ML20238A631

Memorandum & Order.* Memorandum & Order Requiring Submittal of Computer Readable Diskettes W/Hard Copy Filings of Prefiled Testimony,Written Matls Filed as Exhibits or Proposed Findings of Fact.Served on 870818

ML20238A631
Person / Time
Site:	Comanche Peak
Issue date:	08/17/1987
From:	Bloch P, Jordan W, Mccollom K Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel
To:
References
CON-#387-4247 79-430-06OL, 79-430-6OL, 86-528-02-CPA, 86-528-2-CPA, CPA, OL-2, NUDOCS 8708210031
Download: ML20238A631 (13)

Text

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J 9tsty,9' l UNITED STATES OF AMERICA )

NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION '

i Before Administrative Judges 87 g 18 AlC :35 Peter B.'Bloch, Chair '{

Dr. Walter H. Jordan j Dr. Kenneth A. McCollom ,

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.1 In the Matter of  !

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Docket Nos. sv-445-OL2 i Texas Utilities Electric Co., et al.-

50-446-OL2 I-1 1

ASLBP No. 79-430-060L ,

l(Comanche Peak Steam Electric Station,: August 17, 1987' J

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Units 1 and 2) i

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SERVED AUG 18 LW l i

! In the Matter of i I Docket No. 50-445-CPA Texas Utilities Electric Co., et al.

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l-(Comanthe Peak Steam Electric Station,!i ASLBP No. 86-528-02-CPA I

Units 1 and 2)  : August 17, 1987 i

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER MEMORANDUM (Filing of Documents on Diskettes) 3 This Memorandum and Order seeks to expedite this proceed-ing pursuant to the Commission's Statement of Policy on tne 4 l Conduct of Licensing Proceedings, 13 NRC 452 (CLI-81-8, 1981).

The method chosen by the Board for expediting the proceed ng is )

to require parties that have been preparing their documents on 8708210031 070817 PDR ADOCK 05000445 1/

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procedure has worked well. To the extent that the Board or the parties identify difficulties or provide suggestions for imprAV8-mants, the procedure may be revised by the Board-from time to time.

ORDER Upon consideration of the filings of the parties and the entire record in this matter, it is this 17th day of August 1987

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ORDERED That when the parties submit prefiled testimony, written materials filed as exhibits or proposed findings of fact and conclusions of law, they shall submit either:

(1) computer readable diskettes with their hard copy or

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, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMISSION q

' ATOMIC SAFETY AND LICENSING BOARD Before Administrative Judges: k I

B. Paul Cotter, Jr. , Chairman Glenn 0. Bright J Dr. Jerry Harbour-In the Matter of: Docket Nos. 50-275-OLA 1 PACIFIC GAS AND ELECTRIC COMPANY

-(ASLBP No. 86-523-03-LA)

(DiabloCanyonNuclearPowerPlant, Units 1 and 2) May 22, 1987 MEMORANDUM AND ORDER (Orjer Requiring the Filing of Documents on Diskettes Suitable for Electronic Storage and Retrieval)

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I. INTRODUCTION The Atomic Safety and Licensing Board seeks to expedite this ]

proceeding to the benefit of all parties pursuant to the directions of the Comission in its Statement of Policy on Conduct of Licensing Proceedings,13NRC452(CLI-81-8,1981). That guidance encouraged adjudicatory boards to " expedite the hearing process" and " produce a record which leads to high quality decisions" by using the management ,

methods set out in Part 2, which includes the power of the boards to regulate _ the course of the hearing and the conduct of the parties under 1

10 C.F.R. 2.718 (1987). M.,at453. The guidelines in the policy statement are not exclusive, "but rather are to be considered

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computers or who begin to prepare their documents on computers to. continue complying with the Commission's filing requirements and to submit, in' addition, all prefiled testimony, all written materials filed as-exhibits and all proposed findings of fact and conclusions of law, on 5 1/2 inch floppy diskettes in ASCII form.

The Board, which also will obtain the transcribed record on floppy diskettes, finds that the availability of these materials will expedite the preparation of quality judicial opinions, f

After all materials filed have been recorded and indexed, 2

the Board intends to make copies of the. complete data base and return one copy on the diskettes the parties have supplied to each of them for their use. Parties requesting it may receive the data base _ fully indexed with Bluefish or with ZY-Index.

'The adopted procedure.han been implemented in the Diablo Canycn case (order attached). E. Paul Cotter, Chief Administra-tive Judge af the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel, reports in a private communication to the ASLBP that the I

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Parties that do not prepare their documents on computers are required to use a type face for document presentation that is '

determined by the Board to be compatible with conversion to electronic form by optical character reading equipment. (Parties E preparing a portion of their documents on computers should comply with the diskette filing requirement for those documents that are prepared in that fashion.)

