ML050920007
| ML050920007 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Point Beach  |
| Issue date: | 03/03/2005 |
| From: | Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation |
| To: | |
| Imboden S, NRR/DRIP/RLEP, 415-2462 | |
| Shared Package | |
| ML050920006 | List: |
| References | |
| TAC MC2049, TAC MC2050 | |
| Download: ML050920007 (29) | |
Text
NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
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NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
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DRAFT ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT STATEMENT FOR POINT BEACH NUCLEAR PLANT, UNITS 1 AND 2
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LICENSE RENEWAL APPLICATION THURSDAY MARCH 3, 2005
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MISHICOT, WISCONSIN
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The Draft Environmental Impact Statement Session met at Fox Hills, 250 West Church St.,
Mishicot, Wisconsin at 1:30 p.m., Francis Cameron facilitating.
PRESENT:
FRANCIS CAMERON, Facilitator ANDREW KUGLER, Section Chief STACEY IMBODEN, Project Manager PAUL SCHUMANN, Team Leader RICHARD EMCH, Backup Project Manager
2 NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433 I N D E X 1
2 AGENDA ITEM PAGE 3
4 Welcome and Purpose of Meeting 3 5
Overview of License Renewal Process 12 6
Results of the Environmental Review 15 7
How Comments can be Submitted 33 8
Closing 34 9
10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24
3 NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433 P R O C E E D I N G S 1
(1:30 P.M.)
2 MR. CAMERON: Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Chip 3
Cameron, I'm the Special Counsel for Public Liaison at the Nuclear 4
Regulatory Commission, the NRC as we'll be referring to it this 5
afternoon. And I just want to welcome all of you to our public 6
meeting, your public meeting and our public meeting. And the subject 7
today is the Draft Environmental Impact Statement that the NRC has 8
prepared to assist it in it's evaluation of an application that we 9
received from the Nuclear Management Company to renew the licenses to 10 operate the Point Beach Units 1 and 2 reactors. And it's my pleasure 11 to serve as your facilitator for today's meeting, and in that role 12 I'll try to help all of you to have a productive meeting.
13 I just wanted to cover a few things on meeting process 14 before we get into the substance of our discussions this afternoon.
15 I'd like to tell you a little bit about the format for the meeting, 16 the ground rules for the meeting, and to introduce the NRC speakers 17 who are going to be talking to you this afternoon.
18 In terms of format, it's a two-part meeting, and those 19 parts of the meeting that are objectives for the meeting. The first 20 part is to give you information about the NRC's license renewal 21 process, what do we look at in evaluating whether to grant the license 22 renewal. And we'll be giving you information on the process 23 generally, but more specifically we're going to tell you about the 24 analysis and findings that are in the Draft Environmental Impact 25
4 NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433 Statement that we've prepared on this license renewal application.
1 And we'll have some brief NRC presentations then we'll go on to you to 2
see if you have any questions on these presentations and we'll try our 3
best to answer your questions and get you the information you need.
4 The second part of the meeting is an opportunity for us 5
to listen to you, to your advice, your recommendations, your comments, 6
concerns on what's in the Draft Environmental Impact Statement and on 7
license renewal and in general. And I would emphasize the word draft.
8 This is not going to be finalized. This is Draft Environmental Impact 9
Statement until we evaluate all the comments that we hear from you 10 today and written comments that we have received. The staff will be 11 telling you a little bit more about how to submit written comments and 12 the date for doing so. But I just want to assure you that anything 13 that you say this afternoon will carry the same weight as a written 14 comment.
15 In terms of ground rules, they're very simple. If you 16 have a question after the various NRC presentations, and we won't make 17 you sit through all of them before we go out to you, we'll do a couple 18 on, for example, process and then go out to you for questions. And 19 then we'll hear about the Draft Environmental Impact Statement and go 20 out to you for questions. But if you have a question, just signal me 21 and I'll bring you this cordless microphone, and if you could just 22 introduce yourself to us as well as any affiliation if that's 23 appropriate.
24 I would ask that only one person speak at a time. We 25
5 NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433 have Mr. LeGrand who is taking a transcript for us tonight and one 1
person at a time will help him to get a clear transcript. But more 2
importantly, we'll be able to give our full attention to whomever has 3
the microphone at the moment. And I don't think this is going to be a 4
problem today because I don't think we'll be pressed for time. But if 5
you could try to be concise in your comments and questions, that will 6
make sure that everybody who wants to has an opportunity to speak.
7 In terms of the NRC staff who are going to be talking to 8
you, we're going to have a welcome first from Mr. Andy Kugler who is 9
right here. And Andy is the Chief of the Environmental Review Section 10 within the License Renewal and Environmental Impact Program at the 11 Nuclear Regulatory Commission. It's in our Office of Nuclear Reactor 12 Regulation. Andy and his staff have the responsibilities for doing 13 the environmental analyses for any type of reactor licensing issue, 14 whether it's license renewal such as that involved here or whether, 15 for example, an early site permit that we have received from a few 16 companies. But that's what Andy and his staff specialize in.
17 He has been with the NRC for approximately 14 years and 18 it's seeming longer all the time probably. But Andy was in the Naval 19 Nuclear Program before joining the NRC. He's also worked for nuclear 20 utility private sector. He has a Bachelor's degree in Mechanical 21 Engineering from Cooper Union in Manhattan, and a Master's in 22 Technical Management from Johns Hopkins University.
23 And after Andy gives you a welcome and an overview 24 perspective on license renewal generally, we're going to go to Stacey 25
6 NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433 Imboden who is right here. Stacey is the Project Manager for the 1
Environmental Review on the Point Beach License Renewal Application.
