ML20198K127
| ML20198K127 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 05/28/1986 |
| From: | NRC COMMISSION (OCM) |
| To: | |
| References | |
| REF-10CFR9.7 NUDOCS 8606030345 | |
| Download: ML20198K127 (48) | |
Text
-__ _ ___
l
)
i,y"rgy;%Yf. '. %,k-[
~
,, c., is,,;
'[f <
- 17-? j.f -ft.sj.*,
4,
. ; g,g y
.2
-- u,&
4 m7 y.e. ;
6,T W :,
j
- s
- m..
7 t.
r.
s.
.m..r
\\
- a..
i 3
..y
,,.w
.y n,
,2.
s 1.-
.,t,*
..l j
't
.'fh
- 5.$ YY?,(,,..a.$$ W' N S'.,^N.:.?
- 9 NW.2 l,,..,,..; Q._.,,. N,,
.5 1
i i
1.
s 4
... n
~
' 7l
,}n
. g.. '$ MYlna..-_.,$.c..
,')h '. '
,l
~ r s
. %..k..-yz.
2./
.,.,-Ist,thG Ekstter Of 8-MN
..s CWetISSION MEETING h,a-o-
+
4 e s_.
g,
.J
.t^
.,- * - s 6 '
..on,4
~
', : ## $.Br.i,e..fing on-IAEA A k..r,f. T. *,
g>e~.eN,,g.'
..r Q g,th,
.gg[?zg;p.g;
- A. f d
). y",7g?;,. General Meeting on; h
the Chernobyl Incident
- /MGW,.
9 j; <.
w-T. ; 9,9 %. % g (,4 p Af g. @ / F e,
s'
..h4j -A a
L. t *'e'i
.s.-,,
.e n lv..*u$>.s:p?% l.. _y.;p;gx. yg p;p
- Q ib N.t5Dg)
UG' 6
.'l,.
%,. s,.
... g w.
- V., ~;,;s..
- s. #
,a p.,
4
't
,,;;j' ' Wr, y;q n..
r-
.x
.;,.. p.
~
rv 1
... ~,4:.
.,,r,
.., n.3 c "s
",3;y +
gg
?;a Q,,.
%+*., '
n - p. -
[4., -
s t
+. _,.
n 3
..Yila-4.n W ;?ry
,.l. I.'
' z' W
"%'fMlg;%.:{:gM... A;;..
. -,W xp, L.Cyq'.
x I?',
[
[.[q,. -
s' 7~v
- .(; fy J.
r p >.w.
.c
,'"4
-- c.
i i
s.
i
?,,
, Location: Washington, D. C.
'"Date: Wednesday, May 28, 1986 Pages:
1 - 43 l
o c,c w n : i.:.
m,,;
l'[)ri
{<
i 1 i :,-
I I
ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES l
Court Reporters 1625 I St.,
N.W.
Suite 921 Washington, D.C.
20006 (202) 293-3950 e
[
4 1
D i SCLA 1 MER 2
S 4
5 0
This is an unofficial transcript of a meeting of the 7
United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission held on 8
5/28/86 In the Commission's office at 1717 H Street, 9
N.W.,
Washington, D.C.
The meeting was open to public 10 attendance and observation.
This transcript has not been 11 reviewed, corrected, or edited, and it may contain 12 inaccuracies.
13 The transcript is intended solely for general 14 informational purposes.
As provided by 10 CFR 9.103, it is 15 not part of the formal or informal record of decision of the 16 matters discussed.
Expressions of opinion in this transcript 17 do not necessarily reflect final determination or beliefs.
No 18 pleading or other paper may be filed with the Commission in s
19 any proceeding as the result of or addressed to any statement 20 or argument contained herein, except as the Canm i s s i on may 21 authorire.
22 23 24 25
f S'
1 1
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 2
NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 3
4 BRIEFING ON IAEA GENERAL MEETING ON 5
THE CHERNOBYL INCIDENT 6
7 Public Meeting 8
9 10 WEDNESDAY, MAY 28, 1986 11 1717 H Street, N.W.
12 Washington, D.C.
13 The Commission met, pursuant to notice, at 1:35 p.m.
14 COMMISSIONERS PRESENT:
15 NUNZIO J.
PALLADINO, Chairman of the Commission 16 THOMAS M. ROBERTS, Commissioner 17 JAMES K. ASSELSTINE, Commissioner 18 FREDERICK M. BERNTHAL, Commissioner 19 LANDO W.
ZECH, JR., Commissioner 20 STAFF AND PRESENTERS SEATED AT COMMISSION TABLE:
21 H.
Denton R. Hauber 22 AUDIENCE SPEAKERS:
23 V. Stello R. Minogue 24 D. Ross T. Speis 25
r' O
2 1
PROCEEDINGS 2
CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
Good afternoon, ladies and 3
gentlemen.
This afternoon, we'll have a briefing on IAEA 4
General Meeting cn1 the Chernobyl incident, and before we can 5
proceed with the meeting we need to vote to hold the meeting 6
on less than one week's notice.
May I have such a vote?
7 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Aye.
8 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
Aye.
9 COMMISSIONER ROBERTS:
Aye.
10 COMMISSIONER ZECH:
Aye.
11 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
Aye.
12 By way of background, last week there was a meeting 13 of the International Atomic Energy Agency, IAEA, Board of 14 Governors to discuss the Chernobyl accident.
Ambassador 15 Kennedy headed the U.s. delegation to this meeting, and Harold 16 Denton represented the NRC at that meeting.
17 Harold is with us today to discuss the subjects 18 covered at the meeting and to inform the Commission of the 19 results and potential future NRc involvements.
20 Mr. Hans Blix, Director General of the IAEA, reports
(
21 through the media that the Soviet Union intends to provide i
22 information to the world via the IAEA, and that the IAEA Board 23 of Governors is interested in enlarging and strengthening the 24 charter of the IAEA in the area of nuclear power plant safety.
25 It is important that the NRC keep abreast of
f 4
3 1
information developed about the Chernobyl accident so that we 2
can benefit from lessons learned.
In this connection, I've 3
directed the EDO to establish a Chernobyl Task Force to 4
understand the accident and to develop lessons to be learned 5
by us as well as the rest of the world nuclear community.
6 Before we start today's meeting, I would like to 7
thank Harold for his efforts in NRC's role in the 8
U.S. Interagency Task Force established after the Chernobyl 9
incident, as well as your participation in last week's 10 meeting, plus many other meetings that you have attended on 11 this subject.
We look forward to hearing your report, but let 12 me ask first if other Commissioners have any opening remarks.
13 COMMISSIONER ZECH:
No.
14 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
No.
15 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
All right, Harold, I turn the 16 meeting over to you.
17 MR. DENTON:
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Ron Hauber 18 and I did attend the special meeting as part of the 19 U.S. delegation in support of Ambassador Kennedy, and I passed 20 out an outline of the topics I'd like to cover.
And some of 21 them I can go into in more detail, so feel free to stop me on 22 any one of them and I'll try to cover all four major areas in 23 the time allowed.
