ML041120358
| ML041120358 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Vermont Yankee File:NorthStar Vermont Yankee icon.png |
| Issue date: | 03/31/2004 |
| From: | Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation |
| To: | |
| Ennis R, NRR/DLPM, 415-1420 | |
| Shared Package | |
| ML041120155 | List: |
| References | |
| NRC-1401, TAC MC0761 | |
| Download: ML041120358 (6) | |
Text
Official Transcript of Proceedings NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Title:
Vermont Yankee Power Uprate Public Meeting Docket Number:
(not applicable)
Location:
Vernon, Vermont Date:
Wednesday, March 31, 2004 Work Order No.:
NRC-1401 Pages 1-124 NEAL R. GROSS AND CO., INC.
Court Reporters and Transcribers 1323 Rhode Island Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 234-4433
ERRATA SHEET The Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff has made the following corrections to the transcription provided by Neal R. Gross and Co., Inc.:
1)
On page 61, line 20, the speaker name was changed from "Mr. Ruland" to "Mr. Richards."
2)
On page 114, line 11, the speaker name was changed from "Mr. Ruland" to "Mr. Pelton."
1 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
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CAT 3 PUBLIC MEETING VERMONT YANKEE POWER UPRATE MEETING
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WEDNESDAY, MARCH 31, 2004
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VERNON, VERMONT
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The public meeting was held at the Vernon Elementary School located at 381 Governor Hunt Road in Vernon, Vermont, Bill Ruland presiding.
2 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 I-N-D-E-X Speaker John Burke 15 David OBrien.................
22 Peggy Farabough................
24 Sarah Edwards.................
26 Peter Alexander 55 Peter Dizinski................
60 Dan Jeffries.................
63 Gary Sacks..................
64 Julie Enochs.................
66 Julian Enochs 70 Edward Sprague................
71 Jonathan Block................
73 Phillip Riendeau...............
76 Meredith Blum 82 Ned Childs..................
83 Alan Steinberg................
87 Andy Davis..................
92 Pamela Cabbage................
96 Judy Davidson 99 Magdaline Bollitus.............. 102 Deb Katz................... 104 James Doyle
................. 106 Harold Bradeen................ 108 Sunny Miller................. 109 Tim Stevenson
................ 110 Nancy Burton................. 112 Andrea Scheidle
............... 116 Jeannette Peiffer
.............. 119 Fred Sprite
................. 120
3 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 P-R-O-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S 1
8:18 p.m.
2 CHAIRMAN RULAND: Good evening. Good 3
evening, and thank you for coming. Im glad to see 4
that everybodys prepared for the meeting and brought 5
fans, because were all here in the room together.
6 Okay.
7 MR. BIDWELL: Evidently, theres a Prius 8
hybrid with its lights on out in the parking lot. I 9
dont know if theres a bunch of people who drive 10 them. What was that license plate number again?
11 PNORGUM. Okay. Sorry about that.
12 CHAIRMAN RULAND: My name is Bill Ruland, 13 and Im with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and 14 Im the Manager in charge of the power uprate process 15 at the NRCs headquarters in Rockville, Maryland.
16 We are holding this meeting at the request 17 of the Vermont Senators, Leahy and Jeffords.
18 (Applause.)
19 CHAIRMAN RULAND: Youre going to need to 20 bear with us a little bit. As you know, the venue has 21 changed dramatically. Its obvious that you folks 22 want to talk about questions and answers, so were 23 going to forego most of our prepared remarks and 24 presentation. Im going to ask our staff to make some 25
4 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 key points, and were going to move quickly into 1
questions and answers.
2 However, before we start, I have some 3
introductions we need to make, and Id like -- before 4
I do that, Id like to introduce our facilitator who 5
will help us with this meeting. Mr. Bidwell, David 6
Bidwell, go ahead.
7 MR. BIDWELL: Good evening, everybody.
8 (Applause.)
9 MR. BIDWELL: I was laughing to someone 10 earlier if you know the classic chant of this is what 11 democracy looks like. I was saying in the room as hot 12 it was getting in there, it was starting to be this is 13 what democracy smells like.
14 I want to thank everybody for coming out.
15 I think this is absolutely fantastic -- huge turnout, 16 lots of people that are here. We know that there are 17 incredibly strong feelings about this issue, and its 18 my goal to help try to get those feelings and ideas 19 out going both directions and across the way to people 20 that are here. I have a few notes just to make sure 21 that I explain who I am and whats going on tonight.
22 Like I said, my name is David. I work for 23 a company called the Perspectives Group. Were a 24 company that does lots of different kinds of public 25
5 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 involvement processes, and we are paid by NRC, I want 1
to make that clear up-front, but I am paid to be a 2
neutral, which is something that I take very 3
seriously, okay? Its true. No, listen, I get paid 4
to run advisory boards and things like that around the 5
country, but I like to let people know who pays me 6
because its important to folks.
7 Just so folks know, there is a court 8
reporter here tonight who is documenting the meeting.
9 Thats so that the NRC understands and remembers what 10 everyone said, they can take it back. They also will 11 make that transcript available publicly. An important 12 thing for him that is really going to help is that 13 before you speak you state your name very clearly, 14 okay, and spell it for him. And Ill try to remember 15 with my feeble mind to remind you to do that.
16 I think everyone knows this building 17 better than I do, so Im not going to tell you where 18 the restrooms are; theyre out in the hall. This is 19 going to be a long meeting, okay? Please feel free to 20 move around as you need. If you have kids, need to 21 walk around, do that sort of thing, thats great.
22 And just to talk a little bit about my 23 goal and what Im tasked with tonight, okay? It is to 24 try to make this the most productive conversation that 25
6 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 it can be. Now, what does productive mean? There are 1
lots of definitions for that.
2 (Audience shouting.)
3 MR. BIDWELL: Hold on. Hold on. Okay?
4 There are lots of definitions of that. What I want to 5
try to do is allow NRC to talk about their process and 6
what goes on but also for you all to provide the 7
information to them. Just a few -- let me ask for 8
some -- a few people here said, "Can you keep control 9
of this?" My answer is, no. No one takes control of 10 a meeting, okay? People decide to cooperate with a 11 meeting. There will be lots of opportunities to talk.
12 There is not going to be an opportunity for everyone 13 to give a long speech, sort of like Im doing now.
14 A couple of things that will help us get 15 through tonight and then Ill move on and let them 16 talk, and then well have a question and answer. One 17 is please try to be as respectful as you can. Thats 18 not to say dont express yourself, please express 19 yourself, but remember that there are diverse people 20 in this room who have different objectives of being in 21 this meeting, okay? So we want to try to allow an 22 opportunity for as much dialogue as we can and have 23 people get what they need to get out of this meeting.
24 For some people, its going to be getting up to date 25
7 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 on what the issue is; for some people, its going to 1
be stating their position.
2 In general, if you can, keep the chit-chat 3
with your neighbors to a minimum. That is helpful.
4 You are very large group, and if you have just a 5
couple dozen people who are talking, it will really 6
make it hard for other people to hear. That doesnt 7
mean I dont want you to talk about things if you need 8
to discuss it with someone. There are doors all 9
around -- over here, here, here, here, here. Take a 10 quick step outside the room and get your strategies in 11 order.
12 (Audience member shouting.)
13 MR. BIDWELL: Youre absolutely right, and 14 if I can get through this real quick, were going to 15 move on. I am going to be going around as people 16 raise hands with the microphone. To start with, Im 17 glad to give you the microphone. If folks start to 18 take long, long speeches that are keeping other people 19 from being able to talk, then Im going to have to 20 start holding the microphone for you, and I dont want 21 to do that. I think you guys are a good group. I 22 think you can do this, and I want it to happen.
23 Excellent.
24 And unbelievable enough, thats all I had 25
8 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 to say. Thank you. Im going to be walking around.
1 Please if you have suggestions, whisper them in my 2
ear, okay? Thank you.
3 CHAIRMAN RULAND: Thank you, David. I see 4
some hands already raised. Okay. Like I said, give 5
us just a few minutes to paint a picture about our 6
process and our inspection program. Weve already 7
elected to not use our slides. Ive asked my staff 8
here to get five key points that they think that --
9 Ive asked them on short notice to make some five key 10 points about the areas they intended to cover so we 11 can go quickly to questions and answers. Id ask you 12 to bear with us a little bit while we get this done, 13 okay?
14 The primary reason we are here at the 15 request of the Vermont Senators, okay, is to not only 16 describe our process briefly but to also take 17 questions and comments and concerns from the public.
18 Were transcribing the meeting. Pete Holland here is 19 our transcriber, so well be able to capture these 20 comments. The NRC will consider every comment that we 21 receive. At the end of this meeting, we will publish 22 a meeting summary. The transcript will be part of 23 that meeting summary, and we will also put a list of 24 what the questions and the key issues that we believe 25
9 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 weve garnered from reading that transcript, and were 1
going to provide responses, and were going to post 2
that on our web site to give everybody an idea where 3
were headed.
4 Before we start, Id like to introduce a 5
number of folks, particularly the federal, state and 6
local officials who are in attendance today. First, 7
from Senator Leahys office, Mr. Chuck Ross. Chuck?
8 (Applause.)
9 CHAIRMAN RULAND: From Senator Jeffords 10 office, Mr. Brian Keefe.
11 (Applause.)
12 CHAIRMAN RULAND: Any other federal 13 officials from any office? And as a matter of fact, 14 after I do these introductions, Im going to give them 15 a chance to make a statement.
16 From the State of Vermont, I have Patty 17 ODonnell, the State Representative from Vermont.
18 Patty?
19 (Applause.)
20 CHAIRMAN RULAND: Bill Sherman, the State 21 Nuclear Engineer. Bill?
22 (Applause.)
23 CHAIRMAN RULAND: Bill? Bill, wave.
24 Okay. There you are, Bill. Thank you. John Burke 25
10 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 who is on the Public Service Board. Mr. Burke?
1 (Applause.)
2 CHAIRMAN RULAND: Several Town of Vernon 3
selectmen, starting with the Chairman, Douglas 4
Fletcher.
5 (Applause.)
6 CHAIRMAN RULAND: A selectmen, Peggy 7
Farabaugh. Peggy?
8 (Applause.)
9 CHAIRMAN RULAND: And lets see, also Mr.
10 Len Peduzzi. Len?
11 (Applause.)
12 CHAIRMAN RULAND: And before I get to ask 13 them to make some initial statements before the 14 meeting, let me introduce the NRC staff. Yes, sir?
15 Im sorry. Im sorry. Any -- yes, sir.
16 MR. BALES: (Off Mike) Im Bart Bales.
17 Im here representing --
18 CHAIRMAN RULAND: Bart? And its Bart is 19 your name? I will also give you an opportunity. I 20 apologize for not asking for any other state 21 officials. Any other state officials? State 22 Representative Sarah Edwards.
23 (Applause.)
24 CHAIRMAN RULAND: The State Senator 25
11 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 Jeannette White.
1 (Applause.)
2 CHAIRMAN RULAND: Anybody else? Patty 3
ODonnell, State Representative.
4 (Applause.)
5 CHAIRMAN RULAND: Does that sign say, "Get 6
on with it." Im trying, sir. The NRC staff, we have 7
Stu Richards.
8 (Applause.)
9 CHAIRMAN RULAND: Stu has the Inspection 10 Program. He has the oversight for the Inspection 11 Program. We have Tony McMurtray.
12 (Applause.)
13 CHAIRMAN RULAND: Tony is our senior 14 engineer in charge of -- that helps me manage the 15 power uprate process. Rick Ennis who is the Senior 16 Project Manager for Vermont Yankee.
17 (Applause.)
18 CHAIRMAN RULAND: Some other staff, lets 19 see, Mr. Pelton, the senior resident.
20 (Applause.)
21 CHAIRMAN RULAND: Let me make sure I get 22 all these names right. We have Omar Patel, reactor 23 engineer.
24 (Applause.)
25
12 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 CHAIRMAN RULAND: Don Florick, Senior 1
Project Engineer.
2 (Applause.)
3 CHAIRMAN RULAND: Brian Holian who spoke 4
a little -- did a great job at the first meeting.
5 (Applause.)
6 CHAIRMAN RULAND: And I think that covers 7
the NRC staff. So Id like now to give an opportunity 8
for the elected representatives or their staff to make 9
comments, starting with the Senators. So that would 10 be, let me get this right here, Senator Leahys 11 representative, Mr. Chuck Ross. Do you choose to make 12 a statement?
13 MR. ROSS: Good evening. Im Chuck Ross.
14 Im the State Director for Senator Patrick Leahy, and 15 Id like to read a statement.
16 First, I want to thank the staff of the 17 Nuclear Regulatory Commission for coming to Vermont 18 and to Vernon tonight to meet with and hear directly 19 from Vermonters about Vermont Yankees uprate 20 application. On behalf of Senator Leahy, we 21 appreciate the Commissions response to our request 22 for this meeting, and its good to see so many 23 Vermonters here tonight in this strong showing of 24 public interest in this very important issue.
25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 Senator Leahy recognizes that Vermont 1
Yankee is a significant component of our energy mix in 2
Vermont. We are dependent upon its power, it service 3
and its safety record. However, we need to be 4
confident that the review of its power uprate 5
addresses the concerns of Vermonters.
6 As you know, it has been perceived in 7
Vermont that the NRC has already decided not to 8
address the concerns raised by the Vermont Public 9
Service Board. I was glad to see in the Rutland 10 Herald today that you have not ruled us out. The 11 Vermont congressional delegation sent a letter today 12 to the Commission asking the NRC to address the 13 Boards concerns. The members of the Vermont 14 congressional delegation believe you have the 15 authority to do this, and they urge you to address the 16 Boards concerns as quickly as possible during your 17 review.
18 The bottom line is that we want the NRC to 19 do an analysis that will ensure that the plant is 20 reliable and safe after the uprate. Irrespective of 21 what you call the analysis, Vermonters need to be 22 confident that the analysis is thorough and complete 23 with respect to the issues of service and safety. It 24 is the job of the NRC to explain, design and conduct 25
14 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 the analysis that will allow Vermonters to have the 1
confidence that a subsequent uprate at Vermont Yankee 2
will be reliable and safe for the long term. Thank 3
you very much.
4 (Applause.)
5 CHAIRMAN RULAND: Mr. Brian Keefe from 6
Senator Jeffords office.
7 MR. KEEFE: Thank you. My name is Brian 8
Keefe. Im with Senator Jeffords office. Ill be 9
prompt. Id first like to thank the NRC for coming 10 here to hold this meeting. Im sure youll hear a lot 11 of different views on the matter before us. Safety, 12 of course, as Chuck just said, is of paramount concern 13 to all of us here, including Senator Jeffords, Senator 14 Leahy and Congressman Sanders who also signed the 15 letter that went today.
16 As Ranking Member of the Environment and 17 Public Works Committee, Senator Jeffords has 18 jurisdiction over the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, 19 so we are watching this closely. Weve been also in 20 close contact, of course, with the Public Service 21 Board and the Public Service Department. Once again, 22 safety, reliability, these are the big issues before 23 us today, and we look forward to a prompt response to 24 the Public Service Boards concerns. Thank you.
25
15 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 (Applause.)
1 CHAIRMAN RULAND: I know that John Burke 2
from the Public Service Board would like to read a 3
statement.
4 MR. BURKE: Thank you. My name is John 5
Burke. Im one of the three members of Vermonts 6
Public Service Board. Id like, if you would, after 7
this meeting to deliver this letter as you return to 8
Chairman Diaz and Id read it to you and to the 9
meeting now.
10
Dear Chairman Diaz,
we wrote to you on 11 March 15, 2004 requesting that the United States 12 Nuclear Regulatory Commission conduct its review of 13 the proposed extended power uprate at Vermont Yankee 14 Nuclear Power Station in a way that will provide 15 Vermont with a level of assurance about reliability 16 equivalent to an independent engineering assessment.
17 We asked for this assessment because of our 18 significant concerns with the effect that the uprate 19 may have on the future reliability of Vermont Yankee.
20 Today, the owner of Vermont Yankee Energy 21 Nuclear Vermont Yankee submitted a filing with the 22 Vermont Public Service Board that included a letter 23 from the NRC to Vermont Senator James M. Jeffords.
