ML050920008
| ML050920008 | |
| 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: ML050920008 (33) | |
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 7:00 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 11 6
Results of the Environmental Review 13 7
How Comments can be Submitted 36 8
Closing 38 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
(7:00 P.M.)
2 MR. CAMERON: Good evening, everyone. My name is Chip 3
Cameron, I'm the Special Counsel for Public Liaison at the Nuclear 4
Regulatory Commission and it's my pleasure to welcome you to our 5
public meeting. Tonight, our topic tonight is the Draft Environmental 6
Impact Statement that the NRC has prepared to help and evaluate a 7
license application that we received from the Nuclear Management 8
Company to renew the licenses to operate Units 1 and 2 at Point Beach.
9 And it will be my pleasure to serve as your facilitator tonight and to 10 try to help all of you have a productive meeting.
11 I wanted to just quickly talk about meeting process for 12 a minute here. In terms of format, it's going to be a two-part format 13 to tonight's meeting. The first part is to have the NRC give you some 14 information about not only the license renewal process, what do we 15 look at when we are evaluating whether to grant a renewal for an 16 operating power plant, but more importantly perhaps, we're going to 17 hear what the information and the conclusions are in the Draft 18 Environmental Impact Statement that we prepared. So, we have some 19 brief NRC presentations for you. We'll go to you for any questions 20 that you might have about the process or about the Draft EIS. And it 21 is a draft. It won't be finalized until we evaluate the comments that 22 we hear tonight and any written comments that we receive.
23 And that leads to the second part of the meeting which 24 is an opportunity to hear from you in terms of any concerns, comments, 25
4 NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433 advice, recommendations you might have about the Draft Environmental 1
Impact Statement or license renewal process. And there will be an 2
opportunity to formally address us because those comments tonight, as 3
I mentioned, we're going to be taking written comments and the NRC 4
staff will tell you more about that. But anything you say tonight 5
will carry the same weight as a written comment.
6 Ground rules are real simple. If you have a question, 7
just signal me. I'll bring you this cordless microphone. Introduce 8
yourself to us and we'll try to answer your questions. We are taking 9
a transcript of the meeting. Mr. LeGrand is our 10 transcriber/stenographer tonight. And that will be the NRC's record 11 for the meeting and it will be your record. If anybody needs a copy 12 of that transcript, we'll be glad to provide it to you.
13 And let me introduce the NRC staff that will be talking 14 to you. First, Mr. Andy Kugler who is right here. Andy is the Chief 15 of the Environmental Review Section in the License Renewal and 16 Environmental Impacts Program at the NRC. And Andy and his staff have 17 the responsibility of doing the environmental evaluations for any 18 reactor licensing action: license renewal, early site permit, things 19 like that. And Andy is going to give you an overview of the license 20 renewal generally.
21 And in terms of his background, he's been with the 22 Agency for 13-14 years at this point. He came to us from the Naval 23 Nuclear Submarine Program. He also worked for a nuclear utility. And 24 he has a Bachelor's in Mechanical Engineering from Cooper Union and a 25
5 NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433 Master's in Technical Management from Johns Hopkins University in 1
Baltimore.
2 Then we're going to go to the environmental review 3
specifically. We have Tracy Imboden with us tonight to give us the --
4 Stacey, I knew I was going to do that. We have Stacey Imboden with us 5
who is the Project Manager on the environmental review and for this 6
license renewal application. And she is going to tell you more about 7
the environmental review process. And she has been with us three 8
years, apparently not long enough for me to remember that her first 9
name is Stacey but excuse me for that. But Stacey has a Bachelor's in 10 Meteorology from Penn State University and a Master's in Environmental 11 Engineering from Clemson University.
12 We'll then go out to you for questions on, any questions 13 on process and then we're going to go to the heart of the discussion 14 tonight which is the Draft Environmental Impact Statement. And we 15 have Dr. Paul Schumann with us. Paul is the Team Leader for the NRC 16 Environmental Review Team that prepared this Draft Environmental 17 Impact Statement for the NRC. He is from Los Alamos National Lab. He 18 is their regulatory compliance expert, environmental engineering 19 expert there. And he has a Ph.D., his Doctorate is in Environmental 20 Science and Engineering from UCLA.
21 And we do have one part of the Draft Environmental 22 Impact Statement that discusses accidents. And Mr. Rich Emch from the 23 NRC staff is going to talk about severe accident mitigation 24 alternatives. And he'll explain that to you. He has been with us for 25
6 NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433 approximately 30 years in various positions. He has been a project 1
manager on the environmental review for license renewal for specific 2
nuclear power plants. He has been involved in emergency planning and 3
preparedness, radiation health physics issues, and that is his 4
background. He has a Bachelor's in Physics from Louisiana Tech and a 5
Master's in Health Physics from Georgia Tech University.
6 And with that, I would just thank you all for being here 7
tonight. We will be here after the meeting for informal discussion.
8 So, anything that we can make clear for you or any information we can 9
provide, we'll do that. And I'll turn it over to Andy.
10 MR. KUGLER: Thank you, Chip. And thank you all for 11 coming out this evening for our meeting on the Draft Environmental 12 Impact Statement for License Renewal for Point Beach Units 1 and 2. I 13 hope the information that we provide you this evening helps you to 14 understand the process that we're working through, where we are in the 15 process, and the role you can play in helping to ensure that our Final 16 Environmental Impact Statement is an accurate document.
17 I'd like to provide some general context for license 18 renewal first. The Atomic Energy Act gives the NRC the authority to 19 issue licenses for nuclear reactors for a period of 40 years. For 20 Point Beach Units 1 and 2, these licenses expire in the years 2010 and 21 2013 respectively. Our regulations also allow for extending the 22 operating licenses for an additional 20 years. And the Nuclear 23 Management Company has applied to the NRC to extend the operating 24 licenses for these two units.
