[Federal Register Volume 67, Number 191 (Wednesday, October 2, 2002)]
[Notices]
[Pages 61928-61929]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 02-25082]


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NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION

[Docket Nos. STN 50-528, 529, 530 and 72-44]


Arizona Public Service Company, Palo Verde Nuclear Generating 
Station, Units 1, 2 and 3; Environmental Assessment and Finding of No 
Significant Impact

    The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC or Commission) is 
considering issuance of an exemption from Title 10 of the Code of 
Federal Regulations (10 CFR) Part 72 for the general license utilized 
by the Arizona Public Service Company (APS or licensee). The exemption 
is pursuant to 10 CFR 72.7 for the storage of spent fuel in an 
independent spent fuel storage installation (ISFSI) associated with the 
operation of the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station, Units 1, 2, and 
3 (PVNGS), located in Maricopa County, Arizona. Therefore, as required 
by 10 CFR 51.21, the NRC is issuing this environmental assessment and 
finding of no significant impact.

Environmental Assessment

Identification of the Proposed Action

    The proposed action would exempt Arizona Public Service Company 
from the requirements of 10 CFR 72.212(a)(2), 72.212(b)(2)(i)(A), 
72.212(b)(7), and 10 CFR 72.214 for PVNGS Units 1, 2, and 3. These 
regulations specifically require compliance with the conditions set 
forth in the Certificate of Compliance (CoC) for each dry spent fuel 
storage cask used by an ISFSI general licensee. The dry cask storage 
system used by APS is the NAC-UMS Universal Storage System, Certificate 
of Compliance Number 1015. The NAC-UMS CoC provides conditions for 
requirements of Appendix A, Technical Specifications, and Appendix B, 
Approved Content and Design Features. The proposed action would allow 
APS to deviate from (1) the removable surface contamination limits in 
LCO 3.2.1 of Appendix A, and (2) the vertical seismic limits in 
paragraph B 3.4.1.3 of Appendix B. The proposed action would implement 
the limits requested by NAC International in the NAC-UMS CoC amendment 
request currently under staff review.
    The proposed action is in accordance with the licensee's 
application dated May 1, 2002, as supplemented by letter dated June 19, 
2002.

The Need for the Proposed Action

    The proposed action is needed because APS plans to begin its 
initial dry cask spent fuel loading campaign

[[Page 61929]]

with PVNGS Unit 2 in November 2002. APS plans to continue loading spent 
fuel in dry cask storage with PVNGS Unit 1 in May 2003 and PVNGS Unit 3 
in January 2004. The licensee has stated that Unit 2 will lose its 
full-core offload capability following the fall 2003 refueling outage. 
Units 1 and 3 will lose their full-core offload capability upon startup 
from the following outages, consecutively. The initial loading of spent 
fuel into dry casks needs to be accomplished during winter 2002 to 
support subsequent refueling outage schedules and dry cask load 
schedules for all the units. Deferral of the cask loading campaign is 
not desired because the preparation, time and resources required are 
extensive and would significantly impact the associated unit refueling 
outage. Additionally, dry cask loading operations cannot be conducted 
for a unit during the same time as refueling activities because of new 
fuel receipt and use of the same APS staff. If the first cask loading 
campaign is deferred the delay would cascade to subsequent units, 
remove any margin from subsequent cask load schedules, increase 
scheduling pressures, and potentially impact plant safety. The proposed 
action is necessary because the 10 CFR 72.214 rulemaking to implement 
the NAC-UMS CoC amendment is not projected for completion until 
December 2002, which will not support the APS dry cask storage loading 
schedule.

Environmental Impacts of the Proposed Action

    The NRC has completed its evaluation of the proposed action and 
concludes that there is no significant environmental impact if the 
exemption is granted. The potential environmental impact of using the 
NAC-UMS Universal Storage System was initially presented in the 
Environmental Assessment (EA) for the Final Rule to add the NAC-UMS 
Universal Storage System to the list of approved spent fuel storage 
casks in 10 CFR 72.214 (65 FR 62581, dated November 20, 2000), as 
revised in Amendment No. 1 (65 FR 76896, dated February 20, 2001) and 
in Amendment No. 2 (66 FR 52486, dated October 16, 2001). The revised 
surface contamination and vertical seismic limits do not increase the 
probability or consequences of accidents, no changes are being made in 
the types of any effluents that may be released offsite, and there is 
no significant increase in occupational or public radiation exposure. 
Therefore, there are no significant radiological environmental impacts 
associated with the proposed action.
    With regard to potential nonradiological impacts, the proposed 
action does not have a potential to affect any historic sites. It does 
not affect nonradiological plant effluents and has no other 
environmental impact. Therefore, there are no significant 
nonradiological environmental impacts associated with the proposed 
action.
    Accordingly, the NRC concludes that there are no significant 
environmental impacts associated with the proposed action.

Alternatives to the Proposed Action

    Since there is no significant environmental impact associated with 
the proposed action, alternatives with equal or greater environmental 
impact were not evaluated. As an alternative to the proposed action, 
the staff considered denial of the proposed action. Denial of the 
exemption would result in no change in current environmental impact, 
but would result in a potential dose increase to workers involved in 
cask decontamination activities.

Agencies and Persons Consulted

    On September 3, 2002, the staff consulted with Mr. William Wright 
of the Arizona Radiation Regulatory Agency, regarding the environmental 
impact of the proposed action. He had no comments.

Finding of No Significant Impact

    The environmental impacts of the proposed action have been reviewed 
in accordance with the requirements set forth in 10 CFR part 51. Based 
on the foregoing Environmental Assessment, the Commission finds that 
the proposed action of granting an exemption from 10 CFR 72.212(a)(2), 
72.212(b)(2)(i)(A), 72.212(b)(7), and 72.214 allowing Arizona Public 
Service Company to deviate from the removable surface contamination 
limits and the vertical seismic limits, will not significantly impact 
the quality of the human environment. Accordingly, the Commission has 
determined not to prepare an environmental impact statement for the 
proposed action.
    For further details with respect to this exemption request, see the 
APS letter dated May 1, 2002, as supplemented by letter dated June 19, 
2002. The request for exemption was docketed under 10 CFR part 72, 
Docket 72-44. The NRC maintains an Agencywide Documents Access and 
Management System (ADAMS), which provides text and image files of NRC's 
public documents. These documents may be accessed through the NRC's 
Public Electronic Reading Room on the Internet at http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html. If you do not have access to ADAMS or if there 
are problems in accessing the documents located in ADAMS, contact the 
NRC Public Document Room (PDR) Reference staff at 1-800-397-4209, or 
301-415-4737, or by e-mail at [email protected].

    Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 24th day of September, 2002.

    For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
E. William Brach,
Director, Spent Fuel Project Office, Office of Nuclear Material Safety 
and Safeguards.
[FR Doc. 02-25082 Filed 10-1-02; 8:45 am]
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