ML053460442
| ML053460442 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Nine Mile Point  |
| Issue date: | 11/17/2005 |
| From: | Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation |
| To: | Rani Franovich NRC/NRR/ADRO/DLR/REBB |
| Fields L , NRR/DLR/REBB, 301-1186 | |
| Shared Package | |
| ML053550524 | List: |
| References | |
| TAC MC3274, TAC MC3275 | |
| Download: ML053460442 (101) | |
Text
1 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 1
NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 2
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3 PUBLIC MEETING TO DISCUSS 4
DRAFT SUPPLEMENTAL ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT STATEMENT 5
FOR LICENSE RENEWAL 6
OF NINE MILE POINT NUCLEAR STATION UNITS 1 AND 2 7
+ + + + +
8 THURSDAY 9
NOVEMBER 17, 2005 10
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11 OSWEGO, NEW YORK 12
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13 The public meeting was held in the 14 Conference Room at the Town of Scriba Municipal 15 Building, at 7:02 p.m., Chip Cameron, Facilitator, 16 presiding.
17 PRESENT:
18 RANI FRANOVICH, NRC 19 LESLIE FIELDS, NRC 20 BRUCE McDOWELL, NRC 21 BOB PALLA, NRC 22 JAMES HUTTON 23 LINDA BOND-CLARK 24 RICHARD EMCH, NRC 25
2 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 PRESENT (continued):
1 TOM DELLWO 2
MICHAEL MASNIK, NRC 3
KATHERINE HOBBS 4
5 6
7 8
9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25
3 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 C O N T E N T S 1
PAGE 2
I.
Welcome and Purpose of Meeting 4
3 II.
Overview of License Renewal Process....
7 4
III. Results of the Environmental Review.... 16 5
IV. How Comments Can Be Submitted
....... 48 6
V. Public Comments............... 86 7
VI. Closing/Availability of Transcripts 100 8
9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25
4 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 P R O C E E D I N G S 1
(11:06 a.m.)
2 MR. CAMERON: Good evening, everyone. My 3
name is Chip Cameron, and I work for the NRC. And 4
it's my pleasure to be your facilitator for tonight's 5
meeting.
6 And I just want to briefly cover three 7
items on meeting process before we get to the 8
substance of our discussions.
9 First of all, the format of the meetings, 10 we're going to do it in two parts. The first part is 11 to give you information on the background on license 12 renewal, specifically the environmental review, 13 including the findings that are in the draft 14 environmental impact statement.
15 I would emphasize the word, draft. The 16 environmental impact statement will not be finalized 17 for use in the NRC's evaluation process of the renewal 18 application that we receive from Constellation to 19 renew the operating licenses for the Nine Mile Point 20 nuclear station, units one and two.
21 That leads me to the second part of the 22 meeting, which is to hear from anybody who wants to 23 make comments, give us advice, recommendations, on the 24 draft environmental impact statement.
25
5 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 And NRC staff will be telling you how to 1
submit written comments on this subject later on 2
tonight.
3 Ground rules, very simple. It's when we 4
get to the question period after the NRC's 5
presentation we'll ask for questions. If you have a 6
question just signal me, and I'll bring you this 7
cordless microphone, introduce yourself, and ask your 8
question.
9 And then when we go to the comment period, 10 we'll ask you to come up here to give us comments.
11 The speakers tonight, we're going to start 12 with a welcome from Rani Franovich, who is right over 13 here. And Rani is the chief of the Environmental 14 Review Section of the license renewal and the 15 environmental review program at the NRC.
16 And she has a varied background. Rani's 17 staff is responsible for the preparation of these 18 environmental impact statements, and environmental 19 assessments.
20 And Rani was a resident inspector at the 21 Catawba plant. She was also the project manager on 22 the safety reviews for Catawba and McGuire license 23 renewal. And she was the enforcement coordinator in 24 our office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation.
25
6 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 And she got a bachelor's in psychology 1
from Virginia Tech, and also a master's in industrial 2
and systems engineering from Virginia Tech.
3 So she will give you an overview on 4
license renewal, and then we're going to go to the 5
project manager for the environmental review, and that 6
is Leslie Fields, who is right here. And Leslie has 7
been with the NRC for nine years. Before that she was 8
with an engineering firm in the nuclear field I 9
believe.
10 And she has a bachelor's in chemical 11 engineering from the University of Southern 12 California, USC, and a master's in environmental 13 management from the University of Maryland, or almost 14 a master's in environmental management.
15 And after Leslie, we will go on to see if 16 there are any questions. And then we're going to go 17 to Mr. Bruce McDowell, who is one of our consulting 18 experts.
19 Bruce is the team leader of the various 20 experts that we had do the environmental review, and 21 he will tell you some more about that. And he is with 22 the Lawrence Livermore National Lab. Master's in 23 resource economics, and a Ph.D. from University of 24 California at Davis in atmospheric sciences. Almost 25
7 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 a Ph.D.
1 And right now he's acting deputy director 2
of the counter-terrorism and incident response 3
division, Lawrence Livermore National Lab.
4 We'll go to questions after he talks about 5
the draft environmental impact statement, and then 6
we're going to go to Mr. Bob Palla from the NRC staff, 7
who is a probabilistic risk assessment expert; engages 8
in severe accident analysis.
9 And he got his master's and bachelor's 10 from University of Maryland in mechanical engineering.
11 So we want to give you plenty of 12 opportunity to ask questions tonight, and also to give 13 us any comments that you have.
14 And with that I'm going to go to Rani who 15 will start us off for this evening.
16 MS. FRANOVICH: Thank you, Chip.
17 I'd like to begin by thanking everyone for 18 coming out today. I know we're all busy, have busy 19 schedules, and your participation in this process is 20 very important to us. So I just want to thank you for 21 your time for being with us tonight.
22 I hope the information we provide you this 23 evening will help you understand the process we're 24 going through, what we've done so far, and the role 25
8 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 you can play in helping us make sure that the final 1
environmental impact statement for Nine Mile Point is 2
accurate.
3 I'd like to start off briefly by going 4
over the agenda and the purpose of today's meeting.
5 We'll explain the NRC's license renewal 6
process for nuclear power plants with emphasis on the 7
environmental review process.
8 Then we are going to present the 9
preliminary findings of our environmental review, 10 which assesses the impacts associated with extending 11 operations of the Nine Mile Point Nuclear Station 12 units one and two for an additional 20 years.
13 And really the most important part of 14 tonight's meeting is for us to receive any comments 15 that you may have on our draft environmental impact 16 statement.
17 We also will give you some information 18 about the schedule for the balance of our review, and 19 we'll let you know how you can submit comments in the 20 future.
21 At the conclusion of the staff's 22 presentations, we will be happy to answer any 23 questions you may have. However, I must ask you to 24 limit your participation to questions only, and hold 25
9 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 your comments until the appropriate time during 1
tonight's meeting.
2 Once all questions are answered, we can 3
begin to receive any comments that you have on the 4
draft environmental impact statement.
5 Next slide please.
6 Before I get into a discussion of the 7
license renewal process, I'd like to take a minute to 8
talk about the NRC in terms of what we do, and what 9
our mission is.
10 The Atomic Energy Act is the legislation 11 that authorizes the NRC to issue operating licenses to 12 nuclear power plants.
13 The Atomic Energy Act provides for a 40-14 year license term for power reactors. This 40-year 15 term is based primarily on economic considerations, 16 and antitrust factors, not on the safety limitations 17 of the plant.
18 The Atomic Energy Act also authorizes the 19 NRC to regulate the civilian use of nuclear materials 20 in the United States.
21 In exercising that authority, the NRC's 22 mission is threefold: to ensure adequate protection of 23 public health and safety; to promote the common 24 defense and security; and to protect the environment.
25
10 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 The NRC accomplishes its mission through 1
a combination of regulatory programs and processes, 2
such as conducting inspections, issuing enforcement 3
- actions, assessing licensee performance, and 4
evaluating operating experience in nuclear power 5
plants across the country and internationally.
6 The regulations that the NRC enforces are 7
contained in Title 10 of the Code of Federal 8
Regulations, which is commonly referred to as 10 CFR. 9 As I've mentioned the Atomic Energy Act 10 provides for a 40-year license term for power 11 reactors. Our regulations also include provisions for 12 extending plant operations for up to an additional 20 13 years.
14 For Nine Mile Point, units one and two, 15 the operating licenses will expire in 2009, and 2026, 16 respectively.
17 Nine Mile Point Nuclear Station, LLC, a 18 subsidiary of Constellation Energy
- Group, has 19 requested license renewal for both units.
20 As part of the NRC's review of that 21 license renewal application, we have performed an 22 environmental review to look at the impacts of an 23 additional 20 years of operation on the environment.
24 We held a meeting here in September of 25
11 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 2004 to seek your input regarding issues we needed to 1
evaluate. We indicated at that earlier scoping 2
meeting that we would return to the town of Scriba to 3
present the preliminary results, documented in our 4
draft environmental impact statement.
5 That is the purpose of this meeting. And 6
the environmental impact statement, our draft that we 7
published, for public comment, is on the table at the 8
back of the room. You are welcome to a copy.
9 Next slide.
10 The NRC's license renewal review is 11 similar to the original licensing process in that it 12 involves two parts: an environmental review and a 13 safety review. This slide gives a big picture 14 overview of the license renewal process involving 15 those two parallel paths.
16 Safety review is illustrated at the top of 17 the slide. And then the environmental review is 18 represented at the bottom.
19 I'm going to briefly describe these two 20 review processes, starting with the safety review.
21 Next slide, please.
22 You might ask, what does the safety review 23 consider? For license renewal, the safety review 24 focuses on aging management - aging management of 25
12 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 systems, structures, and components that are important 1
to safety as determined by the license renewal scoping 2
criteria that are contained in 10 CFR Part 54.
3 The license renewal safety review does not 4
assess current operational issues such as security, 5
emergency planning and safety performance. The NRC 6
monitors and provides regulatory oversight of these 7
issues on an ongoing basis under the current operating 8
license.
9 Because the NRC is addressing these 10 current issues on a continuing basis, we do not 11 reevaluate them in license renewal.
12 As I've mentioned the license renewal 13 safety review focuses on plant aging, and the programs 14 that the licensee has already implemented or will 15 implement to manage the effects of aging.
16 Let me introduce Mr. Tommy Lee, the safety 17 project manager. Tommy, stand up. Thank you.
18 Tommy is in charge of the safety review, 19 and tomorrow at 1:30 there will be an exit meeting for 20 an audit of the Nine Mile Plant, 1:30 in this room at 21 this location; that will be open to the public.
22 The safety review involves the NRC's 23 staff's evaluation of technical information that is 24 contained in the license renewal application. This is 25
13 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 referred to as the safety evaluation.
1 The NRC staff also conducts audits as part 2
of that safety evaluation. There is a team of about 3
30 NRC technical reviewers and contractors who are 4
conducting the safety evaluation at this time.
5 The safety review also includes plant 6
inspections. The inspections are conducted by a team 7
of inspectors from both headquarters and the NRC's 8
region one office in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania.
9 A representative from our inspection 10 program is here today; in fact, we have two. The 11 senior resident, Leonard Cline, Len if you will stand 12 up; and the resident inspector, Brian Fuller. Brian, 13 are you still here? Brian left? Okay.
14 The results of the inspections are 15 documented in separate inspection reports. The staff 16 documents the results of its review in a safety 17 evaluation report.
18 The report is then independently reviewed 19 by the advisory committee on reactor safeguards, or 20 ACRS.
21 The ACRS is a group of nationally 22 recognized and esteemed technical experts that serve 23 as a consulting body to the Commission. They review 24 each license renewal application, safety evaluation 25
14 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 report, and other information relating to the safety 1
review.
2 They form their own conclusions and 3
recommendations on the requested action, which will be 4
license renewal, and report those conclusions and 5
recommendations directly to the Commission.
6 This slide illustrates how these various 7
activities make up the safety review process. I'd 8
like to point out that these hexagons on the slide, 9
like this one, these represent opportunities for 10 public participation.
11 The staff will present the results of its 12 safety review to the ACRS, and that presentation also 13 will be open to the public.
14 The second part of the review process 15 involves an environmental review. The environmental 16 review, which Leslie will discuss in more detail in a 17 few minutes, evaluates the impact of license renewal 18 on a number of areas including ecology, hydrology, 19 cultural resources, socioeconomic issues, and other 20 issues.
