ML20082E114
| ML20082E114 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Seabrook  |
| Issue date: | 11/23/1983 |
| From: | Dignan T, Gad R PUBLIC SERVICE CO. OF NEW HAMPSHIRE, ROPES & GRAY |
| To: | |
| References | |
| ISSUANCES-OL, NUDOCS 8311280048 | |
| Download: ML20082E114 (40) | |
Text
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Filed: Novembar 23, 1983 00CKETED a
, USNRC 53 10f 25 Ai0:16 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA [. Mghp5^f[,
[ j
. BRAl4CH NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION before the ATOMIC SAFETY AND LICENSING BOARD In the Matter of )
)
PUBLIC SERVICE COMPANY OF NEW ) Docket Nos. 50-443 OL HAMPSHIRE, et al. ) 50-444 OL
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(Seabrook Station, Units 1 & 2) )
)
APPLICANTS' RESPONSE TO PROPOSED FINDINGS OF MASSAG, NHAG, SAPL AND NECNP Pursuant to the Board's Order of September 15, 1983, the Applicants submit herewith their responses to the proposed findings of the Attorney General of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts ("MassAG"), the Attorney General of New Hampshire "NHAG"), the Seacoast Anti-Pollution League, Inc. ("SAPL") and the New England Coalition on Nuclear Pollution, Inc. ("NECNP"). No other party filed proposed findings of fact.
I G
l l
In order to make things easier, these responses are 1 l
arranged topically according to the three contentions '
that were considered during the evidentiary hearings.
ENVIRONMENTAL QUALIFICATION TIME DURATIONS Proposed Findings of MassAG MassAG offered neither testimony nor proposed findings on this contention.
Proposed Findings of NHAG NHAG offered neither testimony nor proposed findings on this contention.
Proposed Findings of NECNP As admitted by the Board, this contention is limited to the time durations to be employed by the Applicants for electrical equipment environmental qualification purposes. At the time that the framing of contentions was in order, the specification of a time duration had not yet been performed. The i
contention as admitted did not address any question of equipment classification, i.e., whether (wholly apart
! from time durations) the Applicants had properly determined which equipment was required to be environmentally qualified at all. Moreover, NECNP subsequently attempted to interpose precisely such a
contention; its attempt was rejected and its proposed new contention was excluded. ASLB Order of May 13, 1983. In addition, the admitted contention does not address the question of whether equipment has in fact been qualified, nor has NECNP ever proposed the admission of such a contention. (As was pointed out earlier, the entire Seabrook electrical equipment qualification files, which are maintained in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, were offered to NECNP for inspection and copying back in November, 1982. See
" Applicants' Answer to 'NECNP Motion to Amend Petition to Intervene'" (filed April 29, 1983) at 11 n.11.
NECNP never requested to see these files.) The issues available for litigation, therefore, are limited to time durations, and do not include classification or accomplishment.
None of NECNP's proposed findings go to time I
durations. Consequently, all should be rejected.
l l (The only place where NECNP mentions time durations I
l is in its proposed finding No. 4, where NECNP concedes the acceptability of the Applicants' time duration l standard.)
l l
There can be no doubt that the Applicants are required to qualify all equipment requiring qualification under the Commission's regulations; this would be equally true had no contention at all on the topic be admitted.1 There is a fundamental difference, however, between what the Applicants are required to do in order to meet the regulations, on the one hand, and what they are required to do in order to meet admitted contentions, on the other. Given the limited scope of the only admitted contention on this topic, the Applicants have no obligation to litigate the validity of their equipment classification and no obligation to litigate the degree of completion of the qualification.
All of NECNP's proposed findings go to one or the other of these topics, and for that reason they all address issues that are irrelevant to the admitted issues. All should be rejected.2 sit should be pointed out, however, that 10 CFR
$ 50.49 does not require that the qualification be completed before operation. See " Applicants' Answer to
'NECNP Motion to Amend Petition to Intervene'" (filed April 29, 1983) at 10-11.
2 In the interest of setting the record straight, however, NECNP claims not to be able to find the language that Mr. Maidrand referred to (from memory)
Proposed Findings of SAPL SAPL offered neither testimony nor proposed findings on this contention.
EVACUATION TIME ESTIMATES i
Proposed Findings of MassAG The Relative Weight to Be Assigned to Differing
" Expert" Opinion. MassAG contends that, where the opinion of its expert (Professor Herr) differs from that of the Applicants' experts (Messrs. MacDonald and Merlino) and the Staff's expert (Dr. Urbanik),
preference should be given to Professor Herr. MassAG Findings at 11. The reasons for this, according to regarding IEEE 323-1974. NECNP Findings at 5-6. The words of the standard are as follows:
"The purpose of this document is to provide guidance for demonstrating the qualification of Class 1E equipment including components or equipment of any interface whose failure could adversely affect the performance of Class 1E systems and electric equipment."
