ML061940172
| ML061940172 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Vermont Yankee  |
| Issue date: | 06/27/2006 |
| From: | Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel |
| To: | |
| Byrdsong A T | |
| References | |
| 50-271-OLA, ASLBP 04-832-02-OLA, NRC-1108, RAS 11965 | |
| Download: ML061940172 (108) | |
Text
1g's Ijq(0 Official Transcript of Proceedings NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Title:
Entergy Nuclear Vermont Yankee Public. Meeting DOCKETED USNRC July 12, 2006 (12:10pm)
Docket Number: (not applicable) OFFICE OF SECRETARY RULEMAKINGS AND ADJUDICATIONS STAFF Location: Brattleboro, Vermont Date: Tuesday, June 27, 2006 Work Order No.: NRC-1 108 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 SEC I -()CC
1 2
3 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 4 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 5 ATOMIC SAFETY AND LICENSING BOARD 6 +++++
7 8 ---------------------------------------- x 9 IN THE MATTER OF:
10 ENTERGY NUCLEAR VERMONT YANKEE L.L.C.
11 and ENTERGY NUCLEAR OPERATIONS, INC.
12 (VERMONT YANKEE NUCLEAR POWER STATION) 13--------------------------------------- x 14 Tuesday 15 June 27, 2006 16 17 Latchis Theater 18 50 Main Street 19 Brattleboro, Vermont 20 21 The above-entitled matter was convened, 22 pursuant to Notice, at 9:06 a.m.
23 BEFORE: ALEX S. KARLIN, Administrative Judge 24 ANTHONY BARATTA, Administrative Judge 25 LESTER RUBENSTEIN, Administrative Judge 26 MARCIA CARPENTIER, Law Clerk Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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2 1 INDEX 2 SPEAKER: PAGE:
3 MORNING SESSION 4 Alex Karlin 4 5 Deb Katz 18 6 Claire Chang 23 7 Bob English 27 8 Chad Simmons 31 9 Alan Steinberg 34 10 Jill Nightlichts 38 11 Thomas Matsuta 42 12 AFTERNOON SESSION 13 Alice Jurcik 56 14 Margaret Bartenhagen 59 15 Gaella Ellwell 64 16 Ellen Tenney 66 17 Jane Newton 68 18 Richard Foley 70 19 Sara Cotcove 79 20 Janet Schwarz 82 21 Martha Cooper 85 22 Alicia Moyer 87 23 Peter Diamondstone 90 24 Sally Shaw 93 25 Gary Sachs 95 Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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3 1 INDEX 2 SPEAKER: PAGE:
3 Mary Alice Herbert 98 4 Shawna Frank 101 5
6 7
8 9
10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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4 1 PROCEEDING S 2 (9:06 a.m.)
3 MR. KARLIN: Let's begin the proceeding, 4 if we may. I appreciate people coming and being a bit 5 patient. The starting time was 9:05, but given that, 6 you know, we wanted to make sure some of the people 7 were able to arrive who had signed up to speak, we 8 waited a few minutes, so thank you for that, and I 9 expect others may arrive. I saw, I understand there 10 are some signs out in the community and the town 11 indicating this would be at 9:30, I don't know how that 12 arose or that confusion arose because our notices were 13 for 9:00 a.m. So, for those of you who arrived on 14 time, we wanted to start relatively promptly.
15 I might begin by introducing ourselves, 16 myself, to you all. We are three administrative law 17 judges or administrative judges, I'm a legal judge, 18 these are two technical judges, and we have been 19 appointed to conduct an adjudicatory hearing or 20 proceeding in the matter of, and what I will do here is 21 read the formal title for purposes of the record, and 22 this is being transcribed, in the matter of Entergy 23 Nuclear Vermont Yankee, LLC. It's a Docket number 24 50-5710LA and it's an application by Entergy for a 20 25 percent uprate in power for its facility here in Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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5 1 Vernon, Vermont.
2 For the record, today's date is June 27th 3 and the proceeding is being held in the Latchis Theatre 4 in Brattleboro, Vermont. To my left is Dr. Anthony 5 Baratta, he has a Ph.D. in Nuclear Engineering and he 6 is the Associate Chief Judge of the Atomic Safety and 7 Licensing Board Panel, of which we are all members. To 8 my right is Les Rubenstein, who has almost 40 years of 9 technical and leadership experience at the NRC, 10 including the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board, the 11 NRC before that and the Atomic Energy Commission before 12 that. My name is Alex Karlin, I'm a lawyer by 13 training, and I am one of the judges here and the chair 14 of this particular three-judge board.
15 Second, what I'm going to do is have these 16 introctory remarks. For those of you who were here 17 yesterday, please bear with us because it's very 18 similar but I thought it would be useful for the 19 attendees who are here for today's session. We are 20 going to thank the Latchis Theatre for accommodating us 21 and allowing us to be here. I understand other 22 proceedings, other NRC meetings have been held here, 23 but this is the first time the Atomic Safety and 24 Licensing Board, to my knowledge, has been here, 25 certainly the first time, today and last night, the Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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6 1 first time we've been here, so thanks to them.
2 Gail Nunziato, Rick Taft, Darren Goldsmith 3 and David Woodbury have been most helpful in getting us 4 set up, and we welcome the public interest here today 5 and participation and we are glad to see so many people 6 who up on a work day, this is a work day and I know 7 that makes it hard. We held a session last night so 8 that people who had work issues could attend last 9 night.
10 We are here to conduct what's known as a 11 limited appearance statement session of the Atomic 12 Safety and Licensing Board, this is a time for the 13 board, the judges, to listen to the public and to hear 14 comments about, and their concerns about the uprate at 15 Vermont Yankee. This is set up under a particular 16 section of the law, the regulations, I0CRF2.315(c), if 17 you want to look it up.
18 What I thought we would do, I would do, is 19 try to cover five items before we start, first is 20 housekeeping. Second, a little bit about what the 21 Atomic Safety and Licensing Board is and isn't and what 22 we do, third is the history of this proceeding, fourth 23 is the purpose of limited appearance statement sessions 24 and what their function is and fifth is the procedures 25 we would like to try to follow here this morning for Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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7 1 the statements by the public. Housekeeping, first, 2 just basics. If you have cell phones, if you could 3 turn them off or put them on vibrate and, if you have 4 cell phone conversations, if you could take them out in 5 the hall, that would be appreciated.
6 The media is welcome. I'm not sure 7 whether they are here today or will arrive later, they 8 were here last night and we find this is an excellent 9 way to have some greater public understanding and 10 information about what's going on. And we have a 11 transcript that's going to be taken here by Mr. Farley 12 and that will be available in the ASLBP or the NRC 13 website in about ten days so, if you want to access 14 that, you can. All of our proceedings are transcribed 15 and all of them, the transcriptions, are then available 16 a few days or a week or two later.
17 Second, I would like to overview the 18 nature of the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board and 19 what our role is in this matter. We have outside in 20 the lobby as you came in, some materials that you might 21 want to access, one of them is a little brochure that 22 explains a little bit what the Atomic Safety and 23 Licensing Board Panel is and does and you are welcome 24 to take those. We also have copies of the notice that 25 went out explaining what this hearing is about, so you Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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8 1 might look at that.
2 Anyway, the federal law created the 3 Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the Atonic Energy Act 4 created the Atomic Energy Commission and now the 5 Nuclear Regulatory Commission. And the NRC is headed 6 by five commissioners who are appointed by the 7 president and confirmed by the senate so, often times, 8 when we refer to the NRC, it is the commissioners, the 9 commissioners, the five of them make the ultimate 10 decisions of the NRC. The commissioners have a large 11 staff of expert regulatory, technical, legal people who 12 work with them and for them and with regulated agencies 13 and entities like Entergy in the licensing process, so 14 sometimes we'll refer to the NRC staff.
15 There are the commissioners, there is the 16 staff and then there is the Atomic Safety and Licensing 17 Board and board panel, which has a relatively 18 independent and very different role. We are appointed, 19 the judges on this Atomic Safety and Licensing Board 20 Panel are appointed for life to positions where we 21 don't get performance reviews from the commissioners or 22 anyone else on the NRC staff, we don't get raises, we 23 don't get fired, we don't get bonuses, we can't have 24 salary taken away from us for the decisions we make.
25 We have, therefore, some and I think very useful and Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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9 1 real independence in calling them as we see them, in 2 terms of hearings and issues that are brought before 3 us.
4 We have rules that deal with courts that 5 prohibit us from talking with staff, the Entergy 6 lawyers or licensees, the environmental groups that 7 appear before us. I mean we can say good morning, we 8 can say how the weather is but, if it's anything of 9 substance to do with a case that's before us, we are, 10 they are not to speak with us and we are not to speak 11 with them. So I think you should assume that we do not 12 necessarily know what the NRC staff or the applicant 13 said to you two months ago or three weeks ago at a 14 hearing. We know what's presented to us in a court 15 room or in writing and what happens when statements are 16 made, we don't talk with them separately. That's 17 what's known as ex parte communications and those are 18 prohibited both ways.
19 Likewise, we don't talk with the 20 commissioners, they don't come and tell us what they 21 think we should rule on any case, we can't talk with 22 them, they can't talk with us and we don't. We rule as 23 the best our lights allow us to do and if we are wrong 24 or somebody thinks we are wrong and wants to appeal, 25 they can appeal it to the commissioners and then they Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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10 1 make a decision, and render a decision and so be it.
2 Sometimes we are affirmed, sometimes we are reversed, 3 but we are not in a position and we do not communicate 4 with them about cases that are pending before us or 5 much else, really. These rules are set up to help us 6 be as independent as possible and the key point is that 7 the board is set up by statute, there are some 8 regulations and statutes that set up this board as an 9 independent entity.
10 Third, a brief history of this proceeding.
11 Many of you, as I said last night, may know a great 12 deal about the history of this proceeding, perhaps more 13 than some of us, in some detail, certainly, but I think 14 it's worth summarizing. In distinguishing what this 15 proceeding is from what some other proceedings that are 16 going on in parallel, in September of 2003, Entergy 17 submitted an application for an uprate, the application 18 was submitted to the NRC staff, essentially. In 2004, 19 July of 2004, the NRC issued a notice saying anyone who 20 would like to object to this or request a hearing has a 21 certain amount of time to request a hearing, 60 days, 22 and so requests were received, petitions were received 23 from the State of Vermont and from the New England 24 Coalition and that was in late August of '04, and this 25 board was appointed in September of '04 to rule on and Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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11 1 address those requests for a hearing.
2 In the process that we have, the first 3 step is to determine whether or not the request for a 4 hearing should be granted and, if so, then a hearing is 5 later held. So we came up here in October of '04, and 6 met in the middle school and heard arguments from the 7 lawyers, the litigants, the people who had filed the 8 petition, the State of Vermont, New England Coalition 9 staff and Entergy, as to whether or not the contentions 10 that had been proposed were sufficiently specific to, 11 under the rules, and there are rules we have to go by, 12 to grant the request for a hearing.
13 We had two days of oral arguments and, at 14 the end of that time frame, in November of '04, we 15 issued a written ruling that said, yes, we were 16 granting the request for a hearing, an adjudicatory 17 hearing, and so that decision was issued. So the 18 natural question is, well, okay, in November of '04 you 19 granted a hearing request, when did the hearing occur, 20 that was a long time ago? And the answer is it hasn't 21 occurred yet, and the next question is, well, why not, 22 has this board been sloughing off or not particularly 23 attending to the issue?
24 And the answer is we are constrained by 25 the laws and the regs just like anybody else, perhaps Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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12 1 even more so, as judges, we want to comply with that 2 and the NRC regs set up a system where the hearings are 3 not supposed to occur, the adjudicatory hearings are 4 not supposed to occur until the staff has finished 5 doing its work and sometimes the staff can't finish 6 doing its work until the applicant has gotten all the 7 information in, and so there was a lag of time, until 8 March 3rd of '06, when the staff issued what's called 9 the safety evaluation report, and that was the key 10 event that then allowed us to proceed to move towards 11 the hearing as promptly as we could.
12 Once that happened, we required the 13 parties to submit written testimony to us, exhibits, 14 testimony, and then they filed rebuttal testimony, they 15 just finished doing that. There are some other 16 submissions they will be making and then we will be 17 holding the evidentiary hearing in September of '06 up 18 here in, it's in Newfane, actually, in the courtroom in 19 Newfane. It's a facility that, happily, they made 20 available to us, so the hearing will be in the week of 21 September 11th on the, the adjudicatory hearing on the 22 two remaining contentions in this case, those are 23 brought by New England Coalition.
24 The State of Vermont, as I think you all 25 know, has recently settled and dropped out of the case.
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13 1 They had two contentions we were preparing to have 2 litigated before us, but those will no longer be heard.
3 Well, at least the state has dropped out, so that's, 4 and they have settled with Entergy. And finally, as 5 part of our preparation for the evidentiary hearing, we 6 have issued this notice for a limited appearance 7 statement session, it was in the Federal Register on 8 April 14th.
9 Before we leave the topic of the history, 10 I thought two points needed to be mentioned. A logical 11 questions, if I was in your seat, perhaps, is, well, 12 the uprate has already been implemented, hasn't it?
13 Then why is this board here and why and how are they 14 holding a hearing to deal with the uprate, because that 15 is the scope of what we are considering, and the best 16 way, I'm going to just read from the notice, if you 17 want to get a copy of it, it's out there, but I wrote 18 this and I thought it was a way to try to address that.
19 It's footnote number one in the notice we put out and 20 I'll just read it.
21 The commission regulations permit the NRC 22 staff to approve a license amendment and to authorize 23 the licensee to implement the action, e.g. the uprate, 24 prior to the adjudicatory hearing, if the NRC staff 25 determines that the amendment involves no significant Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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14 1 hazards consideration, and there is a reg that deals 2 with that and I cited it. That is what has happened 3 here. On March 2, 2006, after finding that there are 4 no significant hazard considerations associated with 5 the Vermont Yankee uprate, the NRC staff approved 6 Entergy's request for the license amendment and Entergy 7 has already begun to implement the uprate, and I got 8 that from the newspapers because that's all I have, no 9 one else told me about it, but it is apparent that they 10 are doing that and maybe have done it completely.
11 However, the NRC staff decision shall have 12 no effect on the responsibility and authority of this 13 board to rule on the validity of the objections raised 14 by the interveners here in. As the commissioners 15 recently explained, well let me just back up for a 16 little bit. NEC challenged the no significant hazards 17 consideration determination, if I understand it 18 correctly, and they went to the commission, and the 19 commission was asked to address that issues and they 20 did, and I'll quote this, "as the commission recently 21 explained, if the board determines, after full 22 adjudication, that the license amendment should not 23 have been granted, it may revoke or condition the 24 license amendment", and I cited the decision by the 25 commission on March 3rd of '06.
