ML021280071
| ML021280071 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Diablo Canyon  |
| Issue date: | 05/07/2002 |
| From: | William Jones NRC/RGN-IV/DRP |
| To: | NRC Region 4 |
| References | |
| Download: ML021280071 (97) | |
Text
May 7, 2002 MEMORANDUM TO: FILE FROM: William B. Jones, Chief, Project Branch C, Division of Reactor Projects
SUBJECT:
UNREVIEWED TRANSCRIPT FOR DIABLO CANYON POWER PLANT END OF CYCLE MEETING HELD APRIL 17, 2002 Please find attached the unreviewed transcript from the Diablo Canyon end of cycle meeting.
This unreviewed (not reviewed by participants for accuracy) document is being placed in ADAMS for internal use only.
Attachment:
1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 2 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 3 +++++
4 END OF CYCLE 5 PUBLIC MEETING 6 FOR DIABLO CANYON 7 +++++
8 WEDNESDAY, APRIL 17, 2002 9 +++++
10 Embassy Suites Hotel 11 333 Madonna Road 12 San Luis Obispo, California 13 14 The Public Meeting commenced at 6:30 p.m.
15 NRC STAFF:
16 WILLIAM B. JONES, Chief, Project Branch E 17 ELMO E. COLLINS, Deputy Director 18 STUART A. RICHARDS, Project Director 19 GIRIJA S. SHUKLA, Project Manager 20 DAVID PROULX, Senior Resident Inspector 21 TERRY JACKSON, Resident Inspector 22 BRECK HENDERSON, Public Affairs Officer 23 24 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 PRESENT FROM PACIFIC GAS AND ELECTRIC COMPANY 2 David H. Oatley 3 Jim Becker 4 Greg Reuger 5 Jim Tompkins 6
7 8
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1 A-G-E-N-D-A 2 Introductory Remarks - William Jones . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 3 NRC Presentation by William Jones . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 4 PG&E Presentation by David Oatley . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 5 Preparation of Prepared Public Comments 6 And Statements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 7 Concluding Remarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99 8
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1 P-R-O-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S 2 6:30 p.m.
3 MR. JONES: Good evening. My name is Bill Jones. Im with 4 the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Id like to welcome 5 everyone here tonight. Im pleased to see that we have members of the public 6 and other interest groups here, as well as members of the media.
7 The purpose of tonights meeting is for the United States 8 Nuclear Regulatory Commission to describe their independent assessments 9 and station activities associated with Pacific Gas & Electric operation of Diablo 10 Canyon.
11 The period I will be talking about is from April through 12 December of last year. We believe that a nine-month period, as the NRC is 13 currently moving towards a calendar year assessment of these licensees.
14 Therefore, each of the 103 operating plants that we have in the country, were 15 all moving -- the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, is moving to a yearly 16 assessment cycle.
17 This is a meeting between the Nuclear Regulatory 18 Commission and Pacific Gas & Electric. However, another purpose of this 19 meeting is to inform members of the public as well as the other members here 20 tonight of the Nuclear Regulatory Commissions oversight activities as well as 21 the assessment results we have for Pacific Gas & Electric.
22 Therefore, in our assessment tonight, Im actually going to be 23 calling upon you members of the public and of the audience in whole. As such, 24 I request that you hold any questions and comments till the question and 25 answer period which will follow the formal presentation.
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1 Tonight, we will be transcribing this meeting. It is necessary 2 to catch any comments and questions that the members of the audience may 3 have. The recorder will be transcribing the entire presentation.
4 Oh, one area of note is the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, 5 following the September 11th terrorist attacks on our country, have taken down 6 our web site. That web site is now back, and we are bringing back pieces of 7 it periodically after reviewing that information for public release, but all the 8 information I will be discussing tonight is available currently on our NRC web 9 site.
10 Meeting agenda for tonight. Im going to be covering four 11 areas. First is its important that I establish an overall prospective of the 12 Nuclear Regulatory Commissions independent inspection activities that we 13 perform at Diablo Canyon and at the remaining 102 nuclear power plants in the 14 country.
15 In addition, we will be providing a summary of the findings 16 and assessments for the nine-month period from April 2000 to December of 17 2001.
18 I will also be talking about two focus areas that are important 19 from both a national and a local prospective. These will be security as well as 20 a vessel head -- reactor vessel head degradation issue that you people mayve 21 heard about at the Davis Besse nuclear power plant.
22 And lastly and very importantly is the opportunity for members 23 of the audience to ask questions and I will provide answers. And also that 24 period will be for any comments that people may wish to make.
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1 When you came in, we had a registration table. If you wish 2 to be recognized for a statement, please sign in. Otherwise, we welcome you 3 to listen and make comments as they arrive. In addition, we have a sign-up 4 sheet for any comments or questions people may have knowing that they come 5 into the meeting with.
6 We will also take a break following the formal presentation 7 and allow people to sign up for additional questions or comments that they may 8 wish to make at that time.
9 Im providing two handouts on each of your chairs here. One 10 is a feedback memo. The second is a copy of the pertinent issues. I 11 encourage everyone to look at that feedback memo following the meeting and 12 to fill it out.
13 This is very important to us to assure that were effectively 14 communicating to the public the information that is shown to you, that youre 15 able to identify in appropriately assessing that with you. So, please, if you have 16 any recommendations, comments, please put them on the feedback form. You 17 can either leave them with me when you leave or you can mail it in.
18 In addition, if you have any questions that you feel need 19 further clarification, feel free to provide those on the feedback form in the 20 comment section also.
21 First, Id like to introduce the NRC personnel with me tonight 22 that will be conducting the assessment of Diablo Canyons performance during 23 the nine-month period.
24 With me tonight is Mr. David Proulx. Mr. Proulx is the Senior 25 Resident Inspector at Diablo Canyon. Diablo Canyon is his work station. Mr.
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1 Proulx usually can be, and he is the one responsible for essentially the 2 inspection program at Diablo Canyon.
3 And with me now is Mr. Terry Jackson. Mr. Jackson is the 4 Resident Inspector at Diablo Canyon, and he also has responsibility for running 5 a part of the inspection program at Diablo Canyon.
6 Also in the back is Ms. Agnes Chan. She is the Resident 7 Assistant for Diablo Canyon for Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
8 In addition, we have provided -- we have brought additional 9 NRC personnel to assist with any questions and comments that we receive 10 from the audience tonight. With me tonight is Mr. Elmo Collins. Mr. Collins is 11 Deputy Director for the Division of Reactor Projects.
12 In the back, when you have a chance during the break to take 13 a look at, Mr. Collins has brought Lisa Forbes, and myself, we have 14 responsibility for the oversight of nuclear power plants for assessment of the 15 plants and the leak secure area. That also includes Diablo Canyon.
16 In addition, I have Mr. Stu Richards. Mr. Richards is the 17 Project Director for the Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulations. He is located 18 in Rockville, Maryland, and that is our headquarters office.
19 We also have with us Mr. Girija Shukla. Mr. Shukla is the 20 Project Manager for Diablo Canyon. He also is located in Rockville, Maryland.
21 And I also have Mr. Tony Healy. Mr. Healy is the Branch 22 Chief for the Operating and Licensing Branch in Region IV located out of 23 Arlington, Texas.
24 At this time, Id like to provide Mr. Oatley an opportunity to 25 introduce the persons with you.
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1 MR. OATLEY: Good evening. Im not used to stand and 2 speaking, so if we stand and sit down, please bear with us. My names David 3 Oatley. Im the Vice President of Diablo Canyon Operations for PG&E.
4 To my right is Greg Reuger. Greg is the Senior Vice 5 President for Generation and Chief Nuclear Officer.
6 To my immediate left is Jim Becker. Jim is the Station 7 Director, or other places its called Plant Manager, for Diablo Canyon, and to 8 my far left is Jim Tompkins. Jim is the Manager of Nuclear Quality Analysis 9 and License.
10 MR. JONES: Thank you. The first area for discussion tonight 11 because its important to establish a competent understanding of how the 12 Nuclear Regulatory Commission goes about inspecting a nuclear power plant.
13 Out of 103 operating nuclear power plants in the country, we 14 have what is called reactor oversight process. By inspection activities, I mean 15 that we have inspectors, such as Mr. Proulx, Mr. Jackson and others from our 16 regional office, as well as individuals from headquarters, who overview or 17 oversee a lot of these activities on a daily basis.
18 Well describe some of these activities later on in the 19 presentation. We are actively involved in an independent manner of 20 overseeing the activities and operations of Diablo Canyon.
21 First of all, Id like to describe the four goals that were 22 developed in developing the NRCs independent inspection process. First and 23 foremost is the NRC has responsibilities for overseeing the nations 103 nuclear 24 power plants to ensure the safety and protection of the environment. That is 25 to maintain and to protect the environment.
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1 Next is to enhance public confidence. The only way to try to 2 do this is to provide forums such as this so that we can receive any comments 3 and answer questions that you may have relative to the NRC inspection 4 process.
5 In addition, you will have an opportunity to ask these 6 questions of the other individuals here regarding any other issues that are 7 important to you involving the Nuclear Regulatory Commissions activities.
8 We are not here to provide either a probe or -- to promote 9 nuclear power regulatory -- to finally shut the plants down. Our purpose here 10 is to inform the public of the NRC inspection activities and the independent 11 activities that we are involved in throughout the NRC with regard to inspection 12 and licensing activities.
13 One of the principle reasons we go about doing this and one 14 of the goals is to improve the regulatory effectiveness, efficiency and realism 15 for the decision-making process.
16 What we mean on this, is our process has to be scrupled, it 17 has to stand up to reach at our stakeholders, to the licensees, to the Congress, 18 to members of the public so that the decisions that we make and actually take 19 are understandable. It also has to be repeatable. In other words, when we 20 come up with an inspection finding, and we apply it through our oversight 21 process, we want to ensure that we come up with the same decision each time, 22 and that it is understandable.
23 It allows us to reduce unnecessary regulatory burden. The 24 key word here is unnecessary. We want to make sure that the regulations that NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 we enforce are appropriate and that they actually have the same operation as 2 Diablo Canyon.
3 This letter provides us an overview of where were going to 4 see and how many hours were going to see a stint in overseeing --
5 independently overseeing the operations of Diablo Canyon in our licensing 6 bureau -- licensing activity of Diablo Canyon.
7 The headquarters activities involved over 1,700 hours0.0081 days <br />0.194 hours <br />0.00116 weeks <br />2.6635e-4 months <br /> of 8 individuals reviewing license activities. Those are things such as licensing 9 amendments, those regulations that governed how the plant has to be 10 operated. So, thats the parameters for that.
11 Also, we allow plants such as the independent spent fuels 4-12 H facility the opportunity as we speak at the end of this last year. Those are 13 the type of activities that the Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulations 14 Headquarters is involved in.
15 Next is the regional hours. The regional inspectors provide 16 specialized inspections for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. They come 17 out of the Arlington, Texas office mostly, sometimes, we give out other offices 18 they have available to us.
19 These individuals perform inspections in specialized areas 20 such as making a hearing application, which youre going to make in those 21 activities, operator licensing activities. Those would be the type of things, 22 especially performed out of the regional office.
23 Next we have over 3,200 hours0.00231 days <br />0.0556 hours <br />3.306878e-4 weeks <br />7.61e-5 months <br /> expended by the Resident 24 Inspectors, and this is for a nine-month period. The Resident Inspectors are NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 those who are here everyday overseeing the plant operations. Ill go further 2 into the activities theyre involved in.
3 Theyre the ones who are in there to ensure on a daily basis 4 that the plant is operating safely. They perform the inspection program on a 5 daily basis, and theyre the ones who would follow up on any events or 6 conditions on a daily basis that are necessary.
