Information Notice 2010-26, New England Coalition'S Motion for Leave to Reply to NRC Staff'S Objection to Nec'S Notification of Information Notice 2010-26 and Entergy'S Response to the Supplement to Nec'S Petition for Commission Review
| ML110120195 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Vermont Yankee File:NorthStar Vermont Yankee icon.png |
| Issue date: | 12/30/2010 |
| From: | Shadis R New England Coalition, Friends of the Coast |
| To: | Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel, NRC/OCM |
| SECY RAS | |
| References | |
| 50-271-LR, RAS M-458, ASLBP 06-849-03-LR, LBP-10-19 | |
| Download: ML110120195 (15) | |
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December 30, 2010 (10:37p.m.)
OFFICE OF SECRETARY
RULEMAKINGS AND
ADJUDICATIONS STAFF
December 30, 2010
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
BEFORE THE ATOMIC SAFETY AND LICENSING BOARD
BEFORE THE COMMISSION
In the Matter of Docket No. 50-271-LR
Entergy Nuclear Vermont Yankee LLC
and Entergy Nuclear Operations, Inc.
(Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Station)
NEW ENGLAND COALITION'S MOTION FOR LEAVE TO REPLY
TO V,
NRC STAFF'S OBJECTION TO NEC'S NOTIFICATION OF INFORMATION
NOTICE 2010-26 AND ENTERGY'S RESPONSE TO THE SUPPLEMENT
TO
NEC'S PETITION FOR COMMISSION REVIEW OF LBP-10-19 Submitted by:
Raymond Shadis
Pro se Representative
Friends of the Coast
New England Coalition
J"V#ý4Z4-eý -0 q/
4.
December 30, 2010
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
BEFORE THE COMMISSION
In the Matter of Docket No. 50-271-LR
Entergy Nuclear Vermont Yankee LLC
and Entergy Nuclear Operations, Inc.
(Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Station)
NEW ENGLAND COALITION'S MOTION FOR LEAVE TO REPLY
TO
NRC STAFF'S OBJECTION TO NEC'S NOTIFICATION OF INFORMATION
NOTICE 2010-26 AND ENTERGY'S RESPONSE TO THE SUPPLEMENT
TO
NEC'S PETITION FOR COMMISSION REVIEW OF LBP-10-19 New England Coalition ("NEC") hereby respectfully moves for (requests) leave
to reply to the NRC Staffs Objection to NEC's Notification of Information Notice 2010-
26 and Entergy's Rsponse to the Supplement to NEC's Petition for Commission Review
of LBP-10-19.
I. MOTION FOR LEAVE TO REPLY IS NECESSARY. This Motion for Leave to
Reply is necessary because the Board's permission (leave) to file a reply is required.
The Commission's regulations do not contemplate the filing of replies under the
present circumstances, that is, in reply to objections.
Even if, for the sake of argument, NEC's Petition Supplement, transmitting
material new information, were taken as a petition amendment, there is no provision for
reply without the permission of the Commission, as under 10 C.F.R. § 2.323(c).
2
r,-9 II. REPLY IS WARRANTED BY UNFORESEEABLE AND COMPELLING
CIRCUMSTANCES - NEC respectfully submits that Leave to Reply should be granted
because this situation presents the type of "unforeseeable" and "compelling
circumstances" which warrant a reply.
A. NEC could not have anticipated NRC Staff and NextEra's baseless and
erroneous assertions that the information cited by NEC in NRC Information
Notice 2010-26 "Submergence of Electrical Cables" (IN) is irrelevant and
immaterial when, in fact, it is clear that the IN is relevant because it speaks
directly to aging management of below grade and inaccessible electrical cables, a
requisite element of all License Renewal applications. Further, the IN is material
because it serves to inform the requested Commission review regarding the
"materially-different" outcome threshold criterion for late contention acceptance
(10 CFR § 2.326(a)(3) ). Conclusions in the IN are in agreement with concerns
raised by NEC in its late-filed contention and thus support the likelihood that
NEC would prevail at hearing, the consequence of which would mean, with close
to certainty, a materially different outcome.
B. NEC could not have foreseen the NRC Staff counsel's claim that the IN,
published December 12, 2010, is not new information when NRC Staff
conclusions regarding the efficacy of certain testing procedures (for degradation
or aging of electrical insulation) are to found in no preceding Generic Letter or
Information Notice that NEC can discover.
C. NEC could not have foreseen NRC Staff counsel's brazen assertion, based
on the foregoing false claims, that it was under no obligation, legal, ethical, or
3
otherwise, to lay the newly generated on-topic staff report before the
Commission.
