ML20213E701

Brief in Support of Proposed Findings of Fact & Conclusions of Law & Proposed Form of Decision.Preservation of Position on Matters Summarily Disposed of by 860915 Order Sought.Ol Application Should Be Dismissed.Certificate of Svc Encl

ML20213E701
Person / Time
Site:	Seabrook
Issue date:	11/07/1986
From:	Backus R BACKUS, MEYER & SOLOMON, SEACOAST ANTI-POLLUTION LEAGUE
To:
Shared Package
ML20213E631	List: ML20213E628 ML20213E680 ML20213E701 ML20213E716
References
OL, NUDOCS 8611130261
Download: ML20213E701 (9)

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Dated: November 7, 198 g ED UNITED STATES OF AMERICA '86 NOV 10 A11 :11 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION '

CFf!E F before the N

ATOMIC SAFETY AND LICENSING BOARD In the Matter of PUBLIC SERVICE COMPANY OF Docket Nos. 50-443-OL-1 NEW llAMPSHIRE 50-444-OL-1 Onsite Issues (Seabrook Station, Units 1 and 2)

SEACOAST ANTI-POLLUTION LEAGUE'S BRIEF IN SUPPORT OF ITS PROPOSED FINDINGS OF FACT AND CONCLUSIONS OF LAW AND PROPOSED FORM OF DECISION Introduction This brief addresses in parallel the various factual and legal issues set forth in the Seacoast Anti-Pollution League's Proposed Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law and Proposed Form of Decision (hereinafter cited as "SAPL Prop."). Its purpose is to elucidate the justification for the making of the findings and rulings proposed by SAPL. It also seeks to preserve SAPL's positions with respect to matters summarily disposed of by order of this Board on September 15, 1986.

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i I. Procedural History.

SAPL has no quarrel with the statement of the chronology of events, as far as it goes, set forth in Paragraphs 1-26 of the Applicants' Proposed Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law and Proposed Form of Order except when it is unclear in describing the fact that SAPL filed a motion for summary disposition of SAPL Supplement 3, which was denied. SAPL does not agree that this bare chronology supports the conclusion that all contentions which must be resolved with respect to onsite matters have yet been resolved as the Commission's regulations require. SAPL's Proposed Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law and Proposed Form of Decision sets forth the issues that SAPL holds the Board has not appropriately addressed.

II. Contention SAPL Supp. 6 (Formerly NH-10).

a) The Regulatory Requirement NUREG-0737 Suppl emen t No. 1, makes very clear that Items I.D.1 a nd I . D. 2, the requirements for a Detailed Control Room Design Review (DCRDR) and Saf ety Parameter Display Sys tem (SPDS) respect ively, are regulatory requirements. The Three Mile Island accident revealed, among other things, serious control room deficiencies that needed to be addressed related to the man / machine interface. On October 30, 1980, the NRC staff issued NUREG-0737, which incorporated into one document all TMI-related items that were at that time approved for implementation by the Commission. Supplement No. I to NUREG-0737, issued on December 17, 1982, provided addi t ional clar i f icat ion of certain of those TMI-related items, including Detailed Control Room Design Reviews and Safety Parameter Display Systems.

The letter of transmittal for NUREG-0737, Supplement No. 1, (Generic Letter 82-33) signed by Darrell G. Eisenhut, Director, Division of Licensing, NRR, stated that operating reactor licensees and holders of construction permits were to file a proposed schedule for completing the basic requirements identified therein by April 15, 1983. The last sentence on page 1 of NUREG-0737, Supp. 1, made clear that "the fundamental requirements" in the document, were to be " translated into binding legal requirements." At page 2, it states:

Each licensee's proposed schedule will then be reviewed by the assigned NRC Proj ect Manager, who will discuss the subj ect wi th the licensee and mutually agree on schedules and completion dates. The implementation dates will then be formalized into an enforceable document. (emphasis added)

Pursuant to the letter of transmittal described above, Public Service of New ilampshire ( PSNil ) submitted its letter, SBN-499, on April 14, 1983. With regard to Item 1.D.2, at page 5 of SBN-499, PS Nil stated:

Verification and validation of the SPDS will be accomplished by December 1983, at which time operator training will be initiated and a NRC post-implementation review can begin.

