ML053400371
| ML053400371 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Oyster Creek |
| Issue date: | 11/01/2005 |
| From: | Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation |
| To: | |
| Keto E, NRR/DLR/REBB, 415-2621 | |
| Shared Package | |
| ML053400397 | List: |
| References | |
| %dam200604, NRC-691, TAC MC7625 | |
| Download: ML053400371 (139) | |
Text
Official Transcript of Proceedings NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Title:
Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Plant Public Meeting: Evening Session Docket Number:
50-219 Location:
Toms River, New Jersey Date:
Tuesday, November 1, 2005 Work Order No.:
NRC-691 Pages 1-106 NEAL R. GROSS AND CO., INC.
Court Reporters and Transcribers 1323 Rhode Island Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 234-4433
1 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 1
NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 2
+ + + + +
3 PUBLIC MEETING TO DISCUSS ENVIRONMENTAL SCOPING FOR 4
OYSTER CREEK NUCLEAR GENERATING PLANT, LICENSE 5
RENEWAL APPLICATION 6
EVENING SESSION 7
+ + + + +
8
- TUESDAY, 9
NOVEMBER 1, 2005 10
+ + + + +
11 TOMS RIVER, NEW JERSEY 12
+ + + + +
13 The afternoon session of the Public 14 Meeting was convened at the Quality Inn at 815 Route 15 37 inn Toms River, New Jersey, at 1:30 p.m, and the 16 evening session convened at 7:00 p.m., F. Cameron, 17 presiding.
18 NRC STAFF PARTICIPATING:
19 F. "CHIP" CAMERON 20 RANI FRANOVICH 21 DR. MICHAEL MASNIK 22 RON BELLAMY 23 ALAN MADISON 24 KEVIN WILLIAMS 25
2 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 SPEAKERS :
1 TOM JACKSON 2
MIKE MERCURIO 3
ED FRYDENDAHL 4
DON WARREN 5
J. SIMONAIR 6
ED STROUP 7
TOM JACKSON 8
BUD SWENSON 9
FRED POLASKI 10 TOM CERVASIO 11 WAYNE ROMBERG 12 JUDITH CAMBRIA 13 BUD THOMAN 14 CHIP GERRITY 15 DON WILLIAMS 16 NANCY ERIKSEN 17 PAULA GOTSCH 18 SUZANNE LETA 19 KELLY MCNICHOLAS 20 CHRIS TRYON 21 JAY VOUGLITOIS 22 TERRY MATTHEWS 23 ROBERTO WEINMANN 24 ED HOGAN, father 25
3 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 SPEAKERS:
1 ED HOGAN, son 2
ROD STERLING 3
DAVID MOST 4
PEGGI STURMFELS 5
JEFFREY BROWN 6
JENNIFER M. WATLEY 7
RON WATSON 8
DONALD POSEY 9
JUDY MOKEN 10 DIANE ELENESKI 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25
4 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 I N D E X 1
Welcome and Purpose of Meeting, F. Cameron 4
2 Overview of License Renewal Process, 3
4 Overview of Environmental Review Process, 5
M. Masnik 16 6
Public Comment 36 7
Closing/Availability of Transcripts, etc.,
8 F. Cameron 9
Adjourn 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25
5 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 P R O C E E D I N G S 1
7:00 P.M.
2 MR. CAMERON: Good evening, everyone. My 3
name is Chip Cameron and I'm the Special Counsel for 4
Public Liaison at the NRC, the Nuclear Regulatory 5
Commission. We'll try not to use acronyms tonight, 6
but we will be using NRC.
7 I'd just like to welcome you to the NRC's 8
public meeting tonight and our subject tonight is 9
going to be the NRC's evaluation process, specifically 10 the environmental review that we do on license renewal 11 applications. And we do have an application from 12 AmerGen Corporation to renew the license, the 13 operating license for the Oyster Creek Generating 14 Station and I'll apologize for static. You may be 15 hearing it tonight throughout the meeting, but 16 hopefully we'll have it under control.
17 It's my pleasure to serve as your 18 facilitator tonight and my role is to try to help all 19 of you to have a productive meeting tonight. I just 20 want to talk about a few items of the meeting process 21 before we get started with our substantive discussions 22 and I'd like to talk about the format for the meeting, 23 the ground rules for the meeting and introduce our 24 speakers for tonight.
25
6 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 In terms of format, we're going to do the 1
meeting in two parts. The first part is to give you 2
information about the license renewal process, what we 3
look at when we evaluate a
application, and we have two brief NRC presentations 5
on that. And after that, we'll go out to you to 6
answer any questions about the process.
7 And the second part of the meeting, after 8
we're done with questions, we want to hear from you, 9
hear your comments, your recommendations, your 10 concerns about license renewal in general and 11 specifically, if you have information, suggestions on 12 what we should consider as we prepare our 13 environmental impact statement that will be very 14 valuable to us.
15 And we're also taking written comments on 16 these issues and the NRC staff will give you some more 17 information on how and when to submit those comments.
18 I just want to emphasize that anything you 19 say here tonight will have the same weight as any 20 written comments. But you may hear things that the 21 NRC staff says or that other people in the audience 22 say that will prompt you to submit some written 23 comments to us.
24 In terms of ground rules, these are just 25
7 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 very simple ground rules to help us all have a good 1
meeting tonight. When we get to the question period 2
after the NRC presentations, if you have a question, 3
just signal me and I'll bring you this cordless 4
microphone and please introduce yourself to us and 5
we'll try to answer your question.
6 I would ask that only one person at a time 7
speak so that we can give our full attention to that 8
person, but also so that our court reporter, Doug 9
Turner, did I get that -- I got that right -- will 10 have a clean transcript. We'll know who is speaking 11 at the moment.
12 I would also ask you to just be courteous 13 to other people. You may hear opinions that you 14 disagree with and please just respect other people's 15 opinions and try to be concise in your comments so 16 that we can make sure that we hear from everybody 17 tonight, both during the question period and the 18 formal comment period and I would ask you during the 19 question period, sometimes it's easy for all of us to 20 really wrap a comment into the question and that's 21 understandable, but if you could just limit that to 22 questions and then if you have a comment, you can 23 bring that to the formal comment period.
24 When we get to the formal comment period, 25
8 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 then we have some cards to sign up for commenting. If 1
we could follow a 5 to 7 minute guideline for your 2
presentation, that's enough time to summarize major 3
points and it does two important things for us and for 4
you. One, it alerts us right away before written 5
comments come in to issues that we should be looking 6
at, and in fact, issues that we can talk to you about 7
tonight after the meeting. And secondly, it tells 8
people, others in the audience what some concerns are 9
in the community.
10 If you're giving a formal comment to us 11 tonight and I ask you to summarize or to wrap up, you 12 do have the opportunity to provide us with fuller 13 comments in the written comment period.
14 And with that, let me introduce your 15 speakers tonight. First of all, we have Ms. Rani 16 Franovich who is right here and Rani is the Chief of 17 the Environmental Branch in our License Renewal and 18 Environmental Review Program at the NRC Headquarters 19 in Rockville, Maryland. And Rani and her staff are 20 responsible for preparing the environmental reviews on 21 these license renewal applications. And Rani has been 22 with the NRC for 15 years. She has been a Resident 23 Inspector at the Catawba plant down in our Region 2 in 24 Atlanta. She's also been the Project Manager on the 25
9 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 safety side. You're going to hear about all the 1
various components of our license renewal review.
2 While Rani was a Project Manager on the safety side 3
for two plants that came in for renewal, one is 4
Catawba and one is McGuire and then she went into a 5
position of Enforcement Coordinator. This position 6
involved coordinating enforcement actions against 7
licensees, reactor licensees that were not in 8
compliance with NRC regulations.
9 She has a Bachelor's in psychology from 10 Virginia Tech and a Master's in industrial and systems 11 engineering also from Virginia Tech. And Rani is 12 going to give you an overview of the license renewal 13 process.
14 Then we're going to go to Dr. Mike Masnik 15 who is right here. Mike is a Project Manager. He's 16 on Rani's staff. He's a Project Manager for the 17 Environmental Review for this license renewal 18 application and for Oyster Creek. And it's somewhat 19 ironic in a sense that he is, because he's had a close 20 association with this area, New Jersey, and with 21 Oyster Creek throughout his life. His parents had a 22 summer home in Seaside Park and he spent summers here 23 until he went on to graduate school. When he was in 24 college here, he served as Park Ranger over at 25
10 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 Highland Beach State Park.
1 And he came to the NRC in 1974 and the 2
projects that he worked on then were Oyster Creek-3 related projects, the ship worm infestation and also 4
the endangered sea turtles and cold shock fish kills.
5 So he has a long association with the plant. He's 6
served as Environmental Project Manager for a number 7
of other license renewals and his Master's -- or his 8
Bachelor's degree is from Cornell University and he 9
has a Master's and a Ph.D. in Ichthyology so he knows 10 a lot of about fishes and that's about all I know 11 about Ichthyology.
12 I would just thank all of you for being 13 here tonight to help us with our decision. We'll be 14 here after the meeting to talk with you and I'm going 15 to turn it over to Rani.
16 MS. FRANOVICH: Thank you, Chip. Can 17 everybody hear me okay? Is this better?
18 I want to thank you all for taking the 19 time to come here to participate in our public 20 meeting. It's an important part of our review process 21 and I know we all have busy schedules, so thank you 22 very much for being here.
23 I hope the information we provide here 24 tonight will help you to understand the process that 25
11 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 we'll be going through in evaluating the application 1
for license renewal for Oyster Creek and the role that 2
you can play in helping us make sure that the 3
environmental impact statement we prepare for this 4
renewal application review is accurate.
5 I'd like to start off by briefly going 6
over the purposes of today's meeting. We'll explain 7
the NRC's license renewal process for nuclear power 8
plants with emphasis on the review, the environmental 9
review process and we'll talk about typical areas 10 included in the scope of our review. We'll also share 11 with you the license renewal review schedule. And 12 then really the most important part of tonight's 13 meeting is for us to receive any comments you may have 14 on the scope of our review. We'll also give you some 15 information about how you can submit comments to us 16 outside of this meeting.
17 Next slide, Evan.
18 (Slide change.)
19 MS. FRANOVICH: Before I describe the 20 license renewal process, I'd like to provide some 21 general information to give you a context for this 22 review. The Atomic Energy Act gives the NRC the 23 authority to issue operating licenses to commercial 24 nuclear power plants for a period of up to 40 years.
25
12 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 For the Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station, that 1
license will expire in 2009. Our regulations also 2
provide for extending plant operation for an 3
additional 20 years. AmerGen has requested license 4
renewal for Oyster Creek.
5 As part of the NRC's review of that 6
license renewal application, we'll perform an 7
environmental review to look at the impacts on the 8
environment of an additional 20 years of operation.
9 The purpose of this meeting is to give you 10 information about the process and to seek your input 11 on what issues we should consider within the scope of 12 our review. At the conclusion of the staff's 13 presentation, we will be happy to answer any questions 14 and receive any comments you may have on the process 15 and the scope.
16 We have several members of the NRC staff 17 here, as Chip indicated, in his opening remarks who 18 can answer questions for you.
19 Next slide, please, Evan.
20 (Slide change.)
21 MS. FRANOVICH: Before I get into a 22 discussion of the license renewal process, I'd like to 23 take a minute to talk about the NRC in terms of what 24 we do and what our mission is. The Atomic Energy Act 25
13 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 is the legislation that authorizes the NRC to regulate 1
the civilian use of nuclear material in the United 2
States. In carrying out that authority, the NRC's 3
mission is three-fold: to ensure adequate protection 4
of public health and safety, protect the environment, 5
and to provide for the common defense and security.
6 The NRC accomplishes its mission through 7
a combination of regulatory programs and processes 8
such as inspections, enforcement actions, assessment 9
of licensee performance, and evaluation of operating 10 experience from nuclear plants across this country and 11 internationally.
12 Turning now to license renewal, in 13 particular, the NRC license renewal review is similar 14 to the original licensing process in that it involves 15 two parts, an environmental review and a safety 16 review. In addition, as part of the safety review, 17 the staff carries out inspections and audits, thus the 18 results of the review are presented to the Advisory 19 Committee on Reactor Safeguards or the ACRS. The ACRS 20 is a group of nationally recognized technical experts 21 in nuclear safety who serve as the consulting body to 22 the Commission. They review each license renewal 23 application as well as the Safety Evaluation Report 24 They form their own conclusions and recommendations 25
14 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 and report those directly to the Commission.
1 Next slide, please, Evan.
2 (Slide change.)
3 MS. FRANOVICH: This slide provides a big 4
picture overview of the license renewal process.
5 You'll see the two parallel processes I mentioned, the 6
environmental review here and the safety review here.
7 Next slide, please, Evan.
8 (Slide change.)
9 MS. FRANOVICH: I want to talk briefly 10 about the safety review first. You might ask what 11 does the safety review consider? For license renewal, 12 the safety review focuses on aging management.
13 However, the NRC also monitors and addresses current 14 operating issues such as security, emergency planning, 15 safety performance, on an on-going basis.
16 Under the current operating license, the 17 NRC's regulatory oversight process deals with these 18 current issues. We do not wait for a plant to come in 19 for license renewal to address these issues or to 20 require a licensee to address them. Because the NRC 21 is dealing with these current operating issues on a 22 continuing basis, we do not reevaluate them in license 23 renewal.
24 As I have said, the safety review focuses 25
15 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 on aging management. It involves the NRC's staff's 1
review and assessment of the safety information 2
contained in the applicant's license renewal 3
application.
4 There is a team of about 30 NRC technical 5
reviewers and contractors who were conducting the 6
safety review at this time. Let me introduce Mr.
