ML20207Q355
| ML20207Q355 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Seabrook  |
| Issue date: | 01/21/1987 |
| From: | Hart G AFFILIATION NOT ASSIGNED |
| To: | NRC COMMISSION (OCM) |
| References | |
| CON-#187-2283, CON-#187-2472 OL-1, NUDOCS 8701270206 | |
| Download: ML20207Q355 (16) | |
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'87 Jm 21 P4 :59 January.21, 1987 UNITED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION BEFORE THE COMMISSION
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In the matter of
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Public Service Company of
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New Hampshire, st. al.
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Docket Nos. 50-443 OL-1
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50-444 OL-1 (Seabrook Station, Units 1 & 2)
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ONSITE EMERGENCY
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PLANNING AND TECHICAL
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ISSUES FORMER SENATOR GARY HART'S BRIEF IN SUPPORT OF THE CONTINUED REQUIREMENT OF RADIOLOGICAL EMERGENCY RESPONSE PLANS AS A PRECONDITION FOR LICENSING A NUCLEAR POWER PLANT e
Introduction As a former United Statea Senator and former chairman of the Nuclear Regulation Subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works (and subsequently ranking minority member of that subcommittee), I have closely followed the proceedings relating to the license application cited above or the Commission dockets captioned above.
While I have not sought any formal voice in those proceedings before, I understand the full Commission has now resolved to determine, at the full Commission level, whether emergency response plans (state, local or utility plans) should, as a matter of law or policy, be required as a precondition of licensing.
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The review of this central issue by the full Commission is an event with potentially great significance for this particular license and for many others.
I wish to recommend three issues to the attention of the full Commission in the course of its review.
Each suppo'rts the conclusion that the commission should require emergency plans to be effectively in place before issuing an operating license for this or any other nuclear power facility.
The issues I wish to raise are three.
First, the regulation under review was preceded by Senate consideration of a stronger requirement (which included all existing licenses as well as prospective licenses), and that both the Senate and the House of Representatives took full cognizance of the new-licensee requirement's potential ramifications before approving it in the 96th Congress.
Second, Congress did not require state and local participation im emergency planning on the assumption that only these authorities could devise workable plans.
It required their participation because it was loathe to creat' a federal role in civil defense planning and because state and local cooperation was clearly essential if any plan, from any source was to provide " reasonable assurance" to the public.
. ~ ' Third, the commission should bear in mind while conside-ring any change in current safeguards, including this emergency planning requirment, that a radiological emergency need not be the result of a freak accident.
A major radiation emergency might also result from deliberate acts.
Araumont i
I.
Eight years ago, I assumed the chairmanship of the Nuclear Regulation Subcommittee.
In March of that year, Three Mile Island gave us our first serious mishap at a nuclear power facility in the United States.
As our subcommittee's investigat-ion and the other investigations began, we were appalled to learn that the State of Pennsylvania had no plans for assisting the public within the potential reach of a radiation release.
The state'had no plans to evacuate these residents, no plan for disseminating information, no plans for preventing or quelling a panic as news of the plant's difficulties spread.
So I introduced an amendment to the 1980 NRC Authorization Bill.
My amendment, which was adopted in the full Environment and Public Works Committee, specified that a state-and-local emergency plan be required of all nuclear power licenses.
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0 When I brought the NRC authorization for fiscal year 1980 to the Senate floor, Senator Alan Simpson (R-Wyoming) and I stood shoulder to shoulder.
Although he generally has had a sympathetic ear for the voices of the nuclear power enterprise in this country, Simpson was willing to bear their displeasure in this case rather than see plants go on line without adequate emergency planning as a pre-requisite.
I have heard it alleged that Congress passed the first real requirement for emergency prepardness in the EPZ with one eye on TMI and the other eye closed.
I have even heard that the emergency plan requirement was such a small item that it received no serious debate -- that there were bigger fish to fry in the Senate at that time, including some within the bill itself.
Reference to the Congressional Record for July 16 of 1979 clearly dispels these notions.
Senator Jennings Randolph of West Virginia, then the chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, set the tone by noting:
Under existing law, there is no requirement that an acceptable state plan be in place before the NRC licenses a new nuclear generating facility.
