ML030080201
| ML030080201 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Saint Lucie  |
| Issue date: | 12/03/2002 |
| From: | NRC/OCM |
| To: | |
| MASNIK M, NRR/DRIP/RLEP, 415-1191 | |
| Shared Package | |
| ml030060091 | List: |
| References | |
| -nr, -RFPFR, NRC-668 | |
| Download: ML030080201 (158) | |
Text
Official Transcript of Proceedings NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Title:
Preliminary Results of Environmental Review of St. Lucie Plant, Units 1 & 2 Afternoon Session Docket Number: (50-335,50-389)
Location: Port St. Lucie, Florida Date: Tuesday, December 3, 2002 Work Order No.: NRC-668 Pages 1-119 NEAL R. GROSS AND CO., INC.
Court Reporters and Transcribers 1323 Rhode Island Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 234-4433
1 1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 2 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 3 + + + + +
4 PUBLIC MEETING TO DISCUSS THE PRELIMINARY 5 RESULTS OF ENVIRONMENTAL REVIEW FOR 6 LICENSE RENEWAL AT ST. LUCIE PLANT, 7 UNITS 1 AND 2 8 + + + + +
9 TUESDAY, DECEMBER 3, 2002 10 + + + + +
11 PORT ST. LUCIE, FLORIDA 12 + + + + +
13 The Public Meeting commenced at 1:30 p.m.,
14 at Port St. Lucie City Hall, Council Chambers, 121 15 S.W. Port St. Lucie Boulevard, Port St. Lucie, 16 Florida.
17 PRESENT:
18 CHIP CAMERON, Facilitator 19 NOEL DUDLEY, Safety Project Manager 20 DR. MICHAEL MASNIK, Senior Environmental Project 21 Manager 22 JOHN TAPPERT, Section Chief, License Renewal and 23 Environmental Impacts Program 24 DUKE WHEELER, Senior Environmental Project Manager 25 RUSSELL ARRIGHI, Safety Project Manager NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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2 1 PRESENT: (CONT.)
2 S.K. MITRA, Safety Project Manager 3 JENNIFER DAVIS, General Scientist 4 ETOY HYLTON, Licensing Assistant 5 ROGER HANNAH, Region II Public Affairs Officer 6 LAURA ORR, NRC Site Secretary, St. Lucie 7 THIERRY ROSS, Senior Resident Inspector, St. Lucie 8 CASSIE BRAY, Attorney, Office of General Counsel 9 EVA HICKEY, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory 10 TARA ESCHBACH, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory 11 DUANE NEITZEL, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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3 1 A-G-E-N-D-A 2 Welcome and purpose of Meeting (Chip Cameron) . . 4 3 Welcome (John Tappert) . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 4 Overview of license renewal process (Noel Dudley) 12 5 Overview of environmental review process 6 (Dr. Michael Masnik) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 7 Q&A . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 8 Results of the environmental review (Eva Hickey) 31 9 Results of the environmental review 10 (Dr. Michael Masnik . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 11 Q&A . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54 12 How comments can be submitted 13 (Dr. Michael Masnik) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57 14 Public comments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 15 Closing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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4 1 P-R-O-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S 2 (1:30 p.m.)
3 MR. CAMERON: Good afternoon everyone.
4 My name is Chip Cameron. Im the special 5 counsel for public liaison at the Nuclear Regulatory 6 Commission and Id like to welcome all of you to the 7 NRCs public meeting this afternoon, and thank you for 8 all coming out. Its great to see such a large 9 turnout like this on these issues.
10 Our subject today is the Draft 11 Environmental Impact Statement and the preliminary 12 results in that Environmental Impact Statement on the 13 license renewal applications for the St. Lucie Units 14 1 and 2 that were submitted to the Nuclear Regulatory 15 Commission by Florida Power and Light.
16 My job is to serve as the facilitator for 17 todays meeting and in that role Im going to try to 18 help all of you to have a productive meeting this 19 afternoon. I just want to briefly go over the format 20 for the meeting and some of the ground rules, and give 21 you an overview of the agenda, and also introduce some 22 of the NRC staff and our expert consultants who will 23 be talking to you this afternoon.
24 Basically the format of the meeting, we 25 have two segments to the meeting and they match the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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5 1 two objectives that the NRC has for the meeting today.
2 The first section is to give you some background on 3 the license renewal process, what the NRC looks at 4 when it evaluates a license renewal application. And 5 specifically we want to talk about the preliminary 6 results in the Draft Environmental Impact Statement.
7 So were going to have a series of short NRC 8 presentations for you. Well go on to you for any 9 questions that you might have about those 10 presentations.
11 And then were going to go to the second 12 part of todays meeting, which is to give those of 13 you, who want to make a more formal statement to us, 14 an opportunity to give us comments on the Draft 15 Environmental Impact Statement. And youre going to 16 be hearing from the NRC staff on this processing in a 17 few minutes, but there are going to be -- theres an 18 opportunity for written comments to be submitted on 19 these issues, but we wanted to be here in person with 20 you today to hear from you, and the comments we hear 21 today are going to be given the same weight as any 22 comments that are submitted to us in writing.
23 In terms of ground rules, theyre simple.
24 If you wish to ask questions after the NRC 25 presentations, and we wont keep you waiting till NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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6 1 theyre all done, well go out to you after each 2 presentation. Just give me a signal and Ill bring 3 this talking stick to you so that we can get you on 4 the record. Please give us your name and your 5 affiliation, if appropriate. We are taking a 6 transcript. Claudette and Glenda are here taking a 7 transcript for us and that will be available for all 8 of you to see and it will be our record of whats said 9 here today.
10 I would ask that only one person at a time 11 talk, so that we can get a clean transcript and so 12 that we can give our full attention to whomever is 13 speaking. And I would ask you to try to be as concise 14 as you can be in your comments and questions. I know 15 thats difficult on issues such as this, but try to be 16 concise, so we can give everyone who wants to talk, an 17 opportunity to talk today.
18 We did have a lot of people signed up who 19 want to make comments to us in the second part of the 20 meeting and Im asking everyone to follow a guideline 21 of five minutes in your comments up here so that we 22 can make sure that we hear from everybody today.
23 In terms of the agenda, after Im done Im 24 going to ask John Tappert, whos right down here, to 25 give us a short welcome. And John is the section NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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7 1 leader of the Environmental Section of the NRCs 2 Environmental Impacts Program thats in our Office of 3 Nuclear Reactor Regulation. And John and his staff 4 are responsible for doing the environmental reviews 5 for not only any application that comes in for license 6 renewal, but for any reactor activity or project.
7 And then were going to turn to a 8 discussion, a review of the license renewal process 9 generally. And we have Noel Dudley, who is right 10 here, whos going to do that for us. Well then go on 11 to you for any questions that you might have.
12 Well then go to Dr. Michael Masnik, who 13 is right here in the front row, and hes going to talk 14 about the environmental part of the license renewal 15 project. Go on to you for questions and then go to 16 the real part of todays meeting, which are the 17 preliminary results that are in the Draft 18 Environmental Impact Statement and Eva Hickey from 19 Pacific Northwest Lab is here to talk about that.
20 There is a special part of the 21 environmental review. Its called severe accident 22 mitigation alternatives. And were going to have a 23 brief presentation on that. Michael Masnik is also 24 going to do that. We had one of our experts who was 25 going to do that for us today, but unfortunately there NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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8 1 were some problems back in Washington of a personal 2 nature, so Mike is going to try to fill in for us on 3 that. And well go on to you for questions after 4 that. And then well get to the formal comment part 5 of the meeting after Mike also tells us about how to 6 submit written comments.
7 Now, let me tell you a little bit about 8 the people who are going to be talking to you today.
9 As I said, John Tappert is the section leader, in the 10 Environmental Section. John has been with the NRC for 11 about eleven years. He has been a resident inspector 12 at plants that the NRC oversees. Before that, he was 13 an officer in the Nuclear Navy. And in terms of 14 education, he has a Bachelors from Virginia Tech in 15 Aerospace and Oceanographic Engineering and he has a 16 Masters Degree from Johns Hopkins University in 17 Environmental Engineering.
18 Noel Dudley is the project manager for the 19 safety evaluation on the St. Lucie license renewal 20 application and Noel also was an officer in the 21 Nuclear Navy. Hes been with the NRC for about 22 eighteen years in various positions, including being 23 a resident inspector at operating nuclear power 24 plants, and hes also served with the Advisory 25 Committee on Reactor Safety, an independent advisory NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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9 1 to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, that youll be 2 hearing a little bit more about.
3 Noel has also done service in the Peace 4 Corps in East Africa, teaching physics and science.
5 He has a Bachelors Degree in Engineering Physics and 6 a Bachelors in Engineering, both from Lehigh.
7 In terms of Dr. Mike Masnik, Mike is the 8 environmental project manager on the St. Lucie license 9 renewal application. So youll be hearing about the 10 safety evaluation, about the environmental evaluation.
11 And Mike is uniquely qualified in a sense to be the 12 project manager on St. Lucie, because I believe he was 13 the project manager on the original licensing decision 14 on St. Lucie Unit 2.
15 He has been involved in a number of 16 activities in his career at the NRC, including 17 oversight of the cleanup of the Three Mile Island 18 reactor that was damaged, I guess twenty plus years 19 ago. Hes worked a lot in decommissioning of reactor 20 facilities.
21 Mike has a Bachelors in Zoology from 22 Cornell and he a Masters and PhD. from Virginia 23 Polytechnic Institute.
24 In terms of Eva Hickey, who is going to 25 give us the preliminary results of the Environmental NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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10 1 Impact Statement, Eva has been the project team lead 2 for many of the environmental reviews on license 3 renewal applications.
4 On St. Lucie, she was the lead for the 5 radiological and decommissioning evaluation thats in 6 the Draft Environmental Impact Statement. She has had 7 over twenty years experience, not only on evaluation 8 of potential radiological consequences, but also on 9 environmental reviews generally, and emergency 10 planning. She also has a Bachelors from Virginia 11 Tech and a Masters in Health Physics from Georgia 12 Tech.
13 And Im sorry that Im taking a little bit 14 long here, but I wanted you to know the background of 15 the people who are working on the evaluation of this 16 license renewal application.
17 And with that, just thank-you, thank-you 18 for being here this afternoon and were going to get 19 on with the substance of the meeting. Ill turn it 20 over to John Tappert.
21 MR. TAPPERT: Thanks, Chip, and welcome.
22 My name is John Tappert and Im the chief 23 in the Environmental Section in the Office of Nuclear 24 Reactor Regulation. And on behalf of the Nuclear 25 Regulatory Commission, Id like to thank you for NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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11 1 coming out today and participating in our process.
2 There are several things wed like to 3 cover today and Id like to briefly go over the 4 purposes of todays meeting. Wed like to do a brief 5 overview of the entire license renewal process. This 6 includes both a safety review as well as environmental 7 review, which is the principle focus of todays 8 meeting.
9 Next wed like to give you the preliminary 10 results of our environmental review, which assesses 11 the environmental impacts associated with extending 12 the operating license of the St. Lucie Nuclear Power 13 Plant for an additional twenty years.
14 Next well give you some information about 15 the balance of our schedule and how you can 16 participate further in the process by submitting 17 written comments on the Draft Environmental Impact 18 Statement.
19 In conclusion of the staffs presentation, 20 well be happy to receive any questions or comments 21 that you may have on the draft today. But first we 22 will provide some general context for the license 23 renewal program.
24 The Atomic Energy Act gives the NRC the 25 authority to issue operating licenses to commercial NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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12 1 nuclear power plants for a period of forty years. For 2 St. Lucie Units 1 and 2, its operating licenses will 3 expire in 2016 and 2023 respectively. Our regulations 4 also make provisions for extending those operating 5 licenses for an additional twenty years, as part of 6 our license renewal program, and Florida Power and 7 Light has requested license renewal for both units.
8 As part of the NRCs review of that 9 application, we assess the environmental impacts 10 associated with extending those licenses. We held a 11 meeting here last April to explain our process and 12 also to seek your input on issues that should be 13 addressed in that Environmental Impact Statement.
14 As we indicated at that earlier 15 environmental scoping meeting, weve returned here now 16 today, to provide you with the preliminary results of 17 our review. And again, the principal reason for the 18 meeting here today is to receive your questions and 19 comments on that review.
20 And with that, Id like to ask Noel to 21 give us a brief overview of the safety portion of 22 license renewal.
23 MR. DUDLEY: Thank-you, John.
24 Good afternoon. My name is Noel Dudley 25 and Im the project manager for the safety review of NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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13 1 St. Lucie Units 1 and 2 license renewal application.
2 Before discussing the license renewal 3 process and the staff safety review, I would like to 4 talk about the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and its 5 role in licensing and regulating nuclear power plants.
6 The Atomic Energy Act of 1954 authorized 7 the NRC to regulate the civilian use of nuclear 8 material. The NRCs mission is threefold. First, to 9 ensure the adequate protection of public health and 10 safety; second, to protect the environment; and third, 11 to provide for common defense and security.
12 The NRC consists of five Commissioners and 13 the NRC staff. One of the five Commissioners is 14 designated as the chairman of the NRC. The 15 regulations enforced by the NRC are issued under Title 16 10, the Code of Federal Regulations, commonly called 17 10 C.F.R. 18 The Atomic Energy Act provided for a forty 19 year license term for power reactors, but it also 20 allowed for renewal of licenses. That forty years is 21 based primarily on economic and anti-trust 22 considerations, rather than safety limitations.
23 Major components were initially expected 24 to last up to forty years, however, operating 25 experience has demonstrated that some major NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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14 1 components, such as the steam generators, will not 2 last that long. For that reason, a number of 3 utilities has replaced major components. Since 4 components and structures can be replaced or 5 reconditioned, plant life is really determined 6 primarily by economic factors.
7 License renewal applications are submitted 8 years in advance for several reasons. If a utility 9 decides to replace a nuclear power plant, it can take 10 up to ten years to plan and construct new generated 11 capacity to replace that of the nuclear power plant.
12 In addition, decisions to replace or 13 recondition major components can involve significant 14 capital investment. As such, these decisions involve 15 financial planning many years in advance of the 16 extended period of operation.
17 Florida Power and Light has applied for 18 license renewal under 10 C.F.R., Part 54, thereby 19 requested authorization to operate St. Lucie Units 1 20 and 2 for up to an additional twenty years. The 21 current operating license for St. Lucie Unit 1 expires 22 on March 1st, 2016, and the license for Unit 2 expires 23 on April 6th, 2023.
24 Now I would like to talk about license 25 renewal, which is governed by the requirements of 10 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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15 1 C.F.R., Part 54, or which is referred to as the 2 license renewal rule. This part of the Code of 3 Federal Regulations defines the regulatory process by 4 which a nuclear utility such as Florida Power and 5 Light applies for license renewal.
6 The license renewal rule incorporates 10 7 C.F.R., Part 51, by reference. This part provides for 8 the preparation of an Environmental Impact Statement, 9 and under that part is the reason were holding this 10 public meeting today, is to hear your comments on the 11 Environmental Impact Statement.