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15 1 So that is why we are having a hearing, 2 even though the uprate has been granted by the staff.
3 We now have a hearing on the merits and if we decide 4 there is something that needs to be done or improper 5 about it, we have authority and responsibility to do 6 something about it. The other point of the history and 7 final point is there is also a renewal proceeding going 8 on, at this point, and that is not what we are here for 9 today, the renewal is a separate adjudicatory 10 proceeding. Think about it this way, in 2003, Entergy 11 applied for the uprate, the procedures I just described 12 occurred and an uprate hearing was going to be held.
13 Okay, in January of '06, Entergy applied 14 for a renewal, that process is kind of, as far as the 15 adjudicatory proceeding, just at the beginning. They 16 applied for a renewal, it was noticed in the Federal 17 Register, four entities came and requested a hearing on 18 the renewal, a board was established and that board 19 will hear oral arguments on whether or not the 20 contentions, I believe there are a 11 contentions by 21 those four parties, should meet the requirements for a 22 grant of a hearing. That will be on August Ist and 2nd 23 here in this area, we don't have a location set yet for 24 that board, that's a different board.
25 I'm on both boards, as the chairman, but Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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16 1 the two technical judges on the renewal board are 2 different, so there will be a separate board hearing.
3 So we are not really here focusing, we are not here 4 focusing on the renewal at all, we are here to listen 5 about the uprate and that's the only thing we have any, 6 this board has any power or authority to do anything 7 about.
8 The purpose of this proceeding, the fourth 9 point. The purpose of a limited appearance statement 10 proceeding is for us to listen to your comments 11 concerning the uprate, it's for the members of the 12 public to alert the board as to issues and areas 13 related to the uprate that you think we should 14 consider. What you say here is not testimony, it's not 15 under oath, it's not like in a trial or a hearing, an 16 adjudicatory proceeding. But it is being recorded, it 17 will be in the docket and if you say something that is 18 significant and it says to us we need to look into 19 that, we have the authority to look into that, with 20 regard to the contentions that are presented, 21 especially.
22 So we are, that's the reason for this and 23 we thought it would be worthwhile to have it before, 24 immediately before or soon before the evidentiary 25 hearing begins so, when we have that hearing, we may Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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17 1 have honed our questions and better focus on certain 2 things that you may have pointed out to us that weren't 3 pointed out by anybody else, but the bottom line is for 4 us to listen and for you to talk.
5 Finally, procedures for this morning, the 6 same thing as we did last night. We asked people to 7 pre-register in our notice, back in April, and some 8 people did send in e-mails and preregistrations, so we 9 are going to call them, and we have a list, in order, 10 first come, first serve, as whoever registered, we'll 11 take them in that order.
12 Next, we have a table out back, a 13 registration table, anybody who wants to register to 14 speak today, please do so, so we can have the name, and 15 have it recorded in the transcript and spelled 16 properly. Sign in, they'll be shuttling up to me 17 additional names as people sign in.
18 If you don't want to speak but want to 19 submit something, there is written limited appearance 20 statements you can make and the e-mail address is in 21 the notice but, let's see, it's kcv, Ketchup Sierra 22 Victor, I guess, @nrc.gov, that would be the address 23 for sending in limited appearance statements in 24 writing. And our approach, first come, first serve, is 25 to shoot for about five minutes for each person, go Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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18 1 through the whole list of people who have signed up.
2 If someone really wants to speak again or has more that 3 they need to say at the end of going through the sign 4 ups, and we have time, and I think we probably will, we 5 can have some more time for that person in that order.
6 And I think that's about it. Before I 7 proceed, is there anything else either of my colleagues 8 want to say or add?
9 MR. RUBENSTEIN: No.
10 MR. KARLIN: Okay, all right. Let's see, 11 thank you all for your patience, for listening to that 12 little spiel, I hope it was helpful in explaining a 13 little bit of who we are and what we are doing. Let me 14 see, now the list. The list that I have so far, for 15 this session, is Deb Katz is the first person who 16 signed up. Claire Chang is next, so if she could be 17 sort of in the bullpen, but the microphones are up 18 here. We have brought a spotlight down from behind, so 19 hopefully it will help with your ability to read your 20 notes.
21 Ms. Katz, the floor is yours.
22 MS. KATZ: My name is Deb Katz, I'm the 23 Executive Director of the Citizens Awareness Network, 24 and we actually have been involved with many lawsuits 25 with your organization and have been in fact before the Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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19 1 Atomic Safety and Licensing Board. So the first 2 comments I want to make are in some ways directed at 3 the process, since we have gone through it. We are 4 very concerned. I understand the rationale you gave 5 toady for separating the public comment from the 6 hearing, but I actually think it's a grave mistake, and 7 it's a mistake first in terms of education because the 8 public, that could learn from the process of the 9 hearing where the issues are elucidated and articulated 10 and then could make comments to you, are unable to do 11 SO.
12 So, four months before the hearing is 13 going to take place, the public is asked to comment on 14 things that are very hard to understand. We think 15 that's a mistake and an error in judgement. This is 16 also a hearing on an action that has already been 17 completed and there is a real air of futility in this 18 community that in fact there is going to be the ability 19 to listen and to act because in fact the weight is in 20 favor of the operator continuing to do what he does 21 because if he stopped, it will cost him money, and the 22 NRC is very concerned about not costing operators 23 money.
24 We think we saw this at Yankee Row where 25 the licensee was allowed to repeatedly go through Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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20 1 decommissioning activities before our hearing, and even 2 though we won our hearing, we were told it was too late 3 to do anything about it because they had already done 4 the work. We are very concerned that this process is 5 continuing and it's continuing not just in terms of 6 decommissioning but in terms of an operating reactor, 7 and we think it really weighs unfairly in the 8 licensee's ability to keep going.
9 I also want to look, you raised the issue 10 of the no significant hazards consideration and I think 11 it should be mentioned that Commissioner Jasco in fact 12 objected to that and objected severely, and I'm 13 concerned that you didn't even mention that here 14 because it's very controversial, that he spoke out as 15 an individual commissioner and disagreed, in terms of 16 the use and manipulation of the no significant hazards 17 consideration, using it as a way to just rubber stamp 18 events that are in fact very controversial and 19 experimental, and that's what we are faced with here.
20 So what I would like to look at, for a 21 brief moment in time, is the issues of systemic 22 mismanagement at Vermont Yankee in basically an 23 atmosphere of regulatory decline, and the NRC in fact 24 doing less inspections and less work than they have 25 done before. So I just want to mention some of the Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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21 1 problems that have been found at Vermont Yankee, since 2 Entergy purchased it. There were the high pressure 3 coolant injection system was declared inoperable, and I 4 will mention it was declared inoperable many times, 5 there does not seem to be any lessons learned on this 6 that has worked for Entergy.
7 There was a White finding identified at 8 Vermont Yankee during an inspection completed in 9 October, '04, the preliminary White finding was a 10 failure to establish a means to provide early 11 notification and clear instruction to a portion of the 12 populous within the plume exposure pathway in the 13 emergency planning zone. There have, there was an 18 14 minute shut down of the HPCI cooling system during the 15 last refueling outage, this is now the second time that 16 that happened, then Entergy has had a series of fires 17 that have gone on.
18 There was an electrical fire in July, '05 19 that shut NV down, there was a broken insulator, a 20 transformer fire closed the plant from June 18th to 21 July 5th in 2004, there was a second fire that same 22 month, a welding error, a fourth fire that year, the 23 condenser pump. NV exceeded the fence line radiation 24 dose limits two or three times, fuel rods were lost, 25 there was no paper work to back it up, then there was a Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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22 1 temporary loss of the running RHR pump during a bus 2 transfer, and then we have, again, the high pressure 3 coolant injection system failing without a clear 4 lessons learned that they know what they are doing.
5 The public has grave doubts about 6 Entergy's ability to run this reactor safely and how, 7 and that the NRC is allowing Entergy to go forward with 8 this experimental and controversial uprate, the largest 9 in the country, without doing large transient testing 10 prior to the extended uprate. Deficiency in the 11 current cooling towers, safety assurances and questions 12 regarding the reliability of the steam dryer, you know, 13 this is like dealing with Alice in Wonderland or 14 Through the Looking Glass in which everything is 15 backwards, gentlemen, and it invokes no confidence, and 16 it is your job to invoke confidence in the public and 17 we have none in you. Thank you.
18 MR. KARLIN: Thank you.
19 (Applause) 20 MR. KARLIN: Ms. Chang? Claire Chang?
21 I might mention, I'm sorry I didn't say 22 this before and introduce the other members, Marcia 23 Carpentier is a lawyer who works for us and one of our 24 law clerks, I've asked her to try to help with the time 25 keeping, we are trying to ask people to have their Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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23 1 remarks about five minutes, and she will give you a one 2 minute warning and then a five minute. And I mean if 3 you are not finished exactly, you know, obviously you 4 can finish it up but, and if need be, if you really 5 have something long, we could submit it in writing or 6 we could, if we have more time at the end, we can have 7 you come back, you know, at the end of the afternoon or 8 the morning here.
9 I also note that we have Jonathan Rund, 10 who is another lawyer, who is working with us and he is 11 here, around in the room, and Karen Valloch is our 12 administrative assistant out in the hall.
13 So sorry for that interruption, Ms. Chang, 14 please proceed.
15 MS. CHANG: Hi. My name is Claire Chang, 16 I live in Gill, Massachusetts, just two and, no, 12 and 17 a half miles from Vermont Yankee.
18 Currently, this summer, we are going to be 19 putting photovoltaics and also solar hot water on our 20 roof so that we will be entirely free and independent 21 of Vermont Yankee. We will be generating all of our 22 own electricity and not at an extremely high cost. It 23 is possible for this country, for every person in this 24 country to completely replace the nuclear power that's 25 generated by all the plants, the 103 plants that are in Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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24 1 this country.
2 The reason why you are here is because 3 Entergy has requested an uprate of 20 percent, which 4 they are currently doing, this 20 percent uprate in 5 electrical generation is completely spurious, there is 6 no reason. The New England Power Grid does not need 7 this electricity and Entergy is only generating the 8 electricity to make money, for profits. This is a 9 corporation that operates out of Louisiana, it is not 10 local to here, all of that money goes away from us.
11 Anybody who pays their electric bill and that portion 12 that goes to Vermont Yankee, which has already been 13 contracted out, does not stay in the area and it does 14 not go towards relieving our country of its dependence 15 on this really dangerous and highly toxic form of 16 generation.
17 There is no reason why we need this 18 uprate, it is entirely possible that the money that's 19 being used to generate this uprate, to put into the 20 power plant, that the corporation uses, could not, 21 could go into any other green renewable source of 22 energy, and it is completely within your purview to 23 consider this because this is part of the whole, big 24 energy picture that the whole United States is looking 25 at.
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25 1 And even though you are just one small 2 person, I am also one small person and I make one 3 choice to put PV on my roof and to say to the country, 4 and to my neighbors, and to my family and to my friends 5 that I don't want to use electricity that's generated 6 either by fossil fuels, natural gas, coal, or by 7 uranium, and it's a choice that each of us can make, 8 but you actually have the power to make it so that a 9 number of people don't have to use that electricity.
10 It is within your purview to take this 11 into consideration when you look at an uprate, 12 particularly an uprate because that's power that's 13 completely for profit. Entergy is not under any 14 contract or requirement to provide that electricity for 15 any other use than to sell it at a profit. And I had 16 a, I don't know what my time constraint is now.
17 MR. KARLIN: Go ahead, you are okay.
18 MS. CHANG: And the other thing is that 19 Gill, Mass., last night, had a town meeting, probably 20 100 people attended, there are about 1,300 who live 21 there, many, I don't know the percentages, but many 22 live in the ten mile zone. We passed an article where 23 we recommend that the evacuation zone be extended out 24 to 20 miles, that the evacuation plan include 100 25 percent of the population, not just 20 percent of the Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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26 1 population, and that the evacuation plan also includes 2 multiple ways of alerting the population and also, one 3 minute? And also that there are provisions for taking 4 care of private preschool, day care centers, nursing 5 homes and a number of other facilities which are not 6 included in the evacuation plan.
7 And if you go through with this, actually, 8 Entergy has already gone through with this uprate, they 9 have already experienced mechanical problems of which I 10 can't really give you details, technical details, about 11 but the population in this are is extremely worried 12 about this and we thought that when Entergy bought this 13 plant, and it was only licensed to 2012, well, at least 14 if we could make it to 2012, they'll shut the place 15 down and then we can live freely, without having to 16 think about having this sword over our heads every 17 single day.
18 It's not a safe thing to be operating and 19 now to have this 20 percent uprate, it's just 20 incredible to have to live with this. I know people 21 who are moving out of the area because they don't want 22 to live with the possibility of a nuclear disaster.
23 Thank you very much.
24 (Applause) 25 MR. KARLIN: Thank you.
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27 1 Next, Bob English? Mr. English?
2 And next, after that, is Chris Williams.
3 MR. ENGLISH: Hi. My name is Bob English, 4 I live in Northfield, Massachusetts, about ten miles 5 from Vermont Yankee. I'm going to read a short excerpt 6 from a brief done by the Union of Concerned Scientists 7 and then I'm going to speak for a minute or so about 8 what it means to me. And so, from the brief, the Quad 9 Cities Nuclear Power Station is located on the 10 Mississippi River, about 20 miles northeast of Moline, 11 Illinois. On March 5, 2002, the experimental power 12 uprate began at Quad Cities when workers reconnected 13 unit two to the electrical grid following a refueling 14 outage.
15 After operating nearly 30 years up to the 16 original licensed power level, the plant literally 17 began shaking itself apart at the higher power level.
18 Workers manually shut down unit two on March 29th after 19 high vibrations caused leaks in the control system for 20 the main turbine. During the subsequent restart of 21 unit two on April 2, 2002, vibrations broke a drain 22 line on one of the four main steam pipes. Workers knew 23 the main steam pipes were vibrating abnormally at the 24 experimental power uprate conditions because insulation 25 and, of all things, vibration monitors had shaken loose Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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28 1 and fallen from the pipes. Workers fixed the broken 2 line, not its cause, and restarted unit two to resume 3 the experiment.