7 Next Id like to try and show reactor oversight process and 8 how its developed. Id like to use reading off the slide to first illustrate the 9 mission of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and that is to protect the public 10 health and safety and to protect the environment.
11 To do this, to leave this in our submission, we have 12 established three areas that we thought was key to gather information and 13 perform inspections, and those areas are reactor safety, radiation safety and 14 security.
15 Now, I want to point out that this oversight program was 16 developed well over four years ago, and at that time, security was identified as 17 one of the three peak strategic performance areas.
18 In addition, the NRC considers crosscutting areas in our 19 inspection activities. These areas involve human performance, corrective 20 action programs by the licensees and safety conscious work environment or 21 the willingness of plant employees to bring forth issues.
22 The crosscutting issues are what we look at when we do our 23 inspection activities and on a yearly basis, currently, to review the licensees 24 ability to bring forth problems, to address these problems and the willingness 25 of the employee to bring forthissues tothe licensee orto talk tous ifnecessary.
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1 The NRC has developed four key areas as part of our 2 assessment program. The previous slide addressed the three key areas that 3 we look at in order to ensure the health and safety of the public is maintained 4 as well as protection of the environment.
5 We take the information we get through the inspection 6 activities, we apply it to the assessment program. This assessment program 7 falls under a scrutinizedable process.
8 When referring to a process, it usually implies taking 9 information from an inspection and other independent source that we look at, 10 which Ill describe here briefly. Putting together to come up with an objective 11 review of the licensees performance, we utilize an action matrix -- its a very 12 complex matrix, it provides for the NRC to determine what our appropriate 13 inspection of it will be, what the appropriate NRC management involvement will 14 be and what the appropriate enforcement activity will be.
15 This assessment matrix that I am referring to provides for a 16 repeatable process and repeatable asset of our oversight process.
17 At the beginning of every year, we also provide a plant 18 specific assessment letter. This has also been on the NRC web site. It is 19 clearly available now for your perusal on our web site. This provides a year-20 end assessment of the performance of Diablo Canyon. This also provides 21 reaching the other 102 operating nuclear power plants.
22 In addition to performing the end of the year review, the NRC 23 also performs a quarterly review. This is concerning information that we obtain 24 in both licensee and from our inspection activities, is reviewed periodically on 25 a quarterly basis and to ensure that theres no action that the NRC needs to NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 take in the interim before we know what to file, what to cycle, we need, which 2 leads up to this meeting. This information is available on the NRC web site.
3 This site helps to put together how the NRCs oversight 4 processes as I referred to comes together. The top is the strategic 5 performance areas. These are reactor safety, radiation safety and security --
6 strategic performance areas that I referred to.
7 The safety cornerstones are each broken out underneath the 8 strategic performance areas. I will gladly go over that with you, for anyone 9 whos interested, during a break or well take it up after the meeting.
10 Before going to the slides to show that theres two 11 independent paths the NRC goes about in determining what information will be 12 used to assess the performance.
13 The first is performance indicators. We use quantifiable data 14 that the NRC gets from each of our licensees. The other half is based on 15 inspection activities. These are the inspections that regional inspectors, 16 resident inspectors perform to determine the licensees overall performance.
17 Theres a significance threshold approach that Ill go over in 18 just a moment. That information goes into the action matrix and from that, we 19 get the NRC response, and as I indicated, the NRC response indicates the type 20 of inspection were going to perform, we have NRC involvement as well as the 21 appropriate action to be taken.
22 This slide is to provide a summary of the significant levels 23 that the NRC has established for the findings that we could come up with. The 24 inspection program, and what Ill refer to as the performance indicators, those 25 two parallel paths use the same safety significance guidelines.
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1 These show a very low safety significance at the green color.
2 Those performance indicators as well as the inspection problems that fall under 3 the very low safety significance.
4 As we escalate, the white line is low to moderate in an 5 inspection significance or performance indicator. Yellow and then red is the 6 highest. Based on these findings, when they are assessed in the matrix, they 7 determine the NRCs overall response.
8 Performance indicators. This is the information that is 9 provided by each of our licensees -- by licensees in this case Im referring to 10 Pacific Gas & Electric. This is the same information thats provided by the 11 other 102 nuclear power plants. This information provides through objective 12 methods. Its the same information in each of the plants. Theyre provided on 13 a quarterly basis. It is quantifiable information, and its one of the elements we 14 utilize in assessing Pacific Gas & Electrics performance at Diablo Canyon.
15 We have indicators developed for each of the strategic areas.
16 In yellow, we have indicators developed for each of the cornerstones, which 17 feed into each of the strategic performance areas, and for clarity, combined 18 with simplicity, Im going to maintain discussions at the strategic performance 19 area level.
20 One important aspect of the performance indicator data is 21 that this information is verified by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, 22 independent of the licensees. We have established inspection programs, and 23 we go out, we put the information that the licensee has provided, Pacific Gas 24 & Electric. We take that information, we perform inspections, we verify that the 25 information theyre giving is accurate.
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1 This next slide provides an example of how a performance 2 indicator information is developed. This is updated on a quarterly basis by the 3 Nuclear Regulatory Commission from each of the licensees. This is available 4 on our web site.
5 If you go to our web site, you could go to Diablo Canyon and 6 pull all the indicators up for Diablo Canyon if you wished. This will give you the 7 current performance in that area, as well as the area threshold, and you could 8 go back historically to review that information.
9 Next Id like to transition to the inspection program itself.
10 Weve just been talking about the performance indicators and how that 11 information is provided by the licensees and verified independently by the 12 Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
13 The first one I want to talk about is the resident inspectors.
14 Resident inspectors are key to the reactor oversight process. In other words, 15 theyre the ones who perform the day-to-day inspections of the facility. They 16 perform key areas, and Mr. David Proulx, I introduced earlier, and Mr. Terry 17 Jackson, are purely the people who have responsibility for the resident 18 inspectors inspection activity at Diablo Canyon.
19 These individuals, as I talked about earlier, live in the 20 community. These are the individuals that provide the prompt response 21 capability in the event of a condition developed at a plant or if this were to 22 occur. And these people, they live in the area and they report to Diablo Canyon 23 to work everyday.
24 Next is the regional inspectors. The regional inspectors 25 provide a specialized inspection report, exactly in the area of engineering, in NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 the area of maintenance, in the area of maintenance and in the area of 2 operations. For example, we have an inspector in the operator licensing 3 branch personnel.
4 These individuals are specialized in many areas. They visit 5 each of the plants, and they provide an overall inspection of the licensees 6 performance in our regional office.
7 These individuals also make routine inspections. The most 8 important routine inspections that they make is our problem on educational 9 resolution. This is an inspection that goes out and looks at the licensees 10 corrective action process, looks at the safety conscious work environment and 11 provides input back into the overall inspection and assessment process, which 12 we call -- refer to corrective actions, safety conscious work environment. These 13 are two of the three cornerstones and its identified that can go across all the 14 peak performance areas.
15 They also perform reactive inspections. If theres an event 16 or a condition at the plant, and we have the capability to be out in a day or so 17 and to provide inspection backup to the reg inspectors and to provide 18 specialized inspections if need be. Ill follow with inspections that that they now 19 perform.
20 The Nuclear Regulatory Commission performs based on 21 inspections at each of the 103 nuclear power plants inspectors. These 22 inspections are to gather objective evidence of plant safety, and we do note the 23 Nuclear Regulatory Commission employees who are out there at the facility are 24 doing inspection activities in each of those strategic performance areas.
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1 As I indicated, this is both based on inspections performed 2 at each of the nations 103 plants. This is the same inspection program for 3 each one. This inspection program focuses on safety significant issues. We 4 use information that we have developed as well as information from the 5 licensees for Pacific Gas & Electric to ensure that the areas that were looking 6 at are wide areas.
7 And also we monitor the licensee effectiveness in finding and 8 fixing safety issues and the key to ensuring that the licensees maintain a robust 9 corrective action program, we look at this on a regular basis from resident 10 inspectors, the regional inspectors look at this aspect of the program with 11 Pacific Gas & Electric program and we perform an inspection as we have going 12 on right now at Diablo Canyon for their overall corrective action program.
13 Next is Event Follow-Up and Supplemental Inspections.
14 When at all possible, our inspection process that we perform allows us to 15 review events for significance. I indicated that we established a baseline 16 inspection program in the regional facility.
17 If needed, we have the capability to escalate our inspection 18 to look at any issues that we find to be safety significant. Depending upon the 19 level of significant, we can determine if this is a special inspection, which is a 20 couple of members all go out to large teams of inspectors involved in our senior 21 executive staff to be there, if necessary.
22 And basically we have supplemental inspections.
23 Supplemental inspections fall out from and -- based on inspection program as 24 well as the performance indicators.
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1 We find during inspection activity that there is a event or 2 mission that was blown outside the very low risk significance, and that would 3 put us into an area where we would conduct additional inspections, 4 supplemental inspections.
5 The second part for performance indicators is we have data 6 and we look at the licensee who are beginning to be or troubling to be a 7 concern. That can also cause us to change or add onto based on inspections 8 that we perform.
9 These supplement inspections allow us to determine causes 10 for performance decline. In addition, it provides for a graduated response. As 11 I talked about earlier, the action matrix and the information from inspection 12 finds and performance indicators comes together, and based on the 13 significance, where we find out -- where a licensee could fall out, to determine 14 what inspections we need to initiate, and this is the integral part of our 15 inspection process.
16 Inspection Program. Inspections reports are available also 17 on the NRC web site. They describe findings and regulatory issues and safety 18 significance that are more than minor. We believe they are important for the 19 licensee to observe.
20 Conditions we can talk about in moderation should there be 21 an instance where they attempt moderations, and its not corrected 22 appropriately. These inspection reports, as I indicated, are publicly accessible.
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1 provides for the integration of both the inspection activities that are performed 2 and the performance indicators indicated by the licensees.
3 The assessment program provides for the objective review 4 of the licensee performance. Again, the use of the action matrix determines 5 the inspections and obviously mandatory response.
6 With this, comes the plant assessment letters, a description 7 of how the licensee performed during the last year, and also this information is 8 available on the NRC web site.
9 With that, Id like to announce in addition to the discussion 10 and the type of inspection activities and performance indicators that we look at 11 Diablo Canyon and the plant safety performance, Mr. Jackson will provide that.
12 MR. JACKSON: Okay, as Bill mentioned earlier, the NRC 13 mission is to ensure public health and safety in relation to operation of 14 commercial in nuclear power plants, and the ways that we do that is one 15 through, like he said, through inspections and through viewing performance 16 indicator data.
17 And we look at the three primary areas, and that is reactor 18 safety, and we look at radiation safety. We also look at safeguards or security, 19 and what Im going to do now is just kind of give you some examples of some 20 inspections and performance indicator data that we look at as part of their job 21 and part of whats going on at Diablo Canyon.
22 First of all, in the reactor safety area, one of the inspections 23 we do is called equipment walk-ins, and we go out and we look at the safety 24 pumps, the valves and associated equipment, medical equipment, and we walk NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 these down, we make sure theyre lined up, theyre ready to go, if they were 2 called upon.
3 We also look at exactly what function theyre supposed to 4 provide, and we make sure that the plant is not -- that the design of that system 5 has not changed such that it wouldnt meet the assumptions that we had in the 6 beginning of what this is to do.
7 Another inspection we do is we evaluate, operate or 8 requalification. The operators that go through a requalification process and 9 both the resident inspectors and the regional inspectors will go in there, theyll 10 watch the operators on simulators, and they want to see how they respond to 11 simulated events or see how they use the procedure, what procedures are 12 adequate, and just overall process how particular events are handled.
13 We also have to look at the performance indicator data in the 14 act of safety here, and one of the performance indicators we look at, as Bill 15 mentioned earlier, are the dritfs and thats a pretty easy one to track here.
