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