[Federal Register Volume 75, Number 229 (Tuesday, November 30, 2010)]
[Notices]
[Pages 74022-74024]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2010-30004]
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DEFENSE NUCLEAR FACILITIES SAFETY BOARD
[Recommendation 2010-1]
Safety Analysis Requirements for Defining Adequate Protection for
the Public and the Workers
AGENCY: Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board.
ACTION: Notice, recommendation; correction
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SUMMARY: Pursuant to 42 U.S.C. 2286a(a)(5), the Defense Nuclear
Facilities Safety Board has made a recommendation to the Secretary of
Energy requesting an amendment to the Department of Energy's nuclear
safety rule, 10 CFR part 830. An incorrect electronic file was
submitted to the Federal Register and published on November 15, 2010
(75 FR 69648). The corrected text of the recommendation approved by the
Board is below. The Board is extending the public comment period to
allow for consideration of this correction by all interested parties.
DATES: Comments, data, views, or arguments concerning the
recommendation are due on or before December 30, 2010.
ADDRESSES: Send comments, data, views, or arguments concerning this
recommendation to: Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, 625 Indiana
Avenue, NW., Suite 700, Washington, DC 20004-2901.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Brian Grosner or Andrew L. Thibadeau
at the address above or telephone number (202) 694-7000.
Correction: In the Federal Register of November 15, 2010 (75 FR
69648), immediately following the signature block, the recommendation
should read as follows:
Dated: November 23, 2010.
Peter S. Winokur,
Chairman.
Recommendation 2010-1 to the Secretary of Energy
Safety Analysis Requirements for Defining Adequate Protection for
the Public and the Workers, Pursuant to 42 U.S.C. 2286a(a)(5),
Atomic Energy Act of 1954, As Amended
Dated: October 29, 2010
Background
The Department of Energy's (DOE) nuclear safety regulations were
developed as a result of a mandate by Congress in the Price Anderson
Act Amendments of 1988. These regulations now appear in Parts 820,
830, and 835 of Title 10 in the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR).
In this Recommendation, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board
(Board) addresses recent changes in DOE's
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``interpretation'' of certain critical provisions of Title 10 CFR
Part 830, Nuclear Safety Management (10 CFR Part 830), provisions
that are intended to provide adequate protection of public health
and safety. As explained below, in the Board's view this revised
interpretative posture weakens the safety structure the rule is
designed to hold firmly in place.
10 CFR Part 830 imposes a requirement that a documented safety
analysis (DSA) is to be prepared for every DOE nuclear facility.
This DSA, once approved by DOE, forms the regulatory basis for
safety of the facility or operation. 10 CFR Part 830 does more,
however: its Appendix A provides ``safe harbors'' for the
preparation and approval of DSAs. These safe harbors are, in the
main, references to detailed guidance issued by DOE. A DSA that is
prepared following applicable guidance found in safe harbors should
be found acceptable, meaning that the facility's safety systems are
adequate to protect public health and safety from nuclear hazards.
One of the key safe harbor guides for the preparation of DSAs is
DOE Standard 3009-94, Preparation Guide for U.S. Department of
Energy Nonreactor Nuclear Facility Safety Analysis Reports.\1\ First
issued in July of 1994, this Standard was intended to provide
guidance on meeting the requirements imposed by DOE Order 5480.23,
Nuclear Safety Analysis Reports, a set of nuclear safety
requirements that preceded and were supplanted by 10 CFR Part 830.
The Standard stated that ``Technical Standards, such as this
document, support the guides by providing additional guidance into
how the requirements [of Orders and Rules] should be met.'' As such,
it did not contain any nuclear safety requirements. Five years after
its initial issuance, DOE amended Standard 3009-94 by the addition
of Appendix A, currently entitled ``Evaluation Guideline.'' The
guideline applies a dose criterion to the results of accident
calculations found in DSAs. Stated broadly, the Standard mandates
that safety class systems, structures, and components (SSCs) be
installed if in a potential accident the unmitigated dose
consequence calculations for a release scenario at the site boundary
approach the Evaluation Guideline numerical value. The Evaluation
Guideline value established in DOE-STD-3009-94 Appendix A is 25 rem
Total Effective Dose Equivalent (TEDE). The Standard further states
that although 25 rem is not considered an acceptable public
exposure, it is generally accepted as a value indicative of no
significant health effects.
