ML20112H098

Response to Aslab 840313 Order Re Whether ASLB Decision to Review Issues in Soils Hearing Appropriate Use of Public Resources.Concurs W/Decision to Remand OL W/Instructions to Dismiss OL Application for Failure to Pursue Soils Issue

ML20112H098
Person / Time
Site:	Midland
Issue date:	03/27/1985
From:	Sinclair M SINCLAIR, M.P.
To:	NRC ATOMIC SAFETY & LICENSING APPEAL PANEL (ASLAP)
References
CON-#285-334 LBP-85-02, LBP-85-2, LBP-8502, OL, NUDOCS 8504020130
Download: ML20112H098 (5)

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION ]!;q.-

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Before the Atomic Safety and Licensing Appeal Board

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Docket Nos. 50-329 dtC;g - ~ T ;;; (

CONSUMERS POWER COMPANY ) 50-330

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(Midland Plant, Units 1 and 2) J MEMOR ANDUM IN RESPONSE TO ASLAB ORDER OF MARCH 13, 1985-March 2-7,1985 The Atomic Safety and Licensing Appeal Board in their Order of March 13,1985, (LBP-85-2) questioned whether the Licensing Board's. decision t/ o review and resolve certain issues addressed by the extensive record compiled so far in the soils hearing at Midland was an appropriate use of public resources and in the public interest, since construction was halted at Midland.

The evidentiary record and the hearing testimony that the Licensing Board reviewed involved a great deal of time and difficult work on the part of the Licensing Board, the staff, Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) inspectors, and all other participants in the process. Their focus was on one of the most serious construction quality control breakdowns of any nuclear plant site in the riation. The hearing itself was requested by the Applicant, Consumers Power Co.'{CPCo), after the NBC issued an Order on December 6,1979, to halt construction at the site pending resolution of the remedial fixes for the sitewide soils problem. By requesting the hearing, the Applicant was able to continue co.nstruction while the hearing was in progress. The construction that was continued concurrently with the soils hearings became itself a revealing opportun- l lty for the NRC to see the consequences of poor management attitudes combined with incompetence, carelessness and the inability of management to implement plans the NBC had approved.

The fact that the Board stressed the importance of management attitude to the point of ruling that it could be a factor in whether an applicant could get an operating license sends an important signal to the industry about the NBC's stance in this matter.

. l 8504020130 850327 PDR ADOCK 05000329

. For these reasons, the Licensing Board's review of the substantive issues at Midland and their decision become an important case study in the annals of the NRC.

This would be reason enough, and in the public interest, not to vacate the decision.

It should also interest this Appeals Board to know that the subterfuge and mis-information on the part of CPCo management that is part of their past record is still going on.

John Selby, President of the Company, and Stephen Howell, Vice-President, testified on March 22, 1985, before a Committee of the Michigan Legislature study; ing the Midland nuclear plant and CPCo. I also attended the hearing. A committee member asked Mr. Howell about the fact that the ASLB had named him specifically as a management person always ready to blame others for the utility's problems.

Mr. Howell replied that this Appeals Board had reviewed that decision and overruled that part of the decision in their Order of March 13,1985. Does this Appeals Board believe that any part of their March 13,1985 Order had that intent in relation to Mr.

Howell?

Furthermore, John Selby in his testimony alluded to citizen participation in the licensing hearings and NRC regulation as partially responsible for their problems at Midland. He said that the unique feature of cogeneration at Midland was another reason wny the Atomic Energy Commission took so long in giving CPCo a construction license. He was very critical of the licensing process as a cause for delay and costs.

But neither Selby or Howell mentioned that the CPCo Board voted to halt construction on January 1,1971, afterhaving been under construction since 1968, before the permit was granted, and that another halt was voted in 19741-75 because of financial problems.

