ML050620227
"Draft Meeting" is not in the list (Request, Draft Request, Supplement, Acceptance Review, Meeting, Withholding Request, Withholding Request Acceptance, RAI, Draft RAI, Draft Response to RAI, ...) of allowed values for the "Project stage" property.
| ML050620227 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Browns Ferry  |
| Issue date: | 01/25/2005 |
| From: | Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation |
| To: | Tennessee Valley Authority |
| Masnik MT, NRR/DRIP/RLEP, 415-1191 | |
| Shared Package | |
| ML050620210 | List: |
| References | |
| TAC MC1768, TAC MC1769, TAC MC1770 | |
| Download: ML050620227 (67) | |
Text
NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.
(202) 234-4433 NRC PUBLIC MEETING TO DISCUSS THE DRAFT SUPPLEMENTAL ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT STATEMENT FOR BROWNS FERRY LICENSE RENEWAL JANUARY 25, 2005 EVENING SESSION ATHENS STATE UNIVERSITY 300 NORTH BEATY STREET ATHENS, ALABAMA 36301
NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.
(202) 234-4433 AGENDA FOR THE PUBLIC MEETING TO RECEIVE COMMENTS ON THE DRAFT ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT STATEMENT FOR BROWNS FERRY NUCLEAR PLANT LICENSE RENEWAL Tuesday, January 25, 2005 EVENING SESSION Meeting Session 7:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m.
I.
Welcome and Purpose of Meeting -
3 15 minutes (Chip Cameron)
II.
Overview of License Renewal Process -......
6 5 minutes (Andy Kugler)
III. Overview of Environmental Review Process -
... 13 5 minutes (Michael Masnik)
IV.
Results of the Environmental Review -...... 20 30 minutes (Michael Sackschewsky and Robert Palla)
V.
How Comments can be Submitted -......... 32 5 minutes (Michael Masnik)
VI.
Public Comment - (as required) (Chip Cameron)
.. 63 VII. Closing etc. - (Chip Cameron)
.......... 78
3 NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.
(202) 234-4433 EVENING SESSION 1
(7:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m.)
2 MR. CAMERON: Good afternoon, everyone. My name 3
is Chip Cameron, and I'm the Special Counsel for Public 4
Liaison at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which we're 5
going to refer to tonight as the NRC, and I want to 6
welcome all of you to the NRC's public meeting.
7 Our subject tonight is the Draft Environmental 8
Impact Statement that the NRC has prepared as one part of 9
its evaluation of an application that we received from TVA 10 to renew the operating licenses for Browns Ferry Units 1, 11 2, and 3.
12 And it's my pleasure to serve as your 13 Facilitator for tonight.
14 Basically, our meeting format is going to be in 15 two parts. The first part is going to give you some brief 16 background information on license renewal through some 17 brief NRC presentations, and we'll answer any questions 18 that you have about either the license renewal process or 19 the information and conclusions that are in the Draft 20 Environmental Impact Statement.
21 The second part of the meeting is to hear from 22 anybody who wants to make a formal comment to us on any 23 concerns, recommendations, advice that they might have 24 about either the license renewal process or the Draft 25
4 NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.
(202) 234-4433 Environmental Impact Statement.
1 We are taking written comments on the Draft 2
Environmental Impact Statement, and the NRC staff will be 3
telling you, in a few moments, how to submit those written 4
comments and by when.
5 But we wanted to be here to talk to you 6
personally tonight, and I just would emphasis that 7
anything you say tonight will carry as much weight as any 8
written comment that we receive.
9 And we are taking a transcript. We have Mr.
10 Steve Anderson here, who is our court reporter. That will 11 be our record of this evening meeting, and it will be 12 available to any of you who would like to have a copy of 13 the transcript.
14 I want to introduce a few people to you, our 15 speakers tonight. First of all, we're going to have Mr.
16 Andy Kugler. He is the Chief of the Environmental Review 17 Section within our License Renewal and Environmental 18 Impact Program at the NRC. And Andy and his staff is 19 responsible for doing the environmental reviews on these 20 subjects.
21 Next, we will go to Dr. Michael Masnik. Mike is 22 the Project Manager for the Environmental Review on this 23 license renewal application.
24 Then, we are going to go to the heart of 25
5 NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.
(202) 234-4433 tonights meeting the Draft EIS. We are going to go to 1
Dr. Mike Sackschewsky, right here, who is from the 2
Pacific Northwest National Lab. He is a team leader of 3
the experts that NRC hired to do the environment review 4
for us. He will be talking about that.
5 And a specialized part of the Environmental 6
Impact Statement is the severe accident mitigation 7
alternatives also known as SAMAs, and we have Mr. Bob 8
Palla, Senior Reactor Engineer from the NRC to tell us 9
about that.
10 Then, we will go out to all of you for 11 questions. Then, we will go to the public comment period, 12 and we look forward to that. I'm going to suggest a 13 guideline of five minutes for your comments tonight, and 14 we usually find that that's enough time to make the major 15 points, and gives us enough information, and others in the 16 audience, enough information to realize what the issues of 17 concern are.
18 We thank you all for being here tonight and 19 helping us with this project.
20 I do want to introduce Dr. P. T. Kuo, who is 21 right here from the NRC. Dr. Kuo is the Program Director 22 of the License Renewal and Environment Impact Program, so 23 everybody works for Dr. Kuo, I guess, those of us who are 24 from the NRC, at any rate.
25
6 NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.
(202) 234-4433 With that, I think I'm going to go to Andy.
1 Andy?
2 MR. KUGLER: Thank you, Chip, and thank you all 3
for coming out this evening for our meeting on the 4
Environmental Impact Statement for license renewal for 5
Browns Ferry Units 1, 2, and 3.
6 I hope the information we provide you tonight is 7
helpful to you in understanding the process we're going 8
through, understanding where we are at this point, and the 9
role that you can play in helping to ensure that the final 10 Environmental Impact Statement is an accurate document.
11 First, I would like to provide some general 12 context for license renewal. The Atomic Energy Act 13 authorizes the NRC to license nuclear reactors for a 14 period of 40 years.
15 For Browns Ferry Units 1, 2, and 3 those 16 original licenses expire in years 2013, 2014, and 2016, 17 respectively.
18 Our regulations also make provisions for us to 19 extend those operating licenses for an additional 20 20 years, and TVA, has applied for license renewal for all 21 three units.
22 As part of the NRC's review of the license 23 renewal application, we perform an environmental review.
24 We look at the impacts to the environment of operating 25
7 NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.
(202) 234-4433 these plants for an additional 20 years of operation.
1 We held a meeting here back in April where we 2
were asking for input from you on the scope of what our 3
review should be: what issues we should consider in our 4
evaluation. As we indicated then, we've now completed the 5
draft and we come back to you at this point to let you 6
comment on the draft or ask any questions you may have on 7
our Draft Environmental Impact Statement.
8 At the conclusion of our presentation, we will 9
be happy to receive those comments. And, then, afterwards 10 the staff will remain behind, if you have any questions or 11 if you wish to speak to us.
12 Next slide.
13 Now, before I get into the discussion of the 14 license renewal process, I'd like to tell you a little bit 15 about the NRC, who we are and what our mission is.
16 As I said, the Atomic Energy Act is the 17 legislation that authorizes the NRC to regulate the 18 commercial use of nuclear materials in the United States, 19 including regulation of the power reactors.
20 In carrying out that authority, our mission is 21 three-fold: we are here to protect the public health and 22 safety, to protect the environment, and to provide for 23 common defense and security.
24 The NRC accomplishes its mission through a 25
8 NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.
(202) 234-4433 number of programs, including assessments of licensees 1
performance, inspections performed at the sites, 2
enforcement actions, and review of operating experience 3
from all the plants throughout the country.
4 Turning now to license renewal in particular, 5
the process we go through in license renewal is similar to 6
the original licensing process that we used when these 7
plants were licensed. Basically, there are two tracks to 8
this review: there was the safety review and an 9
environmental review.
10 The environmental review is the focus of our 11 meeting tonight, but I do want to say a few words about 12 the safety review so you have some understanding of what's 13 involved.
14 The safety review includes a safety evaluation 15 report, on-site inspections and audits, and an independent 16 review of the results by the Advisory Committee on Reactor 17 Safeguards, or ACRS. And I will speak more about them in 18 a few moment.
19 Next slide.
20 This slide gives a big picture overview of the 21 license renewal process. As you can see, there are those 22 two tracks. The upper portion of the slide is the safety 23 review and the lower portion is the environmental review.
24 The safety review involves the staff's 25
9 NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.
(202) 234-4433 evaluation of the safety information included in the 1
application from TVA. And there is a team of about 30 NRC 2
engineers and contractors who are performing that review.
3 I would like to introduce the project managers 4
who are involved in that review, and they're here tonight.
5 We have Ram Subbaratnam and Yoira Diaz. They are the 6
project managers for the safety review.
7 Now safety review and license renewal focuses on 8
how TVA will manage the aging of selected components, 9
systems, and structures. Some of the programs they will 10 use for managing aging are already in place at the plant; 11 others will be put in place for license renewal.
12 The safety review process also involves audit 13 and on-site inspections, and these inspections are 14 conducted by teams made up from personnel from our 15 headquarters and from our regional office.
16 We do have representatives of the inspection 17 program here tonight, and I'd like to introduce them. We 18 have the Branch Chief from Region II, Mr. Steven Cahill.
19 There he is. And we also have one of the Senior Resident 20 Inspectors from Browns Ferry site, Mr. Robert Monk.
21 Now I want to mention the resident inspectors in 22 particular because a lot of people are not aware that we 23 have inspectors who are on site all the time. They are 24 assigned to the site. They live here and they work here, 25
10 NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.
(202) 234-4433 and they monitor the licensee's performance on a day-to-1 day basis.
2 In addition, we perform inspections with teams 3
that come from the regions, some teams that come from 4
headquarters. But these are the people who are there 5
every day.
6 The results of the inspections that we perform 7
for license renewal are documented in separate inspection 8
reports.
9 The results of the safety review that are 10 performed by the team that I mentioned, as well as the 11 inspection results, are combined into a safety evaluation 12 report, which we are in the process of completing right 13 now. It is not yet complete.
14 But after the safety evaluation report is 15 completed, it will be sent to the ACRS, the Advisory 16 Committee on Reactor Safeguards, for an independent 17 review. Now the ACRS is made up of technical experts in 18 reactor safety, and they're independent of the NRC. They 19 act as a consulting body for the commission.
20 After the report is prepared, it will be 21 independently reviewed by the ACRS.
22 In the case of license renewal they will review 23 the application that came from TVA and they'll review our 24 Safety Evaluation Report. They will reach their own 25
11 NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.
(202) 234-4433 conclusions and, then, they will write a report and submit 1
it to the Commission providing their advice to the 2
Commission on this application.