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\1\ When DOE issued Change Notice 2, the title of this Standard
was revised to Preparation Guide for U.S. Department of Energy
Nonreactor Nuclear Facility Documented Safety Analyses.
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When 10 CFR Part 830 was promulgated in final form in early
2001, the version of DOE Standard 3009-94 incorporated into Appendix
A of the rule as a safe harbor included the Evaluation Guideline.
This combination of the rule's requirement for an approved DSA and
the application of the Evaluation Guideline of DOE Standard 3009-94
formed the basis upon which adequate protection of the public health
and safety would be gauged. Whenever dose consequence calculations
showed that an accident scenario would result in offsite doses
approaching 25 rem TEDE, the expectation was that safety related
SSCs would function as designed, ensuring that public doses would
never exceed a small fraction of the Evaluation Guideline.
Developments Since 2001
As a safe harbor for 10 CFR Part 830, the Evaluation Guideline
described in DOE Standard 3009-94 has been enforced and met for the
majority of DOE's defense nuclear facilities, assuring adequate
protection of the public, workers, and the environment. However, in
December 2008, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA)
approved a DSA for the Plutonium Facility at Los Alamos National
Laboratory that represented a significant departure from the
accepted methodology, as discussed in the Board's Recommendation
2009-2, Los Alamos National Laboratory Plutonium Facility Seismic
Safety. The Board followed up its Recommendation with a letter to
the Deputy Secretary of Energy on March 15, 2010, that sought to
determine whether DOE's current interpretation of 10 CFR Part 830
and DOE Standard 3009-94 still supports the principles of providing
adequate protection of the public, workers, and the environment from
the hazards of operating DOE's defense nuclear facilities. The
Board's letter particularly expressed concern regarding the
appearance that DOE's present interpretation is that the nuclear
safety Evaluation Guideline established in DOE Standard 3009-94 does
not have to be met.
DOE's June 10, 2010, response to the Board's letter states that
DOE's utilization and implementation of DOE Standard 3009-94 has not
changed since issuance of 10 CFR Part 830. DOE's response observes
that DOE Standard 3009-94 ``was not written as a prescriptive item-
by-item requirements document; rather it provides an overall
approach and guidance for preparing a DSA.'' DOE's response states
that the Standard describes steps that the contractor may take if
the postulated accident consequences cannot be mitigated below the
Evaluation Guideline. DOE's response also cites guidance for DOE
approval authorities contained in DOE Standard 1104-2009, Review and
Approval of Nuclear Facility Safety Basis and Safety Design Basis
Documents, and notes that the Safety Basis Approval Authority may
prescribe interim controls and planned improvements if the
Evaluation Guideline is exceeded. DOE's response closes by stating
that its managers ``are expected to carefully evaluate situations
that fall short of expectations and only provide their approval of
documented safety analyses when they are satisfied that operations
can be conducted safely * * *, that options to meet DOE expectations
have been evaluated, and that adequate commitments to achieve an
appropriate safety posture in a timely manner have been made.''
The lack of definitive statements in DOE's June 10, 2010,
response illustrates the difficulties inherent in applying a
guidance document as a safe harbor for implementing the requirements
of a regulation. Furthermore, NNSA's approval of the DSA for the Los
Alamos National Laboratory's Plutonium Facility in December 2008
demonstrates that, despite DOE's stated expectations, it is not
always true that DOE's managers will ensure safety by imposing
conditions of approval that address inadequacies in the safety
basis. This is illustrated to a lesser extent at the other NNSA
facilities--described in follow-up correspondence NNSA issued to the
Board on June 30, 2010--which have not implemented controls or
compensatory measures sufficient to reduce accident consequences
below the Evaluation Guideline. DOE Standard 1104-2009 serves as a
source of guidance for DOE Safety Basis Approval Authorities, but
it, too, is a guidance document, unequivocally stating, ``This
Standard does not add any new requirements for DOE or its
contractors.''
