ML20148K772
| ML20148K772 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 11/08/1978 |
| From: | Ahearne J, Bradford P, Gilinsky V, Hendrie J, Kennedy R NRC COMMISSION (OCM) |
| To: | |
| References | |
| REF-10CFR9.7 NUDOCS 7811170285 | |
| Download: ML20148K772 (67) | |
Text
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- 1 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION -
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IM THE MATTER OF-
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PUBLIC MEETING.
DISCUSSION OF PROPOSED NRC STATEMENT IN RESPONSE TO THE RISK ASSESSMENT REVIEW-GROUP REPERT Place - Washington, D. C.
Date - Wednesday, G November 1978 Pages I - 66 n*
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(202)347 3700 79111W 18E DI
.tcz.TZDER.1L RE?ORTERS, EC.
OffiaalReporters 444 Nenh Cccitel Street Washington, D.C. 20001 -
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NATIONWIDE COVERACE. D AILY
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DISCLAIP:R This is an unofficial transcript of a meeting of the Unf ted States Nuclear Regulatory Commission held on 8 November 1978 in the Commission's offic's at 1717 H Street, N. W., Washington, D. C.
The e
meeting was open to public attendance and observation.
Th'is transcript has not been reviewed, corrected, or edited, and it may contain inaccuracies.
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The transcript is intended solely for general informa'tfonal purposes.
As provided.by 10 CFR 9.103, it is not part of-the formal or informal record of decision of the matters discussed.
Expressions of opinion in this transcript do not necessarily reflect final determinations or beliefs.
No pleading or other paper may be filed with the Commission in any proceeding as the result of or addressed to any statement or argument contained herein, except as the Commission may authorize.
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1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 2
NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 3
i 4
PUBLIC MEETING S
6 DISCUSSION OF PROPOSED NRC STATEMENT IN 7
RESPONSE TO THE RISK ASSESSMENT REVIEW 8
GROUP REPORT 9
Room 1130 10 1717 H Street, N.W.
Washington, D. C.
t 11 Wednesday, 8 November 1978 12 13 The Commission met, pursuant to notice, at 9:15 a.m.
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14 BEFORE:
15 DR. JOSEPH M. HENDRIE, Chairman of the Commission i
16 VICTOR GILINSKY, Commissioner 17 RICHARD T. KENNEDY, Commissioner 18 PETER A. BRADFORD, Commissioner 19 JOHN F. AHEARNE, Commissioner l
20 21 22 4
23 24 Ace Federal Reporters, Inc.
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2 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
We will come to order.
Sorry to 3
keep you all waiting.
I think we have all of the Commissioners
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4 here this morning, but Commissioner'Bradford stepped out for a 5
moment and I assume he will be back before we get very far down 6
the line.
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The Commission meets this morning to discuss the 8
papers that have. been produced in connection with the Commis-9 sion's proposed statement in response to the Risk Assessment l
10 1 Review Group Report -- that group having reported on the 11 Reactor Safety Study, WASH-1400, of these several years' fame.
12 We met several weeks ago to hear Professor Lewis 13 summarize the findings of the group for us, and to receive the 14 report.
We resolved, at that time, to go forward with a 15 Commission public statement concerning the Lewis Report.
16 There were several other actions that were initiated 17 as a result of that meeting.
We will of course be answering 18 Congressional correspondence connected with the review group's 19 work.
20 We have asked that a review be conducted of 21 Commission-Congressional correspondence to identify any comments 22 that we might care to tevise in the light of the Lewis Report.
23 Similarly, with regard to licensing or other regula-24 tory actions or staff positions.
Aco Fooerst Reporters, Inc.
25 Finally, and perhaps at a little longer range, we
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want to look and see whether we want to recommend any changes 2
in the Commission's fiscal '79 and '80 programs growing out of 3
these considerations.
i 4
We did resolve last time that, as a normal course of 5
business, we would transmit the review group report, along with 6
any requests for WASH-1400.
7 What I think we could usefully do this morning is 8
tr from the staff who have prepared a draf t paper for the l
mission's consideration; from OPE, who also have a draft of a 9
10 I possible Commission statement; and other offices as are appro-11 priate with regard to this stage of their various reviews and 12 analyses.
13 If the Commission pleases, we could ask them to go 14 ahead and start down that course.
Let me first ask if there are 15 comments that any of you would like to make at the beginning of 16 the discussion.
17 John?
18 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
Yes.
I would just like to 19 say that I recognize it is a difficult task to pull together a 20 response, and I think what I would prefer this morning is to 21 have the kind of a presentation, and hear any other views as 22 you discussed, but rather than then trying to go into an actual 23 writing and drafting session here, recognizing that there are 24 a number of important wordings that we have to worry about, to Aca-FedIr;t Reporters, Inc.
25 then go away and have us try to come up with what would satisfy
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us; as opposed to trying, for example, to argue out the possible 2
nuances and subtle differences this morning.
3 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
Well, certainly if it is the 4
Commission's desire -- and I do detect that inclination on the 5
part of several Commissioners -- not to go to a markup session, 6
in effect, this morning, why that seems certainly reasonable.
7 I will only comment, John, that some of the Commis-8 sion's finest hours at this table have been haggling over the 9
last two words.
10 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
I'm sure that's true.
11 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
And we may yet come to it, but 12 this morning may not be the time.
13 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
The only difficulty I would
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14 have with that, Joe, is that markup sessions -- it usually 15 then becomes very important, with what you start, what document 16 do you start with?
And I will defer that issue.
17 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY:
I'have one other point.
I 18 would hope that at some point in the discussion this morning 19 the potential schedule for resolution of the letter to us from 20 the Union of Concerned Scientists on this subject ought to be 21 recognized.
And I would appreciate some staff thought on this.
22 It seems to me the two things are not unrelated.
23 MR. KELLEY:
They are related.
24 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY:
So we have three staff offices Ace Facerd Reporters, Inc.
25 that are now involved in this -- representing your office as l
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1 sort of the agglomeration of all of the others, i
2 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
Lee, why don't you start.
4 3
MR. GOSSICK: All right, Mr. Chairman.
4 I might just mention first a couple of the other 5
action items that the Commission directed.
They are underway.
6 The review within the staff of all of the past uses of the 7
WASH-1400 methodology; and any licensing actions or staff 8
positions that have been entered on that are being identified.
9 We expect to complete that, staff-wide, by the first of 10 1 December, as indicated by your direction.
11 And also the analysis of our '79 and '80 budget 12 submissions:
that is underway, and we would hope to have some-13 thing on that by the middle of next week.
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14 As you have indicated, the starting point for a 15 paper such as this is a very important matter, and it is one 16 that was immediately of course recognized by the staff in 17 trying to come up with the staff draf t that is before you.
18 My memorandum that transmitted that draf t indicates 19 that there have been a number of widely differing views on this.
20 And even though the final product is sent forward and does have 21 the concurrence of all of the office directors, I felt that in 22 order to point out in my memo to you that I feel that they 23 should certainly be given the opportunity to express any other 24 views or additional views they might have.
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7 their views.
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"MPA and OPA," Norm Haller and Al Kenneke, in 3
Particular, had the dif ficult task of trying to resolve the 4
many viewpoints that surfaced in the process of trying to come 5
up with this draf t.
6 I would mention that there were a number of draf ts 7
that we went through, and the one that Ken Pederson gave you 8
his comments on by his 31 October memo is of course an earlier 9
version than the one that was simply sent forward by my memo.
10 i We do have a side-by-side comparison of those two draf ts that 11 might be of assistance to you in identifying where the dif-12 ferences are.
13 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
Are you going to distribute 14 that?
15 MR. GOSSICK:
Yes.
We can hand that to you right 16 now.
You might wish for us to just first go through, in a 17 general description of the sections and what is in them.
If 18 you would like for us to do that, I will ask Norm and Al to 19 proceed with that, and then we can identify the particular 20 differences that are in the two drafts.
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21 Is that satisfactory?
I 22 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
That sounds like a good idea.
23 MR. GOSSICK:
Okay, Norm, why don't you start off.
24 MR. HALLER:
Do you want to start, Al?
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I MR. KENNEKE:
Sure.
Let me just make a general 25 ;
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1 comment:
That it seems to me that, while the percentage of the 1
1 2
actual text that is different seems small, the real differences 3
are in the sense of tone of the draft.
4 At the risk of oversimplifying, maybe I can say that 5
the EDO approach would be somewhat more positive; and the OPA 6
approach is perhaps more cautious.
7 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY:
What does that mean?
Those 8
are nice words; now what do they mean?
9 MR. KENNEKE:
One is more critical.
One is more 10 concerned about the mistakes of the past.
11 And the other is more concerned about the positive 12 contributions in the future.
13 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY:
It would seem to me that those i
14 are not mutually exclusive.
15 MR. KENNEKE:
No.
That is true, but it is difficult 16 to blend the two.
17 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY:
I could not accept that as a 18 basic premise, but go ahead.
19 MR. KENNEKE:
There is a third possible statement 20 which the Commission received from Union of Concerned Scientists 21 last week, which is considerably more critical as an approach.
22 So it seems to me you have in hand, then', more or less the 23 full spectrum of possible views you might wish to take with 24 regard to the WASH-1400.
i AC-FederrJ Reporters, Inc.
25 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY:
Except, I take it, for the one l
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1 that you said that would be very difficult to do, and that is a 2
melding of a recognition of perhaps some things of the past that 3
ought to perhaps have been somewhat different, and yet a 4
recognition of the contributions possible for the future --
5 which, as I say, I do not find mutually exclusive.
l 6
MR. KENNEKE:
No, I did not mean to make them seem 7
that way, but it is difficult to blend the two and get them l
8 into proper balance.
