[Federal Register Volume 72, Number 26 (Thursday, February 8, 2007)]
[Notices]
[Pages 6010-6011]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: E7-2088]
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NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Final Regulatory Guide: Issuance, Availability
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has issued a revision
to an existing guide in the agency's Regulatory Guide Series. This
series has been developed to describe and make available to the public
such information as methods that are acceptable to the NRC staff for
implementing specific parts of the NRC's regulations, techniques that
the staff uses in evaluating specific problems or postulated accidents,
and data that the staff needs in its review of applications for permits
and licenses.
Like its predecessor, Revision 1 of Regulatory Guide 1.196,
``Control Room Habitability at Light-Water Nuclear Power Reactors,''
provides guidance and criteria that the staff of the U.S. Nuclear
Regulatory Commission (NRC) considers acceptable for implementing the
agency's regulations in Appendix A, ``General Design Criteria for
Nuclear Power Plants,'' to Title 10, Part 50, of the Code of Federal
Regulations (10 CFR part 50), ``Domestic Licensing of Production and
Utilization Facilities,'' as they relate to control room habitability
(CRH). Specifically, this guide outlines a process that licensees may
apply to control rooms that are modified, are newly designed, or must
have their conformance to the regulations reconfirmed.
In Appendix A to 10 CFR Part 50, General Design Criteria (GDC) 1,
3, 4, 5, and 19 apply to CRH, as follows:
GDC 1, ``Quality Standards and Records,'' requires that
structures, systems, and components (SSCs) important to safety be
designed, fabricated, erected, and tested to quality standards
commensurate with the importance of the safety functions performed.
GDC 3, ``Fire Protection,'' requires that SSCs important
to safety be designed and located to minimize the effects of fires and
explosions.
GDC 4, ``Environmental and Dynamic Effects Design Bases,''
requires SSCs important to safety to be designed to accommodate the
effects of, and to be compatible with, the environmental conditions
associated with normal operation, maintenance, testing, and postulated
accidents, including loss-of-coolant accidents (LOCAs).
GDC 5, ``Sharing of Structures, Systems, and Components,''
requires that SSCs important to safety not be shared among nuclear
power units unless it can be shown that such sharing will not
significantly impair their ability to perform their safety functions,
including, in the event of an accident in one unit, the orderly
shutdown and cooldown of the remaining units.
GDC 19, ``Control Room,'' requires that a control room be
provided from which actions can be taken to operate the nuclear reactor
safely under normal conditions and to maintain the reactor in a safe
condition under accident conditions, including a LOCA. Adequate
radiation protection is to be provided to permit access and occupancy
of the control room under accident conditions without personnel
receiving radiation exposures in excess of specified values.
Since the NRC initially issued Regulatory Guide 1.196 in May 2003,
the staff determined that the information presented in Appendix B to
that guide did not accurately represent a viable technical
specification for CRH at light-water nuclear power reactors. In
particular, it referred to failure of a particular surveillance as a
plant state, rather than having the results of the surveillance factor
into the operability determination. In addition, it did not provide for
a definite time to restore functionality to the control room envelope,
whereas all improved standard technical specifications (iSTS) contain
such provisions. Moreover, Appendix B was included as a ``strawman,''
to be deleted when details had been more carefully worked out with
industry participation, and those technical specifications placed in
the iSTS with all other acceptable technical specifications.
As of the publication date of this Revision 1 of Regulatory Guide
1.196, no utility has been granted the technical specification changes
represented by
[[Page 6011]]
Appendix B to the original version of this guide. Consequently, the NRC
staff elected to remove Appendix B (and all related references) from
this revision. Removal of Appendix B from this revised guide does not
require any stakeholder to take any action and does not reduce safety
in any way. Moreover, public meetings with the owners' group Technical
Specification Task Force have provided ample opportunity for public
comment regarding this revision. Therefore, the staff views the removal
of Appendix B as a neutral action, for which further public comments
are unnecessary. For that reason, the staff chose not to issue this
revision as a draft guide for public comment before publishing this
Revision 1 of Regulatory Guide 1.196. Nonetheless, the NRC staff
encourages and welcomes comments and suggestions in connection with
improvements to published regulatory guides, as well as items for
inclusion in regulatory guides that are currently being developed. You
may submit comments by any of the following methods.
Mail comments to: Rulemaking, Directives and Editing Branch, Office
of Administration, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC
20555-0001.
Hand-deliver comments to: Rulemaking, Directives and Editing
Branch, Office of Administration, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission,
11555 Rockville Pike, Rockville, Maryland 20852, between 7:30 a.m. and
4:15 p.m. on Federal workdays.
Fax comments to: Rulemaking, Directives and Editing Branch, Office
of Administration, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission at (301) 415-
5144.
Requests for technical information about Revision 1 of Regulatory
Guide 1.196 may be directed to Harold Walker, at (301) 415-2827 or
[email protected].
Regulatory guides are available for inspection or downloading
through the NRC's public Web site at http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/reg-guides/. In addition, Revision 1 of Regulatory Guide
1.196 is available for inspection or downloading through ADAMS at
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html, under Accession
ML063560144.
Revision 1 of Regulatory Guide 1.196 and other related publicly
available documents can also be viewed electronically on computers in
the NRC's Public Document Room (PDR), which is located at 11555
Rockville Pike, Rockville, Maryland. The PDR's reproduction contractor
will make copies of documents for a fee. The PDR's mailing address is
USNRC PDR, Washington, DC 20555-0001. The PDR can also be reached by
telephone at (301) 415-4737 or (800) 397-4205, by fax at (301) 415-
3548, and by e-mail to [email protected].
Please note that the NRC does not intend to distribute printed
copies of Revision 1 of Regulatory Guide 1.196, unless specifically
requested on an individual basis with adequate justification. Such
requests for single copies of draft or final guides (which may be
reproduced) should be made in writing to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory
Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001, Attention: Reproduction and
Distribution Services Section; by e-mail to [email protected]; or by
fax to (301) 415-2289. Telephone requests cannot be accommodated.
Regulatory guides are not copyrighted, and Commission approval is
not required to reproduce them.
(5 U.S.C. 552(a))
Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 23rd day of January, 2007.
For the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Brian W. Sheron,
Director, Office of Nuclear Regulatory Research.
[FR Doc. E7-2088 Filed 2-7-07; 8:45 am]
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