We have read and considered the license condition the staff
recommends be made available to licensees and included in
licenses issued in the future. We would recommend only that the
wording of the second paragraph of the condition be made
permissive. It is the intent of the second paragraph to make
clear that licensees may make use of the flexibility available
under 50.59, a flexibility which the first paragraph, standing
alone, would take away. However, the negative wording of the
second paragraph obscures its intent. We therefore propose the
following changes:

2. The licensee may not make changes to the approved
fire protection program without prior approval of the
Commission only if those changes would not which-would
adversely affect the ability to achieve and maintain
safe shutdown in the event of a fire. without-prior
approvat-of-the-CommİSSİONT

SUBJECT: SECY-85-306 - STAFF RECOMMENDATIONS REGARDING THE

IMPLEMENTATION OF APPENDIX R TO 10 CFR 50

Entered on "AS"
SECRETARIAT NOTE:

PLEASE ALSO RESPOND TO AND/OR COMMENT ON OGC/OPE
MEMORANDUM IF ONE HAS BEEN ISSUED ON THIS PAPER.

NRC-SECY FORM DEC. 80

I have several concerns about the staff's recommendations for implerentation of Appendix R. These include concerns about the procedures in the staff's interpretation document, technical concerns, problems with the proposed enforcement policy and the staff's backfitting analysis.

PPCCESS

I believe that the staff's approach will make it harder for our fire protection inspectors to do their jobs. The staff's new interpretation document will allow licensees to depart from commitments or generally accepted practices without first getting NRC approval. The licensee is only required to do an evaluation (undefined) of the different approach it intends to take and to keep the evaluation documents available.

What this new procedure does is to, in effect, shift the burden from the
licensees, who formerly had to justify a different approach before they
could begin triplementation, to the NRC inspector and reviewer, who must now
discover the deviation and must establish why this approach does or does
not meet the rule. The new procedure will also make it harder to integrate
the work of the technical reviewer who will be at headquarters and the
inspector who will be in the field with the evaluation documents.
Obviously, this new approach, by placing the burden on the inspectors and
reviewers, will be more resource intensive for the NRC. In a time of
budget cuts, such an approach does not make sense.

The staff argues that its procedure is acceptable because, in the areas in
which they are not requiring prior approval, the staff has already granted
exemptions for other plants. Unfortunately, this answer does not adequate-
ly address the concern for several reasons. The staff's argument overlooks
the fact that fire protection is very plant specific. Whether a particular
fire protection method will be adequate for a particular plant car dererd
or many plant-specific details. The staff's argument also overlooks the
fact that, while exemptions have indeed been granted to some plants. the
origira1 exemption proposals have often been altered as a result of the

staff's technical review process. Thus, there is no reason to believe that whatever alternative proposal the licensee comes up with will in the end be acceptable and will meet the requirements of Appendix R. Staff's proposal is, in effect, to wait until after changes to plants have already been made by licensees to decide whether their approach is acceptable. This can only lead to further confusion and further problems if the staff ultimately decides unfavorably. And, in the meantime, until the staff can discover the deviation and can analyze it and unti? the correct changes to the plant are made, the plant will continue to be in noncompliance with Appendix R.

TECHNICAL

I also believe that the Commission should give some consideration to the technical concerns raised by the Agency's experts in fire protection, the fire protection engineers. While I am not an expert in this area, it seems to me that they raise some very good points. I will not discuss each item they raise, their DPOS do that better than I could. However, I will note that their main concern seems to be that the new interpretation document, by allowing divergence from Appendix R and Generic Letter 83-33, strays further from what are considered by those who know to be generally accepted industry standards.

It appears to me from reading Appendix R that the Commission's intent in enacting Appendix R was generally to apply industry standards to power plants, and I have seen no technical justification for departing from that course. In fact, given the potential of fires to serve as common mode failure mechanisms, it seems entirely reasonable to me to insist that nuclear power plants meet generally accepted industry fire protection standards.

NEED

My biggest concern about this whole process, however, is that it appears to be unnecessary and may, in fact, delay implementation of Appendix Reven more. Because the interpretations document will enable utilities to withdraw proposals made under Generic Letter 83-33 and does not require prior NRC approval, the date when we can say that everyone complies with Appendix R may stretch even further into the future.

The staff argues, however, that this document is necessary to provide additional guidance on Appendix R and to expedite compliance for older plants. Admittedly, there was some confusion and uncertainty in the early 1980s as to what the staff expected in order to ensure compliance with Appendix R. Workshops were held with licensees and from those came the additional clarification in Generic Letter 83-33. Plant specific Safety Evaluation Peports were issued providing further guidance to licensees. However, most licensees have been working with the staff to meet the requirements of Generic Letter 83-33. In fact the staff has told us that 62 of 67 plants licensed before January 1, 1979 are scheduled to be in compliance with Appendix by the end of 1987. Five plants have compliance schedules str +ching beyond 1987 Browns Ferry 1 & 3 (yes, Browns Ferry), Brunswick 1 & 2, and Davis-Besse. (See, Memorandum from W.J. Dircks, EDO,