ML20237E834
| ML20237E834 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Shoreham File:Long Island Lighting Company icon.png |
| Issue date: | 12/18/1987 |
| From: | Christman J HUNTON & WILLIAMS, LONG ISLAND LIGHTING CO. |
| To: | Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel |
| Shared Package | |
| ML20237E542 | List: |
| References | |
| OL-3, NUDOCS 8712290213 | |
| Download: ML20237E834 (126) | |
Text
{{#Wiki_filter:. LILCO, December 18,1987 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Before the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board In the Matter of )
)
LONG ISLAND LIGHTING COMPANY ) Docket No. 50-322-OL-3
)' (Emergency Planning)
(Shoreham Nuclear Power Station, ) Unit 1) ) LILCO'S MOTION FOR
SUMMARY
DISPOSITION OF CONTENTIONS 1-10 WITH RESPECT TO 10 CFR S 50.47(c)(1)(1) AND (11)
' LILCO hereby asks the Board for summary disposition, pursuant to 10 CFR S 2.749, of the question whether LILCO has complied with subsections (1) and (ii)in the Commission's new emergency planning rule,10 CFR S 50.47(c)(1), insof ar as the " legal 1
authority" contentions (Contentions EP 1-10) are concerned The Commission's new rule,10 CFR S 50.47(c)(1),52 Fed. Reg. 42,085-86 (Nov. 3, 1987), provides that when an applicant for an operating license asserts that its inability l to demonstrate compliance with 10 CFR S 50.47(b)"results wholly or substantially from the decision of state and/or local governments not to participate further in emergency planning," an operating license may nevertheless be issued if the applicant demon-strates three things, labeled (1), (11), and (iii): (i) The applicant's inability to comply with the require-ments of paragraph (b) of this section is wholly or substantial-ly the result of the non participation of state and/or local governments. (11) The applicant has made a sustained, good falth ef-fort to secure and retain the participation of the pertinent state and/or local governmental authorities, including the fur-nishing of copies of its emergency plan. (iii) The applicant's emergency plan prondes reason-able assurance that public health and safety is not endangered by operation of the facility concerned. . . . c
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l l LILCO submits that, of these thren aly (iii) is in issue. Items (1) and (11) are not at issue, because it is already clear, a 'he record, that LILCO's difficulties with respect to legal authority are solely the resul i governmental nonparticipation; it is also clear that LILCO has made a " sustained, good-faith effort" to get them to participate. Nevertheless, in a recent brief the Interveners hinted that they may make an issue of LILCO's compliance with S 50.47(c)(1)(1) and (11). They argued that the new rule cannot be applied unless LILCO first (1) acknowledges that "it has failed to comply with the Section 50.47(b) standards which underlie Contentions 1-10," (2) asserts "that its lack of compliance with each of the Section 50.47(b) requirements results wholly or substantially from the decision by New York State and Suffolk County not to adopt or implement an emergency plan for Shoreham," and (3) satisfies "the separate criteria set forth in subparts (1), (ii), and (iii) of the new rule." Brief of Suffolk County, the State of New York and the Town of Southampton on the Effect of the Commission's October 29, 1987 Rule on the CLI-86-13 Remand Proceeding, at 3-4 (Nov.17,1987). The Interveners also said that LILCO should "specify its bases for believing it can satisiy subparts (1), (ii) and (111) of the new rule . . . ." Ld. at 4.M L LILCO submits that, in light of the record in this proceeding, it would be frivo-lous for the interveners to argue that LILCO's " legal authority" problems are not the re-sult of governmental nonparticipation or that LILCO has not made a sustained good-faith. effort to secure governmental cooperation. The reasons are detailed below. 1/ See also Governments' Reply to Views and Supplemental Briefs of LILCO and the NRC Staff Concerning the CLI-86-13 Remand Proceeding and the Impact of the Octo-ber 29 Rule on that Proceeding, at 48-50 (Nov. 30,1987), in which Interveners say that they will submit contentions on (1) and (ii).
L Compliance with S 50.47(b) The first issue raised by the Intervenor brief cited above is this: precisely what inability to comply with 10 CFR S 50.47(b) does LILCO seek to remedy through 5 50.47(c)(1)7 As noted above, the Interveners propose that LILCO must confess that it cannot comply with specific regulatory provisions before the new rule may be applied. The Interveners' proposal is inappropriate. It is precisely the question whether NRC regulations are met that is still at issue in this proceeding, and LILCO cannot hon-estly say that its emergency plan falls to meet any 5 50.47(b) standard. For example,
-S-50.47(b)(10) specifies that a " range of protective actions have been developed," and LILCO submits that it has done this.W What Interveners seek to do is to eliminate LILCO's right to plead in the alterna-tive by requiring it to make confessions against interest as a price for invoking the new rule. It would be most unfair, and improper, to curtail a party's rights in this way.
The short of the matter is that LILCO believes it has complied with NRC regula-tions. But to the extent that the NRC might otherwise find that a lack of " legal au-thority" prevents certain NRC standards from being met, LILCO asks that the new rule be applied. There is no requirement either that LILCO confess a noncompliance it does not believe or litigate to a final agency decision of noncompliance before invoking the new rule. 1 J 2/ Moreover, as explained in LILCO's Motion for Summary Disposition of Conten-tions 1, 2, and 9 - Immateriality, in LILCO's view an inability to direct and channel traffic (Contentions 1 and 2) or dispense fuel (Contention 9) does not result in noncompliance with NRC regulations. t
-__a
t II. S 50.47(c)(1)(1): Government Nonparticipation As noted above, the Interveners have claimed that LILCO must show it complies with the first of three showings required by S 50.47(c)(1), namely that the inability to comply is " wholly or substantially the result of the non participation of state and/or local governments." 10 CFR 50.47(c)(1)(1), 52 Fed. Reg. 42,086 col.1 (Nov. 3,1987). LILCO asks the Board to rule summarily that LILCO does comply with 10 CFR S SC.47(c)(1)(i). It is self-evident that the lack of legal authority results wholly from government nonparticipation (Fact 1). This is shown by the Board's Concluding Par-tial initial Decision. In that Concluding PartialInitial Decision on Emergency Planning, LBP-81-31,22 NRC 410 (1985), the Board found LILCO's plan " fatally defective" on only two grounds, which it called " fatal flaw [s]": The first is that the Applicant does not have the legal author-ity to implement the plan it submitted. The second is that the opposition of the State and County to the Plan has cre-ated a situation where at any given time it is not known whether the Plan would be workable. 22 NRC at 431. The Board found that the State and County decision "to operate on in-dependent courses during an emergency at Shoreham" created "a real potential for the defeat of a successful response to an emergency at Shoreham." Id. Obviously both of the " fatal flaws" are created wholly by the nonparticipation of L New York State and Suffolk County in planning. There will be no lack of " legal authori-ty" when they participate, using best efforts, in a response. Likewise, the second "f atal flaw"is nothing bu_t the nonparticipation of the State and County in planning. Accordingly, LILCO has made the showing required by S 50.47(c)(1)(i) by the terms of the Board's own decision. And, while the Board's decision on legal authority 3/ Numbered " Facts" refer to the Statement of Material Facts that is Attachment 1 to this motion. l
l l (and the related Contention 92) has been reversed and remanded by CLI-86-13 and ALAB-847, 24 NRC 412, 429-32 (1986), nothing from the Appeal Board or Commission suggests that LILCO's " legal authority" problem is anything but the nonparticipation of the State and County.M Accordingly, LILCO asks the Board to rule summarily that LILCO has complied with 10 CFR S 50.47(c)(1)(1). III. S 50.47(c)(1)(ll): Sustained Good Faith Effort The Commission's new rule,10 CFR S 50.47(c)(1)(ii), 52 Fed. Reg. 42,086 col.1 (Nov. 3,1987), also provides that the applicant must show that it has made a " sustained, good faith effort" to secure the participation of state and local governments: l (11) The Applicant has made a sustained, good faith ef-fort to secure and retain the participation of the pertinent state and/or local governmental authorities, including the fur-nishing of copies of its emergency plan. 52 Fed. Re'g. at 42,086 col.1 (Nov. 3,1987). LILCO hereby moves the Board to rule summarily that LILCO has complied with this provision since the record already shows, beyond any doubt, that LILCO has made a " sustained, good f aith effort to secure and re-tain the participation of" Suffolk County and New York State, including furnishing them copies of the emergency plan (Fact 2). y The Board also found 12 other " defects of a lesser magnitude in the Plan," de-fects which "can be remedied." 22 NRC at 429-31. All of those deficiencies are sepa-rate from Contentions 1-10, which are the only issues addressed by this motion. More-over, all 12 deficiencies either have already been remedied or will be remedied in the upcoming Revision 9 of the emergency plan. There are a few potentially litigable issues still to be resolved other than " legal authority," namely school bus driver role conflict, EBS, hospital evacuation plans, and the FEMA-graded exercise. Much of the reason these are still unresolved is also the re-sult of State and local opposition to Shoreham. These four issues, howecer, are not at issue here;in this motion LILCO addresses only the " legal authority" contentions.
.____-__-_D
A brief recital of the history of the case will show that this is so. Virtually all the documents cited below are already in the record of this case (either the evidentiary record, the pleadings record, or published decisions of the Board), or otherwise in the public domain. None of the iacts recited below can be disputed. Efforts Until 1982 The early " Factual and Procedural Background" of this case is laid out in Appen-dix A to LBP-83-22,17 NRC at 647-54 (1983). As the Board pointed out there, in 1970 the then-Suffolk County Executive urged that LILCO be permitted to construct Shoreham, and " cooperation between the County and LILCO with regard to emergency I preparedness continued during the remainder of the 1970s . . . ." 17 NRC at 647. This cooperation with the County for a decade in itself was a " sustained, good faith effort." Indeed, LILCO was ready to pay for the County's planning. On September 18, 1981, LILCO and Suffolk County executed a contract by which the County agreed to produce a revised radiological emergency response plan within six months at a cost of $245,000 to be paid by LILCO. Ld. LILCO paid the Suffolk County Planning Department $150,000 as the first installment on this contract, though the County later returned the payment. Id. at 647-48. LILCO has not cashed the check and regards the contract as still in ef-feet. I_d. at 648. From 1981 until spring 1982 LILCO and its consultants worked closely with plan-ners in the Suffolk County Planning Department to prepare a plan for Shoreham. One of these planners (who was relieved of his Shoreham planning duties when the County changed course in the spring of 1982) has confirmed that the County planners had a
" professional working relationship" with LILCO and that LILCO responded "In a profes-sional working manner" when the County planners made requests for services. Deposi-tion of Robert C. Meunkle, Aug. 16,1982, at 91, quoted in and attached to LILCO's Brief in Opposition to Suffol ounty's Motion to Terminate this Proceedings and for Certification, Vol. I at 27 and Vol. 2, Att. 4, at 91 (Mar.18,1983).
.7 In 1982 In March 1982 Suffolk County embarked on an all-new planning effort using out-side consultants.17 NRC at 648. While these consultants were preparing a draf t Coun-ty plan (from about March 1982 until November 1982), LILCO was cooperative. In July 1982 Suffolk County counsel asked LILCO to permit one of its consultants, Dr.
Finlayson (later a County witness agai.nst LILCO's plan) to be allowed to contact certain of LILCO's consultants directly. Letter from Christopher M. McMurray to W. Taylor Reveley,III, July 7,1982. LILCO agreed to this request. Also in 1982 LILCO made repeated efforts to persuade the County to resume joint planning with LILCO. Examples of LILCO's letters asking the County to continue planning are Attachments 13-17 of LILCO's Brief in Opposition to Suffolk County's Mo-tion to Terminate This Proceeding and for Certification, Vol. 2 (March 18,1983). For example, in a letter of September 17,1982, a LILCO vice president wrote to the County saying this: Let me close by repeating that much of the work LILCO has done on the offsite plan, as well as the resources and experience of LILCO employees and consultants, would be of use to the County in developing its plan. LILCO takes no pleasure in working on emergency planning without the Coun-ty. I urge you to resume joint planning with LILCO as soon as possible. Id., Att.13, at 2. This and other such overtures were rebuffed by the County. For ex-ample, at one point the Board asked Suffolk County to describe what it was doing to
" assure that there was an integrated approach" to the development of emergency plans for Shoreham.17 NRC at 649. The County's response stated only that it was "impossi-ble" to integrate its plan with LILCO's "in the atmosphere of contentiousness" sur-rounding the NRC proceeding and suggested that " harmonious integration can be at-tempted if consideration of all emergency planning issues were deferred until af ter the County's plan is developed." The County's response was silent as to any attempts made l _ _ _ _ _ __ -
I l l ! to coordinate its planning efforts with those of the State, FEMA, or the NRC Staff.17 NRC at 649-50. In May 1982 LILCO submitted an offsite emergency plan, designed to be imple-mented by Suffolk County, to the New York State Disaster Preparedness Commission (DPC). See Att.11 to LILCO's Brief in Opposition to Suffolk County's Motion to Termi-nate this Proceeding and for Certification, Vol. 2 (Mar.18,1983). The DPC reviewed the plan and was prepared to meet to approve it. Suffolk County thereupon sued the DPC to prevent it from approving the LILCO-sponsored plan, and LILCO intervened in the lawsuit on the side of the DPC. LILCO also joined in a stipulation of settlement. The stipulation provided that the DPC would take no further action on the LILCO-sponsored County plan until February 23,1983, to give Suffolk County time to consider , its consultants' draf t plan. Stipulation of Settlement, County of Suffolk v. DPC, Index. No. 5145-82 (N.Y. Sup. Ct., Dec. 15,1982), at 5-6. If Suffolk County did not file a plan of its own with the DPC by February 22, 1983, then the DPC agreed "to meet promptly . . . to take action on the LILCO submitted off-site Radiological Emergency Plan or any other plan the DPC deems properly before it . . . ." Id. at 6. The DPC has not fulfilled this agreement. In early 1983 In January 1983 the Suffolk County Legislature held public hearings on its con-sultants' draf t emergency plan. LILCO presented testimony at these hearings.17 NRC at 651. LILCO's primary witness, Dr. Cordaro, was accompanied by seven experts who offered their views. LILCO also submitted an 85 page written presentation (Attach-ment 2 to this motion) to the legislature (forwarded to the NRC Licensing Board by let-ter of February 1,1983). LILCO's written presentation, while critical of the County consultants' draf t plan in some respects, was conciliatory in tone and offered to help the County with further planning. It praised the County's draf t plan as "in many L. _ _ __-_____-__-______O
respects quite impressive" and "a good first draf t." Long Island Lighting Company's Presentation to the Legislature of Suffolk County on the November 1982 Draft Suffolk County Radiological Emergency Response Plan, at 3,30 (Jan.14,1983). It urged the County to renew joint planning with LILCO and said that LILCO remained willing to as-sist the County's planning efforts. Id. at 28-29. Despite LILCO's efforts, the Suffolk County Executive and Legislature decided that the consultants'"best possible" plan was inadequate and indeed that adequate plan-ning for Shoreham was impossible. LILCO thereupon prepared offsite emergency plans of its own and submitted them to the NRC on May 26, 1983. As part of its continuing effort to secure the participation of the authorities, LILCO prepared separate plans to be implemented by Suffolk County and New York State.E 5/ LILCO submitted five offsite emergency plans. The plans were by and large the same, except that each had a different entity in the command-and-control role. The yellow plan had the State of New York in command and control; the pink plan had FEMA in control; the green plan had the NRC in control, and the blue plan was the LILCO-only transition plan. In addition, LILCO submitted a plan with Suffolk County in command and control. At the time, LILCO described the plans as follows: Although four different plans and sets of procedures ~ can be created by combining the core material (white pages) plus each set of the colored pages, there is only one basic in-terim plan. No matter what module is used, LILCO provides . most of the resources to effect emergency preparedness. The organization added by using the yellow, pink, blue, or green pages is called upon only to provide protective action decisions and to notify the public, not for other prepared-ness activities. The core material describing LILCO's func-tions does not change with the addition of a different module, and the organizations described in each module per-form the same decisionmaking and notification functions. For example, to create an interim plan with the NRC mak-ing protective action decisions and notifying the public, one need only insert the green pages among the white sheets at the appropriate places. To create an interim plan with the ! State making protective action decisions and notifying the public, one need only remove the green pages and insert the yellow pages in their place. LILCO's Memorandum of Service of Supplemental Emergency Planning Information, at 11-12 (May 26,1983).
In its Memorandum of Service of the several plans LILCO again expressed its willingness to meet with the County and asked the Board's help: Since in LILCO's judgment the only thing keeping the plan from being completely adequate is Suffolk County's attitude, a thorough airing of the issues surrounding the plan before this Board may produce a beneficial change. To that end, LILCO continues to be willing to meet with Suffolk County to discuss emergency planning issues and to try to work out differences between the Company and the County. The Board may be able to act as a mediator and f acilitate these efforts. LILCO's Memorandum of Service of Supplemental Emergency Planning Information, at 6 (May 26,1983). Moreover, as the record shows, even the LILCO-only plan was designed to incor-l porate the State and County and to defer to their decisions if they participated. I Cordaro et al., if. Tr.10,196, at 29-30; LILCO Ex. 80, at 1.4-1; Cordaro et al., ff. Tr. 13,899 at 8-9; LILCO Plan at 1.4-la. For example, the LILCO plan includes provisions for selective evacuation of children and pregnant women just to be consistent with the State plan, even though LILCO's planners ordinarily would not advise such selective evacuation. PID,21 NRC 644,776 (1985). In late 1983 New York State had not yet come out directly against Shoreham; as noted above, the DPC had been prepared to approve a LILCO-sponsored plan for Suffolk County. Also, on April 9,1982, the Staff Counsel for the State Public Service Commission, writ-i ing "on behalf of the State of New York," had advised this Board that "the State of New York will present its overall state emergency plan as testimony in this proceeding." Letter from Matthew J. Kelly, Staff Counsel, New York State Public Service Commis-sion, to Lawrence Brenner, Apr. 9,1982. During the summer and fall of 1983 Governor Cuomo's Marburger Commission studied the emergency planning dispute over Shoreham. LILCO presented testimony on emergency planning to the Marburger Commission demonstrating that planning for s
_11_ Shoreham as required by the NRC is feasible. A summary of one of LILCO's presenta-tions to the Marburger Commission is Attachment 3 to this motion. LILCO also at-tempted to persuade the Governor. See Attachment 4 to this motion. Again LILCO's efforts proved futile when the Governor, in January 1984, announced that the State would oppose Shoreham and the LILCO plan. See Tr. 2239. During the Litigation of the Phase II Issues During the litigation of this proceeding LILCO made repeated efforts to involve Suffolk County in planning. For example, LILCO counsel invited a Suffolk County wit-ness to discuss his concerns informally with LILCO's traffic consultant, saying "we are always open to technical suggestions from experts from every quarter." Tr. 3341 (LILCO counsel). In questioning a former commissioner of the Suffolk County Police Department, LILCO said as follows: (LILCO Counsel): I have no further questions for this panel, but let me say, Mr. Dilworth, I hope some day that the police can cooperate with LILCO in the matter of (a] ra-diological emergency plan. i Thank you for being here. WITNESS DILWORTH: Thank you. Tr.1258 (Dec. 8,1983). At a deposition of LILCO's training witness, LILCO counsel in-vited comments by Suffolk County police officers who were present to help Suffolk County counsel question LILCO's witness: [LILCO Counsel): Throughout today, you have had Captain Cosgrove and Lt. Fakler present in the room as as-sisting counselin the deposition. As I understand it, both of these gentlemen have had experience in doing training with the Suffolk County Police Department. We would ask that any comments they might have had in regard to the LILCO training program, amend-ments, modifications, or recommendations they might have to improve that program, be provided to LILCO and be provided to the witness, so we may take those under consideration.
