Document: NRC Regulatory Guide
Document ID: 8291b9eb-e4a7-4806-8b5b-1deca2ff1fe2
Document Type: regulatory_guide
Title: Control Room Habitability at Light-Water Nuclear Power Reactors
Source: NRC Regulatory Guide Division 1
Source URL: https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML0207/ML020790125.pdf
Revision Date: 2023-06
Chapter: 
Section ID: RG-1.196
CFR Part: 
CFR Title: 

Content:
V. ALTERNATIVE APPROACHES 1. Alternative 1 – Do Not Provide Guidance Under this alternative, the staff would not issue regulatory guidance on CRH. This is the no action alternative. Since only about 30 percent of the existing plants have performed integrated testing, the status of CREs at plants that have not tested is unknown. Extrapolation of the integrated testing experience to date suggests that many of these plants may also have inleakage rates in excess of their licensing bases and may not be in compliance with GDC-19. Not providing the needed guidance to demonstrate CRH will result in increased unnecessary burden for the licensee and the staff in the form of preparation and response to requests for additional information (RAIs), re-analyses, and supplementation of license amendment applications. As such, this option is not supportive of any of the four nuclear reactor safety performance goals. 2. Alternative 2 – Endorse an Industry Initiative Addressing Control Room Habitability Under this alternative, the staff would not develop its own regulatory guidance, but instead would endorse an acceptable industry document. As discussed above, NEI has prepared NEI 99-03, ”Control Room Habitability Assessment Guidance” (Ref. RA-1). The staff has determined that it could not fully endorse NEI 99-03. After review and comment by the staff, areas remained in which the staff and industry were in disagreement. For example, the staff found much of the guidance in Section 8.4, “Methods Available to Address Degraded or Nonconforming Conditions,” of NEI 99-03 to be acceptable, but there are some provisions that the staff finds unacceptable. The staff believes that Appendices C and D could not be endorsed, but could be replaced by staff guidance given in Draft Regulatory Guides DG-1111, "Atmospheric Relative Concentrations for Control Room Radiological Habitability Assessments at Nuclear Power Plants" (Ref. RA- 4), and DG-1113, "Methods and Assumptions for Evaluating