ML070530014
| ML070530014 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Vermont Yankee File:NorthStar Vermont Yankee icon.png |
| Issue date: | 01/31/2007 |
| From: | NRC/OGC |
| To: | |
| jmm7 | |
| References | |
| Download: ML070530014 (122) | |
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1 2 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 3 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 4 + + + + +
5 6
7 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -x 8 IN THE MATTER OF: :
9 PUBLIC MEETING TO DISCUSS THE :
10 DRAFT SUPPLEMENTAL ENVIRONMENTAL :
11 IMPACT STATEMENT FOR LICENSE :
12 RENEWAL OF :
13 VERMONT YANKEE NUCLEAR :
14 POWER STATION :
15 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -x 16 Wednesday 17 January 31, 2007 18 19 Latchis Theater 20 50 Main Street 21 Brattleboro, Vermont 22 23 The above-entitled matter was convened, 24 pursuant to Notice, at 7:03 p.m.
25 BEFORE: Francis "Chip" Cameron 26 FACILITATOR Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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2 1 I N D E X 2 OPENING REMARKS: PAGE:
3 Chip Cameron 4 4 OVERVIEW OF LICENSE RENEWAL PROCESS 5 Richard Emch 9 6 RESULTS OF THE ENVIRONMENTAL REVIEW 7 David Miller 18 8 HOW COMMENTS CAN BE SUBMITTED 9 Richard Emch 32 10 PUBLIC COMMENT 11 Diana Sidebotham 36 12 Deb Katz 40 13 Beth McElwee 43 14 Bruce Wiggett 45 15 Andy Davis 48 16 Chris Williams 54 17 Michael LaPorte 58 18 Bill Maguire 59 19 Ed Sprague 61 20 Norman Raymond 63 21 Ann Howes 64 22 Bernie Buteau 66 23 Jim Herrick 69 24 Larry Cummings 74 25 David Mannai 75 Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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3 1 I N D E X 2 PUBLIC COMMENT PAGE:
3 Nick Caristo 78 4 William Schulze 80 5 Dick Brigham 82 6 Ida Belivet 84 7 Kent Belivet 85 8 Roy Ramsdell 87 9 Brian Tietze 88 10 Karen Murphy 90 11 Nina Keller 94 12 Norm Redemacher 97 13 Clay Turnbull 98 14 Gary Sachs 100 15 Sally Shaw 105 16 Len Akin 110 17 Howard Shaffer 111 18 John Shadis 113 19 CLOSING REMARKS 20 Rani Franovich 115 21 22 23 24 25 Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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4 1 P R O C E E D I N G S 2 (7:03 p.m.)
3 MR. CAMERON: Good evening, everyone, 4 thank you for being here tonight at the public meeting.
5 My name is Chip Cameron and it's my pleasure to serve 6 as your facilitator, and in that role I'm going to try 7 to help all of us to have a productive meeting tonight.
8 The subject is the environmental review that NRC, the 9 Nuclear Regulatory Commission, conducts as one part of 10 its evaluation on whether to renew the license for the 11 Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant, and we received an 12 application to renew the license from Entergy 13 Corporation. We are in the middle of our review and 14 you'll hear a little bit more about that in a few 15 minutes.
16 I just wanted to tell you a little bit 17 about some meeting process issues. First of all, the 18 format for the meeting, and secondly, some real simple 19 ground rules to help all of us have a good meeting 20 tonight. In terms of the format, we basically have a 21 two-part format, the first part is to give you some 22 information on what the NRC looks at when it evaluates 23 an application for license renewal, such as the one 24 received from Entergy for Vermont Yankee, and we are 25 also going to tell you what the findings are in the Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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5 1 draft environmental impact statement, so we have two 2 short presentations on that.
3 And I just want to emphasize the word 4 draft, draft environmental impact statement, it won't 5 be finalized until the NRC staff evaluates, listens to 6 and evaluates the comments that they hear from you 7 tonight, as well as comments that we had in this 8 afternoon's meeting and written comments that you can 9 submit on the draft environmental impact statement.
10 And anything you say tonight will carry the same weight 11 as a written comment, but you are more than welcome to 12 amplify on your comments tonight by submitting 13 something in writing.
14 And the comments are going to be the focus 15 of the second part of the meeting, after we get done 16 with the presentations, and we are here to listen to 17 your concerns, your advice and your recommendations on 18 these draft environmental impact issues and on license 19 renewal. Ground rules, very simple, just please, one 20 person at a time speaking, most importantly so that we 21 can give our full attention to whomever has the floor 22 at the moment. But also so that our court reporter, 23 Marty Farley, who is up here, can get a clean 24 transcript, so that he'll be able to identify who is 25 talking. And that transcript will be available to all Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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6 1 of you as a record of what transpired here tonight and 2 to the NRC obviously so that we can evaluate the 3 comments.
4 We have a lot of people who want to talk 5 tonight and that's great, we really appreciate that, 6 but it means that we are going to have to try to limit 7 the time accordingly for each speaker so that we can 8 get everybody on who wants to talk tonight, and I'm 9 going to ask you to try to summarize your comments in a 10 three minute, three to four minute summary. And 11 usually, I find that three to four minutes is enough 12 time for people to make their major points. You can 13 amplify through submitting something in writing or you 14 can, if you have a prepared statement, we will attach 15 it to the transcript and that will be part of the 16 public record.
17 And even three minutes of comment does two 18 important things, one, it alerts the NRC staff to 19 issues that they should start thinking about 20 immediately in evaluating comments, and having an 21 opportunity to talk to you about your comments after 22 the meeting is over. And secondly, other people in the 23 audience are going to hear what the concerns and issues 24 are, and I will apologize in advance if I have to be 25 sort of abrupt in terms of asking you to sum up. This Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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7 1 afternoon's meeting, we had a lot of good comments but 2 we had only less than half the amount of people who 3 want to talk tonight so that we had some leeway in 4 allowing people to go on.
5 Well we don't have that leeway tonight 6 even to try to make it to the 10:00 adjournment time.
7 We have some people who are coming back from this 8 afternoon, I'm going to start, when we go to the 9 comment period, I'm going to give the people who did 10 not have an opportunity to talk at all, they are going 11 to go first and then we will get around to the people 12 who are back for a second, a second round.