7 Donnie Ashley, the Safety Project Manager. He's in 8
charge of the safety review. The safety review for 9
license renewal focuses on how AmerGen will manage the 10 aging of certain structures, systems and components.
11 While some of the programs for managing aging are 12 already in place, others will be implemented as part 13 of license renewal.
14 The safety review process also involves 15 audits and plant inspections. These inspections are 16 conducted by a team of inspectors from both 17 Headquarters and NRC's Region 1 office. With us today 18 from our Inspection Program is the NRC Region 1 Branch 19 Chief, Dr. Ron Bellamy and he's from our Region 1 20 Office in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania.
21 The results of the inspections for license 22 renewal will be documented in separate inspection 23 reports and the results of the staff's safety review 24 and audits will be documented in the safety evaluation 25
16 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 report. After the safety evaluation report is 1
prepared, it will be independently reviewed by the 2
ACRS.
3 Next slide, please, Evan.
4 (Slide change.)
5 MS. FRANOVICH: The second part of the 6
review process involves an environmental review with 7
scoping activities and the development of an 8
environmental impact statement. As I've said, we're 9
here today to receive your comments on the scope of 10 that environmental review. We'll consider any 11 comments on the scope that we receive at this meeting 12 or in written comments subsequent to this meeting.
13 Then in June of next year, we expect to issue the 14 draft environmental impact statement for comment.
15 Next slide, please, Evan.
16 (Slide change.)
17 MS. FRANOVICH: So as you can see from 18 this slide, the final Commission decision on whether 19 to approve or deny an application for license renewal 20 will require a number of inputs: a safety evaluation 21 report, the inspection report. The inspection reports 22 are several that document the results of the on-site 23 inspections. The environmental impact statement and 24 the results of the independent review by the ACRS.
25
17 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 I would like to point out that the yellow 1
hexagons like this one represent opportunities for 2
public participation in our process and early 3
opportunity is during the scoping meeting tonight and 4
the meeting on the draft environmental impact 5
statement is another opportunity. At this time, there 6
is still an opportunity to request a hearing through 7
November 14, 2005. Also, the ACRS meetings are open 8
to the public.
9 Now I'd like to turn the presentation over 10 to Dr. Masnik, who will spend a little more time 11 talking in detail about the environmental review 12 process.
13 DR. MASNIK: Thank you, Rani. May I have 14 the next slide?
15 (Slide change.)
16 DR. MASNIK: My name is Michael Masnik and 17 I'm the Senior Project Manager for the NRC involved in 18 the Oyster Creek review-- I'm responsible for 19 coordinating all the activities of the NRC Staff and 20 various environmental experts at the National Labs to 21 develop an environmental impact statement associated 22 with license renewal for the Oyster Creek Nuclear 23 Generating Station.
24 The National Environmental Policy Act of 25
18 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 1969 requires that federal agencies follow a 1
systematic approach in evaluating potential 2
environmental impacts associated with certain actions.
3 We're required to consider the impacts of the proposed 4
action and any mitigation for those impacts that we 5
consider to be significant. We're also required to 6
consider alternatives to the proposed action, and one 7
alternative that we do consider is the no action 8
alternative or the -- in other words, if we decide not 9
to approve the requested license renewal, what would 10 be the impacts of that decision?
11 Now the National Environmental Policy Act 12 and our environmental impact statement are disclosure 13 tools. They are specifically structured to involve 14 public participation, and this meeting facilitates the 15 public's participation in our environmental review.
16 The Commission has determined that an 17 environmental impact statement or EIS shall be 18 prepared for all license renewals. In preparing an 19 EIS, the NRC conducts a scoping process and the 20 purpose of this scoping process is to identify 21 significant issues to be analyzed in depth.
22 We are now gathering information for an 23 environmental impact statement and are here to collect 24 public comments on the scope of that review.
25
19 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 The staff developed a
generic 1
environmental impact statement or GEIS, that addressed 2
a number of issues that are common to all nuclear 3
power plants. The staff is supplementing that generic 4
EIS with a site-specific EIS that will address issues 5
that are specific to Oyster Creek.
6 The staff also evaluates the conclusions 7
reached in the generic environmental impact statement 8
to determine if there's any new and significant 9
information that would change any of the conclusions 10 in the generic EIS.
11 As was said earlier by Rani, issues such 12 as emergency preparedness and physical security are 13 not considered within the scope of our license renewal 14 review. Such issues are evaluated regularly and will 15 continue to be evaluated regularly during the renewal 16 term, if granted.
17 Next slide, please.
18 (Slide change.)
19 DR. MASNIK: This slide shows our decision 20 standard for the environmental review. Simply put, is 21 license renewal acceptable from an environmental 22 standpoint?
23 Next slide, please?
24 (Slide change.)
25
20 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 DR. MASNIK: This slide is similar to a 1
slide that Rani had up a few minutes ago. It shows 2
the time line for the environmental review process, 3
specifically for Oyster Creek. We received AmerGen's 4
application for license renewal of the Oyster Creek 5
Nuclear Station on 22 July 2005.
6 On September 22, 2005, we issued a Federal 7
Register notice of intent to prepare an environmental 8
impact statement and conduct scoping. This started a 9
60-day clock defined as the scoping period and we're 10 within that scoping period right now. This meeting is 11 part of that scoping process so that we can get 12 comments from the public to help us scope out the 13 bounds of our environmental review.
14 After the end of the scoping period which 15 will be November 25, 2005, we will issue a scoping 16 summary report that will address all the comments 17 we've received from all sources during the scoping 18 period. I discovered yesterday that the date for the 19 end of the scoping period on the NRC website schedule 20 for Oyster Creek is in error. The correct date for 21 the end of the scoping period is November 25th as 22 stated on this slide and in your handouts.
23 The web address has been corrected. This 24 essentially gives members of the public 10 more days 25
21 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 to provide comments to the NRC.
1 On October 10th and 10th through the 14th, 2
members of the NRC staff and a team of environmental 3
experts from Argonne National Lab and Pacific 4
Northwest National Lab conducted an environmental site 5
audit here on-site or at the plant to help gather 6
information for the scoping process. And if you 7
remember, that was when we had that northeasterner and 8
we spent a week here soaking wet, but we got the job 9
done.
10 If in the conduct of our review we require 11 additional information beyond what already has been 12 provided to us, then we will issue a request for 13 additional information and we plan to issue that 14 request for additional information on December 16, 15 2005, if it's needed. And approximately eight weeks 16 later, we expect to get an answer back from AmerGen 17 and then based on all the information we have at hand, 18 we will prepared and publish a draft of the 19 environmental impact statement for public comment. We 20 envision publishing the draft environmental impact 21 statement in June of 2006. And when that draft is 22 published, we'll have a 75-day public comment period.
23 We have some examples of environmental 24 impact statements from other license renewals that we 25
22 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 prepared for other facilities on the back table and 1
this is what they look like. So after the meeting, if 2
you have a few minutes, you might take a look at one 3
of them.
4 We plan to have another public meeting 5
here in July 2006 to receive your comments on the 6
draft EIS and once we receive comments on the draft 7
EIS, we will develop a final EIS which we expect to 8
publish in January of 2007.
9 Next slide.
10 (Slide change.)
11 DR. MASNIK: This slide shows some of the 12 sources where we gather our information for the 13 review. In addition to our site audit, we communicate 14 with federal, state and local officials as well as 15 local service agencies. For example, for Oyster 16 Creek, we have already met with representatives of the 17 State Historic Preservation Office, the New Jersey 18 Department of Environmental Protection and the U.S.
19 Fish and Wildlife Service, the National Marine 20 Fisheries Service and the U.S. Geological Survey.
21 We've also met with local officials from 22 Lacey Township and Ocean County. And we will consider 23 all the comments that we receive from the public.
24 Next slide.
25
23 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 (Slide change.)
1 DR. MASNIK: For the review, we've 2
established a team made up of members of the NRC 3
staff, supplemented by experts in various fields from 4
Argonne National Laboratory and the Pacific Northwest 5
National Lab. This slide gives you an idea of the 6
areas these experts evaluate. Some of the areas are 7
terrestrial and aquatic ecology, archeology, socio-8 economics, radiation protection to name a few.
9 Next slide.
10 (Slide change.)
11 DR. MASNIK: This slide just recaps a 12 couple of the key milestone dates in our schedule. As 13 mentioned, we are currently in the scoping/comment 14 period which ends November 25th. All comments, 15 whether in the form of a letter or an e-mail, as well 16 as comments received from this transcribed public 17 meeting, will be considered.
18 We will publish the Oyster Creek site-19 specific supplement to the generic environmental 20 impact statement called a supplemental environmental 21 impact statement or SEIS, and that supplement will be 22 issued in draft form in June 2006 with a 75-day public 23 comment period and after considering your comments on 24 that draft, we will be publishing a final form, 25
24 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 published in final form in January of 2007.
1 There's one more date to remember and that 2
is the deadline for requesting a hearing and that is 3
November 14, 2005.
4 Next slide.
5 (Slide change.)
6 DR. MASNIK: This slide identifies me as 7
your primary point of contact with the NRC for the 8
preparation of the environmental impact statement.
9 And it also identifies where documents related to our 10 review may be found in the local area. The Lacey 11 Public Library has agreed to make license renewal 12 application available for public review in addition to 13 any correspondence sent by NRC to AmerGen or other 14 agencies regarding the Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating 15 Station license renewal environmental review.
16 The draft environmental impact statement 17 will also be available at the Lacey library when it is 18 published. All documents are or will be available on 19 the NRC website, www.nrc.gov.
20 In addition, when you came in, you were 21 asked to fill out a registration card at the reception 22 desk. You've included your address on that card. We 23 will mail you a copy of the draft and final 24 environmental impact statement. If you did not fill 25
25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 out a card and you want a copy of the draft and final 1
environmental impact statement for Oyster Creek, 2
please see Harriet after the meeting.
3 Harriet, raise your hand in the back of 4
the room.
5 Next slide, please.
6 (Slide change.)
7 DR. MASNIK: Now in addition to providing 8
comments at this meeting, there are other ways in 9
which you can submit comments for our environmental 10 review process. You can provide written comments to 11 the Chief of our Rules and Directives Branch at the 12 address on the screen. You can make comments in 13 person if you happen to be in Rockville, Maryland.
14 And we've also established a specific e-mail address, 15 oystercreekEIS@nrc.gov, the last line on the slide.
16 All of your comments will be collected and 17 considered.
18 This concludes my remarks and thank you 19 again for taking the time to attend the meeting. Are 20 there any questions about the license renewal process, 21 we'll entertain them now.
22 Thank you.
23 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Mike. Yes sir.
24 And if you could please introduce yourself to us.
25
26 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 MR. MATTHEWS: Yes, Terry Matthews, Forked 1
River. My question is on your environmental, what 2
you're doing. It's common knowledge that the State of 3
New Jersey and the DEP is trying to force them to 4
build a cooling tower. The cooling tower, according 5
to my understanding, is not under the NRC, that you 6
are actually reviewing it based on the approved method 7
of operation.
8 So the question is is this cooling tower 9
or what amounts to blackmail, they're asking for 3500 10 acres in order for the state to give them this water 11 commitment separate from you? What impact does that 12 have on your environmental statement?
13 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Terry, and I 14 guess that's something Mr. Masnik brought up.
15 (Laughter.)
16 DR. MASNIK: I think I understand what you 17 just said, Chip. That was a very good question. And 18 germane to this meeting tonight. The state has a 19 proposed NPDES permit which essentially has the 20 licensee taking a hard look at whether or not they 21 want to go to closed cycle cooling. The NRC, under 22 NEPA, has got a difficult job, but in a sense well-23 defined job and that is to evaluate the proposed 24 impacts during the license renewal period.
25
27 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 What we have decided is because of the 1
state's position in the draft permit, it is reasonable 2
for the agency, the NRC, to both consider once through 3
cooling and a closed cycle system for this particular 4
facility. So as a result, we will evaluate both 5
alternatives. And we'll look at the impacts 6
associated with it.
7 MR. CAMERON: Does that answer your 8
question?
9 MR. MATTHEWS: Yes.
10 (Microphone problems.)
11 MR. CAMERON: Any other questions? We'll 12 keep working on this.
13 DR. MASNIK: Why don't you come up?
14 If you can wait just a minute, maybe we'll try a 15 different outlet over there, or go back to the one we 16 had before.
17 MR. CAMERON: This one works, I think.
18 Why don't you use this one.
19 MS. FRANOVICH: Why don't you come up to 20 the podium?
21 UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: My question is I 22 understand in our previous conversation that you will 23 be relying on existing studies. Will the Tooth Fairy 24 be part of that review or is any kind of radiation 25
28 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 exposure currently part of the environmental review 1
for the plant?
2 DR. MASNIK: The staff will look at the 3
radiation protection program at the plant and will 4
also look at past years of radiation releases from the 5
plant. However, the staff will not evaluate the 6
information from the Tooth Fairy Program.
7 MR. CAMERON: Let's ask Ron Bellamy to 8
answer that.
9 MR. BELLAMY: Hi. I'm Ron Bellamy. I'm 10 the Chief of the Projects Branch in Region 1 that has 11 responsibility for Oyster Creek. If anyone is not 12 familiar with the Tooth Fairy Project, that was a 13 study that was done by an independent organization 14 that claimed that there is enough Strontium-90 being 15 released from nuclear power plants that it was showing 16 up in the teeth of infants around nuclear power 17 plants.
18 We and other independent agencies have 19 done a review of that study and it is not founded on 20 scientific data. There is not enough statistical 21 evidence to prove such facts. So when you hear the 22 Tooth Fairy Study has to do with Strontium-90 23 concentrating in the teeth of children around nuclear 24 power plants and as an agency we believe that there is 25
29 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 no scientific bases to such a conclusion.