3 As I mentioned, the second part of the review 4
process, which I mentioned, is the Environmental Review, 5
which is our focus tonight. The Environmental Impact 6
Statement that we prepare is a supplement to what we call 7
the generic Environmental Impact Statement for license 8
renewal. This was a document that was prepared by the 9
Commission to look generically at what the impacts of what 10 license renewal would be at nuclear power plants around 11 the country.
12 The Environmental Impact Statement we prepared 13 for Browns Ferry in particular is a supplement to that 14 Generic Environmental Impact Statement.
15 After we receive the comments on the draft, both 16 tonight and any written comments we receive by March 2nd, 17 we'll consider those comments, make changes to the Draft 18 Environmental Impact Statement, and, then, we expect to 19 issue the Final Environmental Impact Statement in July.
20 So, as you can see from the slide, there is are 21 a number of inputs that are required for the Commission in 22 order to allow them to make their decision whether or not 23 to approval license renewal for these plants.
24 They need the Safety Evaluation Report input, 25
12 NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.
(202) 234-4433 the Environmental Impact Statement, the input from the NRC 1
Region on the inspections, and the input from the Advisory 2
Committee on Reactor Safeguards.
3 I would like to point out the splash symbols on 4
the slide. These are locations where the public can get 5
involved with the process.
6 In the Environmental Review at the bottom there 7
you can see there are two. The first occurred at scoping 8
back in March and April of last year where we asked for 9
input from the public on what issues we should consider in 10 our Environmental Impact Statement, and that included the 11 meetings that we held here at the beginning of April of 12 last year.
13 The second is the comment period that's 14 currently underway on the draft, and these meetings are 15 part of that comment period. It is an opportunity for you 16 to give us comments directly.
17 Other than those two, there is a splash symbol 18 there for hearings. There was an opportunity for hearing 19 back when the application was first accepted; however, we 20 did not receive any requests for a hearing, so there's not 21 going to be a hearing in this case.
22 And the last of these is the ACRS meetings.
23 These meetings are open to the public but I will mention 24 they are normally held at our headquarters up in 25
13 NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.
(202) 234-4433 Rockville.
1 That concludes my remarks on the overall 2
process. I would like to turn things over to Dr. Masnik 3
to discuss the environmental process in particular.
4 MR. MASNIK: Thank you, Andy.
5 My name is Michael Masnik, and I'm the 6
Environmental Project Manager. I'd like to personally 7
welcome each of you here today and thank you for 8
participating in our process as well.
9 My responsibility is to coordinate a team of 10 experts from both the NRC and the national laboratories in 11 the preparation of an environmental impact statement that 12 evaluates the license renewal period.
13 The National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 14 requires a systematic approach in evaluating impacts of 15 proposed major federal actions. Consideration is given to 16 the environmental impacts of the proposed action and the 17 mitigation of any impacts that are believed to be 18 significant. Alternatives are taken in to account and the 19 no-action alternative is considered.
20 The Environmental Impact Statement is a 21 disclosure tool and it involves public participation.
22 NRC requires that an Environmental Impact 23 Statement be prepared for the proposed license renewal 24 activities.
25
14 NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.
(202) 234-4433 So we are here today to collect public comments 1
on the draft statement that we issued early last December, 2
and we will consider all the comments that we have 3
received during the preparation of the Final Environmental 4
Impact Statement.
5 Next slide.
6 This slide defines our legal decision standard 7
that follows from our environmental analysis. It 8
basically asks two questions: is the license renewal 9
acceptable from an environmental standpoint; and, 10 secondly, should the option for extending the power plant 11 operations be preserved?
12 Next slide.
13 Now in a previous slide, slide 5, Andy already 14 described the overall safety environmental process. Here 15 we have a more detailed slide that identifies the process 16 that the NRC staff goes through in evaluating an 17 application for license renewal.
18 TVA submitted their application for a license 19 renewal to the NRC on December 31, 2003. We subsequently 20 put out formal notice in the Federal Register that we 21 would prepare an environmental impact statement associated 22 with that application.
23 The Federal Register notice began a scoping 24 process which invited public participation early in the 25
15 NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.
(202) 234-4433 process.
1 We conducted a scoping meeting this past year, 2
in April, to help define the bounds of our environmental 3
review. We also brought a team of experts from the 4
national labs to the site to talk to local officials and 5
experts, see the site first hand, to review documents and 6
documentation that was available on site, and also to 7
interview TVA site personnel.
8 As a result of the team audit, the licensee sent 9
us over 11,000 pages of supplemental information on a 10 great many subjects, including meteorology, plant 11 operating history, ecological/socioeconomic and cultural 12 studies and references to their environmental report.
13 The staff also formally requested additional 14 information on two occasions related to the severe 15 accident mitigation analysis, a subject we'll talk about 16 in a little more detail in a few minutes.
17 The staff then prepared a Draft Environmental 18 Impact Statement; we issued that draft supplement to the 19 Generic Environmental Impact Statement in December of 20 2004.
21 In a few minutes we'll be hearing from Mr. Mike 22 Sackschewsky from the Pacific Northwest National 23 Laboratory, the Lab Team Leader, who will share the 24 results of our findings.
25
16 NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.
(202) 234-4433 Currently, we are in the middle of the public 1
comment period on the draft statement which will expire on 2
March 2nd 2005.
3 Once we get all the public comments in, 4
including those we receive at this meeting, then we will 5
evaluate all those comments and publish a Final 6
Environmental Impact Statement. Our schedule presently 7
provides for the Final Environmental Impact Statement to 8
be published in July of 2005.
9 For the moment that concludes my remarks, and 10 I'd be happy to entertain any questions on the process 11 that we're undertaking here.
12 MR. CAMERON: You just heard from Andy and Mike 13 about our process. Are there any questions at all about 14 process that we can answer before we go on to the Draft 15 Environmental Impact Statement?
16 Yes, and please introduce yourself to us.
17 MS. TIPPER: Jackie Tipper.
18 The scoping meeting, where was the scoping 19 meeting, and who were the people involved with that?
20 MR. MASNIK: It was a meeting very similar to 21 this one, in this room. It occurred on April 1st of this 22 year, and we had, I would say, what(?) about 20 members of 23 the public in the afternoon and probably about an equal 24 number in the evening. It was a noticed meeting held in 25
17 NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.
(202) 234-4433 this room.
1 MS. TIPPER: In this one?
2 MR. MASNIK: Yes, in this room, on the first of 3
April of this past year.
4 MR. CAMERON: Mike, maybe to alleviate some of 5
Jackie's concerns, maybe you could just talk a little bit 6
about scoping versus the comment on the Draft 7
Environmental Impact Statement where I think this is 8
probably -- although scoping is important, this is a major 9
event.
10 MS. TIPPER: Let me ask another question.
11 MR. CAMERON: Go ahead.
12 MS. TIPPER: This meeting, Dennis Sherad did an 13 article in the Times Daily. I read the Decatur Daily 14 front and back, except I do not read the classified ads.
15 I saw nothing in the Decatur Daily about this meeting at 16 all.
17 MR. MASNIK: Well, my understanding --
18 MS. TIPPER: How are people supposed to, you 19 know, know about this?
20 MR. MASNIK: Well, we attempt to notify the 21 public in a number of different ways. To answer your 22 question specifically, I believe it was in the classified 23 ads of the Decatur Daily. We had ads in four newspaper:
24 Florence, Huntsville, Athens and Decatur. And my 25
18 NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.
(202) 234-4433 understanding was last -- not this past Sunday but Sunday 1
a week ago there was an article and in that article it 2
happened to mentioned this meeting. That may have been 3
where you had seen it. I believe it was in the Decatur 4
Daily that that article was published.
5 MS. TIPPER: The information I got was from the 6
Times Daily. I didn't find any information from Decatur 7
Daily at all.
8 MR. MASNIK: Oh, I'm sorry. Okay.
9 MS. TIPPER: And I called them and asked them 10 why there had been no information, and they had no idea 11 what I was talking about.
12 MR. MASNIK: Well, we do put out a press 13 release. So there is a press release that's issued. We 14 publish the ads in the papers. Of course, we don't pick 15 all the papers, but we try to get representative papers 16 from each of the communities surrounding the plant. We 17 publish it in the Federal Register. We maintain a 18 website, the NRC website and all the meetings are noticed 19 there. We notified the local governments, and we ask them 20 to announce it at their town council meetings.
21 I mean we do everything we can, but 22 unfortunately, it is difficult to reach most members of 23 the public. Unless you are interested in following it, 24 it's probably difficult to get the word.
25
19 NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.
(202) 234-4433 MS. TIPPER: River Neighbors. That is not --
1 you all aren't publishing that any more. TVA is not.
2 MR. CAMERON: Just to clarify one thing -- and 3
maybe you don't need to have this clarified for you -- but 4
we all from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. I don't 5
know what TVA publishes or, if they do publish it, whether 6
there was any mention of this particular meeting in it.
7 I guess just to reiterate, we're here to try to 8
give you as much information about the draft EIS as 9
possible and, then, there is this subsequent comment 10 period that you have an opportunity to comment.
11 Even though we do put the notice out at a lot of 12 places, I think we do realize we could probably always do 13 better than we do. So, thank you for that reminder. We 14 won't forget you on the record.
15 MR. MASNIK: I think we had 15 posters that we 16 put out as well.
17 MR. CAMERON: Okay, so there were posters around 18 town. Thank you.
19 MS. TIPPER: Which town?
20 MR. CAMERON: I'm not sure. Rogersville, 21 Athens, Calhoun College. Well, we're glad you're here.
22 Other questions on process?
23 (No response.)
24 We are going to go to Dr. Sackschewsky to talk 25
20 NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.
(202) 234-4433 about the Draft Environmental Impact Statement.
1 MR. SACKSCHEWSKY: Good evening.
2 My name is Mike Sackschewsky, and I am the 3
Project Team Leader for the Browns Ferry EIS.
4 I'm an ecologist with Pacific Northwest National 5
Laboratory, or PNNL, which is located in Richland, 6
7 The NRC contracted with PNNL, as well as the Los 8
Alamos National Laboratory and Argonne National 9
Laboratory, to assist the staff with the expertise 10 necessary to evaluate the impacts of license renewal at 11 Browns Ferry.
12 The NRC team consists of scientists and 13 engineers representing a wide variety of areas, all 14 aspects of the environment including atmospheric science, 15 socioeconomics and environmental justice, cultural 16 resources, archeology, land use, hydrology and water 17 quality, aquatic and other disciplines as shown on the 18 slide.
19 Next slide.
20 This slide shows our overall approach in 21 preparing the supplement EIS. In the mid-1990s the NRC 22 evaluated the impacts of operating nuclear plants across 23 the country and based on this evaluation prepared a 24 Generic Environmental Impact Statement for license renewal 25
21 NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.
(202) 234-4433 or the GEIS.
