ML18201A377
| ML18201A377 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Oyster Creek |
| Issue date: | 07/17/2018 |
| From: | Neal R. Gross & Co. |
| To: | Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation |
| Lamb J, NRR/DORL/LSPB, 415-3100 | |
| References | |
| EPID L-2018-LRO-0022, NRC-3814 | |
| Download: ML18201A377 (142) | |
Text
Official Transcript of Proceedings NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Title: Oyster Creek Post-shutdown Decommissioning Activities Report Public Meeting Docket Number: (n/a)
Location: Forked River, New Jersey Date: Tuesday, July 17, 2018 Work Order No.: NRC-3814 Pages 1-129 NEAL R. GROSS AND CO., INC.
Court Reporters and Transcribers 1323 Rhode Island Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 234-4433
1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
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3814 OYSTER CREEK POST-SHUTDOWN DECOMMISSIONING ACTIVITIES REPORT PUBLIC MEETING
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TUESDAY, JULY 17, 2018
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FORKED RIVER, NEW JERSEY
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The meeting convened at the Lacey Township Community Hall, 101 North Main Street, at 6:00 p.m.,
Bruce A. Watson, presiding.
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2 NRC STAFF PRESENT:
BRUCE A. WATSON, CHP, Chief, Reactor Decommissioning Branch, Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards DOUG BROADDUS, Branch Chief, Operating Reactor Licensing, Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation RICHARD S. BARKLEY, Region I ZAHIRA L. CRUZ, Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards JOHN G. LAMB, Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation ALSO PRESENT:
JEFFREY DOSTAL, Plant Manager, Exelon Nuclear NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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3 1 P R O C E E D I N G S 2 6:06 p.m.
3 MR. WATSON: I guess it's working. You 4 want to go to my first slide, Steve.
5 Okay, we're starting just a minute late, 6 but our transcription guy says he's ready. Good 7 evening. That loud enough? Maybe I have to hold it 8 closer. Okay, good evening. Thank you for coming this 9 evening. I know the shutting down of a plant is a big 10 event in the local community and in the state.
11 We're here to hear your comments and answer 12 any questions that you may have. We have a number of 13 the NRC staff here. We don't have everybody that I 14 would have liked to have had here as experts, but we're 15 going to try and answer your questions. If we can't, 16 we'll be happy to get back to you.
17 So with that, I've got my first slide up 18 there. It's actually my pleasure to be here. I know 19 it's quite an experience for the plant to shut down.
20 I want to just give you a brief overview of the 21 regulatory process that we'll be following tonight, 22 but the plant will have, and address any specific 23 questions you have about the Post-Shutdown 24 Decommissioning Activities Report. Next slide.
25 This is an NRC Category 3 meeting, which NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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4 1 means we're here to hear your comments. It will be 2 transcribed. So if you're bashful about talking on 3 a microphone, please, we have some cards, you can write 4 some questions down and hand them up to us. We do ask 5 that you state your name so we know who's speaking, 6 and then you can make your comment or ask your question.
7 We do have meeting feedback forms and 8 brochures over here for your use. We really would like 9 the feedback on the meeting. Yes, sir.
10 MR. TITTEL: Can I just ask your name, sir?
11 MR. WATSON: Oh, I'm sorry, I'm Bruce 12 Watson. I thought I introduced myself before. I'm 13 Chief of the Reactor Decommissioning Branch at NRC.
14 I'm out of Headquarters in Rockville, MD. Right now 15 my other presenter up here, Doug Broaddus, is the Branch 16 Chief for the Operating Reactor, And the project 17 management of Oyster Creek right now rests in his 18 organization.
19 And then when it goes into decommissioning 20 soon after it shuts down, it will be transferred to 21 my organization to oversee the decommissioning 22 activities. Okay? And Zahira Cruz right here will 23 be the Project Manager after it's transferred to us 24 from the Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation. So I'm 25 in the Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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5 1 okay. Sorry about that.
2 We do have a meeting facilitator, Richard.
3 When I get finished with my short talk here, he's going 4 to go over how he's going to handle the ground rules 5 for the comment period, and we want to get on with that 6 as much as we can, as much time for that.
7 So I'm going to talk about the reactor 8 decommissioning process. Mr. Jeff Dostal's going to 9 talk about the Exelon PSDAR Post-Shutdown 10 Decommissioning Activities Report, which they have 11 submitted to the NRC. Doug will talk about the PSDAR 12 review process, and then we'll go into a comment period 13 for you, okay.
14 MR. TITTEL: What's a PSDAR?
15 MR. WATSON: Post-Shutdown 16 Decommissioning Activities Report.
17 MR. TITTEL: Thank you.
18 MR. WATSON: We at the NRC have a tendency 19 to use too many acronyms, I agree with you, so 20 Post-Shutdown Decommissioning Activities Report.
21 Next slide, please.
22 The NRC regulations for decommissioning 23 are over 20 years old. As a matter of fact, they're 24 21 years this year. And this slide shows that we've 25 terminated licenses for over 72 complex material sites, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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6 1 reactors, power reactors, and research reactors.
2 As a matter of fact, ten power reactors 3 have completed decommissioning and had their licenses 4 terminated. So it's nothing new to us in how this work 5 is done, and we ensure it gets done safely. Next slide, 6 please.
7 Some of the key regulations are Part 20 8 in the federal regulations, in particular Subpart (e),
9 the license termination describes the process for the 10 unrestricted release criteria.
11 All of the sites that have been 12 decommissioned in the US, including the power reactors, 13 have been released for unconditional or unrestricted 14 use, meaning the owner can use the property for any 15 purpose they want to after we terminate the license.
16 Which means that the site has been radiologically 17 decontaminated and meets our criteria for unrestricted 18 use. So it can be used for any purpose.
19 The next license is the, next regulation 20 is Part 50, which is the power reactor license. Under 21 Part 50.82, it actually describes the reactor 22 decommissioning process. So if you want to look that 23 up you can do that.
24 Another important regulation is Part 72, 25 which deals with the storage of the spent fuel, okay.
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7 1 So that's going to be at the site for quite a while.
2 The last information that I want to convey 3 to you is that we have an inspection manual, 2561, which 4 governs the reactor decommissioning process. One of 5 the biggest things I hear is that when the plant shuts 6 down, the NRC goes away. Can't be farther from the 7 truth.
8 We will be inspecting the plant until the 9 license is terminated, no matter how long it takes.
10 So we will have here, have inspectors here ensuring 11 the plant is maintained in a safe condition until the 12 license is terminated. So we don't go away. We stay 13 until the plant is totally cleaned up. Next slide, 14 please.
15 Just some key milestones for Oyster Creek.
16 They notified us they were shut down in 2018. They 17 submitted their PSDAR to us in May. It is publically 18 available in ADAMS, which is our Agency-wide document 19 management system, yeah, I always forget.
20 But we also published it in the Federal 21 Register on June 11, and we also advertised this meeting 22 in local newspapers, a couple of local shore ones and 23 the Asbury Park Press, right? Yeah. I used to live 24 here, so. I used to live right down the street here 25 30 years ago, so.
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8 1 The decommissioning process -- I had 2 another job to go to. We have basically a process we 3 call DECON in which the plant is, basically once they 4 shut down they will begin dismantling activities.
5 The other part is that, SAFSTOR, it can 6 go into a condition called SAFSTOR where basically the 7 plant is put and placed in a safe condition, basically 8 in a storage situation. And that'll be decommissioned 9 at a date later.
10 Right now, I can tell you that we have six 11 plants in DECON. The two plants at Zion, one at La 12 Crosse in Wisconsin, and the two plants in, excuse me.
13 Those three plants, plus Humboldt Bay in California, 14 will be having their licenses terminated probably in 15 2019-2020. So we have four more that are completing 16 decommissioning. So we'll have 14 in total in a few 17 years.
18 Right now, there are 14 plants in SAFSTOR, 19 and they can be decommissioned any time the owner plans 20 to start that. The key thing I want you to realize 21 is that once the plant shuts down, it is put in a safe 22 condition. Pretty much all the liquids in the plant 23 are, with the exception of those required to keep the 24 fuel cool, are removed from the plant and processed, 25 and so there's no water to leak.
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9 1 So once the fuel is put into dry storage, 2 the licensee will decommission the spent fuel pool and 3 drain the water out of that and process that. So 4 there's no water actually to be leaking into the ground.
5 And so it becomes a very safe condition, and that way 6 the plant is basically ready to be decommissioned or 7 dismantled at any time.
8 So to get to these two situations, DECON 9 and SAFSTOR, it takes six months to a year or more to 10 get the plant ready for decommissioning.
11 The other thing I want you to realize is 12 that the plant will be decommissioned and to be done 13 under a current safety evaluation system that we use 14 right now to de-operate the plant.
15 Within two years if they want to -- within 16 two years of the decommissioning being completed or 17 when they want to terminate the license, they're 18 required to submit to us a license termination plan, 19 which is basically a technical document that tells us 20 how they're going to ensure that they've cleaned up 21 the site completely to meet the unrestricted release 22 criteria.
23 And then of course we'll be inspecting the 24 plant as it's being decommissioned, or if it remains 25 in SAFSTOR, we'll be here also to inspect the plant NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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10 1 periodically.
2 Radiological decommissioning must be 3 completed in 60 years. I was misquoted in the local 4 paper saying that the process takes 60 years. No, the 5 process takes about seven to ten years for the plant 6 to be dismantled.
7 The regulations allow the plant to be in 8 a SAFSTOR condition for up to around 50 years, but the 9 decommissioning has to be completed within 60 years.
10 And that's part of the regulations that went into 11 effect back in the 1990s. And so that's the process 12 we follow right now.
13 So the plant could be in a SAFSTOR situation 14 for up to around 50 years, and then they have to start 15 decommissioning to complete the decommissioning within 16 60 years. Next slide, please.
17 The Post-Shutdown Decommissioning 18 Activities Report, or PSDAR we call it, is required 19 to have basically three things: a description and 20 schedule for the plant decommissioning activities; it 21 is required to provide to us a site-specific 22 decommissioning cost estimate, including the cost for 23 managing the fuel into the future; and a discussion 24 on, that provides the means for including the 25 Environmental Impact Statements, impacts associated NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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11 1 with the decommissioning, will be bounded by the 2 appropriate Environmental Impact Statement for the 3 plant as it is today. If not, they have to describe 4 that to us.
5 So basically, the PSDAR requires three main 6 things. Next slide. The NRC regulations require that 7 we hold a public meeting on the PSDARs issued in the 8 vicinity of the plants. So that's why we're here now.
9 We're about halfway through the comment 10 period of 90 days. We try to do it like in the middle 11 of the comment period so people have time to look at 12 and to also provide us comments if they want to provide 13 it and write to the NRC.
14 We will make the PSDAR publically 15 available, which we've done, and it's in ADAMS. One 16 thing I want you to realize is we do not approve the 17 PSDAR. It's merely a report on the planned activities 18 by the licensee, in this case Exelon, what their plans 19 are for doing the decommissioning.
20 It is mainly a resource document to us that 21 tells us how we're going to manage our inspection 22 schedule to be here when things need to be inspected.
23 It also allows us to ensure that we keep the plant 24 observed and in a safe condition.
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12 1 may begin the major decommissioning activities 90 days 2 after we receive the report. So they're able to start 3 any time after the comment period on decommissioning 4 activities. Next slide.
5 In summary, I want to mention again that 6 we are, the NRC is an experienced regulator. We have 7 an experienced decommissioning regulatory program.
8 We have comprehensive regulations. We have extensive 9 decommissioning technical guidance for use. We have 10 proven NRC oversight. We've completed ten of these 11 power reactors and been released for license terminated 12 for unrestricted us.
13 We do this by issuing licensing 14 requirements, which maintain a safety envelope, so to 15 speak, for the plant. And we maintain an inspection 16 program to ensure that we have people here, boots on 17 the ground, to observe the decommissioning activities 18 to make sure that things are done safely and 19 compliantly.
20 If you want to get some general reading 21 on decommissioning, you're welcome to go to www.nrc.gov 22 and just, if you want to just search decommissioning, 23 you'll find just about anything you want to know about 24 decommissioning on there.
25 With that, I'll turn it over to Jeff. All NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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13 1 right.
2 MR. DOSTAL: Good evening. My name's Jeff 3 Dostal. Just a little bit about my background. I've 4 been living in Lacey for the past 25 years. I've worked 5 at Oyster Creek for the past 35. I've held positions 6 in just about every department except for Security, 7 and my latest position right now is Director of 8 Decommissioning.
9 Just prior to that position, I was a Plant 10 Manager, and prior to that, I was Maintenance Director 11 and the Operations Director.
12 Once we shut down, I will revert back to 13 the Plant Manager and oversee basically the 14 decommissioning. Next slide, Bruce, please.
15 This is a little background about Oyster 16 Creek. Oyster Creek started operation, commercial 17 operations in December of 1969. That'll put us about 18 49 years of operational service to the community.
19 We've got a capacity of 637 megawatts electric. That 20 powers more than 600,000 homes right now.
21 We have about 450 employees on site.
22 That's down slightly from the number that we normally 23 run at. We normally run around 500, 550. So we 24 transferred about 100 people, with some retirements.
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14 1 be about 300 people on site. So we're going to retire 2 or move another 150 people to other sites.
3 The site has a total acreage of 779 people.
4 Bruce, and go back up one slide. Perfect. We'll 5 starting with powering the community, and again, just 6 a little bit of background. Exelon contributes more 7 than $20 million to charities and other contributions, 8 through other contributions. Oyster Creek itself gave 9 $400,000, more than $400,000 from the employees at 10 Oyster Creek in 2017.
11 This year, even with a reduction in staff, 12 we expect to give over $200,000 to different community 13 charitable organizations. United Way, Popcorn Park 14 Zoo, Lacey Food Bank, Lacey Lighthouse Athletic Center, 15 and so on. Next slide, please.
16 Also, we do a lot of outreach. So we do 17 15 years, tours per year at Oyster Creek. People come 18 to learn about nuclear power. We have more than 20 19 school visits, so civic events and things like that, 20 teaching youngsters about engineering and looking at 21 opportunities in the job market.
22 Our community outreach includes this 23 Energy Education Day, Community Information Night, 24 career and science fairs. We have a stake of a planned 25 dinner at the end of the year to discuss our progress, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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15 1 what we've done, and lessons learned. We also have 2 a stakeholder information form. So basically a group 3 getting together and providing information on 4 decommissioning at the site. Next slide, please.
5 Oyster Creek's decommissioning strategy 6 will be in SAFSTOR. We expect to be in SAFSTOR by 2024.
7 MR. WATSON: I skipped a slide.
8 MR. DOSTAL: Okay. All right, we'll go 9 back to the next slide. This slide, the physical 10 characteristics of the site. Again, we said 779 acres.
11 One hundred and fifty-two acres that you see here are 12 inside the horseshoe, as we call it, bounded by the 13 waterway and Route 9.
14 That's the site proper itself, that is what 15 we will be decommissioning. And that is what we will 16 provide remediation for.
17 Six hundred and twenty-seven acres are on 18 Finninger Farm. Those are already released, and we 19 do have plans to donate 270 acres to Lacey Township.
20 The main body of water for cooling is Barnegat Bay.
21 As we shut down, as we get into two months of operation, 22 well, past operation, we're going to reduce flow through 23 the canal by 96 percent.
24 So from we are now, the flow is reduced 25 96%, reducing the amount of water we take from Barnegat NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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16 1 Bay. Next slide, please.
2 Here again, as I started before, our 3 strategy is go to SAFSTOR, all right. So we've worked 4 very closely with local stakeholders, the state, the 5 NRC to develop our plan for decommissioning. We took 6 into consideration a number of different factors.
7 We've cited SAFSTOR as the best way for 8 us to go. And there's really two main reasons for that.
9 One, natural decay of radiation. So by looking and 10 watching half-lives decreasing, we'll lower the dose 11 we're going to give to workers during the 12 decommissioning process.
13 Also, we'll reduce, we'll naturally reduce 14 the amount of radioactive waste that we would have to 15 send to a landfill.
16 Once we continue with the SAFSTOR, we will 17 assess the site. We'll continue to work and look at 18 the characteristics of the site. We're allowed up to 19 60 years to decommission. That may be shorter, all 20 right. So we may take a shorter amount of time, based 21 on the new technologies being developed and the work 22 that we'll do with the NRC and the local state.
