the effect of 12 high-energy line breaks on control systems in a general 13 sense.
And th o se questions have also been included in d
14 the Shorehsm review.
15 Q
Dr. Rossi, you're one of the NRC reviewers of 16 the A-47 unresolved safety issues; is that correct?
17 A
(WITNESS ROSSI)
That is correct.
18 0
Are you the only reviewer or are there 19 several?
20 A
(WITNESS ROSSI)
A-47 is managed in the 21 generic, I believe it's called, the Ganeri: Issues 22 Branch.
They are responsible for the management of 23 unresolved safety issues, and in their management of
(
24 unresolved safety issues they obtain input from various 25 other branches within the NRC that are very familiar O
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1 witn how the licensing reviews to date have been carried 2
out and with possible problems that may exist with the 3
way we hava carriSd out reviews, things that have been 4
included and things that have been excluded.
5 My involvement has been from the standpoint of 6
how the Inctrumentation and Control Systems Branch has 7
in the past carried out its reviews, what things have 8
been included and what things have not been included.
9 Q
In your work in the Instrumentation and 10 Control Systems Branch -- strik e th a t.
11 From -- you joined the NRC in the fall of 12 1980, correct?
13 A
(WITNESS ROSSI)
In October of 1980, that is O
14 correct.
15 0
And were you in the Instrumentation and 16 Control Systems Branch during that period?
17 A
(WITNESS ROSSI)
Yes, I was in th e 18 Instrumentation and Control Systems Branch for the whole 19 time that I have been with the NRC.
20 0
Have you had occasion in tha t bra nch to review 21 the classification used by licenses or applicant for 22 instrumentation and control systems?
23 A
(WIINESS ROSSI)
A major portion of our work
()
24 consists of reviewing the drawings and design 25 documen tation and the FSAR input to determine th a t the O
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proper instrumentation and control systems are referred 2
to as safety grade and that they are properly separated 3
from those that see considere$ to be non-safety grade.
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1 Q
I understand that the branch does that.
Have 2
you personsily been involved in that work?
4
/~T 3
A (WITNESS ROSSI)
I have personally been b
4 involved in that work, specifically on Calloway.
I have 5
also been involved in the supervision of that work on 6
other plants since I have become a section leader.
7 (Counsel for Suffolk County conferring.)
8 0
In your review of plants for classification 9
purposes do you rely upon the statements made in the 10 FSAR or do you go to other documents for that review?
11 A
(WITNESS ROSSI)
We certainly would start with 12 the statements made in the FSAR, but we rely very 13 heavily on reviewing drawings and other, more detailed O
14 design information, primarily and to a large extent in 15 meetings that we have with the applicants.
16 (Counsel for Suffolk County conferring.)
17 0
Just to be clear, you did not perform that 18 review for Shoreham?
19 A
( WITNESS ROSSI)
I did not perform that review 20 for Shoreham.
21 0
Have you subsequently reviewed the Shoreham 22 classification insofar as it relates to your area of 23 expertise, the instrumentation and control section?
24 A
(WITNESS ROSSI)
I would not call it a 25 detailed review.
I have read the table, the number of O
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1 which I cannot remember.
If I had it in front of me I 2
could tell you.
I am sure we all know the table.
3 (Counsel for Suffolk County conferring.)
4 JUDGE BRENNER:
Dr. Rossi, you said you read 5
tha table?
6 WITNESS ROSSI:
That is correct.
7 JUDGE BRENNER:
Did you read the table as 8
amended a t the time of testimony filed in this 9
proceeding?
I mean there were handwritten changes made 10 to the table in testimony we received.
11 WITNESS ROSSI:
I most recently looked at t'ha t 12 table this morning before I came to the hearing, and I J
13 looked at the copy tha t Mr. Kirkwood has with him, and I O
14 do not know whether that is the -- I think he can answer 15 the question.
16 JUDGE BRENNER I think that Mr. Kirkwood 17 knows about the changes, is that correct, Mr. Kirkwood?
18 Was.that the a nno ta ted portion?
19 WITNESS KIRXWOOD:
It is the revised table, 20 yes.
21 BY MR. LANPHER:
(R esuming )
22 0
Mr. Conran, have you ever reviewed any PRAs, 23 reviewed or read?
24 A
(WITNESS CONRAN)
No.
25 Q
Have you reviewed or read any probability
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1 studies, perhaps that did not include the consequence?
2 A
(WITNESS CONRAN)
Not in the sense of 3
reviewing, no.
If I read them, it is just like I would 4
read an ATWS position in the background for the 5
development of an ATWS position, but not in the sense of 6
a review.
7 JUDGE BRENNER:
Mr. Conran, let me make sure I 8
heard correctly.
You have not in the sense of a review 9
as you have defined it, you have not reviewed any PRAs?
10 WITNESS CONRAN:
That is right.
11 JUDGE BRENNER:
But you authored that meeting 12 summary which was transmitted to Mr. Thadani from you 13 according to the cover letter which is Enclosure 1 to O
14 M r.
Dircks' memorandum to the ACRS of February 12, 1982.
15 WITNESS CONRAN Yes.
16 JUDGE BRENNER:
So the views you expressed 17 there were without benefit of ever having reviewed a PRA?
18 WITNESS CONRANs For the views expressed there 19 we depended largely upon the review of PRA experts who 20 were under contract to us a t La wrence Livermore i
21 La' oratory, and in the same sense I looked at draft c
(
22 Indian Point PRA chapters but did not try to do it from i
23 an expert viewpoint and again relied upon the review of O
t.,_)
24 Peter Alleso and John Kelly of SAI.
But in no sense was 25 that anything like a comprehensive review of a PRA.
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1 JUDGE BRENNER:
So in the sense that you have 2
sponsored what has been termed a meeting summary, as you 3
indicate in the introduction, designed for more 4
extensive purposes than just a meeting sumasty -- in 5
fact, I guess you also titled it " Status Report" for I
6 that reason.
7 When we talked about who was sponsoring some 8
of these things, you correctly answered that you wrote 9
it, but to some extent you were merely recording and 10 reflecting the views of these other people rather than 11 your own views.
12 WITNESS CONRAN:
Well, I cannot recall that 13 that meetiag summary irsws a judgment as to that of the O
14 Indian Point PRA.
We looked at the Indian Point PRA 15 draft chapters because they were referenced in the 16 systems interaction study, and I was trying to 17 understand how PASNY and EBASCO, their contractor, how 18 those organizations intended to use the PRA material.
19 In doing the systems interaction study 20 specifically there were a couple of statements in the l
21 initial submittal that we received from PASNY that made l
22 reference to -- it sounded like they were intending to 23 use the results of the Indian Point PRA to determine in
(
24 a very significant sense the scope of the systems-25 i n te ra c tion study that they were going to do to O
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1 determine areas of the 91 ant in which to focus attention 2
from a system interactions viewpoint.
So I thought that 3
it was necessary for us to look at the PRA and what had g-O]
4 been done.
5 The comments in the meeting summary that go to 6
the question of siequacy of PRA for doing systems 7
interaction type studies --
8 JUDGE BRENNER:
Yes.
That is the aspect I am 9
thinking of in this proceeding.
10 WITNESS CONRANs
-- Were my own j udgments, but 11 they were formed after our expert contractors had 12 reviewed in detail the Indian Point study and given us 13 their opinion of whether it was in their view a good, O
14 adequate, very good state-of-the-art PRAs but more 15 specifically reviewed in some detail for us the aspect 16 of the soft spots in the PRA th a t we were concerned 17 about, and that was how intersystem dependencies were 18 accounted for and handled; that they seemed to be 19 included in the modeling of the plant in the PR A sense 20 in a way that we would view as comprehensive; that 21 specifically in fact where we started our investigations 22 of the PRA systems interaction interfaces, a rather 23 significant part of that meeting summary is a set of
()
24 slides used by Mr. Alleso in making a presentation to 25 our management first and then to PASNY laying out our O
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1 understanding of, in broad terms, of what had been done 2
in the Indian Point PRA and generalizing from that
" criticisms" is perhaps a 3
consideration to criticisms 7S d
4 harsh word -- but observations of ways in which the 5
Indian Point PRA seemed to la=k what we would be trying 6
to do in the systems interaction study at Indian Point.
7 I do not think -- I think if the memo taken in 8
its entirety with the attachment which reflects the 9
presentation tade by Peter Alleso -- and I think that is 10 handled in a very straightforward fashion in that memo 11
-- I did not represent that as my views; I reflected 12 what happened at the meeting, and that is what I was 13 trying to do.
O 14 JUDGE BRENNER:
You have answered my 15 question.
I certainly did not mean to imply any 16 misrepresentation.
It migh t be tha t we did not ask the 17 questions the right way earlier, and I was trying to 18 flush out whose views are expressed, and you have 19 explained that.
I imagine -- and perhaps Mr. Thadani 20 can respond -- I am inferring that due to his position 21 as the chief of the branch and the fact that he was the 22 ultimate addressee of the memorandum that to the extent 23 there are questions addressed to the panel with respect l
24 to that memorandum in the context of this contention 25 that he might be able to answer questions on tha t also.
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1 Is that a correct inference?
2 WITNESS THADANI Yes, that is fair.
I had 3
read Mr. Conran's memorandum, and I think I understand 4
the thrust of the memorandum.
5 I might just make an observation on this.
As 6
you know, the Indian Point probabilistic risk assessment 7
was finally submitted, I believe it was the middle of 8
March of 1982; so the discussions were going on prior to 9
the submittal of the study.
And we have basically only to begun, I think, the detailed review of the study.
In 11 that sense I cannot comment on inadequacy, if there is 12 any, of the Indian Point probabilistic study.
I think 13 in a broader sense I understand what Mr. Conran is 14 trying to say, though.
15 JUDGE BRENNER:
Also, it certainly was not my 16 purpose -- and I am addressing this to Staff counsel 17 to try to flesh out SAI's involvement.
That came out in 18 the answer unexpectedly, from my point of view, and I 19 trust that one of the raasons that this is going to be 20 thoroughly looked at is there may be details of 21 involvement that are pertinent to the question that we i
22 will see in the Staff's rasponsa, such as the fact that 23 Mr. Kelly of SAI's views were relied on -- I do not knov 24 what the extent is exactly yet -- in a memorandum which l
25 was put into evidence as part of the Staff's case on ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY, INC, 400 VIRGINIA AVE.. S.W., WASHINGTON, D.C. 20024 (202) 554-2345
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1 this question.
That is the kind of thing that might be 2
material in terms of judgments, and I do not want to 3
know the answer, but if Staff counsel did not know that, 4
that is the kind of thing that I hope will be gleaned in 5
discussions with the right technical people ; because, 6
aasir, the focus is not i broad contractual focus 7
solely.
It is focused on the use in this hearing and in 8
this contention.
And if nothing else, it might arguably 9
go to the weight of some of the information, if not an 10 out-and-out conflict problem.
11 MR. REIS:
We understand, Your Honor.
12 BY MR. LANPHER:
(Resuming) 13 Q
Mr. Conran, in responding to Judge Brenner you 14 referred to the slide program I guess that Lawrence 15 Livermore presentad.
Is that Enclosure 4 to what we 16 have called the Conran memorandum, the first page of 17 which is entitled, " Purpose of Presentation?"
18 A
(WITNESS CONR AN)
It is identified on page 3 19 as Enclosure 4.
I do not see any markings on the slides 20 themselves, but that was the intention.
I think on my 21 copy they must be cut off, the enclosure number must be 1
22 cut off.
23 0
Your counsel gave us some revised copies.
24 (The document was shown to the witness.)
25 A
(WITNESS CONRAN)
Yes, that is it.
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Q Er. Conran, did you prepare Enclosure 3, the 2
two pages just before that, the first page of which is 3
entitled " Systems Interaction Program?"
4 A
(WITNESS CONRAN)
Yes, I did.
5 JUDGE BRENNER:
Let us go off the record for a 6
minute.
7 (Discussion off the record.)
8 JUDGE BRENNER:
Let's go back on the record.
9 BY MR. LANPHER:
(Resuming) 10 0
Gentlemen, I would like to turn your attention 11 to page 31 of the prefiled testimony.
12 Er. Thadani, you have had an opportunity to 13 review this testimony, is that correct?
14 A
(WITNES3 THADANI)
Let me check.
Did you say 15 page 31?
16 Q
Page 31.
17 A
(WITNESS THADANI)
My copy does not have a 18 page 31 to it, but yes, s t a rtin g with question 36.
19 Q
Yes, sir.
20 A
(WITNESS THADANI)
Yes, sir, I have read it.
21 Q
Continuing over to page 34.
22 A
(WITNESS THADANI)
I have read that.
23 Q
Have you read all of the 7(b) testimony or 24 just that portion?
25 A
(WITNESS THADANI)
I have glanced through most O
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1 of it, but the emphasis in terms of my paying attention 2
was to question 39 and the response to question 39.
3 0
Wait s minute.
I think you misspoke.
Not 39 4
or maybe if you would take another look.
5 A
(WITNESS THADANI)
Well, let me check again to 6
be sure.
I am familiar with the response to question 38.
7 (Panel of witnesses conferring.)
8 A
(WITNESS THADANI)
And I hava slso reviewed 9
the response to question 39 as it relates to the 10 antesolved safety issue, A.17, and in general, the 11 systems interaction activity which is described in 12 response to that question.
13 0
Would it be fair to state that questions 38 14 and 39 and the answers thereto are the only portions of 15 the testimony that you have read carefully and in detail?
16 (Panel of witnesses conferring.)
17 A
(WITNESS THADANI)
Yes, that is fair.
18 0
And when did you first read this testimony?
19 A
(WITNESS THADANI)
The response to question 20 38, I was partially involved in wri ting it.
Sandy 21 Israel is the person who initiated the response.
We had 22 some discussions, revised it, and that was done before 23 the testimony was filed, and I guess I cannot give you O
24 the exact date.
25 As for the response to question 39, I had just O
l ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY. INC.
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i O
i a hrief e x tonity to
-y quicu y took through it 2
before it was filed.
l 3
0 Before it was filed on May 25th?
4 A
(WITNESS THADANI)
Yes.