24 That letter from William D. Travers, Executive 25
16 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 Director for Operations, suggested that the NRC was 1
planning to conduct a baseline inspection program for 2
the power uprate rather than expanding the review.
3 It is unclear whether that letter to 4
Senator Jeffords was intended to be the NRCs response 5
to this Board. We have also received notice that the 6
NRC will hold a meeting tonight in Vernon to discuss 7
the power uprate with members of the public. At the 8
present time, the Board has pending motions to 9
reconsider our order approving the proposed power 10 uprate.
11 (Applause.)
12 MR. BURKE: As a result, we cannot 13 actively debate the issues raised in our order.
14 However, we want to make very clear that the views 15 expressed in our previous letter are unchanged, 16 although we have not yet considered the pending 17 motions for reconsideration one of which seeks a more 18 extensive independent assessment.
19 (Applause.)
20 MR. BURKE: In particular, we reiterate 21 our request that the NRCs review of the proposed 22 power uprate include the following features. One, it 23 would be independent in the same sense as the 24 independent safety assessment of Maine Yankee, i.e. --
25
17 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 (Applause.)
1 MR. BURKE: -- i.e. it should be performed 2
by experts independent of any recent or significant 3
regulatory oversight responsibility related to Vermont 4
Yankee. Secondly, the assessment would be a vertical 5
review of two safety-related systems and two 6
maintenance rule non-safety systems affected by the 7
uprate. The level of effort necessary for this work 8
has been described to us in testimony as requiring 9
about four experts for about four weeks. This will 10 provide a valuable check on the reliability of the 11 systems that are reviewed and allow for correction of 12 any problems.
13
- Third, the independent engineering 14 assessment should be, as we believe it is expected, 15 reviewed by the ACRS in the context of their 16 evaluation of the power uprate.
17 We want to stress that our request is not 18 based on a concern about the safety of Vermont Yankee.
19 Safety is clearly an issue over which the NRC has 20 jurisdiction and considerable expertise. Instead, our 21 concern stems from the potential impact that the power 22 uprate could have upon reliability, which would affect 23 the value of Vermont to Vermont of existing purchase 24 agreements for power from Vermont Yankee.
25
18 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 A number of nuclear plants have undergone 1
extended power uprates and have experienced outages or 2
power derates. The problems that led to these outages 3
may not have been safety-related but they have 4
affected the output of these nuclear plants. Our 5
request is based upon our obligation to ensure that 6
such outages are unlikely at Vermont Yankee.
7 Because of factors that are unique to 8
Vermont Yankee, we also do not expect that granting 9
our request will establish precedent. As we said in 10 our previous letter, the record evidence we have heard 11 shows that the proposed uprate at Vermont Yankee is 12 larger than those that have occurred at most other 13 nuclear plants, and, moreover, Vermont Yankee is one 14 of the older nuclear facilities.
15 Thank you very much for your consideration 16 of this matter. Sincerely Michael Dwarkin, Chairman, 17 David Cohen, Board Member, and myself, John Burke, 18 Board Member."
19 (Applause.)
20 MR. BIDWELL: I just want give folks a 21 quick reminder too that people who have prepared 22 letters or prepared statements are handing to the 23 folks up here so theyll be able to make sure that 24 theyre word-for-word included in the transcript of 25
19 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 the meeting.
1 CHAIRMAN RULAND: Any other state or local 2
officials need to make a statement?
3 MR. BIDWELL: I believe theres a 4
gentleman over here.
5 MR. BALES: Im Bart Bales. I am -- B-A-6 L-E-S. I live in the town of Gill. I am here --
7 Gill, Massachusetts. Im here on behalf of actually 8
a number of elected officials who couldnt be here 9
tonight, and I have letters from each of them in this 10 envelope. And I wish to sort of give an overview of 11 what were speaking to.
12 The first person that I want to speak for 13 is Massachusetts legislator Steven Kulik who 14 represents a nearby district to this area. He, as I 15 do personally, calls for an independent engineering 16 assessment of the type called for and detailed by the 17 Vermont State Senate resolution.
18 (Applause.)
19 MR. BALES: And such an assessment should 20 be of the level of the assessment given to Maine 21 Yankee in the past.
22 I also hold a letter from the Board of 23 Selectmen of the Town of Gill, Massachusetts also 24 calling for an independent safety assessment for the 25
20 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 Vermont Yankee plant. I can read these into the 1
record. I also have them written. Id like to read 2
just the Steven Kulik one.
3 "I write regarding the proposed uprate of 4
Entergy Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant that has 5
been requested by its owners. As I understand the 6
matter, Entergy has requested an uprate, which would 7
bring its output capacity to 120 percent of the power 8
it was originally designed for at the time of plant 9
opening 31 years ago. Last week, the Vermont Public 10 Service Board granted approval of that request 11 contingent on the successful completion of an 12 independent safety assessment.
13 I urge you to require that just such an 14 assessment be completed before any further action on 15 the uprate request is taken. It is critical to the 16 health and safety of the population that an 17 independent engineering assessment of all the plant 18 systems at Vermont Yankee plant be completed in order 19 to determine whether or not the systems are reliable 20 or safe under the current standards before an uprate 21 request is considered.
22 I represent the First Franklin District in 23 Franklin County, Massachusetts, which borders Vernon, 24 Vermont -- the Vernon, Vermont town where the plant is 25
21 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 located. I strongly believe that this is a matter 1
that greatly affects my constituency because of our 2
close physical proximity to Vernon, regardless of the 3
political boundaries that preclude any official role 4
this office may play in the State of Vermont.
5 Clearly, the health and safety impact on 6
my district would be substantial in the event of any 7
accident, shutdown or other major event at the plant.
8 The threat to our residents physical well-being, job 9
status and overall security is potentially very great.
10 I understand and was pleased to learn that 11 my colleagues in the Vermont State Senate voted 12 unanimously on a resolution to ask for an independent 13 inspection with five criteria that are identical to 14 the independent safety assessment performed in 1996 at 15 the Maine Yankee at the request of then Governor Angus 16 King. I strongly support their resolution that calls 17 for an inspection that assesses the conformance of the 18 facility" -- Im going to give you the rest of this.
19 Its the five points that the Vermont Senate called 20 for identically.
21 "In light of the deep concerns about this 22 matter shared by myself and my constituency, I 23 strongly urge you to require that an independent 24 assessment be completed in order to analyze whether 25
22 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 Vermont Yankee is in compliance with current 1
regulations, what the risks to the uprate system might 2
include and what the full range of safety issues are 3
currently as well as in the proposed capacity 4
increase. Thank you for your consideration of this 5
request."
6 (Applause.)
7 MR. BIDWELL: Im sorry. Bill, could we 8
have just one more quick statement here?
9 CHAIRMAN RULAND: Sure. Go ahead.
10 MR. BIDWELL: If you could introduce 11 myself.
12 MR. OBRIEN: Yes. My name is David 13 OBrien. Im the Commissioner of the Department of 14 Public Service and also Chair of the Vermont State 15 Nuclear Advisory Panel. And I want to add our support 16 to essentially what Commissioner Burke just read from 17 the Public Service Board. Earlier today, in our 18 meeting, we resolved unanimously as a group to support 19 what the Board has asked for in their order to ask for 20 the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to do an independent 21 engineering assessment and to go further in their 22 review.
23 (Applause.)
24 MR. OBRIEN: Now, I know this is safely 25
23 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 a divisive issue with respect to Vermont Yankee, but 1
on this question of going the extra mile on a review 2
seems to be something we all now have a consensus 3
about, that our senators and our congressional 4
leadership has spoken on this issue in support of the 5
Public Service Board. The Public Service Board has 6
spoken and youve heard from Commissioner Burke. The 7
Vermont State Nuclear Advisory Panel today voted on 8
this.
9 I think that, gentlemen, the NRC, with all 10 due respect I think this is an opportunity for you to 11 be a little flexible in your process, and I would 12 expect that with your letter that you respond to the 13 Board that we can look for something a little 14 different than what we saw earlier this week. Thank 15 you very much.
16 (Applause.)
17 MR. BIDWELL: All right. Thank you. Just 18 a quick note in terms of process. I think its great 19 to support the ideas that you like. The longer the 20 applause goes the less time it is for more people. I 21 just want to make that an awareness. Im not saying 22 dont do it --
23 PARTICIPANT: People know that here. They 24 know that. They live here. They speak regularly.
25
24 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 MR. BIDWELL: Excellent.
1 MS. ODONNELL: As a State Representative 2
from this town, I think its only fair that everyones 3
voice be heard. Now, Id like it to be known strongly 4
that although I havent polled the Town the Vernon, I 5
have heard from people in Guilford, and I support an 6
independent assessment.
7 (Applause.)
8 MS. ODONNELL: But I also want it to be 9
known that this town strongly supports Vermont Yankee.
10 They work here. You know, your voice can be heard 11 when its your turn. Its my turn now. We hear an 12 awful lot about diversity and tolerance. Well, 13 theres more than one opinion here. And I also want 14 it to be known that there arent a whole lot of people 15 from Vernon here, for one reason. Because for 30 16 years weve lived with this, and the Vermont way is 17 not to be rude to people. The Vermont way is to 18 listen to everyones side, and I ask you, please, when 19 youre in this town please be respectful of everyones 20 voice. Thank you.
21 (Applause.)
22 MS. FARABAUGH: Thank you. Peggy 23 Farabough, F-A-R-A--B-A-U-G-H, Select person in 24 Vernon. And thank you for giving me a chance to 25
25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 speak. I do live in Vernon and I feel like youre 1
trying to shut me out. We host this town. A lot of 2
our neighbors and friends work for Vermont Yankee.
3 Its an integral part of our town. We understand the 4
safety issues at Vermont Yankee. We support Vermont 5
Yankee very largely. Over 91 percent of the people 6
polled in Vernon support Vermont Yankee.
7 I personally do not think that we need 8
another independent safety assessment. The NRC 9
conducts two. I dont think thats what this meeting 10 is about. I think this meeting is about putting any 11 kind of a roadblock in front of the progress of any 12 kind of a nuclear power plant. And I think that 13 youve chosen the wrong venue for that.
14 I feel I have -- I am a mother of two 15 children who go to school here, I live here, my 16 children go to school right across from the plant. I 17 have confidence in the people who are operating the 18 plant and in the NRC and in the record of the nuclear 19 power industry over the last many years.
20 You dont see a lot of people from Vernon 21 here, one, because they dont enjoy this type of 22 entertainment. And if they want to know about the 23 issues regarding nuclear power, they will do it in a 24 more technical forum. The other reason you dont see 25
26 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 a lot of people from Vernon here is because when we 1
stand up and try to speak, look at the way we get 2
treated. Theres not a lot of respect in this room.
3 Patty was the first person who asked to get up and 4
voice an opinion that was different from the mobs 5
opinion, and look how you have treated her and how 6
youve treated me.
7 So we do support Vermont Yankee, and I 8
dont support the independent safety assessment.
9 Thank you.
10 CHAIRMAN RULAND: Yes, let her speak.
11 Hold on a second. Not everybody can speak all at 12 once, and I know you folks want to ask us questions, 13 okay. So how -- you want the Representative to speak?
14 Go ahead. Thank you.
15 MS. EDWARDS: Thank you. My name is Sarah 16 Edwards, Im a Representative from Brattleboro in the 17 House. Sarah Edwards from Brattleboro. Im a 18 Representative in the House in Vermont. We have a 19 resolution right now that I have 83 members have 20 signed from the House from all parties of the 150 21 seats that are available in the House. And this 22 resolution supports the ruling of the Public Service 23 Board, and I wanted you all to know that there is an 24 attempt to get the House backing to be on board with 25
27 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 all the other people who have spoken tonight with 1
regard to the uprate and to the independent 2
engineering assessment. And Ill be testifying on 3
this tomorrow, and I hope that I can report back to 4
you that were in agreement with the Public Service 5
Board and the Department of Public Service as well as 6
our congressional delegation. Thank you.
7 (Applause.)
8 MR. BIDWELL: Thank you all. What I want 9
to do now is NRC would like to make a couple of 10 points. Theyre key points about the assessment 11 process and how that reflects what some of the other 12 parties have requested. Then we want to move into the 13 audience and make sure that you all have a chance to 14 say why that is or is not adequate, what are the other 15 points that you want to see and to express your views.
16 CHAIRMAN RULAND: Thank you. A number of 17 representatives, public officials have talked about 18 the independent safety assessment, and I see just a 19 few signs of people urging support for an independent 20 safety assessment.
21 As you know -- it does keep the place 22 cool. As you know, the Senators Leahy and Jeffords --
23 we responded, the NRC responded to Senators Leahy and 24 Jeffords in a recent letter, and we stated why the 25
28 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 Main Yankee independent safety assessment experience 1
is not applicable to Vermont Yankees power uprate 2
application. The Senators letters and the NRCs 3
response mentioned the public request for Vermont 4
Yankee to undergo the same type of ISA that was 5
performed at Maine Yankee in 1966.
6 It is the NRCs position that the letter 7
to the Senators does not represent the Agencys 8
position on the Vermont Public Service Boards 9
conditional approval of the Vermont Yankee uprate. It 10 does not represent. As you know, we also have a 11 letter, as a matter of fact it was dated today, from 12 both Senators Jeffords and Leahy basically, 13 reiterating that the PSB has not received a written 14 response from the NRC on its independent engineering 15 assessment request, and theyre requesting the NRC to 16 issue a letter to the Public Service Board 17 expeditiously. The NRC staff will do that. So we are 18 going to issue a response to the Public Service Board 19 regarding their request. So we havent done that, 20 okay, but we will.
21 Weve heard a lot of folks clamoring --
22 thats probably the right word -- for an independent 23 safety assessment. We recognize that. At this stage, 24 our thinking is, okay, that, one, at this point that 25
29 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 the Agencys normal oversight and uprate review 1
process we believe appears to provide information that 2
coincides with the PSBs concerns. And let me list 3
them a little bit.
4 NRC and independent contractors have 5
inspected Vermont Yankees design and licensing basis 6
several times since Maine Yankees ISA. Now, theres 7
a lot of talk about what is an independent review.
8 Well, first of all, the NRC is an independent 9
regulatory agency established by Congress. David 10 Lochbaum, somebody that testified at the PSB from the 11 Union of Concerned Scientists, argued that independent 12 was folks that didnt have normal regulatory oversight 13 of a plant. Well, the NRC performed such an 14 inspection. It was called the architect engineer 15 inspection. The NRC performed that inspection. It 16 was not performed by the local regional office, it was 17 run from headquarters, it was run with contractors.
18 Those folks did not have routine 19 regulatory oversight of the Vermont Yankee Nuclear 20 Power Plant, and if you actually looked at the 21 independent safety assessment that youre clamoring 22 for, the NRC ran that, a guy by the name of Ellis 23 Merschoff ran that assessment. It was run with NRC 24 folks, it was run with NRC contractors, and there were 25
30 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 some state observers. But the independent safety 1
assessment was run by the NRC. However, Mr. Merschoff 2
did not report to the regional office, he reported to 3
headquarters, he reported to the Chairman. And weve 4
done that, okay? We have done an architect engineer 5
inspection at Vermont Yankee, and the staff believes 6
that not only have we done that, we continue to 7
perform what we believe, Im not asking you to believe 8
it, what we believe are independent assessments of 9
Vermont Yankees engineering work. Thats the first 10 point Id like to make.
11 The second point, the NRC does not issue 12 decisions on the plant reliability specifically.
13 However, plant reliability, we believe, is closely 14 related to plant safety. Its not exactly the same 15 but its closely related. The NRCs power uprate 16 process reviews the reliability of the modifications 17 that the plant is performing and we consider that in 18 our reliability review. So we do do a safety review 19 and we examine reliability as part of that.
20 In August of this year, the NRC will 21 conduct its every other year safety design inspection 22 at Vermont requiring several inspectors to perform 23 over 500 hours0.00579 days <br />0.139 hours <br />8.267196e-4 weeks <br />1.9025e-4 months <br /> worth of direct inspections of 1 and 2 24 systems. Our power uprate review process, which were 25
31 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 going to talk about briefly, that process examines 1
equipment modifications and every system that is 2
important to the safety of a power uprate. This 3
review covers both the actual safety systems and the 4
non-safety systems.