13 And the final ground rule is just please 14 extend courtesy to each other. You'll hear opinions 15 tonight that you may not agree with but please respect 16 the person who is giving that opinion.
17 And I just want to introduce the speakers 18 who will give you the background, there is Mr. Richard 19 Emch right over here.
20 (Applause) 21 MR. CAMERON: All right, I think you 22 deserve that.
23 Rich Emch is the project manager on the 24 environmental review for the Vermont Yankee license 25 renewal application. He has been with the NRC for Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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8 1 about 32 years in a variety of positions and he has 2 served as a project manager on a number of license 3 renewal applications. He has a bachelors degree in 4 physics from Louisiana Technical University and a 5 masters in health physics from the Georgia Institute of 6 Technology he is going to give you an overview of 7 license renewal.
8 And then you are going to hear from 9 Dr. Dave Miller, who is right here. Dave was the team 10 leader of the group of scientists, experts who helped 11 us to prepare the environmental impact statement, 12 helped us to evaluate impacts, and he is going to tell 13 you about that process and the findings. He is from 14 Argonne National Lab, he is an environmental engineer, 15 and he has a masters and a Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins 16 University in environmental engineering. And I would 17 just thank you again for being here. Okay, how's that?
18 Am I standing in a bad place for you maybe?
19 But at any rate, one final thing is that 20 the NRC is not required to hold these public meetings.
21 We are required to take written comment, but we want to 22 be here in person with you because we want to talk to 23 you. We want to hear your passion, your concerns on 24 these issues because that just reminds us, we don't 25 need reminding, but it reminds us that we need to do Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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9 1 our job conscientiously and responsibly, so that's why 2 we are here and thank you for being here.
3 And with that, I'm going to turn it over 4 to Richard Emch to give you an overview of license 5 renewal. He will tell you and if there is any 6 questions about that, we will make sure we clarify it.
7 Richard?
8 MR. EMCH: Thank you, Chip.
9 As Chip said, my name is Rich Emch, I'm 10 the environmental project manager for the Nuclear 11 Regulatory Commission for the review of the Vermont 12 Yankee license renewal application.
13 The first thing I want to do tonight is 14 talk to you about the purposes of this meeting. First, 15 I'm going to discuss the overall license renewal 16 process with a little more specifics about the 17 environmental review part of the process, then we are 18 going to talk about the results of our review, and I'm 19 going to talk a little bit about the rest of the 20 schedule for the review. And then finally, I'm going 21 to tell you how to submit comments, and the best part 22 is we are going to listen to you folks talk to us about 23 your views, your comments about the environmental, the 24 draft environmental statement that we've put out.
25 The Atomic Energy Act is the legislation Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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10 1 that basically created the Nuclear Regulatory 2 Commission and gives it, and tells us what our 3 responsibilities are, and that is we are responsible 4 for issuing the operating license for commercial 5 nuclear power plants and regulating the civilian use of 6 nuclear materials, which includes nuclear power plants.
7 Originally, these plants were licensed, as was Vermont 8 Yankee, for a 40-year period, that 40-year period was 9 based mainly on economic and anti-trust considerations, 10 not on safety issues. The act or our regulations also 11 allow for a utility or a licensee to make an 12 application to renew their license and that is indeed 13 what Entergy has done for Vermont Yankee, they have 14 made such an application.
15 The NRC's mission is threefold, to ensure 16 the adequate protection of the public health and 17 safety, to promote common defense and security, and to 18 protect the environment. The current operating license 19 for Vermont Yankee will expire in March of 2012 and the 20 application of course, that we just discussed, Entergy 21 has applied for, has made an application, applied for 22 an extension, a license renewal for 20 years.
23 This is the overall license renewal 24 process, the top lines show the safety process in red, 25 the bottom lines show the environmental process in Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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11 1 green. These processes are going on in parallel, the 2 safety side is doing their work and the environmental 3 side is doing its work.
4 In the middle, you will see a box that 5 says hearings, this means that there are hearings that 6 are going on, that will be held for this project with 7 the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board. The parties to 8 the hearing are the NRC, Entergy and the contentions 9 for the hearing were raised by the parties, the New 10 England Coalition and the State of Vermont. The State 11 of New Hampshire is participating as an interested 12 state as well. Those hearings will probably start 13 after we issue the final environmental impact statement 14 and after the final safety report is out.
15 You'll see a box up there that says 16 independent review, that's the ACRS, the Advisory 17 Committee on Reactor Safeguards, they will do, once the 18 safety evaluation is completed, they will do an 19 independent review of that safety evaluation and make 20 their own recommendations to the Commission. The 21 Commission will take all these pieces of information 22 and put it together and make the decision about whether 23 or not to grant the application.
24 Let's talk a little bit more about the 25 safety review. The safety review concentrates on aging Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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12 1 management of safety related structures, systems and 2 components. That review is being led by the safety 3 project manager, Jonathan Rowley, Jonathan is right 4 over here. In addition to reviewing all the 5 application and materials that the licensee sends in, 6 the applicant sends in, we also, John's group does 7 on-site audits to inspect the technical accuracy of the 8 information that's been provided and also the 9 inspectors from Region I do inspections to ensure that 10 the programs that the licensee says they have been in 11 place have either been put in place and are effective 12 or that they are properly prepared and planned.
13 Finally, all that information will be a 14 part of the safety evaluation report that Jonathan's 15 group will issue and, as I said before, it will be 16 reviewed independently by the Advisory Committee on 17 Reactor Safeguards.
18 Let's talk about some important things 19 here that are important to the NRC but unrelated to 20 license renewal, emergency planning, security and 21 safety performance, the NRC's ongoing oversight of the 22 safety performance of the plant. These are all very 23 important issues to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission 24 and because they are so important, the NRC has constant 25 oversight of these. There are inspections that go on Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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13 1 on a regular basis, there are, these are just, they are 2 day to day, current day issues, they are not issues 3 about what will be going on during the 20 years of 4 continued operation.
