ML20236X469
| ML20236X469 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 12/03/1987 |
| From: | Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards |
| To: | |
| References | |
| ACRS-T-1628, NUDOCS 8712090224 | |
| Download: ML20236X469 (37) | |
Text
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DOCKET NO:
332ad GENERAL MEETING I
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WASHINGTON DC PAGES: 105 - 140 DATE:
DECEMBER 3, 1987 "S
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3 ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON REACTOR-SAFEGUARDS f
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.The contents of this stenographic transcript of the
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8 proceedings of the United Statas Nuclear Regulatory 9.-
Commission's Advisory Committee.on Reactor Safeguards-(ACRS),
10 as reported herein, is an uncorrected record of the discussions I
11
. recorded at the meeting held on the above'date.
l-12 No member of the ACRS Staff and no' participant at 13 this-meeting accepts any responsibility for errors or 14 inaccuracies of statement or data contained in this transcript.
15 16-
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-21 22 23' 24 25 Heritage Reporting Corporation 0
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105 AFTERNOON SESSION 1
(1:00 p.m.)
2 3
CHAIRMAN KERR:
We are pleased to have with us this afternoon the Director of the Office of Safety and 1
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'Research and T presume his most trusted lieutenants.
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5 6
MR. BECKJORD:
I have with me, Themis Speis, Brian Sheron, Charlie Kelber, Fryer Alano.
7 CHAIRMAN KERR:
And the purpose of this is to 8
learn from him as well as his zealots what's going on.
9 MP. BECKJORD:
Thank you. As I understan(f it, there 10 are 4 or 5 things that you were interested in and one of 3;
12 those, tha first one was the National Academy of Science Report on the research program.
The second was the--what h
13 the plans are for the Nuclear Safety Research Group Review g
Committee that is being formed now.
The third one was what 15 we are proposing in the way of future reviews of the research jg program by ACRS.
Fourth was the near action between research 37 and NRR on containment design objectives, containment per-18 formance objectives and the last one was the Gramm-Rudman 39 budget relationship and we'll cover that last because, I 20 believe that would be the approach.
And, I think we ought 21 to save, I don't know, at least 20 minutes for some questions.
22 O
First of all the formal reply to the National 23 Academy of Science on the report revitalizing safety research 24 O
The reference on that is a Condition Paper SECI 25 Acme Reporting Company 12OJb OJH ARBH
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g 271 dated 2nd of November and in that report, everything that
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I say is really a summary of that report which is very com-2 prehensive.
The report was written following a meeting with 3
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the Commission in July, this past July in which we outlined 4
to them what our conclusions, arter study of the report were 5
and what our recommendations were on the matter.
6 DR. DEMICK:
Excuse me.
I'm having trouble hear-7 ing and I think the reporter is having trouble hearing you 3
also.
9 MR. BECKJORD:
You want me to go back?
gg DR. PEMICK:
No, go ahead.
g DR. MAFK:
Was that report really called revitaliz-12 ing research?
g MR. BECKJORD:
Yes.
MA As if R were dead before?
15 MR. BECKJORD:
Revitalizing Nuclear Safety Pesearch.
g DR. MARK:
Jesus---
MR. PECKJORD:
Well, the report, there are about 4 g
chapters in the report and the issues that came up were first g
m nagement issues and then secondly specific recommendations 90 21 on particular aspects of the program.
What I would say, I think the report itself was a 22 N) 23 very useful report.
It's concentration, I think, is more on the management issues than it was on the technical issues.
24 There is a chapter, Chapter III to which I refer, which does
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25 Acme Reporting Company d/'
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deal with the technical program but I think that it is
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2 clear that the committee's major focus of attention was on 3
the management issues.
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4 Let me summari.ze that very briefly, there were 4 g
issuer that were discussed in that report and the first one 6
was general principals for answering the questions of who 7
should pay for or who should carry out the mission and who sixmid 8
establish the agenda for research.
The committee was conversing--encouraging the idea 9
of cooperative research both international cooperation and 10 11 cooperation with industry but I will tell you a little bit more about that later.
I certainly agree with what you are 12 recommending.about extending the cooperation.
The impor-llll 13 tant question, of course, is how do you go about doing that.
34 The second point gave a strong endorsement to per-15 forming research on the safety of the commercial reactors.
I 16 think that was a very helpful statement.
They said that it w as 17 needed and I encouraged it.
18 The third point was they said they felt there were jg serious management problems which affected the research pro-20 gram in the NRC and then finally they gave their comments on 21 the budget and encouraged the idea of developing a--or re-22 developing, I should say, a human factors research nrogram.
v 23 I certainly agree with that comment.
I think we had, in the 24
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office had arrived at that same conclusion before we saw the 25 Acme Reporting Company 1704 EQU4HBH
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reports and so it did not really make a strong--we didn't l
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2 change what we were doing because we were preparing our 3
programs for use in Congress.
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4 With regard to the specific recommendations, there are a number of them.
I'll run throuch them quickly if you're 5
interested.
They're all covered in the paper itself, so I am 6
not going to dwell on it.
7 First of all, bringing high caliber people to bolster 8
the management of the research activities. That was their g
recommendation.
I certainly have no problem with that 10 recommendation and I have spent a substantial amount of my own ji time, since I came here a year ago, working on that aspect.
12 I have a long list of names of qualified people lll}
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that I thought of bringing into high positione in management.
14 15 Actually I offered the job to 12 people.
