ML062220526
| ML062220526 | |
| 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: ML062220526 (120) | |
Text
Official Transcript of Proceedings NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Title:
Oyster Creek Draft EIS Public Meeting Evening Session Docket Number:
50-219 Location:
Toms River, New Jersey Date:
Wednesday, July 12, 2006 Work Order No.:
NRC-1133 Pages 1-118 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 4
THE DRAFT SUPPLEMENTAL ENVIRONMENTAL 5
IMPACT STATEMENT FOR THE LICENSE RENEWAL 6
OF OYSTER CREEK NUCLEAR GENERATING STATION 7
+ + + + +
8 WEDNESDAY, 9
JULY 12, 2006 10
+ + + + +
11 12 The meeting convened in the Grand 13 Ballroom, Toms River Quality Inn, 815 Route 37, Toms 14 River, New Jersey, at 7:00 p.m., Chip Cameron, 15 facilitator, presiding.
16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25
2 C O N T E N T S 1
PAGE 2
Welcome and Purpose of Meeting, Chip Cameron..
3 3
Overview of License Renewal Process, Michael T.
4 Masnik..................
8 5
Results of Environmental Review, Kirk LaGory.. 17 6
How Comments Can Be Submitted, Michael T. Masnik 35 7
Public Comments
................ 66 8
Closing Remarks by Frank Gillespie......
103 9
10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25
3 P R O C E E D I N G S 1
(7:00 p.m.)
2 MR. CAMERON: Good evening, everyone. I 3
would like to begin with this evening's meeting.
4 And I think they are showing a videotape 5
of this afternoon's meeting over there, but we need to 6
do this meeting tonight anyway.
7 So good evening, everyone. My name is 8
Chip Cameron. I'm the Special Counsel for Public 9
Liaison at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and I'd 10 like to welcome all of you to our meeting tonight, and 11 the subject is the NRC's environmental review that's 12 one part of the NRC evaluation of whether to grant the 13 renewal of the license for the Oyster Creek Nuclear 14 Power Plant.
15 We got an application to renew the license 16 from AmerGen Company, and we're in the process of 17 evaluating that tonight. And we want to talk to you 18 about license renewal generally, but specifically 19 about the environmental review and the NRC's 20 environmental review is captured in a document called 21 the Draft Environmental Impact Statement, and that's 22 our main focus of discussion this evening.
23 And it's my pleasure to be your 24 facilitator tonight, and in that role I'd like to help 25
4 all of you to have a productive meeting.
1 There are a few items of meeting process 2
that I'd like to go over before we get to the 3
substance of tonight's discussion. I'd like to tell 4
you a little bit about the format for the meeting.
5 Secondly, some real simple ground rules.
6 And finally, I want to introduce the 7
speakers who will be giving you some background on 8
license renewal and on the Draft Environmental Impact 9
Statement.
10 In terms of format, basically it's a two-11 part format. First of all, we're going to give you 12 some background information on license renewal, and 13 specifically on the findings and conclusions in the 14 Draft Environmental Impact Statement, and we'll have 15 time for some questions after that.
16 And then we're going to move to the second 17 and primary part of the meeting, which is to give us 18 an opportunity to listen to your concerns, your 19
- comments, your recommendations on the Draft 20 Environmental Impact Statement and on license renewal 21 generally.
22 The NRC staff is going to tell you about 23 submitting written comments on these issues, but we 24 wanted to be with you personally this evening, and 25
5 anything that you offer tonight will have the same 1
weight as a written comment.
2 And when we get to the comment part of the 3
meeting, I'm going to ask you to come up here and talk 4
to all of us. In terms of ground rules, when we go 5
out to you for questions, please identify yourself and 6
give your affiliation, if that's appropriate, and I 7
would ask that only one person speak at a time so that 8
we could give our attention to whomever has the 9
cordless microphone or whoever is up here talking to 10 us, and also, that will allow Toby, who is our court 11 reporter over here, to get a clean transcript. He'll 12 know who's talking at the moment.
13 And the transcript is going to be the 14 record of the proceeding tonight, and that will be 15 available to anybody who wants a copy of that.
16 I would just ask you to be brief in your 17 questions and to try to confine it to a question 18 instead of really wrapping a comment in there, 19 although I know that's sort of a natural thing to do.
20 When we get to the comment part of the 21 meeting, I'm going to ask you to follow a five-minute 22 guideline so that we can make sure that everybody has 23 a chance to speak. We may not have a whole lot of 24 speakers. So we can be flexible on the five minutes, 25
6 but when we're getting to the point where we have to 1
move on, I may ask you to sum up for us.
2 And the comments that you offer tonight 3
you can always elaborate on those through written 4
comments, but what it helps us do is it alerts us to 5
issues that we should be looking at and talking to you 6
about tonight after the meeting, and it also alerts 7
everybody in the audience to concerns that people 8
might have about the process.
9 And with any of these meetings, there is 10 always going to be differences of opinion expressed on 11 the various issues, and let's all just respect each 12 other's opinions and be courteous about it.
13 And with that, I would just thank you for 14 coming out to help us with this decision, and let me 15 introduce out two speakers tonight. First of all, 16 we're going to have Dr. Michael Masnik give you an 17 overview of the license renewal process, and Mike is 18 the project manager for the environmental review on 19 this Oyster Creek license renewal application, and he 20 has been the project manager on the environmental 21 review for other license renewal applications.
22 He has had a variety of senior positions 23 at the NRC. He has been with us for approximately 30 24 years, and as I mentioned to everybody this afternoon, 25
7 he has a particular closeness with this area and with 1
this site. His parents owned a summer home here when 2
he was growing up, and he spent many summers at, I 3
guess, Seaside Beach, Seaside Park, and he also was a 4
park ranger at the Island Beach State Park before he 5
went to graduate school.
6 And in that regard, he has a Bachelor's 7
degree from Cornell University and also a Master's and 8
a Ph.D. in Ichthyology from Virginia Polytechnic 9
Institute, Virginia Tech.
10 And after Mike gives you an introduction, 11 we're going to go to the heart of the presentations 12 with Kirk, Dr. again, Kirk LaGory, who is our team 13 leader for the team of experts that we had helping us 14 to conduct the environmental review, and Kirk is with 15 Argonne National Lab, and he's the team leader for 16 natural resources analysis at Argonne, and he's an 17 ecologist by training, and he focuses on energy 18 facilities, nuclear in this
- case, but also 19 hydroelectric, oil shale, natural gas, looking at the 20 environmental implications of various types of 21 facilities.
22 And he got a Bachelor's from Evergreen 23 State College and a Master's in environmental science 24 and a Ph.D. in zoology from Miami of Ohio University.
25
8 And, Mike, I'm just going to turn it over 1
to you now.
2 DR. MASNIK: Thank you, Chip, and thank 3
you all for taking the time to come to our meeting.
4 It's good to be back to the Jersey Shore.
5 I'd like to start off today by briefly 6
going over the agenda and the purposes of today's 7
meeting. I'll first briefly explain the NRC's license 8
renewal process for nuclear power plants, with an 9
emphasis on the environmental review.
10 Then Kirk LaGory from Argonne National 11 Laboratory will present preliminary findings of our 12 environmental review, which assesses the impacts 13 associated with extending the operating license of the 14 Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station for an 15 additional 20 years.
16 Then really the most important part of 17 tonight's meeting is for us to receive any comments 18 that you might have on the Draft Environmental Impact 19 Statement. We'll also give you some information about 20 the schedule for the balance of the review and let you 21 know how you can commit or that you can submit 22 comments in the future.
23 At the conclusion of the staff's 24 presentation, we'll be happy to answer questions.
25
9 However, I must ask you to limit your participation to 1
questions related to the environmental review and hold 2
your comments until the appropriate time during 3
tonight's meeting.
4 Before I get into a discussion of the 5
license renewal process, I'd like to take a minute to 6
talk about the NRC in terms of what we do and what our 7
mission is. The Atomic Energy Act is the legislation 8
that authorizes the NRC to issue operating licenses.
9 The Atomic Energy Act provides for a 40-year license 10 term for power reactors. This 40-year term is based 11 primarily on economic considerations and anti-trust 12 factors, not on safety limitations of the plant.
13 The Atomic Energy Act also authorizes the 14 NRC to regulate the civilian use of nuclear materials 15 in the United States. In exercising that authority, 16 the NRC's mission is threefold: to insure adequate 17 protection of public health and safety, to promote the 18 common defense and security and to protect the 19 environment.
20 Next slide.
21 As I mentioned, the Atomic Energy Act 22 provides for a 40-year license term for power 23 reactors. Our regulations also include the provision 24 for extending plant operation for up to an additional 25
10 20 years.
1 For Oyster Creek, the operating license 2
will expire on April 9th, 2009. Oyster Creek is owned 3
by AmerGen Energy Company, LLC. As part of the NRC's 4
review of the license renewal application, we have 5
performed an environmental review to look at the 6
impact of the additional 20 years of operation on the 7
environment.
8 We held a meeting here in November to seek 9
your input regarding the issues we needed to evaluate.
10 We indicated at that earlier scoping meeting that we 11 would return to the Oyster Creek area to present our 12 preliminary results documented in our Draft 13 Environmental Impact Statement. That's the purpose of 14 today's meeting.
15 Next slide.
16 The NRC license renewal review is similar 17 to the original licensing process for nuclear stations 18 in that it involves two parts, an environmental review 19 and a safety review. This slide gives a big picture 20 overview of the license renewal review process, which 21 involves these two parallel paths.
22 I'm going to briefly describe these two 23 review processes starting with the safety review.
24 Next slide.
25
11 What does the safety review consider?
1 Well, for license renewal, the safety review focuses 2
on aging management of structures, systems, and 3
components that are important to safety. The license 4
renewal safety review does not assess current 5
operational issues, such as security, emergency 6
planning, and safety performance. The NRC monitors 7
and provides regulatory oversight of these issues on 8
an ongoing basis under the current operating license.
9 Because the NRC is addressing these 10 current operating issues on a continuing basis, we 11 will not reevaluate them during license renewal.
12 Next slide.
13 As I mentioned, the license renewal safety 14 review focuses on plant aging and the programs that 15 the licensee has already implemented or will implement 16 to manage the effects of aging on plants, structures, 17 systems and components.
18 Let me introduce the safety project 19 manager, Donnie Ashley. Donnie, can you stand up?
20 He's in charge of our safety review. The 21 safety review involves the NRC staff's evaluation of 22 technical information that's contained in the License 23 Renewal Application. It is referred to as a safety 24 evaluation.
25
12 The NRC staff also conducts audits as part 1
of its safety review. There's a team of about 30 NRC 2
technical reviewers and contractors who are conducting 3
a safety evaluation right now.
4 The safety review also includes plant 5
inspections. The inspections are conducted by a team 6
of inspectors from both headquarters and the NRC's 7
office in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania.
8 The NRC also maintains resident inspectors 9
at each operating nuclear plant. We have Marc Ferdas 10 and Ryan Treadway. Can they stand up? Our two 11 resident inspectors for Oyster Creek.
12 The results of the license renewal 13 inspections are documented in separate inspection 14 reports. The staff documents the results of its 15 review in a safety evaluation report. That report is 16 independently reviewed by the Advisory Committee on 17 Reactor Safeguards, or the ACRS.
18 The ACRS is a group of nationally 19 recognized technical experts that serve as a
20 consulting body to the Commission. They review each 21 license renewal application and safety evaluation 22 report, form their own conclusions and recommendations 23 on the requested actions, and report these conclusions 24 and recommendations directly to the Commission.
25
13 Next slide.
1 The second part of the review process 2
involves the environmental review. This next slide 3
outlines the steps in which the environmental review 4
is conducted. The environmental review, which is the 5
subject of today's meeting, evaluates the impacts of 6
license renewal on a number of areas, including 7
- ecology, hydrology, cultural resources, and 8
socioeconomic issues, as well as others.
9 The environmental review involves scoping 10 activities and the development of a document called 11 the Draft Supplement to the Generic Environmental 12 Impact Statement for license renewal. The Draft 13 Supplement to the Generic Environmental Impact 14 Statement provides the staff's preliminary assessment 15 of environmental impact during the renewal period.
16 The Draft Environmental Impact Statement 17 for Oyster Creek has been published for comments, and 18 copies, which look like this, are available in the 19 back of the room.
20 We're here today to discuss the results 21 and to receive your comments on our assessment. In 22 January of next year we'll be issuing a final version 23 of this Environmental Impact Statement which will 24 document how the staff addresses the comments that we 25
14 receive here today at this meeting or in writing.
1 Next slide.
2 Before I go any further, I'd like to give 3
you a little background information on the statute 4
that governs the environmental review. The National 5
Environmental Policy Act of 1969 requires that Federal 6
agencies follow a systematic approach in evaluating 7
potential environmental impacts associated with 8
certain actions. We're required to consider the 9
impacts of the proposed action and also any mitigation 10 for those impacts that we consider to be significant.
11 Alternatives to the proposed action, 12 including taking no action on the applicant's request 13 are also to be considered. The National Environmental 14 Policy Act and our Environmental Impact Statement for 15 license renewal are disclosure tools. They are 16 specifically structured to involve public 17 participation, and this meeting facilitates the public 18 participation in our environmental review.
19 So we're here today to collect public 20 comments on the Draft Environmental Impact Statement, 21 and these comments will be included in the Final 22 Environmental Impact Statement.
23 The NRC staff developed a
Generic 24 Environmental Impact Statement that addresses a number 25
15 of issues that are common to all nuclear power plants.
1 The staff is supplementing that Generic Environmental 2
Impact Statement with a site-specific Environmental 3
Impact Statement that addresses issues that are 4
specific to this individual site.
5 (The) Staff also evaluates the conclusions 6
reached in the Generic Environmental Impact Statement 7
to determine if there are any new and significant 8
information that would change any of our conclusions.
9 Next slide.
10 This slide shows our decision standard for 11 the environmental review. Just take a moment and read 12 this, please.
13 Simply put, is license renewal acceptable 14 from an environmental standpoint?
15 Next slide.
16 This next slide shows important milestone 17 dates for the NRC's environmental review. The 18 highlighted dates indicate the opportunities for 19 public involvement in the environmental review.
20 We received AmerGen's application 21 requesting the license renewal for Oyster Creek on 22 July 22nd, 2005. On September 16th, 2005, we issued 23 a Federal Register Notice of Intent to prepare an 24 Environmental Impact Statement and conduct scoping.
25
16 A public meeting was held here on November 1st, 2005 1
as part of the scoping process. Many of you may have 2
attended that meeting and provided comments to us.
3 Comments that were given at that scoping 4
meeting and are within the scope of this review are 5
contained in Appendix A of this Draft EIS which we 6
published. Out-of-scope comments were answered in the 7
scoping summary report, copies of which are found in 8
the back of the room.
9 The scoping period ended on November 25th, 10 2005, and the scoping summary report was issued in 11 February 21st, 2006, addressing all of the comments 12 that were received from all sources during the scoping 13 process.