That will be your task.
9 MR. GOSSICK:
I would make one other comment, Al, if 10 you'll permit me.
I would take issue of the " full spectrum."
11 We don't have a version before you that might have resulted 12 had we accepted it at face valae -- everything that was given 13 to us by the staf f, on one side.
14 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY:
On either side, I suppose.
15 MR. GOSSICK:
Well, the other side is nearer the 16 middle -- or nearer to the side of caution, as Al describes it.
17 But there are views that have been expressed that you may wish 18 to hear this morni 7 that I think that we have gone to in the 19 current draft, as I have said to you, perhaps a little more 20 toward the overly cautious.
21 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
By the " full spectrum," Lee, 22 you aren't intending to imply that, whereas here are these two 23 draf ts that are in the middle, and the UCS is on one side to a 24 certain extent and the staff is on the other side, are you?
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25 MR. GOSSICK:
There are some views that were w
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introduced during this discussion that would put it a little bit 2
further over on the other side.
Is that a fair statement?
3 MR. HALLER:
Yes, it is.-
MR. GOSSICK:
And I think you might want to wish 4
5 those that had a little difficulty in accepting the version 'that 6
we have here this morning to comment.
MR. HALLER:
With regard to the particular different 7
analyses that tity staff prepared for you, what we tried to do was 8
9 to lay the two versions side by side.
And where there are no marksbetweenthetwoversions,thatmeantthattheyweresimilarl 10 i 11 enough to us that there were not differences worthy of note.
12 Where there were marks, we tried to indicate the differences.
My view is that the key issues that highlight some 13 14 of the major differences are found toward the end of the docu-15 ment.
And that would on the fourth page from the back.
16 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
Norm, we are still going to 17 go through the document, aren't we?
18 MR. HALLER:
We could certain]y go through the docu-19 ment.
20 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
I wouldn't just want to imply 21 that the only concerns that I have are differences between the 22 two.
I'm concerned about the whole response.
MR. HALLER:
By no means.
I thought it might be 23 24 useful to focus on what at least we perceive to be the major Ace Federal Reporters, Inc.
25 differences between the two versions, first; and then we can go
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through and discuss any other points that you would like to 2
bring up.
3 One key point I think is this matter which is under 4
the heading called " Commission Actions," on page 8 -- or 7, of 5
this draft, depending upon which side you are looking.
The 6
fourth one from the back, as I said before.
And you will see, 7
at the bottom of that page, dhat in the OPE version they proposed 8
an interim policy where, between now and the time when the 9
other short-term Commission tasks and further policy guidance 10 is issued, any use of the RSS would be subject to explicit 11 approval of the Executive Director for Operations.
12 In the version that Mr. Gossick sent forward, there 13 was no interim policy, as such.
There was simply a general 14 policy statement which is, as is stated here under Item 2.
15 There were just no special provisions identified for an interim.
16 That can be taken to mean that, as soon as the 17 Commission would decide on a policy such as this, that means it 18 is effective immediately.
There is no such thing as an " interim."
l9 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
What is the point of having 3
20 the Executive Director approve the use of the money?
21 MR. HALLER:
Well, the intention that was in the 1
22 original draf t was that there ought to be some sort of an I
23 escape valve where, if there was an absolute necessity to use 24 the RSS in the time period that these other actions were I
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25 being determined, that that should be subjected to some sort of j
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special review.
'2 And Ken's view of it was that that ought to be 3
subjected to the review of the Executive Director of Operations.
4 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
Norm, was this original 5
proposal OPE's?
Or yours?
6 MR. HALLER:
I would say it was a joint proposal in 7
the beginning.
We worked closely together on this first -draf t.
8 I must go on to say, however, that when one thinks 9
about how that might be implemented. in practice -- as Ken 10 pointed out in his cover memo -- it is not quite clear just what 11 tools the Executive Director will bring to bear on this.
After 12 all, it is he and his staff that is going to have to do it.
13 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
But didn't the review group 14 say that use of the methodology in the report is okay, so long 15 as you stick to restricted areas, or keep the problem small 16 enough so that you have got a reasonable amount of data and are 17 on fairly firm ground?
18 MR. HALLER:
That would probably be a fair assessment.
19 I believe the words that stick in my mind are the ones "it 1
20 should not be used uncritically," or conversely one could say 21 "it should be used critically."
22 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
But, Norm, I would assume that 23 nothing is used " uncritically," anyway?
24 MR. HALLER:
I would hope that is the case.
Ao-Federet Reporters, Inc.
25 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
So if I look at this proposed l
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general policy, can you tell me in what way it differs from the 2
policy over the last, say, year?
3 MR. HALLER:
No, I cannot tell you that.-
But I think 4
that is a question that perhaps some of the office directors 5
might be able to answer.
6 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY:
If there is an answer, 7
wouldn't that be sonething that ought to be included?
8 MR. GOSSICK:
I think what you will hear is that 9
we have in fact been using it critically -- at least in our 10 view it has been used in a critical fashion.
And you might II want to ask Mr. Denton, or others, about that.
I think this 12 merely is a highlighting of the fact, and a clear statement that 13 we sure could use it in a critical fashion.
Id COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
What.I'm trying to do, I had 15 the same kind of problem that was mentioned in the EDO 16 approving it.
17 It appeared to me what you were saying was:
Don't 18 use anything other than the fault-of-entry method.
- However, 19 that appeared to be such a strong statement that there would 20 have to be some way out of it.
And in searching around, well, 21 find someone we can put on the hook whenever it is used.
22 So the EDO signed off on it.
So I recc.gnize that 23 is an uncatisfactory approach.
l 24 On the other hand, in reading, Norm, what this Aco Federci Reporters, Inc.
25 alternate version is, it really could be read as "we will I
4-1U2 jwb 14 continue doing what we're doing."
Now thht might be an accept-1 able answer, but it has a fundamentally different character.
2 In one case we're saying we're going to stop and only 3
use, with rare exception, until such time as all these other 4
studies are done.
And in the other case, we're saying we're 5
g ing to continue doing what we're doing.
6 MR. 'HALLER:
I understand that difference.
That is 7
why I thought this was an issue that we ought to raise to your 8
attention.
9 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
Now you have confused me.
Which 10 is which?
jj COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
I think, on the one on the 12 left, it is clearly a statement to me that we are going to 13 continue what we are doing.
Because I would assume that we 34 already are not using things uncritically, and we are being 15 careful.
16 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
One hopes.
37 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
And 'the one on the right is 18 i9 saying:
Other than the entry, stop using until these other studies and reviews have been completed.
20 MR. GOSSICK:
Could we point to another part of the 21 paper here that might help?
22 MR. HALLER:
I believe the next page, page 9, also
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23 relates to the issue that you were just discussing -- that was 24 Ao-FederCA Reporters, Inc.
the second area, major difference that I was going to address.
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15 You will note that in the EDO version there was a
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. sentence at the bottom which in effect is saying that new pro-7 cedures may or may not be necessary.
This is new procedures 3
which would ensure that the RSS is used critically, or not 4
used uncritically.
5 In the original version, the OPE version that was 6
sent forward, there was a more explicit call for development 7
of some new procedures.
i Now I believe that this reflects a difference among 9
various persons within the NRC.
Some would argue that what we 10 i
are doing is all right and we ought to continue doing what we 11 are doing.
12 There is, at least as best we can tell right now, 13 not necessarily any need for new procedures.
34 On the other hand, there may b'e other views that 15 i
say that new procedures are necessary.
This is such a special-16 circumstance that we want to really nail it down tightly and j7 Possibly even have some special kind of a review procedure for 18 this sort of a situation where the RSS is used.
So that,.I j9 believe, is another major area of difference that you should be sensitive to.
g COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
Let me ask you:
Is the 22 rep rt actually used in the sense that you have a page, and one 23 takes a number out of it?
Or is it that similar calculations 24
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16 MR. HALLER:
Mr. Commissioner, I'm not able to tell i
j y u how the report is used.
I think we would have to ask the 2
line staff who have been using it to answer that question.
3 i
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
Harold, do you or someone there j
in the party want to make a comment?
5 MR. DENTON:
Let me answer.
Have we used it.in the 6
context of case-by-case review?
Since. WASH-1400 came out, the 7
very first use of the 1400 results that I know of was to 8
increase safety requirements.
Whereas, during the first, early 9
stages of the development, a certain accident sequence was 10 identified involving check valves.
11 We were informed of this as being a high-risk 12 sequence, and the staff acted on that estimate that this might 13 7
be a high-risk contributor to safety, and we modified plants g
accordingly.
15 Since 1400 has come out, if you look at the history 16 of the arc, you see decisions and how we implement the Commis-t 37 sion's regulations on a case-by-case basis.
You will find, in 18 my view, no case where we deratcheted the requirements that were 19 in effect in 1975 because of the Reactor Safety Study.
20 There have been a handful of changes made in the 21 deratchet direction that were based on scientific evidence from 22 the Bureau of Standards' wind-tunnel tests and this sort of 23 thing, and there have been many increases in requirements 3
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intended to reduce the risk from those accidents in areas 25
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1 identified in the WASH-1400 as major contributors to risk.
So 2
the use of 1400 by the staff has not been an' aggregious reduc-m l
tion in safety requirements.
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It has been, instead in my view, that we have taken 5
the sequences identified in 1400 at the top.and have tried to 6
identify and establish additional requirements to further reduce 7
the risk of all plants.