DOE's standards-based regulatory system needs a clear and
unambiguous set of nuclear safety requirements to ensure that
adequate protection of the public, workers, and the environment is
provided. Further, it is imperative that DOE provide clear direction
to its Safety Basis Approval Authorities to ensure that, if nuclear
safety requirements cannot be met prior to approval of a DSA, DOE
imposes clear conditions of approval for compensatory measures for
the short term and facility modifications for the longer term to
achieve the required safety posture. This acceptance of risk and
commitment to future upgrades must be approved at a level of
authority within DOE that is high enough to control both the
resources needed to accomplish the upgrades as well as the
programmatic decision-making involved in determining that the risk
of continuing operations is offset by sufficiently compelling
programmatic needs.
Item 4 of the Recommendation below deserves a further word of
explanation. The Board does not recommend lightly a change to DOE's
nuclear safety regulations. But as explained above, DOE has chosen
over the past several years to drift away from the principles that
underlay the rule as originally intended. The Board has chosen to
recommend a rule change because this action would tend, in the long
run, to prevent future shifts in DOE safety policy that would once
again have to be challenged and argued against. For these reasons,
the Board recommends that the nuclear safety rule, 10 CFR Part 830,
be amended as stated below.
Recommendation
Therefore, the Board recommends that DOE:
1. Immediately affirm the requirement that unmitigated,
bounding-type accident scenarios will be used at DOE's defense
nuclear facilities to estimate dose consequences at the site
boundary, and that a sufficient combination of SSCs must be
designated safety class to prevent exposures at the site boundary
from approaching 25 rem TEDE.
2. For those defense nuclear facilities that have not
implemented compensatory measures sufficient to reduce exposures at
the site boundary below 25 rem TEDE, direct
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the responsible program secretarial officer to develop a formal plan
to meet this requirement within a reasonable timeframe.
3. Revise DOE Standard 3009-94 to identify clearly and
unambiguously the requirements that must be met to demonstrate that
an adequate level of protection for the public and workers is
provided through a DSA. This should be accomplished, at a minimum,
by:
a. Clearly defining methodologies and providing acceptability
criteria for controls, parameters, processes, analytical tools, and
other data that should be used in preparation of a DSA,
b. Delineating the criteria to be met for identification and
analyses of an adequate set of Design Basis Accidents (for new
facilities), or Evaluation Basis Accidents (for existing
facilities),
c. Providing criteria that must be met by the safety-class SSCs
to (i) mitigate the consequences to a fraction of the Evaluation
Guideline, or (ii) prevent the events by demonstrating an acceptable
reliability for the preventive features, and
d. Establishing a process and path forward to meeting (a)
through (c) above through compensatory measures and planned
improvements if the DSA cannot demonstrate compliance.
4. Amend 10 CFR Part 830 by incorporating the revised version of
DOE Standard 3009-94 into the text as a requirement, instead of as a
safe harbor cited in Table 2.
5. Formally establish the minimum criteria and requirements that
govern federal approval of a DSA, by revision to DOE Standard 1104-
2009 and other appropriate documents. The criteria and requirements
should include:
a. The authorities that can be delegated, the required training
and qualification of the approval authority, and the boundaries and
limitations of the approval authority's responsibilities,
b. Actions to be taken if conditions are beyond the delegated
approval authority's specified boundaries or limitations,
c. The organization or the individual who can approve a DSA that
is beyond the delegated approval authority's specified boundaries or
limitations,
d. The regulatory process that must be followed if conditions
are beyond the delegated approval authority's specified boundaries
or limitations, and any compensatory actions to be taken, and
e. The criteria an approval authority must use to quantify the
acceptance of risk for continued operations when offsite dose
consequences approach the Evaluation Guideline.
6. Formally designate the responsible organization and identify
the processes for performing oversight to ensure that the
responsibilities identified in Item 5 above are fully implemented.
Peter S. Winokur, Ph.D., Chairman
[FR Doc. 2010-30004 Filed 11-29-10; 8:45 am]
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