ML22230A081
| ML22230A081 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 12/08/1977 |
| From: | NRC/OCM |
| To: | |
| References | |
| Tran-M771208 | |
| Download: ML22230A081 (57) | |
Text
RETU i' TO SECRETARIAT RECORDS
- NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION IN THE MATTER OF:
PUBLIC MEETING STATUS REPORT BY STAFF ON UCS PETITION FOR EMERGENCY RELIEF, AND POSSIBLE ORDER Place - Washington, D. C.
Date - Thursday, 8 December 1977 Pages 1 - 54 Telephone:
(202 ) 347-3700 ACE - FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
Official Reporters 444 North Capitol Street Washington , D.C. 20001 NATIONWIDE COVERAGE* DAILY
DISCLAIMER This is an unofficial transcript of a meeting of the United Stat~s Nuclear Regulatory Commission held on December 8, 1977 in the Commission's offices at 1717 H Street, N. W., Washington, D. C. The meeting was open to public attendance and observation. This transcript has not been reviewed, corrected, or edited, and it may contain inaccuracies~
The transcript is intended solely for general informational purposes.
As provided by TO CFR 9. l 03, it is not pa rt of the formal or informal record of decision of the matters discussed. Expressions of opinion in this transcript do not necessarily reflect final determinations or belief$. No pleading or other paper may be filed with the Commission in any proceeding as the result of or addressed to any statement or argument contained herein, except as the Commission may authorize .
r 1
CR 5795 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
.im 2 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 3
4 PUBLIC MEETING 5
6 STATUS REPORT BY STAFF ON UCS PETITION 7 FOR EMERGENCY RELIEF, AND POSSIBLE ORDER 8
9 10 11 Room 1130 1717 H Street, N. W.
12 Washington, D. C.
13 Thursday, 8 December 1977 14 The meeting was convened at 10:50 a.m., pursuant to 15 notice, Dr. Joseph M. Hendrie, Chairman of the Commission, 16 presiding.
17 BEFORE:
18 JOSEPH M. HENDRIE, Chairman 19 PETER A. BRADFORD, Commissioner VICTOR GILINSKY, Commissioner 20 RICHARDT. KENNEDY, Commissioner 21 22 23
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',II 2 CR5795 P R O C E E D I N G S
.1 nk CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: We will:come to order.
2 cmwl 3 We are on a somewhat taut schedule this morning.
r:;:,
4 Yesterday I had a high l*evel appointment.
5 And had to leave the Commission sort of in midstream.
6 Today Commissioner Kennedy has even a higher level 7 appointment, and I have to leave about a quarter to 12:00.
8 I hope we will be able to complete thi.s sections 9
of the proceedings by that time.
10 We meet this morning on the matter of the petition 11 by the Union of Concerned Scientists,* who have petitioned for emergency relief, on the basis growing out of some tests by 12 Sandia Laboratory of electrical connectors and cable fire 13 propagation matters.
14 The petition dates from the 4th of November.
15 Pretty soon thereafter the Commission called for 16 a meeting and Staff response.
17 I believe our last meeting on this subject was 18 the 11th of November, which the Commission heard discussion 19 of_the emergency aspects of the petition and whether or not 20 the petitioners' request for emergency action, which was 21 essentially to close down operating reactors, and halt 22 construction on others, was necessary for the public safety.
23 The Commission concluded at that meeting that they 24 Ace-Fee Reporters, Inc.
did not feel that* emergency action was required at that time, 25
3 cmw2 but that the Commission wanted a report from the Staff and
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asked the Staff to continue what was then an ongoing survey of the operating plants to confirm initial conclusions of 4 the Staff.
5 The Commission asked for public comment as well as 6 a report from the Staff and noted that as information developed I
it would take whatever interim action it felt~:was necessary 8
in th~~ public interest.
9 I would note that one of the ~esults of the Staff 10 survey was the voluntary shutting down of the D*~* C. Co9k .. plant 11 to replace the connectors which were found not to have been adequately qualified.
12 They may be back,mp by this time. Are they?
13 MR. CASE: Yes.
14 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: .Are they b.ack in operation?
15 The initial request of the Commission for Staff 16 report and public comments was for filing of these by the 17 25th of November.
18 The Staff requested an extension '.until December 19 12th, and more recently, until the 15th to complete their full 20 set 6f comments on all aspects of the petition.
21 There is a meeting scheduled for the 22nd of 22 December to consider that full range of issues raised in the 23 petition.
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Ev.en though the Commission has been keeping track of 25
4 cmw3 the reports, the additional filings from petitioner, from the
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Staff, the public comments, and has not thus far felt it necessary to take any further immediate action.
c- 4 5
6 It has-seemed to us useful to have this meeting to have the Staff summarize its findings to date to see what furthe action the Committee might want to take.
7 We have also a request from the Union of Concerned 8 Scientists to allow Mr. Pollard to participate and we have had I
9 a letter from another party along similar lines.
10 Yesterday the Commission voted to, and since I 11 had to get up anq leave my colleagues to thrash that matter 12 out for themselves, I will ask them to assist me.
- 13 14 15 We voted to allow Mr. Pollard to make an appearance and opportunity for questions by the Commission.
COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Yes.
16 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: If that's a fair reading --
17 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: It is.
18 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: -- reading of the Commission 19 decision.
20 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY: You decided as well, Mr.
Chairman, on a two-to-one vote.
21 However, the other party's request for the same 22 consideration was denied.
23 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: We put off for another day.
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COMMISSIONER KENNEDY: Put-off for another day, 25
5 cmw4 although the request for specificity was also laid out.
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3 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: So noted. I think the outline which I would like to follow this morning is to ask the Union of Concerned Scientists, I assume Mr'. Pollard is present.
5 MR. NELSON: They are em:-route, Mr. Chairman.
6 We were surprised to see they weren't here and 7 called the lawyer wh9 made the request and she was a:onfused about the time of the meeting.
8 They advised us they were on the way.
9 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY: This was discussed yesterday 10 when Mr. Pollard::was present.
11 MR. NELSON: Yes. Duly noted under the Sunshine 12 Act -- I don't know the reaso~ for *the confusion.
13 You might wa~t to put the question to them.
14 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY: As long as it was.n 't our 15 Q
fault, I don't care.
16 MR. ~ELSON; Not that I know of, Mr. Commissioner.
17 On this one we are all right.
18 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY: I just wanted to be sure we 19 had done what was necessary.
20 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: I must say on occasion I have 21 missed a meeting myself.
22 Well, I thought probably the best arrangement 23 might be to have Mr. Pbllard talk to us for a little bit and
. A. 24 11.ce-F~eporters, Inc. answer some questions first and followed by the Staff, but 25
6 cmwS
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these events make it*appropriate to ask the Staff to go ahead and summarize their situation to date, the progress on the survey, how things stand.
4 MR. CASE: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
5
. Mr. Roger Mattson, director:.*of the Division of 6
Safety, who has had overall responsibility for pooling the 7
efforts among the divisions and NRR will give you a briefing.
8 MR. MATTSON: As. you noted, Mr. Chairman, this is 9
our second briefing in the course of time that's transpired 10 since November 4th. Two briefings, five status reports, a final 11 filing by the Staff next week, leaving in detail a11* of the 12 elements of the petition and some two supplemental filings 13 by the petitioner, plus some 43 public comments. The activities 14 I hope to summarize today have been arduous.