5 They are current day issues so if there is 6 a problem in one of these areas, it's not something we 7 want to talk about in license renewal, it's something 8 we want to talk about today, something that the people 9 who are responsible for the day to day safety and 10 oversight of plants such as Vermont Yankee are 11 responsible for. And we have one of the, a couple of 12 the individuals who are very closely related to that 13 here with us today. Most of you are probably aware 14 that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has resident 15 inspectors whose entire job is to be at that plant, and 16 that's true. David Pelton is here, he is the senior 17 resident inspector at Vermont Yankee. His entire job is 18 making sure that the licensee operates Vermont Yankee 19 in a safe manner and within the NRC regulations. So 20 there is additional information about the safety 21 performances at the web site at the bottom of this 22 slide.
23 This is a more detailed version of the 24 environmental review process. As I mentioned, the 25 application was sent in January of 2006, we held the Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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14 1 environmental audit in May and we went to a lot of 2 different places, gathered a lot of information, saw a 3 number of state agencies. Then we continued on with 4 the review and we held a public meeting on June 7th 5 here at the Latchis Theater, a number of you probably 6 attended that meeting and gave us comments. We took 7 those comments, evaluated them, evaluated all the other 8 information that we gathered and issued the draft 9 supplemental, the draft environmental impact statement 10 on December 13, 2006.
11 Now we are in the comment period, which 12 will end on March 7th. I'm going to talk a little bit 13 later about how to get us comments, but one very 14 important way of getting us comments is tonight. As 15 you see, we have the meeting for comments on the draft 16 and that's what we are here for tonight, we are here to 17 hear what you have to tell us about our draft 18 environmental impact statement. We'll take all of 19 those comments that you give us tonight, all the ones 20 you send us in writing, all the ones you send us on the 21 Internet, and we will evaluate them and make whatever 22 changes are needed in the final environmental 23 statement.
24 Now what you are going to hear from Dave 25 Miller in a few minutes, he is going to talk about our Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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15 1 preliminary conclusions and that's what they are, 2 preliminary conclusions, and once we've evaluated all 3 the comments and other information that we gather, 4 we'll put all of that into the process as well and 5 decide whether or not the final environmental impact 6 statement is going to draw those same conclusions or 7 not.
8 Once we've issued the final impact 9 statement in August of 2007, the hearing process will 10 begin somewhere shortly after that, and with the 11 hearing process, the usual schedule, the overall length 12 of the review for when there is a hearing is about 30 13 months. So the review started in January of last year, 14 that would put us out somewhere in the June/July time 15 frame of 2008, that's just a very rough guess.
16 And basically, after the hearings are 17 completed, then the NRC will put all of the 18 information, the Commission will put all of the 19 information together and make its decision about 20 whether to grant the license or not, the extension.
21 Now we are going to talk about the 22 environmental review, how do we do the environmental 23 review? We do the environmental review under the 24 guidelines of NEPA, the National Environmental Policy 25 Act of 1969. NEPA requires federal agencies to Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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16 1 consider, assess and disclose the impacts that we find 2 as part of our review, and that's what we will be doing 3 as part of this evaluation.
4 We are also required to look at mitigative 5 measures, we are also required to look at alternatives, 6 and we are also required to engage the public and 7 that's part of what we are doing here and with the 8 comment period. The NRC has made a decision that we 9 will issue an environmental impact statement for each 10 of the, for each license renewal application, now let's 11 talk about the scope. In the 1990s, we issued what we 12 call a generic environmental impact statement, it's 13 GEIS for short.
14 Basically what the staff did is they 15 looked at a large number of the environmental issues 16 that would be involved with license renewal for all the 17 plants that were currently operating and they said in 18 many cases they were able to conclude, we said that in 19 many cases we were able to conclude that the 20 environmental impact would be the same for all plants 21 or all plants of a certain kind of, with a certain kind 22 of operational thing, like the ones that have cooling 23 towers or something like that.
24 However, there were also a fair number of 25 20 something issues where we could not draw those Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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17 1 generic conclusions and where the decision was that we 2 would have to do a plant-specific analysis for each 3 application that came in, and the evaluation, that 4 plant-specific analysis, is the primary part of the 5 site-specific environmental impact statement that we 6 are going to be talking about tonight.
7 Along with that, on those other issues 8 that are generic, that have generic conclusions, we do 9 what we call a search for new and significant 10 information, that means we go look to see if there is 11 any information that has come out since the GEIS that 12 would cause us to want to think about whether or not we 13 really can still make that generic conclusion, that 14 would cause us to question whether that generic 15 conclusion still holds.
16 This is the decision standard for the 17 environmental review, you can read it off the slide.
18 My version of it, the simple version is, Is the 19 environmental impact of an additional 20 years of 20 operation of this plant acceptable? And that's what 21 we are going to be trying to determine.
22 Now we are going to talk about the rest of 23 the review schedule or the whole review schedule, you 24 can see the application dates, you can see the intent 25 of, the notice of intent, you can see the scoping Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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18 1 meeting we held on June 7th here, you can see that we 2 received the comments by June 23rd. We put out the 3 scoping summary report October 30th and we issued the 4 draft December 13th. We are holding this meeting and 5 the comment period will end on March 7th, and as I said 6 before, we will issue the draft environmental impact 7 statement in August.
8 At this time, I'm going to ask David 9 Miller, the head, Dr. David Miller, the head of Argonne 10 National Laboratory team of experts, environmental 11 experts, to come up and talk to you about the results 12 of the review.
13 MR. MILLER: Thank you, Rich.
14 Good evening. As Chip and Rich have said, 15 I'm David Miller from Argonne National Lab, an 16 environmental engineer there, and I was the project 17 team lead for the Vermont Yankee EIS.
18 The Nuclear Regulatory Commission 19 contracted with Argonne to evaluate the impacts of 20 license renewal on the Vermont Yankee, as resulting 21 from the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power station's license 22 renewal application. The EIS team consists of 23 scientists from Argonne National Lab as well as from 24 the NRC staff. The overall team expertise is shown on 25 this slide and it includes the following disciplines, Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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19 1 atmospheric science, socioeconomics and environmental 2 justice, archeology and historical resources, 3 terrestrial ecology, land use, radiation protection, 4 regulatory compliance, aquatic ecology and hydrology.
