ML11312A233

Official Transcript of Proceedings, Restart Readiness Inspection Exit Meeting. Pages 1-120

ML11312A233
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Site:	North Anna
Issue date:	11/01/2011
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NRC-1242
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Official Transcript of Proceedings NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION

Title:

North Anna Power Station Restart Readiness Inspection Exit Meeting Docket Number:

(n/a)

Location:

Mineral, Virginia Date:

Tuesday, November 1, 2011 Work Order No.:

NRC-1242 Pages 1-120 NEAL R. GROSS AND CO., INC.

Court Reporters and Transcribers 1323 Rhode Island Avenue, N.W.

Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 234-4433

NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 1

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 1

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2 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 3

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4 NORTH ANNA POWER STATION RESTART READINESS 5

INSPECTION EXIT MEETING 6

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7 TUESDAY 8

NOVEMBER 1, 2011 9

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10 The Public Meeting met in the Louisa 11 County Middle School, 1009 Davis Highway, Mineral, 12 Virginia, at 7:00 p.m., Bret Leslie and Richard 13 Barkley, Meeting Facilitators, presiding.

14 PRESENT:

15 BRET LESLIE, Meeting Facilitator, NRC 16 RICHARD BARKLEY, Meeting Facilitator, NRC 17 RODNEY CLAGG, NRC 18 GENE GRECHECK, Vice President of Nuclear 19 Development, Dominion Virginia Power 20 ROGER HANNAH, Office of Public Affairs, NRC 21 DAVID HEACOCK, Chief Nuclear Officer, 22 Dominion Virginia Power 23 ERIC HENDRIXSON, Dominion Virginia Power 24 EDD HOUCK, State Senator, Virginia 25

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MEENA KHANNA, Chief of Mechanical and Civil 1

Engineering Branch, Office of Nuclear 2

Reactor Regulation, NRC 3

GREG KOLCUM, NRC 4

LARRY LANE, North Anna Power Station Vice 5

President, Dominion Virginia Power 6

ERIC LEEDS, Director of the Office of Nuclear 7

Reactor Regulation, NRC 8

YONG LI, NRC 9

KAMAL MANOLY, NRC 10 GERRY MCCOY, Branch Chief, Dominion Virginia 11 Power 12 VICTOR MCCREE, Regional Administrator, NRC 13 ANDREW SABISCH, NRC 14 DAN STODDARD, Senior Vice President of 15 Nuclear Operations, Dominion Virginia Power 16 17 PUBLIC COMMENTERS:

18 BILL AKERS 19 JIM ADAMS, Not On Our Fault Line 20 G. PAUL BLUNDELL 21 PAXUS CALTA 22 JOHN CARROLL 23 VODJKTA TA CHAI 24 MARIANE COBB 25

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ANDREW COOK 1

BARBARA CRAWFORD 2

JOHN CRUICKSHANK, Sierra Club, Virginia 3

Chapter 4

ELENA DAY, People's Alliance for Clean Energy 5

JEREMY DUNAY 6

DARLA EATON 7

JOHN FARMER 8

EDMUND FROST, Not On Our Fault Line 9

LYNN GAINES, Lake Anna Business Partnership 10 ERICA GRAY 11 PAUL GUNTER, Beyond Nuclear 12 RAY JURGEL 13 LAURA KAY 14 KIRBY MACLURIN 15 SCOTT PRICE, Alliance for Progressive Values 16 JERRY ROSENTHAL, Concerned Citizens of Louisa 17 County 18 AL SMITH 19 CHRISTINA TOWNS 20 SCOTT ZIEMER 21 22 23 24 25

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P-R-O-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S 1

(6:58:30 p.m.)

2 FACILITATOR LESLIE:

Welcome and good 3

evening. You're attending the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory 4

Commission's North Anna Power Station Seismic Event.

5 And I want to thank the very energetic and large crowd 6

tonight.

7 My name is Bret Leslie, and I'm Senior 8

Project Manager at the NRC. And I'm one of two 9

facilitators for this meeting tonight. The other 10 facilitator is Rich Barkley back there.

11 And before we really get started, I've got 12 some housekeeping issues to go through, talk a little 13 bit about agenda, and a couple of other things.

14 As you may have noticed, we have some 15 microphones around. This meeting is being transcribed 16 for Tony over there. He's our court transcriptionist, 17 so we're going to ask the speakers to use the mics.

18 And later in the meeting when there is a question and 19 answer period, again we're going to ask people who 20 have questions to come up to the mic and state their 21 name, and then their question so that it can be on the 22 record. In addition, this meeting is being videoed.

23 The video will be put on as a web video -- well, it's 24 not being videoed live, but it will put on the NRC as 25

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a file there on the website.

1 Another thing, this meeting also has a 2

bridge line tonight, and at a point later in the 3

question and answer period, we'll go to any people who 4

are on the bridge who might have questions. But I 5

want to focus on the people here in the room first 6

when we get to the question and answer period.

7 For those of you who didn't sign in, there 8

are sign in out front. There are also some question 9

cards. And the idea for the question cards is so that 10 Rich and I can help insure that everyone gets their 11 question asked, so if you don't have a question card 12 you can raise your hand and Rich or I will give you 13 one.

14 Also, during the business portion of the 15 meeting, should anything from Dominion or NRC spark a 16 question and you don't have a card, again Rich and I 17 will be looking for you to see if you've got a 18 question that you might want to submit.

19 Let me talk a little bit. NRC is a safety 20 organization. I was going to say your egress and 21 emergency exits are straight out those doors and 22 outside. I would suggest not going straight out the 23 back because we have a lot of the media here and 24 equipment, so I wouldn't go up the middle aisle. But 25

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in case of an emergency, you will exit these two doors 1

and go outside.

2 A couple of things. Again, kind of on the 3

logistics. This meeting is a discussion of what both 4

Dominion has done since the earthquake and also what 5

NRC has done since the earthquake. The NRC's 6

presentation will provide an overview of what are the 7

requirement regarding restart, the NRC Staff review 8

process, and an overview of some of the key technical 9

areas that have been -- are associated with the safety 10 review, and a summary of the restart readiness 11 inspection activities, and next steps and path 12 forward.

13 Kind of -- I've got a few ground rules to 14 insure that everyone's voice is heard. And I put them 15

here, they're pretty simple.

Because we're 16 transcribing things, we need to only have one person 17 at a time speaking. And, again, that's the idea of 18 having the question being asked at the microphone.

19 And also, again, let's try to respect each other, and 20 we'll try to get all the questions asked, and all the 21 questions answered.

22 So, that's pretty simple. That's really 23 Rich's and my job, is to insure that we have a good 24 and open communication of information from the NRC and 25

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that we try to answer your questions as well as we 1

can.

2 A couple of other things. The agenda is 3

pretty simple. We're right now in the opening remarks 4

by the meeting facilitator. One other thing, if there 5

are members of the media, Roger Hannah from the NRC is 6

somewhere in the back, and he'd be -- he's over in the 7

corner back there. He just waved his hand, so if 8

there's any media concerns that the NRC can address, 9

Roger would be happy to help you.

10 Overall, we'll have the meeting facilitation 11 comments, and we'll open up with the Dominion 12 presentation. And, as I said, this will be a 13 description of what Dominion has been doing since the 14 earthquake.

And then we'll go into the NRC 15 presentation.

16 Before we really get started, I want to have 17 the speakers introduce themselves, or the people at 18 the front table. And could I get you to start with 19 Gerry?

20 MR. McCOY: Hello, my name is Gerry McCoy.

21 I'm a Branch Chief for the North Anna Plant. That 22 means inspectors who are here at the plant work for 23 me.

24 MR. McCREE: Good evening. My name is Victor 25

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McCree. I'm Regional Administrator for the NRC's 1

Region II office in Atlanta, and responsible for all 2

the commercial nuclear power plants in the Southeast, 3

including Dominion's North Anna and Surrey Stations.

4 MR. LEEDS: Good evening. My name is Eric 5

Leeds. I'm the Director of the Office of Nuclear 6

Reactor Regulation. My office is responsible for the 7

programmatic safety of the 104 operating plants in the 8

country.

9 MS. KHANNA: Good evening. My name is Meena 10 Khanna. I'm the Chief of the Mechanical and Civil 11 Engineering Branch in the Office of Nuclear Reactor 12 Regulation.

13 MR. HEACOCK: Good evening. I'm Dave Heacock.

14 I'm the President and Chief Nuclear Officer for 15 Dominion.

16 MR.

GRECHECK:

Good evening.

I'm Gene 17 Grecheck. I'm Vice President of Nuclear Development 18 for Dominion.

19 MR. STODDARD: I'm Dan Stoddard. I'm the 20 Senior Vice President of Nuclear Operations for 21 Dominion.

22 MR. LANE: Good evening. I'm Larry Lane, the 23 Site Vice President in North Anna Power Station.

24 FACILITATOR LESLIE:

And before we get 25

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started with the business portion of the meeting, I 1

have one more administrative thing to talk about.

2 This is a Category One meeting, so this is a meeting 3

between the NRC and the licensee talking about a 4

specific topic. And at the end of the business 5

meeting after the presentations by both Dominion and 6

NRC, I'm going to turn to both sides to see if they 7

have any questions. And if not, then we'll open up a 8

question and answer period. And, at that time, I'll 9

also reiterate some of the things.

10 Again, I'm collecting quite a stack of 11 cards, so just a kind of a head's up, we are going to 12 have a time limit initially of three minutes, and a 13 few other things. Again, I'll remind you folks to 14 come up and identify yourself for the record when you 15 ask your question.

16 MR. McCREE: Bret, if I might; in addition to 17 the four NRC representatives here at the table, there 18 are a number also here. And if during the question 19 and answer session you have any questions that we 20 invite one of our colleagues to answer, they'll 21 introduce themselves and respond to your question.

22 And we also recognize, by the way, that a 23 number of you, particularly those of you sitting up 24 top can't see us well here, so during the question and 25

NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 10 answer session we'll make sure that we stand so that 1

you can see us, as well as hear us.

2 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Thanks, Vic. I was going 3

to get around to that, too, as well, but thanks.

4 At this point, I'm going to turn it over to 5

David Heacock to make the presentation for Dominion.

6 And, again, after that, if NRC has any questions 7

please ask them then. David.

8 MR. HEACOCK: Bret, thank you very much. I 9

think I'll start off with Dominion and the NRC have 10 the same goal in mind here, to make sure the safety of 11 the plant is at its utmost best for restart.

12 I'm going to cover what happened at the 13 plant on August 23 rd, what's happened since then, what 14 we looked at, and what the results were.

15 So far, we had a very comprehensive plan.

16 We put together a restart plan. We used the guidance 17 that the NRC has previously approved and designed a 18 plan to go through and do a comprehensive inspection 19 and examination, walk down, testing, surveillances of 20 all the plant equipment. We spent over 100,000 hours0 days <br />0 hours <br />0 weeks <br />0 months <br /> 21 of time doing that, spent $21 million to date.

22 The EPRI guidance that the NRC has 23 sanctioned has you establish the level of intensity or 24 level of damage at the plant, Level 0 being the 25

NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 11 lowest, Level 3 being the highest. This was clearly a 1

Level 0 or lowest level event. The level event then 2

determines what the required surveillances, and 3

testing, inspections are.

4 Dominion decided to go one level above that.

5 We did the Level 1

inspection, testings and 6

surveillances, more than was required by the EPRI 7

guidance.

8 The Restart Readiness Plan has been 9

complete. The last letter was signed out today back 10 to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. We've gotten 11 over 200 some odd questions, and very, very detailed 12 answers were provided to each of those questions. In 13 some cases there was follow-up questions, we answered 14 those questions. So, the restart plan is complete.

15 To date there's been no functional damage 16 found at the plant, and I'll describe what that means 17 in just a few minutes. And the units are ready for 18 restart.

19 Now, there's been a lot of discussion in the 20 media about the plant was -- this earthquake exceeded 21 the design basis of the plant. What we're talking 22 about there is accelerations. This is the physical 23 ground movement, and I'm going to show you in just a 24 minute what we're talking about in that regard.

25

NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 12 Accelerations is one of three elements that 1

determines how much energy is transferred to the 2

plant. When you hear about seismic events, you 3

normally hear about Richter scale. Richter scale is a 4

measure of energy at the epicenter, not the amount of 5

energy somewhere else. So, it's important to remember 6

that's measurement of the energy at the epicenter.

7 For us, we designed the plants for 8

acceleration, a very conservative measure, but the 9

frequency and duration event are very, very important 10 factors. The three factors combined determines how 11 much energy is imparted on the station. The larger 12 the amplitude the larger the acceleration, the shorter 13 the duration for a given energy earthquake. They're 14 inversely proportional.

15 So, the seismic acceleration, even though 16 it's a good tool for making a conservative design, 17 it's not a good tool for assessing the damage at a 18 power plant. The duration is not included in that 19 analysis.

20 What is an important measure is called 21 Cumulative Absolute Velocity, and rather than writing 22 equations on the board and going through that, this is 23 a measure that combines all three elements into one.

24 It's been well recognized by seismic experts that this 25

NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 13 measure determines how much energy is imparted on the 1

station and takes into account all three of these 2

elements.

3 This is an actual seismograph printout of 4

the three directions of the event on August 23 rd. The 5

black squiggly lines represents the actual event that 6

occurred. We measure it in three directions, two 7

horizontal directions and one vertical, North-South, 8

East-West, and a vertical direction. The top graph is 9

the East-West accelerations.

The green band 10 represents the design basis of the plant. That's the 11 accelerations the plant was designed to withstand. As 12 you can see from the graph quite clearly, on the East-13 West directions those lines didn't exceed the green 14 band.

15 Now, what's also important is the duration, 16 the effective strong motion duration. This is a 17 duration that takes about 70 percent of the energy 18 from the earthquake to be dissipated at the plant.

19 So, the bigger the squiggly lines are, the shorter the 20 duration, the smaller the squiggly lines are the 21 longer it takes.

22 The top line for East-West in the horizontal 23 direction took about 3.1 seconds for what's called 24 Effective Strong Motion Duration. The next one down is 25

NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 14 vertical. You can see some of the lines slightly 1

exceeded the design basis lines. That was even 2

shorter, 1.5 seconds. And the bottom graph, the North-3 South exceeded it the most but only for a fraction of 4

a second. So, that was only about one second of strong 5

motion.

6 Now, the green shaded area is what the plant 7

is designed to withstand. In other words, you assume 8

that the shaking occurs, the maximum amplitude for 15 9

to 30 seconds. So, a lot of energy is imparted there 10 over that time period, so the area, or the size of 11 that big green bar is how much the plant is designed 12 to withstand. The area within the small black 13 squiggly line is how much actually was imparted on the 14 plant. You can see that the amount imparted was way, 15 way below the amount the plant was designed to 16 withstand.

17 This is a different way of looking at it. I 18 mentioned earlier the Cumulative Absolute Velocity of 19 the CAV is a better measure of the energy imparted on 20 the plant. The NRC a while back used some folks from 21 EPRI and some industry experts and looked at 22 earthquakes around the world, and determined what 23 Cumulative Absolute Velocity would cause no damage to 24 normal buildings like houses and office buildings, 25

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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 15 that kind of thing. The value of 1.6 constitutes a 1

value at which below you'd see no damage to normal 2

building, not nuclear seismic structures, just normal 3

buildings.

4 The black line across the bottom of this 5

graph represents that limit, the 1.6. It's in G 6

seconds, that's the unit of measure. The blue bars 7

represent the actual event. And you can see in two of 8

the three directions the event didn't exceed the value 9

for which you'd expect to find no damage in non-10 seismic structures. The yellow bars represent the 11 design basis earthquake energy levels.

12 Now, back in the mid-1990s, all the plants 13 in the U.S., including North Anna, went through and 14 did a review for individual plant evaluation external 15 events, IPEEE. This was an evaluation done to a much 16 stronger earthquake to verify that plants were able to 17 withstand a much larger event, about two and a half 18 times the design basis earthquake for North Anna.

19 We inspected about 1,800 components, and all 20 but about 50 were able to withstand that higher, two 21 and a half times higher earthquake. The last 50, the 22 lowest component, is about 30 percent above the design 23 basis. This event did not exceed that. There's a lot 24 of design margin built into the plant from day one.