23 Planning for SAFSTOR is performed such that 24 we can start decommissioning at any time, all right.
25 So essentially the first three years of NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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17 1 decommissioning, whether you go to SAFSTOR or immediate 2 decommissioning, it's all the same activities pretty 3 much.
4 When you think about it, our nuclear 5 security at the site, trying to get a single truck onto 6 the site takes a half hour, 45 minutes, up to an hour 7 to get that truck on site. It would just not be feasible 8 to get the number of people and trucks on site that 9 we need to decommission.
10 Again, that is one of the reasons we will 11 drive fuel to dry storage as soon as possible. And 12 with that, we reduce the boundary. And I'll talk a 13 little bit about that later, but that's your boundary 14 at the site. Go back again, Bruce. He's trying to 15 rush me.
16 Like I said, the whole strategy is moving 17 fuel to dry storage as soon as possible is the best 18 to reduce risk and most efficient for fuel storage.
19 During SAFSTOR, for one of the first things 20 we do, as Bruce talked about, we will retire any 21 structures or systems that do not support spent fuel 22 storage. That means draining oil, de-energizing, 23 draining water from the system, processing that water, 24 essentially becoming a dry site.
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18 1 based on the amount of water that's there, but also 2 we've included contingencies for any groundwater in 3 leakage into the site. Best on benchmarking, the 4 benchmarking that we've done, Vermont Yankee has seen 5 up to 2000 gallons of water coming into the site from 6 groundwater.
7 We do have plans to deal with that water 8 coming it. And the best plan, just like a basement, 9 is not to allow that water to get into the plant.
10 The site will be restructured to an ISFSI 11 protected area, and the rest will be an industrial site.
12 So we'll have nuclear security at the ISFSI station, 13 and the rest of the site will be industrial security.
14 Next slide, Bruce.
15 Exelon developed a management model for 16 decommissioning. Based on the number of sites that 17 we have in Exelon, when we start decommissioning, not 18 only at Oyster Creek but other sites going forward.
19 TMI is now, that'll be shutting down in 2019. We're 20 basically, we're going to shut down Clinton, La Salle 21 out west. That was rescinded, but eventually that'll 22 come back up.
23 So we developed plans and procedures for 24 decommissioning. We've said that basically two years 25 prior to decommissioning, we set up a team of 18 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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19 1 individuals that will start decommissioning the plant.
2 And those will be plant-knowledgeable people.
3 Once we've shut down Oyster Creek in 4 September 2018, we'll offload the core and place all 5 the fuel from the reactor into the fuel pool. That 6 should take approximately about a month. So once we 7 hit permanently de-fuel, we'll send a letter into the 8 NRC, that'll get certified. And basically it's 9 certified de-fueled, and we will never load fuel into 10 the reactor vessel again.
11 So Phase II we start exactly what we talked 12 about a little earlier, draining systems, moving people 13 out of buildings, moving, consolidating.
14 And basically if you think about it, a major 15 contributor to the cost at Oyster Creek, that 16 decommissioning cost, believe it or not, the 17 electricity. Our electricity bills. We cannot become 18 a generator, we're a customer, getting power from 19 Consolidated Edison, whoever it is, JCP&L providing 20 the power to us.
21 That's a major cost. That's why we're 22 going to consolidate buildings and move them closer 23 and closer.
24 We start moving the fuel, we're getting 25 ready for an independent spent fuel installation.
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20 1 That's the acronym ISFSI, when I talk about ISFSI, 2 that's the dry fuel storage path. We'll start getting 3 that ready, the additional fuel that's going to go out 4 there.
5 We'll implement de-fuel licensing and tech 6 specs at that time, which we've already submitted to 7 the NRC for review.
8 In Phase III, approximately two to five 9 years later, and basically we see that starting in 10 October of 2019, we'll transition and move to the fuel 11 to the ISFSI. The final system layouts and SAFSTOR 12 process will begin. We will remove any Part 37 nuclear 13 material from the site.
14 So basically all loose nuclear material 15 will be moved from the site and/or stored. Anything 16 greater than Class C will be stored on the ISFSI path.
17 Once we get to ISFSI-only, which is all 18 fuel in the dry storage system, which we expect by 19 November of 2023, we'll start draining the fuel pool, 20 as Bruce said. The site will be dry of water. All 21 loose nuclear material will be accounted for and removed 22 from the site or stored in a safe condition. And then 23 we will enter ISFSI-only operation in March 2024.
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21 1 dry storage on the ISFSI pad, nuclear security around 2 that. All the other buildings in the site, all the 3 other systems at the site have been retired and ready 4 to be removed. And basically they are in safe storage.
5 We expect to be all fuel accepted by the 6 DOE. And again, that is an estimated date by our point 7 is September 2034, that's when all the fuel comes off.
8 And then we start site demo and DECON, and have that 9 complete by September of 2077, all right. And that 10 is all based on the 60-year timeline.
11 As I said earlier, that may change, that 12 may be pulled up based on new technology and 13 advancements that we have going forward. Next slide, 14 Bruce.
15 This slide shows, this basically shows the 16 decommissioned independent spent fuel storage 17 installations, as I was speaking about. The top slide 18 or picture on the left is the site itself. The green 19 ring is the large vehicle barrier or the large security 20 perimeter. And the ISFSI itself is in the yellow range.
21 And basically the drawing on the right is a depiction 22 of what ISFSI would look like.
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22 1 out of the reactor vessel. Again, it's a depiction 2 of that. The site itself, again, ISFSI-only would be 3 reduced to about six acres. So a six acre ISFSI-only 4 site not much larger than it is right now. Next slide, 5 Bruce.
6 This slide is a depiction of what risk and 7 how risk changes. So during power operations, we run 8 at a certain risk. We run a reactor that's running 9 at a thousand pounds pressure. We have nuclear 10 material in that, we have water, radioactive water 11 nuclear reactor.
12 And some of you may have heard of it, when 13 I've talked to different outreach groups and different 14 people throughout the Committee, I talk about anybody 15 making tea or coffee on a stove.
16 When you put a kettle on the stove, you 17 put heat under it, you start boiling the water, just 18 like in our reactor. Steam starts coming out, all 19 right. What do you do? You turn it off when steam 20 starts coming out. Essentially, that's what you're 21 doing during decommissioning. You shut down the 22 reactor, you take the mode of force away. That's why 23 you see the large drop immediately in risk.
24 Then you start moving fuel from the reactor 25 vessel into the fuel pool, reducing the amount of NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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23 1 potential leak-off points and things like that, 2 consolidating the fuel in one area. And the risk 3 continues to come down. The contained heat from the 4 fuel dissipates rapidly. It goes away very rapidly 5 as you're in the fuel pool. That's why it starts 6 leveling off on the bottom.
7 Once we have all the fuel on the ISFSI pad, 8 with dry fuel storage in itself is a system that does 9 not require power or anything else. When fuel's in 10 the fuel pool, you need electricity, you need water.
11 But once it's in dry storage, you don't need anything 12 but the air because it's sitting on the pad.
13 Again, that's why risk drops off a little 14 bit more as you see going into a Part 72 license. It'll 15 sit there for a period of time until all the fuel's 16 off and eventually the risk goes away once all the fuel 17 comes out. Next slide.
18 Key takeaways. Right now, Exelon is 19 operating Oyster Creek the best it's ever looked. By 20 the time we shut down, we expect to eclipse our longest 21 run ever at Oyster Creek. We did not get an INPO 22 evaluation this year, but we would have gotten an INPO-1 23 rating, the highest rating you can receive from INPO.
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24 1 for decommissioning. We're looking for excellence out 2 of these shutdowns. Nuclear, environmental, and 3 industrial safety will remain paramount in our 4 decommissioning efforts. Those will not go away. And 5 they will drive all our decommissioning plans.
6 The nuclear industry, as Bruce talked 7 about, all the other sites that are shutting down.
8 All of our imagined models are developed based on other 9 sites shutting down, the lessons learned that they have 10 had. We've improved upon them, and we continue to 11 improve upon that management model.
12 We'll maintain an effective emergency plan 13 and work with the state throughout decommissioning.
14 It does not go away. Exelon does not have any plans 15 or land to be developed at Oyster Creek at this time, 16 except for return it to restore the site.
17 And then Exelon will continue to work with 18 local officials, governments, all stakeholders to make 19 sure we have transparent communications and provide 20 efficient and expeditious decommissioning of the site.
21 That's it, Bruce.
22 MR. WATSON: Doug Broaddus will be talking 23 about the NRC's review process of the Post-Shutdown 24 Decommissioning Activities Report.
25 MR. BROADDUS: Thank you, Bruce. It's NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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25 1 great to see you all out tonight, looks like a great 2 turnout. I'm glad you all braved the weather to be 3 here, and I hope nobody had any trouble getting here, 4 any difficulties along the way.
5 So as Bruce mentioned, my name is Doug 6 Broaddus. I am the Chief of the Special Projects and 7 Process Branch in the Office of Nuclear Regulatory, 8 Nuclear Reactor Regulation, sorry. And -- can you hear 9 me? I'll try to get it closer.
10 So my branch is responsible for the 11 licensing and project manager oversight, project 12 management oversight of the operating site right now, 13 Oyster Creek. John Lamb, who's back over there, is 14 a Project Manager. We do all the licensing for Oyster 15 Creek right now, until they shut down, as Bruce said, 16 until we transfer the project management over to him.
17 I'll let him catch up on the slides here.
18 So while they're trying to figure that out, 19 I'll keep moving on. So part of our review is the 20 Post-Shutdown Decommissioning Activities Report, which 21 we refer to as the PSDAR. And rather than trying to 22 say that every time, I'm going to be using that acronym 23 as well.
24 And so tonight I'm going to keep talking 25 to you about what we do for as part of our review for NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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26 1 the PSDAR. One of the key purposes of our review of 2 the PSDAR is going to determine, to ensure that the 3 report contains all the required information, and the 4 licensee's plan is consistent with our regulations.
5 There are a number of regulations that 6 address decommissioning requirements for permanently 7 shut-down reactors. One of those is 10 CFR Part 50.82, 8 which contains many requirements applicable to the 9 transition of a reactor from operating to 10 decommissioning. And then through the final license 11 termination.
12 10 CFR 50.75 also addresses the funding 13 requirements and reporting requirements for reactor 14 decommissioning and funding. And in particular, 10 15 CFR 50.82(4)(i) is the regulation that contains all 16 the requirements for what the PSDAR must contain.
17 Bruce kind of went over that earlier, and so I'll just 18 summarize those again.
19 Three requirements are it has to have a 20 description and schedule of the planned decommissioning 21 activities, site-specific decommissioning cost 22 estimate, and then a discussion of the environmental 23 impacts.
24 So there's guidance out there that helps 25 to inform our review. One of those is the, there's NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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27 1 detailed guidance about what information is required 2 to be in a PSDAR. And that's provided in Regulatory 3 Guide 1.185, which is the standard format and content 4 for the Post-Shutdown Decommissioning Activities 5 Report.
6 Another document is NUREG 1713, which 7 describes how the NRC reviews a PSDAR when we, or I'm 8 sorry, reviews decommissioning cost estimates, which 9 is part of the PSDAR.
10 Due to the scopes of the issues that they're 11 described in the report, the various different 12 activities there, we have a number of reviewers that 13 are assigned to review this in those specific technical 14 areas. That includes financial analysts and 15 environmental specialists and health physicists.
16 And if at any time during the review we 17 determine that either, there's information lacking from 18 the report or that we need any additional information 19 to complete our review, we'll sent out what we call 20 a Request for Additional Information, or an RAI, to 21 the licensee.
22 And those are publically available, so if 23 you ever want to see what questions we're asking, you 24 can look in our ADAMS system, as Bruce said before, 25 our document management system, see what questions NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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28 1 we're asking.
2 Our review also considers the comments that 3 we received during the comment period, including those 4 comments that we might receive tonight. Part of what 5 we do with those, we determine, if based upon those 6 comments, there's a need for any changes to the PSDAR 7 or information that needs to be supplemented in that.
8 We also provide the comments to the 9 licensee for their consideration prior to them 10 conducting any major decommissioning activities. Next 11 slide, please.
12 So this talks about some of the, what 13 specifically we look for. So our review first assesses 14 whether the PSDAR contains all the required information 15 that I mentioned on the prior slide. We also look at 16 the licensee's decommissioning approach that Mr. Dostal 17 started to discuss before. And that, for Oyster Creek 18 that is the SAFSTOR approach, so that we make sure we 19 understand it and it meets all the requirements.
20 We'll assess whether the plan, in 21 particular we'll assess whether the plan demonstrates 22 that they can complete the decommissioning and license 23 termination within the 60-year period. And then we 24 also assess whether the plan is, whether there is 25 adequate funding to complete that decommissioning NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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29 1 license termination. And I'll talk about that in 2 another slide.
3 Although we don't approve the PSDAR, there 4 are a number of factors that could actually end up with 5 us determining that the PSDAR is deficient. And I'll 6 give you some examples of those circumstances which 7 could lead to that. The licensee, you know, if the 8 licensee's plan for decommissioning could not be 9 completed as described in their plan, we would find 10 that a deficiency.
11 An example of that is they're expecting 12 to go into immediate decontamination, as Bruce talked 13 about before, but there's no place for them to send 14 the waste to. Then they actually couldn't, it would 15 be impossible for them to complete it under that plan 16 in that case.
17 Since they're in SAFSTOR, you know, we'll 18 look to see whether or not they can complete it within 19 the 60 years. If they couldn't complete it within the 20 60-year period, then they would need to revise their 21 plan to demonstrate why a -- either revise their plan 22 or demonstrate why they need a longer decommissioning 23 period. And then that would require our approval for 24 that extension beyond the 60 years.
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30 1 demonstrate sufficient funds are available to complete 2 the decommissioning.
3 So we look at different standardized ways 4 of doing cost estimates and compare that against what 5 the licensees provided to ensure that they're able to 6 complete it. Do an independent review to ensure that 7 they're able to, their estimates of how much it's going 8 to cost are consistent with those other, those 9 estimating, the standard estimating methods and ensure 10 that they have a sufficient funding for that.
11 If they don't, then they would have to 12 provide an additional funding source or change their 13 approach so that they could complete it within that 14 time period. You have a question?
15 I'm sorry, I'm trying my best. I'm sorry?
16 I try to, I'm not. So I'll actually move 17 to the middle here. Maybe that'll help that. Yes, 18 sir.
19 MR. TITTEL: On the estimated cost, what 20 kind of lead time do you have on work actually completed 21 and monies left over?
22 MR. BROADDUS: Sean, do you understand 23 that? Sean is one of our financial reviewers. Let 24 me give you the microphone.
25 MR. TITTEL: The question is throughout NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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31 1 the decommissioning process, you --
2 MR. BROADDUS: Let me ask.
3 MR. TITTEL: To ensure you have monies left 4 over. First part of the question is how many dollars 5 are allocated --
6 MR. BROADDUS: Sean, I think --
7 MR. TITTEL: Cost would be?
8 MR. WATSON: Once the plan goes into 9 decommission, they've submitted to us their 10 site-specific estimate, each year, in March of each 11 year, they're required to send us a report on the status 12 of the decommissioning process. So every year they're 13 reporting to us what money is left or how much money 14 has been grown and what remaining work is to be done 15 at the site.
16 So we take a look at that each year and 17 verify that they continue to have enough money left 18 to complete the decommissioning.
19 MR. TITTEL: Money provided to you with 20 a starting number.
21 MR. WATSON: Right.
22 MR. TITTEL: That's $500 million?
23 MR. WATSON: Five hundred eighty-four 24 million, I think.
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32 1 presentations and then we'll try and get through?
2 Okay, thank you. So actually, and I'll talk a little 3 bit more about the cost estimates in the next slide.
4 So let me see, did I miss, oh yeah.
5 So I think the next is the, does the, is 6 the PSDAR consistent with our requirements. And is 7 it protective of public health and safety, which is 8 again, it has to meet all of our requirements for public 9 health and safety.
10 So if at any time we determine that it's 11 deficient, then we can take action to prevent the 12 licensee from proceeding until they have an adequate 13 decommissioning plan. We haven't as of yet, had to 14 do that, but we have that capability to do that if 15 necessary. Next slide. No, you got the next slide.
16 All right.
17 So this is specific to our cost estimate.
18 We look at the entire costs from start to finish, for 19 the entire 60-year period, or if it's going to be 20 shorter, you know, for a shorter time period. This 21 is typically an area, it is of very much interest to 22 the community. Wanting to know, you know, do they have 23 enough money, where is the money, do they have it.