5 This slide shows the overall approach used 6 to evaluate the impacts in the environmental impact 7 statement. First, I would like to give you some 8 background that Rich had already started on, in the mid 9 1990s, the NRC evaluated impacts of all operating 10 nuclear power plants across the country, and there were 11 92 separate impact areas that were identified, and for 12 69 of these impact areas they were determined to be the 13 same for plants with similar features. The NRC called 14 these category one issues and they were able to make 15 the same determination, i.e. generic determination, 16 about the impacts in the GEIS, in the generic 17 environmental impact statement, which was issued in 18 1996.
19 The NRC was unable to make generic 20 conclusions about the remaining issues and these are 21 known as category two issues. As a consequence, NRC 22 decided to prepare site-specific supplemental EISs, 23 such as the one that we are working on right now. This 24 slide shows the process used to evaluate category one 25 and category two issues in the VermontYankeeEIS. The Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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20 1 EIS team evaluated all category one issues, or generic 2 issues, relevant to Vermont Yankee to determine if the 3 conclusion of the generic EIS was still valid.
4 Specifically, we looked for any new and significant 5 information that might change that conclusion.
6 If we found no new and significant 7 information, then the conclusions we adopted were those 8 adopted in the generic environmental impact statement.
9 If new and significant information was identified, then 10 a site-specific analysis would be performed for that 11 issue. We didn't find any new and significant 12 information for category one issues, and for all of 13 these issues, we adopted the conclusions of the GEIS.
14 For all category two issues relevant to 15 Vermont Yankee, we performed a site-specific analysis, 16 much of the EIS is devoted to this site-specific 17 analysis, to the analysis of these impacts. There is 18 also this process to evaluate any new potential issues 19 in the EIS, these are things that were identified 20 during scoping or the EIS, and essential fish habitat 21 is one of those issues and an essential fish habitat 22 assessment was prepared for the Vermont Yankee 23 environmental impact statement.
24 In the generic EIS, the NRC defined three 25 impact levels, small, moderate and large. The Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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21 1 definitions used are consistent with, consistent with 2 guidance from the Council on Environmental Quality.
3 For a small impact, the effect is either not detectable 4 or is too small to destabilize or noticeably alter any 5 important attribute of the resource. For a moderate 6 impact, the effect is sufficient to alter noticeably 7 but not destabilize important attributes of that 8 resource. For a large impact, the effect is clearly 9 noticeable and sufficient to destabilize important 10 attributes of the resource.
11 I'll use the effect of the Vermont Yankee 12 cooling system on aquatic resources in the Connecticut 13 River to illustrate how we use those three criteria.
14 The operation of the Vermont Yankee cooling system 15 affects aquatic resources through entrainment, 16 impingement, and thermal shock. If the loss of aquatic 17 resources is so small that it can't be detected in 18 relation to the total population in the river or 19 doesn't destabilize the resource, then we say the 20 impact is small or would be small. If losses cause 21 aquatic resources to decline and then stabilize at a 22 lower level, the impact would be moderate. If losses 23 cause aquatic resources to decline to the point where 24 they can not be stabilized and continue to decline, 25 then the impact would be considered large.
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22 1 The EIS team evaluates impacts from 2 continued operations of Vermont Yankee and we consider 3 information from a wide variety of sources, this slide 4 shows those sources. We used information in the 5 license renewal application, including information in 6 the environmental report. We conducted a site audit.
7 Our team went to the site and conducted the site tour 8 of the Vermont Yankee site. We interviewed plant 9 personnel and we reviewed documentation of the plant 10 operations. We spoke with federal, state and local 11 officials, we spoke with permitting authorities and 12 social services and we considered the comments that we 13 received from the public during the scoping period.
14 All of this information formed the basis for the 15 analysis and the preliminary conclusions in the Vermont 16 Yankee EIS.
17 The EIS considers the environmental 18 impacts of continued operations of the Vermont Yankee 19 Nuclear Power Station during a 20-year license renewal 20 term, that is 2012 to 2032. The impacts of routine or 21 normal operations were considered for the cooling 22 system, radiological impacts, threatened or endangered 23 species and cumulative impacts, and I will be talking 24 about them in the next few slides, each of the 25 categories. The EIS also considers the impacts of Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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23 1 postulated accidents and severe accident mitigation 2 alternatives. This is a rather long one, so I'm going 3 to have a drink of water.
4 Cooling system impacts. One of the 5 project features we looked at closely is the cooling 6 system for the Vermont Yankee plant. There were five 7 category two aquatic issues relevant to the cooling 8 system, these include water use conflicts, that is 9 plants with cooling ponds or cooling towers using 10 makeup water from a small river with low flow, 11 entrainment and impingement of fish and shellfish, heat 12 shock and the enhancement of populations of 13 microbiological organisms resulting from the discharge 14 of warm water to the river as a public health concern.
15 For water use conflicts, Vermont Yankee 16 withdraws water from the Vernon Pool in the Connecticut 17 River, the Connecticut River is considered a small 18 river. At times, the flow in the river is low. A 19 site-specific analysis was conducted that included 20 evaluating water consumption from the river under 21 drought conditions and comparison of that use to 22 Vermont State quality criteria. For entrainment, 23 entrainment refers to the pulling of very small 24 organisms into the plant's cooling system, entrainment 25 usually results in the mortality of the organisms Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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24 1 involved.
2 Vermont Yankee uses a hybrid cooling, a 3 hybrid cycle whereby cooling capacity can be provided 4 in several different modes, one of those is by cooling 5 towers, completely by cooling towers which is known as 6 closed-cycle, or solely by river water, that is open 7 flow to the river, circulating through the cooling 8 system, or some combination of the two and that's known 9 as the hybrid cycle. When Vermont Yankee is only 10 operating on cooling towers, entrainment is categorized 11 as a category one issue, that is one of them that would 12 be treated generically.
13 However, because the river is used at 14 times in an open cooling cycle, we treated that as a 15 category two issue, in that we looked at all issues 16 related to entrainment as a site-specific assessment 17 so, in essence, we went into much more detail than the 18 generic evaluation. Impingement is another issue of 19 similar, impingement occurs when larger organisms are 20 pulled into the cooling system and then pinned onto the 21 screens of the cooling system. When Vermont Yankee 22 operates only on cooling towers, once again it's a 23 category one type of issue, but since it operates in 24 open cycle, we treated the entire impingement issue as 25 a site-specific issue that we looked at, and that's Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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25 1 true for heat shock also.