25

NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 16 Here's a couple of layers of conservatism in 1

the design margin. When the plant was designed, the 2

calculations that were used to design it had 3

substantial design margin built into them. The other 4

thing to remember is that we also assume that we have 5

multiple events, not just a seismic event occurs. You 6

assume you'd have a loss of coolant accident, you have 7

thermal changes, you have pressure in the pipe. All 8

these pressures and stresses are combined at the same 9

time.

10 This event we didn't have all those stresses 11 at the same time. For piping systems, for example, the 12 seismic load is about 20 percent of the total stress, 13 so you can see it's a small fraction of the overall 14 stress. And the reactor coolant system, for example, 15 the seismic loads are about 30 percent of the total 16 stress. The vast majority is a loss of coolant 17 accident, which did not occur.

18 In addition, the individual plant evaluation 19 external events, IPEEE inspection that was done 20 previously insured large margins in all these areas.

21 The bottom line is the EPRI document that we 22 follow for restart says that the plant tells a story.

23 It said don't rely upon what happened at the 24 epicenter, or in Washington, D.C., or somewhere else.

25

NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 17 The plant tells a story. So, it tells you to look at 1

what happened at the plant. Did the windows crack, 2

for example? Windows are a good indicator of seismic 3

damage. There's no windows cracked at North Anna, for 4

example. Very, very sensitive things like windows, 5

bookcases tipping over, ceilings falling down, those 6

kind of things will happen long before a seismic 7

structure gets injured.

8 This is inside the power plant itself. The 9

turbine building is a very tall building. It's about 10 100 feet tall, about 10 stories. And one thing to 11 remember with a seismic event is the higher up you go 12 the more motion you will feel. If you're on the top 13 story of a high-rise you'd feel more motion than you 14 would at the bottom story. So, high up in this 15

building, this is non-seismic structure. This 16 building is going to move the most of one of the 17 buildings at North Anna.

18 On top of the top floor in that building are 19 these water tanks you see in the lefthand side. These 20 are demineralizer tanks. The feet of those tanks you 21 can see in the right-hand picture, is called the base 22 pedestal. That's what those tanks bolt to the 23 concrete floor. As the tanks rocked, the feet shift 24 out some of the concrete. This is the worst damage in 25

NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 18 North Anna right here.

1 One other indicator of seismic events is 2

cracks in unreinforced cinder block walls. We have 3

hundreds of these walls on site. We saw two or three 4

walls that had slight cracking. One thing to remember 5

is a seismic crack is almost always diagonal, not 6

vertical, not horizontal. Generally, settlement 7

cracks in concrete structures are different, either 8

vertical or horizontal. The seismic cracks tend to 9

follow a stair step fashion, just like this drawing, 10 this picture here.

11 This is inside the Unit 1 containment. It's 12 not the outside containment wall. It's an interior 13 wall. This wall had a horizontal crack in it, not 14 typical for a seismic event, but in this case this 15 wall was poured in two different sections. It was 16 called a cold joint. The bottom part of the wall was 17 poured, allowed to cure, then the rest of the wall was 18 poured on top, so there's a cold joint. And concrete, 19 as you probably know, will not stick to itself, so 20 there's no adhesion between the two layers.

21 When those two cold pours were done, gapping 22 between was filled in like you would plaster on sheet 23 rock at your house with a thin layer of concrete 24 called grout. The grout cracked on this wall, but the 25

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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 19 concrete wall was undamaged.

1 This is a dry cask storage facility at North 2

Anna. There's 27 dry casks that have been in service 3

for quite a while, over a decade at North Anna.

4 During the event, some of these casks, 25 of the 27 5

casks moved from one to four inches. Now, these casks 6

have continuous pressure monitors on them. They're 7

filled with helium gas. The pressure monitors the 8

entire duration, before and after, indicated no 9

alarms, no problem with the pressure in the canisters.

10 The canisters are totally undamaged.

11 The bottom line is we complied with and went 12 beyond the regulatory guidance. Let me talk briefly 13 about what that is. The NRC many years ago without a 14 seismic event having just happened established the 15 criteria. The title of Reg Guide 1.167 is "Restart of 16 a Nuclear Power Plant Shutdown by a Seismic Event,"

17 precisely what North Anna is doing right now. So, 18 this guidance is very, very detailed.

19 The EPRI document that references is nearly 20 100 pages long, establishes a very detailed protocol 21 for how to determine what the damage is, how to 22 inspect for that damage, and what the steps are for 23 short and long-term resolution. We followed that 24 protocol.

25

NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 20 The definition in the federal law is there 1

can be no functional damage before the plant can be 2

restarted. And this is the definition of functional 3

damage; it's damage that's sufficient enough to 4

safety-related equipment that prevents it from 5

performing its safety function. We had no functional 6

damage at North Anna. This isn't moderate cracks, 7

this isn't moderate hairline issues. This is a 8

functional damage issue; didn't have any of that.

9 The bottom line is let the plant tell the 10 story.

As I mentioned earlier, this particular 11 earthquake you saw some higher accelerations up in 12 Washington, D.C. than you saw farther south, so the 13 rock carried the earthquake in different ways to 14 different places. So, it's important to look at the 15 plant and not somewhere else for your information.

16 In addition to the hundred thousand plus 17 contractor hours, were about 12,000 Dominion hours of 18 inspections for testing and surveillance. We've had 19 multiple external experts, seismic experts, we've had 20 people come in from other power plants that are 21 seismic experts and do walk downs and inspections in 22 our plant, and verify our protocol is in accordance 23 with the EPRI protocol.

24 Another thing we looked as is we look for 25

NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 21 hidden damage. In addition to looking at things that 1

could be obvious visually, there might be things you 2

can't see. So, it's important to do testing and 3

surveillances that look for hidden damage.

4 In this case, one thing that we looked at is 5

underground piping, and I'll show you some pictures of 6

that in just a minute. But this is the largest single 7

underground pipe there is at North Anna. It's about a 8

20 foot by 20 foot square section circulating water 9

pipe. Lake water flows through this, about one 10 million gallons a minute per unit.

11 Square pipes, as you know, probably isn't 12 the strongest structure, so these are most susceptible 13 to seismic damage. So, we went inside this entire 14 piping and checked for seismic damage; there was none 15 underground. In addition, we went into one steam 16 generator on Unit 1 and two steam generators on Unit 17 2, inspected over 10,000 steam generator tubes with 18 eddy current and other non-destructive examination 19 techniques. Look at the secondary side of these steam 20 generators. There's over 700 snubbers at North Anna.

21 These are hydraulic supports for piping systems and 22 for components. We visually inspected all 700 23 snubbers. We functionally tested about 10 percent of 24 those snubbers, and we also did some weld inspections, 25

NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 22 and a number of other non-destructive examination 1

techniques.

2 We did extensive fuel inspection. If you 3

were to have a leak in fuel, that could be detected 4

quite easily with a chemistry sample from the water.

5 You have to look at the water very carefully looking 6

for any leakage in fuel; saw no change in before, 7

during, and after the event, so there's no impact on 8

the fuel directly.

9 On Unit 2, we took apart the reactor vessel, 10 inspected the most susceptible fuel assemblies.

11 There's about 20 assemblies around the outside of the 12 vessel. We inspected a total of about 35 fuel 13 assemblies. We tested each of the control rod 14 mechanisms on Unit 2, and the 48 control rods in the 15 fuel assemblies that they were in during the seismic 16 event, and also in the fuel assemblies that they were 17 loaded into for the reload for the next cycle; no 18 issues with any of those tests. We had 18 new fuel 19 assemblies stored in dry storage. We inspected those 20 assemblies with no damage found.

21 A tremendous amount of inspections done. We 22 did a rod freedom test on both units, and as part of 23 the start-up sequence we have committed to do hot rod 24 drop testing on both units as part of that startup 25

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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 23 sequence.

1 Now, buried piping, we have quite a bit of 2

this on station. We have 1,119 feet of buried piping 3

that could contain radioactive fluids of some sort or 4

another. We pressure tested -- about 720 of those feet 5

have liquid in them, the rest are dry most of the 6

time. We pressured tested about 90 percent of that 7

piping, and we dug up over 100 feet of it. And we 8

chose to dig up a spot -- you can imagine if a 9

building has moved and the pipe is going through the 10 base of the

building, that will be the most 11 susceptible spot for seismic damage; if you were to 12 have any, that's where you would expect to find it.

13 So, we excavated these pipes here right adjacent to 14 the concrete structures to verify that there was no 15 damage. These were verified visually, and we used 16 ultrasonic testing to verify the thickness of the pipe 17 wall was undamaged. In addition, as I mentioned, 90 18 percent of this piping was pressure tested.

19 One other piping system is the fire 20 protection piping. That's a cast iron piping, it's 21 relatively brittle. We unearthed a piece of that and 22 verified that it was in tact, and we also did pressure 23 testing on the vast majority of that piping. We did 24 over a mile of underwater underground piping pressure 25

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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 24 tests.

1 Next steps. We installed a new seismic 2

monitor, that red device you see up there. It's a 3

relatively small device. It's called a free field 4

monitor. That's been installed temporarily already.

5 It's installed outside next to our training facility, 6

and this can measure the seismic accelerations in 7

three directions. You can use a computer and very 8

quickly within minutes to an hour or so, you can 9

gather the data from this device. It's got a battery 10 backup and will run for a long period of time without 11 any AC power.

12 We also revised our procedures to allow us 13 to extract this information much more quickly in the 14 future. We've also completed all the surveillances up 15 to and ready to begin the startup sequence. About 445 16 surveillance tests were done on each unit. We ran 17 pumps, stroke valves, we did our functional tests from 18 the very beginning of the circuit all the way through 19 all the electronics to the very end of the circuit.

20 We calibrated all instrumentation to verify the 21 seismic event hadn't affected anything. We really saw 22 no damage to any safety-related components at all.

23 Long-term actions, we're going to install 24 permanent free field seismic monitoring 25

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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 25 instrumentation. We're also going to reevaluate these 1

components I mentioned earlier that didn't reach the 2

two and a half times threshold. We're going to 3

reevaluate those and bring those values up.

4 We're also going to perform a seismic 5

analysis of the recorded event. We're going to do 6

seismic floor spectrum for each floor in each building 7

and analyze that against the equipment in the 8

building. If there are exceedances, we'll evaluate 9

that equipment on a case-by-case basis.

10 The plant has tremendous seismic margins 11 built into it. What we want to do is while we're 12 doing that analysis, we're going to put in place 13 controls so we don't undo any of the margin that we 14 have built in already. So, we're going to put extra 15 care in our modifications going forward that will look 16 at the existing seismic design basis in this event to 17 make sure anything new installed in the plant will 18 exceed both of those. We're also going to revise the 19 North Anna Safety Analysis Report to include this 20 extra information.

21 If I could summarize what we found, the 22 acceleration criteria was briefly exceeded for a 23 couple of frequencies for a very, very short duration.

24 I showed you on the peak acceleration curves it was a 25

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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 26 fraction of a second. And for seismic events to cause 1

damage, it has to push over, and over, and over at a 2

fixed frequency to cause a device to get excited or to 3

move in such a way as to cause damage. That did not 4

occur.

5 Previous evaluations, including the IPEEE 6

established tremendous margins for the safety systems, 7

structures, and components. We saw no damage to any of 8

those components. This was anticipated by the CAV 9

values we calculated. It shows that the energy was 10 insufficient to cause damage to safety-related 11 components.

12 The bottom line is consistent with federal 13 law, the restart readiness demonstration is complete.

14 No functional damage to safety systems has been 15 found. The units are ready for restart.

16 Thank you. That concludes my remarks.

17 Thank you.

18 FACILITATOR LESLIE: David, thank you very 19 much.

20 Let me get the next presentation together.

21 Did the NRC have any questions for Dominion at this 22 point?

23 (No response.)

24 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Okay. I'd like to turn 25

NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 27 it over to Gerry.

1 MR. McCOY: Hello. My name is Gerry McCoy, 2

like I said before. I'm a Branch Chief for the 3

Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and what that means is 4

the inspectors here on the site work for me.

5 NRC has at least two inspectors assigned to 6

each nuclear power plant called Resident Inspectors 7

that live in the local community, report to the plant 8

each work day to inspect activities at the plant.

9 Here we have Greg Kolcum. Greg is a Senior Resident 10 Inspector, and Rodney Clagg is in the back there.

11 These are the two Resident Inspectors that work here 12 at the plant. They report to the plant each day for 13 their work day, and on a regular basis they watch the 14 licensee's activities.

15 On the afternoon of August 23 rd, the Senior 16 Resident Inspector, Greg Kolcum, was in the control 17 room of the North Anna Power Station observing a test 18 run of an auxiliary feed water pump. Another inspector 19 who specializes in emergency planning was also on site 20 performing a different inspection.

21 At about 2:00 in the afternoon when the 22 earthquake occurred, 12 power stations felt the 23 earthquake and declared an unusual event. The NRC 24 activated its Operation Center in White Flint, and the 25

NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 28 Regional Incident Response Centers to monitor the 1

plants which were affected.

2 North Anna was the only site to experience a 3

reactor trip following the earthquake. Mr. Kolcum was 4

in an excellent position to observe activities in the 5

control room, and to respond to the plant.

6 The NRC subsequently learned that the ground 7

movement at North Anna during the earthquake exceeded 8

the levels at which the plant was originally licensed.

9 Later that day, Region II dispatched an additional 10 inspector to the site to assist the inspections being 11 conducted by the residents. Seismologists from the 12 headquarters office were also directed to the site 13 within days of the event.

14 After the earthquake, the licensee commenced 15 inspections of the site to evaluate damage and prepare 16 an evaluation of the affect of the earthquake on 17 safety systems.

In order to make the NRC's 18 expectations perfectly clear, Mr. McCree, the Region 19 II Regional Administrator sent a letter to Dominion 20 which confirmed that the North Anna Power Station 21 Units 1 and 2 will not restart until the NRC had 22 completed a review of their evaluation.

23 Because of the complications from the loss 24 of offsite power and the malfunctioning of an 25

NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 29 emergency diesel generator, an augmented inspection 1

team was formed and dispatched to the site to better 2

understand the circumstances of the earthquake and 3

Dominion's response.

4 I'd like next to introduce Mark Franke.

5 Mark, please stand up. Mark Franke you might 6

recognize as a Branch Chief in Region II in Atlanta.

7 He was the team leader for the augmented inspection 8

team that was on the site. He led this inspection and 9

provided the results of his inspection at a public 10 meeting on October 3 rd, 2011.

11 He led a team of seven inspectors, including 12 a

seismologist, two structural engineers, two 13 electrical engineers, and two resident inspectors. The 14 purpose of this augmented inspection was to collect 15 factual information and evidence of what occurred in 16 the plant as a result of the earthquake.

17 The team's primary focus was on the plant's 18 response to the event itself, rather than on the 19 identification and evaluation of facts to support the 20 plant startup.

21 During the same time as this inspection 22 Dominion, like I said before, was conducting tests and 23 inspections of the plant's structure and components.

24 As a result, the members of the augmented inspection 25

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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 30 team while they were doing their inspection did take 1

time out and observe some of the tests that Dominion 2

did, and their observations are part of the restart 3

assessment process.

4 Now, we already had a public meeting for 5

this, but as we discussed in the meeting on October 6

3 rd, the augmented inspection team concluded that the 7

licensee responded to the event in a manner which 8

protected public health and safety. The ground motion 9

from the earthquake did, in fact, exceed the plant's 10 licensed design basis.

11 The safety systems' functions were 12 maintained, no damage was observed to safety-related 13 systems, and the plant's operators responded in a 14 manner that was consistent with plant procedures.

15 Now, again, as we mentioned during the 16 augmented inspection team exit meeting on October 3 rd, 17 the NRC started an inspection of Dominion's readiness 18 to restart the North Anna units on October 5 th, 2011.

19 The objective of this ongoing inspection is to 20 independently evaluate Dominion's assessment that no 21 functional damage had occurred to the safety systems.

22 This inspection is being led by Andy 23 Sabisch. Andy, would you please stand up. Okay. Mr.

24 Sabisch is the NRC's Senior Resident Inspector at the 25

NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 31 Oconee Nuclear Station in South Carolina. He is 1

leading a

team of eight inspectors, including 2

participation from NRC offices throughout the country 3

with experience in structures, piping, electrical 4

components, and plant operations.

