ML20236T019
| ML20236T019 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Maine Yankee |
| Issue date: | 07/10/1998 |
| From: | NRC |
| To: | |
| Shared Package | |
| ML20236S983 | List: |
| References | |
| NUDOCS 9807270375 | |
| Download: ML20236T019 (94) | |
Text
l OFFICIAL TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS UNITED STATES OF AMERICA NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Title:
BACKFIT APPEAL MEETING WITH MAINE YANKEE Case No.:
Work Order No.: ASB-300-376 LOCATION: Rockville,MD DATE: Friday, July 10,1998 PAGE I - 92 AD 0 0 09 T PDR ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
1250 I Street, NW, Suite 300
) 8'4 34
_____________ --------- ~ -
. 1 1
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 2
NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 3 ***
4 BACKFIT APPEAL MEETING WITH 5 MAINE YANKEE 6 ***
7 8
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission 9
One White Flint North, Rm. 4B-6 10 11555 Rockville Pike 11 Rockville, MD 20852-2738 12 13 Friday, July 10, 1998 14 15 The above-entitled meeting commenced, pursuant to 16 notice, at 1:00 p.m.
17 18 PARTICIPANTS:
19 JOHN ZWOLINSKI, Chairman 20 FRANK CONGEL 21 GUS LAINAS 22 MICHAEL WEBB, Maine Yankee Project Manager 23 DON DAVIS, CYAPCO & YAEC 24 DUKE WHEELER, NRC/NRR/DRPM 25 JOE GRAY, OGC ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
l 2
1 PARTICIPANTS: [ Continued]
2 DAN BARSS, NRC/NRR 3 STEVE CROCKETT, NRC/DCMEXM 4 J. E. BEALL, NRA OCM/EM 5 R. E. BEEDLE, NEI 6 ALAN NELSON, NEI 7 . TOM HARRISON, McGraw Hill' 8 TONY PIETRANGELO, NEI 9 ALAN CHAPPEL, NEI 10 ELLEN GINSBERG, NEI 11 LYNNETTE HENDRICK, NEI 12 GEORGE ZINKE, Maine Yankee 13 MIKE MEISNER, Maine Yankee 14 ROGER DAVIS, NRC/OCM/NJD 15 RALPH CARUSO, NRC/NRR 16 SBEUR+TY- WEISS , NRC/NRR set hout 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
__________________ - - - - - --- --- - - - ~ ~
. 3 1
PROCEEDINGS 2
[1:05 p.m.)
3 MR. WEBB: Good afternoon. I would like to 4 welcome everybody to our NRC headquarters. My name is i
l 5 Michael Webb and I'm the project manager at NRC for Maine 6 Yankee.
7 This session this afternoon has been noticed as a 8
meeting between the NRC staff and members of the Maine 9 Yankee Atomic Power Company staff. As stated in the June 10 30th, 1998 meeting notice, the purpose of the meeting is to 11 provide Maine Yankee the opportunity to discuss its appeal 12 of an NRC backfit determination regarding a Maine Yankee 13 Emergency Preparedness exemption request.
14 Before we start the meeting I would like everybody 15 in the room to incroduce themselves, beginning with the NRC 16 backfit review panel chairman.
17 CHAIRMAN ZWOLINSKI: I'm John Zwolinski, the 18 acting director for the Division of Reactor Project East.
19 MR. CONGEL: I'm Frank Congel, I'm the director of 20 the incident response division.
21 MR. LAINAS: I'm Gus Lainas, I'm acting director 22 division of engineering.
23 MR. WEISS: Sy Weiss, I'm project director for 24 non-power reactors and decommissioning.
25 MR. BEEDLE: Ralph Beedle, NEI.
ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
. 4 1 MR. DAVID: Don Davis, Connecticut Yankee, Yankee I
-2 Atomic.
l 3 MR. GRAY: Joe Gray with General Counsel's Office, 4 NRC>
5 MR. WHEELER: Duke Wheeler, NRC.
6 MR. BEALL: Jim Beall, Commissioner -- Office.
7 MR. CROCKETT: Steve Crockett, Commissioner -- i 8 Office.
9 MR. BARSS: Dan Barss, Emergency Preparedness 10 Specialist in NRR.
l f
11 MR. NELSON: Alan Nelson, NEI.
12 MR. HARRISON: Tom Harrison, McGraw Hill.
13 MR. PIETRANGELO: Tony Pietrangelo, NEI.
14 MR. CHAPPLE: Alan Chapple, NEI.
15 MS. GINSBERG: Ellen Ginsberg, NEI.
16 MS. HENDRICH: Lynn Hendrich, NEI.
17 MR. ZINKE: I'm George Zinke, I'm the director of 18 Regulatory Affairs at Maine Yankee.
19 MR. MEISNER: And Mike Meisner, Maine Yankee.
20 MR. WEBB: To afford members of the public who may I al not have been able to make it here today an opportunity to 22 review.the proceedings, this meeting is being transcribed !
23 and the transcription will be made publicly available. It i 24 will automatically be provided to Maine Yankee and its 25 associated service list, but if you would like to receive a l
ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034 I
______-- --------- --- - -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ~ ~ ~ - - -
5 1
copy of the transcript, please provide your name and address 2
on one of the sign-up sheets that I hope we're circulating 3 about the room.
4 The meeting is open for pubic observation and at 5
its conclusion members of the public will be provided the 6
opportunity to make statements on this topic that will be 7 included as part of the transcript.
8 At this point are there any questions of an 9
administrative nature that I can answer?
10 [No response.)
11 MR. WEBB: With that, I would like to now pass the 12 floor to the NEC -- sorry, to the NRC Backfit Review Panel 13 and John Zwolinski.
14 CHAIRMAN ZWOLINSKI: On June 9, Frank Congel, Gus 15 Lainas, and myself were appointed to serve as a backfit 16 review panel.
The licensee in their letter of May 6th, 1998
.i. 7 in which the subject was appeal of NRC determination 18 concerning Maine Yankee Atomic Power Company claim of 19 backfit regarding beyond design basis accidents in spent 20 fuel pool requested that this matter be addressed outside 21 the Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation.
22 However, in a letter dated June 25, 1998, the EDO 23 informed Maine Yankee that this issue had been forwarded to 24 the Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation. The resulting 25 action was to appoint this panel with the specific charter ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
I
. 6 1 of recommending to the office director whether or not the 2 criteria being used by the staff in evaluating a Maine 3 Yankee request for relief from off-site emergency 4 preparedness requirements of 10 CFR 50.54 (q) constitute a 5 backfit.
6 The panel following the guidance of Office Letter 7 901 has undertaken the review of correspondence between the !
8 staff and licensee and has met'with the staff to gain a much l 9 better understanding of the staff's efforts today.
10 The next step is to hear from you, Maine Yankee, 111 regarding this appeal. Following this meeting the panel 12 will provide the results of our deliberations to the office 13 director. l 14 As a panel we believe it is very important for you !
15 to be -- for you to focus on specific positions you hold 16 providing context and basis as appropriate. Be assured that 17 the panel will not be hesitant to ask questions.
18 I trust you all are aware that the three of us 19 have not been involved in activities associated with Maine 20 Yankee for a considerable period of time, and certainly have !
21 not been involved in the review if your exemption request.
i 22 With this brief overview, I will turn the meeting over to I 23 you, Mr. Meisner. i
-24 MR. MEISNER: Thank you, appreciate it.
25 (Slide shown.]
ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202)' 842-0034
___ - - - - - ~ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ~ - '
7 1 MR. MEISNER: We are going to cover several things 2 today. Is this microphone on? Can you hear okay?
3 I think while we're all probably familiar with the 1
4 zirc fire issues themselves, I think the staff's denial 5
introduced some much more fundamental and generic issues and 6
I think we need to talk about that. And as you indicated, 7 John, there's a context to all of this and I'd like to spend 8
a little time making some backfit rule observations 9
independent of just the zirc fire analysis issue itself.
10 And then, of course, we need to deal with the zirc fire 11 issue and specifically address the NRC's backfit denial 12 letter and their basis and provide our rebuttal to that.
13 And then when the Maine Yankee portion is done, 14 NEI would like to provide some discussion with an industry 15 viewpoint of how they feel the backfit rule should or should 16 not be applied in this case.
And Don Davis with Connecticut 17 Yankee would have some remarks as well.
18 In case you don't know, Connecticut Yankee is in a 19 very similar situation to Maine Yankee as far as the length 20 of time the plant has been shut down and the applicability 21 of a zirc fire analysis to that facility.
22 [ Slide shown.]
23 MR. MEISNER: So I think there are some 24 fundamental issues that we need to talk about and the first 25 one that's on the list here is really one that I would like ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
. 8 1 to dispose of and not really address much from here on out. l 2 As you all know, our original submittal raised the 3 concern that some members of the NRC felt that the backfit- q 4 rule did not apply to decommissioning plants. We strongly l
\
5 oppose that position and we are assuming that since we're 6 now going through the backfit process and the backfit appeal 7 process that that's not a concern for the instant issue with l 8 Maine Yankee and the zirc fire. And that the panel j 9 deliberations will be conducted and whichever way the panel l 10 decides on this issue is how NRR will go as opposed to 11 bringing newly, at a late date, the idea that the backfit i 12- rule doesn't apply to decommissioning plants.
13 CHAIRMAN ZWOLINSKI: If I can interject, I think 14 the fact that the panel exists a priori for this issue in 15 and of itself I think the agency is choosing to say it does i 16 apply. I think there's a broader or bigger issue that we're 17 not going to address in our deliberations. l 18 MR. MEISNER: Okay. Good. Juld I agree with that. l 19 CHAIRMAN ZWOLINSKI: Okay. You may have just said !
1 20 that, I wanted to sharpen it just a little bit.
4ML MR. MEISNER: And, as usual, you said it better 22 than I did.
23 John and I have some history of some turbulent 24 times, I guess.
12 5 While Maine Yankee felt that the zirc fire i
ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
9 1
analysis requiring that for emergency plan relief was itself 2
a backfit with the staff's denial of our backfit request we 3 suddenly have an entirely new issue. And we're going to 4
talk about that to some extent here. No longer is the issue 5
l zirc fire. I think it's fair to say that the staff has 6
never objected that imposing this on Maine Yankee was a new 7
staff position which is a critical element of the backfit 8
rule, nor did the staff's denial letter really address 9
anything technically at all to do with zirc fire or 10 emergency planning. And while I'm happy to see the 11 emergency planning reviewer here, and while we will be going 12 through some background discussions on our position on zirc 13 fire, the real issue today comes down to the staff's 14 position on denial and their position is -- and I'm 15 paraphrasing it here is that licensee initiated actions 16 don't have the protection of the backfit rule. That's a 17 very broad and generic finding on the part of the staff and 18 it goes well beyond applicability to decommissioning plants 19 or the zirc fire analysis and attempts to affect a great 20 deal of the activity that the nuclear industry is involved 21 in today.
And I'd like to address that to some degree.
22 And whether that licensee-initiated action is 23 voluntary or involuntary, the staff went on further to say 24 that voluntary actions on the part of licensees also did not 25 enjoy the protection of the backfit rule. And we need to ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
10 l' cxploro that isaun.as wall as whether or not the emergency 2 plan exemption requests that Maine Yankee requested are in 3? fact voluntary. And I think we'll find that they're not.
4 So those are the key issues'we intend to focus on 5 today based on the staff's denial letter.
6 [ Slide shown.]
7 MR. MEISNER: But before we get into that, I do 8 want to put some -- place some context to the backfit rule 1 l
9 and give you some personal observations. And please !
10 recognize that while I say things like " typical industry
- 11. viewpoint" on here, these really are personal based on I 12 talking to individuals throughout the industry and they 13 don't reflect a formal industry position as such.
]
14 But this part I found so important and I don't 15 usually do that except for the most recent meeting that you 16 and I were in, I've written this down and I'd like to go 17 through it and read you the observations I have in this 18 area.
19 So when you get right down to it, the backfit rule 20 is the only protection the industry has against turning 21 staff opinion into requirement. But that protection is 22 seldom exercised by the industry. I 23 And when you ask around and you ask, why don't you 24 take more advantage of the backfit rule, in some cases 25 you'll get a response that we fear retaliation. But, you ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
11 1
know, the more predominant reason and the overriding reason 2
in the minds of the people that I talked to is that the 3
backfit rule is viewed as toothless. It's an afterthought.
4 And, again, this is the view of people in the industry.
5 This is perception that I'm trying to relate to you. It's 6
used as an afterthought that the staff develops a position 7
they'd like to impose on a licensee and then rather than 8
identify that position as a new staff position and follow 9
the backfit process, they search for creative ways to avoid 10 the backfit process.
11 Our view is that che staff often asks, why don't I 12 have to consider backfit rather than asking, is this a 13 backfit, which is an entirely different question. And 14 personally I've dealt with enough of these backfit issues in 15 my career and in doing that have gotten a lot of feedback 16 from NRC staff. Enough feedback to know that when the staff 17 goes to OGC, for instance, for help on a potential backfit 18 issue, the OGC doesn't always respond by making a 19 determination -- a firm determination this is or is not a 20 backfit, rather OGC will at times ask the staffer whether or 21 not they want it to be a backfit and will support either 22 position.
23 That's not the way the process is intended to work 24 in my view. And it leads to creative lawyering rather than 25 a disciplined process of backfit review.
ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
. 12 1 In any case, we believe that in general the NRC
.2 does not comply with the spirit of the backfit rule in two 3 respects. First.the staff's backfit guidance requires all 4 -- all NRC personnel to review new staff positions and 5 identify backfits.
- 6. I think it would be an interesting exercise to 7 pull together a group of project managers and_ reviewers and 8 ask them how many backfits they've identified in the last 9 year. I suspect you'll find none. And furthermore, I 10- . suspect you'll find that few consider it to be their 11 responsibility at all.
12 The second area we believe the staff does not 13 comply with the spirit of the backfit rule is when on a few 14 occasions a licensee does raise a backfit concern. In a 15 great majority of those cases, as I said earlier, our 16 impression is that the creative lawyering takes over and the 17 true issue is really overlooked.