Deposition of Ronald A. Varley, Oct. 4,1983, at 175-76. LILCO also tried to resolve issues by agreement with the Interveners. During
" Phase I" of this proceeding LILCO had made many concessions in order to settle emer-gency planning issues, as can be seen from the settlement agreements following Tr.
14,719. During " Phase II" LILCO again made attempts to resolve some of the issues by settlement. But Suffolk County spurned such efforts: First, as we have stated before, it is the County's posi-tion that the emergency planning contentions in this proceed-ing are not subject to " settlement." If the County determines that a contention or subpart thereof no longer constitutes a concern (for example, because LILCO has ch8nged its plan to eliminate matters from controversy), the County will then withdraw the contention. . . . As to matters, however, that remain in contention, it is the County's view that they cannot be rectified by LILCO or LERO and thus are not amenable to
" settlement" unless that is accompanied by LILCO's abandon-ment of the Shoreham plant.
Letter from Karla J. Letsche, Suffolk County counsel, to Renee R. Falzone, LILCO counsel, Apr. 12,1984, at 1. Dudne the Summer of 1985 In the summer of 1985 the then-Suffolk County Executive changed his position and for a brief time supported holding a test and exercise of the LILCO emergency plan. LILCO quickly began a dialogue with the County over emergency planning. See e.g., Attachment 5 to this motion. When the County Legislature sued the Executive over his change of heart, LILCO joined the lawsuit in support of the Executive. The lawsuit resulted in Prospect v. Cohalan,65 N.Y. 2d 867,493 N.Y.S. 2d 293 (1985). In 1983 a citizens' group sued Suffolk County, hoping to compel the County to participate in emergency planning. LILCO, along with the school district closest to Shoreham, intervened on the side of the citizens' group. This case resulted in the deci-sion Citizens for an Orderly Energy Policy v. County of Suffolk, 604 F. Supp.1084 (E.D.N.Y.1985), aff'd,813 F.2d 570 (2d Cir.1987), which denied the relief sought. i
I Recent Efforts LILCO continues to attempt to participate in emergency planning with New i York State. For example, LILCO sent Diane Dreikorn (a LILCO planner who testified before this Board last summer) to a May 19,1987, meeting of the New York Power Pool Emergency Preparedness Subcommittee and the State Radiological Emergency Pre-paredness Group (REPG). She was refused admission to the meeting at the order of Mr. Papile (also a witness, for the Interveners, last summer). See Attachment 6 to this Mo-tion. Service of Plan LILCO has continually supplied Suffolk County and New York State with copies of the emergency plan and revisions to it. LILCO routinely serves copies of revisions to the plan on the following people: N.Y. State No. of Copies
' J. Dunkleberger Energy Office 1 H. Prins Public Service 1 B. McQueen Rad. Emer. Prep. 1 W. Miner Disaster Prep. 1 F. Palomino Special Counsel 1 G. Crotty Counsel 1 M. Gundrum Asst. Atty Gen. I Suffolk County M. Ashare County Atty. 1 J. Gallagher Asst. Cty. Exec 2 Suffolk Cty. Police Commissioner 4 Suffolk Cty. Planning Dept. 4 Suffolk Cty. Atty. Of fice 1 T. Liguori Brookhaven Public Safety 1 L. Koppelman Suf. Cty. Planning Dept. 1 A. Kunz Suf. Cty. Planning Dept. 2 H. Davis Dept. Fire Rescue 1 B. Regan Dept. Fire Rescue 1 An example of a letter from LILCO seeking to confirm that the County had received its copies of the plan is Attachment 7 to thli motion.
L i _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ l
I i I LILCO's Continuing Effort Finally, LILCO's commitment to provide a complete emergency plan - to show that it can be done - is part of its " sustained, good faith effort" to secure State and l County participation. In its Memorandum of Service of the plan, LILCO expressed its l hope that the very effort of litigating its plan would help secure cooperation: There are several reasons why the issue of the adequa-cy of the LILCO-County plan is not mooted by the County's present unwillingness to implement it. First, the County government may change its mind. Suffolk County has only re-cently come to oppose Shoreham and may not oppose it in the
- future. See Appendix A to LBP-83-22,17 NRC _ (Apr. 20,
- 1983); LILCO's Brief in Opposition to Suffolk County's Motion l
to Terminate this Proceeding and for Certification, Volume One at 14-40 (Mar.18,1983). The County's own reconsid-eraton of the matter, the good offices of the Governor of New York, or other events may bring about a change in the Coun-ty's position. Indeed, a reasoned decision by the NRC that emergency planning for Shoreham can be done in accordance with federal standards might help to persuade the County. Second, even assuming that Suffolk County never resumes cooperation, a decision that there is an adequate offsite plan may well induce other government agencies and other private parties to offer help of one kind or another. l Thus a mere decision by this Board that the LILCO-County , l plan is adequate as a plan (questions of who willimplement it aside) might very well help to solve the problem of who will implement the plan. Third, if LILCO is able to show adequate emergency planning without the County's cooperation and as a result Shoreham goes into operation, it may well be that Suffolk County will then decide to resume its participation in plan-ning. Incorporating the County into the planning effort at that time will be f aster and easier if there is an accepted plan for the County already in existence. LILCO's Memorandum of Service of Supplemental Emergency Planning Information, at 3-4 (May 26,1983). Since then, of course, the efforts LILCO has made to do emergency planning,in the face of the most determined opposition,5 are well known. j/ The obstacles faced by LILCO have been considerable. When LILCO submitted a plan to the DPC in 1982, the Suffolk County Legislature, by Resolution No. 455-1982, (footnote continued)
l It has been clear since 1983, at the latest, that LILCO's efforts to persuade Suffolk County to participate in emergency planning, chronicled above, have been fu-tile. The Interveners' opposition to afly emergency plan for Shoreham is well known. In ! these circumstances LILCO would be justified in doing far less than it has done to at-tempt to get State and County cooperation. But by any measure LILCO has met the
" sustained, good faith effort" test. The Board should therefore grant summary disposi-tion of the issue whether LILCO has complied with 10 CFR S 50.47(c)(1)(ll).
IV. Conclusion For the reasons set out above, LILCO asks the Board to rule that LILCO has com-plied with 10 CFR S 50.47(c)(1)(1) and (11). Respectfully submitted, 7t. M James N. Chrid tman Hunton & Williams 707 East Main Street P.O. Box 1535 l Richmond, Virginia 23212 DATED: December 18,1987 1 (footnote continued) instituted a criminal investigation of LILCO. When LILCO tried to hold an exercise of the utility plan in February 1986 the County made it a crime to participate in the exer-cise, and LILCO had to go to court to have the County enjoined. See Lone Island Lighting Co. v. County of Suffolk,628 F. Supp. 654 (E.D.N.Y.1986). More recently, the County threatened not to renew the lease of a bus company leasing space on County property because the company had contracted to supply buses to LILCO for emergency planning.
Attachment I l STATEMENT OF MATERIAL FACTS AS TO WHICH THERE IS NO GENUINE ISSUE TO BE HEARD
- 1. LILCO's inability to comply with 10 CFR S 50.47(b) because of lack of legal au-thority is wholly or substantially the result of the non participation of the Suffolk County and New York State governments.
. 2. LILCO has made a sustained, good faith effort to secure and retain the participa-tion of the Suffolk County and New York State authorities, including the furnishing of copies of its emergency plan.
j i
Attachment 2 I LONG ISLAND-LIGHTING COMPANY'S PRESENTATION TO THE LEGISLATURE OF SUFFOLK COUNTY ON THE NOVEMBER 1982 DRAFT SUFFOLK' COUNTY RADIOLOGICAL EMERGENCY RESPONSE PLAN January 14, 1983 l j
4 Page INTRODUCTION................................................. 1 EXECUTIVE SOMMARY...................... 4.................... 3 A. 10-Mile EPZ...................................... 4 B. The Behavior of. People in' Emergencies................................... 6 C. The Unfinished State of the Plan................. 7 D. The Evacuation P1an.............................. 8 E. Conclusion...................................... 8 I. A REVIEW OF EMERGENCY PLANNING FOR NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS............................. 9 The Purpose of Emergency Planning................ 9
~
A.
~
B. A Brief History...;............................. 11 C. Guidelines For Emergency Planning............... 11
- 1. State....................................... 12
- 2. Federa1..................................... 13
- m. NUREG-0396............................... 13
- b. NUREG-0654................. ............ 14 c.- NUREG-0737 and Regulatory Guide 1.97.............................. 16 D. The Procedure For Review and Approval of Emergency Plans..................... 17
- 1. F e d e r a 1. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
- 2. New York State.............................. 19
- 3. Suffolk County.............................. 20 II. A HISTORY OF OFFSITE EMERGENCY
. P LANN I NG FOR SHORERAM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 1 i
III. LILCO'S WILLINGNESS TO COOPERATE.................... 28 i'
-ii-i
,)
)
1 30 IV. .A REVIEW OF THE COUNTY PLAN.........................
- v. THE TWENTY-MILE EMERGENCY PLANNING ZONE (EPZ)....... 33 A. The Criterion of Risk Used By the County ' s Consult ant s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 4 -
'1. The Federal Government's Approach. . . . . . . . . . . 35
- 2. The County's Approach....................... 38 B. Accident Mitigation at Shoreham................. 42
- 1. Fission Product Retention 42
'for Severe Accidents........................
- 2. Suppression Pool Scrubbing................. 50 C. Costs and Benefits of the 20-Mile EPZ..................................... 54 VI. THE PRC VOORHEES EVACUATION ESTIMATES. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57 58 A. Traffic Routing.................................
59
-. B. Capacity Estimates..............................
VII. SELECTED MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT 62 HUMAN BEHAVIOR IN EMERGENCIES....................... A. Inferences From Non-Nuclear Emergencies......... 63
- 1. Human Behavior Does Not Vary With Different Kinds of Emergencies......... 63
- 2. Mississauga - A Successful Emergency 65 Evacuation Effort...........................
70 B. Role Conflict................................... 70
- 1. Role " Conflict" versus Role " Strain"........
- 2. The Origins of Role Conflict................ 71' The " Stereotype" Assumptions................ 74 3.
- 4. Emergency Responsibilities.................. 78 C. Attitude Polls Versus Actual 80 Behavior........................................
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D. The Shadow Effect And Related Phenomena......... 81 i
- 1. The County Consultants' Claims Regarding Human Behavior in ,
Emergency Evacuation Situations............. 81
- 2. Questionable Predictions 83 From Attitude Surveys.......................
VIII. CONCLUSION.......................................... 84 l I'
-iv-
l INTRODUCTION Long. Island Lighting Company ("LILCO") prepared this written statement for the members of the Legislature of the County of Suffolk, in response to an invitation from then-presiding officer John C. Wehrenberg, Jr. The discussion of emergency planning that follows is submitted for the Legislature's consideration during its hearings to review the November 1982 draft suffolk County Radiological Emergency Response Plan (" draft County plan").1/ Section I provides an overview of emergency plann'ing, including a discussion of the applicable requirements and guidelines that the Legislature may want to take into account in passing upon the draft County plan. Section II discusses, previous efforts by the County of l Suffolk ("the' County") and LILCO to cooperate on offsite emergency planning for the Shoreham Nuclear Power Station ("Shoreham"), and Section II reiterates LILCO's continued commitment to work with the County. i : 1/ Legislator December Wehrenberg issued the invitation in his 23, 1982 letter to Charles R. Pierce, Chief Executive of LILCO. In his letter, Legislator Wehrenberg asked LILCO to prepare a written statement discussing LILCO's views on the draft County plan and addressing questions raised in the let-ter. Given the scope and detail of the questions and the lim-ited time available to prepare this response, LILCO's comments on the draft County plan for Shoreham are highlighted in this statement, and the questions posed in the December 23 letter are answered generally, not specifically.
Section IV evaluates the work remaining to complete the draft County plan. Section V examines the bases of the 20-mile emergency planning zone ("EPZ"). Section VI reviews the traffic evacuation issues and time estimates prepared for the County by PRC Voorhees, and Section VII explores the premises about human behavior that were used in developing the County's evacuation plan. The following Executive Summary describes the conclu-sions of this statement. If additional comment is requested by the Legislature, LILCO stands ready to assist. , i i 2- _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ J
SUMMARY
OF LILCO'S PRESENTATION p THE LEGISLATURE OF SUFFOLK COUN'1"I The. County consultants have produced a radiological emergency response plan that is in many respects quite impressive. Above all, the work of the County consultants appears to represent a positive attitude toward emergency planning -- a realization that such planning can be done successfully, and that if problems exist, they can be overcome if the vill to overcome them also exists. Even if an evac-untion is called for, a most unlikely event, past experience with actual emergencies shows that large numbers of people can be evacuated successfully and safely. An outstanding example is the evacuation of Mississauga, Ontario, in 1979 when a 106-car train carrying highly explosive and poisonous gas derailed, causing deadly chlorine gas to escape into the atmosphere. More than 200,000 people were relocated from homes and medical facilities in less than 24 hours, from an area that had no formal evacuation plan. The dedication of emergency workers who helped in this successful evacuation effort was heartening. It is of the utmost importance that Suffolk County have an emergency plan that can serve as the basis for a cooperative effort among the County, LILCO, the State, and the Federal
l l government. We stress that emergency planning must be a cooperative effort, and probably every authority on the subject agrees. In the past, cooperation between LILCO and Suffolk County on emergency planning was close'and productive. This cooperation was abruptly cut off in the spring of last year, but LILCO has repeatedly urged that it be resumed, and we are l hopeful that it can be resumed now. Thus, our presentation to the Legislature is proffered in the hope that it will facil-itate the working together of the County and LILCO to produce a complete, high-quality emergency plan. A. 10-Mile EPZ The most significant policy decision embodied in the draft County plan was the County consultants' decision to extend the emergency planning zone ("EPZ") to 20 miles in radius, rather than the 10 miles prescribed by Federal law. The result is that the area for which planning must be done is four times the customary size, with a commensurate increa,e in cost and complexity. With a zone of this size, planning must be done for some 635,000 people, and the costs of purchasing and installing equipment, training emergency personnel, maintaining and testing equipment, periodic retraining of emergency forces, and drills will be substantial.
l This. unusually large EPZ results from the very conserv-ative criteria and assumptions used by the County consultants. For one thing, they selected a more conservative risk criterion than that used by a Federal Task Force that studied the problem in' depth in'1978. As a result, the draft County plan extends the EPZ to cover an area where the chance of receiving the radiation dose that the consultants chose for their "early injury" threshold is remote. For another thing, the draft plan makes use of very conservative estimates of the amounts of radioactive materials that would be released during an accident. New evidence about the consequences of nuclear power plant accidents indicate that even the 10-mile EPZ required by Federal law is unnecessarily l large. This is because analyses in the past, including l l LILCO's, have not taken account of natural processes (dissolution in water, deposits on surfaces in the plant, etc.) that capture radioactive materials while still in the reactor. i 1 As evidence recently presented to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission ("NRC") Appeal Board revealed:
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l l i 1 1 l
None of these phenomena [the natural processes)~is dependent on somebody
-making the right decision, equipment functioning correctly, or power being available. They are always acting.
The fact that these natural processes make the consequences of reactor accidents less severe can hardly be denied, and indeed this-point has been demonstrated in actual reactor' accidents, Three Mile Island ("TMI") included; LILCO's consultants agree, based on their reviews of'the scientific literature and on their own research, that the conclusions drawn by the County consultants about the size of releases of radioactive materials.
~from accidents at Shoreham are unduly. conservative.