1 MR. CAMERON: And if you want to see the 2
NRC's evaluation of the Tooth Fairy Project, Tooth 3
Fairy representatives have been to many of our license 4
renewal meetings and we do consider any information 5
that is brought forth like that. In our review, we 6
did a generic look at it, so to speak after it first 7
came up at Turkey Point plant.
8 Ron, is that information, our analysis 9
available to people who want to take a look at it or 10 11 MR. BELLAMY: The answer is yes and the 12 best place to start is we have a briefing sheet on the 13 entire program. It's on the table in the back of the 14 room.
15 MR. CAMERON: Okay, so that's the status 16 of where we are with Tooth Fairy.
17 While this is working, does anybody else 18 have another question?
19 (Laughter.)
20 Yes sir.
21 MR. WEINMANN: Yes, my name is Roberto 22 Weinmann. I'm at Forked River. I work in Princeton.
23 The question is it seems that the flow of the Forked 24 River may have changed the pattern under which 25
30 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 sediments are deposited in the ground of the river and 1
the adjacent lagoons that are along the Forked River.
2 And I think they are navigational and recreational 3
difficulties because of these deposits that don't 4
allow you to get in and out unless you -
5 unintelligible - sound system failure - every time.
6 So can something be done and it was done apparently by 7
the plant 10 years ago. The question is can this be 8
repeated or can something be done about it?
9 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Mr. Weinmann.
10 Mike, do you understand Mr. Weinmann's question?
11 DR. MASNIK: Yes, actually, he called me 12 last week.
13 MR. CAMERON: Good.
14 DR. MASNIK: I asked him to come to the 15 meeting to raise this issue because it's a very good 16 one and yes, dredging will be considered in our 17 environmental impact statement. But what he's asking 18 is a little different than what we normally look at 19 and that is the impact on the environment.
20 His concern, as I understand it, is in the 21 maintenance dredging of the entrance of the lagoon so 22 that he has access to the bay from the lagoon and I'm 23 wondering if there's someone from the licensee here 24 tonight that could respond to this as whether or not 25
31 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 they have any future plans to do any maintenance 1
dredging to facilitate navigation.
2 MR. CAMERON: And unless there's a ready 3
answer right now, I know Pete Ressler is over there 4
from AmerGen and could you talk to Mr. Weinmann after 5
the meeting about that? Thank you very much.
6 DR. MASNIK: Great.
7 MR. CAMERON: Other questions? We're on 8
the question part about questions about license 9
renewal and then we're going to go to the comment 10 period later.
11 Yes sir.
12 MR. HOGAN: My name is Ed Hogan and I am 13 with Concerned Citizens for America. I've been 14 hearing articles from the press and I've heard them 15 from the EPA here, possibly even the DEP about an 16 evacuation plan. Now we're all just witnessed an 17 evacuation plan in New Orleans and we saw another one 18 with Hurricane Rita in Houston. My question is a 19 little bit involved here and someone here mentioned an 20 evacuation plan for Long Beach Island, etcetera. And 21 my comment was the evacuation plan is called "swim" 22 and if you live in Long Island it's called "swim 23 faster." It's a figment of your imagination.
24 I live on Route 9. I have a business 25
32 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 there for 30 years. It takes me five minutes to get 1
on to the highway from my driveway. Now in the event 2
of an emergency, it's going to take me a much longer 3
time to get out of my driveway.
4 The evacuation plan should be by the 5
government somehow, FEMA, etcetera. And again, we saw 6
how they handled Houston and New Orleans on evacuation 7
plans. It was a total failure.
8 So why should the utility be responsible 9
for an evacuation plan? Where is the EPA and the DEP?
10 Where is their plan? I hear all these people --
11 that's my question. Should the utility be responsible 12 for an evacuation plan?
13 MR. CAMERON: We're going to go to Kevin 14 Williams who is one of our experts on emergency 15 preparedness. Kevin, I think that the simple answer 16 perhaps is just to talk about the responsibilities of 17 the various organizations for emergency preparedness.
18 MR. WILLIAMS: We're going to go ahead and 19 address the question. At the breakout session, if you 20 want to seek me out, we can talk about this on the 21 side, because this is outside of the scope of what 22 we're talking about here at this meeting, but to be 23 specific and answer your question, the licensee is not 24 responsible for the evacuation plan. It's by the 25
33 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 local people here to develop the plan, maintain the 1
plan and implement the plan. It's not the licensee's 2
responsibility to develop this plan.
3 So it's by the people that are here. It's 4
by -- they work in conjunction with the state. It 5
gets evaluated by FEMA, but we look at it. People 6
write letters, have concerns over the evacuation and 7
then we go out and we look at it, evaluate it, see if 8
it can be implemented and then FEMA makes a 9
determination and we review that determination and go 10 forward.
11 MR. CAMERON: Okay, thank you very much, 12 Kevin. Thank you for that question, sir.
13 Any other questions at this point? We'll 14 go to -- yes sir.
15 MR. STERLING: Yes, my name is Rod 16 Sterling. I'm a candidate for Township Committee in 17 Lacey Township. It's an independent kind of thing.
18 I have observed you gentlemen for quite some time and 19 other federal agencies and state agencies. And you 20 all seem to have one thing in common, that you're 21 extraordinarily polite. You come down and you're not 22 critical of any of the speakers. If someone says 23 something you might disagree with, you don't deal with 24 it.
25
34 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 Now my recollection, I keep hearing about 1
this evacuation business and my recollection of the 2
Three Mile Island issue of 26 years ago, 27 years ago, 3
was that they held off the evacuation. I think it 4
occurred on a Tuesday. Within about 24 hours2.777778e-4 days <br />0.00667 hours <br />3.968254e-5 weeks <br />9.132e-6 months <br /> there 5
was a man from the NRC that was assigned to take care 6
of it and I remember his name was Dr. Denton, it stuck 7
in my mind because it was the same as those funny 8
little pajamas that little kids used to wear with a 9
trap door in the rear. And he was a very competent 10 man. He was on television almost consistently for 11 about four or five days there, as I recollect. And he 12 seemed to put people at ease and even though I noticed 13 unusually contrary to what I just said, he got a 14 little testy there one day, but I was applauding for 15 him when he did because these reporters need to be 16 dealt with in that fashion.
17 Now my recollection is the evacuation plan 18 was postponed from the point in time when the problem 19 was first identified until Friday, so the kids could 20 finish school. And one of the problems when people 21 talk about evacuation is there's an unspoken premise 22 in that that everybody is going to have to get out of 23 here within 8 minutes or 15 minutes and all the roads 24 will be jammed. And the simple fact of it is that 25
35 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 this cannot be compared as Mr. Hogan just said a few 1
minutes ago, with the New Orleans thing. That was a 2
whole different situation with that big bath tub 3
developing a leak. And the whole thing is different.
4 In other words, what type of evacuation? What is the 5
emergency.
6 I mean I have heard people in my town talk 7
about an emergency whereby the bridge that's about 20 8
miles from the plant would be out at the same time as 9
there being a brush fire coming across the thing, 10 while at the same time there will be heavy rains and 11 high waters and all together there would be some sort 12 of a military attack here, paramilitary attack on the 13 power plant and all this occurs simultaneously and 14 they say people wouldn't be able to get out. And of 15 course, if all those things did happen simultaneously, 16 then we'd have a problem. There's no question about 17 it. But one has to go about this with some 18 reasonableness and I think the most important thing to 19 identify is that these evacuation plans are not 20 something -- it's a false premise that it has to be 21 dealt with immediately and you have to get 30,000 out 22 of the community in 15 minutes.
23 MR. CAMERON: Do you want me to confirm 24 what the plan is based on?
25
36 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 As Kevin stated, emergency preparedness is 1
not part of the license renewal process because it's 2
a continuing concern of the NRC, but we know that 3
emergency preparedness is an important issue to all of 4
you. That's why we'll answer this question if we can.
5 You heard the assumption that the gentleman put forth.
6 Can you say anything about whether that 7
assumption is correct or not, Kevin?
8 MR. WILLIAMS: Yes, if I understood it 9
right, what you were alluding to is the emergency 10 planning zone is a zero to 10 mile area. And we're 11 not evacuating the entire zero to 10 mile area. We 12 are evacuating or sheltering certain areas of that 13 emergency planning zone, such that it can be done in 14 an orderly fashion, a timely fashion to get the people 15 out. It's coordinated with the police. There's 16 traffic and accident control points set up such that 17 we can do this timely, efficiently and effectively.
18 MR. CAMERON: Okay, great. And we can't 19 get our sound system to work right all the time, but 20 we'll always try to be polite.
21 (Laughter.)
22 MR. CAMERON: So any other questions 23 before we go to comments? If you have other questions 24 later on and we still have enough time, we can address 25
37 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 them, but perhaps we are ready to go to comment.
1 Thank you, Rani. Thank you, Mike.
2 We're going to start off by having 3
representatives of the AmerGen give you their vision, 4
their rationale for why they came in for license 5
renewal and then we're going to go through the rest of 6
the people who had signed up to speak and we're 7
looking forward to that.
8 I was going to ask Mr. Bud Swenson from 9
AmerGen to come up and talk to us and then we're going 10 to hear from Mr. Fred Polaski from AmerGen. Then 11 we'll go to our next speaker.
12 MR. SWENSON: Good evening. My name is 13 Bud Swenson. I'm the Site Vice President of the 14 Oyster Creek Generating Station and I'm accountable 15 for the safe and reliable operation of Oyster Creek.
16 I'd like to thank the NRC for holding this 17 public meeting and I'd like to thank everyone in this 18 room for taking time out of their busy schedule to 19 come and attend this important meeting.
20 I believe it's important to our community 21 to have this opportunity. Oyster Creek has the 22 longest track record of safe operations in the U.S.
23 nuclear industry. License renewal presents an 24 opportunity for the continued employment of 450 area 25
38 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 residents and a continued clean, safe and reliable 1
production of electricity to meet our ever-growing 2
demands in the region.
3 I'm truly pleased for the employees of 4
Oyster Creek and the residents of Ocean County. More 5
than 450 families, not including our security 6
personnel, depend on our plant for their livelihood.
7 Of these 450 employees, 250 are members of the 8
International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Local 9
1289. These are good, high paying jobs with excellent 10 benefits. Our employees are highly skilled and 11 dedicated and I'm proud to work with them.
12 When I first came to Oyster Creek, a local 13 resident asked me, he said "run Oyster Creek safely.
14 Do a good job and most importantly keep that plant 15 open because a lot of my neighbors work there." The 16 safe operation of Oyster Creek is our top priority.
17 And it's important for our community that we continue 18 to operate.
19 Oyster Creek strengthens our community in 20 so many ways. We are a significant employer and a 21 positive economic force to the local area.
22 The operation of Oyster Creek adds $52 23 million to the Ocean County economy every year. We 24 spend $7.7 million on goods in Ocean County and pay 25
39 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 more than $9.2 million in sales and local taxes every 1
year.
2 We contribute $234 million to Ocean 3
County's domestic product annually and the value of 4
electrical production is considered in that number.
5 And we have led the way to $33 million in increased 6
output in Ocean County and $46.5 million more in 7
economic output in New Jersey itself every year.
8 In addition, Oyster Creek employees are 9
community-minded and generous. Oyster Creek has the 10 largest employee-run United Way Campaign in Ocean 11 County. In the past year, our employees raised more 12 than $180,000 for the United Way. Our employees are 13 involved with the American Red Cross, Juvenile 14 Diabetes Research Foundation, the American Cancer 15 Society. They are Little League coaches, Girl and Boy 16 Scout leaders, volunteer EMTs and fire fighters, PTA 17 members. We support a variety of family and youth 18 organizations and activities in local communities and 19 have donated land for the community and for 20 recreational use.
21 Oyster Creek provides a
tremendous 22 environmental benefit to our community. Oyster Creek 23 represents 20 percent of JCPNL's electricity needs.
24 Now only do we product 9 percent of New Jersey's 25
40 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 electricity, but we also do this with virtually no 1
greenhouse emissions.
2 Each year we operate Oyster Creek avoids 3
some 7.5 million metric tons of carbon dioxide that 4
would be produced in coastal New Jersey by replacement 5
coal plant. That replacement plant would produce 6
carbon emissions equivalent to two million cars or 7
nearly half of all the cars in the State of New 8
Jersey.
9 The clear air benefits of nuclear power 10 production are of critical importance to New Jersey, 11 the United States and to the world for solutions to 12 our greenhouse gas impacts.
13 In addition to the inherent environmental 14 benefits of nuclear power, at Oyster Creek we go to 15 great lengths to minimize our impact to the 16 environment. We live here. We raise our families 17 here. It is just as important to us as it is to you 18 that we operate safely and protect our natural 19 resources.
20 Ocean County is a beautiful place to raise 21 a family and I'm proud to be a resident.
22 At Oyster Creek we do everything we can to 23 protect Barnegat Bay. We have a constant focus on 24 planning and executing our work to minimize the impact 25
41 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 to the environment. On a day to day, hour by hour 1
basis, we monitor water temperatures and regularly 2
take water samples to ensure compliance with 3
regulations.
4 We also coordinate any planned load 5
reductions or shutdowns to avoid any risk to marine 6
life. This practice is often costly, but it is 7
essential to meet our commitment to the environment.
8 Just this past weekend we performed a routine power 9
reduction and due to the work of our environmental 10 teams, there was no environmental impact.
11 At other public hearings, some raise 12 questions about use of chlorine. We do use chlorine 13 to keep the plant's condenser tubes clean and improve 14 the efficiency of the plant. However, it's virtually 15 nondeductible by the time it gets out of the condenser 16 and back into the environment. And it certainly is 17 nontoxic to the fish or other living organisms.