11 8 In all this and I'm dealing with perceptions by 19 the industry again, all this leads to empathy on the part of 20 the industry as far as the backfit rule is concerned. And I 21 think it's particularly telling about the industry's 22 confidence in the backfit rule that as far as we know this 23 Maine Yankee Backfit Appeal Meeting is the first. conducted 24 in the last six years.
- 25. And the reason is not because of the sparsity of ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034 l
1
13 1 backfits. The reality is that backfits occur frequently, 2 but they're not dealt with as such by the staff. And I'll 3 give a couple of examples in the rulemaking area as well as 4 some recent experiences of other backfits at Maine Yankee.
l 5 There is a proposed rulemaking out for comment.
6 It's titled " Miscellaneous Changes to the Licensing i i
7 Requirements for Independent Storage of Spent Fuel". Part 8 72 ISFSI rule changes. And-these really are miscellaneous.
! 9 It's to -- it's to make various changes in the Part 72 rules J 10 and fix them up where they were in some cases incorrect or l
11 clarify them.
12 And in Part 72, you know, just like 50.109, the 13 backfit rule - .there's a backfit rule and it prevents !
14 additional elimination or modification of procedures or l 15 organization required to operate an IFSFI.
l i
16 Now, if you look at this closely, there are two 17 areas where-in these miscellaneous changes the staff clearly 18 levies new requirements that would necessitate on the part 19 of the licensees that they make procedure changes in order l 20 to comply. There is new recordkeeping and new recording 21 requirements. And the new reporting requirements, but the 22 -way includes more than a page of detailed reporting areas
. :23 - that are now -- or the staff is proposing to require for I 24- 'Part 72 licensees.
I' 25 Yet, you know, kind of defying all logic, the ANN RILE 7 & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014
( Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
14 11 conclusion in the backfit analysis for the proposed 2 rulemaking says,'the NRC has determined that the backfit 3' rule, in this case 10 CFR 72.62 does not apply to this rule-4 because these amendments do not involve any provisions'that 5- would impose backfits, in other words, any changes to 6 licensee procedures or organization.
7 There's another example of a proposed rulemaking 8 that's out for comment now and I'm not as intimately 9 familiar with it as George is and I'd ask him to just 10 describe it for you.
11 MR. ZINKE: There's a proposed rulemaking that 12 deals with an IEEE -- I believe it's 603 standard that deals 13 with instrumentation. And the gist of the rulemaking is 14 that for plants -- for new plants or for existing plants 15 . that do a major change out of certain important to safety 16 instrumentation systems that.the new standards of the IEEE 17 would:then apply. And it would apply to plants that are 18- making this type of a major design change under 50.59. The
- 19. gist of the backfit analysis was that since design changes
.20 like this kind of a major replacement of an instrumentation 21 system, since that type of design change is voluntary, that 22' the backfit rule doesn't apply. So the gist is then that a 23 licensee making all' owed changes under 50.59 that the backfit 24 rule doesn't apply and the Commission can impose new 25 requirements.
ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
15 1 MR. MEISNER: And that's very similar to the 2
1 staff's basis for denial in that voluntary or even just 3
licensee-initiated activities fall out from under the 4 protection of the backfit rule. But let me give you some 5
substantive examples from Maine Yankee in just the last nine 6
months as we're proceeding into decommissioning.
7 There are defuel technical specifications. In 8 )
reviewing the defuel technical specification submittal from l 9
Maine Yankee, the staff, in my view, really should have 10 relied upon the improved tech spec program. After all, )
11 spent fuel pool safety is equally applicable to operating 12 plants.
In fact, more so in that the spent fuel pool 13 accidents are more consequential for operating facilities 14 because of the sho.ter spent fuel decay time compared to a 15 plant that's been saut down for quite some time.
16 I think most of you know a lot of effort went into 17 the improved tech spec program. And I know personally as 18 one of the original industry architects of the program and 19 George as well, as very early implementors of that program 20 at Grand Gulf they were familiar with the excruciating i 21 difficulty the industry and staff went through to reach l
22 agreement on improved tech specs. It was years and years of 23 hard work. All the technical issues associated with spent 24 fuel pools were considered in that process. And a 25 determination was made as to whether the -- whether ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034 b_______-_---__-------------------------- ---
, 16 1- particular parameters or programs should be included in the 2 improved tech specs.
3 However, for reasons that have never been 4 justified under a backfit safety basis, for Maine Yankee and 5 for.other currently decommissioning plants, the 6 decommissioning branch staff is requiring program controls j 7 and tech specs for chemistry cold weather protection and 8 other things as well as a fuel pool temperature tech spec !
9 that was rejected during the improved tech spec review.
10 I have to say I'm somewhat ashamed to say that at 11 Maine Yankee we caved to the pressure. And it's really that l 12 old -- remember when a lot of plants were getting licensed, 13 the pre-licensing issue of, if you want to get your review 14 approved in a timely fashion, then you really need to 15 voluntarily sign up for what the staff wants. In our case, 16 our defuel ' tech specs were sitting on a manager's desk 17 pending his concerns about adding these various things to 18 the tech specs with the implication that it might not move :
19 off his desk until we agree.
20 So with time pressures and with the NRC's approval 21 actually becoming critical path for our decommissioning, we 22 : reluctantly proposed the changes on our own and they were I 23 added to our defuel tech specs.and approved.
24 Now, if I was another plant, if I had the luxury 25 of some time, I would never have allowed that. It's clear ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, 7 TD .
Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
_ 17 1 backfit, in my mind, and I think most people's minds. It
- 2. shouldn't happen like that. But we observed in that process 3 no inclination on the part of the staff to fulfill their 4 primary responsibility under backfit guidance to identify 5 and deal with backfits.
6 Let me give you a few examples in the security 7 plan exemption area. First, last spring we were informed by 8 our project manager that the security branch would require 9 that in addition to pursuing the exemption process, after 10 approval of the exemption, we would need to then submit a 11 license amendment request for the same changes. Now, that's 12 not a trivial process, you know., as far as time, notice 13 under SHALI as well as the potential for a hearing.
14 Now, we know that many security exemptions have 15 been issued, and none to our knowledge ever required dual 16 processing as exemptions followed by license amendments.
17 Again, this iF a clear backfit in our mind. That requires 18 us to alter our processes and how we provide proposed 19 changes to the NRC.
20 Now, in this case we pushed back and over a period 21 of several fairly contentious phone calls and internal staff 22 meetings we eventually won the point. But we were 23 unnecessarily, I think, put into a very uncomfortable 24 position of having to challenge a staff position which had E 25 absolutely no basis not precedent. And as you know, you do ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
.__...___._.______._.._______u
18 1 that enough and we've done that a lot in the Maine Yankee 2 decommissioning, you start to develop an adverse reputation 3 with'the staff. That's not fair to put us in that position.
4 The staff should really be policing itself with respect to i
5 new staff positions and then when new staff positions come 6 up , identify them as backfits and deal with them as such.
7 Now, staying in the security program area, a 8 couple of weeks ago Maine Yankee received approval for 9 various security program exemptions. We also received ,
l 10 disapproval for some. And in documenting their disapproval 11 the staff introduced new staff position, in other words, i 12 backfits, that were unsupported by regulation. And I want l l
13 to briefly cover a couple of them. This is in the SER the 14 staff issued on June 29th.
15 One of the exemption requests we had in had to do 16 with the vehicle barrier or vehicle threat requirement. We 17 had asked for exemption to the regulation to have a vehicle il 18 barrier. And in denying the letter or in denying the 19 request the staff also noted that until the Commission has 20 determined how much damage an explosive-laden vessel or 4
21 vehicle could cause to the spent fuel, the vehicle barriers
.22 must remain in place. That's nowhere in the regulation, 23 that's nowhere in the guidance documents that I'm aware of ,
j 24 as far as the Commission having to determine themselves how 1
25 much damage this explosive-laden vehicle could propose to ]
l ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034 1 ,
l
. 19 l
1 the spent. fuel. In fact, the real process is licensee do 2 those analyses and determine whether they're in compliance 3 or out of compliance with the regulations and the staff 4 comes in and reviews those analyses.
5 A similar example is we had asked for an exemption i
l 6 from-the requirement to maintain an isolation zone adjacent 7- to the protected area barrier. You know, this is a -- I t
8 don't know what, a 10-foot -- I've forgotten the distance --
9 zone to look for intruders. And in part, in denying the i i
10 request the staff noted that an external isolation zone is 11 required at defueled reactor sites. Again, there is nothing i
12 in the regulations about that.
l 13 The staff is adding a new interpretation onto a j 14 regulation as part of a disapproval process and as a result '
15 trying to bind our hands and in this case impose new 16 requirements on the licensee. And there are other examples 17 that I'll be happy to share with you. But the point is that 18 backfits, unlike what you may have believed, are routine and 19 really not noticed by the staff. And I dare say that on the l
20 security examples I mentioned'that it probably never even 21 occurred to the staff the question of this new staff 22 position was a backfit. I'd be very surprised if anybody 23 even raised the question.
24 So, I know this was kind of an extended 25- introduction, but I thought it important to provide a l
ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters i
1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 1 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034 l l
20 1' . context and an understanding that the zirc fire analysis 2 that we'll be talking about and the staff's basis for denial 3 of that original backfit request is not at all unique. It 4 goes on all the time. And I wonder if there might not be a 1
5 general' problem in the staff where they really don't take 6 backfit as a matter of responsibility and instead look at it 7 .as something to work around or something I add on later at 8 the end to deal.with, you know, when I'm finished with 9 everything else. And I ask you as a panel to consider that 10 and take a look at it. And we -- and I think many people I 11' know in the industry can provide any number of other 12 examples like that.
13 MR. LAINAS: Yeah, excuse me, Mr. Meisner, those 14 examples that you gave, did you claim backfit? Did industry 15 claim backfit on.it?
16 EMR. MEISNER: You mean like for instance the j 17 security examples? !
18 MR. LAINAS: Yeah, as an example.
19 MR. MEISNER: Yeah, and we just got those a week 20 and a half ago. And we did. respond back to the staff and we 21 have implemented activities contrary to those staff 22 positions.and we noted in our 50.54p evaluation that in fact 23 the staff really should look at those as new staff positions 24 and backfits.
25 MR. LAINAS: But is your point that the staff ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
, 21 1 should.have' caught it as a backfit?
l 2 MR. MEISNER: Yes.
3 MR. LAINAS: Or is there something wrong with the 4 backfit process as far as, you know, a licensee -- well, the 5 case in point that we're talking about now?
.6 MR. MEISNER: Yeah, well, the first step in the 7 backfit process and it's real clear in the staff guidance is 8
that every NRC staff member is responsible for determining
- 9. when they have new staff positions whether or not they're 10 backfits. And in that respect I don't feel the staff really 11 pays much attention to it.
12 MR. LAINAS: But with respect to the licensees our 13 industry, you know, following back the procedures is there a 14 problem with that? The staff doesn't pick it up, but 15- industry pushes it, is there a problem with that process?
16 MR. MEISNER: Yes.
And I think what we'll be 17 going through here today is a very good example of that that 18 -- that I believe -- and, again, this is personal belief, 19 that the staff does get involved in creative lawyering to 20 come up with reasons why not to apply the backfit rule as 21 opposed to simply moving through the process.
22 CHAIRMAN ZWOLINSKI: In your remarks, though, 23 you've covered.a lot of ground. For example, in the 24 .rulemaking arena, we have processes internal to evaluate 25 'backfit through the committee review of generic ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
l Court Reporters l
1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
22 1 requirements, for example, long before a rulemaking takes 2 place, plus the advance notice of rulemaking, noticing, 3 things of that sort versus the example you.just cited on 4 security in which apparently the exemption was denied or 5 found.not acceptable. Those are kind of two different 6 issues, but I think I hear you saying that backfit across 7 'the board in those arenas is not working correctly. And I B believe that.
9 MR. MEISNER: Yes.
10 CHAIRMAN ZWOLINSKI: Is that the short of it?
11 MR. MEISNER: One of the examples I gave you about 12 increased recordkeeping and reporting requirements --
13 CHAIRMAN ZWOLINSKI: Yes.
14 MR. MEISNER: -- in Part 72, I think any objective 15 reader would say those are clearly changes to licensee 16 procedures that matched rig.ht up with what the backfit rule I 17 was intended to protect against, yet the staff concluded i 18 there is no backfit here, that in fact, they weren't 19 changing licensee procedures as a result.
20 And just to make clear, I don't want you to get 21 the feeling that those denied exemptions, that's fine.
22 That's fair. There is no problem with that. What we object 23 to is having denied it then coming back and imposing new 24 additional requirements in that area that weren't in the i
25 regulations. And that's the part that I felt was the l ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034 1
- -------------------------d
1 l
. 23 !
! 1- backfit.
i I 2
, CHAIRMAN ZWOLINSKI: So in the example of f
-3 i
_ security, for example, just saying it's denied without going 1.
4 into a lot of this other --
5 MR. MEISNER: That's fair, sure.
t l
6 CHAIRMAN ZWOLINSKI:
l
-- explanation is what you 7 .would expect to have seen?
8 MR. MEISNER: That's right.
9 CHAIRMAN ZWOLINSKI: I see.
10 MR. MEISNER: And having~gone into more
'11 explanation that new staff position being identified as such 12 and going through the backfit process.
113. CHAIRMAN ZWOLINSKI: What I'm trying to draw the 14 linkage'to, and maybe you can help us is your introduction 15 and how it will tie into the specifics of the zirc' fire and 16- the criteria of the staff is being used. So I'm trying to 17 . formulate b my own mind the nexus to getting to what I ,
.- 18 believe the substance of the matter is.
- 19 MR. MEISNER: And I think the real nexus is that
. 20 .this is not.an isolated case. !
- 21' CHAIRMAN ZWOLINSKI: Okay.
22 MR. MEISNER: That it occurs all the time and I 23 wanted to give you some feel from the point of view of the l 1
24 ' licensee that you really shouldn't treat the zirc~ fire thing I
~
35 as a-unique instance. There may be a more general problem l:
l l l
ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue,.NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034 1
24 1 underlying that that needs to be looked at.
