ML20207L906

Order CLI-87-1.* Order Granting Issuance of Full Power OL to Applicant.Served on 870112

ML20207L906
Person / Time
Site:	Harris
Issue date:	01/09/1987
From:	Chilk S NRC OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY (SECY)
To:	Asselstine J, Roberts T, Zech L NRC COMMISSION (OCM)
References
CON-#187-2143 CLI-87-1, OL, NUDOCS 8701130028
Download: ML20207L906 (7)

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA i:UCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSI0tt 87 JM -9 P4 :43 COMISSIONERS: JFe at Lando W. Zech, Jr. , Chairman Thomas M. Roberts James K. Asselstine Frederick M. Bernthal Kenneth M. Carr EU!iD MM12 N

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CAROLINA POWER & LIGHT COMPANY and NORTH CAROLINA EASTERN Docket No. 50-400 OL MUNICIPAL POWER AGENCY (Shearon Harris Nuclear Power Plant) )

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ORDER CLI-87-1 On April 28, 1986, the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board conducting the operating license adjudicatory proceeding for the Shearon Harris Nuclear Power Plant issued its fourth and final partial initial decision

("PID"). In concluding that decision, the Licensing Board declared that it had resolved all contested issues in favor of applicants Carolina Power and Light Company ("CP&L") and North Carolina Eastern Municipal Power Agency and, accordingly, the Director of Nuclear Reactor Regula-tion ("NRR") was authorized, upon making the findings required under 10 C.F.R. 5 50.57(a), to issue a full power operating license to the applicants. LBP-86-11, 23 NRC 294, 408-09 (1986). Consistent with 10 C.F.R. 5 2.764(f), after conducting a review of those parts of the 8701130028 870109 ~- '2/

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the Licensing Board's decision that have not yet become final under the agency's adjudicatory appellate process and after consideration of intervenors' June 1986 effectiveness coments and the various presentations made at a public meeting on January 8, 1987, the Comission has determined that the Licensing Board's decision should become effective and that the Director, NRR, is authorized to issue a full power operating license.

In four extensive PID's the Licensing Board resolved all contested issues in applicants' favor; each of these decisions subsequently was affirmed by the Atomic Safety and Licensing Appeal Board.1 The Appeal Board deteminations relative to the first, third, and fourth PIDs, after undergoing Commission review in accordance with 10 C.F.R. 5 2.786, have become final. The Appeal Board's December 31, 1986 decision in ALAB-856 affirming the second PID on safety issues currently is before the Commission for review in accordance with section 2.786 and has not yet become final. As a result, the only contested matters pending

before us for our effectiveness review under section 2.764(f) are those issues addressed in the second PID.

' I The first PID concernina environmental issues was issued in i February 1985. LPB-85-5, 21 NRC 410 (1985). It was affinned by the ,

Appeal Board in May 1986. ALAB-837, 23 NRC 525 (1986). A second PID resolving certain safety issues was issued in August 1985, LPB-85-28, 22 NRC 232 (1985); Appeal Board affirmance occurred in December 1986, ALAB-856, 24 NRC (1986). The third PID concerning safety and emergency planning matters was issued in December 1985, LPB-85-49, 22 NRC 899 (1985), and was affirmed by the Appeal Board in August 1986, (1986). The fourth and final PID, which dealt with ALAB-843, 24 NRC contentions concerning drug use at the facility and the adequacy of nighttime emergency notification, was issued in April 1986. LPB-86-11,

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The Licensing Board's second PID principally concerned safety-related contentions involving management competence and hardware matters. Noting that significant management problems had been identified during the Shearon Harris-construction permit proceeding in 1979 and had continued through 1982, the Licensing Board nonetheless concluded there since had been a consistent sustained improvement in applicant CP&L's management performance that effectively relieved any previous concerns about management.2 The Licensing Board also found no basis for intervenor concern about the adequacy of thennoluminescent dosimeters ("TLDs") to protect worker health and safety. According to the Licensing Board, the TLDs used by CP&L and CP&L's quality assurance program for controlling TLD processing errors both are adequate.

Further resolved in CP&L's favor were intervenor challenges to a number of different aspects of the Shearon Harris environmental qualification program. Finally, the Licensing Board found no evidence to support intervenor assertions that concrete was placed inadequately during the construction of the Shearon Harris containment building. The Appeal Board affinned the Licensing Board's determination on all counts.

In effectiveness coments filed June 9,1986, intervenors Wells Eddleman, the Conservation Council of North Carolina, the Chapel Hill f

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23NRC294(1986). The Appeal Board affirmed this decision in October 1986. ALAB-852, 24 NRC (1986).

2 f- Although CP&L and the North Carolina Eastern Municipal Power Agency are both applicants for an operating license for the Shearon Harris facility, CP&L has exclusive responsibility for construction, operation, and maintenance of the plant.

