ML20246L287
| ML20246L287 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 05/02/1989 |
| From: | Zech L NRC COMMISSION (OCM) |
| To: | PRESIDENT OF U.S. & EXECUTIVE OFFICES |
| References | |
| NUDOCS 8905180287 | |
| Download: ML20246L287 (7) | |
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o UNITED STATES 74 '
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K - ^ - o NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION jo
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WASHINGTON, D. C, 20555 '
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_May 2,.1989 CHAIRMAN i
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.The President The White House a
. Washington, D.C.
20500
Dear Mr.:
President:
I am enclosing the Nuclear. Regulatory. Commission's. (NRC) Fourteenth Annual
' Report on Domestic' Safeguards in response to National Security Decision Memorandum-254, " Domestic Safeguards," dated' April 27,1974.. This report.
discusses safegua'rds systems at commercial nuclear facilities which are under the' regulatory purview of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
During fiscal year -1988, the NRC's safeguards requirements ' covered 1110 power
. reactors, 53 non-power reactors, 25 non-reactor nuclear facilities, and.91.
.i shipments of nuclear material. Our. oversight-of-these activities indicated.
that an adequate level. of safeguards.was maintained.
In addition, the NRC reviewed intelligence reports and maintained continuing contact with the intelligence community during the year. ~As a result of these activities, no significant change-in the threat environment impacting-the -
nuclear industry was detected.'
j Respectfully, N.
Lando W. Ze
, Jr
Enclosure:
I Fourteenth Annual Report.on i
Domestic Safeguards l
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'8905180'287 890502 l
PDR COMMS NRCC CORRESPONDENCE PDC.
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NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION FOURTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT ON DOMESTIC SAFEGUARDS DURING THE PERIOD OCTOBER 1, 1987 THROUGH SEPTEMBER 30, 1988
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i FOURTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT ON DOMESTIC SAFEGUARDS s
INTRODUCTION This ceport advises the President, in compliance with tne requirements of
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National Security Decision Memorandum 254, on the effectiveness of domestic nuclear safeguards in the commercial licensed sector under the jurisdiction of the Nuclear Regulatory Comission in fiscal year 1988.
4 BACKGROUND Pursuant to the provisions of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, as amended, and the Energy Reorganization Act of 1974, the Nuclear Regulatory Comission (NRC) j regulates safeguards for licensed nuclear materials, facilities, and activities
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to assure protection of the public health and safety and to promote the common l
defense and security.
In this regulatory context, " safeguards" denotes measures that are taken to deter, prevent, or respond to the unauthorized possession or use of significant quantities of special nnelear material through theft or diversion, and to protect against radiological sabotage of nuclear l
facilities.
In general, safeguards for licensed nuclear fuel facilities and l
non-power reactors emphasize protection against theft or diversion of special nuclear material, whereas safeguards for power reactors stress protection against radiological sabotage.
During fiscal year 1988, the NRC's safeguards requirements were applied to 110 power reactors, 53 non-power reactors, and 25 non-reactor nuclear facilities.
They were also applied to 70 shipments of spent fuel,19 shipments of special nuclear material involving more than one but less than five kilograms of high-enriched uranium, and two shipments of special nuclear material involving five or more kilograms of high-enriched uranium.
1 The following information summarizes the status of domestic safeguards for licensed nuclear reactors, fuel facilities, and transportation. Threat assessment and event analysis are also discussed.
REACTOR SAFEGUARDS STATUS l
Power Reactors On March 8, 1988, the Commission published in the Federal Register for public coment a proposed policy statement, " Nuclear Power Plant Access Authoriza-tion." The Commission is considering either issuing a policy statement endorsing industry-N < eloped guidelines or promulgating a rule codifying access authorization provisions. The Commission specifically requested public coments on the policy statement versus rulemaking option and is currently evaluating these alternatives.
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The NRC staff, assisted by United States Army Special Forces personnel, continued the Regulatory Effectiveness Review program, evaluating the l
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practical effectiveness of safeguards for vital equipment at licensed reactors.
