ML18201A377
| ML18201A377 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Oyster Creek |
| Issue date: | 07/17/2018 |
| From: | Neal R. Gross & Co. |
| To: | Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation |
| Lamb J, NRR/DORL/LSPB, 415-3100 | |
| References | |
| EPID L-2018-LRO-0022, NRC-3814 | |
| Download: ML18201A377 (142) | |
Text
Official Transcript of Proceedings NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Title:
Oyster Creek Post-shutdown Decommissioning Activities Report Public Meeting Docket Number:
(n/a)
Location:
Forked River, New Jersey Date:
Tuesday, July 17, 2018 Work Order No.:
NRC-3814 Pages 1-129 NEAL R. GROSS AND CO., INC.
Court Reporters and Transcribers 1323 Rhode Island Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 234-4433
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 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
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3814 OYSTER CREEK POST-SHUTDOWN DECOMMISSIONING ACTIVITIES REPORT PUBLIC MEETING
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- TUESDAY, JULY 17, 2018
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FORKED RIVER, NEW JERSEY
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The meeting convened at the Lacey Township Community Hall, 101 North Main Street, at 6:00 p.m.,
Bruce A. Watson, presiding.
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 NRC STAFF PRESENT:
BRUCE A. WATSON, CHP, Chief, Reactor Decommissioning Branch, Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards DOUG BROADDUS, Branch Chief, Operating Reactor Licensing, Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation RICHARD S. BARKLEY, Region I ZAHIRA L. CRUZ, Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards JOHN G. LAMB, Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation ALSO PRESENT:
JEFFREY DOSTAL, Plant Manager, Exelon Nuclear
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 P R O C E E D I N G S 1
6:06 p.m.
2 MR. WATSON: I guess it's working. You 3
want to go to my first slide, Steve.
4 Okay, we're starting just a minute late, 5
but our transcription guy says he's ready. Good 6
evening. That loud enough? Maybe I have to hold it 7
closer. Okay, good evening. Thank you for coming this 8
evening. I know the shutting down of a plant is a big 9
event in the local community and in the state.
10 We're here to hear your comments and answer 11 any questions that you may have. We have a number of 12 the NRC staff here. We don't have everybody that I 13 would have liked to have had here as experts, but we're 14 going to try and answer your questions. If we can't, 15 we'll be happy to get back to you.
16 So with that, I've got my first slide up 17 there. It's actually my pleasure to be here. I know 18 it's quite an experience for the plant to shut down.
19 I want to just give you a brief overview of the 20 regulatory process that we'll be following tonight, 21 but the plant will have, and address any specific 22 questions you have about the Post-Shutdown 23 Decommissioning Activities Report. Next slide.
24 This is an NRC Category 3 meeting, which 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 means we're here to hear your comments. It will be 1
transcribed. So if you're bashful about talking on 2
a microphone, please, we have some cards, you can write 3
some questions down and hand them up to us. We do ask 4
that you state your name so we know who's speaking, 5
and then you can make your comment or ask your question.
6 We do have meeting feedback forms and 7
brochures over here for your use. We really would like 8
the feedback on the meeting. Yes, sir.
9 MR. TITTEL: Can I just ask your name, sir?
10 MR. WATSON: Oh, I'm sorry, I'm Bruce 11 Watson. I thought I introduced myself before. I'm 12 Chief of the Reactor Decommissioning Branch at NRC.
13 I'm out of Headquarters in Rockville, MD. Right now 14 my other presenter up here, Doug Broaddus, is the Branch 15 Chief for the Operating Reactor, And the project 16 management of Oyster Creek right now rests in his 17 organization.
18 And then when it goes into decommissioning 19 soon after it shuts down, it will be transferred to 20 my organization to oversee the decommissioning 21 activities. Okay? And Zahira Cruz right here will 22 be the Project Manager after it's transferred to us 23 from the Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation. So I'm 24 in the Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards, 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 okay. Sorry about that.
1 We do have a meeting facilitator, Richard.
2 When I get finished with my short talk here, he's going 3
to go over how he's going to handle the ground rules 4
for the comment period, and we want to get on with that 5
as much as we can, as much time for that.
6 So I'm going to talk about the reactor 7
decommissioning process. Mr. Jeff Dostal's going to 8
talk about the Exelon PSDAR Post-Shutdown 9
Decommissioning Activities Report, which they have 10 submitted to the NRC. Doug will talk about the PSDAR 11 review process, and then we'll go into a comment period 12 for you, okay.
13 MR. TITTEL: What's a PSDAR?
14 MR.
WATSON:
Post-Shutdown 15 Decommissioning Activities Report.
16 MR. TITTEL: Thank you.
17 MR. WATSON: We at the NRC have a tendency 18 to use too many acronyms, I agree with you, so 19 Post-Shutdown Decommissioning Activities Report.
20 Next slide, please.
21 The NRC regulations for decommissioning 22 are over 20 years old. As a matter of fact, they're 23 21 years this year. And this slide shows that we've 24 terminated licenses for over 72 complex material sites, 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 reactors, power reactors, and research reactors.
1 As a matter of fact, ten power reactors 2
have completed decommissioning and had their licenses 3
terminated. So it's nothing new to us in how this work 4
is done, and we ensure it gets done safely. Next slide, 5
please.
6 Some of the key regulations are Part 20 7
in the federal regulations, in particular Subpart (e),
8 the license termination describes the process for the 9
unrestricted release criteria.
10 All of the sites that have been 11 decommissioned in the US, including the power reactors, 12 have been released for unconditional or unrestricted 13 use, meaning the owner can use the property for any 14 purpose they want to after we terminate the license.
15 Which means that the site has been radiologically 16 decontaminated and meets our criteria for unrestricted 17 use. So it can be used for any purpose.
18 The next license is the, next regulation 19 is Part 50, which is the power reactor license. Under 20 Part 50.82, it actually describes the reactor 21 decommissioning process. So if you want to look that 22 up you can do that.
23 Another important regulation is Part 72, 24 which deals with the storage of the spent fuel, okay.
25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 So that's going to be at the site for quite a while.
1 The last information that I want to convey 2
to you is that we have an inspection manual, 2561, which 3
governs the reactor decommissioning process. One of 4
the biggest things I hear is that when the plant shuts 5
down, the NRC goes away. Can't be farther from the 6
truth.
7 We will be inspecting the plant until the 8
license is terminated, no matter how long it takes.
9 So we will have here, have inspectors here ensuring 10 the plant is maintained in a safe condition until the 11 license is terminated. So we don't go away. We stay 12 until the plant is totally cleaned up. Next slide, 13 please.
14 Just some key milestones for Oyster Creek.
15 They notified us they were shut down in 2018. They 16 submitted their PSDAR to us in May. It is publically 17 available in ADAMS, which is our Agency-wide document 18 management system, yeah, I always forget.
19 But we also published it in the Federal 20 Register on June 11, and we also advertised this meeting 21 in local newspapers, a couple of local shore ones and 22 the Asbury Park Press, right? Yeah. I used to live 23 here, so. I used to live right down the street here 24 30 years ago, so.
25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 The decommissioning process -- I had 1
another job to go to. We have basically a process we 2
call DECON in which the plant is, basically once they 3
shut down they will begin dismantling activities.
4 The other part is that, SAFSTOR, it can 5
go into a condition called SAFSTOR where basically the 6
plant is put and placed in a safe condition, basically 7
in a storage situation. And that'll be decommissioned 8
at a date later.
9 Right now, I can tell you that we have six 10 plants in DECON. The two plants at Zion, one at La 11 Crosse in Wisconsin, and the two plants in, excuse me.
12 Those three plants, plus Humboldt Bay in California, 13 will be having their licenses terminated probably in 14 2019-2020. So we have four more that are completing 15 decommissioning. So we'll have 14 in total in a few 16 years.
17 Right now, there are 14 plants in SAFSTOR, 18 and they can be decommissioned any time the owner plans 19 to start that. The key thing I want you to realize 20 is that once the plant shuts down, it is put in a safe 21 condition. Pretty much all the liquids in the plant 22 are, with the exception of those required to keep the 23 fuel cool, are removed from the plant and processed, 24 and so there's no water to leak.
25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 So once the fuel is put into dry storage, 1
the licensee will decommission the spent fuel pool and 2
drain the water out of that and process that. So 3
there's no water actually to be leaking into the ground.
4 And so it becomes a very safe condition, and that way 5
the plant is basically ready to be decommissioned or 6
dismantled at any time.
7 So to get to these two situations, DECON 8
and SAFSTOR, it takes six months to a year or more to 9
get the plant ready for decommissioning.
10 The other thing I want you to realize is 11 that the plant will be decommissioned and to be done 12 under a current safety evaluation system that we use 13 right now to de-operate the plant.
14 Within two years if they want to -- within 15 two years of the decommissioning being completed or 16 when they want to terminate the license, they're 17 required to submit to us a license termination plan, 18 which is basically a technical document that tells us 19 how they're going to ensure that they've cleaned up 20 the site completely to meet the unrestricted release 21 criteria.
22 And then of course we'll be inspecting the 23 plant as it's being decommissioned, or if it remains 24 in SAFSTOR, we'll be here also to inspect the plant 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 periodically.
1 Radiological decommissioning must be 2
completed in 60 years. I was misquoted in the local 3
paper saying that the process takes 60 years. No, the 4
process takes about seven to ten years for the plant 5
to be dismantled.
6 The regulations allow the plant to be in 7
a SAFSTOR condition for up to around 50 years, but the 8
decommissioning has to be completed within 60 years.
9 And that's part of the regulations that went into 10 effect back in the 1990s. And so that's the process 11 we follow right now.
12 So the plant could be in a SAFSTOR situation 13 for up to around 50 years, and then they have to start 14 decommissioning to complete the decommissioning within 15 60 years. Next slide, please.
16 The Post-Shutdown Decommissioning 17 Activities Report, or PSDAR we call it, is required 18 to have basically three things: a description and 19 schedule for the plant decommissioning activities; it 20 is required to provide to us a site-specific 21 decommissioning cost estimate, including the cost for 22 managing the fuel into the future; and a discussion 23 on, that provides the means for including the 24 Environmental Impact Statements, impacts associated 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 with the decommissioning, will be bounded by the 1
appropriate Environmental Impact Statement for the 2
plant as it is today. If not, they have to describe 3
that to us.
4 So basically, the PSDAR requires three main 5
things. Next slide. The NRC regulations require that 6
we hold a public meeting on the PSDARs issued in the 7
vicinity of the plants. So that's why we're here now.
8 We're about halfway through the comment 9
period of 90 days. We try to do it like in the middle 10 of the comment period so people have time to look at 11 and to also provide us comments if they want to provide 12 it and write to the NRC.
13 We will make the PSDAR publically 14 available, which we've done, and it's in ADAMS. One 15 thing I want you to realize is we do not approve the 16 PSDAR. It's merely a report on the planned activities 17 by the licensee, in this case Exelon, what their plans 18 are for doing the decommissioning.
19 It is mainly a resource document to us that 20 tells us how we're going to manage our inspection 21 schedule to be here when things need to be inspected.
22 It also allows us to ensure that we keep the plant 23 observed and in a safe condition.
24 The other thing is is that the licensee 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 may begin the major decommissioning activities 90 days 1
after we receive the report. So they're able to start 2
any time after the comment period on decommissioning 3
activities. Next slide.
4 In summary, I want to mention again that 5
we are, the NRC is an experienced regulator. We have 6
an experienced decommissioning regulatory program.
7 We have comprehensive regulations. We have extensive 8
decommissioning technical guidance for use. We have 9
proven NRC oversight. We've completed ten of these 10 power reactors and been released for license terminated 11 for unrestricted us.
12 We do this by issuing licensing 13 requirements, which maintain a safety envelope, so to 14 speak, for the plant. And we maintain an inspection 15 program to ensure that we have people here, boots on 16 the ground, to observe the decommissioning activities 17 to make sure that things are done safely and 18 compliantly.
19 If you want to get some general reading 20 on decommissioning, you're welcome to go to www.nrc.gov 21 and just, if you want to just search decommissioning, 22 you'll find just about anything you want to know about 23 decommissioning on there.
24 With that, I'll turn it over to Jeff. All 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 right.
1 MR. DOSTAL: Good evening. My name's Jeff 2
Dostal. Just a little bit about my background. I've 3
been living in Lacey for the past 25 years. I've worked 4
at Oyster Creek for the past 35. I've held positions 5
in just about every department except for Security, 6
and my latest position right now is Director of 7
Decommissioning.
8 Just prior to that position, I was a Plant 9
Manager, and prior to that, I was Maintenance Director 10 and the Operations Director.
11 Once we shut down, I will revert back to 12 the Plant Manager and oversee basically the 13 decommissioning. Next slide, Bruce, please.
14 This is a little background about Oyster 15 Creek. Oyster Creek started operation, commercial 16 operations in December of 1969. That'll put us about 17 49 years of operational service to the community.
18 We've got a capacity of 637 megawatts electric. That 19 powers more than 600,000 homes right now.
20 We have about 450 employees on site.
21 That's down slightly from the number that we normally 22 run at. We normally run around 500, 550. So we 23 transferred about 100 people, with some retirements.
24 Once we shut down and get into decommissioning, we'll 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 be about 300 people on site. So we're going to retire 1
or move another 150 people to other sites.
2 The site has a total acreage of 779 people.
3 Bruce, and go back up one slide. Perfect. We'll 4
starting with powering the community, and again, just 5
a little bit of background. Exelon contributes more 6
than $20 million to charities and other contributions, 7
through other contributions. Oyster Creek itself gave 8
$400,000, more than $400,000 from the employees at 9
Oyster Creek in 2017.
10 This year, even with a reduction in staff, 11 we expect to give over $200,000 to different community 12 charitable organizations. United Way, Popcorn Park 13 Zoo, Lacey Food Bank, Lacey Lighthouse Athletic Center, 14 and so on. Next slide, please.
15 Also, we do a lot of outreach. So we do 16 15 years, tours per year at Oyster Creek. People come 17 to learn about nuclear power. We have more than 20 18 school visits, so civic events and things like that, 19 teaching youngsters about engineering and looking at 20 opportunities in the job market.
21 Our community outreach includes this 22 Energy Education Day, Community Information Night, 23 career and science fairs. We have a stake of a planned 24 dinner at the end of the year to discuss our progress, 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 what we've done, and lessons learned. We also have 1
a stakeholder information form. So basically a group 2
getting together and providing information on 3
decommissioning at the site. Next slide, please.
4 Oyster Creek's decommissioning strategy 5
will be in SAFSTOR. We expect to be in SAFSTOR by 2024.
6 MR. WATSON: I skipped a slide.
7 MR. DOSTAL: Okay. All right, we'll go 8
back to the next slide. This slide, the physical 9
characteristics of the site. Again, we said 779 acres.
10 One hundred and fifty-two acres that you see here are 11 inside the horseshoe, as we call it, bounded by the 12 waterway and Route 9.
13 That's the site proper itself, that is what 14 we will be decommissioning. And that is what we will 15 provide remediation for.
16 Six hundred and twenty-seven acres are on 17 Finninger Farm. Those are already released, and we 18 do have plans to donate 270 acres to Lacey Township.
19 The main body of water for cooling is Barnegat Bay.
20 As we shut down, as we get into two months of operation, 21 well, past operation, we're going to reduce flow through 22 the canal by 96 percent.
23 So from we are now, the flow is reduced 24 96%, reducing the amount of water we take from Barnegat 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 Bay. Next slide, please.
1 Here again, as I started before, our 2
strategy is go to SAFSTOR, all right. So we've worked 3
very closely with local stakeholders, the state, the 4
NRC to develop our plan for decommissioning. We took 5
into consideration a number of different factors.
6 We've cited SAFSTOR as the best way for 7
us to go. And there's really two main reasons for that.
8 One, natural decay of radiation. So by looking and 9
watching half-lives decreasing, we'll lower the dose 10 we're going to give to workers during the 11 decommissioning process.
12 Also, we'll reduce, we'll naturally reduce 13 the amount of radioactive waste that we would have to 14 send to a landfill.
15 Once we continue with the SAFSTOR, we will 16 assess the site. We'll continue to work and look at 17 the characteristics of the site. We're allowed up to 18 60 years to decommission. That may be shorter, all 19 right. So we may take a shorter amount of time, based 20 on the new technologies being developed and the work 21 that we'll do with the NRC and the local state.
22 Planning for SAFSTOR is performed such that 23 we can start decommissioning at any time, all right.
24 So essentially the first three years of 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 decommissioning, whether you go to SAFSTOR or immediate 1
decommissioning, it's all the same activities pretty 2
much.
