81 FR 9003 - Entergy Nuclear Operations, Inc., Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station

NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION

Federal Register Volume 81, Issue 35 (February 23, 2016)

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is giving notice that by petition dated June 24, 2015, as supplemented, David Lochbaum of the Union of Concerned Scientists and others (the petitioners) requested that the NRC take action with regard to the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station (Pilgrim). The petitioner's requests are included in the SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION section of this document.

[Federal Register Volume 81, Number 35 (Tuesday, February 23, 2016)]
[Notices]
[Pages 9003-9004]
From the Federal Register Online  [www.thefederalregister.org]
[FR Doc No: 2016-03811]


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NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION

[Docket No. 50-293; NRC-2016-0035]


Entergy Nuclear Operations, Inc., Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station

AGENCY: Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

ACTION: Petition request; receipt.

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SUMMARY: The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is giving notice 
that by petition dated June 24, 2015, as supplemented, David Lochbaum 
of the Union of Concerned Scientists and others (the petitioners) 
requested that the NRC take action with regard to the Pilgrim Nuclear 
Power Station (Pilgrim). The petitioner's requests are included in the 
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION section of this document.

ADDRESSES: Please refer to Docket ID NRC-2016-0035 when contacting the 
NRC about the availability of information regarding this document. You 
may obtain 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-2016-0035. Address 
questions about NRC dockets to Carol Gallagher; telephone: 301-415-
3463; email: [email protected].
     NRC's Agencywide Documents Access and Management System 
(ADAMS): You may obtain publicly-available documents online in the 
ADAMS Public Documents collection 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 (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 June 24, 2015, the petitioners requested 
that the NRC take enforcement action with regard to Pilgrim concerning 
the current licensing basis on flooding (ADAMS Accession No. 
ML16029A407). The petitioners requested that the NRC take enforcement 
action to require that the current licensing basis for Pilgrim 
explicitly include flooding caused by local intense precipitation or 
probable maximum precipitation events.
    As the basis for this request, the petitioners referred to 
Pilgrim's flood reevaluation report provided by Entergy Nuclear 
Operations, Inc. (Entergy, the licensee) to the NRC in a letter dated 
March 12, 2015 (ADAMS Accession No. ML15075A082). The petitioners state 
that Pilgrim's reevaluations indicate that the site could experience 
flood levels from heavy rainfall events nearly ten feet higher than 
anticipated when the plant was originally licensed. Although existing 
doors protect important equipment from being submerged and damaged, the 
petitioners assert that neither regulatory requirements nor enforceable 
commitments exist that ensure the continued reliability of flood 
protection features that are currently installed at the site to protect 
important equipment from being submerged and damaged. The petition 
states in relevant part ``the petitioners seek to rectify safety 
shortcoming by revising the current licensing basis to include flooding 
caused by heavy rainfall events.''
    The request is being treated pursuant to Section 2.206 of title 10 
of the Code of Federal Regulations (10 CFR) of the NRC's regulations. A 
conference call was held between the petitioner and the Petition Review 
Board (PRB) on August 5, 2015, to discuss the petition; the transcript 
of that teleconference is an additional supplement to the petition 
(ADAMS Accession No. ML15230A017). The PRB has reviewed the petition, 
and its supplement, and referred the request to the Director of the 
Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation. The Director partially granted 
for review the petitioners' concerns that the current licensing basis 
be revised to include specific beyond-design-basis flood events at 
Pilgrim. The parts of the petitioners' concerns not granted for review 
are the impact of precipitation events on safety-related submerged 
cables as this was previously reviewed and resolved in a prior 10 CFR 
2.206 Director's Decision (ADAMS Accession No. ML13255A191), and the 
request for an updated site plan of Pilgrim, because this request is 
outside of the scope of the 10 CFR 2.206 process. The NRC staff will 
hold the petition until a resolution of ongoing reviews associated with 
the subject of the petitioners' concerns is achieved.

    Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 11th day of February 2016.


[[Page 9004]]


    For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
William M. Dean,
Director, Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation.
[FR Doc. 2016-03811 Filed 2-22-16; 8:45 am]
 BILLING CODE 7590-01-P