ML062220458
| ML062220458 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Oyster Creek |
| Issue date: | 07/12/2006 |
| From: | NRC/NRR/ADRO/DLR |
| To: | |
| References | |
| %dam200612, +sunsimjr=200608, NRC-1133, TAC MC7625 | |
| Download: ML062220458 (122) | |
Text
Official Transcript of Proceedings NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Title:
Oyster Creek Draft EIS Public Meeting Afternoon Session Docket Number:
50-219 Location:
Toms River, New Jersey Date:
Wednesday, July 12, 2006 Work Order No.:
NRC-1133 Pages 1-105 NEAL R. GROSS AND CO., INC.
Court Reporters and Transcribers 1323 Rhode Island Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 234-4433
1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 1
NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 2
+ + + + +
3 PUBLIC MEETING TO DISCUSS THE DRAFT SUPPLEMENTAL 4
ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT STATEMENT FOR THE LICENSE 5
RENEWAL OF OYSTER CREEK NUCLEAR GENERATING STATION 6
+ + + + +
7 WEDNESDAY, 8
JULY 12, 2006 9
+ + + + +
10 The meeting convened at 1:30 p.m. in the 11 Grand Ballroom of the Toms River Quality Inn, 815 12 Route 37, Toms River, New Jersey, CHIP CAMERON, 13 Special Counsel for Public Liaison, Nuclear Regulatory 14 Commission, presiding.
15
2 I-N-D-E-X 1
AGENDA ITEM PAGE 2
I. Welcome and Purpose of Meeting 3
3 F. Cameron 4
II. Overview of License Renewal Process 10 5
M. Masnik 6
III. Results of the Environmental Review 19 7
K. LaGory 8
IV. How Comments can be Submitted 38 9
M. Masnik 10 V. Public Comments 62 11 VI. Closing/Availability of Transcripts, etc.
107 12 F. Cameron 13
3 P-R-O-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S 1
(1:28 p.m.)
2 I. WELCOME AND PURPOSE OF MEETING 3
FACILITATOR CAMERON: Good afternoon, 4
everyone. My name is Chip Cameron. I am the Special 5
Counsel for Public Liaison at the Nuclear Regulatory 6
Commission. And I would like to welcome you to the 7
NRC public meeting today. If we could just hold it 8
down over there in the corner, guys? Thank you.
9 Our subject today is going to be the 10 environmental review that the NRC staff has conducted 11 as part of its evaluation of an application that we 12 received from the AmerGen Company to renew the 13 operating license for the Oyster Creek nuclear power 14 plant. And the NRC staff environmental review is 15 documented in a Draft Environmental Impact Statement 16 statement. And that is going to be the focus of our 17 meeting today.
18 And it's my pleasure to serve as your 19 facilitator for the meeting. And in that role, I'm 20 going to try to help all of you to have a productive 21 meeting today.
22 I just want to cover three items of 23 meeting process before we go on to the substance of 24 today's discussions. And I'd like to tell you a 25
4 little bit about the format for the meeting this 1
afternoon, some really simple ground rules, and to 2
introduce the people who are going to be talking to 3
you today.
4 In terms of the format for the meeting, 5
it's basically a two-part format. We're going to 6
start out by giving you some brief background material 7
on the NRC's license renewal process, what we look at 8
in evaluating whether to decide to grant an 9
application for license renewal. And, specifically, 10 we want to tell you about the findings and conclusions 11 in the Draft Environmental Impact Statement.
12 After we do that, we'll have some time for 13 any questions that you might have about the license 14 renewal process or about what's in the Draft 15 Environmental Impact Statement. And then we're going 16 to move on to the second part of the meeting, which is 17 really the primary part of the meeting. And this is 18 an opportunity for us to listen to you, to any 19 concerns you have, recommendations, comments on the 20 Draft Environmental Impact Statement or on the license 21 renewal process generally.
22 And, as the staff, NRC staff, will tell 23 you, today we're also taking written comments on these 24 issues. But we wanted to be here with you today in 25
5 person. And anything that you say today is going to 1
carry as much weight as a written comment.
2 In terms of ground rules, when we go out 3
for questions, if you could just introduce yourself to 4
us? I'll bring you this cordless microphone. And 5
give us any affiliation, if that's appropriate, and to 6
ask your question. And we'll try to give you a good, 7
clear answer to that.
8 We don't have a lot of time for questions 9
because we want to move on to the comment period. But 10 if we can't answer your question in-depth, we will 11 answer it offline, so to speak, after the meeting 12 today.
13 I would just ask you to try to be brief in 14 your questions and to confine it to questions. We are 15 going to have a comment period. So a lot of times 16 when we ask questions, they sort of morph over into a 17 comment, and that is natural. But if you could try to 18 keep that down to a minimum and hold your comments 19 until we get to the comment part of the meeting?
20 And I would ask that only one person speak 21 at a time, whoever either has the cordless microphone 22 or when we get to the formal comment part of the 23 meeting, we're going to ask you to come up here to 24 talk to us.
25
6 An obvious reason for that ground rule is 1
so that we could give our full attention to whomever 2
has the floor at the time. But there is another 3
reason. We are taking a transcript of today's 4
meeting. And that will be a public record that will 5
be available to you. It's our record of the meeting.
6 Toby is our court reporter here. And he's 7
going to be taking a transcript. And if we just have 8
one person speaking at a time, that allows Toby to get 9
what I call a clean transcript. He'll know who's 10 talking at the moment.
11 During the comment part of the meeting, I 12 would like you to keep your comments, if you could, to 13 a five-minute guideline. We don't have a lot of 14 speakers yet. So we may have some leeway there, some 15 flexibility. And I'll just give you a "hi" sign when 16 we're getting near the end of the time so that you can 17 sum up for us.
18 I've found that the five-minute range is 19 enough time to get your major points across. And you 20 can expand on your comments by sending in written 21 comments. But even though it's only five minutes, it 22 does two important things for the NRC. One, it alerts 23 us to what issues or concerns people have right now 24 that we should start working on, that we should start 25
7 talking to you about.
1 The second thing that your comments will 2
do, it will alert people in the community to what 3
their concerns are so that they can start thinking 4
about that.
5 And, as always with meetings of this type, 6
there are going to be different opinions on what the 7
correct thing to do is. And I would just ask you to 8
all display courtesy to others, who may have different 9
opinions than you have, whatever those opinions are.
10 I am going to introduce our speakers. I 11 just want to thank you all for being here to help the 12 NRC with this important decision that we have in front 13 of us.
14 Our first speaker is going to be Dr.
15 Michael Masnik. Mike is the project manager for the 16 environmental review on the Oyster Creek license 17 application. He coordinates a team of experts, as he 18 will tell you about, that gather data on potential 19 environmental impacts.
20 He's been with the NRC for about 30 years, 21 a long time, in various roles, including being the 22 project manager for the environmental review on other 23 license renewal applications, applications for other 24 nuclear power plants around the country. And he's 25
8 been very involved in the decommissioning activities 1
on nuclear reactors as well as a lot of other things.
2 He does have a particular tie and fondness 3
to this particular area of New Jersey. His parents 4
owned a summer home here when he was growing up. And 5
I guess that was in Seaside Park. And you spent your 6
summers here, I guess, through college. And in 7
college, Mike actually was a park ranger at the Island 8
Beach State Park before he went to graduate school.
9 His degrees, his academic degrees, he has 10 a Bachelor's from Cornell University. And he has a 11 Master's and Ph.D.
from Virginia Polytechnic 12 Institute, which most of us refer to as Virginia Tech.
13 And that degree is in Ichthyology. I finally am able 14 to pronounce that correctly after many times.
15 Mike is going to tell you about the 16 license renewal process and the environmental review 17 process. And then we're going to go to Mr. Kirk 18 LaGory, who is right here. Kirk is going to talk to 19 you about the findings and conclusions in the Draft 20 Environmental Impact Statement.
21 Kirk is the team leader of the team of 22 experts that we have doing the environmental review on 23 this license renewal application. And he is with 24 Argonne National Lab outside of Chicago, Illinois.
25
9 And there he is the team leader for natural resources 1
analysis from an energy-facility-siting perspective.
2 He's an ecologist by training. And what 3
Kirk spends his time doing is looking at potential 4
energy facilities, natural gas facilities, oil shale, 5
hydroelectric, and looking at what the environmental 6
impacts from those facilities might be. And, of 7
course, on this one, he's looking at environmental 8
impacts from the renewal of the Oyster Creek license.
9 His Bachelor's is from Evergreen State 10 College. He has Master's in Environmental Science 11 and a Ph.D. in Zoology, both from Miami of Ohio 12 University.
13 And, with that, I'm going to turn it over 14 to Mike for the overview. We're then going to go to 15 Kirk. And then Mike will be back with conclusions.
16 I would just ask you, hold your questions 17 if you can. Write them down so that they can get 18 through all of this material. And then we'll go out 19 to you for questions.
20 Thank you.
21 DR. MASNIK: Thank you, Chip.
22 II. OVERVIEW OF LICENSE RENEWAL PROCESS 23 DR. MASNIK: And thank you all for taking 24 the time to come to this meeting. I always look 25
10 forward to the opportunity to come back to the Jersey 1
Shore.
2 I would like to start off by briefly going 3
over the agenda and the purposes of today's meeting.
4 We'll first briefly explain the NRC's license renewal 5
process for nuclear power plants with an emphasis on 6
the environmental review.
7 Then Kirk LaGory from Argonne National 8
Laboratory will present the preliminary findings of 9
our environmental review, which assesses the impacts 10 associated with extending the operating license of 11 Oyster Creek Nuclear Station for an additional 20 12 years.
13 Then, really, the most important part of 14 today's meeting is for us to receive any comments that 15 you might have on our draft environmental statement.
16 We also will give you some information as to the 17 schedule of the balance of the review and let you know 18 how you can submit comments in the future.
19 At the conclusion of the staff's 20 presentation, we will be happy to answer any 21 questions. However, I must ask you to limit your 22 participation to questions related to the 23 environmental review and hold your comments until the 24 appropriate time during today's meeting.
25
11 Next slide. Before I get into a 1
discussion of the license renewal process, I would 2
like to take a minute to talk about the NRC in terms 3
of what we do and what our mission is.
4 The Atomic Energy Act is a legislation 5
that authorizes the NRC to issue operating licenses.
6 The Atomic Energy Act provides for a 40-year license 7
term for power reactors. This 40-year term is based 8
primarily on economic considerations and antitrust 9
factors and not on safety limitations of the plant.
10 The Atomic Energy Act also authorizes the 11 NRC to regulate the civilian use of nuclear materials 12 in the United States. And exercising this authority, 13 the NRC mission is threefold: to ensure adequate 14 protection of public health and safety, to promote the 15 common defense and security, and to protect the 16 environment.
17 As I mentioned, the Atomic Energy Act 18 provides for a 40-year license term for power 19 reactors. Our regulations also include provisions for 20 extending the plant operation for up to an additional 21 20 years. For Oyster Creek, the operating license 22 will expire on April 9th, 2009. And Oyster Creek is 23 owned by AmerGen Energy Company, LLC.
24 As part of the NRC's review of that 25
12 license renewal application, we have performed an 1
environmental review to look at the impacts of an 2
additional 20 years of operation on the environment.
3 We held a meeting here in November 2005 to 4
seek your input regarding the issues we needed to 5
evaluate. We indicated at the earlier scoping meeting 6
that we would return to the Oyster Creek area to 7
present the preliminary results documented in our 8
Draft Environmental Impact Statement. And that's the 9
purpose of today's meeting.
10 The NRC license renewal review is similar 11 to the original licensing process for nuclear power 12 stations in that it involves two parts in an 13 environmental review, along the bottom part of the 14 slide, and a safety review, along the top part. This 15 slide gives the big-picture overview of the license 16 renewal review process, which involves these two 17 parallel paths.
18 I'm going to briefly describe these two 19 review processes, starting with the safety review.
20 Now, what does a safety review consider? For license 21 renewal, the safety review focuses on aging management 22 of systems, structures, and components that are 23 important to safety. The license renewal safety 24 review does not assess current operational issues, 25
13 such as security, emergency planning, and safety 1
performance. The NRC monitors and provides regulatory 2
oversights of these issues on an ongoing basis under 3
the current operating license. Because the NRC is 4
addressing these current operating issues on a 5
continuing basis, we do not reevaluate them during 6
7 Next slide. As I've mentioned, the 8
license renewal safety review focuses on plant aging 9
and programs that the licensee has already implemented 10 or will implement to manage the effects of aging.
11 I would like to introduce the safety 12 project manager, Donnie Ashley. Donnie, can you stand 13 up? He's in charge of the safety review. The safety 14 review involves the NRC's staff evaluation of 15 technical information that is contained in the license 16 renewal application. This is referred to as a safety 17 evaluation.
18 The NRC staff also conducts audits as part 19 of its safety review. There is a team of about 30 NRC 20 technical reviewers and contractors that are 21 conducting the safety evaluation right now.
22 Safety review also includes plant 23 inspections. And the inspections are conducted by a 24 team of inspectors, both from headquarters and our 25
14 Region I regional office in King of Prussia, 1
2 The NRC also maintains two resident 3
inspectors at the Oyster Creek nuclear plant. We have 4
Marc Ferdas and Ryan Treadway here today, the two 5
resident inspectors.
6 The results of the license renewal 7
inspections are documented in separate inspection 8
reports. The staff documents the results of its 9
review in a safety evaluation report. And that report 10 is independently reviewed by the Advisory Committee on 11 Reactor Safeguards, or the ACRS.