3 When you think about it, our nuclear 4
security at the site, trying to get a single truck onto 5
the site takes a half hour, 45 minutes, up to an hour 6
to get that truck on site. It would just not be feasible 7
to get the number of people and trucks on site that 8
we need to decommission.
9 Again, that is one of the reasons we will 10 drive fuel to dry storage as soon as possible. And 11 with that, we reduce the boundary. And I'll talk a 12 little bit about that later, but that's your boundary 13 at the site. Go back again, Bruce. He's trying to 14 rush me.
15 Like I said, the whole strategy is moving 16 fuel to dry storage as soon as possible is the best 17 to reduce risk and most efficient for fuel storage.
18 During SAFSTOR, for one of the first things 19 we do, as Bruce talked about, we will retire any 20 structures or systems that do not support spent fuel 21 storage. That means draining oil, de-energizing, 22 draining water from the system, processing that water, 23 essentially becoming a dry site.
24 Our water management plans at the site are 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 based on the amount of water that's there, but also 1
we've included contingencies for any groundwater in 2
leakage into the site. Best on benchmarking, the 3
benchmarking that we've done, Vermont Yankee has seen 4
up to 2000 gallons of water coming into the site from 5
groundwater.
6 We do have plans to deal with that water 7
coming it. And the best plan, just like a basement, 8
is not to allow that water to get into the plant.
9 The site will be restructured to an ISFSI 10 protected area, and the rest will be an industrial site.
11 So we'll have nuclear security at the ISFSI station, 12 and the rest of the site will be industrial security.
13 Next slide, Bruce.
14 Exelon developed a management model for 15 decommissioning. Based on the number of sites that 16 we have in Exelon, when we start decommissioning, not 17 only at Oyster Creek but other sites going forward.
18 TMI is now, that'll be shutting down in 2019. We're 19 basically, we're going to shut down Clinton, La Salle 20 out west. That was rescinded, but eventually that'll 21 come back up.
22 So we developed plans and procedures for 23 decommissioning. We've said that basically two years 24 prior to decommissioning, we set up a team of 18 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 individuals that will start decommissioning the plant.
1 And those will be plant-knowledgeable people.
2 Once we've shut down Oyster Creek in 3
September 2018, we'll offload the core and place all 4
the fuel from the reactor into the fuel pool. That 5
should take approximately about a month. So once we 6
hit permanently de-fuel, we'll send a letter into the 7
NRC, that'll get certified. And basically it's 8
certified de-fueled, and we will never load fuel into 9
the reactor vessel again.
10 So Phase II we start exactly what we talked 11 about a little earlier, draining systems, moving people 12 out of buildings, moving, consolidating.
13 And basically if you think about it, a major 14 contributor to the cost at Oyster Creek, that 15 decommissioning
- cost, believe it or
- not, the 16 electricity. Our electricity bills. We cannot become 17 a generator, we're a customer, getting power from 18 Consolidated Edison, whoever it is, JCP&L providing 19 the power to us.
20 That's a major cost. That's why we're 21 going to consolidate buildings and move them closer 22 and closer.
23 We start moving the fuel, we're getting 24 ready for an independent spent fuel installation.
25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 That's the acronym ISFSI, when I talk about ISFSI, 1
that's the dry fuel storage path. We'll start getting 2
that ready, the additional fuel that's going to go out 3
there.
4 We'll implement de-fuel licensing and tech 5
specs at that time, which we've already submitted to 6
the NRC for review.
7 In Phase III, approximately two to five 8
years later, and basically we see that starting in 9
October of 2019, we'll transition and move to the fuel 10 to the ISFSI. The final system layouts and SAFSTOR 11 process will begin. We will remove any Part 37 nuclear 12 material from the site.
13 So basically all loose nuclear material 14 will be moved from the site and/or stored. Anything 15 greater than Class C will be stored on the ISFSI path.
16 Once we get to ISFSI-only, which is all 17 fuel in the dry storage system, which we expect by 18 November of 2023, we'll start draining the fuel pool, 19 as Bruce said. The site will be dry of water. All 20 loose nuclear material will be accounted for and removed 21 from the site or stored in a safe condition. And then 22 we will enter ISFSI-only operation in March 2024.
23 And as I said, ISFSI-only operation just 24 basically means that we have nuclear fuel stored in 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 dry storage on the ISFSI pad, nuclear security around 1
that. All the other buildings in the site, all the 2
other systems at the site have been retired and ready 3
to be removed. And basically they are in safe storage.
4 We expect to be all fuel accepted by the 5
DOE. And again, that is an estimated date by our point 6
is September 2034, that's when all the fuel comes off.
7 And then we start site demo and DECON, and have that 8
complete by September of 2077, all right. And that 9
is all based on the 60-year timeline.
10 As I said earlier, that may change, that 11 may be pulled up based on new technology and 12 advancements that we have going forward. Next slide, 13 Bruce.
14 This slide shows, this basically shows the 15 decommissioned independent spent fuel storage 16 installations, as I was speaking about. The top slide 17 or picture on the left is the site itself. The green 18 ring is the large vehicle barrier or the large security 19 perimeter. And the ISFSI itself is in the yellow range.
20 And basically the drawing on the right is a depiction 21 of what ISFSI would look like.
22 All the white areas is the spent fuel that's 23 there right now. And the vertical canisters are the 24 ones that we would be adding, based on the fuel coming 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 out of the reactor vessel. Again, it's a depiction 1
of that. The site itself, again, ISFSI-only would be 2
reduced to about six acres. So a six acre ISFSI-only 3
site not much larger than it is right now. Next slide, 4
Bruce.
5 This slide is a depiction of what risk and 6
how risk changes. So during power operations, we run 7
at a certain risk. We run a reactor that's running 8
at a thousand pounds pressure. We have nuclear 9
material in that, we have water, radioactive water 10 nuclear reactor.
11 And some of you may have heard of it, when 12 I've talked to different outreach groups and different 13 people throughout the Committee, I talk about anybody 14 making tea or coffee on a stove.
15 When you put a kettle on the stove, you 16 put heat under it, you start boiling the water, just 17 like in our reactor. Steam starts coming out, all 18 right. What do you do? You turn it off when steam 19 starts coming out. Essentially, that's what you're 20 doing during decommissioning. You shut down the 21 reactor, you take the mode of force away. That's why 22 you see the large drop immediately in risk.
23 Then you start moving fuel from the reactor 24 vessel into the fuel pool, reducing the amount of 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 potential leak-off points and things like that, 1
consolidating the fuel in one area. And the risk 2
continues to come down. The contained heat from the 3
fuel dissipates rapidly. It goes away very rapidly 4
as you're in the fuel pool. That's why it starts 5
leveling off on the bottom.
6 Once we have all the fuel on the ISFSI pad, 7
with dry fuel storage in itself is a system that does 8
not require power or anything else. When fuel's in 9
the fuel pool, you need electricity, you need water.
10 But once it's in dry storage, you don't need anything 11 but the air because it's sitting on the pad.
12 Again, that's why risk drops off a little 13 bit more as you see going into a Part 72 license. It'll 14 sit there for a period of time until all the fuel's 15 off and eventually the risk goes away once all the fuel 16 comes out. Next slide.
17 Key takeaways. Right now, Exelon is 18 operating Oyster Creek the best it's ever looked. By 19 the time we shut down, we expect to eclipse our longest 20 run ever at Oyster Creek. We did not get an INPO 21 evaluation this year, but we would have gotten an INPO-1 22 rating, the highest rating you can receive from INPO.
23 We'll continue to operate that way. And 24 once we shut down, we will continue the same standards 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 for decommissioning. We're looking for excellence out 1
of these shutdowns. Nuclear, environmental, and 2
industrial safety will remain paramount in our 3
decommissioning efforts. Those will not go away. And 4
they will drive all our decommissioning plans.
5 The nuclear industry, as Bruce talked 6
about, all the other sites that are shutting down.
7 All of our imagined models are developed based on other 8
sites shutting down, the lessons learned that they have 9
had. We've improved upon them, and we continue to 10 improve upon that management model.
11 We'll maintain an effective emergency plan 12 and work with the state throughout decommissioning.
13 It does not go away. Exelon does not have any plans 14 or land to be developed at Oyster Creek at this time, 15 except for return it to restore the site.
16 And then Exelon will continue to work with 17 local officials, governments, all stakeholders to make 18 sure we have transparent communications and provide 19 efficient and expeditious decommissioning of the site.
20 That's it, Bruce.
21 MR. WATSON: Doug Broaddus will be talking 22 about the NRC's review process of the Post-Shutdown 23 Decommissioning Activities Report.
24 MR. BROADDUS: Thank you, Bruce. It's 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 great to see you all out tonight, looks like a great 1
turnout. I'm glad you all braved the weather to be 2
here, and I hope nobody had any trouble getting here, 3
any difficulties along the way.
4 So as Bruce mentioned, my name is Doug 5
Broaddus. I am the Chief of the Special Projects and 6
Process Branch in the Office of Nuclear Regulatory, 7
Nuclear Reactor Regulation, sorry. And -- can you hear 8
me? I'll try to get it closer.
9 So my branch is responsible for the 10 licensing and project manager oversight, project 11 management oversight of the operating site right now, 12 Oyster Creek. John Lamb, who's back over there, is 13 a Project Manager. We do all the licensing for Oyster 14 Creek right now, until they shut down, as Bruce said, 15 until we transfer the project management over to him.
16 I'll let him catch up on the slides here.
17 So while they're trying to figure that out, 18 I'll keep moving on. So part of our review is the 19 Post-Shutdown Decommissioning Activities Report, which 20 we refer to as the PSDAR. And rather than trying to 21 say that every time, I'm going to be using that acronym 22 as well.
23 And so tonight I'm going to keep talking 24 to you about what we do for as part of our review for 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 the PSDAR. One of the key purposes of our review of 1
the PSDAR is going to determine, to ensure that the 2
report contains all the required information, and the 3
licensee's plan is consistent with our regulations.
4 There are a number of regulations that 5
address decommissioning requirements for permanently 6
shut-down reactors. One of those is 10 CFR Part 50.82, 7
which contains many requirements applicable to the 8
transition of a
reactor from operating to 9
decommissioning. And then through the final license 10 termination.
11 10 CFR 50.75 also addresses the funding 12 requirements and reporting requirements for reactor 13 decommissioning and funding. And in particular, 10 14 CFR 50.82(4)(i) is the regulation that contains all 15 the requirements for what the PSDAR must contain.
16 Bruce kind of went over that earlier, and so I'll just 17 summarize those again.
18 Three requirements are it has to have a 19 description and schedule of the planned decommissioning 20 activities, site-specific decommissioning cost 21 estimate, and then a discussion of the environmental 22 impacts.
23 So there's guidance out there that helps 24 to inform our review. One of those is the, there's 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 detailed guidance about what information is required 1
to be in a PSDAR. And that's provided in Regulatory 2
Guide 1.185, which is the standard format and content 3
for the Post-Shutdown Decommissioning Activities 4
Report.
5 Another document is NUREG 1713, which 6
describes how the NRC reviews a PSDAR when we, or I'm 7
sorry, reviews decommissioning cost estimates, which 8
is part of the PSDAR.
9 Due to the scopes of the issues that they're 10 described in the report, the various different 11 activities there, we have a number of reviewers that 12 are assigned to review this in those specific technical 13 areas.
That includes financial analysts and 14 environmental specialists and health physicists.
15 And if at any time during the review we 16 determine that either, there's information lacking from 17 the report or that we need any additional information 18 to complete our review, we'll sent out what we call 19 a Request for Additional Information, or an RAI, to 20 the licensee.
21 And those are publically available, so if 22 you ever want to see what questions we're asking, you 23 can look in our ADAMS system, as Bruce said before, 24 our document management system, see what questions 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 we're asking.
1 Our review also considers the comments that 2
we received during the comment period, including those 3
comments that we might receive tonight. Part of what 4
we do with those, we determine, if based upon those 5
comments, there's a need for any changes to the PSDAR 6
or information that needs to be supplemented in that.
7 We also provide the comments to the 8
licensee for their consideration prior to them 9
conducting any major decommissioning activities. Next 10 slide, please.
11 So this talks about some of the, what 12 specifically we look for. So our review first assesses 13 whether the PSDAR contains all the required information 14 that I mentioned on the prior slide. We also look at 15 the licensee's decommissioning approach that Mr. Dostal 16 started to discuss before. And that, for Oyster Creek 17 that is the SAFSTOR approach, so that we make sure we 18 understand it and it meets all the requirements.
19 We'll assess whether the
- plan, in 20 particular we'll assess whether the plan demonstrates 21 that they can complete the decommissioning and license 22 termination within the 60-year period. And then we 23 also assess whether the plan is, whether there is 24 adequate funding to complete that decommissioning 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 license termination. And I'll talk about that in 1
another slide.
2 Although we don't approve the PSDAR, there 3
are a number of factors that could actually end up with 4
us determining that the PSDAR is deficient. And I'll 5
give you some examples of those circumstances which 6
could lead to that. The licensee, you know, if the 7
licensee's plan for decommissioning could not be 8
completed as described in their plan, we would find 9
that a deficiency.
10 An example of that is they're expecting 11 to go into immediate decontamination, as Bruce talked 12 about before, but there's no place for them to send 13 the waste to. Then they actually couldn't, it would 14 be impossible for them to complete it under that plan 15 in that case.
16 Since they're in SAFSTOR, you know, we'll 17 look to see whether or not they can complete it within 18 the 60 years. If they couldn't complete it within the 19 60-year period, then they would need to revise their 20 plan to demonstrate why a -- either revise their plan 21 or demonstrate why they need a longer decommissioning 22 period. And then that would require our approval for 23 that extension beyond the 60 years.
24 The other is if the plan doesn't 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 demonstrate sufficient funds are available to complete 1
the decommissioning.
2 So we look at different standardized ways 3
of doing cost estimates and compare that against what 4
the licensees provided to ensure that they're able to 5
complete it. Do an independent review to ensure that 6
they're able to, their estimates of how much it's going 7
to cost are consistent with those other, those 8
estimating, the standard estimating methods and ensure 9
that they have a sufficient funding for that.
10 If they don't, then they would have to 11 provide an additional funding source or change their 12 approach so that they could complete it within that 13 time period. You have a question?
14 I'm sorry, I'm trying my best. I'm sorry?
15 I try to, I'm not. So I'll actually move 16 to the middle here. Maybe that'll help that. Yes, 17 sir.
18 MR. TITTEL: On the estimated cost, what 19 kind of lead time do you have on work actually completed 20 and monies left over?
21 MR. BROADDUS: Sean, do you understand 22 that? Sean is one of our financial reviewers. Let 23 me give you the microphone.
24 MR. TITTEL: The question is throughout 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 the decommissioning process, you --
1 MR. BROADDUS: Let me ask.
2 MR. TITTEL: To ensure you have monies left 3
over. First part of the question is how many dollars 4
are allocated --
5 MR. BROADDUS: Sean, I think --
6 MR. TITTEL: Cost would be?
7 MR. WATSON: Once the plan goes into 8
decommission, they've submitted to us their 9
site-specific estimate, each year, in March of each 10 year, they're required to send us a report on the status 11 of the decommissioning process. So every year they're 12 reporting to us what money is left or how much money 13 has been grown and what remaining work is to be done 14 at the site.
15 So we take a look at that each year and 16 verify that they continue to have enough money left 17 to complete the decommissioning.
18 MR. TITTEL: Money provided to you with 19 a starting number.
20 MR. WATSON: Right.
21 MR. TITTEL: That's $500 million?
22 MR. WATSON: Five hundred eighty-four 23 million, I think.
24 MR.
BROADDUS:
Can we finish our 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 presentations and then we'll try and get through?
1 Okay, thank you. So actually, and I'll talk a little 2
bit more about the cost estimates in the next slide.
3 So let me see, did I miss, oh yeah.
4 So I think the next is the, does the, is 5
the PSDAR consistent with our requirements. And is 6
it protective of public health and safety, which is 7
again, it has to meet all of our requirements for public 8
health and safety.
9 So if at any time we determine that it's 10 deficient, then we can take action to prevent the 11 licensee from proceeding until they have an adequate 12 decommissioning plan. We haven't as of yet, had to 13 do that, but we have that capability to do that if 14 necessary. Next slide. No, you got the next slide.
