Members of the Carolina Chapter of NA-YGN attended the Chapel Hill Town Council meeting on Wednesday, September 27, 2006. The Town Council was proposing a resolution to recommend to the NRC that they “refuse to consider any ‘early relicensing’” of Progress Energy’s Shearon Harris plant until the plant has been brought into full compliance with NRC fire regulations. This resolution was unanimously passed at the end of the meeting.
Anti-nuclear groups including the North Carolina Waste Awareness and Reduction Network (NC WARN) and the Union of Concerned Scientists had representatives at the meeting who spoke in front of the Council. The only pro-nuclear speakers were a communications representative from Progress Energy and Ruth Sponsler, an independent pro-nuclear blogger. We did not speak in front of the Council, as we did not have a full understanding of the situation at Shearon Harris.
The anti-nuclear activists emphasized Shearon Harris’ reliance on temporary solutions to compliance with federal fire protection regulations, including the fire watch and “heroic acts” by the operators to shut the plant down during an emergency. They also seemed to over-exaggerate the severity of the 1975 Browns Ferry fire. In addition, it appeared that neither the anti-nuclear activists nor the Town Council understood what the term “full compliance” means or entails.
Following the meeting, Carolina NA-YGN wrote a letter (see next page) to the Chapel Hill City Council, in which we expounded on our personal knowledge of NFPA 805 and the NRC’s expectations for licensees in complying with the new fire regulations.
The Council is considering holding a Public Forum with Progress Energy and NC WARN et al to encourage open discussion about the new fire regulations. The Carolina Chapter plans on sending representatives to this meeting should it occur.
Letter to Mayor Foy and the Chapel Hill Town Council:
The Carolina Chapter of North American Young Generation in Nuclear (NA-YGN) sent representatives to the Chapel Hill Town Hall Meeting on September 27, 2006. NA-YGN is a non-profit organization of young professionals in the field of nuclear science and technology. One of the goals of NA-YGN is to share with the public the many ways in which nuclear science and technology have a positive impact on our daily lives and make important contributions to our society.
We would first like to thank you for your invitation to attend the forthcoming public forum. We will continue to check the Chapel Hill Town Council website for details regarding the date and time of the public forum.
The Carolina Chapter of NA-YGN is not affiliated with Progress Energy or the Shearon Harris plant and therefore cannot provide any specific information regarding the plant’s transition to NFPA 805. However, we would like to share with you some of our observations during the meeting as well as our personal knowledge about the new risk-informed fire regulations that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is implementing.
Risk Informed Fire Regulations
Classic fire protection requirements developed after the Brown’s Ferry incident help to keep nuclear power plants safe by ensuring that systems required to shut the reactor down safely will survive a fire. These requirements were developed before the NRC and the industry had experience with probabilistic risk assessment (a risk-informed decision making process). These requirements also lack the recent advances in performance-based analysis methods such as fire modeling.
The NRC approved NFPA 805 in July, 2004 to allow the licensees the option to transition to a risk-informed analysis to focus their fire protection activities on the areas of greatest risk. For plants who committed to transitioning to NFPA 805, the NRC granted enforcement discretion for non-compliances to the classic fire protection requirements identified prior to and during the transition period. The NRC has set interim standards, based on rigorous technical analyses, for which non-compliances must be addressed immediately.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission will not allow a plant to operate in an unsafe manner. The NRC utilizes comprehensive inspections to ensure compliance with their stringent regulations and will take appropriate action against a utility if deemed necessary. The goal of all NRC inspections is to first and foremost guarantee the public’s health and safety. There are many examples of the NRC and the nuclear industry’s commitment to Fire Safety. An example of this commitment is the NRC Fire Inspections which are performed on a periodic basis to assess licensee adherence to fire regulations. These are typically intense, highly critical, and objective 5-6 week long endeavors used to identify non-compliances in the licensee’s Fire Protection programs.
Reflections on the Town Hall Meeting
Prior to the meeting, our members had downloaded the Town Council’s resolution from your website. Admittedly, we are unfamiliar with legal terminology, but we originally interpreted your ultimate resolution to fully encompass the specific directives (e.g.: the WHEREAS statements) proposed by NC WARN, et al. The meeting corrected our perceptions; however a member of the general public might come to similar conclusions as we had.
References
1. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Backgrounder on Nuclear Power Plant Fire Protection, viewed 2 October 2006, <http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/fire-protection-bg.html>
2. National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) Standard 805 (NFPA 805), Performance-Based Standard for Fire Protection for Light Water Reactor Electric Generating Plants, 2001 Edition.
Again, thank you for your time and for speaking with our representatives at the conclusion of the September 27 Town Hall Meeting.
________________________________________________
National Fire Protection Association Standard 805
