ML20211A081
| ML20211A081 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Shoreham File:Long Island Lighting Company icon.png |
| Issue date: | 02/13/1987 |
| From: | Frye J, Paris O, Shon F Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel |
| To: | LONG ISLAND LIGHTING CO., NRC OFFICE OF THE GENERAL COUNSEL (OGC), SHOREHAM OPPONENTS COALITION |
| References | |
| CON-#187-2504 86-533-01-OL, 86-533-1-OL, OL-5, NUDOCS 8702190086 | |
| Download: ML20211A081 (9) | |
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DOCKETED USNRC UNITED STATES OF AMERICA NUCLEAR REGULATORY COPNISSION 87 FEB 17 A10:41--
ATOMIC AFETY AND LICENSING BOARD-CFF;J 'J y -
j-Before Administrative Judges C'CC C ""; /-
Nic John H Frye, III,' Chairman Dr. Oscar H. Paris Mr. Frederick J. Shon l
l 1
In the Matter of Docket No. 50-322-OL-5.
(EPExercise)
LONG ISLAND LIGHTING COMPANY (ASLBP No. 86-533-01-OL).
(Shoreham Nuclear Power Station, Unit 1)
February 13, 1987 i
I MEMORANDUM AND ORDER (Memoria11 zing Prehearing Conference)
I, A Prahearing Conference was held on February 10, 1987 in Bethesda, Maryland, to consider outstanding matters and hearing-related items that I
required settlement prior to the opening of the hearing on March 10, 1
I 1987. An agenda for the conference was proposed by counsel for i
Intervenor Suffolk County (Governments' Agenda), Mr. Michael S. Miller, under cover of a February 2, 1987 letter to the Board.
In a February 9, 1987 letter to the Board, which was hand-delivered to the Board at the l
opening of the Prehearing Conference, counsel for Long Island Lighting i
Company (LILCO), Mr. Donald P. Irwin, commented on and expanded some of the agenda items in the Miller letter. Tr. 186. With the parties in substantial agreement with respect to the agenda, the Board followed the 8702190086 870213 PDR ADOCK 05000322 bO L G
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i b; Governments' Agenda in the Prehearing Conference and also dealt with the matters contained in the Irwin letter.
I.
Witness Designations and Depositions A.
Witnesses LILCO, the Governments, and the State of New York (State)'each indicated that all of their witnesses had been designated. Tr. 186-7.
B.
Depositions With the exception of a panel of three State witnesses, depositions of th'e witnesses have been completed. With respect to the three State witnesses, the parties are negotiating a time and place for them to be deposed and expect to reach an agreement. Zahnleuter, Tr.187. Hence no action by the Board is required.
II. Outstanding Matters A.
LILC0's Motion to Compel Governments' Responses to Second Set of Interrogatories (12/04/86)
The Board noted that "LILCO's Motion to Compel Suffolk County, State of New York, and Town of Southampton to Respond to LILCO's Second Set of Interrogatories and Requests for Production of Documents, and Request for Expedited Response and Disposition" filed December 4,1986 (Motion to Compel) was still pending and asked the parties whether depositions had rendered it moot. Tr. 188. The Intervenors took the position that the information that LILC0 had requested had been provided by the witnesses during the course of the depositions. Letsche, Tr.
J
. 188-194 LILC0 argued that there remained many unanswered questions because it had not attempted during the depositions to replicate questions it had asked in the Motion to Compel.
Irwin, Tr. 188-93.
Intervenors responded by stating that many of the questions that they-asked LILCO's witnesses had gone unanswered. Letsche, Tr. 191-2.
The Board introduced a parallel matter not on the agenda, which was to some extent analogous to LILCO's Motion to Compel, viz., the Board's February 3,1987 Memorandum and Order ruling on Intervenors' January 20, 1987 motion to compel, "Suffolk County, State of New York and Town of l
Southampton Motion for Order Compelling LILCO to Respond to Portion of the Governments' Second Set of Interrogatories to LILC0". Although the February 3 Memorandum and Order had denied the Intervenors' motion, the Board noted that it had received on the day the order was issued a filing from Intervenors containing additional argument; the Board i
l indicated that it was inclined to reconsider its February 3 ruling because of the new argument offered by the Intervenors. Tr.194-5.
l LILC0 argued that the countervailing motions to compel should be considered in the context of the need to file testimony at an early date and that discot ery requests should be balanced against the sequence of filing and the completeness of the testimony.