2 Heat shock can occur when relatively warm 3 water is released into cooler water, aquatic organisms 4 adapted to the cooler water can lose equilibrium or die 5 when exposed to significantly warmer water. When 6 Vermont Yankee is operating only on the cooling towers, 7 it's a category one issue, but we treated it as 8 site-specific because of this potential for open 9 cooling and so we looked at heat shock as a category 10 two site-specific issue.
11 Finally, for microbiological organisms, 12 the effects of microbiological organisms on human 13 health are listed as a category two issue and they 14 require a site-specific evaluation for plants with 15 closed-cycle cooling on a small river. The analysis 16 considers potential public health impacts associated 17 with thermal enhancement of enteric pathogens, enteric 18 pathogens are intestinal type pathogens. Our review of 19 the plant cooling system and the studies conducted on 20 the issues suggested that the potential impacts in 21 these areas would be small.
22 Radiological impacts. Radiological 23 impacts were determined in the GEIS to be a category 24 one issue, that is the impact of radiological releases 25 during nuclear plant operations over the 20-year Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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26 1 license renewal period would be small. However, we 2 realized that there are, releases are a concern to many 3 people and so I wanted to discuss them here. All 4 nuclear power plants release some radiological 5 effluents into to environment, although it should be 6 noted it's Vermont Yankee's operating policy to not 7 routinely release liquid radioactive effluents.
8 During our site visit, we looked at 9 documentation for effluent releases and the 10 radiological monitoring program, as well as the state's 11 independent monitoring program. We looked at how the 12 gaseous and liquid effluents were treated and released 13 as well as how the solid wastes were treated, packaged 14 and shipped. We looked at how the applicant determines 15 and demonstrates that they are in compliance with the 16 regulations for release of radiological effluents, we 17 also looked at data from on-site and near-site 18 locations that the applicant monitors for airborne 19 releases and direct radiation and other monitoring 20 stations beyond the site boundary, including locations 21 where water, milk, fish and food products are sampled.
22 We found that the average and maximum 23 calculated doses for a member of the public, even after 24 the 20 percent recent uprate granted to Vermont Yankee, 25 would be within the annual limits that are considered Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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27 1 protective of human health. Since releases from the 2 plant are not expected to increase over the 20-year 3 license renewal term and since we found no new and 4 significant information related to this issue, we 5 adopted the generic EIS conclusion that the 6 radiological impact on human health and the environment 7 would be small.
8 The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service 9 determined that the bald eagle is the only federally 10 listed species under their jurisdiction that is known 11 to occur in the vicinity of Vermont Yankee; they 12 concluded that the operations were unlikely to affect 13 this species. The National Marine Fisheries Service 14 was also consulted. Based on these consultations and 15 our review, the staff's preliminary determination is 16 that the impact of operation of Vermont Yankee during 17 the license renewal on threatened or endangered species 18 would be small.
19 Cumulative impacts are the impacts of the 20 proposed action together with other past, present or 21 reasonably foreseeable future actions, regardless of 22 what agency or other person undertakes the other, 23 undertakes the other actions. The staff considered 24 cumulative impacts in the following areas, aquatic 25 resources, terrestrial resources, radiological impacts, Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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28 1 socioeconomics and ground use and quality. Cumulative 2 impacts were evaluated to the end of the 20-year 3 license renewal term and the geographic boundaries of 4 the evaluation were dependent on the resource. Our 5 preliminary determination is that any cumulative 6 impacts resulting from the operation of Vermont Yankee 7 during the license renewal period would be small.
8 The team also looked at impacts related to 9 the uranium fuel cycle and solid waste management and 10 decommissioning of Vermont Yankee. In the GEIS, NRC 11 considered impact areas associated with these topics as 12 category one issues, our team found no related new and 13 significant information and therefore adopted the NRC's 14 generic conclusion that the impacts in these areas 15 would be small.
16 The EIS team evaluated alternatives to 17 license renewal of the existing plant. Specifically, 18 we looked at the impacts of replacing Vermont Yankee 19 power with power from other sources, Vermont Yankee has 20 a capacity of 650 megawatts.
21 The team looked at no, these are the 22 options, no action alternative, that is not renewing 23 the license, development of new generation from coal 24 fired, gas fired and new nuclear to replace the 650 25 megawatts, purchase power to replace Vermont Yankee's Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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29 1 capacity, other technologies such oil, wood, wind, 2 solar and hydropower to replace Vermont Yankee's 3 capacity and a combination of alternatives. In this 4 case, we looked at a combination of natural gas 5 generation, conservation and purchase power to replace 6 the generating capacity.
7 For each alternative, we looked at the 8 same types of issues that we would look at for the 9 operation of the Vermont Yankee plant during the 10 license renewal term. The team's preliminary 11 conclusion is that the environmental impacts of 12 alternatives would reach moderate or large significance 13 in at least some impact categories, primarily due to 14 the need for new construction.
15 To summarize our conclusions, for the 16 category one issues presented in the generic EIS that 17 relate to the Vermont Yankee plant, we found no 18 information that was both new and significant.
19 Therefore, we have preliminarily adopted the conclusion 20 that impacts associated with these issues are small.
21 In the Vermont Yankee EIS, we analyzed the remaining 22 category two issues pertinent to the Vermont Yankee 23 plant and we determined that the environmental impacts 24 resulting from these issues were also small. Lastly, 25 we found that the environmental effects of Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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30 1 alternatives, at least in some impact categories, could 2 reach moderate or large significance.
3 I'm going to switch gears here now and 4 present the findings of the accident analysis for 5 Vermont Yankee. We have Mr. Robert Palla in the 6 audience today and he was responsible for this portion 7 of the analysis, he is with the NRC. The EIS evaluated 8 two classes of accidents, design-basis accidents and 9 severe accidents. Design-basis accidents are those 10 accidents that the plant is designed to withstand 11 without risk to the public. The ability of the plant 12 to withstand these accidents has to be demonstrated 13 before the plant is actually granted a license.
