ML20154D249
| ML20154D249 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 09/08/1988 |
| From: | NRC COMMISSION (OCM) |
| To: | |
| References | |
| REF-10CFR9.7 NUDOCS 8809150210 | |
| Download: ML20154D249 (32) | |
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l UNITED STATES OF AMERICA NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION J
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Title:
BRIEFING ON FINAL RULE ON EMERGENCY PLANNING AND PREPAREDNESS REQUIRDtENTS FOR NUCLEAR POWER PLANT FUEL LOADING AND INITIAL LOW POWER OPERATIONS l
LocatlOn:
ONE Wl'ITE FLINT NORTH, ROCKVILLE, MARYLAND l
i Date:
THURSDAY, SEPTDtBER 8, 1988
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Pages:
1-29 1
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l Ann Riley & Associates Court Reporters i
1625 i Street. N.W., Suite 921 Washington, D.C. 20006 (202) 293-3950 l
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DISCLAIMER This is an unof ficial transcript of a meeting of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission held 9-8-88 in the Commission's office at One on White Flint North, Rockville Maryland.
The meeting was open to public attendance and observation.
This transcript has not been rev'iewed, corrected or edited, and it may contain inaccuracies.
The transcript is intended solely for general informational 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 i
'do not necessarily reflect final determination or beliefs.
P 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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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA i
2 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION l
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4 BRIEFING ON FINAL RULE ON EMERGENCY PLANNING AND PREPAREDNESS S
REQUIREMENTS FOR NUCLEAR POWER PLANT FUEL LOADING AND INITIAL l
6 LOW POWER OPERATIONS 7
8 (PUBLIC MEETING) 9 10 Nuclear Regulatory Commission 11 One White Flint North 12 Rockville, Maryland 13 14 THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 1988 15 16 The Commission met in open session, pursuant to 17 notice, at 2:00 p.m.
18 19 COMMISSIONERS PRESENT!
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21 LANDO W.
- ZECH, Chairman of the Commission I
i 22 THOMAS M. ROBERTS, Member of the Commission
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i 23 KENNETH ROGERS, Member of the Commission j
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STAFF AND PRESENTERS SEATED AT THE COMMISSION TABLE:
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3 S. Chilk M. Malsch l
4 V. Stallo M. Jangochian 5
M. Cunningham
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1 PROCEEDINGS 2
CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.
3 The purpose of today's meeting is to receive a briefing from i
4 the NRC Staff and the Office of the General Counsel on a
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5 rulemaking designed to clarify emergency planning requirements t
6 for fuel loading and low power testing of nuclear power planta.
7 The staff has prepared for Commission consideration a final i
8 rule which, if adopted, would conclude the rulemaking.
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The rulemaking began with the issuance in May of this i
10 year of a proposed rule with a request for public comment.
I 11 understand from the staff that some 1700 persons and f
12 organizations have submitted comments on the proposed rule.
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13 think that is commendable, and I'd like to express my l
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14 appre.ciation to all those who took the time and effort to write l
15 to us and to contribute to the resolution of these issues.
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At the time we issued the' proposed rule, the issue i
17 identified as needing possible correction was an apparent 18 inconsistency in the Commission's Emergency Planning Rule 19 issued in 1982.
That rule stated that for low power testing, j
I 20 only on-site emergency planning would be needed; however, the 21 statement of considerations accompanying that rule stated that 22 before authorizing low power testing the NRC would review i
23 systems such as sirens for prompt emergency notification of the j
24 public off site.
25 The proposed rule was designed to cure that i
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1 inconsistency and to reaffirm that only on-site emergency 2
planning is needed for fuel loading and low power testing.
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We have now had the benefit of extensive public l
4 comment and the NRC Staff has had the opportunity to review and 5
respond to those comments as it prepared a final draft rule for l
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6 our consideration.
And before we ask the staff and the general J
7 counsel to proceed, I'd like to make one additional comment.
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8 I gather from the staff paper which has been prepared t
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9 for us that some of the commenters believe that this rule I
l 10 change is simply designed to assure a license for Seabrook.
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i 11 personally do not view it that wayt I think we have a l
12 responsibility to assure that our regulations are sensible and
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l 13 consistent, and when you find problems you fix them.
And the i
14 way you find problems in regulations is often in individual j
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- cases, i
16 Just last year we had to change our emergency I
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17 planning rules because there was a major gap in them; there was i
j 18 no specific discussion of utility plans, at least specific l
19 enough for all to understand completely.
