ML20246H503
| ML20246H503 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Seabrook  |
| Issue date: | 05/05/1989 |
| From: | Smith I NRC ATOMIC SAFETY & LICENSING APPEAL PANEL (ASLAP) |
| To: | MASSACHUSETTS, COMMONWEALTH OF, NEW HAMPSHIRE, STATE OF, NRC OFFICE OF THE GENERAL COUNSEL (OGC), PUBLIC SERVICE CO. OF NEW HAMPSHIRE |
| References | |
| CON-#289-8571 82-471-02-OL, 82-471-2-OL, LBP-88-32, OL, NUDOCS 8905160116 | |
| Download: ML20246H503 (14) | |
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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
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ATOMIC SAFETY AND LICENSING BOARD 7
Before Administrative Judges:
Ivan W. Smith, Chairman NAY 0 1989 Dr. Richard F. Cole Dr. Kenneth A. McCollom In'the Matter of PUBLIC SERVICE COMPANY OF Docket Nos. 50-443-OL NEW HAMPSHIRE,-et al.
50-444-OL (Seabrook Station, d
Units 1 and 2)
(Offsite Emergency.
Plannlag)
May 5, 1989 MEMORANDUM AND ORDER (Returnino Commuters Issue)
In the Partial Initial Decision on the New Hampshire Radiological Emergency Response Plan, LSP-88-32, 28 NRC 667, l
(December 31, 1988), the Board, seeking further advice from-the parties, retained jurisdiction over those aspects of the Evacuation Time Estimates pertaining to whether the estimates properly accounted for " trips by returning l-commuters within the EPZ to their homes in the EPZ.
- 14. at 804.-
The matter of concern to the Board was rather-narrow, and hed been raised by similarly narrow proposed findings of the Massachusetts Attorney General.
8905160116 890505 i DR ADOCK 05000443 PDR G y
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. First we rejected ac a matter of concern the effect upon the ETEs of the travel-home time of returning commuters.
Id. at 786, Findings 9.47, 9.48.
Then we declined to accept Interveners' proposed findings respecting the " frictional" effects of commuter trips home acainst the flow of evacuating traffic.
Id. and at 787.
We acknowledged, but assigned no particular importance to the Attorney General's proposed findings concerning commuters retur ning home across the flow of evacuating traffic.
Finally, as a direct consequence of the Attorney General's respective proposed findings, the Board focused on the effect of commuters returning home from points toward the center of the EPZ to points farther out in the EPZ traveling in the direction of the evacuating traffic.
Id., Finding 9.52.
Even more particularly, the Board was moved by the concern expressed by the Attorney General and his expert, Dr. Adler, that many EPZ residents work at many places of employment along Route 1 in the Hampton/Seabrook area who travel home to EPZ towns in the north, and would have to traverse the critical intersection at I-95/ Route 51.
MAG PF 6.1.78.
See 26 NRC at 787-88, Finding 9.53.
Our special concern, of course, was the effect upon the ETEs for persons at the beach and areas close to the Seabrook Station.
Id.
In that context, the Board faulted the A'ctorney General for
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simultaneously postulating a large number of returning commuters on weekdays and a swollen weekend beach population.
We also explained that the Attorney General, through Dr. Adler, was double-counting _ commuters starting home from the beaches, because, as we found, they haa already been counted as a part of the beach population.
Id.
at 789, Finding 9.58.
In response to the Board's invitation, the Applicants submitted arguments based upon the affidavit of its expert, Mr. Lieberman of KLD Associates.1 The Massachusetts Attorney General countered with its response founded on the affidavit of its expert, Dr. Adler.2 Mr. Lieberman focused sharply on the Board's special concerns, a summer weekend scenario for beach traffic.
- But, apparently for conservatism, he postulated a summer mid-week commuter traffic pattern.
He studied commuters whose trips originate near the beaches, but who were not counted as a part of the beach population.
He identified the limited number of evacuation paths for the beach traffic to points at the EPZ boundary.
In particular he analyzed commuters whose trips to home originated in the beach-area towns (but 1 Applicants' Memorandum Regarding Interaction of Commuter Traffic Flow and Evacuation Traffic Flow Within The Seabrook EPZ, January 25, 1989.
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2 Massachusetts Attorney General's Response On The Issue of Returning Commuters and Their Impact On Evacuation Time Estimates.
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. I not the beaches) of Hampton, Salisbury, and Seabrook.
Lieberman Affidavit, cassim.