5 Thus far, they have completed several weeks 6

of inspection, including independent assessment of 7

Dominion's inspections and testing of systems and 8

components. Selected portions of a number of plant 9

systems were visually inspected by NRC inspectors, and 10 these observations were compared with those made by 11 Dominion.

12 One example of an observation by the team 13 was the inspection of the reactor vessel supports. The 14 team was interested in the supports for the reactor 15 coolant system and identified that the licensee had 16 not performed a visual inspection of the physical 17 supports for the reactor vessel, which are designed so 18 that they could slide a limited distance.

19 Licensee determined that since these 20 supports were covered by sheet metal they were not 21 accessible, and they did not need to perform a visual 22 inspection. NRC inspectors voiced their concerns and 23 the licensee decided to remove the covers and perform 24 the visual inspections. No unusual conditions were 25

NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 32 identified with the reactor vessel sliding supports 1

during this inspection.

2 Another example was a large number of 3

observations made by NRC inspectors as they visually 4

inspected the systems in the plant. During these 5

inspections, they raised a number of questions which, 6

while they were not seismic issues affecting the 7

operability of the plant, they should have been 8

identified during the licensee's inspections. These 9

included loose valve handles, unidentified cracks in 10 concrete walls which were less than a critical width, 11 chipped concrete on missile shield

blocks, or 12 individual improperly installed pipe hangers.

13 Individually, each of these observations was 14 determined not to affect the operation of the systems 15 in question, but due to the number of observations the 16 licensee determined that they would do visual 17 inspections of additional systems in order to insure 18 they captured all of the non-standard conditions.

19 During the inspection process, the team 20 noted that the licensee had not performed an 21 inspection for seismic damage in an underground tunnel 22 which contains steam filled pipe. Due to the NRC's 23 concerns, the licensee performed an inspection of the 24 tunnel and identified gaps in the wall between the 25

NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 33 tunnel where the steam filled pipe was and another 1

room where there was safety-related equipment present.

2 These gaps were around piping which was passing 3

between the two rooms.

4 The inspectors -- the presence of such large 5

gaps were questioned. Further review by the licensee 6

determined that by design these gaps should have been 7

sealed to prevent steam from going into where the 8

safety-related equipment was in the event of a leak in 9

the steam pipe. The licensee sealed one of these gaps 10 and the team and the licensee are still evaluating the 11 significance of this observation.

12 As I said before, this inspection is still 13 in process. At this point in time, the team had not 14 identified any significant effects on safety-related 15 equipment due to the seismic event.

16 Two issues, the two hotel emergency diesel 17 coolant leak which was described in the previous 18 public meeting, and the gap in the steam pipe tunnel 19 that I just mentioned are still under evaluation.

20 These issues were identified as part of the inspection 21 process, but neither of these issues are a result of 22 the earthquake. These problems have been repaired.

23 The NRC has continued to evaluate the regulatory 24 response we'll have to these issues.

25

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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 34 At this point, I would like to turn the 1

microphone over to Ms. Meena Khanna, who is leading 2

the analysis of the Dominion report.

3 MS. KHANNA: Thanks, Gerry. Good evening.

4 Again, my name is Meena Khanna, and what I'd like to 5

do this evening is just provide you with an overview 6

with respect to the NRC Staff's technical assessment 7

of Dominion's Restart Readiness Plan and their 8

submittals.

9 First of all, I'd like to address the 10 restart requirements. Okay. As far as the restart 11 requirements, the regulatory requirements governing 12 this event are delineated in 10 CFR 100, Appendix A, 13 Part 100, Appendix A. It states that, "If the 14 vibratory ground motion exceeds that of the operating 15 basis earthquake, shutdown of the nuclear power plant 16 is required." The operating basis earthquake is 17 approximately half of the design basis earthquake, so 18 that obviously occurred in this event.

19 The regulations also state that, "Prior to 20 resuming operations, the licensee is required to 21 demonstrate to the NRC that no functional damage has 22 occurred to those features necessary for the continued 23 operation without undue risk to the health and safety 24 of the public."

25

NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 35 Now what I'd like to do is address the NRC 1

technical review approach. As Mr. Heacock indicated 2

earlier, the regulatory review guidance that the NRC 3

is following was established in the mid-1990s.

4 Regulatory Guide 1167 which is restart of a nuclear 5

power plant shutdown by a seismic event endorses the 6

Electric Power Research Institute NP 6695 guidelines, 7

which are the guidelines for nuclear plant response to 8

an earthquake.

9 I'd like to note that the EPRI document also 10 gives guidance to the plant as far as what they're to 11 do if they exceed its design basis earthquake. The 12 guidelines also address short-term and long-term 13 actions.

14 Also, in addition to that, in 2007 there was 15 an earthquake that occurred in Japan, and it also 16 resulted in the exceedance of its design basis 17 earthquake of the Kashiwazaki -- I'm sorry, I always 18 pronounce this incorrectly -- Kashiwazaki Nuclear 19 Power Plant. And with regards to our review, we are 20 also considering the Lessons Learned from the event 21 that occurred at the Kashiwazaki Nuclear Power Plant.

22 And these are documented in the International Atomic 23 Energy Agency Safety Report 66.

24 So, in addition to conducting our review in 25

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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 36 accordance with the Reg Guide, as well as the EPRI 1

guidelines, we also did look at the Lessons Learned 2

from the IAEA Report, Safety Report 66.

3 Okay. In addition to that, the NRC has used 4

-- our review is going beyond that, as well as what 5

I'd indicated earlier, because we're also utilizing 6

our expertise that we have which goes beyond the 7

guides. And a few examples of this is where we 8

requested Dominion to conduct additional evaluation 9

and testing of walls throughout the plant, and also 10 I'll be discussing a little bit as far as the fuels.

11 We conducted a couple of audits with respect to the 12 fuels, so those both are examples of where we went 13 beyond what

-- the guidelines that I indicated 14 earlier, as well as the IAEA report.

15 As you can see, significant level of NRC 16 effort was being placed to independently evaluate the 17 impacts of the seismic event on the North Anna plant.

18 Experts throughout the Agency from multiple technical 19

areas, including electrical, instrumentation and 20

controls, mechanical, structural, et cetera are 21 involved in this review. The reviews are currently in 22 progress;

however, to date the Staff has not 23 identified any significant safety concerns that 24 resulted from the seismic event.

25

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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 37 The overall review and evaluation will 1

assess the scope and adequacy of the licensee's 2

inspections, testing, and evaluations. The reviews 3

are also being informed by the results of the NRC 4

inspections, as Gerry had mentioned earlier.

5 As indicated, the NRC inspection and 6

assessment activities have included a wide spectrum of 7

technical disciplines, and there's been close 8

coordination between the inspection and review 9

activities.

10 The NRC is performing an independent 11 technical review to ascertain whether it is acceptable 12 for North Anna to restart. This slide lists many of 13 the technical areas being reviewed, including reactor 14 vessels and internals, mechanical and structural 15 engineering, and electrical systems just to name a 16 few.

17 The NRC review is relying on inspections and 18 audits performed by the NRC Staff, as well as a review 19 and analysis of Dominion's documents to insure that no 20 functional damage occurred at the North Anna site.

21 Now I'd like to highlight a few examples 22 demonstrating the independent nature of our review.

23 To address the integrity of the fuel, as I had 24 indicated earlier, we audited the fuel. The NRC sent 25

NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 38 several staff members to the site to review Dominion's 1

efforts for confirming the integrity of the fuel. In 2

response to our review of the fuels, Dominion 3

performed additional calculations to demonstrate that 4

the integrity of the fuel assembly components were not 5

compromised.

6 With respect to our review of the piping 7

systems, Dominion performed additional analyses to 8

provide the NRC Staff confidence that the earthquake 9

did not adversely impact the piping, and that previous 10 analyses were not invalidated as a result of the 11 earthquake.

12

Also, Dominion performed additional 13 functional testing on the Unit 1 snubbers as a result 14 of our review. The function of a snubber during an 15 earthquake is to resist sharp motions of a pipe or a 16 component. It is most similar to a shock absorber on a 17 car, although many times larger. They have been 18 periodically tested to insure that they are operating 19 properly, and refurbished or replaced as their seals 20 can develop hydraulic fluid leaks over time, just like 21 an automobile shock absorber.

22 Okay. As far as path forward, the NRC is 23 continuing to conduct an independent safety review in 24 accordance with established acceptance criteria. A 25

NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 39 review is ongoing. The technical review will be used 1

to inform the restart decision to insure that it is in 2

accordance with Appendix A of 10 CFR Part 100 3

requirements.

4 We will issue the results of our review when 5

it is complete. The NRC will insure that Dominion has 6

demonstrated that the plant is safe to operate prior 7

to approving restart.

8 As we indicated earlier, to date we have not 9

identified any safety-significant issues as a result 10 of our independent inspection, and technical review 11 activities that could preclude plant operations as a 12 result of the seismic event. And as far as schedule, 13 our review and decision could occur as soon as next 14 week.

15 Okay.

I'll also address follow-up 16 activities. Should the results of the review 17 determine that the plant may be restarted safely, the 18 NRC inspectors will perform enhanced oversight 19 inspections during startup and after restart. These 20 inspections will assess the licensee operations, 21 additional surveillance testing, and other activities 22 to confirm that the

systems, structures, and 23 components are functional.

24 So, the bottom line is, is that the NRC will 25

NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 40 not allow the plant to restart unless we're confident 1

it will be operated safely and without undue risk to 2

the public.

3 As you heard previously, Dominion has 4

committed to perform the long-term evaluations in 5

accordance with the NRC-endorsed guidance. We are 6

completing our reviews regarding these evaluations.

7 As indicated earlier, the earthquake caused 8

the plant to exceed its design basis ground motion.

9 As a result, to address this issue Dominion has 10 committed to update it's Final Safety Analysis Report 11 to include the new seismic ground motion experienced 12 from the earthquake of August 23 rd.

13 Many people continue to express great 14 interest in this event. We continue to provide venues 15 to communicate the status of our results of our 16 review. A large number of people attended our 17 September 8 th meeting that was held with Dominion at 18 the headquarters office, and as Gerry indicated, we 19 conducted an exit of the augmented inspection team at 20 the site on October 3 rd. We will continue to maintain 21 our open communications.

22 We have provided information regarding the 23 North Anna seismic event on our NRC web page, as 24 identified at the site address here. We have posted 25

NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 41 information, such as our Reg Guide 1167 guidelines, 1

the EPRI document, as well as an overview of event, 2

and questions and answers related to the event. We 3

will continue to make the information available.

4 Okay. This concludes our presentation. I'll 5

turn it now back over to Bret.

6 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Meena, thanks for that 7

presentation. At this point, I want to turn to 8

Dominion to see if they have any questions of the NRC 9

Staff.

10 (No response.)

11 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Okay. At this point, 12 we're in the process of wrapping up the business 13 portion of the meeting. And in my excitement to get 14 started with this meeting, I neglected to acknowledge 15 a few people. As Vic already pointed out, I forgot to 16 introduce the NRC Staff that are here. But, also, I 17 want to acknowledge that State Senator Ed Houck is 18 here in the front row. Sorry about not doing it 19 earlier.

20 One of the other things is, I really wanted 21 to thank Principal Schott for allowing us to use this 22 facility. I know the middle school is being used both 23 as a high school and a middle school. Classes are 24 running late, and we do have a time limit that we're 25

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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 42 going to have to be out of here tonight, so we're 1

going to try -- one of the things, in an ideal world 2

the NRC likes to stay as long as possible, but that's 3

literally not possible tonight. So, that's one of the 4

reasons why I have a short time frame.

5 Kind of a reminder for folks. I now have 6

about 20-25 people who want to ask questions. And for 7

those of you who have not gotten a comment card and 8

have a question, Rich Barkley back there, raise your 9

hand, and he'll be happy to do that.

10 We provide a few more ground rules, just to 11 remind folks.

Because this meeting is being 12 transcribed, when you come up and ask your question 13 please identify yourself for the record. And we're 14 going to be using the central microphone right here.

15 And to facilitate this, I'm going to treat this a 16 little bit like the World Series that just ended.

17 We'll say who's up to bat, who's on deck, i.e., the 18 next person that we're going to ask a question of, and 19 then who's in the dugout ready to come back out. And 20 that way we can try to keep things moving.

21 Time limit is three minutes. I'm trying to 22 keep the NRC Staff as short as possible, but to answer 23 your questions, and likewise we're focused on the 24 questions, again using the microphone.

25

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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 43 After we get through most of these cards, 1

we'll try to go to the bridge line to ask additional 2

questions. A couple of people that I want to bring up 3

to start this portion of the meeting, is Barbara 4

Crawford here? Could you come on down? And if you 5

can't make your way down, I think Rich, wherever you 6

are.

7 The next person that's going to -- to come 8

up will be Jim Adams, and then Scott Price. You can 9

stay right here and I'll bring the microphone to you.

10 MS. CRAWFORD: Okay. I'm feeling a little bit 11 glass half empty, as I usually do after a meeting with 12 the NRC and Dominion. So, I'm assuming that next week 13 or the week after you're going to give Dominion 14 permission to start up both reactors.

15 So, what I want to know is will you allow 16 them to start them up simultaneously? Will it be one 17 at a time? What staff from the NRC will be on site 18 when they are started up, and will you please give the 19 residents of this county and those of us who live near 20 the nuclear power plant plenty of notice in our local 21 newspaper, "The Central Virginian," and also on the 22 Richmond TV channels so that if we opt to evacuate the 23 county in Central Virginia, we have opportunity to do 24 that.

25

NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 44 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Thank you very much. And 1

that was Barbara Crawford. Eric?

2 MR. LEEDS: Thank you. My name is Eric Leeds.

3 I'm the Director of the Office of Nuclear Reactor 4

Regulation in headquarters, and I'll answer part of 5

the question, and then I'll turn it over to Vic to 6

answer part of it.

7 Your last part of that question, ma'am, we 8

will provide notification to the community when that 9

decision is made, and we'll try to do it with plenty 10 of ample time for you all. It takes a while to startup 11 these nuclear power plants. And the way that we 12 envision it today when we do grant permission is that 13 the licensee is going to have to do a very 14 deliberate, methodical startup, and we will have hold 15 points along the way where they will do functional 16 testing of those systems and components that assure 17 the safety of this plant. And as they do those, 18 they'll have to report the results to us as they move 19 up, even before they get to power operations. So, we 20 envision a very deliberate process that they're going 21 to have to go through to start up the plant.

22 I imagine -- we haven't talked about whether 23 they'll do both simultaneously, or one at a time. I 24 would imagine it would be one at a time. They will be 25

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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 45 staggered.

1 You also asked a

question about our 2

presence, the NRC's presence on site. Let me turn 3

that over to Vic. Vic runs all the residents out of 4

Region II.

5 MR. McCREE: Thanks, Vic. The two residents 6

assigned here were introduced to you, Greg Kolcum, the 7

Senior Resident, and Rodney Clagg. And, in fact, 8

they're always available whenever there is an issue at 9

the plant, and they're on hand to observe startup 10 activities. And they'll be available for both startup 11 of both of these units.

12 In addition to Rodney and Greg, there are 13 several additional inspectors that we'll have come out 14 and assist them in that effort, in part because we'll 15 be in 24-hour coverage, if you would, around the clock 16 observation as the units restart. So, there will be 17 ample oversight of unit restart.

18 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Thanks, Vic. Jim?

19 MR. ADAMS: Hi, I'm Jim Adams. I'm with the 20 Not On Our Fault Line, and my big consideration is 21 the dam. And I'm curious, you have five emergency 22 generators to deal with two reactors. You have only 23 one dam to deal with the plant. And I believe NRC 24 says not our responsibility, and Dominion says not our 25

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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 46 responsibility. Whose responsibility is this, FERC?

1 And I'd like to know, specifically, if the dam does 2

break and the lake drains, how long will the lagoons 3

that you have -- how long will they be able to cool 4

the two reactors?