15 All right.
16 So this is specific to our cost estimate.
17 We look at the entire costs from start to finish, for 18 the entire 60-year period, or if it's going to be 19 shorter, you know, for a shorter time period. This 20 is typically an area, it is of very much interest to 21 the community. Wanting to know, you know, do they have 22 enough money, where is the money, do they have it.
23 And yes, they're required, when they shut 24 down, to be able to demonstrate that they have that 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 money at that time. Then our regulations have a 1
mechanism, you know, of calculation basically, of the 2
means by which demonstrate that, and as Bruce indicated, 3
they have to do that, report that to us every year.
4 Once they decide to shut down, then they 5
have, the report goes from every two years to an every 6
year period. So they're constantly looking at that, 7
we're constantly looking at their report and whether 8
or not they're staying plan, with a plan for the 9
spending, that they have money left over at the end 10 or they have enough.
11 So to ensure that, one of the things we 12 do is we look at all the different costs and the 13 activities that they've described, and we make sure 14 that their plan actually includes all of the appropriate 15 costs and activities that are required, and that they 16 properly account for each of those costs.
17 And our criteria is does that provide 18 reasonable assurance that they're going to have 19 sufficient funds at the end of the decommissioning to 20 complete all those activities. We look at the 21 techniques and the technologies that they're planning 22 to use and whether the cost estimates are realistic 23 based on those types of, those planned activities.
24 Does it account for all activities needed 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 to complete decommissioning, based on that approach, 1
whatever approach they've chosen. If it's DECON, 2
they'll be using different technologies, different 3
approaches. If it's SAFSTOR, they'll be using another 4
type.
5 And again, looking at whether those also 6
realistic. We have experience on the cost of, Bruce 7
said, what it's cost decommissioning other plants.
8 And so we can keep up on those understandings and make 9
sure we know that they're realistic or not.
10 So we also want to make sure that the 11 licensee understands and has accounted for all of the 12 potential changes, you know, or potential changes that 13 could occur over the life of the decommissioning 14 process. So one of the areas we look for is is there 15 a mechanism for them to adjust the funding or adjust 16 the spending going forward.
17 So we look at that to make sure that they've 18 described how they would account for any changes in 19 the circumstances to ensure that they continue to 20 maintain the funds. And as I indicated before, this 21 is not just a one-time review.
22 It's something that we do on a continuous, 23 on an annual basis to look at this review. And we also 24 will have inspectors going out and looking at the 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 activities, so we'll be communicating with them to make 1
sure that they're keeping on track for the costs.
2 So the last thing is if at any point 3
throughout the 60-period for Oyster Creek in this case, 4
if the licensee makes any significant changes from the 5
original plan that we reviewed, they're required to 6
notify us of that.
7 So we would know shortly after that they've 8
made a change, that their change has been planned.
9 We would re-look at their plan and make all these 10 assessments and determinations again. Next slide.
11 All right. So as I mentioned before, part 12 of our review is to determine that the licensee has 13 adequately addressed the environmental impacts that 14 could occur during decommissioning. In particular, 15 we look at how the environmental impacts compare with 16 previous Environmental Impact Statements or 17 Environmental Reviews that have been performed on the 18 plant.
19 There are a couple different points through 20 the life of the plant, their licensing of the plant 21 where they may have done an environmental review.
22 First is that the original licensing, there's typically 23 an Environmental Review done on them.
24 Second time, second required time would 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 be during license renewal. And what was the third one, 1
I'm sorry, they've not listed it. Oh, and the third 2
Environmental Impact Statement that we've done is we've 3
prepared a generic Environmental Impact Statement for 4
decommissioning.
5 That addresses, we did the study of all 6
the different decommissionings that have been done in 7
the past and then identified specific environmental 8
impacts associated with decommissioning at the reactor 9
site.
10 That review or that Environmental Impact 11 Statement is narrow from the perspective of activities 12 that are going to be the same across any plant, but 13 there are also site-specific activities that could 14 impact each plant based upon their site-specific 15 circumstances.
16 So in those cases, the licensee needs to 17 ensure that they've addressed those site-specific 18 issues as part of their review, even those other 19 previous Environmental Review Statements.
20 So part of our review is, you know, does 21 the environmental, the assessment that they've done 22 and described in their PSDAR, does that comport with 23 the plan that they have? Have they accounted for all 24 the different potential environmental impacts that 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 could occur during decommissioning?
1 And that, it may not be that they have to 2
account for them now, but they also have a plan for 3
how if something happens in the future, how they would 4
address that. Because if you start something 50 years 5
from now, you may not understand what all the 6
environmental impacts are going to be at that time.
7 So we look at that as well.
8 MR. TITTEL: Can I ask a quick question?
9 MR. BROADDUS: Sure.
10 MR. TITTEL: Is there an opportunity for 11 a public hearing when you have a generic Environmental 12 Impact Statement?
13 MR. BROADDUS: No, the only time that that 14 occurs, and I was going to get to that, so --
15 MR. TITTEL: I'm sorry.
16 MR. BROADDUS: So if there are ever are 17 any significant environmental impacts that have not 18 been previously accounted for in those previous 19 Environmental Impact Statements and Environmental 20 Reviews, the licensee has a choice.
21 They can either their plans and do 22 something different, so that they don't have those 23 environmental impacts. Or they can submit an action 24 to us for approval that would also, that could also 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 include an Environmental Review at that time.
1 MR. TITTEL: Do that action for approval 2
trigger a public hearing?
3 MR. BROADDUS: If it's a license amendment 4
request, yes it would.
5 MR.
TITTEL:
Is that what your 6
interpretation of the action, it would be a license 7
amendment request, or would it be an exemption?
8 MR. BROADDUS: They could be one or the 9
other.
10 MR. TITTEL: Understand. So it shows --
11 MR. BROADDUS: It depends upon the 12 circumstances.
13 MR. TITTEL: Again, if they chose an 14 exemption, there would be no opportunity.
15 MR. WATSON: That's right. Okay, can we 16 finish the presentation please?
17 MR. BROADDUS: So it, and again, as I've 18 mentioned before with the decommissioning cost 19 estimate, that review is not a one-time review. We 20 continue to have oversight of the environmental impacts 21 throughout the decommissioning process. So our 22 inspection oversight activities.
23 And so if we identify that there are any 24 impacts that are occurring and at some future date we'll 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 take action on that.
1 MR. SPALTRO: I have a question for you.
2 MR. BROADDUS: Sure.
3 MR. SPALTRO: So as a practical matter, 4
we're talking about, these are good intentions, right.
5 And the good intentions are going to be overseen by 6
people who are not even born yet. These are human 7
beings that don't exist yet, or maybe they're in diapers 8
right now. So how do you convey these good intentions 9
over time?
10 MR. BROADDUS: Can you identify yourself, 11 sir? Can you identify yourself?
12 MR. SPALTRO: I'm Nick Spaltro.
13 MR. WATSON: Because we're trying to 14 record this. That's why we're hoping to go to questions 15 where we have people speaking into microphones so that 16 he can record your name and your question so we can 17 capture it. That's why I keep insisting that we wait 18 till the end.
19 MR. SPALTRO: All right, we'll wait to the 20 end. But you understand my point. You're at a 21 finality that --
22 MR. BROADDUS: So the question, if I 23 understand, and tell me if I do properly understand 24 it is so how do we ensure that people ten to fifteen 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 years from now --
1 MR. SPALTRO: Or 50 years from now.
2 MR. BROADDUS: Or however long from now 3
that aren't here at the NRC, how are they, they may 4
not be working at the plant right now. How do they, 5
we ensure it? Well, our regulations will still be, 6
either be the same, or if they're changed, it'll go 7
through a rulemaking process, which would still be 8
public input capability for that.
9 We actually had the decommissioning 10 rulemaking ongoing right now, where there's going to 11 be an opportunity soon for public input on that because 12 it's with our Commission for a review. So our 13 regulations stay the same, over time our training of 14 people as we go through this will stay essentially the 15 same, or it'll modify as the requirements modify, as 16 technologies modify. Our oversight of the licensing 17 will also.
18 So I mean, I wasn't born when the first 19 commercial or first nuclear power plant, you know, was 20 built, many, many, many years ago. But I'm here today, 21 I understand it. And that's because we've had people 22 training and doing that knowledge management and 23 knowledge transfer to me over the years.
24 So we're going to continue, as Bruce said, 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 we're going to continue to be here, be in oversight 1
throughout the present, throughout the entire process.
2 That help?
3 MR. SPALTRO: Maybe. The answer is maybe, 4
because I'm not convinced that, you know, when I look 5
at, I'm an engineer and I come from an engineering 6
background. I look at the number of children that are 7
going into engineering in this country versus the people 8
we're bringing in from overseas. In my mind, the people 9
that may be overseeing this may not even be, you know, 10 national.
11 MR. WATSON: The NRC has to comply with 12 the National Environmental Protection Act. It's an 13 act, it's enacted by the federal government, we have 14 environmental reviewers which are trained in it to do 15 that kind of work, along with the ability people, to 16 make sure that the environment and the rest of the site 17 is maintained in a safe condition throughout the 18 decommissioning. Okay?
19 So there are standards we follow, and we're 20 going to continue to follow.
21 MR. BROADDUS: Next slide. All right, so 22 once we complete, our review will be complete once we've 23 verified that the report provides all the required 24 information and is in compliance with our regulations 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 and it is feasible and can be completed with the, 1
implemented within the available funding.
2 So once we complete that review, we will 3
notify the licensee that there's no additional 4
information required. And then we prepare a summary, 5
well, as part of that we also prepare a summary of all 6
the public comments we've received and provide that 7
information to the licensee as well.
8 And that's a
publically available 9
document, so you'll be able to see what our conclusions 10 were as part of that. As Bruce mentioned before, the 11 licensee can't begin major decommissioning activities 12 until at least 90 days after we review or receive the 13 PSDAR. We're in that 90-day period now, so we're in 14 the process right now of conducting that review.
15 So and then the next slide is just a means, 16 we're here to receive public comments tonight. It's 17 part of our review, as I mentioned. These are other 18 opportunities for which you can provide public 19 comments, other than just this meeting.
20 But as Bruce mentioned, you know, the 21 transcript of this will be considered. All public 22 comments as well. And that's why, as he's mentioned, 23 it's important for people to talk through the microphone 24 so that we can get your comments and be able to record 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 those and consider those. All right, thank you.
1 MR. WATSON: We're going to turn it over 2
to Rich, Richard Barkley. He's our facilitator, who 3
will set the ground rules for comments and questions 4
and so.
5 MR. BARKLEY: Okay, thank you. Can you 6
hear me okay? Again, we have limitations for the 7
microphone system, but we'll do as best we can. Do 8
you have trouble hearing on that side? I would ask 9
you to come over to this side of the room.
10 We have tried to fiddle with the speaker 11 system up here. For some reason it's getting some 12 background music, and we've not been able to eliminate 13 that. We do not hear it on this side of the room nor 14 the back.
15 As we start out the meeting, what I'd like 16 to do is call up people who have signed up on cards 17 to speak, either make a statement or ask questions.
18 The NRC staff will respond to that. I'll call three 19 people, so you know you're up in the queue, so you can 20 promptly move to speak here.
21 I would like you to speak from this podium.
22 If you're for some reason physically unable to do that, 23 please let me know. I'll bring the microphone to your 24 location.
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 Again, you can see the way I'm holding the 1
microphone. You're going to have to speak very closely 2
to it. It is helpful if you say your name first because 3
this is being transcribed, so they want to be able to 4
get your name down and assign the comment to you. Okay.
5 We do have some elected representatives 6
in the audience. I'd like to be able to acknowledge 7
their presence. We do have a representative of Senator 8
Menendez's office here. We also have a representative 9
-- would you like to stand up, please. Just to waive, 10 so we know you're here. And thank you.
11 We have a representative of Congressman 12 Smith's office, she's in the back there. And we have 13 the mayor of Lacey Township here. Mayor, did you want 14 to make any remarks or make any comments? I'll let 15 you come up first.
16 If there's any other elected members in 17 the audience, please let me know and please acknowledge 18 yourself now. I can call you up as well.
19 MAYOR CURATOLO: I just want to say, I want 20 to thank the NRC for coming here to have these questions 21 being answered. And I'm sure everybody has a lot of 22 questions, as well as I do. I'm not only your mayor, 23 I'm also a resident of Lacey Township, so I'm concerned 24 also. But I'm sure there's going to be a lot of 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 questions out there.
1 Just be cordial to them. I mean, I know 2
we're, we have a lot of time left to do it, so let's 3
get, you know, all the questions will be answered.
4 I'm sure they have all the answers we need, am I right 5
guys? Right?
6 MR. WATSON: We'll do our best. If we 7
don't, we'll get.
8 MAYOR CURATOLO: So I want to thank you 9
for coming, like I said. It's a nice showing. I know 10 the weather wasn't good. I'm sorry I don't have a 11 blazer on, a political blazer, I call it. But it got 12 soaking wet coming in in that rain, as I'm sure all 13 of you did. So I want to thank you for coming, like 14 I said, and enjoy the evening, ask all your questions 15 you need. So thank you very much.
16 Anybody else in this township really want 17 to say anything? Everybody's good? No? Okay, thank 18 you.
19 MR. BARKLEY: With that, when I call you 20 up, again, I would like to see if you can try to keep 21 your remarks to about three minutes or so, so we can 22 cover everyone. If you go a little bit over, I'll give 23 you a cue and hopefully you can wrap up.
24 Some people have a lot of questions, so 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 if you have five or six questions, I'd ask you to 1
probably state three, ask the NRC staff to respond to 2
them, and go on to the next one. Otherwise it gets 3
to be difficult to remember the long list of questions 4
you have, okay.
5 Any questions for me at this point, before 6
we started? Yes, sir.
7 MR. TITTEL: What's the order, because 8
some people got here early and signed in.
9 MR. BARKLEY: Right now I'm going to go 10 exactly in the order that I saw them sign in. As the 11 evening goes on and we get additional cards, what I'll 12 do is try to shuffle the order a little bit to make 13 sure that every group that wants to speak is 14 represented.
15 So I want to be in all fairness try to get 16 everybody. But at the very least, make sure I've 17 covered all the groups, the organized groups and 18 organizations that are here. Okay, any other questions 19 before we get started?
20 All right, the first person that signed 21 up this evening was Katie Smith of the Pinelands 22 Preservation Alliance.
23 MR. TITTEL: I got here and there was one 24 person in front of me, and --
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 MR. BARKLEY: Your name is?
1 MR. TITTEL: Jeff Tittel.
2 MR. BARKLEY: Do we have the sign-in list?
3 MR. TITTEL: I signed in on --
4 MR. BARKLEY: Oh, you signed.
5 MR. TITTEL: And I signed in on the sheet.
6 MR. BARKLEY: Yeah, okay, I have you, Jeff.
7 I'll bring you up second. Okay, there we go. You 8
were in the pile. So Jeffrey, you'll be second. And 9
then finally Michelle Brunetti will be third. She's 10 11 MS. BRUNETTI: I can go at the end since 12 I'm media.
13 MR. BARKLEY: Okay, that's fine. How 14 about Janet Ulrich will go third then. Okay, Katie, 15 and then again, please hold this up here. This is a 16 little bit awkward, but do your best.
17 MS. SMITH: Thank you. Good evening, my 18 name is Katie Smith, I'm with the Pinelands Preservation 19 Alliance, and I had a question --
20 Okay, how's this?
21 Okay, my name's Katie Smith, I'm with the 22 Pinelands Preservation Alliance. I had a question 23 about the Environmental Impact Statement, particularly 24 the generic Environmental Impact Statement is from 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 2002.
1 The generic Environmental Impact Statement 2
that the PDARS relies on heavily is from 2002. So I'm 3
wondering what the NRC thinks they're missing or could 4
be updated in that statement that's not in there.
5 And specifically, I was looking at the 6
radiological levels, and in the generic Environmental 7
Impact Statement, it has the total effective dose 8
equivalent during decommissioning as 0.1 rem per year.
9 But in the updated code 10 CFR 20.1301 (a), it's listed 10 as 0.5 rem per year, just about half.
11 So I'm wondering what else might need to 12 be updated in the generic EIS, and how that might impact 13 the decommissioning report and decommissioning 14 process.
15 MR. BROADDUS: You're talking about NUREG 16 0586 I believe, which is the generic Environmental 17 Impact Statement. We are in the process of updating 18 that, but pretty much the same methods you would use 19 for decommissioning are still good from 20 years ago.
20 You still have to dismantle the equipment. There's 21 pipes, valves, etc. You have to ship them, the means 22 that you ship either it's by truck, rail, or by barge 23 or whatever.
