ML20059H278

Intervenors Motion to File Supplemental Affidavit in Support of Emergency Motion to Reopen Record on Adequacy of Staffing of New Hampshire Radiological Emergency Response Plan & for Immediate Shutdown.* W/Certificate of Svc

ML20059H278
Person / Time
Site:	Seabrook
Issue date:	09/07/1990
From:	Backus R BACKUS, MEYER & SOLOMON, PUBLIC SERVICE CO. OF NEW HAMPSHIRE
To:	NRC COMMISSION (OCM)
References
CON-#390-10813 OL, NUDOCS 9009170087
Download: ML20059H278 (14)

Text

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. 9 03CntlED September hNiE990 j UNITED STATES OF AMERICA '90 SEP 10 A11:01 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION rierr of StCAElt HV BEFORE THE COMMISSION UUChi ItHG A M "VK'I bitt NC" i Kenneth M. Carr, Chairman Thomas M. Roberts Kenneth C. Rogers

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In the Matter of ) i PUBLIC SERVICE COMPANY OF

) Docket No. 50-443-OL t/C/f-8[

(Offsite Emergency

)

NEW HAMPSHIRE, et al. ) Planning Issues)  !

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(Seabrook Station, Unit 1) ) >

)  !

INTERVENORS' MOTION TO FILE " SUPPLEMENTAL AFFIDAVIT IN '

SUPPORT OF EMERGENCY MOTION TO RE-OPEN THE RECORD ON THE ADEOUACY OF THE STAFFING OF THE NHRERP AND FOR IMMEDIATE SHUTDOWN" NOW COMES the undersigned, on behalf of the intervenors, Massachusetts Attorney General, New England Coalition on Nuclear on Pollution and Seacoast Anti-Pollution League, and moves that '

the Commission accept for filing the enclosed supplemental i Af fidavit of '.lichael E. Sinclair, dated September 7, 1979, and l r

states in support as follows:

1. The affidavits filed in opposition to the Intervenors'

" Emergency Motion" by the licensee and NRC staff' purport to show that the affidavit of Michael Sinclair dated August 6, 1990, is.in error, in stating that there is no longer a basis for reasonable-i 9009170087 900907 PDR ADOCK 05000443 ,

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assurance that the NHRERP can be implemented in a manner that will '

adequately protect the public health and safety. i

2. Mr. Sinclair's supplemental affidavit, for the reasons l set forth within, demonstrates that the opposing affidavits do not support a finding of reasonable assurance that adequate protective measures can be taken, in regard to implementation of the NHRERP.

In part, Mr. Sinclair's affidavit makes clear that the affidavits filed through the NRC staff on behalf of the Federal Emergency Management Agancy do not provide assurance that the claimed ,

resources are available and that " FEMA could not have concluded ,

that the NHRERP was adequately staffed since the rosters are incomplete and contain no information regarding the training status of the individuals identified."

3. Mr. Sinclair's affidavit also points out, in regard to the affidavit of Mr. Richard Donovan of FEMA, attached to the NRC staff response, erred in assuming that personnel shortages, described as " planning" positions, would be alleviated because the '

hiring freeze was expected to last only two months, when in fact the hiring freeze has been continued, and further personnel cuts appear imminent due to the directive for further budget cuts.

4. Accordingly, as concluded by Mr. Sinclair: "there is no assurance that the capability represented by the rosters examined by FEMA on August 16, 1990, represents the capability to fully

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a. 'o implement the NHRERP with trained personnel, nor that such capabilities existed prior to that time, or exist today."

i Respectfully submitted, l Seacoast Anti-Pollution League  !

By its Attorneys, BACKUS, MEYER & SOLOMON

,. $2-

/ Robert A. Backus, Esquire 116 Lowell Street P.O. Box 516 Manchester, NH 03105 (603) 668-7272 Ag Dated: September '

, 1990 I hereby certify that copies of the within motion have been forwarded to the the parties on the service list by first class, postage prepaid.