IEEE 323-1974 at 7, 52 (emphasis added).
MassAG, are Professor Herr's superior qualifications and lesser " bias," though the " superior qualifications" argument is made only in general terms and not in connection with any one particular assertion by Professor Herr. MassAG's arguments on this score are not persuasive.
On bias, all that MassAG points to is that Mr.
Merlino is an outside expert retained by the Applicants, Mr. MacDonald is an "inside" expert employed by the Applicants, Dr. Urbanik is an outside expert under contract to the NRC, and all three are in agreement that the Applicants' evacuation time studies are reliable and sufficient to fulfill the purposes for which they were proposed. In addition, Mr. MacDonald bel! eves that Seabrook should be licensed. None of the se attributes amount to " bias;" if they did they would apply equally to Professor Herr, an outside cons'altant to MassAG.
On 3 comparison of qualifications, Professor Herr falls way behind the other three, all of whom have both training and experience directly in the fields of evacuation planning and of preparing evacuation time estimates. All have been involved in actually
preparing evacuation time estimates, and all have been involved in the Seabrook case sufficiently to have actually prepared estimates. Professor Herr, whose claimed training is as an " urban planner," has at best only limited experience preparing evacuation time estimates. Professor Herr claimed no background on meteorology, principles of atmospheric dispersion, or the deposition of radioactive products, (Tr. 1397, 1201), though he offered opinions in those fields. He is not a transportation or traffic engineer, nor a member of the professional society of transportation engineers, nor had he studied traffic engineering. Tr.
1237-38. His preparation for Seabrook consisted solely of reviewing materials prepared by others and making a single combined business and pleasure visit to the Seabrook area. Tr. 1205-07. Professor Herr's use of the literature was a bit cavalier, Tr. 1208-11, as was his written testimony in its use of categorical assertions that later proved to be subject to a number of unstated qualifications. Tr. 1212-16, 1217, 1220-23, 1225-32. Professor Herr's experience in analyzing oversaturated highway networks has been only
" occasional." Tr. 1238-39. Finally, Professor Herr
was constrained from doing any further Seabrook-specific studies by the rather severe budgetary limitation he had to work with. Tr. 1241-43.
There are two other characteristics of Professor Herr's testimony that render it of little assistance to the Board in the present context. While Professor Herr was liberal in raising questions about the Applicants' time studies (or his perception of them), Professor Herr did not for the most part assert that making whatever correction he seemed to think was needed would increase the times predicted (or by how much).a Thus 8Nor had Professor Herr done any estimates or other exercises to demonstrate the effect on clear time of doing things his way. This is a significant omission, for it is far from clear a priori that, even if Professor Herr's suggestions were accepted, any effect on clear times would result, and the Board had documents before it that plainly suggest to the contrary. Thus, for instance, Professor Herr would like to see the question of preparation time accounted for by a different methodology. The C.E. Maguire evactuation time studies done for the State of New Hampshire use that different methodology, however, and they produce the same clear times. Likewise, Professor Herr complains that the evacuation of institutions was not explicitly modelled. While it is certainly true that institutions require particular planning, it is far from clear that the consideration of institutions will increase the resulting clear times, particularly where (as at Seabrook) roadway congestion is such as to afford a large window of time within which to execute evacuation strategies for the institutions. Once
it ranges from difficult to impossible to determine whether any of Professor Herr's testimony has any relevance. Second, Professor Herr did not offer his own competing value for the " correct" evacuation clear times for any of the Seabrook sectors. In the absence of such a study, there is no way that Professor Herr could know whether the values arrived at by the Applicants are within or without the " correct" range, and, more importantly, there is no way for the Board to determine whether any of Professor Herr's points would have any impact, even if some of Professor Herr's points had any merit (and we do not mean to suggest that they do).
again, the Maguire studies do model institutional evacuation and one again, they arrive at the same clear times as do the Applicants' studies. In essence, all that Professor Herr has done is to raise objections; he pointed out with alacrity that he had not done the work necessary to determine whether any of his objections would have any effect on the clear times. This results in his testimony being of limited assistance to the Board.
A Comparison of Studies. MassAG proposes a number of conclusions based upon a comparison of the Applicants' evacuation time studies with studies done by others. MassAG Findings at 14-15. These conclusions are unwarranted. First, one sails rather blindly into shoal waters when one begins to draw inferences from differing results of two or more studies without making any examination of the differences -- both methodological and with respect to assumptions -- between the studies. In fact, the studies in question use different assumptions and different analytical methodologies. E.g., Tr. 1330-31 (8/18/83). (The Maguire study, for instance, uses a different value for the adverse weather effect upon highway capacity than does the Applicants' studies, and the PNL study requires drivers to stick to the pre-programmed routes, even if the pre-programmed route is blocked and another equally available route is open.)
