[Federal Register Volume 63, Number 2 (Monday, January 5, 1998)]
[Notices]
[Pages 274-275]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 98-97]


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NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION

[Docket 70-7002]


Notice of Receipt of Amendment Application to Certificate of 
Compliance GDP-2 for the U.S. Enrichment Corporation Portsmouth Gaseous 
Diffusion Plant Portsmouth, Ohio; Notice of Comment Period

    Notice is hereby given that the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission 
(NRC) has received an amendment application from the United States 
Enrichment Corporation (USEC) that may be significant pursuant to 10 
CFR 76.45. Any interested party may submit written comments on the 
application for amendment for consideration by the staff. To be certain 
of consideration, comments must be received by the NRC within thirty 
(30) days of appearance of this notice in the Federal Register. 
Comments received after that will be considered if it is practical to 
do so, but the Commission is able to assure consideration only for 
comments received on or before the due date.
    Written comments on the amendment application should be mailed to 
the Chief, Rules Review and Directives Branch, Office of 
Administration, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 
20555, or may be hand delivered to 11545 Rockville Pike, Rockville, MD 
20852 between 7:45 am and 4:15 pm on Federal workdays. Comments should 
be legible and reproducible, and include the name, affiliation (if 
any), and address of the commenter. All comments received by the 
Commission will be made available for public inspection at the 
Commission's Public Document Room and the Local Public Document Room. 
In accordance with 10 CFR 76.62 and 76.64, a member of the public must 
submit written comments to petition the Commission requesting review of 
the Director's Decision on the amendment request.
    For further details with respect to the action see the application 
for amendment. The application is available for public inspection at 
the Commission's Public Document Room, the Gelman Building, 2120 L 
Street, NW, Washington, DC, and at the Local Public Document Room.
    Date of amendment request: February 25, 1997.
    Brief description of amendment: On February 25, 1997, USEC 
submitted a request to provide for an additional identified criticality 
accident case for the X-333 cascade building related to the previously 
approved increase in assay limit to 3 percent. The operation at 
increased assay creates conditions where the location of an inadvertent 
nuclear criticality event might be closer to the X-333 Area Control 
Room (ACR-1), thus producing higher potential doses to personnel at 
that location. It should be noted that this hypothetical accident case 
was identified by USEC after the NRC approved USEC's initial 
certificate application in November 1996. It should also be noted that 
the increase in the X-333 assay limit was approved by the NRC as part 
of initial certification of PORTS. For this hypothetical accident case, 
an estimate is made that personnel in ACR-1 could, under the 
conservative assumption that they remained in ACR-1 for 50 minutes 
despite the likely criticality alarm, receive a dose of 49 rem and not 
0.005 rem as is currently indicated in the

[[Page 275]]

Accident Analysis section of the PORTS Safety Analysis Report (SAR). 
Based on an initial review of the amendment request, the NRC staff 
feels that sufficiently adequate safety controls are currently in place 
at PORTS to prevent and mitigate this accident. Therefore, other than 
the proposed modification to the PORTS SAR, this amendment would likely 
not require any other changes to plant operations.
    Certificate of Compliance No. GDP-2: Amendment will revise the 
Accident Analysis section of the SAR.
    Local Public Document Room location: Portsmouth Public Library, 
1220 Gallia Street, Portsmouth, Ohio 45662.

    Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 22nd day of December 1997.

    For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
William Kane,
Acting Director, Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards.
[FR Doc. 98-97 Filed 1-2-98; 8:45am]
BILLING CODE 7590-01-P