ML070530012
| ML070530012 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Vermont Yankee File:NorthStar Vermont Yankee icon.png |
| Issue date: | 01/31/2007 |
| From: | NRC/OGC |
| To: | |
| jmm7 | |
| References | |
| Download: ML070530012 (93) | |
Text
Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
Washington, D.C.
(202) 234-4433 1
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 2
NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 3
+ + + + +
4 5
6
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -x 7
IN THE MATTER OF:
8 PUBLIC MEETING TO DISCUSS THE :
9 DRAFT SUPPLEMENTAL ENVIRONMENTAL :
10 IMPACT STATEMENT FOR LICENSE :
11 RENEWAL OF 12 VERMONT YANKEE NUCLEAR :
13 POWER STATION 14
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -x 15 Wednesday 16 January 31, 2007 17 18 Latchis Theater 19 50 Main Street 20 Brattleboro, Vermont 21 22 The above-entitled matter was convened, 23 pursuant to Notice, at 1:38 p.m.
24 BEFORE:
Francis "Chip" Cameron 25 FACILITATOR 26
2 Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
Washington, D.C.
(202) 234-4433 I N D E X 1
OPENING REMARKS:
PAGE:
2 Chip Cameron 4
3 OVERVIEW OF LICENSE RENEWAL PROCESS 4
Richard Emch 8
5 RESULTS OF THE ENVIRONMENTAL REVIEW 6
David Miller 17 7
HOW COMMENTS CAN BE SUBMITTED 8
Richard Emch 31 9
PUBLIC COMMENT 10 Kate Casa 33 11 Emma Stamas 35 12 Sally Shaw 37 13 Patrick Moore 42 14 Thomas Salmon 47 15 Claire Chang 55 16 Amanda Ibey 61 17 Howard Shaffer 65 18 Paul Bousquet 68 19 Daniel Marx 72 20 Art Greenbaum 75 21 Sarah Kotkov 84 22 Teresa Caldwell 87 23 CLOSING REMARKS 24 Rani Franovich 91 25
3 Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
Washington, D.C.
(202) 234-4433 P R O C E E D I N G S 1
(1:38 p.m.)
2 MR. CAMERON: My name is Chip Cameron, I 3
work for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and I want 4
to welcome all of you to the public meeting today. And 5
our subject today is going to be a draft environmental 6
impact statement that the NRC has prepared as one part 7
of its evaluation of the license application that we 8
received from the Entergy Corporation to renew the 9
operating license for the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power 10 Plant. And it's my pleasure to serve as your 11 facilitator for today's meeting and my role will be to 12 try to help all of you to have a productive meeting 13 today.
14 I just want to spend a couple minutes on 15 some meeting process issues so that you know what to 16 expect this afternoon, and I would like to talk about 17 the meeting format and, secondly, just some simple 18 ground rules that will help us all to have a productive 19 meeting. In terms of format, basically we are going to 20 use a two-part format for this afternoon's meeting, the 21 first part is to give you, through some brief 22 presentations, some information on what the NRC looks 23 at when it's deciding whether to renew an operating 24 license, and specifically, we want to tell you about 25
4 Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
Washington, D.C.
(202) 234-4433 the findings that are in the draft environmental impact 1
statement, and I want to emphasize the word draft.
2 This environmental impact statement will 3
not be finalized until we, first of all, listen, and 4
second of all, evaluate all the comments that we are 5
going to hear from you today and tonight at tonight's 6
meeting, as well as written comments that can be 7
submitted on the draft environmental impact statement 8
issues. And I just want to emphasize also that 9
anything that we hear today will carry the same weight 10 as a written comment that you might submit. Your 11 comments today are going to be the focus of the second 12 part of the meeting, and we are here to listen to your 13 advice, your concerns, your recommendations on the 14 draft environmental impact statement and license 15 renewal issues.
16 And there will be some time to answer a 17 few questions after the NRC presentations about the NRC 18 license renewal evaluation process and what's in the 19 draft EIS, but we do have a number of speakers so we'll 20 have to move to the second part of the meeting fairly 21 quickly. Now, in terms of groundrules, I would just 22 ask that only one person speak at a time, most 23 importantly so that we can give whomever has the floor 24 our full attention but also so that we can get a clear 25
5 Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
Washington, D.C.
(202) 234-4433 transcript. Marty is our court reporter up here, and 1
he is going to be taking a transcript of everything at 2
the meeting and that will be available to all of you 3
and to us as a record of what was said here today, and 4
it's Marty Farley.
5 And another groundrule, would you please 6
try to be concise, we do have a lot of people who want 7
to talk today and I want to make sure that we hear from 8
all of them, so try to be as concise as possible. And 9
it's great that we have a lot of people who want to 10 talk and I would thank everybody again for being here 11 and for your interest, but it means that we do have to 12 set some limit on how much time that each person can 13 speak, and I'm going to set that limit at approximately 14 five minutes today. And we may have a little bit of 15 leeway on that, but please try to keep it to 16 approximately five minutes.
17 And I think that we've found that five 18 minutes is usually enough for people to summarize their 19 main concerns and it accomplishes two important 20 objectives, one is it alerts the NRC staff to issues 21 that it has to start evaluating right away by talking 22 to people who raise comments after the meeting about 23 their comments. And the second important thing that it 24 accomplishes is that it alerts others in the community 25
6 Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
Washington, D.C.
(202) 234-4433 to important issues connected to license renewal, and a 1
final ground rule is please be courteous to each other.
2 You will hear a lot of different opinions here today 3
and some of them you may not agree with, but let's all 4
just respect the person who is giving that particular 5
opinion.
6 Let me introduce the NRC speakers today 7
that are going to talk to you. First of all, we have 8
Mr. Richard Emch, who is right here. Rich is going to 9
give you an overview of the NRC license renewal 10 evaluation process, and he is the project manager for 11 the environmental review on the license renewal 12 application for Vermont Yankee and he has been with the 13 NRC for a considerable amount of time, approximately 32 14 years, at this point. And he has worked in a variety 15 of capacities at the agency and he has served as the 16 project manager on other license renewal applications 17 for other reactors around the country. And he has a 18 bachelors in physics from the Louisiana Technical 19 University and a masters in health physics from the 20 Georgia Institute of Technology.
21 And after Rich talks about the process, we 22 are going to go to a description, a summary of the 23 findings in the draft environmental impact statement.
24 We have Mr. Dave Miller right here, Dr. Dave Miller I 25
7 Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
Washington, D.C.
(202) 234-4433 guess is more precise, but Dave was the team leader of 1
a group of expert consultants that the NRC used to 2
evaluate environmental impacts from the potential 3
license renewal at the Vermont Yankee Plant. He is 4
from Argonne National Lab in the Chicago area. He is 5
an environmental engineer who has worked on a lot of 6
different projects, including the clean up of 7
contaminated sites, and he is a registered 8
environmental engineer and a registered geologist. He 9
has a Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University in 10 environmental engineering.
11 And I would just thank all of you for 12 being here and, if you could just hold your questions 13 until after we are done with the two NRC presentations 14 so that they can get all the information out to you, 15 and then the rest of the time is going to be for us to 16 listen to all of you today.
17 And with that, Richard, would you like to 18 give us the overview?
19 MR. EMCH: Can everybody hear me? Okay.
20 This slide talks about the purposes of 21 today's meeting, Chip has already gone through them in 22 brief, but I'll go through them again. We are here to 23 discuss the process, I'm going to give you information 24 about the license renewal process, I'm going to also 25
8 Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
Washington, D.C.
(202) 234-4433 give you a little more detailed information about the 1
environmental review process. We are going to talk to 2
you about the results of our review, and then we are 3
going to show you the rest of the review schedule and 4
then we are going to open it up to find out what 5
comments you folks have for us.
6 The underlying law, if you will, for the 7
Nuclear Regulatory Commission is the Atomic Energy Act.
8 Under the Atomic Energy Act, the NRC issues operating 9
licenses to nuclear power plants. Originally, those 10 licenses were issued for a 40-year operating term, that 11 40-year operating term was mostly designed for 12 antitrust purposes and for economic reasons, it really 13 wasn't of any belief that the plant could only last for 14 40 years or any safety reasons. The act also allows 15 licensees to apply for an extension or the renewal of 16 their license for 20 years.
17 It's the responsibility of the Nuclear 18 Regulatory Commission to regulate the civilian use of 19 nuclear materials and that includes nuclear power 20 plants. Our mission is threefold, to ensure the 21 adequate protection of public health and defense, 22 promote common defense and security, and protect the 23 environment. The operating, the current operating 24 license for Vermont Yankee will expire in March of 25
9 Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
Washington, D.C.
(202) 234-4433 2012. Entergy sent an application in, made an 1
application to extend the license, renew the license, 2
in January of 2006.
3 And we held a scoping meeting here in 4
June, June 7th I think it was, in fact probably a 5
number of you were here. At that time, I asked you to 6
give us information, we told you what we were going to 7
be doing and we asked, I asked you to give us 8
information that you thought we should be aware of 9
about environmental issues and a number of you took us 10 up on that. There is sort of a dual process underway 11 here, there is the safety review, which is in red 12 above, on the lines above, and there is the 13 environmental review which is in green.
14 You see in the middle there is a box 15 called hearings, it's important to note that an Atomic 16 Safety and Licensing Board hearing is going to occur 17 for this application. The New England Coalition had a 18 contention, an environmental contention, accepted and 19 the state of, or rather New England had a contention 20 accepted and the State of Vermont had some contentions 21 accepted, there are four safety contentions and one 22 environmental contention. In addition, the State of 23 New Hampshire is participating as an interested state, 24 Entergy and the NRC are the other parties in the 25
10 Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
Washington, D.C.
(202) 234-4433 hearing process.
1 The address at the bottom of the page is 2
where you can go to get more information about the 3
hearing process. You'll also see a box there that says 4
independent review, that's the, once the safety 5
evaluation has been written for the plant, on the 6
safety side, by a team that's lead by Jonathan Rowley.
7 Jonathan?
8 Okay, Jonathan Rowley is the safety 9
project manager. That document will be submitted for 10 review by the ACRS, Advisory Committee on Reactor 11 Safeguards, they provide an independent review of the 12 safety evaluation that is done by the staff and then 13 they provide their views on the review directly to the 14 Commission.
15 Along the green line at the bottom is the 16 environmental review, we'll publish the draft, the 17 environmental statement that we'll be talking about 18 tonight. All of those will be evaluated by the Nuclear 19 Regulatory Commission in its decision about the 20 application. The hearing process or the hearing itself 21 would occur some time after the final environmental 22 statement and the final safety evaluation report are 23 published. As part of the safety review, basically 24 what the safety team looks at is aging management, 25
11 Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
Washington, D.C.
(202) 234-4433 programs for aging management of systems, structures 1
and components in the plant, safety components in the 2
plant.
3 They do a review of the application, they 4
do on-site audits to evaluate the technical information 5
that has been provided by the licensee and inspectors 6
come to the site and evaluate the plant to make sure 7
that those programs are indeed in place, have been 8
implemented or are properly planned, then they issue 9
their environmental, then they issue their safety 10 evaluation report.
11 Again, as I mentioned, there is a review 12 by the Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards.
13 Before we get into, go further on the issue of license 14 renewal, we need to talk about some very important 15 issues; emergency preparedness, security and the day to 16 day operations, making sure that the current safety 17 performance of the plant are all appropriate and that's 18 what this slide is about.
19 All of these things are covered by current 20 processes, they are covered by, we have inspectors, and 21 as a matter of fact, we have inspectors, we have 22 resident inspectors and one of the resident inspectors 23 is here with us this afternoon, Beth, Beth Sienel.
24 These folks are assigned to the power plant and that's 25
12 Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
Washington, D.C.
(202) 234-4433 their place of business, they go there every day to 1
help make sure that the licensee is following the 2
rules, the NRC's rules. Because these things, these 3
issues which are very important, are being handled on a 4
day to day basis, they are being overseen by the NRC on 5
a day to day basis, we don't do a separate or a 6
reevaluation of these issues as part of license 7
renewal.
8 As I said, license renewal, on the safety 9
side, focuses on aging management programs. If you 10 need additional information about the way that, the 11 current performance, again there is a spot there at the 12 bottom that you can go to on the Internet.
13 This is a slightly more detailed version 14 or picture of the environmental review process, you can 15 see the application was received in January of 2006.
16 The application was received in January of 2006, we did 17 an audit in May and we held a scoping meeting here on 18 June 7th, I believe it was. We've been continuing the 19 environmental review and, as you can see, we published 20 the draft environmental statement in December. Hard 21 copies and CD disc copies of that report and statement 22 are out front. Many of you had it sent to you because 23 you signed up with us at the scoping meeting.
