SNRC-1352, Forwards Pages 11-16 of Util 870320 Second Renewed Motion for Summary Disposition of Legal Authority Issues Describing Compensating Measures Established for Providing Instructions to Public in Event of Facility Emergency

Forwards Pages 11-16 of Util 870320 Second Renewed Motion for Summary Disposition of Legal Authority Issues Describing Compensating Measures Established for Providing Instructions to Public in Event of Facility Emergency

ML20235L783
Person / Time
Site:	Shoreham File:Long Island Lighting Company icon.png
Issue date:	07/13/1987
From:	Leonard J LONG ISLAND LIGHTING CO.
To:	NRC OFFICE OF ADMINISTRATION & RESOURCES MANAGEMENT (ARM)
References
OL-3, SNRC-1352, NUDOCS 8707160823
Download: ML20235L783 (7)

Text

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LONG ISLAND LIGHTlNG COM PANY SHOREHAM NUCLEAR POWER STATION mm P.O. BOX 618, NORTH COUNTRY ROAD e WADING RIVER, N.Y.11792 JOHN D. LEONARD, JR.

VICE PRESIDENT; NUCLE AR OPE RATIONS g } 3 g7 SNRC-1352

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U. S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission ATTN: Document Control Desk Washington, D.C. 20555 Emergency Broadcast Station - Compensating Measures .

Shoreham Nuclear Power Station - Unit 1  !

Docket No. 50-322 i l

Reference:

NRC (W. Butler) letter dated June 18, 1987 to LILCO (J. D. Leonard)

Gentlemen:

The compensating measures that have been established for providing instructions to the public in the event of an emergency at the Shoreham Nuclear Power Station are described on the attached pages 11-16 of LILCO's Second Renewed Motion For Summary Disposition of the " Legal Authority" Issues (Contentions EP 1-10). This motion was served on the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board, Docket No. 50-322-OL-3 (Margulies Board) on March 20, 1987.

LILCO is presently pursuing a more permanent alternative means of notifying the public to compensate for the actions of WALK and will revise the SNPS Local Offsite Radiological Emergency Response and the SNPS Emergency Preparedness Plans so that NRC l

l will be appropriately informed.

l Very truly yours, l ]

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1 &QN.q echard,Jf. N l

Vi President-Nuc}earOperations TJG:ck 8707160823 870713 g Attachment ADOM 0500 2 -~ g hDR

\ \ 1 cc: W. Russell I C. Warren R. Lo

l. ATTACHMENT p,- ,. SNRC-1352 L

l' In short, the material facts necessary to resolve the issue of the legal authority to alert the public are not in dispute. First, the State and County can be notified quickly, using the RECS line or back-up commercial telephones, both of which systems are already in place.N Second, the State and County will agree promptly to alert the public, because they will use "best efforts" to protect them. Third, they will authorize the use of the existing sirens because it would simply not be "best efforts" to leave those sirens unused when the public needed to be notified. Thus, there is no litigable issue about the legal authority to alert the public.

B. EBS Messages (Contention 5)

As is documented in the Licensing Board's initial decision, LILCO originally l

relied on radio station WALK-FM to trigger a special, Shoreham-only Emergency Broad-cast System (EBS) consisting of WALK and 11 other local radio stations. See LBP-85-12, 1 21 NRC 644,764 (1985).

EBS messages were to be broadcast by WALK-FM upon receipt of a phone call )

, from LERO giving an authentication number. This number is kept both in the Shoreham (footnote continued) ulatory Commission has recognized this, saying that "we are confident that if the Com-mission upholds the Licensing Board's finding that an adequate emergency plan is feasi-ble with state and local participation, the State and County will accede to that judgment and will provide the participation needed to make the plan successful." Long Island Lighting Co. (Shoreham Nuclear Power Station, Unit 1), CLI-85-12,21 NRC 1587, i 1589 (1985).  !

Even if the State did refuse to plug the phone back in, commercial phones are available as a back-up (11). See the LILCO Onsite Plan, EPIP 1-5,5 5.2.2. LILCO could I either call the State directly by commercial phone or call one of the other nuclear i plants in New York State and have it pick up its own RECS phone to tell the State offi- l cials to plug in the RECS phone for Shoreham (12).

