[Federal Register Volume 75, Number 47 (Thursday, March 11, 2010)]
[Notices]
[Pages 11574-11575]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2010-5225]


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NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION

[NRC-2010-0097]


Draft Regulatory Guide: Issuance, Availability

AGENCY: Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

ACTION: Notice of issuance and availability of draft regulatory guide, 
DG-1242, ``Service Level I, II, and III Protective Coatings Applied To 
Nuclear Power Plants.''

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FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Bruce P. Lin, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory 
Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001, telephone: (301) 251-7653 or e-
mail [email protected].

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: 

I. Introduction

    The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is issuing for public 
comment a draft guide in the agency's ``Regulatory Guide'' series. This 
series was 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.
    The draft regulatory guide (DG), entitled, ``Service Level I, II, 
and III Protective Coatings Applied to Nuclear Power Plants'' is 
temporarily identified by its task number, DG-1242, which should be 
mentioned in all related correspondence. DG-1242 is proposed Revision 2 
of Regulatory Guide 1.54, dated July 2000.
    Protective coatings have been used extensively in nuclear power 
plants (NPPs) to protect the surfaces of facilities and equipment from 
corrosion and contamination from radionuclides and for wear protection 
during plant operation and maintenance activities. For plants that have 
a design basis that includes a commitment to RG 1.54, ``Quality 
Assurance Requirements for Protective Coatings Applied to Water-Cooled 
Nuclear Power Plants,'' issued June 1973, the regulations cited above 
require that protective coatings be qualified and capable of surviving 
a design-basis accident without adversely affecting safety-related 
structures, systems, and components needed to mitigate the accident.
    The NRC issued RG 1.54 to describe an acceptable method for 
complying with NRC quality assurance requirements for protective 
coatings applied to ferritic steels, stainless steel, zinc-coated 
(galvanized) steel, concrete, or masonry surfaces of water-cooled NPPs. 
The presumption was that protective coatings that met these guidelines 
would not degrade over the design life of the plant. However, operating 
history has shown that undesirable degradation, detachment, and other 
types of failures of coatings have occurred, as described in Generic 
Letter 98-04, ``Potential for Degradation of the Emergency Core Cooling 
System and the Containment Spray System after a Loss-of-Coolant 
Accident because of Construction and Protective Coating Deficiencies 
and Foreign Material in Containment,'' dated July 14, 1998. Detached 
coatings from the substrate that are transported to emergency core 
cooling system intake structures may make those systems unable to 
satisfy the requirement in 10 CFR 50.46(b)(5) to provide long-term 
cooling.

II. Further Information

    The NRC staff is soliciting comments on DG-1242. Comments may be 
accompanied by relevant information or supporting data and should 
mention DG-1242 in the subject line. Comments submitted in writing or 
in electronic form will be made available to the public in their 
entirety through the NRC's Agencywide Documents Access and Management 
System (ADAMS).

ADDRESSES: You may submit comments by any one of the following methods. 
Please include Docket ID NRC-2010-0097 in the subject line of your 
comments. Comments submitted in writing or in electronic form will be 
posted on the NRC Web site and on the Federal rulemaking Web site 
Regulations.gov. Because your comments will not be edited to remove any 
identifying or contact information, the NRC cautions you against 
including any information in your submission that you do not want to be 
publicly disclosed.
    The NRC requests that any party soliciting or aggregating comments 
received from other persons for submission to the NRC inform those 
persons that the NRC will not edit their comments to remove any 
identifying or contact information, and therefore, they should not 
include any information in their comments that they do not want 
publicly disclosed.
    Federal Rulemaking Web site: Go to http://www.regulations.gov and 
search for documents filed under Docket ID NRC-2010-0097. Address 
questions about NRC dockets to Carol Gallagher 301-492-3668; e-mail 
[email protected].
    Mail comments to: Michael T. Lesar, Chief, Rulemaking and 
Directives Branch (RDB), Office of Administration, Mail Stop: TWB-05-
B01M, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001, or 
by fax to RDB at (301) 492-3446.
    You can access publicly available documents related to this notice 
using the following methods:
    NRC's Public Document Room (PDR): The public may examine and have 
copied for a fee publicly available documents at the NRC's PDR, Room O1 
F21, One White Flint North, 11555 Rockville Pike, Rockville, Maryland.
    NRC's Agencywide Documents Access and Management System (ADAMS): 
Publicly available documents created or received at the NRC are 
available electronically at the NRC's Electronic

[[Page 11575]]

Reading Room at http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html. From this 
page, the public can gain entry into ADAMS, which provides text and 
image files of NRC's public documents. If you do not have access to 
ADAMS or if there are problems in accessing the documents located in 
ADAMS, contact the NRC's PDR reference staff at 1-800-397-4209, 301-
415-4737, or by e-mail to [email protected]. DG-1242 is available 
electronically under ADAMS Accession Number ML093410510. In addition, 
electronic copies of DG-1242 are available through the NRC's public Web 
site under Draft Regulatory Guides in the ``Regulatory Guides'' 
collection of the NRC's Electronic Reading Room at http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/.
    Federal Rulemaking Web site: Public comments and supporting 
materials related to this notice can be found at http://www.regulations.gov by searching on Docket ID: NRC-2010-0097.
    Comments would be most helpful if received by May 12, 2010. 
Comments received after that date will be considered if it is practical 
to do so, but the NRC is able to ensure consideration only for comments 
received on or before this date. Although a time limit is given, 
comments and suggestions in connection with items for inclusion in 
guides currently being developed or improvements in all published 
guides are encouraged at any time.
    Regulatory guides are not copyrighted, and Commission approval is 
not required to reproduce them.

    Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 4th day of March, 2010.

    For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Andrea D. Valentin,
Chief, Regulatory Guide Development Branch, Division of Engineering, 
Office of Nuclear Regulatory Research.
[FR Doc. 2010-5225 Filed 3-10-10; 8:45 am]
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