21 The environmental review is all scoping 22 activities and the development of a draft supplement 23 to the generic environmental impact statement for 24 license renewal of nuclear power plants, also referred 25
15 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 to as the GEIS.
1 The draft environmental impact statement 2
has been previously - I'm sorry, has been published 3
for comments, and we are here today to briefly discuss 4
the results of our review and to receive your comments 5
on the draft.
6 In June of next year we will be issuing 7
the final version of this environmental impact 8
statement, which will document how the staff addressed 9
the comments that we receive here this evening at this 10 meeting, or in the future in written form.
11 So the final agency decision on whether or 12 not to issue a renewed operating license depends on 13 several inputs. Inspection reports, and a 14 confirmatory letter from the regional administration 15 in region one in this case, is represented here.
16 Conclusions and recommendations of the 17 ACRS which are documented in a letter to the 18 Commission here.
19 The safety evaluation report, which 20 documents the staff's review of the safety - the 21 staff's safety review, which is here.
22 And the final environmental impact 23 statement which documents the results of the 24 environmental review here.
25
16 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 Again, these hexagons on the slide 1
indicate opportunities for public participation, like 2
this one.
3 The first opportunity was during the 4
scoping period, and the meeting back in September of 5
2004. Many of you may have attended that meeting.
6 This meeting on the draft environmental 7
impact statement this evening is another opportunity.
8 No one requested a hearing, so that is not 9
applicable here.
10 That concludes my presentation on the NRC 11 and overview of the license renewal process.
12 Now I'd like to turn things over to 13 Leslie, and she will discuss the environmental review 14 in more detail.
15 MR. CAMERON: And after Leslie is done, 16 we'll go out to see if any of you have any questions 17 on the process.
18 So Leslie.
19 MS. FIELDS: Good evening. My name is 20 Leslie Fields, and I am the environmental project 21 manager for the NRC staff, leading the Nine Mile Point 22 renewal for the environmental review.
23 My responsibility is to coordinate the 24 activities of the NRC staff and various environmental 25
17 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 experts at national laboratories to develop the 1
environmental impact statement associated with license 2
renewal for Nine Mile Point.
3 The National Environmental Policy Act of 4
1969 requires that federal agencies follow a 5
systematic approach in evaluating potential 6
environmental impacts associated with certain actions 7
like license renewal.
8 We are required to consider the impacts of 9
the proposed actions, and also any mitigation for 10 those impacts, that we consider to be significant.
11 Alternatives to the proposed action, 12 including taking the no action alternative, on an 13 applicant's request, are also to be considered.
14 The National Environmental Policy Act and 15 our environmental impact statement are items used to 16 disclose the potential impacts found during the 17 staff's review.
18 They are specifically structured to 19 involve public participation, and this meeting 20 facilitates the public participation in our 21 environmental review.
22 So we are here today to collect public 23 comments on the draft environmental impact statement.
24 And these comments will be included in the final 25
18 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 environmental impact statement.
1 The staff developed a
generic 2
environmental impact statement or GEIS, that addressed 3
a number of issues that are common to all nuclear 4
power plants.
5 The staff is supplementing the GEIS with 6
a site-specific supplemental environmental impact 7
statement or SEIS that will address issues that are 8
specific to the Nine Mile Point plant.
9 The staff also evaluates the conclusion 10 reached in the GEIS to determine if they are any new 11 and significant information that would change any of 12 those conclusions.
13 Now I'd like to provide a little more 14 information about the GEIS. In the mid-1990s the NRC 15 was faced with the prospect of having to prepare 16 environmental impact statements for the majority of 17 operating nuclear plants in the United States.
18 The NRC decided to tackle this problem in 19 two ways. First, the NRC decided to evaluate the 20 impacts of all plants across the entire country to 21 determine if there were impacts that were common to 22 operating plants.
23 NRC looked at 92 separate impact areas and 24 found that for 69 of these issues, the impacts were 25
19 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 the same for plants with similar features.
1 NRC called these category 1 issues, and 2
made the same or generic conclusions about their 3
impacts in the GEIS for license renewal.
4 The NRC published the GEIS in 1996.
5 Category one issues are shown in the first vertical 6
pass on the left of the diagram, are shown there.
7 Examples include discharge of sanitary 8
waste or bird collisions with cooling towers.
9 For the other 23 issues, 21 are referred 10 to as category 2. The NRC found that the impacts were 11 not the same at all sites, and therefore, a site-12 specific analysis was needed, such as the review of 13 threatening and endangered species.
14 This is shown in the center.
15 In addition two issues are referred to as 16 not categorized, and therefore a site specific 17 analysis is also needed. And these are environmental 18 justice and chronic effects of an electromagnetic 19 field.
20 Our draft is a supplement to the GEIS. As 21 each plant comes in for license renewal, we publish a 22 SEIS. The Nine Mile Point draft SEIS is what you have 23 before you today.
24 This is available in the back of the room, 25
20 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 as Rani mentioned.
1 The NRC did not rule out the possibility 2
that their generic conclusions may not apply to any 3
specific plant in all cases. If new and significant 4
information is found that contradicts the generic 5
conclusions in the GEIS, then the staff will perform 6
a site specific analysis on that issue.
7 This is shown in the vertical path at the 8
right of the diagram.
9 As you can see on this slide, our decision 10 standard for the environmental review is shown.
11 Simply put, is license renewal acceptable from an 12 environmental standpoint?
13 This slide shows important milestone dates 14 for the environmental review process. The highlighted 15 dates indicate opportunities for public involvement in 16 the environmental review.
17 We received Nine Mile Point's application 18 requesting the license renewal of Nine Mile Point on 19 May 27th, 2004.
20 On August 9th, 2004, we issued a Federal 21 Register Notice of Intent to conduct scoping and 22 prepare an environmental impact statement.
23 A meeting was held on September 22nd, 24 2004, as part of the scoping process. Many of you may 25
21 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 have attended that meeting and provided comments to 1
us. The comments that were given at the scoping 2
meeting and that are in scope of this review are in 3
Appendix A of the draft SEIS.
4 The scoping period ended on November 8th, 5
2004. The scoping summary report was issued on 6
January 5th, 2005, addressing all the comments that we 7
received from all sources during the scoping process.
8 I have copies of the scoping summary 9
report in the back of the room.
10 The draft SEIS was published on September 11 29th, 2005, also known as Supplement 24 for the Nine 12 Mile Point units one and two.
13 And we are currently accepting public 14 comments on the draft until December 22nd, 2005.
15 Today's meeting is being transcribed, and 16 comments provided here carry the same weight as 17 written comments submitted to the NRC.
18 Once the comment period closes we will 19 develop the final SEIS, which we will expect to 20 publish in June of 2006.
21 Now I would like to turn things over to 22 Bruce to discuss Lawrence Livermore National 23 Laboratory's role in our environmental review.
24 MR. CAMERON: Okay, thanks, Leslie.
25
22 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 Before we go to the substance of the draft 1
environmental impact statement, does anybody have any 2
questions about the license renewal process or our 3
environmental impact review process before we go on to 4
the substance? And we can come back to that issue too 5
if something occurs to you later on.
6 Okay, well let's go to the substance of 7
the environmental impact statement. Bruce McDowell.
8 MR. McDOWELL: Thank you, Chip, and good 9
evening.
10 As Chip said, I work for the University of 11 California at the Lawrence Livermore National 12 Laboratory. The NRC contracted with us to provide the 13 expertise necessary to evaluate the impacts of license 14 renewal at Nine Mile Point.
15 My team consists of nine members from the 16 Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and the 17 Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois.
18 The expertise we provide for the Nine Mile 19 Point license renewal and the alternatives are shown 20 on this slide. Atmospheric science, socioeconomics 21 and environmental justice, archeology and historical 22 resources, land use, terrestrial ecology, radiation 23 protection, nuclear safety, regulatory compliance, 24 aquatic ecology and hydrology.
25
23 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 For each environmental issue an impact 1
level is assigned. For a small impact the effect is 2
not detectible or too small to destabilize or 3
noticeably alter any important attribute of a 4
resource.
5 For a moderate impact the effect is 6
sufficient to alter noticeably but not destabilize 7
important attributes of a resource.
8 And finally for an impact to be considered 9
large, the effect must be clearly noticeable and 10 sufficient to destabilize important attributes of a 11 resource.
12 Now, I'm going to use the fishery in Lake 13 Ontario to illustrate how we use these three criteria.
14 The operation of the Nine Mile Plant may 15 cause the loss of adult and juvenile fish at the 16 intake structure. If the lost of fish is so small 17 that it cannot be detected in relation to the total 18 population in Lake Ontario, the impact would be small.
19 If losses caused moderate population -
20 cause the population to decline and then stabilize at 21 a lower level, the impact would be moderate.
22 If losses at the intake caused the fish 23 population to decline to the point where it cannot be 24 stabilized and continues to decline, then the impact 25
24 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 would be considered large.
1 When my team evaluated the impacts from 2
continued operation at Nine Mile Point, we considered 3
the information from a very wide variety of sources.
4 We considered what the licensee had to say 5
in their environmental report. We conducted a site 6
audit during which we toured the site, interviewed 7
plant personnel, and reviewed documentation of the 8
plant operations.
9 We also talked to federal, state and local 10 officials, as well as local service agencies.
11 And lastly we considered all of the 12 comments received from the public during the scoping 13 period. Comments within the scope of our review are 14 listed in Appendix A along with NRC's responses.
15 This body of information is the basis for 16 the analysis and the preliminary conclusions in this 17 Nine Mile Point supplement.
18 The central analysis in the Nine Mile 19 Point supplement are presented in chapters 2, 4, 5 and 20
- 8. In Chapter 2, we discuss the plant, its operation, 21 and the environment around the plant.
22 In Chapter 4
we looked at the 23 environmental impacts of routine operations during the 24 20-year license renewal term. The team looked at 25
25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 issues relating to the cooling system, transmission 1
lines, radiological impact, socioeconomic impact, 2
groundwater use and quality, and threatened and 3
endangered species.
4 Chapter 5 contains the assessment of 5
accidents. And at this point I'd like to make a 6
distinction. Environmental impacts on the routine 7
day-to-day operation of the Nine Mile Point plant for 8
another 20 years are considered separately from the 9
impact that could result from potential accidents 10 during the license renewal term.
11 I will discuss impacts from the routine 12 operations, and Mr. Palla will discuss impacts from 13 accidents in the next presentation.
14 Chapter 8 describes the alternatives to 15 the proposed license renewal, and their environmental 16 impacts.
17 Each of these issue areas is discussed in 18 detail in the Nine Mile Point supplement. I'm going 19 to give you the highlights, but feel free to ask me 20 for any more details if you have any questions.
21 One of the issues we looked at closely was 22 the cooling system for Nine Mile Point plant. The 23 issues that the team looked at on a site specific 24 basis include water use conflicts, entrainment and 25
26 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 impingement of fish and shellfish and heat shock.
1 We found that the potential impact in 2
these areas were small, and additional mitigation is 3
not warranted.
4 Now there are a number of category one 5
issues related to the cooling system. These includes 6
issues related to discharges of sanitary waste, minor 7
spills of chemicals, metals and chlorine.
8 Now recall that as a category one issue, 9
NRC has already determined that these impacts were 10 small. My team evaluated all information that we had 11 available to see if there was any information that was 12 both new and significant for these issues.
13 We did not find any, and therefore we 14 adopted the NRC's generic conclusion that the impact 15 from the cooling system was small.
16 Radiological impacts are a category one 17 issue, and the NRC has made a generic determination 18 that the impacts of radiological release during 19 nuclear plant operations during the 20-year license 20 renewal period are small. But because these releases 21 are a concern, I want to discuss them in some detail.
22 Nuclear power plants are designed to 23 release radiological effluents to the environment.
24 Nine Mile Point is no different from any other plant, 25
27 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 and Nine Mile Point releases radiological effluents to 1
the environment.
2 During our site visit we looked at the 3
effluent release and monitoring program documentation.
4 We looked at how the gaseous and liquid effluents were 5
treated and released, as well as how solid wastes were 6
treated, packaged, and shipped.
7 We looked at how the applicant determines 8
and demonstrates that they are in compliance with the 9
regulations for release of radiological effluents.