8 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY:
Why can't we say it just like 9
that in this policy statement?
That makes sense to me.
10 !
I am pointing to both versions of this document.
I 11 found both of them the most bureaucratic bunch of language, 12 all strung together, that I have seen in a long time, and it 13 bears clear evidence of the influence of our superior legal 14 staff, as well.
I must say, I looked at this and it sounded to me 16 like just so much mumbo jumbo.
Why don't we just say it like i
17 it is?
Why don' t we tell the world what we have done with it, i
18 what we are doing with it, and what we think we ought to do with i
end #1 it, instead of all this guff?
0 beg #2 MR. DENTON:
I would like to go on and try to answer 21 the earlier question a little more directly.
COMMISSIONER KENNEF1 You had better come back to the other question -- the one I just asked.
4 24 MR. DENTON:
I would favor such an approach.
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the last four years.
We have set in process to notify the 2
boards -- all sitting boards -- of the Lewis Committee, and. we 3
are searching now, at EDO's direction, for all instances in 4
which we have used WASH-1400 in our case-by-case reviews.
5 And 1 can't preclude that somewhere we might turn up, 6
in our correspondence or testimony, a misuse.
But if we do find 7
it, we will take steps at that time to correct it.
8 I'm just commenting that, in general, from the way 9
it has been used -- and I don't expect to find many examples 10 I where someone has quoted chapter and verse, and has picked out 11 a number with no recognition of the uncertainty behind it.
All 12 our witnesses are technical experts in the area in which they 13 testify.
They may have been sloppy in language and referred 14 to 1400 as a shorthand way, and at the same time they could have 15 cited perhaps all of the technical data that went into 1400.
16 Many of the staff's views are reflected in the Lewis 17 Committee.
If we had adopted their reviews with regard to 18 earthquakes, we would not be continuing to increase our seismic 19 argents.
20 The Lewis Committee endorsed the staff 's response 21 to ATWS, so I think we are using these kinds of techniques but 22 we're using it at the top end of the scale to further reduce 23 their risk of accidents.
And I would like to be able to 24 continue that without a need for -- to set up still another i
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I see as the staff's major role.
2 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
Harold, are you saying that 3
the staff does not use the WASH-1400?
Or are you saying that 4
you are confident that whenever it uses it, it uses it wisely?
5 MR. DENTON:
I can't say it absolutely, but there 6
were pressures on the staff following the publication of 1400 7
to go full swing into a probabilistic review, as opposed to 8
the staff's deterministic review.
That has not been adopted.
9 And as I said, the staff's standard review plans 10 that we use~are essentially those that were in effect prior to 11 publication of the WASH-1400, except there are more stringent 12 requirements in those areas where 1400 identified as high risk.
T 13 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
What I'm having difficulty 14 understanding now is that if WASH-1400 disappeared and never 15 existed, it sounds to me that your view is that that would not 16 have made any difference.
17 MR. DENTON:
The one area, as I mentioned before, 18 that the staff needed some numbers ~on was to respond to ALAB-440 19 That's not the right number, but to compare the environmental 20 impacts of alternative energy sources, and that is one area 21 where we picked out an absolute number, and we talked about the 22 uncertainty, but we did not talk about a range as great as the 23 Lewis Committee.
24 So that is one area where an absolute-type number
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25 was used.
But I'm talking about, in the bulk of the safety l
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1 review --
2 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
With the exception of that 3
one case, as far as you can tell it would not make any dif-
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4 ference whether or not 1400 had existed?
5 MR. DENTON:
1400, in my mind, is just one more tool 6
that is available to the staff.
We used probabilistic methods i
7 before 1400 was-published.
We were using fault trees, and 8
event trees.
I 9
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
You understand that, just as 10 Harold said, we were already beginning to move in this direction?
11 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
Yes, I understand that.
12 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
And if Norm had not convened the 13 group on the order of the Commission, that work would have gone
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14 ahead and developed -- probably not as far as it went under 15 the study group, but it would have been used in probably the 16' same sorts of ways it has been used.
17 I think the answer to your question is "yes,"
18 excepting always a small number of cases that needed to be 19 cleaned up.
As a general proposition, I think the answer is 20 "yes."
21 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
Do you agree?
22 MR. DENTON:
I agree.
And I am speaking strictly in 1
23 the context of case-by-case reviews and what our safety evalua-24 tions say.
Am Fewct Rmormes, lm.
25 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
I am trying to go through i
)
2'-19 jwb 21 this, because I don't even begin to have the familiarity that the Chairman or you have, or Victor, or Dick, with this --
2 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD:
Wait a minute.
-- e 3
(Laughter.)
4 ON:
I don't W nk h lends itself to 5
absolute statements.
We certainly attempted to jump on those 6
high contributors to risk that 1400 was identifying.
We may 7
not have found those as fast if 1400 had not come out and identified them, but we were certainly' proceeding down the same 9
fault tree / event tree reliability type studies of systems 10 11 before 1400 was published.
S when it was published and it said:
Here are the 12 Prin i al contributors in various accident sequences, they are P
13 the ones that the staff immediately went to work on to try to
),
reduce, and they have gotten the prime attention.
15 So in that sense, it has focused the staff effort 16 there, but we don't have witnesses who walk in and say "this 37 is safe enough because page 37 says it is."
f i
18 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
No, I'm certainly confident j9 that the scrubbing that the various legal offices are doing can 20 well identify whether it was explicitly used in hearings.
That 21 is not my question.
22 My question really is a concern as to what extent it 23 has formed a foundation of staff views.
And I share Commissioner 24 Acw.o.ro n.oorwn, inc.
Kennedy's concern that how we have used it ought to be very 25
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22 3
}
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explicit and clearly understood.
2 MR. SHAPAR:
I think the Commission put out a ' policy 3
statement that said explicitly that that document would not be N
4 used as the basis for licensing decisions.
That is not respon-5 sive to your question, but it is relevant to it.
6 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
But, Harold, you are saying 7
that you accept..the ranking of the report to determine which 8
accident sequences are significant, or important, and which are 9'
not?
10 I MR. DENTON:
That's right.
1 11 If you look at the decisions of the RQC, from that i
12 time on, those areas where they reduce safety requirements, 13 they would have taken those actions whether 1400 was published 14 or not, because they were the result of tests and measurements 15 made in other places.
16 But from there on, the focus of the increased safety 17 requirements did reflect -- and I'm sure it was shaped in some 4
18 measure -- by the identification of 1400 of which scenarios 19 were more important than others.
20 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
Then you would have no diffi-1 21 culty if we were to say "the staff shall not use any numerical 22 results out of 1400"?
23 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
Including the data base material?
24 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
Unless, as a result of your j
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I think he said " conclusions."
l COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
But the lineup of the 2
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4' MR. DENTON:
On a relative basis.
They identified l
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5 certain things that are more important than others, and the i
6 ones at the top do rely on data, and studies, and we tend to --
COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
What I'm trying to grope 7
through is:
In what way, explicitly, can we say exactly how
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the staff has used the report?
That would help.
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And the second is:
Are there any parts of it that i
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13 any aspects of it that should not be used?
l g4 I'm not saying that they have been used; but we
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i 16 should not be used.
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MR. DENTON:
I think it's hard to answer that in a j7 i
Everyone has their own view, depending upon what areas j
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18 i
19 of 1400 they have worked in in the past.
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20 until we get the results back, as a result of this question-l
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noire, how it has been used in every example.
l 21 22 And in my comments, I was trying to give you an
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and he recognized its limitations, and either he agreed with it and therefore just used that as a number; or he used another 5
number.
S when you say " numbers," there is nothing in 1400 7
ex ept it is pulling it all together that the staff did not 8
have in various pieces *, anyway.
And what 1400 did was to 9
10 i really rank these accident scenarios in order, a coherent order, to decide which ones come first.
11 S
the data itself was largely available to the 12 staff.
And in some areas like pipe-crack probabilities, we 13 continue every year to update our data base.
And in '74, the 3,
data base the staff had was the same one as WASH-1400 had.
15 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
Harold, is there anything in 16 1400 that you believe should be disavowed?
37 MR. DENTON:
We identified, in our own review, a j
18 number of areas that we did not think it was correct.
And one i
39 was " seismic risks," and we never changed our review procedures 20 to accommodate the WASH-1400 reviews, 21 If WASH-1400 is right, it is an area in which we are g
giving far too much attention and resources to, but the staff 1
23 never adopted that view.
So we maintained our deterministic 24 Ace.Federd Reporters, Inc, approach to seismic design.
So in those areas where we didn't 25 I
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think 1400 was right, we continued to do business the way we 2
had before 1400 came a.1.ong.
3 In those areas where we thought 1400 was correct 4
in terms of identifying a:cident secuences at the top, we put i
5 more attention on those.
6 But just the way things have worked, we have always 7
been more interested in reducing the top-level risks than we 8
have in changing the risks at tr.e bottom.
9 But let me ask some of the other members who have j
10 worked in this area to maybe respond.-
11 MR. MATTSON:
I think we pulled together a liat of 12 four ATWSs, the one that the Reactor Safety Study said if you 13 accepted it you needn't do any more, and of course we continued 14 to do more.
15
" Residual heat removal system reliability," I think 16 we have continued to do more there.
17
" Loss of of f-site power," the N'.RS and the staf f,
)
18 through the technical generation activities program, continued 19 to look at that problem.
20 The " seismic" Harold already listed.
21 MR. DENTON:
The point I wanted to make is that I 22 guess we didn't use the ranking in 1400 blindly.