7 g 4 Anti-Nuclear Group Effort, and the Kudzu Alliance raised a number of different issues as asserted grounds for denying immediate effectiveness to the Licensing Board's decisions. Similarly, those intervencrs, along 1

with Richard Wilson, the Coalition for Alternatives to Shearon Harris

(" CASH"), and the North Carolina Attorney General's Office, presented a number of concerns at the Comission's January 8,1987 public meeting that they declared provided grounds for delaying effectiveness and licensing authorization. Only in the June 1986 effectiveness comments was any serious attempt made to address an issue -- the question of management competence -- that was contested in the second PID.

In their June 1986 effectiveness coments, intervenors do not challenge the Licensing Board's substantive conclusions regarding the competence of CP&L's management, but instead attack the integrity of fonner NRC staff member Paul Bemis. Mr. Bemis, who prior to his departure from NRC had principal responsibility for regulatory oversight of the CP&L management improvement program that was instituted to

- correct its management deficiencies, served as the principal NRC staff witness at the hearing on management competence. Intervenors declare that Mr. Bemis' responsibility to "insur[e] that the Applicants were doing better" created a " conflict" that would cause him to overlook utility management shortcomings in order to deliver favorable reports that would boost his standing in the agency. Yet, to reach this conclu-sion, intervenors totally mischaracterize the nature of Mr. Bemis' responsibilities, which were to oversee and report on CP&L's progress, not to " insure" improvement of its performance. Further, even though Mr. Bemis was cross-examined extensively at the hearing by intervenors, I

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we are not aware of, and intervenors have not provided any citation to, any testimony that raises any question about Mr. Bemis' objectivity in his observations of CP&L.

It thus is apparent that this intervenor concern is wholly speculative and does not provide a ground for delay of the effectiveness of the Licensing Board's initial decision authorizing the Director to issue a full power operating license. Moreover, the Comission's review of all other contested issues addressed in the Licensing Board's second PID and the Appeal Board's decision affirming the Licensing Board's conclusions reveals no basis for delaying the effectiveness of the l Licensing Board's decision.3 As to those matters raised in the June 1986 effectiveness comments and the January 1987 presentations that do not involve the contested issues in the second PID, they also fail to provide a basis for delaying effectiveness of the Licensing Board's decision. Many of these concerns

, were resolved previously in the Licensing Board, Appeal Board, or Comission rulings on contested matters (including various motions to admit late contentions or to reopen and the Comission's ruling on the hearing requests relative to app 1'te.ats' request for an exemption from the requirement of a full r..ab euc gency planning drill one year before full power licensing, CLI-80-24, z , NRC (1986)) or in the NRC staff's decision denying a July 2,1986 petition under 10 C.F.R. 5 2.206 3

0ur conclusions regarding the second PID in the context of this effectiveness decision should not bs read to foreclose any petition for review under 10 C.F.R. 5 2.786 of the Appeal Board's decision in ALAB-856. See 10 C.F.R. 5 2.764(g).

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to initiate an enforcement proceeding, DD-86-15, 24 NRC (1986).

Others were addressed fully by the NRC staff, the North Carolina Office of Emergency Management, or applicant CP&L in the presentations at the January 8 meeting. Nonetheless, we do find it appropriate to consnent in some detail on one of these concerns.

Presently pending with the NRC staff is a petition under 10 C.F.R. 5 2.206 to modify, suspend, or revoke the Shearon Harris construction permit. In this petition intervenor Wells Eddleman and CASH contend this enforcement action is appropriate because (1) there are major deficiencies in the applicants' quality assurance ("QA") program with respect to electrical cable and components; (2) two recent complaints brought to the United States Department of Labor by former workers at the Shearon Harris site indicate CP&L lacks the requisite character and technical capability to operate the facility; and, (3) allegations of a confidential informant about falsification of documentation, substitution of materials, improper inspections, and improper construction assertedly show there are additional major deficiencies in the CP&L QA program. Although the NRC staff has not yet issued a written decision relative to these allegations, at the Consnission's public meeting on January 8, 1987, staff representatives described in detail the staff's actions to investigate and ascertain the safety significance of these allegations. At the meeting the staff indicated that, on the basis of its investigations relating to these matters, it had concluded the allegations do not establish any substantial deficiency in applicants' QA program or in its integrity or technical capability that presents a concern about safe facility operations. We

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a find this assessment well supported by the staff's oral explanation of the status of the staff action relative to the pending section 2.206 petition, and thus conclude that the matters raised in the section 2.206 petition do not appear to have substantial safety significance or otherwise provide a basis for delaying full-power license issuance.

Accordingly, for the reasons given above, pursuant to 10 C.F.R. 5 2.764(f)(2), the Comission finds that the Licensing Board's decision resolving all contested issues should become immediately effective and the Director, NRR, is authorized to issue the full power license for the Shearon Harris facility.4 It is so ORDERED.

go For the Commission

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\:*.$lD[E g'> y. T cLLhdB.X SAMUEL J.N HILK

• Secretary of the Comission Dated at Washington, D.C.

this day of m AdOAq ,1987.

4 Less than one hour before the Comission's January 8,1987 meeting, a motion was filed by the Conservation Council of North Carolina, Wells Eddleman, and the Coalition for Alternatives to Shearon Harris requesting the Comission to refrain from making any decision to approve the Director's issuance of a license. Events have rendered that request moot.

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