2 And she is going to tell you about what the environmental review 3
process entails. She's been with us for about three years now doing 4
environmental project management work. She has a Bachelor's in 5
Meteorology from Penn State University and a Master's in Environmental 6
Engineering from Clemson University.
7 After Andy and Stacey talk, we'll go through questions, 8
and then we're going to go to the heart of the discussion today which 9
is the Draft Environmental Impact Statement. And we have Dr. Paul 10 Schumann with us who is going to talk to that. Paul is the Team 11 Leader of a group of experts that the NRC has assisting us in 12 preparing this Draft Environmental Impact Statement. And Paul is from 13 Los Alamos National Lab. He's an environmental engineer. He's in 14 charge of regulatory compliance for all the lab activities at Los 15 Alamos. He has a Doctorate in Environmental Science and Engineering 16 from UCLA. And then we'll go on to you for questions.
17 We do have what I like to call a short subject which is 18 severe accident mitigation alternatives or SAMAs as they are 19 affectionately known. And we have Mr. Rich Emch from the NRC. With 20 this, he's going to tell you about the SAMA analysis in the Draft 21 Environmental Impact Statement. And Rich has been with us 30 years 22 now at the NRC. He has done a wide variety of things including being 23 the project manager on environmental reviews for license renewal 24 applications. He has been involved in accident analysis and emergency 25
7 NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433 planning and preparation issues. His Bachelor's degree is from 1
Louisiana Tech in Physics and he has a Master's from Georgia Tech in 2
Health Physics. And then we'll go on to you for questions.
3 Then I believe we're going to bring Stacey back to just 4
give us some concluding remarks. But I would just thank all of you 5
for being here and the staff will be here after the meeting. Paul 6
Schumann also. And if you want to engage in any informal discussion, 7
feel free to do so. And with that, Andy?
8 MR. KUGLER: Thank you, Chip. And I want to thank all 9
of you -- I don't want the [microphone] feedback. All right, I want 10 to thank you all for coming out today for our meeting regarding the 11 Environmental Impact Statement for License Renewal for Point Beach 12 Units 1 and 2. I hope that the information we provide to you today 13 will help you to understand the process that we're going through, 14 where we stand in that process today, and the role that you can play 15 in the latter part of the process, helping us to ensure that the Final 16 Environmental Impact Statement is an accurate document.
17 First, I'd like to provide some context for license 18 renewal. The Atomic Energy Act authorizes the NRC to license nuclear 19 power reactors for a period of 40 years. For Point Beach Units 1 and 20 2, those licenses expire in the years 2010 and 2013 respectively. Our 21 regulations also allow for an extension of those licenses for a period 22 of up to 20 years, and Nuclear Management Company has applied for an 23 extension of the licenses for these two units.
24 As part of the NRC staff review of license renewal 25
8 NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433 applications, we perform an environmental review to evaluate the 1
impacts of operating the units for an additional 20 years. We held a 2
meeting here last June in which we were looking for input on what the 3
scope of our review should be. And as we indicated at that meeting, 4
now that we have issued the Draft Environmental Impact Statement, 5
we've returned to inform you of the results of our review and to give 6
you an opportunity to ask questions and to provide us with any 7
comments you might have on the draft. As Mr. Cameron mentioned, we do 8
have several members of our staff here. If after the meeting you have 9
any additional questions, we'll be happy to stay and answer your 10 questions.
11 Before I get into the discussion of license renewal 12 process itself, I would like to tell you a little bit about the NRC 13 and our mission. As I said, the Atomic Energy Act is a legislation 14 that authorizes the NRC to regulate the commercial use of nuclear 15 materials in the United States. And in carrying out that authority, 16 our mission is threefold: we protect public health and safety; we 17 protect the environment; and we provide for the common defense and 18 security. And we accomplish our mission through a combination of 19 programs and processes such as inspections, enforcement actions, 20 reviews of operating experience from other reactors, and evaluations 21 of licensee performance.
22 Turning to license renewal in particular, the process 23 that we go through in license renewal is very similar to the process 24 we use when we initially license the plants in that there are two 25
9 NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433 parts to our review. There is a safety review and there is an 1
environmental review. The safety review will include a safety 2
evaluation, onsite audits and inspections, and an independent review 3
by the Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards (ACRS).
4 Now, this slide gives an overview of the entire process.
5 As you can see, as I mentioned, the process has two basic paths: the 6
safety review which is in the upper part of this slide, and the 7
environmental review which is toward the bottom. The safety review 8
involves the staff's evaluation of the technical safety information 9
that was included in the application by the Nuclear Management 10 Company. There is a team of about 30 NRC technical staff and 11 contractors who are performing that review and they're led by the 12 Safety Project Manager, Mr. Michael Morgan. Mr. Gregory Suber who is 13 with us here today, Gregory, if you could? Mr. Suber is assisting Mr.
14 Morgan in that review and he's available to answer any questions you 15 might have on the safety review.
16 The safety review for license renewal focuses on how the 17 Nuclear Management Company is going to manage the aging of certain 18 systems, structures and components. The programs for managing aging 19 are either in place today or they will be put in place for license 20 renewal. As I mentioned, the safety review process also involves 21 audits and inspections. The inspection teams are drawn from our 22 headquarters and from our Region III office which is in Chicago. We 23 do have representatives of our inspection program here today. We have 24 Ms. Ann Marie Stone right here, and also Ms. Patricia Lougheed, and 25
10 NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433 they're from our Region III office in Chicago.
1 Now, the results of these inspections that are performed 2
will be documented in inspection reports. And the results of the 3
safety review will be documented in the safety evaluation report which 4
will include the information we learn in our inspections. The two 5
mandatory inspections have not yet been performed but they are 6
scheduled in the near future. And we're also in the process of 7
developing the safety evaluation report at this time.