Second, if one sets about to do comparisons, it is essential that what is compared be, in fact, comparable; to compare differing time estimates for the
1 evacuation of different geographic areas is meaningless. Yet this is exactly what MassAG proposes in its proposed finding No. 44; MasaAG is aware (and the Board may take judicial notice, to the axtant that the studies are before it) that the sectors analyzed in different studies, though labelled the same, covered different geographic areas. (The Board may be assisted in comparing the sectional coverages of the Applicants' I
study and the Maguire study by Table 1 of the Applicants Rebuttal Testimony (p. 38).)
If, however, one is bent upon a comparison analysis of the several evacuation time studies, despite the limitations of such an approach, the comparison leads to far different conclusions than those advanced by MassAG. For a comparable area, the " entire EPZ" case, the several studies referred to by MassAG's witness predict the following times:
Study Time Applicants 6 hr. 5 min. (6.08 hr.)
FEMA (Voorhees) 6 hr. 10 min. (6.17 hr.)
N.H. CDA (Maguire) 5 hr. 50 min. (5.83 hr.)
NRC (PNL) 11 hr. 40 min. (11.67 hr.)
Based on these numbers, the only permissible inference is that the PNL study is out of line and the other
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three are in confirmatory agreement. (The mean of the first three studies is 6.03 hrs.; the standard deviation is .18 hrs. (10 minutes). Adding the fourth increases the mean value to 7.44 hrs. and the standard
- deviation to 2.83 hrs.) The first three studies are within 10 minutes of one another, on the average, while the PNL study is off in outer space. See the figure reproduced on the next page.
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4 Preparation Times. Assuming that the Board determines to consider the question of preparation times afresh (see infra at 17-18), the Applicants offer the following argument: MassAG urges a number of findings that are ultimately premised on something of a word game, and upon the failure to distinguish between, on the one hand, explicitly modelling the physical acts 4
of preparation for an evacuation and, on the other hand, constructing a model that accounts for the time that would be spent in doing the same preparation uithout actually modelling preparation explicitly and separately.
The original contention of Professor Herr was that the Applicants' evacuation time studies did not consider preparation times at all, i.e., that the resulting numbers assumed an instantaneous preparation for evacuation. " Affidavit of Philip B. Herr" (filed May 27, 1983) at 2 (1 4). To the contrary, the evidence was that, for the Seabrook area, preparation time, as a factual phenomenon, is captured by the congested nature of the roadway links, by the queuing time that results therefrom, and, in the model, by the use of loading rates to model the introduction of cars i
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- into the roadways. In essence, the Applicants' time studies model the evacuees' automobiles as if they were sitting at the side of the road waiting to enter, because for the purpose of determining clear times it is quite irrelevant whether the vehicles are sitting at the side of the roadway waiting to enter or sitting in the driveway waiting for passengers to prepare. Tr.
1038-39, 1047-59. The point is that preparation time and queuing time are both delays that occur prior to the time that the vehicles enter into the evacuation roadway network, and it simply makes no difference where one assumes the car is waiting -- or why one assumes it is waiting -- as long as you assume that it is waiting. Clear times will be governed by the less constraining of either queuing time or preparation time and, at Seabrook, the roadway capacity is such that queuing time is the gating consideration:
"[T]he physical characteristics -- and what I mean to include by that term is the population and the road network -- are such [at Seabrook] that the actual time for people to get onto the highway network is really not governed by preparation time to any extent, becasue it's really governed by the limitations and the characteristics of the highway network. . . . [T]he time it takes for the network to be loaded, for the people to get into their vehicles and onto the highways, onto the roads and highways, is long enough that whatever preparation l
could reasonably be expected could take place.
That's the situation with regard to Seabrook.
"And how the model treats that is almost irrelevant in that the time is available for that to occur, which is why we didn't feel the need to make an extensive study of preparation time."
Tr. 1049-51.
The Staff expert agreed entirely with this analysis. Tr. 1312-14:
"[T]he importance of [ judgment with respect to certain characteristics of the particular areal varies widely by site, and the iniportance of that judgment at Seabrook is very minimal. . . . I would categorize sites into two categories: high-density and low-density sites. And in low-density sites, a site located in a small, rural farmin; community, preparation times would be a significant component of the evacuation time of that particular
-- may be a significant factor of that site; whereas people could drive out of the site due to its low density, say, in five, 10, 15 minutes, it might take, say, up to two hours for farmers to close down their operation and leave.