There were 3 from the universities; 7 from national laboratories; 1 from 16 a not for profit research institute, that is well known and g7 one professional engineer and I was not able to get an
- g acceptance of those offers and there were various reasons.
- g I think one was certainly the issue--pay was one 20 thing, but I think what was probably more important amazingly 21 in all of these cases, were career plans and individual family e',
22
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considerations, people just not wanting to leave their own v
23 areas and come to Washington.
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So, in ny event, I have discontinued that effort 25 Acme Reporting Company
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as of about mid summer because of two things.
One was the O
2 impending budget situation which was developing at that time 3
and it was not exactly clear what the research budget would
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be and the second point was, as I nearal the end of this process, 4
5 I felt that there really had to be a better way to go about 6
bringing people from outside the agency into reviewing and 7
recommending of research programs and that was the idea of l
8 bringing people in on a term assignment.
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9 DR. MARK:
What kind of money was being offered?
10 MR. BECKJORD: SES-5 which is 75.
i 11 DR. MARK:
S75,000.
12 MR. BECKJORD:
- Yes, 13 But I think as I have considered the matter, we may g
14 be better served by the alternative of bringing people here, 15 for example, people from universities to come on a 6 month 16 or a year sabbatical or arbitrary people could come for per-17 haps a year on a visiting fellowship or staff fellowship and 18 rather than putting them in a position of having to undertake 39 managerial duties, but instead have them concentrate on the 20 technical and scientific aspects of research programs and 21 I would expect them to be very helpful to us in reviewing and evaluating and making recommendations as to the programs.
So 22
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l I think that may be, in the end, a better alternative.
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The next point, the committee strongly recommended
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that we develope a research philosophy and we did that in the 25 Acme Reporting Company 02026 626 48B6
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month of March of last year, the other Program Office Direc-2 tors and myself and 3 or 4 other people who were very helpful.
3 We sat down and we prepared a research philosophy and finally O
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Ed Speis came by and helped us on that.
5 The research philosophy is included in the--it's in
'this letter to the committee members, it's quoted in there G
7 in its entirety so I won't read it or summarize it now.
Be-8 side, I think you may have see it--quoted in its entirety 9
in the strategic plan as well.
10 I think that one of the key points that was made 11 was the importance of the users in helping to establish the 12 research program and making sure the research program brings O$
13 forth knowledge and results which are going to be useful to LJ l
the users and that comes out of it very strongly in the 14 1
-15 research philosophy.
16 The third point that they touched on--hit on was 17 the planning process and that it should include all of the 1
user offices and we have undertaken to reinstitute the 18 research review groups which were in effect in ADC or the NRC l
19 in the 1970's and they fell out of use over a period of a 20 21 few years.
We have re-instituted them now.
There are basicall y o2 two kinds of groups.
The first is a Senior Program Steering 23 Group and there are 5 of those and they are--the 5 groups 24 Component Integrity and that's chaired by Mr. Arlotto.
25 are:
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the Reactor System and Safety Steering Group is chaired by i,
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Dr. Sheren.
Severe Accident is chaired by Dr. Houston.
The 3
Steering Group on Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguard is 4
chaired by Dr. Morris and finally the fifth one is Waste 5
Management chaired again by Mr. Arlotto.
6 And the purpose of those groups is to assist in 7
formulating and planning the research program as well as to 8
evaluate the programs in each of these areas and finally to 9
give me written recommendations and the principal action 10 that they will be engaged in will be during'the budget prepara-11 tion process which will begin shortly after the new year or 12 the preparation of the fiscal 1990 budget.
13 Those steering groups are complimented by a larger lll) 14 number of small groups on technical specialties.
I won t 15 take the time to ao into those, but typically each one of the 16 steering groups has 3, 4,
5 technical specialists aroups a
specific program.
17 which they work with on the review of 18 These group contain, of course, not only research 19 people but people from NRP and from NNSS, and from the FOD 20 and it is by means of these that we intend to bring the user s 21 into the planning, reviewing and evaluation process.
The steering groups have met at least once already, 22 e
<J some of them more times and the specialist group will be get-23 21 ting under way--oh, I'm reminded that the Waste Group will be L)
Bernero because it includes not just the research 25 chaired by Dr.
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office scope, but sotae activities that will be undertaken by
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2 the waste--the FFRDP aste Programs.
3 So these
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4 in.the forthcoming buuget process and I am confident to say 5
that we will make the strong connection the ocmmittee intended 6
and I certainly looK forward to working with the group.
7 The next recommendation by the committee was on g
the Independent Advisory. Group for Research.
I'll see that 9
aside for the moment.
I will come back and speak to that 10 as a separate topic.
Recommendations were made about the contracting gg 12 for research and what they said was that the office should 13 develope--the Agency shojld develope a fair and competitive
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14 process for contracting--to bring not just national labora-15 tories into the research activity, but to include the best
'16 people in the best laboratories for the job that had to be 17 done wherever they were, whether they were international 18 laboratories or not for profit or industrial research groups.
19 They also had some things to say about the use of 20 university research and encouraged that we should expand in 21 that area.
We are doing that, we are using several ways of 22 doing that, specifically ve have established sme set asides within the research project so that in each of our three major 23 21 research areas, we will be--I have a target armound that 25 we're going to spend at the universities and that will'he Acme Reporting Company
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principally by means of the Broad Agency Announcement.
The
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2 Broad-Agency Announcement, I'll just say, in summary, about 3
that, that it's a means of contracting that has been developed
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and used widely by a number of other agencies of the govern-5 ment.
