Federal Register / Vol. 76, No. 53 / Friday, March 18, 2011 / Notices 15001 

file an annual report to the NRC 

containing a certification that financial 

assurance for decommissioning will be 

or has been provided in an amount 

which may be more, but not less than, 

the amount stated in the regulations, 

adjusted as appropriate for changes in 

labor, energy, and waste burial costs. 

The formula for adequate 

decommissioning funds includes an 

estimated waste disposal volume based 

on the plant design. The actual waste 

disposal volume may increase due to a 

leak or spill at a level that requires 

remediation. The licensee is responsible 

for payment of any increased waste 

disposal costs, whether paid for out of 

the allocated funds from the 

decommissioning fund or other assets. 

The current remediation of the tritium 

in soil and groundwater at VY has been 

funded as an operating expense and no 

money was used from the 

decommissioning trust fund. VY 

previously submitted a site-specific 

decommissioning cost analysis, which 

was approved by the NRC by letter 

dated February 3, 2009 (ADAMS 

Accession No. ML083390193). VY must 

address any required changes in their 

next annual report. Because no 

violations of NRC requirements were 

identified, enforcement action is not 

warranted for this concern. 

B. Additional NRC Actions Pertaining to 

Groundwater Contamination 

In March of 2010, NRC’s EDO 

established a Groundwater Task Force 

(GTF) to review the NRCs approach to 

ground water contamination conditions, 

given the recent incidents of leaking 

buried pipes at commercial nuclear 

power plants. The charter of the Task 

Force was to reevaluate the 

recommendations made in the Liquid 

Radioactive Release Lessons Learned 

Task Force Final Report dated 

September 1, 2006 (ADAMS Accession 

No. ML062650312); review the actions 

taken in Commission Paper SECY–09– 

0174 ‘‘Staff Progress in Evaluation of 

Buried Piping at Nuclear Reactor 

Facilities’’ (ADAMS Accession No. 

ML093160004); and review the actions 

taken in response to recent releases of 

tritium into groundwater by nuclear 

facilities. 

The GTF completed its work in June 

2010 and provided its report to the EDO. 

The report characterized a variety of 

issues ranging from policy issues to 

communications improvement 

opportunities. The complete report may 

be found under ADAMS Accession No. 

ML101740509. The GTF determined 

that the NRC is accomplishing its stated 

mission of protecting public health, 

safety, and protection of the 

environment through its response to 

groundwater leaks/spills. Within the 

current regulatory structure, the NRC is 

correctly applying requirements and 

properly characterizing the relevant 

issues. However, the GTF reported that 

there are further observations, 

conclusions, and recommendations that 

the NRC should consider in its oversight 

of groundwater contamination 

incidents. 

The EDO appointed a group of NRC 

senior executives to review the report 

and consider its findings. The group 

reviewed the GTF final report, including 

the conclusions, recommendations, and 

their bases. They identified conclusions 

and recommendations that do not 

involve policy issues, and tasked the 

NRC staff to address them. They have 

also identified policy issues, and a 

policy paper has been sent to the 

Commission discussing those issues. 

A public workshop was held on 

October 4, 2010, with external 

stakeholders to discuss the findings of 

the GTF Report and to receive input on 

the potential policy issues. In addition, 

a request for public comment was 

published in the Federal Register (75 

FR 57987). These efforts help to ensure 

the NRC is considering the right issues 

on which to focus its attention as it 

moves forward. The transcript from this 

meeting is available on the NRC’s Web 

site at: http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/

doc-collections/fact-sheets/buriedpipes-tritium.html. 

III. Conclusion 

As summarized above, the NRC staff 

did not identify any violations and the 

public health and safety remains 

reasonably assured. Thus, no 

enforcement action against VY is 

warranted. The NRC staff concludes that 

the petitioners’ concerns have been 

addressed and resolved such that no 

further action is needed in response to 

the petitions. 

As provided in 10 CFR 2.206(c), a 

copy of this Director’s Decision will be 

filed with the Secretary of the 

Commission for the Commission to 

review. As provided for by this 

regulation, the Decision will constitute 

the final action of the Commission 25 

days after the date of the Decision 

unless the Commission, on its own 

motion, institutes a review of the 

Decision within that time. 

Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 11th day 

of March 2011. 

For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. 

Eric J. Leeds, 

Director, Office of Nuclear Reactor 

Regulation. 

[FR Doc. 2011–6401 Filed 3–17–11; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 7590–01–P 

NUCLEAR REGULATORY 

COMMISSION 

[Docket No. 50–271; NRC–2011–0060] 

Entergy Nuclear Operations, Inc,. 