III. CONCLUSION - NEC respectfully submits, for all of the good reasons above, that
the Commission should allow a reply.
In keeping with ordinary practice, and with respect for NRC's goals of orderly
and timely adjudication, NEC has attached its proposed Reply for the Commission to
consider without delay if it grants the Motion or reject if it does not.
4
IV. CERTIFICATE OF COUNSEL
Pro Se Representative for NEC hereby certifies that in conformance with 10 C.F.R.
§2.323, NEC made a sincere attempt to obtain the consent of Entergy and NRC Staff to
the filing of the foregoing Motion for Leave to Relay and by extension the attached
Reply, but consent was denied.
Respectfully submitted,
R Ad Shadis
Pro se representative
New England Coalition
Post Office Box 98
Edgecomb, Maine 04556
207-882-7801 Shadis@prexar.com
5
/
December 30, 2010
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
BEFORE THE ATOMIC SAFETY AND LICENSING BOARD
BEFORE THE COMMISSION
In the Matter of Docket No. 50-271-LR
Entergy Nuclear Vermont Yankee LLC
and Entergy Nuclear Operations, Inc.
(Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Station)
NEW ENGLAND COALITION'S REPLY TO NRC STAFF'S OBJECTION TO
NEC'S NOTIFICATION OF INFORMATION NOTICE 2010-26 AND
ENTERGY'S RESPONSE TO THE SUPPLEMENT TO
NEC'S PETITION FOR COMMISSION REVIEW OF LBP-10-19 Submitted by:
Raymond Shadis
Pro se Representative
New England Coalition
December 30, 2010
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
BEFORE THE COMMISSION
In the Matter of Docket No. 50-271-LR
Entergy Nuclear Vermont Yankee LLC
and Entergy Nuclear Operations, Inc.
(Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Station)
NEW ENGLAND COALITION'S REPLY TO NRC STAFF'S OBJECTION TO
NEC'S NOTIFICATION OF INFORMATION NOTICE 2010-26 AND
ENTERGY'S RESPONSE TO THE SUPPLEMENT TO
NEC'S PETITION FOR COMMISSION REVIEW OF LBP-10-19
I. INTRODUCTION
New England Coalition ("NEC ") hereby replies to NRC Staffs Objection to
NEC's Notification of Information Notice 2010-26 and Entergy Nuclear Vermont Yankee
LLC and Entergy Nuclear Operations, Inc.'s ("Entergy") Response to the Supplement to
NEC's Petition for Commission Review of LBP-10-19. NRC Staffs "Objection" was
filed on December 21, 2010 and Entergy's "Response" was filed on December 23, 2010.
II.
BACKGROUND
Pending before the Commission is NEC's November 12, 2010 Petition for
Commission Review of ASLBP Memorandum and Order (LBP-10-19) (October 28,
2010) denying NEC's Motion to reopen the record in the Entergy Vermont Yankee
license renewal proceeding and add a new contention on aging management of electric
2
cables not qualified for service in the environments to which they are subjected, namely
prolonged wetting and submergence.
The Board held that NEC's proposed contention failed on two threshold
acceptance criteria to reopen the proceeding of 10 C.F.R. 2.326(a)(1) and (3); the
timeliness and "materially-different" outcome. The Board also considered whether the
issue raised in the proposed contention was a safety concern of such sufficient gravity as
to allow by-pass of the timeliness criterion and decided it was not.
On December 2, 2010, the NRC Staff issued Information Notice 2010-26;'
Submergence of Electrical Cables" ("IN").
On December 13, 2010, NEC filed a "Supplement to New England Coalition's
Petition for Commission Review of ASLBP Memorandum and Order."
On December 21, 2010, NRC Staff filed its "Objection."
On December 23, 2010, Entergy filed its "Response."
III.
DISCUSSION
A. NRC Staff claims that the IN contains no new or material information. NRC Staff is
in error. The IN contains information that is both new and material to the Petition for
Review now before the Commission.
1. The IN contains information that is new in every respect. NEC could nowhere
in a search of the preceding Generic Letters or Information Notices on cable issues (that
NRC Staff cited) find the following quote (or anything in paraphrase) from the IN at Page
61:
NRC Staff did not discuss this quote in its Objection.