B. The Behavior of People in Emergencies The draft County plan focuses on " role conflict" and suggests.that emergency workers might fail to perform their duties because they would be occupied with' evacuating their own families. But experience with actual emergencies, including j the Mississauga evacuation mentioned above, as well as the TMI incident,-shoys that trained emergency workers typically behave in an exemplary fashion. (At TMI, the main problem was that
-too many volunteers showed up to help, sometimes getting in the way.)
l
{ l The plan also discusses the " shadow effect," or overreaction. The County consultants believe that many people will evacuate even when not advised to by authorities. It is true that some people will voluntarily evacuate when there is no need. This may not, in fact, be a problem at all. To the e xtent that a problem may exist, however, it can be solved. Indeed, anticipation and resolution of problems before an event are why emergency planning is done in the first place. C. The Unfinished State of the Plan Even with all the work that went into the draft plan, much still needs to be done. As pointed out in the following overview of the draft plan, implementing details and procedures must be written for every element of the plan; facilities must be identified and letters of agreement obtained; discrepancies between the draft County plan and the state radiological emers ;sy plan must be resclved; and LILCO's onsite plan must be integrated with the County plan. Once again, the importance of a cooperative effort between LILCO and the County is highlighted. _. ________-____a
l l l D. The Evacuation Plan l Even in the case of severe accidents involving multiple j l failures of plant equipment, sheltering of the population, j rather than evacuation, would in many cases be the appropriate protective action. Nevertheless, for those extremely unlikely situations in which evacuation might be called for, it is desirable to have the best evacuation plan that can be devised. The County study calculates evacuation times and assumes that very little traffic control will be used by County authorities to facilitate evacuation. The estimated evacuation times are suspect, however, because the model on which they are based is questionable. In addition, the County consultants have pro-duced evacuation time estimates only. They have not yet developed an evacuation plan. E. Conclusion While much work went into the creation of the draft County plan, much work remains to be done. LILCO stands ready to assist the County in completing a high-quality offsite emergency plan. 1 I
I. A REVIEW OF EMERGENCY PLANNING FOR NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS
- A.,-The Purpose Of Emergency Planning An emergency plan can be viewed as an extra safety system that'provides an added measure of protection to the public beyond the protective devices already incorporated in a nuclear power plant's basic design, construction, and proposed l operational procedures. Emergency planning requires two complementary _but separate emergency plans: an onsite plan for the im' mediate station site, and an offsite plan for the area surrounding the plant. The administrative plans and procedures that comprise the onsite and offsite emergency plans for Shoreham are designed to handle the full range of hypothetical accidents from the very small, involving only nuclear plant operating personnel, to the very large, involving populations
-surrounding the plant.
Serious accidents are extremely unlikely, and the extensive technical " conservatism," or overprotection, used in plant design, construction, and operation is factored into the
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analysis of the possibility of different hypothetical acci-But in the event of a severe nuclear accident, f dents. effective emergency planning can provide safety margins of- ) public health protection in addition to the protection already f l l
i
" Conservatism," as it provided by the nuclear plant design.
applies to emergency planning, means. basing planning measures on extremely; unfavorable conditionssin order to provide an i excess-of protection in case of.an adcident. J
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An emergency involving a nuclear power plant, like many ! otherl types of emergencies, may require a relatively rapid- ] emergency. response and impose large demands on the people, organizations, and agencies that are responsible for the i effective management of the emergency. Effective response is 1 enhanced.if it'is based on' sound and' mutually snpportive pre-paredness plans and. arrangements between the different juris-dictions, levels of government, and organizations involved in the' planning process. Public safety and effective response depend not'only on how well any one organization or agency . deals with the emergency,, but also on how well the responses of different organizations are coordinated. Strict planning standards are employed to ensure that prompt'and efficient implementation of emergency protective actions significantly~ reduce the danger to the public from pos-sible radiation exposure'. Emergency plans implement current guidelines and regulations by. coordinating . governmental respon-sibilities, developing accident assessment methods, setting forth effective protective action measures, and providing evacuation plans for unique areas.
e B. A Brief History Emergency planning is not a new discipline, and it is not unique to nuclear power plants. For example, there has been considerable experience with emergency planning techniques in emergency situations involving hurricanes, tidal waves, tornadoes, floods, major fires, and transportation accidents leading to the release of toxic chemicals. l The Three Mile Island ("TMI") incident in 1979 focused greater attention on emergency planning efforts for nuclear power plants, specifically on the need to have more compre-hensive and detailed response plans. By late 1979, new emergency planning regulations were formulated by the Nuclear . Regulatory Commission ("NRC"), resulting in expanded planning requirements. As a result of TMI, regulations and guidelines provide far more detail for overall planning. C. Guidelines for Emergenev Planning The federal government, as represented by the NRC, the Department of' Energy (" DOE"), the Environmental Protection Agency (" EPA"), and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (" FEMA"), as well as the state and the county in which a plant is sited, are all concurrently active in the area of emergency planning for nuclear facilities.
- 1. State In New York, "The New York State Emergency Plan For Major Radiation Accidents Involving Nuclear Facilities" was first' published in May 1971 by the State Department of Health and the Division of Military and Naval Affairs, Office of l Disaster Preparedness. The State revised its plan for all nuclear facilities in September 1975, March 1976 and September 1978. 'Each revision updated the plan to concur with the Atomic Energy Commission and subsequently, with the NRC regulations.
The NRC approved the New York State Plan in December 1978. It met all NRC requirements as set forth in its " Guide and Check List For Development and Evaluation of State and Local Radiological Emergency Response Plans in Support of Fixed Nuclear Facilities," previously known as " WASH-1293." The State also issues a site-specific appendix to the State plan for each separate nuclear power station. The latest version of the. State-wide plan is based on a 10-mile emergency planning zone.
- 2. Federal
- a. NUREG-0396 In December 1978, an NRC-EPA Task Force released i NUREG-0396, " Planning Basis for the Development of State and Local Government Radiological Emergency Response Plans in Support of. Light Water Nuclear Power Plants." NUREG-0396 addressed a spectrum of accidents as a. basis for developing emergency response plans and established the emergency planning zone of 10 miles for evacuating the public, and 50 miles for dealing with'possible land, vegetable, and dairy product con-
.tamination. NUREG-0396 was developed as a result of a 1976 resolution by the Conference of State Radiation Control Program Directors requesting the NRC to ". . . make a determination of the most severe accident basis for which radiological emergency plans should be developed by offsite agencies." It became a-planning guide for state and local agencies.
Prior to NUREG-0396, the NRC required emergency planning for the area within approximately 5 miles of a nuclear plant. The NRC-EPA Task Force's interest in extending emergency planning to 10 miles is based on its belief that the types of severe " Class 9" accidents reported in.the Rasmussen
-report ~~(" WASH-1400") " provide a useful supplement to the i
(existing) Design Basis Accident analysis-in developing more
-comprehensive emergency plans." NUREG-0396 assesses the size-and severity of a radiological release.
Prior to issuing NUREG-0396, EPA' developed protective action guides (" PAG's") to assist public health and other governmental authorities in deciding how much of a radiation
' hazard in the environment constitutes a basis for initiating emergency protective actions. .These guides' set numerical cumu-lative. doses.that act as " trigger points" to initiate protec-tive actions. .If cumulative exposures reach the lower limits of the guides, protective action should be considered, even though PAG's are far below the dose level that could result in any noticeable health 'effect. ,
- b. NUREG-0654 In January 1980, the NRC and FEMA compiled all previously published emergency planning guidance into NUREG-0654, " Criteria for Preparation and Evaluation of Radiological Emergency Response Plans and Preparedness in Support of Nuclear Power Plants." NUREG-0654 provides a common reference and source of guidance for State and local governments and nuclear facility operators in the development of their radiological emergency response plans.
I
NUREG-0654 contains over 100 criteria applicable to the evaluation of local emergency plans. It covers 16 planning areas, including assignment of emergency planning responsi-l bilities to the licensee and State and local organizations; public notification methods and procedures; emergency communications; public education and information; accident assessment;2/ exercises and drills; and emergency response l jb/ The computer software that is used to evaluate the offsite (; . radiological impact of radioactive effluents from Shoreham is known as Effluent Monitoring Software: Package ("EMSP"). It is
.not perfect, but neither can it be said to be deficient.
Whether there are " deficiencies" in a dose assessment model depends.on what' basis of comparison is~used as the standard. If the standard is whether a model perfectly reflects what is actually happening in.the' atmosphere, then all models.are defi-cient because of the inherent limitations of mathematical modeling. If the standard is whether the model has the fea-l .tures necessary to comply with current NRC guidance, then LILCO's model has no deficiencies at all and indeed is more sophisticated than is required. The same atmospheric dispersion and dose assessment equations used at Shoreham are used at a number of other. nuclear power plants. Since the appropriate standard by which to measure a model is NRC guidance, where the issue is the health and safety of the public, LILCO's model cannot be said to have "defi-ciencies." s Nevertheless, LILCO recognizes that there are two phe-nomena that present problems for dose assessment. One is that at certain times the atmospheric conditions at coastal-sites like Shoreham are quite complex. The other is wind shift. The LILCO model is a straight-line Gaussian plume model, which means that it predicts the effects of a plume downwind in a straight line. Shifting winds could decrease.the accuracy of the model. Shifting winds and coastal wind conditions do not, (Continued on next page)
training.
- c. NUREG-0737 and Regulatory Guide 1.97 Two additional Federal guidance documents are NUREG-0737, and Regulatory Guide 1.97, which address radiolog-ical. monitoring equipment. NUREG-0737, entitled " Clarification (Continued from the previous page) however, present an insurmountable problem from a health and safety standpoint, for several reasons. First, if the wind were shifting, it would also be dispersing the radioactive material and thus lowering the doses that people would receive.
Second, if LILCO's model indicates that protective actions should be taken in a downwind sector, LILCo's procedures allow for it to recommend the same actions for the sector adjacent to the downwind sector on each side as a precaution. Third,fLILCO does not' rely solely on its dose assessment model to measure the impact of a radioactive plume. LILCO at all times will have three field monitoring teams ready to be dispatched within one hour. (NRC guidelines call for only two teams.) These teams are trained and equipped to locate the plume by actual field. measurements and to follow it, radioing this information-I back to the people directing emergency operations. Emergency planning experts agree that actual field measurements are a more accurate way to locate the plume than any model. Finally, in the case of an extremely severe or fast-developing accident (which is extraordinarily unlikely), LILCO has predetermined protective action recommendations that would allow it to recommend evacuation or sheltering to County offi-cials without any measurement or assessment of radiation dose at all. Simply stated, if plant parameters indicate that the core is. liable to melt and release radioactive materials,
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LILCO's procedures call for recommending protective actions immediately. Thus, in the case.of the most severe and most rapidly developing accidents, the dose assessment model might not be relied on at all.
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of TMI Criteria Items," requires additional post-accident sampling systems. Such systems must be designed to allow plant personnel to draw reactor coolant samples for the determination ! i of" radioactive content in the form of constituents such as nob'le gases, iodines, cesiums and other isotopes. From an analysis of this information after an accident, it is possible to gauge the status of the reactor core and its effect on pos-1. sible offsite releases. The second Federal guideline that should be highlighted is the NRC's Regulatory Guide 1.97, which suggests fourteen areas both inside and outside the plant for the location of radiation monitors. The purpose of these monitors is to improve the capability of assessing plant and environmental conditions during and following an accident. D. The Procedure for Review And ' Approval of Emergency Plans Planning for the protection of the public in the event of a release of radioactive material is a highly complex process, requiring the participation of the licensee and Federal, State, and local governments in developing and imple-menting emergency response plans. i i
V
- 1. Federal The Federal government is primarily represented in the ,
emergency planning process by the NRC, DOE, EPA, and FEMA. On
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December 7,-1979, the President directed FEMA to-assume respon-sibility for all offsite nuclear emergency planning, including approval of offsite plans. The NRC reviews and approves the onsite plan and the procedures for implementing it, and reviews and approves the overall Federal / State / County integrated plan. DOE contributes to'the overall plan by maintaining radiological assistance teams as.part of the Federal Radiological Monitor.ing Assistance Plan.2/ EPA maintains responsibility for establishing safe limits for protecting the public from excessive radiation exposure. FEMA's major function is to review offsite plans for compliance with NUREG-0654 criteria. If the plan meets the prescribed criteria, FEMA provides the NRC with a finding that the plan is acceptable. The NRC uses FEMA findings in assessing the overall adequacy of emergency preparedness. 3/ Brookhaven National Laboratory provides this support for suffolk County.
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Other Federal agencies involved in emergency response planning include the Food and Drug Administration, the Department of Transportation, and the Public Health Service of the Department 'of Health and Human Services.
- 2. New York State In New York State, the Department' of Health ("DOH") is the lead' agency for state radiological emergency response l
planning. The overall coordinating body for the State's emergency planning is the Disaster Preparedness Commission ("DPC"), which reviews offsite plans for inclusion in the State's emergency plans. Major staff support for the DPC is supplied by the Division of Military and Naval Affairs, Office of Disaster Preparedness. The State Department of Environmental Conservation is responsible for the offsite' sampling of radiological releases. In the event of a major radioactive release, the DEC may continually monitor the air, water, plant, and wildlife for excessive radiation levels; Eight other state agencies play a supportive role in responding to radiological accidents, each in accord with its responsibilities and expertise, including the Departments of Agriculture and Markets, State, Labor, Public Service,
Transportation, Education, the Division of State Police, and the State Energy Office.
- 3. Suffolk County Radiological emergency response planning is carried out on the local level by the County's Department of Emergency Preparedness, Civil Defense officials, and respective town and municipal officials who have chosen to take an initiative in this area.
II. A HISTORY OF OFFSITE EMERGENCY PLANNING FOR SHOREHAM Emergency planning for Shoreham requires.two r complementary but separate emergency plans: an onsite plan for the~immediate Shoreham station and an offsite plan for the area surrounding Shoreham. The onsite plan for Shoreham is the full responsibility of LILCO, and it was originally issued in 1982. LILCO's involvement in onsite emergency. preparedness began with the submission of an application for a construction permit to build Shoreham. Since Februa 1975, LILCO has been working on the'Shoreham Onsite Emergency Plan. LILCO also established an Emergency Planning Task' Force early in 1975. During the past six years LILCO, the Federal government, the State, and the County have been active in the area of offsite emergency planning for Shoreham. Suffolk County, by Executive Order in February 1973, directed the Department of Emergency Preparedness to develop a " Response Plan -- Specific Operating Procedures for Major Radiation Incidents." Subsequently, in early 1975, the State, County and LILCO met to define the roles and responsibilities of each body. In 1977, Mr. Norman Kelly, County Emergency Preparedness Director, was given overall responsibility for the. County's response plan, and the Suffolk County Department of-Transportation was directed to develop an evacuation plan.
1 The County released a plan in August 1978 that was l approved by then County Executive John Klein and accepted by New York State. In December 1979, the County Executive issued a " Memorandum of Understanding" expressing an agreement of cooperation with LILCO. At this time there was a high degree of cooperation between LILCO and suffolk County, notwithstanding a change in administration that took place in January 1980. On January 11, 1980, LILCO met with the Chief Deputy County Executive, John Gallagher, and his assistant, Frank Petrone, to bring the new administration up-to-date on emergency planning. On February 28, 1980, County emergency planning personnel toured the Shoreham plant site. In March 1980, LILCO met with about 60 representatives of the Suffolk County departments that would be involved with emergency planning efforts. In April and May of 1980, LILCO participated in Suffolk County Legislative hearings on nuclear power, and submitted nine volumes of material to the Legislature's Health Committee. To comply with the new NRC requirements issued in 1979, LILCO began discussions with private consulting firms to obtain a more detailed and comprehensive plan. By the fall of 1980, after discussions with LILCO, EDS Nuclear, Inc. of Melville forwarded an emergency planning proposal to Suffolk County.
t i LILCO met in September and December with Mr. Gallagher to discuss the merits of the proposal. On February 8, 1981, during a meeting between LILCO and Suffolk County, Mr. Gallagher proposed that, instead of hiring an outside indepen-dont consultant, the Suffolk County Planning Department prepare the necessary offsite response plan. On March 15, 1981, a contract was signed by Dr. Matthew C. Cordaro, Vice President for LILCO, Dr. Lee Koppelman,
. Director, Suffolk County Planning Department, 'and John Gallagher, Chief Deputy County Executive. The contract called for the County to produce an offsite radiological response-plan within six months.at a cost of $245,000. In September 1981, an amended contract was submitted to the County Legislature and accepted. On September 10, 1981, LILCO paid $150,000 by check to the Suffolk County' Planning Department, as the first payment on the contract.
During the fall and winter of 1981, work on the plan intensified. Under the direction of Dr. Koppelman and a con-sultant, Dr. , Israel Wilinitz, the Suffolk County planners made excellent progress. LILCO and Suffolk County continued to work together on this project. Most sections of the plan were completed by February 1982, but at that time the County planners indicated they would need assistance on radiological
procedures for the Health Department section in order to finish their work by the March 18 deadline. LILCO offered assistance to the County to complete the necessary section. Abruptly, on February 20, 1982, Suffolk County Deputy
. Executive Frank Jones announced that the emergency planning contract with LILCO would be cancelled. By April 15, County j planners were instructed to cease all contact with LILCo. By the end of May the principal planners working on the document were transferred from the Planning Department in Hauppauge to the Department of Public Works in Yaphank. The County sent,a check for.$150,000 to LILCO, but this check has not been cashed.
