ML22230A085
| ML22230A085 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 01/04/1978 |
| From: | NRC/OCM |
| To: | |
| References | |
| Tran-M780104 | |
| Download: ML22230A085 (22) | |
Text
RETURN TO SECRETARIAT RECORDS NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION IN THE MATTER OF:
PUBLIC SES S ION Poli c y Session 78 - 1 Briefi ng on SECY 625 Reactor Licensing Schedules Place - Wa s hington , D. C.
Date - Nednesday , 4 January 1978 Pages 1 - 19 Telephone :
(202 ) 347 -3700 ACE - FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
Official R eporters 444 North Capitol Street Wash ington , D.C. 200 0 1 NATIONWIDE COVERAGE* DAI LY
- l
(
. DISCLAIMER This is an unofficial transcript of a meeting of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission held on Januar,y 4, .. 1978 in the Commission 1 s offices at 1717 H Street, N. i~.;-washington, D. Ce The meeting was open to public. attendirnce and observation. This transcript has not been reviewed, corrected, or edited, and it may contain inaccuracies.
- .1. ~.-::. *: '
The transcript .i.s. intended solely for general.informational purposes.
( . ,. As provided by 10 CFR 9.103, *it is not part of the formal or infonnal record of decision of the matters discussed~ Expressions o-f opinion *in this transcript do not necessarily reflect final detenninations or
,*~ beliefs.
- 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.
- 1 CR5935 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA MELTZER/mm 2 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 3
4 5
PUBLIC SESSION 6
Policy Session 78-1.
7 8
Briefing on SECY-77-625 9
Reactor Lic~nsing Schedules 10 11 Room 1130 12 1717 H Street, N.W.
Washington, D.C.
13 Wednesday, 4 January 1978 14 15 Hearing ini:the above-entitled matter was convened 16 at 2:25 p.m., pursuant to notice, VICTOR GILINSKY, Acting 17 Chairman, presiding.
18 PRESENT:
19 VICTOR GILINSKY~ Commissioner RICHARD KENNEDY, Commissioner 20 PETER BRADFORD, Commissioner 21 R. Boyd J. Yore 22 L. V. Goss+/-ck A. Kenneke 23 J. Hoyle J. Kelley 24 E. Case*
Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
M. Grossmq.n 25
2 mm P R O C E E D I N G S 2 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Are we ready.
3 MR. BOYD: Ready to go, sir.
4 Let me slightly update our December report. Since 5 the time it was printed at the end of the year, we did manage, 6 with the help of the Licensing Board Panel, to make some more 7 progress.
8 As we indicate on the chart in the paper, in 9 November we had the fuel load license issued for North Anna.
10 Since that time we have had decisions on an LWA for Marble 11 Hill, and issued an LWA-2 for Marble Hill on _the 19th.
Construction permit decisions on Tyrone, which is 12 the last of the SNUPPS units;and for Cheroke~, three units of 13 the Cherokee-Perkins combine.
14 We also issued an operating license on Cook,* 2, 15 permitting it to load fuel and keep on going.
16 Which brings the period since the last briefing to 17 two OLs, four CPS and LWA.
18 Also during that time we have a decision from the 19 Licensing Board Panel on Three-Mile Island 2. Three-Mile 20 Island 2 is an operating license case. The fuel load date, 21 completion of construction, is probably toward the end of this 22 month. As things are going, there doesn't appear to be any 23 holdup to issue that license at the time the plant is complete.
24 Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
That give? us a summary, by the way, for the 25
3 mm calendar year on construction permits and operating licenses, 2 of B~bonstruction permits for 15 units, and 4 operating 3 licenses.
4 Also, as we have indicated on the --
5 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY: How does that compa:rewith 6 the projection at the beginning of the year?
7 MR. BOYD: You asked that question last year.
8 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY: No doubt I will be asking 9 it next year.
10 (Laughter.)
11 MR. BOYD: Exactly. I counted on you asking it 12 this year.
13 And, as a matter of fact,: . I must say we keep very 14 good statistics as I showed a couple of months ago; on the 15 fiscal year summaries. But I can. give you the comparison be-16 cause it is on the second page of the construction permit chart.
17 You can see for the calendar year we initially projected 22 18 CPs for 42 units, and come down now to 8 *for 15 uni ts.
19 COMMISSIONER'GILINSKY: Go over that one again?
20 MR. BOYD: Initially, one year ago, we looked at our schedules to decide which, by our schedules, by our projecte 21 schedules, how many construction oermit decisi6ns there would 22 b~ by the end of the year.
