ML053400361
| ML053400361 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Oyster Creek |
| Issue date: | 11/01/2005 |
| From: | Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation |
| To: | Rani Franovich NRC/NRR/ADRO/DLR/REBB |
| Keto E, NRR/DLR/REBB, 415-2621 | |
| Shared Package | |
| ML053400397 | List: |
| References | |
| %dam200604, NRC-691, TAC MC7625 | |
| Download: ML053400361 (141) | |
Text
Official Transcript of Proceedings NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Title:
Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Plant Public Meeting: Afternoon Session Docket Number: 50-219 Location:
Toms River, New Jersey Date: Tuesday, November 1, 2005 Work Order No.: NRC-691 Pages 1-138 NEAL R. GROSS AND CO., INC.
Court Reporters and Transcribers 1323 Rhode Island Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 234-4433
1 1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 2 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 3 + + + + +
4 PUBLIC MEETING TO DISCUSS ENVIRONMENTAL SCOPING 5 FOR OYSTER CREEK NUCLEAR GENERATING PLANT, 6 LICENSE RENEWAL APPLICATION 7 AFTERNOON SESSION 8 + + + + +
9 TUESDAY, 10 NOVEMBER 1, 2005 11 + + + + +
12 TOMS RIVER, NEW JERSEY 13 + + + + +
14 The afternoon session of the Public 15 Meeting was convened at the Quality Inn at 815 Route 16 37 in Toms River, New Jersey, at 1:30 p.m, and the 17 evening session convened at 7:00 p.m., F. "Chip" 18 Cameron, Facilitator, presiding.
19 NRC STAFF PARTICIPATING:
20 F. "CHIP" CAMERON 21 RANI FRANOVICH 22 MICHAEL MASNIK 23 RON BELLAMY 24 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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2 1 NRC STAFF PARTICIPATING: (cont'd) 2 ALAN MADISON 3 KEVIN WILLIAMS 4
5 SPEAKERS:
6 TOM JACKSON 7 MIKE MERCURIO 8 ED FRYDENDAHL 9 DON WARREN 10 J. SIMONAIR 11 ED STROUP 12 BUD SWENSON 13 FRED POLASKI 14 TOM CERVASIO 15 WAYNE ROMBERG 16 JUDITH CAMBRIA 17 BUD THOMAN 18 CHIP GERRITY 19 DON WILLIAMS 20 NANCY ERIKSEN 21 PAULA GOTSCH 22 SUZANNE LETA 23 KELLY McNICHOLAS 24 CHRIS TRYON 25 JAY VOUGLITOIS NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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3 1 SPEAKERS: (cont'd) 2 TERRY MATTHEWS 3 ROBERTO WEINMANN 4 ED HOGAN, father 5 ED HOGAN, son 6 ROD STERLING 7 DAVID MOST 8 PEGGI STURMFELS 9 JEFFREY BROWN 10 JENNIFER M. WATLEY 11 RON WATSON 12 DONALD POSEY 13 JUDY MOKEN 14 DIANE ELENESKI 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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4 1 A-G-E-N-D-A 2 Session I: PAGE 3 Welcome and Purpose of Meeting 5 4 Overview of License Renewal Process 10 5 Overview of Environmental Review Process 18 6 Public Comment 60 7 Closing/Availability of Transcripts, etc. 131 8 Adjourn 9
10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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5 1 P-R-O-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S 2 (1:29 p.m.)
3 FACILITATOR CAMERON: Good afternoon, 4 everyone. My name is Chip Cameron. I'm the Special 5 Counsel for Public Liaison at the Nuclear Regulatory 6 Commission, and it's my pleasure to serve as your 7 facilitator for today's meeting.
8 And our subject today is the NRC review 9 and evaluation process for an application that we 10 received from AmerGen Corporation to renew the 11 operating license for the Oyster Creek nuclear 12 facility. And that's what we're here to talk to you 13 about today, specifically our environmental review 14 process, but not only to answer questions on the 15 process but also to take the opportunity to listen to 16 your concerns, comments, recommendations, about the 17 license renewal process, and specifically about what 18 we should consider when we do the environmental 19 review.
20 My job as facilitator is to try to help 21 all of you have a productive meeting today, and I just 22 want to talk for a few minutes about meeting process 23 issues before we get on to the substance of our 24 discussions. I'd like to give you an idea of the 25 format we're using, talk a little bit about some NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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6 1 simple ground rules that will help us all to have a 2 good meeting, and to introduce the NRC staff who will 3 be talking to you today.
4 In terms of format, we're going to do the 5 meeting in two parts, and basically that matches up 6 with our objectives of giving you information and 7 listening to you. In the first part of the meeting, 8 we're going to have two brief NRC presentations, and 9 then we're going to go out to you for questions to 10 make sure that we have really given you a clear idea 11 of what our process looks at when we evaluate one of 12 these applications.
13 After that we're going to go to the part 14 of the meeting where we listen to you, and we'll give 15 you an opportunity to come up to the podium here to 16 talk to us. Or if you don't want to come to the 17 podium, I can bring you this cordless microphone.
18 We are taking written comments on the 19 issues, and please feel free to submit written 20 comments. But we wanted to be here with you this 21 afternoon to talk to you personally, and I just want 22 to emphasize that anything we hear today will carry as 23 much weight as a written comment.
24 In terms of ground rules, they are simple.
25 When we get to the question period, if you have a NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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7 1 question, just signal me and I'll bring you this 2 cordless mike. Please introduce yourself to us, and 3 ask your question. And I know it's hard not to wrap 4 a comment up in a question, and that's fine, but try 5 to keep that part of the meeting to questions, and we 6 will be going to the comment part of the meeting later 7 on.
8 I would ask that only one person at a time 9 speak for two important reasons, the most important 10 being that we can give whomever has the floor our full 11 attention. The second reason is that our 12 stenographer/court reporter over here, Mr. Doug 13 Turner, I believe, can get a clear transcript. In 14 other words, he'll know who is speaking at the time.
15 I would ask all of us to extend courtesy 16 to different opinions that we might hear today. We 17 usually hear different opinions, some strongly held, 18 about license renewal applications, and I would just 19 ask you to just respect one another's opinions.
20 In terms of the time element, I would also 21 ask you both during questions and your comments to try 22 to be succinct, so that we can make sure that we give 23 everybody an opportunity to talk today. And we 24 usually set a five-minute guideline in terms of formal 25 comment. We don't have a whole lot of speakers today, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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8 1 so if you could just try to keep it in the five- to 2 seven-minute range.
3 Usually, we find that five minutes is 4 enough to summarize the major points that you have.
5 And it does two things, two important things for us.
6 One is it alerts us to issues of concern that the 7 public has that we can start working on right away 8 before we see any written comments, and, in fact, that 9 the staff and our experts can come and talk to you 10 about after the meeting. Second important function is 11 that it gives others in the community, others in the 12 audience, an idea of what the concerns are that people 13 might have.
14 So I would thank all of you for being here 15 with us this afternoon, and the NRC staff will be here 16 after the meeting to talk to you informally about 17 whatever issues you might have.
18 Let me introduce our speakers. First 19 speaker is Rani Franovich, who is right over here, and 20 she is the Chief of the Environmental Branch within 21 our License Renewal and Environmental Review Program 22 at the NRC. And that's in our Office of Nuclear 23 Reactor Regulation.
24 Rani and her staff are responsible for 25 preparing the environmental reviews not only -- well, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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9 1 basically on license renewal applications, but there 2 may be other things, but basically license renewal 3 applications. To give you an idea of her background, 4 she has been with the agency for about 15 years.
5 Eight of those years were in our Region II office down 6 in Atlanta, and Rani served as a resident inspector.
7 These are the NRC staff who actually are 8 onsite at all operating nuclear reactors to make sure 9 that our regulations are being followed by the 10 licensee. And she was resident inspector at Catawba.
11 She was also the project manager for the safety review 12 of license renewal applications at both Catawba and 13 the McGuire plants.
14 She was also the enforcement coordinator 15 within our Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation, and 16 now she is Chief of the Environmental Branch.
17 Bachelor's Degree in Psychology from 18 Virginia Tech, and a Master's in Industrial Systems 19 Engineering, also from Virginia Tech. So she's going 20 to give you a welcome, a short overview of license 21 renewal, and then we're going to go to Mr. Mike Masnik 22 -- Dr. Masnik, who is right here.
23 Mike is the Project Manager for the 24 preparation of the environmental review on this 25 reactor. So he's the one who is responsible for NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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10 1 supervising the other NRC staff that work on this, our 2 contractors. He will be telling you about that. He 3 works for Rani. He's in that branch.
4 And he has a Bachelor's from Cornell, and 5 a Master's and Ph.D. from Virginia Tech in 6 Ichthyology.
7 Okay. But he has a -- sort of an 8 interesting, a close connection with Oyster Creek that 9 you might be interested in. His parents had a summer 10 house in Seaside Park, and he spent summers here until 11 he went to graduate school. He was a park ranger at 12 the Island Beach State Park, which I take it is close 13 to here, during college. And he has been with the NRC 14 in 1974, and he has worked on several issues related 15 to Oyster Creek since then -- the shipworm issue for 16 one, in the '70s and '80s, and the endangered sea 17 turtles and cold shock fish kills.
18 So he has a long association with the 19 plant, and now he is Project Manager for the 20 environmental review.
21 And with that, I would just ask Rani to 22 welcome all of you. Thank you.
23 MS. FRANOVICH: Thank you, Chip. Can 24 everybody hear me pretty well? Can you guys hear me?
25 SEVERAL PARTICIPANTS: Yes.
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11 1 MS. FRANOVICH: Okay. I wanted to thank 2 you all for coming out today and taking the time from 3 your busy schedules to be here with us. It's an 4 important meeting, an opportunity for us to share some 5 information with you that I hope will help you 6 understand the process that we'll be going through for 7 license renewal on Oyster Creek, and the role you can 8 help -- or play in helping to make sure that the 9 environmental impact statement we prepare for this 10 license renewal review is accurate.
11 I'd like to start off by briefly going 12 over again the purposes of today's meeting. We'll 13 explain the NRC's license renewal process for nuclear 14 powerplants, with emphasis on the environmental review 15 process. And we'll talk a little bit about the areas 16 that we look at for that environmental review.
17 We'll also share with you the license 18 renewal review schedule. And, really, the most 19 important thing that we're going to do today is 20 receive any comments you may have on the scope of our 21 review. We'll also give you some information about 22 how you can submit comments outside of this meeting in 23 writing.
24 Next slide, Mike.
25 Before I describe the license renewal NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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12 1 process, I'd like to provide some general information, 2 just to give you a context of our review. The Atomic 3 Energy Act gives the NRC the authority to issue 4 operating licenses to commercial nuclear powerplants 5 for a period of 40 years. With Oyster Creek nuclear 6 generating station, that license will expire in 2009.
7 Our regulations also provide for extending 8 those operating licenses for an additional 20 years, 9 or actually what we'll do is issue a brand-new license 10 when we approve an application for renewal. And 11 AmerGen has requested license renewal for Oyster 12 Creek.
13 As part of the NRC's review of that 14 license renewal application, we'll perform an 15 environmental review to look at the impacts on the 16 environment of an additional 20 years of operation.
17 The purpose of this meeting is to give you information 18 about that process and to seek your input on what 19 issues we should consider within the scope of our 20 review.
21 At the conclusion of the staff's 22 presentation, we'll be happy to answer any questions 23 you may have and receive any comments you wish to --
24 you may wish to share with us on the process and the 25 scope.
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13 1 We have several members of the NRC staff 2 here, as Mr. Cameron indicated a few minutes ago, that 3 can talk with you one on one if you still have some 4 questions you'd like to discuss with us after the 5 meeting.
6 Next slide, Mike.
7 Before I get into a discussion of license 8 renewal, I'd like to take a minute and talk about the 9 NRC in terms of what we do and what our mission is.
10 The Atomic Energy Act also is the legislation that 11 authorizes the NRC to regulate the civilian use of 12 nuclear materials in this country.
13 In carrying out that authority, the NRC's 14 mission is threefold -- to ensure adequate protection 15 of public health and safety, to protect the 16 environment, and to provide for the common defense and 17 security. The NRC accomplishes its mission through a 18 combination of regulatory programs and processes such 19 as inspections, enforcement actions, assessment of 20 licensee performance, and evaluation of operating 21 experience from nuclear plants across this country and 22 internationally.
23 Turning now to license renewal in 24 particular, the NRC's license renewal review is 25 similar to the original licensing process in that it NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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14 1 involves two parts. It involves two parts -- an 2 environmental review and a safety review. In 3 addition, as part of the safety review, the staff 4 carries out inspections and audits.
5 The results of the review are presented to 6 the Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards, or ACRS.
7 The ACRS is a group of nationally-recognized technical 8 experts in nuclear safety who serve as a consulting 9 body to the Commission. They review each license 10 renewal application, as well as the safety evaluation 11 report prepared by the staff. They form their own 12 conclusions and recommendations, and they report those 13 directly to the Commission.
14 This slide gives a big picture overview of 15 the license renewal process. You'll see the safety 16 review represented up here on top, and the 17 environmental review represented down here on the 18 bottom.
19 Next slide, Mike.
20 I'd like to start with the safety review 21 process. You might ask: what does the safety review 22 consider? For license renewal, the safety review 23 considers aging management. However, the NRC also 24 monitors and addresses current operating issues, such 25 as security, emergency planning, safety performance, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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15 1 and other ongoing operating issues on an ongoing 2 basis.
3 Under the current operating license, the 4 NRC's regulatory oversight process deals with these 5 current operating issues. We don't wait for a plant 6 to come in for license renewal to address them or to 7 require licensees to address those issues as well.
8 Because the NRC is dealing with these 9 current operating issues on a continuing basis, we do 10 not reevaluate them in license renewal. As I said, 11 the safety review focuses specifically on aging 12 management. It involves the NRC staff's review and 13 assessment of safety information that is contained in 14 the license renewal application. There is a team of 15 about 30 NRC technical reviewers and contractors who 16 are conducting the safety review right now.
17 I'd like to introduce Mr. Donnie Ashley.
18 He is the Project Manager for the safety review. Don, 19 if you wouldn't mind standing up. Thank you.
20 The safety review for license renewal 21 focuses on how AmerGen will manage the aging of 22 certain structures, systems, and components, in the 23 period of extended operation. Some of the programs 24 for managing aging are already in place, while others 25 will be implemented as part of the license renewal.
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16 1 The safety review process also involves 2 audits and plant inspections. These inspections are 3 conducted by a team of inspectors from both 4 headquarters and the NRC's Region I office. With us 5 today from our inspection program is the Senior 6 Resident Inspector at Oyster Creek, Mr. Marc Ferdas.
7 Thank you, Marc.
8 We also have Dr. Ron Bellamy, his boss, 9 from the NRC Region I office in King of Prussia, 10 Pennsylvania. Thank you, Dr. Bellamy.
11 The results of the inspections will be 12 documented in separate inspection reports, and the 13 results of the staff's safety review and audits are 14 documented in the safety evaluation report. After the 15 safety evaluation report is prepared, it will be 16 independently reviewed by the ACRS.
17 Next slide, please, Harriet.
18 The second part of the process involves an 19 environmental review with scoping activities and the 20 development of an environmental impact statement. As 21 I've said, we're here today to receive your comments 22 on the scope of that review.
23 We'll consider any comments on the scope 24 that we receive at this meeting or in any written 25 comments subsequent to this meeting. Then, in June of NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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17 1 next year, we expect to issue a draft environmental 2 impact statement for comment.
3 Next slide, please, Harriet.
4 So as you can see from this slide, putting 5 all of the process back together again, the final 6 Commission decision on whether to approve or deny the 7 application will require a number of inputs -- the 8 safety evaluation report, inspection reports, the 9 final EIS or environmental impact statement, and the 10 letter issued by the ACRS to the Commission that 11 forwards their recommendations.
12 I'd like to point out that the yellow 13 hexagons like this one, they indicate opportunities 14 for public participation. This meeting is an early 15 opportunity for public participation. We'll have 16 another meeting to share with you the results of our 17 draft environmental impact statement. That will be 18 another opportunity for you to comment on our review.
19 And at this time, there is still an 20 opportunity to request a hearing through November 14, 21 2005. Also, the ACRS meetings are open to the public.
22 Now, I'd like to turn the presentation 23 over to Dr. Michael Masnik, the environmental project 24 manager, to discuss the environmental review in more 25 detail.
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18 1 FACILITATOR CAMERON: Thanks, Rani. We'll 2 go to questions after Mike is done.
3 DR. MASNIK: Thank you, Rani. My name is 4 Michael Masnik, and I'm the Senior Project Manager on 5 the NRC staff, and responsible for coordinating all of 6 the activities of the NRC staff and the various 7 environmental experts at the national labs in 8 developing an environmental impact statement 9 associated with the license renewal application for 10 the Oyster Creek nuclear generating station.
11 The National Environmental Policy Act of 12 1969 requires that federal agencies follow a 13 systematic approach to evaluating potential 14 environmental impacts associated with certain actions.
15 We're required to consider the impacts of the proposed 16 action, and also any mitigation for those impacts we 17 consider to be significant.
18 We're also required to consider 19 alternatives to the proposed action, including the 20 no-action alternative. In other words, if we decide 21 not to approve the requested license renewal, what are 22 the environmental impacts of that decision?
23 The National Environmental Policy Act and 24 our environmental impact statements are disclosure 25 tools. They are specifically structured to involve NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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19 1 public participation, and this meeting facilitates the 2 public participation in our environmental review.
3 The Commission has determined that an 4 environmental impact statement, or EIS, should be 5 prepared for all license renewals. In preparing an 6 environmental impact statement, the NRC conducts a 7 scoping process. The purpose of the scoping process 8 is to identify the significant issues to be analyzed 9 in depth.
10 We are now gathering information for an 11 environmental impact statement and are here to collect 12 public comments on the scope of the review.
