ML20246P332

NRC Staff Memorandum Supporting Staff Position Re Alternatives to Be Litigated.* Board Should Reject Limerick Ecology Action Suggested Items for Litigation Considered Outside of Scope of Remand.W/Certificate of Svc

ML20246P332
Person / Time
Site:	Limerick
Issue date:	07/03/1989
From:	Hodgdon A NRC OFFICE OF THE GENERAL COUNSEL (OGC)
To:	Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel
References
CON-#389-8871 OL-2, NUDOCS 8907200175
Download: ML20246P332 (12)

Text

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION

'89 JUL -6 P12:33 BEFORE THE ATOMIC SAFETY AND LICENSING BOARD Fx In the Matter of

)

)

PHILADELPHIA ELECTRIC COMPANY

)

Docket Nos.

50-352-OL-2

)

FO-353-OL-2 (Limerick Generating Station,

)

Units 1 and 2)

)

(Severe Accident Miti resign Alternatives) gation

)

NRC STAFF MEMORANDUM SUPPORTING STAFF POSITION REGARDING ALTERNATIVES TO BE LIl! GATED 1.

INTRODUCTION This NRC Staff memorandum providen the Staff's comments pursuant to the Licensing Board's Order of June 9, 1989.

II.

BACKGROUND On February 28, 1189, the United States Court of Appaals for the Third Circuit issued an opinion in which it granted, in part, timer d Ecology Action's petition for review. Limerick Ecology Action v. NRC, Nos. 85-3431, 86-3314, & 87-3508. The Court ordered the Commission to give additional consideration to LEA's contention DES-5, in which LEA alleged that the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) required the Consnission to consider design alternatives to mitigate severe accidents at the Limerick Generating Station.

Id. at 47-48.

In an Order dated May 5, 1989, the Commission directed the Chairman of the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel to designate a Licensing Board to conduct such proceedings as' might be necessary to comply with the Court's decision.

In its Order, the Commission directed that litigation of LEA's contention should be limited to mitigation alternatives B907200175 890703 E

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) identified by the Appeal Board in ALAB-819, 22 NRC 681, 693-94 (1985), as supported with the required basis and specificity.

~ 0n June 9,1989, the Licensing Board established to onduct the remanded proceeding issued a Prehearing Conference Order in which it, among other things, noted that because ALAB-819 does not clearly identify the mitigation alternatives that the Appeal Board views as being supported with the required basis and specificity, the parties were not in agreement regarding the mitigation alternatives to be litigated.

Order at 2.

The Board, therefore, indicated that the parties should confer and determine which mitigation alternatives they agree upon for litigation and those upon which they differ.

Id. The Board's Order sought a stipulation regarding the alternatives on which the parties agreed and memoranda from the parties supporting their respective positions regarding the alternatives on which the parties differed.

III.

DISCUSSION The Commission's Order of May 5,1989 is explicit on the point of the scope of the remand: it is to be limited to those mitigation alternatives identified by the Appeal Board in ALAB-819 as being supported with the required basis and specificity. This Licensing Board is bound by the scope of the remand as delineated by the Commission.

On the basis of a meetinE held on June 12, 1989, at which the parties and the Commonwealth of Pennt,ylvania E exchanged information and of the documents considered at the neeting, namely, the Licensee's list of Severe

-1/

The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania indicated at the Prehearing Conference on June 6, 1989, that it was participating in the remanded proceeding as an interested state. Tr. 6.

L-__ ___-_

., Accident Mitigating Design Alternatives (SAMDA's) (Attachment 1 to " Report of the Parties") and LEA's " List of Primary Candidates for Severe Accident Mitigation" (Attachment 2 to " Report of the Parties"), the Licensee prepared a draft report of the parties.

In response to that draft, LEA addressed a letter to Licensee's counsel, dated June 27, 1989, enclosing a further list of approximately 84 additional items that LEA was proposing for litigation in the remanded proceeding (Attachment 4 to " Report of the Parties"). A copy of the letter and enclosure reached the Staff on June 28, 1989. U On June 28 and 29, 1989, the parties engeged in several telephone conference calls in an attempt to narrow their differences.

Given the extremely brief period of time available, the Staff has not had the opportunity to study LEA's new list of approximately 84 additional items in any detail. Therefore, this memorandum does not address items on that list.

The Staff has, however, studied the Licensee's list and LEA's

" List of Primary Candidates for Severe Accident Mitigation," including the one-page " Current 'Best Estimate' Risk Reduction Package for Limerick" and addresses the items seriatim.

As regards the Licensee's list, dated June 5, 1989, the Staff merely restates here the position offered in the Report of the Parties, that the items on the Licensee's list, suppression pool heat removal system, drywell spray, core debris control, ATWS vent, filtered vent and vacuum breaker, are within the scope of and, in fact, are virtually coextensive

-2/

On June 30, 1989, the Staff received from LEA an additional three pages making corrections and adding another item for litigation.