10 We also looked at data from onsite and 11 near site locations that the applicant monitors for 12 airborne release and direct radiation, and other 13 monitoring stations beyond the site boundaries, 14 including locations where water, milk, fish and food 15 products are sampled.
16 We found that the maximum calculated doses 17 for a member of the public are well within the annual 18 limits.
19 There was a near unanimous consensus 20 within the scientific community that these limits are 21 protective of human health.
22 Since releases from the plant are not 23 expected to increase on a year to year basis during 24 the 20-year license renewal term, and since we found 25
28 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 new and significant information related to this issue, 1
we adopted the generic conclusion that the 2
radiological impact on human health and the 3
environment is small.
4 U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service determined 5
that there were three terrestrial federally listed or 6
proposed as threatened or endangered species that have 7
the potential to occur at Nine Mile Point or along its 8
transmission lines.
9 These are the Indiana bat, and transient 10 bald eagle and piping plover individuals.
11 The Indiana bat could occur in the 12 counties where the plant and the transmission lines 13 are located. But since the licensee does not plan any 14 refurbishment or construction as part of license 15 renewal, the natural area where this species would be 16 found would not be disturbed.
17 This would also be true for federally 18 listed plant species, the Harts-tongue fern, and the 19 small whorled pogonia.
20 During winter migration bald eagles often 21 use desert open water areas caused by the plant's 22 thermal discharges. Since these areas provide 23 foraging areas where, when other water bodies are 24 frozen, the plant's operation can be considered 25
29 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 beneficial to eagles.
1 Transient piping plover individuals may 2
also be found along the Lake Ontario shorelines.
3 U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service determined 4
that there was no need for biological assessment or 5
further consultation under Section 7 of the Endangered 6
Species Act.
7 Based on this, the staff's preliminary 8
determination is that the impact of operation Nine 9
Mile Point, during the license renewal period, on 10 threatened or endangered species, would be small.
11 The last issue I'd like to talk about from 12 Chapter 4 is cumulative impact. These are impacts 13 that are minor when considered individually, but 14 significant, when considered with other past, present 15 or reasonably foreseeable future actions, regardless 16 of what agency or person undertakes the other actions.
17 The staff considered cumulative impacts 18 resulting from the operation of the cooling water 19 system; the operation of the transmission lines; 20 releases of radiation and radiological material; 21 sociological impact; groundwater use and quality 22 impacts; and threatened and endangered species 23 impacts.
24 These impacts were evaluated to the end of 25
30 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 the 20-year license renewal term, and I'd like to note 1
that the geographical boundary of the analysis was 2
dependent on the resource.
3 For instance, the area analyzed for 4
transmission lines was different than the area 5
analyzed for the cooling water system.
6 Our preliminary determination is that any 7
cumulative impact resulting from the operation of the 8
Nine Mile Point plant during the license renewal 9
period would be small.
10 The team also looked at the uranium fuel 11 cycle and solid waste management in decommissioning.
12 All issues for the uranium fuel cycle and solid waste 13 management, as well as decommissioning, are considered 14 category one. For these issues no new significant 15 information was identified, and therefore, we adopted 16 the conclusions of the GEIS.
17 In 2003 Nine Mile Point generated about 18 12.8 billion kilowatt hours of electricity. My team 19 also evaluated the potential environmental impacts 20 associated with the Nine Mile Point plant not 21 continuing operation, and replacing this generation 22 with alternative power sources.
23 The team looked at the no action 24 alternative; new generation from coal-fired, gas-25
31 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 fired, new nuclear, purchased power, alternative 1
technologies such as wind, solar and hydro, and then 2
a combination of alternatives.
3 For each alternative, we looked at the 4
same types of issues, for example, water use, land 5
use, ecology and socioeconomics, that we looked at for 6
the operation of the Nine Mile Point plant during the 7
license renewal term.
8 For two alternatives, solar and wind, I'd 9
like to describe the scale of the alternatives that we 10 considered, because scale is important in 11 understanding our conclusion.
12 First solar: Based on the average solar 13 energy available in New York, and the current 14 conversion efficiencies of solar cells, these cells 15 would produce about 100 kilowatt hours per square 16 meter per year. As such about 125 million square 17 meters, or about 78 square miles, of cells would be 18 required to replace the generation from the Nine Mile 19 Point plant.
20 Regarding wind power, wind turbines have 21 capacity factors of between 25 and 35 percent. As 22 such as least 5,000 megawatts of wind power would have 23 to be developed to replace Nine Mile Point, 1,759 24 megawatts.
25
32 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 To put this into context, in 2002 the 1
total wind power capacity in the United States was 2
4,500 megawatts. In other words the total wind power 3
in the United States would have to double from the 4
2002 amount to replace the generation from Nine Mile 5
Point.
6 Due to the scale of the reasonable 7
alternatives, the team's preliminary conclusion is 8
that their environmental effects, at least in some 9
impact categories, reach moderate or large 10 significance.
11 For the 69 category one issues presented 12 in the generic EIS, that related to Nine Mile Point, 13 we found no information that was both new and 14 significant. There we have preliminarily adopted the 15 conclusion that the impact of these issues is small.
16 My team analyzed the remaining category 17 two issues in the supplement, and found that the 18 environmental effects resulting from those issues was 19 also small.
20 During our review, my team found no new 21 issues that were not already known, and lastly found 22 that the environmental effect of alternatives, at 23 least in some impact categories, reach moderate or 24 large significance.
25
33 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 I'd like to turn it back to Chip.
1 MR. CAMERON: Okay, thanks Bruce. And we 2
have one other part of the environmental draft and 3
environmental impact statement to go over with you on 4
severe accidents.
5 But before we go there, are there 6
questions on the assessments? And if you could just 7
introduce yourself to us.
8 MS. CLARK: My name is Linda Bond-Clark.
9 I'm a local resident. I have a question. Your 10 maximum dose to the public, how is it calculated? And 11 could you tell me, what you took in for mileage around 12 for the nuclear plant, the age and health of the 13 people that you inspected, to figure maximum dose?
14 How was that calculated?
15 MR. McDOWELL: The basic assumptions are 16 what we consider to be worst case assumptions, that 17 the person lives very close to the plant 18 MS. CLARK: Could you define very close, 19 because I don't know what very close means.
20 MR. CAMERON: Okay define very close for 21 the transcript.
22 MR. McDOWELL: At the site boundary.
23 MR. CAMERON: And the site boundary is 24 considered where?
25
34 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 MR. McDOWELL: The site boundary, the 1
fence line around the plant.
2 MR. CAMERON: Okay, and the other question 3
had to do with - or the other part of the question I 4
think had to do with age, health, gender, which gets 5
into how our regulations to protect people from 6
radiation are formulated.
7 And maybe, can we go to Rich Emch to have 8
Rich talk about how differences in age, gender, 9
infants, et al, all of that are factored into our Part 10 20 regulations?
11 MR. McDOWELL: Before you go there, I just 12 want to say a couple of more things about how we do 13 this one calculation.
14 We assume that the person that - we're 15 assuming in our worst case assumption that that person 16 lives at the site boundary; that person spends most of 17 his time at the site boundary; he eats home grown 18 vegetables that he grows at the site boundary; uptake 19 is from any radiation that would be released could be 20 ingested, could be inhaled, or there could be dermal 21 exposure.
22 And so there is a variety of ways that he 23 could actually be exposed, and we consider that all of 24 them happen, and all of them happen very closely to 25
35 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 the plant. And so most of this person's life is spent 1
at that site boundary.
2 MR. CAMERON: For purposes of the 3
analysis?
4 MR. McDOWELL: For purposes of the 5
analysis.
6 MR. CAMERON: Thanks very much, Bruce.
7 And let's go to Rich, and then we'll go back to Linda 8
to see if there are other questions on that.
9 MR. EMCH: Okay, trying to remember all 10 the various aspects that you asked. For example Bruce 11 has already talked about that there are several 12 different pathways that are evaluated. Ingestion of 13 agricultural products, milk, vegetables, nearest 14 residents. We look at ingestion of fish, shoreline 15 activity, recreation, exposure to the radiation plume 16 itself.
17 As far as age, I believe that was one of 18 the ones you mentioned, there are dose factors, and 19 usage factors, meaning, we think of that as how much 20 of this food stuff does an infant consume, does a 21 child consume, and does an adult consume, and there 22 are different dose factors for different age groups.
23 And all those are checked to see what the worst case, 24 what the highest dose would be for the age of the 25
36 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 individual. So that's part of the calculations.
1 Were there other questions?
2 MR. CAMERON: Let me check back. Is there 3
other things you need to know about this, Linda?
4 MS. CLARK: Well, I'll assume that, 5
because you were referring to he, he, he, he, so I'm 6
assuming that you are referring to probably an adult 7
male; you are not referring to infants. I'm assuming 8
that, because I'm not hearing you say that it would be 9
specifically in infant living at the boundary.
10 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Does this go to how 11 the Part 20 dose is calculated?
12 MR. EMCH: Actually, just a moment ago, I 13 said we do look at infants, teens, children, adults, 14 women, men, the whole gamut is included in those 15 calculations. And what we do is, we look for the 16 worst case calculation, and what Bruce is talking to 17 you about is the worst case calculation, the worst 18 case individual, the highest - the individual who 19 would receive the highest dose.
20 MR. CAMERON: It's not necessarily the 21 adult male --
22 MR. EMCH: Well, we don't usually go into 23 a lot of discussion about which one it happened to be.
24 It's the worst case individual.
25
37 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 To help to kind of tie the ends on this a 1
little bit, that worst case individual, the dose is 2
well below one millirem per year, which is - you can 3
compare that to the regulations 40 CFR 190, the EPA 4
regulation is 25 millirem per year from the entire 5
fuel cycle. Again, we're talking less than one 6
millirem per year.
7 Natural background - that's the dose that 8
you and I receive by living on this planet and getting 9
dental X-rays and things like that - that's in the 10 range of 360 millirem per year. Again, compare that 11 to the one millirem per year from the effluents from 12 this plant.
13 MR. CAMERON: And is that all set forth in 14 the draft environmental impact statement, Bruce, so 15 that if Linda wants to look at those calculations, she 16 can look at a place in the draft environmental impact 17 statement and see how that was done?
18 MR. McDOWELL: We have the numbers in 19 there, yes.
20 MR. CAMERON: All right. Linda, do you 21 have anything else on this right now?
22 MS. CLARK: One other question. You made 23 the statement that the emissions from the plant aren't 24 expected to increase. What is that based on?
25
38 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 MR. McDOWELL: As far as I know there is 1
no planned uprates for the plant, and so the plant 2
would continue at its same level of operation.
3 MR. CAMERON: Anyone want to add anything 4
to Bruce's answer on that? Rich?
5 MR. EMCH: We use as the basis, basically 6
we look at what the releases from the plant have been 7
over the last several years, and we look to see if 8
there is anything that is expected to happen at this 9
plant that would make the releases any higher. And 10 Bruce's statement is, we don't see anything that is 11 going to make it any worse or make it higher.
12 So we use the example of what they've 13 released over the last few years as the best example, 14 best way to judge what's going to be released during 15 the 20 years of additional operation.
16 MR. CAMERON: And are these releases all 17 monitored? And is that information available to the 18 public if they want to see it? Rich?
19 MR. EMCH: Yes, the releases are all 20 monitored. Each year the licensee publishes a report, 21 which is publicly available - there are two reports, 22 actually, one of them is the annual effluent release 23 report, and the other one is the annual environmental 24 monitoring report.
25
39 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 That report basically summarizes the 1
information. In addition to effluent monitoring, the 2
plant carries out a
program of environmental 3
monitoring. They take milk samples, fish samples, air 4
samples, and evaluate them to make sure that there is 5
nothing unusual, that the levels that are being 6
released are what they expect.
7 So that is what's shown in that 8
environmental radiological monitoring report each 9
year.
10 MR. McDOWELL: And the trends have been 11 going down over the last year or so. We would expect 12 them to continue to decline, but we have assumed for 13 the purposes of our analysis that they would remain 14 level; that they would remain level during a license 15 renewal period.
16 MR. CAMERON: Okay, and if Linda is still 17 here after the meeting, Rich could you - okay, anybody 18 else, questions about the findings in the draft 19 environmental impact statement at this point?
20 Hi, how are you, and please introduce 21 yourself.
22 MR. DELLWO: Tom Dellwo. So I'm looking 23 at the drafts right now. Actually had a chance to 24 read some of it, as much as I could.