24 So yes, it is being updated. But we're 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 depending on the current Environmental Impact Statement 1
and anything new that is discovered through the 2
licensee's review and our own Environmental Review of 3
the EIS or EA, Environmental Assessment, to bring that 4
together during this PSDAR so it can be adequately 5
reviewed.
6 So we will do our own independent review.
7 Jeff Rikoff over here will be, is one of our 8
environmental reviewers. And so, but the dose standard 9
is by regulation now, it's 0.25 millirem, excuse me, 10 25 millirem for your plus implementation of the ALARA 11 concept. So it's all been updated in the regulations.
12 MS. SMITH: Okay, thanks.
13 MR. BARKLEY: I don't know that your 14 microphone was working that well, so let's check the 15 volume on that, otherwise we're going to have to hand 16 off back and forth. I may have some batteries in my 17 bag.
18 MR. TITTEL: Thank you. Jeff Tittel, 19 Director, New Jersey Sierra Club. And I just want to 20 start off and say that based on this plan, it looks 21 like the plant will be gone and the site will be 22 completely cleaned up on my 121st birthday. So I'm 23 really glad to wait for that birthday gift.
24 And that's the concern that I have here.
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 Quite frankly, you know, for a lot of reasons, it's 1
good that the plant is closing and decommissioning 2
because of the tritium leaks and many of the other 3
problems and the superheated water heating the bay.
4 However, we're concerned that this should 5
not go to a SAFSTOR system, they should go to immediate 6
dismantling and early release. That's what many of 7
the plants around the country have done. That's how 8
many of the plants around the country have done.
9 Rancho Seco, it took them six year to 10 completely decommission and cart everything away, 11 except for the rods that stayed. Main Yankee, seven 12 years and so on and so forth. We don't know what it's 13 going to be like here 60 years ago. I can tell you 14
-- 60 years from now. I can tell you 60 years ago, 15 my great aunt had a chicken farm and a tom turkey chased 16 me up and down Railroad Avenue.
17 I don't know what's going to happen 60 years 18 from now, but I do know that based on the studies that 19 are out there, that sea level rise and storm surges 20 are going to increase. We're 17 times more likely to 21 have another Hurricane Sandy in the next 40 years than 22 we were just before Hurricane Sandy.
23 There are studies from Rutgers and NOAA 24 that talk about a two to four foot rise in sea level 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 in the next six years. We've seen now go to Barnegat 1
Bay, going to Long Beach Island, you'll see fish 2
swimming in storm drains every time there's a high tide.
3 When there's a full moon, people have to move their 4
cars for a few blocks.
5 We don't know what the conditions are going 6
to be here. One of the studies say that the barrier 7
islands will be overrun by 50 years from now. So that's 8
a real concern, and the EIS doesn't address that.
9 Second and foremost is if you do it now, 10 the cost is less. And it's not their money, it's our 11 money. There's already over $800 million in the Plant 12 Closure Fund. That didn't come from Exelon, that came 13 from the rate base.
14 Now they're talking about, by delaying it 15 60 years, at least 1.4 billion. Does that include 16 inflation and other cost changes? Who's going to pay 17 for it? We will. And they get to make ten or, they 18 get to make 12% profit on the closure fund. So don't 19 think it's something for free.
20 But if you close it quicker, and the plants 21 that were closed within six years, they cost $700 22 million. They want to go a hundred and, you know, they 23 want to go 1.4 billion or maybe more.
24 And so for us, you know, that is a real 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 concern that we have because we know that sea level 1
rise is getting worse, we can clean this plant up and 2
turn it into productive uses in a much sooner, much 3
sooner, and you know, turn it back into a ratable.
4 We can have a solar farm, you could do many things there.
5 My biggest concern is how quickly we get 6
into dry cask storage from those cooling pools.
7 Because again, we're vulnerable. During Sandy, the 8
water came pretty close to the plant. We get another 9
big storm, and if they're not cooled down and in dry 10 cask, quite frankly we're really concerned about that.
11 And that could happen any time we get a hurricane.
12 And so the sooner the better. And you can 13 actually do it, if you do an accelerated program within 14 three years even less. And we'd like to see that 15 happen.
16 And finally --
17 MR. WATSON: Could you indicate, when you 18 say you're concerned about it.
19 MR. TITTEL: Well, the cooling pool.
20 Because our concern is that having these pools are 21 vulnerable for, if there's a major storm or a power 22 outage, that the cooling won't continue to take place.
23 That we can get a storm surge that could actually reach 24 the pools. And that's our concern.
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 And then my final, and this is, because 1
I know I don't want to take so much time --
2 MR. BARKLEY: You're right at the edge.
3 MR. TITTEL: Okay, my final point that I 4
want to make is that we're talking storing the dry cask 5
rods here and that, you know, in what you're building.
6 We don't know for how many years. How's it going to 7
be engineered? Is it going to be engineered to last 8
a thousand years, ten thousand years, the half-life 9
of it?
10 We don't know what, you know, how's it going 11 to be structured to deal with sea level rise and other 12 issues that are going to affect this area. And that's 13 the real concern that we have.
14 We believe that, again, I'm just summing 15 up, you know 60 years is way too long to wait. You 16 know, we can do it a lot quicker, a lot faster, a lot 17 cheaper and turn the place into productive use a lot 18 sooner. Thank you.
19 MR. WATSON: Well, first of all, I just 20 want to respond to a couple things. Well, first of 21 all, thanks for your comments. I'm trying to make sure 22 I get this at the right angle. This one's working 23 better? Okay.
24 First of all, 60 years is what the 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 regulation requires, and that they be completed by.
1 So it's really up to Exelon and their business decision 2
how they and when they do the decommissioning.
3 I will tell you it takes about five years 4
for the fuel to cool down in most plants for it to be 5
put into dry storage. So their plan takes that into 6
account. And it seems to me that their schedule allows 7
them to transfer the fuel at the earliest convenient 8
time, because they're going to have to be able to change 9
the site dramatically for the safer situation at the 10 site as the decreasing the security and other things.
11 The decommissioning funds are maintained 12 in an independent trust. Most of those are with an 13 independent bank. I think one of the major banks in 14 the US, Mellon Bank, maintains most of the utilities' 15 trust funds. So there's real restrictions on how they 16 can be invested. And so they are conservative in that 17 they maintain themselves but do grow.
18 But those funds are controlled by the state 19 and the Public Service Commission. What happens with 20 any funds that are left over? The NRC has no say in 21 that. We do not regulate commerce.
22 And I think it's important that, you know, 23 the federal government has a responsibility for the 24 disposal of nuclear fuel, and so that is a reflection 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 on our elected officials in Washington to resolve that 1
issue.
2 The NRC's role in that is to make sure that 3
these dry fuel storage facilities remain safe 4
throughout whatever life and time they are there. And 5
so that's what our mission is and we'll make sure that 6
gets done.
7 MR. BARKLEY: Okay, thank you. Janet 8
Ulrich.
9 MS. ULRICH: I'm going to pass.
10 MR. BARKLEY: You going to pass? Okay, 11 Janet. The next three people will be Paul Gunter, and 12 then the Connollys, and finally Ron Martyn. Come on 13 up, Paul, nice to see you again.
14 MR. GUNTER: Thank you. Good evening, my 15 name is Paul Gunter, and I'm with Beyond Nuclear. And 16 we're based out of Takoma Park, MD.
17 Now, you're probably wondering why I came 18 up to Forked River from Washington, DC. And the concern 19 is is that the, you know, decommissioning has a big 20 impact on communities. And I think that what you 21 clearly understand is that the plan that Exelon 22 Generation has chosen for your community will have the 23 most precipitous economic impact on your community.
24 Essentially it is just, you're just falling 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 off a cliff with this plan to put off decommissioning 1
for half a century. And you know, your grandchildren 2
will likely be impacted by that process. But the plan 3
right now is to do the minimum amount of work, and then 4
put Oyster Creek into a state of cold and dark.
5 And that's why they're draining all the 6
pipes, is because this place is not even going to be 7
heated. And so you're going to have this hulk in your 8
community.
9 And what our concern is is that what has 10 been missing from this presentation tonight is there 11 is an economic driver for your community that the NRC 12 research staff has requested and two national 13 laboratories, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory 14 out on the West Coast, the NRC Research Division, and 15 Oak Ridge National Lab have all recognized that 16 decommissioning is not just about dismantling and 17 decontaminating and moving this radioactive waste 18 somewhere else.
19 In fact, what the Pacific Northwest 20 National Laboratory recognized is that decommissioning 21 is not just a process for dismantling nuclear reactors 22 and remediating radioactive contamination for 23 restoration. Decommissioning has an increasingly 24 important role at end-of-reactor life cycle for the 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 scientific scrutiny of projected safety margins and 1
potential hazards at operating reactors that are 2
seeking longer and longer license extensions.
3 Now what you should know is that last week 4
Exelon Generation put an application in to the NRC to 5
extend the operating license for Peach Bottom Unit 2 6
and Unit 3 in Pennsylvania. Now, Peach Bottom 2 and 7
Peach Bottom 3 are essentially identical in design to 8
Oyster Creek. And what the, these are, there are all 9
three General Electric Mark 1 boiling water reactors.
10 They essentially use the same, there are 11 the same materials that Oyster Creek has now undergone 12 as you mentioned earlier 50 years of aging. There are 13 some 16 different age-related degradation mechanisms 14 going on when these plants are operating, due to the 15 harsh operational environment of fissioning.
16 And that includes embrittlement, it 17 includes stress corrosion cracking, it includes 18 corrosion. And this plant is the oldest operating 19 boiling water reactor in the world.
20 And so what the national lab and the NRC 21 Research Division have been requesting and documented 22 back to 2015, and again, by a report that came out in 23 a poster session at the Regulatory Information 24 Conference in March of 2018 that's calling for Exelon 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 and other decommissioning plants to start harvesting, 1
you know, essentially do an autopsy.
2 When this plant goes to the great 3
by-and-by, they want concrete, they want metal, they 4
want electrical cable that has undergone heat 5
radiation, fatigue, embrittlement, all kinds of effects 6
so that when the NRC begins the process of reviewing 7
extending Peach Bottom's, this is Exelon's other 8
boiling water reactors, when they start looking to 9
extend those licenses from 60 to 80 years, that they 10 will have real, aged materials from the oldest Mark 11 1 in the world right here in Forked River.
12 And what we've seen, and again, the concern 13 that brings us here, is that, you know, as many as 14 admittedly ten nuclear stations have been 15 decommissioned, 20 are under process. But the NRC 16 admits that they don't have enough samples of this real 17 aged material to start filling in the blanks on the 18 knowledge gaps that are popping up in these applications 19 to extend reactor operations 60-80 years.
20 And that's because, in our view, the 21 operators, they, like Exelon, they don't really 22 appreciate that kind of transparency. And so when 23 Exelon talks about putting Oyster Creek cold and dark 24 for 50 years, that's not just about that plant. That's 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 about scientific information, scientific study that 1
your national labs and elements of the US Nuclear 2
Regulatory Commission have been arguing for.
3 And again, the concern is is that, you know, 4
our due process, when this plant shuts down, our due 5
process shuts down as well. You know, you don't have 6
a say in how this plant will be managed cold and dark.
7 You don't really have an opportunity to appeal a 8
decision to let this process go and your grandchildren 9
and your great grandchildren be responsible for the 10 decommissioning process.
11 And it's our concern that, particularly 12 this is a message to Congress. That we have a white 13
- paper, we've made it available
- through, a
14 decommissioning white paper, that essentially says that 15 Congress, the Department of Energy, and the US Nuclear 16 Regulatory Commission have a liability to make the 17 operators like Exelon who want to extend their profits 18 in longer and longer operations, we want them to pay 19 their fair share for doing the science that will provide 20 some kind of reliability.
21 And as they say, and this'll be my closing 22 note.
23 MR. BARKLEY: Very good.
24 MR. GUNTER: This is from Pacific 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 Northwest National Laboratories. It reads, and this 1
is a December 2017 report, it says, Post-shutdown 2
autopsies are necessary for, quote, reasonable 3
assurance that systems, structures, and components are 4
able to meet their safety functions.
5 Many of the remaining questions regarding 6
degradation of materials will likely require, and it's 7
underlined for emphasis, a combination of laboratory 8
studies, as well as other research conducted on 9
materials sampled from plants decommissioning or 10 operating.
11 PNNL reiterates, Where available, 12 benchmarking can be performed using surveillance 13 specimens. But in most cases, however, benchmarking 14 of laboratory tests will require harvesting materials 15 from reactors.
16 So there is an opportunity for jobs to do 17 the scientific work, and it's not just your community 18 that would benefit from that, from those jobs. But 19 it's the fact that the NRC and the national labs are 20 requesting it.
21 However, Neil Sheehan with the Office of 22 Public Affairs for the NRC told us at a April 2018 23 meeting that the cost is prohibitively expensive. But 24 what we're saying is that if Exelon wants to extend 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 the operations of its other reactors 60-80 years, then 1
they should be put in a position of paying their fair 2
share.
3 MR. BARKLEY: Thank you, Paul. I left you 4
run long because I know you had a detailed discussion 5
on this topic and probably it's a topic that is of 6
interest to a number of other people.
7 So, Bruce, do you want to try to comment 8
on that piece of it?
9 MR. WATSON: No, I thank him for the 10 comment. He recognizes that we are conducting research 11 in this area with the Electric Power Research Institute 12 and we are conducting research in this area. I thank 13 Paul for bringing it up, for recognizing that we are 14 trying to address this issue. We do it within the 15 Electric Power Research Institute. We're also 16 collecting samples by cooperative agreements with other 17 reactors worldwide that are shutting down wherever 18 possible.
19 MR. GUNTER: They're not boiling water 20 reactors.
21 MR. WATSON: There's boiling water 22 reactors out there. They just haven't shut down except 23 for Fukushima.
24 MR. BARKLEY: Okay. Thank you.
25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 Mr. and Ms. Connolly, are both of you going 1
to speak, or one of you?
2 MRS. CONNOLLY: I'll go first.
3 MR. BARKLEY: Okay.
4 MRS. CONNOLLY: Hi, I've been a resident 5
of Forked River for many years when there were dirt 6
roads down here.
7 I have a question: How extensive is the 8
research on the environmental safety of the community 9
associated with nuclear operations? Some publications 10 have referred to health statistics in locations near 11 nuclear power facilities that indicate serious health 12 issues have resulted. How do we know who or what to 13 believe?
14 MR. WATSON: That's a good question.
15 MRS. CONNOLLY: Huh?
16 MR. WATSON: I was going to answer your 17 question.
18 MRS. CONNOLLY: Okay.
19 MR. WATSON: This is Bruce Watson again.
20 First of all, the plant maintains an environmental 21 monitoring program and the standards are set by the 22 NRC and the Environmental Protection Agency for those 23 environmental monitoring programs. Those monitoring 24 programs will continue until the license is terminated.
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 So they will continue to monitor the environment to 1
ensure that the radioactive material or whatever is 2
not leaving the plant and exposing anybody.
3 The National Academy of Sciences have 4
conducted numerous studies on radiation effects from 5
nuclear facilities, and I would kind of cite them as 6
the authority, not all literature you see out in the 7
Internet and environment. But the National Academy 8
of Sciences concluded that there are no ill health 9
effects from the operation of these nuclear facilities 10 in the United States or other places.
11 MRS. CONNOLLY: Okay. Thank you.
12 MR. WATSON: Yes. You can proceed.
13 MRS. CONNOLLY: I also want to thank Exelon 14 for the excellent thorough presentation, however, like 15 all corporations we know that Exelon exists for profit.
16 However, we're here tonight to ask you to look at the 17 storage of the spent rods from a human fellow being 18 viewpoint, okay, not a corporate angle. As a human 19 being would you allow anything that might possibly have 20 a negative effect on your family for future generations 21 or would you do something about it, like sending spent 22 rods to a place where billions of taxpayer money was 23 spent for their storage like Yucca Mountain? By so 24 doing Exelon would make a name for itself by caring 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 about its fellow human beings, not only now but for 1
future generations. I thank you so much.
2 MR. BARKLEY: Thank you. Let me let Bruce 3
respond to that comment.
4 MR. WATSON: First of all, the Yucca 5
Mountain project was de-funded in the previous 6
administration, and so it did not get completed as 7
planned. So I'm sure most of the utilities, if not 8
all of them, unanimously would want to ship the fuel 9
to the repository if we had one available. I think 10 that's their intent. They don't want to be managing 11 fuel forever and the NRC actually wants it moved to 12 a disposal facility, a permanent disposal facility 13 also.