16 Assuming the other performance indicator data that we look 17 at also are the availability of the disarmaments that in turn up in the community 18 and youve probably seen some of these, as youre driving along, and the NRC 19 looks at the data that Pacific Gas & Electric will provide to us. We will review 20 that data to make sure that they accurately reported it, and as Bill had also 21 mentioned if it shows a steady state, and fills a certain criterion well, then the 22 NRC will take the appropriate response.
23 Another area we look at is radiation safety, and this involves 24 radiation safety for workers there at the plant and radiation safety of the public.
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1 look at, is we want to make sure that the kind of person there know the level of 2 radiation in these particular areas of the plant.
3 We also make sure that these areas are controlled, that the 4 people go into these areas, that they have the appropriate protective clothing, 5 the monitoring devices and we check to make sure that if all the requirements 6 as far as radiation safety is concerned with nuclear power plant workers.
7 One of the performance indicators that we look at, as part of 8 public radiation safety is concerned, is that we look at the radiation that is from 9 the plant as far as like the plant is required to have these monitoring devices, 10 will monitor how much radiation will escape into the environment.
11 Well review that data, and theres certain criteria that the 12 releases have to be alerted, and if it sees that, then the NRC will take action 13 part of the action matrix in response to that.
14 In the security area, we also do inspections and other 15 performance indicator data, and we have regional inspectors that are security 16 experts that come out to the plants and some things hell check is hell check 17 the access control equipment and make sure that only authorized persons are 18 able to get into the plant.
19 He will check the equipment that checks for contraband, that 20 you may expect that terrorists may try to get into the plant. So, these 21 investigators use that as part of the inspection and several others.
22 One of the performance indicator data steps that PG&E 23 submits to the NRC in security area is security monitoring equipment 24 throughout the plant, to make sure that that equipment is being maintained 25 properly and that its available.
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1 So, PG&E will submit that data to the NRC and we will, in 2 turn, review that data and make sure that what they have reported is correct.
3 Mr. Jones also mentioned three crosscutting issues, and that 4 was human performance, safety conscious work environment and corrective 5 action, and as far as human performance is concerned, almost all of our 6 inspection procedures, they usually address a human performance issue in 7 this.
8 For example, if an operator puts a valve in the wrong position 9 and he forgot the safety equipment from the operating regulation, the 10 equipment walk-down procedure I mentioned earlier we walk all through and 11 see that, then we can address the human performance issue there, which is the 12 operator placing the valve in the wrong position.
13 One of the other -- one of our bigger inspections that we have 14 -- we perform usually in nuclear power plants was the corrective action 15 inspection that Bill mentioned, and what we do in the corrective action 16 inspection, what we do is we look to see that plant personnel are identifying the 17 problem areas within the plant, theyre not only just to look on the problems, but 18 making sure that these problems are being corrected.
19 And we also will look at the -- how the employee concern 20 program, and employees there -- they may have safety concerns, they can 21 bring it to the plant employee concern program and the plant can then address 22 and fix the concern any way, but if it seems like that another employee, for 23 instance, brings concerns to the plant, and theyre not being addressed 24 properly, then we would detect that in the corrective action inspection program NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 and also the residents who are there and walking through the plant, were open 2 to take any kind of safety concern that employees would have.
3 So, that would give us some indication also of a safety 4 conscious environment and weve started seeing a lot of concerns that havent 5 been addressed in the past even though folks have brought it up to plant -- to 6 the plant employee concern program.
7 And then, of course, the corrective action -- we have to look 8 at the corrective action, in that one, the inspection -- the key inspections that 9 they carry out, but they also look at the corrective action on a daily basis, and 10 one of the advantages of having an inspector there at the plant is that we know 11 what kind of activities are wrong, how long they stay in the control room until 12 some of the operators find out how things have been going, what kind of issues 13 that they deal with, and then well follow up on these issues and make sure that 14 they are properly addressed.
15 So, right now, Ill hand it off to David Proulx, the Senior 16 Resident Inspector, and hell discuss some of the inspections over the past nine 17 months.
18 MR. PROULX: Thank you, Terry. As Bill and Terry said, Im 19 David Proulx, Im the Senior Resident Inspector at the site. Im in charge of 20 ensuring that the inspection program is completed, and I also have conducted 21 a number of inspections myself.
22 Okay, what I want to talk about first is the performance 23 indicator results. All performance indicators are within, what we call, the 24 licensees response venues, which means that theyre all coded green. And 25 these are the performance reactor results that you can find on the web site.
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1 And to give you an idea of what we do as resident inspectors, 2 one of the things that we do is evaluate the validity of the performance 3 indicators, and one example of a finding that we had in the past nine months 4 is that PG&E was slightly under-reporting their leak rates on their reactor 5 holding system, which is one of the performance indicators governed by the 6 area computer program.
7 Theres only a minor difference of the actual amount was but 8 PG&E corrected the problem, placed it in the corrective action system. We 9 determined it was of very low significance, and it didnt affect the color of the 10 performance indicator either way, but it does show that were looking very 11 closely at the validity of their performance indicators to ensure that the public 12 and the NRC are getting the right numbers.
13 Our overall inspection findings. Inspection findings were all 14 in a very low safety significance, which is what we would call a green finding.
15 Id like to mention that I have a sign above my desk that I 16 received from my boss, when we first went into the new process that says 17 green does not equal good, and essentially what -- thats a fairly accurate 18 statement, were talking about NRC inspection findings.
19 When we determine that a finding is of green significance, it 20 means its of very low safety significance, and its a finding that the licensee, 21 PG&E can correct on their own, placing an inner corrective action process and 22 fixing it with their own processes.
23 A couple of examples of findings of note in the past year.
24 With respect to reactor safety, there was an issue with respect to an 25 atmospheric steam belt valve which is used for cooling.
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1 There was a cracked bolt on a valve, and the correction and 2 identification of it and evaluation of it were not timely. Of course, PG&E 3 performed a significant evaluation of this, took the proper corrective actions 4 and placed in their program and fixed it using their normal processes.
5 We evaluated using our significance determination process, 6 determined the finding was green, which meant that they could place it in the 7 corrective action process and fix it using their normal processes.
8 In addition to the area of reactor safety, we found issues 9 related to the training and preparation for operations for cooling the reactor off 10 when you shut down. The thing -- under the same thing that was also 11 determined to be of very low safety significance which meant that PG&E could 12 place it in their corrective action system and correct it using their normal 13 processes.
14 An example of finding we had a radiation safety involved an 15 air-born radiation monitor that wasnt operable during movement of items over 16 the spent fuel pool. Again, we determined it was of very low safety significance, 17 placed it in their corrective action program, and it was of very low risk 18 significance.
19 Each of these findings you can find on the NRCs web site 20 under the inspection findings sections. You can click on any one of them and 21 find it green. There are several other findings which we also determined to be 22 of very low safety significance.
23 And just to give you those examples to illustrate that -- just 24 because everything was green in the inspection process doesnt mean that NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 there werent findings, and there werent issues -- its just that they were of very 2 low significance.
3 Now, those are the findings that we had during our weekly 4 operations. There was one special inspection conducted in the year in 5 response to a gas fire, which well talk about in just a minute, and there were 6 no supplemental inspections performed, which are normally performed 7 following a defecation of items that were of light or higher significance.
8 Now, in May of last year, the licensee in conjunction with the 9 California Department of Forestry was conducting a controlled burn in the 10 hillsides just outside of the plant protected area.
11 The controlled burn became larger than they anticipated and 12 caused a flash over on their off-site power sources and caused a temporary 13 loss of one of their sources of off-site power.
14 The plant continued to operate, and there were some minor 15 challenges to operators, but because we believed that there was a potential for 16 a loss of more than one source of off-site power, we conducted a special 17 inspection which I was team leader of that special inspection.
18 In addition, the Davis Besse event was going on. I personally 19 responded to the controlling and monitoring of the operator responses, which 20 was very good and focused on safety.
21 Now, the special inspection found that the controlled burn 22 was not maintained properly and it did provide some challenges to the plant, 23 and the licensee took significant corrective actions to ensure that such an event 24 doesnt happen again, and in evaluating this from our significance 25 determination process, we determined that the event was of very low risk NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 significance and that PG&E corrected, using their normal corrective action 2 processes.
3 And now Id like to turn over to PG&G to see if they have 4 anything to add for those -- findings.
5 MR. OATLEY: Thank you, David. Jim Becker, our station 6 director is going to be addressing the special inspection.
7 MR. BECKER: Yes, Id like to take just a minute and briefly 8 discuss corrective actions we did take for this fire.
9 Immediately after the event occurred, once we had stabilized 10 the plant recovery from the event, we immediately placed a hold on any further 11 activities to do controlled burns until we could complete an investigation and 12 take corrective actions, and that is what we did.
13 We entered into our corrective action process, like David and 14 others have referred to here, we did an investigation, determined what we 15 thought were the causes of the event, and we ended up writing a special 16 procedure just to be used for when were doing a controlled burn with California 17 Department of Forestry and that special procedure includes all the lessons 18 learned from this event to make sure -- test results with respect to the nine-19 month period we just had is that PG&E effectively managed reactive safety, 20 radiation safety and plant security.
21 Now, as I said before, that doesnt mean that there werent 22 any issues that needed to be corrected during this nine-month period, but it 23 does mean that when each of these issues came up we determined they were 24 of low significance and PG&E effectively corrected and managed the issues 25 and maintained plant safety, such that weve determined that they are in the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 licensee response columns, which means that we did not perform any 2 additional; inspections.
3 The strategic area objectives were fully met and that weve determined that the 4 public health and safety was properly ensured, and if you have anything to add 5 --
6 MR. OATLEY: Just a couple of quick comments before 7 moving on. You know, PG&E believes that Diablo Canyon performance 8 remains high especially during the period that this discussion of last year.
9 If you go back in time and look at where we started the year from, from a PG&E 10 perspective, the internet energy crisis, the shortage of electricity in the state, 11 the company entered into bankruptcy, and if that werent enough, when 12 September 11th, the horrific event of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
13 In spite of that, however, weve remained focused on safe operation at Diablo.
14 Weve taken the plant down in power when there were severe electrical storms.
15 Even though there were shortages in electricity in the state at that time. We 16 had our safest outage ever last year, by all measures, our lowest radiation 17 exposure for our personnel and our team, least amount of industrial injuries and 18 industrial performance.
19 And the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations, which evaluates us 20 independently in addition to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission continues to 21 give us high marks. So, we felt that nine months that were talking about here 22 in this public meeting were going to have strong performance. Thank you.
23 MR. JONES: As Mr. Proulx indicated, the Nuclear Regulatory 24 Commission during this current consistent cycle is conducting the baseline 25 inspection program, and were also currently conducting the problem NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 identification and resolution inspection which is looking at the corrective action 2 program. We will conduct the second cycle based on current performance 3 baseline on as well as the corrective action inspections.
4 Id like to move on to the next issue, to provide an overview of the reactor 5 inspection process that we have utilized at each of the major nuclear power 6 plants to assess their performance, describe the inspection activities that we 7 perform at Diablo Canyon, the inspections that we will performing here in the 8 current cycle or currently at the baseline inspection level and the massive 9 involvement of the NRC, as well as the resident inspector. Those are all the 10 issues that come out of the action matrix as far as how the NRC will respond 11 based on our inspection findings as well as the performance indicator data that 12 we have.
13 With that, Id like to move on to two issues that are clearly of concern for both 14 the national and the local level. The first is the security of nuclear power plants, 15 and Ill follow that with reactor vessel head regulations.
