Leyse at ACRS Fukushima Subcommittee, May 26, 2011

May 26, 2011
Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards (ACRS)
Fukushima Subcommittee Meeting

Via a bridge line telephone connection, I was allowed to briefly submit spoken comments to the subcommittee. I had no notes, in fact I was surprised that the Chairman invited public comments that were not requested in advance of the meeting.

I spoke very briefly, before the Chairman, apparently disturbed by the content of my remarks as well as my aggressive attitude, cut me off. As I recall, here is the substance of my remarks, and I will update this when the transcript of the meeting becomes available.

Items:

1. NRC and the ACRS have not addressed PRM-50-93 although the matter is of greater significance than Fukushima.

2. Although NRC had assigned a high priority to the review of PRM-50-93, the NRC has not followed through.

3. I found out that NRC had "extended" its deadline for reviewing PRM-50-93 during ACRS and NRC staff discussions at the meeting of the ACRS Thermal Hydraulics Subcommittee on October 18, 2011.

4. I cited earlier discussions by NEI at this May 26, 2011, meeting in which they suggested that Fukushima would be treated as a separate activity and that existing business would proceed without interference. Likewise, the NRC must not allow its Fukushima activities to have a higher priority than reviewing PRM-50-93.

5. The brief Leyse presentations at the October 18, 2011, meeting of the Thermal Hydraulics Subcommittee were the only worthy aspects of that meeting.

I'll update this with material copied from the transcript of the May 26, 2011, subcommittee meeting when that becomes available to the public.

OK, Today June 2, 2011, I noted that the transcript of the May 26, 2011, Fukushima meeting has been posted. The transcriber has rather thoroughly screwed up my verbal remarks, hence it is a good thing that I logged the above from memory. Anyway, the following is from the transcript. One thing that is accurate is the following: Instead
15 you listened to endless presentations from Penn State
16 and others that really don't bear on what's going on
17 today or was potentially going to go on.

Official Transcript of Proceedings
NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Title: Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards
Subcommittee on FukushimaDocket Number: (n/a)
Location: Rockville, Maryland
Date: Thursday, May 26, 20114 MR. LEYSE: Yes, this is Robert Leyse.
5 I've talked to you before.
6 CHAIR ABDEL-KHALIK: Mr. Leyse, please
7 hold off. We have some here in the room who is going
8 to make comments. So I will recognize you later.
9 MR. LEYSE: I will go to *6.

21 Okay. At this time, Mr. Leyse, if you'd
22 like to offer any comments.
23 MR. LEYSE: Just came back on. Quickly,
24 I want to say PRM 50.93 was around well ahead of
25 Fukushima and a predecessor to that was around since
1 the mid -- around 2002 or 2003. And nothing seems to
2 move.
Now today we heard NEI tell us that while
4 we take this Fukushima act on we don't ignore what
5 else is going on. I would advise ACRS to be get into
6 PRM 50.83 as well as the NRC. NRC once had it as a
7 high priority item until a rather otherwise useless
8 meeting back in October of the Thermohydraulic
9 Subcommittee, the only part really bragging, not
10 bragging.
11 But it's a fact that made any sense what
12 Mark Leyse and myself discussed. You went through the
13 whole thing and never got into zirconium or how it
14 would react in a loss of coolant accident. Instead
15 you listened to endless presentations from Penn State
16 and others that really don't bear on what's going on
17 today or was potentially going to go on.
18 CHAIR ABDEL-KHALIK: Mr. Leyse.
19 MR. LEYSE: End of comments. Thank you.
20 CHAIR ABDEL-KHALIK: Thank you very much.