ML20076B432

Discusses Shipments of Spent Reactor Fuel & High Level Waste Through New York,Ny Prior to City of New York Health Code Radioactive Matls Regulation Enactment.Correspondence Re Radioactive Matls Transportation Encl

ML20076B432
Person / Time
Site:	05000516, 05000517, Shoreham  File:Long Island Lighting Company icon.png
Issue date:	08/25/1977
From:	Solon L NEW YORK, NY
To:	Quittschreiber Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards
Shared Package
ML20076A595	List: ML20076B432 ML20077A666
References
FOIA-93-375 ZECH, NUDOCS 8104150101
Download: ML20076B432 (12)

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August 25, 1977 Office of the Executive Director Idviscry Conittce cr Reacter 5:fecuat e United States I uclee r "egulat:ry Cc- 'iss on Washirgten, D.C. 23555 i

Attention: t'r. Gary R. (uitts:9reiber

Dear !!r. Quittschreiber:

Durin: the *cee ti r.r c' " e f "v i t or- Cr nittee en reactor SafecWs Warkir.c Crc.iu on Transcort .:cn c' Ddic::tive :'a teriais e t the $nera:cn-EGuardic M,nl in ::s. ierk U ty Aq.st 23, 3D, the Chairnn, Dr. Chester Siess, recuer'ed that I forv erd to you a cay of my letter of April 11, 1977 to Dr. J. Peter t'.cGrath I am cladoftoSandia do thisLaboratories and a copy isfor distribution to the enclosed.

Morhing Group.

Durinc the questicn pericd which er. sue:.! af ter the reading of try letter, one of the Uorking Group consultants ex;ressed doubt or surprise at r;y assertion that ship rents of spent react:,r fuel and high-level caste through the City of f;ew York uould apprcach or exceed anproximately cre-per working n.

day if the three Lono Island Lichting Co cany (LILCO) power reactor ship e:

mee added to the Broo' 53ven ';aticral Letoratory spent fuel shipr.ents f ro . _* 2 CflL High Flu). Bean Reactor.

The 819 F. e Shorehan reactor 56 mil .s east of the f e 4 York Ci ty line (which is so e., hat. nore 153r. fif ty percent co' plete) was picnned, .. hen it becomes operaticnel, to add tet.reen 35 and 70 megacurie-level truck shir ent' thecugh f:ev York City. The ts in (each 1150 :".'e) Jarresport reactcrs about c 18 miles eest of Shorehan would add an Mditional 150-160 shipments ii Jamesport nuclear complex L comes cperaticn31.

Between Janu:ry 1975 ud October li?5 the last peried in which ship-rents f ron the HFEP. at I?:L cere per~itted by the Department of ircal th d rra i;cw York City, prior to it? cractrcr.t of tne City of l:eu York Healtn cmc radioactive raterials regulation, requii ing a Certif ica te of [r erc.ercy Tr,u.

for such shi;racts, t..elve 5;ent fuel 5"in ;nts , erb invollir0 of the ora 300 kilocortes of mi.ed f w,1on ;,ro-h.c ts ..e re c arried by tcut' thect.sh tre (

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. August 25, 1977

.Dr. Leonard R. Solon Thus cdding up the totality of spent fuci shipments alone frco Shorchm.

Jamesport, and Croothwen, there were to have been between about 200 and 253- '

shipments of these regacurie and high kilocurie spent fuel shipmcats through flew York City. >

.I I offer vithout further present coment, these figures for further  !

detaile. consideration by the ACRS in its advisury capacity to the thiclear i Regulatory Cc'.: mission as part of the latter's legislatively r.cndated role of l

protecting the r ublic becith and. safety. l G

! appreciated tb - cr ;crtunity of appering before the ACRS linrl:in1 rc>.:

on Transportatice c' f cM: active 14aterials and the courtesy siihin rie by tiiE~

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r!'erters c 4 staii.

l'cedless to say, I an prepared to arplify or discuss further any of th:

rnatters treated in the present letter, ,

Sincerely yours, ' ,,. - ' l c.. .. _ , . ' '. ,s , sl

.. ,y f-s .,

Dr. Leonard I!. Solon Director LRS:fp enclosure ,

CC:

l Dr. Chester Sicss tiorr.an A..Eisenbarc .