NASA and Office of Naval Research particularly and 6
what it's purpose is is to shorten the time that it takes 7
to evaluate and release a_ contract and the experience has 8
been, in other agencies, that'they can make a commitment 9
within about 4 months after they receive h proposal.or a 10 specific statement of work instead of the period of a year or more that it has taken through competitive procurement.
11 12 We're going to be using the Bread Agency Announce-13 ment as one of our procedures.
We are alFo using grant
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14 mechanisms.
I thinkthe year that was just completed, we 15 fully used up the grant authority which we have which is one 16 Percent of our budget and we expect--I certainly expect to 17 continue that in the future.
[g MR. SHEWMON:
One percent of the research budget?
19 MR. BECKJOFD:
One percent of the research budget, 20 yes.
21 MR. SHEWMON:
That's the maximum?
s 22 MR. BECKJORD:
That's the maximum suggested.
The set asides are somewhat larger.
What I would 23 like to do is have a program of set asides grow so that we 24
]
are contracting out a significant part of the budget.
25 Acme Reporting Company
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Of course this money has to come from somewhere witt O
2 somewhat less money going out to the notional laboratories 3
than otherwise would be the case but I think it will strengthen.
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4 the program and, in fact, all of the Program Managers at the 5
national laboratories that I talked with, they alto believe 6
that we should be doing more work in the universities.
7 One of the things that we're going to do and I 8
think we have been encouraging is the idea of joint use of l
9 national laboratory facilities, so we will be looking at 10 these Broad Agency Announcements that would associate people 11 at the universities with a program that is going on at the i
l 12 National laboratory, so hopefully there will be some surges.
l 13 Our next point, they recommended an annual review lll) 14 of the research program with a principal performance of re-15 search.
We initiated that process a year ago by name with the Arbitrary Program Directors at the time of the Water 16 17 Reactor Safety Meeting.
Since that time, we have had two 18 large meetings, one a general one, going across the whole 19 program in April of this year and then in early July, we had 20 another meeting at Sandia, Albuquerque where all of the 21 laboratory--key laboratory people working on the severe 22 accident program and I found that that was a very useful two day meeting and helped to clarify and resolve a number of 23 issues that had developed.
21 O
So, we're certainly going to continue that.
I 25 Acme Reporting Company (2 0 2 u t,tn anss
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have encouraged--
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2 DR. SIESS:
Did those meetings deal primarily with 3
administrative fiscal matters or did they get--
8
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4 MR. BECKJORD:
No.
Primarily, it is technical 5
matters with program planning priorities.
As I say, the a
April meeting was across the board, we reviewed the whole 7
rest of the research program.
8 The meeting in July, it was a technical meeting.
9 We really didn't discuss any administrative questions at all.
10 DR. SIESS:
Your meeting with the National Lab 11 people doing the work?
12 MR. BECKJORD:
Yes.
l ll 13 DR. SIESS:
By project or by labs?
14 MR. BECKJORD:
Well, all of the laboratory--every-15 one who is involved at the National Laboratories, in a 16 significant role in the Severe Accident Program was present 17 at our Albuquerque meeting, so we had--there were a couple of 18 people there.
19 DR. SIESS: That was by program?
20 MR. BECKJORD:
That was by program and I think, my 21 own feeling is that the programmatic meetings are better than
,x 22 the meetings across the board and so I would expect there to I
a be more of the programmatic meetings and, I don't know, we may 23 24 drop the other type.
7-U 25 DR. KERR:
Eric, you mentioned the recommendation Acme Reporting Company
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1 that more competitive bidding be'used.
I didn't hear you.
I 2
missed your comment on that.
Did you say what you were going 3
to do about that recommendation?
4 MR. BECKJORD:
Yes.
The concept is to develope the 5
use of the Broad Agency Announcement which has been used G
effectively by TARPA and NASA, DOE and Naval Research 7
Laboratories and essentially, without going into detail, 8
it's an announcement that goes out in the Commerce Business 9
Daily or some other--
10 DR. KERR:
Okay, that's enough.
l 11 MR. BECKJORD: --publication saying that we want 12 ideas, we want proposals in this area and it's possible these g
13 other agencies have been able to release work in about 4 14 months.
I would say it is a semi competitive process which 15 apparently has worked very well.
16 DR. REMICK: While you're on that, a comment I might 17 pass on and I applaud that.
One of the things--it's my im-l 18 pression that NRC, from a contracting standpoint of putting 19 aside the program standpoint is considered on a light from a i
20 university standpoint because you got contract people that 21 have contract people and by damn it's going to be this no 22 matter no matter what people want and that's been historically r 23 true of the NRC for some years and so I just caution you that somebody should be looking at the contract office and 24 O
25 see if they're responding to what you're trying to do.
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There are some good examples out there like ONR I
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and so forth that one might look at to see how do they work i
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3 to encourage that university interaction which you want, I z-i 4
think.
They can kill it in a hurry if it's business as m
5 usual for them.
6 MR. BECKJORD:
The contract Office was very helpful, 7
I talked to Ed Holman about this and, in fact, he went out 8
and did a lot of the leg work and they organized a presenta-9 tion for us and brought people in from TARPA and from Naval 10 Research.
11 We're not going to have any problems there.
If we 12 have any difficulties, I don't really anticipate any, but llll 13 on occasion when we had some legal advice which I--but I 14 don't anticipate any difficulties on that point.
15 DR. REMICK:
You're going to encourage publication.