4 The main steam pipe signaled trouble again 5 on June 7, 2002 with unit two steadily operating 6 experimental power uprate conditions, the indicated 7 flow in main line A increased from 2.95 to 3.05 million 8 pounds per hour while the indicated flows in the 9 remaining three lines decreased. The plant's owner, 10 the reactor's manufacturer and the site regulator 11 huddled about the problem. The head scratching 12 intensified on June 18, 2002 when the measured amount 13 of water droplets being carried away by the steam was 14 about four to five times the values recorded over the 15 past three decades.
16 When the high amount doubled over the next 17 two days, operators suspended the experimental power 18 uprate by reducing unit two's output below the original 19 licensed level, but the damage had already been done, 20 operators shut down unit two on July 11, 2002 for 21 repairs. Workers soon spotted a gaping hole in the 22 steam dryer, metal fragments from the hole were later 23 found in a flow instrument for one of the main steam 24 lines and on the inlet screen for a main turbine stop 25 valve.
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29 1 Thus at least one fragment from the 2 cracked, broken steam dryer sitting above the reactor 3 core was carried be steam out of the reactor vessel, 4 past both of the main steam isolation valves, out of 5 the primary containment, out of secondary containment 6 to the stop valve in the turbine building. The root 7 cause of the steam dryer failure was determined to be 8 lack of industry experience and knowledge of flow 9 induced vibration dryer failures, the dryer failed as a 10 result of fatigue caused by flow induced vibrations 11 created by higher steam flows due to the extended power 12 uprate conditions.
13 I think we all agree that Quad Cities 14 shouldn't have happened. If mistakes happened in the 15 past, I understand that probably, four years later, 16 some of these concerns have been addressed but if 17 mistakes happened in the past, they can happen in the 18 future and we all know the consequences of one of these 19 mistakes. Large areas could be made uninhabitable for 20 generations, the land that I built my home on, which is 21 the main thrust of my life's work, could be rendered 22 useless with no compensation, not just for me but for 23 the generations that come after me. That's five 24 minutes? Give me another mine.
25 MR. KARLIN: Go ahead, finish, we'll give Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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30 1 you a couple minutes.
2 MR. ENGLISH: I live in a solar home in 3 Northfield that I built 25 years ago and I've been off 4 the grid for 25 years. My home looks a lot like your 5 home, you wouldn't know the difference, if you came 6 into it, very modern, microwave ovens, the point being, 7 you know, television. I work as a research assistant, 8 I work on a dual monitor computer, all of this powered 9 by solar electricity. The points is that we don't need 10 to take these risks, we can have a green and 11 sustainable energy future, other countries, like 12 Germany, are already moving in that direction.
13 So I ask the board to intervene to the 14 full extent of your authority on behalf of public 15 safety. It appears to me that corporate interests, 16 that the interests of profit and money have been put 17 before the public health and safety in this case.
18 Thank you very much.
19 (Applause) 20 MR. KARLIN: Thank you.
21 Chris Williams? And, next, we have Chad 22 Simmons, who will be coming up after Mr. Williams.
23 FROM THE FLOOR: Well my name is not Chris 24 Williams.
25 MR. KARLIN: Oh, I'm sorry.
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31 1 FROM THE FLOOR: That's all right.
2 MR. KARLIN: Are you--
3 FROM THE FLOOR: Chris is not able to 4 attend, so he said it was okay for me to take his 5 place, if that's all right.
6 MR. KARLIN: I'm sorry, we'll go to the 7 next people who are signed up.
8 FROM THE FLOOR: All right, it's not like 9 there is a big crowd here.
10 MR. KARLIN: Well we'll, you can sign up 11 in the back if you want, you are welcome to do that and 12 we'll hear you, but I do want to take people in order.
13 So, Chad Simmons?
14 MR. SIMMONS: Good morning. My name is 15 Chad Simmons, I am a resident here in Brattleboro, less 16 than ten miles away from Vermont Yankee. My wife and I 17 moved to Brattleboro last August so I could continue my 18 education and so she could continue her career.
19 I come before the panel today as an 20 activist, a husband, a son and a member of this 21 community and I think it should be known that I come to 22 this panel as all of those. I did not actually become 23 aware that a nuclear power plant was actually in this 24 community until over a month that I had been here. And 25 I had a lot of concerns that I was living in a Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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32 1 community so close to a nuclear power plant, so I tried 2 to educate myself as much as I could about the issues 3 surrounding a 30 plus year old nuclear power plant 4 while I was in school.
5 And my wife actually works a couple of 6 miles closer to the power plant than we live, these are 7 issues that concern me a great deal and I actually 8 think about them quite often, you know, what were to 9 happen if there were an accident at the Vermont Yankee 10 Nuclear Power Plant. How would I get in touch with my 11 wife? How would we be able to deal with the safety 12 concerns and the health concerns? These issues I face 13 every day, as well as the rest of the community, and I 14 think the speakers before me have done a very eloquent 15 job talking about the associated risk and concerns that 16 the public has about a nuclear power plant.
17 I'm particularly concerned with the risk 18 of a nuclear power plant and especially one that has 19 asked for and that has already granted, been granted 20 the uprate of 20 percent, of which this power plant was 21 not originally granted that when it was first given its 22 license to provide power. Therefore, I am asking the 23 NRC before the ASLB Panel to fulfill its responsibility 24 and its obligation to, and I'm quoting from your 25 mission, to make appropriate recommendations to the Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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33 1 commission concerning the rules governing the conduct 2 of hearings.
3 I believe that the ASLB Panel, under the 4 NRC, needs to require a full and independent inspection 5 of Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant, all safety 6 health and environmental aspects of this inspection 7 should be analyzed to definitely gauge whether or not a 8 20 percent uprate or any uprate, for that matter, is 9 justified to this community. And again, I speak to the 10 risk factor that many people have brought up and I 11 believe many people would bring up if they felt that 12 this process would lead to anything substantial.
13 Again, I remember or I am speaking to the risks that 14 are associated with this uprate and the process that 15 Vermont Yankee is going through.
16 The community does not want this risk, my 17 wife and I do not want this risk. Please do your jobs 18 and order a full inspection of Vermont Yankee so that 19 we may not have to live with this risk.
20 Thank you.
21 MR. KARLIN: Thank you.
22 (Applause) 23 MR. KARLIN: Alan Steinberg is the next 24 person signed up.
25 MR. STEINBERG: Good morning.
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34 1 MR. KARLIN: Good morning.
2 MR. STEINBERG: My name is Alan 3 Steinberg,I live in Putney and my business is here in 4 Brattleboro.
5 There is an old Turkish proverb that goes 6 this way: No matter how far you have traveled down the 7 wrong path, turn back. It's been more than a year 8 since I spoke at one of these meetings. I don't know 9 if any of you were at that meeting, it was in Vernon 10 and approximately 500 local residents of the tri-state 11 area, it was the NRC's attempts to control the tone of 12 the meeting backfired, it became increasingly furious 13 with the NRC's apparent pretense of listening seriously 14 to our universal request not to shut the plant down but 15 simply to implement an ISA equivalent to the one that 16 Maine Yankee received.
17 I left feeling certain that now the NRC 18 would have to respond meaningfully, and yet here we 19 are. It's many moons later and with the uprate in full 20 implementation, even though this committee is just 21 getting around to holding its hearings, and having 22 sworn to myself that I would never trust the NRC again, 23 yet here I am attempting to plead for reason. I follow 24 the news about the plant, I read about the vibrations 25 in the steam dryer, I note how things slow down briefly Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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35 1 and then restart their inevitable climb, and so I do a 2 little research and learn that virtually all the 3 boiling water reactors in the country that have been 4 granted uprate permits, and none have yet been refused, 5 have had a variety of steam dryer problems, notably, at 6 Quad Cities and Dresden.
7 In each case, the plant was shut down and 8 repairs were done. In several cases, the repairs 9 themselves have developed problems, i.e. cracks formed 10 in some of the plates added during repairs. The owners 11 of Quad Cities responded thusly, and I quote: "The root 12 cause of the steam dryer failure was determined to be a 13 lack of industry experience and knowledge of flow 14 induced vibration dryer failures. The dryer failed as 15 a result of fatigue caused by flow induced vibrations 16 created by high steam flows due to extended power 17 uprate conditions".
18 In an attempt to minimize the importance, 19 they further claimed: "the dryer is a non-safety 20 related component whose only safety function is to 21 remain intact such that no loose part will prevent a 22 safety related component from performing its function".
23 That's interesting. On October 26th of 2003, the vent 24 line broke off the pilot valve for one of the 25 electromatic relief valves at Quad Cities' unit number Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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36 1 one.
2 According to a report by engineer David 3 Lockebaum, I quote: "the steam dryer had a one half 4 inch thick piece of the outer hood bank, measuring 5 about six and a half inches by nine inches, missing.
6 Workers could not locate the missing piece or pieces 7 but they did find evidence of its journey, one of the 8 two large pumps that recirculates cooling water through 9 the reactor core had scratch marks on its impeller.
10 The pump's impeller had been replaced in 2002, so the 11 damage was recent. Workers restarted unit one after 12 repairing the steam dryer and abandoning the search for 13 its missing pieces. Excelon, the owner, guesses the 14 steam dryer, guesses that the steam dryer piece or a 15 fragment thereof passed through the recirculation pump 16 and now resides inside the lower curved dome of the 17 reactor vessel."
18 I have something to show you here, the 19 missing piece. Here it is, folks, or at least it's an 20 artistic conception of it. Talk about hazards. I 21 offer it to you as a gift. Perhaps the engineers at 22 the plant may decide to resume their search and this 23 may help them remember what it looks like. To resume, 24 the NRC has been routinely granting EPOs which should 25 stand not for extended power uprate, as far as I'm Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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37 1 ......... concernedT--but-for-experimental-power uprate,--with us 2 as the guinea pigs.
3 I'm almost done.
4 They have been doing so while claiming 5 that our requests for a Maine Yankee style ISA are 6 unnecessary, that their new reactor oversight process, 7 ROP for short, which allows for self-assessment on the 8 part of the plant operators, is superior to an ISA, 9 even as they tell Excelon that: "the NRC staff noted 10 that the licensee's resolution of the potential adverse 11 effects from EPU operation at Quad Cities and Dresden 12 continues to rely primarily on questionable analyses."
13 Neil Dias, Chairman of the NRC, your boss, 14 told Hillary Clinton that the ROP, which ran 11,000 15 hours with only five percent of them hands on at the 16 plant, is superior to the Maine ISA, which ran 20,000 17 hours with more than half at the plant itself. This 18 despite the fact that Maine was an 18 year old plant 19 undergoing a 10 percent EPU and Vernon is 34 years old 20 and undergoing a 20 parent EPU.
21 Like Hillary, I'm almost done, like 22 Hillary, we, and I mean, when I say we, I mean the 500 23 or so people who represent the tip of the iceberg of 24 the people who are deeply concerned about what's going 25 on here, are not impressed. I urge you to think twice Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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... . .3 8 1 about this path you are on. While there may be a 2 future for the nuclear industry, albeit a brief one, in 3 our country's attempt to overcome global warming, the 4 NRC does itself no good when it paints itself, as it 5 seems to be doing, as the farmer holding the hen house 6 door open for the fox.
7 When it comes time for the Vermont 8 Legislature to look into this matter, as it will soon, 9 the NRC needs to have shown themselves to be an 10 independent watch dog, not a yes man for profit driven 11 corporations and a national administration whose time 12 grows short. In the long term, rubber stamping each 13 and every EPU that comes before you, no matter how 14 questionable, is traveling down the wrong path. Turn 15 back now, turn back now.
16 (Applause) 17 MR. KARLIN: Thank you, Mr. Steinberg.
18 Next speaker signed up is Jill 19 Nightlichts. I'm sorry if I didn't get that right.
20 MR. NIGHTLICHTS: Hi. I'm Jill 21 Nightlichts, I'm from Wardsboro, Vermont, approximately 22 23 miles from Entergy Vermont Yankee, but I work in 23 Brattleboro and I send my son to school in Brattleboro.
24 I am a member of the New England Coalition.
25 Deadlines for providing formal comment on Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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39 1 NRC reports or license amendments are too short for the 2 general public who must digest hundreds of pages of 3 technical documentation that is difficult to acquire on 4 the NRC Website and impossible to acquire through FOIA 5 due to the NRC's fun and games with proprietary or 6 deliberative privilege designation.
7 The draft safety evaluation report, SER, 8 was in production for two years. Interveners are 9 expected to digest, analyze and comment after review of 10 just a few months, only after the license has redacted 11 whatever they don't want the public or interveners to 12 see. Who, except someone well paid to do so, would 13 have time to read all of that astonishingly lame 14 verbiage twice, one to get the feel for what the 15 language is intended to signify and again to read 16 between the lines to get the real meaning?
17 Paraphrase, we used the wrong statistical 18 tests for this and that and found 100 percent 19 uncertainty for which reasons of splitting hairs we 20 find to be an acceptable state of affairs with no 21 reduction of safety margin by which we don't mean that 22 the distance between the expected values and the 23 regulatory limit hasn't been reduced considerably, just 24 that the limit hasn't been exceeded, but our language 25 is meant to cloak that.
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40 1 Interveners are given insufficient time to 2 develop contentions based on new information that is 3 often suppressed or unavailable at the time contentions 4 are first to be filed. Interveners, at a material 5 disadvantage in terms of time, resources and 6 information, are held to narrow and onerous procedural 7 and technical standards while the licensee is given 8 multiple opportunities to satisfy regulators' concerns 9 by adjusting, honing and polishing their 10 self-assessments. Many important safety concerns filed 11 by interveners have been rejected or ignored by the 12 NRC, the ACRS, the ASLB due to picayune technical or 13 procedural grounds. This defies common sense.
14 Interveners are required to provide 15 documentation and/or testimony for each of their 16 concerns and to build a case carefully in hopes in 17 won't be rejected on merits due to some single stone 18 left unturned. However, these painstakingly crafted 19 contentions have regularly been rejected by the ASLB 20 due to scheduling or procedural technicalities. If a 21 safety contention is worth it on its merits but fails 22 for technical reasons, it is within the ASLB's 23 authority and responsibility to investigate it on their 24 own. So far, the record of this ASLB Panel is, in our 25 view, rather grim.
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41 1 Every opportunity to exercise discretion 2 in favor of public health and safety and protection of 3 the environment has been rejected. To salvage the 4 public participatory process, I request that the ASLB 5 reinstate the safety contentions that have been 6 rejected or dismissed. The public knows it is being 7 gamed, that the NRC is collecting taxpayer funded pay 8 checks while providing a show of public involvement 9 that is really intended to disenfranchise and 10 discourage us. In the large part, it has succeeded.