13 The staff developed a generic 14 environmental impact statement, or GEIS, that 15 addressed a number of issues that are common to all 16 nuclear powerplants. The staff is supplementing that 17 generic EIS with a site-specific EIS that will address 18 issues that are specific to Oyster Creek. The staff 19 also evaluates the conclusions reached in the GEIS to 20 determine if there is any new and significant 21 information that would change any of these 22 conclusions.
23 As was said earlier by Rani, issues such 24 as emergency preparedness and physical security are 25 not considered within the scope of our license renewal NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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20 1 review. Such issues are evaluated regularly and will 2 continue to be evaluated regularly during the renewal 3 term, if granted.
4 Next slide.
5 This slide shows our decision standard for 6 the environmental review. Simply put, is a license 7 renewal acceptable from an environmental standpoint?
8 Next slide, please.
9 This slide is similar to the slide that 10 Rani had up a few minutes ago. It shows the timeline 11 for the environmental review process, specifically now 12 for Oyster Creek. We received AmerGen's application 13 for the license renewal for the Oyster Creek nuclear 14 station on July 22, 2005.
15 On September 22nd, we issued a Federal 16 Register notice of intent to prepare an environmental 17 impact statement and to conduct scoping. This started 18 a 60-day clock defined as the scoping period, and 19 we're within the scoping period right now. This 20 meeting is part of that scoping process, so that we 21 can get comments from the public to help us scope out 22 the balance of our environmental review.
23 After the end of the scoping period, which 24 will be November 25, 2005, we will issue a scoping 25 summary report that will address all the comments we NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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21 1 receive from all sources during the scoping period.
2 Now, I discovered yesterday that the date 3 for the end of the scoping period on the NRC website 4 schedule for Oyster Creek is in error, and the correct 5 date for the end of the scoping period is November 25, 6 2005. The web address has been corrected, and it was 7 corrected today. In essence, it gives the public an 8 additional 10 days to provide comments to the staff.
9 On October 10th through the 14th, members 10 of the NRC staff and a team of environmental experts 11 from Argonne National Lab and Pacific Northwest 12 National Lab conducted the environmental site audit to 13 help gather information on the scoping process. And 14 if you'll remember, that was during the northeasterner 15 we had here and the team got pretty wet spending a 16 week outside on Barnegat Bay.
17 If in the conduct of our review we require 18 additional information beyond what was already 19 provided to us in the application, we will issue a 20 request for additional information. And we plan to 21 issue that request for additional information by 22 December 16, 2005, if it's needed.
23 And approximately eight weeks later we 24 expect to get an answer back from AmerGen, and then, 25 based on the information we have in hand, we will NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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22 1 prepare and publish a draft environmental impact 2 statement, and we'll issue that draft environmental 3 impact statement for public comment.
4 We envision publishing the draft EIS in 5 June of 2006, and when the draft is published we'll 6 have a 75-day public comment period. We have some 7 examples of environmental impact statements on -- from 8 previous license renewal on the back table there, and 9 this is what they look like.
10 We plan to have another public meeting 11 here in July 2006 to receive the comments on the draft 12 EIS. Once we receive comments on the draft EIS, we 13 will develop a final EIS, which we expect to publish 14 in January of 2007.
15 Next slide, please.
16 This slide shows some of the sources where 17 we gather our information. In addition to our site 18 audit, we communicate with Federal, State, and local 19 officials, as well as local service agencies. For 20 example, for the Oyster Creek review, we've already 21 met with representatives of the State Historic 22 Preservation Office, the New Jersey Department of 23 Environmental Protection, U.S. Fish and Wildlife 24 Service, National Marine Fisheries Service, the U.S.
25 Geological Service, and other organizations.
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23 1 We've also met with local officials from 2 Lacey Township and Ocean County. And we consider all 3 of the comments we will receive from the public.
4 Next slide.
5 For the review, we've established a team 6 made up of members of the NRC staff, supplemented by 7 experts -- uh-oh. What happened? Supplemented by 8 experts in various fields from Argonne National Lab 9 and the Pacific Northwest National Lab.
10 If you have the handout, you can follow 11 along, and we've reprinted all of the slides. We're 12 on slide 13.
13 The slide gives an idea of the examples of 14 the areas in which the experts evaluate. Some of the 15 areas are terrestrial and aquatic ecology, 16 archaeology, socioeconomics, radiation protection, to 17 name a few.
18 Let's just pause here for a second and --
19 how long is it going to take, Bob?
20 (Pause.)
21 Slide 14. Okay. Next slide.
22 This slide just recaps a couple of the key 23 milestone dates in our schedule. As mentioned, we are 24 currently in the scoping comment period, which ends 25 November 25th. All comments, whether in the form of NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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24 1 a letter or an e-mail, as well as comments received 2 from the transcribed public meeting, will be 3 considered.
4 We will be publishing an Oyster Creek 5 site-specific supplement to the generic EIS. It's 6 also called a supplemental environmental EIS, or SEIS 7 for short. That supplement will be published and made 8 available in June 2006. It'll have a 75-day comment 9 period, and, after considering your comments on the 10 draft, we'll be publishing the final form in January 11 of 2007.
12 There's one more date that I would hope 13 you would remember. It's not on this list, but the 14 deadline for requesting a hearing is November 14, 15 2005.
16 Next slide, please.
17 This slide identifies me as your primary 18 point of contact with the NRC for the preparation of 19 this environmental impact statement. It also 20 identifies where documents related to our review may 21 be found in the local area. The Lacey public library 22 has agreed to make license renewal -- the license 23 renewal application available for public review in 24 addition to any correspondence the NRC has to AmerGen 25 or vice versa.
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25 1 The draft environmental impact statement 2 will also be available at the Lacey library when it is 3 published. And all documents are or will be available 4 on the NRC's website, which is www.nrc.gov.
5 In addition, as you came in you were asked 6 to fill out a registration card at our reception 7 table. If you've included your address on the card, 8 we will mail you a copy of the draft and final EIS.
9 If you did not fill out a card and want a copy of the 10 draft and final impact statement for Oyster Creek, 11 please see Harriet -- Harriet? Right here after the 12 meeting, and she'll sign you up.
13 Next slide.
14 Now, in addition to providing comments at 15 the meeting, there are other ways that you can submit 16 comments for an environmental review process. You can 17 provide written comments to the Chief of our Rules and 18 Directives Branch at the address on the screen. You 19 can also make comments in person, if you happen to be 20 in Rockville, Maryland.
21 We've established a specific e-mail 22 address at the NRC for the purpose of receiving your 23 comments on the development of our environmental 24 impact statement and what you think the scope of the 25 review should be. And that e-mail address is NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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26 1 oystercreekeis@nrc.gov. All of your comments will be 2 collected and considered.
3 And this concludes my remarks, and thank 4 you again for taking the time to attend this meeting.
5 At this time, I'll turn it back over to 6 Chip.
7 (Applause.)
8 FACILITATOR CAMERON: Okay. Thank you.
9 DR. MASNIK: Thank you.
10 FACILITATOR CAMERON: Thank you, Mike.
11 Now is an opportunity to thank Mike and Rani for 12 boiling down a complicated process into hopefully 13 something that was simple to understand for you. But 14 are there questions about the process, what the NRC 15 looks at, anything to do with license renewal?
16 Anybody have a question?
17 Yes, sir, and if you could just introduce 18 yourself to us, please.
19 MR. JACKSON: My name is Tom Jackson.
20 (Inaudible comment from an unmiked location.)
21 FACILITATOR CAMERON: Thank you, Mr.
22 Jackson.
23 Mike, do you want to try to talk about is 24 the -- the license renewal period set in our 25 regulations, is it set by statute, because that's --
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27 1 that goes to the point of how that could be changed?
2 DR. MASNIK: It's a good question. When 3 the NRC was writing the regulations for license 4 renewal, we tried to consider what would be a 5 reasonable renewal period. And our regulations state 6 20 years as the maximum amount of time that a licensee 7 can request a renewal term.
8 In fact, a licensee could request a 9 shorter period of time if they chose to. The 10 regulations -- well, the reason why we picked 20 years 11 was the fact that the normal license is 40 years, and 12 that 20 years seems to be a reasonable compromise.
13 And if you look at the degradation of components and 14 other systems within the plant, that was probably a 15 reasonable amount of time for renewal of the license.
16 So it was a combination of the fact that 17 our current licenses are granted for a 20-year -- I 18 mean, for a 40-year period. In other words, if you 19 came in and requested a new plant license, we would 20 grant a license up to 40 years.
21 To change that, what you need to do is 22 request -- there is a process within our regulations 23 for members of the public to request a change in the 24 regulations. I don't know the actual section of the 25 regulations, but we certainly have the regulations NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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28 1 here tonight, and we can -- we can get with you 2 afterwards and tell you which portion of the 3 regulations to look in to see the process for filing 4 a request to change the rules.
5 FACILITATOR CAMERON: And that's called a 6 petition for rulemaking, and it's set forth -- how you 7 do that is set forth in 2.802 of our regulations. We 8 can give you some more information about that. That 9 request goes into the NRC November 3rd -- changing the 10 regulations.
11 But as he says, the first step -- Mr.
12 Jackson, it seems like what you're suggesting is a 13 good -- should be a shorter period of time. Is that 14 correct?
15 MR. JACKSON: (Inaudible comment from an 16 unmiked location.)
17 FACILITATOR CAMERON: 2.802, petition for 18 rulemaking, is in -- all government regulations, 19 federal agency regulations, are in these books that 20 are called Code of Federal Regulations. And the NRC's 21 regulations are in Title 10 of that. And so when we 22 talk governmentese, I guess, we say 10 CFR Part 2, 23 2.802. What that means is Title 10 of the Code of 24 Federal Regulations, Part 2 of Title 10, and 25 specifically .802, petition for rulemaking.
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29 1 And for Mr. Jackson and anybody else who 2 wants to know more about this, we can explain that 3 either here today, or meet with you afterwards to 4 discuss that. Okay?
5 Thank you, Mr. Jackson.
6 Other questions? Yes, sir.
7 UNIDENTIFIED PARTICIPANT: (Inaudible 8 comment from an unmiked location.)
9 FACILITATOR CAMERON: Okay. Thank you.
10 DR. MASNIK: I think you're referring to 11 the spent nuclear fuel after it's taken out of the 12 reactor. That fuel is stored onsite. A portion of it 13 is stored in a spent fuel pool underwater, and a 14 portion now is stored in dry storage in dry storage 15 casks onsite.
16 The ultimate plan is to have that spent 17 nuclear fuel shipped to a permanent geologic 18 repository, and currently the government is 19 investigating as to whether or not the Yucca Mountain 20 site is an appropriate place to put that fuel.
21 We understand that in the near future, the 22 NRC will be involved in reviewing an application by 23 the Department of Energy for licensing the Yucca 24 Mountain facility, so that that spent fuel can be 25 shipped to that facility and permanently disposed of NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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30 1 in a geologic repository.
2 FACILITATOR CAMERON: And, Mike, I know we 3 don't -- we don't know when the -- or if the geologic 4 repository is going to -- whether there's going to be 5 a license application, how long it will take us to --
6 whether it will be approved.
7 But could you give this gentleman an idea 8 of -- forgetting about Yucca Mountain -- how long do 9 we authorize spent fuel to be left onsite under our 10 regulations? In other words, just to give you -- I 11 think he wants an idea of the timeframe.
12 DR. MASNIK: Oh. The fuel is stored 13 onsite, and the licensee is required during that 14 storage period to have a license. The license 15 requires certain surveillance requirements and certain 16 protective measures taken to protect it from the 17 public. As long as that fuel is onsite, it will be 18 guarded and kept in a safe, stable condition.
19 FACILITATOR CAMERON: So, basically, we're 20 talking indefinitely?
21 DR. MASNIK: Well, indefinitely until 22 there is a repository or some other facility to take 23 the fuel.
24 FACILITATOR CAMERON: Okay.
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31 1 comment from an unmiked location.)
2 FACILITATOR CAMERON: We've got to get you 3 on a mike.
4 UNIDENTIFIED PARTICIPANT: How can they 5 use Yucca Mountain when Nevada doesn't want those --
6 if they don't want --
7 MR. MASNIK: Well, it's been a long time 8 that the Department of Energy has been working on 9 Yucca Mountain, it's true. And the State of Nevada 10 has expressed some concern about the transport of them 11 there. But the fact is that the fuel has to be stored 12 somewhere, and right now it's being stored at the 13 site.
14 There is another alternative that's being 15 looked into, too, and that's -- it's called private 16 fuel storage. It's an above-ground interim storage 17 facility out west as well, where the fuel would be 18 stored for an indefinite period of time, again until 19 a geologic repository is available.
20 FACILITATOR CAMERON: And I think that 21 some of the Nevada objections might use the term 22 "store," which is -- as opposed to "dispose." At the 23 Yucca Mountain site I think some of the Nevada 24 objections are to bring all of the -- to bringing all 25 of the spent fuel from all over the country and NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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32 1 disposing of it.
2 UNIDENTIFIED PARTICIPANT: (Inaudible 3 comment from an unmiked location.)
4 FACILITATOR CAMERON: Mike, I know it's 5 hard to comment about cause and effect. But in terms 6 of like radiation release from the spent fuel storage, 7 can you just talk to our regulations, how we regulate 8 releases from that?
9 DR. MASNIK: Yes. First of all, I'd like 10 to say that the fuel is stored in a safe, stable 11 configuration that doesn't result in significant 12 releases of radioactivity to the environment.
13 The fuel that's in dry storage is in 14 sealed containers, and it's at a distance far enough 15 away from, you know, people that it doesn't pose any 16 danger as far as health condition. Nuclear 17 powerplants, over the last 30 years, have dramatically 18 reduced the amount of radiation that they are 19 releasing to the environment, and Oyster Creek is no 20 exception.
21 And it's highly unlikely, and I certainly 22 can talk to you afterwards, that there's any cause and 23 effect here as far as low level radiation and the 24 incidence of cancer in the community.
25 FACILITATOR CAMERON: Okay. Thanks, Mike.
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33 1 And we're going to go to some people back here. And 2 if you could just I guess speak closer to the mike.
3 We're having trouble back here. And we're going to go 4 to this lady now.
5 UNIDENTIFIED PARTICIPANT: I'd like to 6 know how many spent fuel rods are now stored onsite, 7 and how many are we generating in a yearly process?
8 FACILITATOR CAMERON: Okay. Thank you.
9 Mike do we have that?
10 DR. MASNIK: That's a number I don't know.
11 I don't know if there's anyone else here -- is there 12 anybody from the licensee that can give a ball park 13 number?
14 FACILITATOR CAMERON: Is there anybody --
15 what we'll do is let me ask -- I know that Pete 16 Ressler is here. I hope I'm pronouncing that 17 correctly. Could you respond to her later on this 18 specific -- do you know this right off?
19 PMR. RESSLER: I don't know that right 20 offhand.
21 FACILITATOR CAMERON: Okay. He'll get 22 with you. And if we -- we'll get that -- we'll get 23 that number for you. Okay? Before the end of this 24 meeting, we'll find out.
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34 1 nice.
2 FACILITATOR CAMERON: the people that do 3 evaluate the licensing of that storage system do --
4 for us do know those answers. They're just not here 5 right now with us, but we will -- we will find out.
6 Okay?
7 Yes, sir.
8 MR. MERCURIO: Mike Mercurio. I represent 9 St. Francis Environmental Ministry. I'm also a 10 developer.
11 This state does need nuclear power, but 12 there is a big "but" attached to that. Is the same --
13 demonstrated the amount of natural gas, power, and 14 electric is being used up at a faster rate because we 15 don't have enough, but we can build clean renewable 16 energy.
17 A major statement is plants such as Oyster 18 Creek is -- is there any precedent for renewal 19 applications on any nuclear plant that's almost 40 20 years old? And why is it just -- I'm agreeing with 21 the gentleman with the Senator's office -- why it has 22 to be 20 years? Most nuclear plant errors occur 23 because of human faults, not just safety features and 24 environmental features.
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35 1 but on a five-year basis, not a 20-year. Everything 2 has its life cycle. You have computers today that are 3 disposable. Things that were built a long time ago, 4 bridges can be found to be unsafe. Many things that 5 man builds deteriorate, and everything has its life 6 expectancy and it can only be estimates. the point 7 being is I think this should be taken in five-year 8 increments.
9 The second question is: what are the 10 requirements of nuclear regulatory as far as encasing 11 the spent fuel rods? Are there specific things at 12 Yucca Mountain that they are required to do, which is 13 we can't -- and I understand a lot of the points of 14 spent fuel rods is not in -- is the transportation of 15 those to Yucca Mountain.
16 FACILITATOR CAMERON: Okay. Thank you.
17 We have two questions. One, are there 18 other plants that -- of this age that have come in for 19 renewal? And, secondly, what happens to the spent 20 fuel rods in terms of transport and disposal at Yucca 21 Mountain?
22 MR. MERCURIO: What are the regulations 23 for encasement?
24 FACILITATOR CAMERON: Okay. And, Rani, I 25 know you can answer the first one. And we'll try to NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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36 1 work on the second one for you.
2 MS. FRANOVICH: And I know this mike 3 doesn't work very well, so I'll try to project so 4 everybody can hear me. When nuclear powerplants were 5 first built, they were licensed for a period of 40 6 years, not based on concerns with the age of the 7 plant. The 40-year term was based on economic and 8 antitrust considerations.
9 Okay. When the renewal rule acknowledged 10 and allowed for renewal for a period of 20 years, the 11 reason is that this is a significant economic 12 investment by the company for a turnaround, a return, 13 and five years is just not a sufficient period of time 14 to warrant the economic investment.
15 Something worth noting is that a nuclear 16 powerplant can come in for renewal for 20 years, and 17 then come in for renewal for another 20 years. There 18 is nothing that would prohibit them from doing that.
19 But as far as the aging of the plant, the license 20 renewal rule provides for aging management -- the 21 concern that you mentioned about the plant aging.