5 (Panel of witnesses conferring.)
6 A
(WITNESS THADANI)
Let me go back and clarify 7
the response to question 38.
This was a decision that 8
11though I made initially but we moved it up the chain, 9
and we did go all the way up to the office director to 10 make sure that we were not in any way stating what was l
11 not the perceived policy.
And thus, the response to 12 this question has had substantial management review.
13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 O
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1 (Counsel for Suffolk County conferring.)
2 0
gr. Thadani, are there any differing 3
professional opinions regarding this answer?
4 A
(WITNESS THADANI) None that I know of.
5 0
Gentlemen, I would like you to turn your 6
attention back to page 31, the start of this section.
I 7
guess, Dr. Spels, I will direct the questions to you, 8
but anyone else on the panel that is more appropriate to 9
answer, th a t is fine.
10 Ihis section of your testimony concerns 11 alternative classification methodologies, correct?
12 A
(WITNESS SPEIS) Yes.
13 0
It is not directed, therefore, at the 14 identification of adverse systems interaction per se, 15 but rather, whether there are alternate methodologies 16 for use in the classifications of systems, structures 17 and componants?
18 A
(WITNESS SPEIS) Yes.
19 0
Dr. Spels, do you believe there is a l
l 20 connection between classification and systems 21 interaction analyses?
22 A
(WITNESS SPEIS) Yes.
23 0
And what is that connection?
24 A
(WITNESS SPEIS) It is possible that after the 25 staff's program is completed, that a more systematic O
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1 review involving systems interaction will identify 2
systems, structures or components that would need to be 3
reclassified at that time.
But based upon the work that 4
so far the staff has done, we haven't identified 5
anything that has to be reclassified as a result of 6
systems interaction work or effects.
7 Could Dr. Rossi amplify?
8 0
Sure.
9 A
(WITNESS ROSSI) I would like to ask something; to I want to be certain I understand the question so I will 11 repeat ba:k I think basically what you said.
I think 12 you asked whether there was a connection between safety 13 classification and systems interaction analyses, did you O
2 14 not?
15 Q
That is right.
Then he answered yes and I 16 asked him to explain what he perceive 1 that connection 17, to be.
18 A
(WITNESS ROSSI) Could I give you my l
19 perceptions?
20 0
Certainly.
21 A
(WITNESS ROSSI) I think the an swe r, in my 22 opinion, is yes, also.
I believe that by classifying 23 systems the way that it has been done in terms of 0
24 identifying very carefully and essentially unequivocally 25 those systems that are safety related, that that allows O
l ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY, INC, 400 VIRGINIA AVE., S.W., WASHINGTON. D.C. 20024 (202) 554 2345 l
6520 1
the applicant to :oncentrate very heavily in making sure 2
tha t specific things are done to those systems.
And 3
they are things like to protect them from pipe whip, 4
floods, separate the redundant portions of them.
5 In the case of the instrumentation and control 6
systems we look very carefully at asking sure that the 7
part that is classified as safety grade or protection is 8
either totally separated from the part that is 9
classified as control, or it is isolated in a 10 substantial way from the control system, so that 11 credible f ailures within the con trol system cannot 12 interact back into the safety portion of the system and
(~
13 prevent it from performing its f unction.
1 14 That is my perception of a relationship 15 between the safety classification and the systems 16 interaction analysis.
17 JUDGE JORD AN Could I just ask one quick one 18 there?
This interface between the control systems and 19 the safety systems, could the study of the systems 20 interactions affect just where you put that, where you 21 draw that line, so that a thorough study might say well, 22 whereas we previously considered this only as part of 23 the control, it now appears that really this ought to be
\\
24 as part of the safety system, and therefore, subject to 25 the complete requirements that you mentioned for l
\\
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1 diversity sad sep1rstion?
2 WITNESS ROSSI:
I think it is very possible 3
that that could be correct.
I would also like to state 4
that I think that any systematic study of the systems in 5
the plant could do that very same thing, so there may be 6
many ways that one might look at the systems in a very 7
systematic way and come to the conclusion that the 8
boundary between what we now call safety grade and 9
non-safety grade should be, in some way, changed.
10 BY MR. LANPHER (Resuming):
11 0
Dr. Speis, in your earlier answer you said 12 that to your knowledge, systems intersction analyses had 13 not led to a ny altered classifications.
That is, I
(
14 think, a rough paraphrase.
Is that correct?
15 A
(WITNESS SPEIS) T'o ' th e b es t o f m y knowledge, 16 at this point in time, yes.
17 0
Now, were you speaking generically or with 18 respect to Shoreham, specifically?
19 A
(WITNESS SPEIS) I was speaking generically.
20 0
And were you speaking regarding classification 1
21 changes to upgrade to safety related?
22 A
(WITNESS SPEIS) Yes.
Or what Dr. Rossi is i
23 referring to, safety grade.
I think it is 24 interchangasble.
25 0
For purposes of my questions, when I use those i
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I terms -- and I am coing to use them or attempt to use 2
them in the same way that M r. Denton has used them 3
Now, do you know whether any systems interaction 4
analyses have resulted in reclassifiestion from 5
unclassified, so to speak, to the important-to-safety 6
category?
7
( Panel of
- witnesses conferring.)
8 A
(WITNESS SPEIS) May Wayne Hodges answer that?
9 (Panel of witnesses conferring.)
10 A
(WITNESS SPEIS) Would you state your question 11 again?
I was a little bit conf used when you talked 12 about non-classified and bringing them into the 13 important-to-safety category.
O 14 Q
Well, there is a category, accord in g to your-15 testimony and the NRC regulations as you interpret them, 16 of important-to-safety, and tha t includes a subset of 17 safety-related?
18 A
(WITNESS SPEIS) Correct.
19 0
Now we take out the safety-related category l
20 and you still have a ca tegory of important-to-safety but 21 not safety related.
22 A
(WITNESS SPEIS) Correct.
l 23 0
You also presumably have a category of not s_)
24 imp o rta n t to safety, correct?
25 A
(WITNESS SPEIS) I am sure you probably have O
ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY, INC.
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6523 s
( ).
1 something'like a toilet or some other things.
I would 2
rather have somebody else answer that because I am not 3
faillar with things that are not important to safety, 4
but I am sure there are, like the washing machine or the 5
fountain,~the water fountain, or whatever.
6 A
(WITNESS C0hRAN) May I add to tha t, Mr.
7 Lanpher?
k 8
0 Sure.
9 A
(WITNESS CONBAN) The concept of important to 10 safety and the reason that we use that term is that if a 11 structure or system or a component is sufficiently 12 important in the overall scheme of things in protecting 13 the public health and safety, the staff of the applicant 14 or the licensee first of all must do something in a I,
15 design way to address that concern, and then the staff 16 must' review it and it is within the regulations or 17 regulatory guidance.
And that set of things, t
l l
18 structures, systems and components, that is both 19 necessary and sufficient to reach the conclusion of 20 reasonable assurance of no undue risk, the finding that 21 must be made to license the plan t, that is called 22 important to safety.
Anything that is outside that 23 class is unimportant to safety and there is not a reason l
24 to address it, in the Commission's regulations.
25 0
And there are systems, structures and l
(
l
~~
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1 components that would be in that category of not 2
important to safety, correct?
3 A
(WITNESS CONRAN) I think there most certainly 4
would be but we wouldn't address them in ou r review 5
documents.
6 0
My question was whether Dr. Speis or anyone 7
else on the panel knows whether systems interaction 8
analyses have led to determinations that itema 9
previously thought to be unimportant to safety are now 10 believed to be important to safety?
11 A
(WITNESS THADANI) I will give you my 12 understanding of experience and Dr. Rossi will give you 13 his.
O 14 0
Mr. Thadani, if you want to consult before you 15 give your answer, that is fine, too.
16 (Pan.el of witnesses conferring.)
17 A
(WITNESS SPEIS) Can we get a clarification of 18 the question ?
19 0
Does any member of the panel know whether 20 systems interaction analyses have led to a determination 21 that items previously considered unimportant to safety 22 should now be considered or classified as important to 23 safety, on the basis of systems interaction analyses.
/l
(_/
24 A
(WITNESS SPEIS) I don't.
25 A
(WITNESS THADANI) Let me just make a comment AQ,)
ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY,INC.
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1 on that.
If you remember, soon after the Three Mile 2
Island Unit 2 accident concerns were raised with the 3
power opera ted relief valve and its reliability, I think 4
a lot of people had to consider power-operated relief 5
valves in the category of important to safety but they 6
were not ssfety related.
7 Substantial modifications have been made since 8
the accident.
The interaction of the power-operated 9
relief valve and the block valve was, indeed, also 10 identified in one of the Sandia studies under systems 11 interaction evalustions.
So in a way, I would say yes, 12 these studies have indicated some increased importance, 13 if you will, but they were verified by experience.
14 A
(WITNESS ROSSI) I think that some of us are 15 having difficulty in knowing whether there is a specific 16 change that has resulted as a result of a systems 17 interaction analysis.
As I think people here just now 18 have pointed out, there have been changes in the 19 emphasis that we have placed on particular systems.
The 20 PORVs are one, block valves are another.
I believe 21 auxiliary feedwater systems on pressuriced water 22 reactors would also come under that category.
I think 23 we might h1ve difficulty saying that that was done as a 24 result of a " systems interaction analysis."
l
(
25 However, I would think that part of th e reason ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY,INC, 400 VIRGINI A AVE., S.W., WASHINGTON, D.C. 20024 (202) 554 2345
6526 1
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1 we did it had to do with a lot of things, not the least 2
of which was experience, and all of that.
One could, 3
depending upon what one considers an analysis to be, say fi b
4 that yes, that was in part due to systems interaction 5
analyses.
But I don 't know tha t we could say clearly 6
that it is just because of that.
7 But we have, from time to ti m e, changed 8
systems from non-safety grade and important to safety to 9
safety grade, and we have changed I believe the relative 10 emphasis that we put on a system tha t may have started 11 out as being important to safety, and we have put more 12 emphasis on it by doing greater testing or putting it in 13 the technical specifications or that kind of thing.
O 14 Whether you would tie that specifically to what you are 15 saying or :alling systems interaction analysis, I don 't 16 know whether I would go quite that far.
17 A
(WITN' DSS CONRAN) I think the answer to your 18 ques' ion as it was asked is no.
That due to the i
19 negative response from all members of the panel -- a nd I 20 can't recall any instance in which a structure, system 21 or component unimportant to safety was upgraded into the 22 impor tan t-to-sa f e ty category -- I think there must be 23 confusion in the way the question was understood.
24 A
(WITNESS KIRKWOOD) For the Shoreham plant, I 25 know of no systen, structure or component that was ALDERSoN REPORTING COMPANY. INC, 400 VIRGINIA AVE., S.W., WASHINGTON, D.C. 20024 (202) 554-2345
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1 unimportant to safety that has been upgraded to 2
im po rta n t to safety.
3 Q
Mr. Kirkwood, does LILCO use an 4
im po r ta n t-t o-saf e t y category?
5 A
(WITNESS KIRKWOOD) Well, they have been using 6
the term interchangeably with safety related.
7 Q
So, in fact, they don ' t use tha t category, 8
correct?
9 A
(WITNESS KIRKWOOD) That is correct.
10 0
So it is not surprising that at LILCO or at 11 Shoreham there have been no such upgrades, correct?
12 A
(WITNESS KIRKWOOD) I have always, in my 13 review, used the term "important to safety" regardless 14 of what th e applican t -- the terminology the applicant 15 uses.
And I am stating that I know of no cases where 16 systems interaction has resulted in a change in the 17 classifiestion.
18 Q
But the only change in classifica tion that 19 would take place at Shoreham would be from unclassified 20 to safety related, correct?
(
21 A
(WITNESS KIRKWOOD) In the manner the applicant 22 uses the tarms, yes.
23 (Counsel for Suffolk County conferring.)
s1 l
k_)
24 JUDGE J3RD AN 4 Mr. Kirkwoo d, inspite of what I
25 you said -- and I don't doubt what you said -- there has ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY, INC, 400 VIRGINIA AVE., S.W., WASHINGTON. O C. 20024 (202) 554 2345 L-
6528
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1 been some talk here today that there has been discussion 2
of possible upgrading of certain parts of the Shoreham, 3
3 such as the bypass valves and so on, as to whether they Y
4 sight not be upgraded or they should be upgraded to 5
safety or not.
And I presume there has been 6
consideration, therefore, as to whether the systems 7
interactions were such that it should require an 8
upgrading.
Is that correct?
9 WITNESS SPEISs Can I ask a question, Dr.
10 Jordan?
11 JUDGE JORDANS Sure.
12 WITNESS SPEIS There must be a confusion.
I 13 think it is proper to repeat the staff's terminology, 14 which is important to safety, and then the subset of 15 safety related.
16 JUDGE JORDANS I am trying to use the staff 17 terms now and I am trying to use your language.
18 WITNESS SPEIS In that sense, there has been 19 an upgrading or a partial upgrading of the turbine 20 bypass system by tech specing it, surveillance, et 21 cetera.
22 JUDGE JORDAN:
From important to safety to 23 safety?
24 WITNESS SPEIS:
Not completely to safety 25 related because it lacks certain attributes of safety
()
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1 related.
For example, seismic classification.
So we 2
went partway, halfway or whatever you want to describe 3
it.
4 JUDGE JORDAN Semi important.
5 WITNESS SPEIS:
Yes.
6 WITNESS ROSSI:
I think one might characterize 7
it as a change in its relative importance to safety and 8
in the measures that we sight take with respect to those 9
systems, commensurate with the relative importance to 10 safety that we place on them.
Does that help?
11 JUDGE BRENNERs I know I am going to be sorry 12 I jumped in here.
Dr. Speis, the pa nel, either 13 individually or after consultation and therefore, O.
[
14 somewhat collectively, stated that there has been no 15 changes in classification from some unclassified state 16 to unimportant to safety classification.
Correct?
17 WITNESS SPEIS:
Using the staff's terminology, 18 yes, correct.