15 A number of thi*ngs to consider.
16 A number of points to.keep track of.
17 I hope by this briefing to pull *together the 18 principal elements of the work that has gone on and put it 19 together in one place rather than* scattere::l., about in five or -six
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20 filings.
21 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Also as soon as possible in 22 view of the time .
23 MR. MATTSON: Soon. Our recommedation on November
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- 24 11th when we were up here to brief you on the November 9th Ace-F Reporters, Inc.
25 first status report is unchanged.
7 cmw6 That recommendation is, there is no need for
- 2 immediate Commission action flowing from this petition.
\- 3 The basis for *that recommendation on no need for r:.\ emergency action or immediate action is that the issues raised 4
5 in the petition have been thoroughly treated by the Staff, 6 early examined for all operating plants and that all necessary 7 actions to assure the continued operations are safe have been 8 taken.
COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: When you say 11 no necessary 9
action, 11 I take it you mean no across the board action covering 10 11 a whole class of reactors.
Where necessary, you have taken action.
12
- MR. MATTSON: Yes. I'm making a recommendation 13 insofar as the Commission is concerned, both generically or 14 plant ipecific, saying neither type of action is required 15 immediately by the Commission because of actions either taken 16 by the Staff or because our surveys and review have shown no 17 e 1 need for action by anyone.
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8 CRS 79 5 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: But in the past, where
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- 2 you thought -- I presume you thought' action was appropriate~
3 action was taken.*
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6 I mean the Chairman referred to voluntarily shutting down of the D. C. Cook plant, but my understanding was that, had they not done so, I think we would have asked them to.
7 MR. MATTSON: Yes, sir.
8 MR. CASE: I think .that is a fair'.statement, but I 9 would like to observe that I and the Staff believed that the 10 actions of the Licensee were very responsible under the situati n 11 at hand. .We would like to commend them for it.*
12 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: That is fine. But where you
- 13 14 15 felt immediate action had to be taken, you moved out and took action.
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MR. MATTSON: There were other 1 actions of an 16 immediate nature I would like to summarize as we go through 17 this. It is fair to say that Cook was the.most immediate 18 action.
19 There were other plants with connectors, whe-re 20 qualifications were less certain and time was allowed for 21 people to pull together information.
(. 22 23 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD:
that involved the replarerrent operation?
Were there other actions or altering of plants, their
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25 MR. MATTSON: No. I would like to move directly to
9 bw2 a summary of the actions* we have been talking about. Those
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fall ,generally in the area of environmental qualification of electrical equipment. As you have noted in our reports, we 4
5 6
have talked about two preliminary surveys of two particular kinds of electrical equipment in operating reactors, to deter-mine the state of their environmental qualification.
7 First was the electrical connectors that we reported 8 on earlier, in our November llth briefing.
9 Second was the electrical penetrations, specially 10 those of a type that were found to have recently malfunctioned 11 at the Millstone. 2 operating plant.
12 I would like to turn first to the connectors. The 13 preliminary survey we have described to you of *the use of
" 14 15 16 electrical connectors in safety systems, located inside contain ment, that would be required to function in the event of the accident which they are designed to mi ti gate, that survey is 17 complete. We ha-ve found that 14 of the. 6 5 operating plants 18 had connectors in use in such safety-related systems.
19 We found that the actual connectors in .those 14 20 plants had varying degrees of pedigree of environmental 21 qualifications.
22 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: The other plant did not have se r>-
23 safety connectors at all?
24 MR. MATTSON: Not in safety systems located inside,
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25 required to function for the accidents they are designed for.
10 Fourteen plants with varying degrees of pedigree, bw3 2 the actions we have taken with respect to those fourteen plants 3 are directly proportional to the pedii.gree.
Cl 4 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY.: Would you explain MR. MATTSON: I would like to.
11 pedigree "?
5 6 (Slide.)
7 ClIAIRMAN HENDRIE: At the previous session the St.a.ff noted the re 8 atrictians on the ~__i, of slide made i t difficult to get much 9 inf0-rmation on the slide. I note you moved aggressively ahead, 10 nevertheless.
11 MR. MArT$ON: This slide is not new information.
.12 What it iattempts to do is summarize in c.oncise terms the infor-
- 13 mation that is contained in the several status reports and 14 starting at the top,: of. the slide and going down, you will 15 see what I am talking about with regard to pedigree. That is 16 the pedigree of environmental qualifications for the plant at 17 the top was the -worst-of the 14 and the plants at the bottom were the best of the 14. If we could go through them briefly.
18 D. C. Cook Unit 1 we h~ve already talked about.
19 Their connectors were found by us to not have been tested, 20 to have no documentatior:i. The plant was voluntarily shut down 21 with the following confirmatory order on November 18. They 22 subsequently replaced all of the connectors with butt splice~---*
23 which have been. subsequently fully environmentally-qualified 24 t>.ce-Fe
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by test, and the plant resumed operation on December 2nd.
25
11 bw4 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD: How could i t have come to
- 2 pass that D. C. Cook was ever- able to pornrnence operation 3 without qualified connectors?
4 MR. MATTSON: D. C. Cook, American Electric Power 5 committed in their safety analysis report that the equipment 6 met environmental qualification requirements.
7 They have done the same thing for Cook Unit 2.
8 Upon questioning, under the survey for'"Did they have the II 9 connectors? Yes, they had the connectors. You will recall 10 in my first briefing, I identified this plant to you as one ll we found with con~ectors and .also said at that time the Licensee told us prior to November 11th the connectors were qualified.
12
- ... 13 14 15 Subsequent to that time, in trying to find the environmental qualification records, the Licensee went to the supplier of the connectors and, although the purchase order required environmental que,lification tests, none had been done.
16 So what we have is apparently some kind of quality 17 assurance documentation mistake in the procuring of equipment 18 for that facility.
19 MR. CASE: That matter is being looked at by D&E 20 separately from what we are doing here.
21 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD: It is being followed up?
22 MR. MATTSON: Yes. It is important to know,the 23 review of electrical equipment we conduct due to the/ Iegulato:i::y
- 24 Ace-F- Reporters, Inc:. Guides and our review plans, is an audit type. The Applicant 25
12 bwS will commit to environme.ntally qualify the safety-related 2
equipment. We will look at the methods, procedures, criteria 3
that he plans to use and in the course of our review either r."
4 approve or change those things.
5 We then do an*audit review to confirm that equipment 6
is indeed qualified, according to the way the Applicant said he.
7 would do it.
8 In the case of D. C. Cook, the audit did not involve 9
the connectors.
10 In the next class of pJtants, if we can continue on 11 - -
down the order of pedigree, was a group of plants stmilar in 12 the senss, that the initial submittals to the Staff, that is,
- 13 14 15 we called those people, they said, r~s, we hav~ connectors,
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we said, come to Washington and show us ;.vhat y9-µ_ have by way of qualification i. testing to support their quality.
16 They came in;; they showed us what 1d1ey had. 'Ihis 17 group of plants had some qualification and documentation, 18 but incomplete documentation qualification.
19 They were all given a 'letter on November 18+/-.h re-20 quiring them to answer in ten days, to. speak to the qualifica-21 tion requirements or provide a basis at that time for continued 22 operation, pending completion of full-qualification .
- 23 They are all back in now, and their status of
- 24 qualification ,~1 is as noted here .