24 And yes, they're required, when they shut 25 down, to be able to demonstrate that they have that NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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33 1 money at that time. Then our regulations have a 2 mechanism, you know, of calculation basically, of the 3 means by which demonstrate that, and as Bruce indicated, 4 they have to do that, report that to us every year.
5 Once they decide to shut down, then they 6 have, the report goes from every two years to an every 7 year period. So they're constantly looking at that, 8 we're constantly looking at their report and whether 9 or not they're staying plan, with a plan for the 10 spending, that they have money left over at the end 11 or they have enough.
12 So to ensure that, one of the things we 13 do is we look at all the different costs and the 14 activities that they've described, and we make sure 15 that their plan actually includes all of the appropriate 16 costs and activities that are required, and that they 17 properly account for each of those costs.
18 And our criteria is does that provide 19 reasonable assurance that they're going to have 20 sufficient funds at the end of the decommissioning to 21 complete all those activities. We look at the 22 techniques and the technologies that they're planning 23 to use and whether the cost estimates are realistic 24 based on those types of, those planned activities.
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34 1 to complete decommissioning, based on that approach, 2 whatever approach they've chosen. If it's DECON, 3 they'll be using different technologies, different 4 approaches. If it's SAFSTOR, they'll be using another 5 type.
6 And again, looking at whether those also 7 realistic. We have experience on the cost of, Bruce 8 said, what it's cost decommissioning other plants.
9 And so we can keep up on those understandings and make 10 sure we know that they're realistic or not.
11 So we also want to make sure that the 12 licensee understands and has accounted for all of the 13 potential changes, you know, or potential changes that 14 could occur over the life of the decommissioning 15 process. So one of the areas we look for is is there 16 a mechanism for them to adjust the funding or adjust 17 the spending going forward.
18 So we look at that to make sure that they've 19 described how they would account for any changes in 20 the circumstances to ensure that they continue to 21 maintain the funds. And as I indicated before, this 22 is not just a one-time review.
23 It's something that we do on a continuous, 24 on an annual basis to look at this review. And we also 25 will have inspectors going out and looking at the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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35 1 activities, so we'll be communicating with them to make 2 sure that they're keeping on track for the costs.
3 So the last thing is if at any point 4 throughout the 60-period for Oyster Creek in this case, 5 if the licensee makes any significant changes from the 6 original plan that we reviewed, they're required to 7 notify us of that.
8 So we would know shortly after that they've 9 made a change, that their change has been planned.
10 We would re-look at their plan and make all these 11 assessments and determinations again. Next slide.
12 All right. So as I mentioned before, part 13 of our review is to determine that the licensee has 14 adequately addressed the environmental impacts that 15 could occur during decommissioning. In particular, 16 we look at how the environmental impacts compare with 17 previous Environmental Impact Statements or 18 Environmental Reviews that have been performed on the 19 plant.
20 There are a couple different points through 21 the life of the plant, their licensing of the plant 22 where they may have done an environmental review.
23 First is that the original licensing, there's typically 24 an Environmental Review done on them.
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36 1 be during license renewal. And what was the third one, 2 I'm sorry, they've not listed it. Oh, and the third 3 Environmental Impact Statement that we've done is we've 4 prepared a generic Environmental Impact Statement for 5 decommissioning.
6 That addresses, we did the study of all 7 the different decommissionings that have been done in 8 the past and then identified specific environmental 9 impacts associated with decommissioning at the reactor 10 site.
11 That review or that Environmental Impact 12 Statement is narrow from the perspective of activities 13 that are going to be the same across any plant, but 14 there are also site-specific activities that could 15 impact each plant based upon their site-specific 16 circumstances.
17 So in those cases, the licensee needs to 18 ensure that they've addressed those site-specific 19 issues as part of their review, even those other 20 previous Environmental Review Statements.
21 So part of our review is, you know, does 22 the environmental, the assessment that they've done 23 and described in their PSDAR, does that comport with 24 the plan that they have? Have they accounted for all 25 the different potential environmental impacts that NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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37 1 could occur during decommissioning?
2 And that, it may not be that they have to 3 account for them now, but they also have a plan for 4 how if something happens in the future, how they would 5 address that. Because if you start something 50 years 6 from now, you may not understand what all the 7 environmental impacts are going to be at that time.
8 So we look at that as well.
9 MR. TITTEL: Can I ask a quick question?
10 MR. BROADDUS: Sure.
11 MR. TITTEL: Is there an opportunity for 12 a public hearing when you have a generic Environmental 13 Impact Statement?
14 MR. BROADDUS: No, the only time that that 15 occurs, and I was going to get to that, so --
16 MR. TITTEL: I'm sorry.
17 MR. BROADDUS: So if there are ever are 18 any significant environmental impacts that have not 19 been previously accounted for in those previous 20 Environmental Impact Statements and Environmental 21 Reviews, the licensee has a choice.
22 They can either their plans and do 23 something different, so that they don't have those 24 environmental impacts. Or they can submit an action 25 to us for approval that would also, that could also NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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38 1 include an Environmental Review at that time.
2 MR. TITTEL: Do that action for approval 3 trigger a public hearing?
4 MR. BROADDUS: If it's a license amendment 5 request, yes it would.
6 MR. TITTEL: Is that what your 7 interpretation of the action, it would be a license 8 amendment request, or would it be an exemption?
9 MR. BROADDUS: They could be one or the 10 other.
11 MR. TITTEL: Understand. So it shows --
12 MR. BROADDUS: It depends upon the 13 circumstances.
14 MR. TITTEL: Again, if they chose an 15 exemption, there would be no opportunity.
16 MR. WATSON: That's right. Okay, can we 17 finish the presentation please?
18 MR. BROADDUS: So it, and again, as I've 19 mentioned before with the decommissioning cost 20 estimate, that review is not a one-time review. We 21 continue to have oversight of the environmental impacts 22 throughout the decommissioning process. So our 23 inspection oversight activities.
24 And so if we identify that there are any 25 impacts that are occurring and at some future date we'll NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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39 1 take action on that.
2 MR. SPALTRO: I have a question for you.
3 MR. BROADDUS: Sure.
4 MR. SPALTRO: So as a practical matter, 5 we're talking about, these are good intentions, right.
6 And the good intentions are going to be overseen by 7 people who are not even born yet. These are human 8 beings that don't exist yet, or maybe they're in diapers 9 right now. So how do you convey these good intentions 10 over time?
11 MR. BROADDUS: Can you identify yourself, 12 sir? Can you identify yourself?
13 MR. SPALTRO: I'm Nick Spaltro.
14 MR. WATSON: Because we're trying to 15 record this. That's why we're hoping to go to questions 16 where we have people speaking into microphones so that 17 he can record your name and your question so we can 18 capture it. That's why I keep insisting that we wait 19 till the end.
20 MR. SPALTRO: All right, we'll wait to the 21 end. But you understand my point. You're at a 22 finality that --
23 MR. BROADDUS: So the question, if I 24 understand, and tell me if I do properly understand 25 it is so how do we ensure that people ten to fifteen NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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40 1 years from now --
2 MR. SPALTRO: Or 50 years from now.
3 MR. BROADDUS: Or however long from now 4 that aren't here at the NRC, how are they, they may 5 not be working at the plant right now. How do they, 6 we ensure it? Well, our regulations will still be, 7 either be the same, or if they're changed, it'll go 8 through a rulemaking process, which would still be 9 public input capability for that.
10 We actually had the decommissioning 11 rulemaking ongoing right now, where there's going to 12 be an opportunity soon for public input on that because 13 it's with our Commission for a review. So our 14 regulations stay the same, over time our training of 15 people as we go through this will stay essentially the 16 same, or it'll modify as the requirements modify, as 17 technologies modify. Our oversight of the licensing 18 will also.
19 So I mean, I wasn't born when the first 20 commercial or first nuclear power plant, you know, was 21 built, many, many, many years ago. But I'm here today, 22 I understand it. And that's because we've had people 23 training and doing that knowledge management and 24 knowledge transfer to me over the years.
25 So we're going to continue, as Bruce said, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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41 1 we're going to continue to be here, be in oversight 2 throughout the present, throughout the entire process.
3 That help?
4 MR. SPALTRO: Maybe. The answer is maybe, 5 because I'm not convinced that, you know, when I look 6 at, I'm an engineer and I come from an engineering 7 background. I look at the number of children that are 8 going into engineering in this country versus the people 9 we're bringing in from overseas. In my mind, the people 10 that may be overseeing this may not even be, you know, 11 national.
12 MR. WATSON: The NRC has to comply with 13 the National Environmental Protection Act. It's an 14 act, it's enacted by the federal government, we have 15 environmental reviewers which are trained in it to do 16 that kind of work, along with the ability people, to 17 make sure that the environment and the rest of the site 18 is maintained in a safe condition throughout the 19 decommissioning. Okay?
20 So there are standards we follow, and we're 21 going to continue to follow.
22 MR. BROADDUS: Next slide. All right, so 23 once we complete, our review will be complete once we've 24 verified that the report provides all the required 25 information and is in compliance with our regulations NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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42 1 and it is feasible and can be completed with the, 2 implemented within the available funding.
3 So once we complete that review, we will 4 notify the licensee that there's no additional 5 information required. And then we prepare a summary, 6 well, as part of that we also prepare a summary of all 7 the public comments we've received and provide that 8 information to the licensee as well.
9 And that's a publically available 10 document, so you'll be able to see what our conclusions 11 were as part of that. As Bruce mentioned before, the 12 licensee can't begin major decommissioning activities 13 until at least 90 days after we review or receive the 14 PSDAR. We're in that 90-day period now, so we're in 15 the process right now of conducting that review.
16 So and then the next slide is just a means, 17 we're here to receive public comments tonight. It's 18 part of our review, as I mentioned. These are other 19 opportunities for which you can provide public 20 comments, other than just this meeting.
21 But as Bruce mentioned, you know, the 22 transcript of this will be considered. All public 23 comments as well. And that's why, as he's mentioned, 24 it's important for people to talk through the microphone 25 so that we can get your comments and be able to record NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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43 1 those and consider those. All right, thank you.
2 MR. WATSON: We're going to turn it over 3 to Rich, Richard Barkley. He's our facilitator, who 4 will set the ground rules for comments and questions 5 and so.
6 MR. BARKLEY: Okay, thank you. Can you 7 hear me okay? Again, we have limitations for the 8 microphone system, but we'll do as best we can. Do 9 you have trouble hearing on that side? I would ask 10 you to come over to this side of the room.
11 We have tried to fiddle with the speaker 12 system up here. For some reason it's getting some 13 background music, and we've not been able to eliminate 14 that. We do not hear it on this side of the room nor 15 the back.
16 As we start out the meeting, what I'd like 17 to do is call up people who have signed up on cards 18 to speak, either make a statement or ask questions.
19 The NRC staff will respond to that. I'll call three 20 people, so you know you're up in the queue, so you can 21 promptly move to speak here.
22 I would like you to speak from this podium.
23 If you're for some reason physically unable to do that, 24 please let me know. I'll bring the microphone to your 25 location.
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44 1 Again, you can see the way I'm holding the 2 microphone. You're going to have to speak very closely 3 to it. It is helpful if you say your name first because 4 this is being transcribed, so they want to be able to 5 get your name down and assign the comment to you. Okay.
6 We do have some elected representatives 7 in the audience. I'd like to be able to acknowledge 8 their presence. We do have a representative of Senator 9 Menendez's office here. We also have a representative 10 -- would you like to stand up, please. Just to waive, 11 so we know you're here. And thank you.
12 We have a representative of Congressman 13 Smith's office, she's in the back there. And we have 14 the mayor of Lacey Township here. Mayor, did you want 15 to make any remarks or make any comments? I'll let 16 you come up first.
17 If there's any other elected members in 18 the audience, please let me know and please acknowledge 19 yourself now. I can call you up as well.
20 MAYOR CURATOLO: I just want to say, I want 21 to thank the NRC for coming here to have these questions 22 being answered. And I'm sure everybody has a lot of 23 questions, as well as I do. I'm not only your mayor, 24 I'm also a resident of Lacey Township, so I'm concerned 25 also. But I'm sure there's going to be a lot of NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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45 1 questions out there.
2 Just be cordial to them. I mean, I know 3 we're, we have a lot of time left to do it, so let's 4 get, you know, all the questions will be answered.
5 I'm sure they have all the answers we need, am I right 6 guys? Right?
7 MR. WATSON: We'll do our best. If we 8 don't, we'll get.
9 MAYOR CURATOLO: So I want to thank you 10 for coming, like I said. It's a nice showing. I know 11 the weather wasn't good. I'm sorry I don't have a 12 blazer on, a political blazer, I call it. But it got 13 soaking wet coming in in that rain, as I'm sure all 14 of you did. So I want to thank you for coming, like 15 I said, and enjoy the evening, ask all your questions 16 you need. So thank you very much.
17 Anybody else in this township really want 18 to say anything? Everybody's good? No? Okay, thank 19 you.
20 MR. BARKLEY: With that, when I call you 21 up, again, I would like to see if you can try to keep 22 your remarks to about three minutes or so, so we can 23 cover everyone. If you go a little bit over, I'll give 24 you a cue and hopefully you can wrap up.
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46 1 if you have five or six questions, I'd ask you to 2 probably state three, ask the NRC staff to respond to 3 them, and go on to the next one. Otherwise it gets 4 to be difficult to remember the long list of questions 5 you have, okay.
6 Any questions for me at this point, before 7 we started? Yes, sir.
8 MR. TITTEL: What's the order, because 9 some people got here early and signed in.
10 MR. BARKLEY: Right now I'm going to go 11 exactly in the order that I saw them sign in. As the 12 evening goes on and we get additional cards, what I'll 13 do is try to shuffle the order a little bit to make 14 sure that every group that wants to speak is 15 represented.
16 So I want to be in all fairness try to get 17 everybody. But at the very least, make sure I've 18 covered all the groups, the organized groups and 19 organizations that are here. Okay, any other questions 20 before we get started?
21 All right, the first person that signed 22 up this evening was Katie Smith of the Pinelands 23 Preservation Alliance.
24 MR. TITTEL: I got here and there was one 25 person in front of me, and --
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47 1 MR. BARKLEY: Your name is?
2 MR. TITTEL: Jeff Tittel.
3 MR. BARKLEY: Do we have the sign-in list?
4 MR. TITTEL: I signed in on --
5 MR. BARKLEY: Oh, you signed.
6 MR. TITTEL: And I signed in on the sheet.
7 MR. BARKLEY: Yeah, okay, I have you, Jeff.
8 I'll bring you up second. Okay, there we go. You 9 were in the pile. So Jeffrey, you'll be second. And 10 then finally Michelle Brunetti will be third. She's 11 --
12 MS. BRUNETTI: I can go at the end since 13 I'm media.
14 MR. BARKLEY: Okay, that's fine. How 15 about Janet Ulrich will go third then. Okay, Katie, 16 and then again, please hold this up here. This is a 17 little bit awkward, but do your best.
18 MS. SMITH: Thank you. Good evening, my 19 name is Katie Smith, I'm with the Pinelands Preservation 20 Alliance, and I had a question --
21 Okay, how's this?
22 Okay, my name's Katie Smith, I'm with the 23 Pinelands Preservation Alliance. I had a question 24 about the Environmental Impact Statement, particularly 25 the generic Environmental Impact Statement is from NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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48 1 2002.
2 The generic Environmental Impact Statement 3 that the PDARS relies on heavily is from 2002. So I'm 4 wondering what the NRC thinks they're missing or could 5 be updated in that statement that's not in there.
6 And specifically, I was looking at the 7 radiological levels, and in the generic Environmental 8 Impact Statement, it has the total effective dose 9 equivalent during decommissioning as 0.1 rem per year.
10 But in the updated code 10 CFR 20.1301 (a), it's listed 11 as 0.5 rem per year, just about half.
12 So I'm wondering what else might need to 13 be updated in the generic EIS, and how that might impact 14 the decommissioning report and decommissioning 15 process.
16 MR. BROADDUS: You're talking about NUREG 17 0586 I believe, which is the generic Environmental 18 Impact Statement. We are in the process of updating 19 that, but pretty much the same methods you would use 20 for decommissioning are still good from 20 years ago.
21 You still have to dismantle the equipment. There's 22 pipes, valves, etc. You have to ship them, the means 23 that you ship either it's by truck, rail, or by barge 24 or whatever.