19 JUDGE BRENNER:
And when the question was 20 first asked, I think it is fair to say you were somewhat 21 taken aback because I think you stated, and perhaps it I
22 is some exaggeration, that other than toilets and 23 washing mm:hines and tha t type of thing, everything is 24 safety related.
I am sorry, important to safety.
25 WITNESS SPEIS4 Yes.
I am sure there are some O
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1 systems tha t play no role in the overall safety of the 2
pisnt as fsr as the health and safety of the public is 3
concerned.
They are outside the big circle of important j"]
U 4
to safety, and we don't review those things so I am not 5
familiar with any of those systems.
6 JUDGE BRENNER:
Given that I will term it 7
broad umbrella or circle that encompasses items 8
importan t to safety, it is not surprising that there 9
isn't anything thst got upgraded from some category 10 outside it to important to safety, because presumably, 11 there was some implicit judgments that well, you don't 12 have to worry about the washing machine around the 13 corner and that type of thing.
j 14 WITNESS SPEIS.
That is correct.
15 JUDGE BRINNER:
I don't want to go into it too 16 far now, but if you accept for the sake of argument that 17 the subset, safety related or safety grade, which terms I
18 have been used interchangeably, is reasonably well 19 defined and given that broad resid ual a reas tha t lies 20 between toilets and washing machines and the subset of 21 safety-related; that is, important to safety, I guess 22 the questioT; could be raised as to how helpful it is to 23 have something labeled important to safety, given that 24 category.
25 And also, perhaps explains some of the discomfort O
ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY, INC, 400 VIRGINIA AVE., S W., WASHINGTON D.C. 20024 (202) 554-2345 l
6531 m
(,)
1 expressed by the utility or the industry in some 2
documents that have been put before us as to why they l
3 find such a category not very helpful if, within that l
4 category, you then have to keep applying a judgment to 5
determine to what extent each important-to-safety but 6
not safety-related system, structure or component has to 7
be upgraded or treated.
It is very much an ad hoc type 8
of thing.
9 WITNESS ROSSI Could I try to address that?
10 JUDGE BRENNER:
Yes.
I didn't mean it as a 11 question, but if you want to address it, fine.
12 WITNESS ROSSI:
I would like to try to address 13 it because I think in some ways, it might be imprudent 14 to try to draw a circle around a very well-defined group 15 fa systems and say that everything within this circle is t
l 16 important to safety and everything that is outside that 17 circle is unimportan t to safety.
Because the stuff th a t 18 is outside that circle -- and I think from a regulatory 19 standpoint we would have essentially no control over l
20 what was done to it and we would probably have 21 difficulty in even reviewing it at all 22 Having the flexibility that we have currently 23 in trying to address systems that are important to (3
(_,/
24 safety in a way that recognizes that even though they 25 are important to safety there is a relative difference
(~T
%)
l ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY, INC, 400 VIRGINIA AVE., S W., WASHINGTON. O C. 20024 (202) 554 2345
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1 from system to system as to how important to safety it 2
is, I believe allows us to make judgments on what we do r"%
3 to tho;se systems, which I feel is an advantage.
We can 4
take advantage of experience in these non-safety systems 5
that tell us that perhaps we ought to be doing more with 6
a particular system, even though it is not safety 7
related than we have done in the past.
And I believe 8
that this flexibility that we have there is very useful.
9 On the other hand, we have tended to be 10 relatively inflexible.
With the safety-related systems 11 we have some flexibility as to how we implement the 12 criteria there, but we have recognized that it is 13 appropriate to be rela tively inflexible with the 14 saf et y-rela ted systems, both as to what goes in them and 15 as to what we do with them, once we have defined them 16 within that circle.
17 JUDGE BRENNER:
I think we will come back to 18 this in the context of Mr. Conran 's rebuttal testimony, 19 and other panelists will undboutedly participate, so I 20 don't want to take time away from focusing on the other 21 methodologies in Mr. Thadani's testimony on that, along 22 with others.
23 Let me just state you have very nicely said 24 thit it is good to have that hook on which to attach 25 regulatory authority, and that is expressed in the O
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1 written testimony, also.
I certainly understood that 2
part of why you wanted to label th a t.
And what I was 3
attempting to get at in my previous inarticulate comment 4
was whether or not beyond giving you that regulatory 5
authority so that you could have the flexibility to make 6
the judgments, as you put it, whether knowing that the 7
label "important to safety" is attached tells you very 8
much about an item, without doing the particular 9
analysis of how the item functions and what it is needed to to do in the plant and determining what level of QA and 11 reliability, et ceters, the item needs.
12 And I will just leave that as a comment now, 13 sni ve will come back to it in the context of that other O
14 portion of the testimony.
15 Perhaps this would be a good time for a 16 15-minute break.
17 WITNESS SPEIS:
Judge Brenner, can one of our l
l 18 witnesses, Mr. Contin, add something to this same 1
19 subject?
20 JUDGE BRENNER:
We can do it righ t now, but I 21 do want to leave it, not because I am not interested in 22 it and not because it isn' t important, but I am worried 1
23 about focusing on Mr. Thadani's time, also.
24 WITNESS CONRAN:
I understand, but I think 25 something went wrong in the discussion of this O
1 l
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question.
Somehow, we lost track of the notion that we don't just use that 2
important to safety 3
conversationally.
The fact that the licensee or the 4
applicant is uncomfortable with that is neither here nor 5
there.
The point of the fact is that the language of 6
the regulation defines the term.
And I said that 7
important to safety structures, sysems and components or i
8 all of those structures, systems-and components 9
necessary and sufficient that they must be addressed in 10 the SAR, they must meet stringent requirements put down 11 by the staff in its regulations and regulatory guidance 12 documents in order to license the plant, in order to 13 give reasonable assurance that there is no undue risk to 14 the public in the operation of the plant.
15 The fact that there is a spectrum of 16 importance within that category "important to safety" 17 but not classifiel " safety related" is no different than 18 any category of safety related.
Everything in the 19
" safety related" category is not the same quality 20 level.
Within the ASME code, there are three classes.
21 The ECCS piping is of lesser quality, in some sense, 22 than the main coolant piping, the reactor coolant piping.
23 The notion of gradations in degree of 24 importance is inherent both in the " safety-related" 25 category as well as the "important to safety" category, 1
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1 and we are not using the term "important to safety" 2
conversa.tionally.
We are not saying everything except 3
the clocks and the toilets.
O 4
The notion that something is important to 5
safety is tied to a consideration of the consequences if 6
that component of the system fails -- radiological 7
consequences to the public.
That is, all the way down 8
to th e very low limits of Part 50, Appendix 9.
I mean, 9
the design objectives, not the limit.
10 But you don't have to be talking about Part 11 100 Appendix 9 sceident-related limits, 25 r.
You can the Commission is concerned about public health and 12 13 safety in terms of the limit of Part 20; that is, 15 r 14 per year, or even very low limits that could be -- that 15 an individual could be exposed to at the site boundary 16 due to normal operation.
17 That may not be much in some people's minds 18 but it is important to the Conmission, and therefore, it 19 is called important to safety.
Al those sections of the 20 regulations are health and safety regulations; those 21 words are in all of the sections I just mentioned, 20, 22 50 and 100.
So the term "important to safety", the 23 point we are trying to make here is it is not just a 24 conversational term, 'the way that we use it, and it 25 means much more than the way that the applicant has O
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6536
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1 indicated in his testimony.
We are not just concerned 2
shout the systems whose failure results in very high 3
doses to the public or potentially so.
4 JUDGE BRENNER:
Okay, thank you.
5 3R. LANPHER:
Judge, before you adjourn for 6
th e b re a k --
7 JUDGE BRENNER:
M r. Haass wanted to add 8
something?
9 WITNESS HAASS:
I would just like to add that 10 the same concept applies to quality assurance 11 requirements, as Mr. Conran just talked about quality 12 standards requirements, as reflected in criterion 2 of 13 Appendix B, and general design criterion 1 of Appendix N-)
14 A,
both of which say that quality assurance requirements 15 are appliai, consistent with an item 's important to 16 safety.
So that implies that QA requirements are graded.
17 JUDGE BRENNER:
Judge Jordan just mentioned to 18 me that we will come back to it, and I take it by that 19 he will, among others I imagine.
And thank you for the 20 comment.
At this point, --
21 MR. LANPHER:
Judge Brenner, if I could follow 22 up with one or two things.
I share your concern of -- I 23 don't want to get into the Denton memo and all of that 24 stuff now, but there are a couple of f ollow-ups I would 25 like to do and then hopefully, after the break go on to O
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1 something different.
2 JUDGE BRENNER:
Let's try to keep it short 3
because -- it is important and we will be dealing with 4
it, but I think we ought to make a good faith attempt, 5
not to the point of sacrificing the record, but within 6
that, make a good faith attempt to focus on the other 7
methodologies and make use of Mr. Thadani's presence.
8 MR. LANPHER:
I agree.
9 BY MR. LANPHER (Resuming):
10 0
Mr. Conran, I take it from your previous 11 statement that the category "important to safety" is 12 more carefully defined, if you will, than an amorphous 13 group that includes everything except toilets and 14 washing machines and water fountains, perhaps.
15 A
(WITNESS CONRAN) Yes, it is.
I will look up 16 the specific section of the Reg Guide 1.70, the standard 17 format for SARs.
There is a section in there that l
18 requires the applicant to identify either explicitly or 19 in some other obvious way all things that are important 20 to safety.
21 And I believe tha t this applicant and other 22 applictnts do that.
If they don't, our comparison of 23 their SAR with our standard review plan would bring that i
24 to light.
Roughly speaking, a first cut list, -- and we 25 don't have one; that is a part of the problem, we don't O
1 1
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1 have a list of all things important to saf e ty like we do 2
all things safety related; those appear in Reg Guide 3
1.29.-- but a good first cut st such a list would be all O-4 systems, structures and components identified explicitly 5
in the regulations or in the standard review plans of l
6 reg guides.
7 Now, there are a few others.
I am sure there 8
are plant-specific items that wo uld be picked up as 9
license conditions perhaps, or in correspondence on the 10 docket of some plant.
But a very good first cut at a 11 listing of all things important to safety would be those 12 structures, systems and components listed explicitly in i
13 the regulations, the standa rd review plans and the 14 regulatory guides.
15 0
Mr. Conran, is it your opinion that an 16 spplicsnt ought to be able to identify for NRC reviewers 17 whether particular structures, systems and components 18 sre to fall within the "important to safety" category?
19 A
(WITNESS CONRAN) Yes.
The first -- the basic 20 answer to your question is yes.
We have heard a great l
21 deal of testimony in this hesting that indicates that.
22 LILCO, I think, in their fashion does that.
I think it 23 is also very important that they iden tif y those 24 structures, systets and components to us in the language 25 of th e regulation.
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1 They use their language and we use ours, and 2
somebody is responsible for interpreting, because in a 3
few places in the regulations that is not the same thing 4
as demonstration of compliance with the Commission's 5
regulations.
Demonstration of compliance with an 6
industry standard, for example, is not necessarily a 7
demonstration of compliance with the Commission's 8
re7ulations.
9 MR. LANPHERs I will return another day.
10 JUDGE BRENNERs I can't resist one quick 11 comment, and it is not a question.
It is not a 12 question, I repeat, but the staff, either in the form of 13 questions of LILCO's witnesses or in the form of some of f-)
NJ back to 14 the explanation by you, Mr. Conran, keeps coming 15 the importance of identifying these things in the same 16 language.
And I submit there are some -- at least one 17 very famous old law case -- involving what is known -- I 18 forget whether it is patent ambiguity or la tent 19 ambiguity, but I think it stands for the proposition 20 that just talking the same language on the purpose may 21 not solve the problem.
22 And that is a case that all lawyers suffer 23 through in the first year of law school; that there were 24 two ships of the same name but they were two different 25 ships and it led to some contractual difficulties.
And O
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1 maybe I am the only Board member with this problem, but 2
I am not sure that these expressions, from time to time,
/~}
3 in motions and in various and other sundry things, that k_/
4 although we are using different terms, we are 5
approaching it in a similar f ashion means tha t it is 6
just a semantic problem and it is okay, and if only ther l
7 would solve the semantic problem -- that is, start using 8
our label -- things will be okay, in fact, because then 9
ve have the commitment that they are doing it.
10 I suggest that that, without more, does not 11 necessarily or may not demonstrate that there is no 12 problem.
Mr. Brown, who is closer to law school than I 13 am, points out to me that it is latent ambiguity.
%)
14 (Laughter.)
15 I th ink w hy don't we leave this subject for 16 nod, but that was another opportunity for me to express 17 the discomfort, and the reason I do it now is I think it 18 would be a disservice to wait until th e findings are in 19 and find out that the staff or another party spent a lot 20 of good time and good effort proposing a lot of findings 21 solely along that line, without taking care of this l
22 problem.
Ihat is what have you done, in fact, to see if 23 there is a non-meeting of the minds, regardless of what 24 language is being used.
25 It is almost 3:30; why don't we break until O
ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY, INC, 400 VIRGINIA AVE., S.W., W ASHINGTON, D.C. 20024 (202) 554-2345
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i 3==s.
2 (A short recess was taken.)
3 4
5 6
7 8
t i
f 10 i
11 12 O
14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 1
23 lO 24 25 O
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1 JUDGE BRENNER:
Back on the record.
2 I apologize I was late.
I was involved in a
[]
3 very quick conference call on another case.
We can U
4 resume now.
5 MR. LANPHER:
Judge Brenner, just for your 6
information, I delivered copies of those cross plans 7
that were due today as well as a motion to strike a 8
portion of the LILCO testimony on 28(a)(vi), and it is 9
in your box.
10 JUDGE BRENNER:
I was just checking to see if 11 we had any relatei motions to strike -- that is, related from any party, and I 12 to the subject of 28(a)(vi) 13 don't see any; so this would be a new subject in the 14 context of motions to strike.
15 I guess I would like the parties when they 16 have an opportunity in the next few days to propose a 17 time when they would like to respond to this motion to 18 strike and what form the response would take.
I do not 19 think we will be able to deal with it this week.
I 20 would say that.
21 BY MR. LANPHER:
(Resuming) 22 0
Mr. Rossi, I believe you testified last w eek 23 that you had prepared the initial drafts of answers 36 O
24 and 37, correct?