(Transcript p. 861-895, Dow/CPCo trial, Midland County Circuit Court, Midland, Til)

Moreover, the on-going Dow/CPCo trial has brought out in sworn testimony and evidence the morass of problems,of mismanagement and confusion on site, which were causing escalating costs and construction delays long after the construction permit was granted in 1972, and much before the TMI accident. (Exhibits BEC 1261, CPCo 1722, BEC 343, Dow/CPCo trial, Midland, MI) Enclosure 1 is a news account covering infor-mation in most of these exhibits.

In response to other questions about soils problems these CPCo managers said that the diesel generator building (DGB) was the only building that was affected by poor

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soils compaction, and that the underpinning was undertaken only to meet new seismic criteria issued by the NRC in 1980. They also said that their fix--preloading--for the DGB was adequate and had corrected the problem. They did not mention that the DGB continued to sink and crack alter the preload was removed.

They neglected to mention that the new seismic criteria were established for the industry as a whole. CPCo had developed seismic criteria that were site specific, but on April 20, 1984, J.W. Cook of CPCo reported to the NRC that discrepancies in their seismic calculations required the reporting of four Safety Concerns and Reportability Evaluations (SCREs). Most significant, SCRE-15 stated that the soll's material stiff-ness of the DGB site was assumed to be the same as undisturbed till material 'nstead of the fill material--that same fill material whose compaction had failed so drastically.

The NRC regarded these SCRE concerns as so serious that fetter stated that they would probably require a supplement to the final Safety Evaluation Report (SER) and modification to previous testimony. (Letter from Elinor G. Adensam, NRC Licensing Branch, to James W. Cook, Vice-President, CPCo, June 15, 1984) The Licensing Board, in their decision, stated they could not rule on the DGB because of the many uncertainties. (p. 87-95)

Selby and flowell also neglected to mention that the original Dames & Moore con-

^

sultants' report,which called for sand for compaction and had strict criteria for lift thickness and compaction methods,was filed with the NBC as part of construction license requirements, and then ignored. Bechtel instead dumped clay and random fill from the cooling pond excavation on the site. Proper lift thickness and methods of compac-tion were not followed. CPCo did not stop this process. Therefore, the project was doomed from the start.

If the Licensing Board's decison of January 23,1985 (LBP-85-2, 21 NRC) were to be vacated, as'the ' Appeals Board had suggested in their Order, it would give credence to the position of CPCor s management which continues to be as intractable and devious in their attitudes as they have been in the past. This would not be in the public interest.

I concur with the Appeals Board's decision to remand the operating license of the proceeding to the Licensing Board with instructions to dismiss the operating license application for failure to pursue it.

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I believe the Appeals Board should also recommend dismissing the construction license permit, since one of the major provisions for its issuance, the proper com-paction of soll, was never followed properly, causing the failure of the whole plant site.

Respectfully submitted,

+

M, o U Mary P. S clair cc: Alan S. Rosenthal Thomas S. Moore Charles Bechoefer, Esq.

Dr. Frederick P. Cowan Dr. Jerry Harbour Secretary, Docketing & Services Mr. Michael I. Miller, Esq.

Mr. William D. Paton, Esq.

Mr. Wendell H. Marshall Ms. Barbara Stamiris Mr. Frank Kelley Mr. Myron M. Cherry, Esq.

C. Jean Shoemaker f

N M d/M u W S ,

~~

5 Site manager. '

} MIDLAND questions about how to solve the

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- I C , CONTINUED FROM A1 soils problems at the plant, Bechtel

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recommended in its April study j ~, j f Howell and Consumers' site adding eight months to the Unit 2; manager Don Miller detailed the November 1980 fuelload date andt 1grOWI g.u e ayS w

probiems at the piant. five months to ihe Unit i date, with-Besidesalaborstrikeinmid-1978 at least nine months between the q '

} and the sinking buildings,installa; startupof thetwounits.