11 NRC should not mistake apathy for approval.
12 We have attended NRC meetings over and 13 over again only to have our concerns fall on deaf ears.
14 Falling attendance does not indicate complicity or 15 complacency but a vote of no confidence in those who 16 are receiving our tax dollars and supposed to be 17 looking out for our safety. People in the community 18 are afraid and angry and you are not paying attention.
19 I recently had my furnace replaced, it was this past 20 winter. After a whole winter of having about 15 21 different service people come and they kept saying, on, 22 it's this, it's that, just a little minor thing, we had 23 it replaced.
24 It turned out that the entire thing was 25 cracked and rotted out, I wish I had brought it in, it Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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42 1 was 30 years old, very similar to Vermont Yankee. They 2 said it was very likely leaking fumes. You're saying 3 that there are not significant hazard considerations 4 and I think there are many that really need to be paid 5 attention to, and what about the National Academy of 6 Science study that says that no level of radiation is 7 safe and, meanwhile, we are getting radiation poured 8 down on us and our children, who are more vulnerable?
9 We need to be protected and we need to be 10 taken seriously. I wonder if the NRC right now has 11 direct orders from the Bush Administration to give the 12 rubber stamp to all nuclear power plants and I'm hoping 13 that some of you will have the courage to do what's 14 right.
15 Thank you.
16 (Applause) 17 MR. KARLIN: Thank you.
18 Thomas Matsuta? Mr. Matsuta?
19 MR. MATSUTA: Good morning. My name is 20 Tom Matsuta, I come from Conway, Massachusetts.
21 I first wanted to speak about myself, I 22 spent a lot of time on the Navajo Reservation where I 23 lived for a long time, and I worked with a Japanese 24 filmmaker and we made a documentary about the uranium, 25 effects of uranium, and we met with, I saw miles of Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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43 1 tailings that were left blowing in the wind, I saw 2 children playing in the tailings, I saw, we went and we 3 filmed houses that were made from the tailings.
4 We interviewed widows of many of the 5 minors, and we ran out of film and to the point where 6 we had to keep filming, just because these widows had 7 so much that they wanted to say about their husbands 8 that had died. And I am also Japanese and I experience 9 the effects of hearing many of the survivors of the 10 bombs that were dropped in Nagasake and Hiroshima, and 11 I feel that I've seen much more of the effects of 12 uranium that, much farther than what we are talking 13 about here today.
14 But my family and I now live in Conway, 15 which is very close to Vermont Yankee, and I am very 16 concerned about these oral appearances that we are 17 having now, and what kind of effect that will have and 18 whether all of the judges on the panels will hear our 19 testimony.
20 I'm very concerned that the uprate has 21 already started without a full investigation. One of 22 my concerns is that I would like the NRC to do a full 23 transient test at the new uprate level, I feel that 24 citizens living in areas that would be effected are 25 entitled to an assurance, through a conducted test, Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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44 1 that the plant could be successfully shut down in an 2 emergency.
3 And I feel that the board, and the NRC 4 staff and all the, and Entergy, very little has been 5 done with direct physical inspection. My second plea 6 to you is for an independent safety analysis, 7 apparently this has been brought up many times, I think 8 that the NRC's own team even recommended this in 2004.
9 I think there was a petition that 8,000 citizens had 10 signed and numerous local governments, state and 11 federal officials, also calling for this independent 12 safety assessment on the scale and scope that was 13 performed by the NRC at Maine Yankee in 1996.
14 I would also like to express support for 15 the New England Coalition's proposed new contention on 16 steam dryer testing and analysis. It seems like there 17 has been, new information has been brought forward. I 18 believe that on June 21st, the Vermont Department of 19 Public Service filed a petition with the State Public 20 Service Board seeking an investigation into the 21 projected reliability of Entergy's Vermont Yankee's 22 steam dryer. And I am alarmed by testimony given by 23 William Sherman, the Vermont State Nuclear Engineer, 24 regarding the Vermont Yankee steam dryer reliability 25 and this testimony was filed also on June 21st.
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45 1 And Mr. Sherman stated that the ascension 2 power test performed at Vermont Yankee failed to 3 provide adequate assurance that steam dryer structural 4 failures, such as cracks, will not continue to increase 5 under extended power uprate loadings. So I support the 6 New England Coalition's petition to the Atomic Safety 7 and Licensing Board to supplement their request with 8 this testimony of Mr. William Sherman and also a 9 supporting declaration by Dr. Hopenfeld who also -- I'm 10 almost finished -- that also supports Mr. Sherman's 11 testimony. I think he stated neither Mr. Sherman nor 12 Entergy has provided any documentation to ensure NRC or 13 the public that the dryer will not fail 14 catastrophically, especially during design basis LOCA 15 events.
16 So I deeply oppose this uprate in power 17 and plea with you to listen to the citizens that you 18 are supposed to represent and protect.
19 Thank you.
20 (Applause) 21 MR. KARLIN: Thank you. Dr. Richard Foley 22 is next signed up. Mr., Dr. Foley? Okay, we'll hold 23 that.
24 Well we are, anyone who doesn't show and 25 who did sign up in advance, we will save their names Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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. ... . .... .. . ... . . . .. . . . ... .. ... . . . . .. .. 46 .. . . . . .
1 and call them, if they show up in the afternoon, as we 2 did for last night.
3 Next we have Sabrina Smith signed up. Ms.
4 Smith? She is signed up here today, so I would have 5 assumed she is here. Sabrina Smith? Okay, well, 6 nothing there.
7 Let me, while I'm at it, go to the people 8 who did not appear last night, who had signed up, and 9 maybe they are here today. Is there anyone who signed 10 up last night who wasn't able to make it last night, of 11 the people who have signed in advance? No? Okay, 12 well--
13 MR. BARATTA: There was a Mr. Evers, I 14 know, had signed up last night and said he would be 15 here today. Is he here? I remember that name.
16 MR. KARLIN: Yeah, okay. Well let me ask 17 again, Chris Williams? Mr. Williams? Is he just not 18 coming at all or perhaps he's late.
19 FROM THE FLOOR: He's not coming.
20 MR. KARLIN: Okay, I wasn't sure, I 21 thought he might arrive.
22 Unless we have anyone else signed up at 23 this point, I think we are completed with the 24 presentation for this morning. We will have one at 25 1:30 today and anyone who hasn't already signed up and Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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47 1 spoken is welcome to do so at that time. As I also 2 indicated, if you want to send written copies of what 3 you said here today or supplement what you said here 4 today in writing, you can send in written limited 5 appearance statements to us at the e-mail address I 6 indicated, ksv@nrc.gov.
7 With that, we will adjourn this meeting 8 and reconvene at 1:30 today. Thank you for coming.
9 (Whereupon, at 10:15 a.m., the 10 morning session was adjourned.)
11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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48 1 AFTERNOON SES S ION 2 (1:37 p.m.)
3 MR. KARLIN: How many, I have little 4 introductory remarks that I feel it's important to try 5 to give to people who haven't been through one of these 6 things before, but may I ask how many people in the 7 room had not participated in the one this morning or 8 last night? Could you raise your hands?
9 We have five or six, which is about half 10 of the group, so I'll try to shorten it up a little bit 11 though and I think, you know, so the introduction will 12 be a little shorter, but I think we'll have enough time 13 to get through everyone's presentations or statements, 14 I hope so.
15 Okay, introducing ourselves, let me begin 16 by introducing ourselves. This is the Atomic Safety 17 and Licensing Board hearing, it's in the matter of 18 Entergy Nuclear Vermont Yankee, LLC's application to 19 the NRC for a license uprate, the Docket number is 20 50-571-OLA. For the record, today is June 27th and the 21 proceeding is being held in the Latchis Theatre in 22 Brattleboro, Vermont.
23 To my left is Dr. Anthony Baratta, Ph.D.
24 in Physics and is the Associate Chief Judge of the 25 Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel, he is the Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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49 1 Chief Technical Judge of all of the judges on our 2 panel. To my right is Les Rubenstein, a Judge with 3 almost 40 years experience at the NRC and its 4 predecessor agency, the Atomic Energy Commission. My 5 name is Alex Karlin, I'm a lawyer, 32 years of 6 practicing law and a Judge here with the ASLBP and the 7 chairperson of this particular panel. There are, in 8 total, about ten full time judges on the Atomic Safety 9 and Licensing Board Panel and another ten or so part 10 time judges.
11 Thanks to the Latchis Theatre and all 12 their personnel for making this facility available to 13 us, that was very helpful. We are here to conduct a 14 limited appearance statement session, it's a time for 15 us to listen and a time for you all to talk, and give 16 us comments and input. I wanted to cover five 17 housekeeping matters relatively quickly, I mean five 18 matters. One, housekeeping; two, what the board is; 19 three, the history of this proceeding a little bit; 20 four, the purpose of the limited appearance statement; 21 and five, some procedures for today.
22 Housekeeping, just the basics, if you 23 would turn off your cell phones, that would be helpful.
24 We are taking a transcript of this, Mr. Farley over 25 here will have the transcript made and in about ten Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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50 1 days it will be on the NRC website and you can access 2 it there, verbatim.
3 Second, the role and nature of the board, 4 the ASLBP. We are three judges, we are appointed for 5 life. We work within the structure of the NRC, but 6 there are really three groups within the NRC to keep in 7 mind, there are the commissioners, the five 8 commissioners appointed by the president, there is the 9 NRC staff and then there is the Atomic Safety and 10 Licensing Board.
11 And the key point for the, for you all to 12 remember is that we cannot, we do not communicate with 13 the commissioners or the staff with regard to this 14 proceeding or any of the merits of what's going on and 15 what the staff is doing, except what's on the record, 16 what's formally written, filed on the record or what 17 occurs in a formal proceeding that is transcribed, just 18 like this gentleman is transcribing it. So we don't 19 have any separate knowledge or communication with the 20 staff, or the applicant or of course the interveners.
21 We have an independence here and we try to call it the 22 way we see it with a lifetime tenure, with no raises, 23 bonuses, they can't fire us, they can't hire us, they 24 can't do anything to us. We try to have the 25 independence to call it the way we see it, as best we Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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51 1 can, so we have some independence.
2 Third, a brief history of this proceeding.
3 In 2003, September, Entergy applied for an uprate to 4 the NRC staff, they submitted that to the NRC staff.
5 The NRC then issued a notice of opportunity to request 6 a hearing, that was in July of '04. Two entities 7 requested a hearing, submitted what's known as 8 contentions. There is regulations that define how you 9 get to be a, get a contention filed and this board was 10 appointed in September of '04. We then had oral 11 argument here in Brattleboro, at the middle school, in 12 October of '04, to hear the parties, the litigants, 13 talk about their contentions and whether or not they 14 met the regulatory criteria of the NRC for admissible 15 contentions.
16 It was a valuable exercise and at the end 17 of the day, in November of '04, we ruled that the 18 contentions would be admitted by the New England 19 Coalition, two contentions admitted and two by the 20 State of Vermont. I might add, as far as I'm aware, I 21 think this is the first uprate proceeding or increase 22 proceeding of any kind where any board admitted any 23 contentions so, in that respect, I think it was a 24 little unusual and we did admit four contentions. And 25 what we did then say was, yes, we grant the right to Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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52 1 have a hearing and the hearing hasn't been held yet.
2 The hearing, the evidentiary hearing, the 3 adjudicatory hearing is scheduled for September of this 4 year and it's going to be in the Newfane Courthouse in 5 the Windham Superior Court. That's the only facility 6 we could get that would work for a litigation type of 7 operation, which is what that will be and, at that 8 proceeding, only the parties and their lawyers will get 9 to present their case and their evidence, it's 10 different from this obviously.
11 Why did it take so long for us to grant 12 the hearing in October of '04 and not even have the 13 hearing until September of '06, two years later?
14 Answer, there are regulations which specify that 15 hearings are not supposed to be held until the staff 16 and the applicant, essentially the staff, has finished 17 issuing some of the key documents, the safety 18 evaluation report. I don't know what all the reasons 19 for that regulation are, but perhaps one of them is to 20 allow the parties and the challengers to get a maximum 21 amount of information out to see if they want to file 22 additional contentions and to make sure all the 23 information is on the table before we have the 24 evidentiary hearing, so that's a bit of a reason why we 25 have some of that delay.
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53 1 Two history points to note. The uprate 2 has already been implemented. Why are we having a 3 hearing about uprates, if it's already been a done 4 deal, cart before the horse, isn't the hearing too 5 late? Isn't it too late to do anything about it? The 6 answer is no, and here I think I will have to turn to 7 the notice in the Federal Register that we put out for 8 this limited appearance statement, and in footnote 9 number one it explains in some detail, I won't read it 10 to you, there is out on the table out there, copies of 11 this. And the essence of it is there is a rule, a 12 regulation that the NRC has which says the staff, in 13 any application for an amendment to a license, the 14 staff can look at the question of whether it presents 15 significance hazards.
16 If the staff makes what's known as a no 17 significant hazards consideration determination, the 18 staff, then the regs provide that the amendment to the 19 license can go into effect before the hearing is held, 20 and that's what's happened here. That doesn't mean 21 that the hearing is moot or not relevant because when 22 we hold the hearing, if we decide that one of the 23 contentions is valid and there is a problem, we can 24 either require and issue a decision which requires the 25 amendment to be, the license to be amended to reflect Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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..-. . ... . 54 1 additional conditions such as, for example, large 2 transient testing, which is one of the requests by New 3 England Coalition, or we could even revoke the permit 4 or the license--
5 (Applause) 6 MR. KARLIN: -- if we thought something was 7 very troublesome. And the commission itself has said 8 that, I'm not putting, I'm not putting words in their 9 mouth, but they have made the decision, because New 10 England Coalition appealed to the commission and said 11 this is not a no significant hazards situation, we 12 think this is an improper ruling, and the New England 13 Coalition went to the commissioners and the 14 commissioners ruled, with one dissenter, Commissioner 15 Yasco, that no, we think it is a valid no significant 16 hazards consideration case.
17 As far as we are concerned, we can't 18 reverse that, we can't do anything about that because 19 the commissioners are our appellate level. When we 20 issue a decision, if somebody doesn't like it, they can 21 appeal to the commissioners and once the commissioners 22 make a ruling that this is a no significant hazards 23 situation, we don't have the authority, power or 24 jurisdiction to hear or rule otherwise. One would have 25 to go to the federal courts, courts of appeals Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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55 1 actually, and challenge and appeal the commissioners' 2 decision.