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25 We have found they are all qualified. Confirmatory
bw6 13 tests to support analyses which were done for some of that
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3 qualification are under way.
COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Who is doing those?
Licensees themselves?
The 5 MR. MATTSON: Whether they are doing i t themselves 6 or under contract. I think the case of Browns Ferry, I think 7 i t is the Licensee.
8 MR. IPPOLITO: I am not sure a.qout the J.ong-.term, 9 but the short-term was co:.1ducted by the Licensee.
10 MR. MATTSON: In the case of Oyster Creek 11 COiv'.if.vlISSIONER KENNEDY~ It would not normall_y be the 12 Licensee, would it?
~ 13 MR ...MATTSON: No. In the case of Oyster Creek
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14 we haven't decided whether confirmatory tests are required.
15 We are still reviewing the qualification information.
E2 16 Moving on down the list --
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3 be completed?
MR. SNYDER:
MR. IvT..ATTSON:
When would you anticipate review would Within the next week.
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6 MR. SNYDER:
MR. MATTSON:
That is something you will address.
We certainly can. Maine Yankee and Surry 1 and 2 were plants that had rather complete environmental 7 qualification documentation when they came in during the week 8 of the 18th. We have noted here they were partially qualified.
9 I probably should note, partially qualified by test. The 10 infomation missing had to do generally with radiation environ-11 ment and caustic spray environment._
12 Since the primary failure mechanism we were looking la& 13 14 15 for was steam at high temperature and under pressure and since they had tests for those conditions, we gave those people until the response date -on the I&E Bulletin 7705, pulled together 1 their documentation basis and the documentary testing in the 6
event they had to do further testing.
17 COM.MISSIONER GILINSKY: When is the due date?
18 MR. :MATTSON: Due date is today.
19 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD: Why would you have steam 20 over the multiple closures?
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MR. MATTSON: Because of the data from the Sandia 22 test and because the failure mechanism had to do with the perme-23 ation of the environment to the inside of the connector* rather 24 Ace-F
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than some slow degradation from the outside, eating away 25
15 jeri 2 materiais, what have you. It is the failure mechanism identi-
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fied in the test for these types of connectors.
COMMISSIONER BRJ._DFORD: Let me see if I understand 4 what that means. If they are exposed to a LOCA environment, it 5 would be steam that would cause them to fail .first?
6 MR. ~mTTSON: Yes.
7 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD: . Would the o:ther closures ...
8 cause them to fail?
9 M:R . .MATTSON: It is possible to look at these things 10 and consider the material of construction and the tests that 11 have been performed on those kinds of materials in caustic 12 environments or radiation environments.
13 For example, some kinds of rubber are well known to 14 deteriorate in a radiation environment. Some kinds of metals 15 are known to deteriorate in a caustic environment. The Staff 16 was able to look at the materials of construction for these connectors in this class of plants, and although there were no 17 confirmatory tests for those specific aspects of environmental 18 qualification, the Staff was able to make an independent judg-19 ment that it was highly likely that were*sufficient tests 20 conducted that these connectors would pass the .test.
21 Now, the harder questions of steam, high temperature 22 and pressure were addressed by full environmental qualification 23
~ ~ 24 testing for these particular connectors. So the Staff made the O.ce-Fem'Reporters, Inc.
judgment that they could allow the remaining three weeks, at 25
16 jeri 3 that time, until the due date on the I&E Bulletin for the __
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licensee to pull together the full documentary basis on environ-mental qualification and to provide a basis for continued opera-tion if further tests were required to complete that qualifica-5 tion basis.
6 A final set of plants were a group of five that had 7 full qualification tests. They were able to show us the docu-8 mentation when they met with us during the week of November 18th.
9 We.have required them to submit formally that documentation pur-10 suant to the I&E Bulletin, 7705. Again, that is due in today.
11 Finally on the plant, I used the number "14" before.
12 There are 14 plants with connectors. There was some uncertainty 13 for a time as to whether Ginna had connectors. We straightened 14 that out. They do not.
15 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: These connectors are typically 16 where? Close to penetrations?
MR. MATTSON: Yes.
17 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Where you get the penetration 18 from a vendor and there is a cable stub on it?
19 MR. MATTSON: Yes.
20 CHAIRM.A.N HENDRIE: Then you have to decide whethe~
21 you will take it with the stub and do what, and do splices or 22 ask the vendor to put a connector on it, in which case I assume 23
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MR. MATTSON: The reason for someone deciding to use 25
17 jeri 4 connectors on these particular safety-related cables was ease 2 of pulling the cable, or ease of changing the cable. I know of 3 no safety function one way or the other. They should have been 4 qualified. Environmental qualification. Indeed, we found e~ery-5 one had spoken to that problem. What we now know is that 6 connectors at D.C. Cook have been tested, environmentally 7 qualified for the loss of coolant accident, subsequent to their 8 removal.
9 When American Electric Power had the qualification 10 test done for splices, they included the connectors in the test 11 rig and they passed the LOCA environmental test.
12 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY: Let me be sure I understand 13 what you just said. The __ connectors that were there, although 14 we weren 1 t sure, indeed turned out to be qualified.
15 MR. :MATTSON: LOCA qualified, yes, sir.
16 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY: So there was no safety signi-17 ficance to the fact that the plant had to be shut down as a 18 practical matter. Is that correct?
19 MR. MATTSON: Yes, sir. As a practical matter 20 CHli~IRMAN HENDRIE: American Electric has what, some 21 65 sound and certif~ed connectors which presumably might be 22 available to anyone who needs connectors. Right?
~ 23 MR. MATTSON: Right. The bottom line is, the plants
~ .* 24 we have looked at, identified connectors, have qualified equip-A.ce-Fe Reporters, Inc.
25 ment. We still have documentation flowing in under various
18
-jl5 2 time constraints. The last of which should reach us today.
Some tests are still ongoing to fully confirm some 3 of the qualification which was justified 6n the basis of analy-4 sis.
5 I should note the regulations do allow analysis in end 3 6 addition to testing to show environmental qualification ..
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9 10 11 12
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19 MR. SNYDER: On that point, Roger, some of the points
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~95 2 of acceptance of some of the connectors,as I understood the 3 last paper you sent in, allowed for qualification to be based 4 on comparison, similar type connectors were qualified by someone else. Where does that fit into the scheme of the acceptance 5
criteria, which is laid out in the Reg Guides and in the IEEE 6
7 Standards? Is that considered to be analysis, that category?
MR. MATTSON: Yes. Comparisons are allowed, but 8
documentation of the test performed on the comparative connector 9
would be required pursuant to Appendix B, in the quality assuran e 10 requirement.
11 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Okay.
12 How*much more material do you have?
13 MR. MATTSON: Not much. That is all on connectors.
14 We can *take the slide down, I gues*s .
15 The story on electrical penetrations is a little bit 16 different than the one on connectors .. You will recall we had 17 not talked about penetrations in our last briefing and it was 18 not until November 22, that a survey was done on safety question 19 involving penetration.
20 I might say briefly what these .penetrations are. The 21 are a component which allows the entry of electrical cables thro 22 the reactor containment so as to maintain the containment seal 23 during normal operations, or under accident conditions. They 24 Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
contain various epoxies and sealants and materials 25
20 fm2 designed to maintain the flexibility that is required, and the 2 resistance, the electrical resistance between cables that is 3 required and still, perform this pressure sealant function .for 4 the containment structure.