There were a-23 number of sequences identified in 1400 as a low contributor to 24 risk and that we continue to think are high -- like Roger Aes.Feoer:I Reporters, Inc.
25
'just mentioned -- and we continue to try to increase the safety l
2 2 24 jwb 26 requirements in those areas.
j But in areas where we thought the ranking in 1400 l
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But it has not been a blind l
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adoption of 1400.
In fact, I'm sure for the first year af ter 5
6; it was published there was no change in the staff's review techniques.
7 An nya er e staff really began to understand 8,
9l that the 1400 had its limitations, did we begin to focus on t
j certain scenarios.
10 l l
1 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD:
But the answer to John's j
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l question, I think, is "yes, " in another sense, too.
12 l
I mean, two weeks ago we asked whether there was l
13 l
significant disagreement with any of the specific points made
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? in the Lewis Report, and the answer was "no. "
15 16 i Now there are a couple of areas in which the Lewis I
Report says that the calculational methods in WASH-1400 are --
p in one case, I think the word was " indefensible. "
It doesn't 18 seem to me that --
j9 ;
I 20 j MR. MATTSON:
We didn ' t use that.
We agreed they
)
21 l were indefensible, also.
COMMISSIONER BRADFORD:
That's what I'm saying.
And i
22 23 ft J hn's question was:
Are there parts of the Reactor Safety F
24, Study which need to be disavowed as a result of the Lewis Report?
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MR. DENTON:
Yes, but we disavowed those-same ones 2
by not adopting them four years ago.
3 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD:
But the answer is "yes "
4 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
All I am trying to say'is 5
that to make it explicit --
6
~
COMMISSIONER KENNEDY:
It is relevant to make the 7
p int which is being made here continuously, which is the point 8
I was making earlier.
9 Here is a clear, forthright statement of what we 10 4
have been doing, and it seems to me that is what is called for
))
here as Step 1, before we go on talking about what we are going 12 j
to do in the future.
COMMISSIONER BRADFORD:
The phraseology, which I 34 don't have in front of me, was to the effect that the staff 15 should cease defending its indefensible, or "the" indefensible 16 calculation on -- and someone's going to have to fill in the 37 blanks for me.
18 So the impression that one has,. or at least that I 39 had anyway, when no one disputed that, was that in fact until 20 that point there had been a staff position that favored the g
calculation made in the Reactor Saety Study.
g MR. DENTON:
No, I think the point is that the 23 Reactor Safety Study ran down a path apart and was used by the 24 Ace.Federst Reporters, Inc.
Commission in different ways than the licensing staff in its 25
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2 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD:
I agree with that, and that
.3 is another point, and that is obviously not one tha't we can --
4 MR. DENTON:
In fact, I can read the Lewis Committee 5
Report by saying we should use the methodology more in our 6
Standard Review Plan priorities than we have in the past.
7 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY:
That's what it said.
8 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD:
There is clearly a separate 9
point.
And that is:
What the Commission is going to have to 10 do to clear up the ways in which the Commission used the report II in correspondence and statements.
12 But in this one instance, it seemed to me what the 13 Lewis Report was saying was that there was still a technical 14 defense going on of the calculation in the Reactor Safety Study 15 that it regarded as indefensible.
And in that one area, it 16 seemed as though the staff was saying it agreed with the Lewis 17 Report; that in this area the Lewis Report wasn't questioning 18 a Commission action, it was questioning a staff technical 19 calculation.
Ithinkitisimportanttorememberthath 20 MR. DENTON:
21 in that case, it was a licensing day-to-day staff that didn't 22 like -- and they called this issue to the at'ention of the 23 Lewis Committee, and the Lewis Committee adopted the licensing 24 staff's view in the ATWS area.
i Aa Fewit Roorters, lm.
25 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
But this particular thing was l
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2 MR. MATTSON:
But it is not used.
It's not used in 3
licensing.
It has been abandoned by the Reactor Safety Study 4
people.
It is gone.
5 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
That's fine.
i 6
My problem is that part of this, as we heard two 7
weeks ago -- well, the staff always disagreed with this stuff, 8
so it didn't use it.
I have no reason to question that.
The 9
. difficulty is, there is a filter.
A filter exists between what to the licensing people'have been doing to some extent perhaps 11 with the Commission and certainly to the outside world, and so 12 that is why we had to be clearer on what has the Commission or 33 the Commission staff been doing?
14 And what parts, if there are come strong parts that, 15 as you just said, you always thought that was wrong so you 16 didn't use it, maybe that wasn.'t clear in some partn of the 17 country.
Being on the outside of the NRC through.i ase times, 18 it was never clear to me.
19 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD:
Nor was it clear to Lewis, 20 or he wouldn't have said "you should stop it."
And I take it 21 there he wasn't referring as much there to NRR am to research.
22 VOICE:
It was still some time ago when he made 23 that observation.
24 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD:
But that particular area was i l
Am Fewd Amorms, lm.
25 not something that ceased at the time the Rasmussen Report itself l
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If that calculation was abandoned'as you say it was j
in recent months --
2 MR. DENTON:
In my perspective --
~:
3 t
COMMISSIONER KENNEDY:
Wait.
"In recent months"?
4 9"
Y' 5
MR. MATTSON:
It had to do with whether you knew how.
6 to estimate the reliability.
It is an ATWS-limited issue'.
It 7
is not a broad-ranging, technical problem with.the whole 8
Reactor Safety Study.
It is a small, narrow problem.
9 Now since we've never treated ATWS in our safety 10 reviews, we have never done a licensing calculation using that 3i kind of thing.
The debate was whether the Reactor Safety Study l
12 justified using that faulty method -- the continuation of doing.
13 nothing about ATWS.
The staff said "no."
It's continuing to ja say "no," although we've been doing it for 10 years and 15 haven't done anything about ATWS, and it is another method 16 which the Lewis Committee approved in its review for studying --
j7 this narrow problem concerning the scram reliability.
18 There seems to be an implication that, given that 19 kind of a problem, that the licensing process is wrong and the 20 Reactor Safety Study is completely wrong.
21 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD:
That wasn't what I understood 22 J hn's question to be, in the first place.
23 s
COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
You are right.
24 Ace Fooeral Reporters, Inc.
MR. DENTON:
Well, from a bigger perspective, I think 25 I,
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WASH-1400 has resulted in ~ safer plants; whereas, from the time 2
it came out, the staff has adopted additional safety criteria 3
that focused on Lhose high scenarios and has not, at the same
~
4 tims, backed off on any existing safety requirements because 5
1400 said they were low risk
- solely on that basis.
6 Now some of them that were identified as low may 7
have caused the staff to go back and reexamine the underlying 8
scientific principles, but there have only been a handful of 9
areas since '74 where the staff has relaxed any at all.
And 10 i there have been several hundred, probably, if you count them 11 up -- RQC decisions -- that went the other way.
12 So I look upon 1400 as a tool that is no different, 13 in a sense, to the licensing staff as another textbook that was 14 published, and parts of the textbook the staff sort of thought 15 Present a good method.
16 If they didn't agree with it, they ignored that 17 part.
And that was the sort of direction the staff received 18 at the time 1400 was issued.
19 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY:
Another fact which it seems 20 to me is relevant to this discussion, and a fact that ought to 21 be recited here in connection with a recitation of how the 22 staff did this -- the fact that the staff, from the outset, 23 Proceeded from that base is relevant to this, and relevant to 24 whatever policy statement is eventually issued.
Ace Federd Reporters, Inc.
23 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
I must say, it appears to me from
2A30 jwb t
32
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e this discussion, that it would be useful to have for considera-
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3 tion by the Commission additional draft material -- either a new 2
version of these things, or additions to it -- which does attemp b-3
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to lay out, as these papers do not in either case, the sorts of things that we have been hearing here for the last three-quarters 5
f an hour.
6 I think it is a useful point to be made.
I have a 7
notion -- and I must say, my own view of these things is
.probably colored in almost a mirror image to the way that 9
y urs is.
That is, your view is from an outsider, hearing.
10 certain things which come through well above noise level in 11 the media, or discussion and gossip and so on, and without a l
12 knowledge and familiarity with the review process; and mine is 13 completely the reverse, having been here as chief of the ja technical staff when WASH-1400 started, and having argued with 15 Norm and Commissioners over whether they could have this or 16 that staff expert out of our shop to cart off to Germantown,
~
p and bury him in that effort for a couple of years, and then 18 j
having the thing finally published.
39 ell, after I had left, and while I was still 20 editing the Standard Review Plans, I had a very clear picture g
f where everybody stood, and there are several things that 22 strike me.
23 One is that when we talk about whether the staff is 24 Acs-Federcl Reporters', Inc.
defending the study, or the staff is doing this with the study 25 l
2a3,1 jwb 33 e
1 or that with the study, it is useful -- at least here where we 2
are close in to the business -- to recognize that the staff is 3
by no means a homogenous and monolithic object.in this regard.
4 When you talk about the staff defending this, by 5
God, why, you know, you've got 2500 people, and you can probably 6
find 1 or 2 people who were associated with the calculation in 7
the study who probably still think it is as good a way as any 8
other to combine a couple of probabilities in order to propa-9 gate errors, or find a mean value for propagating errors.
But 10 nevertheless, the judgment of the peer group is that it wasn't 11 a particularly defensible way -- although I notice the peer 12 group did not suggest any other way, by George, which I found 13 interesting.