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49 1 depending on the current Environmental Impact Statement 2 and anything new that is discovered through the 3 licensee's review and our own Environmental Review of 4 the EIS or EA, Environmental Assessment, to bring that 5 together during this PSDAR so it can be adequately 6 reviewed.
7 So we will do our own independent review.
8 Jeff Rikoff over here will be, is one of our 9 environmental reviewers. And so, but the dose standard 10 is by regulation now, it's 0.25 millirem, excuse me, 11 25 millirem for your plus implementation of the ALARA 12 concept. So it's all been updated in the regulations.
13 MS. SMITH: Okay, thanks.
14 MR. BARKLEY: I don't know that your 15 microphone was working that well, so let's check the 16 volume on that, otherwise we're going to have to hand 17 off back and forth. I may have some batteries in my 18 bag.
19 MR. TITTEL: Thank you. Jeff Tittel, 20 Director, New Jersey Sierra Club. And I just want to 21 start off and say that based on this plan, it looks 22 like the plant will be gone and the site will be 23 completely cleaned up on my 121st birthday. So I'm 24 really glad to wait for that birthday gift.
25 And that's the concern that I have here.
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50 1 Quite frankly, you know, for a lot of reasons, it's 2 good that the plant is closing and decommissioning 3 because of the tritium leaks and many of the other 4 problems and the superheated water heating the bay.
5 However, we're concerned that this should 6 not go to a SAFSTOR system, they should go to immediate 7 dismantling and early release. That's what many of 8 the plants around the country have done. That's how 9 many of the plants around the country have done.
10 Rancho Seco, it took them six year to 11 completely decommission and cart everything away, 12 except for the rods that stayed. Main Yankee, seven 13 years and so on and so forth. We don't know what it's 14 going to be like here 60 years ago. I can tell you 15 -- 60 years from now. I can tell you 60 years ago, 16 my great aunt had a chicken farm and a tom turkey chased 17 me up and down Railroad Avenue.
18 I don't know what's going to happen 60 years 19 from now, but I do know that based on the studies that 20 are out there, that sea level rise and storm surges 21 are going to increase. We're 17 times more likely to 22 have another Hurricane Sandy in the next 40 years than 23 we were just before Hurricane Sandy.
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51 1 in the next six years. We've seen now go to Barnegat 2 Bay, going to Long Beach Island, you'll see fish 3 swimming in storm drains every time there's a high tide.
4 When there's a full moon, people have to move their 5 cars for a few blocks.
6 We don't know what the conditions are going 7 to be here. One of the studies say that the barrier 8 islands will be overrun by 50 years from now. So that's 9 a real concern, and the EIS doesn't address that.
10 Second and foremost is if you do it now, 11 the cost is less. And it's not their money, it's our 12 money. There's already over $800 million in the Plant 13 Closure Fund. That didn't come from Exelon, that came 14 from the rate base.
15 Now they're talking about, by delaying it 16 60 years, at least 1.4 billion. Does that include 17 inflation and other cost changes? Who's going to pay 18 for it? We will. And they get to make ten or, they 19 get to make 12% profit on the closure fund. So don't 20 think it's something for free.
21 But if you close it quicker, and the plants 22 that were closed within six years, they cost $700 23 million. They want to go a hundred and, you know, they 24 want to go 1.4 billion or maybe more.
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52 1 concern that we have because we know that sea level 2 rise is getting worse, we can clean this plant up and 3 turn it into productive uses in a much sooner, much 4 sooner, and you know, turn it back into a ratable.
5 We can have a solar farm, you could do many things there.
6 My biggest concern is how quickly we get 7 into dry cask storage from those cooling pools.
8 Because again, we're vulnerable. During Sandy, the 9 water came pretty close to the plant. We get another 10 big storm, and if they're not cooled down and in dry 11 cask, quite frankly we're really concerned about that.
12 And that could happen any time we get a hurricane.
13 And so the sooner the better. And you can 14 actually do it, if you do an accelerated program within 15 three years even less. And we'd like to see that 16 happen.
17 And finally --
18 MR. WATSON: Could you indicate, when you 19 say you're concerned about it.
20 MR. TITTEL: Well, the cooling pool.
21 Because our concern is that having these pools are 22 vulnerable for, if there's a major storm or a power 23 outage, that the cooling won't continue to take place.
24 That we can get a storm surge that could actually reach 25 the pools. And that's our concern.
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53 1 And then my final, and this is, because 2 I know I don't want to take so much time --
3 MR. BARKLEY: You're right at the edge.
4 MR. TITTEL: Okay, my final point that I 5 want to make is that we're talking storing the dry cask 6 rods here and that, you know, in what you're building.
7 We don't know for how many years. How's it going to 8 be engineered? Is it going to be engineered to last 9 a thousand years, ten thousand years, the half-life 10 of it?
11 We don't know what, you know, how's it going 12 to be structured to deal with sea level rise and other 13 issues that are going to affect this area. And that's 14 the real concern that we have.
15 We believe that, again, I'm just summing 16 up, you know 60 years is way too long to wait. You 17 know, we can do it a lot quicker, a lot faster, a lot 18 cheaper and turn the place into productive use a lot 19 sooner. Thank you.
20 MR. WATSON: Well, first of all, I just 21 want to respond to a couple things. Well, first of 22 all, thanks for your comments. I'm trying to make sure 23 I get this at the right angle. This one's working 24 better? Okay.
25 First of all, 60 years is what the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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54 1 regulation requires, and that they be completed by.
2 So it's really up to Exelon and their business decision 3 how they and when they do the decommissioning.
4 I will tell you it takes about five years 5 for the fuel to cool down in most plants for it to be 6 put into dry storage. So their plan takes that into 7 account. And it seems to me that their schedule allows 8 them to transfer the fuel at the earliest convenient 9 time, because they're going to have to be able to change 10 the site dramatically for the safer situation at the 11 site as the decreasing the security and other things.
12 The decommissioning funds are maintained 13 in an independent trust. Most of those are with an 14 independent bank. I think one of the major banks in 15 the US, Mellon Bank, maintains most of the utilities' 16 trust funds. So there's real restrictions on how they 17 can be invested. And so they are conservative in that 18 they maintain themselves but do grow.
19 But those funds are controlled by the state 20 and the Public Service Commission. What happens with 21 any funds that are left over? The NRC has no say in 22 that. We do not regulate commerce.
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55 1 on our elected officials in Washington to resolve that 2 issue.
3 The NRC's role in that is to make sure that 4 these dry fuel storage facilities remain safe 5 throughout whatever life and time they are there. And 6 so that's what our mission is and we'll make sure that 7 gets done.
8 MR. BARKLEY: Okay, thank you. Janet 9 Ulrich.
10 MS. ULRICH: I'm going to pass.
11 MR. BARKLEY: You going to pass? Okay, 12 Janet. The next three people will be Paul Gunter, and 13 then the Connollys, and finally Ron Martyn. Come on 14 up, Paul, nice to see you again.
15 MR. GUNTER: Thank you. Good evening, my 16 name is Paul Gunter, and I'm with Beyond Nuclear. And 17 we're based out of Takoma Park, MD.
18 Now, you're probably wondering why I came 19 up to Forked River from Washington, DC. And the concern 20 is is that the, you know, decommissioning has a big 21 impact on communities. And I think that what you 22 clearly understand is that the plan that Exelon 23 Generation has chosen for your community will have the 24 most precipitous economic impact on your community.
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56 1 off a cliff with this plan to put off decommissioning 2 for half a century. And you know, your grandchildren 3 will likely be impacted by that process. But the plan 4 right now is to do the minimum amount of work, and then 5 put Oyster Creek into a state of cold and dark.
6 And that's why they're draining all the 7 pipes, is because this place is not even going to be 8 heated. And so you're going to have this hulk in your 9 community.
10 And what our concern is is that what has 11 been missing from this presentation tonight is there 12 is an economic driver for your community that the NRC 13 research staff has requested and two national 14 laboratories, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory 15 out on the West Coast, the NRC Research Division, and 16 Oak Ridge National Lab have all recognized that 17 decommissioning is not just about dismantling and 18 decontaminating and moving this radioactive waste 19 somewhere else.
20 In fact, what the Pacific Northwest 21 National Laboratory recognized is that decommissioning 22 is not just a process for dismantling nuclear reactors 23 and remediating radioactive contamination for 24 restoration. Decommissioning has an increasingly 25 important role at end-of-reactor life cycle for the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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57 1 scientific scrutiny of projected safety margins and 2 potential hazards at operating reactors that are 3 seeking longer and longer license extensions.
4 Now what you should know is that last week 5 Exelon Generation put an application in to the NRC to 6 extend the operating license for Peach Bottom Unit 2 7 and Unit 3 in Pennsylvania. Now, Peach Bottom 2 and 8 Peach Bottom 3 are essentially identical in design to 9 Oyster Creek. And what the, these are, there are all 10 three General Electric Mark 1 boiling water reactors.
11 They essentially use the same, there are 12 the same materials that Oyster Creek has now undergone 13 as you mentioned earlier 50 years of aging. There are 14 some 16 different age-related degradation mechanisms 15 going on when these plants are operating, due to the 16 harsh operational environment of fissioning.
17 And that includes embrittlement, it 18 includes stress corrosion cracking, it includes 19 corrosion. And this plant is the oldest operating 20 boiling water reactor in the world.
21 And so what the national lab and the NRC 22 Research Division have been requesting and documented 23 back to 2015, and again, by a report that came out in 24 a poster session at the Regulatory Information 25 Conference in March of 2018 that's calling for Exelon NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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58 1 and other decommissioning plants to start harvesting, 2 you know, essentially do an autopsy.
3 When this plant goes to the great 4 by-and-by, they want concrete, they want metal, they 5 want electrical cable that has undergone heat 6 radiation, fatigue, embrittlement, all kinds of effects 7 so that when the NRC begins the process of reviewing 8 extending Peach Bottom's, this is Exelon's other 9 boiling water reactors, when they start looking to 10 extend those licenses from 60 to 80 years, that they 11 will have real, aged materials from the oldest Mark 12 1 in the world right here in Forked River.
13 And what we've seen, and again, the concern 14 that brings us here, is that, you know, as many as 15 admittedly ten nuclear stations have been 16 decommissioned, 20 are under process. But the NRC 17 admits that they don't have enough samples of this real 18 aged material to start filling in the blanks on the 19 knowledge gaps that are popping up in these applications 20 to extend reactor operations 60-80 years.
21 And that's because, in our view, the 22 operators, they, like Exelon, they don't really 23 appreciate that kind of transparency. And so when 24 Exelon talks about putting Oyster Creek cold and dark 25 for 50 years, that's not just about that plant. That's NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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59 1 about scientific information, scientific study that 2 your national labs and elements of the US Nuclear 3 Regulatory Commission have been arguing for.
4 And again, the concern is is that, you know, 5 our due process, when this plant shuts down, our due 6 process shuts down as well. You know, you don't have 7 a say in how this plant will be managed cold and dark.
8 You don't really have an opportunity to appeal a 9 decision to let this process go and your grandchildren 10 and your great grandchildren be responsible for the 11 decommissioning process.
12 And it's our concern that, particularly 13 this is a message to Congress. That we have a white 14 paper, we've made it available through, a 15 decommissioning white paper, that essentially says that 16 Congress, the Department of Energy, and the US Nuclear 17 Regulatory Commission have a liability to make the 18 operators like Exelon who want to extend their profits 19 in longer and longer operations, we want them to pay 20 their fair share for doing the science that will provide 21 some kind of reliability.
22 And as they say, and this'll be my closing 23 note.
24 MR. BARKLEY: Very good.
25 MR. GUNTER: This is from Pacific NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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60 1 Northwest National Laboratories. It reads, and this 2 is a December 2017 report, it says, Post-shutdown 3 autopsies are necessary for, quote, reasonable 4 assurance that systems, structures, and components are 5 able to meet their safety functions.
6 Many of the remaining questions regarding 7 degradation of materials will likely require, and it's 8 underlined for emphasis, a combination of laboratory 9 studies, as well as other research conducted on 10 materials sampled from plants decommissioning or 11 operating.
12 PNNL reiterates, Where available, 13 benchmarking can be performed using surveillance 14 specimens. But in most cases, however, benchmarking 15 of laboratory tests will require harvesting materials 16 from reactors.
17 So there is an opportunity for jobs to do 18 the scientific work, and it's not just your community 19 that would benefit from that, from those jobs. But 20 it's the fact that the NRC and the national labs are 21 requesting it.
22 However, Neil Sheehan with the Office of 23 Public Affairs for the NRC told us at a April 2018 24 meeting that the cost is prohibitively expensive. But 25 what we're saying is that if Exelon wants to extend NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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61 1 the operations of its other reactors 60-80 years, then 2 they should be put in a position of paying their fair 3 share.
4 MR. BARKLEY: Thank you, Paul. I left you 5 run long because I know you had a detailed discussion 6 on this topic and probably it's a topic that is of 7 interest to a number of other people.
8 So, Bruce, do you want to try to comment 9 on that piece of it?
10 MR. WATSON: No, I thank him for the 11 comment. He recognizes that we are conducting research 12 in this area with the Electric Power Research Institute 13 and we are conducting research in this area. I thank 14 Paul for bringing it up, for recognizing that we are 15 trying to address this issue. We do it within the 16 Electric Power Research Institute. We're also 17 collecting samples by cooperative agreements with other 18 reactors worldwide that are shutting down wherever 19 possible.
20 MR. GUNTER: They're not boiling water 21 reactors.
22 MR. WATSON: There's boiling water 23 reactors out there. They just haven't shut down except 24 for Fukushima.
25 MR. BARKLEY: Okay. Thank you.
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62 1 Mr. and Ms. Connolly, are both of you going 2 to speak, or one of you?
3 MRS. CONNOLLY: I'll go first.
4 MR. BARKLEY: Okay.
5 MRS. CONNOLLY: Hi, I've been a resident 6 of Forked River for many years when there were dirt 7 roads down here.
8 I have a question: How extensive is the 9 research on the environmental safety of the community 10 associated with nuclear operations? Some publications 11 have referred to health statistics in locations near 12 nuclear power facilities that indicate serious health 13 issues have resulted. How do we know who or what to 14 believe?
15 MR. WATSON: That's a good question.
16 MRS. CONNOLLY: Huh?
17 MR. WATSON: I was going to answer your 18 question.
19 MRS. CONNOLLY: Okay.
20 MR. WATSON: This is Bruce Watson again.
21 First of all, the plant maintains an environmental 22 monitoring program and the standards are set by the 23 NRC and the Environmental Protection Agency for those 24 environmental monitoring programs. Those monitoring 25 programs will continue until the license is terminated.
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63 1 So they will continue to monitor the environment to 2 ensure that the radioactive material or whatever is 3 not leaving the plant and exposing anybody.
4 The National Academy of Sciences have 5 conducted numerous studies on radiation effects from 6 nuclear facilities, and I would kind of cite them as 7 the authority, not all literature you see out in the 8 Internet and environment. But the National Academy 9 of Sciences concluded that there are no ill health 10 effects from the operation of these nuclear facilities 11 in the United States or other places.
12 MRS. CONNOLLY: Okay. Thank you.
13 MR. WATSON: Yes. You can proceed.
14 MRS. CONNOLLY: I also want to thank Exelon 15 for the excellent thorough presentation, however, like 16 all corporations we know that Exelon exists for profit.
17 However, we're here tonight to ask you to look at the 18 storage of the spent rods from a human fellow being 19 viewpoint, okay, not a corporate angle. As a human 20 being would you allow anything that might possibly have 21 a negative effect on your family for future generations 22 or would you do something about it, like sending spent 23 rods to a place where billions of taxpayer money was 24 spent for their storage like Yucca Mountain? By so 25 doing Exelon would make a name for itself by caring NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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64 1 about its fellow human beings, not only now but for 2 future generations. I thank you so much.
3 MR. BARKLEY: Thank you. Let me let Bruce 4 respond to that comment.
5 MR. WATSON: First of all, the Yucca 6 Mountain project was de-funded in the previous 7 administration, and so it did not get completed as 8 planned. So I'm sure most of the utilities, if not 9 all of them, unanimously would want to ship the fuel 10 to the repository if we had one available. I think 11 that's their intent. They don't want to be managing 12 fuel forever and the NRC actually wants it moved to 13 a disposal facility, a permanent disposal facility 14 also.