25 A
(WITNESS ROSSI)
Right.
With sig nifica nt O
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1 input from others.
2 0
Fine.
I am going to direct these questions 3
initially to you, but anyone else is of course welcome 4
to comment also.
5 Turning your attention to 36, before we get to 6
the answer, question 36 refers to systems interaction 7
analyses, and we have been using those same terms in 8
some of the examination prior to the break.
How do you 9
define " systems interaction analyses," sir?
10 A
(WITNESS ROSSI)
Weil, I would define " systems 11 interaction analyses" as analyses that are primarily 12 directed toward detecting an adverse effect of one 13 system on another system or the adverse effect of one O
14 system failure on another system.
15 0
Would you agree that there is more than one 16 methodology for determining whether there is a systems 17 interaction?
18 A
(WITNESS ROSSI)
I would agree that there is 19 more than one methodology, yes.
20 JUDGE MORRIS:
Excuse me, Mr. Lanpher.
21 Dr. Rossi, would you state that same answer 22 irtespective of whether one system is saf e ty-rela ted or 23 nonsafety-related?
24 WITNESS ROSSI:
Yes.
My answer was 25 independent of that, of whe th e r the systems are ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY, INC.
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1 safety-related or nonsafety-related or a combination.
2 JUDGE MORRIS:
Thank you.
3 MR. LANPHER4 Judge Morris, I missed the 4
thrust of your question on the same answer.
Was there a 5
particular part of his previous answer that you were 6
directing him to go back and reconsider?
7 JUDGE MORRIS:
No.
I just recall a statement 8
in some context or another that safety interactions were 9
defined in terms of the effect of a nonsafety-related 10 system or :omponent on a safety-related system or 11 component; and I wanted to be clear that there was no 12 such limitation in Dr. Rossi's answer.
13 MR. LANPHER Fine.
Thank you.
O 14 BY MR. LANPHER:
(Resuming) 15 0
Ihat is the way you understood Judge Morris' 16 question?
17 A
(WITNESS ROSSI)
Yes.
18 0
Mr. Conran, I provided you during the break a 19 copy of Suffolk County Exhibit 19 which was marked 20 during the examination of LILCO.
It is extracts from 21 NUREG-CR 1959.
i 22 Does the Board have copies of that?
23 JUDGE BRENNER:
Somewhere.
24 BY MR. LANPHER:
(Resuming) 25 0
Mr. Rossi, let me first follow up with one
(
l ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY, INC, l
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1 further question for you or Mr. Conran perhaps.
In your 2
definition or general description of systems interaction 3
do you include both dependent and independent 4
interactions?
5 A
(WITNESS ROSSI)
Well, I think that my l
6 definition of systems interaction would really be 7
primarily sddressed towards dependent ones where f ailure 8
of one somehow affects another system because of some 9
sort of dependence of the one system upon either the 10 failure of another system or upon the other system.
And 11 for independent, I am not sure I understand what 12
" independent" means in this context.
13 (Counsel for Suffolk County conferring.)
14 Q
Dr. Rossi, I am going to return to the 15 independent versus dependent and in really another 16 context in the examination, so let me turn to you, Mr.
17 Conran.
18 A
(WIINESS CONRAN)
You asked for an answer from 19 me also for that last question, if I wanted to add 20 something.
21 Q
Okay.
22 A
(WITNESS CONRAN)
I would concur or agree with 23 Dr. Rossi's answer except to be a little bit more 24 specific from our viewpoint in the systems interaction 25 section.
We are looking specifically for conditions, O
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1 preconditions in the plant that cause a single failure 2
to become nultiple f aults in a way that degrades or
(~S 3
defeats the functioning of safety systems.
That is the U
4 specific objective with regard to dependent and 5
independent.
6 My comment in that regard is that the full 7
scope systems interaction analysis that we have outlined 8
broadly in the attachment or the enclosure to my memo 9
would include -- we really focus on what we call 10 dependent faults, but we look for dependent faults that 11 we classify in some several different ways.
12 Some dependencies are between -- are direct 13 connections between one system and another -- a wire, a J
14 pipe, something like th a t.
That is a coupling; it is a 15 very direct coupling.
When you get into the spatial 16 coupling, the dependency can be much more loosely 17 coupled.
And if you get to -- if you finally consider 18 the site as a whole, things that one might ordinarily 19 consider as independen t f aults because they are so 20 remotely located from each other might in f act become 21 dependent if the ground shakes strongly enough.
So 22 another way that degree of coupling can make one.think 23 of what one might ordinarily have called independent as 24 lependent is an in te ra c tion tha t results ultima tely 25 because of a design error that was not caught by a human O
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1 designer and somebody QA-ing a human design.
So --
2 But I think in the sanse that you asked the 3
question, our focus is on dependent faults.
And I was 4
just trying to all the perspective that wha t are thought 5
of commonly as independent faults could be considered 6
dependent depending upon what the coupling mechanism is 7
and how directly the cause is coupled to the effect.
8 0
In the answer you just gave, Mr. Conran, you, 9
I believe, brought out the fact that there are different 10 kinds of systems interactions, in fact, correct?
11 A
(WITNESS CONRAN)
Yes.
12 0
Turning your attention to page Roman numeral 13 XVI of Suffolk County Exhibit 19 or 16 and 17, O
14 specifically the section directed toward classes of 15 system interaction, would you agree with this listing of 16 the five inportant groups of systems interactions which 17 is set forth in this exhibit?
18 JUDGE BRENNER:
Mr. Lanpher, do you mean agree 19 with them in the sense that they are defined as you 20 would use them or agree with them in the sense that they 21 encompass all of the categories?
I want to make the 22 question productive.
23 BY MR. LANPHER:
(Resuming) 24 0
Let me rephrase the question.
I was trying to 25 really cover something tha t had been covered in the O
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1 LILCO examination before I get their agreement that 2
there are -- that these five classes of systems 3
interactions do exist.
i l
4 A
(WITNESS CONRAN)
I do not want to be e va sive,
5 Mr. Lanpher, but I do want to make the point tha t this 6
exhibit and other references to contractor reports, NRC 7
contractor reports, in earlier testimony I think made j
8 necessary the following comment.
9 In setting out to broadly scope and conduct 10 the systems intartction program that we have under way, 11 we solicited'the advice and input from a number of 12 different sources.
The contracts with the laboratories l
13 that we contracted with were to get good ideas from good 14 people, a number of different sources, about first of 15 all trying to define what systems interaction is and 16 what the objection of the systems interaction program 17 would be.
Also to look for available methodologies off l
18 the shelf, so to speak, that one might apply in doing 19 systems interaction analysis.
20 This is -- these are the ideas of one group of 21 contractors for NRC.
They have thought about the 22 systems interaction problem or question as a whole, and 23 much like we did ourselves have crosscutted in a way hj 24 that it is convenient for them to think and talk about I
s l
l 25 it, and they presanted that to us is ideas.
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1 You say do I agree with the categorization 2
here.
I think that 3
0 No.
Mr. Conran, I do not mean to cut you off, 4
and you can finish your answer, but I think as I 5
restated the question it was somewhat different than 6
that, and not whether you agree with these 7
Categorizations but whether you agree that each of these 8
kinds of systems interactions -- you may categorize them 9
differently, but whether each of these kinds of systems 10 interactions exist.
11 A
(WITNESS CONRAN)
I would say that I believe 12 they do and that the ca tegoriza tion scheme tha t we ended 13 up with would embrace these or at least recognize these O
14 different tinds of inte'ractions that could occur.
I 15 have a little trouble understanding just reviewing it, 16 being given this for review after not having looked at 17 it for some time, wi th the last category of failures 18 that result from reactor degradation.
I guess I cannot I do not know what he had in mind there right now.
19 20 A
(WIINESS IHADANI)
May I make an attempt?
I 21 think I know what NSN-18 Condition 3 and 4 mean.
These 22 are events which are generally not expected to occur in 23 the lifetine of the plant, things like small breaks or 24 large break LOCAs and so on, steam line accidents.
I 25 would interpret this to say can you get an environment O
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1 as a result of that kind of accident that could disable 2
some other systtims that you might need to mitigate.
I just looked 3
That specific accident 4
through this rat. hat quickly, and I would ssy this is a 5
fairly thorough list of how one can get interactions.
6 In fact, I was trying to think of how else, and I cannot 7
think of snything beyond this.
8 0
Did that finish your answer, Mr. Thadani?
9 A
(WITIESS THADANI)
Yes, it did.
10 0
Sentlemen, Dr. Rossi indicated that there are 11 a number of methods to analyze systems interaction, and 12 I believe you also said, Dr. Rossi, that no one method 13 will necessa rily identify all of them, is that correct, 7,,
U 14 Dr. Rossi?
15 A
(WITNESS ROSSI)
In my judgment, yes, 16 0
Mr. Conran, the same exhibit at pa;es 17 17 through the top of 19 identifies five classes of 18 evaluation techniques for systems interactions and 1
19 broadly categorizas these as reviews of operating 20 experience analysis by parts which includes things like 21 failures 23 des and effects analysis, graph-based 22 analyses which includes things like fault tree and event 23 tree analyses, onsite inspections and what they refer to l
(,/
24 mr on-line decision sids.
I 1
25 Do you agree that this is a fairly complete c.
(
)
LJ ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY, INC, 400 VIRGINIA AVE., S W., WASHINGTON. O C. 20024 (202) 554-2345
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1
- stegorizstion of the mathods used in system interaction 2
analyses?
3 A
(WITNESS CONRAN)
Well, it strikes me that in s
l 4
the way that we finally came down on the question in 5
defining f or P ASNY, f or exa mple, wha t we called 6
seceptance standards against which we were judging their 7
proposed sathodology, that uniaportant one is left out i
8 of here, and that is singulation experiments for what we 9
call the higher order types of systems interactions to which are those kind of events that are such that a good 11 understanding and a way of calculating or following the 12 dynamics of the systems involved are a very difficult 13 subset of the overs 11 systems interactions problems.
14 ' And, in fact, it is that subset that controls system 15 failure effects I think largely concerns itself with you 16 have to knaw snd to be sbla to calculate the dynamics of 17 the systems that are involved to be able to tel) vhat 18 the outcome is.
19 We do not really have the capability 1ir doing 20 tha t kind of thing now on a comprehensive and systematic I
21 basis.
That may be why that type of intera: tion and the 22 treatment of it was left out of this report.
The 23 different evaluation techniques that are identified here s_)
24 sra a fairly thorough way or a fairly thorough 25-compilation, I think, of the techniques tha t are Y
k ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY, INC, 400 VIRGINIA AVE., S.W., WASHINGTON. D.C. 20024 (202) 554 2345 4
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1 available for treating what we termed the first order 2
type of interaction, and that is the kind that *nvolves 3
direct connections or spatial couplings that do not 4
really require or involve the treatment of systems l
5 dynamics.
6 I guess I specifically disagree with the last 7
one, on-line decision aid.
That does not strike me as 8
being a technique for the analysis for systems 9
interactions but rather a way of responding, a way of 10 responding to a part of systems interaction problem that 11 we have hai trouble with ourselves, and tha t is the 12 treatment of human error.
13 Our approach in that regard, the staff's l
14 approach in that regard has at this point -- is not to 15 try to analyze systematically, comprehensively all of 16 the different ways that a human can f ail, a human 17 operator can fail and what the consequences of it might 18 be, but rather to focus on techniques or providing 19 operators, specifically reactor operators but other 20 human operators such as maintenance people, better aids 21 to help them keep from making mistakes in the first 22 place.
j 23 So I would not consider that an analysis 24 technique.
I think that would be a way of providing 25 assurance against systems interactions involving humans.
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6553 (m) 1 A
(WITNESS THADANI)
May I comment on th a t?
/
2 0
Certainly.
3 A
(WITNESS THADANI)
I think what is probably 4
important is to get some understanding of the staff's 5
approach to systems in terac tion, and as far as the human 6
is concernad, the operator is concernad, the approach 7
simply says that if there are procedures available to 8
him, given an event, that he would follow those 9
procedures based upon the information displayed to him 10 in the control room.
11 If the instrumentation f ailed because of some 12 interaction and thus he has information in front of him 13 which leads him to take wrong actions, it would be
(,_s) 14 considered; but the first part which says you have an l
l 15 event and if the instruments are f unctioning correctly 16 the assumption is that he would act correctly.
17 In a systems interaction program, tha t aspect, l
18 the potential for operator msking an error under be it 19 high stress conditions or other conditions, are treated i
20 probabilistically in the probabilistic risk l
21 assessments.
So I do think that is importsnt to 22 understand the distinction there.
23 (Counsel for Suffolk Coun ty conf e rring. )
l
(',o) 24 A
(WITNESS CONRAN)
I might just add that in the 25 systems interaction analysis context Mr. Thadani's l
l f%
NY l
l ALCERSON PEPORTING COMPANY, INC.
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1 answer and mine complemented each other.
The induced 2
human error is the kind of interaction that involves a 3
human that we think we can treat in a very 4
straightforward fashion in our analyses.
The kind that 5
we make no claim that we are able to treat, certainly 6
not systematically and comprehensively, is the kind that 7
involves error on the human operator's part.
And it is 8
nonpredictable; there is no way that you can determine 9
-- or I should not say no way, but other than 10 statistically there is not a way to predict what he will 11 do.
So in that area we rely on the staff's human 12 factors approach, and that is a variety of techniques 13 that are brought to bear to help the operator, provide 14 him with better procedures based on better analyses, 15 improved instrumentation, on-line decision aids, which 16 is one part of what Livermore mentioned here.
17 0
Let me make sure I understand what your 18 terminology here, " induced human error," would be.
An 19 example of that would be where the operator follows his i
20 procedures relying upon certain instrumentation, and the 21 instrumentation, for whatever reason, is wrong, carrect?
22 A
(WITNESS CONRAN)
That is right.
Then you can 23 treat the operator.
You assume that he acts correctly, 24 and therefore you can treat him as a simplified coupling 25 mechanism.
You do not have to predict or try to predict l
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i no ne is ooiaa to ect incorrect 11 eos net the 2
consequencas might be.