14 It may just be an intractable sort of problem.
But 15 to identify a discussion in the Lewis Review Group meetings in 16 which the group is saying, "Look, people have criticized this 17 technique you used, Smith, or Jones, or whoever, and where we 18 think the criticisms have considerable merit," -- we don't 19 understand how you justify it; and Smith or Jones is saying, 20 "Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time" -- you know, what 21 else have you got to identify that sort of discussion as "the 22 staff is defending WASH-1400."
It is a hopelessly blind end #2 23 oversimplification and generalization.
24 Ace Fedwtl Reporters, Inc.
25 t
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34 2217.03.1 gsh i
Frankly, we stood aside in 3ethesda and looked 2
askance at all of that activity at Germantown end-thought, 3
well, if they cr-scrape up 50 people to work on that, why.
4 can't we have them down here to line up and go to work in 5
the trenches, by God, on cases?
6 So the views in the staff. have always been widespread t
7 in the licensing staff having the fundamental responsibility 8
to go forward in the Commission's hearing process and 9
stand up and swear to tell the truth and so on, has always 10 borne the burden of not leaping aboard.these things until 11 they were utterl/ confident that they could give that 12 testimony and be sure of it.
13 So the uses have been considerably less than I 14 expect, some of the noise, at least, and commentary from 15 outside would suggest.
16 There is another aspect, however, and that is that 17 1400 and the aura which went with it, which was, l ook, we've IS done this great detailed study and a number of very capable 19 people have labored for many man-years -- I don't know, 50 20 or 70 or 100 man-years went into the e ffort -- and they have 21 finally done this great study.
It is the best.
It is not 22 perf ect and it has errors in it. probably, but at least it 1
23 is the best that we have been aole to do.
It is a great 24 advance, and look what it shows:
It shows these machines, 25 as we have been licensing them with the requirements, we've
)
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35
- 217.03.2 1
.gsh I
. been reauirina that_ these machines are quite saf e.
2 And I think, indeed, you were commenting the last
- l 3
time we met that there were some Commission statements that 4
we re, _ in ef f ect, enthusiastic endorsements.
And I think, 5
ind eed, that is a correct ' point.
At the Commission level'and 6
' perhaps in certain. circles in the Congress and certainly on f
7 the nuclear industry s.ide, there was great enthusiasm for 8
that point of view in. now saying, hey, let's take careful 9
account of what~Hal Lewis and his group have told us here.
10 I find ~ a certain inclination to rush pell-mell to t
11 the edge of the cliff and throw the whole thing into'the 12 dump below.
There is a lot of value in that work that was 13 done, and what Lewis and his group have said is don't throw
(
14 the whole thing out.
Use the good parts and be very 15 cautious of the parts where we. think the error bands are 16 much broader than were originally stated.
17 You notice that the Lewis group did not say these 18 absolute probabilities are wrong.
What they said was it 19 looks to us as though the error bands on them are, indeed, 20 substantially larger.
21 And what that means, of course, i s that you have to t
22 be very careful about using those particular probabilities, 23 those absolute probability numbers to prove a point, because 24 the range within which they might reasonably be expected to-25 fall are very broad.
And if you're going to use those_ sorts t
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of numbers, you really have to recognize what that range is.
l 2
Now there has'been a case recently where Harold 3
has used an argument of that sort.
And in order to recognize 4
that range, in fact, has said, look, let's go up a f actor 5
of 100, as I remenber it, on the up side, and 10 on the down 6
side f rom the central value of the WASH-1400, but recognize 7
that full range.
p 8
Now that seems to me a perfectly reasonable and 9
legitimate sort of an argument, particularly since there is 10 an empirical anchor on the high end number.
11 Secondly, with regard to -- so the first point is 12 let us not please attempt to junk everything here in our 13 enthusiasm for withdrawing f rom some initial optimism.
i 14 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD: What did you mean as a 15 general term by "an empirical anchor on the high end number"?
16 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
dell, this was with regard. to the 17 probability of core melt.
WASH-1400 quotes the central j
r 18 value of 1 in 20,000 per reactor year for the overall 19 probability of core melt in systems similar to the Peach 20 Sottom plant.
l 21 There was an occasion to use this some place, to j
22 use that kind of assessment recently. Harold's point was to j
I 23 try to recognize these broadened bands -- let's go up by a '
f 24 f actor of 100 and say the high end of the range is something 25 like I in 200 per reactor year, and the low end is down to P
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one in 200,000 per reactor year.
2 And what I mean by the high end is that at one 3
in 200, we have had about 400 reactor years of U.S. commercial 4
experience, about 1200 in the world, a couple thousand more 5
in military reactors, and we have not had a melt down.
6 So the high end number has an empirical anchor in 7
the experience which lies before us.
8 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD:
I understand now.
I wasn't 9
sure of the particular situation, and, therefore, what the 10 empirical anchor was.
11 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: I remember this discussion the 12 other day because it struck me that it was quite. a responsible 13 sort of recognition of the e.rror band comments in the Lewis 14 report, and that very conservative sort of use.
15 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: It seems to me when I asked 16 Hal what we could say about the absolute values, he responded 17 by saying nothing.
18 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
That is wha t I thought.
19 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Not saying nothing, but 20 saying the answer was we could conclude nothing.
21 MR. DENTON:
In the use we made, we quoted von 22 Hippell's view that the probability of core melt could be as 23 h.igh as the level of experience for the types of numbers that 24 the Chairman just quoted.
25 So that is how we picked the factor of 100 to go up.
~.
s 38 1217.03.5 gsh 1
We went back up to an interval as often as one in 200.
2 And so it is unlikely, if you look at it statistically, that 3
the probability of the core melt down are higher than that.
4 You would expect to see precursors and so forth.
5 So we tried to rely on what Lewis had.said to pick 6
that upper bound of experience.
7 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
Well, of course, the 8
experience limit is not absolute.
9 MR. DENTON:
That's rights it is a data point.
10 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: And you could flip a coin
.11
- 20) times and have it come out heads 2.00 times.
12 MR. DENTON:
That is why we did not pick the one 13
.that was just on the edge of the amount of experience we had.
14 Two orders of magnitude.
We moved back into the level-of 15 experience considerably, and in fact, we have done calculations 16 to see what confidence you could say if that were the only 17 fact you knew.
18 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
Right.
You can make a 19 statement with a certain degree of confidence.
20 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
You have a certain data point and 21 experience and then there is a distribution at the present 22 time.
There is a certain likelihood that it is so much above 23 or so much below.
24 One final comment I would make here is that in 25 looking to retread some past statements and so on, I think we
s 39 1
0217.03.6 gsh I
may find that the prir.cipal retreading might be with regard 2
to the things the Commission had said in the past rather than l
3 the things that the staff has said and done, at least in 4
the licensing arena.
5 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
I think that is probably 6
correct,.which was my focus.
7 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY:
If I may, let me add one 8
more dimension to the point that you are making, all, it 9
seems to me, which are well taken, and that is I don't think 10 the Lewis study was intended to discredit the notion that
.11 reactors are safe or that the staff capably discharges its 12 responsibilities in assuring that result.
13 And I would urge that we so comport ourselves that 14 we don't inadvertently turn the Lewis. study and our review 15 of it into precisely that kind of a step, unless the facts 16 demand that result.
Okay?
17 COMMISSIONER GILINSKYs It did seem to discredit i
18 the notion that reactors are safe because WASH-14.00 says 19 they are.
20 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY:
No, I don't think that is a j
21 fair statement.
I.think that said, more likely, at least in 22 my view, that WASH-1400 had some deficiencies and therefore 23 could not be used as the basis, sole basis, for declaring i
24 that reactors are safe.
25 I think that is a little dif ferent and it is that m.
40 217.03.7 gsh I
precise point that I think ir important here because it 2
is awfully easy, it seems to me, awfully easy to shif t this 3
argument precisely in the direction that those who were 4
attacking that now on the basis of the Lewis report, 1
5 precisely in the direction that they are. moving.
6 They are using this as one would expect them to 7
To discredit reactor safety, and thus, the role of the staff.
8 And I submit that there is nothing in the Lewis report which 9
justifies that and nothing that I can see, at least, in the 10 way the staff comports itself to justify it.
.11 Only if the facts declare that should we take such 12 a position, or even lead in that direction by inadvertence.
13 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
I'm not trying to imply, 14 and I don't believe that the Lewis report attempted to 15 discredit the staff.
That wasn't the gist of my comments.
I 16 don't think the Lewis report did that.
17 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY Let me add that my comments 18 were addressed to that other broad dimension which we t.oo 19 often in this agency forget.
20 We are not working in this agency, gentlemen, those 21 of you particularly whose scientific abilities far transcend 22 those poor mortals like Peter and myself.
We are not working 23 to prove something to the scientific community.
We are here 24 to provide reactor safety for 220 million people in this 25 country and not the 2 million who are arguing these issues.
41 2217.03.8 gsh 1
And we ought to discuss and describe what we do in the terms 2
that those 220 million people can understand. And we sure 3
don't do that very often, and this is an example.
4 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: I think it would be useful to 5
have for consideration as part of this statement, and we can 6
see as we whittle on it individually where it ought to fit 7
the kind of statement that has been made here. And I don't 8
see any shaking of heads along the table to that suggestion.
9 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: I have no problem, and I 10 think that should be, Joe.
But just as I don't think we 11 ought to go overboard because there are critics, in the same 12 way, I don't.think that we ought to be so strong and overreact 13 to the critics themselves, so that we would be a lot firmer 14 in our statements than the facts warrant.
15 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY One of the lessons here is 16 that the agency got a li.ttle overenthusiastic in putting 17 out the message of safety, and to the extent of having an 18 executive summary which is now coming in for a good deal of 19 c ritic ism, that it would have been better lef t out, I think.