25
40 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 Under the nuclear environmental impacts of 1
no action - the no action alternatives, so I'm 2
assuming - correct me if I'm wrong - but that means 3
that in the event you were to deny this, that would be 4
the no action, right? You wouldn't extend, is that 5
correct? Okay.
6 Under --
7 MR. McDOWELL: Yes. So it gets in the 8
transcript.
9 MR. DELLWO: So this is assuming - this is 10 effects on ecology assuming that you do not relicense 11 the plant. The environmental impacts to aquatic 12 species including transient, threatened and endangered 13 species associated with these changes are generally 14 positive.
15 So would that mean that the effects now 16 are negative? The effects on the ecology of --
17 MR. McDOWELL: That was not a relative 18 statement, that is, positive compared to what is 19 happening now. If the plant --
20 MR. DELLWO: If the plant stopped doing 21 what it was doing, the effects would be positive; 22 that's what it says.
23 MR. McDOWELL: That's true. That is not 24 relative to what is happening now, though.
25
41 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 MR. DELLWO: How so? How is it not?
1 Because if the idea is that the plant would stop, 2
would cease doing what it's doing right now, and the 3
effects would be positive, then obviously what's 4
happening now is negative.
5 MR. McDOWELL: No, what's happening now, 6
we have determined that the effects were small; we 7
didn't say that they were negative. We said that the 8
effects were small.
9 MR. DELLWO: Okay. I don't understand how 10 stopping what it's doing would be positive then?
11 MR. McDOWELL: Excuse me?
12 MR. DELLWO: I don't understand how 13 stopping what it's doing now would be positive if what 14 it's doing now isn't negative?
15 MR. MASNIK: This is Mike Masnik from the 16 NRC staff.
17 The staff acknowledges that the plant is 18 having some impact because it does kill some fish and 19 organisms through the operation of the plant.
20 But our analysis has demonstrated that 21 this impact is small; in other words, it's not 22 destabilizing; it's not detectable.
23 We recognize that --
24 MR. DELLWO: It's not detectable?
25
42 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 MR. MASNIK: It's not detectable in the 1
population. We can detect the fact that it's killing 2
fish, but the population of fish in the immediate 3
vicinity of the plant isn't being affected. At least 4
we can't detect that it's being affected.
5 So when you cease operations --
6 MR. DELLWO: You can or you can't detect 7
it?
8 MR. MASNIK: we cannot detect changes in 9
the population --
10 MR. DELLWO: Population, okay.
11 MR. MASNIK: -- of fishes in the area.
12 Okay, now if you permanently cease 13 operation, the plan stops. You've stopped pumping as 14 much water. You will still pump some water, but it's 15 a significant reduction, which means that you will be 16 killing considerably less fish because you are pumping 17 a very small amount of water. So in that case the 18 impact would be positive.
19 MR. DELLWO: Follow up question? You said 20 earlier, just a second ago, that the plant monitors 21 and gives you reports. That's correct?
22 Where are the monitors, and how many of 23 them are there? And all that good stuff? Monitors of 24 radiation.
25
43 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 MR. CAMERON: If we could just try to give 1
as comprehensive an answer to this as possible. I 2
think you just assume that the question is very 3
broadly based in terms of the monitoring issue.
4 All the types of different monitoring that 5
is going on, can we do that?
6 MR. EMCH: I'll try, Chip.
7 It is an extensive monitoring system.
8 Okay? There are - I don't know the exact number, but 9
from driving around, at least 30 what we call 10 thermoluminescent dosimeter locations. There's at 11 least five or six air monitoring locations.
12 We dont have an extensive discussion of 13 where they all are in the environmental statement.
14 However, there is a document called the offsite dose 15 calculation manual, which is sort of a bible of how 16 the plant does their environmental monitoring, their 17 effluent monitoring, and everything.
18 And that document is publicly available.
19 And we can help you find it if you want to see where 20 the monitoring locations are; they would be laid out 21 in that document.
22 MR. CAMERON: All right. Let me see if 23 there are other questions, and then we'll get back to 24 you? Anybody else? Let's go up here, and then we'll 25
44 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 come back to you Linda, okay?
1 Okay, if you could just introduce yourself 2
to us.
3 MS. HOBBS; My name is Katherine Hobbs.
4 Okay, my first question was related to the maximum 5
dose calculation. And I was wondering if that 6
calculation is based on actual field studies of the 7
human impact of actual people living on the boundary, 8
or if that is sort of more like a prediction?
9 MR. CAMERON: I think, Bruce, if you could 10 just --
11 MR. McDOWELL: Actually, Rich would be 12 better for this.
13 MR. CAMERON: You want to do that, Rich?
14 Okay.
15 MR. EMCH: Yes, I believe I understand.
16 What does happen, we've talked about - I 17 think we will get to the heart of your question - the 18 licensee monitors the amount of radioactive material 19 that is released from the plant.
20 The licensee also does sampling in the 21 environment to see how much radioactive material they 22 see in the environment, in the air and things like 23 that.
24 The calculations that Bruce was talking 25
45 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 about earlier of the doses to humans is based on the 1
effluent monitoring data that releases from the plant.
2 And they say how much - you know, we know where the 3
wind goes, we know where the water goes - what would 4
be the doses to these people who might be exposed to 5
this?
6 That's those calculations, those are the 7
ones that come up to less than a millirem per year.
8 I think that what you are asking about is, 9
does anybody go door to door and do blood studies and 10 things like that, and the answer to that is no, we do 11 not.
12 Now let me go on a little bit further, 13 however. At one millirem per year, the NRC uses what 14 we call the linear non-threshold theory, which simply 15 put means that there is some risk of damage, health 16 risk to a human, from any amount of radioactive 17 exposure. That's what it means.
18 However, at the levels that we're talking 19 about, the less than one millirem per year, the 20 likelihood of any kind of risk is extremely small, and 21 in fact, all the various health studies, and all the 22 calculations and things that have been done by 23 international groups have never seen any kind of 24 damage down at that level.
25
46 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 The levels that they see the damage is, 1
about the bottom of the damage is -- I said one 2
millirem per year. I gave the example of 25 is the 3
standard, and I gave 360 as the amount that is 4
received just from living on planet Earth.
5 The health studies by the international 6
groups, national groups, those are up around 10,000 7
millirem per year is where they start to see some 8
damage.
9 The calculations are based on data from 10 things like Hiroshima, Nagasaki, that sort of thing.
11 MR. CAMERON: Okay, before we go back to 12 Linda, and then back over here, do you have anything 13 else you want to ask?
14 MS. HOBBS: Yes. Well, I actually have a 15 lot of questions.
16 But so how do you determine what is an 17 acceptable level of risk?
18 MR. CAMERON: I think maybe the question 19 goes to, how did the NRC set the standards in Part 20 20 as to what is an acceptable risk?
21 MS. HOBBS: And actually I was wondering 22 if the public was involved in that determination at 23 all?
24 MR. CAMERON: I think that it was a 25
47 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 rulemaking, so you can talk about how the public was 1
involved in that, Rich?
2 MR. EMCH: As Chip pointed out, the Part 3
20, the Appendix I to Part 50, 10 CFR Part 50, which 4
is the regulation that applies specifically to a 5
reactor, nuclear power reactors. There is also the 6
EPA, Environmental Protection Agency regulations, 40 7
CFR 190 which limits the amount of exposure to any 8
member of the public to 25 millirem per year from the 9
entire fuel cycle - that's the reactors, the 10 enrichment plant, that's everything, transportation, 11 everything.
12 Now as to how did they decide that that is 13 a safe level, the 25 millirem per year or whatever, 14 that was based on extensive studies, extensive 15 discussions and input from international groups, the 16 International Commission on Radiation Protection, the 17 National Council on Radiation Protection and 18 Measurements, a wide variety. And there are a number 19 of documents that have been published by these 20 international groups.
21 And basically, like I said before, there 22 has been no damage, no health risk, no health impacts, 23 identified, specifically identified, below 10,000 24 millirems. So by setting the levels down at at the 25 25
48 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 rem level, and in fact Appendix I is even lower than 1
that; 25 millirem per year level, and in fact, 2
Appendix I which specifically applies to nuclear power 3
reactors is even below that.
4 The belief of the Nuclear Regulatory 5
Commission and the international bodies, the national 6
bodies, is that those levels are safe.
7 Now as far as public input, as Chip 8
mentioned, all those regulations would require public 9
input. They would be published for public comment, 10 just pretty much the same way we're doing with this 11 draft document here.
12 Most of those regulations - I wasn't here 13 for some of them, so I can't tell you exactly what, 14 but they are as constant - there are studies that are 15 constantly ongoing to evaluate whether those are still 16 appropriate.
17 In fact, just a few months ago the draft 18 of something called BEIR 7, Biological Effects of 19 Ionizinig Radiation, which was put out by an 20 international panel, reconfirmed the linear non-21 threshold theory, and reconfirmed the level of 22 expected risk from radiation exposure that we've been 23 using for doing estimates for many years.
24 I'd be happy to spend more time with you.
25
49 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 I can go more directly to some of your questions 1
afterwards.
2 MR. CAMERON: Did we do a set of questions 3
on the BEIR study that Rich mentioned? There is some 4
handouts over here on radiation that help explain some 5
of this.
6 And was it Katherine? Katherine, we're 7
going to go back to Linda, and then it's Tom, right?
8 We'll go over here. Then we'll see where we are, and 9
maybe get Bob Palla on for his presentation, and then 10 go back out to you for questions.
11 Linda.
12 MS. CLARK: Yes, I've got a couple of 13 questions here again.
14 How much radiation, radionuclides in the 15 amount of curies, have been released from the plant 16 since its first set operation in 1969? Total curies, 17 effluents, total?
18 MR. CAMERON: And that may be - I'm not 19 sure we have that. We could do a calculation on that, 20 and get that number for you. I'm not sure that 21 anybody knows offhand. Rich?
22 MR. EMCH: I don't have that number at my 23 fingertips. We could find it. We could go to the 24 reports from the plant for all those years and add it 25
50 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 all up. I don't know, were you at the scoping meeting 1
when we held it before? There was an issue that was 2
brought up during the scoping meeting, I think, just 3
as an example, a gentleman made an example about 3.7 4
million curies of radioactive materials in the early 5
years of the plant, and we went back and confirmed 6
that that was indeed the case, between 1971 and 1976, 7
and shortly - right after that is when the plant 8
installed what we call an augmented off-gas system 9
which drastically reduced the amount of radioactive 10 materials.
11 Actually the draft environmental document 12 that we have over there has a table that talks about 13 what the releases were. I think in 2004 - 2003 or 14 2004, and the releases from the plant on an annual 15 basis now, gaseous releases, are on the order of 100 16 curies per year from each reactor.
17 And again, as I said, that results in an 18 offsite dose of less than one millirem per year.
19 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Another question, 20 Linda? Oh, Bruce, did you want to say something?
21 MR. McDOWELL: Yes, those tables are on 22 page 213 and 215.
23 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Go ahead.
24 MS. CLARK: Question for you. The fence 25
51 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 at the site boundary is relatively close to the plant, 1
and you've got the effluent - the discharge stacks are 2
probably average 200 feet in the air. What type of 3
meteorological data did you use to indicate that the 4
radionuclides must fall directly down on the fence 5
boundary and not be blown more by the prevailing wind?
6 MR. McDOWELL: Well, Rich can take a stab 7
at this too, but let me take a shot.
8 Generally, when the meteorology is such 9
that it does go straight down to the site boundary, 10 the closest site, that is going to be the most 11 concentrated. If it goes, I think like what you are 12 suggesting, over the top of that near site boundary 13 and farther downwind, it tends to be more dispersed.
14 And so the assumption that it goes 15 straight down and hits the near-site boundary would be 16 the worst case.
17 MR. CAMERON: Okay, thanks, Bruce. Rich.
18 MR. EMCH: Actually, as Bruce was just 19 explaining it, as you mentioned, because of the 20 stacks, under many conditions, the actual highest spot 21 may actually be some distance from the site boundary, 22 you're right. And those are included, that fact is 23 included in the models that they have in the off site 24 dose calculation manual.