24 The setting for thu meeting was a special meeting of 25 the Board of Governors.
There are 35 countries who belong to
T 4
1 the Board of Governors out of the 112 countries that are 2
members.
I'd say I felt there a real sense of urgency and 3
concern among the members, and I think it was expressed 4
throughout the meeting by many countries.
5 At the end of the meeting, the chairman did issue a 6
summary of the meeting which was a consensus statement, I 7
think agreed to by all countries who were present.
And what 3
I'd like to start with is the details of those IAEA agreements 9
because I think they do have considerable significance for our 10 programs and activities.
11 These programs were agreed to by the Soviets.
The 12 U.S. delegation did meet directly with the Soviet delegation 13 in the course of the overall meeting.
14 The first item is an agreement to have a 15 post-accident review meeting at the earliest possible date 16 with the Soviet participating and giving us a firsthand 17 account of what happened.
I asked if they were going to cover 18 the full scope of issues, from scenario initiation through 19 source term, fire fighting, meteorology, doses, and they said 20 they were, and that there would be an opportunity for expert 21 participation and questions and answers.
So I think that 22 meeting will be the first time perhaps we'll know the full 23 details of what went on.
24 COMMISSIONER ROBERTS:
Did they give you any sense 25 of when that might occur?
5 1
MR. DENTON:
They said probably in July, but I think 2
the official communique said within three months.
3 MR. HAUBER:
Yes, that's what it said.
bOMMISSIONERROBERTS:
When did the U.S.
report 4
5 after TMI?
Wasn't it three months?
6 MR. DENTON:
I think Ron looked into that schedule.
7 MR. HAUBER:
Well, Harold visited Vienna and had a 8
briefing for them in about that same time; between two and 9
three months.
There's no question the Soviets are very 10 conscious of -- they set out a timetable somewhat based on the 11 TMI parallel, although they really weren't parallel 12 situations, and there was a lot of misinformation also that 13 was put out about what we did and didn't do.
14 MR. DENTON:
I think we were notifying IAEA within 15 days, based on your schedule.
16 MR. HAUBER:
The first messages were going out 17 within 24 hcurs to IAEA and to other countries.
18 MR. DENTON:
So this first meeting is very 19 important, and I think Vic and I need to talk about how to 20 structura a response to your request, because we need to have 21 people who are going to be involved in this effort there 22 hearing the firsthand information.
?
23 The second area was an agreement that they should 24 draft binding international agreements to require early 25 notification and coordination for transboundary accidents, l
6 1
There are already two IAEA documents that spell out these 2
matters but they were never formally adopted by the member 3
countries.
So I think the plan is here to have these two 4
agreements.put into some sort of binding form and have all the 5
member countries of IAEA join and agree to abide by early 6
warning.
That is, call the IAEA and the IAEA would in turn 7
inform all the member countries.
And likewise, agreements 8
with regard to coordination and assistance in assisting nearby 9
countries.
10 I think this one will require considerable input 11 from the Commission on defining the levels for notification 12 and are we talking -- obviously, we're talking about potential 13 transboundary notification; you wouldn't wait until it had 14 actually occurred.
So I see a big role for I&E and others to 15 perhaps play in making sure this is done and making sure wo 16 can live up to the commitment.
17 All the governors there did commit to agree to 18 prompt notification in the meantime until these international 19 agreements can be signed.
So I take it, Ron, we now have an 20 obligation for transboundary notification, if we didn't have 21 it before.
22 MR. HAUBER:
Yes.
I think we've always felt that we 23 had one; there was no question that if we had an accident 24 situation developing that we were aware of that could possibly 25 have off-site releases, let alone transboundary releases, that 1
7 1
we would be required to make the fullest kind of information 2
available to any people that might be affected.
3 And there's no question that the information 4
circulars'that were developed by groups of experts two or 5
three years ago, these two information circulars, they 6
already contain really very good guidance that can help 7
people.
8 As far ac the notification system, one might argue 9
about exactly how you define the trigger as to when you 10 notify.
Now, it's set in some kind of terms of having a 11 potential for a release that could go transboundary.
But in 12 the meantime, we don't have any kind of basic problem with the' 13 guidance that's already in those information circulars.
And I 14 think as far as the United States is concerned, we think it 15 would be fine simply to open them up for signature and sign 16 them.
17 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
Are they proposing something 18 different from those guidelines?
19 MR. HAUBER:
They're proposing to have the experts 20 reconvene with the idea this time it's going to be binding on 21 all the countries.
In the case of the United States, we 22 entered into it that way from the beginning.
Some countries, 23 though, -- Argentina mentioned that they had taken a different 24 look at it as a group of experts; they want to take a very 25 close look at it now since it would be binding on their
J 8
1 country.
I don't know how many other countries might want to 2
take a very close look at it.
3 MR. DENTON':
I got the feeling that those documents 4
were to be the basis for the agreements, but they weren't l
5 sacrosanct;-they could be reopened if we had learned something 6
new about how to handle it.
7 The third major activity will be this expert group 8
to consider measures to improve safety incorporation and means 9
to further refine safet standards.
So.that would be a very 10 big international meeting of safety experts to consider not 11 only the Chernobyl results, but I took it to be. worldwide 12 reactor experience, and would bring to bear all the world's 1
13 experts in considering ways to improve safety.
So that would l
14 be a major conference to be held as early as they can get it 15 together, and certainly this year.
16 It's to be later than the first one.
My notes say 17 the first one is definitely going to be over and with 18 recommendations to the IAEA before September.
19 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
Are you talking about a 20 conference on this subject, or is that a conference plus 21 additional follow-up work?
22 MR. DENTON:
I got the feeling that they use the 23 word " conference" in a special sense.
This one would be a 24 meeting of experts, not necessarily the government 25 representatives.
9 e
1 Then the fourth meeting on here, which would l
2 be a traditional -- what I'd call maybe a traditional IAEA 4
3 conference, and that would be the conference with government i
4 representation.
And they would then consider the r
5 recommendations of the experts that came out of the first j
6 three meetings, to decide whether or not to adopt these as 7
IAEA positions.
[
t 8
MR. HAUBER:
I think even as we sit here, the IAEA i
9 is trying to define more precisely the relationships of these 10 various meetings.
And by the -- there's going to be a regular 11 June meeting of the Board of Governors June 10th, lith and i
12 12th, and by that time, the Director General is supposed to 13 have this all detailed a little bit more clearly.
This was --
j 14 I could read to you exactly what they said about these two 15 meetings.
i 16 MR, DENTON:
I think these are instructions to the 17 Director General, is really what they are and then he in turn f
18 turns it into -- with logistics and schedules and plans.
So 19 my notes just say " convene a group of experts to consider," so 20 then the Director General has to decide how to do that.
21 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
My question really was if 22 they're going to act on this at the traditional IAEA meeting, 23 will there be enough time to develop standards?
It seems to 24 me that's a long-term effort, if they're going to get 25 worldwide agreement.
t
- r
~ - - - - -.... -, -,.
r
-mr
-r-cr-,-
- - - - - - - - ~ ^ '
' ^ '
10 1
MR. DENTON:
That was a concern; that they have the 2
first meeting and get those results.
The second item, 3
international agreements, didn't seem to be that tough a job.