Entergy Nuclear Vermont Yankee, LLC, 

Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power 

Station; License No. DPR–28, Receipt 

of Request for Action 

Notice is hereby given that petitions 

dated January 12, 2010, from Mr. 

Michael Mulligan, February 8, 2010, 

from Mr. Raymond Shadis, and 

February 20, 2010, from Mr. Thomas 

Saporito, have requested that, under 

Title 10 of the Code of Federal 

Regulations (10 CFR) 2.206, ‘‘Requests 

for Action under this Subpart,’’ the U.S. 

Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) 

take action with regard to the Vermont 

Yankee Nuclear Power Station (VY). 

Mr. Mulligan requested in his petition 

that (1) the radioactive leak into the 

environment of VY be immediately 

stopped, VY be immediately shut down, 

and all leaking paths be isolated, and (2) 

VY disclose its preliminary root cause 

analysis and the NRC release its 

preliminary investigative report on this 

analysis before plant startup. 

Mr. Shadis requested in his petition 

that the NRC (1) require VY to go into 

cold shutdown and depressurize all 

systems in order to slow or stop the 

leak, (2) act promptly to stop or mitigate 

the leak(s) and not wait until all issues 

raised by New England Coalition are 

resolved, (3) require VY to reestablish 

its licensing basis by physically tracing 

records and reporting physical details of 

all plant systems that would be within 

scope as ‘‘buried pipes and tanks’’ in 

NUREG–1801, ‘‘Generic Aging Lessons 

Learned (GALL) Report,’’ and under the 

requirements of 10 CFR 50.54, 

‘‘Conditions of Licenses,’’ (4) investigate 

and determine why Entergy has been 

allowed to operate VY since 2002 

without a working knowledge of all 

plant systems, and why the NRC’s 

Reactor Oversight Process (ROP) and 

review process for license renewal 

amendment did not detect this 

dereliction, (5) take notice of Entergy 

Nuclear Vermont Yankee’s many 

maintenance and management failures 

(from 2000 to 2010) and the ROP’s 

failure to detect them early and 

undertake a full diagnostic evaluation 

team inspection or NRC Inspection 


Emcdonald on DSK2BSOYB1PROD with NOTICES
15002 Federal Register / Vol. 76, No. 53 / Friday, March 18, 2011 / Notices 

Procedure 95003, ‘‘Supplemental 

Inspection for Repetitive Degraded 

Cornerstones, Multiple Degraded 

Cornerstones, Multiple Yellow Inputs or 

One Red Input,’’ and (6) require Entergy 

VY to apply for an amendment to its 

license renewal that would address both 

aging analysis and aging management of 

all buried piping carrying or with the 

potential to carry radionuclides and/or 

the potential to interact with any safety 

or safety-related system. 

Mr. Saporito requested in his petition 

that the NRC (1) order a cold-shutdown 

mode of operation for VY because of 

leaking radioactive tritium and (2) issue 

a confirmatory order modifying the 

NRC-issued license for VY so that the 

licensee must bring the nuclear reactor 

to a cold-shutdown mode of operation 

until the licensee can provide definitive 

reasonable assurance to the NRC, under 

affirmation, that the reactor will be 

operated in full compliance with the 

regulations in 10 CFR Part 50, ‘‘Domestic 

Licensing of Production and Utilization 

Facilities,’’ and General Design Criteria 

60, ‘‘Control of Releases of Radioactive 

Materials to the Environment,’’ and 64, 

‘‘Monitoring Radioactivity Releases,’’ of 

Appendix A, ‘‘General Design Criteria 

for Nuclear Power Plants,’’ to 10 CFR 

Part 50, and with other NRC regulations 

and authority. 

The requests are being treated under 

10 CFR 2.206 of the Commission’s 

regulations. The requests have been 

referred to the Director of the Office of 

Nuclear Reactor Regulation (NRR). As 

provided by 10 CFR 2.206, the NRC will 

take appropriate action on this 

consolidated petition within a 

reasonable time. 

Each petitioner stated that the tritium 

leak is just one example of many 

maintenance and management failures 

at VY. All three raised a concern about 

what they perceive as the NRC’s failure 

to examine the deficiencies at VY in an 

integrated manner. Although the 

individual petition was written to 

request enforcement action specifically 

because of the tritium leak, during each 

of the transcribed phone calls, each 

petitioner urged the NRC to take a 

broader view and assess operational and 

performance failures at VY collectively 

instead of individually. This concern 

has met the criteria for review in 

accordance with Management Directive 

8.11, ‘‘Review Process for 10 CFR 2.206 

Petitions.’’ 