1 The GEIS identified and evaluated 92 different 2
environmental issues for license renewal. For 69 of those 3
issues the NRC was able to determine that the impacts are 4
common to all sites, were common to all reactor sites with 5
certain features such as plants that have cooling towers; 6
and a generic conclusion can be made for these issues.
7 These are called the Category 1 issues.
8 For the other 23 issues the NRC found that the 9
impacts were not the same at all sites and therefore, a 10 site specific analysis was needed. We call these the 11 Category 2 issues.
12 Only certain issues addressed in the GEIS are 13 applicable to any particular site such as Browns Ferry 14 because of the design and location of the plant.
15 For those generic issues that are applicable to 16 Browns Ferry, we determined if there is any new 17 information regarding that issue that might change the 18 conclusion that was done in GEIS. If there is no new 19 information, then the conclusions of the GEIS is adopted.
20 If new information is identified and determined to be 21 significant, then a site specific analysis would be 22 performed.
23 For the Category 2 issues related to Browns 24 Ferry a site specific analysis was performed.
25
22 NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.
(202) 234-4433 Finally, during the scoping period the public 1
was invited to provide information on potential new 2
issues, and the team, during its review, also looked to 3
see if there were new issues that needed to be evaluated.
4 Next slide.
5 For each environmental issue that was identified 6
an impact level is assigned and these impact levels follow 7
the definitions that are shown on the slide. And as an 8
example of impact levels, for instance, if the operation 9
of Browns Ferry plant were to cause a loss of adult or 10 juvenile fish at the intake structure, and if that loss of 11 fish is small so that it could not be detected in relation 12 to the total population, then the impact would be small.
13 If the loss has caused the population to decline 14 and then stabilize at some other level, then the impact 15 might be moderate.
16 However, if the losses at the intake cause the 17 fish population to decline to the point where it cannot be 18 stabilized and continue to declines then the impact would 19 be large.
20 Next slide.
21 When the team evaluated the impacts from 22 continued operations at Browns Ferry, we considered 23 information from a wide variety of sources. We considered 24 what the licensee had to say in their Environmental 25
23 NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.
(202) 234-4433 Report, which is part of the license renewal application.
1 We conducted a site audit during which we toured the site, 2
interviewed plant personnel, reviewed documentation of 3
plant operations. We also talked to Federal, State and 4
local officials, regulatory agencies and local service 5
agencies.
6 Finally, we considered all the comments that we 7
received from the public during the scoping period. These 8
comments are listed in Appendix A of the draft Supplement 9
EIS along with the NRC responses.
10 This was the body of information that was the 11 basis for the analysis and preliminary conclusions in the 12 Browns Ferry supplement.
13 The central analysis in the Browns Ferry 14 Supplement are presented in chapters 2, 4, 5, and 8. In 15 Chapter 2 we describe the plant, its operation, and the 16 environment around the plant.
17 In Chapter 4 we examine the environmental 18 impacts of routine operations during the 20 year license 19 renewal term. The team took those 92 issues, we 20 categorized all the issues, and those that were applicable 21 were put into these categories that are shown on the 22 slide. And I'll discuss each one of those categories in 23 more detail.
24 Chapter 5 contains the assessment of accidents, 25
24 NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.
(202) 234-4433 which Mr. Palla will discuss in the next presentation.
1 Chapter 8 describes several alternatives to the 2
proposed license renewal and their environmental impacts.
3 Each of these areas are discussed in detail in 4
the Browns Ferry supplement, and I will give you the 5
highlights.
6 Next one.
7 The first set of issues I'm going to talk about 8
relate to the cooling system for Browns Ferry. There are 9
about 24 Category 1 issues, such as scouring, 10 eutrophication or discharge of chlorine.
11 We found that all these Category 1 issues meet 12 all of the conditions of the Generic Impact Statement and 13 there was no new information presented during the scoping, 14 the site audit or any phase of the assessment.
15 Therefore, the NRC staff concludes that there 16 are no impacts beyond those identified in the GIS.
17 The issues the team looked at on a site specific 18 basis include entrainment, impingement of fish and 19 shellfish, heat shock, water use conflicts and micro-20 biological organisms.
21 Now entrainment refers to the pulling of small 22 aquatic organisms through the plant's cooling system; and 23 impingement occurs when a larger organism is pulled 24 towards the cooling system but is pinned on the screen 25
25 NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.
(202) 234-4433 that provides, of course, the filtering of the cooling 1
water.
In all of the cooling system impacts, we 2
found that the potential impacts in these area were small 3
and that no additional mitigation was warranted.
4 We looked at seven, Category 1 issues associated 5
with the transmission line such as bird collisions, 6
transmission line right-of-way management and air 7
quality. The Category 1 issues met the conditions for the 8
Generic Impact Statement and there was no new information 9
presented during any of the scoping process.
10 Therefore, the NRC staff concludes that there 11 are no transmission line impacts beyond those identified 12 in the GEIS.
13 One transmission line issue did required a site 14 specific analysis and this was electric shock. We found 15 that the potential impacts in this area were small and 16 additional further mitigation was not warranted.
17 Radiological impacts are a Category 1 issue, and 18 NRC has made a generic determination that the impact of 19 radioactive material released during the nuclear plant 20 operations during the 20 year license renewal period is 21 small. But because these releases are a concern, I will 22 discuss them in a more detail.
23 Nuclear plants are designed to release small 24 amounts of radiological effluents to the environment.
25
26 NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.
(202) 234-4433 Browns Ferry is no different than other plants, and it 1
does release some of these effluents.
2 During our site visit, we looked at the effluent 3
release and monitoring program documentation. We looked 4
at how the gaseous and liquid effluents are treated and 5
released, as well as how the solid wastes are treated, 6
packaged and shipped.
7 We looked at how the applicant determines and 8
demonstrates that they are in compliance with the 9
regulations for release of radioactive effluents.
10 We also looked at data from on-site and near-11 site locations that the applicant monitors for airborne 12 releases and direct radiation and other monitoring 13 stations beyond the site boundary, including locations 14 where milk, water, fish and food products are sampled.
15 We found that the maximum calculated doses for a 16 member of the public or site worker are well within the 17 regulatory limits.
18 Now there is a near unanimous consensus within 19 the scientific community that these limits are protective 20 of human health. And because these releases from the 21 plant are not expected to increase during the 20 year 22 license renewal term, and because we found no new and 23 significant information related to this issue, we adopted 24 the generic conclusion that the radiological impact on 25
27 NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.
(202) 234-4433 human health and the environment is small.
1 There were several Category 1 socioeconomic 2
issues that we examined, including public safety, 3
education and aesthetic impacts. These Category 1 issues 4
meet all the conditions for the Generic Impact Statement 5
and there is no new information presented during the 6
scoping process, the site audit or any other phase of the 7
assessment.
8 Therefore, in regard to the Category 1 issues, 9
the NRC staff concluded there are no impacts beyond those 10 already identified in the GEIS.
11 The issues the team looked at on a site-specific 12 basis included housing, transportation, public utilities, 13 historic and archeological resources, and environmental 14 justice. In each of these cases we found that the 15 potential impacts in all of these areas were small and 16 that no mitigation was needed.
17 The GEIS identified one Category 1 issue and 18 this is the ground water use conflicts for plants that use 19 less than 100 gallons per minute of ground water.
20 Browns Ferry currently uses no groundwater and 21 therefore, the generic conclusion of a small impact is 22 appropriate for this plant.
23 There is also one Category 2 issue related to 24 groundwater. That is groundwater use conflicts for plants 25
28 NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.
(202) 234-4433 using cooling towers and withdrawing water from a small 1
river.
2 Although the Tennessee River seems to be pretty 3
big, the average annual flow is only about half of the 4
flow rate that the NRC uses to define a small river. We 5
examined this issue and determined that the potential 6
impacts of operating the cooling towers on ground water 7
supplies is small and that additional mitigation is not 8
warranted.
9 There are approximately 49 species that could 10 occur in the range of Browns Ferry site or the 11 transmission lines that are currently listed as 12 threatened, endangered or candidate species under the 13 Endangered Species Act. And this slide shows a few of 14 these, showing the range of types of organisms that are 15 included on that list of 49.
16 There are also a very large number of species 17 that are listed by the Alabama and Mississippi State 18 Heritage Programs.
19 We prepared a detailed biological assessment to 20 analyze the effects of continuing operation and re-21 licensing of Browns Ferry, and we have provided that 22 biological assessment to the US Fish and Wildlife Service, 23 and included it in Appendix E of the Browns Ferry 24 Supplement.
25
29 NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.
(202) 234-4433 Based on this biological assessment, additional 1
independent analysis and discussions with US Fish and 2
Wildlife Service Staff, the staff's preliminarily 3
determination is that the impact of operating Browns Ferry 4
during the license renewal term on threatened or 5
endangered species would be small.
6 The last issue I would like to talk about is 7
"cumulative impacts." These are impacts that are minor 8
when considered individually but significant when 9
considered with other past, present, or reasonably 10 foreseeable future actions, regardless of what agency or 11 person undertakes those actions.
12 The staff considered cumulative impacts in all 13 of the issue categories that I have already discussed, and 14 re-evaluated these to the end of the 20 year license 15 renewal term. Our preliminary determination is that any 16 cumulative impacts resulting from the operation of the 17 Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant during the license renewal term 18 would be small.
19 The team also looked at these other 20 environmental impacts. In the GEIS all issues for the 21 uranium fuel cycle and solid waste management as well as 22 decommissioning are considered to be Category 1 issues.
23 For these issues no new and significant 24 information was found during our review of the site.
25
30 NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.
(202) 234-4433 Therefore, the generic conclusions were adopted.
1 The team also evaluated the potential 2
environmental impacts associated with not renewing the 3
Browns Ferry operating license and replacing this 4
generation capacity with alternative power sources.
5 The team looked at a no action alternative, new 6
generation from coal fire, gas fire, new nuclear or 7
purchase power alternative technology such as wind, solar 8
and hydro power, and, then, a combination of these 9
alternatives.
10 For each of these alternatives, we looked at the 11 same types of issues, for example, water use, land use and 12 ecology that we looked at for the operation of Browns 13 Ferry during the license renewal term.
14 We found that all reasonable alternatives would 15 entail some environmental impacts, either operational, 16 such as the release of effluents, or construction impacts 17 or both.
18 After evaluating the reasonable alternatives, 19 the team's preliminary conclusion is that the 20 environmental effects, in at least some impact categories, 21 can reach moderate or large significance.
22 Now to reiterate, in 1996 the NRC reached 23 generic conclusions for 69 issues related to operating 24 nuclear plants for another 20 years.
