ML20063G850

Response to Secretary Stating That Commission Authorized Secretary to Respond to ASLB 820809 Questions & That Commission Intends to Affirm Response Next Wk.Course of Action Described in Secretary Ltr Should Not Be Affirmed

ML20063G850
Person / Time
Site:	Indian Point
Issue date:	08/27/1982
From:	Potterfield A, Weiss E FRIENDS OF THE EARTH, NEW YORK CITY AUDUBON SOCIETY, PUBLIC INTEREST RESEARCH GROUP, NEW YORK, UNION OF CONCERNED SCIENTISTS
To:	NRC COMMISSION (OCM)
Shared Package
ML20063G841	List: ML20063G836 ML20063G850
References
ISSUANCES-SP, NUDOCS 8209010184
Download: ML20063G850 (13)

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA-C EiED NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION - gc BEFORE THE NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION.. . . _ .

12 AGO 30 P1:04 0FFICE OF SECRETA??

In the Matter of. 00CMEijtigERVICE

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CONSOLIDATED EDISON COMPANY OF Docket Nos. 50-247-SP NEW YORK (INDIAN POINT, UNIT 2) 50-286-SP POWER AUTHORITY OF THE STATE OF ~

NEW YORK (INDIAN POINT, UNIT 3)

RESPONSE TO SECRETARY'S LETTER OF AUGUST 23, 1982 The undersigned Intervenors received a copy of an August 23, 1982 letter to_the. Administrative Judges in the Indian Point investigation from the Secretary of the Commis-sion. It states that the Commission has " formally authorized" the Secretary to respond to the Atomic Safety & Licensing Board's questions of August 9, and that it intends to affirm the response nex.t week.

It is our understanding hat only one Commissioner was at work during.the period within which this response was written. In addition, as Commissioner Gilinsky notes, the Secretary's letter has not been discussed by the Commission.

Finally, the Commission neither invited nor considered the comments of the Intervenors and interested States before issu-ing the letter which, if finalized, would make the participa-tion of many of these groups either impossible or ineffective.

• j This is submitted on behalf of the Union of Concerned >

Scientists, The New York Public Interest Research Group,  !

Friends of the Earth, The New York City Audubon Society, Parents Concerned About Indian Point, West Branch Conser-vation Assoc. , The Westchester nannies Action Coalition, and Dean Corren.- 8209010184vsww.wvun__

f*HL/MMR_RN 820827 _ _ __ _ . _ _ _

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Putting aside for the moment the extremely irregular procedure used by the Commission -- a pattern whien has unfortunately characterized the Commission's "sua sponte"

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actions in this case -- we hope by this response to persuade you that the course of-action described in the Secretary's letter is wrong so that: you- will not affirm it.-

It is now nearly three- years since the UCS petition was filed. The Intervenors and Interested States have expended a great deal ~of effort, time-and scarce financial resources in attemptin~g to put on the public record for:your consider-ation facts' necessary fof you -tx) evaluate-the risk of the Indian Point- pl~ ants. We have-followed all of the' rules of this investigation ~ .and -the' orders ~of the Licensing Board, suffered the many months of n'eedless' delay'and. finally --

after 3 years had gotten'to the point of bringing our witnesses

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to hearing.- At the very'least, we are entitledr as part of

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the public you~are sworn'to protect, first to your informed consideratidn'aiul second, to a decision which forthrightedly

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addresses what the Atomic. Safety & Licensing Board has put to you. That. issue is, in brief: ' is it your intent to excise the testimony of the Intervenors and Interested States from this investigation? If a majority of you no longer wants public participation in an investigation of the Indian Point plants, we believe that we have the right to know that now.

The requirement that each party (or consolidated parties) must include in direct testimony a discussion of accident

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O Pg. 3 probabilities (and even more remarkably that Intervenors may not rely on the probability testimony of other Intervenors to meet this requirement) is a prescription for excising public participation which furthers no legitimate independent purpose.

We can understand, at least in the abstract,,that the Commis-sion could have a concern about the completeness of the record and a.desir,e to ensure-that the record contains, sufficient information to assess the.probabil_ity of se_rious accidents.in

. addition to their_ consequences. That, it seems clear to.us, is the only pertinent legitimate c.oncern, given that this is an investigation, not an adjudication -- a distinction which the

. Commission.has not hesi_ tate,d go ass.ert in other_ contexts.