12 The ACRS is a group of nationally 13 recognized technical experts that serve as a 14 consulting body for the Commission. They review each 15 license renewal application and safety evaluation 16 report, form their own conclusions and recommendations 17 on the requested action, and then report these 18 conclusions and recommendations directly to the 19 Commission.
20 Next slide. The second part of our review 21 process involves the environmental review. This next 22 slide outlines the steps in the environmental review.
23 The environmental review, which is the subject of 24 today's meeting, evaluates the impacts of license 25
15 renewal on a number of areas, including ecology, 1
hydrology, cultural resources, and socioeconomic 2
issues, among others.
3 The environmental review involves scoping 4
activities and the development of a document called a 5
"Draft Supplement" to the Generic Environmental Impact 6
Statement for License Renewal. The Draft Supplement 7
to this Generic Environmental Impact Statement 8
provides the staff's preliminary assessment of 9
environmental impact during the renewal period.
10 The Draft Environmental Impact Statement 11 for Oyster Creek has been published for comments. And 12 copies, which look like this, are available in the 13 back of the room. And we're here today to discuss the 14 results of our review and to receive your comments on 15 our assessment.
16 In January of next year, we'll be issuing 17 a
final version of this environmental impact 18 statement, which will document how the staff 19 addressees the comments that we receive here today at 20 this meeting or in writing.
21 Next slide. Before I go any further, I 22 would like to give you just a little background 23 information on the statute that governs this 24 environmental review. The National Environmental 25
16 Policy Act of 1969 requires that Federal agencies 1
follow a systematic approach in evaluating potential 2
environmental impacts associated with certain actions.
3 We're required to consider the impacts of 4
the proposed action and any mitigation of those 5
impacts that we consider to be significant.
6 Alternatives to the proposed action include taking no 7
action on the applicant's requests. And these are 8
also considered.
9 The National Environmental Policy Act and 10 our Environmental Impact Statement for License Renewal 11 are disclosure tools.
They are specifically 12 structured to involve public participation. And this 13 meeting facilitates the public participation in our 14 environmental review.
15 So we're here today to collect public 16 comments on the Draft Environmental Impact Statement.
17 And these comments will be included in the final 18 environmental impact statement.
19 The NRC staff developed a
Generic 20 Environmental Impact Statement that addresses a number 21 of issues that are common to all nuclear plants. The 22 staff is supplementing that Generic Environmental 23 Impact Statement with this site-specific environmental 24 impact statement that addresses issues that are 25
17 specific to this individual facility.
1 The staff also evaluates the conclusions 2
reached in the Generic Environmental Impact Statement 3
to determine if there is any new and significant 4
information that would change any of these 5
conclusions.
6 Next slide. This slide shows our decision 7
standard for the environmental review. Please just 8
take a minute and go ahead and read this slide.
9 (Pause.)
10 DR. MASNIK: Simply put, is license 11 renewal acceptable from an environmental standpoint?
12 Next slide. This slide shows some 13 important milestone dates for the NRC's environmental 14 review. The highlighted dates indicate opportunities 15 for public involvement in the environmental review.
16 We received AmerGen's application 17 requesting their license renewal for Oyster Creek on 18 July 22nd, 2005. On September 16th, 2005, we issued 19 a Federal Register notice of intent to prepare an 20 environmental impact statement and to conduct scoping.
21 Public meeting was held here in this room 22 on November 1st, 2005 as part of our scoping process.
23 Many of you may have attended that meeting and 24 provided comments to us.
25
18 Comments that were given at the scoping 1
meeting that are within the scope of our review are 2
contained in Appendix A of the Draft Environmental 3
Impact Statement. Out-of-scope comments were answered 4
in the Scoping Summary Report, copies of which are 5
available in the back of the room.
6 The scoping period ended on November 25th, 7
2005. The Scoping Summary Report was issued on 8
February 21st, 2006. And they addressed all the 9
comments we received from all sources during the 10 scoping process.
11 On June 9th, 2006, the NRC staff issued 12 the Draft Supplement to the Generic Environmental 13 Impact Statement. This document is the subject of 14 today's meeting. We're currently accepting public 15 comments on the draft until September 8th, 2006.
16 Today's meeting is being transcribed. And 17 comments provided here carry the same weight as a 18 written comment submitted to the NRC. Once the 19 comment period closes, we will develop the final 20 impact statement, which we expect to publish in 21 January of next year.
22 This concludes my prepared remarks on the 23 process. Now I'm going to turn it over to Dr. Kirk 24 LaGory, who will explain our findings.
25
19 III. RESULTS OF THE ENVIRONMENTAL REVIEW 1
DR. LaGORY: Good afternoon. Glad you all 2
could make it here today. My name is Kirk LaGory. I 3
am an ecologist at Argonne National Laboratory. And 4
I was the project team leader for the Oyster Creek 5
EIS.
6 The NRC contracted with Argonne to 7
evaluate the impacts of license renewal at the Oyster 8
Creek Nuclear Generating Station. The EIS team 9
consisted of scientists from Argonne, from Pacific 10 Northwest National Laboratory, as well as NRC staff.
11 We have a couple of team members here 12 today, and I would like to introduce them. They'll be 13 available for questions as they arise. We have Jeff 14 Ward. Jeff is from Pacific Northwest National 15 Laboratory, and he prepared the aquatic resources 16 portion of the document. And then we have Mike 17 Lazzaro, who may have stepped out. He's our air 18 quality expert. He prepared that portion of the 19 document.
20 This slide depicts the various disciplines 21 that the team represented. We had staff members in 22 these various areas:
atmospheric
- science, 23 socioeconomics and environmental justice, archaeology 24 and historic resources, terrestrial ecology, land use, 25
20 radiation protection, nuclear safety, regulatory 1
compliance, aquatic ecology, and hydrology.
2 Next slide. This slide shows our overall 3
analytical approach that we used in preparing our 4
evaluation. Before I go into this, I would like to 5
give you some background information.
6 In the mid 1990s, the NRC evaluated the 7
impacts of all operating nuclear plants across the 8
country. NRC looked at 92 separate impact areas and 9
found that for plants, for all nuclear plants, the 10 impacts were the same if they had similar features.
11 NRC called these category 1 issues and 12 were able to make the generic conclusion that their 13 impacts would be small. They published those 14 conclusions in the Generic Environmental Impact 15 Statement for License Renewal that was issued in 1996.
16 The NRC was unable to make those sorts of 17 generic determinations for the remainder of the 18 issues. As a consequence, they decided to prepare 19 Supplemental EISes to address those issues. The 20 Oyster Creek Supplemental EIS is the document that 21 we're talking about here today. And that's a 22 supplement to the Generic EIS.
23 Now to go about to discuss our process, 24 again, we looked at category 1 and category 2 issues 25
21 that were relevant to the Oyster Creek EIS. For 1
category 1 issues, again, the Generic EIS determined 2
that these impacts were the same at all sites and that 3
they would be small.
4 We would look to see if there was new and 5
significant information. If we found new and 6
significant information, then we would perform a 7
site-specific analysis.
8 For Oyster Creek, we did not find any new 9
and significant information. Therefore, we adopted 10 the Generic EIS conclusions. The impact in those 11 categories would all be small.
12 Now let's look at category 2 issues. For 13 all category 2 issues that were relevant to the Oyster 14 Creek EIS, we performed site-specific analysis.
15 That's really the bulk of the EIS. And that's really 16 the bulk of the talk that I will give today, is to 17 discuss what the impacts in those category 2 issues 18 were.
19 There's also a process for identifying any 20 new potential issues that may not have been considered 21 in the Generic EIS. First, potential new issues may 22 be identified in the number of ways they may have been 23 identified during the scoping period. They may have 24 been identified during the EIS analysis.
25
22 We first look to see if these are truly 1
new issues. If they are, then we would perform a 2
site-specific analysis. If we determine that they are 3
not really new issues, then we go no further.
4 In the case of the Oyster Creek EIS, 5
essential fish habitat is one of those new issues. It 6
was not considered in the Generic EIS. We performed 7
an essential fish habitat assessment specifically for 8
the Oyster Creek site.
9 Next slide. This slide shows how impacts 10 were quantified. In the Generic EIS, NRC defined 11 three impact levels shown here: small, moderate, and 12 large.
13 A small effect is one that is not 14 detectable or is too small to destabilize or 15 noticeably alter any important attribute of the 16 resource. A moderate impact is an effect that is 17 sufficient to alter noticeably but not to destabilize 18 important attributes of the resource. For a large 19 impact, the effect is clearly noticeable and is 20 sufficient to destabilize important attributes of the 21 resource.
22 I use the Oyster Creek cooling system and 23 its effect on aquatic resources to give you an idea of 24 how we use these different impact levels. The 25
23 operation of the Oyster Creek cooling system has 1
aquatic resource impacts. Impacts occur from 2
entrainment and impingement of organisms into the 3
cooling system and then also through thermal shock.
4 If the loss of aquatic resources is so 5
small that it cannot be detected in relationship to 6
the total population in Barnegat Bay or the impact has 7
not destabilized the aquatic resources, then we would 8
consider those impacts small.
9 If losses cause aquatic resources to 10 decline and that decline is measurable but then 11 stabilize at some lower level, we would call those 12 impacts moderate.
13 If losses at the intake cause aquatic 14 organisms to decline to the point where they cannot be 15 stabilized and they continue to decline, then the 16 impacts would be considered large.
17 Next slide. When the EIS team evaluated 18 the impact from continued operations at Oyster Creek, 19 we considered information from a wide variety of 20 sources. And those are shown in this slide.
21 First we looked at the license renewal 22 application and the information in the environmental 23 report. We conducted a site audit. And we did this 24 for the Oyster Creek plant in October of last year.
25
24 We toured the plant. We talked to plant personnel 1
during that site audit. And we reviewed documentation 2
of plant operations.
3 We also spoke at that time and throughout 4
the EIS process to various Federal, state, and local 5
agencies, also to permitting authorities and to 6
various social services. And we took comments during 7
the public scoping period in November of last year.
8 All of this information forms the basis for the 9
analysis and preliminary conclusions in the Oyster 10 Creek EIS.
11 The EIS considers the environmental 12 impacts of continued operations of the Oyster Creek 13 Nuclear Generating Station during the 20-year license 14 renewal period; that is, from 2009 to 2029.
15 The impacts of routine or normal 16 operations were considered for the topics that are 17 shown here for the cooling
- system, for the 18 transmission line associated with the plant, the 19 radiological impacts, socioeconomics, groundwater use 20 and quality, threatened or endangered species, and 21 cumulative impacts. We also looked at postulated 22 accidents and severe accident mitigation alternatives.
23 One of the project features we looked at 24 closely is the cooling system. There are three 25
25 category 2 issues relevant to the cooling system at 1
Oyster Creek. And these include entrainment, 2
impingement, and heat shock.
3 Entrainment refers to that process where 4
very small aquatic organisms are pulled into the 5
cooling system. A hundred percent of those organisms 6
generally experience mortality. They die as they move 7
through the cooling system.
8 Impingement refers to almost the same 9
process but with larger organisms. They are not drawn 10 into the system. They're stopped at either the trash 11 racks or at the traveling screens that block large 12 material from getting into the cooling system. And 13 those organisms that are impinged on those features 14 generally do not experience 100 percent mortality.
15 The system at Oyster Creek incorporates a 16 Ristroph traveling screen system that moves those 17 organisms off of the intake screen into a flume. And 18 then they're put back into the discharge canal.
19 Now, heat shock, which is the third 20 category 2 issue related to the cooling system, refers 21 to when relatively warm water -- this occurs when 22 relatively warm water is introduced into colder water 23 or relatively colder water.
24 Those organisms that are in that colder 25
26 water and that are adapted to that temperature, they 1
can lose equilibrium. And they often die as a 2
consequence of that. That process is called heat 3
shock.
4 Our review of these three category 2 5
issues and the impact of the plant cooling system and 6
the studies conducted on those issues suggest that the 7
potential impacts in these areas were small.
8 Radiological impacts were determined in 9
the Generic EIS to be a category 1 issue; that is, the 10 impacts of radiological releases during nuclear plant 11 operations, resulting from nuclear plant operations 12 during the 20-year license renewal period, would be 13 small. However, because these releases are of concern 14 to a lot of people, I will discuss them in a little 15 bit more detail here.
16 All nuclear plants release some 17 radiological effluents to the environment, although it 18 should be noted that since the late 1980s, it is 19 Oyster Creek operating policy to not routinely release 20 liquid radioactive effluents to the environment.
21 During our site visit, we looked at the 22 documentation for effluent releases and the 23 radiological monitoring program as well as the State's 24 independent monitoring program. We looked at how the 25
27 gaseous and liquid effluents were treated and released 1
as well as how the solid wastes were treated, 2
packaged, and shipped.
3 We looked at how the applicant determines 4
and demonstrates that they are in compliance with the 5
regulations for releases of radiological effluents.
6 We also looked at data from on-site and near-site 7
locations that the applicant monitors for airborne 8
releases and direct radiation and other monitoring 9
stations beyond the site boundary, including locations 10 where water, fish, and food products would be sampled.
11 We found that the average and maximum 12 calculated doses for a member of the public are well 13 within the annual limits that are considered 14 protective of human health. That is about a tenth of 15 a percent of what those standards are, what those 16 levels that are considered protective are.
17 Since releases from the plant are not 18 expected to increase during the 20-year license 19 renewal term, and since we also found new and 20 significant information related to this issue, we 21 adopted the Generic EIS conclusion that the impacts of 22 radiological releases on human health and the 23 environment would be small.