15 So I think we're all in agreement.
16 However, they will maintain a safe solid 17 design of the facility in the slide with the nuclear 18 security and all the technology that goes with it along 19 with armed guards 24/7. And then the NRC will be there 20 to inspect them to make sure that they maintain that 21 adequate level of safety throughout the time that the 22 fuel is there.
23 MRS. CONNOLLY: All our taxpayer money 24 that went there, how many billions of dollars?
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65 1 know it was billions, like you say, but --
2 MRS. CONNOLLY: Yes, it was.
3 MR. WATSON: Yes, it was -- Department of 4 Energy was responsible for completing the Yucca 5 Mountain project. The NRC was responsible for 6 licensing it. It was shut down.
7 MR. CONNOLLY: Bill Connolly, Skiff Way 8 Drive, Forked River. My wife took one of my questions, 9 but let ask this: You explain that the permanent 10 storage off-site is preferable because of the pain it 11 would be -- it is to maintain it locally. Recently 12 I saw an article that the NRC was supporting an interim 13 storage facility in Texas or New Mexico. Is that true?
14 MR. WATSON: There's two companies that 15 have submitted applications for interim of spent fuel.
16 One is in Texas. I think the other one is in New 17 Mexico. And so we are reviewing those applications.
18 These are supposed to be -- an interim storage facility 19 centralized such that until we have a permanent 20 repository the fuel can all be transferred there. So 21 we are reviewing their application. We have not 22 -- we're in the review process so that we could issue 23 possibly a license for those facilities.
24 MR. CONNOLLY: Why interim when you got 25 Yucca Mountain looking for money?
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66 1 (Laughter.)
2 MR. WATSON: Yucca Mountain doesn't exist 3 anymore.
4 MR. CONNOLLY: Oh, Yucca Mountain doesn't 5 exist?
6 MR. WATSON: No, it doesn't exist anymore.
7 MR. CONNOLLY: Is it politics that's the 8 problem with Yucca Mountain?
9 MR. WATSON: I wouldn't say politics. I'd 10 say the policies.
11 MR. CONNOLLY: Okay. A couple of 12 technical interesting questions, to me anyway. Has 13 the Government ever got involved in paying 14 decommissioning costs because the company couldn't or 15 wouldn't?
16 MR. WATSON: Not for a reactor.
17 MR. CONNOLLY: Okay. I understand. I am 18 confused as to what is the controlling factor that 19 results in a 60-year decommissioning process. In the 20 Exelon presentation it looked like they were doing 21 nothing between 2034 and 2077, so I'm confused as to 22 who's doing what to whom during this process.
23 MR. WATSON: Is that your last question?
24 MR. CONNOLLY: No.
25 MR. WATSON: All right. The 60-year NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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67 1 requirement to complete decommissioning was approved 2 by the NRC Commission back in 1997. The basic 3 fundamental issue with that was worker safety. If you 4 wait 50 years to start decommissioning, the radiation 5 in the plant will be at about one to two percent of 6 what it was when it first shut down. So through the 7 radioactive decay process the radiation levels in the 8 plant will decrease obviously significantly down to 9 about one-hundredth of what they were when the plant 10 was first shut down. So there's savings to worker dose.
11 Secondly, the amount of radioactive waste 12 will most likely go down significantly because all the 13 radioactivity is -- most of the radioactivity has 14 decayed away on the materials.
15 And then thirdly, it allows for the 16 decommissioning funds to grow as needed to fund the 17 decommissioning during that time period. So it's a 18 benefit to the workers. It's hopeful that the cost 19 would go down because of the lower levels of -- lower 20 volumes of radioactive waste. And then obviously there 21 will be more than sufficient funds to decommission the 22 plant.
23 MR. CONNOLLY: And I understand that the 24 reuse of the property or land awaits the secession of 25 the license, the license being -- can -- what do we NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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68 1 have to wait for in order to reuse the property?
2 MR. WATSON: I think in the presentation 3 by Exelon they said they're going to donate 217 acres 4 to the township or -- so that could be released from 5 the license. We will do that as part of what we call 6 partial site release. There's a regulation on it.
7 Part 50.83. So we will review that land. And it's 8 not impacted by the plant operation, but it can be 9 released from the license so that could be redeveloped.
10 11 But the remainder of the plant site, the 12 small part, the part that is within the actual plant 13 footprint will remain under license until the 14 decommissioning is completed and then it will be 15 released. The license will be terminated. And then 16 the plan from Exelon is to release the land for 17 unrestricted use, which means at the end of that time 18 period the actual plant footprint will be determined 19 by them what they want to do with the property at license 20 termination. So they're still the owner of the land.
21 MR. CONNOLLY: The last question: How is 22 the heat -- how do you dissipate the heat in that 23 five-year pool environment that you put the spent rods 24 in?
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69 1 system is basically -- has heat exchangers associated 2 with it where the -- I assume the bay water comes in 3 and cools the internal water closed loop which contains 4 the radioactive material, takes the heat away. And 5 that's what's discharged out through the discharge 6 canal. So that's the decay heat process for heat 7 exchanges.
8 MR. CONNOLLY: Five percent of the water 9 that's currently being used is for that purpose?
10 MR. WATSON: I think that's what he said 11 they were --
12 (Simultaneous speaking.)
13 MR. CONNOLLY: Okay.
14 MR. WATSON: Approximately, yes.
15 MR. CONNOLLY: All right. Thank you.
16 MR. WATSON: Yes.
17 MR. BROADDUS: I wanted to make one other 18 clarification. There have been a couple questions 19 about Yucca Mountain's fuel. So the Nuclear Waste 20 Policy Act is what established Yucca Mountain and the 21 requirements. It also established a fund called the 22 Nuclear Waste Fund that was funded by licensees, reactor 23 licensees. They were required to put money into that 24 fund for the purpose of funding the establishment of 25 Yucca Mountain, the building of it and such.
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70 1 And I know it doesn't change your sentiment 2 from the perspective that they were required to put 3 a fund -- that they were the ones who put it, not -- it 4 wasn't tax dollars specifically, but it was money that 5 was coming from the utilities that I'm sure they were 6 charging to ratepayers. So it gets to the same point.
7 But that fund is required -- is what is established 8 for the purpose of establishing and running Yucca 9 Mountain.
10 MR. BARKLEY: Okay. Thank you. The next 11 two people up are Ron Martyn and Paul Gressler. Also 12 is Janet Tauro here?
13 MS. DISCENZA: Janet couldn't make it.
14 Floods and power lines down on the road.
15 MR. BARKLEY: Okay.
16 MS. DISCENZA: But I will read my statement 17 --
18 (Simultaneous speaking.)
19 MR. BARKLEY: Okay. Very good. You're 20 third, then. Thank you.
21 MR. MARTYN: Thank you. Can everyone hear 22 me?
23 No? Can everyone hear me?
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71 1 here tonight. We have one gentleman who is responsible 2 for the operating side of the plant; we have another 3 gentleman who is responsible for the decommissioning 4 side of the plant. I as a homeowner living in Forked 5 River now have a -- three concerns, and I'll talk at 6 a macro level.
7 My first concern obviously is the 8 environmental impact on our area. There are a lot of 9 potential things that could happen, that may not happen.
10 I hope to God they don't, but that's a very valid 11 concern. The second concern that I have is that there's 12 a potential impact on our quality of life. And the 13 third thing that I have an impact on is what are the 14 financial implications to us?
15 When we talk about the closing of Yucca 16 Plant, the funds have been allocated for the storage.
17 Congress passed a law recently that said that those 18 funds would be available to compensate those 19 communities that have to store the rods on site if that 20 wasn't a part of the original deal.
21 The next phase is to get the Senate to pass 22 that, and they don't seem to be in a hurry to do it.
23 So what I would ask is our representative for Senator 24 Mendez that if she would convey to the 25 Senator --
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72 1 (Laughter.)
2 (Simultaneous speaking.)
3 MR. MARTYN: We've written letters.
4 (Simultaneous speaking.)
5 MR. MARTYN: We've written letters and 6 never got a response from either senator and I can't 7 understand why.
8 But the fact of the matter is that we all 9 need to get together, contact whatever senator route 10 you have and make sure that all the senators pass the 11 doggone bill. Because when they pass the doggone bill, 12 guess what? It frees up some money that's already been 13 allocated. So now it has to be appropriated.
14 But I appreciate what you gentlemen have 15 said. The missing link is within your organization 16 who has the interface to take the representative stand 17 of the Yucca situation to the citizens of the community 18 affected by the storage rods. We haven't seen that 19 yet.
20 MR. WATSON: Well, the NRC's -- this is 21 Bruce Watson again. The NRC is an independent safety 22 regulator. In the United States; and this is the way 23 it is in most countries, we have one entity which is 24 the safety regulator. That's us. Okay? On the other 25 side of the street we have the Department of Energy.
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73 1 They're the promoter of the energy in the country, 2 the actual -- have responsibility from the Congress 3 to take care of the -- develop the disposal site. And 4 then we would regulate them, or whoever the disposal 5 site regulator is.
6 So we can't be here -- we're not -- it's 7 not our role to promote these things. It is our goal 8 to regulate them.
9 MR. MARTYN: I understand.
10 MR. WATSON: It is the Department of 11 Energy's to develop the disposal site and get that into 12 operation. So --
13 MR. MARTYN: Thank you for that.
14 We've written to the Department of Energy 15 also and we are eagerly awaiting a response. I think 16 the response will kind of coincide with the 50-year, 17 60-year deadline.
18 (Laughter.)
19 MR. MARTYN: But anyway, we all have a 20 responsibility to push on it and to ensure that we get 21 the Senate to pass that so we can at least get 22 compensated for storing rods in our community. Thank 23 you.
24 (Applause.)
25 MR. BARKLEY: Okay. Thank you, Ron.
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74 1 Paul, come on up.
2 MR. GRESSLER: And sort of just a quick 3 thing about Yucca. In an article I read in March, 4 President Trump asked for a $180 million to fix Yucca.
5 President Trump asked for 180 -- he asked 6 the Senate for $180 million to fix Yucca and it just 7 sits. So people got to start talking to your senators, 8 just like Ron said.
9 The other thing is about the 10 decommissioning. It can be done directly either by 11 Exelon or -- a meeting we went to we actually visited 12 the site in June. They held -- Exelon held a big thing.
13 Said they're considering doing it third party, naming 14 five corporations. If you look what's going on based 15 on what's happened throughout the various states, with 16 Vermont Yankee being one of them as far as stuff, that's 17 a fiasco as far as stuff. I don't think we want that 18 happening here.
19 It makes sense for Exelon as a competent 20 nuclear company, a financially-secure, publicly-held 21 corporation to be the one to do it. They set the money 22 aside, but people don't realize in their 2017 annual 23 report they've got $450 million set aside for insurance 24 for Oyster Creek alone and another $2.3 billion in a 25 pool that they can draw one time a year. So that's NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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75 1 almost another $900 million if something happened here 2 as far as stuff. So it sort of makes sense that Exelon 3 be the one to do the decommissioning and keep up their 4 responsibility.
5 I don't know what you think about that, 6 but I'd like to see your views.
7 MR. WATSON: The NRC's role, like I said, 8 is safety, so we want to make sure that the 9 decommissioning is conducted safely. There's two 10 newer business models out there. Exelon actually uses 11 one of those business models where they transferred 12 the license to a decommissioning company. That's 13 what's going on at Zion right now. Both Zion 1 and 14 2 are being decommissioned. We expect that they'll 15 be completing the decommissioning in 2018, probably 16 terminate the license either in 2019 or 2020.
17 But in this particular case they transfer 18 the NRC license to them. The NRC does a review to make 19 sure that these -- that the company is competent, 20 technically and financially able to do the 21 decommissioning. So the license transfer we have to 22 approve.
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76 1 to Exelon to do whatever they want with the land and 2 also manage their spent fuel from the site. Now they 3 did wait 15 years before this business model came up.
4 And so when they did transfer I think this in 2010, 5 we're seven, eight years later and they're almost done.
6 7 There is another business model in which 8 the utility actually sells the plant to a 9 decommissioning company. And this is what is happening 10 in Vermont. The NRC is right now doing our review of 11 the license application by the decommissioning company, 12 but in this case it is an actual sale. The utility 13 wants to sell the property and the responsibility for 14 maintaining the fuel to this decommissioning company.
15 So we're reviewing that license application and we're 16 looking at their technical capabilities and their 17 financial capabilities. We have not issued a decision 18 on whether we agree to the license transfer yet. But 19 there are actually two different business models out 20 there.
21 Right now there's a plant in La Crosse which 22 I mentioned. It was in I'll call slow decommissioning 23 for about 30 years. They recently -- the utility 24 transferred the license to a decommissioning company 25 to finish the decommissioning. So we're expecting them NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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77 1 also to finish decommissioning by 2019-2020.
2 Humboldt Bay out in California is managing 3 the decommissioning themselves. It's a very old 4 boiling water reactor, very much smaller than this one 5 here and very different, that was shut down many years 6 ago, but they are -- Humboldt Bay, Pacific Gas & Electric 7 is managing the decommissioning.
8 San Onofre Units 2 and 3. San Onofre which 9 is owned by Southern California Edison. Southern 10 California Edison decommissioned Unit 1 using their 11 management team and contractors, but they kept it -- the 12 license under their name and did the decommissioning 13 safely. We still have not terminated the license 14 because they still have not requested it. But Unit 15 2 and 3, Southern California Edison has elected to 16 manage the decommissioning, so they hired a 17 decommissioning company who will start decommissioning 18 after they complete removal of the spent fuel and 19 transfer that to the dry storage over the next year.
20 So they plan -- they have a 20-year schedule to 21 decommission their plants, the two big -- two large 22 plants, boiling water -- I mean, pressurized water 23 reactors.
24 So we have no say in it other than we want 25 to make sure it's done safely. So we make sure the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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78 1 companies that are going to do this work are technically 2 and financially capable of doing the work.
3 MR. BROADDUS: Hey, Bruce, can I -- I 4 wanted to add one thing to that.
5 So, one thing I wanted to add on that is 6 that the previous gentleman asked about the 7 relationship between Bruce's branch and my branch and 8 who's got responsibilities in certain areas. So either 9 branch can handle a license transfer like this when 10 this occurs. The key thing there is that our -- the 11 staff that review it remain consistent between the two.
12 We share those resources for doing that type of review.
13 So it's a consistent review whether it's done by my 14 group while they're still under my responsibility or 15 Bruce's.
16 And as Bruce said, the responsibility there 17 is to ensure that they have the technical capability 18 to conduct the decommissioning activities in a safe 19 manner, they understand that they have the management 20 -- the appropriate management oversight, the staff to 21 be able to do that activity. So we look at that in 22 any license transfer we do. Whether it's an operating 23 plant or a decommissioning plant we look at that.
24 MR. GRESSLER: Just a quick thing then.
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79 1 way it's going to be that there is going to be no 2 financial burden to the ratepayers as far as stuff like 3 that goes? No additional taxes? If there's a default, 4 what happens if there's a default? Is it treated like 5 a normal bankruptcy like it would in a normal business 6 transaction?
7 MR. WATSON: The standard we follow for 8 financial decommissioning is do they have a reasonable 9 amount of money to complete the decommissioning safely?
10 That's the standard we use. We have all kinds of 11 financial tests. This gentleman over here is actually 12 one of our financial people. And they do all these 13 financial tests and look at the value of money 14 throughout the time period that the plant will be going 15 through decommissioning. So we do a thorough technical 16 review, a thorough financial review.
17 As far as the regulation goes, whoever the 18 licensee is responsible for completing the 19 decommissioning. So we've never had a bankruptcy in 20 the power reactor world. Don't expect to have any.
21 MR. BROADDUS: We have one right now.
22 MR. WATSON: Yes, but they're not 23 completely there yet, I guess.
24 MR. BROADDUS: Yes.
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80 1 parts we've never had a bankruptcy. The company is 2 always responsible because that's what -- basically 3 when they are given a license, they are responsible 4 for that nuclear facility from cradle to grave. And 5 so they are financially -- held financially or possibly 6 criminally responsible for ensuring that the 7 decommissioning is completed.
8 We don't know that because he brought it 9 up as a meeting he went to.
10 MR. GRESSLER: This was told --
11 MR. WATSON: Your name again?
12 MR. GRESSLER: Paul Gressler. This was 13 a bunch of us from Seabreeze went to a I guess training 14 seminar they had June 18th, on a Monday night. It was 15 published and anybody could go. The Boy Scouts from 16 town went as far as stuff.