24 We are going to take all the comments that 25
13 Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
Washington, D.C.
(202) 234-4433 we get from you folks here tonight and all the comments 1
that are sent in writing or by e-mail and we are going 2
to evaluate those comments, consider everything and see 3
if it makes any changes, if it brings about any changes 4
on what we've already said in the preliminary decisions 5
and the environmental impact statement that we 6
published as a draft, and then we'll issue the final in 7
August of 2007. Again, the hearings will start shortly 8
after that. Once the hearings are concluded, then the 9
NRC will make a decision on the application.
10 This review is conducted under the 11 auspices of the National Environmental Policy Act of 12 1969, it's an environmental review. We have our own 13 regulation at the top there, 10 CFR Part 51, but it 14 tracks pretty closely with the NEPA regulations.
15 Basically, the NEPA regulations call for us to assess, 16 consider and disclose the impacts of the action that's 17 being taken, in this case, license renewal. NEPA also 18 calls for us to involve the public in our process, 19 that's why we had the scoping meeting here in June, 20 part of why we are having, and why we are having this 21 meeting now and why we have the comment process.
22 Many of you, as I said, gave us comments 23 during the scoping process, and we incorporated those 24 into the process and we'll incorporate whatever you 25
14 Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
Washington, D.C.
(202) 234-4433 give us here tonight into the process as well. You 1
will hear us talk about, we prepare an environmental 2
impact statement for each license renewal plant. Now 3
it is a supplement to what we call the generic 4
environmental impact statement, the generic 5
environmental impact statement was published in the 6
1990s and it was an assessment of all of the various 7
environmental issues that could be associated with 8
license renewal and, in that environmental impact 9
statement, the NRC drew generic conclusions about many 10 of the impact areas.
11 However, there were a number of impact 12 areas where they could not draw a generic conclusion 13 and therefore a major piece of our review, on a 14 plant-specific basis, is focused on those issues that 15 they could not declare as a generic impact. For the 16 ones where they do declare a generic impact, we have a 17 process where we look, search for what we call new and 18 significant information, that means any information 19 that might cause us to call into question the generic 20 impacts, the generic conclusions, and all of this will 21 be evaluated and is in draft form in the site-specific 22 supplemental environmental impact statement and it will 23 be in the final as well.
24 This is the decision standard, I'll give 25
15 Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
Washington, D.C.
(202) 234-4433 you a moment to read it. But my simple version of it 1
is, Is the environmental impact of an additional 20 2
years of operation of this plant acceptable? And 3
that's, again, my short version of the legal standard 4
that you see before you. The application was received 5
in January, the notice of intent was in April, again, 6
the scoping meeting was in June.
7 That's correct, ma'am, yes, I'm aware of 8
that. I don't know what to tell you, okay? We did a 9
meeting like this at Pilgrim last week, I'm extremely 10 embarrassed right now because I thought I had removed 11 all of the appropriate places where it should say 12 Vermont Yankee instead of Pilgrim. Pardon?
13 Well they are being reviewed at the same 14 time, I don't --.
15 MR. CAMERON: Okay, Richard, why don't you 16 just continue?
17 MR. EMCH: So, going on through the dates, 18 the scoping, the public meeting was June 7th, the end 19 of the scoping comments was June 23rd, our public, we 20 issued the draft in December and our meeting is tonight 21 for the public meeting, comments will be due by March 22 7th and the final SEIS will be issued in August of 23 2007.
24 At this time, I would like to ask Dr.
25
16 Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
Washington, D.C.
(202) 234-4433 Miller to come up and present the findings. Thank you.
1 MR. MILLER: Thank you, Rich.
2 Good afternoon. As Chip said, I'm David 3
Miller from Argonne National Lab.
4 And can everybody hear me okay? Great.
5 The NRC has contracted with Argonne to 6
evaluate the impacts of license renewal at Vermont 7
Yankee and the EIS team consists of scientists from 8
Argonne National Lab, as well as from the NRC staff.
9 The overall team and set of expertise is shown on this 10 slide and I'll review it quickly, we have atmospheric 11 science, socioeconomics and environmental justice, 12 archeology and historical resources, terrestrial 13 ecology, land use, radiation protection, nuclear 14 safety, regulatory compliance, aquatic ecology and 15 hydrology.
16 This slide describes the overall approach 17 used to evaluate the impacts in the supplemental 18 environmental impact statement. First, I would like to 19 give you some background. In the mid 1990s, the NRC 20 evaluated impacts of all operating nuclear power plants 21 across the country and Rich alluded to this in speaking 22 of the GEIS. In the GEIS, the NRC looked at 92 23 separate impact areas and found that, for 69 of the 24 issues, the impacts were the same for plants with 25
17 Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
Washington, D.C.
(202) 234-4433 similar features. NRC called these category one issues 1
and we were able to make the same or generic 2
determination about the impacts in the generic 3
environmental impact statement and that was issued in 4
1996.
5 The NRC was unable to make generic 6
conclusions about the remaining issues which were 7
called category two issues. As a consequence, NRC 8
decided to do site-specific supplemental EISs, such as 9
this one for Vermont Yankee.
10 Now this slide shows the process used to 11 evaluate category one and category two issues in the 12 Vermont Yankee EIS, the team evaluated all category one 13 issues relevant to Vermont Yankee to determine if the 14 conclusion of the generic EIS was still valid.
15 Specifically, we looked for any new and significant 16 information that might change that conclusion.
17 If we found no new and significant 18 information, then we adopted the conclusions of the 19 generic EIS. If new and significant information was 20 identified, then a site-specific analysis would be 21 performed for that issue. We did not find any new and 22 significant information for category one issues and, 23 for all these issues, we adopted the generic EIS.
24 For the category two issues relevant to 25
18 Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
Washington, D.C.
(202) 234-4433 Vermont Yankee, we performed site-specific analyses, 1
much of the EIS is devoted to the discussion of these 2
impacts. There is also this process to evaluate the 3
new potential issues in the EIS and these are things 4
that might have been identified during scoping or the 5
EIS analysis. Essential fish habitat was one of those 6
issues and an essential fish habitat assessment was 7
prepared for the Vermont Yankee EIS.
8 Now I would like to give you an idea of 9
how the impacts are quantified, the generic EIS, NRC 10 defined three levels, small, moderate and large. The 11 definitions used are consistent with guidance from the 12 Council on Environmental Quality and this is a 13 description of them. For a small impact, the effect is 14 either not detectable or is too small to destabilize or 15 noticeably alter any important attribute of the 16 resource. For a moderate impact, the effect is 17 sufficient to alter noticeably but not destabilize the 18 important attributes of the resource and for a large 19 impact, the effect is clearly noticeable and sufficient 20 to destabilize important attributes of the resource.
21 Now I'm going to use the Vermont Yankee 22 cooling system and its effect on aquatic resources in 23 the Connecticut River to illustrate how we use those 24 three criteria. The operation of Vermont Yankee 25
19 Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
Washington, D.C.
(202) 234-4433 cooling system effects aquatic resources through 1
entrainment, impingement and thermal shock. If the 2
loss of aquatic resources is so small that it can't be 3
detected in relation to the total population in the 4
river or does not destabilize the resource, we would 5
say that that impact was small. If losses cause 6
aquatic resources to decline and then stabilize at a 7
lower level, the impact would be considered moderate.
8 If losses cause aquatic resources to decline to the 9
point where they cannot be stabilized and continue to 10 decline, then the impact would be large.
11 When the EIS team evaluated impacts from 12 continued operation of Vermont Yankee, we considered 13 information from a wide variety of sources. We used 14 information in the license renewal application that was 15 included in the environmental report. We conducted a 16 site audit where our team went to the Vermont Yankee 17 site and interviewed plant personnel, toured the site 18 and reviewed documentation of plant operations. We 19 spoke with federal, state and local officials, 20 permitting authorities and social services and we 21 considered the comments received during the public 22 scoping meeting and public scoping process. All of 23 this information formed the basis for the analysis and 24 the preliminary conclusions in the Vermont Yankee EIS.
25
20 Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
Washington, D.C.
(202) 234-4433 The EIS considers the environmental 1
impacts of continued operation of the Vermont Yankee 2
Nuclear Power Station during the 20-year license 3
renewal term, that is 2012 to 2032. The impacts of 4
routine or normal operations were considered for the 5
cooling system, radiological impacts, threatened or 6
endangered species and cumulative impacts. The EIS 7
also considers the impacts of postulated accidents and 8
severe accident mitigation alternatives.
9 I'm going to spend some time on this 10 slide, one of the project features we looked at closely 11 is the cooling system impact and, I might add, I'll do 12 the same for a few other issues that are of importance 13 in this EIS.
14 Now, for the cooling system, there are 15 basically five category two aquatic ecology issues 16 relevant to the cooling system, these include water use 17 and impingement of fish and shellfish, heat shock and 18 the enhancement of populations of microbiological 19 organisms resulting from the discharge of warm water to 20 the river as a public health concern. For water use 21 conflicts, Vermont Yankee withdraws water from the 22 Vernon Pool in the Connecticut River which is 23 considered a small river. At times, the flow in the 24 river is low. A site-specific analysis was conducted 25
21 Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
Washington, D.C.
(202) 234-4433 that included evaluating water consumption from the 1
river under drought conditions and comparison of that 2
use to Vermont's state quality criteria.
3 Entrainment refers to the pulling of very 4
small aquatic organisms into the plant's cooling 5
system. Entrainment usually results in the mortality 6
of that organism. Vermont Yankee uses a hybrid cycle, 7
whereby cooling capacity can be provided by cooling 8
towers, that's called closed cycle, or it could be 9
provided solely by river water which is called open 10 cycle or it can be provided by a combination of the two 11 operations which is called the hybrid cycle. When 12 Vermont Yankee is only operating on cooling towers, 13 entrainment is known as a category one issue. In other 14 words, they are not withdrawing large volumes of water 15 from the river and so it would be treated as a generic 16 category one issue.
17 However, since it has the potential to 18 operate in the category, sorry, the open cycle mode 19 where it completely cools using river water, it's 20 treated, we treated it as a category two issue across 21 the board, so that meant that we did a site-specific 22 analysis for entrainment for the entire year.
23 Now this is also true for impingement and 24 heat shock and I'll describe impingement next.
25
22 Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
Washington, D.C.
(202) 234-4433 Impingement occurs when larger organisms are pulled 1
into the cooling system and pinned onto the debris 2
screens of the system. When Vermont Yankee is 3
operating only on the cooling towers, impingement isn't 4
of a, the magnitude isn't the same as when they are 5
operating in an open cycle so, once again, we treated 6
it as a category two issue and did a site-specific 7
analysis.
8 And then heat shock can occur when 9
relatively warm water is released into cooler water.
10 Aquatic organisms adapted to the cooler water can lose 11 equilibrium or die when exposed to significantly warmer 12 water. When Vermont Yankee is operating on the cooling 13 towers, once again, there is less of an impact from 14 thermal conditions, whereas when it's discharging its 15 water in the open cycle, the heated water in the open 16 cycle, we treat that as a category two issue so, once 17 again, we treated the whole thing as a category two 18 issue and did a site-specific analysis.
19 Finally, microbiological organisms, the 20 effects of microbiological organisms on human health 21 are listed as a category two issue and require a 22 site-specific evaluation for plants with closed cycle 23 cooling on a small river. The analysis considers 24 potential public health impacts associated with the 25
23 Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
Washington, D.C.
(202) 234-4433 thermal enhancement of enteric, that is intestinal 1
type, pathogens. Our review of the cooling system and 2
studies conducted on these issues suggested that the 3
potential impacts on these areas would be small.
4 Radiological impacts, they were determined 5
in the generic EIS to be a category one issue, that is 6
the impact of radiological releases during the nuclear 7
plant operations during the 20-year license renewal 8
period would be small. However, because these releases 9
are a concern to many people, I would like to discuss 10 them here. All nuclear plants release some 11 radiological effluents in the environment, although it 12 should be noted it's Vermont Yankee's operating policy 13 to not routinely release liquid radioactive effluents.
14 I'll get to that in a moment. This, once again, should 15 be Vermont Yankee.
16 MR. CAMERON: Okay, so, is that clear to 17 everybody? And we apologize if it's confusing, but 18 that should say preliminary findings regarding Vermont 19 Yankee, is that correct?
20 MR. MILLER: Yes, absolutely. No, I 21 wasn't on the Pilgrim team, I've written my notes to 22 this slide.
23 MR. CAMERON: Well it isn't generic.
24 MR. MILLER: I wrote my own notes to these 25
24 Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
Washington, D.C.