12 The license renewal process defined in 13 Part 54 is very similar to the original licensing 14 process, in that it involves a safety review and 15 environmental impact evaluation, plant inspections and 16 review by the Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards 17 or, which is also known as the ACRS.
18 The ACRS is a group of scientists and 19 nuclear industry experts, who serve as a consulting 20 body to the five Commissioners. The ACRS performs an 21 independent review of the license renewal application 22 and the staff safety evaluation, and reports its 23 findings and recommendations directly to the five 24 Commissioners.
25 This next slide illustrates two parallel NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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16 1 processes. You will see the one on the top of the 2 slide and the others towards the bottom of the slide.
3 The two parallel processes are the safety review 4 process and the environmental review process. These 5 processes are used by the NRC staff to evaluate two 6 separate aspects of the license renewal application.
7 The safety review, which is the top part 8 of the diagram, involves the staffs review of the 9 technical information in the application for renewal 10 and the staff verifies with reasonable assurance that 11 the plant can continue to operate safely during the 12 extended period of operation.
13 The staff assesses how the applicants 14 processes to monitor or manage the aging of certain 15 components that are within the scope of license 16 renewal. The staff review is documented in a safety 17 evaluation report, which is provided to the ACRS.
18 The ACRS reviews the safety evaluation report, holds 19 public meetings and prepares a report to the 20 Commission, documenting its recommendation.
21 The safety review process also involves 22 two or three inspections, which are documented in NRC 23 inspection reports. In its decision to review an 24 operating license, the NRC considers the safety 25 evaluation report, the ACRS report, the NRC Regional NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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17 1 Administrators recommendations, and the inspection 2 reports.
3 At the bottom of the slide is the other 4 parallel process, the environmental review, which 5 involves scoping activities, preparation of the draft 6 supplement to the Generic Environmental Impact 7 Statement, solicitation of public comments on the 8 draft supplement and then the assurance issuance of a 9 final supplement to the generic Environmental Impact 10 Statement. This document also factors into the 11 agencys decision on the application.
12 In the safety evaluation report, the staff 13 documents its assessment of the effectiveness of the 14 applicants existing or proposed inspection in 15 maintenance activities to manage aging effects 16 applicable to passive long live structures and 17 compliments.
18 Part 54 requires the applicant to 19 reevaluate those design analyses that assume forty 20 years of plant operations. Their reevaluations extend 21 the assumed operating period to sixty years.
22 An example of that is electrical cables.
23 The aging of electrical cables could result in 24 embrittlement or breakage of the cables. These 25 initially are evaluated over a forty year period. Now NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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18 1 the license renewal applicant needs to go back and 2 evaluate the ability of those cables to withstand the 3 environment for sixty years instead of forty years.
4 These required reevaluations are called 5 time limited aging analyses. Current regulations are 6 adequate for addressing active compliments such as 7 pumps and valves, which are continually challenged to 8 reveal failures and degradations, such that corrective 9 actions can be taken.
10 Current regulations also exist to address 11 other aspects of the original license, such as 12 security and emergency planning. These current 13 regulations will also apply during the extended period 14 of operation.
15 In January of 2002, the NRC issued a 16 Federal Register notice to announce its acceptance of 17 the Florida Power and Light application for renewal of 18 the operating license for St. Lucie. This notice also 19 announced the opportunity for public participation in 20 the process.
21 This concludes my summary of the license 22 renewal process and the staffs review, and I will 23 open up for questions.
24 MR. CAMERON: Okay, thanks, Noel.
25 Even though the subject of the meeting is NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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19 1 specifically on the environmental review and the 2 Environmental Impact Statement, we thought that it 3 would be useful for you to have a larger context in 4 terms of the license renewal process overall, and 5 thats what Noel addressed.
6 Are there any questions about that overall 7 process or the safety evaluation thats done as part 8 of the license renewal process?
9 (No response.)
10 MR. CAMERON: And if things occur to you 11 on this as we go along, we can always go back. So 12 seeing no questions right now, Noel, thank-you very 13 much.
14 And lets go to Michael Masnik. Dr.
15 Masnik is going to tell us about the environmental 16 review part of the process. Mike?
17 DR. MASNIK: Thank-you, Chip.
18 I want to wish each of you a good 19 afternoon.
20 My name is Mike Masnik. Im the 21 environmental project manager for the St. Lucie 22 license renewal project. Im responsible for 23 coordinating the efforts of the NRC staff and our 24 contractors from the National Labs to conduct and 25 document the environmental review associated with NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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20 1 Florida Power and Lights application for license 2 renewal at the St. Lucie site.
3 This first slide deals with NEPA. NEPA or 4 the National Environmental Policy Act was enacted in 5 1969. Its one of the most significant pieces of 6 environmental legislation that has ever been passed in 7 this country. It requires all Federal agencies to use 8 a systematic approach to consider environmental 9 impacts during certain decision-making proceedings 10 requiring major Federal actions.
11 NEPA requires that we examine the 12 environmental impacts of these proposed actions and 13 can consider mitigation measures, which are those 14 things that can be done to reduce the impact of the 15 action. NEPA requires that we consider alternatives 16 to the proposed action and that the impacts of those 17 alternatives also be evaluated.
18 And finally, NEPA requires that we 19 disclose all of this information to the public and we 20 invite public participation in the process.
21 And the NRC has determined that it will 22 prepare an Environmental Impact Statement associated 23 with renewal of the operating licenses for an 24 additional twenty years. Therefore, following the 25 process prescribed by NEPA, we have prepared a Draft NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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21 1 Environmental Impact Statement that describes the 2 environmental impacts associated with operating St.
3 Lucie for an additional twenty years. That 4 Environmental Impact Statement was issued in late 5 October and todays meeting is being held to receive 6 your comments. This is the document. Its in the 7 back of the room and we have some additional copies.
8 If you dont have it, you certainly can walk away with 9 one today.
10 This next slide describes the objective of 11 our environmental review. This is from the 12 regulations and its a rather convoluted explanation 13 as to exactly what were required to do. But simply 14 put, were trying to determine whether the renewal of 15 the St. Lucie license is acceptable from an 16 environmental standpoint.
17 Now whether or not the plant actually 18 operates for an additional twenty years will be 19 determined by others, such as Florida Power and Light 20 and the State Regulatory Agencies, and it will depend 21 in a large part, on the results of the safety review, 22 which Noel has just talked about.
23 This slide shows in a little bit more 24 detail the environmental review process that Noel 25 talked about just a few minutes ago. We received the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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22 1 application last November, 2001, and we issued a 2 Notice of Intent in the Federal Register in February 3 of this year, informing the public that we are going 4 to prepare and Environmental Impact Statement and give 5 the opportunity for the public to provide comments on 6 the scope of the review.
7 This past April, during the scoping 8 period, we held two public meetings in this very room 9 in Port St. Lucie, to receive public comment on the 10 scope of issues that should be included in the 11 Environmental Impact Statement.
12 Also in April, we went to the St. Lucie 13 site with a combined team of NRC staff members and 14 personnel from our two national laboratories, that 15 have backgrounds in specific technical and scientific 16 disciplines.
17 We familiarized ourselves with the site, 18 we met with the staff of Florida Power and Light to 19 discuss the information submitted in support of the 20 license review, and we reviewed environmental 21 documentation maintained at the plant. We also 22 examined Florida Power and Light Companys evaluation 23 process.
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23 1 to obtain information on the area and on the St. Lucie 2 plants.
3 At the close of the scoping comment 4 period, we gathered up and considered all of the 5 comments that we had received from the public and from 6 the State and Federal Agencies, and many of these 7 comments contributed significantly to the document 8 were here today to discuss.
9 In May we issued requests for additional 10 information from Florida Power and Light to ensure 11 that any information that we relied on in our 12 assessment, that had not been included in the original 13 application, was submitted and docketed.
14 At the end of October, we issued the Draft 15 Environmental Impact Statement for public comment.
16 This is Supplement 11 to the Generic Environmental 17 Impact Statement. We also rely on the findings of the 18 Generic Environmental Impact Statements for part of 19 our conclusions.
20 The report is a draft, not because it is 21 incomplete, but rather because we are at an 22 intermediate in the decision-making process. Were 23 in the middle of the public comment period to allow 24 you and other members of the public to take a look at 25 the results and provide any comments you might have on NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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24 1 the report.
2 After we gather these comments and 3 evaluate them, we may decide to change portions of the 4 Environmental Impact Statement based on those 5 comments. The NRC will then issue a final 6 Environmental Impact Statement related to license 7 renewal concerning St. Lucie in or by July, 2003.
8 That concludes my presentation. Chip?
9 MR. CAMERON: Greatly done. Thank-you, 10 Mike.
11 In a minute were going to go to the 12 specific results of the Draft Environmental Impact 13 Statement, but before we do that, are there any 14 questions about the process that the NRC uses?
15 Okay. Lets go back here. Well go to 16 this gentleman first and please give us your name, 17 sir.
18 MR. BRUMFIELD: Lloyd Brumfield.
19 I have a question about NEPA. I have no 20 familiarity with the power field or nuclear field, but 21 many second-hand workshops and so on, concerning water 22 and the Army Corps of Engineers. The people that I 23 deal with are same thing as a paper tiger that no one 24 enforces. Who would enforce a NEPA and the 25 Environmental Impact Statement in this particular NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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25 1 situation?
2 MR. CAMERON: Thanks, Mr. Brumfield.
3 Mike?
4 DR. MASNIK: Well, NEPA is a piece of 5 legislation that essentially requires you to follow a 6 process. It doesnt guarantee an outcome. It doesnt 7 guarantee, for example, that a Federal agency would 8 pick the least -- pick the alternative that results in 9 the least impact. But as long as you follow a process 10 and youre faithful to the process, then youre 11 complying with NEPA.
12 Now there are other parts of the 13 legislation, including the full disclosure one. You 14 have to understand that before 1969, the Federal 15 agencies basically had a free hand to do pretty much 16 what they wanted to without any real public input, so 17 this was a big change.
18 Now your question on enforcement. The 19 organization within the government that has the 20 responsibility for NEPA is the Council on 21 Environmental Quality, which is an executive level 22 organization that answers to the President. They have 23 -- they work closely with and delegate a certain 24 amount of the responsibility for NEPA compliance to 25 EPA.
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26 1 And for example, this Environmental Impact 2 Statement, we will get comments on the Impact 3 Statement from U.S. EPA. Theyre fairly consistent in 4 providing us comments. They will comment both on the 5 technical nature of the document, but also on our 6 compliance with NEPA.
7 When we issue a final Environmental Impact 8 Statement, they actually grade that Impact Statement 9 and well get a grade as an agency. And if the Impact 10 Statement is determined by EPA to be insufficient, 11 its referred back to CEQ and the executive branch of 12 the government can take some action against the 13 Federal agency that issued that, so that they would be 14 in compliance with NEPA.
15 MR. CAMERON: Okay, thank-you very much, 16 Mike.
17 Yes, sir?
18 MR. RAATZ: My name is Bill Raatz and my 19 question is probably related more to Noels 20 presentation and he had mentioned the reasons for 21 applying for this extension of the license at this 22 time, such as the candle all ablaze and the long 23 construction time on the facilities and things of that 24 sort.
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27 1 is that theres fourteen years that is left on the 2 older facilitys current license and that would be 3 extended to thirty-four years, with this twenty year 4 license approval. And with the newer facility, which 5 has twenty-one years left on its current license, that 6 would be extended forty-one years.
7 And my question is, is what incentive or 8 impetus is there for any kind of serious research or 9 promotion of safer renewable alternatives, such as 10 wind and solar power, fuel cells, new hydro methods.
11 If you have that kind of extension of time, you know, 12 why would you bother then, seriously looking for 13 alternatives?
14 MR. CAMERON: I think -- Im not sure 15 its actually the alternatives, looking at 16 alternatives, I dont know if thats Noel or it might 17 be something Eva is going to address later, but well, 18 go ahead.
19 DR. MASNIK: Just as a point of 20 clarification and its interesting that you bring the 21 issue up because we discussed this in the car the way 22 over here this morning, but under the Atomic Energy 23 Act, we can only issue a license for forty years. So 24 it would not, Unit 2 could not have a forty-one year 25 life extension, a license to operate for forty-one NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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28 1 years into the future.
2 The expectation is that if the Commission 3 ultimately approves the application for license 4 renewal, that it would be granted sometime next year 5 or possibly even the year after, in which case it 6 would be a forty year license.
7 With respect to your second comment and 8 that was on alternatives, I guess the way to answer it 9 is that the pursuit of alternative energy sources is 10 one, first of all, of a question of national policy 11 and second of all, economics, and neither of those 12 areas are areas that our agency would necessarily get 13 involved in. We certainly dont promote alternative 14 energy sources, because thats not our charter. Our 15 charter is to assure the safe use of nuclear power.
16 So I guess my answer is that, you know, 17 there are other agencies within the Federal government 18 that are charged with the responsibility to promote 19 and develop alternative energy sources.
20 MR. CAMERON: I think that there is some 21 information in the Draft Environmental Impact 22 Statement on looking at alternatives and I think that 23 Eva Hickey is going to address those. And perhaps 24 after that, why dont we see if we can go back to your 25 question in that context? It might give you some more NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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29 1 information.
2 All right. Yes?
3 MS. WELLS: My question -- Betty Lou 4 Wells.
5 My question is, how could more lead time 6 be built into this public hearing system so that the 7 material, which was put out in late October, would 8 reach here to be seen and studied before November the 9 26th, which is when it arrived at the depository at 10 the college?
11 DR. MASNIK: Well, it -- I am surprised 12 that if in fact the document didnt get to the library 13 by the 20th, until the 26th, because the document was 14 released for general circulation on the 1st of 15 November, basically, it was provided to people.
16 Unfortunately, Betty, we didnt have your 17 name prior to a couple -- about a month ago. So we 18 really didnt have your name and send you a document 19 until the middle -- I think it was about the middle of 20 the month.
21 We do have another almost five weeks of 22 the comment period thats still open, so if you do 23 have concerns and comments, you can get them to me.
24 And additionally, to be honest with you, the comments 25 that are submitted even after January 15th, we almost NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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30 1 always include them up until the time that we were 2 close to publication. So its obviously best for us 3 if you can get them in by a date certain, but if you 4 cant, because of whatever reason, you know, well 5 consider them as best we can.
6 So we do have an extended comment period 7 and we normally go for seventy-five days, which is 8 more than the requirements of the regulations. So I 9 think were trying to do as much as we can, but unless 10 we have your name, its oftentimes difficult for us to 11 get the information directly to you.
12 MR. CAMERON: One thing I guess we could 13 do is just check to make sure, since were going to be 14 putting other documents at the college, that just make 15 sure that they, they get them.
16 DR. MASNIK: We actually had someone 17 check this morning to make certain that everything was 18 there.
19 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Youre going to 20 follow up and --
21 MS. WELLS: I just wanted to say, I 22 wasnt asking about my own notification, but about the 23 college and I did check with Dr. Wideman, who told me 24 that he had not gotten it until the 26th.
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31 1 and make sure that doesnt happen in the future.
2 Anybody else before we go on to the actual 3 results of the Environmental Impact Statement?
4 (No response.)