14 On June 9th, 2006, the NRC staff issued 15 its Draft Supplement to the Generic Environmental 16 Impact Statement [for Oyster Creek]. The document is 17 the subject of today's meeting. We are currently 18 accepting public comments on the draft until September 19 8th, 2006.
20 Today's meeting is being transcribed and 21 comments provided here carry the same weight as 22 written comments submitted to the NRC.
23 Once the comment period closes, we will 24 begin the development of the Final Environmental 25
17 Impact Statement, which we expect to publish in 1
January of 2007.
2 That concludes my prepared remarks on the 3
process of license renewal. Now Dr. Kirk LaGory will 4
explain our findings.
5 DR. LaGORY: Thanks, Mike.
6 Good evening. I'm glad you all could make 7
it here tonight.
8 My name is Kirk LaGory. I'm an ecologist 9
at Argonne National Laboratory, and I was a project 10 team leader for the Oyster Creek EIS.
11 The NRC contracted with Argonne to 12 evaluate the impacts of the license renewal of the 13 Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station. The EIS team 14 consists of scientists from Argonne National 15 Laboratory, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, as 16 well as NRC staff.
17 We have two members of the EIS team here 18 today that I would like to introduce. We have Jeff 19
- Ward, stand, from Pacific Northwest National 20 Laboratory who performed the aquatic resource analysis 21 that's in the EIS.
22 And then we have Mike Lazaro from Argonne 23 who performed the air quality analysis, and these two 24 gentlemen will be here if you have any questions in 25
18 their particular topical areas.
1 The overall team expertise is shown in 2
this slide, and we had team members that basically had 3
expertise in these various disciplines, and this is 4
pretty much the full spectrum of environmental 5
disciplines that are of interest here. We have 6
atmospheric science, socioeconomics and environmental 7
- justice, archeology and historical resources, 8
terrestrial ecology, land use, radiation protection, 9
nuclear safety, regulatory compliance, aquatic ecology 10 and hydrology.
11 Next slide.
12 This slide shows our overall analytical 13 approach that we used in performing our analysis, but 14 first I'd like to give you a little background 15 information.
16 In the mid-1990s, the NRC evaluated the 17 impacts of all operating nuclear plants across the 18 country. NRC looked at 92 separate impact areas and 19 found that for 69 issues, the impacts were the same 20 for plants with similar features. NRC called these 21 Category 1 issues, and they made the same or generic 22 determination about their impacts and concluded that 23 those impacts would be small.
24 Those results were published in the 25
19 Generic Environmental Impact Statement for license 1
renewal that was published in 1996.
2 The NRC was unable to make generic 3
conclusions about the remaining issues which were 4
called Category 2 issues. As a consequence, NRC 5
decided to prepare site-specific Supplemental EISes, 6
such as the Oyster Creek supplement that we're talking 7
about here today.
8 This slide shows the overall process used 9
to evaluate those Category 1 and Category 2 issues in 10 the document. Again, Category 1 issues, the Generic 11 EIS determined that the impacts would be the same at 12 all sites, but we evaluated all of those issues that 13 were relevant to Oyster Creek.
14 We specifically looked to see if there was 15 new and significant information about that Category 1 16 issue. If there was we would perform a site specific 17 analysis. If there was not new and significant 18 information available that would lead us to believe 19 that that conclusion was not correct, then we would 20 adopt the Generic EIS conclusion that the impacts were 21 small.
22 For Category 2 issues, again, the Generic 23 EIS indicated these would be analyzed at all sites.
24 So site specific analysis was performed. All of those 25
20 issues relevant to Oyster Creek received analysis in 1
the EIS.
2 There is also a process for identifying 3
new issues, ones that weren't considered in the 4
Generic EIS. The process, these issues are identified 5
during the scope of the evaluation. For instance, 6
during the scoping meeting if a new issue was 7
identified by the public or if a new issue was 8
identified during our EIS analysis, what we would do 9
is determine if that was, indeed, a new issue relevant 10 to the plant. If it was, then we would perform a site 11 specific assessment. If not, then that issue would 12 receive no further analysis.
13 One issue that did come up as we were 14 doing our evaluation was the topic of essential fish 15 habitat. As a consequence, this new issue, we 16 performed an essential fish habitat assessment and 17 included that in our EIS.
18 Next slide.
19 In the Generic EIS, NRC defined three 20 different impact levels: small, moderate, and large.
21 And these categories are consistent with CEQ, Council 22 on Environmental Quality, guidelines.
23 For a small impact, the effect is either 24 not detectable or is too small to destabilize or 25
21 noticeably alter any significant aspect of the 1
resource.
2 For a moderate effect, that impact is 3
sufficient to alter noticeably, but not destabilize 4
important attributes of the resource.
5 For a large effect, the impact is clearly 6
noticeable and is sufficient to destabilize important 7
attributes of the resource.
8 I'll use the effect of the Oyster Creek 9
cooling system on aquatic resources in Barnegat Bay to 10 illustrate how these different impact criteria would 11 be used.
12 The operation of the Oyster Creek cooling 13 system affects aquatic resources through entrainment, 14 impingement, and through thermal shock. If the loss 15 of aquatic resources is so small that it cannot be 16 detected in relation to the total population in the 17 bay, then we would call that impact small. If losses 18 resulting from the cooling system causes aquatic 19 resources to decline, in other words, we can see an 20 effect, but then the resource stabilizes at some lower 21 level, we would call that a moderate impact.
22 If, on the other hand, losses at the plant 23 are so large that they cause a decline in the resource 24 and the resource does not stabilize at some lower 25
22 level and continues to decline, we would call that a 1
large impact.
2 When the EIS team evaluated the impacts 3
from continued operations at Oyster Creek, we 4
considered information from a wide variety of sources, 5
and those are shown on this slide. First we looked at 6
the License Renewal Application and the Environmental 7
Report that was provided by the applicant.
8 Then we came to the site, toured the site, 9
interviewed plant personnel, and reviewed plant 10 documentation. We did that in a site audit that 11 occurred last October.
12 We also spoke with Federal, State, and 13 local officials. We talked to permitting authorities 14 in various social services, and we also gathered 15 public comments during the scoping period last year.
16 We were here in November for the scoping meeting, 17 gathered those comments, and included those as 18 information in the EIS.
19 All of this information forms the basis 20 for which we performed our analysis and drew our 21 preliminary conclusions.
22 The EIS considers the environmental 23 impacts of continued operations of the Oyster Creek 24 Nuclear Generating Station during the 20-year license 25
23 renewal period, that is, from 2009 to 2029. The 1
impacts of routine or normal operations were 2
considered for the topics that are shown on this slide 3
for the cooling system, the transmission line 4
associated with the plant, the radiological effects 5
for socioeconomics, groundwater use and quality, 6
threatened or endangered species, and cumulative 7
impacts.
8 In the EIS we also considered the impacts 9
of postulated accidents and severe accident mitigation 10 alternatives.
11 One of the project features that we looked 12 closely at is the cooling system at the Oyster Creek 13 plant. There are three Category 2 issues relevant to 14 the cooling system. These include entrainment, 15 impingement, and thermal shock.
16 Entrainment refers to the pulling in of 17 very small aquatic organisms into the systems, the 18 cooling system of the plant. Most of those organisms 19 are killed in the process. They're exposed to fairly 20 high heat and then they're discharged into the 21 discharge canal, but we can expect 100 percent 22 mortality of those organisms.
23 Impingement occurs when larger organisms 24 are pulled into the plant, but then they're pinned or 25
24 stuck to either the trash racks for larger organisms 1
or onto the traveling screens that protect the plant, 2
keep large objects from entering the cooling system.
3 Those organisms do not experience 100 4
percent mortality. The plant has a traveling screen 5
system that employs a Ristroph bucket system that 6
basically moves those organisms off into a flume 7
system and then they're discharged into the discharge 8
canal. So 100 percent mortality does not occour with 9
impinged organisms.
10 Heat shock, our third Category 2 issue 11 related to the cooling system occurs when relatively 12 warm water is released into relatively colder water.
13 Organisms who live in that colder water and are 14 adapted to that colder water, when they're exposed 15 suddenly to much warmer water, they can lose 16 equilibrium or die. That is a Category 2 issue that 17 we looked at.
18 Our review of these three issues related 19 to the plant cooling system in the studies conducted 20 on those issues suggested the potential impact in 21 these areas would be small.
22 Radiological impacts were determined in 23 the Generic EIS to be a Category 1 issue. That is, 24 the impact of radiological releases during nuclear 25
25 plant operations during the 20-year license renewal 1
term would be small. However, because these releases 2
are a concern to many people, I will talk about them 3
here today.
4 All nuclear plants release some 5
radiological effluents to the environment, but it 6
should be noted that since the late 1980s, it is 7
Oyster Creek operating policy to not routinely release 8
[liquid] radiological effluents to the environment.
9 During our site visit, we looked at the 10 documentation for effluent releases and the 11 radiological monitoring program, as well as the 12 State's independent monitoring program. We looked at 13 how the gaseous and liquid effluents are treated and 14 released, as well as how the solid wastes were 15 treated, packaged, and shipped. We looked at how the 16 applicant determines and demonstrates that they are in 17 compliance with the regulation for release of 18 radiological effluents.
19 We also looked at data from on-site and 20 near site locations that the applicant monitors for 21 airborne releases and direct radiation and other 22 monitoring stations beyond the site
- boundary, 23 including locations where water, fish, and food 24 products are sampled.
25
26 We found that the average and maximum 1
calculated doses for a member of the public are well 2
within about a tenth of one percent of the annual 3
limits that are considered protective of human health.
4 Since releases from the plant are not expected to 5
increase during the 20-year license renewal term and 6
since we also found no new and significant information 7
related to this issue, we adopted the Generic EIS 8
conclusion that the impacts of radiological releases 9
on human health and the environment would be small.
10 There are a number of threatened and 11 endangered species that occur in the vicinity of the 12 Oyster Creek plant, and these are under the 13 jurisdiction of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and 14 the National Marine Fisheries Service. The U.S. Fish 15 and Wildlife Service determined that the bald eagle is 16 the only Federally listed species under their 17 jurisdiction that has the potential to occur in the 18 vicinity of Oyster Creek, and they concluded that 19 operations during the 20-year license renewal term 20 were unlikely to affect the species.
21 In addition, there are five species of sea 22 turtles in the vicinity that are under the 23 jurisdiction of the National Marine Fisheries 24 Services. These include the loggerhead, Kemp's 25
27 ridley, green, leatherback, and hawksbill sea turtles.
1 The first three, the loggerhead, Kemp's ridley and 2
green sea turtles, are sometimes impinged on the trash 3
racks at the cooling system intake structure. The 4
National Marine Fisheries Service recently issued a 5
Biological Opinion related to the effects of Oyster 6
Creek operations and established incidental take 7
limits for these species.
8 Based on these consultations and our 9
review, the staff's preliminary determination is that 10 the impact of operation of Oyster Creek during the 11 license renewal period on threatened or endangered 12 species would be small.
13 We also looked at cumulative impacts.
14 Cumulative impacts are those impacts of the proposed 15 action when taken together with other past, present, 16 or reasonably foreseeable future actions, regardless 17 of what agency or person undertakes the other actions.
18 The staff considered cumulative impacts in 19 the following areas: aquatic resources, terrestrial 20 resources, radiological impacts, socioeconomics, and 21 groundwater use and quality.
22 Cumulative impacts were evaluated to the 23 end of the 20-year license renewal term. Our 24 preliminary determination is that any cumulative 25
28 impacts resulting from the operation of Oyster Creek 1
during the license renewal period would be small.
2 Other environmental impact areas that we 3
looked at included the uranium fuel cycle and solid 4
waste management, as well as decommissioning at Oyster 5
Creek. In the Generic EIS, the NRC considered impact 6
areas associated with these two topics, and they 7
considered those Category 1 issues. Our team found no 8
related new and significant information related to 9
these issues and, therefore, adopted NRC's generic 10 conclusion that impacts would be small in these two 11 areas.
12 The EIS team evaluated a number of 13 alternatives to license renewal as well.
14 Specifically, we looked at the impacts of replacing 15 Oyster Creek power with power from other sources.
16 Oyster Creek has a power capacity of 640 megawatts.
17 We looked at a no-action alternative, that is not 18 granting the license or not renewing the license for 19 Oyster Creek. We looked at development of new 20 generation from either coal, natural gas or new 21 nuclear power plants.
22 We looked at the ability to purchase 23 electric power and then the impacts associated with 24 that. We looked at other alternatives, other 25
29 alternative power generations, including oil, wind, 1
solar and conservation.
2 And then we looked at a combination of 3
alternatives to replace that 640 megawatts. In this 4
case we looked at the impacts of a natural gas plant 5
together with conservation and purchase power to make 6
up the total of the 640 megawatts.
7 For each alternative we looked at the same 8
types of impact issues that we did when we evaluated 9
Oyster Creek. The team's preliminary conclusion in 10 evaluating these alternatives is that the 11 environmental impacts would reach moderate or large 12 significance in at least some impact categories.
13 In addition to the impacts of alternative 14 generation or of alternatives to license renewal, the 15 team assessed the impacts associated with alternatives 16 to the existing once-through cooling system at Oyster 17 Creek. We looked at two alternatives specifically, 18 one replacing the existing once-through cooling system 19 with a closed cycle system using cooling towers, and 20 secondly, we looked at modifying the existing once-21 through system to minimize the or reduce the impacts 22 to aquatic organisms and then restoring wetlands to 23 offset the residual impacts.
24 These alternatives were considered in the 25
30 EIS because they are identified in the State of New 1
Jersey's draft pollutant Discharge Elimination System 2
permit for Oyster Creek that was issued in 2005.
3 Based on the State's draft permit and our discussions 4
with the State, it seems there is a reasonable 5
possibility that Oyster Creek will be required to 6
implement one of these alternatives.
7 Alternatives are intended to reduce the 8
impact of the existing system on aquatic resources.
9 The closed cycle cooling system considered 10 in our analysis is a linear hybrid mechanical-draft 11 system, which is not as tall; it's only about 80 feet.
12 It's not as tall as the natural draft towers that are 13 typically associated with nuclear plants.
14 This diagram on the right is an aerial 15 view of the portion of the site that the towers could 16 occur in. This is basically the northern portion of 17 the site. These are the two cooling towers. You can 18 see they have quite a different configuration than the 19 natural draft towers.
20 These are basically two linear systems 21 consisting of 18 cells each. This is the intake canal 22 here for orientation.
23 The hybrid system that that system employs 24 reduces the visible plume by heating the exhaust air 25
31 when fog would be most likely, in the winter and 1
certain parts of the spring and in the fall. Since 2
this cooling system would use salt water -- this would 3
use water basically from Barnegat Bay -- exhaust would 4
contain relatively high amounts of particulates, 5
especially salt. It's estimated that about 60 pounds 6
per hour or 261 tons per year would be released from 7
these cooling towers. This amount of release would 8
exceed State standards and could result in a moderate 9
impact.