These reviews are conducted to assure that safeguards programs, as implemented by power reactor licensees, are effective against the design basis threat for radiological sabotage defined in 10 CFR Section 73.1. During fiscal year 1988, reviews were conducted at 14 power reacto)s. The review teams identified both strengths and weaknesses in licensees' prog-ams. As a result of prior disseminations to industry of Regulatory Effectiveness Review testing techniques and generic findings, the review teams found that more sites visited this year had adopted realistic self-testing techniques and had implemented system upgrades in preparation for the team visits. During fiscal year 1988, the Regulatory Effectiveness Reviews continued to place increased emphasis on evaluation of site contingency response capabilities. Problems and issues raised in the Regulatory Effectiveness Review reports are resolved through voluntary actions of licensees or through licensing or enforcement actions, as appropriate.
The NRC's inspection program is designed to evaluate safeguards performance and compliance with regulatory requirements and to provide feedback so that appropriate corrective actions can be promptly initiated. During fiscal year 1988, safeguards inspectors from the five Regional Offices conducted 324 inspections at operating power reactors and 10 pre-operating inspections at facilities for which a license application had been submitted.
In addition, resident inspectors at operating power reactors continued to augment the safeguards inspection proty 3m at their respective sites.
There were 13 safeguards enforcement actions that involved civil penalties either proposed, imposed, or paid during fiscal year 1988 at licensed power reactors. These civil penalties ranged from $25,000 to $200,000.
Violations involved such security matters as inadequate vehicle search, degraded vital area barriers, improper access control, failure to adequately test and maintain security equipment, failure to properly mask or protect Safeguards Information, sleeping security guards, failure to ensure proper training and qualification of security force members, and failure to implement adequate compensatory measures when the security system was degraded.
Certain reactor safeguards programs are designed to assure the trust-worthiness and reliability of persons having access to nuclear power plants.
In order to assure the trustworthiness and reliability of these persons further, the Commission published in the Federal Register on September 22, 1988 a proposed rule that would require licensees authorized to operate nuclear power reactors to implement a " fitness-for duty" program. The general objective of the program is to provide reasonable assurance that plant personnel with unescorted access to protected areas in nuclear power plants will perfonn these tasks in a reliable and trustworthy manner and are not under the influence of any substance, legal or illegal, or mentally or physically impaired from any cause which adversely affects their ability to safely and competently perform their duties.
Finally, although the domestic threat environment has not changed, the Commission recognizes terrorists have used explosive-laden vehicles, particularly in the Middle East. As a matter of prudence, the Commission considers it appropriate to develop contingency plans for dealing with a possible vehicle bomb threat to power reactors, should one arise. Accordingly, 2
l the NRC is reviewing agency contingency plans and developing guidance for licensee contingency planning to deal with a possible land vehicle bomb threat i
to power reactors.
This action is consistent with the Commission's intention to take a deliberative and systematic approach in the absence of a credible threat in the United States.
Non-Power Reactors During the fiscal year, efforts continued toward converting 25 non-power reactors from the use of high-enriched uranium to low-enriched uranium. At the end of the fiscal year, one non-power reactor licensee had completed its conversion program; 10 licensees had obtained funding for their conversion programs and were in the procets of implementing them; eight licensees were awaiting funding; two licensees were in the process of decommissioning; and one licensee was deciding whether to continue reactor operations.
The remaining three licensees have submitted " unique purpose" applications to the Commission.
The Comission regulation associated with this effort provides that impleoent-ation, if required, would be deferred until Department of Energy funding is available, and that a licensee can be exempted from conversion if the Commission finds that the reactor has a " unique purpose" requiring use of high-enriched uranium.
FUEL CYCLE FACILITY SAFEGUARDS STATUS During fiscal year 1988, 25 licensed non-reactor nuclear facilities, including 10 major fuel fabrication facilities, were subject to safeguards requirements.
The activities at these 25 facilities include full-scale reactor fuel production, research activities, decommissioning efforts, and the storage of sealed items.
Four of the fuel fabrication facilities had holdings of formula l
quantities of special nuclear material requiring the implementation of extensive physical security and material accountability measures.
By August 9,1988, the four licensees holding formula quantities of strategic special nuclear material had fully implemented three near-term physical protection improvements that the NRC/ Department of Energy Comparability Review Team had recomended and that the Commission had approved. These improvements require 100 percent search of personnel and hand-carried packages entering the protected area, night-qualification in all assigned weapons for security force i
l personnel, and the use of armed guards at material access area portals during operation. These measures, in addition to several other significant improvements that the Review Team recommended and that the Comission approved, have been codified in a rulemaking action.