5 If any portion of these inspections 6
identify a problem, we go after it. Our inspection 7
program, we believe, is robust and its flexible.
8 Weve shown the ability to respond to safety issues, 9
and I believe were going to respond again.
10 So those are our thoughts right now. We 11 havent responded yet to the Public Service Board, and 12 you have my commitment that were going to do that.
13 Clearly, you folks are passionate about this issue, 14 and I feel that passion. Thank you.
15 (Audience shouting.)
16 Again, lets afford the staff to make a 17 few key points. Tony McMurtray on power uprate 18 process.
19 (Audience shouting.)
20 MR. BIDWELL: Let me step in, okay? Hold 21 on. Hold on. The NRC has come. They want to give 22 the points of what their process is, and then they 23 want to hear your reactions to that process.
24 (Audience shouting.)
25
32 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 MR. BIDWELL: Right now were burning 1
time, okay?
2 CHAIRMAN RULAND: Were going to be back, 3
okay? We are going to be back, we are going to have 4
another meeting further on the review process. You 5
have my promise on that, okay?
6 (Audience shouting.)
7 CHAIRMAN RULAND: We have not made up our 8
mind.
9 MR. McMURTRAY: Good evening. My names 10 Tony McMurtray. Bill introduced me. I work at NRC 11 headquarters. I just relocated to headquarters last 12 summer. Before that I spent nine years as a resident 13 inspector, approximately six years I was a senior 14 resident inspector at Peach Bottom, which is down in 15 Pennsylvania. Its a similar vintage BWR. Im 16 currently in the Division of Licensing Management at 17 headquarters, and I am in charge of the overview for 18 the power uprate process.
19 Some real quick points. Our power uprate 20 reviews are significant licensing actions and receive 21 a high amount of attention from the NRC Commission and 22 senior agency management. We now have a review 23 standard. This is our review standard. It took over 24 two years to develop this standard. This standard is 25
33 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 to guide the staff, utilities and public to the extent 1
of our reviews. The plant owner must provide 2
sufficient justification to the NRC that safety is 3
maintained under power uprate conditions.
4 As Bill mentioned, the NRC staff reviews 5
every system that is important to maintaining public 6
health and safety that is impacted by the proposed 7
power uprate. Vermont Yankee is the first plant 8
requesting an extended power uprate that we are using 9
this new review standard to guide the staffs NRC 10 review.
11 And in closing, we believe that our power 12 uprate process is a structured, robust, comprehensive 13 process focused on safety and captures lessons learned 14 from each uprate to improve later reviews. However, 15 we welcome your comments on our review standard and 16 our review process, and our web site is available in 17 the handout, so please get them. We would have those 18 on the slide. Thank you.
19 CHAIRMAN RULAND: Thank you, Tony. Stu 20 Richards, you want to just briefly talk?
21 MR. RICHARDS: Very briefly, Im Stu 22 Richards, Im from Washington and Im responsible for 23 the Inspection Program. A couple of points to make 24 for tonight, we have a robust inspection program. I 25
34 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 think a couple of people have mentioned that before.
1 We do inspect the engineering at Vermont Yankee and 2
all plants across the nation, and I think we do a 3
pretty robust job of doing that. And as part of the 4
power uprate process, there will be issues that come 5
out of the technical reviews, and well factor those 6
into our Inspection Program. Thank you.
7 CHAIRMAN RULAND: Thank you, Stu. And, 8
finally, Rick Ennis, our Senior Project Manager. Hes 9
going to talk a little bit about the specific review 10 were doing on Vermont. Rick?
11 MR. ENNIS: My name is Rick Ennis, and Im 12 the Project Manager responsible for review of the 13 power uprate for Vermont Yankee at NRC headquarters in 14 Maryland. Im going to give you a quick status of 15 where we are in the review.
16 The forecast completion date of our review 17 is January 31, 2005 and thats documented in our 18 letter to Entergy, dated February 20. Although were 19 very early in the review stages, weve already 20 provided 60 technical questions to Entergy regarding 21 the specifics of the review, which Entergy has 22 responded to in a letter dated January 31 2004.
23 The next major milestone in the process 24 will be for the NRC to issue a Federal Register notice 25
35 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 to docket acceptance of the application for review.
1 This notice will be posted on the NRCs web site. The 2
Federal Register notice provides an opportunity for 3
the public to request a hearing on the proposed 4
amendment. And based on recent changes to the NRCs 5
regulations, the hearing process now extends the 6
period to request a hearing from 30 days to 60 days 7
after the notice is issued. Its expected that this 8
notice will be issued sometime in April.
9 The public may also provide comments to 10 the NRC regarding the proposed amendment outside of 11 the hearing process. The staff will consider those 12 comments during the course of the review, and this 13 meeting is one of the opportunities for you to provide 14 comments to us.
15 Theres many technical areas that we look 16 as part of the power uprate process, and I just want 17 to touch on two issues that are very high focus areas 18 at this time. Several plants have experienced 19 problems with steam dryer cracking following 20 implementation of a power uprate. Although the steam 21 dryer performs a non-safety-related function, the 22 dryer must maintain its structural integrity to avoid 23 loose parts from entering the reactor vessel or steam 24 lines and adversely affecting plant operation. In 25
36 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 addition, theres also been other problems related to 1
flow vibration issues that have caused damage to 2
valves and pipe supports following a power uprate.
3 The steam dryer integrity and flow induced 4
vibration issues are receiving a very high level of 5
attention by the NRC and the nuclear industry, and 6
these are probably the two biggest technical 7
challenges associated with power uprates at this time.
8 Additional interaction between the NRC 9
staff, Entergy and Entergys contractor, General 10 Electric, is expected on these issues. These 11 interactions may include requests for additional 12 information, on-site audits of General Electric and 13 public meetings so that we receive information that 14 demonstrates that safety will be maintained at the 15 proposed uprate conditions.
16 As I mentioned earlier, I just want to 17 emphasis that the NRC staff is in the very early 18 stages of the technical review. Much more work still 19 needs to be done before the NRC staff can come to any 20 conclusions regarding acceptability of the Vermont 21 Yankee request. This amendment will not be approved 22 unless we are satisfied that safety will be assured.
23 As Mr. Ruland mentioned, we will be back for another 24 public meeting after we are further along in the 25
37 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 technical review. Thank you.
1 CHAIRMAN RULAND: Thank you, Rick.
2 (Applause.)
3 MR. BIDWELL: Finally, right, the moment 4
that youve been waiting for. Let me say just a 5
couple more words, all right? One is please try to 6
keep your comments to the key point just so that as 7
many people as possible get an opportunity to talk.
8 The school district has asked us to finish at 11, 9
okay? So that does leave -- youve got an hour and 50 10 minutes. The other thing is that when a question is 11 actually posed to NRC, I ask that you let them have a 12 couple of moments to try to answer that, all right?
13 The questions will be fielded by Bill, and if there is 14 a more appropriate staff person to comment on that, 15 hell ask them to say a couple of words, all right?
16 Many people have come up and asked me to 17 be first. I cant let 50 people go first, but Im 18 going to start over here and then when hes done Ill 19 be moving around through the room.
20 CHAIRMAN RULAND: Why dont you let Paul 21 talk first? Paul, want to talk? Okay. Fine. Thank 22 you.
23 MR. GUNDERSON: My name is Arty Gunderson.
24 Im a teacher in Burlington of math. Prior to that I 25
38 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 had a bachelors and masters degree in nuclear 1
reactor operators license, and I was the Senior Vice 2
President of a nuclear firm. I was the New England 3
Coalitions expert witness during these hearings. In 4
that capacity, I looked at over 100,000 documents.
5 Id like to share four pages with you tonight.
6 My review of non-proprietary emails and 7
telecons provided by Entergy during the discovery 8
process I discovered documents that seemed to indicate 9
a disturbing pattern of collusion between Entergy, 10 General Electric and the NRC. These same documents --
11 Ill be quick -- these same documents also appeared to 12 demonstrate significant efforts by high levels of 13 General Electric to intimidate the NRC into approving 14 its generic safety uprate evaluation report. Ive got 15 the documents here. I will give them not to the NRC 16 tonight but to our Congressmen. Let me continue.
17 I discovered emails and telephone notes 18 from the NRC to Entergy where the NRC said that 19 General Electric is licensing the project on the 20 cheap. I discovered that General Electric -- that the 21 NRC told Entergy that G.E., quote, "assumes the staff 22 can reach conclusions on public safety without having 23 adequate analysis." The documents also showed, more 24 disturbing still, that NRC told Entergy that G.E. had 25
39 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 a piecemeal safety analysis. It gets worse.
1 The NRC then began to beg Entergy to 2
quote, "have a heart to heart," with General Electric 3
so that they could answer these technical questions.
4 And, finally, the NRC told Entergy that G.E. wasnt 5
being honest with them. Hello. You guys are the 6
regulators, you guys are in charge. You dont have to 7
whine to Entergy to get General Electric to do their 8
job. It gets worse.
9 Entergy then told General Electric about 10 this. Instead of addressing the NRCs technical 11 concerns, General Electric dispatched its Vice 12 President to go around the reviewers to their senior 13 management. When that failed, the documents show that 14 that Vice President went to the Commissioners, and --
15 I cant believe this -- the General Electric VP let it 16 be known that he was, quote, "going to go for their 17 jugular." Thats a curious use of words, and it 18 reflects a dangerous level of contempt and disdain by 19 both General Electric and Entergy for the NRCs 20 supposed regulatory role.
21 Despite not being honest, G.E. got what 22 they asked for. To a former insider like me, its no 23 surprise that the NRC would cave to this type of 24 industry pressure. Its via closed door meetings like 25
40 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 the ones indicated in these telecons, which Ill give 1
to our Senators tonight, its via closed door meetings 2
that the NRC was persuaded by G.E. and Entergy to look 3
the other way so that Entergy may avoid basic safety 4
guidelines line net positive suction head. Its 5
simple: The NRC agrees to look the other way, G.E.
6 gets more business, Entergy gets more profits. You 7
are not here to protect the public, youre here to 8
protect the industry from the public.
9 (Applause.)
10 MR. GUNDERSON: I read another 99,996 11 pages, Im unable to discuss them in two minutes, and, 12 unfortunately, youll never give me the opportunity to 13 talk to you because youre not allowing Mr. Blanch and 14 I into the process despite the fact that weve got 70 15 years of experience between us. We have never 16 attempted to intimidate you, weve never attempted to 17 go for your jugular. The NRCs outright rejection of 18 our expertise forces us to go to Senator Jeffords and 19 Senator Leahy with formal allegations based on this 20 collusion which Ive got the evidence for.
21 (Applause.)
22 MR. BIDWELL: All right. Thank you.
23 CHAIRMAN RULAND: Lets talk a little bit 24 about the NRCs allegation process.
25
41 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 (Audience shouting.)
1 CHAIRMAN RULAND: Well, let me respond.
2 MR. BIDWELL: Please let NRC respond, and 3
then we will move to the --
4 CHAIRMAN RULAND: Let me respond.
5 (Audience shouting.)
6 MR. BIDWELL: Wait, wait, wait, wait, 7
wait, wait, wait.
8 PARTICIPANT: That was not a question.
9 That was not a question. Would you all agree that was 10 not a question?
11 CHAIRMAN RULAND: Paul, could you give --
12 do me a favor, could you give the mike to Paul, 13 please?
14 MR. BLANCH: Im Paul Blanch. Please give 15 Mr. Ruland a chance to respond in a calm manner. He 16 has a right to briefly respond to the questions.
17 Please respect Mr. Ruland.
18 CHAIRMAN RULAND: Thank you, Paul. Thank 19 you. First of all, this is not your mothers meeting.
20 Im not sure this is the kind of meeting I thought 21 this was going to be before it started, but I 22 appreciate -- again, I just wanted to say I appreciate 23 the passion and the information were getting.
24 The NRC is really here, because were 25
42 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 recording it, to address these issues and to address 1
them clearly, okay? Thats why were taking the notes 2
here for this meeting. The NRC has two processes that 3
we use to address the very kind of issue that we heard 4
today. Frankly, I dont know the details behind this 5
matter, but were going to find out. The NRC has an 6
allegation process that we go through. We examine 7
what the allegation is, we go out and do inspections, 8
and we try to get to the root of the problem and try 9
to determine it and try to take some action. If its 10 an allegation against NRC staff and potential 11 wrongdoing, the NRC also has a process for that, and 12 we have an independent Inspector General that we refer 13 these things to. We do this frequently and all the 14 time. Its part of the NRC culture, okay? And its 15 part of the NRC culture to examine these problems and 16 look introspectively to try to understand what they 17 are. Thank you.
18 MR. BLANCH: Thank you. My name is Paul 19 Blanche. I have more than 35 years of nuclear 20 experience. And just to carry on with what Bill said, 21 I have a prepared statement. Its probably longer 22 than I want to read and Im going to shorten it down, 23 but in response to the statement that Mr. Ruland just 24 made, Ive already contacted the Inspector Generals 25
43 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 Office this afternoon and turned over these issues of 1
wrongdoing. Theyre contained also in my statement, 2
and I, again, want to allow other people time to 3
express their concerns and issues, so Im shortening 4
up my presentation. I have given some of the copies 5
to the NRC and also some of the media.
6 Mr. Gunderson and I actually support VYs 7
current nuclear power output, and if the safety 8
concerns of Vermonts residents and those surrounding 9
states are examined and addressed, we may even support 10 a power upgrade at Vermont Yankee. We both believe 11 that nuclear plants can be operated safely but only if 12 proper reviews are conducted to todays more stringent 13 safety requirements and if complete evaluation of the 14 risk associated with VYs regulatory non-compliances 15 if conducted.
16 We could support the upgrade if, and only 17 if, the NRC and Entergy are willing to talk about 18 nuclear safety in an open, collaborative and candid 19 manner with us and members of the public. Tonight is 20 not the forum for that. I was extremely troubled when 21 I learned that the NRC, Entergy and G.E. continue 22 negotiating nuclear safety behind closed doors as 23 documented by Entergy in its confidential and 24 privileged documentation of phone conversations 25
44 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 between Entergy, the NRC, General Electric. General 1
Electric even made veiled threats to the 2
Commissioners. Is this regulatory agency that we rely 3
on to assess nuclear safety when the nuclear industry 4
can have free access to the Commissioners and 5
influence the Commissioners with threats and 6
intimidation? Is intimidation part of the NRCs 7
regulatory process?
8 A few year ago Mr. Gunderson were invited 9
by the government of the Czech Republic to review 10 safety issues for two proposed nuclear power plants.
11 This former Soviet state facilitated public dialogue 12 with us in open and cordial meetings. These open 13 forums included utility, the media, SUJB, which is the 14 NRC equivalent, and the general public. We were even 15 provided tours of all the nuclear facilities in order 16 for us to more fully examine public questions and 17 thoroughly address safety concerns.
18 Contrast as positive with the opposition 19 contempt and disdain we have received in the U.S. from 20 both Entergy and the NRC. We have raised significant 21 safety issues related to Vermont Yankee. Mr.
22 Chairman, raised them four months ago. No response.
23 The immediate response by VY was to hold a press 24 conference by invitation only within the plant fence 25
45 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 for the sole purpose of personally discrediting, 1
demeaning and slandering me. To that end, Entergy 2
attempted to discredit my nuclear experience, diminish 3
my educational background and imply that I was 4
unfamiliar with NRC regulations. Im going to shorten 5
this up now because Im taking too much time.
6 In my concluding statement, I just want to 7
say that those of us involved with the technical 8
expertise and the willingness to speak out will be 9
involved in the safe resolution of these issues and 10 will continue to make our voices public no matter how 11 often you attempt to silence us. The choice is up to 12 Entergy and the NRC, that choice being one of 13 collaboration or a continued adversarial relationship.
14 Thank you very much.
15 (Applause.)