16 as you say and so forth.
17 MR. BECKJORD:
Yeah, I'm coming to that.
18 Well, I'll take it now.
The office has, for some 19
- time, now been encouraging publication and I've written a 20 couple of letters to that effect to the Laboratory Program 21 Directors and they are certainly enthusiastic about the idea 22 because--well, they say there's a trade-off.
It takes time
(_)
23 and resources and I understand that peer review is an expen-24 sive process.
Going through full peer review is going to
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think the results will be worth it.
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DR. SEISS:
What do you mean when you tie peer 3
review in with publication?
4 MR. BECKJORD:
Well we're encouragi1g people to 5
Publish in peer review journals, 6
DR. SEISS:
Yes.
And why is that expensive, page 7
charges?
8 MR. BECKJORD:
Well not only page charges, but I 9
think the practice has been to DR. SEISS:
Take the time to write a better report.
10 MR. BECKJOPD:
Yes, more time to write e better 31 12 report and I recognize that and I've'said I am willing to 13 pay that price.
llll DR. SEISS:
A lot of the stuff they do, is it the bort 34 15 of thing the Journal wants.
MR. BECKJORD: Well, it certainly is not like writing 16 letters in the Physics Review but one thily ' that surprised me, g7 Charles Kelber put together, compiled a list, a 3 year com-18 pilation of the Journal's--the peer review articles that had 39 gone into journals which we sent out to the Commission about 20 a month ago and it has a lot of stuff in it.
21 DR. SEISS:
Can I follow up on the peer review r~s 22 i
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- thing, just a minute.
23 i
MR. BECKJORD:
Yes.
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DR. SEISS: I notice now that you have got your 25 Acme Reporting Company n,
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Liquid Safety Research Review Committee looking at management
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type things and it's all outsiders.
You've got your CD 3
Research Program Steering Groups, which are all insiders.
4 MR. BECKJORD:
There was one point that I didn't 5
mention.
That's true, the steering group are all insiders 6
on the technical specialist groups, we intend to access people l
7 who are outside of--
g DR. SEISS:
Research Project Review Committee 9
MR. BECKJORD:
Yes.
10 MR. SEISS: That's what I was wondering about.
You 11 have operated in some areas, I know, with outside--one place 12 it was called a Technical Peview Group, anotber place it was 13 called a Peer Review Group and so forth.
With a real peer review group, at the time the work y
15 was going on, not necessarily waiting until it's completed 16 and somebody writes a paper and then somebody tells, no, you 17 didn't do it right.
Now there are some areas, obviously, where the ig expertise really all resides before you get the work done, 19 20 most of it.
Other areas where you could use outside help, 21 I could give you examples, but I won't go into that.
MR. BECKJORD:
Well, perhaps an example worth men-33 1 !
tioning is NUREG 1150 which as you probably know, we estab-23 lished a peer review panel for that publication under a 24
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25 professor at UCLA and he has a group of about 13-14 people Acme Reporting Company 1
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lb 121 that he has called together, they are reviewing the draft and l
they are going to give us their evaluation and comments the 2
end of this month.
3 MR. SEISS:
But you see, that's a review that is 4
going to bring out things that maybe should have been brought 5
ut like 3 years ago.
For example, it's been critical of a 6
certain methodology.
If you had had peer review earlier 7
maybe that methodology would have been caught and not used.
8 MR. BECKJORD:
Well, that's certainly true but one 9
of the things that happened on that expert opinion, they 10 1
gathered people on a wide range of topics and they did a job ig on it and in the words of one of the people involved in it, 12 13 he said it was a quick and dirty job and then we found out lll) 14 when we got all done that some of these things were very im-15 portant.
16 So they're going back to doing a more careful job 17 now and I guess that's part of the process.
18 DR. SEISS: It doesn't have to be, 19 DR. MARK:
Will it still be called 1150/
20 MR. BECKJORD:
Yes.
21 MR. EBERSOLE:
May I ask a question, Mr. Beckjord/
l 22 MR. BECKJOPD:
Sure.
V 23 MR. EBERSOLE.
We recently had occasion to listen piece of research, I guess it was to the final results of a
21
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25 called, on--I think Oak Ridge National Laboratory did a lot of l
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it.
1 On the matter of the influence of control system 2
malperformance on the performance safety systems and out of 3
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that I think there came a view as to just what takes place 4
when you undertake that and I couldn't help but relate it 5
to the--almost in the.same direction as a small LOCA con-6 sideration and large LOCAS.
In short the effort focused on 7
eventually, nothing more or less than the excess or absence 8
of flow in the secondary feed water system.
9 In rienting it that way, you could see the effects 10 1
of research being differentiated from what I call failure modes 33 and effects analysis.
12 And throwing away the FMEA because it wasn't re-llll 13 searched and then focusing on what was "research" in the g
thermal hydaulics context and missing the whole point of the 15 eff rt and I think when you say "research," you really don't 16 include FMEA type efforts and that's kind of a void in the 37 whole research business.
It's a persistent void.
I think 3g we're going to have to go over a lot of that stuff and find g
20 out what has been missed.
And this was the effects of control system mal per-21 22 formance in the safety systems.
It's really an FMEA effort.
,O MR. BECKJORD:
Well that's certainly a--
23 MR. EBERSOLE:
It's just unfortunately safe, but it 93 a
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25 has to be done.
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MR. BECKJORD:
Yes, I would certainly agree with 3
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MR. EBERSOLE:
I don't know where to do it unless 3
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you do it within the scope of what you call research, whatever 4
that is.