17 Exelon. Exelon held it as far as stuff.
18 We actually went to the facility and they have what 19 looks to be like is going to be a museum. And we walked 20 around. They talked about decommissioning and that's 21 one of the things they mentioned. They met -- one of 22 the companies that I can remember was Bechtel that 23 they're considering selling this off to a third party.
24 And there were --
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81 1 formal notification.
2 MR. BROADDUS: Because I still have the 3 licensing responsibility in my branch, no, we have not 4 received any application from Exelon to transfer the 5 plant as of right now. And if they're considering that, 6 until such time as they notify us that they're 7 considering it -- and if they notify us of that, we 8 may have a preliminary -- a pre-meeting. It will be 9 a public meeting on the licensing activities. It's 10 possible that could occur. It all depends upon the 11 circumstances. And whenever they make a decision, 12 they'll let us know and they'll --
13 (Simultaneous speaking.)
14 MR. BROADDUS: But we do not have anything 15 in our branch.
16 MR. WATSON: No, there's no application.
17 MR. BROADDUS: They can submit that 18 application at any time if they decide to do it.
19 No. No.
20 (Simultaneous speaking.)
21 MR. BROADDUS: Wait, wait, wait.
22 MR. BARKLEY: Let's wrap up here. Let's 23 finish this question.
24 MR. BROADDUS: The question was is there 25 a timeline for when they submit an application for the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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82 1 license transfer?
2 No, actually the current plan stays in 3 place and they're responsible for implementing that 4 plan until such time as it's transferred to somebody 5 else. And when that occurs, there will be a new plan 6 that they will have to submit.
7 MR. WATSON: Right. The only example I 8 can give you, or examples are the ones that have already 9 transpired and the one we have in progress right now 10 we're reviewing. It's up to the utility what they want 11 to do. It's their business decision. We just make 12 sure that it can be done safely and within the financial 13 means of the company that's going to -- that would accept 14 the license transfer.
15 For example -- I lost my train of thought 16 here -- the applications that we have approved for 17 transfer we did do the financial and technical test 18 of -- I believe the company was Energy Solutions who 19 did Zion and is doing La Crosse. In those two business 20 models the land and the spent fuel gets transferred 21 back. Right now we're in the process of doing that 22 review for Vermont Yankee.
23 Now, what -- if we -- one of the things 24 that's on the books, they submitted to us as their plan 25 is they have a revised PSDAR, Post-Shutdown NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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83 1 Decommissioning Activities Report, that will be 2 submitted by the new licensee should the transfer go 3 through for Vermont Yankee. And in that PSDAR they're 4 basically -- instead of going into 50 years of safe 5 store, they plan on decommissioning the site promptly, 6 and it will take about 7 to 10 years to do that.
7 So things can change. It's all about what 8 Exelon decides to do and whether they have takers to 9 come and do the work. And apparently there's plenty 10 of companies out there that want to do this work.
11 MR. BARKLEY: Paul has one last question 12 and then we'll move to the next one.
13 MR. GRESSLER: Yes, just also too I guess 14 over the next decade some 60 plants will probably close.
15 People have talked about stuff being put in sites that 16 are going to be all around the country, a security issue 17 as far as stuff. Do you think -- or has Homeland 18 Security gotten involved with this at all?
19 MR. WATSON: I don't know about the 20 prediction on 60 plants. I know that we have 12 that 21 have announced they're going to shut down over the next 22 10 years or so, including -- Oyster Creek is one of 23 them. But our NRC security people work closely with 24 all of the federal agencies, in particular Homeland 25 Security, over potential threats to any of our NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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84 1 facilities including the spent fuel facilities. So 2 that's why there's a guard force that remains at the 3 sites 24/7 with all the detection and other equipment 4 to protect it and detect any threats that could possibly 5 happen.
6 So, yes, we maintain a very close dialogue 7 with all the federal agencies: FBI, etcetera, over 8 threats for possible -- at our facilities.
9 MR. GRESSLER: Thank you.
10 MR. BARKLEY: Thank you. Regina will come 11 on up and make the statement on behalf of Janet Tauro, 12 and then we'll have Peter Ferwerda and Joan Finn.
13 MS. DISCENZA: My name is Regina Discenza.
14 I'm speaking Janet Tauro. She's the chair on the board 15 of directors for Clean Water Action. She could not 16 get here tonight because of flooded roads and downed 17 power lines.
18 Janet wants to address the fact that once 19 the fuel rods are put into dry cask storage the plan 20 is for NRC inspectors to walk around the dry cask storage 21 twice a year with a Geiger counter. She and Jeff Brown 22 of GRAMMIES would like to go on record asking for 23 continuous real-time radiation monitoring of the dry 24 cask storage.
25 She also mentions that it's in the best NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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85 1 interest of public health and safety to have real 2 continuous monitoring of those dry casks because the 3 radioactive rods are very dangerous and twice a year 4 just doesn't seem sufficient. And I'm in the 5 three-mile radius, so we have concerns as very close-by 6 residents to this power plant.
7 She also says that the Environmental Impact 8 Statement does not take into consideration climate 9 change and sea level rise, and she wants to know how 10 that would affect the dry cask storage in the future.
11 And my question is why does this process 12 have to take 60 years? It really shouldn't. I think 13 this can be done in 20 years, but I think it's crazy 14 that the NRC allows them to drag it out for 60 years.
15 MR. WATSON: Well, I'll answer the first 16 one -- last question first, and that's the NRC policy 17 that was established in the regulations by the 18 Commission back in the '90s.
19 The actual decommissioning will typically 20 take 7 to 10 years to do. It depends on how fast they 21 want to do the job. We like to say it's more of a 22 marathon than a sprint. So you do things methodically 23 to decommission the plant just like you constructed 24 it.
25 As far as real-time monitoring at the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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86 1 ISFSIs, some of them do have it. They are required 2 to have monitoring for thermal and other detection 3 issues at the facilities, and the NRC believes that 4 they're safe the way they are. But it's an option that 5 the licensees could consider because it's an additional 6 cost that would be passed onto the consumer.
7 The EIS on sea level rising, I don't know 8 whether that's a related issue at this point.
9 Jeffrey, yes, no?
10 (No audible response.)
11 MR. WATSON: No, I guess we're still 12 looking at the science on that.
13 MS. DISCENZA: Okay. Thank you.
14 MR. BARKLEY: Okay. Thank you. Peter?
15 After Peter again will be Joan Finn, and 16 the final two speakers I have signed up here are Theresa 17 Barry and Michelle Brunetti.
18 MR. FERWERDA: May I look at the back side 19 of my cards?
20 MR. BARKLEY: You may certainly.
21 MR. WATSON: Secret code.
22 MR. FERWERDA: Well, not only that but it 23 gives me my outline of pain and suffering.
24 (Laughter.)
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87 1 evening to everybody and I thank you for coming to this 2 very important --
3 MR. WATSON: You have to speak into the 4 microphone.
5 MR. FERWERDA: There we are.
6 MR. WATSON: Point it towards you.
7 MR. FERWERDA: Okay.
8 MR. WATSON: There you go.
9 MR. FERWERDA: Now I have it. And of 10 course one of the things that is very important is that 11 what we're talking about today will be maybe, and I 12 hope not, the nightmares of our grandchildren tomorrow.
13 What I was interested in, I keep hearing 14 "financial" and all that. And I was saying to myself, 15 well, what guarantee is there that the money will be 16 there 40 years from now to do what is being decided 17 to be done in this 60-year or longer plan? Is it federal 18 money that is going to be the backbone of getting the 19 job of closure done or is it being paid through bonds 20 that have been deposited with the Federal Government 21 or the state to ensure that the work is done?
22 Now I know that in terms of private 23 development we get an improvement bond to make sure 24 that the roads, the sewers and the other facilities 25 are all completed so that they can adequately serve NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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88 1 future needs. So I haven't heard any guarantee of 2 federal money. I haven't heard any guarantee as to 3 bonding. But I know that if we're talking federal 4 money, it's like many federal programs.
5 I remember many years ago I was involved 6 in a program where the State of New Jersey with tax 7 money for the motor vehicle fuels paid for the 8 maintenance and repair of local streets in our 9 municipalities. However, politics is what politics 10 is. They decided they didn't want to pay the money 11 to keep your street in front of your house with the 12 right type of blacktop, the right type of drainage, 13 so forth and so on. So I again look at the financial 14 guarantees which seem to be lacking.
15 Then as I mentioned earlier, what is the 16 plan as the market value of the power plant goes down 17 to provide for a continuation of the revenue that was 18 generated by this facility for the municipality and 19 the county?
20 Mentioned earlier was all these good things 21 that we're making donations to the Popcorn Zoo, so forth 22 and so on, but obviously if they're not selling 23 electric, there's not going to be those monies available 24 to go to these worthwhile public charities. So again, 25 we have this local impact as to your wallet and my NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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89 1 wallet.
2 Now we talked in terms of rods. What about 3 taking all of these rods, bring them on a choo-choo 4 train, sending them down to the wall, down to Mexico 5 and have the Mexicans --
6 (Laughter.)
7 MR. FERWERDA: -- take care of it?
8 (Laughter.)
9 MR. FERWERDA: Why not?
10 Exactly. And labor, we have affordable 11 labor.
12 MR. BARKLEY: Let me ask him to try to 13 respond to your first three questions other than that.
14 MR. WATSON: Yes. Well, the first 15 question is fairly simple. The NRC sets minimum 16 decommissioning funding requirements. There's a 17 formula we have in the regulations. The utilities go 18 to their Public Service Commission to authorize that 19 they include some money coming from the ratepayers to 20 go into that fund. So that's how the money gets there.
21 The NRC has no role in the commerce or the collection 22 of those fees for decommissioning.
23 So once the utility starts collecting those 24 funds, they go to an independent trust. I think I 25 mentioned Mellon Bank is one of the big banks that NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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90 1 actually maintains most of the utility decommissioning 2 funds.
3 In order for the utility to use those monies 4 they have to go to the trustee of the bank and explain 5 why they would need to use those funds. And it has 6 to be for decommissioning. And so the trustee comes 7 back to the NRC and says are they going to use this 8 for decommissioning? And we say either yes or no.
9 And if it's yes, they get whatever amount they generally 10 want to do -- to support their decommissioning work, 11 or no, they're not in decommissioning yet so they can't 12 touch the funds.
13 So the funds are protected. They are 14 maintained by an independent trust fund and trustee.
15 And so there's no federal bonds or other things that 16 create that fund. It's all from the ratepayers in most 17 cases. And so that fund is secure there.
18 Unfortunately, the downside in a plant 19 shutting down, whether it was going to shut down after 20 40 years of life as the original licenses were or 60 21 years, or whatever it is, the plant will shut down.
22 And when that happens unfortunately the host community 23 loses revenues. I discussed this with your mayor a 24 little bit before the meeting in that this is the 25 downside of the plant shutting down. Loss of tax NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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91 1 revenues and also jobs, which people are employed with 2 and also pay taxes to the local community if they live 3 there. So that's the downside.
4 The NRC has no call in on those things.
5 They only thing we make sure is safety. So I think 6 there are a couple bills in the Congress that are trying 7 to address those, but we haven't seen where they've 8 progressed enough.
9 And the fuel rods, I don't think Mexico 10 wants them.
11 (Laughter.)
12 MR. WATSON: Neither does Canada. And 13 most states don't want it either, so it's important 14 for the Federal Government to come up with a final 15 repository. Like I said, we do have two applications 16 in for the -- some interim storage. That might work.
17 I can't guarantee anything. But it's a capitalist 18 society where you can make money and if people can make 19 money off of storing the fuel the United States, we 20 do those kind of things. But it's not the NRC's purview 21 to do that. It's our businesses and business 22 communities. And so the NRC's role is to make sure 23 it's done safely. That's why we're doing the 24 application and the safety aspects of potentially 25 issuing a license for that application for that interim NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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92 1 storage.
2 MR. FERWERDA: Now in prior statements 3 there is going to be some land that's going to be 4 released back in -- and then going to the township.
5 The majority of the plant property is going to be under 6 the jurisdiction of this close out plant for what, 90 7 to 100 years? And I'm wondering what happens with the 8 land after the closure period. Is it available for 9 town houses, affordable housing and all these other 10 good things?
11 MR. WATSON: I think in my opening comments 12 I think if -- we can go back to the slides if we wanted 13 to, but I think the Finninger Arms -- I always have 14 trouble with that one. Anyway, that land has already 15 been released for reuse. Exelon is talking about --
16 MR. FERWERDA: It was never restricted.
17 MR. WATSON: It was never restricted. It 18 was just owned by the utility. Okay. It was never 19 part of the license.
20 The other 217 acres of the utility plan, 21 Exelon plan is to donate to I guess Lacey Township, 22 the local community. They're welcome to do that. It's 23 their land. If it is part of our license, we will review 24 that land and possibly do some surveys to make sure 25 that it's not radiologically impacted from the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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93 1 operation of the plant. And they would have to make 2 an application for that. So we would also probably 3 -- if it is part of the license, we would hold a public 4 meeting to discuss what our role is in that in releasing 5 that land. So, but again our role is to make sure it's 6 done safely, that it meets all the criteria for 7 unrestricted use.
8 Now when the plant is decommissioned, the 9 main footprint of the plant, where the fenced area is 10 for security, the plan in the PSDAR, Post-Shutdown 11 Decommissioning Activities Report, is to release the 12 site for unrestricted use, meaning it could be used 13 for any purpose. Now assuming that the fuel is gone, 14 then the entire site could be used for any purpose.
15 But if the fuel is there, that will remain under license 16 and be under NRC regulatory oversight.
17 But the rest of the land, once the license 18 is terminated or the license is shrunk to just the spent 19 fuel facility, that land will be able to be used as 20 long as it meets our criteria for unrestricted use.
21 It could be used for any purpose. I could tell you 22 out of the 10 plants that have been decommissioned about 23 one-third of them have new generating plants on them, 24 one-third are parks, and one-third are not doing 25 anything. It's just there. It's owned by the utility.
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94 1 They haven't decided what they're going to use the 2 land for.
3 But in many case some of the utilities will 4 install additional generating capacity on it. At 5 Rancho Seco, which was mentioned earlier, they have 6 two fossil units, combined cycle units that burn a 7 variety of fuels. It's -- the water is there for the 8 cooling. I don't know what the access is for Bodega 9 Bay in the future, but they also have the grid 10 infrastructure for producing the power and have it go 11 back into the grid. And so there are some advantages 12 of relocating a power plant on the site.
13 Now that's a business decision that Exelon 14 will decide whether they want to do or not do in the 15 future, but unless it's going to have a reactor and 16 need a new license under the NRC we will not be involved 17 in that process.
18 MR. FERWERDA: So kind of, sort of? In 19 summarizing, that as the plant closes down the revenues 20 that Lacey Township received from the plant will 21 decrease until it becomes virtually nothing as well 22 as the fact that then the fuel rods will have left and 23 that will be nothing? And then it will be a new 24 beginning as far as the use of the land and things of 25 this nature. Is that a fair statement?
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95 1 MR. WATSON: Yes, fair enough, I guess.
2 MR. FERWERDA: Thank you.
3 MR. BARKLEY: All right. Thank you.
4 Joan, you still here?
5 (No audible response.)
6 MR. BARKLEY: And again, finally it will 7 be Theresa Barry and then Michelle.
8 MS. FINN: My name is Joan Finn and I live 9 in Waretown and because I live in the shadow of Oyster 10 Creek I'm quite concerned about the storage of the spent 11 rods. As you know, in Oyster Creek the rods are 12 contained in thin canisters which are capable of 13 cracking and leaking, and the leak is often not capable 14 of being monitored or repaired. So the storage of these 15 canisters is very important to me as compared to what's 16 happening in Europe where they're stored in thick casks.
17 So the recent study indicates that on-site 18 storage, the best on-site storage includes deep 19 geologically-isolated storage. And that -- and we are 20 concerned about natural disaster. We're concerned 21 about terrorism. And in your report you indicate the 22 fact that you might be using water for abatement and 23 flushing. I'm concerned about the radioactive effect 24 of that abatement and flushing in the water.
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96 1 rubble could cloak highly radioactive material. You 2 mentioned non-contaminated cement. What is your 3 measure for non-contamination? You mentioned sending 4 large components of the plant on a barge. How would 5 that be vulnerable to terrorist attacks? And they're 6 going to an undefined site.
