ML20207S236

Advises That Commission Disapproved SECY-86-252, Commission Review of Shearon Harris Appeal Board Decision on Environ Issues

ML20207S236
Person / Time
Site:	Harris, 05000000
Issue date:	09/17/1986
From:	Chilk S NRC OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY (SECY)
To:	Parler W NRC OFFICE OF THE GENERAL COUNSEL (OGC)
Shared Package
ML20207Q708	List: ML20207Q707 ML20207S203 ML20207S214 ML20207S226 ML20207S232 ML20207S234 ML20207S236
References
FOIA-86-843 ALAB-837, NUDOCS 8703190171
Download: ML20207S236 (1)

Text

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NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSIOf>f_ -

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/ September 17, 1986 OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY MEMORANDUM FOR: William C. Parler

• , General Counsel FROM: [/ amuel J. Chilk, Secretary

SUBJECT:

SECY-86-252 - COMMISSION REVIEW OF SilEARON liARRIS APPEAL BOARD DECISION ON ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES (ALAB-837, 23 NRC 525, MAY 29, 1986) s This is to advise you that the Commission (with Chairman Zech and Commissioners Roberts, Bernthal, and Carr agreeing) has disapproved'SECY-86-252 and has declined review of this case in all respects. Accordingly, the time allowed for the Commission to decide to take review was allowed to expire on September 12, 1986. All Commissioners also agreed that rulemaking need not be initiated.

Commissioner Asselstine while agreeing that rulemaking was not needed, approved the remainder of the draft order presented in the SECY paper.

cc: Chairman Zech Commissioner Roberts Commissioner Asselstine Commissioner Bernthal Commissioner Carr k

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OFFICE OF THE COMMIS$10NEft September 11, 1986 MEMO T0: William L. Clements, Chief Docketing and Service Branch FROM: Patricia R. Davis, Legal Assistant 3D Office of Comissioner Asselstine

SUBJECT:

SHEARON HARRIS PROCEEDING Please serve the attached memo on the parties to the Shearon Harris proceeding.

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OFFICE OF THE September 11, 1986 MEMORANDUM T0: Files -

FROM:

Patricia R. Davis}'J)

Legal Assistant

SUBJECT:

CONVERSATION RE SHEARON HARRIS EMERGENCY PLANNING EXEMPTION REQUEST Comissioner Asselstine's office received a phone call today from a Mr. Billy Cumings. He wanted to tell us about a letter which would be coming from the*

Office of the Attorney General of North Carolina. He was concerned because the Comission has an affirmation scheduled for this afternoon on an order dealing with the request for a hearing on CP&L's request for an exemption to the emergency drill requirements. Mr. Cumings wanted us to know about the

( Attorney General's letter before the affirmation so he read the letter to me.

In general, the letter expressed opposition to the exemption request and asked the Comission to mandate compliance with the emergency preparedness regulations.

Mr. Cumings wanted to know whether he should call the other Comissioners. I suggested that he call Rick Levi in the General Counsel's office.

. cc: Joe Gray Mac Cutchin Steve Schinki Steve Burns s

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CHAlftMAN August 7, 1986 ,

Judge James L. Kelley Judge James H. Carpenter Judge Glenn O. Bright

Dear Judges Kelly,

Carpenter, and Bright:

Thank you for your letters of November 19, 1985 and May 16, 1986 concerning.the adequacy of emergency alerting siren systems at nuclear power reactors. The Commission is continuing to assess the issues raised by your letters and your initial decision, and has been closely following the resolution of this issue in the licensing proceeding. The Commission will be asking staff for ~

its views on the generic issue which you raise, with a view to deciding whether the relevant rules or guidance documents need to be revised.

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Thank you for bringing this matter to our specific attention.

Sincerely, Atd4 W. 1.