10 We also looked, as I mentioned at 11 modifications to the existing once through system.
12 This is our second alternative. We considered newer 13 screening technologies, acoustic fish deterrent 14 systems, as well as certain operational changes that 15 could potentially reduce aquatic impacts.
16 The New Jersey Department of Environmental 17 Protection considers wetland restoration in Barnegat 18 Bay as a viable approach to offset impacts to aquatic 19 resources. A substantial amount of restoration is 20 estimated to be needed to offset the impacts of the 21 existing cooling system.
22 We determined that the impacts of such a 23 restoration program would be small for most resource 24 areas, but could result in moderate impacts in both 25
32 the land use area and also archeological resources, 1
and the impact magnitude would depend on where that 2
restoration would occur.
3 To summarize our preliminary conclusions, 4
for the Category 1 issues presented in the Generic EIS 5
that relate to the Oyster Creek plant we found no 6
information that was both new and significant.
7 Therefore, we have preliminarily adopted the 8
conclusion that impacts associated with these issues 9
would be small.
10 In the Oyster Creek EIS, we analyze the 11 remaining Category 2 issues pertinent to the Oyster 12 Creek plant, and we determine that the environmental 13 impacts resulting from these issues were also small.
14 Lastly, we found that the environmental 15 effects of alternatives, at least in some impact 16 categories could reach moderate or large significance.
17 Now I'm going to switch gears a bit and 18 present the findings of the accident analysis for 19 Oyster Creek. We have Bob Palla of the NRC, who is 20 responsible for this analysis, and he'll be able to 21 answer any questions that you might have on this 22 particular topic.
23 The EIS evaluated two classes of 24 accidents, design-basis accidents and severe 25
33 accidents. Design-basis accidents are accidents the 1
plant is designed to withstand without risk to the 2
public. The ability of the plant to withstand these 3
accidents has to be demonstrated before the plant is 4
granted a license.
5 In
- addition, the licensee has to 6
demonstrate acceptable plant performance for design-7 basis accidents throughout the life of the plant.
8 The Generic EIS considered design basis 9
accidents a Category 1 impact or a Category 1 issue.
10 The second category of accidents evaluated in the EIS 11 is severe accidents. Severe accidents could result in 12 substantial damage to the reactor core.
13 The Commission found in the Generic EIS 14 that the risk of severe accidents is small for all 15 plants. Nevertheless, the Commission determined that 16 alternatives to mitigate severe accidents must be 17 considered for all plants that had not already done 18 so.
19 These alternatives are termed SAMAs, 20 severe accident mitigation alternatives. The SAMA 21 evaluation is a site-specific assessment.
22 The purpose of performing the SAMA 23 evaluation is to insure that plant changes with the 24 potential for improving severe accident safety 25
34 performance are identified and evaluated. The scope 1
of potential plant improvements that were considered 2
in the EIS include hardware modifications, procedural 3
changes, and training program improvements.
4 The scope includes SAMAs that would 5
prevent core damage, as well as SAMAs that improve 6
containment performance given that core damage 7
occurred.
8 Next slide.
9 The preliminary results of the Oyster 10 Creek SAMA evaluation are shown in this slide. The 11 candidate or 136 candidate improvements were 12 identified for Oyster Creek. The number of candidate 13 SAMAs was reduced to 37 based on a multi-step 14 screening process.
15 A more detailed assessment of the risk 16 reduction potential and implementation cost was then 17 performed for each of the 37 remaining SAMAs. A total 18 of 15 SAMAs were identified as potentially cost-19 beneficial in that exercise. None of the potentially 20 cost-beneficial SAMAs relate to managing the effects 21 of plant aging during the period of extended 22 operation. Accordingly, they are not required to be 23 implemented as part of the license renewal process.
24 Regardless, in the EIS the NRC staff 25
35 considered that further evaluation of the potentially 1
cost-beneficial SAMAs by AmerGen would be warranted.
2 Since the Draft EIS was issued, AmerGen has indicated 3
that they are evaluating the potentially cost-4 beneficial SAMAs for possible implementation.
5 That concludes my portion of the talk.
6 Now I'd like to turn the microphone back to Mike.
7 DR. MASNIK: Thank you, Kirk.
8 To reiterate our conclusions, we found 9
that the impacts of license renewal are small in all 10 areas. We also concluded that the alternatives to 11 license renewal, including the no-action alternative, 12 may have moderate to large environmental effects in 13 some impact categories.
14 The staff also evaluated alternatives to 15 the current cooling system and found that the 16 alternatives to the current once-through system could 17 result in moderate impacts in some resource areas.
18 Based on these results, our preliminary 19 recommendation is that the adverse environmental 20 impacts of license renewal for Oyster Creek are not so 21 great that preserving the option of license renewal 22 for energy-planning decision-makers would be 23 unreasonable.
24 Next slide.
25
36 This slide is a quick recap of our current 1
status. We issued the Draft Environmental Impact 2
Statement for Oyster Creek on June 9th, 2006. We are 3
currently in the middle of the public comment period, 4
which is scheduled to end in September 8th, 2006. We 5
expect to address the public comments, make any 6
necessary revisions to the Draft Environmental Impact 7
Statement, and issue a final impact statement in 8
January 2007.
9 This slide identifies me as your primary 10 point of contact with the NRC for the preparation of 11 the Environmental Impact Statement, and it also 12 identifies where documents related to our review may 13 be found in the local area. The Oyster Creek Draft 14 Environmental Impact Statement is available at the 15 Lacy Township Public Library. I was there yesterday 16 and verified that, in fact, a copy was there, and it 17 looked a little dog-eared. So hopefully some people 18 have been reading it.
19 All documents related to the review are 20 also available at the NRC's website, which is 21 www.nrc.gov.
22 In addition, as you came in you were asked 23 to fill out a registration card at our reception desk.
24 If you included your address on that card, we will 25
37 mail you a copy of the Final Environmental Impact 1
Statement to you. If you did not fill out a card and 2
you want a copy of the Final Environmental Impact 3
Statement for Oyster Creek, please see Evan -- Evan, 4
raise your hand in the back of the room -- after the 5
meeting, and Evan will sign you up.
6 Next slide.
7 Now, in addition to providing comments at 8
this meeting, there are other ways that you can submit 9
comments to our environmental review process. You can 10 provide written comments to the Chief of our Rules and 11 Directives Branch at the address on the screen.
12 You can also make comments in person if 13 you happen to be in Rockville, Maryland.
14 We have also established a specific E-mail 15 address at the NRC for the purpose of receiving your 16 comments on the Draft Environmental Impact Statement, 17 and the E-mail address is oystercreekEIS@nrc.gov, no 18 spaces. All of your comments will be collected and 19 considered.
20 This concludes my remarks, and thank you 21 again for taking the time to attend this meeting.
22 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you, Mike.
23 Thank you, Kirk.
24 We have time for some questions about the 25
38 process or about the Draft Environmental Impact 1
Statement. Paul.
2 MR. GUNTER: My name is Paul Gunter, and 3
I'm with Nuclear Information and Resource Service.
4 I'm wondering if NRC can give me some 5
insight. Just briefly on June 2nd, 2006, the Ninth 6
Circuit Federal Appellate Court in California rendered 7
a decision that the environmental reviews that NRC 8
conducts with regard to all -- you know, particularly 9
the license extensions, must consider the 10 environmental consequences of a terrorist attack on a 11 nuclear facility.
12 And I know that one of the contentions 13 that was submitted on November 14th, 2005, by the 14 State of New Jersey addressed exactly this issue under 15 SAMA.
16 So my question is: what is NRC doing 17 right now to reconsider and reevaluate the impact of 18 the Ninth Circuit decision on this proceeding and 19 other proceedings?
20 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Paul.
21 I'm going to ask Mitzi Young of our Office 22 of General Counsel to speak to that. Mitzi.
23 MS. YOUNG: Thank you, Chip.
24 Good evening, everyone. Paul, I hate to 25
39 disagree with your interpretation of the Court's 1
ruling, but it did not address license renewal. It 2
addressed the assessment of environmental impacts for 3
an independent spent fuel storage facility at Diablo 4
Canyon. That decision is currently being considered.
5 Whether the government will file an appeal, the time 6
for that has been extended and decisions will be made 7
on that until late August.
8 So the NRC, Department of Justice, the 9
government in general is trying to decide how best to 10 respond to that decision.
11 MR. GUNTER: Not to have a back-and-forth 12 on this, but would you agree that the Ninth Circuit 13 does have impact on NEPA proceedings? The NRC had 14 previously stated that the consequences of an act of 15 terrorism are so remote and speculative that they 16 cannot be raised under a NEPA proceeding.
17 The license renewal process is governed by 18 NEPA. So am I correct in stating that the Ninth 19 Circuit does bear on all NEPA proceedings? At least 20 it raises it as a precedent court decision.
21 MS. YOUNG: As a government attorney I'm 22 certainly not here to advise a member of the public 23 specifically, but, yes, the decision does question 24 whether the exclusion for the independent spent fuel 25
40 pool installation of analysis of impacts was 1
appropriate in terms of a NEPA statement, and that's 2
the extent of the ruling.
3 What the impact is for all of NRC's 4
program is still being under consideration by the 5
Commission and Department of Justice.
6 MR. CAMERON: Okay, and I guess it's a 7
watch the space to see what the Commission, and as you 8
phrased it, the Government, since the Department of 9
Justice is involved, decides to do with this, and I 10 suppose there's a whole range of possibilities that we 11 don't even want to speculate on, but it could at one 12 end of the spectrum possibly go there.
13 MS. YOUNG: I neglected to mention in 14 terms of New Jersey's concern specifically -- I'm 15 sorry in terms of New Jersey's concern 16 specifically, I believe there have been filings in a 17 number of cases before the NRC, including Oyster Creek 18 where the proponents of the case, Mothers for Peace.
19 Their counsel has filed with the Commission 20 specifically a statement saying, "Please consider this 21 as controlling precedent."
22 So that argument has been raised with the 23 Commission and the Commission will have to deal with 24 it.
25
41 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Mitzi. Thanks, 1
Paul.
2 Other questions on the process? Yes.
3 MR. WARREN: Yes, actually I have a 4
question. I was wondering does the Environmental 5
Impact Statement that you were reviewing here today 6
cover the spent fuel pool at Oyster Creek.
7 DR. MASNIK: In what fashion? In other 8
words, the document does describe the facility and 9
state that there is a spent fuel pool.
10 MR. WARREN: I guess specifically in the 11 vulnerability of the spent fuel pool to a terrorist 12 incident or in the consequences of our problem with 13 the spent fuel pool per se, a zirconium cladding fire, 14 and the environmental impact that that would cause.
15 DR. MASNIK: No, it does not. The issue 16 of sabotage or terrorism is outside the scope of the 17 license renewal as I had stated during my talk. So 18 it's not covered from the standpoint of terrorism or 19 sabotage.
20 MR. WARREN: Okay. How about an accident 21 that might be caused, say, by a hurricane, such as 22 debris from the building being blown into the spent 23 fuel pool?
24 DR. MASNIK: Again, that is an issue that 25
42 is an ongoing concern, and it's covered under the 1
current operating license. So those kinds of concerns 2
are a day-to-day concern on the NRC, and it's outside 3
the scope of the license renewal.
4 MR. WARREN: I mean, so it's outside the 5
scope of the Environmental Impact Statement. Is that 6
what you're saying?
7 DR. MASNIK: That's correct, outside the 8
scope of our environmental review for that facility.
9 MR. WARREN: So the Environmental Impact 10 Statement does not include anything to do with --
11 DR. MASNIK: It does not.
12 MR. WARREN: -- possible contamination from 13 an accident from the spent fuel pool?
14 DR. MASNIK: It does not.
15 MR. WARREN: Okay. Another question I had 16 is you had mentioned that in the combination of 17 looking at the alternatives to the plant, you 18 mentioned the combination included oil, gas, coal and 19 combination. Does that mean that wind, solar, tidal 20 and conservation were excluded when you were assessing 21 the alternative to re-licensing the plant?
22 DR. MASNIK: What we did was we looked at 23 the alternatives, alternative power generation from a 24 number of different sources of generation, and we 25
43 recognized that one of the possible ways of replacing 1
the power would be a combination of alternatives, and 2
that's the one we talked about, a combination.
3 We also looked at solar and some of the 4
other newer technologies as well as alternatives, but 5
we did not consider them in a combination I guess to 6
answer your question.
7 MR. WARREN: Okay. So none of the non-8 fossil fuel alternatives, none of them were considered 9
in a combination as an alternative to re-licensing the 10 plant is basically what I'm getting here. Am I 11 correct in assuming that?
12 DR.
LaGORY: The combination of 13 alternatives that we looked at was a 530 megawatt 14 natural gas plant together with conservation, 40 15 megawatts conservation and 70 megawatts of purchased 16 power. That was the combination of alternatives that 17 we evaluated.
18 We looked at alternate energy sources as 19 single energy sources for full replacement. So we 20 looked at solar, and we looked at wind as a 21 replacement possibility. We did evaluate those 22 alternatives, but they weren't part of the combination 23 suite that we evaluated.
24 MR. WARREN: Is it your intention to look 25
44 at those in a combination in deciding alternatives to 1
re-licensing this plant?
2 DR. LaGORY: The combination, I mean, we 3
can take that as a comment. Right now our alternative 4
evaluation, we feel, is covering a broad spectrum of 5
the alternatives possible. A combination of 6
alternatives, if you will, where you actually identify 7
a combination of different power sources for 8
replacement could constitute almost an infinite 9
variety of energy sources.
10 We picked one that we thought was most 11 likely to be implementable.
12 MR. WARREN: Okay. I mean other than 13 conservation, it seems that the others that have been 14 picked have the most significant environmental 15 impacts. Obviously solar and wind would have the 16 least environmental impacts.
17 Another question I had --
18 DR. MASNIK: Just to follow up --
19 MR. WARREN: Oh, sure.
20 DR. MASNIK: -- perhaps you have a 21 recommendation of a combination of alternatives that 22 we can --
23 MR. WARREN: I certainly do. I would 24 recommend wind, solar, tidal, and conservation as a 25
45 specific combination group, excluding all fossil 1
fuels.
2 DR. MASNIK: Okay. All right. Thank you 3
for that comment.
4 MR. WARREN: Does this mean this will be 5
done or it's just a comment?
6 DR. MASNIK: Well, you know, we'll have to 7
go back and --
8 MR. WARREN: Am I wishful thinking here?
9 DR. MASNIK: Well, I think it's not beyond 10 the realm of possibility that we could consider that 11 for you.
12 MR. WARREN: Can I make an official 13 request?
14 DR. MASNIK: Sure, sure. You have.
15 MR. WARREN: Okay. Thank you.
16 DR. MASNIK: An on-the-record comment is 17 a request.
18 MR. WARREN: Thank you.
19 Another question I had was regarding the 20 cooling towers. You had mentioned the use of water 21 from Barnegat Bay which has a very high saline 22 content, salt content. Have alternatives to this type 23 of cooling tower that might include fresh water or 24 brackish water been considered? And if not, why?
