ML20206R241
| ML20206R241 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Harris  |
| Issue date: | 05/13/1999 |
| From: | Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel |
| To: | |
| References | |
| CON-#299-20401 99-762-02-LA, 99-762-2-LA, LA, NUDOCS 9905200044 | |
| Download: ML20206R241 (83) | |
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20+0/ DOCED
, OFFICIAL TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEb}NGS UNITED STATES OF AMERICAM" 19 m 22 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION AC
Title:
PRElIEARING CONFERENCE CAROLINA POWER & LIGIIT COMPANY
> a y" g 2 ._8 ci ep G ~ Ji g Case No.: 50-400-LA g ~6 99-762-02-LA $$
Work Order No.: ASB-300-780 LOCATION: Chapel 11111, NC DATE: Thursday, May 13,1999 PAGES: I - 176 ANN IIILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. 1025 Connecticut Avenue,NW, Suite 1014
) Washington, D.C. 20036 l (202) 842-0034 9905200044 990sta PDR C
ADOCK 05000400 PDP {0k -
1 1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA v) 2 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 3 - - - - - ---- - - - - - - -X 4 In the Matter of: : 5 CAROLINA POWER & LIGHT COMPANY : Docket No. 50-400-LA 6 (Shearon Harris Nuclear Power : ASLBP No. 99-762-02-LA 7 Station) : 8 Prehearing Conference - 9 -- - - - - ---- - - - - - -X 10 11 Southern Human Services Center 12 Main Meeting Room 13 2505 Homestead Road 14 Chapel Hill, NC
) 15 Thursday, May 13, 1999 16 The above-entitled matter came on for prehearing 17 conference, pursuant to notice, at 10:00 a.m.
18 BEFORE: 19 THE HONORABLE G. PAUL BOLLWERK, III, 20 Judge, Chairman 21 THE HONORABLE FREDERICK J. SHON, Judge 22 THE HONCRABLE PETER S. LAM, Judge 23 24 25 I l l i ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
\-
Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034 I l
2 1 APPEARANCES: 2 On Behalf of the Licensee: 3 JOHN H. O'NEILL, JR . , Esquire 4 WILLIAM R. HOLLAWAY, Esquire 5 Shaw, Pittman, Potts & Trowbridge 6 2300 N Street, N.W. 7 Washington, D.C. 20037-1128 8 9 STEVEN CARR, Esquire 10 Legal Department 11 Carolina Power & Light Company 12 411 Fayetteville Street Mall 13 P.O. Box 1551-CPB 13A2 14 Raleigh, North Carolina 27602-1551 16 On Behalf of the Board of Commissionera of Orange County, 17 North Carolina: 18 DIANE CURRAN, Esquire 19 Harmon, Curran, Spielberg & Eisenberg L.L.P. 20 1726 M Street, N.W. 21 Suite 600 22 ' Washington, D.C. 20036 23 24 25 ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters Os 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
3 1 On Behalf of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission:
-s 2 MARIAN L. ZOBLER, Esquire
\-s# 3 Office of General Counsel l 4 U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission 5 Washington, DC 20555 6 i 7 l 8 , 9 i J 10 11 12 13 14 16 17 18 19 20 l 21 22 23 24 25 ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. O g Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
4 1 CONTENTS 2 WITNESS EXAMINATION O 3 (NONE.] 4 5 EXHIBITS I 6 NUMBER IDENTIFIED RECEIVED ! 7 Applicant's Exhibit 1 53 53 8 Orange County's Exhibit 1 90 90 9 Applicant's Exhibit 2 129 129 10 Applicant's Exhibit 3 129 11 12 13 14 l ([) 16 ) 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24
.25 ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
[) \~> Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
5 1 PROCEEDINGS 2 (10:00 a.m.] 3 JUDGE BOLLWERK: Good morning. Today we are here 4 to conduct an initial prehearing conference in the Carolina 5 Power & Light Company proceeding. In response to a notice 6 of opportunity for hearing published in the Federal Register 7 on January 13th, 1999, found in Volume 64 of the Federal 8 Register at pages 2,237 to 2,241, petitioner Board of 9 Commissioners of Orange County, North Carolina has requested 10 a hearing challenging the December 23rd, 1998 application of 11 Carolina Power & Light Company to amend its 10 CFR Part 50 12 license to operate the Shearon Harris Nuclear Power Plant. 13 In that license amendment application, CP&L seeks 14 authorization to add spent fuel rack modules to Spent Fuel 1 15' Pools C and D and to place those pools in service. 16 We scheduled this prehearing conference to provide 17 the participants with an opportunity to make oral 18 presentations on the issues of petitioner Orange. County's 19 ' standing to intervene and the admissibility of its eight 20 proffered contentions. 21 Before we begin hearing the parties' presentations 22 on these matters, I would like to introduce the Board 23 members. To my left is Frederick J. Shon, Judge Shon is a 24 nuclear engineer and is a full-time member of the Atomic 25 Safety and Licensing Board Panel. To my right is Dr. Peter ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. O Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
6 1 Lam. Judge Lam also is a nuclear engineer and a full-time 2 member of the Panel. My name is Paul Bollwerk. I am an 3 attorney and I am the Chairman of this licensing board. 4 At this point I would like to have counsel for the 5 parties identify themselves for the record. Why don't we 6 start with counsel for Orange County, then move to counsel 7 for the Applicant, Carolina Power & Light, and finally to 8 NRC Staff counsel. Ms. Curran. 9 MS. CURRAN: Good morning. 10 JUDGE BOLLWERK: Good morning. My name is Diane 11 Curran. I with the firm of Harmon, Curran, Spielberg & 12 Eisenberg in Washington, D.C. With me today are Dr. Gordon 13 Thompson of the Institute for Resourco and Security Studies 14 and David Lochbaum of the Union of Concerned Scientists. g] 15 I would also like to introduce Dr. Alice Gordon, l
's /
16 who is the Chair of the Orange County Board of 17 Commissioners. I think that most of the Commissioners have 18 other things that they need to do during the day so that you l 19 may see them coming and going but there will be 20 Commissioners here throughout the day. 21 JUDGE BOLLWERK: All right. Mr. O'Neill. 22 MR. O'NEILL: Good morning. My name is John 23 O'Neill. I am counsel for Carolina Power & Light Company 24 with the law firm of Shaw, Pittman, Potts & Trowbridge in 25 Washington, D.C. To my left is Steve Carr, who is counsel 1 ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. ( ) Court Reporters } 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
---I
r q 7 , i 1 with Carolina Power & Light Company in their corporate I
~s 2 offices. To my right is Bill Hollaway, a colleague of mine \--) 3 at Shaw, Pittman.
{ 4 I would like to introduce as well -- there's a i { 1 5 number of people here from Carolina Power & Light, but 6 particularly Jim Scarola, who is the Vice President of.the ( i 7 Harris Nuclear Plant; Steve Edwards, who is the Project I l 8 Manager and responsible engineer for the Used Fuel Pool
)
9 Activation Project at the Harris plant; and John Caves, who i 10 is the Manager of Nuclear Regulatory Affairs with CP&L's 11 corporate office. 12 JUDGE BOLLWERK: All right. Thank you. Ms. j 13 Zobler. 14 MS. ZOBLER: Good morning, My name is Marion p].
\'~'
15 Zobler. I am with the Office of General Counsel. I l 16 represent the NRC Staff, and with me today is Richard 17 Laufer, who is the Project Manager for the Harris Nuclear 18 Plant. 19 JUDGE BOLLWERK: All right -- so you are going 20 solo today then? 21 MS. ZOBLER: Yes, I am. 22 JUDGE BOLLWERK: All right. 23 On behalf of the Licensing Board, I would like to 24 express our thanks to Orange County for us to use its 25 facility, the Southern Human Services Center, and also to ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters (/7- ) N 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
8 1 Mr. Thames and Mr. Fenton of the administrative staff and to 2 Sheriff Pendergrass and his deputies for the security they O' 3 provided. We have been made to feel very welcome here and 4 all our needs have certainly been' addressed, so we very much 5 appreciate your hospitality.
- 6. Just so there is no misunderstanding about what we 7 are here to do today, we have stated in sev,eral recent 8 issuances that presentations to the Board during this 9 prehearing conference will be limited to counsel for the 10 participants that have just identified themselves. If 11 petitioner Orange County subsequently is found to have 12 standing, and to have submitted one or more litigable 13 contentions, the Board will issue a notice of hearing that 14 in accordance with 10 CFR Section 2.715(a) will afford 15 members of the public an opportunity to provide written or, 16 as appropriate, oral limited appearance statements on'the 17 issues.
18 The Board will issue a further notice outlining 19 the times, places and conditions of participation in the 20 event the Board provides an opportunity for oral limited 21 appearance statements. 22 As to the order of presentation by the 23 participants in this prehearing conference, unless counsel 24 have sonn other suggestion, we would propose to begin by 25 discussing the issue of Orange County's standing to ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. I\
\/ Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034 i
9 1 intervene which has been contested by the Applicant. _s 2 Because the burden rests with the Petitioner on the issue of 3 standing, we would first let counsel for Orange County 4 briefly address this issue, followed by counsel for the 5 Applicant, and finally the NRC Staff counsel. 6 The counsel for Orange County will then be j 7 afforded a short opportunity for a reply statement. 8 We then move on to the Petitioner's proposed 9 contentions, using the same order of presentation, with 10 initial comments by counsel for the Petitioner as the 11 sponsor of the contentions. 12 As the participants are aware the Board asks that 13 the Petitioner's contentions be classified in one of three i 14 subject matter areas -- technical, environmental, and 15 miscellaneous. This grouping was not intended to limit the J' 16 scope of any contention but rather to provide a framework ! 17 for dealing with the same general subject matter at one 18 time. 19 Finally, we woul'd like to have a brief discussion 20 toward the end of the proceeding regarding some of the 21 administrative details involved and including the 22 application of the hybrid hearing procedures in 10 CFR Part 23 2, subpart (k). 24 Do any of the counsel have any comments on the 25 order of presentation? Mr. O'Neill? ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. O Court Reporters
.1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington,.D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
n. 10 i 1 MR. O'NEILL: Mr. Chairman, that is fine with me. 2 JUDGE BOLLWERK: All right. Anything? All right.
.O 3 I should also mention, just so counsel are aware, we have 4 read all the voluminous filings that have come in. It is 5 not necessary to necessarily to repeat things,-but we ought 6 to get to the heart of the matter and talk about any new, 7 emphasize any new information that you want to bring to the 8 Board's attention.
9 I also think that it would be useful -- I know 10 there's going to be a number of acronyms floating around, 11 that sort of follows with this subject matter area, but if 12
~
you can, the first time that you use an acronym maybe 13 indicate in total what it means, just so that everyone will 14 be clear on that. 15 MS. CURRAN: Judge Bollwerk? 16 JUDGE BOLLWERK: Yes. 17 MS. CURRAN: I just wanted to raise a point of 18 ~ clarification too. As you know, the Applicant has served a 19- great deal of very technical material on us with its 20 response to our contentions and I will try to address it as 21 best as I can, but I purposefully brought the experts with 22 me who are responsible for the declarations that support our 23- contentions, and at some point it may be a whole lot more 24 effective and efficient to have them address some of these 25 very technical issues as opposed to having them whisper in ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. O Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
11 1 my ear and me garble it, so I would like to ask on occasion l l 2 for permission to do'that. 3 JUDGE BOLLWERK: All right. Why don't we deal 4 with that on a case by case basis. I don't see a general i I 5 problem with it, but let's see how it proceeds. I 6 I guess then we are ready to begin. I should l 7 mention, I guess, in looking at the standing question, and I 8 maybe we can cut to the heart of the matter, as I, and Mr. l I 9 O'Neill can correct me if I am wrong, but it seems that the l 10 basic contention is a question of the distance that Orange 11 County is located from the facility given the application 12 that is in front of the board. Am I misstating it or is 13 that the basic in terms of the organizational standing? 14 MR. O'NEILL: Mr. Chairman, certainly the 15 demonstration of injury in fact and the use of proximity to
)
16 do that is one of the key questions for standing and one : 17 that we have certainly raised in our brief. I 18 By the way, Mr. Carr will respond to Ms. Curran's 19 arguments on standing. 20 JUDGE BOLLWERK: All right. All right, then, Ms. l l" 21 Curran, if you would like to address the issue of standing, 22 anything you have to say on the subject? 23 MS. CURRAN: Yes. It was in my understanding from 24 the brief that distance from the facility was the essential
~25 issue, but I will address it.
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12 1 JUDGE BOLLWERK: All right. r 2 MS. CURRAN: My understanding of CP&L's complaint 3 with us is, first, that we hadn't alleged an organizational 4 interest, and is belied by the text of the petition to ! 5 intervene, which states that Orange County has an interest 6 in protecting the health and welfare of its citizens, in 7 protecting the quality of the environment in which they 8 live. 9 CP&L also argues that we haven't demonstrated a 10 distinct and palpable injury. We have -- we believe that we 11 have done that in detail. Although the petition itself does 12 not go into tremendous detail about the injury we have { 13 attached our comments on the proposed no significant hazards 14 finding, and the affidavit or the declaration of Dr. () \, / 15 Thompson, which goes into detail about the increased risk of 16 a reactor accident or a spent fuel pool accident that could i 17 be caused by this proposed or exacerbated by this proposed l l 18 license amendment, and of course the consequences of such an ) 19 accident would extend for many, many miles around. It is j I 20 commonly assumed in NRC licensing cases that the scope -- if ( 21 a severe accident were to occur that the geographic area of l 22 that accident could be large, as large as 40 miles. I 23 believe that is the standard geographic zone that is used to 24 assume that a party has standing. l 25 JUDGE BOLLWERK: We are talking about standing l l ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. O Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
y 13 l 1 generally in terms of reactors? We are talking about a 2 spent fuel pool here. Is there -- 3 MS. CURRAN: But we are also talking about severe 4 accidents from the spent fuel pool that could lead to 5 accidents of a similar magnitude as a reactor accident -- 6 hold on just a minute. 7 The area affected by a spent fuel pool accident 8 could be comparable or greater than the area affected by a 9 reactor accident. 10 JUDGE LAM: Is this because of the available 11 inventory? 12 MS. CURRAN: It is because of the potential to 13 release large quantities of radioactivity, particularly 14 cesium, and I believe that is discussed in Dr. Thompson's 15 declaration.
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16 JUDGE LAM: So it is basically an inventory 17 argument here. 18 MS. CURRAN: Yes. 19 JUDGE SHON: Perhaps it isn't only inventory. 20 There's a difference in the degree of containment also, is 21 there not? 22 MS. CURRAN: Yes. There's the equivalent 23 containment, and it is important to bear in mind that no 24 matter what one may think of the probability of such an 25 accident, if it is possible the standard for standing is ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. fgs Court Reporters j
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14 1 very liberal, that the possibility could be small but if it n 2 is foreseeable, then it leads to -- i j ! Y- 3 JUDGE SHON: As I understood Dr. Thompson's 4 arguments, also he postulates that it could have an adverse 5 effect on the results of a reactor accident, in particular a ! 6 LOCA was the thing he discussed. The presence of the 7 additional fuel pools, and their operation, could adversely 8 affect the response to a LOCA, which would be a reactor 9 incident, is that not correct? 10 MS. CURRAN: Yes, that is correct. 11 (Discussion off the record.] 12 MS. CURRAN: There are a variety of scenarios in 13 which reactor accidents could cause pool accidents and vice l 14 versa, and one of the issues that we raise in our l l fg 15 contentions in both the technical contentions and the NEPA l t s
'# 16 contentions is the potential that the addition of the third 17 and fourth spent fuel pools will compromise the cooling i 18 system for the existing plant.
19 I would like to point out that the NRC has 20 previously admitted state and-local governments in other 21 cases based on their sovereign authority to represent their 22 citizens' interests, to protect their citizens' interests. 23 One of them is Long Island Lighting Company, Shoreham 24 Nuclear Power Station, Unit 1, LBP 77-50, 6 NRC 261 at page 25 264, and that was in 1977. ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. ("} (m,/ Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
15 1 JUDGE SHON: Are you talking about the current
'2 participation by a government under 2.715 (c) ? ,
3 MS. CURRAN: No , I am talking about participation j 4 under 2.714. 5 JUDGE SHON: Okay. I ( 6 [ Discussion off the record.] { 1 7 MS. CURRAN: I just wanted to point out that the ! 8 boundary of Orange County lies less than 40 miles from the i 1 9 < Harris Nuclear Plant. I 10 JUDGE BOLLWERK: I think there was a I 11 representation in Applicant's filings that.it was within 15 ) 12 miles, is that correct, or am I? k 13 MS. CURRAN: That sounds right to me. I 14 MR. CARR: About 17 miles,
~g 15 ' JUDGE BOLLWERK: 17? All right. Anything further (d 16 you want to say on the subject?
17 MS. CURRAN: No, j 18 JUDGE BOLLWERK: All right. Mr. Carr. 4 19 MR. CARR: Thank you, Your Honor. Good morning, 20 Judge Bollwerk, Judge Shon, and Judge Lam, Ms. Curran, and { 21 Ms. Zobler -- welcome to North Carolina. l l 22 I am Steven Carr, counsel for CP&L. On the 23 question of standing, CP&L submits that the Petitioner, the 24 Board of Commissioners of Orange County, lack standing in 25 this case because the petition fails to make the showing ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. I O Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034 l
ix 16 1 that is required under the NRC rules for standing, and for i 2 hearing in'this case. I 3 We respectfully disagree that the rules for j 4 - standing are liberal. Whether you are county government or 5 any other kind of petitioner, the Supreme Court has laid
- 6 down the test that -- and the Commission has adopted that 7 test as enunciated in the Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife 8 case. The rules for standing as enunciated in that case are
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9 that you have to have more than hypothesis and porsibility. 10 or speculation about the possibility of a harm. There must 11 be a statement of concrete and particularized injury that 1 12 would affect the plaintiff who complains of the action that ! l 13 they are challenging, that that harm must be actual or 1 14 imminent, the Supreme Court says, and not conjectural or 15 hypothetical, and there must be a causal connection between 16- the injury that is alleged and the conduct that is 17 complained of. 18 We believe that there are no words, there is 19 nothing in the petition, in the filing the County has made 20 in this case that demonstrates or that meets the test, the 21 burden that they must meet under the Lujan case as it has 22 been adopted by the Commission as the basis for standing 23 under Rule 2.714. 24 We do not challenge the Board of Commissioners' 25 right to speak or to be heard on health and safety concerns ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters
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i 1 17 1 that they may rightly raise and about which they may rightly 2 be concerned, but the law laid down by the Supreme Court in 1 3 Lujan and other cases beside Lujan requires that when they 4 speak and if they seek to be heard in an adversarial i 1 5 proceeding, they must say something specific that makes 6 clear.that there is a genuine issue to resolve, and we 7 respectfully submit that they have failed to meet that 8 burden. 9 Their arguments for standing and for intervention 10 fail to meet the Supreme Court's test in Lujan and the NRC's 11 rules for two fundamental reasons. One, they have not 12 demonstrated an injury in fact, which has to do in part with 13 proximity but not totally, and secondly, they have offered 14 no admissible contentions. 15 The first burden that they bear on the question of 16 standing, the essential element of standing is to 17 demonstrate that the Board of Commissioners or some 18 individual represented by the Board will suffer an injury in 19 fact or harm that can be traced or linked to the action that 20 they are challenging. The Board of Commissioners in this 21 case has failed to identify any injury in fact to the 22 organization, nor has the Petitioner identified a single 23 individual within the county with a concrete and 24 particularized injury in fact. 25 The Petitioner suggests that it has organizational ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters O'- 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
R l l 18 i { 1 standing in this case because of.its proximity to the Harris l 2 Plant spent fuel building, and this claim fails to meet the I 3 test of geography under the Commission's own rules and l l 4 precedents, l 5 The Petitioner appears to assume that within 40
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6 miles or 50 miles of the Harris plant they meet the j 7 l requisite proximity test to establish their interest, but 8 that is not so, as we outline in our brief, that is not so 9 for spent fuel proceedings. In those cases the Commission 10 requires close proximity to establish the requisite interest 11 for a Petitioner to plaim and establish standing in these 12 cases. l 13 As the Licensing Appeal Board said in the North 14 Anna case, the zone of harm in spent fuel cases is much l ( 15 smaller and is not the same and cannot be equated with the l 16 construction permit or reactor operator licensing i 17 proceedings. 18 The Commission in Yankee Nuclear stated that under 19 the Commission's jurisprudence proximity alone does not 20 establisi anding outside of the nuclear power reactor 21 construct. at permit or operating licensing context absent an 22 obvious potential for offsite consequences In that case the 23 proximity of individuals who live within 4 to 10 miles of 24 the plant, the Yankee Rowe facility, was not enough to 25 confer standing. Here, Orange County is much further away fg ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. ( Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
19 1 than the 4 to 10 miles in that case and in this case there g-] 2 is no obvious potential for consequences in Orange County. \) 3 The Board of Commi.3sioners has not -- has clearly 4 failed to meet its burden to make that showing, that there 5 is a potential or any potential for offsite consequences. 6 The close proximity test we believe is appropriate 7 here and is the burden that the Board of Commissioners or 8 any Petitioner in this case must meet. The NRC has said in 9 numerous spent fuel cases and in the granting of exemptions 10 for spent fuel pools in decommissioning proceedings to 11 reduce the emergency planning zones to the site boundary J 12 that greatly reduced offsite radiological consequences of 1 13 l spent fuel storage are not a hazard for which an emergency J 14 planning zone is required. 15 Simply stated, 17 miles is too far away, 16 especially in a case where there are no offsite 17 consequences, no obvious consequences, or -- using the Lujan 18 test -- no imminent or immediate harm that has been i 19 articulated in the filings that the Board of Commissioners 20 has offered. l 21 Secondly, the Petitioner has not standing because i
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22 they haven't offered one admissible contention. As my i 23 colleagues, Mr. O'Neill and Mr. Hollaway, will outline in ; 24 their remarks and as the NRC Staff has declared in its 25 answer, there is no basis, no factual, theoretical or any l l I I g- ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. l (Nj Court Reporters l 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 ' Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034 l
20 q 1 legal basis for the admission of any of the eight l 2 contentions proposed by the County. (' 3 Now this result is not surprising. As the NRC 1 i 4 itself affirmed less than a month ago, on April 15th, in the 5~ Oconee license renewal case, spent fuel storage plans seldom 6 raise any safety or environmental issues at all, and these are matters largely addressed generically.