5 Also, where can we find information about 6

the dam's capability to withstand things like 7

earthquakes in the 18 to 20 inch range that we've 8

sometimes been known to have in our area? These are 9

some critical questions to what I think is one part of 10 the infrastructure that nobody is paying any attention 11 to.

12 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Jim. Thank you. Gerry, 13 just before you answer that question.

14 MR. McCOY: Yes. Oh, I'm sorry, go ahead.

15 FACILITATOR LESLIE: I want to let you know 16 Scott Price and Eric Gray will be the next two people.

17 Sorry about that, Gerry.

18 MR. McCOY: Okay. Thanks for the question 19 about the dam. That allows me to better describe the 20 functions of the dam, and how the dam relates to the 21 nuclear power plant.

22 As you're all aware, the nuclear power plant 23 relies on the lake for cooling, and that's cooling of 24 the condenser of the plant. That is what they need to 25

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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 47 run the turbine. Now, also at the plant there is a 1

second cooling pond up behind the plant, and that 2

cooling pond is what is relied on to cool safety-3 related components of the plant.

4 So, in the case of the main dam, the main 5

North Anna dam, if that dam was to fail, then the 6

reactor plant itself would not be able to cool their 7

condensers. They would not be able to run their 8

turbines. They would not be able to generate power to 9

make money.

10 However, the critical components to cool the 11 core will still be cooled by the pond behind the 12 plant. So, from NRC's perspective, we are mostly 13 concerned with the dam that is on the pond behind the 14 plant.

15

Now, you asked about who's got 16 responsibility for the big dam, the main North Anna 17 dam. That is the FERC, Federal Energy -- the FERC.

18 (Laughter.)

19 MR. McCOY: Sorry, don't work with them. I'm 20 not even going to try to fake it, because I'd probably 21 screw it up.

22 As far as the dam for the cooling pond, we 23 did walk that down. We looked at that, and walked it 24 down, and North Anna walked it down and saw no issues 25

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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 48 with that dam either.

1 PARTICIPANT: He did ask how long.

2 MR. McCOY: Oh, okay, you're right. Thanks.

3 He did ask how long. As far as how long the plant can 4

operate with that dam, if you read the Final Safety 5

Analysis Report for the North Anna plant, that cooling 6

pond is designed to provide cooling for the two units 7

for a period up to 30 days. So, they've got 30 days 8

to figure out what to do with that cooling pond. And 9

that doesn't affect the diesels that they have. The 10 diesels they have on the site are air-cooled, so they 11 are independent of that dam. Okay?

12 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Thanks. Scott Price, 13 and then again to remind folks, Scott, Erica Gray, and 14 then Else Spencer.

15 MR. PRICE: My name is Scott Price. I'm the 16 Public Policy Director for the Alliance for 17 Progressive Values.

18 What we're interested in is the NRC being 19 very cautious in this restart. And what we'd like to 20 see is further hearings and a little more information 21 going to the public.

22 The City of Richmond is less than 50 miles 23 away. It's the largest metropolitan area near the 24 plant, and we would like you to come to Richmond and 25

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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 49 speak to us there because there's a large community 1

there that doesn't feel like it's getting a chance to 2

put input in.

3 MR. McCREE: Paul, thank you very much.

4 There were three points that you raised or emphasized.

5 The first was that you encourage NRC to be very 6

cautious. And, hopefully, I would hope that in the 7

information that you received this evening, as well as 8

from our meeting, public meeting on October 3 rd, as 9

well as the volume of information that's accessible to 10 the public from the NRC's website, that you recognize 11 that the NRC is being very cautious, very thorough, 12 very sincere in our efforts to assure that the plant's 13 safety systems and other systems have not been damaged 14 by the seismic event, and that they are safe for 15 restart. That's why we're here, and that's what we're 16 committed to do to inform the decision that will be 17 made regarding restart.

18 As far as more information available to the 19 public, we're doing our level best. We are a public 20 agency. Under the Atomic Energy Act of 1974, all that 21 we do that's not security or otherwise proprietary has 22 to be transacted publicly, so that's the reason why 23 we're here.

24 As for meeting in Richmond, I would --

25

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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 50 again, I would commend you for being here. I cannot 1

commit at this point to a public meeting in Richmond 2

associated with North Anna. I would mention, however, 3

that my boss, the Deputy Executive Director for 4

Operation for Reactors and Preparedness, in fact, 5

Eric's boss, as well, was just in Richmond I think 6

along with Mr. Grecheck here for a public meeting, and 7

he did speak to North Anna, as well as Fukushima. And 8

that was a public meeting, as well. So, we do take 9

advantage of opportunities in

areas, major 10 metropolitan areas outside the emergency planning zone 11 to make ourselves available to the public, and will 12 continue to do that.

13 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Thank you, Vic. Erica 14 Gray?

15 MS. GRAY: Hello, yes. First of all, I'm 16 about 35 miles away in Henrico, Virginia. I'm a 17 mother, I'm a grandmother. And I'd like to know why 18 the NRC and Dominion, and the industry as a whole is 19 not even following the American Thyroid Association's 20 recommendations.

21 I have friends that live out here, as well, 22 within a 10-mile radius. The recommendations have 23 been that the potassium iodine be supplied to its 24 residents in a 10-mile radius. And, actually, the 25

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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 51 American Thyroid Association said it really should go 1

further because, and I quote, "No one can predict how 2

far a radioactive iodine cloud might spread. After 3

Chernobyl, higher than expected rates of thyroid 4

cancer were found more than 200 miles away from the 5

nuclear plant."

6 Their recommendation is families should have 7

iodine on hand. Does anyone in this room have any on 8

hand? Does anyone know how much to give their infants 9

or their children? It's imperative because the thyroid 10 gland is very sensitive, and it needs to be 11 administered immediately. So, as we're sitting here 12 talking about starting up a plant that was knocked off 13 line, when we could have even a higher seismic event, 14 no one is prepared. And a 10-mile evacuation zone in 15 planning is ridiculous. Thank you.

16 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Thank you, Erica. And 17 one of the things I neglected to say is, we brought a 18 lot of people here to try to answer your questions.

19 And I'm going to be using a parking lot in case we 20 don't address your question directly.

21 I don't think we brought someone from 22 Emergency Preparedness, but I think Eric is going to 23 try to address your question. And you can always, 24 Erica, either see Rich or I afterwards to make sure 25

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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 52 that we follow-up. Eric.

1 MR. LEEDS: Yes. Thank you for your question.

2 And the -- addressing potassium iodide. As you 3

mentioned, potassium iodide provides very specific 4

protection for the thyroid gland from an uptake of 5

radioactive iodine. And those that are most affected 6

by it are really children and young adults.

7 The NRC does provide potassium iodide to 8

those states that request it. And we provide as much 9

as they need for that 10-mile emergency planning zone.

10 Off the top of my head, I don't know if the State of 11 Virginia actually gets potassium iodide from the NRC 12 or not, but we do provide it to the states that 13 request it. But it's up to the states to provide it 14 to their citizens.

15 You referenced two other items. Why not out 16 further, and why is the emergency planning zone only 17 10 miles? The NRC is going to examine both of those 18 issues. Those were both identified in a report that 19 we gave to the Commission just a few weeks ago as a 20 result of the Fukushima event. So, you raised two very 21 good issues, and the Staff intends to pursue both of 22 those.

23 I can't tell you that we're going to change 24 the 10-mile emergency planning zone, or that we're 25

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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 53 going to change our recommendation that states provide 1

it to their citizens within that emergency planning 2

zone, but we're going to reestablish based on what we 3

learned from Fukushima, is 10 miles enough, and is 10 4

miles for potassium iodide distribution enough? So, 5

we're going to go back and take a look at that.

6 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Thank you, Eric. And 7

before I get to you, Elsa, Jerry Rosenthal, if he's 8

here will be next, and then Kirby MacLaurin. And 9

pardon me if I don't pronounce your name. Elsa 10 Spencer.

11 MS. SPENCER: Hi, I'm with Not On Our Fault 12 Line right here in Louisa, Virginia. I have a 13 question for the NRC that has two parts.

14 I'm wondering if you're going to require 15 Dominion to reevaluate the design basis earthquake for 16 the North Anna site before allowing them to restart 17 and carry out all the necessary retrofits before the 18 restart. And the second part of my question is, if 19 that reevaluation does take place for the design basis 20 earthquake, how can we, the public, be certain that 21 Dominion doesn't cover up information about the risks 22 so the public -- like they have in the past in the 23

'70s. Thank you.

24 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Thank you, Elsa. Eric or 25

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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 54 Vic, you want to take first crack at it?

1 MR. LEEDS: Okay, I heard two questions. The 2

first was design basis earthquake, are they going to 3

do that before, are they going to reevaluate the 4

design basis earthquake before the restart? And then 5

the second question is, how do we know that they're 6

going to be forthright, and do the right thing, and 7

tell us the information as they need to tell us?

8 The first, and we did cover it in our 9

presentation, and I believe that Dominion covered it 10 in their presentation, with regard to the design basis 11 earthquake, and what they need to do going forward.

12 Because of the situation at the plant, because there 13 was no significant damage to any of the safety 14 equipment at that site, we are not going to require 15 the plant to perform a reevaluation of their design 16 basis before startup.

17 They are going to have to do two things post 18 startup. The first is, they have to do what Meena 19 referred to as long-term evaluations. And what that 20 is, is taking a look at all the equipment that they've 21 got in this plant against this new earthquake that 22 just happened to assure ourselves, to assure 23 themselves, but also to assure the NRC that that 24 equipment has all the margin it needs for design basis 25

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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 55 earthquake.

1 The second thing that they're going to do, 2

and Dominion referred to this, is that they have to 3

update their safety analysis for this new earthquake.

4 And all new modifications, all new equipment, 5

anything that they add to this plant, they're going to 6

have to consider the actual earthquake that occurred 7

on August 23 rd in those analysis.

8 So, it's two parts. First, assure yourself 9

that all the equipment that's already in the plant has 10 retained all of its margin. And the second, any new 11 equipment has to be evaluated to this new earthquake.

12 Now, how are we going to assure that what 13 they tell us is true? There's a number of ways that 14 we do that. First off, the licensee when they submit 15 items to us in writing, it has to be under oath and 16 affirmation, oath and affirmation. And secondly, as 17 you heard, we have Resident Inspectors on site. We 18 also send inspectors to the site regularly, 19 specialists to look at other items. So, whatever they 20 do here, we have been very, very deliberate and we 21 have been very intrusive with regard to what the 22 licensee has been doing, what Dominion has been doing 23 with regard to this earthquake. And we will continue.

24 This event was unprecedented. We haven't 25

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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 56 seen a beyond design basis earthquake at an operating 1

nuclear power plant here in the United States, and 2

that's one of the reasons why we're trying to be so 3

thorough, so deliberate, and make sure that everything 4

is right before we allow these plants to restart.

5 Our mission is public health and safety. We 6

take it very seriously.

7 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Jerry Rosenthal.

8 MR. ROSENTHAL: Hi, I'm Jerry Rosenthal. I am 9

with the Concerned Citizens of Louisa County. I also 10 serve on the Louisa County Board of Supervisors Dry 11 Cask Committee, and have been monitoring the storage 12 of nuclear waste at the plant since they allowed the 13 dry casks there. I'm also a member of PACE, People's 14 Alliance for Clean Energy.

15 The question gets straight to our hearts, 16 where Dominion and the NRC have already set a new 17 design basis for Unit 3. Why not make Units 1 and 2 18 meet those standards? They've already agreed on this.

19 Why can't we have that standard for our public 20 safety? If it's good enough for 3, why not 1 and 2?

21 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Thank you, Jerry. I'm 22 looking over here to who at the NRC wants to field 23 that one. Don't forget to introduce yourself so that -

24

- Yong.

25

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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 57 MR. LI: Hi, my name is Yong Li. I'm a 1

seismologist at the NRC. You're saying -- your 2

question is regarding Unit 3, why we don't use the 3

Unit 3 standard, seismic design standard to the Unit 1 4

and 2. It's a good question.

5 Okay. The Unit 3 seismic standard was 6

decided based on new methodology. It's called a 7

Probabilistic Seismic Hazard Analysis, PSHA. And the 8

old power plant Unit 1 and 2 was determined using old 9

Deterministic Seismic Hazard Analysis method, so it's 10 totally -- it's kind of different method. One 11 emphasizes the maximum side of story from the 12 historical earthquake observation. One look at the 13 200 miles radius over all situation, all the site 14 sources took into consideration. So, that's different 15 from that approach regulated by NRC 10 CFR Appendix A, 16 and 123.

17 So, this question -- this issue is already 18 considered by NRC since 2005, when we have this new 19 site under review, Unit 3, Early Site Permit issue.

20 So, it's still under review. There's an issue called 21 GI 199. If you go to NRC's website, you can find all 22 the information related to GI 199.

23 This took the contrast between the two 24 seismic standards into consideration, so we are still 25

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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 58 reviewing this one. Actually, there's a big potential 1

there that the NRC is going to issue some kind of 2

decision to pursue this as quick as possible to 3

address this issue.

4 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Eric, did you want to 5

follow-up?

6 MR. LEEDS: Yes, I just want to augment Yong.

7 Thank you very much, that was a good explanation.

8 The Generic Issue 199 that Yong was talking 9

about, that's getting tied into the NRC's review of 10 Lessons Learned from the Fukushima event, and the 11 Commission has asked the Staff to move out as quickly 12 as we can to get all the nuclear power plants in the 13 United States to update their seismic analysis for 14 their plants using this Generic Issue 199. So, Yong 15 hit the nail on the head. We are going forward with 16 that, so all the plants are going to have to look at 17 that for their sites.

18 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Thanks, Eric. So, we'll 19 have Kirby MacLaurin, and then on deck will be Lynn 20 Gaines, and then John Farmer. Kirby, are you 21 someplace?

22 MR. MacLAURIN: You mentioned the Fukushima 23 plant, multiple plant meltdown. Those who are able to 24 access alternative media were able to follow that 25

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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 59 closely. Unfortunately, it wasn't covered very well 1

with wide broadcast media, the corporate media. But I 2

have been following the events there, and the issues 3

on a site called Fairewinds Associates, and I 4

recommend that to anyone. That's F-A-I-R-E-W-I-N-D-S.

5 A nuclear engineer by the name of Arnie 6

Gundersen pointed out multiple design flaws with the 7

Mark I reactor. I believe it's Mark I, the same as 8

North Anna Plant.

9 I'm wondering what you're aware of, that has 10 been identified as design flaws in Mark I that might 11 be an issue here at North Anna, and what approaches 12 will be taken to address those design flaws. One in 13 particular was the very limited time span of battery 14 backup in the event that electricity is disrupted. I 15 believe it was four hours at TEPCO in Fukushima, it 16 might be eight here, or the other way around. I can't 17 remember exactly.

18 So, what happens if we run out of power to 19 cool the reactor? What happens if the energy is 20 disrupted before the shutdown can take place, for 21 example?

22 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Thank you, Kirby.

23 MR. LEEDS: Thank you for the question. The 24 question is about Fukushima, and a little bit about 25

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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 60 the design. You raised some very good concerns, very 1

valid concerns, very important concerns, things that 2

the NRC is looking at. But I do need to correct one 3

thing; the North Anna site, the plant design is a 4

different type of design than was at Fukushima. At 5

Fukushima the design was a boiling water reactor, and 6

the Mark I was the containment, the shell that 7

surrounds the reactor that provides containment. It 8

provides protection and keeps all radioactive 9

materials within the reactor, a very different design 10 than the North Anna site, which is a pressurized water 11 reactor, which doesn't use a Mark I containment. It's 12 what we call a large dry containment, which is a very 13 robust, thick concrete structure that provides the 14 containment.

15 But that doesn't change the significance of 16 the issues at Fukushima. And, as you mentioned, there 17 are a number of learnings from the Fukushima event 18 that the NRC is looking at to incorporate at all 19 nuclear power plants, whether it's a boiling water 20 reactor or a pressurized water reactor. Certainly, 21 station blackout, loss of power at the site is one of 22 the primary issues.

23 Another issue is

seismic, earthquakes.

24 Another one is flooding. Another issue is emergency 25

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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 61 preparedness. There are a number of other issues that 1

get very deep into technical issues, containment 2

venting, and emergency equipment, but all of those 3

issues are being examined by the NRC.

