ML20197J869

Petitioners Response to ASLB Request for Addl Info & New Info for ASLB to Consider with Petitioners First Suppl Filing.* Response Filed on Behalf of Ws Lesan,B Clay, B Williams & Chattooga River Watershed Coalition

ML20197J869
Person / Time
Site:	Oconee
Issue date:	12/09/1998
From:	Williams N AFFILIATION NOT ASSIGNED
To:	Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel
References
CON-#498-19801 98-749-01-LR, 98-749-1-LR, LR, NUDOCS 9812160016
Download: ML20197J869 (4)

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98 DEC 14 A8 :50 Chauooga River Watershed Coalgn P. O. Box 2006 o Clayton, GA 30525 ROJ * - >

(706) 782.6097 o Fan (706) 782 6098 ADJLL MF l crwc@ acme brain.com l

December 9,1998 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION BEFORE Ti{E ATOMIC SAFETY AND LICENSING BOARD in the Matter of )

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Duke Energy Corporation ) Docket Nos. 50-269-LR

) 50 270-LR Oconec Nuclear Station ) 50-287-LR I Units I,2 and 3 ) ASLBP No. 98-749-01 LR PETITIONERS' RESPONSE TO Tile ATOMIC SAFETY & LICENSING BOARD'S (ASLB)

REQUEST FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION AND NEW INFORhiATION FOR Tile ASLB TO CONSIDER WITil DIE PETITIONERS' FIRST SUPPLEMENTAL FILING Introduction & Background On October 30,1998, W. S. Lesan, Butch Clay. Buu. Williams and the Chattooga River Watershed Coahtion (the

" Petitioners") filed their "First Supplemental Filing" in the above captioned proceedings. On November 19.1998, the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board ( ASLB) issued an Order requesting add.itional information from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) staff. regarding the contents of the petitioners' filing. This ASLB Order was specific to the NRC staff s response to the Petitioners' Contention #4, u hich addressed the management and transport of high-level waste (11LW). The ASLB indicated that their ruling on the Petitioners' Contention #4 would also consider responses from the Petitioners and attorneys for Duke Energy Corporation on the IILW issue, with December 9,1998, set as the deadline for these responses.

Discussion A. Petitioners' Rc_sjonse To The ASLB's Request for Additional Information l

l The Petitioners' Contention #4 asserted that Duke Energy Corporation's application for renewing the operating licenses for the Oconec Nuclear Station, units 1. 2 and 3 (herein referred to as the application") failed to comply I

9812160016 981209 PDR ADOCK 05000269 / i G PDR 3 Jc)3

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with the existing requirements of Section S t.53(c)(1)(ii)(M) Indeed, Duke Energy Corporation (herein referred to as the " applicant") explicitly states, " Duke has not addressed the existing requirements of Section S t.53(c)(3)(ii)(M) in this Ernironmental Report"(application, sol. 4, p.4-55). The Petitioners have revieued the NRC counscl's defense of this omission, and is aware that the agency is sccking to have these regulations changed at some time during the license renewal procccdings. Ilowescr, at this time, the regulations have not been changed The proposed rule has not been published in the Federal Register. Furthermore, there is no guarantcc that the stated proposal to change the llLW rule will proceed unimpeded. HLW management a nd transportation is a scry contentious issue, and it is reasonable to expect opposition to the NRC's intent to j dow ngrade this very contentious issue to the status of a " generic" consideration. If opposed through litigation, it is reasonable to expect that the NRC's proposed timeline for changing the HLW management and transportation rule would be delayed, and possibly thwarted altogether. Thus, the Petitioners hold that existing regulations, which mandate that Duke Energy Corporation's application disclose their plan for

management and transportation of HLW, must be followed. Ifin the course of these proceedings the Petitioners are to be strictly bound by the letter of the law, then so should Duke Energy Corporation be bcund.

In consideration of 10 C.F.R. section 2.788, the Petitioners' interests of protecting and promoting the natural  !

ccological integrity of the Chattooga River watershed would be irreparably damaged, should a major radiological accident occur as a result of the applicant neglecting to detenninc and follow an approved plm for the management and transportation of Oconce Nuclear Station's repository of HLW, as required by law.

l Certainly, the public interest is best served by the requisite examination and disclosure of the applicant's

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l l proposed plan to safely manage and transport HLW, as required by law. While the NRC counsel states that l " ..the public interest lies with the prompt resolution of proceedings," the Petitioners cannot accept this i

l statement. It is abundantly clear that it is not the public's interest but the industry's interests that lie with the j

" prompt resolution" of the re licensing proceedings. In any case, this resolution must comply with existing I law, and not a law that may or may not be codified at some point in the future. Therefore, the Petitioners respectfully request that the above-captioned proceedings be stayed, until such a time as Duke Energy Corpomtion completes their application, which by law must include a plan for management and transportation of HLW. This plan is not to be found in the applicant's current Emironmental Report.

B. New Infonnation For The ASLB to Consider With The Petitioners' First SuJplemental Filina Meann hile, in the time period from October 30,1998 (w hich was the deadline for the Petitioners to file contentions based on material issues oflaw and fact), through December 7,1998, the Petitioners received copics of numerous Requests for Additional Information (RAI) that were issued by the License Renewal Project Directorate of the NRC's Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation. These RAls are based on the contents of Duke Energy Corporation's license renewal application for renewing the operating licenses for the Oconec Nuclear Station, Units 1. 2 and 3, and contain detailed questions about much of the application's material issues of fact and law, while also identifying portions of the application where critical infonnation is missing.

Since the Petitioners expect that the ASLB will issue their ruling soon on their Contentions, the Petitioners now take this opportunity to introduce new information that has bearing on their Contentions.