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7 In Oconee the 8 NRC cited its rules which hold that spent fuel generated in 9 any reactor can be stored safely and without significant 10 environmental impacts for at least 30 years beyond the 11 licensed life for operation at its spent fuel storage basin 12 or at either onsite or offsite independent installations. l 13 The NRC in Oconee also affirmed their express 14 ruling that the expected increase in in the volume of spent 15 fuel from an additional 20 years of operation can be safely , 16 accommodated onsite'.with small environmental effects through 17 dry or pool storage at all plants, and the Commission has 18 defined small to be synonymous with not detectable -- no 19 obvious offsite consequences. 20 These findings, this declaration within the last 21 month by the NRC, applies with equal force to the case 22 before this Board today. CP&L's plan to activate Pools C 23 and D for the storage of old, cold, used fuel is a safe one, 24 is a responsible plan, and is fully consistent with the 25 NRC's requirements and the interests of public health and ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. h v Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
21 1 safety. In contrast, Orange County's position to intervene 2 challenging the plan fails to meet the burden that they must \" 3 meet under Lujan and under the NRC's own rules for standing 4 because they have shown no injury in fact. They have shown 5 no close proximity, which they must show, and they have 6 shown no basis in fact or in law for any further proceedings 7 in this case. 8 This Board must conclude, therefore, that the I 9 Board of County Commissioners has no standing and this ' 10 petition should be dismissed. 11 JUDGE BOLLWERK: All right. T have two questions 12 at least. 13 The first one -- my understanding is that the l 14 facility is located, and you can clarify this for me, in j l fN, 15 both Chatham and Wake Counties or -- l \'~) 16
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MR. CARR: It is in the southern tip of Wake l 17 County. It is close to Chatham County, yes, sir. 18 JUDGE BOLLWERK: If either Chatham or Wake 19 Counties were here rather than Orange County, would they 20 have standing in this proceeding? 21 MR. CARR: We believe that those persons who have, 22 who are at the site boundary can establish the sufficiently 23 close proximity to establish a harm, but we also believe 24 that you must say something specific about what that harm 25 is, so it would depend on whether Wake County or Chatham
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22 1 County, which have not intervened in this case, offered 2 something specific and concrete, offered some evidence or Nq _) 3 some indication that there is a specific or distinct and 4 palpable harm that anybody in Wake County would suffer, 5 whether they were close or not. There is no showing of that 6 in this case certainly. 7 JUDGE BOLLWERK: What about the showings or the 8 references Ms. Curran made to Dr. Thompson's various 9 submissions that are attached to the petition? 10 MR. CARR: We believe that those are in the realm 11 of possibility. They are beyond design basis scenarios, 12 that the Commission has rejected as incredible or not 13 plausible, and so they don't rise to the level of the tests 14 required to show a distinct and palpable harm or an imminent 15 or immediate certainty that the standing tests require. 16 JUDGE BOLLWERK: All right. Any other questions 17 from anyone on the Board? 18 JUDGE SHON: No. 19 JUDGE LAM: Mr. Carr mentioned old and cold fuel. 20 MR. CARR: Yes, sir. 21 JUDGE LAM: How old is old? 22 MR. CARR: The license application will provide 23 for no more than storage of used fuel greater than five 24 years old. 25 JUDGE LAM: It is a minimum of five? ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. O 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Court Reporters l t Washington, D.C. 20036 l (202) 842-0034 l l J
23 1 MR. CARR: At least five years old before it is 2 put into Pools C and D. 3 JUDGE BOLLWERK: Okay. Anything further? Ms. 4 Zobler. 5 MS, ZOBLER: Thank you, Your Honor. The NRC Staff 6 in its filing did not oppose standing for Orange County. We 7 believe that based on the information they did submit that 8 it was sufficient to show standing to intervene in this 9 proceeding, and so we did not oppose it. 10 JUDGE BOLLWERK: All right. I am taking from that 11 what Dr. Thompson submitted did -- in fact was at least for 12 you sufficient to establish their standing? 13 MS. ZOBLER: That's correct. l 14 JUDGE BOLLWERK: All right. All right, Ms. l 1 ( ) 15 Curran, anything further you want to say on the subject? 16 MS. CURRAN: Well, I would like to address the l 17 issue of whether we have been speculative or made 18 implausible assertions about the possibility of an accident, 19 and I really don't think that is true. 20 Dr. Thompson's affidavit or declaration goes into 21 significant detail about the basis for his view that the 22 proposed license amendment would raise the risk of an 23 accident, not just.a spent fuel pool accident but also a 24 reactor accident, and I would refer you to paragraph 22 of 25 his declaration, which discusses the increased possibility ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. O Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
24 1 of a design basis or severe accident in the Harris reactor 2 that could be exacerbated by the proposed license amendment. 3 Paragraph 30, which discusses the fact that the 4 release of Cesium-137 from the Harris pools could be 5 significant, that the offsite radiation exposure could be an 6 order of magnitude larger than the exposure from the 7 Chernobyl accident. 8 Also, Paragraph 31, which discusses the fact that 9 the spent fuel pool building is not designed to contain the 10 radioactive isotopes during a release, and so they would be 11 released from the building as an atmospheric plume, so we i l l 12 have gotten into substantial detail about our concerns 13 regarding the risk raised by the proposed license amendment. i 14 I don't believe that in any of its pronouncements ( 15 regarding the safety of continued spent fuel storage that 16 the Commission has uniformly or -- well, has comprehensively 17 said there is no risk from spant fuel storage. Certainly we 18 have laid out a case that this particular amendment poses 19 unique risks because of the plan to piggyback pools C and D 20 on the existing reactor coolant system, that the very large 21 inventory of spent fuel creates additional risk. We have 22 given substantial factual reasons why this particular case 23 poses additional risk to the public. 24 The question of what constitutes distinct and 25 palpable harm does encompass risk, and I think if it ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. O. Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
25 1 would -- if it didn't then there wouldn't be any standing to I 2 intervene in an NRC licensing proceeding because most of the 3 questions that are raised by these kinds of cases are what 4 are the increased risks to the public against which the NRC 5 is tasked to protect the public. 6 I would also just like to point out that in our 7 contentions at page 31, there is a discussion of the fact 8 that a severe pool accident is not a remote and speculative 9 event. 10 JUDGE BOLLWERK: All right. Anything further? 11 MS. CURRAN: No. 12 JUDGE BOLLWERK: All right. You are looking at I 13 me, Mr. Carr, like you want to say something. 14 MR. CARR: Just a brief comment, Your Honor. 15 JUDGE BOLLWERK: All right. Well, I only have one 16 rule, though, if you say something, she gets a chance to i 17 respond. ' 18 MR, CARR: That's fine, i 19 JUDGE BOLLWERK: All right. l 20 MR. CARR: I would just remind the board that the f 21 staff has made a preliminary finding of no significant 22 hazards. What Ms. Curran was reading from were comments in 23 Dr. Thompson's declaration that were included among comments ; 24 to challenge the staff's finding of no significant hazards, 25 which is not challengeable, obviously, in this proceeding. ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. l O Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 3 Washington, D.C. 20036 ; (202) 842-0034 i
26. 1 But I wanted also to remind the board that the incremental g 2 impacts or the additional risk'that we are talking about in '"# '3 this license amendment is 1 Mbtu of fuel, old cold fuel that 4 increases the risk with a heat load of 1 Mbtu. That's all. 5 JUDGE BOLLWERK: All right. Ms. Curran, anything 6 you want to say further? 7 MS. CURRAN: Well, I am not sure how btus 8 translate into risk, I don't think it is a direct 9 translation and we certainly have a lot to say in our 10 contentions about the risk thL is created here and our 11 concerns about the exploitation of the margin of the 12 capacity of the component cooling water system. 13 I would also like to point out that the proposal 14 to limit the age of the fuel to something that is over five 15 years is not in the proposed tech specs for this license 16 amendment. It has been stated by the Applicant, but it 17 isn't in any of the licensing documents, and I don't think 18 it -- even if'it were, it doesn't undermine our standing 19 here, but-I would just like to point that out. 20 JUDGE .IJV4: I had a question for Ms. Curran. In 21 some of the remarks and statements Dr. Thompson made in the 22 affidavits, can you give me a rough idea of how much of 23 these statements are based on analysis and how much are 24 based on expert opinion, or a combination of both? 25 For example, the statement that was made like the ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. O. Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
27 1 cesium release perhaps is of the same order of magnitude as 2 the Chernobyl accident. When I hear a statement like that, O. 3 is this based on the first principle, expert opinion or 4 analysis? 5 MS. CURRAN: It is based on analysis. That's 6 right. 7 JUDGE LAM: Analysis? ! 8 MS. CURRAN: Yes. 9 JUDGE LAM: Thank you. 10 JUDGE BOLLWERK: All right. Anything further? l 11 No? 12 JUDGE SHON: No. 13 MR. CARR: Judge Bollwerk, one comment. 14 JUDGE BOLLWERK: Yes. l 15 MR. CARR: When you referred the Petitioner and (j"'T
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16 the board to our amendment request, Enclosure 6, at page 17 5-2, we have clearly stated that we are going to store only 18 old fuel which has been cooled at least five years. That is 19 Enclosure 6 at page 5-2 in our amendment request. 20 JUDGE BOLLWERK: All right. Anything further, Ms. 21 Curran? 22 MS. CURRAN: Just to respond, that is not a 23 technical specification. 24 JUDGE BOLLWERK: But I hear you saying it is part 25 of your amendment request, is that correct? ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. O Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1013 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034 L-a
28 1 MR. CARR: Yes, sir. 2 JUDGE BOLLWERK: All right. All right. Anything 3 further any of the board members have on standing? No? 4 All right. Why don't we move then to the first 5 contention. It deals with inadequate core cooling and 6 residual heat removal. Judge Shon talked to me, there are, 7 I guess, six different bases in this contention. Do you l 8 want to deal with them one at a time and go through each l 9 one, or would you prefer to deal with the whole contention? 10 What is your -- 11 MS. CURRAN: Well, I would like to deal with them 12 one at a time, but there may be some overlap. 13 JUDGE BOLLWERK: All right. So each basis, you 14 would like to deal with once, then we will have the /~N 15 Applicant respond, then the staff and then move back to b 16 Basis 2, is that -- or do you want to deal with the whole 17 contention? 18 MR. O'NEILL: Mr. Chairman, rather that repeat 19 what we said in our pleadings, we were going to take a 20 slightly different approach in discussing this contention. 21 So we were not planning to go marshalling down each one, but 22 try to look at it a little bit more broadly, step back and 23 then go through the contention a little bit more 24 generically. 25 JUDGE BOLLWERK: Okay. () ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
l 29 1 MR. O'NEILL: So it would not sort of fit in with l 2 what we had intended to do to take it one by one. We can do > 3 that, but we had hoped not just to repeat what we had 4 already said. 5- JUDGE BOLLWERK: Okay. 6 MS. CURRAN: And since they are all very closely 7 connected, so it probably would be -- even though it might 8 take a long time, this may take a while, this contention 9 anyway. 10 JUDGE BOLLWERK: All right. All right. Well, i 11 let's try that, we will proceed that way then, we will just ' 12 deal with the contention as a whole. I will offer you an 13 opportunity to say what you need to. We will go to the 14 Applicant, then the staff and come back to you. All right. ( ) 15 MS. CURRAN: Okay. This contention addresses the 16 -- the basic question here is we have a plant that was 17 originally designed so that pools 1 and 2, the first two 18 pools were tied to one reactor and the second two pools 19 would be served by the cooling water system of another 20 reactor, and, of course, the other reactor was never built. 21 So now the question is, is it safe to piggyback , 22 the cooling system of the second two pools onto the cooling 23 system that serves the reactor plus the first two pools? 24 The question is a complex one. It involves a 25 number of factors, and we have tried, in the basis of our
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30 1 contention, to identify the principal factors that have to (' 2 be taken into consideration in this analysis. They are all 3 related and so it is -- you can't pull one out and say we l 4 are going to look at this completely in isolation, but each j 5 of them is somewhat independent in its concept. 6 The first basis of the contention raises the f 7 issues that it does not appear that the component cooling 8 water system for the existing reactor is adequate to 9 accommodate the heat loads that it may see, which is not 10 intended to be an isolated attack on the existing reactor 11 coolant system. We realize that this application deals with 12 the effects of this proposed license amendment. 13 However, the cooling system has to be seen as a 14 whole and it appears to us, based on the limited information () 15 16 that has been made available to us in the license application and the accompanying documents, that the 17 addition of yet more heat load to this system may be a more 18 significant problem that is represented here because the 19 existing system may not be adequate to compensate for the 20 heat loads that it may see already. Thus, adding another j l 21 source of heat would not only raise questions about the l 22 ability of the system to cool pools C and D, but also would I 23 raise questions about the ability of the system to cool the I 24 reactor during an accident. 25 The existing system may be adequate, but only ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. O Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
31 1 barely and, therefore, may be pushed over the edge, in 2 effect, by the addition of another system. And we haven't 3 been able to get all the information that one would need to 4 resolve this question on the merits with some finality. But 5 what we have done is, using the documents available to us, 6 raise a significant dispute with the Applicant about the 7 adequacy of the cooling system as a whole to accommodate 8 this new heat load and still perform its function of cooling 9 the reactor. 10 So the Applicant's complaint about the first basis 11 of the contention that we are making some kind of an 12 impermissible attack on the cooling system, the adequacy of 13 the cooling system for the reactor is not -- it is not a 14 legitimate objection, because, in fact, this license h kJ 15 amendment does threaten to compromise the integrity of the 16 existing system. 17 JUDGE LAM: But, Ms. Curran, the way the Applicant 18 rephrased your contention in the Basis 1, the Applicant 19 rephrased it saying the current system is not capable of 20 accommodating the recirc phase of design basis accident. Do 21 you now say they rephraced it wrong, or you did not mean it 22 that way? 23 MS. CURRAN: Let me read the language in the 24 contention on which we rely, and that is a sentence on page 25 7 that says, "First, design information in the final safety ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. f"w) Court Reporters (_,f 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
I 32 1 analysis report for the Harris plant suggests that )
,- 2 accommodating a design basis LOCA will already exploit the 3 margin of the CCW system without any additional load from 4 pools C and D."
5 Now, we are not asserting here that the system is 6 -- that we know the system to be inadequate, but we are 7 asserting that it appears that accommodating a design basis 8 LOCA will exploit that margin, will use up whatever margin i 9 is available, that CP&L now seeks to rely on for 10 exploitation by the spent fuel pool cooling system for C and 11 D. 12 JUDGE LAM: Just exactly what do you mean by i 13 exploiting a margin? Do you use it up, do you exceed it or 1 14 what do you mean? ' 15 MS. CURRAN: Would it be permissible to ask Dr. 16 Thompson to address this question? 17 JUDGE BOLLWERK: Sure. I don't want to get too 18 much into testifying here, but why don't you go ahead and 19 give it shot. it might be having you whisper in her ear. 20 DR. THOMPSON: If we take a scenario of a design ! l 21' basis loss of coolant accident with recirculation, the 22 principal point of concern is the sump in the containment 23 building. It is important that the temperature of that sump 24 does not approach the level where cavitation could occur in 25 the recirculation pumps. So that is the real point of I l i t i 1 l ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. ! [~)
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a 33 1 focus. f- 2 Now, the heat is removed from this recirculating 3 water by the component cooling water system and transferred 4 to the service water system and discharged then to a heat 5 sink. Our concern is that the addition of the loads, the 6 heat load from pools C and D during the recirculation phase 7 of this LOCA could raise the sump water level to the point
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8 where cavitation could be a concern. And there is a great I 9 deal of complexity behind that discussion and a lot of l 10 assumptions and a lot of modeling that properly belong in a 11 licensing hearing and clearly not on this occasion. And we 12 don't have anything approaching the information that we need }
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13 to address this issue, and that is what I understand I 14 discovery and cross-examination are.all about. 15 And so the margin of safety would be the ability 1 16 of recirculation pumps to continue operating, and that plays 17 back through the chain of heat transfer through the 18 component cooling water system and to the service water 19 system. 20 The issues are complex and I have tried to be 21 concise here, and I hope that, if we go into a proceeding, 22 that what I have said isn't construed as limiting our 23 arguments because I have -- this ,is not pre-prepared 24 testimony and I am just trying to illustrate points. 25 JUDGE SHON: Dr. Thompson, put it this way, in ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. iO Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
f-34 1 some sense, a heat exchanger is'not like a bucket. If you jN 2 try to put 10 gallons of water in a five gallon bucket, all O 3 kinds of things go wrong. If you try to shove a few more 4 million btu per hour through a heat exchange system that is 5 designed to accommodate 100 or 160 million, it doesn't melt 6 or spill on'the floor, or do anything, it just -- the , 1 7 temperatures change all through the system, and the critical 8 temperature that you have mentioned in the containment sump 9 may simply go above the cavitation level for the containment 10 sumps. 11 DR. THOMPSON: Exactly. 12 JUDGE SHON: But this is a very complex thing, 13 because you can't just say you are pushing this much in and 14 it has got to go somewhere or anything like that. You would
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15 have to analyze the entire system.
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16 DR. THOMPSON: Correct. 17 JUDGE BOLLWERK: All right. I 18 MS. CURRAN: Okay. The Applicant claims that our l l 19 contention has to be rejected because it is supported by a 20 mistaken understanding about what is in the FSAR. And it is 21 a bit frustrating for us to be arguing about what is in the 22 FSAR right now because -- I don't know if you are familiar 23 with how FSARs go to the public document room as the 24 amendments go in. 25 There is not a librarian there integrating the ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. O Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 l (202) 842-0034
35 1 amendments to a copy of the FSAR. They are all separately 2 filed on different dates through the licensing file, so 3 there is no integrated copy of the FSAR in the public 4 document room, and we were unable to get one anywhere else. 5 We asked CP&L for one, and CP&L wouldn't give us one, and so 6 we wound up using the amendment that we knew about in the 7 FSAR which said that the design capacity of the CCW heat 8 exchangers was the -- I'm sorry, I am missing -- the 9 expected heat load on the service water system was 160 10 million btus per hour. 11 Well, now we find out from the Applicant's 12 response that the FSAR has been amended and now the number 13 is 272. 14 JUDGE SHON: Ms. Curran, but it is also true that () 15 16 the Applicant points out that that is the load on the service water system. It is not the load on the component i 17 cooling water system. And that many of the loads may be 18 dropped during a LOCA and that sort of thing. So that, 19 again, it is not a simple thing. It is not obvious that 20 that is what the component cooling water system had to take 21 out of the reactor heat removal -- residual heat removal 22 system, isn't that correct? I mean that is one of the 1 23 answers they gave, that that requirement was substantially 24 lower than the number you had quoted. 25 DR. THOMPSON: This question of whether the ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
l l 36 1 service water system is going to see 160 or 270 is really l i 2 /s somewhat of a red herring. The reason that we mentioned ) 3 this figure of 160 is to show that the component cooling 1 4 water system under accident conditions is expected to be 5 transferring more heat than it would be designed for in 6 ongoing normal operation, and, therefore, a margin is being 7 exploited. The temperature of the component cooling water l 8 system is expected to rise during LOCA recirculation to a 9 level that would be above the normal design level. So this 10 is simply chosen as an illustration of that puint. 11 The more compelling indication to us that the l 12 margin of the CCW system is very narrow is that during the l 13 phase of the recirculation when the Applicant expects to 14 switch on pool cooling again, the RHR 1. eat input is down to () 1 15 about 80 million btus and the pools A and B are producing 16 around 16, as I recall, is the limiting condition. 17 But the Applicant considers that adding an 18 additional 1.1 at that point constitutes an unreviewed 19 safety question, and that tells me that they are very close 20 to a margin here, and that creates a concern in my mind 21 about the temperature in the sump in the containment 22 building at that point in time. 23 JUDGE SHON: You say adding 1-or-so million btus 24 to the -- per hour to the 80-or-something-like-that million 25 btus per hour makes a significant change? gN ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. (), Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
37 1 DR. THOMPSON: Well, if the -- 2 JUDGE SHON: The Applicant says -- the Applicant 3 says that they think they can add 1.1, but they can't add 4' 15.6, which would be the expected limiting heat load of 5 pools C and D. So they say that, you know, they have 6 80-some from the RHR system, they have 16-or-so from pools A 7 and B, and they don't believe they can add more than one at 8 that point. ~ That, to me, says that they are getting very, 9 very close to some margin of safety. 10 If they had an ample margin in the CCW system, 11 they could run the whole 15 million btu from pools C and D.
.12 But they don't believe they can do that, they can only 13 handle one. And even that constitutes an unreviewed safety 14 question. And that, to me, is a strong indication that l 15' there is a debatable technical issue here about whether or
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16 not they have gone beyond the margin of cafety. 17 JUDGE LAM: Now, Dr.. Thompson, when you say margin 1 18 of safety, are you alleging they now would violate a tech ' 19 spec? Are you saying they would now enter the limiting 20- condition for operation, or are they entering something they 21 -- I mean something they should not have done? Can you be ; 22 more specific? 23 DR. THOMPSON: I need access to -- we need a 24 process of discovery and cross-examination to answer that 25 question. ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. O Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 ' Washington, D.C, 20036 (202) 842-0034
38 1 JUDGE LAM: So your view now is based on first 7-~ 2 principle, that now adding incremental, a million btu per l 3 hour, would now exploit their safety margin, using your 4 words? 5 DR. THOMPSON: I infer from the fact that the 6 Applicant states that they cannot add 15 million btu, that 7 they can only one. And furthermore, that they and the NRC 1 8 staff agree that this is an unreviewed safety question, even 9 adding that one. I infer that the margin of safety in this 1 10 CCW system is very small. ' 11 JUDGE LAM: It is an inference you have? 12 DR. THOMPSON: That is an inference. And given 13 access to the necessary information, I and colleagues could 14 formulate a more precise finding and claim.
N 15 JUDGE LAM: Thank you.
(b 16 JUDGE BOLLWERK: Anything further? l 17 JUDGE SHON: I guess what bothers me is the vast 18 difference, particularly when expressed as a percentage of 19 the total system design load between and 1 and 15. I could 20 very well understand why somebody might say 1 out of 80 we 21 can take and forget about, but 15 out of 80 we can't. And 22 that is -- you know, there is nothing particularly technical 23 about that, one is close to 20 percent and one is down 24 around a little over 1 percent. So I don't understand your 25 inference that is saying they couldn't afford to eliminate ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. [_s Court Reporters '~ 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
39 1 15 btu per hour means that 1 is borderline. Do you see what 2 I mean? 3 DR. THOMPSON: Introducing -- limiting the input 4 from pools C and D to 1 million btu raises a variety of 5 other issues, the effectiveness of the administrative 6 measures that will be used to ensure that. It also raises 7 some issues about the throttling of CCW flow to the heat , l 8 exchangers for pools C and D, and whether that throttling 9 properly accounts for the effectiveness of those heat 10 exchangers at low flow regimes, and that -- this is a 11 concern that has come to our attention with the filing, with 12 the material attached to the Applicant's response to our 13 contentions. So that is not a direct response to your 14 question but it indicates that the concerns that arise from i (g 15 limiting the heat load in pools C and D in this manner. sms/ 16 JUDGE SHON: I think we are probably getting too 17 close to testimony and things like that. I would as soon 18 drop it down. 19 JUDGE BOLLWERK: All right. What else? Are we 20 basically done with -- or dealt Basis 1, I think? 21 JUDGE SHON: Yes. 22 JUDGE BOLLWERK: All right. 23 MS. CURRAN: Yes. And now we are on to Basis 2, 24 which is the question of time dependence. And as I 25 -mentioned before, the initial -- if there is an accident, ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. O Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
40 1 the initial pressing need is to cool the containment with 2 the RHR system and there is not enough cooling capacity to tO 3 do the spent fuel pools at the same time. So then the 4 question is, how can you leave the spent fuel pools alone 5 until you open up the valves and start cooling them again? 6 In our contention, we challenged the failure of 7 the application to discuss this issue. The Applicant 1 8 responds that, indeed, they did and mention some very vague I l 9 phrases in Enclosure 9. But as we demonstrate in our 10 contention, this is -- it is a significant issue. It is a 11 part of this rather complicated calculation of whether or 12 not this cooling system is adequate to accommodate the 13 additional head load, and there simply isn't any information 14 in the application that would allow.one to evaluate that.
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15 Now, the Applicant has attached some calculations 16 that it apparently performed but did not include with the 17 application and we got this material a week ago, and, you 18 know, we have done our best to review it in the brief time 19 that was allotted to us, but there are a couple of 20 observations that can be made. 21 One is that -- this is Enclosure 1, Exhibit 1, I 22 think, to the Applicant's response. Although the cover page 23 is signed as approved by a responsible supervisor, none of 24 the calculation sheets in this attachment are signed by a 25 supervisor, which it is our understanding that that is the ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. (' ) Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
41 1 standard practice in doing calculations like this, that they
'2 get some kind of approval.
O' 3 The second thing to notice is that this document 1 4 appears to be a summary of quite a few calculations that are ' 5 not attached. If you look at small Roman 11 and lii, pages ) l 6 ii and iii, there is a list, it goes through the alphabet l 7 and beyond, of a number of calculations there were done to 8 support the generalized assertions that are made in this 9 attachment. And without being able to look at those l 10 calculations, it would be impossible for us to say, oh, this i 11 now resolves our concern. We need to go further and see the l l 12 information. ' 13 Also, the information that is provided, some of it 1 14 raises more concerns for us. For instance, Table 5 on page 15 12 of 32. Pardon me for a minute. ( 16 (Pause.] 17 MS. CURRAN: Table 6 of this enclosure shows that 18 for heat exchangers C and D, the Applicant would be 19 operating with the vales 2.03 percent open, that is, 20 throttled down to where they are almost closed. And this l 21 relates to the flow calculations in Table 5, which is on the 22 preceding page. They need to keep the valves almost closed l 23 and they need to keep the flow at this level in order to l l- 24 meet the proposed tech spec for maintaining the heat load at 25 1 million btus per hour. l l f- ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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i 42 1 But this, in turn, raises a question of, if the 2 flow is that low, can it carry the heat away, and may create 3 the potential for administrative decisions and, therefore, 4 administrative errors in how to maintain this -- maintain 5 the heat load below the 1 million btu per hour ceiling, and 3 6 at the same time maintain an adequate flow in the system to 7 the RHR. 8 This is just an example of the complexity of the 9 matter and how this additional information just raises more 10 questions that need to evaluated in the entire context of 11 this issue. 12 The issue of the diesel generators, which is I 13 believe another part of this contention, also relates to the 14 question of the analysis of time dependency, because the 15 analysis of what the load will be on the diesel generators 16 depends in part on the assumptions that one makes about the 17 timing of when the loads are imposed on the diesel 18 generators. And, again, we simply haven't received enough 19 information to resolve our doubts and concerns about this 20 system at this point. 21 Well, maybe I should just go to the diesel 22 generator issue now since -- 23 JUDGE BOLLWERK: All right. That is 6, Basis 6, 24 is that right? 25 MS. CURRAN: Yes. I will just skip around a ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. O Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
43 l 1 little since we are on it. In its response to Basis 6, the 2 Applicant claims that the electrical loads on the diesel ( 3 generators are analyzed in a calculation that has been 4 attached as Exhibit 3. And we would note that this exhibit 5 was prepared after we filed our contention. So it appears 6 to us it was prepared in response to our contention. 7 This attachment, like Attachment 1, is more or 8 less a summary of what was concluded about the diesel 9 generator loads, and it just doesn't have the level of 10 detail in it that would allow us to evaluate an issue of 11 this complexity. For example, questions that are still 12 outstanding are -- Will both or one pump be running? What 13 is the worst case scenario for the sump temperature running 14 on one diesel and then adding in the spent fuel load? And 15 what is the timing of that calculation? 16 So that we are simply unable to resolve our 17 concern by just looking at this enclosure to the response. 18 Going back now to the issue of -- I think we are 19 on Basis 3. 20 JUDGE BOLLWERK: All right. 21 MS. CURRAN: And this has to do with our claim 22 that CP&L hasn't addressed the issue of degradation of the 23 CCW system or the RHR heat exchanger due to fouling and 24 plugging. And we continue to maintain that this not 25 addressed in Enclosure 9 to the application. The Applicant ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. O. Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
44 1 did mention it in -- or the NRC mentioned it in a meeting 2 summary, but it wasn't clear to us from reviewing this 3 application that this had been taken into consideration or 4 how it was taken in consideration, whether it was adequate. 5 Now, the Applicant has also referred to this 6 -Enclosure 3 -- no, this is Enclosure 1, right. We are 7 looking at Exhibit 1, that supposedly resolves this issue. 8 But, once again, this enclosure has various problems in 9 terms of -- we don't understand or it is not clear to us 10 whether this has been approved, whether the calculations 11 have been finalized. And, also, this is just a summary that 12 doesn't give us any level of detail about what was done and 13 what was considered. In order to resolve our concerns, we 14 need to be able to see what the assumptions were, what the 15 methodology was that went into this. 16 Basically, you know, here is a proposal that is J i 17 quite unusual, to add these two spent fuel pools to an j l 18 existing reactor cooling system, and it requires a rather j 4 19 detailed level of analysis in order to assure that there is 20 an adequate margin of cooling capability to handle the l l 21 problem and protect the reactor and the spent fuel pools j 1 22 during an accident. j t 23 Our contention demonstrates with specificity and l! 24 basis that the application has not provided the kind of 25- information that one would need to establish that that l l I l ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. j O Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 4 I Washington, D.C. 20036 l (202) 842-0034 ! l j
E 45 1 margin is adequate in this particular case, f 2 Are you ready for me to go on to the next one? 1 I
\ 3 JUDGE BOLLWERK: If you are done with Basis 3.
