ML19208C370

Request,Submitted by Intervenors Columbia County,Town of Stuyvesant & Concerned Citizens for Safe Energy,For Extension to File Supplemental Memo & for Investigation Into Applicant Intentions to Pursue Application

ML19208C370
Person / Time
Site:	New Haven
Issue date:	07/16/1979
From:	Kafin R CONCERNED CITIZENS FOR SAFE ENERGY, MILLER, MANNIX, LEMERY & KAFIN
To:
References
NUDOCS 7909260136
Download: ML19208C370 (3)

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION

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In the Matter of )

NEW YORK STATE ELECTRIC AND GAS CORP. ) Docket Nos. STN 50-596 AND LONG ISLAND LIGHTING CO. ) STN 50-597 (New Haven 1 and 2 Nuclear Power Plant )

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________________________________________x STATE OF NEW YORK DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC SERVICE BOARD ON ELECTRIC GENERATION SITING AND THE ENVIRONMENT

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In the Matter of the Application of the )

NEW YORK STATE ELECTRIC AND GAS CORP. )

AND LONG ISLAND LIGHTING CO. ) Case 80008 New Haven /Stuyvesant Nuclear Generating )

Facility )

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x MOTION FOR EXTENSION OF TIME AND AN INVESTIGATION Columbia County, Town of Stuyvesant and Concerned Citizens for Safe Energy hereby move for an Order:

(1) Extending the time of all parties to file the supplemental memoranda now due on July 13 until such time as the State Siting Board rules on the unanimous recommendation by the New York State Public Service Commission that the application be dismissed for legal insufficiency;and (2) Directing the NRC Staff to fulfill its statutory responsibilities by immediately investigating whether or not both applicants named in the application still wish to pursue the application and promptly reporting its findings to the ASLB.

EXTENSION OF TIME In the ASLB prehearing conference report dated June 20, 1979 ( a copy of which was never served upon us), July 13, 1979 was established as a date for pll parties to,s,ubmit comments on certain issues raised at the 3 rehearing conference.

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These issues related principally to the question of the legal standing of certain of the intervenors.

For some reason or other, the ASLB is more interested in the tangential and insubstantial issue of the qualifications of intervenors, rather than the qualifications of the applicants and the legal sufficiency of the application. Luckily for the public interest, the New York State Public Service Commission is able to keep its eye on the ball. On July 10, 1979, the New York State Public Service Commission unanimously recommended to the State Siting Board that the application be dismissed as legally insufficient since one of the named applicants, Long Island Lighting Company, was no longer a viable applicant in the case.

Under the schedule established by the New York State Public Service Commiscic.. for commenting on its recommendation, a ruling by the State Siting Board on whether or not the application should be dismissed will probably not be rendered until September. Inasmuch as there is a real probability that the application on the State side of this proceeding will be dismissed, or amended to show the true applicants, it would seem a waste of the joint hearing's time now to continue nitpicking and haggling over the qualifications of the various intervenors.

Indeed, one of the reasons for the New York State Public Service Commission's recommendation is to save the expenditure of public funds on hypothetical applications.

If the State Siting Board, as now seems likely, dismisses the application, then there would be no joint hearing. In fact, it would be unlikely that the ASLB proceeding would continue because, without accompanying State site approval, an NRC construction permit is a worthless document.

Therefore, we respectfully move that the time of all parties to file the supplemental memoranda now due on July 13 be extended un~:il 15 days after the State Siting Board rules on the recommendation by the New York State Public Service Commission that the application be dismissed.

THE DUTIES OF THE NRC STAFF The basic function of the NRC Staff in the proceeding is to protect the public interest. The NRC legal staff has apparently construed its mandate to mean that its responsibilities require it to harass the intervenors and attempt to exclude them as parties or at least limit their participation. This is obviously the path of least resistance since it would be a much more important and difficult task for the NRC legal staff to investigate the legal sufficiency of the application, the qualifications of the applicants and whether or not misrepresenta-tions have been made as to the ownership by the Long Island Lighting Company of the facility for which a construction permit is sought in this proceeding. In ignoring this sp , s f

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• tasks and concentrating exclusively on the first set of tasks, the NRC legal staff has abdicated its responsibility as the guardian of the public interest.

It is interesting to note that the staff of the New York State Department of Public Service has construed its mandate in exactly the opposite manner from the NRC legal staff. The Department of Public Service Commission Staff recognizes that the administrative process is demeaned when its focus becomes hair-splitting wrangling over peripheral issues which distract f rom t he real business at hand.

The NPC legal staff should be directed immediately to commence an investigation as to whether or not we have a viable application in this case supported by the applicants who are named in the application. They should be required to use all avail-able tools in this investigation, including immediate oral depositions of responsible officials of the applicants. The Nne staff should be required to report to the joint hearing on or before August 15, 1979 as to the results of their investigation. No further or other effort should be spent by any of the participants in this proceeding until this is done.

CONCLUSION The purpose of this proceeding is to inquire into the proposal by New York State Electric and Gas Corp. and Long Island Lighting Company to build and own two nuclear power plans. Unfortunately, the ASLB and the NRC legal staff seem to have lost sight of this objective in favor of pursuing other easier issues, generating reams of useless legal memoranda and challenging the representa-tions of all of the parties to this proceeding except for the applicants, whose representations are accepted at face value.

This must stop, and the New York State Public Service Commission has wisely taken the first step towards getting this proceeding back on the main track. The ASLB should follow suit and all dates for the completion of tasks in this proceeding should be suspended until after we find out if we still have an application or not for a facility to be built and owned by the applicants named therein.

Nothing should happen until after the State Siting Board rules in September, except, in the interim, the NRC legal staff should be directed to do its job so that the ASLB amd be put in a position to deal with the question now before the State Siting Board of whether or not we are engaged in a real proceeding supported by both of the applicants named in the application.

Respectfully submitted, Robert J. Kafin Attorney for Columbia County,

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Town of Stuyvesant and Concerned Citizens for Safe Energy MILLER, MANNIX, LEMERY & KAFIN, P.C.

11 Chester St.,P.O. Box 765 , , 3 Glens Falls, New York 12801 4 Tel.(518)793-66 1015 099