25
7 NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433 Now, as part of the NRC's review for license renewal, 1
we're going to evaluate the environmental impacts of operating the 2
plants for an additional 20 years. We held a meeting here last June 3
in which we asked for input on the scope of our review. And as we 4
indicated at that meeting, now that we have issued the Draft 5
Environmental Impact Statement for comment, we've returned to tell you 6
about the results of our review, to answer any questions you may have 7
and to collect comments. As Mr. Cameron mentioned, we do have several 8
members of our staff here who can answer questions for you either 9
during the meeting or after the meeting.
10 Before I get into the discussion of license renewal, I 11 do want to give you a little bit of information on the NRC and our 12 mission. As I said, the Atomic Energy Act is a legislation that 13 authorizes the NRC to regulate the commercial use of nuclear materials 14 here in the United States. In carrying out that authority, our 15 mission is three-fold. We protect human health and safety. We 16 protect the environment. And we provide for the common defense and 17 security. We accomplish our mission through a combination of 18 programs and processes including inspections, enforcement actions, 19 reviewing operating experience from the plants around the country, and 20 also assessing individual licensee performance.
21 Turning now to license renewal in particular, the 22 process that we go through in license renewal is very similar to the 23 original process we went through when licensing these plants. And it 24 has two parts: the safety review and an environmental review.
25
8 NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433 The safety review itself has other sub-parts. There is 1
a safety evaluation that will be prepared. We do plant inspections.
2 And in addition, there is an independent review that is performed by 3
the Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards.
4 This slide really gives you the big picture of the 5
license renewal process as a whole. As I indicated, there are two 6
parts to it: the safety review which is the upper part, and the 7
environmental review which is the lower part of this flowchart.
8 The safety review involves the staff's review of the 9
safety information that was included in the application from Nuclear 10 Management Company. We have a team of about 30 people, NRC staff and 11 contractors who are performing that review and is led by the Safety 12 Project Manager, Mr. Mike Morgan. Now, Mr. Morgan couldn't be with us 13 this evening but we do have Mr. Gregory Suber here this evening. He 14 is working with Mr. Morgan on the safety review.
15 In our safety review, we focus on how the Nuclear 16 Management Company is going to manage the effects of aging on certain 17 structures, systems and components in the plant. Now, some of the 18 programs for managing aging are already in place. Others would be put 19 in place for license renewal.
20 The safety review process also involves audits and 21 outside inspections. And the inspection teams are drawn from our 22 headquarters office and also our Region III office. We do have 23 representatives of the inspection program here this evening. We have 24 Ms. Ann Marie Stone from Region III, and also Ms. Patricia Lougheed.
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9 NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433 They are both from our Region III office in Chicago. In addition, we 1
have onsite resident inspectors at each plant. And at this plant, the 2
Senior Resident Inspector is Robert Krsek right here, and the Resident 3
Inspector is Mr. Michael Morris.
4 Once we complete the inspections, the results will be 5
documented in separate inspection reports. And then, the results of 6
the safety review as well as the results of those inspections will be 7
documented in our safety evaluation report. There are two mandatory 8
onsite inspections, and both of those inspections are scheduled to be 9
performed in the near future. And we're also currently in the process 10 of developing the safety evaluation report itself.
11 After the safety evaluation report is completed, it will 12 be reviewed by the Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards. Now, 13 this committee is a group of independent technical experts in areas 14 related to nuclear safety, and they act as a consulting body for the 15 Commission. They take the license renewal application and they review 16 that along with the safety evaluation report prepared by the staff.
17 Then they develop their own conclusions and recommendations and report 18 those directly to the Commission.
19 The second part of the review process as I mentioned is 20 the environmental review. This started with scoping last year and led 21 to the development of the Draft Environmental Impact Statement that 22 we're here to talk about tonight. We will take all the comments we 23 receive tonight as well as any written comments we receive by the end 24 of the comment period and develop the Final Environmental Impact 25
10 NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433 Statement which we would expect to issue in September of this year.
1 So, as you can see from the slide, there are a number of 2
things or a number of inputs to the decision that the Commission must 3
make as to whether or not to renew these licenses. There is a safety 4
evaluation report, the environmental impact statement, the results of 5
the inspections, and also the input from the Advisory Committee on 6
Reactor Safeguards.
7 I would also like to point out the hexagonal symbols on 8
this slide. These indicate opportunities for public involvement in 9
the process. The first opportunity to comment occurred during an 10 information meeting that was held here last March by the safety side 11 of the review. On the environmental review, the first opportunity was 12 during scoping which was back in June of last year. We came out for 13 meetings and also had a comment period at that time. And tonight, of 14 course, we're back meeting on the Draft Environmental Impact Statement 15 and there is an ongoing comment period so that's another opportunity.
16 The staff will be holding some public meetings on issues 17 that may be raised, technical issues that we'll be discussing with the 18 Applicant. There will also be public meetings at the completion of 19 the onsite inspections. In addition, the meeting for the Advisory 20 Committee on Reactor Safeguards is open to the public.
21 Finally, there was no petition to intervene in this 22 action that was granted. Therefore, there is not going to be any 23 hearing on this particular action. There is a block there for that 24 but it's not a mandatory hearing. It's contingent on a petition for 25
11 NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433 hearing being granted.
1 And that completes my remarks on the overall license 2
renewal process. I'd like to turn things over to Ms. Stacey Imboden 3
now to talk about the environmental review in more detail.
4 MS. IMBODEN: Hi, I'm Stacey Imboden and I am the 5
Environmental Project Manager for the Point Beach License Renewal 6
Review. My responsibility is to coordinate the efforts of the NRC 7
staff along with the team of experts from the national laboratories 8
who have knowledge in various environmental disciplines and who help 9
us in preparing the environmental impact statement.
10 The National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 requires a 11 systematic approach in evaluating the impacts of proposed major 12 federal actions. Consideration is to be given to the environmental 13 impacts of the proposed action and mitigation for any impacts that are 14 believed to be significant. Alternatives, including the no-action 15 alternative, are also to be considered.