4 Anybody have any questions on Basis 3? 5 (No response.] l 6 JUDGE BOLLWERK: All right. Go ahead. Basis 4 I 7 then, I guess. j 8 MS. CURRAN: The next basis for the contention 9 questions the -- well, whether -- questions the fact that i 10 the application has not evaluated the potential for human ' 11 error to contribute to an accident involving this new 12 proposed system. And it has to be borne in mind here that 13 the existing spent fuel cooling system for this plant 14 doesn't rely on administrative measures like this. Because 15 the racks are not as dense, it is not necessary to put 16 administrative limits on the -- I'm sorry, I made a mistake. ! I 17 (Discussion off the record.] ; 18 I MS. CURRAN: Pardon me. Just strike the business i i 19 about the racks. Because of the need to limit the heat load l 20 on the system, the Applicant is now proposing to implement 21 administrative measures that would keep the heat at a 1 f 22 certain level, not go over a certain level. That creates a ! 23 new problem that never existed at this plant before and it 24 demands some kind of evaluation whether it does create an l 25 unacceptable level of risk, whether it has been dealt with i ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. -
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46 1 adequately. 2 And it is important to note here that the 3 application provides no details about the nature of the 4 administrative measures that are going to be taken, it just 5 says that they are going to be taken. So we have no way of 6 evaluating whether these administrative measures are 7 adequate. All we know is that they are proposing to take 8 them. 9 'So what our contention says is that the 10 administrative measures need to be looked at. Are they 11 adequate to make sure that this potential safety problem is 12 coped with adequately? 13 The Applicant faults us for not identify the kinds 14 of errors that could be -- could occur as a result of this. 15 But the first point is that, previous to this, there was no 16 potential for human error. And now, clearly, once you 17 introduce a procedure that requires a human decision, a 18 human calculation, simply because we are human beings, that 19 creates a potential for human error. It creates a potential 20 for calculational errors. It creates a potential for 21 bookkeeping errors, memory errors. They are just the common 22 errors that human beings are prey to. 23 The Applicant also argues that the contention has 24 to be rejected because the county is challenging the 25 Applicant's compliance with the tech spec. This argument ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. I_ Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
47 1 really doesn't make sense because we are not challenging gg 2 compliance with any existing tech spec, we are challenging a l V 3 proposed tech spec that would require administrative 4 measures. 5 Our position is that it hasn't been demonstrated 6 that that tech spec will be adequate to protect public 7 health and safety in the event of an accident at the plant 8 because the potential for human error has not been analyzed 9 and it hasn't been discussed how -- what is the nature of 10 the problem and how it is going to be addressed. So we are 11 not challenging a tech spec here, we are challenging a l 12 proposed measure that happens to be included in a tech spec. 13 We are certainly not challenging a regulation. There is no 14 existing regulatory constraint that.we are opposing here, i 15 In effect, this proposed technical specification
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16 would loosen what is now a physical protection. So the 1 17 question is, what new problems does a proposed tech spec l 18 create which alters a previous physical protection and 19 substitutes an administrative protection in its place? l 20 JUDGE BOLLWERK: So your overall argument is 21 whenever you introduce a human element where there is some 22 kind of a systems element that would take care of it before, 23 that that -- unless that is fully analyzed, there is a ( 24 potential problem? Is that -- l 1 l 25 MS. CURRAN: Well, certainly, in a circumstance I ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 l (202) 842-0034
48 f 1 like this where the administrative action involves 2 maintaining the heat load below -- at safe levels. That is 3 an important safety function that was previously 4 accomplished by a physical process and now is being replaced { l 5 by a process that is inherently vulnerable to human l l 6 mistakes. So it needs to be addressed. { 7 I JUDGE BOLLWERK: Does this go to your next point ! 8 about -- well, I guess their response to Basis 5 is that i i 9 basically we are talking about flipping a couple of 10 switches? Is that -- we are all dealing with the same sorts 11 of questions here? In other words, some kind of human i 12 intervention that is now necessary that wasn't there before? ( 13 MS. CURRAN: They are related, certainly. And, 14 again, it a frustration that none of these measures are 15 described in any detail at all. For instance, supposing you l 16 had a school bus with 50 seats and the school bus is -- the l 17 breaks and the suspension are certified for 50 seats and l l 18 what if you suddenly found that the school bus is only 19 certified for 25 seats, that the breaks and suspension only 20 were for 25. seats, and the school system proposes, well, we l 21 are going to take administrative measures to ensure that i 22 only 25 students sit on the bus. 23 Well, one would want to know what are you going to 24 do? What are the measures that you are proposing to take? 25 Are they adequate to compensate for the obvious risk that ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. O Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
I 49 1 somebody is going to make a mistake? That the bus driver is 2 not going to count right, or going to not be paying 3 attention, or is going to be involved with some other thing 4 and not notice what is going on? 5 It is reasonable to ask what is being done to l 6 address this potential problem. l 7 With respect to Basis 5, what this boils down to 8 is that the Applicant argues the only additional operator 9 action required to meet the cooling needs of pools C and D 10 is for the operators in the control room to start the pumps 11 going, which requires them to turn some switches. 12 Well, for one thing, this isn't in the application 13 and there is not affidavit, so we will just have to take it 14 on faith that this the case. But for another, we don't know 15 what else is going on in the control room at the time that 16 .these switches have to be flipped. And, as I mentioned 17 earlier, Enclosure -- Exhibit 3 to the response -- is it 18 Exhibit 3? I'm sorry, it is Exhibit 1 to the response 19 creates a question as to whether there is going to be other 20 demands on the operator that are related to meeting these , 1 21 heat load limitations, keeping the valves at open to a j j 22 certain degree. But then the operators may have to worry ' 23 that the flow is too low and the heat isn't being removed. 24 So it seems to us that this is not an easily 25 resolved question just with the wave of the hand. We are 1 i ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. I') k.- Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 I I Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
50 1 .only talking about flipping two switches here. We don't 2 know what else is being done in the control room at that 3 time, what are the demands that are on the operators, and it 4 appears that there is special administrative demands that 5 have to do with maintaining the flow in these heat 6 exchangers. 7 [ Discussion off the record.) 8 MS. CURRAN: Okay. It has been pointed out to me 9 that Exhibit 2 describes the procedure for flipping the 10 switches. This wasn't in the license application and, 11 again, it is not clear from looking at this what are the 12 other demand's on the operator's time and attention, in 13 addition to this particular procedure. 14 JUDGE SHON: Mr. Curran, they actually say 15 considerably more though than just all you have to do is 16 throw two switches. They also pointed out that if you 17 didn't throw those.two switches, as I understand their 18 submission here, if you didn't throw the two switches, it 19 would take days before the thing, the fuel pools heated up 20 even to their administrative limit, and they would still be 21 far away from the onset of boiling and, certainly, days, 22 perhaps weeks away from any kind of radioactive release. 23 The flipping of the switches only starts the fuel pool 24 cooling going again. And, as they said, if you didn't do 25 that, well, for days no direct hazard would result, isn't ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. O Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
51 1 this true? 2 (Discussion off the record.] 3 MS. CURRAN: It raises the question of what else 4 is going on if you don't flip the switches. If you don't 5 flip the switches, the temperature and the humidity are 6 going up in the spent fuel building, which may compromise 7 the equipment that is in that building. I don't it has been 8 subject to analysis, but it is a concern as to what else is 9 happening besides just the cooling of the fuel. 10 (Discussion of f the record.] 11 MS. CURRAN: It also kind of second guesses the 12 choices that have been made here. The Applicant could have 13 chosen to delay starting these pumps up until a later time, 14 but there must be a good reason for. choosing to do it at l 15 this point. So it is part of the procedure, something that 16 is required, something that is considered important to do. ' 17 Now, there maybe mitigating circumstances. It may 18 be that the consequences won't be as great as they might. 19 But it seems that there are considerations that go into 20 this, that this ought to be done now, and it is a safety 21 function. 22 JUDGE SHON: I see. I have nothing further. 23 JUDGE BOLLWERK: All right. Anything further on 24 Contention 1? 25 MS. CURRAN: Not for the moment. ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. , Court Reporters % 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
52 1 JUDGE BOLLWERK: All right. Mr. O'Neill, how long 2 do you think your presentation ~is going to be with respect 3 to this contention? 4 MR. O'NEILL: Judge Bollwerk, Mr. Holloway will 5 address this contention. A half hour and 45 minutes would { 1 6 be our range. ' 7 JUDGE BOLLWERK: All right. Then why don't we go 8 ahead and take a break now, about five minutes. So let's l 9 try to keep to that so we can move on. All right. 10 (Recess.] ! 11 JUDGE BOLLWERK: All right. Why don't we go back 12 on the record then. 1 13 Okay. Mr. Holloway, I think i,t is your turn. 14 MR. O'NEILL: Mr. Chairman, before Mr. Holloway 15 begins his response, I note that we have distributed to the 16 board and to the parties a hard copy of a slide that was 17 previously provided to the board and the parties 18 electronically, and I believe to Ms. Curran also by fax, 19 that Mr. Holloway will use in his response to Contention 1. 20 We would suggest for ease in reviewing the 21 transcript that this marked as Applicant's Exhibit 1 and be 22 bound into the transcript so that references to this chart 23 will be intelligible for someone reading the transcript. 24 JUDGE BOLLWERK: All right. Any objection by any 25 of the parties to that? ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. I~ l Court Reporters \ s/ w 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
l 53 1 (No response.] 2 JUDGE BOLLWERK: All right. We will go ahead and 3 have that then, please, bound as Applicant's Exhibit 1. 4 (Applicant's Exhibit No. 1 was 1 5 marked for identification and was l 6 received into evidence.] 7 MR. O'NEILL: In addition, when Mr. Holloway 8 refers to the copy of it at the board, the court reporter is i 9 asked that he hold the mike that is being taped, and we will l l 10 do that. ! 11 JUDGE BOLLWERK: All right. And I take what he is 12 going to use is basically a blowup of this document? 13 MR. O'NEILL: That's correct. 14 JUDGE BOLLWERK: All right. And I see we have a / 15 color copy here which I think I had some problems before, we 16 don't have color printers. But that was -- all right. 17 Mr. Holloway then. 18 MR. HOLLAWAY: I'll speak loudly enough that you 19 will be able to hear me without those microphones. 20 As you noted, Mr. Chairman, this is a blowup of 21 what we sent before, and it is in color to help 22 differentiate the systems. The purpose -- I am just going 23 to go thrcugh this briefly -- is so that instead of just 24 using words and acronyms you get some idea of the systems we 25 are discussing. ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. O. Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
l l 54 1 JUDGE BOLLWERK: Let me just make one comment. 2 Can you all see all right, given where he is facing? Is 3 that a problem? I want to make sure. 4 MS. CURRAN: If you could stand to the side a 5 little bit, it would be helpful. 6 JUDGE BOLLWERK: If it is better for you, if you l l 7 want to come to the other side -- okay? Everybody all 8 right? Good. I 9 MR. HOLLAWAY: Good. The CCW system, which is 10 what we have been talking primarily about, is the component l 11 cooling water system, and it is an intermediate system at l l 12 the Harris plant and takes loads, heat loads, from several ; 13 other systems, but we have been talking about a post-LOCA 1 i 14 conditions and post-LOCA loss of cooling accident event. 15 The only loads on the CCW system, the only heat 16 loads into that system are from the RHR and the fuel pool 17 cooling system. ) 18 The RHR system is the residual heat removal system 19 and its purpose is to put water into the reactor core and 20 the water is heated up in the core, goes into the sump, is 21' drawn out of the sump, and goes through the heat exchanger 22' and the residual heat removal or RHR system puts heat in the 23 CCW -- so that is one of the systems and this is where the 24 heat comes from. 25 The second system putting heat into CCW during a ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
55 1 LOCA event or after a LOCA event is the FPCCS -- that is ! r- 2 Fuel Pool Cooling and Cleanup System I will just refer to ly% 3 it generally as the spent fuel pool cooling system. It l l 4 takes warm water out of the spent fuel pool, goes through ( 5 the heat exchanger, and rejects that heat into the component I 6 cooling water system or CCW system, takes cooled water back ' l 7 into the pool. I 8 These are the spent fuel pools that we are talking ) I 9 about, Pools A, B, C and D. ' 1 10 So component cooling water picks up heat from l i 11 these two systems and then it in turn rejects heat into what l 12 is called the service water system or SWS, and the service l 13 water system is the one that goes to the cooling towers or 1 14 the recervoir. That is where all the heat goes, so cool 15 water is taken out of the cooling tower or the lake, the
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16 reservoir. 17 It is run through this heat exchanger and it takes l 18 the heat rejected out of CCW, sends it back through the 19 cooling tower or to the reservoir, depending on the { 20 operating condition. 21 CCW itself is just an intermediate loop. Its ! 22 purpose is because you may have radioactivity in one of l 23 these two loops and you want to keep it out of here, so you 24 add an intermediate loop in here to ensure that if there is 25 a leak it will not get through to here -- that is the i 1 1 1 gg ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. l t
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I 56 1 purpose for having a separate loop here called component 2 cooling water. 3 With that background, I will address the six bases 4 in Contention 1. As Mr. O'Neill referred to, we have 5 actually grouped the six bases into three basic arguments 6 that we are. making rather than stepping through each one 7 piece by piece, which I think is actually the order that we 8 ended up using when the Petitioner discussed it in any 9 event. 10 The first set, which includes only Basis 1, is 11 simply outside of the scope of this proceeding. 12 In that contention the Petitioner attempts to 13 challenge the current licensing basis of the plant. We 14 talked about the Petitioner's language that they read that 15 says their first basis suggests that accommodating a design 16 basis LOCA will already exploit the margin of the CCW system 17 without any additional load from Pools C and D, so it is 18 before C and D. 19 Now I will note that Ms. Curran said that the j 20 existing system may in fact be adequate but only barely and 1 l 1 21 that they are not asserting that the existing system is l 22 inadequate, so that may actually address this basis. Dr. 1 23 Thompson also said their principal concern is the addition 24 of Pools C and D and to the extent this says without any j 25 additional load from Pools C and D, maybe that addresses it, j i 1 i 1 ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. [~D Court Reporters 1 hs / 1025 Conr.ecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 I Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034 1
r 57 l 1 but I will note that the notice of opportunity for hearing 2 sets the scope of this proceeding. It is regarding the 3 amendment to put Pools C and D into service. ! It is not a 4 general opportunity to revisit the licensing basis for the
-5 plant so this contention or at least this contention basis 6 is simply outside of the scope of the hearing, and that is 7 our primary reason that this basis should not be admitted.
8 We make additional discussion referring to the 9 fact that even if it was inside the scope of the hearing 10 that it shouldn't be admissible anyway. 11 Now aside from the information that the Petitioner 12 used and whether it was outdated, that is really not the 13 issue here. We have in fact pulled the correct information 14 out of the FSAR from the current amendment and those are the 15 numbers that are on the chart that I discussed and the chart O 16 that I passed out to you. I I 17 What it shows is that at the beginning of the 18 recirculation phase of the LOCA the residual heat removal 19 system inputs a maximum of 222.2 Mbtu per hour. At the 20 beginning of the recirculation phase of LOCA the fuel pool i 21 cooling system is in fact isolated so the only load is the 22 RHR system, and the service water system is designed to 23 accommodate up to 272.6 Mbtu per hour. 24 Now again, the contention is outside the scope of 25 the proceeding, but this is just to clarify the issue and to ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. O Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
1 58 1 use Judge Shon analogy that a heat exchanger is like a (~ 2 bucket, if that is appropriate, this is in effect saying we 3 have a 272 gallon bucket and we are putting 222 gallons in i 4 I it, so we have got plenty of room left in that bucket. 5 JUDGE SHON: I think I said it was not like a 6 bucket. 7 [ Laughter.) I 8 MR. HOLLAWAY: You said something about putting 10 i 9 gallons into a five-gallon container, l 10 JUDGE SHON: There ycu clearly get an overflow. 11 If you try to put too much heat through a heat exchanger, 12 all that happens is the temperatures change all around 13 through the system and nothing melts or spills or does 14 any -- 15 MR. HOLLAWAY: The simply point that I am making 16 is, to put it in the simplest terms, the FSAR shows -- now 17 again the FSAR is the current licensing basis -- it is 18 before Pools C and D are added by this amendment -- shows 19 the numbers, and 272 is greater than 222, and it is 20 basically as simple as that. That is Basis 1, which is the 21 first set, as I would say, which is something that is just 22 outside the scope of the proceeding. 23 The second set are -- 24 JUDGE SHON: Before you leave Basis 1, with regard 25 to the question as to whether this could be within the scope ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters (s} '- 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
1 l 59 1 of the proceeding --
-s 2 g MR. HOLLAWAY: Yes --
V 3 JUDGE SHON: -- I would direct your attention to I l 4 10 CFR 2.115(c). In making the determination whether to l 5 admit various issues, the discussion of the issues 6 admissible in a subpart (k) proceeding, it says that you -- 7 I will synopsize it because it is a very long and complex 8 sentence -- it says fundamentally that you can't admit an 9 issue that pertains to the existing licensed facility until 10 the change shows a substantial influence on the existing 11 licenced facility, but as I understand the Intervenor's ) 12 argument, they say that adding this much heat during a LOCA, 13 one way or another, after the recirculation phase and 14 storing or something, will indeed substantially influence 15 the existing facility and its operation. Is that not 16 correct? 17 MS. CURRAN: That's right, and may I ask you what l 18 that regulation is that you are reading? I heard it and -- 19 JUDGE SHON: Oh , I'm sorry -- 2.115 -- 20 JUDGE BOLLWERK: I think it is .1115 -- there are 21 three is -- I l 22 JUDGE SHON: Oh, .1115 -- I'm sorry. I 23 JUDGE BOLLWERK: Subpart (k). 1 24 MS. CURRAN: Thank you. 25 JUDGE SHON: 2.1115 and it is (c) under that. Did ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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60 1 I leave out a 1?
""g 2 JUDGE BOLLWERK: You left out a 1.
V 3 MR. HOLLAWAY: Judge Shon, I just wanted to
'i t 4 address -- my understanding is that this section is for l 5 subpart (k) and it is for the determination of designation 6 of issues for adjudicatory hearing, which is the decision !
7 that the Board would make should we invoke subpart (k). 8 JUDGE SHON: Yes. 9 MR. HOLLAWAY: So contentions would have to be 10 admitted. We would invoke subpart (k) and then the question 11 is can the issues, whatever contentions are admitted, just 12 be decided on the basis of the oral argument under subpart 13 (k) -- that would happen some time in the future -- or 14 should there be further adjudicatory proceedings, so I am 15 not sure that that standard is a contention admissibility (} 16 standard. l l 17 In any event, I think what that says is if there l I 18 is an influence of the new systems on the existing system ' 19 and Basis 1, as stated by the Petitioner, talks about before 20 any additional load from Pools C and D, so that is why -- if 21 it was a discussion about the impact of C and D and the 1 I 22 Mbtu per hour, but that is not what Basis 1 says, and in any j 23 event I think we show that the FSAR shows that it is just 24 ndstaken . 25 The second set of bases.that I would like to ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. f Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036
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I l 61 l
\1 1 discuss are three bases which assert that the applicant did
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<x 2 not look at something when in fact we did look at, as to
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'~~# Bases 2, 3 and 6.
i 3 4 Basis 2 says did not consider time dependence of 5 heat load on CCW following LOCA, Basis 3 did not consider 6 heat exchanger, fouling factors and tube plugging, and Basis 7 6 did not consider additional load on the emergency diesel 8 generators or the offsite power systems. 9 The contention as stated is fairly simple. It k 10 says you didn't look at these -- and in fact we did. I will l 11 point out that all of the calculations that we attached are i 12 in fact approved per Harris plant procedure. Signatures are - i 13 on the front page. They are not put on every page at 14 Harris, and those are the final calculations. /"N, 15 I will also note that there was some discussion
-) 16 about the calculation for the emergency diesel generators, 17 E-6000, and it was completed in April of this year, but in 18 fact the analyses supporting E-6000 or the Revision 6 to 19 E-6000 were done in 1997. It just wasn't written up and t I
20 completed until April, 1999. I don't believe that is 21 particularly a material issue. I just wanted to bring it to
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22 your attention. I 23 JUDGE LAM: Mr. Hollaway -- 24 MR. HOLLAWAY: Yes, Dr. Lam? 25 JUDGE LAM: The Intervenors' counsel has said on
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r- ] 62 l' several occasions that they were frustrated because of the I es t 2 fact of lack of information, sufficient information for them ( i i
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3 to resolve the concern. 4 Do you have any sympathy to that argument? l 5 MR. HOLLAWAY: Could you restate the last part, l 6 Dr. Lam? I l l 7 JUDGE LAM: Do you have any sympathy to their 8 argument that they were indeed frustrated due to lack of 9 information? l 10 MR. HOLLAWAY: I would point out that our 11 amendment application is, I don't know, something on the l 12 order of three inches thick. It is certainly backed up by 13 many more calculations. The Commission's regulations do not l 14 require that every calculation that.is done in support of an l 15 amendment be in fact submitted on the docket with that l l o (\ 16 amendment. 17 We have submitted a lot of material, and I would 18 also point out that the Commission's rules are very clear
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1 19 that you can't use discovery as a basis to form your l I 20 contentions so to the extent that concerns were raised, we i 21 had a concern that we don't think you looked at this issue, 22 it is important to us, we believe it was clear that we did, 23 but to further demonstrate that we in fact did, we have 24 attached these additional documents that we would not 25 otherwise, nor do we intend, to submit on the docket as part 7-s ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters
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p 63 1 of the license amendment application. gx 2 Their sole purpose for adding those additional ! I
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3 documents isn't to understand everything in the document. l 4 It is to show that when we say the load on the emergency 5 diesel generators, the additional load, was looked at, it
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6 was. It is not a discussion about the analysis, it is that 7 their contention is simple, so I think we have provided 8 everything that they need to do their job, and I would point 9 out that discovery and access to everything that we have 10 done just isn't done at this stage under the Commission's ' 11 rules.
.12 JUDGE LAM: Thank you.
13 MR. HOLLAWAY: Now I will address each of them 14 briefly.
.15 The first one says we did not look at time
('] N/ 16 dependence of heat load on CCW following LOCA. The 17 application says we did, and the calculation we attached 18 shows that we did, and to the extent that they are concerned 19 that we didn't look at it, we have shown that we did. 20 A mistaken assertion that an Applicant did not 21- look at an issue does not form a material dispute for an 22 . admissible contention because there is really nothing l 1 23 further to litigate -- no reason for further inquiry to the l 24 extent that it is clear that it was looked at. ) i 25 The CCW system, as I discussed, following a LOCA, ) l
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64 1 my discussion made clear that there are only two loads on 2 CCW following a LOCA. Everything else is isolated. There
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3 are three phases of interest. Now it is implied but I will 4 state it that the heat load from the reactor core goes down 5 as a function of time, the same as the heat load in the 6 spent fuel, because that is what is driving it. 7 The first phase is called safety injection. The l 8 RHR heat exchangers play no role whatsoever, so there is 9 essentially minimal load there, but we looked at that, and 10 it was minimal, because in fact a different system is l l 11 injecting water out of a tank. 12 After the water in the tank, after the level has l 13 gone down to a certain point, the RHR heat exchangers are in 14 -fact turned on and the pool cooling system is out of the q ( 15 loop. It is still isolated -- so that is actually the ! 16 maximum load that CCW sees following a LOCA, but when recirc i 17 phase starts you have 222.2 as your heat load, and then as l 18 time goes on that heat load goes down. 19 The fuel pool cooling system is valved back into 20 CCW once the temperature in that cooling system gets up to 21 the administrative limit of 137 degrees Fahrenheit. This is 22 all in the FSAR and in the plant procedures. I 23 The time -- there was some question about why 5.6 24 hours is the number we used; 5.6 hours assumes the absolute 25 maximum licensed heat load for Pools A and B, so the actual ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. () Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
65 1 number to get to this administrative limit is much longer 2 and the operating procedures say when you hit the 3 administrative limit turn on cooling the fuel pool cooling 4 system, so the operators would in fact valve the fuel pool 5 cooling system back in whenever it got there. We have used ) 6 5.6 because that is the most pressing stage. 7 Anyway, that is the second point, that you would 8 want to look at the load on RHR at the time you need to 9 valve in the fuel pool cooling system, how low is the heat 10 load still coming in from RHR, and is there enough capacity. 11 Those are the only three times you need to look at because 12 the heat load from the core is going down as a function of 13 time. 14 We looked at all those. The application says we (~'\ 15 looked at the beginning of the recirculation phase and we V 16 looked at when the fuel pcols are valved back in and in fact 17 again the reason I added the calculation was to make it 18 crystal clear that that is what was looked at. 19 The second issue regards degradation of heat 20 exchanger performance. That is Basis 3. Again they said we 21 did not look at this and in fact we did. In a meeting with 22 the NRC the Applicant went on record and submitted on the 23 docket a statement that the thermal hydraulic analysis 24 supporting Pools C and D would include fouling factors and 25 tube plugging and heat exchanger degradation therefrom. ,~ ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. (~ Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
66 1 That is not particularly surprising, since that is just a 2 routine part of the analysis, but in fact they went on ' 3 record and stated that, and in fact it was done. 4 Again the calculation is provided because it makes 5 it very clear. It states, as we stated in our pleading, all 6 heat exchanger thermal models use design fouling factors to 7 ensure design basis conditions can be met even with extreme 1 8 fouling conditions. So to the extent there is a question ; l 9 about whether we looked at this issue, we don't disagree 10 that it is important. It is and we looked at it. 11 The third in this second set which again says that 12 we did not look at something and we did was the emergency 13 diesel generator electrical system loads. I will point out 14 that the FSAR shows the margin that.the emergency diesel () 15 16 generators have and the FSAR says calculation E-6000 evaluates this, and in fact it does. The addition of Pools 17 C and D add two 150 horsepower pumps, which equate to two 18 125 kilowatt electrical loads -- just a standard conversion 19 from horsepower to a kilowatt electrical motor. 20 There are two pumps added. Each one has a motor 21 that is 125 kW, and if you look at the FSAR you will see 22 that there is far more than 125 kW capacity on each of the 23 emergency diesel generators, so there is really no reason to 1 24 think there is inadequate capacity but again we have 25 included the calculation just to make clear that we did look
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67 1 at it, and I will point out that in fact even after adding 2 Pools C and D and the two 125 kW loads, there is still an 3 additional 182 on one and 254 kW on the emergency diesel 4 generator even after, so there is plenty of load even now. 5 I'll also point out to the extent that offsite 6 power was mentioned, it is not surprising that the grid 7 provides enough for an additional 125 kilowatts, but 8 calculation E-6000 looked at that as well, and it shows it, 9 and that is why we attached it. To the extent there was a 10 question -- did you look at it, it's important -- yes, it is 11 important and we did look at it. 12 I will point out again that to the extent they 13 said we didn't look at something and we did, there is really 14 nothing warranting further inquiry on that particular issue. () 15 16 The third set has two bases in it, Bases 4 and 5, and both of those bases fail the Commission's requirements ' 17 because they simply lack the basis with specificity required 18 for an admissible contention. R 19 The first alleges that we should have addressed 20 failure to comply with an administrative measure, which is 21 the technical specification on keeping Pool C and D heat 22 load within 1 Mbtu per hour, so it says we should have 23 looked at failure to meet the technical specification. That 24 is about all it says. 25 I will point out at the beginning that there is ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. (' Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014
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" l l 68 1 currently a heat load limit on Pools A and B, just like we 2 are talking about for C and D. It is obviously a different 3 number and the current practice at the plant is to calculate 4 the heat load in the current pools to assure before an 5 additional assembly is put in there that there is enough 6 margin from the heat load and that it will comply with the 7 design basis, so this isn't new or different for Harris. ; 1 8 But to the extent that they have said you should ! l 9 have looked at your violation of a technical specification, 10 I will point out that a technical specification is part of l 11 the operating license. It is a clear regulatory constraint 12 and you cannot have an admissible contention by just 13 asserting that someone should look at some violation of it. 14 To have such a contention, Petitioner must make a 15 particularized demonstration that they have a reasonable
-16 basis to believe that we would violate this. This is the 17 same issue that arose at an Oyster Creek proceeding several 18 years ago. The issue there wasn't a technical 19 specification. It was the terms of a certificate of 20 compliance of a spent fuel cask -- similar issue. Not only 21 did they provide no basis, they certainly don't provide a 22 particularized demonstration that they have a reasonable j 23 basis to believe that we are going to violate this technical 24 specification, so on that basis that lacks the required 5 25 basis "with specificity."