24 There are a number of threatened or 25
28 endangered species in the vicinity of Oyster Creek.
1 And these fall under the jurisdiction of the Fish and 2
Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries 3
Service.
4 The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service 5
determined that the bald eagle is the only Federally 6
listed species under their jurisdiction that has the 7
potential to occur in the vicinity of Oyster Creek.
8 They concluded that operations during the license 9
renewal term were unlikely to affect this species.
10 In addition to the bald eagle, there are 11 five species of sea turtles. And these are under the 12 jurisdiction of the National Marine Fisheries Service.
13 The species include the loggerhead, the Kemp's Ridley, 14 the green, leatherback, and hawksbill sea turtles.
15 Three of these species, the loggerhead, Kemp's Ridley, 16 and green sea turtles, are sometimes impinged on the 17 trash racks at the cooling system intake structure.
18 The National Marine Fisheries Service 19 recently issued a Biological Opinion related to the 20 effects of Oyster Creek operations and established 21 incidental take limits for these species.
22 Based on these consultations with the Fish 23 and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries 24 Service and our review of the data, the staff's 25
29 preliminary determination is that the impact of 1
operation of Oyster Creek during the license renewal 2
term on threatened or endangered species would be 3
small.
4 We also looked at cumulative impacts of 5
operations. Cumulative impacts are the impacts of the 6
proposed action taken together with other past, 7
present, or reasonably foreseeable future actions, 8
regardless of what agency or person undertakes those 9
other actions.
10 In the
- EIS, the staff considered 11 cumulative impacts in the following areas: aquatic 12 resources, terrestrial resources, radiological 13 impacts, socioeconomics, and groundwater use and 14 quality.
15 Cumulative impacts were evaluated to the 16 end of the 20-year license renewal term. Our 17 preliminary determination is that any cumulative 18 impacts resulting from the operation of Oyster Creek 19 during the license renewal period would be small.
20 The team also looked at impacts related to 21 the uranium fuel cycle and solid waste management as 22 well as decommissioning of Oyster Creek. In the 23 Generic EIS, NRC considered impact areas associated 24 with these topics as category 1 issues. Our team 25
30 found no new and significant information and, 1
therefore, adopted that generic conclusion.
2 We evaluated a number of alternatives to 3
license renewal. Specifically we looked at the 4
impacts of replacing Oyster Creek power with power 5
from other sources. Oyster Creek has a power capacity 6
of 640 megawatts.
7 The team looked at a
no-action 8
alternative; that is, not renewing the license. We 9
looked at replacing Oyster Creek generation with 10 generation from new power plants, either coal, natural 11 gas, or new nuclear. We looked at the impacts and 12 capabilities of providing that replacement power by 13 purchasing power. We looked at other technologies, 14 such as oil, wood, wind, solar, and hydro power, to 15 replace Oyster Creek's capacity.
16 And then we looked at a combination of 17 alternatives to replace that capacity. And in this 18 case, we looked at a new natural gas plant together 19 with conservation and power purchasing, to make up the 20 full 640 megawatts. For each alternative, we looked 21 at the same types of issues that we did when we looked 22 at Oyster Creek.
23 The team's preliminary conclusion is that 24 the environmental impacts of alternatives would reach 25
31 moderate or large significance in at least some impact 1
categories.
2 We also looked at the alternative of 3
replacing the existing once-through cooling system at 4
Oyster Creek. We looked at two alternatives here.
5 The first is replacing that system with a closed-cycle 6
cooling-tower based system. And then we also looked 7
at modifying the existing once-through system and in 8
restoring wetlands to offset impacts to aquatic 9
resources.
10 The reason that we looked at these 11 alternatives is because they are identified in the 12 State of New Jersey's draft pollutant discharge 13 elimination system permit for Oyster Creek that they 14 issued in July of 2005.
15 Based on the State's draft permit and our 16 discussions with the State, it seems that there is a 17 reasonable possibility that Oyster Creek will be 18 required to implement one of these alternatives.
19 Alternatives are intended to reduce the impact of the 20 cooling system on aquatic resources.
21 The closed cycle system considered in our 22 analysis is a linear hybrid mechanical-draft system.
23 That system is not as tall as the natural draft towers 24 often associated with nuclear plants. The system that 25
32 we're talking about is about 80 feet tall.
1 Here we have an aerial view of just a 2
portion of the site. These towers, at least 3
conceptually, would be built within the existing site 4
boundaries. This is the intake canal in this area.
5 And the 2 towers consist of linear banks of cells, 18 6
cells each.
7 The hybrid system reduces the visible 8
plume by heating the exhaust air when fog would be 9
most likely. And that would be in the winter and 10 certain times in the spring and in the fall. So you 11 wouldn't get the very visible plume that you often see 12 at power plants with this kind of system.
13 Since the cooling system uses salt water, 14 exhaust would contain relatively high amounts of 15 particulates, especially salt. It's estimated that 16 about 60 pounds per hour, or about 261 tons per year, 17 would be released from these cooling towers. The 18 amount of release would exceed state standards. And, 19 as a result, we considered these impacts moderate.
20 The second alternative that we looked at 21 is the modification of the existing once-through 22 system.
We looked at some newer screening 23 technologies, acoustic fish deterrent system, as well 24 as operational changes. And then we looked at the 25
33 impacts of the accompanying wetland restoration 1
program that the State has indicated is of interest.
2 The Department of Environmental Protection 3
considers wetland restoration in Barnegat Bay as a 4
viable approach to offset impacts to aquatic 5
resources. A substantial amount of restoration would 6
be required to offset the impacts of the cooling 7
system at Oyster Creek.
8 For most impact areas, we considered the 9
impacts of this modification with restoration 10 alternative to be small. In two areas, the impacts 11 could reach moderate levels. And these two areas are 12 land use and an archaeological or cultural resources.
13 And this level of impact would all depend on where the 14 restoration location would eventually be.
15 To summarize our conclusions, on this 16 portion of our review, for the category 1 issues 17 presented in the Generic EIS that relate to the Oyster 18 Creek plant, we found no information that was both new 19 and significant. Therefore, we have preliminarily 20 adopted the conclusion that impacts associated with 21 these issues would be small.
22 In the Oyster Creek EIS, we analyzed the 23 remaining category 2 issues pertinent to the Oyster 24 Creek plant. And we determined that the environmental 25
34 impacts resulting from these issues were also small.
1 Lastly, we found that the environmental 2
effects of alternatives, at least in some impact 3
areas, would reach moderate or large levels of 4
significance.
5 Now I am going to switch gears a bit and 6
present the findings of the accident analysis for 7
Oyster Creek. We have Bob Palla in the audience.
8 He's from NRC. He was responsible for this portion of 9
the analysis and will be available for questions on 10 this particular topic.
11 The EIS evaluated two classes of 12 accidents:
design-basis accidents and severe 13 accidents. Design-basis accidents are those accidents 14 that the plant is designed to withstand without risk 15 to the public. The ability of the plant to withstand 16 these accidents has to be demonstrated before the 17 plant is granted a license.
18 The licensee has to demonstrate acceptable 19 plant performance for design-basis accidents 20 throughout the life of the plant. The Generic EIS 21 considered design-basis accidents a category 1 issue.
22 The second category of accidents evaluated 23 in the EIS is severe accidents. Severe accidents 24 could result in substantial damage to the reactor 25
35 core. The Commission found in the Generic EIS that 1
the risk of a severe accident is small for all plants.
2 Nevertheless, the Commission determined that 3
alternatives to mitigate severe accidents must be 4
considered for all plants that had not already done 5
so.
6 These alternatives are termed SAMAs, or 7
severe accident mitigation alternatives. The SAMA 8
evaluation is a site-specific assessment. The purpose 9
of performing the SAMA evaluation is to ensure that 10 plant changes that have the potential for improving 11 severe accident safety performance are identified and 12 evaluated.
13 The scope of potential plant improvements 14 that were considered in the EIS include hardware 15 modifications, procedure changes, and training program 16 improvements, basically the full spectrum of potential 17 changes. The scope includes SAMAs that would prevent 18 core damage as well as SAMAs that improve containment 19 performance given that a core damage event occurs.
20 This slide shows the preliminary results 21 of that SAMA evaluation. There were 136 candidate 22 improvements identified for Oyster Creek. The number 23 of candidate SAMAs was reduced to 37 based on a 24 multi-step screening process.
25
36 A more detailed assessment of the risk 1
reduction potential and implementation costs was then 2
performed for each of the remaining 37 SAMAs. A total 3
of 15 SAMAs was identified as potentially 4
cost-beneficial.
5 None of these potentially cost-beneficial 6
SAMAs relate to managing the effects of plant aging 7
during the period of extended operation. Accordingly, 8
they are not required to be implemented as part of 9
license renewal. Regardless, the NRC staff considers 10 that further evaluation of the potentially 11 cost-beneficial SAMAs by AmerGen is warranted.
12 That concludes my portion of the talk.
13 Now I would like to turn the microphone back to Mike 14 for his wrap-up.
15 DR. MASNIK: Thank you, Kirk.
16 IV. HOW COMMENTS CAN BE SUBMITTED 17 DR. MASNIK: To reiterate our conclusions, 18 we found that the impact of license renewal is small 19 in all areas. We also concluded that alternatives to 20 license renewal, including the no-action alternative, 21 may have moderate to large environmental effects in 22 some intake impact categories.
23 The staff also evaluated alternatives to 24 the current cooling system and found that the 25
37 alternatives to the current once-through system could 1
result in moderate impacts in some resource areas.
2 Based on these results, our preliminary 3
recommendation is that the adverse environmental 4
impacts of license renewal for Oyster Creek are not so 5
great that preserving the option of license renewal 6
for energy-planning decision-makers would be 7
unreasonable.
8 Next slide, please. This is a quick recap 9
of our current status. We issued the draft on June 10 9th, 2006. We're currently in the middle of the 11 public comment period that is scheduled to end on 12 September 8th, 2006. And we expect to address the 13 public comments, make any necessary revisions to the 14 draft, and issue a final environmental impact 15 statement in January of 2007.
16 Next slide. This slide identifies me as 17 your primary point of contact with the NRC for 18 preparation of the environmental impact statement.
19 It also identifies where documents related 20 to our review may be found in the local area. The 21 Oyster Creek Draft Environmental Impact Statement, 22 along with a number of other documents, is available 23 at the Lacey Township Public Library. I was there 24 yesterday, and I found it on the shelves. And it 25
38 actually looked a little worn. So it looked like 1
someone had been reading it. All documents related to 2
the review are also available on our NRC Web site, 3
www.nrc.gov.
4 In addition, as you came in, you were 5
asked to fill out a registration card at the reception 6
desk. If you have included your address on that card, 7
we will mail you a copy of the final EIS. If you did 8
not fill out a card and you want a copy of the final 9
environmental impact statement on Oyster Creek, please 10 see Evan -- Evan, raise your hand -- after the 11 meeting. Evan will get you signed up.
12 Next slide. This slide shows how a member 13 of the public can submit comments by mail. You can 14 submit it directly to the address on the screen. It 15 will get to me. If you happen to be in Rockville, 16 Maryland, you can deliver your comments in person to 17 me. And if you have e-mail, you can e-mail to our 18 d e d i c a t e d e - m a i l s i t e,
w h i c h i s 19 OysterCreekEIS@nrc.gov.
20 With that, I would like to thank each of 21 you for coming here today. We eagerly await your 22 comments on our draft document. Thank you.
23 FACILITATOR CAMERON: Okay. Thank you, 24 Mike. Thanks, Kirk. We have time for some questions 25
39 to make sure that everybody understands the process 1
and findings in a
Draft Environmental Impact 2
Statement.
3 Before we go to that, though, let me 4
introduce our senior manager, who is with us here this 5
afternoon. We have Mr. Frank Gillespie, who is the 6
Director of the Division of License Renewal at this 7
point. Thanks for being here, Frank. I think Frank 8
may help us to answer some questions but definitely 9
will talk to all of us later before the end of the 10 meeting.
11 Are there questions that we can answer 12 before we go to the public comment part of the 13 meeting? Yes, sir? And if you could just introduce 14 yourself to us, please?
15 MR. CREAMER: Yes. My name is Gene 16 Creamer from the seashore Town of Belmar, New Jersey.
17 A question for Mike. I appreciate him 18 explaining the license renewal process to us. I noted 19 in the draft environmental statement at the beginning, 20 it referenced the Atomic Energy Commission for Oyster 21 Creek Nuclear Generating Station had issued a final 22 Draft Environmental Impact Statement in 1974.
23 Could you please explain how that differs 24 from the current path that licensing first station 25
40 would go through now? It appears to me that that was 1
an after-the-fact environmental impact statement? In 2
other words, the plant was already in operation by 3
1974.
4 FACILITATOR CAMERON: Mike, do you get the 5
gist of the question?
6 DR. MASNIK: Yes.
7 FACILITATOR CAMERON: Okay.
8 DR. MASNIK: It's actually a pretty 9
obscure question. And I know the answer to it.
10 It turns out that the government passed 11 the National Environmental Policy Act in 1969. And 12 for a number of years, the old Atomic Energy 13 Commission actually resisted doing any sort of 14 environmental review for nuclear power plants.
15 And then we had a very famous decision in 16 the courts called the Calvert Cliffs decision, which 17 required the Atomic Energy Commission to do 18 environmental assessments for nuclear power plants.
19 That was an important decision because it essentially 20 established a policy of providing these EISes for each 21 of the plants.