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tion of millions of feet of pipes. Those dates represented Bech-wires and cable,s were behind tel's "best judgment" about the ef '

r schedule." Thirty percent of thein- feet of the existing delays, Mar-f.' MIDLAND A . Although Consumers Po'wer strumentation will still not be in- tinezsaid. ,

'Co. has argued that post-Three MLle Island reg- Three months later, Consumers

• Midland Nuclear Plant, testimony this week } stalled in the ulations y_ere.a major cause pf delays at its (the plant's control cenfer) by adopted auxiliary a change building in the Unit 2 fuel 1980," the meeting summary load date, adding seven months

'from the former Midland project manager reads. and making the new date June ishows t!iat the plant was in trouble long before j

. " Manpower levels have been 1981. But it kept the old date for

,the March 1979 accident at the Pennsylvania met or exceeded yet the work is not Unit 1, which was to produce steam

• nuclear plant.

5 getting done. The man hours ap- for Dow, leaving just five months Philip A. Martinez, who managed the project peartobe hidden somewhere." between the startup of the two Sfor contractor Bechtel Power Corp. until he A proposed study of whether the units.

was forced out of the job at Consumers' request target fuel load dates could still be Throughout the rest of 1919, de-

.In September 1979, detailed the history of the met ontime met withlittle enthusi- lays continued as Consumers and growing delays at the plant in three days of tes-timony in the $500 million Dow-Consumers tri .asm from Howell, who " expressed Bechtel struggled with the thorny la lack of interest in the study re problem of how to fix the spongy al. sults since in his view all it could soils beneath the diesel generator ,

' At a series of Eechtel-Conyumers meetings l during 1978 and early 1979, th,e target compleand tell that',

us would be to slip Power Consumers the schedule building.

pre- clear At the same Regulatory time, the Nu '

Commission

' tion dates Consumers had set - November 1980 ferred not to do," the summary adoptedchangesrequiredatallnu-for the Unit 2 reactor and November 1981 for said. clear plants under construction in

' Unit 1 - were slowly slipping away and Bechtel Besides the electrical and me- thewakeof ThreeMileIsland. .

deemed them " unrealistic." chanical delays, some of the design Eventually, those two factors Throughout 1978, the plant lagged further and work was not finished, the plant's would cause Consumers to add an-further behind, until by December, shortly NRC license requirements were - other 25 months to its official fore-after Consumers reported to the NRC that its still an open question, and a final castof theplant schedule,settinga

' diesel generator building was sinking, Bechtel plan for how to cure soils problems July 1983 fuel load target for Unit 2

' believed there was "a potential for more than a teneath two buildings was still be- and December 1983 for Unit 1. And

$ year's delay" in completing the plant because changes in the design might be required, Marwork,however,was ing debated. The expected remedial tosoils be that officially Forecast 6 wasadopted version six months moreof -

linez said. both time-consumingand costly. optimistic than Bechtel's original At that point, the fuel load date for the first When Bechtel did a target fuel recommendation of April 1984 for unit wasless than two years away. ' load study to determine whether Unit 2andSeptember1984.

Some phases of the construction were as the scheduled dates were still pos- Martinez' testimony, which was

, much as 18 months behind. sible - its second such study in videotaped in Los Angeles two The two companies argued back and forth less than ,, a year - the answer was weeks ago and g is being played g in Although the results of that study Judge David Scott DeWitt, will h work coul n t dn faster a onsu .

were delivered to Consumers in continue Monday, attorneys for ers demanding hlgher productivity.

April,1979, just after the 'Ihree Dow said.

In February 1979, things were going badly MileIsland accident,the studyhad Martinez is expected to testify enough that Consumers' vice-president Steven 'been started before the accident next week about the development

'.Howell told Bechtel he was " discouraged and land didn'ttakeitintoaccount. ' of Forecast 6,the cost and schedule

, very concerned" about the slow progress at the Even so, it was clear that the forecastpresentedtoConsumersin plant.

, , project was not proceeding 1980 that led to Bechtel's maintain-At a meeting to discuss his concerns, Howell smoothly. ing a double set of books on the hrequested Bechtel not to interrupt during the Because of the effects of the on- completion costs and dates for the

. presentation," Bechtel's meeting notes show. going del ays and the unresolved project.

"No interruptions were allowed and there was no discussion at the conclusion per Howell's re-quest. He stated he did not want to look back."

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