25
46 DR.
MASNIK: Actually the water 1
requirements for such a tower would be extremely high 2
and would probably exceed -- well, certainly would 3
exceed the flow of Forked River and Oyster Creek.
4 There's a possibility that you could remove some 5
ground water, but again, the volumes of water even for 6
the closed cycle system are extremely high, and it 7
would be questionable whether or not groundwater 8
supplies would be available.
9 MR. CAMERON: Let me borrow this back and 10 let's do this quickly. Could you just repeat that and 11 tell us who you are?
12 MS. ZIPF: My name is Cindy Zipf, Clean 13 Ocean Action.
14 I just wanted for you to clarify the 15 volume. I do have a question, but you answered his 16 question saying it's a large volume. What is the 17 volume?
18 DR. MASNIK: Off the top of my head I 19 don't know the number. Kirk, do you? Can we look 20 that up in the book? Do we have that?
21 MR. CAMERON: Okay.
22 DR. MASNIK: Give us a second to check the 23 actual number. I don't want to --
24 MR. CAMERON: And could you just introduce 25
47 yourself to us?
1 MR. WARREN: Certainly. My name is Donald 2
Warren. I'm actually here as a representative of 3
Jersey Shore Nuclear Watch and a resident of Ship 4
Bottom, which is about 11 miles from the plant.
5 Another question I had is if dry cooling 6
has been considered and looked at and evaluated and if 7
not, why.
8 DR. MASNIK: It has not been considered 9
for this facility. What we did was we asked the 10 licensee based on comments that we received here the 11 last time we were here and based on the draft permit 12 for the NPDES permit which talked about cooling 13 towers, to provide us with a proposal.
14 The proposal that the licensee proposed 15 was a linear hybrid mechanical draft towers, and 16 that's what we evaluated.
17 MR. WARREN: Okay. Can I make an official 18 request that dry cooling be assessed as an alternative 19 in the environmental impact to be considered?
20 DR. MASNIK: Yes, you may.
21 MR. WARREN: Okay. Thank you.
22 DR. LaGORY: It's 460,000 gallons per 23 minute.
24 MR. CAMERON: Kirk, before you sit down, 25
48 could you just tell us what the 460,000 gallons per 1
minute refers to so that people understand this? And 2
when you do it, can you do it at the mic, please?
3 DR. LaGORY: You can find the evaluation 4
and all of these specific numbers on page 8-18.
5 What we're talking about is a water 6
circulation rate of 460,000 gallons per minute. Make-7 up water would constitute about 14,000 gallons per 8
minute, and that's to make up the water that's lost 9
through evaporation.
10 MR. CAMERON: Okay. We're going to go to 11 Edith and then back here and we'll get to the rest of 12 you possibly, hopefully.
13 MS. GBUR: Hi. My name is Edith Gbur, and 14 I represent Jersey Shore Nuclear Watch.
15 And I have a question, and the question is 16 has the release of low-level radiation from Oyster 17 Creek been considered as a health risk in the 18 Environmental Impact Statement.
19 DR. MASNIK: I missed one of the words, 20 Edith. Has the -- can you repeat it for me again?
21 MR. CAMERON: Has the risk of low-level --
22 the release of low-level radiation from the Oyster 23 Creek facility been considered in the Environmental 24 Impact Statement?
25
49 Did I get that right, Edith?
1 MS. GBUR: Yes.
2 MR. CAMERON: Okay.
3 DR. MASNIK: Yes, it has. We've looked 4
at, as Kirk had mentioned in his talk, we came to the 5
site and we reviewed the historical record of releases 6
from the facility, and we made a determination that 7
the releases are a very small fraction of those that 8
are essentially allowed by our regulations.
9 The maximum exposure to a member of the 10 public last year based on the results of last year's 11 monitoring would have been.026 millirem. To put that 12 in perspective, most of us get about one to two 13 millirem per year watching TV on a conventional 14 television. So it's a small fraction of the radiation 15 that you would get from watching TV, and that's the 16 calculated dose to the maximally exposed individual.
17 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you, Mike.
18 Yes, sir.
19 MR. NOSTI: Yes. My name is Jack Nosti.
20 I'm the president of the Lacy Township Republican 21 Club.
22 Now, one of the items that you just 23 brought up was of extreme interest to me. Now, if I 24 understood you correctly, you said that the cooling 25
50 tower requirements of 460 gallons per minute would 1
possibly exceed what was available from the Oyster 2
Creek and Forked River Creek and might have to be 3
subsidized with groundwater.
4 DR. MASNIK: The question I was asked was 5
what is you used fresh water to make up the losses 6
associated with the cooling tower evaporation, as 7
opposed to what was proposed by the licensee, and that 8
is to use Barnegat Bay water to make up the losses 9
associated by the cooling towers.
10 MR. NOSTI: But we're using Barnegat Bay 11 water now.
12 DR. MASNIK: That's correct. That's 13 correct.
14 MR. NOSTI: So this same process is going 15 to take the very same water and --
16 DR. MASNIK: Yes, but considerably less 17 MR. NOSTI: -- and use it, but not recycle 18 it back in. You're just going to take it and 19 evaporate it into the air.
20 DR. MASNIK: Yes.
21 MR. NOSTI: Okay. So you're going to be 22 taking from the same source.
23 DR. MASNIK: That's correct. Well, I 24 mean, that's the proposal that was put before us by 25
51 the licensee. I believe that was the proposal; that's 1
what the State of New Jersey had in mind when they 2
drafted their draft permit for the NPDES permit.
3 MR. NOSTI: Okay, because obviously if 4
additional groundwater is needed, that would have a 5
great impact on Lacy Township because any future 6
development within our town required us to get a water 7
allocation permit based upon how much groundwater is 8
available. So it's quite obvious to us that the 9
present system that is there now that has been working 10 extremely well in the past would be certainly the one 11 that we would favor the most.
12 We certainly wouldn't want to favor 13 something that might possibly at some time in the 14 future require taking groundwater because that is a 15 commodity that, you know, there's just never enough 16 of. I know we know down in the lower Cape May areas 17 we're getting, you know, salt water coming into the 18 groundwater systems, and we want to leave groundwater 19 alone as much as possible. Let's affect the 20 environment as easily as possible.
21 And I suggest that in the future that 22 possibly a meeting like this could be held without air 23 conditioning so that the people who are most concerned 24 about affecting the environment could appreciate what 25
52 it's like to get back to nature.
1 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you, sir.
2 And, Mike, just to reemphasize so that 3
there's no misunderstanding, is that the proposal that 4
we looked at is to use the bay water.
5 DR. MASNIK: That's correct, and what 6
happened was I was asked what about using fresh water, 7
and there are really only two sources of fresh water, 8
surface water and groundwater. So --
9 MR. CAMERON: So you're just responding to 10 the question.
11 DR. MASNIK: That's correct.
12 MR. CAMERON: All right. Yes, sir.
13 MR. STROUP: Hi. My name is Ed Stroup.
14 I didn't really come thinking I was going 15 to ask you to take a look at something else. I 16 understand that you considered primarily natural gas 17 and curtailed usage for replacement power, but I heard 18 some people call tonight to look at solar, wind, and 19 things like that more and to study that, and I'd like 20 to ask you if you are going to take a look at those 21 things, I would like to ask you to consider certain 22 other factors.
23 Number one, solar doesn't work well at 24 night, and the wind doesn't always blow. Oyster Creek 25
53 is a base load plant. It provides power all the time.
1 I'd also like you to consider, if you 2
would be willing to do that, when you look at 3
replacement sources for Oyster Creek that you evaluate 4
the costs associated with that replacement. For 5
example, oil is at an all-time high. Gas and coal can 6
be extremely expensive compared to nuclear, and if 7
people can't afford to use it, then it's not going to 8
be a replacement power.
9 I think we also need to look at the 10 availability and the use of foreign oil and where 11 those prices are at record high and where they're 12 likely to go in the future as you look at this to keep 13 a balance.
14 And I'd just like to ask you if you are 15 going to go back and reconsider it, would you please 16 consider also some of those things.
17 Thank you.
18 DR. MASNIK: Just a quick response. We 19 actually do in our document talk about these 20 alternatives, but what the question was is if we 21 combined a number of these together would the outcome 22 be different than what we did before, and we will look 23 at that combination, but we'll also consider the 24 issues that you brought up as well.
25
54 MR. CAMERON: Okay. We have time for a 1
couple more questions. Yes, sir.
2 MR. deCAMP: My name is William deCamp, 3
Jr. I'm President of Save Barnegat Bay.
4 We got contributions last year from over 5
1,700 families in the Barnegat Bay watershed.
6 Is your purpose at this moment to 7
entertain questions regarding the scope and nature of 8
this hearing or are you just taking any old question?
9 MR. CAMERON: And this is just to clarify 10 it. As a meeting, hearing, in NRC parlance means 11 something special, an adjudicatory hearing, but I take 12 it are you bothered by the fact that there are 13 questions that seem outside the scope? I'm trying to 14 figure out how we can best respond to your question.
15 What is your concern?
16 MR. deCAMP: I'm not bothered. I'm trying 17 to ask a question appropriate to the format.
18 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Go ahead.
19 MR. deCAMP: And at one point I thought I 20 heard the gentleman at the front of the room say that 21 he wanted to clarify the scope of the proceedings.
22 But if we're open for all questions, I 23 think people would like to know that also.
24 But anyway, so my question regards the 25
55 cooling towers, and I believe you found that they 1
would have an impact. Was it a moderate impact?
2 DR. MASNIK: Well, first of all --
3 MR. deCAMP: As an alternative.
4 DR. MASNIK: -- cooling towers is a good 5
question for this forum, and what we do is we don't 6
assign an overall assessment. What we do is we look 7
at a number of different categories or areas, for 8
example, cultural resources, and in one case for the 9
cooling towers or actually in two areas, we said that 10 the impacts could reach moderate levels under certain 11 conditions.
12 MR. deCAMP: So my question is when you 13 say they could reach moderate, is that like moderately 14 adverse? In other words, are you saying that any 15 impact is adverse?
16 DR. MASNIK: No, what we're saying is 17 moderate based on our definition of small, moderate, 18 and large that we provided during the presentation.
19 Can you put that back, the definitions 20 back up? And I think that may make it clear.
21 MR. deCAMP: And while they're looking for 22 that slide, can I ask was this moderate impact was the 23 result of salinity effects on vegetation. We said 24 those impacts would be small.
25
56 DR. LaGORY: We looked at the deposition 1
rates that we would expect of salt in basically 2
concentric circles around the cooling towers, and we 3
looked at what distance would you see an effect on 4
vegetation, and we found that at about three-quarters 5
of a mile there would not be any detectable effect on 6
vegetation with the calculated salt deposition rate 7
that we were finding based on the throughput of the 8
system.
9 So we considered that a small impact, 10 especially given the fact that we're in a coastal area 11 and most of these plants are tolerant of salt. So 12 about a three-quarter mile ring depending on wind 13 direction.
14 The moderate impact actually resulted from 15 exceedance of the State standard for particulate 16 emissions for a new source. That standard is 30 17 pounds per hour of particulate emission, and the 18 calculated emission rate for the two cooling towers 19 would be 60 pounds per hour.
20 MR. deCAMP: Of what?
21 DR. LaGORY: Of particulate matter, and in 22 this case it's mostly salt, not entirely. It's like 23 70 percent of the drift particles would be salt.
24 MR. deCAMP: So here comes my question.
25
57 In determining this moderate impact and small impact, 1
are you weighing that against the enormous improvement 2
you would have with entrainment, impingement, and 3
thermal pollution and heat shock?
4 In other words, did you take everything 5
into the balance?
6 DR. LaGORY: Well, we state what we think 7
the impacts would be. We state that we think there 8
would be a reduction in the impacts to aquatic 9
resources, for instance. We state that we're going to 10 be using about 70 percent less water, and you would 11 expect a proportional decrease in impacts to aquatic 12 resources.
13 Remember our conclusion based on the 14 studies that we had available to us was that the 15 impacts of the existing once through system would be 16 small, that the studies that have been conducted have 17 not shown an effect of Oyster Creek on the Barnegat 18 Bay system.
19 There are large numbers of organisms that 20 are pulled through the system, both entrainment and 21 impingement, but there's no indication that those are 22 actually causing effects on populations within the 23 bay.
24 There have been some very specific studies 25
58 examining that effect.
1 MR. CAMERON: I think that what this 2
gentleman's concern is is how does the NRC look at all 3
of the impacts identified. How are those balanced in 4
terms of using the Environmental Impact Statement in 5
NRC decision making. I think that's the question.
6 MR. deCAMP: That is my question. Why do 7
you only rate as small or moderate those impacts on 8
one side of the equation and then just not even count 9
in your rating of small or moderate or large the 10 positive impacts? That would be my question.
11 MR. CAMERON: And I'm going to let them 12 answer and then I'm going to try to get two other 13 people.
14 MR. deCAMP: I have others.
15 MR. CAMERON: Well, you can during the 16 comment period, but we need to get to that so that we 17 can make sure we get everybody on here.
18 MR. deCAMP: But I have another question 19 about the scope of the hearing.
20 MR. CAMERON: Okay. We need to address 21 these quickly.
22 DR. MASNIK: All right. Let me quickly 23 address your question here, and that is that obviously 24 in these sorts of quantitative assessments where we're 25
59 looking at a number of different categories and a 1
number of different options, it's often difficult to 2
come up with a scheme that will satisfy everybody.
3 Now, the National Council on Environmental 4
Quality said that this is an acceptable way of 5
comparing alternatives, and based on our assessment, 6
we've come out with the conclusion that the impacts 7
associated with impingement, entrainment, and heat 8
shock of the current system is small for the organisms 9
in the Barnegat Bay, and we've come out with a 10 moderate impact associated with the salt releases.
11 MR. deCAMP: If I could just be permitted 12 to speak because I know we don't have all night, I'm 13 not going to argue with you. I'd just like to go on 14 record as expressing my opinion that it is totally 15 preposterous with all that is known about impingement, 16 entrainment, and thermal pollution to say that it is 17 minimal impact or negligible. It is just absurd.
18 But anyway, I have another question, and 19 that is is it not the case that if Oyster Creek runs 20 for 20 more years that they will have to build another 21 facility to store high level nuclear waste?
22 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you.
23 MR. deCAMP: But it's the scope of the 24 hearing.
25
60 MR. CAMERON: Well, you asked the 1
question, and we're going to give you an answer.
2 MR. deCAMP: And can I follow up?
3 MR. CAMERON: We really have to --
4 MR. deCAMP: I would be finished by now if 5
you weren't just --
6 MR. CAMERON: We really have to give other 7
people a chance to ask questions.