Lando W. Zec , Jr e

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• • • ' - November 19, 1985 ,

Chairman Nunzio J. Palladino Comissioner Thomas M. Roberts Commissioner James K. Asselstine Commissioner Frederick M. Bernthal Comissioner Lando W. Zeck

Dear Mr. Chairman and Comissioners:

We are writing this letter to bring to your attention evidence of possible generic safety problems involving nighttime emergency notification of residents in the plume emergency planning zones '

surrounding nuclear power plants. It appears that under the acceptance criteria being generally appited by the Federal Emergency Management Agency to nuclear plant siren systems -- criteria which are based on daytime conditions -- substantial numbers of EPZ residents would not be !

aroused from sleep should an emergency siren notification be necessary between, say, midnight and 6:00 a.m., particularly if bedroom windows were closed.

We are members of the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board presiding over the application of Carolina Power and Light Co., et al. for an operating license for the Shearon Harris facility. We recently conducted an evidentiary hearing in that case on an Intervenor's contention that the Applicants' sirens would not awaken sleeping residents in the EPZ between midnight and 6:00 a.m., particularly those who have closed their windows and turned on their air conditioners. Both the Applicants'and the Federal Emergency Management Agency presented extensive testimony and responded to cross-examination on the contention, as reflected in the Shearon Harris transcript. Tr. 9356-9976. The parties will be submitting proposed findings of fact on the siren and another contention during December, and the Board expects to decide those contentions in early 1986. In these circumstances, we as a Licensing Board have not drawn any conclusions about the particular siren contention before us in the Shearon Harris case. In any event, we would have no occasion to write to you about Shearon Harris at this time. -- in advance of the normal review process -- because Harris is not, of course, an operating facility. Furthermore, should any deficiencies. in nighttime notification emerge from the Shearon Harris record. we could fashion effective measures to deal with them on a site-specific basis. Rather, this letter is prompted by the possible generic implications of certain of the evidence in the Shearon Harris record, and our belief that such evidence should be called to your attention now. Most significantly, you should be aware of the following matters:

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1. . The FDhl design criteria provide for siren sound covera 10 dB(a) above ambient noise levels or a minimum of 60 d8(c)ge of .

. 2. The " FEMA 43" reviews of siren system designs for operating nuclear 2 facilities are based on sumer daytime conditions. Such reviews give no consideration to factors only applicable at night -- i.e., almost everyone is indoors and asleep, many with the windows closed. These factors are not offset by greater sound propagation at night.

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3. The testimon air conditioning)yand is an.

that, for a siren outdoor house withlevel sound the of windows 60 dB, theclosed (central probability of arousal from sleep is. essentially zero. With the windows open, the probability'is 7-8%^, (Tr.'9650). ,.

4. The sound levels necessary for high probability of arousal are substantially above the FEMA minimum guidance. For example, a 50% _

i probability of arousal of an individual in a house with the windows closed requires outdoor sound levels of 90-99 decibels (Tr. 9927). The wide range in this estimate reflects the imperfect knowledge of siren arousal capability, since direct. tests have not been conducted, at least?

in the United States.

i

! 5. For the Harris assumed summer scenario -- including 36% of the houses in the EPZ with no air conditioning (windows open) -- arousal is estimated as approximately 70%. Assuming the accuracy and acceptability i of that estimate, lower probable arousal rates in other climatic areas of the United States nevertheless suggest possible generic safety i concerns -- particularly in the winter season, when more of the population may sleep with the windows closed..

6. We further note that overall arousal percentages for an EPZ can

. mask the fact that, in areas'of moderate housing density but with a fair number of houses more than one mile from a siren, a substantial percentage of the houses would have an arousal probability of less than i 50%. For example, at siren 70 in the Harris EPZ, about 100 houses of i

about 160 in that area, or 63%, are in the 70-80 dB area. The

probability of arousing an individual in those houses with the windows i closed is approximately 30%, and is 55% for household arousal with two residents. If these houses correspond to U.S. averages, 18% would have one resident 30% would have two residents,'and the average probability ,

of arousing the household would be 43%. Thus, although the risk of not being aroused, averaged over the EPZ, may be roughly.30%, in some areas approximately 50% of the houses may have a risk of non-arousal of roughly 57%.

NRC regulations require "early notification" to EPZ residents (10 C.F.R. 50.47(b)(5)), and this has been further defined to mean that the design objective of "the prompt public notification system shall be to have the capability tu essentially complete the initial notification of the

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public within the plume exposure pathway EPZ within about 15 minutes."