5 MR. CAMERON: All right. Thank-you, 6 Mike.
7 And now Eva Hickey will tell us about the 8 results and Eva, remember, we still -- we have sort of 9 an outstanding question here on alternatives and you 10 may want to try to address that.
11 MS. HICKEY: Right.
12 MR. CAMERON: Okay.
13 MS. HICKEY: Good afternoon, my name is 14 Eva Hickey and Im filling in for Charlie Brandt 15 today, who is the Pacific Northwest National 16 Laboratory past leader for this effort, but 17 unfortunately Charles wasnt able to come to sunny 18 Florida. Hes stuck in the cold and the fog of 19 Washington .
20 I do have several of my other team members 21 here with me today and we will try to answer any 22 questions you have.
23 My assignment on this particular activity 24 was to look at the radiological aspects, the uranium 25 fuel cycle and decommissioning for the St. Lucie NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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32 1 license renewal, and I have led several of these teams 2 at other power plants.
3 Im going to take just a minute to talk to 4 you about the process that we use for doing this 5 review and then Im going to try to take a little more 6 time and talk about the actual results that we found.
7 Now first, Mike mentioned that we were 8 here in April and we -- I guess actually you talked 9 about this slide, didnt you, Mike? You just didnt 10 show it. Okay, good.
11 Anyway, this is the information that we 12 gathered as we were preparing our evaluation and here 13 again was some, the expertise that we used, looking at 14 the environmental review for St. Lucie. And now we 15 get to my slides.
16 First what I would like to talk about is 17 what we used to actually define the environmental 18 impacts that we were looking at. The NRC has defined 19 these as small, moderate and large. And these, these 20 terms have been agreed upon and are in the guidance 21 with the Council of Environmental Quality. And this 22 is what we use routinely when we do our review for 23 license renewal.
24 Ill talk a bit about each one and then 25 give you an example, so you can understand what we NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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33 1 were looking at, when we were looking at the 2 environmental impacts.
3 First, a small impact is one that is not 4 detectable or its too small to be destabilizing or to 5 noticeably alter a resource.
6 And to give you an example, one of the 7 things that we look at is the intake structures at the 8 nuclear plants. And we look at the loss of fish and 9 other -- adult and juvenile fish in the intake 10 structure.
11 Now, if the loss of the fish at the intake 12 structure is small enough that it cannot actually be 13 detected in the river and in this case, also in the 14 ocean, then the impact is considered small.
15 Our next impact level is called moderate 16 and this is an effect thats sufficient to noticeably 17 alter, but not destabilize an important resource. And 18 so looking at the example of fish in the intake 19 structure again, what we would see is the population 20 of fish may decline, but it would eventually stabilize 21 at a lower level and then we would see that same 22 population of fish, and that would be considered a 23 moderate impact.
24 And then finally, a large impact would be 25 one that would be clearly noticeable and it would be NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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34 1 sufficient to destabilize important attributes of the 2 resource. So looking at our example once again, you 3 would see a decline in the fish population and it 4 would be such that the population would not stabilize, 5 and you may continually -- and the population would 6 continually decline.
7 Youll hear me use these terms, small, 8 moderate and large throughout my discussion.
9 Now let me take just a minute to explain 10 to you exactly what we did for environmental review.
11 We use a document called the Generic Environmental 12 Impact Statement for license renewal, NUREG-1437. And 13 in that document it identifies ninety-two 14 environmental issues that are evaluated for license 15 renewal. Sixty-nine of these issues are considered 16 what we call Category 1.
17 And Category 1 means that the impacts are 18 the same for all reactors with certain features, such 19 as plants with cooling towers. And if you have the 20 same impact for all of those reactors, we call it 21 Category 1 generic.
22 And we do not necessarily -- we do not do 23 a site-specific analysis on Category 1 issues. We do 24 look to see if there is any new and significant 25 information that has been identified since NUREG-1437 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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35 1 was published.
2 Now for the other twenty-three issues, 3 those are considered Category 2 issues. Heres my 4 Category 2. And these are issues where we found that 5 the impacts may be different from plant to plant, even 6 plants with the same features. And so for these 7 issues, these twenty-three issues, we do a 8 site-specific analysis every time we do license 9 renewal.
10 However, there is another aspect here.
11 And there are some issues that are not related to St.
12 Lucie because of the way that the plant is designed, 13 and for those issues, theyre just tabled and we do 14 not do a review there.
15 During the scoping period, we looked, we 16 asked the public if they had any information, any 17 insight in new and significant information, and we 18 took that into account while we were doing our 19 environmental review.
20 So with that in mind, here is a list of 21 not all of the issues we looked at, but a number of 22 the ones that Im going to talk about today: cooling 23 system, transmission lines, radiological, 24 socioeconomics, groundwater use and quality, and 25 threatened and endangered species. And you can see NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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36 1 here, we have a picture of the St. Lucie Plant.
2 Id like to talk just a minute about the 3 report itself. Hopefully, youve all had a chance to 4 look at it. Im going to be discussing most of the 5 aspects that are described in Chapter 2, which is 6 related to the plant itself, and then the 7 environmental impacts, the findings are primarily in 8 Chapter 4. And as Mike said, we were at St. Lucie in 9 April, gathering information for our evaluation.
10 First let me talk about the cooling 11 system. There are a number of Category 1 issues 12 related to the cooling system and if youre 13 interested, youre welcome to look in the front part 14 of the chapter for the document. Well describe 15 those.
16 The ones that I want to talk about today 17 are the Category 2 issues. They are entrainment, 18 impingement and heat shock.
19 Entrainment happens when fish eggs and 20 larvae pass through the intake screens. And what we 21 found was that there was less than two hundredths of 22 a percent mortality of fish eggs and larvae passing by 23 the intake.
24 The second Category 2 issue is 25 impingement. And impingement occurs when fish and NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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37 1 shellfish actually get trapped on the intake 2 structures. And our research found that there was 3 less than four pounds per day of fish and less than 4 two pounds per day of shellfish that were impinged.
5 The third aspect is heat shock. And heat 6 shock occurs when the cooling water is discharged and 7 it thermally alters the water near the discharge. So 8 were interested in looking at the environment around 9 the discharge.
10 And our review found that St. Lucie 11 complies with the Florida water quality standards.
12 For these three Category 2 issues we determined that 13 all the impacts were small.
14 Next Id like to talk about transmission 15 lines. The St. Lucie transmission lines, theres 16 eleven miles of corridors and they cover 766 acres.
17 Looking at the impacts from the transmission lines, we 18 determined that these were small.
19 Theres another -- theres two other 20 issues related to transmission lines. Electric shock 21 from electromagnetic fields and health effects of 22 chronic exposure to electromagnetic fields.
23 Weve looked at the evaluation in the St.
24 Lucie environmental report and determined that for 25 both of these areas, the impacts are small.
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38 1 Radiological concerns. Radiological is a 2 Category 1 issue, which as I said, means that the 3 impacts are the same from plant to plant, however, 4 because theres typically a lot of concern about 5 radiological aspects, I wanted to take just a minute 6 to discuss it.
7 What we do during our review here is, we 8 look at the effluents that are released from the 9 plants, the gaseous effluents, the liquid effluents, 10 and the solid waste management program. And we also 11 look at the off-site environmental monitoring program, 12 where they put out their monitors for determining 13 whats actually being released off-site. Then we take 14 that information and we look at what the doses to the 15 public are.
16 And what we found at St. Lucie during the 17 license renewal period is that the doses to the public 18 would not be any higher than they typically are now on 19 an annual basis. And so, because of this, weve 20 determined that the impacts are small.
21 There are four issues that are Category 2 22 under the socioeconomics area, housing and public 23 utility impacts. We determined that there would be no 24 change in housing availability, value of rental rates, 25 that the increase in water usage could be met NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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39 1 adequately and, therefore, the impacts to housing and 2 public utility is considered small.
3 One of the other Category 2 impacts that 4 we look at is also land use and transportation during 5 the license renewal period. The licensee has stated 6 that there will not be more than an additional sixty 7 employees during the license renewal term and, 8 therefore, it was determined that the impact from that 9 additional staff would be small, and that the tax 10 payments are small, relative to county revenues.
11 We look at historic and archeological 12 resources. At the St. Lucie site, there are no known 13 historic or archeological resources at the site and 14 any ground disturbances that will occur during the 15 license renewal period will be preceded by survey.
16 So this impact is considered small.
17 We look at environmental justice and we 18 determined from our review that the impact for 19 environmental justice would also be small.
20 Groundwater use and quality is a Category 21 2 issue. The potable service water used at St. Lucie 22 is about 132,000 gallons per day and this is less than 23 about ten percent of what the county supplies, 24 therefore, the impacts are considered small.
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40 1 was a very interesting aspect of our review, because 2 St. Lucie has a very unique habitat and a considerable 3 number of both Federally and State listed threatened 4 and endangered species.
5 For the last twenty years, the staff has 6 been involved in protection of endangered sea turtles, 7 as well as other species and the habitats of other 8 threatened and endangered species around the site.
9 When the discussion of license renewal was 10 first started, the staff contacted the National Marine 11 Fisheries Service and was informed that there was no 12 additional consultation necessary at the time, with 13 relation to the license renewal. However, as 14 necessary, there will be continuous informal and 15 formal consultation regarding the sea turtles, until 16 either the species is de-listed or the plant 17 permanently ceases operation, likewise, for other 18 species, the plants, birds, small animals and manatees 19 that may be located near or on the site, the U.S. Fish 20 and Wildlife Service was contacted and they concurred 21 that at this time, there is no further consultation 22 needed. So our preliminary conclusion 23 for threatened and endangered species is that the 24 impact of license renewal would be small.
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41 1 issues, we look at potential new and significant 2 information. And what we found, we asked for input 3 during scoping, we talked to the licensee, FP&L, and 4 they are also asked to look for new and significant 5 information on Category 1 issues, and then during our 6 review, our team looks for new and significant 7 information. And for the review at St. Lucie, we 8 found that we have no new and significant information.
9 So for all the Category 1 issues, the 10 staff accepts the conclusions in the Generic 11 Environmental Impact Statement, NUREG-1437.
12 Now we had a question earlier about 13 alternatives. One of the reviews, one of the very 14 intensive reviews that we do is looking at 15 alternatives to license renewal and I will talk just 16 a minute about that. A detailed evaluation of that 17 can be found in Chapter 8. And we look at all of the 18 same environmental impacts for all of the alternatives 19 that we look at, and thats described in Chapter 8.
20 The primary ones we look at are the no 21 action alternatives. This means that the St. Lucie 22 Units 1 and 2 would stop, would permanently cease 23 operation when their license expires and they would be 24 decommissioned, and there would be no other evaluation 25 or look at other energy sources.
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42 1 We look at alternative energy sources such 2 as coal, natural gas and new nuclear facilities. We 3 look at purchasing electrical power from other 4 utilities and then we look at a combination of all of 5 these alternatives. There is a summary of these 6 alternatives in Table 9-1 in the report.
7 But the other question, I think, that we 8 had raised earlier was about other alternatives, other 9 sources of alternative energy sources, and in fact we 10 do look at these. And this is a list of the ones that 11 we are currently looking at, and they are identified 12 and discussed in the report.
13 Our preliminary conclusion on alternatives 14 to license renewal is that in looking at all the 15 environmental impacts, we determined that there is a 16 range of impacts from small to large and that the 17 current site prevents alternative generation at that 18 particular location.
19 Alternative sites would have higher -- may 20 have higher socioeconomic impacts, more land ecology 21 disturbances, higher atmospheric conditions and 22 potential aesthetic impacts.
23 And that is my discussion. Im open for 24 questions, if theres any questions people have.
25 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank-you, Eva.
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43 1 Were going to go over to Mr. Brumfield in 2 a moment here.
3 In terms of the question that Bill Raatz 4 asked, when you look at the alternatives, do you look 5 at that over a specific period of time in the future 6 -- I think that gets to sort of the heart of this, 7 this question, in terms of how feasible it is for 8 alternatives to be developed over a certain period of 9 time?
10 MS. HICKEY: Mike, do you want to help me 11 on this, because I -- alternatives is not my 12 particular area.
13 DR. MASNIK: Actually I think Im going 14 to rephrase that, Chip, because I think his comment --
15 and its a good comment -- that is by granting the 16 license an additional twenty year extension, arent we 17 in a way for closing the development of other forms of 18 alternative energy in the area here. And I think, in 19 some respect, its a good question, but its not one 20 that we need -- that we address.
21 You know, like I said, were not in the 22 business of promoting any source of energy generation.
23 Were promoting safe operation of nuclear power, 24 so I --
25 MR. CAMERON: Okay.
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44 1 DR. MASNIK: And I dont know what else 2 to tell you.
3 MR. CAMERON: Thank-you for clarifying 4 that.
5 Mr. Brumfield.
6 MR. BRUMFIELD: Lloyd Brumfield.
7 On alternatives, and this seems to be true 8 in all operations, whether its electricity or 9 whatever, conservation never seems to be an 10 alternative, an option, unless somebody like me brings 11 it up. Oh, yes, thats understood.
12 As I read, the United States has 13 approximately five percent of the worlds population, 14 yet we consume probably twenty-five percent of the 15 worlds energy. Im assuming that all plans are that 16 were going to continue to consume electricity at the 17 rate now, with the increased population. And it seems 18 to me were attacking the problem on the wrong end.
19 MR. CAMERON: Okay, thank-you very much, 20 Mr. Brumfield, and so noted.
21 And in terms of conservation as an 22 alternative --
23 MS. HICKEY: We actually, we do look at 24 that. We look at the amount that may be conserved and 25 how that would impact the amount of energy that the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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45 1 nuclear power plant would supply and we have looked at 2 a combination of alternatives, so we would look, say 3 at conservation as well as perhaps solar power or 4 hydro power, and so in fact, we have, we have 5 addressed conservation.
6 MR. CAMERON: Okay, thank-you.
7 And for people who dont think that these 8 issues have been addressed the way they should, thats 9 what the comment process is all about.
10 Lets -- yes, Betty Lou? Betty Lou Wells.
11 MS. WELLS: Would you please clarify what 12 you said about dosage measurements. Dosage would not 13 be as large in the next twenty years as they are now?
14 MS. HICKEY: No. Okay, what I meant was 15 that, on an annual basis, the utility looks at -- they 16 do an estimate of the public dose every year, 17 annually. And during license renewal, it is not 18 expected that annually, that public dose would 19 increase.
20 So if youre looking at it, for the year 21 2000, and they do their calculation, their estimation 22 of what the public dose is and its a certain value, 23 over the next twenty years, each year it would be 24 somewhere within that same value.
25 MR. CAMERON: Okay.
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46 1 MS. WELLS: In the first hearing, I never 2 could understand what I seemed to be hearing as 3 calculating that dosage in proportion to the 4 population. So are you still doing that or are you 5 saying that dosage, per individual, is smaller and the 6 population growth increases?
7 MS. HICKEY: The utility looks at the 8 emissions from the plant every year and they calculate 9 what they call an individual dose. Thats a maximum 10 individual dose, so thats a person that doesnt 11 really exist at a certain location and they have all 12 these assumptions.