14 So I think we're all in agreement.
15 However, they will maintain a safe solid 16 design of the facility in the slide with the nuclear 17 security and all the technology that goes with it along 18 with armed guards 24/7. And then the NRC will be there 19 to inspect them to make sure that they maintain that 20 adequate level of safety throughout the time that the 21 fuel is there.
22 MRS. CONNOLLY: All our taxpayer money 23 that went there, how many billions of dollars?
24 MR. WATSON: I can't answer that, but I 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 know it was billions, like you say, but --
1 MRS. CONNOLLY: Yes, it was.
2 MR. WATSON: Yes, it was -- Department of 3
Energy was responsible for completing the Yucca 4
Mountain project. The NRC was responsible for 5
licensing it. It was shut down.
6 MR. CONNOLLY: Bill Connolly, Skiff Way 7
Drive, Forked River. My wife took one of my questions, 8
but let ask this: You explain that the permanent 9
storage off-site is preferable because of the pain it 10 would be -- it is to maintain it locally. Recently 11 I saw an article that the NRC was supporting an interim 12 storage facility in Texas or New Mexico. Is that true?
13 MR. WATSON: There's two companies that 14 have submitted applications for interim of spent fuel.
15 One is in Texas. I think the other one is in New 16 Mexico. And so we are reviewing those applications.
17 These are supposed to be -- an interim storage facility 18 centralized such that until we have a permanent 19 repository the fuel can all be transferred there. So 20 we are reviewing their application. We have not 21
-- we're in the review process so that we could issue 22 possibly a license for those facilities.
23 MR. CONNOLLY: Why interim when you got 24 Yucca Mountain looking for money?
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 (Laughter.)
1 MR. WATSON: Yucca Mountain doesn't exist 2
anymore.
3 MR. CONNOLLY: Oh, Yucca Mountain doesn't 4
exist?
5 MR. WATSON: No, it doesn't exist anymore.
6 MR. CONNOLLY: Is it politics that's the 7
problem with Yucca Mountain?
8 MR. WATSON: I wouldn't say politics. I'd 9
say the policies.
10 MR. CONNOLLY: Okay. A couple of 11 technical interesting questions, to me anyway. Has 12 the Government ever got involved in paying 13 decommissioning costs because the company couldn't or 14 wouldn't?
15 MR. WATSON: Not for a reactor.
16 MR. CONNOLLY: Okay. I understand. I am 17 confused as to what is the controlling factor that 18 results in a 60-year decommissioning process. In the 19 Exelon presentation it looked like they were doing 20 nothing between 2034 and 2077, so I'm confused as to 21 who's doing what to whom during this process.
22 MR. WATSON: Is that your last question?
23 MR. CONNOLLY: No.
24 MR. WATSON: All right. The 60-year 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 requirement to complete decommissioning was approved 1
by the NRC Commission back in 1997. The basic 2
fundamental issue with that was worker safety. If you 3
wait 50 years to start decommissioning, the radiation 4
in the plant will be at about one to two percent of 5
what it was when it first shut down. So through the 6
radioactive decay process the radiation levels in the 7
plant will decrease obviously significantly down to 8
about one-hundredth of what they were when the plant 9
was first shut down. So there's savings to worker dose.
10 Secondly, the amount of radioactive waste 11 will most likely go down significantly because all the 12 radioactivity is -- most of the radioactivity has 13 decayed away on the materials.
14 And then thirdly, it allows for the 15 decommissioning funds to grow as needed to fund the 16 decommissioning during that time period. So it's a 17 benefit to the workers. It's hopeful that the cost 18 would go down because of the lower levels of -- lower 19 volumes of radioactive waste. And then obviously there 20 will be more than sufficient funds to decommission the 21 plant.
22 MR. CONNOLLY: And I understand that the 23 reuse of the property or land awaits the secession of 24 the license, the license being -- can -- what do we 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 have to wait for in order to reuse the property?
1 MR. WATSON: I think in the presentation 2
by Exelon they said they're going to donate 217 acres 3
to the township or -- so that could be released from 4
the license. We will do that as part of what we call 5
partial site release. There's a regulation on it.
6 Part 50.83. So we will review that land. And it's 7
not impacted by the plant operation, but it can be 8
released from the license so that could be redeveloped.
9 10 But the remainder of the plant site, the 11 small part, the part that is within the actual plant 12 footprint will remain under license until the 13 decommissioning is completed and then it will be 14 released. The license will be terminated. And then 15 the plan from Exelon is to release the land for 16 unrestricted use, which means at the end of that time 17 period the actual plant footprint will be determined 18 by them what they want to do with the property at license 19 termination. So they're still the owner of the land.
20 MR. CONNOLLY: The last question: How is 21 the heat -- how do you dissipate the heat in that 22 five-year pool environment that you put the spent rods 23 in?
24 MR. WATSON: The spent fuel pool cooling 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 system is basically -- has heat exchangers associated 1
with it where the -- I assume the bay water comes in 2
and cools the internal water closed loop which contains 3
the radioactive material, takes the heat away. And 4
that's what's discharged out through the discharge 5
canal. So that's the decay heat process for heat 6
exchanges.
7 MR. CONNOLLY: Five percent of the water 8
that's currently being used is for that purpose?
9 MR. WATSON: I think that's what he said 10 they were --
11 (Simultaneous speaking.)
12 MR. CONNOLLY: Okay.
13 MR. WATSON: Approximately, yes.
14 MR. CONNOLLY: All right. Thank you.
15 MR. WATSON: Yes.
16 MR. BROADDUS: I wanted to make one other 17 clarification. There have been a couple questions 18 about Yucca Mountain's fuel. So the Nuclear Waste 19 Policy Act is what established Yucca Mountain and the 20 requirements. It also established a fund called the 21 Nuclear Waste Fund that was funded by licensees, reactor 22 licensees. They were required to put money into that 23 fund for the purpose of funding the establishment of 24 Yucca Mountain, the building of it and such.
25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 And I know it doesn't change your sentiment 1
from the perspective that they were required to put 2
a fund -- that they were the ones who put it, not -- it 3
wasn't tax dollars specifically, but it was money that 4
was coming from the utilities that I'm sure they were 5
charging to ratepayers. So it gets to the same point.
6 But that fund is required -- is what is established 7
for the purpose of establishing and running Yucca 8
Mountain.
9 MR. BARKLEY: Okay. Thank you. The next 10 two people up are Ron Martyn and Paul Gressler. Also 11 is Janet Tauro here?
12 MS. DISCENZA: Janet couldn't make it.
13 Floods and power lines down on the road.
14 MR. BARKLEY: Okay.
15 MS. DISCENZA: But I will read my statement 16 17 (Simultaneous speaking.)
18 MR. BARKLEY: Okay. Very good. You're 19 third, then. Thank you.
20 MR. MARTYN: Thank you. Can everyone hear 21 me?
22 No? Can everyone hear me?
23 You got to turn it the right way.
24 Okay. It's an interesting proposition 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 here tonight. We have one gentleman who is responsible 1
for the operating side of the plant; we have another 2
gentleman who is responsible for the decommissioning 3
side of the plant. I as a homeowner living in Forked 4
River now have a -- three concerns, and I'll talk at 5
a macro level.
6 My first concern obviously is the 7
environmental impact on our area. There are a lot of 8
potential things that could happen, that may not happen.
9 I hope to God they don't, but that's a very valid 10 concern. The second concern that I have is that there's 11 a potential impact on our quality of life. And the 12 third thing that I have an impact on is what are the 13 financial implications to us?
14 When we talk about the closing of Yucca 15 Plant, the funds have been allocated for the storage.
16 Congress passed a law recently that said that those 17 funds would be available to compensate those 18 communities that have to store the rods on site if that 19 wasn't a part of the original deal.
20 The next phase is to get the Senate to pass 21 that, and they don't seem to be in a hurry to do it.
22 So what I would ask is our representative for Senator 23 Mendez that if she would convey to the 24 Senator --
25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 (Laughter.)
1 (Simultaneous speaking.)
2 MR. MARTYN: We've written letters.
3 (Simultaneous speaking.)
4 MR. MARTYN: We've written letters and 5
never got a response from either senator and I can't 6
understand why.
7 But the fact of the matter is that we all 8
need to get together, contact whatever senator route 9
you have and make sure that all the senators pass the 10 doggone bill. Because when they pass the doggone bill, 11 guess what? It frees up some money that's already been 12 allocated. So now it has to be appropriated.
13 But I appreciate what you gentlemen have 14 said. The missing link is within your organization 15 who has the interface to take the representative stand 16 of the Yucca situation to the citizens of the community 17 affected by the storage rods. We haven't seen that 18 yet.
19 MR. WATSON: Well, the NRC's -- this is 20 Bruce Watson again. The NRC is an independent safety 21 regulator. In the United States; and this is the way 22 it is in most countries, we have one entity which is 23 the safety regulator. That's us. Okay? On the other 24 side of the street we have the Department of Energy.
25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 They're the promoter of the energy in the country, 1
the actual -- have responsibility from the Congress 2
to take care of the -- develop the disposal site. And 3
then we would regulate them, or whoever the disposal 4
site regulator is.
5 So we can't be here -- we're not -- it's 6
not our role to promote these things. It is our goal 7
to regulate them.
8 MR. MARTYN: I understand.
9 MR. WATSON: It is the Department of 10 Energy's to develop the disposal site and get that into 11 operation. So --
12 MR. MARTYN: Thank you for that.
13 We've written to the Department of Energy 14 also and we are eagerly awaiting a response. I think 15 the response will kind of coincide with the 50-year, 16 60-year deadline.
17 (Laughter.)
18 MR. MARTYN: But anyway, we all have a 19 responsibility to push on it and to ensure that we get 20 the Senate to pass that so we can at least get 21 compensated for storing rods in our community. Thank 22 you.
23 (Applause.)
24 MR. BARKLEY: Okay. Thank you, Ron.
25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 Paul, come on up.
1 MR. GRESSLER: And sort of just a quick 2
thing about Yucca. In an article I read in March, 3
President Trump asked for a $180 million to fix Yucca.
4 President Trump asked for 180 -- he asked 5
the Senate for $180 million to fix Yucca and it just 6
sits. So people got to start talking to your senators, 7
just like Ron said.
8 The other thing is about the 9
decommissioning. It can be done directly either by 10 Exelon or -- a meeting we went to we actually visited 11 the site in June. They held -- Exelon held a big thing.
12 Said they're considering doing it third party, naming 13 five corporations. If you look what's going on based 14 on what's happened throughout the various states, with 15 Vermont Yankee being one of them as far as stuff, that's 16 a fiasco as far as stuff. I don't think we want that 17 happening here.
18 It makes sense for Exelon as a competent 19 nuclear company, a financially-secure, publicly-held 20 corporation to be the one to do it. They set the money 21 aside, but people don't realize in their 2017 annual 22 report they've got $450 million set aside for insurance 23 for Oyster Creek alone and another $2.3 billion in a 24 pool that they can draw one time a year. So that's 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 almost another $900 million if something happened here 1
as far as stuff. So it sort of makes sense that Exelon 2
be the one to do the decommissioning and keep up their 3
responsibility.
4 I don't know what you think about that, 5
but I'd like to see your views.
6 MR. WATSON: The NRC's role, like I said, 7
is safety, so we want to make sure that the 8
decommissioning is conducted safely. There's two 9
newer business models out there. Exelon actually uses 10 one of those business models where they transferred 11 the license to a decommissioning company. That's 12 what's going on at Zion right now. Both Zion 1 and 13 2 are being decommissioned. We expect that they'll 14 be completing the decommissioning in 2018, probably 15 terminate the license either in 2019 or 2020.
16 But in this particular case they transfer 17 the NRC license to them. The NRC does a review to make 18 sure that these -- that the company is competent, 19 technically and financially able to do the 20 decommissioning. So the license transfer we have to 21 approve.
22 At the end of this agreement, because it 23 is a contract from Exelon to the decommissioning 24 company, the land and the fuel will be transferred back 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 to Exelon to do whatever they want with the land and 1
also manage their spent fuel from the site. Now they 2
did wait 15 years before this business model came up.
3 And so when they did transfer I think this in 2010, 4
we're seven, eight years later and they're almost done.
5 6
There is another business model in which 7
the utility actually sells the plant to a
8 decommissioning company. And this is what is happening 9
in Vermont. The NRC is right now doing our review of 10 the license application by the decommissioning company, 11 but in this case it is an actual sale. The utility 12 wants to sell the property and the responsibility for 13 maintaining the fuel to this decommissioning company.
14 So we're reviewing that license application and we're 15 looking at their technical capabilities and their 16 financial capabilities. We have not issued a decision 17 on whether we agree to the license transfer yet. But 18 there are actually two different business models out 19 there.
20 Right now there's a plant in La Crosse which 21 I mentioned. It was in I'll call slow decommissioning 22 for about 30 years. They recently -- the utility 23 transferred the license to a decommissioning company 24 to finish the decommissioning. So we're expecting them 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 also to finish decommissioning by 2019-2020.
1 Humboldt Bay out in California is managing 2
the decommissioning themselves. It's a very old 3
boiling water reactor, very much smaller than this one 4
here and very different, that was shut down many years 5
ago, but they are -- Humboldt Bay, Pacific Gas & Electric 6
is managing the decommissioning.
7 San Onofre Units 2 and 3. San Onofre which 8
is owned by Southern California Edison. Southern 9
California Edison decommissioned Unit 1 using their 10 management team and contractors, but they kept it -- the 11 license under their name and did the decommissioning 12 safely. We still have not terminated the license 13 because they still have not requested it. But Unit 14 2 and 3, Southern California Edison has elected to 15 manage the decommissioning, so they hired a
16 decommissioning company who will start decommissioning 17 after they complete removal of the spent fuel and 18 transfer that to the dry storage over the next year.
19 So they plan -- they have a 20-year schedule to 20 decommission their plants, the two big -- two large 21 plants, boiling water -- I mean, pressurized water 22 reactors.
23 So we have no say in it other than we want 24 to make sure it's done safely. So we make sure the 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 companies that are going to do this work are technically 1
and financially capable of doing the work.
2 MR. BROADDUS: Hey, Bruce, can I -- I 3
wanted to add one thing to that.
4 So, one thing I wanted to add on that is 5
that the previous gentleman asked about the 6
relationship between Bruce's branch and my branch and 7
who's got responsibilities in certain areas. So either 8
branch can handle a license transfer like this when 9
this occurs. The key thing there is that our -- the 10 staff that review it remain consistent between the two.
11 We share those resources for doing that type of review.
12 So it's a consistent review whether it's done by my 13 group while they're still under my responsibility or 14 Bruce's.
15 And as Bruce said, the responsibility there 16 is to ensure that they have the technical capability 17 to conduct the decommissioning activities in a safe 18 manner, they understand that they have the management 19
-- the appropriate management oversight, the staff to 20 be able to do that activity. So we look at that in 21 any license transfer we do. Whether it's an operating 22 plant or a decommissioning plant we look at that.
23 MR. GRESSLER: Just a quick thing then.
24 Do you ensure you're looking at that third party either 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 way it's going to be that there is going to be no 1
financial burden to the ratepayers as far as stuff like 2
that goes? No additional taxes? If there's a default, 3
what happens if there's a default? Is it treated like 4
a normal bankruptcy like it would in a normal business 5
transaction?
6 MR. WATSON: The standard we follow for 7
financial decommissioning is do they have a reasonable 8
amount of money to complete the decommissioning safely?
9 That's the standard we use. We have all kinds of 10 financial tests. This gentleman over here is actually 11 one of our financial people. And they do all these 12 financial tests and look at the value of money 13 throughout the time period that the plant will be going 14 through decommissioning. So we do a thorough technical 15 review, a thorough financial review.
16 As far as the regulation goes, whoever the 17 licensee is responsible for completing the 18 decommissioning. So we've never had a bankruptcy in 19 the power reactor world. Don't expect to have any.
20 MR. BROADDUS: We have one right now.
21 MR. WATSON: Yes, but they're not 22 completely there yet, I guess.
23 MR. BROADDUS: Yes.
24 MR. WATSON: But in the decommissioning 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 parts we've never had a bankruptcy. The company is 1
always responsible because that's what -- basically 2
when they are given a license, they are responsible 3
for that nuclear facility from cradle to grave. And 4
so they are financially -- held financially or possibly 5
criminally responsible for ensuring that the 6
decommissioning is completed.
7 We don't know that because he brought it 8
up as a meeting he went to.