23 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Yes.
24 Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
MR. BOYD:. Last January our scheduling showed 22 25
4 mm separate decisions for 42 units.
2 And in February, March, April and so forth, the 3 curve came down as one or more plants were delayed for whatever 4 reason. Some were postponed, of course, some slipped just out o 5 the calendar year and sl1.ghtly into this coming year, this year 6 1978. So the number went from 22 decisions which involve 42 7 units, to 8 for 15 units.
8 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: But this has.:sort of been 9 going on each. year, we have been wrong.
10 MR. BOYD: Yes, sir.
11 And it could be confidently predicted for the next year.
12 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD: That we would be wrong, or --
13 MR. BOYD: No, you can't predict ahead of time for 14 example, that :WPPSS-4 -- using that as an example -- is 15 going to be delayed for -- because of state environmental 16 impact statement requirements. The utility put a hold on this 17 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: You can't predict on that 18 particular one, but you can predict that out of 20 several of 19 them are going to run into trouble with state environmental 20 statements, or something.
21 MR. BOYD: Or something, yes.
22 But it doesn't seem too fruitful to plan on having 23 that happen.
24 Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
I think tpat at the beginning of either a fiscal 25
5 mm year or a calendar year, we make the assumption based on the 2 facts as they exist at that time, cnd work on that basis. Now 3 in some cases you could have imagined slippage. For example, I 4 believe last year we assumed that Jamesport, for example,would 5 be completed by this time. Yet, at that time we knew it was, 6 first of all, a very contested proceeding. We also knew th~t 7 there was a terrific state involvement in the State Environment 1 8 Review required. So one could*_*probably have assumed that 9 Jamesport probably wouldn't make it.
10 On the other hand, Perkins, other three units, one 11 application going along with Cherokee, I am sure we confidently 12 predicted that and missed by a month.
13 I assume the Perkins decision wtll be out this month 14 or next month.
15 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Well, but of course in the 1
16 beginning of 77 you picked up the ones that you missed in I 76
- 17 18 MR. CASE: It doesn't work that way. You start all over again.
19 20 MR. BOYD: We start all over- again. You have to.
You have to take a snapshot at the beginning of the year, ~e it 21 fiscal or calendar, and say here is what we expect will come in 22 and here is what we expe_ct will come out.
23 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY: So now the 1978 calendar 24 Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
projection will show.the assumption that you will actually get 25
6 mm the three Perkins units.
2 MR. BOYD: Right. That's correct.
3 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY: There you will be confident.
4 Reasonably.
5 (Laughter.)
6 MR. BOYD: Relatively, yes. Thank you, you said 7 reasonably, yes, sir.
8 (Laughter.)
9 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: You talk about them as if 10 th~y were -- (Inaudible.)
11 (Laughter.)
12 MR. BOYD: That is a manifestation, by the way, of 13 programming this so precisely. You know when we say something 14 has to happen, like an ACRS meeting is projected for February, 15 if we miss by one day, it is a 30-day delay.
16 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Let me ask you, when you say four OLs, that is four individual units?
17 MR.BOYD: Yes. They are all separate ones. OLs, 18 one at a time.
19 COMMISSI0NER GILINSKY: And there we predicted what?
20 Something like 92 21 MR. BOYD: The OLs we predicted 9, and that dropped 22 off rather rapidly.
23 And almost all of the OL cases, it was a matter of 24 Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
completion of construction. You really don't have much 25
7 mm control over the OLs at all.
2 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: And so that is dictated 3 largely, you say, by the utilit~*s schedule?
4 MR. BOYD: The utility says construction will be 5 complete in September.
6 We cheek with our I&E people and they say, well, 7 it is probably not September, i t may be like October or Novembe 8 We put it down, that is in the year.
9 But then, four months later, .there is a reassessment 10 of,the schedule, or a delay, a construction delay of some kind, 11 and it spreads it out into the next calendar or fiscal year.
12 And that happens in many cases.
13 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: And what.are you projecting 14 for this ,.year.
15 MR. BOYD: Well, let me tell you what we are projectin, 16 if you will, for the fiscal year.
17 Starting next month, we will have a new calendar 18 '77 prqgection.
19 At the beginning of October, a couple of months ago, 20 we started a new fiscal projection. The fiscal projection 21 MR. CASE: The answer is we haven't got it yet, we 22 will have it next year.
23 MR. BOYD: Yes, for the calendar.
24 MR. CASE: For the calendar year.
Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
25 MR. BOYD: *For example, if you look, i t is rather
8 mm superficial. At this point in December, nothing much has 2
happened. We initially projected 17 CPs; last month we did the 3
same thing; .and we are still expecting them.