8 After the safety evaluation report is completed, one of 9
the things that happens is we will provide it to the Advisory 10 Committee on Reactor Safeguards for them to perform an independent 11 review of the report. The Advisory Committee is an independent group 12 of technical experts in nuclear safety. And they provide a consulting 13 process for the Commission; in other words, they will provide 14 information to the Commission independently of the staff. They review 15 the license renewal application and they also review the staff's 16 safety evaluation report. They develop their own conclusions and 17 recommendations and then they provide those directly to the 18 Commission.
19 Turning to the second part of the review process, the 20 environmental review, we held scoping activities last year and we 21 developed the Draft Environmental Impact Statement that we're here to 22 talk about today. This environmental impact statement is a supplement 23 to our Generic Environmental Impact Statement for License Renewal that 24 the staff has developed. Today we're here to get your comments on 25
11 NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433 that draft, and the comment period continues through April 13th. Then 1
in September, we expect to issue the final environmental impact 2
statement after evaluating all the comments we receive either here at 3
this meeting or written comments that we receive.
4 So, as you can see from the slide, there's a lot that 5
goes into the final agency decision as to whether or not to renew 6
these licenses. There's a safety evaluation report, the environmental 7
impact statement, the results of the inspections and also the 8
independent review by the Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards. I 9
would also like to call your attention to the hexagons that are on the 10 screen. These indicate opportunities for public involvement in the 11 process.
12 The first opportunity for public involvement came at an 13 information meeting that the safety side held back I believe it was in 14 March of last year. This was an opportunity to hear about what the 15 process was going to involve. Then back in June, we held our public 16 scoping meeting here and we also had an opportunity for public comment 17 and written comment as well on the scope of our review. This meeting 18 and the comment period that's currently in progress is another 19 opportunity for involvement in the environmental review.
20 There will also be meetings that are open to the public 21 at the completion of the onsite inspections. And there are also some 22 meetings that will be held with the Applicant to discuss technical 23 issues. These meetings are also open to the public. The ACRS 24 meetings, as well, where those are held will be open to the public.
25
12 NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433 And finally, there was an opportunity to request a hearing on this 1
review but there was not a request for a hearing given so there will 2
not be a hearing in this case.
3 That concludes my remarks on the overall process. Now, 4
I'd like to turn the presentation over to Ms. Stacey Imboden to 5
discuss the environmental review in more detail. Thank you.
6 MS. IMBODEN: My name is Stacey Imboden and I am the 7
Environmental Project Manager for the Point Beach License Renewal 8
Review. My responsibility is to coordinate the efforts of the NRC 9
staff including a team from the national laboratories who have expert 10 knowledge in various environmental disciplines who help us in 11 preparing the environmental impact statement.
12 The National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 requires a 13 systematic approach in evaluating the impacts of proposed major 14 federal actions. Consideration is to be given to the environmental 15 impacts of the proposed action and mitigation for any impacts that are 16 believed to be significant. Alternatives, including the no-action 17 alternative, are also to be considered.
18 Our environmental impact statement is a disclosure tool 19 and it involves public participation. NRC regulations require that an 20 environmental impact statement be prepared for proposed license 21 renewal activities. So, we are here today to collect public comments 22 on the Draft Environmental Impact Statement and these comments will be 23 included in the Final Environmental Impact Statement.
24 This slide states our legal decision standard for the 25
13 NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433 environmental review. Basically, it is asking the question: Is 1
license renewal acceptable from an environmental standpoint? Should 2
the option for license renewal be preserved?" We do not decide here 3
whether the plant actually operates for an additional 20 years. That 4
decision is made by energy planning decisionmakers such as the 5
Licensee and State regulators.
6 On a previous slide, Andy described the overall safety 7
and environmental review processes. This slide is just an expansion 8
of the lower portion of that slide and it emphasizes the environmental 9
review process. Nuclear Management Company submitted the application 10 for license renewal to the NRC on February 26th, 2004. We 11 subsequently published a notice of intent in the Federal Register that 12 we would prepare an environmental impact statement associated with 13 their application.
14 The Federal Register notice began the scoping process 15 which invited public participation early in the process. We conducted 16 a scoping meeting in June of last year to examine the bounds of our 17 environmental review. We also conducted an environmental site audit 18 during that same week in June. We brought our team of experts from 19 the national labs to examine inside and outside of the power plant, 20 review a substantial volume of documentation at the site, interview 21 site personnel and interview local and state officials.
22 After the site audit, we determined that we needed 23 additional information to prepare our Draft Environmental Impact 24 Statement. In August 2004, we prepared a formal request for 25
14 NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433 additional information on remaining issues or comments. After we 1
received a response to the request for additional information and 2
reviewed all of the information that we had available to us from the 3
scoping process, we prepared and issued a draft environmental impact 4
statement. We issued the Draft Environmental Impact Statement in 5
January. And in a few minutes, we will be hearing from Dr. Paul 6
Schumann from the Los Alamos National Laboratory who will share the 7
results of our efforts.
8 As each plant comes in for license renewal, we publish a 9
plant specific supplement to the Generic Environmental Impact 10 Statement. And what we have published in January is the supplement 11 for Point Beach Nuclear Plant Units 1 and 2, and that is Supplement 12 No. 23. This meeting is an opportunity for you to provide your 13 comments on the Draft Environmental Impact Statement.