22 Well, since Oyster Creek was built in and 23 began commercial operation in 1969, it predated that.
24 And there was a decision made at the Atomic Energy 25
41 Commission and its successor, the NRC, to go back and 1
do environmental impact statements on all the plants 2
that had current licenses and that were operating.
3 That's certainly not going to happen 4
today. If an applicant came in to build a new power 5
plant, the environmental assessment would be done in 6
advance of any construction activity.
7 FACILITATOR CAMERON: And, Gene, does that 8
answer your question?
9 MR. CREAMER: That brings another question 10 as to whether that was -- number one, I guess the 11 first question I have is, the NRC with their so-called 12 issuance on renewals for Generic Environmental Impact 13 Statements, which is what you're referencing here 14 today also, is that valid, number one?
15 In other words, to date, the only 16 environmental impact statement that has been performed 17 by a Federal agency for the current operating plant 18 was an after-the-fact environmental impact statement.
19 I find it very hard to believe that a 20 Federal agency was going to, with an after-the-fact 21 environmental impact statement, come to a conclusion 22 that its issuance or action to issue a permit was 23 incorrect. Am I correct?
24 DR. MASNIK: Well, I mean, I have looked 25
42 at that 1974 final environmental impact statement.
1 And for the state of the art of the science at the 2
time, I think it was a good effort and a reasonable 3
assessment of what the impacts might be from operation 4
of that plant.
5 Now, to say that we were 100 percent 6
accurate on all the issues over the 40-year life span, 7
it's probably not correct. But I think it was a good 8
assessment. And I think the assessment we're doing 9
now is much better.
10 We have essentially 30 years of experience 11 in predicting what the impacts might be from operating 12 nuclear power plants. And I think that, you know, we 13 have a pretty good assessment here as to what might 14 happen if this plant were to operate for another 20 15 years.
16 FACILITATOR CAMERON: Okay. Thank you, 17 Gene. Thank you.
18 Let's go to this gentleman. And then 19 we'll go over there. Yes, sir?
20 MR. RUBIN: My name is Isadore Rubin. I'm 21 a resident of Pine Beach, which is in Ocean County.
22 My question deals with the cooling tower.
23 A natural draft tower does not require fans. Why did 24 you consider the mechanical tower, which does require 25
43 fans and, therefore, uses more energy? That's the 1
first question.
2 The second question I have is related to 3
the salt. All cooling towers will give you some 4
mechanical carryover through the air or more part 5
overflow.
6 My question is this, this is located near 7
a very big ocean with a lot of salt in it. And the 8
wind is blowing salt there all the time. Is there 9
some significant difference between what we're going 10 to get out of these towers and especially out of the 11 natural draft towers?
12 Those are my two questions. Thank you.
13 FACILITATOR CAMERON: Thanks, Mr. Rubin.
14 Kirk, do you want to? Mike, do you want to answer?
15 DR. MASNIK: Well, I could start, yes.
16 First of all, it's a good question because obviously 17 there are two different types of towers. There's 18 mechanical draft, which are these low towers, and the 19 natural draft, which are the ones that are, you know, 20 anywhere from four to five hundred feet high.
21 We asked the licensee, "Okay. In a 22 request for additional information, what would you 23 propose if you went to a closed cycle cooling system?"
24 And that's the design that they came in with in their 25
44 response to our request for additional information.
1 So that's what we evaluated.
2 Now, to talk a little bit about the 3
differences, you know, certainly if you put a 530-foot 4
tower there, I mean, there would be quite a visual 5
intrusion on the skyline. And I think that may have 6
gone into some of the decisions on the part of the 7
licensee.
8 There's also a question of costs between 9
the two different types. So there are a number of 10 different reasons. And they chose the natural draft.
11 And that's the one we evaluated.
12 As far as the salt issue, you're correct 13 in that most plants -- and that's where our concern 14 is, primarily vegetation. Most plants are relatively 15 salt-tolerant close to the shore.
16 However, we really have very limited 17 experience with saltwater towers in this country.
18 There are a number worldwide. But the concentrations 19 of salt that we see at other towers on freshwater or 20 even brackish water are much lower. This is very 21 close to ocean water in salinity levels. So the 22 amount of salt coming from the tower would be greater 23 than we would experience at any other facility.
24 The plants that are salt-tolerant would 25
45 likely be not affected, but you have to understand 1
when people move into an area, they want to start 2
planting plants that they're familiar with and they 3
may not necessarily be as salt-tolerant.
4 The additional salt that could result from 5
the operation of these towers could affect the local 6
vegetation.
7 FACILITATOR CAMERON: And, Mike, Mr. Rubin 8
asked a question about salt, but I think that also 9
inherent there was a comment in terms of what the 10 draft EIS says about the effects of salt. And I take 11 it that that is something that we're going to have 12 evaluated or going to evaluate?
13 DR. MASNIK: Well, we did evaluate it to 14 some extent, but, you know, we certainly can look into 15 it.
16 FACILITATOR CAMERON: Okay. Thanks, Mr.
17 Rubin.
18 DR. MASNIK: The only other thing I would 19 say is that the deposition from a saltwater natural 20 draft tower would be over a larger area because you're 21 starting up higher. So with the natural draft [sic, 22 mechanical draft implied], which would be down lower, 23 the salt deposition might necessarily be not as spread 24 out. So there are a lot of factors on evaluating this 25
46 sort of thing.
1 FACILITATOR CAMERON: Okay. Thank you.
2 We're going to go back here.
3 MR. ALLISON: My name is Tom Allison. I'm 4
a resident of Island Heights, just down the road here.
5 On the slide you had on safety 6
improvements that are apparently not required for 7
relicensing, I guess I would like to know -- I mean, 8
that plant is of the Three Mile Island era.
9 Have there been improvements to deal with 10 what happened at Three Mile Island or have these 11 improvements not been done? Is it the way it always 12 was? And this is the fundamental plant operation.
13 The reactor shut down and responds. You avoid melting 14 the core and things like that.
15 But the plant could be relicensing 16 without, according to the slide unless I misunderstood 17 it, safety improvements?
18 FACILITATOR CAMERON: Back again. Bob, 19 there are two issues here. One concerns the SAMAs 20 that were not related to license renewal and their 21 cost-benefit.
22 Related to that question, though, Mr.
23 Allison asked, are all the safety improvements that 24 have occurred since TMI and whether those have been 25
47 incorporated into operating plants, such as Oyster 1
Creek?
2 I mean, there's a difference between the 3
SAMAs and some of his concerns. And if you could just 4
try to tie that together for us?
5 MR. PALLA: Okay. Let me try to keep it 6
simple. There were many changes made after Three Mile 7
Island. Three Mile Island was a pressurized water 8
reactor. Oyster Creek is a boiling water reactor, 9
but, nevertheless, following Three Mile Island, a 10 large number of improvements were identified for all 11 of the operating plants.
12 These have all been implemented. And the 13 risks that exist after implementation of these 14 improvements are kind of the starting point for the 15 severe accident mitigation alternative analysis here.
16 Basically, following Three Mile Island, 17 the risk was further reduced. There was a study 18 called the individual plant examination that occurred 19 in the 1990 time period. It used probabilistic risk 20 assessment techniques to further assess the level of 21 risk at operating plants.
22 All operating plants were required to 23 perform these individual plant examinations. Those 24 examinations looked at both internally initiated 25
48 events and external events, such as fires within the 1
plant and seismic events.
2 Those studies confirmed that the level of 3
risk was acceptably small to meet the Commission's 4
safety goals. And also, these studies also, for 5
Oyster Creek included, resulted in the identification 6
of additional changes that were made subsequent to the 7
completion of that study. And these probabilistic 8
risk assessment studies have continued to be 9
maintained by licensees and updated periodically. We 10 use the study for our SAMA analysis that's based on a 11 2004 version of the risk assessment study.
12 Now let me get to the question about the 13 15 or so SAMAs that you saw on the slide there. It 14 said there were 15 potentially cost-beneficial 15 improvements identified.
16 FACILITATOR CAMERON: Tom, we're going to 17 have to get you on the record, too. But let's let Bob 18 finish his answer. And we'll see if you have a 19 follow-up.
20 MR. PALLA: Well, the 15 improvements are 21 not required as a condition of license renewal, but 22 that's not to say that they are not going to be done.
23 And now at the point at which we wrote our evaluation, 24 we did not know at that point what the licensee 25
49 intended to do with those improvements, but 1
subsequently, and I guess we should consider including 2
this in the updated, the final version of the 3
supplement, the licensees indicated that a number of 4
these improvements are related to hardware changes.
5 Four of them would fall into that category. And then 6
a large number dealt with procedural changes.
7 Licensees indicated that the hardware 8
changes -- they basically identified a subset of four 9
hardware changes, that if implemented rendered all of 10 the other potentially cost-beneficial analyses in the 11 baseline case to be non-cost-beneficial.
12 So what I am trying to say is if you 13 carefully select the improvements, you don't have to 14 implement every single one of them to get the risk 15 reduction because some of them give you the same 16 benefits as some of the other ones.
17 So the four that have been identified as 18 hardware fixes are being further evaluated for 19 implementation. And then there is a number of 20 procedural changes, on the order of like 15 procedural 21 changes, that were not actually identified as 22 cost-beneficial. The licensees indicated that these 23 will be implemented as well at the time that the 24 procedures are coming up for revision, according to 25
50 the normal schedule for that.
1 FACILITATOR CAMERON: Okay.
2 MR. PALLA: So they're going to be making 3
the hardware changes, and they will be making a series 4
of procedural changes.
5 FACILITATOR CAMERON: Okay.
6 MR. PALLA: I'm sorry for the complicated 7
answer.
8 FACILITATOR CAMERON: But that's good. We 9
are going to update the document to reflect that. Is 10 that correct? We might?
11 MR. PALLA: Yes.
12 FACILITATOR CAMERON: Okay. All right.
13 A quick follow-up, please.
14 MR.
ALLISON:
How do you define 15 cost-beneficial?
16 MR. PALLA: Okay. There's an existing 17 level of risk, as provided by the probabilistic risk 18 assessment study. If you want to consider an 19 additional change to the plant, you would take the 20 risk study. You would modify the analysis to reflect 21 what that change does in terms of the core damage 22 frequency and what the change does in terms of the 23 off-site releases from the plant.
24 So you basically translate a potential 25
51 improvement into a change in, a reduction, in core 1
damage frequency, a reduction in population dose. And 2
there is a handbook, so-called
- handbook, for 3
regulatory analysis that's used to convert these 4
reductions in core damage frequency and reductions in 5
population dose into dollars.
6 So you basically assess a dollar benefit 7
to the change. And then you compare it with an 8
implementation cost. So if the implementation cost is 9
greater than the benefit, the dollar benefit, it would 10 not be cost-beneficial. And if the dollar benefit is 11 greater than the implementation
- costs, it is 12 cost-beneficial.
13 FACILITATOR CAMERON: Okay. Thanks, And, 14 Bob, if you could talk to Mr. Allison after the 15 meeting perhaps with more information on that? And I 16 guess I would just make that point generally.
17 We're going to go for three more 18 questions. And then we'll get on with the comments.
19 But if you do have questions or you need an 20 elaboration, the NRC staff will be here after the 21 meeting because we really want to get to talk to you.
22 We really want to get out to listen to your comments.
23 And I know -- is it Barbara? You're Joan.
24 I'm sorry.
25
52 MS. RUBIN: Joan. That's okay. My name 1
is Joan Rubin.
2 And in view of the fact that you said the 3
preliminary findings show that the environmental 4
impact on the Barnegat Bay, the aquatic environment, 5
would be small, how can you possibly determine the 6
quantifiable impacts of Oyster Creek on Barnegat Bay 7
if there has been no complete survey of aquatic marine 8
life since 1975 to about 1977, 30 years ago, with the 9
possible exception of 2 small studies in the early 10
'80s?
11 The NRC certainly in order to give a 12 meaningful impact statement has to compare what is 13 there now with what has been. And they should 14 certainly ask Exelon to perform a complete census of 15 the aquatic life of the Bay. Without it, as I said, 16 there can be no meaningful impact statement.
17 Maybe you can clarify this for me.
18 FACILITATOR CAMERON: Thank you, Mrs.
19 Rubin.
20 Michael?
21 DR. MASNIK: That's a very good question.
22 We devoted a lot of the discussion in the aquatic 23 section to this question.
24 There were a number of studies that were 25
53 done in the late '70s and early '80s in the bay. And 1
those studies were summarized in a 316(a) and 316(b) 2 determination demonstration that was submitted to the 3
state.
4 Subsequent to that, the State actually 5
hired a private consultant to look at the results of 6
this. And they came to the conclusion that the plant 7
was having no effect, no serious effect, on the bay.
8 Obviously the operation of the plant does 9
result in mortality of impingement due to 10 impingement/entrainment. And occasionally over time 11 we have had some instances where shutdown of the plant 12 or unusual operating conditions of the plant have 13 resulted in some fish kills.
14 Nevertheless, the State seems satisfied 15 that the plant was not having an effect, that the 16 plant did make some modifications. They've put in a 17 fish return system to further reduce the impact. And 18 the plant has operated since that time.
19 The licensee has instituted within the 20 last year a study within the confines of the site to 21 look at losses associated with impingement and 22 entrainment and has found, at least preliminarily, 23 although the data is not published, that the losses 24 associated with the plant are very similar to what 25
54 they found back in the late '70s and early '80s.