16 It is also important that I provide some context for Nuclear Regulatory actions 17 related to the two issues where they may emerge. The Nuclear Regulatory 18 Commission responded as required and as needed. Following the terrorist 19 attacks on our country of September 11th, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission 20 initiated both our Emergency Response Center in Rockville, Maryland, and 21 these are the incident response centers in the regional offices. Based on that, 22 weve established communications with each of the 103 licensees as well as 23 other holders of the licenses or materials, and based on that, the licensees 24 were placed into the highest level of security based on a safeguard for security, 25 a document that had previously been issued to these licensees.
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1 So, within hours of the attacks on our country, the Nuclear Regulatory 2 Commission responded by getting information out to each of the licensees and 3 the security program was put to our highest level.
4 As I indicated and intimated, our emergency response, and we stated that 5 heightened response was for a certain period of approximately ninety days and 6 continued to monitor daily each of the licensees activities.
7 In addition, the mandated licensee actions, and Ill talk about that when we get 8 to the security programs. The NRC was challenged in two ways since 9 September 11th. First is, what actions were we going to require of each of our 10 licensees, in this case Pacific Gas & Electric, based on the security events, and 11 second, based on the findings and based on inspections that were performed 12 on our reactor vessel head.
13 We have currently 69 plants in the United States affected by similar conditions 14 in todays threat to nuclear power plants. Next slide.
15 First, I think its important to understand that there has been since the licensees 16 of Diablo Canyon and the other 102 nuclear power plants, substantial securities 17 program in place. These involve defense in depth from the security standpoint 18 -- we call them security officers -- well-trained security officers, barriers, 19 detection devices, security programs that access monitoring, just to mention 20 several of them.
21 In addition to those that we have one of the three strategic performance areas 22 involves security. It is the subsequent events four years ago that is identified 23 as one of the three key areas the Nuclear Regulatory Commission need come 24 out to a safe operation of each of the nuclear power plants in the country to 25 ensure the health and safety from day to day and to protect the environment.
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1 However, the security programs that we demonstrated following the September 2 11th attacks was the integrated federal, state and local licensee response to the 3 terrorist threat. This involved Department of Defense, Department of Energy, 4 the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the Federal Aviation Administration, the 5 Federal Bureau of Investigation and other intelligence agencies.
6 Theyve come together in an integrated fashion to ensure that intelligence 7 involving potential terrorist attacks is transmitted to the licensees.
8 As a footnote, there has not been a credible threat to any U.S. nuclear power 9 plant. Ill repeat that again. There has not been a credible threat to any U.S.
10 nuclear power plant, but the NRC, as I indicated immediately following the 11 terrorist attacks on September 11th, took several measures.
12 One of them was to put the plants at the highest level of security. Next, we 13 took the integrated security information that we obtained from different federal 14 agencies and local officials, in some cases, integrated that and issued 15 advisories. Theres been numerous advisories issued to the licensees, and this 16 week I wanted to talk about the nuclear power plant.
17 These advisories were to provide insights in areas for them to focus on if there 18 was an area of concern. As I indicated, there has not been a credible threat 19 against any U.S. nuclear power plant.
20 These advisories are updated periodically with integrated threat information 21 from each of the sources that I talked about earlier, and this came about later 22 from a separate previous homeland security office which the NRC sits in on.
23 The second action is the Nuclear Regulatory Commission -- since each of the 24 licensees going to the high level of security has verified that the licensee is 25 actually at the high level of security. The resident inspectors have taken on a NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 tremendous new role and a lot of them have security updated at many nuclear 2 power plants.
3 In addition, we have specialists from the regional office who have gone out to 4 each of the power plants and observed the kind of activities theyve been 5 involved in.
6 And actually, the NRC issued a report stating what specific requirements were 7 going to be for the licensees to go from, which included such things as moving 8 back some of the barriers. This shows essentially that security of the advisors 9 that were sent out and to establish worker requirements in the long run for 10 security of nuclear power plants.
11 Id like to point out that there is a coordinated effort with the federal agencies, 12 the FAA, the FBI and other agencies to assess intelligence information, and 13 again, there was the utilization of transportation security law, to protect nuclear 14 power plants and other non-nuclear facilities from terrorist activities.
15 So, there have been a significant amount of activities ongoing since September 16 11th in emergency response, as well as enhancements to the existing security 17 programs at nuclear plants.
18 The last issue is reactor vessel head integrity. This just identifies that the Davis 19 Besse nuclear power plants in Ohio, the NRC, last year, year 2001, issued a 20 bulletin requiring each of the 69 special light water reactors to do do a head 21 inspection. In addition, during the vessel head inspection, this is the dome, the 22 top of the reactor vessel, identifies that the carbon steel top around the control 23 rod penetration essentially corroded away. Underneath that is a stainless steel 24 island that was serving strictly as a pressure boundary. This was a substantial 25 degradation for the margin of safety of that power plant.
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1 Based on that information, we also issued a second bulletin, initially, requiring 2 the licensees to respond to the -- to respond based on inspections that they 3 had before, and provide assurance that those conditions did not exist at their 4 facility.
5 Diablo Canyon provided that response and the NRC is looking at. In addition 6 to reviewing that, they are able to do a regional inspection of the vessel head.
7 Importantly, the NRC in this case has acted to ensure that these conditions 8 which can potentially affect safety in the case of Davis Besse was a substantial 9 challenge to the safety margins do not occur at the other plants, in this case, 10 Diablo Canyon.
11 The NRC will be performing an inspection to specifically look at a licensees 12 activities related to reactor vessel heads at Diablo Canyon, for both units, and 13 well be doing that during the upcoming review.
14 With that, Id like to provide an opportunity for any closing remarks youd like 15 to make.
16 MR. OATLEY: I think the two areas that Id like to make brief 17 comments on are the last two areas that Mr. Jones talked about.
18 First, on reactor pressure vessel head issue that he mentioned Davis Besse, 19 we are very cognizant of that. We have very competent people that have been 20 following that for some time, and as mentioned, we developed our own robotic 21 device that we do an inspection -- full visual inspection of our reactor head.
22 Well take whatever actions are necessary. However, we dont expect to find 23 any issues, given the age of our plant.
24 Second, the security issue, and thats one we clearly recognize our obligation 25 to the community to have a very robust program in Diablo Canyon. If you NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 havent had an opportunity to come out to Diablo, which you cant these days 2 because we dont allow visitors on the plant site, youd find that we have a very 3 robust security program.
4 Its a highly trained group of individuals that must by NRC regulations repel a 5 paramilitary-style attack. To repel a paramilitary-style attack, you must yourself 6 be yourself be paramilitary force. So, these individuals are rigorously trained 7 and have the best tools available including state-of-the-art protection 8 equipment available to them.
9 Employees working at Diablo go through a rigorous background screening, 10 including fingerprints and FBI background checks, and we know who those 11 individuals are and what their backgrounds are prior to working on site and 12 being allowed inside our protected areas.
13 And finally we cooperated fully with all of the agencies. We appreciate the 14 NRC providing this information as we move through these difficult times.
15 Weve cooperated fully with the local sheriffs department, the FBI and various 16 other state agencies and take whatever actions are necessary for Diablo 17 Canyon. Thank you very much.
18 MR. JONES: In closing, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission 19 has established an independent, comprehensive reactor oversight program.
20 The program is implemented by inspectors regulated by the Nuclear Regulatory 21 Commission and information thats provided by Pacific Gas & Electric which 22 also can be verified by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
23 Based on that information, assessing it under the action matrix in other words 24 is a suitable and repeatable aspect of our process, we found that Pacific Gas 25 & Electric maintained the public health and safety for the assessment period, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 and the NRC demonstrated the capability and resources to respond and 2 impose additional requirements. These involved both security requirements as 3 well as requirements with regard to reactor safety, in particular reactor vessel 4 head degradation.
5 With that, Id like to take about a ten-minute break to allow people to move 6 around, do whatever theyd like. Then well get back together and for the 7 question and answer period, additional NRC staff will be here to take any 8 questions you might have.
9 Well also provide some additional handouts in the back regarding the oversight 10 process that we talked about and some of the features of the security at the 11 power plants and some additional information will be all there on the back table.
12 We would like you to sign up if you want to speak initially and then to sort of run 13 through those people first, and after that, if you dont wish to sign up, well just 14 do questions from the audience and then following well take the people who 15 have first signed up, and youll have an opportunity at this point to sign up for 16 any questions or comments youd like to make.
17 One thing thats important is that when you come up to speak, if you could, to 18 provide your name and the subject matter, because we are transcribing the 19 question and answer period and that will assist us in understanding your 20 question and making sure its appropriately answered.
21 Also, if you have a business card, we would appreciate that information also to 22 help with our spelling. With that, Ill go ahead -- oh, one more time, weve 23 established a three-minute limit on any comments or questions and then we 24 can take -- so everyone can have a question and still adjourn by ten oclock this 25 evening.
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1 So with that, Id like to take a break now. Thank you.
2 (Whereupon, the foregoing public hearing went off the record 3 for a ten-minute break.)
4 MR. COLLINS: Good evening. Im the Deputy Director for the 5 Division of Reactor Projects in Arlington, Texas, and I want to thank you for 6 taking the time to come out this evening. This is -- I know you have a lot of 7 choices about where you could be, I appreciate your interest. I hope the 8 meeting is informative for you, and I hope were able to answer some of your 9 questions here in this next session.
10 We have a few people signed up and well get to those but before we open it 11 up, I just wanted to talk a little bit about the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
12 Those of you who heard the presentation that want to talk about the Nuclear 13 Regulatory Commission as it applies to Diablo Canyon oversight and inspection 14 process and the results, Im going to back off a little bit and let the broader 15 picture talk a little bit about the agency we call the Nuclear Regulatory 16 Commission.
17 It was created in 1975, when the Atomic Energy Act was established by 18 Congress. Sometimes today, the NRC is criticized for promoting nuclear 19 power.
20 In 1970, the mid-70's to the early 70's, the older -- our predecessor agency, 21 the Atomic Energy Commission, was highly criticized, and in fact, they did have 22 both promotional and developmental responsibilities in nuclear energy and 23 regulatory responsibilities and any criticism was taken seriously by the 24 Congress.
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1 Congress changed the law and created the Nuclear Regulatory Commission 2 in 1975, and our only statutory mission is to provide for the safe use of the 3 civilian uses for nuclear power.
4 So, thats an issue that we take very seriously. The other agency which was 5 created in 1975 then was the predecessor of what we call the Department of 6 Energy now, the Energy Resources Development Agency. They have 7 responsibility for development and promotion of nuclear energy.
8 So, we stay away from that. If its going to be used, the NRC will be the agency 9 to make sure that its used safely.
10 So our statutory mission is clear. We are an agency which falls in the 11 executive branch of the federal government, remember of the separation of 12 power from your civics class, legislative and executive and judicial so we fall in 13 the executive branch.
14 Everything we do is governed by law and especially one that comes into play 15 under Administrative Procedures Act of 1947. The NRC cant act or cant pass 16 a regulation without following the Administrative Procedures Act, and this Act 17 was put in place with the different government agencies. Really, from being 18 abusive and overrunning the rights of the people.
19 So, we have a regulation that has to be public for prior comment. We have to 20 respect those comments on the board, and thats an opportunity for the public 21 to tell a five-member commission what you think about that subject, and that 22 is for the public, and I encourage you, if you get a chance, to look at the 23 proposed rule which the Commission is considering and engage yourself and 24 send your comments to the Agency.
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1 So, thats one of the opportunities -- if youre providing it for you, one of the 2 NRCs jobs -- the NRC forms its regulations. We are an executive branch, as 3 I said, that means were subject to Congressional oversight. The agency has 4 said we do judicial review.
