POLICY ISSUE 

NOTATION VOTE 

June 9, 2011 SECY-11-0076

FOR: The Commissioners 

FROM: R. W. Borchardt 

Executive Director for Operations 

SUBJECT: IMPROVING THE PUBLIC RADIATION SAFETY CORNERSTONE 

OF THE REACTOR OVERSIGHT PROCESS 

PURPOSE: 

To obtain Commission approval of a staff proposal to enhance performance assessment tools 

within the Public Radiation Safety cornerstone of the Reactor Oversight Process (ROP) to 

emphasize defense in depth in preventing, detecting and mitigating groundwater contamination. 

This proposal would involve obtaining input from internal and external stakeholders to ensure 

that enhancements to ROP tools are guided by the founding principles of the ROP, consistent 

with Commission policy. 

SUMMARY: 

Based on the calendar year (CY) 2010 ROP self-assessment and concerns expressed by both 

internal and external stakeholders, the staff perceives an opportunity to enhance the ROP in the 

Public Radiation Safety cornerstone. The existing ROP tools focus on the potential public dose 

impacts of leaks. The defense-in-depth concept is applied by setting limits for the Performance 

Indicator (PI), in the Public Radiation Safety cornerstone, below the NRC’s annual as low as 

reasonably achievable (ALARA) design objectives. The industry has implemented initiatives to 

emphasize prevention, detection and mitigation of groundwater contamination and the staff has 

identified an opportunity to use these initiatives to further enhance the defense-in-depth concept 

in the Public Radiation Safety cornerstone. The staff recommends the Commission endorse its 

efforts to enhance ROP tools by leveraging these ongoing voluntary initiatives, resulting in more 

consistent and reliable regulatory outcomes that further emphasize the defense-in-depth 

CONTACT: Jocelyn Lian, NRR/DIRS 

 301-415-4666 
The Commissioners 2 

approach in protecting public health and safety. With the Commission’s approval, the staff is 

committed to work with internal and external stakeholders to ensure that enhancements are 

guided by the founding principles of the ROP, consistent with Commission policy. The staff 

believes that the recommended activities can be accomplished within the current budget 

request. 

BACKGROUND: 

Before adopting the ROP, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) staff relied heavily 

on the enforcement of regulatory requirements as an input into its assessment of licensee 

performance. In addition, the staff used other, more subjective and less transparent, indicators 

of performance to supplement the enforcement history of individual licensees. 

When developing the ROP, the staff recognized that the reactors were designed and built in 

accordance with the concept of defense-in-depth with redundant, diverse means to protect 

critical barriers to radiological release. The staff further acknowledged that enforcement actions 

were not necessarily informed by the availability of other required structures, systems, and 

components (SSCs); mitigation strategies reflected in station operating procedures; and 

operator actions that could be taken to reduce the impact to safety. As such, enforcement 

actions could be misleading indicators of the actual safety significance of licensee performance 

issues. The staff concluded that its compliance-based approach to performance assessment 

did not always achieve outcomes that improved safety. In fact, enforcement actions might be 

taken even in cases where there was a marginal impact on safety. 

In public workshops and correspondence that took place while the NRC was developing the 

ROP, the industry pointed out that many aspects of performance at all sites not only meet, but 

often exceed, the minimum regulatory requirements. Although exceeding requirements in one 

area does not justify a failure to meet them in another area, it does provide insight into overall, 

integrated plant risk and serves as one indicator of plant performance. 

Consistent with a desire to have objective and transparent inputs into the assessment process, 

the industry proposed that the NRC base the ROP on PIs, some of which were linked to 

regulatory requirements. For PIs linked to regulatory requirements, thresholds were set well 

below the requirements. Examples include Reactor Coolant System (RCS) Specific Activity, 

RCS Identified Leak Rate, and Radiological Effluent Occurrence. Other PIs were based on 

performance attributes that the regulation did not address but that the industry and the staff 

considered to be valid, objective measures of safety performance; examples include Unplanned 

Scrams per 7,000 Critical Hours, Unplanned Power Changes per 7,000 Critical Hours, and 

Unplanned Scrams with Complications. The staff agreed to adopt PIs as one of the two major 

inputs to the ROP’s performance assessment process and regulatory response as determined 

by the ROP Action Matrix. 