O 4
5 6
i 7
8 9
10 11 12 4
13 O
14 j
l 15 l
16 17 18 19 20 I
21 22 23 24 25 O
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1 JUDGE BRENNER:
I wonder if you could orient 2
se.
I got your cross plan, and I am looking at the 3
other methodologies section that I thought you were 4
going to get into af ter voir dire and af ter whatever 5
questions you wanted to ask up front in light of Mr.
6 Thadani's, and I thought it was an interesting line, and l
7 good questions, and would be helpful, and I as trying to 8
plug in with what you are asking now with that line, and 9
frankly, when some of these same questions were asked of 10 other witnesses, as, do you agree wi th these 11 classifications or not agree, nothing ever came of 12 that.
Now, maybe some day I will see the connection in 13 findings, but immediately I as trying to plug in what O
14 you are asking now with your cross plan.
15 MR. LANPHER:
I am on Page 35, th e bottom, B, 16 just getting those terms defined, and then I am going to 17 go on to the top of Page 35 in j ust a moment.
I wa s 18 just seeking to get a definition of the terms that were l
19 in the question.
20 JUDGE BRENNER:
Okay.
Maybe I sn plugging in 21 what I suspect would have been typical answers when you t
22 asked different experts to say, do you agree on a 23 complex subject, do you agree with a certain method of
/~
(,T t
)
24
- stegorization and subdivision, and then they have to 25 look at a document and take a look at the description of O
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I whit that focument seins, and it doesn't seem that 2
productive or essential to get to what I repeat are your 3
good points coming up.
4 MR. LANPHER:
Those questions, I think they 5
are important questions.
They might not have been 6
essential to bring up in this examination.
I agree with 7
that.
They could have waited.
8 JUDGE BRENNER:
But you are in that other 9
sethodologies section?
10 MR. LANPHERs Yes.
But I have got a followup 11 or two here.
12 JUDGE BRENNER:
Okay.
13 BY MR. LANPHER:
(Resuming)
O 14 0
Mr. Conran, in your earlier answer, you talked 15 about higher order systems interactions, and the same 16 term appears on Page 2, in the middle of the Conran 17 memorandum, where you talk about the so-called " higher 18 order" type of systems interactions in in te rconnected 19 systems.
I was going to ask for your definition later, 20 but what do you really mean by higher order systems 21 interactions?
Are those the dynamic events that you 22 were referring to?
That is Page 2 of your memorandum --
23 well, not of your memorandum.
I am sorry.
Of the
()
24 meeting summary and status report, in the middle of the 25 page.
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1 A
(WITNESS CONRAN)
The higher type of systems 2
interaction that I mentioned before, I tried to define 3
st the time.
It asy help somewhat to refer to Enclosure O'
I 4
3, the first page of Enclosure 3, under Types.
In t
5 laying out, and in our discussion with PASNY, the sort 6
of broad features that we would be looking for in what 7
we would agree on as a broad scope systems interaction 8
study at Indian Point, we sali the following types of 9
interactions would be treated in a full scope systems to interaction studya non-connected systems, where the 11 coupling is a shared space or environment, and I think 12 they have been referred to as spatial couplings during 13 zost of the conversation so far; interactions between 14 interconnected systems where tha t is broken down into 15 two categories, the first order, and it is explained by 16 the parentheses there characterized by direct 17 connections, one-way dependence, no system dynamics or 18 feedback effects involved, and by higher order 19 interconnected systems interactions which are l
20 characterized by, for example, process coupling and 21 systems dynamic effects.
22 Let me give an example.
If I could refer to 23 the same example, maybe the distinction would become
()
24 clearer.
In the Crystal River loss of coolant event, a 25 short in one of the non-nuclear power supplies produced ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY,INC, 400 VIRGINIA AVE., S.W WASHINGTON, D.C. 20024 (202) 554 2345
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1 the following effects.
It scrammed the reactor, but 2
started the rods withdrawing.
It scraved up the 3
f eedwater balance, opened the PORY, and then locked it 4
open, and defeated approximately 75 percent of the 5
normal plant control instrumentation.
You knew those 6
effects were going to occur very shortly after the short i
I 7
happened, and you did not have to know anything about 8
the dynamics of the transient that followed to be able 9
to flag that to yourself as an event that you might want 10 to play closer attention to or give more attention to 11 analyze f urther before something like that happened.
If 12 you had identified this potential interaction before the 13 Crystal River event happened, that is the first order 14 type of thing that we would be looking for.
The higher 15 order systems interaction would be what followed.
16 You would need a simulator, some sort of a 17 simulator experiment, very sophisticated calculational 18 a bility to predict all of the effects that would have 19 followed that to determine whether or not it was a 20 safety problem, whether you exceeded any safety 21 envelope, I mean.
22 So first order is the type of thing that is 23 not involved and does not require knowledge of or
()
24 treatment of complicated things like process coupling or 25 a feedback effect, the dynamics of the systems involved.
ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY. INC.
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1 It is things that ha ppen because electrical systems are 2
connected to components through control systems, and it 3
is quite predictable what will happen if a failure 4
occurs at one point.
5 Q
Hr. Conran, was it also your testimony in 6
response to an earlier question tha t the dynamic ef f ects 7
are outside your capability to analyze at this point?
8 A
(WITNESS CONRAN)
I said systematically and 9
comprehensively, we can do a very good job analyzing 10 higher order types of interactions that occur in 11 operating events after they o::ur, and that is generally 12 the way that we do businesa.
With regard to these 13 subtle, hidden interactions, first an event occurs, and O
14 the effects are severe enough that we analyze the heck 15 out of it, and learn a great deal about wha t happened.
16 For example, the TMI event or the Brown's Ferry failure 17 to scram, or the Crystal River event, but to imagine taking an event like that and what-iffing, 18 doing 19 doing permutations, or perturbations on the conditions 20 that actually occurred and trying to predict what the 21 effects would have been at TMI, what if the operator 22 hadn't turned the coolant pump back on when he did, what l
l 23 if he had waited another 20 minutes, to try to what-if
(
24 like that, and sniff out these hidden, unrecognized 25 systems interactions on a comprehensive basis is really O
ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY, INO, 400 VIRGINIA AVE S.W., WASHINGTON, C C. 20024 (202) 554 2345
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1 just beyond the calculational capabilities that we have 2
right now.
3 In order to do that sort of thing, you would 4
need something like a simulator, where you would have 5
the capability to perturb one component at a time and 6
observe effects.
It is a very advanced simulator that I 7
am talking about.
It is not a training type simulator.
8 We, in the Indian Point study, we asked PASNY to 9
consider the use of their training simulator for even 10 looking for the first order type of interaction, and 11 after it was completed, why, they were able to say, I 12 told you so.
They didn't think that it would do much 13 good, that they got much luck, or that it would be very 14 useful in that regard, and sure enough, it wasn't, so we 15 are not talking about a training type of simulator.
16 Neither are we talking about the type of calculational 17 capability that we have now to do thermodynamics type of 18 calculations, the engineering analy;er, so to speak.
We 19 are talking about roughly speaking a full plant 20 simulation, a good simulation of all of the systems in 21 the plant.
It is a very complex machine.
It doesn't 22 exist now, and it would take a great deal of effort and 23 resources to develop it.
()
24 A
(WIINESS SPEIS)
I would like to clarify 25 something that Jim said about the capabilit y and the use O
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1 of present day sinulators.
2 A
(WITNESS HODGES)
I think the main thing is (3
3 the espsbility does not exist, I don't think, within PRA b
4 type of codes where you need a fairly simplistic 5
physical model, because you are looking at many, many 6
combinstions.
We do have, at least it is on the 7
threshold, it is just now becoming available, the 8
calculational capability to eqlculate in real time 9
transients considering both the primary and the to secondary systems and looking at taking single cc2ponent 11 failures, looking at operator actions, and in fact this 12 is being, as I say, it is in the developmental stage, 13 and it is on the threshold of what can be done.
Some of 14 it has been done.
It is very new technolog y, but it is 15 still a much larger program than you would put into 16 something like s PRA study.
17 So, I think you need to temper some of his 18 comments with the fact that he is looking at that type 19 of space rather than trying to model single events.
If 20 you are trying to say, hey, what can you do for a l
21 cer tain even t, there is a pretty sophisticated 22 technology now available.
If you are trying to look at 23 the multiplicity of things you would need for the
()
24 systems interaction studies that he is discussing, then 25 there is just a machine that would handle all of that
)
l l
ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY, INC, 400 VIRGINIA AVE., S W., WASHINGTON, D.C. 20024 (202) 554-2345
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1 plas the bookkeeping f or the systems intera ction 2
probably is not yet available.
3 0
Dr. Rossi, I would like to turn your attention 4
to your answer to Question 36, and the question is, are 5
probabilistic risk assessment failure modes and effects 6
analyses, systems in teraction analyses, or dependency 7
analyses required by either the regulations or staff 8
practice in the safety classification of structures, 9
systems, and components?
10 I would like you to leave aside staff practice 11 for the moment, and concentrate on the regulations.
12 What -- Your answer to that question was no.
Can you 13 tell me what methodology is required by the regulations O
14 for classification of structures, systems, and 15 components?
Is there a methodology that is required by 16 the regulations?
17 A
(WITNESS ROSSI)
I am not sure the regulations 18 address a specific methodology for doing th a t.
I think 19 tha t depends in part on the staff practice in 20 interpreting the regulations, so I am not sure you can 21 separate the two.
22 0
Well, you have ;ot both in your question, and 23 maybe you didn' t write the question, sir, but insof ar as
()
24 you know, the regalitions do not require any particular 25 methodology, is that correct, for classification we are ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY, INC, 400 VIRGINIA AVE., S.W., WASHINGTON D.C. 20024 (202) 554-2345
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1 talking about?
2 A
(WITNESS ROSSI)
I don't think there is a (w
3 clear, unequivocal statement in the regulations that one f
4 methodology has to be used.
I think it depends upon the 5
interpretation of the regulations-,
6 0
Mr. Contsn, did you have a comment you wanted 7
to make?
8 A
(WITNESS CONRAN)
I decided to hold my 9
tongue.
I may have misunderstood your question.
Maybe to I should go ahead and say it now, now that we have 11 broached the subject.
We had a discussion about whether 12 or not there was a methodology for doing systems 1
I 13 classification, and according to the dictionary O
14 definition, methotology meant a systematic process, and 15 in that sense there certainly is a well-developed 16 sethodology for classifying systems, structures, and 17 components, but with regard to these specific 18 methodologies --
19 0
My question was whether there is one required 20 by the regulations.
21 A
(WITNESS CONRAN)
My answer would be the 22 same.
The regulatory guides, the standard review plans 23 in a very real sense interpret the regulations and say j
(
24 whst is required to meet the general expression of the 25 regulations, say, as given in the general design f
t ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY,INC, 400 VIRGINIA AVE., S.W., WASHINGTON. O C. 20024 (202) 554-2345
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1 cri te ri a.
2 0
Is an applicant required to follow your 3
regulatory guides?
I believe we have heard testimony
\\'
4 before that they are not, but what is your opinion?
5 A
(WITNESS CONRAN)
In the sense of the 6
requirements, I understand your point.
And I would 7
accede to
't, but in the sense that a regulatory guide, 8
for example, is a de facto regulation because it is so 9
difficult to propose an alternative and have it reviewed 1
10 quickly, in that sense, anyway, in that sense, I think 11 there is a methodology specified in our regulations.
12 Required is perhaps too strong.
13 0
Wouldn't it be f air to sta te that there is a 14 methodology specified in staff practice perhaps, as 15 illustrated by the staff regulatory guides and other 16 documen tation prepared by the staff?
17 A
(WITNESS CONRAN)
Well, the standard review 18 plan was issued to document, to codify more or less the 19 staff practice.
20 (Whereupon, counsel for Suffolk County 21 conferred.)
22 0
Mr. Rassi or Mr. Conran, it is true, is it 23 not, that use of regulatory guide 1.29 or regulatory
()
24 guide 1.26 is not required by the regulations?
l 25 A
(WITNESS ROSSI)
Regulatory guides are not
}
1
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400 VieGINIA Ave., S.W., WASH,NGTON, D.C. 20024 (202) 554-2345
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1 required by th e regulations.
Ihey are interpretations 2
of acceptable methods of meeting the regulations.
3 Q
Gentlemen, during argument of counsel on July 4
7th, your attorney made a statement, and I would like to 5
know whether you agree with it.
It is at Page 5925.
It 1
6 says, "The staff in describing its position believes 7
that you cannot rely upon PBA in licensing."
Do you 8
agree with that statement, that you cannot rely upon PRA 9
in licensing?
10 HR. REIS:
Mr. Chairman, I object to the 11 guestion.
That doesn't go to the ultimate issue here as 12 to whether they agree or they don't agree, and also I 13 think you have to look at more of the statement.
Unless O
14 they have the document before them and can read the 15 whole statement, I don't think you can take it out of 16 context, the whole argument.
Therefore I object to the 17 question.
18 JUDGE BRENNER:
Give me one momen t.
19 MR. LANPHER:
It is Page 5925.
20 (Pause.)
l 21 (Whereupon, the Board conferred.)
l 22 JUDGE BRENNER4 Well, what I was looking for, 23 and it is not right at that portion, but I know I said
/~(_)s 24 it elsewhere, is that statements of counsel in that 25 regard, and there was a lot of dialogue, were
()
ALDERSON REPORTING CCMPANY,INC, 400 VIRGINIA AVE., S.W., WASHINGTON, D.C. 20024 (202) 554 2345
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1 interesting but not very helpful, given our ruling, 2
having admitted the contention, and va vera after the 3
techical bases which admittedly might or might not be 4
tied up with policy, but nevertheless, after the e
5 technical bases as to whether or not something would be 6
helpful, not whether some notice somewhere required or i
7 did not require it, and in fact of soie pertinence here 8
is that the panel's answers, including Dr. Rossi's 9
answers as to whether something was specifically 10 required is consistent with observations we made in our 11 March order admitting the issue as we defined it.
12 And I will say the question could have been 13 gotten at without having it worded so provocatively, and 14 thereby perhaps stimulating an unnecessary objection.