, The Petitioners respectfully suggest that it is necessary for the ASLB to resiew all of the RAls to date, in l order tojudge the validity of the Petitioners' current Contentions. Three of the Petitioncts' Contentions tre i based on the extent to which safety evaluations and aging management programs are essentially missing from l the application. Many of the recently issued RAls augment and directly name the matters oflaw and fact that

, are discussed in the Petitioners' Contentions. Here, it is important to note that the information contained in i the RAls cited below was not available to the Petitioners at the time of the October 30th deadline.

( In order to illustrate the type of basic information that is missing from the application, please refer to RAI

1. 3.7.7-2, w hich (in reference to the Reactor Building Internal Structural Components) states: " Degradation or corrosion of embedded stect and rebars in concrete is not listed as an applicable aging cITect for Reactor Building Structumt Components in Table 3.7-5.. Discuss your plan for managing the aging cITects resulting ,- ,

from structural steel and rebar corrosion that are embedded in concrete due to accumulation and ingress of d'  %

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l water through concrete cracks." Further, RAI #3 7.7-4 states: "Considermg the relatisely sescre atmospheric emironment to w hich the missile shicids and other reinforced concrete elements (including reactor building internal structures) are exposed, discuss w hy cracking is not treated as an applicable aging effect and is not 1 listed in Table 3.7-5T RAI #3.5.3 2 states: "Thennal fatigue has not been identified as an applicable aging j cffect for the components of the Containment IIcat Removal System.. " RAI # 3.4.5 2 (b), which pertains to l the reactor vessel, questions the aging management resicw program for the lower control rod drive i mechanism scrsice support structure, noting: "flowever, the B&WOG has decided to exclude them from the l scope of topical report BAW 2251. Identify which aging clTects are applicable to these components and i describe your aging management program for these components in the license renewal application." RAI #'s l 3.4.5-4 and 3.4.5-5 also address the reactor vessci components and pertain, respectively, to the reactor vessel '

flow stabili/crs and the austenitic stainless steel wcld cladding in reactor vessel forgings. Both of these RAls request that an aging management program be provided for these components, w hose functions are inextricably linked to the " integrity of the reactor vessel."

The RAls to date also identify specific areas w here the application employs parameters of analysis that are deficient in providing essential information, information that weighs heavily in evahiating issues of safety and applicable aging effects that are of primary importance in assessing the question of w hether or not to re-license Units I,2 and 3 of the Oconce Nuclear Station. For exampic, RAI #3.7.1-2 states: "Section 3.2, referred to in sections 3.7.1 and 3.7.2, provides tables for structures and components subjected to thermal and radiation environment. The section does not provide a systematic discussion of structures and components subjected to high humidity / moisture / water. liigh humidity / moisture presents [a] challenging environment for concrete and steel structures and components, as well as for the caulking and scalants. Explain why the process to identify applicable aging clTects in sections 3.2 and 3.7 should not consider high humidity / moisture as one of the dominant challenging emironments." Another example would be RAI #3.2-3, which states:

" Table 3.2 2 prmides assessments of structures for 40 year and 60 year radiation exposure in tenns of the integrated doses in ' rads.' However, the important parameters affecting the structural praperties are high.

l flux neutrons and integrated ganuna doses. Provide the Table in terms of these parameters. For the reactor l

cavitics, the steam generator cavitics, and the spent fuct (Auxiliary Buildings) provide an assessment of syncrgistic clTects of temperatures and radiation on the structural properties of the structures and components (e.g., concrete walls, concrete reactor supports, steel supports, and anchor bolts) and address as such as part of the aging management programs in these areas."

The RAls persist in identifying broad deficiencies in the application's aging management programs. For example, RAI #4.3.9-2 states: "The Reactor Building Spray S3 stem will be completed by February 6,2013 (the end of the initial license of Oconce Unit 1). The staffinds this date to be unacceptable without additional information. Prmide a justification for not completing the inspection activities at the time of application. Along with yourjustification, describe the methodology, identify any applicable acceptance criteria, identify planned correctise actions, and provide a schedule for implementation." In addition, General Question G-2 states: " Sections 4 3 2 4 3 3 and 4 3 8 all describe new one time inspection programs to verify the presence or absence of sarious degradation mechanism specific to certain components. These sections all deal with time dependant mechanisms. However, given that Oconee has been operating /br approximateh Nyears, discuss the rationaleJbr delaying these inspections to the time period betueen the issuance ofa license extension and the expiration of the existing license. The stafT recognizes the financial constraints in the utility business, however, given some of the mechanisms specified, it is not clear uhy some programs are not advancedin schedule.. "

Thus, the RAls identify numerous, specific portions of the application where critical mformation, w hich is clearly within the scope of the license renewal proceeding, is missing. The absence of'his information renders portions of the application incomplete; thus, the current document camnot serve for meaningful public resicw, or as a complete document from which to identify potential contentions. Due to the large volume of

missing information, the current application hinders the Petitioners' comprehensive evaluation of nutcrial

! issues of law and fact. Furthennore, assuming that the missing information may be forthcoming. this situation indicates that the time schedule dictated for the abo c-captioned adjudicatory proceeding is ,.- ,

inherently premature. In sum, the validity and usefulness of the hearing process to serve the public interest t -

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suffers considerably, since the projected resolution of important safety issues is timed to occur well after the established timelinc for opportunitics to resolve these issues through adjudicatory proceedings.

J With regard to the Petitioners' current Contentions, the Petitioners appreciate the ASLB's due consideration .

of the information discussed abosc.

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gW Res"% fly submitted. - -

Norman " Bun" Williams. Executive Director i

! W. S. Lesan l William " Batch" Clay Chattooga River Watersluxi Coalition i

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