Subsequently, on June 1, 1983, Darrell G. Eisenhut sent out a memo for internal use only to DL Project Managers. The memo noted that each proj ect manager had by then received their utility's response to Generic Letter 82-33 and that some had already begun negot iat ions to develop enforceable schedules. \1r . Eisenhut stated that: "A key item is the acceptability of certain schedules without further negotiations." (emphasis added) The negotistion process was to be completed by July 1, 1983 according to the memo, in an Affidayit appended to NRC Staff Response to Applicants' T1otion for

t Summary Dispos i t ion of SAPL Supp. 6, dated Augus t 18, 1986, Richard J. Eckenrode stated that: "PSNH had originally proposed a June 30, 1986 implementat ion date for the Seabrook SPDS, which the staf f found to be acceptable." SAPL takes the position that, pursuant to NUREG-i 0737, Supp. 1, completion by that June 30 th date was to have been a j binding requirement and that NRC ought now be taking enforcement action. Contrary to the directive in Mr. Eisenhut's June 1, 1983

let ter, the NRC Staf f has now renegotiated the schedule for compt iance with the Applicants and they are to be allowed to defer completion j

of the SPDS until the first refueling outage. It is uncontroverted that the SPDS as currently comprised does not meet the minimum requirements for an SPDS as set forth in NUREG-0737, Supp. 1. Thus, J

it is SAPL's position that no finding can be made, pursuant to 10 CFR$50.57(a)(2) that the Seabrook plant will operate in conformity with the Commission's regulations.

I b) The SPDS Does Not Meet the Substantive Requirements of f

Item I.D.2 of NUREG-0737, Supp. 1.

l The Seabrook Station SPDS does not currently display 5 of the 20 minimum parameters the NRC Staff has identified as necessary to provide plant operators with information about the critical safety

functions (CSF's) specified in NUREG-0737, Supp. 1 (SAPL Prop. #1, 13, 18, 29). NUREG-0737, Supp.1 s t a t es t ha t

" Prompt implemen ta t ion of an SPDS can provide an important contribution to plant safety."

This Board's September 15, 1986 r ul i ng, gran t i ng par t i al s umma ry disposit ion wi th respect to SAPL Supp. 6, by f la t nar rowly redef ined the legal standard for the SPDS such that there should be " reasonable i assurance, in deferring improvements to the SPDS until the first i

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refueling outage, the safety of the population in the immediate vicinity of the plant will be protected."

The five minimum parameters not displayed on the Seabrook Stat ion SPDS are residual heat removal (RIIR) flow, containment hydrogen concentration, containment isolation, s teamline radiat ion and s tack monitor radiation. The NRC Staff is requiring that the last two of the above-ment ioned parameters be added (SAPL Prop. #31). Applicants stated that they would not disagree with a license condition that would prohibit them from bringing Seabrook Station above 5 percent power before steamline and stack monitor radiation are included on SPDS (SAPL Prop. #32). Ilowever, SAPL holds that Applicants should have these parameters added before any level of operation since they are important in informing plant operators about primary to secondary system leakage (steamline) (SAPL Prop. #33) and radiation to the environment (s tack moni tor ) (SAPL Prop. #34). SAPL also holds that Applicants should have the radiation monitoring function added to the top level SPDS display, which they have not planned to do.

Without this step, there is nothing to draw at tent ion to the lower-level radiation parameter displays (SAPL Prop. at #32).

The Applicants have not committed to add RilR Flow to the SPDS (SAPL Prop. # 14 ) . The RHR Flow indications on the main control board are approximately 26 feet 6 inches from the primary SPDS location (SAPL Prop. #16). RilR Flow is an important indicator so that plant operators will know that the RilR pump is f unct ioning properly (SAPL Prop. #15).

Applicants have not committed to add containment hydrogen concentration to the SPDS (SAPL Prop. #19). Containment hydrogen concent rat ion would give an impor tant indication that fuel eladding is being damaged. A high level of hydrogen in the containment is a factor that could lea'd to a hydrogen explosion. (SAPL Prop. #20) i Though Applicants alleged that corrective actions have been taken and completed with regard to the containment isolation display on t ,h e main control board, there had been no NRC review of the installation at the time of the hearing and no documents attesting to the corrective actions provided to NRC (SAPL Prop. #25). The containment isolation display is 26 feet from the primary SPDS location (SAPL Prop. #24). Applicants witness did not know specifically how many lights were associated with the display. The Staff witness stated that the problems with the display were human engineering problems (SAPL Prop. #26). Applicants' witness has had on l y a one-wee k ," don-cr ed i t cou r s e in human f actors engineering (SAPL l Prop., #5). Therefore, SAPL holds that there is no assurance that the containment isolation display is adequate. A containment l isolation valve left open could compromise a good degree of the containment's intended function (SAPL Prop. #27).

