ML063030209
| ML063030209 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | FitzPatrick  |
| Issue date: | 10/12/2006 |
| From: | Hernandez-Quinones S NRC/NRR/ADRO/DLR/REBB |
| To: | |
| References | |
| NRC-1260 | |
| Download: ML063030209 (31) | |
Text
Official Transcript of Proceedings NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSIONTitle:James A. FitzPatrick Nuclear Power Plant Public Meeting - Evening SessionDocket Number:050-00333Location:Oswego, New York Date:Thursday, October 12, 2006Work Order No.:NRC-1260Pages 1-30 NEAL R. GROSS AND CO., INC.
Court Reporters and Transcribers 1323 Rhode Island Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 234-4433 1 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433 PUBLIC MEETING TO DISCUSS 1 LICENSE RENEWAL PROCESS AND 2 ENVIRONMENTAL SCOPING FOR 3 JAMES A. FITZPATRICK NUCLEAR POWER PLANT 4 5 6 Held 7 Thursday, October 12, 2006 8 7:00 p.m.9 10 11 Town of Scriba Municipal Building 12 42 Creamery Road 13 Oswego, New York 14 15 16 17 Transcript of Proceedings 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 2 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433 I N D E X 1 Welcome and Overview Statement, Stephen 2Hoffman, Facilitator, NRC3 3 Presentation by Maurice Heath, Project 4Manager, NRC6 5 Presentation by Sam Hernandez, Environmental 6Project Manager, NRC 13 7Questions from Citizens19 8 Public Comment:
9Tim Judson20 10Tom Dellwo25 11 Closing Comments, Rani Franovich, Branch Chief, 12 Environmental Review Branch, NRC27 13Adjourn30 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 3 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433 P R O C E E D I N G S 1 7:04 P.M.2MR. HOFFMAN: All right, I think we'll go 3 ahead and get started tonight.
4 Good evening. My name is Steve Hoffman.
5I'm a Senior Project Manager with the Nuclear 6 Regulatory Commission or NRC as we refer to it.
7I'd like to welcome you here today to the 8NRC's public meeting. The subject of the meeting here 9tonight is to discuss the license renewal application 10for Entergy's license renewal application for the 11 James A. FitzPatrick Nuclear Power Plant.
12 I'm going to serve as your facilitator 13tonight, hopefully to ensure that we all have a 14productive meeting tonight. And before we get 15started, I'd like to kind of lay out what the meeting 16 process is going to be so you know what to expect.
17 First, we're going to discuss the format 18 of the meeting. We'll follow that up then with some 19simple ground rules for how we're going to conduct the 20 meeting, and finally, I'll introduce the presenters, 21 the NRC staff who will be making presentations.
22 Regarding the format, it's going to be a 23two-part meeting. At the beginning, we're going to 24have two NRC staff make presentations to give you some 25 4 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433background on the license renewal process and 1 specifically more detail on the environmental review 2 process.
3 The second part of the meeting is really 4why we're here. We want to hear from you guys. We 5 want to hear what comments you might have to help us 6 with our review. We also want to make sure that you 7guys have a good understanding of how the license 8 renewal process is going to work and what's involved 9 in it. 10 You're going to hear the term scoping 11meeting used. Scoping is a term that's used in 12conjunction with preparing environmental impact 13 statements. Essentially what that does is it helps 14 the NRC determine what should be in the scope of the 15environmental impact statement that we're going to 16prepare, what kind of issues need to be addressed and 17 what alternatives might need to be considered.
18 The staff is going to talk a little bit 19later about -- we're taking written comments right now 20in the scoping process, but I want you to know that 21any comments you make tonight will carry the same 22 weight. We're having the meetings being transcribed, 23 so the comments tonight will have that same level of 24 consideration.
25 5 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433 As far as the ground rules go, after the 1presentations, we're going to have a brief session 2where you can ask questions on the process, make sure 3if you need any clarifications, need any additional 4information on the process, we'll discuss that. I do 5request that you hold your comments to the formal 6comment period that will then follow. During the 7formal comment period we've got a couple of people 8 that are pre-registered to speak. I'll call them up 9one at a time because we want only one person speaking 10so that we can get a clear transcript and also so that 11 Peter Holland over here knows who is speaking at the 12 time for the transcript.