9 MR. GRESSLER: This was told --
10 MR. WATSON: Your name again?
11 MR. GRESSLER: Paul Gressler. This was 12 a bunch of us from Seabreeze went to a I guess training 13 seminar they had June 18th, on a Monday night. It was 14 published and anybody could go. The Boy Scouts from 15 town went as far as stuff.
16 Exelon. Exelon held it as far as stuff.
17 We actually went to the facility and they have what 18 looks to be like is going to be a museum. And we walked 19 around. They talked about decommissioning and that's 20 one of the things they mentioned. They met -- one of 21 the companies that I can remember was Bechtel that 22 they're considering selling this off to a third party.
23 And there were --
24 MR. WATSON: No, we've not received any 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 formal notification.
1 MR. BROADDUS: Because I still have the 2
licensing responsibility in my branch, no, we have not 3
received any application from Exelon to transfer the 4
plant as of right now. And if they're considering that, 5
until such time as they notify us that they're 6
considering it -- and if they notify us of that, we 7
may have a preliminary -- a pre-meeting. It will be 8
a public meeting on the licensing activities. It's 9
possible that could occur. It all depends upon the 10 circumstances. And whenever they make a decision, 11 they'll let us know and they'll --
12 (Simultaneous speaking.)
13 MR. BROADDUS: But we do not have anything 14 in our branch.
15 MR. WATSON: No, there's no application.
16 MR. BROADDUS: They can submit that 17 application at any time if they decide to do it.
18 No. No.
19 (Simultaneous speaking.)
20 MR. BROADDUS: Wait, wait, wait.
21 MR. BARKLEY: Let's wrap up here. Let's 22 finish this question.
23 MR. BROADDUS: The question was is there 24 a timeline for when they submit an application for the 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 license transfer?
1 No, actually the current plan stays in 2
place and they're responsible for implementing that 3
plan until such time as it's transferred to somebody 4
else. And when that occurs, there will be a new plan 5
that they will have to submit.
6 MR. WATSON: Right. The only example I 7
can give you, or examples are the ones that have already 8
transpired and the one we have in progress right now 9
we're reviewing. It's up to the utility what they want 10 to do. It's their business decision. We just make 11 sure that it can be done safely and within the financial 12 means of the company that's going to -- that would accept 13 the license transfer.
14 For example -- I lost my train of thought 15 here -- the applications that we have approved for 16 transfer we did do the financial and technical test 17 of -- I believe the company was Energy Solutions who 18 did Zion and is doing La Crosse. In those two business 19 models the land and the spent fuel gets transferred 20 back. Right now we're in the process of doing that 21 review for Vermont Yankee.
22 Now, what -- if we -- one of the things 23 that's on the books, they submitted to us as their plan 24 is they have a
revised
- PSDAR, Post-Shutdown 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 Decommissioning Activities Report, that will be 1
submitted by the new licensee should the transfer go 2
through for Vermont Yankee. And in that PSDAR they're 3
basically -- instead of going into 50 years of safe 4
store, they plan on decommissioning the site promptly, 5
and it will take about 7 to 10 years to do that.
6 So things can change. It's all about what 7
Exelon decides to do and whether they have takers to 8
come and do the work. And apparently there's plenty 9
of companies out there that want to do this work.
10 MR. BARKLEY: Paul has one last question 11 and then we'll move to the next one.
12 MR. GRESSLER: Yes, just also too I guess 13 over the next decade some 60 plants will probably close.
14 People have talked about stuff being put in sites that 15 are going to be all around the country, a security issue 16 as far as stuff. Do you think -- or has Homeland 17 Security gotten involved with this at all?
18 MR. WATSON: I don't know about the 19 prediction on 60 plants. I know that we have 12 that 20 have announced they're going to shut down over the next 21 10 years or so, including -- Oyster Creek is one of 22 them. But our NRC security people work closely with 23 all of the federal agencies, in particular Homeland 24 Security, over potential threats to any of our 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 facilities including the spent fuel facilities. So 1
that's why there's a guard force that remains at the 2
sites 24/7 with all the detection and other equipment 3
to protect it and detect any threats that could possibly 4
happen.
5 So, yes, we maintain a very close dialogue 6
with all the federal agencies: FBI, etcetera, over 7
threats for possible -- at our facilities.
8 MR. GRESSLER: Thank you.
9 MR. BARKLEY: Thank you. Regina will come 10 on up and make the statement on behalf of Janet Tauro, 11 and then we'll have Peter Ferwerda and Joan Finn.
12 MS. DISCENZA: My name is Regina Discenza.
13 I'm speaking Janet Tauro. She's the chair on the board 14 of directors for Clean Water Action. She could not 15 get here tonight because of flooded roads and downed 16 power lines.
17 Janet wants to address the fact that once 18 the fuel rods are put into dry cask storage the plan 19 is for NRC inspectors to walk around the dry cask storage 20 twice a year with a Geiger counter. She and Jeff Brown 21 of GRAMMIES would like to go on record asking for 22 continuous real-time radiation monitoring of the dry 23 cask storage.
24 She also mentions that it's in the best 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 interest of public health and safety to have real 1
continuous monitoring of those dry casks because the 2
radioactive rods are very dangerous and twice a year 3
just doesn't seem sufficient. And I'm in the 4
three-mile radius, so we have concerns as very close-by 5
residents to this power plant.
6 She also says that the Environmental Impact 7
Statement does not take into consideration climate 8
change and sea level rise, and she wants to know how 9
that would affect the dry cask storage in the future.
10 And my question is why does this process 11 have to take 60 years? It really shouldn't. I think 12 this can be done in 20 years, but I think it's crazy 13 that the NRC allows them to drag it out for 60 years.
14 MR. WATSON: Well, I'll answer the first 15 one -- last question first, and that's the NRC policy 16 that was established in the regulations by the 17 Commission back in the '90s.
18 The actual decommissioning will typically 19 take 7 to 10 years to do. It depends on how fast they 20 want to do the job. We like to say it's more of a 21 marathon than a sprint. So you do things methodically 22 to decommission the plant just like you constructed 23 it.
24 As far as real-time monitoring at the 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 ISFSIs, some of them do have it. They are required 1
to have monitoring for thermal and other detection 2
issues at the facilities, and the NRC believes that 3
they're safe the way they are. But it's an option that 4
the licensees could consider because it's an additional 5
cost that would be passed onto the consumer.
6 The EIS on sea level rising, I don't know 7
whether that's a related issue at this point.
8 Jeffrey, yes, no?
9 (No audible response.)
10 MR. WATSON: No, I guess we're still 11 looking at the science on that.
12 MS. DISCENZA: Okay. Thank you.
13 MR. BARKLEY: Okay. Thank you. Peter?
14 After Peter again will be Joan Finn, and 15 the final two speakers I have signed up here are Theresa 16 Barry and Michelle Brunetti.
17 MR. FERWERDA: May I look at the back side 18 of my cards?
19 MR. BARKLEY: You may certainly.
20 MR. WATSON: Secret code.
21 MR. FERWERDA: Well, not only that but it 22 gives me my outline of pain and suffering.
23 (Laughter.)
24 MR. FERWERDA: And I want to say good 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 evening to everybody and I thank you for coming to this 1
very important --
2 MR. WATSON: You have to speak into the 3
microphone.
4 MR. FERWERDA: There we are.
5 MR. WATSON: Point it towards you.
6 MR. FERWERDA: Okay.
7 MR. WATSON: There you go.
8 MR. FERWERDA: Now I have it. And of 9
course one of the things that is very important is that 10 what we're talking about today will be maybe, and I 11 hope not, the nightmares of our grandchildren tomorrow.
12 What I was interested in, I keep hearing 13 "financial" and all that. And I was saying to myself, 14 well, what guarantee is there that the money will be 15 there 40 years from now to do what is being decided 16 to be done in this 60-year or longer plan? Is it federal 17 money that is going to be the backbone of getting the 18 job of closure done or is it being paid through bonds 19 that have been deposited with the Federal Government 20 or the state to ensure that the work is done?
21 Now I know that in terms of private 22 development we get an improvement bond to make sure 23 that the roads, the sewers and the other facilities 24 are all completed so that they can adequately serve 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 future needs. So I haven't heard any guarantee of 1
federal money. I haven't heard any guarantee as to 2
bonding. But I know that if we're talking federal 3
money, it's like many federal programs.
4 I remember many years ago I was involved 5
in a program where the State of New Jersey with tax 6
money for the motor vehicle fuels paid for the 7
maintenance and repair of local streets in our 8
municipalities. However, politics is what politics 9
is. They decided they didn't want to pay the money 10 to keep your street in front of your house with the 11 right type of blacktop, the right type of drainage, 12 so forth and so on. So I again look at the financial 13 guarantees which seem to be lacking.
14 Then as I mentioned earlier, what is the 15 plan as the market value of the power plant goes down 16 to provide for a continuation of the revenue that was 17 generated by this facility for the municipality and 18 the county?
19 Mentioned earlier was all these good things 20 that we're making donations to the Popcorn Zoo, so forth 21 and so on, but obviously if they're not selling 22 electric, there's not going to be those monies available 23 to go to these worthwhile public charities. So again, 24 we have this local impact as to your wallet and my 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 wallet.
1 Now we talked in terms of rods. What about 2
taking all of these rods, bring them on a choo-choo 3
train, sending them down to the wall, down to Mexico 4
and have the Mexicans --
5 (Laughter.)
6 MR. FERWERDA: -- take care of it?
7 (Laughter.)
8 MR. FERWERDA: Why not?
9 Exactly. And labor, we have affordable 10 labor.
11 MR. BARKLEY: Let me ask him to try to 12 respond to your first three questions other than that.
13 MR. WATSON: Yes. Well, the first 14 question is fairly simple. The NRC sets minimum 15 decommissioning funding requirements. There's a 16 formula we have in the regulations. The utilities go 17 to their Public Service Commission to authorize that 18 they include some money coming from the ratepayers to 19 go into that fund. So that's how the money gets there.
20 The NRC has no role in the commerce or the collection 21 of those fees for decommissioning.
22 So once the utility starts collecting those 23 funds, they go to an independent trust. I think I 24 mentioned Mellon Bank is one of the big banks that 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 actually maintains most of the utility decommissioning 1
funds.
2 In order for the utility to use those monies 3
they have to go to the trustee of the bank and explain 4
why they would need to use those funds. And it has 5
to be for decommissioning. And so the trustee comes 6
back to the NRC and says are they going to use this 7
for decommissioning? And we say either yes or no.
8 And if it's yes, they get whatever amount they generally 9
want to do -- to support their decommissioning work, 10 or no, they're not in decommissioning yet so they can't 11 touch the funds.
12 So the funds are protected. They are 13 maintained by an independent trust fund and trustee.
14 And so there's no federal bonds or other things that 15 create that fund. It's all from the ratepayers in most 16 cases. And so that fund is secure there.
17 Unfortunately, the downside in a plant 18 shutting down, whether it was going to shut down after 19 40 years of life as the original licenses were or 60 20 years, or whatever it is, the plant will shut down.
21 And when that happens unfortunately the host community 22 loses revenues. I discussed this with your mayor a 23 little bit before the meeting in that this is the 24 downside of the plant shutting down. Loss of tax 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 revenues and also jobs, which people are employed with 1
and also pay taxes to the local community if they live 2
there. So that's the downside.
3 The NRC has no call in on those things.
4 They only thing we make sure is safety. So I think 5
there are a couple bills in the Congress that are trying 6
to address those, but we haven't seen where they've 7
progressed enough.
8 And the fuel rods, I don't think Mexico 9
wants them.
10 (Laughter.)
11 MR. WATSON: Neither does Canada. And 12 most states don't want it either, so it's important 13 for the Federal Government to come up with a final 14 repository. Like I said, we do have two applications 15 in for the -- some interim storage. That might work.
16 I can't guarantee anything. But it's a capitalist 17 society where you can make money and if people can make 18 money off of storing the fuel the United States, we 19 do those kind of things. But it's not the NRC's purview 20 to do that. It's our businesses and business 21 communities. And so the NRC's role is to make sure 22 it's done safely. That's why we're doing the 23 application and the safety aspects of potentially 24 issuing a license for that application for that interim 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 storage.
1 MR. FERWERDA: Now in prior statements 2
there is going to be some land that's going to be 3
released back in -- and then going to the township.
4 The majority of the plant property is going to be under 5
the jurisdiction of this close out plant for what, 90 6
to 100 years? And I'm wondering what happens with the 7
land after the closure period. Is it available for 8
town houses, affordable housing and all these other 9
good things?
10 MR. WATSON: I think in my opening comments 11 I think if -- we can go back to the slides if we wanted 12 to, but I think the Finninger Arms -- I always have 13 trouble with that one. Anyway, that land has already 14 been released for reuse. Exelon is talking about --
15 MR. FERWERDA: It was never restricted.
16 MR. WATSON: It was never restricted. It 17 was just owned by the utility. Okay. It was never 18 part of the license.
19 The other 217 acres of the utility plan, 20 Exelon plan is to donate to I guess Lacey Township, 21 the local community. They're welcome to do that. It's 22 their land. If it is part of our license, we will review 23 that land and possibly do some surveys to make sure 24 that it's not radiologically impacted from the 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 operation of the plant. And they would have to make 1
an application for that. So we would also probably 2
-- if it is part of the license, we would hold a public 3
meeting to discuss what our role is in that in releasing 4
that land. So, but again our role is to make sure it's 5
done safely, that it meets all the criteria for 6
unrestricted use.
7 Now when the plant is decommissioned, the 8
main footprint of the plant, where the fenced area is 9
for security, the plan in the PSDAR, Post-Shutdown 10 Decommissioning Activities Report, is to release the 11 site for unrestricted use, meaning it could be used 12 for any purpose. Now assuming that the fuel is gone, 13 then the entire site could be used for any purpose.
14 But if the fuel is there, that will remain under license 15 and be under NRC regulatory oversight.
16 But the rest of the land, once the license 17 is terminated or the license is shrunk to just the spent 18 fuel facility, that land will be able to be used as 19 long as it meets our criteria for unrestricted use.
20 It could be used for any purpose. I could tell you 21 out of the 10 plants that have been decommissioned about 22 one-third of them have new generating plants on them, 23 one-third are parks, and one-third are not doing 24 anything. It's just there. It's owned by the utility.
25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 They haven't decided what they're going to use the 1
land for.
2 But in many case some of the utilities will 3
install additional generating capacity on it. At 4
Rancho Seco, which was mentioned earlier, they have 5
two fossil units, combined cycle units that burn a 6
variety of fuels. It's -- the water is there for the 7
cooling. I don't know what the access is for Bodega 8
Bay in the future, but they also have the grid 9
infrastructure for producing the power and have it go 10 back into the grid. And so there are some advantages 11 of relocating a power plant on the site.
12 Now that's a business decision that Exelon 13 will decide whether they want to do or not do in the 14 future, but unless it's going to have a reactor and 15 need a new license under the NRC we will not be involved 16 in that process.
17 MR. FERWERDA: So kind of, sort of? In 18 summarizing, that as the plant closes down the revenues 19 that Lacey Township received from the plant will 20 decrease until it becomes virtually nothing as well 21 as the fact that then the fuel rods will have left and 22 that will be nothing? And then it will be a new 23 beginning as far as the use of the land and things of 24 this nature. Is that a fair statement?
25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 MR. WATSON: Yes, fair enough, I guess.
1 MR. FERWERDA: Thank you.
2 MR. BARKLEY: All right. Thank you.
3 Joan, you still here?
4 (No audible response.)
5 MR. BARKLEY: And again, finally it will 6
be Theresa Barry and then Michelle.
7 MS. FINN: My name is Joan Finn and I live 8
in Waretown and because I live in the shadow of Oyster 9
Creek I'm quite concerned about the storage of the spent 10 rods. As you know, in Oyster Creek the rods are 11 contained in thin canisters which are capable of 12 cracking and leaking, and the leak is often not capable 13 of being monitored or repaired. So the storage of these 14 canisters is very important to me as compared to what's 15 happening in Europe where they're stored in thick casks.
16 So the recent study indicates that on-site 17 storage, the best on-site storage includes deep 18 geologically-isolated storage. And that -- and we are 19 concerned about natural disaster. We're concerned 20 about terrorism. And in your report you indicate the 21 fact that you might be using water for abatement and 22 flushing. I'm concerned about the radioactive effect 23 of that abatement and flushing in the water.
