ML20217E905

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Requests,Pursuant to 10CFR2.206,that NRC Take Immediate Action to Suspend CYAPCO License to Operate Connecticut Yankee Nuclear Power Station in Haddam Neck,Connecticut
ML20217E905
Person / Time
Site: Haddam Neck File:Connecticut Yankee Atomic Power Co icon.png
Issue date: 03/13/1998
From: Bassilakis R, Block J, Katz D
CITIZENS AWARENESS NETWORK
To: Diaz N, Dicus G, Shirley Ann Jackson, Mcgaffigan E, The Chairman
NRC COMMISSION (OCM), NRC OFFICE OF THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR FOR OPERATIONS (EDO)
Shared Package
ML20217E884 List:
References
2.206, DD-98-12, NUDOCS 9804270457
Download: ML20217E905 (3)


Text

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ri Jonathan M. Block i A'ITORNEY AT LAW Main Street P.O. Box 566 Putney, Vermont 05346-0566 (802) 387-2646 (vox)

-2667 (fax) jonb@,sover. net

)

March 13,1998 Chairman, Commissioners, Executive Director for Operations United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission One White Flint North 11555 Rockville Pike Rockville, MD 20852-2738 BY OVERNIGilT MAIL '

l RE: Request for suspension of operating license for Connecticut Yankee l Nuclear Power Station, Haddam, Connecticut, pursuant to 10 C.F.R. 2.206

Dear Chainnan Jackson,

Commissioners, EDO:

By this letter, we request, pursuant to 10 C.F.R. 2.206, that your agency take immediate action to suspend Connecticut Yankee Atomic Power Company's

[CYAPCo] license to operate the Connecticut Yankee Nuclear Power Station in Haddam, Connecticut [CY). The reason for this request is that C'YAPCo does not practice or comprehend the basis for your agency's " defense in depth" approach to occupational and public health and safety regulations.

This continuing failure jeopardizes the health and safety of workers at CY and persons who live in the surrounding communities.

As you are aware, CY is at present under a Confinnatory Action Letter i [ CAL] because they did not adequately resolve long-standing failures to l exercise adequate radiological controls. These failures have meant that real people living inkcommunity, both those working at the facility and those merely living in the vicinity, received unnecessary and unplanned expocures to radiation. Over the years, on numerous occasions, CY's failures have gone i

i 9804270457 980422 1 PDR ADOCK 05000213 G PDR

I, i Letterfrom CAN to Commissioners ofNRC and EDO initianng Page 2 a 2.206 petition requestmg suspension ofCY's operating hcense (March 13.1998) beyond the reactor site-boundary, including allowing workers to cary contaminated materials off-site, providing radioactive fill to a day-care center

! and radioactive rubble to a road-builder. Since its shut-down in December of )

l 1996, CY also sent radioactively contaminated video equipment to a private l l company. In tenns of on-site radiological failures, in the fall of 1996, CY )

I allowed two workers to become contaminated by conducting a walk-down of I the fuel chute without adequate radiological protection.

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None of this presents a very reassuring picture for persons who live in the I l communities near CY. We are forced to rely upon your agency to police CY's on-going, systemic incompetence in the area of radiological controls.

Moreover, even when in a shut-down condition, CY's inability to maintain operations also created a near disaster in the Fall of 1996, when a nitrogen bubble was allowed to fonn in the reactor vessel and begin displacing cooling water.

Given this history and your agency's failure to adequately sanction CY's operators for the mess they have made of the reactor site and surrounding community, and the danger in which they have unnecessarily placed us, discussions at the March 11,1998 NRC conference at CY are particularly disturbing.

During the course of March Ilth discussions between your agency and CY conceming issues remaining prior to lifting the CAL, Mr. John Haseltine, Engineering Director of CY, told your staff of the plans for establishing a l Spent Fuel Pool island during decommissioning of the facility. In the course of that discussion, Mr. Haseltine, said that in the worst case scenario where loss of the forced air cooling system (which will be used to replace service water cooling) could not be restored, CY planned to open the hatch and doors of the fuel pool building to cool the pool by venting with uiba ambient air. l t

This suggestion amounts to designing in the unmonitored, unplanned release of radiation into the environment of the communities around CY as one of the back-up safety systems. Your stafflistened to this without comment.

We believe that CY's proposal, particularly in the light ofits histog and its being under a CAL for failure to exercise adequate radiological controls, is a

l.,.

l'** Letterfrom CAN to Commissioners ofNRC and EDO initiating Page 3 a 2.206 petition requesting suspension ofCY's operating license (March 13,1998) violation of the most fundamental terms ofits license and warrants immediate suspension of the license pending a full investigation of the matter. Despite your agency's efforts, CY still does not comprehend the -notion of the

" defense in depth" approach to back-up safety systems. If a licensee cannot manage to come up in advance with a set of back-up safety systems that avoid planning to vent radiation into the local community as one of the "back-up" safety systems, they should not be allowed to have a license.

Thank you for your consideration of this matter.

Sincerely,-

/ /1 M Y W is  ! A

'Itnsema(y Ba_ ifak ~

Citizens eness Network,Inc. (cT) j 54 Old , Turnpike Road .

Haddam, CT 06438 0wdJ.,.005 Jor than M. Block torney for Citizens Awareness Network, Inc.

P.O. Box 566 Putney, VT 05346-0566

.tl era h & . k &"la A Deborah Katz President, Citizens Awareness Network P.O. Box 83 Shelburne Falls, MA 01370-0083