or other requirements by the Commission" which serve the purpose of protecting public health and safety or the environment.

Consultants to the NRC staff in the financial study felt that the events that could cause or avoid bankruptcy are within the control of three forces: the State public utility commissions in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, which could approve rate increases; the banks, which could continue to provide credit to the owners; and the NRC, which could approve the restart of TMI Unit 1. (The restart of Unit 1, which was shut down for refueling at the time of the accident, is now the subject of a hearing before an Atomic Safety and Licensing Board.) Alternatively, to forestall bankruptcy, the Federal government could provide loan guarantees or grants, or establish a system for assessing other utilities or the nuclear industry.

In the event of default, a Federal agency could engage a contractor to do the work, or take over the plant and complete the cleanup itself. Either alternative would require substantial Congressional funding.

The chief recommendation of the staff report was that the NRC encourage the Executive Branch to initiate discussions among State and Federal agencies and the financial community concerning the ability of

the licensee to continue and follow through on the cleanup.

GPU Tort Act Claim. On December 8, GPU filed with the Commission a $4 billion administrative claim under the Federal Tort Claims Act for property damage resulting from the TMI-2 accident. The claim alleges that the NRC induced Met Ed, the licensee, to rely on the Commission to warn it of defects in equipment, analyses, procedures and training affecting the operation of TMI-2 of which the NRC was, or should have been aware. Met Ed also alleges that it relied upon the NRC to review with due care the equipment, analyses, procedures and training for plant operation submitted to the NRC by nuclear equipment vendors and nuclear plant licen

sees.

The Commission has until June 8, 1981 to decide on GPU's claim. If no decision is reached by that time, the claim is considered denied. In this event, or if the claim is in fact partially or totally denied by the NRC, GPU can file suit in an Federal district court. (28 U.S. C. 2675.)

The deficiencies in emergency preparedness evidenced during the TMI accident is continuing to receive high priority. (See Chapter 3.) In mid-1979, the NRC began a formal reconsideration and revision of the nature and purpose of emergency preparedness in areas near nuclear power facilities. These efforts were accelerated in 1980, concentrating first on promptly improving preparedness at all operating nuclear power plants and those nearing the operating license stage.

On December 7, 1979, President Carter assigned the lead responsibility for assisting State and local governments in developing emergency plans for nuclear power plants to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), and the NRC detailed the emergency preparedness staff of its Office of State Programs to FEMA for an extended period in 1980 to help with the program. Two Memoranda of Understanding between the agencies were negotiated concerning (1) their respective roles in emergency plans and preparedness and (2) incident response. Under the first, FEMA will, among other tasks, determine whether State and local plans are adequate and feasible, be responsible for training State and local officials in emergency preparedness, and define interagency assignments and procedures in the coordination of emergency planning and response. The NRC responsibilities under this agreement are to assess the adequacy and feasibility of its licensees' emergency plans, review the FEMA determinations as to State and local plans, and to decide whether the overall state preparedness at a site has any licensing or regulatory implications (such as warranting issuance of a license or indicating a need for temporary shutdown). The second memorandum

covered NRC/FEMA cooperation and responsibilities in responding to emergencies, and defined their respective roles in some detail.

NRC's final rule on emergency planning which became effective on November 3, 1980, provides, among other things, that no new operating license will be granted without a favorable NRC finding that the integration of on-site and off-site emergency planning gives reasonable assurance that adequate protective measures can and will be taken in the event of a radiological emergency.

The combination of the TMI lessons learned and the review of in-place programs has led to the development and issuance during the year of several criteria and guidance documents on emergency planning. One identifies conditions requiring notification of authorities by plant operators. Another gives interim guidance jointly from NRC and FEMA for use by licensees and State and local governments in preparing and evaluating response plans and preparedness. A third document presents functional criteria for proposed licensee emergency support facilities. Among such facilities would be computer connections (Nuclear Data Link) between operating nuclear facilities and the NRC Operations Center to provide capability for monitoring key safety parameters in the plants.

The Commission issued two reports to Congress in September-one on NRC emergency communications, and the other describing the Nuclear Data Link concept. A report on the overall status of emergency response planning for nuclear power plants, directed by Section 109 of Public Law 96-295, will be transmitted to the Congress in early 1981.

New Focus on Operating Experience

The NRC's response to recommendations from major TMI studies urging a new emphasis and thoroughness in applying the lessons of operating experience found expression in several ways, including certain organizational changes: the creation of a new office-the Office for Analysis and Evaluation of Operational Data (see Chapter 5) and the creation within the Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation of an Operating Experience Evaluation Branch (see Chapter 4). Also of particular note was the adoption, in February 1980, of a new notification rule under which licensees are required to notify the NRC Operations Center in the Office of Inspection and Enforcement within one hour of certain specified safety-significant events.