Arthur Ducharre i i

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Dr. Econard R. Solen ]'

Director, nureau of Ecdiatica control j City of New York 325 creadvay - .

new York, itew York 10007 1, D-aar Dr. Solon:

The results CE recent investigationn by the staff of Sandia Leboratorie from the study on Trsnapor tation of nacioactive Materinic in Urban '

Environs have prompted ce to review pravious estir.taten of radiol-s consequences of radioactive caterini released in urban envircar.. (

In your letter of 11 April 1977 to me, which I have negicctrd to e persons 11y reply ec, you utilire enicul tionci resulta cor.tained in the U.S. Mucicar negulatory Commiasion report Calculations of Ecdie- 1 3c :i:al Congnunce a from S tb otgg,rtj f sh i c c i n n C a s u r o r Sgn t, Mi O,~ ~

nnd Sigh;i.evel Wasta,teu.7.tG-0194, to vntinate the consequences ci posrutited sabotage eventu occurring in a hyperurban environs such t

as maw York City. It nac been brenght to my uttent!on that you are

' utilizing in public forums, such as utfore tnc Working Group en  ;

cre.nsportation of Radioactive Mater ials of the U.S. Mccles: Regulatory Commiscion's Advisory Co=mittoo on Reactor Safeguards On 27 T.ugust

' 1977 in Nuv York City, your esticates derived from the results contain-in the !1UREG-0194 report. Therefore, I felt it uculd be a disservice to you if I did not ccanunicate to you cy concerns with your calculus for ceti=ating conucquences of sabotaSe actions on chipping casks

centaining large a*.ounts of radioactive mnterials.

I, The work presented in the NUBEG-0194 re, tort was performed for the -r j exp11 cit purpose of investigating whether there vere any-significant .

' dif ferencas betweeen the radiological concoquences of sabotage octions on shipp!ng casks for spent f.WR f uel and solid ified high

! IcVel waste. Therefore, it was only necessary in the calculaticnc perforned to preserve the relative differenceo in the conzvguencer that might rcoult from successful sobotago actions. The predictina t of the absolute mAgnituda of .consequencco, given a sobotsge action, in a much core difficult problem. Ar. a result, many phenomena th:t '

._sould affect the magnitude of the consequencco were neglected in the calculations since it was believed that they would have relativtly equal effect. 17o4 utilired in the calculations ware actuni pcputat ix.

distributions, frequency distributinnn of population ci:ca taat night he exposed to radiological impacts of sabotsge, building shield; offects as a function o( population density, etc. In addition, m- ,

do not have a very good idea of the magnitudu of the reluase of radioactive catorial that might be caused by a specific surcncaful noen Labo' age action. For oil practical purposes there have uot Therefore, in nny exper iments perfor=ed to provide cuch informaS. ion.

the MU3sG-0194 report a range of release fr actions were uued and no

-. .. ., 5 *:4ur. can he succorta1 bv datq. The abova re m %s tu v.?:

a ww=-wwwwww- y mmxmmmuni;,; .s; november 7, 1977 Dr. L. Solon .

that the absolute valuen of the consequ+neda calculateu in Mur.EG-0194 chould be used with a great deal of caution.

nittaugh it is atated in the MU5ZG-0191 repor t dnd it van Centi 0ned duriel Dr. Modge's oral presentation an 30 Mcr.h 1977 cf the rea : t.t of the report that the consequence estimateo could be scaled mde lineerly ith caution, cerbsps the reauonc for th < caution vare not 59 iiciently clear. In calculating the radiological consc<cence:

of nn ac.rtorne release of radioactive noterial, COMO, the .medel utilized for he calculations in NUSIC-0194, enploys tha pys u lation in .e 221/20 sector which extends downwind Ultnfrom the point of a population the release dansity of 100 to n ri-dial distance of 500 miles.

perf ' per square nila, a to:21 population of soc. 4.9 million people are represented in the calculation. UcNever, if one ECale3 11h93!1Y tron 100 pecple per squate mila to 500,000 people per square mile, than a population of 24.5 billion peeple are assumed to be in the of 221/2n sector within 500 miles of the release point. This number people is roughly nix times tno total world pnpulation. The net renuit of the linear scaling in to drive the model to unreason;ble limits and to give estimates of population doses which are extrecely large.

