ML20135J067
| ML20135J067 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Fort Calhoun  |
| Issue date: | 08/01/1985 |
| From: | Breheny P Federal Emergency Management Agency |
| To: | Martin R NRC OFFICE OF INSPECTION & ENFORCEMENT (IE REGION IV) |
| References | |
| NUDOCS 8509250186 | |
| Download: ML20135J067 (2) | |
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,,4 60-z.85 Federal Emergency Management Agency Region VII 911 Walnut Street Kansas City, Missouri 64106 AUG l 1985 E@SO
[S A Robert D. Martin, Regional Administrator i
U.S. NRC, Region IV i
611 Ryan Plaza Drive., Suite 100
' #E - 5 E Arlington, Texas 76011 f
f Dear Mr.
p 6 I am writing to express a concern held by FEMA Region VII over the issue of offsite planning and preparedness on the part of Omaha Public Power District.
A series of issues over the past year or more has given rise to this concern, with the latest matter occurring during the most recent exercise.
The matter at hand is the request by OPPD officials, to myself and members of my staff, for this Region to allow the silencing of a siren in the area of Blair, Nebraska, during the official A&N test because of a reported request by a local citizen that said siren vould frighten his herd of cattle.
While I am concerned that our actions not create any undue consternation for the populace, I am required to implement the offsite planning and preparedness efforts in such a way to ensure, as much as possible, the safety of all the people in the EPZ around this, and every Nuclear Power Plant, over which this Region has jurisdiction.
A last minute request, such as that made by Mr. Jones of OPPD, is clearly one that I could not accept.
However, as I mentioned at the beginning of this letter, Mr. Jones' request raised again the matter of OPPD's overall seeming lack of committment to offsite planning and preparedness.
To be specific, I offer the following an examples:
Exercise after exercise, OPPD continues to develop scenarios designed chiefly to evaluate onsite capabilties with little regard for what is to be accomplished offsite, other than which State is to receive the plume in a particular year.
Radiological field data is generated without consultation with the two States and the monitoring equipment available to the States.
This year,1985, we notified the scenario developers of our concerns directly to keep within the milestone schedule and copied the States and NRC.
OPPD responded by stating they were unable to provide the information in the ' format requested and complained to your office of our direct contact.
Then, the night before the exercise, OPPD informed our evaluators that the field data had indeed been changed, at the request of your office, which also vanted the data in counts per minute (cpm) rather than in microcuries per cubic centimeter
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(u C1/cc).
In its conversion, OPPD decided to reduce the data by 7,)y a factor of 10.
However, in making this change, if the States were
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to base all decisions on field data, radioiodines were reduced to the proportion that any KI decision-making and distribution vould be moot for the offsite authorities.
OPPD's last minute efforts did not change the source term, and.the OPPD computer continued feeding release data which indicated a high level of radiciodines which was in conflict with the field data.
In addition, field team data in the scenario was not in a form usable for field teams to define the plu=e.
Ingestion Pathway, and Recovery and Reentry were offsite objectives; yet, the OPPD scenario did not provide data on ground deposition.
These. situations would seem to indicate that OPPD is determined to continue to develop scenarios for in-house use only despite our expressed concerns.
Additionally, OPPD has not provided controllers for the field monitoring teams for Nebraska, as they have for Iowa.
Additionally, with the loss of acceptable local plans and attendant response capability in 1983, the State of Iowa was tasked with implementing a Compensatory Operations Plan, thereby assuming full responsibility for offsite plans and preparedness in Harrison and Pottavattamie Counties.
Despite the fact that there are still no local plans -- nor are those counties now responsible for any more than a support role -- OPPD continues to fund local goverments for offsite planning and preparedness around Ft. Calhoun, as if those governments were fully participating in the process.
The aggregation of these issues leads us to our concern for OPPD's committment to the element of offsite preparedness.
It is a concern we would like to have dispelled.
I would appreciate your review of the matt er.
I am confident that, working together, we can bring a satisfactory resolution to this issue.
Sincerely, Pat ek J. Breheny Regional Director FEMA - Region VII P.S.
We monitored the " frightened cattle" during the siren test
" polite yawn" to the soundingn their only response was a by the siren!!
cc: Fran Laden, Nebraska Civil Defense Jack Crandall, Iowa Office of Disaster Services Bill Brinck, EPA Region 7 Joe Keller, Idaho Nuclear Engineering Laboratory Ken Green, National Office