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69 1 The second issue of these two is Basis 5, saying 2 that you should look at operator error in diverting CCW flow 3 to Pools C and D. Our main reason for saying that this 4 contention should not be admitted is the fact that there is 5 simply no basis with specificity provided for it. We 6 provided additional discussion to make clear why there is no 7 problem here in-any event, but it is really there is no 8- basis for it. 9 There is a general discussion of operator errors, ' 10 but it doesn't identify what these errors are. It doesn't 11 identify what would happen if the errors were made, so there 12 is really no basis there, and we also pointed out that, 13 well, this might seem like a lot is going on, there is 14 really no additional operator action in the addition of / 15 Pools C and D except for turning on the fuel pool cooling 16 system pumps some time after the LOCA event, because they 17 have been turned on. It is a manual action that requires 18 turning two knobs in the control room and, as we pointed 19 out, you don't have to do it until you get to the 20 administrative limit. It looks like that would take at 21 least three days to do. 22 The procedure right now says 5.6 hours is the 23 minimum time, so we want to make sure it could be done in 24 5.6 hours. There's no reason the two switches can't be 25 turned 5.6 hours, but in any event they have three days ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. I O Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW,-Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
1 70 1 until they get to 137 degrees, which of course is far below / 2 212 degrees, and even if someone forgot at 5.6 hours to turn ( 3 the two. switches, they would have three days to do so, and 4 if they didn't, it wouldn't go unnoticed. There are 5- ultimately a variety of alarms that would identify, hey, you 6 forgot to do this part of the operating procedure -- at 7 least three different alarms. 8 l There is one that says Low Flow. The procedure j 9 says turn on the pumps and there would be an alarm going on l 10 saying no flow here going through, turn on the pumps. If it 11 went long enough, three, four days, eventually you might get 12 a dropping in the water level. There is an alarm on Low 13 Level -- you can see that too. There is also an alarm for 14 high radiation, so to the extent there is whatever operator . 15 error they might be talking about, it would be readily 16 ascertained and there's plenty of time to take care of it. 17 Again, we are not saying that that is the primary 18 reason to reject this. It's just that there's simply no 19 basis stated. We don't know what the operator errors are. 20 We don't know why they are a problem from what they stated. 21 I am just trying to add additional explanation. 22 JUDGE BOLLWERK: The two switches you are talking 23 about are in addition to whatever switches are now there for 24 pools A and B, is that -- 25 MR. HOLLOWAY: That is correct. i ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. O Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
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l 71 1 JUDGE BOLLWERK: Okay. 2 MR. HOLLOWAY: And if you are familiar with what 3 the control room of a reactor looks like, you have got 1 4 boards with a lot of switches and there would be two more ' 5 switches. 6 JUDGE LAM: Are the initial isolation of the spent l 7 fuel pool automatic? 8 MR. HOLLOWAY: The initial isolation of the 9 non-essential header I believe is automatic, but to the 10 extent it is not automatic, is also valved-out. And when we 11 pointed this out in our pleading, by four switches, even if 12 it was done manually, there are CCW lines -- you have got a 13 supply line and a return line -- and the entire, every load 14 on the CCW other than RHR is valved-out by that action, () 15 16 including A and B, including C and D, including everything else. 17 To the extent they said the amendment raises new 1 18 issues, I think it goes without stating that an amendment 19 raises new issues or it wouldn't be an amendment. Of 20 course, it does. But just because new issues are raised 21 doesn't automatically admit contentions. You have to show a 22 basis under the Commission's regulations. 23 And, in summary, I have gone through these three 24 things. We submit that Contention i should not be admitted 25 in its entirety because the six bases fail either because of ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. O Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
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1 lack of basis with specificity, or an assertion that we l 2 haven't looked at something and we did, or in the case of 3 the first one it is simply something that is outside of the i 4 scope of the proceeding. 5 JUDGE BOLLWERK: All right. Anything further? ) 6 MR. HOLLOWAY: No. b 7 JUDGE BOLLWERK: All right. Then, Ms. Zobler. 8 MS. ZOBLER: Thank you, Your Honor. I am not 9 going to go through each basis they have been through, gone 10 through and written up. I just want to talk a little bit 11 about the Commission's contention rules. This would be , 12 applicable to all the contentions, but I will say it once 1 13 and then not repeat it unless there are questions about it. 14 The Commission recently has stated the purpose the () 15 16 1989 rule change to the contention requirements was to focus l the hearing process on real disputes susceptible to 17 resolution in an adjudication. They said that detailed i 18 pleadings put other parties in the proceeding on notice of l 19 the Petitioner's specific grievances and gives the other 20 parties a good idea of the claims they will be either 21 supporting or opposing. 22 And, finally, the Commission said that these 1 23 contention rules assure that the full adjudicatory hearings ! 24 are triggered only by those able to proffer at least some 25 minimal factual and legal foundations for their contentions. i l
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I I 73 I l l 1 Other considerations that are very specific to Contention 1 {
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2 have to do with the fact that a contention should not be l
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3 admitted where an Intervenor has no facts to support its 4 pocition and, instead, contemplates using discovery or l 5 cross-examination as a fishing expedition. l 6 Keeping those general principles in mind, I just 7 want to make some comments about some of the arguments that l 8 I have heard today. First of all, the need for discovery 9 that the Petitioner has claimed that they need in order to 1 10 support their Contention 1 clearly indicates that Contention 11 1, as it stands, has no basis and would then be against the l 12 Commission's contention rules. l 13 The fact that'the contentions are raising issues ; 14 that they claim they don't have information on also 15 demonstrates that they have no basis on their own. They [} 16 have the application, that has been available for their 17 review, and they also have some access to the FSAR. And I 18 want to point out that whether they have an older version or 19 the most recent version of the FSAR is really irrelevant for 20 the purposes that they raise it for, which is this idea that 21 there is not a sufficient margin in the component cooling 22 water system. 23 I think both the staff and the licensee pointed 24 out that that contention, that basis for Contention 1 is l 25 really based on a misunderstanding of the tables in the g-~s; ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. () Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 l Washington, D.C. 20036 l (202) 842-0034
74 1 FSAR, whether they be the older version or the more recent 2 ('%, update. The recent tables were attached to the staff's 3 filing, so at least the Petitioners have them now and they 4 can look at it. But, really, the numbers are the only 5 things that have changed. l l 6 A couple of other points about specificity. With 7 respect to some of the bases that Petitioners raised, ; 8 talking about these administrative processes that will l 9 result or could result, failures in these processes, I would 10 like to point out that it will be a technical specification 11 in the license. We assume the licensee will comply with 12 their license, a tech spec is part of the license and they 13 are obligated to comply with their license. 14 If there are other concerns or processes the 1 15 Petitioner is concerned about, we have no way of knowing
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16 what they are because all we know is a tech spec is there, 17 and that will be the basic for maintaining the heat load on 18 .those additional pools, spent fuel pools. 19 And the same would be true on these so-called 20 human errors or accidents. It is impossible for either 21 party to address this issue. The Petitioner hasn't given us 22 any idea what kinds of errors they are concerned about, and 23 that goes back to the basis premise of the contention H24 requirements. The parties have to know what it is the 25 Petitioner has a grievance about so that we could address it ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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75 1 and actually make, if in fact a hearing is held, make for a 2 (-~g very -- a more productive hearing and not one that is merely V 3 a fishing expedition. 4 Those are just some goneral comments. As the 5 staff wrote in its filing, we believe that none of the bases 6 in Contention 1 meet those criteria and, therefore, it 7 should be dismissed. That's all. 8 JUDGE BOLLWERK: All right. Ms. Curran. 9 MS. CURRAN: Okay, I guess I just -- in 10 addressing he Applicant's first objection, which is that our 11 first basis is outside the scope of the contention, I would 12 just like to go back and reiterate our fundamental point 13 here that it is our concern that the addition of pools C and 14 D to the component cooling water system in this nuclear 15 plant may compromise the ability of the CCW system to serve 16 both the cooling pools and the reactor, that, in effect, 17 this proposed license amendment doesn't meet basic -- it 18 compromises the ability of the licensee to meet the basic 19 licensing requirements for the Harris Nuclear Plant because 20 of its design. We that is an admissible concern. I guess I 21 will leave my response at that. 22 I would just -- I would like to address the 23 Applicant's diagram up here for just a minute. The numbers 24' up there are -- under the CCW, it is 222-point-something, 25 and then under the service water system, 272, and the basic g ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. g j Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
i { 76 1 argument is that if you subtract 222 from 272, there is a 2 lot left over. And.I think that we have already l ([) 3 demonstrated here that it is not that simply, and there is 1 i 4 two black boxes up on that diagram about which there isn't i 5 any information, and those are the heat exchangers on either 6 side of the CCW system. And that that is actually the issue 7 that -- 8 JUDGE BOLLWERK: You are talking about the one ! 9 from the RHR and then the one in the SWS, is that -- j 10 MS. CURRAN: That's right. 11 JUDGE BOLLWERK: All right. 12 MS. CURRAN: And one of the issues that the 1 13 Applicant concedes is raised by its application is -- what 14 is the design limit of the heat exchangers? That has to be () i 15 put into that system. It isn't a simple subtraction 16 calculation.
.17 [ Discussion off the record.]
18 MS. CURRAN: If it were a simple subtraction 19 calculation, then there would be not need for the 1 million 20 btu per hour limit that is being proposed for this license 21 amendment. 22 In a second general category of objections that 23 covers Bases 2, 3 and 6 of our contention, CP&L argues that l 24 -- our contention is that we didn't look, that CP&L didn't 25 look at various factors. Now CP&L has given us information 7-w ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. I ( j Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034 l l l
77 1 showing that it did look, end of inquiry. (
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2 It isn't enough to just say -- to come back in the 3 response to these contentions and say, okay, we looked. We 4 are entitled to address the issue of whether the Applicant 5 looked adequately. The application doesn't answer that 6 question at all. In some cases the application says not a 7 word about whether the analysis was done. In others, the ! 8 words are so vague that it really doesn't provide any useful 9 information. 1 1 10 Now, the applicant is coming back and saying, l 11 well, here is the information that you want. (A) As I i i 12 already explained previously, the information that is j 13 attached the Applicant's response is really in summary form. 14 It doesn't get into the kind of detail that one needs to be l () 15 able to look at in order to make an evaluation of this 16 complexity. 17 Ms. Zobler argued that because we used the D word 18 in our argument this morning, " discovery," that ipso facto, 19 that must mean that we don't have the basis for a contention 20 if we would like to have discovery. I try not to use that 21 word. 22 JUDGE BOLLWERK: It is kind of a hot button word 23 with the Commission at least. 24 [ Laughter.] 25 MS. CURRAN: But I don't think it detracts from l l l l ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. I
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I 78 l 1 the admissibility of our contention to say that in order to
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2 resolve a dispute that we have created, we are going to need 3 to look at more information. After all, that is how a 4 proceeding like this set up. We are required to come in and 5 at least raise enough of a dispute that would impel 6 reasonable minds to inquire further, and that is what is 7 before -- that is the question before you this morning. Has , 8 Orange County raised an issue that is sufficiently specific l 9 and sufficiently well supported to cause a reasonable person ' 10 to inquire further into the details of this quite 11 complicated matter? l 12 We didn't create this problem. CP&L created it. ; 13 What we have done is we have gone through and systematically 14 identified the factors that need to.be looked at before this 15 license amendment can be accepted for purposes of affirming 16 the adequacy of the cooling system. We have identified the 17 particular aspects. We have referenced the parts of the 18 application that cause us to be concerned, and we don't need 19 to do more than that at this point. 20 It is impossible for us to do more than that at 21 this point because it is impossible to resolve our concerns 22 without being able to look in to the detailed assumptions 23 and the detailed methodologies that were used to reach this 24 conclusion. And it is very circular to argue that since we 25 didn't have access to all of these very detailed documents ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. g-)N ( Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
79 1 that we shouldn't be allowed to be admitted to this
/~N 2 proceeding.
3 Mr. Holloway said discovery comes later. As far 4 as I can tell, CP&L would like discovery to come never. 5 [ Applause.] 6 MS. CURRAN: But the point -- the question here is 7 whether we have raised enough of a dispute to impel
-8 reasonable minds to inquire further into the large volume of 9
information that exists on this and that needs to be 10 evaluated. 11 JUDGE LAM: Ms. Curran. 12 MS. CURRAN: Yes. 13 JUDGE LAM: In your original pleasing, Bases 2, 3 14 and 6, the original pleading was saying the Applicant did a' 15 not look,
) Now, are we -- just listening to what you just 16 said, are we now to take that as what you meant then to mean 17 now the Applicant did not adequately look?
18 MS. CURRAN: When we wrote this contention, we 19 based this contention on Enclosure 9 to the license 20 application. And we could not find statements in Enclosure 21 9 that showed the Applicant had looked at these issues. 22 Maybe I should go through each one. 23 JUDGE LAM: No, no, no. That would not be 24 necessary. I mean all I am saying is, based on what you 25 have heard today from Mr. Holloway, in your original ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. g Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 { Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034 I
r 80 1 pleading, Bases 2, 3 and 6 was basically saying the e 2 Applicant did not look. Now, Mr. Holloway's response was, 3 yos, indeed, we did look. And then now I just heard from 4 you saying, well, it is not a matter of looking, it is also S a matter of adequacy. 6 MS. CURRAN: Well, it fails -- our point was that 7 the application failed to address these issues. That is the 8 language that we used. They failed to address it. 9 JUDGE LAM: Adequately. I 10 MS. CURRAN: And we identified -- well, from what i 11 we could tell in the documents that we received, we couldn't
- 12 tell if they had addressed it at all.
13 And I did want to point out that with respect to i 14 one of the issues, Mr. Holloway said that CP&L had f~)/ 15 committed, in a meeting with the NRC, that they would look. 16 If you look at Enclosure ~2 to our no significant hazards ; 17 comments, it is a summary of this meeting. There are some I 18 viewgraphs there, and I believe the viewgraphs were prepared i i 19 by CP&L. It identifies -- looking at the fouling factors, 20 it identifies that as an option that is being considered. 21 So we really couldn't tell from the application whether it 22 was considered or not, and the viewgraph only said that it 23 was an option. So our contention was that CP&L failed to 24 address it at all. l 25 Now, we have a situation where CP&L has come in ! l ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. (~N y ) Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 ! Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034 i 1
81 1 with some documentation that says, yes, indeed, we did 2 address it. Now, it is our view that our contention should eO 3 still stand, because our contention addressed the license 4 application, and we are required by the Commission's 5 regulations to address the license application. We showed . 6 that the issues are material. r don t' think ' he-4icensee i c is 7 denying that these issues are material. Now, they are l l 8 saying, well, we addressed them, but we have created a ' i 9 dispute that the license application didn't address them. 10 Now, they have submitted some other documentation l 1 11 that wasn't part of the license application that CP&L claims j 12 now addresses this. And as I was saying before, it is not 13 clear to us to what extent it is addressed, whether it is I 14 addressed adequately. Our position.is the contention should 15 be admitted. 16 If the board determines that the contention can't 17 be admitted because there is some information out there 18 somewhere where CP&L has now at least purported to address 19 the issue and we have to now formulate a contention based on 20 that, we would ask for an opportunity to address this 21 information, which we got only a week ago. We have had to 22 spend that week preparing for this pre-hearing conference 23 and doing our best to make a general review of this 24 -voluminous information. 25 And we did want to just point out this box of fg ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Q Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
82 1 paper here. This is the quality assurance documentation e 2 that was submitted in response to the NRC staff's request (m ' ')' 3 for additional information. We got that box of paper on May 4 3rd. Then we got the Applicant's response, which has a i 5 number of attachments, or May the 5th. And now we are here I 6 a week later. 7 Again, we think that we have created a material 8 dispute with the Applicant on the contents of the license 9 application. If the board disagrees with us, we would ask 10 for an opportunity, a sufficient opportunity to address that 11 new information. 12 JUDGE LAM: Thank you. 13 JUDGE BOLLWERK: All right. 14 MS. CURRAN: I would just.also like to reemphasize 15 that in addition to these attachments, there is a tremendous 16 amount of backup material that is not included with those 17 attachments, leaving us still unable to evaluate what these 18 documents mean. And as I also illustrated earlier, the 19 documents raise other questions for us such as the table in 20 Exhibit 1 about the percent to which the valve is open in 21 the heat exchanger for pools C and D and the flow rate. 22 This is complicated material and can't be 23 thoroughly evaluated just on the face of some summary 24 conclusions. 25 Mr. Holloway argues again that we are somehow ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. O' Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
f l 83 ) 1 trying co challenge a technical specification in this 2 proceeding, as though there is an existing tech spec that 3 allows CP&L to take administrative measures that we are 4 challenging. There is no such existing tech spec. We are 5 talking about a proposed tech spec, a proposed measure that 6 is supposed to ensure the safety of this operation, and we 7 are entitled to question whether that measure is adequate. 8 We are not questioning an existing tech spec, an existing I 9 regulation. We are not challenging anything that is in the 10 current license there. 11 Under the current tech specs, pools A and B can be l '2 fully loaded and not exceed the heat limitations. But under l j 13 the proposed license amendment, the tech specs would place a 14 limit on what the heat load can be in the pool. That is the 15 issue that we are driving at, whether that administrative ' i 16 measure is adequate, whether that has been examined, whether 17 any potential for human error has been compensated for. 18 Mr. Holloway, and I think Ms. Zobler also, 1 ! 19 complained that we don't identify the specific human errors 20 that we are talking about. Well, of course, the basic human l 21 error is putting fuel that is too hot into the fuel pool, 22 that is the error. And then there is only a question of, 23 how does that happen? And there is various ways that it can 24 happen that seem very obvious. And it also important to 25 point out that there is nothing in the license application l l q ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. l
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I 84 1 that describes what the adrainistrative measures are to 2 prevent the mistake from happening, so it is legitimate for l 3 us to question it. ! { ! ( 4 If the licensee does not discuss the methodology ! I 5 that they are proposing to use, how can we critique the 6 methodology? It doesn't seem like a fair argument. ) 7 Ms. Zobler also argued that, with respect to the 8 proposed technical specification, one needs to assume that 9 the licensee is going to comply. Again, that isn't the 10 issue here. The issue here is whether an administrative 11 measure is an appropriate substitute for the former physical 12 measure that.would have protected against adding too much I 13 heat to the pool. I 14 It is not our understanding that there is any such () 15 16 administrative measure in the technical specifications for pools A and B. Contrary to what Mr. Holloway argued, pools 17 A and B, the heat load is controlled by physical measures, 18 not by administrative measures. 19 So the question here is whether such 20 administrative measures are appropriate. And in other 21 Regulatory Guides, the NRC does assume that human beings 22 make mistakes, for instance, in the Regulatory Guide that is l 23 cited under our Contention 2 regarding criticality. So it 3 24 is also reasonable to evaluate the mistakes that a human 25 being could make under this tech spec, especially in the l O ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
85 1 absence of any concrete information about how those mistakes 2 might be avoided, what the administrative measures are. 3 JUDGE BOLLWERK: Anything further? 4 MS. CURRAN: Yes, I had one more item to point 5 out. And that is Mr. Holloway stated that Exhibit 3, which 6 contains signatures only on the -- no Exhibit 1, pardon me 7 -- Exhibit 1, which contains signatures only on the cover 8 page and not on every page of the calculation pages, has 9 been duly approved. We would just like to point out that l 10 this is -- it is inconsistent with Exhibit 3 in which the 11 box which is at the top lefthand corner on every page, every 12 calculation page, is signed off, approval is signed off for 13 Exhibit 3 on every page. 14 There is a similar box on.every page of Exhibit 1 15 that hasn't been signed. Now, it raises a question for us, 16 if the procedure was followed for Exhibit 3, what does it 17 mean that it wasn't followed for Exhibit I? That is all I 18 have. 19 JUDGE BOLLWERK: All right. 20 MS. CURRAN: Excuse me one moment. l 21 (Pause.] 22 MS. CURRAN: There is a tech spec which requires 23 CP&L to follow its own procedures and it does appear that
'24 this procedure wasn't followed here, so that would mean that 25 it involves a violation of the tech specs. It just raises a y- ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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e 1 86 1 question for us as to what is the status of these 2 calculations. ( 3 JUDGE BOLLWERK: All right. Anything further? 4 MS. CURRAN: No. 5 JUDGE BOLLWERK: All right. 6 MR. HOLLOWAY: Mr. Chairman, I just wanted to L 7 point out one thing regarding the Applicant's discussion 8 with the NRC and what was handed out and put on the docket. 9 That -- and we offered the PDR accession number for that. 10 It discusses spent fuel cooling options that were 11 considered, including dry storage at Harris, independent 12 cooling systems, other things that were considered in the 13 beginning of the process. The one that has actually been 14 implemented and this amendment concerns is the one that says 15 following factors, two plugging limits, et cetera, will be 16 used. I just wanted to clarify that. 17 JUDGE BOLLWERK: All right. 18 MR. HOLLOWAY: That's all. 19 JUDGE BOLLWERK: Anything you want to say about 20 that, Ms. Curran? 21 MS. CURRAN: Well, it also says in this phrase on 22 the viewgraph, with some changes in design assumptions, 23 which is unclear what happened to that particular aspect of 24 the option. We would like to know where there changes were, 25 if this was done. l 1 ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. O I Court Reporters l 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 i (202) 842-0034
i 87 1 JUDGE BOLLWERK: Anything further you want to say 2 on that matter? 3 MR. HOLLOWAY: No. 4 JUDGE BOLLWERK: All right. It is now about 25 5 till 1:00. Why don't we go aheed and take about an hour 6 lunch break. Let's reconvene at 1:45. Please be prompt. 7 And I need to see counsel for each of the parties up here 8 for a sidebar for one second. But we will take a break till 9 1:45 for lunch and reconvene here. 1 10 (Whereupon, at 12:36 p.m., the prehearing ' 11 conference was recessed, to reconvene at 1:47 p.m., this ! 12 same day.) i 13 14
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22 23 24 l 25 l fg ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. I d Court Reporters
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F 88 J l 1 AFTERNOON SESSION I 2 (1:47 p.m. ] 3 JUDGE BOLLWERK: We are here for the afternoon 1 4 session and I think we are at Contention 2 at this point. 5 So, Ms. Curran, would you like to begin? 6 MS. CURRAN: All right. What we seem to have here 7 with respect to Contention 2 is a three-way dispute about 8 the interpretation of General Design Criterion 62. As 9 discussed in the county's contention, it is our 10 interpretation of GDC 62 that the general design criteria 11 prohibit the use of administrative measures in preventing 12 criticality. And it boils down to an interpretation of the 13 wording in the criterion which requires that criticality in 14 the fuel storage and handling system shall be prevented by
)
15 physical systems or processes, preferably by use of 16 geometrically safe configurations. 17 It is the county's interpretation that the word 18 " physical" modifies both the words " systems" and 19 " processes." And this is further clarified by the phrase, 20 " preferably by the use of geometrically safe 21 configurations." The Commission is interested here in 22 physical measures. 23' The Applicant argues that the word " processes" is 24 basically unmodified and could include any kind of 25 processes, including administrative processes. The NRC l (), ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
89 1 staff agrees with our interpretation of the word
g 2 " processes," that it means physical processes, but argues (V 3 that control of burnup is a physical process -- or that 4 burnup is a physical process and, therefore, control of 5 burnup is a physical process.
