ML20093K047
| ML20093K047 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Diablo Canyon  |
| Issue date: | 07/27/1984 |
| From: | Norton B NORTON, BURKE, BERRY & FRENCH, PACIFIC GAS & ELECTRIC CO. |
| To: | NRC ATOMIC SAFETY & LICENSING APPEAL PANEL (ASLAP) |
| Shared Package | |
| ML20093K004 | List: |
| References | |
| OL, NUDOCS 8407300429 | |
| Download: ML20093K047 (13) | |
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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 00CKETED vue NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION t
BEFORE THE ATOMIC SAFETY AND LICENSING APPEAL BOARD
)
In the Matter of
)
)
PACIFIC GAS AND ELECTRIC
)
Docket Nos. 50-275 0.L.
COMPANY
)
50-323 0.L.
)
(Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power
)
Plant, Units 1 and 2)
)
)
ANSWER OF PACIFIC GAS AND ELECTRIC COMPANY IN OPPOSITION TO JOINT INTERVENORS' MOTION TO REOPEN THE RECORD ON SEISMIC ISSUES I
INTRODUCTION Following contested hearings hield intermittently over a period of three months, the Atomic Safety ~ and Licensing Board in this proceeding issued a Partial Initial Decision which held that the Diablo Canyon facility can withstand any earthquake that reasonably could be expected to occur at the site.
10 NRC 453 (September 27, 1979.)
The Joint Intervenors appealed that decision to the Atomic Safety and Licensing Appeal Board.
Before the Appeal Board could decide that appeal, Joint Intervenors moved to reopen the record to hear new evidence including that derived from I
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the 1979 Imperial Valley earthquake.
The Appeal Board granted the motion ( ALAB-598, 11 NRC 876 (June 24, 1980)),
heard the evidence itself during October, 1980, and issued a decision which covered the earlier appeal and the reopened hearing.
ALAB-644, 13 NRC 903 (June 16, 1981.)
That decision was appealed by the Joint Intervenors and Govenor Brown to 'the Nuclear Regulatory Commission which, on March 18, 1982,' declined to grant the petitions for review.
, l' An appeal from the Commission's decision was taken by Governor Brown to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit where it is being held in abeyance pending final NRC action on the full power license.
On July 16, 1984, Joint Intervenors filed a motion before the Appeal Board to reopen the record to receive what the Joint Intervenors allege is "rsignificant new information directly relevant to the seismic safety of the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant."
This pleading i's Pacific Gas and Electric Company's (PGandE's) answer in opposition to the r
Joint Intervenors' notion.
II JURISDICTION It is respectfully submitted that this Board does not have jurisdiction to entertain the instant motion.
Joint Intervenors have moved to reopen this proceeding more than two years after the Commission elected not to review ALAB-644.
The Commission's election not to review ALAB-644 r
i r
represents the agency's final action and this Board's authority over the seismic portion of the case is ended.
Public Service Company g Indiana Inc. (Marble Hill Nuclear Generating Station, Units 1 and 2), ALAB-530, 9 NRC 261, 262 (1979).
Jurisdiction is lacking even though the Board has before it other matters for adjudication.
Public Service Company g hiew Hampshire (Seabrook Station, Units 1 and 2),
ALAB-513, 8 NRC 694, 695 (1978).
Where the Board lacks.
jurisdiction, as it does in this case, the proper recourse is for the Joint Intervenors to petition the director of nuclear reactor regulation pursuant to 10 CFR $ 2.206 for consideration of their concerns.
Since the Board lacks jurisdiction of the seismic issue the motion to reopen should be summarily dismissed.
III ARGUMENT A.
Standards For Reopening A Closed Record And Admitting Late Filed Contentions It is well established that a party seeking to reopen'the record in a licensing proceeding carries "a heavy burden."
Kansas Gas and Electric Co,.
(Wolf Creek Generating Station, Unit No. 1), ALAB-462, 7 NRC 320, 338 (1978).
Just last month this Board reiterated the test for reopening a i
closed record in connection with Joint Intervenors' previous motions to reopen the record in design and construction quality assurance observing that:
, i
e
"[T]he motion must be both timely pre-sented and addressed to a significant safety or environmental issue.
Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Corporation (Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Station),
ALAB-138, AEC 520, 523 (1973);
Georgia Power Company (Alvin W.