"So if you didn't account for preparation time in that rural site in the proper manner, you might I have an unduly low time estimate.
"In a higher density site like Seabrook, the preparation time is almost of very little consequence. All you have to have during the first part of the evacuation is enough people available to utilize the particular roadway, so if 10 percent of the population is not ready for two hours, well, evacuation could take six hours; it doesn't matter whether they're ready in cwo hours, three hours, four hours or five hours, because they're going to have to wait, anyway, to get out."
I
Moreover, the accuracy of this approach for the Seabrook area was proved by the running of a aensitivity study that employed an explicit consideration of preparation times using a distribution function similar to the one suggested in NUREG-0654.
Tr. 1058. The resulting clear times were the same.
Id. We therefore suggest that algument to the effect that the Applicants' time studies do not account for preparation times is false, and reflects only a failure of comprehension on the part of the proponent of the argument.
Miscellaneous Points. MassAG purports to accept the Applicants' offer to have the Board admit the testimony of Professor Herr on the question of preparation times, in lieu of additional hearings on the point, should the Board determine on reconsideration to reverse its earlier allowance of summary disposition. MassAG Findings at 3-4. It should be pointed out, however, that the Applicants' remain of the view that the granting of summary disposition on this question was correct, see
" Applicants' Response to ' Motion of Attorney General Francis X. Bellotti for Leave to File Responses . . ."
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(filed October 12, 1983) at 7-9, and any assertion by MassAG that the Applicants have conceded error in the Board's initial ruling would be erroneous. Moreover, the only portions of Professor Herr's testimony to which the Applicants' offer extended was that going to the question of preparation times; the Applicants made no suggestion that all of the stricken portions of Professor Herr's testimony be received, and there would be no warrant for doing so. Any portion of Professor Herr's testimony that related to preparation times was inadmissible because it was irrelevant; other portions, such as that having to do with transmission and distribution system reliability (see the stricken portions of Herr at 4 and 5, post Tr. at 1196), was inadmissible because it was incompetant.
Paragraphs 1 and 2 of MassAG's proposed findings, if accepted, would be false. As of the time of the hearings (and as of the present), Appendix C does contain the material described, it having been amended to includc the material in Applicants' Exhibit 2.
Paragraph 9 of MassAG's proposed findings, as stated and without qualification, isn't quite so. What the witnesses said was that if they ran the model upon
an assumption of peak population and adverse weather throughout the evacuation, then the result would be 9 hours1.041667e-4 days <br />0.0025 hours <br />1.488095e-5 weeks <br />3.4245e-6 months <br /> and 15 minutes. In the same breath, however, they said that, in their professional opinion, such was not a realistic scenario, since either the weather must be adverse before the alarm is given, in which case it is not reasonable to expect a peak ber.ch population, or the wea'cher must commence deteriorating after the alarm is given, in which case a portion of the evacuation is not affected by the diminished roadway capacities that set in as the deterioration in the weather progresses.
App. Dir. No. 1 at 20-21, post Tr. 1016. As a result, the 9 hour-15 minute estimate represents the most that an adverse weather-large population evacuation could take, but it is not quite so that it represents the Applicants' estimate of the actual time that an evacution would take in the real world "on a summer weekend in adverse weather." (MassAG Findings at 6.)
The testimony at the cited pages of 1106-07 does not support MassAG's proposed finding No. 9.
The testimony.at the cited pages of 1325, 1328-29 does not support MassAG's proposed finding No. 10.
Proposed findings 18 and 19 cannot be made on this record. Even if it accepted that people flock to the beach in the fog, there is no basis in this record (or in common sense) for concluding that people flock to the beach in the pouring rain. Nor was there evidence offered that would support such an incredible hypothesis. This being so, the proposed findings are not related to the " peak population / adverse weather" scenario to which the restated contentions were limited. (Moreover, the only evidence about the frequency of flooding to the extent that it would be regarded as severe was Professor Herr's 6-inches of water speculation of one time per year. Evacuation time studies are not supposed to gauge the time for evacuation under conditions so severe that they occur one time per year, and they would be quite useless for their intended purpose if they did.)
Proposed Findings of NHAG NHAG offered neither testimony nor proposed findings on this contention.
Proposed Findings of SAPL Preparation Times. SAPL, too, offers a number of proposed findings that are based upon an apparent
failure of understanding of how the Applicants' evacuation time estimates account for preparation times. See discussion with respect to the MassAG proposed findings, supra.
