[Federal Register Volume 62, Number 192 (Friday, October 3, 1997)]
[Notices]
[Pages 51916-51917]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 97-26273]
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Nuclear Regulatory Commission
[Docket No. 72-10]
Northern States Power Company Issuance of Director's Decision
Under 10 CFR 2.206 (DD-97-24)
Notice is hereby given that the Director, Office of Nuclear
Material Safety and Safeguards, has issued a Director's Decision
concerning a Petition dated August 26, 1996, filed by Carol A.
Overland, on behalf of the Florence Township, Minnesota, Board of
Supervisors (Petitioner), under Section 2.206 of Title 10 of the Code
of Federal Regulations (10 CFR 2.206).
The Director of the Office of Nuclear Material Safety and
Safeguards has determined that the Petition should be denied for the
reasons stated in the ``Director's Decision Under 10 CFR 2.206'' (DD-
97-24), the complete text of which follows this notice. The Decision
and documents cited in the Decision are available for public inspection
and copying in the Commission's Public Document Room, the Gelman
Building, 2120 L Street, NW, Washington, DC.
A copy of this Decision has been filed with the Secretary of the
Commission for the Commission's review in accordance with 10 CFR
2.206(c). As provided therein, this Decision will become the final
action of the Commission 25 days after issuance unless the Commission,
on its own motion, institutes review of the Decision within that time.
Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 26th day of September 1997.
For The Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Carl J. Paperiello,
Director, Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards.
Director's Decision Under 10 CFR 2.206
I. Introduction
On August 26, 1996, Florence Township, Minnesota (Petitioner) filed
a petition requesting that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC)
institute a proceeding pursuant to 10 CFR 2.202 with regard to the
application by Northern States Power Company (NSP), claiming, that NSP
violated the Commission's regulations by failing to provide Lake City,
Minnesota, with an opportunity to comment on a proposed emergency plan
for an independent spent fuel storage installation (ISFSI) before
submission to the NRC. The Petitioner requested that NRC: (1) Determine
that NSP violated the requirements of 10 CFR 72.32(a)(14) by refusing
to allow Lake City, Minnesota, 60 days to comment on NSP's emergency
plan before submitting it to NRC; (2) reject NSP's application as
incomplete and inadequate and return it to the corporation; (3) require
that NSP specifically name the local governments referred to in section
5.6 of the emergency plan which are expected to respond in case of an
accident; (4) require that NSP allow 60 days to the named local
governments to review and comment upon NSP's emergency plan prior to
NSP's resubmission of the application; (5) impose a penalty in the
amount of one million dollars and require NSP to compensate the
Petitioner in the amount of $7,500.00 for time expended by its Board
and attorney in attempting to obtain the emergency plan before its
submission to the NRC; and (6) provide hearings on this petition at
which the Petitioner and members of the public may participate.
The Petitioner asserts as the basis for this request the regulatory
requirement found at Sec. 72.32(a)(14) of Chapter 10 of the Code of
Federal Regulations [10 CFR 72.32(a)(14)]:
The licensee shall allow the offsite response organizations
expected to respond in case of an accident 60 days to comment on the
initial submittal of the licensee's emergency plan before submitting
it to NRC. Subsequent plan changes need not have the offsite comment
period unless the plan changes affect the offsite response
organizations. The licensee shall provide any comments received
within 60 days to NRC with the emergency plan.
The petition has been referred to me for a decision. For the
reasons given below, I have concluded that the Petitioner's requests
should be denied.
II. Background
NSP has an onsite ISFSI at Prairie Island Nuclear Generating Plant
(PINGP), which has a capacity to store 1920 spent fuel assembles in 48
Transnuclear TN-40 casks. In 1994, the Minnesota legislature enacted
statutes authorizing NSP to store spent nuclear fuel at the ISFSI. 1994
Minn. Laws ch 641, arts. 1, 6 (codified at Minn. Stat
Secs. 116C.77-.80(1996)). The legislation authorized the immediate use
of five casks and allowed the use of four additional casks upon a
determination that NSP had: (1) Filed a license application with NRC
for a separate dry cask storage facility in Goodhue County; (2)
continued a good faith effort to implement the alternate site; and (3)
arranged for the use of additional megawatts of wind power. The law
also provided that NSP could not construct at the second site without
first obtaining a Certificate of Site Compatibility from the Minnesota
Environmental Quality Board (MEQB). The MEQB was authorized to certify
that the alternative Goodhue County site was comparable to the
independent spent fuel storage facility site located on Prairie Island.
NSP applied for a certificate from the MEQB in July 1995. It
identified two possible sites for the Goodhue County spent fuel storage
facility, both in Florence Township, south of the City of Red Wing.
1 On October 2, 1996, after receiving the report of a
citizen Advisory Task Force, the MEQB determined that because of the
additional risks it believed to be inherent in transporting spent
nuclear fuel to a second site in Goodhue County away from PINGP, no
other site in Goodhue County would be comparable to the Prairie Island
facility and denied a certificate.
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\1\ One of these was the site chosen by NSP for inclusion in its
application to NRC. It is described as being situated south of
Frontenac Station, north of Wells Creek, and between Territorial
Road and the CP Rail railroad tracks.