5 The problem that stimulated this second survey of 6 electrical components was a malfunctioning of. a certain variety 7 of penetration at the Millstone II facility. Briefly, that 8 malfunction was the shorting of electrical/ leads in the penetra ti n 9 during normal operation. The Millstone II facility is now shut 10 down for repair of their penetration and for refueling.
11 We looked at the failure mode of the penetrations 12 and looked at the general use of that kind or type of penetratio, 13 one manufactured by the General ~lectr.i-<i Company and decided 14 it was necessary to brin_g this operating problem to the attentio of other plants with that kind of penetration, and while we 15 16 were inquiring on that type of penetration, we also inquired as to the state of environmental qualifications for that type 17 of penetration.
18 A two-phase survey was. conducted by I &E. First 19 a *t.elephone survey with subsequent written follow-up, in re-20 sponse to the I&E bulletin.
21 The response to the telephone portion was available 22 rather quickly after November 22, I believe the following week.
23 We looked at the information, decided that it was important to 24 Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
follow up with telephone calls, to understand better the second 25
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aspect of the question.
ualifications. While we That is, the status of environmental were about it, ,the Office of Nuclear eactor !3-egulation, because of the interest in petition we de-4 ided to enlarge the question slightly and talk about environ-5 ental qualifications for accident conditions.for all electrical 6 enetrations in all operating plants. That is~ those required 7 o function for safety.
8 MR. CASE: Not necessarily the GE type penetrations 9 but all penetrations.
10 MR. MATTSON: Right. So the results of the survey 11 and our follow-:up on the survey, let me state* in two ways.
12 First, insofar as normal operations malfunctions are concerned 13 for the GE type of penetration, we foupd that the Millstone 14 experience had been shared by the Surry I and II facilities back 15 in 1973. They, at that time, replaced those penetrations with 16 a penetration that did not have this problem. The problem brief-17 ly is the, in breathing of moisture during normal operations, 18 which accumulates between the electrical conductors and causes 19 them to short.
20 This can be avoided .by press.urizing the penetration 21 with nitrogen. In fact, that was required for the Millstone 22 facility and had apparently not been done.
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25 izing COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
MR. MATTSON:
What does that mean, pressur-The penetration itself is a pressure containing component, has a connector on it for a nitrogen line,
22 to keep the penetration filled with dry nitrogen at a pressure 2 higher than the outside pressure, to prevent water and water 3 vapor from leaking in during normal operation.
4 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY_: Is it a field unit?
5 MR . .MATTSON: Yes.
6 Now, the second aspect is a survey for penetrations, 7 leads us to conclude that 62 of the 65 operating plants of LOCA 8 quaiified, that .is environmental qualifications, penetrations.
9 There are three for which further documentation and 10 information is required. It is our judgment that the penetra~
11 tions of those three older facilities will be shown to be qualif'ed.
12 We have had the manufacturer of the penetrations and the Licenses
- . 13 14 15 in Washington with* drawings, and our conclusion is, because of the construction, anrt so on, they can keep in service.
We gave them a letter to get the full story together 16 in documents suitable for a final conclusion ,.that the qualifi-17 cations are adequate. -
18 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD: Were Surry I and II and Mill-19 stone the only plants that had that type of penetration?
20 MR. MATTSON: No. There were a number of plants 21 which used the GE. penetration. Most boilers and a few PWRs.
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22 23 pressure.
Most other plants had been maintaining the nitrogen As I recall, there were a few others that had
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25 not.
We have clarified with General Electric whether or
23 fm5 not there is a need for that pressure in their view as the sup~
2 plier of the penetration. They have confirmed that there is, 3 and we will be following up with operating reactors to make sure 4 the supplier of the component is understood and being followed 5 by the Licensees. For those plants that had not been maintain-6 ing the nitrogen pressure there were no shorts. There had been 7 no malfunction.
8 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD: Why is that a LOCA-related 9 consideration? That is, you have the problems 10 MR. MATTSON: It is not a direct indication there 11 would be a LOCA environmental qualification problem. There was 12 an indication that there had been some deterioration of the 13 *penetrations during normal operations, which led us to wonder, 14 question, whether there .was a thoroughgoing treatment of the 15 environmental qualification question for these penetrations, 16 given our experience with the connectors. That is, 17 we found in several plants, although the connectors were qualifi d, 18 there was some difficulty with pulling together the documenta-19 tion of the qualification quickly., at least, on the part of the 20
- Licensees,* and we decided we would* follow :up on that aspect of th 21 penetrations to confirm whether we had the same kind of question being raised on penetrations we found.
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22 23 Generally, we do not. One might suspect not, given
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- 24 that the penetrations were a nuclear safety feature, designed Ace-Fede a Reporters, Inc.
25 specifically for nuclear power plants for accident situations,
24 fm6 you would expect, I guess, that they would be qualified. Wherea
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the connectors are a more generally used electrical component, not just peculiar to the nuclear industry.
Ce 4 That completes everything I have to say on pentra~
5 tions.
6 Again, summaries go for both penetrations and 7 connectors, qualified equipment is in*use, there is still some 8 work ongoing to pull toegether documentation.
9 There is no safety problem in our judgment, hence e 4 10 no need for immediate Commission action.
11 12
- . 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 (e 23
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- 24 ce-Fe Reporters, Inc, 25
.795*
- 1 25 gsh COMMISSIONER BRADFORD: I take it that under ce 2 3
I guess the Chairman and the commission indicated earlier this fall your statement, there is no safety problem, you 4 would bring it to our attention if there were any disagreement within the staff.
-- ----**,-**-* 5
- tS MR. MATTSON: Yes, sir. To my knowledge, there 7 i~ -no disagreement in the staff on this question, on the 0
8 conclusi01 I just made.
9
- We have made some considerations because of the 10 time in wh.ich thi-s-was conducted, and at times even
.I I professional engineers* get hot under the collar with one 12 another, to make sure we were all together, to make sure 13 we were making a collegial judgment. And, in fact, we found 14 People working on the problem support the conclusions I have 15 stated.
16 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: This also assumes certain 17 confirmatory tests will check out what your present 18 expectations are.
19 MR. MATTSON: Yes. As we said in the filings, 20 if any of those tests tell us something different from what 21 I have told you today, we wi 11 take the action necessary 22 at t ha t ti me
- 23 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: I take it that the staff's Le 24 position on the electrical cable matter continues to be
- 25 that its array of guides, branch technical positions,
5°795** 2 26 gsh the general posture established after the Browns Ferry
- 2 3
4 matter, are adequate and do, indeed, cover the operating pl ants.
MR *. MATTSON: I was going to move on to that 5 brie.f and say in our November 9th report we stated the 6 . - conclusion the ongoing program was adequate, the tests 7 at Sandia were of a confirmatory nature, saying the 8 requirem'ent we had insofar as additicrial measures required 9 to protect against exposure fires; that is separation and
- 10 re tardancy were not enough.
- 1) You had to do other things; that those were 12 legitimate and reasonable requirements.
13 That conclusion .is unchanged today. We have 14 seen nothing in the comments or in the supplemental 15 affidavits which would cause us to change our view into 16 that question.
17 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: I can_ see Mr. Pollard back 18 on the aisle and time is running short. If the commission 19 is willing, I would 1-fke to move forward. We seem to be 20 close to a full-house situation.