13 They also do a calculation of a collective 14 dose. So that, that is looking at all the material 15 thats released from the plant and then they do a dose 16 for that population. So as the population changes, 17 yes, they will adjust their calculations, based on the 18 population change.
19 MR. CAMERON: Okay. And NRC regulations 20 govern --
21 MS. HICKEY: The government releases --
22 theres not a regulation on population dose because --
23 collective population dose -- because from plant to 24 plant, theres different populations, but the utility 25 makes that calculation and that is reported. But NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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47 1 theres not an actual regulation on what that 2 collective dose has to be.
3 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank-you, thank-4 you, Eva.
5 Lets move to short presentations and then 6 were going to get to hear from all of you in a little 7 bit more detail.
8 Thank-you, Eva.
9 And were going to hear from Mike Masnik 10 on severe accident mitigation alternatives, and hell 11 also tell us exactly what that is.
12 DR. MASNIK: Okay.
13 As Chip said, due to a personal emergency, 14 Mr. Rubin, who was slated to provide this 15 presentation, was unable to attend todays meeting, so 16 Ill give the presentation instead.
17 Section 5 of the draft supplement GEIS for 18 St. Lucie is entitled, "The Environmental Impacts of 19 Postulated Accidents." The GEIS evaluated two classes 20 of accidents, design basis accidents and severe 21 accidents.
22 Now, design basis accidents are those 23 accidents that both the licensee and the NRC staff 24 evaluate to ensure the plant can withstand normal and 25 abnormal transients from a broad spectrum of NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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48 1 postulated accidents without undue risk to the public.
2 The environmental impacts of design basis accidents 3 are evaluated during the initial licensing process and 4 the ability of the plant to withstand these accidents 5 has to be demonstrated before the plant is granted a 6 license.
7 Most importantly, a licensee is required 8 to maintain an acceptable design and performance 9 capability throughout the life of the facility, 10 including a extended life operation period. Since a 11 licensee has to demonstrate acceptable plant 12 performance for the design basis accidents throughout 13 the life of the plant, the Commission has determined 14 that the environmental impact of design basis 15 accidents are of small significance, because the plant 16 is designed to successfully withstand these accidents.
17 Neither the licensee nor the NRC is aware 18 of any new and significant information on the 19 capability of the plant to withstand design basis 20 accidents that is associated with a license renewal 21 application, therefore, the staff has concluded that 22 there are no impacts related to design basis 23 accidents, beyond those discussed in the GEIS.
24 Now the second category of accidents 25 evaluated in the GEIS are severe accidents. And NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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49 1 severe accidents are by definition accidents that are 2 more severe than design basis accidents, because they 3 could result in substantial damage to the reactor 4 cooler, whether or not these consequences have serious 5 offsite impacts.
6 Now, the Commission found in the GEIS the 7 consequences of a severe accident on atmospheric 8 releases fallout onto open bodies of water or releases 9 to groundwater, and subsided impacts are small for all 10 plants. Nevertheless, the Commission determined that 11 alternatives to mitigate severe accidents must be 12 considered for all plants that have not done so.
13 Now, we refer to these alternatives as 14 severe accident mitigation alternatives or we give it 15 the acronym S-A-M-A, which we refer to as SAMAs.
16 Therefore, if a plant has not had an assessment of 17 severe accident mitigation alternatives, the licensee 18 and the NRC need to perform one.
19 This is a site specific assessment and is 20 a Category 2 issue, as explained earlier in this 21 presentation by Eva. St. Lucie had not considered 22 SAMAs prior to this license renewal period.
23 Now the SAMA review for St. Lucie Units 1 24 and 2 are contained in Section 5.2 of the 25 Environmental Impact Statement. The purposes of doing NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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50 1 a SAMA evaluation is to ensure that plant changes with 2 the potential for improving severe accident safety 3 performance are identified and evaluated.
4 And the scope of the potential 5 improvements that were considered include a whole host 6 of things, including hardware modification, procedure 7 changes, changes to their training program, as well as 8 other changes.
9 The scope include SAMAs that would prevent 10 core damage and these are sometimes referred to as 11 preventative SAMAs, as well as SAMAs that improve 12 containment performance, given that a core damage 13 event might occur. These are called mitigative SAMAs.
14 The evaluation is essentially a four-step 15 process. The first step is to characterize overall 16 plant risk and the leading contributors to the risk.
17 This typically involves the extensive use of a plant 18 specific safety assessment study, also known as a PSA.
19 The PSA identifies the different contributors of 20 system failures and human errors that would be 21 required for an accident to progress to either core 22 damage or containment failure.
23 The second step of the evaluation is to 24 identify potential improvements that could further 25 reduce that risk. The information from the PSA, such NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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51 1 as the dominant accident sequences, are used to 2 identify plant improvements that would have the 3 greatest impact in reducing risk.
4 Improvements identified in other NRC and 5 industry studies, as well as SAMA analysis for other 6 plants, are also considered in the process.
7 So first, you qualify overall plant risk.
8 Second, you identify potential improvements, and the 9 next is to quantify the risk reduction potential and 10 the implementation cost for each of the improvements.
11 The risk reduction and implementation 12 costs are typically estimated using a bounding and 13 analysis. Risk reduction is generally overestimated 14 by assuming that the plant improvement is completely 15 effective in eliminating the accident sequence, and 16 the improvement is intended -- that the improvement is 17 intended to address.
18 The implementation costs are generally 19 underestimated by neglecting certain cost factors, 20 such as maintenance cost or surveillance cost of the 21 change.
22 These risk reduction potentials in 23 implementation cost estimates are used in the final 24 step to determine whether implementation of any of the 25 improvements can be justified. In determining whether NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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52 1 an improvement is justified, the NRC staff looks at 2 three factors.
3 First is whether the improvement is cost 4 beneficial. In other words, is the estimated benefit 5 greater than the estimated implementation cost of the 6 SAMA.
7 The second factor is whether the 8 improvement provides a significant reduction in total 9 risk. For example, does it eliminate a sequence or a 10 containment failure mode that contributes to a large 11 fraction of the plant risk.
12 And then the third factor is whether the 13 risk reduction is associated with aging effects during 14 the period of extended operation, in which case if it 15 was, we would be looking at implementation as part of 16 the license renewal process.
17 Well, what did the licensee and the NRC 18 find when they did this analysis. The preliminary 19 results are summarized in this slide. One hundred 20 sixty-nine candidate improvements were identified.
21 These were based on a qualitative screening of the 22 initial list of SAMAs, and it turns out that twenty-23 nine of them were not applicable to the St. Lucie 24 Plant design, and ninety had either already been 25 implemented by the plant, or the plant design met the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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53 1 intent of the SAMA. That left fifty for further 2 evaluation.
3 The licensee then quantified the risk 4 reduction potential or benefit against the 5 implementation cost or costs, for each of the fifty 6 remaining candidates. Of the fifty SAMAs, twenty-nine 7 were eliminated from further evaluation because the 8 cost of the improvement exceeded the maximum 9 attainable benefit value for this plant. The maximum 10 attainable benefit value is a calculated dollar amount 11 associated with completely eliminating severe 12 accidents in St. Lucie.
13 Each of the remaining twenty-one SAMAs 14 were looked at and then subsequently eliminated on the 15 basis that their implementation costs exceeded twice 16 the estimated benefit for that specific SAMA. The end 17 result was that no specific SAMA candidate was found 18 to be cost beneficial.
19 This preliminary conclusion is consistent 20 with the low residual level of risk as indicated in 21 the St. Lucie PSA, and the fact that St. Lucie has 22 already implemented many of these plant improvements 23 over its twenty some years of operation, or almost 24 twenty some years of operation.
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54 1 conclusion is that additional plant improvements to 2 further mitigate severe accidents, are not required at 3 St. Lucie Units 1 and 2.
4 That concludes the presentation.
5 MR. CAMERON: Thank-you, Mike.
6 Any questions on the so called SAMAs?
7 Okay, we have a couple out here. Lets go 8 and then well come back to Betty Lou.
9 Yes?
10 MR. ONCAVAGE: Mark Oncavage.
11 The corrosion and near miss at Davis Besse 12 earlier this year, was that a SAMA or a severe 13 accident, was that a design basis, and what mitigation 14 steps do you take on something like that?
15 MR. CAMERON: Thank-you, Mike.
16 DR. MASNIK: John would be --
17 MR. CAMERON: Okay, were going to go to 18 John Tappert.
19 John?
20 MR. TAPPERT: Yeah, as to the Davis Besse 21 corrosion, actually that would have been a large break 22 or intermediate break LOCA, its possible an accident, 23 and, of course, its a design basis accident. So I 24 dont think that the SAMA reviews -- and Im in a 25 little bit of a disadvantage here because our expert NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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55 1 isnt 2 here, but I didnt see, the SAMAs do not necessarily 3 go with this type of issue. Thats because theyre a 4 design basis accident, which we evaluate generically 5 in our Generic Environmental Impact Statement.
6 MR. ONCAVAGE: And what would be the 7 mitigation --
8 MR. CAMERON: Mark, we need to get you on 9 different mike.
10 MR. ONCAVAGE: And what would be the 11 mitigation for that type of design basis accident?
12 MR. CAMERON: John, maybe just to Davis 13 Besse license renewal, how the implications are 14 generally.
15 MR. TAPPERT: Well, just listening to his 16 question, I mean there are mitigative strategies to 17 address those kinds of accidents. Basically theres 18 pumps available in the plants to replenish the water 19 in the reactor core. Theres a refueling water 20 storage tank which has a large volume of water, which 21 would be, initially we use to replace that water. If 22 that is exhausted, they have a sump in the actual 23 container building itself. They can go to recycle 24 those where you can actually continuously pump water 25 into the core to keep it cold. And so theyre NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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56 1 designed to withstand those accidents.
2 Do you want to answer that?
3 MR. DUDLEY: Yes, this is Noel Dudley.
4 As part of the license renewal process, 5 what we look at is normally the passive components, 6 the reactor being one of them, and how you manage and 7 identify aging degradation that has been seen or could 8 possibly occur. And as part of the safety review, we 9 are taking a look at, under a TLAA, time limit aging 10 analysis, for alloy 600 components, reactor vessel 11 head being one of them. So were taking a hard look 12 to see that there are programs, PMs and inspections 13 that are in place and ongoing, that would identify the 14 degradation that took place at Davis Besse before it 15 went down to that class.
16 MR. CAMERON: Great. Thanks, Noel, 17 thanks, John. I think theyll give us the information 18 out there.
19 Betty Lou?
20 MS. WELLS: Im sorry to always seem to 21 have questions.
22 Where in this formula for cost benefit 23 ratio is the human life value entered in?
24 DR. MASNIK: I believe if youre looking 25 in Section 5.2, they talk about the cost and the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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57 1 benefit analysis. And in there is a discussion of 2 averted dose and what the value of averted dose is.
3 Now, to answer your question directly, we 4 do not estimate what the value is of a human life.
5 What we do look at, and weve assigned a value for 6 the, the amount of money that could be spent to avert 7 a specific radiological exposure.
8 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank-you.
9 Mike, do you want to just give us quickly 10 how to submit comments and then were going to ask Mr.
11 Anderson, County Administrator, to lead us on the 12 comments.
13 DR. MASNIK: Okay, Id just like to 14 summarize real quickly the conclusions of the staff 15 review.
16 The impacts of license renewal at St.
17 Lucie are small for all impact areas. In comparison, 18 the impacts of alternatives to license renewal range 19 from small to large. Therefore, the staffs 20 preliminary conclusion is that the adverse impact of 21 license renewal at St. Lucie, the impacts are not so 22 great that preserving the option of license renewal 23 for energy planning decision-makers would be 24 unreasonable.
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58 1 current status. We issued a Draft Environmental 2 Impact Statement for St. Lucie license renewal this 3 past October. We are in the middle of a public 4 comment period and, which is scheduled to close on 5 January 15th, 2003. We expect to address public 6 comments, including any necessary revisions to the 7 Draft Environmental Impact Statement for license 8 renewal, and address and issue the final Environmental 9 Impact Statement in July of next year.
10 This next slide provides information on 11 how to access the St. Lucie Environmental Impact 12 Statement. You can contact me directly at the phone 13 number provided and Ill mail you a copy. You can 14 view the document at the public library here at Indian 15 River Community College. And the document is also 16 available at our web address as given. Weve also 17 brought a few copies with us, so if you dont have 18 one, please pick one up before you leave. See Etoy, 19 who is outside, manning the desk out there.
20 This last slide gives detail on how to 21 submit comments on the draft impact statement. You 22 can submit the comments in writing or by E-mail or by 23 regular mail at the addresses given, or you can bring 24 them in person to NRC headquarters in Rockville, 25 Maryland.
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59 1 And, Mark, I want you to know that 2 the E-mail address works. I tried it several times.
3 But just remember, if you can, please 4 submit your comments by the deadline, which is January 5 15th, 2003.
6 That concludes our presentations at 7 todays meeting.
8 MR. CAMERON: Okay, great.
9 And thank-you, Mike and thank all of you 10 for your attention during the presentations. The 11 staff from the NRC and also some of our experts will 12 be available after the meeting if theres particular 13 subjects you want to discuss in further detail.
14 And now its our opportunity to listen to 15 you. And first of all, were going to have Mr. Doug 16 Anderson, whos the County Administrator for St. Lucie 17 County.
18 We have some other government officials, 19 but next were going to go to Mr. Bob Bangert from the 20 Conservation Alliance.
21 Mr. Anderson.
22 MR. ANDERSON: Good afternoon.
23 Thank-you for letting me go first. I 24 really appreciate this.
25 St. Lucie County is one of the fastest NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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60 1 growing economies in the State of Florida, if not the 2 fastest growing economy. We have gone virtually from 3 last place in the State of Florida for percentage of 4 new jobs created, to almost number one. In fact, we 5 may be number one, with recent announcements weve 6 just made.
7 If the St. Lucie Plant were closed, the 8 loss of eight hundred full-time jobs in our community 9 would be devastating to our economy.
10 The St. Lucie Power Plant provides our 11 industry with a reliable source of electricity. In 12 St. Lucie County, were not like other areas of the 13 country where you experience brownouts or blackouts.
14 Our industry, as a diversified industry we have here 15 now, relies heavily on a steady source of electricity 16 and a reliable source.
17 Florida energy demands are growing at 18 about two percent annually. Electricity from the St.
19 Lucie Power Plant can meet the energy needs of more 20 than one-half million homes. Each St. Lucie unit 21 produces 839 million watts of energy.
22 The St. Lucie Plant is among the lowest 23 cost producers of electricity in the FPL system, and 24 this helps keep our electric bills low. And that is 25 one of the attractions to our area for industry. The NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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61 1 high energy users come here, looking at utility rates 2 is one of their objectives.
3 Our power bills are more reasonable than 4 most others in the country, in part because of this 5 plant, and we want to keep our power bills low and our 6 quality of life high.
7 We want to keep the St. Lucie Power Plant 8 as part of our future. The site is already 9 established. Theyre continuing to operate -- the 10 continuation of operating this facility means no new 11 land would be disturbed to construct a new facility to 12 replace this one.