2 CHAIRMAN ZWOLINSKI: Well, thank you for those 3 remarks.
4 MR. MEISNER: Okay. So.for a few minutes I would
~
5 like to turn it over to George Zinke and ask him to discuss 6 some of the basics in the'zirc fire issue. Do you want to 7 talk from there, George and I'll put these up or --
8 MR. ZINKE: Let me trade places.
9 (Slide shown.]
10 MR. ZINKE: What I want to discuss briefly is not 11 the basis for appeal, but some background, the context that 12 will allow you to understand our basis a little bit better.
13 I want-to establish for you the various new and evolving NRC 14 positions that have -- that surround the zirc fire issue.
15 In the history of the zirc fire issue there's a 16 lot of. documents that deal with this beyond design basis 17 accident and the spent fuel pools. But the NUREG 1353 in 18 April '89 resolved the issue. Within that NUREG and the' I 19 evaluation they determined in the NUREG was that if the NRC 20 was to impose new requirements that they would be a backfit, 21 but there was an analysis included in the NUREG. Some 22 important things that were in the NUREG it established a
{
23 generic 17 months at which point in time the event of issue 24 would no longer be possible. I Within the NUREG it concluded j 1
25 that there was insufficient reason to create new ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034 I
. 25 1 requirements.
Within the NUREG it did not credit the !
2' evacuation or any EP actions in coming up with this i
! 3 conclusion.
14_ Subsequent to that' Rancho Seco in June '89 shut- i 5 down. The NRC approved their insurance exemption 588 days 1
{
i.
6 after shutdown. And the E plan,.625 days after shutdown. j 7 In both of these approval, the issue of zirc fire was not --
l 8 .it'was not an. issue. It was not a basis for either of those
! 9- ; exemptions being granted.
10 CHAIRMAN ZWOLINSKI: Is your point that NUREG 1353 l
l' 11. didn't impose new requirements? NUREGs really can't, I 12 guess --
13 MR. ZINKE: The NUREG concluded that there were 14 not new requirements that were justified at that point in- {
15 time.
16 CHAIRMAN ZWOLINSKI: And then when you move to the
- 17. issues of. Rancho Seco, nothing carried over from that NUREG?
18 MR. ZINKE: That's correct.
19' CHAIRMAN ZWOLINSKI: Is that what the point is 20 going.to be?
1 21 MR. ZINKE: Yes.
22 MR. MEISNER: I guess I would say that another i i
- 23 .-way. Everything carried over from the NUREG because the !
24l . conclusion.of the NUREG was that zirc fire was not an issue {
25 to be addressed.
ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters i 1025 Connecticut' Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 l Washington, D.C. 20036 *
(202) '842-0034
26 1 MR. 3INKE: So the approval of Rancho Seco was 2 consistent with the NUREG. There were no new requirements 3 associated with the ZIRC fire that were necessary in order 4 to prove those exemption:
5 CHAIRMAN ZWOLINSKI: Was the NUREG from your 6 review developed for a specific stage of operation -- of 7 plant operation that is, construction, power operation, 8 decommissioning, or power operation or is silent?
9 MR. MEISNER: We've got an overhead to address 10 that in a few more.
- 11. CHAIRMAN ZWOLINSKI: Okay.
12 { Slide shown.]
13 MR. ZINKE: Again, Trojan, they were shut down in 14 November of '92. There E plan exemption was granted 325 15 days. The Trojan submittal, their E plan exemption was 16 contingent on Zirc fire. The staff asked them to perform an
.17 analysis and the conclusion was that, you know, it could 18 happen, but very low probability. And so based upon the low 19 probability of a seismic event, the staff approved the 20, exemptions.
21 Now, again, this is very consistent with the NUREG 22 in that the NUREG concluded that the probability of the 23- event was low enough that there were no new requirements 24 necessary. The part that wasn't --
that was new at that 25 time is that Trojan was asked to do some kind of an ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 j i
(202) 842-0034
l l . 27 i l 1 analysis.
2 MR. CONGEL: Excuse me, was the link made with the 3
l NUREG and that conclusion for Trojan,oor was.it separately
- 4. Eddressed as an item?'
5 MR. ZINKE: The NUREG was mentioned as far as the 6
issue, the NUREG wasn't -- it wasn't decided that per the 7 NUREG now this is acceptable.
8 MR. CONGEL: Okay. Thank you.
9 MR. ZINKE: Yankee Rowe --
10 CHAIRMAN ZWOLINSKI: But if I understand your 11 point, on the Trojan docket, apparently the staff said 12 something about Zire fire which if I interpret Mr. Meisner's 13 opening remarks, that would be essentially the first time it 14 had been imposed and that might be a backfit in and of 15 itself?
1 16 MR. ZINKE: Yes. i That would be correct. Plus the 1 17 point I'm trying to make is -- as we'll see as I go through 18 the next example, it was a changed position.
19 CHAIRMAN ZWOLINSKI: Okay.
20 MR. ZINKE: It was something -- it was a different 21 position than the staff had applied to Rancho Seco.
22 CHAIRMAN ZWOLINSKI: Okay.
23 MR. ZINKE: Where Rancho Seco, no mention of Zirc L24 - fire,. Trojan and Zirc fire has now become an issue that the 25- -licensee needs to address and the approval of the exemptions I
ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ - _ _ _ -. _ _ _ _ _ _ -. i
28
.1 was based upon the probability of the events. Not where the
- 2. NUREG had concluded -- one of the things the NUREG had 3 concluded was the generic time to the issue is not an issue i
4 which ends up about 520 days, 17 months.
5 CHAIRMAN ZWOLINSKI: Seventeen months, okay.
6 MR'. ZINKE: And the Trojan E plan was approved 325 7 days after shutdown. So it wasn't on the basis that it 8 can't happen, or that certain temperatures could not be 9 exceeded.
10 Yankee Rowe was shut down 11/91, their E plan 11l exemption was granted 10/92. With regard to their E plan 12 exemption there was no issue with Zirc fire. That was not a 13 basis for approval of the E plan exemptions. Their 14 insurance exemption approved 4/93 did credit the Zirc fire 15 -issue that it was a basis for the approval of the 16 exemptions.
17 The acceptance criteria for the insurance was 18 based upon having gone past the generic time period of 17 19 months. So in this case for the E plan no mention of Zirc
-20 fire, insurance Zirc fire plays a role, but the acceptance 21 criteria is now based upon the generic 17 months.
22 [ Slide shown.]
23 MR. ZINKE: For Maine Yankee, and I want to 24 emphasize that as we compare these plants relative to the
-25 fuel pool and~ relative to the event described in the NUREG, ANN RILEY & ASSCCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
29 1 Maine Yankee design is not unique. So there isn't anything 2 special about the Maine Yankee fuel or racks or fuel pool 3 design that would all of a sudden say, well, now is Maine .
4 {
Yankee different than everybody else that has come along? I 5 We shut down in December '96, requested E plan 6 exemption in November of '97. We did perform analysis which i l
7' indicated -- our analysis indicated that the Zirc fire event 8 was no longer possible as of January 16th. We then 9 submitted our insurance exemption request on the 20th of 10 January. On the May 6th, the generic wait period or the 11 generic 17 months, we exceeded that timeframe which brings 12 us up to today that, you know, we're still waiting on 13 approvals of both the E plan and the insurance exemption and j 14 the acceptance criteria for what we're being reviewed 15 against isn't real clear, which I'm going to go into in a 16 little bit more detail.
17 CHAIRMAN ZWOLINSKI: I sense you're trying to draw 18 a parallel between this January 20th, 1998 submittal and the 19 submittal that Yankee Rowe made with respect to insurance?
20 MR. ZINKE: Yeah, and the --
21 CHAIRMAN ZWOLINSKI: And the criteria used to 22 apparently grant that insurance exemption?
23 MR. ZINKE: Right. There's been -- in the 24 regulatory arena, there's two issues that have been tied --
25 so far that have been tied to the Zire fire issue. One is r
i ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
. 30 1 the E plan exemptions, and one is insurance exemptions.
2 There's been proposed rulemaking on the insurance which ties 3 acceptance criteria to Zirc fire analysis and exceeding 4 certain degrees. So that was the -- that rulemaking now, 5 you know, it's still not final, but we used that as our best 6 understanding of the staff's wishes relative to Zirc fire 7 when we did our analysis. And those degree numbers were 8 consistent with the NUREG that described the Zirc fire 9 event.
10 CHAIRMAN ZWOLINSKI: Do I interpret that you 11 believe the staff has changed acceptance criteria and 12 approval criteria from Yankee Rowe to Maine Yankee on 13 insurance?
14 MR. ZINKE: Yes. For Yankee Rowe the issue were 15 not the temperature, it was the timeframe past.
16 CHAIRMAN ZWOLINSKI: Okay. And thus today that 17 review is underway on insurance? This is the insurance?
18 MR. ZINKE: Yes, both the insurance and the E plan 19 reviews are still under way for Maine Yankee.
20 CHAIRMAN ZWOLINSKI: Okay.
21 MR. LAINAS: Suppose -- you indicated on January 22 16th that you submitted an analysis that showed that Zirc 23 fire was no longer possible?
24 MR. ZINKE: Our analysis as performed showed that 25 that was the date that it was no longer. We actually 1
l ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
i
. 31 l
i 1 submitted the analysis to the staff later than that. l t .
i 2 MR. LAINAS: Well, suppose it was approved. {
l 3 Suppose the exemption was approved.
4 MR. ZINKE: Okay.
5 MR. LAINAS: Would that have made the backfit 6- moot?
7 MR. ZINKE: It would still have-been a backfit. i 8 MR. LAINAS: It still pursued the backfit? 1 l
l 9 MR. MEISNER: Yes.
10 MR. ZINKE: Yes. It doesn't change the fact that 11 it's a backfit. It changes to what benefit we get as to 12 pursuing it.
13 MR. MEISNER: Let me make something more clear. i 14 We, on our own initiative, did this analysis and we did it !
15 as a matter.of expediency because at that time the staff was 16 starting to tell us verbally that it would be a condition of l 17 Delaying these approvals makes,a big
~
their.apprcval.
18 difference to decommissioning plants. I'll get into that in i
19 a' bit. It's very costly-particularly when there's no safety 20 benefit associated with it. So we started on'a parallel 21 path both the backfit approach and the analysis approach to 22 try to satisfy the staff -- and that -- unsuccessful in the 23 new approach and I'll talk more about that later. We didn't 24 do that because we felt that was a regulatory requirement.
25 .It was strictly an expediency for us to proceed with our j nNN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
32 1 decommissioning.
j 2 MR. ZINKE: What I've just gone over in history is 3 .to emphasize that as we look at the dockets of the various 4 ' plants that have been shut down that the staff position as 5 to'what is acceptable with regard to the Zirc fire issue has 6 been changing. Changed from Rancho Seco to Trojan, Yankee 7 Rowe, Maine Yankee, and we're in the batch with also 8 Connecticut Yankee now. So the position has changed. When 9 Maine Yankee was licensed and with our E plan and the 10 . changes subsequent to initial licensing the Zirc fire as an l11 issue has never been part of our license. basis. It has 12 never been mentioned as forming the basis for any 13 requirement that we have including E plan and insurance. So 14 this is not an issue that has always been there. It is an 15 issue that was new.
16 As I've just said, you know, it was associated 17 with a generic issue 82 which, as far as we knew, and as far 18 as all the documentation we can find is closed as being 19 resolved with_no new requirements.
20 CHAIRMAN ZWOLINSKI: But you would grant that the 21 staff can develop new positions and promulgate those based 22 on operating plant performance, foreign reactor performance,
-23 I think Barsobek is a very good example. It's a suction 24 strainer issue with boilers and the retrofit of a suction 25 strainer to ensure that you don't clog your ACCS pumps.
ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
33 1- MR. ZINKE: Absolutely.
2 CHAIRMAN ZWOLINSKI: And that would be a new staff 3 position imposed on the industry so as we garner additional 4- experience as a staff there are examples where there seems 5 to be safety payback to impose that,
- 6 MR. ZINKE
- Absolutely. And in fact, that is -- I
-7 mean, that is our point in that in the staff there are new L 8 positions. And there's justified positions and that's why 9
the backfit rule is so important so that we don't spend our 10 resources on those new things that don't provide the safety 11 benefit.
12 MR. MEISNER: The whole purpose of the backfit 13 rule in our minds that it provides that test. It tells you, 14 is this safety significant or not? And-furthermore, if it's 15 safety significant is the amount of safety benefit you're 16 going to get out of it proportional to the costs? It's a '
17 process that we've had around for years, it served us well.
18 In this case the staff never applied it. And backfits are 19 appropriate -- any safety significant thing like Barsobek 20 that it needs to be considered. And I think the industry is 21' getting much better about stepping up to the bar and dealing 22 with those issues.
.23 What we object to are issues that' don't raise to
'24: any' level of safety significance and evaluated and 25 _ probabilities of ten to the minus six.
o And more so that the l.
ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034 l i
I
. 34 1 staff has already done their backfit evaluation on through 2 generic issue 82. That's the problem.
~3 CHAIRMAN ZWOLINSKI: .That example may be unfair 4 because it's a high profile issue.in which there's a lot of 5 interest, the Barsobek issue. In other words, a lot of 6 people are aware, whereas something like this may not be 7 quite the same profile to senior management or what have 8 you, so how does the staff actually handle it? And I think 9 I'm hearing essentially from your perspective you don't see 10 the process being overlaid to issues that maybe are not as 11 visible as some other safety concerns that arise.
12 MR. MEISNER: That's right. Yes.
13 MR. LAINAS: But the backfit that you're claiming 14 is that the issue should never have been asked, it should 15 never have been raised. Not as to whether Zirc fires, you 16 know, whether the plant is acceptable, you know, whether the 17 -- your analysis is acceptable, that's not at issue here.
18 The question'is.we shouldn't -- it shouldn't have been 19 raised at first. All.right.
20 I mean, you may argue that it's a low probability 21 -- you may argue it's a low probability, you know, and the 22 way you analyze, it shows acceptance and all that. That can 1 23 be -- you know, you can -- we can continue dialogue on that, ;
24' but that's not your basis. I mean, your basis is it should
\
25 have been never raised in the first place.
ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
)
. 35 1 MR. MEISNER: Right. And because the staff has 2 already analyzed it, this isn't an unanalyzed event.