16 Our environmental impact statement is a disclosure tool 17 and it involves public participation. NRC regulations require that an 18 environmental impact statement be prepared for proposed license 19 renewal activities. We are here today to collect public comments on 20 the Draft Environmental Impact Statement, and these comments will be 21 included in the Final Environmental Impact Statement.
22 This slide states our legal decision standard for the 23 environmental review. Basically, it's asking the question: "Is 24 license renewal acceptable from an environmental standpoint?" "Should 25
12 NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433 the option for license renewal be preserved?" Even if the licenses 1
are renewed, the licensee could choose to shut the plant down before 2
the end of the extended licenses if, for example, some other source of 3
power was more economical.
4 On a previous slide, Andy described the overall safety 5
and environmental review processes. And this slide is just an 6
expansion of the lower portion of that slide and it focuses on the 7
environmental review. Nuclear Management Company submitted their 8
application for license renewal to the NRC on February 26th, 2004. We 9
published a notice of intent in the Federal Register announcing that 10 we would prepare an environmental impact statement associated with 11 that application.
12 The Federal Register notice began the scoping process 13 which invited public participation early in the process. We conducted 14 a scoping meeting in June of last year to examine the bounds of our 15 environmental review. We also conducted an environmental site audit 16 during that same week in June. We brought our team of experts from 17 the national labs to examine inside and outside of the power plant, 18 review a substantial volume of documentation at the site, interview 19 site personnel, and interview local and state officials.
20 After the site audit, we determined that we needed 21 additional information to prepare our Draft Environmental Impact 22 Statement. In August 2004, we prepared a formal request for 23 additional information on remaining issues or concerns. After we 24 received a response to the request for additional information and 25
13 NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433 reviewed all of the information that we had available to us from the 1
scoping process, we prepared and issued a draft environmental impact 2
statement. We issued the Draft EIS in January. And in a few minutes, 3
we'll be hearing from Dr. Paul Schumann from Los Alamos National 4
Laboratory who will show the results of our efforts.
5 As each plant comes in for license renewal, we publish a 6
plant specific supplement to the generic environmental impact 7
statement. And what we have published in January is the supplement 8
for Point Beach Nuclear Plant Units 1 and 2, and that is Supplement 9
No. 23 to the GEIS. This meeting is an opportunity for you to provide 10 your comments on that Draft Environmental Impact Statement.
11 Presently, we are within the public comment period on 12 the Draft Environmental Impact Statement, and that comment period 13 expires April 13th. Once we receive all of the public comments 14 including what we receive at this meeting, we will evaluate that 15 information and publish a final environmental impact statement. And 16 we expect to publish the final in September 2005.
17 And for the moment, that completes my remarks.
18 MR. CAMERON: Okay, great. Thank you, Stacey. Are 19 there any questions on process? License renewal process at this 20 point?
21 Okay, great. Thank you, Andy. Thank you, Stacey. And 22 now, we'll go to Dr. Paul Schumann for the Draft Environmental Impact 23 Statement.
24 MR. SCHUMANN: Thank you, Chip. Good evening, 25
14 NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433 everybody. Well, as you've heard, I work for the Los Alamos National 1
Laboratory which is a Department of Energy National Laboratory located 2
in New Mexico.
3 Some years ago, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission got 4
into a contract with the Department of Energy national laboratories to 5
provide the expertise that was needed to do a thorough environmental 6
analysis of the environmental impacts related to license renewal at 7
power plants like Point Beach. We have a team for this project that 8
includes people not only from where I work, Los Alamos National 9
Laboratory, but we also have some of our team members from Lawrence 10 Livermore Laboratory which is located in California, and also Argonne 11 National Laboratory which is in Illinois.
12 The team members that we have include people with 13 expertise in the different disciplines that you see up there. All of 14 these are important aspects that have to be looked at in order to 15 perform a thorough environmental analysis. And they include looking 16 at atmospheric science, issues related to atmospheric science, issues 17 related to socio-economics and environmental justice, ecology, both 18 terrestrial as well as aquatic, land use issues, archeological and 19 cultural resource issues and historical issues, if there are such that 20 are present at a power plant like this, nuclear safety issues, 21 hydrology, water quality issues, and regulatory compliance. And these 22 were all aspects and we had people on our team with expertise in all 23 those disciplines.
24 A little bit of background on how we went about doing 25
15 NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433 our analysis. The approach that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission 1
uses is based partly on what's called the Generic Environmental Impact 2
Statement and that's something that was developed and published in 3
1996, and it's a generic environmental impact statement for license 4
renewals. And one of the things that it did was it identified 92, a 5
total of 92 different environmental issues that are looked at as part 6
of the process of evaluating plants for renewal of their operating 7
licenses.
8 69 of those issues are what are called Category 1 9
issues. If you look at the left-hand column of the flowchart up 10 there, that's what we're talking about. And in the Generic 11 Environmental Impact Statement, the idea was this: that there are 12 certain issues like that for which the kinds of impacts are going to 13 be the same at all nuclear power plants or they're going to be the 14 same kinds of impacts at plants that have similar kinds of 15 characteristics. For example, the same kind of cooling system. And 16 so, for those, those were evaluated and conclusions were reached in 17 the Generic Environmental Impact Statement.
18 The other 23 issues, 21 of those are in Category 2. So, 19 that's the second column over there on the slide. And those are the 20 kinds of issues that really require a site specific analysis. What's 21 happening there may be different from one plant to another plant to 22 another plant. So, all of those have to be looked at independently 23 and looked at newly at each different plant that's examined that's 24 going through the license renewal process.
25
16 NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433 There's two other issues that are, one is called 1
environmental justice, you saw that mentioned on the other slide, and 2
the effects of electromagnetic fields. And those are issues that were 3
not categorized as being either Category 1 or 2. So, in those cases, 4
definitely you have to do a site specific evaluation. So, we looked 5
at all of those in our process.