On October 28, 1988, the NRC staff issued a generic letter to fuel cycle facility licensees who possess, use, import, export, or transport formula quantities of strategic special nuclear material. The letter advised them of the staff's strengthened position on the use of deadly force by licensee guards to prevent theft of strategic special nuclear material, and presented five l
generic conditions under which the use of deadly force would be warranted.
I Licensees will be able to modify their response procedures, guard nrders.
l training plans, and tuctical defense plans in terms of this guidance.
Other major activities in the area of safeguards for fuel facilities included reviews required by the new 10 CFR Section 74.31 of fundamental nuclear l
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l material control plans submitted by licensees processing low-enriched uranium.
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Six licensees are subject to these requirements. The plans from two licensees were approved before fiscal year 1988, and the remaining four were approved during fiscal year 1988.
Licensees using formula quantities of strategic j
special nuclear material have submitted fundamental nuclear matc% control plans required by the new material control and accounting reform rule in 10 CFR j
Section 74.51.
Staff review of these plans is in progress. The staff received and completed actions on approximately 125 safeguards licensing matters
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associated with fuel facilities in fiscal year 1988.
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The staff conducted material control and accounting inspections at the ten J
major fuel fabrication facilities and physical security inspections at eight of i
the ten, including the four that possess formula quantities of special nuclear i
material.
In addition, the staff conducted special safeguards inspections at the four facilities possessing formula quantities of special nuclear material to ensure that the licensees had implemented the three near-term improvements mentioned above. No civil penalties were proposed for fuel cycle facilities in fiscal year 1988.
4 TRANSPORTATION STATUS During the year, the NRC approved 26 transportation routes as acceptable for protection against radiological sabotage. Seventy spent fuel shipments were made over these routes. To keep the public infomed about spent fuel shipment routes, the NRC publishes a document entitled "Public Information Circular for l
Shipment of Irradiated Reactor Fuel," which contains information on approved routes. The most recent edition, Revision 6, was published in April 1988.
NRC regulations requiring licensees to comply with the provisions of the international Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Materials concerning advance notice of certain shipments became effective on March 26, 1987. Thereafter, licensees shipping the material defined under the Convention began making the required notifications. Through September 30, 1988, NRC received approximately 350 notifications and forwarded them to the Department of State for appropriate international notification.
The NRC continued to inspect selected domestic shipments and the domestic segments of import shipments of spent fuel.
Increased inspection emphasis was placed on spent fuel imports.
No significant problems were identified i
from inspections carried out during the fiscal year.
THREAT ASSESSMENT AND EVENT ANALYSIS The NRC staff assesses threats to licensed facilities, materials, and activities and prepares the incident response plans for responding to actual thefts of nuclear material or radiological sabotage of nuclear facilities or activities. The staff maintains close and continuing contact with the intelligence community, including participating in regular interagency meetings of Federal agencies concerned with terrorism. Also, on a daily basis, the staff reviews and evaluates intelligence reports on terrorist activities and incidents, and assesses any reported threats against licensees. Particular 4
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i attention is paid to foreign terrorist groups, their activities, and their possible relationship with foreign state-sponsored activities.
Based on this review and interaction with other agencies, the staff every six months formally documents its analysis of the foreign and domestic threat environment to assure the adequacy of the Commission's current design basis threat statements. No significant change in the threat environment addressed by current safeguards regulations was discerned in fiscal year 1988. The Commission, as part of its reconsideration of the design basis threats, continued to solicit other agencies' views of the domestic threat environment as it relates to the protection of domestic nuclear facilities.
The staff continued its analysis of safeguards events in order to identify trends, patterns, and anomalies that might indicate a need to revise safeguards requirements. The " Safeguards Summary Event List" (NUREG-0525), a compilation of safeguards events, was revised in its entirety in July 1988 (Rev.14).
Commencing in October 1987, licensees began submitting Safeguards Event Logs quarterly to the NRC. Staff analysis of the event data is intended to identify generic and site-specific trends and patterns for use by the licensees and the Commission in improving safeguards performance.
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