3 Generic issue 82 was proposed solely for this purpose to
- 4. determine whether additional requirements are needed in the 5- spent fuel' pools from a safety point of view. And Zirc fire 6
l' was one of the issues that was addressed in resolving that 7 generic issue. And the entire generic issue resolution was 8 that~thee are no additional requirements that meet the 9 backfit rule, in other words, that are cost beneficial and 10 will provide a safety payback proportional to the cost of 11 the --
12 MR. LAINAS: I could look at that as resolution of 13- the issue, not whether it was asked in the first place.
14 Maybe I'm getting too fine on the cut here.
15- MR. MEISNER: Well, the practical effect on us is J 16 when we submitted our request for exemption to the emergency 17 . client, it's fine for the staff to ask the question. And 18 had it been asked as a question, and I'll get into this H 19 again more, we since August, a few weeks after we shut down i 20 Maine Yankee, have been looking to get our arms around this 21 and determine for ourselves whether it 'was a safety 22- significant issue regardless of what the NRC requirements 23 were. And had the staff simply asked, well, you know, give 24 us your evaluation of it and a best estimate approach, we 25 would have done that. In fact, we did it anyway. You know, ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 i
l (202) 842-0034 l
1
, 36
- 1. we --
2- MR. LAINAS: Right.
3 MR. MEISNER: -- but to take the next step and 4 say, as a condition of a our approval we have to do -- you 5 not only have to do an analysis that meets our acceptance 6 criteria, but we, the staff, have to do an analysis using an 7 ' invalidated code and you're going to have to wait until we 8 get up to speed on this and let a contract and come up with 9 acceptable results even though it's clear to everybody, I 10 think, at this point that we're well beyond any time period 11 the adverse event could occur. That is a fact. That really
- 12. kills us on our decommissioning decision.
'13 MR. LAINAS: You see, that's why I asked the 14 question. If we granted the exemption, does the backfit go 15 away? And the answer I got was no.
16 MR. ZINKE: That's correct.
17 MR. LAINAS: Implying to me that the backfit is 18 you should have never asked the question in the first place.
19 MR. MEISNER: But right now --
20 MR. LAINAS: Nontechnical.
21 MR. MEISNER: -- the issue is no longer zire fire.
- 22. If you carefully read the staff's --
23 MR. LAINAS: Yeah, that's all --
it has nothing to do with Zirc
]
-35' fire.
ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. I Court Reporters
.1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034 ,
37 1 MR. LAINAS: Okay.
2 MR. MEISNER: It has to do with 3 licensing-initiated changes.
l- 4 MR. LAINAS: Right. Yeah.
5 1Gl. MEISNER: And that is never going to go away i
6 until we resolve it'.
l 7 MR. LAINAS: Okay.
8 MR. ZINKE: And finally, when the regulatory I 9 .backfit process is not followed, which in this case we 10 believe it wasn't, we get into some unavoidable difficulties 11 and.then we really get frustrated and we get long times.
12 Some of the problems that are associated with the 1
l 13 Zirc fire issue because the backfit rule hasn't been j i
14 followed, one there's a difficulty in even understanding 15 what the staff position is. It's not documented, it's not' 16 explicit as to what is the requirement with regard to the i 17 source of the staff positions. You know, we can find 18 information in NUREGs, we can find information with regard 19 to the generic issue and its closure. There's information 20 in the rulemaking, there's -- you know, that's still 21- pending. There's information in certain SECY letters that 22 deal with approval of the staff to go forward in certain 23 directions, but there's no explicit, this is what our 24 position is. That get aggravated in that what codes need to
.25 be used. And so we get into discussions of, is this code ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
38 1 acceptablo, or is this code acceptable? Until a few weeks g 2 ago the code associated with the generic issue 82 was not I
l 3 available to us in order to run our case so we had to pick a 4 different code.
5 We get into discussing what are the assumptions to 6 the analysis? What do they need to be? How much 7 conservatism needs to be in this assumption versus that 8 assumption? We get into acceptance criteria, well, what 9- acceptance criteria are we going to use that's going to be 10 acceptal le? Is it going to be probablistic? Is it going to 11 be based on temperature? Is it going to be based on time?
12 Are we going to deal with the generic acceptance criteria of 13 17 months, or does each time going to need to be plant 14 specific?
l 15 None of these are written down, resolved which 16 then just creates a lot of back and forth, and all of this 17 comes from that as an issue. We didn't follow the backfit 18 process. We didn't follow it even to the point to say, is 19 this an issue that ought to be implemented? Because if we 20 had followed that process then there ought to be explicit 1 21 directions so we would know what to be doing right now.
22 I'm going to turn the rest of the presentation i
23 back over to Mike.
l 24 MR. MEISNER: Just a few more comments following 25 up what George was saying.
ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034 i
I.
39 1 [ Slide shown.]
2
}- MR. MEISNER: First of all, I sense some confusion 3
onLthe part of the panel and we went through the same 4
l confusion about why is the staff imposing this anyway? I 5
mean,- you had generic issue 82, it was analyzed in backfit
- 6 space. There.wasn't sufficient safety concern to require a 7
-new imposition of requirements, why are we in this position?
8 L
l And here's the closest I can figure out, and this is what a 9 couple of the NRC staff have told me. I don't know that I
) 10 this is the case because you're going to look hard and long 11 1 to find anything written at all on this issue even the sta2f
.12 position that we have to do the analysis, but this is what 13 I'm told.
l 14 When you look at an operating plant and you look 15 at that with respect to a Zirc fire, I'm not really that 16 concerned about a Zirc fire because even if I don't address 17 -the Zirc fire, there are still off-site planning i 18 requirements that are in place. Now, that's different from 19 a decommissioning plant. '
20 In fact, that's exactly what the exemption is that i L '
. 21. -we're requesting to eliminate off-site planning 22 requirements. So, therefore, there's something 23 ' substantively different between an operating plant and a 24- decommissioning plant. But when we now look at generic 25 issue 82, the analyses that were done and the issues that l
l ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034 L
L____-____--__-_-_2_--_-_-------------------------------------------
L 40 1 were addressed, we find.that in fact when they did the zirc
, 2 fire analysis it didn't assume off-site emergency response.
3 In other words, it didn't analyze the operating case, it l 4 analyzed the shutdown. case. So that generic issue 82 is as 5 . applicable to the decommissioning plant as an operating o 6 plant. I 1
7 So as best I can reconstruct,.anyway, the staff --
l 8 CHAIRMAN ZWOLINSKI: I haven't read the -- l l 9 MR. MEISNER: -- has an erroneous assumption here.
10 CHAIRMAN ZWOLINSKI: I haven't read that, the ,
11 NUREG and maybe we need to read the NUREG.
12 MR. MEISNER: Okay.
- 13 CHAIRMAN ZWOLINSKI: But for clarification, are 14 you saying that on your fair reading that if there is this 15 horrific event of a Zirc. fire, that there would not be Part l 16 100 ramifications?
3 l
17 MR. MEISNER: No, not at all. I'm taking the l
18 NRC's backfit evaluation of the event which is 19 radiologically consequential just like many beyond design
- 20. basis events and that's what this is. This isn't part of
~
l
.21: anybody's license basis. You can postulate many of these 22 events and we do it all the time in PRA space, go to core 23 damage or something else, I mean, it's different in this 24 case, but that do have significant radiological consequences 25 and you assess risks. And risk is probability times i
i
)
I ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
l I- . 41 1 consequences. And you make judgments as to whether or not 2 these events are of importance. And the staff has had 3
longstanding criteria as to what the thresholds are and i
4 break points are for these in doing backfit evaluations.
5 And this event. evaluates out in the generic issue as a ten 6 to the minus six event. Which is the basis for concluding 7-that no additional requirements are necessary for any plant, 8
be it operating or shutdown for spent fuel pool safety.
9 I I'm not saying it's inconsequential, I'm saying
! 10 that the -- somewhere you have to draw the line, do I need 11 to be concerned about the meteor strike through the spent :
12 fuel pool? You know, where's the break point?
And the 13 staff has already established that and did it very well in j 14 the generic issue resolution. !
15 The other thing I'd like to mention and I think l 16 George really touched on it, as I told you, we analyzed this i 17 event. We have been trying to get from the staff the sharp 18 code since last August and for the life of me I'still can't i 19 figure out why we can't have it. Although I understand it 1 l
20 was just released a few days ago.
21 We wanted a tool that the staff had some degree of l 22 buy into to do this analysis this ourselves. Failing to get 23 -that tool from the staff, we then went out and contracted 24' with aLvery reputable analytic cerpany, ScienTech which NRC 25 uses all the time, too. We used the track code to do this i
ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 '
Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
42 1 evaluation for us. Probably the simplest application you E2 'could have in track, a very simpl e, straightforward natural 3 circulation error analysis. They did that and that's the 4 results . that George presented earlier tare mid-January where 5 .w e could not exceed the staff's criteria and temperature in 6 the fuel. ,
t ;
7 The pain we went through though, in doing this, we l
8 eventually submitted it to the staff and the staff, I have 9 to grant, was considerate and after some discussion saying, 10 okay, well, we'll sit down with you and we'll look at your 11 analysis, and we did that, what, a month ago, six weeks ago, la and we had a meeting and presented our analysis and results.
13 We're now in either.the second or the third wave of requests 14 for additional information. And we are bogged in a quagmire 15 like you wouldn't believe. The staff has absolutely no 16 criteria on which to base an analysis lu.e this. It's a 17 beyond design basis event which if you've done probablistic 18 risk analysis, you know, you always do a realistic best 19 estimate approach, 20 It's not license basis, but I think the staff is 21' 'having a hard time shifting gears from their license basis 22 analysis review to a realistic review. And in the process, 23 now we have some draft questions pending, draft questions 24 that really do imply that the contractor that we have doing
'25 this job was not up to snuf f. These are individuals who are ANN RILE'l & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
l 43 1
l well known in the track industry as experts in employing 2 that-code. And this is the kind of feedback that we're 3 getting. It's to the point where it's nice that the staff 4
offered to go and look at our analysis, but if you don't 5
follow the right process like George said, if you don't 6-establish, first of all, that it needs to be an event worthy l
17 of consideration and second of all what your review criteria 8' are, you're never going to get there.
9 And I guess at this point I don't have any real 10 confidence in any time under a year the staff will review 11 our analysis and reach a positive conclusion. But, again, 12 that's my personal opinion. So, when you step outside of 13 the process, even as much as you'd like to band-aid it or 14 remedy it and take unusual situations, it's very difficult 15 to make it. work. But Maine Yankee has taken just about
-16 every step we can since shortly after we shut down to deal 17 with this issue one way or another, and it's been very 18 frustrating as I'm sure you can tell from the way I speak, a 19 very frustrating experience for ul,.
20 Let's.go on to the backfit denial itself. And I 21' would like to establish first what some of our 22 understandings and expectations are as we talk through the 23 issues. And as we started out at the beginning with the 24 presumption that the backfit rule does apply in this case, 25 and I think'we're beyond that. Our reading of the backfit i
L I. ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034 E --_--- _ ---_-_ _ ---____ -- - - _ - - - - - - - . - - -- - - . - - ]
44 1 staff guidance is that upon a denial the staff is required 2 to provide other bases for denial in the denial letter. So 3 our presumption is that from here on out the staff will not 4 be coming up with new reasons or opinions as to why this is l 5 not a backfit and then what we're dealing with and admitting 6 today is the entire universe of staff basis for denial of 7 our backfit request.
8 MR. LAINAS: I guess we will look at your appeal.
9 MR. MEISNER: Pardon me?
10 MR. LAINAS: Look at your appeal and see if that 11 influences, you know, what the original decision is based 12 on.W 13 MR. MEISNER: Well, in our appeal and in our 14 . meeting today we're directly addressing the basis for 15 denial.
16 MR. LAINAS: Right. Right.
17 MR. MEISNER: And we believe it's only fair that 18 from here on out the staff can't come up with new bases, or 19 else I think we need to have another meeting like this.
20 Well, I'll point out the staff guidance on backfit 21 requires that all of the basis for denial be in the letter 22 that was sent to us. And one other thing and I'm not --
23 CHAIRMAN ZWOLINSKI: Just so we're clear, Mike, 24 the panel certainly may choose to want to get into this 25 NUREG, get into some of the other -- the Trojan docket, the ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
. 45 1 Rancho Seco, things of that sort trying to garner as best 2 knowledge as we can. And we have been reading some of the 3 background on this, as I said in the beginning. We probably 4
have not read everything we should and understand everything 5 which means we may have to go back to the staff to give a 6 better rendering of what was meant here.
! 7 MR. MEISNER: Okay. '
l 8 CHAIRMAN ZWOLINSKI: But that's in the context of 9 us assuring we have kind of -- we're playing with as much 10 information as possible.
'll MR. MEISNER: Okay.
12 CHAIRMAN ZWOLINSKI: And that's why I'm asking to 13 please give us as much information as you can on the topic l 14 today just to allow us to have a full deck, so to speak.
l 15 MR. MEISNER: Okay. Sure. And with that being
! 16 said, I hope I at least tried to make clear that the issues !
i 17 today, the issues on appeal have nothing to do with Zirc l 18- fire. I believe the only issue is the basis for statf 19 denial is can licensees initiate activities on their own l
f 20 that are protected under the backfit rule. The staff has L 21 made no' showing that there is a technical issue here.
- 22 They've essentially agree that it's a new staff position and ;
I 23 the only issue is can licensees initiate changes and be l 24 protected with the backfit rule.
1 25 The last point I wanted to make here is -- and ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034 L_----_--_---------_----------------------_--- -
. 46 1 we've included this in our letter, we have ongoing reviews 2- on the emergency plan exemptions and on the insurance 3 exemptions. NRC guidance is such that while we're in this 4 backfit process and appeal process as well, that those 5 reviews can't be held up. And once those reviews are done, 6 the exemption should be issued whether this panel has 7 completed its deliberations or not. And I'd just like to 8 read from manual chapter 0514 which states that -- and.I can 9 . leave out a few words that are inapplicable, but that the 10 " licensing action shall not be delayed by NRC actions during 11 the. staff's evaluation and backfit transmittal process or 12 subsequent appeals process which is what we are in now. And 4 13 I would like to come back to that at the end of my
- 14 discussion.