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with the items listed in the report based on which the Appeal Board found j

1 basis and specificity for LEA's Contention DES-5.

See attached RDA report i

of March 15. 1984; the " list" appears on page 3 under "c. Sumary to 1

date."

i The Staff's; comments on LEA's suggested SAMDA's are as follows:

A..

Hard-Piped Wetwell Vent LEA's list of " Current 'Best Estimate' Risk Reduction Package for i

Limerick" includes at "a":

" implementation of a hard-piped wetwell vent."

.)

The Staff's view of this item is that insofar as it serves the function of an ATWS steam veat, it is within the scope of the ALAB-819 list, and is, therefore, within the scope of the remand.

B.

Containment Spray / Flooding Modifications I

i Under the heading, " Containment Spray / Flooding Modifications," LEA i

suggests capping six of seven spray locations on each spray head, as was j

done at Pilgrim. Modifications to an existing containment spray system were not among the design alternatives listed in the March 15, 1984 RDA report. As such, it is not within the scope of items identified in ALAB-819 and is thus not admissible for litigation by the terms of the j

Comission's Order.

C.

Small Line from the Drywell Spray Rings On page 4 of its " List," LEA suggests running a small line from the drywell spray rings to the vicinity of openings in the pedestal and orienting spray nozzles at the likely exit paths of core debris from the pedestal.

Modifications to the existing containment spray system were not among the design alternatives listed in the March 15, 1984, RDA report. This i

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.MW 4 m (tem is not within the scope of items identified in ALAB-819 and is thus not admissible for litigation by the items of the Commission's Order.

D.

Containment Heat Removal Augmentation Modifications On page 5 of its " List", LEA suggests a " heat exchanger in the suppression pool " presumably meaning a heat exchanger for the pool. At

- least conceptually, a suppression pool heat exchanger is a high capacity system to remove heat from the suppression pool and is thus within the scope of items identified by the Commission's Order as available for litigation.

E.

Spent Fuel pool Accident Risk Modifications LEA suggests at page 5 that the risk of zircaloy fires in spent fuel pools can be minimized by a dry cask storage form of Independent Spent fuel Storage Installation (ISFSI) at the site.

This is not within the scope of items available for litigation and should not be admitted by the Licensing Board.

F.

Human' Factors Modifications LEA identifies certain human factors modifications. Improvements in the human factors area were not among the design alternatives listed in the March 15, 1984 RDA report. Thus, these are not within the scope of the remand as defined by the Commission's Order and they should not be admitted for litigation.

G.

Seismic Modifications On page 8 of its list, LEA identifies a number of seismic L

modifications for consideration in this proceeding. None of these is within the scope of the proceeding as that scope was identified by the Commission's Order. They should not be considered.

l-E __u.________

. H.

Reduction of Transient Initiator Frequency l

Under the heading of " Reduction of Transient Initiator Frequency,"

LEA makes a number of suggestions, none of which is within the scope of the remand. The Board should reject these items.

1.

Reactor Vessel' Depressurization System Modifications Under " Reactor Vessel Depressurization System Modifications," LEA discusses various modifications to the Automatic Depressurization System (ADS) that might reduce core damage frequency. These fixes are not within the scope of the remand and should not be admitted.

IV.

CONCLUSION As discussed above, the Licensing Board should reject LEA's suggested items for litigation that are outside the scope of the remand as defined by the Commission's Order of May 5, 1989. Should the Licensing Board consider admitting any of the items on the additional lists that LEA has provided to the Staff, the Staff requests an opportunity to comment on the items in those lists.

Respectf 11y submitted, I

I odgdon unsel for NRC Staff Dated at Rockville, Maryland this 3rd day of July, 1989.

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MONTHLY PROJECT STATUS REPORT k

M.rch 15, 1984 Report No.

RDA-MR-1273OO-015 Period Covered February 1 through February 29, 1984 Name of Program:

Severe Accident Mitigation Systems Contract Number NRC-03-83-092 Start Date June 27, 1983 Completions 27 months EECTION At Technical Summary of Project Status Technical work has been completed on the Task 1 report.

The NRC has requested that the current version of the report, incorporating the original source terms data, be printed f or internal use as an interim RDA report, with S final, updated version to be issued as a NUREG report in a few months, as a separate activity.

Other tasks are proceeding on schedule, with Task 2 final report now in initial draft status, with all technical work complete.

Task 3 techniccJ activity for the Mark 11 system design is complete, with f urther work needed on cost verifi-cation and value/ impact analysis.

A preliminary write-up of the technical results f or Mark 11 for internal NRC use is in preparation and will be available shortly.