14 Since the licensee has to demonstrate 15 acceptable plant performance for the design-basis 16 accidents throughout the life of the plant, the 17 Commission found, in the generic EIS, that the 18 environmental impact of design-basis accident is small 19 for all plants. The second category of accidents 20 evaluated in the generic EIS are severe accidents, 21 severe accidents are by definition more severe than the 22 design-basis accidents because they would result in 23 substantial damage to the reactor core. The Commission 24 found, in the generic EIS, that the risk of a severe 25 accidents is small for all plants.
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31 1 Nevertheless, the Commission determined 2 that alternatives to mitigate severe accidents must be 3 considered for all plants that have not done so. These 4 alternatives are termed SAMA, S-A-M-A. The SAMA 5 evaluation is a site-specific assessment and is a 6 category two issue, as we explained them to be earlier, 7 the category two issues. The purpose of performing the 8 SAMA evaluation is to ensure that the plant changes 9 with the potential for improving severe accident safety 10 performance are identified and evaluated.
11 The scope of potential plant improvements 12 that were considered included hardware modification, 13 procedural changes, training program improvements, 14 basically a full spectrum of potential changes. The 15 scope includes SAMAs that would prevent core damage as 16 well as SAMAs that improve containment performance, 17 given that a core damage event occurs.
18 The preliminary results of the Vermont 19 Yankee SAMA evaluation are summarized on this slide, 20 302 candidate improvements were identified for Vermont 21 Yankee. The number of candidate SAMAs was reduced to 22 66 based on a multi-step screening process. A more 23 detailed assessment then was conducted for the risk 24 reduction potential and implementation costs for those 25 remaining 66 SAMAs and a total of two were identified Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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32 1 as potentially cost-beneficial by Entergy.
2 In response to NRC staff inquiries, four 3 additional potentially cost-beneficial SAMAs were 4 identified. None of the potentially cost-beneficial 5 SAMAs relate to the managing the effects of plant aging 6 during the period of extended operation. Accordingly, 7 they are not required to be implemented as part of the 8 license renewal, pursuant to 10 CFR Part 54.
9 Regardless, the NRC staff considers further evaluation 10 of the potentially cost-beneficial SAMAs by Entergy as 11 warranted. Since the draft SEIS was issued, Entergy 12 has indicated they are evaluating the potentially cost-13 beneficial SAMAs for possible implementation.
14 That concludes my section of this and I'll 15 turn the mic back to Rich.
16 MR. EMCH: Okay. Just quickly, we've been 17 through it before, but the three main milestones here, 18 we issued the draft environmental statement in 19 December, the end of the comment period is March 7th 20 and we'll issue the final environmental statement in 21 August. If you need additional information to help you 22 with your evaluation of our document, you can contact 23 me, that's the information that's up there.
24 The documents, such as the environmental 25 statement, are available at these four libraries in Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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33 1 Vermont, New Hampshire and Massachusetts, and you can 2 view the document on-line as well as all kinds of, at 3 this address here and also, if you go to the NRC web 4 site, there is a lot of other information about the 5 license renewal process and guidance documents.
6 Now, I'll try to answer your question, 7 ma'am. Submitting comments, they can be submitted, the 8 easiest way is to go ahead and give us your comments, 9 just step up here to the mic tonight and tell us your 10 comments, they will be transcribed, they'll be 11 considered. You can send them in by mail to the 12 address that's on here or you can send them by e-mail 13 and that was, during the scoping process, that was a 14 method that a lot of people used, they sent their 15 comments by e-mail to the VermontYankeeEIS@NRC.gov web 16 site. And then the last method is, if you happen to be 17 in the Washington, D.C. area, Rockville, our offices 18 are in Rockville and you could deliver them in person.
19 I believe that all of this information is 20 on the handout that you picked up when you came in the 21 door, hopefully you have everything you need. With 22 that, I want to thank you folks for coming out tonight 23 and we'll try to get then into the comment part of the 24 presentation. When I was here in June, I asked you 25 folks to be my, to help me out, to give, since you are Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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34 1 the folks who, I consider you to be my environmental, 2 local environmental experts, you live and work in this 3 area and I asked you to help me out by giving me 4 information that might help me with my review. A 5 number of you took me up on that during the scoping 6 period and I want to thank you for that and I'm looking 7 forward to seeing what your comments are tonight.
8 Chip?
9 MR. CAMERON: Okay, thank you, Rich.
10 We don't have much time for questions 11 during the formal part of the meeting, but I do need to 12 ask if there is any question you need answered in order 13 to either make your comments tonight or to submit 14 written comments. We did have one question along those 15 lines that I will ask for Gary Sachs and it had to do 16 with the information on the SAMAs, and the term cost-17 beneficial was used in that connection and the question 18 is what does that mean? What does cost-beneficial 19 mean? And I'm going to ask Bob Palla from the NRC 20 staff to try to simply explain that to all of us.
21 Bob?
22 MR. PALLA: Okay. When we look at a 23 severe accident mitigation alternative, we look at its 24 impact on the likelihood of core damage. We would 25 expect these plant enhancements to reduce the Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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35 1 likelihood of a core damage event and also we look at 2 the impact of the improvement on the off-site 3 consequences, and we generally would expect the 4 consequences to be reduced by implementing the 5 improvement. We then, so we would associate a 6 reduction in core damage frequency and a reduction in 7 population dose with each SAMA, we use the 8 probabilistic risk assessment study to assign these 9 values.
10 And then we use what's called regulatory 11 analysis guidance, it's basically a protocol developed 12 by the NRC for assigning dollar values to the reduction 13 in core damage frequency and off-site consequences, so 14 we basically derive a dollar benefit and then we 15 separately look at the costs to actually implement the 16 improvement. It might be hardware costs, maintenance 17 costs, all the things that would go into the cost to 18 the utility to implement this, and so we compare the 19 benefits achieved against the cost, and something 20 that's called cost-beneficial would generally have 21 benefits that exceed the costs.
22 MR. CAMERON: Thank you very much, Bob.
23 And thank you, Gary, for that question.
24 We are going to, we are going to start 25 with Diana Sidebotham, and then go to Deb Katz. And as Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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36 1 I said, we are going to have to try to be a little bit 2 strict with the three to five minute rule. For those 3 of you who weren't here this afternoon though, we can 4 err on the farther side of that, even though it's not 5 very fair. This is Diana Sidebotham who is coming up 6 and then we'll go to Deb Katz.