At this time, only 12 states have voluntarily secured the Commission's concurrence in their emergency plans. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is only one among 16 States where nuclear facilities are licensed to operate without such a plan.
[ Congressional Record, July 16,
- 1979,
- p. S 9471) i
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- 1-j Senator Bennett Johnston of Louisiana immediately attempted l
j to soften the Hart-Simpson measure by proposing that state plans 4.
be required, with the NRC empowered to substitute its own plan if a state should fail to meet the requirement.
Said Johnston:
i Mr. President, I believe in States' rights, and that is j-why under,this amendment it is the responsibility of the State to come up with its initial plan.
However, I J
know that there are some Governors in this country who do not want nuclear plants to operate within their i
States.
[...]
It is not the duty, the right, of a Governor of one State to stand in the way of that nuclear license to operate l
-- any Governor, including the governor of California, I
who has already made it clear he is not going to allow nuclear plants... I do not believe that the Governor ought to have that power.
Hence, under this amendment, should he fail to submit a plan, should he fail to make
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a good faith effort...then under my amendment, the NRC 1
i submits the plan and puts it into effect.
(p. 9472-3]
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Senator Simpson and I both rejected this as an intrusion of i
l federal authority on civil defense preparedness, an area of i
responsibility long reserved to state and local authority.
As Senator Simpson put it:
t "To propose that Congress now authorize the NRC to invade an area of traditional State authority in i
providing for the planning of the evacuation and sheltering of its citizens during times of natural or l
man-made disaster is against my sense of inherent
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distinction between State and Federal Governments...
t "I think here the power to even develop...the Federal interim plan on behalf of a sovereign State for responding to an emergency is just too extreme a i
measure for me..."
(p. 9473]
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. In my own remarks, I also observed the unprecedented nature of the power Senator Johnston contemplated giving to the NRC.
And I asked whether we had learned anything from the accident at Three Mile Island:
I learned that we should not have reactors operating in this country...that do not have fundamental plans made to accommodate an accident and to protect the lives, the safety, and the health of the people in the area.
That is a fundamental issue.
(p. 9476)
The issue of requiring emergency plans from the active participant level, and not from a federal agency, was not only discussed that day.
It was also voted upon and rejected.
But if the discussion and defeat of that had not been enough to establish the Senate's awareness of the issue and its will regarding that issue, we would still have two other amendments --
offered that same day by Senators James McClure of Idaho and John Glenn of Ohio -- which further demonstrate the Senate's awareness and will.
Senator Glenn's amendment gave utilities and states more time in which to comply with the planning requirement.
It also allowed for the NRC to take interim measures to keep a plant running even if it had failed to meet the requirement.
This amendment was modified on the floor, where Senator Glenn agreed that his amendment should apply only to existing licensees.
. With that modification, among others, the Glenn amendment was accepted without a roll call vote.
The McClure amendment, however, was the subject of a lively debate as to how and whether it differed from the Johnston amendment -- which it closely resembled.
In the end, the McClure amendment was the subject of two votes and failed both times.
The amendment offered by myself and Senator Simpson was then adopted on a vote of 64 to 19.
I am fully aware that this amendment encountered further controversy in the House-Senate conference Committee on the FY 1980 Authorization, which was not concluded until late spring of the following year.
But the essential status of emergency planning by states, localities and utilitios -- with the federal role limited to review and approval -- was retained as a precondition for the licensing of agw plants.
The conference report further stated:
The conferees intend that ultimately every nuclear power pwill have applicable to it a state emergency response plan that provides reasonable assurance that the public health and safety will not be endangered in the event of an emergency at such plant requiring protective action. [96th Congress, 2nd Session, House of Representatives, No.
96-1070, p.28]
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, The Congressional intent embodied in this 1980 authorization was acted upon by the Commission, which had been independently reviewing policies in the aftermath of the Three Mile Island accident.
As John F. Ahearne, then NRC chairman, told the Environment Committee in February of 1981:
As a result of the accident at TMI, NRC concluded that the protection provided by siting and engineered safety design features must be supplemented by the ability to take protective measures during the course of an accident.
In mid-1979, the NRC began a formal reconsideration of the role of emergency planning for ensuring protection of the public in areas surrounding nuclear plants...