24 You also mentioned the use of rubble, and 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 rubble could cloak highly radioactive material. You 1
mentioned non-contaminated cement. What is your 2
measure for non-contamination? You mentioned sending 3
large components of the plant on a barge. How would 4
that be vulnerable to terrorist attacks? And they're 5
going to an undefined site.
6 So living here, not just for myself, but 7
for the people after me, I'm concerned about the ongoing 8
monitors, as we mentioned before, monitoring of 9
radiation over time. These casks aren't perfect.
10 Over 10, 20 years we could have leaks and I'm very 11 concerned about that and how we're going to monitor 12 ongoingly. Thank you.
13 (Applause.)
14 MR. WATSON: Well, there's a major 15 difference between dry fuel storage canisters in the 16 U.S. and in Europe which were mentioned. In the U.S.
17 we plan to transport them, therefore, the actual cask 18 is about a half-inch of stainless steel, which is 19 monitored and has a very long design life to them, 20 whereas the European casks, which are very big and 21 heavy, are going to be extremely difficult to transport.
22 So that's why ours are in canisters that can be 23 transported. They're maintained in concrete shields 24 to contain the radiation. The NRC is putting together 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 a -- with the Electric Power Research Institute I 1
believe it is, a monitoring program to monitor the 2
thickness of these casks to ensure they're going to 3
be safely maintained into the future.
4 I agree that a permanent repository or a 5
deep repository would be the best place for the fuel, 6
but we're not there yet in this country. In most 7
European countries they're not either. So they've 8
designed their casks for basically being there 9
indefinitely. Now there are issues with degradation 10 of those casks, too, but we don't have those casks here 11 in the United States, so we're not paying -- we're not 12 in a situation to comment on theirs.
13 The transportation of the radioactive 14 materials from the site, the actual way they're going 15 to be transported will be decided by whoever does the 16 decommissioning: Exelon or if they do a decommissioning 17 contractor or whatever, but it will be done safely.
18 We have thousands of radioactive material shipments 19 in this country every day. So the waste is transported 20 in various containers, shielded containers. There are 21 strict requirements on radiation levels from the 22 Department of Transportation, which the NRC enforces.
23 The plant ships radioactive waste frequently from the 24 plant when it's operated. So they will continue that 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 program to do it safely. And so we will be there to 1
inspect those shipments to make sure they're properly 2
packaged and meet our requirements for being out on 3
the highway.
4 If they do a rail spur in, which many 5
utilities do, then it will be monitored properly and 6
packaged properly to go by rail. I don't think the 7
barge thing is a big thing here, but it's a possibility.
8 I kind of doubt it. But that also restrictions and 9
requirements that have to be met in order for that to 10 be done.
11 I think I got most of them.
12 MRS. CONNOLLY: Can I ask him a question?
13 MR. BARKLEY: Yes.
14 MRS. CONNOLLY: Isn't it far more 15 dangerous for a gasoline truck to be delivering gasoline 16 to a service station than having these spent rods 17 monitored because there are no laws that regulate that?
18 MR. WATSON: Well, I think the Department 19 of Transportation has regulations on the transport on 20 all hazard materials, including gasoline and others.
21 There's little placards on it that say flammable and 22 other things that DOT requires, but --
23 MRS. CONNOLLY: Not what I read.
24 MR. WATSON: Okay. Well, I'm just saying 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 as far as I know there are and that's why they're 1
placarded so that they could demonstrate that they're 2
following the Department of Transportation 3
requirements for hazard materials.
4 MR. BARKLEY: Okay. Thank you.
5 Theresa?
6 And then, Michelle, you still want to speak 7
as well?
8 MS. BRUNETTI POST: Sure. Yes, I have one 9
as well.
10 MR. BARKLEY: Okay.
11 MS. BARRY: Hello. I'm Theresa Barry and 12 I'm a resident of Forked River. I have several 13 questions on the PSDAR Section 5, the environmental 14 section. And one of them is I noted in the report that 15 you plan to do dredging, or potentially do dredging 16 for transport of the material by barge, but there was 17 no mention of post-shutdown dredging of the Forked River 18 to restore access for the residents on the southern 19 side of the river to access the waterways.
20 I'm sorry.
21 Okay. Did you get the question or do you 22 want me to repeat?
23 MR. BROADDUS: I think I understand.
24 MS. BARRY: Okay.
25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 MR. BROADDUS: So I think if I understand 1
your question, is there going to be dredging done for 2
other purposes other than --
3 MS. BARRY: Right.
4 MR. BROADDUS: -- access to the --
5 MS. BARRY: So my question is is there 6
planning -- is there a plan for dredging of the Forked 7
River for the southern shoreline of the Forked River 8
to restored it to the same access for the residents 9
who live along that river?
10 MR. BROADDUS: So that type of activity 11 would generally not be within the NRC's regulatory 12 purview because that's I think a change in the site 13 restoration to original conditions, I think is what 14 you're saying, what we call something like a green field 15 sometimes. And that is between the state and the 16 utility generally.
17 MS. BARRY: Okay. Well, as a part of their 18 original agreement with the Board of Public Utilities 19 the Oyster Creek Generating Station committed to 20 dredging the river. And so I think as part of their 21 closing -- their closure plan that they should also 22 include that dredging to restore access. That's my 23 comment.
24 I also have a few other comments on the 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 environmental section. One of them is based on the 1
understanding that the intent is to restore the area 2
for unrestricted use. I understand there is also 3
shallow groundwater contamination presently at the site 4
and I wanted to understand how that was -- what the 5
plan is to address that and remediate the shallow 6
groundwater issue. I didn't see that in the report.
7 MR. BROADDUS: You can answer that.
8 MR. WATSON: Yes, we will continue to 9
assess the groundwater issue as the utility will.
10 Matter of fact, I have one of my groundwater experts 11 here at the meeting. We're going to be at the plant 12 tomorrow to look at what exactly the situation is at 13 the plant. But the NRC will continue to monitor that 14 and any plans that the utility has for -- if they plan 15 to remediate or not. In a lot of cases the radioactive 16 material will decay in place or get dispersed. But 17 we'll be looking at that tomorrow, so I have most of 18 the plant --
19 MR. BROADDUS: Actually I saw it today.
20 MR. WATSON: Huh?
21 MR. BROADDUS: I saw it today.
22 MR. WATSON: You saw it today?
23 MR. BROADDUS; Yes.
24 MR. WATSON: But we'll see it tomorrow 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 because we're going to the plant and we'll being some 1
significant time there tomorrow looking at various 2
issues with Exelon and touring the plant.
3 MR. BROADDUS: So if I can maybe just add 4
one?
5 MS. BARRY: Okay.
6 MR. BROADDUS: So I believe the reason is 7
it's not specifically called out. They do already have 8
a --
9 MS. BARRY: Remediation plan.
10 MR. BROADDUS: -- remediation plan. It's 11 been in place for a number of years and it is continuing, 12 it's ongoing. That's what -- today when I was at the 13 site I talked with them about that and understood that 14 it was still ongoing and it will continue to go forward, 15 I think, was what my understanding of their plan is.
16 MS. BARRY: Okay. So I just would like 17 to have it on the record that for those two issues:
18 the restoration of the depth of the southern shoreline 19 of the river and also the shallow groundwater 20 remediation, should be addressed I think in the PSDAR 21 Section 5. And it is an environmental area of the 22 report. however, if it's not addressed there, perhaps 23 they can address it separately to me. I can write the 24 comments.
25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 MR. BROADDUS: Yes.
1 MS. BARRY: The other issue is during 2
decommissioning there will be some water that's 3
generated and I was wondering if there's a plan or a 4
proposal as to how that water would be treated before 5
disposal or how it would be disposed. And I don't see 6
that addressed in the plan either.
7 MR. WATSON: Yes, there will be some water 8
generated from the decommissioning process.
9 Specifically we know it will be done. The reactor 10 cavity will be re-flooded so they can cut up the reactor 11 internals, which are highly radioactive, so the water 12 shields them. They will eventually have to process 13 that water either for release using the current systems 14 or some other way. Some plants ship the water to a 15 place that will take the slightly radioactive water 16 and dispose of it. So it's up to them to figure out 17 how they're going to do that, but we will make sure 18 that all the environmental requirements and effluent 19 releases from the plant are within the safety standards 20 we've established.
21 MR. BROADDUS: And I can add to that as 22 well. So just to clarify one of the things that from 23 my discussion of our review of that, part of that is 24 to look at have they addressed any new or more 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 significant environmental impacts that have not been 1
previously in other Environmental Impact Statement 2
reviews that have been done in the past. So the water 3
remediation could have been something that was 4
addressed previously. That's part of our reviews to 5
look to see is that a new activity? Is that a new 6
impact? And if it is, is it properly addressed there?
7 So I believe we've had some discussions with the 8
licensee from that perspective to try to better 9
understand that. We're developing potential requests 10 for additional information based upon whether or not 11 that's something that was previously addressed or not.
12 MS. BARRY: Okay. So my concern on this 13 one was that it would be much more radioactive than 14 possibly other waters that they may have handled, but 15 if it's addressed in their other impact statements, 16 then that's fine.
17 And then my last question was is there a 18 redundant system planned for cooling of the dry casks 19 in the event that you have a release? Or, you know, 20 as some of the other commenters have made their opinion 21 about whether you have radiation or whether you have 22 a temperature monitoring system, is there a redundant 23 system to respond to an emergency of these casks?
24 Should they fail.
25
105 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. BROADDUS: So there are self-contained 1
systems. They -- in that configuration they don't 2
require additional supplemental cooling. That's what 3
you're asking?
4 MS. BARRY: Yes.
5 MR. BROADDUS: So the -- my understanding 6
is there's the -- and I'm not a spent fuel pool expert 7
or a spent fuel expert --
8 MS. BARRY: Me neither.
9 MR. BROADDUS: -- but my understanding is 10 that those casks are built to be able to self-cool and 11 keep -- and maintain a proper temperature themselves.
12 But there is monitoring if there's ever a breach of 13 the canister and there's ways you can go back in and 14 reseal it back up and make sure it --
15 MS. BARRY: Okay.
16 MR. BROADDUS: So those actions would 17 occur if that -- if it ever became a health and safety 18 issue, we would make sure that that was taken care of.
19 MS. BARRY: Okay. So basically you're 20 saying there would be an emergency response plan in 21 place in the event of a failure?
22 MR. WATSON: There will be an EP, yes.
23 MS. BARRY: Okay. All right. Thank 24 you. That was all I had. Thanks.
25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 MR. BARKLEY: Okay. Thank you.
1 Michelle?
2 If anybody else wants to speak, please sign 3
up on the card over there and we'll handle that.
4 Otherwise, we're wrapping up very good time-wise here.
5 So, Michelle?
6 MS. BRUNETTI POST: Thank you. Hi, I'm 7
Michelle Post with the Atlantic City Press and I just 8
was hoping you guys could talk a little bit more about 9
the third-party process. Is it more common for plants 10 going through the decommissioning process to be handled 11 by a third party? It sounded like many of the ones 12 you were describing were handled that way.
13 MR. WATSON: I say it's a new business 14 model for this. We've only run into it since 2010.
15 I think 2010 is when Zion was -- made the request, so 16 it's fairly new. We've only done two of them so far.
17 We've done lots of license transfers in the NRC, but 18 we've never -- we've only done the two actual license 19 transfers for decommissioning. We're only looking at 20 the third, which is slightly different from Vermont.
21 So like I say, it's fairly new.
22 MS. BRUNETTI POST: And how did that 23 happen? Like did --
24 MR. WATSON: Well --
25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 MS. BRUNETTI POST: -- you guys come up 1
with new rules or --
2 MR. WATSON: No, the rules have always been 3
there for who can possess a license, but the utilities 4
actually have these companies come to they and say 5
-- come to them or utilities go to the companies and 6
say we want to have a contractual agreement or -- that 7
you will decommission plant and here's how much money 8
we have for it. And it's a contractual -- it's a 9
business agreement between the utility and the company.
10 The NRC has no say in the commerce that goes on there.
11 12 The only thing we do is that new company, 13 if they want to accept the -- they want to take the 14 license, they have to make application to be a licensee.
15 In order to do that they have to pass certain financial 16 requirements and technical requirements so that we feel 17 that they will be able to decommission the plant safely 18 within the amount of money that's available to do the 19 decommissioning.
20 And so we do a thorough technical 21 evaluation. I think we're -- the one in the Vermont 22 we've had numerous questions back and forth with the 23
-- not on the utility but the applicant. And so it's 24 a fairly rigorous process. And so it's a matter of 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 reaching a conclusion. Either they are going to be 1
an adequate or acceptable company to do the 2
decommissioning or not. So it can be either -- the 3
transfer can be approved or denied.
4 MR. BROADDUS: Hey, Bruce, can I add?
5 So how did this happen? This is -- I can 6
only give you a little bit of the history of what's 7
happened over the past 20 years or so.
8 So in the 1990s there were a number of 9
plants that shut down at that time. Zion was one of 10 the last ones that shut down during that time period.
11 I'm sorry. So Zion was one of the last 12 ones that shut down during that time period. And as 13 Bruce indicated, that was one of the models that was 14 used for Zion. They've done that through a contract.
15 So in 2013 -- from 2013 to now Oyster Creek 16 will be the seventh plant unit -- facility that's shut 17 down.
18 MS. BRUNETTI POST: Seventh?
19 MR. BROADDUS: Seventh. And, yes, 20 there's one --
21 MR. WATSON: Since 2013.
22 MS. BRUNETTI POST: Since 2013? Okay.
23 MR. BROADDUS: So there weren't any plants 24 that shut down between the 1990s and --
25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 MS. BRUNETTI POST: Okay.
1 MR. BROADDUS: -- 2013. About a 15-year 2
period there weren't any plants that shut down. So 3
in 2013 there were additional plants that were shut 4
down at that time. And then subsequent plants have 5
shut down over the last couple of years as well.
6 And as Bruce says, of those seven we're 7
aware of the two -- is it two that are considering that 8
model? Is it -- no, it's Vermont Yankee. And is 9
anybody else?
10 MR. WATSON: Well, the ones aren't public, 11 I don't think.
12 MR. BROADDUS: Okay. So, yes. So only 13 one other one that has actually announced that they're 14 following that model.
15 MR. WATSON: Or made application.
16 MR. BROADDUS: Made an application. But 17 I think --
18 MS. BRUNETTI POST: So out of the seven, 19 two are considering and one has announced. Is that 20 21 MR. BROADDUS: No, I think -- I'm trying 22 to --
23 MR. WATSON: There are seven that have shut 24 down. Only Vermont Yankee has applied to transfer the 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 license.
1 MS. BRUNETTI POST: Okay.
2 MR. WATSON: We hear rumors. We only can 3
go by what's publicly available in the -- I guess I'll 4
call it the industry news.
5 MS. BRUNETTI POST: Yes.
6 MR. WATSON: But we don't have any formal 7
requests for transferring a license and so we really 8
can't -- we don't have any basis for what they're doing 9
other than many of the utilities we hear are looking 10 at the business model and see if it applies, if it would 11 be a good match for them to do into the future. So 12 it's really their business decision.
13 MS. BRUNETTI POST: Okay. And what are 14 some of the companies that do this kind of thing, that 15 take on the licenses for decommissioning?
16 MR. WATSON: Okay. Right now the ones 17 that we know of are Energy Solutions, which also owns 18 the burial site out in Nevada. I mean, Utah. So 19 they're a waste company that does a lot of 20 transportation of radioactive waste. They actually 21 have a decommissioning group within Energy Solutions, 22 so they have the agreement, or the license was 23 transferred to them for Zion and La Crosse. Recently 24 La Crosse over the last couple years.
25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 The other company that has made application 1
to us is a company called Northstar for Vermont Yankee.
2 They have a -- some decommissioning experience and 3
a lot of demolition business, according to what they 4
supplied to us.
5 MS. BRUNETTI POST: Yes.
6 MR. WATSON: But there's lots of companies 7
out there that would do decommissioning. All you have 8
to do is look at the DOE complex. I think Bechtel was 9
mentioned. There's a litany of companies that have 10 done Department of Energy decommissioning in the 11 weapons complex, which has been going on for years.
12 So I would imagine that if a company is 13 interested, they -- there's probably more than those 14 two that I know by name. So it's really up to who's 15 a good chemistry match, I guess I would call it, for 16 a contract and trying to negotiate who's going to do 17 what or what they're going to do and whether they think 18 it's enough money to do the work.
19 MS. BRUNETTI POST: Okay. Thank you.
20 MR. WATSON: Okay. You didn't bail on me 21 yet, did you?
22 MR. BARKLEY: No, I didn't bail.
23 MR. WATSON: Okay.
24 MR. BARKLEY: All right. We have three 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 more individuals who'd like to speak, so let me call 1
them up.