5 Remember the other part of separation from power is checks and balances.
6 This is your federal government at work. Congress has oversight committees 7 and especially since September 11th. The Chairman and other members of the 8 NRC staff have answered a number of inquiries on Capitol Hill and so your 9 representatives in the House of Representatives and the Senate dont have the 10 ability to get any question answered from the NRC, and they are your 11 representatives.
12 So, once again, this is an opportunity for you, if you so desire, to make your 13 needs known to your representatives.
14 Like I said, were subject to judicial review and that means, we meet the highest 15 level we have to operate before the Constitution of the United States.
16 So, we take that seriously and we just dont go out and use regulations 17 because we desire to. So, we are charged with the safety of these facilities, 18 and so the NRC developed rules and set standards and licenses that people 19 will use these facilities and inspects them to make sure that the rules are 20 followed.
21 How does the NRC set the rules? How does the NRC decide what is safe and 22 whats not safe? Theres a lot of different ways, but amongst them are 23 engineering codes. Engineering societies set the engineering codes which are 24 necessary for construction of a lot of facilities and nuclear power plants.
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1 For instance, the society of mechanical engineers has established a code 2 which is in place and the NRC has adopted that engineering code as part of its 3 regulations for construction, and included in that, is one of the reactor pressure 4 vessels that we talked about.
5 Some of the problems that have occurred especially in other facilities are 6 inspected, and those are engineering codes which specify how thats to be 7 built, and the NRC has developed that.
8 Also, the industry of electronic and electrical engineer codes are adopted by 9 the NRC safety regulations. Also, the NRC sets standards by consensus.
10 The international and national committees, for instance, the international 11 community on radiation protection makes recommendations on what they 12 believe are the correct levels for radioactive material and radioactive doses for 13 people, and the NRC has adopted these as its basis for its regulations, and you 14 can find those in part point of our regulations.
15 So, the end result of all this, and Im just kind of glossed over it real fast is if 16 youll let me, this depicts the safety scheme of the nuclear power plant. Weve 17 talked about the three main areas, but we also identified seven cornerstones, 18 and if you will, you can get a sense for the -- we call it the fence in depth.
19 What that means is if you have a problem here or you have the other layers of 20 defense to protect you from reactor safety and any changing events making 21 a decision on the barrier integrity and emergency preparedness.
22 This is a rather -- this is a simplified depiction of that safety scheme, but it is --
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1 about the safety scheme and the processes the NRC checks so that we can 2 assure the facility is operating in a safe manner.
3 Just as a point of clarification from the earlier session, I want to thank Bill and 4 Terry and David for what theyve been able to convey to you this morning.
5 David and Terry are on the front lines of the safety for the Nuclear Regulatory 6 Commission. We rely heavily on them, theyve done a good job, but we talked 7 about some reactor pressure vessel problems.
8 In case our presentation wasnt clear, those problems were identified in a 9 nuclear power plant in Ohio. So far, no other nuclear power plant has really 10 had the problems to that extent, but the NRC is requiring an inspection of those 11 facilities to ensure that the problem is not in place, and that includes Diablo 12 Canyon and Unit 1, were going to be getting inside of shortly, and theyll be 13 performing inspections on that, and then later on, in early 2003, Unit 2 will have 14 a review on that one, and they will also be performing inspections on that.
15 So, with that, Ill turn it back over to Bill, for the questions, and we have some 16 people signed up. I appreciate your interest, and I would ask that you use the 17 microphone, if you would, in forming a question. Ill set it up here, so you can 18 get to it.
19 MR. JONES: Okay. What Id like to do is well take the five 20 seats that we currently have, give everyone an opportunity to speak for three 21 minutes on this, and after that, if youd like, just ask the questions and well take 22 care of questions from that.
23 The first individual and we have allowed for three minutes, and then well 24 respond to your question or comment is Henrietta Groop?
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1 MS. GROOP: I have two questions listed actually, I call it a 2 third one. The first question is why is the Office, the Public Affairs Office, or I 3 forget what its called, for Diablo located in Monterey, not in San Luis Obispo.
4 It doesnt make sense to me. If that is something that the public might need to 5 report, it certainly would be a little easier if that office was in town here.
6 Next question is about the -- again, I dont know the name of the committee 7 exactly, theres some sort of public safety committee that several of us local 8 people feel could use more members of the public from our community here.
9 Again, it doesnt make sense if were going to have that kind of a community, 10 we should have a good feeling of commitment to the community from the NRC, 11 I dont know, the Commission, actually, but a lot could be done to seek more 12 qualified members of the public on that.
13 And the third thing was here in this thing, we have something called unplanned 14 scrams, I think you might just quickly explain what scram is.
15 MR. JONES: Ill start with the last question first. Scram is --
16 and in this case an unplanned scram is essentially the shut down of a reactor, 17 and an unplanned scram, for example, if some conditions listed where the plant 18 will be challenged, for example, if the main generator were to trip offline, then 19 the reactor would immediately scram, and that would be one of those times 20 when we qualify it as an unplanned scram.
21 So, it would address such things as equipment failures on the plant equipment 22 such as the main generator and there could be lots of people hurt, but those 23 are the type of things that qualify as scram, and scram is a shut down of a 24 reactor. The control rods go into the core to shut down the nuclear reaction.
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1 With regard to the public affairs office in Monterey, the Nuclear Regulatory 2 Commission has a public affairs office in headquarters in Rockville, Maryland 3 and also a public affairs official in each of the regional office, in our case in 4 Arlington, Texas. The public affairs office in Monterey, I believe, would call to 5 Pacific Gas & Electric-6 MR. REUGER: I think what youre probably referring to is the 7 Diablo Canyon Independent Safety Committee, but let me explain. We have 8 a number of different organizations that review our safety. The Nuclear 9 Regulatory Commission is the only organization that has responsive 10 enforcement authority. Theyre set up to do that by the federal government as 11 was explained.
12 Okay, California, the California Public Utilities Commission 13 working with the attorney general, when we originally brought the plant to 14 operation, set up a Diablo Canyon Independent Safety Committee.
15 That committee is completely separate from the Nuclear 16 Regulatory Commission. It reviews our operations, not to the extent the NRC 17 does, in their advisory nature. They can make recommendations both to the 18 state and to PG&E, but they dont actually have enforcement authority.
19 I believe they have an office, their lead attorney, that helps 20 run that committee has an office outside of the area here, I think maybe 21 Monterey, Im not sure, that maybe what youre referring to, and I believe thats 22 the committee that I know that theres been some proposals, I believe its the 23 California Public Utilities Commission ask they consider they change the nature 24 and membership of that committee. Thats completely separate from the 25 Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
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1 If theres any comments to be made, I know theres a 2 member of that committee, Mr. Clark, I dont know if you want to say anything, 3 but-4 MR. CLARK: Here I am.
5 (Laughter.)
6 MR. JONES: Did we answer both your questions? Next is 7 Peter Wagner.
8 MR. WAGNER: Thank you. Im here for the Sierra Club. I 9 just have one question. Could you describe the way that the spent fuel rods 10 are being stored, and how robust the liquid storage pools are against a 11 potential terrorist threat at Diablo?
12 MR. JONES: The spent fuel pool where the spent fuel is 13 stored on site at Diablo Canyon. We talked earlier about security at nuclear 14 power plants. The plant is protected by several interests of principle security, 15 by well-trained security officers, by the testing equipment, by multiple barriers.
16 In addition, the same systems that protect the public concern 17 that the health and safety and protect the environment also apply to the spent 18 fuel pools.
19 There are multiple safety systems, spent fuel cooling can 20 apply cooling to the spent fuel pool. In addition, there is a barrier from the 21 spent fuel itself and from the water around it, and also theres the same 22 emergency preparedness plan that we utilize in the event of a terrorist attack 23 that could be utilized if necessary, and these plans are implemented by well-24 trained operators and utilize the same plant staff to ensure that the health and 25 safety of the public is protected.
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1 This is the coordinated effort with state and local officials that 2 these emergency plants all practice on a regular basis with the Nuclear 3 Regulatory Commission, with the state and local officials, as well as Federal 4 Emergency Management Agency.
5 With regard to an actual threat to the spent fuel pool, the 6 same protective natures that fall in place from the integrated national response 7 to terrorist activities also apply to the spent fuel pools, and that is the security 8 thats around the nuclear power plant itself, also applies to the spent fuel pool.
9 The protection that we provided from the Aviation and 10 Transportation Security Act on the same interest as provided that nationwide 11 preparation from terrorist activities.
12 One of the other measures that I would speak to protecting 13 the spent fuel pool without discussing any other physical aspect of the program 14 itself, Ill give one my colleagues an opportunity to respond to that.
15 MR. RICHARDS: My name is Stu Richards, Im with the NRC 16 Headquarters Office. Im going to try and expand on that a little bit further.
17 One of the comments you occasionally hear is that the fuel 18 is stored in a little pool that sounds not very significant, and thats not the case 19 at all.
20 Typically, the spent fuel pools are reinforced concrete walls, 21 typically four to six feet thick, and then the fuels under at least forty feet or so 22 of water.
23 So, the structure in which its contained is very robust. Its 24 also located in a manner, I think, in Diablo Canyon, with a physical NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 configuration in a site that its -- you wouldnt describe it as out in the open. So, 2 it is no way a soft target for a terrorist attack.
3 MR. COLLINS: All right, I appreciate the question. Before 4 September 11th, no one envisioned we would need to provide protection from 5 an airplane being flown deliberately into a structure.
6 So, since September 11th, weve looked at everything 7 differently, and the NRC believes the best way to provide protection for nuclear 8 power plants and other industrial facilities across the United States with an 9 integrated federal government response.
10 Accordingly, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is working 11 closely with the Federal Aviation Administration and the Department of Defense 12 to assure that the air space in the same area as nuclear power plants is 13 monitored and is protected.
14 Also, the NRC believes that the measures which are being 15 taken with airport security to include that treatment and to prevent someone 16 from being in control of an aircraft are also important, and thats a necessary 17 element to providing protection of a nuclear power plant.
18 MR. JONES: Next we have Mr. Jim Barbour.
19 MR. BARBOUR: Hi, Im just a local citizen, and I was very 20 appreciative of all the presentations that were given this afternoon. In fact, the 21 earlier question was a little bit of a segue into mine, and that is or was 22 attributed to our address tonight.
23 The issue of dry cask storage is one that has some interest 24 for me particularly, and I was curious, for one, how many other facilities will be NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 having dry cask issues associated with their particular plants out of the 103 that 2 are in the United States.
3 And I also would like to find out whether or not there are any 4 suggestions by the NRC with regard to storage of those dry cask in a central 5 location as it goes to the site around the United States that could be at higher 6 risk.
7 For instance, I know that the governor has vetoed Yucca, and 8 that is, in fact, something that comes to fruition, and we did lose Yucca 9 Mountain as a repository.
10 Would it not make more sense at that juncture to have a 11 staging location for all the dry cask at close proximity to Yucca as opposed to 12 surveying other prospects? Thank you.
13 MR. RICHARDS: Hi, Stu Richards again. Well, we didnt 14 bring anybody with us tonight thats an expert or well versed in dry cask 15 storage, but I do have some knowledge and the number of facilities already 16 using dry cask storage, I think, are probably about 20 to 25.
17 Theres other utilities who are building dry cask storage and 18 will be moving in that direction in the near future. So, the technology has been 19 around for a while. There is a track record.
20 With regard to your question about storing the fuel someplace 21 else in a centralized location, thats really the responsibility of the Department 22 of Energy to find a final waste repository. Theyre separate from the NRC, and 23 of course, as it was mentioned before, they are exploring a mountain. If Yucca 24 Mountain goes forward, the NRCs goal is to license the facility, put it through 25 a safety review.
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1 The ministry has the option of trying to coming up with some 2 interim storage, and in fact, theres an attempt in Utah, I believe, for a group a 3 minion tribe, as a matter of fact, to license a facility for private fuel storage or 4 PFS, as its called.