13 It is my understanding that replacing the 14 two reactors with the equivalent electric producers 15 such as oil, or gas, or coal, could have greater 16 pollution and ecological impacts.
17 I have lived in St. Lucie County now 18 almost eight years, Ive lived and worked here, and 19 Ive grown to know the St. Lucie Plant and I have 20 worked with the different people there, and they are 21 good neighbors.
22 I have some examples here of some of the 23 things that theyve done and theyve worked very 24 closely with the County administration.
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62 1 in contributions to the local area agencies such as 2 the United Way. They support the St. Lucie County 3 Education Foundation in a scholarship program. The 4 employees are involved in youth development through 5 Scouts, Little Leagues, civic and church programs and 6 activities. The employees volunteer for Habitat for 7 Humanity in building homes for low income residents.
8 The plants information center, the Energy 9 Encounter, holds forty thousand visitors annually. In 10 addition to hands-on science programs for schools, the 11 center offers free workshops to teachers for training 12 credits and walk-in visitors are always welcome.
13 The power plant donates computers and 14 school supplies to local schools. And FP&L has made 15 substantial contributions to the countys regional 16 sports stadium, which is located in St. Lucie West.
17 And the St. Lucie County Marine Center that features 18 the Smithsonian Marine Eagle System exhibit, as well 19 as many other community projects.
20 I know a few months ago, we were putting 21 together a financial package to purchase a mobile 22 command center to be used directly between the City of 23 Fort Pierce Police Department, the Sheriffs Office, 24 the Fire District and County Administration. I went 25 to FP&L and asked if they could contribute towards NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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63 1 this mobile finance center, because while we do have 2 incidents in a lot of cases they are also on site and 3 they work with us to plan what action we have to take.
4 Within a few weeks they called me back and they said 5 yes, Doug, we will financially contribute, and they 6 presented us with a check, and thats a good neighbor.
7 The impact of the St. Lucie Plant on our 8 local economy is more than eighty million dollars 9 annually. The thing that impresses me most about the 10 St. Lucie Plant is its reputation.
11 Ive heard about the good ratings the 12 plant has received through the years from the NRC, the 13 agency here today, that watches over your plants. I 14 encourage the NRC to renew the license at St. Lucie 15 Plant, Units 1 and 2.
16 Thank-you.
17 MR. CAMERON: And thank-you very much, 18 Mr. Anderson.
19 Next were going to hear from Bob Bangert 20 from the Conservation Alliance.
21 MR. BANGERT: Good afternoon members of 22 the U.S. Regulatory Commission. My name is Bob 23 Bangert and I represent the Conservation Alliance of 24 St. Lucie County.
25 Its interesting before I start my NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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64 1 presentation, my wife and I have traveled eleven 2 thousand miles this summer, covering twenty-eight s, 3 and the question was raised about alternate energy.
4 We saw windmills all over. And when I got back, I 5 investigated a little bit and to my surprise I found 6 out that one of the subsidiaries of FP&L group is the 7 largest producer of wind power in the United States 8 and possibly the world.
9 First of all, I want to express my 10 appreciation to those who drafted this report, for 11 including a glossary of the acronyms used in the 12 report. I sure saved a hell of a lot of looking back.
13 Wouldnt it be nice if all government agencies and all 14 consultants did the same.
15 The Alliance is also very impressed by the 16 systematic and completeness of the report in 17 evaluating the environmental consequences of renewing 18 the licenses for the St. Lucie FP&L Plants 1 and 2, 19 for operation for an additional twenty years.
20 Two county parks with beach access, Blind 21 Creek Pass Park and Walton Rocks Park lie within the 22 property boundaries of FP&L, and have been included in 23 an Adopt a Beach program instigated this year through 24 the Conservation Alliance, partnership with the 25 Conservation Alliance and the City of Ft. Pierce and NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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65 1 St. Lucie County. Quite a unique partnership.
2 Volunteers have signed contracts to clean up the 3 litter from these beaches at least once every two 4 months.
5 One of our primary concerns in the past 6 has been the offshore ocean intake structures. The 7 company, by installing and maintaining three barriers 8 of these intake structures to reduce potential loss of 9 marine life, particular sea turtles, and to facilitate 10 their return to the ocean recognized our concerns.
11 The addition and construction of a new 12 smaller mesh barrier east of the larger mesh barriers, 13 plus an active program, including recovery of turtles 14 from the intake canal, has greatly reduced any harm to 15 entangled turtles.
16 FP&Ls program, which includes recovery of 17 turtles from the intake canal and barrier nets, are 18 monitored seven days a week, eight to twelve hours a 19 day, by quantum resources is exemplary. In addition 20 to the entanglement nets which are used only during 21 daylight hours under continued surveillance, plus 22 turtles removed with the dip nets and in many cases, 23 the divers go down and take them out bodily.
24 FP&L constantly is evaluating the program 25 to minimize any trauma to captured sea turtles.
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66 1 Our Conservation Alliance honored one of 2 these divers, a Michael Breshett (phonetic), at our 3 Annual Awards Luncheon last May, for his work with 4 entangled turtles while on the job, as well as his 5 constant vigilance on his own time.
6 Captured healthy turtles are tagged before 7 being released back into the ocean and many have shown 8 up on distant lands, such as Costa Rica, Cuba, and 9 many other places.
10 Among many of the turtles recently 11 captured have been showing evidence of tumors on the 12 soft sections of their skin, the origin of which has 13 not yet been determined. However, there is growing 14 evidence that intrusion of treated waste water from 15 deep well injections in the area, may be linked to 16 these tumors.
17 These turtles are sent to rehabilitation 18 facilities determined by the Florida Fish and Wildlife 19 Conservation Commission.
20 I cannot stress strongly enough our 21 commendations for FP&Ls continuing efforts to improve 22 any areas that they find may be having a detrimental 23 effect on the environment, on any portion of their 24 eleven hundred plus acres on the island adjacent to 25 Plants 1 and 2, or along its transmission lines.
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67 1 Now, if all of FP&Ls customers in St.
2 Lucie County and the would be as diligent in their 3 treatment and care of the environment, our future 4 generations would be assured of enjoying this special 5 piece of paradise we call St. Lucie County.
6 Thank-you.
7 MR. CAMERON: Okay, thank-you very much, 8 Mr. Bangert.
9 Now were going to hear from a trio of 10 government officials and then were going to go to 11 Gary Cantrell and Judi Miller. But in terms of the 12 government officials, we have Ron Parrish, Deputy 13 Chief, St. Lucie Fire District, whos going to start 14 us off. And then we have Gary Wilson from the St.
15 Lucie County Sheriffs Office, and Steven Wolfberg 16 from the Martin County Department of Emergency 17 Service.
18 And this is Ron Parrish.
19 MR. PARRISH: Good afternoon.
20 And as he said, Im Ron Parrish. Im 21 Deputy Chief of Administration for the St. Lucie 22 County Fire District.
23 Im here today to represent the Fire 24 District as well as the Fire Chief, Jay Sizemore, and 25 to talk a little bit about the collective efforts that NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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68 1 Florida Power and Light and the Fire District have 2 done to enhance and improve the training for the 3 safety of the public, the plant itself. This has been 4 ongoing for as long as I can remember.
5 Ive been directly involved with some very 6 intense training with Florida Power and Light. And we 7 feel as though theyve been a great corporate partner 8 in the enhancement of the training and the safety of 9 the citizens of St. Lucie County, and we support 10 relicensing of the power plant.
11 Thank-you.
12 MR. CAMERON: Okay, thank-you very much, 13 Ron.
14 Lets next go to Gary Wilson.
15 MR. WILSON: Good afternoon.
16 As it was said, my name is Gary Wilson.
17 Im the Chief Deputy with the St. Lucie County 18 Sheriffs Office.
19 I am here today representing the Sheriffs 20 Office and the impact that FP&L has on our county.
21 And, of course, our interest is one of safety and 22 security, and one that addresses the crime issues that 23 impact us every single day. And were happy to say 24 that on all of those fronts, FP&L is not a problem for 25 us and in fact, it is a great benefit to the county NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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69 1 and our efforts, as far as the safety and security at 2 the plant, and also the impact that they have on our 3 community from a crime basis.
4 The employees at the power plant pose no 5 problem for law enforcement. And they are certainly, 6 as Mr. Anderson pointed out earlier, a great neighbor 7 for us to have here in St. Lucie County.
8 From a safety and security standpoint, the 9 St. Lucie County Sheriffs Office works closely with 10 the security department out at the plant to ensure 11 that all of those issues that of concern for a lot of 12 people who live in the area out there are taken care 13 of, and that working relationship is a very strong 14 relationship and one that were very proud of.
15 So on behalf of law enforcement in St.
16 Lucie County, we are in support of license renewal for 17 the power plant.
18 Thank-you.
19 MR. CAMERON: Okay, thank-you very much, 20 Mr. Wilson.
21 And were going to hear from Steven 22 Wolfberg and then, I neglected to mention Don Daniels, 23 who is the emergency management coordinator for St.
24 Lucie County.
25 And this is Steven Wolfberg.
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70 1 MR. WOLFBERG: Good afternoon.
2 Steven Wolfberg, Director of Martin County 3 Emergency Services, which represents fire rescue and 4 emergency management.
5 Were here in support of the Nuclear 6 Regulatory Commissions relicensing of St. Lucies 7 Unit 1 and 2. We have had a relationship with the 8 power plant for over twenty-three years that, my 9 contemporary and myself, Ive been with the 10 department. During this time weve been able to build 11 a model partnership in relationships between FP&L and 12 the county, and the benefits going both way. The 13 relationship, the partnerships mature, its credible 14 and its ongoing.
15 We consider St. Lucie Power Plant a 16 partner in our planning, our response and operating, 17 and continuing education in emergency services as well 18 as just good friends, partners and corporate partners.
19 On behalf of Martin County Emergency 20 Services, again, we support the relicensing for Unit 21 1 and 2.
22 Thank-you.
23 MR. CAMERON: Okay, thank-you very much, 24 Mr. Wolfberg.
25 Lets go to Don Daniels.
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71 1 MR. DANIELS: Good afternoon.
2 My name is Don Daniels. Ive been a 3 resident of St. Lucie County for over thirty-seven 4 years, and in the last twenty-eight years Ive been 5 involved in emergency services of one type or another.
6 Ive been with Emergency Management in the St. Lucie 7 County Public Safety Department for the last sixteen 8 years. And Im here to fill in today for our 9 Director, Mr. Jack Southern, Director of Public Safety 10 and just to give you some of the comments from our 11 agency.
12 There are many reasons the plant should 13 continue operating. Part of it is the importance to 14 our community as was stated earlier, being a good 15 neighbor, and it also has had a good environmental 16 record as been pointed out. But none of these things 17 would matter if the plant did not operate safely. And 18 this is something weve come to learn through our 19 office and through dealing with the people at the 20 plant, that they have our safety and concern at heart.
21 Many of them are our neighbors. They live in our 22 community. They are just as concerned for their 23 families as they are for anyone elses.
24 This office receives -- our office, 25 Emergency Management receives a quarterly, on a NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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72 1 quarterly basis, a report that indicates each and 2 every day that this plant meets its performance 3 standards.
4 And, for example, our office also receives 5 timely briefings and correspondence regarding in-place 6 procedures and checks by an independent quality 7 assurance organization, and that this ensures timely 8 preventative maintenance is done. These reports 9 show that St. Lucie Plant is committed to the safety 10 of residents surrounding the plant.
11 But most important is their pro-active 12 involvement in offsite and on site emergency planning.
13 Of course, on site, meaning dealing with anything 14 particular, at their particular plant facility.
15 Offsite meaning, meaning our affected population, our 16 population in our community.
17 We have exercises on a regular basis and 18 at least one a year. There are minor exercises during 19 the course of the year. We are evaluated on, at our 20 agency by Federal Emergency Management Agency, for our 21 duties and responsibilities, and how we carry them 22 out, and our actions for offsite safety for citizens.
23 And basically for Martin County and St.
24 Lucie County, our evaluations I know of over at least 25 the last sixteen years, have been flawless. And we NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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73 1 have proved that we can help protect the citizens of 2 our counties.
3 We also receive from the State of 4 Floridas Department of Health and Bureau of Radiation 5 Control, monitoring tests of radiation levels at 6 locations surrounding the nuclear plant.
7 Monitoring and testing include the 8 sampling of air, water, shoreline sediment, fish, 9 crustacea, broad leaf vegetation and milk. And these 10 levels have consistently been comparable to those 11 measured throughout the for the past twenty-five 12 years.
13 It is clearly evident that the employees 14 of the St. Lucie Plant are dedicated to making sure 15 the plant is safe, not only for themselves, but for 16 their families, friends and neighbors. This agency, 17 the St. Lucie County Department of Public Safety, 18 supports the license renewal of the St. Lucie Plant.
19 Thank-you.
20 MR. CAMERON: Okay, thank-you very much, 21 Mr. Daniels.
22 Next two speakers is Gary Cantrell, who is 23 the Chief Executive Officer of the St. Lucie Medical 24 Center, and then well hear from Judi Miller.
25 MR. CANTRELL: Good afternoon.
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74 1 My name is Gary Cantrell. Im the CEO of 2 St. Lucie Medical Center, but Im here representing 3 the Economic Development Council of St. Lucie County.
4 For me, the same reasons that you heard from everybody 5 else, we also support appeals, licensure application.
6 The Economic Development Council is very 7 supportive of it, from the standpoint that we need the 8 power and we need electricity. Our charge is to help 9 bring industry to the community. We have to have a 10 power source when they get here, thats affordable in 11 our dealings with companies coming from throughout the 12 country and looking at our community, our power rates 13 are very favorably priced, relative to where theyre 14 coming from.
15 So were very much in support of renewing 16 their license and support their application.
17 MR. CAMERON: Okay, thank-you, Gary.
18 Were going to go next to Judi Miller, 19 whos with the St. Lucie County School Board, and then 20 were going to hear from Florida Power and Light.
21 MS. MILLER: Good afternoon.
22 Im Judi Miller for the record. Im a 23 member of St. Lucie County School Board and Executive 24 Director of Big Brothers, Big Sisters. Im here not 25 to speak on behalf of our school board, but to speak NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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75 1 as an individual, and I am in support of the license 2 renewal.
3 I know that you all have heard reports 4 from the safety and environmental impacts this 5 afternoon, people who are far more skilled in those 6 areas than I am.
7 Im here today to speak as somebody who 8 has lived here in this community for thirty years and 9 seen the kind of partner and good neighbor that FP&L 10 is to our community and our families here.
11 And Ive seen that firsthand, both through 12 the school system and all of the things that FP&L 13 does, from the Energy Encounter, to training kids, to 14 the supplies and materials that they donate, to the 15 manpower that they donate, to school system 16 committees, to the help, and support, and resources 17 they provide for community agencies such as Big 18 Brothers, Big Sisters and United Way, so I truly 19 support the license renewal.