The large population dose results f rom the multiolication of small doses to individuals (individual lifetine tsdiation desco of less than g_

Therefore, 1 tra) and unreaconably large nu=sers of enposed people.

a lla' ar scaling of tha COMO estimates must be done with con:inarable caution, and then over very linited ranges so thet unreascnably large numbers of people are not represented in the calculatione.

i An alternative approach to the display of the pr05.lenn with unbounded linear scaling of the MURF.G-ul04 estimaten can be achieved by an examination of the consistency of the predic'.ad nu-ber of latent cancer fatalities and the cean individual radiation doce. In your 11 April 1977 letter you suggest that as many an 1,300,000 latent cancer f atalities any be' concible, an estimate based on scaling the NOR50-0194 results to a population dens!Ly of 500,000 people per square If ue use an estinato of 122 latent cance<. f atalities pcc 10 6 =ile.an-ron population dose, which is bssed on data from the l

DEIR Rept5t*, then the nan-res population for your doseofauct estimate be cancer latent of the order of to fatalities 1.1 x 10 he realized. Acauming a uniform population density of any size, j

the nean ind,1vidual lifotime radiation done io calculatd to be about l 1 rea in the population composed of all people receiving creater thun 0.1 reo over 70 yents as a result of the release of the radioactive material. To calculate the mean individual dose I have used the dose versus distance curve given on the figure attach0 {d to thir lette: {

._ Therofore, to calculate a population dose of 1.1 : 10 can-rec, uith a mean individual dose of 1 ren, requires an exposed pcpulation of shout 1,1 billion peopla. The COMO calculations show that tbc indi 1 dual lifeti=e done, ac a function of dintance fren the point of reloose, f alln below 0.1 roo within 25 miles. Therefore, one 10 han to concludo that the bulk of the pnpulation done of 1.1 x 10 msn-romn , r edicted by sealing the :10acG-0104 in a recult of bill!cnn of pcopic receiving 1cco than 0.1 rem over 70 yesrc.

1:;nt nepor t, The Ef f ects on reculations of theosur e to T.ow-tavel ;

of T0p!,nine Radioat39, R,jpo r t of tho ,Wvinor y to nttree oE'Ine D t..i ogic al ef tecto oc loni:ing Radioat ton, National Acadery of Sc;?nces, Mational Fasearch Counc tl, 4ashington, D.C. , IT/2.

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11o; caber 7[ l'J 7 Dr. L. Solso .;no?her way to 1 con at the population dose is to postulato a rennana;l ni:e of a .rc?ulation that night be expcaed t- radintien 23 a renuit of a successful cabotaga cttion. If this p.q:ula tion ue:e appte .!r.:r . '

.o p;er: -

lu .nillion, then the raan ind vifual doce 93.:1d if he 1000 owsver , u ren ir.:

.can v. p.: .u:

the popula; ion daae of 1.1 x 10 ' .maa-rem.

ilosa of 1000 rem would be lethal to the total populntion ci 10 cillica within & ntter of s f aw .'e&*xs and therefor e r.uct be considerad inconsistent with the other results of the linear 3:nlings.

ic is f.eirly easy to cetinati the f raction of c' populatione that nighc die Iron a radiation induced latent cancer. If we poutular.;

coaditions no maximize the f raction of the o:: posed population the.c would die f:cm a radiation inds:ced latent cancer, then we vould calculate that occh individual of the population receivas a the dose of rad!ation below the threshold for early cortality. For perpese.