3 So, let's see, the other one, other point 4 regarding history is that this is not the renewal 5 proceeding, that's a separate proceeding. The 6 application came in in January of '06 for the renewal, 7 the board was appointed just this month, I think it 8 was, it's a different board. I am on that board, as 9 the chairman of that board, but there are two 10 technical, two different technical judges, Dr. Wardwell 11 and Dr. Elleman, who have been appointed on that board 12 and that's a different matter.
13 So we are really here to hear about the 14 uprate, issues related to the uprate and primarily 15 related to the contentions that will be part of the, 16 will be the whole of our evidentiary hearing in 17 September but, if there is something else relating to 18 the uprate that you simply think we need to hear, 19 please let us know.
20 What you say here today is not testimony, 21 it's not under oath, it's not like you are in a 22 courtroom, but it is something that we can consider and 23 if we think it's important, we will ask questions of 24 the parties and we can raise things sua sponte and say 25 we want to probe into this thing because we think there Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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56 1 is a problem here.
2 Finally, the procedures. First come, 3 first serve, people have signed up and preregistered, 4 and so we have a list here. I have a list here of 5 preregistration and if anyone wants to register or 6 speak today, please go into the back in the lobby, 7 Karen Valloch is back there at our desk, and she will 8 take your name down and it will be brought up here and 9 hopeful we'll get it all in order, in sequence of 10 signing up.
11 Other participants here, Marcia Carpentier 12 is a lawyer who works for the Atomic Safety and 13 Licensing Board, she is going to be the bad cop, and be 14 the timekeeper, and tries to tell everyone when five 15 minutes is up, and will give you a one minute warning 16 and hopefully if you can keep your remarks basically to 17 that time frame. If someone has remarks that go 18 significantly longer than that, hopefully you could put 19 them in writing. There is that opportunity to submit 20 things in writing, limited appearance statements, 21 written, and that goes to NRC website, you can send it 22 to ksv@nrc.gov, that's K-ketchup, S-sierra, V-victory 23 @nrc.gov, that would be the place to send your written 24 limited appearance statements.
25 With that, I will again ask either of my Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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57 1 colleagues if they have anything they want to add?
2 Fine, good. Now, let me see, I think I've got this 3 list here. Okay, I'll call all the names and hopefully 4 you can come up in order. Alice Jurcik, I believe is 5 the first person who has signed up. Margaret 6 Bartenhagen is the second so, if you'll stand in the 7 wings and wait, that would be great.
8 Ms. Jurcik, the floor is yours.
9 MS. JURCIK: Thank you. Well I appreciate 10 the opportunity to speak to the ASLB Panel and to voice 11 my concerns about Vermont Yankee and the proposed 12 uprate. Nearly every one of ny doubts that I've had 13 has been expressed far better, and more succinctly and 14 more clearly by Ray Shadis and I'm really sorry that he 15 cannot speak here in a limited oral appearance. It 16 seems to me that that's ruling out someone who could 17 speak succinctly and well, but I do have my doubts and 18 I'll try my best.
19 Well, I have understood, from reading the 20 paper and various other articles that, at Vermont 21 Yankee, there are certain emergencies that arise that 22 allow for only 18 seconds reaction to avert a disaster 23 or, and it just seems as though that is too short a 24 period to allow. I mean that there needs to be more 25 control or --. You cannot rely on a group of people, Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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58 1 humans, when it calls for super human ability, it seems 2 to me, and I think that it's unfair. We, in this area, 3 this whole area is subject to being forever, in human 4 terms, human life span terms, ruined.
5 We would be deprived of life or subject to 6 terrible radiation disease and though it may be a 7 remote and very unlikely possibility, it is definitely 8 one. We have had Chernobyl, we have had Three Mile 9 Island and the consequences have been not widely spoken 10 of or, and there are people terribly effected, and 11 those areas are, just as far as life on earth is 12 concerned, we may as well rule them out, they are 13 uninhabitable, and we should not have more and more 14 areas of that type that are subject to that risk, nor 15 to people.
16 And another thing how about the insurance, 17 you know? You can't get insurance against atomic 18 disaster or nuclear disaster. Something is wrong. I 19 mean there is people, there are people who make bunches 20 of money because of the atomic industry, and where are 21 they? A lot of them are in the NRC, they are people 22 who have studied nuclear science and you have to have 23 people who are learned in this but, you know, if you 24 are making big bucks off of it, you discount risk, and 25 so I say we need an independent inspection of Vermont Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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59 1 Yankee.
2 We should not, we should not rely on the 3 Entergy and the nuclear, well whoever it was that did 4 the statistical tests that, you know, had ten percent 5 and there were lots of accidents. Well thank you, I 6 hope you'll take my, understand what I've said.
7 Thank you.
8 MR. KARLIN: Thank you.
9 Ms. Bartenhagen is next and Gaella Ellwell 10 will be the next person who signed up.
11 MS. BARTENHAGEN: Good afternoon. I would 12 like to express my appreciation for the opportunity to 13 convey these comments and concerns to the ASLB. My 14 name is Margaret Bartenhagen, I live in Halifax, 15 Vermont and I am a member of the New England Coalition.
16 However, I am speaking here today as a 17 citizen and a member of this community, but I would 18 like to take this opportunity to thank the New England 19 Coalition for its many efforts to advocate on behalf of 20 the health and safety of the region's residents and to 21 bring those concerns to the NRC process.
22 In August of 2004, as several before me I 23 know have testified, the NEC petitioned the ASLB to 24 address the issues of the adequacy of Entergy Vermont 25 Yankee's quality assurance program to confirm or assure Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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60 1 that the as-found plant conditions and performance 2 could support a credible extended power uprate review 3 by the NRC staff. The NEC contended that an EPU 4 license amendment approval should "not be considered 5 until the potential effect of a reduced QA/QC program 6 is investigated and analyzed". The NEC provided the 7 ASLB with sufficient documentation to trigger an 8 investigation. However, the ASLB refused to hear New 9 England Coalition's quality assurance contention.
10 I would like to refer to a document 11 prepared by a nuclear engineer and nuclear safety 12 specialist, David Lockebaum, regarding the problems 13 encountered with the EPU or experimental power uprate, 14 as Lockebaum refers to is, at the Quad Cities Nuclear 15 Power Station in Illinois. This boiling water reactor 16 is very similar to Vermont Yankee in design and in its 17 29th year of life, that is in the Quad Cities Nuclear 18 Power Station's 29th year of life, the NRC amended its 19 license to permit the reactors, and there are two, 20 operate at nearly a 20 percent higher output.
21 On March 5, 2002, the experimental power 22 uprate began at Quad Cities. After operating nearly 30 23 years up to the original licensed power level, the 24 plant began shaking itself apart at the higher power 25 level. Workers manually shut down unit two on March Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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61 1 29th after high vibrations caused leaks in the control 2 system for the main turbine. During the subsequent 3 restart of unit two on April 2, 2002, vibrations broke 4 a drain line on one of the four main steam pipes, 5 again, on June 7, 2002, there was a problem with the 6 main steam pipes and related trouble again on June 7 18th.
8 Operators shut down unit two on July 11, 9 2002 for repairs, a gaping hole in the steam dryer was 10 discovered soon after. According to Excelon, the owner 11 of the Quad Cities reactors, "the root cause of the 12 steam dryer failure was determined to be a lack of 13 industry experience and knowledge of flow induced 14 vibration dryer failures. The dryer failed as a result 15 of fatigue caused by flow induced vibrations created by 16 higher steam flows due to extended power uprate 17 conditions". After repairing the steam dryer, unit two 18 was restarted on July 21, 2002 and the experiment 19 resume. On May 6, 2003, there were more steam dryer 20 related problems and, two weeks later, unit two was 21 shut down for another round of steam dryer repairs.
22 The damage was not in the same location as 23 in 2002, but Excelon provided the same explanation as 24 above to the cause. In other words, not enough 25 knowledge was gained from the steam dryer shaking Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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62 1 itself apart in 2002 to prevent it from happening again 2 in 2003. We then go on to similar problems with unit 3 one at Quad Cities in October of 2003. Not long after 4 installing new steam dryers at Quad Cities, Excelon 5 announced that the newly replaced steam dryer was found 6 to have a five foot branching crack, a complete 7 surprise, despite heavy instrumentation.
8 Ladies and gentlemen, this overview of the 9 problems encountered in Illinois is quite relevant to 10 the situation at Vermont Yankee, VY has experienced two 11 sudden shut downs from power, once in 2004 and again in 12 2005, since uprate modifications began, both resulting 13 from predictable and preventable equipment failure, 14 both indicative of inadequate or non-functioning QA/QC.
15 Referring again to Quad Cities and in Excelon's own 16 words, the dryer is a non-safety related component 17 whose only safety function is to remain intact such 18 that no loose part will prevent a safety related 19 component from performing its function.
20 The steam dryer has no moving parts, it is 21 a bunch of metal plates, some with holes drilled 22 through them, welded together. The only thing one has 23 to do is keep it in tact. The experimental power 24 uprate failed three times against this fairly simple 25 success criterion at Quad Cities in less than two Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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63 1 years.
2 May I finish?
3 MR. KARLIN: Please, go ahead.
4 MS. BARTENHAGEN: Thank you.
5 The NRC informed Excelon that: "The NRC 6 staff noted that the licensee's resolution of the 7 potential adverse flow effects from EPU operation at 8 Quad Cities continues to rely primarily on questionable 9 analysis". As Mr. Lockebaum states, lack of knowledge 10 caused the problems, questionable analysis hinder their 11 resolution, yet the NRC allows BWRs, boiling water 12 reactors, in Illinois, Iowa, North Carolina and now in 13 Vermont to operate at experimental power uprate 14 conditions justified by ill-informed, questionable 15 analyses.
16 The NRC's mission is to protect public 17 health and safety, the BWR power uprate experiment 18 conflicts with that mission. Repeatedly told that the 19 nuclear industry doesn't have enough knowledge about 20 experimental power uprate conditions, the NRC I believe 21 is shirking its responsibility to protect the public by 22 allowing plant owners to crank up BWRs to see what 23 happens. The NRC must consistently and effectively 24 enforce its quality assurance regulations to avoid 25 chronic erosion of safety levels that have led to Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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64 1 dozens of year plus reactor outages and which could 2 some day factor in a tragic nuclear plant accident.
3 That lesson will come with a very high and 4 totally unnecessary price tag. I call upon this panel 5 to exercise its discretion and reconsider admission of 6 New England Coalition's contention on quality assurance 7 and quality control at Vermont Yankee. Thank you.
8 (Applause) 9 MR. KARLIN: Thank you.
10 Gaella Ellwell, please?
11 And the next is Ellen Tenney.
12 MS. ELLWELL: I also appreciate this 13 opportunity to have a voice here. I'm a resident of 14 Massachusetts, I live about 40 miles south of here on 15 an organic farm and probably shorter as the crow flies 16 or as the radiation might fly in the event of a major 17 malfunction of this plant. The uprate on a 34 year old 18 plant heightens what I believe is already an 19 extraordinarily risky way of producing electricity.
20 The only way to truly guarantee no more Chernobyl or 21 Three Mile Islands is to stop producing power in this 22 way.
23 I stand behind a transitional plan which 24 might include downrating this plant. I want current 25 employees and employers of Vermont Yankee to be Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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65 1 reassured that they would have gainful work, both 2 decommissioning this plant and if they chose to work in 3 some renewable energy producing jobs. I am concerned 4 about people who have invested decades of their life in 5 this, in this work, I don't think that their lives and 6 their families, their commitments are to be out of this 7 equation.
8 If I had spent my life work in a business 9 that other people were saying had a lot of risks and 10 not many benefits, I'm sure that I would be probably 11 pretty shaky about even considering deeper questions, 12 if it had been my life work, so I just want to say that 13 I have that concern and that consideration. So I think 14 that there are just two ways of looking at this, at 15 least, and one is that people who think that the 16 benefits of power produced in this way outweigh the 17 risks and those of us who think that the risks just 18 really outweigh the benefits, it seems like that's two 19 very different ways of looking at this and needs to 20 somehow be resolved.
21 I'll conclude by saying that I hope I 22 would ask that the contentions that were brought forth 23 involving safety and environmental concerns be 24 considered to be brought again before this commission, 25 these were contentions that were brought up by the NEC, Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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66 1 the Nuclear Coalition and the Vermont Public Service 2 Board, which have been kind of tabled, at this point, 3 and I would like to see them reconsidered.
4 Thank you very much.
5 MR. KARLIN: Thank you.
6 (Applause) 7 MR. KARLIN: Ms. Tenney? And the next is 8 Robert Safeway, Sanfay, I'm sorry, Robert Saffay, 9 perhaps it is. Okay, we have a sign up, we'll wait 10 until that.
11 But please proceed, Ms. Tenney, I'm sorry.
12 MS. TENNEY: My name is Ellen Tenney and I 13 live in Rockingham, Vermont, which is about a half hour 14 north of here and outside of the five mile kill zone 15 and the ten mile whatever zone. I also own a business 16 here in town that supports my family of four. People 17 in this community stand to lose everything, and someone 18 mentioned it earlier, we stand to lose everything in 19 the event of an accident, which the chance of that has 20 been increased by 20 percent.
21 There is, I made a phone call a few years 22 ago to FEMA in Boston and the gentleman I spoke to, I 23 explained to him that I had a business, and were near a 24 nuclear plant and they were talking about uprate and, 25 in the event of an accident that rendered my business Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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67 1 untouchable forever, what was my, you know, what would 2 my options be? And he just kind of chuckled into the 3 phone, and spoke to me like I was a total idiot and 4 said did you ever hear of business insurance? And I 5 said, well, how long have you worked for FEMA? And 6 said eight years. I told him, in a very nice way, that 7 he should go back and do a little more studying, that 8 there is no insurance for homes, for business.
9 The people in this area stand to lose 10 everything and, from what we have seen, FEMA doesn't do 11 such a great job in emergencies. I found that very 12 distressing, you know, that this man, who sits in a 13 position to inform the public, was totally misinformed.
14 Secondly, the cynic in me feels like these meetings are 15 more an obligation, that you people are meeting the 16 requirements put on you by the NRC, that you come and 17 let us speak, but I feel, and I'm grateful that you are 18 here, I really am, and I really hope that it does have 19 an effect. But I sort of feel like it's just we are 20 all down here again talking about the same issues, our 21 fears, our concerns and that it's just going to, the 22 decision will be made to benefit the corporation, not 23 the safety of this community.