6 And we would submit that we have raised here a 4 7 material issue of law which governs the outcome of this 8 question, whether or not the Applicant can rely on 9 administrative measures in lieu of the physical measures l I 10 that are currently used for spent fuel pools A and B. There 11 are no administrative measures in the tech specs governing 12 control of criticality for A and B. The density -- the 13 lower density of the fuel racks takes care of the problem. 14 One could put fuel of any.burnup level into the () 15 16 pool and it would not compromise criticality control because there are physical features in the spent fuel pool that 17 control that, namely, the distance between the spent fuel 18 pools in the racks and the existence of sufficient space 19 between the assemblies for -- to put material in to prevent 20 criticality. 21 We think this is an issue that needs to go to a 22 hearing. It needs to be fully ventilated. What is the 23 appropriate interpretation of the regulation? Certainly, 24 the Applicant's position that it is clear that processes 25 could mean anything would basically render the words (g ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. i L Court Reporters
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90 1 " physical," " systems," and " processes" meaningless. One i 2 might as well just put a common after the word " pre.ent" O 3 because if the Commission had meant that one could prevent i 1 4 criticality in any means available to the Applicant, then it 5 wouldn't have gone on to use that phrase. 6 The staff opposes the admission of this I 7 contention. However, the staff is clearly not satisfied 8 with the work that the Applicant has done to date on 9 criticality prevention and on April 29th submitted to CP&L a 10 letter requesting additional information regarding the 11 proposed license amendment. This letter from Richard J. 12 Laufer, Project Manager, Section 2, in Project Directorate 13 II, Division of Licensing, Project Management, Office of i 14 Nuclear Regulation, to James Scarola, Vice President at the ("'T 15 Shearon Harris Nuclear Power Plant, dated April 29th, 1999,
\._,) ;
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16 has been handed out to you, and we would ask that it be 17 included as Orange County's Ex 1 to this hearing transcript. 18 JUDGE BOLLWERK: Any objection to that from any of 1 19 the parties? 20 MR. O'NEILL: No. 21 MS. ZOBLER: No, Your Honor. ' 22 JUDGE BOLLWERK: All right. The court reporter 23 has a copy of the letter, I take it? All right. We will 24 have it marked as Orange County Exhibit No. 1. 25 [ Orange County Exhibit No. 1 was ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. O Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
91 1 marked for identification and was (g 2 received into evidence.] l V 3 MS. CURRAN: We would ask to amend the basis of l 4 our contention to include this newly issued information ) l l 5 which came out just a few weeks ago, the last week of April, l l 6 which indicates that the staff has unrecolved issues j 7 regarding the criticality control for the Harris Nuclear 8 Plant. 9 And more to the point, the staff is concerned 10- about the need to assume the -- an administrative failure in l 11 evaluating the adequacy of criticality control in this 12 instance. I 13 In the basis of our contention, we also argued 14 that Regulatory Guide 1.13 is consistent with our
) 15 interpretation of General Design Criterion 62 because it 16 requires that the Applicant's nuclear criticality safety l l
17 analysis should demonstrate that criticality could not occur 18 without at least two unlikely independent and concurring 19 failures or operating limit violations. And as we 20 demonstrated in our contention, by misplacing a fuel 21 assembly into the pool -- with a high burnup fuel assembly 22 into the pool, the Applicant -- I'm sorry. 23 [ Discussion off the record.] 24 JUDGE BOLLWERK: Judge Shon says he thinks you 25 might mean low burnup. l ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters l 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
I' i 92 1 MS. CURRAN: I'm sorry. A low burn up. A fuel (s 2 assembly into the pool, the Applicant could -- yeah, that's 3 right, I had it reversed. Low burnup assembly into the 4 pool, the Applicant could cause a criticality event with 5 just one error. 6 JUDGE SHON: Let me ask you, Ms. Curran, have your l l 7 experts actually done a calculation that shows it goes 8 critical if you put one low burnup in it or a zero burnup 9 element into the pool surrounding by ones that conform to l 10 the usual technical specifications? 11 MS. CURRAN: No, that is what the NRC is asking 12 CP&L to do in its request for information. 13 The Applicant sites a number of NRC staff 14 decisions in which credit for burnup of fuel was allowed and 15 argues that this supports the Applicant's interpretation of 16 GDC 62 to the extent that our contention should be 17 dismissed. And it is important to note that in every place 18 in this contention in which the Applicant uses the word 19 " Commission," the proper term is the "NRC staff." There 20 isn't a single decision here that was made by the 21 Commissioners of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in their 22 capacity as final arbiters of the meaning of their own 23 regulations. All these decisions were made by the NRC 24 staff. 25 So this, what all this -- these citations add up ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. O Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
93 1 to is a demonstration that the staff has consistently 2 misapplied General Design Criterion 62. It isn't a basis 3 for rejecting our contention. 4 There is an also argument by the Applicant that it 5 can take credit for the use of boron in the pools. It is a 6 little difficult to understand the gist of the argument, but 7 it appears to be that if a low burnup assembly is mistakenly 8 placed in the pool, that this will be compensated by the 9 boron in the pool. But boron has to be put in the pool by a 10 human being and it is possible that there could be a human 11 error in which insufficient boron was introduced into the 12 pool and thereby that would make a second error contributing 13 to a criticality accident. 14 We are also -- in these various, rather detailed 15 arguments about the role of boron in mitigating the 16 criticality problem, the Applicant is getting pretty far 17 into the merits of this contention, which is based upon the 18 plain language of General Design Criterion 62 and the 19 language of Reg. Guide 1.13 and we would anticipate that in 20 an evidentiary hearing on this issue, we might get into 21 questions like that, but it certainly isn't appropriate to 22 resolve this issue on the merits by making some kind of 23 analysis of the role of boron in mitigating a problem. 24 JUDGE BOLLWERK: Although I take it from what you 25 'are arguing, to get to that point, you first need to win on
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E 94 1 what you describe as a legal issue, is that right? ("N 2 MS. CURRAN: That's right. 3 JUDGE SHON: The Applicant does claim, however, 4 that they actually did the calculation with the pool as it l 5 stands, and then criticality did not result, don't they? On I 6 page 35 of their reply. They say in the second paragraph, 7 " Misplacement of the fuel element assembly would not cause 8 criticality." It says an analysis was performed to confirm 9 that misplacement of a fuel assembly would not cause . l 10 criticality. So they claim they have actually calculated ' 11 this. You told me a moment ago that your experts had not. l 12 MS. CURRAN: Well, the NRC has also asked CP&L to 13 do this analysis in a request for additional information l 14 that went out subsequent to this. So, to date, apparently i 15 the analysis isn't sufficient to satisfy the staff. 16 And it is also important to just bear in mind that 17 the contention is based on General Design Criterion 62, 18 which basically puts a limit on the amount of reliance that 19 is allowed on analysis and requires reliance on physical 20 measures. 21 [ Discussion off the record.] 22 MS. CURRAN: I would just like to clarify, the 23 effectiveness of the physical measures is also determined by 24 analysis but the question of whether administrative measures 25 can also be justified by analysis, we think has to be g ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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1 95 1 resolved in the negative under GDC 62. 2 And it is really important to -- maybe this is the 3 place to address the question of -- the relevance of the 4 question -- What difference does it make if the licensee is 5 required to comply with a clear regulatory requirement? 6 I think it also comes up with respect to 7 Contention 3, but the question has come up here a couple of 8 times today and just now, and I think maybe it is important 1 9 to address it now. Judge Bollwerk probably remembers most l 1 10 clearly the Yankee Rowe case in which the question of how an I 11 Intervenor is to plead the adequacy of a decommissioning 12 plan was addressed. l 13 And the Commissioners in that case said that a j 14 contention challenging the reasonableness of a l () 15 16 decommissioning plan's cost estimate provision should not be litigable if the only relief available would be a 17 formalistic redraft of the plan with a new estate, and 18 required that contentions challenging a decommissioning plan 19 had to raise some safety significance with respect to 20 inadequacies in the plan. 21 In a decision by the Licensing Board in that case, 22 the board explained the unique characteristics of 23 decommissioning plans, that they are rather vague, or the 24 requirements for decommissioning plans are rather vague, and 25 if the plan doesn't adequate describe some measure, it is ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. tO Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
r 96 1 l not clear what the safety significance of that is.
, 2 We would submit that that is really quite distinct 3 from a situation where there is a clear regulatory 4 requirement --
thou shalt not use administrative measures in 5 showing compliance with this general design criterion. 6 The rationale for that requirement was decided a 7 long time ago in promulgating the original rule and it 8 doesn't have to be justified again by an Intervenor in a 9 licensing hearing as to why compliance with the rule is 10 necessary. It really amounts to challenging a regulation to 11 require that kind of a justification. 12 As the other cases that were cited by the 13 Applicant hold, it is sufficient for an'Intervenor to come 14 in and say here is what the regulation requires and this () 15 16 application doesn't comply with the requirement, period. is not necessary to plead the significance of that It 17 noncompliance or whether it makes a difference that the 18 Applicant doesn't comply. 19 And those two cases are Duke Power Company, l 20 Catawba Nuclear Station, Units 1 and 2, LBP 82-116, 16 NRC i I 21 1937, the year is 1982 and Public Service Company of New 1 22 Hampshire, Seabrook Station, Units 1 and 2, LBP 82-106, 16 23 NRC 1649, the year is 1982. And those cases make it clear 24 that it is sufficient to allege noncompliance with the 25 regulatory requirement if provided with specific -- with 1 I (g ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. (_) Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
97 1 specificity and basis in order to gain admission of a 2 contention. 3 So, in this case, for example, if the Applicant 4 has done an analysis that says it doesn't matter whether we 5 comply with that general design criterion, that amounts to a 6 challenge to the regulations. It is not a legitimate 7 justification for dismissing a contention. 8 I don't have anything more at the moment. J 9 JUDGE BOLLWERK: All right. Mr. O'Neill or Mr. 10 _Holloway. 11 MR. O'NEILL: Mr. Holloway will address Contention 1 12 2. 13 JUDGE BOLLWERK: All right. 14 MR. HOLLOWAY: With respect to Contention 2, as () 15 16 Ms. Curran has said, she has essentially raised an issue of law and that issue is whether or not credit for burnup can l 17 be used for criticality control in spent fuel pools under ) 18 the Commission's regulations. This isn't about a soluble 19 boron calculation, I will discuss that later. The 20 contention she has raised is -- Is it legal under the 21 Commission's regulations to use credit for burnup? 22 She has discussed as a three-way interpretation of 23 our interpretation of GDC 62, their interpretation, the 24_ staff's interpretation, and I would point out that it is not 25 an issue of what we think or what the Petitioner thinks, but ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. t Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
98 1 what has the Commission said. And the Commission has 2 addressed this issue on a number of occasions. tO 3 When I discussed the textual interpretation of 4 General Design Criterion 62, it was to point out that this 5 isn't a matter where the plain text makes it clear that 6 physical processes may be used, it simply-doesn't say that. i 7 What it may mean may be ambiguous. It may be, as we 8 describe it, it says processes. The dictionary says that 9 means " steps in written procedures." Reg. Guide 1.13 talks 10 about a process involving written procedures, that is all 11 consistent. 12 However, most importantly is that the Commission 13 has addressed this exact issue and on numerous occasions, I 14 think put four examples in, but there are many more, the i 15 Commission has determined that credit for burnup to prevent 16 criticality in spent fuel pools is permitted under the 17 Commission's regulations and, as explicitly stated, that it 18 is consistent with General Design Criterion 62. So we know 19 what the Commission says about it, and they discuss burnup 20 and enrichment curves, precisely what we are talking about 21 using here. 22 So it is really not a discussion about textual 23 interpretation, that is more for background. It is really a 24 discussion of what the Commission has said. To the extent 25 they have said it is unlawful as a matter of law, I think ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. ( Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034 e __- -
99 1 that goes against what the Commission has determined the 2 regulation allows and they require this Applicant, as 3 opposed to others, to use some other methodology other than-4 credit for burnup, and credit for burnup is allowed. So, in 5 effect, they would be advocating stricter requirements than 6 the Commission's regulations allow. 7 I I will point out that the amendments I have l I 8 discussed -- one I have discussed in the pleading is the ' 9 Waterford case, and I will read you just a couple of 10 sentences off of the issuance of the amendment. It starts 11 out Mr. Dugger, Vice President, Operations, Entergy, "The 12 Commission has issued the enclosed amendment, Number 44," et 13 cetera, et cetera. Several paragraphs later it says, "A 14 copy of our related safety evaluation is also enclosed." 1 15 It is certainly true that the NRC staf f develops 0 16 the calculations and supporting analyses that go into the I I 17 Commission's granting of an amendment, but pursuant to the 1 18 Atomic Energy Act, only the Commission has the authority to 19 in fact grant operating licenses or amendments to operating { 20 licenses, hence, that is why it says the Commission has 21 enclosed -- issued the enclosed amendment. 22 So the Commission has said credit for burnup is 23 lawful and they are attempting to challenge what the 24 Commission has said-as a matter of law. 25 The second issue they say is that Reg. Guide 1.13 ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. O Court' Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 i (202) 842-0034 1
100 1 says that you cannot have criticality in the event of a 2 single failure, and they discuss a misplaced fuel assembly, 3 "Therefore Reg. Guide 1.13 proscribes use of credit for 4 burnup." Now,- I will point out that Reg. Guide 1.13 has 5 many pages discussing how one implements credit for burnup, 6 so it is a bit unusual to say that it proscribes it. 7 But to the extent that the basis for this is that 8 a misplaced fuel assembly would violate the single failure 9 criterion, the Commission has also addressed this very 10 clearly in the Commission's related safety evaluations for 11 these, as the Commission states, there are passages saying 12 that -- on this very specific issue, that in the event of a 13 misplaced fuel assembly, that could be a single failure.that 14 could cause criticality, but because there is soluble boron 15- in the pool water, the misplacing of a' fuel assembly will 16 not cause criticality. 17 So this contention is about the law. Does the I 18 law, the Commission's regulations allow credit for burnup to 19 be used? And t.he Commission is very clear that it does, 20 that it doesn't violate the single failure criterion in the 21 event of a misplaced fuel assembly. So, again, it is not 22 about our interpretation of these things. , 23 Now, -- 24 JUDGE BOLLWERK: Wait a minute. A question. But 25 you are not, I take it -- Ms. Curran made the statement that O ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
l 101 i i 1 when you say the Commission, these are staff documents, is j () 2 that correct? 3 MR. HOLLOWAY: That -- it is not staff document, 4 that is correct. Was it initially authored by the staff? l l 5 That is correct. But in issuing the amendment, it is right I
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6 here. It says the Commission has issued, it doesn't say the ) 7 staff has issued. l The staff doesn't have the authority to j 8 issue license amendments. The staff always does analyses , i 9 that go to the Commission. ' 10 JUDGE BOLLWERK: Well, they act according to 11 delegated authority from the Commission, that's correct. l
)
12 MR. HOLLOWAY: Yes. 13 JUDGE BOLLWERK: But -- well, as do we. Now, if I s 14 -- if this Licensing Board says something, does that mean
) 15 the Commission has said it? I think there is a question 16 about that. Maybe Ms. Zobler can tell us about that as l 17 well.
i 18 MR. HOLLOWAY: But I would said, Mr. Chairman, 19 when your initial order comes out, it doesn't say the 20 Commission has issued the following order, it says the l 21 Licensing Board has issued the following order. Someone'is 22 welcome to appeal that the Commission according to the 23 Commission'., procedure. But in the issuance -- in the event 24 of license amendments, it doesn't say the staff has issued, 25 it says the Commission has issued. It was the Commission's (- ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034 i
1 102 1 determination. 2 Now, that is the contention as stated. Ms. Curran 3 has also raised tha issue of a recent RAI, it is dated April { i 4 29th. In fact, she had it bound to the record, asking for l 5 submissions from the Applicant by I think June 30th. In the l 6 RAI -- recall, I said that when an application is submitted i 7 all the. calculations supporting that application are not 8 . with it. They are not required to be with it. In the 9 application, there is a statement that says, "The use of the 10 high density Region II racks has been shown to be acceptable 11 based on the analysis performed by Holtec, International." 12 Now, those analyses include the soluble boron 13 ' calculation that was done. The staff has issued an RAI 14 saying I would like to see the calculation, please submit 15 it. That doesn't say that the staff is saying they don't 16 believe that this can be done as a matter of law or they 17- have some question as to whether it is correct. It just 18 says we want to see the calculation. 19 But more importantly, regarding NRC RAIs, in the 20 Calvert Cliffs licensing proceeding just recently, the 21 Petitioner attempted to use a similar argument to say an RAI
-22 ' is out there, therefore, I need more time or I would like to 23 change my contention, and the board there said, "Where the 24 Petitioner concludes that a staff RAI or Applicant RAI 25 raises a question about adequacy of the application, the O' ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
l 103 1 Petitioner is free to posit that issue in a newer amended 2 contention that complies with the late filing standards of 3 Section 2.714." 4 MR. HOLLAWAY: What I'm hearing is, this is a 5 basically fundamentally changed contention - not that you 6 can't do it as a matter of law, but, oh , now, well yeah, you 7 can'do it as a matter of law, but they didn't do it right. 8 That's a different contention, a fundamentally different 9 contention. 10 And I would say that the application discusses in 11 some length, hence the contention, the burn up and 12 enrichment curves that were used, the burn-up credit, how 13 the process is done, etc. It's in the application. To the 14 extent that they felt it wasn't done right, they certainly \ 15 could have challenged it. 16 That's a fundamentally changed contention, and I 17 would also add that just because the Staff has asked for 18 something, does not automatically create a contention. 19 That's just a request from the Staff for some additional 20 information. 21 I would also add two other side notes. Soluble 22 boron is a physical measure, to the extent that there's 23 concern about it. Boron is a physical measure and, as we 24 stated, it has been analyzed and has been shown that there's 25 sufficient boron in the Harris pools, such that criticality m ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
104 I 1 would not occur. In fact, it's not just sufficient; there's ' 2 a lot more than sufficient. 400 requireo; 2000 minimum in 3 the pools at all times. 4 So that issue, which really doesn't go to their 5 legal contention, was just added to clarify that there's 6 really no problem here. But the contention that they raised 7 is a legal issue, is a matter of law - one can't use credit 8 for burn-up. It's very clear, and in fact you can use 9 credit for burn-up. 10 It's not an argument between us and the 11 petitioner; it's an issue of what do the Commission's 12 regulations allow, to the extent that they would say that 13 CP&L, unlike every other plant in the country, can't use , 14 credit for burn-up. They're saying.we have to use other 15 measures. If they advocate we have to meet stricter 16 ' requirements than the regulations require, that's an 17 impermissible collateral attack on the regulations, and it's 18 not permitted under 10 C.F.R. 2.758. 19 MR. BOLLWERK: Thank you. Anything further? Ms. 20 Zobler, then. 21 MS. ZOBLER: Thank you. I'd just like to make a 22' couple of comments, first of all, about general design 23 criteria in general. They've been characterized as a strict 24 regulation; in fact, the Commission has recognized that all 25 the general design criteria are just that, they're general ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
r l l 105 1 criteria. And although an applicant has to comply with j ( 2 them, they're not specific so that you can say absolutely, 3 this is the only way you can conform with what we call GDCs. 4 I'd also like to say, I don't think there really 1 5 is a disagreement here among the parties of what the GDC 62 ' 6 says. What the applicant has stated is that the licensee 7 proposed to use administrative controls. And then they talk 8 about taking credit for the higher burn-up fuel. 9 But the higher burn-up fuel itself is not 10 administrative control. It's a characteristic of the fuel. 11 And that certainly is something a licensee is allowed under 12 the Staff's guidance to take credit for. It is the Staff's 13 view, based on the Reg. Guide, that one way to conform with 14 GDC 62 is to take credit for the higher burn-up fuel. 15 The Petitioner has mentioned wanting to add an 16 additional basis to this contention to - if it's something 17 to do with just piggybacking onto the Staff's request for 18 additional information, it is correct that the Commission 19 has recently, in the Calvert Cliffs proceeding, said that 20 it's not sufficient merely to piggyback onto a Staff request 21 for additional information. 22 The request was for more information; it does not 23 indicate that, at least at this point, the licensee's 24 proposal's in any way inadequate. So to merely reference 25 the fact that the Staff would like to see some of the ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
106 1 criticality analysis doesn't indicate that there is a () 2 problem with the application itself, or the proposal. 3 Other than that, going back to my earlier 4 discussion about what the Commission's contentions will 5 require, clearly contention two does not meet the basis 6 requirement. { 1 7 MR. BOLLWERK: Anything'that you want to add on j 8 Mr. Hollaway's point about the Commission having said that 9 burn-up can be used as opposed to a document that's been 10 issued by the Staff? 11 MR. HOLLAWAY: I think Your Honor was correct that i 12 the Staff is acting under the delegating authority of the 13 Commission. It is somewhat different than when a licensing 14 board issues an opinion. That's a clear separation of the 15 roles of the Staff when it acts, or when the Commission acts 16 in its adjudicatory function, and when it acts in its 17 supervisory function. 18 Presumably if the Commission felt that there was a 19 problem with tha way the Staff was applying GDC 62, they 20 include in their supervisory role, issue some kind of Staff ) i 21 guidance, a Staff requirements memorandum requesting that ]
- 22. the Staff maybe revisit its approach. But that's, as far as j 1
23 I know, has not happened with respect to the GDC-62. ! 24 MR. BOLLWERK: Although arguably, the Commission l 25 can do the same thing with a Licensing Board ruling. It can l l I () ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters i 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
107 1 reach down and change it or modify it in some way, if it ,rm ( ,) 2 believes it's appropriate. 3 MS. ZOBLER: That's correct, Your Honor. In fact, 4 a Licensing Board decision, if not appealed, not appealed to 5 the Commission, has, is the decision in the case, and that's 6 what's controlling in that particular case. 7 MR. BOLLWERK: True, although again I guess my 8 point was that the Commission has supervisory authority over 9 us, which it from time to time exercises. It may come down l 10 and deal with matters that are before us, as they could do l
)
11 with the Staff, obviously. 12 MS. ZOBLER: That's correct. That's exactly 13 correct. i 14 MR. BOLLWERK: Right. All right, anything /,_ \ ) (m / 15 further? ! 16 MS. ZOBLER: No. That was it. 17 MR. LAM: Ms. Zobler? l i 18 MR. BOLLWERK: Wait, I'm sorry. ! 19 MR. LAM: Ms. Zobler, the - Ms. Curran had l 20 indicated that under GDC 62, " processes" means physical 21 processes. What is your view? l 22 MS. ZOBLER: I think the Staff's view has to be, 23 is in the Reg. Guide, which does allow the credit for the 24 higher burn-up fuel, and also does reference administrative 25 controls on maintaining the correct level of burn-up, if ',, ,) ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
108 1 that's what the Licensee's proposing to take credit for. () 2 So, the answer is that GDC-62 allows for the 3 administrative controls on the higher burn-up fuel. Does 4 that answer your question? 5 MR. LAM: Yes and no. But still, go back to the ' 6 dispute I'm hearing from - I mean, between Mr. Hollaway and 7 Ms. Curran, there's this textual interpretation of 8 processes. Does it mean physical processes or otherwise? I 9 hear you loud and clear about, you know, what's allowed and 10 what is not allowable under the Staff's practice. ) l 11 But by just reading GDC-62, it's says physical ' 12 systems or processes. In the very beginning, Ms. Curran 13 well, " physical systems or processes" means physical systems I 14 or physical processes. I think that's one of central (~
\ 15 arguments that I'm hearing from Ms. Curran.
j And I am j 1 16 interested in the Staff's view on that interpretation. 17 MS. ZOBLER: Again - and I'm not trying to answer 18 your question, Your Honor. I can't answer your question. I 19 don't know because when the Staff reviews, for the most 20 part, these proposed spent fuel pool expansions, they rely 21 on the guidance in the Reg. Guide. And the Reg. Guide does 22 allow for some kind of administrative controls in connection l l l 23 with the higher burn-up fuel. I can't say what the Staff 24 would do or how they view a proposal that would look somehow 25 different from the Reg. Guide, and what they would do in ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
109 1 those cases. () 2 MR. LAM: So, perhaps you are saying it really 3 doesn't matter what the interpretation of that word is, 1 4 other than burn-up. It's permissible. 5 MS. ZOBLER: That's correct, Your Honor. For the 6 purposes of the application before us, burn-up would be 7 permissible. 8 MR. LAM: Thank you. 9 MR. BOLLWERK: Ms. Curran. 10 MS. CURRAN: I'd just like to read from the 11 Staff's response to our contention, which I think answers 12 your question in part, Judge Lam. 13 On page 11, the Staff says, "The burn-up of fuel, 14 as well as its enrichment value, is.itself a physical 15 process which affects criticality." And it also says, 16 "GDC-62 provides that criticality shall be prevented by 17 physical systems or processes." 18 So, in the response to our contentions, the Staff 19 appeared to be agreeing with our interpretation of GDC-62, 1 20 that the word " process" means a physical process. They just 21 disagree with us as to what control of burn-up constitutes. 22 And that's distinct from the Applicant's position, which is 23 that GDC, the language of GDC-62, will they interpret the 24 word " processes" not to be modified by the word physical. 25 And then they also cite a whole lot of NRC Staff decisions, () ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
110 1 characterizing them as Commission decision, which they would () 2 argue override our interpretation of the general design 3 criteria. And I'd just like to talk for a minute about what 4 is the significance of the fact that the Commission signed 5 off on this license.
-6 Of course, all licenses are issued by the 7 Commission; the Commission is responsible for them and must 8 approve them. But it would not be appropriate on such a 9 generalistic delegation, approval that results from 10 delegation of authority to the staff as some kind of 11 decision making precedent that the Licensing Board should 12 rely on.
13 It has to be remembered that the Staff is a party 14 to this case. The Staff's decision.doesn't have any more 15 sway in this proceeding than the Applicants-or the 16 Intervenors. The Staff is another party. And all of these 17 specific decisions about how to interpret GDC-62 in the Reg. 18 Guide were made by the Staff. 19 The Commission may have ultimately approved the 20 issuance of the license, but there's no indication that the 21 Commission had any involvement in the interpretation of this 22' general design criteria. 23 And this is a relatively new issue. When the 24 general design criteria were written, it was in the late 1 25 1960s - 1967. It wasn't an issue then about high burn-up or () ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
I l
'l!
1 111 ) i 1 low burn-up. This is something that has to be determined l 2 now based _on the language of the general design criteria, 3 and one can't infer some intention to include, to take 4 credit for high burn-up fuel from this general criteria. 5 One has to interpret the language of the regulation as it's 6 written and apply it to the facts, l 7 MR. SHON: I'd like to have clarification of a 8 couple of points regarding this before we stop. 1 9 First of all, I hear two things about this 10 interpretation of GDC-62. First of all, I hear from the 11 Applicant and from the Staff that there have been several 12 cases where this has arisen as an issue. And although the 13 cases were not before a licensing board, or that issue was 14 not before it, and did not go up the chain and come before 15 the Commission in its adjudicatory form, nevertheless, the 16 Commission's process issued those license amendments and 17 that was the Commission's final decision on the license 18 amendment. 19 Therefore, they're precedential and they mean that 20 the Commission has sanctioned the use of credit for burn-up 21 in prevention of criticality. That's one thing. The 22 argument there, I think, is that if the Commission didn't 23 like it, it would have stopped the people from doing. 24 Then we have this other thing; we have Reg. Guide 25 1.13. I've read the Eeg. Guide myself, and I am certain ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 102S Connecticut. Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
112 1 that there is rather a good bit of material in that Reg. l l () '2 Guide that tells what you've got to do to take credit for i 3 burn-up. So it seems that the Reg. Guide says you can take I j 4- credit for burn-up. 5 We haven't discussed much though, what influence l 1 6 the Commission itself, as a Commission, has on the issuance 7 of Reg. Guides. Could you clear that up for us a bit, Ms. 8 Zobler? I l 9 MS. ZOBLER: Oh -- 10 MR. SHON: When - the Applicant has said, when a i l 11 license comes out, that's the Commission's action, and 12 that's the Commission's word -- boom. When a Reg. Guide 13 comes out, is that the Commission's word? Deos it have as 14 much force as a previously issued license? 15 MS. ZOBLER: A Reg. Guide is guidance. It's 16 certainly not a regulation. So - and that is correct. It 17 really, it's the Staff's view and, by implication, the 18 Commission's view of one way a requirement of GDC can be 19 met. It's not the only way, nor is it dispositive, in that 20 if a petitioner were able to show why, in a particular case, 21 meeting the contention requirements, it's not sufficient, I 22 think you could probably challenge in that particular case. 23 It is binding - a Reg. Guide, once it's final, is 24 binding on the Staff. Meaning that if, as long as a 25 licensee or applicant meets all of the guidance and criteria () ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
113 1 in a Reg. Guide, the Staff,then is obligated to approve the 2 license, application amendment, or whatever the proposed 3 -change would be. { l 4 MR. SHON: What about the draft Reg. Guide? 5 [ Laughter.) . 6 MS. ZOBLER: But it is the Staff's view on one way 7 to meet the criteria and regulations. 8 MR. BOLLWERK: They're called Staff regulatory 9 guides. l 10 MS. ZOBLER: Right. That's correct. l 11 MR. SHON: I guess that's it then. They are 12 simply staff documents. 13 MS. ZOBLER: That's correct. They're binding on 14 the Staff.
) 15 MR. BOLLWERK: All right. Anything further? Ms.