The final rule was published in August of 1980.
The rule requires an emergency plan that will assure proper einergency response organization, accurate assessment of an accident's potential severity, ability to activate an emergency response team, prompt and effective notice to responsible government officials, capability to provide prompt and effective notice to the general public and adequate emergency facilities, equipment and training.
New operating licenses will not be granted unless the NRC finds that the integration of onsite and effsite emergency planning provides reasonable assurance that adequate protective measures can be i
taken in the event of a radiological emergency.
The final rule also requires that emergency planning considerations must be extended to Emergency Planning Zones, and those shall consist of an area of about 10 miles in radius for exposure to a radioactive plume...
and of about 50 miles in radius for food that might become contaminated.
(Hearing Record, February 26, 1981, Senate Commitee on Environment and Public Works)
The spirit of the Hart-Simpson amendment adopted back in July of 1979, in the immediate wake of Three Mile Island, was clearly still alive in the adoption of this regulation by the full Commission in August of 1980.
It was also reflected in the published findings and recommendations of the several investigating panels, including the President's Commission and the Subcommittee on Nuclear Regulation.
II.
In recent months, faced with state authorities (specifically Governors) and local authorities (including town meetings) averse to participating in emergency response planning, utilities have argued that such authorities may be assumed to be more prepared than these authorities are willing to attest.
Public officials have a sworn duty to protect the public health and safety, and it is argued that they will respond to this duty in the event of a radiological emergency -- just as they would in time of flood or other natural disaster.
This argument has a certain plausibility.
However, it remains fundamentally speculative.
The language of the 1980 authorization, of subsequent revisions in subsequent authorization acts and of the 1980 NRC regulation repeatedly relies on the term " reasonable assurance."
Thus, for example, the Conference Report from 1980 allows the NRC to license a new plant even if the plant's plan does not meet all current guidelines -
"(...]
if the NRC determines that a State, local or utility plan provides reasonable assurance that public health and safety is not endangered by operation of the facility."
In the July, 1.979 Senate floor debata, a precursor of this argument was offered by Senator Johnston, who suggested the NRC could instruct the states in carrying out an emergency response and the states and localities would execute that plan to the best of their ability.
My response then was:
"What happens if the Federal Government imposes a plan on a State which might not have the resources to carry that plan out?
What guarantee does the Senator from Louisiana have that a plan imposed on a State can be implemented?"
Disseminating information, preventing panic and managing a massive evacuation are difficult tasks under the best of circumstances.
In a radiological emergency, many thousands of people will be uncertain whether to stay at home or evacuate.
We will exacerbate that uncertainty by relying on authorities to execute an unfamiliar plan -- a plan they have refused to t
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4 participate in preparing.
If we rely on this scenario, we do not meet the test of " reasonable assurance."
III.
Before the Three Mile Island experience, the NRC, the Congress and the general public enjoyed a relatively higher level of confidence in the safety of nuclear power.
As a l
result, fewer States felt a strong public mandate to develop radiological emergency response plans.
Three Mile Island, and the legislative and regulatory changes it spurred, heightened the l
States' level of consciousness.
I In 1986, this process was carried to a new level by the far more serious accident at Chernobyl in the Soviet Union.
At l
Chernobyl, total evacuation was carried out to a distance of 30 kilometers (about 18 miles) and involved approximately 135,000 residents.
Nonetheless, Soviet scientists estimate that 50,000 l
to 100,000 Russian citizens may have received significant doses l
of radiation.
Generations must pass before we know the full
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extent of the damage this accident has caused and will cause.
L j
But while our sense of the real danger present in this technology has grown, most everyone continues to conceive of radiological emergencies almost exclusively as inadvertent events.
e Thus, even the most ardent critics of the nuclear power industry must portray the probability of such an emergency as remote.
The probability of a serious incident is even more remote when we focus on a single reactor, especially one that is well-designed and recently built (a " state of the art" example).
As a result, we still live with vestigial assumptions from the pre-1979 atmosphere.
If an accident is all but certainly not going to happen, why should we worry excessively about emergency planning?
One reason is that a major radiological release could take place without there being an accident.
It could take place as a result of deliberate action.