We made that change, l
i 20 and the charge was made that we were just trying to assure t
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21 licenses for certain plants.
The commission was sued over that l
l 22 rule change and just the day before yesterday, the court upheld l
23 the commission.
q 24 I think the decision is relevant to the rule we're
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25 talking about today, and I'd like to hear the general counsel's j
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view on that specific point.
It might be useful if the general g
2 counsel would also describe the decision because I don't think 3
it's gotten much press coverage yet and persons in the audience 4
may not be aware of the decision.
so I would appreciate your 5
addressing that issue as well as the issue that we're focusing l
6 on today.
7 I understand that copies of the Staff Memorandum 8
should be available at the entrance to the meeting room.
Do 9
any of my fellow Commissioners have any opening comments beforo l
10 we begin?
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11 (No response.)
12 Mr. Stello, you may proceed.
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13 MR. STELLO:
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I'll turn very 14 quickly to Marty Malsch from the Office of General Counsel who I
15 will conduct the bulk of the briefing, and Mr. Mike Jangochian l
16 following that will give you a very brief summary of the 17 extensive comments that we've had.
Then of course we'll answer 18 any questions that may come up.
l 19 With that, let as ask Marty to begin and we'll follow 20 immediately with Mr. Jangochian.
I 21 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Thank you very much.
Please proceed.
22 MR. MALSCH:
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and members of I
23 the commission.
What I'd like to do this afternoon is five 24 things.
First, describe the background and purpose of the 25 rulemaking; secondly, describe the proposed rule that was
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1 published just this last May; third, briefly describe and
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t characterize generally the public comments that we received; I
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3 fourth, say a little bit about our proposed response to the l
4 comments; and finally, to describe what the staff i
5 recommendations are to you with regard to the form of the final i
6 rule.
7 Before I do that I should note that the paper and the
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a rule before you here were drafted by oGC, but obviously the i
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safety risks of low power operation end the proper role of j
i 10 emergency planning for low operation are critical to the
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11 rulemaking, and so for these kinds of issues we've relied in t
12 drafting the paper and the rule on the judgments and analyses 13 of the NRC Staff, and we have staff members here to answer any i
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14 questions you may have about those kinds of issues.
l 15 With that, let me go first to background and purpose.
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16 Tha rulemaking before you today focuses on what emergency plans i
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17 need to be reviewed and approved prior to low power operation.
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18 The Commission's attention was focused on this issue when it
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19 considered an Appeal Board decision in Seabrook, ALAB-883,
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20 holding that an approved prompt public notification system was i
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21 required prior to low power operation.
This Appeal Board i
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22 decision was in turn based upon the record of a 1982 Commission l
23 rulemaking which defined, for the first time, what the a
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24 emergency planning needs were for low power as distinguished 4'
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25 from full power operation.
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The Seabrook decision by the Appeal Board prompted 2
our office, OGC, and then the Commission obviously, to examine 3
and research carefully the record of the 1982 rulemaking 4
because that was critical to the Appeal Board's decision.
That l
5 research into the rulemaking record showed the following.
6 First of all, the overall thrust of the 1982 rule was l
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that an applicant's emergency plan needed to be reviewed and l
j approved before low power licensing, but because of the lower 8
9 safety risks at low power operation there was no need to have, 10 prior to low power, a reviewed and approved state or local I
11 emergency plan to protect residents in the Emergency Planning l
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That is to say, no need for a reviewed and approved plan l
13 for protection of persons off site prior to low power.
l 14 But in the rule Preamble but not in the rule itself, 15 the Commission stated that there would still be a review of 16 certain so-called off-site aspects of applicants' emergency 17 plans.
Among these off-site aspects that would still need to 18 be reviewed and approved would be provisions, the commission 19 said, for prompt public notification in the event of an 20 accident.
21 This research into the '82 rulemaking record then led 22 to the following questions.
What is the safety basis for 23 requiring that these so-called off-site aspects of applicants' 24 emergency plans be reviewed and approved prior to low power if, i
25 as the '82 rule Preamble said, the safety risks of low power
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are sufficiently low that state and local emergency plans 2
needn't be reviewed and approved?
And secondly, why were these 3
Commission states in the '82 Preamble confined to the rule 4
Preamble and not included in the rule itself?
5 We recommended the need for public input on these 6
questions and related questions by rulemaking rather than try 7
to answer these questions based solely upon the views of the 8
parties in one licensing case.
And that prompted the 9
Commission to publish the proposed rule published last May, 10 which is the rulemaking before you.