22 Systems, structures, and components that 23 are important to safety will be managed and monitored 24 by the licensee as required by the NRC to ensure that 25 that aging does not result in failure of the component NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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37 1 to perform its intended safety function. That's what 2 the license renewal provides -- the license renewal 3 rule provides for.
4 Does that answer your question?
5 MR. MERCURIO: Yes and no. But only 6 because -- I know there's age management. I know 7 there's a certain amount of age management, and I 8 understand there's certain economics in building a 9 structure and refurbishment.
10 I think the figure was somewhere around 11 $885 million to refurbish Oyster Creek, to bring it up 12 to environmental standards -- the figure that was 13 published in the newspaper.
14 MS. FRANOVICH: I'm not familiar with 15 that. I don't know. You may be right.
16 MR. MERCURIO: For it to be refurbished to 17 meet certain environmental -- so that it doesn't 18 discharge in the water. And other maintenance factors 19 were involved in it.
20 That points out to the cost, when you 21 build a power generation facility, the same amount and 22 the same accuracy --
23 MS. FRANOVICH: Part of our environmental 24 review considers alternatives to replace that flow.
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38 1 alternative forms of energy can't produce the same 2 number of megawatts as a nuclear powerplant, but we 3 will be considering alternatives in the course of our 4 review.
5 MR. MERCURIO: Look at the new DOE --
6 FACILITATOR CAMERON: Okay. We need to 7 get all the comments on the record here, and we still 8 don't know -- we still don't have an answer on the 9 second question. And we need to know -- I don't think 10 we have -- Mike, do you -- can you just speak 11 generally to how -- what happens to the spent fuel 12 before it's going to be put into a repository? Then 13 we can go to this gentleman right here.
14 DR. MASNIK: Yes. The spent fuel --
15 currently, when it's moved into dry storage, it's 16 placed in a sealed container that's actually welded 17 shut, and it's hermetically sealed. And it's a dual-18 use canister, which allows it to be transported in 19 that canister, so the spent fuel doesn't have to be 20 unloaded before it's actually transported someplace.
21 And to be honest with you, spent fuel is 22 transported across the roadways and railways of this 23 country on a daily basis. Almost every day there is 24 some fuel movement, so the country has a long history 25 of moving fuel safely.
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39 1 As far as regulations related to Yucca 2 Mountain, I really can't speak to that, because I'm a 3 bit out of my area, and I don't know if there's anyone 4 here that can. But certainly, prior to the NRC 5 licensing that facility, there will be requirements 6 placed on the operator, which is the Department of 7 Energy, so that the fuel is safely stored or safely 8 disposed of in this repository.
9 FACILITATOR CAMERON: And I think we have 10 your address. Let's make a point to send Mr. Mercurio 11 a description about what does happen to spent fuel.
12 We're going to move on to other people.
13 Yes, I think we have this gentleman, and then we're 14 going to go back in the back. Yes, sir.
15 MR. FRYDENDAHL: Good afternoon.
16 Frydendahl, Manchester Township, Ocean County, 17 formerly a 32-year resident of Lacey County.
18 One thing that concerns me with the 19 numbers that are being thrown around -- that a nuclear 20 powerplant has a 40-year given life prior to coming 21 before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to get 22 permission -- be approved for a 40-year life.
23 Renewal is more accurately, it seems, a 24 20-year. As this gentleman brought up, Senator 25 Connors in the 9th Legislative District, which we're NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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40 1 hearing also is -- it suggest five years.
2 Now, it seems to me -- and I think a lot 3 of people in this room would agree with me -- that a 4 Senator of a legislative district would have a lot 5 more clout with getting you people to listen than just 6 any Tom, Dick, and Harry like myself requesting that 7 request.
8 Am I correct in stating that?
9 FACILITATOR CAMERON: Well, I --
10 MS. FRANOVICH: I think we described the 11 process that will be used to petition the staff for 12 rulemaking. So I'm not sure what your question is --
13 that we acknowledge the authority of the Senator.
14 Sure we do. But we have a process to go through, if 15 someone believes we need to change a rule or write a 16 new rule, and that was the process that Chip Cameron 17 directed the gentleman to in the CFR.
18 MR. FRYDENDAHL: Yes. But, Rani, we saw 19 on the slides that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission 20 wants our comments, wants to make things safer and 21 make things better. Are they listening to Senator 22 Connors' request?
23 MS. FRANOVICH: Well, I think we're 24 talking about two different things. The purpose of 25 today's meeting is to solicit comment on our NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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41 1 environmental review. If a member of the public 2 wishes to suggest that we change a rule, that's 3 outside the scope of this meeting. That is the 4 petition for rulemaking process. Does that answer 5 your question?
6 MR. FRYDENDAHL: Partially. But the 7 second part of that question is, I don't know how many 8 people are aware of it, but the type of reactor or the 9 type of boiler in Oyster Creek, which is a Part I 10 system, was deemed obsolete by the then Atomic 11 Regulatory Commission about one year after that plant 12 was built.
13 So we're now sitting with a plant that's 14 40 years old, with a reactor or a boiler in there 15 which is deemed obsolete, and now we're asking for 20 16 more years? I don't think so.
17 (Applause.)
18 FACILITATOR CAMERON: I don't know if you 19 want to comment on the statement about obsolete 20 design. I think that it might be important to state 21 that a review was -- the point is that if any member 22 of the public comes in to us with a request to change 23 the regulations, with a rationale for that, we're 24 going to seriously consider that request, whether it 25 comes from you, sir, or whether it comes from Senator NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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42 1 Connors. Okay? I just want to make that clear.
2 Anything about the obsolescence of 3 design --
4 MS. FRANOVICH: I'm not familiar with the 5 information that he's referencing. I know nothing 6 about it. But if there's something you can furnish to 7 the staff, please do.
8 MR. FRYDENDAHL: Don't you think that you 9 people should be aware of these things? You're coming 10 to a meeting to bring us information, and you don't 11 have a lot of information.
12 FACILITATOR CAMERON: Sir?
13 MR. FRYDENDAHL: I don't understand this.
14 FACILITATOR CAMERON: Sir, we're going to 15 have to go on with other questions. We're trying to 16 answer your question. Okay? You're making a 17 statement, saying that the design was obsolete.
18 That's not necessarily information that we're going to 19 have for you, or even though, whether that's true, 20 what that means. So we're trying to answer your 21 question.
22 We're going to go back to this gentleman.
23 Please introduce yourself, sir.
24 UNIDENTIFIED PARTICIPANT: (Inaudible 25 comment from an unmiked location.)
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43 1 MS. FRANOVICH: I don't think we can hear 2 him.
3 FACILITATOR CAMERON: We can't hear you, 4 sir.
5 UNIDENTIFIED PARTICIPANT: (Inaudible 6 comment from an unmiked location.)
7 MS. FRANOVICH: Is there a question? I'm 8 not sure.
9 FACILITATOR CAMERON: Okay. I think he 10 was just trying to give us information. And as I 11 said, we're going to get that information for you on 12 that question. Is there some -- any other questions 13 before we -- we're going to go on, and we're going to 14 go to this gentleman.
15 I want to make sure that we give everybody 16 a chance at a first question before we go on to 17 anybody for a second question. Yes, sir.
18 MR. WARREN: My name is Don Warren. I 19 live in Shingar, which is within the 10-mile limit.
20 I came to the last meeting, and I had a few questions.
21 I actually brought some pictures, which I was told I 22 was not allowed to show because they were too large, 23 so I made sure that the pictures that I brought this 24 time were not too large, because I think when we 25 discuss this it's very important that people are NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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44 1 keeping in very close perspective what exactly we're 2 talking about here.
3 And what we're talking about here is if 4 there is a problem with that plant, and we get a very 5 significant release of radiation, and the consequences 6 of that radiation are Chernobyl children. These are 7 the children of Chernobyl. These are not statistics.
8 These are people's children.
9 If an accident happens at Oyster Creek, 10 these are going to be the children of our community.
11 These are going to be the children of our community 12 for generations to come.
13 I also have another picture here. This is 14 the Davis-Besse reactor that was being inspected 15 regularly by the NRC and by the licensee in Ohio. As 16 anybody can see looking at this picture, severe 17 corrosion is occurring on this. However, they didn't 18 seem to think this was a problem and allowed the plant 19 to continue to operate.
20 This plant is now old at Oyster Creek. So 21 I think you can understand why the community here has 22 quite a few reservations about the inspection that's 23 going on right now at Oyster Creek. With that said, 24 I'd like to go back to the original question that I 25 asked at the first meeting.
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45 1 And considering how much -- the length of 2 time it's been since then, and nobody has gotten back 3 to me about this question, I would hope that you would 4 have the information to answer this question now, 5 because this is not a question that has come to you 6 out of the blue. This is a question that was asked 7 before, and I was told that I would be given an 8 answer.
9 The question I have is that on March 1st, 10 after restoring the main transformer and restoring the 11 main generator to service at Oyster Creek, a power 12 ascension was in progress when an error resulted in 13 the loss of multiple reactor recirculation pumps, 14 which led an operator to manually scram the reactor.
15 I'd like to add that this was not done very well. It 16 was not controlled well. The water level was not 17 controlled well, and as you go on later in this report 18 that was the conclusion of the NRC inspector.
19 It was also noted that the plant had been 20 overpressurized. And one of the specific questions 21 that I was asking was how many times -- from 22 documentation that I've read, it was overpressurized 23 10 times, the actual reactor vessel. I was asking how 24 many times it had actually been overpressurized, so I 25 was hoping somebody had an answer to that question for NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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46 1 me.
2 And the second question that I had is they 3 put out this report to talk about normal boiler loss 4 of approximately three-quarters of a gallon per 5 minute. Now, my question is: if you've got a reactor 6 that's leaking, and it's considered a normal part of 7 its operation, releasing three-quarters of a gallon 8 per minute, where is this water going? What kind of 9 corrosion is it producing? How is this realistically 10 being monitored? And not just with visual 11 inspections.
12 As we can see from Davis-Besse, it didn't 13 work, because that reactor was so corroded through it 14 was basically an act of God that kept it from going 15 critical. How is this corrosion being monitored 16 effectively? And not just with visual inspections, 17 but actual testing of materials.
18 And also, where is this water going?
19 Where is this being admitted? Where is this radiation 20 going? I mean, I know it's part of normal operation 21 of a nuclear reactor to be releasing radioactivity 22 into the environment, and I'm concerned that this is 23 not being properly monitored and checked, because --
24 FACILITATOR CAMERON: I'm sorry. Let's 25 try to get some answers to your questions. Thank you.
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47 1 (Applause.)
2 There seem to be a bunch of questions 3 there. Did you -- can you begin to address them?
4 DR. MASNIK: We'll start.
5 FACILITATOR CAMERON: Okay.
6 DR.MASNIK: First, the one on Chernobyl, 7 and certainly the Chernobyl accident was a horrific 8 accident. A Chernobyl-type plant cannot be built in 9 this country. It would not have been built. It does 10 not conform to our requirements. And, in fact, a lot 11 of our efforts -- most of our efforts are to prevent 12 that kind of an accident here.
13 Both the inspections that we do, as well 14 as the emergency preparedness exercises that are 15 conducted, are designed to prevent that sort of an 16 event at Oyster Creek, or any nuclear plant in North 17 America.
18 As far as Davis-Besse, the Davis-Besse 19 issue was a big concern. It certainly was a wakeup 20 call for the industry as well as the NRC. We spent a 21 lot of time studying that. We developed a lessons 22 learned task force. We looked at 49 recommendations.
23 We've implemented over 40 of those already. In fact, 24 we've implemented all but one, which is a code change 25 to the ASME code.
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48 1 So there were a lot of activities that 2 were generated because of the Davis-Besse accident, 3 and the NRC and the industry is confident that such an 4 event of corrosion of the reactor head will not occur 5 again.
6 As far as overpressurization and the 7 normal water loss, I don't know -- Ron, can you talk 8 a little bit about that or --
9 MS. FRANOVICH: Let me give a -- let me 10 say a couple of things real quick first. I think it's 11 important to also remember that Davis-Besse was not an 12 accident. No accident happened at Davis-Besse. There 13 was degradation of the reactor vessel head. We 14 acknowledged that, and, as Mike indicated, that was a 15 wakeup call for the NRC and for the industry.
16 When I gave my presentation, I indicated 17 that we use operating experience, both domestically 18 and internationally, to improve our regulatory 19 process. This is a great example, because now in 20 license renewal, licensees are required to demonstrate 21 certain things that basically reflect recent operating 22 experience -- the cracked nozzles that led to the head 23 degradation from boric acid corrosion being a good 24 example of that.
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49 1 into our process to ensure that licensees and 2 applicants for license renewal address these ongoing 3 safety issues.
4 I also wanted to mention that, with 5 respect to what you're reading in the NRC inspection 6 report, that's an example of our continuous process 7 for providing oversight of these operating reactors 8 and looking at ongoing issues and safety performance.
9 So I don't have the details of water leakage.
10 There are inner systems. It could be 11 leaking into another system. It could be leaking into 12 -- it'll definitely be leaking into the containment 13 structure. So wherever it's going is being captured, 14 and there are requirements -- there are tech spec 15 requirements, technical specifications, the licensee 16 must comply with or they're required to shut down.
17 And our resident inspectors who work there 18 40 hours4.62963e-4 days <br />0.0111 hours <br />6.613757e-5 weeks <br />1.522e-5 months <br /> a week are ensuring that they are meeting 19 those requirements. There are a number of specific 20 requirements that deal specifically with reactor 21 coolant system leakage -- leakage from the vessel and 22 the associated reactor coolant system. If they can't 23 maintain processes and operation within those 24 requirements, then they have to take the required 25 action. Sometimes that is to shut down. Sometimes NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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50 1 it's to do other things.
2 So I hope I've addressed that one. I 3 don't know if Dr. Bellamy wants to add anything.
4 FACILITATOR CAMERON: Thanks, Rani. I 5 think that should be helpful. Let's go to Ron, and 6 then we're going to take a couple more questions, 7 including this gentleman, and we're going to on to the 8 comment part of the meeting, so we can make sure we 9 get through that.
10 Ron?
11 DR. BELLAMY: Thanks. Let me try to 12 address a couple of your issues. As memory serves, we 13 believe that your number of 10 times 14 overpressurization is correct. We do not have a 15 number for you on --
16 MR. WARREN: (Inaudible comment from an 17 unmiked location.)
18 DR. BELLAMY: I don't recall that issue.
19 If it was an inspector, that was not the right person.
20 I am the right person. Get it to me, and we will get 21 back to you. We will get back to you on that.
22 The leakage issue is interesting. Since 23 Davis-Besse, we have changed exactly how we look at 24 monitored and unmonitored leakage in the claim. The 25 licensee has come up with a very sophisticated program NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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51 1 to check data about exactly how much leakage there is, 2 where is the leakage, is it monitored, and is it -- or 3 is it not monitored, and then we discuss it with them, 4 find out exactly what the issue might be. So that's 5 not an issue that's left on this.
6 The March 1st issue that you talk about, 7 there were critical events. You're absolutely right.
8 And if you go back and look at that inspection report, 9 you'll find that that was one of the issues that we 10 talk about with respect to the licensee's corrective 11 action program. Did they enter those issues into 12 their corrective action program? And what are they 13 doing about that?
14 Since that time, they have initiated an 15 entirely new corrective action program. We're still 16 monitoring.
17 So I hope I have answered some of your 18 questions. Make sure you talk to Marc about it before 19 you leave.
20 FACILITATOR CAMERON: Okay. Great. We're 21 going to have to go on. I'm sorry.
22 MR. WARREN: (Inaudible comment from an 23 unmiked location.)
24 FACILITATOR CAMERON: We're going to go on 25 to others that are signed up to comment.
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52 1 MR. WARREN: I know. I just wanted to 2 clarify a question. He said Chernobyl -- that there 3 was no Chernobyl reactor in the United States that 4 actually experience --
5 FACILITATOR CAMERON: Sir, you can make 6 that during the comment period.
7 MR. WARREN: My question is not about a 8 Chernobyl --
9 FACILITATOR CAMERON: We have to go on.
10 Thank you.
11 We're going to go to this gentleman, the 12 gentleman back there, this gentleman, and then we're 13 going to shift into the comment mode. Yes, sir, and 14 please introduce yourself.
15 MR. SIMONAIR: (Inaudible comment from an 16 unmiked location.)
17 FACILITATOR CAMERON: And you might want 18 to speak into the microphone.
19 MR. SIMONAIR: You can mount this under 20 a fault, and those tanks will only hold highly 21 radioactive radiation for 10,000 years, at most. So 22 some of this radiation doesn't go away for billions of 23 years. Then, you've got the radiation, you've got the 24 -- it's really hot stuff, this radiation. If they 25 ever lose water from it --
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53 1 FACILITATOR CAMERON: Do you have a 2 question?
3 MR. SIMONAIR: I'm telling you what is 4 going to happen here.
5 FACILITATOR CAMERON: Well, when we get to 6 the comment period, why don't you get up and tell us 7 what the facts are. We want to try to answer 8 questions now.
9 MR. SIMONAIR: You know this.
10 FACILITATOR CAMERON: Okay. You can --
11 MR. SIMONAIR: You know it, and you speak 12 it, because you're dealing with a genocide.
13 FACILITATOR CAMERON: Okay. I think we 14 understand what you're telling us.
15 MR. SIMONAIR: You don't understand.
16 FACILITATOR CAMERON: We'll come back to 17 you. All right?
18 Yes, sir.
19 MR. STROUP: Thank you. My name is Ed 20 Stroup. I came to learn something about this process 21 today, and I have to tell you I think there are some 22 people here that tried to derail the discussion. I'm 23 interested in hearing about the license renewal 24 process and the environmental review process, because 25 we were under that part of the program.
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54 1 I feel like I've gotten a trip around the 2 world, and a lot of -- heard a lot of things that are 3 purportedly facts that are way far from being true.