18 In
- addition, we're well below the 19 allowable limits of chlorine allowed by our discharge 20 permit.
21 Our employees are trained to do their jobs 22 with environmental protection in mind. One practice 23 that we're particularly proud of is our commitment to 24 protect sea turtles that become caught up in our 25
42 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 intake. We have specific procedures in place for the 1
safe return of all sea turtles to their natural 2
environment. Our operators are trained to identify, 3
remove and if need be, resuscitate sea turtles. When 4
a sea turtle is found, our operators contact Marine 5
and Mammal Stranding Center which recovers the sea 6
turtle, gives it a checkup. Rehabilitates it if 7
necessary and releases it back to the sea.
8 We're also a
partner with Drexel 9
University to track the number of sea turtles that are 10 rescued from our intake channel. Oyster Creek has 11 modified its intake structures to significantly reduce 12 the impact on aquatic life. Fish and crabs caught up 13 in our intake screens are gently returned to the 14 discharge canal and we pump cool water from the intake 15 canal into the discharge canal, diluting the warmer 16 water coming out from the plant.
17 Oyster Creek is also involved in several 18 area environmental projects. Most recently, we 19 purchased a boat for the Rutgers Extension Service 20 Clam Restoration Project. The project team is working 21 to reestablish clam beds in the Barnegat Bay and the 22 boat will be used to more efficiently implement 23 restoration of the clam beds and other important 24 environmental projects in the future.
25
43 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 We're a staunch protector of South Jersey 1
wildlife and natural resources. We support the New 2
Jersey Audubon Society. We donated a significant 3
amount of money to the organization in recognition for 4
the society's efforts to rescue and clean waterfowl 5
impacted by the recent oil spills on the Delaware 6
River.
7 Our employees are also involved in many of 8
the environmental activities in the area, including 9
the World Series of Birding; aiding the Cape May 10 observatory; Ocean, Nature and Conservatory Society, 11 and also the Barnegat Bay Estuary.
12 13 Oyster Creek is not the same plant that it 14 was when it was first built. We've invested more than 15
$1.2 billion in upgrades to maintain it to the highest 16 standards. We work hard to achieve our commitment to 17 safe, clean and reliable operations. We've kept this 18 promise for 36 years and we're committed to serving 19 our community for an additional 20 years.
20 Again, I want to thank the NRC for this 21 opportunity to provide comments and your consideration 22 for the license renewal application. Thank you.
23 (Applause.)
24 MR. CAMERON: Okay, thank you, Mr.
25
44 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 Swenson.
1 Next we'll hear from Fred Polaski.
2 MR. POLASKI: Thank you. My name is Fred 3
Polaski and I'm Exelon's corporate license renewal 4
manager responsible for our preparation and submittal 5
of this license renewal application for the Oyster 6
Creek plant. I was also responsible for the work that 7
we did in preparing and submitting license renewal 8
applications for Peach Bottom Plant in Pennsylvania.
9 We got a renewed license on that in 2003. And our 10 Dresden and Quad Cities plants in Illinois, which we 11 received renewed licenses in 2004.
12 A little bit about my background in 13 nuclear. I've been working in nuclear generation for 14 34 years. I spent 20 years at our Peach Bottom plant.
15 I've held a Senior Reactor Operator's license for 13 16 years. Did many various tasks at the plant in 17 different areas. Two years at our Limerick Plant, 18 two years at our Corporate Nuclear Quality Assurance 19 Group, about the last 10 years I've been working on 20 license renewal applications both for Exelon and for 21 industry organizations that are involved in preparing 22 the process and working with the Nuclear Regulatory 23 Commission to make this a viable process.
24 Mr. Swenson talked about the reasons for 25
45 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 renewing the license at Oyster Creek and what Oyster 1
Creek means to the community. I'd like to speak 2
briefly about the work that Exelon did in preparing 3
this license renewal application and the large amount 4
of effort and engineering work that was put in to 5
preparing the application.
6 In 2003, AmerGen decided to pursue license 7
renewal for Oyster Creek. In October of 2003, the 8
project was begun to prepare license renewal 9
application and was submitted to the NRC, July 22 of 10 2005.
11 The application, when we submitted it, 12 looks fairly small because we now do it 13 electronically. It was on one CD. When you print it 14 out, it's over 2400 pages and it stacks up about that 15 high and if I printed out all of the backup 16 information that went into preparing that application 17 which is simply the summary of all the work we did, 18 the volume would be at least 100 times that large.
19 We spent over 40 man years in doing 20 engineering analysis to make sure that we met the 21 requirements of the NRC's regulations for license 22 renewal at a cost of over $5 million to prepare the 23 license renewal application.
24 We did extensive -- once we prepared it, 25
46 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 there was extensive AmerGen management reviews from 1
outside AmerGen and some former NRC managers to review 2
the application to make sure it was complete, thorough 3
and accurate.
4 I'd like to speak about the two major 5
parts to the application, one being the safety review 6
and the other being the environmental review. I 7
recognize our focus this evening is primarily on the 8
environmental review. I'd like to speak a little bit 9
first about the safety review. What we did as far as 10 the project team, was to perform a review of the 11 safety-related equipment in the plant. That's the 12 equipment that's needed to operate in emergency 13 situations. And what we did the review for was to 14 determine that the necessary maintenance is being 15 performed on the equipment to make sure that it will 16 operate properly when needed to in emergency 17 situations.
18 When Oyster Creek was built back in the 19 1960s, all the equipment was brand new and was 20 thoroughly tested to make sure it would perform and 21 the plant would respond as designed in the event of an 22 accident or an emergency condition. But that 23 equipment, like anything else, since the 1960s, ages.
24 Everybody sort of gets concerned about what the word 25
47 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 "aging" means. It doesn't mean that that equipment 1
won't work. But it does mean that the operators and 2
the maintenance technicians at the plant need to 3
maintain that equipment in good condition. They need 4
to perform inspections of it, refurbish equipment and 5
in some cases replace equipment and modify the plant 6
and install upgrades to improve the design and the 7
operation of the plant.
8 So we took a look at all of that to make 9
sure that the right maintenance was being done so all 10 that equipment would continue to be able to perform 11 its function in a period of extended operation.
12 We also reviewed calculations that were 13 done as part of the original design of the plant.
14 These calculations were done over a time period of 40 15 years which was the original license life of the 16 plant. We reviewed those calculations and in most 17 cases re-analyzed them for 60 years and were able to 18 determine that those analyses were valid and showed 19 that the plant could safely operate for 60 years.
20 Our overall conclusion is the equipment is 21 being maintained properly, the aging equipment is 22 being managed through proper maintenance practices and 23 concluded that the plant will be able to safely 24 operate for an additional 20 years.
25
48 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 In the environmental area, we took a look 1
at all aspects of the impacts that the plant could 2
have on the environment and if you remember from the 3
NRC's presentation, they had many different areas they 4
were looking at, impacts on the water, air, land, 5
socio-economic impacts. We reviewed all those items 6
to make sure that the impacts of continuing to operate 7
Oyster Creek would be small. "Small" is a regulatory 8
term that's used in environmental space to indicate 9
that the impacts will not have an impact on continued 10 operation. To me, what the conclusion really comes 11 down to is that the impacts on the environment by 12 continuing to operate this plant for an additional 20 13 years will not be any different than they were during 14 the first 40 years. Everybody says oh, there will be 15 environmental impacts, but please remember every time 16 that we, as humans do anything, we impact the 17 environment. We drive the car, we have an impact on 18 the environment. You build a new house, you impact 19 the environment. Generating electricity, whether it's 20 a nuclear power plant or some other means will have 21 some impact on the environment.
22 As part of our review, we looked at the 23 environmental impact of other means of generating 600 24 megawatts of electricity and compared that to the 25
49 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 environmental impact of continuing to operate Oyster 1
Creek for another 20 years and concluded that 2
continued operation of Oyster Creek would have a 3
smaller impact on the environment than any other means 4
of generating that electricity.
5 Our overall conclusion, AmerGen believes 6
as a company and all the people in the management of 7
the company, and I personally believe, that Oyster 8
Creek is a safely operated plant that can operate 9
safely for an additional 20 years. It can provide 600 10 megawatts of electricity that is safe, clean, 11 reliable, environmentally friendly and economical.
12 Continued operation of Oyster Creek will benefit this 13 community, the State of New Jersey and our country.
14 Thank you.
15 (Applause.)
16 MR. CAMERON: Thank you. We're going to 17 go next to David Most, and then to Peggi Sturmfels.
18 David?
19 MR. MOST: Good evening, my name is Dave 20 Most and I'm the Republican candidate for Lacey 21 Township. Rod, thanks for coming out tonight and 22 supporting us. I appreciate that. And Terry, you 23 too, being a Lacey resident, I appreciate you coming 24 out.
25
50 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 I've worked at Oyster Creek for coming up 1
to 25 years. I'm very proud to work at Oyster Creek.
2 I consider Oyster Creek to be an environmental 3
steward. They're an example of a company that has a 4
very low impact to our environment.
5 Now I was brought up across Finninger's 6
Farm when I was a child and I had a boat and I have to 7
tell you honestly for all those years, 30 some years, 8
I have seen zero impact to our environment. Nothing 9
has really changed in our environment. And when you 10 look at, when it comes to diversifying in our fuel 11 mix, because obviously we have to worry about the 12 quality of air in New Jersey, we have predominant 13 winds that blow from the west to the east. We have a 14 lot of coal plants out there. Unfortunately, New 15 Jersey's quality of air is pretty poor which 16 contributes to childhood diseases such as asthma.
17 So my point being is we have five million 18 cars too, also in the State of New Jersey. So how do 19 we offset that? Well, Oyster Creek doesn't put off an 20 effluent, which really contributes positively to our 21 environment. Now we're here to talk about the 22 environment and I had addressed the DEP last week and 23 I read a statement, but I'd like to get a little bit 24 more informal as far as our screen wash system that 25
51 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 actually protects our marine life.
1 I believe that we have a minimal effect on 2
our marine life as far as impingement or entrainment 3
on our screen wash system. So as far as building a 4
cooling tower, when you think about a cooling tower at 5
Oyster Creek, personally, I don't think it's a viable 6
issue. Environmentally, we don't even know the 7
negative effect that a cooling tower could bring to 8
Lacey Township, between all the salinity that pumps 9
out of the stack.
10 I remember when I first moved into my home 11 in Sunrise Beach in Lacey Township, I took my brine 12 tank from my saltwater conditioner and I threw it out 13 on my driveway and some went on my grass. Well, I 14 didn't realize that the salt would kill my grass.
15 Well, the next morning, I woke up my whole lawn was 16 dead. So I suggest don't ever put salt on any plant 17 life.
18 So my point being too is I'm a fisherman 19 our in Barnegat Bay. I used to clam when I was a kid.
20 And the only problem that I see out in Barnegat Bay is 21 our limits. Now the State of New Jersey limits our 22 catch as far as striped bass. Now there was a low 23 with striped bass I would say about 15 years ago, you 24 couldn't barely catch a striped bass because they were 25
52 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 pretty much fished out. Well, what happened is the 1
State stepped in and they limited the catch limit.
2 Well now if you look at the population in Barnegat Bay 3
as far as our striped bass population, it's huge. I 4
mean we're catching alligators out there and it's 5
great. And our weakfish are the same.
6 So my point to the people that are saying 7
that Oyster Creek has a negative effect on Barnegat 8
Bay, I totally disagree with them because if that was 9
a fact, they would never come back.
10 Now as far as our clams, I used to clam 11 for a living too. And I remember Cattrell's --
12 remember Cattrell's in Warentown? Well, we used to go 13 clamming and everybody knows where the batting ring is 14 when baseball players put a batting ring on a bat to 15 make it heavier. Well, these clams, you'd have to fit 16 the clams through a batting ring and they would 17 consider them a cherrystone.
18 Well, when I was a kid, that's what we 19 used to do to make a living. We used to actually clam 20 and we'd drop the clams off at Cattrell's and the 21 clams used to fit through the batting ring and they 22 were considered cherrystone. You'd get more money for 23 cherrystones.
24 But through the years, as our area has 25
53 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 developed in Lacey Township, along with all our 1
neighboring towns, the population has just exploded.
2 So what happens to our clams? They get fished out.
3 So we need time to let them reproduce and I'm 4
confident in time that our clam population will 5
increase as well as our striped bass and our weakfish.
6 So in closing, I'd like to say sincerely 7
that as a worker, I'm proud to stand up here and I 8
couldn't obviously stand up here in front of my town, 9
defending the power plant, if I didn't believe in what 10 I did. So I truly believe that Oyster Creek does not 11 have an impact, a negative impact to our environment.
12 So I hope the NRC will truly look at 13 Oyster Creek and renew the license for another 20 14 years. Thank you for your time.
15 (Applause.)
16 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Mr. Most. Next 17 we're going to go to Peggi Sturmfels.
18 MS. STURMFELS: I'm Peg Sturmfels. I'm 19 with the New Jersey Environmental Federation. For 20 those of you who have been talking about the diesel 21 and the emissions and all of that, there's a ballot 22 initiative on Tuesday. Check out number two, ballot 23 initiative on diesel emissions. We can fund getting 24 rid of some of the diesel emissions. I hope you all 25
54 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 take advantage of that.
1 For the
- record, the New Jersey 2
Environmental Federation is opposed to the relicensing 3
of Oyster Creek. We believe that the decommissioning 4
process should commence in the Year 2000 with plans 5
similar to Maine Yankee and a guarantee of just 6
transition for its workers.