16 CHAIRMAN RULAND: Thank you, Paul. Paul 17 and I go way back. What is it the 80s, Paul?
18 Personally, from what I have observed in the NRC, what 19 I heard tonight is foreign. I have not seen this 20 behavior, okay, so this is new to me. Its something 21 that the NRC is going to treat seriously. I 22 personally dont think I have ever tried to silence 23 our critics. Our critics are important to me. It is 24 what helps us make us better.
25
46 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 Ive talked to Paul on many occasions, 1
Ive talked to David Lochbaum, and sometimes what they 2
tell us its not nice and its not easy to hear, but 3
we do that, and I personally have done that. Its 4
something weve got to take to heart. Its one of the 5
lessons I think that the NRC tries to learn and 6
continues to learn about listening to our critics. I 7
think were going to continue to do that. So next 8
person. Mr. Bidwell?
9 MR. BIDWELL: Were going back here to the 10 bleachers.
11 MR. DOUD: My name is Louise Doud. Thats 12 spelled D-O-U-D, not D-O-W-D, please, D-O-U-D. I live 13 in Warwick, Massachusetts. Ive come with some 14 friends and we left many people at home because we had 15 a cherished member of our community die yesterday and 16 many people are not here because theyre at his 17 calling hours.
18 I want to say something about process 19 before I ask my very brief question, which I then like 20 to be able to respond to after I get an answer to it, 21 which is that I think its quite understandable the 22 energy in this room and the outbursts since it after 23 nine oclock when significant openness about having 24 members of the audience make comments finally was 25
47 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 reached. And I want to give you that observation. I 1
dont many people in this room have distinguished 2
between the first hearing and the second hearing.
3 People came because they were interested in finding 4
out what is happening and to express their opinion, 5
and the signs and the short responses are what most of 6
us have had up until now. It is now 25 after nine and 7
the meeting started at seven.
8 So Id love to talk to you, Mr.
9 Facilitator because I have a number of -- having done 10 facilitation work in my own life, I have a number of 11 suggestions. I will get on with it. My question is 12 what was the original design life of this nuclear 13 reactor across the road? And then I would like to be 14 able to ask a question after I get an answer to that.
15 CHAIRMAN RULAND: The original licensed 16 life of the plant was 40 years.
17 MR. DOUD: It was designed for 40 years.
18 CHAIRMAN RULAND: Thats correct.
19 MR. DOUD: Thank you.
20 CHAIRMAN RULAND: No, no. Thats the 21 licensed life of the plant.
22 MR. DOUD: That would be the longest 23 design life Ive heard about in the early reactors.
24 Can you get a more specific answer on that?
25
48 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 MR. RICHARDS: Just briefly, the plant was 1
licensed for 40 years. We have a process by which 2
plants that can demonstrate it appropriate they can 3
renew their license for up to 20 years. The design of 4
each of the components is based on the original 5
engineering that went into that component, so you 6
cant say the plant was designed for 40 years. We 7
licensed it for 40 years.
8 MR. DOUD: You licensed it for 40 years 9
based on design criteria that would say that each 10 component would last at least 40 years?
11 MR. RICHARDS: No. We licensed the plant 12 for 40 years based on initial submittal of their 13 licensing request recognizing that over that 40-year 14 period of time there would be a large number of 15 inspections that the utility would do, that we would 16 do, that there would be inspections, maintenance, 17 replacement of components. So its not the 18 expectation that you build a plant and then it lasts 19 as built for 40 years.
20 CHAIRMAN RULAND: You had a follow-up 21 question?
22 MR. DOUD: Its not a -- just that 32 23 years is awfully close to that, and Im really 24 wondering how we can imagine a safe -- the continued 25
49 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 safe operation with an uprate happening at the same 1
time.
2 CHAIRMAN RULAND:
I understand.
3 Essentially, the question is how can this plant last 4
much longer than 32 years? The NRCs requirements 5
that the licensee must comply with requires them to do 6
surveillance testing, requires them to do in-service 7
inspection of all the important safety-related 8
equipment. Licensees, as a result of that, in Vermont 9
Yankee replace equipment if they dont meet our 10 requirements. We dont permit licensees to operate 11 their plant without meeting those requirements that 12 are in place for them.
13 This Licensee, as part of their power 14 uprate, is replacing a number of components. The 15 plant has feedwater heaters that heat the water prior 16 to going into the reactor. Essentially, all of those 17 have been replaced. A number of safety pumps will be 18 replaced, okay? So there is a number of processes 19 that the NRC has in place to make sure that the 20 plants equipment operates appropriately. Mr.
21 Bidwell.
22 MR. BIDWELL: Thank you. Let me just --
23 one more little thing, okay? This is -- wait. This 24 is not a hearing. Its an opportunity to have an 25
50 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 actual answer from NRC, and thats what were trying 1
to provide an opportunity for.
2 MR. SHADIS: Thank you. I guarantee to 3
make this brief. I have to disagree with you, Stu, 4
with respect to the design life of the plant.
5 Documents surrendered to us in this process before the 6
Vermont Public Service Board after two orders 7
compelling Vermont Yankee to hand over the documents 8
reveal that, yes, they believe they have a 40-year 9
design life, and those particular documents were 10 signed by Jay Thayer, the CNO here.
11 So, no, they believe they have a 40-year 12 design life, and in fact, as you know, the principal 13 components of this plant, which will never be 14 replaced, such as the reactor vessel, are designed for 15 a limited number of thermal cycles. And when you put 16 an equation to it, it turns out to be 40 years. What 17 is going on now is an attempt to pencil away all of 18 those original limitations.
19 CHAIRMAN RULAND: Mr. Shadis mentioned the 20 reactor vessel. The NRC has specific requirements and 21 a specific rule that requires those reactor vessels to 22 meet to make sure that theyre safe. Those 23 requirements apply to Vermont Yankee, and the instant 24 the Licensee doesnt meet those requirements the plant 25
51 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 will be shut down. Mr. Bidwell, where are you?
1 Hello?
2 MR. BLAZEY: Im Colin Blazey. Im from 3
Windham, Vermont. I lived in Brookline, Vermont when 4
the plant was built. My neighbor died building the 5
plant. And the whole key issue that I dont 6
understand in this whole uprate question is in terms 7
of being civil, how can it be civil to continue to 8
make more non-disposable nuclear waste? If you cant 9
answer that simple question, what are you going to do 10 with the waste, nothing that you can say technically 11 can even possibly hold a candle to that major safety 12 question.
13 (Applause.)
14 MR. BIDWELL: Does the NRC have a comment?
15 CHAIRMAN RULAND: Yes, I do. Thank you.
16 The Licensee right now stores their fuel in the spent 17 fuel pool. Its safe in the spent fuel pool. Okay?
18 Its safe in the spent fuel pool. The Licensee, if 19 they run out of capacity in that spent fuel pool, they 20 will not be able to operate the plant any longer if 21 theyve run out of capacity. What they would need to 22 do is apply for a license or either take -- do that or 23 a general license to get dry cask storage. And weve 24 given a general license for dry cask storage. We 25
52 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 believe thats safe. Weve licensed those casks.
1 Theyre extremely robust devices. And I think those 2
licenses go on for, what, 20 years? A 20-year license 3
for those dry cask storage. Im confident that thats 4
a safe alternative.
5 And the Department of Energy right now, as 6
you know, is preparing to do a submittal for the Yucca 7
Mountain storage, so the Department of Energy is 8
preparing the submittal, and when that submittal comes 9
in, the NRC will review it. Mr. Bidwell, where are 10 you?
11 MR. BIDWELL: Im over here.
12 MR. FELDMAN: My name is Ira Feldman. Im 13 an emergency room doctor for Cooley Dickinson Hospital 14 in Northampton, Massachusetts. Thats about 35 miles 15 from here and well within the zone that would be 16 contaminated if you have a major reactor accident at 17 this plant. I want you to know my hospital has worked 18 very hard to look at disaster preparation and my 19 emergency room cannot deal with the casualties that 20 would be produced by an accident at this plant, nor 21 can the emergency room at Greenfield or the emergency 22 room in Keene or the emergency room in Brattleboro.
23 In the medical profession, we have a 24 guiding principle of first do no harm, which means 25
53 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 that before you expose the population to a technology 1
youre obliged to prove that its safe. I think 2
thats a principle that ought to be applied in this 3
situation as well. This reactor isnt safe, its very 4
dangerous. Ever since September 11 we have understood 5
clearly that our nuclear power reactors are, in a 6
sense, weapons of mass destruction which we have built 7
and sited around our country and left there waiting 8
for terrorists to activate, and it is time for us to 9
understand that.
10 If we found a
group of Islamic 11 fundamentalists out in the woods building something 12 like Vermont Yankee, we would think we had stumbled 13 the mother of all al-Qaida plots and we would arrest 14 them as terrorists and throw them in jail. But a 15 nuclear power company gets to build these kinds of 16 reactors, and now Entergy wants to make this plant 17 even more dangerous by upgrading its production beyond 18 what it was supposed to tolerate.
19 The very least that we can ask is that 20 there be a complete safety (Applause.) before this 21 happens. There should not be an upgrade here. This 22 plant should not be upgraded. It shouldnt be allowed 23 to operate. It should be shutdown, and we should 24 focus all of our energy on making the containment as 25
54 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 secure as we can around the huge pile of spent fuel 1
rods that have already been generated so that those 2
cant become a weapon in the hands of terrorists as 3
well.
4 And I think its time for the Nuclear 5
Regulatory Commission to meet its responsibilities to 6
protect the public, not to protect the industry its 7
supposed to regulate. Thank you.
8 (Applause.)
9 MR. FELDMAN: Just one thing I wanted to 10 say: Thats a comment, not a question, and I would 11 prefer if you didnt answer so that other people have 12 a chance to talk. Thank you.
13 MR. BIDWELL: I think that it behooves us 14 to have an opportunity for NRC to lay out its side of 15 the story as well. This is an opportunity -- it is an 16 opportunity. Bill, would you like to respond? Very 17 briefly, please.
18 CHAIRMAN RULAND: Brian, go ahead.
19 MR. KEEFE: No, just briefly, some people 20 might not be aware of answers in that vein. Post 9/11 21 the agency has gotten hundreds of questions about 22 security of the plants, not just what theyve done 23 historically when we licensed them, but in the post 24 9/11 environment, how can you continue to maintain 25
55 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 that the plants are safe?
1 We have received those questions. There 2
was a fax sheet that probably just 100 or 150 were 3
available here on security, post 9/11 security orders 4
that have been performed by the NRC.
5 Briefly, thats available there, and its 6
available on the Website. The NRC has done a top to 7
bottom security review and looked at vulnerability 8
assessments for some of the very similar issues that 9
hes raised.
10 The NRC has the ability to issue orders.
11 We have done issues -- weve issued orders on 12 overtime, on access authorization and other issues.
13 The NRC has the ability should they see 14 vulnerabilities to issue upgrades. So that is 15 something that at the Commission is being reviewed, 16 and there is more information on that.
17 MR. BIDWELL: Okay. Were going to move 18 up here.
19 MR. ALEXANDER: Thank you. My name is 20 Peter Alexander. Im the Executive Director of the 21 New England Coalition.
22 (Applause.)
23 MR. ALEXANDER: First, I want to thank you 24 folks for coming out and giving a message to these 25
56 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 folks that they can take back to Washington. We want 1
an independent safety assessment.
2 (Applause.)
3 MR. ALEXANDER: I also want to thank 4
Senator McDonald for introducing Senate Resolution 5
S.R. 21 and having the courage to steer it through and 6
the political savvy to steer it through and to the 7
Senate who voted unanimously for independent they call 8
it engineering assessment, but its a safety 9
assessment, and it is the criteria outlined in that 10 resolution which we believe will inform a proper job 11 so that we can feel that the plant has been carefully 12 and properly examined.
13 I want to read into the record the 14 editorial that Raymond Shadis and I wrote, and it was 15 published in todays Brattleboro Reformer. I think it 16 says very well a lot more than what I can say in a few 17 minutes that are given to me here.
18 I want to just say my message to you is 19 real simple. Were not deceived. We will not accept 20 anything less than a full, independent safety 21 assessment at Vermont Yankee. Were not fooled by 22 Entergys tricks, and were not fooled by the NRCs 23 misrepresentations about your extended power uprate 24 review process.
25
57 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 Your agency left the staff of our 1
congressional delegation with the misapprehension that 2
your uprate review process was informed by and, 3
therefore, by inference, was as good as the 4
independent safety assessment conducted at Maine 5
Yankee in 1996. Thats clear. I mean, its clearly 6
spelled out in Jeffords letter and Leahys letter 7
that that was the misapprehension they were left with 8
after talking with your staff.
9 This misapprehension was memorialized in 10 that letter to Chairman Nils Diaz. The very afternoon 11 that the letter was written it found its way into the 12 hands of Entergy, which lost no time in using it to 13 try to deceive the Public Service Board and the 14 Vermont legislature into thinking that the extended 15 power uprate review process was the same as or as good 16 as an independent safety assessment.
17 From that point on Entergys spokespeople 18 even co-opted the term "independent safety 19 assessment," stating publicly and in the media that 20 the NRCs extended power uprate review process 21 constituted not one, but two independent safety 22 assessments.
23 Ill just be another minute, David.
24 I want to say, David, youre a really nice 25
58 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 guy, but I think youre a really lousy facilitator.
1 Im sorry.
2 (Applause.)
3 MR. ALEXANDER: Fortunately, the Vermont 4
State Senate was not fooled by the letter or by 5
Entergys lobbyists. Jerry Morris, who used it to try 6
to convince the legislature that an ISA was not 7
needed, the Senate voted unanimously to pass their 8
request for an independent engineering assessment, and 9
they defined it properly.
10 I think there are many people here tonight 11 from several states around the region who resent the 12 fact that Entergy and the NRC have been playing word 13 games with us.
14 (Applause.)
15 MR. ALEXANDER: And Ill just say thats 16 a very nice way to put it.
17 If you want to establish even a semblance 18 of public trust, then come clean on this devious 19 deception. Hold your staff and Entergy Corporation 20 publicly accountable for misleading the Senate staff, 21 the Public Service Board, the state legislature, the 22 people of Vermont, and all of New England.
23 Finally, I want to let you know that as 24 far as the New England Coalition is concerned, this 25
59 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 process is just starting. We have dedicated ourselves 1
to preventing this uprate, and we are confident that 2
when an independent safety assessment is conducted at 3
Vermont Yankee, that plant will fail miserably.
4 If you want to convince us otherwise, then 5
give us the real thing. We want an independent safety 6
assessment.
7 Thank you.
8 (Applause.)
9 MR. RULAND: You know, the reason were 10 here is to try to explain what were doing and to take 11 your comments, digest them, take them back with us, 12 and thats what were going to do. Okay.
13 I object to any accusation about the NRC 14 misrepresenting to Congress. I was part of those 15 phone calls. I talked personally. Okay? We did not 16 misrepresent anything to the Senate staff, and we just 17 didnt do that. Okay?
18 So lets just let -- I think you want to 19 make some comments. Id like to just go ahead, and 20 rather than respond individually to particular 21 comments, Id just like to go ahead, and if we could, 22 everybody just get a couple of minutes, make a 23 comment, and for at least about the next half hour or 24 so, lets just have some comments.
25
60 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 Mr. Bidwell, are you there?
1 MR. BIDWELL: Well see if folks have 2
specific questions that they want a response from you.
3 They should indicate that as well.
4 MR. RULAND: Okay. Thank you.
5 MR. DIZINSKI: My name is Peter Dizinski.
6 Im from the Town of Leyden, representing the Planning 7
Board for the Town of Leyden.
8 Were well within the ten mile radius of 9
this plant in the neighboring State of Massachusetts, 10 and we have very little say in the internal affairs of 11 the State of Vermont, but we are very concerned 12 because of the dangers that this potential uprate 13 poses to our community.
14 Number one, Im very concerned as to why 15 the corporation at this time is asking for -- and this 16 I want an answer to -- an uprate on an aging plant.
17 Is it purely for the profit motive? Is that whats 18 behind it?
19 I cant understand how you can ask an old 20 plant to put out more than it was designed to in the 21 first place. I certainly cant run as fast as I used 22 to, and I dont think any of you can.
23 The point of the matter is that as a 24 neighboring community, we have part-time police, part-25
61 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 time fire department, part-time personnel in all of 1
our offices that have to do with the public safety, 2
and there is no way that we can be warned in time of 3
any kind of catastrophe.