11 That leads to the purpose of the rulemaking here, and 12 that is to establish more clearly in the rules themselves --
13 not just in the Preamble or related discussions but in the 14 rules.themselves -- what are the emergency planning 15 requirements for low power.
And specifically, what off-site 16 aspects of emergercy plans need to be reviewed before low power 17 operation is rathorized.
18 With that, let me describe the proposal that the 19 Commission published for comment last May.
It would require 20 NRC findings on the applicant's on-site plan and only those 21 off-site elements of that plan which could be reasonably be 22 expected to be needed in the event of an emergency at low power 23 operation.
The focus on these so-called off-site elements *in 24 the proposed rule is on such coordination by applicants with 25 off-site agencies as may be needed to bring off-site personnel
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and equipment onsite to mitigate and contain the accident.
For 2
example off-site fire equipment and medical services may be 3
needed to deal with a fire and to treat injured plant workers.
4 A secondary focus of such requirements is on l
l coordination with off-site agencies to ensure that off-site j
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authorities are kept informed of plant status, including
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7 details of any plant emergency, so that they can be of maximum f
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assistance to the responte and so importantly, that they can j
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respond fully and accurat.aly to questions from the media and i
10 the public about what's going on onsite.
11 Under the proposed rule, it would not be necessary 1
12 before low power to establish compliance with the full power 13 standard, which requires that means be established to provide 14 early, notification and clear instruction to the populace within I
15 the Emergency Planning Zone.
The rationale for this is that l
16 the low risks of low power operation do not simply justify such 17 a requirement.
l 18 To the extent persons offsite become concerned about 19 an accident and potential effects, plans would still be in I
20 place for the licensee to keep off-site planning agencies 21 informed, and licensees in conjunction with these agencies 22 could also, in turn, keep the public and the media inforaed.
23 So that was the commission's proposal last May.
24 Next, let me get to the public comments.
The rule 25 was published for public comment in the Federal Register on May
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9th of this year.
There was an original 30-day comment period; 2
it was then extended for an additional 15 days.
Even though i
3 this was a relatively short comment period we receiveM a large I
4 number of public comments; approximately 1700.
5 In general, the comments ran as follows.
First of l
6 all, they ran generally two to one in favor of the proposed f
7 rule.
The favorable comments came from a variety of sources; 4
public citizens adn citizens groups, the utilities, nuclear 9
industry organizations such as NUMARC, a local government
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10 official and one federal agency, Department of Energy.
I 11 Comments opposing the rule came mostly from private 12 citizens who live near Seabrook, but they also included some i
13 state and local government officials, some members of Congress i
14 and some environmental groups.
I 15 The majority of the comments, both in favor of the 16 proposed rule and against the proposed rule, focused more on 17 the bene.'its or problems with licensing Seabrook than they did i
16 on the generic safety issues raised by the rulemaking.
i 19 Since we did get 1700 comments they.re obviously too 20 numerous to address one by one individually, but the critical 1
21 comments all fall into 15 general categories, and these najor f
l 22 categories, each of them is addressed specifically in the paper 23 and the draft notice of proposed rulemaking that's before you.
24 And that's how we've dealt with the comments.
25 Staff here can give you more details about the
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comment response, but in general, the analysis of comments led 2
the commission staff to reaffirm the '82 safety analysis
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3 regarding the relative low risks of low power operation.
4 That leads me to the final rule which is before you l
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today as a staff recommendation.
It's similar to the proposed 6
rule but there have been some relatively minor changes made in 7
response to public comments.
Firr,tly, in response to a public 8
comment or collectica of public comments along the lines that 9
the '42 safety evaluation was premised upon a short period cf i
10 reactor operation at low power, whereas licenses authorized l
l 11 under the rule would be authorising operation for 40 years at 5 12 percent power, -- in response to that comment we've discussed l
l 13 the purposes of the rule and are clarifying that the purpose of 14 licenses under this rule will be only licenses for low power I
15 testing and operator training.
It's not contemplated that j
16 under this rule a utility would obtain a license to actually l
l 17 operate a plan for 40 years at 5 percent power.
l The second change that we're making from the proposal 18 19 is that we are going to continue to require that systems onsite 20 for monitoring off-site releases be in use, as opposed to 21 merely being available.
That's the second change
- 8re making 22 in response to public comments.
23 In particular, es I said, the staff is reaffirming in
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24 this rulemaking and would have the Commission reaffirm itselt 25 the safety rationale for the 1982 rule.