1 In Hampton and Salisbury, according to Mr. Lieberman,
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i the largest portion of commuters will return home by local streets to homes nearby.
Another large portion of commuters in each town reside outside the EPZ and have already been included in the estimate of evacuees.
A rather small portion will travel to homes in other towns within the EPZ, and of this small portion, only some will pass through the critical evacuation paths to their homes.
Affidavit at 6-9.
Mr. Lieberman estimates only 51 commuter vehicles from Hampton would pass west through the Route 51/I-95 interchange with no material influence on the ETE -- 2.5 minutes.
Id. at 7.
Even if all of the west-bound commuters from Hampton (154) were to irrationally pass through that intersection, the ETEs would still not be materially increased if Mr. Lieberman's analysis is valid.
Applying the same rationale to the Town of Salisbury, F
and adding cross-traffic to the mix, Mr. Lieberman estimates a 9.5 percent capacity reduction through the critical intersections at Salisbury Center over the first two hours.
This is equivalent to a 2.7 percent reduction over a 7-hour ETE.
This, according to Mr. Lieberman, is well within the 15 percent reductions used in IDYNEV over the entire
4 evacuation time. frame to account for congested traffic.
Affidavit at 9.
.With respect to the Town of Seabrook, Mr. Lieberman noted that, with the Seabrook plant construction now complete, commuter traffic will be greatly. reduced relative to the data.in the record from'1985, and in any event, commuters from Seabrook will follow a route to I-95 (Route 107) which will produce no significant interaction with beach area traffic.
Mr. Lieberman refers to the fact that while theLETEs make the standard assumption that two lane roads are rolling terrain, in' fact the roads east of I-95 are level with somewhat greater capacities.
This he states is a
" conservative posture."
Affidavit at 11.
While the Board has previously been critical of the notion that conservatism in ETEs' lies in the direction of over-estimating rather than
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accuracy,.in this case, Mr. Lieberman seems to employ the concept in the sense that such a " conservatism" can compensate for uncertainties in the other direction.
Over all, Mr. Lieberman concludes that, within the narrow area of the Board's concerns, it is unnecessary to apply.the IDYNEV model to represent commuter trips, and even were the model applied, there would be no " meaningful effect" on the ETEs.
Affidavit at 15.
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1 The Massachusetts Attorney General counters with the gg xf affidavit of Dr. Adler who finds fault with "all of the
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arguments" made by Dr. Lieberman in his affidavit.
MAG
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.1 Response at 2.
Before we proceed with an analysis of the g
j current position of the Attorney General on the returning-commuter' issue, we return briefly to his respective proposed finding and the Board's reaction to them.
In Proposed Finding 6.1.77, and in Proposed Finding 6.1.78, the Attorney General pressed upon the Board the special concern that returning commuters will have a serious impact upon the evacuation of the summer weekend beach population.
Almost as an after-thought the Attorney General tagged onto the end of Proposed Finding 6.1.77 the citation from Dr. Adler that there are likely to be tens of thousands of returning commuters on weekdays and that the potential effects on ETEs for "some Regions" are substantial.
Id.
Nowhere else does the Attorney General, or Dr. Adler in any testimony cited to us, provide the details of their broader concern for weekday commuters and other Regions of the EPZ; the focus has been consistently on the peak traffic from the beaches on summer weekends.
Now, however, according to Dr. Adler, we should be looking at peak, mid-week commuter traffic in six non-summer scenarios and in nine sub-regions of the EPZ -- for example, Portsmouth, New Hampshire in the wintertime.
Moreover, Dr.
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. Adler asserts that we need to look at commuters returning from beyond.the EPZ, even though we retained jurisdiction over only the narrow problem of commuters starting within the EPZ for homes also within the EPZ.
The Attorney General's response to the Board's concern over returning commuters has not been disciplined, and to our disappointment, not as helpful as it might have been.
His effort to broaden the issue to other season and weather scenarios throughout.the entire EPZ is essentially an effort i
to reopen the evidentiary record and to file new proposed findings without any effort to demonstrate good cause for
,that course of action.
Nevertheless, an important part of Dr. Adler's affidavit is aimed directly at the narrow area over which we retained jurisdiction.
Dr. Adler makes a town-by-town, street-by-street,' and intersection-by-intersection criticism of Mr. Lieberman's analysis of the beach evacuation routes.
He challenges virtually every factual assumption made by Mr.
Lieberman, including assumptions on the numbers of commuters, their distribution and their predicted movements around congested evacuation pathways.