8 DR. MASNIK: We certainly can speak to you 9
after the meeting, too.
10 MR. CAMERON: And we will talk to you 11 after the meeting, okay?
12 MR. deCAMP: Right, after the meeting.
13 MR. CAMERON: That's right.
14 DR. MASNIK: To answer your question, yes, 15 there would be additional spent fuel generated based 16 on 20 additional years of operation, and that fuel 17 would be stored on site until a high level waste 18 repository is made available 19 MR. deCAMP: Okay. So if you are going to 20 store it on site --
21 MR. CAMERON: We really need to get you on 22 the record. We're going to go to this gentleman and 23 this gentleman and we will try to answer all of your 24 questions after the meeting because we have to get to 25
61 people who want to make comments. That's what we need 1
to do.
2 Yes, sir.
3 MR. WEINMANN: Hi. My name is Roberto 4
Weinmann. I have a house in Forked River.
5 And I presented at the last meeting when 6
the question about whether there was an impact 7
analysis of the reverse flow of the Forked River on 8
the erosion, on the wildlife section that is on the 9
bay and on the deposit of sediments all over the 10 Forked River where there are private residences that 11 don't have access to the river readily.
12 Because of the river's flow, the sediments 13 are accumulating. And I don't know, there must be 14 aerial photographs to show where there has been 15 coastal erosions and regions that are not protected by 16 these barriers that we put where we have residences.
17 DR. MASNIK: Yes, Roberto, I remember your 18 comment, and in fact, we had our hydrologist look at 19 it, and if you look in [Section] 4.7 of our document, 20 we address that concern.
21 What we did was we went back and looked at 22 our Generic Environmental Impact Statement that we did 23 in 1996, and in fact, we used the example of Oyster 24 Creek as an example to say that we recognize that 25
62 operation of facilities, particularly in coastal areas 1
and certainly once through plants, could result in 2
some movement of sediment, but that these effects are 3
localized and occur close to the plant.
4 The decision was made at that time that 5
this was considered a small impact. I recognize 6
that's not much help to you because you, in fact, are 7
the owner of a home and a boat that has difficulty 8
getting out into the bay.
9 We did state in there that there perhaps 10 is something you can do in talking with the licensee 11 over this issue, but we recognize it and we realize 12 that this is an occurrence that will happen.
13 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you.
14 Yes.
15 MR.
DILLINGHAM: My name is Tim 16 Dillingham. I'm with the American Littoral Society.
17 It's a conservation organization.
18 I have a question, I guess, about the 19 science on which you base the EIS. It's actually, I 20 guess, a question of clarification. The way I read 21 it, you went back and evaluated the studies that have 22 been done as part of the GEIS and other earlier work, 23 and the latest date I can find it is somewhere around 24 1986. Is that accurate that that's the information on 25
63 which this work has been developed primarily?
1 DR. MASNIK: I think you may have it a 2
little bit inaccurately in your description in that 3
what we did was we did go back. First of all, I 4
believe your concern is on the aquatic issues; is that 5
correct?
6 MR. DILLINGHAM: Primarily.
7 DR. MASNIK: What we did was we did go 8
back and look at the data that was developed back in 9
the '70s and the early '80s. We also examined the 10 record to see if there were any more recent data, and 11 certainly the majority of the sampling was done back 12 in the '70s and '80s when the licensee was in the 13 process of getting their 316(a) and 316(b) 14 demonstration studies together.
15 There has been some data that was 16 collected since that time, not a whole lot, but some 17 data.
18 In addition, the licensee, in response to 19 the EPA's Phase II regulations, has begun a study at 20 the plant that began, I guess, last September or 21 October to look at impingement, entrainment losses 22 associated with the plant.
23 That data is not published, but we are 24 aware of it, and we have discussed with the licensee 25
64 and their contractor what the general findings of that 1
study has been to date.
2 Based on that information and primarily a 3
study commissioned by the State, the VERSAR study that 4
was done back in the '80s, we came to the conclusion 5
that the impingement
[and]
entrainment losses 6
represented a small impact event.
7 MR. DILLINGHAM: Okay. So basically the 8
information in which you reached the conclusions that 9
the impacts were small is based on field data or 10 information that is at least 20 years old.
11 DR. MASNIK: Some of it, yes, yes, but not 12 entirely.
13 MR. DILLINGHAM: And there's a comment in 14 I guess it's the record from the scoping hearing. It 15 looks like a comment submitted by the U.S. Fish and 16 Wildlife Service, which asserts that that information 17 is not adequate to make a judgment about cumulative or 18 longer term impacts, and the NRC's response is sort of 19 that, Well, we think it is sufficient.
20 If you could just give me some more 21 insight as to how you reached that idea that 20-year-22 old data is sufficient, given all of the changes that 23 have happened in this bay and in the watersheds around 24 it in that time period.
25
65 DR. MASNIK: I guess my response would be 1
the same as what I just said. We looked at the data 2
back then. We looked at the very limited amount of 3
data that has been collected since then. We haven't 4
discovered anything that shows any dramatic changes in 5
the losses in the bay.
6 In looking at the data or at least in our 7
discussions with the data that has been collected at 8
the plant, the losses associated with impingement and 9
entrainment are similar to what was experienced back 10 in the '80s. So the expectation is that if 11 populations had dramatically increased or decreased in 12 certain species, those kinds of changes would 13 essentially show up at the plant just like any 14 sampling device would demonstrate it.
15 So we don't see that.
16 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you all for 17 those questions. I'm sorry that we don't have time 18 right now to go to any more questions on this part of 19 the meeting because we do need to hear from all of you 20 who want to speak.
21 As I said, the staff will be here after 22 the formal part of the meeting closes for as long as 23 you want to stay to talk and try to answer any of your 24 questions, but we're going to go to our first speaker 25
66 at this point, and that's going to be David Most, who 1
I believe is a Lacy Township Committeeman.
2 David. And if you could come down here 3
for us.
4 And next we'll got to Paul Gunter and then 5
Don Warren, to give you an idea of who's going to be 6
up next, and this is David Most.
7 MR. MOST: Thanks.
8 How's everybody doing this evening? It's 9
nice to see everybody come out and have some dialogue 10 here. I want to thank the NRC for having this 11 meeting.
12 And I just want to thank the NRC, too, for 13 taking into consideration the different factors for 14 alternate power sources because we all recognize who 15 work in the industry that Oyster Creek is a base load 16 plant.
17 So I do favor renewable energies, but I 18 think we need to keep them in the perspective that 19 they belong in as that they are a complement to a base 20 load plant.
21 As far as looking at alternative sources, 22 I think the age we're living in is very interesting to 23 see these changes that we see in our environment in 24 the last five years that I recognized as far as global 25
67 warming, the quality of our air and the need to lessen 1
our dependency on foreign oil.
2 We live in a dynamic society where our 3
environment is changing constantly. Our population is 4
increasing. Our cars, the amount of vehicles we have 5
on the road in New Jersey is five million cars. The 6
fellow that was talking about conservation, we have 7
luxury military vehicles that are on the road, the 8
Humvee. I mean, does that make sense to you? It 9
doesn't make sense to me.
10 But when you talk about conservation, 11 people have all different kinds of ideas about 12 conservation, and the reality is you have your idea of 13 conservation and the fellow that owns the Humvee has 14 his idea of conservation, as far as his idea.
15 Also, I recognize as a committee person, 16 it's very encouraging to see that I have actually 17 residents coming out and asking why aren't we building 18 a standardized reactor behind Oyster Creek, and it's 19 really amazing the heightened level. They are 20 becoming more educated as far as nuclear is concerned.
21 And what I wanted to talk about is we 22 always end up returning to what are we going to do 23 with the spent fuel, and I see the different 24 alternatives that are out there right now, and again, 25
68 it is encouraging to see that we're working with other 1
countries. We're looking to recycle fuel possibly.
2 We're looking to start up reactors that actually 3
produce hydrogen, maybe to supply the gas, to supply 4
cars for hydrogen fuel cells. I mean, wouldn't that 5
be a great thing?
6 So all I'm saying is technology moves 7
forward. Look at where we've come in the last 50 8
years, and I have to tell you I lived in Forked River 9
most of my life, and I live three miles -- I was 10 raised across the farm on the east side in the 11 development, and Oyster Creek come on line in '69.
12 I've worked there for 25 years, and as a worker and 13 supervisor at the plant, we all believe as far as 14 minimizing the impact we have to our environment.
15 But I have to tell you from '69 to date 16 and moving forward, I truly believe that we have had 17 a minimal effect on the environment. Now, if you want 18 to compare that to a coal plant that we had there, I 19 watched a little clip on HBO Sports with Bryant Gumbel 20 and he was interviewing certain people in different 21 towns that house these coal plants, and the companies 22 were actually buying up some of the towns and 23 destroying their homes because the people couldn't 24 live in the towns anymore. The kids in the park 25
69 couldn't play in the parks anymore because of all of 1
the respiratory diseases.
2 So I do think it is a very important thing 3
to look at the balance because if you do deny the 4
Oyster Creek re-license, we have to look towards the 5
future and look at the impact of what that's going to 6
have in our environment.
7 But I
truly agree with the NRC's 8
assessment, and I definitely believe that Oyster Creek 9
is worthy of re-license.
10 Thank you for your time.
11 (Applause.)
12 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you.
13 And we're going to go to Paul Gunter now.
14 Paul.
15 MR. GUNTER: Thank you.
16 My name is Paul Gunter. I'm Director of 17 the Reactor Watchdog Project with Nuclear Information 18 and Resource Service in Takoma Park, Maryland.
19 We were the principal author of the 20 contention on the drywell corrosion at Oyster Creek, 21 and we've been joined by New Jersey Coalition and 22 Rutgers Environmental Law Clinic in a license 23 challenge, and tonight we're here to talk about the 24 Environmental Impact Statement.
25
70 Let me start by saying that NRC should 1
suspend all licensing proceedings under the National 2
Environmental Protection Act -- Policy Act and its 3
governance. We make this request in light of the 4
Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decision on June 2nd, 5
which considered how NRC was handling the question of 6
environmental consequences from a successful terrorist 7
attack by a nuclear facility by providing a public 8
hearing and an environmental review under and as 9
required by NEPA.
10 NRC has repeatedly ordered that the 11 environmental consequences of a terrorist attack on 12 any nuclear facility is beyond the scope of these 13 proceedings because they say that it's so speculative 14 and remote that it cannot be considered in a site-15 specific proceeding.
16 Well, the Federal Court found that NRC's 17 denial of the public hearing on such security 18 contentions to be unreasonable. In fact, it is our 19 concern that NRC has failed to recognize and uphold 20 its obligations to provide the public with a 21 democratic hearing process as governed by law under 22 NEPA, specifically with regard to our homeland 23 security.
24 And this is a very serious charge, and I'm 25
71 sure that the NRC itself is not united and unanimous 1
on the decision to withhold these public hearings from 2
the public on particularly the issue that is so close 3
to ground zero as Oyster Creek is to where we stand 4
today.
5 As such, now, this Environmental Impact 6
Statement is fatally flawed by missing the analysis of 7
the environmental consequence of terrorist attack on 8
Oyster Creek.
9 I'd like to take one more point up. I 10 know I'm running out of time, but NRC has failed to 11 fully implement the Endangered Species Act. NRC we 12 saw tonight has stated that the Draft Supplemental 13 Environmental Impact Statement on 20-year additional 14 extension of Oyster Creek and its once through cooling 15 system is small in environmental consequence.
16 Oyster Creek nuclear power station draws 17 in more than 1.5 billion gallons of water per day to 18 cool the nuclear reactor, and that superheated water 19 is discharged to Barnegat Bay. In fact, it is well 20 documented that Oyster Creek and its once-through 21 cooling system is a large marine predator where it is 22 capturing not only biota, life-supporting biota of the 23 marine environment, but it's also all [on?] the way to 24 the capture and killing of endangered sea turtles 25
72 first reported in 1992.
1 In
- fact, the heated discharge is 2
attracting sea turtles into Barnegat Bay and into the 3
reactor cooling intake system, and there they are 4
entrapped, these rare animals, on debris screens where 5
they are being injured and are routinely suffocated 6
under water when not promptly rescued and 7
resuscitated.
8 In 2004, Oyster Creek captured eight of 9
the world's most endangered species of sea turtles, 10 the Kemp's ridley. Three of these rare turtles were 11 recovered dead. The other five were recovered alive.
12 The captures, all within several months of each other, 13 were also a record breaker for the nuclear power 14 station and in violation of Oyster Creek's incidental 15 take statement, which is required under the Endangered 16 Species Act.
17 The reactor's previous limit was set in 18 2001 by a Biological Opinion established by the 19 National Marine Fisheries Service to permit no more 20 than five live captures and three lethal takes of this 21 species. Even this limit was raised from the original 22 1995 Biological Opinion which had set the limit for a 23 single Kemp's ridley.
24 Now, this is just the Kemp's that we're 25
73 talking about, but on September 22nd, 2005, after 1
consultation with NRC, the National Marine Fisheries 2
Service again raise Oyster Creek's incidental take 3
statement to now a total take of eight Kemp's ridley, 4
four lethal captures on the water intake screens.
5 Since Oyster Creek first started operating 6
and reporting, we've noticed that there's a pattern of 7
the operator, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and 8
the Marine Fisheries Service all working together to 9
revise the incidental take statements consistently 10 upward.
11 NIRS contends that this trend is not based 12 on best available scientific data as required by 13 Section 7 of the Endangered Species Act, but instead 14 rather reflects the capitulation of the NRC and the 15 National Marine Fisheries Service to the nuclear 16 industry agenda.
17 NMFS has a practice of revising the ITS 18 upwards in response to requests by NRC without 19 conducting a serious scrutiny of the total amount of 20 such taking and how it may affect sea turtle 21 populations as broadly defined by the Endangered 22 Species Act to include
- killing, injuring and 23 harassing, which is inconsistent with the overall 24 ability of the species to survive and recover.
25
74 Both NRC and NMFS have employed an overly 1
narrow definition of taking in issuing these 2
incidental take statements by focusing almost 3
exclusively on the numbers of turtles that are killed 4
by the once-through cooling system and disregarding to 5
the extent which the animals are being harassed as 6
defined in the Endangered Species Acts to encompass, 7
quote,...any additional and negligent act or 8
omission which creates the likelihood of injury to 9
wildlife by annoying it to such an extent as to 10 significantly disrupt normal behavior patterns, which 11 include, but are limited to breeding, feeding or 12 sheltering. And that's in the Code of Federal 13 Regulation.
14 This would include attracting the 15 endangered sea turtles away from less hazardous areas 16 where the animals would otherwise engage in normal 17 feeding and sheltering, but this appear to have been 18 inadequately addressed in either the Biological 19 Opinion or this Environmental Impact Statement.