14 Presently, we are within the public comment period on 15 the Draft EIS and the comment period expires April 13th. Once we 16 receive all of the comments including what we receive at this meeting, 17 we will evaluate that information and publish a Final Environmental 18 Impact Statement. And our schedule presently provides that we publish 19 that Final Environmental Impact Statement in September of this year.
20 For the moment, that completes my remarks. Chip?
21 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Stacey. Before we go on to Dr.
22 Schumann and the Draft Environmental Impact Statement, are there any 23 questions on the process the NRC uses that you heard Andy and Stacey 24 describe? Any questions at all?
25
15 NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433 Okay, great. And if anybody, if anything occurs to you, 1
we'll always be able to circle back and get it. So, thank you very 2
much, Stacey. And Dr. Paul Schumann is going to tell us about the 3
Draft Environmental Impact Statement.
4 DR. SCHUMANN: Thank you, Chip. Good afternoon, folks.
5 As Chip mentioned earlier, I work for Los Alamos Laboratory, Stacey 6
mentioned it also. NRC contracted with us to provide the expertise 7
necessary to evaluate the impacts of license renewal at Point Beach 8
Nuclear Plant. Our team consists of scientists from Los Alamos 9
National Laboratory in New Mexico, Lawrence Livermore National 10 Laboratory in California, and also Argonne National Laboratory here in 11 Illinois, or here in Illinois right next door to this state here that 12 we're in.
13 The expertise that we used and provided to the Nuclear 14 Regulatory Commission for plant relicensing included experts from a 15 variety of different disciplinary backgrounds: atmospheric science, 16 socio-economics and environmental justice, archeology, historical and 17 cultural resources, terrestrial ecology, land use, radiation 18 protection, regulatory compliance, nuclear safety, and water sources, 19 hydrology as well as aquatic ecology.
20 In 1996, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission published its 21 Generic Environmental Impact Statement that you heard referred to 22 earlier. Also, it was titled or listed as NUREG-1437 which identified 23 92 environmental issues that were evaluated for license renewal. 69 24 of these issues are considered generic issues or Category 1. That's 25
16 NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433 that left-hand kind of a flowchart that you see there. Those are 1
Category 1 issues, and what that means is that the impacts are the 2
same for all the reactors or they'll be the same for all the reactors 3
that share certain features like the same type of cooling system, as 4
an example.
5 For the other 23 issues, 21 of them are referred to as 6
Category 2 issues. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission found that the 7
impacts for these issues were not the same at all the sites, and 8
therefore, a site specific analysis was needed. And that's that 9
second column or that second column that you see on the flowchart 10 there.
11 Only certain issues addressed in the Generic 12 Environmental Impact Statement are applicable to Point Beach. For 13 those generic issues that are applicable, we looked for any new 14 information that was related to the issue that might affect the 15 conclusion that we reached or that NRC reached in the Generic 16 Environmental Impact Statement. If there is no new information, and 17 that's kind of this part of the process that you see right here, if we 18 didn't find any new information, then the conclusion of the Generic 19 Environmental Impact Statement would be the one that would be adopted.
20 If new information is identified and if it's determined 21 to be significant, then we'll do a site specific analysis for that 22 particular issue. For the site specific issues that were related to 23 Point Beach, and that's sort of that middle block that you see there, 24 a site specific analysis was performed. Finally, during the scoping 25
17 NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433 period, the public was invited to provide information on any potential 1
new issues that there might be. And the team, during our review, 2
looked to see if there were any new issues that needed to be 3
evaluated.
4 For each of the environmental issues that are 5
identified, there is an impact level that's assigned. Small issues 6
are those where the effect is not detectable or it's too small to 7
destabilize or noticeably alter any important attribute of the 8
resource. Moderate issues are those where there may be an effect 9
sufficient to alter noticeably but not destabilize important 10 attributes of the resource. And large impacts are those where the 11 effect is clearly noticeable and sufficient to destabilize important 12 attributes of the resource.
13 I'll use the Lake Michigan fishery to illustrate how we 14 might use these three criteria. The operation of the Point Beach 15 Nuclear Plant may cause the loss of adult and juvenile fish at the 16 intake structure. If the loss of fish is so small that it cannot be 17 detected in relation to the total population of Lake Michigan, the 18 impact would be small. If the losses would cause the population to 19 decline and then stabilize at a lower level, the impact would be 20 moderate. If losses at the intakes would cause the fish population to 21 decline at a point where it cannot be stabilized and continually 22 declines, the impact would be considered large.
23 When our team evaluated the impacts from continued 24 operations at Point Beach Nuclear Plant, we considered information 25
18 NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433 from a wide variety of sources. We looked at what the Applicant had 1
to say in their license renewal application. There was an 2
environmental report that was submitted as part of their application 3
for license renewal. We also conducted a site audit as Stacey 4
mentioned earlier during which we toured the site, we interviewed 5
plant personnel, we reviewed documentation, and we also talked with 6
state and federal and local agencies and officials, permitting 7
authorities and social services in this part of Wisconsin.
8 Lastly, we considered the comments that were received 9
during the scoping period and those comments were included in Appendix 10 A of the Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement along with NRC's 11 responses. This is the body of information that we used as the basis 12 for the analysis and for the preliminary conclusions that are in this 13 Draft Environmental Impact Statement.
14 The Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement 15 considers the environmental impacts of continued operations of Units 1 16 and 2 during the 20-year license renewal term. The impacts of routine 17 operations were considered for the cooling system, for transmission 18 lines, radiological impacts, socio-economics, ground water use and 19 quality, threatened or endangered species. And we also looked at 20 cumulative impacts. The supplement also considers the impacts of 21 postulated accidents and severe accident mitigation alternatives. And 22 Mr. Rich Emch is going to be talking about impacts from accidents in 23 just a few minutes.