4 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: You mean honestly, or that 5 is your --
6 MR. BOYD: Honestly. It is honestly based on the 7 information we have at this time.
8 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Ibnestly is the wrong word.
9 I mean realistically.
10 MR. BOYD: Let me give an example on some of the 11 realistic considerations.
12 Davis-Besse 2/3 would probably,be a good example.
13 The particular plant has been delayed for two years a couple of 14 times. Again, it is a matter of need for power .and financial 15 considerations and so forth.
16 Based on the information we now have, it looks like 17 they 9 hould geb: thl'.)o.ugh_ and be completed by July. By June we 18 may find out that there is yet another two-year slip. But we 19 have no ::information one way or the other to bias the present 20 statistics.
21 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: I know the trouble --
22 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY: On that one, at this point, 23 wouldn't you know whether the licensee, the applicant is 24 preparing for hearings which you are proposing to be held in Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
25 July?
9 mm MR. BOYD: At this point we are preparing to go to 2 the ACRS in March, which I think is more accurate.
3 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY: That is even earlier.
4 MR~BOYD: Right now he is preparing for that.
5 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY: He i*s preparing for that.
6 So your assumption is reasonable that he is going to go ahead?
7 MR. BOYD: Right.
8 COMMISSIONER~KENNEDY: Only when he suddenly says, 9 oh, sorry about that, no need to go to the ACRS this monthr,;.
10 let's put it off a few months, do you get an indication that he 11 has decided to do something different?
12 MR. BOYD: Yes.
13 And he does this two ways. One of which is 14 not respond relatively promptly to matters of outstanding con-15 cern; and secondly, by actually announcing a two-year delay.
16 Now there have been cases where utilities have 17 announced such a delay, and we have~said, ah, we need the time, 18 we don't want to stretch the manpower into that, we will freeze 19 the schedule because of that and go on with other things.
20 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: But I* think still, this 21 17 decisions in 34 units, or whatever it is, is an optimistic 22 MR. BOYD: Yes, it is. Indeed, it is.
MR. GOSSICK: Best possible.
23 24 MR. BOYD: It is optimistic.
Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
25 MR. CASE:. Because unforeseen things are going to
10 mm happen.
2 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: No, they are saying that it 3 is not -- oh, it is the best you can do.
4 MR. GOSSICK: Yes, that's what I mean.
5 MR. BOYD: Let me offer you probably the best 6 illustration we have, Greene County.
7 Do you remember those joint hearings between State 8 of New York and NRC. We are predicting Greene County for a 9 decision in September, tail end of the fiscal year. That is 10 still fiscal '78 so it is counted statistically.
11 Now, is <3reene County going to mak.e it in September?
12 There are people who will say it could; there are lots of 13 people who will .say, impossible, the due proce.ss is just.,too long, i t can't possibly be ended by July, August or September.
14 Now what -- I have got to, I think, maintain the 15 workload in the schedule that shoot for -- I hate to call them 16 quasi-realistic targets, but in fact when you try to decide, 17 can something be done by that time, and the answer is yes, then 18 you target it for that, so that whatever the rest of y;our 19 resources are you can put them on other things.
20 MR. YORE: For example, this 1872 earthquake question 21 in the Northwest has held up all the proceedings in the 22 Northwest.
23 COMMISSIONE~ GILINSKY: Talk about regulatory delay.
24 Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
(Laughter~)
25
"'I 11 mm COMMISSIONER KENNEDY: Yes, it is only 100 years.
2 MR. BOYD: Last month, or the month before last, 3 one of you people said, we have known about this earthquake 4 since 1872.
5 (Laughter.)
6 MR. YORE: Every case, though, has been held up.
7 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: All right, lead us through 8 this.
9 MR. BOYD: Well, looking at the specific schedule 10 sl~ps that we considered between November and December, also 11 that I have on the little chart, we had a decision on Pilgrim 12 2 for an LWA. It was what I have characterized as a negative partial initial *decision.
13 14 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY: Would you explain that?
MR. BOYD: Yes.
15 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY: That is probably the largest 16 group of qualifiers put in front of a word "decision" that I've 17 ever seen.
18 MR. BOYD: Yes.
19 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Have.we ever had one before?
20 MR. BOYD: I don't believe so. I think that may have 21 been the first.
22 MR. YORE: O_h, no.
23 MR. BOYD: There have been 1others. that they have 24 Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc. characterized quite-:,the same as Pilgrim?
25
12 mm MR. YORE: From the Board.