(202) 234-4433 slide shows, yes, I did.
1 MR. CAMERON: Okay, we are going to have 2
time to answer all of your questions, just note that 3
this should say Vermont Yankee and let him finish up.
4 MR. MILLER: Yeah, perhaps I could clarify 5
that in the--
6 MR. CAMERON: Then we'll get to you for, 7
we'll get to you. Yes, okay? All right, so, Sally, 8
let him go on and then we'll get to questions.
9 MR. MILLER: So we looked at how the 10 applicant determines and demonstrates that they are in 11 compliance with regulations for the release of 12 radiological effluents, we also looked at data from 13 on-site and near site locations that the applicant 14 monitors for airborne releases, and direct radiation 15 and other monitoring stations beyond the site boundary, 16 including locations where water, milk, fish and food 17 products are sampled. We found that the average 18 maximum and calculated doses for a member of the 19 public, even after the 20 percent uprate here at 20 Vermont Yankee, recently granted, would be within the 21 annual limits that are considered protective of human 22 health.
23 Since releases from the plant are not 24 expected to increase over the 20-year license renewal 25
25 Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
Washington, D.C.
(202) 234-4433 term and since we also found no new and significant 1
information related to this issue, we adopted the 2
generic EIS conclusion that the radiological impact on 3
human health and the environment is small.
4 This is on threatened and endangered 5
species, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service 6
determined that the bald eagle is the only federally 7
listed species under their jurisdiction that is known 8
to occur in the vicinity of Vermont Yankee. They 9
concluded that operations were unlikely to effect this 10 species.
11 The National Marine Fisheries Service was 12 also consulted. Based on these consultations and our 13 review, the staff's preliminary determination is that 14 the impact of operation of Vermont Yankee during the 15 license renewal period on threatened and endangered 16 species would be small.
17 Cumulative impacts of the proposed action, 18 together with other past, present and/or reasonably 19 foreseeable future actions, regardless of what agency 20 or person undertakes those actions, is what's 21 considered under the cumulative impacts. The staff 22 considered cumulative impacts in the following areas, 23 aquatic resources, terrestrial resources, radiological 24 impacts, socioeconomics and ground water use and 25
26 Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
Washington, D.C.
(202) 234-4433 quality. Cumulative impacts were evaluated to the end 1
of the 20-year license renewal term and the geographic 2
boundaries of the evaluation were dependent on the 3
resource. Our preliminary determination is that 4
cumulative impacts resulting from the operation of 5
Vermont Yankee during the license renewal period would 6
be small.
7 The team also looked at impacts related to 8
uranium fuel cycle and solid waste management in 9
decommissioning of Vermont Yankee. In the GEIS, NRC 10 considered impact areas associated with these topics as 11 category one issues. Our team found no new related, no 12 related new and significant information and therefore 13 adopted NRC's generic conclusion that impacts in these 14 areas were small.
15 Alternatives. We looked at the, the EIS 16 team evaluated a number of alternatives to license 17 renewal to the existing plant. Specifically, we looked 18 at the impacts of replacing Vermont Yankee's power with 19 power from other sources, Vermont Yankee has a capacity 20 of 650 megawatts. The team looked at a no action 21 alternative, that is not renewing the license, 22 development of the new generation from coal fired, gas 23 fired and new nuclear to replace the 650 megawatts, 24 purchase power to replace Vermont Yankee's capacity, 25
27 Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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(202) 234-4433 other technologies such as oil, wood, wind, solar and 1
hydropower to replace the capacity and a combination of 2
alternatives.
3 In this case, we looked at a combination 4
of natural gas generation, conservation and purchase 5
power to replace Vermont Yankee's generating capacity.
6 For each alternative, we looked at the same types of 7
issues that we look at for operation of the Vermont 8
Yankee plant during the license renewal term. The 9
team's preliminary conclusion is that the environmental 10 impacts of alternatives would reach moderate to large 11 significance in at least some impact categories, 12 primarily due to the need for new construction.
13 Preliminary conclusions. To summarize our 14 conclusions for the category one issues presented in 15 the generic EIS that relate to the Vermont Yankee 16 plant, we found no information that was both new and 17 significant. Therefore, we have preliminary adopted 18 the conclusion that impacts associated with these 19 issues are small. In the Vermont Yankee EIS, we 20 analyzed the remaining category two issues pertinent to 21 the Vermont Yankee plant and we determined that the 22 environmental impacts resulting from these issues were 23 also small. Lastly, we found that the environmental 24 effects of alternatives, at least in some impact 25
28 Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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(202) 234-4433 categories, could reach moderate or large significance.
1 I'm going to switch gears a little bit and 2
present the findings of the accident analysis for 3
Vermont Yankee. We have Mr. Robert Palla in the 4
audience today, he is the one from NRC who is 5
responsible for this portion of the analysis. The EIS 6
evaluated two classes of accidents, design-basis 7
accidents and severe accidents. Design-basis accidents 8
are those accidents that the plant is designed to 9
withstand without risk to the public; the ability of 10 the plant to withstand these accidents has to be 11 demonstrated before the plant is granted a license.
12 Since the licensee has to demonstrate 13 acceptable plant performance for the design-basis 14 accidents through the life of the plant, the Commission 15 found, in the generic EIS, that the environmental 16 impact of design-basis accident is small for all 17 plants.
18 The second category of accidents evaluated 19 in the generic EIS are severe accidents; severe 20 accidents are by definition more severe than 21 design-basis accidents because they would result in 22 substantial damage to the reactor core. The Commission 23 found, in the generic EIS, that the risk of a severe 24 accident is small for all plants.
25
29 Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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(202) 234-4433 Nevertheless, the Commission determined 1
that alternatives to mitigate severe accidents must be 2
considered for all plants that have not done so. There 3
is a term they use for this, those alternatives are 4
termed SAMA, S-A-M-A. The SAMA evaluation is a 5
site-specific assessment and is a category two issue, 6
as we explained earlier about category two. The 7
purpose of performing the SAMA evaluation is to ensure 8
that the plant changes with the potential for improving 9
severe accident safety performance are identified and 10 evaluated.
11 The scope of potential plant improvements 12 that were considered included hardware modifications, 13 procedural changes, training program improvements and 14 basically a full spectrum of potential changes. The 15 scope includes SAMAs that would prevent core damage as 16 well as SAMAs that would improve containment 17 performance, given that a core damage event occurs.
18 The preliminary results of the Vermont Yankee SAMA 19 evaluation are summarized on this slide. There were 20 302 candidate improvements identified for the Vermont 21 Yankee plant. The number of candidate SAMAs was 22 reduced to 66 based on a multi-step screening process, 23 then a more detailed assessment of the risk reduction 24 potential and implementation costs was then performed 25
30 Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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(202) 234-4433 for each of those 66 remaining SAMAs.
1 A total of two SAMAs were identified as 2
potentially cost-beneficial by Entergy. In response to 3
NRC staff inquiries, four additional potentially cost-4 beneficial SAMAs were identified. None of the 5
potentially cost-beneficial SAMAs are relating to the 6
managing the effects of plant aging during the period 7
of extended operation. Accordingly, they aren't 8
required to be implemented as part of the license 9
renewal, pursuant to 10 CFR Part 54. Regardless, the 10 NRC staff considers that further evaluation of the 11 potentially cost-beneficial SAMAs by Entergy is 12 warranted. Since the draft SEIS was issued, Entergy 13 has indicated they are evaluating the potentially cost-14 beneficial SAMAs for possible implementation.
15 Now I would like to turn this back to Chip 16 or Rich, I guess, has a few more slides.
17 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Dave.
18 MR. EMCH: Thank you, Dave.
19 I just want to highlight three milestones 20 for the review. We issued the draft environmental 21 statement on December 13th and the end of the comment 22 period is March 7th, and again, we will be issuing the 23 final environmental statement after we have evaluated 24 all the comments that you folks give us in August of 25
31 Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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(202) 234-4433 2007. There are several ways where you can get 1
information about the document or see the document, if 2
you don't have it. Of course, as we mentioned, you can 3
pick up a copy at the front of the room, the front of 4
the theater, there are also copies of the environmental 5
statement at these libraries in New Hampshire, 6
Massachusetts and in Vermont.
7 The contact information for me is at the 8
top of this slide and you can also view the draft 9
environmental statement on the NRC's Internet web site 10 at the address that's on the slide. Now, how do you 11 submit comments? The first and foremost method is by 12 you being here tonight and we are going to have an 13 opportunity here, just in a few minutes, for you to 14 give us your comments. As Chip has already indicated, 15 they will be transcribed and they will be made public.
16 The next way is you can send them to us by mail at the 17 address on the slide.
18 Another very common way, a method that 19 many of you used during the scoping period was to send 20 them to us by e-mail to the VermontYankeeEIS address 21 that's on the slide and then, finally, if you had some 22 reason to be in Rockville, Maryland, you can deliver 23 them in person to us at the address there.
24 That completes my remarks tonight. Again, 25
32 Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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(202) 234-4433 I want to thank all of you for coming out and helping 1
us with this review. Sam, can you put the last slide 2
that has the submitting comments on it back up?
3 MR. CAMERON: And why don't we just keep 4
that up there so that people can have enough time to do 5
that.
6 MR. EMCH: Sure.
7 MR. CAMERON: And are we ready to go to 8
questions? Just to emphasize what we said before is 9
that all of the information on these slides, and of 10 course all of the information in the draft 11 environmental impact statement, are specific to the 12 Vermont Yankee license renewal and we apologize for any 13 confusion that might be caused. We have time for some 14 questions on process, whatever, and if you could just 15 please introduce yourself to us?
16 MS. CASA: My name is Kate Casa, I'm with 17 the Commons newspaper. What happens if the NRC 18 approves the license extension but the state does not, 19 in fact the state says no?
20 MR. CAMERON: This sounds like we should 21 probably turn to our representative from the Office of 22 General Counsel who is here, Steve Hamrick.
23 Steve, can we provide any information on 24 that?
25
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(202) 234-4433 MR. HAMRICK: At this point, there are a 1
number of aspects of the regulation that are state 2
governed. It is not clear, at this point, whether or 3
not the state has authority to keep the renewal from 4
happening. The federal government has what's known as 5
preemption on certain issues, health and safety issues, 6
and so it's the federal government that takes care of 7
the license, so it's the federal government that issues 8
the license and, as far as the federal government is 9
concerned, the plant can, if the license is issued and 10 renewed, the plant can proceed.
11 MR. CAMERON: And just to clarify on that, 12 Kate, there are certain permits that the license 13 applicant has to get from either state agencies or 14 other federal agencies and if they, they need to get 15 those permits to operate, okay? That's correct, right?
16 MR. HAMRICK: Yes, there are NPDES 17 permits, which is the water permits under the Clean 18 Water Act, it's a State of Vermont issue. There is 19 also a Certificate of Public Good, which is a State of 20 Vermont issue, which has to do with the need for power 21 and electrical generation; that's a state issue. So 22 there are other aspects that belong in the state's 23 court.
24 MR. CAMERON: So, generally, the license 25
34 Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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(202) 234-4433 applicant also has to get those permits. There may be 1
some state approvals that fall into this preemption 2
area that Steve was talking about, but generally, the 3
license applicant has to get the other permits in order 4
to be able to operate.
5 MS. CASA: Thank you.
6 MR. CAMERON: You're welcome.
7 Yes, ma'am? And can you just introduce 8
yourself?
9 MS. STAMAS: I'm Emma Stamas and I'm not 10 affiliated with any particular organization, but I 11 recently read that the courts decided that the nuclear 12 power industry did indeed have to evaluate the threat 13 of terrorism for each nuclear plant, especially those 14 under review for extension of licenses and so forth, 15 but even every plant and every storage facility. And I 16 would like to know why the threat of terrorism wasn't 17 specifically evaluated and reviewed for this particular 18 plant, not only for the plant but also for the control 19 rods, the spent fuel rods that are in makeshift storage 20 pools?
21 MR. CAMERON: Okay, thanks, Emma.
22 We are going to go to Steve Hamrick again 23 from our Office of General Counsel to explain that. It 24 is a little bit confusing.
25
35 Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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(202) 234-4433 Steve?
1 MR. HAMRICK: That's correct, there was a 2
decision that came out of the 9th Circuit Court of 3
Appeals, which is out in California, with respect to a 4
spent fuel storage facility and, in that case, they, 5
that court said that the NRC, when it does an 6
environmental impact statement, should address the 7
impacts of terrorism. The Commission has not yet, that 8
decision was appealed by the licensee in that case to 9
the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court decided not to 10 hear the appeal. That happened very recently, like 11 last week, I believe.