• 10 C.F.R. Part 50, Appendix E, IV D.3. The evidence we have cited indicates that in EPZs which rely primarily on siren notification (it is our impression that that is the case for most consercial reactors), such notification would not be " essentially complete" under some typical nighttime conditions within 15 minutes. To be sure, emergency notification typically includes "back-up" notification by police, fire

> and other emergency vehicles driving prearranged routes with sirens sounding. However, as was testified to in the Shearon Harris case, this back-up notification probably would not be accomplished in the 15-minute

period. Tespimony of Alvin,H. Joyner at 42, ff. Tr. 9374. It seems doubtful. thal such back-up notification could be completed expeditiously 4

' if emergency workers had to first be reached and activated between.

midnight and 6:00 a.m.

We also are aware that persons who are aroused from sleep might not only -

arouse their household, but that they would also tend to contact some neighbors, friends and relatives in the EPZ. This process of " informal notification" was testified to at some length in the Shearon Harris hearing, and the Board does not doubt that such infomal notification t would occur to some degree. However, the phenomeno'n cannot be controlled like a siren level or a police car route, and its likely

' effects are difficult to quantify. Therefore, we question whether informal notification should be viewed as a substitute for planned notification.

According to testimony in the Shearon Harris case, the siren systems around operating nuclear plants have not been field-tested to determine what percentage of EPZ residents would actually be aroused by their activation between midnight and'six a'.m. Tr. 9935-40. We believe that some such testing would be prudent and merits Commission consideration.

Respectfully submitted,

. O-= WA R JpsL.Kelley /

- D kU06 James.H. Carpihter

%sLM Glenn O. Bright 67 cc: H. Plaine, General Counsel S. Chilk, Secretary Shearon Harris Service List

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. On November 19, 1985, we wrote to you to express our concerns,

arising out of the Shearon Harr'is ' operating license proceeding, that existing' siren systems at other nuclear plants might be deficient.for i nighttime alerting. On April 28, 1986, we issued our decision on the ,

remaining contentions in the Shearon Harris case, including nighttime  ;

alerting, and authorized issuance of fuel leading and operating licenses l

for that facility. We found that the overall Shearon Harris alerting system, where sirens are to be supplemented by a tone alert radio in the

- bedroom of each residence in the first 5 miles of the 10-mile EPZ, mebts l applicable requirements under sumer nighttime conditions. '

i Nsvertheless, our findings in the Shearon Harris case underline our generic concerns about nighttime alerting at reactors which rely i

entirely.on sirens and so-called " informal alerting" (initiated by the

sirens) in the first 15 minutes following a declared emergency.

We continue to be concerned about the technical adequacy of the FEMA standard for judging nuclear power plant siren systems for

. nighttime. conditions. As discussed in more. detail in our decision, the

. FEMA standard for a nuclear plant siren system in a sparsely ~ settled

area like Shearon Harris is that it produce a minimum sound level of 60 dB (decibels) outdoors throughout the EPZ. This standard is applied to

! sumer daytime conditions, the time least favorable for sound propa-

gation. However, as the record in the Shearon Harris case shows, the time least favorable for actually alerting people is midnight to 6 a.m.

i when virtually everybody is indoors and asleep. Although nighttime i

conditions are more conducive to sound propagation, that advantage is i much more than offset by closed bedroom windows and the state of sleep.

( Our second concern is with the Staff's position, as expressed in the Executive Director for Operations' memorandum to you of February 24, 1986, which states in pertinent part as follows.

i i

The conclusion reached in FEMA's study, in response to the j

[ShearonHarris]hearingcontention,thatthissirensystem

[ supplemented by informal alerting] can be expectgd to arouse

! -- .and alert approximately 90% of the EPZ residents during a i

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. l nighttime emergency serves to confim FEMA's judgment that siren systems designed and evaluated in accordance with

... NUREG-0654/ FEMA-REP-1, Rev. 1 and FEMA-43 meet the NRC requirements for both daytime and nighttime alerting. )

i Unlike the Staff, we would not accept a 90% alerting level as meeting l the Cemission's requirement of " essentially 1005" alerting in the first l 5 miles of an EPZ. We held that " essentially 100%" means a notification  !

system capable of alerting greater than 95% of the EPZ residents in the  !

first 5 miles. We therefore held that the 91% level expected for the  !