7 So living here, not just for myself, but 8 for the people after me, I'm concerned about the ongoing 9 monitors, as we mentioned before, monitoring of 10 radiation over time. These casks aren't perfect.
11 Over 10, 20 years we could have leaks and I'm very 12 concerned about that and how we're going to monitor 13 ongoingly. Thank you.
14 (Applause.)
15 MR. WATSON: Well, there's a major 16 difference between dry fuel storage canisters in the 17 U.S. and in Europe which were mentioned. In the U.S.
18 we plan to transport them, therefore, the actual cask 19 is about a half-inch of stainless steel, which is 20 monitored and has a very long design life to them, 21 whereas the European casks, which are very big and 22 heavy, are going to be extremely difficult to transport.
23 So that's why ours are in canisters that can be 24 transported. They're maintained in concrete shields 25 to contain the radiation. The NRC is putting together NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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97 1 a -- with the Electric Power Research Institute I 2 believe it is, a monitoring program to monitor the 3 thickness of these casks to ensure they're going to 4 be safely maintained into the future.
5 I agree that a permanent repository or a 6 deep repository would be the best place for the fuel, 7 but we're not there yet in this country. In most 8 European countries they're not either. So they've 9 designed their casks for basically being there 10 indefinitely. Now there are issues with degradation 11 of those casks, too, but we don't have those casks here 12 in the United States, so we're not paying -- we're not 13 in a situation to comment on theirs.
14 The transportation of the radioactive 15 materials from the site, the actual way they're going 16 to be transported will be decided by whoever does the 17 decommissioning: Exelon or if they do a decommissioning 18 contractor or whatever, but it will be done safely.
19 We have thousands of radioactive material shipments 20 in this country every day. So the waste is transported 21 in various containers, shielded containers. There are 22 strict requirements on radiation levels from the 23 Department of Transportation, which the NRC enforces.
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98 1 program to do it safely. And so we will be there to 2 inspect those shipments to make sure they're properly 3 packaged and meet our requirements for being out on 4 the highway.
5 If they do a rail spur in, which many 6 utilities do, then it will be monitored properly and 7 packaged properly to go by rail. I don't think the 8 barge thing is a big thing here, but it's a possibility.
9 I kind of doubt it. But that also restrictions and 10 requirements that have to be met in order for that to 11 be done.
12 I think I got most of them.
13 MRS. CONNOLLY: Can I ask him a question?
14 MR. BARKLEY: Yes.
15 MRS. CONNOLLY: Isn't it far more 16 dangerous for a gasoline truck to be delivering gasoline 17 to a service station than having these spent rods 18 monitored because there are no laws that regulate that?
19 MR. WATSON: Well, I think the Department 20 of Transportation has regulations on the transport on 21 all hazard materials, including gasoline and others.
22 There's little placards on it that say flammable and 23 other things that DOT requires, but --
24 MRS. CONNOLLY: Not what I read.
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99 1 as far as I know there are and that's why they're 2 placarded so that they could demonstrate that they're 3 following the Department of Transportation 4 requirements for hazard materials.
5 MR. BARKLEY: Okay. Thank you.
6 Theresa?
7 And then, Michelle, you still want to speak 8 as well?
9 MS. BRUNETTI POST: Sure. Yes, I have one 10 as well.
11 MR. BARKLEY: Okay.
12 MS. BARRY: Hello. I'm Theresa Barry and 13 I'm a resident of Forked River. I have several 14 questions on the PSDAR Section 5, the environmental 15 section. And one of them is I noted in the report that 16 you plan to do dredging, or potentially do dredging 17 for transport of the material by barge, but there was 18 no mention of post-shutdown dredging of the Forked River 19 to restore access for the residents on the southern 20 side of the river to access the waterways.
21 I'm sorry.
22 Okay. Did you get the question or do you 23 want me to repeat?
24 MR. BROADDUS: I think I understand.
25 MS. BARRY: Okay.
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100 1 MR. BROADDUS: So I think if I understand 2 your question, is there going to be dredging done for 3 other purposes other than --
4 MS. BARRY: Right.
5 MR. BROADDUS: -- access to the --
6 MS. BARRY: So my question is is there 7 planning -- is there a plan for dredging of the Forked 8 River for the southern shoreline of the Forked River 9 to restored it to the same access for the residents 10 who live along that river?
11 MR. BROADDUS: So that type of activity 12 would generally not be within the NRC's regulatory 13 purview because that's I think a change in the site 14 restoration to original conditions, I think is what 15 you're saying, what we call something like a green field 16 sometimes. And that is between the state and the 17 utility generally.
18 MS. BARRY: Okay. Well, as a part of their 19 original agreement with the Board of Public Utilities 20 the Oyster Creek Generating Station committed to 21 dredging the river. And so I think as part of their 22 closing -- their closure plan that they should also 23 include that dredging to restore access. That's my 24 comment.
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101 1 environmental section. One of them is based on the 2 understanding that the intent is to restore the area 3 for unrestricted use. I understand there is also 4 shallow groundwater contamination presently at the site 5 and I wanted to understand how that was -- what the 6 plan is to address that and remediate the shallow 7 groundwater issue. I didn't see that in the report.
8 MR. BROADDUS: You can answer that.
9 MR. WATSON: Yes, we will continue to 10 assess the groundwater issue as the utility will.
11 Matter of fact, I have one of my groundwater experts 12 here at the meeting. We're going to be at the plant 13 tomorrow to look at what exactly the situation is at 14 the plant. But the NRC will continue to monitor that 15 and any plans that the utility has for -- if they plan 16 to remediate or not. In a lot of cases the radioactive 17 material will decay in place or get dispersed. But 18 we'll be looking at that tomorrow, so I have most of 19 the plant --
20 MR. BROADDUS: Actually I saw it today.
21 MR. WATSON: Huh?
22 MR. BROADDUS: I saw it today.
23 MR. WATSON: You saw it today?
24 MR. BROADDUS; Yes.
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102 1 because we're going to the plant and we'll being some 2 significant time there tomorrow looking at various 3 issues with Exelon and touring the plant.
4 MR. BROADDUS: So if I can maybe just add 5 one?
6 MS. BARRY: Okay.
7 MR. BROADDUS: So I believe the reason is 8 it's not specifically called out. They do already have 9 a --
10 MS. BARRY: Remediation plan.
11 MR. BROADDUS: -- remediation plan. It's 12 been in place for a number of years and it is continuing, 13 it's ongoing. That's what -- today when I was at the 14 site I talked with them about that and understood that 15 it was still ongoing and it will continue to go forward, 16 I think, was what my understanding of their plan is.
17 MS. BARRY: Okay. So I just would like 18 to have it on the record that for those two issues:
19 the restoration of the depth of the southern shoreline 20 of the river and also the shallow groundwater 21 remediation, should be addressed I think in the PSDAR 22 Section 5. And it is an environmental area of the 23 report. however, if it's not addressed there, perhaps 24 they can address it separately to me. I can write the 25 comments.
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103 1 MR. BROADDUS: Yes.
2 MS. BARRY: The other issue is during 3 decommissioning there will be some water that's 4 generated and I was wondering if there's a plan or a 5 proposal as to how that water would be treated before 6 disposal or how it would be disposed. And I don't see 7 that addressed in the plan either.
8 MR. WATSON: Yes, there will be some water 9 generated from the decommissioning process.
10 Specifically we know it will be done. The reactor 11 cavity will be re-flooded so they can cut up the reactor 12 internals, which are highly radioactive, so the water 13 shields them. They will eventually have to process 14 that water either for release using the current systems 15 or some other way. Some plants ship the water to a 16 place that will take the slightly radioactive water 17 and dispose of it. So it's up to them to figure out 18 how they're going to do that, but we will make sure 19 that all the environmental requirements and effluent 20 releases from the plant are within the safety standards 21 we've established.
22 MR. BROADDUS: And I can add to that as 23 well. So just to clarify one of the things that from 24 my discussion of our review of that, part of that is 25 to look at have they addressed any new or more NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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104 1 significant environmental impacts that have not been 2 previously in other Environmental Impact Statement 3 reviews that have been done in the past. So the water 4 remediation could have been something that was 5 addressed previously. That's part of our reviews to 6 look to see is that a new activity? Is that a new 7 impact? And if it is, is it properly addressed there?
8 So I believe we've had some discussions with the 9 licensee from that perspective to try to better 10 understand that. We're developing potential requests 11 for additional information based upon whether or not 12 that's something that was previously addressed or not.
13 MS. BARRY: Okay. So my concern on this 14 one was that it would be much more radioactive than 15 possibly other waters that they may have handled, but 16 if it's addressed in their other impact statements, 17 then that's fine.
18 And then my last question was is there a 19 redundant system planned for cooling of the dry casks 20 in the event that you have a release? Or, you know, 21 as some of the other commenters have made their opinion 22 about whether you have radiation or whether you have 23 a temperature monitoring system, is there a redundant 24 system to respond to an emergency of these casks?
25 Should they fail.
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105 1 MR. BROADDUS: So there are self-contained 2 systems. They -- in that configuration they don't 3 require additional supplemental cooling. That's what 4 you're asking?
5 MS. BARRY: Yes.
6 MR. BROADDUS: So the -- my understanding 7 is there's the -- and I'm not a spent fuel pool expert 8 or a spent fuel expert --
9 MS. BARRY: Me neither.
10 MR. BROADDUS: -- but my understanding is 11 that those casks are built to be able to self-cool and 12 keep -- and maintain a proper temperature themselves.
13 But there is monitoring if there's ever a breach of 14 the canister and there's ways you can go back in and 15 reseal it back up and make sure it --
16 MS. BARRY: Okay.
17 MR. BROADDUS: So those actions would 18 occur if that -- if it ever became a health and safety 19 issue, we would make sure that that was taken care of.
20 MS. BARRY: Okay. So basically you're 21 saying there would be an emergency response plan in 22 place in the event of a failure?
23 MR. WATSON: There will be an EP, yes.
24 MS. BARRY: Okay. All right. Thank 25 you. That was all I had. Thanks.
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106 1 MR. BARKLEY: Okay. Thank you.
2 Michelle?
3 If anybody else wants to speak, please sign 4 up on the card over there and we'll handle that.
5 Otherwise, we're wrapping up very good time-wise here.
6 So, Michelle?
7 MS. BRUNETTI POST: Thank you. Hi, I'm 8 Michelle Post with the Atlantic City Press and I just 9 was hoping you guys could talk a little bit more about 10 the third-party process. Is it more common for plants 11 going through the decommissioning process to be handled 12 by a third party? It sounded like many of the ones 13 you were describing were handled that way.
14 MR. WATSON: I say it's a new business 15 model for this. We've only run into it since 2010.
16 I think 2010 is when Zion was -- made the request, so 17 it's fairly new. We've only done two of them so far.
18 We've done lots of license transfers in the NRC, but 19 we've never -- we've only done the two actual license 20 transfers for decommissioning. We're only looking at 21 the third, which is slightly different from Vermont.
22 So like I say, it's fairly new.
23 MS. BRUNETTI POST: And how did that 24 happen? Like did --
25 MR. WATSON: Well --
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107 1 MS. BRUNETTI POST: -- you guys come up 2 with new rules or --
3 MR. WATSON: No, the rules have always been 4 there for who can possess a license, but the utilities 5 actually have these companies come to they and say 6 -- come to them or utilities go to the companies and 7 say we want to have a contractual agreement or -- that 8 you will decommission plant and here's how much money 9 we have for it. And it's a contractual -- it's a 10 business agreement between the utility and the company.
11 The NRC has no say in the commerce that goes on there.
12 13 The only thing we do is that new company, 14 if they want to accept the -- they want to take the 15 license, they have to make application to be a licensee.
16 In order to do that they have to pass certain financial 17 requirements and technical requirements so that we feel 18 that they will be able to decommission the plant safely 19 within the amount of money that's available to do the 20 decommissioning.
21 And so we do a thorough technical 22 evaluation. I think we're -- the one in the Vermont 23 we've had numerous questions back and forth with the 24 -- not on the utility but the applicant. And so it's 25 a fairly rigorous process. And so it's a matter of NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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108 1 reaching a conclusion. Either they are going to be 2 an adequate or acceptable company to do the 3 decommissioning or not. So it can be either -- the 4 transfer can be approved or denied.
5 MR. BROADDUS: Hey, Bruce, can I add?
6 So how did this happen? This is -- I can 7 only give you a little bit of the history of what's 8 happened over the past 20 years or so.
9 So in the 1990s there were a number of 10 plants that shut down at that time. Zion was one of 11 the last ones that shut down during that time period.
12 I'm sorry. So Zion was one of the last 13 ones that shut down during that time period. And as 14 Bruce indicated, that was one of the models that was 15 used for Zion. They've done that through a contract.
16 So in 2013 -- from 2013 to now Oyster Creek 17 will be the seventh plant unit -- facility that's shut 18 down.
19 MS. BRUNETTI POST: Seventh?
20 MR. BROADDUS: Seventh. And, yes, 21 there's one --
22 MR. WATSON: Since 2013.
23 MS. BRUNETTI POST: Since 2013? Okay.
24 MR. BROADDUS: So there weren't any plants 25 that shut down between the 1990s and --
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109 1 MS. BRUNETTI POST: Okay.
2 MR. BROADDUS: -- 2013. About a 15-year 3 period there weren't any plants that shut down. So 4 in 2013 there were additional plants that were shut 5 down at that time. And then subsequent plants have 6 shut down over the last couple of years as well.
7 And as Bruce says, of those seven we're 8 aware of the two -- is it two that are considering that 9 model? Is it -- no, it's Vermont Yankee. And is 10 anybody else?
11 MR. WATSON: Well, the ones aren't public, 12 I don't think.
13 MR. BROADDUS: Okay. So, yes. So only 14 one other one that has actually announced that they're 15 following that model.
16 MR. WATSON: Or made application.
17 MR. BROADDUS: Made an application. But 18 I think --
19 MS. BRUNETTI POST: So out of the seven, 20 two are considering and one has announced. Is that 21 --
22 MR. BROADDUS: No, I think -- I'm trying 23 to --
24 MR. WATSON: There are seven that have shut 25 down. Only Vermont Yankee has applied to transfer the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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110 1 license.
2 MS. BRUNETTI POST: Okay.
3 MR. WATSON: We hear rumors. We only can 4 go by what's publicly available in the -- I guess I'll 5 call it the industry news.
6 MS. BRUNETTI POST: Yes.
7 MR. WATSON: But we don't have any formal 8 requests for transferring a license and so we really 9 can't -- we don't have any basis for what they're doing 10 other than many of the utilities we hear are looking 11 at the business model and see if it applies, if it would 12 be a good match for them to do into the future. So 13 it's really their business decision.
14 MS. BRUNETTI POST: Okay. And what are 15 some of the companies that do this kind of thing, that 16 take on the licenses for decommissioning?
17 MR. WATSON: Okay. Right now the ones 18 that we know of are Energy Solutions, which also owns 19 the burial site out in Nevada. I mean, Utah. So 20 they're a waste company that does a lot of 21 transportation of radioactive waste. They actually 22 have a decommissioning group within Energy Solutions, 23 so they have the agreement, or the license was 24 transferred to them for Zion and La Crosse. Recently 25 La Crosse over the last couple years.
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111 1 The other company that has made application 2 to us is a company called Northstar for Vermont Yankee.
3 They have a -- some decommissioning experience and 4 a lot of demolition business, according to what they 5 supplied to us.
6 MS. BRUNETTI POST: Yes.
7 MR. WATSON: But there's lots of companies 8 out there that would do decommissioning. All you have 9 to do is look at the DOE complex. I think Bechtel was 10 mentioned. There's a litany of companies that have 11 done Department of Energy decommissioning in the 12 weapons complex, which has been going on for years.
13 So I would imagine that if a company is 14 interested, they -- there's probably more than those 15 two that I know by name. So it's really up to who's 16 a good chemistry match, I guess I would call it, for 17 a contract and trying to negotiate who's going to do 18 what or what they're going to do and whether they think 19 it's enough money to do the work.
20 MS. BRUNETTI POST: Okay. Thank you.
21 MR. WATSON: Okay. You didn't bail on me 22 yet, did you?
23 MR. BARKLEY: No, I didn't bail.
24 MR. WATSON: Okay.
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112 1 more individuals who'd like to speak, so let me call 2 them up.