13Comments tonight are important to the 14staff for two reasons. It gives us kind of a heads up 15 as to what the issues are so that we can kind of start 16thinking about them and also if necessary we can talk 17 with you more to get further information from you as 18 to what issue you might have.
19 The other thing is by making your comments 20tonight it also lets other people in the audience 21understand that -- and know what other issues might be 22of concern to people. So with that, you're first 23going to hear from Maurice Heath. He is the Safety PM 24who is going to be involved in the review of the 25 6 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433safety portion of the license renewal application.
1He's going to give you an overview of the license 2renewal process and that will be followed then by Sam 3Hernandez who is the Project Manager, responsible for 4the environmental review and he'll go into more detail 5then on the environmental process and the request for 6 scoping comments.
7 With that, we'll start with Maurice.
8 MR. HEATH: Thank you, Steve. Good 9 evening. My name is Maurice Heath. And like Steve 10said I am the Project Manager responsible for the 11review of the FitzPatrick license renewal application.
12The NRC considers public involvement in, and 13 information about our activities to be a cornerstone 14 of strong, fair regulation of the nuclear industry.
15The purpose of tonight's meeting is first 16to describe the NRC's license renewal process; second, 17to describe the safety and environmental review 18processes; third, to share with you the license 19 renewal review schedule for FitzPatrick; and fourth, 20to discuss your opportunity to comment on the scope of 21 our environmental review.
22At the conclusion of this evening's 23presentation, the NRC staff will be happy to answer 24any questions and receive any comments that you might 25 7 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433have on our process and the scope of our review.
1However, the staff will ask you to limit your 2participation to questions only and hold your comments 3 until the appropriate time during the course of this 4 meeting. Once all questions are answered, we can 5begin to receive any formal comments that you have on 6 the scope of our environmental review.
7Before I get to the discussion of the 8license renewal process, I would like to take a minute 9 to talk about the NRC in terms of what we do and what 10 our mission is.
11 The Atomic Energy Act and Energy 12Reorganization Act authorized the NRC to regulate the 13 civilian use of nuclear material. In exercising its 14 authority the NRC's mission is threefold: to ensure 15adequate protection of public health and safety, to 16protect the environment, and to promote the common 17 defense and security.
18 The NRC accomplishes its mission through 19a combination of regulatory programs and processes 20such as conducting inspections, issuing enforcement 21actions, assessing licensee performance, and 22evaluating operating experience from nuclear plants 23across the country and internationally. A 24representative of our inspection program is here 25 8 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433 today. Mr. Doug Dempsey is the NRC Resident Inspector 1stationed at the FitzPatrick plant. In case you 2 didn't know, the NRC has resident inspectors at each 3of the commercial nuclear power reactor sites. These 4inspectors carry out the safety mission of the NRC on 5 a daily basis and are on the front lines of ensuring 6 conformance to NRC regulations.
7 The Atomic Energy Act authorized the NRC 8to grant a 40-year operating license for nuclear power 9reactors and allowed for license renewal. It is 10important to note that this 40-year term was based 11primarily on economic factors and antitrust 12considerations, as opposed to safety or technical 13 limitations.
14 The National Environmental Policy Act of 151969, otherwise known as NEPA, defined a national 16 policy for the environment and established the basis 17for considering environmental issues in the conduct of 18 federal activities.
19The specific regulations that the NRC 20enforces are contained in Title 10 of the Code of 21Federal Regulations, which is commonly referred to as 22 10 CFR.23The current Operating License for the 24FitzPatrick Nuclear Power Plant will expire on October 25 9 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-443317, 2014. By letter dated July 31, 2006, Entergy, 1 owner of the plant, submitted an application for the 2renewal of the FitzPatrick Operating License for an 3 additional 20 years.
4A copy of the FitzPatrick license renewal 5application is available for review at your local 6 libraries. At the Penfield Library, SUNY of New York 7 in Oswego and the other is at the Oswego public 8 library in downtown Oswego.
9 Two guiding principles form the basis of 10 the NRC's approach in performing the safety review.
11The first principle is that the current 12regulatory process is adequate to ensure that the 13licensing basis of all currently operating plants 14provides and maintains an acceptable level of safety.