Shearon Harris sirens and informal alerting was insufficient. However, with the addition of tone alert raoios at Shearon Harris, an alerting i level of 98% can be expected, a clearly satisfactory level in our view.

Our third generic concern arises from a realistic scenario which i the Shearon Harris case and the FEMA / Staff position do not address --

winter nighttime alerting. The Harris contention was focused on summer

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nighttime conditions apparently because the Intervenor believed that noise from air conditioners made that the " worst case." The evidence showed that air conditioner noise, typically in the lower frequency  ? I range, had only slight effects on alerting. The key factor is whether i the bedroom windows are open or closed because closing the window  ;

attenuates sound intensity by about 28 d8. In.the Shearon Harris case, i the study on which FEMA relied was based on the assumption that about  ;

50% of the windows are open on a sumer night in Eastern North Carolina.

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In the winter, however, we would estimate that perhaps 75-90% of bedroom windows in that area would be closed. In an EPZ in a colder climate --

say, in Maine or Minnesota -- we would expect that most people would

. also have storm windows and that virtually all bedroom windows would be closed at night. That~exp' e ctation is borne out by a 1982 NRC Staff analysis titled " Evaluation of the Prompt Alerting Systems at Four Nuclear Power Stations," NUREG/CR-2655, PNL-4226, which projected the following siren alerting rates under nighttime conditions:

Plant Conditions Rural Area  !

Trojan Winter Night Rain 60% l TM1 Winter Night Snow 425 Zion Winter Night Windy) 51% 1

• Indian Point Winter Night Snow) 53%

I Similarly low alerting percentages could be expected as a result of

closed windows in hot sumer climates.

To be sure, the large gaps between these alerting percentaqes and i the Comission's requirement of " essentially 100%" will be part y filled i by informal alerting. If one assumes that 50% of the alerted households j j would engag'e in infomal alerting, overall alerting for the above four 4 i i

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EPZ's would range from 54% to 725. Using TMI to illustrate that computation, with 42% direct alerting the 50% assumption would result in

. 21% of the alerted households attempting to alert others. This 21%

might successfully alert a non-alerted household 58% of the time (42% of the time an already alerted household would be contacted). Twenty-one percent multiplied by 58% produces an alerting increment of 12%, so that  !

the initial 42% would be increased to a 545 alerting level.

Furthermore, as the Shearon Harris record shows, the estimates in NUREG/CR-2655 were based on questionable data and are probably low by 10-20 perc3ntage points. Nevertheless, even after taking account of informal alerting and factoring in the most relevant data on the arousal capabilities of strens, the nighttime alerting percentages for the four plants would probably range from about 70% to 855, falling well below even the Staff's lenient 90% standard. Such levels of alerting cannot reasonably be viewed as satisfying the " essentially 1005" regu atory requirement. -

We refrained from raising a wintertime alerting issue in the Sheerfin Harris case on our own motion only because the licensee is to 6 insta'I tone alert radios, supplemental to the sirens, in the bedrooms

• of residences in the first 5 miles of the EPZ. In our judgment, there is a serious question whether other existing siren systems, in the absence of an equivalent supplemental system for nighttime alerting, can meet regulatory requirements, particularly under winter nighttime conditions. There are several supplemental alerting technologies (such as tone alert radios, automatic telephone dialers, activation of alerting devices with signals carried by regular household power lines, and mobile sound sources) that can be anticipated, in conjunction with-siren systems already in place, to alert more than 95% of sleeping people in an EPZ in any season of the year. It appears that such systems can be cost effective. For example, in the Shearon Harris case, the Applicants testified that the approximate cost of purchasing and distributing tone alert radios to about 600 houses in the first 5 miles of the EPZ would be $80,000.