Adverse Weather Factors. SAPL offers proposed findings on the basis for the selection of a 30%
highway capacity reduction factor to account for adverse weather that are based on incomplete assessment of the testimony and, in context, are distortions of the record. What SAPL attempts to dismiss as "a study of rainfall effects in Texas," was in reality described by the witness in these terms:
"We have been working on the subject of evacuation time estimates for several years now, and have conducted rather extensive literature searches to obtain whatever documented results of studies as regards adverse weather that exist. We have really only found two such references. One --
and I guess the predominant one that is most often quoted -- talks about the effect of rainfall on expressway capacity, a study, I believe, done in Texas, where they experience some fairly heavy rains.
l "The conclusion of that study was that under rain conditions, capacity has been observed to be reduced from between 86 and 81 percent of the dry l weather capacity. That is a range of 14 to 19 l percent reduction in capacity, so, to be somewhat more conservative than the only reference work we could find, we use a factor of 30 percent.
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Tr. 1069-70. It bears observation that the only reference that Professor Herr was able to cite, either at his deposition or at the hearings, was fully consistent with these values. Tr. 1208-10.
We submit that SAPL's proposed findings should not be made by the Board.
Zero Capacity Evacuation. SAPL constructs certain arguments based on the proposition that under certain circumstances the roadways over which an evacuacion of at least the beach area must occur would be wholly impassible. Assuming for the moment that this is a real potential (Professor Herr steadfastly declined to offer any evidence on tae frequency of flooding, his notion of a severe flood was one that would result in a 6-inch water depth on the roadway (which, while it would certainly reduce highway capacity, hardly makes the road impassible), and the only anecdotal evidence offered concerned the Blizzard of 1978, which was probably a record low day for blanket-bound beachgoers), SAPL fails to see that this is quite irrelevant for purposes of NUREG-0654 type analyses.
If the local roads are impassible, then no evacuation is feasible, and considerations of protective action
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n recommendations will take this into account.
Governmental officials don't need studies to tell them that evacuees can't pass over impassible roads.
The Omission of Portsmouth. As SAPL notes, the I
Applicants' evacuation time studies, the base cases for which were done before the city of Portsmouth was included in the EPZ, did not include the city of Portsmouth. SAPL studiously avoids suggesting that this has any significance, howeve-t for reasons that we think are obvious: Portsmouth is at the very periphery of the EPZ and could not possibly have any effect on the clear time (i.e., the estimated time that the last vehicle to leave leaves).
Even Professor Herr did not assert that inclusion of Portsmouth in the EPZ would have any effect on the clear times, no doubt because Professor Herr had the Maguire evacution time studies done for the New l Hampshire Civil Defense Agency before him. Herr Direct at 2, post Tr. 1196. The Maguire studies were run t
! after Portsmouth was designated for inclusicn in the 1
EPZ (Maguire at II-5, Table 1), and the resulting clear time for the entire EPZ case is the same as the i
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Applicants'. SAPL should have taken its cue from Professor Herr on this point.
The Question of a Minimum Acceptable Clear Time.
SAPL proposes a number of findings that suggest that SAPL believes that there is some maximum clear time that, if evacuation cannot be completed with which, requires denial of an operating license. See its proposed findings Nos. 33, 39. SAPL then constructs a somewhat unintelligible argument to the same effect:
" Applicants [ conclude] that evacuation is
'always feasible,' which suggests that estimates only serve to identify the most favorable ycotective action alternative. This position is incorrect as a matter of law; the Applicants have not met their burden of proving that evacuation time estimates, as an indication of evacuation
' feasibility', contribute in any way to the requisite findings that on-site and off-site emergency preparedness mus'a provide reasonable assurance that adequate protective measures can and will be taken in the event of a radiological emergency. . . ."
SAPL Proposed Findings at 12.
We are not certain what it is that SAPL is contending, but we have a suspicion that SAPL believes that the regulations of 10 CFR Part 50 impose some heretofore undiscovered minimum feasibility (i.e.,
maximum clear time) that, if not met, precludes the use of the Seabrook site for the operation of a nuclear power plant. SAPL is wrong. Part 50 and Appendix E are not site selection criteria; to the contrary, Part 100, with its own concept of evacuation feasibility, is the applicable site selection criterion. Seabrook has already been determined to be an acceptable site under the Part 100 criteria, and litigation of site suitability is no longer open. There is no time criterion in Appendix E. Cincinnati Gas & Electric Company (Wm. H. Zimmer Nuclear Power Station, Unit No.
1), ALAB-727, 17 NRC 760, 770.(1983).
Proposed Findings of NECNP For the rest part the deficiencies of the proposed findings on evacuation time estimates of NECNP are similar to points already made with respect to SAPL and MassAG. The assertion that "[t]he Applicants' evacuation time estimates do not include notification and preparation time" is, as has already been pointed out, manifestly incorrect. Mr. Merlino and Dr. Urbanik did not testify that they felt that "the effect of notification time would be minimal on the estimates;"
what they said was that the effect of explicitly modelling preparation activities would produce a minimal effect, if any at all, on the clear times. Tr.