20 So I think it isn't just the results of the study 21 and the numbers, but the way it was put together and the 22 way it was handled by the agency, all of which, I think, 23 bears sone comment.
24 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY:
I agree with you 100 percent.
25 Let us not forget that bias is not a one-sided coin.
4 42
.217.03.9 gsh l'
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
Peter, did you.want to j
2 contribute a thought?-
3 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: From the nontechnical 4
community?
5 (Laughter.)
6 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY:
Some of us have to bring.
7 some sense to the discussion, Peter.
8 (Laughter.)
9 MR. GO.SSICK:
We will certainly give you a statement 10 that you have asked for. I would caution, though, that until 11 we have finished this review, and it is not only within our 12 office, but staff-wide and how it has been used, that we 13 be cautious about the statements that we make.
14 The only other point is that such a viewpoint as 15 Harold has expressed here, I think probably we heard some 16 of. that in the negotiations, if you want to call it that, 17 that went on in trying to come together on a statement.
18 I think it really only f air, or proper, that you 19 again ask if there are views that you would like to hear here 20 this morning.
I don't know that the re are, but I certainly 21 heard some that 'weren't indicative of caution, or shall we 22 say, unwillingness to go quite to the extent that we have 23 indicated here this morning.
24 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY:
If they are here, can we 25 hear them?
43 1217.03.10 gsh 1
MR. GOSSICK: I would just like to make the off er, 2
if anyone would like to make a statement.
3 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
I would like to probe that ma.tter 4
and note for the Commission that at some point along here, 5
not too close to.11:00, I would like to turn and pick up some 6
progress reports.
7 We have a couple of reports.
We can check on how 8
that Ford letter thing is going, and also the'00C made a 9
quick check about the litigation posture.
10 We have a thing, a great compilation, and my copy Il does not have the reference paper clips in it.
But at any i
12 rate, I would like to hear how things are going on several 13 of these fronts before we quit and I will have to leave.
14 In fact, you and I have an appointment at 11:00 that 15 we ought to observe very promptly.
1 16 Let's ask if we can hear some other points of view.
17 They don't necessarily have to take violent objection to 18 other things that have been said.
19 Bob?
20 MR. CHILK Can I ask you to come up here so that 21 people in the audience can hear you?
1 22 MR. MINOGUE: I'm going to be very brief.-
I just 23 want to make it clear where I stand.
I f ully support what 24 Harold has said, and I just want to make it clear where I 25 stand on this.
h y
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44 217.03.11 gsh I
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
Other commentary?
2 COMMISSIONER KENNEDYs If there is not, I'm going
~
3 to assume that everyone is agreeing with Harold.
4 MR. HANAUER:
Mr. Chairman, I think one thing has 5
been lef t out of the discussion.
The proposed policy i
6 statement talks. about f urther developmengal risk asse ssment, 7
and I think that is entirely proper.
8 But it seems to me that although we licensed 9
reactors for a long time without the reactor saf ety study, 10 and we could keep on doing it, that there would be something 11 very valuable in a reactor safety study not subject to i
12 the technical criticisms of the Lewis committee report.
And 13 that the future program of the Commi.ssion ought to include 14 the development of a reactor safety study that could be 15 used.
16 The fault trees and the event trees, the so called 17 methodology does not mean anything unless you put' numbers on 18 it.
It is only the numerical results, with some minor 1
19 exceptions, which are usef ul in guiding the programs of the l
i 20 Commissions The research programs, the licensing requirements 21 and the case-by-case review, all of them.
22 Now we have some numbers that we can use only with 23 the greatest care and the various admonitions which you got 24.
out of the Lewis report and that have been talked about this 25 morning.
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45 1217.03.12 gsh 1
I think we would do a lot better job if we had 2
a set of numbers we could use explicitly.
If we could turn
(.
3 to page 37 and get a number and.use it, I think thi.t would 4
be very helpful to the licensing staff.
5 Furthermore, I think that if the Commission and 6
the public had an overall risk assessment of nuclear. power 7
plants whose bottom line was less subject to some of these 8
criticisms, that the Commission could do a better job and 9
that the publ.ic could have a better idea about the dangers 10 and nondangers of nuclear power than perhaps they now have.
.I l And I think this ought to be pursued and the 12 resources ought to be expended in this direction.
1 13 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: I have a question.
14 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Please go ahead.
15 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
Steve, do you think that some 16 of the numbers are now being used, then if not explicitly, 17 implic itly?
18 MR. HANAUER: Yes, sir, I do.
And I think this.is i
19 proper, although one has to be-very caref ul.
I l
20 What Harold told you about how he used the study l
21 to focus his attention on the high risk sequences, this is 22 a use of the numbers.
23 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE: Jo you believe that there is 24 a possibility that some of the numbers that are now being 25 used in such a way that as a result of the Lewis criticism, I
i l
l L
46
$217.03.13 gsh I
that they should be much more cautious?
2 MR. HANAUER:
There's always'that possibility. I 3
think, as Harold said, we have been f airly cautious in using
?
4 these numbers, and you wi11 not find a big problem in this 5
area.
6 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Let me ask you, Steves 7
Have these numbers. which result in a sequence of accident 8
chains and in some order.of importance, have they been 9
checked in any since the report?
10
.Has anybody gone over this sort of. thing, or is 11 that too complicated?
12 MR. HANAUER:
Only in spots.
That is to say, when 13 we came to do the ATWS review, for instance, and these
~s 14 numbers turned out to be important, we went back and checked 15 them in detail.
And as both the Lewis committee and our 16 recent report show, we, in fact, turned up that we didn't 17 use the numbers that had been generated in the safety study.
18 at their face value.
19 But there has been, as far as I know, no general 20 program of. checking these numbers.
It is an enormous task l
21 if you want to do them a ll.
22 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
But wouldn't that say that 23 whenever you use the numbers, you ought to check them?
24 MR. HANAUER: Yes, sir.
That is what I read Lewis y'
25 to have said, and that is why I would like a report which, to t
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47 1217.03.14 gsh I
some increased extents, I can use without.having to check.
2 C0KWI SSIONER KENNEDY:
Do you think that it is L
3 possible to produce such a report as a practical ma.tter?
i 4
MR. HANAUER:
As a practical matter, I think we 1
5 can produce a report which has in it a considerable body of 6
numbers that we could use without further checking..After 7
having looked at the Lewis admonitions and at the. three 8
. years we have already spent using these numbers, it will 9
certainly not be perfect and it may have some' holes in it.
10 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY: And it will not be subject 11 to continuous challenge.
12 MR. CASE:
Less challenge.
You're not going to 13 get rid of it completely.
14 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY:
Well, what is an a cceptable 15 level less?
j 16 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Is there no way to.make these 17 calculations transparent to the extent that you can check l
IS them'readily with some useful format?
I r
19 MR. HANAUER:
You hit a f avorite subject of mine, 20 Commissioner Gilinsky.
At the present state of development, 21 I believe there is a fair amount of art in these calculations, 22 as well as a f air amount of sites.
And that they are, 23 therefore, subject to a lot of problems when you try to use 1
24 them to communicate.
s 25 For example, in the licensing arena.
And we do 9
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4' 48 I217.03.15 gsh I
sometime succeed and we 'sometimes f ail. And. the examples, 2
unfortunately, are cases I can't discuss here.
3 One. of the-things that~ is needed, and we have 4
such.a program, but I don't think we're going to see. the l
5 result any time soon, is the development of this technology 6
to the pol'nt where it'becomes more transparent, more 7
' scientific, less artistic.
So that two competent practitioners 8
will get the same answer, instead of divergent answers, which 9
is so presently the case.
10 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
On the subject of the sun of 11 WASH-1400 has risen, from time to time, I guess starting i
12 fairly soon after the original version was published, and 13 people who like that sort of thing said, gee, that is great..
v 14 When can we do that again?
l r
15 And other people said, oh, God, not in my lif etine, 16 (Laughter.)
17 18 19 20 i
21 22 i
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23 i
l l
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25 1
2..-
..1
49 217.04.1 gsh I
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE Would somebody from the research 2
side, Tony, or somebody, care to make a comment?
3 If we wanted to look forward to a time when we 4
might try to m;ee forward on, in effect, a recalculation 5
along the WASH-1400 line, would you see that as something 6
that could reasonably and practicably be started, essentially, 7
i mmediately?
Or would you see a year or two, or whatever, 8
further work on some things you may have going on now, or 9
want to have go on before you would want to take a crack 10 at a recalculation?
11 MR. BUHL:
Yes, I think it might be more effective 12 to talk about this in two steps.
First of all, I think the 13 kind of things Steve was referring to I might better call a 14 rebaselining of WASH-1400.
15 And that is, since WASH-1400 has been criticism 16 which we discussed today and in other meetings, there has 17 also been approximately 10 times or more data available.
So 18 one, in our view, should look very hard at the rebaselining 19 of Peach Bottom, and at least then one has a common basis 20 f rom which to begin. In terms of doing a son of WASH-1400 and 21 a new reactor safety study, I think there are a number of 22 items that should be completed before one begins that effort.
23 So I guess my view is you really could not begin 24 that tomorrow in an effective way, and I'm thinking of things 25 like human error data.
We have changed our program in the
50 217.04.2 gsh 1
last year (sbstantially to collect more human error data, 2
to analyze very carefully the LERs.
We have some 12,000 3
License Event Reports in the agency going back to '72 which 4
need careful scrutinty for data, including human error, 5
component f ailure data, common mode f ailure.