7 Diana?
8 MS. SIDEBOTHAM: Thank you very much.
9 Good evening. My name is Diana Sidebotham, I'm one of 10 a group of scientists and citizens from Vermont, New 11 Hampshire, Massachusetts and New York who founded the 12 New England Coalition on Nuclear Pollution in February, 13 1971, I am currently president. Our object then was to 14 inform the public on issues of nuclear power plants and 15 alternatives and to intervene in the then existent 16 Vermont Yankee operating license proceeding, not to 17 oppose at first but to question. We asked many 18 questions and received full few, few full answers.
19 I wish to give a brief historical 20 perspective tonight relative to the EIS under 21 consideration as, in 36 years, certain issues and 22 actions have come full circle, I'll concentrate on one 23 particular matter tonight. In 1971, at Vermont Yankee 24 operating license hearings before the Atomic Energy 25 Commission, the matter of nuclear waste was excluded.
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37 1 The Natural Resources Defense Council, the State of 2 Kansas and the New England Coalition all attempted to 3 raise it repeatedly and were always told it would be 4 dealt with later.
5 The plan, at that point, was that 600 6 irradiated fuel bundles would remain in the spent fuel 7 pool for a few months only. As we know, all the spent 8 fuel ever generated at Vermont Yankee now remains in 9 the spent fuel pool. Now we know the spent fuel pool 10 is even more vulnerable because of its density. I'm 11 not quite sure of the number but it's something like 12 2,800 fuel bundles are more which are there at 13 elevation and we now know more clearly than we did 14 before that the possibility of a terrorist attack is 15 very real.
16 In 1987, at the re-racking process, the 17 second, the New England Coalition's expert witness 18 Dr. Gordon Thompson's testimony was not allowed 19 because, at that point, Dr. Thompson's contention that 20 the possibility of a self-sustaining zirconium fire in 21 a spent fuel pool in the event of a loss of coolant 22 accident was not credible. Years passed and 23 Dr. Thompson took this proposition to several reracking 24 proceedings and, finally, in about 2000 to 2001, the 25 NRC decided, oh, he is right, it could happen.
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38 1 The thing that bothers me about your EIS 2 or one of them is that NUREG-1738 I believe was 3 promulgated in 1996. You speak of new and significant 4 information which might change your view, 1996 was 5 before the NRC realized that Dr. Thompson could be 6 correct. NUREG-1783 bases its calculation on lower 7 density storage, which is not relevant now at Vermont 8 Yankee, and also on instantaneous loss of coolant, 9 rather than slow partial loss which will yield a much 10 more severe accident. Consequently, your EIS for this 11 relicense proposal does not have a factual basis.
12 As I understand changes can be made, I 13 would certainly encourage you to do a recalculation on 14 the basis of what is in the pool, what will probably 15 remain in the pool if Vermont Yankee continues to 16 operate. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals decision is 17 very clear that environmental assessment must be done 18 in regard to storage of spent fuel, the NRC should pay 19 attention and do it across the board for all spent fuel 20 storage facilities, and I know you are going to say 21 that's not entirely within your purview and it probably 22 isn't. However, it is something that I think you 23 should make very clear to your superiors and everyone 24 in the NRC.
25 I'm aware that a rule making is underway Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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39 1 for Massachusetts and, a rule making, yes, for 2 Massachusetts and its license extension and at Vermont 3 Yankee. However, it's exceedingly important that this 4 sort of thing be completed before any relicensing, if 5 it were to occur, is considered. The results of course 6 of a spent fuel pool fire would be catastrophic. We 7 learned a few days ago that the NRC has also declined 8 to provide protection for reactors from an air crash, 9 it can't happen. Together, these illustrate a serious 10 either disregard or unwillingness to address very 11 certain serious issues within your agency.
12 So, while there is a great deal more to 13 say, 36 years later, with Vermont Yankee's spent fuel 14 pool stuffed dangerously full, at elevation, with no 15 foreseeable repository anywhere in the world, the 16 people of Vermont, and New Hampshire and Massachusetts 17 are left with what was not part of the original 18 bargain, it is now a true Faustian bargain and no 19 consideration of nuclear waste in an EIS is complete on 20 this issue, it is dismissed as a small effect. Among 21 other things, an independent safety assessment is an 22 absolute, fundamental minimum requirement for any 23 possibility of license renewal.
24 The New England Coalition on Nuclear 25 Pollution is entirely opposed to license renewal and Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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40 1 severe accident mitigation alternatives also need to be 2 seriously addressed as, again, we don't think that they 3 have been. We hope very much that you will address 4 some of the issues which I've raised and which other 5 members of the public will in a reevaluation of your 6 environmental statement because, at this point, many of 7 us feel it is quite deficient.
8 Thank you for the opportunity to speak 9 tonight. You will continue to hear from the New 10 England Coalition on Nuclear Pollution and others on 11 these and other issues essential to our lives, health, 12 environment, economy and good of our entire community.
13 Thank you very much.
14 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Diana.
15 (Applause) 16 MR. CAMERON: Next we are going to hear 17 from Deb Katz, Citizens Awareness Network.
18 MS. KATZ: Well thank you for turning the 19 microphone around so that people can see the person who 20 is talking, instead of seeing their back.
21 We'll get no satisfaction here tonight, 22 let's get that clear from the get-go. The NRC is 23 basically once again attempting to operate outside the 24 rules and outside the law. The 9th Circuit came to a 25 decision that the NRC had to address the vulnerability Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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41 1 of its spent nuclear fuel in terms of the National 2 Environmental Policy Act, in terms of the movement of 3 fuel into dry cask storage, at a site in California.
4 The NRC objected and there the court rejected their 5 position and in fact Pacific Gas and Electric, the 6 corporation that has the fuel, appealed to the Supreme 7 Court and was soundly rejected by the Supreme Court.
8 At this point, the NRC has been ordered to 9 rewrite its rules and regulations in terms of 10 incorporating the issue of the vulnerability of spent 11 fuel into the National Environmental Policy Act review, 12 this effects all reactor licenses under NEPA review.