4 The third one, that meet'ing needs to know the outcome of the 5
Russian discussions and time to meet, and then the conference.
6 So I had the impression the conference was intended 7
to be held sometime this year.
8 MR. HAUBER:
Yes.
The Director General in his 9
opening statement had hoped to have this conference 10 immediately after the general conference, the Annual IAEA 11 large meeting --
12 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
Which conference?
The 13 conference on safety standards?
Which conference are you 14 talking about when you say "this conference"?
The standards 15 conference?
16 MR. HAUBER:
There's the Russian meeting, the Soviet 17 meeting, where they're going to do their data dump and people 18 are going to be able to interact with them and try to fully 19 develop what happened, at that meeting.
Then they're going to 20 have these meetings on the -- they're going to get the experts 21 together to work over these legal documents.
Okay.
22 Then there are two more things left.
One is an 23 experts' group which they say over the long term will consider 24 all of the aspects of this.
That experts' group may, in fact, 25 meat very early after the Soviet meeting, but its term might
11 1
extend for months as they continue to turn over and make 2
recommendations to the IAEA and so on.
3 Kind of interspersed then they want to have a large 4
conference, possibly right after the annual IAEA general 5
conference in late September, early October, in which they 6
would get ranking people from around the world, experts, and 7
have the large meeting on safety.
So in some ways, those two 8
last groups kind of overlap and feed into each other.
9 MR. DENTON:
I think the logistics will depend on 10 what the Director General comes back with as to what he can 11 arrange.
But I think all four of these are very important.
12 NRC should be represented and perhaps some of you might like 13 to participate in them, also.
14 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
My concern was -- my concern 15 arises out of a fear that they might try a hasty setting of 16 standards and try to approve them promptly, but from what you 17 say they recognize it's a long-term effort.
18 MR. DENTON:
I think they're on a deliberate course, 19 and none of these decisions of course were technical sort of 2G decisions; they were just to convene groups to do things.
21 MR. HAUBER:
I'd mention one other thing.
I think 22 the Director General and his staff were making the point that 23 in several of these areas, they didn't really think that they 24 needed to re-invent the wheel; that in the areas of the early 25 notification agreement, the cooperation after accidents
- - - =
12 1
agreement, and even the area of standards, they weren't 2
really thinking of starting from scratch and developing a 3
whole new area of standards or something.
That there might be 4
particular areas targeted in connection with the Chernobyl 5
accident where there might be an interest in having a 6
worldwide statement on a safety standard or an expectation in 7
some specific areas.
But they weren't going to undertake 8
another ten-year program like we did from 1975 to 1985 to 9
develop a whole span of safety guidance for the developing 10 countries.
11 MR. DENTON:
Let me go next to what was provided by 12 the Russian delegation.
They did not provide much that had 13 not already been made available by Mr. Gorbachev or other 14 spokesmen.
So I don't think we have a great deal more 15 information about what really happened.
16 But the conference did begin with the Russian 17 delegate, Mr. Semenov, giving a brief summary of the event and 18 actions they had taken.
What I wanted to point out, he says 19 the sequence details are not yet available, so it's still 20 speculation as to exactly what happened.
And he talked about 21 the internal groups that they had formed to do the 22 investigation.
23 I do have a quote, though, that I wrote down.
In 24 describing the accident he said, " intensive evaporation of i
25 cooling water, and result in sharp over-pressure, and then a
13 1
hydrogen explosion and the fire."
So that's the sequence in 2
which he described the events.
3 COMMISSIONER ROBERTS:
Harold, the Washington Post 4
on Sunday.again printed their rather different sequence, which 5
I assumed at the time was outdated, but let me ask again.
6 Where they went back to one of the older scenarios, or maybe 7
never got away from one of the older scenarios where they're 8
suggesting there was an explosion first in the turbine, or in 9
some peripheral area that led to the later sequence.
I gather 10 that is not the case, based on what you know at least, or what 11 we're told.
12 MR. DENTON:
Well, that scenario was popular several 13 weeks ago --
14 COMMISSIONER ROBERTS:
That's what I thought.
15 MR. DENTON:
It had been advanced I believe 16 originally by the French.
But absent the Russians saying the 17 sequence, it would all be speculation, and that's why I did 18 think you might like to know the sequence he put them in.
19 COMMISSIONER ROBERTS:
What was his title or 20 position, the gentleman who gave you this quote?
21 MR. DENTON:
He was the leader of the delegation and 22 he used these terms in briefing the Board of Governors.
23 COMMISSIONER ROBERTS:
But what is his position in 24 the USSR?
25 MR. DENTON:
That I don't know.
14 1
MR. SPEIS:
He is the Deputy Chairman of the Atomic 2
Energy Commission.
3 MR. DENTON:
Then he did say it was too early for 4
final judgments -and used the words that were probably involved 5
-- design, technical, operational issues, but in general, I 6
think tried to stay away from describing it.
Obviously, they 7
had a big investigation going and he, like many of us, did not 8
want to get out in front of the facts in this matter, and I 9
don't think he -- he didn't spend much time on this aspect.
10 He did talk quite a bit about some of the following 11 events.
He said that all the people who'd been hospitalized 12 with radiation illness were firemen and operators, and he made-13 the point that no inhabitants of the cities around there had 14 needed hospitalization.
I thought that was an interesting 15 observation.
He didn't give any data on the doses that might 16 have been received by either group.
17 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
Did he indicate that they're 18 likely to get good data on such things?
On intervals of 19 distance on doses?
20 MR. DENTON:
He didn't say and there was never an 21 opportunity to try to probe him.
It was not that type of 22 format.
23 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
Okay.
24 MR. DENTON:
He talked quite a bit about their 25 original concern was to minimize the release rather than to
15 1
gather information, and their number one concern was fighting 2
the fire and keeping it from spreading to Unit 4.
And that's 3
-- he went into some of those details.
And then the issue 4
being to be sure that they stopped the release, and he 5
described the helicopter use of dropping in materials.
6 He said the entombment process is underway.
They do 7
intend to entomb the plant in situ, so to speak.
And he 8
thinks the releases from the plant have been terminated with 9
what they've done so far.
10 They've taken a lot of steps, it appears, to prevent 11 contamination of the river nearby.
They put down polymers 12 over a large area to try to stabilize the radiation on the 13 soil and built dykes to prevent rain runoff from affecting --
14 weren't getting into the river.
And they were still doing 15 more things which I don't completely understand about 16 groundwater; they're drilling tunnels and other activities.
17 He did say that Units 1 and 2 could be returned to 18 operation anytime; that Unit 3 required further study.
I did 19 learn that the control rooms were not shared.
I had I think 20 at one time mentioned that I thought they were.
They're in 21 the same building, but --
22 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
They're in the same building?
23 MR. DENTON:
They're in the same general building; 24 that area between the two plants, but they're not shared 25 control rooms and are actually separated by some distance
_~
D 16 1
between the two.
So they each have their own separate control 2
- room.
3 He did say that potassium iodide was distributed 4
among the population; that milk was all being held for being 5
reprocessed in order to give it time for the iodine decay.