The other major input to the performance assessment process involves NRC inspection 

findings, which represent performance deficiencies with more-than-minor significance. Because 

of the ROP’s emphasis on safety as opposed to mere compliance, inspection findings are not 

always tied to regulatory requirements. The significance of an inspection finding is based on 

probabilistic risk insights (where possible) and qualitative (deterministic) methods that result in a 

significance characterization commensurate with the finding’s impact to safety. Therefore, a 

performance deficiency does not need to involve a violation of regulatory requirements to 
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prompt the NRC’s regulatory response to performance issues, consistent with the ROP Action 

Matrix. 

The NRC seeks to achieve continuous improvement of the ROP through the ROP 

self-assessment process, which provides a systematic approach to evaluating the overall 

effectiveness of the ROP in meeting pre-established goals and intended outcomes. This ROP 

self-assessment process also reveals improvement opportunities. As part of the ROP 

self-assessment process, the NRC staff has continuously sought opportunities to refine existing 

PIs and explore potential new PIs for ROP implementation. The staff furthered this ongoing 

effort by preparing an NRC staff white paper, “A Comparison of International and US Nuclear 

Industry Performance Indicators to the Current ROP Performance Indicator Program,” issued 

November 2009 (Agencywide Documents Access and Management System (ADAMS) 

Accession No. ML093490170). The white paper considered the potential applicability of 

candidate PIs for ROP purposes. The staff shared the white paper with internal and external 

stakeholders in an effort to initiate dialogue and solicit insights, feedback, and suggestions on 

the value and viability of candidate PIs. 

On April 21, 2010, the NRC held a Category 2 public meeting to discuss a framework for 

considering new PIs. The initial approach focused on potential new PIs that would supplement 

the existing suite of indicators. However, after the meeting, the NRC and industry agreed that a 

well-defined problem statement should be crafted to guide efforts and focus resources in an 

efficient manner. The NRC agreed to perform a gap analysis, with the goal of revealing 

potential areas of the ROP that warrant consideration of new or revised inspection tools or PIs. 

On December 28, 2010, the staff issued a draft report, “Gap Analysis of the Reactor Oversight 

Process (ROP)” (ADAMS Accession No. ML103620319), and solicited comments from internal 

and external stakeholders. The staff incorporated comments to the extent practicable and 

completed a final version of the analysis on April 8, 2011, (ADAMS Accession No. 

ML110810078). In its gap analysis, the staff identified an opportunity to enhance ROP tools 

within the Public Radiation Safety cornerstone. 

In SECY-11-0054, “Reactor Oversight Process Self-Assessment for Calendar Year 2010,” dated 

April 8, 2011, (ADAMS Accession No. ML110550749), the staff indicated that the NRC could 

leverage the ROP to affirm licensee efforts to ensure the protection of public health and safety 

through the implementation of industry initiatives. In the spirit of continuous improvement, the 

staff contemplated changes to or the development of ROP tools (e.g., inspection guidance, 

significance determination process (SDP), PIs) to consider industry activities and performance 

in meeting voluntary commitments to industry initiatives. Because such changes involve 

matters of policy, the staff committed to request Commission policy direction on possible 

changes to the ROP in the Public Radiation Safety cornerstone. This paper responds to that 

commitment. 

DISCUSSION: 

The Public Radiation Safety cornerstone of the ROP addresses licensee activities to protect the 

public from exposure to radioactive material released into the public domain from routine civilian 

nuclear reactor operations. 
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Recent Events 

In recent years, concerns over groundwater contamination caused by leaks from degraded 

system components and structures have increased significantly, and the Public Radiation Safety 

cornerstone has attracted stakeholder attention and scrutiny. Leaks and unplanned releases of 

radioactive liquid have resulted in groundwater contamination, even though none of the leaks, 

based on available records (ADAMS Accession No. ML101270439), has posed a hazard to 

human health. Recent activities, listed below, collectively indicate that the ROP’s ability to 

address licensee performance in monitoring and controlling releases to groundwater could be 

enhanced. 