4 I would like to know -- are we going to be turning the 5 attention here today to talking about the license 6 renewal process and the environmental review process?
7 I came to hear about those things and to 8 learn about them, and I'd like to return knowing about 9 those things. Are you --
10 FACILITATOR CAMERON: Thank you, sir. Did 11 you have a specific question about any of the process 12 that the NRC staff talked about today? I mean, I've 13 heard you saying return to the agenda. I was just 14 wondering if you had a specific question.
15 MR. STROUP: I don't have a specific 16 question at this time. If I do, I'll ask it later.
17 I believe the NRC has a clear process that's 18 documented, well-known, and it is important that we 19 follow it. I came here today to hear from the NRC and 20 learn more about it, and I'd like to spend some time 21 on those subjects.
22 Thank you.
23 MS. FRANOVICH: Let me take a minute to --
24 a quick minute to thank the gentleman. These mikes 25 are not very good.
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55 1 FACILITATOR CAMERON: You have to speak 2 up.
3 MS. FRANOVICH: We appreciate -- thank you 4 for your patience. This is an opportunity for the NRC 5 to answer questions that members of the public have, 6 and sometimes they kind of go beyond the purpose of 7 why we're here today. But we just try to accommodate 8 interest in other areas of our regulation. So thank 9 you for your interest, and we'll try to get back on 10 schedule with our comments.
11 Thank you.
12 FACILITATOR CAMERON: Yes, sir. And 13 please introduce yourself.
14 MR. CAMBRIA: Thomas Cambria. (Inaudible 15 comment from an unmiked location.)
16 MS. FRANOVICH: I don't. I would 17 speculate that it's the political environments that 18 Germany finds itself in right now, but I -- I don't 19 know how they plan to meet energy needs without 20 nuclear in the mix. I don't know. I'm afraid I don't 21 have an answer to your question.
22 FACILITATOR CAMERON: Okay. I'm not sure 23 if someone else knows about that.
24 MS. FRANOVICH: Tag you after the meeting.
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56 1 about the license renewal process?
2 Okay. We're going to take two real quick 3 questions, and you're going to have to make them 4 quick, because then we're going to move on, so that we 5 can get an opportunity to listen to you a little bit 6 more formally.
7 UNIDENTIFIED PARTICIPANT: (Inaudible 8 comment from an unmiked location.)
9 FACILITATOR CAMERON: And what is the 10 question about long term?
11 UNIDENTIFIED PARTICIPANT: (Inaudible 12 comment from an unmiked location.)
13 MS. FRANOVICH: Yes, we're aware of that 14 issue.
15 FACILITATOR CAMERON: And can you just 16 tell us how the process will consider that. And this 17 is a good point, a good example of the type of issue, 18 because these are issues that we want to make sure 19 that we address when we develop the impact statement.
20 Mike?
21 DR. MASNIK: Finally, a question in my 22 area. This is a rather peculiar situation, because 23 the plant currently has a once-through cooling system.
24 And the State, who is responsible for regulating 25 discharges from the facility, has proposed a new NPDES NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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57 1 permit, which requires the licensee to take a hard 2 look at closed-cycle cooling, which would be cooling 3 towers, or come up with a site restoration plan to 4 offset the reported losses of aquatic life due to 5 operation of the facility.
6 At other facilities, we typically evaluate 7 the current cooling design and project that out into 8 the future during the license renewal period. In this 9 case, because we believe that the state has taken a 10 rather strong position in this area, and the fact that 11 the draft permit clearly proposes closed-cycle cooling 12 for the facility, we believe that it would be in the 13 best interest of the public and the regulators to 14 evaluate both closed-cycle cooling and once-through 15 cooling.
16 So what the staff will look at is the 17 effects of a cooling tower, as well as the effects of 18 continued once-through operation.
19 FACILITATOR CAMERON: And that will be an 20 analysis that will be in the draft environmental 21 impact statement, and that will be open for your 22 comment at another public meeting.
23 I don't think that -- to just summarize 24 what I thought I heard about the spent fuel is that 25 spent fuel storage at a plant, whether it's wet NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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58 1 storage or dry storage, is governed by NRC regulations 2 and licenses, as appropriate.
3 The national strategy as it is in the 4 Nuclear Waste Policy Act, national legislation, is to 5 focus on exploring one site -- that's the Yucca 6 Mountain, Nevada site -- to permanently dispose of the 7 stored waste.
8 The Department of Energy is in charge of 9 doing that investigation. They were supposed to come 10 to the NRC. We have to license that. We don't have 11 to license it. We have to review it. They need a 12 license from us before they can dispose of it. They 13 have not come in with a license application yet.
14 The last I heard is that there is some 15 legislation that might be introduced that perhaps 16 changed the national strategy. And, Mr. Mercurio, 17 that's -- I think we're going to have to leave it 18 there, and I'd be glad to talk to you in more detail.
19 I'm going to give Mr. Jackson one more 20 question, and then let's go to the public comment 21 portion of the meeting. Mr. Jackson, it's in your 22 hands.
23 MR. JACKSON: Again, Tom Jackson from 24 Manahawkin. Just a quick comment on Senator Drucks.
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59 1 with me on the cell phone here, and they wrote letters 2 and stuff. This gentleman here. Apparently, he 3 didn't know the proper titles and numbers to use, and 4 what section of the law to reference, so these letters 5 were written but he didn't have the proper information 6 where to direct it.
7 FACILITATOR CAMERON: Right.
8 MR. JACKSON: I didn't quite understand 9 the gentleman, but I know that I've been told that at 10 Hope Creek they have an atomic powerplant, and that 11 powerplant has a cooling tower. Well, I want to know, 12 at Oyster Creek, do we have a cooling tower?
13 FACILITATOR CAMERON: You've asked a 14 specific question, do we have a cooling tower at --
15 DR. MASNIK: No. There is no cooling 16 tower comparable to the cooling tower at -- that's 17 comparable to the one at Hope Creek. There is no --
18 it is once-through cooling. Water is heated and 19 discharged directly into Oyster Creek.
20 FACILITATOR CAMERON: Okay.
21 MR. JACKSON: Once-through cooling at 22 OysterCreek.
23 DR. MASNIK: That's correct.
24 MR. JACKSON: Whereas at Hope Creek it 25 goes through a cooling tower first, and then it -
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60 1 DR. MASNIK: Yes. Okay.
2 FACILITATOR CAMERON: Thank you, Mr.
3 Jackson, and thank you for those questions. We owe 4 you some answers on a couple of things, and we're 5 going to take care of that in various ways.
6 We're going to go to the second part of 7 the meeting, which is to ask you to give us your 8 comments and recommendations on what we should look at 9 when we do the environmental review. I think we've 10 already heard about some of those concerns.
11 It always is useful to hear what a 12 company's rationale is behind license renewal, and I 13 think we -- that may be particularly important this 14 afternoon, because we have heard a couple of people 15 talk about why isn't this shorter term, why isn't this 16 five years.
17 So I'm going to ask two representatives 18 from the company to talk to us, again within our 19 guidelines, about what their vision, their rationale 20 is, and then we're going to go to the rest of the 21 people. We have a dozen or so people who want to talk 22 to us, so we're going to go to that.
23 So I'm going to go to -- ask Mr. Bud 24 Swenson from AmerGen to come up and talk to us, and 25 then we're going to go to Fred Polaski.
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61 1 (Applause.)
2 And then, we're going to go to Mr. Jackson 3 again for comment.
4 All right. This is Mr. Swenson. Mr.
5 Swenson?
6 MR. SWENSON: Thank you. Good afternoon.
7 My name is Bud Swenson. I'm the Site Vice President 8 at Oyster Creek Generating Station, and I'm the one 9 accountable for the safe and reliable operation of 10 that facility.
11 I'd like to thank the NRC for holding this 12 public meeting. In addition, I'd like to thank all of 13 you for taking time out of your busy schedules to 14 attend this important meeting. I believe it's 15 important to our community to have this opportunity.
16 Today Oyster Creek has the longest track 17 record of safe operations in the U.S. nuclear 18 industry. License renewal presents an opportunity for 19 the continued employment of 450 area residents and the 20 continued clean, safe, reliable production of 21 electricity to meet our ever-growing demand in the 22 region. I'm truly pleased for the employees at Oyster 23 Creek and for the residents of Ocean County.
24 More than 450 families, not including our 25 security personnel, depend on our plant for their NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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62 1 livelihood. Of these 450 employees, approximately 250 2 are members of the International Brotherhood of 3 Electrical Workers, Local 1289. These are good, high-4 paying jobs with excellent benefits. Our employees 5 are highly skilled and dedicated, and I'm proud to 6 work with them.
7 When I first came to Oyster Creek, a local 8 resident told me, "Run Oyster Creek safely. Do a good 9 job, and, most importantly, keep that plant open, 10 because a lot of my neighbors work there." The safe 11 operation of Oyster Creek is our top priority, and it 12 is important for our community that we continue to 13 operate.
14 Oyster Creek strengthens our community in 15 so many ways. We are a significant employer and a 16 public -- and a positive economic force in the local 17 area. The operation of Oyster Creek adds $52 million 18 to Ocean County. We spend $7.7 million on goods in 19 Ocean County and pay $9.2 million in sales and local 20 taxes every year. We contribute $234 million to Ocean 21 County's domestic product annually, if we value the 22 electrical production that's considered.
23 And we have led the way to $33 million in 24 increased output in Ocean County and $46-1/2 million 25 more in economic output in New Jersey itself every NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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63 1 year.
2 In addition, Oyster Creek employees are 3 community-minded and generous. Oyster Creek has the 4 largest employee-run United Way campaign in Ocean 5 County. This past year our employees raised more than 6 $180,000 for the United Way.
7 Our employees are involved in the American 8 Red Cross, Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, and 9 the American Cancer Society. They are Little League 10 coaches, Girl and Boy Scout leaders, volunteer EMTs 11 and firefighters, and PTA members. We support a 12 variety of family and youth organizations and 13 activities in local communities, and have donated to 14 -- land to the community for recreational use.
15 Oyster Creek provides a tremendous 16 environmental benefit to the community. Oyster Creek 17 represents 20 percent of JCP&L's electricity needs.
18 Not only do we produce nine percent of New Jersey's 19 electricity, but we also do this with virtually no 20 Greenhouse emissions.
21 Each year we operate Oyster Creek avoids 22 some 7-1/2 million metric tons of carbon dioxide that 23 would have been produced in coastal New Jersey by 24 replacement of a coal plant. That replacement plant 25 would produce carbon emissions equivalent to two NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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64 1 million cars, nearly half of all the cars in New 2 Jersey now.
3 The clean air benefits of nuclear power 4 production are of critical importance to New Jersey, 5 the United States, and the world as we look for 6 solutions to the Greenhouse gas impacts.
7 In addition to the inherent environmental 8 benefits of nuclear power, at Oyster Creek we go to 9 great lengths to minimize our impact to the 10 environment. We live here. We raise our families 11 here. It's just as important to us as it is to you 12 that we operate this plant safely and protect our 13 natural resources.
14 Ocean County is a beautiful place to raise 15 a family, and I'm proud to be a resident.
16 At Oyster Creek we do everything we can to 17 protect the Barnegat Bay. We have a constant focus on 18 planning and executing our work to minimize the impact 19 to the environment. On a day-to-day, hour-to-hour 20 basis, we monitor water temperatures. We regularly 21 take water samples to ensure compliance with 22 regulations.
23 We also coordinate any planned load 24 reductions and shutdowns to avoid the risk to marine 25 life. This practice is often costly, but it's NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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65 1 essential to meet our commitment to the environment.
2 Just this past weekend we performed a routine power 3 reduction, and due to our environmental team there was 4 no environmental impact.
5 At other public meetings, some raised 6 questions about our use of chlorine. We do use 7 chlorine to keep the plant's condenser tubes clean and 8 improve the efficiency of the plant. However, it's 9 virtually non-detectable by the time it gets out of 10 the condenser, and it certainly is not toxic to fish 11 or any other living organisms.
12 In addition, we are well below the 13 allowable amounts of chlorine allowed by our discharge 14 permits. Our employees are trained to do their jobs 15 with environmental protection in mind. One practice 16 that we are particularly proud of is our commitment to 17 protect sea turtles that become caught in our intakes.
18 We have specific procedures in place for 19 the safe return of all sea turtles to their natural 20 environment. Our operators are trained to identify, 21 to remove, and, if need be, resuscitate those turtles.
22 When a sea turtle is found, our operators contact the 23 Brigantine Marine Mammal Stranding Center, which 24 recovers the sea turtle, gives it a checkup, 25 rehabilitates it if necessary, and releases it back to NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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66 1 the sea.
2 We also partner with Drexel University to 3 track the number of sea turtles that are rescued from 4 our intake canal. Oyster Creek has modified its 5 intake structures to significantly reduce the impact 6 on aquatic life. Fish and crabs caught in our intake 7 screens are gently returned to the discharge canal, 8 and we pump cool water from the intake canal to the 9 discharge canal, diluting the warmer water coming out 10 of the plant.
11 Oyster Creek is also involved in several 12 environmental projects. Most recently, we purchased 13 a boat for the Rutgers Extension Service Clam 14 Restoration Project. The project team is working on 15 reestablishing clam beds in the Barnegat Bay, and the 16 boat will be used to more efficiently implement the 17 restoration of the clam beds and other important 18 environmental projects in the future.
19 We are a staunch protector of the South 20 Jersey wildlife and natural resources. We support the 21 New Jersey Audubon Society. We've donated a 22 significant amount of money to the organization in 23 recognition for the society's efforts to help rescue 24 and clean waterfowl impacted by the recent oil spills 25 in the Delaware River.
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67 1 Our employees are also involved in many 2 environmental activities in the area, including the 3 World Series of Birding, aiding the Cape May 4 Observatory, and Ocean Nature and Conservation 5 Society, and also the Barnegat Bay Estuary.
6 Oyster Creek is not the same plant that it 7 was when it was first built. We've invested over 8 $1.2 billion in upgrades to maintain it to today's 9 highest standards. We work hard to achieve our 10 commitment to clean, safe, and reliable operations.
11 We've kept this promise for 36 years, and we're 12 committed to serving our community for another 20 13 years.
14 Again, I want to thank the NRC for this 15 opportunity to provide comments and for your 16 consideration of our license renewal application.
17 Thank you.
18 FACILITATOR CAMERON: Thank you very much, 19 Mr. Swenson.
20 We're going to go to Mr. Fred Polaski, who 21 I believe is going to speak to some more specific 22 issues. Fred, thank you.
23 MR. POLASKI: Thank you, Chip. My name is 24 Fred Polaski. I am Exelon's corporate manager for 25 license renewal. I'm responsible for the preparation NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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68 1 and the review of the Oyster Creek license renewal 2 application.
3 I was previously responsible for our 4 applications which were accepted and approved by the 5 NRC for renewal of licenses at Peach Bottom in 6 Pennsylvania, and Dresden and Quad Cities plants in 7 Illinois.
8 Just briefly about myself, I've been 9 working in nuclear power for 34 years. I worked at 10 the Peach Bottom plant for 20 years, and held a senior 11 reactor operator license there for 13 years, spent two 12 years working in our Limerick plant, two years working 13 in our corporate nuclear quality assurance program, 14 and for almost the last 10 years have worked in 15 license renewal, both on projects within Exelon and 16 throughout the industry.
17 Mr. Swenson spoke about reasons for 18 renewing the license for Oyster Creek. I'd like to 19 speak briefly about the process for preparing these 20 license renewal applications and the amount of work 21 and engineering effort that was put into preparing the 22 application.
23 In 2003, AmerGen decided to pursue a 24 license renewal application for Oyster Creek.
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69 1 that year, and we submitted the application to the 2 Nuclear Regulatory Commission on July 22, 2005.
3 The application, if you've seen it, when 4 you print it out is about 2,400 pages. And when you 5 put it in books it's about that thick, a huge amount 6 of information, but that only represents a small part 7 of all the work that was done in the investigation, in 8 the engineering analysis, to prepare that application.
9 Our estimate is that the body of 10 information, if we printed it all out, would be at 11 least 100 times that amount of information in volume.
12 In preparation of that, we invested over 13 40 man-years of engineering work at a cost of over $5 14 million in preparation of it. Once we completed our 15 engineering work to prepare that application, AmerGen 16 performed extensive management reviews of the 17 application. We brought in experts from outside 18 AmerGen for review, including some former Nuclear 19 Regulatory Commission managers, to review application 20 to ensure that it was complete, thorough, and 21 accurate.
22 I'd now like to talk a little bit about 23 the two different parts of the review. I understand 24 that the primary subject of today's meeting deals with 25 the environmental review, but I'd like to talk also NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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70 1 about the safety review that we performed as part of 2 this application.
3 What we did in that review was to perform 4 a review of the history and the condition of all the 5 safety equipment in the plant. We did that to 6 determine whether the necessary maintenance was being 7 performed on that equipment to make sure that the 8 equipment will be able to operate it when it's needed 9 under emergency situations, not only today but for the 10 next additional 20 years of operation.
11 When you look back at Oyster Creek, when 12 it was built, all of the equipment was brand new. It 13 was thoroughly tested to make sure it would perform 14 properly. But like anything else, equipment does age.
15 That doesn't mean it won't work, but it does age, and 16 there is -- certain things need to be done with it 17 with respect to time.
18 Maintenance is performed on it. Sometimes 19 equipment is refurbished. Some pieces of equipment 20 may be replaced. There may be modifications done to 21 the plant to upgrade the equipment in the plant. We 22 reviewed all of that work to make sure that the proper 23 maintenance is going on today, and we'll continue in 24 the additional 20 years of operation to make sure that 25 aging that equipment is properly managed and the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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71 1 equipment will operate properly.
2 We also reviewed calculations that were 3 performed as part of the original design of the plant 4 that were done to ensure that the plant could operate 5 safely for 40 years. We analyzed those calculations 6 and were able to confirm that the plant would be able 7 to operate safely for 60 years.