7 I wanted to ask about two things and 8
because when I spoke in July, August, I'm sorry, the 9
months are going into each other, there was a concern 10 for me about the spent fuel rods. And at that 11 particular meeting the NRC said that they felt that 12 the -- based upon what was happening with Yucca 13 Mountain that these rods could stay where they were.
14 I want to know what is the federal plan or 15 the NRC's plan and how is it justified that more of 16 these fuel rods can be generated when the existing 17 rods are still there and with the burgeoning 18 population and all of these other things, we don't 19 have a plan. And do you have a foreseeable plan? Do 20 you have an idea how many years the rods that are 21 already there going to be there and generating more.
22 What's that going to create in terms of what I would 23 have a real concern about?
24 Thanks.
25
55 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 MR. CAMERON: Thank you very much. I 1
think we also take that as a comment, the implication 2
being that the license shouldn't be renewed unless 3
there is a plan for storage or disposal of the 4
additional fuel.
5 Do we want to -- this issue was raised 6
before. Do we want to say anything about right now 7
before we go on to the next speaker, Rani?
8 MS. FRANOVICH: I think we can probably 9
discuss that with the commenter after the meeting, one 10 on one. I don't want to take time away from other 11 people who want an opportunity to speak.
12 MR. CAMERON: Okay, well, let's see where 13 we are when we get done with the rest of the speakers.
14 And see if we can say anything about -- we'll go 15 through the rest of the speakers and we'll come back 16 to address that specifically. Let's just get through 17 the rest of the speakers now and then we'll come back 18 to that issue.
19 We know what the issue is and we will 20 address it. Thank you, Peggi 21 Jeffrey Brown and then Mr. Matthews.
22 MR. BROWN: My name is Jeffrey Brown. I 23 live in Brick Township and since this is the day after 24 Halloween, I'm hoping for some demystification. And 25
56 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 I am reminded that when my kids were in school there 1
was an issue of whether anyone could ever fail school 2
or whether it was a matter of social promotion, just 3
pass them along. And as I've come to many of these 4
meetings over the past couple of years, I have no 5
sense of whether it's possible to fail this process.
6 I know that the NRC has not refused any applicants for 7
their renewals, so we don't have an historical example 8
to look to.
9 So I'm wondering if the NRC has 10 established standards and benchmarks that would 11 indicate failure and since every meeting I come to 12 where AmerGen indicates we -- or NRC or the DEP says 13 okay, you have not met this criterion, you have not 14 met that criterion, then they say okay, we'll come 15 back and we'll answer that the next time.
16 I'm wondering how many times they get at 17 the bat. Is there a limited number or is it just 18 going to be whatever problem gets identified, will get 19 addressed and then it will get approved and it's an 20 automatic renewal process.
21 So I am wondering, therefore, are there 22 any objective measures that we could look at that 23 would not be so mystifying to us that we would know if 24 they hit this level they pass, if they hit this level, 25
57 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 they fail.
1 Thank you.
2 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Mr. Brown.
3 (Applause.)
4 MR. CAMERON: When we come back to address 5
the generation of spent fuel issue, we'll also come 6
back to address Mr. Brown's concern about objective 7
criterion and also the NRC track record in terms of 8
license renewal applications that we've received and 9
what we've done with them. So we will come back to 10 that at the end.
11 Mr. Matthews?
12 MR. MATTHEWS: Good evening. My name is 13 Terry Matthews and I live in Forked River. I can see 14 the power plant every day from my back door and I 15 thank God every day that that power plant is there for 16 what it does for Lacey Township. Financially, it's 17 put people to work, etcetera.
18 Now I reviewed the NRC sites prior to this 19 every since the license renewal came up and the 20 gentleman that was just up here had a specific 21 question and one of the things that the NRC does that 22 I am in favor of and I think they're doing a good job 23 and I want to commend the NRC on what they are doing 24 here for keeping an open mind on this license renewal 25
58 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 and following the rules, but they have performance 1
indicators. And you can look at their NRC site and 2
you can see what some of the performance indicators 3
are.
4 And I honestly believe the license renewal 5
is a formality that they have to go through and prove 6
that they can operate the power plant correctly. But 7
what a lot of people's concern what are saying let's 8
stop the power plant, let's not renew the license, 9
they're in the wrong ballpark here. Because if you 10 look at the NRC site and the rules and the inspections 11 they follow, you look at the performance indicators 12 and they take you from let's write a malfunction, a 13 reportable incident to yellows to reds and under their 14 rules and guidelines there are certain steps that have 15 to be taken to reports to fines to corrections. All 16 the way down to closing the power plant.
17 Now I said I'm for the power plant and I 18 am 100 percent for this power plant, but if there 19 comes a time and this power plant ages, these 20 indicators should show that and at that time the power 21 plant can be closed down. They're asking for 20-year 22 renewal here. The plant might operate for 10 years 23 and have a fault. Under these performance indicators, 24 in 10 years this plant might have to close. We don't 25
59 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 know that today and this license renewal application 1
is not going to give that to us.
2 So we have to let the NRC and the plant 3
people do their job, stop this bickering and let's 4
stop the
- plant, let's close it
- down, let's 5
decommission it. That's not good for the benefit of 6
everybody. This plant operating helps the entire 7
State of New Jersey, not just Lacey Township.
8 And I have a question for AmerGen. In 10 9
years, let's say this plant did become unsafe to 10 operate, I'm sure that they would start taking steps 11 into shutting it down. Now my question to AmerGen 12 would be and you've seen the advertisements on the TV, 13 this new power plant company that's floating around, 14 I believe they're out of Canada, and they're 15 advocating new nuclear power plants. Would AmerGen 16 consider building another plant on that site? I for 17 one would be in favor of it. And I believe that is 18 the future.
19 Coal, fossil fuels, they're not going to 20 last us. Look at what happened with Katrina? The 21 pipelines shut down for a couple of days. Gas went up 22 from $1.90 a gallon to $3 and something a gallon. We 23 can't live with that forever. But nuclear power 24 plants is -- maybe not the total solution, but it's 25
60 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 the answer today until something else comes along.
1 Thank you.
2 (Applause.)
3 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Mr. Matthews.
4 We're going to go Mr. Weinmann and then to Suzanne 5
Leta.
6 MR. WEINMANN: When I think -- I'm Roberto 7
Weinmann, I'm at Forked River. I work for a 8
pharmaceutical company so I understand the conundrum 9
that the nuclear plant people are in. Can you hear 10 me? Okay, sorry.
11 So I would say that if we consider the 12 number of barrels of oil that would be replacing the 13 nuclear plant, I am totally for it, for the nuclear 14 plant. And I made my comment before in terms of some 15 remedial things, but the nuclear plant could do, but 16 I don't know whether they are either remedial or good 17 will. They have done them before and I'm looking 18 forward for those changes.
19 Thank you.
20 (Applause.)
21 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Mr. Weinmann.
22 Suzanne.
23 MS. LETA: Hi again. I'll just repeat who 24 I am for the record. I actually have different 25
61 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 comments from this afternoon.
1 My name is Suzanne Leta and I am an 2
advocate with New Jersey PIRG, New Jersey Public 3
Interest Research Group and we're a statewide citizen-4 based organization that represents about 25,000 5
citizen members and we work to protect the public, 6
that means protecting the environment, protecting 7
consumers and promoting good government.
8 And so I just wanted to -- I have a few 9
statements for the record. The first is that although 10 I didn't state this earlier in the afternoon, I do 11 want to formally for the record state that New Jersey 12 PIRG opposes the license extension for Oyster Creek.
13 Earlier this afternoon, a man who is a former employee 14 of the plant talked about 1994 VERSAR report regarding 15 Oyster Creek's water intake and discharge.
16 I wanted to state for the record that that 17 report has been discredited and if you take a close 18 look at both what the DEP has said in public, in 19 addition to the draft water permit for the plant, they 20 clearly state that the best available technology is a 21 closed cycle cooling system that would again reduce 22 the plant's intake and discharge by over 95 percent.
23 In addition to that, I wanted to point out 24 that although Exelon had the opportunity to speak at 25
62 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 length at the beginning of this meeting and it's now 1
about 8:30 and they have a very prominent place where 2
they can display their opinion regarding the license 3
extension for this plant, members of the public who 4
brought information and who brought images, were not 5
allowed to show that information.
6 So I wanted to just say that I think 7
unfortunately that is unfair to the public, especially 8
considering that this is a meeting for public comments 9
specifically. So the next time around, I would 10 encourage you to do that.
11 Regarding the scoping, I just wanted to 12 make a few comments about that. The first would be --
13 actually, I'm sorry, to go back, I wanted to clarify 14 how much energy Oyster Creek provides because there 15 was a lot of -- just not correct information. So I 16 wanted to clarify that and state that for the record.
17 So on the original PJM grid, which is a 18 regional electricity grid, it does not represent PJM 19 which used to be Pennsylvania, New Jersey and 20 Maryland. It now represents several states in our 21 region. In that grid, Oyster Creek provides less than 22 one percent of the energy, of the electricity, 23 specifically.
24 So to clarify for the record, it is true 25
63 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 that the plant provides enough electricity for about 1
600,000 homes. The electricity that we get comes from 2
that grid and so there's enough energy to easily 3
replace what Oyster Creek provides right now and then 4
in the future there is definitely ways that we can 5
replace the plant with clean and safe and non-air 6
pollution emitting energy generation.
7 The primary source of that is energy 8
conservation and efficiency. I want to give one 9
primary example and that example is an Appliance 10 Efficiency Standards Act that was actually passed this 11 summer and that act actually puts eight energy 12 efficient appliances into the market in New Jersey and 13 it actually saves about 300 megawatts of electricity 14 by 2010 across the state. That's about half of what 15 Oyster Creek provides and that's eight appliances 16 only.
17 So I want to make sure that when we're 18 talking about -- I know that in this environmental 19 review, part of the review is to take a look at what 20 happens if this plant is not, if the license is not 21 extended and I want to make sure that part of that 22 scope is to look at other clean and renewable 23 alternatives to Oyster Creek because I think that is 24 a critical part that may be missing, unfortunately.
25
64 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 In addition to that, I took a look at what 1
you do review in terms of the general scoping. The 2
first is you look at, it's called socioeconomics and 3
environmental justice and that is a really, I think a 4
very important part of thinking about environmental 5
health and public health and so I know you look at the 6
evacuation plan annually which I understand.
7 Unfortunately, it does not look at the 8
plan 20 years out and so when you're thinking about 9
socioeconomics and environmental justice you must 10 consider what the population is going to look like 20 11 years down the line because there are excellent 12 estimates that the Census has and if you looked and 13 talked to the towns, that information is available and 14 it will change and it is changing right now.
15 In addition to that, I wanted to just 16 again reinforce -- I know you look at aquatic life and 17 aquatic ecology. You want to make sure that you're 18 looking very closely at Oyster Creek's intake and 19 discharge and
- finally, you look at radiation 20 protection. So in addition to daily radioactive 21 emissions, whether or not you consider the Tooth Fairy 22 Study as part of it, I just want to make sure you're 23 really taking a close look at daily emissions.
24 And in addition to that, that's why we're 25
65 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 talking about waste issues and security issues, it's 1
because those fall under the general scope of 2
radiation protection.
3 So you wanted comments about the scoping, 4
so I wanted to make sure I got that into the record 5
and that is all I have to say. Thank you.
6 (Applause.)
7 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Suzanne. Those 8
are good scoping comments. You're right, it would be 9
unfair if we didn't allow others to distribute and put 10 materials here and that is our policy and you can 11 check with groups around the country. We do have 12 tables that we provide for people to put their 13 materials out and I should have told Mr. Warren before 14 and I think that's who you're referring to is that 15 although those materials that size shouldn't have been 16 brought into the meeting and that's what they were 17 trying to tell them, they should have said put them 18 outside in the hallway where the other materials are 19 so that people could look at them.
20 And certainly when we come back for the 21 July meeting, if anybody wants to set up a display or 22 put materials, we'll accommodate that.
23 Okay, let's see, Jennifer Watley and then 24 Mr. Ron Watson.
25
66 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 Jennifer?
1 MS. WATLEY: Good evening. My name is 2
Jennifer Watley. I'm a resident of Barnegat Township 3
and an employee at Oyster Creek.
4 I've worked at Oyster Creek for over four 5
years and I've been the supervisor of the Chemistry 6
Department for a little over a year now. This evening 7
I want to talk to you mostly about what we do in 8
chemistry, and why we do it.
9 The Chemistry Department samples, analyzes 10 and trends parameters for many of the plant systems.
11 However, as I see it, there are three main reasons 12 that we take the thousands of samples that we do. The 13 first is to protect the public. Almost 80 percent of 14 Oyster Creek's employees live and raise their families 15 in Ocean County. So for us, the public has names and 16 faces. The public is our families, our friends and 17 our neighbors. There's nothing that we take more 18 seriously than our obligation to protect those that we 19 care about.
20 The second reason that we sample at Oyster 21 Creek is to protect the environment. We sample the 22 air and the water that leaves the plant to make sure 23 that we have a minimum impact on the environment. We 24 not only meet state and federal regulations, but often 25
67 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 we beat them. We're extremely proud of our record as 1
a zero release plant and we continually improve our 2
operating procedures as we discover new ways to be 3
better environmental stewards.
4 The third reason is to protect plant 5
equipment. One of the keys to clean, safe and 6
reliable operations is keeping our equipment in top 7
operating condition. At Oyster Creek, we spend 8
countless hours proving that our systems work as 9
they're designed, testing to detect problems before 10 they occur, and fixing things before they actually 11 break. So it sounds like I have a big job and I do, 12 but I don't do it alone. I work with an incredible 13 team of professionals who are just as committed as I 14 am to the protection of the public, the protection of 15 the environment and clean, safe and reliable plant 16 operations.
17 Thank you.
18 (Applause.)