Dr. Adler challenges Mr. Lieberman's assertion that.the effect of returning q
commuters will be absorbed by the 15 percent capacity reduction factors used in IDYNEV to approximate the effects of congested flow.
Adler Affidavit at 3-6.
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. In short, while Mr. Lieberman presented a reasoned and I
fully explained analysis of the effect of returning commuters following the evacuation direction in the towns near Seabrook Station. Dr. Adler has countered in kind.
The Board has a factual dispute before it and further advice from the parties is needed in several areas:
1.
Limiting the consideration to the effect of commuters whose trips originate within the EPZ and terminate at home (before evacuating) within the EPZ upon evacuation of the summertime beach population, interested parties should submit proposals for resolving the factual dispute raised by the Lieberman and Adler affidavits.
2.
Dr. Adler again states that he has the procedure and data to model the effect of returning commuters, albeit in areas beyond the narrow area of concern to the board.
Adler Affidavit at 10.
Dr. Adler previously testified (Tr. 9538) that he has data that can be used to better account for returning commuters.
See LBP-88-32, 28 NRC, suora, at 789.
Can the parties agree to the validity of the data and procedures suggested by Dr. Adler, or agree upon other inputs to the IDYNEV model?
3.
Given, that Mr. Lieberman and Applicants believe that further IDYNEV runs with returning-commuter
. J trips would not materially change the ETEs, is there not some advantage in demonstrating this fact by IDYNEV modeling?
4.
The Board previously expressed the opinion that further refinement of the ETE's with respect to returning commuters would not likely affect the choice of protective actions of evacuation versus sheltering, but that the State of New Hampshire
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decisionmakers are nevertheless entitled to the most accurate ETEs reasonably achievable.
28 NRC at 789.
After considering the Lieberman and Adler affidavits, what does the State of New Hampshire i
believe about the ETEs?
Does it believe that more modeling can produce better or more useful information?
Does it believe that the debate between Lieberman and Adler provides all that the State can use.
Now is the time for the New Hampshire emergency officials to make their views known.
i 5.
The NRC Staff originally supported Applicants in their proposed finding that returning commuters are accounted for in that their trips from home are accounted for.
Now the Applicants acknowledge f
that the commuter trips to home were not modeled.
The Board wants advice.and any appropriate
. recommendations from the Staff on the matter at hand.
The Board will consider a schedule and order for submitting reports on this issue'at the opening of the evidentiary session in Boston, Massachusetts, on May 15, 1989.
The Board requests that the State of New Hampshire be represented at that session.
FOR THE ATOMIC SAFETY AND LI NSING BOARD 0
s
{
Ivan W.
Smith, Chairman ADMINISTRATIVE LAW JUDGE Bethesda, Maryland May 5, 1989.
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UN!TED: STATES OF AMERICA NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION l
In the Matter of l
I PUBLIC SERVICE COMPANY OF NEW l
Docket No.(s) 50-443/444-OL HAMPSHIRE. ET AL.
1 (Seabrook Station. Units 1 and 2) l t
1 CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE 1 hereby certify that cooles of the forecoine LB M&O (RETURNING COMMUTERS..)
have been served upon the f ollowino persons by U.S. mail, first class, except as otherwise noted and in accordance with the requirements of 10 CFR Sec. 2.712.
Administrative Judas Adelnistrative Judas Alan S. Rosenthal. Chairman Thomas S. Moore Atomic Bafety and Licensino Appeal Atomic Safety and Licensino Appeal Board Board U.S. Nuclear Reaulatory Commission U.S. Nuclear Reculatory Commission Washinoten. DC 20555 Washinoton. DC 20555 Administrative Judas Howard A. Wilber Administrative Law Judae Atomic Safety and Licensino Appeal Ivan W. Smith. Chairman Board Atomic Safety and Licensino Board U.S. Nuclear Reculatory Commission U.S. Nuclear Reculatory Commission Washinoton. DC 20555 Washinoton DC 20555 Administrative Judae Administrative Judas Richard F. Cole Kenneth A. McCollem Atomic Safety and Licensino Board Atomic Safety and Licensino Board U.S. Nuclear Reculatory Commission U.S. Nuclear Reculatory Commission Washinoton. DC 20555 Washington. DC 20555 Administrative Judas Robert R. Pierce. Esquire James H. Carpenter Atomic Saf ety and Licensing Board Alternate Technical Member U.S. Nuclear Reculatory Commission Atomic Safety and Licensino Board Washinoton, DC 20555 U.S. Nuclear Raoulatory Commission Washington. DC 20555 Edwin J. Reis. Esc.