25
31 NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.
(202) 234-4433 For these Category 1 issues we looked to see if 1
there was any information that was both new and 2
significant, and whether or not we could adopt the generic 3
conclusions.
4 For the remaining Category 2 issues and for 5
validated new issues, the team performed an analysis 6
specific to the Browns Ferry site.
7 Next slide, please. Thank you.
8 For all the Category 1 issues presented in the 9
generic EIS that relate to Browns Ferry, we found no 10 information that was both new and significant; therefore, 11 we have preliminarily adopted the conclusion that the 12 impact for these issues is small.
13 The team analyzed the Category 2 issues in this 14 supplement and found the environmental effects resulting 15 from each of these issues were also small.
16 During our review the team found no new issues 17 that were not already known.
18 Last, we found that the environmental effects of 19 alternatives, at least in some impact categories, can 20 reach moderate to large significance.
21 That concludes my remarks regarding findings.
22 MR. CAMERON: Thank you very much.
23 You just heard about the types of information 24 the NRC evaluated, what conclusions were drawn, and 25
32 NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.
(202) 234-4433 alternatives. Is there any questions on this? Anything 1
that Mike can explain in a little bit more detail.
2 Yes. Nancy, could you just introduce yourself 3
to us, please.
4 MS. MUSE: I'm Nancy Muse from Florence, 5
Alabama. It is my understanding as an Army brat -- my dad 6
was a career Army -- the Army and the military consider, 7
when they go in to any type of operation, the worse case 8
scenario. I am wondering if the NRC, in your impact 9
assessments, thought about or considered -- I mean, what 10 you're saying to me sounds great unless it is the worse 11 case scenario.
12 In the event of the worse case scenario is the 13 impact of the nuclear reactor technology comparable to 14 that of alternative energy technology?
15 MR. CAMERON: Two issues. One, I think worse 16 case analysis generally but then there's specifically an 17 issue that Nancy brought up about comparing continued 18 operation of the plant versus alternative technology.
19 MS. MUSE: Well, I mean, if you talk about the 20 impact alternative energy like a windmill would have on 21 birds that hit it, you know, fly into it -- maybe 22 migratory birds -- the worse case scenario with a nuclear 23 plant, can you compare that on a scale, the same type of 24 scale that you would to the worse scenario using 25
33 NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.
(202) 234-4433 alternative energy sources whether it be solar, the wind, 1
or whatever it may be.
2 MR. MASNIK: This is Mike Masnik.
3 The NEPA is the legislation that requires us to 4
do an environmental impact statement. Under NEPA the case 5
law and the regulation basically has concluded that we 6
don't do a worse case scenario. In other words, we're not 7
required to look at what would be the environmental impact 8
should the worse possible accident occur at the plant.
9 Now the plant does -- you know, we evaluate the 10 impact of the plant during normal operation and off normal 11 operation, but not the kinds of accidents I think you are 12 thinking of where we would have, for example, a core melt 13 down and a massive release of radiation. So we do not do 14 that. Compare that to the worse case scenario of the 15 alternatives.
16 MR. CAMERON: But at least for comparing the 17 alternatives we look at the environment impacts, 18 obviously, from license renewal, and we look at the 19 environmental impacts from the alternatives also.
20 MR. MASNIK: Essentially, if you have a copy of 21 the document that's Chapter 8 where we look at different 22 alternatives and we look at the impact of those 23 alternatives on the environment.
24 MR. CAMERON: Before we go back to Nancy, yes, 25
34 NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.
(202) 234-4433 sir.
1 MR. DORSEY: My name is Grant Dorsey. I'm from 2
Town Creek.
3 This document that you're referring to, how is 4
that disseminated? How did that get into the public 5
hands? Was that just from the meetings or was it made 6
available at a point where you could go pick it up and 7
review it prior to the meeting? How was that handled?
8 MR. CAMERON: Michael.
9 MR. MASNIK: We do a normal distribution of 10 this. Obviously, you are not on the list for normal 11 distribution. But what we did was, during the scoping 12 meeting we had asked for people to sign up. We would have 13 given you a copy when it was available.
14 Additionally, our web site explains how you 15 could a copy of it as well. So we do make it available.
16 Unfortunately, you didn't get one before the meeting, 17 although we do have a comment period that stretches to 18 March 2nd. So, if after tonight you look at the document 19 and you have some comments, you have a fair amount of time 20 to get back to us with them.
21 We also put it in the Athens Limestone Library 22 here in town, so it was available there also.
23 MR. DORSEY: Couple of other questions. You are 24 talking about the effluents, the normal release of 25
35 NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.
(202) 234-4433 radiation that occurs with the operation of a nuclear 1
plant. Then, the gentleman spoke about solids. Can you 2
explain to me what solids mean?
3 And you talked about that they are packaged and 4
shipped or disposed of. Can you explain that to me? And 5
explain environmental justice.
6 MR. SACKSCHEWSKY: Solid wastes can be a variety 7
of things but, typically, they would be things like rags, 8
tools, anything that's solid that is somewhat contaminated 9
that would need to be disposed of. There are procedures 10 that they would follow for that. It normally would be 11 barreled up some way and shipped off to some licensed 12 landfill that accepts that kind of waste.
13 Environmental justice came out of an executive 14 order, oh, back in the mid-1990s. Basically, it refers to 15 a requirement for all federal agencies in the NEPA process 16 to evaluate whether a particular project is inordinantly 17 affecting a minority or low income population.
18 MR. CAMERON: Do you need more information on 19 that or is that enough for now?
20 MR. DORSEY: Is the low grade radioactivity of 21 the solids -- I'm assuming that's very low grade. Its 22 like cleanup rags and tools --
23 MR. CAMERON: Yes.
24 MR. DORSEY: -- and it's shipped to where?
25
36 NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.
(202) 234-4433 Where are these facilities that --
1 MR. SACKSCHEWSKY: Solid wastes, we're very 2
concerned about it. A nuclear plant cannot dispose of 3
solid waste unless -- contaminated solid waste unless it 4
is to a licensed burial facility. And these are 5
facilities -- Barnwell is one. There's one out on the 6
west coast. These are facilities that are designed to 7
accept low level waste and dispose of it in shallow 8
surface landfill situations, which are monitored.
9 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Let me go over to Nancy 10 and, then, I'll be right back, Jack.
11 MS. MUSE: The speaker referred to the 12 scientific community having a broad consensus set the 13 amount of radiation released into the environment. Browns 14 Ferry was -- well, I don't know if you said negligible, 15 but it was -- in essence, what I was reading between the 16 lines, nothing to worry about? I want to know what 17 scientific community and who funded the study, and who are 18 the scientists who came to this conclusion.
19 MR. CAMERON: I think there wasn't exactly --
20 the statement about the unanimity wasn't referring 21 specifically to Browns Ferry. And Mike, you might want to 22 clarify what you were trying to say there. But, more 23 importantly, can you tell Jackie and the rest of the 24 people what science the NRC -- how does the NRC set its 25
37 NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.
(202) 234-4433 regulations on radiation. I think that gets to who the 1
scientific community is.
2 MR. KUGLER: I'm not sure I got a full answer 3
because it is not my field.
4 This is Andy Kugler again.
5 I know one of the organizations whose 6
information we rely on is the International Committee on 7
Radiation Protection (ICRP). I know there are others. If 8
I had somebody here who has that background, they probably 9
could rattle off the names pretty easily. But they've 10 done independent studies and they've reached conclusions 11 as to what levels of exposure are safe.
12 What we're saying is that we've set our limits 13 within those limits and that these plants operate well 14 below those.
15 We actually have information in the 16 Environmental Impact Statement on the actual, I'm sorry, 17 not the actual but the maximum exposure that anybody could 18 have possibly received from these releases.
19 What we do is, we do a very conservative 20 calculation. If the person stood by the fence all year 21 and ate things that came from the river right next to the 22 plant, you know, things of that sort, basically, what is 23 the most that a person could possibly get based on these 24 releases. Those numbers are very small. They are much 25
38 NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.
(202) 234-4433 less than our limits. And they are in the Environmental 1
Impact Statement. Are they in Section 2.2.7? I'm not 2
certain of the section. It's in chapter two, I believe, 3
where we give that information.
4 I think Barry may have a pamphlet or two from 5
the brochures that we brought that may give a little more 6
information.
7 MR. CAMERON: We also have a recent pamphlet 8
that's written in the context of the project that I think 9
goes into, perhaps, a little detail about how the 10 standards are set by the ICRP, and there's also a NCRP 11 (National Committee on Radiological Protection).
12 MR. MASNIK: I also have some detailed numbers 13 from the plant, and if you want to speak with me after the 14 meeting, I can share those with you on what the releases 15 were for last year and how that compares to the standards.
16 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Let's go to Jackie.
17 MS. TIPPER: I called three different times 18 concerning this meeting to NRC, and I asked -- well, two 19 times I only talked to an answering machine. At one of 20 those times I gave a telephone, two telephone numbers and 21 asked if there was any information on the internet where 22 we could look and find this draft. My call was never 23 returned.
24 This last time that I called they didn't seem to 25
39 NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.
(202) 234-4433 know anything about this meeting at all. I talked to two 1
different people there at that point in time.
2 My question is, this study, the time frame, how 3
long does this time frame hold for? Is this for how many 4
years?
5 MR. MASNIK: This evaluates continued operation 6
of the plant for an additional 20 years at the time the 7
current license expires.
8 MS. TIPPER: So it doesn't cover anything past 9
the additional time that it is licensed for.
10 MR. MASNIK: The three units are currently 11 licensed for a period of time up to 2013, 2014, and 2016.
12 What this evaluates is those dates forward for 20 13 additional years.
14 MS. TIPPER: So after the plant is no longer in 15 use nothing else is covered.
16 MR. MASNIK: Well, there are a number of 17 scenarios but probably one reasonable one would be if the 18 plant receives a license renewal -- and let's pick Unit 2 19
-- at 2014 it would not shut down. Right now under the 20 current license it would have to shut down. It would 21 operate for another 20 years. So that would be 2034. At 22 that time the plant would cease operation and would now 23 enter decommissioning. And there's some requirements for 24 a licensee. For example, five years before the expiration 25
40 NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.
(202) 234-4433 date of the license they have to send in a preliminary 1
decommissioning cost estimate.
2 Then, what would happen is, after the plant 3
permanently ceased operation in 2034, they would enter 4
decommissioning. We'd have another series of public 5
meetings where the licensee and NRC would discuss the 6
decommissioning process. Typically, decommissioning takes 7
probably between eight and ten years additional.
8 MS. TIPPER: Has that ever happened?
9 MR. MASNIK: Oh, yes. We've had a number of 10 facilities -- I apologize for the microphone but we can't 11 seem to fix it.