25
52 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 And the meteorology is based on the - they 1
have a large meteorological tower that they use to 2
monitor that condition all the time, and they use the 3
information from that to help them determine just how 4
far the wind is blowing, how fast it's blowing, 5
whether it's raining or not. That also affects where 6
the radionuclides come out. There is a concept called 7
rain out where particles will come to the ground 8
faster if it's raining.
9 And all this is included, you are right.
10 We usually speak of - and what Bruce was talking about 11
- we usually speak of the maximum exposed individual 12 being at the site boundary. Pretty much by the time 13 you get to the site boundary, a lot of the plume has 14 come to the ground.
15 But the reality is, we understand the fact 16 that there is an elevated release, and the 17 calculations include that. So when we say the maximum 18 exposed individual, that's also accounting for the 19 fact that it may not actually be at the site boundary 20 all the time, yes.
21 MR. CAMERON: Let's go over to Tom, right, 22 and then we'll go back up to Katherine, and then we're 23 going to go to Bob Palla for severe accident 24 presentation.
25
53 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 Go ahead.
1 MR. DELLWO: Thanks. A couple of quick 2
questions. The capacity for electricity generation, 3
how much left over space is there in the lines that go 4
from here? In other words, are we at capacity right 5
now currently for this area, for the lines that go 6
from this area?
7 MR. McDOWELL: You are going to have to 8
talk to somebody else about that. My scope is looking 9
at the environmental impacts of the alternatives, and 10 the main action. So there may be somebody from the 11 plant or the NRC that knows that answer.
12 MR. CAMERON: Does anybody want to hazard 13 a rough statement on that? And maybe you want to tell 14 us where you're going with that, okay? Tell us what 15 the implications of that question are.
16 MR. DELLWO: The implications deal with 17 the EIS, because I guess what I'm getting at is, in 18 the EIS it looks at the possibilities of alternatives.
19 And I'm wondering if in those possibilities of 20 alternatives you took into account the likelihood - I 21 know in the EIS you said, you took into account the 22 likelihood of those things happening based on cost or 23 anything like that. But did you take into account the 24 likelihood of those things happening if there is no 25
54 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 space for that energy to be brought down to wherever 1
it needs to go? What that taken into account?
2 So in other words, it's very unlikely that 3
some other type of energy like wind or solar or coal 4
or whatever would possibly be built here if they would 5
have to build a whole bunch of new generative power 6
lines to do that. So is that taken into account?
7 MR. CAMERON: Okay, I think we see what 8
the - so it's not just a question of how much more 9
capacity could through the lines. It's whether the 10 particular form of alternative source of electricity, 11 whether you use those same lines.
12 MR. McDOWELL: I think so. One of the 13 reasons why we considered the impacts of some of these 14 alternatives to be either moderate or large is because 15 of partially the possibility that we would have to 16 build new transmission lines.
17 So that is certainly a possibility. And 18 when you look at particularly wind projects, where 19 some of the best wind locations are located in remote 20 areas where you would have to build roads, or you 21 would have to build transmission lines, in some cases 22 the roads and the transmission lines are the main 23 impact of the project. So that is definitely included 24 in what we looked at in determining that some of these 25
55 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 impacts of the alternatives could reach either 1
moderate or large scale.
2 MR. CAMERON: Okay, another question?
3 MR. DELLWO: So what you're saying is that 4
they took that into account, based on the fact that 5
they probably would have to build new lines, because 6
they are at capacity right now?
7 MR. McDOWELL: Not so much at capacity.
8 It's more the situation that some of the sites that 9
might be ideal for alternative technologies are not 10 right at the Nine Mile Point site.
11 If you were just going to replace it with 12 another plant at that site, since you are kind of 13 replacing in kind as far as generation is concerned on 14 the lines, then that would just replace it on the 15 lines also. So we didn't really consider that there 16 be new lines needed, or replacement plant at the Nine 17 Mile Point site.
18 MR. DELLWO: Two more questions, and then 19 I'll probably be one. In the environmental impact 20 statement, according to what it says, there's 69 21 issues that are seen as generic for all plants, and 22 that aren't really dealt with on a plant specific 23 base; is that correct?
24 MR. McDOWELL: Our job is to go in for 25
56 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 each plant and to verify that the assumptions that 1
were made to make that determination are still valid, 2
and that there is no new and significant information.
3 So it's not like we ignore those. We do 4
look and see if there is anything new and significant 5
at Nine Mile Point that would invalidate the 6
conclusion, the generic conclusions, that they came up 7
with in the GEIS.
8 MR. CAMERON: I'm glad you asked that, 9
just in terms of the number itself, how many category 10 one issues were there?
11 MR. McDOWELL: 69; there's 92 total.
12 MR. CAMERON: All right, and one more?
13 MR. DELLWO: Yes, if that's okay.
14 Okay, the - it refers to the staff over 15 and over again. And I know that they are - actually, 16 I couldn't - maybe it was just me, but I couldn't find 17 their backgrounds in here. Where they worked, were 18 they worked previously.
19 MR. McDOWELL: Their names are listed in 20 Appendix B. But their backgrounds are not 21 specifically included in the document.
22 MR. DELLWO: Do you have any of that 23 information? I'm assuming that this project was 24 funded by NRC.
25
57 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 MR. McDOWELL: Yes. Well, yes.
1 MR. DELLWO: So the people who made this 2
were paid by NRC to do that?
3 MR. McDOWELL: Yes.
4 MR. DELLWO: I was just wondering if there 5
was any sort of background information you could give 6
me?
7 MR. McDOWELL: We've given that the NRC, 8
and that would be up to the NRC to decide whether that 9
would be made available.
10 MR. CAMERON: Let's hear from Leslie and 11 Rani on this.
12 Go ahead, Leslie.
13 MS. FIELDS: Appendix B does have the 14 expertise level of the person who participated in the 15 review, and normally it is reflective of their 16 particular expertise and professional backgrounds as 17 well.
18 MS. FRANOVICH: Tom, I think that you are 19 getting at is, what were the credentials of the 20 experts that were used to conduct the environmental 21 reviews?
22 MR. CAMERON: I think he may be thinking 23 about perhaps conflict of interest, and if you could 24 just talk about how we screen or contract 25
58 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 organizations for conflict of interest, I think that 1
is what he wants to know.
2 MS. FRANOVICH: The teams usually are 3
comprised of those members of the NRC staff who are 4
credentialed experts in their areas of expertise.
5 And in the past we've used DOE labs, 6
national laboratories, who don't do work with nuclear 7
utilities, if that's your concern.
8 As Chip just mentioned, in order for the 9
NRC to contract a consultant or a team of experts, we 10 have to go through a rigorous process to verify that 11 they are not engaged with a nuclear utility because of 12 the conflict of interest.
13 MR. CAMERON: We have to get this on the 14 transcript. So Rani's comments, if they aren't 15 connected. And you questioned --
16 MR. DELLWO: They never were before in 17 their careers connected with a nuclear power plant or 18 this particular nuclear power plant?
19 MS. FRANOVICH: I don't know that we would 20 do that kind of a research on individuals. I think we 21 would look at the contractor themselves, like if we 22 went to a commercial contractor, the company, we would 23 see if the company has done work for the private 24 sector, for nuclear power in particular.
25
59 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 But I don't know that we actually looked 1
to see if the individuals at any time in their career 2
did work for a utility.
3 MR. CAMERON: And it might be - Bruce, do 4
you want to add something?
5 MR. McDOWELL: We had a candidate from 6
Livermore that was going to be on the team that I had 7
for the Peach Bottom Power Plant, and he had worked 8
for a contractor that had not been actively involved 9
with Peach Bottom directly, but had been working on 10 Nine Mile, so there was a connection there. And NRC 11 did not choose to include him on our team.
12 MR. CAMERON: Okay, thank you, Bruce, 13 that's very helpful. And you know our conflict of 14 interest reviews and regulations are all public if you 15 need more information on that. I'm sure we can get 16 that for you.
17 And I'm going to go to Katherine to see if 18 she has any other questions, and then we're going to 19 go to Bob Palla's severe accident presentation, and 20 then come back to all of you for questions.
21 Katherine, do you have anything else?
22 MS. HOBBS: Yes. The first question was, 23 in regards to the radiological monitors that are - my 24 understanding was, that is carried out by the staff of 25
60 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 the plant; is that correct? That the actual 1
monitoring and logging of the monitoring data takes 2
place by plant employees?
3 MR. CAMERON: Who does that? And is there 4
a related question, because we are going to go back to 5
Rich to answer this, and maybe he can answer the 6
second one.
7 MS. HOBBS: Okay, well I'm just wondering 8
if there is - what kind of oversight the NRC has of 9
that monitoring.
10 MR. CAMERON: All right, Rich Emch.
11 MR. EMCH: Yes. The licensee does all the 12 data recording, and evaluation, the counting of 13 samples and all that sort of stuff, although they are 14 overseen. That whole process is inspected by the 15 Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
16 We have experts in health physics who come 17 out from our regional offices and conduct inspections 18 of the process.
19 And in addition to that, the state of New 20 York does environmental monitoring as well, so that 21 they are able to look for themselves. That's another 22 source of the checks, so to speak, against what the 23 licensee is doing.
24 MS. FRANOVICH: Chip, if I can add one 25
61 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 thing to this, and Rich, correct me if I'm wrong, when 1
licensees are required to submit information to the 2
NRC, there is a requirement under 10 CFR Part 50, it's 3
called 50.9, and it requires licensees to provide 4
complete and accurate information. And if they fail 5
to do that, then they're subject to enforcement 6
action.
7 MR. CAMERON: And Katherine, do you have 8
one more question before we move on?
9 MS. HOBBS: I just also in regards to the 10 environmental impacts for each of the categories that 11 you talked about, in addition to contractors, I'm 12 wondering if you'd consider having members of the 13 public participate in the process of determining what 14 the environmental impacts are, members of the public 15 to be included in that process.
16 MR. CAMERON: And maybe that has two 17 aspects of it. One aspect of that is, these types of 18 meetings, where we get questions and suggestions from 19 the public about, you really should look at this type 20 of environmental impact. And sometimes it's very 21 specific. It might be a specific type of organism 22 that we didn't know about. So that's one way that the 23 public is involved.
24 The other way was mentioned by Bruce on a 25
62 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 slide of where we get information in terms of all the 1
different state and local government agencies that we 2
talk to gather information.
3 And Bruce, maybe you could just go into a 4
little more detail on who we talk to in terms of state 5
agencies, like department of health, whatever, so that 6
Katherine can get an idea of that.
7 MR. McDOWELL: Well, primarily what she 8
said though is true. The first meeting that we 9
conducted here last September was just for that 10 purpose; it was to find out what impacts the public 11 thinks are important. So we tried to get that.
12 And when we made our side audit during 13 that same time, last September, we not only met with 14 state and federal agencies, but we met with local 15 services agencies. We met with people from the city 16 and people from the county, and tried to get 17 information from the people here, not from people at 18 the state office, or from the U.S. Fish & Wildlife 19 Service, even though we did talk to them also about 20 what is going on here at the ground level.
21 And that's again why we are here tonight.
22 We are here tonight to see did we miss anything. Is 23 there anything that maybe we've come to wrong 24 conclusion about? Is there any more information that 25
63 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 we should have that's pertinent?
1 And so this is really the process where 2
you would be involved.
3 MR. CAMERON: Okay, great, and I believe 4
that Rich Emch has given Katherine a list of the 5
agencies or whatever that we've talked to.
6 Do you want to add anything before we go 7
on? Go ahead.
8 MR. EMCH: I just gave her a copy of the 9
draft environmental impact statement and opened it to 10 Appendix D, which is the list of agencies that were 11 contacted.
12 MR. CAMERON: Okay, Katherine, that may 13 not be completely what you wanted to hear, but I think 14 it's sort of responsive to your question.
15 Did you want to know whether we had an 16 independent public advisory group or something like 17 that?
18 MS. HOBBS: Yes, I think that is what I 19 was wondering.
20 MR. CAMERON: And in some cases, the NRC 21 does have advisory groups that are part of the public 22 to advise us on particular issues, but usually when we 23 go to do the site specific analyses, we talk to the 24 public in situations like this, comments. We talk to 25
64 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 the state agencies. But we usually don't have any 1
sort of an independent advisory commission, because 2
our job is to be the independent agency that looks at 3
these particular issues to make sure that the 4
environment and public health and safety is protected.
5 MR. CAMERON: Let's go to Bob Palla, severe 6
accidents. We'll come back to you for questions, and 7
you don't have to limit your questions to severe 8
accidents. You can ask other questions.