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Robert A. Backus, Esquire DOCKETED USNRC UNITED STATES OF AMERICA NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION  % SEP 10 N1:01 Before the Commission .:tocE cf EcRrIMv Kenneth M. Carr, Chairman " M ! F',i ';) '" C Thomas M. Roberts Kenneth C. Rogers James R. Curtis Forrest J. Remick In the Matter of )

PUBLIC SERVICE COMPANY OF ) Docket Nos. 50-443-OL NEW HAMPSHIRE, et al. ) 50-444-OL (Seabrook Station, Units 1 and 2) ) Off-site Emergency Planning Issues SUPPLEMENTAL AFFIDAVIT OF MICHAEL C. SINCLAIR September 7, 1990 I,

Michael C. Sinclair, being on oath, depose and say as follows:

1. I am the author and signatory of an affidavit dated August 6, 1990 accompanying "INTERVENORS' EMERGENCY MOTION TO REOPEN THE RECORD ON THE '

ADEOUACY OF THE STAFFING OF THE NHRERP AND FOR IMMEDIATE SHUTDOWN" f11ed with the Commission on August 7,1990.

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Subsequant to that filing, responses have been made on August. 16, 1990, by the utility, New Hampshire Yankee and on August 22, 1990 by NRC staff, In each instance, the filings contain statements and affidavits rebutting the>

information contained in my August 6, 1990 affidavit. My concerns,.as originally stated, are not allayed by these responses. Furthermore, on-August 21, 1990, the New Hampshire Attorney General's Office provided upon request of.Mr. Bruce Montville of Hampton, NH, a copy of the NHRERP 1

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staffing rosters which, in turn, were provided te me for examination. .

l While not complete, the rosters highlight several inconsistencies relating ,

to the issues initially raised and the credibility of the rebuttal filings.  ;

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3. Each of the response filings make representations-regarding the NHRERP staffing levels and response capability which are misleading when taken in-the context of the emergency preparedness planning activities associated ,

i with Seabrook Station and the litigated version of the NHRERP as described {

to the ASLB. In addition, there are omissions and failures to address  ;

issues raised in my original affidavit which are significant. The process by which FEMA determined in August 1990 that the staffing capability, as described in the NRC etaf f's response, f ails to document that a reasonable effort was made to determine the accuracy of the personnel rosters.

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4. It is important to keep in perspective that during the ASLB litigation associated with the NHRERP in 1988, it was clearly understood by all  ;

parties that the plan consisted of a set of comprehensive, integrated l.

implementing procedures covering all aspects of the off site-emergency response guidance contained.in NUREG-0654, FEMA-REP-1, Rev.1 (Sec I-F. )

1 Thus in reviewing the plan and the ability to implement it effectively, the ASLB viewed the plan's overall personnel resource requirements in l i

totality, i.e., the number of people required to staff all identified positions, including those from state and federal agencies local- I government and private organizations in both the EPZ and host communities, and private sector service providers.

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5. The existence of a given number of people to staff RERP positions does not, an and of itself, demonstrate a response capability. As the NUREG guidance and prudent emergency planning practices dictate, oniy the maintenance of a trained cadre of emergency responders assures that the plan can be fully implemented. I emphasized the importance of the training aspect in paragraphs 9 and 11 of my original affidavit.

6. In Licensees' response, attorneys f or NHY of f er an af fidavit from NH Office of Emergency Management Director George L.Iverson.

7 There appears to be some confusion and inconsistency regarding the number of personnel required to implement the plan.

A spokesman f or Mr.

Iverson's of fice initially responded to media inquiries on August 1,1990, that there were '671 state employees required to participate in the emergency plan. .and we have only 17 vacancies". In his affidavit. Mr.

