ML20058M041
| ML20058M041 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Oyster Creek |
| Issue date: | 06/26/1981 |
| From: | Fitzgerald J NRC OFFICE OF THE GENERAL COUNSEL (OGC) |
| To: | |
| Shared Package | |
| ML20058A382 | List:
|
| References | |
| FOIA-92-436 SECY-81-394, NUDOCS 9309220257 | |
| Download: ML20058M041 (2) | |
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June 26, 1981 .....* SECY-81-394 ADJUDICATORY ISSUE (Information) -
For: The Commissioners From: James A. Fitzgerald Assistant General Counsel
Subject:
Review of ALAB-645 (Jersey Central Power and Light Company)
Facility: Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station Petition for Review: None received and none expected
Purpose:
Toinfor[mtheCommissionofan.AppealBoard decision which, in our opinion, EXI Review Time Expires: August 1, 1981 Discussion: ALAB-645 completes the Appeal Board's consideration of Jersey Central's application to convert the pro-visional operating license for the Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station to a full-term operating license.
9309220257 930412 CNINS -436 PDR Although the Licensing Board had previously termin- ,
ated this proceeding, the Appeal Board, in ALAB-612, remanded to the Licensing Board to obtain staff's supplementation of the~ record regarding m'ormation ja tN: re :td vi:s dchd unresolved safety issues which might affect the safe operation of this facility. 1/
in acccidance w;th thejfr ed5m of !c!:rmation Act, exemntions F0lA- IJ - 9Jg - On remand , the staff provided the Licensing Board a description of unresolved safety issues relevant to this plant, and explained why it believes plant ,
operation can continue without undue risk to public health and safety pending resolution of these matters 1/
In ALAB-611, the Appeal Board explained that such remand was
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necessary to update the record on unresolved generic safety issues.I CONTACT: 3 i
Sheldon L. Trubatch, OGC I V
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The licensing 5 card, in accordance with the standard Of review established by the Appeal Board in ALAB-620, limited its review of staff's presentation to a consideration of the plausibility of staff's apprcach to resolving each issue identified, and to a determination of the sufficiency, on its face, of each explanation Eiven to support the conclusion that Oyster Creek could operate safely in the interim. As a result of its review, the Licensing Board was persuaded that staff had satisfactorily considered the generic unresolved safety issues relevant to Oyster Creek and had provided reasen-able bases for its conclusions concerning interim operation. Accordingly, the Licensing Board rein-stated its earlier order terminating this proceed-ing.
The Appeal Board independently examined the record and concluded that it had no reason to differ with the Licensing Board's decision to terminate this proceeding. Moreover, the Appeal Board noted that staff is. currently working to resolve the generic safety issues for this facility because it is included in the Systematic Evaluation Program. In our opinion, nothing in this decision warrants Commission review. The Appeal Board found that its instructions had been properly followed by the Licensing Board and that,Jhe starr's submittal was e}
adequate, Recommendation: gy , c James A. Fitzgerald Assistant General Counsel Attachments:
- 1. ALAB-645
- 2. ASLBP Memo & Order DISTRIBUTION:
Commissioners Commission Staff Offices
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. v.Jr.Ikc j UNITED STATES OF AMERIt .
NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION I i
ATOMIC SAFETY AND LICENSING APPEAL BOARD 1
Administrative Judges:
i Alan S . Rosenthal, Chairman Dr. John H. Buck Thomas S. Moore
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In the Matter of )
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JERSEY CENTRAL POWER AND LIGHT COMPANY ) Docket lio. 50-219
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(Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station) )
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MEMORANDUM AND ORDER June 22, 1981
( ALAB-64 5)
This proceeding involves the conversion to a full-term oper-ating license o'f the provisional license which was issued for the Oyster Creek nuclear facility in 1969. Last September, on its review sua sponte of a Licensing Board termination order, this Board remanded the proceeding to the Board below for further ac-tion. ALAB-612, 12 NRC 314. That action has now been taken and, in an unpublished June 1,1981 order, the Licensing Board once again terminated the proceeding. In the absence of exceptions to the June 1 order, we have examined it on our own initiative.
Finding no error requiring corrective action, we affirm.
- 1. The remand in ALAB-612, supra, was for the purpose of calling upon the NRC staff to supply "certain additional informa-tion respecting those unresolved generic safety issues as might Ob[b(DOk
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W be applicable to Oyster Creek operation". 12 NRC at 315. Fol-lowing the receipt of that information, the Board below was to appraise "the nature and extent of the relationship between each significant unresolved generic safety question" ed such operation. M. at 315-16. ,
The reasons why this course was mandated were detailed in an order entered two days earlier in Northern States Power Co.
