[Federal Register Volume 79, Number 38 (Wednesday, February 26, 2014)]
[Notices]
[Pages 10846-10847]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2014-04208]


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NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION

[Docket No. 50-333; NRC-2014-0034]


James A. FitzPatrick Nuclear Power Plant, LLC

AGENCY: Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

ACTION: 10 CFR 2.206 request; receipt.

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SUMMARY: The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is giving notice 
that by petition dated July 25, 2013, David L. Lochbaum, on behalf of 
the Alliance for Green Economy, Beyond Nuclear, Citizen's Awareness 
Network, and Union of Concerned Scientists (together referred to as 
petitioners) has requested that the NRC take enforcement action with 
regard to James A. FitzPatrick Nuclear Power Plant. The petitioners' 
requests are included in the SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION section of this 
document.

ADDRESSES: Please refer to Docket ID NRC-2014-0034 when contacting the 
NRC about the availability of information regarding this document. You 
may access publicly-available information related to this document 
using any of the following methods:
      Federal Rulemaking Web site: Go to http://www.regulations.gov and search for Docket ID NRC-2014-0034. Address 
questions about NRC dockets to Carol Gallagher; telephone: 301-287-
3422; email: [email protected].
     NRC's Agencywide Documents Access and Management System 
(ADAMS): You may access publicly available documents online in the NRC 
Library at http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html. To begin the 
search, select ``ADAMS Public Documents'' and then select ``Begin Web-
based ADAMS Search.'' For problems with ADAMS, please contact the NRC's 
Public Document Room (PDR) reference staff at 1-800-397-4209, 301-415-
4737, or by email to [email protected]. The ADAMS accession number 
for each document referenced in this notice (if that document is 
available in ADAMS) is provided the first time that a document is 
referenced.
     NRC's PDR: You may examine and purchase copies of public 
documents at the NRC's PDR, Room O1-F21, One White Flint North, 11555 
Rockville Pike, Rockville, Maryland 20852.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: On July 25, 2013, the petitioners requested 
that the NRC take action with regard to James A. FitzPatrick Nuclear 
Power Plant (ADAMS Accession No. ML13217A061). The petitioners 
requested that the NRC take enforcement action by imposing a regulatory 
requirement that all the tubes in the James A. FitzPatrick Nuclear 
Power Plant's condenser be replaced prior to the restart of the plant 
from its fall 2014 refueling outage.
    As the basis for this request, the petitioners stated that the 
enforcement action is needed to protect the public from the owner of 
the plant opting to defer correcting a potential safety problem. James 
A. Fitzpatrick Nuclear Power Plant is experiencing abnormally

[[Page 10847]]

high occurrences of condenser tube failures. The condenser tube leaks 
could cause the normal heat sink to become unavailable, which in turn 
can complicate the operator's response to a reactor shutdown. The 
petitioners pointed out that the NRC's reactor oversight process also 
recognizes the elevated risk associated with a reactor shutdown with 
complications. Operating experience indicates that condenser tube leaks 
have contaminated the reactor coolant with impurities from the 
condenser cooling water and caused extensive damage to nuclear power 
plant components. The petitioners explained their concerns with 
comparison of historical data of U.S plants' condenser tube leaks that 
showed that the James A. FitzPatrick Nuclear Power Plant has 
experienced over 30 percent of the condenser tube leak events of the 
entire U.S. fleet in the past decade.
    The request is being treated pursuant to Title 10 of the Code of 
Federal Regulations (10 CFR) 2.206 of the Commission's regulations. The 
request has been referred to the Director of the Office of Nuclear 
Reactor Regulation. As provided by 10 CFR 2.206, appropriate action 
will be taken on this petition within a reasonable time. The petitioner 
and the co-petitioners met with NRC's Petition Review Board (PRB) on 
November 13, 2013 (transcript at ADAMS Accession No. ML14036A234) to 
further discuss their concerns. The results of that discussion were 
considered in the board's determination regarding the petitioner's 
request for action and in establishing the schedule for the review of 
the petition. A copy of the petition is available for inspection under 
ADAMS Accession No. ML13217A061.

    Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 12th day of February 2014.

    For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Jennifer Uhle,
Deputy Director, Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation.
[FR Doc. 2014-04208 Filed 2-25-14; 8:45 am]
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