12 We have a number of facilities that are 13 undergoing decommissioning now. We have the Shoreham 14 Plant, Pathfinder, Fort St. Vrain are three plants that 15 have completely completed the decommissioning process and 16 the license is terminated, and the facility could be used 17 for unrestricted use, which means that you could use it 18 for an industrial facility or, for that matter, for a 19 school.
20 They would remove the radioactivity to a level 21 where it could be used for unrestricted use, what we call 22 unrestricted use.
23 MS. TIPPER: You move the radioactive material 24 away from there?
25
41 NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.
(202) 234-4433 MR. MASNIK: You understand that during the 1
normal operation of the plant you have two things 2
happening: you have contamination, which is radioactive 3
material in places where you don't want it; and, then, you 4
have another process called "activation" where material 5
becomes radioactive if its near the core.
6 Both of those things result in solid objects 7
becoming radioactive. And if you remove that or clean the 8
surface -- I mean, you can actually clean the 9
radioactivity off the surface of an object to the point 10 where you can no longer detect it, and it's considered 11 clean at that point.
12 You would have contaminated liquids. Those can 13 be cleaned up using ion-exchange resins. There's a 14 variety of processes for treating liquid waste. And you 15 end up with water that's no longer contaminated or has 16 very low levels of contamination that you could dispose of 17 at that point.
18 There is a whole field and a whole industry 19 designed to clean these facilities up -- (static) 20 MS. TIPPER: Is this figured into the cost of 21 operating the facilities?
22 MR. MASNIK: Actually, licensees are required by 23 our regulations to have a decommissioning trust fund, 24 which requires them to put a certain amount of money aside 25
42 NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.
(202) 234-4433 each year. The amount of money that is required at the 1
time they permanently cease operation is required by our 2
regulations. It is on the order of three or four hundred 3
million dollars that would have to be put in a trust.
4 So that money, even if, for example, the utility 5
goes bankrupt or has severe financial difficulties, 6
there's sufficient funds available to clean up the 7
facility.
8 MS. TIPPER: Well, it's my understanding that 9
TVA's Trust Fund has been deemed insufficient.
10 MR. MASNIK: Well, I don't know how much there 11 is in the trust fund now, but is there someone here from 12 the licensee who maybe could speak to that issue?
13 MS. TIPPER: And rates are going up and people 14 are losing their jobs.
15 MR. CAMERON: There is a decommissioning trust 16 fund for -- it's by reactor or reactor site.
17 MR. MASNIK: By reactor.
18 MR. CAMERON: By reactor. If anybody has the 19 information in terms of what is in the trust fund for 20 Browns Ferry, we could provide that. But if we don't have 21 that right here, we'll --
22 MR. MASNIK: I do know that every two years, by 23 regulation, they are required to submit a report to the 24 NRC which is reviewed by us.
25
43 NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.
(202) 234-4433 MR. CAMERON: I think we have some information 1
here.
2 MR. BEASLEY: My name is Craig Beasley; I'm with 3
TVA.
4 We do have the decommissioning trust fund. The 5
investment is growing now. It's moving up to the levels 6
where it should be. I don't have those numbers, but I can 7
get them for you tomorrow.
8 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Craig. Thank you very 9
much.
10 Jackie, after the meeting, perhaps you can give 11 us the number that you called at the NRC because maybe 12 we're not getting them the right information to be able to 13 tell people. So that would be very helpful to us.
14 Larry? Anybody have another question before we 15 go on?
16 Nancy.
17 MS. MUSE: The only problem I see with this book 18 is there are footnotes and no references, specific 19 scientists or companies that fund the studies that were 20 used to create this book. I didn't see any kind of 21 references here either.
22 MR. CAMERON: A lot of this is non-profit 23 organizations, government organizations who do this type 24 of work and look at studies that have been done on, you 25
44 NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.
(202) 234-4433 know, Hiroshima or places like that.
1 Can we get -- not right now, but can we get 2
Nancy a fuller set of background on this that will give 3
her an idea?
4 MR. MASNIK: I think if she gives Etoy her name 5
and address we will get you some more information. I 6
mean, those pamphlets were designed for people just to 7
have sort of a general understanding of what it is. If 8
you desire more information, we certainly can get it to 9
you.
10 MR. CAMERON: Okay.
11 MS. MUSE: I have a comment about the ground 12 water. If NEPA does not require the worse case scenario 13 to be examined or outlined, it seems like it would be a 14 very nice courtesy of NRC and TVA to provide us with 15 information as to what would happen. Say, like, back in 16 1975 when a candle started a fire. What would have 17 happened or what could have happened if we did have a melt 18 down to the ground water. It would be a courtesy. It is 19 not legally required but --
20 MR. CAMERON: We'll take that as a comment.
21 MR. ZALCMAN: My name is Barry Zalcman. Let me 22 quickly address some of the issues that you are raising, 23 the worst case analysis.
24 It is probably a wonderful segue 'cause the next 25
45 NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.
(202) 234-4433 person that is going to make a presentation is going to 1
talk about both design basis and severe accidents and some 2
of those impacts you may be interested in. If you still 3
have questions after Mr. Palla makes his presentation, 4
then perhaps we can have a full discussion on it.
5 MR. CAMERON: Let's go to Bob Palla now. If 6
there are other questions, we'll come back. Okay. Let's 7
have Bob, as I mentioned, Senior Reactor Engineer, expert 8
on severe accident analysis, probabilistic risk 9
assessment, and he's going to talk about what we know as 10 SAMAs.
11 MR. PALLA: And I'll mention design basis 12 accidents and severe accidents, and leading up to that.
13 My name is Bob Palla and I'm with the 14 Probabilistic Safety Assessment Branch at NRC, and I'm 15 going to be discussing the environmental impacts of 16 postulated accidents.
17 These impacts are described in Section 5 of the 18 Generic Environmental Impact Statement, or the GEIS, you 19 have heard it referred to. This is a study that was done 20 to cover all plants, done in the 1996 time frame, and many 21 of the conclusions there applied generically were -- the 22 conclusions don't apply generically they are addressed on 23 the plant specific level. That's as background.
24 The GEIS evaluates two classes of accidents:
25
46 NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.
(202) 234-4433 design basis accidents and severe accidents.
1 Design basis accidents are those accidents that 2
both the licensee and NRC staff evaluate to ensure that 3
the plant can safely respond to a broad spectrum of events 4
without risk to the public. So in these events there's no 5
core damage; there's no large releases to the environment.
6 The ability of the plant to withstand these 7
accidents has to be demonstrated before the plant is 8
granted a license. And the licensee has to demonstrate 9
acceptable plant performance for the design basis 10 accidents throughout the life of the plant. And because 11 they continue to demonstrate that they can deal with these 12 events throughout the life of the plant, the Commission 13 has determined that the environmental impact of design 14 basis accidents are of small significance.
15 Neither the licensee nor the NRC is aware of any 16 new and significant information on the capability of the 17 Browns Ferry plant to withstand design basis accidents.
18 Therefore, the staff concludes there are no impacts 19 related to design basis accidents beyond those discussed 20 in the Generic Environmental Impact Statement.
21 Now the second class of accidents discussed in 22 the GEIS are severe accidents. Severe accidents are by 23 definition more severe than design basis accidents because 24 they could result in substantial damage to the reactor 25
47 NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.
(202) 234-4433 core.
1 And I think this is the class of accidents that 2
Nancy is referring to. The worst case accidents are going 3
to be a subset of the severe accidents. Some are more 4
severe than others. Some could result in containment 5
failure and others might not. A TMI type accident, for 6
example; core melt accident but intact containment.
7 Basically, minimal releases from that accident.
8 The Commission found in the GEIS that the risk 9
of a severe accident is small for all plants. And by this 10 I mean this is -- I'm not saying the consequences of an 11 individual accident would be insignificant. They would be 12 very significant, but risk is the probability of an event 13 times the consequences. This is summed over all of the 14 different, you know, hypothetical scenarios. So the 15 probabilistically weighted consequences of severe 16 accidents was determined a to be small for all plants.
17 Therefore, it was judged a Category 1 issue and need not 18 be addressed for license renewal on a plant-specific 19 level.
20 Nevertheless, the Commission determined that 21 alternatives to mitigate severe accidents must be 22 considered for all plants that have not done so. And that 23 is the case for Browns Ferry, that they had not been 24 previously evaluated.
25
48 NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.
(202) 234-4433 So the evaluation of Severe Accident Mitigation 1
Alternates, which are also referred to as SAMAs, is a site 2
specific assessment. It's a Category 2 issue, as we 3
described earlier, which means it gets reviewed on a 4
plant-specific level. And that's what I intend to address 5
here for the remainder of my presentation.
6 Our review is described in Section 5.2 of the 7
Generic Environmental Impact Statement Supplement for 8
Browns Ferry. The document you may have a copy of now.
9 So Section 5.2 is a summary description, a more detail --
10 the full evaluation is in Appendix G of the Supplement.
11 The purpose of performing the SAMA evaluation is 12 to ensure that plant changes with the potential for 13 improving severe accident safety performance are 14 identified and evaluated.
15 The scope of the potential improvements that we 16 considered included hardware modifications, procedure 17 changes, and training program improvements.
18 The scope of the SAMAs that were considered 19 include SAMAs that would prevent core damage as well as 20 SAMAs that would improve containment performance, given 21 that a core damage event were to occur.
22 The SAMA Evaluation Process consists of four 23 steps. The first step is to characterize overall plant 24 risk and the leading contributors to risk. This typically 25
49 NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.
(202) 234-4433 involves extensive use of the plant specific Probabilistic 1
Safety Assessment Study, which is also known as the PSA.
2 The PSA is a study that identifies different 3
combinations of system failures and human errors that 4
would be required to occur in order for an accident to 5
progress to either core damage or containment failure.
6 The second step of the process is to identify 7
potential improvements that could further reduce risk.
8 The information in the PSA, such as the dominant accident 9
sequences, is used to help identify plant improvements 10 that would have the greatest impact in reducing risk.
11 Improvements identified in other NRC and 12 industry studies as well as SAMA analyses for other plants 13 are also considered.
14 The third step in the evaluation is to quantify 15 the risk reduction potential and the implementation costs 16 for each improvement.
17 The risk reduction and implementation costs for 18 each SAMA are typically estimated using a bounding 19 approach. The risk reduction is generally over estimated 20 by assuming that the plant improvement is completely 21 effective in eliminating the accident sequences it is 22 intended to address.
23 On the other hand, the cost estimates are 24 generally under estimated by neglecting certain cost facts 25
50 NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.
(202) 234-4433 such as maintenance cost and surveillance cost that would 1
be associated with the improvement.
2 The risk reduction and cost estimates are used 3
in the final step to determine whether implementation of 4
any of the improvements can be justified; and in 5
determining whether an improvement is justified we look at 6
three factors.