Action Matrix Deviations—The NRC has approved two Action Matrix deviations, in part because 

of groundwater contaminations: Vermont Yankee in 2010 (ADAMS Accession No. 

ML100960321) and Indian Point from 2005 to 2009 (ADAMS Accession No. ML083590057). 

When tritium was identified from a groundwater monitoring well at Vermont Yankee in 2010, the 

licensee developed a plan to identify, mitigate, characterize, and remediate the source of 

contamination. Later, the NRC issued a Demand for Information regarding certain employees 

who might have provided misleading information to the State of Vermont about underground 

piping at Vermont Yankee. To respond to these two issues, and the level of interest and 

concerns expressed by stakeholders, the NRC staff applied additional inspection resources to 

Vermont Yankee. This deviation will remain in effect pending further inspection within the 

planned baseline activities to ascertain if Vermont Yankee’s station procedures and modeling of 

groundwater movement are sufficient to monitor remediation of the existing groundwater 

contamination plume. 

The NRC applied additional inspection resources for Indian Point in 2005, and the deviation was 

renewed in CY 2006, CY 2007, and CY 2008. The deviation was initiated, in part, because 

radionuclides (tritium, nickel-63, cesium-137, strontium-90, and cobalt-60) were detected in an 

on-site test well and attributed to leakage from the Unit2 spent fuel pool. The deviation was 

warranted to monitor the licensee’s efforts to evaluate and correct the leakage. The deviation 

was renewed three times, in part to ensure that the licensee met the exit criteria of the deviation, 

which included resolution of groundwater remediation efforts and establishing a long-term 

program for monitoring groundwater contamination. 

Groundwater Task Force (GTF)— The GTF acknowledged that the leakage of radioactive 

material, regardless of the hazard to individuals, is of significant public interest. The GTF 

observed that, although systems are designed to confine radioactive material, the NRC’s 

regulations do not explicitly prohibit leakage. In public meetings, stakeholders expressed to the 

GTF a desire for NRC to proactively ensure licensees prevent spills and leaks rather than react 

to contamination events after they have occurred and been detected. In its final report in 

June 2010 (ADAMS Accession No. ML101680435), the GTF further observed that the NRC’s 

response to incidents varied widely, noting that the agency took no action for some 

contamination incidents, but for others it increased inspection resources in various ways, 

including the Vermont Yankee and Indian Point deviations discussed in the preceding 

paragraphs. The GTF concluded that the NRC’s response to contamination incidents could be 

enhanced to be more consistent and reliable. The GTF report states that the current 

radiological effluent PI does not address leaks or spills per se and suggests that “An effective PI 

for groundwater protection would change as a function of the number, quantity, and type(s) of 
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radionuclide, and/or locations of leaks/spills for groundwater protection.” The Senior 

Management Review Group did not evaluate an associated recommendation to revise the 

current ROP guidance governing the effluent PI and a related baseline inspection procedure 

(ADAMS Accession No. ML110050525), deferring to the CY 2010 ROP self-assessment. 

The GTF also noted that some stakeholders view radiological releases as a public health issue, 

whereas the NRC’s regulatory focus is on risk as defined by dose to individuals. By focusing on 

risk, the NRC is not always prompt, effective, and clear in communicating its assessment of and 

response to leaks and unplanned releases to the environment. This has led some stakeholders 

to question the agency’s actions to date and whether those actions were adequate. 

Industry Initiatives—In response to leakage and groundwater contamination incidents, the 

nuclear industry developed three initiatives to address stakeholder concerns. 

The first initiative is Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) 07-07, “Industry Ground Water Protection 

Initiative—Final Guidance Document,” issued August 2007 (ADAMS Accession No. 