Specifically, the
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staff would reaffirm that the safety risks at low power are 2
sufficiently low that there's no need to rely on a reviewed and 3
approved off-site emergency plan for there to be protection of 4
the public health and safety.
The rule is based in this 5
regard, in critical measure, not only predictions as to what 6
kind o" emergency response there might be if there were to be 9
an accident at low power; notwithstanding that, the off-site 8
emergency plans are not reviewed and approved.
Instead, the j
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9 judgment is critically based si.aply on the lower level of risk 10 associated with accidents at low power.
11 The rule before you will, for the first time, clearly 12 require that certain off-site aspects of applicants' emergency 13 plans be reviewed and approved prior to low power.
It will 14 thereby codify certain essential aspects of the old '82 rule 15' Preamble.
Things that were included in the Preamble but for 16 some reason were not included in the rule itself.
17 As I indicated, though, :he requirement or provision 18 and statement by the Commission in the old rule Preamble that 19 prompt public notification systems would be reviewed and 20 approved prior to low power is not being included because in 21 the staff's judgment of the safety evaluation behind the rule 22 it does not warrant imposing such a requirement.
23 I should note finally in describing thu final rule 24 that nothing in the final rule affects the commission's 25 liconsing requirements for full power operation; they are
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completely unchanged.
The rule focuses solely upon what 2
emergency planning requirements ought to be required for low 3
power operation; specifically, low power testing and operator 4
training.
5 Let me add in response to the Chairman's comment 6
something about tha Court of Appeals decision earlier this week L
7 and how that relates to what is before you.
That decision 8
related to petitions to review filed by a number of parties 9
which were challenging the standards by which the NRC would 10 use, in deciding whether to license a utility to operate a 11 nuclear power plant, and evaluate the utility's own off-site 12 emergency response plan.
The rule operated under situations in 13 which, for whatever reason, state and local governments had not 14 participated in emergency planning.
All of Petitioner's legal 15 challenges to this Commission were rejected in a unanimous 16 epinion written by the chief judge of the Circuit.
I 17 In particular, the primary issue in the case and j
18 P6titioner's primary contention was that it was unreasonable 19 for NRC to presume that in the event of an actual emergency, 20 states and localities which had previously refused to 21 participate in emergency planning will nevertheless follow an 3
22 emergency plan prepared by the utility, the so-called realism 23 rebuttal presumption.
j 24 The court said it was hardly unreasonable for the NRC l
25 to predict that state and local governments, notwithstanding
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their misgivings about the adequacy of a utility plan or their 2
opposition to the particular plant location -- not unreasonable 3
for us to predict that notwithstanding this that the 4
governments would, in the event of an actual emergency, follow 5
the only existing emergency plant namely, the utility plan.
6 The court agreed with the NRC's reasoning.
Specifically, the 7
court agreed that its prediction and presumption was supported 8
by common sense and also by the uncontested fact, that was part 9
of the administrative record of that rulsmaking, that state and 10 local governments preferred a planned emergency response to an 11 ad hoc one.
12 Now of special relevance to this rulemaking, the 13 court also rejectec
-> contention offered by petitioners there 14 that.off-site enm gency planning, as opposed to technical 15 matters dealing with plant construction and operation, that 16 off-site emergency planning issues are outside of NRC's area rf 17 traditional expertise and that therefore, NRC judgments and 18 opinions about off-site emergency planning matters were not 19 entitled to the kind of deference which courts normally accord 20 to expert administrative agencies.
The court specifically 21 rejected that contention and said that NRC judgments, rules and 22 decisions in the area of off-site emergency planning are 23 entitled to the same measure of judgnent and discretion as NRC 24 judgments about other kinds of safety questions.
25 That obviously has an effect on this rulemaking
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1 because this rulemaking is involving emergency planning 2
judgments as well as nuclear safety technical judgments, and it 3
suggests that our expertise should be applied to this 4
rulemaking just as it is applied to other commission 5
rulemakings.
6 With that, let me turn it over to the staff to give 7
you some more information about the public comments and our 8
response to them.
9 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Thank you very much, you may proceed.
10 MR. JAMGOCHIAN:
I am prepared t; provide a summary 11 of the public comments, out Mr. Malsch has quite thoroughly 12 gone through those.
Real quickly, we did receive during a 45-13 day public comment period approximately 1700 comment letters.
14 Appro.ximately going two for one for the rule, which is very 15 unusual in the emergency planning area.
We received 16 approximately 1100 that were for promulgation of the rule, 17 approximately 600 public comments against promulgation of the 18 rule; SOO of those were in a form letter, simply Xeroxed and 19 signed by individuals.