8 Overall, our conclusion from our 9 engineering review was that Oyster Creek can operate 10 safely for another 60 years, or up to 60 years, and 11 we'll be able to maintain its operating condition 12 required by its design.
13 That's the same conclusion that the NRC 14 talked about earlier as a requirement for the 15 application. We were able to conclude that as part of 16 our review.
17 We also took a look at the environmental 18 impacts of continuing to operate Oyster Creek. We 19 looked at all aspects of continued impact of the plant 20 on the environment. If you remember, Dr. Masnik had 21 a slide up before that showed all of the different 22 aspects that the NRC reviews. We reviewed all of 23 those aspects also, and provided to the NRC the 24 conclusions of our review on all of the areas.
25 Our conclusion is that the impacts on the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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72 1 environment are small, and I use the term "small" in 2 the sense that it is in the regulation, and that's 3 that the impact will not have much impact on the 4 environment. And not being an environmentalist, I 5 tend to think of that more in terms that I'm more used 6 to as an engineer whose been operating powerplants, 7 and that the impact on the environment of continued 8 operation with an additional 20 years will be no more 9 significant than it is today.
10 We also took a look at part of our review 11 and alternatives if Oyster Creek would not have its 12 license renewed and another source of electric 13 generation would have to be installed either here 14 onsite or someplace else to generate 600 megawatts of 15 electricity, and concluded that any other means of 16 generating 600 megawatts would have more of an impact 17 on the environment than continued operation of Oyster 18 Creek.
19 I think one thing we need to keep in mind, 20 though, here is that whatever we do, whether it's 21 generating electricity, driving a car, building a new 22 home, building a new industry, a new plant someplace 23 for people to work, it all has impacts on the 24 environment. And our charge in this is to make sure 25 that we are assessing that and minimizing the impact NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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73 1 on the environment to take all of that into 2 consideration.
3 We did that in our review, and we 4 concluded that the impact on the environment of 5 continuing to operate Oyster Creek is the best 6 alternative for continued generation of 600 megawatts.
7 In conclusion, AmerGen's management and I 8 personally believe that Oyster Creek is a safely 9 operated plant and can operate for an additional 20 10 years in a safe manner. It'll provide 600 megawatts 11 of electricity that's not only safe, but it's clean, 12 reliable, environmentally friendly, and economical.
13 Continued operation of Oyster Creek will benefit this 14 community, the State of New Jersey, and our country.
15 Thank you.
16 FACILITATOR CAMERON: Okay. Thank you.
17 Thank you, Mr. Polaski.
18 Why don't we go to Mr. Jackson, and then 19 Mr. Stroup. Mr. Jackson, if you want to come forward, 20 or are you staying right there?
21 MR. JACKSON: I am Tom Jackson. For 20 22 years, I have worked as an industrial engineering 23 technician. For the last 10 years, I have worked 24 (Inaudible comment from an unmiked location.) in terms 25 of working.
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74 1 So even as of 1981, the technology that 2 existed then, one of the areas of from time to time 3 was the water purification section -- (ICFUL) recovery 4 towers, (ICFUL) recovery towers, various aspects. And 5 when the water was discharged into the (ICFUL) River, 6 which occurred in most of the (ICFUL) -- the by, the 7 ocean -- (ICFUL) tanks (ICFUL) clean water as of 8 (ICFUL).
9 Now, we had found earlier, based on 10 (ICFUL), that both federal and state organizations 11 (ICFUL) that the Hope Creek, New Jersey atomic 12 powerplant (ICFUL). And now (ICFUL), we had a (ICFUL) 13 recovery time and (ICFUL). I'm not aware of a fish 14 kill at (ICFUL) Creek. At the Oyster Creek facility, 15 to my knowledge, (ICFUL). But I'm aware (ICFUL) not 16 one, but three massive fish kills.
17 We have learned today that the Oyster 18 Creek facility still does not have (ICFUL). We have 19 heard from two gentlemen -- this surprised me -- that 20 they are environmentally conscious. They are 21 conscious of (ICFUL).
22 The discharge site needs further work. We 23 need a water cooler (ICFUL) there on the discharge 24 site. We do not need these fish kills anymore. Part 25 of the renewal process for this license should be a NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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75 1 consideration of a coolant tower should be built.
2 (Applause.)
3 (ICFUL) one at Hope Creek. We need one at 4 Oyster Creek. Thank you.
5 FACILITATOR CAMERON: Thank you very much, 6 Mr. Jackson, for that comment directly from and I 7 think to -- to our evaluation.
8 Now we're going to go to Mr. Ed Stroup.
9 Mr. Stroup, would you like to join us up here?
10 MR. STROUP: Sure. Hello. My name is Ed 11 Stroup. I live at 545 Longboat Avenue in Beachwood.
12 I'm President of IBEW Local 1289, and I represent 13 approximately 250 members at Oyster Creek, and a 14 little bit over 400 at Jersey Central Power and Light.
15 On behalf of all of those employees, many 16 of these employees play active roles in Oyster Creek's 17 environmental program. They are committed to 18 achieving a balance between making the megawatts that 19 we all need and protecting the environment, and they 20 work hard at that. When you compare nuclear with 21 other baseload fuels, nuclear is the environmental 22 choice without question, and Oyster Creek has more 23 experience safely producing clean energy than any 24 other nuclear plant in the country.
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76 1 operate the plant, and all of its systems, which are 2 regularly upgraded to meet the strict operating and 3 environmental standards. Local 1289 urges the NRC to 4 objectively consider all of the facts about Oyster 5 Creek within your proven review process.
6 The facts will clearly show that Oyster 7 Creek is ready and able to produce clean power for an 8 additional 20 years.
9 Thank you very much.
10 (Applause.)
11 FACILITATOR CAMERON: Okay. Thank you, 12 Mr. Stroup.
13 We're going to go next to Mr. Don Warren, 14 and then to Mr. Tom Cervasio, and then to Wayne 15 Romberg. Mr. Warren --
16 UNIDENTIFIED PARTICIPANT: One question.
17 Can we question that gentleman that was just at the 18 microphone?
19 FACILITATOR CAMERON: After the meeting if 20 you want.
21 UNIDENTIFIED PARTICIPANT: We can't ask a 22 question now?
23 FACILITATOR CAMERON: No, because we 24 really need to get all of you on with your ideas for 25 us. But I'm sure he'd be glad to talk to you NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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77 1 afterwards.
2 UNIDENTIFIED PARTICIPANT: Thank you.
3 FACILITATOR CAMERON: And is this Mr.
4 Warren?
5 MR. CERVASIO: No. Cervasio, Tom 6 Cervasio.
7 FACILITATOR CAMERON: Okay.
8 MR. WARREN: He can go ahead of me. That 9 would be fine.
10 FACILITATOR CAMERON: Okay. Is that okay 11 with you, Mr. Warren?
12 MR. WARREN: It's all right.
13 FACILITATOR CAMERON: Okay. Mr. Cervasio, 14 go ahead, and then we'll go to Mr. Warren.
15 MR. CERVASIO: My name is Tom Cervasio.
16 I am Chairman of EnvirowatchM, and we have a question 17 for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Two-thirds of 18 the Nuclear Regulatory Commission represents the 19 people in the nuclear industry. By their past and 20 present action, it appears that they represent, rather 21 than regulate, the nuclear industry. But if they were 22 looking out for the health, safety, and welfare of the 23 people, it wouldn't be a question of if a license was 24 renewed or denied, but of when.
25 The renewal should be denied for the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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78 1 following reasons. The New Jersey emergency planning 2 evacuation plan will not work, so, therefore, the 3 plant should be shut down. Presently, there is no 4 permanent safe storage of nuclear waste, so rather 5 than continue to produce this toxic byproduct, the 6 plant should be shut down.
7 There is no backup power source for 8 warning sirens around the plant. So in the event of 9 an emergency resulting in the loss of a siren, the 10 public would be ignorant of dangers. So, therefore, 11 the plant should be shut down.
12 Federal law requires that licensees 13 operating near the coast must adhere to state 14 environmental rules. Oyster Creek does not, so, 15 therefore, the plant should be shut down.
16 Oyster Creek's present water and intake 17 system destroys fresh marine life. In the year 2002, 18 the plant was fined $50,000 for killing 5,876 fish.
19 If the Oyster Creek plant does not construct a cooling 20 tower, the plant will continue to contribute to the 21 loss of habitat in the remaining estuary, so, 22 therefore, the plant should be shut down.
23 The parent utility should be required to 24 install state-of-the-art structural steel encasements 25 around the spent fuel storage pool -- an above-ground NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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79 1 storage facility. Such encasements should be able to 2 withstand if they were hit by an airplane or a 3 missile.
4 Furthermore, please add to the record that 5 the Federal Government should not subsidize the new 6 construction of nuclear plants until the problem of 7 safe storage of nuclear waste is solved, an issue not 8 covered by the new energy bill passed by the Congress.
9 Therefore, we ask, for the good of the 10 people and the environment, that the NRC and the DEP 11 deny the renewal of a license for the continued 12 operation of the Oyster Creek nuclear plant.
13 Thank you very much.
14 (Applause.)
15 FACILITATOR CAMERON: Thank you, Mr.
16 Cervasio.
17 We're going to go to Mr. Warren. Do you 18 want to come up here, Mr. Warren?
19 MR. WARREN: Sure.
20 FACILITATOR CAMERON: All right.
21 MR. WARREN: Hi. Actually, I'd like to 22 start by clarifying a couple of things. The first 23 thing I was clarifying is the gentleman stated before 24 that there are no Chernobyl-style plants operating in 25 the United States. Although this is true with the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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80 1 graphite reactor, the one that they were operating was 2 closed down.
3 The point is not the type of reactor. The 4 point is the type of accident that can come from it, 5 and that type of accident is a massive radiation 6 release. And these are the -- this is what is going 7 to cause a Chernobyl-like incident. It's not 8 necessarily a fire, but if Oyster Creek -- because of 9 its age, does have a catastrophic release of 10 radiation, the plant in Chernobyl is only two years 11 old. Oyster Creek has far more radiation there. So 12 even a significant percentage of that would be 13 catastrophic to the environment.
14 Another thing I'd like to point out is 15 that I came to the original meeting, and I had 16 pictures to show, and I was informed that there were 17 certain regulations at the meeting, and the pictures 18 that I had to show did not meet that. So I didn't try 19 to change the regulations to meet what I was looking 20 for.
21 I complied to the regulations. I assumed 22 that they had reasons for it. I mean, I could imagine 23 if everybody came in here with a big poster. So I 24 understood why they have these regulations.
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81 1 they have something called the electrical code, and 2 the electrical code is established by looking at how 3 fires and accidents have occurred in the past, and 4 creating codes to make sure that things are built so 5 that these don't happen in the future.
6 This is what the NRC should be doing. The 7 NRC has a set of codes, but it seems that every time 8 one of these plants doesn't meet these codes, they 9 change the codes for them to comply. And this is not 10 proper regulation. Their obligation is to keep us as 11 safe as possible. If you're dealing with a plant that 12 was designed back in 1962, and is already considered 13 to be obsolete by many experts, then certainly we 14 shouldn't be relaxing any of the regulations.
15 When Oyster Creek was found to be non-16 compliant with the turtle kills for their intake, 17 speaking of environmental issues, they petitioned to 18 have it increased -- the amount that they could kill 19 increased. This is not responsible to the community.
20 This is not responsible to the environment.
21 They love to say that they don't produce 22 fossil fuels, yet the material that they use, the fuel 23 has to be mined. There's a tremendous amount of 24 fossil fuels that are used in the production to get a 25 plant running and to keep it running.
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82 1 When you look at other alternative 2 energies, in the case of wind, solar, and 3 conservation, they can easily make up for it. A 4 gentleman before asked about why Germany had switched.
5 Germany has switched because of safety concerns and 6 because Europe is finding that alternative energies 7 are actually filling the gap. The technology has come 8 of age, and it is working.
9 We are asked to renew the license for 10 AmerGen, so that they can continue because they're a 11 business. And I understand they wanted to continue, 12 because they're a business, but we're a community, and 13 we have an obligation to the community. I'm a health 14 care provider in this community, and my obligation is 15 to the children of this community.
16 And this is the reason why I'm here. This 17 is the reason why I spend my days off to come here, 18 because if I'm working in a hospital, if I can save 19 one person's life in a year, to me that's an 20 incredible accomplishment. Shutting this plant down 21 has the potential to save hundreds of thousands of 22 lives in this community for generations and 23 generations to come.
24 This child here was not born at the time 25 the Chernobyl accident happened. This child was born NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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83 1 years later, and this is the legacy of nuclear power.
2 This is what happens. This plant, on a daily basis, 3 when everything is working fine, is releasing 4 radiation into the environment. It's releasing it in 5 particulate form.
6 It's contamination that stays in the 7 environment, and it's not like going and getting an X-8 ray at the doctor's office where you get zapped one 9 time and then it's gone. This stuff goes into your 10 body, it's built into your bones in the form of 11 strontium-90, it goes in your muscle -- and cesium-12 137. And the science has proven to show this.
13 There's a condition called Chernobyl 14 heart, which develops in children having so much 15 cesium in their heart muscle that they actually 16 develop birth defects.
17 The point I'm trying to make here is they 18 talk about the environmental impact. There's a 19 tremendous environmental impact when Oyster Creek 20 continues to operate every day. The fact that they 21 are unwilling to spend the money for a cooling tower, 22 which is exactly what it comes to -- everybody has 23 seemed to look at it, including the Environmental 24 Protection Agency, and say this is the best 25 alternative, yet Oyster Creek is looking for the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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84 1 cheaper way out. This is not true community concern.
2 The issue with chlorination, constantly 3 dumping this chlorine. For the man to make a 4 statement that chlorine is not toxic to fish, I've had 5 an aquarium, and one of the first things you do in an 6 aquarium is you dechlorinate the water before you put 7 it in, or it will kill your fish.
8 Granted, you can dilute it down to 9 quantities that may be acceptable, but to say that 10 it's not having an environmental impact is not -- is 11 not correct science. Because of this, this is why I'm 12 focusing my environmental question on, again, the 13 leakage from the plant and the radioactivity from this 14 leakage from this plant.
15 Without a closed loop system, this extra 16 contamination from Oyster Creek is ending up in our 17 environment, because these leaks aren't all going into 18 controlled areas. These leaks are going into the 19 recirculating cooling water area, because of the 20 design of the plant.
21 So this is an environmental concern that 22 I feel must be taken into consideration when deciding 23 to issue an environmental permit for Oyster Creek in 24 this licensing renewal.
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85 1 -- that Oyster Creek is handing out bumper stickers.
2 And I'd like to notice the flaw in the bumper sticker, 3 the lack of quality control. I think this is just 4 kind of par for the course for Oyster Creek. They 5 can't even seem to get a bumper sticker right.
6 (Applause.)
7 FACILITATOR CAMERON: Thank you, Mr.
8 Warren.
9 Mr. Romberg? And then, to Judith Cambria.
10 MR. ROMBERG: I don't think this is 11 working at all. Anyway, my name is Wayne Romberg. My 12 family and I live at 738 Fairview Lane in Forked 13 River. That's on the south branch of the Forked 14 River, and I live about a mile from the plant.
15 And by the way, I chose to live there. I 16 moved here about four years ago. I'm part of the 17 plant staff. I have a Master's in nuclear 18 engineering. I've been doing this for 37 years.
19 I favor the licensing of Oyster Creek. As 20 a powerplant engineer, I understand that all 21 generation facilities have some impact on the 22 environment, and that doesn't matter if it's solar or 23 wind power or fossil or nuclear. It's just a fact of 24 life.
25 Oyster Creek, as a nuclear facility, is NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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86 1 capable of producing power for over 6,000 homes in New 2 Jersey, day or night, wind or no wind, while it 3 produces zero carbon emissions. In fact, we avoid the 4 generation of carbon emissions equivalent to half the 5 cars driven in New Jersey on a given day.
6 The employees at Oyster Creek -- and there 7 are about 450 of them -- are highly trained and 8 environmentally sensitive. We're a zero discharge 9 plant. We have modified their turbine cooling water 10 intake to be fish-friendly with soft sprays to return 11 fish to the environment. Our intake screens are sized 12 to be environmentally friendly. So we've changed some 13 things over the years to make the plant more friendly 14 to the environment.
15 We have a program that trains our 16 operators to rescue sea turtles, and I think you heard 17 about that earlier. When we're unsuccessful, it's 18 generally because that sea turtle got to us injured.
19 Boat propellers is the most frequent injury that we 20 see. And, obviously, when it gets to us cut open from 21 the boat propeller, it's hard to resuscitate them.
22 Our startups and shutdowns, we have worked 23 very hard in the last couple of years to do very slow 24 startups and slow shutdowns, because that's 25 environmentally friendly. And since we've started NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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87 1 doing that, we've had no fish kills as a result. The 2 fish don't like a fast change of temperature.
3 We minimize the use of chlorine as a 4 biocide. And by the way, all powerplants that have 5 once-through condensers use biocide. That's -- I 6 mean, all over the state, that's the way it is unless 7 you've got a cooling tower, and a cooling tower is a 8 whole different issue around economic investment and 9 whether or not it's the right thing to do.
10 I know as a resident, I don't want a 11 cooling tower. I'm going to have salt spray all over 12 my car and my house, and so on. That's enough for me 13 or my neighbors.
14 It's a well-known fact that the best 15 fishing in the area, in Ocean County, is on Route 9 on 16 the Oyster Creek discharge. You can go down there 17 this afternoon and count the fishermen and count the 18 fish they're getting. You know, I anchor my boat. I 19 have an environmentally friendly sailboat. We anchor 20 it in Oyster Creek. We get blue shell crabs there.
21 We swim there. You know, we feel good about it.
22 I support the relicensing of Oyster Creek 23 as a way to provide power for New Jersey with the 24 least environmental impact.
25 I thank you.
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88 1 (Applause.)