6 Now, for the generic issues, the Category 1 issues, only 7
certain ones of those are actually applicable to the situation that we 8
have at Point Beach Power Plant. For those that were applicable, we 9
looked for any new information that was related to the issue that 10 might affect the conclusion that was reached by NRC when the generic 11 environmental impact statement was published. If there's no new 12 information, see this little box right here, the little octagonal box 13 with the decision point there, if there is no new and significant 14 information that's found, then we recommend to adopt the conclusion 15 that was in the Generic Environmental Impact Statement. No reason to 16 change it.
17 On the other hand, if there is new information, new and 18 significant information that's been identified, we'd look at it with a 19 site specific analysis. For the site specific issues, the Category 2 20 issues, we did a site specific analysis.
21 And finally, the other thing that we did was during the 22 scoping period, the public was invited to provide information, again, 23 on any potentially new issues, see that little box up there in the 24 corner, and any information that might be new and significant 25
17 NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433 information on those other ones that we talked about. And our team, 1
during our review, we looked at that to see if there were any new 2
issues that were brought up that needed to be analyzed and needed the 3
attention of the NRC staff.
4 How do we do it? For each of the environmental issues 5
that are looked at, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has defined a 6
set of impact levels for those: small, moderate and large. And 7
they're defined the way you see here.
8 So, for a small impact, that's something where the 9
particular thing that you're looking at, the particular issue, the 10 effect is it's not detectable, or it's so small that it does not 11 destabilize or noticeably alter any of the important attributes of the 12 resource. A moderate impact is one where the effect is sufficient to 13 alter noticeably but still not to destabilize any important attribute 14 of that resource that you're looking at. And finally, in the case of 15 a large impact, for it to be considered large, the effect would 16 clearly have to be noticeable and it would have to be sufficient to 17 destabilize important attributes of what the resource is.
18 Let me give you an example: the fishery in Lake 19 Michigan. Operating the Point Beach Nuclear Power Plant, as with any 20 other power plant that uses cooling waters with a system like that may 21 cause the loss of adult fish or juvenile fish at the intake structure.
22 If the loss of fish is so small that it cannot be detected in relation 23 to the total population in the lake, you'd consider it a small impact.
24 If there is a loss that would cause the population of the species to 25
18 NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433 decline but then it might stabilize at a lower level, that might be 1
classified as a moderate impact. To be a large impact, it would be a 2
kind of a loss that would cause a fish population to decline to the 3
point where it cannot be stabilized and it continually declines.
4 That's an example of a large impact.
5 When our team looked at the impacts from continued 6
operation of the Point Beach facility, we considered information from 7
a wide variety of sources. We looked at what information the 8
Applicant provided in their license renewal application. Part of that 9
includes what's called an environmental report that has a significant 10 amount of information in it. We also conducted a site audit as you 11 heard earlier in the presentation where our team went out to the site, 12 interviewed personnel working at the plant, reviewed documents for 13 operating the plant and maintaining the plant and previous operating 14 records and other documents, and we also talked to federal and state 15 and local agency officials. We talked to authorities who issue 16 permits and we also talked to people with social service agencies in 17 the region.
18 And finally, we looked at the comments that were 19 received during the scoping period. Those comments, by the way, are 20 included in the Draft EIS that you've seen in Appendix A of that 21 document along with NRC's responses to those comments. So, all of 22 that body of information is what we used for our team to do the 23 analysis.
24 The Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement looks at 25
19 NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433 the environmental impacts of continued operation of the plant units 1 1
and 2 during the 20-year license renewal term. The impacts of routine 2
operations were looked at for things like you see on the list here:
3 the cooling system, transmission lines into the plant, radiological 4
impacts, socioeconomic, ground water impacts to threatened and 5
endangered species in the area, and so on, cumulative impacts. And 6
also, accidents, both postulated accidents and also severe accident 7
mitigation alternatives. And you've heard Rich mentioned not a few 8
minutes ago. Mr. Rich Emch is going to talk about those in a few 9
minutes.
10 I'm going to give you the highlights of what we found 11 and then when we get to the end of the presentation, please feel free 12 to ask questions if you have other questions.
13 One area that we looked at closely as I just mentioned 14 was the cooling system. Category 2 issues are the ones as I said that 15 are the ones that require site specific analysis. There are three of 16 those for a cooling system like this. The first is entrainment. What 17 entrainment is, it's the process whereby smaller aquatic organisms may 18 pass through the debris screens, there's debris screens located at the 19 intake structures of the plant, but these are things that are small 20 enough to get through that may actually pass all the way through the 21 cooling system. Impingement is a term that's used to describe what 22 happens when larger organisms like fish or shellfish for example, or 23 even possibly water fowl may be drawn into the intake and they get 24 pinned against those screens on the intake structure.
25
20 NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433 Now, both of those cases, generally what happens is they 1
result in the mortality of the organisms that got pulled into the 2
intake structures. There were some problems with impingement at Point 3
Beach Plant several years ago, but the intake system has been modified 4
in the last several years and there has also been a fish deterrent 5
system that was installed. And both of those address those concerns.
6 And as a result, what we have seen and what's been reported and what's 7
been demonstrated is that impacts from impingement and entrainment at 8
Point Beach are small according to those definitions that I just gave 9
a few minutes ago.
10 In addition to that, Point Beach is regulated under 11 Clean Water Act with a permit, and that permit is called a Wisconsin 12 Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit (WPDES). And that 13 permit for Point Beach was just reissued this last summer. There's 14 provisions in that permit addressing new requirements that EPA put 15 into place under Section 316(b) of the Clean Water Act looking 16 specifically at impingement and entrainment issues for once-through 17 cooling systems at electric power plants like Point Beach. So, that's 18 something that's addressed specifically in that permit.