4 And as I mentioned before, we've just 5

received a go-ahead from the Commission to go ahead 6

and start working those issues, such that we can 7

incorporate those Lessons Learned into the nuclear 8

power plants here in the United States. But those are 9

valid issues, those are things that we are pursuing.

10 One other item that I want to mention, what 11 we talk about with Fukushima, we call that a beyond 12 the design basis event, beyond design basis event. We 13 don't expect that type of event to occur during the 14 lifetime of one of the plants here in the United 15 States. We don't expect it to occur. There are events 16 that we do expect to occur, but for beyond design 17 basis we don't expect it to occur. That doesn't mean 18 that we don't learn from it, that doesn't mean that we 19 don't incorporate those Lessons Learned into these 20 sites, and it doesn't mean that we don't take it very, 21 very seriously. We've got to do everything we can to 22 make these sites as safe as possible. However, the 23 likelihood of one of those events is low enough that 24 we feel that we have some time to incorporate those 25

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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 62 learnings into these plants. And over the next six 1

months to several years, our Chairman wants to have 2

them all incorporated and done for all the nuclear 3

power plants in this country within the next five 4

years.

5 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Eric, thank you very 6

much. Lynn will be next, John Farmer, and then Paxus 7

Calta. Lynn Gaines.

8 MR. GAINES: I represent the Lake Anna 9

Business Partnership.

We represent about 140 10 businesses that do business in the Lake Anna region.

11 Our President is here tonight, and some of the other 12 members of our Board of Directors.

13 The reason I'm speaking is because of my 14 experience. I have -- and I'm joined by some of my 15 fellow retirees from the Navy's Nuclear Propulsion 16 Program Headquarters. We worked for Admiral Rickover, 17 the four of us that are here. You guys want to stand 18 up. We have about 160 years of experience in the 19 Navy's Nuclear Propulsion Program.

20 (Applause.)

21 MR. GAINES: My retirement home, the only 22 home I own, is one and a half miles from the power 23 plant. Bob Woodbury's house is 1.6 miles from the 24 power plant. Merill Pardee's house is three miles 25

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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 63 from the power plant. We understand how difficult and 1

how dangerous the technology of nuclear power is, and 2

we know how difficult it could be if you don't do it 3

well.

4 We also know that Dominion is a good 5

corporate citizen, and does a very good job of 6

operating this plant. And if we were the least bit 7

worried about what happened in this earthquake, we'd 8

be thinking about moving somewhere else.

9 I want to put this thing in a little bit of 10 perspective, my perspective as a designer of reactor 11 plant foundations for Navy ships for 30 years. The 12 worst acceleration that this plant saw was half a G.

13 Okay, that's 50 percent more than what Mother Nature 14 is pulling on you right now, what you feel against the 15 back of your chair is 1G. It's almost impossible to 16 design foundations -- yes, I'm getting there.

17 (Laughter.)

18 MR. GAINES: It's almost impossible to design 19 foundations so fragile that they couldn't withstand 20 far, far more than the worst that this earthquake put 21 into this plant. So, my question for the NRC really is 22 that given that all of the inspections that you've 23 done have borne out the notion that there was no 24 damage done, where is the urgency? Let's get back to 25

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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 64 operation ASAP.

1 (Applause.)

2 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Thank you. A couple of 3

things before Vic answers. One of the things is we do 4

have a lot of questions, so I was actually hoping no 5

one was going to be longer than Eric's answer, but 6

maybe that might have been -- but, anyway, if you can 7

get to your question, that will allow us to address 8

your question more quickly. Vic, did you want to 9

respond?

10 MR. McCREE: Yes, just a couple of -- first 11 of all, thank you for your service and that of your 12 colleagues. As an ex-Navy Nuke myself, I appreciate 13 your sacrifice and your commitment to this nation and 14 your service, so thank you for that.

15 A couple of things you mentioned I just want 16 to respond to. First of all, you're right. Dominion 17 is primarily responsibility for

-- responsible, 18 rather, for the safety of the two units here. They 19 recognize and acknowledge that, and based on our 20 independent evaluations in response to this event, 21 they've been proactive in doing the inspections, and 22 the tests consistent with the NRC-endorsed guidelines 23 to make sure they have their arms around the event, 24 and its significance. And thus far, we haven't 25

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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 65 identified any major issues associated with the work 1

that they've done.

2 And as a result, I'm sure you heard Meena 3

indicate that because we've not identified, and 4

Dominion has not identified any damage to safety 5

equipment that would affect the safety of operating 6

systems at the plant, it's likely that within the next 7

week or so the NRC would authorize restart.

8 There has been, and there will be no urgency 9

to that. We will take a very thorough, and we have 10 taken a very thorough, and calm, and measured look at 11 what has happened, as has Dominion, and when we get 12 there, we'll get there. Again, we expect that it's 13 near-term, but I would not ever use urgency to 14 describe what we're doing, because safety is the most 15 important thing that we do.

16 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Vic, thank you. We'll 17 have John Farmer next, and then Paxus Calta, and Ray 18 Terielle?

19 MR. FARMER: Thank you very much. I'm John 20 Farmer. In the interest of full disclosure, I'm a 21 retired Dominion employee, as well as a Dominion 22 customer. My question to the NRC is, knowing what you 23 know now, Dominion said it's ready to go, you found at 24 this time no significant problems. Will you allow it 25

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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 66 to make a timely startup with the winter coming on.

1 As a customer I'm concerned. The customers need and 2

the company needs this low-cost reliable, sustainable 3

power.

4 Virginia now is the second largest importer 5

of power, second only to California. And with these 6

units not in the generating pool, this could result in 7

significant problems, particularly during a high load 8

situation. So, I would ask the NRC if they see them 9

being able to restart, realizing that safety is the 10 primary concern here. Thank you very much for 11 allowing me to speak.

12 FACILITATOR LESLIE: John, thank you. Vic, 13 you want to take that?

14 MR. McCREE: John, thank you again for your 15 question. It's a very good one. I'd just reiterate 16 some of what I just said. Yes, safety is what we're 17 about. That's our mission, to protect the public 18 health and safety from the peaceful uses of nuclear 19 energy, and that's what we're doing. In our mission 20 and the Code of Federal Regulations, you won't see 21 anything about productivity. Okay?

22 They're not necessarily mutually exclusive.

23 In fact, if there is a point in time at which it 24 becomes important to produce electricity at Dominion, 25

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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 67 there's a process we go through, and they can make a 1

safety case, if you would, a public health and safety 2

case for operating the plant when perhaps an aspect of 3

our regulations they may not be in compliance with.

4 But there's a process that we go through for that.

5 That's not applicable here.

6 So, we're focused, as we've talked about on 7

confirming that the safety systems have not been 8

damaged, and that the plant can restart. And even when 9

that decision is made, we will continue our very 10 thorough, intrusive oversight to make sure that the 11 plant can operate safely.

12 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Thank you, Vic. And to 13 remind folks, Paxus is going to be next, on deck is 14 Ray Terielle from Bumpass, Virginia. And then Elena 15 Day. Paxus?

16 MR. CALTA: I have a couple of quick 17 questions. The first one of which is how many hours 18 did NRC Staff spend doing actual physical inspection 19 at the plant, approximately?

20 MR. McCREE: Paxus, I don't have that number 21 but we can take your address or phone number and get 22 back to you. We don't have that.

23 MR. CALTA: Well, I'm -- part of the reason 24 that I'm concerned about it is because what we hear 25

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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 68 from Dominion is that Dominion did 100,000 hours0 days <br />0 hours <br />0 weeks <br />0 months <br /> of 1

inspection, and what we've heard from the NRC tonight 2

is that the Dominion missed a bunch of things, 3

including loose valves and proper installation of pipe 4

hangers and other things which I didn't catch as they 5

went by, so this makes us a little concerned that the 6

ratio -- the amount of time that the NRC has been 7

spending doing inspections to Dominion's seems like 8

the NRC finds much more than Dominion does.

9 MR. McCREE: I appreciate your question, and 10 I don't think we described it as a "bunch of things."

11 I don't think we used that word, but we did identify 12 some things, and we don't do a ratio of number of 13 hours1.50463e-4 days <br />0.00361 hours <br />2.149471e-5 weeks <br />4.9465e-6 months <br /> per what we find. So, that's not a concern that 14 we have. In fact, I would offer that the tests, the 15 inspections, the walk downs, if you would, that 16 Dominion has done which have been substantial, and our 17 activities -- in fact, the NRC's inspection and 18 oversight activities is a sampling approach, so we 19 could not come close to expending the number of hours 20 that Dominion has on their inspections and tests, et 21 cetera. But based on what they've done, they have 22 done a very thorough job in inspecting and testing the 23 facility.

24 And I would be disappointed as Regional 25

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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 69 Administrator if the people that we've assigned for 1

both the augmented inspection and the restart 2

inspection had not identified something. That's their 3

job. Our's is a glass half full approach. Okay? So, 4

of course they've going to identify something, and 5

they've done a very good job of that.

6 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Thank you, Vic.

7 MR. CALTA: At the last NRC public hearing, 8

the Nuclear Regulatory Commission refused to confirm 9

that it had issued a $32,000 fine for Dominion for not 10 reporting fault lines in the plants. Can the NRC 11 comment on this fine now, did that actually take 12 place?

13 MR. McCREE: I believe you're referring to a 14 fine that was given 37 or some odd years ago. I have 15 not been with the agency that long. In fact, no one in 16 this room has, but our records do demonstrate that 17 about 37 years ago a $32,000 fine was given. I'd have 18 to confirm that. I couldn't -- no one could before.

19 It's not that we refuse to, it's that we couldn't 20 answer that with any certainty.

21 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Thank you, Paxus. Again, 22 Ray Terielle. Could you repeat your name for the 23 record.

24 MR. JURGEL: Hi, my name is Ray Jurgel, and I 25

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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 70 live about three miles out of the plant. And I'm 1

curious about a few things. One, the NRC says you're 2

not responsible for looking at the dam, that other 3

agency that shall be unnamed is.

4 If you guys don't work with the other agency 5

and check out the dam, it seems to me that you're 6

seriously remiss. I don't know how long those little 7

cooling ponds would last unless they have a source of 8

water to refill them as the stuff evaporates off. If 9

you don't look at it, I mean, that's negligence as far 10 as I'm concerned.

11 Did anybody actually inspect visibly the 12 fuel rods in the casks? I realize there's pressure 13 testing and such, and you're looking for leaks, but 14 are they all in tact? Are the uranium pellets sitting 15 at the bottom in a heap on any of these casks? And by 16 the way, I'm glad they weren't bolted down because 17 they probably would be lying at the bottom.

18 And my last question is, at the time of the 19 earthquake I never lost power at my house, not once.

20 So, how robust is the nuclear power offsite supply 21 system? If I didn't lose it and they did, it doesn't 22 make a lot of sense to me. Thank you.

23 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Thank you very much, 24 Ray. So, again, there were three questions in there, 25

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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 71 one on the spent fuel, one on the dam, and then --

1 MR. McCREE: Yes, there were three questions.

2 The first had to do with the dam inspections, as I 3

thought Gerry responded to very well. There is the 4

North Anna Dam, Lake Anna Dam, and there is a service 5

water pond that's used, that's referred to as the 6

ultimate heat sink. It provides cooling to the reactor 7

in the event of an emergency available for 30 days to 8

keep the plant in a safe condition.

9 With respect to the service water pond, that 10 structure was inspected by both Dominion and by NRC 11 inspectors. There was no damage found whatsoever 12 following the seismic event. The North Anna Dam was 13 also inspected by Dominion, and another organization, 14 and no damage was found. FERC is aware, the Federal 15 Energy Regulatory Commission is aware and has an 16 inspection plan, but no damage was identified at the 17 Lake Anna, the North Anna Dam, nor at the service 18 water pond. And we, NRC, does have a relationship 19 with FERC, and we can call upon their services, or 20 call upon them to conduct inspections when we think 21 it's appropriate.

22 FACILITATOR LESLIE: I'll remind you. The 23 inspection of the rods inside the cask.

24 MR. McCREE: Okay, Al.

25

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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 72 MR. HOWE: Good evening. I'm Allen Howe, the 1

Deputy Director of the Division of Operating Reactor 2

Licensing in NRC headquarters office. I work for Eric.

3 With regard to the fuel rods, let me -- and 4

the spent fuel storage containers, I believe that was 5

the question. Has anybody done any examination of the 6

fuel rods at the interior of the dry fuel storage 7

cask. And the answer to that is no inspections have 8

been directly performed of the rods inside of the fuel 9

cask. However, the licensee did perform surveys. The 10 AIT did examine the results of those surveys and they 11 did not find any anomalies as a part of the survey.

12 The AIT team also walked down the casks themselves and 13 physically examined them.

14 Let me carry this a little bit further in 15 terms of the types of evaluations that are done for 16 these dry cask storage. When the design is done, one 17 of the evaluations is done is the movement of the 18 cask, the transport from the reactor facility out to 19 the pad. And the potential for the dropping of a cask 20 during that transportation is part of what's 21 evaluated. And the purpose of that is to confirm that 22 the fuel that is in those casks will not have any 23 adverse

effects, will not leak out of those 24 containers. In other words, they'll maintain their 25

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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 73 integrity.

1 As a part of this, the other aspects of the 2

fuel rods themselves in the casks is that there are 3

certain specifications for the intactness, if you 4

will, and the condition of those fuel rods before 5

they're put in those casks. And if they don't meet 6

those standards, they cannot be installed in those 7

casks.

8 That being said, again to close it out, no, 9

we did not look at the rods inside of the cask, but we 10 don't have any evidence or any reason to believe that 11 there was any damage based on the surveys and the 12 evaluations that have been done.

13 FACILITATOR LESLIE: And before Vic answers, 14 Elena Day will be next, Jim Adams.

15 MR. McCREE: There was a third component of 16 the question having to do with the robustness of 17 offsite power, and why you had power on at your home 18 and the North Anna site lost offsite power. I don't 19 know. I don't know.

20 As for robustness, the robustness of 21 electrical power at the station is not only based on 22 the provision of power from off the site, but also the 23 capability of emergency AC power on site. And as you 24 may know, when North Anna lost offsite power, the four 25

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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 74 emergency diesel generators started and supplied the 1

safety buses. Less than an hour into it, they did lose 2

one emergency diesel but a standby diesel had started, 3

and that was aligned to the safety buses. So, at no 4

time was there a loss of -- did the loss of offsite 5

power result in a loss of a safety function, which of 6

most import certainly to Dominion, but also to NRC as 7

a regulator.

8 So, I apologize I can't speak to your 9

question about robustness other than to note that 10 there are multiple sources of offsite power to the 11 site. In response to this event, there were some 12 transformers lost, and they did have an interruption 13 of offsite power for a period of time.

14 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Vic, I think Dave might 15 want to add something to that.

16 MR. McCREE: Okay.

17 FACILITATOR LESLIE: David.

18 MR. HEACOCK: Yes, let me add to that if I 19 could. The offsite power was lost due to some 20 transformers on site. These transformers had some 21 sensitive protection devices that are designed to 22 protect the transformers from internal faults. And 23 the motion from the earthquake set these sensors off.

24 They're very sensitive and the transformer separated 25

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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 75 from the outside grid. That's why offsite power was 1

lost. About four hours later we were able to restore 2

these transformers and bring offsite power back on. In 3

the

interim, as Victor described, the diesel 4

generators provided power for all the safety buses so 5

they never lost power to the safety buses on site.

6 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Thank you, David. It 7

will be Elena Day, Scott Ziemer, and then John 8

Cruickshank.

9 MS. DAY: Hi, I'm with People's Alliance for 10 Clean Energy. Anyway, I have a question. I want you to 11 clarify to me regarding your thorough reevaluation of 12 the two plants. Like I understand that Unit 2 was 13 already down because it was being refueled, so you 14 were able to make a more thorough evaluation than that 15 of Unit 1. And Unit 1 was not down, and therefore I 16 can only assume that your evaluation of Unit 1 does 17 not compare to that of Unit 2. I just want you to 18 clarify that for me.