Subsequently, the Petition Review 

Board recommended that the NRC 

accept the consolidated petition for 

review for the following specific issues 

and concerns identified in the petitions 

and supplemented during the 

teleconferences: 

1. Increasing concentrations of 

radiocontaminants in the soil and 

groundwater at VY, as well as an 

increasing area of contamination, are 

manifest on a daily basis. VY risks 

aggravating the contamination by 

continuing to run the reactor at full 

power while attempting over a period of 

a month to triangulate the location of a 

presumed leak by drilling a series of test 

wells in the affected area. 

2. During the license renewal 

application proceeding, the licensee 

averred that it was unaware of the 

existence of some buried pipes, now 

uncovered, and it has yet to discover 

their path and purpose. 

3. Entergy has, in 8 years of 

ownership, failed to learn and 

understand VY’s design, layout, and 

construction. This failure to 

comprehend and understand the layout, 

function, and potentially the interaction 

of the plant’s own piping systems 

constitutes a loss of design basis. 

4. The NRC’s ROP has apparently 

failed to capture, anticipate, and prevent 

ongoing maintenance, engineering, 

quality assurance, and operation issues 

that have manifested themselves in a 

series of high-profile incidents since 

Entergy took over VY. The agency has 

repeatedly failed to detect root cause 

trends until they have, as in this 

instance, become grossly self-revealing. 

5. The NRC should ensure that 

Entergy has adequate decommissioning 

funds. The tritium leak will increase 

decommissioning costs because of the 

need for site radiological examination 

and soil remediation. 

The NRC sent a copy of the proposed 

Director’s Decision to the petitioners 

and the licensee for comment on 

January 20, 2011. The staff did not 

receive any comments on the proposed 

Director’s Decision. 

The NRR staff determined that the 

activities requested by the petitioners 

have been completed, with the 

exception of immediate cold shutdown 

of Vermont Yankee. Therefore, the 

Director of NRR concludes that the 

petition has been granted in part and 

denied in part. The reasons for this 

decision are explained in the Director’s 

Decision (DD–11–03) pursuant to 10 

CFR 2.206. 

Copies of the petitions (Agencywide 

Documents Access and Management 

System (ADAMS) Accession Nos. 

ML100190688, ML100470430, and 

ML100621374) and the Director’s 

Decision (ADAMS Accession No. 

ML110540558) are available for 

inspection at the Commission’s Public 

Document Room (PDR) at One White 

Flint North, Room O1–F21, 11555 

Rockville Pike (first floor), Rockville, 

Maryland 20852, and from the NRC’s 

ADAMS Public Electronic Reading 

Room on the NRC Web site at http:// 

www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html. 

NRC Management Directive 8.11, 

‘‘Review Process for 10 CFR 2.206 

Petitions’’ (ADAMS Accession No. 

ML041770328), describes the petition 

review process. Persons who do not 

have access to ADAMS or who have 

problems in accessing the documents in 

ADAMS should contact the NRC PDR 

reference staff by telephone at 1–800– 

397–4209 or 301–415–4737, or by e-mail 

to pdr.resource@nrc.gov. 

A copy of the Director’s Decision will 

be filed with the Secretary of the 

Commission for the Commission’s 

review in accordance with 10 CFR 2.206 

of the Commission’s regulations. As 

provided for by this regulation, the 

Director’s Decision will constitute the 

final action of the Commission 25 days 

after the date of the decision, unless the 

Commission, on its own motion, 

institutes a review of the Director’s 

Decision in that time. 

Dated at Rockville, Maryland this 11th day 

of March, 2011. 

For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. 

Eric J. Leeds, 

Director, Office of Nuclear Reactor 

Regulation. 

[FR Doc. 2011–6400 Filed 3–17–11; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 7590–01–P 

SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE 

COMMISSION 

Proposed Collection; Comment 

Request 

Upon Written Request, Copies Available 

From: U.S. Securities and Exchange 

Commission, Office of Investor 

Education and Advocacy, 

Washington, DC 20549–0213. 

Extension: 

Rule 611; SEC File No. 270–540; OMB 

Control No. 3235–0600. 

Notice is hereby given that pursuant 

to the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 

(44 U.S.C. 3501 et seq.), the Securities 

and Exchange Commission 

(‘‘Commission’’) is soliciting comments 

on the collection of information 

summarized below. The Commission 

plans to submit this existing collection 

of information to the Office of 

Management and Budget for extension 

and approval for Rule 611 (17 CFR 

242.611)—Order Protection Rule. 

On June 9, 2005, effective August 29, 

2005 (see 70 FR 37496, June 29, 2005), 

the Commission adopted Rule 611 of 

Regulation NMS under the Securities 

Exchange Act of 1934 (15 U.S.C. 78a et 


Emcdonald on DSK2BSOYB1PROD with NOTICES