19 There is one more category of site specific Category 2 20 issues for cooling system and that's heat shock. Heat shock is what 21 happens when relatively warm water that's coming out of the plant is 22 released into the cooler water of Lake Michigan. In that situation, 23 aquatic organisms that are moving around in the lake that suddenly 24 encounter the significantly hotter water may lose equilibrium or they 25
21 NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433 may die when they're exposed to the water. At Point Beach, because of 1
the system that's in place, because of the operations and the way it 2
works, those impacts in fact are small.
3 There is also a number of Category 1 issues that relate 4
to cooling systems. Category 1, as I said, are the ones that are the 5
generic issues that were considered in the Generic Environmental 6
Impact Statement. Those include issues for example related to water 7
use conflicts, accumulating contaminants, discharge of sanitary 8
wastes, minor chemical spills, or metals and chlorine that may be in 9
the cooling system. And in the Generic Environmental Impact 10 Statement, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission determined that impacts 11 associated with those issues would be small at all plants.
12 We performed the analysis I told you about before. We 13 looked at all available information that there was to see if there was 14 any new and significant information that would cause us to come to a 15 conclusion different than what was found in the GEIS, the Generic 16 Environmental Impact Statement. We didn't find any, so we recommended 17 adopting the NRC generic conclusion, that these are small impacts.
18 Another area that includes Category 1 issues is 19 radiological impacts. This is, so again, these are the generic issues 20 in the Generic Environmental Impact Statement. The Nuclear Regulatory 21 Commission made a generic determination that impacts of those releases 22 during plant operations during the 20-year renewal period would be 23 small. Because this is an issue that's often of interest to the 24 public, I wanted to say a couple of words about them here. All 25
22 NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433 nuclear power plants will have some radiological effluent releases to 1
the environment.
2 During our site visit, we looked at the monitoring 3
program that's used, we looked at documentation of previous effluent 4
releases. And these are things that are normally reported to 5
regulatory agencies on a regular basis and in annual reports. And we 6
looked at the radiological monitoring program around the facility. We 7
looked at how gaseous and liquid effluents were treated and released.
8 And we also looked at how solid wastes are treated, packaged and those 9
are shipped offsite.
10 We also looked at how the Applicant analyzes and 11 determines and demonstrates that they're in compliance with effluent 12 release limits for radionuclides. We also looked at the data from the 13 locations in the radiological monitoring program, both onsite and also 14 areas near the site where there is monitoring for airborne releases, 15 direct radiation, also other locations beyond the site boundary where 16 water, milk, fish and food products are sampled. What we found was 17 that the maximum calculated doses for a member of the public were well 18 within annual limits that are considered protective for human health.
19 Since releases from the plant are not expected to 20 increase during the 20-year license renewal term, and since again we 21 found no new and significant information that would cause us to change 22 or look differently at the conclusions that were adopted in the 23 Generic Environmental Impact Statement, we recommended that they do be 24 adopted, and our conclusion was that the radiological impact on human 25
23 NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433 health and the environment from the plant is small.
1 I want to take a minute to talk about threatened and 2
endangered species. This is considered a Category 2 issue. So, this 3
is one that does require a site specific review. Our team identified 4
that there are not any federally listed species that occur on the site 5
or in the nearby waters of Lake Michigan offshore from the site.
6 There are four federally listed species that have been recorded as 7
occurring in Manitowoc and Brown Counties, and they could potentially 8
occur in the vicinity of the Point Beach Plant. They include two 9
birds, the bald eagle and the piping plover which is the little guy 10 you see on the right there, and two plants, one is called the dune or 11 Pitcher's thistle and the other is the dwarf lake iris.
12 The Nuclear Regulatory Commission initiated an informal 13 consultation with the US Fish and Wildlife Service, the agency that 14 protects or provides protection for threatened and endangered species.
15 Fish and Wildlife Service noted that beach habitat near Point Beach 16 could potentially be suitable in the future for nesting of piping 17 plovers. And they thought that Point Beach Plant ought to have 18 measures in place to protect any birds that might be nesting in the 19 future.
20 In response, the facility has initiated a program where 21 they will be surveying annually for the presence of piping plovers.
22 If any piping plovers should ever be discovered on site, they will 23 take additional measures to protect those individuals. A biological 24 assessment was put together by NRC and submitted to the Fish and 25
24 NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433 Wildlife Service in support of this and informal consultation with 1
Fish and Wildlife Service is still going on at this time.
2 The staff believes no additional mitigation is required 3
for protection of threatened or endangered species in the vicinity of 4
the plant or the associated transmission line rights-of-way. And 5
based on that information and our analysis and the informal 6
consultation with Fish and Wildlife Service, the preliminary 7
conclusion that we made was that continued operation of the plant 8
during the license renewal period may affect but is not likely to 9
adversely affect the bald eagle or the piping plover, and is likely to 10 have no effect on the dune or Pitcher's thistle or the dwarf lake 11 iris.
12 I want to take a moment also to talk about cumulative 13 impacts. These are impacts that may be minor when they're considered 14 individually. But when you consider them together with other past, 15 present or reasonably foreseeable future actions, regardless of what 16 other agency or person undertakes those other actions, they could 17 cumulatively be significant. The team looked at cumulative impacts 18 resulting from a number of different possible sources: operating the 19 cooling water system, operating the transmission lines, releases of 20 radiation or radiological material, socioeconomic impacts, and impacts 21 related to groundwater use and groundwater quality.
22 We looked at those through the end of the 20-year 23 license renewal term. One thing I want to point out is that the 24 geographical boundary of the analysis may very well be different for 25
25 NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433 whatever resource it is and whatever impact it is you may be looking 1
at. For example, the geographic area analyzed for transmission lines 2
obviously is going to be different than the geographical area looked 3
at for the cooling water system. So, it kind of makes sense. The 4
preliminary determination of the staff was that any cumulative impacts 5
resulting from operation of the Point Beach Nuclear Plant during the 6
license renewal period would be small.