4 Many of us work in the fields of 5
agriculture or in the woods. Far and away, we have no 6
sirens in our town. We have the monitors that are at 7
our homes, but were not always there. Our police 8
work in other towns far away. Who are we to rely on 9
if this uprate goes through and this thing melts down?
10 Thank you.
11 (Applause.)
12 MR. RICHARDS: Just a quick response.
13 You said you asked a question why did the company ask 14 for an uprate. We as the NRC cant tell you why the 15 company asked for it. Our purpose is to -- our 16 purpose is --
17 (Participant speaking from an unmicked 18 location.)
19 MR. RICHARDS: First of all, well not 20 speculate on the companys motives. Our purpose is to 21 take their amendment and to take a look at it from an 22 engineering point of view and decide on whether the 23 plant can be safely operated at the uprated power 24 condition.
25
62 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 With regard to emergency planning, if 1
thats an issue, that should be addressed as part of 2
the review standard that goes along with the uprate.
3 It will be looked at.
4 MR. RULAND: Thank you, Stu.
5 MR. HOLIAN: One other comment on that.
6 Plants, they had some slides from the NRC about power 7
uprates. Some plants applied after a couple of years 8
for power uprate. Margins of safety were built into 9
original design aspects of the plan. Over the years 10 they have not only changed power uprates at different 11 levels. Theyve also changed some of the technical 12 specifications that they operate by, allow the NRC 13 staff to review those. The inspectors from the region 14 go out and change on those changes.
15 So its not only power uprates. Its 16 certain margins of
- safety, certain equipment 17 allowances for taking things out of service. They 18 still have technical specifications that they have to 19 follow. If equipment is out of service, the plant 20 still shuts down when those design margins cannot be 21 met.
22 Thats all.
23 MR. RULAND: And if they dont make the 24 standards, they dont get the power uprate.
25
63 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 Mr. Bidwell, where are you?
1 MR. JEFFRIES: Right over here.
2 MR. RULAND: Question right here. Okay.
3 Go ahead.
4 MR. JEFFRIES: My name is Dan Jeffries.
5 First of all, I would like to thank the 6
NRC for coming to town with such excellent 7
representation.
8 Second of all, Id like to bring to your 9
attention, considering the representation that is in 10 this room tonight, that a vote was held in this region 11 two years ago on whether Vermont Yankee should 12 continue to operate or not, and a majority of the 13 people in the region voted in favor of the continued 14 operation of Vermont Yankee. I think thats 15 important.
16 And the other thing I would point out is 17 that as a taxpayer, I expect that the Nuclear 18 Regulatory Commission will conduct business in 19 accordance with its regulations, its rules, and its 20 guidelines, and as has been stated in this room, it 21 should not be intimidated by the people here or any 22 other business or corporation.
23 MR. RULAND: Did you get his name? We got 24 Dan. Okay. Thanks.
25
64 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 Somebody else? Mr. Bidwell, where are 1
you?
2 MR. BIDWELL: Over here.
3 MR. RULAND: I think hes a pretty good 4
facilitator.
5 PARTICIPANT: Three minutes, five seconds.
6 MR. RULAND: I disagree with you.
7 Go ahead.
8 MR. SACKS: Thank you.
9 My name is Gary Sacks, Brattleboro, 10 Vermont. I am not a nuclear engineer.
11 NRC, I do not trust you to protect the 12 safety of the state nor to be honest in your dealings 13 with the residents of Vermont.
14 NRC, I do not trust you nor Entergy to 15 call this machine across the street safe without an in 16 depth inspection like was done at Maine Yankee in 17 1996.
18 You said Three Mile Island was a wake-up 19 call for the industry. That was March 28th, 1979, the 20 same year the NRC publicly stated theres no such 21 thing as a safe amount of radiation.
22 Since 1979, these are some of the events 23 that have occurred:
24 February 11th, 81, TVAs Sequoia I plant 25
65 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 in Tennessee, a rookie operator caused a 110,000 1
gallon radioactive coolant release.
2 January 25th, 82, Ginna plant nearly 3
Rochester, a steam generator pipe broke, 15,000 4
gallons of radioactive coolant spilled, and small 5
amounts of radioactive steam escaped into the air.
6 January 15th and 16th, Browns Ferry 7
Station, nearly 208,000 gallons of low level 8
radioactive contaminated water accidentally dumped 9
into the Tennessee River.
10 81, 82, and 83, Salem I and II. Shall 11 I go into all of them?
12 1996, Chairman Shirley Jackson, NRC 13 Chairman Shirley Jackson speaking of Milstone in Time 14 Magazine, "clearly, NRC dropped the ball. We wont do 15 it again."
16 February 15th, 2000, New Yorks Indian 17 Point II, an aging steam generator ruptured, venting 18 radioactive steam. The NRC initially reported no 19 radioactive material was released, but later changed 20 their report to say there was a release, but not 21 enough to threaten public safety.
22 Wait. Didnt the NRC in 1979 say theres 23 no such thing as a safe amount of radiation?
24 2004, the new NRC Chairman, Nils Diaz, on 25
66 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 Davis-Besse said the agency "dropped the ball."
1 Again? Dropping the ball is not okay. If Three Mile 2
Island was a wake-up call, were you asleep at the 3
control panel during these other events or just 4
napping?
5 The NRC fallbacks of defense in depth, 6
redundant safety systems, alphabet soup acronyms, and 7
color candy coated labeling systems do not help me 8
feel more safe.
9 Entergy refuses to have public dialogues 10 with a local community to address safety issues, 11 saying the NRC process is where public concerns are to 12 be addressed. How does it serve the NRCs Public 13 Affairs Office to refuse to hold independent 14 assessments that have been requested? At this point 15 the entire state is lining up in that direction.
16 (Applause.)
17 MR. BIDWELL: He says the question is 18 rhetorical.
19 I had someone that needed to leave because 20 of a small child and I have lost her now. Oh, 21 standing right in front of me.
22 MS. ENOCHS: Hi. My name is Amy. I live 23 in Brattleboro. This is my son Julian. He is almost 24 five years old. Enochs, E-n-o-c-h-s.
25
67 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 I have a question that I would like 1
answered by the NRC, and my son is here tonight 2
because he has an idea, and I would like to help 3
support him in that.
4 Hold on. Let me ask my question.
5 My question is it is correct that there 6
have been eight uprates in the United States. Is that 7
the correct number?
8 MR. McMURTRAY: There have been 101 9
uprates granted.
10 MS. ENOCHS: One hundred and one uprates.
11 And how many plants are experiencing uprated related 12 difficulties right now? Four; is that correct? There 13 are four plants that are experiencing difficulties.
14 So my question is if these difficulties --
15 MR. RULAND: Steam dryer issues. I think 16 youre referring to --
17 MS. ENOCHS: Okay. They are uprate 18 related difficulties.
19 MR. RULAND: Right. Plants that are 20 actually plants that similar in design to Vermont 21 Yankee, yes.
22 MS. ENOCHS: Yes.
23 MR. RULAND: Quad Cities Units I and II.
24 MS. ENOCHS: Yes, and the Dresden plant.
25
68 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 MR. RULAND: Quad Cities Units I and II 1
and the Dresden plant, yes, correct.
2 MS. ENOCHS: So my question is: why is 3
the NRC even considering more uprate applications 4
instead of looking into these four plants that are 5
experiencing uprate related difficulties?
6 MR. RULAND: Great question. Thank you.
7 (Applause.)
8 MS. ENOCHS: And then my son would like 9
to. My son has a comment.
10 MR. RULAND: Can I answer your question 11 first?
12 MS. ENOCHS: Yes. I would like an answer 13 to my question.
14 MR. RULAND: Okay. Thank you.
15 MS. ENOCHS: Thank you.
16 MR. RULAND: What you mentioned about Quad 17 Cities concerns the NRC. It turns out Im the project 18 director for -- a project director at three which has 19 oversight of the licensing of Region III plants out 20 there in the Midwest, and Quad Cities and Dresden are 21 in the region that I have licensing responsibility 22 for.
23 Virtually as we speak -- well, theyve 24 probably gone home -- virtually as we speak, the NRC 25
69 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 is in discussion with Exelon about these very matters, 1
and were seriously considering taking additional 2
regulatory action. We havent yet. We are 3
considering it. Any of the lessons learned from those 4
from Quad Cities will be applied to the review of 5
Vermont Yankee.
6 As Ive stated before, we havent approved 7
the Vermont Yankee uprate. If we have a problem with 8
the steam dryer at Vermont Yankee than hasnt been 9
adequately resolved to our satisfaction, we wont 10 approve it.
11 So Quad Cities, maybe in the next week or 12 so, if you watch our Website or give us a call, well 13 let you know what we do. Okay? But it would be 14 premature for now for us. Were having internal NRC 15 discussions about this matter, but we are going to 16 take some action on this.
17 We already had taken action. The licensee 18 had sent us a letter agreeing that they wouldnt raise 19 power above the former 100 percent power for a 20 significant amount of their operating cycle. Thats 21 what they did. They did that at our insistence.
22 Okay?
23 And were going to insist that they 24 address that issue.
25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 MR. HOLIAN: Bill just to add directly to 1
that question, I did attend the VSNAP meeting this 2
afternoon from, I guess, 3:30 to 6:00 or so, and I 3
just wanted the other public to know in case VSNAP 4
doesnt get a chance to be mentioned again, this is 5
one of the questions that theyve raised and other 6
people have raised on the issue, is the dryer issue.
7 It has been raised in letters to the NRC, 8
but it has been raised in that vein. It was some of 9
the questions that went back on the time line that you 10 didnt have. Some of you might have the slide from 11 the time line and why the VY application wasnt 12 accepted originally and why there were additional 13 questions asked. The dryers were a part of that.
14 MR. RULAND: And, by the way, it is 15 included. Vibration is included in our review 16 standard regarding the steam dryers.
17 MS. ENOCHS: Okay. I would -- a young 18 citizen, I would like to give Julian the time that he 19 has waited so patiently here for tonight.
20 Do you want to tell them your idea, honey?
21 MR. ENOCHS: No.
22 MS. ENOCHS: So Julian is here tonight 23 because he had an idea of issuing tickets to the 24 people who are creating the pollution at the factory 25
71 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 across the street. In our home we call it a 1
"factory," and so Julian made a bunch of tickets, and 2
the idea behind the tickets is that the tickets will 3
cost Entergy so much money that they will not have 4
enough money to keep that factory open.
5 (Applause.)
6 MR. ENOCHS: And they can one -- listen.
7 They can -- you could pay one maybe, but then the 8
others you cant pay because you have to use all the 9
money to pay one.
10 MS. ENOCHS: So I --
11 (Applause.)
12 MR. RULAND: Sounds like an expensive --
13 MS. ENOCHS: So I had thought that there 14 would be Entergy officials up here this evening, but 15 maybe you gentlemen could pass the tickets on to the 16 Entergy officials.
17 (Applause.)
18 MR. BIDWELL: Are you going to give them 19 the tickets? Okay. I think hes having some 20 difficulty relinquishing the tickets.
21 (Laughter.)
22 MR. BIDWELL: All right. Im going to go 23 ahead and move on here to this gentleman in the front.
24 Then Im going to swing around this direction.
25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 MR. SPRAGUE: Thank you.
1 My name is Edward Sprague, S-p-r-a-g-u-e.
2 Im a resident of the town. I live just down the road 3
here with property bounded on two sides by Vermont 4
Yankee.
5 Is this coming through?
6 As a resident, Ive had to kind of resolve 7
in my own mind what am I living in the midst of, and 8
I was there when this -- I came to this place in the 9
present house in 1955. It was a dairy farm when I 10 moved in, and then Vermont Yankee came in in about 11 1967-68.
12 I had my fears and trepidations, and I did 13 some studying, and I had my own monitor checking on 14 radiation and all of this sort of thing. I finally 15 resolved in my own mind Im living next to something 16 that is really quite safe.
17 And somebody raised a question: what does 18 the company want out of this thing? Obviously it 19 wants profit, but more particularly, we are in need of 20 more power. Every one of you buy electrical 21 appliances. You bring them on line. You dont even 22 think about where the electricity is coming from, and 23 youd be very upset if it was turned off.
24 Anyway, my next thing. In my own mind, 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 this operation is a very simple process. Youre going 1
to put more water through the reactor to make more 2
steam. You arent changing the temperature or the 3
pressures within the reactor. It goes on and goes 4
through a more efficient equipment to make more 5
electricity with less steam input, and the end result 6
is a 20 percent increase in power.
7 It makes a lot of sense, and it has 8
nothing to do with the age of the equipment. As long 9
as that reactor is sound and you can put more water 10 through it, and all youre doing is burning a little 11 more fuel. Youre putting a little more -- what?
12 All youre doing is adding a little more 13 fuel to it to heat that additional water, and I dont 14 see that thats any great shake.
15 Thank you.
16 (Applause.)
17 MR. BLOCK: Jonathan Block.
18 Many of you know that Ive been dealing 19 with these issues for the past 11 years, and its very 20 difficult to sit here all of this time listening to 21 the NRCs comment about the availability of a public 22 hearing while Im the attorney thats involved in 23 taking them to the United States Court of Appeals in 24 the First Circuit suing them over the fact that 25
74 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 theyve just implemented new rules under which the 1
hearing that theyll offer you will be called 2
"informal."
3 Youll have no right to present witnesses.
4 Youll have no right to present evidence. Youll have 5
no right to cross examine witnesses. This is their 6
idea of due process. Its very similar to the idea of 7
due process that they had in Italy and in Germany in 8
the 1930s.
9 I suggest that we need to do something 10 about this; that this is just the beginning. You have 11 to wake up. This is only the tip of the iceberg.
12 Todays New York Times had an article 13 about the licensing of new nuclear power plants. This 14 is all part of a push by the Nuclear Energy Institute 15 and the nuclear industry. They know this is their 16 last chance, and if people in this country dont wake 17 up, and I mean wake up and stand up now, theres going 18 to be nuclear power plants all over this country.
19 And when it comes time to go to the 20 licensing hearings, youll have absolutely no 21 opportunity to do anything but stand there and wail.
22 (Applause.)
23 MR. BIDWELL: Just, Bill, a quick check on 24 whether thats a correct assessment of that hearing 25
75 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 process.
1 MR. RULAND: Im not a lawyer. I dont --
2 I dont want to talk right now about the hearing 3
process. You can go to our Website, check it out.
4 Okay? You can listen to the comments previously made 5
by the current -- by the previous speaker.
6 What Id like to say has to do about the 7
safety of the plant and the comment process. The NRC, 8
okay, its common practice for us to address and 9
consider every comment on the licensing action and 10 were going to do that. Okay? Its an informal 11 process. Its not the formal hearing process, but it 12 is an informal process.
13 I have a commitment from my staff to 14 address those technical concerns. If Mr. Blanch gives 15 us those technical concerns or Mr. Shadis, the more 16 specific the better. We will address those.
17 Thank you.
18 And I resent any, any comparison of the 19 NRC to some nefarious regime. I think thats 20 completely -- that is completely out of bounds.
21 Thank you.
22 (Applause.)
23 MS. COOPER: My name is Martha Cooper, C-24 o-o-p-e-r. Im from New Hampshire.
25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 I have a letter from the Mayor of Keene.
1 Keene is the largest city in New Hampshire thats 2
close to the plant. He says, "As Mayor of the largest 3
and closest city in New Hampshire to Vermont Yankee, 4
Vernon, Vermont, I humbly request that an independent 5
safety assessment be undertaken at Vermont Yankee 6
prior to permitting the 20 percent increase in energy 7
producing capacity.
8 "I have recently toured Vermont Yankee, 9
and I am very impressed with its security, its 10 personnel, and the condition of the facility. My 11 reason for requesting an evaluation of the plant is to 12 assure all that Vermont Yankee is capable of safely 13 increasing its production by 20 percent.
14 "Mayor Michael Blastos."
15 Thank you.
16 (Applause.)