Iverson states 'there are 3 vacancies in the 1263 positions needed to staff the NHRERP." 11. Mr. Strome's memo to Grant Peterson (Attachment to NRC Staff's Response), he affirms the 1363 number but adds that *(T)he number increases to 1312, it host community activities are included."

8, If the 1063 does not include the requirements for host l community staffing, Mr. Strome purports to put that additional required number at 49 I

positions. Yet an examination of the host community staffing requirements as outlined in the NHRERP staffing rosters shows a requirement for 376 local firemen to handle monitoring and decontamination assignments at the host community reception centers in addition to the need for several do:en other local personnel to staff support functions in each of the four 3

designated host communities in the NHRERP, The addition of these personnel requirements to the 1263 would raise the total personnel j requirements of the NHPIRP to well over 1,700. It should be noted that during the ASLB litigation, NHRERP personnel requirements were estimated to be in excess of 1,600 individuals.

9. The Licenees' attorneys quote Mr. Iverson as stating the NHRERP is not .

understaffed .. "and that there is no reason to believe that the s'ituation I

at the local level is any different." Yet in his affidavit, Mr. Iverson reters in Paragraph 11 to 'an initial assessment" which indicates a shortfall of only 5 nersons in 13 EPZ communities. It would appear that in the absence af mented information, and completion of a full evaluation, the 0; _..e is unaware of the current staf fing capability at the l

local level. .

10. Mr. Iverson's af fidavit does not address .the issue of whether the ,

t individuals he claims are currently available'to implement the NHRERP are fully trained.

11. In Paragraphs 4 & 5. Mr. Iverson explains that an initial assessme'It on August 1, 1990, disclosed 22 positions ' appeared to be vacant." He 1oes to state that after an assessment and assignment process which followed. .

the result is '3 vacancies in the 1263 positions needed to staff the NHRERP." He states the remaining 19 vacancies were filled from existing staff. I must conclude that the state would have been unaware of these 22 vacancies if it had not been for my letter to Judge Smith in July. I also <

have to question how the vacancies were filled from existing staff during e

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an acknowledged hiring free:e within state government.

12. He states in Paragraph 12 that the most current numbers for vehicle resource providers and drivers indicate 'more than aufficient resources available, but offers no statistics to support this contention. There are in excess of 550 evacuation transportation vehicles required under the NHRERP.

13. NPC Statf*s Response by Attorney Sherwin E. Turk, attaches affidavits from John C. Dolan, Chief of Technological Ha:ards Division, FEMA, Region I, and Richard W Donovan, REP Program Manager, TEMA, Region X,-as well as a memorandum from Richard H. Strome, Director, FEMA Pegion I, to Grant Peterson. Associate Director for State and Local Programs at TEMA Headquarters i

14. Mr. Turk appears on Page 3 of his response to acknowledge that existing license conditions require the S.tAtt to prepare call rosters and personnel lists. The bulk of the roster lists provided by the NH Attorney General's office were produced in a computerited format that I helped to design and which is maintained by the utility. Mr. Turk also refers repeatedly to my I employment as an emergency planning consultant by the State of New- -

Hampshire. I have never been so employed. My work was done as a contract consultant for the Licensee, New Hampshire Yankee.

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15. Mr. Dolan's affidavit states that he and a colleague visited NHOEM on August 16, 1990 to

• examine" the staffing rosters and ' discussed with.the NHOEM stati the procedures they used to update the rosters." This was the ~I 5

sum of FEMA's evaluation of the state's emergency response capability. If Mr. Dolan examined the came set of rosters provided by the NH Attorney General's Office to Mr. Montville, FEMA could not have concluded that the NHRERP was adequately staffed since the rosters are incomplete and contain no information regarding the training status of the individuals identified (although the original computeri::ed data base was designed to contain this information and it was supplied in that format to FEMA in the fall of 1989). Furthermore, there is no indication that FEMA made any independent effort to verify the information provided to it by the state. It is not necessary to question the state's veracity to conclude that prudence would dictate that TEMA make an effort to at least spot check the rosters with the sources that supposedly supplied them to NHOEM. In my experience, this is not the investigative methodology commonly used by NRC officials'when examining documents or practices employed by nuclear facility operators.