.. 21 On the other hand, everyone is seated at the 22 . moment. So if we do a little rearrangement, I think
-* 23 24 everyone might e~d up seated again~
If Ms. Wise is with you, she can come up, too.
- 25 Mr. Po.llard, I hope to be able to have you at the front end
27 gsh of the proceeding, but as it worked out, it seemed 2 expeditious to have the staff go ahead and make its report.
3 We are going to be squeezed, as is the normal 4 situation, for time. I wonder if you would care to make 5 a statement. The commission may then have some questions.
6 MR. POLLARD: Fine. The basic question, as 7 we see it, is, the question before the commission is 8 whether, given the information available, it's possible 9 ,to conclude that the plants now in operation and und.er IO construction :meet the commission's regulati ms?
l I I think this is a correct assessment of the 12 question. I think it was confirmed by the staff"s orders 13 shutting down o~*c. Cook; There~ the staff concluded that 14 the requirements of the commission's regulations were not 15 met. They were unable to conclude that _the facility could 16 continue to operate without undue risk to the public 17 health and safety and ordered the plant shut down.
18 With respect to the two technical areas addressed 19 in our petition, I think we can phrase the question in more 20 specific terms; the two areas being the environmental 21 qualification of electrical equipment and the physical 22 separation of redundant safety-related cables.
23 With respect to the first; are you able today, 24 more than a month after our petition was filed, to conclude 25 on the basis of factual, reliable information, that there
28 is reasonable assurance that the electrical equipment will function-properly in the post-accident environment?
I submit that the information now before you 4 will not support-such a findin~.
5 With respect to the physfcal separation, again, 6 are you able to conclude today that in each operating 7 plant that the physical separation of redundant safety 8 cables throughout their entire length is such that a single 9 fire will not destroy both sets of cables?
10 Here, again, I don--'t think the infonnat.ion you 11 have supports such a finding. Even if you wish to broaden
- 12 *the questicn to include fire.fighting systems and ignore 13
- or downgrade. the fact that you have. regulations that 14 specifically require adequate physical separation, I still 15 dorrt think ;you can make the finding~
16
- The informati-on now shows that the firefighting 17 systems are still under evaluation~ The evaluation won't 18 be completed until December.31st of 1978, and that we are 19 *at least-months, if not years, away from having ad.equate 20 fire-fighting systems insta !led.
21 - -I would 1 ike to .jus.t give you a brief -- a few 22 brief specific *examples of the d.ef iciencies I see in the 23
- information that the *staff has presented to you and, 24 hope.fully, then close with* a* few general observations about
- 25 Where we a re today.
795.05 .5 gsh 29 On the environmental qualification subject,
-* 2 3
4 I know from pe.rsonal experience that the technical experts on the staff who actually do the review work, as opposed to the mana*gement officials of the staff, 5 the technical experts have only the most general type 6 of i nforma ti on ava i1able.
7 When 1 was on tne staff and attempting to even 8 assemble a list of equipment that was supposed to be 9 qualified, the licensees could not supply this. On the 10 D.C. Cook uni.t 1 plant, I was in the electrical branch 11 at the time this was reviewed. The electrical reviewer 12 had completed his safety evaluation report, concluding
- I 13 that the environmental quali ficatiqn program for Cook was 14 acceptable.
15 This was the very same time period that the 16 staff issued the letter to Wes+/-inghouse'which we referenced 17 in our original filing, where they concluded that based upon 18 their evaluation of the program, there was no reason to 19 conclude that t.1-ie equipment could survive the accident 20 environment for the time required~
21 The reviewer on Cook claimed that he *had specific
£.
(;s_;'
-22 23 24 information for Cook; al though he was never able to produce-The staff, in their earlier briefing, disco*unted
- 25 the Sandia test results on the basis they had inadequate
30 gsh quality assurance documentation.
2 They now propose to allow pl-ants to continue 3 t9 operate on the basis of some partial information, with 4 not even a word being said about ~he adequacy of the 5 quality assurance pr~ram in effect at the time those 6 tests were formed.
7 8
9 10
.11 12
_.,., 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
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31 je**
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2 We see that Sandia Labs proposes to thoroughly inspect all future test specimens before the tests are conducted 3 but the Staff proposes not to do this, on the actual equipment 4 installed in plants. In fact, they are going to rely upon 5 the licensees themselves to conduct the tests. I ~xpect a 6 considerable amount of effort will be devoted to making sure 7 that the equipment does not fail those tests as opposed to the 8 effort that would be needed to make sure the test was a valid 9 one, to demonstrate equipment that is now installed in the 10 plants.
11 On the_ issue of separation, this is an area, of 12 course, where I was deeply involved in in my time on the Staff.
13 To give you an example of the types of problems the Staff has 14 in evaluating statements from the utilities, during my review 15 of the Oconee plants, Duke Power Company, in their application, 16 said that their cables,_ the redundant safety cables, were spaced 17 five feet apart vertically. This was a correct statement, as 18 far as it went. Later on we discovered that between the two 19 sets of cables were all the balance-of-plant cables; that the 20 entire five feet of space was filled with other cables, although 21 they weren't safety cables.
When we were asked -- when Inspection and Enforcement 22 decided fire barriers ought to be installed. I went down to the 23 plant and inspected it and in my opinion the cable situation was 24 Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
so bad that the fire barriers I&E proposed to be installed I 25
32 didn't think would do much good.
2 When I informed my supervisors of this, they decided 3 instead we should simply support I&E because we would not want (a
\.9 4 to be in opposition with Inspection and Enforcement before the 5 utility.
6 The licensees in general give very vague information 7 with regard to anything specific. You have general criteria, s and they always say they are exceptions to those general cri-9 teria. Very seldom, if ever, does the Staff become informed of 10 those exceptions to cable separation criteria and evaluate them 11 independently of ~he licensees.
12 On fire protection, which the Staff seems to want to 13 substitute for adequate physical separation, their response 14 breaks up into two parts.. One is: What has been done already 15 and what is planned to be done in the future.
16 As to what has been done already, the Staff says we have taken measures to-improve the fire prevention. I assume 17 that included among this, we have told the licensees not to 18 use candles any more. They have said they are going to improve 19 the. firefighting system. By this, I suppose this includes the 20 local fire department has been told where the plant is and has 21 been given a tour, so they won't get lost.
22 IA
~ As to future actions, the Staff says they have some 23
- 24 Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
25 Regulatory Guides. It is unclear to me which one they ever intend to use, whether it is 120 and its various revisions,
33
-je. 2 or 175, or the Branch technical position.
must recognize those are not regulations.
But in any case, you They will not complet 3 their evaluations until the end of 1978 and the firefighting 4 systems won't even be implemented until sometime after that.
5 To close with just some general observations of what 6 has happened since we filed our petition, I believe it was 7 yesterday someone made a reference to the fact that the Staff's 8 position is a unanimous position. I think it's just been 9 clarified, it is unanimous among the people working on the prob-10 lem. So far none of those people have been identified. We do 11 not know their qualifications, for the people making the broad 12 and sweeping conclusions in the Staff's reports.
13 From the information I have available to me, it is 14 clear that neither our pet_ition nor the Staff I s response to the 15 Commission have been widely circulated among the Staff.