3 MR. WATSON: Bring them up. That will be 4 it probably.
5 MR. BARKLEY: And that will be it, yes.
6 David Moss. Then we'll have Barry Bastian and then 7 finally we'll bring Paul Gunter back up.
8 Okay, David.
9 MR. MOST: That's Most, M-O-S-T.
10 MR. BARKLEY: M-O -- looks like Moss.
11 Okay. Sorry.
12 MR. MOST: How's everybody doing this 13 evening?
14 (Simultaneous speaking.)
15 MR. MOST: Yes, I'm used to microphone 16 because I used to sit on the township committee. I'm 17 no longer in politics here, but I'm a long-time employee 18 down at Oyster Creek. I'm a union guy. I've been down 19 there 37 years, so I'm proud of what we've done. And 20 for 50 years we've supplied generation to this 21 community, to 600,000 homes.
22 And my concern -- I see there's some state 23 officials here with us and I was just wondering does 24 the NRC ever invite the state to talk about how we're 25 going to be replacing the power, because like I said, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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113 1 Oyster Creek has been here for 50 years. It's a station 2 that's been in our back yard. During the high-peak 3 power demand in the summertime, which we have currently, 4 we go into these generation alerts where we don't do 5 a lot of things in the plant that could take the plant 6 off-line because of the demand for electricity.
7 So my concern as a resident is for the 8 customers to basically ensure that they have reliable 9 power like they've had the past years from Oyster Creek.
10 And I would just urge -- because we had dialogue with 11 the state 10 years ago. And Bruce had mentioned land 12 use issues. And that's exactly what we're trying to 13 do. We're trying to have a bump-less transfer of build 14 another facility in the back of the power plant. Well, 15 that dialogue sort of failed and here we are. It's 16 already 10 years later and here we're talking about 17 closing Oyster Creek in September.
18 So my concern is the reliability, whether 19 somebody could talk to it from the state and sort of 20 be like an info -- I don't know if you've ever done 21 that with other state officials to talk about the 22 electrical demand and how they're going to meet that.
23 Excuse me. I'd like them --
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114 1 actual commerce in the state. That's your Public 2 Service Commission, or however it is in the state, that 3 looks at the power mixes and what's granted to be built 4 and how reliable the grid is. That's also part of the 5 --
6 MR. MOST: PJM, right.
7 MR. WATSON: -- PJM is Pennsylvania Jersey 8 Maryland Interconnection. So they look at grid 9 stability along with the Federal -- what is it 10 Energy --
12 MR. WATSON: Anyway -- FERC?
13 MR. MOST: Yes.
14 MR. WATSON: Yes, so we don't get involved 15 in those. But we do deal with the state on -- with 16 emergency plans, security, a litany of issues to make 17 sure that we're well coordinated with the state and 18 the other state officials to make sure that all those 19 types of processes goes smoothly in the event that they 20 are needed. Okay?
21 MR. BROADDUS: I'll also just indicate 22 that we do coordinate with FERC if there is ever a grid 23 reliability issue that could have an impact to one of 24 our plants. So if there is a power availability issue 25 or something like that or -- either to the surrounding NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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115 1 community or to the plant itself, we do have an interface 2 with FERC to ensure that they're -- that that is not 3 causing health and safety issues.
4 MR. MOST: So what I'm advocating here is 5 the state come up with a comprehensive plan and educate 6 us as far as residents to how we're going to make this 7 transfer from when Oyster Creek closes. And that's 8 basically my point, so we can ensure that we have a 9 reliable source of power like we've had 50 years. So 10 I appreciate your time. Thank you.
11 MR. BARKLEY: Okay. Thank you.
12 Barry? Where did Barry disappear to?
13 There he is.
14 MR. BASTIAN: Hi, my name is Barry Bastian.
15 I'm a resident and I just have one question. I hear 16 a lot about the NRC's mentioning of requirements, 17 regulations and rules. My thought was are there 18 prescribed penalties in the event that these 19 decommissioning criteria are not met?
20 MR. WATSON: I mentioned in my slides we 21 have an inspection manual dedicated to inspecting power 22 reactors in decommissioning. We also within the NRC 23 have what we call the enforcement manual where if those 24 inspections result in notice of violation or escalated 25 notices of violation, the NRC can also not only require NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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116 1 corrective actions, but can also issue civil penalties; 2 in other words, have the utilities pay a fine for 3 misdeeds. So that program inspection enforcement 4 continues as long as they have a license.
5 So, yes, we do have enforcement programs that 6 have been well-exercised over the years. I guess I'll 7 end with that.
8 MR. BASTIAN: All right. Thank you very 9 much.
10 MR. BARKLEY: Come on up, Paul.
11 And then finally Barry Bendar asked to 12 speak as well, so we can bring Barry as well after Paul.
13 MR. GUNTER: Thank you. Paul Gunter, 14 Beyond Nuclear. So, Bruce, you're the decommissioning 15 expert here and you've seen decommissioning operations 16 around the United States, I assume. I'm wondering if 17 you could comment why Big Rock Point on the Gold Coast 18 of Michigan, which went through DECON, wasn't able to 19 get released for unrestricted use. It's my 20 understanding that there was plutonium contamination 21 in the soil there. Can you confirm that?
22 MR. WATSON: Okay. Big Rock Point has 23 been released from its license. Their license is 24 terminated for unrestricted use. There's a group out 25 that keeps claiming that there is plutonium released NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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117 1 to Lake Michigan. It's been sampled numerous times.
2 We've evaluated that particular issue numerous times, 3 and quite frankly, not found any plutonium that was 4 ever released now to the lake.
5 They did have a fairly large tritium 6 release, which is not plutonium, a long, long time ago.
7 And that's one of the reasons they actually removed 8 all of the reactor building and all of the turbine 9 building including the foundations to make sure that 10 if there was any residual tritium there that they would 11 remove it.
12 But we have responded to that. I guess 13 we treated it as an allegation at one point about 14 plutonium being released to the lake and did not find 15 it on numerous occasions where we've investigated that.
16 MR. GUNTER: Okay. Well, thank you very 17 much. That's reassuring.
18 We also have an expert here from the NRC 19 on groundwater contamination. I'm wondering if you 20 would be able to give us a status check on the Cohansey 21 drinking water aquifer and the tritium contamination 22 that the -- I believe there was a fine issued by the 23 state of New Jersey to Exelon for significant 24 contamination of the Cohansey drinking water aquifer.
25 MR. WATSON: Let me answer that.
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118 1 MR. GUNTER: Okay.
2 MR. WATSON: I just assigned Randy to this 3 project --
4 MR. GUNTER: Okay.
5 MR. WATSON: -- a couple weeks ago, so he's 6 just catching up to speed on the groundwater issues 7 here at Oyster Creek. I felt that it was a time since 8 we were having this meeting for -- it would be an 9 excellent opportunity for him and some of the other 10 staff members to come to the site, see the issues and 11 the local community, visit the site and start looking 12 at the technical issues that we will be inheriting when 13 the plant goes into decommissioning and eventually 14 comes to my organization for oversight.
15 MR. GUNTER: Okay. So is -- what's the 16 status of the Cohansey aquifer in terms of what levels 17 of tritium are --
18 MR. WATSON: I have no idea.
19 MR. GUNTER: You have no idea? Okay.
20 MR. WATSON: I can't --
21 MR. GUNTER: So we have to -- we would have 22 to ask that question of the state then?
23 MR. BARKLEY: Yes.
24 MR. GUNTER: Is anybody from the state here 25 to address that?
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119 1 Okay. I assume that that will be an 2 ongoing evaluation, but it -- I think one of the 3 questions for decommissioning is how deep does the 4 decommissioning and decontamination process go down 5 to? So obviously there's a big concern about fresh 6 water contamination with -- and I know that tritium 7 is often trivialized, but there's absolutely no reason 8 that it should be, because it does cause cancer, it 9 does create mutations and genetic damage. So we'll 10 follow up on that.
11 MR. BROADDUS: Well, I can --
12 MR. GUNTER: Please.
13 MR. BROADDUS: Just from my discussions 14 while I was on site today my understanding is that there 15 has not been any tritium contamination found in any 16 of the groundwater. So that's my understanding, but 17 it's above the water table and it's still contained 18 above that from what I understood.
19 MR. GUNTER: Okay. So there's no detail 20 or no mention of the Cohansey aquifer.
21 Just a couple more questions, and I 22 appreciate everybody's patience. You mention that 23 there's an emergency plan should one of these dry casks 24 develop a problem. We've been following NRC 25 communications that say that even after 10 years the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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120 1 NRC has documented that some of the seals on the dry 2 cask storage have deteriorated. And you issue 20-year 3 licenses. They can get renewed four times. So overall 4 100 years on one of these casks.
5 If a cask out on the Tarmac develops a 6 radioactive leak, what is the plan?
7 MR. WATSON: I wish we had have brought 8 one of our spent fuel people here today, but I'll have 9 to take that one back and get back to you. I mean, 10 I really don't feel I can responsibly answer that 11 question. But they are monitored so far and the design 12 life of those casks is many, many, many decades beyond 13 what they're licensed for.
14 MR. GUNTER: Right, they get a 20-year 15 license. Then they get renewed every 20 years for four 16 renewals, and then we don't know what happens.
17 MR. WATSON: Right.
18 MR. GUNTER: Okay. Last question then.
19 If the PS -- PDSR -- PDA -- PD --
21 MR. GUNTER: -- thank you -- is not 22 approved by the NRC, what's the point of the public 23 comment?
24 MR. WATSON: Well, we don't approve or 25 disapprove. We either accept it that it meets our NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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121 1 content requirements. So we will continue to ask 2 questions of a licensee until they answer all our 3 questions, if we have any. I think the Regulatory 4 Guides, the guidance that we have out there is pretty 5 explicit in what we require as far as the content in 6 the Post-Shutdown Decommissioning Activities Report.
7 And then most likely I think it's fairly unusual that 8 we have many questions about it, about the PSDAR, but 9 we have had a couple times where we've had to go back 10 and ask for more information. So once we feel that 11 they've fulfilled all the requirements that we've asked 12 them to provide, then we will tell them thank you for 13 providing your PSDAR to us.
14 MR. BROADDUS: And as I mentioned in my 15 presentation, the purpose of the comments is to give 16 the interested stakeholders the opportunity to weigh 17 in on it as well, provide any additional information 18 either to the licensee or to us that -- of actions that 19 could potentially need to be taken. We would have to 20 -- I mean, in -- I mean, our -- but our primary purpose 21 of the review is to ensure that it meets all the 22 requirements, it provides all the information that's 23 necessary.
24 MR. WATSON: Yes, I was just going to add 25 more thing, and that is the regulation requires that NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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122 1 they provide the NRC with the Post-Shutdown Activities 2 Report either prior to or within two years after they've 3 shut down. We've never had anybody go beyond that 4 two-year requirement that I can recall. It's always 5 been accepted with possibly some additional information 6 provided to us. But there is a requirement to submit 7 that in the regulation, just like there is for us to 8 hold this public meeting.
9 MR. BARKLEY: Okay. One person. Barry?
10 MR. BENDAR: Yes.
11 MR. BARKLEY: You still here? Come up, 12 Barry.
13 MR. BENDAR: My question really has to talk 14 about -- we've had a lot of conversation about the money 15 that --
16 MR. WATSON: Can you give us your name?
17 MR. BENDAR: Oh, I'm sorry. Barry Bendar 18 and I live here --
19 MR. WATSON: Okay.
20 MR. BENDAR: -- one mile from Oyster Creek, 21 ground zero.
22 (Laughter.)
23 MR. BENDAR: There's a lot of talk about 24 the money that the utility has to put out for the 25 decommissioning and how that money will be used for NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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123 1 the decommissioning. My question is; and some 2 questions that were asked earlier brought this to mind 3 for me, after it's decommissioned the spent fuel rods 4 will still be there and they'll remain radioactive 5 probably as my great grandchildren or great, great 6 grandchildren are walking the planet, if they ever walk 7 the planet.
8 And the question of the monitoring where 9 the NRC comes out twice a year with -- is that factual 10 information? They come out twice a year with -- to 11 check for radiation. Is that the fact or --
12 MR. BROADDUS: I believe --
13 (Simultaneous speaking.)
14 MR. BENDAR: And the question is going 15 further.
16 MR. WATSON: Yes, I don't know the 17 frequency exactly. I know we come out at least once 18 a year. Many facilities we come out more than that.
19 But we will continue to inspect and ensure they're 20 safe as long as they're there.
21 MR. BENDAR: Right. That's good.
22 MR. WATSON: And the other part of this 23 is that the utility is responsible for maintaining that 24 facility, the spent fuel facility in a safe and secure 25 condition. Most utilities go back to the Department NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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124 1 of Energy and actually -- I guess I'll call it the word 2 "sue" them for to -- to collect the funds back that 3 they've expended so that they get the money to -- get 4 the money back so they can continue to maintain the 5 facility in a safe and secure fashion.
6 MR. BENDAR: Okay. And the question I 7 had, because I brought up the topic of the money that's 8 put aside for decommissioning, where does the money 9 come from for the monitoring? And there's a little 10 follow-on to that also.
11 MR. BROADDUS: So the decommissioning 12 trust is specifically excluded from spent fuel 13 management. So to use that for spent fuel management 14 specifically -- the regulations specifically exclude 15 that. So they have to have the funds from other 16 sources.
17 One of the ways that that -- some utilities 18 have requested, or they've actually made a request to 19 us where they've been able to demonstrate that the trust 20 fund that they already have has sufficient funds in 21 there to cover both decommissioning as we as the spent 22 fuel management. And in those cases they come in and 23 request our approval to be able to use a portion of 24 that money for the spent fuel management. And if we 25 find that they can complete the decommissioning, still NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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125 1 complete the decommissioning funds and the spent fuel 2 management with that money, then we have generally 3 approved that -- those types of requests.
4 And, I believe, John, we have received 5 -- yes, we've received a request specifically from -- we 6 received a request from Exelon for Oyster Creek to be 7 able to use the money in that manner.
8 MR. BENDAR: Any money that's left over 9 from the decommissioning?
10 MR. BROADDUS: Yes.
11 MR. BENDAR: Okay. So in our case it will 12 come from Exelon?
13 MR. BROADDUS: It comes from the existing 14 trust.
15 MR. BENDAR: The trust that was from Exelon 16 --
17 MR. BROADDUS: Yes.
18 MR. BENDAR: -- basically? Okay. So 19 they're going to -- and there's money in there for them 20 to do the monitoring. Because the topic I was going 21 to bring up is that -- what I used to refer to for years 22 as the host community fund.
23 MR. BROADDUS: Yes.
24 MR. BENDAR: And my understanding, last 25 time I checked, that's in billions of dollars, that NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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126 1 if we could get our government to get off the pot, if 2 you will, that would be a wonderful place to get funding 3 for the -- Janet Tauro had mentioned 24-hour, some kind 4 of real-time monitoring. I mean, billions of dollars 5 would go a long way towards something like that.
6 Personally, myself, living here; and I've been here 7 for 30 years, once or twice a year monitoring -- myself 8 personally; I'll just tell you point blank, I'm not 9 comfortable with. So thank you very much.
10 MR. BARKLEY: Okay. Thank you.
11 MR. WATSON: We're done?
12 MR. BARKLEY: Mayor, how did we do?
13 MAYOR CURATOLO: Great.
14 MR. BARKLEY: All right. Thank you. I 15 appreciate your remarks at the beginning here. The 16 audience here I thought was fantastic this evening.
17 Answered a lot of questions from a number of people, 18 so i thought it was a very good dialogue and exchange.
19 Let me turn it back over to Bruce at this 20 point and let him close.
21 MR. WATSON: Yes, I just wanted to say 22 thank you for coming. We do our best to answer the 23 questions, hopefully answered most of them to your 24 satisfaction, at least to have an understanding of what 25 we do and our role in the decommissioning. Again, we're NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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127 1 an independent safety regulator. Our job is to make 2 sure that the decommissioning and the spent fuel remains 3 safe while they're here, and we have a rigorous 4 inspection program to ensure that that happens and a 5 licensing program that helps maintain, or does maintain 6 the safety of the decommissioning through the process.
7 And we will be here until the license is terminated 8 and the radioactive material is removed and meets our 9 criteria for unrestricted release.
10 So thank you again very much.
11 (Applause.)
12 (Whereupon, the above-entitled matter went 13 off the record at 8:52 p.m.)
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128 1
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