19 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Jennifer. We're 20 going to go next to Mr. Watson. Ron Watson.
21 MR. WATSON: Hi, I'm Ron Watson. I live 22 in Lanoka Harbor which is about six miles from the 23 plant. I look at the tower also. And yes, I am in 24 favor of relicensing the
- plant, under the 25
68 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 understanding that the NRC does not find anything 1
wrong with the plant, that they don't, like Mr. Brown 2
suggested, rubber stamp the approval, which I don't 3
think they would, but I don't know.
4 I would also suggest that AmerGen get 5
information to people about how the plant operates.
6 I know you used to send out the booklets. The 7
booklets were vague at best. I was talking to a lady 8
in Brick Town. She's concerned that the plant is 9
going to pop its cork tomorrow and she won't be able 10 to get out of her town. She may have a viable thought 11 there. But how are people in Brick Town supposed to 12 know what you're doing down at Lacey Township? But 13 again, I hope you get your renewal and good luck.
14 Thank you.
15 (Applause.)
16 MR. CAMERON: We're going to go next to 17 Mr. Donald Posey.
18 MR. POSEY: Hello. My name is Donald 19 Posey. I'm a resident of Bayville, New Jersey and 20 I've been working at Oyster Creek for five years. I 21 have held a reactor operator's license and a senior 22 reactor operator's license out at a Baltimore reactor 23 and my last operation's position was as a shift 24 supervisor in the control room.
25
69 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 Presently, I'm in the outage management 1
organization. I'm in charge of development of the 2
outage schedule. And my comments are going to be 3
around the safety aspect of the scheduling for 4
refueling outages.
5 Refueling outages starts 25 months prior 6
to the outage itself. In a little less than a year, 7
we'll start 1R21 and we are a year away from our next 8
refuel. So it's a long drawn out process and the 9
safety aspect of it has been implemented through 10 programs, implemented through corporation and programs 11 that are site implemented which is detailed for the 12 specific Oyster Creek site.
13 Part of that is the color scheme that is 14 being used which is the same thing as the homeland 15 security. The green, the yellow, the orange and the 16 red scheme is being used for my recollection almost 12 17 to 15 years which it was implemented as a pilot 18 program at Peach Bottom in the early 1990s.
19 So we utilize that color scheme for 20 reactor safety, but as an environmental, I am proud 21 that we are good stewards of that, right. In the 22 environmental area, I'm proud to say that last 23 refueling outage, we shut the plant down, performed 24 the refueling and restarted the plant with zero impact 25
70 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 to the environment. And that's because of being good 1
stewards of taking the time and getting the people 2
involved from the chemistry organizations to the 3
outside organizations to analyze the plant's impact to 4
the environment and implementing that into the 5
scheduling itself.
6 So we took additional time to shut the 7
plant down. We had people stationed out at the 8
discharge canal and we had zero impact on the fish and 9
the marine life out there. So that proves to me that 10 Oyster Creek is a good steward and it should be 11 relicensed for another 20 years.
12 (Applause.)
13 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Mr. Posey. We're 14 going to go to Jay Vouglitois and we have a few more 15 speakers and some questions to address.
16 MR. VOUGLITOIS: Good evening. My name is 17 Jay Vouglitois and I'm a former employee of Oyster 18 Creek. I'm proud to say that I was an environmental 19 scientist and a manager of Environmental Affairs at 20 Oyster Creek for some 27 years. During that time I 21 participated in most of the environmental studies of 22 the cooling water intake and discharge, was 23 responsible for hiring the contractors that performed 24 the ones that I didn't participate in, and developing 25
71 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 the plans of study.
1 Needless to say it's something I feel like 2
I know something about. Probably other than the Salem 3
Nuclear Generating Station south of us, Oyster Creek 4
is the most intensively studied industrial facility in 5
the State of New Jersey. There were some 20 years of 6
intensive studies performed, most of them focused on 7
the cooling water intake and discharge. Those 8
occurred during the period starting in the mid-1960s, 9
just before the plant went on-line and continued 10 through about 1985.
11 In 1989, when the State of New Jersey, 12 Department of Environmental Protection was preparing 13 to issue a discharge permit for the facility, they 14 wanted to evaluate the results of all of those studies 15 to determine whether or not the facility needed to 16 modify their cooling system in any way in order to 17 comply with Sections 316A and B of the Federal Clean 18 Water Act.
19 They went out and hired a consultant by 20 the name of VERSAR to evaluate the 20 years' worth of 21 data. VERSAR was considered an expert in this area 22 and as a matter of fact, a few months before they 23 began the evaluation of Oyster Creek's cooling system, 24 they had just finished up a similar evaluation of the 25
72 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 system at Salem.
1 The conclusion that they came to in their 2
evaluation of Salem was that they needed to reduce 3
their cooling water flow by I believe it was about 50 4
percent which would have been tantamount to 5
backfitting a closed cycle cooling system. I tell you 6
that so that you know that this consultant that the 7
DEP hired to evaluate Oyster Creek's cooling system 8
was not shy about recommending major modifications to 9
power plants. They did it in Salem's case.
10 So the DEP hired VERSAR to perform a 11 technical evaluation of all of the studies that I 12 referred to to determine if the existing once through 13 cooling system complied with Sections 316A and B of 14 the Clean Water Act. Based upon the results of that 15 review, VERSAR and the NJDEP, when they issued their 16 permit, concluded that the continued operation, and 17 this is a quote by the way, "continued operation of 18 the Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station at the 19 estimated levels of losses to representative important 20 species' populations without modifications to intake 21 structures and/or operating practices, does not 22 threaten the protection and propagation of balanced 23 indigenous populations." That was the conclusion of 24 the DEP's experts on Oyster Creek cooling system.
25
73 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 "Continued operation without modification 1
to intake structures and/or operating practices, does 2
not threaten the protection and propagation of 3
balanced indigenous populations."
4 Now a few minutes ago, the representative 5
from NJPIRG made a statement that the VERSAR report 6
has been discredited. Well, I wish she had stayed 7
around because I would very much like to know how the 8
VERSAR report was discredited. Who discredited it and 9
where did they discredit it? It was a scientific 10 report. It can't be discredited by just by stating 11 that it's discredited. So you can be assured that I 12 will be sending her a letter to get that information 13 and I'll share with as many of you as I possibly can 14 when I get it.
15 I think the reason she would like it to be 16 discredited is not only because of the conclusion that 17 I just read to you, but they came up with some other 18 significant conclusions regarding the impacts of 19 Oyster Creek. For example, with regard to the 20 impingement of organisms on the traveling screens, 21 they said and this is a quote, "the losses due to 22 impingement at the Oyster Creek Generating Station 23 were of no consequence to the compliance 24 determination."
25
74 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 With regard to the thermal discharge they 1
said, I quote, "discharge effects are small and 2
localized and have no adverse consequences to Barnegat 3
Bay."
4 Again, these are quotes from the NJDEP's 5
hired consultant.
6 Again, I quote, "based on the findings 7
summarized in this report, balanced, indigenous 8
populations of Barnegat Bay are protected under Oyster 9
Creek's current operations."
10 Another quote: "Plant-related losses at 11 Oyster Creek do not adversely impact spawning and 12 nursery functions."
13 "Plant-related losses at Oyster Creek do 14 not adversely affect the estuary food web of Barnegat 15 Bay."
16 And last, but not least, another quote, 17 "Plant-related losses at Oyster Creek do not adversely 18 impact beneficial uses of Barnegat Bay." Beneficial 19 uses include things like recreational and commercial 20 fisheries.
21 So again, to summarize, the cooling system 22 at Oyster Creek has been thoroughly studied. There's 23 an enormous amount of information about it. Books 24 have been written about it. It's been evaluated. All 25
75 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 of those results by an independent consultant hired by 1
the Department of Environmental Protection and I just 2
read to you what their conclusions were.
3 Thank you very much for the ability to 4
comment.
5 (Applause.)
6 MR. CAMERON: Now we're going to go to Mr.
7 Hogan. And another Mr. Hogan, I guess. And then to 8
Mr. Sterling.
9 Mr. Hogan, could you join us at the 10 microphone?
11 MR. HOGAN (FATHER): Good evening. My 12 name is Ed Hogan and I represent Concerned Citizens 13 for America. I'm somewhat saddened here tonight by 14 some of the attitudes toward the nuclear industry that 15 I see being represented here.
16 I was in the oil industry for about 30 17 years. I slept with Exxon, Mobile, Phillips Petroleum 18 and I was involved with every country that has oil on 19 the planet: Aramco, Saudi Arabia, these are my 20 customers; Iran, Venezuela, Mexico, etcetera.
21 And it is my contention that politically 22 for some reason we've never had an energy policy since 23 1973. Those of you old enough to remember that, the 24 odd and evens. And we never did anything about it and 25
76 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 at that point it was about -- I went to an energy 1
conference at the Hotel Pierre, Marathon Oil was 2
there, Teneco, the head of the Batelle Institute, 3
among numerous others. Gene Cernan, the astronaut was 4
there, that dented a car on the moon, and so on. At 5
the conclusion -- that was 1974-1975 -- of that 6
conference, they all said that nuclear was out because 7
Jane Fonda wouldn't allow it to happen. Tom Hayden.
8 So we were out on that score.
9 But coal gasification, coal liquefaction 10 was a very viable situation and it started out with 11 people like Catalytic Construction, United Engineers, 12 Bechtel, Brown and Root, it goes on and on, Stone and 13 Webster, everybody had a coal gasification plant on 14 the drawing board ready to go.
15 Now I myself was involved in a billion 16 dollar plant up in North Dakota which nobody 17 remembers. It's still up there. It's about 100 miles 18 north of Bismark, North Dakota. I've been up there 19 many times. The only problem was in 1984, the 20 petroleum coming out was at $50 a barrel and the 21 Saudis, it was $20 a barrel and they dropped it down 22 to $16, so that made that economically unfeasible. So 23 there was another large project that really bears 24 recognition here. That was the Exxon Colony Shell Oil 25
77 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 Project. And they jumped in full steam ahead to take 1
our 2 million years of shale oil and get our diesel 2
fuel, our gasoline, our benzene, kerosene, light oils 3
out of it. You do the same thing with coal. You 4
grind it up, mix it with water into a slurry, into the 5
pipeline and into the chemical set. The gal with the 6
chemical industry, she was up a little while ago, she 7
knows what that's about.
8 And we have that available. In 1984, it 9
came to a grinding halt. I don't know why it came to 10 a grinding halt, but it did. I was new construction 11 sales manager of a company. I lost my job because of 12 that. Nothing was going on. There was no building 13 going on here, no nuclear plants being built, no 14 fossil plants, pretty much zero.
15 So what I see here today in the Year 2005 16 is that we're sort of dependent on foreign oil for our 17 existence, for our ability to get to and from work.
18 This is not a good situation for America, not a good 19 situation. And unless we start building, whether we 20 like it or not, the time for debate is over. The time 21 for debate has long since past about nuclear plants.
22 There's a hundred of them. They're all running. You 23 never hear a word about them, hardly a word about 24 them.
25
78 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 But I think that there are people in the 1
United States today that would like to turn this place 2
into a game farm and that's their wish, but you can't 3
do that. We have to live. There's 300 million 4
people, 280 to 283 million people and we have to 5
survive here and we desperately need energy. And 6
conservation is an aspirin to a man that has cancer.
7 It's not going to help you. In the long run, you're 8
going to be -- you'll take five gallons tomorrow and 9
I'll take five gallons the next day. That's no way 10 for Americans to live.
11 General Patton would be totally upset 12 here. He'd be as appalled as I am at what I see in 13 this generation and how we're approaching things. We 14 should go full steam ahead, build nuclear plants, 15 government involved, get the oil companies, they've 16 got a death grip on this thing, unfortunately, and I 17 know them pretty well. They've taken advantage of the 18 situation. And get the coal gas. We can get our 19 diesel fuel, our gasoline out of coal. We can put the 20 electrical workers to work, the hard hats, the 21 pipefitters, the steamfitters that I used to deal with 22 and so on. I know them intimately. And move forward 23 and put people to work.
24 There's one political party and I'm not 25
79 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 going to mention his name, but he keeps telling the 1
construction workers, well, you're in our party, but 2
now is not the time, now is not the time to time 3
anything, just wait your time. Meanwhile, we're 4
asking them to pay rent, a mortgage, whatever and put 5
food on the table. We can get Americans working 6
building coal gas plants, building nuclear plants and 7
at the same time making us independent, the way we 8
should be.
9 When I see Conoco-Phillips drilling oil in 10 the Soviet Union, what's that doing for me in the 11 United States? Do I want to be a prisoner of the 12 Russians? I certainly do not. I want to be 13 independent here. That's fine for them. I dealt with 14 the Minister of Oil and Gas in the fields in the 15 Soviet Union. I met the man, he's a 6 foot 7 Russian, 16 claims he didn't speak English and we met him at the 17 meeting and we were involved with a 56-inch pipeline 18 that was going from Siberia to Germany. Nobody knows 19 that exists either. There's a 56-inch gas line going 20 from Siberia to Germany. We were bidding the valves 21 on the thing. The company I was with, we had supplied 22 the Alaskan pipeline valves, the 800-mile pipeline 23 from Prudhoe Bay down to Valdez.
24 So there's quite a bit here. Nuclear is 25
80 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 part of the equation. It's not the whole equation, 1
but it's certainly needed in today's times and we have 2
no other choice. You're kidding yourselves with 3
windmills and other sources of renewable energy and 4
plant life and so on. It's just not going to work.
5 So unless we get behind this thing and technology that 6
I've seen at Oyster Creek, I put the containment 7
isolation valves in the 1981-1982 at Oyster Creek.