1049-59; Tr. 1312-14. We suspect that NECNP simply doesn't understand what it is talking about.
The assertion that " Applicants' evacuation time estimates did not account for poor driver behavior or disobedience of traffic controls . . ." suggests the omission of a concededly necassary item; what the Applicants' witnesses said (with the full agreement of the Staff expert) was that there was no basis for concluding that there was any such phenomenon to account for. Chief Mark's anecdote is quite beside the point; one man trying to enter a cleared area suggests nothing about evacuation times (for the rest of the population, at least); and the only published study on the point suggests that the guiding assumption is that in an emergency people will do what they are told by authorities to do. See Tr. 1098-99.
As is pointed out above (see note 3), it is a distortion to say that " Applicants' evacuation time estimates do not take into account the time needed to evacuate special facilities in the Seabrook EPZ, such as schools, hospitals and nursing homes." What was said was that these have not been explicitly modelled.
No one has testified that these activities will
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increase the time required for the evacuation of the last automobile from the zone, and the only evidence before the Board is quite to the contrary.
NECNP's proposed finding No. 50 is, we submit, quite unacceptable. In support of the distinctly counter-intuitive proposition that people will flock to the beach in record numbers in a storm or severe fog, NECNP cites only the single experience recited by Professor Herr. Prescinding from the many difficulties with Professor Herr's testimony on this unusual execrsion of his, the fact remains that, if taken at face value, Professor Herr's testimony demonstrates that one could drive twice the length of New Hampshire's coast (about 18 miles each way, or 36 miles round trip) in 6-8 hours (including stops) notwithstanding the record crowds, the traffic-choked roadways and the dense fog. Tr. 1239-40, 1277-78.
Given that the longest any vehicle has to drive to evacuate is less than one-third this distance, Professor Herr's testimony hardly supports the
strange proposition for which it is advanced.4 CLASSIFICATION SCHEME Proposed Findings of MassAG MassAG offered neither testimony nor proposed findings on this cont.antion.
Proposed Findings of NECNP The Unspecified Values. NECNP offers the following language for the Board's adoption: "many of the
- Professor Herr's little trip implies an average speed of 4.5-6.0 mph (i.e., 36/8 = 4.5; 36/6 = 6.0. At that rate, one could cover 10 miles in 1 hr.-40 min. to 2 hr.-13 min. Ten miles, however, is the most that a vehicle should have to travel in order to clear the EPZ; for other values the clear time implied by the achieved overall average speed of Professor Herr on this adverse conditiens day are as follows:
Speed 2._5 mi. 5.0 mi. 7.5 mi. 10 mi.
4.5 33 min. I hr. 7 min. I hr. 40 min. 2 hr. 13 min 6.0 25 min. 50 min. I hr. 15 min. I hr. 40 min.
emergency action levels were incomplete with regard to the specific plant conditions that would trigger a particular EAL." This is false. What is referred to is the fact that, with respect to certain of the EAL's, the plant-specific condition has not yet been translated into a quantified instrumentation value (or
" set point"). In no sense is the condition that triggers the EAL unspecified -- indeed, the present format gives a reviewer far more information about the nature of the condition that is contemplated than would be presented by mere naked numbers. Given that both the instrumentation value that will ultimately be substituted and the descriptive condition as it is presently set forth by definition describe the same phenomenon, the assertion that something is unspecified is simply not so. (It should be noted that neither at the hearing nor in its proposed findings did NECNP contend that any of the plant conditions presented by the Applicants were inappropriate for the use to which they are being put.)
The only task that remains is to calculate the instrumentation values. This is, at best, a ministerial task. It might perhaps be a fit subject for a later contention, limited to the proposition that one or more of the descriptive phenomena have been incorrectly translated, after the values have been calculated. It has no other effect on the finality of the EAL's.
The Supposely Omitted Protective Action Recommendations and Training Program. NECNP proposes certain objections to the Applicants' classification scheme on the ground that the EAL's do not contain protective action recommendations. For two independently sufficient reasons, these objections do not lie. First, nothing in NUREG-0654 requires that EAL's contain protective action recommendations; all that NUREG-0654 says on the point is that the EAL's (together with other things) are to be used in connection with making protective action recommendations. Second, the admitted contention (NECNP III.1) contains six very specific respects in which the classification scheme and EAL's are supposedly deficient; the omission of protective action recommendations is simply not among them. NECNP's proposed findings on this score, therefore, should not be adopted by the Board.