15 [ Slide shown.]
16 MR. MEISNER: Okay. So I probably said it too 17 much already, our reading of the NRC basis for denial of the 18 backfit request is that Maine Yankee has noc valid
- 19. expectation of protection under the backfit rule because 20 it's the licensee, not the NRC that's requesting the l
exemption. And similar to that, that in the area of 22 -exemptions NRC action is discretionary.
. 23 Now, I'll point out.these next three items on here 3
24 are addressed in the denial letter and they note that
- 25 there's a rational basis for the new requirement that the ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 l Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034 L
1 . . -. -
- - - - - - - - - - - - ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ - - - ~
, 47 1
staff is choosing to impose and there's a reasonable nexus 2
between'that requirement and the exemption request and that 3
the staff believes this analysis is necessary, but in our
(
4 view those things really have nothing to do with the basis 5 for denial. And as I'll talk a little bit later, are really 6
l a way to create new pseudo backfit criteria in situations l 7 I where the staff believes that backfit doesn't apply. But 8
the staff can't use these criteria, the fact that there's a 9 rational basis for the new requirement to obviate or work l 10 around the backfit rule. So in that sense they did not seem 11- to be a basis for denial in and of themselves, but rather an !
- 12- explanation of what happens after the denial occurs, and an i i
13 explanation of what can be imposed after the denial occurs.
14 The first major point that I'd like to address is 15 this notion t'lat we don't have a valid expectation protected i
i 16 by the backfit rule or licensee-initiated changes. And I'm i
17 sure you've all read our submittal and I won't belabor 18 points on this, but essentially what the staff is saying is 19 that there's a directionality here associated with 20 regulation that in one case regulations apply, if it's I 21 something that the NRC initiates or imposes on the licensee 22 but if a licensee were to take a step allowed under the 23 regulations on their own initiative, then for some reason 24 that's hard to understand licensees are not protected by the 25 backfit rule.
ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) B42-0034
. 48 1 We believe that there's no evidence in the backfit 2' rule statement of considerations and many of the very long 3 discussions on backfit back in the late '80s that would 4 support that conclusion at all. And I want to point out 5 here some of the dangers-that we get into with this kind of ,
6- position. Clearly the denial basis applies to all 7 licensee-initiated changes. The only criterion is that the 8 licensee initiate it. Yet, first of all, it's inconsistent 9 with the NRC's own positions in manual chapter 0514 because 10 that manual chapter very distinctly addresses 11 licensee-initiated changes such as tech spec changes, for 12 . instance, and notes that those are protected under the 13 backfit rule.
14 Now, the practical effect of this new position is 15 very wide reaching and is going to lead to some significant 16 regulatory process disruption. Let me go back to the 17 improved tech spec program. When we implemented that 18 program for-Grand Gulf it took about four months of intense 19 discussion and negotiation with the staff involving 20 literally thousands of questions on the staff's part And 21 there were literally hundreds of times where it was 22 necessary of our part to say, no, no, this is a new staff 23 position. We've already had a very hard fought battle over 12 4 what the improved tech specs are to say. You cannot impose 25 this at this point, it's against the rules, and in those ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
49 1 cases we prevailed in every case. Our only protection, push 2
come to shove, was that backfit rule, new staff positions.
3 Putting in place this new interpretation of where 4 backfit rule applies, I believe firmly that there isn't one j 5 licensee in the United States that would proceed forward now
'6 with the improved tech spec program. Because as soon as 7
they put forward their suggested new tech specs, every 8 change there is free game.
9 And we know that when we -- even right after all 10 the agreements were struck and a few plants started to 11 initiate this, we knew that there were any number of staff 12 members, primarily review staff, who had disagreements with 13 what was within and without the improved tech specs and did 14 everything they could to try to get the old requirements 15 added back in. That's going to happen.
16 If a licensee has no protection under backfit to 17 implement the improved tech spec program then it's fair 18 game. Your tech specs won't come out looking anything like 19 the improved tech specs are. That applies acroes the board.
20 As changes under 50.59 not unlike George mentioned 21 on the IEEE rulemaking, a licensee makes a change under 22 50.59 under their own initiative, suddenly somehow there are 23 new staff requirements, the residential inspector can come ~
24 over and say, hey, I understand you want to make this 25 change, I think you need to do this, this, and this. Or NRC ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034 w_____________________-____-_-_____ - ____. ._ _ ._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ -
50 l
1 can push through rulemakings like in the IEEE standard and 2 somehow you've got to keep track of these rulemakings that 3 only apply when you're making a change under 50.59 in the 4 area of rulemaking. It would be chaos, a very difficult 5 situation. And we also know, I think, that many licensees 6 make changes not because there is so much elective as they 7 improve safety at their plant, and they often do that under 8 50.59 or that's their impetus for going in for a tech spec 9 change. So it's not just like licensees are trying to get 10 out from under something, but it doesn't matter. In any 11 case the NRC can apply with this position any ch'agts and 12 new criteria that they wish to on an licensee-initiated 13 change.
14 [ Slide shown.]
15 MR. MEISNER: The notion that the NRC 16 determination is discretionary, while I said here it's not 17 discretionary that that really is incorrect. We recognize 18 that the NRC has discretion in the area of exemptions, but 19 we also recognize that a supported exemption should not --
20 approval of which should not be unreasonably withheld. And 21 we think that's the case in this situation. If you go back 22 to the statements of consideration on the decommissioning 23 rulemaking in 10CFR50.82, it's clearly stated, and we've 24 quoted it in our response that the rulemaking changes for 25 decommissioning plans are incomplete.
ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
51 1 While 50.82 is a great change on the part of the 2 NRC, it really helped out the industry a lot. It was 3 explicitly recognized that it was incomplete and it was l
4 explicitly recognized that it was. incomplete in the area of 5 emergency planning. And there is also a clear statement in
! 6 there that because of these incomplete rulemakings that 7- licensees will still need to get exemptions approved.
8 So while clearly the NRC has discretion in 9 approving exemptions, I think the record also shows that 10 there was an expectation that licensees would have to get 11 exemptions to proceed in decommissioning because the rules 12 were not all complete yet.
13 So I think there's an expectation and an 14- appropriate one on the part of the licensee to have those 15 !
exemptions approved and approved consistent with their prior
)
16 license basis.
17 [ Slide shown.] !
i 18 MR. MEISNER: The staff says that our request is 19 not voluntary. I mean, it is voluntary. And this is an
- 20. important issue for all decommissioning plants. There are 21 -internal conflicts in the regulations because eme'rgency ;
12 planning and security plan and other things haven't been 23 updated for decommissioning plants. I'll give you a couple 24 of examples.
25 In a few months, I think late September, early l
l ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
52 1 October, we're supposed to conduct a biennial exercise under 2 the regulations. And the regulations read such that we have I '3 'to-do that exercise involving our principal functional areas 4 of emergency. response. We haven't gotten approval to drop 5 the offside emergency response. We have to conduct an
-6 exercise with NRC, FEMA, and everyone else that somehow gets
- 7. Hus'through a general emergency. We can't exceed 250
.8. millirem today in our design basis event in decommissioning.
9 That can't get us above an alert level.
10; So we're faced with doing an artificial exercise 11 that's completely unrealistic with adverse training 12 consequences for folks or being noncompliant with the
- 13. regulation. Now, you know, FEMA is not ready for this.
14 They haven't proposed any budget for it this year, they're 15 not planning -- doing any planning for participation in any 16 exercise and this is solely reliant on the NRC granting 17 relief in the emergency planning area to avoid going through 18' this pretty useless and costless exercise.
-19 The more major problem in our mind is that 20 regulations.for decommissioning plants require that 21 decommissioning cost-be bounded. Okay. We can't exceed 22 certain costs and still be compliant with the regulations.
23 And you all know, I think, that the biggest cost 24 in. decommissioning is personnel. And the thing that sets 25 our personnel levels atidecomnissioning plants is almost ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
i
. 53
'l solely regulatory requirements and really the programmatic
! 2 requirements. Emergency planning, security plan, QA 3
program, the degree to which you downgrade or declassify 4 your previously safety-related components and do the same 5 thing with your procedure, surveillance activities, tech 6 specs, and the like. That's setting our staffing levels 7 without exemptions to the regulations. And I'm not limiting 8 it here just to emergency planning. It covers those other 9 ones too, particularly security.
10 We can't meet the regulations. We're in some 11 sense in noncompliance, conceptually today, because we don't 12 have these approvals. We're going to exceed what the NRC 13 considers to be an acceptable cost level for decommissioning 14 absent these exemptions. And it's hard for me to understand 15 how in that case the staff could even come close to 16 considering that these requests we're making are voluntary.
17 [ Slide shown.]
18 MR. MEISNER: I'll be honest that the statement 19 that irks me the most in this denial is this idea that, hey, 20 Maine Yankee, you can just retain your emergency plan as is.
21 If someone in the industry told me that, I would say that 22 was a very irresponsible position.
23 Like I said earlier, we can't remain compliant 24 with our cost goals, we certainly can't remain compliant 25 with our fiduciary responsibilities to the people that are ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters l
1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
. 54 1 paying this decommissioning ad infinitum, the rate payers 2 and the owners, and it's something that no utility person in 3 his right mind would consider doing.
4 We have to step out, we have to start 5 decommissioning these plants, and we shouldn't be shackled 6 by unnecessary regulatory restraints that don't add any 7 safety benefit to the process. And I think taking a 8 position that we can simply sit still and do nothing is 9 perhaps irresponsible on the part of the NRC as well.
10 [ Slide shown.]
11 MR. MEISNER: I'm not going to spend any time on 12 this because this is going longer than I thought, but as I 13 mentioned up front then the staff has through the denial 14 letter posited new criteria for situations where the backfit 15 rule doesn't apply and is now creating ad hoc secondary 16 backfit criteria for what it's okay for the staff to impose 17 on us. I think they really have no relevance to the issue 18 we're here to talk about today and I'd just caution against 19 proliferating criteria under different situations and 20 difficulties in following and applying those criteria.
21 So in summary, we believe the staff denial ignores 22 precedents. We don't think the staff has rested on ;
23 precedent at all in this case. If anything they change it I
! .24 with every new plant that comes up. And they surely don't
- 25 rely on the resolution of the generic issue on spent fuel 1
I 70RJ RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 l
(202) 842-0034 I
55 1 pool safety. New ad hoc backfit criteria, it clearly
- 2. reverses the generic issue results with no analysis to back 3 it up and, you know, overall it puts us in the< situation 4'
where the underlying purposes of rules are subject to change 5 without any notice, comment, or analysis. And, in other 6 words, in the area of licensee-initiated changes, they're 7 subject to-any new staff condition that any staff member 8 cares to impose on that change. And this is really an
- 9- untenable position for the industry as a whole as well.
1 10 [ Slide shown.]
11 MR. MEISNER: Let me finish up here with some 12 thoughts.
i 13 CHAIRMAN ZWOLINSKI: Can I go back to your summary 14 slide?
j 15 MR. MEISNER: Sure.
16 CHAIRMAN ZWOLINSKI: The staff denial ignores 17 precedents. Are you familiar with the Trojan exemption?
18 MR. MEISNER: Well, only to a certain degree.
l:
19 Emergency planning?
20 CHAIRMAN ZWOLINSKI: Right. I thought I had heard 21 that somehow the staff had Zircoid fire in that somehow and 22 then somehow I think seismic got involved or --
23 MR.. MEISNER: Yeah, let me address that, George.
24- Specifically for the E plan exemption, the Trojan approval 25 was consistent with the resolution of the generic issue ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
56 l 1 which' concluded that there's not sufficiently high 2 probability for this event to be considered further. And it 3 was' based'on' probability'that the exemption was approved.
4 There was no analysis of how long do you have to go 5 following shut down or decay the be low enough to reach a 6 certain temperature.
7 CHAIRMAN ZWOLINSKI: So in the staff ignored 8 precedents,.if there was a precedent, it seems like the most 9 recent case'that the staff processed -- and I think the 10 timeline indicates it was Trojan, apparently there's a 11 difference or a significant change between the two reviews?
12 MR. MEISNER: It wasn't --
13 CHAIRMAN ZWOLINSKI: I don't meant to put words in 14 your mouth, but'I want to understand.
15 MR. MEISNER: Yeah, let me just find it, John, but 16 I thought Yankee Rowe was --
17 CHAIRMAN ZWOLINSKI: And whatever the criteria 18 were that the staff used and how the safety evaluation --
19 things it said, whatever, I have not reviewed the --
20 MR. MEISNER: Okay.
21 CHAIRMAN ZWOLINSKI: But I heard George say, and 22 you guys can speak for yourself, I heard that Zirc fixo 23 somehow was involved, but ultimately it seemed to be a 24 seismic concern?
25 MR. MEISNER: Well, Zirc fire, the initiating l ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 l
(202) 842-0034 L . .
I
, 57 1 event, the. postulated initiating event for Zirc fire is a l 2~ seismic event. It's a. catastrophic seismic event that busts 3 your spent fuel pool wide open and instantaneously drains 4 all the coolant.
5 CHAIRMAN ZWOLINSKI: Okay.
6 MR. MEISNER: So, therefore, to get there you need 7 to consider the probability of such an event.
8 CHAIRMAN ZWOLINSKI: So it ignores precedent, the 9; staff did not apply the way it reviewed Trojan to the way
'10 it's reviewing you?
11 MR. MEISNER: That's right. That's right. ,
12 CHAIRMAN ZWOLINSKI: It still has Zirc fire.
13- MR. ZINKE: Zirc fire is an issue.
14 MR. MEISNER: It never got to Zirc fire because it 15 said you can't have the seismic event.
16 CHAIRMAN ZWOLINSKI: Okay.
17 MR..MEISNER: You only get to Zirc fire after you 18 drain the pool. So if you don't drain the pool, you don't 19 have a Zirc fire.
20 CHAIRMAN ZWOLINSKI: But we'll be able to review 21- -it. But it just seems as if maybe they started with Zirc
- 22 . fire and the licensee ultimately was.able to show that's not 23 a credible event because their design of their pool or the 9
24 probability of a seismic event or --
25 MR. MEISNER: Okay.
ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters
.1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034 L
. 58 1 l CHAIRMAN ZWOLINSKI: -- ultimately now becomes not 2 credible to postulate, thus the Zirc fire goes away. But 3 'they may have started with the review being Zirc fire as the 4 . design or the criteria.
