Nuclear Regulatory Commission November 7, 2006 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

Notice is hereby given that the staff of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has prepared a model license amendment request (LAR), model safety evaluation (SE), and model proposed no significant hazards consideration (NSHC) determination related to changes to the completion times (CT) in Standard Technical Specification (STS) 3.6.6A, ``Containment Spray and Cooling Systems,'' contained in NUREG-1432 (Standard Technical Specifications for Combustion Engineering Plants, Rev. 3.0). The proposed changes would revise STS 3.6.6A by extending the CT for one containment spray system (CSS) train inoperable from 72 hours to seven days, and add a Condition, Required Actions and associated CT when one CSS train and one containment cooling system (CCS) train are inoperable. These changes are based on analyses provided in a joint applications report submitted by the Combustion Engineering Owner's Group (CEOG). The CEOG participants in the Technical Specifications Task Force (TSTF) proposed these changes to the STS in Change Traveler No. TSTF-409, Revision 2. The purpose of these models is to permit the NRC to efficiently process amendments to incorporate these changes into plant-specific STS for Combustion Engineering pressurized water reactors (PWRs). Since TSTF-409 involves a risk-informed approach to extending the CT for one CSS inoperable, the NRC staff must verify that licensees who apply for this TS change have a valid, up-to-date probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) model that employs PRA principles to ensure that public health and safety are maintained when the CSS CT of 7 days is implemented. Therefore, the model LAR contains several conditions requiring licensees to make specific validations of their plant PRA quality and methods. The intent of using the CLIIP to adopt TSTF-409 is to eliminate the need for additional technical review and requests for additional information (RAIs) on plant-specific amendments. Licensees of nuclear power reactors to which the models apply can request amendments conforming to the models. In such a request, a licensee should confirm the applicability of the model SE and NSHC determination to its plant, and provide the expected supplemental information requested in the model LAR.