I 15 The statement could have been made either in those words l
l 16 or somewhat differently, but without any attribution, 17 and I think it goes to the crux of what this issue is 18 all about, if we get the technical answers to it as 19 opposed to the la7sl argument, and it is not legal 20 argument, if that is what I sense to be the objection, 21 and at least I am not interested in the legal argument 22 aspect of it anyway.
Let me put it that way.
I am not l
23 saying it is immune from legal argument.
Very little in N
8 24 life is.
l 25 So, we are going to allow that line.
I l
O ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY,INC, 400 VIRGINIA AVE., S.W, WASHINGTON, D.C. 20024 (202) 554 2345
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1 suggest th a t you could redefine the question, Mr.
2 Lanpher, and get to where we are going.
3 MR. LANPHER:
Is there a particular wai~ you
(~O}
4 vant me to ask it, Judge Brenner?
I think you have got 5
it on your mind.
6 JUD"E BRENNER:
No, you pursue it 7
MR. ELLIS:
Judge Brenner, --
8 JUDGE BRENNER:
Is there something pertinent 9
to the ruling, Mr. Ellis?
10 MR. ELLIS:
Yes, sir.
11 JUDGE BRENNER:
Okay.
12 MR. ELLIS:
We would object, also, to the 13 extent that the question does not say that, the Shoreham
(:)
14 PRA, with respect to the Shoreham operating license.
15 MR. REIS:
Mr. Chairman, I think also tha t my 16 quote should be looked at, at 5928 as well.
I would 17 just point to something on 5925 that takes it out of 18 context.
19 JUDGE BRENNER:
I didn't disagree, with 20 anything I said in my ruling, with your out-of-context 21 remark and I think that is consisten t with my statement 22 that it didn't have to be related to anybody's remark to 23 get at the question.
O)
(_
24 I am going to allow the question, and I am 25 going to allow that line.
And one problem, Mr. Ellis, O
ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY. INC.
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1 is that the staff by now, through statement of counsel, 2
has put some gloss on why they did or did not include 3
cer tain things in the testimony.
4 And it is important now to get at the 5
technical bases for those things and to the extent you 6
think some of these judgements were made too generally, 7
as opposed to being related to Shoreham, while others in 8
this room may share your view, including members of the 9
board.
But the problem is that it is proceeding along 10 those lines and that relationship or lack of l
11 relationship to what was done, particularly at Shoreham, 12 would be the subject of questioning, perhaps by you.
13 But why dont you rephrase it without 14 attribution.
And what I want to get at, and I will 15 allow you to f rame your line of questions, and I think 16 what you want to get at is, what technical basis there 17 is either through technical expertise, or tied up with 18 policy, or some combination, 13 to what assistance might 19 be had with these "other methodolicies."
I think I know 20 that is where youre going.
l 21 MR. LANPHER:
No.
I 22 JUDGE BRENNER4 You laughed.
I thought maybe 23 I was wrong.
l 24 MR. LANPHER:
No.
I heard someone tell my l
25 colleague -- well, never mind.
i ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY,INC, I
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BY MR. LANPHER:
(Resuming) i,)
2 0
Let me ask a couple of introductory 3
questions.
Gentlemen, at question 37, that talks about 4
a systematic methodology and whether there is such a 5
systematic methodology for using PRAs, FMEAs, 6
interaction analyses or dependency analyses for safety 7
classifications.
Now, what do you mean by systematic 8
methodology, first of all?
9 A
(WIINESS ROSSI)
Let me address that question 10 since I was pretty involved in the answer here.
A 11 systematic methodology to me means something that one 12 can set down with, at least, a general set of rules that 13 can be followed.
And various aspects of the nuclear b)
~#
14 community could agree to those rules, and if they were 15 followed, that both industry and most people -- that 16 most people in the industry and most people within the 17 staff could come to a general consensus tha t they had 18 indeed been followed.
That is what I would mean by 19 systematic methodology.
20 0
Did you mecn in your answer that PRAs, or 21 FMEAs, or sny combination of those alternate 22 methodologies listed in this question, that no 23 combina tion of those standing alone can be used for the
(,l 24 purpose of safety classifications?
25 A
(WITNESS ROSSI)
No.
I think I meant
(~/)
w ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY, INC, 400 VIRGINI A AVE., S.W., WASHINGTON. O C. 20024 (202) 554-2345
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1 something broader than that.
I don't think the 2
combination of them, that there is a systematic 3
methodology developed today for the specific purpose of 4
safety classification of nuclear power plant structure 5
systems and components, where again I meant by 6
systematic methodology a set of at least general rules 7
and steps that most people within the nuclear community 8
could obtain a consensus on, that they were proper and 9
that when they were applied, would in general lead to a 10 result that there would be a consensus on, and that was 11 tha right result.
12 0
If these methodologies or any one of them were 13 to be used as a supplement to the existing methodology O
14 as defined in staff regulatory guides, the standard 15 review plan and this kind of thing -- if you used these 16 as a supplament, do you think they are beneficial in 17 safety classification?
18 A
(WITNESS ROSSI)
My personal feeling is that 19 they would have perhaps some benefit for safety 20 classification, but I believe that for safety l
21 classification, that their use would be very limited and 22 not significantly beneficial for that purpose.
23 24 25 O
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1 0
What do you mean, then, sir, by safety 2
classification?
3 A
(WITNESS ROSSI)
I mean for dividing systems 4
up into safety-related and non-safety-related and also 5
f or the rel:s tive.
I believe that in the context of tha t 6
question there, an answer that it would be for i
7 saf ety-rela ted or non-saf ety-related and in terms of 8
relative importance to safety I believe they would have 9
some value there.
to O
So you are talking about the classification 11 methodology for determining what group of structures, 12 systems and components should go into that smaller 13 category?
O 14 A
(WITNESS ROSSI)
Right.
Safety-related I 15 think would have little benefit for that.
It would 16 possibly have value for the relative importance to 17 safety part of it to determine the rela tive importance 18 to safety for the systems that are important to safety, 19 but not safety-related.
20 0
But your answer as you wrote it and as it was 21 reviewed did not address that aspect of the issue?
You 22 didn't intend it to, is that correct?
23 A
(WITNESS ROSSI)
Well, I still believe that
()
24 there is not a systematic methodology for using a 25 combination of those techniques even for determining the
)
l ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY, INC, 400 VIRGINIA AVE., S.W., WASHINGTON D.C. 20024 (202) 554 2345
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1 relative importance of safety.
So for the answer to 2
tha t particula r question there, I am including important 3
to safety and safety-related.
(-}
U 4
A minute ago you asked me a slightly different 5
question, which was whether I could see any benefit to 6
the use of these techniques for safety classification, 7
and my answer there is I see very little benefit for 8
Outting out the safety-related portion.
I think that 9
there are -- that these techniques could be developed to and used for aiding in the determina tion of the relative 11 importance to safety of the class of systems that are 12 not safety-related but important to safety.
13 Q
And that view is a supplemental view that you 14 are offering today and that wasn't mean to be 15 encompassel in tha answer as originally written?
16 A
(WITNESS ROSSI)
The answer as ori-inally 1?
written simply said, again, that today there is not a i
18 systematic methodology for tha use of these techniques l
19 for safety classification.
i 20 0
Meaning sa f e ty-rela ted ?
21 A
(WITNESS ROSSI)
No.
Today there is not a 22 systematic methodology for using these techniques, even 23 for the important to safety.
[^)T
(_
24 0
What methodology does the NRC Staff use for 25 lsssification of systems, structures or components in to O
ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY,INC, 400 VIRGINI A AVE., S.W., WASHINGTON. D C. 20024 (202) 554 2345
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1 the category of important to safety but not 2
safety-related?
3 A
(WITNES3 ROSSI)
The way we do that is we make 4
a judgment on those systems by looking at all of the 5
systems that are in the plant and in that judgment we 6
look from plant to plant as to how things have evolved 7
over the years since the beginning of the licensing 8
process.
9 We take into account experience gained in 10 plant operation.
We take into secount the discussions 11 among the members of the Staff and advice that we get 12 from the Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards.
But 13 basically it is a judgment on what those systems ought 14 to be.
To a large extent, that judgment is documented 15 in the standard review plan when we describe the 16 systems, that we do indeed look at as part of the review.
17 In my particular area of instrumentation and 18 control systems, there are control systems that are i
f 19 required to be discussed in Chapter -- section 7 of 20 Chapter 7 which are not safety-related but are indeed 21 important to safety.
And those in my area are in that l
22 section.
l 23 (Counsel for Suffolk County ronferring.)
24 0
When you are talking about the standard review 25 plan, Dr. Rossi, there have been changes to that over
(
ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY,INC.
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1 the years.
What edition or revision of that standard 2
review plan were you referring to in your previous 3
answer?
4 A
(WITNESS ROSSI)
Well, my familiarity with the 5
standard raview plan would be the one that was recently 6
issued, sometime, I believe, within the last year, and 7
also the one that preceded th a t.
And I cannot speak 8
with any assurance to revisions prior to those two.
But 9
what I stated I believe is consistent with those two 10 revisions.
11 0
Was Shoreham reviewed against either of those 12 revisions?
13 A
(WIINESS ROSSI)
I would not be able to state
(
)
'~'
14 right now which revision.
It certainly wasn't reviewed 15 sglinst the latest revision and I don't know with 16 certainty whether it was reviewed against the one prior 17 to that.
18 However, in my -- what I indicated I had done 19 on Shoreham in reading selected sections of Sections 3, 20 7 and 15, it appears to me that what was done on 21 Shoreham is consistent with at least the revision prior 22 to this last one and, as a matter of fact, some of the 23 open items that we still have on Shoreham ate consistent l
24 with even the last one in my area.
Specifically, we 25 have an outstanding question on control systems and the G/
ALCERSON REPORTING COMPANY, INC, 400 VIRGINIA AVE., S.W., W ASHINGTON. D.C. 20024 (202) 554-2345
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1 effects of pover supply failures and sensor failures on 2
control systens that was better clarified in the latest 3
revision to the standard review plan.
4 0
Dr. Rossi, I believe you earlier stated your 5
view of whst would constitute a systematic methodology, 6
meaning one that was -- had a consensus support in 7
industry sad was written down, I think you said also.
8 Is that correct?
9 A
(WITNESS ROSSI)
Could be written down.
I to don't know whether I said it had to be necessarily 11 Written down, but a general consensus of rules that 12 would be followed.
13 Q
It needs to be somehow described in sufficient O
14 detail so that everyone understands what is required in 15 terms of that methodology, corract?
16 A
(WITNESS ROSSI)
Yes.
17 0
For instanca, I believe you, or maybe Mr.
18 Conran, referred to Regulatory Guide 1.?9 earlier as 19 being the me thodology for defining safety-related 20 systems.
21 A
(WITNESS ROSSI)
That is correct, yes.
22 Q
Is thara sny comparable methodology which 23 explicitly identifies or provides a methodology for
(
24 identifying systems important to safety under Staff 25 practice?
()
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(_)
1 A
(WITNESS ROSSI)
I think that the 2
documentation that does exist would be that that is in 3
the standard review plan, the discussions in there of 8
l 4
systems that are not safety-related but are still 5
required to be discussed in the final safety analysis 6
report.
And again I go back to the example of the 7
control systems which are sper,ifically in my area.
8 Other systems are also discussed in the standard review 9
plan which I am somewhat less familiar with.
10 0
Dr. Rossi, given the fact that LILCO 11 a ppa ren tl y does not use an important to safety category 12 in its FSAR or in its classification system -- they use 13 the words important to safety, and we will get to those
,s x
(
)
14 later -- but given the fact that they apparently
~
15 classify safety-related or non-safety-related, do you 16 believe that the methodology for classification of items 17 important to safety which you described has been well 18 understood by industry?
19 A
(WITNESS ROSSI)
I believe sufficiently well.
20 MR. REIS:
Your Honor, I object.
We are 21 dealing here wi th th e Shoreham plant.
I don't think 22 whether it is understood by industry generally is l
23 material or relevant to the licensing of this plant or l
,9
(_)
24 the Contention when you take it in the context of the 25 licensing of the Shoreham plant.
l v
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1 (Board conferring.)
s 2
JUDGE BRENNER Well, we are going to overrule s
3 the objection.
I won't do it as bluntly as has been 4
suggested, but it is somewhat out of line in light of --
5 let me put this correctly.
If you want to limit 6
participation on this Contention to knowledge of the 7
Shoreham plant, you have to examine the involvement of x
1 8
your witnesses sni you have got problems there.
9 If your definition of what is relevant -- it
~
10 happens that we don't agree with that narrow definition, 11 and that is why we think a lot of.the testimony wil1~be 12 very helpful and we may judge weight depending upon 13 involvement in the plant, but we are certainly O
14 permitting the testimony.
It is'a methodology 15 contention and a lot of these witnesses have been, and 16 we believe will continue to be, helpful in elucidating 17 the Staff's methodology even where they don't have 18 particular involvement with Shoreham, unless somebody 19 then says there is something abberational about the way 20 Shorehas was treated is distinguished from the other 21 methodolog!*;,.
22 9t the objection is out of line for that 23 ressoc.
oc # e g ra n t it, we will have to take a look at 24 whether you have got the right witnesses here.
It is 25 just going to be that simple.
So I don't think you want O
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1 us to grant l't if you think about it in that sense.
2 Beyond that, it is a reasonable line of inquiry to find 3
out if there is an adaquste methodology.
It so happens g-y}
4 to be a f ollow-up on much testimony and examination that s
5 we have already heard through other witnesses and well, I think that's enough, and we will 6
through 7
permit the question.
8 BY MR. LAMPHER:
(Resuming)
'9 O
Do you recall the question?
10 A
(WITNESS ROSSI)
Why don't you repeat it just 11 so I as sure I understand it?
12 O
Let me repeat it so I can be sure you 13 understand it.
O let me in fact 14 Do you believe that industry 15 restate it.
Do you believe that industry has understood t
16 and implemented a methodology, a systematic methodology, 17 for identifying and classifying systems, structures and 18 components importsnt to safety?