3
Cables are not typically designed or qualified for submergence u nless they are procured as
submarine cables. Demonstration that a cable is designed or qualified for long-term
submergence (i.e., submerged in water continuously or for extended periods of time) requires a
qualification test report or certification from the cable vendor. The industry's
previously conducted post-loss-of-coolant accident cable submergence tests do not
demonstrate qualification for long-term cable submergence, and the use of the Arrhenius
methodology by some licensees to demonstrate qualification for long-term cable
submergence is invalid. For areas in which cables could be submerged, the licensee should
identify and demonstrate that these cables are designed or qualified by documented
testing for the required duration. (emphasis added)
The quoted paragraph goes to the heart of NEC's Contention. The license renewal
application's aging-management plan of dewatering and surveillance, proposed by the
Entergy Vermont Yankee and demonstrated by Entergy Vermont Yankee (as first
reported in the May 10, 2012 NRC Inspection report), is largely ineffective at addressing
either aging management or compliance with design criteria.
As former NRC Chairman Shirley Jackson once famously said (in NEC's
presence) "Safety is compliance; compliance is safety." Something similar might be said, as a kind of corollary, of aging management and compliance with design criteria. Aging
management should not be a workaround for non-compliance with design criteria.
2. If NRC Staff Counsel, the Commission, the Intervenors and the public did not know
what NRC Staff would write in their IN, then it matters not whether it is cut and pasted, or lifted verbatim from earlier letters and notices; it is new to us as a statement of NRC's
position and perspectives as of December 2, 2010. That fact, of itself, is "new'
information.
The Commission is entitled to be informed, for purposes of their deliberations
regarding the possibility of a "materially-different" outcome, that NRC Staff has, following NEC's Motion to Reopen and its Petition for Review, reiterated supporting or
complimenting positions and perspectives.
4
B. Both NRC Staff and Entergy argue that the information in Information Notice 2010-
26 "Submergence of Electrical Cables" (IN) is neither relevant nor material. They are in
error. It is both.
1. As discussed above, information contained in the IN is material to the
Commission's review of the criterion regarding potential for a "materially different"
outcome because, as in the quotation from IN Page 6, the new information goes straight
to the heart of NEC's proposed contention, and more pointedly to the question of whether
or not, given a hearing, NEC is likely to prevail.
2. NRC Staff and Entergy say that the IN is irrelevant and not material because it
concerns itself with current operations and the current licensing basis; and not with
license renewal. This argument is both inaccurate and specious.
The IN speaks directly to "managing the effects of age-related degradation" (NRC
Staff at 4). Further, all should recognize that, though the regulations regarding aging
management may change, the physics of aging management does not; if anything, what
may or may not work now is even less likely to work as aging progresses during the
period of extended operation ("PEO").
Therefore, the NRC's observations regarding aging-phenomena at operating
plants are totally relevant to considerations of how to effectively manage these
phenomena during the PEO. It is, in NEC's view, terminally obtuse to suggest, as NRC
Staff and Entergy seem to, that lessons-learned while ambulatory should not be carried
into life-support.
5
More to the matter before the Commission, comparison of NRC Staff's
observations with those of NEC in bringing its contention is ready, relevant and material
grist for deliberation regarding the gravity of submergence of unqualified cables as a
safety issue; and the likelihood that hearing on NEC's cable contention would likely
result in a materially different outcome.
IV. CONCLUSION - The Commission should take notice of Information Notice 2010-
26 "Submergence of Electrical Cables" as well as NUREG/CR-7000, Generic Letter 2007-01 and the 2007-01 Summary Report2 and include consideration of their contents
and applicability when deliberating on NEC's Petition for Review.
NRC Staff says at 4 that "the issue before the Commission is whether the Board
properly denied NEC's Motion for failure to satisfy 10 C.F.R. § 2.326(a)(I) and (3), not
whether NEC's proposed new contention satisfied the contention admissibility
requirements of § 2.309."
NEC agrees with this statement. However, for all of the good reasons stated
above, NEC affirms that the information in the IN is timely and both relevant and
material to the issue before the Commission.
(IV) CERTIFICATE OF COUNSEL
Pro Se Representative for NEC hereby certifies that in conformance with 10 C.F.R.
§2.323, NEC made a sincere attempt to obtain the consent of Entergy and NRC Staff to
2 Generic Letter 2007-01 "Inaccessible or Underground Power Cable Failures That Disable Accident
Mitigation Systems or Cause Plant Transients," (Feb. 7, 2007) (ADAMS Accession No. ML07360665);
GL 2007-01 "Inaccessible or Underground Power Cable Failures That Disable Accident Mitigation
Systems or Cause Plant Transient: Summary Report" (Nov. 12, 2008) (ADAMS Accession No.