2 MR. WATSON: Bring them up. That will be 3
it probably.
4 MR. BARKLEY: And that will be it, yes.
5 David Moss. Then we'll have Barry Bastian and then 6
finally we'll bring Paul Gunter back up.
7 Okay, David.
8 MR. MOST: That's Most, M-O-S-T.
9 MR. BARKLEY: M-O -- looks like Moss.
10 Okay. Sorry.
11 MR. MOST: How's everybody doing this 12 evening?
13 (Simultaneous speaking.)
14 MR. MOST: Yes, I'm used to microphone 15 because I used to sit on the township committee. I'm 16 no longer in politics here, but I'm a long-time employee 17 down at Oyster Creek. I'm a union guy. I've been down 18 there 37 years, so I'm proud of what we've done. And 19 for 50 years we've supplied generation to this 20 community, to 600,000 homes.
21 And my concern -- I see there's some state 22 officials here with us and I was just wondering does 23 the NRC ever invite the state to talk about how we're 24 going to be replacing the power, because like I said, 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 Oyster Creek has been here for 50 years. It's a station 1
that's been in our back yard. During the high-peak 2
power demand in the summertime, which we have currently, 3
we go into these generation alerts where we don't do 4
a lot of things in the plant that could take the plant 5
off-line because of the demand for electricity.
6 So my concern as a resident is for the 7
customers to basically ensure that they have reliable 8
power like they've had the past years from Oyster Creek.
9 And I would just urge -- because we had dialogue with 10 the state 10 years ago. And Bruce had mentioned land 11 use issues. And that's exactly what we're trying to 12 do. We're trying to have a bump-less transfer of build 13 another facility in the back of the power plant. Well, 14 that dialogue sort of failed and here we are. It's 15 already 10 years later and here we're talking about 16 closing Oyster Creek in September.
17 So my concern is the reliability, whether 18 somebody could talk to it from the state and sort of 19 be like an info -- I don't know if you've ever done 20 that with other state officials to talk about the 21 electrical demand and how they're going to meet that.
22 Excuse me. I'd like them --
23 MR. WATSON: Yes, the NRC's a nuclear 24 safety regulator. We don't really get involved in the 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 actual commerce in the state. That's your Public 1
Service Commission, or however it is in the state, that 2
looks at the power mixes and what's granted to be built 3
and how reliable the grid is. That's also part of the 4
5 MR. MOST: PJM, right.
6 MR. WATSON: -- PJM is Pennsylvania Jersey 7
Maryland Interconnection. So they look at grid 8
stability along with the Federal -- what is it 9
Energy --
11 MR. WATSON: Anyway -- FERC?
12 MR. MOST: Yes.
13 MR. WATSON: Yes, so we don't get involved 14 in those. But we do deal with the state on -- with 15 emergency plans, security, a litany of issues to make 16 sure that we're well coordinated with the state and 17 the other state officials to make sure that all those 18 types of processes goes smoothly in the event that they 19 are needed. Okay?
20 MR. BROADDUS: I'll also just indicate 21 that we do coordinate with FERC if there is ever a grid 22 reliability issue that could have an impact to one of 23 our plants. So if there is a power availability issue 24 or something like that or -- either to the surrounding 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 community or to the plant itself, we do have an interface 1
with FERC to ensure that they're -- that that is not 2
causing health and safety issues.
3 MR. MOST: So what I'm advocating here is 4
the state come up with a comprehensive plan and educate 5
us as far as residents to how we're going to make this 6
transfer from when Oyster Creek closes. And that's 7
basically my point, so we can ensure that we have a 8
reliable source of power like we've had 50 years. So 9
I appreciate your time. Thank you.
10 MR. BARKLEY: Okay. Thank you.
11 Barry? Where did Barry disappear to?
12 There he is.
13 MR. BASTIAN: Hi, my name is Barry Bastian.
14 I'm a resident and I just have one question. I hear 15 a lot about the NRC's mentioning of requirements, 16 regulations and rules. My thought was are there 17 prescribed penalties in the event that these 18 decommissioning criteria are not met?
19 MR. WATSON: I mentioned in my slides we 20 have an inspection manual dedicated to inspecting power 21 reactors in decommissioning. We also within the NRC 22 have what we call the enforcement manual where if those 23 inspections result in notice of violation or escalated 24 notices of violation, the NRC can also not only require 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 corrective actions, but can also issue civil penalties; 1
in other words, have the utilities pay a fine for 2
misdeeds. So that program inspection enforcement 3
continues as long as they have a license.
4 So, yes, we do have enforcement programs that 5
have been well-exercised over the years. I guess I'll 6
end with that.
7 MR. BASTIAN: All right. Thank you very 8
much.
9 MR. BARKLEY: Come on up, Paul.
10 And then finally Barry Bendar asked to 11 speak as well, so we can bring Barry as well after Paul.
12 MR. GUNTER: Thank you. Paul Gunter, 13 Beyond Nuclear. So, Bruce, you're the decommissioning 14 expert here and you've seen decommissioning operations 15 around the United States, I assume. I'm wondering if 16 you could comment why Big Rock Point on the Gold Coast 17 of Michigan, which went through DECON, wasn't able to 18 get released for unrestricted use. It's my 19 understanding that there was plutonium contamination 20 in the soil there. Can you confirm that?
21 MR. WATSON: Okay. Big Rock Point has 22 been released from its license. Their license is 23 terminated for unrestricted use. There's a group out 24 that keeps claiming that there is plutonium released 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 to Lake Michigan. It's been sampled numerous times.
1 We've evaluated that particular issue numerous times, 2
and quite frankly, not found any plutonium that was 3
ever released now to the lake.
4 They did have a fairly large tritium 5
release, which is not plutonium, a long, long time ago.
6 And that's one of the reasons they actually removed 7
all of the reactor building and all of the turbine 8
building including the foundations to make sure that 9
if there was any residual tritium there that they would 10 remove it.
11 But we have responded to that. I guess 12 we treated it as an allegation at one point about 13 plutonium being released to the lake and did not find 14 it on numerous occasions where we've investigated that.
15 MR. GUNTER: Okay. Well, thank you very 16 much. That's reassuring.
17 We also have an expert here from the NRC 18 on groundwater contamination. I'm wondering if you 19 would be able to give us a status check on the Cohansey 20 drinking water aquifer and the tritium contamination 21 that the -- I believe there was a fine issued by the 22 state of New Jersey to Exelon for significant 23 contamination of the Cohansey drinking water aquifer.
24 MR. WATSON: Let me answer that.
25
118 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. GUNTER: Okay.
1 MR. WATSON: I just assigned Randy to this 2
project --
3 MR. GUNTER: Okay.
4 MR. WATSON: -- a couple weeks ago, so he's 5
just catching up to speed on the groundwater issues 6
here at Oyster Creek. I felt that it was a time since 7
we were having this meeting for -- it would be an 8
excellent opportunity for him and some of the other 9
staff members to come to the site, see the issues and 10 the local community, visit the site and start looking 11 at the technical issues that we will be inheriting when 12 the plant goes into decommissioning and eventually 13 comes to my organization for oversight.
14 MR. GUNTER: Okay. So is -- what's the 15 status of the Cohansey aquifer in terms of what levels 16 of tritium are --
17 MR. WATSON: I have no idea.
18 MR. GUNTER: You have no idea? Okay.
19 MR. WATSON: I can't --
20 MR. GUNTER: So we have to -- we would have 21 to ask that question of the state then?
22 MR. BARKLEY: Yes.
23 MR. GUNTER: Is anybody from the state here 24 to address that?
25
119 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 Okay. I assume that that will be an 1
ongoing evaluation, but it -- I think one of the 2
questions for decommissioning is how deep does the 3
decommissioning and decontamination process go down 4
to? So obviously there's a big concern about fresh 5
water contamination with -- and I know that tritium 6
is often trivialized, but there's absolutely no reason 7
that it should be, because it does cause cancer, it 8
does create mutations and genetic damage. So we'll 9
follow up on that.
10 MR. BROADDUS: Well, I can --
11 MR. GUNTER: Please.
12 MR. BROADDUS: Just from my discussions 13 while I was on site today my understanding is that there 14 has not been any tritium contamination found in any 15 of the groundwater. So that's my understanding, but 16 it's above the water table and it's still contained 17 above that from what I understood.
18 MR. GUNTER: Okay. So there's no detail 19 or no mention of the Cohansey aquifer.
20 Just a couple more questions, and I 21 appreciate everybody's patience. You mention that 22 there's an emergency plan should one of these dry casks 23 develop a problem. We've been following NRC 24 communications that say that even after 10 years the 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 NRC has documented that some of the seals on the dry 1
cask storage have deteriorated. And you issue 20-year 2
licenses. They can get renewed four times. So overall 3
100 years on one of these casks.
4 If a cask out on the Tarmac develops a 5
radioactive leak, what is the plan?
6 MR. WATSON: I wish we had have brought 7
one of our spent fuel people here today, but I'll have 8
to take that one back and get back to you. I mean, 9
I really don't feel I can responsibly answer that 10 question. But they are monitored so far and the design 11 life of those casks is many, many, many decades beyond 12 what they're licensed for.
13 MR. GUNTER: Right, they get a 20-year 14 license. Then they get renewed every 20 years for four 15 renewals, and then we don't know what happens.
16 MR. WATSON: Right.
17 MR. GUNTER: Okay. Last question then.
18 If the PS -- PDSR -- PDA -- PD --
20 MR. GUNTER: -- thank you -- is not 21 approved by the NRC, what's the point of the public 22 comment?
23 MR. WATSON: Well, we don't approve or 24 disapprove. We either accept it that it meets our 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 content requirements. So we will continue to ask 1
questions of a licensee until they answer all our 2
questions, if we have any. I think the Regulatory 3
Guides, the guidance that we have out there is pretty 4
explicit in what we require as far as the content in 5
the Post-Shutdown Decommissioning Activities Report.
6 And then most likely I think it's fairly unusual that 7
we have many questions about it, about the PSDAR, but 8
we have had a couple times where we've had to go back 9
and ask for more information. So once we feel that 10 they've fulfilled all the requirements that we've asked 11 them to provide, then we will tell them thank you for 12 providing your PSDAR to us.
13 MR. BROADDUS: And as I mentioned in my 14 presentation, the purpose of the comments is to give 15 the interested stakeholders the opportunity to weigh 16 in on it as well, provide any additional information 17 either to the licensee or to us that -- of actions that 18 could potentially need to be taken. We would have to 19
-- I mean, in -- I mean, our -- but our primary purpose 20 of the review is to ensure that it meets all the 21 requirements, it provides all the information that's 22 necessary.
23 MR. WATSON: Yes, I was just going to add 24 more thing, and that is the regulation requires that 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 they provide the NRC with the Post-Shutdown Activities 1
Report either prior to or within two years after they've 2
shut down. We've never had anybody go beyond that 3
two-year requirement that I can recall. It's always 4
been accepted with possibly some additional information 5
provided to us. But there is a requirement to submit 6
that in the regulation, just like there is for us to 7
hold this public meeting.
8 MR. BARKLEY: Okay. One person. Barry?
9 MR. BENDAR: Yes.
10 MR. BARKLEY: You still here? Come up, 11 Barry.
12 MR. BENDAR: My question really has to talk 13 about -- we've had a lot of conversation about the money 14 that --
15 MR. WATSON: Can you give us your name?
16 MR. BENDAR: Oh, I'm sorry. Barry Bendar 17 and I live here --
18 MR. WATSON: Okay.
19 MR. BENDAR: -- one mile from Oyster Creek, 20 ground zero.
21 (Laughter.)
22 MR. BENDAR: There's a lot of talk about 23 the money that the utility has to put out for the 24 decommissioning and how that money will be used for 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 the decommissioning. My question is; and some 1
questions that were asked earlier brought this to mind 2
for me, after it's decommissioned the spent fuel rods 3
will still be there and they'll remain radioactive 4
probably as my great grandchildren or great, great 5
grandchildren are walking the planet, if they ever walk 6
the planet.
7 And the question of the monitoring where 8
the NRC comes out twice a year with -- is that factual 9
information? They come out twice a year with -- to 10 check for radiation. Is that the fact or --
11 MR. BROADDUS: I believe --
12 (Simultaneous speaking.)
13 MR. BENDAR: And the question is going 14 further.
15 MR. WATSON: Yes, I don't know the 16 frequency exactly. I know we come out at least once 17 a year. Many facilities we come out more than that.
18 But we will continue to inspect and ensure they're 19 safe as long as they're there.
20 MR. BENDAR: Right. That's good.
21 MR. WATSON: And the other part of this 22 is that the utility is responsible for maintaining that 23 facility, the spent fuel facility in a safe and secure 24 condition. Most utilities go back to the Department 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 of Energy and actually -- I guess I'll call it the word 1
"sue" them for to -- to collect the funds back that 2
they've expended so that they get the money to -- get 3
the money back so they can continue to maintain the 4
facility in a safe and secure fashion.
5 MR. BENDAR: Okay. And the question I 6
had, because I brought up the topic of the money that's 7
put aside for decommissioning, where does the money 8
come from for the monitoring? And there's a little 9
follow-on to that also.
10 MR. BROADDUS: So the decommissioning 11 trust is specifically excluded from spent fuel 12 management. So to use that for spent fuel management 13 specifically -- the regulations specifically exclude 14 that. So they have to have the funds from other 15 sources.
16 One of the ways that that -- some utilities 17 have requested, or they've actually made a request to 18 us where they've been able to demonstrate that the trust 19 fund that they already have has sufficient funds in 20 there to cover both decommissioning as we as the spent 21 fuel management. And in those cases they come in and 22 request our approval to be able to use a portion of 23 that money for the spent fuel management. And if we 24 find that they can complete the decommissioning, still 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 complete the decommissioning funds and the spent fuel 1
management with that money, then we have generally 2
approved that -- those types of requests.
3 And, I believe, John, we have received 4
-- yes, we've received a request specifically from -- we 5
received a request from Exelon for Oyster Creek to be 6
able to use the money in that manner.
7 MR. BENDAR: Any money that's left over 8
from the decommissioning?
9 MR. BROADDUS: Yes.
10 MR. BENDAR: Okay. So in our case it will 11 come from Exelon?
12 MR. BROADDUS: It comes from the existing 13 trust.
14 MR. BENDAR: The trust that was from Exelon 15 16 MR. BROADDUS: Yes.
17 MR. BENDAR: -- basically? Okay. So 18 they're going to -- and there's money in there for them 19 to do the monitoring. Because the topic I was going 20 to bring up is that -- what I used to refer to for years 21 as the host community fund.
22 MR. BROADDUS: Yes.
23 MR. BENDAR: And my understanding, last 24 time I checked, that's in billions of dollars, that 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 if we could get our government to get off the pot, if 1
you will, that would be a wonderful place to get funding 2
for the -- Janet Tauro had mentioned 24-hour, some kind 3
of real-time monitoring. I mean, billions of dollars 4
would go a long way towards something like that.
5 Personally, myself, living here; and I've been here 6
for 30 years, once or twice a year monitoring -- myself 7
personally; I'll just tell you point blank, I'm not 8
comfortable with. So thank you very much.
9 MR. BARKLEY: Okay. Thank you.
10 MR. WATSON: We're done?
11 MR. BARKLEY: Mayor, how did we do?
12 MAYOR CURATOLO: Great.
13 MR. BARKLEY: All right. Thank you. I 14 appreciate your remarks at the beginning here. The 15 audience here I thought was fantastic this evening.
16 Answered a lot of questions from a number of people, 17 so i thought it was a very good dialogue and exchange.
18 Let me turn it back over to Bruce at this 19 point and let him close.
20 MR. WATSON: Yes, I just wanted to say 21 thank you for coming. We do our best to answer the 22 questions, hopefully answered most of them to your 23 satisfaction, at least to have an understanding of what 24 we do and our role in the decommissioning. Again, we're 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 an independent safety regulator. Our job is to make 1
sure that the decommissioning and the spent fuel remains 2
safe while they're here, and we have a rigorous 3
inspection program to ensure that that happens and a 4
licensing program that helps maintain, or does maintain 5
the safety of the decommissioning through the process.
6 And we will be here until the license is terminated 7
and the radioactive material is removed and meets our 8
criteria for unrestricted release.
9 So thank you again very much.
10 (Applause.)
11 (Whereupon, the above-entitled matter went 12 off the record at 8:52 p.m.)
13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25
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