7 We look at whether the improvement is cost 8
beneficial. In other words, is the estimated benefit of 9
implementing the SAMA greater than the estimated 10 implementation costs.
11 The second factor is whether the improvement 12 provides a significant reduction in total risk. For 13 example, does it eliminate an accident sequence or a 14 containment failure mode that contributes to a large 15 fraction of plant risk.
16 And the third factor is whether the risk 17 reduction is associated with aging effects during the 18 period of extended operation. In which case, if it was, 19 we would consider implementation of the SAMA as part of 20 the license renewal process.
21 The results of our evaluation are summarized 22 here. Approximately 135 candidate improvements were 23 identified for each of the Browns Ferry units based on 24 review of plant specific PSAs, relevant industry and NRC 25
51 NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.
(202) 234-4433 studies on severe accidents, and SAMA analyses performed 1
for other plants.
2 TVA reduced the number of candidate SAMAs to 43 3
based on a multi-step screening process. Factors 4
considered during the screening included whether SAMA is 5
not applicable to Browns Ferry due to design differences, 6
or might have been already been addressed in the existing 7
Browns Ferry design procedures or training programs.
8 A more detailed assessment of the conceptual 9
design and the costs was then performed for each of the 43 10 remaining SAMAs. This is described in detail in Appendix 11 G of the Supplement for Browns Ferry.
12 The detail cost analysis shows that none of the 13 SAMAs would be cost beneficial, even if uncertainties in 14 the analysis are taken in to account.
15 So, accordingly, our preliminary conclusion is 16 that no SAMAs are required to be implemented at Browns 17 Ferry as part of license renewal.
18 This concludes my presentation on the SAMAs.
19 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Bob.
20 I believe we have a question back here.
21 MS. MUSE: Well, I understand -- I think the 22 surface level of your process, but I'm wondering just on a 23 layman's level what would happen. Despite all the SAMA 24 and the other terminology you referred to, what would have 25
52 NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.
(202) 234-4433 happened in 1975 or what can still happen if there was a 1
mechanical failure and we did have a melt down? I would 2
like to know, you know, here in this room, what would 3
happen to the ground water.
4 MR. PALLA: What would happen to?
5 MS. MUSE: Yes, if we had a melt down.
6 MR. PALLA: To ground water. Well --
7 MR. CAMERON: In other words, Bob, this may be 8
out of your area because what Nancy is assuming that all 9
of these preventive measures fail and that there's 10 actually is an accident and what would be the effect on 11 the ground water. I don't know if any of us want to 12 speculate on that, except to say that it obviously is not 13 going to be a good event.
14 MR. PALLA: Let me just begin by saying that all 15 of these postulated events are not equal. Some are more 16 severe than others. You can have a core damage event that 17 core damage is arrested in vessel. The core may never 18 leave the vessel, the radiation may still be contained 19 within the containment. It could be a TMI type accident.
20 So not all accidents result in full blown core melts, 21 failure of the vessel. Even if the vessel failed, the 22 core damage could still be arrested within the 23 containment.
24 There are severe guidelines that have been 25
53 NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.
(202) 234-4433 implemented at plants, including Browns Ferry, that direct 1
operators to add water to the containment, to the dry 2
well. So in the event the reactor vessel would fail, and 3
the core would melt through it, there would be water in 4
the dry well, and that this water could quench the debris 5
as it leaves the vessel. So it would be arrested there.
6 Again, it would be contained.
7 There are certain measures -- in the event that 8
all of those measures fail the core melt isn't a China 9
Syndrome, like in the movies. The molten core debris 10 eventually is quenched. It takes many, many hours to 11 breach a concrete base.
12 Over the course of -- probably on the order of a 13 day or more, typical time associated with base melt 14 through, certain measures could be taken to confine the 15 fission products.
16 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Bob.
17 Mike, you are going --
18 MR. MASNIK: We also had some experience 19 unfortunately on this at Three Mile Island where we did 20 have a core melt, and we did have a relocation of 33 tons 21 of the core to the bottom head of the vessel. The system 22 worked. I mean it essentially contained the molten core 23 and there was no release of material through the bottom 24 head.
25
54 NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.
(202) 234-4433 Subsequent to that, there was some contamination 1
and some of that contamination found its way through the 2
concrete base mat in one of the auxiliary buildings. It 3
did get into the ground water but it didn't move very 4
much. It turns out that very often the radioisotopes are 5
attached to clay particles, so we didn't see much movement 6
of most of the radioisotopes that were released from the 7
facility.
8 You can speculate a lot, but we have a little 9
experience in that area as well.
10 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Bob; thank you, Mike.
11 Jackie.
12 MS. TIPPER: The Browns Ferry reactors are a BWR 13 mark IGE-4 design which has numerous inherent safety flaws 14 including elevated spent fuel pools that are vulnerable 15 from above, and above-ground reactor and a thin steel 16 shell in place of the traditional containment dome.
17 Now, I don't know about you all, but the worst 18 case scenario after 911 to me was somebody flying a great 19 big jet into the reactor. And it is my understanding that 20 this plant could not withstand that type of accident.
21 Also, that the building that the control 22 mechanisms are in does not have a real strong enforcement 23 on it, as well as the above-ground storage.
24 This is a major concern. I've thought about it 25
55 NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.
(202) 234-4433 many times. I live right across the river. I'm on the 1
other side of the river. I'm a school teacher. You know, 2
I teach children. This is something that we think about.
3 MR. CAMERON: That's why it is particularly 4
important for you to be here and for us to provide you 5
some information about security generally.
6 Specifically, if Andy or any of the others can 7
talk about any studies that have been done in terms of, 8
you know, aircraft, this type of design, whatever, I'll 9
turn it over to you.
10 MR. KUGLER: I don't have any specific details 11 on this particular design, but even before 911, NRC took 12 security of these plants very seriously. And since 911, 13 obviously, we've taken a lot of steps to even go further.
14 There have been a number of orders and 15 advisories to the plants to beef up security. A number of 16 changes have been made to improve security at the plants, 17 and the staff is continuing to evaluate what other changes 18 may be appropriate. Obviously, there's a lot of that.
19 Even if I have the information, I couldn't 20 really say much about it because of the nature of the 21 information. But because it is not something I need to 22 know I don't even have it.
23 In terms of the way we look at accidents in an 24 Environmental Impact Statement, we don't specifically look 25
56 NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.
(202) 234-4433 at leveling events, you know, attacks on the plant. What 1
we do look at is what things would have to fail, for 2
whatever reason, whether it be because of an equipment 3
failure or because of some intention act, what things 4
would have to fail to lead to these sorts of accidents.
5 In the sense that we look at the worst case sort 6
of accidents, we do that. We don't look at specific 7
causes such as some external force or starting the event.
8 I don't know if that helps, but I think that's 9
probably all I have that I could add at this point.
10 MR. CAMERON: And I think, Barry, we do have a 11 little bit of a summary of some things that we've been 12 doing that provide you with some more detail on that.
13 Grant.
14 MR. DORSEY: My first question actually is, how 15 many people are here that are not with the NRC or TVA?
16 (Hands raised) 17 So we have five people. Six.
18 Is a transcript of this going to be made 19 available or disseminated through -- I don't live in this 20 county. I live across the river in another county. I 21 live 15 miles down the river, so whatever happens here, 22 you know, it goes down stream. So my involvement is just 23 as much as anybody that lives in this county where these 24 notices were posted and so forth. They never got to where 25
57 NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.
(202) 234-4433 I live. So I'm interested in that.
1 You were talking about cost of risk reduction 2
and whether the cost to the supplier (TVA) to reduce a 3
risk is worth what? Is it worth having a leak for the 4
money it is going to cost them to fix it? You talked 5
about evaluating the cost of that reduction. The cost 6
benefit analysis.
7 Do you ever think about -- when you build 8
buildings, when you build a surgical center, you expect at 9
some point to recoup that cost the ten billion dollars 10 that it cost you to build that surgical center, eventually 11 at some point it is going to be paid and you are actually 12 going to start making money.
13 Do you guys ever take into consideration the 14 cost of -- what a facility costs to build, and is it ever 15 going to pay for itself 20 years down the road? Will TVA 16 ever recoup the cost of those billions of dollars to 17 reactive this unit in my life time? If not, why are we 18 doing this? Why are they doing it?
19 MR. CAMERON: Can we address this?
20 MR. PALLA: I'll probably start with that one 21 and work backwards as best I can. I hope I can remember 22 the question.
23 Let me start with that one. From the NRC's 24 perspective it is not really relevant to us whether they 25
58 NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.
(202) 234-4433 recoup their cost. That's a decision they make. I assume 1
they're only going to make a decision like that if they 2
feel they can recoup the cost. But for us, that's not a 3
concern for us. Our concern is safety. So that's a 4
simple answer to that part of that question.
5 In terms of why we're looking at cost benefit 6
when we're looking at these improvements, the best way to 7
explain that is, our regulations require them to operate 8
within a certain box. As long as they stay within that 9
box, they should be -- they're operating safety. Okay.
10 What we're doing here is saying, okay, you're 11 inside the box; you're operating safely. That's all good.
12 Are there any other things that you could do that might 13 even make it better? Not necessarily required but they 14 could still make it better.
15 Then, if we find some things that look like, 16 yeah, these are things that could improve performance in 17 certain accident sequences, then we say, all right, is it 18 worth the possible benefit that you can get out of it.
19 The thing is that plants have looked at severe 20 accident analysis since the 80s, and issues they've 21 identified -- vulnerabilities that they've identified in 22 their plants have already been dealt with. So at this 23 stage, this far along, we're not likely to find very much, 24 but we still look.
25
59 NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.
(202) 234-4433 Usually, most of the things we are finding now 1
are things that are relatively low cost. Perhaps some 2
additional training or procedure changes. But that's why 3
we look at cost benefits because we're already in the 4
place where the plants are being operated safely, and 5
we're just looking at places where maybe there can be some 6
improvements.
7 MR. CAMERON: Can we send Grant and others a 8
copy of the transcript?
9 MR. PALLA: If you signed up on the card and 10 asked to be put on the mailing list, everybody on our 11 mailing list is going to get a copy of the meeting 12 summary, and will also get a copy of the Final 13 Environmental Impact Statement when it is issued.
14 Automatically, we just send that out.
15 In terms of how other people can reach it, we do 16 put these documents -- the Environmental Impact Statements 17 themselves are directly on the web page. Other documents 18 that either we issue or we receive from licensees are 19 available through our document management system, which is 20 also accessible through our web page. Anybody from 21 anywhere can get at these documents.