Lisa B. Clark Office of the General Counsel Attornsv U.S. Nuclear Reculatory Commission Office of the General Counsel Washinoten. DC 20555 U.S. Nuclear Reculatory Commission Washington, DC 20555
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Docket No.(s)50-443/444-OL LB M&O-(RETURNING COMMUTERS.0) t l
Diane Curran. Eso.
Thomas G. Dianan. Jr.
Eso.
Harmon Curran & Tousley Ropes & Gray 2001 S Street.
N.W., Suite 430 One International Place Washincton. DC 20009 Boston, MA 02110 L
Robert A. Backus. Esc.
Paul McEachern. Esc.
l Backus. Meyer & Solomon Shaines & McEachern 116 LeMell Street 25 Maplewood Avenue. P.O. Box 360 Manchester. NH. 03106 Portsmouth. NH 03801 Gary W. Holmes.-Esc.
Judith H. Hizner Holmes & Ells Silverclate. Gernter. Baker. Fine.
47 Winnacunnet Road Good and Mitzner Hampton. NH 03842 88 Broad Street Boston. MA 02110 1
Charles P. Graham. Esc.
Jane Doherty McKay. Murphy and Graham Seacoast Anti-Pollution League 100 Main Street 5 Market Street Amesbury. MA 01913 Portsmouth. NH 03801 Leonard Kopelman. Esc.
Ashed N. Amirian, Esc.
Kopelman and Paice. P.C.
376 Main Street 77 Franklin Street Haverhill MA 01030 Boston, MA 02110 Georos W. Watson. Esa.
Edward A. Thomas Federal Emeroency Management Acency Federal Emergency Manacement Agency 500 C Street S.W.
442 J.W. McCormack (PDCH)
Washington, DC 20472 Boston. MA 02109 Georoe D. Bisbee Esc.
Suzanne Breissth Assistant Attornev General Board of Selectmen Office of the Attorney General Town of Hasaton Falls 25 Capital Street Drinkwater Road Corcord. NH 03301 Hampton Falls, NH 03B44 1
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Docket Noo(s)50-443/444-OL LB Mk0 -(RETURNING COMMUTERS..)
John Traficente. Esc.
Peter J. Brann. Esa.
Chief. Nuclear Safety Unit Assistant Attorney General Office of the Attornev Beneral Office of the Attornev General One Ashburton Place. 19th Floor State House Station. #6 Boston. MA 02100 Augusta. ME 04333 The Honorable Edward J. Markey, Chairman Richard A. Hampe. Esq.
ATTNi Linda Corr 61a Hamoe & McNicholas Subcommittee on Eneroy Conservation and 35 Pleasent Street Power Concord. NH 03301 House Committee on Eneroy and Commerce Washington. DC 20515 J. P. Nadeau Allen Lampert Board of Selectmen Civil Defense Director 10 Central Street Town of Brentwood Rye. NH 03870 20 Franklin Street Exeter. NH 03033 William Armstrono Sandra Gavutis. Chairman Civil Defense Director Board of Selectmen Town of Exeter RFD #1 Box 1154 10 Front Street Kensinaten. NH 03027 Exeter. NH 03833 Calvin A. Cannev Anne Goodman. Chairman City Manager Board of Selectmen City Hall 13-15 Newmarket Road 126 Daniel Street Durham. NH 03024 i
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Portsmouth. NH 03801 William S. Lord Peter J. Matthews l
Board of Selectmen Mayor of Newburyport l
Town Hall - Friend Street City Hall Amesbury. MA 01913 Newburyport. MA 01950 l
R. Scott Hill-Whilton.Escuire Michael Santosuesso. Chairman Laoculis. Hill-Whilton & McGuire Board of Selectmen 79 State Street South Hampton. NH 03827 Newburyport.. MA 01950 I
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Docket Noo(s)50-443/444-OL LB'M&O (RETURNING COMMUTERS..)
Stantev.W. Knowles. Chairman Norman C. Katner Board of Selectmen Superintendent of Schools P.O. Box 710 School Administrative Unit No. 21 North Hancton..NH 03862 Alumni Drive Hampton, NH 03B42 Sandra F. Mitchell The Honorable Civil Defense Director-Bordon J.'Hunohrey Town of Kensinoten.
ATTNs Janet Coit Box 10. RR1 United States Senate East Kinoston. NH 03827 Washington, DC 20510 Dated at Rockville. Md. this 8 day of May 1989 y
Of fi e of the Secretary of the.Consission 1
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