ML072600295). This document was developed to provide guidance on improving utilities’ 

management of, and response to, instances in which the inadvertent release of radioactive 

substances may result in low but detectible levels of radioactive materials in subsurface soils 

and water. The guidance set by NEI 07-07 addresses situations in which tritium concentrations 

are below the NRC limits and design objectives. 

The second industry initiative is the Buried Piping Integrity Initiative, dated November 20, 2009 

(ADAMS Accession No. ML093350032), and later superseded by the third industry initiative, the 

Underground Piping and Tanks Integrity Initiative, dated September 27, 2010, (ADAMS 

Accession No. ML103410507). The Underground Piping and Tanks Integrity Initiative targets 

the prevention of leaks by improving the maintenance and inspection (and possible 

replacement) of SSCs. 

The staff notes that the industry has fully committed to appropriate and reasonable efforts in this 

area. However, as indicated by representatives of State government and public interest groups 

at the Commission meeting on February 24, 2011, this investment is not earning the confidence 

of the public because it is voluntary, and individual licensees are not required to follow through 

on the commitments. 

Internal Feedback—Internal feedback received through the ROP feedback process and the 

2010 ROP survey suggested improvements to the Public Radiation Safety cornerstone. For 

example, the submitter of one ROP feedback form stated that, in the original development of the 

PI, the NRC and NEI considered a broader field of effluent program performance issues, 

including process radiation monitor performance, offsite dose, and other Offsite Dose 

Calculation Manual (ODCM) reportable issues. However, after considering the desire for a riskinformed indicator, the PI definition was revised before implementation, and only the offsite dose 

component remained. In its current definition, a PI occurrence is equivalent to exceeding, in a 

calendar quarter, one-half of the NRC’s annual ALARA design objectives for liquid or gaseous 

effluents, listed in Appendix I, “Numerical Guides for Design Objectives and Limiting Conditions 

for Operation To Meet the Criterion ‘as Low as Is Reasonably Achievable’ for Radioactive 

Material in Light-Water-Cooled Nuclear Power Reactor Effluents,” to Title 10 of the Code of 

Federal Regulations (10 CFR) Part 50, “Domestic Licensing for Production and Utilization 
The Commissioners 6 

Facilities.” Because radiation monitor performance and other ODCM reportable issues were 

dropped from the PI, the submitter questioned the accuracy and validity of the PI. 

This feedback form reveals a perspective that the current PI is a “risk-based” PI rather than a 

“risk-informed” one, since the PI does not capture the performance of barriers to releases (e.g., 

pipe and tank integrity) or mitigation (e.g., on-site monitoring wells or prompt identification of 

leaks and timely implementation of corrective actions); it only monitors dose for leaks that 

migrate off-site. 

10 CFR 2.206 Petitions—In 2010, the NRC received three separate petitions filed under 

10 CFR 2.206, “Requests for Action Under This Subpart,” asking the agency to take actions with 

regard to the groundwater contamination at Vermont Yankee (ADAMS Accession No. 

ML103350566). Collectively, the petitioners expressed concerns that the NRC’s ROP failed to 

capture, anticipate, and prevent operational issues that have manifested themselves in a series 

of high-profile groundwater contamination incidents. The petitions may reflect a view that the 

ROP does not adequately focus on licensee performance in preventing and mitigating spills and 

leaks. 

Current ROP Tools 

The Public Radiation Safety cornerstone has only one PI: Radiological Effluent Technical 

Specifications/ODCM Radiological Effluent Occurrence. This PI monitors the performance of 

the radiological effluent treatment and monitoring program. The PI is based on radiation dose 

resulting from effluent releases and does not evaluate the performance of the processing, 

handling, storage, or transportation of solid radioactive materials; radiological environmental 

monitoring; or corrective actions and mitigation. The thresholds were based on a review and 

graphical analysis of Licensee Event Report data associated with process radiation monitoring 

system activities provided by all sites for the period from January 1995 through December 1997. 

Based on these data, an expert panel composed of NRC and industry representatives agreed to 

the following thresholds for radiological effluent releases in excess of PI limits: more than one 

release for Green to White, and more than three releases for White to Yellow. A threshold for 

Yellow to Red was not established. 