22 MR. DORSEY: If they're aware that they're 23 there.
24 MR. PALLA: If they're aware that they're there.
25
60 NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.
(202) 234-4433 I understand that. That's where the mailing list comes 1
in. When people sign up or come into these meetings and 2
give us the information, we will send them that 3
information. Beyond that, you know, how would you reach 4
everybody in however many counties? There is no way to do 5
it. The people have to -- well, you know, you can't. I 6
can't mail it to everybody in the surrounding counties, 7
but we do make it available on the web so that anybody can 8
get at it if they have an interest.
9 MR. CAMERON: And you are going to get some more 10 paper.
11 Let's take another question and, then, go to the 12 summary, and listen to you a little bit more formally.
13 Nancy.
14 MS. MUSE: I appreciate the knowledge and wisdom 15 of many folks in this room that know a whole lot more 16 about this technology than I do. And with all due 17 respect, I'm a school teacher also, and I have two 18 questions or statements. And I'm not accusing anyone of 19 actually willingly participating in the comedy of the 20 absurd or the comedy of errors, but it seems like we are 21 dancing around the main issue.
22 All the studies on issue, I really appreciate.
23 Thank you for doing your job. I know you are doing the 24 best you can. But one reason why there is only five of us 25
61 NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.
(202) 234-4433 here is because people in this area don't ask questions.
1 They hear what's in the news or in the newspaper and they 2
don't dig deeper. And with all of these wonderful studies 3
you've done, it still does not address the most crucial 4
issue concerning the operation of this plant.
5 We came seriously close in 1975 to a very major 6
accident, which was reported on the East and West coast 7
before people in this are knew what had happened.
8 We have politicians who are unopposed to nuclear 9
energy and nuclear power who suppress the stark, cold 10 reality (static)...
11 Also, the issue of radioactive waste from this 12 plant, I would like to have a history of where this waste 13 has gone, what kind of waste has gone where, where is it 14 going now, how much of it is still stored on the site. A 15 lot of people don't understand that we have a nuclear 16 waste ground right here in our back yard. And somebody 17 are naive and oblivious to the realities of this 18 technology.
19 Like I said, it seems like the talk tonight is 20 very useful. And I do know that you're doing the best you 21 can, but we're dancing around the issue. We're playing 22 ring-around-the-rosy.
23 Jackie mentioned 911. We all thought these 24 worst case scenarios were ridiculous and are never going 25
62 NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.
(202) 234-4433 to happen; that people projected that this could happen 30 1
years ago or if not longer, and now we're in the age of 2
the worst case scenario. I think it is absurd not to be 3
addressing these issues primarily and foremost, especially 4
since the citizen's money is going to fund these projects 5
without them having all of the information out there in 6
front of them. I think it is really immoral. And I'm not 7
blaming any one person in this room because you're doing 8
your job. The technology is here. We did not invent it; 9
we're dealing with it.
10 But I think it is time to phase it out and I 11 would like for everyone in this room to please consider 12 looking at options to restarting these plants.
13 Thank you.
14 MR. CAMERON: Thank you. I think that was more 15 in the form of a comment. Thank you, Nancy. I think that 16 my colleagues would say that we're trying to address the 17 issue to make sure the plants are safe. Our 18 responsibility -- in fact, the only thing we are 19 authorized to do is to consider whether the plants are 20 safe and meeting our safety regulations. And if they do 21 that, then they can operate it unless something changes on 22 the congressional level.
23 Mike, do you want to talk about conclusions.
24 MR. MASNIK: Turning to our conclusions now, we 25
63 NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.
(202) 234-4433 found that for license renewal, the environmental impacts 1
are small in all areas.
2 When we examined alternatives to license 3
renewal, including the no action alternative, the 4
environmental impact range from small, to moderate, to 5
large.
6 Based on these results, our preliminary 7
conclusion is that by operating the Browns Ferry Nuclear 8
Plant Units 1, 2, and 3 for an additional 20 years, the 9
impacts would be small. Therefore, the option to renew 10 the license should be preserved for energy-planning 11 decision makers.
12 Next slide.
13 As I mentioned before, the Draft Environmental 14 Impact Statement was made available to the public on 15 December 10, 2004. So what happens next?
16 Well, we're in the middle of a 75-day comment 17 period that runs until March 2nd, 2005. After that, we 18 will review and consider the comments received at today's 19 meeting, as well as any written comments we receive during 20 the comment period.
21 Then, we will modify the Environmental Impact 22 Statement after considering all the comments and release a 23 final draft by the end of July of this year.
24 Next slide provides the NRC's point of contact 25
64 NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.
(202) 234-4433 for the license renewal and provides the address of a 1
repository for documents pertaining to the environmental 2
review.
3 I am the agency point of contact, and the 4
Athens-Limestone Public Library at 405 East South Street, 5
Athens, Alabama has agreed to make documents related to 6
the environmental review available to the public.
7 Single copies of the Environmental Impact 8
Statement are available today from Etoy in the back of the 9
room.
10 For those of you that prefer to review documents 11 in front of a computer screen, the Draft Environmental 12 Impact Statement is available at the web address at the 13 bottom here.
14 So, outside of this meeting today, there are 15 three additional ways you can provide us with comments.
16 One is by writing to us at this address, my address; the 17 second way is by dropping off your comments to me in 18 person, up in Rockville; and the third, we've set up a 19 special email address just for the Environmental Impact 20 Statement. And this address is: BrownsFerryEIS@NRC.gov.
21 As I said, all comments will be considered in 22 our final Environmental Impact Statement.
23 In conclusion, I want to take time to thank you 24 for attending the meeting for this very important process, 25
65 NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.
(202) 234-4433 and please take the brochures and other information back 1
with you.
2 As I mentioned, we have single copies of the EIS 3
available for you to take home.
4 Thank you.
5 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Mike.
6 Before we go to comments, Jackie, do you have a 7
question us?
8 MS. TIPPER: I would like those questions Nancy 9
presented concerning the waste to be answered and to know 10 specifically is plutonium produced from nuclear plants, 11 isotopes half lives, you know. I would like for the waste 12 to be addressed.
13 MR. CAMERON: You just had a question that you 14 raised now about plutonium. Is there anyway -- I think, 15 Nancy, you asked about how much spent fuel, basically, is 16 produced by one of these plants. Can we generally address 17 that as well as what the elements are? I mean I want to 18 try to do this. These are important points, but I would 19 like to try to do it simply, if we could, right now.
20 Mike, I don't know if we can or if you are the 21 right person, but I think you sense what the type of 22 information is that Jackie and Nancy would like to hear, 23 which talks about volume, quantity, and potential 24 toxicity, I guess.
25
66 NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.
(202) 234-4433 MR. MASNIK: I'll answer the simplest question 1
first, and that is, during nuclear reaction in the reactor 2
core, plutonium is produced and it is one of the fission 3
products. That plutonium, of course, is part of the spent 4
fuel and it is considered self-protecting in that it is so 5
radioactive that it would be very difficult for someone to 6
get very close to it.
7 The question on waste, I can't give you a 8
precise number of the volume or the weight of waste that 9
is produced. But I've read accounts where the amount of 10 high level waste that is generated by a plant during one 11 year of operation could fit underneath one of these 12 tables. It is not -- I mean, it is the form of long rods 13 now, but if you disassemble those rods and put that amount 14 of material in a container, it would be about the size of 15 one of -- it would be able to fit underneath one of these 16 tables.
17 That waste is currently stored on site. There 18 is no place at this time to ship that waste. The waste is 19 stored in spent fuel pool, in a wet environment (in a 20 pool, under water) and the licensee also has plans to 21 store the fuel in dry storage, in an independent spent 22 fuel storage facility, or ISFS site until a permanent 23 high-level waste repository is available, and then the 24 fuel will be shipped there and disposed of permanently.
25
67 NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.
(202) 234-4433 MR. CAMERON: Two followups on that and then 1
we're going to go to the next part of the meeting.
2 Nancy.
3 MS. MUSE: Well, it goes against common sense to 4
plunge forward with this technology when we've had years 5
to find this permanent repository or depository for the 6
spent fuel.
7 Science is wonderful, but it doesn't compare 8
with common sense then it's not very useful.
9 If you have a toilet that's clogged up, you 10 don't keep using the toilet.
11 I have concerns too. I think more people would 12 be here tonight if these kinds of issues were in the 13 newspaper, if the politicians didn't stifle this 14 information, which I know does happen. If you start 15 talking about transporting this highly radioactive 16 material across the country to Utah or out west to the 17 Rocky Mountains, there are going to be people in those 18 states that are going to not be happy. That's already 19 been proven to be true. And they're going to see people 20 very worried about the security of that transported waste.
21 And to me it is just absurd to have these kinds 22 of questions looming over our heads and to spend all of 23 this money to further this technology.
24 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Nancy, we have that 25
68 NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.
(202) 234-4433 comment on the transcript.
1 Jackie.
2 MS. TIPPER: One of the things mentioned in the 3
study has to do with the economic impact. Well, the half 4
life of plutonium is -- what is it(?) 240,000 years?
5 That's going to have to be guarded for that long. How can 6
we rationalize this to our children, to the future? We 7
don't even have a place to put it right now.
8 Like Nancy said, this really doesn't make any 9
sense.
10 The economic impact also. I mean how much money 11 is that going to cost? In this area right now TVA, their 12 estimated cost for restarting Unit 1 is 1.8 billion 13 dollars, which exceeds the U.S. Department of Energy's 14 highest cost estimate by $100 million. TVA has an 15 existing debt of around 250 billion dollars and they don't 16 have much more room on that. This is being passed on to 17 their customers. This is a major concern here.
18 People are losing their jobs and there are 19 people considering -- no people, whole areas that are 20 considering not even using TVA power now. This is 21 something to think about, too. This is going to be on the 22 back of the future generations. We need to consider these 23 things, definitely.
24 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Jackie.
25
69 NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.
(202) 234-4433 MR. MASNIK: I understand the comment, and we'll 1
consider it.
2 MS. TIPPER: One more, okay? I know that you 3
won't go in and do the inspections and everything. Please 4
do a really good job, because on Unit 1 there have been a 5
number of whistle blowers that have lost their jobs.
6 One acquaintance of mine is an avid supporter of 7
nuclear power. He did his job; saw things that should 8
have been done in other ways, or were not being done 9
properly; he lost his job. Things like this are going on.
10 When we almost had the melt down with the first 11 accident, I knew some of the people that worked at Browns 12 Ferry, and one of them was a operator who was a severe 13 alcoholic. He was killed in a car wreck on the way to 14 work, on the way to work.
15 I thought okay, it's better now. We don't 16 really have to worry about this, you know. TVA has 17 really cleaned up their act and they're doing a better 18 job. Then, when I hear about all of these whistle blowers 19 with Unit 1, that's scary. That's really scary. And I 20 did know this guy, and he was an operator.
21 You all have got to do the very, very best that 22 you can to make sure that everything -- if it happens, 23 it's done really right.
