ML19331D941

Response to Ucs 800819 Ltr Seeking Reconsideration of ASLB 800812-13 Prehearing Conference Ruling Which Denied Ucs Motion for Summary Disposition.Discusses Ucs Facts Which Do Not Entitle Ucs to Favorable Decision.W/Certificate of Svc

ML19331D941
Person / Time
Site:	Crane
Issue date:	09/02/1980
From:	Trowbridge G METROPOLITAN EDISON CO., SHAW, PITTMAN, POTTS & TROWBRIDGE
To:	Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel
References
ISSUANCES-SP, NUDOCS 8009040365
Download: ML19331D941 (9)

Text

,

.. I pI ,

. i UtO;q .g

% . ':s.<; - C.

a. SEp ..,." w II UNITED STATES OF AMERICA M e+ #k)

NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION h N s BEFORE THE ATOMIC SAFETY AND LICENSING BOARD N In the Matter of )

)

METROPOLITAN EDISON COMPANY ) Docket No. 50-289

) (Restart)

(Three Mile Island Nuclear )

Station, Unit No. 1) )

LICENSEE'S RESPONSE TO UCS LETTER DATED AUGUST 19, 1980 i

By motion dated August 6, 1980, UCS moved for summary disposition of its Contentions 13 and 5. At the prehearing conference on August 12-13, 1980, the Board ruled that it wanted evidence presented at the hearing on both contentions, that as a matter of discretion summary disposition was not an appropriate method to resolve the contentions and therefore that the Staff and Licensee need not respond to the UCS motion.

By letter dated August 19, 1980, UCS reiterated its position that the Staff and Licensee should be ordered to re-spend to the motion for summary disposition. In its Memorandum and Order dated August 20, 1980, the Board construed UCS' August 19 letter as a request for reconsideration of its deter-mination not to permit the UCS motion for summary disposition ysof S *i 80000403 6 5

i .

to be decided on the merits.* The Board directed the parties -

to treat UCS' letter as a motion for reconsideration and this response has been preparad accordingly.

In Licensee's view the Board acted properly within its authority to regulate the course of the hearing in deciding not'to entertain a motion for summary disposition on issues as to which the Board itself desired to hear testimoay. In addition, Licensee believes the Board would have been on equally sound ground in denying the motion for summary judg-ment, without waiting to hear frcm the Staff and Licensee as to whether there were material facts in issue, on the ground that the facts as stated by UCS do not as a matter of law entitle UCS to a decision in its favor. We discuss below both the facts as stated by UCS and the conclusions of law which UCS would have the Board draw from them.

UCS Contention 13 UCS Statement of Material Facts. Licensee has no im-portant differences with statements 1 through 6 insofar as they quote or paraphrase statements made by the Staff in various 4

i

• Licensee reads UCS' August 19 letter somewhat differently, l 1.e. as an acceptance by UCS of the Board's decision not to l dispose of Contentions 13 and 5 by summary disposition but l a request that the Staff and Licensee nevertheless be re- l quired to respond to the motion. In preparing this response Licensee has adopted the Board's construction of UCS' letter.

In so doing, Licensee provides essentially the same response

as it would have made had the Board directed Licensee to re-spond to UCS' motion.

documents or answers to UCS interrogatories. The quotations selected by UCS, however, fall far short of an adequate de-scription of past NRC methodology in the determination of credible accidents, much less the Staff's current efforts in connection with TMI-1. Licensee submits that without further examination of the subject, it would be impossible for the Board to conclude that UCS' attack on Staff methodology is justified.

Licensee has difficulty in understanding UCS' state-ment 7. We read statement 7, together with its supporting reference, as alleging that the Staff does not know how many other accidents previously deemed incredible are, in fact, credible because the Staff has not evaluated the absolute probability of accidents beyond the design basis for TMI-3.

As such, statement 7 is a conclusion, not a statement of fact, and is covered by Licensee's discussion of UCS' argument below.

UCS Arcument. Licensee does not attempt to respond here to each and every UCS argument. We are concerned at this point only with the question whether as a matter of law UCS is entitled to a decision in its favor. Two observations are 1

sufficient to establish that it is not.

l First, UCS' motion would have the Board decide the ade-quacy of the Staff's methodology for selecting design basis accidents for TMI-l without waiting to hear from the Staff what,

if any, modifications or additions to past practice may have been made by.the Staff in connection with its'rMI-l rastart review. The Board has instructed the Staff to consider acci-dent sequences beyond the original design basis for TMI-1 and the Staff intends to do so. Of the material facts claimed by UCS not to be in issue, only one (the absence of absolute probability assessments) bears on the current and still on-going staff accident review. We discuss this matter next.

Second, UCS may believe that it is not possible to select design basis accidents without having performed reliable

. probabilistic risk assessments with small error bands, but it I- does not follow as a matter of law that UCS is right. UCS I

cites no legal authority whatsoever in support of its position.

Without such authority and with no instructions from the Com-mission, UCS would have this Board simply cast aside, without even hearing expert testimony on the subject, industry and government experience and methodology developed over a period of more than twenty years.

UCS Contention 5

, UCS Statement of Material Facts. The first seven UCS statements quote or paraphrase material contained in various Staff documents or answers to UCS interrogatories. Licensee takes exception only to UCS statements 3 and 4.

t 0

4-1

-- , - , _ m ,- -y e , - , _ .-4, ,,y--- ,--m-y - --p , v

Statement 3 refers to and paraphrases selectively material appearing on pages 6-7 of NUREG-0578. It fails to include the Staff's acknowledgment at page 6 of the document that power-operated relief valves have not previously been included in the licensing interpretation of equipment desig-nated as "important to safety."