If in f act Mr. Dolan's approach constitutes FEMA's definition of an investigation and analysis of a given situation, it raises serious questions in my mind with respect the other f acets of the ' agency's evaluation of the adequacy of the NHRERP.

16. Mr. Dolan's af fidavit ref ers to a report he prepared f or the Regional Director which is attached as the Strome to Peterson memorandum. In Paragraphs 6 & 7 of the memorandum, references are made to a process by '

which the state of New Hampshire, presumably NHOEM, purportedly updates staffing roster information quarterly. Prior to January, 1990, this process involved only a quarterly update of the telephone numbers of those individuals _ who are contacted when there is an initiating event or change in event-classification. The state does not keep a listing of the 1 4 j

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telephone numbers of all NHRERP responders, nor does it fully update staf fing rosters on a quarterly basis. Thus while the state does ,

periodically verify the telephone number of, for example, a town fire chief, it relies upon the chief to maintain the roster and telephone contact numbers for the REBP responders in his department.

17. Paragraph 8 of the memorandum confirms that the licensee, not the state, verifies the rosters in the EPZ towns, although this is acknowledged to be l a 8 tate responsibility and is so defined in the plan. At the same timei-during the personnel roster verification processes in which I was involved in 1988 and 1989, it was my experience that in the majority of cases the ,

town emergency management directors did not maintain full roster listings '!

of emergency responders in their towns. Likewise, Town Clerks were an unreliable source of information about current town employees and individual town departments had to be contacted directly for the more up-to-date information. '

18. Paragraph 9 implies that.the (State of) New Hampshire (also) maintains computerized records of the speciali:ed training received by its i responders. That also was not correct prior to January,'1990. The  ;

training records were kept by the licensee since the bulk of the training was provided by utility employees and contractors, i

19. Mr. Donovan's affidavit enlightens me that the concerns I raised to him in April, 26,1990, were, in fact, brought to NHOEM's attention. However. he makes a curious distinction which leads me to conclude that he may have [

been misled by the state. In Paragraphs 3, 4, & 6, he ref ers to being.

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told that the state's hiring freeze impacted only 'planung* positions (as l i

distinct from emergency response positions.)". To my knowledge, the I NHREBP : ekes no such distinction with respect to staffing capability.

i There are no planners identified in the RERP. All of the personnel required are considered responders. At the same time, since NHOEM must reach beyond its own authorized state staffing to fill RERP commitments, i

it is difficult to reason how a hiring free:e which affected certain REP planning positions would not impact the agency's ability to meet its RERP requirements. .

20. Mr. Donovan states that he was assured on or about April 26 that the hiring freece would be removed within two months. While that indeed may .

have been the case, the f reeze had been imposed along with agency budget cuts in late February and remained in effect through the first of July, and has since been followed by a directive from the Governor of New Hampshire to all state agencies to further reduce spending by nine per 'l cent effective in August, 1990 Agency heads have been publicly quoted as saying additional personnel layoffs and reduced levels of service from state agencies will result f, rom the latest directed budget reductions.

(See Paragraph 8 of my August 6, 1990 affidavit). I

21. I believe the underlying concern that I expressed in my letter to Judge Smith and the August 6,1990, af fidavit to the C1.amission, has been only superficially addressed, While the state's ef forts to update their l

personnel staffing rosters are a step in the right direction, the fact remains that neither the NRC or FEMA has in place an adequate process for independently verifying that any state's emergency response preparedness

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capability is f aithfully and consistently maintained as evidenced by the process used to investigate the situation in New Hampshire. There is no assurance that the capability represented ny the rosters examined by FEMA on August 16, 1990, represents the capability to fully implement the NHRERP with trained personnel, nor that such capability existed prior to that time, or exists today. There is no assurance that continuing economic constraints on states and localities, as well as the private sector in New Hampshire, will not continue to erode the emergency response capability of the NHRERP. Until such time as Federal regulations mandate the perpetual maintenance of a iixed level of trained RERP personnel response capability, there is no reasonable assurance that public health and safety will be protected in the event of an accident at a fixed nuclear facility In that context, the issue with respect to Seabrook Station and the NH RERP renains, in my cpinion, safety significant.

