ML20202J673
| ML20202J673 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Limerick  |
| Issue date: | 04/12/1986 |
| From: | Anthony R ANTHONY, R.L., FRIENDS OF THE EARTH |
| To: | NRC ATOMIC SAFETY & LICENSING APPEAL PANEL (ASLAP) |
| References | |
| CON-#286-798 OL, NUDOCS 8604160148 | |
| Download: ML20202J673 (5) | |
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s U.S. NUCLEAR REGULLTORY COMMISSION.. ATOMIC SAFETY & LICENSING APPEAL BOARA bb RE: PHILA.ELEC.CO.
Limerick Gen.Sta. Unit # 1.
Dooket No. 50-352,353 April 12,1986 APPEAL TO ASLAR BY ANTHONYg 3 TO REVERSE LB'S MEMORANDUM ANDO
'a 4/4/86, DISMISSING INTERYENTION AND TERMINATING PROCEEDINGS ON AMENDM y 1 & 2, AND PETITION FOR Tuu m ATE STAY OF OPERATION OF LIMERICK # 1.
"86 ppy gg We filed petitions as an intervener, R.L. Anthony /F0 against th kNat-ing of Amendments #1 and #2 by NRC to PECe en Operati k((s;e.NPF-39,to postpone required surveillanee test on instrumentline sheekNelftes and containment isolation valves,and we submitted contentions and requested hearimp en these.
A Hearing Board was set up which ruled that we had es-tablished an interest and it called a pre-hearing conferenee on 3/27/86.
The order which resulted from this is the subject of our appeal to the Board.
COMPLAINT.
In its decision of 4/4/86 LR denied our rights to protect our health and safety from the increasetrisk of Limeriok's operation due 1-to postponed valve tests,by refusing our petition to intervene and by 8
noring the main Strust of our esatentions,in basing its ruling on a limited and faulty view of the valve functions in Amend # 1 and byside stepping the issue of " no significant hasards" on both amendments as well as key.
precedural issues.
LB: failed to address our conteetions that the Staff's determination of no significant hasards was in error, that NRC failedto make a final determination after our request for a hearing and issued both amendments without a hearing.
LB also ignored sur contentions on PEco's deliberste skipping of the valve test regulations during timer lastr fall when the plant was shut down.
The testscould have been carried out with possible adjustments of operation if PECo had been functioning in good faith to I
neet the regulations and protect the publio and its own staff safety.
ANALYSIS OF LB's AM EDMENT # 1 CONCLUSIONS.
(The following page num'-
bers refer to LB's Memorandum and Order,4/4/86.) We are-surprised by LB's clain (p.4) that they made an erroneous intereng gagtherewere two diserete safety aspects to Amend. #1. We believe was oorrect is its g
first conclusion that there are two aspects connected with check valve failure, faulty operation of the valve itself and the effect of this en the line downstream from the valve. We pointed out(ipend it was not Cent.5) refuted' that p
these valves can stick open or shut er ruptrure and separate from the pipe 4 The Board specified (p.1.) that" Amendment No.1 involved...extention of time for the surveillance and testing of.. check valves" (lining added).
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We understand and we believe the Board understands these terms to mean each valve is examined as to whether it will perform its check function and whether it is sound and operable in all its parts.
If there is a orack in its casing or the welds which attach it to the pipes are cracked, j
for emaaple, this is what the " surveillance"is designed to show up,other-wise there would be no reason for the inclusion of these tests in the TS.
It would just be a matter of maintenance routines. We do not agree (p. 3) that our petition"should not have been granted in the first place" We assure LB that their first judgment was correct and we ask the Board to revive and reinforce it by reinstating our interventica and contentions.
Ws assert that all of our contentions are concerned with valve failure and the effects of such failures on the instrument lines, The Staff,tes, said in the 3/27 hearing,"The valves and the lines are intertwined".(We j
apologize for not citing the tramscript but we have no copy available to use)
The transcript references (p.6 ) are confusing. Unfortunately we do not have the means to check the text of the transcript.