Statement 4 inaccurately quotes the SER as requiring connection of power-operated relief valves to emergency power supply (a connection which incidentally has existed all along at TMI-1) "in order to satisfy" certain general design cri-teria, including GDC 17. The precise Staff statement is that the connection is "[clonsistent with satisfying the require-ments" of the referenced general design criteria.

Statement 8 is a quotation from GDC 4 and does not belong in a statement of material facts.

Statement 9 cites the Standard Review Plan, Appendix to Section 7.3, as authority for the proposition that it is current Ccmmission policy that a structure, system or com-ponent required for safety must meet all safety-grade criteria.

Section 7.3 and its Appendix, however, deal solely with Emer-gency Safety Feature Actuation Systems (ESFAS) and essential auxiliary supporting systems. The power-operated relief valve ;

and its control circuitry do not fall in this category of equipment.

UCS Argument. UCS' own references establish the fact that power-operated relief valves have not heretofore been classified as safety-grade equipment. It would nevertheless have this Board determine as a matter of law that for the last ten years the Staff, the ACRS and Atomic Safety and Licensing Boards have misapplied the General Design Criteria.

UCS does not base its argument on a technical discus-sion of the consequences of a malfunction of the power oper-ated relief valve or of the availability of other safety-grade equipment to cope with transients in the event of a PORV failure. It rests ics case instead largely on a specious syllogism to the effect that because the Staff has decided to backfit certain older plants to require emergency power supply to the PORV, the PORV must now be classified as safety-grade equipment for all other purposes. The Board was entirely correct in deciding to resolve the i sue on the basis of tech-nical evidence.

Respectfully submitted, SHAW, PITTMAN, POTTS & TROWBRIDGE By A . ml4 YGedgeF.hrowbrid[

Dated: September 2, 1980

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION BEFORE THE ATOMIC SAFETY AND LICENSING BOARD In the Matter of )

)

METROPOLITAN EDISON COMPANY ) Docket No. 50-289

) (Restart)

(Three Mile Island Nuclear )

Station, Unit No. 1) )

CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE I hereby certify that copies of " Licensee's Response to UCS Letter Dated August 19, 1980," dated September 2, 1980, were served upon those persons on the attached Service List by deposit in the United States mail, postage prepaid, this 2d day of September, 1980.

m -

. >>wAL G rge F. rowbrid Dated: September 2, 1980

i UNITED STATES OF AMERICA NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 3EFORE THE ATCMIC SAFETY AND LICENSING 30ARD In the Matter of )

)

METROPOLITAN EDISON CCMPANY ) Docket No. 50-289

) (Researt)

(Three Mile Island Nuclear )

Station, Unit No. 1) )

SERVICE LIST Ivan W. Smith, Esquire ' John A. Levin, Esquire

Chairman Assistant Counsel Atomic Safety and Licensing Pennsylvania Public Utility Cc=='

3 card Panel Post Office Sex 3265 U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Com=ission Harrisburg, Pennsylvania 17120 Washington, D.C. 20555 Karin W. Carter, Esquire Dr. Walter H. Jordan Assistant Attorney General Atomic Safety and Licensing 505 Executive House Scard ?anel Post Office Sox 2357 831 West Outer Drive Harrisburg, Pennsylvania 17120 Oak Ridge, Tennessee 37830 Jchn E. Minnich Dr. Linda W. Little Chairman, Oauptin County 3 card Atomic Safety and Licensing of Cc=missioners 3 card Panel Dauphin County Courthouse 5000 Hermitage Drive Front and Market Streets Raleigh, North Carolina 27612 Harrisburg, Pennsylvania 17101 James R. Tourtellotte, Esquire (4) Walter W. Cchen, Esquire Office of the Executive Legal Directer Consumer Advocate U. S. Nuclear Regulatory Ccmmission Office of Consumer Advocate Washington, D.C. 20555 14th Flecr, Strawberry Square Harrisburg, Pennsylvania 17127  ;

Cocketing and Service Section (3)

Office of the Secretary U. S. Nuclear Regulatory Cc= mission ,

Washington, D.C. 20555 i l

1

Jordan D. Cunningham, Esquire William S. Jordan, III, Esq.

Attorney for Newberry Tcwnship Attorney for People Against Nucle 9 T.M.I. Steering Cc=mittee Energy ,

2320 Noruh Second Street Earmon & Weiss Harrisburg, Pennsylvania 17110 1725 Eye Street, N.W.

Washington, D.C. 20006 Theodcre A. Adler, Esquire Widoff Reager Selkcwit: & Adler Robert Q. Pollard Post Office 3cx 1547 609 Montpelier Street Harrisburg, Pennsylvania 17105 Saltimore, Maryland 21213 Ellyn R. Weiss, Esquire Chauncey Kepford Actorney for the Union of Concerned Judith E. Johnsrud Scientists Environmental Coalition en Nuclea8 Harmen & Weiss Pcwer 1725 Eye Street, N.W. 433 Orlando Avenue Washington, D.C. 20006 State College, Pennsylvania 16801 Steven C. Sholly Marvin I. Lewis 304 South Market St.eet 6504 Bradford Terrace Mechanicsburg, Penasylvania 17055 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19149 Gail 3radford Marjorie M. Aamodt Holly S. Keck R. D. 5 Legislation Chairman Ccatesville, Pennsylvania 19320 Anti-Nuclear Group Representing York 245 West Philadelphia Street Ycrk, Pennsylvania 17404

<-e-