16 Curran, you may have had something else you wanted to say? 17 MS. CURRAN: I just wanted to let you know that on 18 page 12 of our contentions, we did provide legal citations 19 to the, to the very well established holding that regulatory 20 guides are staff documents and that they don't, they don't 21 hold any particular weight. And even less, draft regulatory 22 guides, which this particular one is. 23 MR. BOLLWERK- . Anything further on this 24 contention? 25 MS. CURRAN: I do have a few more things. O' ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
114 1 MR. BOLLWERK: All right. () 2 MS. CURRAN: The question has come up here whether 3 boron is a physical measure. In our view, boron itself may 4 be physical, but someone has to put it.into the spent fuel 5 pools. So it involves an administrative measure and can't 6 be relied on under GDC-62. And as I said before, under the 7 Reg. Guide, it can also be included.as one of the kinds of 8 errors that has to avoided or has to be taken into 9 consideration in determining whether the criticality 10 requirements are met. 11 Ms. Zobler argued that the general design criteria 12 aren't strict regulations. That may be the case, that some 13 of these general design criteria are very general, but they 14 certainly are extremely important. 15 They are the backbone of the NRC's regulation of 16 nuclear power plants. And this particular general design 17 criterion is very specific about what is allowed and what is 18 not allowed. So, we would submit that there is much less 19 flexibility than Ms. Zobler would claim in interpreting 20 GDC-62. 21 And again, we have a dispute over whether the 22 higher burn-up level is a physical measure or and 23 administrative measure. We think it's an administrative 24 measure. If some employee of CP&L has to make sure that, ; 25 has to monitor the burn-up level of the fuel that goes into () ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
115 1 the spent fuel pool, that's not a physical measure. That's ()s ( 2 an administrative measure. 3 With respect to the, to our reliance on the 4 recently issued request for additional information, the r l 5 Staff argues that we can't just piggyback onto an RAI to add j 6 further basis to our contention. But we would submit that 7 the Staff piggybacked on our contention. We got there 8 first. 9 (Laughter.) 10 MS. CURRAN: This is an indication that the Staff 11 is paying attention to our concerns and delving further into l 12 the issue with the Applicant, and that it further supports 13 our contention. 14 That's all I have on this.one. 15 MR. BOLLWERK: All right. l 16- MR. HOLLAWAY: Mr. Chairman? ! 17 MR. BOLLWERK: Yes? 18 MR. HOLLAWAY: If I could add two points just to 19 clarify a couple things. l 20 The first point is - and I just forgot to say this 21 - we are not disagreeing with the Staff. Our position is 22 the same, that burn-up of spent fuel is in fact a physical 23 process. Our point was that implementation of burn-up 24 credit uses administrative processes. And I think that's 25 consistent with the Reg. Guide. But there's no question I [#) ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
g l 116 1 that the burn-up of spent fuel itself is a physical process. ( 2 Nonetheless, we still believe that GDC-62 does not 3 require that all processes involved in criticality control 4 need be physical. And I would point out as an example, we 5 discussed boron as a physical process. And there was an l t 6 agreement that boron is physical, but putting it in the 7 pools is not physical; it's administrative. l 8 MR. BOLLWERK: It's the same as putting -- 9 MR. HOLLAWAY: Putting racks -- 10 MR. BOLLWERK: Putting racks, where I have a l 11 physical distance. Yet they have to be put in the pool. l 12 MR. HOLLAWAY: Somebody's got to them in the pool. 13 MR. BOLLWERK: That's what I was trying to -- 14 MR. SHON: Yeah. 15 MR. HOLLAWAY: That's precisely the same point I 16 was going to make. So, to that extent, then maybe burn-up 17 is a physical process and everything's taken care of. I 18 don't know. I don't know, it's - boron, racks, the same 19 way. 20 And the second point I wanted to make was, with 21 respect to Reg. Guides and their use, it's clear that Reg. 22' Guides don't come out and say the Commission has issued the 23 following Reg. Guides. Clearly, the Staff document. 24 But with respect to its weight, Appeals Board has j 25 stated that, "although not controlling the Staff's guidance l 1 f% () ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters s 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 l Washington, D.C. 20036 i (202) 842-0034 ' l 1
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117 1 " and this was an issue regarding spent fuel storage - 2 " Staff's guidance is entitled to considerable weight." So 3 it's not a make-weight. "The Commission has stated, if 4 there is conformance " and this was specifically on general 5 design criteria "if there is conformance with regulatory 6 guides, there is likely to be etmpliance with the general I 7 design criteria, and that's particularly true in the absence 8 of other evidence to the contrary." 9 So it is not the case, the Regulatory Guides are 10 just a make-weight. They are certainly entitled to 11 considerable weight. 12 That's all. 13 MR. BOLLWERK: All right. Ms. Curran? 14 MS. CURRAN: I'd just like to talk about the 15 difference between a physical measure and an administrative 16 measure. I suppose - it seems like the racks themselves are 17 being characterized as administrative measures, and I think 18 that's going way too far. 19 The racks are a physical structure that is put 20 into the pool, and that stays the same. After they're put 21 into the pool, nothing changes about those racks. And the 22 racks also have material in them, solid material with boron 23 in it. That stays the same. That doesn't change during the 24 operating life of the plant. That's a physical system 25 that's put in place. Now maybe someone has to do it in the ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
118 1 first place, but after that, nobody has to do anything. ("% ( 2 That is in sharp contrast to the placement of the 3 spent fuel rods in the pools, in which someone has to l 4 evaluate what are the characteristics of the rods, and where 5 should they go. 6 It's also extremely different'from the boron in 7 the water; the water in the spent fuel pools is constantly l 8 being drained out and replaced. It's constantly circulating 9 and there's a constant need to add more boron to the water - 10 a constant need for more administrative measures. That's 11 completely different from the nature of the racks. 12 MR. BOLLWERK: All right. Anything further from 13 any of the Board members? 14 All right, I will go ahead now and get contention 15 three, then. It deals with adequate quality assurance. 16 MS. CURRAN: I'm going to go through the 17 Applicant's response and try to address the various aspects 18 of it in relation to our contention. 19 One of the questions raised in the contention was, 20 what is the scope of the equipment that is, for which the 21 quality assurance documentation is missing. It appears that 22 it includes piping, but it's not clear to us whether there 23 is other equipment that is also involved and that would 24 include heat exchanger tubing, strainers, filters. 25 And the Applicant purports to answer this in (G) ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
119 1 footnote 32, on page 37. We're still somewhat uncertain; it 2 hasn't resolved our concern. I'm particularly focusing on 3 two sentences in the middle of that footnote - well, three i 4 sentences. One says, "all code piping in the form of 5 pre-fabricated pipe spools and equipment in the scope of the 6 alternative plan was supplied by an approved vendor having 7 the requisite NPT authorization. The vendor data package, . 8 including the code data report for each such item, is on I i I 9 hand." j 10 But then it says, "Any piping or equipment for l 11 which this quality documentation is not on hand will be 12 replaced by appropriately qualified and documented 13 replacement items." 14 So on the one hand, it appears they're saying, we i 15 have documentation on hand for equipment, and the other '16 sentence says, if we don't have the documentation on hand, 17 we'll supply it. So we're still uncertain about what is the 18 scope of this problem. 19 There's certainly no disagreement that the I 20 Applicant did not maintain quality assurance documentation 21 for all of the piping, at least, and possibly some of the ) i 22 equipment that's going to be used for the spent fuel cooling i i 23 pools at C & D. l 24 In our contention, we did allege that in addition, 25 the Applicant had not maintained the piping and equipment l ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. l Court Reporters i 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 l Washington, D.C. 20036 i (202) 842-_0034 l
120 1 according to the requirements for a lay-up and prevention of () 2 fouling and microbiologically-induced corrosion during the 3 lengthy period when it was unused, between the time when the 4 project was cancelled and now the proposed opening of the 5 spent fuel pools. It's important to note that the Applicant 6 does concede that these lay-up requirements were not met 7 during that time. 8 We consider this information supports our ' 9 contention, because if the Applicant didn't meet these 10 requirements during the last fifteen or twenty years, then 11 it implicate the adequacy of quality assurance for the 12 future because problems may have arisen during that period 13 that aren't going to be dealt with adequately in the future. 14 The Applicant argues that since we all agree that () 15 the Applicant didn't meet the lay-up requirements, there's 16 no issue here. We think that's just wrong. The issue is, 17 having admitted that these quality assurance requirements 18 were not met, the question is then, how is that being 19 addressed now? Not, will the Licensee comply in the future? 20 But, how will the Licensee address the problems that have 21 been created by its non-compliance in the past? So the 22 admission that it was non-compliant is important to our 23 contention, and relevant. 24 The Applicant has submitted a plan under 10 C.F.R. 25 50.55(a). As the Applicant states in its response to the I I ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
l i 121 1 contentions, it is addressed exclusively to the issue of the (~3 (_,) 2 lost QA documentation. It doesn't address the issue of what 3 has happened to this piping and equipment during the lengthy 4 period of time when it was unused. 5 For that, the Applicant says that it's got 6 something called an equipment commissioning plan, which is 7 found in the RAR response that is an attachment to this 8 response. That's in footnote 37 on page 42. The Applicant 9 asserts that the equipment commissioning plan isn't a 10 licensing issue, it's an internal document that establishes 11 how the Applicant will ensure compliance with NRC 12 regulations. That's also on page 42. 13 Well, the Licensing Board should just reject out 14 of hand that attempt to remove this. issue from the licensing ( 15 proceeding by calling it a non-licensing issue. It walks l 16 like a licensing issue and it talks like a licensing issue, 17 and therefore, it is one. It raises a question of, how is a 18 the Applicant going to ensure compliance with this l 19 requirement in Appendix B? i 20 It's not something that can be shunted off to the i 21 side as some kind of administrative measure or - what did 1 22 they call it? And internal document. It's something that's I 23 material to the issue of whether this license amendment 24 application conforms to NRC requirements for quality 25 assurance.
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r. 122 1 There is an exemption, 50.55(a) - or, the licensee () 2_ hasn't attempted to get an exemption under 50.55(a) for its 3 non-compliance with the lay-up requirements of Appendix B. 4 That's a requirment that needs to be met and addressed in 5 the context of this licensing case. And even if it had 6 attempted to include it in the plan, it would be a licensing 7- issue. 1 8 The licensee also admits on page 42 that the plan l 9 for inspecting the welds and the piping isn't addressed to 10 the issue of coping with a microbiologically-induced 11 corrosion. But it just says that, "Before the piping is 12 inspected " this is further down the page, on page 42, that 13 the piping will be inspected. So there's a concession here 14 that the plan that's been submitted.has not been submitted 15 for the purpose of addressing the problems that were caused 16 in the past by the failure to comply with the lay-up 17 requirements. 18 MR. BOLLWERK: Short of ripping up the piping that 19 - how else could they comply with this? I mean, giving the 20 documents you're on? In other words, if they not going to 21 take it out physically and put in new piping that meets 22 whatever quality assurance, how else are they going to do 23 other than inspecting it? 24 MS CURRAN: Well -- well, there's a couple - what 25 we're concerned about is the problems with the plan that () ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
\ 123 1 they've offered. () 2 First of all, in the license amendment 3 application, their plan did not deal with inspection of the 4 piping.for problems that may have accumulated during the 5 period that the piping was stored.. The problems of 6 corrosion and fouling. That's not addressed by the plan. 7 Apparently, it's addressed in this equipment commissioning 8 plan that was just submitted by the Applicant, but it's not 9 in the license application. 10 Second, the Applicant admits that the process that 11 it's chosen cannot inspect all of the welds. For purposes 12 of inspecting the welds, they can't get at all of them. 13 And, that raises a question for us - what other measures 14 could be taken? Are there other things that could be done? 15 Are there better inspection methods that could be used to 16 get at those areas? 17 It also - and this is kind of jumping over into 18 the NEPA context. It raises the issue of, if it really is 19 impossible to make an adequate verification of whether this 20 piping and equipment can perform its safety function, then 21 this is something that ought to be considered in weighing 22 other alternatives, such as dry-cast storage. 23 MR. BOLLWERK: You mentioned better methods. I 24 didn't read any here. You're not proposing any that I saw, 25 or am I missing something? You just say, they may be out () ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters ! 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
124 j 1 there but you don't know what they are, but they need to .( ) 2 look at them and analyze them in some way? 3 MS. CURRAN: Well, it may be that this just isn't 1 4 acceptable, and that some other alternative has to be found. : 5 Maybe they have to lay new pipe. 6 MR. BOLLWERK: All right. 7 MR. LAM: Am I reading your comments right, then 8 you consider this issue of the spent fuel piping quality of 9 such importance that you would demand 100 percent j 10 inspection? Can I read your comments that way? l 11 MS. CURRAN: Well, based on the information that 12 we have so far, we are not satisfied with the degree of 13 inspection that is provided for in this plan. 14 MR. LAM: But you're not necessarily demanding 100
) 15 percent inspection of all the components? I 16 MS. CURRAN: We would hope to have access to more 17 information so that we could make a more detailed evaluation 18 of what's being proposed. But at this point, there are a 19 significant number of welds that will not be inspected under 20 this plan. And that is a concern to us.
21 We think it raises an unacceptable level of safety 22 risk. After all, this question of what's acceptable under 23 50.55(a) is something that has to be evaluated using 24 judgment, perhaps having more information than we have now 25 about the nature of the, and location of what isn't being [ Nv ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
125 j 1- inspected and whether the kind of information is available 2 about those areas. 3 Right now,-what we have is very general 4 information. The general information provided in the 5 license application isn't adequate for us to conclude that 6 this is an acceptable substitute for meeting the I 7 regulations, which is what's required in the first instance. 8 And the license application also doesn't set forth 9 any criteria for what would be an acceptable inspection of a 10 weld. And we did explain in our contention that that i 11- inspecting a weld, these remote inspections - it's not a cut 12 and dry operation where you take a picture and everyone can 13 agree that you took the picture in the right place and yet 14 the picture - everyone agrees what it shows. These things 15 are subject to interpretation. 16 We don't have any criteria from the Applicant as 17 to where, how these irispections are going to be done and 18 what are going to be the criteria for the evaluation. 19 Now, the Applicant says that we haven't supported 1 20 this in our declarations, and I just want to clarify the 21 nature of our pleading here. All of our contentions, every 22 single technical statement that is made in our contentions, 23 is supported by the expert declaration of Dr. Gordon 24 Thompson. 25 Dr. Thompson reviewed all of these contentions and
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126 1 all the technical statements are based on his best () 2 . professional judgment. So, when we say that a remote camera 3 inspection is not' subject to an easy yes or no kind of 4 verification - yes, this weld is fine, or no, it's not - 5 that's based on his professional opinion. Yes, we have 6 supported this statement with professional opinion. 7 The applicant argues that.there is considerable 8 evidence that the welds of the spent fuel piping were 9 conducted in strict adherence to the programmatic 10 requirements of the Harris Quality Assurance Program. 11 Again, these are very general statements. 12 They're very general statements that put together 13 a circumstantial case that, whatever is available is going 14 to substitute for what is required by Appendix B. Such () 15 general assertions cannot - having been challenged by us, 16 cannot be accepted without further inquiry. 17 We've raised a reasonable basis for questioning 18 whether this is sufficient information on which to base an 19 acceptance of this license amendment application. The 20 information provided so far is just too vague and general to 21 support a conclusion. I 22 Finally, the Applicant makes an argument that we 23 haven't made a tangible link between the problems with the 24 50.55(a) alternative plan and the health and safety impacts. 25 In other words, what difference does it make? This is on O ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034 , a
127 1 page'47 of the Applicant's response. () 2 As I was discussing earlier with respect to the 3 Yankee Rowe case, it is not necessary for the county to , 4 justify requiring that safety-grade piping in a nuclear 5 power plant come up to minimum standards for documented 6 reliability. That wheel was invented a long time ago and we 7 do not have to reinvent it here. 8 But in any event, it isn't clear to us at all that 9 what the licensee says is correct. And we'd like to point 10 out that this statement that it doesn't really matter 11 whether we, whether we have adequate support for the quality 12 of these pipe was never made in the alternative plan, under 13 10 C.F.R. 50.55(a). This is the first time it's appearing, 14 is here. () 15 So we've never had a chance to look into this, to 16 say, okay, what difference does it make if the pipe is 17 running through concrete and the water leaks out of the 18 pipe? And the kinds of issues we would expect to have 19 raised, had this been stated in the application, are - 20' concrete is porous, and water does leak through it. And 21 eventually it's going to go somewhere. 22 There's an issue of whether leaking water could 23 ultimately affect the steel reinforcement in the concrete 24 around it by degrading it. 25 There's also an issue of whether that water is O ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. k/ m Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034'
I '! l i 128 ' 1 radioactive. I believe, earlier today when he was () 2 . describing - the chart is gone, but when Mr. Hollaway was 3 describing the cooling systems, he was saying that the 4 purpose of the CCW system, one purpose of having it j 5 separated from the spent fuel cooling system is that the 6 spent fuel cooling system may have radioactivity in it. So . 7 you don't want it to interact with the CCW system. Well, 8 that radioactive water is going to be flowing through these 9 pipes, whose quality we're uncertain of. 10 The long and the short of it is that had the 11 applicant made a statement in its alternative plan that it 12 really doesn't matter whether they provide any kind of 13 quality assurance, inspections or documentation for these 14 pipes, then, we would have had a chance to address that and () 15 raise those issues in our contention. ~But they didn't. 16 I don't have anything more at the moment. l 17 MR. BOLLWERK: All right. i ! 18 MR. O'NEILL: Mr. Chairman. 19 MR. BOLLWERK: Yes? j 20 MR. O'NEILL: I'd like to pass out another exhibit i 21 and take a moment to go to the board. Any color. ! I
)
22' MR. BOLLWERK: All right. And I take it this is l 1 23 another one of the ones that were distributed to everyone 24 earlier in the week. I i 25 MR. O'NEILL: That's correct. These were provided i i I~ L ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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4 l 129 l
'l to the parties earlier in the week. It's hard for me to sit
() 2 quietly for this long sum. I finally get the mike. 3 MR. BOLLWERK: I just have a question. Do you 4 want to have these marked as well? 5 MR. O'NEILL: I would ask that the cut-away of one 6 section of the used fuel storage facility at the Harris 7 plant, which you see before you and which is marked as 8 Exhibit 2. 9 MR. BOLLWERK: Okay. Any objection? All right, 10 then it shall be so marked. And put into the - do you want 11 it bound in the -- 12 MR. O'NEILL: Bound into the record. 13 MR. BOLLWERK: All right. Could you do that as 14 well, please.
) 15 [ Applicant 's Exhibit No. 2 was 16 marked for identification and :
17 received into evidence.] 18 MR. O'NEILL: And while we're at it, the second 19 cut-away that I handed out, which is called horizontal 20 cut-away, I would ask that it be marked as Applicant's 21 Exhibit 3 and be bound into the record. 22 MR. BOLLWERK: All right. Any objections co that? 23 All right. If you could do that please as well. 24 (Applicant's Exhibit No. 3 was 25 marked for identification.) O ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
.i 130 1 MR. O'NEILL: In the " Pictures Worth a Thousand 2 Words" category, it might have been useful to have this 3 earlier in the day. But it does show part of the Harris 4 spent fuel storage facility.
5 What you are looking at in this cut-away are pools 6 A and B. This happens to with the pools that are shown in d 7 the cut-away, but they're illustrative for our purposes. 8 The pool closes to the far left -- which is, by the way, 9 south - is A spent fuel pool. And A spent fuel pool is 10 smaller; it's 13 feet by 38 feet. The B spent fuel pool, ! 11 which is the larger one, is 50 feet by 27 feet. The depth . 12 of the pools are 40 feet. j 13 You also see behind the spent fuel pools a fuel i 14 transfer canal. That canal allows fuel to be moved 15 underwater between any of the pools. And when C and D are j l 16 commission, it will be able to be moved to pools C and D as 17 well. You will note that there is reinforced concrete, 18 which is the gray matter that you see below and surrounding 19 the pools. For example, below the pools, the reinforced 20 concrete is 12 feet in thickness. 21 In addition, the building itself is reinforced
- 22. concrete, and you can see the base mat is 10 feet. And the I 23 building, which is a rather large building, is 400 feet 24 long, 54 feet wide, and 120 feet tall at the highest point.
25 I'd like to turn to Applicant's Exhibit 3. I ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. l \ Court Reporters ! 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036
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131 1 This is a representative cut-away of a spent fuel l () 2 3 pool, not precisely to scale but close enough for purposes of making a few points. Again, you see the 40-foot depth of l 4 the pool with the spent fuel storage racks approximately 14 l 5 feet at the bottom of the pool. 6 The tech. specs require that there be a minimum of 7 23 feet of water over the spent fuel. Spent fuel pool C is 8 the same size as B, 50 feet by 27 feet. The D pool is 9 somewhat smaller and is 30 feet by 20 feet. The water level 10 of the pool generally is approximately one foot below the 11 top of the pool. 12 If you look at Exhibit 3, you will see a line that 13 is called " Supply", which runs through the concrete up to 14 the top of the spent fuel pool. And you'll see one that is () 15 labeled " Return". There are actually two lines in each 16 spent fuel pool - two supply and two return. These lines 17 are 3/8-inch thick wall stainless steel piping, either 12 or 18 16 inches in diameter. 19 At the bottom of this chart, you'll see a 20 representation of the spent fuel pool cooling system. It 21 shows one heat exchanger and one pump. There are indeed 22 redundant heat exchangers and pumps for pools C and D, which 23 operate as a unit when it is completed. Each heat exchanger 24 is adequate to handle the full capacity of both pools, and 25 one pump is acequate to handle the full capacity for cooling / ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. \/ Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
m 132 1 of both pools. () 2 The question was raised in the Petitioner's 3 contention, and again today, is what about this equipment? 4 And the answer is that all of the equipment meets the design 5 basis, meets all the code requirements, was either stored
-6 properly or was replaced, such that there is no issue and we 7 did not apply to the Commission for any exemption relating 8 to any of the equipment. The only issue here raised by the 9 50.55(a) application, alternate plan, and by the contention, i l
10 goes to this piping that is encased in concrete for both ' 11 pools C and D. 12 By the way, the longest run of piping that is 13 encased in concrete is 76 feet. The shortest run is 24 14 feet, depending on which pool and how far away it is from 15 the heat exchangers and the pumps. But the Chairman's 16 question was certainly pertinent. What would we do other 17 than inspect this piping to ensure its adequacy. 18 There are, as noted, 15 embedded welds in this i 19 piping. The maximum pressure in the piping, when the pump 20 is operating, is 20 pounds per square inch by gauge. As you 21 can see, the inlet and outlet are at the top of the pool and 22 are essentially open to atmospheric pressure, because it 23 simply is taking the suction and discharging into the pool 24 itself. 25 Now, I want to use this particular schematic to 1 1 I ( ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters l l 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
l t 133 1 make the last point that Ms. Curran made, to respond to that 2 point, and make the last point that I made in my brief. The j 3 Petitioner has not shown or alleged even a link between the 4 inadequacies - assume for the moment that there are problems 5 with the welds in this piping. l 6 Assume that that deficiency is correct. That's l 7 not good enough, and not just with respect to ! 8 decommissioning plans, as suggested by Petitioner's counsel, 9 but also in the Oyster Creek proceeding, with respect to 10 spent fuel storage and dry cast, there has to be, in 11 addition to - and also by the Commission's regulation - in 12 addition to a basis with specificity, there must be some i 13 link to a health and safety issue. l 14 The point that we make here is that Petitioners l 15 have not made that link, nor can they. The reason they 16 can't is that, if you assume for the moment that there could 17 be a defect in a weld in this piping, the worst thing that 18' could happen would be that the water level in the pool would 19 go down approximately five to six feet. But even that would 20 be very, difficult if the leak were in this concrete encased 21 piping. There's nowhere for the water to do. If you had a 22 guillotine break of this piping at the bottom - which we 23 note, the FASR indicates is not a safety issue. Why isn't a 24 safety issue? Because the pool level will only go down five 25 feet, you can then repair the pipe, and there's plenty of ( ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
I I l i 134 1 different ways to fill the pool back up again. ; 2 But we're not talking about the potential for a l 3 guillotine leak. We're talking only about the potential for l l 4 a slight defect, or pitted corrosion in a weld somewhere in I S that piping. And what the Petitioners have not done, cannot 6 do , is show how that implicates public health and safety. 7 It may be some water some place that the CP&L will have to 8 clean up and process within this large, reinforced concrete 9 building. But there is no public health and safety 10 implications of a leak in a weld in this piping. 11 That's the fundamental reason that this contention 12 must be rejection. The Commission's regulations, case law 13 requires that link to be made by Petitioners. We don't have 14 to make that demonstration, but of course if we went through 15- a hearing, it would be pretty. It's almost obvious if you 16 look at this diagram. It can't cause a problem. 17 By the way, while concrete may indeed be somewhat 18 porous, there are some spent fuel pools that don't have what 19 this pool has, which is a stainless steel liner. Dresden, 20 for example, is just a concrete pool, like a swimming pool 21 that you might see in someone's backyard. 22~ MR. LAM: Is both the inlet and the return line 23 five feet below the pool level? Both of them? 24 MR. O'NEILL: Both of them are approximately five; 25 I think there's a slight offset. I think one may be closer ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
l 135 l 1 to six. And the waterline is a foot below. So it's about !
/%.
(,,/ 2 .five feet below the waterline and about six to seven feet 3 below.the top of the pool. ( 4 MR. LAM: And the placement of such elevation is 5 done with the intention to mitigate the level drop if l 6 there's a pipe break, is that true? 7 MR. O'NEILL: That is correct, Dr. Lam. In fact, 8 the FSAR section that I quoted makes it very clear that this 9 ensures that there cannot be a pool drainage problem because 10 of where the inlet and the outlet actually fall in the pool. 11 MR. LAM: Thank you. 12 Now, let me then turn to each issue that is raised 13 in the contentions, which I believe are fatally flawed 14 because there is no linkage with the health and safety i
\ 15 issue. But even if that argument were not accepted for some 16 reason, none of the bases are sufficient.