12 At this point, the Commission has not 13 decided, they have not told us how they would like to 14 deal with that situation, they have not given us 15 guidance yet so, at this point, we are awaiting 16 guidance from the Commission for them to tell us how we 17 should be going about interpreting that decision in our 18 EISs.
19 MR. CAMERON: And one of the important 20 things, I guess two important things to understand 21 about the decision is, I guess first of all and most 22 importantly, it dealt with how the NRC would look at 23 security issues, terrorism issues, in the context of an 24 environmental impact statement and we do look at 25
36 Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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(202) 234-4433 security considerations as a part of regulating any of 1
these plants.
2 MR. HAMRICK: This case was limited 3
strictly to the evaluation in an EIS, an environmental 4
impact statement. The court went to great pains to 5
make sure that everyone understood, when they're 6
reading it, that it was not a discussion of the NRC's 7
security requirements, it was limited strictly to the 8
NRC's evaluation of these risks and impacts in an EIS.
9 MR. CAMERON: So that discussion was right 10 in the court's opinion?
11 MR. HAMRICK: Correct, yes.
12 MR. CAMERON: Let me go to Sally, and then 13 Gary has a question and I think we probably, all right.
14 Well that's up to you, if you want to go home, but we 15 are here after the meeting, if you want to talk 16 further to Steve. But let me just get these couple 17 other questions and then let's go to comments and, if 18 we have time before the end of the meeting, we can go 19 back to questions, including back to explaining this in 20 more detail.
21 Sally? Sally Shaw.
22 MS. SHAW: May I have permission to go 23 from a question right into my comment because I have to 24 leave to pick up my daughter at the school bus?
25
37 Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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(202) 234-4433 MR. CAMERON: Let me, yeah, do that.
1 MS. SHAW: All right, I'll make it quick.
2 I have to leave in three minutes.
3 MR. CAMERON: Okay.
4 MS. SHAW: Okay. The process question is 5
I thought this meeting was for the purpose of the NRC 6
hearing from the public, so I think the back and forth 7
with questions and answers does not serve that interest 8
very well in that there are a lot of people here and 9
you are going to run out of time. So, after saying 10 that, I'm going to try to make it quick. My primary 11 concern is that, as was in evidence with the slides 12 that referred to Pilgrim and not from Yankee, that this 13 is really not an environmental impact statement for 14 Vermont Yankee and the communities who are suffering 15 the effects of Vermont Yankee, but it is more 16 accurately terms an environmental insult statement.
17 The good news is that, as an ecologist, I 18 can tell you that environmental systems are very 19 resilient, natural systems are very resilient, but they 20 only restore themselves if you stop the environmental 21 insults, and then they can restore themselves. If you 22 continue to insult them, they will continue to degrade.
23 My primary concern here is that the GEIS, 24 the generic environmental impact statement, which I've 25
38 Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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(202) 234-4433 already spoken about at an earlier meeting, and the 1
assumptions behind your supplemental environmental 2
impact statement are based on erroneous and incomplete 3
information, and therefore, your environmental review 4
is neither thorough nor conservative. It has not been 5
properly done.
6 Since there is a petition for rule making 7
questioning the scientific basis of the radiation 8
standards and calculations in the GEIS, which is still 9
in the comment period until February 5th, you can find 10 information about this petition on the Federal Register 11 web site, the environmental review cannot be considered 12 complete until those issues are resolved and a decision 13 is made whether the generic environmental impact 14 statement accurately reflects risks or needs to be 15 revised.
16 Therefore, I hereby petition you to halt 17 the license renewal process of Vermont Yankee while the 18 petition for rule making on the adequacy of radiation 19 standards and risk factors in the GEIS is pending and 20 until a full review and reconciliation of the radiation 21 standards consistent with BEIR 7 and other current 22 scientific studies of health effects of low-level 23 ionizing radiation, external and internal, is 24 undertaken. Then you can apply these more realistic 25
39 Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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(202) 234-4433 standards to your estimates of early fatalities, latent 1
mortality and radiation caused injuries that would be 2
expected from continued operation of Entergy-Vermont 3
Yankee under normal operating and accident scenarios.
4 These data are of intimate concern to 5
those of us living in Windham, Cheshire and Franklin 6
Counties, the Vermont Yankee sacrifice zone. I would 7
also like to present to you for your consideration this 8
new and significant information. From 1999 to 2002, 9
the Windham County cancer death rate was 12.7 percent 10 above other Vermont counties based on 451 deaths during 11 this four-year period. However, the death rate for all 12 other causes in Windham County was only 1.7 percent 13 greater. The source of this information is the 14 National Center for Health Statistics at the Centers 15 for Disease Control. Some factors causing Windham 16 County residents to die in excessive numbers from 17 cancer and not from other causes, reasons for the high 18 death rates need to be understood.
19 Number two. Since 1979, the Windham 20 County death rate exceeded the rest of the state by 19 21 percent for infants, 38 percent for children and 22 adolescents and 30 percent for young adults. High 23 death rates for these 243 persons include cancer, birth 24 defects and other causes. This information came from 25
40 Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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(202) 234-4433 the same source, the CDC. Why should Windham County 1
have high death rates? There is no obvious reason.
2 The county is nearly identical to the state in percent 3
of minorities and foreign born residents and 4
educational, poverty and income levels.
5 Reasons accounting for the high death 6
rates need to be understood. Emissions from Vermont 7
Yankee must be considered as one possible factor. For 8
years, scientists have agreed that radiation is much 9
more toxic to the very young. Our local children and 10 young adults have lived all their lives with Vermont 11 Yankee releasing radioactivity and have never breathed 12 air or drunk water without this radioactivity. How do 13 the infant mortality rates compare to the rest of the 14 state? How do the premature births and, what do you 15 call them, miscarriages rates compare to the rest of 16 the state? This information needs to be systematically 17 investigated.
18 I'm going to stop there, although I have 19 pages more, because I need to go pick up my dear 20 daughter at the bus.
21 MR. CAMERON: Thank you very much, Sally.
22 We are going to continue on with the 23 comments and hopefully we'll be able to answer 24 questions later on. Our next two speakers, we are 25
41 Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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(202) 234-4433 going to go to Dr. Patrick Moore, and if you want to 1
come up, and then we are going to go to Thomas Salmon.
2 Go ahead, right up. Okay, Sally, let's, Sally, you can 3
perhaps be able to do that some time or later, but 4
let's let him talk and we'll see you later tonight.
5 Then we are going to go to--
6 MR. MOORE: Cat calls and derision have 7
actually no impact on my statement.
8 MR. CAMERON: Okay, let's hear Dr. Moore's 9
statement, please.
10 MR. MOORE: And in fact my comments are 11 relatively generic with regard to the nuclear energy 12 industry in general and energy in general.
13 I would just like to point out off the top 14 that I've spent the last 35 years as an environmental 15 activist and Ph.D. ecologist trying to understand how 16 we can continue to gain the energy, materials, food 17 that we require for survival every day while at the 18 same time working to change our behaviors and our 19 technologies in ways that result in reduced negative 20 impacts to the environment. To me, that is basically, 21 in a nutshell, the definition of sustainability.
22 We have to face the fact that there are 23 six and a half billion people who wake up every morning 24 on this planet who need resources in order to survive.
25
42 Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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(202) 234-4433 We have to keep mining, logging, fishing, growing food 1
and all these other things, and producing energy, and 2
we have to do it in ways, intelligently, where we can 3
hope that it will be more sustainable for the future, 4
especially when that means technologies that we apply.
5 The 103 nuclear plants that are now 6
operating in the United States, producing 20 percent of 7
the U.S.'s electricity, half of that, by the way, is 8
using dismantled Soviet warheads, Russian warheads, for 9
the power source as a result of the reduction in 10 nuclear arms, the equivalent of 100 million cars taken 11 off the road, if that same power was being produced by 12 coal, which 50 percent of our power is produced by.
13 That's a lot of cars, that's a lot of CO2.
14 There is no other power source that 15 results in a larger mitigation of greenhouse gas 16 emissions than nuclear energy, so at least it must be 17 given credit on that count. Coming to the State of 18 Vermont, Vermont can be proud of the fact that it has 19 the lowest carbon dioxide emissions per capita of any 20 state in the country. In the case of many states, 21 twice as low. There is only one reason for that and 22 that is the mix of your electric supply, the fact that 23 over two thirds of your electric supply is 24 non-greenhouse gas emitting, the hydro and the nuclear, 25
43 Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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(202) 234-4433 the largest ones by far, and then a small amount of 1
biomass, such as heating the state capital, which is 2
also carbon neutral, and a little bit of wind, you 3
could use more of that.
4 You have an environmentally enviable 5
record and you've got to keep Vermont Yankee running if 6
you want to keep that record because there is no plans 7
for any non-CO2 emitting alternatives at present and 8
certainly none under construction. Again, I suggest 9
that you try and figure out your little argument about 10 where the wind power should be and get some windmills 11 in this state, maybe you can get five percent of your 12 electricity from wind, if you actually build some wind 13 farms, and Vermont should engage with the heightened 14 national dialogue on climate change.
15 Now that the democrats are in control of 16 Congress, there is going to be a much larger emphasis 17 on environmental issues, climate change being the most 18 important one. You can demonstrate that you are a 19 model with the lowest CO2 emissions in the country, and 20 you should get the credit for this in the ongoing 21 dialogue so that people can see how you did it. The 22 people who decided to buy the hydro and build a nuclear 23 didn't even know about climate change when those 24 decisions were made, but they were rather prescient; in 25
44 Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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(202) 234-4433 retrospect, they made decisions that gave you the best 1
carbon footprint in the country.
2 MR. CAMERON: Excuse me, this is, let's 3
listen to his comment and just like we are going to 4
listen to everybody's comments.
5 MR. MOORE: There is legitimate concern 6
about the future of the used nuclear fuel stored 7
on-site at Vermont Yankee. Thankfully, there is a new 8
impetus to establish a nuclear fuel recycling industry 9
in the United States, as has already been established 10 in France, the U.K., Japan and Russia. Ninety-five 11 percent of the original energy is still contained in 12 the used fuel, recycling or reprocessing, as it is also 13 known, allows the recovery of this energy in the form 14 of uranium and plutonium, results in a much reduced and 15 shorter-lived waste in the form of the fission products 16 that can be glassified and buried.
17 The nuclear renaissance is a worldwide 18 phenomenon, from Finland to Canada, to Australia to 19 China, Russia, and India and many other countries are 20 planning new nuclear construction now. In fact the 21 stigma against nuclear energy has largely been a North 22 American phenomenon over the past 30 years, another 23 area are the German speaking countries, but most 24 countries have moved ahead with nuclear during the time 25
45 Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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(202) 234-4433 that the United States has been more or less calm on 1
the subject.
2 Vermont should be part of the renaissance, 3
both as a way of reducing CO2 and the threat of climate 4
change, yes, indeed, I think a lot of energy should be 5
spent on ending the war in Iraq, the way to reduce 6
reliance of fossil fuels from politically unstable, 7
speaking of Iraq, and potentially hostile regions, so 8
it's got to do with energy security, just as much as it 9
has to do with climate change.
10 I believe that nuclear energy is the only 11 large baseload source of electricity that can 12 effectively reduce fossil fuel consumption while at the 13 same time satisfying the growing global demand for 14 power. A final point on efficiency and conservation, 15 both of which are very important, efficiency being 16 improvements in technology, conservation being changes 17 in behavior. As I like to put it, conservation is 18 turning a light out when you leave the room, efficiency 19 is swapping out the incandescent bulb for a compact 20 fluorescent one.
21 Since 1973, the U.S. economy has grown by 22 157 percent. In that same time, energy production and 23 consumption has increased by only 32 percent, that is a 24 very clear measure of the effectiveness of conservation 25
46 Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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(202) 234-4433 and efficiency practiced by American individual 1
citizens and businesses. This will continue into the 2
future, no doubt. With that, I'll end my comments.
3 Thank you very much.
4 MR. CAMERON: Okay, thank you, thank you.
5 Thank you very much, Dr. Moore.
6 And please, just like everybody is going 7
to have their chance, everybody is going to have their 8
chance to come down here and comment, and we are not 9
going to let anybody heckle someone up here, okay?
10 So now we have the next three speakers, we 11 are going to go to former Governor Thomas Salmon, and 12 then we are going to go to Claire Chang and then to 13 Gary Sachs.
14 Governor Salmon?
15 MR. SALMON: Good afternoon. My name is 16 Thomas P. Salmon, I live in Rockingham in this county.
17 I served two terms as Vermont Governor in the `70s and 18 at least six years as President of the University of 19 Vermont in the `90s. Along life's pathway, served some 20 17 years as Chair of the Board of Green Mountain Power 21 Company, Vermont's second largest investor-owned 22 utility, and I'll try to be very brief.