20 Let me just close by saying that Section 21 A(1) of the Endangered Species Act provides that all 22 Federal agencies, quote,..shall in consultation with 23 and the assistance of the National Marine Fisheries 24 Service or the FWS utilize their authorities in 25
75 furtherance of any purpose of this chapter by carrying 1
out programs for the conservation of endangered 2
species and threatened species.
3 NIRS calls into question that NRC has 4
complied with this obligation to protect endangered 5
species, particularly sea turtles with this submission 6
of the EIS, especially since there is an available 7
reasonable alternative that would demonstrably reduce 8
the documented adverse effects of power plant 9
operations on endangered species, basically going to 10 the dry cooling system.
11 To the contrary, NRC has consistently 12 chosen to protect Oyster Creek from adopting a 13 nondestructive cooling system by accommodating the 14 continued destructive operation of the current once 15 through cooling system with a license to kill more 16 Federally protected endangered species. As such, 17 given the operation of Oyster Creek once through 18 cooling system would continue to attract sea turtles 19 and kill and injure and harass endangered species over 20 the license extension period. NIRS contends that NRC 21 is not utilizing its authorities in furtherance of the 22 conservation purposes of the Endangered Species Act.
23 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Paul.
24 (Applause.)
25
76 MR. CAMERON: We're going to next hear 1
from Don Warren and then Edith Gbur and then we're 2
going to go to Ed Stroup and John Rayment, and we will 3
get to you, Mr. Schilling.
4 This is Don Warren.
5 MR. WARREN: Thank you.
6 Hi. My name is Donald Warren. I am a 7
member of Jersey Shore Nuclear Watch. I am also a 8
resident of Long Beach Island. Actually I live in 9
Ship Bottom, which is only about 11 miles from the 10 plant.
11 I am also very significantly a healthcare 12 provider in this community, which means that I am 13 directly involved in the care of people who can suffer 14 consequences of environmental impacts from any 15 accident and release of radiation that can happen at 16 this plant.
17 I'm here because of my concern that this 18 plant may be re-licensed and continue to operate for 19 another 20 years, and especially because of what I 20 feel is a
tremendously biased and inadequate 21 environmental impact statement that's being proposed 22 by the NRC here.
23 The NRC should be protecting us, not 24 serving Exelon and Oyster Creek. When they are 25
77 analyzing data for their environmental impact 1
statement, it should not be the data that's provided 2
by Oyster Creek. For a best-case scenario, my case in 3
point being the cooling towers, they stated that 4
Oyster Creek had given them the cooling tower that 5
they wanted, and they have not analyzed a dry cooling 6
tower which would not require water to be taken from 7
the environment, which I
think is extremely 8
significant.
9 They also mentioned earlier that they did 10 not include as alternatives a combination of non-11 fossil fuels, very specifically tidal, wind, solar, 12 which could be included with conservation which would 13 have a dramatically different effect on their 14 conclusions.
15 I also have a tremendous loss of feelings 16 of credibility with the NRC that relate to actually 17 coming to one of these first meetings less than a year 18 ago. At that meeting I held up a picture of the 19 reactor at Davis-Besse, which I don't know how many of 20 you can see, but it's extremely rusted and corroded.
21 The NRC was in possession of this picture, as well as 22 the operators of the plant, and yet the NRC continued 23 to allow this to operate to the point where they had 24 a corrosion hole that was the size of a football.
25
78 This was in the top of the reactor. Had this gone all 1
the way through, this reactor would have gone 2
critical, and they would have had a major core 3
meltdown.
4 They assured me that they had paid a lot 5
of attention to that and were looking extremely 6
closely at this plant and would not allow something 7
like this to occur again. However, I am also part of 8
the organization Jersey Shore Nuclear Watch, which 9
part of this coalition that's looking at the severe 10 corrosion in a drywell liner.
11 For months and months and months we asked 12 to look at ultrasonic test data of this drywell liner 13 from 1996. It was not given to us. We were told it 14 was proprietary information.
15 It has since come out through this public 16 meetings and through legal actions, and the conclusion 17 is that this data shows that the drywell has actually 18 grown thicker. In some miraculous feat of God defying 19 the physics that we know, the metal has actually 20 gotten thicker, and this is well beyond the margins of 21 error that could be shown in the testing, which leads 22 us to believe that obviously this data was seriously 23 flawed.
24 The NRC did not seem to notice this for 25
79 over ten years because this data was done in 1996 and 1
they were in possession of this since 1996. So we 2
have serious reservations that they are really 3
protecting us, which is what they are supposed to be 4
doing. They are not supposed to be trying to keep 5
this plant open no matter what.
6 Getting more specific onto the 7
environmental problems I have here, I specifically 8
asked a question about whether the spent fuel pool was 9
included in the Environmental Impact Statement because 10 this spent fuel pool is covered only by a steel 11 building. There is no concrete covering of this.
12 If you all have seen the pictures from the 13 areas in Louisiana and Alabama post-Katrina, all of 14 those same type of buildings that were warehouses 15 virtually disappeared in the hurricane. They were 16 blown down.
17 I have tremendous concern about this 18 because should any of this debris fall into the spent 19 fuel pool, it can dislodge the racks of fuel rods that 20 are in there. These fuel rods must be kept at certain 21 spacing so that they maintain temperatures because if 22 those temperatures are exceeded, they are encoated 23 with something called zirconium, and this can burn.
24 Very frequently the NRC and people from Oyster Creek 25
80 will tell you that a Chernobyl cannot happen here.
1 Well, a zirconium fire in the spent fuel pool is the 2
same -- I shouldn't say "the same" -- is extremely 3
similar to a fuel fire that happened to Chernobyl.
4 The only difference is the consequences would be far 5
more devastating because of the massive amounts of 6
quantity of spent fuel that are in there.
7 Chernobyl was only two years old. There 8
wasn't nearly as much radioactive material and Curies 9
at that plant.
10 I am extremely concerned because in the 11 past month and a half three small aircraft have 12 dropped out of the sky and landed within 20 miles of 13 Oyster Creek. One of them I know for a fact landed 14 about 11 miles away on Route 72 because it landed 15 about a mile away from my house.
16 There were also two banner planes that 17 have just gone down recently within a 20-mile region.
18 So there has been some concern about a terrorist 19 attack. God forbid that this should happen on the 20 spent fuel pool, but it would seem from past history 21 we don't even need that. We have planes falling out 22 of the sky here that easily any one of them could have 23 landed on this plant, had we not had some divine 24 intervention looking out for us.
25
81 That's my opinion, and obviously the NRC 1
and Oyster Creek are not.
2 Another problem that I have is with the 3
cooling towers. As I through up before, they are only 4
using in this study the cooling towers which is 5
personally I feel is a worst case cooling tower for 6
the plant because of the large quantities of water 7
that would still be required to be pulled out of 8
9 There are other types of systems. There 10 are systems that are dry that would not require any 11 water to be taken out, and when these are included in 12 an Environmental Impact Statement, they cooling towers 13 would not be moderate. In fact, they would probably 14 not even be small. They would probably be as small as 15 they could possibly be.
16 The effects of the tremendous amounts of 17 water, and I'm not going to keep continuing here 18 because obviously Mr. Gunter really covered this very 19 well, but the effects of the tremendous quantity of 20 water that is being pulled out of Barnegat Bay is 21 devastating. The amount of aquatic life that is being 22 pulled in there is horrendous.
23 The fact that they are basing this on 24 information from 1978 and not current levels, I 25
82 personally am aware of the oyster beds that have 1
seemed to have disappeared from Barnegat Bay. I am 2
also aware of the declining blowfish numbers in Oyster 3
Creek. I am also aware of the very recent studies 4
that have been done and work that has been done out of 5
Rutgers on actually the environmental quality of the 6
bay and the degradation that's happened to the bay.
7 And I think that this is the data that we 8
really should be looking at, current studies, and if 9
the NRC is planning on relicensing this plant for 20 10 years, then they need to go out in the bay and they 11 need to look at the bay and they need to have real 12 data, current data so that they really know exactly 13 what kind of an environmental impact Oyster Creek has 14 had on the bay and the be making a realistic 15 environmental impact statement, not making assumptions 16 from 1978. This is not good science.
17 Thank you very much.
18 (Applause.)
19 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you, Don.
20 We're going to go to Edith Gbur and then 21 Ed Stroup and then Edward Schilling.
22 Edith, would you like to come up here?
23 Thank you. No, there's no mic on there. So why don't 24 you come up to the front for us? And we'll probably 25
83 have to adjust this for Edith. It's right over here.
1 All right, good, and he'll adjust that down for you.
2 MS. GBUR: Hi. I'm concerned about low-3 level radiation. The NRC just reported before in 4
response to my question about the Environmental Impact 5
Statement about what that showed in the release of 6
emissions from Oyster Creek, and the answer is that it 7
was something like zero, zero, zero, zero, zero, nine, 8
four-tenths or four-whatever, and I suspect I am very 9
suspect about that data, and I believe there's a 10 possibility that the data might be flawed.
11 About three years ago Oyster Creek had 12 emitted the highest amount of radioactivity, including 13 Strontium 90, among all the nuclear plants. What 14 happened between three years ago and last year?
15 Number two, much of the data is obtained 16 by the stacks. The stacks is monitored by Oyster 17 Creek. In Illinois, the nuclear plants are monitored 18 by independent sources and for good reason, because 19 it's easy to change the data.
20 There's an epidemic of autism and cancer, 21 and that has been linked to nuclear emissions. The 22 National Academy of Sciences recently stated that no 23 amount of radiation is safe. We would like to 24 recommend that an independent study of radiation from 25
84 Oyster Creek be undertaken as part of the 1
Environmental Impact Statement.
2 Thank you.
3 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you. Thank 4
you, Edith.
5 (Applause.)
6 MR. CAMERON: Ed and then we'll go to 7
Edward Schilling.
8 MR. STROUP: Good evening. Good evening.
9 My name is Ed Stroup, and I'm President of Local Union 10 1289, which represents 230 bargaining unit members at 11 Oyster Creek.
12 I have to tell you I'm tired of the 13 untruths, innuendos and inflammatory statements made 14 by some participants in this process. The truth and 15 the facts are ultimately important here.
16 With that in mind, I testified earlier 17 today. I'd like to make a correction to my earlier 18 testimony. Minor as it is, I stated that the 19 artificial reef that Oyster Creek installed was in the 20 bay. That's incorrect. It's in the ocean, and I'll 21 speak a little more about that later.
22 Nearly 100 years ago the IBEW was 23 originally formed because 50 percent of the workers in 24 the electrical industry were killed at work. The IBEW 25
85 has a long history of safety and providing safety for 1
our members and the public, and that continues today.
2 Our members are highly skilled and highly 3
trained, as is everyone at Oyster Creek; union, 4
management, and security. Each is a skilled 5
professional in their field. I can assure you they 6
all take their responsibility seriously and work hard 7
to insure the safety of the public and the environment 8
all day every day.
9 It's my belief that one of the great 10 injustices in this whole relicensing process is that 11 these dedicated professionals, along with the NRC and 12 the State Police are treated with contempt and 13 referred to basically as incompetent by some of those 14 who would like to see Oyster Creek and all nuclear 15 plants closed. I'd like to take this opportunity to 16 thank the NRC and the State Police for their hard work 17 and professionalism that they exhibit every day.
18 Our members live and work in the local 19 community. Their families live close to the plant, 20 and their children go to school here. Our lives and 21 those of our children and families, as well as the 22 public we serve, would be affected by any problem at 23 the plant. We would never compromise our principles 24 for the safety of the plant or the public.
25
86 Oyster Creek produces enough energy to 1
power 600,000 homes and adds $52 million a year to the 2
local economy. We contributed $202,000 last year to 3
the United Way and over half a million dollars to the 4
United States over the last three years.
5 We contributed $80,000 last year to the 6
DEP Fish and Wildlife Department and $5,000 to the 7
Audubon Society to help clean waterfowl affected by 8
9 As I said before, Oyster Creek sponsored 10 and installed an artificial reef in the ocean working 11 with the DEP, 3.1 miles out. That's a good thing, but 12 I heard some people earlier today purported to be 13 environmentalists dismissing that as not important.
14 I disagree with that. At the same time 15 Oyster Creek was undertaking these environmental 16 friendly projects, Oyster Creek produced zero carbon 17 emissions and avoided 7.5 million metric tons of 18 carbon dioxide that replacement power would have 19 produced. Oyster Creek avoids carbon emissions equal 20 to more than two million cars per year, or to put it 21 differently, an amount equal to half of all the motor 22 vehicles in New Jersey.
23 At Oyster Creek we work hard to protect 24 the environment, including Barnegat Bay. On a day-to-25
87 day, hour-to-hour basis, we monitor water temperatures 1
and regularly take water samples to insure safety. We 2
coordinate any plant load reductions or shutdowns to 3
avoid any risk to marine life. This is a costly 4
practice, but it's essential for us to meet our 5
commitment to the environment.
6 I can assure you our members, as well as 7
management and security, are all highly trained, 8
highly skilled professionals who take their 9
responsibility seriously. Their first priority is to 10 protect the public and the environment. They insure 11 that Oyster Creek is a safe, clean, reliable, 12 environmentally friendly plant, all day every day.
13 For all of these reasons and others, I 14 urge you to relicense Oyster Creek.
15 Thank you very much.
16 (Applause.)
17 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Ed.
18 We're going to go to Edward Schilling and 19 then next to David Sims and then to Jennifer Nelson, 20 and this is Edward Schilling coming up to talk to us.
21 MR. SCHILLING: I'm very happy that we who 22 live in Ocean County have a fine power source such as 23 the Oyster Creek Generating Station. However, I do 24 have a little concern because of an article that I 25
88 happened to read in the Wall Street Journal. That was 1
on April 9th in 2002 in an article entitled "Nuclear 2
War."
3 As reported in the Journal on that date, 4
Tuesday, April 9th, 2002, the Brookhaven National 5
Laboratory located on Long Island estimated that a 6
fire in a nuclear fuel storage pool could release 7
enough radiation to render 188 square miles 8
uninhabitable.
9 In addition, this scientific research 10 center estimated that, in quotes, tens of thousands of 11 cancer fatalities and financial losses of $50 billion 12 would result in such an accident.
13 This, of course, is a worst-case scenario, 14 but we are at war, and we do have a very, very mean, 15 nasty enemy, and at any one time they could approach 16 that plant from three or four directions and what 17 would happen?
18 As has been stated by some of the previous 19 speakers, there would be almost cataclysmic results, 20 and I just wonder what can be done.
21 I myself think that because of the current 22 research and ongoing research into the uses of coal as 23 a source of power, of which the United States has a 24 proven reserve of over 300 years, we could substitute 25
89 that for the fuel used at Oyster Creek and we would be 1
free of that worry of a nuclear catastrophe.