(Monticello Nuclear Generating Plant, Unit 1) , AIAB-611,12 NRC 301 (1980). Monticello also was before this Board for a review sua sponte of the termination of a proceeding on an application for conversion of an operating license from provisional to full-term. We there decided to have the staff submit the-required supplemental material pertaining to unresolved generic safety issues directly to us, rather than to the Licensing Board. We noted, however, that "in any other parallel proceedings" the Licensing Board would have the responsibility of receiving and evaluating the information. M. at 311-12.
- 2. The Monticello proceeding came to an end in ALAB-620, 12 NRC 574 (1980). On the basis of our examination of the staff's submittal to us, we found that no reason existed for disturbing or probing further any of the determinations reflected .
1 in that submittal -- determinations which had led the staff to l l
the ultimate conclusion that continued operation of the Monticello l l
f acility would not present an undue risk to the public health and
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. T safety. In that connectf n, we stressed the restrictive scope of our review:
[N)o endeavor has been made to satisfy ourselves that the staff's approach to each identified [un-resolved generic safety issue] corresponds exactly with what we would have done if in the shoes of the Director of Nuclear Reactor Regulation. Rath-er, we have limited our consideration to the plau-sibility of the approach and sufficiency on their f ace of the explanations given for the' conclusions reached by the staff respecting the continued safe operation of the Monticello facility.
As we saw it, the staff had both "satisf actorily * *
- come to ,
grips with the various unresolved generic problens it [had) indi- ,
cated rdght affect Monticello operation" and "provided an at least reasonable foundation for its several conclusions". Id. at 577.
- 3. The Licensing Board order now at hand reaches the same result respecting the staf f's October 30, 1980 submission to it on continued Oyster Creek operation. b/ Our independent examina-tion of the record has given us no cause to view the matter dif-ferently.
In this regard, the Board below might have note 6 that the October 30 submission reveals that, unlike Monticello, Oyster Creek is one of the eleven operating reactors which are included
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1/ Indeed, in large measure the text of that order bears a striking resemblance to ALAB-620. That fact has not in-fluenced our review here. The Licensing Board order must stand or f all on the record underlying it -- a record not~
identical to the Monticello record before us in ALAB-620.
within the Systematic Evaluation Program. That Program was in-stituted, following Coimnission approval, in November 1977 As stated in the 1978 NRC Annual Report (at p. 59), the Program staff is charged with the responsibility for reviewing those eleven " older licensed power reactors, applying current licensing criteria, and for documenting the results -- including the need for any necessary plant changes". 2_/ It appears from a recently issued status summary report that unresolved generic safety is-sues are within the scope of the Program. See NURE'3-04 85, Vol. 3, No. 5 (April 1, 1981). Accordingly, the October 30 submission contains several references 3_/ to work being done under the Pro-gram on generic safety questions and the specific relationship of that work to the continued safe operation of Oyster Creek.
The June 1, 1981 order of the Licensing Board is affirmed.
It is so ORDERED.
FOR THE APPEAL BOARD M.. O n-,6 % M C. Je q Bishop \
Secretary to the Appeal Board
-2/ By virtue of Section 110 of the 19P0 NRC Authorization Act (Pub . L. No.96-295), this Commission must now develop and implement a similar plan for all currently operating plants.
The staff has proposed integrating the existing Systematic Evaluation Program into the new plan (1980 NRC Annual Re-port, p. 5). -
3/ See pp. 19, 22, 25, 32, and 34.
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NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION JUN 21981
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ATOMIC SAFETY AND LICENSING BOARD Donatint & Senice Stanch Before Administrative Judges: N e Robert M. Lazo, Chaiman Hugh C. Paxton, Ph.D.
Paul W. Purdom, Ph.D. SEgYED g7g g, ,
In the Matter of )
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JERSEY CENTRAL POWER & LIGHT COMPANY ) . Docket No. 50-219 (Oy r reek Nuclear Generating Vr n F rt en e c edings)
June 1, 1981 4 MEMORANDUM AND ORDER This proceeding involves an application for conversion to a full-tem operating license of the provisional license which was issued for th ffm-e m Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station in 1969. All proceedings re(gUbiN the application were terminated and the case dismissed by order of the Licensing Board on February 22, 1980.
On September 5,1980, the Atomic Safety and Licensing Appeal Board entered an order in which it remanded the proceeding to the Licensing Board "for further proceedings in accordance with this opinion and Part III of Monticello, ALAB-611," concerning unresolved generic safety issues.M Thereafter, on September 9,1980, the Licensing Board entered a Memorandum l If Jersey Central Power & Light Company (Oyster Creek Nuclear GeneratingStation),ALAB-612,12NRC314,316(SeptemberS,1980)
See Northern States Power Company (Monticello Nuclear Generating Plant, Unit 1(, ALAB-611, 12 NRC 301,, 309 (September 3, 1980)
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and Order directing the Nuclear Regulatory Comission staff to file the additional infomation required by the Appeal Board respecting those unresolved safety issues which might be applicable to Oyster Creek operation.