5 MR. MEISNER: Yeah, that could very well be. I 6- .know we-discussed that briefly back in the fall with the 7 staff, and it was clear that they weren't interested in 8 looking'at' seismic probabilities.
9 ' CHAIRMAN ZWOLINSKI: Okay. I'm just focusing on 10 staff denies -- denial' ignores precedents and I'm going back 11 to Trojan and not having that in front of us, that has the-12 potential to have precedents?
- 13. MR. MEISNER: Yeah, you can call that the 14 precedent, John, but my intent for putting that down was the 15 ' percent was the generic issue resolution. It wasn't the 16 individual approvals as the years went on. The only purpose 17 for which we put that up was to show the staff hasn't 18f maintained a position anywhere. And most of them are
.19 inconsistent with the generic issue resolution.
20 MR. CONGEL: Including that one.
21 MR. MEISNER: Including that one.
22 MR. .CONGEL: Including Trojan?
23 MR. MEISNER: Yes, they --
'24 MR. CONGEL: Oh , okay. Because I heard you --
25 MR. MEISNER: -- that in my mind is a clear ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters i 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 '
Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
59 1 backfit. I'm not trying to compare us to Trojan and say the l
2 staff should have applied the same criteria to us as they 3 did with Trojan because applying it to Trojan is a backfit.
t i
4 MR. CONGEL: Okay. Because I thought you said 5 earlier that in accordance with generic issue 82, Trojan was 6 approved because of the low probability. And that's not the 7 case. I believe that they looked at it as an individual 8 case starting with the Zirc fire as John is saying an then 9
'had-a method by which it was possible to argue that pathway 10 and the conclusions regarding the needed EP away?
11 MR. MEISNER: That's right. I was simply trying 12 to draw a parallel that the generic issue was resolved based
- 13. on low probability.
14 MR. CONGEL: Okay.
16 MR. MEISNER: And so was, ultimately, Trojan.
16 CHAIRMAN ZWOLINSKI: So I was just trying to -- I
{
17 was trying to follow each one of your summary points and I 18 wanted to make sure I was understanding it.
19 MR. MEISNER: Okay.
l 20 CHAIRMAN ZWOLINSKI: If you want to move on, go 21 ahead.
22 [ Slide shown.]
23 MR. MEISNER: Okay. Well, just a few more points L 24 to make, and these are requests to the appeal panel itself.
25 We would ask that in this case with the ongoing l
I ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036
( (202) 842-0034
60 1 -emergency plan exemption reviews and for the insurance p 2 exemption that rather than wait the outcome of this panel j 3 deliberations that staff guidance is to -- since we're in i
4 the backfit process, to timely proceed with those reviews 5 and issue,the exemptions-. And I understand that we're very j 6 close to the end on those. And one of the reasons why we 7 put in the backfit request to begin with was to short 8 circuit a long, long review time. So given that the staff 9 guidance is to issue those things forgetting the pending 10 issue, we think it appropriate that the panel direct the 11 staff to immediately issue those exemption approvals.
12 Our second request I talked about a little bit --
13' MR. LAINAS: Before coming to a conclusion --
14' MR. MEISNER: Pardon me?
15 MR. LAINAS: Before coming to a conclusion as to 16 whether this is a backfit or not?
17 MR. MEISNER: Yes, and let me reread the staff 18 guidance on that from manual chapter 0154 -- 0514. It says 19 that licensing action which is what we're going through now, 20 the emergency plan exemption requests, shall not be delayed 21 by NRC actions during the staffs' evaluation and backfit 22 transmittal process or a subsequent appeals process which is 23 what'we're in now.
24 The intent is that you carve out the issue in 25 dispute,_.in this case the Zirc fire, and proceed with the ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
l
. 61 1 remainder of the licensing action. And that's what we're 2 asking the staff to do to simply, in this case, comply with 3 staff guidance on their backfit process. And we're asking 4 furthermore that we'd like --
5 MR. LAINAS: You've got to be a little bit more 6 careful -- right now, all right, the staff is continuing 7 with its review of the issue on its merits --
8 MR. MEISNER: Independent of Zirc fire.
9 MR. LAINAS: -- as you requested earlier --
10 MR. MEISNER: Right. And we're simply asking that 11 those approvals be issued independent of deliberations, sir.
12 I assume the panel isn't going to turn around a decision 13 overnight. And we --
14 MR. LAINAS: Not overnight. Okay.
15 MR. MEISNER: -- would not want the panel's review 16 to hold up the issuance of the approvals.
17 CHAIRMAN ZWOLINSKI: I think we consider the 18 panel's activity to be holistically independent. We do owe 29 the office director a view and an opinion of this matter, 20 but I'm under the impression the staff is continuing to work 21 day-by-day on both of these.
22 I'm not aware of any direction to hold up that 23 activity at all.
24 MR. MEISNER: We did include that in our letter 25 request, the appeal Jetter. And we addressed it to Mr.
l ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
62 1 Calhan and asked that that --
that the staff be directed to 2 odo that. So I am simply reiterating that request here. And 3 we ask as part of your deliberations, like I mentioned up 4- front, that you disallow any new reasons why this is not a 5 backfit that those things should have been included in the 6 backfit denial letter if they were appropriate. And we ask 7 that you determine in this case that backfit in fact does 8 exist.
9 And furthermore, that in this case the backfit 10 evaluation was really done some years ago and was as a part 11 of generic issue 82 resolution.
12 And finally, in going back to the context I tried 13 to lay out for this, I'm not sure this appropriate to 14 request of the panel, but we feel that backfit in general is 15 not something staff considers routinely or even 16 exceptionally. And we think the staff has to follow the 17 rules just as much as the licensee does. And I'm not sure 18 that at least the spirits of the rules are being followed in 19 this case, and you know, I'd be happy to go into more detail 20 about examples and things, but I think on their face it's 21- clear that if nothing else, the staff does not consider new 22 positions or does not address new positions as backfit 23 before they issue them and I suspect really doesn't think 24 about it.
25 But I ask for your help in that respect and it ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW , Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
63 1 might bn worthwhile to take a look as to how the backfit
.2 rule is implemented within the NRC and on a generic basis, 3
l not just associated with Maine Yankee's request and draw 4 your own conclusions. But in any. case I do think it 5 worthwhile for the panel, just as a spot check, call in a 6
few PMs, call in a some reviewers and ask them how many 7 backfits they've identified in the last year and see what 8 .the result is. And that's all I have. And I appreciate 9 your time and attention.
10 MR. LAINAS: I guess we're going to hear something 11 from NEI, I guess.
12 CHAIRMAN ZWOLINSKI: Yes.
13 MR. LAINAS: But I think the panel is' set to look 14 at what's been going on with respect to Maine Yankee. As 15 far as generically is concerned, I wonder if NEI -- maybe 16 they'll tell us whether'NEI is approaching this, you know, 17 generically with the NRC -- the generic aspects of this 18 issue.
19 MR. MEISNER: We can get into that, but I think 20 it's something worthwhile to~ consider. You are the first 21 appeals panel in six years, you know. I mean, that means
)
i 22 something.
~23 .MR. LAINAS: Maybe.
24 MR. MEISNER: And you're the first people that are 25 in some position to maybe draw some conclusions that go j i
ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 2 84 Ib3 1
E___-_----_----- - _ - - - - - _ _ - - - -
i
. 64 {
1 beyond an narrowly constructed backfit.
2 MR. LAINAS: I wonder how many backfit requests 3 have been made by industry during those six years?
4 MR. MEISNER: Yeah, not very many. Like I said, 5 the industry is apathetic. Once you make one, it doesn't 6 get anywhere.
l 7 MR. LAINAS: That's right.
8 CHAIRMAN ZWOLINSKI: I would like to read, just so 9 the record is straight, you are tasked, speaking to the 10 panel members with recommending to the director, NRR, 11 whether or not the criteria being used by the staff in 12 evaluating a Maine Yankee request for relief from off-site 13 emergency preparedness requirements of 10CFR50.54q costs due 14 to backfit, that was the envelope or the box that we were 15 asked to assess. Some, if not a fair amount of your 16 presentation goes beyond this particular directive. And 17 what the panel will probably do in a different session will 18 probably discuss do we want to render a view or observation 19 or opinion. But I think we have in our charter, a specific 20 direction that we must fulfill and I think your request is, 21 go beyond your charter to render an observation or view.
22 MR. MEISNER: That's right.
23 CHAIRMAN ZWOLINSKI: Would that be a reasonable 24 interpretation of your request?
25 MR. MEISNER: Yes.
ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034 1
65 1 CHAIRMAN ZWOLINSKI: Do you have any more 2 questions of the licensee?
3 MR. CONGEL: No. i 4 MR. LAINAS: No.
.5 MR. MEISNER: I think at this point, did you want 6 to say something, Don?
7 CHAIRMAN ZWOLINSKI: Well, if you all are B
essentially done, I don't think we have anymore questions of 9 your folks. I'd like to move on and afford others an 10 opportunity to speak. And, thank you for your very detailed 11 presentation.
12 MR. MEISNER: Thank you.
13 CRAIRMAN ZWOLINSKI: I must say, just speaking for 14 myself, I will need to read the transcript to really let I 15 some of this sink in, and there are other documents. And I )
1 16 think all of us are taking our role fairly -- quite 17 seriously. So, you've given us a lot of information and to 18 digest all of that over a few days is not going to be easy.
19 But we are trying to work in a rather short timeframe. j 20 MR. MEISNER: i And I don't doubt that you're going 21 -i to give this good consideration and due consideration. And i 22 I hope you understand on our part, this is not a contentious 23 issue, but a heartfelt issue. And it's something that is ;
'24 really making a difference for Maine Yankee and making a 25- difference in an area that is not safety significant at all.
l ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034 l_
}
66 1- Thank you.
2 CHAIRMAN ZWOLINSKI: Thank you.
3 MR. DAVIS: Don Davis from Connecticut Yankee and 4' Yankee Connecticut. I just had a.few comments. I think 5 Mike and George did a superb job at going through lots of 6 details in history and I just wanted to make a couple of 7 points. In fact, I would also try to go Deyond your 8 charter, as you read it, to include Connecticut Yankee in 9 that same issue in that essentially everything that Mike 10 said applies to Connecticut Yankee and maybe even with some 11 extra little twists that you ought to consider. Also, I 12 think that this a good forum, not only just because of the 13 management contention that you're going to bring to it, but i
! 14 I suspect there's going to be others in the NRC management 15 that will, you know, be interested in what was occurring 16 today and so I would make a plea beyond just the backfit 17 issue of some more management engagement in reviewing what's i
l 18 going on in decommissioning, and this is a good example of 19 areas where I think whether it's backfit or just the NRC 20 - exercising its management responsibility that needs some 21 focus as it pertains to decommissioning plants.
L 22 First I'd like to say that specific to CY, 23- Connecticut Yankee, it was shut down around five months 24 earlier than Maine Yankee and most of the licensing actions 25 submittals were, you know, submitted therefore somewhat i
ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034 I
67 1 before that plant and we're essentially in the same position 2 as Maine Yankee waiting for staff review. I think that it's 1
.3 important to look at the safety significance of this issue.
4 As you brought up, John, you know, I think all of 5 the utilities out there, certainly Mike and I are very 6 interested in dealing with safety issues. And I think we 7 need to look at the safety significance of issues like this.
8 As far as I can see, and I bhould tell you that Connecticut 9 Yankee did a similar ca3culation to Maine Yankee to 10 calculate if there was a potential for Zirc fires, and if 11 so, when it occurred. We used a different consultant and a 1 12 different computer code and concluded in a -- I'd say, a 13 consistent manner with Maine Yankee, that the potential did 14 not exist or certainly does not now exist at Connecticut 15 Yankee.
16 And so here we have really three independent 17 calculations, one by the staff, one by ScienTech for Maine 18 Yankee, one by FullTech for Connecticut Yankee all 19 concluding that there really isn't a potential for a zirc 20 fire at these facilities. And yet we're still sitting there 21 basically with the requirement for full scope emergency 22 planning, we're sitting there paying insurance, costs that 23 hit us at $3 to 500,000 a month. And the only thing 24 outstanding is staff review of our submittals.
25 In fact, I understand the staff consultant review ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014
! Washington, D.C. 20036 l (202) 842-0034 L_ _ _ _ _ _. ---_
68 1 and our submittal is' essentially, you know, concluded that 2 it looks reasonable. I think we have the same problem that 3 Maine does as to what level of conservatism do we put on 4 'this calculation.because there's no, you know, ground rules.
5 No standard review plan, no precedent in the regulations 6 for, you know, what should be the right level of 7 conservatism for a' situation like this. So here we are, if 8 you will, as far as I know, nobody indicating that there's a
.9 safety concern out there and yet the licensing actions 10 aren't being, you know, processed. And we are, you know, 11 it's basically spending a lot of money and decommissioned 12 plants are in a different position than an operating plant 13 when it comes to pending funds. We have a trust fund. We 14 have a limited amount of money available to decommission 15 that facility. And we have a j oint, I think, desire to do 16 this decommissioning and finish it up in the best job we can 17 and, you know, I'm sure we can go get more money from the 18' rate payers or from some source if we have to. But it's a 19 much more painful process than for an operating plant or for 20 a plant that's producing, you know, income if you will.
21 So I think that needs some consideration. I think 22- it's an objective that the NRC has indicated concerned 23 themselves, inadequate funding for decommissioning. And I 24 think that as a result some more attention and priority to 25 deal with the inconsistencies in the regulations that ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034 i i
- - _ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ---~ - ~
1 i _ 69 i
require us to ask for license amendments and exemptions 2 would be prudent.
So I would command more from that 3 perspective.
4 I think that as we deal with the lack of safety 5
significance of this particular scenario, besides being very 6 remote, all of the analysis that I'm aware of shows that 7 it's not even a potentia]. It seems to go, again, counter 8 to the Commission's philosophy of risk-informed 9 decisionmaking. You know, the risk seems to very, very 10 small if it exists at all. And, you know, I think that 11 whether it's this panel or staff management in general, you 12 know, I think some focus on that would be helpful or us.