NUREG/CR 7000 "Essential Elements of an Electric Cable Monitoring Program (January 2010) (available
At www.nrc/electronicreading room/doc.collect/nuregs/contractiNuregCR7000.
6
the filing of the foregoing Motion for Leave to Reply and by extension the attached
Reply, but consent was denied.
Respectfully submitted,
/s/"
Raymo Shadis-
Pro se representative
New England Coalition
Post Office Box 98
Edgecomb, Maine 04556
207-882-7801 Shadis@prexar.com
7
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
BEFORE THE COMMISSION
In the Matter of
ENTERGY NUCLEAR VERMONT YANKEE, LLC December 30, 2010
AND ENTERGY NUCLEAR OPERATIONS, INC.
Docket No. 50-271-LR
(Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Station))
ASLBP No. 06-849-03-LR
CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE
I hereby certify that copies of New England Coalition's Motion For Leave To Reply and
Reply To NRC Staff s Objection To NEC's Notification of Information Notice 2010-26 And Entergy's Response to The Supplement to NEC's Petition For Commission Review
of LI3P- 10-19 in the above-captioned proceeding have been served on the following as indicated
by an asterisk, by electronic mail, with copies by U.S. mail, first class, this 30th day of December
2010,
Alex S. Karlin, Chair
Administrative Judge Office of Commission Appellate
Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Adjudication
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Mail Stop: O-16G4 Washington, DC 20555-0001 U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission
E-mail: ask2@nrc.gov Washington, DC 20555-0001 E-mail: OCAAmail@nrc.gov
Office of the Secretary
Attn: Rulemakings and Adjudications Staff Peter C.L. Roth, Esq*
Mail Stop: O-16G4 Office of the Attorney General
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission 33 Capitol Street
Washington, DC 20555-0001 Concord, NH 3301 E-mail: hearingdocket@nrc.gov E-mail: peter.roth@doj.nh.gov
William H. Reed* Anthony Z. Roisman, Esq.*
Administrative Judge National Legal Scholars Law Firm
Atomic Safety and Licensing Board 84 East Thetford Rd.
1819 Edgewood Lane Lyme, NH 03768 Charlottesville, VA 22902 E-mail: aroisman@nationallegalscholars.com
E-mail: whrcville@embarqmail.com
Sarah Hofmann, Esq.*
Ann Hove, Law Clerk Director of Public Advocacy
Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Department of Public Service
Mail Stop: T-3F23 112 State Street - Drawer 20
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Montpelier, VT 05620-2601 Washington, DC 20555-0001 E-mail: sarah.hofmann@state.vt.us
E-mail: ann.hove@nrc.gov
David R. Lewis, Esq.* Matthew Brock*
Matias F. Travieso-Diaz, Esq Assistant Attorney General, Chief
Elina Teplinsky, Esq Environmental Protection Division
Blake J. Nelson, Esq Office of the Attorney General
Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP One Ashburton Place, 18th Floor
2300 N Street, NW Boston, MA 02108 Washington, DC 20037-1128 E-mail: matthew.brock@state.ma.us
E-mail: david.lewis@pillsburylaw.com
matias.travieso-diaz@pillsburylaw .com Mary B. Spencer
elina.teplinsky@pillsburylaw.com Counsel for NRC Staff
blake.nelson@pillsburylaw.com U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission
Mail Stop O-15D21 Washington, DC 20555-0001 Maly. Spencer@nrc.gov
Ramond Shadis
New England Coalition
Post Office Box 98 Edgecomb, Maine 04556 shadis@prexar.com
New England Coalition
POST OFFICE BOX 545, BRATTLEBORO, VERMONT o5302
December 30 , 2010
Office of the Secretary
Attn: Rulemaking and Adjudications Staff
Mail Stop: O-16C1
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission
Washington, DC 20555-0001 RE: Docket No. 50-271-LR, ASLBP No. 06-849-03-LR, Vermont Yankee Nuclear
Power Station (Petition for Commission Review)
Dear rulemaking and Adjudications Staff, Please find attached for filing in the above captioned matter, New England Coalition's Motion
For Leave To Reply and Reply To NRC Staffs Objection To NEC's Notification of
Information Notice 2010-26 And Entergy's Response to The Supplement to NEC's
Petition For Commission Review of LBP- 10-19.
Thank you for your help with.this filing,
/RS
-Coalition, Inc.
Raymond Shadis
Pro Se Representative
Post Office Box 98 Edgecomb, Maine 04556
207-882-7801 shadis@prexar.com