Among the abnormal events reported to the NRC by licensees during 1980 were the following:

Loss of Instrumentation at Crystal River. An electrical short-circuit at the Crystal River facility in Florida in February 1980 brought about a partial loss of power to instrumentation associated with automatic control systems and some control board indicators. It was nearly seven hours before the situation was stabilized, leaving some 43,000 gallons of reactor coolant on the floor of the containment building. Although there was no impact on the general public or plant employees, these instrumentation failures were significant, and the NRC created a "B&W Reactor Transient Response Task Force" to assess the generic aspects of these kinds of events.

Partial Scram Failure at Browns Ferry. The Tennessee Valley Authority reported that a total of 76 control rods in the Unit 3 reactor of its Browns Ferry facility (a boiling water reactor) failed to insert fully into position to shut down the reactor. Eventually the rods were properly positioned, after four separate attempts to do so, and no damage occurred.

This type of failure could have resulted in substantial fuel damage. An NRC study team was formed and appropriate bulletins and orders were issued by NRC to all other licensees for boiling water reactors.

Indian Point Unit 2 Leakage. Upon entry of containment on October 17, 1980, plant personnel observed leaking fan coolers. Nearly 100,000 gallons of service water had leaked into the containment. The licensee concluded that about nine feet of the reactor vessel had been submerged while operating. The plant is currently in an extended outage which is expected to last until April 1981 to place the heat exchanging sections of the five fan coolers. Prior to restart, the licensee will be required to perform an

Indian Point Station in New York. The inoperative Unit I is at center, flanked by Unit 2 on the left and Unit 3 at right.

analysis of the reactor vessel and submit it to the NRC for review. A bulletin has been issued by the Office of Inspection and Enforcement to assure that all plants take the necessary actions to prevent such

an occurrence.

Several other salient operational events are discussed in Chapter 5, as are all events defined as "Abnormal Occurrences" and reported quarterly to the Congress, from the last quarter of fiscal year 1979 through the third quarter of fiscal year 1980.

OTHER MAJOR PROGRAMS

Inspection and Enforcement Activities

Substantial development and significant change were introduced into the NRC inspection and enforcement program during fiscal year 1980. Resident inspectors were deployed at all sites with power reactors in operation or in preoperational testing, as well as at 18 sites with reactor facilities under construction. As of September 30, 1980, there were

136 resident inspectors at 76 different sites. The inspection activity at operating reactor sites and at plants under construction was improved and intensified. Special team appraisals of health physics programs were conducted at the onerating plants

A significant portion of the inspection effort at operating power reactors was directed toward verification of licensees' implementation and completion of actions specified in the TMI Action Plan. License applicants and those receiving licenses during the report period were especially affected, as routine inspections were augmented by inspections to verify compliance with requirements delineated in the TMI Action Plan. The plan has also brought about changes in the construction inspection program, with special attention to such matters as quality assurance, on-site design, and review of "as-built" structures and systems.

The imposition of 49 civil penalties on licensees during the report period totaled about $1.4 million. In other enforcement actions, the NRC issued 26 "cease and desist' or similar orders, and approximately 100 bulletins and other notices alerting licensees to safety-related matters. More than 5,400 licensee inspections and 125 investigations were conducted during the period.

By legislation enacted in June 1980, the limit on an NRC fine for a single violation was raised from $5,000 to as much as $100,000 per day with no ceiling on the total fine for any 30-day period. The Commission included the NRC's plans for implementing its increased civil penalty authority in its Proposed General Statement of Policy and Procedure for Enforcement Actions, published for public comment in October 1980. Comments received will be considered in refining the policy in rulemaking during 1981. The policy is in interim effect, and emphasizes the use of stronger enforcement measures to assure that, in the long term, noncompliance is more expensive to licensees than compliance. Emphasis is also placed on prohibiting operations by licensees who cannot achieve and maintain adequate levels of protection for the public and their workers.

Research

The new priorities brought about by the TMI accident had a far-reaching impact on NRC's safety research programs in 1980 and plans for the future. (See Chapter 13.) The Loss-of-Fluid Test (LOFT) and Semiscale facilities in Idaho, for example, previously had been used almost exclusively to study phenomena associated with large-break accidents involving sudden losses of reactor coolant. By mid1980, both programs had been largely reoriented to the conduct of small-break experiments to increase

knowledge on solving problems such as those that occurred at TMI. In the coming year, the unique features of LOFT will be used for realistic studies of advanced control room concepts and man/machine interactions under the stressful conditions of actual loss-of-coolant accidents. A task force study of LOFT will be submitted to the Commission early in 1981 to assist in deciding on the future plans for this facility.

Other research activities were redirected, as well. Some placed greater concentration on severe accident phenomena in the context of health and socioeconomic effects. Others involved transient simulations of the late phases of loss-of-coolant accidents, again reflecting the lessons of TMI. Overall, NRC's water reactor safety research program in 1980 underwent a distinct shift from the theoretical or generic emphasis of previous years to the examination of pragmatic safety questions that had arisen from more recent operating experience.