One has to 6
look at floods, fires, seismic, the external events, in a 7
more careful way.
8 So I guess my view is we should have in place an 9
expansion of the program we now have to carefully look at 10 these external events, common mode failures, human error 11 data, and many of the other criticisms that we find in the 12 Lewis report. I think in a matter of two years, we will
.13 be in a much better-posture to do such an update than if 14 we started tomorrow.
Because if we started tomorrew, we 15 still would not be in a good position, particularly in 16 terms of the data and in terms of correction, if I may use 17 that word, of some of the methodology that has been 18 criticised.
19 COMMISSIONER GILINSKYs But it seems to me unlikely 20 that one is ever going to turn out a definitive report that 21 you are never going to have to go back to and change any 22 num be rs.
This has got to be a continuing process.
23 First of all, the. publication of the report itself 24 affects how one looks at reac tor safe ty because, as Harold 25 said, you take a look at the accident sequences that you did
s 51 217.04.3 gsh I
not think were important earlier and you do something about 2
those.
3 It seems to me that there is a certain value in 4
having a sort of looseleaf version of WASH-1400 that you 5
continually work on and which gives you some notion as to 6
where you stand on reactor safety, and one which you will 7
be continually improving, because, obviously, there are always 8
going to be areas where we lack data and where we are going 9
to have to go back to and improve our data base.
10 And there are going to be other areas where we have 11 made improvements and, therefore, one can go.back and redo 12 that section because all of the-reactors have had certain 13 improvements made in them and the situation is better.
14 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
Can I ask two questions on 15 that?
16 Do you first want the magnitude effort? Do you 17 envision that being similar to this three-year effort?
And 18 then, secondly, do you see in the tasking of such a review 19 any implication for interim action regarding licensing?
20 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
Well, I can't give you a 21 level of effort off the top of my head, but I would think it 22 would be useful to have a group which is continually engaged 23 in this.
24 I think it is bound to affect licensing because you 25 have people thinking through how it all hangs together.
- 217.04.4 52 gsh I
COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
No, I didn't mean whether 2
at the end you have ongoing. licensing.
I meant the fact that 3
we were tasking such a review.
Would that have any impact?
4 COMMISSIONER GILJNSKY: I don't think it ought to.
5 There has been a reluctance in the past to admit uncertainty 6
because you're then raising questi.ons about licenses that 7
you're granting.
8 The fact is one is going forward and granting 9
licenses given a certain amount of uncertainty.
10 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
I would agree.
I was just 11 interested in your reaction.
12 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
It also means that you have 13 to be effective in the way you use new data and when you I
14 use particularly any sort of incident data, that you feed 15 this back continually.
I 16 But I don't see'any reason why one can't, in 17 parallel, continue licensing and have an effort of this kind.
18 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
We did it from '72 through '75.
19 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY:
Could I ask Vic, just sort 20 of procedurally how you go about this?
Would you suggest, 21 and it makes eminent sense to me, would you suggest going 22 back to doing the son of WASH-1400, or some other baseline 23 from.which this effort would proceed?
24 You've got to start somewhere with some body of 25 data and some calculational system. Where do you start?
217.04.5 53 gsh I
COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Well, I think you have to 2
. start by pulling together, as you say, some reference report.
3 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY:
So you start over, in a 4
sense?
5 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
I think I would. But let 6
me give that some thought.
7 MR. DENTON: There have been some son of WASH-1400s.
8 The Germans. I think, have just about completed a similar 9
study for their plants, and several other foreign countries 10 have attempted to take the.same methodology and use their 11 own methods and their own numbers.
And I think those kinds 12 of studies are now beginning to come out.
13 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
Let me comment that I think it 14 sounds like we could have winter and summer addenda in the 15 manner of the boiler codes.
We could issue revision I plus 1 16 of the Reg Guide that endorses that particular piece.
17 The kind of thing which you seem to be talking about, 18 Vic, would seem to me what Tony has called a rebaselining.
19 But then the question is What is it worth doing on WASH-1400, 20 or would it be better to institute that kind of a sort of 21 maintenance and update operation on a new report, is one 22 q ue s t ion.
And a second ouestion, and I'm not going to give l
l 23 you a chance to answer that or comment on it right at the 24 moment because I want to turn to Tony -- as we suggest, the 25 possibilities of these various things and probe at them, we
~
l
4 54 217.04.6 gsh I
might keep in mind that the risk assessment staff is not 2
a large group. It is a small group, in part, because we are 3
tight fisted at budget and dollar and people time each year, 4
and it is a small group, in par.t, because this is not 5
precisely in the most widely understood and prac.ticed 6
technological art around, top flight risk assessment sorts 7
of people.
There aren't all that many.
8 So there is a certain problem there.
9 But, Tony, let me ask you.
You have kind of got 10 a problem.
If you're ever going to get to the point where 11 your data base and methodology resources are much improved, 12 and.one might contemplate then being able to move forward 13 into a really thorough going son of WASH-1400 study -- in 14 order to get to that place, you have to use your staff to 15 develop the data base.
You shake it down and the methodology 16 develops and so on.
17 On the other hand, if you gets tasks simultaneously 18 with re baselining WAS H-1400, to the extent you can, what is 19 your staff situation?
20 My instincts are that you may just have a problem.
21 that you may be able to do one or the other, but not both.
22 And I would appreciate some comment.
23 MR. BUHLs Well, I believe, yes, I have never found 24 myself overstaffed or overfunded, but I believe the kind of 25 thing -- the words I used, rebaselining, we are talking about
t e
+
55 217.04.7 gsh 1
the kinds of things that we have to do in any case.
That 2
is, we clearly have to improve the human error data base.
,j 3
We clearly have to improve what we do on the common mode 4
situations.
5 So many of these kinds of things, the external 6
events, fires, floods, seismic, and so forth, better work 7
has to be done in that area.
8 However one uses it, whether-one uses it, if you 9
will, to improve what is in WASH-1400, or to do a new piece 10 of work.
11 So o.ur program in the past has had kind of three 12 elements which relate to your question.
One is to improve 13 those areas and we have programs underway, hopefully, which 14 will result in substantial improvements in the next year to 15 two years in some of those areas, in all of those areas.
16 We also spend a good bit of time -- I spent a good 17 bit of time on the problem you raised of available support, 18 the risk assessment area.
And to that end, we brought on 19 board in the last year half a dozen or so new people, but 20 we have also expanded our efforts in several contractor shops.
21 So not only a f ew of the national. labs in the 22 country, but also, other private contractors and universities 23 have been very interested in this work in the last few years, 24 e spe c ia lly, and we have been expanding our efforts there 25 trying to draw upon talent from around the country.
And I i
56 217.04.8
)
gsh I
think we have to continue to do that.
2 So I think that we are doing some of those kinds 3
of things today.
We also, a third step I would mention, 4
we have looked at.over the past year and a half, how one 5
steps from Peach Bottom to include and look at some of the 6
broader design issues and design changes.
7 For example, the ice containment, the Westinghouse 8
ice containment and others, and we have underway a re. view of 9
four plants now using WASH-1400 as a baseline, trying to make 10 the modifications and corrections to the data and methodology, 11 and to, again, look at the dominant sequence in four new 12 plants to learn what we can learn there.
13 So I think we are covering the kinds of concerns, 14 that is the technological areas, the. data bases, and so forth, 15 the training and development of people, and also, new design 16 features as they would affect risk, looking forward to the 17 kind of utilization we're talking about.
18 So whether one decides to rebaseline WASH-1400, 19 which we think is important, or whether one steps off into 20 a new safety study, it seems to me that we are, in a sense.
21 rebaselining WASH-1400 as we go along now as we learn more 22 about human error and as we learn more about what the 23 Licensee Event Reports tell us.
24 But it still seems to me that we could not 25 practically, it would not be practical tomorrow to start a
217.04.9 gsh I
new safety study because these areas are applicable equally 2
to a new safety study, an update of WASH-1400, or, indeed, 3
a general usage in the methodology.
As Harold has said, 4
the licensee people.have been very skeptical in some of these r
5 areas., and correctly so.
6 For example, the seismic.
And I think to support 7
licensing in a stronger way, we still have to improve those 8
kinds of areas, all three of those areas.
9 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
It seems to me one of the 10 objectives of the new study has got to be to turn out 11 calculations that. can be checked easily.
Calculations which 12 can'.t be checked at all are not of much use, or are not of 13 any use.
14 And I think that was one of the comments that 15 the Lewis report made.
And it goes on to say that the thing 16 was written in such a way that it's very difficult to 17 understand.
And I think that that is another area that I 18 think needs to get fixed up, because these reports are not 19 of. much use except to the experts, unless they can be 20 understood.
21 I thought that was a very important criticism on 22 their part.
23 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
My uneasiness at the moment 24 about having a new study is partially I'm not really sure 25 what tF utility of. this kind of a study is.
As we heard m
4 r
58 217 04.10 k
gsh last time and this time, the licensing staff has not been 2
using it as a major document'for them.
3 So that in looking at the allocation of resources 4
across the agency, a major effort to redo this kind of a 5
study has to compete for scarce, high quality resources. As 6
Joe mentioned and as I think we will later find out in a 7
number of cases, it was very hard to get, really, high 8
quality people pulled out of the staff to work on the 9
Rasmussen study.
And if you don't dedicate high quality 10 people to it, then it is not going to meet your objectives.
.11 I'm sure that Harold is sitting there cringing, 12 thinking when we're talking about pulling out large numbers 13 of high quality people to work on the study, that he has 14 racked up in his mind all of those pressures right now of 15 trying to get the work done.