Recognizing its responsibility under Federal regulations to ensure offsite emergency preparedness, LILCO met with Federal, State, and County officials. At these meetings, attempts were made to persuade County officials to move ahead on emergency planning. On April 23 in Hicksville during one of these meetings, it was suggested that LILCO submit the original planning effort for State review. At the same meeting it was suggested to the County that the original plan be considered an interim document while any additional efforts were underway. County representatives rejected these suggestions without explanation. On April 29, LILCO officials met with the New
I i York State Commissioner of Health David Axelrod, and DPC Chairman William Hennessey, and it was agreed that the plan, as written, would be submitted to the State for review. The plan was submitted to Mr. Hennessey on May 10, with a letter of transmittal noting that Suffolk County had declined to endorse it. The State reviewed the plan during the summer of 1982 and returned it to LILCO with comments. LILCO amended the plan in response to the comments, and resubmitted it to the DPC in the fall. LILCO continued its efforts to obtain the County's cooperation in refining the existing plan or working toward a new plan. For example, on June 17, 1982, LILCO Vice President Ira Freilicher met with Mr. Jones to explore ways for the l County to proceed with emergency planning, and on September 17, 1 1982, Dr. Cordaro wrote Mr.' Gallagher, "We are willing to meet at any time and place you suggest with the County's consultants or emergency planning steering committee . . . . "4/ 4/ A copy of that letter :is Attachment A to this written statement. Likewise, on August 7, 1982, LILCO's counsel wrote to counsel for the County suggesting that one or two LILCO representatives be made a part of the County's Steering Committee and stating that LILCO was ready to resume meetings with the County to coordinate the County's planning with LILCO. l A few days later LILCO repeated the offer of a meeting in l another letter. On September 29, 1982, Dr. Cordaro invited Mr. \ Jones to an informational meeting to discuss the distribution j of tone alerts to special facilities in the vicinity of the j plant. On October 4, 1982, Dr. Cordaro wrote Mr. Gallagher, (Continued on next pige) l l
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1
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During the summer and fall'of 1982, the DPC staff reviewed the LILCo-submitted offsite plan,-and determined that the plan satisfied State and Federal requirements. A hearing was scheduled for December.8 for the entire DPC to consider the LILCo-submitted offsite emergency plan. The DPC asked the County to participate in the hearing, so that the DPC would i havefthe benefit of the County's comments or objections on the plan. 1 - Rather than participate in the state administrative process, the County sought to enjoin the DPC from holding the hearing. On December 7, New York State Supreme Court Justice Edward S. Conway granted the County's request and issued a tem-
, porary order restraining the DPC's December.3 meeting until a preliminary injunction hearing could be held on December 10. l On December 10, an agreement regarding the DPC's consideration of an offsite plan for Shoreham was te'ntatively reached among _
the DPC, LILCO and.the County. (Continued from the previous page) ; and said that "we are willing and anxious to cooperate with the County in this [ emergency planning) endeavor." On October 7,
'1982, W. G. Schiffmacher, Manager, Electrical Engineering l
Department, wrote Mr. Jones decribing the Shoreham Prompt j Notification Siren System, as Mr. Jones had requested, and asking permission to-proceed with the installation of On November 11, j communications equipment at County facilities. l l 1982, Dr. Cordaro wrote Mr. Jones, asking permission and cooperation regarding some six items involving communications among emergency personnel and the public. I i i j
on December 15, attorneys for Suffolk County, New York State, and LILCO met before New York State Supreme Court Justice Robert C. Williams, and agreed upon a stipulation that provided that the DPC will refrain from further action on the LILCO-submitted plan until February 23, 1983. During this time Suffolk County is to continue to work on elements of its draft plan. If the Suffolk County Legislature rejects the draft plan or does not file a plan with the State by February 22, 1983, the DPC will meet to consider the LILCO-submitted plan, and be free to forward the LILCO plan to FEMA for review. On December 23, 1982, by a letter from Legislator John Wehrenberg, LILCO was invited to participate in the Legislative hearings on the. draft County plan, and to submit a written statement on the plan. LILCO hopes there will be a renewed relationship of cooperation between the Company and the County on emergency planning as a result of LILCO's participation.
III. LILCO'S WILLINGNESS TO COOPERATE LILCO recos .zes that a valuable ingredient in emergency. planning is a spirit of cooperation between the Company and the County. Coopera'tive efforts serve the greater public interest by ensuring a high degree of thoughtful coordi-nation.of responsibilities by LILCO and County organizations and personnel. Such efforts are also in the best interests of LILCO and'the County, fostering the sense of a unified commu-nity effort and furthering'a common purpose. In'this spirit of cooperation, LILCO has in the past indicated its willingness to provide assistance to the County, on emergency planning. For example, LILCO' recognized the potential expense of the County's efforts to undertake effective offsite emergency planning. To help the County in those efforts, LILCO authorized the funding of the County's independent work on such planning. While the County later rejected LILCO's' funding, LILCO remains willing to assist in a variety of ways in the County's emergency planning efforts.5/ S/ In this connection, it is important to note that from 1967 through December 1982, LILCO paid to the County, the Town of Brookhaven, and numerous other tax districts, over $140 million in property and school taxes. Assuming Shoreham commences operation, it is estimated that LILCO will pay annual 1983 taxes of $42 million on Shoreham, of which amount over $14 mil-lion will go specifically to suffolk County. Moreover, if current' assessment practices continue, in the next four years (Continued on next page) k.
)
4 l Indeed, LILCO has not even cashed the County's $150,000 refund I check for LILCO monies previously advanced. In sum, LILCO i remains vitally interested in exploring with the County those suggestions or proposals that the County believes would be i beneficial in emergency planning efforts. LILCO and the County are also fortunate in that Cou$ty support and service organizations have highly specialized and motivated individuals employed or volunteering their services. In this respect, the County offers a superlative array of tal-ents and activities for a local government engaged in emergency planning efforts. LILCO's own personnel, who LILCO believaa are also of the highest professional caliber, are ready to join with the County's own excellent emergency forces to provide suffolk County citizens with a superior emergency preparedness team. (Continued from the previous page) LILCO will pay between $50 and $55 million annually in property taxes, assuming Shoreham is operating. 7.
IV. A REVIEW OF THE COUNTY PLAN The draft County plan is a good first draft, but, as pointed out in the overview to the plan, it needs considerable work to pass muster on State and Federal requirements. Using NUREG-0654 as a. guide for'the adequacy of the draft County plan- procedures are to be written for every element of the plan, 14tters of agreement are to be filed with all outside organizations being. relied 1upon, all necessary materials and equipment are to be identified, and key facilities are to be established. To illustrate tdue extent of the work remaining to complete the plan, tan examination of Part I, Accident
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(
. Assessment, follows.
The County plan must detail explicitly the personnel: and resources available to perform downwind dose assessment and field monitoring during a radiological emergency. It is currently New York State policy to rely upon County field moni-toring teams, rather than State teams. Therefore, it is neces-sary for the bounty to provide teams with assistance from Brookhaven National Laboratory ("BNL"). i 4 l
To perform a downwind dose assessment, the following items must be identified by the County: a) The titles of the persons within the County organi-zations who will perform the assessments must be i identified. This is not a procedural item but is a basic planning concept that belongs in the plan. If coordination is going to be arranged with BNL, then their personnel must also be identified. b) The Dese Assessment Model used must be identified. The plan must coordinate among New York State, LILCO, and SNL on the transmission and use of radi-ological data. Again, this is a planning basis item that cannot be left to procedures. c) Field team personnel must be identified. These are the teams who will'be directed to monitor the plume at various downwind locations. The plan must identify what equipment the teams will use, how they will be notified, and their expected response times. In addition, procedures addressing the following items must be drafted:
4 l a) Names of personnel; b) Training or background qualifications; c) . Personnel training and drill program; d) Personnel rotation or on-duty procedure; e) Personnel notification; f) Personnel reporting and dispatch;' g) Dose assessment;- h) Field monitoring; i) Selection of downwind monitoring locations; l j) Identification and purchase of radiological and communications equipment; k) Coordination with New York State, LILCo, and BNL; and
- 1) Personnel dosimetry.
The Accident Assessment section discussed above is just one of 15 sections in the draft County plan. The remaining 14 sections, some of which are more complex, also will require comparable effort before the plan is complete. 1 1 I i 1
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V THE TWENTY-MILE EMERCENCY PLANNING ZONE (EPZ) An unusual feature of the draft County plan is.the 20-mile. radius of the EPZ (referred to in the County plan as the
" outer ring"), rather thanfthe generally accepted 10 miles.
The zone covers an area four times larger than Federal law requires and is extremely conservative.6/ There are two principal reasons why this " conservatism"
'was built into the draft County plan. First, the County con-sultants' criterion for selecting the EPZ distance is, substantially more conservative than the one used by the Federal government and adopted for most nuclear. plants.
Second, the County consultants used estimates'of the amounts of radioactive materials that would be released by accidents at' Shoreham (called " source terms") that are themselves conserva-tive. The result is that the draft. County plan encompasses considerably more people and territory, and will accordingly require more resources to implement, than most authorities 1
-6/ By " conservative" we mean that the harm that may result from an accident at the Shoreham station is overestimated.
Conservatism in policy decisions and in technical analysis supporting those decisions is often used when more realistic evaluations are not practical because of expense or lack of information. l
l l believe is necessary. It is based on a very cautious (conservative) assessment of the risks of certain very improb-able events (core-melt accidents). LILCO recognizes that it is the responsibility of the County government to make'such dif-ficult judgments about what the public welfare requires, and LILCO stands ready to help the County implement an emergency plan. But before the County Legislature makes a decision on an EPZ, it should be aware of the log.c used to support such an unusually large EPZ, as well as the relative advantages and disadvantages. A. The Criterion Of Risk Used By The County Consultants The size of the zore, whether it be the 10-mile zone employed elsewhere or the 20-mile zone proposed by the County consultants, is essentially determined by the criterion of risk used in setting the size. The difference between the 10-mile zona and the 20-mile zone is not due to the County consultants' taking account of " unique local conditions" on Long Island, but to the'ris'k criterion they used. In fact, had the County's consultants merely applied conventional analysis to the rel-evant local conditions, the result would be an EPZ radius of less, not more, than 10 miles.
. I 1
- 1. :The Federal Government's Approach The 10-mile EPZ is endorsed by the Federal and State governments. .There is.a growing belief that 10 miles is larger-than necessary;2/.one of the Commissioners of the NRC said as
- much in a speech this past fall. But the 10-mile zone is the result of close study and is for the moment the national stan-dard. The reasoning on which it is premised was developed by a joint Task Force of the NRC and EPA, and the 10-mile zone-is accepted by FEMA as well. This reasoning is set forth in NUREG-0396, mentioned above.
One tool that can be used to establish the size of the
-EPZ is a graph showing the odds of receiving given doses in remsB/ at different distances from the reactor. Assuming that .2/. The reason is that new data and analyses are showing that radioactive material releases would be.less than the conserva-tive estimates used in the past'as-the basis for the 10-mile zone.
8/. In order to talk about the development of the EPZ, it is necessary to understand a little about exposure to radiation. l Radiation exposure is measured in " rems." Everyone receives about 1/10 of'one rem each year from natural, largely una-voidable background sources, including radioactive materials in his own body and cosmic rays, the effects of which increase at high altitudes. For example, people who live in Denver receive a higher dose of radiation than people who live at sea level; natural background radiation averages 0.078 rem for the United States as a whole but is as low as 0.065 rem in Louisiana and as high as 0.117 rem in Colorado. Radioactivity also comes from natural gas burned in (Continued on next page) i
I A i l l a highly unlikely core-melt accident and containment failure
'(Continued from the-previous page) stoves, and from some consumer products such as television f sets.. Common. building materials are also sources of radiation.
For example,.a newspaper vendor working 40 hours a week near i the Vanderbilt Avenue entrance to Grand Central Station would receive five times the dose that the average'American receives, because the granite used to build Grand Central Station was. 1 quarried at a place in. Connecticut where the rock has a rela-tively.high level of natural radioactivity. (This illustration is attributable to scientist-author Dr. Ralph E. Lapp.) The actual radiation dose that individuals receive rou - tinely is greater than the above figures suggest because people also receive radiation doses from medical x-rays and , radiopharmaceuticals, such as radioactive iodine used in thy-roid function tests. The average American gets about 0.10 rem per year from these sources. There is a scientific controversy over the health effects of. low-level radiation. In that regard, the County legislators should be aware of two things. First, that there is a range of estimates of.the cancer effects of low-level radiation. The estimates of the cancer risk in the draft County plan are near the high (conservative) and of this range; a midrange value would be some 2 to 5 times less. This does not mean that the
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County consultants are necessarily wrong, but they are adhering to a minority opinion. L l Second, the ongoing reanalysis of the Japanese atomic bomb data, relied on in the draft County plan, is itself contro-l E versial, and it is too early to determine what the implications of'that reanalysis are. Some experts say that the new information may result in a lowering of health effects estimates, rather than the raising that the County plan suggests. But the f airest assessment is that it is simply too early to say. It is worth noting, however, that the two scientists responsible for the reanalysis on which the draft , County plan relies have written a letter to the journal Science in which they said, "[v]e take exception to statements that our results show gamma radiation is much more hazardous than q - previously assumed." Science, July 24, 1981, page 6. Brief accounts of the controversy and the views of various scientists may be found'in Science, the issues of May 22, 1981 (pages 900-903), June 19, 1981 (pages 1364-1365), July 24, 1981 (pages , 1 392-94), and July 3, 1981 (pages 6-8). I l l i J have occurred at a nuclear plant, exposure to radioactivity ordinarily tends to decrease as one gets farther from the ! l l plant. The' planner can choose a particular radiation exposure (say 200 rems or 50 rems) and a probability of exceeding that j dose and then use the graph to determine within what distance from the plant the chosen probability of exceeding the chosen dose exists. It should be emphasized that there is no. rule that tells tne planner what probability or what dose to select; the choice is a matter of judgment. There simply is no princi-ple of science that prescribes that planning is needed out to a L certain distance but no farther, any more than there is n'prin-ciple of science to tell us the risk of driving 55 miles an
. hour is acceptable while 56 miles an hour is too risky.
The Federal Task Force that addressed the problem of EPZ size in 1978 made a judgment, based in part on plots of I The data used were from
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dose probabilities versus distances. the government's "probabilistic risk assessment" ("PRA"), known as the Reactor Safety Study WASH-1400, or the Rasmussen Report, which was based in part on a typical boiling water reactor. Using data from WASH-1400, the Federal planners plotted the relative probabilities of exceeding certain critical radia-tion doses, given an extremely severe (" Class 9") accident, as a function of distance from the power plant. When the
4 probabilities of core melt accidents were plotted in this manner, the Federal planners found that "the probability of large doses [that is, 200 rems) drops off substantially at about 10 miles from the reactor." NUREG-0396 at I-37. From this and other information,9/ the Task Force concluded that a 10-mile radius was the appropriate distance at which to establish the EPZ. Since beyond 10 miles the radiation doses dropped off rapicly even without protective actions, planning for a 10-mile distance will concentrate planning resources where the greatest potential for increasing the protection to the public exists.
- 2. The County's Approach The Suffolk County consultants also started with a probabilistic study, quite similar to the one used by the Federal government except that it is specific to the Shoreham site and design. The consultants' conclusions about the EPZ ]
9/ The Task Force also looked at less severe accidents within' the design basis of nuclear plants. They found that the radia-tion dose "is seen to sharply decrease within 10 miles and to decrease slowly at greater distances." NUREG-0396 at I-34. In addition, the Task Force performed an evaluation of the relative merits of possible offsite protective actions. This approach confirmed the Task Force's recommendations on the distances and times for which planning is appropriate. NUREG-0396 at I-44.
I f size differ, however, from~the NRC-EPA Task Force's conclusions because:the County consultants used a different risk criterion to set their.EPZ bounds. As the NRC-EPA Task Force had done, the County consultants produced plots of radiation dose prob-ability versus distance from the plant (for example, Figure 12 from the Finlayson-Radford report; Figure 12 is the keystone of
-the County consultants' selection of EPZ size). They used those plots to choose an EPZ radius.
The County consultants used 200 rems as the dose above. which early deaths from radiation can occur. They then chose a 1% conditional probability as their criterion and found that, according to dae plot, the chance'of receiving 200 rems would be only 1 in.100, even assuming a core-melt accident occurs. This analysis produced the 5-7 mile " inner ring." This " inner ring," it is important to recognize, corresponds in concept to the Federal government's 10-mile EPZ. The reason the former is 5-7 miles in radius while the latter is 10 miles is that the calculated results of accidents at the
-Shoreham plant are less severe than.the results calculated in NUREG-0396. In other words, had the County planners used the same risk criterion that the Federal government used, but with
. the Shoreham-specific draf t PRA, they would have come up with an emergency planning zone of substantially less than the 10-mile EPZ required by the Federal government.
I i
,A
__.____..__..m_..____-________
The County consultants, however, decided to determine an EPZ distance designed to offer protection against,a lower dose. They went through the same analysis described above with the curve for 30 rems, selected by the County consultants as the " lower limit of-doses where early injuries might be pro-duced."lO/ Finlayson & Radford at 48. Again using the 1% probability criterion, the consultants found that their' curves , showed that the chance of receiving a 30-rem dose, assuming a core-melt. accident had occurred, to be only 1% at a distance'of
'20 miles from the plant. Thus, 20 miles became the radius of I
the " outer ring." In short, the County consultants chose the size of their EPZ by picking a conditional probabilityll/ of 1% and 10/ With regard to early fatality and earl'y injury thresholds, we note that-the County consultants use somewhat different threshold doses than those commonly used. The County consult-ants define the dose for early illness as 30 rems. (It is well to' remember that the immediate effect of a 30-rem dose consists of nothing more than slight changes in the-white blood count, 1 L the same kind of changes that occur in mild flu cases.) In f NUREG-0396, the early illness threshold is defined by the NRC as 50 rems, the dose above which nausea and related symptoms lasting a' day or two would appear. The County consultants select 200 rems'as the early fatality threshold. In NUREG-0396, 200 rems is called the dose above which "signifi-cant early injury" would occur. As explained in Appendix VI of
. WASH-1400, doses in the range of 200 to 300 rems without ' medical treatment could lead to early fatality. But even ; modest medical treatment could push the threshold to about 320 r ems .-
gli Other considerations besides probability, such as the shadow effect," went into the recommendation of 20 miles. The shadow effect is discussed elsewhere in this statement. l
d then finding the distances from the plant at which the prob-1 chility of exceeding specified doses dropped to 1%. The "specified doses" picked were 200 rems for the inner ring, the same as.the Federal government used, and, in addition, 30 rems i for-the outer ring. Obviously, the size of the EPZ depends on the radiation dose and probability chosen by the planners. If the County's consultants had chosen a higher dose criterion ~(say, 100 rems instead of 30 rems) or a higher probability of receiving such a dose (5% or 10% instead of 1%), then tho' zone would be smaller. For example, the-County consultants' risk curves would have produced a 10-mile " outer ring" if any of the following crite-ria.had been used:
- 1. One percent probability of 100 rems;
- 2. Ten percent. probability of 50 rems; or g 3. Twenty percent probability of 30 rems.
Thus, the first factor that causes the County consultants' EPZ to be larger than the standard 10-mile zone is simply that they have picked m.different point on the risk curve to draw their
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line. l
B. Accident Mitigation'At Shoreham The second factor that makes the County consultants' work conservative is that the analysis is based on conservative
" source, terms" -- that is, conservative estimates'of the l: amounts of radioactive materials that would be released during accidents.
- 1. Fission Product Retention for Severe Accidents It is important to recognize that even for a very severe accident -- one which results in serious core damage
'(with large fission product releases from the core) combined ,
with containment failure -- there are many natural processes at work that will retain within the reactor complex large fractions of the fission products other than the noble ~ gases. Most of these mitigating processes have traditionally been ignored in assessing the consequences of reactor accidents. During the wartime development of atomic energy, a practice developed of overestimating hasards by making
" bounding assumptions" if complete data were not available.