5 So, the NRC regulations are there to have that kind of 6 storage facility built, but its up to the ministry and people who would be 7 interested in doing that and propose it and fund it, and make that go forward.
8 The NRCs view is that the fuel can be safely stored in spent 9 fuel pools as they are now, it can be safely stored in a dry cask storage on site, 10 and if there is a central location, such as PFS, assuming that they meet our 11 licensing requirements then they can be safely stored there also.
12 MR. JONES: Does that answer your question?
13 MR. BARBOUR: Yes, I think so, but I look at the mission of 14 the NRC as being one of the safety of the public interest, and I would think if 15 there was all that redundancy of dry cask storage around the United States, 16 and that if theres an inherent risk associated with that, and we talked about fly 17 overs, theres been one fly over I think at Diablo reported in the paper on the 18 main page and others.
19 It seems to me that that would be inherently more risky than 20 a central place that could be protected from violation and things of that sort of 21 thing. Given that thats your mission, I would think it would be more proactive 22 in recommending something similar to that in a direction of dry cask.
23 MR. RICHARDS: Well, that remains to be seen. I think that 24 Elmo mentioned that one of the responses of the NRC out of the 9-11 event is 25 that we are doing a so-called top-to-bottom review of security measures.
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1 Part of that effort is to try and work with other government 2 agencies to try and define what the threat is before you can protect against 3 something you have to assume what the threat will be. That is underway but 4 hasnt been completed.
5 You know, when that occurs, maybe theyll be some 6 recommended changes along those lines, and Im not going to speculate what 7 that might be. I might note, however, for at least Diablo Canyon, they dont 8 have a dry cask storage facility right now.
9 I believe theyre not scheduled to build one for some time.
10 I would think that before that time comes, before Diablo Canyon does go to dry 11 cask storage, the NRC and other federal agencies will have completed that 12 threat assessment and if there are changes to be made, theyll probably be 13 implemented at that time.
14 MR. JONES: Next we have Ms. June Von Ruder.
15 MS. VON RUDER: I just have a few more questions. First of 16 all, Id like to thank you for coming here, thank Mr. Clark for coming, who I see 17 often, the safety of Diablo Canyon Independent Safety Committee.
18 I wanted to congratulate -- I dont think Ive ever heard the 19 NRC or PG&E say out loud that radiation is released, if youre going to be 20 honest and tell people that, they dont really believe it. They say no way, they 21 dont release radiation, and thank you for that. I appreciate it. Im not sure 22 which one said that in your remarks.
23 I just have a few questions for the staff, two of you here. Are 24 you on call like 24 hours2.777778e-4 days <br />0.00667 hours <br />3.968254e-5 weeks <br />9.132e-6 months <br /> a day, on weekends, just the two of you, and how 25 many employees positions are there at the plant?
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1 MR. JONES: Id like to refer that Diablo Canyon-2 MS. VON RUDER: Im just to trying to figure out if the two of 3 you overseeing how many people who work -- how many employees are there 4 at the plant?
5 MR. OATLEY: If I can answer from a PG&E prospective, 6 theres about 1,320 permanent employees at Diablo Canyon.
7 MS. VON RUDER: Thank you. And another thing I had -- a 8 reference was made to a response from PG&E on the degradation of the 9 reactor vessel head, and Im not quite sure from the response -- dont you have 10 to dismantle it or actually look into it to see if theres any evidence at all? Well, 11 you dont have to answer -- its your question.
12 MR. OATLEY: I feel we need to answer it.
13 (Laughter.)
14 Yes, we do have access ports where theres insulation on top 15 of the reactor vessel head, and theres access ports and you can get 16 underneath, and you can do it one of two ways, you have people down in there 17 and crawl around, or we can send down a robotic device with a camera and 18 crawl around, and its usually the latter. Well be doing that in about three 19 weeks-20 MS. VON RUDER: -response was you responded -- I 21 appreciate it. Lets see -- oh, the three problems regarding the example of the 22 green alert -- identified by the NRC or were there incident report identified? Did 23 you have to find them or were they reported to you by staff?
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1 MR. JONES: We actually have a combination of both. We 2 perform the independent inspections. In addition, part of our inspection 3 activities is to look at the effectiveness of the corrective action program.
4 MS. VON RUDER: Well, I guess thats what Im saying is-5 MR. RICHARDS: Well, there are a large number of people 6 within our agency that are on call 24 hours2.777778e-4 days <br />0.00667 hours <br />3.968254e-5 weeks <br />9.132e-6 months <br /> a day. We wear pagers, we have 7 an incident response center thats manned 24 hours2.777778e-4 days <br />0.00667 hours <br />3.968254e-5 weeks <br />9.132e-6 months <br /> a day.
8 There are regulations in place that require Pacific Gas & Electric to notify us of 9 a large range of events within a fairly short period of time. The regional office 10 has provisions for incident response, including chartering aircraft and flying out 11 of here.
12 We have people come up from San Onofre or from other sites. So, theres a 13 whole array of people who are trained and practiced to respond to about 14 anything. So, you know, theyre on the front line but theyre backed up by a lot 15 of people.
16 MS. VON RUDER: Thank you, thats it.
17 MR. JONES: Thank you. Mr. Jackson?
18 MR. JACKSON: Yes, I just wanted to respond to the 19 comments you made about the NRC and the radiation being released at Diablo 20 Canyon, and first of all there is a -- the performance indicator Im talking about 21 has to do with radiological fluent control program. And during the operation of 22 the plant you had some what you might call nuclide radioactive waste and 23 some gaseous radioactive waste.
24 Now, whats the criteria for -- that they have to be under and in this indicator 25 program here, we measure the effect that the radiation has on the dose, and NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 what kind of biological effect is has. For example, fluid that is released into the 2 environment, it has to be under 1.5 or it should be under 1.5 millirem per 3 quarter.
4 Now to put that in perspective, just from background radiation from the sun, 5 from radiation in rocks and so forth, the average American gets about 300 6 millirem per year. So, this is being released out into, you know -- through the 7 discharge 1.5 millirem per quarter, so thats like every three months.
8 So, its like the average American gets 300 millirem per year on and average, 9 and depends on what kind of job -- if youre like an airline pilot, airline pilots get 10 a lot more than that, so just wanted to put that into perspective for folks and if 11 anybody has any more questions about that-12 MS. VON RUDER: Can you-13 MR. JACKSON: Okay, I think youre asking if its cumulative 14 as far as like-15 MS. VON RUDER: I mean, is it just key standings-16 MR. JONES: Can you take the microphone to her?
17 MS. VON RUDER: -- so it would add up? Is it cumulative, I 18 guess thats what Im saying.
19 MR. JACKSON: Okay, your question was the fluent thats 20 released from the plant, do we measure it on a cumulative basis, and the 21 answer is that were measuring it as far as like how much per quarter -- not only 22 like going back, you know, years.
23 MR. RICHARDS: Its not short-lived.
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1 MR. JACKSON: Right, and thats true, too, because, you 2 know, the fluent thats released undergoes decay, and once its decayed, it 3 becomes stable, so theres no biological impact to the activity.
4 MR. JONES: Okay. Next we have Mr. Bill Denneen.
5 MR. DENNEEN: Im not sure where to stand here. Im sorry 6 Im late. I went to the Sierra Club meeting on the beach and a little bit of 7 background. Im a retired biology -- college biology teacher and back in the 8 early 70's, I kind of opposed Diablo Canyon because, what are you going to 9 do with the nuclear waste.
10 And in 1977, I wanted to join the group that were going to be arrested, because 11 I felt very strongly about, what are you going to do with that nuclear waste, and 12 I couldn't participate because I hadn't had the non-violence training.
13 Anyway, in 1978, I had my training, and I was arrested, and my question in a 14 reason as a biologist, what are you going to do with that nuclear waste? Here 15 we are almost thirty years later, they're storing it on-site next to an earthquake 16 fault and very vulnerable to terrorists.
17 Now, my question is I've heard a little -- as I say I came late and I'm sorry, I 18 would like to have each one of you answer the question and that question is, 19 dry storage of nuclear waste.
20 Why not disperse it. Everyone that says nuclear waste is not a problem. I've 21 heard Paul talking about how low the radiation is. Why not take each cask and 22 store it at the home of the CEO on and down, the Nuclear Regulatory 23 Commission, all the safety people, each one take a cask and store it on-site --
24 their home, it's disbursed, the terrorists can't get it, it's all over the place.
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1 Why not do that? I would like for each one here that is being paid to be here, 2 why dont you take a cask in your back yard. Itd be a wonderful conversation 3 piece during the cocktail parties and things like that.
4 Itd be a lot better than playing golf, yes, weve got our own nuclear waste here, 5 our dry storage site. So, okay, thats my question, thats my background, and 6 I wish everyone would use this so I can hear all the way out from here -- you 7 whisper, I cant hear.
8 MR. JONES: Thank you. The question that we can answer 9 for you is in our safety process, were evaluating the licensee and dry storage 10 casks. Clearly, they have to be protected.
11 Were looking at, as Mr. Richards indicated, a top-to-bottom review of security 12 in nuclear power plants. That also includes storage of dry cask internals and 13 again, Mr. Richards talked earlier about some of the licensing aspects and Ill 14 ask him to address that further.
15 MR. RICHARDS: Can you hear me? Good, Ill try to speak 16 up. You made two comments that I think I need to respond to. One that its 17 very seismically vulnerable. I disagree. Diablo Canyon was built with a very 18 significant seismic loading consideration and the spent fuel pool, where the fuel 19 is right now is designed to withstand very large earthquakes. I think it would 20 do very well.
21 Likewise, the dry cask storage, when it goes into operation some years down 22 the road, will be designed to withstand a very large seismic input, and I think 23 that it would do well in a seismic event.
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1 Thats our responsibility and we have people expert in that area that study that 2 and make sure that its true. You also said its very vulnerable to a terrorist 3 attack. I disagree again.
4 I think that the security force at Diablo Canyons very significant and that the 5 structures that the fuel is contained in right now are quite robust and would be 6 a very hard target for the terrorists.
7 I can only respond for myself, you talked about moving this fuel around and 8 how would I feel, how would we feel about living in the city. Well, obviously 9 were not asking PG&E or any other utility thats not proposing to build a dry 10 cask storage container in your back yard or anybody elses backyard but at the 11 power plant, which is somewhat isolated, but let me caveat that by saying that 12 I have lived within sight of a nuclear power plant. I had children born within 13 sight of it, and I did not worry about it one bit.
14 I did worry about some of the other industrial facilities that were collocated 15 because I knew the safety regulations that applied, particularly at the nuclear 16 power plant I was at, and I am confident that if Diablo Canyon does go forward 17 and build a dry cask storage facility, that it will be safely built and safely 18 operated, and were going to make sure of that.
19 MR. JONES: To follow up with that, the Nuclear Regulatory 20 Commission does have a stricter licensing process that it would go through in 21 order to license such a facility. In addition, we would inspect the building and 22 storage of that material, should a license application be granted.
23 With that, if you dont have any other additional questions on the sign-up sheet, 24 is there someone who would like to speak? Yes, maam?
25 MS. FLOYD: Yes. I have a couple of questions --
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1 MR. JONES: Can you provide us with your name for the 2 record?
3 MS. FLOYD: Yes, Im sorry. My name is Yvonne Floyd. Im 4 a resident of this city. Yvonne Floyd.
5 MR. JONES: Can you hold that close?
6 MS. FLOYD: How close? This close? Okay. First of all, 7 explain the dry cask system. Im not quite sure how that works and how its 8 going to -- what kind of container is it, and how is tested for leaking radiation 9 and all that?