o( cur calculation we can esse e this dose to be 300 rom, which is not an unr eoconable valup'.' If we use the estimate of 122 Intent doce, then appro::icatel; cancer fatalities per 10 nan-rem populatio 24 (122 law.ent c:ncot fatalities /10 can-ren.f 300 can x 100) of the 4

c:spo2+d population, in uhi:h each individual received a dane.at 300 :

vould die of a latent cancer. 'this relatively Icv fraction 1.4 due to comp + ting risks and the observation that latent cancers appearariac vith come prsbability over 23 or note yests following a Incent

' of C te 15 years after exposura to the radiation. The 44 valus lu a population average; particulcr groups in the popul: tion (cuch an infanta ned children) will cnow a higher incidence of !ctant cancar fatalities. Under the conditions postuinted above (304 rem. to each individual of tha population) the appearance of 1.3 nillion laten:

• cancer f atclities would require a'n exposed populaEToi of 'iiout 33 uillion people. F.owever, I cannot postulate reallutic .eituations which would result in a dose of 300 rea to that r.:eny people.

1cercas r.y calculations above are only approxinate, one can use a

- rrege of reasonable values and arrive at the case conclusion. That i '

the linear ccaling of the estimates contained in ItunEG 0194 to a population density of 500,000 people per squara cile has driven the f

' .ncdel to the point that its results are no longer acoccieted wita

reality, .

i ~

I t,s part of our continuing studies on radiolc.;ical consequ2nte modo 11-t of relo.smee of"redioactive esterials in urban environn, and with the i f or eg o ir.g thou0h ts in nind, we have made some COMO calculations with a vatiable population density. To do thic we almulatad an urban

- --population as indicated in the following table:

Distance trem relea.ae point Population d.ansity (miles) (oc-cole per scuarn niin; 0-4 250,000 4-12.5 50,000 12.5-30 l ') . 0 0 '1

_ N A C l 0

1 o l IJr. L. Solen l-1 o v ei..m r ' . 1 Y. '

Jn thi ai c.uiation there is a to:.i'. gqulation of cb:r:t C.9 r.illien peopic in the 22 1/.?t sector,

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a :. :t c r..: 3 a ceanoa,;51o e t.!: ate ce  ;{

as e.su tarr urb.:n env i ro11.*n h . .;ith th!2 po..ula cir.n d a r.t r 2but inn , -i 'l rolCMe of 10M o t.' the Och:.0 gaca and 11 ct the other rc.ilune'iv.-

, ciaterl.11 in a r. pen s fe.al enipping c:sk, and all 0..het i r.p u t d e '. a '

identital to thW ut:ed in Nu..ZG-cl.H, COMO predict 0 p.eaa conn. :uene.

o i' :1 b o'st 5000 latent ec n... : CM..s t a tiac r.nd 153 ently f atalitic:3 ,' n. .

Pak n.::sars of r .dir 10 41ct:1 consacuarteui ?:adicted under ther: con : i ora 11,000 !.itsnt car cer f ataliti9s sa-i ? !.00 cacly [at311tien. I t. n_

. l b1 rc:w::% red, hcVever , that t h e .? :ti" ttc0 are .<rca the CC:-:0 =cdel ,

whhh das not cenaider the din.sils of c :a urban environnenc. Althat.

'hese conaaqua.c n as cuti.a 5 c of CCMC are terious, they c10ar: 1 y d .:

. tot present tn: co :aelyssic picter.e that one ci tainc 1 too a.i casantia unboamled linear scali;g.

'n e esti=ation of carly fetc.11 ties has t) be parformed with even .m -

cura than c:<cecised in tha.eati=ation of latent cancer fatalities.

'.rb i s la r:u c- to the f act that early f atalitica result only when an ea:

radihtien dose (dose received witnio 3 few weeks) axceeds scme thr'.#

vielee. Therefore, the f.hi<:lding rrwidai by buildings and icnytli of tiue r>f cr.posure to contasinated 9 :und have very impo Eant affectn on the c*:'.laa *. ion of estly f atallr ice. To o :ceed a thre.sheld fr r e.:rly f a r:ali ties r29uires re t a siva ty large concentra:1ena of r ad iur.c t rut:: rial in the air and ti.;ponitad on tha ground. For thia rec ca tha occurr :nce of crirly fatalities is 11.:ited to enor t diatance.s f r o.T the ralc.in .coint ( uch less than 1 ka). In the calculationa fnr tw rG G-019.' , it wu osau=ed that i allding nhieldi..; was e suntially t.: at charactaria:1 c of noem;1 cetivity in residentini are as and the length of t!ne of c/posurc ta the centaminated ground w:ss 1 day.