I. The staff's response to our September 9,1980 Order was filed on October 30, 1980. It takes the form of a 35 page document, accompanied by the affidavit of the NRC project manager for Oyster Creek. In the affidavit, the project manager attests that the document "was prepared by
[him] or under [his] supervision" and that the infomation provided is "true and correct to the best of [his] knowledge and belief".
In an introductory section, the staff quotes (at p.4) the definition of an " unresolved safety issue" contained in NUREG-0510:2_/
"An Unresolved Safety Issue is a matter affecting a number of nuclear power plants that poses important questions concerning the adequacy of existing safety requirements for which a final resolution has not yet been developed and that involves condi-tions not likely to be acceptable over the lifetime of the plants it affects."
Applying this definition, as described in NUREG-0510, the staff identi-fied 17 such issues which were addressed by 22 tasks in the NRC generic issues program.
The introductory statement notes that of those 22 tasks, seven have no application to boiling water reactors which use a Mark I containment design (e.g.,OysterCreek). In Section I of its submission, the staff discusses
,2f " Identification of Unresolved Safety Issues Relating to Nuclear Power Plants - A Report to Congress", NUREG-0510 (January 1979).
each of the remaining 15 tasks. With respect to those not as yet completed insofar as Oyster Creek is concerned, the staff also explains why it believes that continued operation of that facility nonetheless will not present an undue risk to the public health and safety.
In Part 2 of its submission, the staff discusses six " additional items" which were not treated in NUREG-0510 as " unresolved safety issues" but, in the staff's view, "may have an impact" on the Oyster Creek facility and "if left unresolved, could present potentially serious safety or environ-mental concerns". For each of these items, as well, the relevant task was described and for those unresolved a justification for continued plant operation provided.
2.
As reflected in ALAB-611,12 NRC at 310-31, the genesis of the Appeal Board's insistence that the Oyster Creek record be supplemented.cn the r.atter of unresolved generic safety issues was two prior decisions of that Board: Gulf States Utilities Co. (River Bend Station, Units 1 and 2),
ALAB-444, 6 NRC 760 (1977), and Virginia Electric and Power Co. (North '
Anna Nuclear Power Station, Units 1 and 2), ALAB-491, 8 NRC 245 (1978).
In both of those decisions, the Appeal Board noted the necessarily limited scope of the examination sua sponte of such evidence.
River Bend described the adjudicatory board's function as being simply to determine "whether the staff review satisfactorily has come to grips with any unresolved generic safety problems which might have an impact upon operation of the nuclear facility under consideration". 6 NRC at 774-75. To this end, sufficient information must be supplied to enable the board and the public to apprehend
4 "the staff's perception of the nature and extent of the relationship between" each such problem and reactor. Id. at 775. In North Anna (which, in common with the case at bar, involved a review sua_sponte of the licensing board action on an ope' rating license application) the Appeal Board stated:
In view of the limitations imposed by regulation, and the fact that our review was necessarily unaided by any of the parties, we have not probed deeply into the substance of the reasons put forth by the staff for allowing operation to go forward. Rather, we have only looked to see whether the generic safety issues have been taken into account in a manner that is at least plausible and that, if proven to be of substance, would be adequate to justify operation. Scrutiny of the substance of particular explanations will have to await a contested proceeding.
8 NRC at 248, fn. 7.
The Licensing Board's scrutiny of the content of the October 30, 1980 submission has been undertaken with this standard in mind. We have limited our consideration of each identified task to the plausibility of the approach and the sufficiency on their face of the explanations given for the conclu-sions reached by the staff respecting the continued safe operation of the Oyster Creek facility.
Applying this test, we find that the staff has provided an at least reasonable foundation for its several conclusions. Accordingly, there is no reason to disturb or to probe further any of the determinations made by the staff. We are persuaded that it " satisfactorily has come to grips" with the various unresolved generic problems it has indicated might affect Oyster Creek operation.
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, 5-ORDER !
For the foregoing reasons and based upon a consideration of the record in this matter, it is this 1st day of June 1981 !
ORDERED ,
That the Licensing Board's order of February 22, 1980 dismissing this proceeding is reinstated.
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FOR THE ATOMIC SAFETY AND LICENSING BOARD i
RAtwA Robert M. Lazo
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' ADf11NISTRATIVE JUDGE h
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