This practice was continued by the Atomic Energy Commission ("AEC") when it began to regulate the new commercial nuclear industry. i
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l The first attempt-to assess the potential consequences of a major reactor accident to a commercial reactor (WASH-740) was a study completed at Brookhaven National Laboratory in 1957. The objective of this study was to provide an estimate . l of the upper limit to the consequences (without regard to the probabilities) that might be involved in such accidents in
' order to help the Congress ensure that legislation then being considered to provide government indemnification of the public would be adequate. This study was based on ultraconservative, even extraordinary, assumptions, and very large consequences were postulated. For years,the response to this study was not to question the validity of the assumptions, but to say that the accident simply could not happen.
In 1962 the AEC issued TID-14844, which represented the agency's resolution of the mechanism to be used for the licens-ing of power reactors. A paraphrase of the assumptions in , TID-14844 is the following:- Given a severe accident to the plant, the reactor shall be assumed to be damaged to the extent that, - (a) 100% of the noble gases shall escape into containment, (b) 50% of the halogens shall escape likewise, but half of this quantity will be assumed to " plate out," and (c) 1% of the solid metallic fission products shall be airborne. l
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O 1
'It was generally agreed that the presence of these
. quantities of fission products in the containment atmosphere t-
.would imply an accident,very much worse than'could reasonably be assumed, and so if protection for this case were provided, a.
- plant would be eligible-for a license and for operation. .
'These assumptions were near-ideal because they allowed both regulation and promotion of atomic energy to be accommo-dated with small penalty to either effort. Unfortunately, the technical' aspects of TID-14844 were not backed by adequate knowledge of' fission product' chemistry and physics, thermal-hydraulics, and aerosol behavior. Furthermore, the apparent unassailability.of the' assumptions (for regulation) did little 1di stimulate investigation and consideration of the actual -
behavior of reactors during accident conditions. In fact, two decades of application of TID-14844 and related documents have created an air of realism about the postulated escape of-fission products from core to containment. Even now, nearly four years after TMI, some believe that iodine will exist and act during accidents as do the noble gases. This overly conservative. tradition was reinforced by WASH-1400, published in 1975. This study evaluated risk for nuclear electric power stations, which required evaluation of both the consequences and the. probability of the accident. 1 l
)
1 l _ . _ _ _ _ . _ _ _ _ - _ _ - _ _ _ - i
Generally, this massive and precedent-setting study showed that unless (1) the fuel and cladding were both damaged, (2) the primary system was damaged, and (3) the containment failed, the public health and safety consequences would'be very small or even negligible; only if all the engineered safety _ features were to fail would the consequences to the public be signifi-cant. However, the probability of such an accident was found to be almost vanishingly small and, hence, the risk to the public'was acceptably low -- that is, significantly less than comparable accidents in other industries. Because the probabilities of these very severe accidents were predicted to be so low, it was comfortable to continue the tradition of using " bounding assumptions" with little or'no attenuation of fission products as they move ~from core to primary system to containment and possibly to the environment. There is now, however, a growing awareness in the scientific community that accident source terms used in the past are much too high. For example, if a core is allowed to get hot enough, whether or not melting occurs, on the order of 100% of the noble gases and 50% of the cesiums and iodines can i become volatile. There is little or no quarrel with the initial. core release source terms. However, the proposition ;
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that-these materials, once vaporized, are chemically inert and
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remain volatile as they encounter lower temperatures, cooler curfaces, water and water vapor, and particulate in the air as. L they make~their way through the primary system, containment, and the surrounding reactor building into the external . atmosphere' defies not only the laws of physics and chemistry but flies in the face of evidence available from experiment and
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-setual accident experience. That the presently used source sterms are overstated is certain. The only uncertainty is the degree to which they are overstated.
Part of the new evidence on the conservatism of source terms is the work of Dr. Walton A. Rodger, who for the past Lthree years has been-involved in a number of studies of the behavior of radioactive materials under accident conditions. Some of these have been directe'd specifically at the Shoreham reactor.12/ At Three Mile Island,2, although some 13 milion curies of noble gases were vented from the system, only about 20 1 curies of iodine 131 ("I-131") were released over the entire course of the event, and most of that came from the Auxiliary Building. Since about 70 million curies of I-131 were initially in the core, the attenuation factor for iodine, about Dr. Rodger's work, an independent calculation of source 12/ conservation, term is part of the Shoreham PRA effort. l 1
l l l i l 3 million, is in striking ceatrast to the factor of about 3 i i f used in most previous calculations. It differs, in fact, by a factor of a'million.13/ In other words, only one-one millionth of the predicted amount of iodine actually escaped. . 13/ AtStates United TMI, even though it was the worst reactor accident in history, no member of the public received a dose greater than one-tenth rem (about the same as Dr. everyone Rodgerreceives has each year from natural background sources). calculated a set of source terms that take into account the reasonably expected natural processesAof removal ofoffission comparison these products during accident sequence 1. cource terms with those used by the County's consultants is chown in the following table: Comparison Of Source Terms Fraction Core Inventory Release Isotope PRA Table 3.75 Estimates 0.99 1 Kr-Xe
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OI 0.0003 O.024 0.001 Elemental I I Iodine 0.00021 , Cs 0.039 0.001 Te 0.17 0.001 Ba 0.0039 0.01 O.022 0.01 Ru 0.0038 0.001 l La This fact was observed by the County's consultant, Dr. Budnitz. Future Resources Associates report at 6, 63-64.
It should be noted that the Shoreham reactor (a boiling water reactor) unlike TMI (a pressurized water reactor), incor-porates a suppressionLpool. This provides a mechanism that would be highly effective in absorbing fission products, were they to be released from the reactor vessel following a degraded core accident. The Shoreham containment is designed and b'uilt so that for most accident sequences, fission products
-released from the reactor vessel will enter the drywell and be transported to the suppression pool, where they will be absorbed or scrubbed. As will be explained below, General Electric, the manufacturer of the Shoreham reactor, has i
recently completed a scrubbing test program to substantiate more realistic suppression pool decontamination factors. The Shoreham draft PRA report by SAI reflects only to a small extent the growing awareness of the scientific community that in the past source. terms have been grossly overstated. Thus, the source terms presented in the draft PRA, and quite I properly used by the County consultants, represent a signifi-cant overstatement of the source terms. Mr. Thomas Potter of Pickard, Lowe & Carrick, Inc., has ! used Dr. Rodger's source terms to produce risk curves of the same type as presented in the draft County plan (Table 12 of the Finlayson-Radford report). The risk curves produced by Mr.- i Potter (which are still conservative, in Dr. Rodger's view) show the conditional probability of exceeding 30 rems as a-function of downwind distance to be the following. j i conditional Probability l Downward distance (miles) of exceeding 30 rems j 1 2.3 . 6.3 5 10 1.0 15 lees than 1.0 20 less than 1.0 Thus, it can be seen that the consequences expected from a
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sequence 1 event are very significantly less than those suggested by the County. consultants. The use of more realistic source terms results in a 1% probability of exceeding a dose of 30 rems at 10 miles. That is, the use of more realistic source terms, using the risk crite'rion chosen by the County consult-ants, results in a 10-mile'EPZ. t The mechanisms that mitigate the release of radioactive materials discussed above h' ave been recognized by the NRC's Appeal Board. In a decision this past October, the Appeal i Board reviewed evidence tha't had been presented based on the measurements of radioactive releases from several actual reactor accidents. Accidents at five reactors have resulted in core damage but no significant release of radioactive material. Three major reactor accidents (Windscale, the SL-1 reactor, and
.TMI) have resulted in some radioactive releases, but only small fractions of the radioactive iodine in the core were actually released. The Board concluded as follows:
Our concern . . . is heightened by the fact that witnesses for both the Staff and the Commonwealth at the TMI-l restart hearing emphasized evacuation as the protective action of choice for major accidents. If Mr. Levenson's conclusions on the emission of radioactive releases from power reactors are reasonable representations of reality (and we believe they are), unnecessary evacuations are likely to occur. Unnecessary evacuation of a large number of the general public because-of unrealistic expectations of radia-tion dosage is not " conservative" and is q likely to be counterproductive. We strongly urge the Commission to expedite its consideration of-the data and arguments presented by Levenson, Campbell and others. We believe that the data from actual reactor accidents are too strong to be ignored. (Footnote omitted.)
- 2. Suppression Pool Scrubbing The Shoreham reactor incorporates a suppression pool in its containment design, which provides an additional mechanism to absorb fission products should they be released from the reactor vessel following a degraded core accident. The suppression pool is a unique feature in General Electric nuclear plants such as Shoreham, and its capability to retain fission products to the expected plate-out in the reactor
* . _ _ -__-_-_- L
o "j .
)
The Shoreham primary system ensures' low offsite releases. contairyment-is de Aigned and built so that for most accident
]
coquandes, fission products released from the reactor vessel will enter the1 pool directly through the safety relief valve
. discharge lines. For pipe banks in 'the drywell, fission products will be transported through the downcomers to.the The l suppression pool, where they will be absorbed or scrubbed.
. capability of the suppression pool was highlighted .in a number of areas inLthe report prepared by the County consultant.
General Electhic has recently completed a fission product scrubbing test program to substantiate more realistic suppression pool decontamination factors ("DF's") and has concludedithat the.DF's assumed for suppression pool scrubbing. The {in the Shoreham draft PRA are extremelyLconservative. IA i : County consultants acknowledged the conservatism in the 19U4 3. analysis: "In our opinion the' suppression pool, and the way the Shoreham design provides for prompt passage of melted core material to it in these unlikely accidents, will be very. effective in f.ission-product removals" (Future Resources Associates report at 66). These tests, which were done subsequent to the SAI tal-culations in the draft FRA report, confirmed the capability of the suppression pool to retsin fission products and i
o demonstrated.that the suppression pool would reduce particulate fission product releases by factors of 100 to greater than 3,000. The fission products are primarily salts and, once dis-solved in water,.they remain there. This effect was demonstrated'at Three Mile Island, where particulate fission products such as cesium and iodine were retained in the water. Therefore, primarily noble gas fission products would be released from the plant. The offsite doses from noble gases result from exposure to the passing cloud; they do not deposit on the ground, nor are they retained in the body. Once the cloud has passed there-is no further exposure to the public. The graph on the following pagc shows the results of a 1 i e realistic calculation performed by General Electric of the i offsite doses for an accident much more severe (that is, ! involving many more equipment failures) than Three Mile Island in which the particulate fission products have been retained by the suppression pool water.14/ 14/ The, postulated accident parameters used to produce the graph were the same as Event 1 in the Shoreham draft PRA with the following exceptions:
- a DF of 10 was assumed for primary system retention;
- suppression pool DF's of 3,000 and 100 were used for safety relief valve and downcomer discharges, respectively; (Continued on next page)
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l i 1 For accidents beyond current licensing considerations, where'all prevention systems are postulated to fail (that is, extraordinarily unlikely events), the resulting doses do not exceed the safe limit already in existence for events consid-ered as part of the licensing process. -{ In short, the Shoreham design provides a large safety. margin beyond current licensing requirements. The results of these safety features, especially suppression pool fission product' scrubbing, could mean that no evacuation of the public would be necessary even for extremely unlikely events in which the prevention systems-failed to prevent core damage. , (Continued from the previous page)
-- the most likely containment failure location was assumed to be at the anchorage in the wetwell;
- fission product release fractions were as follows:
Species Traction of Core Inventory Releastd Noble Gas 1.0 Iodine 4 x 10-4 Cesium 1 x 10-4
' Tellurium 1 x 10-4 Strontium 5 x 10-4 Ruthenium 2.5 x 10-3 Lanthanum 5 x 10-4
- doses are the mein of 91 weather conditions; l
1
- no evacuation was assumed.
i L
r Thel extremely small risks from a nuclear accident faced by people.in the 10- to 20-mile outer ring mean that the bena-fits of extending the planning zone from 10 to 20 miles are l also small. -The costs of implementing a plan in that larger These considera-area, on the other hand, will be substantial. , tions are addressed'in the next section. LC. Costs and Benefits of the 20-Mile EPZ It is important to focus on what is hoped to be gained by. expanding the EPZ from 10 to 20 miles. The conditional probability of receiving a dose of 30 rems at 10 miles, assuming a core-melt accident occurs, appears from the County c'onsultant's Figure 12. to be less than 20%, as compared to about 1% at 20 miles. To find the absolute probability one has to multiply the 20% by the probability each year of having a core melt in the first place, which the County consultants say is about 1 in 10,000. So the County consultants would expand the planning area fourfold for the purpose of encompassing an area where the yearly chance of receiving 30 rems (based on the County consultants' conservative analysis) ranges from less than one in 50,000 (at 10 miles) down to one in a million (at 20 miles). By contrast, the chance of being killed in a car accident on Long Island each year is much greater -- about one in 5000. ('
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f
/
4 The additional cost of implementing the plan over the
'oxpanded-area would be substantial, and would include the
. purchase and installation of equipment (for example, communications, monitoring' instruments, alarm systems) and the J cost.of initial training of emergency personnel (for example, Annual operating
; polic e., firemen, school district personnel).
costs would include several full-time County staff to maintain a state'of readiness, maintenance and routine testing of and drills. equipment, periodic retraining of emergency forces, The annual budget for maintaining an adequate state of pre-paredness could be in the range of several million dollars. Obviously, th's costs of this protection must be borne by the
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Suffolk County taxpayer or consumer of electricity (usually the same person). Regrettably, the societal resources available to A protect the public health and safety are not unlimited. county government must make difficult choices on how to allocate.its funds among its public safety responsibilities -- police and fire protection, highway safety, public health serv-ices. Funding for one safety function reduces the resources available for others.15/ 15/ This discussion is dependent in part upon an analysis Inc., of Patchogue, New York. byfEnergy Education Exponents, l l
Thus, the question of higher cost of the 20-mile EP2 ought to be balanced against alternative options for investing in public safety. For example, the high death rate from traffic accidents on Long Island, noted above, could doubtless be reduced by lowering the speed limit, hiring more highway patrolmen, or implementing more stringent measures against drunken drivers. Almost certainly the lives saved per dollar spent in these ways would be far greater than by expanding the emergency planning zone.
P 1
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i VI. THE PRC VOORHEES EVACUATION ESTIMATES In the unlikely event an accident resulting in offsite l releases of radiation occurs at Shoreham, it may be necessary I to take protective actions to minimize radiation exposure to, l To that end, Federal the residents around Shoreham. regul'ations require an offsite emergency plan to include an ovacuation plan. As the title indicates, " Preliminary Evacuation Time Estimates for the Shoreham EPZ," prepared by PRC Voorhees ("PRC") (November 1982), does not constitute an evacuation plan. It is primarily a compendium of evacuation time ostimate's based upon the premise of a 20-mile EPZ that is divided into seven sectors. The simulation model used by PRC is applicable to a linear route, that is, an arterial road or an expressway. It is not designed to analyze all roadways available for evac-untion. Using this model, PRC has limited its analysis to four This approach
" major" evacuation routes and some subroutes.
results in the concentration of the entire evacuating pop-ulation on a limited number of routes, rather than on all t I existing roadways. The PRC time estimates could be reduced by In addition, expanding the number of roads used in evacuating. it appears that estimates of capacity in the PRC report have
n been inflated to counteract the use of fewer routes and to produce time estimates that appear reasonable. Mere detailed comments on various sections of the PRC report follow: A. Traffic Routing l The report states on page 15, "The purpose of the evac-untion is to remove the population of the Shoreham EPZ as rapidly as possible." This stated objective of evacuation is actually secondary to the primary one, which'is to minimize exposure of the population to radiation dosage. The distinction between these two objectives is that routing of traffic must take into account that people are to be moved on a strategic route as well as a direct route. For example, those peoplewholiveeastofShobehamcanberoutedsouthwardto take the Sunrise Highway, rather than being routed the most direct way, westward, which would move them toward the plant to an' area of higher radiation' dosage. l In thd County's 20-bile EPZ, there are seven sectors defined by PRC, a relatively low number. By contrast, in the Indian Point EPZ'there are 46 emergency response planning areas ("ERPA's," which are synonymous with " zone" and " sector") pro-posed. In an actual emergency, smaller zones make it possible
l1 l to-specify different protective actions for different zones, .) requiring the actual evacuation of fewer people. B. Capacity Estimates The capacity estimates in the consultants' report for arterial highways and for secondary routes are higher than , those given in_the standard Capacity Manual used by traffic planners. The capacity, Manual indicates a capacity of 750 vehicles.per hour per lane ("vphl") for arterials when the "G/C" is 0.5. The "G/C" is the ratio of signal green time to cycle time. This C/C : ratio indicates the amount of green time provided for traffic along the arterial by the signals located et intersections. The only way that an. arterial can develop the 1500 to 1600 vphl given by PRC is if all signals are turned to perpetual green and no cross traffic is allowed to enter or leave the arterial -- that is, if the arterial acts very much ! like an expressway. But the PRC plan also calls for the opera-tien of the traffic signal system as usual, and for police officers to be designated at " key locations, mainly intersections." In addition, most of the traffic signals are "actu-ated" -- that is, the cycle length of the lights expands as congestion increases. An arterial controlled by traffic b
t
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cignals acts like a chain where the weakest link in the chain is that intersection that has the least capacity. This least . l capacity will occur at an intersection where the G/C capacity is lowest or where heavy turning movements limit the rate of discharge and thereby lower the capacity. LILCo's traffic consultant KLD has taken field data to measure capacity along the major east-west, two-way, two-lane arterials (North Country Road and Routes 25A and 25). These
~ data indicate that with the signals operating normally, the maximum per lane capacity is 950 vehicles per hour, consistent with the Capacity Manual estimates.