20 Thank-you.
21 MR. CAMERON: Okay, thank-you, Judi.
22 Next were going to hear from Mr. Don 23 Jernigan, who is the Site Vice-President at St. Lucie, 24 and then were going to hear from Tom Abbatiello, who 25 is the environmental lead on the St. Lucie license NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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76 1 renewal application.
2 Okay, Don.
3 MR. JERNIGAN: Good afternoon, and 4 thank-you, Mr. Cameron.
5 My name is Don Jernigan and I am the 6 Vice-president of Florida Power and Light Company, St.
7 Lucie Nuclear Power Plant.
8 I appreciate this opportunity to speak to 9 you today about FPLs application for renewal of the 10 St. Lucie operating licenses. Assisting me today is 11 Tom Abbatiello, our license renewal project 12 environmental lead, who will also address more 13 specifically, the findings contained in the draft 14 supplement Environmental Impact Statement.
15 But I would also like to thank the Nuclear 16 Regulatory Commission for arranging and holding this 17 meeting today. FPL strongly supports the openness of 18 this process.
19 During the last two years, we have been 20 involved in dialogue with the community surrounding 21 the St. Lucie Plant. In fact, we have met with more 22 than one thousand home owners, community groups and 23 government officials. In those meetings, our purpose 24 was to simply share information about what license 25 renewal is about and about our plant operations.
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77 1 We believe that the community answers and 2 priorities should be incorporated, not only into the 3 renewal of our St. Lucie Plant operating license, but 4 also into our overall plant operations. Community 5 input is an integral part of the license renewal 6 process.
7 The application that we have prepared 8 consists of two parts, as was discussed earlier today, 9 a safety analysis and an environment report. The 10 application has been open to public review for some 11 time and the NRC has requested on several occasions, 12 comments from interested parties.
13 Just as this process has been open in 14 reviewing the environmental aspects of license 15 renewal, the safety analysis is also following a 16 parallel path. There are open public meetings and the 17 NRC is going through an intensive review of plant 18 systems to ensure the safe operation of the power 19 plant for an additional twenty years.
20 A public meeting on the scoping of the 21 NRCs environmental review over license renewal 22 application was held here in this very room last April 23 of this year. Todays meeting continues that open 24 process of seeking public input on license renewal.
25 We welcome this opportunity to gain NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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78 1 additional community input on the environmental 2 aspects of our license renewal.
3 Id like to particularly thank the members 4 of the community that are here represented today for 5 taking time out of your busy schedules to share your 6 views and ideas of this draft report with the NRC, and 7 I also appreciate the support that has been provided 8 to us by the local communities.
9 Id also like to thank the NRC staff and 10 members of the National Laboratory, their review team, 11 in their work of preparing the supplemental 12 Environmental Impact Statement for the St. Lucie 13 license renewal. I believe that this report has 14 reflected a comprehensive assessment of the 15 environmental impact of license renewal.
16 As the vice-president of St. Lucie, my 17 first job and my primary focus is the health and 18 safety of my family, the St. Lucie employees in this 19 community, and their well being comes before anything 20 else. And when I look at the evidence as presented in 21 this supplemental Environmental Impact Statement and 22 other license renewal documents that have been 23 submitted, Im assured that the plants safety and a 24 positive impact on our environment exists with these 25 reports and whats contained in them.
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79 1 I believe the case for continued operation 2 of the St. Lucie Plant is strong. And let me address 3 while Im here, four areas:
4 One, our plant performance, the economics 5 of the St. Lucie Plant electricity, our environmental 6 stewardship and community presence.
7 First, the performance of our power plant 8 is top notch, thanks to our employees, which weve got 9 a couple here in the audience today. Their time, 10 their effort, their dedication have resulted in St.
11 Lucie consistently being recognized as one of the 12 safest and most reliable, and most efficient plants in 13 the United States. Our employees have worked 14 diligently through effective maintenance programs to 15 sustain the option for continued plant operation well 16 beyond the initial four year license.
17 Not only does the NRC monitor our 18 performance, but there are other independent agencies 19 that have also agreed that our operations are safe and 20 they have no adverse impacts on the surrounding 21 community. This includes the State of Floridas 22 Department of Health, which conducts monitoring and 23 sampling for the area around the St. Lucie Plant.
24 Another fact to consider is our ability to 25 help meet Floridas energy needs. As weve stated, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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80 1 Florida is growing two percent a year and the St.
2 Lucie Power Plant can help sustain the economic growth 3 and maintain our quality of life.
4 This power plant is strategically located 5 within the FPL generating system. And the St. Lucie 6 Plant is among the lowest cost of electricity within 7 the FPL system. So we help keep the electric bill 8 low, and thats good news for our customers.
9 And from an environmental standpoint, the 10 St. Lucie Plant remains a guardian of our s natural 11 resources. Our outstanding sea turtle programs are 12 recognized throughout the this year by the Governor.
13 And in addition, we can continue to produce clean 14 electricity without air pollution or greenhouse gases.
15 Finally, what does St. Lucie mean to our 16 community? Well, weve asked our neighbors and 17 theyve told us that were an important economic 18 factor in this community, one that they want to see 19 remain as a viable contributor. The payroll for 20 around eight hundred employees, the tax dollars, the 21 property taxes, the purchases, the contributions to 22 the local United Way agencies help in this area.
23 But more importantly is a role that the 24 people at the power plant have played in this 25 community. Our employees are active in their NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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81 1 churches, and scout organizations, and PTAs, and 2 Little Leagues, and even in local government.
3 And as a testimony to our community role, 4 many members of the local community have spoken here 5 today and have spoken here in this very room in 6 Aprils public scoping meeting on the environment 7 review of our license renewal application.
8 In summary, I believe that the reviewing 9 of the licenses of the Florida Power and Light St.
10 Lucie Nuclear Power Plant is in the best interests of 11 our community in continuing to provide safe, clean, 12 reliable, low cost electricity to our customers.
13 What Id like to do is ask our license 14 renewal project environmental lead, Tom Abbatiello, to 15 give a little bit more detail on the FPL license 16 renewal efforts and a little comment on the Draft 17 Environmental Impact Statement.
18 Tom?
19 MR. ABBATIELLO: Thanks, Don.
20 Good afternoon everyone. Its an honor to 21 be here today to share my thoughts with you about the 22 supplemental Environmental Impact Statement for the 23 St. Lucie license renewal.
24 As Don said, my name is Tom Abbatiello and 25 I am the environmental lead for the St. Lucie license NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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82 1 renewal project.
2 The supplemental Environmental Impact 3 Statement for the St. Lucie license renewal provides 4 a thorough examination of ninety-two environmental 5 issues addressed in the regulations. This very broad 6 approach has been thoughtfully designed and is 7 intended to cover the wide spectrum of issues that 8 might be raised by members of the public for 9 governmental review agencies.
10 The supplemental Environmental Impact 11 Statement concludes that the environmental impacts 12 from operating St. Lucie for an additional twenty 13 years, would be small. This conclusion is based on 14 the detailed analysis of the impact areas. I agree 15 with this conclusion. It is the same conclusion that 16 was made in FPLs environmental report prepared as a 17 part of our application.
18 But another reason I believe that St.
19 Lucie should operate for an additional twenty years, 20 is to be able to continue the award winning 21 conservation work that was initiated almost twenty 22 years ago.
23 FPL is proud of the work we do to preserve 24 and protect the environment. We believe in our 25 responsibility to operate in harmony with the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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83 1 environment. St. Lucies unique location successfully 2 combines modern technology with a strong environmental 3 commitment.
4 As Don alluded to in his talk on October 5 8th of this year, Governor Bush and the Florida 6 Cabinet presented FPL with a 2002 Council for 7 Sustainable Florida Environmental Award.
8 This award, which is on display out in the 9 foyer, recognizes FPLs program at the St. Lucie Plant 10 for the preservation and education on endangered sea 11 turtles. The sea turtle protection and preservation 12 program will continue during the license extension 13 period.
14 The renewal of the St. Lucie licenses is 15 important in meeting the energy needs of South 16 Florida. As been stated already in this meeting, our 17 growth rate is about two percent a year and the 18 electricity being consumed per customer is also 19 increasing.
20 Because of this increasing demand, FPL 21 must plan and provide power plants to assure an ample 22 s u p p l y o f e l e c t r i c i t y .
23 And to that end, a robust network of generation 24 is best sustained by the use of diverse fuels.
25 The review of the St. Lucie operating --
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84 1 the renewal of the St. Lucie operating licenses 2 permits FPL to continue to provide over 1700 megawatts 3 of environmentally clean and low cost generating 4 capacity, free from dependence on foreign oil.
5 The St. Lucie employees want to remain a 6 part of this community. As your neighbors, safe and 7 reliable operation of the St. Lucie Nuclear Plant is 8 our top priority. We believe license renewal makes 9 good sense. It makes good business sense for both FPL 10 and its customers. And in light of the current 11 situation in the world, we also believe that it is the 12 right thing to do for our country.
13 Thank-you.
14 MR. CAMERON: Thank-you, Tom and Don 15 Jernigan.
16 Were going to hear from Jim Vojcsik now, 17 from United Way of Martin County. And then were 18 going to hear from Arlease Hall, and then go to Frank 19 Leslie, Bill Raatz and Ralph DeCristofaro.
20 MR. VOJCSIK: Good afternoon.
21 My name is Jim Vojcsik and I am the 22 Executive Director of the United Way of Martin County.
23 My wife, Donna and I, and our two children have lived 24 in this area since 1999, and we care about the quality 25 of life, about the safety and about the environmental NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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85 1 health of our community.
2 I would like to add my voice to those 3 today, who are supporting the license renewal for 4 Florida Power and Light St. Lucie Nuclear Power Plant.
5 As has been stated, demands for energy in 6 our communities on the Treasure Coast are growing 7 annually and we need power from this plant to meet the 8 growing needs for low cost electricity. Florida Power 9 and Light has a good track record of not only 10 providing the power we need, but operating this plant 11 safely and protecting the environment.
12 As one of the largest employers in our 13 area, the St. Lucie Power Plant is important to our 14 local economy. A business of this size would be very 15 difficult to replace.
16 The St. Lucie Power Plant is a good 17 neighbor. I know personally, several of the employees 18 at the plant, who donate their time and their money to 19 making our communities better places to live. They 20 contribute hundreds of thousand of dollars and 21 volunteer hours each year to charitable organizations 22 on the Treasure Coast, including the United Way, and 23 are making a huge difference in our communities.
24 For all the reasons I mentioned, we should 25 renew the license of the St. Lucie Power Plant for NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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86 1 twenty more years.
2 Thank-you.
3 MR. CAMERON: Okay, thank-you, Mr.
4 Vojcsik.
5 Arlease Hall.
6 MS. HALL: Good afternoon.
7 My name is Arlease Hall and Im back 8 again. Again, it was my decision to support the 9 license renewal of the St. Lucie Plant today and there 10 are a myriad of reasons as to why the plant should 11 continue to operate.
12 Some folks, a lot of folks have come 13 before me today, to reiterate the reasons why they 14 support Florida Power and Light. Why? Because the 15 St. Lucie Plant is important to the community. The 16 St. Lucie Plant benefits our local economy 17 tremendously. The St. Lucie Plant has been an 18 excellent partner and neighbor, be it community or in 19 business. The St. Lucie has contentious, dedicated 20 and well trained employees.
21 And what comes to mind to me sometimes, 22 when Im going to some QIQA -- another acronym -- but 23 when youre looking at all of the power points, 24 Florida Power and Light comes up, as being one of 25 those organizations that first implemented in being on NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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87 1 line with QI in sterling criteria.
2 The St. Lucie Plant has been and has a 3 good environmental record. The St. Lucie employees 4 make our community a better place to live because of 5 their safety record, and thats whats so vitally 6 important to me, the safety record. Because all those 7 well trained individuals that meticulously -- they 8 meet the performance standards set at the highest of 9 quality levels daily.
10 I feel very strongly about the things that 11 I say to you this afternoon, because I work here and 12 the employees live in this community. They are 13 dedicated to making certain that the plant is safe, 14 not only for themselves, but for their families, 15 friends and us, because we are their neighbors.
16 St. Lucies safety inspection record has 17 been rated as one of the most reliable nuclear power 18 plants, not only of the U.S., but in the world. I 19 strongly believe that the St. Lucie Power Plant has a 20 proven safety record and one with which the employees 21 can continue to build on in the future.
22 I definitely support and again certainly 23 speak for my friends and neighbors for the license 24 renewal of the St. Lucie Plant, so lets keep it 25 operating again for the next twenty years.
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88 1 Thank-you.
2 MR. CAMERON: Okay. And thank-you, 3 Arlease, for those comments.
4 Were going to hear from Frank Leslie next 5 and were going to go to Bill Raatz, and Ralph 6 DeCristofaro.
7 Frank?
8 MR. LESLIE: Good afternoon.
9 Im interested in renewable energy in 10 particular, and so Im somewhat focused on that. I 11 did read the SEIS, Supplement 11 and found it very 12 interesting. And I especially commend that writers of 13 that report for doing such a good job in the field of 14 alternative energy.
15 There is a great difficulty within Florida 16 to find a replacement source of energy, something that 17 is cleaner or better in some sense than the exiting 18 nuclear power plant. I look at that from the 19 standpoint that if this plant were to be replaced with 20 the coal brought in by rail car, would it be oil, 21 which we certainly should save for transportation 22 aspects, or would it be natural gas, which has a 23 limitation itself.
24 There are difficulties with wind and 25 solar. Its a very diffuse energy, as opposed to NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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89 1 fuels. And as such, I tend to look at that as 2 something that will become much more of use in other 3 areas of the nation. Its not only the resource of 4 wind and solar, but also the economics of the 5 situation.
6 Florida enjoys relatively low costs for 7 kilowatt hour, whereas other s, which do have wind and 8 solar, may have very high costs. And that is an 9 offsetting factor in installing wind turbines or solar 10 module farms.
11 There are many aspects of solar and wind 12 energy within Florida. It was alleged to be the 13 sunshine back in the twenties, but in fact, the 14 amount of energy that we receive from the sun is 15 roughly about the same as in Wyoming. Unfortunately, 16 in my way of thinking, Arizona should be the sunshine 17 .
18 Sunshine is, of course, limited here by 19 cloud banks coming in with the sea breeze. Solar 20 energy is blocked by these clouds. And so we only get 21 about roughly 4.7 hours8.101852e-5 days <br />0.00194 hours <br />1.157407e-5 weeks <br />2.6635e-6 months <br /> per day of effective solar 22 energy. Its similar, very similar with wind energy.
23 There are frontal storms that come in from 24 the northwest. We see those periodically for five day 25 periods. But in terms of the sea breeze energy, it NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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90 1 begins roughly about nine oclock, dies out about 2 five, five p.m. And as such, it may have some future 3 as a peeking energy reduction.
4 Im not here to represent Florida 5 Institute of Technology, but Ill be teaching a 6 renewable energy course there. And we presently have 7 an extremely small DOE grant to study wind and solar 8 under sea breeze conditions. So were looking to 9 establish what that is.