15 The second principle is that the current 16plant-specific licensing basis must be maintained 17during the renewal term in the same manner, and to the 18 same extent, as during the original license term.
19To maintain the plant current licensing 20basis, the effects of aging during extended period of 21operation are given special attention through the 22license renewal process. Additional programs and 23surveillance activities are required for managing the 24effects of aging on certain plant structures, systems, 25 10 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433 and components.
1The FitzPatrick license renewal 2application submitted by Entergy contained numerous 3assessments, analysis, and drawings. The application 4also contained an environmental report. Essentially, 5 the application contains the following information:
6Integrated Plant Safety Assessment, which 7the Applicant describes and justifies the methods used 8to determine the systems and the structures within the 9scope of license renewal and the structures and 10 components subject to aging management review.
11Time-Limited Aging Analysis, which 12includes the identification of the component and an 13explanation of the time-dependent aspects of the 14 calculation or analysis.
15And then the Final Safety Analysis Report 16Supplement, which provides a summary description of 17programs and activities for managing the effects of 18 aging for the period of extended operation.
19Technical Specification Changes is also a 20part of the application. However, it's not applicable 21 to FitzPatrick.
22And lastly, the Environmental Report. In 23evaluating the information in this report the staff 24conducts on-site audits; collects formal comments from 25 11 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433 the public; and consults with other local, state and 1 federal agencies.
2The first thing to notice is that the 3 license renewal process consists of both a safety 4review shown at the top and an environmental review 5shown on the bottom. The safety review produces a 6safety evaluation report. You can find it on the 7chart here. The environmental review produces an 8 environmental impact statement.
9During the safety review, the NRC staff 10evaluates technical information in the license renewal 11application to verify, with reasonable assurance, that 12the plant can continue to operate safely during the 13period of extended operation. It focuses attention on 14aging management. The technical evaluation is 15 documented in a safety evaluation report.
16This safety evaluation report is forwarded 17to the Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards or 18 ACRS. The ACRS is a group of scientists and nuclear 19industry experts who serve as a consulting body to the 20 Commission. The ACRS performs an independent review 21of the license renewal application and the NRC staff's 22safety evaluation. Then the ACRS reports their 23findings and recommendations directly to the 24 Commission.
25 12 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433In addition, plant inspections are 1conducted by a team of NRC inspectors who verify that 2the Applicant's license renewal program, including 3supporting activities, are implemented consistent with 4 the application that was submitted.
5The NRC Office of Nuclear Reactor 6Regulation reviews the Applicant's renewal application 7and supporting documentation and conducts on-site 8 audits. The review results in a safety evaluation 9report that documents the basis and conclusions of the 10 NRC staff's safety review. The SER is also publicly 11 available. In addition, as part of the overall NRC 12license renewal review process, a team of specialized 13 inspectors travel to the reactor site to verify that 14 the aging management programs have been or are ready 15 to be implemented.
16The Advisory Committee on Reactor 17Safeguards providing an independent review of the 18license renewal application and the staff's safety 19evaluation report. The Committee offers a 20recommendation to the Commission after it has 21 completed its review.
22I would like to highlight activities that 23 are separate from the license renewal process. They 24include security, emergency planning, and current 25 13 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433safety performance. The NRC monitors and provides 1regulatory oversight of these issues on an ongoing 2basis under the current operating license. The NRC 3addresses these current operating issues on a 4continuing basis. Thus, we do not re-evaluate them in 5the license renewal process. For more information 6about the oversight process for operating reactors, 7 you can follow the link at the bottom of the page.
8 I'd like to thank you for this time for 9the safety portion of our presentation and I'd like to 10bring on our Environmental Project Manager, Sam 11 Hernandez. Thank you.
12MR. HERNANDEZ: Hi, my name is Sam 13 Hernandez. I'm an environmental project manager for 14the NRC. I am responsible for coordinating all the 15activities of the NRC staff and various environmental 16experts at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory 17to prepare an environmental impact statement 18associated with the proposed license renewal of the 19 FitzPatrick Nuclear Power Plant.