8 That's another story, it's too long to 9
tell here, but there are -- there was an upgrade of 10 equipment which they already had and it was unheard of 11 in this country. It came from Germany and it went 12 into Donald Cook 1 and 2, the containment isolation 13 valves; Limerick, Commonwealth Edison, etcetera, 14 etcetera. A superior product. When that shuts in the 15 walls of the containment, nothing is going out of 16 there, believe me because the equipment was tested at 17 11Gs vertical, 11Gs horizontal on an accelerator 18 table, and it passed with flying colors.
19 Okay, that's all I have to say.
20 (Applause.)
21 MR. CAMERON: Now we have another Ed Hogan 22 who is going to talk to us. Mr. Hogan.
23 MR. HOGAN (SON): Well, I'd just like to 24 say that nuclear power is part of the equation. There 25
81 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 was a lady this evening that said that we don't need 1
Oyster Creek, it only represents 1 percent of power.
2 We can just go on the power grid. However, the other 3
thing you have to take into consideration is you're 4
also going to be probably getting rid of $52 million 5
worth of revenue for Ocean County and it may even cost 6
more. Because if you're hooked up, those houses that 7
are receiving that energy from Oyster Creek, if they 8
get hooked on to the power grid, then they're going to 9
be paying more money for that energy, even if they 10 seem to think it's more environmentally sound. But 11 that's not -- that might be a Tooth Fairy issue, 12 actually.
13 Not only will we be paying more for that 14 energy, you probably -- it might actually depress the 15 economy a little bit because then there's all these 16 other service industries that are connected to all 17 that. It's something to keep in mind.
18 Environmentally, I'm a local in Ocean 19 County. I know first hand people who fish right 20 around the plant. They say they've never caught such 21 big fish in their life, or crabs for that matter and 22 none of them I've seen who I've known through the 23 years and I've been here for years, none of them have 24 come down with cancer, none of them are turning green 25
82 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 and none of them are glowing in the dark. That's one 1
thing I can say. And the gentleman from Forked River 2
who's lived here for his life and he's in the 3
Republican Party, he's told you that he sees more bass 4
in the bay, that's probably due to conservation, but 5
one thing you can say it's not because of Oyster Creek 6
is destroying those fish. If anything, it's helping 7
those fish spawn.
8 On a national security thing, if you get 9
rid of nuclear power, you're going to be getting rid 10 of our nuclear submarines, our nuclear battleships and 11 our nuclear aircraft carriers because they're all 12 powered by nuclear power. Right now, that's the only 13 way to protect the United States, so if you get rid of 14 all that, then you're also going to be getting rid of 15 all those businesses that make them and you'll be 16 probably at the whim of all these rogue nations that 17 now want to get nuclear power, so this whole ideal of 18 trying to get rid of nuclear power totally and just go 19 with all other alternatives is not really viable, 20 especially when you need nuclear power in this age to 21 defend your country with some pretty, you know, bad 22 people that don't really like the way we do things 23 here and don't like our freedom. That's another thing 24 to take a look at.
25
83 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 So nuclear power is part of the equation.
1 There's a lot of things you've got to take into 2
consideration with that, so just keep that in mind.
3 (Applause.)
4 MR. CAMERON: Thank you. We're going to 5
go to Mr. Rod Sterling and Judy Moken and finally Mr.
6 Stroup again. Ed Stroup.
7 Mr. Sterling?
8 MR. STERLING: I'm Rod Sterling. I'm a 9
candidate for Township Committee in Lacey Township.
10 I believe in skepticism of government agencies, 11 government officials, elected, appointed, etcetera. I 12 think it's a very healthy thing for people to be 13 skeptical of government agencies.
14 I am a genealogist to a degree. Some 15 years ago, quite a number of years ago I found a 16 distant ancestor that was in the right place, married 17 to a woman with the right name in North Carolina, but 18 in the 1800 census, his wife was the informant to the 19 census taker and she said he was 58 years old and she 20 was 26. And that threw me for quite a wile until I 21 read an obscure paragraph in a book about genealogy 22 and they talked about how in those early years people 23 were very skeptical of the federal government. She 24 lied because the man he was the son of was only about 25
84 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 55 years at that point in time and he couldn't 1
possibly have been his son had he been 58 years old.
2 She lied because she was afraid he would be 3
conscripted into the Army. He was out in the field.
4 She was the one talking to the census taker.
5 So I come from a long line of people that 6
are skeptical of the Federal Government. However, 7
there is a certain point in time when you have to put 8
this skepticism and say your fears, your suspicions 9
have been satisfied.
10 Now there's about a 100 or 105 of these 11 plants around the country. None of them have been 12 built since 1977 or so and they were all built in 13 about a 10-year window there. So let's just say the 14 average one is 30 years of age and there's about a 100 15 of them. That's 3,000 operating years of nuclear 16 power stations. And yet, all over the country there's 17 not a single proven cluster of cancer, leukemia, birth 18 defects, or anything else.
19 At that point in time, people should begin 20 to look at this and say this is safe and clean. Your 21 fears should be put aside. And also, I have to say 22 that the NRC it's not the same as talking to the IRS 23 or the Department of Justice. The stakes are pretty 24 high here. What is it that they're going to be paid 25
85 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 off with for being corrupt? And it just doesn't make 1
any sense. They have to breathe the same air we do.
2 At a certain point in time this ought to be satisfied.
3 I feel people that are alarmed by this, 4
that seem to worry about it day in and day out. And 5
I abhor a lot of politicians who further these fears 6
because it looks like they're fighting for their 7
constituents. I'm standing up for this thing. I have 8
no training in nuclear science, engineering. And I 9
rely upon certain people that do have the training, as 10 we all do throughout our lives. You go to a 11 physician. He tells you that you need this pill or 12 that pill. You're relying upon his training. I have 13 expertise in certain areas and I expect people when 14 they hire me to rely upon me in areas that I have 15 expertise in.
16 So of course, we have to rely upon these 17 people, and I don't believe that they have performed 18 in any way that would bring any doubt upon their 19 character or their ability and I hope that you people 20 will, in fact, find some solace in this and 21 satisfaction that there just isn't anything to base 22 this on.
23 Thank you.
24 (Applause.)
25
86 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Mr. Sterling.
1 We're going to go to Judy Moken.
2 MS. MOKEN: I'm not an expert on nuclear 3
power plants, but I want to explain something. In 4
1976, I was teaching school with another teacher and 5
the area around the plant had to go for tests within 6
a mile and a half. They were being treated with 7
leukemia and this was affecting people.
8 In Vanderbilt and I questioned about it, 9
you know, and everything, the teacher said that the 10 plant was built in 1967 and at the time there was no 11 regulatory data supporting when the plant was built or 12 any type of data regarding requirements, etcetera.
13 When I started doing the research on it at 14 the time, the plant was supposed to come up for 15 renewal and it kept on coming up for renewal and I 16 couldn't believe this and what happens is there's a 17 loophole in the clause that grandfathers any previous 18 data does not have to comply with the present data of 19 what has to go into the plant. And when I heard this, 20 you know, and everything, it was really questionable.
21 So I started doing some research about it.
22 And Vanderbilt University, the EDU, says 23 the RPHP [Radiation and Public Health Project]
24 research associates from Vanderbilt did a study on it 25
87 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 and they said that they had the four nuclear plants in 1
New Jersey listed and it said they've had considerable 2
radioactivity to the local environment, raising the 3
question of whether local residents have been harmed.
4 And then it goes on with the study. And it says about 5
the research group has investigated this issue as 6
documented facts that suggest such harm is occurring.
7 A number of these findings have been published in 8
peer-reviewed medical journals.
9 Radioactive emissions, the Oyster Creek 10 reactor began operations on May 3, 1969 making it the 11 oldest of the 103 U.S. reactors still in operation.
12 Now this is -- I got this off the web in 2001. So you 13 know.
14 The Salem and Hope Creek reactors -- it 15 goes on and on. And it says "Oyster Creek emitted 16 77.0 curies of airborne radioactivity in the period 17 from 1970 to 1993, the largest amount of any in U.S.
18 reactors." And it keeps on going.
19 And it talks about the similarity of the 20 average concentration of radioactive Strontium-90 in 21 222 New Jersey baby teeth is relatively constant after 22 1980 and then it keeps on going down and it says 23 "Ocean and Monmouth County children, under age 5, is 24 32.4 percent greater than the U.S. rate and 30.6 25
88 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 percent greater than any other New Jersey counties.
1 Ocean and Monmouth lie directly downwind of the Oyster 2
Creek reactor."
3 And then it keeps on going down and it 4
says "Cancer mortality in Ocean and Monmouth County 5
children under age 10 was 43.9 percent since the early 6
1980s, compared to the decline, 35.3 percent and 23.4 7
percent in the nation and the rest of New Jersey."
8 And then it keeps on going down about the 9
different kinds of cancers, leukemia, Hodgkins Disease 10 and non-Hodgkins Lymphoma and multiple myeloma.
11 And the report keeps on going on and I'm 12 sure if you want to contact the university or 13 whatever, Vanderbilt will still have the report on 14 file and this by the Ph.D. Jay M. Gould, Ph.D.,
15 Director; Ernest J. Sternglass, Ph.D., two scientists; 16 Jerry Brown, Ph.D.; Joseph Mangano, MPH, MBA; William 17 McDonnel, MA; Marsha Marks and so on.
18 So I'm just saying to everybody, there are 19 alternatives coming up. At the present time, dark 20 matter is being researched, dark energy. It still has 21 not been containable though yet. So I'm saying to 22 everybody there is future yes.
23 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Judy. We're 24 going to go on with the program here. We owe a couple 25
89 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 of answers. We have Mr. Stroup and I'm sorry if I'm 1
mispronouncing that.
2 Mr. Weinmann, we can get a clarification 3
for you or you can ask Judy. I think that's who you 4
wanted to ask a question to.
5 Mr. Stroup, could you come up?
6 MR. WEINMANN: I would like to point out 7
that any study done in that matter where the data is 8
pooled, without a control is making correlations that 9
are absolutely inaccurate and not valid 10 scientifically.
11 I am, myself a Ph.D., I work in cancer 12 research and cancer drugs and I know how you can 13 manipulate this data. This is manipulation of data 14 because you are not comparing apples to apples and 15 oranges to oranges.
16 MR. CAMERON: And Judy thank you for 17 bringing that to our attention. That's something that 18 we need to look at to see if it falls into whatever 19 category.
20 Mr. Stroup?
21 MR. STROUP: My name is Ed Stroup. I live 22 at 545 Longboat Avenue in Beachwood and I'm president 23 of Local 1289 and represent the members both at Oyster 24 Creek, the bargaining unit members about 250 of them, 25
90 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 and over 400 people that work at Jersey Central Power 1
and Light.
2 I made some statements earlier today at a 3
meeting that took place prior to this one. I'm not 4
going to bore you by repeating those. I stand by 5
them.
6 However, I do ask the NRC to look beyond 7
the hype and prejudice that's promoted by some people 8
through this course of hearings, statements that are 9
purported to be facts that often contain no truth at 10 all, one of which is there is not an excess of power 11 in the grid. In fact, PJM often calls the plant to 12 ensure that it continues to run during peak power 13 times to prevent blackouts and outages.
14 Oyster Creek should be relicensed. Here 15 are the reasons why. It's a safe plant. It's an 16 environmentally friendly plant. It provides needed 17 electricity for the state at a low cost compared to 18 oil and natural gas.
19 Oyster Creek provides good jobs and 20 supports the surrounding economy. Oyster Creek gives 21 to charities in the local economy.
22 Instead of calling for Oyster Creek to 23 shut down, everyone here tonight and at other meetings 24 should be thanking it for the benefit it provides to 25
91 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 the state. The strongest endorsement that I can give 1
to Oyster Creek, I believe, is this. My family in the 2
mid-1970s chose to move. We could have moved any 3
place. We chose to move close to the plant. My 4
mother wanted to return from Pennsylvania and at my 5
recommendations moved close to the plant. My aunt 6
returned from Florida and moved close to the plant, as 7
well as my brother-in-law and two other family groups.
8 We have always felt secure in those decisions for our 9
families to live close to Oyster Creek and we still 10 do.
11 Although I no longer work at Oyster Creek, 12 I did for 24 years. I've seen everything there is to 13 see there. I've been in every part of the plant. I 14 personally know highly-trained, highly-skilled, 15 dedicated people who work there. That's why I'm 16 comfortable with my family living close to Oyster 17 Creek.
18 I strongly recommend and support the life 19 extension for Oyster Creek and it should be granted 20 another 20 years.
21 Thank you very much.
22 (Applause.)
23 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Mr. Stroup.
24 Peggi Sturmfels brought up the issue of how does the 25
92 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 NRC rated for a framework of license renewal take into 1
account the fact that additional spent fuel is going 2
to be generated when we -- when there is not a 3
national solution yet to the spent fuel disposal 4
option and apparently you asked us that before and 5
Mike Masnik is going to talk to that now and then 6
we're going to get to the point that Mr. Brown raised.
7 Mike?
8 DR. MASNIK: Yes. The Commission is 9
concerned about continued on-site storage of spent 10 fuel and a number of years ago directed the staff to 11 look into this issue. Ultimately, it resulted in the 12 Commission developing a waste confidence rule. This 13 is a rule that was issued back in the 1980s. It 14 basically states that the Commission has made a 15 generic determination that if necessary, spent fuel in 16 any reactor can be safely stored without significant 17 environmental impact for an additional 30 years past 18 the licensed life of the plant, even considering any 19 future license renewals.
20 Now that determination was based on a very 21 exhaustive safety review and it also included an 22 environmental review. So the waste confidence rule 23 also concludes that there is reasonable assurance that 24 we will have one mined geological repository available 25
93 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 for disposal of that fuel during the first quarter of 1
the 21st century.