2 MR. BOYD: From-.lthe Board.
3 MR. YORE: Columbia University.
4 MR. CASE: The Appeal Board has reversed and 5 I think this is the first time a Board has 6 decided that on the basis of the information they ha\re, that 7 this site was not --
8 MR.YORE: No, we had others.
9 MR. BOYD: Well, I lookedaat Malibu, for example, -
10 which said, go back to the drawing board and do more work.
11 MR. CASE: That was the Commission- that decided 12 that.
13 MR. YORE: Well, it was in the Board's decision, too.
14 MR. CASE: No, sir, it was not.
15 The Board said, issue a construction permit, and 16 we appealed imthe Commission and the Commission reversed 17 the Board.
18 MR. BOYD: That is our chief witness on Malibu, by 19 the way. He went to all the hearings.
20 Well, the point is in Pilgrim, the Board issued 21 a decision which did not support the issuance of an LWA. In fact, which ss3-id, as I recall it, that the treatment of 22 23 alternate sites was not proper, was not sufficiently proper on the part of the Staff.
24 Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
25 The $.:taff 1 as I understood, has appealed this, but
13 mm I am not really positive.
2 MR. CASE: That's right.
3 MR. BOYD: We have appealed it, and I guess at this 4 point it is bef 012°* the Appeal Board.
5 So there:was a decision, and Jim would say, yes, the 6 Board issued a decision on Pilgrim 2 LWA, but we would say yes, 7 but it was not a positive decision, it was a negative one.
8 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY: I understand that.
9 What is the partial aspect?
10 MR. BOYD: Oh, I'm sorry.
11 The initial decision covers safety_ and environmental matters. Because of our split proceedings, the environmental on 12 is called -- or the.first one, whatever it.is -- is a partial, 13 initial decision~
14 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY: This one was the environmental?
15 MR. BOYD: Right.
16 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: What did the Board say?
17 MR. BOYD: The Board said our _treatment of alternate 18 sites in the environmental review was not sufficient.
19 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: The Staff treatment?
20 MR.BOYD: The Staff treatment.
21 MR. YORE: And applicant.
22 MR. BOYD: Yes, the same thing.
23 In the construction permit delays, there has been 24 Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc. about a two-month de~ay in Marble Hill. Although as I noted 25
14 mm earlier, we just issued an LWA-2 on Marble Hill, so there is 2 certainly no construction delay on that.
3 The question of antitrust has been resolved j'ust 4 yesterday. We received a letter from the Attorney General. So 5 that there are no antitrust considerations.
6 It relates to -- the delay relates- to a new partner, 7 a new applicant, or a new partial applicant, the Wabash Valley 8 Power Association. And in getting their financial qualificatio s 9 in order, they have a pending REA application for a loan 10 gu~rantee, and that has just not come through yet. So you can' 11 find them financially qualified until that is resolved. So that 12 is holding up the proceeding.
- 13 14 The Black Fox delay is essentially_. an applicant-requested delay iTuiit~ sta~to~Eits safety hearing. He wants to totally complete the environmental review and proceeding 15 and get a decision before-they go into the safety hearing.
16 In fact, just yesterday, they filed or sent to us 17 a revised LWA request. So they are,.Lacti vely pursuing the LWA, 18 but they want to complete that before they go on to the safety 19 hearing.
20 The Skagit delay, the safety delay, is actually 21 relating to the applicant's delay in submitting its Appendix I
- 22 23 24 information on as-low-as-is-reasonably-achievable.
MR. YORE: You have the 1872 earthquake problem.
Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
MR. BOYD:.But that del~y I think we had categorized 25
15 mm before, just like an additional one.
2 The Wild And Scenic Rivers Impact Act is really an 3 LWA type of delay, actually, bec~use you can't even get a 4 partial initial decision until that question is resolved. We 5 are waiting for the Secretary of Agriculture. I understand 6 that Agriculture is working on that.
7 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY: The Secretary of Agriculture?
8 MR. CASE: Just to make a determination under the 9 Wild And Scenic Rivers Act.
10 MR.YORE: Whether Skagit River is a Wild and Scenic ll River.
12 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY: Not Interior, Agriculture?
13 MR. BOYD: No, the Act talks about both Interior 14 and Agriculture. And if you read it you might guess that for 15 some cases anyway, that it is Interior that has the ball. But 16 in this case it was clearly determined *it was Agriculture.
17 And I don't know whether that is because of farming, of trees, 18 or what is involved, but it is a specific determination.