The other major change in research activity in 1980 was a new emphasis given to probabilistic risk. assessment as a potential tool for use in licensing decisions. The research staff section previously handling this activity was enlarged, given division status, and set to evaluating a variety of accident sequences with the goal of developing improved reliability models for operating reactors. The first phase of the evaluation, involving study of the Crystal River plant, was nearly complete by the end of the year.

During 1980 the research staff drafted a long-range research plan and circulated the draft to other program offices for comment. In 1981 the final version of the plan is to be submitted to the Commission for its approval.

Waste Management

In February of 1980, President Carter announced a comprehensive radioactive waste management program based on recommendations of the Interagency Review Group on Radioactive Waste Management, of which the NRC had been a non-voting member. Included in the President's program was a proposal for legislation to extend NRC licensing authority over all DOE transuranic waste disposal facilities and any new DOE sites for commercial low-level waste disposal. Legislation was enacted in December 1980 which assigned responsibility to provide disposal capacity for low-level commercial wastes generated within the boundaries of a State to that State. Such wastes may, under the Low-level Radioactive Waste Policy Act and pursuant to conditions provided under the Atomic Energy Act-be disposed of within a State, somewhere in the region under multi-State compacts. Such compacts must be approved by Congress and reviewed every five years.

The regulations for high-level waste repositories (10 CFR Part 60) were considered by the Commission during the report period, and the licensing procedures were published as a proposed rule in December 1979. Draft technical criteria for the regulation of geological disposal were prepared by the staff and were published in an advance notice of proposed rulemaking in May 1980. The final rule on procedures is scheduled for issuance in early 1980.

Staff activity related to the NRC Waste Confidence rulemaking continued during the fiscal year. In this proceeding, the Commission seeks to generically assess the current degree of assurance that radioactive wastes can be safely disposed of, and to determine whether radioactive wastes can be safely stored on-site past the expiration of existing facility licenses until off-site disposal or storage is available. (See Chapter 15, "Commission Decisions.")

In October 1980, the NRC released the Final Generic Environmental Impact Statement (GEIS) on Uranium Milling, along with regulations on mill tailings. These regulations are presently being challenged in court (see Chapter 15, "Judicial Review").

(See Chapter 8 for discussion of all aspects of waste management activity during the report period.)

Materials and Transportation

Growth within the NRC's fuel cycle program is centered in byproduct material (radioisotopes) licensing, which comprises the bulk of the annual processing of some 5,000 to 6,000 applications for new licenses, license amendments and license renewals involving materials. These represent primarily medical, industrial and academic users.

Fuel cycle actions in 1980 include completion of a program of measuring radon releases from uranium mining and milling operations and development of new radon estimates for the environmental impact fuel cycle rule (Table S-3 of 10 CFR Part 51), the conduct of 183 transportation package design certifi cation reviews, approval of about 350 quality assurance programs for radioactive material transportation activities, and continuation of the review of terminated licenses issued by the former Atomic Energy Commission to identify possible contaminated sites.

In November, the NRC issued a rule (10 CFR Part 72), effective in December, setting forth licensing requirements for storage of spent fuel in independent installations. The staff is reevaluating, in light of the new regulation, an application for the renewal of General Electric Company's license to receive spent fuel for storage at its Morris (Illinois) Operation. This proposal is being contested by the State and other intervenors.

The NRC continued an accelerated inspection schedule at all three existing commercial low-level waste burial sites in Washington, Nevada, and South Carolina to assist in examining shipments for compliance with all applicable regulations.

In October, the NRC made available to State governors a report showing approved routes through 33 States for the shipment of spent reactor fuel. In December, the Commission published proposed regulation revisions that would require licensees to notify governors in advance of shipment of spent fuel or potentially hazardous nuclear wastes, in response to a requirement in Section 301 of P.L. 96295. A draft assessment of environmental impacts resulting from transportation of radioactive material through urban areas was published in 1980, and a draft generic environmental impact statement is being prepared.

In view of the number of incidents where personnel have been accidentally exposed to radiations from radiography sources, the staff plans to issue in mid-1981 a report on significant radiography incidents.

NRC studies to develop an information base on the technology, safety, and costs of decommissioning various nuclear facilities in advance of rulemaking have been largely completed. A draft generic environmental impact statement on decommissioning will be published early in 1981, to be followed by a policy statement in mid-1981 and subsequent proposed amendments to the appropriate rules.

Domestic Safeguards

A number of developments in the area of domestic safeguards during fiscal year 1980 include the following:

The new Safeguards Upgrade Rule-strengthening physical security requirements to protect against a larger, more sophisticated threat at any facilities possessing, using, or transporting five formula kilograms of SSNM-became effective in March 1980 and is expected to be implemented during 1981 and 1982. (See Chapter 7.)

During the report period the NRC transmitted to the Congress the final three reports documenting results of the staff's 18-month program of comprehensive evaluations of safeguards at licensed facilities which possessed formula quantities of SSNM during fiscal year 1980. All required permanent improvements were completed in that period.

Several important changes in requirements for the protection of licensed spent fuel shipments became effective in July 1980, including: (1) the transit of heavily populated areas is no longer embargoed; (2)