17 I say that given the possibility that at least one 18 appeared to have a basis with specificity. That went to the 19 microbiologically induced corrosion. When we get to that, I 20 think it's clear that that really does not have adequate 21 basis in specificity, as well. 22 The contention is multifaceted because it really 23 begins with an attack on quality assurance, then goes to 24 50. 55 (a) , and then goes to an attack on the piping itself. 25 And I'd like to sort of try to separate those. ( ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
I f l 136 1 l' Let's go first to quality assurance. There's no J f 2 question that in 1983, when Unit 2 was cancelled, that the 3 QA program was no longer applied to this system, which was I 4 part of the Unit 2, Unit 3 plants. They did not take into 5 account storage of the piping. Indeed, by the way, the l 6 pumps and the heat exchangers were stored - for example, the ! 7 heat exchangers with a nitrogen purge. The pumps were put 8 on the shelf in the warehouse as possible spares. But 9 that's not at issue here. ; 1 10 The piping was not stored in any kind of a QA l J 11 lay-up condition. That's why, in part, there's a 50.55(a) 12 alternate plan that's discussed here, and that was part of i 13 our application. And the second part is, there were i 14 documents that were destroyed. The. documents included weld j
/T a
(_,/ 15 data reports for the fifteen welds in question. It also 16 included weld data reports on some hanger welds and it 17 included weld data reports on some of the welds otherwise in 18 the piping that are external to the concrete. 19 With respect to the piping that is external to the 20 concrete, it can be reinspected with NDE and requalified 21 with respect to the weld. With respect to - so we don't 22 have an issue there. We cannot do the same NDE that was 23 done before on the welds within the piping. But, one of the 24 points that is made in the application for the 50.55(a) 25 alternate plan is that we do know, and can support - albeit, f ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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i 137 l 1 it is described as circumstantial evidence -- that the welds i
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( 2 were done by the same welders, using the same weld filler 3 material, using the same procedures that were done on the : 4 Unit 1A and B pools, at the same time, before the concrete 5 was poured. l 6 And each of those welds, in fact, had a weld data l i 7 report. We know that.because, at least with respect to ! 8 . thirteen of the fifteen, there's a hydrotest report, before i 9 the hydrotest was done, that the person doing the hydrotest ! 10 was required to inspect the weld data report and checked off 11 that, in fact, he did that. So, we have certainly evidenced 12 that a weld data existed.at the time the welds were done, 13 under the QA program.. All of that is presented in the. l i 14 50.55(a) plan. j
) 15 So we admit that it wasn't stored under QA 16 conditions. We have a plan for how we meet, as an 17 alternative -- ASME Code Section 3. That plan has been 18 approved by the nuclear. insurer - that's Enclosure 13 to the 19 response to the RAI, which is enclosed with our response -
20 who by the way, who is the Chairman of the ASME Committee. 21 So we do have a plan and we submit that, in light of that, 22 for a contention that relates to 50.55(a), that the 23 Petitioner must come forward with a contention with basis in 24- specificity that is -- what is wrong with that Plan? 25 Why doesn't that plan assure we meet the O%) ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW,-Suite 1014
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138 1 requirements of ASME Code Section 3? Why doesn't that Plan () 2 assure that_when we place this system into service, that we 3 will be able to put it into our quality assurance program, 4 and we will maintain it under Appendix B. Why doesn't that 5 provide adequate assurance? We do not know what is wrong 6 with the plan because they have not pled that with basis in 7 specificity. 8 They have pointed out three things, though, that 9 really don't go to the plan, but go to the question of, does 10 this piping meet the design basis for piping to be used in 11 this type of a system? What about corrosion, and what 12 about, specifically, microbiologically induced corrosion. 13 Mr. Lochbaum has come forth with some information notices. 14 That declaration points that the information notices, even (j 15 in one case, applied to one of CP&L's plants - the Robinson 16 plant - and suggested that piping that is in storage for a 17 long time with water sitting in it could be subject to 18 corrosion or degradation or microbiologically induced 19 corrosion. I believe the term now used in the corrosion 20 circles is "microbiologically influenced corrosion." 21 But if we look at that a little bit more closely, 22 that really doesn't support an allegation with respect to 23 this piping. 24 And the reason it doesn't support a contention 25 with respect to corrosion of this piping, is because if you O ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
1 139 1 look at that information notice, every pipe - stainless () 2 steel pipe - that was subject to this type of corrosion was 3 subject to raw water: lake water, sea water, brackish 4 water, cooling tower water, perhaps oil. But none of it was 5 exposed to demineralized, chemically treateed water. What 6 kind of water was in these pipes? Water that was in the 7 spent fuel pool that had leaked past, actually, a seal that 8 wasn't completely 100 percent effective in keeping water out 9 of the pipes. So that is the water that was in the pipes. 10 There is no basis that the information notice that 11 is cited by the Petitioners at all implicates, can be a 12 basis for, provides adequate specificity for this piping 13 with these types of conditions. That's why there's 14 inadequate basis in specificity. But this isn't a game, and ss/ 15 there is a way of determining whether or not you have 16 microbiologically influenced corrosion: test the water. 17 Find out whether you have any bacteria of any variety that 18 could - could - result in such corrosion. There are tests 19 that allow you to do that. 20 The equipment commissioning plan notes that such a 21 test would be done. And I will note today on the record, 22 although it obviously cannot be evidence to be used to 23 reject this contention - but I will provide to the 24 Intervenor today, and to Mr. Lochbaum, the analysis that was 25 done of the water in the piping, looking for all the () ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034 I 1
l 140 l l 1 potential bacteria, and finding that there was none. ' ( 2 So, I will just hand that out for information l 3 only, because I understand that the Board cannot rely on I 4 this for purposes of the contention. And I do not propose 5 it be an exhibit, but there's no reason that it not be 6 handed out. 7 MR. O'NEILL: This was provided to the NRC Staff 8 yesterday. It was actually just completed yesterday because 9 it takes awhile to culture the bacteria. For your 10 infrmation, I'd be happy to give you a copy of it. 11 We say we don't rely on this, but we do rely on 12 the plan. The plan included, in addition to the QA 13 investigation of the documents, it includes this type of 14 testing and it includes an inspection. Now, in the response x_) 15 to the Staff's RAI, we added, we answered their question and 16 provided much more detail with respect to exactly how the 17 inspections would occur. 18 In the piping that's not encased in concrete, we 19 can inspect it quite easily. We inspected all that piping. 20 We inspected all those welds, and we noted in the 21 application that we inspected all those welds. Not one of 22~ them had a defect. Twenty-two welds were inspected; no 23 defects. We inspected the piping for any corrosion; no 24 corrosion. So with respect to a lot of the piping, which is 25 the same stainless steel piping - it just happens not to be If \~' ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
141 1 encased in concrete - we can inspect it. We have done so. () 2 We have also committed to inspect some of the 3 piping with a remote camera. Ms. Curran said, well, you 4 didn't include the criteria. Well, in fact, if you review 5 the response to the RAI, it said exactly what criteria's 6 being used to inspect the welds, exactly what the criteria 7 is for undercut, what the criteria is for any defect in the 1 c 8 weld. So there is criteria in the response to the RAI. 9 What we're submitting to the Board today is that 10 there.is no basis with specificity that this plan to ensure 11 that the piping meets the design criteria for piping to be 12 used in this system in this plant is acceptable. There is 13 no challenge to the plan. There's simply a challenge to, 14 -hey, you didn't tell us about corrosion. Well, we in fact 15 certainly were going to inspect for corrosion, and we've 16 done it. l l I 17 The last part of the three criticisms of the plan i i 18 to commission this piping is that we're not inspecting all 19 fifteen welds with a camera. Once again, where's the basis? 1 l 20 Where's the specificity to say that a sampling of the 21 accessible welds, running a camera through the-piping, once 22 you've already inspected twenty-two welds in the same 23 piping, that were accessible much more easily, isn't l 24 adequete. What's wrong with this plan?
-25 Ms. Curran says Dr. Thompson says in his opinion,
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142 1 that's not good enough. I believe that NRC case law () 2 provides that an opinion without any basis, without any 3 statement about why that's not adequate, is certainly not to 4 be given credence. 5 Mr. Lochbaum's declaration only goes to one issue, 6 nad that's the corrosion. I think we've' addressed that. He 7 also cites to some NRC inspection reports, which are 1981, 8 which are well before the SCR came out, which certainly 9 found that there was an adequate QA program and construction 10 program and certainly cannot be the basis of any allegation 11 of inadequacy of the QA at the time that these welds were 12 actually performed. 13 Let me go back through my notes and see if there's 14 anything that Ms. Curran said that I did not address. 15 I believe that's all I have to say on Contention l 16 3. Thank you very much. l 17 MR. BOLLWERK: Thank you. Ms. Zobler? 18 MS. ZOBLER: I'd just like to point out what 19 Section 50.55 (a) says about alternative plans, which is what 20 the proposed alternative plan the licensee has submitted 21 under this regulation 50.55(a). And it says, "The Applicant 22 shall demonstrate that the proposed alternative would 23 provide an acceptable level of quality and safety, or 24 compliance with the specified requirements of this Section 25 would result in hardship or unusual difficulty without a () ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
143 1 compensating increase in the level of quality and safety." () 2 I would just like to point out that there was 3 nothing in the Petitioner's filing that shows with any kind 4 of basis what is wrong with the plan as submitted. So, on 5 the basis of the pleading itself and the supporting 6 affidavits, which merely state a conclusory opinion without 7 the underlying factual basis, the filing fails to support 8 the contentions. 9 There is a Staff RAI on the alternative plan, on 10 which the Licensee did submit additional information. And 11 I'd just like to submit, if the Petitioner is certainly free 12 under our regulations to review the information and 13 formulate a late-filed contention based on that, if they 14 still have concerns. But as written today, the contention
) 15 certainly lacks the necessary basis to allow for it to be 16 admitted.
17 MR. BOLLWERK: They make a point that the 18' equipment commissioning plan is not really part of the 19 license application. Having said that, it's nonetheless 20 Staff might well have looked at them to do anyway, even 21 without having put it as part of the application? 22 MS. ZOBLER: Well, under the Appendix B quality 23 assurance requirements, they would be required to comply 24 with those requirements. I have not reviewed the plan 25 myself, but to the extent that it shows how in the future e ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
144 1 they're going to comply with Appendix B requirements, then, ( () 2 3 yes, they - we would expect that they would follow that they would follow that plan. 4 MR. BOLLWERK: All right. Anything further? 5 MS. ZOBLER: No , that's all. 6 MR. BOLLWERK: Okay. l ( i 7 MR. LAM: I'd like to go back to Mr. O'Neill for a j l 8 couple of short questions. l 9 MR. BOLLWERK: That's fine. 10 MR. O'NEILL: I may have gone too fast. I 11 apologize. 12 MR. LAM: That's all right. 13 Mr. O'Neill, did I hear you correctly, saying all 14 the active components that's not buried has been replaced 15 for C and D? 16 MR. O'NEILL: The active componetns have been 17 inspected to ensure that they meet all the requirement of 18 quality assurance in the design basis, or replace. 19 MR. LAM: I see. 20 MR. O'NEILL: So there's no issue one way or the 21 other. 22 MR. LAM: So the issue is only, relates to the 23 barrier piping? 24 MR. O'NEILL: That's correct. And as I mentioned, 25 in fact, the heat exchangers were stored under a nitrogen i ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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145 1 purge to ensure that they would not deteriorate in any way, () 2 as installed spares, if you will. And the pump was taken 3 out and stored in the warehouse under quality conditions to 4 ensure that the pump, once again, would be able to be used 5 as a spare, so that certain of the components were stored 6 under quality conditions. But the piping was not laid up or 7 stored under quality conditions. 8 All of the rest of the pipe has been inspected so 9 that the only issue here, and the only issue - the only 10 issue raised in the 50.55(a) altnernate plan, and the only 11 issue raised by the Petitioner's contentions go to the 12 embedded piping and the fifteen welds. l 13 MR. LAM: Now, you also mentioned the maximum 14 operating pressure expected is approximately 20 pounds. 15 What is the design pressure of these lines? Do you recall? 16 MR. O'NEILL: I will turn to one of the engineers. 17 I don't - Mr. Edwards, who I introduced earlier as the 18 project manager, indicates that the design pressure of the 19 lines is 150 pounds. 20 MR. LAM: So you do have a significant margin 21 there? 22 MR. O'NEILL: Absolutely. Again, this line is 23 essentially open to atmospheric pressure with just a pump. 24 MR. LAM: Thank you. 25 MR. BOLLWERK: All right. Anything further from ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
l 146 l 1 the board? Ms. Curran?
) 2 MS. CURRAN: I'm up?
3 MR. BOLLWERK: You're up. I'm sorry, didn't make 4 that clear? Yes, you're up, definitely. 5 MS. CURRAN: There's been a lot of criticism here ) 6 about what Orange County's Contention 3 lacks, so I thought ' 7 it might be helpful to look and see what's there. 8 There is an assertion in this contention, on page . i 9 16, going on to~17, that CP&L's license amendment and 10 application is silent about the storage and preservation of 11 previously completed piping and equipment between December 12 1983, when Unit 2 was cancelled, and the present. Thus, 13 there's no evidence that Criteria 13 and 16 have been 14 satisfied during this period with accompanying records, as 15 specified in Criteria 17. 16 And then the contention goes on to explain'that 17 this is a potential safety issue, because when piping and 18 equipment remain unused for long periods, they can suffer l 19 degradation, which impairs their ability to perform their 20 function. 21 In its response to our contention, the Applicant i 22 ~ concedes on the top of page 42 that the 50.55(a) alternative 23 plan does not describe a program for identifying and 24 remediating potential corrosion and fouling. So, in other 25 words, the criticism in our contention is confirmed, that 1 I) ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034 1 l
l 147 1 this license amendment application does not address the 2 problems caused by'CP&L's failure to conform with these 3 criteria in Appendix B since 1983. 4 The Applicant apparently would dispute our claim 5 that this problem is a safety issue by saying that the worst 6 thing could happen, if there was leakage from these pipes, l i 7 is a drain-down of a few feet. That is a bad thing, but 8 it's not the worst thing. A small continuous leak would 9 allow radioactive water to leak out of the building. The 10 small leak would not be detected because evaporation could 11 mask the lost water. 12 The Brookhaven spent fuel pool is leaking water, 13 and has leaked. water for over a decade. The tritium flow 14 path from the leak has been traced off the plant site. So 15 this isn't a hypothetical problem; this is a problem that's i 16 been demonstrated at another facility. We're raising this 17 today because this argument wasn't made in a license 18 application. We're having to respond to it today. It 19 should have been made in the license application. We 20 responded to was in the-license application. 21 But now that Applicant's saying, well, it doesn't 22 matter whether we do this correctly or not. And, in fact, 23 it does. There's experience at other facilities that shows 24 that this is a significant safety issue. 25 The Applicant also argues that we don't take ( ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, ini, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034.
i 148 1 legitimate issue _with the fact that only a portion of the () 2 welds are going to be inspected. In fact, as much as 3 two-thirds of these welds may not be inspected. That is a 4 significant portion of the welds. The Applicant's claiming, 5 well, it's enough that we're going to do these inspections 6 and we'll " sample the welds." 7 It's our position that, taken in context of a 8 regulatory system that requires documentation for each weld, 9 it is simply not sufficient as an alternative to come in and 10 say, we're going to sample a third of them, and based on 11 that, we're going to extrapolate to the other two-thirds of 12 the weld. That assertion is based on the professional 13 opinion of our experts, that that is a high proportion of 14 welds for which no documentation available, for which no 15 inspection will be carried out. It's sufficient to raise a 16 material factual dispute with the Applicant. 17 MS. CURRAN: I'd just like to point out that in 18 the application, it stated that the remote camera inspection 19 was schedule to occur during the modification of pools C and 20 D, when pool levels are lowered and welds piping blanks are 21 removed. This was in the license amendment application. We 22 presume that meant that that was to occur after the license 23 amendment was issued, and they were preparing to make the 24 changes. 25 Now, the Applicant is saying they're going to make () ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters j l 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 ; Washington, D.C. 20036 i (202) 842-0034 ! i
'i i 149 1 the inspections in May and June, which appears to be a
() 2 concession to us, that it's necessary to do these 3 inspections before this license amendment is issued, to , t 4 provide some information that would provide a basis for a 5 decision on whether the inspections can be used to 6 extrapolate to the other welds. 7 But, we're raised a significant dispute about this 8 here, and the fact that the Applicant is now going to go in ; 9 and try to provide that information, more information, ! 10 before the license is issued, doesn't undermine our claim. l 11 It supports our claim that more is needed here before the 12 NRC should be signing off on this license amendment. , 13 Mr. O'Neill also argues that the water in the 14 pipes was demineralized. We're curious how CP&L can be so 15 sure of what the conditions were in those pipes over a 16 period of 15 years. There's certainly nothing in the 17 license application that indicates that anyone was paying 18 attention to what was going on in those pipes. 19 This latest technical report that's been passed 20 out to us today doesn't - first of all, it's getting into 21 the merits of this contention. What is the quality of the 22 water in these pipes? We've certainly raised enough 23 information to create an admissible issue. 24 If the Applicant wants to come in and present 25 evidence that our concern has been resolved, well great, () ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
150 1 let's do that in the context of an evidentiary hearing. But () 2 this isn't a basis for rejecting our contention; it supports 3 the existence of material dispute with the Applicant. It 4 also provides no information about what was happening in 5 these pipes ten years ago or fifteen years ago. It's a 6 snapshot that was taken recently. This doesn't provide any 7 basis for saying that the conditions in these pipes were 8 basically those of distilled water for the last fifteen 9 years. 10 I would note that on the second page towards the 11 end of this report, the report states that the lines have 12 been reportedly flooded for an extended period of time. 13 It's not said what's the cause, what was the source of that 14 flooding. But certainly the water in the pipes may have () 15 varied over a period of time and it's not legitimate to 16 throw out our contention based on this snapshot. 17 MS. CURRAN: Also, the pipes may not have been 18 completely flooded, so that you could have combinations of 19 air and water that would lead to microbiologically induced 20 corrosion. So, there are questions raised about this. This 21 document doesn't resolve or undermine our concerns; it just 22 raises questions. 23 That's all I have. 24 MR. BOLLWERK: All right. At this point, why 25 don't we go ahead and take a - I'm sorry, are there any [
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151 1 questions from any of the Board members to Ms. Curran? () I 2 apologize. No? At this point -- l 3 MR. O'NEILL: Mr. Chairman, could I just respond 4 to the leaking pipes a second? 5 MR. BOLLWERK: All right, but again, Ms. Curran 6 has -- 7 MR. O'NEILL: I understand, but this'll only tske 8 a second, and again, a picture helps. 9 I have no idea how Brookhaven is Get up, but if 10 you have a leak somewhere in the piping -- 11 MR. BOLLWERK: John? 12 MR. O'NEILL: -- if you look at this Exhibit 2. 13 You look at Exhibit 2 and leak in the piping. If you look 14 at the very bottom, sort of the basement, or - from back in 15 my Navy days - in the bilge, is where anything would collect 16 that would leak.out of any place. And that system collects 17 any water and sends it to waste processing. It just doesn't 18 leak out of the building. 19 With respect to the water in the piping, where did 20 that water come from? It came either from the C & D pool or 21 from the transfer canal, which has been at all times filled, 22 and connects all the pools together -- demineralized water 23 that is treated with chemicals and, of course, at least 24 2,000 ppm boron, and which is sampled on a regular basis . 25 So it's pretty clear what water was in there, simply because ./~T-( / ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
l 152 l 1 there's no other water that could get in there.
) 2 That's all I have.
3 MR. BOLLWERK: All right. Ms. Curran, anything 4 further? 5 MR. LOCHBAUM: Could I, just for simplicity, 6 answer to -- 7 MR. BOLLWERK: -- back also so we can hear you, 8 and the court reporter as well. 9 MR. LOCHBAUM: Part of the application stated, or 10 some of the testimony today stated that some of the welds 11 and some of the piping had been subjected to hydros. Unless 12 the applicant shows that that hydro was done with this demin 13 water and boron water, then it could have been any kind of 14 water - not any kind of water, but that could have been 15 different water than is in there now. And there's no 16 evidence, or there's been no evidence suggested or provided 17 that indicates that that water was drained out of this 18 piping. 19 The sampling that's done lately could be the 20 leakage past those places in the last few months, years, but 21 it doesn't mean that that was the same condition of the 22~ water ten, fifteen years ago. So, it is a good point, if 23 you're arguing in recent times, what's the condition of that 24 water been? But it is by no means conclusive over all time 25 that that piping was there. () ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
I l i 153 1 MR. BOLLWERK: All right. Anything further? 1 l 2 MR. O'NEILL: No. 3 MR. BOLLWERK: Why don't we go ahead then and take 4 a ten-minute break at this point. We'll return at five 'til 5 four and move to the environmental contentions. 6 [ Recess.] 7 MR. BOLLWERK: Why don't we go ahead and start in again, 8 please. If everybody could take a seat. 9 MR. BOLLWERK: I believe that brings us to the end 10 of the technical contentions and leaves us with a set of 11 environmental contentions. There was a development in the 12 course of this that, I think, raises a question about how 13 many of those are left or what exactly the status of them 14 is, so maybe, I'll let you address that if you'd like to say 15 something about it, Ms. Curran. 16 MS. CURRAN: Yeah. It seems like there's just a 17 couple issues here. One is what to do with our 18 environmental contentions now that the Staff has decided to 19 prepare an environmental assessment. We don't dispute that 20 we need to wait until the environmental assessment comes out 21 to raise NEPA issues. We'd be content to just hold the NEPA 22 issues in abeyance until that happens. 23 I know this issue came up in_the Vermont Yankee 24 case, I think, where, if the Board were to deny our safety 25 contentions - all of them - and we didn't have an ongoing ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
(_ 154 1 case, then the question is, would it be appropriate to ()
,,~
2 dismiss this case? And then, if the Board dismissed it, 3 what would happen when the EA came out? Would there be 4 another notice of opportunity for a hearing? Would Orange 5 County have to move to reopen the record? 6 Our biggest concern is that -- 7 MR. BOLLWERK: You'd file an intervention 8 petition. 9 MS. CURRAN: Right. That's right. Well - yeah, 10 but -- 11 MR. BOLLWERK: I mean, in theory, anyone can come 12 in at any time and file an intervention petition. They just 13 have to meet the late filing requirements, which would then 14 proceed from there. So, that's it. (~~\ (_) 15 MS. CURRAN: Right. We just wouldn't want to be 16 in the position of moving to reopen the record, which I ) I 17 guess wouldn't have opened at that point. 18 MR. BOLLWERK: I mean, we could argue about it. I ; i 19 don't want to speak out of turn here, but arguably if we'd I 20 never gone to the merits on anything, there's no " record" to l 21 reopen, on theory. l 22 MS. CURRAN: Right. 23 There are two contentions for which the Applicant 24 has asked for different relief. One is Contention 6, in 25 which we assert that the scope of the environmental (n ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
155 1 assessment or environmental analysis should also cover the () 2 Brunswick and Robinson plants. And the other is Contention 3 8, in which we ask for a discretionary EIS. 4 As long as we're going to postpone the other 5 environmental contentions, it would be our preference to 6 postpone these as well, although if the board would like to j 7 address these issues, we'd be willing. 8 We would like to get some guidance from the Board 9 on the proper procedure for raising this issue of the 10 requirement for a discretionary EIS. It's the Applicant's 11 position that we should be going to the Commissioners with 12 this, that we're - it really doesn't matter to us whether we 13' start with the Licensing Board or whether we go straight to 14 the Commission. We'd just like some guidance from the Board O
\ ,/ 15 as to whether the Board would like us to present you with 16 this contention first, or whether you would like us to 17 bypass the Board and go straight to the Commissioners.
18 MR. BOLLWERK: I guess I can put it - the l 19 contention is before us, and it strikes me that as long as 20 it's here, we have to deal with it one way or another. Now, 21 the fact that it's here - I mean, you know where the 22 Commission lives as well, and I'm not going to try to tell 23 you what to do or not to do with the Commission. 24_ .I guess, I feel that any contention that's before 25 us, we need to deal with in some way or another. So, I'm ~r ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
156 1 not going to tell you to go to the Commission. We'll tell 2 you that we'll deal that we will deal with the contentions 3 before us and rule on it. And if, as the Staff has argued, 4 and I think, that CP&L has argued, that we have no 5 discretion to - this is a discretionary staff function, 6 which we cannot be involved with, then obviously we'd have 7 to dismiss the contention on that basis. 8 MS. CURRAN: I guess my concern would be that if 9 you dismiss the contention as premature, and we didn't get 10 any guidance as to whether it was appropriately before the 11 Board, then it would just, we'd just -- 12 MR. BOLLWERK: Well, there is an argument out 13 there that's been made that, in fact, it's not properly 14 before the Board, and I. guess it's up to us to rule on that. 15 And I'm not prepared to do it today. And I guess I'm not 16 answering your question, but that's probably the best l 17 guidance I can give you at this point. If you want to make 18 some arguments with respect to why you don't agree with the 19 staff on the CP&L position, now would be the time to do 20 that, I would guess. That would be the guidance'I would 21 give you. l 22 MS. CURRAN: I really don't - it's not a matter of 23 - we want to get the issue before the Commission through the l 24 appropriate channels. i 25- MR. BOLLWERK: Right. O ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
l 157 l 1 MS. CURRAN: And we've always assumed that the ( 2 -place to start with anything like that-is at the Licensing 3 Board. 4 MR. BOLLWERK: I would also say, I'm not trying to 5 drum up business for the Commission either. 6 [ Laughter.) 7 MR. BOLLWERK: It's really - don't write them a 8 letter that we told you to come therc. That's not what I'm 9 . telling you that we have an issue before, which raises a 10 question, do we h&ve the authority to order the Staff to do 11 a' discretionary EIS. And we'll deal'with that if it's 12 before us. And if you have an argument - I'll repeat, if 13 you have arguments you want to make in response to the 14 arguments that have been made, now would be the time to do 15 that. 16 MS. CURRAN: Well, just before we go on, as we 17 said before, we think it's appropriate to hold all of the 18 NEPA contentions in abeyance or to dismiss them without 19 prejudice, pending the filing of an environmental 20 assessment. But there is a request from the Licnesing Board 21 pending, to dismiss Contention 6 with prejudice. 22 MR. BOLLWERK: Okay. 23
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MS. CURRAN: So, we.would oppose that motion -- 24 MR. BOLLWERK: All right. 25 MS. CURRAN: -- on several grounds. First of all, ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
1 158 1 the applicant basically says that this, the issue we raise, () 2 which is whether Brunswick and Robinson should also be l 3 within the scope of this environmental assessment, has ! l 4 already been addressed by the Commission or by the Appeal 5 Board and the Licensing Board in VEPCO North Anna case. l 6 We would submit that that case is different in one 7 very significant respect. And that is, both the Licensing 8 Board and the Appeal Board recognized in North Anna that in 9 the proceeding for the expansion of the spent fuel pool in 10 that case, the Intervenor did not file a contention 11 objecting on the merits, either technical or environmental, 12 to the spent fuel modification, spent fuel pool l 13 modification. That's on page 1200 of the Licensing Board l 14 Decision, and it said twice on page.1454 of the Appeal Board 15 decision. l 16 And that's very distinct from the case here, where 17 Orange County has objected on technical and environmental 18 grounds, to the adequacy of the safety provisions and to the 19 environmental risks to the spent fuel pool at Harris. So we 20 would submit that that case is not controlling here. 21 We would also submit that it is a factual issue 22~ here as to whether or not the expansion of the spent fuel 23 pool at the Harris facility'has independent utility. In the i 24 North Anna case, the Licensee said, well, we have to expand 1 25 the spent fuel pool anyway to accommodate the fuel that I l () 1 ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 ] l (202) 842-0034 )
. . . . . . .. . . . .. l
i 159 1 we're generating in our own plant. ( 2 - Here, the applicant has made it quite clear that 3 the purpose of the spent fuel pool expansion is to 4 accommodate fuel from all three reactors. It's quite a 5 significant expansion of spent fuel storage capacity at 6 Harris. And it's pointedly designed to accommodate the 1 7 spent fuel from all three reactors. 8 This is exactly the type of issue that NEPA is 9 meant to address. NEPA is - Congress was concerned, and the 10 courts are concerned in administering NEPA, about breaking 1 11 up Federal decision making into small parts rather than 12 looking at the integrated whole of what's happening. ; 13 Here, CP&L is proposing to store a great deal of 14 nuclear power plant fuel from several plants at one facility 15 in high-density spent fuel storage racks. The question that 16 needs to be addressed under NEPA - or the questions, more 17 than one, are what are the potential impacts of that spent 18 fuel storage? And, what are the' relative costs and benefits 19 of the proposed alternative in comparison to other 20 alternatives that are available for storing all the fuel 21 that the Applicant proposes to store. 22 In the Vermont Yankee case, which we cite in our 23 contention, the Licensing Board also recognized that there 24 was no independent utility to this spent fuel pool 25 expansion, that it also involved the storing of fuel, that f*h . ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
160 1 it can't be looked at in isolation. It has to be looked at (G) 2 in connection with the storage of the fuel, with the purpose 3 of the license amendment. So we would oppose the 4 Applicant's suggestion that this aspect of our contentions 5 be dismissed with prejudice. { 1 6 Okay. l l 7 MR. BOLLWERK: Anything further on the 8 environmental at this point? All right. Mr. O'Neill? 9 MR. O'NEILL: Yes. The Licensing Board's analysis 10 in the Diablo Canyon case that we cited is precisely on 11 point and correct here, with respect to the disposition of 12 contentions that seek to require an environmental impact 13 statement before an environmental assessment has been l 14 prepared. 15 There, the Board stated that "After the Staff l l 16 issues its EA, and assuming the EA will not call for an EIS, l 17 the Intervenor may submit a late-filed contention calling 18 for an EIS. Such a contention, to be accepted, would have 19 to be based on substantial and significant information 20 indicating why an EIS is called for." 21 There is no procedure to suspend a ruling on these 22 contentions. The contentions are before you. I think the 23 case law is very clear, that they need to be dismissed. 24 And, if - and it may be that they are not - if the 25 Petitioner's dissatisfied, the Petitioner can come back and
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161 1 tell us why at that time. () 2 3 With respect to Contention 6, the decision we submit in the VEPCO North Anna case was not based on whether 4 or not there were technical and environmental issues raised. 5 It was very straightforward. The issue was whether or not 6 the alternate storage at the Surry plant was before the 7 Board there in considering the License Amendment request to 8 expand spent fuel storage at North Anna. The Licensing 9 Board said no. 10 There, there was another proceeding for receipt of 11 fuel from Surry. Here, in this case, many years ago, we 12 litigated -- I litigated - that very issue, whether or not 13 the Harris license should include the authority to receive 14 fuel from Robinson and Brunswick We had contentions; we () 15 litigated it; we went up to court. And that was part of the 16 license that was issued. That proceeding's over. That was 17 the opportunity to address those issues. 18 This is a very narrow issue. This case is about a 19 limited amount of fuel that will be stored in Pool C, by the 20 way, one Mbtu with the initial racks installed in pool C. 21 That's all this is about. 22 In the application - and I quickly pulled the 23 briefing paper that is part of the record - the Applicant 24 told the NRC staff that Harris loses full core reserve in 25 the fall of 2001 if this license amendment is not granted. ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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162 1 It is forced to shut down in 2006 if this license amendment () 2 is not granted. 3 There's no question that there's independent 4 utility of this license amendment request, whether or not 5 the company shuts down the Robinson Brunswick plant and 6 never ships fuel again. This is exactly like North Anna and 7 Surry. That case law is controlling, and this contention
-l 8 must be dismissed, not just because it's premature, but l 9 because it's outside the scope of this proceeding.