5 MR. BECKJORD:
Well it should be done and I'll look 6
into this.
It's certianly part of the scope of the group that 7
is trying to organize this.
g MR. EBERSOLE:
It's a little repugnant to a thermal 9
hydraulics expert to look at the degradation of" systems at 10 point locations and then the chronology of events that follows.
13 It's kind of a mechanical evolution of consequences and it's--
12 MR. BECKJORD:
I agree, that's certainly an omission, llll 13 MR. MICHELSON:
Well, it folded up a systems inter-g action, unfortunately, and it's a very intricate problem and 15 1(;
I son't know that you have a group you call systems interaction.
17 You have a task force on that particular side.
18 DR. KERR:
I would suggest that since we have a 19 fairly restrictive time schedule and we're trying to get sort I
i 20 of an overall look this afternoon and maybe we shouldn't go i
21 into too much detail.
rw 22 MR. BECKJORD:
I think I have covored--the only t
(_)
23 one that I will--the other one I would like to mention is the 24 recommendation on developing cooperative research.
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We've been extremely successful internationally and 25 Acme Reporting Company
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1 I could give you an hour's briefing on what we're doing l
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2 there.
We have cooperative programs with a number of impor-3 tant nuclear nations and other that are hopeful of becoming g,
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4 important in that area and the cooperative activities span 5
almost all of our research effort in some very important 6
thing in systems performance, thermal hydraulics, piping 7
integrityand that type of thing, so that's been very important, 8
The going is slower with industry and a test case 9
has been the program of Babcock-Wilcox owners group--the plant 10 owners group, to complete some work on the performance of that 11 once through steam generator system.
There are still some cuestions on the performance of 12 llll 13 the generator, particularly under auxiliary feed waters in-g4 jection.
15 DR. KERR:
That's what you want to do some more work 16 on it.
17 MR. BECKJORD:
Yes.
18 DR. MARK:
Are you in a position, in the vent the occasion should arise, to buy services from some non national 19 20 groups, Germany or--
MR. BECKJORD:
Yes.
21 DR. MARK:
You can do that?
22 e
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MR. BECKJORD:
We could do that.
23 But, I think what you find is that the factor of 9a3 connection, there is a non for profit research organization 25 Acme Reporting Company t i' L / I 6 d t5 4 8 8 6
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which is doing German reactor safety research, is funded by
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the government, it's a not for profit organization which is 3
doing German reactor safety research.
It's funded by govern-p
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4 ment, but it's a not for profit organization, so in effect,. I 5
think in most countries you'll really be working with govern-6 ment related organization.
Brian Sheron has been the one who has taken on the 7
g B&W owner's group and that's a negotiation which has been under 9
way for about two years and finally this fall, he obtained their agreement to carry forward with a substantial part of
-10 the scope of the program that we have wanted to do and the 11 remainer of the program is still on the table for discussion.
12 13 So, it is difficult to get industrial cooperation f)N
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for a variety of reasons.
One thing, this B&W owner's group 14 15 is the first.
It was in cooperation with a utility group 16 and they' haven't expended a lot of research dollars for the kind'of things that we're interested in.
17 But they finally concluded it was in their economic 18 interest to undertake the research, so I think we got the gg 20 thing going.
DR. SEISS:
Now where do you put EPRI in that?
21 MB. BECKJORD:
I put EPhl--we have cooperative pro-22 grams with EPRI and we meet with them frequently.
We are 23 going to be meeting with EPRI in January to look over our 24 O
joint--the programs that we each are supporting in research to 25 Acme Reporting Company
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see what has been developed in the way common programs, and I
)
2 am hopeful some important things will come out of this.
3 That's really about all I can say about that at t tds 4
time.
5 If I could then move on to the Nuclear Safety 6
Research Review Committee.
7 There are two documents there.
I have referred to a
the first one, the May lith, 87, Section 87-119 which pro-9 posed to the Commission establishing of this committee and 10 then, I don't have the date it went up, it's November 87-258, 11 it's a recommendation of the membership of the committee to 12 the Commission and refers to a charter of the program.
13 DR. SEISS:
It appears the members don't have 87-119 llll MR. BECKJORD: If the committee wants it, we can have
[4 15 it passed out here.
16 But you do have the other one?
17 DR. SEISS:
Yes.
Ig MR. BECKJORD:
You have 258?
19 DR. SEISS:
Number 4, yes 20 MR. BECKJORD:
Well I think that document includes--
21 there are 5 questions that the committee is going to be look-22 ing into on the--it's in one of these documents under the
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they'll be looking at the likelihood that the program will meet
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user's need.
They'll be looking at the appropriateness of
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2 the 3
research programs and they'll be looking at the question 4
of are ve getting the best people and organizations to do the 5
work and finally is the program free of obvious bias.
6 The Commission, I believe, is close to approving this.
They have a couple of suggestions--I believe they will 7
8 have a couple of suggestions.
I think they want to see a 9
couple of more members and I think the rest of them have to do with some administrative matters.
10 I am expecting the committee to meet, probably in ij 12 early February of next year and that first meeting will be to an introduction to the research program and I think that l ll 13 the Chairman's intention is to have the committee come back 14 with comment and recommendations on the budget that we have
'15 submitted for fiscal 1990 which, 'as you know, in the May time 16 37 frame, so they will be probably be meeting again, either as a full committee or as sub committees or some combination of jg those two after the February meeting.
ig DF. SEISS:
I read somewhere here that you'rn going 20 to do this at a 100K a year?