10 Many years ago, the PNNL created a very 11 extensive wind energy atlas, and theyre fairly large 12 squares if you will, or rectangles in partial degrees 13 of latitude and longitude, to which numbers were 14 assigned. Those were based on existing airport 15 weather station information and as such, they did a 16 good job in covering the entire country with not only 17 a wide view S map, but individual maps for the various 18 s.
19 Within Florida we have the lowest level in 20 the interior of the , Class 1 level, and we have Class 21 2 in the coastal regions, purely because of that on 22 shore breeze and winds there coming from storms 23 offshore. That makes it very difficult. You can put 24 the two of them together in a hybrid system, but its 25 a very small amount of energy in comparison with large NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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91 1 base load plants, whether theyre coal, or oil, or 2 natural gas fire, or whether they are nuclear.
3 So that puts Florida in a difficult 4 situation. Their primary source of alternative energy 5 would be bio mass combustion. That requires large 6 land areas, harvesting, transporting, processing, and 7 when you burn it, you get a little less CO2 out than 8 you do with the fossil fuels, but its still a 9 limitation.
10 And so, in looking at the work that has 11 been done within Supplement 11, the comparison of 12 small, moderate and large impacts on the environment, 13 it appears to me that the nuclear option is the best 14 way to continue and Im supporting that.
15 Thank-you.
16 MR. CAMERON: Okay, thank-you, Frank, for 17 that information on alternatives.
18 And lets now go to Bill Raatz.
19 MR. RAATZ: Hello, my name is Bill Raatz.
20 I dont represent any group. Im just a concerned 21 citizen and a resident of Port St. Lucie.
22 I live approximately, well, within a 23 radius of approximately two miles of the nuclear 24 facilities.
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92 1 yesterday and I felt compelled to come here and I 2 didnt anticipate speaking, Im not a public speaker.
3 I feel very anxious about doing this, but I feel this 4 is too important an issue to just leave to the experts 5 and to the vested interests that are obviously 6 represented here.
7 And I think, like a lot of people, I 8 presumed until fairly recently, that nuclear power was 9 going to be phased out in this country, that there are 10 too many problems with it, things that have been 11 raised by a lot of people. Just, you know, stressed 12 facilities, disposal of nuclear waste, nuclear 13 accidents. Most recently theres concern about 14 terrorist threats and how that affects nuclear 15 facilities. And so, you know, I was, like everyone 16 else, concerned about that.
17 And one thing I also want to mention, I 18 used to live in Detroit and I had a cottage in Canada 19 on Lake Erie, and from my -- I could look out across 20 Lake Erie and see the Davis Besse facility in Ohio.
21 And there were -- and I always thought like, jeez, 22 what would happen to the Great Lakes system if that 23 facility or Fermi 1 or 2 had an accident, you know, 24 would that totally destroy or obliterate the Great 25 Lakes water system. And there were, I know that there NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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93 1 were periodic discharges of radioactive water into 2 Lake Erie. And I remember, you know, there were 3 always these reassurances that thats no concern to 4 the human population.
5 But I, you know, when I would see hundreds 6 of dead fish wash up on my beach right after that, I 7 was not reassured. And then just recently, you know, 8 weve heard about, you know, problems with that 9 facility in Ohio.
10 Im sorry if Im rambling here, but as I 11 said, I just hastily scribbled a few things down here.
12 As I indicated in my question, if Florida Power and 13 Light is given this mandate to continue to operate the 14 older facility for thirty-four years, forty-one years 15 for the newer facility, what inducement, what 16 incentive, impetus is there for them to ever seriously 17 consider any other alternatives to nuclear energy, 18 safer alternatives, renewable sources of energy.
19 So I guess I would have to be some of 20 these -- maybe the sole person here who is opposed to 21 an extension of the operating license. I think its 22 premature that we should focus on looking at 23 alternatives, and I know thats not the, consistent 24 with the national energy policy, which I believe is 25 just -- our government is just manipulating public NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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94 1 fears about energy shortage in the future, so I know 2 thats not consistent with our national, current 3 national energy policy, but I think we should focus on 4 looking at those alternatives. And also, a real --
5 make a real effort at conservation education and, 6 instead of wasting energy like we do.
7 I guess thats about all I have to say.
8 Thank-you very much.
9 MR. CAMERON: And thank-you, Bill, for 10 taking the time to come to the meeting and also to 11 talk.
12 And Mr. DeCristofaro, do you want to come 13 up here?
14 All right.
15 MR. DE CRISTOFARO: Okay, my name is 16 Ralph DeCristofaro and Im just basically a concerned 17 citizen and Im a resident of the area.
18 I have a very short statement. This may 19 or may not be the right forum for it, but Id like to 20 get it on the record.
21 My concern is one of safety. Its not so 22 much of an internal accident that may occur, but 23 something that was thrust upon us on 9/11/2001, by a 24 real threat of terrorism, okay?
25 I know Im not alone on this, but my NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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95 1 concern is that of a terrorist attack on any nuclear 2 plant, whether its a -- in the same way that they did 3 with the Twin Towers in New York City. I really, I 4 guess what Im looking for is reassurance that 5 everything is being done for everyones safety, 6 relating to this.
7 Again, this may be the wrong forum, but I 8 just wanted to get my thought on record. I thank you.
9 MR. CAMERON: Okay, thank-you very much.
10 Next were going to hear from Betty Lou 11 Wells and then Havert Fenn.
12 Betty Lou?
13 MS. WELLS: For a while there I was 14 afraid I was going to be the only Grinch in the crowd, 15 but it seems like I have one or two similarly minded 16 people.
17 My name is Betty Lou Wells. I reside at 18 1124 Jesmine Avenue, in Ft. Pierce, St. Lucie County, 19 Florida 34982.
20 Over thirty years ago, I was a member of 21 three community organizations, which attended NRC 22 public hearings on Florida Power and Lights request 23 to build a nuclear power plant now known as St. Lucie 24 1, and followed by St. Lucie 2.
25 The three organization were the League of NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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96 1 Women Voters of St. Lucie County, the Conservation 2 Alliance of St. Lucie County, and CURE.
3 As a result of gathering and studying 4 handouts presented at these first hearings, members of 5 the League requested and received additional 6 information from NRC, Florida Power and Light, and 7 national organizations devoted to studying nuclear 8 power. These materials were shared with the 9 Conservation Alliance and a new group of Martin and 10 St. Lucie County residents called Citizens United 11 Against a Radioactive Environment, or CURE.
12 And let me insert here that I probably 13 agree with practically all of the positive statements 14 that were made by various people who spoke before me 15 today, that Florida Power and Light has been a good 16 neighbor, and they certainly contributed to the 17 economy of the county, but today facts relevant to an 18 extension of St. Lucie 1 and 2s operating licenses 19 from thirty to fifty years -- and by the way, Im 20 confused. Is it thirty years and if so, wouldnt that 21 cut -- wouldnt that be 2006, and Ive heard the 22 figure 2016 as the cutoff of the thirty year?
23 MR. CAMERON: Mike?
24 DR. MASNIK: Mike Masnik, NRC.
25 The -- its forty year -- they have a NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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97 1 forty year operating license, which will end on 2016.
2 And what the licensee is requesting is an additional 3 twenty years beyond 2016.
4 MS. WELLS: Okay. So I realize that some 5 of the things Im preparing to say are not accurate.
6 I had been under the impression all these years that 7 we had a thirty year operating license for these two 8 plants. So youre going to have to subtract or add 9 ten years here somewhere.
10 There are questions from those first 11 hearings that I think need to be revisited. Please 12 overlook or point out any misuse of terms in my 13 comments. Ive been out of this loop for quite a 14 while.
15 I thank the Commission for its greatly 16 expanded inclusion of questions and comments from the 17 public, and hope you will be tolerant of those of us 18 who are concerned citizens, but not as knowledgeable 19 in the subject of nuclear power as we would like to 20 be.
21 These are the questions that I have 22 already given to your staff and which I hope you will 23 be able to answer for us today.
24 1) Nuclear waste, particularly long lived 25 spent fuel rods was to be removed within a reasonable NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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98 1 time by the Federal Government, therefore, the subject 2 of nuclear waste was labeled generic and could not be 3 discussed in hearings for individual plants. However, 4 instead of their being removed, more spent fuel rods 5 than had been planned to be contained on site, have 6 been placed closer together in the cooling pool than 7 was originally thought to be prudent. Thirty years 8 later, there is still no time set for removal of these 9 wastes from our county.
10 Should setting a date for beginning to 11 remove wastes be a condition for approval of adding 12 twenty years of producing radioactive waste?
13 2) Citizens were told that an operating 14 license would be limited to thirty years, because the 15 metal end of their containers was expected to become 16 brittle by forty years use and to crack.
17 What new studies prove otherwise?
18 3) First hearings predicted no population 19 growth on Hutchinson Island near the plant.
20 Population on Hutchinson Island was zero at the time.
21 Now that many high rises, holding many people, exist 22 south of the plant, what different plan for population 23 evacuation in case of severe accident should be 24 established, or additional traffic lanes or people 25 transporters for evacuation indicated by current and NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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99 1 expected population?
2 4) What class of individuals, what age, 3 weight, sex or other attributes, working or living no 4 more than seven miles from the plant, has been 5 determined to be the most vulnerable to so-called 6 normal plant radiation emissions?
7 What is the difference between the 8 population living within a fifty mile radius of the 9 site in the year 2000, and when the plants began 10 operation, and what was the fifty mile radius 11 population predicted for the year 2000, at the time of 12 the first hearings?
13 They say you should never ask a question 14 you dont know the answer to, and I dont know the 15 answer to that when its been a while and I know its 16 a matter of record, but I am raising it at this point.
17 5) At the thirty year ago public 18 hearings, concern was expressed over studies which 19 showed the likelihood of a high concentration of 20 radioactive iodine in the milk of nursing mothers and 21 in milk goats living close to the plant, along Indian 22 River Drive. Goats were said to have seven times the 23 concentration of that of milk cows.
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100 1 monitoring and/or notifying lactating women or goat 2 farmers?
3 6) Parents of St. Lucie County children, 4 who seem to have a high incidence of tumors, were 5 seeking answers a few years ago as to whether there 6 was a nuclear plant emissions connection.
7 Have these questions been resolved?
8 7) During the past thirty years, has new 9 equipment for improving nuclear plant safety been 10 developed, that might not have seemed cost effective 11 to install at St. Lucie 1 or 2 for forty years 12 operating period, but that should be installed for an 13 additional twenty year operation?
14 And the bottom question is, number 8), but 15 perhaps most important, does the predicted long term 16 terrorism threat that the Federal Government is 17 planning for, and with nuclear power plants labeled 18 one of the most likely targets and with St. Lucie 19 Plants vulnerable from air, land and water, should St.
20 Lucie 1 and 2 be closed as soon as possible, instead 21 of given an extended life?
22 Thank-you.
23 MR. CAMERON: And thank-you very much for 24 those specific issues, Betty Lou. And the staff has 25 informed me that they are going to look at them in the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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101 1 evaluation of comments, but also that theyre prepared 2 to talk to you about them after the meeting, if you 3 have time.
4 All right. Thank-you.
5 Havert?
6 MR. FENN: Thank-you very much.
7 I do not represent any organization. Im 8 just a retired senior citizen whos interested in my 9 community.
10 I have on occasion served in the public in 11 St. Lucie County, first as a City Commission for Ft.
12 Pierce and then a County Commissioner for fourteen 13 years, and now Im in retirement. I still have the 14 interests of St. Lucie County.
15 Weve been, my family and I have been in 16 St. Lucie County for over forty years period that 17 Betty Lou Wells was speaking about a moment ago, we 18 were involved in all of that.
19 But we were convinced after a few years 20 that the power plant, Florida Power and Light power 21 plant was a good entity in our county. Yes, they have 22 questions about the power plant and there will always 23 be questions about the power plant. And certainly 24 when we look on TV or we pick up the newspaper and 25 see something that has happened at another power NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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102 1 plant, such as the nuclear power plant here, it does 2 give rise to what might happen here.
3 But I do have a few things that I would 4 like to say relative to why I think the power plant 5 renewal effort should be given. Im not a scientific 6 engineer, so Im not going to get into all of these 7 other things some of the people can get into.
8 Since we are all aware of why we are here, 9 and I hope not be redundant in repeating all of that, 10 but some of the good things that youve said, Im 11 saying I give my support to.
12 The -- first of all, the importance of the 13 plant to the community. Now, yes, we know that St.
14 Lucie County is one of the fastest growing counties in 15 the State of Florida and maybe the nation, now that we 16 have entities coming in that are supplying jobs and, 17 of course, the Florida Power and Light Company is 18 employing something in the neighborhood of eight 19 hundred to nine hundred people.
20 I want to stop and have you to recognize 21 that the plant does provide, as far as Im concerned, 22 a safe, clean -- safe and clean electricity. I want 23 you to know that we -- that there are other sources of 24 electricity in this area, one being the Ft. Pierce 25 Utilities Authority Electric Plant, the other being NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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103 1 over on the West Coast of Florida, and there are some 2 others, and I will not belabor those. But what Im 3 saying in the -- wherever we go, were going to need 4 electricity. Its one of the things we, we say now we 5 cannot do without. Before we had it, we didnt know 6 that.
7 I understand that the FP&L plant is among 8 the lowest cost producers of electricity and that is 9 good, because when the rate for electricity goes up 10 too high, then we will suffer. I would like for the 11 St. Lucie Plant to keep electric bills low.
12 It is my understanding that for more than 13 one reason, that the power plant is here. Someone was 14 seeking a better way to provide electricity, other 15 than the coal and the oil that we were living on at 16 one time. And as a member of this community, I 17 would like to see the power plant continue to be a 18 part of our future.
19 The location of the plant, we cannot do 20 anything about that. I think now that were in a 21 position that we could stop the increased number of 22 units at the plant, but so far as doing something 23 about the plants that are already there, I dont 24 believe we will be able to that.
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104 1 personally been involved with some of these products 2 that the nuclear plant was involved in.
3 And you think in terms that someone 4 mentioned a moment ago, about the Little League 5 baseball teams, yes. You forgot to mention one, the 6 Pop Warner Football League, too. They were involved 7 in that. And we did have Mr. Anderson to mention the 8 South County Regional Sports Complex, which they 9 participated in; the United Way and some of the others 10 that have been mentioned.
11 But I want you to know from my standpoint, 12 that they, that the power plant and its employees have 13 been a good neighbor for us, for me, and as I said, 14 Ive been here over forty years.
15 Moving right along here, I would like to 16 say that if you cannot live within the realm of this 17 facility, not knowing what is to happen, we just pray 18 to God that nothing ever happens. I have been told by 19 some authoritative sources that the power plant 20 workers are very dedicated persons and well trained.
21 Im going to live on that fact.
22 They have from time to time had electric 23 emergency drills, so that if something is to happen, 24 at least well have some direction, somewhere to go.
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105 1 happening, but I can see now the people over in the 2 central part of the , Wachula, you know, Avon Park, 3 Okeechobee and the rest of them, yes, they could look 4 up and see a whole lot of people coming, but I pray to 5 God that that will not happen.
6 And certainly I dont think any of us want 7 to turn to fossil fuel. I dont believe we do, 8 because you know the pollution we talked about that we 9 do not want, thats what we will find.