Finally, NECNP offers proposed findings based on the supposed defects in the Applicants' training program. Prescinding from the other deficiences in NECNP's proposed findings, the fact of the matter is that training, as a separate topic, is also not an issue for litigation in the most recent hearings. Not only is it, too, not included within the scope of the admitted contention (NECNP III.1), but to the extent that training in connection with emergency response activities is a litigable issue in this proceeding at all, it is the subject of another contention (NECNP III.3), which has been deferred.
Classification of Fires and Control Room Evacuation. NECNP raises two challenges to the Applicants' classification scheme. The first relates to the classification of fires; the second, to control room evacuations. Each arose in a procedurally peculiar way, in that each was based on a carefully and I
precisely phrased question, neither was raised when the Applicants' panel was on the stand (so that an explanation or elucidation might have been obtained),
and when each was raised with the Staff witness, NECNP did not point out the purpose of its inquiry (so as to i
call attention to the issue and, hopefully, have it resolved). What NECNP proposes, therefore, is the making of relatively important findings on the basis of a record that is cryptic -- and apparently designedly (by NECNP) so.
This tactical approach, which does little to promote the resolution of issues, is sufficient by itself to warrant the Board's dismissing NECNP's concerns altogether. Nevertheless, to alleviate any residual concern that there may be some glaring deficiency in the classification scheme with public health and safety implications, we point out why NECNt's challcnges are without basis.
NECNP's first challenge, premised on an evacuation of the control room, was framed in these terms:
"if the Applicants . . were to lose control or were to evacuate the control room without "
control of the remote shutdown pane 1[s] . . . .
Tr. 1726. (In fact, there are two redundant remote shutdown locations at Seabrook, FSAR $ 7.4.2, as amended by Amendment 49.)
The Applicants' classification scheme classifies an evacuation of the control room without control from a remote shutdown location as a site area emergency.
App. Dir., Post Tr. 1483, Ex. 1, Table A.3 ( I t e.:. 1 2 b ) ,
Table A.S. NUREG-0654 classifies an evacuation of the control room with " control of shutdown systems not established from local stations in 15 minutes" as a site area emergency. NUREG-0654, Rev. 1, App. 1, p. 1-14 (item 18). The two are perfectly consistent.
(Actually, the Applicants' classification is far more stringent, since it does not explicitly contain the 15-minute grace period. and since it requires control from the remote shutdown panel, while the NUREG classification permits control of shutdown functions from any local station. There are ways of shutting the reactor down without use of either the control room or the either of the remote shutdown panels.) NECNP's argument is based on a equation of control room evacuation without control from the remote shutdcwn panels with a " loss cf physical control." This equation NECNP bases on a question posed to the Staff witness without the benefit of context. Tr. 1726-27.
Plainly, however, NUREG-0654 does not permit the making of the equation for purposes of emergency classification, because it does not make it itself.
NECNP's interpretation is simply inconsistent with the
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plain words of the document and would render page 1-14, item 18 completely nugatory.
NECNP's second challenge is based on a question that was phrased precisely in terms of "a fire affecting one train of safety realted equipment, with a potential for affecting the other train . . . ." Tr.
1727. However, this question did not distinguloh between controlled and uncontrolled fires. (Under the Applicants' classifiction scheme and emergency action levels, a " controlled fire which affects only one train of safety-related equipment with the potential for affecting the other train" is an Alert (Table A.2, Item lla), while an " uncontrolled fire which affects safety-related equipment" is a Site Area Emergency (Table A.3, Item lib). The former is consistent with NUREG-0654, Rev. 1, App. 1, p. 1-9 (item 13) (" fire potentially affecting safety systems" is an alert), and the second is consistent with id., p. 1-13 (item 11) (" fire compromising the functions of safety systems" is a site area emergency). NECNP's argument is premised on ignoring completely the redundancy in the safety system control function; if only one train is affected, safety systems are at best "potentially" affected since, as
long as the other train is operating, the safety systems remain operable.
One other point should be borne in mind. The Staff witness,.Mr. Sears, was at one point asked whether the Applicants' had failed to classify any events that ought to have been classified. His response was in the negative. Tr. 1722-24. This strongly suggests that, had NECNP raised its issue in a more straightforward way, it would not have received answers consistent with the proposed findings it now asks the Board to make.
For these reasons, the challenges of NECNP should be rejected.
Proposed Findings of NHAG For the most part, the proposed findings of NHAG support the Applicants' classification scheme and emergency action levels (which, given the cooperation between the Applicants and the New Hampshire civil defense officials in this area, is hardly surprising).
NHAG makes two points, however, to which a response is required.
First, NHAG argues that the EAL's are somehow tentative, in part because the instrumentation values correlating to certain plant conditions have not yet
been calculated, and in part because the document is subject to revision. The first point has already been responded to; the second cannot be accepted because any document is subject to revision. The question is not whether a future revision is possible, but rather whether the document now in place meets the
, requirements. The time to litigate the significance of any revisions is when the revisions have been made.