24 Let me give you the highlights of our findings and then 25
19 NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433 feel free to ask for more detail if you have any questions. One of 1
the areas that we looked at closely was the cooling system for the 2
Point Beach Nuclear Plant. There are three Category 2 issues that are 3
associated with cooling systems at the plant. These include 4
entrainment and impingement of fish and shellfish, and heat shock.
5 Entrainment is the process where aquatic organisms are passing through 6
the debris screens at the plant in the intake and are traveling 7
through the cooling system of the plant. Impingement occurs when 8
larger organisms, larger fish or shellfish or water fowl might be 9
drawn into the intake and pinned on the debris screens. Both 10 processes generally are going to result in mortality of the organisms 11 that are involved.
12 Point Beach had some problems with impingement several 13 years ago. But the intake system was recently modified and a fish 14 deterrent system was installed in order to address those concerns. As 15 a result, impingement and entrainment impacts were determined to be 16 small. The current Clean Water Act permit which is issued, it's 17 called the Wisconsin Polluntant Discharge Elimination System (WPDES),
18 the permit for Point Beach has provisions that address the new EPA 19 requirements under Section 316(b) of the Clean Water Act to reduce 20 impingement and entrainment for once-through cooling systems.
21 The third type of impact that's a Category 2 is heat 22 shock. And that can occur when relatively warm water is released into 23 cooler water and aquatic organisms in the lake that are adapted to the 24 cooler water might lose equilibrium or die when they're suddenly 25
20 NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433 exposed to significantly warmer water. At Point Beach, the impacts of 1
heat shock are also small.
2 There is also a number of Category 1 issues related to 3
the cooling system. These include things such as water use conflicts, 4
accumulation of contaminants, discharge of sanitary waste, minor 5
chemical spills, metals and chlorine. In the Generic Environmental 6
Impact Statement, NRC determined that the impacts that are associated 7
with these Category 1 issues would be small. We evaluated all 8
available information to see if there was any new and significant 9
information for those issues. We did not find any. Therefore, we 10 adopted NRC's generic conclusion, that the impact of the cooling 11 system for these areas is also small.
12 Radiological impacts are a Category 1 issue and the NRC 13 has made a generic determination that the impact of radiological 14 releases during nuclear plant operations, during the 20-year license 15 renewal period would be small. Because these releases are a concern, 16 I want to discuss them here. All nuclear plants release some 17 radiological effluents into the environment. During our site visit, 18 we looked at the documentation for effluent releases and for the 19 radiological monitoring program that is used by the plant. We looked 20 at how the gaseous and liquid effluents are treated and released as 21 well as how solid waste is treated, packaged and shipped offsite.
22 We also looked at how the Applicant determines and 23 demonstrates that they're in compliance with regulations for release 24 of radiological effluents. We also looked at data from onsite and 25
21 NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433 near site locations that the Applicant monitors for airborne releases 1
and also for direct radiation, and other monitoring stations that are 2
located beyond the site boundary including places where water, milk, 3
fish and food products are sampled.
4 We found that the maximum calculated doses for a member 5
of the public are well within annual limits that are considered 6
protective of human health. Since releases from the plant are not 7
expected to increase during the 20-year license renewal term, and 8
since we also found no new and significant information related to this 9
issue, we adopted the generic conclusion that the radiological impact 10 on human health and the environment is small.
11 The possible impacts to threatened or endangered species 12 is considered a Category 2 issue requiring a site specific review.
13 Our team identified that no federally listed species occur on the site 14 or in nearby waters of the lake. However, four federally listed 15 species have been recorded in Manitowoc and Brown Counties and could 16 potentially occur in the site vicinity. There's two birds: the bald 17 eagle and the piping plover. That's the little guy that's shown here 18 on the right. And also two plants: the dune or Pitcher's thistle and 19 the dwarf lake iris.
20 NRC initiated an informal consultation process with the 21 US Fish and Wildlife Service who noted that beach habitat near Point 22 Beach could be suitable for plover nesting in the future and that 23 Point Beach should have measures in place to protect any nesting birds 24 if any were found. In response, Point Beach has proposed to implement 25
22 NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433 a program of surveying annually for the presence of piping plovers and 1
will take additional protective measures should a piping plover be 2
discovered on the site. A biological assessment regarding the piping 3
plover was submitted to the US Fish and Wildlife Service. Informal 4
consultation is still ongoing.
5 The staff believes that no additional mitigation is 6
required for threatened or endangered species in the vicinity of the 7
Point Beach Nuclear Plant and its associated transmissions line 8
rights-of-way which we also looked at as part of the analysis. Based 9
on this information and informal consultation with the Fish and 10 Wildlife Service, the staff's preliminary determination is that 11 continued operation of the Point Beach Nuclear Plant during the 12 license renewal period may affect but is not likely to adversely 13 affect the bald eagle and the piping plover. It likely will have no 14 effect on the dune or Pitcher's thistle or the dwarf lake iris.
15 Another issue I'd like to mention briefly is that of 16 cumulative impacts. These are impacts that are considered minor when 17 you look at them individually, but they could be significant when 18 they're considered with other past, present or reasonably foreseeable 19 future actions regardless of what agency or person is undertaking the 20 other actions. The staff considered cumulative impacts that could 21 result from operating the cooling water system, the transmission 22 lines, releases of radiation and radiological material, socioeconomic 23 impacts, and ground water use and quality.