The Public Radiation Safety cornerstone includes three baseline inspection procedures related 

to liquid effluents: inspection of the radiological environmental monitoring program, inspection 

of the radioactive gaseous and liquid effluent treatment, and inspection of radioactive solid 

waste processing and radioactive material handling, storage, and transportation. Like the PI, 

the SDP used to evaluate the significance of findings identified during these instructions 

addresses the licensee’s ability to assess dose from radioactive effluents and maintain radiation 

doses to a member of the public within Appendix I design objectives. An inspection finding is 

characterized as White if it involves a failure to implement the effluent program or public dose 

exceeds the Appendix I ALARA criterion or limits established in 10 CFR 20.1301(e). The 

thresholds for Yellow and Red significance are doses in excess of 0.1 rem and 0.5 rem, 

respectively. 

Groundwater contamination events are of concern to internal and external stakeholders 

because processes, systems and structures that were designed to control or confine nuclear 

material fail to function as barriers against inadvertent release to the environment. The current 

ROP tools focus on the potential public health and safety impacts of leaks and spills rather than 
The Commissioners 7 

prevention, prompt detection, and early mitigation. The current tools are not optimized to 

address aspects of licensee performance that compromised controls and barriers to release; nor 

are they applicable to assessments of licensee performance in successfully implementing the 

voluntary initiatives aimed at prevention, detection, and mitigation articulated in the NEI 

documents referenced earlier in this paper. 

Opportunities for Enhancement 

Based on the CY 2010 ROP self-assessment and concerns expressed by both internal and 

external stakeholders, the staff perceives an opportunity to enhance the ROP. Currently, the 

staff invokes the Action Matrix deviation process to address licensee performance involving 

groundwater contamination at certain plants. To some stakeholders, applying this deviation 

process compromises the predictability and objectivity of the ROP. The NRC could efficiently 

modify one or more key program areas of the ROP (e.g., inspection program, PIs, SDP) to 

minimize reliance on Action Matrix deviations and yield more consistent, reliable regulatory 

outcomes. New requirements or standards would not be imposed; rather, the staff proposes to 

leverage existing ROP methods to consider licensees’ efforts to enhance protection of public 

health and safety through implementation of voluntary industry initiatives on groundwater 

protection. The staff does not anticipate the level of significance of a finding or PI associated 

with the voluntary initiatives to approach the Yellow or Red threshold established for the current 

ROP tools, since the initiatives emphasize prevention, detection, and mitigation instead of public 

exposure to radionuclides; the NRC would continue to apply the current ROP tools to assess 

these more serious potential impacts to public health and safety in terms of dose. Because it is 

efficient and would improve ROP reliability, the proposal furthers these two principles of good 

regulation. 

The NRC can collaborate with industry in the established ROP Working Group, which meets 

regularly to discuss ROP-related issues, to evaluate potential modifications to the PI in the 

Public Radiation Safety cornerstone. The ROP uses PI information, which licensees report 

voluntarily, as an input for assessing plant performance and establishing an appropriate 

regulatory response. By providing an avenue for the industry to have a role in developing and 

interpreting ROP and PI guidance, the PI program can serve as an incentive to the industry to 

maintain performance associated with self-imposed standards and requirements well below 

thresholds for increased regulatory response. 

The NRC could also use the inspection program and SDP to improve the predictability of NRC 

actions in the Public Radiation Safety cornerstone. The NRC inspects aspects of licensee 

performance, in part, to verify that licensees are meeting self-imposed standards and complying 

with regulatory requirements. The ROP uses the inspection program and SDP to identify and 

determine the significance of performance deficiencies, verify licensee’s corrective actions, and 

apply additional inspection resources if the corrective actions are not effective. The staff has 

made a point of engaging external stakeholders when developing or modifying SDP tools, but it 

retains the authority to establish appropriate tools for inspecting and assessing licensee 

performance in a manner that is more risk-informed, objective, predictable, and understandable 

than the previous oversight processes, consistent with Commission policy and the founding 

principles of the ROP. 