20 The National Environmental Policy Act of 211969 requires that all federal agencies follow a 22systematic approach in evaluating potential impacts 23 associated with certain actions. We at the NRC are 24required to consider the impact of the proposed action 25 14 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433and also any mitigation for those impacts we consider 1 to be significant.
2We are also required to consider 3alternatives to the proposed action, in this case, the 4license renewal of FitzPatrick and other alternatives 5include the no-action alternative. In other words, if 6we decide not to approve the license renewal for 7 FitzPatrick, what are the environmental impacts?
8The NRC has determined that an 9environmental impact statement or EIS, will be 10 prepared for any proposed license renewal of nuclear 11 plants. In preparing an environmental impact 12statement, the NRC conducts a scoping process. The 13purpose of the scoping process is to identify any 14important issue and information to be analyzed in 15depth during the review. We are now in the scoping 16 process for FitzPatrick and are here today gathering 17information and collecting public comments on the 18 scope of our review.
19Simply put, what special issues should the 20 staff consider in preparing the environmental impact 21 statement for FitzPatrick?
22In that framework, I want to provide an 23overview of an environmental review. In the 1990s, 24the NRC staff developed a generic environmental impact 25 15 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433statement or GEIS. The GEIS documented the 1environmental impacts of renewing the operating 2licenses for all the nuclear plants in the nation. As 3a result of that analysis, the NRC was able to 4determine that several environmental issues were 5common or similar to all nuclear power plants. The 6environmental impact associated with those issues was 7 small at all sites.
8The NRC staff, in our review, will also 9evaluate any new and significant information that 10 might call into question the conclusions that were 11 previously reached in the GEIS.
12Now the NRC also concluded that there are 13several issues to which a generic determination or 14conclusion could not be reached and for these issues, 15the NRC will prepare a site-specific environmental 16impact statement or SEIS. And that's why we are here 17today requesting your comments on the scope of the 18site-specific environmental impact statement for 19 FitzPatrick.
20When the review is completed, the GEIS and 21the site-specific environmental impact statement will 22 be the complete record of the environmental review.
23Next slide. This diagram shows the 24subject areas that we'll be looking and we'll be 25 16 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433 evaluating on our site-specific environmental impact 1 statement for FitzPatrick.
2Next slide, please. So how does the 3public provide input for the decision making? This 4diagram shows some of the inputs that are used for the 5license renewal decision. Today, we are here 6 soliciting your comments on the scope of the 7environmental review and we will consider all comments 8received during the scoping in developing the draft 9 supplemental environmental impact statement.
10 Also, there is an opportunity to request 11 a hearing right here at the bottom. The opportunity 12for hearing closes on November 20, 2006 and additional 13 information about the hearing process is attached in 14the handouts that you received at the registration 15table, specifically if you look at the Federal 16 Register notice, there's the information on how to 17 request a hearing in the proceedings.
18Now I would like to clarify that the 19 hearing opportunity and the public comments on the 20scope of the environmental review are two different 21 processes. Today, we will consider your comments for 22 the scope of the environmental review.
23Next slide. So how do you provide your 24 comments? You can do it here during our comment 25 17 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433portion of the meeting. If you are not ready to 1provide a comment today, you can send us your comment 2 via regular mail. Or you can also send your comment 3via email. The special address that we had set up in 4the NRC for receiving comments on the scoping of 5 environmental review for FitzPatrick, the address is 6 FitzPatrickEIS@nrc.gov. Also you can deliver your 7 comments in person if you wish to.
8I want to give you some information about 9the overall review schedule. All this information is 10 provided in your handouts, so I won't bore you going 11 over all of them, but all of these items in yellow are 12 the opportunities for public involvement. Right now 13we are in the scoping process. The scoping process 14closes on November 14, so if you want to send any 15comment regarding the scope of the review, you have 16 until November 14 to send that to us.
17 Also now, we have a hearing opportunity.
18That one closes on November 20. As I told you 19earlier, there's more detailed information in your 20 handout about that process.
21We expect to issue a scoping summary 22 report in March of '07. In that report we will have 23the summary of all the issues that were brought up 24during scoping. After that, we expect to publish the 25 18 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433draft environmental impact statement in June of '07 1and that document will be up for public comment for 75 2 days, public comment period and we'll have another 3meeting here to request your comments on that 4 document. We expect to have that public meeting in 5 July '07.6After that, we anticipate issuing the 7 final supplemental environmental impact statement in 8 January '08.