Indeed, the commission has. ruled that the ex parte rule will not apply here precisely because it wished to use this investi-a gation to get_ a complete,. record, unencumbered by the usual prohibition.against off-the-recor_d; contacts with the Commis=

sioners. Memorandum and -Order, January 8, 1981, n.4 However, it is manifes,tly-clear that the concern about having a record devoid of information on accident probabilities t

simply does not apply -here.- For one thing, the testimony.

presented on accident consequences by the Attorney General of New York, the Audubon Society of New York City, UCS and NYPIRG, that of Jan Beyea and Brian Palenik, was explicitly based upon the postulation of a PWR-2 accident from WASH-1400. The Commission may not be aware of this fact, although it has the testimony and cross-examinations available to it. The public m , ,.- - - _ , _ _ . _ _ . _ _ __ ,_

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. l Page 4 record is full of work on the probabilities of these events, a great deal of it done by NRC or under contract to NRC at the taxpayer's expense. It is beyond serioua question that, had this hearing continued in an orderly fashion, your Staff and CON ED/PASNY would have presented their evidence on the probability of- tIhis accident and. others like it, we would have cross-examined as in every.other NRC case and the record would be made..

Cross-examination has long been recognized as an extreme-ly important tool 'for the public.to develop record evidence in NRC proceedings. If that is the case for adjudications, where an enforceable order can issue as the outcome, there is _

no reason for being mor,e restrictive in an investigation, which can culminate in no enforceable. action against the ,

Licensees. If your Staff comes forward with a probability analysis that the Intervenors, after cross-examination, could support, your order would prevent us from doing so because i

I the Intervenors and Interested. States.would not be allowed to participate in the hearing unless they had each done their own probability analysis. This is an absurd result..

In any case, if you have any remaining fears at.all in that score, you need only direct your Staff to come forward 1

with all of the analyses the taxpayers have already sponsored on the probability of PWR-2 and other similar serious accidents.

This is after all, an investigation. You would then have before you the most complete record possible.

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Page 5 Under these circumstances, what possible legitimate pur-pose could there be to requiring each Intervenor to present direct evidence on the probability of PWR-2 or some similar sequence as'a precondition for presenting evidence or conse-quences? Do you expect each group to do multi-million-dollar probabilistic risk assessment?, Even if we_c_ould pay for it, it would not further the cause of knowledge or 'the complete-ness of this record one. whit.. Indeed, requiring each Inter-venor to present independent evidence on. probabilities will _

needlessly clutter the. record and add to the. delay.

The only possible outcome of erecting.this senseless legal obstacle will be to throw the.Intervenors and Interested; States out of this investigation. That, of course, m,eans the end of the investigation; it would have no further claim to any credibility in the eyes of the public. _ , _ , ,

CON ED. and PASNY claim that ,it -is the Intervenor's strategy to " discredit the use of Probabilist_ic R_is_k Analysis (PRA) methodology to calculate the probability. of a nuclear accident."

Licensees' Response to August 9, 1982 Memorandum and Certifi-cation, August 17, 1982 at.3. We need only point out that the Commission itself stated, after belated peer review of WASH-1400,on January 19, 1979;that it "does not regard as reliable the Reactor Safety Study's numerical estimate of the overall

- risk of a reactor accident." NRC Policy Statement, January 19, 1979.

UCS believes and has said in many forums, that the state i

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of the art of probabilistic risk . assessment is not suffi-ciently well-developed to yield' meaningful predictions of the absolute probabilities of accidents. Indeed, Intervenors intend to present evidence to this effect. Surely that is a highly relevant factor in assessing,the risk of Indian Point since it goes directly.to determining _the degree of uncer .

tainty inherent in the PRA, res ults -- a factor the Commission must consider. . . .

Nor are we alone in this view. ,Just this June 9, the .

ACRS told you that PRA. is not "sufficiently developed" for the purpose of determining compliance with numerical safety goals. P. Shewmon, Chairman., Advisory. Committee on Reactor Safeguards..to Nunzio J. Palladino, June 9, 1982, P.1. The ACRS continued:

The large 'uncerta.inties inherent in PRA are well recognized and are acknowledged in the' Proposed Policy Statement lon Safety Goals]. These.uncer-tainties make' the use of PRA in decision-making '(which occurs already within the NRC) subjegt,to large differences in the results obtained by different groups of analysts for the same a.ccident scenario. These uncertainties also permit abuse of the methodology to obtain a result which supports a predetermined position by selective choice of data and assumptions. Id. at 3.