23 Unlike Dr. Moore, I am not a scientist.
24 Dr. Moore is one of the most gifted scientists I have 25
47 Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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(202) 234-4433 ever met. And frankly, these snide comments don't add 1
anything to this public hearing where the NRC is 2
attempting to get a broad range of everybody's 3
perspective, everybody's point of view, consistent with 4
a great Vermont tradition of inordinate respect for the 5
ideas, the thoughts, the perspectives of all of its 6
citizens.
7 Let me simply, let me simply say this, 8
there is a quite amazing phenomena going on in Vermont 9
here and now and Dr. Moore alluded to it, and the buzz 10 words are about climate change. Can you believe that 11 the first three weeks, the first three full weeks of 12 Vermont legislative session has been dedicated to 13 bringing in whole series of speakers from a variety of 14 perspectives on the subject of climate change? And 15 what is most remarkable about this, as again was 16 largely covered in Dr. Moore's remarks, is that the 17 brave little State of Vermont leads this nation in the 18 context of its energy portfolio contributing the very 19 least of carbon dioxide and other noxious substances 20 ingested into the environment.
21 And that's something that all of us, all 22 of us, ought to care about and ought to be concerned 23 about and the reason for that again was covered but it 24 relates to, yes, this nuclear facility in Vernon, a few 25
48 Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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(202) 234-4433 short miles down the road, and it relates to the wisdom 1
of entering into long-term contracts with Hydro Quebec 2
for hydroelectric power. And now the issue is how can 3
Vermont, which is now number one, as the cleanest state 4
in the Union on the CO2 and related issues front, 5
somehow strive diligently to hold onto its position and 6
to hold onto that position. It is not rocket science 7
to understand that relicensure of this nuclear facility 8
would add vitally to our quest for continuing baseload 9
reliable and cost effective energy, as would success in 10 artful negotiations with our friends in Quebec to 11 replicate in some significant way the hydroelectric 12 contracts of the 1980s.
13 Now even if we are hugely successful in 14 this quest, we can make a contribution to the nation, 15 we can make a contribution by showing our leadership 16 here in this state. Our contribution will not show up 17 so much as a speck on the horizon in terms of reversing 18 the trend of climate change in this country but our 19 leadership potential is significant and greatly in a 20 significant potential fulfillment.
21 Now if the decision were, for whatever set 22 of reasons, not to relicense this plant and an 23 inability to renew the Hydro Quebec contracts, the 24 natural and probable consequence of that is rather 25
49 Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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(202) 234-4433 clear, we would move for our energy supplies, with no 1
plans whatsoever to pursue other alternatives at the 2
present time, to the spot market of America, when it 3
comes to electric energy, and we would find that market 4
inordinately expensive.
5 And we would find the enviable position we 6
find ourselves in, as a non-toxic state, moving sadly 7
the other way and such would not enure well from either 8
an environmental or an economic perspective to the 9
people of the State of Vermont because arguably beneath 10 the surface, in my view at least, the most compelling 11 issue facing our people here and now is our demographic 12 profile. We our losing our young people between the 13 ages of 25 and 44 and people between 45 and 65 are 14 emerging as the dominant class in the state and, if 15 that trend continues, in very, very few years, we'll 16 have the most senior population in all of these United 17 States per capita, and that is a subject of profound 18 and considerable concern in terms of how we, with a 19 reduced base of citizens, remain capable to serve the 20 needs of all of our citizens.
21 Thank you.
22 (Applause) 23 MR. CAMERON: Thank you. Thank you very 24 much, Governor Salmon.
25
50 Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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(202) 234-4433 Now let's go to Gary, Gary Sachs, and then 1
we'll go to Claire Chang.
2 MR. SACHS: First off, if I might, I'm 3
Gary Sachs, resident of Brattleboro. I'd like to 4
respond to something I heard Dr. Moore say, which is 5
that we do not currently have, developed any 6
replacement sources for our electrical generation here 7
in Vermont, to which I would say, since 1940, roughly 8
1948 to 1999, there was $150 billion put to energy 9
research and development, $145 billion of that went to 10 nuclear, $5 billion went to replacement sources. I 11 believe that is one of the reasons why we currently are 12 behind the eight ball, as is everywhere in the country.
13 I do wish you would get your facts and your science 14 straight, sir.
15 Of the 32 boiling water reactors that are 16 still in operation, there are 24 that have mark one 17 containments, it's only this one that interests me, the 18 one that's five miles from here. The NRC is attempting 19 to conceal the fact that a large release of 20 radioactivity as a result of a terrorist attack on this 21 structure is entirely possible, which is according to a 22 Congressionally mandated study by the National Academy 23 of Science. There is no mention of the word terrorism 24 in the entire EIS, I've read it.
25
51 Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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(202) 234-4433 Nearly 3,000 Americans died on 9/11.
1 Since then, more than 3,000 Americans have died 2
fighting terrorism. Roughly 70,000, if we could know, 3
Iraqi civilians have died, I'm sorry, civilians, 4
terrorists, insurgents, whatever one chooses to call 5
them, have died, Iraqi citizens, and the NRC considers 6
it okay to not include the word terrorism in it's 7
environmental impact statement.
8 I believe Vermont Yankee deserves an 9
independent, site-specific analysis. In this 10 environmental impact statement, any environmental, 11 economic, employment, sociological impacts and costs of 12 routine radiation releases that will, as the course of 13 operation, result from this license extension, they are 14 simply denied with no evaluation.
15 There is no evaluation of the probability 16 that security protocol is adequate, this is even 17 though, in 2001, not even one month prior to 9/11, 18 Vermont Yankee had the notorious rating as the least 19 secure reactor in the country, that's as the result of 20 the operational safety response evaluation test of the 21 NRC. Vermont Yankee has repeatedly said, since 9/11, 22 that they have invested $8 million strengthening their 23 defenses, upgrading their security systems. So what?
24 I don't know if that's any more or any less than the 25
52 Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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(202) 234-4433 Pilgrim reactor, or the Monticello reactor, or any 1
other boiling water reactor or PWR, pressurized water 2
reactor, for that matter, in this country.
3 All we here can know is that we started on 4
9/11/01 with the least secure reactor in the country, 5
as determined by NRC tests. Maybe it's more secure 6
now, maybe not. There is no assessment of the 7
environmental, the economic, employment or sociological 8
impacts and costs if this environmental impact study, 9
or your regulation or your insight, or your oversight 10 of this industry, excuse me, is not adequate to prevent 11 an uncontrolled and catastrophic release of radioactive 12 nuclides. You have no analysis of the probability the 13 plant management procedures actually can prevent an 14 uncontrolled catastrophic release of radiation or of 15 the environmental, economic, employment and 16 sociological impacts if those procedures are not 17 sufficient to prevent such a release.
18 These flaws are fatal, they are not 19 particularly difficult to understand. Information that 20 allows the environmental impact statement to avoid 21 these flaws is readily available on the record. If 22 that information is rejected and this document is 23 deemed adequate, it's only, it will only be because 24 decision makers are intent on substituting their 25
53 Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
Washington, D.C.
(202) 234-4433 opinions, the privileges of nuclear theology for common 1
sense, common decency, verifiable substance and the 2
rule of law. This draft environmental impact statement 3
includes the NRC's staff's analysis that considers and 4
weighs the environmental impacts of the proposed 5
action, its environmental impacts of alternatives to 6
the proposed action and mitigation measures available 7
for reducing and avoiding adverse impacts, that's taken 8
directly from the abstract.
9 This recommendation made in the 10 environmental impact statement is based on the analysis 11 and findings in the GEIS, which was written ten years 12 ago, it's not site-specific and among other things, 13 it's written based on the NRC staff's consideration of 14 public comments received during the scoping process.
15 One of those public comments was mine in reference to 16 the BEIR 7 report released by the National Academy of 17 Science in 2006. Apparently the NRC decided that this 18 new study by America's top scientists was not good 19 enough to warrant consideration to upset the generic 20 environmental impact statement.
21 Terrorism must be considered here on a 22 site-specific basis. Oh, actually, I did have, I 23 wanted to briefly, if I could, respond to something you 24 said, Counselor, when you said that you do not believe 25
54 Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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(202) 234-4433 the state has the ability to intervene or, I forget the 1
verb you used, to, oh, that the federal government has 2
precedent, can, preemptive power over, in terms of 3
approval, what the state's ability is, for health and 4
safety, correct. We are in a regulated state.
5 When Entergy took over and purchased this 6
reactor in 2002, very clearly on July 2nd of that year, 7
in the Public Service Board hearing room, they said to 8
the Public Service Board that if the Public Service 9
Board determines that Entergy stop, they will heed what 10 the Public Service Board says, thus the state level, 11 not the federal level.
12 I thought I would clarify that for you.
13 (Applause) 14 MR. CAMERON: Okay, thank you. Thank you 15 very much, Gary.
16 And now we are going to go to Claire.
17 This is Claire Chang.
18 MS. CHANG: Hi. I'm Claire Chang. I have 19 a PowerPoint presentation, I would like to invite, 20 please, come up on stage. I have a PowerPoint 21 presentation that I would like to have up on stage.
22 MR. CAMERON: Claire, what are you doing?
23 MS. CHANG: They will just be my 24 PowerPoint presentation. I don't, I'm not allowed to 25
55 Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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(202) 234-4433 have slides up there, so these are my slides.
1 MR. CAMERON: Okay, I'll tell you what, 2
let's get them up here and let's do your presentation.
3 MS. CHANG: Thank you.
4 MR. CAMERON: Come on, ladies, and then we 5
are going to ask you to step down after that. Okay, 6
Claire, go ahead.
7 MS. CHANG: So my name is Claire Chang and 8
one thing I wanted to say was if we had a catastrophic 9
event at Vermont Yankee, we need an evacuation plan, we 10 need a number of first responders, we need a number of 11 measures that we need to take but, if we have a 12 catastrophic event at a wind turbine or at a solar 13 panel array, would we need evacuation routes or first 14 emergency responders? I don't think so. Louder?
15 Really? Do we need that repeated, what I said 16 previously, to those in the back? So, if there is a 17 catastrophic event at a wind turbine or at a solar 18 panel array, would we need first responders, or an 19 evacuation route, or FEMA, or the Vermont Emergency 20 Management Association or agency to come down and 21 rescue us? No.
22 But from Vermont Yankee, we do, and that 23 is part, I think, of what the impact is of having that 24 power plant within sight, and within smell and within 25
56 Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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(202) 234-4433 hearing range, because we hear the sirens every 1
Saturday at noon telling us what we might do if there 2
was a catastrophic event. Yet none of those plans or 3
measures are taken into account in the environmental 4
impact statement, neither is the event of a terrorist 5
attack and even not a terrorist attack, if there is any 6
other kind of mishap that happens.
7 And the National Academy of Sciences has 8
already said that the spent fuel pool, which isn't 9
included, I didn't see it on the slide, but maybe the 10 gentleman hadn't prepared the slide and so the spent 11 fuel pool isn't included in the slides, about it being 12 70 feet up in the air, outside of containment, in a tin 13 swimming pool, basically.
14 And if that swimming pool were breached, 15 the water would start leaking out, and it doesn't all 16 have to disappear, just some of that water needs to go 17 and those fuel rods would start igniting on their own 18 because even though they are spent fuel rods, they are 19 actually highly radioactive, more radioactive than the 20 fuel rods that go into the reactor. And those fuel 21 rods would start igniting and there would not be an 22 explosion but there would be a fire, a very, very long 23 lasting fire that would basically release radioactivity 24 into the air and potentially contaminate 25,000 square 25
57 Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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(202) 234-4433 miles. That's about 90 miles radius and, depending on 1
how wind blows that day, who would get affected, but it 2
would be a majority of New England, and that's all of 3
us sitting in this room and I think that needs to be 4
included in the environmental impact statement.
5 Now Hellen Caldecott has written this 6
book, it's called Nuclear Power is not the Answer, it's 7
not the answer to our energy problem, it's not the 8
answer to global warming and it's, but it is the answer 9
for Entergy to make lots and lots of money and it is 10 the answer for us, as the common people, to stay 11 beholden to the corporation and to the central 12 government. The only way we can get out from 13 underneath this is if each one of us takes personal 14 responsibility for all of our actions every day from 15 this day on and that's the only way we are ever going 16 to make any change.