21 MP. BECKJORD:
I think that's the estimate for the 22 rw}
iv administrative costs.
23 DR. SCISS:
Internally.
21
/
MR. BECKJORD:
Well, it is our out of pocket costs s
25 Acme Reporting Company 7OJr f' i' N 4 M 8 H s
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1 because the committee is not reimbursed for ita time, i
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DR. SEISS:
They'll be reimbursed for their expensess '
3 MR. BECKJORD:
They'll be reimbursed for their ex-4 penses.
5 DR. SEISS:
But they will not get paid for reading 6
all this stuff that you send us?
7 MR. BECKJORD:
That's right.
That's why I think 8
that the term of membership will probably be limited.
9 CHAIRMAN KERR:
It reminds me of Abraham Lincoln's 10 story about 'he man who was ridden o
i town on a rail.
He 11 said, if it wasn't for the honor of the thing, it would be 12 down right painful.
llll 13 DR. SEISS:
Let me comment on that.
You know, 14 several people told me that I had draw up a list of about 12 15 or 15 names and I had some advice as to the names.
It was 1(;
that you don't need a list of 15 names, you need a list of i
17 50 names because you're really going to have to work to get 18 that committee.
19 CHAIRMAN KERR:
You don't have to tell us that.
20 MR. BECKJORD:
I called to get 9 names and I 21 called 10 people and the 10th person was a lady who is very 22 interested in serving on the committee and she said she was over committed for this coming year and I said, gee, that's 23 I
24 great, I'll come back and ask you next year and she said, l
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" fine".
So people were really enthusiastic and there was no Acme Reporting Company i
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difficulty.
So, I hope that enthusiasm will continue after
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our first meeting.
That was really all I was going to say 2
about this last subject unless there are any questions.
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DR. MOELLER:
Well, I guess, although your memo
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4 the SECE 119, perhaps when we read it and think about it, it l
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1 will explain it.
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1 7-Like, on Page 3, it deals with a relationship to the ACRS, but I guess I still would want to wait and see, not g
that it can't be worked out, but it would seem to me initially 9
to raise a lot of questions on what they would do and what we 10 would do and so forth.
73 CHAIRMAN MERR: I thought that initial memo made it fair Ly 12 clear that they won't be doing anything that we have been h
13 doing.
As Eric said, they're mainly going to be looking g4 management type things as we just look mostly at technical 15 things, except in the very earliest report to Congress.
16 MR. ED3070RD: I think they're going to be looking 17 ig at the technical content of + 1.e program and are we working on the right things.
I don't think they're going to be doing 39 20 detailed programs.
DR. SEISS:
They're going to Ptve trouble to work 21 on it at the level you said in any depth.
It's going to take 22 i) a 1 t of time to find out what you're doing and why you're m
23 doing it, much less to find out whether i t's being done 24
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25 1ght.
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DR. MOELLER:
They will look at resource allocation, l
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2 if they're looking at the management side.
3 MR. BECKJORD:
Yes.
's_/
4 DR. MOELLER:
- Yes, 5
MR. BECKJORD:
Yes.
I would expect them to look 6
into that.
Now, hopefully we have the right priorities.
7 DR. MOELLER: Okay 8
MR. BECKJORD:
Well, that really leads into the 9
next subject which was the question of future ACRS reviews of to research and it seems to me that the Chairman--it would be 11 useful for the chairman--for your chairman and the chairman 12 of this committee to get together sometime to have some dis-13 cussion on exactly that point.
llll It seems to me it should be--i don't think it should 14 15 be difficult to work out an agreement.
My personal view on 16 it is that it would be great to have an agreement because it's 17 going to be inconvenient for me, at the least, if there are 18 duplicate reviews and I don't want to be in a position of having to resolve differences of opinion.
19 20 CHAIRMAN KERR:
Well, Eric, this committee is your 21 committee and in a sense, therefore, you ask it what to do.
22 so I think we would know before we make very much of a
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23 decision, either generally or in detail, what is it you expect us to do and then we could determine whether it's over with 24 25 or not.
Acme Reporting Company 42OJs 6 s' 8 d h 8 H
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MR. BECKJORN:
Well, let me--the committee is going
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to advise the Director of the Office of Research, but it is 3
also clear that the Committee is really going to be report-(_)
4 ing to the Commission also because the Commission has expressed 5
individually, as well as together, at their meeting, that G
they were very interested in this.
They want to review the membership that is proposed 7
8 and I am sure that they're going to want to hear from the 9
committee, probably as a whole and this was discussed at the July meeting of the Commission.
10 So I think that while it is true that it says the 33 committee is going to advise me, I think that it is also going 12 to be reporting to the commission.
h 13 It's clearly to be presented to the--
34 CHAIRMAN KERR:
I was not thinking so much of 15 an information exchange, but rather the definition of what it 3g is that you want them to do.
37 It would seem to me that it would be appropriate jg for you to the committee what it is that you would like us to 39 do.
20 No good committee will take that too seriously though, 21 of course, but at least you can tell them.
es 22 b
DR. SEISS:
And you can't tell the ACRS what to do.
23 MR. BECKJORN:
Right.
o1
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i DR. SEISS:
No.
We'll report to the Commission.
25 Acme Reporting Company
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I don't really--I would be willing to wait awhile and see how
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2 it goes, but I don't really think there is going to be a great 3
deal of conflict.