8e believe that the doard will understand from our testinomy and our written submissions that valve failures in the instrumentation lines can precipitate other failures,and the end result could be a loss of ability to shut down the plant in an emergency which could bring en breaches of containment and radioactive releases to the community. Without the required surveillasse testing some or all of these valves could fail because of unassessed weaknesses,at any moment,1f t~ney were subject to extreme strain such as reactor pressure surging far absve operating pressure of 1000 psi or ele-l vated temperatures well beyond tho'500 F have referred to pipe whip, which was pointed out in the Torrey Pines Design Raview,Nov.1984,as a possibility for instrumentation lines. Extreme gressures and temperature under reactor t.ocident conditions could cause. valve ruptures and accom-pany6eg instrument line rupture with pipe whip,which could disable other i
instrument lines to the ortent that the indicating and operating functions of the lines would be &iarapted and control of the reactor impeded or lost.
36 SIGNIFICANT HAZARDS We trust the Board will acte that LB was not (p.6) persuaded by licensee's and the Staff's argument that theFSAR analysed cheek valve and instrument line failures and found them to be acceptable.
1 In the 3/27 hearing LB questioned,"Why do you bother with Technical Spoo-1 ifications at all?" and "What is a valid intervention contention if both aspects have already been covered in FSAR?" LB accura.tely pointed out(p.6)
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" the isome under the notice of hearing is whether the ' no significant hasards consideration' determination is correct." LB goes on convincingly:
We would expect that,under Section 189 a(2)(A) of the Aet,an allegation of any significant decrease in the margin of safety flowing from a " no significant hasards consider & tion" amendment would be a fairly litigable issue notzithstanding the continuing validity of the PSAR.
We have no Commission or Appeal Board guidance on this issue,however.
(P 6 & 7)
We believe that the Board will find that LB,above, summed up a key issue raised in our contentions and will find that LB handed onto the Board the responsibility to find that our petition to litigate the "no significant hgzards" issue must now be brought to hearing,and in the meantime further risk must be eliminated by staying the operation of the reactor until all i
l the postponed tests have been completed.
In avoiding a decision on "no significant hasards" LB rationalizes l
that its ruling " turns on a somewhat different point" (p.7).
It appears that LB not only side stepped its responsibility to rule on the hasards issue but embraced completely the opinion of the Licensee and the Staff l
- that, the only issue considered in Amendment No. I was the effect of the de-lay in the surveillance and testing of the instrument-line, excess-flow oheck valves; not on the instrument lines themselves.
We think that the Board will find that LB turned its back on all the threats to safe operation of the plant summed up in our contentions which relate valve failures to pipe failures with the resulting effeats on con-trol of the reaction process.
t We know that the Board will review the applications and evaluations f
and other material cited by LB (p.7) We have reviewed this material a l
number of times and we can find no support for LB's conclusion that ex-tention of the time for testing the valves would not increase the risk of weakness in valves and their connections to instrument lines being over-looked by the skipping of surveillance.
We think that the Board will question LB's conclusion (p.8.) that the reference to the failure of the instrument line as an(analyzed e ont in the PSAR seems to confine the ef-i natrument lines vis-a-vis(sic) line added fact " to the relative role of the eheck-valve failure".
Rather we believe the Board will find that the Staff in this instance is acknowledging that the surges in reactor pressure and temperature which we have citd on our page 2 above,in emergency situations will cause both to fail.
L3 misses the point of the vital importance of surveillance and testing to expose weaknesses in the valves and their connections to the pipes..The issue is not that valve failure (p.8)"would
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not cause a failure of instrument limes" but that forces from the reactor operating on both valves and lines could bring on the failure of both.
The Staff's and Licensee's contentions that the failures of shock valves and instrument lines are analysed events in FSAR does not cancel out the requirements for surveillance tests as specified in Tech. Spec.