2 FACILITATOR CAMERON: Okay. Thank you 3 very much, Mr. Romberg.
4 We'll go next to Judith Cambria, and then 5 we're going to go to Bud Thoman.
6 MS. CAMBRIA: How's that? Does it pick up 7 there? No? Is it picking up?
8 FACILITATOR CAMERON: Can you hear her?
9 UNIDENTIFIED PARTICIPANT: No.
10 MS. CAMBRIA: Okay. Why not?
11 FACILITATOR CAMERON: Maybe you just 12 need --
13 MS. CAMBRIA: How about that?
14 FACILITATOR CAMERON: Is that better?
15 I'll tell you what, why don't you just use this.
16 MS. CAMBRIA: Why don't I use that.
17 FACILITATOR CAMERON: Okay.
18 MS. CAMBRIA: Thank you. My name is 19 Judith Cambria. I live at 80 Windwood Drive, 20 Manahawkin, New Jersey. However, previous to that my 21 husband and I lived in Barnegat Light for some 15, 16 22 years, and we looked directly across the bay at the 23 Oyster Creek plant. So it was our very close 24 neighbor.
25 And before I make any other remarks, I NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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89 1 would just say that the standard thought in our home 2 was that, if anything went wrong at the Oyster Creek 3 plant, we would immediately pull out the largest 4 amount of alcohol that we could find, we could consume 5 it, because there was no way --
6 (Laughter.)
7 -- in the world we were going to be able 8 to get out.
9 (Laughter.)
10 So I say to you, I have not -- I do not in 11 any way pretend, when I speak to you today, that I am 12 an expert. I have not spent a lot of time studying 13 this in any way, shape, or form. Actually, I'm 14 involved very much in a lot of state issues, and I am 15 an expert in them. So I'm not speaking to you today 16 as an expert. I'm speaking to you today as a very, 17 very concerned individual.
18 And I think that today we're talking more 19 about environmental impact, where we seem to get off 20 on a lot of things, but very much environmental 21 impact. And I do truly believe that the environmental 22 impact on the aquatic life and overall -- not just 23 fish, all others, has been very, very devastating.
24 And we are so overfishing, as it is out 25 there, once they get bigger, that we need to be able NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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90 1 to have as many possible make it to that point, and so 2 they can become part of our food supply. So I'm very 3 concerned about that, and I think when we talk about 4 environmental effects, the big environmental effect 5 that scares me, and should scare all of us, is what 6 happens if it really goes wrong. And it worries me 7 terribly that we're taking an old, obsolete plant and 8 saying, "Let's put 20 more years on it."
9 The particular concern -- and this is not 10 just here in this area, but having read about it in 11 the newspapers -- is our utter and complete failure 12 after all of these years to come up with any solution, 13 reasonable solution, to what to do with the rods that 14 are left, the things that are so completely 15 contaminated, so heavily contaminated.
16 And we kept hearing -- you know, I'm not 17 young, so I've been hearing for years and years and 18 years how they're going to solve this problem. Well, 19 we're no closer to it now than we were 30, 40, 50 20 years ago. And what we are a lot closer to is all, 21 and I mean all, those rods that are right up the road 22 apiece.
23 And so I am very frightened about those.
24 We keep adding more and more to them with no -- no --
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91 1 am concerned because I think that New Jersey, if we're 2 talking about terrorism, I think New Jersey is 3 probably one of the highest priority targets for any 4 terrorist in the world, because New Jersey is such a 5 crossroads, has so many industries, so many things.
6 So as I say, I am not an expert, but I did 7 want to share with you my concerns. And I certainly 8 do not want my grandchildren or great-grandchildren to 9 look anything like the picture that the gentleman 10 showed earlier.
11 Thank you.
12 (Applause.)
13 FACILITATOR CAMERON: Okay. Thank you 14 very much, Judith.
15 Mr. Thoman?
16 MR. THOMAN: I don't know if this is -- is 17 this working?
18 UNIDENTIFIED PARTICIPANT: I don't think 19 so.
20 FACILITATOR CAMERON: I think it's 21 working.
22 MR. THOMAN: Hello? No.
23 FACILITATOR CAMERON: All right.
24 MR. THOMAN: Put this in here? All right.
25 I'll speak out loud. Good afternoon. I'm Bud Thoman.
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92 1 I am a business agent for the International 2 Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Local 94.
3 Thank you for the opportunity to speak on 4 behalf of our members, and I urge you to conduct a 5 thorough review of the Oyster Creek license renewal 6 application. You will clearly find that Oyster Creek 7 is safe, it complies with environmental regulations, 8 and it will continue to do so.
9 Most importantly, Oyster Creek is a 10 critical part of the New Jersey infrastructure that we 11 cannot afford to lose. It serves a significant 12 portion of the demand in this region, some 600,000 13 homes, without polluting the air. Additionally, most 14 people in this area and around the state support the 15 relicensing of Oyster Creek, because they understand 16 that it is safe, and has been a good neighbor and 17 taxpayer.
18 The continued safe, clean, and reliable 19 operation of Oyster Creek is critical for the long-20 term energy stability in New Jersey, and vital if we 21 are to reduce Greenhouse gases emissions as proposed 22 by both the state and federal governments, while also 23 meeting the energy demands of New Jersey consumers.
24 Oyster Creek is a non-polluting energy 25 supplier, and that is important to our environment.
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93 1 It is an enormous economic engine, and it is vital 2 that it continues to be online to meet the growing 3 demand for electricity in New Jersey.
4 We support Oyster Creek license renewal, 5 and we are confident that you will find it is the 6 right thing to do as well.
7 Thank you.
8 (Applause.)
9 FACILITATOR CAMERON: Okay. Thank you 10 very much.
11 We're next going to go to Mr. Frydendahl.
12 We've heard from him before. He's going to speak to 13 us, and then we're going to go to Chip Gerrity.
14 Mr. Frydendahl?
15 MR. FRYDENDAHL: Good afternoon. I'm Ed 16 Frydendahl from Manchester, New Jersey, formerly a 32-17 year resident of Lacey Township, with family still 18 residing in Berkley Township in Barnegat and in 19 Beachwood.
20 I have one concern that bothers me, and 21 I'd like to share it with you, and that is that I 22 can't go up in a private plane or a small plane, or 23 any kind of a plane and fly over Disneyland, Disney 24 World, or -- now we'll bring it closer to home --
25 first, Great Adventure in Jackson, because it's NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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94 1 restricted air space.
2 Now, we've heard a lot this afternoon from 3 both sides of the aisle, from the DEP and from the 4 Nuclear Regulatory Commission, that you are for 5 safety. If you are for safety, I'm going to throw a 6 question out. Why is the air space over Oyster Creek 7 not restricted on a sectional in this area? Can 8 anybody answer that?
9 I've asked that at five meetings. I've 10 gone to Congressman Jim Saxton. I've gone to 11 Congressman Chris Smith in the 4th. I have even gone 12 to the FAA, the Federal Aviation Administration, and 13 asked that that space be restricted.
14 UNIDENTIFIED PARTICIPANT: Because they 15 don't care about you. Just money.
16 MR. FRYDENDAHL: Not only that, sir --
17 you're right part of the way. The responsibility 18 falls back on AmerGen. They are the owner. They have 19 to go before the FAA, not Ed Frydendahl, and get 20 permission to close that air space off.
21 Now, let me tell you why that's important.
22 UNIDENTIFIED PARTICIPANT: Shouldn't that 23 be federal?
24 MR. FRYDENDAHL: Let me tell you why 25 that's important. As a former resident of Lacey NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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95 1 Township -- and I don't know if there's anybody here 2 from Lacey -- but I remember years back when a 3 gentleman -- two men went out to Robert J. Miller 4 Airpark, our local airport, took up a small plane and 5 did some flying at low altitudes over Forked River.
6 The steeple on my church, the Forked River 7 United Methodist Church, was crashed into with that 8 plane. What would stop a deranged person -- and this 9 world today certainly has enough of those, we all know 10 -- to go out to Robert J. Miller Airpark and take a 11 test as a pilot, and be certified, and take an 12 airplane and crash it into that corrugated piece of 13 metal on top which surrounds -- the shroud which 14 surrounds the spent fuel pool.
15 This should be done before we even talk 16 about cooling towers or fish kills. This to me is of 17 utmost importance. I don't want to see any more fish 18 kills. I saw enough of them. I saw striped bass 19 three and four feet long when I lived in Lacey 20 floating in that creek because of that plume that 21 comes out of there, that hot water.
22 We were told before by somebody from the 23 plant that they add cool water to it. Again, my 24 question to the people at AmerGen -- four miles out in 25 Barnegat Bay that plume continues to send warm water NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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96 1 out into the bay. You can't tell me that that's not 2 affecting the ecosystem and the environmental 3 condition of Barnegat Bay.
4 And I don't care what kind of an engineer 5 you are, or where you went to school, or what you 6 studied, I'm taking it from a fisherman and an 7 environmentalist who says that warm water should not 8 be shot out there.
9 Is anybody in agreement with me, or am I 10 standing here alone?
11 (Applause.)
12 Another thing that troubles me -- that 13 seriously troubles me, I happen to have a daughter who 14 is a teacher in the Forked River Elementary School, 15 Lacey Township. To evacuate just Lacey Township, and 16 I know we have residents here from Manahawkin, from 17 Barneget Light, from Barnegat, in those areas, let's 18 just talk about Lacey Township.
19 To evacuate every student in the Lacey 20 school system would take 103 school buses, to get them 21 out of there and get them up to Ocean County College 22 or out to the Naval Air Station Lakehurst, or 23 wherever.
24 Lacey Township currently has a fleet of 62 25 buses. So I asked the question at an NRC meeting way NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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97 1 back two or three years ago in Waretown. The answer 2 that I got was, "Well, we'll get back to you, Mr.
3 Frydendahl, and we'll tell you how we're going to 4 supply those extra buses."
5 I have a letter from the Nuclear 6 Regulatory Commission that says, "Two will be sent 7 from Pinelands Regional, two will be sent from 8 Southern Regional, one each will be sent from Stafford 9 Township and Eagleswood Township."
10 It doesn't take a brain surgeon or a 11 rocket scientist to realize that to get those buses 12 from that area up to Lacey Township requires either 13 driving north on Route 9 or driving north on the 14 Garden State Parkway. How are you going to get them 15 there? You're not going to.
16 And how are we, just in Lacey Township, 17 going to get our children out of school and out to an 18 area like the Ocean County -- I'm sorry, Ocean County 19 College or the Naval Air Station, or wherever they're 20 going to take them? What are we going to do? We're 21 going to say, "Well, the powerplant is cooking away 22 over there, and it's melting down, and the radiation 23 is going out. Maybe we'll take the little ones first.
24 No, maybe we'll take the high school ones first."
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98 1 wish to heck that Senator Connors and Assemblyman 2 Connors and Assemblyman Rumph were here today, because 3 there is an election coming up, and they have been 4 working on this, but they still don't have a solution.
5 I'm going to close now, because I know 6 there's others that want to speak. But everybody 7 yells, "Oh, we've got to have this powerplant. We've 8 got to generate this electricity." Let me give you a 9 fact, folks. On the PJMD, which is the Pennsylvania, 10 Jersey, Maryland, and Delaware grid, Oyster Creek 11 supplies a whopping three percent of the power to that 12 grid.
13 (Applause.)
14 Do we need that? No. Now, I understand 15 it has been recast down to 1-1/2 percent, but I can't 16 say that completely, but the three percent number has 17 now been reduced to 1-1/2 percent. Paula, is that 18 correct? Has that been verified?
19 UNIDENTIFIED PARTICIPANT: Ninety-seven 20 percent --
21 FACILITATOR CAMERON: If you want to just 22 finish up with your comment.
23 MR. FRYDENDAHL: So what I'm saying here 24 is I don't want to hear that we've got to have this 25 powerplant, it's safe and it's good and it's producing NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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99 1 a lot of jobs, because the people of Lacey Township 2 are not going to see any difference in their tax 3 structure if that thing closed tomorrow.
4 The reason for that is because the tax law 5 was passed many, many years ago that said if Oyster 6 Creek closes, it does not have an impact on the taxes 7 of Lacey. Let's close it, and let's get it done now.
8 Thank you.
9 (Applause.)
10 FACILITATOR CAMERON: Okay. Mr.
11 Frydendahl, usually we don't stop in the middle to 12 take a break to answer questions, but the security 13 issue of -- that you bring up is obviously an 14 extremely important one.
15 We have Mr. Alan Madison here from our 16 staff, who may be able to share some information on 17 the air space issue. So we'll just provide that. If 18 you want to talk more, we can do that with you.
19 But, Alan, can you tell us about the --
20 can you address this? He's with our Nuclear Security 21 and Incident Response staff.
22 MR. MADISON: I'm Alan Madison. I'm Chief 23 of Mitigative Measures and Integrated Response for the 24 NRC in the Office of Nuclear Security and Incident 25 Response.
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100 1 There is currently a notice to air 2 mariners over all nuclear powerplants that restricts 3 the air space 2,000 feet or lower for any flights, and 4 requires air mariners to not loiter over the nuclear 5 powerplant.
6 We also have engaged right now with the 7 FAA and with NORAD our capabilities to be able to 8 monitor that air space, to monitor the approaches to 9 that air space, and take the appropriate action. I 10 think you had a question at the previous meeting 11 regarding putting a cap or completely closing the air 12 space.
13 First of all, I'm not aware that there is 14 currently a cap over any infrastructure, other than 15 the -- right now the White House and the Congress.
16 There are some restrictions, but a cap requires air 17 cover, requires some airplanes be up there to be able 18 to respond. You know, how large of a cap are you 19 looking for? Well, actually --
20 MR. FRYDENDAHL: It's sectional of the 21 area that you're flying over, sir. If I had a 22 sectional on mid-Florida and it showed Disney World on 23 there, on my sectional map which is a road map of the 24 air --
25 MR. MADISON: Right.
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101 1 MR. FRYDENDAHL: -- it would show that I'm 2 in a restricted area, and I'm not allowed to fly over.
3 MR. MADISON: But it's not a cap. It 4 requires you -- it requires you to not loiter in 5 there.
6 MR. FRYDENDAHL: No, no. It shows you not 7 to fly --
8 MR. MADISON: There are actually flights 9 that occur over that air space every day.
10 MR. FRYDENDAHL: As long as they over 11 30,000 feet.
12 MR. MADISON: Correct. And that's why 13 there's a restriction. There's a similar restriction 14 over nuclear powerplants, and it's at a lower altitude 15 because of the air space that a lot of them are in.
16 We have looked at this at the Federal Government 17 level. We continue to look at this, whether or not to 18 put -- to put more restrictions on that air space.
19 Part of the concern is, obviously, how 20 large of a restriction do you want to put in, and what 21 are the impacts of that restriction.
22 FACILITATOR CAMERON: Okay. Thank you 23 for --
24 MR. MADISON: We can go a lot further, but 25 there are -- we continue to discuss it. We continue NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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102 1 to look at it. Currently, we get daily reports from 2 what the air traffic is in the area. We are -- NORAD 3 is capable of responding within moments to interdict 4 any aircraft that would -- that we think is 5 appropriate to interdict.
6 And we've had some instances where we've 7 actually been prepared to take that action. They have 8 turned out to be benign. There has been some problems 9 potentially with the -- an individual may be sending 10 -- our transponder may be sending out a hijack signal 11 when there's no real hijack, that type of thing.
12 But the actions -- we're prepared to take 13 those actions, and we'll continue to look at it.
14 FACILITATOR CAMERON: Okay. Thanks, Alan.
15 MR. FRYDENDAHL: Thank you, sir. I'm glad 16 it's being looked at.
17 FACILITATOR CAMERON: Thank you, Mr.
18 Frydendahl.
19 We're going to go to Mr. Gerrity, Chip 20 Gerrity, and then to Mr. Don Williams.
21 Mr. Gerrity?
22 MR. GERRITY: Good afternoon. My name is 23 Chip Gerrity. I'm President of the New Jersey IBEW 24 and represent over 35,000 IBEW members in New Jersey, 25 and I'm here on behalf of the tens of thousands of NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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103 1 working men and women in this region. And I'm also 2 President of IBEW Local 94, which represents the 3 workers at Salem and Hope Creek Generating Station.
4 I'm going to just deviate a little bit 5 from what I have. I've worked at Salem and Hope Creek 6 for over 16 years. I was a welder in the plant, and 7 I have firsthand sight of watching the NRC do its job 8 and INPO, Institute of Nuclear Power Operations, two 9 groups that watch the plant, make sure it operates the 10 way it's supposed to, and makes sure the workers do 11 what is supposed to be done.
12 I can tell you as a worker that I wasn't 13 happy with what happened at Davis-Besse, and I expect, 14 you know, as a worker, again, for the NRC to do its 15 job and fix the problems that happened at Davis-Besse.
16 And as far as the relicensing, I know that the people 17 that are inspectors in the NRC, I have a great deal of 18 respect for. I think they are licensed. Congress is 19 supposed to watch them, to watch them do the 20 relicensing effort, make sure the plant is safe.
21 I can tell you that the workers do not 22 want an unsafe plant to work in. So our position --
23 New Jersey IBEW -- and me and President of Local 94 is 24 that we want a safe plant to work in. I think the NRC 25 should have the ability to do its job in its entirety NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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104 1 and make sure that we have a safe plant when it's 2 relicensed, and we support the relicensing overall.
3 Thank you.
4 (Applause.)
5 FACILITATOR CAMERON: Okay. Thank you, 6 Mr. Gerrity.
7 Mr. Williams? It says here Mr. Don 8 Williams, and then we're going to go to Mr. Mercurio.
9 MR. WILLIAMS: Hello. My name is Don 10 Williams. I didn't know I was going to be here today.
11 I just realized that this meeting was taking place 12 today. Nobody asked me to come. I'm not a big shot.
13 I don't have a bachelor's degree or anything like 14 that.
15 I've lived at 122 Ditmar Drive for the 16 last -- in South Toms River for the last 21 years, and 17 last year a strange thing happened to me. I was given 18 the opportunity to work at Oyster Creek during a 19 shutdown. Well, I was really nervous about that. I 20 thought, oh, what have I put myself in for? Am I 21 doing the right thing? Is it going to be safe? I had 22 no idea, because, like you, I had a lot of concerns.