24 These impacts were evaluated to the end of the 20-year 25
23 NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433 license renewal term. I would like to point out that the geographical 1
boundary of the analysis that we used was dependent on what the 2
resource is. For example, the geographic area analyzed for 3
transmission lines obviously is going to be a little different than 4
that for cooling water. Our preliminary determination is that any 5
cumulative impacts resulting from operation of the Point Beach Nuclear 6
Plant during the license renewal period will be small.
7 Another area that our team looked at had to do with 8
impacts related to the uranium fuel cycle and solid waste management 9
and decommissioning of the units. In the Generic Environmental Impact 10 Statement, the NRC considered impacts associated with these topics to 11 be a Category 1 issue. Offsite radiological impacts and non-12 radiological impacts are environmental issues related to the uranium 13 fuel cycle.
14 Okay. Anyhow, environmental issues that are associated 15 with solid waste management include storage and disposal of non-16 radiological waste, low-level waste and mixed waste, onsite spent fuel 17 storage and transportation of spent nuclear fuel and high-level waste 18 to a repository. Environmental issues that are considered for 19 decommissioning are similar to those looked at for operations. They 20 include radiation doses, waste management, air quality, water quality, 21 ecological resources and socio-economics. Our team found no new and 22 significant information associated with these topics, and therefore, 23 we adopted NRC's generic conclusion that impacts in these areas are 24 small.
25
24 NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433 The Point Beach Nuclear Plant Units 1 and 2 have a 1
combined capacity of 1,036 megawatts electric. The team evaluated the 2
potential environmental impacts associated with Point Beach Plant not 3
continuing operation and replacing this generation capacity with 4
alternative power sources. The team looked at a no-action 5
alternative, development of new generation from a coal-fired plant, a 6
gas-fired plant, a new nuclear power plant, purchased power and other 7
technologies such as wind, solar and hydro-power, and then a 8
combination of alternatives. For each alternative, we looked at the 9
same types of issues that we looked at for operations of the Point 10 Beach Plant during the license renewal term. The team's preliminary 11 conclusion is that the environmental impacts of alternatives reach 12 moderate or large significance in at least some impact categories.
13 To summarize our preliminary conclusions, I mentioned 14 that in 1996, the NRC reached generic conclusions for 69 issues 15 related to operating nuclear power plants for another 20 years. For 16 these Category 1 issues presented in the Generic Environmental Impact 17 Statement, our team looked to see if there was any information that 18 was both new and significant. We did not identify any new and 19 significant information. Therefore, we preliminarily adopted the GEIS 20 conclusion that impacts associated with those issues are small for 21 Point Beach. For the 21 Category 2 issues, our team performed an 22 analysis specific for the Point Beach site and found that the 23 environmental impacts resulting from those issues also was small.
24 Lastly, we found that environmental effects of alternatives to license 25
25 NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433 renewal, at least in some impact categories, do reach moderate or 1
large significance.
2 What I'd like to do now is turn it back to Chip and 3
answer any questions that you may have.
4 MR. CAMERON: Great, thank you, Paul. Do we have 5
questions on any aspect of the Draft Environmental Impact Statement 6
that Paul has described? Any questions? Questions at all for Paul?
7 DR. SCHUMANN: Like how did I do that with the 8
microphone?
9 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Great. Thank you very much, Paul.
10 And we're going to go to another part of the Draft Environmental 11 Impact Statement and that's the SAMA analysis. This is Rich Emch.
12 Are we staying with -- we're going to try that one? Okay.
13 MR. EMCH: I am Rich Emch. I'm a member of the 14 environmental review team for Point Beach. I'm going to talk about, 15 my first slide talks about postulated accidents. What you've heard 16 referred to as the GEIS here tonight, the Generic Environmental Impact 17 Statement for license renewal, evaluated two classes of accidents.
18 One of those is what we call DBAs, design basis accidents, also known 19 as postulated accidents. This is a set of accidents that are 20 evaluated during the initial licensing of the plant that are used to 21 ensure that the plant or the design of the plant is robust and the 22 design of the plant is capable of handling these postulated design 23 basis accidents without endangering the public.
24 Since these accidents are evaluated during initial 25
26 NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433 licensing and the plant is required to continue operating to keep the 1
plant in the condition that was evaluated for the accidents, the 2
ability to withstand these accidents continues throughout the life of 3
the plant and goes on into the license renewal period. Because of 4
that, the Commission made the decision in the GEIS that the impact for 5
postulated accidents was small. And also no new and significant 6
information was found by the Licensee or by the NRC related to this 7
issue, so the decision was the GEIS conclusion of small significance 8
would stand.
9 The second bullet on the slide talks about severe 10 accidents. Severe accidents are by definition beyond design basis, 11 more severe than the design basis accidents. And the main thing that, 12 when we start talking about severe accidents, we're talking about 13 accidents that may involve a substantial amount of core damage.
14 Again, these were evaluated, had been evaluated for each and all of 15 the plants in the GEIS, and the determination was that the risk is 16 small based on the probability and weighted consequences analyzed for 17 the plant.
18 The third piece is the severe accident, the SAMA, the 19 severe accident mitigation alternatives analyses. For any plant that 20 had not already had these analyses conducted, the Commission decided 21 that they had to be conducted for all plants. So, for any plant that 22 was going through license renewal and they had not already been 23 evaluated, they would have to be evaluated and that was the case here 24 for Point Beach. So, the Licensee did an evaluation and we reviewed 25
27 NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433 that evaluation.
1 It's described in Section 5.2 and summarized in Section 2
5.2 of the Supplement 23 to the GEIS, and it's also described in a lot 3
more detail in Appendix G of that same document. It's considered a 4
Category 2 issue so it does involve a plant specific review. The main 5
purpose of it is to identify and evaluate possible plant changes, 6
hardware, procedural changes, changes in training that could reduce 7
the risk to the plant even further.