7 Our team also looked at impacts related to the uranium 8
fuel cycle and solid waste management, and also the decommissioning, 9
eventual decommissioning of Units 1 and 2 at Point Beach. In the 10 Generic Environmental Impact Statement, the NRC considered impacts 11 that were associated with these topics, and those were considered to 12 be Category 1 issues or generic issues. Offsite radiological impacts 13 and non-radiological impacts are environmental issues that are related 14 to the uranium fuel cycle.
15 Environmental issues that are related to solid waste 16 management include things like the storage and disposal of non-17 radiological waste, low-level waste, mixed waste, onsite storage of 18 spent fuel, and transportation of spent nuclear fuel and high level 19 waste to a repository. Environmental issues looked at for 20 decommissioning are basically similar to those for normal plant 21 operations, and those include things like radiation doses, waste 22 management, air quality and water quality, ecological resources and 23 socioeconomic impacts.
24 For these too, our team did the analysis as I talked 25
26 NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433 about earlier for Category 1 issues, we looked for any new and 1
significant information that would cause the Nuclear Regulatory 2
Commission to make a decision that might be different from that that 3
was in the Generic Environmental Impact Statement. We didn't find 4
any, so we recommended adopting the generic conclusion, that these 5
impacts are small.
6 The Point Beach Nuclear Plant has two units. Units 1 7
and 2 combined have an electrical generating capacity of 1,036 8
megawatts electric. Our team looked at the potential environmental 9
impacts that would be associated with Point Beach not continuing 10 operation and the need for the state to somehow replace this 11 generation capacity with alternative power sources. So, our team 12 looked at several different alternatives.
13 We looked at a no-action alternative. We looked at 14 developing new generation from a coal-fired plant, a gas-fired plant, 15 a new nuclear power plant that would be built on the site, purchased 16 power, and other technologies, alternative technologies including 17 things like wind, solar power, hydro-power. And then we also looked 18 at a combination of different alternatives. For each one of the 19 alternatives, we looked at the same kind of issues that we did for 20 operating the Point Beach Nuclear Plant during the license renewal 21 term. The preliminary conclusion that our team came to was that 22 environmental impacts of alternatives in some impact categories could 23 reach moderate or large significance.
24 To summarize our preliminary conclusions, I mentioned 25
27 NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433 before that the Generic Environmental Impact Statement in 1996 1
identified generic conclusions for 69 issues that were Category 1 2
issues for operating nuclear power plants for another additional 20 3
years. For those Category 1 issues, our team looked to see if there 4
was any information that was new and significant. Not finding any, we 5
recommended preliminarily adopting the Generic Environmental Impact 6
Statement conclusion that impacts associated with those issues for 7
Point Beach are small.
8 For the 21 issues that are Category 2 issues requiring 9
the site specific analysis, our team performed a site specific 10 analysis and found that the environmental impacts resulting from those 11 issues also were small for Point Beach. And finally, we looked at the 12 environmental effects for alternatives to renewal of the Point Beach 13 license. And at least in some impact categories, those impacts could 14 potentially reach moderate or large significance.
15 And that's all I have to say for now.
16 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Great, Paul. Thank you. It's a 17 very, very good overview of what's in the draft. Do we have any 18 questions? Yes, sir. And please introduce yourself to us.
19 MR. CORELL: My name is Garry Corell, I work with --
20 responsible for environmental activities. I appreciate the discussion 21 on small, moderate and large impacts as far as what the biological 22 effects are. Can you expand upon the environmental effects of 23 alternatives as far as moderate and large? What criteria are used to 24 make that decision? Thank you.
25
28 NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433 MR. SCHUMANN: Sure, thank you. Yes, really what's 1
being talked about there is we've essentially looked at scenarios 2
where Point Beach would be shut down and would not be available, 3
didn't get their license renewed. And in those kind of situations, 4
what would have to be done obviously is the power source would have to 5
be replaced with something else. With gas-fired, you know, coal-fired 6
power plant, a combination, sort of the combination platter, the combo 7
platter alternative that we looked at was one that had a combination 8
where the generating capacity of Point Beach was replaced by a coal-9 fired plant plus a natural gas-fired plant plus purchasing some power 10 from other sources and sort of combining all of those together.
11 And when you look at that and you think about situations 12 where you now have a fossil fuel-fired plant located at Point Beach or 13 somewhere else that might be impacted, then you start to have things 14 like air quality impacts, for example, that you don't have at the 15 Point Beach Plant. And so, in those kind of situations, those are, 16 that's an example of one where that meets that category of a moderate 17 impact or a large impact. And those are the ones where there may be 18 an alteration of the resource for moderate, remember. And so, it may 19 or may not be enough to actually destabilize the resource entirely.
20 Now, in certain situations, that could be the case. For 21 example, if you think about air quality impacts located in the air 22 shed south of where the plant is located here, down in the 23 southeastern corner of the state, that's an area that EPA has found to 24 be a non-attainment for certain of the primary pollutants for a number 25
29 NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433 of years. So, in that kind of situation, because of the constraints 1
on providing new generation capacity, there would be significant 2
impacts and those start to spill over. You can't make a more 3
significant air quality deterioration in that case without either 4
replacing that degradation somewhere else somehow and compensating for 5
it, or doing something else and that also spills off into other sorts 6
of impacts.
7 It can add socioeconomic impacts. The plant is shut 8
down here. Jobs are lost. Effects to the local economy and 9
infrastructure. So, it's those sorts of things that we were really 10 talking about.
11 And if you look in the EIS, you'll see throughout 12 Chapter 8, and there is also a little summary table at the end in 13 Chapter 9 where you can kind of look across and you can see for the 14 variety of different kinds of economic impacts, biological impacts, 15 water quality, air quality, and you sort of go on down the list and 16 you'll see a number of those where, because of the impact that it 17 would have, it triggered that NRC definition of going up into the 18 moderate or large category. So, it's really, that's what it is.