9 But at some point we'll need to go to the 10 public comment part of the meeting, and give you all 11 an opportunity to comment.
12 Bob Palla.
13 MR. PALLA: My name is Bob Palla. I'm 14 with the division of risk assessment at NRC, and I 15 will be discussing the environmental impacts of 16 postulated accidents.
17 These impacts are described in Section 5 18 of the generic environmental impact statement, or the 19 GEIS, as you've heard.
20 The GEIS evaluates two classes of 21 accidents:
design-basis accidents; and severe 22 accidents.
23 Design basis accidents consist of a broad 24 spectrum of postulated accidents that both the 25
65 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 licensee and the NRC staff evaluate to ensure that the 1
plant can respond to these accidents without risk to 2
the public.
3 The ability of the plant to respond to the 4
accidents has to be demonstrated before the plant is 5
granted a license. And since the licensee has to 6
demonstrate acceptable performance, for these design 7
basis accidents throughout the life of the plant, the 8
commission has determined that the environmental 9
impact of design basis accidents are of small 10 significance.
11 Neither the licensee nor the NRC is aware 12 of any new and significant information on the 13 capability of the Nine Mile plant to withstand design 14 basis accidents. Therefore the staff concludes that 15 there are no impacts related to design basis accidents 16 beyond those that are discussed in the GEIS.
17 Now severe accidents by definition are 18 more severe than the design basis accidents. These 19 accidents could result in substantial damage to the 20 reactor core.
21 The Commission found in the GEIS that the 22 risk of a severe accident is small for all plants.
23 And by this I mean the probabilistically weighted 24 consequence of these accidents.
25
66 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 Nevertheless the Commission determined 1
that alternatives to mitigate severe accidents must be 2
considered for all plants that have not done so.
3 This same evaluation is a site specific 4
assessment, and is a category two issue, as explained 5
earlier.
6 The SAMA review for Nine Mile Point is 7
summarized in Section 5.2 of the GEIS supplement for 8
Nine Mile, and is described in more detail in Appendix 9
G of the supplement.
10 Now the purpose of performing a SAMA 11 evaluation is to ensure that plant changes with the 12 potential for improving severe accident performance 13 are identified and evaluated.
14 The scope of the potential improvements 15 that are considered include hardware modifications, 16 procedure changes, and training program enhancements, 17 basically, full spectrum of potential changes.
18 The scope of the SAMAs that are considered 19 include SAMAs that would prevent core damage as well 20 as SAMAs that would improve containment building 21 performance, given that a core damage event were to 22 occur.
23 The SAMA evaluation process consists of a 24 four-step process. The first step is to characterize 25
67 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 overall plant risk and leading contributors to risk.
1 This typically involves the use, extensive use, of the 2
plant specific probabilistic risk assessment study, 3
which is also known as the PRA.
4 The PRA is a study that identifies the 5
different combinations of system failures and human 6
errors that would be required for an accident to 7
progress to either core damage or containment failure.
8 The second step of the evaluation is to 9
identify potential improvements that could further 10 reduce risk. The information from the PRA, such as 11 the dominant accident sequences, is used to help 12 identify plant improvements that would have the 13 greatest impact in reducing risk.
14 Improvements identified in other NRC and 15 industry studies as well as SAMA analyses that had 16 been performed for other plants that have requested 17 license renewal have also been considered.
18 The third step in evaluation is to 19 quantify the risk reduction potential and the 20 implementation costs for each improvement. The risk 21 reduction and implementation costs for a SAMA are 22 typically estimated using a bounding analysis.
23 The risk reduction is generally 24 overestimated by assuming that the plant improvement 25
68 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 is completely effective at eliminating the accident 1
sequences that it is intended to address.
2 And the implementation costs are generally 3
underestimated by neglecting certain cost factors such 4
as maintenance costs and surveillance costs that are 5
associated with the improvement.
6 The risk reduction and costs estimates are 7
used in the final step to determine whether 8
implementation of any of the improvements can be 9
justified. Now in making this determination as to 10 whether an improvement is justified, we look at three 11 factors.
12 The first is whether the improvement is 13 cost beneficial. In other words is the estimated 14 benefit greater than the estimated implementation cost 15 for the SAMA?
16 The second factor is whether the 17 improvement provides a significant reduction in total 18 risk. For example does it eliminate a sequence or 19 contain a failure mode that contributes a large 20 fraction to plant risk?
21 The third factor is whether the risk 22 reduction is associated with aging effects during the 23 period of extended operation, in which case if it was 24 we would consider implementation as part of the 25
69 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 license renewal process.
1 This slide summarizes the result of the 2
SAMA review. 220 candidate improvements were 3
considered for each Nine Mile Point unit. And these 4
were identified based on a review of the plant 5
specific PRA and the dominant risk contributors at 6
each unit, as well as SAMA analyses performed for 7
other plants.
8 The licensee reduced the number of 9
candidate SAMAs based on a multi-step screening 10 process. This screening resulted in retention of a 11 set of 13 SAMAs, for unit one, and 20 SAMAs for unit 12 two.
13 A more detailed assessment of the risk 14 reduction potential and implementation costs was then 15 performed for each of these remaining SAMAs. This is 16 described in detail in Appendix G of the GEIS 17 supplement.
18 The detailed cost-benefit analysis shows 19 that several SAMAs are potentially cost beneficial at 20 each unit, when evaluated individually in accordance 21 with NRC guidance for performing regulatory analyses.
22 Four of the SAMAs were cost beneficial at 23 unit one; 11 were cost beneficial at unit two.
24 Now it's important to note that some of 25
70 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 these SAMAs address the same risk contributor but in 1
a different way. For example, one of the SAMAs 2
involves using a portable generator to maintain the DC 3
batteries charged, given a station blackout event was 4
to occur.
5 Several other SAMAs also address DC bus 6
failures and station blackout events. So in these 7
instances implementation of one of the SAMAs could 8
reduce the residual risk to a point that one or more 9
of the related SAMAs would no longer be cost 10 beneficial.
11 It's because of this interrelationship 12 between SAMAs that we would not expect that 13 implementation of all of the identified SAMAs would be 14 justified on a cost benefit basis. Rather, 15 implementation of a carefully selected subset of the 16 cost beneficial SAMAs could achieve must of the risk 17 reduction and would be more effective, cost effective, 18 than implementing all of the SAMAs.
19 To summarize, the results of the SAMA 20 evaluation indicate that several SAMAs are potentially 21 cost beneficial at Nine Mile Point. However, none of 22 the cost beneficial SAMAs are related to managing the 23 effects of plant aging during the period of extended 24 operations; therefore, the SAMAs are not required to 25
71 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 be implemented as part of license renewal.
1 Notwithstanding this, the licensee has 2
committed to further evaluate the potentially cost 3
beneficial SAMAs as a current operating licensing 4
- issue, and to consider implementation of the 5
potentially cost beneficial SAMAs as voluntary plant 6
enhancements.
7 Completion of these evaluations is being 8
tracked in the licensee's plant change tracking 9
system. And that concludes my summary.
10 So questions?
11 MR. CAMERON: Yes, questions on the severe 12 accident mitigation alternatives. Tom?
13 MR. DELLWO: Thanks.
14 So you are not going to make them do these 15 things that you have identified as possibly making the 16 plant safer, if I hear you correctly?
17 MR. PALLA: We're not requiring that as a 18 part of the license renewal process. These are being 19 20 MR. DELLWO: Just because they don't deal 21 with aging?
22 MR. PALLA: That is the primary purpose, 23 that's the reason.
24 MR. DELLWO: All right.
25
72 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 MR. CAMERON: Okay. I think we need to 1
take that a step further. Yes, sir, and please 2
introduce yourself.
3 MR. FALLON: I'm Mike Fallon. I'm with the 4
license renewal team and with the SAMA lead. Many of 5
these 15 identified potentially cost beneficial SAMAs 6
have been implemented at Nine Mile, and the ones that 7
involved actual plant - some of these are like 8
procedure changes, things like that have been 9
implemented.
10 Ones that involve actual modifications to 11 the plant are part of conceptual design packages that 12 are in the plant modification review process to 13 determine if in fact they are cost beneficial for 14 implementation.
15 MR. CAMERON: Okay, so certain things are 16 being done. And when he identified himself as part of 17 the license renewal team, part of the Nine Mile 18 license renewal team, not the NRC license renewal 19 team, just to get that clear.
20 Any other questions on severe accidents?
21 Yes, Katherine.
22 MS. HOBBS: This part of the presentation 23 was a lot like Greek for me, who is not learned in 24 this technical speak.
25
73 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 And it might have been presented but I 1
didn't get it. So does the risk of an explosion or a 2
meltdown or a terrorist attack get included - is it 3
included in this assessment?
4 MR. PALLA: Well, what we do here is look 5
at the complete risk profile from the plant. Now it 6
typically doesn't involve explosions, because these 7
reactor designs are not like Chernobyl where you have 8
the potential, where the design itself has inherent 9
weaknesses that could lead to explosions.
10 But we look at core melt down events, TMI 11 type events, events that lead to core melt with intact 12 containments; core melt with failed containments. And 13 the PRAs tend to look only at things that go to core 14 melt, but most of the things that occur at a plant 15 don't go to core melt.
16 So we look at successes. We tend to focus 17 on those things that get you to core damage. And we 18 look at the full range of events that go to core 19
- damage, including with and without effective 20 containments.
21 And we look at, and there are more details 22 in the appendix, it includes internally initiated 23 events, events that were initiated by internal fires 24 within the plan, seismic events.
25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 MR. CAMERON: And I guess that the one 1
issue we should be clear about for people is in terms 2
of this particular evaluation looks at, although it 3
looks at seismic, earthquakes, things like that, 4
sabotage is - I don't know, I'm just asking - sabotage 5
is dealt with under a different regime.
6 In other words Katherine mentioned 7
terrorism. So in other words, does a SAMA evaluation 8
take into account something that could happen because 9
of a terrorist attack?
10 MR. PALLA: It's a good question. We 11 actually are unable to quantify those types of 12 threats. And these are - that's my number one answer 13 is, it's not in the model. It's difficult if not 14 impossible to quantify the likelihood of such events 15 in the same way that we deal with all the other events 16 that we can conceive of.
17 Second way that I might answer that is to 18 say that these events are not really looked at part of 19 license renewal. These are events we're concerned 20 about today as part of the current operating license, 21 and there is a large number of activities that have 22 occurred since 9/11 and actually are continuing to 23 occur. And they range from - there were security 24 advisories, safeguard advisories. There were orders.
25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 There is a rulemaking in progress now on the design 1
basis threat, a new design basis threat. There are 2
vulnerability analyses that are ongoing, looking at 3
aircraft impacts on plants. And the ability of plants 4
to withstand that.
5 So these things are all being done. They 6
are being done as part of the current operating 7
license; they are not being done as part of the 8
license renewal activity.
9 MR. CAMERON: Bob, that is very helpful.
10 And I think, Katherine, you might have come in after 11 Rani Franovich talked about, mentioned the fact that 12 security - what we call security-related events are 13 not part of license renewal.
14 It doesn't mean that they are not being 15 taken care of or addressed by the NRC; it just means 16 they are not being addressed as part of license 17 renewal, because they are a thing that is happening 18 that has to be paid attention to everyday in the 19 operating life of a plant.
20 Rani, do you want to add anything to this 21 other than what Bob said? Okay. Good question.
22 MS. HOBBS: So the risk of that happening 23 let's say a meltdown happening is not then - the 24 environmental impact of that potential are not 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 considered?
1 MR. PALLA: No, they are. In fact that's 2
the focus of - what we're looking at here is the 3
residual risk of the plant. You could build the 4
latest plant, advanced reactors. There is still a 5
possibility that some bizarre combination of failures 6
that could occur, that would lead to core damage.
7 What we do here is, we look at the risk 8
profile of the plant as it exists, we looked at both 9
units. These are two different reactor designs inside 10 two different containment types.
11 We looked at those risk profiles, and 12 looked at what was driving the risk. What are the 13 dominant sequences.
14 We looked, for each of these dominant 15 contributors, we looked - when I say, we looked, the 16 licensee in their environmental report describes a 17 very systematic analysis in which they looked at it -
18 we looked at their analysis to confirm that it was in 19 fact rigorous and systematic.