PRC does not provide the detail for the assignment'of
~ traffic to secondary roads. Assigning vehicles would disperse the demand over the available roadways, thereby reducing travel time.
r it; l t 4
i
)
In'short, the model employed by PRC Voorhees produces _ ques tionable evacuation. time-estimates.16/ 16/- In Exhibit B-5 on pace B-10 of the PRC report, there is a printout cf the output of the program for the Montauk Highway "subroute." .On closer. examination, it'is noted that.the longest leg queue between intersections.10 and 11 is 345 vehi-cles. . It is assumed that the queue is along Montauk Highway, which is servicing evacuatitg traffic in the westbound direction. .Given this, we can relate this queue length to.the storage capacity of the roadway between intersections 10 and 11;. tha't is, between Route 97 and Route 65. The total distance between intersectienc 10 and 11 is approximately 4500 feet. Even if we assert that j am density is 200 vehicles per mile ("vpm"), which is high, the maximum number of vehicles.that-could be stored on the section of Montauk Highway between.these .l
. intersections is approximately 170, about half'the number of vehicles that the PRC model indicates is actually stored under the worst conditions. .Other estimates of queue length given in the. table also exceed the storage capacity between the indi-cated intersections along Montauk Highway.
Exhibit B-4 on page B-10 indicates in a summary of the 1 Sunrise Highway evacuation route that it requires 14 3/4 hours
~
to evacuate 13,382 vehicles. Assuming congestion prevails
- throughout that period, as stated earlier in the PRC text, the capacity of Sunrise Highway can be determined.using the ratio 13,382/14.75; This ratio produces a capacity of approximately
~
.907 vehicles perchour, compared with-estimated values of 3300 to 4950 vehicles per hour given in Table 2 on page 6.
Exhibit B-6 on'page B-11 is a tabular report for spe-cific congeste,d locations. Through ;areful examination it can be seen that the PRO model provides for vehicles departing only
.one leg of an intersection in a period of'15 minutes. This implies that either the traffic control device or the police assigned to that location'would permit the traffic on only one leg to be serviced (that is, to move through the intersection) while holding up traffic on all other legs of the intersection for the entire 15 minutes. There is also For some question as to example, on leg No.
the accuracy of the figures provided. 1, it is shown that 375 vehicles arrive but are not serviced.
.Yet, the queue length is indicated as having only 60 vehicles.
The queue'must have at least 375 vehicles if, in fact, that (Continued on next page)
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VII. SELECTED MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT HUMAN BEHAVIOR IN EMERGENCIE_S A variety of misconceptions about behavior during Sources of these emergencies exists in popular accounts. misconceptions include disaster movies depicting behavior that and unfounded viewers then expect to occur in the real world, " rumors in past events being converted into subsequent " common knowledge. Despite decades of efforts by those who have scientifically investigated emergencies to dispel these misconceptions, many inaccurate notions about emergencies still Sound emergency-planning should not be based on these prevail. notions. To do so would ignore the actual character of emergencies, and could flaw the effectiveness of any emergency preparedness plans that are developed. The county consultants based much of their proposed on projected psycho-plan, including the suggested 20-mile EPZ, sociological conditions in the Long Island population. They suggest that problems in emergency planning may arise due to and an " evacuation shadow the existence 'of " role conflict" (Continued from the previous page) In addition, similar number arrived but inconsistencies arewere not serviced. indicated for 2 and 4, where the number of arrivals who are not serviced during that 15-minute period exceeds the queue length by a factor of 10.
I phenomenon." The existence of these problems is predicated on l telephone surveys questioning people on their attitudes towards nuclear power. As discussed below, it is questionable whether l ottitude surveys can " prove" problems exist. And, to the oxtent that role conflict and the shadow phenomenon occur, they are not as significant as suggested by the consultants. A. Inferences From Non-Nuclear Emergencies There are some who take the position that every event and every individual in the world is unique. Knowledge about one, therefore, would not necessarily be transferable to cnother. Still others maintain that events and behavior are patterned, and that once those patterns are discovered behavior can be predicted with total confidence. The truth lies, given the current level of knowledge in the behavioral and social sciences, somewhere between these two poles of professional opinion. 1
- 1. Human Behavior Does Not Vary With Different Kinds of Emergencies The determinants of human response to emergency sit-untions in contemporary America are transferable from one type of emergency to another. This is not to say that the descrip-tive accounts of how people respond to emergencies will be the r
1
- - - ~ _ ~ . _ . - - . . _ _ - ._
c . f l t i same from one emergency to another; frather, it is that the reason why people respond in different ways to an emergency are consistent across emergency types. 4 l Some could_say that. nuclear plant emergencies are unique, and therefore that human response in other emergencies j l cannot be compared. Indeed, the potential list of differences between nuclear accidents and'other emergencies is long.
' Nuclear. hazards and risks are invisible, unlike tornadoes and hurricanes. Fewer people understand the risks of nuclear emergencies as well.as they do the risks. associated with floods. However, it is not.true that the different qualities of a nuclear power plant emergency have never been part of the human' emergency' response equation. The unique invisible character of radiation, the lack of public experience with nuclear emergencies, and tha lack of knowledge regarding risk
'from a nuclear power plant'are all pointed to as distinguishing factors for a nuclear plant emergency. In fact, other hazards
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are invisible -- for exampl'e, flash floods on sunny days; other hazards exist'with an inexperienced public -- for example, l hurricanes in coastal Florida, where there is constant turnover in'the population; other hazards exist for which public knowl-L edge of risks is low -- for example, knowledge about the risks
,of earthquakes in southern California.
___._______._._____._____-._____._.__________m__-._ ___._-_____._~_-~..,,_..._-__-._-.__..m_-..._ a . . - :__--___-_._--___ _m._. _._ ___._ ._J
The point is that the factors determining human response in emergencies are not different between nuclear and natural hazard emergencies. What are potentially different are
'he t quantities that those factors can take from one emergency to another. As much variation in these quantities can exist between natural hazard emergencies, as between natural and technological emergencies. What is important for preparedness planning for nuclear plant emergencies is that the factors that determine emergency response are known and transferable among i emergencies; and the "what" and "how" of emergency preparedness can take variation in the quantity of factors into account to draft sound emergency plans.
Many cases illustrate that successful emergency evac-uations are possible, that emergency workers do not abandon their jobs, and that people do not panic. The public response at Mississauga illustrates these points.
- 2. Mississauga - A Successful Emergency Evacuation Effort l
s Near midnight on November 10, 1979, a 106-car train with mixed cargo, including highly explosive and poisonous gas, derailed on the outskirts of Toronto. Propane cars burst into flames and deadly chlorine gas escaped into the atmosphere. 1
The incident led to a massive evacuation and relocation effort of more than 200,000 people from their homes and medical facilities in.less than 24 hours. Although many emergency workers involved in the effort were part of organizations with disaster plans, there was neither an evacuation plan for the area, nor had there ever been an effort of this kind before. The evacuation involved 116.58 square kilometers, 216,935 peo-ple from their homes and 1,449 medical and nursing home patients. It is estimated that only 2% of those asked to leave the area refused to evacuate.17/ Emergency workers, ranging from fire and police chiefs , to Boy and Girl Scout volunteers contributed dramatically to the effort. Throughout the week there was no panic among evac-uees. Many leaving the area offered rides to their neighbors or alerted police that assistance was needed to transport eld-erly or infirm residents. Over the course of the emergency, 19
. evacuation centers were in operation, including 11 schools, two shopping centers, two lodges, a social club, a union hall, a trade center and an arena. All emergency workers reported for duty. In one case, an ambulance worker on vacation saw the flames and immediately responded for work.
12/ As a side note to the antire incident, at the end of the 140-hour, six-day emergency, police reported 135 property offenses, substantially fewer than the normal number of reports for a regular five-day period. I l 1
H i The police had a disaster plan in effect that had been I i used primarily for' airport emergencies, a natural. gas explosion, and an oil refinery fire. The force had been trained and drilled'in their emergency procedures. The local l police force swelled to include the Ontario Provincial Police, the Metropolitan Toronto Police and the Royal Canadian Mounted i Police, producing a coordinated effort of over 600 officers a day. There were 186 roadblocks on three main highways, preventing people from entering the area. The police handled
- crowd control e traffic, communications, and security. They were the initial. notification system, driving through neigh-borhoods with loudspeakers to alert residents to evacuate.
They' canvassed houses to ensure that no one was unnecessarily left behind. It is reported in the summary of activities involved in the incident that, "all officers had one trait. They contributed their skills in the presence of potential danger without undue concern for their own personal safety." The same was true of fire fighters who, though not involved in the evacuation effort, volunteered from hundreds of miles around-Mississauga to assist in fighting the propane blaze. There were 1,449 patients, ranging from a newborn baby 1 to a'100 year-old man, evacuated from three hospitals, three
- nursing homes, two extended- care facilities and one home for
-the aged in a 14 1/2 hour span. The effort utilized 650 l
emergency workers from 25 ambulance services as the call for I help was answered by 133 ambulances, 15 municipal buses, five l l l L emergency support units, two communications vans, two trucks L and one ambulance bus. In order to evacuate two nursing homes and a home for the aged, a Canadian military base donated 200 air mattresses 3 for use at temporary shelters. Community volunteers from local l service organizations, such as the Boy Scouts and the Lions Club,' assisted in moving patients. Nurses and doctors stayed with.their charges for the entire evacuation period. l l The Ontario Medical Association provided four emergency physicians around the clock for medical care at the site of the derailment. Since much of the city was without medical facil-ities, many doctors and nurses volunteered their services at four make-shift medical centers opened outside the evacuated area. Pharmacies stayed open 24 hours. A dentist volunteered his services for emergency care. The report on Mississauga noted, "The (hospital) evacuation proceeded with calm efficiency. There was no panic." Schools were dismissed so that educational facilities could be used as reception centers. One high school's students
~ helped at a rest home for the aged by making beds, feeding I
patients and performing other duties. The Salvation Army set up three shifts a day of 50 volunteers to aid with elderly or handicapped residents at evacuation centers. While health, fire and police crews may be more accus-tomed to dealing with emergency situations, general municipal workers may not be so accustomed. Yet, as the report states, "Throughout the first night, drivers and garage staff called into transit headquarters to offer their services and virtually cil of those on duty Saturday night stayed to wait for a route. Transit workers could not be ordered to work in the evacuation area, but almost 100 percent of the staff, half of them living in the evacuation :ene, never gave it a second thought." While most residents used their own cars for the evacuation, many of the city's fleet of 126 buses were used to transport those without vehicles. Included in the manpower effort were drivers and mechanics as well as municipal support crews. This entire effort proceeded without benefit of a coordinated emergency plan. There is no tally on the number of people called upon to aid in the massive effort undertaken to protect the health , and safety of the people of Mississauga, Ontario, during the week of November 10, 1979. But the report on the event l concludes, "in the final analysis, the success of the I l - __-___u _
Mississauga evacuation belongs to the people. The willing, helpful volunteers who spent hours preparing meals, washing
. dishes, and making evacuation. centers as comfortable as'pos-
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sible, deserve much credit. As well, the evacuees, who left their homes and. remained in centers or homes of friends or
-relatives, bore.the burden-with as much perseverance as is 1 humanly possible."
B.- Role Conflict 1.- Role " Conflict" versus Role " Strain" The notion of role ' conflict is a concept within the social sciences based on the following ideas. Individuals in society play'many different. roles -- that is, they have certain rights and obligations in particular social relationships. Because each person plays many different roles, there is the possibility that the rights,and obligations of one role can be-consistent, reinforcing, irrelevant, or conflicting with the rights and obligations of another. While the idea of role
" conflict" is frequently cited, it is often used uncritically, as an'"either/or" matter. " Conflict" implies equally weighted contradictory alternatives -- a condition that is rarely, if - ever, found in social. life. A much more adequate term would be role " strain," denoting difficulty felt in fulfilling role obligations.
Role " strain" is preferable because it describes more , I cecurately conditions that people experience in all of social life, not just those of emergencies, and with which people cope in most social situations.
- 2. The Origins of Role Conflict An illustration of role conflict is often drawn from a widely-quoted article by Lewis Killian, "The Significance of Multiple Group Membership in Disaster," American Journal of Sociology, January 1952, pp. 309-319. Killian's article was one of the first major publications on disaster that had wide-apread distribution among social scientists, and seemingly provided an unusually vivid illustration for the " consequences" of role conflict. As a result, it has been used repeatedly in I explanations of the concept in introductory textbooks, and has recently been used as a hypothesized problem for emergency .
planning, since it asserts that emergency workers might initially be paralyzed by family obligations. What w'as intended as an illustration of a concept has now been distorted into the status of a universal truth. Without attempting to critique the paper, several points of clarification are necessary. Killian illustrated several dif-ferent potential role conflict situations. Several of these
l were situations in which the people had no definite responsibility in the emergency social system (that is, the mobilization of. community resources to deal with an emergency). Those examples stood for the simple proposition that, if people have no definite role, they will be unclear as to what they l should do. Since these. people had no specific disaster respon- j sibilities, it is difficult to knew what their family obliga-tions prevented them from doing. Significantly, however, in the illustrations Killian used (which were case studies), those who did have occupational roles relevant to the disaster performed them and even expressed concern that they could not do more. These expres-sions of doubt did not prevent- them from performing their usual occupational obligations. In addition, Killian, while seeming to present cases of potential conflict, pointed out that none of this had any real effect on the operation of the emergency j cocial system. A more accurate reading of Killian's original 1 article might be that while people will express anxiety about potentially conflicting obligations in emergencies, they will perform those roles that are more immediately relevant to the emergency social system. J 1 l l
. l i
J Thus, it is quite possible that emergency workers might experience role strain, but this does not mean they would abandon their emergency role. Over the years, the Disaster
-Research Center at Ohio State University has conducted interviews with personnel in emergency organizations affected by a variety of emergency situations. While many of'these
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interviews have concentrated on officials in top or key 4 positions-in the emergency social system, a considerable number have.also been conducted with middle-and lower level employees. In other words, the interviews included not just police chiefs but' sergeants and patrolmen; not just physicians, but nurses and attendants;.not just heads of public works departments, but supervisors and crew members. The number of such interviews now constitutes over 6000. There has not been even one example of non-reporting, or of leaving one's emergency responsibility. I L Nor has there been an instance where the functioning of an emergency organization was undercut by personnel not reporting to duty. Indeed, what often occurs is that there is an eversupply of' personnel, requiring effective procedures to assure the efficient use of available personnel. l
- 3. The " Stereotype" Assumptions In addition, most of the examples used to illustrate role conflict are based on classic stereotypes of family life that are, in actuality, very untypical. The classic stereotype postulates an' employed (and competent) male whose place of employment is separated from his unemployed (and incompetent) wife, who is with their small (and anxious) children in a loca-tien in potential danger. This isolated family' segment is presumed to lack alternative sources of immediately available support, such as kin or neighbors. Further, it is presumed that there will be a lack of communication lines, thus making it. impossible to.obtain knowledge about the " safety" of the rest of the family. Finally, it is presumed that the employee-husband has vague and perhaps inconsequential emergency respon-sibility.
From this mix of assumptions, one might forecast that the strong, compete.t husband will leave his post and go home to take care of his family, or delay doing anything, until he somehow is personally assured that they are being taken care of. If the person did leave or delay, the organization would lose an employee, albeit one who lacked organizational commitment and perhaps adaptability. That loss, however, is unlikely to be particularly significant to the operation of the l
organization. He also might come back in a few minutes to ctaume his role. Moreover, there are several factors that make the previous case described more hypothetical than real. .The fam-ily with the employed husband and non-employed wife with small children at home constitutes only about 13% of American families. (1980 Census.) These figures suggest that the fam-ily system visualized in the classic role conflict example is en atypical living arrangement. 1 L In addition, the lack of evidence of persons absndoning l L cmergency roles over a wide range of emergency events suggests that in emergencies, there are certain structural changes in the community that reduce role strain. This is what has been called the development of an " emergency consensus." In that consensus, protection for threatened people has the highest priority. Conversely, other traditional values -- for example, f making money and enjoying leisure activities -- are drastically offected. This shift, consequently, also simplifies a person's role obligations -- some roles become more important while others are not important at all. Thus, much additional role strain is obviated, and the released energies of people can be concentrated on the critical tasks of the emergency. 1
Consequently, those individuals who work for organiza-tions that have emergency responsibility have clear expecta-tions for their appropriate behavior in such situations. Knowing this prior to an emergency allows an employee to make family contingency plans. (For example, that the same child-care arrangements vill be continued; that non-involved rela-tives or neighbors will assume responsibility; that spouses are competent to deal with the situation.) In addition, members of emergency organizations are more likely to have accurate knowl-edge of the scope of the risk, and therefore are more likely to assess the probability of danger to separated family members. Also, they are more likely to have the means to up-date information concerning risk to separated family members. It generally has been found that a major factor explaining why individuals fulfill their role obligations, in spite of great personal danger, is because of the cohesiveness of the work group. Simply'put, a person meets responsibilities to avoid letting others down. In situations where the emergency role takes on added importance, it is reasonable to suggest that this sense of obligation to the group is strength-ened. In addition, since part of the traditional image of hus-band and father includes the obligation to perform adequately the necessary work-related emergency roles, the traditional role should be reinforcing rather than conflicting.
The classic stereotypes of role " conflict" also postulate the importance of speed and the potential effects of loss of personnel. In most emergency situations, the value of speed is highly exaggerated. The more important factor is in dealing with real problems rather than being fast at solving irrelevant problems. In addition, there is the implicit notion that somehow there will be problems created by the loss of personnel. This has not been evident in other emergency situations. Most regular emergency organizations, such as police and fire, usually operate in three shifts, so at any one time it is pos-sible to mobilize about 2 1/2 times the necessary personnel. In addition, in shift work, extending the work time from.8 to 12 hours provides an extra " half-person." The notion that needed emergency work is not done because of the absence of critical personnel has been generally found to be false. In emergencies with a focused disaster agent such as an explosion, search and rescue efforts are usually done by those already on the scene. Work does not wait for people to report. It goes on anyway, and as the evidence demonstrates, it gets done. l l
- 4. Emergency Responsibilities Concerns expressed in the draft County plan about the more serious potentialities of role strain can be mitigated by the organizational and occupational assignment of emergency responsibility. In other words, having clear responsibility increases the probability, and usually ensures, that individuals will perform those responsibilities. This is evidenced by the high performance levels exhibited in emergencies by members of police and fire departments, highway departments, emergency medical personnel, hospital personnel, and other workers with clear emergency responsibility.