In sumary and conclusion, the practical effect of the FEMA and NRC l Staff positions on nighttime alerting in 15 minutes based on sirens and e infomel alerting are that (1) in the sumer, about 10% of the people will not be alerted (more in hot climates), and (2) in the winter in cold climates, 15-30% of the people will not be alerted. If the Comission agrees that such alerting levels are acceptable and l correspond to an absence of undue risk in the first 5 miles of an EPZ, j then the present regulatory standard of " essentially 100%" alerting should be changed. If not, we recomend that timely action be taken to ensure that siren notification systems at existing nuclear plants are ,

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Pespectfully submitted, S "#7 JpsL.Kelley [

L.aix4.~.te-Drf James H. Carppter ,

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GleM 0. Bright # ,

cc: M. Malsch, Acting General Counsel S. Chilk, Secretary Shearon Harris Service List  !

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Comissioner James K. Asselstine Commissioner Frederick M. Bernthal .N.Q.T,W Commissioner Lando W. Zech, Jr.

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Dear Mr. Chairman and Comissioners:

Mioc. & U nL FAC. 9. .. 40 0 .___

1 On November 19, 1985, we wrote to you to express our concerns, arising out of the Shearon Harris operating license proceeding, that existing siren systems at other nuclear plants might be deficient for nighttime alerting. On April 28, 1986, we issued our decision on the remaining contentions in the Shearon Harris case, including nighttime '

alerting, and authorized issuance of fuel loading and cperating licenses for that facility. We found that the overall Shearon Harris alerting

system, where sirens are to be supplemented by a tone alert radio in the bedroom of each residence in the first 5 miles of the 10-mile EPZ, meetst

! applicable requirements under summer nighttime conditions.

• Nevertheless, our findings in the Shearon Harris case underline our generic concerns about nighttime alerting at reactors which rely entirely on sirens and so-called " informal alerting" (initiated by the sirens) in the first 15 minutes following a declared emergency.

We continue to be concerned about the technical adequacy of the i FEMA standard for judging nuclear power plant siren systems for nighttime conditions. As discussed in more detail in our decision, the FEMA standard for a nuclear plant siren system in a sparsely-settled area like Shearon Harris is that it produce a minimum sound level of 60 dB (decibels) outdoors throughout the EPZ. This standard is applied to sumer daytime conditions, the time least favorable for sound propa-l gation. However, as the record in the Shearon Harris case shows, the time least favorable for actually alerting people is midnight to 6 a.m.

when virtually everybody is indoors and asleep. Although nighttime conditions are more conducive to sound propagation, that advantage is much more than offset by closed bedroom windows and the state of sleep.

i Our second concern is with the Staff's position, as expressed in the Executive Director for Operations' memorandum to you of February 24, 1986, which states in pertinent part as follows:

4 The conclusion reached in FEMA's study, in response to the

[ShearonHarris]hearingcontention,thatthissirensystem

,supplementedbyinformalalerting]canbeexpectedtoarouse and alert approximately 90% of the EPZ residents during a lI

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nighttime emergency serves to confirm FEMA's judgment _that siren systems designed and evaluated in accordance with

- NUREG-0654/ FEMA-REP-1, Rev.1 and FEMA-43 meet the NRC g

requirements for both daytime and nighttime alerting.

Unlike the Staff, we would not accept a 90% alerting level as meeting the Commission's requirement of " essentially 100%" alerting in the first 5 miles of an EPZ. We held that " essentially 100%" means a notification system capable of alerting greater than 95% of the EPZ residents .in the-first 5 miles. We therefore held that the 91% level expected for the Shearon Harris sirens and informal alerting was insufficient. However, with the add'ition of tone alert radios at Shearon Harris, an alerting level of 98% can be expected, a clearly satisfactory level in our view.

Our third generic concern arises from a realistic scenario which the Shearon Harris case and the FEMA / Staff position do not address --

winter nighttime alerting. The Harris contention wqs focused on sumer -

nighttime conditions apparently because the Intervenor believed that noise from air conditioners made that the " worst case." The evidence showed that air conditioner noise, typically in the lower frequency range, had only slight effects on alerting. The key factor is whether , -

the bedroom windows are open or closed because' closing the window attenuates sound intensity by about 28 d8. In the Shearon Harris case, the study on which FEMA relied was based on the assumption that about 50% of the windows are open on a sunener night in Eastern North Carolina.