The second and more serious point made by NHAG is that 10 CFR Part 50, App. E requires consultation and concensus with the governmental officials on emergency action levels, and the testimony at the hearings was to the effect that the state officials have not, as of that time, officially " signed off" on the EAL's. We suggest that this argument is a bit disingenuous, inasmuch as NHAG knows that the New Hampshire officials have been involved in the design of the EAL's and have indicated their agreement with them thus far. More to the point, however, there is no need to keep the litigation open pending a determination as to whether or not the state concurrence is forthcoming; that is distinctly a matter that is appropriate for delegation to the Staff.
Proposed Findings of SAPL SAPL offered neither testimony nor proposed findings on this contention.
Respectfully submitted, f 7' ^ j N
Thomas G. Djgn n, Jr. '
R. K. Gad TII Ropes & Gray 225 Franklin Street Boston, Massachusetts 02110 Telephone: 423-6100 Dated: November 23, 1983
CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE I, R. K. Gad III, one of the attorneys for the Applicants herein, hereby certify that on November 23, 1983, I made service of the within " APPLICANTS' RESPONSE TO PROPOSED FINDINGS OF MASSAG, NHAG, SAPL AND NECNP" by mailing copies thereof, postage prepaid, to:
Helen Hoyt, Chairperson Diana P. Randall Atomic Safety and Licensing 70 Collins Street Board Panel Seabrook, NH 03874 U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Washington, DC 20555 Dr. Emmeth A. LuebNe William S. Jordan, III, Esquire Atomic Safety and Licensing Harmon & Weiss Beard Panel 1725 I Street, N.W.
U S. Nuclear Regulatory Suite 506 Commission Washington, DC 20006 Washington, DC 20555 Dr. Jerry Harbour G. Dana Bisbee, Esquire Atomic Safety and Licensing Assistant Attorney General Board Panel Office of the Attorney General U.S. Nuclear Regulatory 208 State House Annex Commission Concord, NH 03301 Washington, DC 20555 Atomic Safety and Licensing Roy P. Lessy, Jr., Esquire Board Panel Office of the Executive Legal U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Director Commission U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Washington, DC 20555 Comr.ii s sion Washington, DC 20555 Atomic Safety and Licensing Robert A. Backus, Esquire Appeal Board Panel 116 Lowell Street U.S. Nuclear Regulatory P.O. Box 516 Commission Manchester, NH 03105 Washington, DC 20555 l
1
s Philip Ahrens, Esquire Anne Verge, Chairperson '
Assistant Attorney General Board of Selectmen Department of the Attorney Town Hall General South Hampton, NH Augusta, ME 04333 Carole F. Kagan, Esquire Jo Ann Shotwell, Esquire Atomic Safety and Licensing Assistant Attorney General Board Panel Environmental Protection Bureau U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Department of the Attorney General Commission One Ashburton Place, 19th Floor Rm. E/W-439 Boston, MA 02108 Washington, DC 20555 Charles Cross, Esquire Ms. Olive L. Tash Shaines, Madrigan & McEachern Designated Representative of 25 Maplewood Avenue the Town of Brentwood P. O. Box 366 R.F.D. 1, Dalton Road Portsmouth, NH 03842 Brentwood, NH 03833 Ms. Roberta C. Pevear Mr. Patrick J. McKeon Designated Representative of Selectmen's Office the Town of Hampton Falls 10 Central Road Drinkwater Road Rye, NH 03870 Hampton Falls, NH 03844 Mrs. Sandra Gavutis Mr. Calvin A. Canney Designated Representative of City Manager the Town of Kensington City Hall RED 1 126 Daniel Street East Kingston, NH 03827 Portsmouth, NH 03801 Senator Gordon J. Humphrey Mr. Angie Machiros U.S. Senate Chairman of the Washington, D.C. 20510 Board of Selectmen (Attn: Tom Burack) Town of Newbury Newbury, MA 01950 Senator Gordon J. Humphrey Mr. Richard E. Sullivan 1 Pillsbury Street Mayor Concord, NH 03301 City Hall (Attn: Herb Boynton) Newburyport, MA 01950 Mr. Donald E. Chick Town Manager's Office Town Manager Town Hall Town of Exeter Friend Street 10 Front Street Amesbury, MA 01913 Exeter, NH 03833 Brian P. Cassidy, Esquire Brentwood Board of Selectmen Regional Counsel RFD Dalton Road Federal Emergency Management Brentwood, NH 03833 Agency - Region I 442 POCH Boston, MA 02109 I '-
t R. K. Gad I ) ^
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