17 And that's why I've invited these women to 18 come up, because they take personal responsibility 19 every day for trying to figure out how to make the 20 world a better place for themselves, and for everyone 21 in this room, and for everyone in the state and for 22 everyone in New England. Each one of us has to start 23 turning off the lights, changing our light bulbs to 24 compact fluorescents, driving at least half less than 25
58 Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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(202) 234-4433 we drive now. Every gallon of gasoline puts out 18 to 1
19 pounds of carbon into the air, every gallon. Now 2
what's your fuel efficiency, 12, 15, 20, maybe 35 or 3
40? But that's very few people.
4 And this includes anyone from the NRC or 5
from Entergy, no one is exempt, every car puts out that 6
much carbon, unless of course you are driving an 7
electric vehicle or you are driving one that has a high 8
fuel efficiency, like the new hybrids or whatever, but 9
we need to each one of us take into account what we do 10 and how we can make a change. And the only reason 11 Entergy and all the other corporations who run nuclear 12 power plants are trying to put this as a green, clean 13 solution to global warming is because we are all 14 scared, and we have reason to be scared, but the thing 15 is that nuclear is not going to dig us out of the hole.
16 We are so far in the hole, we have to take 17 every measure to get out of the hole, and electricity 18 generation only accounts for maybe a third of the 19 carbon dioxide that is going into the air, 20 transportation accounts for another third and another 21 third, amazingly enough, is attributed to natural, such 22 as forest fires, actually, it's really scary. So I'm 23 not saying up here, well maybe I am, sorry. Okay, so, 24 another thing I just remembered was that Patrick Moore 25
59 Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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(202) 234-4433 said that we, and also the former governor said that we 1
in Vermont need to have this power plant because we 2
can't possibly replace it with anything else.
3 Well Vermont gets maybe 200 to 250 4
kilowatt hours from that power plant. Megawatts, 5
sorry, I made the same mistake the last time too, I saw 6
it in the transcripts. So, megawatts. I want it to be 7
small, I'm trying to make it really small. So, of 8
those 250 megawatts, we can actually replace tomorrow, 9
this is not in 10, or 15 or 20 years, we can replace 10 tomorrow 25 percent of it just through conservation and 11 energy efficiency. If the State of Vermont decided it 12 was the will of the people and the will of the state, 13 we could replace our washing machines, our dishwashers, 14 our refrigerators, our air conditioners and other 15 appliances with energy efficient ones and we could 16 immediately drop 25 percent of our demand.
17 Now that takes care of more than half of 18 Vermont Yankee, what Vermont uses from Vermont Yankee.
19 Massachusetts uses another 25 percent of Vermont 20 Yankee, approximately, I don't know the numbers 21 exactly, so Massachusetts could do the same thing, 22 poof, we could shut Vermont Yankee down tomorrow and it 23 would be amazing. So it's not inconceivable, it's not 24 this unreachable solution, it is within our power, the 25
60 Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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(202) 234-4433 people can decide. That's all it takes and that's all 1
it's ever taken is the people deciding that they want 2
to do something different and they are going to do it 3
now. We can't sit on our duffs anymore. Thank you 4
very much.
5 MR. CAMERON: Thank you. Thank you, 6
Claire.
7 All right, ladies, if you could just go 8
back and thank you very much. All right, the next 9
three speakers, we are going to go to Amanda Ibey, and 10 then Howard Shaffer and then Paul Bousquet.
11 Amanda?
12 MS. IBEY: Good afternoon. My name is 13 Amanda Ibey, I was born and raised here in Vermont, I 14 came back after graduating from college and today I'm 15 here in my capacity as the Executive Director for the 16 Vermont Energy Partnership. The partnership is a 17 diverse group of 75 business, community and labor 18 leaders, as well as individual energy experts, 19 committed to addressing Vermont's impending electricity 20 supply gap. The need for Vermont to secure a reliable, 21 affordable and clean electricity portfolio has never 22 been greater which leads the partnership to reiterate 23 its support for the license renewal of Vermont Yankee.
24 First, though, let me be clear, the key to 25
61 Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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(202) 234-4433 Vermont's future prosperity is through a broad, 1
diversified electricity portfolio. To this end, the 2
partnership urges the state to work to permit and 3
develop new in-state generating sources like wind, 4
solar, small scale hydro, biomass and other 5
environmentally friendly resources. The partnership 6
also feels it is equally important that Vermonters 7
incorporate more energy efficient products into their 8
homes and businesses, as well as looking for ways to 9
increase their conservation practices.
10 While the partnership believes these steps 11 outlined above should be implemented, we cannot ignore 12 nor deny that the foundation for any successful 13 electricity portfolio starts with baseload sources of 14 power, this is why it is vital that we continue to 15 secure HydroQuebec and Vermont Yankee beyond their 16 current operating licenses. Vermont Yankee, our 17 state's lone significant in-state source of power, has 18 been safely and reliably providing Vermonters with 19 electricity for over 30 years. It has continually met 20 the NRC's highest safety standards largely due to the 21 dedicated men and women who work at the plant and live 22 with their families in the surrounding communities.
23 It is important to keep in mind the public 24 safety issues that are sure to arise if Vermont does 25
62 Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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(202) 234-4433 not have an adequate supply of baseload power. With 1
the New England Region strapped for power as it is, we 2
cannot responsibly close the plant and cavalierly 3
assume that our neighbors will provide us with 4
sufficient let alone reasonably priced power. Should 5
rolling blackouts and brownouts have to be implemented, 6
the stress it will place on our public safety and 7
health will be enormous.
8 The steady stream of electricity Vermont 9
Yankee has supplied has been crucial for consumers and, 10 at a time when Vermont must contend with an aging work 11 force and an exodus of young people, the plant employs 12 over 600 highly skilled men and women full time.
13 Vermont Yankee provides more than $200 million of 14 economic benefit annually to Windham County and the 15 State of Vermont through state and local taxes, its 16 payroll and the purchase of local goods and services, 17 but the economics of the plant and its contributions 18 are simply one piece of this discussion.
19 Perhaps right now an even greater benefit 20 of the plant is its low environmental impact, 21 especially as it relates to the issue of global warming 22 and climate change. Many claim, including Vermont's 23 own legislature, that global warming is possibly the 24 most serious environmental issue we face. Today, the 25
63 Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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(202) 234-4433 United States is largely dependent on coal fired 1
plants; approximately 600 coal fired plants supply 50 2
percent of this country's electricity. Unfortunately, 3
these plants also release harmful toxins and greenhouse 4
gases into our atmosphere.
5 Now, while the country looks to reduce its 6
reliance on carbon emitting sources like coal, here in 7
Vermont our story is different, we have one of the 8
cleanest electricity portfolios, one of the lowest 9
carbon emitting portfolios because our two main sources 10 of power, including Vermont Yankee, do not release 11 carbon emissions when producing electricity. Should 12 Vermont Yankee's operating license not be extended, 13 then our utilities would be forced to purchase power 14 from the spot market at a high economic and 15 environmental cost, as the only realistic alternatives 16 to replacing Vermont Yankee lie in other baseload 17 sources of power such as coal.
18 In closing, Vermont Yankee is a safe, is 19 safe and good for the environment and economy, it has 20 provided Vermonters with reliable, affordable and clean 21 power for more than three decades and it has done so 22 safely. We know there is a strong array of support 23 throughout the state for the plant's continued 24 operation and we believe that granting Vermont Yankee a 25
64 Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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(202) 234-4433 license extension is a responsible and necessary 1
action.
2 On behalf of the members of the Vermont 3
Energy Partnership, I would like to thank you for this 4
opportunity.
5 MR. CAMERON: Okay, thank you. Thank you, 6
Amanda.
7 And next, we are going to Howard Shaffer.
8 Mr. Shaffer, excuse me, introduce yourself to us, okay?
9 MR. SHAFFER: Good afternoon again. Can 10 everybody hear me? My name is Howard Shaffer, I am a 11 retired nuclear engineer now living in Enfield, New 12 Hampshire, but continuing my license in nuclear 13 engineering and professional engineering in Vermont, 14 and New Hampshire, and Massachusetts and Illinois where 15 I have worked. I have come back here for retirement, 16 my first retirement activity was in public service as 17 an American Association for the Advancement of Science 18 Congressional Fellow in Washington in the year 2001, a 19 very interesting year there.
20 During that time, the House wrote and 21 completed its energy bill and I was on the energy 22 subcommittee of the House Committee on Science. That 23 energy bill finally got passed in the last Congress, it 24 went over to the Senate in September, 2001, but then 25
65 Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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(202) 234-4433 they got their attention diverted by the events of 1
September 11th. And interestingly enough, one of the 2
things that Congress did right away, which has not 3
gotten very much good coverage in the press, was take a 4
quick look at our most vulnerable infrastructure in the 5
country to see what measures ought to be taken right 6
away, and they found the most vulnerable infrastructure 7
and they took action.
8 That most vulnerable infrastructure was 9
our public water supply system, reservoirs are wide 10 open and so forth. The electric transmission system 11 has had damage to it on a far greater scale by ice 12 storms than terrorists could ever do. Natural gas 13 pipelines are designed for sectionalizations because, 14 as the representatives told us, our worst enemy is 15 somebody with a backhoe, people are digging up natural 16 gas pipelines all the time, so they are designed for 17 accidents, terrorists couldn't possibly do worse.
18 And nuclear power plants were not on the 19 list at all because of, as Mr. Sachs proved by his 20 remarks, there was a formal process in place since 1979 21 to guard against terrorism, as the court mentioned in 22 the Diablo Canyon decision, 1979 is when the NRC 23 started formally looking at terrorism, and there were 24 bullet proof steel shields in the hallways of the 25
66 Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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(202) 234-4433 plants and so forth during the 1980s when I was back 1
here working again on the plant. So, as I found in 2
Washington, at the end, all decisions are based on 3
personal value judgements, all the important ones, not 4
science and engineering alone.
5 As a matter of fact, there are no 6
scientific formulas or engineering processes that can 7
tell you whether something is safe or not, science and 8
engineering can only tell you how something works and 9
what the consequences are. Whether that's safe or 10 whether it's acceptable is a personal value judgement 11 and that's what politics is all about in this country, 12 but making the right value judgements depends on public 13 education and the industry, and I want to say to the 14 staff members here, and I hope you'll take it back, the 15 Commission has a long way to go on public education on 16 these matters.
17 Even though people may still continue to 18 disagree with us forever or with the Commission and the 19 majority view on nuclear power and other things 20 forever, we have an obligation to continue the public 21 education. I realize, in a politically charged 22 environment like Washington, particularly when there is 23 a hostile majority in Congress or hostile 24 administration in the White House, how difficult it is 25
67 Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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(202) 234-4433 to not seem to be an advocate, but I would offer for 1
the Commission's consideration that telling the whole 2
truth in things that have happened is not advocacy.
3 There is nothing wrong with saying that 4
the Commission's activity on concerns on terrorism 5
began in 1979 so, when 2001 came, we are not starting 6
from ground zero. There is nothing wrong with saying, 7
when you look at health and safety of radioactivity and 8
radiation, that the research and development began over 9
100 years ago and the regulatory process began in 1928.
10 There is nothing wrong with saying those things to 11 continue to reach out to people, so my message is we 12 must continue the public education process but at the 13 end know that there will still be people who disagree 14 with us, but remember what one of the founders of our 15 country said, I may disagree with what you say but I 16 would defend with my life your right to say it. Thank 17 you.
18 MR. CAMERON: Okay, thank you very much, 19 Howard.
20 And I think Paul is making his way up to 21 the microphone now.
22 MR. BOUSQUET: Hello. My name is Paul 23 Bousquet, I live in West Townsend. This is the 24 question I asked last meeting and I didn't quite 25
68 Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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(202) 234-4433 understand the answer then, so I'll repeat it. My 1
understanding is that the general security has been 2
beefed up since 9/11, yet nothing has been added for 3
security from the air. If this plant is relicensed, 4
how can we feel secure from an attack on the spent fuel 5
pool? Then my speech goes, of course I don't see too 6
many employees, but I thought they would have brought 7
the bus and packed them in, like one meeting years ago.
8 But I would like to speak today not only 9
to the NRC folks but also to all the employees at all 10 the remaining reactors around our vast country. I 11 challenge all of you to read up on the changing science 12 behind the nuclear industry, the National Academy of 13 Sciences and the Union of Concerned Scientists have 14 recent information that you need to know. Whatever 15 information that your bosses are feeding you is 16 incomplete and one-sided, the effects of ionizing 17 radiation are greater than previously thought. It's 18 all but proven that scheduled and accidental release 19 are poisoning our surroundings.
20 The spent fuel pool is radically more 21 dangerous and susceptible to terrorism than previously 22 thought. The highly toxic waste, with the national 23 repository not going to open, is already at its final 24 resting place, and that place happens to be in my 25
69 Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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(202) 234-4433 backyard close to where both my father and my 1
grandfather are buried, a place worth fighting for.