2 I don't know what the answer is, but I do 3
know that these results that I mentioned, these 4
statistics were not pulled off a tree, that they have 5
been the result of research, and I hold out this 6
information for the benefit of all the concerned NRC 7
scientists who are present who have certainly gone to 8
great lengths in expressing the way it should be and 9
what can be, but let's not forget that we are at war 10 even though we don't have an enemy right now at our 11 shores, at our gates.
12 Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen.
13 Thank you.
14 (Applause.)
15 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Edward.
16 David Sims.
17 MR. SIMS: Good evening. I'm Dave Sims, 18 and my company is Ecological Systems, and I install 19 solar and wind electric generators.
20 First of all, I want to mention to the guy 21 from the Electrical Workers I don't think anybody has 22 insinuated your people are anything but as competent 23 as any technicians on the face of the earth.
24 And as far as the NRC, I'm certain they're 25
90 doing the very best they can to square away to the 1
issues in a fair manner.
2 I think the real problem is that there 3
actually is a thing that happened over in Chernobyl 4
that's very real. Okay. Accidents happen, weird 5
things happen. Technologies advance. I think the 6
gentleman who talked about coal being a viable source 7
made an excellent point. There are better scrubbers 8
available now, and that's a technology that has much 9
room for improvement.
10 There are ways to deal with the fumes from 11 coal in a way where there's absolutely no potential of 12 completely destroying the entire economy of the 13 country, and what happened in Chernobyl pretty much 14 destroyed the Soviet Union. You can pretend you're 15 blind to that or ignore it in any way you want, but it 16 is simply ridiculous. Okay? A very real thing 17 happened over there.
18 Anybody who thinks that a nuclear plant is 19 100 percent safe is simply joking with themselves.
20 They're not 100 percent safe. They're darn near 100 21 percent safe, and worst-case scenarios are certainly 22 worst-case scenarios, and we don't want to be 23 doomsdayers (phonetic) and stuff and say the end of 24 the world is coming, but a friend of my was saying 25
91 just the other day, "The juice just ain't worth the 1
squeeze." Okay?
2 You're squeezing like heck to try and get 3
some one percent of extra grid power out there. Well, 4
we're doing solar and wind projects every day of the 5
week. We're doing energy conservation projects. If 6
nuclear had anything resembling the obstacles that a 7
wind project has, you could never get a nuclear plant 8
in. Okay?
9 We have to go through incredible 10 bureaucratic hassles to get a permit. I know because 11 I put in a significant portion of the wind generators 12 on shore in the last five years. It's very, very 13 difficult to get a permit to put in a wind generator 14 at your house.
15 The obstacles that the NRC is faced with 16 are nothing compared to that, and the potential 17 hassles and problems associated with nuclear plants 18 are magnitudes larger than what's associated with 19 wind. Between zoning and everything else, it's not 20 that easy to get a wind project in.
21 You know, I've heard Congressmen and 22 everybody else say, "And wind is going to do the 23 trick." Well, it's not because you can't even get a 24 permit. Okay?
25
92 That's going to change and maybe it will 1
change within the next five years, but what about 2
maybe licensing this plant for five years, not 20, 3
because evolution is actually occurring in this world?
4 I don't think 20 is a good number of years. It's a 5
long time, and I think that coal is a lot safer.
6 And I certainly appreciate the electrical 7
union wanting to keep their people working. I know 8
that's your job, but there's better stuff to do than 9
work at a nuclear plant. I mean, this Strontium-90 10 stuff is simply not a fantasy. It's real. Leukemia, 11 cancer, that's the plague of the 20th Century. You 12 want to make sure that people get a whole bunch of 13 that? Well, keep saying the stuff you're saying. You 14 get to say it. You've got the right. I think it's 15 wrong.
16 Thank you.
17 (Applause.)
18 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Dave.
19 Jennifee (phonetic)? Is Jennifee still 20 here, Jennifee Nelson? Here she is.
21 MS. NELSON: Good evening, everyone. My 22 name is Jennifer Nelson. I'm an engineer at Oyster 23 Creek and a resident of Jackson Township.
24 I just want to talk to you for a few 25
93 minutes tonight about what I do and the things that I 1
keep in mind as I go about my duties every day.
2 My first concern and the concern of 3
everyone at the plant is to protect the public. At 4
Oyster Creek our most critical systems are not those 5
that produce power and make us money. They're the 6
safety systems that we would use to protect the public 7
in the unlikely and unfortunate event of an accident.
8 A large portion of our resources and time 9
is spent monitoring and maintaining these systems, as 10 well as making sure that we meet all regulatory 11 requirements associated with these systems.
12 My second concern is they're not 13 protecting the environment. Our goal is to have as 14 little impact on the environment as possible. Our 15 plant processes and procedures insure that we operate 16 the plant in a manner which minimizes our impact.
17 I'm most proud, however, of our efforts 18 this past winter when plant conditions forced us to 19 shut the plant down for maintenance. We recognize 20 that our shutdown would threaten the nonindigenous 21 fish species that enjoy our discharge. In order to 22 reduce any possible impact at significant time and 23 money spent, we implemented a supplemental heating 24 system in the discharge canal which maintained the 25
94 environment to save those fish.
1 In addition, someone talked about sea 2
turtles. We train our operators to recognize the 3
turtles that are endangered, and they go through some 4
pretty impressive efforts. They're trained to 5
resuscitate turtles. We're talking about turtle CPR.
6 My third concern is around protecting 7
plant equipment. As an engineer, I interface with 8
plant operators, maintenance personnel, chemists and 9
others to make sure that each system and significant 10 component is operating as it should. By monitoring 11 and maintaining the equipment effectively, we can 12 insure clean, safe, and reliable operation of the 13 plant.
14 Oyster Creek is run by a team of dedicated 15 and talented professionals who are just as committed 16 as I am to protect the public, protect the 17 environment, and protect the plant. We're looking 18 forward to continue to operate and provide clean, 19 safe, and reliable power to New Jersey until 2029.
20 Thank you.
21 (Applause.)
22 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Jennifer.
23 We're going to go to Jack, Jack Nosti, and 24 then to Wayne Romberg, to Roberto Weinmann, and to 25
95 Cindy Zipf.
1 And this is Jack Nosti.
2 MR. NOSTI: Good evening. My name is Jack 3
Nosti. I'm the President of the Lacy Township 4
Republican Club.
5 I would just like to reiterate some of the 6
remarks I made earlier, that the Oyster Creek Nuclear 7
Generating Station has been an extremely friendly and 8
great neighbor to the residents of Lacy Township, and 9
for this reason this is why those of us that have 10 chosen to live and raise our children and 11 grandchildren in Lacy Township very strongly support 12 and endorse the clean and safe continued operation of 13 Oyster Creek.
14 There's no way that we would do this with 15 our families there if this wasn't what we believed 16 actually is the case. And we ask the NRC to continue 17 your studies as you've done. It looks like the 18 operation as it is appears to be the best way to go.
19 We feel it's the best way to go.
20 There's been extremely little impact on 21 our environment with Oyster Creek. We hear constantly 22 from people that say the sky is falling. What if this 23 happens? What if that happens? I could have got 24 killed on the parkway, you know, here tonight, but 25
96 yet, you know, I got up, a long day, tired, you know, 1
extended day, and came here because I feel it's 2
important.
3 We can't worry about the naysayers. We 4
have to take our best look at what we feel is best for 5
the community and go with that, and I ask you to 6
continue to do what you're doing. I think you're 7
doing a great job.
8 Thank you.
9 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you, Jack.
10 And Wayne.
11 MR. ROMBERG: Thank you.
12 My name is Wayne Romberg. I live in 13 Forked River. Actually I live on Forked River about 14 a mile from the plant. I'm on the intake.
15 And we moved here about five years ago.
16 I could have chose to live anywhere I wanted to. I 17 came with the company that bought the plant, and I 18 chose about a mile from the river, not far from where 19 this gentleman lives, and we have some common 20 interests. He's trying to get his boat out, and I 21 just bought a new sailboat. So I've got to get it 22 out, too. So we're interested in all of the things 23 that have to do with the river.
24 I also enjoy fish, a fisherman. I enjoy 25
97 eating fish from Barnegat Bay. We have got some great 1
fishing here, and I really like this area. I'm 2
delighted.
3 I've been in this business 37 years. I've 4
seen lots of things. I've worked for lots of 5
utilities. I'm impressed with the people here at 6
Oyster Creek. They try to do the right thing all of 7
the time. It's a good, little plant. It's robust, a 8
good design. It's simple, a great little unit. I'm 9
really pleased with it.
10 You know, I wouldn't have chose to live so 11 close to it if I had any concerns about it.
12 And about walking the talk, you know, we 13 talk about environmental consciousness. Well, I was 14 the project manager that worked on keeping the fish 15 warm last winter, and I spent a couple hundred 16 thousand dollars of our company's money keeping those 17 fish warm. I know everybody thinks that the fish kill 18 is about heating them up. No, it's not. The fish 19 kill is all of these tropical fish that stick around 20 in the wintertime. They should have gone south, but 21 they didn't, but they stick around because we have 22 this warm water, and if we need to shut down for 23 maintenance in the wintertime, we've got a big 24 problem, you know. The water on our discharge cools 25
98 down to the same temperature as Barnegat Bay, and a 1
good number of these species can't live at that 2
temperature.
3 So if we don't do some way to provide 4
supplemental heat, they ain't going to make it. So 5
anyway, I was the project manager. I had a lot of fun 6
with that, a lot of sleepless nights and days making 7
sure that that went okay, but I was real pleased with 8
the support that the company provided around that.
9 A couple of other things that just got 10 stuck in my craw. I'm a private pilot, too. I keep 11 my plane over here. My wife support all of my 12 expensive hobbies, but I have a plane over here at the 13 R.J. Miller about 11 miles from the plant, and I'm 14 always incensed when people talk about little planes 15 as being a danger to nuclear power plants. They are 16 not. We don't have enough mass or fuel or anything on 17 board to damage a robust structure like a nuclear 18 power plant, and I don't care what part of it you hit.
19 You know, we could shut it down by getting 20 tangled up in the power lines, but that's about it.
21 So I always bristle a little when somebody makes the 22 false accusations about us little guys flying our 23 little airplanes around causing great fear and danger 24 to everybody.
25
99 Anyway, I've rambled long enough. I want 1
to applaud the NRC for the work they're doing. As a 2
very close resident to the plant, I'm very interested 3
in it getting done right and being thorough about how 4
you do it because my friends, neighbors, wife and 5
family, we want to continue to feel safe being close 6
to the plant.
7 Thank you.
8 (Applause.)
9 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Wayne.
10 And now we're going to go to Roberto.
11 MR. WEINMANN: Well, thank you, everyone, 12 for staying so long.
13 I just wanted to make a comment. I work 14 in cancer research, and I develop drugs to fight 15 cancer, and I would have the slightest idea that the 16 plant or radiation would be the cause for any increase 17 in leukemia or whatever, I wouldn't have come here.
18 There is absolutely no evidence from the New Jersey 19 Cancer Commission that there is an increase in rates 20 in this area due to the plant. So I think you really 21 have to look at the information and the data that is 22 present. The same about autism.
23 I think a lot of hearsay is published and 24 then read, and I think health concerns if they are not 25
100 extinguishing our animal populations that are in the 1
water that comes out of the plant, they're much less 2
affecting us.
3 That's all. Thank you.
4 (Applause.)
5 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Roberto.
6 Next we're going to go to Cindy, Cindy 7
Zipf with Clean Ocean Action.
8 MS. ZIPF: Thank you.
9 I wasn't planning on saying anything 10 tonight, but I couldn't resist. One of the questions 11 that I wanted to ask during the question and answer 12 period but there wasn't enough time was the process on 13 how we were notified about the hearing.
14 Clean Ocean Actions staff scientists are 15 Ph.D. in Marine Toxicology and also our attorney spent 16 a great deal of time working and evaluating the Oyster 17 Creek cooling water permit application to the 18 Department of Environmental Protection, and we have 19 been submitting comments and actually submitted 20 comments during the scoping process here as well.
21 However, we learned about the hearing from 22 the Asbury Park Press and the article that they wrote 23 about the other hearing that occurred the other day on 24 the safety issues.
25
101 So we are a coalition of 160-plus 1
organizations that are concerned about marine water 2
quality in the area, and when we're notified about 3
these hearings, which is part of what the coalition is 4
about, we distribute that to all the organizations.
5 So there wasn't any time for us to engage 6
that coalition, make them aware of the hearing. So 7
I'm very concerned about the process.
8 I'm also concerned about the quality of 9
the process because in the comments that we submitted 10 during the scoping period, we raised some very 11 serious, significant issues. Some of them were raised 12 today and considered small. We categorically disagree 13 and will be submitting our comments in full during the 14 process.
15 But one curiosity is that in the EIS that 16 we've all been given copies of, in the discussion of 17 radiological impacts of normal operations, the NRC 18 failed to include the radionuclide impacts to the 19 marine environment. We submitted substantial comments 20 on that and specifically identified the fact that 21 radionuclides have increased in the Barnegat Bay in 22 the bottom sediments and the estuarine biota, and that 23 the reactor-released nuclides have been detected in 24 the water, bottom sediments, benthic marine algae, 25
102 seagrass, blue crabs, clams, bunker, winter flounder, 1
summer founder, bluefish, and several other fish.
2 The organisms collected near Oyster Creek 3
had the highest level of radionuclides, but detectable 4
levels were found throughout the bay. Recent 5
sediments collected near the discharge canal contained 6
levels of Cobalt-60 that were 63 times higher than 7
sediments collected at other locations within the 8
9 Now, this issue did not even appear in 10 this EIS that I could find. It wasn't in the section 11 called Radiological Impacts of Normal Operations.
12 It wasn't listed in any of the other sections. So I'm 13 concerned that when we submitted to your office 14 comments raising this as a concern, and if you wanted 15 to blow off Clean Ocean Action's comments, that's one 16 thing, but the studies that we obtained this 17 information from were the same studies that you 18 reference. So the information was available that this 19 was an ecological risk, and if you wanted to sort of 20 discuss it and label it small, okay, but you know, 21 I'm concerned that we go to the trouble, a significant 22 amount of trouble, to submit comments, to review these 23 issues carefully, to review them scientifically, 24 legally, and we want to make sure that the process 25
103 will address our concerns and be fair.
1 So with that, we will be submitting our 2
comments by the September 8th deadline and we trust, 3
I guess, as best we can that they'll be considered.
4 (Applause.)
5 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you, Cindy.
6 Let me just say that I'm sorry that you 7
didn't get notice. It should have happened routinely 8
because of your past participation, and we'll find out 9
what happened and make sure it doesn't happen in the 10 future. So thank you for calling that to our 11 attention and also reiterating your comment.
12 I don't think that I introduced the senior 13 NRC manager here earlier, Mr. Frank Gillespie, who is 14 the Director of the Division of License Renewal at the 15 Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and we've heard from 16 all of the speakers tonight, and I was going to ask 17 Frank to say some words to you before we adjourned and 18 get together with you informally, and this is Frank 19 Gillespie.