Vogtle Nuclear Power Plant, Units 1 and 2),
ALAB-291, 2 NRC 404, 409 (1975).
Beyond
- that, it must be established that "a
different result would have been reached initially had [the material submitted in support of the motion) been considered.
Northern Indiana Public Service Capany (Bailley Generating Station, Nuclear-1),
ALAB-227, 8 AEC 426, 418 (1974)."
In the Matter of Pacific Gas and Electric Company (Di'Elo -Canyon Nuclear Power Plant Units 1 and 2) ALAB-775, 18 NRC (slip opinion at 6 (June 28, 1984).
In the instant motion the Joint Intervenors reference the standard (Motion at 2) and then proceed to ignore it other than to state the obvious that recent earthquakes and recent publications are "new" and then to argue that the motion is timely.
(Motion at 17-18.)
What the motion fails to argue is how the "new evidence" is significant or would have changed the previous result
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reached by this Board.
Indeed, while data presented in the i
motion is new, it is neither significant nor would it have lead this Board to a different conclusion.
In fact, as shown infra, the same arguments have been previously proffered to this Board with either the same data or data i
which is not significantly different from that which was previously available to the Board.
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We. respectfully submit that for the reasons set forth herein and the attached affidavits of Drs. Smith, i
- White, and Hamilton the Motion to Reopen should be denied. 1/
B.
The 1984 Morgan Hill Earthquake.
i Joint Intervenors argue that the record should be reopened "in order to receive new information material to the resolution of the critical seismic issues in this proceeding."
(Motion at 19. )
The motion and the Brune affidavit make great weight of the 1.29g horizontal acceleration from the Coyote Dam recording of the Morgan l
Mill earthquake of April 24, 1984.
Not only do they uphasize, literally, that this is the highest ever recorded horizontal acceleration, but they repeatedly compare it to the.75g anchored design spectra used for design at Diablo Canyon as if they were making a legitimate comparison.
In fact they are obviously and deliberately' misleading.
Dr.
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Brune and Joint Intervenors know full well that the.75g l
anchored design spectra used at Diablo Canyon was derived I
I If The attached affidavits of Dr.
Stewart Smith, Dr.
William White, and Dr. Douglas Hamilton are incorpo-rated.herein by reference.
The professional qualifica-tions of Dr. Smith, a geophysicist and Dr. Hamilton, a geologist, have previously been submitted to this Board i
in connection with the October, 1980, seismic hearings.
The qualifications of Dr. White, a structural engineer, l
were submitted in connection with the design quality i
assurance hearings before this Board in 1983 where Dr.
White was a witness.
i
from the 1.25g Pacoima Dam record 2/ and the 1.15g of USGS Circular 672.
Given the fact that the Coyote Dam record is only 3% higher than the Pacoima Dam record (1.29g v. 1.25g) one can hardly herald the Coyote Dam record as "significant new evidence" which would lead this Board to a different j
result.
(Smith aff. at 5-6)
The Pacoima Dam record was 4
testified a'nd argued 'about, and considered exhaustively by both the Licensing and Appeal Boards in this case.
Joint.
Intervenors offer nothing in either their motion or the Brune affidavit regarding the Coyote Dam record which could I
change the Board's prior decision.
In fact, all of the 1
spectra referred to by Dr. Brune, when appropriately i
modified to consider the effective acceleration concepts used for design purposes, are controlled by the Diablo Canyon design bases.-
(White aff. at 2-3.)
i C.
The 1980 Mexicali Valley Earthquake.
Dr. Brune's latest affidavit discusses at length i-the Victoria record of the Mexicali Valley earthquake of e
June 9, 1980 (MV80).
(Brune aff. at 12 g seg.)
The thrust i
of Brune's argument regarding MV80 is that the recording is 1
2)
The Pacoima Dam record from the 1971 San Fernando Valley earthquake was used at Diablo Canyon as the i
basis for the redesign response spectrum.
(13 NRC 903, 943)
Dr. Brune, in a very recently published paper, states the peak acceleration of the Pacoima Dam record was 1.25g, just 3% lower than'the Coyote Dam record of 1.29g.
- Brune, J.N.
(1984)
" Preliminary results on topographic seismic amplification effect on a
foam rubber model of the topography near Pacoima Dam.",
typical of the 1979 Imperial Valley earthquake (IV79) and that the Bond's Corners record from IV79 was a valid record.
