ML20236F447
| ML20236F447 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Crane  |
| Issue date: | 06/25/1987 |
| From: | Gekas G HOUSE OF REP. |
| To: | Zech NRC COMMISSION (OCM) |
| Shared Package | |
| ML20236F429 | List: |
| References | |
| NUDOCS 8708030343 | |
| Download: ML20236F447 (4) | |
Text
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_s GEORGE W. GEKAS
'I MH Of 57RICT 4*fNNSVLVANIA A
WASHINGTON oFFtCE' O is is tonowoaTH House orfict suitoinc COMMITTEE ON THE' JUDICIARY 202)225 16 SUSGoMMtTTEES CRsMtNAL JU5Tett-Vict CHAsRMAN
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(717)286-6417 June 25, 1987
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Chairmain Zech U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission 1717 H Street Washington, D.C.
20555 Daar Chairman Zech:
A situation has been brought to my attention by the Union of Concerned Scientists concerning the continued operation of the.Three Mile Island Unit-1.
The Union of Concerned Scientists-claims TMI-1 still operates despite an emergency feedwater system that does not comply with the-NRC l
requirements for the safety systems.
I would appreciate a response from you explaining wh'y a.
key safety requirement was waived to keep TMI-1 open, especially since the requirement came about from the TMI-2 accident in August, 1979.
Thank you for giving this matter your immediate attention.
Very truly yours, 3
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GEORGE W. GEKAS Member of Congress GWG/ jet Enclosure 8709030343 870728 3DR ADOCK 05000289 PDR 1
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THIS STATIONERY PRINTED ON PAPER MADE WITH RECYCLED FIBERS
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,e UNION OF CONCERNED SCIENTISTS 1616 e st, t, sw s.no.
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pg 11 W l
1 The Honorable George Gekas l
U.S.
House of Representatives 1519 Longworth House Office Building
)
Washington, D.C.
20515
Dear Representative Gekas,
On the eve of the March 1987 restart of Three Mile Island Unit 1 (TMI-1) after its latest refueling outage, the staff of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) waived a key safety requirement first imposed by Commission order in August 1979 as a result of the'TMI-2 accident.
The staff gave the plant a license amendment allowing continued operation of TMI-1 even though the emergency feedwater system still does nat ' comply with the NRC requirements for safety systems.
We are writing to ask your assistance because the NRC - has demonstrated that it will not i
enforce its own requirements.
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The emergency feedwater system in plants designed by Babcock l
& Wilcox has been the cause or contributing factor in numerous accidents and near-misses, including the TMI-2 accident in March, 1979, and the accident at Davis-Besse in Ohio in June, 1985.
In the first assessment of the TMI-2 accident published in July,
- 1979, the NRC concluded that "[t]he need for an emergency feedwater system of high reliability is a clear lesson learned from the TMI-2 accident."
NUREG-0578, p.
10.
At that time the NRC decided that "the manual and automatic initiation signals and circuits [for the auxiliary or emergency feedwater system] shall be upgraded in accordance with safety-grade requirements."
I_d.,
p.
A-31.
This requirement was first imposed by an order of the Commission in August, 1979.
In November, 1980, the NRC re-affirmed and further specified the changes needed "to assure a reliable automatic initiation system" for emergency feedwater, including compliance with "all the requirements of IEEE Standard 279-1971."
NUREG-0737, " Clarification of TMI Action Plan Requirements," p. 3-79.
The NRC's original deadline for utilities to complete this "long-term" requirement was January 1, 1981.
But as time passed, the agency allowed repeated slippage of the compliance deadline.
In 1981, when it established the conditions for restart of TMI-1, Cambridge Office: 26 Church Street Cambridge, Manachusetts o2238 (617) 547 5552
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NRC's Atomic Safety and Licensing Board required that all of the f
emergency feedwater system modifications be completed prior to j
startup following the first refueling outage after restart.
CLI-i 79-8, 10 NRC 141, 144-145 (1979); LPB-81-59, 14 NRC 1211, 1363, 1373 (1981).
See.also NUREG-0680, "TMI-1 Restart Safety Evaluation Report,"
p.
C8-36 and Supplement 3, p.
36-38; LBP 27, 15 NRC 747 (1982).
TMI-1 was out of service following the TMI-2 accident until the fall of 1985, but the modifications to the emergency feedwater system were not completed during that 6-year outage.
In March 1987, TMI-1 resumed operation following a 5-month refueling outage and the emergency feedwater modifications are still not completed.
It is now over.eight (8) years since the TMI-2 accident and almost as long since the requirement to modify the TMI-1 emergency feedwater system was first imposed.
As recently as February 18, 1987, the NRC staff wrote to GPU Nuclear re-iterating that the complete emergency feedwater upgrade "is to be completed during your present refueling outage."
The NRC staff stated further that GPU's proposed design was "not acceptable" and "significantly increases the risk" of failure of the emergency feedwater system.
J.
F.
Stolz, NRC to H.D.
- Hukill, GPU, Feb.
18,
- 1987, p.
1 and attached Safety Evaluation, p.
5 The NRC staff then changed its position within a three week period.
On March 9, 1987, without giving any prior notice to the parties who had litigated this issue or seeking any relief from the schedule imposed by the Licensing Board, the NRC staff unilaterally waived the requirement and issued license amendment No.
- 124, allowing the plant to operate without safety-grade automatic initiation of emergency feedwater.
We see no reasonable justification for this waiver.
TMI-1 stf.11 fails to meet the safety requirements imposed in 1979 after the accident at its sister plant and it simply should not be permitted to run until it does meet them.
There is a point long passed in this case where the public should not be asked to accept a continued risk due to this company's inability to meet its obligations and the NRC's unwillingness to enforce its decisions.
UCS urges you to use your position to force the NRC to obey the law and protect the health and safety of your constituents.
We are enclosing excerpts from some of the relevant NRC documents and would be pleased to meet with you or your staff to discuss this matter in more detail.
However, the bottom line is NRC is not doing its job of protecting the public.
We have participated in every legal proceeding open to us and NRC has
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i simply chosen to ignore the decisions resulting from those proceedings.
It was exactly this course of action that led to accident at Davis-Besse.
We hope you will act to prevent a
]
similar accident at TMI-1.
j Singerely, 1
1 1
/q Ellyn
. Weiss General Counsel
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2 Robert D.
Pollard i
Nuclear Safety Engineer i
Enclosures
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