17 MR. BIDWELL: And just to clarify, that 18 was an independent safety assessment, correct?
19 Okay.
20 MR. RULAND: Youll give us the letter?
21 Thank you.
22 MR. RIENDEAU: My name is Phillip 23 Riendeau, R-i-e-n-d-e-a-u. I am from New Hampshire 24 myself also.
25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 Now, my interest in this here is this 1
meeting was called for people representing from the 2
State of Vermont. The legislature of the State of 3
Vermont asked the NRC to come and actually hold this 4
meeting.
5 One thing that I noticed thats missing 6
though is that youve got neighboring states from 7
Massachusetts and New Hampshire who have not actually 8
been invited to these
- meetings, you
- know, 9
specifically.
There are maybe members here 10 representing you, but there are not representation for 11 these states who border this nuclear plant.
12 I also think that in regards to like Mr.
13 Alexanders comment about word games, that "uprate" to 14 means sounds like something that you would do like 15 increasing the price of your electricity. Its almost 16 accepted to the public, especially the public thats 17 not paying attention to this whole process, that 18 calling this an "uprate" to me is just a wrong word.
19 I mean, this is a power increase, and if you worded it 20 in this manner, more people would probably be here 21 than already were.
22 My question to the NRC about this: your 23 process here seems to be almost like a double standard 24 to me. Okay? We as the public, when we work, we go 25
78 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 to our employers, and were told, you know, that we 1
have to submit to like drug tests, for instance, and 2
its for the good of the company, and you know, were 3
expected as law abiding citizens to say that if youre 4
not doing anything wrong, why worry.
5 Well, youre saying that youre an 6
independent assessor. Well, what is wrong with you 7
allowing an independent assessor, independent of the 8
NRC to look at this?
9 (Applause.)
10 MR. BIDWELL: Would you like him to 11 respond to that?
12 MR. RIENDEAU: Yes, I would like a 13 response to that.
14 MR. BIDWELL: He asked for a response to 15 that, to a response to that, to the independents 16 question.
17 MR. RULAND: As I said earlier, when the 18 Vermont -- when the Maine Yankee independent 19 assessment was performed, it was performed by NRC 20 people. Okay? It was performed with contractors that 21 worked for the NRC. There were some state observers.
22 Okay? Thats the inspection that was performed, and 23 we believe that we performed, while not nearly as 24 extensive, we performed an independent assessment 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 using the architect-engineer inspections. It didnt 1
report to the region. It was with contractors that 2
worked for the NRC.
3 Okay. Now, if you remember, weve gotten 4
this letter from the Senators from Vermont asking us 5
to exercise our authority. What I said at the 6
beginning of this meeting was we take this seriously, 7
and were going to evaluate this, and thats all I can 8
tell you.
9 MR. HOLIAN: Just to add on on the word 10 game issues or questions, its not our intent. Were 11 responding to things. We know the Vermont Yankee 12 folks and people that are interested are fully aware 13 of the Maine Yankee ISA, the independent safety 14 assessment. So weve been responding to those.
15 Earlier today I did rush through those 16 slides. It has not been mentioned yet, but we have 17 inspections that are done very two years, safety 18 system design inspections. There is one coming up in 19 August. It has already been discussed by both Mr.
20 Shadis and Mr. Blanch at the PSB hearings, and theyre 21 looking at issues like that.
22 We do look at two systems every year on 23 safety related systems. The only other item I wanted 24 to get across that we didnt fully get across earlier 25
80 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 is throughout this year on these baseline inspections 1
the region can focus all of its inspections or all of 2
the related inspections onto power uprate aspects.
3 So quite a few of our normal inspections 4
will pick modifications that are done or systems and 5
look at them on what theyre doing with the power 6
uprate or power increase. So I just wanted to make 7
that clear.
8 MR. McMURTRAY: Just one minor correction.
9 Our SSDI inspections or our safety system inspections 10 that Brian mentioned, we do those every other year as 11 part of our process, not every year.
12 MR. RULAND: Thank you.
13 MR. BIDWELL: Has a quick follow-up 14 comment or question.
15 MR. RULAND: Okay.
16 MR. RIENDEAU: Yeah, once again, you know, 17 youre really not answering the question because 18 youre saying that you as a the NRC are doing the 19 independent inspection. What is wrong with allowing 20 an independent agency picked by the State of Vermont, 21 the State of New Hampshire and the State of 22 Massachusetts combined to go in and do this kind of 23 thing?
24 I believe there has got to be engineers, 25
81 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 you know, that work in the nuclear industry that are 1
not working for the NRC at this time.
2 MR. RULAND: As I previously stated, we 3
are going to respond to the PSB for that request, and 4
we havent written that answer. Its going to be at 5
a higher pay grade than Bill Ruland. You know, were 6
going to talk about this, and were going to consider 7
it. Thats all I can tell you.
8 (Applause.)
9 MR. BIDWELL: Bill, Bill, he also asked if 10 you could follow up on the participation of 11 neighboring states and what NRC thinks about that.
12 MR. RULAND: I talked to our public 13 affairs guy, Neil Sheehan, who is back there, and I 14 dont think I introduced Neil when we did the 15 introductions.
16 Neil tells me we put advertisements in the 17 local papers. It was open for anybody that read those 18 advertisements. It wasnt limited to people in the 19 State of Vermont.
20 Neil, maybe you could tell me where we 21 placed those advertisements. I dont know, but we did 22 try to get the word out, and I know the E-mail 23 underground probably helped. Neil, have you got any 24 suggestions about answer to the question?
25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 MR. SHEEHAN: Certainly. We put out a 1
press release. We let all of the local media know.
2 Certainly there were articles that ran in area papers 3
letting people know. The public is always invited to 4
attend.
5 MR. BIDWELL: Hes talking about reaching 6
out to -- I believe, sir, youre talking about 7
reaching out to --
8 MR. RULAND: This is a good question. We 9
got it on the record. Well respond to this question 10 as part of our -- as part of the meeting summary, and 11 well provide you an answer. Okay?
12 MR. BIDWELL: I think that hes --
13 MR. RULAND: It doesnt sound like we have 14 the full picture right now.
15 MR. BIDWELL: I believe that means "we 16 need to look into that." Is that right, Bill? That 17 means we need to look into that?
18 MR. RULAND: Yes, yes, exactly.
19 MR. BIDWELL: Because we dont know right 20 now.
21 MR. RULAND: Thank you. Yes, we will look 22 into that.
23 MS. BLUM: My name is Meredith Blum, B-l-24 u-m.
25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 And I would just like to take a quick 1
moment to formally present to you 411 signatures from 2
people that couldnt be here tonight because of work 3
or family reasons. The petition basically says that 4
"we, the undersigned, demand an independent 5
engineering assessment be performed on the Vermont 6
Yankee nuclear power plant. We also demand that the 7
independent inspection will be in compliance with the 8
Vermont State Senate Resolution SR-21."
9 (Applause.)
10 MR. CHILDS: Okay. Thank you.
11 My name is Ned Childs. I live in 12 Dummerston, Vermont, just about exactly ten miles.
13 I first want to say in response to R&E and 14 the G.E.
revelations which I
think require 15 congressional investigation, full blown, I know the 16 man who founded General Electric, the first president 17 and chairman for over 30 years, Charles Albert Coffin.
18 He was referred to in a Fortune Magazine article as 19 the number one CEO of all time. About 1890 to 1925, 20 he ran the company. He was a Quaker from Maine. He 21 grew up poor, and he said he got into electricity as 22 a successful businessman in his 40s and led the 23 company through its dark days to greatness because he 24 thought electricity could be a wonderful thing. It 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 would be every mans slave.
1 I have often those Charles Albert Coffin, 2
my great grandfather, would be amazed to see what it 3
has become, that we have become slaves to electricity, 4
but at his death, he was credited with being the man 5
who more than anyone else put electricity over.
6 And he ran G.E., and I think he would be 7
shocked and horrified.
8 Now to my point. In todays Brattleboro 9
Reformer I hold here -- and Ill go quickly. This 10 will go quick -- Vermont Yankee spokesman, Brian 11 Cosgrove, if hes still here -- he was right over 12 there -- my good friend, not colleague, is quoted. He 13 says, "Maine Yankee was a plant that had a lot of 14 problems, while Vermont Yankee is a nuclear plant that 15 has always had a reputation for being well run and 16 well maintained." Brian suggested its apples and 17 oranges.
18 Well, in fact, Mr. Cosgrove has misspoken.
19 He has dissembled. He has, in fact, lied to us.
20 The fact is that in 1995, the last year 21 before Maine Yankee was outed by a truly independent 22 assessment run by the NRC, but under a Democrat in the 23 White House, which that assessment resulted in an NRC 24 official saying it would be insanity to ever restart 25
85 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 that plant; Maine Yankee achieved a higher SALP score, 1
systematic assessment of licensee performance, than 2
Vermont Yankee in 1995. It was two twos and two ones 3
to Vermont Yankees three twos and one one.
4 Go figure. Brian, you should have checked 5
your facts. Brian, come back over from the dark side.
6 (Laughter.)
7 MR. CHILDS: Today, March 31st, 2004, its 8
the 25th anniversary of Day Five at Three Mile Island, 9
the day they figured out that the hydrogen gas bubble 10 in the melted down core at the one year old Unit II 11 reactor would not blow the vessel and containment 12 resulting in a Chernobyl scale disaster in the heart 13 of Amish country; the day they figured out that 14 controlled releases would save the day, and local and 15 national cancer mortality rates began to soar.
16 There never has been an honest analysis --
17 this is the end -- of the morbidity in the known plumb 18 zones. This was covered up, and the NRC, you guys, 19 were then and are still complicit in this coverup.
20 By the way, last night we also learned the 21 still molten core at the destroyed TMI Unit II reactor 22 could go critical at any time. The China Syndrome is 23 still a
distinct possibility at Harrisburg, 24 Pennsylvania, Peggy and Patty, wherever you are.
25
86 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 Now, this is the end.
1 Admiral Hyman Rickover, we also learned, 2
the progenitor of the United States Nuclear Navy, 3
pressured then President Carter, a nuclear engineer 4
himself, to downplay the disaster. Rickovers 5
daughter signed an affidavit that her father made a 6
deathbed confession to her -- thats dead mans 7
testimony, not admissible in court -- that he had last 8
regretted his actions which he feared would have 9
devastated the commercial nuclear power industry and 10 even potentially the nuclear Navy he so dearly loved.
11 Finally, last night we also learned that 12 one research epidemiologist who worked the numbers 13 around TMI honestly and earnestly ascertained abnormal 14 clusters of metastatic breast cancers around nuclear 15 communities, including Hanford, Washington, Oak Ridge, 16 Tennessee, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Vernon, Vermont, 17 and so on.
18 I do not see that adult female mammary 19 glands are well represented tonight in either the NRC 20 group or the Entergy group. Why is that?
21 (Applause.)
22 MR. CHILDS: Im almost done.
23 Maybe these guys were bottle fed from 24 birth. Now, listen, good people here. Go do a Google 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 search on New England Coalition, Google search on New 1
England Coalition, three words, and support the ant 2
people in our fight against the Godzilla, this uprate, 3
this Vermont Yankee, this travesty in a high tech 4
disguise.
5 (Applause.)
6 MR. BIDWELL: No response needed.
7 MR. STEINBERG: Im Alan Steinberg. I 8
live in Putney, Vermont and work in Brattleboro.
9 And following up on what Ned said about 10 CEOs, Id like to just briefly read you a very short 11 story that I think will illuminate the situation 12 somewhat more.
13 A man I know finds himself in a meeting 14 room at the very edge of speech. Hes approaching his 15 moment of reckoning, and he is looking for support 16 from his fellow executives around the table.
17 Strangely, at this moment no one will look 18 at him. The CEO is pacing up and down on the slate 19 gray carpet. He has asked in no uncertain terms for 20 their opinion of the plan he wants to put through. "I 21 want to know what you all think about this," he 22 demands, "on a scale of one to ten."
23 The CEO is testy. He makes it plain he 24 wants everyone to say ten, and damn whether they mean 25
88 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 it or not. Hes just plain tired after all of this 1
time of people resisting his ideas on the matter. He 2
glares at them. He wants compliance.
3 My friend thinks the plan is terrible and 4
that there is too much riding on this solitary ego.
5 Everyone in the company will lose by it. He is sure 6
also from the talk he has heard that half the other 7
executives in the room think so, too.
8 As they go around the shamed faced table, 9
the voices of those present sound alternatively 10 overconfident or brittle and edgy. Most say ten. One 11 courageous soul braves a nine and a half.
12 And my friend is the last to go. He 13 reaches his hand toward the flame, opens his palm 14 against the heat, and suddenly falters. Against 15 everything he believes, he hears a mouse-like far away 16 voice, his own, saying, "Ten."
17 Now, this story was not my own. It comes 18 from David White, a writer who has been working in 19 corporate America for years to try to humanize the 20 corporate world.
21 And I tell you this story not because I 22 think it typifies what I see at Entergy, although I 23 believe it does. I tell it because you folks here in 24 this room sitting in front of me probably feel it in 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 your gut as well. We know it, and I think you know it 1
as well.
2 You think this group is scary. We know 3
you have to go home to Washington, and we want to say 4
to you that any substitute, robust proposal that is 5
anything less than a full form, vertical slice, 6
independent assessment as far as were concerned is a 7
zero.
8 (Applause.)
9 MR. STEINBERG: And, you know, I do have 10 some sympathy for your position. I realize, like I 11 said, were not as scary as what you need to go home 12 to. You need to face your CEO, who needs to face his 13 CEO, who ultimately faces a big CEO who we all know is 14 the President of the U.S.A., whose position on nuclear 15 power has been made abundantly clear.
16 So we invite you to go home and take the 17 opportunity and not offer us nine and a halfs and 18 tens, but go home and hold your heads high, and say 19 that the people here want this assessment, and that 20 thats what you feel needs to happen as well.
21 Thats what you need to be able to do to 22 sleep at night.
23 Thank you.
24 (Applause.)
25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 MR. BIDWELL: I am told I have a yes or no 1
question over here.
2 MR. DAVIS: Id like to ask a question and 3
then make a comment.
4 My name is Andy Davis. I live in 5
Brattleboro.
6 Has any uprate related work already been 7
undertaken at Vermont Yankee, yes or no?
8 I cant hear you.
9 MR. RULAND: Youre discussing physical 10 modifications?
11 MR. DAVIS: Has work related to the uprate 12 begun at Vermont Yankee?
13 MR.
RULAND:
Thats physical 14 modifications, engineering work?
15 MR. DAVIS: Has work related to the 16 uprate -- Im just asking a question. Im not a 17 nuclear engineer.
18 MR. RULAND: Let me try to answer that 19 question. Engineering work has begun. The licensee 20 has done engineering work. The outage hasnt started.
21 I dont personally know if any modifications have 22 made. My presumption would be that the work would not 23 actually physically begin until this outage, which is 24 getting ready to start.
25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 Dave Pelton, you know the answer to this 1
question?
2 MR. PELTON: I dont pretend to speak for 3
the licensee, but I know as the senior resident 4
inspector that the licensee had put aside work, 5
specific changes to the plant, that were related to 6
power uprate pending the states approval of that. I 7
do know that for a fact.
8 MR. DAVIS: Ive read in the Brattleboro 9
Reformer that work is going on related to the plant.
10 The problem is one where you gentlemen 11 have confidence. Its easy to characterize people who 12 speak out and interrupt as somehow irrational. Ive 13 been following this issue in New England for over 20 14 years. Ive been to meetings about increasing the 15 amount of waste stored on the site. Ive been told 16 that at this meeting certain things cannot be talked 17 about. They have to wait for this meeting.
18 The frustration in this room is a result 19 of the process. Its not the result of people being 20 irrational or angry. This process has led to this 21 frustration.
22 Im a reasonable person. I have to get up 23 at eight oclock in the morning. I have to be at work 24 tomorrow morning. Ive waited a long time to ask a 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 simple question.
1 I dont trust this process. Theyre 2
already working on this. Thats the perception on the 3
street in Brattleboro.
4 One other thing. This meeting could not 5
have been designed to deepen the suspicions of 6
reasonable middle-of-the-road people like myself any 7
more than it has, and Id like to know the name of the 8
gentleman who introduced himself from Washington, D.C.
9 in the dark blue suit. Your name?