73 What the ACRS is doing is looking at the particular k-)
4 5
aspects of the research program throuch subcommittees, pri-6 marily.
Right now we're looking at the Se"ere Accident 7
Research;' we 're looking at Thermal hydraulic-Pescarch; we're 8
9 looking at aging research; we're looking :lt waste management research.
We're looking at many different--structural re-10 ig search, many different areas.
We're not trying to come up to the end of the year 12 13 and implement a budget.
It never worked anyway with Congress lll) or anyone else.
14 MR. BECKJORN:
It certainly wouldn't have worked 15 16 this year.
MR. SEISS:
There's still hope that once again, you 17 or one of the vested associates will come in and give us an jg overview of the program so we see how these things fit l
jg together, but still I think our most valuable comments will 20 come at the maior area of ours, as it actually has.
21 MR. BECKJORN:
I certainly agree with that and that' s 22
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really my recommendation, with respect to the future review 23 of the ACRS.
oj u
At the top of the reviews which we would arrange
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25 Acme Reporting Company
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56 133 1
with your subcommittees.
O 2
There are some things that that we will be suggest-3 ing and there may be some areas that you will want to look 4
into so I think the way to approach that is to sit down 5
periodically and establish what that list would be.
6 DR. SEISS:
There's another function, I think, the 7
ACRS serves and the way we go about it.
8 Not only do we review the research, but we review 9
the applications of research.
We look at what we're doing in thermo hydraulics and we look at what we're doing in severe 10 accidents.
We don't draw a line berween looking at research 33 resulta and what is being done with it.
12 And let's face it, that's been one of the big prob-g 13 lems in the past that we were doing research that wasn't 14 getting used and nobody wanted to pay for it.
15 MR. BECKJORN:
Well, I think we have covered what 3g I had to suggest in that area.
37 CllAIRMAN KERR:
Any further questions before we go 18 on to the closed session?
39 MR. BECKJORN:
There's one other subject.
20 CHAIRMAN KERR: Yes, please.
21 MR. BECKJORN:
Shall I go ahead?
- 2 O
CHAIRMAN KERR: Yes, go ahead.
23 MR. BECKJORN:
Well this one, I believe it was your 24 O
question, Bill on the--
25 Acme Reporting Company 20/d 6/8 488H
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CHAIRMAN KERR:
I believe it was.
)
2 MR. BECKJORN:
On the interaction between research 3
and NRR on containment performance.
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4 What I say about the.t is that there are at least, 5
certainly 5 key topics in this area.
6 1150, completion of MERIG 1150.
That's under way 7
now.
I i. ave mentioned that was being worked on. Public 8
comment period is over.
We have received comments from about, l
9 it must be 40-45 people, individuals and organizations at this i
10 point.
We are still receiving comments.
I got some from the 11 French CEA about 3 weeks ago.
We will be receiving comments from the American Nuclear Society as to forming a committee 12 to look into the subject and we will be meeting with foreign lll) 13 g4 interested parties in March in Rome on the 17th and 18th of 15 March to get their--we're going to tell them where we are on 1150 and we'll get their comments on it.
10 Containment performance is right in the middle of 17 18 this.
We are--Dr. Ross is leading this effort and Dr. Houston and Harold Murphy and they are working very closely with NRR 19 20 as they get into the final work.
We are going to react to or respond-to the comments 21 that we have received.
We are including some work on natural 22 V'
events inspired like seismic and we are updating some of the 23 models that we used in the original assessment where plant og modifications have been made since the oriainal work and we're
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25 Acme Reporiing Company s2Gd' 6 / 8 4 H 8 'I
135 1-keeping in close touch with NRR on all of this.
I )
2 CHAIRMAN KERR:
Part of the background to this 3
question arose in connection with our discussions with NRP--
,zm
(_)
4 it started out with NPR, when the original plant examination-5 methods'had to'be developed *and presumably since they had some 6
connection with severe accidents, one would have expected that the results of severe accident research would be used and the
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7 8
impresson that one got was that there was not very much commun i-9 cation between what was going on in research and what was going on in NRR and then at one stage, during the reorganization, 10 11 the response we got was from NRR was well, we don't have any 12 responsibility to prevent anymore, that's been turned over to 13 research.
I was just curious as to how, if there is, it would i,4 seem to me to be logical that would be fairly good communica-15 tion between research and NRR so I just assumed that I mis-16 understood what was going on and really the communication was 17 quite good and I hoped that you would tell me that.
Ig MR. BECKJORN:
Okay, what I am going to do is I am 79 20 going to tell you that that is not what'is happening.
I-have been meeting with Tom Early myself since June.
We have met, I 21 n
22 guess, probably every couple of weeks on containment related R) issues, Mark I or ITE.
23 We greed back in October that we would have that we 21
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would have monthly meetings, management meetings on the subject 25 Acme Reporting Company
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1 until, you know, we were fairly well throuqb with the process.
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2 I think the most important cases are two, the one
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I think what I would like to do is have Dr. Speis 5
give you a rundown on v1.'t we are doing on both o# those g
activities with NRR relating to the resol.ution.
DR. SPEIS:
Mr. Chairman, let me comment on one 7
g thing about the NRR.
In each instance we had a new management agency 9
that had more important priorities and they were trying to 10 define their priorities.
37 We went throuch a months of working extremely close 12 with them.
In fact we have had briefinas with them about every lll) 13 two weeks.
We met about the IPE protest and addressed the g
containment improvement issue.