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NSP's application to NRC included an emergency plan for the Goodhue
County facility, which contained comments from the Minnesota
Departments of Public Safety and Public Health, as well as the Goodhue
County, Minnesota, Office of Emergency Management which coordinates
emergency services within the county. NRC completed its acceptance
review and docketed the NSP application on September 9, 1996. A
``Notice of Consideration of Issuance of a Materials License for the
Storage of
[[Page 51917]]
Spent Fuel and Notice of Opportunity for Hearing'' was published in the
Federal Register on September 17, 1996. The Petitioner and several
others sought a hearing as provided by 10 CFR 2.105. An Atomic Safety
and Licensing Board (ASLB) was established on October 9, 1996. Among
the issues raised in the petitions to intervene by the Petitioner and
by Lake City, Minnesota, were issues associated with emergency
planning, substantially similar to the issues raised by the Petitioner
in the petition requesting that the NRC institute a proceeding pursuant
to 10 CFR 2.202. Consequently, the staff deferred the response to the
Petition until completion of the ASLB hearing process.
Because of the physical proximity of its Reservation to PINGP, the
Prairie Island Indian Community had been particularly interested in
seeing the offsite ISFSI built. Since the MEQB decision effectively
ended the possibility of that facility being developed, the Indian
Community initiated litigation in the Minnesota State Courts in
December 1996, seeking to overturn the MEQB decision. When the
litigation began, NSP requested and was granted a suspension of both
NRC staff's review of the Goodhue County application and the ASLB
proceeding, just prior to the pre-hearing conference which was
scheduled for December 1996. State litigation ended in July 1997, when
the Minnesota Supreme Count declined to hear an appeal of the Minnesota
Court of Appeals ruling which affirmed the MEQB decision. Subsequently,
in a letter dated July 22, 1997, NSP withdrew the Goodhue County
application. NRC acknowledged the withdrawal in a letter dated August
4, 1997. The ASLB issued a Memorandum and Order terminating its
proceeding on July 30, 1997. However, a motion for reconsideration is
currently under review by the Board. 2
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\2\ On July 30, 1997, the Petitioner filed a response to NSP's
July 24, 1997, Motion for Withdrawal of Application and Termination
of Proceeding. In the response, the Petitioner requested that the
ASLB dismiss the NSP application with prejudice, or alternatively,
deny NSP's application, or impose a condition of withdrawal that the
application for the Florence Township site shall not be resubmitted.
The ASLB considered this Petitioner's June 30, 1997, submittal to be
a motion for reconsideration. On August 29, 1997, the staff
responded that Florence Township's motion for reconsideration should
be denied on the basis that the proceeding had not sufficiently
progressed such that dismissal with prejudice is appropriate, and on
the basis that Florence Township has not demonstrated legal harm
warranting the relief it requests.
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III. Discussion
Section 72.32(a)(14) provides that the offsite response
organizations expected by the licensee to respond to an on-site
emergency should be provided an opportunity to comment on an ISFSI
emergency plan. 3 As required by 10 CFR 72.32(a)(14), NSP
contacted the offsite response organizations it expected to respond to
an on-site emergency at the proposed Goodhue County facility. NSP
requested comments from the Minnesota Departments of Public Safety and
Public Health and the Goodhue County, Minnesota, Office of Emergency
Management. All three responded to NSP's request. Their comments were
provided to NRC with the emergency plan.
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\3\ The regulatory requirements for comments on the emergency
plans for ISFSIs, like the requirements for the emergency plans, are
separate and quite different from those for nuclear reactors. The
requirements for emergency plans for ISFSIs are for on-site
emergencies only. Because offsite health effects have not been
identified for accidents at ISFSIs, there is no requirement for
neighboring jurisdictions to be involved in emergency response.
There is, for instance, no requirement for evacuation planning and
hence no need for the kinds of more elaborate plans associated with
nuclear reactors.
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The Petitioner claims that because the Lake City, Minnesota, Fire
Department contracts with Florence Township to provide fire protection,
it is one of the offsite response organizations that NSP would contact
in case of an on-site emergency at the Goodhue County ISFSI. Lake City
is not located in Goodhue County, however, and therefore is not
expected by the applicant to respond to an on-site emergency.
The emergency plan appropriate for an ISFSI is an on-site emergency
plan. The staff has determined that there are no credible accidents at
an ISFSI which have significance for offsite emergency preparedness.
4 There is no specific requirement that any particular
political jurisdiction be contacted to comment on an ISFSI emergency
plan. Rather, the applicant is required to determine which services it
will require from offsite providers and to seek comments from those
organizations. NSP did not indicate in the emergency plan that Lake
City, Minnesota, was expected to respond to an on-site emergency.
Further, no evidence has been provided that NSP, at the time of the
submittal of the license application, had plans to seek emergency
planning assistance from Lake City, Minnesota. Thus, there is no
violation of 10 CFR 72.32(a)(14) to warrant any enforcement action.
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\4\ See NUREG-1140, ``A Regulatory Analysis on Emergency
Preparedness for Fuel Cycle and Other Radioactive Material
Licensees.''
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The Petitioner raised several additional requests regarding NRC's
review of NSP's Goodhue County application. These are matters which the
NRC considers during the license review, not as part of a Petition
filed under 10 CFR 2.206. Further, in light of the fact that NSP has
now withdrawn the application, they are moot.
Conclusion
I have concluded that NSP did not violate NRC regulations by
failing to provide Lake City, Minnesota, with an opportunity to respond
to the proposed emergency plan. As provided by 10 CFR 2.206(c), a copy
of this Decision will be filed with the Secretary of the Commission for
the Commission's review.
Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 26th day of September, 1997.
For The Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Carl J. Paperiello,
Director, Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards.
[FR Doc. 97-26273 Filed 10-2-97; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 7590-01-P