16 Finally, I would like to ask you, since you in your 17 positions can't get involved in the intimate details of connecto 18 design and the methods of evaluating qualification tests, I 19 think it is instructive to compare the very theoretical licens-20 ing process described most recently by Mr. Gossick in his testimony before the Senate. And compare that description of 21 an idealized, _theoretical licensing process with what has JI 22 I happened since we filed our petition.
23 At first the Staff accuses the UCS of misconstruing 24 Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
the safety significance of the test results.at Sandia, issues 25
34 jeri 4 2
a press release that says connectors are not used in nuclear power plants. That got widespread dissemination. By November 3 9 they had found three plants. By November 11 they found ten 4 and today we find 14. We are saying that the Staff does not 5 know the equipment that is used in today's nuclear power plants.
6 I don't find this surprising, having been a member of the Staff.
7 I think the public may find it somewhat surprising. The point 8 is, that I come back to today, do you have enough information 9 to conclude that the plants now operating and under construction 10 meet your regulations. I don't believe you have such informa-11 tion.
12 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Apparently, to try to go across
- 13. some of your remarks, Bob, the Staff does disagree with you.
14 They seem to feel the qualification information they have in l5 hand provides a reasonable basis for these plants to operate~
l6 Cable fire possibilities were *recognized, what, more than a 17 year ago. in connection with the Browns Ferry review. The 18 Commission at that time decided that with reasonable housekeep-19 ing and firefighting provisions that the probability of an 20 externally initiated fire was small enough so that it was 21 reasonable in the public interest to go forward with an orderly program of upgrading and did not r~quire that everything come 22 to an immediate screeching stop. You disagree with that. That 23 is fair enough.
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- 24 Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
You somehow imply that the UCS petition should have 25
35 been circulated broadly in the Staff. I am not quite sure what 2 you mean. Should we ask for a vote from all 2500 employees?
3 The implication is that the Staff is, a~ incompetent; b, dis-4 honest. I find that a little hard to accept.
5 MR. POLLARD=~--Let.~me_,go back over what_*7ou just said.
6 Number one, the regulations don't say you have the option of 7 meeting the regulation based on probability*. Second, I did not 8 imply that the Staff was being dishonest. I tried to point out 9 to you the deficiencies in the information that the Staff has 10 available to work with. You remei:nb:er, before this came now, 11 the Staff expecte~ that they would find that there were no 12 connectors used in safety systems. Then they expected that they
- 13 14 15 would be able to simply call up the licensees to produce all their documentation. Now the Staff's position is:
going to let the plants continue to operate on the expectation They are 16 that when the licensees finally get around to doing the tests 17 that should have been ~one before~the plants began operation, 18 they have some hopes and dreams that everything is going to 19 work out all right. I don't kno~, but perhaps I am wrong, but 20 I don't think that is the basis for regulation that is presented to the public and Congress in this Commission's testimony.
21 The idea is the plants are supposed to be safe 22 before they operate.
23 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Nor do I agree that you have 24 ce-Federal Reporters, Inc.
correctly stated the facts in the real world. It .ci:s _a. perception 25
36 which you have and you are certainly entitled to it, but I must je.6 2 say it does not agree with my own perception of those facts.
3 I think that simply has to remain an issue between us .
I 4 MR. POLLARD: I did want to say I was not implying 5 the Staff was dishonest.
6 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY: It doesn '* t coincide with my 7 perception of what we were just told by the Staff as to the 8 nature of the documentation which is expected. That is a end6 9 matter of perception.
10 ll 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 I
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25
37 COMMISSIONER GILINSK.Y: What would ronstitute reasonabl assurance from your point of view? In other words, what can be 3
done, what needs to be:satisfied?.
4 Let's take the connector problem.
5 MR. POLLARD: I think the firefighting, for example, 6 the Staff has Regulatory Guide 120. It says in their opinion 7 a- three-hour fire barrier is required between lredundant safety.
8 systems and on each side of that barrier would require fire-9 fighting systems.
10 That seems to me, if that were, in fact, in place 11 today in the plants, you would have reasonable assurance that 12 no fire is going to damage redundant safety systems ..
- 13 14 15 With respect to the connectors, if we knew today that we had qualification te*sts that involve all of the conditions, that the equipment must operate in, following a loss-of-16 coolant accident, that met the requirements of IEEE-323, 17 1974, by that I*mean including aging and margin, for the 18 time history of the accident development, that would constitute 19 reasonable assurance, but what we are saying --
20 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Let me try to understand.that.
21 We have this little chart in front of us, and there are a 22 number of tests which remain to be done, confirmatory tests.
23 If_t.hese check out satisfactorily, would that constitute
-
- 24 reasonable assurance from your point of view?
Ace-Fed cl Reporters, Inc.
25 MR. POLLARD: I made some notes of the statistics
38 bw2
- 2 3
on each one. On D. C. Cook they explained what should have happened, and they called the absence of environmental qualification a QA documentation mistake, very politely.
4 COI~1ISSIONER KENNEDY: Would you characterize it 5
otherwise?
6 MR. POLLARD: No.* I meant the press release to 7 UCS 's petition calling i t iliisa:mstruing. _i They said the connectors 8 after moved were shown . to be fully qualified for a LOCA.
9 I am not sure that what they did not saw was that 10 they were fully qualified for a steamline break.
11 You-must- consider not only the LOCA, but a steamline 12 break. You must also consider equipment outside containment 13 where you could have a locally-severe environment.
14 As to the receipt of the information, your direct 15 question, if you are going to rely. upon analyses of the types 16 of materials used in construction, as opposed to 17 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Just to clarify what I am 18 saying, in other words, are you.concerned because these things 19 have not been done yet, or are you really quarreling with the 20 whole qualification system al together, and even if all of these 21 matters check out satisfactorily, even then you would say the 22 situation* is not such as to allow these reactors to operate.
23 MR. POLLARD: If I knew precisely what you meant by 24 the qualification program, how i t is supposed to be done, versus jAce-Federcl Reporters, Inc.
25 how i t is being done --
39 bw3
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4 COMMISSION GIDINSKY:
MR. POLLARD:
As it is being conducted today .
How i t is being conducted today, you have only assurance it is satisfactory from the Licensees themselves. There is very little independent verification: ,by 5
the Staff of the specific equipment.
6 I think the answer to your question lies in whether 7
or not you believe that plants should be licensed when i t is 8
known that they meet the regulations, versus whether or not the 9
plants should be allowed to operate until you proved they 10 don't.*
11 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: There are various degrees 12 of knowing. That is what I am trying to get at here. You are 13 ------------
in some w-ay setting -- a higher standard is being applied.
14 I am trying to ascertain what i t is.
15 MR. POLLARD: r'can't answer your question with 16 regard to the information on this chart, ,because I don't know 17 from this chart what they mean by,tests and analyses, and 18 comparisons.
19 In my own experience, for example., in analyzing the 20 qualification for the fan coolers at Three Mile Island, they 21 came in with a comparison to a previously qualified motor.
22 ce 23 I rejected it on the basis that the motor orientation was wrong, that the test specimen was so far different in l*
. ce-F I
24 eporters, Inc.
25 horsepower that you could not extrapolate .
So when you ask me, can I accept comparisons, I have
40 bw4
- 2 3
to know what are you comparing with what?
COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Well, as Roger pointed out earlier I we have a S,Ystem which is really based on auditing 4
the Licensees. Most of the work is done by ~he Licensees.