19 And the other question is -- it was brought 20 up earlier regarding the mitigating station blackout.

21 And right now, the onsite capability that's required 22 is only four to eight hours. That's not very much. Are 23 the NRC going to recommend increasing the amount of 24 time to mitigate for station blackout perhaps to 72 25

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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 76 hours8.796296e-4 days <br />0.0211 hours <br />1.256614e-4 weeks <br />2.8918e-5 months <br /> or more? I mean, you know, in the event of a 1

disaster that just occurred in Japan, I think this 2

should be paramount.

3 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Thank you, Elena. Vic, 4

are you going to take this?

5 MR. McCREE: Yes, I will. Could she reiterate 6

-- I think there was a three-part question. I didn't 7

get the third -- it was just two parts? Okay.

8 MS. DAY: Okay. I just want you to clarify 9

for me that -- regarding your inspection of Unit 1.

10 Unit 2 you could inspect because --

11 MR. McCREE: That was your first question.

12 MS. DAY: -- it was down because of 13 refueling.

14 MR. McCREE: Yes.

15 MS. DAY: And I just want you to clarify that 16 for me. The second question is regarding station 17 blackout.

18 MR. McCREE: Got it.

19 MS. DAY: And the fact that you only require 20 four to eight hours of power capability to mitigate a 21 serious event.

22 MR. McCREE: I understand.

23 MS. DAY: Would you recommend a much longer 24 availability of power in the case of --

25

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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 77 MR. McCREE: Both very good questions. Thank 1

you. As for the first question, when the event 2

occurred both units were at 100 power, both Units 1 3

and 2 were at 100 percent power. And both units 4

tripped as a result of the seismic event, and we've 5

spoken to how the plant and operators responded to it.

6 Dominion opted to take Unit 2 into a 7

refueling outage, which they began and they've 8

essentially completed. The inspections and testing 9

that they've done consistent with the Electric Power 10 Research Institute guidelines -- Meena referred to 11 them, EPRI MP 6697 guidelines on actions to take to 12 restart a

plant from a

seismic event.

Those 13 inspections and tests have been conducted, and we 14 independently evaluated them for both units.

15 And although there were some inspections for 16 fuel and reactor vessel internals that were done on 17 Unit 2 taking advantage of the outage, and those were 18 done. Those inspections were done on, again, Unit 2 19 because it was in an outage, but the bulk of the 20 inspections that were done were applied to both units.

21 FACILITATOR LESLIE: I'm looking to see who 22 will touch the Fukushima and station blackout. Eric?

23 MR. LEEDS: Station blackout, and I'll try to 24 be careful because I can talk about station blackout 25

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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 78 for hours, and I know that's not what you want to 1

hear. And they'll throw me back off the stage if I 2

do, but that's a great question, and I want to answer 3

it.

4 The station blackout, first -- and I'll try 5

to do this briefly. There are three sources of power 6

that go to the site. You've got offsite power, which 7

is the normal source of power. You also have those 8

emergency diesel generators that we talked about 9

before. They have five emergency diesel generators.

10 These are huge engines the size of locomotives. Four, 11 I'm sorry, four diesel generators. They only need two 12 to operate to keep those plants safe. During this 13 event, the diesels operated, kept the plant safe.

14 The third form of power and the one that 15 you're talking about is the battery back out. All 16 right? In case you lose offsite, in case the diesel 17 generators don't work, you've got batteries. And 18 depending on the site in the United States, the 19 batteries can last -- some last four, eight, some as 20 long as 16 hours1.851852e-4 days <br />0.00444 hours <br />2.645503e-5 weeks <br />6.088e-6 months <br />.

21 When we originally envisioned the need for 22 the battery backup it had to do with the reliability 23 of these diesel generators, and the reliability of the 24 grid. Well, we learned something different at 25

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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 79 Fukushima. Fukushima was a horrific event where a 45 1

foot tsunami wiped out everything. Well, now we have 2

to go back and take a new look at what do we really 3

need for those batteries, and whether the answer is 4

eight hours, 24 hours2.777778e-4 days <br />0.00667 hours <br />3.968254e-5 weeks <br />9.132e-6 months <br />, 72 hours8.333333e-4 days <br />0.02 hours <br />1.190476e-4 weeks <br />2.7396e-5 months <br />, that's what we're 5

evaluating now.

6 And it's not just a case of how many hours 7

you want those batteries to work, it's also how 8

quickly can you bring in offsite power from other 9

sources? Can you have emergency equipment located 10 around the plant such that you can get a skid-mounted 11 diesel generator or some other type of power equipment 12 there quickly.

13 So, it's a very good issue. It's an issue 14 that we're working on. It's an issue that we need to 15 make progress on very quickly with regard to how long, 16 and how are we going to do this, and what are the 17 backup sources?

18 But thank you for your question. I hope I 19 answered your question.

20 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Before we move on --

21 MR. McCREE: Let me just add one other thing 22 to that. There is one design difference here in the 23 emergency AC power here at North Anna that Fukushima 24 didn't benefit from. Actually, Fukushima Daiichi Unit 25

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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 80 6 did have an air-cooled emergency diesel generator 1

which was very critical to the event at Fukushima of 2

not impacting Unit 6. So, when you think about the 3

safety and capability here at North Anna, the fact 4

that the diesel is air-cooled and it doesn't require 5

forced cooling via service water, it provides a 6

distinct advantage in terms of emergency AC power 7

capability here at North Anna.

8 FACILITATOR LESLIE: We're going to go to 9

John Cruickshank, on deck would be Vodjtka Ta Chai, 10 and I believe Elsa Spencer has already asked a 11 question. Oh, sorry, Scott.

12 MR. ZIEMER: My name is Scott Ziemer. I live 13 in Crozet, and I'm worried about those two dams we've 14 been talking about. How were they built and to what 15 size earthquake were they built for?

16 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Vic.

17 MR. McCREE: For your question, and given the 18 fact that this particular question has been raised as 19 many times as it has, what I'd like to commit us to is 20 looking at the questions that were asked and putting 21 some information on our website that provides a 22 universal response to this, because apparently what 23 we're providing is not fully connecting. And I want 24 to apologize for that.

25

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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 81 We strive to do our best, and if we don't 1

hit it out of the park, to continue with Bret's 2

baseball analogy, although this is football season. I 3

thought you were going to talk red zone and stuff like 4

that. But we'll do better.

5 If I could try once -- to address your 6

question specifically, I don't know and I don't think 7

anyone here knows what the design basis, at least on 8

the NRC side knows what the design basis earthquake, 9

if you would -- that terminology may not even be 10 accurate for the North Anna Dam, for the Lake Dam.

11 For the service water pond, the ultimate 12 heat sink, the design basis earthquake is the design 13 basis for the site. And, as we know, that's what was 14 exceeded, if you would, for this particular earthquake 15 and the resultant inspections prove that there was 16 capability, that there was no damage.

17 But what we'll do -- I'll commit to do in 18 response to your question is provide a more thorough, 19 comprehensive response to all these dam issues.

20 (Laughter.)

21 FACILITATOR LESLIE:

Again, it's John 22 Cruickshank. And, again, if I haven't pronounced your 23 name properly, please correct me for the record.

24 Vodjtka Ta Chai, and then Elsa Spencer if she hasn't 25

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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 82 already asked a question.

1 MR. CRUICKSHANK: I'm John Cruickshank. I 2

live in Charlottesville, so I live within 30 miles of 3

the nuclear reactors. And I'm representing the 4

Virginia Chapter of the Sierra Club, which has 15,000 5

members in Virginia. And I'm going to estimate that 6

about a third of them live within a 50 mile radius of 7

the North Anna Power Station.

8 I have two questions. First, I would like to 9

say that the Sierra Club believes that the NRC should 10 employ the precautionary principle at North Anna that 11 this nuclear power plant should not be permitted to 12 restart until all safety concerns have been thoroughly 13 addressed beyond any doubt. So, my first question is, 14 does the NRC believe that they are following the 15 precautionary principle. And my second question is, 16 considering the age of these reactors and of the 17 equipment, has the NRC considered embrittlement of the 18 metals in the containment vessel, the heat exchanger, 19 the piping, and other equipment?

20 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Thank you, John. Eric, 21 you want to take the first crack at that?

22 MR. LEEDS: Yes. Two questions. The first, 23 are we employing precautionary measures making sure 24 that all safety concerns have been addressed? Yes, 25

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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 83 I'll affirm that we are. As you've heard from Vic, 1

and as I've stated also, we think that we're doing a 2

very deliberate, thorough review. I urge you to take a 3

look at the website. On our website we have a link 4

that goes directly to North Anna. You can take a look 5

at all the questions that we've asked the licensee, 6

Dominion, and how Dominion has responded to all of 7

those. And when we finish our review, we will issue a 8

safety report on it, and I would urge you to read 9

that.

10 Besides the in-house expertise and all the 11 inspection that we've done, I think we've been doing a 12 very, very thorough review. And we need to do that, 13 and I'm proud that we're doing that.

14 Dominion is satisfying themselves, and to be 15 fair to Dominion I think they've done a very thorough 16 review. And they've been very, very cooperative, and 17 they're assuring themselves that they're being safe, 18 but I'm a skeptical regulator, and my staff more so.

19 And we're looking very hard at it. We will make sure 20 that we have reasonable assurance of safety before we 21 allow restart.

22 The second item that you talked about was 23 the age of the reactors and embrittlement.

24 Embrittlement is a concern that we look at in the 25

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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 84 regulatory process. We have regulations that require 1

that we look at embrittlement specifically on the 2

reactor vessel which gets the most flux from the core.

3 And it's something that licensees have what we call 4

coupon samples within the vessel, and they take those 5

out, and we make sure that those are tested to make 6

sure that enough ductility remains in the reactor 7

vessel in the primary components to make sure that it 8

stays safe. So, it is something that we watch very 9

closely. Thank you.

10 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Thanks, Eric. Vodjtka.

11 Again, I'm sorry, if I mispronounced it, please 12 correct me for the record.

13 MS. TA CHAI: It's fine, everybody does.

14 Well, first of all, I'd like to know who the people 15 are with the Nuclear Energy shirts on. Are these paid 16 Dominion employees? Just nuclear fans? That's 17 bizarre.

18 Anyway, so we keep having -- I'm from 19 California, and we have lots and lots of aftershocks 20 and lots of earthquakes, so we keep having 21 aftershocks. Is anybody looking at the cumulative 22 damage that might be caused by continuing series of 23 aftershocks?

24 Oh,

also, I

would like to know the 25

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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 85 difference between the construction standards for a 1

Virginia reactor as opposed to what was built in 2

California, because I am fairly certain that even 3

though this was a mild event, that you may incur a 4

bigger earthquake in the future. And I'm also fairly 5

certain that Virginia construction standards have not 6

included earthquake retrofitting or reinforcing.

7 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Thank you. And make 8

sure you introduce yourself, Kamal.

9 MR. MANOLY: Yes, my name is Kamal Manoly.

10 I'm a Senior Advisor in the Office of Nuclear Reactor 11 Regulation. And your first question was focused on the 12 repetitiveness or the cumulative damage from an 13 earthquake.

14 The earthquake that I think you mentioned 15 yourself was a minor earthquake. The data clearly show 16 that it was a very short duration earthquake. And due 17 to that, the equipment did not sustain any what we 18 call inelastic deformation. When the material is in 19 elastic range, you don't get the cumulative effect 20 that you're talking about when you have taken the 21 material in a different domain.

22 The second part of your question was the 23 design basis for the Virginia plants versus the 24 California plants. There's a major, major difference.

25

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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 86 The Virginia plants, North Anna designed to an SSE 1

.12G, and.18G; whereas, in California you have three 2

levels earthquake. You have an OBE.25G, you have an 3

SSE.5G, and then you have a Hosgrie is.75G. So, 4

you're talking a humongous difference between the 5

plants built in California versus a plant in the east 6

coast.

7 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Just a housekeeping 8

point at this point. We're scheduled to end in 10 9

minutes. I want to check with Eric and Vic to make 10 sure. Can we go over?

11 MR. McCREE: Why don't we take a few minutes 12 now, Bret, to check with folks on the phone. I'm sure 13 they've been very patient for this, to see if anyone 14 there --

15 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Would you entertain 16 going --

17 MR. McCREE: Yes.

18 FACILITATOR LESLIE: We still have about 13 19 people here that still want to ask some questions.

20 MR. McCREE: Okay. Then why don't we plan to 21 go on until --

22 FACILITATOR LESLIE: 9:30 is pretty much when 23 the principal told us --

24 MR. McCREE: Okay. Is everybody okay to go to 25

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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 87 9:30?

1 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Thank you.

2 MR. McCREE: Okay. All right. Let's do that.

3 FACILITATOR LESLIE: While they're waiting, 4

Jerry Dunay, Al Smith, and Edmund Frost. Okay, Jerry.

5 MR. DUNAY: My name is Jeremy Dunay. I'm a 6

nuclear engineer at BCU. And, technically, from a 7

technical standpoint, there's a lot of questions in 8

here on TV that we see -- we as nuclear engineers, 9

people in school that we can easily defer and say we 10 can prove against just in our basic intro classes. And 11 I was curious what we can do as the people that are 12 upcoming, the future, what we can do from a social 13 standpoint that we're going against the media, going 14 against a lot of the subjective facts that are on TV 15 that people cling to but really don't necessarily go 16 behind and see the background behind. What can we do 17 as the upcoming generation to kind of push the pro 18 nuclear looks, so in the future when an earthquake 19 happens we can say how can we make this -- how can we 20 turn on North Anna faster versus how can we slow it 21 down?

22 FACILITATOR LESLIE: That's a little off 23 target, but if either Eric or --

24 (Laughter.)

25

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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 88 FACILITATOR LESLIE: I mean, it's a --

1 (Off mic comment and applause.)

2 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Vic. Again, let's --

3 actually, we're going to run out of time if we allow 4

a lot of conversation with the audience.

5 MR. McCREE: First of all, thanks for your 6

comment and question. The NRC, as you may know, we're 7

an independent federal agency. We're not pro, we're 8

not anti. Our role is if a utility such as Dominion 9

chooses to use nuclear power to generate electricity, 10 then our role is to make sure that it's done safely.

11 So, we're not in an advocacy role, and I just want to 12 take the opportunity to put that out there. But I do 13 appreciate your question. I think it's a good one.

14 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Next will be Al Smith, 15 Ed Frost, and then Paul Gunter.

16 MR. SMITH: Good evening. I'm Al Smith, a 17 retired employee of Dominion Virginia Power. For 18 several years, I had the responsibility and pleasure 19 of working with the citizens and officials of Louisa 20 County as Dominion's Senior External Affairs Manager.

21 I arrived a little early this evening, and had the 22 opportunity to speak with friends and former contacts 23 and colleagues.

24 We all agree that Dominion is a good 25

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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 89 community-minded company that does what it says. It 1

has a record of a strong safety culture, and I believe 2

the plant is ready to restart. Inspections have been 3

done, and shown that there weren't any significant 4

damage or there wasn't any significant damage that 5

would make it unsafe to operate.

6 I think it is time to restart North Anna.

7 Will everyone who agrees with me and favors the 8

restart please stand.

9 (Applause.)

10 MR. SMITH: Thank you.

11 FACILITATOR LESLIE: I'd like to try to 12 remind folks that we really want to focus on the 13 questions, and not so much on the comments, because 14 there a lot of people who still have questions in the 15 audience. Thank you. Edmund Frost, Paul Gunter, and 16 G. Paul Blundell.

17 MR. FROST: An emergency enforcement petition 18 has been filed with the NRC by the group I'm part of 19 called Not On Our Fault Line and several other groups.

20 One thing we're calling for is a reevaluation of the 21 seismic risks at the site due to the exceedance of the 22 design basis. And we're calling for retrofitting of 23 the plant. We're calling for inspection of Unit 1 to 24 the same standard as Unit 2.

25

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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 90 I'm wondering when we can expect a ruling on 1

that petition. It seems like it's very timely since 2

you're talking about restarting.

3 And another question is, what other 4

organization inspected the dam. Vic mentioned that.

5 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Meena, do you want to 6

take that first question on the petition?

7 MS.

KHANNA:

Yes, thank you for that 8

question. That's a good question. There are a couple 9

of 2.206 petitions that we are currently reviewing, 10 and there is a separate process, part of 10 CFR 2.206 11 delineates the process. And we actually have 12 conducted a Petition Review Board for one of the 13 petitions, and the other one is scheduled in the very 14 near future.