23 Well, let me tell you, I worked at the 24 plant from October 24th to November 25th, and I 25 learned a lot. One thing I know for a fact, that NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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105 1 plant is safer than Fort Knox. It's very well 2 protected. And during the shutdown they went through 3 -- a lot of money was spent to repair, replace, and 4 refurbish parts that needed to be refurnished, like 5 the turbine.
6 The turbine has a building called the 7 turbine building, which I know now. The turbine is 8 bigger than this whole room. Well, I saw that turbine 9 taken apart and replaced and rebuilt from scratch, and 10 they did an excellent job.
11 And you know what? I'm not worried about 12 Oyster Creek anymore. I sleep very well. I tell all 13 my friends and everybody I know, "You don't have to 14 worry about Oyster Creek. It's safe." And anybody 15 that's coming up with these cockeyed stories about, 16 oh, they need water towers, no, they don't need water 17 towers. The system they have is fine. The water 18 flows in, and it flows out, and they do a good job.
19 And I'd like to say thank-you very much 20 for having me here. Thank you.
21 (Applause.)
22 FACILITATOR CAMERON: We're going to go to 23 Mr. Mercurio, and then to Mike Ford, and then we have 24 four or five others to go to to finish up. This is 25 Mr. Michael Mercurio. Is that correct?
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106 1 MR. MERCURIO: Thank you very much for 2 this opportunity to speak. I live in Long Beach 3 Island. I am an environmental advocate. I believe 4 that nuclear power, if done responsibly, if we can 5 address the issues of nuclear power, what the problems 6 are, from something that was designed 40 years and 7 correct those problems, it's a viable, safe 8 alternative energy.
9 Our number one problem is not radiation 10 from the atomic powerplant. It's how to get rid of --
11 we have to get the Federal Government to start moving 12 on disposal of the fuel rods. That is a major 13 priority that's the Federal Government's 14 responsibility that they should take on, not these 15 people.
16 The other thing that should be addressed 17 is the fact that the coolant -- the cooling of the 18 water into Barnegat Bay can be very easily solved as 19 heat recovery systems can be put in along the area, 20 hydroponics, different areas. Forty years ago, we had 21 a system -- we had a bay that was full of life. Today 22 it's -- our oceans are 90 percent depleted.
23 But just to get off it, I am for it 24 because of the simple reason that carbon emissions 25 present more of a threat to human life on this planet NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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107 1 right now, because of the fact of the amount that 2 we're putting in. The United States puts 2.5 billion 3 tons of carbon just from electric power generation 4 through coal-fired plants.
5 So if you really want to point a finger at 6 what's causing environmental impacts, it's pointed to 7 the coal industry, not to the nuclear regulatory area.
8 It's six generations, I think we have now, have been 9 designed at nuclear plants that are safer. We just 10 need to address the issues that are of concern for a 11 40-year plant and correct them. And I'm for 12 recommissioning it if those problems can be corrected.
13 Thank you.
14 FACILITATOR CAMERON: Thank you, Mr.
15 Mercurio.
16 Mr. Ford? And then we're going to go to 17 Nancy Eriksen. Is Mr. Ford still here? Okay. Nancy?
18 Nancy Eriksen.
19 MS. ERIKSEN: Hi. I'm Nancy Eriksen. Can 20 you hear me in the back?
21 UNIDENTIFIED PARTICIPANT: No.
22 UNIDENTIFIED PARTICIPANT: No.
23 MS. ERIKSEN: I don't think it's working.
24 FACILITATOR CAMERON: Try it again.
25 MS. ERIKSEN: Hello?
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108 1 FACILITATOR CAMERON: No? Okay. Let's go 2 with -- okay. Why don't you just use this.
3 MS. ERIKSEN: Okay. I've worked at Oyster 4 Creek for 24 years. I've lived in Forked River for 21 5 years, close to the plant. I've been a resident of 6 Ocean County for over 30 years. I'm also President of 7 the Natural Resource Education Foundation in Ocean 8 Township, and its mission is to educate the public, 9 including all of the school children of Ocean County, 10 about the environment.
11 I'm also past president of Ocean Nature 12 Conservation Society. I'm a card-carrying member of 13 the New Jersey Audubon and Cape May Bird Observatory.
14 So I am an environmentalist, and I do work at the 15 nuclear powerplant.
16 Oyster Creek has donated thousands of 17 dollars to the New Jersey Audubon, as Bud Swenson has 18 already said. We've also donated land from our 19 Finninger Farm property across the street from the 20 powerplant to Lacey Township for preservation.
21 Oyster Creek also supports me and two 22 other members to be on the World Series of Birding 23 every year, which is quite expensive. It's $2,000 24 just to sponsor us to go out and bird, and find all 25 the endangered and threatened species around Ocean NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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109 1 County and the State of New Jersey.
2 We also do bird surveys, and we do mammal 3 surveys out at Oyster Creek. That information is 4 given to the DEP, and it's compiled, and we work with 5 the DEP if we need to.
6 We also sponsor bluebird trails.
7 Bluebirds are no longer threatened, but they were at 8 one time, so 10 years ago we put up a bluebird trail 9 and we monitor that to make sure that we were able to 10 bring that population back, which we did, not 11 singlehandedly but we had Ocean County put up bluebird 12 trails. We have wood duck trails, and we have a 13 peregrine falcon tower at the plant.
14 In addition, we host various environmental 15 meetings at the power plant, and we give people tours.
16 So I invite you to sign up for a tour. If you're 17 afraid of the plant, if you're afraid of spent fuel, 18 if you don't understand what has been said here today, 19 or at other meetings, come and take a tour. If you 20 live in Forked River, you're right across the way, a 21 couple of miles away. Schedule to take a tour and see 22 how clean it is, see how environmentally friendly we 23 are.
24 If there's a problem with an endangered 25 species, for example, or a threatened species, such as NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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110 1 an osprey or -- we get seals, we get all kinds of 2 terrapins, we stop work and take care of that animal, 3 whether it's calling other regulatory agencies, if 4 it's calling the DEP to come in and help us, that's 5 what we do.
6 Oyster Creek is very concerned about the 7 environment and is a steward of the environment.
8 In closing, I'll just say that it's clean, 9 safe, and reliable. And, again, I invite you to come 10 and take a tour.
11 (Applause.)
12 FACILITATOR CAMERON: Thank you very much, 13 Nancy.
14 Paula?
15 Is there someone here named Simonair?
16 There was one card that I could not read the signature 17 on. Well, I'll tell you what, we're going to go 18 through -- we have three speakers left that I can 19 decipher, and after we're through with those we'll see 20 if -- if you signed up and you haven't been called, 21 let me know.
22 So we're going to go to Paula Gotsch, then 23 Suzanne Leta -- Suzanne is back there -- and then to 24 Kelly McNicholas from the Sierra Club.
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111 1 Paula, I'm sorry. Do you want to come up and speak?
2 And I guess then, until we fix this problem, we'll use 3 this.
4 MS. GOTSCH: My name is Paula Gotsch. Can 5 you hear me back there?
6 UNIDENTIFIED PARTICIPANT: Yes.
7 MS. GOTSCH: Okay. I'm a spokesperson for 8 Grandmothers and Mothers for Energy Safety. Our 9 biggest concern right now is that the NRC refuses to 10 look at the solid waste problem and the evacuation 11 problem as a legitimate concern within the scoping 12 process.
13 They keep saying that that's an everyday 14 issue. We say that's an everyday issue that every day 15 they don't take care of. So, therefore, it's a now 16 issue, yes, but it's an ongoing issue that isn't being 17 taken care of.
18 In terms of the nuclear waste, if anything 19 should be considered in an environmental scoping 20 meeting, it's that waste that is not being disposed 21 of, that is dangerous as it sits there now. Even 22 going to the casks, the cement casks, no one really 23 knows how those will hold up. There is talk that 300 24 years they will probably start leaking.
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112 1 ever do open that up, which it looks like they won't, 2 there will be so much nuclear waste at all of the 3 plants that we don't even know if ours will get there.
4 A nuclear waste dump in New Jersey, which is what 5 we're talking about, is what will happen -- it is that 6 way now, and it will continue to get worse the more we 7 make.
8 How can an industry claim to be moral and 9 community-oriented when they produce a deadly 10 substance where there is no known disposal for 11 anywhere on this earth? No one can find it.
12 (Applause.)
13 Somebody asked the reason that Germany is 14 getting off nuclear, or wants to get off nuclear, as 15 the U.K. would like to, too, since they had that 16 terrible accident at the nuclear processing plant.
17 The reason they're getting off it is because there is 18 no place to dispose of this stuff. They are finding 19 out that renewable energy is getting cheaper and 20 cheaper, when you consider the billions of dollars 21 that go into subsidizing the nuclear energy field.
22 And stop -- it is disingenuous for nuclear 23 people to keep comparing the CO2 that comes from coal, 24 as if that was the option we're all headed for. And 25 in terms of the CO2, they are saying that now nuclear NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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113 1 is so -- you know, that it's going to make our air in 2 New Jersey better, and I said this at another meeting 3 -- there are three of the worst coal producers --
4 coal-fed plants in the Midwest that have no safety 5 equipment on them whatsoever in terms of getting the 6 CO2 out of their refuse there, that go to serve the 7 uranium processing people.
8 So that -- and that CO2 comes from Ohio 9 and Kentucky, and wherever those plants are, right 10 into New Jersey. So we don't need to keep saying that 11 nuclear energy does not produce CO2, because that's 12 disingenuous.
13 All right. I'll stop there. Thank you.
14 (Applause.)
15 FACILITATOR CAMERON: Okay. Thank you, 16 Paula.
17 We're going to hear from Suzanne Leta now, 18 and then Kelly McNicholas, and I think we've found our 19 mystery person.
20 (Laughter.)
21 But that'll be for later.
22 This is Suzanne. Leeta (phonetic),
23 Suzanne Leta. Sorry, Suzanne. Oh, here.
24 MS. LETA: Hi. My name is Suzanne Leta.
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114 1 Interest Research Group. I work in Trenton. We're at 2 11 North Willow Street in Trenton, New Jersey, and we 3 represent over 25,000 citizen members here in the 4 state.
5 And we -- we're public interest advocates, 6 so that means that we work to protect the environment.
7 We work to protect consumers, and we work to promote 8 good government here in the state.
9 And I want to take just a minute to -- you 10 know, to talk specifically about what's happening with 11 Oyster Creek's water intake and discharge, because I 12 think that that's a big part of the environmental 13 scoping process. I have a few questions about that.
14 I know that DEP has jurisdiction over 15 their water discharge permit, and I don't know --
16 actually, I'd like to ask how much jurisdiction the 17 NRC has over that, and whether you actually look at 18 whether Oyster Creek is complying with the Clean Water 19 Act, or if that is simply a matter for the DEP to 20 consider, because it's unclear to me what is the truth 21 in that. I mean, I know the DEP does, but I don't 22 know what the NRC's role is in that.
23 So just to be clear in terms of Oyster 24 Creek's water impact into the local waterways, and to 25 Barnegat Bay, that since Oyster Creek was built in NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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115 1 1969, the plant's operation has really resulted in 2 very far-reaching and long-lasting environmental 3 degradation to nearby waterways, including Forked 4 River, Oyster Creek, and Barnegat Bay.
5 And, unfortunately, as it stands right 6 now, the DEP's draft water permit does let the plant 7 off the hook, and I would hope that the NRC would not 8 do the same, if you do have jurisdiction, any type of 9 jurisdiction over this.
10 You know, the once-through cooling system 11 that was designed in the 1960s simply isn't sufficient 12 to fix the problems that have been going on for so 13 long in terms of intake and water discharge. You 14 know, to describe -- I don't know if anyone has done 15 this yet, so I'm going to do this -- I hopefully am 16 not repeating what someone else has already said. But 17 for the public's knowledge, I want to describe how the 18 system works.
19 Essentially, the heated water -- excuse 20 me, the -- first, the system intakes water from Forked 21 River to cool the reactor, and then the heated water, 22 which is then called thermal pollution, is then 23 discharged into Oyster Creek. And the plant actually 24 intakes and discharges over 1.4 billion gallons of 25 water every day.
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116 1 The water is taken in at a speed of about 2 1- to 2,000 cubic feet per second. That's actually 3 the force of a medium-sized river. The chlorine 4 levels in the water are also about 20 times the lethal 5 level of many different types of aquatic life.
6 And there are grates over the intake 7 system, but because the water is flushed in at such a 8 high speed, it creates a very -- it's kind of like a 9 giant sucking action, and that brings in an assortment 10 of aquatic life. Some of it is small, some of it is 11 larvae that flows right through the grate, and it's 12 killed in the process of cooling the reactor. And 13 that effect is called entrainment.
14 And then, larger types of aquatic life --
15 and those include sea bass, they include white perch, 16 they also include endangered sea turtles. Although 17 it's great to hear that you're looking at birds, 18 that's an endangered species that, unfortunately, you 19 do not address.
20 Those creatures actually get pinned on the 21 grate and often die from it and/or seriously injured, 22 and that lethal effect is called impingement. So you 23 have entrainment, where water is going through the 24 system, and then you have impingement, when aquatic 25 life is being impinged upon the grate.
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117 1 So in addition to that, Oyster Creek's 2 daily thorough pollution discharge often spreads a 3 thermal flume, and that can be over a distance of four 4 miles across the bay. It's actually the entire width 5 of the bay.
6 It creates a fry zone for young larvae, 7 and the NRC has actually done studies and indicate 8 that the thermal flume has increased the population of 9 the tropical wood boring species that, you know, serve 10 kind of as aquatic termites in the area.
11 So, you know, all of these problems 12 associated with Oyster Creek's water intake and 13 discharge system actually put it in violation of the 14 Clean Water Act, because that specific Act requires 15 the plant to install modern technology that actually 16 fixes the problem, and, fortunately for us, that 17 technology is available.
18 That technology is called a closed-cycle 19 cooling system. There are different types of these 20 types of systems. Oyster Creek will talk about how, 21 you know, it will have more environmental problems 22 than without it, but the reality is that we know --
23 and the DEP has stated this several times -- that, in 24 fact, it won't result in any kind of environmental 25 problems.
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118 1 In fact, it will really fix the root cause 2 of the problem, because it actually reduces the amount 3 of water going into a system and being discharged out 4 to the system by over 95 percent. And that's actually 5 the way to solve that particular problem involved with 6 Oyster Creek's environmental record.
7 So we know, again, that reduces the 8 discharge and intake by over 95 percent, and that 9 actually would save over 13 million fish and shellfish 10 annually, and an estimated tens of millions of 11 additional larvae annually.
12 Unfortunately, the DEP permit right now, 13 it doesn't require the plant to install a closed-cycle 14 cooling system only. Unfortunately, it gives Oyster 15 Creek the option of restoration. If you're going to 16 use restoration, you should use it as a penalty for 17 violating the Clean Water Act for the past 35 years.
18 You should not use it as an alternative to modern 19 technology. That can actually solve the root cause of 20 the problem.
21 And I would hope that the consideration of 22 this particular issue, and of a closed-cycle cooling 23 system, would be part of the NRC's environmental 24 scoping record, and actually would look at the DEP's 25 best professional judgment, which is stated, although NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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119 1 it -- although it allows for restoration, if you take 2 a look at that permit, it says specifically that 3 closed-cycle cooling will actually fix the problem.
4 So that's the first thing I wanted to 5 state on the record.
6 I can talk -- I've talked before about 7 Oyster Creek's other environmental problems. I can 8 talk about waste, I can talk about evacuation, I can 9 talk about spent fuel and security issues. I really 10 -- I think there are clear problems involved with the 11 way that the NRC looks at license extensions, and, 12 number one, they don't take a look at waste. You 13 think of it as an ongoing issue.
14 But there's going to be 20 more years of 15 it. And looking that far into the future, 16 unfortunately, is not part of that process. The same 17 thing with evacuation plans. Yes, I understand that 18 they're reviewed annually. They're not reviewed as to 19 what the population is going to look like 20 years 20 down the line.
21 So, you know, I know that's not part of 22 this review. We'll be talking about it in other 23 reviews. But I do think that considering the public 24 health risk that you have, if you do have a problem 25 with that plant, that is an environmental problem NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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120 1 overall.
2 FACILITATOR CAMERON: Suzanne, I'm going 3 to have to ask you to summarize.
4 MS. LETA: Sure. No problem. Yes. So, 5 you know, I guess my final question to you is, I know 6 that there is some type of -- I think it's called a 7 severe accident mitigation within the environmental 8 review.
9 So I guess my final question to you -- I 10 have two questions. The first is about what level of 11 jurisdiction the plant -- the NRC has over the plant's 12 water permit, if any. And, number two, how does that 13 accident mitigation -- how that play into the 14 environmental scoping process?
15 Thanks.
16 (Applause.)
17 FACILITATOR CAMERON: Suzanne, thank you 18 very much.
19 Let's go to Kelly. Kelly McNicholas?
20 MS. McNICHOLAS: Hello. Good afternoon.
21 My name is Kelly McNicholas. I'm the Conservation 22 Coordinator for the New Jersey Chapter of the Sierra 23 Club. I'm here representing our 23,000 members in the 24 states.
25 I also say with fair confidence that the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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121 1 Sierra Club, the nation's oldest environmental 2 organization, is the stewards of the environment, and 3 that Exelon is not in this situation.
4 (Applause.)
5 We are actively opposing the relicensing 6 of the plant to extend past 2009. As a club, 7 nationally, we are opposing the siting of any new 8 nuclear power plants. We believe for the purpose of 9 the environmental review, I understand that it is to 10 determine whether or not the adverse environmental 11 impacts of the license renewal for Oyster Creek are so 12 great that preserving the option of license renewal 13 for energy planning decisionmakers would be 14 unreasonable.