8 Now, let's draw back for a moment and realize the risk 9
level for this plant was evaluated by the Commission and was 10 determined to be safe. In other words, it meets all of our safety 11 criteria, it meets the safety goals. This analysis is an attempt to 12 look for additional things that might be able to be put in place in a 13 cost-beneficial manner that could indeed give you an even further 14 reduction in risk. We're particularly interested in or particularly 15 looking for improvements that would prevent core damage or reduce the 16 risk of core damage or improve containment performance so that if you 17 did have core damage, that the containment would hold and would not 18 allow any releases.
19 It's a four-step process, the SAMA evaluation process.
20 The very first step, characterizing the overall plant risk and to look 21 for those systems processes in the plant that give what we call the 22 most dominant factors, the most dominant risk factors, places where if 23 you made a change, you would have the most chance of making a 24 significant reduction in risk. The tool for doing this is called the 25
28 NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433 PRA, the probabilistic risk assessment. Risk assessment looks at a 1
combination of possible system failures in the plant and at the 2
possibility of human errors and looks at a combination of these things 3
that could lead to severe accidents, that is, core damage accidents, 4
accidents that might result in a large release of radioactivity 5
offsite.
6 The second thing is to identify, the second step is to 7
identify possible improvements that could be made in those areas. So, 8
again, we're looking for the dominant sequences, the things where you 9
could, so to speak 'get the most bang for the buck', where you could 10 get the biggest decrease in risk to the plant by making changes in 11 these areas. And so, they propose a number of what they call 12 candidate SAMAs, possible improvements to the plant.
13 The third step is to evaluate those SAMAs. For each of 14 those SAMAs, to evaluate how much of a reduction in risk they might 15 provide to the plant, and then also to evaluate the cost of 16 implementation of those SAMAs, and then finally, to evaluate the 17 potential benefit from those SAMAs. Everything has to be evaluated in 18 terms of, has to be brought back to dollars so that a comparison can 19 be made. And so, what they do is they evaluate the present day cost 20 of implementing it and the present day estimate of the value of the 21 benefit over the course of the 20 years of additional operation of the 22 plant.
23 They use bounding analyses. Usually, the analysis of a 24 SAMA is they'd say, okay, this SAMA is being suggested because it will 25
29 NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433 help reduce risk in this area so they'd say okay. In this area, this 1
SAMA will completely reduce, completely eliminate the risk, and 2
therefore, that's how they do the evaluation of the benefit. That of 3
course is an overestimate and no change will actually get rid of all 4
the risks. The next thing they do is when they're evaluating the 5
costs of each SAMA, there are a number of things that are extremely 6
difficult to evaluate and are usually left out and do result in an 7
underestimating of the cost such as maintenance costs, surveillance 8
costs and to some degree, replacement power costs.
9 Finally, once the value of each SAMA, the cost to the 10 SAMA and the potential benefit of the SAMA have been evaluated and 11 brought back to present day costs, they do a comparison, a 12 cost-benefit analysis or comparison. And the three things we're 13 looking for, the first thing is, is it cost-beneficial? In other 14 words, does it give you, is the cost of the benefit more than the cost 15 of implementing the change? And if it is, then it would be 16 cost-beneficial. As you might guess, there's a lot of uncertainties.
17 Any time you're evaluating present value, financial present value of 18 things that go out for 20 years, you know, like you're trying to 19 evaluate your house price or something like that 20 years from now, 20 it's difficult to do and there's a fair amount of uncertainty in those 21 kinds of calculations.
22 We also look to see if any of the SAMAs do indeed result 23 in a significant decrease or reduction in risk either from core damage 24 frequencies or from, you know, improved containment performance, and 25
30 NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433 therefore, stopping releases. And finally, we look to see if these 1
SAMAs are related to the management of the effects of aging of plant 2
systems and components during the extended period of operation.
3 The Licensee started off with approximately 202 4
candidate SAMAs. They made this list from, there are many studies 5
that have been done by the industry and by the NRC of PRA. There also 6
have been a number of other plants who have conducted SAMA analyses.
7 And so, the Licensee made their list of candidate SAMAs from those 8
lists and from a fairly careful review of their own plant specific PRA 9
to determine which SAMAs needed to be evaluated. They came up with 10 202. They did a multi-step screening process.
11 First time through, the issue was: is the SAMA 12 applicable to our plant? Our plant is a PWR. If the SAMA was for 13 PWRs, it's not applicable. They also looked to see if it was a SAMA 14 that had already been implemented or the essence of the SAMA, the 15 purpose of the SAMA had already been dealt with in another way. After 16 going through that screening process, they determined that they had 65 17 SAMAs still left on the list and they went into a more careful 18 evaluation of those. In each case, they're assessing a more careful 19 assessment of the design and a more careful assessment of what the 20 costs of implementing this improvement would be.
21 At the end of that evaluation, the Licensee determined 22 that none of these SAMAs would be cost-beneficial. The NRC looked 23 through this review and came to a similar conclusion except in two 24 cases. With a little more careful look at it, we decided that there 25
31 NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433 were ways that a couple of the SAMAs could become cost-beneficial, 1
either by how we treated uncertainties or looking at other economic 2
assumptions or using a broader range of possible options for an 3
implementation.
