[Federal Register Volume 76, Number 53 (Friday, March 18, 2011)]
[Notices]
[Pages 15001-15002]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2011-6400]


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NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION

[Docket No. 50-271; NRC-2011-0060]


Entergy Nuclear Operations, Inc,. Entergy Nuclear Vermont Yankee, 
LLC, Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Station; License No. DPR-28, Receipt 
of Request for Action

    Notice is hereby given that petitions dated January 12, 2010, from 
Mr. Michael Mulligan, February 8, 2010, from Mr. Raymond Shadis, and 
February 20, 2010, from Mr. Thomas Saporito, have requested that, under 
Title 10 of the Code of Federal Regulations (10 CFR) 2.206, ``Requests 
for Action under this Subpart,'' the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission 
(NRC) take action with regard to the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power 
Station (VY).
    Mr. Mulligan requested in his petition that (1) the radioactive 
leak into the environment of VY be immediately stopped, VY be 
immediately shut down, and all leaking paths be isolated, and (2) VY 
disclose its preliminary root cause analysis and the NRC release its 
preliminary investigative report on this analysis before plant startup.
    Mr. Shadis requested in his petition that the NRC (1) require VY to 
go into cold shutdown and depressurize all systems in order to slow or 
stop the leak, (2) act promptly to stop or mitigate the leak(s) and not 
wait until all issues raised by New England Coalition are resolved, (3) 
require VY to reestablish its licensing basis by physically tracing 
records and reporting physical details of all plant systems that would 
be within scope as ``buried pipes and tanks'' in NUREG-1801, ``Generic 
Aging Lessons Learned (GALL) Report,'' and under the requirements of 10 
CFR 50.54, ``Conditions of Licenses,'' (4) investigate and determine 
why Entergy has been allowed to operate VY since 2002 without a working 
knowledge of all plant systems, and why the NRC's Reactor Oversight 
Process (ROP) and review process for license renewal amendment did not 
detect this dereliction, (5) take notice of Entergy Nuclear Vermont 
Yankee's many maintenance and management failures (from 2000 to 2010) 
and the ROP's failure to detect them early and undertake a full 
diagnostic evaluation team inspection or NRC Inspection

[[Page 15002]]

Procedure 95003, ``Supplemental Inspection for Repetitive Degraded 
Cornerstones, Multiple Degraded Cornerstones, Multiple Yellow Inputs or 
One Red Input,'' and (6) require Entergy VY to apply for an amendment 
to its license renewal that would address both aging analysis and aging 
management of all buried piping carrying or with the potential to carry 
radionuclides and/or the potential to interact with any safety or 
safety-related system.
    Mr. Saporito requested in his petition that the NRC (1) order a 
cold-shutdown mode of operation for VY because of leaking radioactive 
tritium and (2) issue a confirmatory order modifying the NRC-issued 
license for VY so that the licensee must bring the nuclear reactor to a 
cold-shutdown mode of operation until the licensee can provide 
definitive reasonable assurance to the NRC, under affirmation, that the 
reactor will be operated in full compliance with the regulations in 10 
CFR Part 50, ``Domestic Licensing of Production and Utilization 
Facilities,'' and General Design Criteria 60, ``Control of Releases of 
Radioactive Materials to the Environment,'' and 64, ``Monitoring 
Radioactivity Releases,'' of Appendix A, ``General Design Criteria for 
Nuclear Power Plants,'' to 10 CFR Part 50, and with other NRC 
regulations and authority.
    The requests are being treated under 10 CFR 2.206 of the 
Commission's regulations. The requests have been referred to the 
Director of the Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation (NRR). As provided 
by 10 CFR 2.206, the NRC will take appropriate action on this 
consolidated petition within a reasonable time.
    Each petitioner stated that the tritium leak is just one example of 
many maintenance and management failures at VY. All three raised a 
concern about what they perceive as the NRC's failure to examine the 
deficiencies at VY in an integrated manner. Although the individual 
petition was written to request enforcement action specifically because 
of the tritium leak, during each of the transcribed phone calls, each 
petitioner urged the NRC to take a broader view and assess operational 
and performance failures at VY collectively instead of individually. 
This concern has met the criteria for review in accordance with 
Management Directive 8.11, ``Review Process for 10 CFR 2.206 
Petitions.''
    Subsequently, the Petition Review Board recommended that the NRC 
accept the consolidated petition for review for the following specific 
issues and concerns identified in the petitions and supplemented during 
the teleconferences:
    1. Increasing concentrations of radiocontaminants in the soil and 
groundwater at VY, as well as an increasing area of contamination, are 
manifest on a daily basis. VY risks aggravating the contamination by 
continuing to run the reactor at full power while attempting over a 
period of a month to triangulate the location of a presumed leak by 
drilling a series of test wells in the affected area.
    2. During the license renewal application proceeding, the licensee 
averred that it was unaware of the existence of some buried pipes, now 
uncovered, and it has yet to discover their path and purpose.
    3. Entergy has, in 8 years of ownership, failed to learn and 
understand VY's design, layout, and construction. This failure to 
comprehend and understand the layout, function, and potentially the 
interaction of the plant's own piping systems constitutes a loss of 
design basis.
    4. The NRC's ROP has apparently failed to capture, anticipate, and 
prevent ongoing maintenance, engineering, quality assurance, and 
operation issues that have manifested themselves in a series of high-
profile incidents since Entergy took over VY. The agency has repeatedly 
failed to detect root cause trends until they have, as in this 
instance, become grossly self-revealing.
    5. The NRC should ensure that Entergy has adequate decommissioning 
funds. The tritium leak will increase decommissioning costs because of 
the need for site radiological examination and soil remediation.
    The NRC sent a copy of the proposed Director's Decision to the 
petitioners and the licensee for comment on January 20, 2011. The staff 
did not receive any comments on the proposed Director's Decision.
    The NRR staff determined that the activities requested by the 
petitioners have been completed, with the exception of immediate cold 
shutdown of Vermont Yankee. Therefore, the Director of NRR concludes 
that the petition has been granted in part and denied in part. The 
reasons for this decision are explained in the Director's Decision (DD-
11-03) pursuant to 10 CFR 2.206.
    Copies of the petitions (Agencywide Documents Access and Management 
System (ADAMS) Accession Nos. ML100190688, ML100470430, and 
ML100621374) and the Director's Decision (ADAMS Accession No. 
ML110540558) are available for inspection at the Commission's Public 
Document Room (PDR) at One White Flint North, Room O1-F21, 11555 
Rockville Pike (first floor), Rockville, Maryland 20852, and from the 
NRC's ADAMS Public Electronic Reading Room on the NRC Web site at 
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html. NRC Management Directive 
8.11, ``Review Process for 10 CFR 2.206 Petitions'' (ADAMS Accession 
No. ML041770328), describes the petition review process. Persons who do 
not have access to ADAMS or who have problems in accessing the 
documents in ADAMS should contact the NRC PDR reference staff by 
telephone at 1-800-397-4209 or 301-415-4737, or by e-mail to 
[email protected].
    A copy of the Director's Decision will be filed with the Secretary 
of the Commission for the Commission's review in accordance with 10 CFR 
2.206 of the Commission's regulations. As provided for by this 
regulation, the Director's Decision will constitute the final action of 
the Commission 25 days after the date of the decision, unless the 
Commission, on its own motion, institutes a review of the Director's 
Decision in that time.

    Dated at Rockville, Maryland this 11th day of March, 2011.
    For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Eric J. Leeds,
Director, Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation.
[FR Doc. 2011-6400 Filed 3-17-11; 8:45 am]
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