10 MR. RICHARDS: Im Stu Richards.
11 MR. DAVIS: Thank you.
12 When you say that you cannot speculate on 13 why Vermont Entergy is asking for this uprate, it 14 makes me inside really suspicious, and thats just 15 being honest to you man to man. Thats the low point 16 of the meeting to me.
17 You must know the motivation for this.
18 Why wont you tell it? What is the motivation for 19 this, sir?
20 MR. RICHARDS: Ill tell you again.
21 MR. DAVIS: One hundred, over 100 of these 22 have happened. Whats the motivation?
23 MR. RICHARDS: Can I answer the question, 24 please?
25
93 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 Again, I dont speak for the power 1
company. We work for a regulatory agency. If a power 2
wants to come in --
3 MR. BIDWELL: You need to move the 4
microphone closer to your mouth.
5 MR. RICHARDS: Yeah. If a power company 6
comes in and asks for an amendment to their license, 7
our job is not to engage in why they want to do a 8
power uprate, why they want to make the change, as 9
long as they address the safety aspects.
10 And I keep coming back to that because we 11 are not a power regulatory agency. We are not in the 12 business of trying to decide whether the State of 13 Vermont needs power or not or how that power is going 14 to be generated, whether it be from goal, from dams, 15 from solar wind. Our job is if somebody wants to 16 operate a nuclear power plant, that it be done safely, 17 and thats our sole focus, and I will not speculate on 18 why people make power decisions that are outside of 19 our area of expertise.
20 MR. RULAND: You discussed -- let me try 21 to address your question. Let me try to address your 22 question. The NRC has not -- we havent approved the 23 power uprate in spite of any amount of modifications 24 that the company chooses to take at their own risk, we 25
94 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 dont -- we would not and cannot and will not --
1 permit them to exceed their current thermal license 2
power level, period.
3 Whether theyre doing modifications in 4
anticipation or not is not the NRCs regulatory 5
purview. If those modifications dont affect the 6
safety of the plant at its current licensed thermal 7
power, okay, we dont have an issue with that.
8 Now, let me address the other piece about 9
what the company chooses to do. Most companies choose 10 it because theyre making money. Okay? Thats plain 11 and simple.
12 What I think Stus point is trying to say, 13 that we try to exercise a certain mental discipline on 14 ourselves to say that our focus is safety. And I 15 apologize for our staff if in any way were 16 communicating unresponsiveness because I know Stu is 17 not trying to be unresponsive.
18 But we always try to focus on safety, and 19 by asking a question as you did, which is a legitimate 20 question -- and, frankly, its a question for the 21 company -- it, frankly, goes against our grain to talk 22 about this because this is not our job. Our job is 23 health and safety of the public for the use of nuclear 24 materials. Thats it.
25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 MR. HOLIAN: And, Bill, just to add on, 1
the modifications that are planning to be made during 2
this outage we briefly spoke to before, you know, they 3
wont be used for the power uprate until thats 4
approved by NRC headquarters.
5 However -- no, however, I just wanted 6
to -- no, he mentioned that its -- yeah.
7 MR. RULAND: Absolutely, positively, no.
8 MR. HOLIAN: No, thats clearly at the 9
risk of the licensee. Thats clearly at the risk of 10 the licensee.
11 I did just want to make a point though.
12 They can make a mistake during those modifications.
13 They can replace the same pump with an identical pump, 14 and still put the impeller in backwards. They can --
15 those things happen.
16 Our NRC inspectors will be monitoring 17 those modifications. I wanted to get that across.
18 MR. McMURTRAY: Let me give you one other 19 quick example. In the power uprate application, 20 Vermont Yankee has said theyre going to need three 21 reactor feed pumps, which they now only operate two.
22 Theyre going to need three.
23 If they choose to run three feed pumps and 24 it meets the safety requirements that the plant has, 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 that gives them more redundancy in the feed system.
1 So you know, thats their choice to make that 2
modification, but they cannot increase the power level 3
until they get our approval.
4 MR. RULAND: Yeah, lets -- I tried to.
5 Like I said, we try to exert a certain amount of 6
mental discipline ourselves.
7 Bill, I think you want --
8 MR. BIDWELL: Yes, I think we need to move 9
on to the next speaker.
10 MR. RULAND: Yes. Thank you.
11 MS. CABBAGE: Hi. Id like to thank you 12 guys for coming tonight and having this meeting, and 13 I really look forward to other meetings.
14 My name is Pamela Cabbage. I live in 15 Putney, Vermont.
16 I have been to -- I dont know -- at least 17 a dozen meetings about the uprate. I went to a 18 meeting, as many people in this room probably did, 19 last summer hosted by a county regional commission.
20 There was some NRC representatives there. There were 21 also some Entergy people there.
22 The question of why they want an uprate 23 was specifically asked and specifically answered by 24 Entergy that they wanted to make more money. Its 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 real clear, and you guys can debate about it and think 1
about the ethics of whether or not you should answer 2
that question, but thats the bottom line.
3 At that meeting there was also quite a bit 4
of discussion about power uprates because many of us 5
in the community who are not nuclear engineers but are 6
concerned about our safety didnt have the expertise 7
to understand what an uprate was. So there was a lot 8
of discussion about the NRCs process.
9 So in that I was led to believe, and I 10 feel like there is some misconstruing going on 11 tonight, that there has never been, and you can 12 correct me if Im wrong, an uprate application that 13 has not been processed and implemented because the NRC 14 works with the industry to make sure that the uprates 15 are safe, and so they always have happened.
16 Am I wrong?
17 MR. RULAND: Youre right.
18 MS. CABBAGE: Thank you.
19 I have more. Thats all I need.
20 MR. RULAND: We have approved every 21 uprate.
22 MS. CABBAGE: Thats great. Could I go 23 on?
24 MR. RULAND: Yes.
25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 MS. CABBAGE: Because there a many people 1
who would like to talk, and I think we only have about 2
27 more minutes.
3 I would just like to say that we in this 4
community have fears of your collusion with the 5
industry. Whether or not they are founded, we have 6
really strong fears.
7 MR. RULAND: I understand.
8 MS. CABBAGE: I want to finish.
9 We also have really strong fears that this 10 company that has only been in the community for two 11 years is really being straightforward with us.
12 There has been a lot of local press about 13 various things that have happened, and we dont feel 14 like theyre being straightforward and aboveboard with 15 us.
16 So all we are asking is for this 17 independent safety assessment. If theres not a 18 problem with the plant, then the uprate will happen 19 and well all feel confident about it. We live in 20 this community. We live in fear of Chernobyl. We 21 live in fear of not having a community anymore, and 22 its really real for us.
23 I know that its not your job. I know you 24 dont want to think about meltdowns. I know all of 25
99 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 that, but if you guys just hear us, we just want this 1
assessment. We know that youre doing your job to the 2
best of your ability. We want a little more because 3
theres a lot of fear in our community.
4 Thank you.
5 (Applause.)
6 MR. RULAND: Well, said. Thank you.
7 MR. BIDWELL: I do want to keep moving 8
around to folks. Just a time warning, which is we did 9
tell the school district that we would be out in 25 10 minutes, and thats just out of respect of their staff 11 that has to close up the room.
12 I know that there are a lot of people who 13 have questions and comments that they want to make.
14 What I would urge is that if there are specific things 15 that would make a satisfying independent safety 16 assessment, what exactly independent means to you, 17 those are things that you need to communicate clearly 18 to NRC to make sure that they understand what it is 19 that youre really asking for.
20 MS. DAVIDSON: Hello. My name is Judy 21 Davidson, and I live in Dummerston within the ten mile 22 radius.
23 Okay, great. Yes, I have a lot of 24 information here, and Im following up on, you know, 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 I guess its Pamela to give you some ideas about why 1
we here in this room have a lot of mistrust of the 2
NRC.
3 Basically we believe that the words mean 4
nobody really cares because although the NRC is 5
charged with protecting the health and safety of the 6
public, the evidence points to the NRC being more 7
concerned with the profits of the industry than with 8
us. The near accident at the Davis-Besse plant in 9
2001 is a clear example of the NRC caving into the 10 owners of the plant who complained it would be too 11 costly to shut the plant down.
12 Finally, when the plant was shut down, it 13 was discovered that there was a huge hole in the six 14 inch steel reactor cap, and although the Inspector 15 General of the NRC chastised the agency later for 16 putting profits above the public safety and the agency 17 set up a task force to make recommendations to prevent 18 this kind of event again, in July of this year, the 19 NRC promoted Stan Collins, the NRC official who was 20 ultimately responsible for allowing the plant to stay 21 open.
22 How can we, the public, believe that the 23 NRC actually learns from its mistakes and is concerned 24 about the publics trust in it if you promote somebody 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 who so blatantly favored industry profits over the 1
publics safety?
2 I could go on and on and on from many, 3
many articles that write about the ways in which the 4
industry is really in collusion with the NRC. Whether 5
you people yourselves do that or not, there is a real 6
perceived perception.
7 In September of 2003, the Union of 8
Concerned Scientists sent a lengthy vote of no 9
confidence letter to the NRC, and in this letter they 10 deplored the safety culture of the NRC as evidenced by 11 surveys of NRC employees themselves who reported that 12 nearly half of the NRCs work force is reluctant to 13 raise safety concerns and a third of those who voice 14 safety concerns feel they have been retaliated against 15 for doing so.
16 How do you expect us, the public, to trust 17 the NRC management when so many workers dont?
18 And the last thing I will raise is that 19 this September the Inspector General came out with a 20 report on the NRCs oversight of the security at 21 nuclear power plants, and they had many criticisms and 22 made three recommendations, including the 23 reinstatement of mandatory force on force testing that 24 would be surprised, not really announced at the plant 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 ahead of time as now happens.
1 The NRC rejected these recommendations and 2
insisted that what they were doing was just fine. How 3
can we, the public, be reassured when the NRC reacts 4
so defensively and doesnt listen even to the 5
recommendations of the Inspector General? Are you 6
accountable to no one?
7 And I wont go through anymore, but that 8
is why the culture, that is why the atmosphere in this 9
room is so charged with mistrust.
10 (Applause.)
11 MR. BIDWELL: Are you ready for the next 12 person?
13 MS. BOLLITUS: Good evening. My name is 14 Magdaline Bollitus. Im from West Minsterwest, 15 Vermont.
16 There have been some people here who have 17 said all they want is the independent safety 18 assessment. I think that should be the very least 19 that we get. We need that no matter what else 20 happens, and we need that immediately 21 But I want more. I think we deserve more.
22 I think before an uprate is considered, I think there 23 should be absolutely documented and designed plans for 24 what is going to happen with the waste which already 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 exists, and if the uprate is approved, what to do with 1
all of the waste which is going to be stuffed in the 2
attic in two years, which is going to have to come 3
out.
4 How can you as business people even allow 5
a business to continue knowing that there is 6
absolutely no solution to what to do with what their 7
byproduct is, which in this case is radioactive toxic 8
waste?
9 (Applause.)
10 MR. BIDWELL: If you could respond 11 briefly.
12 MR. RULAND: Well, were not business 13 people. The NRC makes sure that the licensee meets 14 their requirements. If they dont meet their 15 standards, they have to shut the plant down.
16 If the spent fuel pool is full and they 17 have no place to put it, they have to shut the plant 18 down. Thats our requirements because thats --
19 because in those circumstances we believe that the 20 plant is safe.
21 Anything more than that, then the licensee 22 has to shut the plant down.
23 The NRC has comment and processes, and 24 what Id suggest you do, the NRC has whats called a 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 2.206 process. Okay? You can request the NRC to take 1
action. If you need some help on what this process 2
entails, you could talk to Mr. Blanch; you could talk 3
to Mr. Shadis; you can call my office, and well 4
describe it to you.
5 You send a letter to the NRC, and well 6
evaluate it. So we do afford the public that 7
opportunity.
8 Thank you.
9 Mr. Bidwell, where are you?
10 MR. BIDWELL: Right here. Just one quick 11 request from somebody in the audience, which is if you 12 could please as youre leaving, to pick up your signs, 13 pick up your trash, it will just help the school staff 14 after the meeting.
15 MS. KATZ: Hi. Im Deb Katz, K-a-t-z. I 16 live in Yankee -- I live in Yankee Rowe? -- I live in 17 Rowe, Massachusetts. Im with the Citizens Awareness 18 Network.
19 I think certain things need to get 20 clarified here. You know, the Commission has made it 21 clear that it will not require licensees to defend 22 their sites from a post 9/11 terrorist attack, and 23 this uprate, in fact, makes us far more vulnerable to 24 terrorism and to an accident than ever before.
25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 They cant enlarge the size of the 1
reactor. So what they have to do is use enriched fuel 2
to run the reactor, and this fuel, in fact, will be 3
hotter when they take it out. It will be hotter when 4
its stored in that fuel pool. It will be hotter when 5
its put on site in dry storage. And this, in fact, 6
is a greater terrorist target.
7 Right now there are 35,000 curies of 8
cesium in the pool suspended 70 feet up in the air.
9 To put this in context, the Hiroshima bomb had only 10 2,000 curies in it, and that did more damage than any 11 of us can ever imagine.
12 Vermont Yankee, in case of an accident or 13 a terrorist attack, with this uprate would release, in 14 fact, 34 percent more radioactivity into the 15 environment, and whats important in this and why we 16 do this, because you know we have really been told 17 were acting badly tonight, is that, you know, we are 18 afraid, but we are also suffering.
19 I live in Rowe. I come from western 20 Massachusetts. We are, in fact, surrounded by two 21 nuclear reactors. Greenfield has statistical 22 significance in five different cancers. In the 23 Deerfield River valley, we have a tenfold increase in 24 Down Syndrome, statistical significance in numerous 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 cancers. We have a high rate of handicapped children 1
and learning disabled children.
2 So were not happy. We dont feel safe 3
just with the standard operation, let alone with the 4
idea of an uprate and the potential for us being 5
exposed to more.
6 I want to end on one note because the 7
NRCs job is not just to protect the health and safety 8
of the community. Its to provide confidence, and 9
what you can see tonight -- and I want you to know 10 because Ive gone to these meetings all over the 11 northeast -- is none of us have confidence in you.
12 And you know, I dont need you to answer 13 me, but it would be good for somebody to think about 14 this because youre just not cutting it, and to create 15 an Oprah Winfrey kind of approach to NRC public 16 participation is unacceptable.
17 (Applause.)
18 MR. DOYLE: Good evening, and thanks to 19 everybody for coming out, including our friends from 20 the NRC.
21 My name is James Doyle, and Im a resident 22 of Putney, Vermont. Please forgive my appearance.
23 Im covered in mud because a resident of Vernon was 24 stuck in the mud out back, and I spent 45 minutes 25
107 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 trying to push her out of the mud because no matter 1
how much the Vernon Select Board and elected officials 2
talk down to me, she is my neighbor.
3 (Applause.)
4 MR. DOYLE: Just had to get that off of my 5
chest because Im sick of being called the barbarian 6
at the gate, since I dont live in this town.
7 The story that I just told is relevant for 8
one other reason. Essentially what youre seeing here 9
in this room is the people that live in this area, the 10 human beings who are worried that their children will 11 be born with mutations, the human beings that are 12 worried that if Vermont Yankee melts down they will 13 never escape.
14 They are the human beings who go out and 15 enjoy the woods, the rivers, the lakes, everything in 16 this area that could possibly die because this uprate 17 may not be done properly.
18 You have a chance to do something tonight, 19 to make a decision that you will announce whenever 20 youre going to make it to protect that. An 21 independent safety review is not a loss for you. It 22 is not something that if you grant it you will have 23 lost some sort of status. Maybe Envy wont like you, 24 but do you know what? Not a lot of people like Envy.
25
108 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 So it doesnt matter.
1 But if you grant this independent review, 2
if you let an outside third party, non-NRC, non-NV 3
party come in and look at this, if you give the public 4
access to this regulatory oversight, then maybe, just 5
maybe well start to trust you, and well worry a 6
little bit less about, you know, kids born with extra 7
heads and tress that are deforested and fish that are 8
dying because of pollution.
9 You cant lose. You can only win. You 10 said youre considering it. Please consider it in 11 the terms of human beings and not corporate wages.