I NUREG-0737, Supp. 1 states that:

i The SPDS should provide a coacise display of critical plant variables to the control room operators to aid them in rapidly and reliably determining the safety status of the plant.

I SAPL holds tha t, as presen tly cons t i tuted, the Seabrook Stat ion i

j SAPL does not meet this requirement. The SPDS is not a concise display when the Shif t Technical Advisor must obtain information on variables at a dis tance of 26 f eet away. The purpose of the SPDS is to bring together a lot of dispersed instrumentation into a single l

picture of sa f ety (SAPL Prop. #4 ). Too much of the minimum information i

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required to assess the critical safety functions is still dispersed in the Seabrook Station control room and the currently constituted SPDS does not bring it together.

It is uncontroverted that there is no basis for assuming that the period of plant operation between initial start up and the first refueling is any safer than any other period of plant operation.

Indeed, the Three Mile Island accident may indicate that there is reason to assume the opposite, i.e., that accidents may be more likely to happen during this period.

The NRC Staf f's wi tness was personally unable to tes t i f y as to the safety significance of RHR flow and containment hydrogen concentration (SAPL Prop. #17, 24). l The NRC Staff has not yet been offered verification of the Applicants' correction of the mode dependency problems related to the suberiticality and core cooling status displays (SAPL Prop. #35, 36).

The reliability and availability of the Seabrook SPDS is in question. The data validation algorithms may not be sophisticated enough to ensure valid data is displayed to plant operators (SAPL Prop. #37). The NRC Staff does not yet have accurate availability calculations for Seabrook's SPDS since the system response time has only been tested during lightly loaded sequences (SAPL Prop. #47).

Neither the Applicants' nor the Staf f's witnesses knew the priority the SPDS has in the process of the main plant computer (SAPL Prop.

1. 48). Further, the Staf f witness did not know whether a cable routing deficiency related to the Intelligent Remote Terminal Units (IRTU's),

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l which provide inputs necessary for SPDS calculations and displays, had been adequately f ollowed up by the NRC Staf f (SAPL Prop. #49, 50).

The usefulness of the lower-level SPDS displays to plant operators is seriously in ques t ion. During the NRC cont ractor audit I

team's visit, the NRC observed that plant operators never accessed the lower level SPDS displays. The Staf f has not evaluated why these displays at Seabrook are not useful and is asking the utility to make that evaluation (SAPL Prop. #41, 42). The contractor audit team s tated that: "PSNH should reevaluate the adequacy of previous validation testing to insure that the usefulness of the Seabrook SPDS was thoroughly established." (SAPL Prop. #55)

For all of the above reasons, SAPL holds that the Applicants have not sustained the burden of proof of showing that the health and safety of the population near Seabrook Station is reasonably assured during the period of deferral of correction of the deficiencies in the plant's SPDS. Thus, even in light of the narrowing of the issue by the Board's September 15, 1986 Memorandum and Order, the Applicants' have not mct their burden of assuring that SPDS is presently sufficient to provide reasonable assurance that adequate safety margins will be achieved.

Form of Decision l

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It is clear from the foregoing that the application for an

, operating license for Seabrook Station should be dismissed.

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• Respectfully subcoltted, SEACOAST ANTI-POLLUTION LEAGUE By its attorney, BACKUS, MEYER & SOLOMON

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tl et t A. Backus

. O. Box 516 116 Lowell Street Manchester, N.H. 03105

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DATE: November 7, 1986 I her eby cer t i f y tha t a copy o f t he wI t h in SEACOAST ANTI-POLLUTION LEAGUE'S BRIEF IN SUPPORT OF ITS PROPOSED FINDINGS OF FACT AND CONCLUSIONS OF LAW AND PROPOSED FORM OF DECISION has been sent this date, first class, postage prepaid, to those on the attached service list.

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Rober't A. Backus

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