2 You people of the industry should be ashamed, you've 3
placed good paying jobs and careers ahead of 4
responsibility. You've read your pipeline of 5
propaganda and you feel reasonably sure you can keep 6
your bomb material and cancer causing waste out of our 7
environment, you must feel somewhat sure or you 8
couldn't sleep at night.
9 Have you ever wondered why your industry 10 needs to dump so much time and money on the public 11 relations around the reactor towns? Are you 12 abnormally, are your abnormally large donations 13 intended more as bribery than charity? Of course they 14 are, you are trying to pacify the public while you 15 shove your dirty industry down their throats. You know 16 the majority of people don't want anything to do with 17 this dangerous form of energy, so they have to be 18 bribed. The bottom line is that this power plant and 19 all the others are a liability to our future.
20 You are poisoning not only ourselves and 21 our environment but also the coming generation's.
22 Every day, every minute that you are generating 23 electricity, you are creating an obscene amount of 24 atomic bomb making material and cancer causing toxins 25
70 Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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(202) 234-4433 stored in temporary vessels seemingly without a clue as 1
to what to do next. I've heard people from the outside 2
of the fence refer to the people inside the fence as 3
evil. I think of you more as greedy and misinformed.
4 People, you've been lied to, there is no nuclear 5
renaissance, there are no new safe waste-free reactors 6
ready to go on line, just a dying industry treading 7
water until the final science shuts them down.
8 We need help in figuring out how on earth 9
to ever clean up the mess your industry has created. I 10 leave you with a misinformed quote from my ex-brother 11 in law who was known to encourage other workers to go 12 deeper into hotter areas of the plant to make more 13 money. He was an electrician at Vermont Yankee for 14 14 years before he died, middle-aged, of leukemia. He 15 said, in all seriousness, don't worry, nukes melt down, 16 not up. Don't be misinformed, people, you know your 17 industry is biased, maybe a career change is in order.
18 Vermont is at the edge of creating true renewable 19 energy, careers, and they should use some of you bright 20 minds currently being wasted on your poisonous, 21 gluttonous industry.
22 Thank you.
23 (Applause) 24 MR. CAMERON: Okay, thank you for those 25
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(202) 234-4433 opinions, Paul.
1 And we are going to go to Daniel Marx, and 2
then Art Greenbaum and then Emma next, Emma Stamas 3
after that. This is Daniel, Daniel Marx.
4 MR. MARX: My name is Dan Marx, I live in 5
Dummerston, the next town up the road a bit. I'm a 6
member of the Vermont Energy Partnership for about a 7
month. For 24 years, from 1972 to 1996, I was the 8
chief biologist at Vermont Yankee, I retired from 9
Vermont Yankee in `96. I came to Vermont Yankee from 10 the University of Minnesota with a Ph.D. in zoology.
11 In Minnesota, I had some prior experience with aquatic 12 environmental monitoring at the Monticello and Prairie 13 Island Nuclear plants, both on the Mississippi River, I 14 also worked with large coal fired generating plants.
15 With Vermont Yankee, my primary function 16 from day to day was management and implementation of 17 the aquatic environmental monitoring program on the 18 Connecticut River, my responsibilities including 19 sampling, monitoring, surveillance of a large number of 20 parameters, physical, chemical biological. Near the 21 top of the list was temperature of the river at many 22 fixed locations in the river and the plant discharge 23 cooling water. I was also responsible for the 24 management and maintenance of the environmental 25
72 Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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(202) 234-4433 discharge permit, so called NPDES permit, which means 1
National Pollutant, not Pollution, Discharge 2
Elimination System, a minor bit of trivia there.
3 This is a permitting system driven by the 4
Federal Clean Water Act and the EPA. I spearheaded the 5
renewal of the discharge permit every five years, I 6
also guided two combined 316A, 316B demonstrations 7
which resulted in modification of thermal discharge 8
temperature criteria being permitted under very 9
specific conditions of overflow and temperature to 10 adequately protect river biota. During my 24-year 11 tenure, all the data collected from the river, with 12 associated analysis and interpretation, was conducted 13 for Vermont Yankee by the environmental consulting firm 14 Aquatech Incorporation out of South Burlington.
15 Vermont Yankee and Aquatech actually began 16 the studies pre-operationally in 1967 before I was on 17 the scene. From day one, the early environmental 18 program was crafted with consultant, with consultation 19 and input from the state environmental agencies from 20 Vermont, New Hampshire and Massachusetts. In the very 21 early days, up to about 1972 or `73, the Atomic Energy 22 Commission, now the NRC, you guys, was also on board in 23 proffering the studies. The programs always remained 24 flexible with an eye to modifications, as might be 25
73 Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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(202) 234-4433 required in the future.
1 Incidentally, it was also in 1967 that the 2
New England states, which host the Connecticut River, 3
launched a long term project to attempt to restore the 4
Atlantic Salmon to the river, along with the 5
collaboration of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
6 The area of the river included in the Vermont Yankee 7
study zone extends from up river in Brattleboro where 8
the West River enters to the south, down river, at the 9
old abandoned Shell Bridge at Northfield, 10 Massachusetts. This 26-mile stretch of river is 11 without question the most intensively and extensively 12 studied section of the entire river.
13 In conclusion, my 24-year tenure, `72 to 14
`96, in charge of the Vermont Yankee river studies, 15 it's my professional judgement, opinion, that it has 16 been adequately demonstrated that Vermont Yankee's 17 impact on the ecosystem of the river has been 18 negligible, not zero but negligible, very low, or, in 19 the parlance of the NRC, very small. Vermont Yankee 20 has been a very low environmental impact baseload, 24/7 21 producer of a major portion of Vermont's electrical 22 energy, it deserves to be a part of Vermont's energy 23 future along with green renewables, hydroelectric, 24 wind, solar, biomass and conservation. Let's get off 25
74 Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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(202) 234-4433 all fossil fuels to generate electricity.
1 Thank you.
2 (Applause) 3 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Dan.
4 Is Art Greenbaum here? Okay, great, and 5
then we'll go next to Emma Stamas.
6 MR. GREENBAUM: My name is Arthur 7
Greenbaum. I'm a resident here of Brattleboro since 8
1971, 36 years. My wife Susan and I have raised our 9
two daughters here. I am also a part owner of a local 10 33-year old construction company, we employ 11 approximately 15 people and work geographically within 12 60 miles of the Brattleboro area, and we do a small 13 percentage of work with Vermont Yankee. I'm an active 14 local businessman who has been part of the Rotary, the 15 Chamber, serves also as a team member for the 16 evacuation plan at the Bellows Falls Reception Center 17 and I spend my free time with my family enjoying the 18 outdoors.
19 I support an environmentally sound 20 electric portfolio, nuclear and Vermont Yankee are part 21 of it. I've been driving a hybrid car for two years, 22 home heating with wood for over 25 years and have 23 replaced oil furnaces at six residences that we rent to 24 local folks. I've done replacement windows and I 25
75 Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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(202) 234-4433 purchase 25 percent of all of my electric through 1
Vermont Cow Power. I've had the opportunity to see 2
firsthand the amount of safety technology and training 3
the plant, the industry and the NRC has put into 4
Vermont Yankee to allow it to be safe and reliable.
5 From the original design of the plant, 6
with concrete walls several feet thick, to the ongoing 7
upgrades and maintenance of the plant, I believe it is 8
a safe plant, the millions of dollars spent on 9
security, plant upgrades and training is part of the 10 reason for this. Another part of its success is the 11 process here today. The NRC, other industry 12 organizations learn, listen and implement ideas from 13 concerns raised. The development of technology needs 14 to continue with power generation, as it is doing in 15 other fields. Nuclear power, I believe, is a safe, 16 cost effective component of our energy needs.
17 It is also a key component in solving 18 greenhouse emissions and I encourage you to continue 19 having Vermont Yankee to be part of our Vermont energy 20 portfolio, keeping prices affordable and promoting 21 economic development in the state while contributing to 22 our economy. Thank you very much. I do have one other 23 comment, it's not written.
24 MR. CAMERON: Go ahead.
25
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(202) 234-4433 MR. GREENBAUM: But if the majority of the 1
people here would spend their time and effort promoting 2
wind power and implementing many of the good ideas that 3
have been expressed here today, we would all be further 4
ahead. Thank you.
5 MR. CAMERON: Thank you very much, Art, 6
for those comments.
7 And this is Emma.
8 MS. STAMAS: I'm Emma Stamas, I'm not paid 9
to be here. I hope there are some NRC people in the 10 audience that are wiling to listen. I noticed that a 11 lot of the scientists who spoke left promptly, I guess 12 we don't have, as citizens, anything that could 13 possibly be interesting or informative to them, they 14 know it all, I guess. Some of them seem pretty 15 arrogant in terms of their long range views.
16 I am here to represent hundreds, literally 17 hundreds of friends, relatives and teenagers who work 18 with my, I know several teachers and I'm representing 19 people from just south of the State of Vermont in the 20 hill towns of Massachusetts.
21 We are just as concerned as those that 22 live a little bit over the border in Vermont, many of 23 us are closer than most of the residents in Vermont and 24 I think it's pretty arrogant for the Governor of 25
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(202) 234-4433 Vermont, from many years ago, to be so sure that he is 1
doing the right thing in supporting this aging plant.
2 I haven't heard much talk, except the last fellow 3
talked about methane being produced and used as an 4
energy source. One of the things that many people do 5
not realize is that we are pouring huge amounts of 6
methane as well as carbon dioxide into the atmosphere 7
and both of these greenhouse gasses contribute to 8
greenhouse warming; you can read more about it in The 9
Inconvenient Truth and other web sites.
10 The problem is that, in farming 11 communities, such as we still have in Vermont and 12 Massachusetts, we have the opportunity to reduce the 13 methane that we put into the atmosphere by simply 14 making containment types of facilities on farms that 15 can produce methane and generate electricity, thus 16 reducing the amount of methane that goes into the 17 atmosphere during farm, that type of farming 18 production. There is, the leftovers from the digestion 19 tanks can then be used by fertilizer, they are less 20 odoriferous because the methane has been used, drawn 21 off, and they are just as good as fertilizers, if not 22 better, because they are not raw, they have been 23 digested and, in doing this type of change, we can 24 create an avenue for our farms to remain economically 25
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(202) 234-4433 viable.
1 Why isn't this happening like wild fire 2
all over New England and other parts of the United 3
States? Because forces within our generation industry 4
our power generation industry, have a vested interest 5
in making sure that our power is produced by huge 6
facilities that can be controlled by huge corporations.
7 These people do not have a vested interest in allowing 8
small generation facilities to develop and proliferate 9
across the United States, even if scientists could do a 10 very thorough study and prove that this would be a more 11 efficient, effective, cost, both cost effective and an 12 economically effective way of producing energy that 13 could be sustainable into the future, not only 14 providing jobs in areas that are rural and sustaining 15 farming in areas that are barely able to have their 16 farmers make a living, but by making a whole, a much 17 cleaner, safer form of energy production.
18 The ironic thing about the whole study of 19 the effect of the nuclear power plant as being so much 20 safer and more wonderful for our region because it 21 produces enough power and we aren't going to have the 22 lights to out or the heat go off, the ironic thing 23 about that is that, this month, in Monticello, at the 24 Monticello facility in St. Cloud, Minnesota, a nuclear 25
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(202) 234-4433 facility that is just about the same type and age as 1
the Vermont Yankee plant and the Pilgrim plant, in a 2
facility that was just recently granted their 20-year 3
renewal, a 13 ton control box fell and hit, it didn't 4
cause a serious amount of damage but it caused the 5
steam lines to dent and the steam pressure to drop, and 6
that power plant had to be suddenly closed down.
7 I don't even know if it's up and running 8
again because there has been so little publicity about 9
this event. I have heard one report on NPR, did a 10 Google search on the Internet and found out, that same 11 report I got written up but very little else, and I 12 have not heard what has happened since this happened 13 several weeks ago.
14 Now, this is my question to you folks who 15 are so proud of your nuclear power industry and what 16 wealth and wonder it has brought to us, when we have 17 600 milliwatts or megawatts of power produced by one 18 facility and suddenly, just like that, as happened in 19 Monticello, in the dead of winter when it is the 20 coldest part of the winter it suddenly goes off line, 21 what happens? You lose 600 megawatts of power.