24 Let me find out where I was. You know, I 25 just want to, people that live in Northern Vermont Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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68 1 don't share our concerns because they are not so close 2 to what we are having to deal with and I feel 3 confidently, I don't know if any of you people live 4 near a nuclear power plant that's just been given a 20 5 percent uprate and that you read every five percent 6 that it goes up, it's vibrating, and they have to wait.
7 It's pretty nerve wracking, I must say, and I think if 8 any of you lived in this community, you would be down 9 in this audience with us, asking questions and wanting 10 to know what's going on too.
11 So please, when you make decisions, think 12 of it from that perspective, what is it like to live in 13 a community that has to deal with this day in and day 14 out? I go on-line to The Reformer every day to see if 15 something has happened, should I bother going to my 16 store? This is something that, because of my business, 17 during, not the last refueling but the one before that, 18 I had the opportunity to meet a number of people that 19 worked at the plant and, yeah, a lot of people have 20 heard this before, but I had six people that I can 21 remember offhand, one in particular that just totally 22 bowled me over, came into my store, and no one else was 23 in there but him and I, he and I, and he said do you 24 live in this area?
25 And I said no, I live a half hour north, Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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69 --
1 but this is my store, and he said I really feel badly 2 for you people in this area, and I said why? And he 3 said I'm here for shutdown for Vermont Yankee, I travel 4 the world working at nuclear power plants and I have 5 never seen one run so shoddily as this one. The 6 corners we are asked to cut, the hours we are asked to 7 work, he said I just, I can't say anything but I feel 8 bad for you people. I asked him to be a whistleblower 9 and he just laughed. I asked him to be a whistleblower 10 and he just sort of laughed.
11 I wrote this letter to the state about 12 this gentleman and other comments made by other people 13 that come into the store, I just have a way of, people 14 open up to me, I don't know what it is, and I got a 15 letter from the NRC saying unless I can give names, 16 dates, specifics, then the issue is dead. The local 17 NRC official called and said, well, tell him to be a 18 whistleblower, and I laughed and said do you really 19 think, these people, this guy told me he ha a family, 20 he has children that will be going to college. None of 21 them are safe, none of these workers that see things 22 that are happening in these plants can step forward 23 without fear of being blackballed. And it happens in 24 the industry and, you know, the NRC says, oh, we'll 25 protect them, it's absurd.
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......- -70
- 0. -.-----.
1 I am going to go over, just a little bit.
2 No, I guess, oh, the independent safety assessment, 3 why? Why can't we have one? That would give us the 4 whole picture, you know? It's just you've got to do 5 it, you've got to do it. The independent engineering 6 assessment was, what, a two percent slice of the plant?
7 We need a total assessment of that plant because the 8 number of people that it will take out will be 9 devastating, and I think the industry owes us that.
10 We've had to put up with this, they can put up with an 11 independent safety assessment now.
12 Thank you.
13 (Applause) 14 MR. KARLIN: Thank you. I'm going to try 15 to read this again. Robert Southway? Is it Southway?
16 Okay, Saffway, yeah, all right, thank you. Well we'll 17 just hold, and I'll hold that open and, if he does show 18 up, we'll let him speak, obviously.
19 Jane Newton?
20 The next one is Dr. Richard Foley, he is 21 the next speaker.
22 Ms. Newton?
23 MS. NEWTON: Excuse me, I spoke last 24 night but I didn't speak the whole time, and so I was 25 given permission to speak again.
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71 1 MR. KARLIN: That's fine.
2 MS. NEWTON: I'm also speaking in place of 3 my daughter, Sally, who came down late this morning and 4 found the place closed and so she asked me to speak for 5 her.
6 So this is called hotter fuel, more fuel, 7 more risk, more waste. Under extended power uprate, 8 Entergy Vermont Yankee proposes to irradiate 20 percent 9 more fuel and to use fuel of a higher enrichment than 10 it has used previously. The potential radiation 11 effects under accident conditions were reviewed by NRC 12 in an alternate source term license amendment granted 13 in advance of the uprate.
14 This effected community, that's all of us, 15 lost the opportunity to intervene because we were not 16 aware that the uprate process could be segmented or 17 until too late that rewriting estimates of how much 18 radiation could be released in an accident downward to 19 avoid exceeding projected control room dose limits was 20 a necessary and a vital part of uprate approval. The 21 segmentation of the application was so novel that 22 unbelieving NRC staff members charged with EPU review 23 were asking each other if it was even legal.
24 Since NRC regulations had apparently not 25 contemplated the depths to which aggressive licenses Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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72 1 would go to get one past an unsuspecting public, NRC 2 processed alternate source term uprate fuel 3 configuration and the uprate itself as three separate 4 applications. Of course regulatory enabling in no way 5 changes the laws of physics, the fuel containing more 6 uranium equals more radioactive materials, more fission 7 products, more waste, more heat, more retained 8 contamination and exposure to workers and the public, 9 more risk of accident and greater potential consequence 10 of an accident.
11 Because of increased synergies between 12 more fuel irradiation and more reactor flow, there will 13 be more than 20 percent increased radiation from steam 14 line gammashine and routine emissions. Because of 15 synergies between increased decay heat and increased 16 fuel fission products, there will be a greater than 20 17 percent potential increase of deadly fission products 18 to the human environment in the event of an accident, 19 in fact much more. According to the NRC Advisory 20 Committee on Reactor Safeguard Transcripts, analysis of 21 the Swiss reactor showed that just a 14.7 uprate 22 yielded a 30 percent increase in fission products.
23 If this-ratio held true for Vermont 24 Yankee, it would mean an approximately 41 increase, 41 25 percent increase in potential accident fission product Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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73 1 release. More decay means, more decay heat means, in 2 the case of Vermont Yankee, that when hotter fuel 3 discharges take place from the reactor to the spent 4 fuel pool, spent fuel pool systems are overwhelmed and 5 operators must connect and jointly operate spent fuel 6 pool and reactor cooling systems using the reactor's 7 residual heat removal pumps for a period of 24 hours2.777778e-4 days <br />0.00667 hours <br />3.968254e-5 weeks <br />9.132e-6 months <br /> or 8 longer, thus uprate fuel discharges increases the 9 likelihood through leakage and the consequences of a 10 spent fuel drain down and cladding fire.
11 Vermont Yankee's spent fuel pool contains 12 all of the spent fuel ever generated at the site, 13 approximately five times more than is in the reactor 14 when it's full. NRC staff study NUREGI7.38 gives solid 15 hint of the potential scale of consequences. Using a 16 reactor that is almost identical to Vermont Yankee, it 17 postulates up to 25,000 cancer fatalities from zero to 18 500 miles from the plant, presuming 95 percent 19 evacuation. This is of greater radiologic potential 20 consequence than several Hiroshima-size nuclear 21 weapons.
22 A recent California 9th Circuit Court 23 opinion tells us that NRC must consider the potential 24 consequences of acts of terror. Indeed, it can be 25 rightly and fairly said that the uprate increases the Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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74 1 volatility and potency of what only waits conventional 2 explosives, ballistics or aircraft impact to become a 3 weapon of mass destruction. The real increased risks 4 of extended power uprate should be recognized by the 5 ASLB and fairly and publicly adjudicated before an 6 uprate is allowed to continue.
7 Finally, I would like to remark the 8 production of more nuclear materials, especially 9 considering their indelible association with nuclear 10 weapons, is, personally speaking, morally reprehensible 11 and repugnant. As one great and wise man once offered, 12 if sunbeams had been found useful as weapons of war, we 13 would have had solar power long, long ago.
14 (Applause) 15 MR. KARLIN: Thank you.
16 Dr. Foley?
17 MR. FOLEY: My name is Richard Foley, I 18 live in Brattleboro. I'm a college professor, I teach 19 energy, national energy policy and energy technologies.
20 I'm a member of the New England Coalition, I'm also a 21 member of the Southern Loop Working Committee that 22 works with CBPS and Velco on--
23 MR. KARLIN: Speak into the mic, please.
24 MR. FOLEY: This is a tough gig.
25 MR. KARLIN: Maybe you can raise it up a Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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75 1 little bit. Yeah, sure, start the clock over again.
2 MR. FOLEY: Would it be better if I face 3 this way or that way? Okay. My name is Richard Foley, 4 I'm a college professor, I teach national energy 5 policy, energy technologies and I'm a member of the New 6 England Coalition. I'm a member of the Southern Loop 7 Working Committee, that's the group that's working on 8 transmission distribution problems here in Southern 9 Vermont. I'm speaking today as a citizen and not a 10 member of those groups.
11 As a speaker before the board this morning 12 or this afternoon, I feel greatly compromised by the 13 compartmentalization of the NRC regulatory process.
14 I have dozens of questions, I'll just ask 15 three today, that are related to the criteria related 16 to the NRC's approval of the Vermont Yankee uprate.
17 For starters, how did the history of Vermont Yankee's 18 sister plants inform the NRC's approval of the current 19 uprate? In 1963, the first New England plant, the 20 Yankee Row reactor, was brought on line through 21 contributions of heavy federal subsidies. By sharing 22 the engineering experience of Yankee Row, the 23 developers, later known as Yankee Atomic Electric 24 Corporation, constructed five plants within the next 25 few years, Maine Yankee, Pilgrim, Millstone, Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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76 1 Connecticut Yankee and Vermont Yankee.
2 Central Vermont Public Service and Green 3 Mountain Power owned controlling interest in the Yankee 4 Nuclear Power Corporation which brought Vermont Yankee 5 reactor on line in November of 1972. Of this original 6 group from the first generation of six plants, only 7 two, Pilgrim and Vermont Yankee, continue to operate.
8 Row, Maine Yankee, Connecticut Yankee and Millstone 9 were all permanently closed between 1991 and 1997 as a 10 result of comprehensive, in depth individual plant 11 examinations. These vertical slice inspections 12 uncovered so many safety and design defects that the 13 operators considered them too expensive to remedy and 14 instead opted for decommissioning.
15 It is most significant to note that, up 16 until the time these review processes were finalized, 17 management at each closed facility had considered them 18 to be excellent plants and well posed for 20 to 30 year 19 license extensions. These plant closings had 20 repercussions up here in Vermont. In 1998, Vermont 21 Yankee's owner utilities, facing raising, rising 22 operating costs, witnessing the closing of sister 23 plants and assuming the deregulation axe to fall, were 24 investigating the impact of closure and decommissioning 25 without a fully funded decommissioning reserve, as well Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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77 1 as a looming battle to recover stranded costs through 2 rate increases.
3 Their solution was to recover their 4 shareholders' investments in the nuclear market by 5 selling the plant to the highest bidder. In 2002, 6 Entergy, a $14 billion out of state entity with no 7 legal investment or consumer ties to Vermont, purchased 8 Vermont Yankee for close to $200 million, a price based 9 on a very aggressive three part plan, to boost reactor 10 power to 120 percent, extend the plant's operating 11 license and to make room for added radioactive waste by 12 shifting some spent fuel to outdoor dry cask storage.
13 Today's hearings represent another small 14 anticipated hurdle for Entergy to step through on its 15 way to maximizing profits while assigning risk, 16 personal safety, environmental and financial hazards to 17 Vermonters. Despite intense lobbying from the New 18 England Coalition during the Entergy VY uprate 19 application process, Entergy, the new owners of both 20 the Vermont Yankee and Pilgrim Plants, has avoided the 21 same level of rigorous inspection of these two 22 reactors.
23 How do we explain this august discrepancy 24 that six atomic generating plants, constructed within 25 the same time frame, under the same management group, Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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1 four are decommissioned, following rigorous vertical 2 slice inspections, while two, that have not been 3 evaluated in such depth, continue to operate?
4 I have two other sets of testing criteria, 5 and I'm out of time, but I'll submit this in writing.
6 The other two tests involve real time operational shut 7 down, what's called full transient testing, that's 8 never been done. NRC has accepted Entergy's program, 9 three step program, that's based upon, one, computer 10 modeling, two, testing components live time but not 11 together, not in a synergistic way and doing a sort of 12 paper modeling, and the third is to use industry 13 experience. So the question is if they want to use 14 industry experience as a criteria for not doing the 15 full tilt shut down procedure, why don't they use 16 industry experience in requiring a rigorous inspection 17 of the plant?
18 Thank you.
19 (Applause) 20 MR. KARLIN: Thank you.
21 The next person who is signed up is Sarah 22 Cotcove, I believe it is, Ms. Cotcove? And Janet 23 Schwarz is next.
24 Ms. Cotcove, please, if you would come up 25 to the mic?
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79 1 MS. COTCOVE: My name is Sarah Cotcove, 2 I'm on the Board of New England Coalition, but I'm 3 speaking here as an individual. I live in Guilford, 4 which is approximately seven miles from the plant.
5 A number of people have said that they are 6 grateful for the opportunity to speak here today.
7 Frankly, I'm not. New England Coalition has filed 8 numerous contentions. On April 6th, they filed three 9 contentions, which I'll summarize in a moment, these 10 contentions were rejected simply because the ASLB said 11 that they were filed late, even though they were based 12 on new information and rigor, they followed the 13 rigorous criteria of the ASLB regarding filing of 14 contentions.
15 Also, New England Coalition is operating 16 on, I guess one would call it, a shoestring budget.
17 I'm on the board, I go and check the mail because we 18 don't have office staff to check the mail, so we have 19 one pro se attorney in contrast to Entergy and the NRC, 20 Entergy has access to a firm with 900 lawyers, NRC has 21 200 attorneys or so on staff. These, whether the 22 uprate will take place or not is going to be determined 23 on the basis, we hope, of science and engineering, not 24 on the basis of the comments of citizens.
25 So when we file contentions that are based Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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80 1 on the work of an expert witness with 45 years of 2 experience in the nuclear field, a mechanical 3 engineering and who holds a doctorate in engineering, 4 who has also worked 18 years for the NRC, that is the 5 kind of technical expertise that is required to 6 evaluate the conditions at Vermont Yankee and yet these 7 contentions were rejected solely because you people 8 said they were late. They were not rejected on their 9 merits and we think that that is, that does not make me 10 feel safe and that does not make me feel grateful for 11 an opportunity to speak here today.
12 One of these contentions, the first one, 13 is that NV has failed to provide correctly calculated 14 off-site and control room radiological consequences in 15 the event of a design basis accident under extended 16 power uprate conditions, they have used both 17 questionable models and applied erroneous assumptions.