Thase OMusptions cro quito unreallistic for largt; po.culi:t ion d en si ti.+

i The increasad chielding of buildings and less c.:posure to conts:-inam

grouna would reduce the octj.nat1cn o.! carly f atalities.

I i

i trust thnt my re:marka :may be of cone Interest to you. ::f you fin.!

any of my points, or argu'::Entu, confuning, plekse do not hasitate t3 discuss them with mer. I an available at al.-,out ohyti::w to '.!!c.cu.m1 th-cencern I have raised in this letter. With the Cr>nplction in the ne futuro of our work for the l'uclear Tw;ulatory Ccmiasion on the : .Mr J ,9 cte t a . . f transporting rs.di.ract' - 1.$ : stials througa urban anriron.5, w shoulcF ue able to provida batter c:stinaten of cadiological eense-quences of succe.soful ns'critaga actions.

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Dr. Peter J. FicGrath ,

Division 5413 Fuel Cycle Risk Analysis Sandia Laboratories Albuquerque, Itew flexico 87115 l I

Dear Dr.14cGrath:

Thank you for your letter of !!ovember 7,1977 which addressed itself to the matters discussed in ey ccmmunication to you of April 11, 1977. [ Incidentalg :

score a tie for the Postal Service - the copy of your let" sent from Albuquern j first class arrived on my desk at the same time as the coi ( by Courier-PAK Federal Express - i.e. on the af ternoon of !!ovember 9, l' 4 was surprised tc '

receive the Courier-PAK and assuma the redundancy in mai modes had senethinr.,

to do uith the public hearing by the Department of Transpo cation l'aterials Transportation Board scheduled in I'cw Yorl: beginning the following day, Govember ! '

10, 1977).

f;ou to the issues involved in United States fluclear Regulatory Comission Report I:t' REG-0194 Calculations of Radiolonical Conscouences from Sabotane of Shipping Casts for Spint Fuel and Hinh-Level t aste by C. Vernen 1;odge (tiPF,'

James E. Campbell (Sandia) (February 1977) and the coments offered in the let:(

by you and David li. Ericson, Jr.

I should like to focus on the real ~public health questions and not take j minor exception to what !!UREG-0194 did and did not say. I owever, for the recer ,

since your letter scems to imply that I somehow misread that report: !!nwhere can I find in the report the assertion of your letter that the con'putational results "could be scaled linearly with caution." As a r.atter of fact, in my cc the only reference to linear scaling appears as an addenda on an crratum sheet says in its entirety: ,

"P.6, end of third _paracraph Consequences for different values of uniform popul density may be estimated by linear scaling from these results."

It happens that I wholly agree with your admonitien of cauticus extrapole so I will not belabor the point. However, this may be the most uni partant f ac '

that we have to be cautious about in using the C0".G model. An especially inco i statement, congletely unsupported by the data of the report itself (and vcur si quent recomputations) is the Abstract of 1:UREG-0194 uhich I reproduce here in entirety.

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"Radiolo9tcal consequences of a hypothetical sabotage event which causes

' ' a release of radioactive material from a spent fuel cast and a high level waste cask are calculated. The release fractions of volatile fission products in the spent fuel and the solid fission products in both the spent fuel and high level waste are treated as parameters. Assuming a largest credible solids release fraction of one percent, the numbers of health effects are shown to be small and on the same order of magnitude for both

, spent fuel and high level waste."  ;

The numbers recalculated from the Cm0 model and presented in your letter (which incidentally employs a hypothetical population density distribution greater than flew York City) clearly do not support the inference of the Abstract (which is '

the only thing many planners get to read).

For the sake of comparison, let us list these various numbers depending upon the assumption of population density.

Population Early latent  !