Engineering study of the GEEEAR mitigation system has begun.

In Task 4, methods were devel oped and applied to accomplish the analytical input f or the Task 1 report.

More comprehen-sive methods are being developed to fit the needs of the Task 3 analysis.

Task 5 is still in a developmental phase.

SECTION B Technical Status by Task j

i IEEh it EWCEEE 91 E901aiOBE01 EXE1ETEt This task comprises i

data gathering, categorization of dominant accident sequences, and evaluation of mitigation opportunities f or the major types of reactor containment.

The work will be l

organizkd and reported by containment type.

a.

Efforte, completed:

All technical work has been completed in this period f or the Task, except for revisions which may result f rom new PRA comparisons by BNL, and f or new source term data.

I b.

Problems or delays:

Some sections of the report have been re-written to incorporate NRC comments, and a complete re-eda t a ng of 6.he initial pre-draft version has been completed.

1 I

l 1

o o

NRC has esquested that the current version be printed as an interim RDA report, and that the final issuance as a NURES

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document be delayed to permit incorporation of new source term data.

The current version is now in final typing, and will be printed as soon as possible.

c.

Summary to dates Technical work on this report is complete, final editing of the interim version is complete, and printing will be done soon.

d., Plans for next period:

No further effort on Task I is contemplated at this time.

The revised final version will be funded as a new activity.

Itth 2s ?'dC Y t X Q i U l i l E A l i S D E E 1 1 R E E t This task will survey a wide range of concepts, proposals, devices, and systems for mitigating the consequences of severe accidents.

These will be categorized into groups by f unction, and ranked accbrding to f easibility, cost, etc.

The specific devices capable of perf orming single mi tigation f unctions wi l l be* separately described and assessed, and thec, their combinations into mitigati ve systems f or specific containment types will be studied.

a.

Efferts completed:

In the present period text draf t preparation f or the report was completed, including art work and references.

The draft text is undergoing editing and revision in preparation f or the initial draft printing.

b.

Froblems or delays:

Task 1 completion has taken priority in this period, but thir task is essentially on schedule.

c.

Summary to date:

The inf ormation collection phase of this task is complete.

Ini ti al text drafts have been written and are being reviewed.

d.

Pl ans f or next periods Editing of draft text will be completed and an initial review draft will be printed.

Iffh El Denise eng Enemikt1Lirt This task comprises selection of up to three major types of reactor containment with the approval of the Project Officer, establishing for each type the requirements f or a mitigation system in view of the dominant risks established in Task 1, and choosing a suitable combination of components as characterized in Task 2.

After establishing by preliminary analysis in Tash 4 that the f unctions chosen to be perf ormed would likely have a suitable ef f ect on overall risk and with enough design effort to show probable feasibility, a final selection of a mitigation system will be made with the approval of the Froject Officer.

Then a complete conceptual design, cost j

l and feasibility assessment will be performed.

2 1

J

a. Ef f orts completed:

Based on Task 1 results,.the f~'

requirements f or mitigating the residual rist: in Mark II containments have been established, including mitigating the effects of an ATWS event.

Preliminary design and costing has been completed on several mitigation components f or MARK II containments.

It has been f ound that these component costs are essentially separable--that is, the rests can be arranged so that the cost of a complete system can be ob-tained by adding the separable costs of the components.

(In some cases a given component may have dif f erent costs associ ated wi th di f f erent co-options. )

Wi LT the costs sep-arable, it is not necessary to make a preliminary selection of mitigation options and then a limited final design.

Instead, all options can be carried into the final report, and the reader can make his own selection.

This facility will nake the report much more versatile and useful, and we recommend that NRC approve its extension to ti.e two additional containment types to be studied later in this task.

However, the engineering effort involved is substan-ti ally greater than for a single option, so that multi-option designs f or the rest of the task may increase costs.

Similarly to the cost engineering, we believe it may be possible to make the risk /value assessments also separable, which would f urther increase the usefulness of the work, but we are not as far al ong wa th this idea.

c. Probl ems or del ays:

At the request of NRC, the results for the Mark Il system, as presented at the January 31 review meeting, will be submitted in inf ormal written f orm as soon 'as possible.

The final report will be incorporated

~

into a complete Task r> port.

c.

Summary to date:

For Mark II containment mitigation, the necessary requirements I. ave been established and a choice of systems designed and costed ready for final consideration.

These systems include capabilities f or steam venting during an ATWS, filtered venting of excess hydrogen formation, redundant high capacity heat removal from the containment suppression pool, dry well water sprays, core retention, and vacuum breaking. Several versions have been designed f or some components, especially core retention.

Not all of these capabilities are likely to be included in any one selection, since their cost may exceed the residual risk benefit derived from them.