In the winter, however, we would estimate that perhaps 75-90% of bedroom windows in that area would be closed. In an EPZ in a colder climate --

say, in Maine or Minnesota -- we would expect that most people would also have stonn windows and that virtually all bedroom windows would be closed at night. That expectation is borne out by a 1982 NRC Staff analysis titled " Evaluation of the Prompt Alerting Systems at Four Ncclear Power Stations," NUREG/CR-2655, PNL-4226, which projected the following siren alerting rates under nighttime conditions:

! Plant Conditions Rural Area Trojan Winter Night Rain) 60%

i TMI Winter Night Snow) 42%

Zion Winter Night Windy) 51%

Indian Point Winter Night (Snow) 53%

Similarly low" alerting percentages could be expected as a result of closed windows in hot summer climates.

l i To be sure, the large gaps between these alerting percentages and l - the Commission's requirement of " essentially 100%" will be partly filled

! by informal alerting. If one assumes that 50% of the alerted households would engage in informal alerting, overall alerting for the above four I

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p EPZ's would range from 54% to 72%. Using TMI to illustrate that computation, with 42% direct alerting the 50% assumption would result in

. 21% of the alerted households attemptinc to alert others. This 21%

might successfully alert a non-alerted household 58% of the time (42% of

' thetimeanalreadyalertedhouseholdwouldbecontacted). Twenty-one

. percent multiplied by 58% produces an alerting increment of 12%, so that the initial 42% would be increased to a 54% alerting level.

l Furthermore, as the Shearon Harris record shows, the estimates in NUREG/CR-2655 were based on questionable data and are probably low by 10-20 percentage points. Nevertheless, even after taking account of informal alerting and factoring in the most relevant data on the arousal capabilities of sirens, the nighttime alerting percentages for the four plants would probably range from about 70% to 85%, fall mg well below even the Staff's lenient 90% standard. Such levels of alerting cannot reasonably be viewed as satisfying the " essentially 100%" regulatory

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requirement.

We refrained from raising a Wintertime alerting issue in the

• Shearon Harris case on our own motion only be:ause the licensee is to install tone alert radios, supplemental to the sirens, in the bedrooms of residences in the first 5 miles of the EPZ. In our judgment, there is a serious question whether other existing stren systems, in the absence of an equivalent supplemental system fcr nighttime alerting, can meet regulatory requirements, particularly under winter nighttime-conditions. There are several supplemental alerting technologies (such

, as tone alert radios, automatic telephone dialers, activation of alerting devices with signals carried by regular household power lines, and mobile sound sources) that can be anticipated, in conjunction with i siren systems already in place, to alert more than 95% of sleeping i people in an EpZ in any season of the year. It appears that such systems can be' cost effective. For example, in the Shearon Harris case, the Applicants testified that the approximate cost of purchasing and distributing tone alert radios to about 600 houses in the first 5 miles i of the EPZ would be $80,000.

In sumary and conclusion, the practical effect of the FEMA and NRC Staff positions.on nighttime alerting in 15 minutes based on sirens and infonnal alerting are that (1) in the sumer, about 10% of the people will not be alerted (more in hot climates), and (2) in the winter in cold climates, 15-30% of the people will not be alerted. If the Comission agrees that such alerting levels are acceptable and l

correspond to an absence of undue risk in the first 5 miles of an EPZ, then the present regulatory standard of " essentially 100%" alerting should be changed. If not, we recomend that timely action be taken to ensure that siren notification systems at existing nuclear plants are ,

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reviewed against appropriate technical and legal standards and supplemented, if necessary.

Respectfully submitted, Om y JpsL.Kelley gr

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Gle3n 0. Bright #

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i /f Commissioner ~Jamas K. Asselstine "

CofAissioper-FPederick M. Bernthal t '; D' ear Mr. Chair 6an andEQuanissioners:

This letter is a response to the July 3, 1986 letter to

.you.from Brent L. Brandenburg, Esq., Assistant General Counsel

.f.or"Consoljdated Edison Company of. New York Inc. .- (Con Ed)

.. owner a'nd operator of,Ind'ian Point Unit No. 2.