12 Thank you.
13 (Applause.)
14 MR. BRADEEN: Hello. Im Harold Bradeen, 15 spelled B-r-a-d-e-e-n. Im the incident safety 16 officer for the Vernon Fire Department, and I fully 17 support the uprate based on the fact as an incident 18 safety officer, my job is the safety of our fire 19 fighting crew.
20 We go into that plant on a regular basis.
21 We do a room-by-room analysis of the hazard and remedy 22 for every single situation that we could be called 23 into. We will be the first persons to enter that 24 plant if Fire Brigade requests assistance.
25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 I have no hesitation in going into that 1
plant, working with their fire brigade and knowing my 2
men will be safe. I have full confidence in the 3
operation and status of the plant as it is, and I feel 4
it could easily pass whatever inspection is needed to 5
meet the uprate.
6 I totally support the uprate. I feel very 7
safe with the plant in my backyard. I live right 8
across the street, up the road a little ways, and I 9
want to see it continue and to prosper.
10 (Applause.)
11 MR.
BIDWELL:
Im getting slower 12 noticeably.
13 MS. MILLER: Thank you.
14 My name is Sunny Miller. I live in 15 Deerfield, Massachusetts, and like many of you, I will 16 take news back with me through our Website, 17 traprockpeace.org (phonetic). A thousand people visit 18 there daily or more.
19 I want to thank our colleagues in the 20 Citizens Awareness Network and New England Coalition 21 on Nuclear Pollution for outstanding work in educating 22 us about our opportunities ahead. We need not only to 23 support them financially, but lets also support their 24 leadership by taking our own leadership.
25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 I propose to you that in the days and 1
months ahead, we may need to form something akin to 2
that great organization, Clamshell Alliance, in which 3
many different kinds of citizens, realtors, state 4
representatives, mothers, bicyclists, many, many kinds 5
of people showed their way to help change the world, 6
educate their neighbors, and put an end to new nuclear 7
power.
8 Perhaps a new alliance called how about 9
Upland, an Upland Alliance, might form with your local 10 meetings or your constituents getting together for 11 their teas, and to please confer by a very efficient 12 teleconferencing call so that we can plan together, so 13 that if the Nuclear Regulatory Commission doesnt put 14 an end to the hazards we face, we will put an end to 15 it together.
16 A phone number to Network (413) 773-5188, 17 extension 3.
18 Thank you. Seven, seven, three in 413, 19 Deerfield, Massachusetts, 773-5188, extension 3.
20 MR. STEVENSON: Yes, my name is Tim 21 Stevenson. I live in Athens, Vermont, and work in 22 Brattleboro.
23 The NRC process, as I understand it, 24 largely concerns itself with the issue of safety, and 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 one issue that has not been raised tonight that I 1
would like to bring to your attention and get a quick 2
answer to, we dont have an evacuation plan in this 3
area, an evacuation plan that the citizens believe in, 4
an evacuation plan that follows the recommendations 5
and guidance of the literature on nuclear evacuation 6
plans.
7 We have a plan that has been prepared by 8
the Vermont Emergency Management group that is in some 9
kind of limbo right now. There are towns within the 10 emergency planning zone that have rejected this plan.
11 Many of the citizens do not believe in it, and what I 12 would like to know is how much weight do you give to 13 this fact that we dont have a plan that can get 14 citizens safely out of here should there be a nuclear 15 emergency.
16 MR. BIDWELL: Evacuation plan.
17 MR. HOLIAN: Evacuation planning is an 18 issue at all nuclear power plants. They are required 19 to do an exercise every two years. The NRC does 20 evaluate those with teams of inspections that come out 21 and assess those.
22 So, once again, as requirements were meant 23 earlier, it is one of our cornerstones that you looked 24 at under that reactor oversight process. We talked 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 about findings in security, that BY had one in 1
security a couple of years ago, a yellow finding.
2 Many plants have had issues with emergency 3
preparedness, even under the reactor oversight 4
process.
5 One of the plants when to what they call 6
multiple degraded cornerstone, which is the fourth 7
column over, based almost primarily on emergency 8
preparedness findings. It was a plant in the Midwest.
9 So it is something we inspect.
10 MR. RULAND: Id just like to add that 11 your comments are on the record, and you know, Im not 12 the emergency planning guy. Weve established a new 13 office in the Office of NRC specifically for emergency 14 planning because we know its particularly important 15 to the citizens, and well make sure we examine your 16 comments.
17 Go ahead.
18 MS. BURTON: Good evening. Hello. Im 19 Nancy Burton, and I came up here this evening with my 20 father from Connecticut.
21 And we came up here to support the 22 independent safety assessment and to push for a 23 nuclear free Vermont.
24 Coming from Connecticut, we are familiar 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 with our own Milstone, where there were resident NRC 1
inspectors during the period of time that somehow 2
Northeast Utilities lost two spent fuel rods. I 3
understand theyre all still looking for them.
4 We also know that Milstone is somewhat 5
notorious for releasing radioactive radioisotopes into 6
the air. Well, coming up here to Vermont, and given 7
where we are tonight, heres my question. Since were 8
right across the street from an elementary school, Im 9
assuming that the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant 10 doesnt release radiation into the air.
11 Question: is that correct?
12 Im being facetious, of course.
13 MR. HOLIAN: I know you are. Somebody 14 else, I think, in the earlier meeting tried to get 15 release off the Website. There was another comment.
16 You might not have been here then.
17 The nuclear power plants are required on 18 an annual basis to submit on the document so that you 19 can access both waterborne and airborne releases.
20 There are federal limits for those, and it is 21 something that we inspect as part of the baseline.
22 MR. PELTON: Dave Pelton.
23 I know youve looked at the accountability 24 in the spent fuel pool. Would you care to address 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 that question here at Vermont -- I mean --
1 MR. HOLIAN: Well, accountability. She 2
mentioned of Milstone plant that did have an issue 3
with a fuel pin that was lost. There was an intense 4
NRC inspection on that. A lot of early on shipments 5
were made from spent fuel pools, and there was an NRC 6
inspection report that talks about probable causes on 7
that. There are other aspects that were related to 8
the NRC did an inspection follow that to do a material 9
accountability at all pools across the nation.
10 MR. PELTON: Thanks, Brian.
11 Thats right, and to address that specific 12 part of your question, just bear with me for a second.
13 You know, myself and Beth, my other resident 14 inspector, we did a fairly detailed review of the 15 spent fuel at Vermont Yankee here, where I look at 16 almost every day anyway, and we looked historically 17 through the records from day one since theyve put 18 anything into that pit, and we validated that theres 19 a record that all of the material they said is in 20 there still is in there.
21 And we challenged them on a number of 22 points to validate some areas that we didnt 23 understand how they followed their process. We 24 challenged them on that, and they took some action, 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 and indeed, we did validate that.
1 MS. BURTON: I just wanted --
2 MR. RULAND: -- fully evaluated all of the 3
inventory and that everything they say is there is 4
right where it belongs, just to address that one 5
point.
6 MS. BURTON: Right. Well, Im just 7
wondering if, in fact, you get the upgrade and theres 8
a 34 percent increase in the radiation, theres a sign 9
over here. Maybe everybody could turn around and see 10 it at the end of the auditorium, Jim. "Dont be 11 afraid to be active."
12 And Im wondering are you suggesting the 13 children going to this school and their children learn 14 not to be afraid to be radioactive.
15 Thank you.
16 MR. BIDWELL: I know that there are a lot 17 of people still who have questions and comments. I 18 dont know where our janitor is to find out how late 19 we can go.
20 Because a lot of people are planning on 21 leaving at 11 oclock, okay, Im not saying that were 22 taking -- Im not saying that were taking no more 23 comments. What Im saying is because people are 24 planning on leaving at 11 and I know that were 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 getting into heavy attrition here, I wanted to give 1
Bill an opportunity to wrap up the summary of -- wait.
2 No, no, no. Listen. This is going to be useful for 3
you -- to wrap up the summary of where this 4
information is going to be, what theyre going to do 5
with this information so that people -- so that people 6
know about it.
7 MS. SCHEIDLE: Thank you very much.
8 Im Andrea Scheidle, Putney, Vermont.
9 I really wasnt going to come tonight. I 10 really wasnt going to come tonight, but I did, and I 11 had a couple of things that I want to say, and the 12 first two sound like jokes, but they have a deep 13 meaning.
14 We have five seasons here in Vermont, and 15 this is mud season, and theres an old story where a 16 man sitting on the porch of his house and he sees his 17 neighbor walking down the road, and the neighbor is up 18 to his neck in mud.
19 And so the guy says to his neighbor, "Fine 20 day for a walk."
21 And his neighbor says, "Walking hell. Im 22 riding horseback."
23 (Laughter.)
24 MS. SCHEIDLE: Problems can be a lot 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 deeper than they initially appear on the surface.
1 Theres another little story that sounds 2
like a joke. A researcher is doing a project with 3
fleas, and hes training the fleas to jump over a 4
stick. And he gets the fleas, and he says, "Jump, 5
fleas, jump," and the fleas jump over the stick.
6 And each time the flea jumps, he takes a 7
leg off the flea, and so he takes off one leg. "Jump, 8
flea, jump." The flea jumps over. He does this with 9
hundreds of fleas.
10 Only theres a problem because when he 11 gets all the legs pulled off the fleas, when he gets 12 to the last one, the flea makes a tremendous effort, 13 jumps over the stick with that one leg, and then he 14 pulls the last leg off and nothing happens, and he 15 finally publishes his results.
16 The results are: when all of the legs are 17 pulled off fleas, they cant hear.
18 Science has a way of looking for specific 19 outcomes that are very dangerous these days. I just 20 came from New Zealand, which is a nuclear free 21 country, and I watched the endangered yellow-eyed 22 penguins coming into shore, and I watched all of the 23 little banded shell diggers walking on the beach.
24 I grew up here. I remember when there 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 were butterflies by the thousands, before insecticides 1
when the apple trees sang in the springtime for all 2
the insects that flocked around them. Something is 3
wrong, and we all know what it is.
4 Part of it is need; part of it is greed.
5 We have greed. We all have, many of us, more than we 6
need.
7 You guys, I know you have a charge and 8
its to oversee something, and you have parameters.
9 Youre here to do that. Thats your charge, and you 10 have boundaries. You know, you cant just decide, oh, 11 were going to get rid of all the nuclear energy, 12 right? Nuclear free Vermont.
13 I want a nuclear free world for my 14 children and my grandchildren. I know you cant do 15 that. Okay? But somewhere along the line, nuclear 16 energy became privatized, and so you were created to 17 oversee that. Do I understand that correctly? To 18 oversee the private use of nuclear energy and what 19 happens to nuclear fuel in the country.
20 MR. RULAND: Yes, yes.
21 MS. SCHEIDLE: You were created as an 22 agency for that.
23 You are my employee. You are the employee 24 of every person in this room. You are the employee.
25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 You are my employee via them. This is my microphone.
1 MR. RULAND: Under contract. Hes under 2
contract.
3 MS. SCHEIDLE: Okay, and Im not -- you 4
know, I dont want to take this away from anyone in 5
this room who still wants to speak, but we have to 6
trust you guys. You have to do something.
7 All over the world nature is dying because 8
of science while science is trying so hard to make 9
things live, but were looking at the wrong things.
10 Please do something. Please help us to make this a 11 nuclear free world, not just the bombs that I used to 12 crawl under the desk to hide from, but those little 13 sticks that youre burying into the ground that are 14 going to be there for centuries and centuries and 15 centuries.
16 I want the butterflies back.
17 (Applause.)
18 MR. RULAND: Thank you. Very heartfelt 19 comments. Thank you.
20 Its -- by the way, its 11 oclock.
21 MS. PEIFFER: Hi. Im Jeannette Peiffer 22 from Putney, Vermont.
23 And I just want to ask: has the NRC 24 scheduled additional inspection hours for the uprate?
25
120 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 MR. RULAND: Im sorry. I missed that.
1 MS. PEIFFER: Has the NRC scheduled 2
additional inspection hours for the uprate?
3 MR. RULAND: Brian.
4 MR. HOLIAN: Yes. Inspection hours start 5
during the outage, just to watch some of those 6
modifications. Part of it will be continuing based on 7
the review by headquarters.
8 MR. RULAND: And we have a specific 9
inspection to do that, yes.
10 MS. PEIFFER: How many additional hours?
11 MR. RULAND: How many hours?
12 MR. HOLIAN: Well, a large portion of 13 baseline hours get, as I mentioned earlier, get 14 focused on all of the modifications. So its a --
15 yeah, thats on the individual. We have one 16 individual procedure that looks at certain mods and 17 then many baseline procedures also will look at 18 modifications.
19 MS. PEIFFER: (Speaking from an unmicked 20 location.)
21 MR. HOLIAN: Theres some additional and 22 then theres some focused on routine inspections.
23 MR. BIDWELL: Can I ask for folks to leave 24 as quietly as they can for the other folks that are 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 still speaking?
1 MR. SPRITE: Hi. Im Fred Sprite, and Im 2
an elective representative from the Town of 3
Brattleboro, the same district as Sarah Edwards is 4
from.
5 Im acquainted with a lot of people who 6
have or do work at Vermont Yankee, and this is 7
definitely not about them. I have confidence in their 8
abilities, and you guys seem like reasonable guys.
9 I used to live in Rockville, Maryland, and 10 I know those are kind of shark infested waters down 11 there in the D.C. area.
12 I think whats obvious is that were here 13 aware of the politics that are behind what we each 14 have to do in our jobs when were in positions like 15 you are and like they are.
16 There seems to be a consensus of the 17 elected representatives in three states here that a 18 true independent safety assessment or engineering 19 assessment, whatever you want to call it, and to me 20 that would mean something which is answerable to and 21 hired by people in the states, but obviously, you 22 know, Im not one to decide that.
23 I just feel like as a wrap-up that its 24 very clear that, you know, the state, our national 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 delegations, people from
- Keene, people from 1
Massachusetts have all made it very clear, and so your 2
credibility hinges on being able to deliver that.
3 Its not saying that you cant do a good enough job.
4 Its saying that for the rest of us to have adequate 5
confidence, which is a part of the equation, is that 6
we feel safe; its not that it -- you know, I know 7
there was someone I
know here who was an 8
epidemiologist who studied Three Mile Island and the 9
cancer results of that. It was a -- yeah, -- it was 10 a 100-fold increase in rates of certain kinds of 11 cancer.
12 She also studied some of the sites where 13 depleted uranium was being tested, which is actually 14 waste products from nuclear power plants that are 15 being used for weapons in places like Iraq, 16 Afghanistan, Kosovo, a couple of pounds of which Im 17 told can give, by repeated doctors, can give just 18 about everybody on the planet cancer. And we blew up 19 90 tons of it in Iraq in 91.
20 I think because of things like this and 21 the cancer rates in areas where those things have been 22 tested, our confidence in our government is poor, and 23 its because people in political positions -- and you 24 guys are in political positions -- have a hard time 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 sticking your necks out far enough.
1 I know its hard in my position just in 2
the minor position that Im in. So I sympathize with 3
you, but Im saying that the bigger picture requires 4
us to do so.
5 MR. RULAND: Thank you.
6 MR. SPRITE: And I ask you to.
7 MR. RULAND: The cancer studies around 8
TMI, there have been a number of them. They have not 9
shown, to the best of my knowledge, increased cancer 10 rates, but were going to get you the results of that.
11 And if you could share that with us, and 12 well get that.
13 MR. SPRITE: And its not only -- were 14 aware of numerous studies that have been done, but it 15 has also gone through the court system. So its not 16 just the reports that we have.
17 But it continues to come up, and we 18 continue to address that. We do have a whole section 19 at headquarters also that deals with health effects.
20 MR. RULAND: And, you know, weve got to 21 end this meeting right now. Okay?
22 MR. BIDWELL: Weve been asked to go. I 23 do want to encourage everyone to submit written 24 comments. There were self-mailer written comment 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 forms that were handed out earlier in the evening.
1 Bill, do you have a brief comment to end?
2 MR. RULAND: No, thats all right. Thank 3
you.
4 (Whereupon, the public meeting was 5
concluded.)
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