Such performance levels are ensured by training. Training provides the context for those individuals to " pre-plan" activities that allow them to implement their emergency roles, such as providing back-up and supplementary options for continuing family responsibility. The County plan suggests that " specially recruited, trained and motivated ' emergency response drivers'" be created for bus driving, by devising a special structure that normally does not exist to service an emergency. Although such a spe-cial team of drivers could not negatively affect emergency response, to develop such an artifical emergency response team at the expense of not including routine structures--existing I
bus drivers--in emergency training might flaw emergency response. A basic well-established axiom of emergency response is to build on existing social systems and roles when possible, and not to require new systems to service the emergency. One final note. Often, subsequent to an emergency, there will be stories about cases where individuals did not fulfill their emergency roles. {Some of these rumors are likely to be reported as fact.) It is highly unlikely that such anecdotes are based in empirical reality, but the retelling makes them a part of the post-emergency " reality." Such stories, in the absence of evidence, are perhaps best seen as constituting moral tales, rather than as reflections of reality. They represent, as a part of the verbal tradition, the role that emergency responsibility is important and that the consequences of lack of attention to it have unfortunate results. Thus, such stories tend to reinforce role obligations for the future rather than describe examples of failures in past behavior. The certainty with which people defend such stories gives clues to the moral nature of their purpose. l
C. Attitude Polls Versus Actual Behavior Descriptions of past behavior, speculation about future behavior, and admission of current attitudes obtained through
. polls rarely,-if ever, accurately reflect actual past, current or future behavior. This is not to suggest, however, that questionnaires and' interviews are necessarily poor tools for the study of human behavior. Such tools are not necessary for emergency planning purposes. To the extent that these tools are employed, researchers using thess tools must take care in inferring actual behavior from attitudes cr speculative accounts of future behavior.
Emergency. situations, by definition, are different from the routines of everyday life. In addition, they are complex situations in which human behavior results from a social process. For example, people behave in ways determined by the social character of the situation, including such factors as talking with others, seeing activities around them, acting to maintain group cohesion and a variety of other factors. These factors are not included in answers to polls speculating on future behavior, and the verbal predictions of future emergency behavior given to a pollster are not, therefore, based in the social " reality" of an actual emergency. Because verbal
accounts of future behavior ignore the' actual determinants of behavior, conclusions about. future behavior in an emergency are questionable. D. The Shadow Effect And Related Phenomena
- 1. The. County Consultants' Claims Regarding Human Behavior in Emergency Evacuation Situations The County consultants have presented a variety of issues as problem areas for-an emergency evacuation. Existfng knowledge suggests, however, that these issues in evacuation l
planning are not real problems. The discussion below l illustrates this point. First, the claim is made that " aberrant behavior" -- that is, anti-social behavior -- will increase evacuation time estimates. Yet all accumulated evidence of how people behave
'in emergency evacuations suggests that-aberrant behavior will not actually occur. Second, the claim is made that the " shadow phenomenon" will escalate evacuation time. Accumulated evi-dance of how people actually behave in emergency evacuations does suggest that some people will evacuate who do not need to evacuate. The estimate used to predict the shtdow effect, however, is based on interviews in which people were asked to speculate about a hypothetical response to a hypothetical
( event. As evidence of yast evacuations has shown, actual behavior in a real event would be much less than the 50% speculated about here. Third, the claim is made that 20% of thoue ordered to evacuate would likely not do so. This estimate is also based on a survey of residents who were asked to speculate about future behavior. Both this estimate of "under-responders" and that of "over-responders" are based on inappropriate methods to estimate response. Actual evidence suggests that there may well be over- and under-responders in any emergency, but that . I the numbers would be much less than those estimated in the draft County plan. In any event, over- and under-response can be corrected through public education prior to an emergency, and the design of an effective emergency warning information system. Fourth, the claim is made that public education is needed. Indeed, public education to prime people for emergency response is thought by most experts to enhance emergency response. Unfortunately, because this discussion is based on the results of a survey about speculated behavior rather than objective factual knowledge about emergency public behavior, the suggested public education program is misplaced. People are likely to behave in ways that they perceive are in their k
fa
+ =
r. best interest during an emergency. What is'needed in the arena of public education is a campaign to service public needs and
-enhance good decisions by citizens during a future emergency.
- 2. Questionable Predictions From Attitude Surveys Actual public behavior during an emergency is hardly.
predictable, if at all, by opinion polling or speculation during an interview setting. Rather, such behavior is directly influenced by such factors as the messages contained in a warn-ing at the time of an emergency, how the messages are delivered,'and who delivers them. The consultants' procedure used to forecast public evacuation--asking the public to guess u at its behavior--ignored the extensive evidence in the social i ! sciences about why and how peop1'e come to evacuate. The ques-tions, in effect, forced the citizen respondents into the role of the social' scientist by asking them to forecast behavior. L The result provides little or no real evidence on which to l' l ~ gauge an estimate of possible fature public behavior in an 1 emergency at Shoreham. l In addition, the telephone survey used by the consult-
- ants relied upon a questionable design. The respondent sample
-- the persons polled -- was of questionable composition. The result is that the conclusions drawn from the survey are of querotionable validity.
( 1 ___-___-__-____L
VIII. CONCLUSION } This statement contains some technical details as well l as a social perspective on emergency planning for Shoreham. It discusses the size of the EPZ, that is a lO-mile zone versus a 20-mile zone, as well as whether "rolo conflicts" or " role strains" will have any effect on emergency workers reporting for duty. This statement also reviews and evaluates the information developed on whether the Island's traffic patterns would permit an orderly evacuation or whether people could be unnecessarily caught in massive traffic j ams. Regardless of what pessimists may predict about human behavior, when an emergency. situation occurs, people naturally help their neighbors and follow authoritative directions. History supports this evidence, as seen in Canada and Pennsylvania. Our own neighbors will not react any differ-ently. There is a vocal minority in Suffolk County vehemently opposed to nuclear power. At the same time, there is a $3 billion nuclear plant virtually complete on the banks of Long Island Sound. In the center of this controversy is the issue of emergency planning. The responsibility that you, as elected officials, feel towards your constituents is well understood. Emergency planning is an intricate and technical issue. (
l LILCO= seeks a. reasonable common ground upon which dif-ferences-can be resolved and an implementable plan created that will adequately protect the' health and safety of your.constitu-- ents and our customers. At your convenience, we are prepared and indeed eager to undertake mutual efforts and to discuss any and all issues related to emergency planning.for Shoreham and suffolk County. Respectfully submitted, i LONG ISLAND LIGHTING COMPANY January 14, 1983 i 0
ATTACHMENT A
/E4"O aar m waw LONG ISL AND LlGHTING COM PANY
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[ ,
, 175 EAST OLD COUNTRY R o A o H ICK SVILLE. NEW YORK 11801 1
~"*EI.5..S..'.P. . September 17, 1982 Mr. John C. Gallagher Chief Deputy County Executive Office of the County Executive of Suffolk County Veterans Memorial Highway Hauppauge, New York 11788
Dear Mr. Gallagher:
I am in receipt of your letter of September 8,1982, in which you ask that LILCO reconsider its plan to resubmit to the State Disaster Preparedness Commission the offsite emergency preparedness plan on which the Compr., bs been working. I deeply regret that you view LILCO's actions as an insult to t'.e County's authority; I assure you they were never intended as such. Indeed, LILCO is in agreement with you on the fundamental point that the LILCO onsite plhn should be integrated with the County's offsite planning effo rts. But we do not see any reason to wait until the County has produced a plan, largely without LILCO's input, to begin the integration process. We believe now, and have always believed, that it would be more productive for the County anc' LILCO . to work together to develop both plans. We are willing te meet at any time and place you suggest with the County's consultants or emergency planning steering committee for this purpose. Indeed, at the County's request some of LILCO's probabilistic risk assessment consultants have already met with the County's emergency planning con-sultants, and we understand that the meetings were productive. Also, on more than one occasion we have asked the County, through its lawyers, to resume joint planning meetings with us on a general basis, but the only response was that the County is un-willing to pursue joint planning in the present " litigation environment." We would like to take this opportunity to reiterate our offer to you with the hope that you can facilitate a favorable response. Let me make absolutely clear to you that LILCO does not presume to take upon itself the legal responsibilities or authority of the County government. Our only purpose in preparing an offsite plan (and in doing so we have relied as much as possible on the past work of County employees) has been to expedite the long and detailed process of achieving true emergency preparedness.
LoNG Ct_AND UGHT1NG CO ANY Mr. John C. Gallagh r Septcmber 17,1982
, At present the County has chosen not to avail itself of LILCO's help, but i l that was not always the case, and we hope it will not be the case in the future. If the I County eventually decides to reject LILCO's work, or to modify it substantially, so !
be it. But we have thought it prudent to go ahead and do the work, recognizing that some of it may prove to have been in vain, in the hope that we may thereby avoid delaying the operation of th.e Shoreham plant. As for submitting the LILCO offsite plan to the State, we have done so merely because we believed that an early indication of what parts of the plan the State finds adequate and what parts need improvement . would save time and be helpful to everyone. { l I do not believe that LILCO's work, or the submittal of that work to the State, is " contrary to the interests of Suffolk County's efforts to pursue effective local emergency planning." It might be so if LILCO had refused the County infor-marion it needs or refused to work with the County. But we have not. To the contrary, until the day after the prehearing conference before the N RC Licensing Board on April 14 of this year, we were having at least weekly meetings with the Suffolk County Planning Department personnel then responsible for developing the County's emergency plan. And we were in telephone communication with the County planners on a daily basis. During these discussions, we addressed problems brought up by the Suffolk County Planning Department people and made commitments for the Company. These commitments included arrangements for communications systems, radiological assessment equipment, dose projection assistance, graphic art assistance, and printing services. The day after the NRC prehearing conference, however, we received a phone call from the Suffolk County Planning Department stating that any further discussions concerning Suffolk County's emergency plan for Shoreham would have to be referred to Frank Jones. This message was subsequently repeatec by other Suffolk County personnel. Also, I am told we were refused per-mission by the County to install emergency communications equipment on the existing radio tower at the Suffolk County Police Headquarters in Yaphank. LILCO has no quarrel at allwith the County's legitimate attempts to produce an excellent offsite plan. But we do have concerns that the County's plan will not be finished, without help from us, in time to support the licensing of our Shoreham Plant. It would be a great disservice to allthe public to let that happen. j Let me close by repeating that much of the work LILCO has done on the l offsite plan, as well as the resources and experience of LILCO employees and con-sultants, would be of use to the County in developing its plan. LILCO takes no pleasure in working on emergency planning without the County. I urge you to resume ; 1 joint planning with LILCO as soon as possible. Very truly yours,
&{axfw C. 6du Matthew C. Cordaro, Ph.D.
,( Vice President ec: Nassau/Suffolk Senate Delegation Nassau/Suffolk Assembly Delegation Suffolk County Legislator.s Honorable Stanley Fink -NYS Assemblyman
Attachment 3 ' i l Summary of Emergency Planning Issues l Shoreham Nuclear Power Station 1 Dr. Matthew C. Cordaro September 30, 1983 So much has been said to you about emergency planning that it's hard to racap it briefly. So I will talk today only about the most fundamental emergency planning issues you have before you: the feasibility of emergency preparedness on Long Island; the use of the Shoreham probabilistic risk assessment (FRA) for emergency planning; and the viability of a utility-implemented emergency plan. Of course more details are available on these and other topics in LILCO's written submittals. j In doing so I want to emphasize two things. First, many of the obstacles to emergency planning that Suffolk County complains about would be removed if the State would do as much at Shoreham as it does at other New York nuclear plants; in particular, the Governor could eliminate the question of whether there is adequate " legal authority" to implement the LILCO emergency plan. Second, if there really are problems with LILCO's emergency plans, we would expect them to be revealed by the NRC hearing process so that they can be corrected before Shoreham goes into full-power operation. The Feasibility of Emergency Planning f The first topic I want to talk about is the alleged " impossibility" of radiological emergency planning for Long Island. LILCO's view is that emergency preparedness for Suffolk County is possible, and that in fact Suffolk County is in some ways uniquely well-suited for. emergency prepared-ness. A LILCO organization of some 30 full-time people has been working to implement an offsite emergency plan. We have been training emergency workers,
1 holding discussions with hospitals and school administrators, negotiating with bus companies, and doing all the other jobs that have to be done to implement an emergency plan. Nothing has happened to suggest to us that emergency preparedness is " impossible" -- only that it's a hard job. And it's even harder, as you can imagine, when the local government actively opposes it. That is LILCO's position. Suffolk County's position, on the other hand, has changed its character with time. The County started out last February by saying that adequate emergency preparedness is ~" impossible" because of " unique local conditions". But in the NRC licensing proceeding the County now emphasizes different ideas. The County's Noncooperation as an Obstacle to Emergency Planning In the first place, the County's conte,ntions before the NRC don't i stress inherent characteristics of Long Island. Instead, their theme is that J the biggest obstacle to emergency planning is the County government's refusal to participate! For example, it says that one of the proposed relocation centers for evacuees, Suffolk County Community College, cannot be used because the County forbids it. Most astonishing of all, the County now says that a significant " local condition" requiring a larger-than-normal emergency planning zone is the mere fact that the Suffolk County government is not participating in emergency planning! I think the NRC staff put it well in their comments on one of the County's draft contentions by saying "(t)he County in effect is arguing.. .that the LILCO plan is insufficient because the County will do anything (or not do anything) to ensure that the . plan is insufficient. " l
I l Human Behavior A second theme of the County's. opposition to emergency planning is that the people of Suffolk County present an enormous problem. The idea is that emergency workers will' not do their duty because of fear for them-selves or their families, and that the public won't respond sensibly because of fear, panic, hysteria, or what have you. The County's " Exhibit A" on this subject is Three Mile Island, where a lot of people evacuated without being told to. But the County's own consultants, Drs. Johnson and Ziegler, have written that the spatial pattern of evacuation behavior at TMI suggests "a calm and orderly movement rather than a hysterical flight". The County's view of human behavior amounts to the proposition that emergency planning for radiological emergencies can't be done anywhere, and I don't believe any qualified emergency planning expert would agree. In fact the County has admitted that human behavior in Suffolk County during a radiological emergency "is likely to be fundamentally similar to human behavior 1 elsewhere during a radiological emergency". The County's position is also at odds with New York State's decision t'o have emergency planning at other plants in the State. The Standards by Which Emergency Plans are Judged (Use of PRA) The second major issue I wish to discuss in this summary involves the contrast between Suffolk County's approach to emergency planning require-ments, on the one hand, and the rest of the country's, on the other. LILCO has approached emergency planning as it is done at every other nuclear plant in the country -- by attempting to make its plans comply with the federal standards in NUREG-0654. As I've said before, nuclear plants are licensed by applying NRC regulations, which incorporate the idea
l 4 l of " defense in depth". A plant is conservatively designed with layers of l diverse and redundant protective systems so that it can survive most l postulated accidents without evacuation being needed. Then, in addition to ) all safety measures, emergency plans are required as an added conservatism, an extra layer of defense-in-depth, to even further reduce the already low risk associated with rare postulated accident sequences. Suffolk County has gone about emergency planning in a way that is different from the way everyone else does it, including New York State and the federal government. The County has made the Shoreham probabilistic risk analysis (FRA) the centerpiece of its approach, using it in two ways. First, the County has applied arbitrary risk criteria of its own making to the PRA in order to set an emergency planning zone, or EPZ, larger than those at the other nuclear plants in New York. With many more people and longer distances involved than in a 10-mile zone, of course it's easier for the County to conclude that evacuation times will be large. This leads the County to say that emergency preparedness is " impossible", by which it means that evacuation, by its own calculations, would take a long time. It. should be noted that the licensing board in the NRC proceeding has rejected the County's claim that a 20-mile EPZ should be established. For most nuclear plants, including ones in New York State, operating licenses are issued and emergency plans are made without a plant specific PRA such as the one carried out for Shoreham. In any event, when we look at the Shoreham specific PRA, we find that by the risk criteria used by the federal government, a 10-mile EPZ is much larger than necessary. This is a significant finding, and yet no one proposes relying on it to justify a smdler-than-normal planning zone. All LILCO asks is that you recognize how unreasonable it is, based on the PRA, to demand a larger-than-standard zone. I
The second way in which the County uses the PRA is to conclude 1 l l l that in some very rare accidents, with very unfavorable conditions, people 1 would receive doses of radiation that the County judges unacceptable, even if those people were to shelter or evacuate. But emergency planning is designed to reduce an already low risk; it can't possibly eliminate all residual risk, as the County apparently wants it to do. The purpose of emergency preparedness is to reduce the risk of a nuclear power plant as much as can reasonably be done, whatever that risk may be. So an emergency planner does not need a mathematical risk analysis to develop an emergency plan. Instead, he needs to explore how best to marshal people and other resources so as to provide the basis to mount a flexible response to all conceivable accidents. An EPZ is a planning zone not just an evacuation zone. In fact the 10-mile planning zone in federal' regulations was deliberately chosen to provide the basis for an effective response either inside or outside the zone. This was pointed out in the NRC's presentation to you on July 22. The Feasibility of a Utility-Implemented Plan The third issue I want to discuss is the feasibility of an emergency plan in which the utility performs functions that are ordinarily done by the local government. There are several questions involved here. Interference with Outside Agencies First, there is the question of how far a local government should go in opposing emergency preparedness. For example, the LILCO offsite emergency plan relies on the Red Cross to set-up relocation centers. Representatives of Suffolk County have held discussions with the Red Cross .; in Alexandria, Virginia, and reportedly insinuated that LILCO had " paid off" ! r
the Red Cross or otherwise performed some service in return for the Red Cross's participation in emergency planning. The fact is LILCO tus done nothing of the kind. This incident and others suggest that , 1 Suffolk County is satisfied not just to litigate its position that emergency preparedness is impossible, but to help make that claim true by resisting emergency preparedness with all its might. Even if one believes that it is appropriate for a local government to decline to participate in emergency planning, it is quite another question whether it is appropriate to lobby and intimidate others to decline to participate as well. The " Legal Authority" Issue Second, there is the question of legal authority. A utility plan is clearly permissible under federal law. For example, our lawyers advise that the House Conference Report for the HUD and Independent Agencies Appropriations Bill, which became law this summer, directs FEMA to review utility emergency plans and stipulates that the absence of state ac.d local government participation is not sufficient ground to determine that a plan is not adequate. As you know, Congress has twice directed that a " utility plan" may stand in place of a local government plan. But Suffolk County alleges that LILCO lacks authority because of state and local law. This issue, which seems to be on everybody's mind, is overemphasized. I say this for two reasons. First, if there were a real emergency, no governmental agency would refuse to make available the necessary authority to protect people's health and safety. Second, if it turns out that the only obstacle to a utility's emergency planning is lack of legal authority, then there is no principled basis for refusing to grant that authority.