20 But we look at all of the different 21 contributors, and we look at ways that we could reduce 22 those contributors further.
23 And we try here, the purpose of this whole 24 SAMA review is to identify ways that the risk could be 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 further reduced, that are cost beneficial and would 1
give you some substantial reduction in risk.
2 So that is the whole focus of what we are 3
doing, and we do look at - obviously we are looking at 4
the core melt accidents. That is where most of the 5
risk is coming from.
6 MR. CAMERON: Bob, I think one of the 7
things that is sometimes confusing for people with 8
this, and you just touched on it there when you said 9
further reduce the risk, these things are all over and 10 above what is needed to make the plant safe. These 11 are things that might be cost beneficial to do that is 12 just going to further reduce any risk.
13 And you can explain this better than I am, 14 but you know where I'm going.
15 MR. PALLA: Well, I can make it as 16 complicated as you like, Chip.
17 MR. CAMERON: I know you could. Could you 18 make it simple?
19 MR. PALLA: That's harder. The plant has 20 a certain level of risk, and although we do not 21 regulate the risk, the Commission has safety goals for 22 plants. And the level of risk at these plants meets 23 the safety goals.
24 Now just to give you a rough feeling for 25
78 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 how are these safety goals expressed, and I won't go 1
through the numerics of how one demonstrates that you 2
meet it, but basically the safety goal says that the 3
risk to the population living in the vicinity of the 4
plant, the risk to that population from the reactor 5
should be less than one-tenth of one percent of the 6
risk that the public has from other like for example 7
for early fatalities. It should be less than one-8 tenth of one percent of the risk that the public has 9
from all other cancer fatalities.
10 And these goals exist for early 11 fatalities, and they exist for late and cancer 12 fatalities. But a tenth of a percent is generally 13 thought - you want to be less than that in order to 14 meet the safety goals, and the plants meet these 15 safety goals.
16 We don't regulate them to it. I mean the 17 regulations are more deterministic; they are not 18 probabilistic. We don't regulate to certain levels of 19 risk. In fact, when the regulations were developed, 20 these kind of risk assessment techniques were 21 nonexistent or in their infancy, really.
22 MR. CAMERON: Okay, so the plants all meet 23 the safety goals, and then we might --
24 MR. PALLA: And then what this does is 25
79 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 just to see, is there a way to further reduce it?
1 It's safe enough, okay, but is there something that 2
can be done that makes sense to do and it's 3
reasonable, it doesn't adversely impact in terms of 4
cost and it's effective, it gives substantial risk 5
reduction.
6 MR. CAMERON: Okay, thank you, Bob.
7 That's great.
8 We are going to go to the public comment 9
part of the meeting. But are there any questions.
10 Linda, you look a little puzzled back 11 there. Do you have another question for us before we 12 go on?
13 MS. HOBBS: Number one, the whole notion 14 of cost versus benefit has always I guess been a thorn 15 in my side. By doing the math here, it's my 16 understanding if you take one-tenth of one percent, 17 you are really talking about one thousandth.
18 So am I to assume that it is okay to take 19 the risk as long as only one in every one thousand 20 persons die? I mean that's the math.
21 And I guess also, we speak of how much 22 does it cost to keep the public safe. And as long as 23 it doesn't cost too much we can keep some of them 24 safe.
25
80 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 I mean this whole risk versus benefit is -
1 I remember this from way back, made comments on that 2
later.
3 MR. PALLA: Did you want me to sit back 4
down again?
5 MR. CAMERON: Well, I think you just need 6
to emphasize the fact that our regulations in terms of 7
safety are not based on cost considerations.
8 MR. PALLA: No, if it was a matter of 9
meeting the regulation, there are no cost 10 considerations. The licensees are required to comply 11 with the regulations.
12 You don't bring a cost - you don't do 13 cost-benefit analyses on compliance issues. What you 14 do, though, if you - and as you can imagine, you can 15 always come up with additional improvements to make a 16 plant even safer.
17 And what this cost benefit is, it's part 18 of the back fit. We have a back fit rule that 19 basically says, if it's a compliance issue, you have 20 to comply, but if it is something that is viewed as an 21 enhancement, it's not an adequate protection issue.
22 It's not a question that the plant has inadequate 23 protection for the public.
24 Let's say it already has adequate 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 protection, and you are looking at a further 1
enhancement. There is a back fit rule, 50.109 that 2
describes that is necessary to demonstrate in order to 3
require a licensee to make further improvements.
4 And that is where you get into cost 5
benefits. And it is basically a check on the ability 6
of the staff to require a lot of things that maybe are 7
expensive and don't provide the commensurate benefit 8
with it really.
9 And what we try to do in SAMA is, we're 10 focused on where the risk is coming from, and we're 11 trying to find the least expensive ways to fix it, 12 because those are likely to be the most cost 13 effective.
14 But you have to balance the costs and the 15 benefits when you are trying to make additional 16 requirements.
17 This isn't a matter of trying to make the 18 plant safe enough that it's in an unsafe state. It's 19 already judged to be safe enough. It's judged that 20 there is adequate protection at this point. And we're 21 just trying to see if we can justify further 22 improvements.
23 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Let's go on to -
24 pardon me? Oh, I guess that Rich is pointing out that 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 the one out of a thousand reference that Linda made -
1 why don't you try to do that. Well, he may be better 2
than you at explaining it, but I'm not sure that he 3
knows what you are talking about.
4 Do you know what he's talking about?
5 MR. PAllA: Well, in case I was sloppy in 6
how I tried to explain it, there is a certain level of 7
risk that you can calculate in the general population 8
of the United States. So many cancer deaths per year 9
for a certain - over a certain population, and so many 10 accidental deaths over the population in a year. And 11 that is the background level of risk if you will. So 12 that is the risk that exists, in general.
13 And when what the policy statement said 14 is, if you took the additional risk represented by the 15 plant should be less than one-tenth of one percent of 16 that. That's what I was trying to say.
17 MR. CAMERON: And maybe we can talk to 18 Linda to make sure that that is clear.
19 Okay, we're going to go to the public 20 comment part of the meeting. But I want to make sure 21 that Rich points out something about the site 22 boundary, and Rani wants to say something.
23 Go ahead, Rani.
24 MS. FRANOVICH: Actually, I'm going to 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 talk about what Rich brought to my attention.
1 There was a question about where the staff 2
assumed the maximum radiological impact to a human 3
being would be, and the answer was at the site 4
boundary. And the question was, well, where is that 5
in relation to the plant. And the answer was, at the 6
fence, but we're not really sure that the fence really 7
represents completely around the perimeter of the 8
plant where the site boundary is.
9 So I just want to make sure that the 10 record is correct. If you have a copy of the draft 11 site, figure 2-3 has a layout of the site, and there 12 is a black line around the site perimeter that 13 represents the site boundary. So that is the correct 14 and complete and accurate answer to the question.
15 So I just wanted to correct that, Chip.
16 Thank you.
17 MR. CAMERON: Thank you very much, Rani.
18 And before we go to comments, Leslie is just going to 19 wrap up some details for us. Go ahead, Leslie.
20 MS.
FIELDS: Turning now to our 21 conclusions, we found that the impacts of license 22 renewal are small in all areas. We also concluded 23 that the environmental effects of alternative actions 24 may reach significance in some impact categories.
25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 Based on these results our preliminary 1
recommendation is that the adverse environmental 2
impacts of license renewal for Nine Mile Point are not 3
so great that preserving the option of license renewal 4
for energy planning decision makers would be 5
unreasonable.
6 As a quick recap of our current status, we 7
issued the draft SEIS for Nine Mile Point units one 8
and two license renewal on September 29th, 2005. We 9
are currently in the middle of the public comment 10 period that is scheduled to end on December 22nd, 11 2005.
12 We expect to address the public comment, 13 including any necessary revisions to the draft SEIS, 14 and issue a final SEIS in June of 2006.
15 This site identifies me as your primary 16 point of contact with the NRC for preparation of the 17 environmental impact statement, and it also identifies 18 where documents related to our review may be found in 19 the local area.
20 The Nine Mile Point draft SEIS is 21 available at the Penfield Library on the SUNY Oswego 22 college campus. All documents related to the review 23 are also available on NRC's website at www.nrc.gov.
24 In addition, as you came in today, you 25
85 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 were asked to fill out a registration card at the 1
reception table. If you included your address on that 2
card, we will mail you a copy of the final SEIS. And 3
that would be the blue card that you filled out.
4 If you did not fill out a card, and if you 5
would like a copy of the draft and final SEIS for Nine 6
Mile Point, after the meeting please see Sam 7
Hernandez, our project engineer supporting this 8
review.
9 Sam, please raise your hand.
10 Now in addition to providing comments at 11 this meeting, there are other ways that you can submit 12 comments for our environmental review process. You 13 can provide written comments to our chief of the rules 14 and directives branch at the address listed on the 15 slide.
16 You can also make comments in person if 17 you happen to be in the Rockville, Maryland area.
18 We have also established a specific email 19 address at the NRC for the purpose of receiving your 20 comments on the draft environmental impact statement.
21 And that email address is NineMilePointEIS@NRC.gov.
22 All of your comments will be collected and considered.
23 This concludes my remarks. Thank you 24 again for taking time to attend this meeting.
25
86 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 MR. CAMERON: Okay, thank you very much, 1
Leslie and Bruce and Bob Palla and Rani.
2 We're going to go to public comment now.
3 And usually we ask the representative of the license 4
applicant to explain what their rationale is for 5
6 And we have Mr. Jim Hutton with us, who is 7
licensing manager at the Nine Mile Point nuclear 8
station.
9 And then we are going to go to Linda Bond-10 Clark after Mr. Hutton is done.
11 Sure, what is your question?
12 MS. HOBBS: I was wondering what is the 13 purpose of the comments here today? What is the 14 expectation that the comments should involve?
15 MR. CAMERON: Well, we're looking for any 16 comments, do you want to answer that?
17 MS. FIELDS: Yes, I can answer it. We are 18 requesting that if you have comments on the draft 19 SEIS, the book that we provided in the back, if you 20 have any comments that you would like included in the 21 draft SEIS, or if there are areas that you feel were 22 missed and you would like to add to the document, 23 those are the types of comments that we are requesting 24 today.
25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 MR. CAMERON: And if you have some 1
concerns that are related to the environmental review, 2
even though it's not related to a particular part of 3
it, you can give us those, too.
4 All right, thanks, Leslie.
5 Mr. Hutton.
6 MR. HUTTON: Thank you, good evening.
7 I'd first like to thank the NRC staff for 8
their efforts in organizing the meeting here tonight.
9 Here with me today is Dave Dellario, who 10 helped manage our license renewal effort, and Carla 11 Logan, who his involvement in our environmental 12 management at Constellation Energy, along with some 13 others from Constellation Energy, Nine Mile Point 14 nuclear plant.
15 The first thing all our employees see 16 everyday when they come into our site is an 17 illuminated sign that states our commitment to safety 18 and environmental stewardship.
19 Constellation Energy has an unceasing 20 focus on safety - the safety of our employees, the 21 safety of the people who live and work in the local 22 are.
23 We continue to ensure that our operations 24 have little or not impact on the air, water or 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 endangered species.
1 Nuclear energy, and Nine Mile Point 2
specifically, is an important source of clean cost-3 effective energy.
4 About one in five homes in the United 5
States is powered by nuclear energy, and nuclear 6
energy avoids dependence on foreign oil.
7 Nine Mile Point currently generates enough 8
electricity to power more than - about 2 million 9
homes. Nuclear energy needs to be part of our 10 country's diversified energy supply.
11 Nine Mile Point was the first nuclear 12 power station to obtain international accreditation, 13 ISO 14001, for its environmental management program.
14 We're very proud of that.
15 At Nine Mile Point protecting the 16 environment is part of each employee's job everyday.
17 In addition, a significant part of the site provides 18 habitat for wildlife such as deer, turkey, fox, 19 various birds.
20 Part of Constellation Energy's 21 responsibility in the license renewal process is to 22 prepare an environmental report, and to evaluate the 23 environmental impacts of extended operation of Nine 24 Mile Point unit one and two, and assess their level of 25
89 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 significance.
1 Our assessment, included in the 2
environmental report that we submitted to the NRC in 3
May, 2004, concluded that continued operation of our 4
nuclear station will not result in significant adverse 5
environmental effects.