24 How many other plants in the United States have 25
70 NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.
(202) 234-4433 been relicensed? Aren't most people getting away from 1
nuclear power? Renewable energy sources. If we had just 2
put the money that we poured in to nuclear power toward 3
renewable energy sources and conservation. We don't do 4
squat with conservation. We could save billions and 5
billions of dollars just with conservation.
6 MR. CAMERON: One thing we can get is the number 7
of license renewals. And at the risk of you getting one 8
more piece of paper -- because he's thinking over there --
9 we do take very seriously allegations from people who 10 raise safety concerns.
11 With that, Barry, could you bring that pamphlet 12 over for Grant and Jackie.
13 Thank you for that admonition and we take that 14 seriously.
15 MR. MASNIK: I just want to say the number is 16 about 20, 21 have had their license renewal, and 21 units 17 and not necessarily sites. We have five or six inhouse 18 now. There have been quite a few. And we do take our job 19 very seriously. I want you to know that.
20 MR. CAMERON: We're going to move on to the 21 formal comment part of the meeting. We can come back if 22 there's another question, but I really would like to get 23 you on and get it on the record.
24 Usually, when we do these, we find it useful to 25
71 NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.
(202) 234-4433 have people here just generally, before they talk what the 1
rationale and the vision, so to speak, of the company is 2
in terms of license renewal.
3 We have Mr. Chuck Wilson as our first speaker 4
who is the License Renewal Environmental Management 5
Project Manager for TVA. Would you like to address us for 6
a few minutes?
7 MR. WILSON: Thanks, Chip. I'll be very brief.
8 Once again, I'm Chuck Wilson. I'm the License 9
Renewal Environmental Project Manager for TVA. I've got a 10 couple of comments to make.
11 TVA is reviewing also NRC's draft Environmental 12 Impact Statement and will be providing comments on or 13 before the comment period closes March 2nd.
14 TVA agrees with NRC's basic overall conclusion 15 that the environmental impacts of Browns Ferry License 16 Renewal are minimal. We can say that because being a 17 Federal agency we also have to comply with NEPA.
18 In the spring of 2002 we completed our own 19 Environmental Impact Statement which addressed Browns 20 Ferry License Renewal and Browns Ferry Unit 1 restart.
21 There were no significant environmental impacts, and we 22 did find that, in general, license renewal allows power 23 production without greenhouse gases, which is consistent 24 with TVA's clean air initiatives that you hear so much 25
72 NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.
(202) 234-4433 about.
1 License renewal also maximizes use of existing 2
assets and it avoids the impacts of new site construction.
3 So, in general, we fully supported renewing the 4
licenses of Browns Ferry as a good thing to do.
5 Thanks. That's all I've got to say.
6 MR. CAMERON: Thank you very much.
7 We're going to go to Jackie. Would you like to 8
come up and comment for us? You can stay there and use 9
this, if you prefer, or you can come up there.
10 MS. TIPPER: I'll use this.
11 The major problem with nuclear power has to do 12 with storage of the waste. I don't think anybody has 13 really figured in how much this is going to cost. I don't 14 think they can. That's what makes nuclear power totally 15 unfeasible, and the possibility of accidents, even though 16 they might be very remote, would be so catastrophic that 17 we're going with this.
18 There are alternatives. There are answers to 19 clean air other than nuclear power. We have incentives 20 for solar power and conservation. There's nothing out 21 there now.
22 Jimmy Carter had great programs going for 23 getting people into renewable energy sources. We're not 24 doing any of that now. We can come up with solutions that 25
73 NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.
(202) 234-4433 are safe that the generations ahead of us are not going to 1
have to take care of and guard and be afraid of. This is 2
what is just wrong. It is morally wrong what we're doing.
3 How can you tell children, you know, we can burn 4
all the lights we want to and it will be cheap. It is not 5
going to be cheap. It is expensive. TVA has spent a 6
fortune on their power. (static)...Yellow Creek with 7
babies and backpacks...(static)...they're grown up and 8
their activists also.
9 It was wrong then and it is wrong now. You all 10 can do your job the very best you can, but that waste is 11 still going to be there. And we don't have faith in the 12 human race, if this is the only way to go. We are too 13 short sighted. Everybody maybe thinks that the world is 14 going to end tomorrow, but we don't know. We're supposed 15 to be stewards. We don't know this.
16 And I sure wish there were more people that paid 17 attention and cared. So few people read the paper. Still 18 look at the elections -- I won't go there.
19 Amendment 2 failing. That's one of my main 20 peeves right there.
21 This is something that we really need to look 22 at, and the cost of it. I hear that they're talking about 23
-- well, no, not here that they're talking about, there's 24 been a huge grant to do a study for Bellefonte. And what 25
74 NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.
(202) 234-4433 did we pump in to an endless pit there, four billion 1
dollars, was it? Four billion dollars for absolutely 2
nothing now. And now we're going off on some other 3
tangent.
4 Let's just try to do better.
5 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Jackie.
6 Nancy, can we go to you and then we'll go to 7
Grant. Do you want to come up or do you want to use this?
8 MS. MUSE: I'm Nancy Muse, Florence, Alabama.
9 This may not be the most appropriate time for me 10 to voice this concern or make a comment about 11 responsibility, corporate responsibility or government 12 responsibility, ethical responsibility.
13 One of the guys that was involved in an accident 14 at Browns Ferry not too long after we had this meeting --
15 I guess it was last year, last spring, last April --
16 happened to be one of my old students when I taught him in 17 high school. And as fate would have it, our paths crossed 18 shortly after that accident.
19 He described to me what happened to him. He 20 inhaled radioactive particles or particulates and I cannot 21 envision exactly how it happened, but I believe it was 22 radioactive water or steam escaped into the air and he 23 happened to be there at the wrong time, and he inhaled it.
24 Now what really was totally immoral and absurd 25
75 NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.
(202) 234-4433 that this nuclear industry from the uranium mining all the 1
way to the making of plutonium avoids any responsibility 2
when workers in the mines, Native Americans, on down the 3
line, pipefitters, get cancer. They always claim that it 4
had nothing to do with the exposure of those workers, and 5
somehow have gotten by with this.
6 There was a lawyer from Tennessee that 7
represented indigenous Native Americans back in, I guess, 8
the 70s who had their skin falling off, who had worked in 9
the uranium mines. The industry denied any wrongdoing or 10 any responsibility to help these people.
11 One of my lingering question marks is, this ex-12 student is a great guy. He used to wear snakeskin boots 13 and have one of those little Billy Ray Cyrus haircuts back 14 in the 80s, loves life. One of these days if he gets lung 15 cancer or leukemia or some other form of cancer what is 16 TVA going to say to him: well, we had nothing to do with 17 it?
18 If I'm in the nursing home and I can still find 19 out what's going on, if I can make it that long, I'm going 20 to follow him around and I'm just going to see what 21 happens to him. I'm going to document it. I'm going to 22 make my own personal file on this ex-student of mine that 23 I love dearly and see what happens to him. And if this 24 industry is going to take the responsibility of what may 25
76 NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.
(202) 234-4433 befall him. He's just one out of a thousand workers who 1
have not been in the reports because it isn't very good 2
for the industry to admit that these things have happened, 3
and no responsibility has been taken by the industry.
4 For now that's it.
5 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Nancy.
6 Grant, do you want to talk to us.
7 MR. DORSEY: Well, one major comment is on the 8
economic side, as I mentioned earlier. If you build a 9
clinic, then at some point you expect that clinic to be 10 paid for before it starts making money.
11 TVA has spent $2 billion dollars to restart 12 Browns Ferry Unit. Is it possible that TVA is going to 13 recuperate $2 billion dollars from one nuclear reactor in 14 20 years? It doesn't seem likely to me that that's going 15 to happen.
16 They abandoned a $360 million dollar project, a 17 gas-fired power plant a $150 million dollars into the 18 project, and it was deemed lack of demand. That was in 19 March of '02. So from '02 to now we've come to the point 20 where we need to spend $3 billion dollars to reactivate a 21 nuclear reactor, and I don't understand how it is going to 22 be paid for or how it is going to pay for itself. The 23 math doesn't work in my head. Maybe I don't know how to 24 add figures that big. It doesn't work for me.
25
77 NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.
(202) 234-4433 MR. CAMERON: Thank you very much.
1 I think that's the last formal speaker that we 2
had. I know that Nancy was holding a question from 3
before. Do you still have a question?
4 MS. TIPPER: I had a question. What's another 5
ten minutes? Just kidding. It might take one minute.
6 This is just for the record. I'm Nancy Muse 7
from Florence, Alabama. I'm against TVA's future 8
commitment, or present commitment also, to the nuclear 9
program, regardless of the specific information within the 10 environmental assessment and/or environmental impact 11 statement.
12 The problems associated with short-and long-13 term of handling of storage of nuclear waste far outweigh 14 the short-sighted continuation of this astronomically 15 expensive and dangerous technology, when we should be 16 committing money to renewable and sustainable alternative 17 energy sources, such as photovoltaics and wind power.
18 Which, when pared with conservation, is a much more 19 logical solution to our energy needs.
20 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Nancy.
21 And I would just like to thank all of you for 22 your comments and bringing your concerns forward to us. I 23 think you can see from some of the things that the NRC 24 staff said about what we're doing here, the concerns are 25
78 NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.
(202) 234-4433 always important to us. Some of the concerns we can try 1
to address because they're within our areas of 2
responsibility, but I think all of the concerns are 3
important to us as Americans in terms of larger policy 4
choices.
5 Thank you for your comments tonight.
6 I'm just going to ask Andy Kugler to close the 7
meeting for us. Andy.
8 If you can, please stay after the meeting 9
because the staff and our experts are here. If there is 10 anything else you want to talk about, if there's any other 11 documents you want to take home, we can get those for you 12 too.
13 Andy.
14 MR. KUGLER: I just wanted to thank you again 15 for coming out this evening.
16 One thing I did want to mention. In the packet 17 of materials that Etoy gave you when you came in, one of 18 the items was a Meeting Feedback Form. We look for ways 19 to try to do things better, and if you have some 20 suggestions on what we could do, we would certainly 21 appreciate that feedback. You can either fill it out now 22 and drop it off at the back, or its prepostage paid and 23 you can fill it out later and mail it in. Either way. It 24 will get to us and we can take a look at what comments you 25
79 NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.
(202) 234-4433 may have.
1 Beyond that, as Chip mentioned, we will be 2
staying after the meeting. We would be happy to talk to 3
you about any questions you may have.
4 Other than that, thank you for coming again, and 5
drive safely going home.
6 Thank you.
7 (Whereupon at 8:44 p.m. the meeting was closed.)
8 9
10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25
80 NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.
(202) 234-4433 Document name: E:\\Filenet\\ML050620227.wpd 1
2 3
4