To put it another way, the legal authority issue is a " paper" issue that can easily be eliminated by a government willing to do so. In particular, as the Executive Deputy Director of FEMA recently said in a letter to the NRC, the problem of legal authority is one that can be resolved by the State of New York. New York State's Role This brings up the question of what New York State's role in emergency' planning at Shoreham should be. Three possibilities come to mind. First, the State could simply implement its own State emergency plan, as it does at every other nuclear power plant in the State. It would interface with the LILCO-staffed local emergency response organization as it interfaces with local governments in other places. Second, the . State could go slightly further and substitute for certain functions that Suffolk County refuses to perform. The State plan already provides for state agencies to implement a county's plan where the Chief Executive of the county does not elect to put such a plan into effect, and of course this was done for Rockland County. Third, the State could refuse to take any part at all in emergency planning for Shoreham taking the position that the operation of the facility is unacceptable to the State. The only basis for such a decision, since there is no evidence that Shoreham is less safe than other nuclear plants in New York, is simple deference to the decision-making authority of a county government. The State may wish to take up a policy of such deference to local governments, but in LILCO's view it would be inappropriate and difficult to justify in light of the State's position regarding Rockland County. Also , l as I am advised by counsel, it would be at odds with Article 2-B of the New York State Executive Law.
l 1 Suffolk County's representatives have indicated that they are interested in provoking a federal-local confrontation, ultimately in the United States Supreme Court. LILCO would like to avoid such a l confrontation. It may be that there is no way to avoid it, but LILCO believes that the best course would be for the State of New York to assert its influence, in accordance with the policy of the State law that radiological emergency response plans be made effective, and implement the State radio-logical eme egency response plan with respect to Shoreham. In addition the State could provide a handful of people to perform certain ' decision-making and communicating functions in the local emergency response organization.
~ Such a move, we think, would help to encourage efforts to settle this dispute, perhaps with the State serving as mediator.
In Conclusion . Let me emphasize what I said in a letter to Suffsik County long ago. LILCO is not pleased w'ith the prospect of having to do what Suffolk County wants not to be done. We hope that someday the County will take l over the job, perhaps using some of the plans we have made. But until that day comes, we simply have no choice but to implement an emergency plan for Shoreham. We have a legal duty to provide electrical service and it is not going too far to say we have a responsibility to our customers and stockholders to take the action we are taking. I would like to close as I began, by emphasizing that emergency planning can be done successfully. It can certainly be done by a local government having the advantages Suffolk County has, and, a's a last resort, it can even be done by a utility, though with greater difficulty and expense to the public. If Suffolk County will not do it, then LILCO will have to, but only with the greatest regret. L__.____.___._____ !
Attachment 4 o LONG ISLAND LIGHTING COM PANY [4*meerm/4(O EXECUTsvt OrriCES: 2SO OLD COUNTRY MOAO MINEOLA. NEW YOmn 11501 CM AmLCS R. PtCRCC e - . . ,. c o . .,,,c.. December 14, 1983 Honorable Mario Cuomo Governor of New York The State Capitol Executive Chamber Albany, NY 12224
Dear Governor Cuomo:
I am intensely aware that Shoreham poses painful economic and political dilemmas. No one is more disturbed than I that the plant has taken so long, and cost so much, to build. Nor is anyone more distressed than I that many Long Islanders have become acutely perplexed and perturbed by Shoreham's existence. It is my firm conviction, however, that operation of this plant remains in the public interest. Your statements and actions in the coming months will materially affect the plant's future. Thus, I am writing to you about the reasons why I believe so strongly in the wisdoin of Shoreham's operation. I. More than ten years after the Arab 011 Embargo of 1973, Long Island remains hopelessly dependent on oil as its basic source of energy. Every single one of LILCO's existing power plants is fueled by foreign oil. Virtually all of Long Island's capacity to generate electricity, accordingly, is Shoreham hostage is to the continued the only means availability of supplies from abroed. j realistically available now, and for years hence, to ameliorate this intolerable situation. It will replace eight million barrels I of foreign oil annually. Another interruption of foreign oil supplies is among the most likely consequences of current international tensions. In my judgment, prudent energy policy for Long Island -- as well an prudent energy policy for New York State as a whole -- dictates that Shoreham be on line to help mitigate the consequences of this l wholly foreseeable threat to the public welfare. Even if one were to assume that there is no economic penalty to abandoning Shoreham, which I reject, imagine the con-sequences of change in public perception if oil availability were to. diminish and prices rise, and we had scrapped our prime defense.*
- Attached is a brief analysis of the consequences of abandonment.
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LONS ISt AND UGHmNG COMmmy Honorable Mario'Cuomo 9 ._ December 14, 1983 Page 2' [ II. Shoreham can operate safely. I am confident of that for two principal reasons. First, the plant itself has been more thoroughly scrutinized forThat defects than reality has repeating. bears any other nuclear No other station.in the. country. plant has been as relentlessly inspected and reinspected, It has emerged unscathed. analyzedThe and reanalyzed, as~Shoreham. inescapable conclusion is that Shoreham has been safely designed and built. It has benefited from and' continues to benefit from an unusually effective quality assurance program. These. facts have been obscured in the hue and cry of recent months. But they speak Shoreham with a quiet eloquence that cannot is among the plants most physically ultimately be silenced. sound in this country,ons shown by vast amounts of evidence. That evidence will be heard, and it will ensure that the abandonment of Shoreham could not be effectively clothed'in any notion that the plant was physically unsafe. The problem with the diesel generators is vexing and holds the remote potential of adding significantly to the cost. This is so;not because their problems call into question the l integrity of the plant as a whole, and not because it is technically L difficult to fix or replace them,-but because it could take so much time to effect the remedy. The diesels will be fixed as rapidly as'is feasible, and programs presently in place could pro-vide an early solution. My second reason for confidence that Shoreham'can operate safely concerns people. The plant has had for years a first-class ', staff, which, I believe, is acknowledged freely by all those who The staff's one weakness, which has have been close observers. has , recently become a generic concern of experienced observers, been too little experience in the actual operation of boiling water reactors. That situation is being aggressively overcome by the addition to LILCO's ranks of more people with such experience. There is nothing new, however, about-the Company's insistence on excellence'in the human element of Shoreham's equation, from maintenance workers through senior management. LILCO will con-tinue to ttke whatever steps are necessary to ensure that Shoreham's people have both the capacity and the will to operate the plant safely. III. Long Island has probably seen more hurricanes and ice storms in'the past thirty years than any other area in this nation. To' cope with such disasters, LILCO has developed over th effectively to any part of'its territory where trouble occurs. 1 I
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l a ono ct.Amo uowTimo comsmuy Honorable Mario'Cuomo December 14, 1983. a Page 3 The concept of LILCO's Local Emergency Response Organization for Shoreham (LERO) was a-natural outgrowth of our ability to cope 1 I with natural disasters. ,We believe that LERO will serve as the I model for emergency response plans for other nuclear power stations. In fact, we understand that parts of our plan were used in the now approved emergency responeo organization for the Indian Point Power Plant. There are over 1600 LILCO employees The Company will who are now working to make LERO a success. continue to furnish as many of its people and as much of its equipment, time, creativity and money into emergency planning as needed-to produce arrangements that can protect the public. The undertaking is difficult because the current govern-ment of'Suffolk County not only refuses to assist in emergency planning-but also actively seeks.to obstruct LILCO's efforts. A few years-from now, in our judgment, the current County position will be seen as a passing aberration -- a temporary, if extremely costly, divergence from .the County's previous and subsequent commitment to protect its citizens' health and safety'in the face of all-kindslof accidents, radiological accidents included. In ^l~ the-future the County's role in emergency planning for the plant
.will be resumed. The present reality -- however artificial and contrived it may be -- is that-'the County has forced LILCO to prove _that it alone can provide an adequate emergency plan for-
'Shoreham. LILCO =an and will carry its burden.
I cannot overemphasize, however, how much LILCO would prefer to cooperate with~the County in emergency planning. If forced to, the_ Company will show that an adequate job of emergency planning can be done despite-the County's opposition. But LILCO neither began this wasteful fight nor seeks to prolong it one
-second' longer than is avoidable. We are anxious to negotiate with the County's representatives on any proposal, complete or partial, that has any potential whatsoever to turn the present atmosphere of' confrontation toward one of cooperation. _
IV. I firmly believe that the need for Shoreham as a matter of prudent energy policy, the plant's inherent safety, and the artificiality of the present controversy over emergency planning could all be more easily recognized if the economic cost of Shore-ham were better understood in terms of effect upon the customer. We do not foresee future increases in rates that would have the We disruptive consequences which many have attempted to project. are:now proposing to request an increase in electric rates to be effective some ten months from now, October 1, 1984, in an amount of-ll.8 percent over current charges.- A year later, by October 1985, we would anticipate a further increase of something beyond that level, but nowhere near the 56 percent, 70 percent, 100 percent
~ u)NG ist AND UGHTING COMf%NY
< 4 i
Honorable Mario Cuomo
December 14, 1983
- Page 4 that the public is given to under- )'
increase-(one stand will occur overnight. takes one's pick)It is true, that given no change in present. circumstances, the investment in Shoreham will require, over.some period of time, a substantia 1' increase, whether it but this should not be viewed as an isolated fact. operates or not,LILOO would welcome the opportunity to. work with the Public Service Commission and your office to develop.a plan that, while preserving the financial stability of the Company, spreads over the time the recoupment of Shoreham's costs, In thereby moderating addition to spreading significantly costs over the plant's impact on rates. time,-I believe there are additional means available to the Com-pany and the state for further mitigation'of electric rates. As I believe you know, we are engaged in an intensive effort to convert a considerable portionWith of our outstanding the help of state, securities to tax-exempt obligations. federal and Nassau County officials, we have made considerable progress in this area, which holds the potential for reducing .Should we annual revenue requirements by $100 to $150 million.further ramifi-achieve the appropriate status to effect that,Another initiative involves cooperating cations with thecan New be York examined. State Power Authority in assessing the feasibility of constructing an additional transmission line into Long Island so
' that. additional quantities of economy Thereenergy from is also theCanada andfor potential other sources can be made available.
further beneficial participation by the Power Authority in real- j location of future available hydro, and in projects which affect { LILCO through the creation of an authority for the allocation of j certain electric energy. We are also proposing to introduce, this month, an j economic development rate (as authorized by the Volker bill, which you signed) to provide additional quantities of electric energy at very low rates to more thanThere 3,000 of our major commerciala is no subsidy' involved by territory and, thus, the State. other customers; all ratepayers benefit by additional use of underutilized capacity. All of these bode well for the effective stabilization of electric rates, while at the same time operating Shoreham as an effective hedge against failure of oil supply or disruption in oil price stability. For example, the price of oil we burn to generate electricity rose from under $12 a barrel in 1979 to $30 by the end of 1981, being by far the largest factor in caus customer As an aside, to climb from this is 6.27 a far cents larger in 1978 to 11.37 proportionate centsinincost increase 1981.in l a much shorter time than the most pessimistic evaluation of Shoreham. i
LO,NG isa AND WOMT1NG COMf%Ny f Honorable'Mario Cuomo { December 14, 1983 Page 5 Where are we now? The Con Edison residential user in J Westchester, Queens or Staten Island is-currently and paying we 31 believe
, percent more for electricity than Long Is an ers l d Further, we it will be a number of years before there is parity. q do not believe that the current level of rates, or those likely to obtain in the future, are theConsider prime f actors that thethat stressafter average most tax J
Long Islander's pocketbooks. spendable income of Nassau and Suffolk households exceeds $35,000 a year, and the average residential electric bill is about $840 annually. Of course, families tailor their usage to their ability j to pay. Our analyses indicate that about 10 percent of Long Island families have incomes of less than $15,000 per year, and there are those in the lower levels of that group who deserve assistance in the form of special rate treatment. We have long favored a form of " lifeline" rate based on need but there has been neither regulatory nor legislative approval. i As you know, the Long Island ~ A economy recent has suggested study been thriving that i and promises to continue that way. i there will soon be a " job glut" here, and that thousands upon thousands of workers will have to be imported from the metro-politan area. Again, we are in the process of interviewing hundreds of our major customers as to the nature and ramifications of electric energy costs in their operations and.the results to date are most reassuring; the level of electric energy costs, while important, is not pivotal in making decisions to expand or move. The satis- l q faction level is high. Bankruptcy is not acceptable as a conscious policy of , state government arising out of the performance by awould Everyone utility.lose company if of its public service responsibilities. Bankruptcy would obviously have a lethal LILCO were driven under. impact upon investors in LILCO, 100,000 The of average whom are New York number State of shares residents holding370. its common stock.There are also untold numbers of New York held is about State citizens whose savings, pension fundstake It would andyears insurance to layare to invested rest the many in LILCO's issuessecurities. of first impression that would be raised by the first bankruptcy of a regulated utility. In the meantime, the economy of Long Island would face severe uncertainties as to the adequacy of electric and gas service and its ultimate cost. Such uncertainties could materially lessen the attractiveness Utilityof ) i the community to business, both existing and potential. J financing in New York State and elsewhere would be severely im-pacted, with resulting increased costs across the board. , Further rate mitigation could occur, at the expense of investors, if the current investigation by the Public Service Commission into Shoreham related decisions and expenditures should This j yield supportable conclusions that there was imprudence.
-proceeding, started in 1979, is approaching its hearing phase.
w :__ __ __ _ - . _ _ .
'Lbw9 set.AND UG>mNG comme,NY Honorable Mario Cuomo 4- December 14, 1983 Page 6 IShoreham think the real conclusion one has to reach is that the cost of is directly related to all of the mandates society, through its elected and appointed officials, has placed on the construction and operation of a nuclear generating station: the highest reasonably attainable standards of safety are to be achieved; the public shall have virtually. unrestricted right to challenge,almost every aspect of design, construction and operation; workingmen are to be protected from exploitation by employers; and ratepayers are to be largely insulated from contributing to the cost of con-struction until such time as the plant operates commercially.
These are legitimate societal demands, but they carry a cost. The cost of Shoreham is the result of the confluence of these require-
~
. ments, as meticulously observed over almost two decades.
l The most significant resource of the Company and its customers is its Board of Directors. The outside directors of LILCO are responsible,' sensitive and wholly dedicated to the wel-fare of the Long Island community. I would suggest that each judgment of policies and actions of this Company, before it is formed or uttered, take into account the unquestioned integrity and faithfulness of this group of people, who have the ultimate responsibility. I very much appreciate your interest in Shoreham I and my and your consideration of the factors that bear ort it. associates are prepared at any time to discuss with you how best to serve the public. Sincerely, . 1 p _ - _- CRP:kam Enclosure 4 0 0
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tggg..on.g ,o. . .sa asco o...c. o..s ~o s o. . . e . i Martin Bradley Ashare, Esq. Suffolk County Attorney H. Lee Dennison Building l Veterans Memorial Highway Hauppauge, New York 11788 Long Island Lighting Company (Shoreham Nuclear Power Station, Unit 1) l
Suffolk County Executive Cohalan was quoted in the June 15, 1985 New York Times to this effect: l l In that event (i.e., Shoreham becomes radioactive), the county has a duty and responsibility to provide for the health ) and safety'of the residents near the plant. I write to ask if, in fact, the County Executive will . respond fully, in cooperation with LERO, to protect the public health and safety in the event a radiological accident occurs at Shoreham. Very truly yours, d W. aylo Reveley, III 126/586
COUNTY OF SUFFOLK OFFICE OF THE COUNTY EXECUTIVE PETER F. COHALAN JOHN C. GALLAGHER surrotx cousrv executivs exisros ,ury June 26,1985 Hunton & Williams 707 E. Main St. P. O. Box 1535 Richmond, VA 23212 A tt: W. Taylor Reveley, III, E sq . R E: Long Island Lighting Conpany ( Shoreham Nuclear Power Station, U nit I)
Dear Mr. Reveley:
This is in response to your letter of June 17, 1985. In the event of a radiological accide nt, I, as the County Executive will . respond to the best' of my ability and in accordance with the duties.and obligations placed upon me by Article 2-b of the Executive Law. Sincerely,
% M P ET ER F. COHALAN l
I SUFFOLK COUNTY EX ECUTI VE PFC: sm , vsTr cme sacuomiat asowway a nau,,auos.n.v sitoe e es s es soo.acco I _i_____________._
Attachment 6
. I iJ STATE OF flew Y0ltK - RADIOLOGICAL ENERGENCY PREPAREDilE55 GROUP f
INTEROFFICE MEMORANDUM l, if i To: Diane Dreikorn - Long Island Lighting Company [ t From: Bruce D. McQueen - Ra'diological Emergency Preparedness Gro ( Date: May 19, 1987 f ! (
Subject:
Admittance to Power Pool Meeting > By order of James D. Papile, Director, REPG, you are hereby refused admittance to the Power Pool meeting on May 19, 1987, t i l l
)
Attachment 7 f li LONG ISLAND LIGHTING COM PANY [ j gj,0 = MsCK5viLLE. NEW -vonn iteci 175 EAST CLD COUNTRY ROAD l-Dbut Dial Number (516) 420-6225 ! I i August 30, 1985 s i Deputy Chief Richard C. Roberts Office of the Chief of District Suffolk County Police Headquarters l Yaphank Avenue Yaphank, NY 11980
Dear Chief Roberts:
This letter is written simply'co confirm that you have received Controlled Copy No. 254 of the Shoreham Nuclear Power StationIt Emergency Preparedness Plan and its associated procedures.the plan and p is my understanding that to your office yesterday, August 29.
! Should you have any questions regarding any of the Plan'sI may be reached a
content, please do not hesitate to contact me. at the above listed number. Very truly yours, b fjf William F. Renz, Supervisor Offsite Emergency Preparedness cc: Mr. Hugo Mutz i e i _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __-}}