15 In fact, to formalize the process, we have annointed 16 Keith Thompson from the NRR to work with us to get this pro-37 cess going and concluded.
18 We are in the process of finalizing the packets, or 3g whatever you want to call it.
We have briefed the CICR and 20 a
there are 5 or 6 questions that we're trying to reach agree-21 ment on in general as well as with other parts of the organiza 22 4
~j 33 tion.
We are putting forth an effort, within the document, 21 to accelerate efforts in improvino containment with Mark I's
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137 precision.
We have put tocether a commission paper.
We have 7
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sent it to EEO two days ago and it hss been confirmed by 2
both PES and NRR and, in fact, tomorrow at the meeting ai-3 2:00 o' clock Ray Holman and Wayne Houston will brief you on
()
4 the effort.
5 I pr bably would like to take 2 or 3 minutes to kind 6
of bring you up to date as to progress over the past year, 7
st the role of the NRP as to the packarie and the per-8 formance of the CWR 1 point containment which included 5 g
ems, control, dry run spray, present control, control or 10 degree of management and containment.
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briefed the Commission and you people back in 12 cember and w head hom de Commission Qat w shouM pro-13 ceed.
Also you might recall your letter of December 9, you g
had a number of questions, technical questions, that the 15 pr p sal was obviously justified and you raised a specific 16 question, for example, the core spray down 10 percent was an g
improvement.
I'm just quoting from your letter.
)g Also this year we met two times with laboratories g
shy, w had two separate meeMngs.
I h P, e h a n an n
20 pr vided you with the notes--the minutes of those meetings 21 and to discuss those thinas and we find out that industry 22 emb thinks that the Mark I containment as well as all the other 23 containment are doing very well,
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g-with felt that improvements could be made.
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In conclusion, we saw bright news, not only because l
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f the interest in ourselves, but also there were some 3
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different views among our own people that are working in
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5 So basically, we decided to take another look at 6
it.
7 CHAIPMAN KERR: Who are our own people?
Is that g
9 RES, and--
DR. SPEIS:
RES, Oak Ridge, Brook Haven.
10 CHAIRMAN KERR:
Okay.
11 DR. SPEIS:
So after assessing the cituation, we 12 decided to look at some of these questions that were raised
()
13 including the questions that you did raise and as I say, 14 15 January, we will discuss what are the important gestions, and we are planning right now to go to the Commission in the 16 17 Spring at this ' coming year and present preliminary recommenda-tions sometime in the summer of
'89.
18 What we would like to do, in areas that there is 39 20 some improvement and there is some interest and the improve-ments can be made and people agree to what these improvements 21
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22 are, then we can proceed.
But again, our conclusion is that we want to take 23 another look at those questions that people are arguing with 94
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and we will be making our recommendations in the early Spring 25 Acme Reporting Company
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9 139 1
and the preliminary one--the final one in December.
That
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2 concludes my remarks.
3 MR. BECKJORN:
The other point, these documents
' /^g
(_)
4 aren't relating to containment performance, specifically 5
the generic letter and the Mark I letter, neither one of 6
which have gone out.
These all get NRR concurrence before 7
they go forward and we're.getting their papers on Mark I.
8 I can tell you one thing, It's taken a lot of 9
added time right now and hopefully we'll--
10 CHAIRMAN KERR:
We could consider this very 11 important--it would seem management attention to givina 12 direction is worthwhile.
/^N 13 MR. BECKJORN:
Right.
\\~_)
14 CHAIRMAN KERR: May I ask one question?
Mr. Dubernical 15 has addressed a number of questions to someone which he calls 16 the NRC staff, about Mark I and particularly about the 17 coolant situation.
I'm sure that you have seen his memo.
18 MR. BECKJORN: Well, that's NRR.
i CHAIRMAN KERR:
Is RES working with NRR on that?
)
19 i
20 MR. BECKJORN:
Yes.
NER prepared the answer and 1
we gave them some early input on their letter yesterday.
21 CHAIRMAN KERR: Okay, 22 eb MR. BECKJORN:
And that is probably getting out to-23
)
24 day.
O CHAIRMAN KERR:
Thank you, j
25 i
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I MR. BECKJORN:
Have we responded to your concerns?
3 O
CIIAIRMAN KERR:
Yes and I am delighted to find out 2
that I completely misur.derstood the situation that existed, 3
O hue it 1 hed underetoed it correct 1y, it hes been chensed.
4 We'll close the meeting at this time, 5
(Whereupon, at 2:05 p.m.,
the meeting went into g
closed session.)
7 8
9 10 11 12 o
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25 Acme Reporting Company i/Ote f*/8 4RBd
1 CERTIFICATE O
\\m/
2 3
.This'is to certify that the: attached proceedings before the 4
United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission in the matter of:
1 5
Name:.
332nd ACPS meeting (1:00 - 2:15 session only).
6 7
Docket Number:
l Washington, D.
C.
8 Place:
9 Date:
12-3-87 10' were held as herein appears, and that this is the original 11 transcript thereof for the file of the United States Nuclear 12 Regulatory Commission taken stenographically by me and, 13 thereafter reduced to typewriting by me or under the direction 14 of the court reporting company, and that the transcript is a 4
15 true and accurate record of the foregoing proceedings.
Y CC 1G
/S/
w I w /d/M4 17-(Signature typed):
IRWIN L.
C ENBERRY 18 Official Reporter 19 Heritage Reporting Corporation 20 21 22 23 24 25 O
Heritage Reporting Corporation (202) 628-4888