10 My second question is regarding safety. What kind of background questions 11 are being made regarding employees that have been there a long time, long 12 before September 11th? How do PG&E know that you dont have, for instance, 13 a terrorist among your employees? How much of a background check is done 14 on the people that work for you? Have you done it for every single person that 15 is working out there?
16 MR. OATLEY: Yes.
17 MS. FLOYD: And what is the background check? I mean, 18 going how far back?
19 MR. OATLEY: The -- all of the --
20 MR. JONES: The second question first and then well 21 respond to your question on dry cask storage.
22 MR. OATLEY: Thank you, Mr. Jones. So, Ill respond to the 23 background checks of individuals at Diablo Canyon, and this applies to both 24 PG&E employees and to any individual that is going to be remaining within our 25 protected area.
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1 Individuals that have unescorted access, that can freely roam, must fill out an 2 18-page application that talks about who they are, where they come from, and 3 we go through an extensive background check to verify their sources, including 4 talking to previous employers, talking to the universities they say they may have 5 gone to.
6 We take fingerprints of those individuals, those fingerprints are submitted to the 7 FBI, and theyre not allowed unescorted access until the fingerprint results are 8 received. So, we cooperate with the FBI.
9 We also, as we learn more as we go through this process, we get lists from the 10 FBI occasionally, people that they would like to talk to or are concerned about.
11 We verify that we have none of those individuals working within our facility.
12 So, its an extensive background check for all individuals on site ever since the 13 plant became a commercial operation back in the mid-80's.
14 And if you're interested, I do have -- if you'd like to answer the question on dry 15 cask storage, I also have the expert here. I'd like to introduce Gerald Stricklin, 16 and he's our technical expert and project manager for Eastfield Storage, and 17 maybe Gerald, you can give some insight on this.
18 MR. STRICKLIN: Thank you, Dave. I'll give out the 19 information in general terms to begin with. There are a number of systems 20 available out there for use by nuclear facilities today, and they range from 21 systems that store the fuel in what's called multi-purpose canister in a 22 horizontal configuration, to facilities that store it in a vertical configuration.
23 The system that has been selected by Diablo Canyon for development is from 24 a corporation by the name of Holtec International. Their systems is comprised 25 of what they call a multi-purpose canister that's constructed with three-quarter NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 inch stainless steel with a stainless steel basket. So the materials are very 2 inert, very high quality, such that they dont react the way carbon still does with 3 some of the other materials.
4 In return, this vessel is welded shut, and its a process where we put a lid in 5 place after the fuels been placed in the baskets inside. To weld it shut, the 6 remainder of the moisture is removed through a system that you pump helium 7 through, and then once youve completely dried the system out, then you have 8 the fuel stored in a helium blanket.
9 From there, these access ports are then closed and closure plates are put over 10 them, theyre weld shut, and then another plates placed on top of that with 11 another weld, so you have a redundant series of welds to make sure that the 12 vessels are fully contained.
13 From there, the multi-purpose canister is stored in a concrete and steel 14 overpack. The ones for Diablo have walls that are approximately three feet 15 thick. Theyre comprised of essentially two steel vessels, an internal vessel, an 16 external vessel, and then the interstitial space is filled with concrete.
17 Other systems dont use the steel internal, external vessels like the one that 18 Diablo has selected. Weve done that because of the additional strength that 19 the system provides.
20 On top of that, for Diablo, we elected to develop a modification to the Holtec 21 system in that we require that our system be anchored to the supporting slab.
22 Even in a higher seismic zone like this, we decided to exercise additional 23 conservatism to evaluate our system for higher seismic input than the nuclear 24 facility itself was designed for.
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1 Weve established a licensing basis thats essentially the same as the Diablo 2 plant, but then weve added additional margin on top of that to fight 3 conservatism for ourselves.
4 MS. FLOYD: How much?
5 MR. STRICKLIN: It depends on what components, but 6 theres a significant amount of conservatism above what the original licensing 7 design basis for the plant is for these storage vessels.
8 When you look across the industry right now for facilities that have installed dry 9 storage facilities, Diablo Canyons the only one thats elected to use an 10 anchored system, and that provides an additional margin for us. The only other 11 utilities right now that are looking at potential to use an anchorage system is 12 the utilities based in Japan.
13 MS. FLOYD: So, the storage space that you said had three 14 feet of concrete, is that on all sides and the top of it?
15 MR. STRICKLIN: Yes, what you-16 MS. FLOYD: Then how do you get the cask in?
17 MR. STRICKLIN: I actually have a series of slides that -- if 18 you leave your name and address, we can send you the link to our web site, 19 but theres a process thats utilized.
20 We have a transfer cap thats -- that multi-purpose canisters placed inside of.
21 This is moved into our spent fuel pool, which then the multi-purpose canister 22 is loaded with the fuel assemblies, the used fuel assemblies.
23 From there, you go through the process of moving from the spent fuel pool, 24 weld the enclosure, as I noted before, and then that transfer cask is transported 25 up to our storage facility.
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1 Up at the storage facility, theres what we call the cask transfer facility, where 2 you actually then move that multi-purpose canister from a transport cask into 3 the steel and concrete longer-term storage container.
4 And so then from there, you move it across towards it and put it in place, but 5 that longer-term storage container is a circular vessel that does have three feet 6 of concrete all the way around it, plus then a heavy lid thats placed on top of 7 it. Thats also still in concrete.
8 MS. FLOYD: And that lid is how thick?
9 MR. STRICKLIN: About two and a half feet.
10 MS. FLOYD: And so you kept saying that it is hard for a 11 terrorist to recognize where that facility is. Is it dug into a hill or how is it 12 concealed?
13 MR. STRICKLIN: I think the NRCs response was dealing with 14 the spent fuel pool itself within the power plant facility. When you look at the 15 proposed dry storage facility, it is up above the power plant itself, and its 16 proposed to be excavated into the hillside, so the proximity does afford some 17 additional protection by being partially in the hillside.
18 MS. FLOYD: Can I ask -- I have another question. I 19 understand there is no law for flying over the plant. Its suggested that people 20 are not to fly over. A terrorist is not going to follow that suggestion.
21 Now, what kind of control is there? Is the military up at Camp Roberts or 22 somewhere else where they have a plane, are they on alert all the time, or is 23 the airport here, the towers on alert for unauthorized flights over the plant, and 24 how does that work?
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1 And another thing about safety, what about threats from the seaside.
2 Speedboats coming in with a load of explosives, what -- how is that checked?
3 MR. JONES: First, Im going to give it to Mr. Richards. He 4 wanted to respond to an earlier question, and well make sure we --
5 MR. RICHARDS: Just to expand a little bit on what Mr. Oatley 6 said. You said what if one of these terrorists works at the plant, lets say, you 7 know, Ive passed all the background checks and now Ive converted to be a 8 terrorist, so now I work at the plant.
9 One thing you need to consider is that when you go into the plant, any nuclear 10 power plant, its like going through the airport check-in line security gate, except 11 worse-12 MS. FLOYD: Which I dont trust very well.
13 MR. RICHARDS: Well, youre -- you know, they have the X-14 ray machines, they have the guard, guns. The whole idea is to prevent 15 somebody from bringing a weapon into the facility or to bring explosives into 16 the facility.
17 Once people are in the facility, the plant is divided into a number of different 18 security areas. Its not one common area, and people are only allowed access 19 into the areas that they need to go in, and theres a continuous computer 20 record of where everybody goes.
21 So, if somebody internal to the organization becomes untrustworthy, there are 22 other checks and balances to try and account for that.
23 MS. FLOYD: Now, the latest question I had is I was not 24 referring to people that work at Diablo. I was referring to people coming from 25 outside.
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1 MR. JONES: Dave, give her the microphone. Shes probably-2 MS. FLOYD: I thank you for saying about the people that 3 work at Diablo Canyon, but there are people that might come from the outside, 4 terrorists that fly over the plant, that come in from the seaside, and what kind 5 of procedure is there to detect these people coming in, trying to get to the 6 plant?
7 MR. JONES: Thank you. One of the areas we covered was 8 the integrated security -- from the federal government standpoint including local 9 and state officials. Ill let Mr. Collins respond to this condition.
10 MR. COLLINS: Im going to just repeat what I said earlier, 11 that the NRC believes that protection for nuclear power plant from the air or the 12 sea and protecting for any other industrial facility in the United States, is done 13 with an integrated approach by different agencies.
14 Amongst them, key, are the Federal Aviation Administration and the 15 Department of Defense. You know, the Department of Defense has provided 16 a protection for Americas homeland for many years, whether its monitoring the 17 North American defense, which system is provided for by the Department of 18 Defense, is integrated and the NRC and FAA are in communication with them, 19 and when -- and on some occasions when an airplane is not where its 20 supposed to be, they have been escorted out of that area, once they have 21 determined that they are not going to be of a malevolent nature.
22 So, protection is being provided and its being provided -- for the nations 23 homeland across the country and the sea with the Department of Defense and 24 the Federal Aviation Administration.
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1 MS. FLOYD: I still dont understand. I understand all of the 2 agencies responding -- sea, but Im talking about the practical defense of the 3 area. Where is the defense for that?
4 MR. OATLEY: Mr. Collins, if I may?
5 MS. FLOYD: There was no defense --
6 MR. OATLEY: You have very good questions. I would say 7 theres several ways that we protect ourselves. First, I think for all of us, the 8 best way to protect is to keep the darn things from falling out of the sky, and 9 thats where the federal agencies that the NRC have been talking about have 10 a responsibility to ensure that what happened September 11th does not reoccur, 11 and I think thats important not just for Diablo Canyon, but for all -- you know, 12 any manufacturing site and industrial facility, thats paramount.
13 Now, absent that, there are measures that can be taken. For example, you 14 know, the old one if by land, two if by sea. We talked about the paramilitary 15 staff security force at Diablo Canyon. Two if by sea, we have worked with the 16 U.S. Coast Guard, and theres a one-mile exclusion area now around Diablo 17 Canyon where vessels are not allowed in. If they come in, the U.S. Coast 18 Guard responds. If the U.S. Coast Guard doesnt respond, we will respond.
19 We have three if by air now to worry about, and as I said, the best way is to 20 keep them from falling. Now, if you look at Diablo structurally, its an extremely 21 robust facility. Its protected on a couple sides by very hilly terrain, and would 22 be a very difficult target.
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1 Station in the valley, and we can request the air support activities at Diablo 2 Canyon.
3 So, it is -- we do have access to federal agencies to help us out, and now if 4 theres anything else you want to mention, Girija?
5 MR. SHUKLA: Yes, my name is Girija Shukla. Im the project 6 manager for the NRC for Diablo Canyon, and as Mr. Collins said, that security 7 of nuclear power plants is integrated of course by all the federal agencies, but 8 I can tell you from personal knowledge that waters around Diablo Canyon is 9 monitored by U.S. Coast Guard, and airspace is monitored by FAA and 10 NORAAD.
11 So, if something happens, we have means and the time to respond quickly.
12 So, nothing to worry about.
13 MS. FLOYD: Im not so sure.
14 MR. JONES: I think the important message is nobody could 15 imagine before September 11th that somebody would take an aircraft and crash 16 it into a building and then someone else would do the same and wed have an 17 attack on our Pentagon, and then the fourth aircraft also.
18 The important message is that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the 19 different licensees, Pacific Gas & Electric, in this case, are all working together 20 in an integrated fashion. Were taking the intelligence community, weve got 21 the Office of Homeland Security, and those different -- the intelligence that they 22 gather is properly disseminated where applicable to some licensees in these 23 proceedings.
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1 of security. The NRC has integrated, from the intelligence communities, the 2 information that since September 11th, integrated that, issued advisories and 3 came out with an order that is essentially keeping the licensees at this highest 4 level and establishing additional requirements.
