ML20214W553

Response Opposing Util Request for Legal Loopholes to Prevent Groups w/long-term Commitment to Insure Licensee Does Better Job Abiding Rules Re Public Safety

ML20214W553
Person / Time
Site:	Limerick
Issue date:	06/02/1987
From:	Romano F AIR AND WATER POLLUTION PATROL
To:	Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel
References
CON-#287-3726 87-550-03-LA, 87-550-3-LA, OLA, NUDOCS 8706160079
Download: ML20214W553 (6)

Text

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3726 AIR and WATER xo

• Pollution Patrol BROAD AXE, PA. J"* h 198, y

U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Washington, D.C. 20555

.n BEFORE THE ATOMIC SAFETY AND LICENSING BOARD -

Administrative Judges Sheldon J. Wolfe, Chairman Dr. Richard F. Cole Dr. Peter A. Morris In the Matter of PHILADELPHIA ELECTRIC COMPANY Docket Nos. 50-352-OLA (Limerick Generating Station (TS Iodine)

Units 1) (ASLB No.87-5.50-03-LA)

In response to the Board's May 22, 1987 Order (Rescinding order od May 3.9 and Replacing it), we d5 n5t understand what is ment by the Board's statement (top of page 2) that Licensee's Answer (re Argument 1) " URGES" that AWPP is not a valid request in response to the notice published in the Federal Register.

I do not believe that the word " urges" is a sufficently descript-ive term 'in this regard, that makes it possible for AWPP(Romano) to properly respond.

However, I do hold to the statement in my letter of Sept. 4, 1986 which is incorporated by reference herein. .

Further, Phila'delphia Electric,7.via Argument 1 is' seeking.

legal loopholes to prevent groups who have demonstrated their long term commitment to insure licensee does a better job of abid-ing by specified procedures involved in public safety. P.E. should be denied such loopholes because conditions made known via the -

control room operators and supervisors using' security guards as lookouts while they slept indicated licenseeb careless contempt to allow, as the NRC describes it, to let conditions deteriorate "beyond management. control'.' .

htile at this very time the NRC with P.E. going along, there is an effort to discard the need for a " workable" evacuation plan t which _is_ workable, and which completely assures the public is J fully protected, and;untilcthat happend P.E..does.not deserve to be licensed, h2 96

AIR and WATER

• Pollution Patrol BROAD AXE, PA.

(2)

Letter re Docket Nos 50-352-OLA (TS Iodine) continued:

Further, P.E.'s request is for increased leakage of Iodine 131,it askes for too infrequent checks on Iodine 131 leakage even though Chernobyl, 10,000 miles away, has increased the ra-dioactivity of Montgomery County milk sixty times over its con-tent before the..Cherhobyl accident. This makes an evacuation zone of ten miles a cruel joke. Further, reduction in leakc e tests involving Iodine spikes deviates from previous NRC speci-fled procedure in order to permit " pulling cable" for Unit 2 construction which has not received the approval of Governor casey who is 6pposed to it. AWPP(Romano) is opposed, also, be-cause it is unneeded, and new superconduct6rs now will permit';

nuclear plants at great distances from. people.

As per 10CFR 1.714, our interest is in the individual -:

health of myself and my family together, and injury and finan-l cial loss at my property ten miles from the Limerick reactor.

My fear is heightened knowing, as I do, of the patched up react-orr. vessel and its surrounding defective concrete wall. See en-closed "These Are The Facts".

Such patched up reactor vessel and wall crys out against the claim that Limerick cannot have a Chernobyl type accident because it has a different type containment. CAWPP(Romano) states it can burst, like Chernobyl because of its damaged unreliable containment.

I.have contacted the office of Congressman Coughlin and seek Congressional Investigation of the reactor vessel and its surround-ing 6 foot thick concrete-wall'which P.E. rationalized was fully repaired via computer analysis of invisible defects.

Very truly yours,

'I WAT LUTION PATROL

-e Fra R. Romano, Chairman We certify the'above has been served on the latest Service List.

AIR and WATER Pollution Patrol BROAD AXE, PA.