Density Deaths Cancer Deaths persons mile-2 g Hodge and Campbell ,

liUPEG-0194 100 0-2 40 - 200 t, (February 1977) {

McGrath and Ericson 0-4 miles 150-1600 5000 - 11,000 ,

(letter to Solon; (250,000) (mean) (mean)  :

tiovember 7,1977) 4-12.5 miles ,

t (50,000) 12.5 - 30 miles * ,

(10,000) 30-55 (1000) -

55-500 <

(100)

Solon 65,000 1300 169,000 (New York Times) (Manhattan November 12,1977 average)

Solon -

500,000 0 - 10,000 2 ' x 105 - 1. 3 x (Letter to llcGrath) (Manhattan April 11, 1977 peak)

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'Dr. i.eonard R. Solon l I submit, that in terms of public health si nificance, t you and !!r. Ericson came to the essentially identical operational conclusion that I have. I am surc '!

that neither of us will argue too strenuously in behalf of the precise quantitati robutness of any of the numbers. It is evident, however, that the results of a major radiological release from the deliberate or accidental rupturing of a spent fuel cask in a hyperurban environment could be disastrous indeed - cither more or ,

1 css serious than most of the numbers tabulated.

How to the assumptions of the consequence model-(COMO) itself. t.nother of ,

my references here is !!UREG-0340 Overview of the Reactor Safety Stud Model published in October 1977.

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authors. (I.B. Wall, S.S. Yaniv, R.M. Blond, P.E. McGrath. H.H. Church, J.R. Uay 4

(1) Solids Fraction Release _ ,

NUREG-0194 used a 1", solids f. action release as a point of reference. ,

treated releas-

!!UREG-0340 (and Appendix There VI docsof the not Wash-1400 appear to beReactor anything Safety canon Study _)ical abou fractions up to unity.

release. I suggest that a carefully planned sabotage event on a fuel cask could release a lot more or a lot less than 1% so the assumption of 1% should be viewed

.i with caution.

(2) Meteoroloof cal Da,Ma, The weighted "six-site" weather structure reported in f:UREG-0340 and presu:

e employed in NUREG-0194 is inapplicabic to I:r i York City. For looking at f:ca Yort ,

one should assume the kind of high velocity winds and turbulence typical of many  !

days beginning in October 'nd ending in March and occa.'ionally for other days thr <

out the year.

(3)PopulationEvacuation It is obvious that the population evacuation model discussed in I:UP.EG-0200 deficient when applied to New York City. One cannot take seriously (for the sab:

spent fuel cask case) assu-ptions that (cf. P.15):

"The population within 25 miles is assumed to move radially outwird from the reactor with ... a 30% probability of 7.0 m.p.h."

"If the evacuating population is overtaken by the cloud of radioactive material, it is assumed that people will have moved  !

outside of the contaminated area within a 4-hour period." l I cite these prior items to indicate representative insufficiencies in the C0:0 model as applied to spent-fuel cask radiological reinase in f!cu York City. .

I am still of the opinion that overall it is a helpful first step in approachin, I the prob 1cm of radioactive materials transportaticn and, in fact, does lead to t ,

conclusion that large spent fuel shipments through densely populated urban arce ,

not acceptabic from the point of view of public health.

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December 20, 1977 Dr. Leonard R. Solon Permit me to reiterate ey appreciaticn for the additional effort thatf youtay I and Mr. Ericson have put into further analysis of this importcnt matter.

impose upon you to circulate the present letter to tome, all the people who especially roccived n.ctbers of the copies of your !!ovember 7,1977 communicaticn I am Task Group on Transcortation of f.adioactive l'aterials in Urban Environs.

furnishing Vern Hodge and florm E1"senberg copies direHly.

Best personal regards and best wishes for the Season and all of 1978.

1 oyr ,

' , * [ .. ~ Dr. 9 Leonard

% - R. Solon Director LRS:fp 9

cc:

C. Vernon Hedge, U.S. 1;uclear Regu. .ory C0 mission, Washington fiorman Eisenberg. U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Conuission, t.'ashington Arthur Ducharme, Sandia Laboratories, Albu;verque i