13/ There is also a dedicated telephone line from the Shoreham control room to the Suffolk County Police Department (13).

ATTACHMENT SNRC-1352 control room and the LERO EOC. Lack of legal authority could not have prevented this system from working, because in a real emergency LERO could have told the State or County the authentication number so that they could call WALK themselves. (Alterna-tively, the State or County could have given LERO permission to start the EBS message process precisely as under the LILCO-only plan already litigated.) There would be no abdication of governmental responsibility in doing this, because the private volunteers in LERO would be acting at the government's direction.

However, by letter of August 8,1986, the President and General Manager of WALK-FM informed LILCO that "on the advice of counsel, we find it necessary at this time to withdraw from participation in the Shoreham Emergency Response Plan." Let-ter from Alan S. Beck to Ira Freilicher, August 8,1986. In light of this development, LILCO will rely instead in this Motion on the existing New York State EBS (14).W The State EBS includes a Common Program Control Station-1 (CPCS-1)(15) and a large number of " primary stations" on Long Island, including all 12 of the stations in the special EBS that was set up for Shoreham (16). The CPCS-1 has a 50 kw AM station

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that covers the entire Shoreham 10-mile EPZ (17). When the CPCS-1 receives an ap-propriately validated call from an authorized State or local official in an emergency, it activates its EBS tone generator (18,19). Every other station in the system (including WALK) has a single-frequency tuner set at the frequency of the CPCS-1 (20). The tuner is coupled with an EBS-tone-activated switch (21). When an EBS signal is transmitted from the CPCS-1, it opens a sw' itch and gives a signal in the control room of each pri- i mary station (22). Each station operator can trigger his station's own EBS signal i

1_4/ LILCO continues to pursue alternative methods for informing the public, and in-deed alternatives do exist. But for the purposes of this Motion, LILCO relies on the ex-isting State EBS. Presumably the State will not attempt to dismantle its EBS in the way it has apparently attempted to disable the RECS connection.

i

ATTACHMENT

.. / SNRC-1352 generator, and the EBS signal can then be transmitted on the station's own frequency (23). With appropriate switching, each primary station can then rebroadcast EBS mes-sages originating from the CPCS-1(25). The EBS generator at WALK would trigger the tone alert radios that have already been provided to schools and other institutions in the Shoreham EPZ (24).

In a radiological emergency at Shoreham, LERO or LILCO would call New York State and Suffolk County and ask them to activate the State EDS (28,29). Each of the following five people is authorized to activate the State EBS; each has the necessary authentication codes to accomplish activation:

1. The Governor of New York or his designee 15/

2. The Suffolk County Executive

3. The Suffolk County Director of Emergency Prepared-ness

4. The Nassau County Executive

5. The Nassau County Director of Emergency Prepared-

,; ness (26).

The LERO Director of Local Response would ask that an official designated to activate the EBS phone the LERO Director (29). When such a County or State official

. called back, the LERO Director would inform h.im that immediate action was required and ask him to contact the CPCS-1, authenticate his identity, and request that the CPCS-1 call the LERO Director immediately for the EBS message (29). When the radio station called, the LERO Director, using a prepared EBS message into which he had en-tered emergency-specific information, would be prepared to read the message live over the air (29).  ;

15/ The Governor or his designee calls the Office of Disaster Preparedness in Albany; the ODP has a dedicated line to the CPCS-1 (27).

ATTACHMENT SNRC- 1352 EBS messages are prewritten in the LILCO plan (OPIP 3.8.2, Att. 4)(30); these include an early message telling the public to stay tuned for further information (Mes-sage A)(31).N The information for EBS messages is provided, initially by the onsite i LILCO organization, on the New York State Radiological Emergency Data Form that is used by every other nuclear plant in the State (OPIP 3.8.2 55.2.2)(see AttachrJent B to this Motion)(32). See Tr.14,568-69 (Keller).E Accordingly, there would be no delay in broadcasting EBS messages, so long as the State or County used their best efforts and the LILCO Plan as the source of emergency planning options and information. I There is no federal requirement that there be an agreement with the EBS radio i

station. There used to be a federal guideline to that effect. In FEMA-43," Standard l