1 So based on the fact that we don't see any 2
real significant changes in the plant operation, 3
admittedly there's not a whole lot of data on the 4
fisheries within the bay. But the fact that the plant 5
doesn't seem to be taking organisms in different 6
proportions and in different amounts very differently 7
than back then, it's our conclusion that things 8
haven't changed and the plant is still not having a 9
significant impact on the aquatic environment.
10 FACILITATOR CAMERON: Okay. Thank you.
11 Thank you, Mike.
12 And I think we're going to hear from Joan 13 later in the meeting with a comment. And she may 14 raise that issue.
15 Yes, ma'am?
16 MS. DeMARZO: My name is Jane DeMarzo from 17 Barnegat, New Jersey. And I believe I will direct 18 this to Mr. LaGory.
19 You say that your analytical approach for 20 the Generic Environmental Impact Statement, you have 21 two categories, a category 1 and a category 2, and 22 that your impact levels are defined as small, 23 moderate, and large.
24 I would like to know the percentages of 25
55 small, moderate, and large. And when does a 1
percentage move from small into moderate or into 2
large?
3 DR. LaGORY: Yes. It's not quite 4
proportional in that way. The way it's defined is, as 5
I had on the slide, a small impact is an impact that 6
is either not measurable, so you couldn't go out and, 7
for instance, measure an effect on temperature, for 8
instance, or the effect on temperature was so small 9
that it was not causing any change in the population.
10 So maybe you could measure it, but it wasn't causing 11 some noticeable effect.
12 So it's not quite as quantitative as you 13 had mentioned. A moderate impact, then, is sort of a 14 step up, where you are able to measure it. There 15 isn't a measurable change in the target resource.
16 Let's say we're talking about aquatic resources. The 17 fish population was declining as a result of the 18 thermal impact.
19 But then the population was dropping, 20 let's say, ten percent. It was dropping to a lower 21 level but, then, staying stable. That's what the NRC 22 defined as a moderate level impact. There was an 23 effect, but the effect was a decline, a decline to 24 some lower but stable level.
25
56 Then the NRC defined a large impact as 1
being one that was both measurable and caused 2
destabilization of the resource of concern. So, 3
again, let's use the aquatic resources as the example.
4 And if we're looking at heat loading, if 5
we were having a change in the thermal regime that was 6
causing the aquatic resource, let's say a fishery, to 7
spiral, to continue to decline, it was eventually 8
going to go extinct as a consequence of that. That 9
would be considered a large impact. So it's obviously 10 a very noticeable large change in the resource.
11 So the category 1 and 2 issues, the 12 category 1 issues were all issues that were found to 13 be small for all plants. So it's related to impact 14 magnitude, but it's not directly so. Category 2 15 issues can have small, moderate, or large impacts as 16 well as category 1, category 1 all small, but category 17 2 could be small, moderate, or large.
18 FACILITATOR CAMERON: Okay. Thank you.
19 Thank you very much.
20 Ma'am, did you have a question?
21 MS. FINN: My name is Joan Finn, and I'm 22 from Waretown.
23 Because I live in the shadow of Oyster 24 Creek nuclear plant, I am basically concerned with 25
57 what seems to be not within the purview of the renewal 1
of the license; that is, radiation exposure, either 2
due to the containment system being faulty or not 3
having been checked. And I understand that that is 4
not within your purview for renewal.
5 So I would like to request that, as 6
Representative Saxton had requested, that the National 7
Academy of Sciences do an outside review of your 8
review and also that the Department of Environmental 9
Protection have some say in this renewal and not just 10 one organization because our lives are dependent on 11 this.
12 Thank you.
13 FACILITATOR CAMERON: Okay. Thank you, 14 Joan. That's more of a suggestion and comment. And 15 I think you are going to speak to us later on.
16 But, Mike, can you say anything about the 17 general concern and question there?
18 DR. MASNIK: I guess your comment is noted 19 relative to the National Academy of Sciences, but I do 20 want to let you know that EPA does review our 21 environmental impact statements. And we do get rather 22 extensive comments from EPA on a regular basis.
23 FACILITATOR CAMERON: And are those EPA 24 comments on the public record?
25
58 DR. MASNIK: Oh yes. Yes. They come in, 1
and we docket them. They typically comment on our 2
draft, and we respond to the comments and their 3
suggestions in the final, just like we would with a 4
public --
5 FACILITATOR CAMERON: Okay. We might want 6
to make sure that Joan knows where to get access to 7
those.
8 DR. MASNIK: Sure.
9 FACILITATOR CAMERON: All right. Dennis, 10 can you just introduce yourself?
11 MR. ZANNONI: Dennis Zannoni, New Jersey 12 DEP.
13 Is the EPA going to review this Draft 14 Environmental Impact Statement or not? You said 15 "typically."
16 DR. MASNIK: Well, you know, I can't 17 commit to the EPA actually providing comments. I can 18 tell you that out of the 42 plants we have reviewed, 19 probably 40 we have received comments from EPA.
20 MR. ZANNONI: Thank you.
21 DR. MASNIK: And I suspect we will in this 22 case as well.
23 FACILITATOR CAMERON: But in terms also of 24 Dennis' question, three's no uncertainty in the fact 25
59 that we submit all of the EISes, draft, to EPA. Is 1
that correct?
2 DR. MASNIK: Oh, absolutely.
3 FACILITATOR CAMERON: Okay.
4 DR. MASNIK: I mean, we have already sent 5
a copy to their regional office and requested 6
comments.
7 FACILITATOR CAMERON: All right. Did you 8
have a question or did you have a comment that you 9
want to make? Because I think we're ready to move on.
10 Okay.
11 Thank you for those questions. Please 12 avail yourself of the NRC staff after the meeting to 13 ask further questions, get more clarification. We do 14 have a number of people who want to comment this 15 afternoon. And I want to get to that part of the 16 meeting.
17 And, as I said at the beginning, I am 18 asking you to follow a five-minute guideline in your 19 comments. There's flexibility there, but I do want to 20 make sure that we get to everybody today.
21 I guess, as a matter of fact, we're going 22 to go to our first commenter. Joan, I think that that 23 is you if you would like to come up and just continue, 24 give us your comments.
25
60 Are you Joan Finn? Yes, Joan Finn. And 1
we're going to go to the other Joan, too. And there 2
may be more Joans, but this is Joan Finn.
3 MS. FINN: Thank you.
4 V. PUBLIC COMMENTS 5
MS. FINN: I'm a recent resident at 6
Waretown and hesitated to move there for one reason:
7 nuclear power plant. And I want very much not to be 8
afraid.
9 So I am here very informally speaking as 10 a citizen and not a member of a group, but my concern 11 after reading the articles in the Asbury Park Press, 12 if anybody is here is from the press, I want to thank 13 you for those series because they highlighted many of 14 the issues that I am concerned about, the most 15 important of which is that the containment system, 16 which was supposed repaired about ten years ago, has 17 not been repaired or looked at since then.
18 Why AmerGen refused to have a second or 19 third party look at that containment system I don't 20 know. I would like to have an answer to that and why 21 the cooling system that the Environmental Protection 22 Agency required later on did not have to be done.
23 That was a couple of years ago. They said it would 24 not be financially feasible. And that was not 25
61 explained either.
1 So I guess my biggest concerns are maybe 2
not with NRC -- I don't know -- but with AmerGen and, 3
again, with the renewal without questions being 4
answered.
5 I read some of the comments in the paper 6
that I picked up. A doctor had said that the 7
radiation effect on children in the area, on the 8
children's teeth in the area, was a whole lot higher 9
in the areas around nuclear power plants.
10 So what about that? Have you addressed 11 that? Is that in the purview of licensing or does the 12 idea of radiation in the environment not affect you if 13 you're not living here or in the shadow of another 14 nuclear power plant? That's a major concern I have, 15 not just for me but for people living in the area of 16 any nuclear power plant.
17 And the second is a question I have. How 18 much of the energy generated by Oyster Creek is 19 benefitting the people in the area where Oyster Creek 20 is situated? Do we in Ocean County have any of that 21 energy? Do we benefit from any of that energy? And 22 to what extent have those alternate plans really been 23 evaluated by the Environmental Protection Agency as 24 well as NRC?
25
62 So I have more questions than answers.
1 And thank you for listening.
2 FACILITATOR CAMERON: Okay. Thank you, 3
Joan. We are going to talk to you specifically about 4
those issues after the meeting. And I know we are 5
going to hear more about the radiation issue that you 6
raised from one of our commenters further down the 7
line. Thank you very much.
8 Ann Miles? Is Ann here? Hi, Ann. Would 9
you like to come up and comment? She stole your 10 thunder? Okay. You concur in those? You have the 11 same concerns, then? All right. Thank you, Ann.
12 Mr. Cervasio? Mr. Cervasio? How about 13 right up in front so we can all see you. Thank you 14 very much.
15 MR. CERVASIO: Okay. Good. Thank you.
16 My name is Tom Cervasio, Chairman, 17 EnviroWatch. There was a very interesting article in 18 the Asbury Park Press, the Asbury Park Press dated 19 November the 17th, year 2000. And it says, in effect, 20 the tests offered meltdown in the spent fuel pool of 21 a nuclear power plant because failed radiation-induced 22 cancer in thousands of people, as far as 500 miles 23 from the site, according to a U.S. Nuclear Regulatory 24 Commission study, according to a U.S. Nuclear 25
63 Regulatory Commission study.
1 The analysis of spent fuel pool meltdown 2
also states that millions of people within a 500-mile 3
zone might have to be evacuated for periods ranging 4
from 30 days to one year and that people living within 5
10 miles of a nuclear plant might never be able to 6
return to their homes.
7 It also states the potential for prompt 8
fatalities from radiation poisoning that would occur 9
in areas close to the plant, the plant site, where 10 emitting radioactive particles would be expected to 11 fall.
12 The extent of possible radiation damage 13 described in the NRC documents is far more severe than 14 anything that Federal officials have disclosed in 15 public forums or written statements.
16 The agency assessments are contained in a 17 special report prepared in October 2000 by experts 18 within the NRC and the Sandia National Laboratories in 19 Albuquerque, New Mexico.
20 The report was designed as an official NRC 21 planning regulation in February 2001. A copy of the 22 report was obtained by the Journal News. That's a New 23 York paper.
24 The report provides the basis for any 25
64 future NRC regulations on evacuation needs, safety 1
requirements, and insurance that compares the possible 2
damage caused by a spent fuel pool meltdown with that 3
of a meltdown in a fully operational nuclear reactor.
4 It was developed to show the NRC what 5
types of problems could occur in spent fuel pools when 6
nuclear plants are shut down, at which point the new 7
fuel rods would be placed in the pools and how long 8
they might pose a danger from meltdown and fire.
9 The potential spread contamination cited 10 in the report far exceeds the ten-mile zone the 11 nation's nuclear plants currently use in developing 12 emergency evacuation plans.
13 NRC officials said the evacuation plans 14 are intended to deal only with short-term radiation 15 poisoning, which is not likely to occur outside of the 16 ten-mile zone.
17 The report was pulled from the NRC public 18 database following the September 11th, 2001 terrorist 19 attack because agency spokesman Neil Sheehan said if 20 a terrorist decided to attack any plant in the United 21 States, not just at Indian Point; that is, in 22 formulation about which fatalities it could cause, the 23 exact knowledge of that could be very advantageous to 24 them.
25
65 The information was returned to the 1
database in April. However, because it is an official 2
regulation governing spent fuel operations and must be 3
accessible to plant operators, I wonder if it is 4
accessible to the public.
5 The report states that the analysis did 6
not base their findings on events due to sabotage. No 7
established method exists for estimating the 8
likelihood of a sabotage. Nor is there a method for 9
analyzing the effect of security provisions on that 10 likelihood. Thank you.
11
- Instead, analysis examined various 12 accident scenarios ranging from worker mishaps to 13 plane crashes into spent fuel pools, buildings. The 14 report concluded that although the probability of such 15 accidents is extremely low, the effects of meltdown 16 would be enormous.
17 I have here a letter from Congressman 18 Saxton, James Saxton. And it says, in effect, "Like 19 you, I have concerns about the safety and security of 20 the plant. With this in mind, I have introduced H.R.
21 966, a bill that would require the National Academy of 22 Sciences to conduct an independent assessment of 23 safety and security issues prior to the NRC granting 24 relicensing approval.
25
66 "The bill would also require the 1
Commission to evaluate the facility with respect to 2
health risks, vulnerability to terrorist attacks, 3
evacuation plans, population increases, ability to 4
store nuclear waste, and the impact of nuclear 5
accident are during the relicensing process. The bill 6
is currently pending before the House Committee of 7
Energy and Commerce."
8 I wonder if this plan was made available 9
to the State Evacuation Committee, which I think would 10 be very, very important. I am here to try to get a 11 copy of this plan because I think it is of great 12 interest to all the people.
13 Thank you very much.
14 FACILITATOR CAMERON: Thank you, Tom.
15 We're going to go to Tom Allison.
16 MR. ALLISON: I would like to read you a 17 brief e-mail that I sent to Governor Corzine which 18 expresses my concerns about what's going on.
19 "Governor Corzine, I met you briefly in 20 Island Heights last summer, a place I love dearly, as 21 does my wife, whom I met there. I have for the past 22 26 years operated a New Jersey manufacturing and 23 engineering business in Moorestown in Riverside, New 24 Jersey, started by my father and not in any way 25
67 connected to nuclear power or Oyster Creek.
1 "Island Heights and especially Moorestown, 2
Riverside also, in fact, much of New Jersey is facing 3
a horrible and increasing risk from some nuclear 4
science and engineering issues related to Oyster 5
Creek.