15 Well, to start with what the energy 16 production is for our State, it is unreasonable for us 17 to extend the license of this plant, when we're 18 getting a mere 1.5 percent of our energy on the grid 19 for it. New Jersey, along with other states, are 20 adopting renewable energy measures, as well as 21 efficiency measures, that are going to reduce the need 22 of the power production currently made by the plants.
23 Additionally, there are several 24 environmental aspects of this plant, as Suzanne Leta 25 went in, about the cooling towers. We also support NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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122 1 only the option of installing cooling towers at this 2 plant, and oppose the mitigation factor of wetlands 3 restoration. Tourism is the third largest industry in 4 the State of New Jersey, and Barnegat Bay heavily 5 contributes to that.
6 We need to be looking at what those 7 factors are in determining what the harm is on 8 Barnegat Bay by this plant, and how that's negatively 9 impacting not just the environment but also the 10 economy of the State of New Jersey in terms of the 11 degradation that this plant causes to that important 12 estuary.
13 Additionally, we know that the design and 14 age deficiencies of Oyster Creek are well documented, 15 and that 30 percent of the power -- of the plant 16 equipment failures are due to age-related degradation.
17 We also know that design standards have changed 18 dramatically since the plant was built, and that in 19 1985 studies have shown that the MARK I reactor is a 20 faulty design, and that there could be a 90 percent 21 failure rate in the case of an accident.
22 This would require the venting of pressure 23 -- pressure buildup to avoid a meltdown of the core.
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123 1 environmental issue, and is not considered part of 2 this review, I don't know what is, because I can tell 3 you the first thing that people will be concerned 4 about --
5 (Applause.)
6 -- if something like that were to happen 7 would be directly their health and how directly the 8 environmental health of their families is impacted by 9 this plant.
10 Related to that, we know that in the case 11 of any major nuclear accident, it could take one to 12 four hours for flumes to travel within the 10-mile 13 radius. However, the evacuation plan could take seven 14 to nine at minimum. If that is not an environmental 15 issue in terms of reducing what our exposure is to 16 radioactivity, then I don't know what is.
17 Again, we oppose the continued extension 18 of this license beyond 2009. I think that the 19 environmental review needs to take things into account 20 as to whether other federal regulations and laws are 21 being followed. How is it that the plant can violate 22 the Clean Water Act, yet another federal agency will 23 approve the continued operation? I don't understand 24 how that works.
25 So, in conclusion, thank you for the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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124 1 opportunity. I hope this takes a full environmental 2 review. I am sorry I missed your presentation and 3 look forward to hearing more than that.
4 But this needs to be broader than just 5 whether fish die, which is something we clearly are 6 concerned about. It needs to look at the 7 environmental health of people who are affected in the 8 communities as well.
9 (Applause.)
10 FACILITATOR CAMERON: Thank you very much.
11 We have three speakers left. And one I 12 couldn't decipher is Mr. Simonair, Mr. Joe Simonair, 13 and we're going to go to him next for his comments, 14 and then we're going to go to Chris Tryon, and then to 15 Mr. Jay Vouglitois. Okay?
16 All right. So we're going to go to you, 17 Mr. Simonair. All right?
18 MR. SIMONAIR: Yes.
19 FACILITATOR CAMERON: Okay. And let's see 20 if we can hear Mr. Simonair through this microphone.
21 MR. SIMONAIR: I hope so. For one thing, 22 the reactor should be shut down. If it's so safe, why 23 would they have evacuation plans to begin with? And 24 when they get to Yucca Mountain, they put the high, 25 long-lived radiation, they put that in Yucca Mountain NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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125 1 in carbon steel -- in tanks that last 10,000 years, 2 they say. And then, they say it could deteriorate in 3 300 years, and it doesn't go away.
4 So you keep on putting more fuel rods 5 there, more radiation. Where are you going to put it?
6 As soon as they go there, if they go there -- they 7 probably will -- they have to already make a --
8 already did make plans with the Indian reservations 9 there to put it in the land there. Radiation doesn't 10 go away. It decays. It has to decay to go away into 11 another element, and some of that could be short-12 lived, some of that could be billions of years. And 13 you're going to be sick, and your children are going 14 to be sick.
15 And then, what about terrorism? They 16 don't have to fly an airplane, not with the weapons 17 and the technology we've got today. And what about 18 the fuel rods? They could fool with the fuel rod and 19 put enriched uranium slugs in there, and you could 20 have a nuclear explosion, which probably that's 21 unlikely because it would be pretty hard to do. But, 22 you know, these people are pretty tricky. They could 23 do it.
24 Now, we get to this person that was 25 talking about the reactor. It's clean, it's safe, but NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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126 1 no carbon. But you've got three percent energy and 90 2 percent waste, nuclear waste, which is worse. What 3 they should be doing is cutting down on some of the --
4 you know, some of the energy we use.
5 Did you ever hear of plow-sharing? Plow-6 sharing is -- this was back some years, but they still 7 do it to a point. They used -- if you know anything 8 about the Hiroshima bomb, a megaton is a million -- 77 9 Hiroshima bombs, a million tons of TNT, metric tons of 10 TNT.
11 They cut it down to -- from a megaton to 12 150 kilotons. That's like -- a megaton is 77 13 Hiroshima bombs, and a kiloton is 1,000 metric tons of 14 TNT. So you add that up and explode that underground 15 for mining. They dig down about a mile, and then they 16 ignite these devices, and they explode for mining.
17 They get uranium, they get copper, but 18 when they get cooper they pour chemicals in there to 19 loosen it up somehow, and it gets in the water table.
20 There's thousands of people that -- I've been looking 21 into this since the Hanford atomic -- when the 22 reactors first started, when they were first -- built 23 the first atomic bomb. And a lot of coverups --
24 everything is safe. They told the people in the 25 towns, "It's safe, it's safe."
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127 1 Women were coming down with breast cancer, 2 miscarriages. Everybody was getting cancer. It was 3 in the water. If my memory is right, in Idaho -- I 4 just read this a while ago. I believe it's Idaho --
5 I might be wrong about that, but I got the information 6 home -- 97 million tons of radium -- radioactive 7 radium were dumped on the shore and in the water 8 there.
9 Okay? You think you're safe? Nuclear 10 belongs in a star. We shouldn't be using nuclear at 11 all.
12 Now, windmills -- I've got it right here, 13 too. It's been 30 years since we've had a nuclear 14 reactor in this country, because they're so dangerous 15 and people were scared. Thirty years. Our new 16 leadership gets in there, all business, going to have 17 reactors all over the world.
18 Big mining countries, mining industries, 19 you know, the big uranium, copper, and all types of 20 things, they're going to use these nuclear devices.
21 Yucca Mountain is on a fault. What 22 happens if there's an earthquake there? You've got 23 --Europe, they talked about that, they're closing them 24 down. United Kingdom, they're closing older reactors 25 down, but they're not too -- they're going to build NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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128 1 one. And one in Ganola, reactors in Nufiana --
2 however you say that name -- was another reactor shut 3 down for good in 2004, with the second of the 4 Chernobyl style to be closed in 2009.
5 I know that Japan is having a nightmare 6 with their reactors. So many people are being killed 7 that were working there, and thousands were killed 8 from downwind from the radiation. Thousands. Like 9 what would happen here if a container broke loose and 10 you got radiation.
11 There's no escape. People have got to 12 understand that. There's no escape. This is life-13 threatening. This is your life. This is the future 14 gone down the drain, and it could happen anytime.
15 Even the best conditions, that gentleman before that 16 was up there, he said, well -- what did he say? He 17 said it was safe. He said just CO2 gets out.
18 Damage from radiation accumulates over 19 time, because once it's in the body it stays there.
20 Cancer is promised.
21 Dr. John Goffman, a medical doctor and 22 nuclear chemist, biophysicist, Arthur Templin, charged 23 that using nuclear is risking dangerous levels of 24 radioactivity. He said it's genocide, and genocide 25 could be right around the corner for us.
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129 1 FACILITATOR CAMERON: Mr. Simonair, I want 2 to thank you.
3 MR. SIMONAIR: Okay. I had more, but, you 4 know --
5 FACILITATOR CAMERON: Thank you.
6 MR. SIMONAIR: -- I've got to be a 7 gentleman.
8 FACILITATOR CAMERON: Thank you. You are.
9 You certainly are. Thank you very much.
10 (Applause.)
11 And we have two speakers?
12 MR. SIMONAIR: I've got tons more.
13 FACILITATOR CAMERON: Chris Tryon? And 14 then Jay Vouglitois, and then we have some information 15 for you that we promised we'd get.
16 MS. TRYON: All right. I am not any kind 17 of an expert. I'm just somebody who has lived in 18 Bayville for over 30 years, and I come to these 19 hearings and I learn a lot. It makes me very nervous 20 what I learn, but I learn.
21 My common sense tells me that the older 22 things get, the more likely they are to break. This 23 applies to my refrigerator, my hot water heater, my 24 car, and Oyster Creek nuclear powerplant. That plant 25 is the oldest plant in the country.
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130 1 Its continued operation for another 20 2 years is an experiment. It has never been done 3 before. An experiment. And guess who the guinea pigs 4 are? All of us who live in Ocean County, and I'm not 5 comfortable with that.
6 That nuclear power -- any nuclear power is 7 outdated technology. It's finished. Wind and solar 8 are the new modern technologies. They are clean, they 9 are safe, they are not going to hurt us, even if 10 something goes wrong.
11 The plant has lived out its 40-year life 12 span. Now is the time to let it die.
13 (Applause.)
14 There are too many problems with the 15 plant, too many problems -- obsolete, unsafe design.
16 Radiation leakage, even a small amount, accumulates in 17 your body. Environmental problems, nuclear waste 18 accumulation, for which there is no solution at all, 19 impossible, laughable evacuation plan.
20 AmerGen is a private corporation. They 21 care more for the bottom line, their profit, their 22 corporation, than they do for our safety. And it's 23 extremely revealing that the people here who have 24 spoken in favor of the plant work there. They have a 25 financial incentive to have the plant continue to NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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131 1 operate.
2 My heart goes out to you, but I will not 3 feel safe until that plant is closed.
4 Thank you.
5 (Applause.)
6 FACILITATOR CAMERON: Jay? Jay 7 Vouglitois, and then I'm going to ask Rani to give us 8 some information and close out the meeting for us.
9 Jay?
10 MR. VOUGLITOIS: Good evening. My name is 11 Jay Vouglitois. I'm a former employee of the Oyster 12 Creek powerplant. I was privileged to serve as an 13 environmental scientist and as the manager of 14 environmental affairs at Oyster Creek for some 27 15 years.
16 I heard a couple of statements made 17 tonight that I feel obligated to correct. One is that 18 Oyster Creek is in violation of the Clean Water Act.
19 That is simply not true. Oyster Creek could not 20 operate today if it was in violation of the Clean 21 Water Act.
22 Oyster Creek currently operates a New 23 Jersey Pollutant Discharge Elimination System Permit 24 that was issued by the New Jersey Department of 25 Environmental Protection. That would not be possible NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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132 1 if they were in violation of the Clean Water Act.
2 That is a false statement.
3 Secondly, I heard someone say that there 4 are far-reaching and long-lasting environmental 5 degradation occurring due to the operation of the 6 existing once-through cooling system.
7 Well, there was a very thorough 8 independent evaluation of this once-through cooling 9 system that was done prior to the issuance of the 10 permit that I referred to a second ago. The permit 11 was issued in 1994. Before issuing the permit, the 12 DEP hired an independent consultant called VERSAR to 13 evaluate all of the studies, and there were some 20 14 years of intensive studies that were done on the 15 cooling system at Oyster Creek. I know because I 16 participated in many of them.
17 If I wasn't actually doing the work, I 18 participated in the design of the studies. I oversaw 19 the hiring of the consultants. I looked over those --
20 their shoulders as they did the work. I'm very 21 familiar with this work. But it's not my opinion 22 that's important. It's the opinion of the independent 23 expert that was hired by the New Jersey Department of 24 Environmental Protection prior to the issuance of the 25 current permit.
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133 1 That independent consultant -- VERSAR --
2 was asked to determine if the existing once-through 3 cooling system complied with Sections 316(a) and (b) 4 of the Clean Water Act. Based upon the results of 5 their review, VERSAR and the NJDEP, in the permit that 6 they issue, concluded that the continued operation of 7 the Oyster Creek nuclear generating station at the 8 estimated levels of losses to representative important 9 species populations -- and these are the losses due to 10 the impingement and entrainment that you heard people 11 talk about.
12 Continued operation at those levels of 13 losses, without modification to the intake structures 14 and/or operating practices -- again, without 15 modification to the intake structure, does not 16 threaten the protection and propagation of balanced 17 indigenous populations in Barnegat Bay. That's a 18 direct quote from the DEP's independent consultant.
19 It's not opinion. It's not AmerGen or Exelon's 20 opinion.
21 It's worth noting that VERSAR, the 22 consultant that the DEP hired, was not shy about 23 asking to have powerplants modify their cooling water 24 intakes.
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134 1 they initiated the evaluation of Oyster Creek, they 2 finished one up on the Salem nuclear generating 3 station. And based upon the results of their 4 evaluation of that cooling system, they called for a 5 50 percent reduction in cooling water flow, which is 6 essentially calling for backfitting, closed-cycle 7 cooling.
8 So they weren't afraid to say that Oyster 9 Creek needed to modify their cooling system. But, in 10 fact, they determined the opposite -- that it didn't 11 need to be modified. A couple of the other 12 conclusions that they and the DEP came to, that I'd 13 like to share with you, that are contrary to some of 14 the assertions that were made tonight, include -- and 15 these are direct quotes. "The losses due to 16 impingement at the Oyster Creek nuclear generating 17 station were of no consequence to the compliance 18 determination." Losses due to impingement of no 19 consequence to the compliance determination.
20 This charge affects, contrary to the fact 21 that you heard that there is a thermal plume that goes 22 all the way across the bay, causing all kinds of 23 havoc, the DEP's independent consultant concluded, I 24 quote, "This charge affects are small and localized, 25 and have no adverse consequences to Barnegat Bay."
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135 1 They go on to conclude, I quote, "Based on 2 findings summarized in this report, balance indigenous 3 populations of Barnegat Bay are protected under Oyster 4 Creek's current operations."
5 I quote, "Plant-related losses at the 6 Oyster Creek nuclear generating station do not 7 adversely impact spawning and nursery functions."
8 I quote, "Plant-related losses at the 9 Oyster Creek nuclear generating station do not 10 adversely affect the estuarian food web of Barnegat 11 Bay."
12 I quote, "Plant-related losses at the 13 Oyster Creek nuclear generating station do not 14 adversely impact the beneficial uses of Barnegat Bay."
15 This is contrary to the comment that I 16 heard a few minutes ago that the alleged degradation 17 of the bay is having a negative impact on the economy.
18 These are not my conclusions. These are 19 the conclusions of an independent expert hired by the 20 Department of Environmental Protection.
21 Thank you very much for the opportunity to 22 comment.
23 (Applause.)
24 FACILITATOR CAMERON: Thank you. Thank 25 you, Jay.
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136 1 I'm going to ask Rani Franovich to close 2 the meeting out for us. She does have some 3 information on the spent fuel issue that was talked 4 about, and we did that pass that information on to the 5 couple --
6 MS. FRANOVICH: Yes.
7 FACILITATOR CAMERON: -- who had to leave 8 early. I just want to remind Ron Bellamy and Mark 9 Ferdas, our resident inspector, to talk to Mr. Warren 10 about the overpressurization in the water issue after 11 the meeting.
12 Rani?
13 MS. FRANOVICH: I need your mike. Can you 14 guys hear me now?
15 UNIDENTIFIED PARTICIPANT: Yes.
16 MS. FRANOVICH: Is this better? Okay.
17 There was a question earlier today about the number of 18 spent fuel rods or spent fuel assemblies at the Oyster 19 Creek site, stored at the site. And Mr. Pete Ressler 20 of the Communications Department, with I believe it's 21 AmerGen -- it could be Entergy -- Exelon, I'm sorry --
22 indicated that there are 976 bundles in dry storage at 23 the site, and 2,400 -- approximately 2,400 bundles in 24 the pool, the spent fuel pool.
25 UNIDENTIFIED PARTICIPANT: 36. 36, I NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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137 1 believe.
2 MS. FRANOVICH: I think there are a lot 3 more than 36.
4 FACILITATOR CAMERON: Okay. Just keep 5 going, Rani. Close this out.
6 MS. FRANOVICH: 180 bundles are discharged 7 every other year. They're on a 24-month refueling 8 cycle, so every 24 months they discharge about 180 9 fuel bundles to the pool. Each bundle weighs 10 approximately 600 pounds, and of that weight about 500 11 pounds is actual uranium fuel.
12 Okay. I'd like to thank everyone for 13 coming out again today. Your participation in this 14 meeting is an important part of our process. One of 15 the items you were handed when you came to the 16 meeting, as you entered the room, was a feedback form 17 for the NRC's public meeting.
18 If you have any suggestions on how we can 19 improve our meeting, please fill out the form.
20 Postage is prepaid. You can send it in to the NRC.
21 If you have any comments on the scope of 22 the environmental impact statement that you think of 23 after the meeting, we're accepting these comments 24 through November 14, 2005, and, again, Dr. Michael 25 Masnik is the point of contact for those comments.
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138 1 Finally, the NRC staff and contractors 2 will be staying for a few minutes after this meeting, 3 if you have any additional questions you'd like to 4 speak with us about.
5 Thank you again for coming.
6 FACILITATOR CAMERON: Thank you. Good 7 job.
8 MS. FRANOVICH: Thank you. Likewise.
9 FACILITATOR CAMERON: It was a good 10 meeting. Thank you.
11 (Whereupon, the proceedings in the 12 foregoing matter went off the record at 13 4:32 p.m. and went back on the record at 14 7:00 p.m.)
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139 1
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