2 We are prohibited by contract from supplying diskettes )

R concerning the transcript unless the parties have purchased the right to obtain those copies from the legal reporting company that prepared the transcript.

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Computerization: 4 (2) scannable hard copy in the fccm and manner described in the foregoing memorandum.

THE ATOMIC SAFETY AND LICENSING BOARD:

l Peter D.' Bloch, Chair i Administrative Judge

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Dr. Kenneth A. McCollom Administrative Judge

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Dr. Walter H. J r an Administrative dge Bethesda, Maryland

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illustrative of the actions that can be taken by individual boards."

Id. This Board seeks to carry out those responsibilities by drawing on the :omputer . technology that has been so long employed by many, if not most, of the attorneys in this country who litigate complex lawsuits.

The requirements and procedures described in this memorandum and order are not intended to, and do not, replace the standard filing requirements in Nuclear Regulatory Coninission proceedings. The parties will file hard copy as usual in conformance with 10 C.F.R. 2.708 (1987).

That hard copy, as in all NRC proceedings, will be the record upon which the Board will make its decision.

While the procedures and requirements for_ electronic filing are in addition to the normal method of filing, they are intended to benefit the parties, not burden them. The purpose of creating a computer searchable record is to increase the speed and facility of the parties and the Board in finding specific documents and transcript references, preparing findings of fact and conclusions of law, and preparing a written decision from the record in this proceeding.1 1This memorandum and order is part of.a larger effort by the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel to standardize computer readable filings and procedures for all cases wherever, and to the extent, feasible.

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To those ends, this memorandum and order directs the capture, in computer readable form, of a significant portion of the record for decision. Specifically, the Board seeks to capture on computer readable diskettes three cetegories of record materials, namely: (a)prefiled testimony; (b) proposed findings 'of fact and conclusions of law; and (c) the transcript of the hearing. Electronic capture will assist the l parties and the Board in the following ways:

1. Make available to the Board and the' parties a full text, elec'tronically searchable record to aid and expedite the preparation of findings, conclusions and the Initial Decision by replacing the slow and time consuming method of manual I

indexing and record search with a virtually instantaneous electronic full-text index system; ,

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2. Aid and expedite the presentation of evidence and the conduct j 1

of cross-examination during the hearing (if the requisite equipment is then available) through a fully indexed and virtually instantaneous electronic search system on a portable computer at the hearing;

3. Insure the completeness and reliability of the parties' filings and the Board's issuances, particularly the Initial Decision, as they relate to prefiled testimony and the hearing. ,

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.8 transcript, by making available the eidetic memory of a ,

computerized, full-text search system.

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The full benefit of the foregoing effects will not b'e fully ,

. realized in the instant' proceeding because some exhibits and other portions of the record up to this point have not been captured for j computer search. The parties are encouraged to make available in the, n',

>T electronic form described below whatever exhibits they may already have captured :in that medium. In any event, substantial benefit will accrue to the Board,'the parties, and the proceeding from the time saved in finding record references and producing findings, conclusions,'and an initial decision, because tho vast majority of the record on which the Board's deciiion will be based will be available electronically. ,

II. COMPUTER RESOURCES The Board is equipped with IBM personal computers (IBM PC-XTs with- -l 640 kilobytes ("Kb") of memory, a 360 Kb disk drive, and a 20 megabyte

("Mb")harddisk). EachcomputerhasanAT&TDataphoneIImodem(1200  !

baud), is operated by PC-DOS 3.1, and uses the IBM DisplayWrite 3 word processing program. The Board also has available to it a Compaq 386 personal computer (with 130 Mb of memory and a 40 Mb backup tape drive) f and a laser printer.

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'!- For indexing, the Board uses "ZyINDEX", which can index every word for computer search in up to 15,000 files.2 The Board will compile a j 4 4 ' central data base of all computer readable filings received in this {

proceeding and index it with ZyINDEX at the request of.the parties.

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In response to the Boa'rd's inquiry, the parties have stated that f A' " theyihave. IBM'equipnEntorthecapabilitytosubmitfilingsinpure j ASCU.'1drn. Counsel for the Sierra Club has an IBM PC which uses " Word 3 ,' '

Perfect" software for word processing.