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In addition,'your own-Staf'f concluded that'~the risk curves for Indian Point have an uncertainty "perhaps as much as a factor of 100 at the lower probabilities." Report of the Task Force on Interim Operation of Indian Point, May 30, 1980, p.32.

The Intervenors views on PRA, shared by many other respected members of the technical community who are not in the employ of the nuclear industry, neither disqualifies them from participa-

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ting in this case nor lends support to the Commission's order.

Indeed, CON ED and PASNY's comments on the subject are merely a- variation on their of t-repeated theme that any groups critical of nuclear power shculd for that reason be debarred from this proceeding. -

- The second general area covered by the Secretary's letter, the directions 1regarding-the order of the presentation of testimony-- (Board certified questions 2A and 2B) will be counter-productive'to the:useful-consideration of the emergency planning testimony, will create an illogical presentation of the. issues, and will delay the proceedings.

The fact- that- the' NRC Staff has begun a "120 day clock,

pursuant to :10 CFR150. 54 (51 (21 (ii). as a result of. deficiencies in emergency:plannin{'at Indian 3 Point renders critical the information1 contained in the emergency planning testimony pre-filed by Intervenors. Whereas the NRC Staff and FEMA have limited resources'to investigate the off-site emergency planning' problems,.the Intervenors offer the proof of witnesses, whose every day responsibilities. require them to implement the pro-cedure in the plans:and who therefore have first hand knowledge

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of the deficiencies. These deficiencies may be revealed in a review of the written plans, but cannot be remedied without resorting to reality. Further, Intervenors have offered the emergency planning testimony of noted professionals, whose opinions could only benefit the ongoing examination and review of the Indian Point Emergency Plans. For example, the testimony

Pfgn 8 of Richard Altschuler on the question of the adequacy of the public information brochure, an area of concern and signifi-cant deficiency must be considered before that deficiency can be effective.1y resolved.

Intervenor's witnesses should thus play a meaningful role in the review process and we insist'that the 120 day period is the best time for consideration of the emergency planning testimony. The Commission 2 would only duplicate efforts and l'engthen 'the proceedings-by resolving-the "120-day clock" with-out the input'of emergency' planning witnesses. Before positions harden-into an adversarial context'at the close-of the 120 day period, 'all of the information available on the present state 6f emergency planning'sh6hld be' sought.'

b Secretary Chilk indicates further on page 3 of his' August 23rd letter, that the q6estion of the effectiveness of emergency planning is not a necessary' foundation for testimony on the risks of the Indian Point plants. Secretary Chilk would permit the parties to:

"present testimony concerning accident risks based on assumptions as to. ranges of emergency responses

and that any disputes as to the feasibility or like-lihood of particular emergency response testimonial assumption's can-be either addressed expeditiously

- without inquiring into details of questions 3 and 4 or postponed until question's 3 and 4 are addressed on their merits."

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Assumptions about the ranges of emergency responses are challenged i,n much of'Interienor's prefiled tes't.imony. FEMA's, official as[sessment of July 30, 1952, 'found tlieI. p1'ans'-to be

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deficient in~all but one out of 15' planning criteria. There-fore, if assumptions rath'er than f' acts are to b'e used,-

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testimony can only be based on the. assumption that the emer-gency plans will not protect the public in the_eventTo'f an --

accident at In'dian Point. Any oth'r_'"

e assumption" is plainly

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unwarranted and constitutes an attempt to substitute fiction for reality. Of course, the logical approach is to continue with the emergency planning evidence, on which the parties are

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ready to proceed, so that the examination of risks ca'n be made on a solid foundation of fact rather than assumption. -

If the Commission insists that testimony on probabilities be presented first, the result will'be another delay of unknown dimensions. New deadlines for the filing of testimony on other issues will have to be set. The Intervenors, probably like other parties, are not ready to proceed immediately. It also appears that at least one of the Licensees, Con Edison, may not be ready to present its case on the Probabilistic Risk Assessment Study, Table C to Summary of Meeting held on July 27, 1982, with NRC and Licensee management to discuss the scheduling of open licensing issues.