6 We received formal notification from the 7
NRC staff of their preliminary conclusion that 8
continued operation of the Nine Mile Point nuclear 9
plants one and two does not pose an unacceptable risk 10 of adverse environmental impact.
11 NRC's conclusions are consistent with our 12 analysis as contained in the environmental report.
13 We work not only to improve our 14 environmental performance, but also invest in our 15 equipment and operational improvements.
16 Nine Mile Point, like every nuclear plant, 17 is continuously being upgraded. Every critical 18 operating part is routinely inspected and monitored by 19 us and the NRC, resident inspectors who were introduce 20 here tonight and others.
21 Our normal routine for maintaining our 22 nuclear plant involves inspection,
- repair, 23 refurbishment, replacement of primary operating 24 components every 24 months during regularly scheduled 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 refueling and maintenance outages.
1 And as technology advances, obsolete and 2
early design components are upgraded.
3 We continue to be committed community 4
partners. We provide community support in the form of 5
good stable jobs, and in terms of participating in and 6
funding events and organizations important to the 7
area.
8 Last year Constellation Energy and its 9
employees provided more than $300,000 in donations to 10 community organizations and events.
11 Every employee at Nine Mile Point 12 understands that all our community efforts are only 13 worthwhile if we operate our facility with an 14 unceasing commitment towards safety and environmental 15 protection.
16 Nine Mile Point is important to the local 17 community. It plays a part in our country's energy 18 future.
19 The improvements we've made ensure that we 20 meet today's exacting standards of operations.
21 I assure you that if given permission to 22 operate this station for an additional 20 years, our 23 employees will continue to demonstrate their ongoing 24 commitment to all aspects of safety, reliability, 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 performance, and environmental stewardship.
1 We look forward to hearing comments from 2
the public this evening. We are willing to work with 3
anyone who is interested in hearing more about our 4
power generation operation, environmental performance, 5
or safety culture.
6 Again, we thank you for the opportunity to 7
speak today.
8 MR. CAMERON: Okay, thanks, Mr. Hutton.
9 We're going to go to Linda Bond-Clark now 10 to address us. Do you want to come up here, Linda?
11 All right.
12 MS. BOND-CLARK: Good evening. Thank you 13 for allowing me the opportunity to speak tonight.
14 I guess if I might ask the question of how 15 many public officials are here tonight, people 16 representing the public? And - two people? Public 17 officials, people who hold offices? Elected 18 officials? Any elected officials here tonight?
19 None. Let the record show there are no 20 elected officials.
21 Of those people, if there had been any, I 22 was going to ask them how many had actually read the 23 draft SEIS.
24 One thing is, as I'm looking and hearing, 25
92 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 I'm not hearing the human factor. Many times to model 1
and to look at scientific analogy doesn't always bring 2
in the human factor, and I'm seeing that missing here.
3 For example, the latest reports indicate 4
that 20 percent of the population in Oswego County 5
have not picked up their potassium iodide pills.
6 This is indicating that either the NRC or 7
the utilities are doing an awfully good job of lulling 8
the public into believing that there is no inherent 9
risk associated with nuclear plants.
10 The other thing is, I read through the 11 draft report, I noticed that it talked about a 12 transient population. We have a very large transient 13 population here in Oswego County, because much of our 14 land is farm. We have a lot of immigrants coming in 15 from whether it's Mexico or Puerto Rico or whatever.
16 And I didn't see them included in the large transient 17 population.
18 Another thing, the draw down, the cone of 19 depression around the Nine Mile Plant point, hasn't 20 been thoroughly investigated as far as how this is 21 affecting the groundwater availability for resident of 22 Oswego County.
23 For example when the town of New Haven, 24 many residents along the shoreline are complaining 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 about not having the water available in their wells, 1
and I'm wondering if this constant drawdown isn't 2
affecting the groundwater table.
3 I would also suggest that you create a new 4
category. You've got low, medium, great. Perhaps you 5
should include one called catastrophic. When 6
something is totally demised and made unavailable at 7
any bottom, zero, it seems to me that should be a 8
category.
9 Another thing I didn't see was, although 10 alternative energy sources were looked at as far as 11 the implication of how they would affect the Nine Mile 12 Plant, they weren't noted as how they would affect the 13 general employment. Oswego County has very high 14 unemployment rate.
15 And perhaps if wind, and solar, were 16 invested in, it would create more job opportunities 17 for the people in Oswego County, and not just being 18 able to work with the nuclear plant.
19 I happened to review the report of the NRC 20 and the utilities back in the 1990s in a report that 21 I worked while I worked at Oswego State. I made 42 22 recommendations on improving the environmental impact, 23 environmental impact assessment. Of these absolutely 24 none were incorporated.
25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 The last time that I received a report 1
from the New York State Department of Health, which is 2
the agency with which the utilities share their data, 3
their reports are anywhere from five years late in 4
coming, at that time, too, no one in our public arena 5
was looking or reading the report.
6 I would suggest that even though they are 7
not edible, that I think that zebra mussels should be 8
included into the environmental assessment. They are 9
filter feeders, and they incorporate a lot of water, 10 and I think that maybe they would be a good indicator 11 as to radionuclides in the environment.
12 Also if the plans are releasing 100 curies 13 per year, I am really questioning the one millirem per 14 person dose factor of people around the plants.
15 And that's it for my comments. Thank 16 you.
17 MR. CAMERON: Okay, those are good 18 examples of the type of information that we like to 19 hear in comments for consideration.
20 One question for you. The study or the 21 42 recommendations from Oswego State, are you going 22 to submit a copy of that to us?
23 MS. BOND-CLARK: They were submitted.
24 MR. CAMERON: And when was that?
25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 MS. BOND-CLARK: I did the study in 1990.
1 MR. CAMERON: Okay, but they weren't 2
submitted as part of this license renewal?
3 MS. BOND-CLARK: I can.
4 MR. CAMERON: I think that should be 5
something that we should look at. So please submit it 6
to us.
7 MS. BOND-CLARK: You've got a copy 8
somewhere.
9 MR. CAMERON: Thank you.
10 And Bruce, did you have something.
11 MR. McDOWELL: We will look at all the 12 comments that you made.
13 But I did want to address the migrant farm 14 labor, just because I found it quickly. It's on page 15 256, we did talk about the amount of migrant labor 16 here.
17 MR. CAMERON: And I think the comment was 18 that there were some groups that needed to be 19 addressed further?
20 MS. BOND-CLARK: Yes. I was just 21 questioning the number there, that's all.
22 MR. CAMERON: Okay, thank you.
23 Some of you came in after - you might not 24 have had an opportunity to fill out the yellow card 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 that we asked people to fill out if they wanted to 1
make a comment. But you are certainly free to 2
comment.
3 I didn't know, Katherine, if you wanted 4
to say anything, comment to us or Tom, or anybody else 5
at this point? If you want to, please come up and 6
talk to us.
7 Okay. And there is a written comment 8
period too. And part of the reason for the public 9
meeting is not only to give people an opportunity to 10 talk tonight, but to give you a chance to hear 11 information that you might want to use to submit a 12 written comment to us, or email.
13 Tom, did you want to say something? Go 14 ahead.
15 MR. DELLWO: I'm not prepared either, but 16 I just like getting up in front of podiums.
17 In my questions and stuff like that, I 18 didn't mean to disparage the people that work at Nine 19 Mile, or the NRC, or any of that.
20 My concerns fundamentally deal with, 21 number one, the idea that I don't know of any other 22 type of power that puts at risk as many lives as 23 nuclear energy does. And I think that is borne out by 24 the fact that we have the Nuclear Regulatory 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 Commission, which is specifically for nuclear power 1
plants. We have to have this organization that 2
regulates them and looks after them because of the 3
possible damage that they could cause, that's 4
catastrophic as Linda said.
5 And so I think that - and I think that one 6
comment that I have, and I'm going to make this really 7
short, but one comment that I would have about the 8
GEIS and this whole process is that I'm not a 9
scientist, and I know of only one person who is a 10 scientist here, that was a member of the public that 11 came of her own volition, and that is Linda.
12 And I guess, I mean I understand that the 13 NRC has staff, and that they hire people to do this, 14 and they hire scientists to do this, but the public, 15 and especially in a community like Oswego, in a county 16 like Oswego, doesn't have the money to do something 17 like that on their own.
18 And I would like to see possibly the 19 nuclear power plants pay for a totally independent -
20 from the NRC or anybody else - somebody who could come 21 to possibly look it over, look over the GEIS, look 22 over the work that was done by the scientists who were 23 paid by the NRC, a number of different things that 24 they could look at, because I don't have the expertise 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 to do that. I work all day. I didn't even have the 1
time to read the whole document.
2 And so I think that that is something that 3
could really benefit the public, that we had somebody 4
who has the money and the time to go out and follow up 5
with this and do the study independent from anything 6
having to do with the NRC.
7 And that would be my comment.
8 Thank you.
9 MR. CAMERON: Okay, thank you, Tom. Do 10 you want to go up?
11 MS. HOBBS: Do I have to go up?
12 MR. CAMERON: You don't need to. You want 13 to talk from right here with this?
14 MS. HOBBS: Well, yes, okay. In addition 15 to that, it would be nice to see maybe some sort of 16 task force whose task it is to educate particularly 17 local residents about some of the technical issues and 18 in terms of the environmental impacts for instance.
19 I
think even in terms of Risk 20 communication to the public, and specifically local 21 residents. And just seeing my second public meeting, 22 and I appreciated Linda's question about how many 23 elected officials are here, and I would ask also how 24 many local residents are here. And that is one of my 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 big concerns, why aren't more people, stakeholders, 1
local people who are affected by the potential risks 2
involved represented or here?
3 And then my other big thing is about the 4
assumption, that I now I need to speak more with some 5
of you about this. But the one assumption, 6
particularly with the health studies, you mentioned 7
based on Chernobyl, and based on the effluents.
8 But that seems like a
pretty big 9
assumption, to go from like what might be predicted to 10 happen from the radiological effluents or based on 11 other data from other sources.
12 It seems to me, why not be more certain?
13 Isn't that what science - you are supposed to be 14 reducing uncertainty. So it seems to me that more 15 efforts - you know, you have the resources to do it.
16 Why aren't you doing it? Why aren't you going into 17 the community and actually monitoring the health of 18 people in the community?
19 MR. CAMERON: Okay, thank you for those 20 comments on education and maybe when you get together 21 with people and talk after this, they can talk about 22 a little bit about what the NRC's authority is in this 23 area to do things like that. Because there may be 24 some limitations there, and what other agencies do 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 things like that.
1 But I think that generally my colleagues 2
would say that their conclusions and their evaluations 3
are based on science. And I think that I would just 4
exhort them to talk to you about that, and to 5
demonstrate that.
6
- Okay, thank you
- all, from the 7
facilitator's point of view, for your comments and 8
courtesy, and being concise. And I would just ask 9
Rani if she would close the meeting out for us so that 10 we can have some informal discussions.
11 MS. FRANOVICH: Thank you, Chip.
12 I just wanted to again thank you all for 13 coming out. I know that we're all busy and have 14 hectic lives, and your participation really is very 15 important. It's also an opportunity for the NRC to 16 meet with members of the public. It's an opportunity 17 to we don't get very often, and we really enjoy it.
18 So thank you again for coming.
19 As you came into the room, one of the 20 things that you hopefully received is an NRC public 21 meeting feedback form; it looks like this. If you 22 have any ideas or suggestions on how we can improve 23 our public meeting process we'd like to hear them.
24 Any way we might be able to conduct the meetings that 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 would meet your needs a little bit better, please 1
share those with us.
2 These forms are prepaid. The postage is 3
prepaid, so just fold them up and send them in, or you 4
can leave them with us when you leave tonight.
5 If you have any comments on the draft 6
document, for Nine Mile Point, that you didn't want to 7
provide tonight as we've said earlier, you can submit 8
them by email or in writing. We will be taking those 9
comments until December 22nd, 2005.
10 MR. CAMERON: And Leslie Fields, who is 11 the environmental project manager, is the point of 12 contact for that.
13 And finally, if you wish to speak with any 14 of us after the meeting, several of us will be hanging 15 around for a few minutes afterwards, and we'd be 16 delighted to talk with you more.
17 So thanks again for coming out, and we 18 appreciate your participation in our process.
19 (Whereupon the proceeding in the above-20 entitled matter was adjourned) 21