ML20133D641
| ML20133D641 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 01/03/1997 |
| From: | Jordan E NRC OFFICE FOR ANALYSIS & EVALUATION OF OPERATIONAL DATA (AEOD) |
| To: | Lacoste A FRANCE |
| References | |
| NUDOCS 9701100020 | |
| Download: ML20133D641 (3) | |
Text
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1 q January 3, 1997 Mr. Andre-Claude Lacoste, Director ,
Autorite de Surete Nucleaire l 99 rue de Grenelle I F75353. Paris 07SP France l
Dear Mr. Lacoste:
1 I am writing in response to your letter of 8 October 1996, in which you l invited the NRC to submit an article to your bimonthly review, "CONTROLE."
As recuested, the article deals with the NRC policy on public communication I regarcing incidents. j The paper also describes the Agency's position on the implementation of the l International Nuclear Event Scale (INES). As you know, the United States is a limited participant in the INES scale. Our reports are provided to the IAEA in a timely fashion.
If you have any questions about the paper, please feel free to contact me or i Mr. Richard J. Barrett of my staff (1-301-415-7481).
Sincerely, DMGlHALSkW=he EdwardL.Jo an ! Director Office for Analysis and Evaluation of Operational Data NRC Policy on Public Communication Regarding Incidents at Licensed Facilities Distribution: ;
JMTaylor AEOD R/F JLMilhoan JRaines (#96-89)
HLThompson IRD R/F JLBlaha MGCrutchley (#96-44)
FJMiraglia ER R/F ELJordan File Center DFRoss Public 4 ED0 (#96800) '
i DISK / DOCUMENT NAME: a:\barrett\lacoste *SEE PREVIOUS CONCURRENCES j To recdvs a copy of this document, indicate in the box: "C" - Copy wlo attachrnent, "E" - Copy wlattachrent, "N" - No copy -
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NAME RJBarrett:ca DFRoss ELJ M [ WMBe M "h JM N b DATE 12/18/96*:mgc 12/19/96* 12/2D/96 12/g///96 1[//b/86 0FC OCM\SJ NAME SJackson DATE -14/---/46 1/7/98 0FFICJAL RECORD COPY 080101
" 3 TO REGULATORY CEf{ TRAL f!LES N p3.-rA 9701100020 970103 PDR ORG NEXD t/[46 ; p - i -' t Qtt , a PDR
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) Nuclear Regulatory Commission Policy On Public Communication Regarding Incidents At Licensed Facilities The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) considers the timely and accurate provision of information to the press and public on an incident at a nuclear power reactor or fuel cycle facility a critical element of our response. We l communicate directly with the public and the news media through a variety of mechanisms, including electronic documents on the World Wide Web, and printed documents in public document rooms around the country. For the more serious incidents, the agency communicates with the media by answering telephone inquiries, issuing press conferences. press releases and, if the situation warrants, holding NRC licensees are required by regulation to promptly report a wide variety of events to the Operations Center at NRC headcuarters. Technically trained Operations Officers are on duty 24 hours2.777778e-4 days <br />0.00667 hours <br />3.968254e-5 weeks <br />9.132e-6 months <br /> a cay to receive these event notifications (EN) which number approximately 1600 each year. A summary of each event notification is distributed within the NRC on the morning of each work day, and analyzed for generic applicability. In order to keep the public fully informed, the agency places electronic copies of the summaries on the internet within one business day, and paper copies are made available in public document rooms (PDR) within one business day after the event.
For certain kinds of events, the licensee is required (by regulation and license commitment) to declare an emergency and classify the event in one of four emergency categories. In increasing order of severity, they are:
Unusual Event (UE): Alert: Site Area Emergency (SAE): and General Emergency (GE). The classification is done in accordance with Emergency Action Levels (EAL), which are approved in advance for each facility by the NRC. The nuclear inJustry in the United States annually experiences approximately 100 UEs. and 5 to 10 Alerts. SAEs occur less than once a year. The only event that would qualify as a GE was the 1979 Three Mile Island accident (before the current classification system was in place).
When an emergency occurs, the NRC decides whether to activate its emergency response plan. The lowest level of activation is the " Monitoring" phase of normal operation. In this mode, the agency generates Status Summaries, which are supplied to State govecnments. Federal agencies and the international i community. No direct notification to the public or the media is made at this i time. I For more serious emergencies, the agency enters " Standby" mode, and begins to )
issue periodic press releases. In addition, if sufficient press interest is i evident, the NRC would activate its Headquarters News Center, and make agency I officials available to brief the press. !
For the most serious events, the agency enters " Initial Activation" mode, and i dispatches a team of regional managers and staff to the site. When this team )
is in place and fully prepared, they assume primary responsibility for NRC i response to the incident, including the preparation of press releases and the '
conduct of press conferences in the vicinity of the event. I
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- At this stage of an incident. the NRC participates in a Joint Information l 4 Center (JIC). where information about the event is provided to the media by the principal staffs of federal agencies, the appropriate State government and l the licensee. Each participating organization provides information in accordance with its responsibility in responding to the event. For instance, j all information regarding offsite arotective actions, such as evacuation directives, would be supplied by t1e State officials. This arrangement has the advantage of minimizing the confusion that could occur when inconsistent j and conflicting information is supplied to the public during an emergency. !
The NRC assessment of safety significance uses risk methodology. All event reports are screened using the Accident Sequence Precursor (ASP) methodolo to identify events which have a conditional core damage probability of 10'gy or greater. Those events are compiled and published annually in NUREG/CR-4674.
The NRC also reports unscheduled incidents or events that are significant from the standpoint of public health on an annual basis. These events are defined as Abnormal Occurrences in Section 208 of the Energy Reorganization Act.
The NRC is a limited participant in the International Nuclear Event Scale (INES). While the scale was intended to facilitate communication between the nuclear community, the media, and the public prompt communication measures already existed such that the INES scale is not routinely used in NRC or utility press releases. The NRC prepares INES reports to IAEA for all power l
- reactor events which are classified as an Alert or greater. It is not the a policy of the NRC to prepare reports for incidents at non-power reactors or fuel cycle facilities.
1 The NRC policy is to submit a rating no sooner than one week after the termination of the event to preclude confusion that might occur to the public due to the disparity between the seven-tiered INES information scale and the four-tiered NRC incident response scale mentioned above. This time delay helps to ensure the accuracy of the report and the rating determination. Even so, the NRC reporting time is considerably shorter than the mean value of countries participating in INES.
The NRC places high priority on providing accurate and timely information regarding incidents to the media and the public. As new communications methods are developed, we attempt to improve and expand our means of getting our message out.
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