10 So in my conclusion, I think this nuclear 11 power plant is the best thing for our community 12 environment, as some of you all have been saying. And 13 that as far as I know, it has been a good neighbor for 14 the last twenty-five years. And I will support the 15 renewal of the license for the St. Lucie Nuclear Power 16 Plant.
17 Thank-you.
18 MR. CAMERON: Okay, thank-you, Mr. Fenn.
19 Next, were going to go to Mark Oncavage, 20 then Lloyd Brumfield, then Jane Rowley and Doug 21 Anderson.
22 MR. ONCAVAGE: Thank-you for the 23 opportunity to speak. My name is Mark Oncavage.
24 At the scoping meeting here in Port St.
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106 1 issues that needed to be included in the Draft 2 Environmental Impact Statement and not even one of 3 those safety issues are in this draft study.
4 Apparently some individuals of the NRC have great 5 difficulty relating safety and public concerns to 6 their Environmental Impact Statement.
7 Also, I would like someone from the Office 8 of the General Counsel to explain to me exactly which 9 provisions of the National Environmental Policy Act 10 enable the NRC staff to ignore the tremendously 11 dangerous issues that I raised at the scoping meeting.
12 No matter. There are forces at work here well beyond 13 the control of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and 14 the nuclear industry.
15 2002 was a bad year. Nuclear industry 16 scandals broke out worldwide. British Nuclear Fuels 17 Limited is a privately run company thats owned by the 18 British Government. They reprocess spent fuel into 19 plutonium and uranium to fuel reactors. They have a 20 sixty billion dollar liability for the nuclear waste 21 and contamination problems that theyve created.
22 Theyre begging the British Government for money, 23 because technically, theyre bankrupt. Their 24 liabilities far exceed their assets.
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107 1 fuel to Japan. Japan found the fuel to be defective 2 and demanded that the Brits take it back. On its way 3 back, New Zealand and Caribbean Prime Ministers told 4 the ships to stay out of their waters because of the 5 dangers of terrorist attacks, contamination and 6 sinkings.
7 Meanwhile, the Irish and Norwegian 8 Governments are complaining to the European Union that 9 radioactive wastes from this companys reprocessing 10 plant are contaminating their national waters and an 11 accident could kill many of their citizens.
12 The British Government recently 13 deregulated their electricity market. They set up a 14 private company called British Energy and sold it 15 sixteen of the best reactors that they had. Since 16 started deregulation, wholesale electricity prices 17 have dropped thirty percent and now theres a 18 twenty-two percent over capacity in the system.
19 British Energy is bankrupt. Theyre 20 losing seven and a half million dollars week selling 21 nuclear generated electricity. The government floated 22 them a six hundred million dollar loan. British 23 Energy said not enough, so the government raised it to 24 one billion dollars due on November 30th, which was 25 three days ago. British Energy said no, so the due NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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108 1 date was moved to March 9th, 2003.
2 British Energy also asked for an 3 additional three hundred million dollars every year to 4 cover its waste and contamination problems. The 5 companys capitalization value has dropped ninety-two 6 percent since it was privatized in 1996. Obviously 7 its looking for some new culpable investors.
8 The German Government has promised to 9 close down all their nineteen reactors by the year 10 2020. the Germans are struggling with the problem of 11 storing high level wastes for the next few million 12 years. They said theyre going to put it deep below 13 the water table.
14 The United States, at Yucca Mountain is 15 planning to store their high level wastes above the 16 water table. The Germans said theyre not going to 17 put it in an earthquake zone or a volcano zone. Yucca 18 Mountain, our proposed repository, is in an earthquake 19 zone and a volcano zone. Do the German scientists 20 know something that we dont?
21 The Swedish Government has promised to 22 close down all their nuclear power reactors. The 23 Russian Government is down to its last reprocessing 24 plant. Its the Chelyabinsk region of the Ural 25 Mountains. This plan has suffered three catastrophic NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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109 1 nuclear accidents and this Chelyabinsk region is 2 considered to be the most contaminated place on earth, 3 which includes the Chernobyl accident area. This 4 plant lacks money as an endanger of precipitating a 5 fourth catastrophic accident, when its liquid waste 6 impoundment area bursts its banks, this would destroy 7 the Pechora River all the way down to the Arctic 8 Ocean.
9 The French Government is heavily into 10 nuclear electricity. A poll completed this past 11 September by the French Union for electricity, shows 12 that sixty-one percent of the French people polled, 13 said that they do not favor nuclear electricity, and 14 sixty-two percent of the people said they would pay 15 higher rates, up to ten percent more, to abandon 16 nuclear electricity altogether.
17 The Japanese nuclear utilities are being 18 rocked by their biggest nuclear power scandal ever.
19 It seems theyve been falsifying safety inspections 20 for the past twelve years and their reactor binding is 21 riddled with cracks. Theyve closed down twelve 22 plants and have finally sent in some honest 23 inspectors. One of the ways the Japanese Government 24 responded to this crisis, was to hand the names of the 25 whistle blowers over to the utilities.
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110 1 Because of the safety in corporate 2 government scandal, the Japanese are getting cold feet 3 about their plutonium fuel program, in which they buy 4 a reprocessed plutonium fuel from British Nuclear 5 Fuels Limited. This British reprocessor, with its 6 sixty billion dollars liability in wastes and 7 contamination, its defective fuel and its impending 8 loss of the Japanese fuel contract, still managed to 9 find one million dollars to lobby the Bush 10 administration this election cycle.
11 These international affairs show that 12 nuclear electricity is too dangerous, too expensive, 13 and too unreliable to have a meaningful future. Now, 14 lets look at the United States.
15 We all should know that there has not been 16 a new order for a nuclear reactor since Three Mile 17 Island Number 2 destroyed itself in 1979. Three Mile 18 Island Number 2 cost seven hundred million dollars to 19 build, but it was only three months old when the 20 accident occurred. It incurred 973 million dollars in 21 cleanup costs and will incur another 433 million 22 dollars in retirement costs. The utility also lost 23 425 million dollars when it canceled another plant 24 that it was building. Thats about two and a half 25 billion dollars up in smoke. The canceled plant was NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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111 1 one of ninety-seven plants that were canceled from 2 this era.
3 Another debacle was the Shoreham plant on 4 Long Island outside New York City. The plant was 5 built for five billion dollars and never produced a 6 single watt of electricity. It was deemed too 7 dangerous to operate, since the vast number of people 8 living nearby could not be evacuated in an accident.
9 The State of New York bought in from Long Island Light 10 Company just to tear it down.
11 Washington Public Power Supply System 12 wanted to build five reactors. When the cost 13 estimates reached 24 billion dollars, it defaulted on 14 2 1/4 billion dollars of municipal bonds, the largest 15 municipal bond default in history. Is there any 16 question why the investment houses on Wall Street 17 refuse to finance nuclear power plants?
18 Florida Power and Light recently purchased 19 a controlling interest in Seabrook Number 1. They 20 paid about fifteen cents on a dollar of the original 21 plant cost of six billion dollars.
22 Pilgrim Reactor in Boston sold for a 23 reported 50 million dollars. Three Mile Island Unit 24 1, the undamaged one, sold for a reported 100 million 25 dollars, but the fuel at the plant was valued at 77 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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112 1 million dollars, so the plant was only worth 23 2 million dollars, less than ten cents on a dollar.
3 This sounds like an industry in deep despair, because 4 these are speculative prices.
5 In March of 2001, cracks started being 6 seen around the control rod drive mechanisms at the 7 top of some reactor pressure vessels. The NRC knew it 8 had problems with cracks, with boric acid oozing out 9 and with corrosion. Instead of calling for immediate 10 safety inspections, it delayed the inspections order 11 until December 31st.
12 One troublesome reactor, Davis Besse, near 13 Toledo, Ohio, wanted more delays. So rather than 14 impede plant revenues, the NRC delayed the safety 15 inspections again. When the inspection was finally 16 done in March of this past year, a hole about as big 17 as a football, was discovered in the reactor lid.
18 Only a thin piece of stainless steel cladding kept the 19 reactor contents from blowing out the corrosion hole.
20 That whole affair was mismanaged by the NRC, who truly 21 endangered the public by putting utility revenues 22 before safety.
23 The nuclear industry may point to the 24 congressional designation of Yucca Mountain as the 25 repository site for high level waste as a victory.
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113 1 The costs for this facility will be staggering.
2 Heres a quotation from Congresswoman Shelley Berkley, 3 speaking before the House of Representatives, and I 4 quote:
5 "The projected cost of this boondoggle is 6 anywhere from 56 billion dollars to 309 billion 7 dollars. The Nuclear Waste Fund has 11 billion 8 dollars. How are we going to pay for this, raise 9 taxes, dip into the Social Security Trust Fund? And 10 once Yucca Mountain is full, then what do we do?
11 After spending hundreds of billions of dollars, we 12 will still be exactly where we are today."
13 Thank-you for your time.
14 MR. CAMERON: Thank-you for that 15 perspective, Mark.
16 Were next going to Mr. Brumfield.
17 MR. BRUMFIELD: Lloyd Brumfield. Thats 18 really a hard act to follow.
19 Id say my names Lloyd Brumfield but 20 right now its really Ebenezer Scrooge. And then Id 21 say Im really Jekyll and Hyde, especially when it 22 comes to energy and electricity, nuclear energy. And 23 I say to myself, you know, Im not really the average 24 person. Im different than the average person. I 25 think on this subject, Im more average than the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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114 1 average.
2 Nuclear energy, even any kind of electric 3 power today, is an emotional thing with me. I mean I 4 finally will admit that. I was a teenage soldier, who 5 went into Japan as an occupation troop, rather than an 6 invasion troop, because of the A bombs. And that time 7 Im, Im really -- you know, after that, I panicked 8 for the A bomb. Nuclear fission. And then when, 9 early 50s, when the Soviet Union had got it, I got 10 shaky. Then, when it started advertising that nuclear 11 power would be too cheap to meet her, and it took one 12 up again, far as I can tell, its probably the most 13 expensive of all power.
14 But let me talk about these split 15 personalities or multiple personalities of mine.
16 Anytime I can drive by a power plant, I no longer look 17 at it as an economic, or a practical, or comfort of 18 living, even though I really get aggravated when I 19 cant turn on the light, run my computer, use my 20 drill, I want to use electricity. But when I go by a 21 power plant, nuclear power plant, I get the willies a 22 little bit, just looking at it. Maybe thats not the 23 way it ought to be, but thats the way it is.
24 But what about these coal fire plants?
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115 1 coal mine country. Members of my family today are in 2 coal mines. I have a nephew thats in management in 3 a coal mine. And yet coal, from all indications, is 4 the cause of much of the pollution around the United 5 States in power plants and factories. Gas is a little 6 bit -- petroleum is a little bit better. Not as much 7 as it claim, and gas probably is still a little bit 8 better, but theyre all fuels that pollute badly.
9 And what am I saying? You know, I really 10 wish that nuclear power could work, but I dont 11 believe its working, for the very reasons that I get 12 the willies when I drive by the power plant over on 13 Hutchinson Island. And I hear people say, gosh, 14 thats a bad looking thing to me.
15 And then when I drive by a coal fire 16 plant, I think one of the very dozens down in Riviera 17 Beach or somewhere, we, weve got a problem. Im 18 talking to you about the industry altogether.
19 Now I have one real problem with this 20 power plant, as I do with any. As I understand it, 21 the spent fuel from day one is still there, in the 22 water or sump, and thats bothered me even before 23 September the 11th.
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116 1 today and I said it earlier, Ive lost a lot of 2 confidence in Federal agencies monitoring and 3 policing. And the trend in Washington today is you do 4 less of it, considerably less.
5 Most of the people here today are 6 technicians, engineers, people who have been involved 7 in it. But I still think the average citizen is as 8 paranoid as I am. We want the electricity. We dont 9 like the pollution and the nuclear power plants scare 10 us. And you folks that have all of this know-how 11 probably can help us. But I still say what I said 12 earlier, I notice youve got a little bit of 13 conservation as a last item on your handout. Just a 14 little bit, some after-thought. Id really like to 15 see you move it up to the first item.
16 Thank-you.
17 MR. CAMERON: Okay, thank-you, Mr.
18 Brumfield.
19 Could we have Jane Rowley, and then well 20 go to Doug Anderson.
21 MS. ROWLEY: Well, Im last, but not 22 least, cause Doug Anderson went first.
23 MR. CAMERON: Were going to do this all 24 again?
25 MS. ROWLEY: Thats it. See that? No, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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117 1 I cant do that. I have a board meeting to go 2 tonight.
3 MR. CAMERON: Okay.
4 MS. ROWLEY: I am Jane Rowley. Whoops, 5 excuse me. I really didnt -- I dont think I need a 6 microphone.
7 (Laughter.)
8 MS. ROWLEY: My husband told me that he 9 can hear me in a room with three hundred people and 10 Im whispering, so its a real problem in my life.
11 Im Jane Rowley and Im the Director of 12 Community Relations for St. Lucie West Development 13 Corporation. Were developers in St. Lucie County and 14 throughout the State of Florida.
15 My remarks are simple. Im a lay person.
16 I pull the switch and I want my lights to go on, I 17 want my computer to go on, and I want my well water to 18 go on. Ive been a resident of the City of Port St.
19 Lucie for twenty-five years. Im a former City 20 Councilwoman for the City of Port St. Lucie. Very 21 active in the community.
22 I cant worry about whats going to happen 23 all over the world, all over the United States, but I 24 know FP&L here and our power plant, they look after 25 our safety. Theyre good community partners, very NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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118 1 active. Their employees are very active. Their 2 management is very active. Theyve been involved in 3 so many aspects of St. Lucie County and the counties 4 around us. Theyre good community partners.
5 I feel its very important that they 6 approve the operating license for the St. Lucie Power 7 Plant.
8 Thank-you very much.
9 MR. CAMERON: Okay, thank-you, Jane.
10 And I think Jane is correct. She is the 11 last speaker today.
12 And Im going to turn this over to John 13 Tappert in a minute to just close this off for this 14 afternoon session, but I just want to remind people 15 that we do have a lot of NRC staff here, a lot of 16 experts who are helping us with this project. Take 17 some time to talk to them after the meeting. We do 18 have a representative of our Office of General Counsel 19 here, as well as regional staff.
20 And one person I did want to recognize, 21 because of him -- NRCs presence the community and at 22 a particular plant is Thierry Ross, whos our senior 23 resident here at St. Lucie and lives in the community, 24 and looks after NRCs responsibilities on a day to day 25 basis at the plant.
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119 1 And, John, do you want to say some final 2 words?
3 MR. TAPPERT: I just want to thank 4 everyone for coming out and taking time out of their 5 day to come out here today.
6 Chip does these meetings for us all over 7 the country and this may be the most comments weve 8 ever gotten at one of these forums. So we appreciate 9 your participation and I would encourage you to talk 10 to one of the people with a name tag if youd like to, 11 if you have some more questions regarding the 12 relicensing.
13 And thanks for coming out again.
14 (Whereupon, at 4:30 oclock, p.m., the 15 public meeting was adjourned.)
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