ML19331A779

Responds to CPC 780131 Ltr to Aslab Re Electric Demand Forecast Downward Revision.Requests Aslab Reconsider Denial of Motion for Facility Const Suspension.Related Correspondence

ML19331A779
Person / Time
Site:	Midland
Issue date:	02/02/1978
From:	Cherry M CHERRY, M.M./CHERRY, FLYNN & KANTER
To:	Mike Farrar, Johnson W, Salzman R NRC ATOMIC SAFETY & LICENSING APPEAL PANEL (ASLAP)
References
NUDOCS 8007230809
Download: ML19331A779 (3)

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February 2, 1978 y/,

64 l Md Mr. Michael C. Farrar, Chairman Mr. Richard S. Salzman Atomic Safety and Licensing- Atomic Safety and Licensing Appeal Board Appeal Board Nuclear Regulatory Commission Nuclear Regulatory Commission Washington, D.C. 20555 Washington, D.C. 20555 Dr. W. Reed Johnson Atomic Safety and Licensing

.Tppeal Board Nuclear Regulatory Commission 1 Washington, D.C. 20555 Re: Consume _r_s Power Co. (Midland Plant, Units 1 & 2) , ,

Nos.cTO-329,7 0-330 )

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Gentlemen:

i We have received Consumers' counsel's January 31, 1978  ;

letter to you, announcing yet another downward revision of the  ;

electric demand forecasts on which Consumers' spurious "need for l power" claim is based.

Consumers' 5.2% long-range growth forecast was the 1 linchpin of its argument against a suspension of construction ,

pending the remanded hearings in this matter.- That forecast has now been cut by more than.15% for the 1978-1982 period (during almost all of which the Midland f acility will not be operating regardless of whether construction is halted). For the crucial years after 1982--the period most significant for -

suspension-of-construction purposes--Consumers' forecasted growth has been cut an astonishing 60%.

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Thus, Consumers itself has now admitted just what we have contended throughout the suspension hearings and on this 4 appeal: that its 5.2% growth forecast, critical to its "need l for power" argument, was egregiously exaggerated.

That destroys Consumers' entire case. Apart from its

" sunk cost" argument (which we have shown to be illegal and totally irrelevant) *and its insistence that Dow Chemical Co.

l "wants" the Midland plant (which tne Licensing Board itself correctly rejected as " speculative"), Consumers' only argument l

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Atomic Safety and Licensing Appeal Board ,

Page Two e February 2, 1978 against an immediate halt to construction concerns the alleged need for power between 1982 and 1984. Consumers has now con-fessed that more than half of that "need" is fictitious. (We might' add that recent events have also emphasized the fictitious nature of Consumers' claims about Dow. It appears from Dow's periodic updates of interrogatory answers, and from news reports emanating from Midland, that the Dow-Cons ners negotiations have now yielded a contract which does not require Dow to buy any steam or electricty at all from the Midland project. We are trying to confirm this through discovery requests, which as yet remain unanswered.)

These things emphasize the severe, continuing, and increasing injury to my clients' rights, to the integrity of the remanded hearings, and to the Comnission's entire regulatory process which Consumers' ongoing construction of the Midland project is causing. Daily the proof that the project is an outrageous white elephant continues to accumulate. Daily more and more of Consumers' soothing statements to the Licensing Board are exposed as inaccurate and indeed fictitious. But daily the Midland project grows, becoming an ever-larger embarrassment -

and anomaly in the regulatory process.

I appreciate that this Appeal Board has a heavy docket.

But our appeal from the Licensing Board's September 23, 1977 ruling was treated, briefed, and argued as an emergency matter, and developments like Consumers' present abandonment of the load forecast on which its whole argument was based underscore the -l importance of prompt relief, so that Consumers does not succeed in irretrievably ruining any hope of a fair and meaningful remanded 1 hearing at the same time as it blithely abandons, one by one, ,

every argument it made before the Licensing Board. '

For these reasons, I respectfully urge this Appeal Board to render a decision in this important and indeed vital matter as promptly as possible. Every day of continued construc-tion of the Midland project adds to the intolerable and anomalous i situation in which Consumers' conduct has placed the parties and the Commission itself. At the very least, if the Appeal l Board's consideration of this case is likely to be protracted I urge the Board to reconsider its denial of our motion for an immediate halt to continued Midland construction pendente lite,

, m y Atomic Safety and Licensing Appeal Board Page Three e February 2, 1978 so that the status quo can be preserved. Developments such as those disclosed in. consumers' January 31, 1978 letter demand no less.

. Res ctfully, V

Myron M. Cherry b MMC:es cc: Service List o

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