10 MR. BOLLWERK: All right. Anything further? Ms. l l i 11 Zobler. 12 MS. 70BLER: I think it would be best, with 13 respect to m. nvironmental contentions, that there's some 14 kind of ruling on them, if to dismiss them as premature is l () j 15 moot. That way, when the Staff's EA is issued, the 16 contentions that - if, in fact, are proffered - assuming l l 17 they meet late-filed contention criteria, will be focused on 18 the EA, and we won't sort of contentions springing to life 19 after the fact. So in respect to the question of whether we 20 should rule on the contentions now or wait, I propose that 21 we get some kind of ruling now on the NEPA contentions, to 22 the extent that they may be premature. 23 On Contention 6, I do believe that the VEPCO cases 24 are controlling. In fact, the Appeal Board was very clear, 25 saying that one amendment to expand the spent fuel has ('~ A ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
163 l i 1 nothing to do with the other amendment, which would allow () 2 the receipt and storage from the other facility. The only 3 difference here is that the approval to allow receipt and ; 4 storage was approved some ten, fifteen years ago. 5 Also, the environmental review is going to be ; 6~ dictated by the scope of the proposed action. Here, the I i 7 ! proposed action is the expansion of the spent fuel pool and 8 the placement of pools C and D. So, I support the dismissal 9 of Contention 6, not just because it's premature but on its i 10 merits, for those reasons. . 11 MR. BOLLWERK: All right. I guess I have two 12 questions. The first one is a timing question. Does the-13 Staff have a schedule for the EA yet? i j 14 MS. ZOBLER: We don't have a schedule, Your Honor. () 15 It will be several months from now though. It's not 16 imminent. 17 MR. BOLLWERK: Are we talking about before the 18 fall, or? 19 MS. ZOBLER: No, it would not be before the fall. 20 MR. BOLLWERK: Sometime in the fall perhaps. 21 MS. ZOBLER: Fall, late fall, probably around that 22 time. 23 MR. BOLLWERK: _The second question, just so I'm 24 sure. The authorization that was granted back when the 25 license was granted, I guess, for the Harris plant, did that ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. b/ Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
164 1 authorization contemplat.e a situation like this, where - I () 2 mean, there had to be a separate amendment to expand the 3 spent fuel pools beforo - I'm trying to understand how the, 4 what the authorization was that was granted back then. 5 MS. ZOBLER: Your Honor, if you'll give me a few 6 minutes, I actually have a copy of the Harris -- 7 MR. BOLLWERK: All right, or maybe Mr. O'Neill 8 remembers. 9 MS. ZOBLER: Yes. 10 MR. O'NEILL: I think it's fair to say, Mr. 11 Chairman, that the license is silent on any quantity of 12 spent fuel that could be received. It authorized the 13 licensee to store spent fuel and as much that is shipped 14 from those plants, Brunswick and Robinson, to the Harris 15 facility. 16 The only issue here, of course, is how much room 17 does it have to store it. 18 MR. BOLLWERK: All right. 19 MR. SHON: But it surely is true that if the spent 20 fuel expansion were not permitted, you would be able to ship 21 west f rom Brunswick and -- 22' MR. O'NEILL: In fact, it is also true that you 23 would have to shut down Harris in a relatively short period 24 of time. 25 MR. SHON: I realize that. I realize that, yes. ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
165 1 But Brunswick and Robinson wouldn't ship as much if you () 2 didn't get the license to expand the fuel pool. 3 MR. O'NEILL: That is also true. We're not I 4 denying that. { 5 MR. BOLLWERK: All right. Is there anything i 6 further you want to say on that, Ms. Zobler? 7 MS. ZOBLER: No , Your Honor. I 8 MR. BOLLWERK: All right. Ms. Curran then. 9 MS. CURRAN: Well, fifteen year ago - I guess, was 1 10 it? Is that what you said, John? 11 MR. O'NEILL: The plant started up in 1987. 12 MS. CURRAN: Well, whenever this license amendment 13 was issued to allow the shipment of fuel from Brunswick and 14 Robinson to Harris. I doubt that the issue of how that fuel l I 15 was going to be stored was on the table. Maybe I'm wrong. I 16 MR. O'NEILL: How the fuel will be stored, that 17 came from Robinson and Brunswick to Harris, was clearly on
~18 the table, because it had to be stored in the pools that 19 were, at.that time, licensed exactly they will be stored in 20 C and D. Slightly different racks, but it is certainly --
21 part of the license was to license pools A and B and store 22 Brunswick and Robinson fuel in its pools. 23 MS. CURRAN: But it seems unlikely that the 24 particular high-density storage rack that are being proposed 25 for Shearon Harris today were litigated at that point. The
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166 1 concern that we have here is that there's a proposal to ! () 2 store spent fuel in a very dense configuration in these 3 dense fuel pools, and we've raised questions about the risks 4 of storing fuel in that way. 5 And this is just the type of issue that calls for 6 an examination of what are the risks of'doing it that way 7 and what are the alternatives to doing it that way that 8 might be more cost-effective, that might be more protective 9 of the environment? This is precisely the type of analysis 1 10 that is called for by NEPA. 3 11 And perhaps it doesn't matter what the source of 12 the spent fuel is that is going to be coming to the Harris i 13 plant, but only the fact that Harris has been - this license 14 amendment. application is designed so that Harris can not
) 15 only store the rest of its lifetime inventory of spent fuel, '
16 but also accept spent fuel from other facilities. Wherever 17 that other fuel comes from, it raises the question of 18 whether it wouldn't be better to leave that fuel where it is 19 and put it in dry cast, rather than to ship it to Harris and 20 put it in the high-density racks and subject it to the i 21 accident risks that are unique to those high-density racks. 22 Mr. O'Neill said that this case is only about the i 23 initial storage of spent fuel in pool C. It's my 24 understanding that the license amendment application covers 25 both pools C and D, and it asks for permission to put ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. O- Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 i Washington, D.C. 20036 j (202) 842-0034 .
]
167 1 high-density racks in both pools C and D so that Harris can () 2 3 accept, can put its own fuel in there and accept fuel from other places. 4 Now, maybe Harris, has, CP&L has an initial plan I 5 to put only some of its own fuel in some of those racks, but 6 the license amendment application is for both spent fuel 7 pools and to put racks in both pools. So I'm a bit confused l 8 by his statement about what this case is about. l k 9 MR. O'NEILL: Mr. Chairman, if I could just j l 10 respond to that, if there's any concern. j l 11 MR. BOLLWERK: Well, wait just a minute. Are you { 1 12 finished on your points on this? Then we'll -- l l 13 MS. CURRAN: Mr. O'Neill also says that Harris loses its full core reserve in 2001, I think, and then by 1 14 j () 15 2006, it would have to shut down. But that - it may be that 1 16 Harris could get away with less dense fuel racks, if it were
)
17 only to address its own needs. It probably could add 18 another low-density fuel rack or two and, and fulfill all of 19 its spent fuel storage needs for the rest of its operating 20 life. l l 21 The question is, why is it necessary to install 22 high-density fuel racks in both of these pools? The reason 23 is so that Harris can accept fuel from other facilities. 24 MR. BOLLWERK: Anything further? 25 MS. CURRAN: No. Mr. O'Neill. ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Os Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
1 168 1 MR. O'NEILL: Just a clarification. Certainly the ( 2 application, license amendment application would allow CP&L 3 to commission pools C and D, and install racks in pools C 4 and D. As CP&L has explained to the Staff, the intent, 5 because of the limitation of one mBtu of heat capacity would 6 only allow a small amount of fuel, relatively, to be placed 7 in - and the place they would put it first is in pool C. 8 As CP&L has explained, both in its application and 9 the public meetings, there would be campaigns in which, as 10 needed, racks would be added. At the time this plant was 11 licensed, the anticipation was that the United States 12 government would begin taking spent fuel not later than 13 1998, which would have obviated the need to expand spent 14 fuel storage at this and most other. plants in the United () 15 States. This situation is one created by the Department of I 16 Energy and all plants have had to respond to it. 17 Certainly, this was not exactly contemplated at 18 the time, but this company and every other licensee, as 19 encouraged by the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, has taken steps 20 to ensure on-site spent fuel storage, including 21 trans-shipment, as indicated in the Nuclear Policy Act of 22 1982. 23 So, there's why we're here today, is because of 24 the Federal Government's failure to take the spent fuel, as 25 it promised in the contract, and as it was directed to in (' ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C, 20036 (202) 842-0034
169 1 legislation () 2 MR. BOLLWERK: All right. I have one other 3 question for the Staff. I l 4 One of the things that's come out of the i 5 environmental assessment is a finding of no significant 6 impact, that's correct? 7 MS. ZOBLER: That's correct. 8 MR. BOLLWERK: Would it be the Staff's intent at 9 this point to issue a draft finding, or would you go to 10 final? 11 MS. ZOBLER: We probably would not go with a 12 draft, probably just issue an EA. I think that's been our 13 practice in the past. 14 MR. BOLLWERK: But the regulations do provide for Ot 15 (,,/ a draft finding of no significant impact? 16 MS. ZOBLER: That's right. 17 MR. BOLLWERK: I'm wondering if that was something 18 you were contemplating in this instance, or that's --? 19 MS. ZOBLER: I don't believe so, Your Honor. 20 MS. CURRAN: I'd like to ask a question about 21 that. 22 MR. BOLLWERK: Is it something -- 23 MS. CURRAN: I'm not sure it's to the Board, but 24 maybe. And that is -- 25 MR. BOLLWERK: Go ahead. , ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
l l 170 l' MS. CURRAN: I'm a little concerned, if this, if 2 this proceeding isn't ongoing, then the County is in a 3- position where the Staff may on some day issue a finding of 1 4 no significant impact and issue this license amendment. And 5 the County's concerned about having adequate notice of that 6 because, as is well'known, we think an environmental impact l 7 statement is necessary and we would oppose the issuance of a ' 8 license until that's done. So I'm concerned about getting 9 adequate notice of that so that we can protect our rights to 10 seek appropriate stays and take appeals. I 11 MS. ZOBLER: What the staff has done in the past, 12 and I'm certainly willing to do it, is to provide copies of 13 the environmental assessment as soon as it's available. 14 MS. CURRAN: But is it correct that when you issue 15 the environmental assessment, it's possible that you'll also 16 be issuing the license amendment? l 17 MS. ZOBLER: In the past, they've been issued 18 close in time. The EA always is issued first, of course. 19 MR. BOLLWERK: All right. Anything further on j 20 environmental issues? 21 All right, any Board questions on the 22' environmental issues? 23 There's one other - then I guess we've concluded 24 the arguments on the questions of standing and the 25 contentions. I just wanted to review briefly with the () ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
171 1 parties a couple of administrative matters. () 2 This proceeding, as you're all aware, I think is 3 subject to Subpart K. On the premise that the Board were to 4 admit a contention, one or more, if anyone is willing to 5 speak to this subject, I'll be glad to hear it. If not, I 6 understand. But there's obviously - any of the parties can 7 invoke Subpart K, and I'm sort of interested in if anyone at 8 this point is inclined to do so, if the Board should decide 9 to admit a admission or contention as appropriate and the 10 County has standing. 11 MR. O'NEILL: In the unlikely event that there's a 12 contention admitted, Mr. Chairman, we would seriously 13 consider Subpart K. 14 MR. BOLLWERK: All right. 15 MR. O'NEILL: But it obviously depends'on what 16 kind of contention and whether we think we can more 17 efficiently dispose of the matter. And it lends itself to a 18 quicker resolution or a full hearing. 19 There are questions as to whether or not, to my 20 knowledge, a full hearing under Subpart K, I believe. 21 MR. BOLLWERK: No, there's been one, actually. 22 Beckhoff did it a number of years ago, and I think it was 23 Vermont Yankee perhaps? 24 MR. O'NEILL: I don't think it went to decision, 25 though. I'm not real sure. [) ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. \-" Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
l 172 1 MR. BOLLWERK: To my recollection, it did go to () 2 hearing. But I could be wrong. 3 MR. O'NEILL: In any event, it isn't clear, in all , 4 cases, whether it would be faster. So we would have to make 5 a decision on a case-by-case basis. 6 MR. BOLLWERK: So I take it you are seriously l 7 looking at it then. I don't hear anyone saying, I'm 8 absolutely not interested in Subpart K. I'm just trying to 9 get a sense of -- l 10 MR. O'NEILL: We would seriously consider it 11 because the purpose of it, obviously, is to try to 12 accelerate the decision making process. 13 MR. BOLLWERK: One of the provisions in Subpart K 14 talks about discovery in 90_ days. One of the things we've j ' ,O (,,/ 15 been using recently is informal discovery. Would that be 16 something the parties would endorse in part of that period? 17 MR. O'NEILL: If there were -- 18 MR. BOLLWERK: You don't have any feelings about 19 it one way or another. 20 MR. O'NEILL: It isn't clear that that advances 21 the ball, and again, if you had - let's assume they had one 22 contention. It may be just quicker to go ahead and just do 23 it. I'm not sure that informal discovery would advance that 24 in any way. 25' MR. BOLLWERK: All right. O ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
\~/ Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
173 1 MR. O'NEILL: In some cases, there's some question [%)\ 2 as to whether formal discovery and informal discovery simply 3 aren't duplicative, and it stretches it out. But again, it 4 depends on the contentions and whether there are experts on 5 the other side, and whether or not there are documents that 6 we would want or even care about. If there's purely legal 7 contention, you know -- 8 MR. BOLLWERK: I understand. 9 MR. O'NEILL: It doesn't make a lot of sense. 10 MS. CURRAN: My experience with informal discovery 11 has been positive. And I think - I agree with Mr. O'Neill 12 that it would depend somewhat on how many contentions were 13 admitted. Of course, ninety days might not be - depending 14 on how many contentions were in, if.one did informal s ! 15 discovery it might not be sufficient. But in my experience 16 it has been a way to cut through a lot of formality and get 17 to the issues, get the experts together to discuss some 18 things. And I think it could be useful in this case. 19 MR. BOLLWERK: All right. I don't hear a no from 20 you then. I hear you're willing to consider it; you're not 21 as positive on it, but you're not rejecting out of hand any 22 -- 23 MS. ZOBLER: I really don't have an opinion either 24 way, Your Honor. I would support whatever. 25 MR. BOLLWERK: I mean, you make a point, Ms. / % ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. 5-s/ Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
174 1 Curran. Maybe it will be, if it's very document-sensitive - () 2 and by that I mean there are a large number of documents 3 we're talking about - I think that's one of the places where 4 it seems -- at least in my experience, it helps a lot. 5 MS. CURRAN: Right. 6 MR. BOLLWERK: That the document dumps, if would 7 prefer, are done informally, rather than exchanging a lot of 8 paperwork. 9 MS. CURRAN: And with people sitting down and 10 explaining to each other what they mean, sometimes you can 11 very quickly get to the bottom of something and figure out 12 whether you really have a dispute. 13 MR. BOLLWERK: All right. We'll look at that at 14 the time then.
) 15 The other thing it talks about is a written 16 summary. And I guess at this point it's really too early to 17 talk about how much time the parties would need to look 18 into, to prepare something like that, given we don't really 19 know what, if any, contentions are going to be admitted.
20 MS. CURRAN: What regulation are you referring to? 21 MR. BOLLWERK: Subpart K. If you look at 2.1113, 22 it talks about parties putting together a written summary. 23 The Board then looks at it and decides whether it can 24 dispose of it, or there are some issues that need to go to 25 an adjudicatory hearing. O ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. CourL Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
175 1 That would be something the parties would have to () 2 do, obviously, and there would be a period of time you'd be 3 able to prepare that. But, you're point that it may be 4 premature to talk about those kinds of dates is probably the 5 correct one. 6 All right. Other than that, I always believe it's 7 appropriate - I think my colleagues agree with me - to raise 8 the question of settlement. Is there anything you can, 9 will, or are thinking about settling, feel free to talk to 10 each other about it obviously. I think especially at this 11 point in the proceeding, it sometimes is difficult but not 12 necessarily fruitless. It has happened in the past that the 13 parties, after they've talked a little bit, have been able 14 to narrow things if nothing else. 15 As always, if we can help you, or if it would be 16 appropriate or useful, have a settlement judge appointed. 17 We can find someone on the panel, Licensing Board panel who 18 can help you in that respect. So, I open that possibility 19 to you. I want to make sure I mention it and ask you to 20 think about it. And if you think it would be appropriate, 21 you could talk a little bit about something like that in 22 terms of some of the contentions or issues. I would 23 encourage you to do so. All right? 24 Anything my colleagues. 25 MR. SHON: Nothing. (n) ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
176 1 MR. LAM: No. () 2 MR. BOLLWERK: All right. Anything that the 3 parties want to bring to the attention of the Board at this 4 time? 5 [No Response.] 6 MR. BOLLWERK: Then the questions of the arguments 7 on the contentions and the standing are submitted. Again, I 8 would appreciate all the efforts of counsel in terms of the ! 9 documentation you provided, also the arguments. We found 10 them very helpful, useful. And my thanks again to both the 11 administrative folks from Orange County and also the 12 Sheriff's Department for the help that they gave us in 13 scheduling this proceeding today. 14 And if there's nothing else, then we stand 15 adjourned. Thank you. 16 (Whereupon, at 4:27 p.m., the prehearing 17 conference was recessed, to reconvene at 9:30 a.m., Friday, 18 May 14, 1999.] 19 20 21 22' 23 24 25 O, ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
REPORTER'S CERTIFICATE This is to certify that the attached proceedings () before the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission in the matter of: NAME OF PROCEEDING: PREHEARING CONFERENCE CAROLINA POWER AND LIGHT COMPANY l CASE NUMBER: 50-400-LA 99-762-02-LA PLACE OF PROCEEDING: Chapel Hill, NC were held as herein appears, and that this is the original () transcript thereof for the file of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission taken by me and thereafter reduced to typewriting by me or under the direction of the court reporting company, and that the transcript is a true and accurate record of the foregoing proceedings.
, M J Hundley Official Reporter Ann Riley & Associates, Ltd,
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WASHINGTON, D.C. m0001 O April 29, 1999 Mr. James Scarola, Vice President Shearon Harris Nuclear Power Plant Carolina Power & Light Company Post Office Box 165, Mail Code: Zone 1 New Hill, North Carolina 27562-0165
SUBJECT:
REQUEST FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION REGARDING AMENDMENT REQUEST TO INCREASE FUEL STORAGE CAPACITY- SHEARON HARRIS NUCLEAR POWER PLANT (TAC NO. MA4432)
Dear Mr. Scarola:
1 By letter dated December 23,1998, you requested a license amendment to revise Shearon ' Harris Nuclear Power Plant Technical Specification (TS) 5.6, " Fuel Storage," to increase the spent fuel storage capacity by adding rack modules to pools 'C' and 'D.' l During the course of its review, the NRC staff has determined that additional information is necessary to complete its review. The enclosed request for additionalinformation was discussed with your Licensing staff on April 29,1999. A mutually agreeable target date of June 30,1999, for your response was established. If circumstances result in the need to revise Q V the target date, please call me at the earliest opportunity. Sincerely, Richard J. Laufer, Project Manager, Section 2 Project Directorate 11 Diviolon of Licensing Project Management Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation Docket No. 50-400 '
Enclosure:
As stated cc w/ encl: See next page O D w ye. G a nty L e.,.
2 REQUEST FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION 1. Although the bumup criteria for storage in Pools C or D will be implemented by administrative procedures to ensure verified bumup prior to fuel transfer into these pools, ! an administrative failure should be assumed and evaluation of a fuel assembly mistoading event (i.e., a fresh pressurized-water reactor (PWR) assembly inadvertently placed in a location restricted to a bumed assembly as per Technical Specifications (TS) Figure 5.6.1) should be analyzed.
- 2. How will the burnup requirements needed to meet TS Figure 5.6.1 be ascertained for fuel assemblies shipped from other PWR plants (Robinson)?
3. The fuel enrichment tolerance is specified in Section 4.5.2.5 as +0.0/-0.05. Why isn't a positive tolerance of +0.05 assumed (i.e.,5.0+0.05 weight percent U-235)?
- 4. Justify that the allowance that was assumed for possible differences between the fuel vendor and the Holtec calculations is sufficient to also encompass bumup calculational uncertainties. '
- 5. The summary of criticality safety calculations shown in Tables 4.2.1 and 4.2.2 indicates that the total uncertainty is a statistical combination of the manufacturing tolerances but do not indicate methodology biases and uncertainties. Were these included?
I l O Enclosure ! l
Mr. Jam:s Scarola Shuron Harris Nuclaar Pow:r Plant Carolina Power & Light Company Unit 1 O '" Mr. William D. Johnson Vice President and Corporate Secretary Director of Site O Carolina Power & Li ht Company Carolina Power &perations Li ht Compan Post Office Box 155k Raleigh, North Carolina 27602 Shearon Harris Nuefear Power Nant Post Office Box 165, MC: Zone 1 Resident inspector / Harris NPS New Hill, North Carolina 27562-0165 clo U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Mr. Robert P. Gruber 5421 Shearon Harris Road Executive Director New Hill, North Carolina 27562-9998 Public Staff NCUC Ms. Karen E. Long Post Office Box 29520 Raleigh, North Carolina 27626 - Assistant Attomey General State of North Carolina Post Office Box 629 Chairman of the North Carolina Raleigh, North Carolina 27602 Utilities Commission - Post Office Box 29510 ! Raleigh, North Carolina 27626-0510 ! Pubnc Service Commission State of South Carolina i Post Office Drawer Columbia, South Carolina 29211 Mr. Vemon Malone, Chairman Board of County Commissioners of Wake County Mr. Mel Fry, Director P. O. Box 550 Raleigh, North Carolina 27602 Division of Radiation Protection r N.C. Department of Environment b and Natural Resources 3825 Barrett Dr. Mr. Richard H. Givens, Chairman Raleigh, North Carolina 27609-7721 Board of County Commissioners
- i of Chatham County P. O. Box 87 ;
Mr. Terry C. Morton Pittsboro, North Carolina 27312 Manager Performance Evaluation and Ms. Donna B. Alexander, Manager Regulatory Affairs CPB 9 - Regulatory Affairs Carolina Power & Light Company Carolina Power & Light Company Post Office Box 1551 Raleigh, North Carolina 27602-1551 Shearon Harris Nuclear Power Plant P.O. Box 165, Mail Zone 1 New Hill, NC 27562-0165 Mr. Bo Clark Plant General Man r- Harris Plant Mr. Johnn H. Eads, Supervisor Carolina Power & Li ht Company Licensin egulato Programs Shearon Harris Nuc ar PowerPlant Carolina wer & Li ht Company P.O. Box 165 New Hill, Nor1h Carolina 27562-0165 Shearon Harris'Nuc ar Power Plant P. O. Box 165, Mail Zone 1 New Hill, NC 27562-0165 Mr. John H. O'Neill, Jr. Shaw Pittman, Potts & Trowbridge Ms. Diane Curran 2300 N Street, NW. ' Washington, DC 20037-1128 Harmon, Curran, Spielberg, and Eisenberg, L.L.P. 1726 M Street NW., Suite 600 Washington, DC 20036 O
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