6 "In the '60s and '70s, I was an engineer 7
working on naval and utility nuclear power plant 8
design projects. The Three Mile Island incident 9
happened while I was working at Burns and Roe in 10 Oradell, New Jersey.
11 "The reactor containment building, which 12 I believe saved the populous from a deadly radioactive 13 release, was designed by a Burns and Roe engineer 14 named Bob Palm, whom I work closely with.
15 "The TMI incident itself was essentially 16 caused by -- and this is a technical term -- cover-my-17 ass plant management. An operator moves to first 18 operate the plant with a broken steam generator backup 19 feed pump, then to turn off emergency core cooling 20 after the reactor overheated due to failure of the 21 main feed pump.
22 "The TMI event caused the demise of the 23 U.S. nuclear power plant industry for quite a while.
24 But, as I learned shortly after it occurred, the 25
68 public's nuclear radiation risk is and continues to 1
become worse as a result. Little, if any, new and 2
important safety-related development is occurring. I 3
hope I am wrong about that statement.
4 "In 1979, the last Burns and Roe project 5
I worked on was a proposal for the Yucca Flats, Yucca 6
Mountain, Nevada safe storage facility for spent 7
reactor fuel, a very large supply, which is sitting 8
around in metal boxes" -- I may be incorrect about 9
that; they are these things with the concrete on the 10 outside of them -- "at Oyster Creek outside of any 11 reactor containment building.
12 "I was told at the time of TMI that the 13 reactor containment building, at least there, was 14 designed to take an aircraft hit from a 727, Boeing 15 727. Of course, the ones that did the World Trade 16 Center were much bigger aircraft. Will a containment 17 building take that? I don't know.
18 Spent fuel contains dangerous radioactive 19 stuff, some of which will take about 250,000 years to 20 completely decay. I have heard -- well, let me 21 continue. Twenty-six years after the project's 1979 22 inception, the geologically stable Yucca Mountain 23 storage site is still empty and I think under some 24 construction. And 26 more years worth of spent fuel 25
69 sits outside Oyster Creek's containment in our lovely 1
and heavily populated state.
2 Many of Europe's reactors have no 3
containment buildings. And the Chernobyl disaster 4
gave us an example of what can happen when a powered 5
reactor fails catastrophically.
6 I was interviewing a potential employee, 7
who came from the Ukraine. His description of 8
Chernobyl was extremely upsetting, particularly the 9
thyroid cancer story and the contaminated land story.
10 Given our state's population and our 11 precious shore communities adjacent to Oyster Creek, 12 we really need to do something effective now 13 concerning spent fuel and perhaps safety.
14 Thank you.
15 FACILITATOR CAMERON: Okay. Thank you, 16 Tom Allison.
17 And we're going to go to Mike Kennish.
18 MR. KENNISH: My name's Mike Kennish. I 19 am a research professor at Rutgers University. I have 20 a long history of research experience in coastal 21 waters of New Jersey, including Barnegat Bay, Little 22 Egg Harbor Estuary.
23 I just want to mention one thing. I've 24 been quoted a couple of times in the report. My main 25
70 reason for being here was the quotes that were in that 1
report, which indicate -- well, I can read one in 2
particular. It states that "Despite large numbers of 3
eggs, larvae, and small life forms at Barnegat Bay, 4
organisms lost via impact passage at the OCNGS, these 5
losses have not resulted in technical impacts on 6
biotic communities in Barnegat Bay."
7 I want to emphasize that this publication 8
that is in reference to, which I have edited and 9
published after extensive peer review, among other 10 things I have done in the bay, is in reference to a 11 review of other documents, and of old material that 12 goes back to 1975-77, 316(a) and (b) demonstration 13 reports as well as the VERSAR report. I think it was 14
'88 and '89.
15 And so that is not an assessment of what 16 I see today in terms of looking at the entire picture, 17 the entire window from 1969 until today. And largely 18 the report, the NRC's report, related to aquatic 19 impacts, they have done the best job they could do 20 with it considering the material they had to deal 21 with, but it's relatively irrelevant because if you 22 don't take into account impingement and entrainment 23 and sampling at the same time in an assessed water 24 body, in this case a central part of Barnegat Bay, the 25
71 information is it's impossible to draw a proper 1
assessment.
2 If you take the variation of a population 3
in Barnegat Bay of any organism, at any one time, it 4
could be two to three hundred percent. And to take a 5
comparison of a population of how many organisms are 6
being impinged or entrained at one time and then say, 7
"Thirty years or 25 years later, you're comparing 8
these numbers," that's also irrelevant because it 9
doesn't take into account these fluctuations in the 10 natural populations in the water body in the adult 11 form.
12 When they did these studies back in 1975, 13 they did it. The only time it was ever relevant was 14 when they did the work in 1975 and '77, when they 15 actually had impingement and entrainment numbers and 16 they did population surveys at the same time.
17 So you're dealing with old data, 30 years 18 old. Today's information in that report is 19 irrelevant. And, as it's not NRC's fault, the real 20 problem lies with the Clean Water Act people, the EPA, 21 and the DEP, who did not provide sufficient oversight 22 on the parent company in terms of making sure that 23 they did population surveys routinely and cyclical or 24 periodic in the bay.
25
72 With a variation of two to three hundred 1
percent in populations at any one time, you really 2
should be doing population surveys almost every year.
3 And considering the cost of that, I understand, but 4
you should at least do it every five years.
5 It was not done for 30 years. And someone 6
dropped the ball completely. And, in fact, if you 7
have a parent company that espouses that they are 8
environmentally friendly and concerned about the 9
environment of the estuary, then it would be incumbent 10 upon the company's own scientists.
11 Some of whom have been there for 30 years 12 themselves know better that they could have been doing 13 population surveys periodically. That would have made 14 the NRC's job much more easy to comprehend, to deal 15 with and provide you with the necessary and accurate 16 information that you need.
17 There are problematic areas. For example, 18 the shellfish beds of Barnegat Bay have been on 19 decline.
That was a
species which was a
20 representative important species back in 1975 and '77.
21 And it was not followed through.
22 If you want to get into the statement to 23 me that there are no observable impacts, well, one 24 could contend that there is a correlation or 25
73 association with that because hard clams have been on 1
decline in the bay, in the central bay, for some time.
2 There is also some indication that winter flounder 3
populations are negatively impacted in the central bay 4
as well.
5 I am not saying all of these things are 6
due to the plant because I can't as a scientist and I 7
won't do that. I want to be able to take data and to 8
do data as a scientist and assess things as a 9
scientist and come up with an effective proper 10 conclusion.
11 This can't be done the way it has been 12 done in this process over the 30-year period. The 13 information in the report is not accurate. It can't 14 be accurate when you don't have population surveys 15 that are conducted concurrently with impingement and 16 entrainment studies.
17 And, by the way, they are conducting 18 impingement and entrainment studies today right now at 19 the power plant, which, again, are irrelevant. I'll 20 repeat that: irrelevant unless they do surveys in the 21 bay, which they're not doing.
22 And to be able to go back and say, "Well, 23 we have 1013 power of polychaete worm being cropped by 24 the power plant today, and we had 1012 back in 1977.
25
74 Therefore, everything seems to be okay" can't be done 1
that way, not scientifically.
2 You send that report out to my colleagues 3
at Penn State and other universities. It would be 4
rejected so quickly. It would be rejected very 5
quickly. And that's part of the problem.
6 You really need to take this information.
7 Someone mentioned the Academy of Sciences. You have 8
to have an outside, independent body doing assessment 9
on things. You can't keep things locked into a state 10 agency or a Federal agency. You need to have an 11 independent body that has no buy-in, no monetary 12 reason of interest, namely an interest in doing it for 13 scientific purposes.
14 I certainly fall into that category. I 15 have no interest in whether a company is making money 16 or -- you know, I would like to help the NRC and other 17 government agency bodies to do their job. I'll do it 18 for nothing to do it right.
19 I mean, I live in Ocean County myself. So 20 if there's any reason for me to be concerned about all 21 of this, it's that I live in the county, too, and 22 because I do all kinds of oceanography stuff in New 23 Jersey and elsewhere. So I have to be near the ocean 24 pretty much.
25
75 But, again, I have a lot I could talk 1
about. I could answer a lot of questions. I want to 2
work with the DEP, quite frankly, Susan, and offer my 3
services free -- I'll repeat that: free of my time 4
and services -- to develop a way that we should be 5
addressing these problems at the power plant and in 6
the bay.
7 You have to do population studies and 8
community studies in the estuary. If you don't do 9
that, the information is of no value. It's 10 essentially no value. In fact, the power plant, it 11 would be my recommendation that they do it because if 12 you just look at impingement and entrainment data at 13 the power plant, those numbers indicate that you have 14 an absolute number of organisms that are dying because 15 of the plant. They're very large.
16 And so someone would say, "Well, my God.
17 You have all these organisms dying." Well, you really 18 need to take a study of the bay population and because 19 those numbers may really not be translating into a 20 real impact, as has been said by Mike and so on and 21 his colleagues.
22 So it would be to their advantage to do a 23 population survey in the bay because if it can be 24 demonstrated that the adult populations out there are 25
76 not really being adversely affected, then you have 1
something. But to play this guessing game or not 2
really wanting to do population surveys out there and 3
just using these numbers at the plant, it actually 4
makes it look even worse because it looks like these 5
are an absolute number of organisms that are dying, 6
you know, a quarter of a million blue crabs a year at 7
the intake screens, for example.
8 What does that mean in terms of the total 9
population of crabs in the bay? Maybe it's one 10 percent. But for a crab potter out there who says, 11 "Oh, my God, 250,000?" the guy is going to go bonkers, 12 you know.
13 So we really need to really do things 14 correctly, do it scientifically sound. That is not 15 being done right now. And, again, I'm willing. I'm 16 offering my services to help out, help out the company 17 and help out the DEP and EPA. Part of the problem is 18 the EPA itself has rescinded some of its obligations 19 in terms of not enforcing or having the power 20 companies do population surveys.
21 So the companies themselves seem to 22 respond mostly to pressure from outside the government 23 agencies. They respond to pressure from a government 24 agency. They're not doing things on their own 25
77 volition in my opinion.
1 If you go back into time, the response 2
mainly is to a response to some requirement and after 3
a permit violation or whatever, rather than someone 4
taking the proactive position ahead of time to do 5
something about it so that you remediate the problem 6
before it even occurs.
7 And, finally, one final point, which I'm 8
really opposed to, is this giving someone an alternate 9
remediation pathway. If you're impacting weakfish in 10 Delaware Bay, as the Salem plant was, you don't go 11 into a tidal marsh and try to remediate a tidal marsh, 12 where weakfish don't hang out. Okay? And that stuff 13 is nonsense.
14 These companies should be -- again, in 15 this case, it bothers me. The companies, if you're 16 using a natural resource, like seawater or an estuary, 17 you should be addressing the effect that you're having 18 on, directly on, the exact problem. Don't take it to 19 some other habitat. And that is true in Barnegat Bay.
20 There's nothing wrong with our tidal 21 marshes in Barnegat Bay. We should be doing work in 22 the bay itself, in the center of the bay. The 23 communities are degraded out there.
24 I'm telling you, and I could write three 25
78 books about this. Okay? And I'm letting you know 1
I've done a lot of work out there. That bay is 2
degraded. And we need to do something about it.
3 And putting a fishing reef about three 4
miles off or Barnegat Inlet is not the way to do it.
5 Okay? It's not the way to do it. You put the funds 6
in the Barnegat Bay, not into some reef three miles 7
off the Barnegat Inlet. That does not have anything 8
to do with the health of Barnegat Bay.
9 FACILITATOR CAMERON: Okay. Thank you.
10 Thank you much.
11 (Applause.)
12 FACILITATOR CAMERON: Gene, Gene Creamer?
13 MR. CREAMER: Gene Creamer from Belmar 14 again. By the way, I'm glad -- I don't have formal 15 prepared comments, but I do have some notes. I'm glad 16 that you did provide copies of the draft report. I 17 would like to make a reference to specific sections.
18 Otherwise this is not going to make any sense at all.
19 Figure 2-3 on page 2-4. It's the Oyster 20 Creek Nuclear Generating Station site property map.
21 If you would just take a look at it? You will note 22 that both Oyster Creek and the South Branch of Forked 23 River west of the plant are delineated with dotted 24 lines.
25
79 Well, I'll tell you what I did. I checked 1
the USGS map plot and brought a copy of it here today.
2 You can clearly see that both Oyster Creek and the 3
south branch of Forked River on USGS quad map are 4
solid blue lines.
5 That may not seem significant, but to an 6
ichthyologist or people that use USGS maps as 7
reference
- material, the dotted line indicates 8
according to USGS legend an intermittent stream and 9
one that does not carry constant flow of water. At 10 best, this map to me is misleading.
11 I also noted that this map I guess was 12 widely distributed and used for submission to other 13 agencies to solicit comments. I'll leave it to the 14 NRC to develop some sort of standards of integrity 15 when it comes to using this sort of information.
16 Oh, I'm sorry. I guess what I'm doing is 17 backing up away from the microphone as I speak. In 18 brief, I'll just repeat. The site boundary map on 19 page 2-4 uses dotted lines to delineate or to lay out 20 the south branch of the Forked River and Oyster Creek.
21 I compared that map to a USGS quad map, 22 which is the standard map that's used for showing the 23 location of a plant and the surrounding environment.
24 The difference between the map in the report and the 25
80 USGS quad map is that the USGS quad map shows those 1
streams as being regular streams, not intermittent 2
streams, as shown on the map that is included in the 3
draft report. That is my first comment.
