ML20137J276

Memorandum & Order Denying Applicant Current Mgt Views & Plan for Resolution of All Issues,Request That Proceeding Be Declared Moot & Case Proposal Re Summary Disposition of Motions.Served on 850829

ML20137J276
Person / Time
Site:	Comanche Peak
Issue date:	08/29/1985
From:	Bloch P, Grossman H, Jordan W, Mccollom K Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel
To:	Citizens Association for Sound Energy, TEXAS UTILITIES ELECTRIC CO. (TU ELECTRIC)
References
CON-#385-376 79-430-06-OL, 79-430-6-OL, LBP-85-32, OL, OL-2, NUDOCS 8508300206
Download: ML20137J276 (10)

Text

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5ERVED MUG z u 1985 LBP-85-32 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION y ,y . ,. .

Before Administrative Judges:

Peter B. Bloch, Chairman M M 29 P3:19 Dr. Kenneth A. McCollom Dr. Walter H. Jordan Herbert Grossman, Esq. .f y; 9 g, ', g ,

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In the Matter of ) Docket Nos. 50-445-0L & OL-2

) 50-446-)L & OL-2

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TEXAS UTILITIES ELECTRIC COMPANY, et al.)

- --- ) ASLBP No. 79-430-06 OL (Comanche Peak Steam Electric Station, )

Units 1 and 2) )

) August 29, 1985 MEMORANDUM AND ORDER MEMORANDUM (Proposal for Governance of this Case)

This Memorandum addresses crucial procedural issues raised by Texas Utilities Electric Company, et al. (Applicants) in " Applicants' Current Management Views and Management Plan for Resolution of All Issues,"

(Management Plan) June 28, 1985.1 It also addresses issues raised by CASE in " CASE's Proposal Regarding Design / Design QA Issues in Response to Applicants' 6/28/85 Current Management Views and Management Plan for Resolution of All Issues" (CASE's Proposal) August 15, 1985.

I Citizens' Association for Sound Energy (CASE) responded on July 29, 1985 (Initial Response) and on July 16 (Mootness Res Staff of the Nuclear Regulatcry Commission (Staff)ponse) respondedand on the August 2, 1985 (Staff Response).

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b Governance: 2 The Board finds that it would not be proper to adopt the Management Plan as the sole basis for continued litigation of this case. The Plan contemplates complex factual and legal determinations. Focusing the entire proceeding on the adequacy of the Plan, prior to its execution, would abnegate our responsibility to determine the merits of CASE's contention. This would be particularly ironic because CASE raised many of the design and quality assurance issues that are being addressed by the Management Plan.

We have only limited authority to terminate this proceeding when there are analyses to be completed. Termination is appropriate only if the analyses are merely confirmatory of the adequacy of the plant.

However, the currently proposed plan is not just a confirmatory analy-sis.2 It is necessarily vaguer than Applicants' previous plan, which 2 Consolidated Edison Co. of New York, Inc. (Indian Point Station, Unit 2), CLI-74-23, 7 AEC 947, 951 (1974), citing Wisconsin Electric Power Co. (Point Beach, Unit 2), CLI-73-4, 6 AEC 6 (1973)(the mechanism of post-hearing findings is not to be used to provide a reasonable assurance that a facility can be operated without endangering the health and safety of the public);

Metropolitan Edison Co. (Three Mile Island Nuclear Station, Unit No. 1), ALAB-729, 17 NRC 814 (1983)(post-hearing procedures may be used for confirmatcry tests); Pacific Gas & Electric Co. (Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant, Units 1 & 2), ALAB-811 (June 27, 1985)(once a method of evaluation had been used to confirm that one of two virtually identical units had met the standard of a reasonable assurance of safety, it was acceptable to exclude from hearings the use of the same evaluation method to confirm the adequacy of the second unit); see also Staff Response at 915-18.

The Board agrees with the Staff's statement at the bottom of p. 18, that we should require evidence of the " adequacy of, the scope of, and corrective actions resulting from, the CPRT Program."

Y Governance: 3 Applicants failed to fulfill. The new Plan is addressed to a wide variety of significant issues that have not been adequately addressed by Applicants.

Although we reject the Plan as the sole basis for litigation, Applicants' commitment to the Plan is substantial and its careful implementation would provide important new information. Hence, it would not be proper to require Applicants to respond to intervenors' pending summary disposition motions before they can complete work on their Plan.