19 It's the impacts of not renewing the license for the plant and having 20 to do something else to create that power for the state of Wisconsin.
21 MR. CAMERON: Is that clear?
22 MR. CORELL: Yes, sir. Thank you. I appreciate it.
23 MR. CAMERON: Great. Other questions on the Draft 24 Environmental Impact Statement?
25
30 NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433 Okay. Well, thank you very much, Paul. And let's go to 1
Rich Emch to talk about the accident analysis.
2 MR. EMCH: Good evening. My name is Rich Emch. I am a 3
member of the environmental evaluation group that Andy is responsible 4
for and in charge of.
5 The Generic Environmental Impact Statement that you've 6
heard earlier referred to as GEIS looks at two kinds of accidents. It 7
looks at what we call design basis accidents, or sometimes we refer to 8
them as postulated accidents. These are accidents that are evaluated 9
at the licensing, original licensing of the plant. Basically, they 10 are used to evaluate the overall robustness, the overall safety of the 11 plant and to ensure that if any of these kinds of accidents occur, 12 that the plant will survive them, run through them without release of 13 activity, radioactive materials that would harm the public.
14 They were evaluated at the beginning of licensing when 15 the plant was first licensed and the plant is continually evaluated to 16 ensure that the plant still meets the safety criteria and the safety 17 goals such that at any point during the life of the plant even into 18 the extended period for license renewal, that the plant would still 19 meet those criteria, and therefore, the significance from design basis 20 accidents would be small. We did do an evaluation to look for new and 21 significant information. None was found. Therefore, the conclusion 22 from the GEIS stands that for design basis accidents the impact would 23 be small.
24 The next kind of accident that we evaluated was severe 25
31 NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433 accidents. By their nature, they are beyond design basis accidents.
1 They are accidents that could very well involve damage to the reactor 2
core and loss of integrity, possible loss of integrity to the 3
containment building. And therefore, they could result in significant 4
releases of radioactive material. They could indeed endanger the 5
public.
6 Okay. The analysis of severe accidents is usually based 7
on something we call the probabilistic risk assessment. What we do is 8
evaluate the risk of the plant. We look at the possibility, the kinds 9
of equipment failure, system failures and possible human errors, the 10 combination of these that could lead to a failure which could release 11 radioactive material. Based on that analysis, the PRA analysis, we 12 came up with probabilistic weighted consequences, and that was 13 determined to be of small impact in the GEIS for all the plants. And 14 again, we looked at new and significant information, found none, so we 15 stayed with the conclusion that the impact from severe accidents would 16 be small.
17 However, there is a need, the Commission decided that we 18 needed to evaluate for any plant that goes through license renewal 19 where they had not already had a SAMA analysis. This is a severe 20 accident mitigation alternatives analysis. If one has not already 21 been done when we go through the license renewal process, then one 22 needs to be done. That was the case for Point Beach, so the Licensee 23 developed a SAMA analysis, included it in their environmental report, 24 and we did an evaluation or review of that. Because it is a Category 25
32 NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433 2 issue as Paul was talking about earlier so it does require site 1
specific evaluation, this is discussed in Section 5.2, summarized 2
there of the DSEIS and it's discussed in more detail in Appendix G of 3
the DSEIS.
4 The basic concept is to identify and evaluate possible 5
plant changes that could reduce the overall risk of operating the 6
plant. These could be changes in the plant modifications. They could 7
be changes in the procedures. They could be changes in training 8
methods. And we looked for anything that could prevent or reduce the 9
risk of core damage or could improve containment performance under 10 accident situations.
11 It's a four-step process. The first part of the SAMA 12 process is to characterize the risk and to identify those systems and 13 processes in the plant that provide the most, that dominate the risk 14 picture, that are the places that give you the most risk. That is 15 done through the PRA that we've already talked about. Once that has 16 been characterized, then the plant, the Licensee, goes about 17 identifying possible improvements that could be used to reduce those 18 risks. They start by looking at a number of NRC reports and SAMA 19 analyses that have been done by other licensees. They also look at 20 the plant specific PRA that's been performed for their plant. They 21 use their knowledge of their plant to look for areas that are 22 dominating the risk and say, can we make improvements that could 23 further reduce the risk on these areas?
24 Now, let's, for a moment we need to step back. Remember 25
33 NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433 that we are talking about the plant is safe. It meets all the NRC 1
safety criteria. It meets the performance goals. What we're talking 2
about here is a situation where we're looking to see if there are 3
small changes that could make the plant even safer that are 4
cost-beneficial that would be worth the money to spend on those 5
things.
6 Once those evaluations have been done and they have come 7
up with that list of improvements, then they evaluate how much those 8
improvements could reduce the risk of a plant. And they also do an 9
evaluation to determine what the benefit of, well, the benefit is how 10 much they've reduced, they also look at how much it would cost to 11 implement those improvements. They use bounding analyses to evaluate 12 the improvements, the benefits. Those bounding analyses usually 13 assume that they can make whatever part of the risk assessment 14 completely go away. That's not true. You can almost never do that, 15 so it's a bounding analysis. And on the other hand, when you're 16 evaluating cost, you're usually under-evaluating the cost because they 17 don't include maintenance and surveillance costs and replacement power 18 costs.
19 Once all that has been done, then you make a comparison 20 between the costs. Everything is brought back to a present day cost 21 using financial formulas. You compare the costs of implementation of 22 the change to the cost of the benefits that would be incurred over 20 23 years. And it's very simple. Once you get to that point, it's very 24 simple. If the cost of the benefits is greater than the cost of 25
34 NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433 putting the thing in place, then it's cost-beneficial. And if it's 1
the other way, then it's not cost-beneficial.