19 MR. GROSSMAN: Jurisdiction of the Forest Service.
20 MR.BOYD: There is a specific determination required, 21 and as I understand it, Agriculture is working on it.
I There 22 is nothing we can do until that is cleaned up. It is a case of, that's the law.
23 24 Three-Mile Island, an OL delay. As I indicated, we Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
25 have gotten a ds!.cisi0n from the Board, but it is essentially a
16 mm construction delay, moving the construction from December on 2 into January.
3 We have had two delays in developnig our standardiza 4 tion PDAs in BESAR 205 and the SWESAR/BESAR, or SWESAR/B-1 as 5 we call it here.
6 One problem was that we had to take the licensing 7 project manager, put him on Yellow Creek and WPPpS-4, two 8 other cases that he had. Yellow Creek, we are:pushing 9 forward on it, and JWP.PSS-4 is revitalized, now that we are 10 st~rting to get the 1872 earthquake straightened out. And we 11 just couldn't have him three places at once . . We can only 12 have our project managers two places at once.
13 The other problem was the project manager_in SWESAR 14 lefti:::the Cbrnrrlission and has gone elsewhere, and there is some dleay involved in putting another man on the job, having him 15 pick up the pieces and get everything going again. We estimate 16 that is about two months.
17 That is essentially the picture as we see it.
18 MR. YORE: I would just like to say that the Boards 19 issued five decisions in December involving nine units. This 20 is one of the highest numbers of decisions in a month that we 21 have ever had.
22 So December was a busy month.
23 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Very good.
24 Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
MR. BOYD: I might add, not to twit Jim at all, but 25
17 mm we got the Cherokee decision on December 30th, which was a 2 Friday, at about 2 o'clock, I understand, or something like that.
3 4 MR.YORE: That is part-of the fiscal year.
5 (Laughter.)
6 MR. BOYD: And we had a lot of people that stayed 7 over to get the darned thing out, including as a matter of fact, a licensing assistant who*-_*. came in, who had been ill 8
and came in to help get the thing out.
9 The point is, both on the part of the Boards and 10 I think on the part of the Staff, when these things do break, 11 everybody does pull together to try to get the job done, 12 notwithstanding what we sometimes get criticized for.
13 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Hopefully these are all 14 sound decisions?
15 MR. BOYD: I hope so.
16 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD: They will all reach the 17 Commission at the same time.
18 MR. YORE: After review by the Appeal Board.
19 COMMISSIONER KENNEDY: We have,'.no discretion.
20 MR. CASE: Well, we have no discretion (Inaudible.)
21 MR. BOYD: That's right. You must issue in ten days.
22 That is our rules, unless-pu can appeal it and have it short-23 circuited.
24 Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc. COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Issuance ten days from what?
25
18 mm MR. BOYD: From the date of decision.
2 When a Licensing Board hands in a decision, by our 3 rules we have ten days --
4 MR. CASE: We are directed to issue -- (Inaudible.)
5 MR. BOYD: Yes, that's right. No discretion.
6 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Well you have some discretion 7 which you used recently.
8 MR .. BOYD: Thatl:was an operating license.
9 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Oh, you have no discretion 10 on the construction permit?
11 MR. BOYD: No. discretion on the t:co.nstruction permi .
12 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD: What happened on the Malibu what was i:hcthat Mr. Case mentioned, before where you appealed 13 the --
14 MR. CASE: Malibu was a very peculiar case. The 15 Staff's position before the Board was that the plant need not 16 be designed against ground displacement.
17 The Board found that it must be designed against 18 ground displacement, but did not specify how much. It said 19 this can be resolved during construction.
20 The Staff's position was that this was a principal 21 architectural and design criteria which must be established 22 before issuance of a CP.
23 And the Commission found for the Staff to the 24 Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
reverse, and remanded it back to the Board. But the applicant 25
19 mm never pursued it.
2 COMMISSIONER BRADFORD: I see.
3 So you, the Staff, appealed that,. inr,that ten-day 4 period, rather than issue the permit?
5 MR. CASE: Yes.
6 And the Commission -- I guess -- I don't*really 7 recall -- must have stayed --
8 COMMITSSIONER BRADFORD: Must have stayed it. I see.
9 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Well, gentlemen, thank 10 YO\l very much.--
11 MR. CASE: It wasn't in the Appeal. Board, I don't 12 believe.
- 13 14 CO_MMISSIONER GILINSKY: Well, thank you very much.
(Whereupon, at 2:45 p.m., the hearing in the 15 above-entitled matter was conc:Jcuded.)
16 17 18 19 20 21
- 22 23 24 Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
25