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