The entire cost analysis has been prepared in three versions, for the cases of a plant already in operation, a plant still under construction, and for a new plant at inception.

Risk assessment and value/impac't analysis of the Mark II mitigation system is now under way.

These results will be reported under Task 4 O

3

d.

Plans f or next periods Engineering work f or the Mark II

'lh mitigation system is complete except f or modification that result f rom the value/ impact analysis.

This analysis represents the main activity f or the next period.

Iant et Valut41 meant enslyElst This task will provide a quantitative assessment of the relative risk that can bu averted by mitigating particular aspects of containment failure,.in comparison with the cost.

It will determine wh. ether a proposed mitigation system is cost ef f ective, and which componer.ts are most important.

a.

Efforts completed:

Collection of source documents f or Value/ Impact evaluation is complete and analysis is proceeding in detail for MARK 11 containments under Task 3, and in preliminary f orm f or other containments under Tesk 1.

i

b. Probkemt or delays:

We are waiting f or BNL to provide calculations f or various risk measures based on new source term data and methods.

c.

Summary to date:

Methodology f or Value/ Impact analysis of mitigation conceptual designs has been f ormul ated, using NUREG/CR-3568, "A Handbook for Value/ Impact Assessment".

A f ramework has been set up using two methods--the Ratio Method and the Net Benefit Method.

d.

Plans for next period:

The Ratio and the Net Benefit methods will be applied to the Mark 11 containment using e::i sti ng source term data.

These will be updated as soon as new data f rom BNL is available.

The initi al results will be treated as a test of the methodology, and not as a proposal for regulatory decision making.

IREh EL biEEDELOG EICA1E9Y Et%E199EEOlt.

This task will assist the NRC in utilizing the results of this project in the regulatory process.

l a.

Efforts completed:

A preliminary licensing strategy has been developed and will be utilized within the f ramework of Task 3 when new source term data is available.

b.

Problems and delays None.

c.

Summary to date Preliminary concepts are being tested against current Commission practice and needs.

d.

Plans f or next periods Continue development.

IREL ki E90EWl1EtiEO EDU E9tElfl 6EELE00101Eu No ef f ort has been assigned by NRC to this task so f ar.

O 4

.n-UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

' NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION '89 JUL -6 Pl2 :33 BEFORE THE ATOMIC' SAFETY AND LICENSING BOARD 4

$bu e

In the Matter of

)

~

)

PHILADELPHIA ELECTRIC COMPANY

)

Docket Nos. 50-353-OL-2 1

)

50-353-OL-2 I

(Limerick Generating Station

)

Units 1 and 2)

)

(Severe Accident Mitigation

)

DesignAlternatives)

CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE 4

I hereby certify that copies of "NRC STAFF MEMORANDUM SUPPORTING STAFF POSITION REGARDING ALTERNATIVES TO BE LITIGATED" in the above-captioned proceeding have been served on the following by deposit in the United j

States mail, first class, or as indicated by in asterisk through deposit s

in the Nuclear Regulatory Comission's internal mail system, this 3rd day

{

of July, 1989:

Morton B. Margulies, Chairman

• Frederick J. Shon, Esq.*

Administrative Judge Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Atomic Safety and Licensing U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Comission U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Washington, D.C.

20555 Washington, D.C.

20555 Thomas M. Gerusky Bureau of Radiation Protection Troy B. Conner, Jr., Esq.

Dept. of Environmental Resources Conner & Wetterhahn, P.C.

Third and Locust Sts., 5th Floor 1747 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.

Harrisburg, FA 17120 Washington, D.C.

20006 Dr. Jerry Harbour

• Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel * (1)

U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Comission U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Washington, D.C.

20555 Washington, D.C.

20555 Gregory Dunlap, Esq.

Charles E. Rainey, Jr., Esq.

Deputy General Counsel Chief Deputy City Solicitor Office of General Counsel City of Philadelphia 333 Market Street, 17th Fir.

1 Reading Center, 5th Floor Harrisburg, PA 17120 Philadelphia, PA 19107 David Wersan. Esq.

David Stone Assistant Consumer Advocate Limerick Ecology Action, Inc.

Office of Consumer Advocate P.O. Box 761 1425 Strawberry Square Pottstown, PA 19464 Harrisburg, PA 17120 L _-_- _ _- _. -_

i Atomic Safety and Licensing Edward G. Bauer, Jr., Esq.

Appeal Board Panel (5)*

Vice President and General Counsel U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Philadelphia Electric Company.

Washington; D.C.

20555 2301 Market Street Philadelphia, PA 19101 Charles W. Elliot l

Poswistilo. Elliott"& Elliott Office of.the Secratary 1101 Northampton Street U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Suite 201 Washington, D.C.

20555 Easton, PA 18042

.)

J R6tberg D

Assistant Ge ral Counsel l

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f.