16 So in my own mind, I'm not really clear on what 17 the balancing is on the use of our resources.
18 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE In. view of closing, with the 19 clock moving on, the line of discussion here in the last 20 minutes about looking forward to where we go in terms of 21 WASH-1400 updates or restudies or new versions, I think is 22 usef ul as background.
23 Let me try to pull us back for the next ten minutes 24 to getting now a very brief progress report or comments on 25 the progress of some of the efforts that we had mandated to
317.04.ll 59 gsh I
go forward.
2 Jim, could you comment?
I have an October 20th
_f 3
paper that says that the litigation is not hung.
Could you 4
just say that for people's benefit?
f MR. KELLEY: Yes. We reviewed our recommendations 6
and briefs, and I think the one that was the most careful 7
was the Price, Anderson case. But our bottom line is we 8
have not relied on the litigation and there is no action 9
to be taken in that regard.
There's one other project that 10 our office has worked on jointly with OPE, and that is the 1
11 reconsideration request from UCS that is now before you.
12 And UCS wrote a letter --
13 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: This is reconsideration?
14 This is the petition in connection with qualification of 15 components and fires and so on?
16 MR. KELLEY: That's right.
And the UCS did write 17 a letter saying, hey, you relied on Rasmussen. And we are 18 sending up suggestions and a couple of pages of language 19 changes that would address the point.
20 I want to look at one other thing on recollecting 21 further, and that is what the Commission said exactly in 22 extending Price, Anderson for the Congress.
And I'm pretty 23 sure there's no reliance there, but I will get back to you l
24 on that.
i 25 I worked on the testimony, and I'm pret.ty sure we 4
1 i
I
. ~..
e
~
60 317.04.12 gsh I
didn't, but I will check it.
2 Commissioner Kennedy asked earlier about this 3
letter of the 18th of October.
We were asked to look into 4
and I guess prepare a response to that letter. The letter 5
is related to the subject this morning, certainly. in the 6
broad sense, that the review could preview the Rasmussen 7
study and the UCS letter was critical of the review group.
8 So at least in a broad sense.. they are related.
J 9
We have not done a lot yet.
We have got a little one-page 10 outline of topics to look into.
We are going to have to 11 look at a lot of papers and I think interview some people.
12 We will give it priority, but it's going to take a little 13 time.
I do think that the two topics don't necessarily 14 relate in this sense.
15 You have before you a statement that would state 16 your position on the review' group, and I think the concern 17 would be, well, what if all of these charges turn out to 18 be correct?
Would that undercut this paper?
19 And preliminarily, we think it is kind of unlikely.
20 You come out, at least in the draf t, and I might oversimplify 21 it, but the draft says, keep using the techniques, the 22 methodology.
That's fine.
The letter has nothing to do 23 with that.
24 So I would think that we could go ahead.
25 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: I think it would be useful in the
9 217.04.13 61 gsh I
course of your investigation of that matter, as Commissioner 2
Bradford has recommended, that there be a f airly clear 3
detailed chronology established and some reasonable
~
4 cross-checking.
As you find people's recommendations differ, 5
it is useful to go back and recheck and try to shake down 6
those points.
7 Now does anybody want to comment on this horrendous 8
pack that I have received from Congressional Aff airs?
9 MR. 00SSICK:
Excuse me, Mr. Chairman.
Did you also 10 speak to the November 1 letter from UCS?
11 MR. KELLEY:
I mentioned that earlier.
I was just 12 talking about October 18th.
13 MR. GOSSICK: There is a second letter.
14 MR. KENNEKE I mentioned that earlier, UCS's 15 proposed policy statement.
Perhaps we would want to send 16 them an acknowledgement of the fact that you have it.
17 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: I assume so.
18 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
Where do we go from here, 19 Joe?
20 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
I was going to wonder if anybody 21 from Congressional can give me a 30-second summary of this.
22 MS. PINE:
Most of those le tters that are included 23 in there are transmittal letters that refer back and say, 24 we have finished doing this report, WASH-1400.
WASH-1400 25 shows you that in light of all of these statistics, reactors e
e
e 317.04.14 62 gsh I
are relatively safe.
There are a few in there from j
2 previous chairmen that go beyond that statement.
But the' 3.
bulk of them are transmittals.
j 4
COMMISSIONER BRADFORD: And they tend to transmit the 5
executive summaries.
6 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY:
Without the report?
Just the 7
executive summaries?
8 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD:
Yes.
9 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: I assume that that was an economy 10 move.
11 MR. KELLEY:
There is a problem in that regard.
The 12 UCS letter concludes by saying, "And send our letter along 13 with all copies of the report."
14 We think that should avoid out looking into it and 15 that shouldn't be done at this point.
16 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: I would agree with that.
17 MR. KENNEKE One comment on the pile and my reading 18 of it.
It seems to me that the Commission is go'.ng to have 19 to get itself in a position of defending the RSS and the 20 quality of the work in there, and some of the correspondence.
21 And I think that would have to be clarified.
22 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE I thin,k the useful way to do it 23 is to try to deal with it in the way the policy statement 24 phrases the Lewis group conclusions on 1400, rather than 25 trying to rewrite 300 letters.
S.
~
63 217.04.15 gsh I
COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
I think unless there is 2
some.particularly aggregious case, that I would suggest 3
moving on.
4 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
Now let's talk about where we 5
go from here.
6 There are two sorts of pieces here, the drafting 7
that I would like to see.
And the first is new material 8
which tries to set forth in straightforward terms -- it 9
needn't carry on at great length -- but set forth in 10 straightforward terms the way the staff believes that it has Il been using WASH-1400 in the licensing context.
12 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD ~I gathered from one of 13 Steve's comments that there are some instances in which there 14 may be problems in defending cases.
Are there ways that can 15 be brought to our attention without the ex parte barriers?
f 16 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY:
Excuse me.
Peter, your 17 question was --
i i
18 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD:
I gathered that Steve 19 thought there was some instances in pending cases that we 20 should be aware of that he felt constraint from discussing 21 with us.
By the ex parte rule. I wondered if some attention 22 could be given to at least getting those parts of the record 23 that no one could object to having the Commission take a 24 look at.
25 MR. KELLEY:
We would be happy to talk with staff i
3n.
217.04.16 64 gsh I
about that to see if we can't work it out.
2 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE. I would think there would be 3'
ways to expurgate those things so that you're dealing with
~
4 the WASH-1400 matter and not the other, to try.to separate 5
and generalize it.
I think that coulc' be done, to come 6
away from the particular cases.
7 okay, now the second cart of the redrafting is 8
-that I think it would be helpful for the collective staff, 9'
meaning OPE and DD0 staff and everyone concerned, to work 10 on each other a little bit with regard to grinding these 11 differences into.some sort of view o.f accommodation.
12 One of the reasons we've got to is that Ken had 13 to go abroad.
~
14 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
We had given a specific 15 deadline, and Ken, departing for abroad, caused us not to 16 meet the deadline.
17 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
And, indeed, it was useful to 18 apply that pressure.
It produced the statements, and if 19 we had been of a mind, and so on, and perhaps the statements 20 had been a little different, we conceivably could have gone 21 to sort of, 19 effect, a mark-up session here.
22 But I think that we are going to continue to work 23 on this and I think it is useful to work these things 24 together.
25 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
I would like to, though,
,n.
217.04.17 65 gsh qualify that to the extent that I think at this stage, I 2
would like us, or our staffs, to get a little more involved 3
in that process, because we are really working to the point 4
where it is going to be the Commission's policy statement.
5 And I think that the OPE and Norm's office have now gotten 6
to the point where we ought to try to provide at least some 7
of our views.
8 Now if it is more appropriate to take what they've 9
done and work it out amongst ourselves, that's fine.
Or if 10 it is more sopropriate for us to give our views to them, 11 that's fine.
But I think we ought to get more qualifications.
12 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY:
I would agree with that.
It 13 would seem to me.,that we could, through our staffs, provide 14 some views.
15 CHAIRMAN HENDRIEr Input to this?
16 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY: Yes, and be looking to draf t 17 material which we could then all look at.
18 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Fine. Good.
t 19 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
I think, realistically, we 20 would have probably gotten a closer version like Norm has 21 presented, and there would still be some contrasts.
22 So I think they've really been working very well 23 together.
j 24 MR. GOSSICK: Another matter that I want to mention l
25 here, or ask, is the matter of the Board's and the ACRS's i
M pd*o 217.04.18 66 gsh I
views of any of the WASH-1400 methodology being addressed.
2 There is nothing that I know of going on that 3
says for them to do so.
I think that is something you ought 4
to consider.
5 COMMISSIONER AHEARNE:
Good point.
6 MR. GOSSICK:
The Boards and panels and ACRS, I 7
do n' t know to what extent they have on their own counted on 8
this stuff, but why don't we ask.
)
9 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Let me suggest the following, 10 since in 30 seconds I'm going to have to arise and go 11 elsewhere:
That you consider what is appropriate there, 12 k eeping in mind -- we ll, I think all of the interesting aspects 13 occur as one thinks about it.
And we will discuss it further, 14 or you might circulate a note to us s aying, I think we ought 15 to do this.
And pro bably, we can just check it off and say, 16 okay, or okay, but change this.
And that does not have to dr YO0 17 come to another meeting on a relatively minor point like that.
18 All right.
I thank you all very much for a very 19 interesting discussior..
20 (Whereupon, at 11:00 a.m.,
the hearing was 21 concluded, to reconvene subject to the call of the Chair. )
22 23 24 25