Just two months after Chernobyl, the International Task Force on Prevention of Nuclear Terrorism released a report detailing dangers it perceived and prescribing certain preventive measures.
The task force's co-chairmen were Rear Admiral Thomas Davies, USN (Ret.), and Bernard O'Keefe, chairman of the executive committee of EG&G, Inc..
Mr. O'Keefe, formerly of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology was the principal developer of the firing circuits used on the first nuclear weapons.
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l The panel included a former director of the CIA and a
.l former director of nuclear planning for NATO, along with a number i
of eminent scientists and diplomats from around the world.
i In its report; the task force examined not only the possibility of terrorists seizing nuclear weapons (or nuclear materials from which to fashion a bomb)-but also the possibility of raiders seizing and holding h'ostage a nuclear facility such as i
l a nuclear power plant.
The report observed:
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causing or threatening to cause a serious nuclear accident is another potential avenue of nuclear terrorism thaty should be taken seriously.. Indeed, i
i according to data made available to the Task Force, some 155 bombings, other attacks and violent r
i demonstrations have taken oplace at the sites of.
i civil nuclear installations, mostly power reactors in l
Europe and the United States, over the past 20 years.-
None has, caused,a serious accident.
Most hive been the i
work of nuclear protesters and disaffected employees
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rather than terrorists.
Yet, a reactor accident j
brought about by terrorists, even one releasing significa.;t amounts of' radioactivity, is by no means j
implausible and is technically feasible. [ International l
. Task Force on Prevention of Nuclear Terrorism.
Report. June 25, 1986, p.
1)
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i The task force also indicated,that the " probability of nuclear terrorism is increasing,"" and suggested that such an i
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event could have grave consequences even if its perpetrators were technically unable to carry out their threat.
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A plausible threat or hoax involving a nuclear device or sabotage could have enormous coercive and disruptive results without mass killing or destruction; indeed, we believe this may be the most likely form of nuclear terrorism at this time. (Ibid.)
The task force proceeds to refer to " mass hysteria and social disruption," and to prescribe improvements in " physical protection, intelligence and emergency management."
It also argues that utilities and regulators have tended to overreliance upon the relative impregnability of containment structures at plants in the U.S.
Although they have been built to withstand enormous impact, these structures can be circumvented, the task force suggests, through the involvement of plant insiders.
Invading and "taking over" a commercial reactor in this country would be an extremely difficult undertaking.
But even a brief recitation of previous terrorist feats abroad can be sobering in this regard.
At the very least, the work of the task force should serve to remind those in positions of regulatory responsibility that the range of plausible causes for a radiological emergency is not limited to accidental events.
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m i Conclusion The frustrations experienced by utility-applicants seeking to generate power from long-planned nuclear facilities have recently highlighted the emergency planning requirement.
No one 1
can question the desire of these corporate entities to make E
p
' good on the investment they have made in these facilities. It 4
must also be observed that these corporate entities have received conflicting signals from the public sector over the years as policy in this area has evolved.
Nevertheless, it has been a clearly established policy of the NRC since 1980 that emergency planning within a 10-mile radius be prerequisite to the granting of an operating license.
l This is a policy firmly rooted in the public's legitimate l
need for reasonable assurance that the generation of its
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electricity will not entail unsafe or unhealthy levels of radiological exposure.
Moreover, the nature of human interaction in an emergency requires that those responsible for orderly response be as fully prepared as possible.
It is also necessary that they have the b
fullest possible confidence of the populace.
Neither of these l
h ends is served it rederal authorities choose to assume levels of preparation and confidence they have every reason to doubt.
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4 e Finally, it is no longer prudent to judge the relative need for emergency planning on the basis of statistical projections of the probability of a majer accident.
Deliberate, hostile actions could lead to catastrophe.
And even if accidents were the only theat to the public health and safety, the public is largely persuaded that such accidents can and will happen.
This is the same public that is entitled -- by the clear and recurrent language of the legislative and administrative record on this subject to date -- to a " reasonable assurance" of protection in the event of such a release.
In recognition of this public right to reasonable assurance, it is incumbent upon the Commission to preserve the emergency planning requirement as a precondition to an operating license.
Respec lly submit ed, h,/ WT i
GARY HAR Wa h n on C.
2 bO2 January 21, 1987
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