Here are facts backed by official documentation to prove there has been an apparant fraud by Philadelphia Electric (P.E.) involv-ing crucial, safety related welding infractions at the Limerick nuclear reactor.

On November 10, 1976, reacting to an unannounced Nuclear Reg-ulatory Commission (NRC) inspection report, Mr. Robert Carlson, of the NRC, wrote a letter (item 1) to P.E. Vice-President for Eng-ideering and Research, Mr. Vincent Boyer. In that letter, Mr. Carl-con notified Mr. B. oyer of serious violations in mandatory construc-tion procedures involving welding infractions in.the on-going con-struction at the Limerick reactor. (See Inspection Report No. 50-- ,

353/76-06 (item 2),.and in partucular " Notice of Violation", Appen-dix A, Part A (item 3) of Mr. Carlson's letter.

As discussed under Part A, the most glaring example of repeat-ed welding violations had to do with the welding of safety-related .

items by non-qualified welders, using unapproved methods in contempt of specified procedures.

In this most glaring example, detailed on Page 5 of " Summary of Findings" under 76-06-01 (item 4), inspectors were recording as O.K. improperly performed welds. On learning of these repeated vio-lations from workmen, the bRC inspector, over the objection of Phila-dolphia Electric, demanded an immediate inspection of questioned walds, and found them to be grossly deficient....but recorded as O.K.

(described in item $ above) .

On Decemb'er 15, 1976, Vincent Boyer responded to Mr..Carlson's November 19 notice of violations, by writing to Mr. James P.O. O'R-oilley, Director, NRC Office of Inspection and Enforcement, at Reg .

t ion 1, King of Prussia, Pa. (item 5). Mr. Boyer wrote, "the inspec-tor involved is no longer employed by the contractor and a reinspec-l tion of all other work performed by him has been accomplished where accessible". (see p 1 & 2 of attachment 1 of Mr. Boyer's Dec. 15, 1976 letter (item 6) (underlining mine).

The Air & Water Pollution Patrol, a Pennsylvania incorporated l cnvironmental group is intervening before the.NRC Atomic Safety and Licensing Board contending a high potential for accident exists at Limerick. This situation exists because P.E.'s Vice-President Boyer should have requirred. inspection of all welds, both accessible and inaccessible, which now, at great risk, are embedded in concrete, dnd are no longer accessible for inspection. -

l l

1 l l 1 l

4 AIR and WATER Pollution Patrol BROAD AXP, PA; (2) 50-353--Welding--76-06-01 (cont.)

And now,seven years later, in order to counter our contention, P.E. has suddenly changed its story. Mark Wetterhahn, P.E.'s coun-col, in correspondence of April 27, 1983 (item 7), responding to qua:tioning by the Licensing Board relating to the possible impact of cafety at Limerick, emphatically stated, "all welds inspected by the particular inspector, not only accessible welds were re-examined" ,

(underlining by P.E.). (See p. 43 & 46)

Apparantly to further remove any doubts caused by our insistent contention, a follow-up letter of May 20 (item 8) from P.E.'s Counsel to the licensing Board, contained various work records, in particular Finding Report No. N 093 (ltem 9) , that was stated to be sent .as ab-colute proof that all welds... accessible as well as inaccessible walds were inspected (see p.2 of May 20 letter, lines 7,8,9,10, 11).

(Rrport No. N093 does not even discuss inaccessible welds.)

In an order dated July 26, 1983, the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board, in spite of ordering that Air & Water Pollution Patrol's.wel-ding contention be thrown out, requested affadavits from Philadelphia Electric to affirm their emphatic statements contined in their April 27 letter that "all welds...not only where accessible were re-exam-incd" (* item 10)

Unable to substantiate, via affidavit, information which had pre-viously and repeatedly been submitted as fact, Philadelphia Electric, through its Counsel Mark Wetterhahn's letter to the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board, dated August 19, 1983 (item 11) wrote:-

