ML20197G609

Memorandum & Order Dismissing Appeal of Rl Anthony for Leave to Intervene in OL Amend Proceeding.Served on 860513

ML20197G609
Person / Time
Site:	Limerick
Issue date:	05/12/1986
From:	Shoemake C, Shoemaker C NRC ATOMIC SAFETY & LICENSING APPEAL PANEL (ASLAP)
To:	ANTHONY, R.L.
References
CON-#286-152 OLA, OLA-2, NUDOCS 8605160317
Download: ML20197G609 (4)

Text

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p UNITED STATES OF AMERICA NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 4

)/ 3 ATOMIC SAFETY AND LICENSING APPEAL BO  ;

Administrative Judges: .

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Thomas S. Moore, Chairman May 1 1,9

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Dr. Reginald L. Gotchy

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) SERVED MAY 13 YE In the Matter of )

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PHILADELPHIA ELECTRIC COMPANY ) Docket No. 50-352-OLA-1

) (Check Valve)

(Limerick Generating Station, ) Docket No. 50-352-OLA-2 Unit 1) ) (Containment Isolation)

I MEMORANDUM AND ORDER We have before us the appeal of Robert L. Anthony from the Licensing Board's denial and dismissal of his petitions for leave to intervene in this operating license amendment proceeding. Because the issues sought to be raised by Mr.

Anthony are now moot, the appeal is dismissed.

On December 18, 1985, the licensee, Philadelphia Electric Company (PECo), applied for two amendments to its operating license for the Limerick Generating Station, Unit 1. The first amendment sought a one-time-only extension of the interval between surveillance tests of the excess flow check valves in certain instrumentation lines.

The second amendment sought a similar one-time-only extension for local leak-rate testing of primary containment isolation valves and exemption from certain requirements of 10 C.F.R. Part 50, Appendix J. Without the amendments the 8605160317 860512 -

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2 plant would have had to shut down to perform the subject testing shortly after the time PECo filed the amendment requests. Under the amendments, the surveillance and the testing would be performed during a scheduled shutdown of the plant beginning no later than May 26, 1986.1 Notices of opportunity for hearing were published for each amendment in the Federal Register on December 26 and December 30, 1985, respectively. In the notices, the Commission stated that the NRC staff had made proposed determinations that both amendments involve "no significant hazards." The notices also indicated that the proposed determination would become final absent a timely hearing request. No such requests were received, and the amendments were issued soon thereafter.2 Mr. Anthony filed intervention petitions as to both amendments after the deadline for such submissions given in 1

50 Fed. Reg. 52,874 (1985); 50 Fed. Reg. 53,226, 53,235 (1985).

2 Pursuant to Section 189a (2) (A) of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, as amended, 42 U.S.C. S2239 (a) (2) (A) , an amendment to an operating license may become immediately effective prior to the holding of any hearing required under the Act upon an initial determination by the Commission that i the amendment involves no significant hazards. See also 10 l C.F.R. S550.91,-50.92.

Effective May 5, 1986, the Commission amended its procedures for granting or denying license amendments. See 51 Fed. Reg. 7744 (1986). These changes in the regulations, however, have no bearing on this decision.

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the notices.3 In a decision dated April 4, 1986, the Licensing Board terminated the intervention proceeding. It ruled that Mr. Anthony's petition on the first amendment, which the Board had conditionally granted in an earlier ruling,4 should not have been admitted in the first place and that Mr. Anthony had failed to proffer any admissible contentions. As to the second amendment, the Licensing Board denied Mr. Anthony's petition for being untimely.

Subsequent to the filing of all parties' briefs on Mr.

Anthony's appeal, counsel for the licensee informed us in a letter dated May 5 "that Limerick Unit 1 was shut down on May 2, 1986. The reactor will be shut down for approximately six weeks during which all of the tests on the excess flow check valves and the other containment isolation I valves, which were the subject of (this] proceeding, will be 1

performed." In light of the fact that Unit 1 is now shut down, Mr. Anthony's appeal is moot. Even if we assume that the Licensing Board erred in denying the intervention petitions and that the staff erred in its no significant hazards determination and grant of the license amendments, 3

Mr. Anthony also sought a stay of the effectiveness of the two amendments. We denied that motion in ALAB-835, 23 NRC (1986).

4 See LBP-86-6A, 23 NRC (1986).

5 See LBP-86-9, 23 NRC (1986).

4 there is no relief we can grant Mr. Anthony. The shutting down of the reactor for the performance of the tests is precisely the relief he sought. Moreover, because the extensions of time for the surveillance and testing in question were relevant only to the first fuel cycle of Limerick's Unit No. l., this matter is incapable of repetition.6 The appeal is, therefore, dismissed.

It is so ORDERED.

FOR THE APPEAL BOARD 0.

C.

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Y v_ h) ean Shoemaker Sec(retary to the Appeal Board See generally Puget Sound Power and Light Co. (Skagit Nuclear Power Project, Units 1 and 2), CLI-80-34, 12 NRC ,

407, 408 (1980). '

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