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Affiant STATE CF NEW HAMPSHIPE )

) SS .

County or Hillsborough ) September [,1990 The above-subscribed individual appeared before me and made oath that he was the author of the foregoing affidavit and that the statements set ,

forth therein are true to the best of his knowledge.

Before me, 4 I i .-

d Notary Public

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My commission expires:

JOol L. tOVELY, Notary Public My Commission Expires February 25,1993 9

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Ad instr:tiv] Judge Administrctiv: Judg] Docketing Cnd Servi a G. P ul Bollw::rk, III, Chrmn. James H. Carp:nt:r US NRC Atomic Safety and Licensing Alternate Technical Member Was y g gn, DC 20555 BZrd Atomic Safety and Licensing U5NRC US NRC Board Washington, DC 20555 US NRC Washington, DC 00555 '90 SEP 10 A11 :0, Robert R. Pierce, Esq. Kenneth C. Rogers Commissioner hk ktddik kf y & Licensing Atcic Safety and Licensing US NRC Appff1" Board Panel Bo:rd Washington, DC 20555 US NRC US NRC Washington, DC 20555 W:shington, DC 20555 Ad;inistrative Judge Thomas M. Roberts, SAPL Thom:s S. Moore Commissioner 5 Market Street US NRC US NRC Portsmouth, NH 03801 Washington, DC 20555 Washington, DC 20555 Administrative Judge Kenneth M Carr, John Traficonte, Esquire Alen S. Rosenthal Commissioner Assistant Attorney Cencral US NRC US NRC One Ashburton Place Wachington, DC 20555 Washington, DC 20555 19th Floor J Boston, MA 02108 i

Administrative Judge James R. Curtiss, Senator Gordon J. Humphrey I Howard A. Wilber Commissioner U.S. Senate US NRC US NRC Washington, DC 20510 c W shington, DC 20555 Washington, DC 20555 (Attn. Gordon Mcdonald)  !

1 Ad inistrative Law Judge Peter B. Bloch, Chrmn. Thomas G. Dignan Esquire Ivan U. Smith, Chrmn. Atomic Safecy and Licensing Jeffrey P. Trout, Esquire Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Ropes & Gray Board US NRC One International Place US NRC Washington, DC 20555 Boston, MA 02110-2624 W shington, DC 20535 Ad;inistrative Judge Atomic Safety and Licensing Diane Curran, Esquire K'innsch A. McCollom Board Panel Harmon, Curran & Tousley Atoxic Safety and Licensing US NRC 20001 "S" Street, N.W.

Bo:rd Washington, DC 20555 Suite 430 US NRC Washington, DC 20009 Wahington, DC 20555 1

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Edwin J. Bei', Esquire Office of Generr Counsel US NRC Washington,T:' '55 Plu'

• Tech , Esquire Shain,,cv & ir.achern P.O. Bcx a6s Maplewood Avenue Portmouth, NH 03801 SandrO Gavutis RFD 1, Box 1154 East Kensington, NH 03827 Mitzi A. Young Attorney Office of the General Counsel US NBC washington, DC 20555 3

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li. Joseph Flynn, Esq.

Federal Emergency Mantgment Agency

500 C Street, S.W.

Washington, DC 20472 l

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Geoffrey M. Huntington, Esq.

~ office of Attorney General Ctate House Ccricord, El 03301 i

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