He mentioned there was an elevated release, which we had assumed.
6 7
So very little came out other than the fact that 8
they are taking major measures it seems to entomb the plant.
~
9 And I think it certainly brings to mind the fact that severe 10 core damage accidents to have extremely high dose levels 11 right around the plant that we often don't think about.
12 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
Harold, were there any 13 details at all on this entombment process?
Are they pumping 14 concrete into the suppression pool area, or is this actually 15 underneath the entire structure?
16 MR. DENTON:
I got the feeling both were being 17 done.
They had put concrete in -- they had drained the 18 suppression pools and had replaced that with concrete at some l
19 earlier time, and they were digging further tunnels to get 20 further below.
So they're putting quite a bit of effort into 21 entombing it apparently from the top and the bottom.
22 But in none of this area were there any real 23 details.
I'd say it was just more a summary of what they were 24 doing, and their willingness, they said that once the l
25 investigation was complete, to share it with the IAEA.
n.-
r.,-
--r---
-,n-or-,,~r,m.-
17 1
COMMISSIONER ROBERTS:
Well, was this a Q & A or a 2
monologue?
-3 MR. DENTON:
This was a statement.
4 COMMISSIONER ROBERTS:
A monologue.
5 MR. DENTON:
Yes.
And it was in Russian, so --
6 MR. HAUBER:
It was in Russian.
It's been pouched 7
to the State Department; I don't knov if it's been translated 8
yet.
9 MR. DENTON:
So what I'm giving you is the English 10 translation parts that I think are new and different.
11 He covered a lot of ground about the design of the 12 plant, but that's all information you've seen and heard about.
13 COMMISSIONER ROBERTS:
Did he talk about this 14 confinement versus containment, and all of these -- ?
15 MR. DENTON:
Not really.
He did say the graphite 16 was contained in a thin-walled chamber; that they didn't have 17 the pressure vessel, which was a safety concern in the U.S.
18 COMMISSIONER ZECH:
They did not have it.
19 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
So the assumption that we've 20 had that the top of the reactor essentially has only 21 biological shielding, where does that stand?
22 MR. DENTON:
I don't think he shed any new light on 23 the issue basically, but from talking to other people over 24 there, I don't get the feeling that they can -- the designers 25 of it considered containment in the way we do.
They were just
18 1
concerned about the break in this 900-millimeter pipe and 2
designed those boxes for that.
And clearly, what must have 3
happened here, if you follow the sequence, the 4
over-pressurization must'have produced enough pressure to 5
rupture one or more pressure tubes, which ruptured something 6
in the top part of the plant, whether you call it a reactor 7
grid plate or the shell, and then led to further problems.
8 But I think to answer, the details, he just didn't 9
bring engineering information to the meeting.
10 COMMISSIONER ZECH:
So he didn't emphasize the 11 containment issue, then.
12 MR. DENTON:
No.
He mentioned that the plant did 13 have active and passive core cooling systems, and they had 14 designed emergency systems and that they had put in these 15 chambers for steam to blow down into, and concluded, though, 16 by saying nonetheless, they all failed.
17 COMMISSIONER ZECH:
Right.
But he didn't talk about 18 that structure above the -- right directly above the reactor 19 vessel in any detail.
20 MR. DENTON:
No.
I think that's a western issue and 21 not his issue, so he didn't discuss it at all.
22 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
Harold, in the press I read 23 somewhere about they're doing experiments.
Did he mention the 24 experiments?
25 MR. DENTON:
He didn't mention it, but there was a
e 19 1
great deal of discussion among the technical people at the 2
conference that experiments were in progress at the time the 3
accident happened, but no one quite knows what they were.
4 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
Was there any alluding to 5
whether or not the experiments contributed to the accident?
6 MR. DENTON:
I think that was a feeling; that maybe 7
they did have a nexus to the accident.
But in the absence of 8
real hard information, I hesitate to say.
But clearly, 9
experiments were discussed a lot by people, but nobody knows 10 what they were doing.
And you can speculate about a core 11 physics experiment being --
12 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
The Russian spokesman didn't --
13 MR. DENTON:
He did not use the term " experiment" 14 himself, and he was about as brief in describing the incident 15 as I have been.
16 COMMISSIONER ZECH:
But did he give you any idea 17 that we're going to get a lot more information from them?
18 MR. DENTON:
Yes, he did.
And he indicated they 19 were --
20 COMMISSIONER ZECH:
In the course of time.
21 MR. DENTON:
At this meeting, their investigation 22 would be complete and that they would cover all the kinds of 23 issues we were raising.
24 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
Did he entertain or respond to 25 any questions?
20 1
MR. DENTON:
No.
COMMISSIONER ZECH:
And the timeframe again was 2
3 what?
I think it's July, but I think the MR. DENTON:
4 And I guess it depends on commitment was prior to September.
5 6
their own pace.
So we're going to see what they COMMISSIONER ZECH:
7 and then I hope come up with in July or as soon as possible, 8
that there will be a chance perhaps to -- after we've studied 9
it -- to go back to them, to the international forum or 10 Was there any discussion wherever and perhaps ask questions.
11 about the possibility?
I trust we're going to do it, but I 12 hope there was some discussion about it.
13 He said that at this meeting, that they 14 MR. DENTON:
and would provide an opportunity for questions from others, 15 that it would be a meeting of experts, with participation of 16 17 other countries' experts.
COMMISSIONER ZECH:
Good.
18 So we think at that meeting would be 19 MR. DENTON:
if the time we could ask these sort of detailed questions, 20 21 they didn't provide the answer.
1 The next category I wanted to cover -- likely future 22 These are ones which were being discussed by 23 issues.
technical members of other countries' delegations or by the 24 and I listed them here in no particular order, 25 IAEA staff,
21 1
just so you're aware of some of the issues I think that 2
will be considered in these forthcoming meetings.
4 3
The first one, of course, that comes to everyone's 4
mind is additional safety features to reduce radiological 5
consequences.
The Swedes have already talked about filtered 6
containment vent, and so that particular topic no doubt will 7
be a major focus of that expert group meeting.
8 The next one on how do you handle severe accidents 9
once you get into them, how do you cope with it, what kind of 10 recovery procedures should be in place, is likely to be a 11 topic for discussion at that time.
It led some people to talk 12 about the next generation of designs and how they could be 13 made more forgiving and safer, and I would expect that to be a 14 topic of their meetings.
15 I would also expect emergency response planning, 16 exposures both onsite and offsite, and decontamination to be 17 major topics of those forthcoming meetings.
18 The Director General spoke about the next topics.
19 OSARTS is shorthand for Operational Safety Review Team.
They 20 have apparently a team which has not made a lot of inspections 21 or safety reviews.
Apparently, they are done now at the 22 request of a country, and the results are confidential or 23 provided back only to that requesting country.
I got the 24 feeling that the Director General would think that would be a 25 good activity to expand and would probably be proposed.
~.
1 22 1
Somewhere it was called to my attention that they 2
had not ever done a review of a U.S. plant, and that might be 3
something we'd want to consider sometime.
4 The second part'of that item, the IRS stands for 5
Incident Reporting System.