4 Second comment. Section 2.1.7 in the 5
draft report, I think it's titled "Power Transmission 6
System." That entire section, I read through it. And 7
it's silent with respect to the Oyster Creek Nuclear 8
Generating Station output power transformers, does not 9
indicate their location, the ownership, and the 10 responsibility of those transformers.
11 Just as an aside, I'm sure all the people 12 from NRC know once you have a fault in an output power 13 transformer, it shuts the plant down. The plant 14 automatically has to shut down.
15 A lot of verbiage in that section was 16 devoted to local distribution system and essentially 17 a backup power supply. And the title of the section 18 was "Power Transmission System."
19 The next comment I have is on section 20 2.2.2. And that section is titled "Water Use." If we 21 just look at page -- it looks like 2-19. You have to 22 excuse me, by the way. I just got new glasses 23 yesterday. I'm having a little bit of difficulty 24 getting accustomed to using them.
25
81 The fourth paragraph down, second line, 1
"Information on the two production wells at Oyster 2
Creek Nuclear Generating Station is available in a 3
water use registration (NJDEP 2001A), which is 4
required for users of less than 100,000 gallons per 5
day." That statement is incorrect.
6 The 100,000 gallons per day is a
7 regulatory threshold. The installation of equipment, 8
which could divert 100,000 gallons a day of the waters 9
of the State of New Jersey or more requires a permit.
10 That permit is, I believe, covered by the Water Supply 11 Act and is typically referred to as a water allocation 12 permit.
13 If you read on in that section, you will 14 see that it refers to two production wells. If you 15 run the numbers for those pump rates, you will see 16 that they both exceed 100,000 gallons per day. That's 17 why they're regulated.
18 This brings up a whole fascinating issue 19 here. Then the section goes on and describes 20 freshwater that's used in what's referred to as a fire 21 pond. It does not describe the pumps or the capacity 22 of those pumps that could be used to divert the water, 23 the fresh water, from the fire pond.
24 If those pumps have a capacity of 25
82 diverting in excess of 100,000 gallons per day, my 1
interpretation of New Jersey state law is that they 2
would require a water allocation permit.
3 I'm not sure whether discovery is supposed 4
to take place at these sorts of hearings, but I would 5
like to bring this to your attention. Similarly, 6
south branch of Forked River is a USGS quad, solid 7
blue-delineated stream, solid blue-delineated going 8
westerly beyond the Garden State Parkway. Its 9
drainage area is significant.
10 The entire flow of the south branch of the 11 Forked River is diverted by operation of the cooling 12 water pumps of the Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating 13 Station.
14 I did a review of, I believe it is called, 15 Appendix E, a listing of -- I believe there is a 16 listing of permits and approvals that the station or 17 the owner has provided. I find no permit issued for 18 the fire pond water, which I believe is actually 19 Oyster Creek water, another stream. I find no permit 20 for the diversion of water from the south branch of 21 Forked River.
22 I guess my question here -- oh, the other 23 thing I wanted to mention, the section does mention 24 that the wells have installed meters. And the way 25
83 this usually works is that the applicant -- those are 1
totalizing flow meters -- that the applicant takes 2
readings and supplies those readings to the NJDEP on 3
a periodic basis. And then the DEP sends the owner an 4
invoice to pay a bill.
5 I know you have used the terms "small,"
6 "moderate," "large." If you look at the millions of 7
gallons, I think that we're talking here about 8
diverted New Jersey state water. We may be able to 9
get things large.
10 Also, the moderate, estimated moderate, 11 impact of the installation of a cooling tower system 12 because of the assumption that saltwater would be used 13 for that cooling water does not take into consider 14 that perhaps the use of freshwater would reduce that 15 impact.
16 Thank you. I'm not done with my comment.
17 Well, I'm done with my comments here today, but I'll 18 follow through with review of the report.
19 FACILITATOR CAMERON: Great. Thank you 20 very much, Gene. It all sounds very useful. And 21 thanks for spending the time looking through the 22 document. We'll look forward to your comments.
23 We're going to go to Barbara, Barbara 24 Bailine. Just so you can get ready, after Barbara, we 25
84 are going to go to Joan Rubin and then to Ed Stroup.
1 And this is Barbara.
2 MS. BAILINE: Barbara, yes. Can you hear 3
me okay in the back? I have two questions and a 4
comment.
5 I would like to feel relieved because of 6
all the charts and the diagrams to calm my fears.
7 However, still in my heart still pumps a little hard 8
there.
9 I wanted to ask the NRC, how is it that 10 they missed that ten-year tritium leak? I think it 11 was called Briarwood out in Pennsylvania. And nobody 12 caught it. The NRC certainly didn't catch it. It was 13 a neighbor who saw a pool forming on his land and had 14 it checked and found out it was radioactive tritium.
15 I'm just wondering why ten years when the NRC claims 16 they're so thorough and they missed it. That's my 17 first question. And I would like it answered.
18 The other question I have is I understand 19 that out in California, the courts ruled against the 20 NRC and said because of the design of the plant and 21 the vulnerability of the fuel pool, that the NRC had 22 to take into consideration a terrorist attack, even 23 though the NRC claims it was very minimal. But the 24 court said, "No. It is not minimal in this day and 25
85 age." So I would like that answered.
1 The comment I am going to make now has to 2
do with something that happened up in Boston very 3
recently, but I think it's apropos. A tunnel was 4
closed up there just a couple of days ago when a huge 5
panel fell off the roof and crushed a woman in her car 6
driving through.
7 They closed up the tunnel. But what I 8
feel is apropos is that the head of the Port Authority 9
-- I don't know his name offhand, but he's the head of 10 it there -- after the woman is dead, crushed to death, 11 the tunnel is closed, he says to the press and the 12 public, "Well, I want to assure everybody the tunnels 13 are safe," you know, somehow that he could say that 14 after, "Oh, my God," they had to close up the tunnel 15 and the woman is crushed to death in her car and he 16 says, "Don't worry about it, people. The tunnel is 17 safe."
18 Okay. That is my comment. And those are 19 the two questions I have. Thank you.
20 FACILITATOR CAMERON: Okay. Thank you, 21 Barbara. And we will try to answer those questions.
22 The first may be offline, but the second one may be 23 important enough that we might want to just give an 24 answer to that during the meeting if we have time 25
86 before it closes.
1 We're going to go to Mr. Joe Mangano right 2
now, Radiation and Public Health Project. Joe?
3 MR. MANGANO: Good afternoon. I'm sorry 4
to those two speakers that I kind of bumped here.
5 Again, my name is Joseph Mangano. I am 6
National Coordinator of a group called Radiation and 7
Public Health Project. We are a group of scientific 8
and health professionals that do research on health 9
risks from nuclear weapons and nuclear reactors. We 10 have published 22 medical journal articles and 5 books 11 on the topic in the past 12 years.
12 I have some brief comments to make on the 13 environmental impact statement that has been discussed 14 today. Basic comment is that from the issue that our 15 group deals with -- and that is the issue of human 16 health -- my colleagues and I believe this report is 17 very, very deficient, even irresponsible, even 18 dangerous.
19 The reason for this is that the NRC makes 20 a very, very large presumption. They presume that as 21 long as emissions of radiation into the environment 22 from Oyster Creek are below permissible limits, 23 therefore, they can presume to be harmless. And there 24 is no need to do any health studies or health analyses 25
87 and reports such as this.
1 Now, I am a public health researcher. We 2
are trained not to make presumptions like this. This 3
is almost like presuming that if one smokes three 4
cigarettes a day or less, let's say, this is a safe 5
level of cigarette intake and there is no harm 6
involved and no need to do health studies.
7 Well, the more professional way to go 8
about it is to don't make any such presumption, to do 9
the health studies, especially when we have a long 10 history in the atomic age of presumptions of low dose 11 being safe later found out to being the reverse, to 12 being harmful.
13 Years ago, doctors did X-rays, pelvic 14 X-rays, on women who were pregnant. Up until the 15 1970s, they were found to increase childhood cancer.
16 Discontinued.
17 For many years, the government said that 18 the bomb tests from Nevada did no harm to Americans.
19 In 1997, a Federal study showed that as many as 20 212,000 Americans suffered thyroid cancer from the 21 tests.
22 For years, the government said that 23 workers in nuclear weapons plants were not harmed. In 24 2000, the government reversed their policy and passed 25
88 a law, agreeing to compensate cancer victims who 1
worked in nuclear weapons plants. So we must take the 2
same approach here with routine emissions, low dose 3
that they are, with nuclear power plants.
4 A good environmental impact statement I 5
believe should contain information on at least four 6
items: the amount of emissions, the amount of 7
radioactivity in the environment, the amount of 8
radioactivity in bodies of people living near nuclear 9
plants, and cancer rates in the local area. Our group 10 has done considerable work on this near Oyster Creek 11 and near other nuclear plants.
12 As far as the first one, emissions, go, 13 Oyster Creek, of the 103 reactors now operating in the 14 United States, Oyster Creek has emitted the greatest 15 amount of airborne radioactivity, of any of the 16 reactors, something around 77 curies, what we call 17 iodine-131 and particulates, anything with, you know, 18 a half-life of 8 days or more, and 5 times as much as 19 was officially released at Three Mile Island. Okay.
20 Even individual chemicals, such as 21 strontium-90, strontium-89, iodine-131, barium-140, 22 Oyster Creek consistently ranks in the top five 23 reactors in the United States. You can go right on 24 the NRC Web site and find out the data for the last 25
89 couple of years.
1 Number two, environmental radioactivity.
2 If you go to the Web site that's run by the EPA, they 3
have extensive data on levels of radioactivity in the 4
environment, in the air and the water and the soil and 5
so forth.
6 Water-borne radioactivity in Waretown, 7
which is just one mile from the plant, is between 2 8
times and 10 times as high as that at Trenton, for 9
example, which is 50 miles from here.
10 Number three, in-body levels of radiation.
11 Until our group came along, no one had ever done any 12 sort of a study on how much radiation was in bodies of 13 people who live near nuclear power plants. Okay?
14 We began in 1998 something called the baby 15 tooth study or the tooth fairy study. It is not a new 16 idea. It has been done in the past before. A group 17 of scientists from St. Louis in the '50s and '60s did 18 a study of strontium-90 in baby teeth that resulted 19 from bomb test fallout. There have been studies of 20 strontium-90 after Chernobyl. There's another one of 21 near the Sellafield plant in England.
22 Our study has looked at almost 5,000 23 teeth. Over 600 are from New Jersey. We have found 24 a couple of alarming things. Near every plant, 25
90 including Oyster Creek, number one, from the late '80s 1
to the late '90s, the average strontium-90 in baby 2
teeth of local children has increased about 50 3
percent.
4 Now, one of the handouts in the back is a 5
fact sheet on the baby tooth study, which says that 6
the study has been discredited. Well, I beg to 7
differ. We have published articles in five different 8
medical journals. That has gotten the peer review 9
stamp of approval from experts, who say the study is 10 worthy of publication.
11 The contention of people who oppose the 12 study is that the strontium-90 that comes out of the 13 reactors that gets into people's body, it's all 14 leftover bomb test fallout from the '50s and '60s.
15 Well, if that were the case, why did we find such a 16 sharp increase near Oyster Creek, near Limerick, near 17 Indian Point, near Millstone, near the reactors in 18 Florida, and so forth?
19 The final point in cancer. You can't in 20 my opinion and my colleagues' opinion recommend that 21 a reactor operate for another 20 years without doing 22 a good report card of what the health status and 23 health changes have been in the local area in the 24 first 37 years this plant has been running.
25
91 The statistics, we certainly haven't done 1
a comprehensive review, but we have certainly gone 2
through childhood cancer statistics. And they're 3
quite poor.
4 Ocean and Monmouth Counties for years have 5
been much higher than state or national, about 25 6
percent higher. The cancer death rate among children 7
in these 2 counties is something like 43 percent 8
higher in the last decade.
9 You all well know that in about a decade 10 ago, there was a large, the revelation of a large, 11 outbreak of childhood cancer in Toms River, which is 12 right here and close to Oyster Creek.
13 Now, the State Health Department looked 14 for something like 6 years and spent $10 million, 15 found no environmental connections, but this shouldn't 16 end it. When we have this many great concerns here, 17 we should not be giving carte blanche or this reactor 18 to operate another 20 years.
19 So I say, in conclusion, I urge the NRC, 20 number one, to commission independent health studies 21 on these topics; number two, to not take any position 22 on reactor extension until these issues have been 23 completely examined and completely resolved because 24 there is nothing more important than human health.
25
92 Thank you for your time.
1 (Applause.)
2 FACILITATOR CAMERON: Thank you, Joe, for 3
coming down. And, as Joe pointed out, he and his 4
group have been involved in this for a long time. And 5
there's been an extensive dialogue with the NRC on 6
this. Joe mentioned that the NRC has done an 7
assessment. And, from his remarks, obviously he 8
disagrees with it. But it is back on the table for 9
those of you who want to read that piece.
10 Now we're going to go back to -- is it 11 Joan? -- Joan Rubin. Thank you, Joan.
12 MS. RUBIN: Hello. Thank you. Thank you.
13 I hope that's good. Okay.
14 Well, I came here today. I am definitely 15 opposed to the relicensing of Oyster Creek, but I came 16 here wanting to hear what was being said. And I have 17 to say that I think now that I evaluate that report 18 from my limited background. But I have to say that I 19 think it's junk science.