9Next slide. Some additional information, 10if you have any question about what was said here 11today or any information to help submit your comments, 12 you can call any of the people listed on this slide.
13Also, we have several of the documents 14like the environmental report, the application that 15the Applicant submitted and we'll be sending the 16scoping summary report, the draft environmental impact 17statement and the safety evaluation report and the 18 final supplemental environmental impact statement to 19the local public libraries so you can also find those 20documents there. And you can also go to the NRC 21website and find information. If you have any problem 22locating any documents in the NRC website, you can 23 call anyone of us and we'll make sure you get a copy 24 of what you're looking for.
25 19 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433 That concludes my remarks. Thank you.
1MR. HOFFMAN: All right. Thank you, Sam.
2 Thank you, Maurice.
3The focus of the meeting is to solicit 4your comments on the environmental scoping, but before 5 we do that we're going to take a brief period here to 6 see if anybody has any questions, any clarifications 7 they need.
8 If anyone has any -- do you have a 9 question? Okay.
10If you could state your name and any 11 affiliation, if it's applicable.
12MR. DELLWO: Tom Dellwo and Citizens 13Awareness Network. It's kind of just a basic 14 question. I'm not really sure. Is this meeting 15 taking comments about safety and environment or just 16 environment?
17 MR. HERNANDEZ: We're taking comments on 18the scope of the environmental review, so just 19 environmental review.
20MR. DELLWO: Just environmental review, 21 not safety.
22MR. HERNANDEZ: We'll provide information 23 about the safety process, if you have any question.
24MR. DELLWO: And will there be an 25 20 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433 opportunity for public comment about safety?
1MS. FRANOVICH: Hi, Tom. The reason we 2 solicit comments on the scope of our environmental 3 review is because it's done under NEPA and so it 4 provides an opportunity for the public for comment.
5 The safety review is not under NEPA and so 6there is no opportunity to comment on the staff safety 7 review.8 MR. DELLWO: Okay.
9 MR. HOFFMAN: Any other questions? Then 10 we'll go into the more formal comment period.
11We have two people registered. Tim Judson 12had requested to make comments. Again, state your 13 name, affiliation, if it's appropriate.
14We normally try to limit this to five 15 minutes. We only have two signed up. I don't think 16 we need to be that strict tonight.
17That's fine. Wherever you're comfortable.
18 MR. JUDSON: I'm curious how many people 19in the audience tonight are not employees of NRC or 20 Entergy. Half a dozen or so?
21Well, it's a little bit hard to know 22necessarily what to say at these meetings for a number 23 of reasons. One is that you know the NRC in passing 24 its regulations on license extensions like that has 25 21 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433 basically ruled out almost any issue that the public 1 would care about for mattering what decision the NRC 2 makes about a relicensing application.
3You can't raise issues of nuclear waste 4because they have what they call the Waste Confidence 5 Rule which means that because the Federal Government 6has a law that says they're going to make a nuclear 7waste dump, that the public doesn't need to be 8concerned about how much waste is being generated and 9stored in their communities, even though we're already 1020 years behind on a waste dump as it is and it 11doesn't look like it's going to happen any time in the 12near future, unless Congress overrides many, many laws 13 to jam this thing through.
14You're not allowed to raise issues of 15security or terrorism because the NRC's official 16stands on security and terrorism is that terrorism is 17too speculative a risk to calculate what the actual 18possibility of it is. And so their security 19regulations as they stand are sufficient to protect 20 the nation's reactor communities.
21Not allowed to raise generic questions 22 about nuclear safety and how you feel about having a 23nuclear power plant in your community, that if it did 24melt down, would basically cause the evacuation or 25 22 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433permanent resettlement of the entire population of 1 your community.
2So that doesn't leave us with a whole lot.
3And you know basically what's been laid out is a 4 process by which the NRC is going to make a decision 5 about whether this power plant should operate for an 6extra 20 years, even though no nuclear power plant has 7ever run to this point in history for more than 40 8 years on the basis of paper pushing and on the basis 9 of bureaucracy.