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Applicant is preparing its filings on a Wang system but can convert 3

,' from the Wang format to file in pure. ASCII with relatively little k; effort. Applicant also notes, however, that certain characters and symbols may not be converted successfully into pure ASCII., Applicant

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'" < can file approximately 150 pages of prefiled testimony plus a w, ,

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• significant portion of its exhibits on computer readable diskettes and y (

v; 2The Board also has a more powerful full-text inciexing program,

" Bluefish", which can handle 15 million files. Bluefish can find and list every occurrence of a given word or phrase in 15,000 pages of text within two seconds. However, the indexed files require twice again as much space as the text itself. Consequently, Bluefish requires more

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e s < personal computer capacity than ZyINDEX.

3 ASCII Interchange)(the American is a standard National code used Standard for exchanging Code for information Information among

.1, data processing systems and associated equipment. An ASCII file is a text file (alpha numeric characters, special characters, line feed, and carriage return characters) in which the characters are represented in ASCII codes.

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will furnish enough diskettes to receive a complete copy of the fully

. . indexed da'fa base. Applicant reports that it has access to the ZyINDEX J y+ program and requests that the data base be indexed with that program.

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' NRC St 'ff has IBM PCs operating with the IBM 5520 Administrative

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3ystem. Staff's response to the Board's inquiry recites at some length its objections tt the Board's proposed order, the initially proposed fonnat, the value oi' a central data base, and various other matters.

However, Staff also recites that it is "willing to acccmodate the Board's legiti' mate interest in efficiency and expedition," and Staff is able to furnish diskettes in pure ASCII. Staff also has ZyINDEX, but not Bluefish and apparently is unaware that the latter is readily g ,

available. Staff expects to file 100 pages of hard copy prior to the hearing and estimates that intervenor will file a ifke number of pages.

Consequently, it appears that pref 11ed material will be approximately 1,000 pages, transcript pages will number approximately 750 ;, ages, and the complete data base will total approximately 1800 pages.

Test Results i

All parties have submitted diskettes to the Board in pure ASCII fonn to test the system proposed in our April 30, 1987 order. All submittals were successfully captured and indexed.

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III. PROCEDURES A. Filings Each party will accompany its prtfiled testimony and proposed findings of fact and conclusions of law with a computer readable diskette copy of the text ("hard copy") in pure ASCII form and the format they normally use pursuant to 10 CFR 2.708 (1981). If prefiled testimony includes drawings, that material is not to be captured in computer readable form. ,

With respect to symbols, equations, and other items that are difficult to (or will not) transmit in pure ASCII, the parties are to insert 6sterisks where that material occurs and the Board will have thht material keyed into its captured data base for completeness. ,

B. Indexed Central Data Base Upon receipt of the diskettes, the Board will have them recorded in l

l a single reposi, tory which will serve as the central data base for the computerized portion of the record in this proceeding. Each word in the data base will be fully indexed using ZyINDEX. After all materials filed have been recorded and indexed, the Board will make copies of the complete data base and return one copy on the diskettes the parties have supplied to each of them for their use. If any party wishes to receive

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the data base fully indexed with Bluefish, they should so request at the time they file. The Board will mail to each party a diskette (s) containing a complete copy of the data base, indexed in accordance with each party's request, within three working days of receipt of the last  !

party's filing.

The Board had hoped to bring to the hearing the fully indexed data  ;

base on a portable Compaq computer for use during the hearing. It now appears, however, that the equipment may not be available. The indexed feature of the' data base would have enabled the Board and the parties to substantially reduce the time needed to search for references during the course nf direct and cross-examination. If circumstances change and the equipment becomes available, the Board will be the primary user of the Compaq data base, but will make it available to the parties, when and as convenient to the proceeding.

C. Transcript Finally, the Board has arranged with its court reporter to have the hearing itself recorded on computer readable tape so that it can be added to the proceeding database. This recording is in addition to the normal hard copy transcript requirement. Copies are obtainable by the parties under the terms of the Commission't court reporting contract.

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The Board reiterates its desire to effect a system of mutual benefit to all at a minimum of effort and encourages the parties to seek affirmative solutions to any obstacles this order may present them.

Counsel or their representatives should call Jack Whetstine, Chief, ASLBP Information Processing Section (Telephone: 30T/492-7858), with any A

technical or procedural questions this proposed order raises. Mr.

Whetstine is directed to seek flexible solutions to any such problems.

ORDER Accordingly, upon consideration of the filings of the parties and the entire record in this matter, it is, this 22nd day of May,1987 ORDERED That the parties shall submit computer readable diskettes with their hard copy filings in the form and manner described in the foregoing memorandum.

FOR THE ATOMIC SAFETY AND LICENSING BOARD ,

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h B. Pdul Cotter, Jr. / Chairman ADMINISTRATIVEJbDf Dated at Bethesda, Maryland, this 22nd day of May, 1987.

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