ML20151C506

Comment Opposing Proposed Rule 10CFR50 Re Licensing of Nuclear Power Plants Where State &/Or Local Govts Decline to Cooperate in Offsite Emergency Planning

ML20151C506
Person / Time
Site:	Indian Point
Issue date:	02/18/1987
From:	Holt J PUBLIC INTEREST RESEARCH GROUP, NEW YORK
To:	NRC, NRC COMMISSION (OCM)
References
FRN-52FR6980, RULE-PR-50 52FR6980-00013, 52FR6980-13, NUDOCS 8807220015
Download: ML20151C506 (5)

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Commissioners i U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Washington, D.C. 20555 Commissioners:

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is proposing to waive or eliminate entirely its requirement that there be state and local participation in off-site emergency planning in order to grant operating licenses to nuclear plants which have only a utility  ;

plan. )

Underlying this proposal are two assumptions, one explicit and one implicit. Explicit is the assumption thet if a radiological emergency plan has been written by a utility and  ;

made available to state and local governments, those authorities I can and will be able to execute the plan in the event of an i accident--despite their prior lack of participation in training, j practice, testing, evaluation, and remedial efforts. The implicit '

assumption is that those factors which led a state, county, or municipality to reject emergency planning participation are invalid and of no substantive relevance to the Commission's i licensing decisions, i Both assumptions are indefensible. Indeed, NRC's very motive for proposing this and other reductions in emergency planning requirements is indefensible: to make it possible to j license reactors without regard to potential accident consequences (which is what emergency planning is all about) and, if need be, ,

over tl.e objections of the people and their elec'ced officials.- j

Background

In 1980, jolted from its previous complacency by the partial core-melt accident at Three Mile Island, the NRC published its emergency planning rule. Henceforth, said NRC, emergency planning and preparedness around U.S. commercial, reactors would be considered a necessary and integral part of the agency's "defense in depth" strategy for nuclear plant safety, along with plant j siting and engineered safeguards.

The new NRC rule required the preparation, testing, and approval of on-site (utility) and off-site (state and local) -

procedures for protecting the public in the event of an accident OSIO The New York Put*c interest Reesarch Group, Inc. (NYP:R3) le e not tora normertaan resserch and echocacy crgenczation estatAshed 1

drected and supported ty New Yort state cosege and urbersey endents NYPIRG's staff of newyers, reeserthers, scnormets and organtzers works men steeres and crur enters, dovutorig durerurg eldes and shaprig putAc pocoy. Canarrer proescmon, energy, tocal reasonatuary, pouncal resorm and sooal peace are NYPIRO's pW aroes of concern 8807220015 070218 ,

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with potential off-site radiation releases. Since the possibility of an accident'could never be eliminated, standards of readiness were.to be; wholly independent of. hypothetical accident probabili-

. tier. Moreover, emergency - procedures were to be developed for -

the full range of possible accidents, from minor to severe.

1 It looked for a time as .though NRC had taken seriously the-

' basic lesson of Three Mile Islands technological failures, human

,j errors, and unforeseen sequences of events can come together to

.cause major accidents, and we have to be prepared to take measures, including evacuation,:to-protect the public. 'But,-NRC's commitment to accident preparedness was short lived, and in less

' than three years the Commission took the first. step toward dismantling its emergency planning requirements.

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On June 9, 1983, by a,three to'two vote, the_ Commissioners 4

permitted the Indian Point reactors to continue to operate despite significant defects in emetgency preparedness (some remaining to j- this day) and the decision of Rockland County to withdraw from , ,

an emergency planning effort it had come to believe was futile..  !

l The Commission's failure to enforce its emergency planning rule ,

L at the nation's most densely populated reactor site--280,000 1

people within 10 miles of Indian Point and over 17 million, including all New York City residents, within 50 miles--signalled .

the nuclear industry that NRC could be counted on to bend the  !

rules when-convenient. j Since 1983, NRC has' reduced emergency planning requirements  :

further. Emergency preparedness exercises, for example, are now ,

required only every other year instead of annually. And the agency continues to ignore non-compliance at sites like Indian ,

j Point, where the Federal Emergency Management' Agency recently determined that it is unable to assure that over: 55,000 school ,

children within the 10-mile emergency planning zone can be l adequately protected should an accident. occur.  ;

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NRC Proposal to Waive or Eliminate Requirement for. State  !

and Local Participation in Emergency Planning and Preparedness  !

) The NRC has put forward a preposterous argument in defense 1 of its latest de-regulatory proposai we need no longer require l advance participation of state and local governments in emergency i planning for if there is a written utility plan which we think is  !

adequate, we ccn assume that state and local personnel can and l 4

i- Rockland officials still maintain that a timely evacuation of

the county is impossible, but were ultimately forced by Governor i

Cuomo's imposition of. State control to re-join the Indian Point 4

emergency planning effort. In contrast to his refusal to impose

, a State or utility emergency plan for Shoreham on Suffolk County,

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Governor Cuomo--over Rockland's strenuous objections--submitted a State take-over plan for Rockland and sent in State personnel to

, substitute for County officials in emergency drills for Indian Point.

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will execute that plan if there is a nuclear accident.