10 So there's really very little the public 11can contribute to this process, unless of course, the 12Federal Courts step in which may happen very soon 13because the Federal Court branch out in California has 14ruled that the NRC has to consider terrorism and 15security issues as part of any kind of licensing 16 process. And the NRC is now appealing that to the 17Supreme Court. So we may or may not be able to raise 18 any issues that matter in this process.
19 So I guess mostly what I wanted to talk 20 about is reality in terms of what happens here. And 21basically NRC's entire regulatory process at this 22point is based on whether or not the companies that 23own the power plants tell the truth. And so the 24 question is why should we believe what Entergy says?
25 23 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433What basis do we have to believe that they're telling 1us the truth about the inspections they're going to 2undertake, about the current status of all of these 3aging components inside the reactor, about their 4 policies for ensuring that workers can report safety 5 problems.6 And the truth of the matter is there isn't 7a whole lot of ground to stand on there. CAN today 8just submitted some documents to the NRC through their 9public petition process. We have obtained 10transcripts, documents in which Entergy managers at 11 FitzPatrick were interviewed by NRC investigators in 12 a case of retaliating against a whistle blower named 13Carl Patrickson who lives in Mexico, New York, and 14transcripts of court proceedings under the Department 15of Labor where Carl Patrickson had brought a law suit 16against Entergy claiming discrimination. And in these 17two sets of transcripts, three managers at FitzPatrick 18including the two top executives at the time can't 19seem to get their stories straight about what they 20 knew and when they knew it.
21 In one case, with the NRC, they admitted 22knowing that he had reported a nuclear safety problem 23before they fired him and six months later, in the 24courtroom with the Department of Labor they said they 25 24 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433didn't know. And it's really hard to see how those 1 two things can both be true.
2So there's a real issue here about whether 3Entergy tells the truth and in terms of granting a 4company blanket permission to operate a reactor for an 5 extra 20 years, what basis do we have to know that 6they're going to follow through on their promises and 7in fact, that the things that they're telling us about 8 the plant are true.
9And we believe that this whole process 10needs to stop until three things happen. One is that 11NRC investigates these statements that Entergy 12 management is making; and two, that NRC investigates 13FitzPatrick and makes sure that workers are not 14threatened and retaliated against for reporting safety 15problems and not only that, but the workers don't feel 16as though they're going to be afraid to report safety 17 problems. And lastly, Entergy needs to put Carl 18Patrickson back to work because what has happened 19since his case, he won his case by the way with the 20 Department of Labor, even though the management at 21Entergy claimed that they didn't know that he had 22reported a safety problem. Even then, the Department 23of Labor found that he had been blatantly 24discriminated against. But he's still not back to 25 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433 work.1 And since then, all three of the managers 2 whose testimony is in question have been promoted at 3 Entergy. Ted Sullivan, who used to be the site vice 4 president is now site vice president at Vermont 5 Yankee, so he's been transferred to another plant at 6the same position. One of the managers has been 7transferred to corporate headquarters in White Plains 8with a higher position. And the other manager has 9been promoted within FitzPatrick to a higher position 10 there.11So our neighbors and our community members 12 who work at these plants have seen one person who 13reported a nuclear safety problem fired and not given 14 his job back even though the Court said that he should 15and the three people who are most closely involved in 16that firing have all been promoted. What are they 17 supposed to believe?
18And I'm submitting the documents that 19we've submitted to the 2.206 process to support these 20 claims.21 MR. HOFFMAN: All right, thank you, Tim.
22 Tom Dellwo?
23MR. DELLWO: I'm going to be a little less 24 long-winded because I don't know that much about it, 25 26 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433 as much as Tim, but I just would like to echo what Tim 1 said and support him and really encourage the NRC to 2take what he said seriously. He's done a lot of 3 research. I've watched him do it. I live with him.
4He stays up late at night. He does a lot of work.
5 He's really studied this stuff and this is a serious 6 issue. And if he's taking it this seriously, then 7 that means that you should be too.