In summary, the staff proposes modifications to the ROP that would leverage the industry’s 

voluntary groundwater protection initiatives. The objective would be to work with internal and 
The Commissioners 8 

external stakeholders to define an efficient and reliable approach, consistent with these two 

principles of good regulation, to assessing licensee performance in enhancing defense-in-depth 

in this area and determining regulatory responses. 

RECOMMENDATION: 

The staff recommends the Commission endorse its efforts to enhance ROP tools within the 

Public Radiation Safety cornerstone to emphasize defense in depth through prevention, 

detection, and mitigation of groundwater contamination. Inherent in this recommendation is a 

staff commitment to work with internal and external stakeholders to ensure that this 

enhancement to the PI program, inspection program, SDP program, or other ROP guidance is 

guided by the founding principles of the ROP, consistent with Commission policy. 

RESOURCES: 

The staff estimates that approximately 0.3 full-time equivalent staff will be needed to implement 

the recommendation. These resources are included as part of the continuous ROP 

improvement process in the fiscal year 2011 budget and the fiscal year 2012 budget request in 

the subprogram for Reactor Oversight; Planned Activity: Reactor Inspection and Assessment 

Management-Oversight. 

The staff does not anticipate that the recommended activities will require additional resources 

beyond those already included in the current budget requests. The Commission’s direction to 

the staff in the resulting staff requirements memorandum related to this SECY will determine 

whether the budgeted resources will be allocated to this effort. 

COORDINATION: 

The Office of the General Counsel has reviewed this paper and has no legal objection. The 

Office of the Chief Financial Officer has reviewed this paper for resource implications and has 

no objections. 

 /RA by Martin J. Virgilio for/ 

 R. W. Borchardt 

Executive Director 

 for Operations 
The Commissioners 8 

external stakeholders to define an efficient and reliable approach, consistent with these two 

principles of good regulation, to assessing licensee performance in enhancing defense-in-depth 

in this area and determining regulatory responses. 

RECOMMENDATION: 

The staff recommends the Commission endorse its efforts to enhance ROP tools within the 

Public Radiation Safety cornerstone to emphasize defense in depth through prevention, 

detection, and mitigation of groundwater contamination. Inherent in this recommendation is a 

staff commitment to work with internal and external stakeholders to ensure that this 

enhancement to the PI program, inspection program, SDP program, or other ROP guidance is 

guided by the founding principles of the ROP, consistent with Commission policy. 

RESOURCES: 

The staff estimates that approximately 0.3 full-time equivalent staff will be needed to implement 

the recommendation. These resources are included as part of the continuous ROP 

improvement process in the fiscal year 2011 budget and the fiscal year 2012 budget request in 

the subprogram for Reactor Oversight; Planned Activity: Reactor Inspection and Assessment 

Management-Oversight. 

The staff does not anticipate that the recommended activities will require additional resources 

beyond those already included in the current budget requests. The Commission’s direction to 

the staff in the resulting staff requirements memorandum related to this SECY will determine 

whether the budgeted resources will be allocated to this effort. 

COORDINATION: 

The Office of the General Counsel has reviewed this paper and has no legal objection. The 

Office of the Chief Financial Officer has reviewed this paper for resource implications and has 

no objections. 

 /RA by Martin J. Virgilio for/ 

 R. W. Borchardt 

Executive Director 

 for Operations 

EDATS: NRR-2011-0031 

ADAMS Accession Number: ML111290528 *via e-mail 

OFFICE NRR/DIRS/IPAB Tech Editor * NRR/DIRS/IPAB NRR/DIRS/IHPB NRR/DIRS 

NAME JLian JDougherty RFranovich UShoop FBrown 

DATE 05/18/11 05/23/11 05/18/11 05/19/11 05/19/11 

OFFICE NRR/PMDA OGC * DRA:RGN I * NRR EDO 

NAME MGivvines MSpencer DLew ELeeds 

(BBoger for) 

RBorchardt 

(MVirgilio for) 

DATE 05/26/11 06/02/11 06/03/11 06/06/11 06/9/11 

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