Opinion ID: 216911
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Embedded Region & Interior Corrosion Contentions

Text: With respect to the Embedded Region Contention, the Board determined that Citizens failed to demonstrate that the information upon which the amended or new contention was based was not previously available as required by 10 C.F.R. § 2.309(f)(2)(i) because an NRC Staff report published in 2005 had discussed this issue. Alternatively, the Board held that Exelon's commitment to repeating UT measurements in the embedded region in 2008 and thereafter was not new information to support the contention. Because Citizens alleged that Exelon's enhanced monitoring program for the embedded region was inadequate, the unenhanced monitoring program must also have been inadequate. Even assuming that the contention was timely, the Board also found that the Embedded Region Contention did not meet the admissibility requirements. Citizens asserted that AmerGen improperly chose to take UT measurements in Bay 5 of the drywell shell, when it should have taken measurements in a bay that experienced more corrosion. The Board rejected this argument. It noted that a principal purpose of AmerGen's monitoring program was to obtain visual confirmation of whether corrosion was occurring on the interior and achievement of this goal does not require conducting UT monitoring in any particular Bay. (A.R. at 447.) The Board further concluded that Citizens' argument regarding the rate of corrosion in the embedded region did not raise a material dispute. Rather, the Board rejected the opinion of Citizens' expert, Dr. Hausler, that groundwater could come into contact with the embedded region. It noted that [t]his assertion is belied by the uncontradicted record evidence showing that design features serve to prevent groundwater contact with the exterior, embedded shell. ( Id. at 450.) As to the Interior Corrosion Contention, the Board found the contention untimely for the same reasons as was the Embedded Region Contention. In addition, it also concluded that Citizens failed to allege adequate facts or provide supporting arguments demonstrating a material dispute. Citizens argued that the UT measurements should focus on the sand bed region below the interior floor, rather than the exterior because interior corrosion had occurred at other reactors. The Board dismissed this argument and determined that Citizens' speculative assertion that interior corrosion might exist at Oyster Creek based on corrosion at other plants does not raise a genuine dispute of material fact. ( Id. at 453.) (emphasis in original). Finding that Citizens had not presented evidence of corrosion on the interior of the drywell and that the instant record does not support a conclusion that Oyster Creek has experienced such corrosion, the Board determined that the contention did not satisfy the requirements of 10 C.F.R. § 2.309(f)(1)(vi). ( Id. ) Considering the Embedded Region Contention, the NRC agreed with the Board's reasoning that an enhancement to a program that already exists cannot be considered previously unavailable information to support a new contention. This is because if ... AmerGen's enhanced monitoring program is inadequate, then AmerGen's unenhanced monitoring program embodied in its [license renewal application] was a fortiori inadequate. 69 N.R.C. at 274 (emphasis in original). As to the Interior Corrosion Contention, the NRC agreed that simply asserting that interior corrosion was a possibility, without proffering supporting evidence, did not raise a genuine dispute. The NRC's decision to agree with the Board's ruling was not an abuse of discretion. The NRC permissibly concluded that information was available in 2005 upon which Citizens could have lodged the Embedded Region Contention. Citizens failed to demonstrate that [t]he information upon which the [Embedded Region Contention] is based was not previously available. 10 C.F.R. § 2.309(f)(2)(i). Further, the NRC reasonably determined that if AmerGen's enhanced monitoring program was insufficient, it must have been insufficient beforehand too. The NRC and the Board reached their decisions after analyzing technical data, and ruling that Citizens had not raised a genuine dispute on a material fact to challenge these conclusions. Likewise, the NRC had a sufficient factual basis for adopting the Board's conclusion that the existence of interior corrosion at other reactor facilities was speculative and did not create a genuine dispute that Oyster Creek experienced such corrosion. The NRC adopted a reasonable construction of the contention admissibility requirements that is entitled to deference because it is not plainly erroneous or inconsistent with the regulation. Beazer East, 963 F.2d at 606. We are particularly reluctant to second-guess agency choices involving scientific disputes that are in the agency's province of expertise, New York v. U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Comm'n, 589 F.3d 551, 555 (2d Cir.2009) (internal quotation marks omitted). Moreover, when we consider a purely factual question within the area of competence of an administrative agency ... we recognize the [NRC's] technical expertise and experience, and defer to its analysis unless it is without substantial basis in fact. Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). Having determined that the NRC based its decisions on a credible rationale and a substantial factual basis, we decline to disturb its ruling.