20 As far as those that were for, it was overwhelmingly 21 from private citizens, either handwritten or typed.
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22 very unusual.
A few utilities, a few law firms or professional 23 organizations that represent utilities, I think there were two.
24 one state government official and one federal agency, DOE.
25 As far as the comments that were against, there were
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approximately 100 individual letters from private citizens; 2
again, 500 form letters.
Seven state or local government 3
officials -- actually there were three state official agencies, 4
state governmental official agencies, and four local 5
governmental official agencies, primarily from the 6
Massachusetts-New Hampshire area.
And three congressional 7
representatives.
8 Are there any questions on the public comments?
9 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Could you give us just a little bit 10 more on perhaps the main topic from the comments, eithar the 11 main topic that was for the proposed rule and perhaps the main 12 comments that were against the rule?
13 MR. JAMGOCHIAN:
Clearly, the overall thrust from the 14 publi.c concern for or ;;ainst was, We realize now that you're-15 taking down the sirens or the prompt public notification 16 systems and we have a fundamental concern:
how are we going to 17 be notified in the event of an emergency?
Would we be 18 notified?
Would we be kept in the dark?
Certainly those that j
19 were against promulgation of the rule concerned themselves with 20 that and said, We won't be notified. That's clearly not i
21 correct, and in fact we focused on that in the final rulemaking 22 in the supplemental information.
We said that the licensee r
23 will in fact be notifying and coordinating wir.h state and local 24 governments to permit that notification.
25 As far as the commenters that were for promulgation
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of the rule, their focus was, again, We're sure -- they took a 2
different viewpoint.
We're sure we will be able to be 3
notified; there's a whole lot of time in order to be notified.
4 But they did concern themselves with their ability to be 5
notified.
6 Secondly, as far as those individuals that were for 7
promulgation of the rule, their focus was the individual 8
plantn.
Overall, there's a perception, as you mentioned 9
earlier in your opening statement, there's a perception on both 10 sides that this was for the Seabrook Nuclear Power Plant.
And 11 those that were for the rule said, Amen, it's about time.
And 12 those that were against it said, How dare you.
13 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Thank you very much.
14 MR. MALSCH:
Mr. Chairman, if you wish, I could go 15 through the 15 categories of major comments and summarize the 16 nature of the category and the response.
17 CHAIRMAN,ZECH:
I think that would be helpful if you 18 do that, just summarize the main categories anyway.
Please.
19 MR. MALSCH:
Let me just go through them in the order 20 in which they're presented in the draf t rule.
Several of them 21 were focused on the safety issue, the risks of operation at low 22 power.
23 The first commer.*, is one that I alluded to earlier, i
24 and that was that the risk assessments upon which the '82 rule 4
25 was based were premised on operation over a short timeframe,
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operation at 5 percent power over a short timeframe; but the 2
proposal didn't contain any time limit and would authorize in 3
theory operation at 5 percent for 40 years.
The general 4
response to this is to say, Listen, we contemplate under this 5
rule that low power licenses will be issued only for the 6
purposes of fuel loading and low powar testing and operator 7
training.
We don't intend to authorize operation at 5 percent 8
power for the full license term and the rule has been in fact 9
clarified to provide just this.
10 The second comment was that even though we are 11 authorizing only low power operation, there would still be as a 12 result of low power operation an inventory in the reactor core 13 of radionuclides with health significance that could impose a 14 substantial public health and safety hazard.
The answer is 15 yes, there are some biologically significant fission products 36 generated in the reactor core as a result of reactor operation, i
17 but nevertheless, the risk at low power is still sufficiently 18 low to provide reasonable assurance that the public health and 19 safety is protected, even in the absence of a fully reviewed 20 and approved off-site emergency plan, and even in the absence 21 of a requirement for prompt public notification systems to be 22 in place.
23 The third category of comments is also a safety 24 issue.
It was the contention that testing at low power is in 25 fact riskier than full power operation because it involves i
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deliberately defeating safety systems.
The response is well, I
2 yes, some selected safety systems may be disabled during low 3
power testing; that's part of the testing program, but that 4
special procedures are in place to deal with this kind of thing 5
and that this and other factors result in a situation in which 6
the plant is still at a much lower state of risk relative to 7
full power operation.
8 The fourth comment is a kind of familiar one and that 9
is that the Chernobyl accident occurred while it was at low 10 power and so how can we still say that low power testing poses 11 low risks.