19 A
(WITNESS ROSSI)
Well, certainly there is no 20 question in my mind that th ey have for the 21 safety-related, so let me at least state that.
And I 22 know you considered it.
I wanted to say that anyway.
23 The other category, I think that industry does 24 understand that a large number of the systems in the 25 plants have an importance to safety that has to be O
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I treated.
I believe our standard review plan, by 2
requiring the discussion of a significant portion of 3
these, has resulted in a consensus between the Staff and 4
industry of that that has to be treated in the FSAR.
5 So in that sense I would say that there is a 6
sethodology.
I would not say that that methodology has 7
developed to the extent and with the rigor that the 8
iethodolo7y his been levelopel for the safety-related 9
set, and I would certainly say that there is more 10 flexibility in the important to safety and there is 11 probably more differences of judgment on what needs to 12 be done in that area between the Staf f and industry than 13 there are on the safety-related systems.
)
14 (Counsel for Suffolk County conferring.)
15 0
Dr. Rossi, is the only place that this 16 methodology is written down, to your knowledge, in the 17 sta ndard review plan?
18 A
(WITNESS ROSSI)
Well, of course GDC-1 refers 19 to it.
20 0
rou wouldn't call GDC-1 a systematic 21 methodology, would you?
22 A
(WITNESS ROSSI)
No, I wouldn't, but GDC-1 23 Certainly loes refer to the fact that this class of (n
(,)
24 systems exists.
25 Q
It sets the standard?
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1 A
(WITNESS ROSSI)
The standard review plan is 2
probably the best documentation that I can think of.
3 Thst doesn't mean that there might not be others tha t I
-}
V 4
can't think of, but that is the one that I can think of 5
now and the best one.
6 Q
Dr. Rossi, excuse me.
7 A
(WITNESS ROSSI)
Reg Guide 1.70 has been 8
pointed out also.
Reg Guide 1.70 is the standard f orma t 9
for the standard review plan, so when I speak of the 10 standard review plan I am really including Reg Guide 11 1.70.
12 Q
Are there particular portions of either the 13 standard review plan or the standard format that you are O
14 relying upon for that methodology?
15 A
(WITNESS ROSSI)
Well, Chapter -- again, 16 Chspter 7 is the one that I am most familiar with.
17 Chapter 15 also requires analyses of anticipated 18 transients and 10 idents.
And in our analyses and 19 review of those we also make determinations on the 20 systems that are indeed importan t to safety, because 21 that requires delineating how systems are used, whether 22 they are safety-related or not, in the transient 23 analyses.
24 I think that, by the way, Mr. Conran would 25 like at some point in time to add to what I am saying.
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1 I don't know at what point.
2 Q
He can add any time.
3 A
(WITNESS ROSSI)
Maybe now would be a good 4
time, while he can still remember what has preceded the 5
last series of questions.
6 A
(WIINESS CONRAN)
Well, now that you have said 7
everything that you were going to say, I don't think I 8
have to sil much to it except add some examples.
9 There are SRP sections on the main feedwater 10 system, the condensate system, fire protection, main 11 steam, the non-safety part of main steam, effluent 12 control systems, fire protection type considerations.
13 Well, those are some other examples.
I think that they 7.
V 14 are examples that span, I think, the range of degree of 15 importance within the classification important to safety 16 but not safety-related.
17 Q
Those are all items, those that you just l
18 mentioned, like the main feedwater, the fire protection l
19 system, are items that you would include in that 20 important to safety but not safety-related category,
(
21 correct?
22 A
(WITNESS CONRAN)
Correct.
23 0
And how does the standard review plan p resen t 24 a systematic methodology for classification of those 25 systems that you have just mentioned?
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1 A
(WITNESS CONRAN)
It doesn't explicitly.
I 2
think you may have missed the point of Mr. Rossi's 3
discussion.
The standard review plan gives expression 4
to thinking and judgments and experience accumulated 5
over the years in the review of a number of plants --
6 review and analysis of a number of plants.
And it sets 7
down a standard by which we are going to measure, and 8
Reg Guide 1.70, incidentally, and they set down 9
standards against which we say publicly we are going to 10 judge s pplicants' submittals.
11 And so if you comply with the requirements of 12 the standard review plan, you have classified the main 13 feedwater system correctly and the condensate system O
14 correctly and the fire protection system and the 15 effluent systems correctly, because you have -- implicit 16 in the criteria of the requirements set forth in the 17 standard review plan is the understanding of how 18 important that system is and, therefore, what quality 19 standards it must meet.
20 And it tells the ' taf f how to review the 21 spolicant's submittal.
Does he reference certain 22 industry sta nd a rd s?
Does he reference and commit to a 23 Reg Guide ind so on and so on?
So the methodology is
()
24 not in the sense that you asked about it, but compliance 25 with those requirements, making an SAR in a certain O
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1 format according to Reg Guide 1.70 and describing 2
systems and committing to systems that meet certain 3
quality standards which are set forth in the SRP is --
4 that demonstrates compliance with our regulations.
5 A
(WITNESS ROSSI)
I would like to go back to 6
our prefiled testimony at the top of page nine and point 7
out that the Staf f's present review process does not 8
require a specific listing of the systems that are 9
important to safety and there is more flexibility in the 10 say we trait those sni the way we treat the 11 safety-related ones, where it is pretty unequivocal as 12 to what falls within it and what falls outside of it.
13 And it is also pretty rigid as to how we apply O
14 rules to the safety-related.
The important to safety 15 falls over a large spectrum where we want the applicant 16 and in our review we want to treat those with a level 17 that va ries, depending upon judgment as to how important 18 to safety they are.
19 A
(WITNESS CONR AN)
I would like to add slightly 20 to that.
There is a requirement in Reg Guide 1.70.
I 21 couldn't find it over the brask because I didn't have 22 311 of the Reg Guides, but there is a specific 23 requirement in Reg Guide 1.70 that says very nearly so, 24 provide a listing and either an explicit listing or 25 otherwise.
Identify clearly all systems and structures ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY, INC.
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and components important to safetr, incredino e chaoter i
2 in the SAR on the main feedwater system and the tha t is, you put 3
condensate system identifies clearly 4
together an SAR according to that format and you commit 5
to a design of that systes that meets the :riteria and 6
the requirements of the SRP and that satisfies our 7
regulations.
8 The SRPs, incidentally, reference the GDC that 9
they are implementing -- that they are interpreting and 10 implementing.
11 12 13 O
14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 O
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1 (Counsel for Suffolk County conferring.'.
2 MR. LANPHER:
Judge Brenner, I am going to 3
come back to this again.
I'm afraid we are starting to l
4 stray again on that, and I have made notes to come 5
back.
I will try to get us back into the PRA.
I don't 6
want it to be thought that I'm going to leave that area 7
for good, and especially the referenca back to page 9.
8 BY HR. LANPHER:
(Resuming) 9 Q
Sentlemen, I would like to' return to a 10 question that I asked earlier and I think I withdrew and 11 wanted to get something else first.
As a supplement to 12 the existing methodologies which we have been 13 discussing, do you believe that the ultimate 14 methodologies, for instance the PRA, systems 15 interactions analyses, are beneficial in the 16 ilantification of systems, structures and components 17 which are important to safety but not safety-related?
18 A
(WITNESS THADANI)
Yes, I would think so.
I 19 think again, I happen to think probabilistic risk 20 assessments do give you additional insight, and in that t
21 sense they have provided you with some bases for ranking 22 things.
And if you believe the results, then you have 23 to believe that you have ranked systems in terms of l
24 their importance to safety.
l 25 A
(AlfNESS ROSSI)
Let me add something.
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I believe they have a benefit, but I don't believe they 2
are fully developed as yet, and for that reason it would 3
be very difficult to use them in the licensing process 4
in any very rigid way.
5 0
Dr. Rossi, have you --
6 A
(WITNESS CONRAN)
If I could --
7 JUDGE BRENNER:
Wait, wait, wait, if the 8
questioner wants to follow up.
9 BY MR. LANPHER (Resuming) 10 0
I would like to follow up.
Dr. Rossi, have 11 you ever performed fault trees or event trees?
12 A
(WITNESS ROSSI)
No.
13 0
Have you performed systems interaction 14 analyses?
~
I 15 A
(WITNESS ROSSI)
To a limited extent, I would t
i 16 say that I have, in that in the review process that we 17 carry aut and also in my work at Westinghouse one of the 18 things that we would typically look for is interactions l
19 between certain con trol systems and the safety systems 20 or, even in a broader sense, from time to time between 21 non-saf ety-grade systems and sa f ety-grade systems.
And 22 also, we look very carefully in our review, and again we 23 looked carefully at the design of systems when I was at
(
24 Westinghouse at possible interactions between redundant 25 portions of safety systems.
(O
_)
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1 0
In what way are these methodologies lacking in 2
rigor such that they couldn 't be used in the licensing 3
process, such that they wouldn't be beneficial in the 4
licensing process?
5 A
(WITNESS ROSSI)
For in the important to 6
safety?
7 Q
Yes.
8 A
(WITNESS ROSSI)
I believe that what people 9
would like to work towards in the important to safety 10 area is a nore systematic methodology for determining 11 the relative importance to safety, the gradations that 12 exist in these categories, in a more systematic way.
13 And to my judgment there is just not a consensus on the
~
V 14 way to use these for that that would warran t their use 15 in the licensing process at this point in time.
16 A
(WITNESS THADANI)
May I add to that?
17 JUDGE BRENNER.
Well, let's try to be flexible 18 and still be fair to the questioner and the panel.
We 19 don't wint to cut the panel off from adding, but the 20 additions have been somewhat lengthier than the 21 questions required.
That is not to say they are not 22 related to the question, but somewhat lengthier.
And it 23 makes it very difficult for the questioner to be able to
(
24 follow up with a particular answer.
25 Ihe witnesses have the same problem.
By the O
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1 time you jump in, the moment has passed.
But the 2
questioner also has that problem.
And I will allow the 3
questioner to have some discretion for that reason.
f"3 O
4 Do you want to follow up immediately with Dr.
5 Rossi?
6 MR. LANPHER:
I would like to, Judge Brenner.
7 And I a pol 3gize to the other members.
8 JUDGE BRENNER:
As I indicated, it is a 9
problem on both sides.
And in this instance let's see 10 if Mr. Conran and Mr. Ihadani can remember what ther 11 vant to say and then see if it isn't covered as the line 12 is pursuei.
13 Also, there is the option of talking to your 7g 14 counsel and getting it in on redirect.
I'm not saying i
15 that's a preferred option, and we do want to give you a 16 full opportunity to assist us at the moment the question 17 is asked.
B ut let's allow the follow-up here.
18 BY MR. LANPHER:
(R esuming )
19 0
Dr. Rossi, I just want to understand your 20 position.
It's your position that these methodologies, 21 even as a supplement -- and I'm not saying throw away 22 the deterministic approach; I'm saying as a supplement 23 to the existing methodologies -- you do not believe
(~
1 l
5 24 these would be useful in the licensing process because 25 there is disagreement in industry, perhaps within the O
(/
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1 NRC as well, as to some of the techniques involved?
2 A
(WITNESS ROSSI)
As a supplement, I believe 3
they could be used.
What I th o ugh t I said was that I do 4
not think there is a sufficient consensus on a 5
systematic way to use them that would warrant their 6
rigorous use in the licensing process.
7 0
By " rigorous use" do you mean to the exclusion 8
of the deterministic method?
9 A
(WITNESS ROSSI)
I don't believe there is a 10 systematic methodology that has a consensus that would 11 even allow their use as a supplement in the licensing 12 process.
That does not mean to say that by an applicant 13 doing this sort of thing that it won't result in some O
14 useful things that can be discussed in the licensing 15 process.
16 What I sm saying is I don 't think there is a 17 systematic enough methodology that we could, for 18 example, write a regulation that says you will do it 19 this vsy or write a reg guide that says you will do it 20 this wa y, as either the only way or as even a 21 supplement.
22 0
3r. Cantan, Mr. Thaisni?
23 A
(WITNESS THADANI)
I would like to add to what
(
24 Dr. Rossi has stated.
I am of the opinion that, in 25 addition t3 correct deterministic criteria, the O
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1 application of these techniques do provide some 2
additional information which might be useful.
But I 3
also concur with Dr. Rossi in the difficulty that we 4
often have of not having specified the methods.
5 Generally in licensin'g we define the method s, what we 6
call the evaluation models, and we have criteria.
7 Now, in this case we don t have that 8
evaluation model.
We have several techniques that could 9
be utilized.
But can one develop enough confidence of 10 reproduceability of result?
And I think that is 11 important, sni in that sense, unless you are able to pin 12 down fairly firmly how the person ought to go about 13 doing the analysis and that applicant A would walk away gx\\)
14 with the same understanding as applicant B, unless you 15 are able to provide that kind of guidance you end up 16 having perhaps unaven information.
17 0
Is it your opinion, then, Ur. Thadani, that j
18 this Board should disregard the PBA that is being 19 conducted by LILCO or at LILCO's request?
20 A
(WITNESS THADANI)
I think I can't really 21 comment on that, except to say perhaps our counsel wants 22 to comment on that.
I will give you my views.
l 23 24 t
25 O
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1 JUDGE BRENNER:
No, Mr. Thadani.
I think it 2
is a fair question, giving us your technical views.
We r~s 3
are not interestal in legal argument.
b 4
MR. LANPHER:
Judge Brenner, I want him to 5
understand I recognize he has not read the PRA, but he 6
has testified that he knows PRAs in general quite well, 7
I think.
And so I am wondering if that should be 8
disregarded.
9 MR. ELLIS:
I want to register an objection to 10 the question because his lack of familiarity with the 11 Shoreham PRA would seem to me to preclude an answer to t
12 the question that would be relevant to this Board.
As m
tha Board, as Judge Brenner, as you have observed, there
_)
14 are PBAs and then there are PBAs.
15 JUDGE BRENNER:
Well, yes, your comment is 16 well taken, but one reason I cannot grant the objection 17 is it depends somewhat on the answer.
It cc 2 be a per 18 se res/no.
You see, if it is a per se, let me say I am 19 certainly well aware of what you just said, and we have 20 expressed it ourselves, and it may greatly affect the 21 answer, perhaps to the point of no weight at all.