18 NRC staff has, through incorporation in the SER, 19 erroneously accepted and approved the NV methodology of 20 predicting dose releases under the EPU conditions.
21 The second contention deals with the lack 22 of discussion in the NV application of the radiological 23 consequences at Vermont Yankee under uprate and also 24 the staff review of those consequences following the 25 failure of small lines carrying primary coolant outside Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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1 of containment.
2 And the third contention deals with the 3 steam dryer under EPO conditions, that the intensity 4 and duration of dynamic loads may act upon the dryer, 5 causing it potentially to fragment and generate many 6 loose parts. And unlike the State of Vermont, 7 Mr. Sherman is referring to the steam dryer in terms of 8 reliability, we are referring to the steam dryer in 9 terms of safety because the loose parts may migrate to 10 the core region or the main steam isolation valve, 11 potentially blocking fuel flow channels and/or 12 preventing the MSIV from isolating the containment 13 following a main steam line break.
14 So these would appear, certainly to a lay 15 person, as significant safety concerns and yet they 16 were rejected because they were late. Of course the 17 hearings, as you remarked, will take place in 18 September, so it is hard to understand how contentions 19 that were filed in April will be regarded as late, when 20 the hearings are in September and we have been living 21 under the shadow of the uprate since March.
22 Thank you.
23 (Applause) 24 MR. KARLIN: Thank you.
25 Janet Schwarz is next on the list.
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82 1 MS. SCHWARZ: My name is Janet Schwarz, I 2 live in Brattleboro. I'm a member of the New England 3 Coalition, but I'm speaking here today as an individual 4 citizen.
5 Nuclear energy is promoted as being clean, 6 safe and cheap, but in reality, that is not true.
7 Nuclear energy is not clean, the mining and enriching 8 of uranium and the construction of nuclear reactors and 9 nuclear waste storage containers all use enormous 10 amounts of fossil fuels. In addition, transportation 11 of low level nuclear waste and the eventual 12 transportation of nuclear waste from the reactors to 13 permanent sites will depend upon the use of fossil 14 fuels.
15 Nuclear energy is not cheap. Because 16 nuclear power plants present the risk of catastrophic 17 accidents, insurance companies refuse to insure them.
18 Therefore, the U.S. Government passed the Price 19 Anderson Act which establishes a no fault insurance 20 type system for nuclear reactors. Under this plan, the 21 first $10 billion in claims is industry funded and any 22 claims above that amount are covered by the federal 23 government. In other words, the taxpayers. Last year, 24 this act was renewed for another 20 years, to 2025.
25 In addition, in order to promote the Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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83 1 construction of new reactors, the Bush Administration 2 has authorized help to the industry which includes 3 subsidized federal loans, tax exempt financing and tax 4 payer backed insurance of last resort. Other expenses 5 include the costs of Yucca Mountain, estimated to be 6 between $50 and $100 billion when finally finished, and 7 that doesn't include the high cost of transporting 8 nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain from reactors around 9 the country, if that does ever happen. Another cost, 10 mentioned yesterday, pertains to the NRC 3,000 11 employees making a salary of $50,000, add up to $150 12 million a year.
13 And after hearing these figures, keep in 14 mind that, in many places, renewable energy sources are 15 as cheap or significantly cheaper than nuclear energy.
16 Nuclear energy is not safe. As already mentioned, 17 insurance companies refuse to cover nuclear plants 18 because they present too high a risk but, beyond that, 19 there is no other industry that requires us to acquire 20 emergency radios, carry around potassium iodine to 21 protect our thyroid glands and to devise emergency 22 evacuation plans.
23 Vermont Yankee has been operating for 33 24 years and we still do not have an evacuation plan that 25 works, and I believe we never will because it is Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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84 1 impossible to devise a workable plan for a nuclear 2 disaster. In addition, nuclear reactors routinely 3 release radiation into the surrounding environment and 4 accidental releases, incidents and leaks occur.
5 Uranium mining has been responsible for the largest 6 collective exposure of workers to radiation. Finally, 7 nuclear waste is a serious threat to our environment 8 and no safe solution for its disposal exists, despite 9 50 years of production.
10 A byproduct of the fission process, 11 nuclear waste is thousands of times more radioactive 12 when it comes out of the reactor than when it entered 13 as enriched uranium. By continuing to generate nuclear 14 waste, which remains radioactive and a threat to human 15 life for thousands of years, we are leaving a deadly 16 legacy to future generations. I strongly urge you to 17 refuse to approve a 20 percent uprate and license 18 extension at Vermont Yankee. Also, in light of these 19 concerns, I urge you to reinstate the contentions of 20 the New England Coalition that were dismissed on 21 procedural or technical grounds.
22 Also, we hope that the Atomic Safety and 23 Licensing Board will allow the New England Coalition to 24 take up the two contentions that were proposed by the 25 State of Vermont but which were later dropped.
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85 1 Thank you.
2 (Applause) 3 MR. KARLIN: Thank you.
4 Martha Cooper is next on the sign up 5 sheet.
6 MS. COOPER: Thank you. I have two items.
7 First, I understand that a review has been done of the 8 documents provided by Entergy and the NRC and that no 9 reference could be found that Entergy has taken any 10 steps to comply with the 33 U.S. Code, Section 134 of 11 the Title 401 Clean Water Act. Major projects must 12 certify water use impacts, and this is certainly a 13 major project with an impact on the Connecticut River, 14 could you please investigate this for us?
15 Secondly, I would like to speak, as a 16 citizen, a local resident, I live in Cheshire County, 17 New Hampshire and we in New Hampshire have had very 18 little ability to influence these proceedings. We 19 don't have a standing, like Vermont does, but we have 20 experienced, in the last year, two significant 21 incidents of flooding, the first, last fall, affected a 22 12 mile square area, the flooding last month affected a 23 much larger area. I've had direct experience of the 24 inadequacy of preparation for dealing with an 25 unexpected disaster like this, there is, repairs are Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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86 1 still ongoing, affects just in Cheshire County were 2 more than $6 million.
3 Nine months later, people are not back in 4 their homes and this is, sorry, this is tiny, this is a 5 tiny, tiny, tiny thing compared to the impact of a 6 nuclear accident of any sort. A large section of 7 Vermont and a large section of our state would be 8 uninhabitable for, I'm sorry, could be uninhabitable 9 for many lifetimes and I think that, although I would 10 hope that the general view that evacuation plans would 11 work and that damage would be minimal and places would 12 be inhabitable again, I think that that is extremely 13 unlikely and the extent to which none of us are 14 prepared for dealing with any sort of emergency makes 15 it laughable that we could ever recover.
16 I'm sorry, I didn't mean to be so 17 emotional, I apologize.
18 MR. KARLIN: That's all right. If you 19 want to stop and come back.
20 MS. COOPER: No, I just thank you for 21 listening and please consider how much more significant 22 a nuclear accident would be than just simply water and 23 please review the kind of impact that it would truly 24 have, not just the kind of impact that a paper model or 25 a computer model displays.
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87 1 Thank you.
2 (Applause) 3 MR. KARLIN: Thank you.
4 Alicia Moyer, please?
5 MS. MOYER: Hi. My name is Alicia Moyer, 6 I live in West Townsend and I was hoping I would be 7 next because the first thing I want to talk about is 8 related to that, what the lady before me just spoke 9 about. A man last night spoke about the human 10 consequences of the Bhopal chemical disaster in India, 11 the consequences of a catastrophic accident at Vermont 12 Yankee would be orders of magnitude worse for one 13 simple reason, you can go back to Bhopal. If Vermont 14 Yankee melts down, we can never return to live in 15 Brattleboro, Guilford, Vernon, Gill, Lydon, 16 Bernardston, Colrane, Northfield, etcetera, etcetera.
17 A nuclear accident cannot be cleaned up or 18 neutralized, the environment will be destroyed 19 virtually forever. Evacuation is a necessity and will 20 be permanent, we can't take all the creatures that 21 share this beautiful valley with us. We would risk 22 this to save Vermonters $30 a year on their electric 23 bills at spot market prices? If we implemented 24 efficiency and reduced Vermont's energy demand by 20 25 percent, we could reduce the cost of Vermonters by Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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88 1 replacing Vermont Yankee to $20 a year, still using 2 spot market prices. If the Department of Public 3 Service did its job in regard to Act 61 and secured 4 long term contracts with renewable energy providers, 5 the cost would certainly be even less.
6 And then on another note, among the many 7 problems or mishaps that have occurred at Vermont 8 Yankee, I wanted to speak about one that exemplifies 9 the reason that it is so difficult to feel that the 10 plant has been given a thorough enough safety 11 evaluation and to trust those who operate and own it.
12 On June 18, 2004, there was a fire that was ultimately 13 termed inconsequential by plant officials, it was 14 referred to as an unusual event and its cause a 15 "mystery". From what I've learned, as an absolutely 16 technologically uninclined student, since then, is that 17 the fire was caused by something plant owners had known 18 about and chosen not to rectify for 15 years.
19 My understanding is that flexible joints 20 in the self-cooling electrical duct needed to be 21 replaced, at least to withstand the increase in air 22 flow in an uprate, which ultimately caused a piece of a 23 joint to be torn off. This resulted in a short and a 24 hydrogen fire inside the building and an emergency shut 25 down. If there are any details I've left out, it's Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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89 1 because I am just a lay student. I have watched 2 friends and neighbors try desperately to inform 3 themselves of the complex technological details of 4 nuclear science in order to attempt to speak at 5 hearings and meetings, such as this, from an 6 intelligent, informed place, however much emotion has 7 motivated their studiousness.
8 In response, time and again, I see our 9 efforts to educate ourselves met with empty cajoling 10 responses. When there is such a fire in the plant, and 11 this is a picture of the fire, inconsequential.
12 MR. KARLIN: Okay.
13 MS. MOYER: Okay? It is hard to trust.
14 Related to this, when the uprate is stopped three times 15 due to acoustical vibrations and the vibrations are 16 studied by super computers in three distant locations, 17 and all we are told is that these sounds were a 18 concern, but not enough of one that plant operators 19 couldn't handle them, there again, how are we to trust?
20 As a student, I try to listen well and to learn what I 21 can, sometimes increased knowledge leads to decreased 22 fear. In this case, I'm not sure that is the case, but 23 the fear becomes laced with anger when intelligent 24 questions are responded to with simplistic, content 25 free answers.
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90 1 When the 20 percent extra power is not 2 even going to benefit us in this area, we are being 3 treated as mere guinea pigs. And thank you very much 4 for listening and thank you for being here.
5 (Applause) 6 MR. KARLIN: Thank you.
7 The next person to sign up is Peter 8 Diamondstone. Mr. Diamondstone?
9 MR. DIAMONDSTONE: I'm a politician. I've 10 been a candidate of a very small political party in 11 Vermont since 1970, it grew out of opposition to the 12 war in Vietnam. Since 1970, we have opposed not only, 13 we have opposed the construction of the plant. We now, 14 by consensus, since 1978, require its closing. I'm not 15 going to go into all the details of why because most of 16 that has been covered. The kind of thing that worries 17 me is that Milton Freidman did a really good rebuttal 18 of the War on Drugs in 1973, I think it was in 19 Newsweek, or Time or one of those magazines, and 20 everything he predicted came true, and I feel really 21 very unhappy about being here because I think it's all 22 going to come true again at Vernon.
23 I've developed a peculiar interest, now 24 that some surgeons think my thyroid should come out 25 because they claim it's cancerous, and doing studying Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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91 1 on cancer issues, I have wonderful maps that I keep 2 coming across in book after book showing the 3 concentrations of cancer in areas where there are 4 nuclear power plants, as opposed to the areas where 5 there are not, but that's just a minor concern. I want 6 to focus on two things, one is the independent safety 7 assessment. I mean why? I mean here everybody is 8 complaining about safety issues and the nuclear power 9 industry doesn't want the assessment. I mean why?
10 You could make us all as calm and quiet, 11 nobody would show up to these hearings, if there was an 12 independent safety assessment, but nobody wants to deal 13 with the fears, and nobody really wants, in the 14 industry and the NRC, the independent safety 15 assessment. That makes me feel really more 16 uncomfortable than the cancer issue because if you 17 don't want an independent safety inspection, it must be 18 because you know there is something wrong.
19 The other one that bothers me is 20 evacuation plans. You know, when I was a kid growing 21 up, we went to school and, every once in a while, they 22 would pull a surprise air raid drill or a fire drill, 23 so we learned to go through the routines of evacuating 24 the high school, or the grammar school or whatever 25 school I was in. And here I am in Brattleboro, Vermont Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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92 1 and to me it seems absolutely imperative that we have a 2 few surprise air raid drills like, not emptying one 3 building or another building, but how about 3:00 in the 4 morning on Sunday morning? How is this evacuation plan 5 going to work at 3:00 in the morning on Sunday morning, 6 unless we have practiced?
7 This is not something you can do on paper 8 and then be sure it's going to work, we need practice 9 at it, and it's 3:00 in the morning, it's not when the 10 kids are in school, although that too, we should 11 probably have some of those too. But how are we going 12 to, at 3:00 in the morning, get the people out of the 13 hospitals, and the nursing homes and all the rest of 14 that? So I'm just saying that I would like to see two 15 things, the independent safety assessment and a 16 requirement, a requirement that we go through surprise 17 evacuation procedures without notice to the community 18 that they are going to happen so that we can practice 19 responding to those emergencies. We need that practice 20 to restore our confidence in this system.
21 Thank you.
22 (Applause) 23 MR. KARLIN: Thank you.
24 The next person to sign up is Sunny Shaw.
25 I'm sorry Sally Shaw. Ms. Shaw?
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93 1 Well we'll, Gary Sachs. Mr. Sachs, do you 2 want to go first, if you are here? Okay, I'll wait a 3 sec.
4 Ms. Shaw, you are up.
5 MS. SHAW: I just wanted to share with you 6 a larger version of the picture Ms. Moyer presented, I 7 don't know if you've seen this before. The light is 8 not very good.
9 MR. KARLIN: Okay. Marcia, could you 10 bring that up here so that we could see it? It's hard 11 to see, with the lighting the way it is.
12 MS. SHAW: This was the inconsequential 13 fire. A picture is worth a thousand words.
14 MR. BARATTA: Are you submitting that as 15 evidence or do you want to keep that?
16 MS. SHAW: I would kind of like to keep 17 it, it was expensive to make.
18 MR. BARATTA: Right, right, obviously.
19 MS. SHAW: I have a smaller one I can give 20 you for evidence, if you would like.
21 MR. KARLIN: If you want to submit it.
22 MR. BARATTA: Yes, would you submit it in 23 writing, you know, with a limited appearance statement, 24 a written--
25 MS. SHAW: Sure, then I can mail it to the Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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94 1 address that was on your notice.