The answer to that is that the U.S.
light water 12 reactors don't have the kind of accident potential that 13 Chernobyl does, and so the comment simply doesn't apply to the 14 kinds.of reactors which this rule would apply to.
15 The fifth cramment is one that the Commission has 16 dealt with in cases in.the past, and that is that low power 17 licensing fails National Environmental Policy Act cost.-benefit 18 analysis.
Our response to that issue is that we have not 19 addressed that in this rulemaking; that is addressed on a case 20 basis, it's beyond the scope of what is before the Commission 21 here.
22 Similarly, there was a comment that a low power 23 license should not be issued where it is not certain that a 24 full power will ever be granted.
Again, this is not the 25 s bject of this rulemaking.
In the past, the Commission has
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1 addressed this issue in individual adjudicatory opinions.
2 The seventh category of comments and the eight 3
category of comments both generally can be characterized as 4
fo'. lows:
that you are reaffirming the rationale for the '82 5
rale, yet you're changing the '82 rule results.
How can you 6
rationtlize this?
The answer is that first of all, one purpose 7
of the rule change and an important purpose is to clarify 8
language in the rule itself that could easily be read to say 9
that no off-site emergency planning elements need be reviewed 10 prior to low power.
Remember that the commitments by the 11 Commission in the '82 rule Preamble to review cert'ain off-site 12 aspects of applicants' emergency plans were never included in 13 the actual rule itself, so they don't appear in the 14 Commission's collection of codified regulations.
And one i
15 purpose of this rulemaking is to rectify that difficulty and 16 to, for the first time, codify the Commission's review 17 practices.
j 18 Secendl/ and more importantly, the staff believes 19 that the proposal before you today and the proposal published 20 for comment is in fact more consistent with the Safety Analysis t
21 behind the 1982 rule cha".ge than the statements in the rule 22 Preamble contained in that change. So we believe that this 23 rulomaking in total, including the rulemaking record, is more 24 consistent with what was intended in '82 and more consistent 25 with the '82 Safety Evaluation.
So we see no inconsistency l
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here.
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The ninth category of comments deals with the issue 3
of whether we have addressed adequately the risk of a terrorist 4
attack at low power, sabotage at low power.
The staff's 5
response is that it's the commission's judgment that compliance 6
with the Commission's Physical Protection Rules -- and that 7
will be required before low power operation -- that compliance 8
with those physical protection requirements will reasonably 9
assure that the risk from terrorism or sabotage is sufficiently 10 low so as not to undercut the Commission's safety conclusion 11 that the safety risks at low power operation are much less than 1
12 at full power.
13 The tenth comment is one that Mike Jamgochian alluded 14 to and it's an important one, and that is that whatever may be i
15 the objective risks of low power operation there could still be i
16 public panic in the event of an accident.
Our response is that 17 it is true that regardless of the objective lack of danger, 18 it's possible that members of the public could become uneasy 19 and unnecessarily panic if an accident were to occur at low 20 power.
And as its response to this concern, the commission is 21 still including in the rule a provision that prior to low power 22 there will need to be means to keep state and local response 23 organizations informed of the status of events onsite, and that 24 these off-site agencies through normal communication mechanisms 25 along with the licensee will have the capability to inform the y----g-7
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1 public if needed in order to prevent any sort of unnecessary 2
panic.
But however, that the requirement or provision in the 3
'82 rule Preamble for direct prompt public notification of the 4
public was not necessary to respond to this comment, not 5
necessary to address this particular concern.
6 The next category of comments deals with the 7
provision for there to be release monitoring equipment 8
available as opposed to in use and available -- as opposed to 9
merely available.
And in response to that comment, we Oro 10 recommending a change in the proposed rule to go back to the 11 prior practice whereby it would still be required that there be 12 available onsite release monitoring equipment.
The purpose 13 here would be thr.t even though the Safety Evaluation suggests 14 that the likelihood of an off-site release affecting the public 15 is very small, this kind of monitoring equipment would still be 16 useful at a minimum to confirm that no release has in fact 17
- o. curred.
18 Next, there was a comment regard research reactors.
I 19 The comment was made that the original Commission's Emergency 20 Planning Rules provided for a measure of off-site emergency 21 planning for research reactors, and this contradicts the 22 Commissio? 's current posture with regard to low power operation 23 because some research reactors for which the commenter believed 24 we required off-site emergency planning, operate at power 25 levels comparable to 5 percent power for commercial reactors.
l
23
[
1 The response to this comment is a simple one, and that is that 2
the premise of'the comment is incorrect.