20 MR. GILLESPIE: Thank you, Chip.
21 I did make some notes, and I want to 22 thank, truly thank two people in particular -- good, 23 Paul is not leaving on me -- and that NIRS and 24 Grammies, the State of New Jersey and Brick Township, 25
104 and I guess no one from Brick Township was here 1
tonight.
2 Could someone get the word back that I 3
thanked them?
4 What am I thanking them for? I'm thanking 5
them for actually participating, not just coming and 6
giving us comments, but Brick Township actually joined 7
with Westchester County and basically for us 8
beneficially stayed in process and submitted a 9
petition for rulemaking. They consciously decided 10 they didn't like our rules, and I think it takes a lot 11 of initiative for a town to step up and say, "Okay.
12 I'm going to try to take action to change the NRC's 13 rules."
14 Independent of how it comes out, and it's 15 due to be decided upon by the agency, I think, in 16 September and that gives Westchester County and Brick 17 Township then the opportunity to actually take us to 18 court. I mean, that's part of the system once you've 19 used up all of your administrative remedies.
20 And we actually appreciate when people 21 stay in process, and also NIRS and the Grammies and 22 people on the liner. One of the ways we know an issue 23 is kind of real significance and interest to a group 24 is when they actually give us contentions and 25
105 participate in the system. The contentions come in 1
early. There's a requirement that they come in within 2
60 days of us putting out a letter saying, "Okay.
3 We're starting our review."
4 And that actually is one way we can try to 5
get everything on the table. I would like to explain 6
because a lot of discussion goes on that a contention 7
is not a hearing, and people shouldn't be disappointed 8
on that. Normally a hearing won't take place with the 9
Atomic Safety and Licensing Board until after the 10 staff has completed its review, and I think Paul will 11 smile at me a little bit here in that the staff 12 sometimes has the same concern as the person who puts 13 in a contention, and it becomes somewhat of a moving 14 target while the staff is doing a review and going 15 through a certain routine interface between us and our 16 applicants' and licensees' requests for additional 17 information.
18 And I know in the liner case it has been 19 kind of a moving target, but I think the submissions 20 and the public meetings and the things that we've had 21 at least on that particular safety issue, I think, are 22 coming to a very good place in safety space.
23 Now, if the attempt is just to have a 24 hearing for having a hearing, okay. That's a 25
106 different issue, but if it's to get the safety issue 1
cleared up, I actually think that the tri-party of the 2
people, NIRS putting in the contention, us with the 3
applicant, and the applicant responding to us, is 4
actually addressing at least this one particular 5
safety issue, I think, very well.
6 It's still ongoing. It's not done, but 7
it's evolving and actually the Asbury Press did a very 8
nice article following our last meeting on it. So I'd 9
recommend reading one of those more current articles.
10 So I do like to thank people with a study 11 in process. It let us follow procedures. It lets us 12 get back to people officially. It's tedious. Maybe 13 it's a rule we're supposed to be tedious, but when you 14 participate in those processes, it does tend to be 15 thorough.
16 The other thing I want to cover is a 17 couple of points. We're here to listen to you and so 18 when people come up and say, "I want the NRC to 19 respond to this question," we likely will not respond 20 on the spot. We're here to hear your concern. We 21 will take the question back as a concern, but we're 22 not here to try to be argumentative in any way. We 23 really do want to hear from you.
24 There are certain restrictions. There are 25
107 certain things that NEPA causes us to do, and I want 1
to touch just a couple of points that were made.
2 One, I don't want anyone leaving thinking 3
that there's not a normal, run of the mill hurricane, 4
but nuclear plants actually in the spent fuel pool 5
building actually have a design basis external event 6
list of tornados, hurricanes, rain storms, wind 7
storms, earthquakes that are considered in their 8
design. And the reason we don't reconsider that is 9
these people on the environmental side have to come up 10 with a new hurricane to be new and significant 11 information.
12 And it's interesting. In environmental 13 space new and significant means more negative. If 14 it's getting better for some reason, it has to be 15 negative to change a finding, and so better 16 information is never used. It's not new and 17 significant, only negative.
18 So our team basically did not find an 19 earthquake worse than the plant was already designed 20 for. They did not find a hurricane worse than the 21 coast and this plant was already designed for or 22 tornado or wind storm.
23 So it's not that it's not considered.
24 It's that it already has been considered and no new 25
108 and significant information was found that would cause 1
the staff to change its mind. And I didn't want 2
people leaving thinking, you know, the Weather 3
Services says we're going to have one of the worst 4
hurricane seasons, we're going to have a tragedy here.
5 This plant is actually designed as part of 6
its design so as to sustain that.
7 The other comment was on the spent fuel 8
pool, and I think Mike said it's not considered.
9 Well, actually it is considered. It's a Category 1 10 issue, and I think when we go back, if you look going 11 back to Kirk's diagram, Category 1 issue has been 12 dealt with generically.
13 Now, you can agree or disagree with how 14 the agency dealt with it, but a Category 1 issue for 15 spent fuel is actually dealt under the waste 16 confidence rulemaking proceeding, and the waste 17 confidence rulemaking proceeding, the way it exists 18 now was done actually in 1990. It was relooked at in 19 about 1995 and might have been relooked at -- lawyers 20 can help me -- in 2000, 2005, and that has two phases 21 to it.
22 One is what you did here, is that we're 23 confident that the government, the Department of 24 Energy, will and it says words like in the first 25
109 quarter of this century, that they'll have an 1
ultimate repository. Currently scheduled, if you read 2
the press, for 2018. So we have no new information 3
that says that won't happen.
4 There's a second important element to the 5
waste confidence proceeding that actually deals with 6
spent fuel pools and independent spent fuel storage or 7
dry fuel storage, which many plants are going to for 8
part of their inventory, and it basically says in the 9
supporting information for the waste confidence 10 proceeding, it says something to the effect that it's 11 expected that you could keep the fuel safely stored in 12 spent fuel storage for up to 30 years beyond basically 13 the life of the plant plus what we call safe store, 14 which allows time for the plant to be decommissioned.
15 That is you do the arithmetic comes out in 16 the terms of that the technology should be safe for 90 17 to 100 years. And that's an element of the waste 18 confidence proceeding which is often lost because 19 everyone focused on the Yucca Mountain piece.
20 So, in fact, in finding high level waste 21 storage, a Category 1 issue, we have in fact 22 considered it, and the Commission at this point has no 23 new and significant information, again, which would 24 cause us to change that rule which is what the 25
110 Category 1 basis is based on.
1 You can agree with it; you can disagree 2
with it, but there is a basis. It's not that it's not 3
addressed, and there are studies and a lot of 4
information behind that which were based or which the 5
Commission based that finding on.
6 I would like to thank everyone, and I am 7
sorry for the one gentleman who kind of got mad at us 8
because we really would have liked him to take his 9
five minutes later, and I think everyone saw we let 10 you have ten minutes if you wanted it. Chip's very 11 liberal because we do want to hear from you.
12 And I do appreciate everyone else staying 13 in turn and taking their turn and listening 14 attentively while everyone else was speaking.
15 Yes?
16 PARTICIPANT: (Speaking from an unmiked 17 location.)
18 MR. GILLESPIE: Yeah, we need to get you 19 up so they can hear you.
20 While she's coming up, let me touch one 21 other point, and it kind of came out in the give-and-22 take. It's what is NEPA, and what is NEPA intended to 23 do.
24 National Environmental Policy Act is a 25
111 full disclosure act. It's not a decisional act, and 1
a question I might have asked the gentleman who was 2
kind of upset with us, he was talking in terms of, 3
gee, if you use some other cooling method or cooling 4
towers, that would be better because you wouldn't draw 5
any water in.
6 And the staff responded and said, "But our 7
report documents that the flow would be 70 percent 8
less. So the entrainment should be 70 percent less."
9 And the real question in our report: has 10 it fairly presented the facts which means that if you 11 have 70 percent less flow, you'll have 70 percent less 12 impact on the environment and in this case the species 13 in the water?
14 NEPA is not a decision. An Environmental 15 Impact Statement is a statement of the impact on the 16 environment. Did we accurately state the impact on 17 the environment? It's not necessarily a judgment 18 document.
19 And the other idea is that we actually use 20 State law and the violation of State law to say if 21 something was moderate. Well, do we have anyone from 22 DEP? Dennis was here.
23 Why don't you change the State law? These 24 guys will change their mind, and so there is certain 25
112 systems and thought processes, and I just bring that 1
up to say it would be -- I mean, the Federal 2
government was actually using state laws adopted by 3
the citizens and the representatives of the citizens 4
of the State of New Jersey as its measurement point.
5 I think that personally is reasonable, but you need to 6
understand what the reasonableness of that was.
7 The other element is, and I think I got 8
from the comments, and Mike and I have talked about 9
this on another plant we worked together on up in 10 Connecticut, sometimes we make findings and on certain 11 issues an extra page or so to give you some 12 understanding of what was behind that finding would be 13 very helpful.
14 And I got from some of the comments 15 tonight, particularly on the cooling tower thing, 16 there are alternatives to cooling towers, but if that 17 alternative -- for example, dry towers were mentioned 18 and dry towers have been mentioned in other places --
19 significantly affects the efficiency of the plant, the 20 electric output or input of thermal power.
21 The plant made some decisions in working 22 with the State on evaluating the salt water cooling 23 towers which had a lot of inputs into their thinking, 24 and I'm sure one of their thinkings was if you make my 25
113 plant so inefficient that I really can't afford to run 1
it, then that's a null set.
2 And so you really have to look at the 3
overall impacts of, yes, a dry cooling tower means 4
you're not using any water, but it also could have the 5
financial or the economic impact that there's no plant 6
either.
7 Other impacts are technology. The coal 8
technology may not be here yet, and someone may not be 9
willing to invest in it. State of New Jersey, are you 10 aware of what's going on with FERC and some power 11 people in New Jersey? They wanted to bring electric 12 power from West Virginia to New Jersey, and to get 13 from West Virginia to New Jersey under a special part 14 of the new Energy Act you have to go through 15 Pennsylvania.
16 And so Pennsylvania said, "What's in it 17 for us? You're going to put transmission lines 18 through the middle of my state and you're going to put 19 a coal power plant in West Virginia, and I have to 20 breathe all of that gas?"
21 And Pennsylvania said, "Now, wait a 22 minute. This doesn't sound right just to get power to 23 New Jersey."
24 So power distribution is a very complex 25
114 question. There's multiple jurisdictions involved, 1
and if we haven't explained some of that complexity 2
well in our document, then I think we might have to go 3
back and give some more information of what the 4
underlying thought processes are because sometimes 5
it's not really as simple as you may think it is.
6 And when you read the list and what's 7
there, you say well, that makes sense when I see the 8
list, and if you're not reading those kind of lists 9
every day, it doesn't necessarily make sense.
10 And so I do take away from this that we 11 might have to do just a little more writing in the 12 book to more fully disclose what the support of our 13 findings are in some of the key areas. And it's not 14 the whole book, but I think in certain key areas a 15 little more explanation might be helpful for 16 everybody.
17 And now you're up here. Feel free.
18 MS. GUERRAZZI: Well, thank you. Thank 19 you very much.
20 My name is Ms. Guerrazzi, and I just had 21 a couple of questions that were not addressed this 22 evening.
23 One of them goes to the fact that the 24 nuclear plant sits on the Cohansee Aquifer, which 25
115 supplies us with our drinking water, and in light of 1
the fact that Toms River has some radiation in their 2
wells, I wondered if the NRC considered the fact that 3
the nuclear plant could potentially be polluting with 4
radiation, invisible radiation our drinking water.
5 And of course, that is of major concern.
6 And the second comment that I had is that 7
I would like to see the NRC consider in their impact 8
statement the combination of alternate fuels or 9
alternate energy sources, that being the combination 10 of natural gas, solar power, wind power, and 11 conservation.
12 I think that it the area of conservation 13 were given to people in the sense of a bonus, an 14 energy bonus, for example, if people were seen as 15 being cooperative with lowering their bills 16 voluntarily, then maybe instead of penalizing people 17 or not giving them any type of reinforcement for that, 18 you could give them a bonus, like five bucks a month 19 or two bucks or whatever it may work out to be, kind 20 of like when you spend on your Discover card. You get 21 a bonus back.
22 So I think that to just have negative 23 ideas about the fact that we can't conserve, I think 24 that when we as a nation come together like we did 25
116 post 9/11 with the little flags and everybody getting 1
together in support of each other in this great 2
country of ours, I think that conservation may be more 3
positive as one of the combination alternates as you 4
can get.
5 But back to my original question. How is 6
it that the nuclear plant can sit on the Cohansee 7
Aquifer which gives us our drinking water? And I 8
don't know if you can address that this evening, but 9
certainly in your impact statement I would like to see 10 that being addressed because I think that's a major, 11 major point that was not brought up. I don't know.
12 I haven't been to all of the meetings, but I think 13 it's very crucial because obviously we as human being 14
-- we're human beings before we're workers or before 15 we're anything, and we need clean water that doesn't 16 have radiation.
17 MR. GILLESPIE: I think that kind of was 18 brought up, and I think Mike kind of committed to look 19 at that, and it was brought up, but not in terms of 20 the aquifer. That's a spinoff actually, I think, of 21 effluents and sediment.
22 Is it in there? Okay. Page 24. Let Mike 23 get together --
24 MS. GUERRAZZI: Okay.
25
117 MR. GILLESPIE: -- and you can see what's 1
in there.
2 Central New Jersey, as I understand it, 3
has kind of a unique thing, and you've got radioactive 4
water, and it's not from nuclear power. There's very 5
high radon rates in many of the wells around here, and 6
as I understand it, in fact, some of the water systems 7
actually have to have holding tanks to allow the radon 8
decay and decay products in New Jersey.
9 Yes.
10 PARTICIPANT: (Speaking from unmiked 11 location.)
12 MR. GILLESPIE: Is that northern New 13 Jersey?
14 PARTICIPANT: Yes.
15 MR. GILLESPIE: Okay.
16 PARTICIPANT: (Speaking from unmiked 17 location.)
18 MR. GILLESPIE: Oh, that's okay. I'm 19 going to get him and he's going to invite you up.
20 I'm just using that as an example, and I 21 think Mike did respond to that, and he's got it in the 22 book, and he'll get with you after and show you what 23 we have written, and actually this is a comment period 24 that's open for us to accept written comments also, 25
118 and he did put up a slide, and he'll take them by E-1 mail, phone, mail or any other way.
2 With that I'm getting in trouble because 3
I'm not allowed to be a facilitator. That's Chip's 4
job. So again, thank you very much for coming out.
5 I appreciate your patience, and please get us written 6
comments, amplify them if you'd like. We do want them, 7
and thank you very much. Thank you.
8 (Whereupon, at 9:40 p.m., the public 9
meeting in the above-entitled matter was concluded.)
10 11