But 22 there may be possible answers and followup that would 23 shed light on the qu estion, notwithstanding the valid
(
24 point that you just made.
And for that reason we will 25 rule the objection out, and it is a problem that we have Gk)
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1 got in light of what the Staff has done, and they have 2
expressed their reasons as to why they have chosen to 3
proceed that way.
And that does not mean that ther 4
cannot be of any help, and we are seeking all the help 5
we can gat on this.
But we are aware of the bases for 6
some of the answers, and I think perhaps if we let the 7
answer be given, we might well hear the basis for the 8
answer as part of the answer, at least the witness' 9
basis.
10 So we will allow the question, but we are 11 aware of your point, Mr. Ellis.
12 JUDGE MORRIS:
Mr. Lanpher, let me suggest 13 that there is another ambiguity in the question of 14 whether you are talking about the draft as it exists now 15 or the final report.
16 MR. LANPHER:
Well, I think I would like to 17 ask the question about both, to the extent that you can 18 address both.
19 BY MR. LANPHER:
(Resuming) 20 0
I would like you to focus more on whether it 21 is really the Staff policy that given the things tha t 22 they have been testifying about this Board just should 23 disregard PRA, period, in the licensing process.
)
24 A
(WITNESS THADANI)
Let me go back to this 25 morning.
I responded to a question which was what is O
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I the current NBR policy regarding the requirement for and 2
review of PRAs as part of the licensing process.
At 3
that time I tho ugh t I did say that this application j
(S D
4 satisfies, as fsr as I understand it, all of our 5
so-called de terministic requirements, and that was 6
considered adequate.
And I also stated earlier on that 7
I think probabilistic risk studies do provide you with i
8 some additional information that might be useful.
9 My difficulty in particular is with the 10 timing.
It is my view that we cannot afford to review 11 draft PRAs because I know how radically they change as 12 time goes on.
And in the other sense if we had a final 13 PRA and we had had some time to review it so we could 0
14 make some constructive comments about the study, then I 15 think we would, of course, be glad to discuss those 16 aspects.
17 But I think in this case it is again my 18 opinion, supportei by many others, that reviewing the 19 draft study would not be very helpful.
20 JUDGE BRENNER Mr. Lanpher, we are going to 21 break soon, whenever, as soon as it is convenient, and I 22 to want to say something f or Mr. Thadani to consider 23 overnight.
That is not exactly a question, but it
(
24 relates to the answer he just gave which, as he 25 indicated, was somewhat a recap of one of his answers at
(
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1 the outset.
2 MR. LANPHER:
I would like to follow up with 3
one or two questions, and I recognize it is getting a 4
little late.
5 BY MR. LANPHER:
(Resuming) 6 0
First of all, Mr. Thadani, this is not a 7
situation where tais has been a quote / unquote l
8 requirement of the Staff.
We are faced here with a PRA 9
which at least in draft form has been prepared.
Does 10 the fact that that PRA in draft exists alter your 11 previous answer at all as to whether this Board should 12 consider the results of that?
13 A
(WITNESS THADANI)
It does not alter my O
14 opinion, and my opinion is simply based on my 15 understanding of how radically the results change.
If 16 you focus on results, then I think you migh t be reaching 17 perhaps questionable conclusions.
i 18 (Counsel for Suffolk County conf e rring. )
19 0
Mr. Thadani, is it not true th a t at Indian 20 Point the staff reviewed a draft PRA?
l 21 A
(WITNESS THADANI)
No, sir.
To the best of my 22 knowledge the S taf f did not review the draft PRA, with 23 one exception as described by Mr. Conran that he did 24 look at the draft PRA in terms of its discussions with 25 PASNY as it related to systems interactions.
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1 0
Then would it not be useful to look at this 2
draft PRA as it relates to systems interactions?
By 3
"this" I mean the LILCO Shoreham PRA.
4 A
(WITNESS THADANI)
If your question is can you 5
look at the draft PB A to determine what methods were 6
used to identify systems interactions, then one could 7
conceivably do that.
But again, by looking at the 8
methods you do not really get answers to the extent that 9
it is the scope how far, if you use fault trees, how far 10 did you go, what systems did you include, how did you 11 treat the human.
12 And I can tell you now that that information 13 would be in the draft, that that could be reviewed and p.,
14 ona could reach some intelligent conclusions about it.
15 Mr. Conran I believe indicated that he had had 16 that Indian Point draft for four to six months in terms 17 of his discussions with PASNY on their systems 18 interaction program.
19 Q
Mr. Conran, the PASNY program by the NRC staff 20 did involve a review of the April 1981 d ra f t of the l
l 21 Pickard, Love and Garrick design Indian Point PBA study, 22 did it not?
23 MR. REIS4 Mr. Chairman -- well, I will
()
24 withdraw that.
25 JUDGE BRENNER:
Let us go off the record for a rs I
l N./
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2 (Discussion off the record.)
3 JUDGE BRENNER:
Let us go back on the record.
4 MR. LANPHER:
I will be happy to ask that 5
tomorrow morning.
6 JUDGE BRENNER:
All right.
We are back on the 7
record.
8 On reason I am anxious about the time and 9
continue to be anxious about the time of this proceeding 10 is we have got a lot to do as a Board, and frankly, we 11 need a little b re a thin g time between getting out of this 12 room and then being able to focus on things like all of 13 the responses we have received from the parties, which
, _s
( )
14 we welcome but we want time to focus on them from the 15 Staff and LILCO, the emergency planning contentions, th e 16 motions to strike.
17 The result, if we do not get the time in the 18 evening and weekends and catch-as-catch-can as we are 19 going to hive to is we are going to have to shorten the 20 hearing time and take some time during the hearing week, 21 and we do not want to do that.
So we have to adjourn 22 close to the time.
l 23 I did want to attempt quickly to say something 24 to Mr. Th31snt snt allow him to discuss it with counsel 25 later.
O
[
n/
i l
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1 Mr. Thadani, I am afraid that at some points 2
in your answers as to what is being looked and what is 3
not being looked at, and how long it would take, and 4
your reasons, which you gave eloquently this morning, as 5
to problems, you would have in looking at the draft 6
versus a final PRA, are cast in the context of all uses 7
of a PBA in terms of ultimate risk assessment for a 8
plant or comparative risk assessment for a plant as 9
distinguished from a dis t in ction we have attempted to 10 draw, perhaps inartfully, in this proceeding and the 11 extent to which v? would look at the PRA.
12 And we attempted to draw that distinction in a 13 discovery ruling, and that proved to be ambiguous.
And i O 14 we then attempted to clarify that distinction in a 15 ruling we made on the record on a motion to strike.
And 16 our discussion is a little before and continues after 17 transcript page 4332 on June 15th, but particularly on 18 that page we attempted to explain what we meant by 19 looking at tha work done on the Shoreham PRA sufficient l
20 to determine whether or not there was a correct 21 a pplica tion of the methodology to analyze systems 22 interactions and thereby lead towards having some use of 23 the work done to date f or classification of systems.
(
24 And we att3mpted to draw a distinction between a 25 fullblown analysis as to whether LILCO correctly l
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i performed the quantitative analysis -- and there is a
?
transcript correction on that page that we made from 3
" qualitative" to " quantitative" -- as distinguished from 4
a detersinstion sufficient to ascertain whether the 5
scope and the content of the PRA is such that it is as 6
claimed by LILCO's witnesses to be a good, reasonable 7
approach which can add to supplement, illuminate 8
wha tever words you want to add, and there are some 9
differences in those words, and these are things we will 10 have to consider in the findings, but will in general 11 assist and add to the body of knowledge as to the 12 analyses of systems interactions at Shoreham.
13 Now, it may be that you will come back and 14 tell us it is not possible to look at that without doing 15 a fullblown analysis, but at least insofar as I have 16 hased your responses, you have not made that 17 distinction.
And I recognize you have been thrut.t in 18 here on short notice from your point of view.
And if 19 anything we have said should be taken to imply surprise 20 that the f ullblown PRA review down to the correctness of 21 the quantita tiva snalysis has not been performed by the 22 Staff, then we have not been very clear because we are 23 not surprised that that has not been done.
(
24 But we are interested in whether or not we can 25 get assistance on this othe r area; that is, assuming O
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I they did their quantification analyses correctly, or 2
more accurately, we are not asking you to look at that 3
1spect but whather or not some judgments could be made 4
which would be useful to understand whether systems 5
interactions ha ve been improved upon beyond the methods 6
indicated that more traditionally have been applied in 7
the past.
8 I understand your comments about timing and 9
staff resources and moving targets and so on, and I 10 would also ask you, particularly in the Sta ff 11 collectively, to understand that it is important to also 12 take into account the proposed time frame for this 13 hesting an1 our decision.
And in light of the issue
\\
l
' ~ '
14 that we hsve admitted for litigation whether or not we 15 could be getting a ssis tance from the Staff on that point 16 without necessarily having to be talking about the type effort that 17 fullblown -- my term is "fullblo'in" 18 you have described in your answer.
19 And I sn not criticizing your having told us 20 thst.
That is helpful and we appreciate it.
But you 21 might try to focus on this distinction.
22 And soa? of my comments last Friday were as a 23 layman and a nontecnnical person.
We are somewhat
(~n
(,,)
24 surprised as to how you could, if you wore focused on 25 the distinction, which you may not have been, and if n
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I those present on Friday had been focused on the.
2 distinction,that I just attempted to make, which they 3
say not have bean, how you could say well, there is no
-)
O 4
sense'doing anything now, we might as well wait the full 5
period, without at least looking at the draft PRA and 6
looking, literally in the sense of looking and not a 7
fullblown technical analysis or a review but looking in 8
order to ascertain whether or not.there might be some 9
insights which can be given to us which being a result 10 of that look would carry more weight than just a 11 discussion of your knowledge of overall PRA methodology 12 and application in another context.
13 And one reason I will make this last point is
(
14 LILCO's witnesses were quite emphatic.
Whether or not 15 we agree is by f ar another matter, but in their view as 16 presented they were quite emphatic in saying that they 17 have built on and applied the methodology to Shoreham 18 with some of thase pitf alls pointed out about the i
19 general methodology in mind.
I 20 And they believe, I think it is fair to say, i
21 that they have come some distance in addressing those 22 concerns in the way they have done their work here, and 23 they also testified at g raa t length as to the extent
)
24 they thought their conclusions would be very useful in a 25 systems interaction s context, notwithstanding the O
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1 uncertainties and other problems.
ud 2
And it is hard for us to put the two together 3
when on the one hand one set of witnesses are talking 4
about general things and the other set is talking about 5
what they have particularly done.
And that is one 6
reason we have gotten some of the objections we have 7
gotten.
So it would be helpful for us to know whether 8
it has to be all or nothing.
9 And let me say to counsel also if after 10 reviewing that portion of the transcript where we 11 attempted to make our distinction and also in light of 12 our ruling admitting the contention in March, which I 13 think would be helpful for everybody to keep in mind, if VD ks' 14 any clarification, if the witness needs in order to 15 answer the question as to whether anything can be done 16 or it has to be all or nothing, if some further 17 clarification from us is needed, we will certainly 18 welcome that request for clarification and see if we can 19 help out.
20 But, again, we are concerned, partially for 21 the reasons expressed and the objection by Mr. Ellis, 22 that there may not be a full meeting of the minds unless 23 Mr. Thadani and perhaps others can address that
/~N j
24 distinction.
And I am afraid that distinction has been v
25 lost in his overall answer, and perhaps that will assist n%)
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QS tomorrow.
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1 MR. REIS:
Mr. Chairman, we will definitely s-2 try to look at that this evening and see if we can see 3
whether we need more time or whether we can answer it 4
tonorrow.
Part of the staff's problem here has been the 5
development of this contention, and going back to last 6
March when we were dealing with three systems and only 7
three systems, sad whether those were sufficient under 8
the sta f f 's methodology.
9 JUDGE BRENNER:
Well, if we were worried about 10 a list of ten particular systems and we may worry about 11 that later on, we indicated in our ruling that it was a 12 close call on the additional systems.
I don't think any 13 of this falls within that.
This was always there.
Tha t 14 is the methodology, and LILCO properly in my view wants 15 to demonstrate the work it has done in its PRA, not to 16 the full extent, and I am repeating myself now, but not 17 to the f ull extent of jumping in whole hog and looking 18 at the detsiled :sleulations and whether they applied 19 the methodology correctly in the sense of the 20 quantification of the analysis, the quantitative I
21 analysis, but at least to the extent that they have i
22 properly, that their methodology is rigorous enough as 23 applied to Shorehsm to be heloful in terms of systems f^%
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24 interactions.
And that is as good as I can do on my own 1
25 here.
Maybe Judge Morris can help out tomorrow if there
,e~.
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1 are some other problems, or Judge Jordan.
2 And unlike some of my comments of Friday, my 3
statement here was not a criticism.
It is just an 4
attempt to take the fullest advantage possible of Mr.
5 Ihsdani's presence and see if we can focus on that 6
distinction, because I am afraid, I may be wrong, but I 7
am afraid his having been thrust in on short notice has 8
deprived him of the opportunity to at least hear our 9
attempt at making that distinction.
It may turn out 10 thtt the distinction doesn't help him, but we would like 11 to hear that one way or the other.
12 All right.
We will adjourn at this point, and 13 reconvene tomorrow at 9:00 o' clock.
14 (Whereupon, at 5430 p.m.,
the hearing was 15 adjourned, to reconvene at 9:00 a.m.
of the following 16 day.)
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3Q NUCLEAR REGULATORY CO.WSSICN This is to certify that the attached proceedings before :ne BEFORE THE ATOMIC SAFETY & LICENSING BOARD in the satter of:.
Long Island Lighting Company (Shoreham Nuclear Power
$tation)
- Da.te of Proceeding:
July 13, 1982 Dockee !!u=ber:
50-322 OL s
Place of Proceeding:
Riverhead, New York were held as herein appears, and that this is the original transert;t thereof for the fila of the Cec =1ssion.,
Ray Heer Official.Teporter (Typed)
O w
Officia Y eporter (Signature) i Oo O.)