He states MV80 had an M of 6.1 and an M, of 6.4 and the g
i Victoria record gave a horizontal acceleration of.98g and exceeded lg at several time points in the vertical j
direction.
(Brune aff. at 13.)
The Motion of Joint Intervenoirs takes this data from the Brune affidavit and i
calls it "new data," or "recent calculations" and states.
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that it shows this Board's characterization cf the Bond's Corner record was incorrect.
(Motion at 8.)
Both Dr. Brune and Joint Intervenors attempt to mislead this Board.
This is not "new data" or "recent calculations."
These very arguments were put forth by Dr. Brune at tne 1980 ALAB r
j seismic hearings.
At that time, Dr. Brune testified:
Yes.
The recent Victoria, Mexico earth-guake of January 9, 1980, magnitude 6.2 in nearly the same tectonic environment i
as the Imperial Valley
'79, earthquake recorded peak horizontal accelerations at a station approximately 11 kilometers from one epicenter of 0.5g on one horizontal component and 0.929 on the other horizontal component and vertical accelerations of over lg.
i Clipping the dynamic range of the kinemetric 1 3 instrument several times, this tends to confirm that the level of l
horizontal acceleration recorded for Imperial Valley 1979, for example, at i
Bonds Corner and the high vertical j
accelerations over lg are not unusual for a magnitude 6.2 earthquake in this tectonic environment.
l i
Unfortunately, parts of the record are unreliable or missing.
Even higher i
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accelerations may have occurred.
At the present time an accurate epicenter is not available.
There was no surface fault slip observed.
(Transcript,
- p. 663, Dr. Brune testifying on direct examination, October 22, 1980.) 3f Similarly, Dr. Brune made the same argument regarding the modeling work done by Dr. Frazier (hearing Tr.
628 g. s_g.) that he now makes in his current affidavit.
Clearly the data from the MV80 earthquake is not new evidence, the arguments set forth by Dr. Brune and Joint Intervenors based on that data are not new and, as this Board has already considered the evidence and arguments, a I
different result would, and indeed could, not be reached.
C.
The Location and Subsurface Geometry of the Hoeri Fault Dr. Brune neatly picks and chooses quotations from j
papers by Crouch et al., Eaton, and others to make the i
seemingly alarming statement that it is possible that the t
Hosgri fault could be less than 3 km b$ neath the Diablo I
Canyon site.
Dr. Brune is not a geologist, he has wandered r
l from his area of expertise, and, more importantly he is wrong.
The Hosgri fault is not any closer than j
approximately 8 to 10 km beneath the site.
(Hamilton aff.
j at 2)
In his selective pickings from the work of others, a
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The transcript indicates MV80 occurred on January 9, i
1980 as opposed to June 9, 1980.
It is not known whether Dr. Brune misspoke or the " January" is a tran-scription error, but the correct date of MV80 was i
Jane 9, 1980.
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Dr. Brune has ignored the essential facts which show him to be wrong.
He totally ignores those portions of Crouch g a_1_. and Eaton which make it clear that as one moves north along the Hosgri from its southern reaches, the fault changes from thrust or reverse faulting to right lateral strike slip.
(Hamilton aff. at 2-6)
Dr. Brune's use of Eaton's thrust mechaitism solutions for earthquakes considerably south of the Diablo Canyon site, while ignoring
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Eaton's strike-slip solutions for those north of the site (while, incidentially, using all of Eaton's earthquakes to opine the site is one of "high" seismicity) to allow him to use crouch et al.'s " worst" thrust fault plane to get the Hosgri fault 3 km under the site is, at best, less than intellectually' forthright.
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' As set forth in' the attached affidavits of Dr. Smith and Dr. Hamilton, the so-called "new evidence" proffered by Dr. Brune is certainly new to Joint Inthrvenors' experts who, as this Board undoubtedly recalls, were of the opinion during previous hearings that the Hosgri was a gigantic strike-slip fault several hundreds of kilometers in length, acting as a plate boundary, and having in excess of 100 km of strike slip motion over the past several million years.
All of the above. opinions have certainly been cast in grave doubt by the Crouch e al. paper and other recent work.
What Dr. Brune and Joint Intervenors fail to point out to this Board is that it was the Applicant's experts such as
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Drs. Smith, Jahns, Hamilton, Blume, Bolt, Seed, and others who informed the Licensing Board in 1978 that the Hosgri had a component of reverse faulting.