It is not the case 3
that reaearch reactors have power levels approximating those of 4
comt.3rcial power plants operating at 5 percent power.
It's not 5
the case that they're required to have approved off-site 6
emergency plane.
7 The next comment dealt with an issue which is again 8
outside tile rulemaking, and that is that the Atomic Energy Act 9
prohibits the Commission from issuing low power licenses prior 10 to completion of public hearings on all issues, even those i
11 issues relevant to full power licensing.
Our answer is that 12 the Commission's practice for years has been to separate out 13 low and full power licensing, and that this comment is more 14 properly addressed to other provisions of the Commission's i
15 regulations which deal with that situation.
And those 16 provisions are not being amended here.
17 The next comment is another one which the Chairman 18 alluded to, and that is that the propcsed rule is designed to 19 allow the Seabrook facility to be licensed; t!
mmission 20 shouldn't be promulgating rules designed to license particular 21 facilities.
And the answer is that the Commission's attention 22 was focused on this issue as a result of the Seabrook operating 23 license case, and it is probably true that the only foreseeable 24 effect of the rule change, at loast for the immediate future, j
25 is going to be probably on the Seabrouk operating license
1 s
24 1
application.
But when the Commission sees problems with its 2
rules, whether it sees those problems in individual cases or 3
whether it seems those problems from other sources, it has an 4
obligation to correct them.
As we noted, there was a 5
discrepancy in the '82 rule between the rule Preamble and the 6
rule language.
Those potentially affect all license 7
applicants, not just the applicants for Seabrook.
8 Also, the safety issues raised by the rule change are 9
not specific to any particular plant; they are generic safety 10 issues of the type that are suitable for resolution in 11 rulemaking.
And as a matter of law, the commission is 12 certainly free to address this kind of generic issue on a 13 generic basis through rulemaking, even if the rule change will 14 have its most immediate effect on one license applicant and one 15 license application.
16 Finally, there was a comment regarding whether 17 members of the public will need immediate medical attention in 18 the event of an accident at low power, and the propcsed rule 19 did not provide that arrangements for medical services would bo 20 in place for those offsite.
And the response is that this is 21 not considered necessary for safety reasons; that it's highly i
22 unlikely that members of the public would be exposed to 23 dangerous levels of radiation following an accident at low 24 power, and therefore there was really no need to have a 25 requirement that medical services systems be in place for 1
F 25 1
members of the public.
2 That pretty much summarizes briefly the 15 categories 3
of comments.
As I've said, there were 1700 public comments but 4
I think these 15 categories of comments fairly encompasses all 5
the major comments, all the significant comments that were made 6
in the rulemaking.
And I think by responding to these 15 7
categories we've given an adequate response to 1700 comments as 8
a whole.
9 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Thank you very much.
10 MR. STELLO:
Mr. Chairman, I think there's one more 11 point I wanted to aake and then we can answer questions 12 generally.
We wanted to assure the Commission that it is our 13 judgment -- and the paper explains why -- that a facility 14 opera. ting at low power under the provisions provided by this 15 rule, that such a facility would indeed be safe.
16 Now, the reasons f.or that are in the paper and I 17 think they are probably simply phrased, that the source term, 18 and hence the decay heat load, would be significantly lower, by 19 definition at least a factor of 20 lower, and probably i
20 significantly more than that because of the limited use to 1
21 which the facility would be put, at 5 percent power.
22 overall then, the response of the facility and the 23 design of the equipment is such that significantly longer times 24 would be available to respond to transients and accidents, 25 which leads us to the conclusion that the likelihood that you
a 26 1
would even have an accident producing fission products that 2
would be released would be very small.
3 That, coupled with the fact that the particular 4
characteristics of the reactor operating at these lower powers; 5
that is, the slow response to transients and accidents and the 6
fission product inventory would be somewhere perhaps between 25 7
to 50 times lower than the source terms that were used to 8
evaluate emergency planning at full power, that under those 9
conditions it would be highly unlikely that if you did have an 10 accident that you would exceed the protective action guide, 1
11 five rem whole body exposure, for the facility even without 12 emergency planning.
13 This leads us to conclude that from the technical 14 point of view, the safety point of view, we have no reservation 15 with respect to moving forward; we're ccmpletely comfortable 16 that the safety impact is not in any compromised with going 17 forward in this direction.
We've done some limited analysis to la support this in another case in Limerick.
I'm not suggesting i
19 that we have analyzed every site; we have not, but our 20 technical judgment based on our understanding of operation of 21 the reactor, fission product history and behavior leads us to 1
22 the conclusion that even without emergency planning offsite we 23 don't need to be concerned because it would be highly unlikely 24 that you would ever gat to where a protective action is in fact 25 needed.