Irwin, Tr. 195-6. The Board agreed to consider the scheduling of testimony next. Tr. 196.
B.
Schedule for Filing and Hearing Testimony LILCO proposed that all testimony be filed simultaneously on Feburary 27, 1987, rather than on a rolling schedule as the parties had I
agreed to do, with the Board's approval, at the prehearing conference on l
January 6, 1987. Tr. 159-63. LILCO argued that a simultaneous filing would tend to contribute to coherence in the testimony and give the Board a better overall sense of the parties's cases.
In addition, LILCO argued that the additional time provided by a rolling schedule would give the lawyers more opportunity to produce verbiage and could invite a propagation of delays. Irwin, Tr. 197-9.
'Intervenors alleged that they simply could not meet a schedule that i
called for simultaneous filing of all testimony. Letsche, Tr. 199.
Further, they saw no reason to rush to file everything at once, so that stacks of paper could sit idle while we litigated the first of the f
issues. Letsche, Tr. 201. Moreover, Intervenors stated that they had already made their plans on the basis of the ruling on January 6 that testimony would be filed on a rolling schedule. Tr. 201-2.
The February 9 Irwin letter prooosed that the testimony be grouped into five categories, which were generally agreed to by the Intervenors.
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Tr. 199. Certain minor changes in the groupings had emerged by the time of the Prehearing Conference. The final groupings agreed upon by the
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parties were:
i 1.
Scope / sampling Contentions: EX 15, 16, 21 2.
Field Worker Contentions: EX 34, 40.A, 40.B. 41 3.
Rad Health / Monitoring Contentions: EX 22.A. 36, 47, 49 i
j (except49.C) 1 l
4.
Public Infonnation Contentions: EX 38, 39, 40.C, 49.C i
1 l
S.
Training Contention: EX 50 Tr. 227.
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- As-to the order in which the groupings would be addressed. -the Intervenors argued that Group 1 should be dealt with first., on the grounds-that the contentions challenging the scope of the exercise would provide a good background for understanding the exercise findings.
Letsche, Tr. 210-211, 225. LILCO noted that the admission of the contentions in Group 1 was the subject of an appeal by FEMA and that l
consequently it was possible that those contentions would have:to be dropped. Irwin, Tr. 211. Because of that, the NRC Staff favored i
leaving Group 1 to be considered last, with which FEMA concurred.
Tr. 212, 228. The Intervenors also foresaw logistical problems for themselves if Group 1 and Groups 4 and 5 were to be addressed i
i sequentially. Tr. 212, 215, 216, 224-5.
1 The Intervenors proposed that the schedule should include recesses -
l with a one-week respite following each two-weeks of hearing. Tr. 230.
The Board recognized that it might be necessary to take a break from j
I time to time, but it declined to commit to a recess every two weeks; i
rather, the Board indicated it intended to run as tight a hearing i
i schedule as it could. Tr. 231.
After due consideration of the scheduling proposals and argument, l
f the Board ruled that there would be a three-stage filing schedule and l
that the sequence would be matters of observation (Groups 2, 3, 4, and
- 5) addressed before matters of scope (Group 1). This sequence will avoid the potential for wasted hearing time should the admission of the i
scope contentions be disturbed on appeal. Moreover, considering Groups 2, 3, 4, and 5 before Group I will serve to familiarize us with the
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2 overall situation, which may be helpful when we consider Group 1.
To alleviate Intervenors' logistic problem of having Group 1 follow immediately after Groups 4 and 5, the Board ruled that there would be a one-week break between Groups 4 and 5 and Group 1.
Tr. 229-30.
Further, the Board made clear its intention to proceed steadily through Groups 2, 3, 4, and 5 before recessing for a week prior to addressing l
Group 1.
Tr. 231. Finally, all parties agreed that the subject matter of Group 4 (training) should logically follow that of Group 5 (public i
information). Accordingly, the following sequence was adopted:
3 Groups 2, 3, 5, and 4, followed by a one-week recess, and finally Group 1.
This schedule shall apply to all parties except FEMA; FEMA requested that all of its testimony be presented last, and the Board so rul ed. Tr. 204, 246.
The three stage schedule for filing testimony was established as follows for LILC0 a'nd the Intervenors:
Februar) 27 Testimony on Groups 2 and 3 due.
Marcn 13 Testimony on Groups 5 and 4 due.
j March 27 Testimony on Group 1 due.