(Hamilton aff. at 4).
Indeed, Figure 36 from the Hamilton /Jahns direct testimony of 1978, which is affixed to the Hamilton affidavit attached hereto, shows diagramatically almost precisely the fault plane which would be predicted by the Croucli et al. and Eaton work.
(Hamilton aff. at 4)
Similarly, the "new".
l-amounts of offset or movement found by Crouch et al. and others, is indeed drastically different than that previously hypothesized by Joint Intervenors' experts.
It is in fact even less than what was testified to as most probable by Applicant's witnesses in 1978.
(Hamilton aff. at 6-9)
The "new" evidence supports clearly the previous testimony before this Board that little displacement, either thrust or strike slip, has occurred along the Hosgri during at least the last 7 million years.
(Hamilton aff.lat 9)
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D.
The Diablo Canyon Site Is Not One of Active Folds Dr. Brune, again wandering onto unfamiliar ground, points to the Coalinga earthquake of.19.83 as an example of how a major earthquake fault can be hidden, citing geologic authority, _and then postulating that such could happen at Diablo Canyon because " folds" exist at the Diablo Canyon
- site, again citing geologic authority.
(Brune aff. at 19-20)
As Dr. Brune has ventured into an area which he :
admits is out of his expertise, it is not clear whether he misleads through misunderstanding or otherwise, but it is abundantly clear that Diablo Canyon is not a candidate for a l
hidden coalinga type earthquake as he postulates.
It is important in the context of Brune's comment that "there is no known reason why concealed thrust faulting of the type observed for the Coalinga earthquake could not occur near the Diablo Canyon site" to note that Stein and King (cited by Brune) are referring specifically to active folds and that topographically conspicuous folds are present at the locations of all of the examples they cite.
Furthermore, i
they show that rapid surface deformation of one to several meters vertical extent occurred in connection with each i
i example.
This is highly significant in that it shows that
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active folds are manifested by readily detectable evidence j
of deformation of the ground surface (including the sea i
floor).
Conversely folds that are not l" active" (or for
{r which the rate of deformation, hence internal fault slip, is so low as to not create deformation of a surface datum), do
)
not have surface expression other than possibly, through differential erosion.
(Hamilton aff. at 11.)
With regard to the region of the Hosgri fault, I
detailed study (e.g. Diablo Canyon FSAR Appendix D,
- 1974, I
and Appendix E, 1975) has shown that folds. associated with the Hoagri fault lie within the rock section that has been bevelled by erosion some 10,000-15,000 years ago, and that i l
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y this datum is not itself folded.
Hence such folds, I
including those cited by Brune as laaving been shown on Plate 2, USGS Open-File Report 74-252 Ly H. C. Wagner, are not active.
In contrast, the fold identified as the offshore Lompoc anticline and fault, located 13 km west of the Hosgri fault and 40 km south of Diablo Canyon, is an obvious example of an active fold.
This feature has previously been identified as a likely source of the M7.3.
7 Lompoc earthquake of 1927 (e.g. ASLB testimony by Hamilton and Jahns, p. 127 (1978) and by Smith, p. 25, (1978), and ALAB testimony by Hamilton,
- p. IX 1-5 (1980).
(Hamilton aff. at 11-12.)
IV CONCLUSION Joint Intervenors have filed yet another motion in a series of last minute efforts to stop the operation of I
Diablo Canyon.
The motion does not meet the burden established by Wolf Creek, supra, and must be denied.
Joint Intervenors have once again failed to bring forth j
- significant new evidence relating to safety matters which i
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would cause this Board to decide any differently than it already has en the seismic issues in this matter.
Respectfully submitted, ROBERT OHLBACH PHILIP A. CRANE, JR.
RICHARD F. LOCKE DAN G. LUBBOCK Pacific Gas and Electric Company P. O. Box 7442 San Francisco, CA 94120 (415) 781-4211 ARTHUR C. GEHR Snell & Wilmer l
3100 Valley Bank Center Phoenix, AZ 85073 (602) 257-7288 BRUCE NORTON THOMAS A. SCARDUZIO, JR.
Norton, Burke, Berry & French, P.C.
P. O. Box 10569 Phoenix, AZ 85064 (602) 955-2446 Attorneys for Pacific Gas and Electric Company By Bruce Norton DATED:
July 27, 1984.,