4 The first of these is what's called the auto pump trip 5
on low refueling water storage tank level. It's kind of a lot of 6
scientific jargon, but basically during the initial stages of an 7
accident, during what you might refer to as safety injection, the 8
water for safety injection into the core is being supplied by a big 9
tank called the refueling water storage tank. As that tank starts to 10 empty, you need to switch over to what we refer to as recirculation 11 before that tank becomes empty. And if by some, if you're not paying 12 attention somehow and that tank empties before you change over or 13 before you trip those pumps, if those pumps try to pump air, it 14 damages within. Very simple, okay.
15 And the overall, the cost of doing an automatic 16 switchover to go from using the storage tank to the recirculation 17 system was quite expensive and would not have been cost-beneficial, 18 the conclusion that the Licensee came to. The NRC decided after 19 looking at it fairly carefully that if the plant simply installed an 20 automatic trip on the pump such that when you reach a certain level in 21 the tank, that it would pump the trips, that that might be 22 cost-beneficial. And so, we put that in our report as a potentially 23 cost-beneficial item.
24 The second one involves the use of a portable, providing 25
32 NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433 having the availability of a portable generator to power the auxiliary 1
feed-water pumps after the battery is depleted during an accident.
2 There is a battery that is set up to power them for some period of 3
time, and this was talking about a method of providing an additional 4
amount of power after that battery is depleted. The NRC concluded 5
that if one took a careful look at uncertainties and used possibly a 6
lower discount rate, that this SAMA might also become cost-beneficial.
7 Neither of these SAMAs, these potentially 8
cost-beneficial SAMAs are related to adequately managing the effects 9
of aging during the renewal period. Therefore, there is no 10 expectation that the implementation of these SAMAs would be required 11 as part of license renewal under 10 CFR Part 54. And our preliminary 12 conclusion there is that additional plant improvements to mitigate 13 severe accidents are not required for license renewal at Point Beach.
14 At this point, the Licensee is evaluating what they've seen in the 15 draft document just like you folks are and we don't know that, they 16 have not shared their plans with us as far as what their views are on 17 these potentially cost-beneficial SAMAs or what they might be doing.
18 We hope to know that by the time we put out the final document.
19 With that, I'm finished with the SAMA evaluation. Are 20 there any questions?
21 MR. CAMERON: Questions for Mr. Emch on SAMA? Okay.
22 Thank you very much, Richard. Stacey?
23 MS. IMBODEN: Okay. Turning now to our conclusions, we 24 found that the impacts of license renewal are small in all areas. We 25
33 NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433 also concluded that the alternative actions including the no-action 1
alternative may have environmental effects in at least some impact 2
categories that reach moderate or large significance. Based on these 3
results, our preliminary recommendation is that the adverse 4
environmental impacts of license renewal for Point Beach are not so 5
great that preserving the option of license renewal for energy 6
planning decision makers would be unreasonable.
7 This slide goes through some of the milestones for the 8
environmental review. As I mentioned, we issued the Draft 9
Environmental Impact Statement in January. The 75-day public comment 10 period on the draft runs until April 13th. After that, we will review 11 and disposition the comments that we receive, modify the environmental 12 impact statement as appropriate, and publish the Final Environmental 13 Impact Statement. And we expect to publish the Final Environmental 14 Impact Statement in September of this year.
15 This slide identifies me as your primary point of 16 contact with the NRC for the Point Beach Draft EIS. And you can call 17 me at that number if you have questions. It also identifies where 18 documents related to our review can be found in the local area. The 19 Lester Public Library has a copy of the Draft EIS available for public 20 review in addition to any correspondence sent by NRC to NMC or other 21 agencies regarding the Point Beach license renewal review. The Draft 22 EIS is also available on the NRC website at www.nrc.gov or at the 23 specific website address on the screen. And we also brought a few 24 hard copies of the draft outside of this meeting if you want to pick 25
34 NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433 one up.
1 Outside of this meeting, you have three other ways to 2
comment. You can comment in writing by mailing a letter to the 3
address on the slide. You can comment in person if you happen to be 4
at the NRC headquarters in Rockville, Maryland. And you can comment 5
by email to pointbeacheis@nrc.gov, and I check that email box almost 6
everyday. All of your comments will be collected and considered.
7 That concludes my remarks.
8 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you, Stacey. Any questions 9
on how to submit comments at all? We usually at this point move into 10 the second part of the meeting which is to hear from any member of the 11 public who wants to make a comment about the Draft Environmental 12 Impact Statement for license renewal. Usually we have people sign in 13 at the beginning on a yellow card for that. We didn't receive any 14 sign-ins but if anybody would like to say anything at this point, we'd 15 be glad to hear it. Do we have any commenters at all?
16 This is where I randomly select someone in the audience.
17 No. Well, I would just thank you all for being here and I'm going to 18 turn it over to Andy Kugler, Section Chief, to close out the meeting 19 for us.
20 MR. KUGLER: Well, I'd just like to thank you all for 21 coming out today to our meeting. We appreciate the time you've taken.
22 If you do have any questions, if you want to talk to the staff about 23 anything, we will be remaining after the meeting. If you think of any 24 comments after the meeting, the comment period as Stacey indicated 25
35 NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433 runs through April 13th, so you can still supply comments to us or 1
provide us with comments if you think of anything else.
2 Also, in the packet that you received, there is a 3
meeting feedback form toward the back. If you think of anything that 4
we could do to make these sort of meetings more helpful to you, we'd 5
appreciate feedback on that. You can either fill it out and drop it 6
off at the back or you can mail it in. It's prepaid postage. So, we 7
certainly appreciate any feedback we can get, any ways that we can 8
improve. We're always looking for ways to do things better.
9 With that, I just want to say thank you.
10 (Whereupon, the meeting was adjourned.)
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36 NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433 1