There would be little purpose in addressing a substantial portion of this proceeding to the adequacy of the Plan itself. In a sense, the Plan is Applicants' internal management document for the process by which it plans to demonstrate the adequacy of its plant. On a grand scale, it is like a lawyer's trial preparation plan. Like the lawyer's plan, however, the success of the Plan will depend largely on the skill with which it is implemented. Thus, there is no reason for CASE, at this time, to file contentions about the Plan or about the Comanche Peak Response Team (CPRT) Plan.3 Although we will forego any extensive effort to judge the adequacy of the Plan prior to its implementation, we have read it and considered the comments made on it. There are areas of the Plan that concern us.

3 We encourage CASE to continue cooperating with the Staff by promptly alleging deficiencies for Staff to consider.

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Governance: 4 For the purpose of providing guidance to the parties, we have reached the following tentative, preliminary and non-binding conclusions:

1. If the Comanche Peak Response Team Program Plan (CPRT Plan) is revised to address concerns raised in this memorandum and is carefully and appropriately implemented, it may demonstrate both the quality of plant and the extent to which management has fulfilled its responsibili-ty to comply with the FSAR, Commission regulations, and plant quality.

2. The lack of independence of the CPRT from management may seriously affect our willingness to accept the CPRT's findings. particu-larly with respect to management's responsibilities. Consequently, the lack of independence might affect the admission of evidence concerning past QA/QC failures and management's responsibility for those failures.

3. Applicants will have to demonstrate that the deficiencies identified by the CPRT are adequately resolved.

4. The CPRT must adequately resolve the Staff's Technical Review Team's (TRT's) findings concerning deficiencies in the original QA/QC 4

programs for construction and design. This concern is relevant to whether reinspections by the use of samples are adequate to assure plant safety.

4 NUREG-0797, SER Supplement No. 11 (May 1985). The TRT found, at p.

P-35, that "The pattern of failures by 0A and QC personnel to detect and document deficiencies suggests an ineffective B&R and TUGC0 inspection system. This pattern . . . challenges the adequacy of the QC inspection program at CPSES on a system-wide basis."

l Governance: 5

5. The CPRT's resolution of all significant TRT findings that are relevant to Contention 5 may be litigated in this case.

6. We will await the CPRT's consideration of the summary disposi-tion questions raised by Applicants and by CASE, notwithstanding Appli-cants' request that we no longer consider entering summary disposition in their favor on the basis of these motions.

7. The CPRT should address the extent to which there have been design errors or insufficiently complete design documents at Comanche Peak and it should consider the root cause of these errors. Considera-tion should be given to whether Applicants incorrectly defended design errors or incomplete design documents before this Board.

8. It would be useful for CYGNA to continue reviewing design issues that it has identified until it reaches independent conclusions about the adequacy with which its concerns have been resolved. CYGNA should maintain its independence from the CPRT, Texas Utilities Electric Company and other site organizations.

9. Applicants must implement an adequate QA/QC program for the CPRT.

10. Applicants cannot be immune from litigating the prior QA/QC program and, at the same time, rely on that program to add confidence to the adequacy of the plant. (See Management Plan at 42.)

11. While in general closed issues need not be relitigated, further investigation by the CPRT, CYGNA or the TRT may cast doubts upon

Governance: 6 the validity of our earlier findings. In that event, these closed issues may become eligible for reassessment by the Board.

Some other questions tnat concern us are:

o Whether Applicants consistently complied with their FSAR design commitments.

5 o Whether the samples are properly structured and whether the populations are defined to include: (a) equipment removed from the plant for design or other reasons, and (b) equipment recently added to the plant or soon-to-be added to the plant.

o Whether it would be useful or necessary to destructively evaluate components removed from the plant or to use non-destructive evaluation tecgniques, in addition to visual inspection, to assess welds o How the CPRT will address management's responsibility for: (a) apparent QA/QC management failures with respect to coatings and to the liner plate, (b) failure to disclose one or more management studies to CASE pursuant to discovery requests, (c) possible inadequacies in the technical analyses contained in Applicants' summary disposition filing (s filings, d) in thisimplications the case, including its of the

" destructive inspection" and the transfer of workers as they relate to the t-shirt incident, (e) Applicants' conduct with 5 See " Staff Evaluation of Comanche Peak Response Team Program Plan,"

sample Rev.

size),29(Evaluation) at 5 (breadth),

(issues addressed), 6 (basisoffor 10 (exclusion selection,(method vendors), 11 of establishing populations), 13-14 (criteria for expanding samples).