2 Here, we look at whether or not it's cost-beneficial.
3 We look at whether the kind of changes that are being proposed could 4
give you a significant reduction in risk or core damage or could 5
significantly improve containment performance. And we also look to 6
see whether any of these SAMAs are in areas where they would be 7
related to managing the effects of aging during the extended operating 8
period.
9 At the beginning of the process, the Licensee identified 10 202 SAMAs. And from there, they did a multi-step screening process.
11 They looked to see how many of those SAMAs were not applicable to the 12 plant. They looked to see how many of those SAMAs had already been 13 addressed by the plant in some fashion or form. And after they 14 finished that part of the screening, they were down to 65 SAMAs.
15 At that point, they did a more detailed assessment of 16 the cost of each SAMA and they looked more carefully at the design.
17 In other words, what it would take to put that change into the plant.
18 Once they completed that, they determined that none of the SAMAs were 19 cost-beneficial.
20 During its review, the NRC looked at two areas where we 21 believe there are SAMAs that could be potentially cost-beneficial.
22 These were adjustments, if you will, to SAMAs that the Licensee had 23 looked at. One of those is in the area, it's called the auto-pump 24 trip, installing an auto-pump trip on low refueling water storage tank 25
35 NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433 level indication. This was an adjustment to a SAMA that the Licensee 1
had proposed of automatic switchover.
2 And the staff has concluded that this possible option is 3
cheaper but might provide some of the same benefits, and therefore, it 4
is potentially cost-beneficial. The second one was to provide a 5
portable generator to help power the auxiliary feedwater pump after 6
the battery that normally would power it in an accident is depleted.
7 Here, the staff concluded that if one looked at the uncertainties in 8
the analysis and looked at the use of a more different kind of, a 9
lower discount rate for the analysis, that one might conclude that 10 this SAMA could be cost-beneficial as well.
11 These two SAMAs that we regard as being potentially 12 cost-beneficial, neither one of them are related to adequately 13 managing the effects of aging during the renewal period. Therefore, 14 they are not required to be implemented as part of license renewal 15 under 10 CFR Part 54 of our regulations. And our preliminary 16 conclusion is that no additional plant improvements are needed to 17 further mitigate severe accidents for license renewal at Point Beach.
18 The Licensee is evaluating the two SAMAs that the staff 19 has proposed as potentially cost-beneficial. And at some point during 20 the comment process or in additional information that we'll receive 21 from the Licensee, they'll tell us what the results of their analysis 22 is, what their plans are as far as those two cost-beneficial SAMAs.
23 I think I'm done. Any questions?
24 MR. CAMERON: Questions for Rich on the SAMA analysis --
25
36 NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433 anybody?
1 Okay, thank you very much, Rich. And Stacey is going to 2
give us the conclusions and how you submit comments.
3 MS. IMBODEN: Okay. Turning now to our conclusions, we 4
found that the impacts of license renewal are small in all areas. We 5
also concluded that the alternative actions, including the no-action 6
alternative, may have environmental effects in at least some impact 7
categories that reach moderate or large significance.
8 Based on these results, our preliminary recommendation 9
is that the adverse environmental impacts of license renewal for Point 10 Beach Nuclear Plant are not so great that preserving the option of 11 license renewal for energy planning decisionmakers would be 12 unreasonable.
13 This slide highlights some of the milestones for the 14 environmental review. As I mentioned earlier, we issued the Draft 15 Environmental Impact Statement in January. The 75-day public comment 16 period runs until April 13th. After that, we will review and 17 disposition the comments that we receive, modify the environmental 18 impact statement as appropriate and prepare the Final Environmental 19 Impact Statement. And we expect to publish the Final Environmental 20 Impact Statement in September 2005.
21 This slide identifies me as your primary point of 22 contact for the Point Beach Environmental Impact Statement. It also 23 identifies where documents related to our review can be found in the 24 local area. The Lester Public Library has a copy of the Draft 25
37 NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433 Environmental Impact Statement available for public review in addition 1
to any correspondence sent by NRC to NMC or other agencies regarding 2
the Point Beach license renewal review. The Draft EIS is also 3
available on the NRC website: www.nrc.gov, or the specific website 4
link on the slide. And we also brought a few hard copies of the Draft 5
EIS which are on the tables outside of this meeting.
6 Outside of this meeting, you have three other 7
opportunities to comment. You can comment in writing by writing a 8
letter to the address on the slide. You can comment in person if you 9
happen to be at the NRC headquarters in Rockville, Maryland. And you 10 can comment by email to pointbeacheis@nrc.gov. And I check that email 11 inbox almost everyday.
12 All of the comments will be collected and considered.
13 And that concludes my remarks.
14 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Is it clear what the opportunities 15 for comment are? Are there any questions on that or the preliminary 16 conclusions for Stacey?
17 Great. Thank you, Stacey. And this is usually the time 18 in the meeting where we ask people for any comments that they might 19 have on the Draft Environmental Impact Statement or on the license 20 renewal process, advice, recommendations, anything like that. Is 21 there anybody who wants to make a comment?
22 Okay. I would thank you, and I thank all of the 23 speakers. And Andy?
24 MR. KUGLER: Well, I just want to thank you again for 25
38 NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433 coming out this evening for our meeting. If you do have any comments 1
that you think of after the meeting, as Stacey indicated, there are a 2
number of ways you can get those comments to us and we would welcome 3
them.
4 We also, in the package that you received when you came 5
in, there's a meeting feedback form at the back of that package. We'd 6
certainly appreciate it if you would fill that form out. If you have 7
any suggestions on how we can do things differently that maybe would 8
serve you better, we would certainly appreciate those comments. You 9
can either fill it out and leave it in the back or you can fill it in 10 and mail it back to us. The postage is prepaid.
11 As we've indicated, the staff will remain after the 12 meeting. If you have any additional questions or you just want to 13 talk to us about some issues related to the license renewal, we can do 14 that. And I thank you for your time. Good night.
15 (Whereupon, the meeting was adjourned.)
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