20 I think that these conclusions of the NRC 21 are based on old data, a static attitude towards the 22 data that does exist, an assumption that if things 23 haven't gotten worse, they're all right and in general 24 a very negative, not-caring attitude about public 25
93 welfare.
1 First of all, let's just talk about 2
something that Joe Mangano said, I guess, the 3
radioactive emissions, which are put out, which is 4
okay with the NRC. However, recently the National 5
Academy of Sciences in their BEIR VII, which is an 6
acronym, said that no amount of radiation is 7
acceptable. Any amount is dangerous.
8 And we know that we see around us the 9
incidence of cancer, for instance, is just on the 10 increase. But that is obviously anecdotal. I haven't 11 done a scientific study. Why hasn't the NRC changed 12 its category 1 evaluation? In other words, this is 13 small, a small risk.
14 Then we have the idea of Barnegat Bay 15 corruption. Now, that was addressed by Professor 16 Kennish. And there's really nothing I could add.
17 He's an expert. But the point is that the NRC relies 18 on data 30 years old. That's unacceptable. And this 19 is what we are supposed to swallow as the public.
20 Another thing, I am at a loss to 21 understand how the substitution of such passive energy 22 sources as wind or solar power could have a moderate 23 or large effect as compared to the small effect of the 24 plant.
25
94 I mean, common sense tells you that 1
perhaps there would be some initial disruption of the 2
environment in the building of these energy sources, 3
but ultimately it is bound to have a small. Sure, if 4
you're going to compare it with an unclean coal plant, 5
I mean, your worst possible case, just like the 6
cooling towers are the outdated type of cooling power 7
for a nuclear plant. They should be natural draft and 8
not mechanical or forced draft. I mean, if you're 9
going to compare things like
- that, that is 10 unforgivable in my opinion.
11 The Oyster Creek contributes a maximum of 12 650 megawatts. And we all know that that is 13 presenting a huge risk to Ocean County and to the rest 14 of the State, certainly the adjoining counties, for a 15 very small amount of electricity. I don't see a 16 cost-benefit or a risk-benefit assessment giving us 17 anything but very negative results on that.
18 You know Barbara mentioned the tritium 19 problem. That's only beginning the contamination of 20 our groundwater by tritium. It happens to be able to 21 spread very easily, and that hasn't even been 22 considered.
23 The fuel pool. Sure, if everything is 24 working all right and it's covered, it's not 25
95 presenting a radioactive hazard. However, certainly 1
environmentally it would be a disaster of the most 2
catastrophic dimensions if anything were to go wrong 3
there.
4 I just close by saying that I am very 5
disappointed, more than disappointed. I feel that 6
they are marketing a bill of goods that is detrimental 7
to our welfare here in Ocean County and the State of 8
9 Thank you.
10 (Applause.)
11 FACILITATOR CAMERON: Okay. Thank you, 12 Joan.
13 We're going to go to John Rayment next and 14 then to Ed Stroup and then to Edith Gbur. This is 15 John Rayment.
16 MR. RAYMENT: Thanks.
17 As the gentleman said, I'm John Rayment.
18 I'm an employee of Oyster Creek. I've been there for 19 25 years as a Radiation Protection Technician. I'm 20 also a member of the International Brotherhood of 21 Electrical Workers, a group that was formed initially 22 to watch out for the safety of linemen. So we're very 23 interested in safety.
24 I'm very interested in not only nuclear 25
96 safety but industrial safety at the plant. I'm just 1
here to tell you that I believe that Oyster Creek 2
should get a license extension.
3 The members of IBEW local 1289 are at the 4
plant 24 hours2.777778e-4 days <br />0.00667 hours <br />3.968254e-5 weeks <br />9.132e-6 months <br /> a day 7 days a week. We don't see old 5
data. We see data that is happening right now every 6
day. And I can tell you that the plant is run safe, 7
and we are committed to making sure it continues to 8
run safe.
9 I live in Barnegat, which is less than 10 five miles away from Oyster Creek. My wife and my 11 children are within five miles of the plant. So are 12 my parents. So is my brother. And I would never 13 compromise their safety to see the power plant 14 continue to run.
15 My expertise is in radiation protection, 16 and I can tell you that Oyster Creek is a safe plant, 17 both radiologically and as far as the environmental is 18 concerned.
19 We have the operators and the radiation 20 protection technicians, the mechanics, who are highly 21 trained individuals who care, first of all, about the 22 operation of the plant and the safety of the public 23 and the safety of our families.
24 Thank you.
25
97 (Applause.)
1 FACILITATOR CAMERON: Okay. Thank you, 2
John.
3 Next we have Ed Stroup.
4 MR. STROUP: Thank you.
5 My name is Ed Stroup. I'm President of 6
local 1289. I represent about 230 bargaining unit 7
members at Oyster Creek. I can tell you you are going 8
to hear a common theme between what John just told you 9
and I am going to say.
10 Both John's remarks and my remarks were 11 prepared independently. Neither of us talked to the 12 other one about what we were going to say, but what we 13 do know is Oyster Creek and the people that work 14 there. And I think that you're going to see a common 15 theme between the two based on our firsthand knowledge 16 of the plant and the people who work there.
17 Our members are highly skilled and highly 18 trained, as is everyone at Oyster Creek: union, 19 management, and security. Each is a skilled 20 professional in their field. I can assure you they 21 all take their responsibility seriously and work hard 22 to ensure the safety of the public and the environment 23 all day every day.
24 It is my belief that one of the great 25
98 injustices in this whole relicensing process is that 1
these dedicated professionals along with the NRC and 2
the State Police are treated with contempt and 3
referred to basically as incompetent by some whose 4
only agenda is to close Oyster Creek and all nuclear 5
plants.
6 Our members live and work in the local 7
community. Their families live close to the plant, 8
and their children go to school here. Our lives and 9
those we love are local to Oyster Creek along with the 10 public that we serve.
11 We would never compromise our principles 12 or the safety of the plant and the public. Oyster 13 Creek produces enough energy to power 600,000 14 (households) and adds $52 million a year to the local 15 economy.
16 We contributed $202,000 to United Way last 17 year and over half a million over the last 3 years.
18 We contributed $80,000 last year to the New Jersey DEP 19 Fish and Wildlife Department and $5,000 to the Audubon 20 Society to help clean waterfowl affected by the 21 Delaware River oil spill.
22 Oyster Creek sponsored and installed an 23 artificial reef in the Bay working with the New Jersey 24 DEP. At the same time it was undertaking these 25
99 environmental projects, Oyster Creek produced zero 1
carbon emissions and avoided 7.5 million metric tons 2
of carbon dioxide that replacement power would have 3
produced.
4 Oyster Creek avoids carbon emissions equal 5
to more than two million cars per year or, to put it 6
in a different way, an amount equal to half of all the 7
motor vehicles in New Jersey.
8 At Oyster Creek, we work hard to protect 9
the environment, including Barnegat Bay. On a 10 day-to-day, hour-to-hour basis, we monitor water 11 temperatures and regularly take water samples to 12 ensure safety.
13 We coordinate any planned load reductions 14 or shutdowns to avoid any risks to marine life. This 15 is a costly practice but essential to meet out 16 commitment to the environment.
17 I can assure you our members, as well as 18 management and security, are all highly trained, 19 highly skilled professionals who take their 20 responsibilities seriously. Their first priority is 21 to protect the public and the environment. They 22 ensure that Oyster Creek is a safe, clean, reliable, 23 environmentally friendly plant all day every day.
24 It is for all these reasons and others 25
100 that I urge you to relicense Oyster Creek. Thank you.
1 (Applause.)
2 FACILITATOR CAMERON: Okay. Thank you, 3
Ed.
4 Edith Gbur was up next, and she was just 5
here. I don't know if she left. We'll wait. Maybe 6
she'll be back.
7 Is there a Kevin Commons here? Yes?
8 Kevin, did you want to talk?
9 MR. COMMONS: No.
10 FACILITATOR CAMERON: Okay. Thank you, 11 Kevin.
12 Gina Guerrazzi? And, Gina -- no. All 13 right.
14 How about Jeff, Jeff Munyan?
15 MR. MUNYAN: No.
16 FACILITATOR CAMERON: All right. Oh, here 17 comes Edith. Edith? No, she doesn't? Tonight?
18 Okay. Edith will be back tonight.
19 Isadore Rubin, did you want to comment to 20 us? Why don't you come up?
21 MR. RUBIN: Good afternoon. My name is 22 Rubin. I live in Pine Beach.
23 I asked the question before about the 24 cooling towers. And I received an answer that puzzles 25
101 me. So I want to go back to that again.
1 Recently I was asked to be chaperone at a 2
high school dance. And I was asked by one of the 3
young ladies to dance. And I said, "Well, maybe if 4
you play a waltz, I'll do a dance but not this hard 5
rock."
6 I don't understand this thing with the 7
cooling tower. The most efficient thing is a natural 8
draft tower. I don't know why AmerGen asked the NRC 9
to put in the mechanical draft, but why didn't the NRC 10 say, "No. These are more efficient. Let's use them"?
11 And what is the impact from them? Would they be less?
12 I also don't understand something else.
13 At the present time, to get the plant to work, they 14 have to have cooling water in the condensers. That's 15 what they take out of the bay and put back in. In 16 order to do that, the water comes out of the reactor 17 at a temperature that they can't return directly to 18 the bay.
19 So they have a lot more water that they 20 pump around and they do the loop and they put them 21 together. They drop the temperature and put it back 22 in the bay. If you have a cooling tower, you won't 23 need to do any of that. And the only thing you've got 24 to make up is essentially the evaporation.
25
102 I quickly looked at a report. It says 1
they would reduce the water usage 70 percent. It 2
seemed to me they have reduced it 90 percent. I 3
[dont] understand where the 70 percent number comes 4
from. So I think I've been given answers that really 5
are not quite correct.
6 As far as the safety of the thing is 7
concerned -- and there have been these two gentlemen 8
just speak about their interest in maintaining the 9
thing safe -- as a layman, I don't know where the 10 escaped gases are vented from the existing system.
11 I assume that they go up that tall stack 12 that's there. So I have had that question before, and 13 I still have that question. Are there monitors at the 14 top of the stack? Are there records for telling us 15 what is coming out?
16 I think that would be useful for the 17 average citizen and it be important for the NRC to 18 consider that as positive proof of what they're doing 19 or where the plant is going. And, therefore, I feel 20 that those questions should be answered before the NRC 21 says, "Okay. You can go ahead for another 20 years."
22 Thank you.
23 FACILITATOR CAMERON: Okay. Thank you.
24 Mike Masnik and Kirk will talk to you 25
103 about that issue after we're done with the meeting.
1 And I know that we're going to go to Barbara Bailine 2
with some information hopefully or perhaps about the 3
tritium and also about the court case in California.
4 That's the last speaker that we had signed 5
up for this afternoon's session. And you know we are 6
going to be back here tonight to open house at 6:00 7
and the meeting starting at 7:00. So please feel free 8
to join us at that time.
9 I'm going to ask Frank Gillespie, who is 10 the Division Director of License Renewal -- all 11 license renewals come under Frank's watch -- to close 12 the meeting out for us.
13 Frank, do you want to use this or do you 14 want to get up there, whatever you prefer?
15 VI. CLOSING/AVAILABILITY OF TRANSCRIPTS, ETC.
16 MR. GILLESPIE: I would like to thank 17 everyone for coming. And I would like to say don't 18 take our lack of response to your questions as meaning 19 that nothing has been done.
20 We're here to hear you. We didn't come 21 here to lecture you. And so that is an important 22 aspect. Several of the speakers challenged us to 23 answer questions right now. And the questions, each 24 one, will be addressed in our final environmental 25
104 impact statement. There's a complete table in the 1
back which takes each of the questions. They go 2
through the transcript and address each of the 3
questions.
4 Some of the other questions I would really 5
invite you to our Web page. We actually had two 6
conflicting speakers. We had the person who was 7
talking about all of the emissions and emissions data 8
that they found on the NRC Web page to document what 9
was going up the stack at Oyster Creek.
10 And then we had the last speaker saying, 11 Do you monitor the stacks at Oyster Creek? Well, yes.
12 And Mike is going to talk to them about that. We do 13 monitor. All the releases are monitored, measured, 14 and reported. And all that information is, in fact, 15 on our Web page.
16 A couple of other issues. The Ninth 17 Circuit Court was brought up in California. That's 18 under litigation. The government itself is trying to 19 understand what's going on there and what we were 20 asked to do.
21 I would suggest that if you are interested 22 in that, to get hold of the actual document itself in 23 the finding because it is not necessarily worded, as 24 might be characterized by people. It's written by 25
105 lawyers for lawyers. It's very exact in its wording.
1 And it suggests some things in there in NEPA space and 2
SAMA space and not in requirement space relative to 3
security.
4 So if someone is really interested, you 5
really need to get it. It is not a long document to 6
read. And it's actually very easy to read. I would 7
not want anyone from the NRC staff trying to actually 8
stand up and interpret it. So that's why I would 9
refer you to the case document itself. It is very 10 informative. And we're trying to understand it 11 ourselves and trying to understand what our actions in 12 the future might be.
13 So, with that, I do thank you for all the 14 comments. And anyone who would like to come back 15 tonight, come back and join us again tonight. And I 16 don't think we have anything else.
17 Again, thank you. We were here to listen 18 to you. And so you will see responses to everything 19 in our final environmental impact statement.
20 And, with that, I would like to close the 21 meeting.
22 (Whereupon, the foregoing matter was 23 concluded at 4:02 p.m.)
24 25