13 I think I support everything that Mike and George 14 said about the backfit in general and I think that I would 15 also emphasize the position that Mike had indicated and 16 certainly I share .I" that the most important thing for both 17 of the plants is to deal with the licensing actions so we 18 can stop paying for insurance that we don't need.
19 And, you knew, the aspects of whether 51.09 apply 20 in backfitting would be useful, I think, for the whole 21 industry to deal with. But for both of our plants, the 22 first priority, if you can help put some more management 23 emphasis on it, is to deal with the licensing action because 24 de continue to have to pay for this, we continue to 25 basically be sending very difficult messages to the local ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
70 1 communities as we go out there and communicate to them that 2
we're, you know, going to be eliminating off-site planning, 3
we don't need the sirens, and we explained why, and yet, you 4 know, we don't have the licensing actions to support that.
5 So, you know, it sends a very confusing message to 6 the public in a decommissioning environment also.
7 So I would just add, you know, those additional 8 comments to what Mike and George have said.
9 CHAIRMAN ZWOLINSKI: Are you making an assertion 10 that the agency, in my words, is very heavily focused as far 11 as the operating reactor the ongoing safety of the operating 12 reactors and hasn't applied the appropriate overall 13 management attention throughout the agency to --
14 MR. DAVIS: Decommission plans?
15 CHAIRMAN ZWOLINSKI: -- in so many -- more of a 16 newer area, or --
17 MR. DAVIS: I would agree with that. In fact, 18 I've made this point to Sam Collins in formal settings that 19 I think that it's very much like, you know, when I was at 20 the staff some 20 years ago or more, and we were shifting 21 from licensing plants to operating plants and we needed to 22 develop a separate technical staff to deal with those kinds 23 of issues and the licensing issues, the fact that there were 24 different standards and different levels of safety issues to 25 consider. And I think that same thing happens with ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
, 71 1 decommissioning. We get almost the worst of both worlds.
2 We get like low priority and no attention, you know, in 3
terms of the issues we need to deal with. And, frankly, 4 there are very few issues that we need to deal with. I 5
mean, you know, there's like a handful of licensing actions.
6 I should tell you now the plant has been shut down 7
for two years, our chemists are still taking -- because the 8
tech specs require them to, because we still have our full 9
power -- many of our full power tech specs still taking 10 chemistry samples of our reactor coolant system and have to 11 do, quote, " engineering analysis" if they're out of specs 12 even though we're getting prepared to inject, you know, 13 chemicals to decontaminate it. And I should say until maybe 14 recently, in the last few days, we still have those tech 15 specs.
16 I'm not sure we're in transition, but, you'know, 17 that just doesn't make sense for a system that you plan to 18 chop up and bury to, you know, do chemical sampling on it.
19 And it's those kinds of ;hings, it would be very simple for 20 the staff to approve license amendments in those areas.
21 And, in fact, they're really generic, I mean, any plant that 22 goes into decommissioning, boom, you know, the kinds of 23 licensing actions we need are all the same. And I think a
'24 cookbook could be prepared very quickly and those things 25 could be issued -- should be issued very -- in fact, I'm ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
. 72 1 going to advocate to the industry that they try to do mode 2 7, you know, so that they're not stuck like we are with a 3 year or more waiting for licensing actions or two years 4 just, you know, at this stage. Get mode 7 for 5 decommissioning and save yourself a whole lot of money and 6 aggravation.
7 CHAIRMAN ZWOLINSKI: I don't want to minimize the 8 significance of decommissioning facilities, but I think I've 9 heard you and Mr. Meisner essentially say in so many words, 10 once you have entered the phase called decommissioning, your 11 view is the staff should be able to act almost immediately 12 to grant relief in areas such as EP, security, et cetera?
13 MR. DAVIS: Well, within standard acceptance 14 criteria that we can reestablish. I think that's true. I 15 mean, you know, there are some issues that require some time 16 to deal with, but many of them can be pre-established, I 17 think.
18 CHAIRMAN ZWOLINSKI: But timeliness of licensing 19 action processing, overall management attention in the area, 20 maybe the two really go hand in glove.
21 MR. DAVIS: Right. And I understand the staff's 22 position -- I mean, difficulty in that, you know, operating 23 reactor issues there have a lot more safety significance 24 potentially and they need, you know, staff priority 25 treatment. But, you know, there needs to be some balance ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034 l - - - - - -
73 1
here because we are in a situation where we're working with 2
effectively a fixed pot of money to finish off, you know, 3
the tail end of a plant slide, and in fact, the risk levels 4
are significantly different than operating reactors. And I 5
think that, you know, the staff needs to consider that in 6 the way they approach the issues.
7 CHAIRMAN ZWOLINSKI: Thank you, Don. Mike --
8 MR. LAINAS: Just real quickly. You could have 9 claimed -- you haven't claii.:ed a backfit?
10 MR. DAVIS: Well, I will informally add CY to the 11 pot because the issues are exactly the same, except that 12 we're, you know, four or five months, you know, earlier in 13 the process but the technical issues are identical. And, 14 you know, I think Mike is -- has said it right in that, you 15 know, we don't see any indurtry issues here because I think 16 the industry is not convinced that this will ultimately go 17 anywhere. But I think independent again, of whether it's a 18 5109 issue in a legalistic sense, there's a management 19 responsibility that the staff has to look at issues .'ike 20 this.
21 MR. LAINAS: How close are you to resolution of 22 this?
23 MR. DAVIS: Pardon me? r 24 MR. LAINAS: How close are you to resolution?
.3 MR. DAVIS: On this issue?
AJR7 RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
74 1 MR. LAINAS: Yeah, do you know?
2 MR. DAVIS: You know, I don't know. You know, I 3 think it's fairly close if I take the informal feedback from 4 the staff's consultant. You know, they seem relatively 5 satisfied, but I have no idea of what it's going to *.ake in 6 terms of going through the staff management. I don't know 7 that anybody because it's the first time. I mean, nobody 8 has reviewed one of these calculations before. The NRC 9 staff has it, so it's precedent. How do either of us know 10 since it's the first time? And the raw definition of a 11 backfit is when you're the only one that's ever gone through 12 it. You know, I think it has to be a defective backfit 33 because we -- none of us have any precedent.
14 CHAIRMAN ZWOLINSKI: Okay. Thank you. Mike.
15 MR. MEISNER: Just real quickly before we -- there 16 are only a handful of things that licensees need to kick off 17 a very successful decommissioning. We need approval for the 18 fuel handlers' requirements, you know, you convert licensed 19 operators to fuel handlers, they need approval of their 20 defuel tech specs, emergency plan, and security plan, and 21 then some lesser things like insurance. But those four 22 major ones there's absolutely no reason why that can't be a 23 cookbook, project manager review and approval without having 24 to go to the review branches. In fact, they should be 25 because every plant is the same in the decommissioning.
ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
\ _ _ _ _ -
. 75 1
Instead, though, we get into the situations that 2
we',re battling here where everything is unique, even though 3
they've done it on five other plants in the past, the 4 instant issue is always unique that a new reviewer comes up 5
with new requirements or pseudo requirements and when you 6
couple that with the fact of very little review time these 7
days, Maine Yankee submitted its emergency plan in November 8
of last year, I'm not sure we had more than one day of 9
review time and we got the reviewer here, he can tell us, 10 until May, June?
11 MR. DAVIS: And just to reiterate --
12 MR. MEISNER: On that order, the same thing with 13 security. We submitted a security plan shortly thereafter.
14 We didn't get more than a couple of days of security 15 reviewer time until June.
16 MR. DAVIS: And just to support Mike, it's the 17 same thing. I had to call up Sy, you know, four or five 18 months ago because Kenyon at Millstone is calling me and 19 saying, you know, I need to take your resources for 20 emergency planning to let the Millstone plant restart. I 21 mean, you know, given the priorities and the consequences, 22 sure, I'll step behind. But, I mean, that's crazy. You 23 know, I mean, in reality to have to make decisions like that 24 from a resource perspective. When you look at the risk 25 significance of what we're talking about, it just doesn't ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
76 1 make any sense.
2 MR. MEISNER: And what happens then is Don and I 3 get on the phone and we call it Sy-wise. We call Mike and 4 ask him -- we call Jack Rowe and we eventually work our way 5 up to Sam Collins and sometimes Joe Cowan, and we irritate 6 the hell out of everybody.
7- MR. DAVIS: Well, Mike does a much better job than 8 I do.
9 [ Laughter.)
10 MR. MEISNER: Thank you. I'll take that as a 11 compliment. And you do that enough and it's a very 12 difficult situation to retain relationships. But at the 13 same time that's our j ob. We can't be spending $300,000 a 14 month in this.
15 MR. DAVIS: So I would say, I think that's, you 16 know, while _his isn't your specific charter, I would like 17 to use this forum to bring up these other issues that I 18 think you could help us out with a lot. I'm sure just 19 airing them will help it out.
20 MR. LAINAS: How long has this stuff been --
21 MR. DAVIS: Which stuff?
22 MR. LAINAS: Well, the issue --
23 MR. WEBB: November '97. That's for Maine.
24 [ Simultaneous conversation.]
25 MR. MEISNER: I think John submitted in April of ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
, 77 1 '97.
2 MR. DAVIS: Yeah, so, now we're just talking about 3
14 months or 18 -- I mean, you know, a long time.
4 CHAIRMAN ZWOLINSKI: Any more questions for Mr.
5 Davis?
6 [No response.]
7 CHAIRMAN ZWOLINSKI: Okay. Thank you.
8 MR. BEEDLE: My name is Ralph Beedle and what I 9
would like to do is add a little bit of a kind of a generic 10 perspective to this.
You have a licensee under Part 50 who 11 submits a request for an exemption to embark on some new 12 venture in the operation of this facility and as a result of 13 that exemption request the staff says we'd be glad to grant 14 that exemption if you will do this little project. Now, 15 that's what we're talking about today is that little 16 proj ect . Is that a backfit imposed on the licensee in the 17 process of trying to achieve some exemptions? And in this 18 case it's the Zircoid fire analysis for the plant and the 19 exemption requests as associated with the E plan as he 20 embarks on a decommissioning mode for his facility.
21 I see five generic issues in this process. One is 22 the applicability of the backfit rule to the decommissioned 23 mode plant.
Second is regulatory basis for modifying 24 licensing basis, backfit applicability to licensee-initiated 25 requests, backfit applicability to a discretionary action in ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
78 1 decommissioning, and third is backfit -- or the fifth is 2 backfit criteria.
3 Okay. Now, these issue arise not from the request 4 for exemption or the request that the utility take some -
5 action in order to satisfy the reviewers granting that -
6 exemption, but from the rationale that comes from the staff 7 in the process of addressing the utility's plea that the 8 imposed requirement is a backfit. So it comes from the 9 thought processes that the staff has developed here and I '_
10 think those are very important because they set the 11 precedent for future actions on the part of the staff. If 12 we're successful in a condition that says that the 13 licensee-initiated requests and things that fall from that 14 initiated request by a licensee are not subject to backfit, 15 that has significant ramifications throughout the rest of 16 the industry, particularly for the licensees that are going 17 through decommissioning. But it also has implication for 18 other licensees as well.
19 So in the first, the decommissioning plant really 20 should be afforded the protection in the backfit rule.
21 There is no indication in the voluminous rulemaking records 22 for the backfit rule, 51.09, guidance for the backfit it 23 NUREG 1409 or CRGR procedures to indicate that the 24 Commission had any intent to remove Part 50 licensees from 25 the backfit protection simply because they were going ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. -
Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
79 1 through decommissioning. There is nothing that we read in 2 any of those documents that would suggest that there is a 3
change in the applicability of backfit rule and protection 4 as the licensee goes through that phase of operation.
5 They are still Part 50 licensees and I would argue 6
that if we eliminate the backfit rule, just arbitrarily, 7 then maybe we could eliminate a lot of other rules under 8
Part 50 license requirements simply because we went into the 9 licensing mode called decommissioning. And I don't think 10 that the staff would find that acceptable either. I mean, I 11 think that goes without saying. But that's what the staff 12 has said in the case of the backfit rule.
13 CHAIRMAN ZWOLINSKI: Your point being Part 50 is 14 Part 50 until --
15 MR. BEEDLE: You grant an exemption of take the 16 license away.
17 And Part 50.109 is part of the Part 50 licensing.
18 Or at least the last time I looked it was. And what we've 19 got here in the case of Maine Yankee is the staff has said, 20 Maine Yankee because you're in a decommissioning mode, 109 21 doesn't apply to you.
22 Okay. The second issue, it appears that the staff 23 is attempting to impose a new accident sequence in this 24 case, the Zirc fire as a basis for the emergency plan 25 requirements at Maine Yankee and others.
ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
80 1 It's tantamount to using the exemption request 2 that the licensee wants to have approved its attempt to have 3 him change his licensing basis in order to grant that 4 request. And there is certainly a desire on the plant's 5 part to get that exemption. So he's willing to accede to 6 the staff's requirement or request to go conduct one of 7 these analyses.
8 In fact, that desire is so strong that Maine 9 Yankee embarked on the analysis before the staff ever made a 10 formal request that they do that in response to the =
11 exemption request. And we see that happening every day in 12 the utility world. It's the licensee's desire to move 13 forward in this direction and the staff says, and the staff 14 -- when I say " staff" I'm talking from the residential 15 inspector all the way through call Shirley Jackson. They 16 want this -- if you want this then you need to take this 17 course of action and the licensees in general agree that if 18 they're going to be successful, then they need to succeed to 19 the license or to the regulator's desire to take some 20 particular course of action, a study, modification, 21 whatever. And very few utilities tend to balk at the 22 imposition of those requirements. And then the question is, 23 why don't the utilities balk at that? Because they fear 24 that if they don't then they've agreed in their SALP that '
25 they are reluctant, they're recalcitrant, they are not ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
81 1
agreeable, they do things that we don't like and therefore 2 we drop that SALP, you know. We'd like to see you use your 3 l simulator to run emergency plan drills. We want you to 4 simulate. There's no requirement to do that. But there are 5
some reasons where if the utility doesn't use a simulator to 6
run his E Plan drills, you read about that, that the utility 7
isn't using all available, the utility isn't using new 8
technology, the utility doesn't have realism in simulating 9 the emergency plan. So that means just one of the examples 10 of places where you feel the pressure to go do above and 11 beyond requirements because a particular staff member wants 12 that done. So that's what we got in the case of this 13 pressure that goes on that really constitutes backfit.