2 MR. CAMERON: And Mike, for everybody's 3
benefit, two issues, I guess, is that if Peggi or 4
anybody else wanted to read about the rationale and 5
again people may not accept the rationale, but they 6
wanted to see it put forth, is that in the original 7
license renewal rulemaking or in the generic 8
environmental impact statement on license renewal? Is 9
there a discussion on that?
10 DR. MASNIK: There is discussion in the 11 generic environmental impact statement, but probably 12 the easiest is to look in 10 CFR part 51.23.
13 MR. CAMERON: That may not put it in the 14 context of license renewal.
15 MR. MASNIK: That's right, but at the end 16 of that section there will be a Federal Register 17 notice citation that will give a lot more information.
18 So that will give you the background and that, along 19 with looking it up in the generic environmental impact 20 statement, which is on our website, will provide a lot 21 more detail.
22 MR. CAMERON: If we can make it easier for 23 you to find those documents, we'll do that. The 24 second point is that is it true, I think it's true 25
94 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 that the Commission said that it would go back and 1
reexamine that waste confidence decision if facts 2
necessitated it to go back and reexamine the decision.
3 For example, if Yucca Mountain was not going to become 4
a reality, which we don't know yet, but if that 5
happened, the Commission would reexamine the decision.
6 DR. MASNIK: Right.
7 MR. CAMERON: Okay.
8 UNIDENTIFIED AUDIENCE PARTICIPANT: Do we 9
have a time frame for that?
10 MR. CAMERON: There's no time -- the 11 Commission's last look at the waste confidence 12 decision was, I believe, a few years ago where it said 13 that they were not going to review the decision at 14 that time because DOE was on the verge of submitting 15 a license application to us. So until it appears that 16 the Department of Energy is definitely not going to 17 submit an application, they probably will just wait 18 and see what happens with that.
19 And we can also try to get you the 20 documented citation for that last Commission decision 21 where they said they were not going to revisit waste 22 confidence at that time.
23 Okay? Mr. Brown asked us a question and 24 if we could get the copy of these pages of the 25
95 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 transcript to Mr. Brown, who had to leave and we do 1
have his address I think it would be helpful to him.
2 His question was two part, I think, which 3
was what's been the NRC track record in terms of 4
granting license renewal applications? Have we turned 5
any down and what are the objective criteria that 6
someone could go and look at to see if you meet these, 7
you're okay; if you don't meet these, you're not okay.
8 So I think they're related.
9 Rani, you wanted to talk to Mr. Brown's 10 question?
11 MS. FRANOVICH: Yes. We have never failed 12 to grant license renewal to an applicant. We have, on 13 occasion, returned applications to applicants for 14 license renewal because the submittal was sufficiently 15 complete or accurate for us to accept it for 16 docketing.
17 Once an applicant prepares an application 18 for renewal, it's a substantial commitment, an 19 investment of time and money for them to submit it to 20 the NRC for review. As such, it's in their best 21 interest to work with the NRC in getting information 22 to the staff that it needs to complete its review.
23 And that is, in large part, why we've never denied a 24 license renewal application request. It's a long 25
96 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 process from the time that the application is 1
received. I believe it's a 22-month process that the 2
staff reviews the information, discusses parts of the 3
application with the applicant, submits requests for 4
additional information that are provided and answered 5
under oath or affirmation by the licensees, by the 6
applicants.
7 And so it's during this exchange of 8
information that involves thousands of man hours on 9
both sides that the staff obtains the information it 10 needs to have reasonable assurance that aging will be 11 managed in accordance with requirements of 10 CFR part 12 54 and the renewed license is granted.
13 Does that answer the question?
14 MR. CAMERON: Mr. Brown isn't here right 15 now, but let me try to just represent some of his 16 concerns which I guess one is when you talk about 17 returning the license application because it would not 18 have met our review standards, is that correct?
19 MS. FRANOVICH: It didn't meet our 20 acceptance standards. We have a process on the safety 21 side and on the environmental side where we review the 22 application to ensure that it's complete and 23 sufficient for the staff to at least initiate its 24 review.
25
97 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 We may accept it for docketing and still 1
ask for additional information, but it has to meet a 2
certain standard to be acceptable for docketing and if 3
it's not, then we will fail to accept it for 4
docketing. In this one case, we return the 5
application to the applicant.
6 MR. CAMERON: And when we do accept an 7
application and we're reviewing it, is there a process 8
where ask the applicant for additional information 9
which if they didn't give us would mean that we might 10 stop reviewing the application? I mean can you tell 11 us a little bit about that process?
12 MS. FRANOVICH: That has also occurred on 13 a license renewal application where the applicant was 14 requested to submit quite a bit of information and 15 both the applicant and the staff came to the 16 conclusion that perhaps the review should be stopped, 17 temporarily while the applicant could go back and 18 augment its application, substantially. I believe 19 four months later they submitted a new and augmented 20 application for renewal and the staff reinitiated its 21 review.
22 MR. CAMERON: Okay and Mr. Brown's 23 question about standards, this afternoon we talked 24 about where government agencies, Federal Government 25
98 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 agencies, have all other rules, whether it's health, 1
human services whatever, the rules are in here, our 2
rules are in here in Title 10 of the Code of Federal 3
Regulations.
4 Rani mentioned a part of this code which 5
is part 54. That's where the standards are for what 6
a license applicant has to meet to get renewal, but in 7
addition to that are there detailed review plans or 8
guidance that provide a lot of detail? I mean if Mr.
9 Brown wanted to look at the regulations and then he 10 wanted to look at these other materials, he might get 11 an idea about as he calls them, objective criteria 12 are?
13 MS. FRANOVICH: Yes, that's true too. We 14 have a standard review plan for license renewal. It's 15 a new reg. Donnie, do you know what the number of the 16 new reg. is? It's a new reg. that provides guidance 17 to the staff on how they perform their safety review 18 for license renewal. So if any member of the public 19 would like a little more detail about what it is the 20 staff is looking for to have reasonable assurance that 21 aging will be effectively managed, that's the document 22 to look at.
23 It's on our public website. If you go to 24 the public website and click on license renewal, the 25
99 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 standard review plan and other review guidance are 1
available. Dr. Masnik may have something more here.
2 NUREG 1800. That is the standard review 3
plan for license renewal applications for nuclear 4
power plants.
5 MR. CAMERON: Okay. I didn't want anybody 6
to think that it was just a black box or a wing and a 7
prayer type of review.
8 Judy, did you have a question about this?
9 MS. MOKEN: Yes, does the plant have to 10 update their materials up to the new standards or do 11 they go by when it was being built, previous standards 12 when it was constructed.
13 MS. FRANOVICH: That's a good question and 14 updating to new standards is really a part 50 issue.
15 In other words, if the staff or the Commission feels 16 that the standards that a plant is meeting now are not 17 acceptable, it will backfit that plant to a new 18 standard. That has nothing to do with license 19 renewal. It's something we do now. For license 20 renewal, the focus is on aging management.
21 MS. MOKEN: Do they have to go by 22 construction requirements?
23 MS. FRANOVICH: Not if they're backfitted.
24 If they're backfitted, then they have to implement --
25
100 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 MS. MOKEN: Going back to 1960s.
1 MS.
FRANOVICH:
I'm not sure I'm 2
following.
3 MR. CAMERON: I think there might be some 4
confusion here. Judy, let me ask her what I think 5
you're asking and you can correct me.
6 When we review a
application, are we reviewing it based on our 8
standards as of this moment, as opposed to what the 9
standards would have been back when the plant was 10 originally licensed..
11 MS. FRANOVICH: Okay.
12 MS. MOKEN: That's right.
13 MS. FRANOVICH: Okay. Over the course of 14 the life of the plant from the time it's constructed 15 and it's given its initial operating license it 16 operates over a period of -- well, Oyster Creek is 17 what, 35 years. And the licensing basis of that plant 18 changes over time. They implement modifications, new 19 requirements are imposed, and so they have to modify 20 their plant to meet those new requirements.
21 When we perform a license renewal review, 22 the review is against the current licensing basis, 23 which means the licensing basis that they've had to 24 comply with over the period of the 35 years since 25
101 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 original construction which is above and beyond what 1
they complied with at the time that the plant was 2
constructed.
3 Does that answer your question?
4 MR. CAMERON: It's current that they have 5
to meet --
6 MS. FRANOVICH: Currently required.
7 MR. CAMERON: Currently required, okay.
8 Not when it was built.
9 Rani, do you want to close this out? Do 10 you have a question?
11 MS. ELENESKI: I am not a speaker, so 12 excuse me. I'm a mom --
13 MR. CAMERON: Please introduce yourself.
14 MS. ELENESKI: My name is Diane Eleneski.
15 I'm from Brick. I'm a mom. I'm concerned. I have 16 great compassion for all of you. I know this is your 17 jobs. I think that when I look at life and I look at 18 New Jersey, I consider myself a New Jerseyian first.
19 And I have great regard and respect for this state.
20 I have seen it exploited from one end to the other.
21 I have seen debris left all over and I look and think 22 about these rods which I guess in 10 years there's 23 going to be a solution and yeah, you know, like here, 24 New Jersey is going to become the dumping ground.
25
102 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 The most important thing I can do as a 1
parent is to leave a good legacy to my children. I 2
can think of nothing better than a good Earth. That's 3
something that all the money in the world can't buy.
4 I can hope that from this and out of this we can 5
create a better New Jersey. And if it means removing 6
this plant, that's what would occur. If it means it's 7
safer for my children, for my grandchildren, if it 8
means that part of New Jersey would remain intact, 9
better than it was when I lived here, that would be my 10 goal as a parent.
11 Another thing was safety. Somebody said 12 you were going to pop a cork at the atomic plant.
13 Maybe in 1960 when I went to OCC or when you opened, 14 that would have been a concern of mine. However, I 15 did choose Ocean County to come and reside in. And as 16 I reside here and I look at our world and what it's 17 like right now, the situations that were occurring, 18 terrorist attacks, our children have had to learn to 19 live with a different kind of world. I look and I'm 20 sure they practice fire drills in between towers.
21 Yet, I'm sure many of you have lost people 22 that were in those towers or people that did lose 23 people. And I look and I know if anything happened, 24 any type of terrorist attack, if anything happened 25
103 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 that caused some type of an evacuation in this area, 1
with the population increase that has occurred in the 2
past gosh, it's over 40 years now that I have been in 3
this area, I know that people would not safely get 4
out. There's no way. You can't get down the parkway 5
in the summertime.
6 Give me a break, we can't get through 7
town. So when I look at this, yes, I have concerns.
8 I have very great concerns and I'm not even looking at 9
medical issues or other things.
10 I
think technology and things are 11 wonderful for this world and I look forward to 12 advancement, but I think when we have such a densely 13 populated area, we've got to look at number one, 14 safety. And also that important part of what is there 15 for our children? I go back and I think of when my 16 daughter started kindergarten.
17 To give you a story -- you got a number of 18 them from the people that work at the plant and I look 19 and I reflect on that and I think how much change has 20 occurred. My dad worked at the plant. I worked at 21 the plant, but know what? I went to my daughter's 22 class the first time she started school. She's since 23 graduated college, so it was a number of years ago.
24 As I walked in there were parents that were there and 25
104 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 they turned, they too had attended his elementary 1
school and I had not.
2 In fact, at that time come to the area and 3
was raising my family. I had been teaching up in 4
Morristown and when I entered the school was appalled 5
at what I saw. They didn't have computers. They 6
didn't have the technology. Children can go to the 7
library. But the comment that hurt me the most or 8
made me really wonder about people was as we left that 9
building someone turned and said, it's great. It 10 hasn't changed since I was here. And know what, those 11 are just the feelings a mom has. And a person who was 12 very proud of the state she was raised in and has 13 lived her entire life.
14 I love this state. I want it to be the 15 best it can be. Two areas that just totally destroyed 16 by people when I look at Seaville and I see what was 17 left there. What's going to be left this time?
18 That's all I can say. I didn't even need 19 a mic.
20 MR. CAMERON: Thank you. I think we got 21 it.
22 Rani, do you want to close out the meeting 23 for us?
24 MR. HOGAN: What about the comment period?
25
105 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 MR. CAMERON: I think we're probably done 1
with the comment period, Mr. Hogan. Otherwise, I 2
think we're just going to go on and on hearing from 3
people and that was perhaps a heartfelt, not perhaps, 4
but a heartfelt comment for us to depend on. Rani?
5 MS. FRANOVICH: All right, Chip. Again, 6
I just want to thank everyone for coming out tonight, 7
taking time in your busy schedules to participate in 8
this meeting. We've gotten a lot of really good 9
questions and some really good comments tonight too, 10 so we're going to take those back with us and take 11 them under consideration.
12 One of the items you were handed as you 13 came to our meeting today is an NRC public meeting 14 feedback form. If you have any ideas or suggestions 15 on how we might be able to improve our public meeting 16 process, please let us know, share with us your 17 thoughts on how this meeting went and what we might do 18 better next time.
19 It's postage paid, so all you have to do 20 is fold it up and put it in the mail and it will get 21 to where it needs to be in the NRC offices and 22 headquarters.
23 Also, I want to remind you that if you 24 have comments on the scope of the environmental 25
106 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 review, you can provide those in writing. We're 1
accepting those comments through November 14, 2005 and 2
Dr. Masnik is the point of contact for those comments.
3 And finally, the NRC staff and contractors will be 4
staying for a few minutes after the meeting, if you 5
want to approach any one of us for any other questions 6
or comments you'd like to share.
7 Thank you again very much.
8 (Applause.)
9 (Whereupon, at 9:29 p.m., the public 10 meeting was concluded.)
11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25
107 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 1