15 This is a separate process from the restart 16 decision. However, there will be -- the PRB will meet 17 to determine if there's any immediate safety concerns.

18 MR. FROST: Okay, but you don't know when a 19 ruling can be expected.

20 MS. KHANNA: Well, as far as the schedule, I 21 don't have a schedule for it.

22 MR. FROST: Okay.

23 MS. KHANNA: We do have a time frame on 24 addressing 2.206 petitions that are addressed in the 25

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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 91 2.206 guidelines. However, again, I will note that 1

this is a separate process. We will handle this 2

process separate from the restart decision.

3 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Allen.

4 MS. KHANNA: Allen, do you want to add 5

something on the schedule? Thanks.

6 MR. HOWE: Yes. Again, I'm Allen Howe. I'm 7

also in the Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation.

8 Meena mentioned that there were two petitions. One of 9

the petitions the Board has already met, and they have 10 notified the petitioner of the results of the initial 11 review. The second petition, the Board is scheduled to 12 meet, and they are meeting before we complete our 13 evaluation to address any of the immediate issues that 14 have been raised in the petition. Once the Board has 15 met internally and a decision has been made, the 16 petitioners will be notified.

17 MR. McCREE: Yes, your question, I think, 18 regarding what the other organization was. It's our 19 understanding that Dominion had experts from Virginia 20 Tech to also inspect the North Anna Dam. We have not 21 seen the results of those independently to consider 22 them, if you would, but we do understand that it 23 occurred, and that there were no issues. I don't know 24 if you want to speak to that.

25

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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 92 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Please identify yourself 1

for the record.

2 MR. HENDRIXSON: My name is Eric Hendrixson.

3 I'm the Director of Engineering in North Anna Power 4

Station. The main dam was inspected numerous times, 5

and there's several tests that we performed on the dam 6

itself over -- immediately following the earthquake, 7

and the following weeks. The FERC was involved in 8

providing oversight on those inspections of the dam, 9

and also licensed professional engineers inspected the 10 main dam.

11 FACILITATOR LESLIE: And you had one last 12 question?

13 MR. FROST: This is a quick comment. You said 14 that Dominion -- that the plant tells a story. And I 15 just want to say that time is the only thing that's 16 going to tell the story, and I'm worried about what 17 that story is.

18 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Thank you.

19 (Applause.)

20 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Paul Gunter next, and G.

21 Paul Blundell, and then Bill Akers.

22 MR. GUNTER: Thank you. My name is Paul 23 Gunter. I'm with Beyond Nuclear, and we're a public 24 advocacy group out of Tacoma Park, Maryland. And 25

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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 93 we're also one of the petitioners that's filed.

1 I just want to begin my statement with a 2

remark with regard to the earlier question about the 3

$32,000 fine. I thought that was a fairly coy remark 4

from Vic. And I think that we need to be more 5

forthright in just recognizing that, first of all, 6

Virginia Electric Power Company was fined $32,000 for 7

making material false statements with regard to the 8

siting of this plant on a fault line. And that's a 9

matter of fact, and it's in the record.

10 More of concern, and more recent, which I'm 11 sure the NRC at least Office of Public Affairs is 12 aware of, is that the Fluvanna Review on October 26, 13 2011 wrote an article that basically cites that the 14 Department of Justice had a memo that was issued in 15 September of 1977 that concluded that it could not 16 press criminal charges against Virginia Electric Power 17 Company because of the collusion of the Nuclear 18 Regulatory Commission in covering up these 19 misstatements, these misrepresentations to its own 20 licensing board. So, you've got a Department of 21 Justice memo that concludes that you destroyed its 22 case.

23 Now, recognizing that was more than 30 years 24 ago, I think we all go by the standard that one lie 25

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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 94 destroys a thousand truths. And that's what we're 1

facing here today, is that the agency and the industry 2

have undermined their own credibility. And the fact 3

that we have an earthquake now that has really shaken 4

things up, this is what's destroying public confidence 5

in this meeting today.

6 But more importantly to my questions, I 7

think that Eric, you had said that in the last 8

Commission briefing that the agency was not going to 9

require a backward look at the original seismic 10 calculations for the design basis earthquake. Now, the 11 fact is that you've destroyed your credibility by 12 basically colluding as pointed out by this Department 13 of Justice memo. So, why should we have any faith that 14 this agency is not just continuing in that collusion 15 to cover up for the financial concerns of this 16 industry over the public health and safety? I think 17 that's a fair question.

18 Why should we have faith in you now? But 19 more particularly, with regard to this cumulative 20 absolute velocity, if I was a civil engineer in 21 California, can somebody give an answer, would I be 22 using this CAV figure to look at the safety margin in 23 a bridge overpass after the North Ridge earthquake? I 24 mean, it's my understanding that this CAV calculation 25

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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 95 is primarily being used for nuclear power, and not 1

being used in civil engineering for like bridge 2

structures. So, I'd like to know what the difference 3

is between what a civil engineer in California would 4

use, and what you're using to make this assessment at 5

North Anna.

6 And it's also -- an additional question is 7

that we have had dozens of aftershocks at this 8

facility. And as I read the transcripts to date, the 9

measurements and the calculations that you're making 10 right now do not bring into a cumulative evaluation of 11 all the earthquakes, the aftershocks that have 12 occurred. You basically have capped it at the August 13 23 rd event. So, what's the cumulative part of this 14 cumulative -- this CAV calculation.

15 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Thank you very much, 16 Paul. I heard three questions --

17 MR. LEEDS: I heard four.

18 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Okay. Well, Eric, since 19 you heard four, why don't you start it off.

20 MR. LEEDS: I'll try to do my best. Paul, 21 thank you for coming down from Tacoma Park. I'm glad 22 that you're here. I'm glad you're raising those 23 issues.

24 My understanding -- at the AIT exit, no one 25

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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 96 at that exit from the NRC was familiar with the 1

$32,000 fine. As Vic said, it was before our time. I 2

may be the senior here, or maybe Kamal is the senior, 3

but I've been with the agency for 27 years. How long 4

have you been? Twenty-eight years, you've got me beat 5

by a year, so that puts him in 1983, maybe 1984. I was 6

in the Navy before that.

7 We went back and took a look at that, and 8

you do talk about Department of Justice memo says back 9

in 1974 there may have been -- there was collusion 10 according to the Department of Justice memo, 1974. I 11 got back to what Vic said.

12 MR. GUNTER: What's the design basis, though?

13 You sited the plant on that --

14 MR. LEEDS: Let me answer your question, 15 though. You asked me -- well, I'm trying to be clear.

16 You asked why you should have trust. You said that was 17 the NRC, that wasn't the NRC. That was the Atomic 18 Energy Commission. The NRC didn't exist. Yes, NRC --

19 MR.

GUNTER:

It was reported in the 20 Washington Post that it was the Nuclear Regulatory 21 Commission.

22 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Rich.

23 MR. LEEDS: In 1974, the Nuclear Regulatory 24 Commission didn't exist. You know that, as well as I 25

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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 97 do.

1 (Off mic comment.)

2 MR. LEEDS: 1974, the time of the collusion, 3

the Nuclear Regulatory Commission didn't exist. Let 4

me get to my point, Paul. You asked why you should 5

trust us. And I believe as a government employee, as a 6

public servant, that's why we have these meetings.

7 That's the openness, that's the -- our website. I 8

implore every one of you to go take a look at our 9

websites, and take a look at all the documentation 10 that we put out there to allow the public to make 11 their own judgment.

12 All the questions that we have asked the 13 licensee and all the responses are there. All the 14 guidance documentation that we used to conduct this 15 review is there. All these meetings that we've had on 16 this issue, we've had two at headquarters, now we've 17 had two down here at the site. They've all been open 18 to the public. So, we're doing everything that we know 19 to do to try to build that trust.

20 And I understand the trust was broken in 21 1974. I understand that. And how long did it take to 22 build that trust? I don't know the answer to that.

23 All I can do is say for the past 27 years, and I know 24 Kamal, and he works in my organization, and I know his 25

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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 98 professionalism, so I'll say for the last 28 years 1

we've been doing everything that we can to enhance 2

public trust in what we do.

3 One last thing on that. For the past, I 4

believe, six years the NRC has been ranked the number 5

one place to work in the federal government. We're 6

very proud of that. One of the reasons I believe that 7

we've been ranked so high is because our mission, 8

public health and safety, it never changes. It doesn't 9

matter who's in the administration. It doesn't matter 10 if it's a Republican or Democrat.

11 We're an independent

agency, as Vic 12 mentioned before. We only have one mission, public 13 health and safety. We believe in our mission, our 14 people believe in the mission. And these are all the 15 reasons why we do what we do, and we try to reach out 16 to build trust. That was your first question.

17 Your second question had to do with 18 something that I said at the last Commission meeting, 19 that we're not taking a backwards look. And perhaps I 20 wasn't clear enough. At this meeting, we talked about 21 two things going forward with regard to the North Anna 22 site with regard to the earthquake loading, long-term 23 evaluations to make sure that the margin is in tact, 24 that there is margin there for the earthquake. And the 25

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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 99 second is, the licensee is going to update their Final 1

Safety Analysis Report using the August 23 rd 2

earthquake. So, we are going forward, and we are 3

looking -- we are incorporating what we've learned 4

from this earthquake into the design basis at this 5

plant. We're doing that.

6 The last two questions you asked about the 7

cumulative absolute velocity, and cumulative effects 8

of earthquakes. And I want to give that to one of our 9

technical experts. Did you want to add --

10 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Let's try to keep our 11 answers --

12 MR. McCREE: Don't worry, it'll be very 13 quick. Paul, first of all, I agree with everything 14 that Eric said. I'd just like to say for your benefit, 15 and just as well as everyone in the room. When you 16 mention words like "coy,"

and "coverup,"

and 17 "collusion,"

it's difficult not to take that 18 professionally, and that's exactly how we take it. And 19 that's exactly how we'll respond to it.

20 Whether it's the Atomic Energy Commission, 21 or the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, you're talking 22 about people. We're people. We're trying to do our 23 jobs, and trying to do them well. We all -- we're a 24 federal agency, so when we all come in, we take the 25

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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 100 same oath of office that everyone takes joining the 1

military. "I do solemnly swear to support and defend 2

the Constitution of the United States against all 3

enemies both foreign and domestic. I will bear true 4

faith and allegiance to the same, and I will well and 5

faithfully discharge the duties of the office of which 6

I'm about to enter, so help me God." So, the people 7

sitting over here are well and faithfully discharging 8

their duties.

9 (Applause.)

10 MR.

McCREE:

So, to suggest those 11 characterizations of what we're doing is really 12 counter to that, and I would --

13 PARTICIPANT: We just lost power.

14 MR. CALTA: We can't hear you.

15 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Is the power back? Okay.

16 Could we just answer the two questions.

17 MR. MANOLY: Yes, I just want to address the 18 question on the cumulative absolute velocity that you 19 raised. The cumulative absolute velocity number, it's 20 a number that was established endorsed in Reg Guide 21 1.166 to shutdown the plant not as a measure of the 22 fact that this damage has already occurred. It's a 23 metric that we use so the plant can shutdown and then 24 look, to show an exceedance of the operating versus 25

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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 101 earthquake.

When it exceed operating versus 1

earthquake, then you shutdown the plant and you 2

calculate the CAV value.

3 As we've seen on the slides that Dominion 4

showed, the CAV for the event was.17, and for the 5

design basis SSE was around.588, so we're talking 6

almost three times as much. And that gives you a feel 7

of the relativeness of what the plant was designed for 8

versus what it experienced.

9 The other question about the repetitiveness 10 of the event, again I answered that question before.

11 The material -- the components during that earthquake, 12 the short duration earthquake did not get anywhere 13 close to a range where you have permanent deformation.

14 In fact, the equipment of design, a lot of time the 15 piping designed for seismic SSE plus LOCA, Loss of 16 Coolant Accident. You only experienced only one thing, 17 which is the earthquake. And it was a short duration 18 earthquake that did not take the materials anywhere in 19 the range where you have sustained deformation.

20 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Okay. Thank you, Kamal.

21 To remind folks, we've got about 20 minutes left, and 22 we have 10 questions, so please try to focus very 23 closely. Bill Akers, and then G. Paul Blundell, Kelly 24 Taylor.

25

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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 102 MR. AKERS: Thank you. Bill Akers. At the 1

prior meeting with Dr. Green here, I did do some news 2

reporting, but I freelance. But this as a citizen of 3

Louisa, and I hate to take a shot over here, but I'm -

4

- I feel like I need to.

5 Paul, it would certainly be helpful since 6

you're -- one of your staff who stood next to me at 7

the North Anna meeting challenged Dominion Power that 8

video taping of the license tags out in the parking 9

lot had occurred. When I took that matter to the 10 Rutherford Institute, it sure would be nice if your 11 organization would respond to emails.

12 My question, I'm not sure whether or not you 13 can answer, but percentage of proximity to active 14 faults, I would be curious, and I don't even know if 15 there's an actual tracking of this, but as to the 16 distance, what, it's 15 miles. What percentage does 17 that place that in to reactors that are near faults?

18 For example, does that put it in the top 10 percent of 19 plants?

20 Now, a question was raised about California 21 construction standards. By the same token, if --

22 statistically what you'd be looking at is whether or 23 not a plant that's built to Virginia standards falls 24 in with the category of plants that are built to 25

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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 103 stronger standards at a closer proximity, if you 1

follow what I'm saying. Should I elaborate, or wait 2

for an answer on that? I mean, go on to my next 3

question. Okay, go on to the next one.

4 All right. Well, you know, just as a lay 5

person, what I experience is what I would call a 6

rather harmonic shock wave. And I'm not an engineer 7

but those -- some of see things about this, that 8

harmonic tends to have a lot of metal fatigue and 9

stress fatigue. Should we presume that in the course 10 of the inspections and your testing that it certainly 11 includes for unseen fatigue in the way of materials?

12 This one I feel like it's almost a given. Your answer 13 is probably going to be yes, and I thank you.

14 And I would just -- well, I say yes in terms 15 of just affirm it and we'll move on quickly. Thank 16 you.

17 Could a critical mass incident cause a 18 radiation plume to fall within Washington, D.C.

19 affecting the 10 million people from there to 20 Baltimore?

21 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Thank you, Bill. And 22 we'll take the seismic questions first.

23 MR. LI: Yes. Again, my name is Yong Li. I'm 24 a seismologist at NRC. I'll answer your first question 25

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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 104 regarding the fault approximately to the power plant.

1 According to design parameter for new reactor, you are 2

not allowed a capable fault beneath the power plant 3

period. For the existing power plant, we also have a 4

serious regulation addressing this issue.

And 5

generally speaking, if you want to define a capable 6

fault, it has two aspects for that capable fault. One 7

is cannot -- fault itself cannot cause a vibration, 8

the earthquake vibration. Second, it cannot cause a 9

displacement. I mean, if you are located right beneath 10 the foundation it could display, cause the foundation 11 instability. That's a concern, so vibration and the 12 displacement, that's two concern for capable fault.

13 But not every fault is capable, because you drill a 14 hole right here underneath here to the bedrock, you 15 can find many, many faults, big or small, but 16 necessarily they are active faults or capable faults, 17 because they are very old faults. And they haven't 18 been active for many, many years. So, that's the 19 concern here.

20 MR. McCREE: And one other thing, with 21 respect to the third question, Bret, if we could get 22 his contact information with regard to the radioactive 23 plume affecting Washington, D.C., we'll get back to 24 you on that question.

25

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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 105 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Right, and one other 1

thing I was going to say. Even though we're going to 2

probably shut this meeting down at 9:30, the NRC Staff 3

are right there, so as we're breaking down the room, I 4

encourage people who still have questions to come up 5

and talk to the NRC Staff that are there.

6 Paul Blundell, is he someplace?

7 PARTICIPANT:

Why can't you answer the 8

question about the nuclear plume? How could you not 9

know that?

10 FACILITATOR LESLIE: And I think one of the 11 things Rich is doing is -- what we're trying to do is 12 we're trying to answer questions --

13 (Off mic comment.)