I i
1
o 27 1
That is our presentation, Mr. Chairman.
2 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Thank you very much.
Questions from 3
my fellow Commissioners?
Commissioner Roberts?
4 COMMISSIONER ROBERTS:
No.
5 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Commissioner Rogers?
6 COMMISSIONER ROGERS:
No.
7 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
I should have indicated at the 8
beginning that Commissioner Car is not with us today; he's on 9
official travel.
I just have one question.
Mr. Stello, you've 10 essentially answered it in your last statement, but the real 11 crux of the issue here as far as I'm concerned is safety, and 12 what we're trying to decide is are prompt notification systems 13 of the public for off-site occurrences needed to protect the 14 public at low power.
And you're telling us essentially that 15 the answer is no.
I think you've summarized that reasonably 16 well, but just let me ask it in plain language.
Is that what 17 your conclusion is?
Are you telling us that for low power, the 18 protection of the public, in your opinion, is not a concern, 19 and prompt notification systems are essentially not needed?
Is 20 that what you're telling us?
21 MR. STELLO:
That's correct, Mr. Chairman.
22 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
Fine.
Commissioner Rogers?
23 COMMISSIONER ROGERS:
I do have just one comment that 24 doesn't relate to this particular issue, but I think it's well i
t 25 to keep in mind that it is very important that all aspects of a
28 1
rule be considered from the standpoint of consistency.
And 2
part of the problem that is addressed by this rulemaking is a 3
lack of consistency with the Preamble and the body of the rule.
4 And to me, that's very unfortunate and something th'at 5
good practice should see does not happen.
The Preamble, 6
whatever is stated in the Preamble of,a rule should be totally 7
consistent with what the rule itself'iays.
One shouldn't be 8
able to read two separate interpretations into the meaning of a 9
rule by reading the Preamble and then reading the rule itself.
10 And I would just simply reiterate a position which 11 I'm sure has already been stated elsewhere, that it is very 12 important that this kind of discrepancy not appear again.
That 13 when we issue a rule, it should hang together as an entire 14 entity and be totally consistent, and one should not have to 15 ask a question as to whether the Preamble or any parts of the 16 rule are inconsistent with any other parts of it.
And I would 17 hope that we would take this as an example of something that in 18 the future we will not have appear again.
19 MR. MALSCH:
You're absolutely correct.
All parts of 20 the package need to stand and be consistent with each other.
21 CHAIRMAN ZECH:
I'd like to just agree with i
22 Commissioner Rogers' comments.
Our business is public health i
23 and safety.
Thoroughness is awfully important for us and 24 accuracy is important, too, and so I recognize that in this 25 case that we did have a discrepancy, we're correcting that
o 29 1
discrepancy, and I believe that we should learn a lesson from 2
this.
And I would propose that thoroughness in our work is 3
expected by the public, they deserve it, and I would hope that 4
we would take this as a lesson learned for the future.
5 If there are no other comments from my fellow 6
Commissioners, I would like to thank the staff and the office 7
of General Counsel for this very important briefing.
I hope 8
that we will be able to act on this measure in a short time.
I 9
would ask my fellow Commissioners to please bring this to their 10 attention.
And unless there are any other comments, we stand 11 adjourned.
Thank you very much.
12 (Whereupon, at 2:45 p.m.,
the Commission meeting was 13 adjourned.)
14 l
15 16 17 18 I
19 20 l
i 21 22 23 24 25
4 CERTIFICATE OF TRANSCRIBER This is to certify that the atta'ched events of a meeting of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission entitled:
BRIEFING ON FINAL RULE ON EMERGENCY PLANNING AND PREPAREDNESS REQUIREMENTS FOR NUCLEAR TITLE OF MEETING:
POWER PLANT FUEL LOADING AND INITIAL LOW POER OPERATIONS PLACE OF MEETING:
Washington, D.C.
l DATE OF MEETING:
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 1988 i
were transcribed by me.
I further certify that said transcription is accurate and complete, to the best of my ability, and that the transcript is a true and accurate record of the foregoing events.
0 1
i i
4 v
i Ann Riley & Associates, Ltd.
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FROM:
SECY Correspondence & Records Branch E
Attached are copies of a Commission meeting transcript and related meeting I'
document (s). They are being forwarded for entry on the Daily Accession List and l
placement in the Public Document Room. No other distribution is requested or tl required.
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