Nor did they cite any analyses in FSAR which provide details.
None of the refer-ences to FSAR in PECo's Answer to Contention Supplements,3/26/86, supply specific analyses which cover the failures of valves and lines we have set forth above.
CONCLUSION ON AMENDMENT # 1.
We petition the Board to reverse LB's ruling (p.8.)and on the basis of our presentation in our previous submissions and above, to find thateur contentions on Amend.# 1.
are within the scope of the notice of hearing and have bases,and that the aspect of our pro-posed intervention is within the scope of the proceeding.
INTERVENTION IN AMENDMENT # 2 PROCEEDINGS.
We believe that the Board will find that our intervention vs.. Amend. # 2 is appropriate and nec-essary in order to establish a record and that our contentions are direct-ly focused on the issues. We peticion the Board to admit us as an inter-venor. sed to accept our contentions. We do not consider that our petition was filed late but in any case we ask the Board to find that we prevail on the 5 factors controlling late filing.
- 1. At the hearing we explained to LB that we were confused about the extent of the amendments PECo was requesting. Only after we filed conten-tions on Amend.# 1 did we unravel the intricacies of PECo's filings in the Federal Register. We did not understand that there were two separate requests until after we filed our contentions on # 1 on 2/15/86. We ask the Board to find there was good cause for our filing only on 2/26/86.
- 2. We acknowledge that LB found in our favor on th,is_ factor.
- 3. We understand that LB found this factor neutral.
- 4. LB found in our favor that no other party would represent us.
- 5. We ask the Board to find that our intervention will broaden the issues,but there has been no harm up to now for PECo because it has been operating under the amendments.
We think it is essential for there to be a record on Amend.# 2 and without our intervention there will be none.
CONCLUSION ON ARENDMENT # 2.
We believe that the Board will find on the balancing of the five factora that we prevail and that our petition to intervene should be approved and our contentions accepted.
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5 REQUESTED RELIEF. We ask the Board to evaluate our presentations on Amendments #1 and # 2 and on that basis to reverse the rulings of the Licensing Board as follows8 1.Recind LB4 vacating of its 3/13/86 memorandum granting leere for us to intervene on Amend # 1, and accept us as an int'ervenor.
2.
Crant our petition to intervene in Amend.# 2 proceedings.
3.
Reinstate the consolidated proceedings on Amend.# 1 and # 2.
- 4. Romand the proceedings on Amendments # 1 and # 2 to the Licensing Board for hearings.on the contentions.
PETITION FOR AN IMMEDIA1E STAY ON THE OPERATION OF LIMERICK # 1 REACTOR We present to the Board the reglity of an emergency situation which involves our safety and health in the continuing operation of the Idmerick reactor without the required check valve and isolation valves tests which were postponed by the granting of Amendments #1 and # 2. Some of these tests are presently 7i months overdue and the rest are 6h months overdue.
We direct the Board's attention to our Motion of 3/24/86 to ASLB for an inmediate stay under 10CFR 2 788 (a)and(g). We incorporate it here by reference.
We also remind the Board of our Motion to the Board of 4/1/86 for Directed Certification on our motion for a stay above.
We petition the Board under the authority of 10CFR 2 788 (a) and (g) to issue an immediate stay on the operation of Limerick Unit # 1 on the basis of our presentations in our contentions and the continuing thres,t to our safety and health. Instead of submitting a new petition in detail we submit the text of our 3/24/86 motion to ASLB since it covers all the points we wish to make to the Board, including the satis-fying of the four criteria for a s tay.
We petitiun the Board to issue an immediate stay on the operation of Unit # 1 with the requirement that th$ stay continue in effect until the valve testepostponed under amendments # 1 and # 2 have been completely carried out.
I certify copies by mail to8 Respectfully submitted, NRC Docketing, LB, Staff Counsel Conn r & Wetterhahn, F. Romano [7[
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pM, M
////J Box 186 Moylan,Pa.19065
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