In the course of preparing to respond to~

[

the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board's request I contained in its Second Special Prehearing Ord-er (LPB-83-39) dated July 26, 1983, at 38-39 for I an affidavit to verify the statements contained l in Counsel's May 20, 1983 lette'r to the Licen-I sing Board, it was learned that all inspections l performed by the subiect quality control inspector l had not been identified and, therefore, not re-in-spected as previously believed. (underlining AWPP's) l As a result of Philadelphia Electric Counsel's August 10, 1983 letter above, and the Air & Water Pollution Patrol's request for re-consideration of its Quality Assurance Contention, identified as AWPP VI-1, the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board reversed its posi-l tionthrough its October 28, 1983 "Memorandun and Order Confirming Rulings Made At Prehearing Conference" . (item 12)

AIR and WATER Pollution Patrol BROAD AXE, PA. -

(3)

• 50-353--Welding--76-06-01 (cont.)

As can be seen on p5 of that Order, our Quality Assurance Con-tantion was only " partially admitted" thus eliminating an extremely ,

corious known concrete defect (item 13) in the drywell wall surround- .

ing the primary containment enclosing the reactor core.

The partial contention, after eliminating concrete and other re-lcted infractions, however, was more than just a contention. It was a proven fact, as we made known to the Atomic Safety and Licensing.

Board, that (as the contention reads)" Applicant has failed to con-trol performance of welding and performance there-of in accordance with Quality Control and Quality Assurance. procedures and. require -

ments, and has failed to take proper and corrective and pre.ventive actions when improper welding has been discovered". Items 14 & 15;is a confused attempt, via " engineering analysis " to cover one such failure.

Just as at Zimmer, Air & Water Pollution Patrol has hundreds of doc,umented infractions of specified procedures in concrete work -

and safety related welding. ,

Just as at Zimmer,it is already known there h. ave been slip-shod inspections of safety related work.

Just as at Zimmer, it is already known there tuve been falsifi-cation of records.

Just as at Zimmer, workmen have ancnymously reported. completed and inspected as O.K work which was later shown to be improperly done.

~

l Just as at Zimmer,.there was deliberate sabotage.

i Just as at Zimmer, so-called qualified workers were found.to ba performing improper welds and performing welding procedures for which they were not qualified.

And just as at Zimmer, the Contractor, the Applicant, and in-spectros by-passed safety codes and standards, ignored their own quality assurance program, and then covered up flagrant violations, through false statements.

And just as the Nuclear Regulatory Commission was part of the whole sorid Zimmer indictment of the nuclear establishment, that same Nuclear Regulatory Commission, during much the same time was meting out gentle responses to infractions at Limerick.

And this same federal agency, while watching Zimmer and Phila-l l

AIR and WATER Pollution Patrol BROAD AXE, PA.

(4) 50-353--Welding--76-06-01 (cont. )

1984) repeat-delphia Electric (as stated in the Inquirer, Jan. 24, edly refused to insist, on safe nuclear standards even when workers cnd others submitted evidence of contempt for specified procedures (We may in safety related construction work.

or who might testify to this).

While Philadelphia Electric has, as ordered by the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board,in placed all discovery Philadelphia, the documents time allotedwetore- .

quested at 2300 Market St. Air and Water Pollution Patrol to ferret put all the details was totally insufficient, so that we could not fully search out the welding affair.

We have. repeatedly pleaded with the Atomic Safety andbut Licen-have sing Board (one motion for extended time is in right now) been refused. This is consitant with NRC non-cooperation.

':AWPP has enou'gh information, documents, logs, etc, so we could help direct where .more' information is. Such an effort for the peo-ple of Montgomery County and Philadelphia to avert an accid be a highly necessary effort to avert possible tragedy.

Air & Water Pollution Patrol is veryWe small in membership cannot hold on any and longer

( is at the end of out-of-pocket money.

without Federal or Congressional aid, not in money but in a com-plete investigation at Limerick, similar to that done at Zimmer.

dereliction of duty by the NRC, and selfishness of Philadelphia Electric, to go unchallenged simply by default.

Sincerely yours, AIR &. WATER POLLUTION PATROL s.a m. W s -

Franx R. Romano, Chairman 61 Forest Ave.

Ambler, Pa. 19002 1

-,.