14 CHAIRMAN ZWOLINSKI: Your broader assertion takes 15 from Mr. Davis' comment of the old licensing transition to 16 operating reactor. In order to get a license utilities 17 seemingly would accept almost anything. I want to get on 18 plant operating.
19 MR. BEEDLE: Right.
20 CHAIRMAN ZWOLINSKI: Now that the licensees are 21 operating, in order to amend the license they'll acquiesce 22.
to positions that maybe they don't fully ascribe or had 23 intended to ascribe, but to garner acceptance or approval 24 from the staff to have the amendment issued, they're 25 accepting a priori essentially maybe a backfit and actually ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
82 _
1 adopting that. And now I have precedent, the industry has -
2 accepted that precedent, the next licensee may be required 3 to essentially adopt the same precedent. So the staff is 4 essentially backfit.
5 MR. BEEDLE: Absolutely. Absolutely.
6 CHAIRMAN ZWOLINSKI: If I'm reading the operator 7 venue and then the transition over to decommissioning?
8 MR. BEEDLE: Right.
9 CHAlRMAN ZWOLINSKI: Okay.
10 MR. BEEDLE: Very well -- stated much better than 11 I did. Thank you.
12 I think this is a particularly problematic issue 13 in the case at Maine Yankee and Connecticut Yankee on this 14 Zirc fire issue. Here we have a plant that's being asked to 15 either validate or justify or determine whether or not this 16 particular event is something that ought to be incorocrated 17 into the design of the decommissioning plant or maybt even .
18 backfitted into the design of an operating plant. This is 19 an issue that's been with us since 1989. And why we are in 20 1998 causing this plant to delay in executing a reasonable 21 program of reduction in an E Plan to resolve an issue that 22 the Agency has had on the table for some period of time, 23 just does not make a lot of sense to me. It's almost as 24 though Maine Yankee is being held hostage to resolve some 25 technical concern on the part of a staff member or several ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
83 1 staff members. And I think that ought to be a concern to 2 the agency as a whole.
3 MR. LAINAS: It's also a question on Connecticut 4 Yankee; right?
5 MR. BEEDLE: Yeah, I use Maine Yankee kind of as 6 the generic kind of a sense. I want to talk to you -- I 7
don't want to get in between the point and the conditions 8 that Mike is making. I want to try and deal with it in a 9 broader, generic issue all the way. We need to refer to him 10 on occasion, so he's my generic poster.
11 MR. MEISNER: Thank you.
12 MR. BEEDLE: You're welcome.
13 Third, the staff claimed that the licensee 14 submitted this exemption request and is not entitled to 15 backfit protection because it was licensee-initiated. I 16 really find that somewhat incredible that when the licensee 17 request for an exemption and the staff says, we'll grant you 18 this exemption if you embark on this program that that --
19 the fact that the licensee requested some exemption means 20 that this program that the staff wants to impose isn't 21 subject to backfit just doecn't make a lot of sense to me.
22 That means that every licensee that ever submits an 23 exemption is subject to innumerable modifications to his 24 license without the protection of backfit. That's exactly 25 what it means. Whatever the issue, no matter how ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
84 1 significant or insignificant it is, the licensee is going to 2 have to do it regardless of what the licensee feels is the 3 significance of it.
4 I just find that that's. totally inconsistent with
! 5 the intent of the Commissioners when they put the backfit 6 rule in place. And it was the very thing for which the 7 backfit rule was issued.
8 Four, Maine Yankee in response to the challenge on 9 the backfit issue, Maine Yankee was told that the exemption 10 request was a discretionary issue and that, you know, 11 therefore, this backfit claim shouldn't be considered, that 12 if you ask for an exemption that this -- that the staff has 13 the discretion to grant the exemption, we don't doubt that.
14 That's clear. In the case of the decommissioned plant and 15 the decommissioning rule, the things like the E Plan and 16 security plan were clearly recognized as things that would 17 require exemption. I think exemptions were encouraged in 18 the decommissioning rule and it was a matter of the 19 decommissioning rule didn't get around to dealing with those 20 particular issues. So I think there was a clear 21 understanding as you embark on this phase of plant 22 operations understand Part 50 that you would request 23 exemptions to Part 50 in order to allow you to continue the 24 decommissioning process.
25 So this discretionary character that's been JJR7 RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
85 1 applied to a decommissioning plant's exemption process, I 2 think is inappropriate. I think it's almost a necessary 3 condition in order to execute the decommissioning process.
4 Now, the fifth point is.the criteria. We're using 5 this particular response to the Maine Yankee appeal to l 6 establish new criteria for backfit. In other words, if I 7 ask for an exemption, if I can somehow logically tie this 8 request for additional information to or program to the 9 exemption request, if there's some logical link then I 10 shouldn't have to worry about backfit on the part of the 11 staff. That's the kind of criteria that's being established 12 in the Maine Yankee case. And I think that's inappropriate.
13 I think the backfit rule has criteria. That should be the 14 criteria. We shouldn't be inventing new criteria. If we 15 do, we ought to change the backfit rule and put that in 16 there, not do it through individual case situations.
17 So, now the observation, and I made it earlier, is 18 that we've got a Zire fire that's been on the table since 19 1989, we're now holding this plant hostage wh'ile we try and 20 resolve that issue. I just -- I think that's inappropriate.
21 I think there's got to be a better way for the agency to 22 resolve technical issues rather than hold an individual 23 plant at risk. And "at risk" is money. It's costing this 24 plant a lot of money to continue to maintain the E plan, 25 security plan and so forth as it goes through that ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
l 86 1 decommissioning process. As he pointed out there is limited 2 amount of money in that trust fund, every dollar he spends 3 needlessly means it's another dollar he can't employ for 4 cleanup or dollars that he can't use in other places that 5 might be more appropriate.
6 CHAIRMAN ZWOLINSKI: Is your point that the agency 7 should get on with completion of rulemaking such that the 8 industry has a well understood set of criteria basis 9 expectation of the staff, predictability of the regulator?
10 MR. BEEDLE: I think that the --
11 CHAIRMAN ZWOLINSKI: Because I think your issue is 12 not so much this particular licensee, as the generic base.
13 MR. BEEDLE: Right.
14 CHAIRMAN ZWOLINSKI: And I think you're saying, do 15 something generic so that this doesn't recur?
16 MR. BEEDLE: Correct. It's becoming clear with 17 the Maine Yankee case that the application of the exemption 18 process in the decommissioning plant phase is not as clear 19 as we had expected it would be. We had thought that the 20 exemption from E Plan requirements and security requirements 21 and so forth would be relatively clean, that we wouldn't 22 have other things tacked on there so it was -- you know, I 23 don't we ever really concerned ourselves with having a 24 change in 109 in order to make those things more clearly 25 defined, although maybe that's what we need to do. I think ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
87 1 the staff could do that tough.
2 CHAIRMAN ZWOLINSKI: I guess my point was more
! 3 into 50.82 and into decommissioning itself. It --
i 4 MR. BEEDLE: Well, yeah.
5 CHAIRMAN ZWOLINSKI- -- that earlier there were 6 some holes in the rule --
7 MR. BEEDLE: Yeah.
8 CHAIRMAN ZWOLINSKI: -- fill it all up, make it a 9 whole rule.
10 MR. BEEDLE: Yeah. I said "109", but I meant 82 11 the, yeah, yeah.
12 CHAIRMAN ZWOLINSKI: Okay.
13 MR. BEEDLE: In the case of 109, if we want to 14 change backfit rule criteria, then we ought to change 109 15 and not du it through this process -- this process of trying 16 to deal with an exemption for Maine Yankee.
17 So with that, I do appreciate the opportunity to 18 raise some generic issues. I recognize your charter is to 19 deal specifically with Maine Yankee, but I think that what 20 you have today is an opportunity to look at -- while you're 21 focused on Maine Yankee, you have an opportunity to look at 22 the broader issue and maybe it will be another six years 23 before we come back with some backfit rules if you can 24; figure out how to convey the right message to the senior 25 members of the staff there. So, thank you very much.
ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
l
. 88 1 CHAIRMAN ZWOLINSKI: Thank you.
2 MR. BEEDLE: I would add one other thing. I had 3 asked some folks at NEI to prepare some detailed comments.
4 I would like to provide these to you if I may, and give you 5 -- it gives you some of our thought processes in examining 6 the record and the regulations on the issues that we just 7 talked about.
8 CHAIRMAN ZWOLINSKI: Nould you have any problem 9 with those being appended to the minutes of this meeting?
10 MR. BEEDLE: Not at all. Not at all.
11 CHAIRMAN ZWOLINSKI: So we'll attach it to 12 transcription. Thank you.
13 MR. BEEDLE: Thank you, 14 CHAIRMAN ZWOLINSKI: Are there any other members 15 of the public that would like to speak?
16 MR. PIETRANGELO: I've got a couple little things 17 beyond what Ralph said.
18 CHAIRMAN ZWOLINSKI: Please --
19 MR. PIETRANGELO: Until everybody's bladder 20 bursts, I can get them in.
21 CHAIRMAN ZWOLINSKI: Please identify yourself.
22 MR. PIETRANGELO: Tony Pietrangelo from NEI.
23 These are in addition to what Ralph said and 24 what's in the paper he just handed you. I'm the director of 25 licensing at NEI and have & lot of day-to-day interaction ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ~ ~~ ~ ~
89 1 with our members dealing with licensing issues and 2
submittals to the staff in terms of discretionary acts and 3 voluntary activities and such. Mike mentioned before, 4
there's some reluctance to apply the backfit appeal process l 5 and that licensees may be apathetic about that. And I think 6
that's right based on my interactions with our members also.
7 But I think part of the reason though is that there's a 8 perception that went --
and I think this happens when a 9
backfit claim is made it tends to polarir.e the licensee from 10 the agency, from the people you have to interact with.
11 Typically what happens is the lawyers dig in on each side 12 trying to make the case and I think it'c an interaction that 13 most licensees really don't want to have with the NRC. You 14 want to maintain good relations with your project manager 15 and the other people you have to deal with in the agency.
16 Just the backfit claim in and of itself is not healthy to 17 that relationship long term and I think that's partially the 18 reason for people not exercising the processes as Maine 19 Yankee has today and I commend Mike and George for doing 20- this. I think they're trying to do it in a very 21 const):uctive way and not in a contentious way. And my point 22 is it doesn't have to be contentious and I think the conduct 23 of this hearing proves that out.
24 The second point I wanted to make is that there's 25 been a perception that the purpose of the backfit rule is to ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reportgrs 1025 Connecticut Avtaue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
90 1 protect licensees from the staff running amok. And I don't 2 think that's in the statement of considerations that 3 supported the promulgation of the backfit rule. And I think 4 what it boils down to is that that rule is really there to 5 assure that resources, both agency and licensee resources 6 are applied commensurate with the safety benefit.
7 It's not in anyone's interest for a licensee to go 8 off and have to spend a lot of resources and the agency to 9 review those actions associated with that if it doesn't 10 result in a. commensurate benefit with safety. That'r. the 11 purpose of the backfit rule and that is a public health and 12 safety issue. So this is not just an economic issue for 13 l decommissioning plants. And I would argue today that this 14 is cien a bigger issue for the operating plants today.
15 In Maine Yankee's case it's not a safety issue 16 because there is no real risk significance in a 17 decommissioned plant, in particular, for the stage that 18 they're at in their decommissioning. When the ,sa,me thing 19 happens at an operating plant and I think as Mike said 20 before, the real issue here isn't Zirc fires, it's that a 21 voluntary licensee action is being claimed that the reason 22 that the backfit rule doesn't apply. But when an operating 23 plant goes in and needs some action from the NRC, it has to 24 go through this kind of thing. It does have a greater 25 impact on safety as well as costs. So I would argue, ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
91 1
because of that, this is a bigger issue for operating plants 2 than it is for decommissioning plants.
3 Finally, this panel has an opportunity to make 4 this a more normalized process by.your decision. And I'm 5 glad it's being transcribed and that's the reason we're here 6
today is to, again, support our members, but also try to 7 make this generic point that this isn't just about 8 decommissioned plants. This is about public health and 9 safety and if the proper application of this rule will 10 support increased public health and safety. And I would 11 argue, even protect the NRC more than the licensee itself.
12 And when claims are made about some safety concerns that 13 really don't have risk significance, yet we go through these 14 exercises, that's not in the interest of public health and 15 safety.
And when the NRC can demonstrate that the backfit 16 criteria are not met in a very transparent publicly 17 observable way, that's to the agency's credit. And those 18 are the only points I wanted to make in addition to what
~
19 Ralph said.
20 CHAIRMAN ZWOLINSKI: Any questions?
21 (No response.]
22 MR. PIETRANGELO: Thank you.
23 CHAIRMAN ZWOLINSKI: Thank you very much.
24 Are there any others?
25 [No response.)
ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
7 92 1 CHAIRMAN ZWOLINSKI: Well, I thank all of you for 2 your attendance and as I said in the opening remarks, this 3 panel has been charged to take all the facts as best we can 4 corral them and grow to understand those, and make a 5 recommendation to our office director.
6 I'll bring the meeting to a close and thank 7 everyone for their time.
8 [Whereupon, at 3:25 p.m., the meeting was 9 concluded.]
10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 . .
19 20 21 22 23 24 25 ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 l (202) 842-0034 t
REPORTER'S CERTIFICATE This is to certify that the attached proceedings before the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission in the matter of:
NAME OF PROCEEDING:
BACKFIT APPEAL MEETING WITH MAINE YANKEE i
CASE NUMBER:
PLACE OF PROCEEDING: Rockville, MD were held as herein appears, and that this is the original transcript thereof for the file of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission taken by me and thereafter reduced to typewriting by me or under the direction of the court reporting company, and that the transcript is a true and accurate record of the foregoing proceedings.
m J
Cindy Thomas w
Official Reporter Ann Riley & Associates, Ltd.
. . .