Tr. 232. FEMA indicated it would file all of its testimony at one time.
1 i
Tr. 203-4. Accordingly, FEMA. hall file its testimony on February 27.
r Testimony shall be delivered in hand to the Board and the parties by close of business on the date it is due. Tr. 233.
l The hearing will start at 9:00 a.m. on Tuesday, March 10, 1987, in the Court of Claims courtroom, third floor State Office Building, i
j Veterans Memorial Highway, Hauppage, New York. Tr. 235, 246.
It will l
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run on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday of that week and each succeeding week, unless compelling reasons necessitate a break, until Groups 2, 3, 5, and 4, have been heard. A week's break will then occur, after which the hearing will reconvene to hear Group 1.
Finally,-the testimony of FEMA's witnesses on all Contentions will be' addressed last.
C.
Ruling on Discovery Disputes With regard to the discovery disputes, the Board decided, in the interest of expediting the proceeding and not diverting the parties from testimony preparation, to leave discovery as it stands. Thus, our February 3 Order denying Intervenors' motion to compel shall not be i
f disturbed, and LILCO's December 4 Motion to Compel is denied. While this may mean that the parties will each be without some information concerning-the opponent's testimony, the imminency of the filing of the l
testimony is such that it' is more reasonable and expeditious to simply allow the filings to take place rather than to divert resources to answering questions about what will be filed. Tr. 231-2.
3 D.
Consolidation of OL-3 and OL-5 Boards' Staff and FEMA again raised the issue of " overlap" between the OL-3 and the OL-5 hearings and the purviews of the-respective Boards. Tr.
i 219-20. This issue had been raised previously, in letters from FEMA and the Staff to both Boards. Staff went so far as to suggest joint i
sessions or reconsolidation of the Boards. Judge Margulies, Chairman of i
the OL-3 Board, responded negatively to the suggestion. This Board indicated that it was "not inclined to try to persuade Judge Margulies to change his mind." Tr. 221.
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. E._ Corrections to Typed Copy of Contentions The Board had reviewed the typed copy of the Contentions which counsel for Intervenors had produced from the Board's cut-and-paste copy.
few minor corrections needed to be made to the typed copy.
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Therefore the Board read into the record the corrections it had found necessary. Tr. 237-40. Most of the corrections were for minor typographical errors. One general correction of substantive nature, however, was the elimination from the admitted Contentions of all references to contentions which had not been admitted. Tr. 238. The Board further clarified that " subsumed" contention subparts were to be treated as additional bases tending to prove the contention under which they were subsumed. Tr. 243-4
" Consolidated" contentions were, in effect, independently admitted. Tr. 245. Counsel for Intervenors agreed to make the corrections noted and to prepare a table of contents for the contention list. Tr. 241, 243. The Board declined to require an appendix containing all rejected contentions, as FEMA had requested.
Tr. 242-3.
ORDER For all the foregoing reasons it is, this 13th day of February,
- 1987, ORDERED:
1.
That all parties except FEMA shall file written testimony according to the following schedule and in the order listed:
February 27 Testimony on Group 2 (EX 34, 40.A, 40.B. 41) and Group 3 (EX 22.A. 36, 47, 49 except for 49.C) l
E-
., March 13 Testimony on Group 5 (EX 50) and Group 4 (EX 38, 39,40.C.49.C)
March 27 Testimony on Group 1 (EX 15, 16, 21).
2.
That FEMA shall file its testimony on all contentions, organized in the above groupings, on February 27, 3.
That testimony shall be delivered in hand to the Board and parties.
4.
That the hearing will connence at 9:00 a.m. on March 10, 1987 at the Court of Claims courtroom in Hauppage, New York, and will conti'nue thereafter on Tuesday through Friday of each week until the testimony of all parties except FEMA has been heard on Groups 2, 3, 5, and 4.
There will then be a one-week recess, followed by a resumption to hear testimony on Group 1 and all of FEMA's testimony.
5.
That our February 3, 1987 Memorandum and Order denying Intervenors' January 20 Motion to Compel will not be reconsidered.
6.
That LILCO's December 4 Motion to Compel is denied.
THE ATOMIC SAFETY AND LICENSING BOARD UY
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Dr. Oscar H. Paris ADMINISTRATIVE JUDGE Yf Frederick J.
(.77')
ADMINISTRAT UDGE
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Joh(IMSTRATIVEJUDGEHJ Frye, Chainnan A
Bethesda, Maryland
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