8 But I'd like to highlight something that 9he didn't mention, focusing on Carl Patrickson once 10 more. The issue that Carl raised and this is 11something that you do want to take into consideration 12in the scope of your investigation into the 13environmental impact of Entergy. Carl Patrickson 14raised an issue ,before he was fired, with the 15emergency service water pumps. I don't know that much 16about the technical details of it. He does. He's an 17 engineer. From what he says, essentially if a certain 18problem isn't fixed there, that they will - -that they 19could, it could result in the emergency service water 20 being shut off and not being able to -- not being able 21to be used in the event of a meltdown. So there 22wouldn't be enough water to cool the plant down in the 23 event there was a problem there.
24He raised this concern and to my knowledge 25 27 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433nothing has been done about it, according to what I've 1been able to find out, according to what Tim has been 2able to find out. That has obvious impacts in the 3 environment. If there's something -- it may be more 4 in the safety. I'm just going to add it in now 5 because I'm not going to get the opportunity to talk 6 about it in the safety portion, but that's something 7that you should really look into. It's the emergency 8 service water pump rooms. Check that out. Find out 9 if the problem that Carl raised and documentation 10should be there. He definitely sent the documentation 11 to NRC. He raised the concern with NRC.
12 So you guys have the documentation. You 13can check into that. That would have an impact on the 14 environment if there was a meltdown, if there wasn't 15any cooling water that could get to the plant to cool 16it down. That would definitely have an impact on the 17 environment. So that's something that should be taken 18into account and to my knowledge, nothing has been 19 done about that to this date.
20So not only is Carl not at his job any 21more doing what he did best which is finding out 22what's wrong with the plant and reporting safety 23violations when he sees them, so not only do we not 24have somebody on the job there, keeping track, making 25 28 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433sure things are going well, but the problem that he 1 raised before he left hasn't been fixed. So I think 2that's something that should be taken into 3 consideration and once again, I'd really like you to 4take what Tim says seriously. He knows what he's 5 doing. He's a stand up guy.
6 Thank you.
7MR. HOFFMAN: Thank you, Tom. That's the 8two speakers who preregistered. Is there anyone else 9 who wanted to make comments tonight?
10 Okay, well, I'm going to ask Rani 11 Franovich who is the Branch Chief for the 12Environmental Branch that is responsible for the 13 review to give the closing.
14MS. FRANOVICH: Thank you, Steve. I just 15wanted to add that we really appreciate you guys 16coming out because the public's participation in this 17process really is very important to us. We get a lot 18of good information from the public on the scope of 19the environmental review and we'll take that under 20consideration as appropriate to the environmental 21 review.22 Some of the other issues that were brought 23up, the concern about retaliation to workers for 24raising safety concerns. That is something that we 25 29 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433have very strict rules against, the 2.206 position is 1the one that's being utilized. That's the appropriate 2 venue for that concern. And so you're on the right 3 process for that.
4 Some of the other things that were 5 mentioned as far as whether Entergy can or cannot be 6trusted, the NRC does not review and approve any 7 application based on trust. Our motto is you trust 8and you verify. So rest assured, whatever information 9we get from Entergy in their application we will 10 verify for accuracy and completeness.
11Another thing that was brought up was the 12 Ninth Circuit Court decision. That is something the 13NRC hasn't decided what it's going to do with, so what 14was said about it appealing is not the case.
15Actually, that decision has not yet been made and the 16decision really involves what you consider under NEPA 17in your environmental impact statement. It's not that 18 the NRC is not looking at security now, we are. The 19question is whether or not we look at it in our 20environmental reviews. And that's what needs to be 21 determined.
22 Aside from that, thank you all for coming 23 here tonight. I wanted to indicate that we have NRC 24public meeting feedback forms that are in the back in 25 30 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433the hallway. I think you may have gotten a copy as 1 you came in. If there's a way that we can conduct 2these public meetings better in the future, serve the 3public better, please fill out a form, let us know 4 how. Send it to us or you can just leave it on the 5 table. 6I wanted to remind everyone that the scope 7of the environmental review is something we're taking 8comments on until November 14th and the opportunity 9 for hearing closes on November 20th. And with that, 10 the NRC staff will be around for a few minutes after 11the meeting, so feel free to come and talk with us 12about any questions you might have about I guess 13 anything in general. Thank you.
14 MR. HOFFMAN: Thank you, Rani. Okay.
15(Whereupon, at 7:41 p.m., the public 16 meeting was concluded.)
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