22 The irony here is we have been told time 23 and time again that we can't possibly go to wind, 24 solar, methane, hydro because those produce too little 25
80 Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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(202) 234-4433 power. The fact of the matter is we need to have small 1
power plants scattered throughout the land, providing 2
jobs throughout the land--
3 (Applause) 4 MS. STAMAS: --providing power that may 5
not be huge in its amount, it may vary from moment to 6
moment in the amount it feeds to the grid, but it will 7
not suddenly cut out just like that, 600 megawatts gone 8
in a moment in the dead of winter. We do not need this 9
kind of power and we can do better than it, it's old 10 fashioned, it's not sustainable, it's expensive. The 11 Rowe power plant not far from here, it took 20 years to 12 decommission that plant and it cost three times as much 13 money to decommission that plant than it cost to build 14 it, and that is adjusted for inflation, look it up on 15 the Internet. These are facts that are not from some 16 wild group, these are facts from the industry web 17 sites, check them out.
18 The fact of the matter is we cannot afford 19 to keep these aging plants going, we must gradually 20 phase them out. We are not asking for Vermont Yankee 21 to shut down tomorrow, we are asking for it to phase 22 out over a five year period and, during that five year 23 period, we here in this part of the world are very, 24 very fortunate to have several factors that can allow 25
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(202) 234-4433 us to replace that plant, and those factors are we have 1
a motivated New England Yankee ingenuity to start using 2
methane, hydro. We have vast hydro resources not just 3
in Canada, right here in Vermont and Massachusetts.
4 (Applause) 5 MS. STAMAS: And we don't have to make 6
huge dams and flood property to make, we have the 7
technology to take a little tiny stream that I have 8
next to my house, I could generate all the electricity 9
I need in that house, in my household, with a little 10 micro hydro system the size of this speaker platform, 11 and it only costs a few thousands dollars. Why isn't 12 everybody doing it? Because we don't have the 13 knowledge, but we do, in this area, have some well 14 educated ingenuity, people with a lot of ingenuity that 15 also have time on their hands because we don't have a 16 lot of job growth here.
17 We don't need Vermont Yankee's power to 18 lull us into submission and continue on the track that 19 most of the United States is on, thinking that we can't 20 possibly do anything except keep this power plant going 21 as long as possible. We can show the rest of the 22 United States a different way, we also have huge wind 23 resources. It breaks my heart when I hear that people 24 will not accept wind power because it's aesthetically 25
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(202) 234-4433 unpleasing and therefore it's not a viable alternative.
1 How aesthetically pleasing is any power plant that 2
you've ever seen? How aesthetically pleasing is any 3
electrical line running over a mountain top? None of 4
it is.
5 MR. CAMERON: Emma, could you just sum up 6
for us?
7 MS. STAMAS: Okay, one final summation.
8 My husband has worked for 30 years as a 9
quality assurance manager in a pharmaceutical company.
10 Evidently, in the pharmaceutical field, people are more 11 concerned about quality assurance than the NRC is 12 because it is a known fact that quality cannot be 13 inspected into a facility. In other words, you can 14 inspect a facility every single day, that does not make 15 it safer or more quality than it already is, what it 16 does is it lets you see the problems as they come up.
17 And in the pharmaceutical industry, there 18 is a rule that when any major change is made in a 19 facility, a whole new quality assurance program must be 20 written because when any retrofit, or upgrade or change 21 is made in the facility, everything in the facility is 22 effected by that change and it is impossible to know 23 what the quality is going to be, whether it's safe, 24 whether there is going to be a potential problem, 25
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(202) 234-4433 unless you completely redo your whole quality analysis.
1 Now, if this is done in the pharmaceutical 2
industry where there is time to call back medicines 3
that are found to be poorly made, and poorly designed 4
and so forth, before people actually swallow them, why 5
isn't it the policy in a field like nuclear energy 6
production where when a problem occurs, time can be of 7
the essence and people who may have inspected the plant 8
years ago or may have some inkling of what the problem 9
is may have retired or may not be there, they may have 10 died. The plant is way beyond its original life span 11 and yet we aren't requiring this kind of quality 12 inspection and assurance from this industry?
13 And I think that is something we are going 14 to have to apologize to our grandchildren about when 15 they have to deal with decommissioning the mess--
16 MR. CAMERON: Okay, thank you.
17 MS. STAMAS: --that we've created.
18 (Applause) 19 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Emma.
20 We are going to go to Harvey, Harvey 21 Schaktman? He is not here, okay. David McElwee?
22 How about Sarah, Sarah Kotkov? Sarah?
23 This is Sarah Kotkov.
24 MS. KOTKOV: My name is Sarah Kotkov, I'm 25
84 Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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(202) 234-4433 on the Board of New England Coalition but these remarks 1
are my own. I was going to talk about the fuel pool 2
fire, but Claire Chang already has discussed that.
3 However, I haven't gone to these NRC meetings, I know 4
that they talk about probabilistic risk assessment.
5 Admittedly, it is a low probability that terrorists 6
will attack the fuel pool, probably because Vermont is 7
a little bit boring, but the consequences would be 8
extremely severe. As Claire said, 25,000 miles would 9
be contaminated by such an event.
10 If some of the water drains out of the 11 fuel pool, the chimney effect of the effect of cool air 12 passing through the cladding would be stopped and 13 therefore the zirconium would self-ignite, that's the 14 cladding of the fuel would self-ignite and spew 15 radioactive contamination over three states. Of 16 course, assuming we got out, which is, which is quite 17 an assumption of course because the evacuation plans 18 are really laughable, assuming we got out, we could of 19 course never come back, and neither could our children, 20 grandchildren, etcetera, these areas would be basically 21 permanently contaminated.
22 The fuel pool could also be damaged in the 23 case of an earthquake and this area is subject to 24 earthquakes. The fuel must remain in the fuel pools 25
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(202) 234-4433 for five years to cool down, so even if the plant 1
operates until 2012, the fuel would be there for 2
another five years. Now, if the plant is relicensed, 3
this situation will continue for 20 more years beyond 4
that, of course. The fuel is, once it's taken out of 5
the fuel pool, it is then placed in dry casks, so I 6
think that now we have permission to have six dry casks 7
on the banks of the river, then this would add another 8
20 more years of fuel that would be stored on the banks 9
of the Connecticut River.
10 This is of course high level waste, 11 meaning that it is extremely long lasting, as well as 12 highly radioactive. One of the lovely misnomers of the 13 lingo is that low-level waste, we think that sounds not 14 too dangerous, of course it's extremely radioactive, 15 just as radioactive as the high level waste, it just 16 won't last quite as many generations. I think that we 17 can expect that this waste will be permanently on the 18 banks of the river and this, the banks of the river, in 19 1991, were studied for a low-level radioactive storage 20 facility, as it's called, and were deemed inappropriate 21 because of the, because it's a wetland, basically.
22 So now we would have a high level dump, 23 with greatly more waste, if the plant is allowed to 24 relicense, on the banks of the river permanently 25
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(202) 234-4433 because Yucca Mountain of course is in nowheresville, 1
that's probably never going to happen. Another issue 2
of course is the fence line dose. Because of the 3
uprate, the fence line dose is being exceeded and of 4
course this is another situation that would then 5
continue for 20 more years. So I think that, to call 6
this green is, this plant that is producing, that is 7
leaking radiation and producing highly toxic waste that 8
will last basically forever and will be here forever is 9
just absurd.
10 I think that's all I have to say, thank 11 you.
12 (Applause) 13 MR. CAMERON: Thank you. Thank you, 14 Sarah.
15 Ed Sprague and Connie Burton? Ed Sprague?
16 How about Connie Burton? And Bill Maguire?
17 And Teresa Caldwell? Here is Teresa.
18 MS. CALDWELL: Hi everyone. I'm speaking 19 off the cuff here and I'm going to try not to ramble.
20 This is such a polarizing topic for people, and I don't 21 think I'm going to change anybody's mind and I don't 22 think anybody has said here before me is going to 23 change my mind.
24 I wish that Dr. Moore and the former 25
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(202) 234-4433 governor hadn't left so soon because I did want to 1
apologize to them for people who are heckling them and 2
being disrespectful. I think that people get so 3
emotional because we are afraid and that people who are 4
opposed to this plant hear people expressing points of 5
view that it's safe, and it doesn't emit carbon, you 6
know, CO2s, and we are angry and afraid and so that we 7
were disrespectful and I wanted to say I was sorry for 8
that.
9 I have to disagree with Dr. Moore because 10 I think his point of view could kill me. I think that 11 this plant is unsafe and it should be decommissioned, I 12 do not believe it should have a 20-year license 13 extension. I think that I've been coming to these 14 meetings with the NRC for about 30 years and I know 15 there are some people here who truly believe nuclear 16 power is the wave of the future. Most of the people I 17 hear who speak on behalf of nuclear power have a 18 financial investment in the industry and therefore I 19 have to disagree with them just because I think that 20 they're not thinking straight.
21 I do believe that the NRC is aware that 22 there are increased risks for us who live downwind and 23 that a catastrophic accident is possible, the likes of 24 Chernobyl or Three Mile Island. It could be a 25
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(202) 234-4433 terrorist target, and I believe there is no solution to 1
the high level waste that is being created that will be 2
deadly for thousands of years and I'm here to urge the 3
NRC not to relicense Vermont Yankee. It's been my 4
understanding that any nuclear power plant that has 5
come up for an uprate or a license extension has been 6
granted one automatically.
7 I know a number of people who wanted to 8
come to this meeting who didn't want to bother because 9
they felt that it was a foregone conclusion, the NRC 10 has made up their mind, and that they just have to 11 listen to us complain and that it's already been 12 decided. So, if there is any person here, who has any 13 influence, who is with the NRC, I want you to think of 14 me, look at my face, remember me. My name is Teresa 15 Caldwell, and I live 12 miles from this plant and I 16 sleep with my bedroom window open and when I go to bed 17 at night, I think which way is the wind blowing? What 18 is the wind carrying? Are they having a release today?
19 Should I close the window? Has there been an accident?
20 And I'm afraid of this plant and I know 21 that there is a lot of people who think that I'm 22 hysterical or that I'm misguided and uninformed, and I 23 think I'm very informed and I think I'm very aware of 24 the risks that this plant raises. So all of you, when 25
89 Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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(202) 234-4433 you go to bed tonight, I hope that you don't sleep near 1
this plant and I hope that you're not downwind from it 2
but, if you are, think to yourself could I be making a 3
mistake? Could I be wrong in supporting this plant?
4 And if I am, then I am subjecting an entire community 5
to unacceptable risks.
6 Thank you.
7 (Applause) 8 MR. CAMERON: Thank you. Thank you, 9
Teresa.
10 Did I miss anybody who signed up to speak 11 today, this afternoon? We are going to be here 12 tonight, open house starts at 6:00 until 7:00 and then 13 the meeting is going to go from 7:00 to 10:00. There 14 were a number of issues raised that I would like the 15 NRC staff to, if the people are willing to talk about 16 them, Paul had raised the question about aircraft and I 17 think there is some recent Commission action that 18 discussed aircraft, and at least we can tell him what 19 that is.
20 There may be people who want to find out 21 more about the 9th Circuit decision and what the NRC 22 might do about that, and Emma raised a question about 23 Monticello and what has been going on with that, and it 24 may be that perhaps one of our residents might be able 25
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(202) 234-4433 to talk about that. But the staff is here to talk to 1
all of you and I would just thank all of you for coming 2
out and your comments.
3 And I want to ask Rani Franovich, who is 4
the chief of the environmental branch who does these 5
reviews for license renewal, to close the meeting out 6
for us this afternoon.
7 Rani?
8 MS. FRANOVICH: Thank you, Chip.
9 I just want to reiterate to everyone who 10 took time out of their busy schedules to be here today 11 that this is an important part of our process and we do 12 transcribe the comments. Even though you may see staff 13 wander around the room, migrate towards where it's warm 14 over here by the radiators, we listen to you while we 15 are here, we read the transcript when we get back to 16 our offices to make sure that everything you say is 17 collected and can be addressed in our final EIS. But 18 thanks again for coming, it's a very important step in 19 our process, as I've said, and your comments will be 20 considered.
21 I wanted to remind everyone that the 22 comment period ends on March 7th. I think the handouts 23 with the slides has the information on who to contact 24 with your comments, Richard Emch is the project manager 25
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(202) 234-4433 for the environmental review.
1 And I wanted to also let everyone know 2
that we have an NRC public meeting feedback form that 3
you may have received when you registered out in front.
4 If you can think of any ways that we can improve our 5
meetings, things that we can do better, things that we 6
can do different, please fill out the form, let us 7
know. You can leave the form out front and we'll find 8
it, you can give it to somebody with a badge, a name 9
tag, or you can fold it up and send it in to us, the 10 postage is prepaid.
11 And with that, thanks again.
12 (Whereupon, at 4:02 p.m., the hearing 13 was adjourned.)
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