You know on that one, we are 6
members of the NEA incident reporting system, and NEA reports 7
to IAEA.
But there's some sort of quid pro quo between 8
Eastern Bloc countries and western countries, I guess, in that 9
if they report one, NEA reports four.
And so, this may be --
j 10 COMMISSIONER ROBERTS:
Wait a minute, I'm not sure I 11 follow that.
12 MR. DENTON:
I'm not sura I do, either.
13 MR. HAUBER:
I could comment on that.
The first 14 international incident reporting system was set up by the NEA 15 in Paris.
The countries of Western Europe, Japan, United 16 States developed a system for a common pooling of incident i
17 reporting, and over a matter of three or four years with 18 overcoming some obstacles, -- many countries are not like the 19 United States and have many legal and other obstacles for l'
20 getting good reporting into their systems and then sharing it 21 with others -- but after a period of time, the NEA system got 22 up on its legs and was working quite well.
23 With that more or less as a model, the IAEA, with 24 its more global responsibilities, felt that it probably should 25 have its own incident reporting system that would not only
~
9 23 1
encompass the NEA countries but the rest of the world, meaning 2
primarily the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, the Eastern Bloc 3
countries and some of the developing countries which weren't 4
represented.
5 And so with a lag time of three or four years, 6
they started their own system.
There has been some 7
negotiation between the two systems.
At first, for example, 8
it was made clear to the IAEA that this was a wonderful idea 9
for them to have their own system, but to be meaningful, it 10 ought to include other than NEA countries.
Their first step 11 was to ask for NEA country information and then they were 12 going to go out for others.
And so there developed kind of a 13 negotiation between the two international agencies where IAEA 14 was led to go out to its non-NEA members to try to bring in 15 reports from them; meanwhile, NEA had its ongoing data bank,
'I 16 and the understanding was that as IAEA started to bring in 17 some new customers, that there would be this linkage of the 18 two systems.
19 In this interim period, there have been some strange 20 developments; one including this kind of parceling out; that 21 is, IAEA brings in so many reports, NEA matches them four to 22 one, because that's some proportion or other.
I think that 23 with this accident in mind and with other developments here, I 24 think that's going to go away.
I think we're going to see a 25 rather quick merger of the two systems.
24 1
As far as NRC was concerned, or the U.S. was 2
concerned, we had been members of the NEA.
A year ago, we 3
sent a letter to the IAEA saying yes, we will join your 4
system, too.
Like other NEA members, our linkage will be 5
through this NEA/ Paris hookup which does involve this ratio of 6
reports.
We did write, though, at the same time to IAEA and 7
say, but in the meantime, knowing that there were some 8
restrictions on the flow between the two organizations, we 9
said please understand that all of our reports are publicly 10 available, and if.you are ever undergoing a study, if any of 11 your members want to know about any subject matter whatsoever, 12 please let us know and all those reports will be sent directly-13 to you.
14 So we've tried to have our cake and eat it, too.
15 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
Isn't it roughly true that 16 four to one is crudely the ratio of plants?
17 MR. HAUBER:
Yes.
Yes.
Well, that was the whole 18 idea.
With no leverage or with no -- if we hadn't gone 19 through this, there had never been a Soviet report filed with 20 anybody, there had never an Eastern European report filed with 21 anyone.
So the idea was to start bringing them out.
When 22 they start bringing them out, you will get four-to-one from us 23 and in a matter of a fairly short transition time, we will 24 work towards having a unified system where everybody's reports 25 go into a common system.
25 1
MR. DENTON:
It does raise that question about 2
We've been members of both, I 4
3 guess.
NEA tends to be European, U.S.
and Japan; that's the 4
countries with the most reactors, and they're the ones that 5
briefed you recently on severe core accident analyses, and 6
tend to sort of have a technical orientation.
~
7 But since the Russians aren't members of that, or 8
any of those associated countries, the only entree to Russian 9
information is through the IAEA.
So I think it does mean that 10 the NEA role in this is going to have to be coordinated with 11 IAEA to see how those two organizations interact.
Because 12 it's clear to me that the Soviets preferred -- and the only 13 window we have to their information is through the IAEA.
14 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
Do you think the IAEA today i
15 has the expertise onboard to handle that job and some of these 16 other things that are being projected?
17 MR. DENTON:
Well, the impression I have is that the T
18 IAEA is principally a coordinating agency and would 19 re-delegate the work out to its members, and would not purport 20 to do these items by themselves.
And they have quite a large 21 staff, and I guess their main business is planning conferences 22 and writing up the results.
l 23 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
What about for us?
What 24 sort of commitment does this seem to imply from us?
25 MR. DENTON:
I was going to come to that at the 3
26 1
bottom.
I think it's considerable.
2 COMMISSIONER BERNTRAL:
Do we have the lead, by the 3
way, for the U.S.
government in this?
4 MR. DENTON:
No.
I guess State has the lead, being 5
that Ambassador Kennedy is our delegate, and we and DOE are 6
the principal support agencies.
7 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
Well, let's go on and talk 8
about resources maybe.
9 MR. DENTON:
Coming back to this OSARTS thing just a 10 moment; that's these on-site systems, apparently they would --
11 you could anticipate they may be asking us to provide more i
1 12 people to be on those teams as well as permit visits to the i
13 U.S.
14 MR. HAUBER:
Yes.
Even before the creation of 15 OSARTS they had something called safety missions -- in fact 16 they still have safety missions that they send out, especially 1
17 to developing countries, and anytime they've had a request 18 from a developing country, especially one that has a 19 U.S.-supplied reactor, they've always come to us anyway to ask 20 us.
But those happen, you know, maybe once, twice or three 21 times a year, when we have to break someone away to go join an 22 IAEA mission for a couple of weeks.
And we might expect in 23 this post-Chernobyl period that we may get two or three times 24 as many requests.
t 25 And it's already been an area -- we don't budget for
27 1
international activities among the technical staff, and so 2
it's been kind of a perennial problem of how to balance our i
3 ongoing requirements and needs against these IAEA and other 4
international requirements, which always come on as kind of 5
layon, and we keep going to Harold and to the other program i
6 offices saying, can you find someone to do this or do that.
l 7
And of course, there's a full measure of meetings, 8
even before this accident.
There's an IAEA or NEA meeting 9
every week that someone would like us to attend, and we can 10 just anticipate it's going to be made that much tougher for 11 Harold to respond with more of these.
12 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
Let me ask you the nature of 13 these reviews; are they like PAT teams?
Do they just go up --
14 MR. HAUBER:
They're like the INPO teams.
The 15 OSARTS specifically are operational, and they go in and work i
16 with the utility.
17 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
But it's not -- it doesn't 18 include a design review of whether or not things --
19 MR. HAUBER:
No.
IAEA will do that, though -- we've 20 always had the safety mission mechanism at site selection 21 time, at safety review times.
They've been willing to put 22 international teams together to go help the regulatory 23 agency.
The OSARTS have a little bit different direction 24 in that they're operational and they're aimed a little bit 25 more at the utility with the regulatory watching.
28 1
MR. DENTON:
I've always seen it as something for 2
the developing countries.