5 Now, are you quara:-eling with that system, or that it i 6
not -- I mean the audit isn't being performed well enough, 7
or do you feel these tests have got to be done by NRC or what?
8 MR. POLLARD: I don';t see any chance that this method 9
is going to change its method of operation, of auditing.
10 One might argue that might be a better way to do 11 *-.
things. But what I am saying, given the information you have 12 today, the Staff conducted tests at Sandia for getting infor-
- 13 14 15 mation about the synergistics effects or radiation versus steam environment. They had supposedly done an audit that is supposed to pick up deficiencies in the Licensee's program 16 in quality assurance:. -
17 That failed. The Staff wishes to ignore the Sandia 18 test results and go forward and let the plants operate on the 19 basis of .just a steam qualification, that is absent the 20 radiation, which is precisely what they were trying to find 21 out in the Sandia test.
22 You also might note on the penetrations, i t said 23 the failures in the Millstone penetrations occurred during
-
- 24 normal operation and, therefore, they want to look at the Ace-F erol Reporters, Inc.
25 environmental qualification of the conneqtors. You will recall
41 bwS
- 2 that on the Sandia tests, the Staff said, I believe it was.the Staff, i t might have been Sandia, that those connectors
!. 3 4
5 probably would have operated sati~factorily, except in the LOCA environment.
Now,. if the Staff is only going: to investigate 6 those pieces of equipment which fail during normal operation, 7 and leave untouched all of the qualification programs for the 8 remainder of the electrical equipment, then I submit that there 9 is not reasonable assurance that the equipment can. survive 10 a LOCA environment.
11 COMMIS£IONER GILINSKY: Isn't one of the questions 12 whether you.bring things to a halt because of a hint of
- 13 14 15 problems, or problems, ,)or -- Suppose when you start out here you thought that there may be one or two reactors with conne_c-tors, connector problems, or even several.
16 Do you think_ i t is appropriate at that point to*
17 basically close* down all the pl.ants?
18 MR. POLLARD: Our petition did not say to close down 19 all the plants. r:-:think you should try and do some checking.
20 Obviously, you don~t shut down the plants on one person's 21 statements, but after you f.ind out, much to your surprise, 22 that 14 out of 65 pla~ts have connectors that you didn't even 23 know about, and when you look into that more than half of those
- 24 Licensees don't have any documentation of the test results, I Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
25 would submit, yes, .that is a good time to shut the plants
42 bw6 down, untii they can supply the documentation .
2 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Didn't the Staff, in fact,
.3 try to find out what the situation was pretty rapidly, after 4 it was brought to their attention?
5 MR. POLLARD: It was .brought to their attention in 6 January of this year, whenthe first Sandia test results started 7 coming in. They did nothing, whfch is why we filed our petition E7 8 with you.
9 10 11 12
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43 CR5495 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: I guess I was dating it
. n k r.\ from the petition.
2 cmwl 3 But at any rate, from that point on, they did 4 seem to look into the situation and try to assess things 5
and deal with it where it called for more severe action.
6 MR. POLLARD: No doubt they looked into it.
7 Whether you agree their actions now are justified I guess is the question before you.
8 I don't agree with it.
9 When I find the licensing program is supposed to 10 be one that established that the regulations are met before 11 the plants begin to operate, and then when you look in the 12 situation , and you find the regulations were not met, that 13 equipment was not ever tested, today there is no documentation 14 or incomplete documentation, then I suggest the course of action 15 is not to give the licensees some additional ~ime to supply the 16 information or ~o eve~ supply justifying continued operation in 17 the absence of the information.
18 The plants should be shut down unti'l it can be 19 shown they met the requirements it should have--met before the 20 license was issued.
21 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Well, the Staff seems to 22 believe that these matters will be cleared up satisfactorily.
23 They may be wrong.
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.Ace-Fe Reporters, Inc. MR. POLLARD: When you talk about the Staff, you are 25
44 cmw2 talking about a limited number of individuals of that opinion.
2 I have a different opinion.
That's why the question is before you.
(a
~ 4 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Well, with the noted difference 5 in perception, Peter, do you have any questions?
6 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD: Let me pursue that a 7 little more.
8 On the connectors, and specifically as to the 9
ability of some, I guess to withstand radiation and caustic 10 matters, the Staff indicated they made a decision on their 11 own with regard ~o the plants in question, that the steam condition side of these connectors would withstand the 12 radiation and caustic, conditions that they would be likely 13 to encounter.
14 Now, I gather that is without having done separate 15 testing.
16 It's their.judgment as to a likelihood.
17 Is that an appropriate thing for them to have done?
18 I gather from what -~YO:U said to Commissioner Gilinsky, 19 your position is really-that-the plant should have been shut 20 down once we knew that the connectors were there and didn I t 21 have the documentation regarding the environmental - qualification, 22 even though the Staff's assessment was in fact the connectors 23 were functioning.
- 24 l.ce-Federcl Reporters, Inc:.
MR. POLLARD: The:Staff's assumption is that the 25
45 cmw3 plants can operate until the public can bring information
- 2 3
to their attention that says the plants shouldn't be operated.
The Staff also assumes that the plants should be able to operate.
4 5 That's one of the reasons I resigned.
6 The failure toodeal on an objective basis with~:
7 the facts they have.
It might be interesting to note, what was the 8
purpose of the Sandia test program according to the Staff:
9 It was to try and find out whether the application 10 of radiation together with the other conditions of the 11 accident would have some effect on the ability of the equipment 12 to withstand the accident environment.
13 The test pro gr am, I don ' t know what the Staff*'- s 14 concluded with respect to that.
15 It seems from the documentation I have read they 16 can't draw any qonclusions because the connectors failed 17 whether the connectors were applied simultaneously or_,
18
- sequentially.
19 The Staff says, but when we get around to doing 20 the tests we should have done*before the licenses were 21 granted, we hope that our present feelings will be confirmed.
22 This is precisely their hope on November 5th when 23 they hoped they wouldn't find any connectors in safety systems.
ce*F* Reporters, 7n~.
25 I don't think that's an adequate basis in terms of
46 cmw4 the language of reasonable assurance to let plants continue 2 to operate when the consequences of a catastrophic accident 3 are not mild.
ce 4 point?
COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
- What would you have us do at this 5
6 MR. POLLARD: I would think on Browns Ferry 1, -:*2, 7 and 3, Nine Mile Point Unit 1, Oyster~creek, should be shut down until they can supply the documentation.
8 9
COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: If they supplied it, it was satisfactory --
10
.MR. POLLARD: They could resume operation.
11 I would note normally the licensing process allows 12 an opportunity for a hearing to discuss questions such as 13 this before plants are allowed to operate.
14 The fact that the Staff didn't know that the 15 regulations weren't met and therefore never brought this 16 information to ~he attention of the public prior to granting 17 those licenses, I think might be an adequate opportunity to 18 do so.
19 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: I'm going to have to intercede.
20 We have reached high noon.
21 I would like to ask the question, the following 22 question -- let me say first, we obviously have a strong 23 difference of opinion on a number of points, but I certainly
- 24 Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc. do thank you for coming.
25
47 cmw5 I'm sorry it*** was short notice, as it was, and 2 left you less time to prepare than I had thought would be the 3 case.
Ce 4 L think, nevertheless, you have made a very 5 effective presentation in your point of view.