No stranger

a to us because he represente'd Con Ed in the Indian Point l

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\ Special 1986 letter Proceeding, to yau asMr<. containing Brandenburg characterized

" erroneous, inaccurate ourand June 9, I

, out-of-date information" regarding the Indian Point Alert and i ._ Notification System (ANS). As a result of his letter, we j'~ , acknowledge that the information'in our letter was out-of-date, s

but it was neither erroneous nor inaccurate. Furthermore,

the fact that it was out-of-date is attributable to the failure of the Staff and/or t

he Licensees to inform the Board about NUREG/,CR-2655 du/ing the Indian Point hearing.

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Hr. Brandenburg is simply wrong when he' states that we

erred in our June 9 letter by s' tat'ing that NUREG/CR-2655 i predicted that on a winter night with snow the sirens at Inatan Point would alert on'iy 53% of the residents in the l EPZ. In point of' fact, the 53% prediction does indeed occur

. at p. 4-2 in NUREG/On-2655 (cited in Brandenburg's letter) as

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' an- estimate of alertability in rural areas (as opposed to

( urban areas).on a. winter' night;during a snowfall at Indian j ' Point. That< prediction of 53% alerting was used by us because di)'it was the value for Indian Point selected by the Shearon

1. Harris / Board in their May 16, 1986 letter to you, and (2) it i represented a worst-case situation. With urban areas included, L i the'predicti6n jumps to only 57% under the same meterological

! - condittens.,' Categorizing any of the densely populated Westchester t - y-( County, New York, suburbs as rural perhaps stretches the meaning

of the word, but>that' choice was made by the authors of f

NUREG/CR-2655, not Ay'us.

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• i July.10, 1986 Mr. Brandenburg seems to imply that that the Staff had no obligation to provide the Board with a copy of NUREG/CR-2655 when it was published in September 1982, because the Board had suspended filing dates and discovery on August 9, 1982 and did not order the hearing resume (.until January 10, 1983.

Board Notifications under the then exfsting policy, and under current policy as well, are not governed by procedural rules issued by licensing boards, as Mr. Brandenburg should know.

. Mr. Brandenburg also argues that the Staff had no obligation to provide the Board with a copy of NUREG/CR-2655

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.because it'.,was a " publicly available document". T. .a t -

.. position is , of course, antenable. The Staff routinely serves Boards and the parties to a proceeding with copies of public NRC ddcuments which are relevant to issues at bar in ,

the proceeding. -

4 On the positi've' side, the information contained in

. Mr. Brandenburg's letter about the Indian Point ANS, which was and nowupgraded following has 151 sirens (the as analysis reported opposed.to in NUREG/CR-2655 the intial 88 in existence at the time of the NUREG/CR-2655 study), assuages the major concern we had about the adequacy of the siren system at

. Indian Point. The telephone survey by Con Ed following the March 1983 exercise showed that 87% of EPZ residents were alerted by sirens and 5% werc alerted by television or radio, to give a total of 92% direct alerting. Again applying the Shearon Harris Board's method of accounting for informal alerting, one obtains an estimate of somewhat more than 95%

alerting, which meets the more-than-95% criterien adopted by the Shearon Harris Board.

We were not told, however, whether the March 1983 test was conducted at night or during the day. Hopefully Con Ed will conduct another test, followed by a telephone survey, on a winter night during a snowstorm. If such a test and survey should confirm Mr. Brandenburg's theories about winter alerta-bility, it could put NUREG/CR-2655 permanently to rest. It appears, however, that he may have failed to take into account the attenuation of sound by closed windows and storm windows, which would be expected during a winter snowstorm but probably not expected during a test in March.

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i 8* 4 July 10, 1986 l Finally. while we no longer have a major concern about the adequacy of the Indian Point siren system, we remain concerned by the fact that the Staff never notified us about HUREG/CR-2655. Had the Staff and/or the Licensees been forthcoming about that study, and had they advised us that the siren system was being upgraded,$p'resumably because of the NUREG/CR-2655 analysis, we would never have been movitated to write our June 9 letter to you concerning this matter.

. Respectfully submitted, j

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,' . y Dr. Oscar H. Paris  ?

Admini ative Judge-Technical

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Frederick J. S on Deputy Chief dministrativa Judge ;chnical 1

cc: B. Paul cotter, Jr.

W. C. Parler General Counsel S. Chilk, Secretary Indian Point Service List e

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