I'm not sure if they had gone to 3
Chernobyl or TMI the week before the accident they would have 4
turned up:anything that.our own inspection staff had not.
5 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
Trying to get a feel for the 6
scope and the depth --
7 MR. DENTON:
I think it's like a two-weeks, 10 8
people sort of thing.
They don't do a lot, but it's something 9
the agency is talking about expanding, and that's why I put it 10 on there.
11 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
It sounds like the analog to 12 INPO is not altogether a bad one, though.
Or the analogy to 13 INPO.
Because they don't have a lot of expertise onboard.
14 They sort of dip out into their member utilities for such 15 inspection teams.
16 MR. DENTON:
The last one on that line is the role 17 of INSAG.
I put it down there.
Apparently the IAEA is 18 thinking that -- you had asked, Commissioner, about expertise 19 within the agency.
INSAG is the International Nuclear Safety 20 Advisors Group, and it's Dr. Blix's personal group.
And I 21 think it's 12 members, 12 to 15 people that he has selected to 22 help him, to advise him on reactor safety matters.
And Herb 23 Kouts has been the person that we know best on that team.
24 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
He's the U.S.
representative.
25 MR. DENTON:
Well, it's not really a government
29 1
representative in that Blix hand-picked them, but --
2 MR. HAUBER:
He's the only person from the United 3
States.
4 MR. DENTON:
He's the only person from the U.S.,
and 5
when he can't go, we like to send someone else from the U.S.
6 The last item, worldwide radiation assessment.
For 7
example, what will be the long-term health effects in border 8
countries, or worldwide.
And likewise, how could the 9
restrictions on food, for example, between the various 10 countries be harmonized.
I think the IAEA will give that role 11 to one of these other two U.N.
organizations.
12 There's the World Health Organization, which is 13 WHO.
The other one, I don't know what the acronym stands for, 14 UNSCEAR, which is a health organization in the U.S.
I've 15 often heard the term but I don't know exactly --
16 MR. HAUBER:
It's the U.S.
Scientific Committee on 17 the Effects of Atomic Radiation.
18 MR. DENTON:
Thank you.
So I think in that area, 19 the IAEA will pass the ball to those two groups to do dose 20 assessments and health effects from Chernobyl.
21 I wanted to finish with some general observations.
22 I did get the clear feeling from a lot of people I talked to 23 that the IAEA is the only focal point for Soviet participation 24 that they -- that's just an accepted fact.
They are not going 25 to come to the NEA meetings or any other forum.
I guess one
e 30 1
reason being is they have a lot more countries who are members 2
of the IAEA that might think their way.
3 It's clear also the IAEA sees a need for a much 4
expanded reactor safety program role for themselves.
They've 5
done a lot in safeguards over the years.
They went through 6
this about a ten-year effort in reactor standards sometime 7
ago, and a lot of standards were written within the IAEA, but 8
mainly for developing countries.
And I think after that, it 9
sort of quieted down and it wasn't seen necessary to have 10 standards for developed countries, so to speak.
11 And then finally, --
12 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
Are they much different from 13 those used by the developed countries?
14 MR. DENTON:
Well, maybe Bob Minogue who is here can 15 characterize them.
16 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
Either in scope or content?
17 MR. DENTON:
Well, I looked at a couple and they 18 weren't bad.
I read a few.
They covered the same sort of 19 things that our Reg Guides cover.
20 MR. MINOGUE:
Yes.
There are about 60 of them 21 total.
There are five codes of practice that are analogous to 22 our regulations, and 55 guides that are analogous to Reg 23 Guides.
They're fundamentally based on the practice in the 24 developed countries, so they directly reflect the practices.
25 They're a little more up to date, I think, than some
31 1
of the stuff we use here because this program was just 2
finished last year and it reflects, for example, a lot of the 3
lessons learned from TMI.
4 I.think as a body of standards, they are a good, 5
solid, coherent set.
But they were, as Harold says, written 6
for developing countries, and how they would be applied to 7
developed countries would be a little bit of a difficult 8
issue.
But I think the quality is good and the content is 9
substantive, but they are comparable to current practice in 10 the developed countries; they are not -- they weren't written 11 from scratch.
12 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
How many volumes did you say 13 there were?
14 MR. MINOGUE:
There are 60 volumes total.
15 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
And I presume we have a set in 16 the Commission?
17 MR. MINOGUE:
We have a set in the agency, yes.
18 MR. HAUBER:
The library.
We have some examples in 19 our office.
20 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
As I recall, Bob, our 21 people were very heavily involved in the development of those 22 standards, going back over literally years.
23 MR. MINOGUE:
Yes.
There was a major 24 U.S.
participation over ten years.
Most of the work on the 25 writing groups was people from industry.
A number of private
32 1
companies contributed the services of their people.
The final 2
review and approval process involved the reguletory people 3
more.
And even within our agency it involved a substantial 4
commitment-of people.
The travel expenses and so on were paid 5
by the State Department.
And the industry people, their I
6 travel was paid for, as I remember, by IAEA.
i 7
But there is a major resource commitment in terms of 8
the time of the people.
It's a very time-consuming effort.
A i
9 lot of effort went into these standards.
10 MR. DENTON:
It gets down to the commitment.
I 11 think there's a considerable commitment implied by our i
12 country's agreement and active involvement in deve).oping these-l 13 four items.
Exactly what it means in manpower and resources 14 is yet to be determined.
And in responding to your request 15 that we develop a task force, we'll have to take into account i
i 16 what this action is, because I think it's key that we have 17 sort of a deliberate approach to our assessment, and it should 18 be founded on factual information as it comes available.
19 So I would not want to get a big effort going to 20 come up with U.S. recommendations before we've heard from the 21 Soviets as to exactly what happened, and this expert group i
22 consider worldwide.
And I think the timeframe here is 23 sufficiently timely that whatever we do could be worked 24 through this IAEA system so we have the full benefit of the a
25 best thinking in the world about what we should do i
l
33 1
differently.
2 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
Harold, I gather it's too soon 3
to try to assess what resources are going to be required.
Or 4
do you have~ some feel now?
5 MR. DENTON:
I don't have a feel.
I owe Vic some 6
estimates in this area.
7 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
When might we get a better 8
feel, chort of --
9 MR. DENTON:
I think the problem is more one of 10 management than just people.
If you take this meeting, the 11 very first meeting, I think.you'd want four or five experts at 12 that meeting to ask the kinds of questions that we all want 13 answered.
And those people would have to kind of work full 14 time to get prepared for that meeting and prepare for the 15 experts' meeting, back up the State Department at the next 16 meet ing.
And I foresee a group that could consist of people 17 on the staff and from outside, such as national labs.
18 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
Give us a crude number.
How 19 many people?
20 MR. DENTON:
Let me ask Vic here what he thinks.
21 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
Are we talking about five or 22 50?
23 MR. STELLO:
I don't know.
I really can't answer 24 the questica i cause there's a lot of questions that I don't 25 have answers to that affect it.
And I wouldn't know whether
34 1
five was anymore responsible than 50.
2 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
Okay.
3 MR. HAUBER:
And the one big thing, too, is how --
4 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
It may take any number between 5
those and maybe more.