6 So I thank you.
7 MR. POLLARD: Thank you.
8 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: And what I would like to do is 9 ask now two things.
10 There was a matter dangling from yesterday with 11 regard to the other request to make a statement.
~--
12 Troy Conner wrote and asked on behalf of* this 13 party, if they could make a statement.
14 Now, somebody tells me that Mr. Conner is not 15 around today.
16 Are there r~presentatives of his firm present?
17 MR. ELLIS: Keith Ellis, with Conner-Moore.
18 Mr. Conner was in Cincinnati yesterday and I wasn't 19 able to get through to him.
20 I can inform you if you wish what our position is 21 with respect to representation, although we are not prepared I
I 22 to go forward with any formal presentation at this time.
I(. 23 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: That is, you wouldn't feel 24 prepared to speak to the merits of the issues here?
Ace-Fe* Reporters, Inc.
25 MR. ELLIS: Not to the merits, no. But the
48 procedures, the procedures reached yesterday -- well, let 2 me restrain it, and I will comment on the decisions reached 3 yesterday, as to allowing Mr. Pollard to speak today and 4 postponing any decision on the part of -- as to allowing on 5 the part of industry anyone to speak either today or in the e 8 6 future, depending upon what happens today.
7 8
9 10 11 12
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49 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: I would take it, your argument
.ml 2 would run in the direction of feeling'that presentations from CR5795 3 that side of the house would be in order.
4 MR. ELLIS: Well, actually, I might as well take this 5 opportunity to state w~at the position was stated in the letter.
6 I think it still does hold true. That being, first of all, 7 there was no effective notice that consideration was going to be 8 given by the Commission, a complete break -with Commission prac-9 tice. Contrary to the Commission's own policy.
10 Secondly, there was no justification set forth for 11 such a break, nor_ was one shown yesterday; and third],.y, the 12 unequal application of such a change in practice violates the 13 fundamental principles under which this Commission operates.
14 Moreover, it was noted in that letter, the extra 15 unilateral opportunity for_Intervenors to continue their par-16 ticipation without ass~ring the right of equal participation 17 to the public including the utilities does violate the spirit 18 of fairness.
19 Also I would like to respond, if I might, to the 20 position taken by ODC, which to a large extent, was part of the basis to postpone whether any other commenting members of the 21 public would be allowed to speak. Because in your comments, 22 23 general agreement was expressed with the Staff, that there was no need for us to speak today.
24 Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
25 Generally, our presentation would parallel that of
50 fm2 the Staff.
2 First of all, I think that is an unfounded assumption.
3 Second of all, I think that the notion that a party 4 would be allowed to directly address the Commission in such a 5 meeting as this has no precedent. I don't think, that at the t i e 6 that letter was written, such a notion was in the heads of any 7 of the people who we represent nor was i t indicated by that let-s ter that. this was meant to be rebuttal. It was comment under 9 normal Commission procedure.
10
- Now, that we have seen what Mr. Pollard said, since 11 it was at least tpe rebuttal testimony_to that.presentation 12 by the Staff, I think an opportunity should be afforded to our 13 clients.
14 Moreover, now that the ground rules as of yesterday 15 have changed, there is no reason that we can or that we should 16 be bound by the Staff's position on any matter which has since 17 been raised by Mr. Pollard. Presumably, there was no matter l8 raised, that was another assumption yesterday, that the pre-19 sentation today made by Mr. Pollc,trd would be -of an eyidentiary 20 nature.
21 I recall one of the Commissioners stating if it was 22 not going to be of an evidentiary nature, there was no reason 23 to have it.
Now, that we seen the presentation by Mr. Pollard, since so much of it was mere argument and past history and
51
.fm3 2 included a statement I don't know what they mean by these analyses, I think it is -
certainly -it's become clear that what 3 was undertaken here was a continuation of the argument and the 4 comments already received by the Commission.
5 I think in light of that, equal opportunity should be 6 afforded to everyone else to comment.
7 Also I would point out for the record, that the posit'on 8 of Staff is such, that as the case law suggests, functions 9 as an independent assessor of where the public interest lies, 10 and as such is in the name of the Commission a protector of 11 such, it is not an advocate for any specific member or group 12 of the public and just because the position of the Staff and
- 13 14 15 0 the Regulatory happens to coincide on a particular issue is no reason to deny the chance, the opportunity to defend from the particular perspective which is enjoyed by the industry and 16 on this particular matt~r, which happens to run contra to that 17 positional test, *taken-by other party who wa*s granted an extra 18 opportunity to participate in the proceeding.
19 I think, more or less,* in summation on that point, 20 I would cite you to yourself, Mr. Chairman, when you said on 21 first of this year in Connecticut Yankee Nuclear Plant, the 22 nuclear industry's job of designing the building of nuclear 23 plants can be carried out effecti~ely only if it
.. 24 knows the rules of the game and if those rules remain reason..-
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25 ably stable.
52 fm4 2
3 For our part at NRC we cannot define the rules or provide stability unless we get effective input both from those who are regulated and from the interested public. The NRC 4 has made progress in this area, but much more work remains to 5 be done.
6 Thank you.
7 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Thank you, Mr. Ellis~
8 I must say, one of the benefits of going around and 9 saying things in public you occasionally have opportunity to 10 contemplate what you have said at a later time with some assist-11 ance of the times~
12 I am delighted to note that the process is already 13 at work in my own case* and I take due note.
14 I seem to be .in a bad temper this morning. I am 15 pointing out my disagreement with all sorts of people, and I don't 16 by any manner or means agree with all of the things you have 17 said, Mr. Ellis;-but I- think your point has.been strongly made, and the Commission will take note.
18 I think time runs in .such a fashion that the Com-19 mis.sion should take under advisement wha:t it has heard 20 this morning.
21 I am sorry, Jack. I have an appointment, and I can't 22 take any more comments.
23 What I will ask the Staff to do .is to take a look
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at the transcript of. this morning** s session and make to the 25
53 Commission whatever comment it feels that it ought to make, with 2
regard to the Pollard statement and Mr. Ellis' statement.
3 MR. NELSON: As a legal matter, Mr. Chairman, I am 4
not sure about the transcript being a part of the record of 5 decision under Sunshine Act --
6 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: I don't the transcript is 7 precisely what we say it is. It is a* best effort set of notes 8 kept by a reporter and I only suggest it in the sense that if 9 the Staff wasn't making notes for itself, it may choose to go 10 and look at the other fellow's notes.
11 The Commission does not endorse those transcripts.
12 We don't review them. We don't approve them. They are*not an 13 official record.
14 Nevertheless; I suggest that just as any set of 15 notes might be useful, to jog memories, these may be~useful.
16 One final matter, it seems to me, the Commission 17 ought to deal with, and that is the question of an extension.
18 We are now some days past the nominal time at which 19 we had asked for full Staff and public comments on the merits 20 of *the UCS petition. It becomes clear that the time would run 21 on, and here we are at the 8th of December.
22 The Staff has requested sort of in two stages,
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23 extension to the 15th. I think it is a reasonable proposition,
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25 and I would ask if you would agree in that decision.
Okay. I am glad you could all come. Since we provid
54 fm6 the public an opportunity to come to our meetings, I am glad
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to see we fill the room from time: to time.
Thank you.
4 (Whereupon, at 12: 12 p .. m., the hearing was adjourned.)
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