This rationale may suit NRC's purpose--to license Shoreham, Seabrook, and every other nuclear plant--but it has nothing to do either with public safety or with ordinary logical, rational thinking. Indeed, it is doubtful that NRCers believe this

transpsrent notion themselves, for it makes no sense.

-l It makes no more sense to expect state and local personnel to successfully execute emergency procedures they haven't trained for and practiced than it does to expect an opening night theater performance to work with an entirely new cast which may or may not have read the seg[pt beforehand, doesn't know its roles or lines, and has had no drhatic training, direction, or rehearsals. No theater producer would risk a single dollar on.such a venture.

Nor would any general send raw recruits into battle with no

, training on the wild assumption that because previous troop units i had been trained to execute certain maneuvers and handle ce',tain weaponry, others could be expected to also--without training, and l under fire. i NRC knows all this and has, until now, required state and l local participation in radiological planning, training, equipping, practice, testing, and evaluation around all U.S. nuclear power plants. NRC also knows that after years of such participation, some operating plants--like Indian Point--still have not been able to meet even minimal NRC/ FEMA standards and do not have approved emergency plans. But NRC sweeps these facts under the rug when it argues that in the event of an accident untrained, l unpracticed and untested personnel will--because they will want 1 to save lives--be able to execute complex emergency procedures with which they are unfamiliar.

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NRC Willingness to Ignore State and Local Reasons for j i Decision Not to Participate in Emergency Planning )

Those of us who have criticized the emergency planning l efforts at Indian Point, are painfully aware cf NRC's practice i of ignoring local realities which pose problems for emergency l Pla nni.ng . It doesn't matter to NRC that a region may not have i an adequate road system to handle an evacuation (or even routine 1

daily traffic). It doesn't matter to NRC that reputable evidence l i and scientific opinion (and the experience at Three Mile Island) '

suggests that upon learning of an' accident significant numbers of people outside of the arbitrarily defined emergency planning zone l l will attempt to leave the area, crowding the roads and making it '

difficult to evacuate closer-in populations. It doesn't matter to NRC that densely populated school districts do not have at i their disposal enough buses to execute a rapit evacuation of  ;

i students and so are planning to send children home during an-accident (many to empty homes and without telephone notification

of parents).

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. Jpaga 4; i All tnat mittars to NRC 'is getting state and local officials' ,

to go along with "the best that can le done under'the circum-stances." And in most cases state and. local governments have ,

gone along, regardless of what. they actually believe about the chances for rescuing people. They have gone along either because ,

they have been convinced . (or are willing toJgamble) that an +

accident won't happen or because;they don't5want to. stick'their . .

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political necks out to try.to get the nuclear plant-closed.- They j -

have gone along, also, because localities have benefited financially from utility emergency planning: pay-offs. .  !

But-now, with Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and a growing l list of near misses, some state and local- governments are -

refusing to go along. After serious consideration, they are  :

contesting the licenses'of reactors ~where timely evacuation is  :

impossible and the risk of radiation exposure to the surrounding; i population following an accident is too great. State and local officials have presented solidLreasons and svidence for-their positions, but NRC dismisses'all the facts and arguments as ,

invalid ("anti-nuclear ,". "politically motivated," "trying to exercise a voto," and "holding the nuclear plant hostage"). <

j o What NRC Emergency Planning Reduction Proposals Mean for i the Future 1

It was not so very long ago that the NRC felt it necessary to defend everything it did in terms of risk reduction and public .I health and safety. Now they don't even pretend that public-  !

safety is the overriding consideration. That's been replaced :by economic concerns: what's good for the. nuclear industry is good .I for the "national interest," and public safety'be damned. Indeed, the present Commission reflects more and more the attitude of the  ;

i administration which appointed it:11gnore the rules, bend the rules, change the rules--just so we get what we want, in this case more nuclear plants.

If NRC today eliminates the requirement that state and local governments must participate in emergency planning before a plant is licensed, then tomorrow the agency could eliminate participation requirements at licensed operating nuclear plants. Indeed, by

, what twist of logic and regulation could NRC continue to require any sites to demonstrate state and local preparedness once it has

waived the rules for some sites? And without the requirement a for state and local participatio'n, utilities will have no more incentive to continue providing the financial enticements.they now do to states, counties, and municipalities villing to partici- -

pate in emergency planning. Readiness tc cope with accidents will inevitably dissolve entirely. .

This does not, apparently, d.e.arb the-NRC. The agency is already plotting its next move, the reduction of emergency .

planning zone size from 10 miles to one or two miles. The'whole . .

world learned from Chernobyl that radiation.re? eased during an

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.accider.t can't be counted on'to stop.at 10 miles or 30 miles'or 50 miles; it can circle the globe, contaminating places near and

.far. But the NRC turns truth upside down and. decides that dangerous levels of radiation won't -even reach 10 miles.

l' The greatest danger the public faces at this point is that.NRC: , ,

. sees.its mission as the protection of nuclear power plants,.not l- the' pro'tection'of the public. Heaven protect us from the Nuclear De-regulatory Commission!

Sincer,e/ly, ff i- ,

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f(.ca Joan Holt l

Director, Indian Point Project  !

NYPIRG l

cc: .!

'1 New York Congressional Delegation Governor Mario Cuomo l

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