2 MR. BARATTA: Thank you.
3 MS. SHAW: Last night I spoke and I 4 appreciate the opportunity to again. Last night, I 5 tried to appeal to your scientific side. Just to make 6 sure, I mean I don't know if you review the entire 7 record of incidents and events at Vermont Yankee or at 8 all of the reactors that you have oversight of, but 9 just I wanted it to be on the record that there were t 10 hat many occurrences of problems at the plant within a 11 few short years of when Entergy purchased it.
12 Today, I want to appeal to your human 13 side, and you've had to listen to a lot of people 14 stumble through fairly technical testimony about things 15 that we know very little on, and this is sort of like 16 if you look at the constellations in the sky, some of 17 them are easier to see if you don't look directly at 18 them, like the Pliates, so I want to share this poem 19 with you, it's by Mary Oliver, The Lamb.
20 I did not know that in the world there 21 lurked various death, fangs, and fruits and falling 22 trees, mushrooms and arriving mud. I did not know that 23 in the world grew sinister berries and dubious roots, I 24 was young and quick, I was wary of none of these. I 25 drank black water and clattered through caves, I was a Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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95 1 creature of the shepherd and this was my game. All day 2 long I sipped and I nibbled shoots from glistening 3 trees, tart berries for the sake of their shining 4 husks, garlands that fostered a bane under their bright 5 petals, pools with fevers in their dark mirrors, I 6 found and drank from every one.
7 And not until I law swelled and cracked on 8 the grass did I guess what I had eaten, not until I lay 9 with crumbling hooves kicking the grass did I guess 10 what I had done. My shepherd and my flock called for 11 me down the dusky fields, but childhood had no potion 12 that could lave over this fever, and they called and 13 they called in vein.
14 Thank you.
15 (Applause) 16 MR. KARLIN: Thank you.
17 Mr. Sachs, Gary Sachs?
18 MR. SACHS: I felt like walking down here 19 with my pants pulled down to my ankles because that's 20 kind of like how it feels speaking before you guys, 21 like we are sort of like, literally, you are the ones 22 with the power, we are the ones walking with our pants 23 down and you just turn around and do what you want.
24 Okay, thank you very much for letting me 25 speak today. Nothing fancy to say. I don't know if Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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96 1 you have heard much about this, if anybody has raised 2 this issue, I want to speak about the unquantified 3 impacts of the uprate, i.e. the low level waste.
4 Down at Vermont Yankee, I think it's the 5 South Field, no one knows how much low level waste 6 Entergy plans on putting in the spray zone, which is 7 within the cooling towers. That's an unknown, it's 8 just, it's a quantity greater than zero, it's a 9 quantity that increases as a result of the uprate, 10 unquantified. It's not a question of whether Entergy 11 is exceeding the NRC limits, it's more a question of 12 the quantity of impact on the environment. Now I've 13 looked at the original licensing agreements back from 14 1967 and I know that when this plant closes, it's to e 15 brought back to a condition known as green field. You 16 gentlemen, I'm sure, are aware of that, green field.
17 To me, this whole issue is one of the 18 quality assurance and quality control, and I bring up 19 this unquantified impacts of the uprate because I guess 20 I've seen, I don't know if I would call it a habit but 21 a practice of Entergy of seeking a federal bailout. I 22 sat before the Vermont State Nuclear Advisory Panel 23 back in October of 2004 and three times the 24 commissioner of that panel turned to Dave McKelby, the 25 senior liaison officer for Entergy, and said, Dave, Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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97 1 Entergy likely will be long gone by the time these, 2 this was on the dry cask issue, excuse me, by the time 3 these dry casks have to be swapped out, they have a 4 lifetime of 100 years, dry cask storage, who do you 5 think will be taking care of swapping out these casks 6 in 100 years?
7 Three times Mr. McKelby responded the 8 federal government. To me, that's a relationship with 9 the environment that's an unquantifiable issue or it 10 should be a quantifiable issue that is unaccounted for.
11 Today, Entergy is seeking a federal bailout, $750,000 12 of community block grants, for New Orleans. That's 13 Entergy, that's the company, that's after they sought 14 the federal bailouts just after the New Orleans issue.
15 Regarding the fire in 2004 in the transformer bus bars 16 or generator bus bars, basically it sent electrical 17 charges through the, there was a small fire inside as 18 well that basically sent an electrical charge 19 throughout the reactor.
20 There were 30 foot high flames. There 21 were federal notices to repair or there were GE notices 22 to repair that part of the reactor for about 14 years 23 prior to that fire, both VY and Entergy knew it, that's 24 why Entergy took full responsibility for the fact that 25 that fire occurred. But apparently in Entergy's $60 Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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98 1 million plus eager investment in the uprate, they chose 2 to disregard the 14 years of repair notices, they chose 3 that lack of maintenance in favor of doing the uprate 4 related issues and, to me, those all signify a lack of 5 quality assurance and quality control, and those are 6 our neighbors.
7 Thank you.
8 MR. KARLIN: Thank you, Mr Shaw. I'm 9 sorry, Mr. Sachs, sorry.
10 (Applause) 11 MR. KARLIN: Next speaker is Mary Alice 12 Herbert.
13 MS. HERBERT: Thank you. I've lived in 14 Putney, Vermont, which is north of here, since 1966.
15 And I've seen how people have worried about, first of 16 all, when the plant was built, and all through its 17 operation. This has been something that people in this 18 area feel was visited-on us from people who don't live 19 around here and I think there is an awful, a great deal 20 of concern. We wonder why on earth if you are going to 21 put a plant, like, for example, we use the old car, the 22 vintage car model example. If you were going to start 23 running a vintage car at a higher rate of speed, you 24 would do, you just probably would not do it.
25 And so we wonder why on earth there has Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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99 1 not been an independent safety assessment done at 2 Vermont Yankee before this uprate began. People are 3 very concerned. I belong to the New England Coalition, 4 the Citizens Awareness Network and Nuclear Free Vermont 5 and, as part of being in the Citizens Awareness 6 Network, I felt moved to go to Entergy headquarters, 7 back in January when it was cold and freezing, and got 8 arrested for being there. Our group was trying to 9 deliver a letter to Entergy inviting them to change 10 from nuclear power and, instead of continuing with an, 11 instead of asking for a license extension to become a 12 green corporation, to change to renewable energy 13 because we love the Green Mountain State and we feel as 14 though nuclear power is just out of character.
15 We have wonderful scenery here, we have 16 pure Vermont products. One nuclear accident and all 17 that would be gone. We just, we've done, there has 18 been research done which has shown that the energy that 19 we get from Vermont Yankee could be replaced by 20 conservation. If money were, if that amount of money 21 were given to Efficiency Vermont, we could, through 22 efficiency and green energy, we could create more jobs 23 than Vermont Yankee provides.
24 After getting arrested, I decided I wasn't 25 going to do that anymore, so the next Thursday I Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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100 1 started having a green energy vigil, every Thursday 2 afternoon from 4:00 to 5:00 in front of the Wells 3 Fountain in Downtown Brattleboro.
4 And that's been a pretty good gauge of 5 public support for Yankee shutting down on schedule in 6 2012. The signs that we put out reflect what's going 7 on, the signs that say we can replace Vermont Yankee 8 with renewable energy and conservation. After there 9 were three fires in three years, I made a sign that 10 said three fires in three years is three fires too 11 many. Our sign that calls for an, that asks whether 12 Vermont Yankee could pass an independent safety 13 assessment gets lots of honks and waves.
14 And sometimes when we are standing there, 15 during that hour, we count how many positive responses 16 we get, how many thumbs up, how many people say thank 17 you for being out there, the waves and victory signs, 18 compared to thumbs down or the catcalls we get, and 19 it's 12-15 to 1. So I think we are a good kind of 20 public opinion poll standing out there and we plan to 21 keep that vigil goinguntil, we have signs, nuclear 22 free Vermont in 2012, and we plan to be out there until 23 Entergy decides to close that plant down on schedule in 24 2012.
25 Thank you.
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101 1 And I would like to invite anybody in the 2 audience to come join us from 4:00 to 5:00 any 3 Thursday.
4 Thank you.
5 (Applause) 6 MR. KARLIN: Thank you.
7 I'm going to try to call one more time 8 Robert Saffway? Did he show up? He signed up, someone 9 indicated he had left. I think I've got that wrong, 10 but I guess not.
11 With that, we have concluded our meeting 12 and our three, our series of three meetings. Everyone 13 who has signed up has had a chance to speak, some a 14 couple times. I appreciate all of you coming here. We 15 will take this information into consideration, we will 16 have a transcript. If you want to submit something in 17 writing, limited appearance statements, you may. With 18 that, this meeting is adjourned, thank you.
19 Oh, were you signed up before? Oh, okay, 20 I'm sorry. It doesn't seem to be here, but, please.
21 Your name is?
22 MS. FRANK: Shawna Frank.
23 MR. KARLIN: Frank, okay. Shawna Frank.
24 MS. FRANK: I'm at the top of the page. I 25 wasn't sure if I would be prepared to speak, but I Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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1 would like to speak, thank you. Gentleman and ladies, 2 I'm pleased that you are here to hear our testimony, 3 I'm reflecting on the wide range of types of comments 4 you've received from highly technical to highly 5 emotional and I believe that the decision that you are 6 faced with needs to incorporate all different points 7 of, all different aspects of the question.
8 Personally, I would like to remind you to 9 take a long view of what's at stake here. The uranium 10 mining has a life cycle of its own, as you know, from 11 the milling of the uranium, that has caused countless 12 deaths in Native Americans who are faced with breathing 13 the yellow cake and their children who play in it not 14 knowing the dangers, everything from that to the fact 15 that there is no answer for the storage of the waste.
16 And regarding the uprate specifically, I urge you to 17 take into consideration all the contentions that have 18 been brought forward, the ones that received merit by 19 the state, but although the state is not continuing 20 with that, they certainly deserve your attention, as 21 well as the ones, that were mentioned today, that were 22 submitted at a later date.
23 The uprate itself, if we look at it, is a 24 matter of a corporation looking to increase its 25 profits. Their bottom line is how much money can they Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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103 1 pay their investors and keep their jobs? Our bottom 2 line is the safety of our friends, our neighbors and 3 this planet in general. Radioactive leaks don't stay 4 within a ten mile radius, in fact they travel around 5 the whole atmosphere, as seen in Chernoble and the 6 radiation that was found in plants in North America and 7 throughout Europe. So, while there is a great risk for 8 the radiation, we also appreciate that you are looking 9 into the safety of the matter.
10 One of the nuclear engineers who has 11 testified on behalf of the New England Coalition says 12 he is not anti nuclear, he is pro safe nuclear and that 13 the Navy, not today but in other settings, uses far 14 more stringent standards when they operate their 15 nuclear power subs than they do in the public sector, 16 in the nuclear power stations that are used 17 commercially. And so while I personally believe that 18 there are much better alternatives, renewable energy, 19 which is free and safe, the sun is not going to go 20 away, if there were to be nuclear energy, we need the 21 independent safety assessment to determine if this 22 particular plant, from top to bottom, from its design, 23 its construction, its operation, its maintenance, all 24 facets of this are safe, as safe as humanly can be made 25 possible.
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104 1 And also to remember that not only does 2 Entergy want the uprate, they want the uprate because 3 then they can, it's more profitable to extend the 4 license and I, along with many, many people, believe 5 that the license should be not continued and, even 6 though that's not part of what you are addressing, it 7 is tied directly to the uprate.
8 So I appreciate you taking the time to 9 consider all aspects of the uprate, all the contentions 10 and to make your decision wisely.
11 Thank you.
12 (Applause) 13 MR. KARLIN: Thank you. And thank you to 14 everyone who has come out today, and this morning and 15 last night. Again, we'll take this into consideration.
16 Has anyone else signed up who has not, I haven't called 17 their name? Okay, I didn't think so. Well, with that, 18 we are going to adjourn.
19 This board will be back, we are planning 20 to be back here in the week of September lth for the 21 evidentiary hearing, that will be a time, and we 22 haven't set the exact time and dates yet, but we have 23 that week reserved, as well as a week in October, and 24 that would be a time when we will have the parties, the 25 litigants, the people who have actually filed in this Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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105 1 adjudicatory hearing, the New England Coalition, the 2 NRC staff and Entergy, lawyers and Mr. Shatus, who is 3 the pro se representative of NEC will be there, and 4 perhaps some of their witnesses. And we'll ask them 5 questions and this will be a more formal evidentiary 6 proceeding in the Newfane Courtroom up there, that's 7 the only place we could get to be available.
8 I know it's up the road a little bit and 9 so we'll have it there, so we will be back at that time 10 and what we will do is take what we have heard here and 11 think about it in terms of how it relates with our 12 jurisdiction, and the contentions and the uprate issues 13 and see if there is questions we want to ask, that 14 maybe are supplemental, based upon what we've seen here 15 and the transcript that we'll read. Yes?
16 MR. DIAMONDSTONE: Is that hearing going 17 to exclude the consideration of those contentions that 18 were claimed but not being considered because they were 19 filed late?
20 MR. KARLIN: It will only consider the 21 contentions that have been admitted, yes, that's right.
22 If new content, there is one contention that's pending 23 right now, that is filed, so that's, we still haven't 24 issued a ruling on that. Well the regulation, Judge 25 Rubenstein is deciding the regulation, 2.206 is another Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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106 1 process but, okay, only the contentions that have been 2 admitted into the proceeding will be covered in that 3 hearing, yes.
4 Okay, we are now adjourned, thank you all 5 for coming out.
6 (Whereupon, at 3:13 p.m., the session 7 was adjourned.)
8 9
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CERTIFICATE This is to certify that the attached proceedings before the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission in the matter of:
Name of Proceeding: Entergy Nuclear Vermont Yankee, LLC and Entergy Nuclear Operations, Inc.
Limited Appearances Docket Number: 50-271-OLA and ASLBP No.04-832-02-OLA Location: Brattleboro, VT were held as herein appears, and that this is the original transcript thereof for the file of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission taken by me and, thereafter reduced to typewriting by me or under the direction of the court reporting company, and that the transcript is a true and accurate record of the foregoing proceedings.
MartFarle Official Reporter Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com