6 CASE's motion to preserve pipe supports and other components being removed from the plant is denied. CASE has not persuaded us that it has met the standard for issuance of a stay or injunction, and its motion does not appear to be a motion for discovery since it does not announce any intention to collect data about the affected components in the near future. The questions CASE has raised go to the adequacy of the sample being taken by Applicants and to the possible need for destructive evaluation of removed components.

These issues go to the credibility of the proof Applicants will present and do not require action by the Board at this time.

t Governance: 7 respect to Mr. Lipinski and to witness F, both of whom appear

! to have made at least some charges of technical validity, (f) the handling of Atcheson, Hamilton and Dunham, (g) the han-dling of other allegations of intimidation of QA/QC and craft personnel, (h) the attempt to defend the quality of QA/QC for coatings and for the liner plate, (i) the apparent inability to understand and properly evaluate the engineering conten-tions of Mark Walsh and Jack Doyle, including the apparently erroneous argument that Applicants' engineering practices were standard industry practice, and (j) other problems of documen-tation and workmanship, o Proper qualification of the QA/QC inspectors used in the CPRT's work,f o The acceptability of CPRT work done before a QA/QC plan was approved or implemented.

o How Applicants or the CPRT will assess the adequacy of repairs made pursuant to its recommendations and how this assessment will be done in a way that makes it reviewable by the Staff and by CASE.

o How the CpRT will discharge its responsibility to find root causes and patterns of deficiencies, o Thesuitabilityofacceptancecriteriaandthewaygnwhich trends will be used to establish corrective action.

o Information concerning the independent design review conducted by a professor.

o Whether generic concerns with QA/QC require additional verifi-cation of QA/QC for welding and, if so, the suitability of the inspection attributes being used by the CPRT, particularly with respect to welds covered by paint.

o The acceptability of CYGNA's current role as independent design reviewer.

7 Evaluation at 11.

8 Evaluation at 13.

Governance: 8 o Tbe completeness of the CPRT's list of issues.9 Despite these reservations, it is appropriate to defer considera-tion of issues raised by CASE in its sumary disposition motions. If Applicants are successful, then the completed plan will withstand challenges brought by CASE. One form of challenge CASE might bring is a statement that it intends to prove a certain fact about the plant and that, assuming that fact to be true, Applicants plan has not adequately responded to that fact. Another form of challenge is that there are specific reasons (set forth) that Applicants' plan, as implemented, is not adequate to carry their burden of goof to demonstrate the safety of the plant. Still other challenges are possible, which is precisely the state of the world whenever a company prepares its responses to a complex set of allegations. Although this undoubtedly will make things difficult for Applicants, it is nevertheless the only fair way to proceed at this time.

It is difficult to forecast when hearings in this case will be concluded. Much of the difficulty relates to the standard restricting the tasks that may be performed subsequent to the close of hearings.

Such subsequent tasks must be merely confirmatory of the adequacy of the plant. Whether or not tasks are confirmatory will, at some future time, become a matter of judgment. Should it be demonstrated that enough work has been done on the CPRT Plan to show its carefulness and 9

Evaluation at 9; Staff's Response at 21-25.

o Governance: 9 comprehensiveness and to establish a pattern for a similar portion of work yet to be done, then the remaining tasks could be considered confirmatory.

This ruling may necessitate substantial proceedings that will delay the operation of Comanche Peak. The number of important issues and the length of hearings that may be required' is not a source of comfort to 1

this Board. Although apparent " expedition" could have been accomplished by accepting Applicants' plan at this time, regrettably, the easy road for this case is not the proper one. The parties are encouraged to cooperate in the interest of limiting the work that lies before us all.

ORDER For all the foregoing reasons and based on consideration of the entire record in this matter, it is this 29th day of August 1985 ORDERED:

TexasUtilitiesElectricCompany,etal.'srequestthatDocket2be declared moot is denied; and its motion that we adopt its Management Plan also is denied. Similarly, Citizen Association for Sound Energy's l

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Governance: 10 Proposal relating to summary disposition motions and to the status of

• Cygna Energy Services is denied.

THE ATOMIC SAFETY AND LICENSING BOARDS i

L Peter B. Bloch, Clairman ACHINISTRATIVE JUDGE j g f} , M m Walter H. Jordan

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ADMINISIRATIVEJUDGE ylikkY h N Kenneth A. McCollom ADMINISTRATIVE JUDGE

> t 12,w-Herbert Grossman ADMINISTRATIVE JUDGE Bethesda, Maryland