6 MR. HAUBER:
We've heard what the Soviets have 7
said.
The Soviets committed themselves to Harold to really do 8
what we think they ought to do insofar as this July meeting is 9
concerned.
But we still haven't seen them do it.
If they 10 come in and give everybody a two-hour walk-through, some 11 charts, and leave the room, there's not going to be a lot to 12 build on internationally.
13 If they, you know, go through a two-day meeting, 14 interacting with our people and will stay engaged and let 15 their accic?ent be a source of information for a large ongoing interna'ional study, then there will be both the opportunity 16 c
17 and the requ '.rement for more resources.
18 MR. DENTON:
Likewise, I don't think we know yet 19 what DOE's plans are, and we need to coordinate with them in 20 the same area so the U.S. delegation would speak with one 21 voice.
22 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
Did they have a representative 23 there, DOE?
24 MR. DENTON:
They had two people there, also.
25 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
Who was there from DOE?
1
35 1
MR. DENTON:
Sol Rosen and --
2 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
Who?
3 MR. DENTON:
Sol Rosen.
Maurice Rosen's brother.
4 MR. HAUBER:
Twin brother, which caused no end of 5
confusion among the other delegations.
6 MR. DENTON:
And Peter Brush.
7 MR. HAUBER:
Peter Brush, who was formerly the chief 8
of Staff at the U.S. mission there and is a lawyer.
9 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
I didn't see in your laundry 10 list here, your outline, Harold, very much specific, or 11 anything I guess, that tended more toward the public 12 information kind of thing.
It's clear from all of the 13 confusion that has arisen in the press and the public not 14 understanding what obscure units mean, not having any basis 15 for comparison and oftentimes, not even being given the units 16 for fear they might misunderstand them.
And I think in this 17 country, despite all the good intentionc,. we didn't do 18 brilliantly at that, either.
19 Is there any thought of trying to have the IAEA 20 focus on that somewhat, too?
Or was there any discussion of 21 that?
22 MR. DENTON:
I don't think that was -- that just 23 didn't get into this agenda.
It's certainly an important 24 topic.
25 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
But some of the Interagency
36 ny picocuries per Task Force information did include what so ma 1
in terms of protective action level.
cc meant, That was one of the biggest 2
COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
that the information 3
complaints internationally, though, Joe, 4
just wasn't given.
I think there's a general feeling that 5
MR. DENTON:
6 sort of data l
what we need to do for the future is deve op terminology, 7
sheets that would be filled out with uniform nt to some 8
uniform measurements, and they could all be se disseminated, and 9
central group like the IAEA and could be 10 we'd all know what it meant.
a lot of it came to the b
11 And during this event, Countries would send
{
12 and we acted as the clearinghouse.
13 U.S.
i s perhaps, but us information and to some other border countr e yone else, just 14 we ended up sending probably more out than an and it 15
- there, because we had the emergency response centerf some of the 16 kind of facilitated round the clock handling o 17 information.
oups 18 But I think that will be worked within these gr It wasn't -- it didn't get a lot of 19 like WHO and others.
20 attention in this meeting.
from the governors there, just 21 But clearly, I felt 22 there is a sense of d
to come back to the original point I ma e, rnors and a 23 concern and urgency I thought among all the gove 24 e theme; number of the speakers had that as their number on 25
e 37 1
that the IAEA does need to move very promptly on these matters 2
and come to grips with the issues presented.
3 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
Harold, the handout that you 4
had, the copy I.have says Special IAEA Meeting on Chernobyl J
5 Accident of June 21, 1986.
6 MR. DENTON:
I'm sorry.
7 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
I think you mean Special IAEA 8
Meeting of May 21st, 1986 on Chernobyl Accident.
9 MR. DENTON:
Yes.
l l
10 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
So that is clear.
I think if 11 people have a heading similar to the one on mine, they ought 12 to make corrections at least for their own benefit.
13 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
Harold, I've got one l
14 important question.
You've heard the Russians say it now; is 15 it Cher'nobyl, or is it Cherno'byl?
16 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Or Chernobyl'?
17
[ Laughter.]
18 MR. HAUBER:
I think every time they said it they 19 were being translated and we were hearing the English.
20 MR. DENTON:
I asked Maurice Rosen's boss that 21 question, and now I'm trying to remember what answer he gave 22 me.
And I think he said Cherno'byl.
23 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
Well, we had some visitors here 24 from Israeli Atomic Energy, and they said oh, they accent the 25 first syllable.
But I can't bring myself to say that.
I keep
.~
38 1
on saying it the wrong way.
2 MR. DENTON:
I don't know.
3 So I think it is comething we obviously have to stay 4
closely involved in, and in order to influence the outcome I 5
think is why we need the commitment.
And I think it's a case 6
in which we have a lot at stake in what is finally concluded 7
here, and if we want to be an active participant in it we'll 8
have to commit the resources it takes.
9 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
Any other questions?
10 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Harold, was there any 11 discussion of the anticipated likelihood of worldwide health 12 effects from the accident, both inside and outside the Soviet 13 Union?
14 MR. DENTON:
I didn't get the first part?
15 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Was there any discussion 16 of the likely or anticipated worldwide health effects of the 17 accident, both inside and outside the Soviet Union?
18 MR. DENTON:
No values were given, but I got the 19 sense that it is already being undertaken outside the Soviet 20 Union by these health groups.
And I think they plan to do a 21 follow-up and write a report, perhaps something like the one 22 that was written after TMI for the U.S.
And many countries 23 have already begun their own dose assessment, calculating the 24 total impact on their impact.
25 MR. HAUBER:
I think the Germans in their statement
39 1
made a comment about the economic impact, and they talked 2
about how many million Deutschemarks lost, hundreds of 3
millions that they incurred one way or another.
4 MR. DENTON:
This accident has had a considerable 5
impact I think on the European side.
We were more remote from 6
it and it took longer for any direct impacts to get here, but 7
it's had a very discernible impact there I think among a lot 8
of the elected officials.
9 While I was there I did visit Dussendorf I believe 10
-- no, Zwentendorf, which is the Austrian reactor that was 11 completed in 1978 and has been in mothball state ever since, 12 thinking that there might be a reversal.
And apparently, 13 shortly after Chernobyl there was a vote or a decision to 14 scrap that plant.
So I did have a chance to visit.
15 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
Did the Russians indicate 16 whether any other reactors of theirs were shut down?
17 MR. DENTON:
I think that question was asked but I 18 don't think it ever got a clear answer.
19 MR. HAUBER:
They certainly never indicated they'd 20 shut down any other plants as a precaution.
21 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
Well, I read different things.
22 MR. DENTON:
It didn't come up in the meeting.
They 23 did say they were taking some interim measures to prevent 24 repetition of this at other plants, and I think there was 25 something in the news about that, but that was not specific
40 1
enough to understand.
2 I did get the feeling that the Russian delegation 3
did intend to give a complete briefing, and that they were 4
very knowl'edgeable about the areas in which we would be 5
interested, and they were just under this need to complete 6
their own internal investigation before talking about it.