- It is our sincere hope that you will give serious consider-ation to the points we have made, lift the order of July 27, 1982, and allow these hearings to go forward. So far as we can

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Pcga 10 tell, you have not.previously considered the implications of your order as we have outlined them. Make no mistake: The ,

Secretary's letter does not obviate the Atomic Safety,&.Li-censing Board's concerns. Whether each witness e,r ea3h party

.must present direct testimony on accident probnbilities as a precondition for' presenting evidence or consequences, the effect is essentially the same.._

- The'Intervenors cannot pay experts / and, more important-

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. ly, should not have to; the NRC has already paid them. It -

need only bring them forward.

In closing, we remind you that you not only have our contentions, you also have all of our testimony on accident consequences and emergency planning before you at this moment. .

Far from being peripheral, the adequacy of emergency planning is central to an investigation'of the risks of Indian Poiht.

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l Apart from other aspects of risk, the consequences at Indian Point are great because of the density of population. The effectiveness of emergency measures is the single most-impor-tant. factor in reducing consequences and therefore reducing risk.

If the Commission does not wish to consider that evidence f in this investigation, simply tell us now instead of forcing ~

-*/ [n an attempt to rebut the Atomic Safety & Licensing Board's point that only CON ED, PASNY, and NRC can attend to pay for probability analysis, the Licensees have informed the

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Commission that UCS has retained Robert Weatherwax. The Commission may be interested to know that UCS has been able to pay only $3000 for a report assessing CON ED and PASNY's s voluminous PRA. The report has not yet been prepared. More- _

over, even if UCS presents direct testimony on-this issue, by the terms of the Secretary's letter, no other Intervenor could rely on this except NYPIRG. Each would have to pre-i pare their own.

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s, e us through months of pointless' legal maneuvering which will only exhaust our remaining resources and strip this -

investigation of its remaining public credibility.

Submitted'by:

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- Ellyn'R. Weiss -- -

General Counsel j'

Union of Co'ncerned Scientists s' ~ . - _

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h-- .A a Amanda Potterfield New York Public Interest

.Resea.rch Group.-

. For the Union of Concerned Scientists, The;Newr. York:Public Interest Research Group, Friends of the Earth, The New

> York City Audubon Society, Parents Concerned About Indian Point, West

' Branch Conservation Association, West-chester Peoples Action Coalition,

~ and Dean Corren.

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'I SUPPLEMENT TO " RESPONSE TO SECRETARY'S LETTER OF AUGUST 23, 1982" As the Commission is surely aware, contracts have been let with IEEE and ANS to produce a procedures guide for probabilistic risk assessment. Revision 1 of NUREG/CR-2300

("PRA Procedures Guide") was issued on April 5, 1982. The authors of the guide include persons who have contributed to WASH-1400 and other risk assessments since 1975. Certainly, their assessment of the time and manpower required to produce a risk assessment must be given considerable weight.

To summarize the information contained in Cnapter 2 of NUREG/CR-2300, to produce a full probabilistic risk assessment on a minimum schedule would require a 29-member technical team 12 months simply to complete the analysis (a total effort of 135-383 man-months). To produce a draft report, submit it to peer review, revise the draft, and produce a final report would require an additional 6 months.1/

A quick assessment of the cost can be made by assuming that technical labor will cost $3,000 per man-month (certainly an underestimate). For the 135-383 man-months required to produce a full risk assessment, a cost of $400,000 to $1,150,000 is obtained. This estimate does not include costs associated with the~ procurement of necessary documentation, site visits, f . computer time, and administrative and clerical support.

1! The t'ime estimates, of course, presume freedom from other tasks, a high degree of cooperation from the licensees and their consultants, and essentially unlimited access to security plans, proprietary reports, and other sensitive documents.

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The effort in preparing a full probabilistic risk assessment is apparent. Moreover, there is little middle ground since NUREG/CR-2300 estimates that even to produce Ii' a quantification of event sequences and core melt frequencies would require a 13-member technical team 16 months to 2

produce a final report (the minimum time schedule /),

We can see no utility in requiring the intervenors to prepare a risk assessment and present a direct case thereon. It is clear that such an effort would simply be duplicative of the risk assessments performed by the Staff and the licensees. We believe that we can make an important contribution to the record on cross-examination.

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2/ Even this effort would require 83-139 man-months of effort at a roughly estimated cost of $250,000 to $417,000 for technical labor alone.

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