14 PARTICIPANT: I'm flabbergasted.

15 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Right. And I think --

16 MR. LEEDS: I'll give it a shot. Would you 17 repeat the question?

18 MR. AKERS: Yes, I'm going to have to go by 19 what I think could happen at a plant, correctly or 20 incorrectly. So, my question was, in a critical mass 21 incident, could this cause a radiation plume to fall 22 on Washington, D.C., or the Baltimore Corridor, 10 23 million people, a lot more than that's here --

24 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Thanks.

25

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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 106 MR. LEEDS: If I understand your question 1

right, you're asking if there was a nuclear clad 2

meltdown, if there would be a plume that would go up 3

to Washington, D.C. Is that what you're asking?

4 MR. AKERS: Yes.

5 MR. LEEDS: We have a study called the State-6 of-the-Art Reactor Consequence Study. It's in draft 7

right now. I think it's about to be issued. Rather 8

than just hear what I have to say, I'd rather get your 9

contact information and send you the report. It's been 10 done by experts. It's been peer reviewed. It's been so 11 thoroughly looked at, and it goes right to the heart 12 of the issue that you're talking about. And it will be 13 very, very reassuring to you. But I'd rather -- the 14 answer is that no, that's not what you have to worry 15 about. No, that's not what you have to worry about.

16 But I'd much rather you take a look at the report and 17 read the report for yourself, rather than just hear it 18 from someone up here that's saying no, it's not a 19 problem.

20 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Eric, and I'll make sure 21 I get his comment card.

22 MR. LEEDS: Please.

23 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Contact information.

24 MR. BLUNDELL: Okay, I'll try. I just wanted 25

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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 107 to start by saying I'm very appreciative to Dominion 1

for all the hours they put into inspecting this plant.

2 I'm very appreciative to the NRC, obviously, for 3

keeping them honest. That's very nice. Nuclear power 4

is very dangerous, and it's important to have people 5

making sure these plants are operating safely.

6 I did want to say something that was brought 7

up by the other Paul's comment. It was a long time 8

ago. I'm sure you all are great people. The 9

Department of Justice is the one that said --

10 questioned the professionalism of the people back 11 then, so I hope that you are more professional than 12 the people in the '70s who committed these oversights, 13 inclusions, and whatnot according to the Department of 14 Justice.

15 As several people have brought up already, I 16 know as a small business owner in Louisa, I know that 17 like we need to make money, and the concerns of 18 business can be very powerful in wanting to cut 19 corners on safety. I'm very appreciative that you are 20 an independent body that's making sure that things are 21

-- time is taken to make sure this plant is operated 22 safely, even though as many people have noted, like 23 there are very strong business concerns to get it 24 operating, or up and running very quickly.

25

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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 108 My questions are mostly actually for 1

Dominion, which is that having this history back when 2

the plant was originally sited and built, there was a 3

fault line found on the site, and it was covered up, 4

or rather it was not reported to the NRC until very 5

late in the game. It was downplayed, and the 6

independent reports were not reported in a timely 7

fashion.

8 Why, knowing that when you're applying for 9

Unit 3, why didn't you take pains to report on the 10 known fault? And when you were asked by the NRC to 11 report, why did you give it such short shrift of only 12 two paragraphs, especially now that we know that it is 13 an active fault, and it is of concern?

14 The other thing that came up during your 15 report, I'm very -- I'll be really quick, is that I'm 16 appreciative to all the inspections that you've done, 17 but you mentioned like inspecting 90 percent of the 18 pipes. I'm curious why not 100 percent of the pipes?

19 Similarly, to like Reactor 1 or Reactor 2, why not do 20 the same level inspection as I think somebody else 21 that I read -- nicely did, said a nice quote which was 22 you wouldn't just check one of the tires on your car 23 since all the tires are the same for pressure, you 24 would check all the tires.

25

NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 109 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Thanks. Someone from 1

Dominion want to respond? Don't forget to identify 2

yourself.

3 MR. GRECHECK: Yes, I'm Gene Grecheck, Vice 4

President of Nuclear Development, and I have been for 5

many years responsible for the North Anna 3

6 information development and the North Anna 3

7 application.

8 First, just like with the NRC, none of us 9

were around back in 1974 when the original events 10 occurred, so we certainly cannot -- we don't have any 11 personal knowledge of what happened then. But the 12 question was in terms of what was in the North Anna 3 13 Early Site Permit Application and what is in the COL 14 application. And we did review the entire geological 15 situations and history of the North Anna site, and did 16 include a discussion of the fault that was discovered 17 during the North Anna -- the original North Anna 3 18 excavation back in 1974.

19 As one of the NRC Staff members pointed out, 20 the fault that was identified back in 1974 is not 21 capable. That means that fault has not moved in a 22 very, very long time. That was presented in the 23 application. The NRC Staff did an extensive review of 24 the geological history, and concurred in the Safety 25

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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 110 Evaluation Report that that conclusion is correct.

1 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Okay, Dr. Andrew Cook, 2

John Carroll, and Christina Towns, if they're still 3

here.

4 DR. COOK: Thank you very much. My name is 5

Andrew Cook, and I drove here from Lynchburg. I'm very 6

impressed with how the meeting has been handled. I'm 7

really impressed by the independence of the NRC, and 8

the thoroughness of the review that Dominion has 9

undertaken.

10 And I just wanted to put a little bit of 11 perspective here, and maybe it's a question we can't 12 answer, but with the North Anna units down, the 13 electric power for Virginia is coming from coal and 14 natural gas, primarily.

15 When I drove here from Lynchburg, I went 16 under several Norfolk and Southern Bridges, and I 17 drove by very large natural gas transmission lines, 18 one of which was a 30-inch line which actually 19 ruptured three years ago in Amherst, and destroyed 20 three homes -- two homes, almost killed the families 21 there.

22 So, my question is from a matter of 23 perspective, can you tell us are those companies 24 reviewing their civil structures, like transmission 25

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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 111 lines and the bridges with the same thoroughness that 1

Dominion is reviewing the North Anna plant? And my 2

other question is, is there an independent regulator 3

with the credibility and thoroughness of the NRC 4

that's auditing their inspections? Thank you very 5

much.

6 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Thank you, Andrew. I'm 7

not sure we'll be able to answer the first one. It 8

might be one of the things we'll put on the parking 9

lot. But, Vic, are you going to try to address any of 10 his parts?

11 MR. McCREE: First of all, thank you for your 12 questions and your comments, and the observation about 13 the NRC's independence and thoroughness. We take that 14 to heart.

15 I don't know. I don't know if there's 16 another agency looking at pipelines, or looking at 17 railroads, if you would, in response to the seismic 18 event here, but it is a very good question. It's one 19 that perhaps we ought to -- I would encourage you to 20 ask to Department of Transportation and/or Railroad 21 Safety, as well as whatever regulator is responsible 22 for gas line safety. I'm not sure which one that is.

23 If we obtain any information that's useful 24 in this regard, we'll populate our website with it, 25

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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 112 but I apologize, I don't know the answer to that.

1 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Thanks, Vic. We'll have 2

John Carroll, Christina Towns, and Laura Kay. John, 3

fortunately, is right here.

4 MR. CARROLL: My name is John Carroll. I also 5

live about two miles from the plant, and I honestly 6

don't think I've ever seen, was there any detectible 7

or should I say dangerous amounts of radiation 8

released from the plant, released from the casks, or 9

anything in the water, the air, the food?

10 And

also, Mr.

Leeds, would you 11 personally, would you raise your family within two 12 miles of North Anna? And, also, if there's a giant 13 flaming asteroid hurling to earth and it struck D.C.,

14 could it kill 10 million people?

15 (Laughter.)

16 FACILITATOR LESLIE: John, thanks. Eric, do 17 you want to answer the first question?

18 MR. LEEDS: I'm sorry, I missed the third 19 one. That was the best one.

20 (Laughter.)

21 MR. LEEDS: What was the first one?

22 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Was there --

23 MR. LEEDS: Oh, was there any release? No, 24 there were no releases. There were no measured 25

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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 113 releases of the -- the Resident Staff here is assuring 1

me that there were no releases.

2 Second, would I raise my family within two 3

miles of this -- if I chose to live down here? That 4

would not influence me at all. In fact, I'd love to 5

have a lakefront house, but I don't.

6 (Laughter.)

7 MR. LEEDS: And then the third question, I 8

know we're strapped for time. The third -- what was 9

the third? I don't know anything about asteroids. I'm 10 sorry.

11 (Laughter.)

12 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Again, Christina --

13 MR. LEEDS: We'll take that as a lookup.

14 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Christina Town, Laura 15 Kay, Darla Eaton, and then the last person I believe 16 will be Mark Munokoff.

17 MS. TOWNS: Good evening, gentlemen. Thank 18 you very much for your presentation tonight.

19 I have one question about safety. You've 20 been very thorough about talking about the significant 21 damage -- no significant damage to any of the safety 22 equipment. My safety concern goes beyond just the 23 equipment, and part of it is because of what I heard 24 tonight.

25

NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 114 You had mentioned that there was gas between 1

two rooms, the steam room and the control room, and no 2

one knew how it got there and all of that, and how 3

it's going -- how you're going to rid that gas.

4 And secondly, you showed a picture of the 5

footings that were damaged, footings to the water 6

tanks, water tower tanks. Okay. My question is, in the 7

news right after the earthquake, they were showing 8

pictures on line, in the newspapers about damage to 9

the cement footings beneath the tower that houses the 10 spent fuel rods. And how it moved because it's not 11 secured, they're just sitting on top of each other.

12 And some of them were damaged. Have they been 13 repaired, have they been secured? What has been done 14 about that?

15 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Thank you, Christina. I 16 think, Gerry, you were the one who first mentioned, 17 and maybe you could amplify your explanation on what 18 was observed.

19 MR. McCOY: Okay, I'll give it a chance. My 20 name is Gerry McCoy, Branch Chief for North Anna.

21 One thing you brought up was the gap that I 22 was talking about. That gap is between a tunnel that 23 has a steam pipe in it, so you have a steam pipe, it's 24 in a tunnel, it's underground. And then beside that 25

NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 115 tunnel is another room with safety-related pumps, 1

auxiliary feed water pumps. And when an inspection was 2

done inside that tunnel it was noticed that there was 3

a gap there that shouldn't have been there.

4 Now, the thing that has to happen is, in 5

order for that to become an issue you have to have a 6

leak develop in that steam line, so it's kind of 7

multiple things have to happen before it becomes an 8

event. And as of now, the gap has been repaired. And 9

that's unrelated to the seismic event. That is just 10 something we found while we were looking at other 11 things.

12 MS. TOWNS: How that gap came to be, there's 13 no explanation?

14 MR. McCOY: That gap, it was a seal that 15 should have been there that was never installed since 16

-- our indications are that gap was a seal that should 17 have been there since construction of the plant, and 18 it was just never there.

19 MS. TOWNS: And you've made sure things like 20 that with all of your inspections, things like that 21 will not occur in the future?

22 MR. McCOY: Well, we keep inspecting. That's 23 why we keep inspecting. It's a large plant, we keep 24 looking for more and more things.

25

NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 116 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Her second question had 1

to do with the spent fuel storage pad, and some of the 2

damage on the ventilation things.

3 Just as a point of information, there was 4

also a public meeting today in Washington, D.C. on the 5

storage aspects. And what we'll do is we'll link 6

those presentations to the North Anna Virginia quake 7

so that that additional -- where that was actually 8

talked about. So, I'll beg your indulgence to say that 9

was really where it was addressed.

10 MR. McCOY: Okay. And the spent fuel casks, 11 there are two different types of spent fuel storage 12 facilities there at North Anna, one are large metal 13 cylindrical casks, and those are the ones that shifted 14 about four inches during the earthquake. And those, I 15 think Allen Howe had a description of them, how you 16 have the large metal casks, they're designed for 17 certain drop criteria, and that the stresses of the 18 earthquake were much less than the stresses are 19 analyzed for.

20 There's also horizontal casks. These are 21 horizontal casks that are put inside of concrete 22 structures. So, the concrete structure is just there 23 for -- it's just there to -- the cask is inside a 24 sealed metal container, and then a sealed metal 25

NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 117 container is put inside the concrete for extra 1

protection, missile protection.

2 Now, what's important about the concrete 3

casks is you have to have enough gaps there. You've 4

got to have screens and ways for air to flow past 5

these casks to provide cooling. And those are the 6

screens that had the spalling, and a couple of screws 7

were pulled out. So, it really doesn't affect the 8

integrity of the cask itself, it's more -- the screen 9

is actually there to keep animals, birds from flying 10 in and nesting inside there. So, it wasn't a safety 11 effect on the cask itself.

12 MS. TOWNS: To make sure that these things 13 wouldn't happen again.

14 MR. McCOY: Well, they were fixed.

15 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Laura Kay, Darla Eaton, 16 and Mariane Cobb. And, again, we're running -- we 17 really have to be out of this room by 10:00, so 18 please, your questions --

19 (Laughter.)

20 FACILITATOR LESLIE: I don't want to be in 21 detention tomorrow with Principal Schott, so please.

22 MS. KAY: How come 100 percent of the pipes 23 weren't checked? I hear only 90 percent were.

24 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Dominion or NRC want to 25

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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 118 take a quick stab at that?

1 MR. HEACOCK: I think you're referring to the 2

pipes that contain radioactive fluid. We did 90 3

percent pressure test, and we dug up about 10 percent 4

of the pipes, but there's no requirement to test 100 5

percent of those to begin with. We did about 90 6

percent of the buried piping that could contain 7

radioactive fluids. We did over a mile of other 8

piping, as well. It was really a sampling to make 9

sure there was no damage from the seismic event, and 10 we found no evidence of damage anywhere.

11 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Thank you, David. Darla 12 and Mariane Cobb, either of them still here? Okay, 13 Darla.

14 MS. EATON: When is the earliest possible 15 startup date?

16 MR. LEEDS: This is a constant question that 17 we've been getting since we came down here for the 18 AIT, is what is the date? And I'm sorry, I don't have 19 a date for you, the earliest possible. We believe it 20 could -- the startup could be authorized as soon as 21 next week. My Staff needs time to review the latest 22 submittal that we've received from Dominion.

23 As Vic has said, and I have said, we've got 24 to make sure that everything is safe before we go 25

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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 119 forward. So, I don't -- I didn't assign a date for my 1

Staff that they had to be done regardless of what the 2

information was.

We're going to analyze our 3

information, we're going to make sure that everything 4

is safe before we authorize.

5 We're nearing the end of the review. We 6

haven't found anything significant. I truly believe 7

that as soon as next week we could be authorizing the 8

restart, but I don't have a date. I'm sorry.

9 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Thank you, Eric. And the 10 last question tonight will be Mary Anne Cobb.

11 MS. COBB: Dominion reported 56 leaks of 12 radioactive fluids back in 2004, and the NRC did not 13 require Dominion to release information about the size 14 of these leaks. Is the NRC willing to commit to public 15 release of all the information about these leaks now?

16 MR. LEEDS: Who's familiar?

17 FACILITATOR LESLIE: I think the NRC is 18 looking for --

19 MR. McCREE: Thank you for your question.

20 We're not aware of the 54 leaks, if you would, that 21 you're referring to. So, to provide you an informed 22 response, let me take 10 seconds.

23 MR. KOLCUM: I can provide some background.

24 I'm Greg Kolcum, I'm the Senior Resident at the site.

25

NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 120 The 56 leaks that you're talking about, NEI, Nuclear 1

Energy Institute, required that all nuclear plants 2

voluntarily report leaks. And in 2006, they reported 3

these 56 leaks, historical leaks that have been 4

stopped, have been mitigated, and are not 5

contaminating anything on site, or any drinking water 6

supplies, or anything on site. So, they voluntarily 7

reported this information, and we don't have any 8

current issues with those leaks on site.

9 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Thank you, Greg. With 10 that, I'm going to wrap up the meeting. And I really 11 appreciate everyone's patience with us, and hopefully 12 we provided you the necessary information. And, 13 again, I thank you for your participation. And the 14 NRC Staff is up here if you have additional questions.

15 Thank you for your patience. Thank you.

16 (Applause.)

17 (Whereupon, the proceedings went off the 18 record at 9:33 p.m.)

19 20 21 22 23 24 25