7 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Harold, I noticed on the 8
World Net broadcast that the IAEA Director General spoke in 9
favor of the consideration of design improvements or 10 refinements, and particularly those like filtered vented 11 containments that might reduce off-site releases of radiation.
12 Would it be possible to get a briefing to sort of 13 bring us up to speed on what other countries are doing, both 14 in terms of additional design features to reduce core 15 degradation accidents and design features that are being 16 undertaken abroad to reduce the radiological releases, 17 particularly from plants that are more of western style 18 plants, just to bring us up to speed on what other countries 19 are doing, why they're doing it, what anticipated protection 20 they expect to achieve, and at what kind of costs?
21 MR. DENTON:
Certainly, it's possible.
22 MR. HAUBER:
Those will be some of the subjects, I 23 would imagine, that will be reported on by the countries at 24 that IAEA conference in September as well.
25 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
It might be useful to get
41 1
that information.
2 MR. DENTON:
I get the feeling the Swedes are out in 3
front on that issue, from the NEA meeting.
They were doing 4
more and in fact, after this accident they were even more 5
insistent on doing more.
6 I do understand that perhaps their situation with 7
regard to containment design isn't the same as some other 8
plants.
Themis, do you want to comment at all on what you may 9
know about those?
We can schedule a more detailed -- we have 10 interacted with them quite a bit.
Didn't we have them come 11 over, and they gave the staff a detailed briefing.
12 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
Who is they?
13 MR. DENTON:
The Swedes, some months ago.
14 MR. SPEIS:
We did talk to you before about the 15 system that they have put in one of their BWRs.
Basically, 16 they have two types of BWRs -- roughly equivalent to MARK 17 III's and MARK II's, and they're more concerned with their 18 MARK II's because even within the spectrum of MARK II's, they 19 vary all over the place.
And they have some concern about 20 their MARK II's, whether the containment -- what is the 21 failure rate of the containment given a severe accident.
22 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
But I really think it would be 23 worthwhile having a special meeting insofar as you have facts, 24 to describe some of the different things that different 25 countries are doing that are innovative or maybe just
42 1
different.
I don't know if we have enough to make it 2
worthwhile in the future, but I think it would be a very 3
interesting meeting.
4 MR. ROSS:
Mr. Chairman, we had arranged -- and I 5
believe it would be the first week in August -- for the 6
Commission to get a report from the NEA group of experts on 7
severe accidents.
We don't have a date but I think it's 8
around the first full week in August.
And the chairman, Harry 9
Teague, from the United Kingdom is scheduled to give this 10 presentation; he was Chairman of the group.
l 11 Part of that work includes the collection of annexes 12 of national positions on severe accidents and design features 1
13 and so on.
It would probably be quite useful to work in what 2
14 you're talking about during his presentation of his NEA report 15 to the Commission.
That's on the agenda planning session, I 16 believe.
1 17 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
All right, thank you.
18 Well, the time we had allotted for this has expired 19 and we do have another meeting, and then I have two other 20 meetings after that.
But let me -- unless there is a real I
21 burning question, I'm going to end by thanking you both for a 4
i 22 very fine presentation.
And, Harold, the Commission is most 23 appreciative of the efforts you've put forth on our behalf, 24 and commend you for the fine way in which you've conducted T
25 yourself in these activities.
)
v e.--
e
~.
_,,y y.-.p.-.
...y_-
-e r,
.,_c,,-
...--,--y.,_-
m
---m
43 1
MR. DENTON:
Thank you.
2 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
We'll stand adjourned.
3
[Whereupon, at 2:35 p.m.,
the Commission meeting was 4
adjourned.1 5
6 7
8 9
10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25
o 1
2 REPORTER'S CERTIFICATE 3
4 This is to certify that the attached events of a 5
meeting of the U.S.
Nuclear Regulatory Commission entitled:
6 7
TITLE OF MEETING:
Briefing on IAEA General Meeting on the Chernobyl Incident (Public Meeting) 8 PLACE OF MEETING:
Washington, D.C.
9 DATE OF MEETING: Wednesday, May 28, 1986 10 11 were held as herein appears, and that this is the original 12 transcript thereof for the file of the Commission taken 13 stenographically by me, thereafter reduced to typewriting by 14 me or under the direction of the court reporting company, and 15 that the transcript is a true and accurate record of the 16 foregoing events.
17
^^^^#
18 Suzanne - ung 19 20 21 22 Ann Riley & Associates, Ltd.
23 24 25
SPECIAL IAEA MEETING ON MAY 21, 1986 REGARDING CHERNOBYL ACCIDENT SPECIFIC IAEA ACTIVITIES A post-accident review meeting at early date, with USSR providing detailed account International agreements to be drafted on urgent basis for early notification and coordinated transboundary accident response (INFCIRC/310 and 321)
Expert group to consider additional measures to improve safety cooperation and means to further refine safety standards Conference to be convened on full range of nuclear safety issues E
INFORMATION PROVIDED BY USSR Sequence details not available; " intensive evaporation of cooling water--sharp overpressure;" H,, explosion; fire started "Too early for final judgments," Design, technical, operational 299 firemen and operators hospitalized with radiation illness; no inhabitants needed hospitalization Water contamination a major concern; entombment process underway with heat removal provisions LIKELY FUTURE ISSUES Additional safety features to reduce radiological consequences Severe accident management and recovery procedures Next generation of reattor designs Emergency response planning, exposures and decontamination Strengthening of OSARTS and IRS mechanisms; role of INSAG World-wide radiation assessment and food restrictions (UNSCEAR, WHO)
OBSERVATIONS IAEA is focal point for Soviet participation Expanded reactor safety programs foreseen Considerable NRC commitment implied HRD e
rawwwwwwwswwwwwwswwwwwwwwswwwwwwwwwsWmMNNNNNNNNN&&&%Q&&FeQ 3$
TRAt!SMITTAL T0:
K Document Control Desk, 016 Phillips ADVANCED COPY TO:
The Public Document Room i
f 6
DATE:
5
'40 %b l
G 3
FROM:
SECY Correspondence & Records Branch l
i 3
)
-e Q
Attached are copies of a Commission meeting transcript and related meeting s
g document (s). They are being forwarded for entry on the Daily Accession List and j
g placement in the Public Document Room.
No other distribution is requested or j
- El required.
j Ed 1SN b
Meeting
Title:
3C te-NesoA i
j
@l t k C h e.c o b \\. 1_ nexbk e
I g.
6 k nkyl.
Open X
Closed j
Meeting Date:
- E 6s h
E Item Description *:
Copies l
Advanced DCS 8
to PDR Copy
)
as
- 1. TRANSCRIPT 1
1 h
va,ulu m,ks s
e5:
2.
a 3.
c6l CB.
Ng
=>
?
4.
2 I5.
2Gp 2m h
=#A 6.
E
=5
<m
=a' E
B:
G E
2
- 3
- PDR is advanced one copy of each document, two of each SECY paper.
C&R Tranch files the original transcript, with attachments, without SECY
' y
=$
papers.
- Ed
- s lElfbY YlEb bYbYbYbY$bYbY$bYb$bYSEb$b$bYNA0l
$A0A0AW@d