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Guide for the Evaluation of Alert and Notification Systems for Nuclear Power Plants" (September 1983), the Acceptance Criteria for Planning Standard E, relating to proce-dures for notification and instruction to the public, included a criterion that there be "some form of agreement":

An emergency plan will typically be acceptable under this

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evaluation criterion provided that it clearly describes a sys-tem of disseminating information that meets the following criteria:

3 1s/ Message A does not make a protective action recommendation (31). It is purely informational, telling the public that there is an emergency and that they should stay tuned to the EBS system for "officialinformation and advisories." It is thus not illegal under Cuomo v. LILCO, n.3 above, any more than a LILCO press release would be.

11/ LILCO has made only three changes to the State form. First,it has substituted letters of the alphabet in place of numbers to designate the emergency planning zones, t Second,it has added a footnote at the bottom of the second page. See Attachment B.

Third,it has typed in the name "Shoreham"(33). (Shoreham used to be listed along with other New York plants on the standard State form, along with a box for "other." A few a months ago the State revised the form to relabel the Shoreham box "other," so now there are two "others" on the efficial State form.) Also, the third page to the State i form is nonuniform, varying from plant to plant.

ATTACHMENT

.. .** SNRC-1352

3. References or includes some form of agreement, available for review, which states the station's or broadcast system's willingness to participate in the public notification l process. '

FEMA-43, at E-2 (September 1983)(emphasis added). In 1985, however, FEMA-REP-10 superseded FEMA-43. FEMA-REP-10 changed the acceptance criterion to specify, not some form of " agreement", but rather some form of " documentation":

3 An acceptable emergency plan under Evaluation Criterion E.5 should describe a system of disseminating information to the public that meets the following criteria:

3. References or includes some form of documentation, available for review, that states the station's or broadcast system's ability to participate in the public noti-fication process.

FEMA-REP-10, Guide for Evaluation of Alert and Notification Systems for Nuclear Power Plants, at E-2 (November 1985)(emphasis added).

. ,' This revision was prompted by FEMA's recognition, and acceptance, of the fact that stations able to participate effectively in an emergency might not be willing to agree in advance to do so, as FEMA made clear in its Notice of Availability of FEM A-REP-10:

One utility industry group also noted that since individual radio station participation in the EBS is voluntary,it may not be possible to obtain the formal participation agreements re-quired in FEMA-43.

ATTACHMENT

,. SNRC-1352 l

In response to these comments, FEMA has . . . re-placed the requirement for written agreements that individu-al broadcasting stations will participate in the EBS with a re-quirement for documentation indicating that they are able to participate in the EBS.

50 Fed. Reg. 43,084, 43,085 col.1 (Oct. 23,1985).

Thus, what LILCO needs to carry its burden is "some sort of documentation."

LILCO has provided that documentation in the attached Affidavit (Attachment J) and in the attached written description of the State EBS (Attachment I). Once again, there is no litigable issue over legal authority to inform the public.

C. Decisions and Recommendations (Contention 6)

Before a siren is sounded or a protective action recommendation made, someone must make a decision to do so. Under Judge Geller's opinion in Cuomo v. LILCO (n.3 above), this "decisionmaking" function must be done by a governmental official. The decisions required are (1) to alert the public to stand by for further information (that is, to sound the sirens), (2) to decide whether the public should shelter or evacuate, and (3)

, to inform the public of this decision. No government official would decide against in-forming the public, given a recommendation from the plant operator that the public be informed; deciding not to inform the public would not be a "best efforts" response.

Similarly, the decision to inform the public of the protective action recommendation is cut-and-dried; once a decision is made that the public should shelter or evacuate, no government official would delay informing them. Hence the issue of Contention 6 boils down to whether the State or County would, using their best efforts, be able to make a timely decision about whether the public should shelter or evacuate.

i Clearly the answer is yes -- so clearly that there is no litigable issue. The basic reasons are these: First, the State (leaving aside Suffolk County)is fully prepared to make protective action decisions by virtue of its plan for radiological emergencies at l

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