5 So, the message that I think is very important is that the NRC is working with 6 other federal agencies, your state and local officials also, we talked about the 7 Coast Guard and also with licensees to guard against terrorist attacks.
8 But again, we are providing an integrated response, and thats what we have 9 to take away. This is a national issue. Its not just Diablo Canyon, Pacific Gas 10 & Electric. It is our entire nation working together on essentially an active war 11 against this country, and thats -- does anybody have a question? Yes, sir?
12 MR. CURRIER: Im Peter Currier. Id like to go on with the 13 dry cask situation a little bit further. The way I understand it youre going to 14 build a slab, a substantial slab, and youre going to mount these dry casks 15 vertically, theyll actually look like grain silos sticking up.
16 They are accessible. For instance, if somebody was to take a heavy-body 17 aircraft, such as the ones that flew into the World Trade Center and was to fly 18 one of those aircraft -- I have a question here -- was to fly one of those aircrafts 19 into this dry cask farm, based on the specifications that you have right now, 20 would the dry cask stay intact?
21 MR. STRICKLIN: I guess the best way for me to answer that 22 is that the NRC has commissioned a study associated with Primafield Storage 23 such that they are modeling a heavy aircraft impact on actually the Holtec 24 system and the primary results of that study, if I -- is it appropriate that I provide 25 information?
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1 MR. JONES: Sure.
2 MR. RICHARDS: Sure.
3 MR. STRICKLIN: The preliminary results at this point in time 4 note that the items that youre most concerned about are the hardened objects, 5 such as the landing gear and the engine components, and the preliminary 6 analysis shows that the Holtec system is able to withstand the impact of those 7 objects at the design-rated speeds without impacting the qualification of the 8 multi-purpose canister inside, that it maintains its integrity.
9 Those studies are currently in the process of being completed, and from what 10 I understand from the owner of Holtec International, it should be available 11 sometime in the winter.
12 MR. CURRIER: A couple of other questions I have is why are 13 you going to build this massive spike out, youre going to mark these things 14 vertically like theyre -- as far as Im concerned, theyre kind of like fingers 15 sticking up. Theyre kind of vulnerable from a structural point of view.
16 Why couldnt the slab be built and for instance, hold within the slab and these 17 containers dropped in, is there a cooling problem where they have to keep a lot 18 of air circulated around them, or it is -- and then I have one other one.
19 The other one is the containment structures are iffy, I think, on the heavy body 20 attack also. One of the questions I have is why dont you guys build some 21 towers similar to KVEC, the radio tower, so that any incoming aircraft will be 22 totally not able to make a direct hit or would you know, cause the plane to start 23 to fall apart before impact and will reduce the significance of you know, 24 anything that might happen.
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1 MR. STRICKLIN: Its interesting that you would mention 2 towers. That was -- if you look at our Davis Besse location, we actually have 3 our 500 KV towers on all four corners, and so part of our design basis is 4 looking at the impact of towers collapsing within the storage facility, and a 500 5 KV line drop and so forth. So, there is a series of towers just by coincidence 6 around this facility.
7 The other question was --
8 MR. CURRIER: Why not sink the casts into the slab rather 9 than-10 MR. STRICKLIN: When you look at the cooling process for 11 the fuel, you end up having to use convection cooling, and so we draw cool air 12 in at the bottom, and its discharged out the upper vents, and so its part of our 13 licensing process that you have to maintain a certain amount of cooling through 14 there.
15 And if you use the standard types of fuel that are discharged from a facility 16 such as Diablo, the fuel has enough energy still left, and we need to be able to 17 have a proper amount of air circulating, so in our facility, you could not use a 18 completely recessed-type installation like that.
19 Some of the older facilities on the east coast that have fuel thats been in the 20 spent fuel pools for a long period of time, then potentially wed use that type of 21 design.
22 MR. JONES: Id like to again reiterate that the spent fuel 23 storage casks are part of the overall top-to-bottom review that the Nuclear 24 Regulatory Commission is going through as far as security for nuclear power 25 plants.
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1 Thats including within there, and this is what the current design basis for the 2 plants actually needs to be. Anyone else?
3 MR. BARBOUR: Jim Barbour, again. I have a couple of 4 questions, and these should be short ones. David, when you got up and 5 talked, you talked about safety and you talked about well, a couple of things 6 relating to employee concern program that PG&E have, and I would just like to 7 ask a question about that, but before that, I wanted to find out whether the NRC 8 measures employee turnover rate as a safety-related issue and the longevity 9 of the employees at the different facilities from a safety perspective.
10 And then addressing another question to PG&E quality or safety measure, 11 regarding this employee concern program that David spoke about, are the 12 employees rewarded, or encouraged to use this program, and if so, how is that 13 -- the results quantitatively measured?
14 MR. JONES: David, do you want to take that one?
15 MR. OATLEY: Go ahead with that one.
16 MR. JONES: The NRC does not specifically look at turnover 17 rates. For example, in the area operator licensing, actually let me let Mr. Gody 18 answer this one if he would, to address the operator licensing aspect --
19 MR. GODY: Hi, my names Tony Gody, Chief of the Operator 20 Licensing Branch in Region IV. We dont specifically look at turnover rates 21 during our inspection process, and we dont look for safety issues associated 22 with turnover.
23 However, from an operator licensing prospective, we have a fairly extensive 24 program that verifies that licensees are properly training candidates to operate 25 a nuclear power plant.
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1 That is approximately an 18-month process that the candidate goes through to 2 learn the systems of the plant, the emergency operating procedures.
3 At the end of that process, we go through an extensive testing program for that 4 individual, and thats a one on one test for those individuals that are seeking a 5 license.
6 From the prospective of an aging work force, turnover of personnel, its 7 important for me as the Chief of the Operations Branch to understand the aging 8 work force and the predicted class sizes that are going to take place in the 9 future, and weve had significant conversations about the aging work force and 10 preparing ourselves for the increased class sizes and encouraging licensees 11 to be proactive in bringing people earlier and getting trained up and licensed 12 before the aging workforce issue becomes an issue.
13 Im not sure if that addresses all of your concerns, questions there --
14 MR. JONES: Weve got additional response to that question.
15 The residents do review the work activities and follow up to corrective actions 16 that may result from some personal errors, but that is something that weve 17 talked about. Weve talked about that in our crosscutting issues, so human 18 performance, those are the attributes that you spoke to, turnover would be 19 something that adversely affects human performance, and thats an area we 20 look at. Im going to have Greg Reuger also address that.
21 MR. REUGER: Yes, a couple of items. We do monitor 22 turnover. Weve had extremely low turnover at Diablo Canyon, pretty light. We 23 do have some concerns going forward, not because of any concerns 24 employees have that they dont want to work there, in fact, just the opposite, 25 because we are starting to get an aging workforce, and we are going to be NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 seeing over the next five years, you know, starting to see some turnover, 2 because of people retiring.
3 We do have plans today that we are putting into place -- have started already, 4 were hiring people into the organization, giving them a lot of time for training.
5 I, myself, sit on the accreditation board of the nuclear industry, where all 6 training programs are used for operators, maintenance technicians, radiation 7 protection technicians go through a very rigorous every other year accreditation 8 process to make sure that theyre good programs.
9 So, we have had actually, I guess, good luck largely because were in an 10 excellent location. Theres not another location in this country with nuclear 11 power plants as beautiful as our own, but weve had extremely low turnover 12 among our employees, but it is an issue we monitor, not so much from 13 employee concerns prospective. We have other measures with that, and Ill 14 ask Jim if you want to talk to those, but from a standpoint of making sure we 15 have a lot of personnel with the skills to run the plant very well.
16 MR. TOMPKINS: Yes, I have three people that are on my 17 staff that pretty much full-time evaluate employee concerns that people bring 18 to them. They do it on a confidential basis, and we try to seriously -- take their 19 concerns very seriously and try to get them a good answer back.
20 Do we reward people? We dont give people money for bringing up concerns.
21 On the other hand, we try to reward them by giving them a good answer, and 22 as I mentioned earlier, taking their concerns seriously.
23 I would also say, though, that if somebody in the plant finds a safety problem, 24 we do reward that behavior, not through the employee concerns program 25 specifically, but Ive been in many management meetings in the morning where NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 somebody brings in an issue that was an excellent catch that couldve led to a 2 safety problem. We then treat or reward those folks.
3 MR. JONES: Due to the late hour, well take four more 4 questions. I think we have Bill Denneen?
5 MR. DENNEEN: Bill Denneen. My question is a simple one.
6 About a month ago, on the front page of the Tribune was an aerial photo of 7 Diablo and just behind it, looked like a couple of swimming pools.
8 Now, Ive been in the containment structure and its the cement, everything, 9 wow. Ive been in before, during and just before you put the radioactive stuff, 10 but what are those swimming pools, just to the east of the containment 11 structures?
12 Are they swimming pools for the employees, or is that where they store 13 radioactive waste?
14 (Laughter.)
15 MR. BECKER: Ive been waiting for that question. The pools 16 you see, theyre called raw water reservoirs, and they are much like swimming 17 pools, except very big swimming pools.
18 Each swimming pool is several million gallons, and what we use that for is sort 19 of temporary storage of water. We take the water out of those reservoirs as we 20 need it for the plant itself. We purify it to an ultra-pure level, and then we use 21 it in the plant.
22 The water thats in those reservoirs is roughly, you know, drinking quality water, 23 and we make it a lot cleaner than that before we use it.
24 MR. DENNEEN: Thank you.
25 MR. JONES: And, Ill give one more question.
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1 MR. BARBOUR: This may be a dumb question, but I 2 remember my old days in the lab, I didnt realize first with helium, helium is 3 notorious for leaking over a long time. Do you plan to recharge the cask every 4 so often?
5 That was one question. The other question is the word reprocessing as it 6 means to basically get more electricity for getting a lot of waste hasnt even 7 come up tonight. Is there an NRC policy on that? Whats the status of it?
8 MR. JONES: Well address the second question first.
9 MR. RICHARDS: Reprocessing is illegal since the Carter 10 Administration, so its against the law.
11 MR. STRICKLIN: Youre very correct that helium is a gas 12 thats very hard to confine and contain and that the systems that are required 13 to be able to handle it and move it through it such as the drying process that I 14 noted it has to have very tight connections.
15 So, a lot of effort goes into ensure that the system -- that system is tight for the 16 actual purging process and cooling process for drying that vessel out, but once 17 the helium is inside the multi-purpose canister and the various ports are welded 18 shut, the additional inspection of the welding itself to show that that has good 19 fine closure with no cracks or defects in the welds, and it provides enough of 20 a barrier, that you dont have the helium leaking potential.
21 The only other thing I want to say is that as far as the county permitting 22 process, there will be another public meeting that looks at dry storage on the 23 29th of this month, and in that meeting, well have some models thatll show you 24 what the multi-purpose canisters look like, what the transfer cask looks like and NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 what the overpack larger storage container looks like, and from there, well 2 have some other photos that show of the facility.
3 MR. JONES: First, I want to be to sure to thank everyone for 4 coming, for taking time out of their schedules to come out and hopefully 5 become informed as to how the Nuclear Regulatory Commission goes about 6 independently assessing performance in this case, at Diablo Canyon, will 7 become useful.
8 I do want to encourage you to utilize the feedback forms. We gladly accept any 9 comments that you have. We do want to improve our interface with the public, 10 and this is a meeting that were going to be conducting on a yearly basis, based 11 on the current program, and we want to ensure that we meet the needs of the 12 public in transferring and informing you as to how we go about our business 13 and what our specific plans are, and also to provide this question and answer 14 period and for comments, so that your concerns can be brought forward.
15 With that, Ill conclude the meting, and again, I thank you very much.
16 (Whereupon, the foregoing public hearing was concluded at 17 9:05 p.m.)
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