13 We are in a NEPA review, aren't we? Isn't that what we 14 are here to do tonight? Then why are we here? If this 15 is now under rewriting the regulations, why hasn't the 16 NRC suspended its evaluation? Why doesn't it take the 17 hard look that the National Environmental Policy Act 18 requires it to do, instead of avoiding the issue?
19 Because the truth is when you have a problem and you 20 have no solution, then you have no problem.
21 Now the National Academy of Science, in 22 its BEIR 7 report, determined that there is no safe 23 exposure to radiation, there is none. Is the BEIR 7 24 incorporated into the NRC's review of the environmental 25 effects on our communities? I didn't see it. And what Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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42 1 about all of that high level waste sitting on the banks 2 of the Connecticut River, potentially for 100 years or 3 more, with no solution, with the bankrupt waste 4 confidence rule that is still just dragged out to 5 justify allowing the nuclear corporations to do what 6 they want? The only protection available here tonight 7 is for a foreign corporation and its shareholders.
8 In my community, living in the shadow of 9 the Yankee Rowe and Vermont Yankee reactor, there is an 10 empty chair at too many dinner tables, there are too 11 many lost lives. This human cost is not insignificant 12 to the husbands, wives, children, friends left behind 13 to carry on, there is no relief here, there is no 14 satisfaction available. There is a great opportunity 15 but it won't be found in this NEPA review, or in the 16 environmental impact statement or in the dog and pony 17 shows that the NRC comes out and tells us that we are 18 really privileged that they come here to hear us 19 complain about what they are doing. That's an insult.
20 The potential for anything to take place 21 will happen at a state level in which the State of 22 Vermont has the power to transform energy production, 23 but the truth is it's not the State of Vermont, it's 24 the people of Vermont that will determine the course of 25 history not just for the State of Vermont but actually Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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43 1 for Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine, 2 since we all dip our beak into Vermont Yankee's power.
3 And the truth is it can be transformed and what it will 4 take is people getting engaged to make sure that, at 5 this legislative session in Vermont, that a green 6 energy portfolio is passed and that we commit to a life 7 that includes jobs, prosperity and respect for our 8 human family, as well as our environment.
9 Thank you.
10 (Applause) 11 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Deb.
12 Next we are going to go to Beth McElwee, 13 then Bruce Wiggett and Andy Davis.
14 Beth?
15 MS. MCELWEE: Good evening. My name is 16 Beth McElwee and I have been a resident of Brattleboro, 17 Vermont for most of my 25 years. I'm here tonight to 18 share with you my perspective on the Vermont Yankee 19 license renewal initiative as a community oriented 20 young adult and a recent addition to the local job 21 force.
22 I returned to the Brattleboro area one 23 year ago, after spending a year in Boston and some time 24 traveling. It was during this period I realized how 25 fortunate I am to have been raised in this healthy, Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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44 1 rural Vermont community.
2 Vermont has played a vital role in the 3 sustainability, Vermont Yankee has played a vital role 4 in the sustainability of the lifestyle we all enjoy 5 here. By supplying a clean, reliable and renewable 6 source of energy, Vermont Yankee has lessened our 7 dependency on fossil fuel and thus helped us to keep 8 our environment free of these added pollutants. I have 9 worked as a contractor at Vermont Yankee for the past 10 eight months and have had the opportunity to interact 11 with many of their employees. In doing so, my 12 confidence in their ability to run a safe and efficient 13 nuclear power plant has only grown.
14 I have seen first hand the accountability, 15 ownership and level of personal involvement the 16 employees of Vermont Yankee take in all of their daily 17 work activities. I have learned of their outstanding 18 track record of safely providing energy at fair and 19 favorable prices. And I know firsthand the importance 20 of the economic infrastructure they provide to attract 21 and retain employees from many surrounding communities.
22 To extend the operating license for Vermont Yankee 23 would be to continue supporting an environmentally, 24 economically and socially responsible culture that has 25 been established here.
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45 1 It is this type of community which we want 2 to encourage, as our global energy requirements become 3 greater and our environmental responsibility larger, 4 nuclear power is a clear path to aid in tackling both 5 of these very ominous issues. I encourage the NRC to 6 look around this community and take note of the many 7 positive influences from Vermont Yankee and I ask them 8 to extend the operating license for another 20 years so 9 we can all share in the benefits of this community for 10 many years to come.
11 Thank you.
12 (Applause) 13 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, thank you, Beth.
14 And I believe this is Mr. Wiggett.
15 MR. WIGGETT: Bruce Wiggett, yes.
16 MR. CAMERON: Okay, Bruce Wiggett.
17 MR. WIGGETT: Thank you. Thank you for 18 being here to recognize the input from the citizens of 19 the area of Vermont Yankee. My name is Bruce Wiggett 20 and I am the former CFO of Vermont Yankee, that is, I 21 was the CFO prior to the sale. In that role, I had the 22 opportunity to know and work with the operating 23 employees of Vermont Yankee, my experience with those 24 employees is that they are very knowledgeable, hard 25 working, dedicated employees whose primary focus is on Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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46 1 the safe and reliable operation of that unit.
2 During the sale, I also had the 3 opportunity to work with many of the executives and 4 managers of Entergy and I feel that their purchase only 5 strengthened the focus and provided a learning and an 6 expanded environment for those employees to operate 7 within. However, my background is finance, so I am 8 here this evening to talk a little bit about the 9 economic benefits of Vermont Yankee and what it 10 contributes to the economy of Southern Vermont, Windham 11 County and the entire State of Vermont.
12 Economic contributions from Vermont Yankee 13 are felt throughout the state and have impact on just 14 about every citizen within the state, relicensing of VY 15 will have clear economic benefits to the state and the 16 region. When VY was sold, a long-term purchase power 17 agreement was a critical part of that sale, that 18 agreement established the price of power from the plant 19 to Vermont utilities. Due to that power purchase 20 agreement, from 2002 to the present, they have already 21 saved consumers in the State of Vermont $157 million, 22 and that's in real dollars as compared to the purchase 23 power, the cost of purchase power on the open market.
24 And the Vermont Department of Public Service has 25 estimated that savings to Vermont customers through Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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47 1 2012 will total about $250 million.
2 In addition to the savings associated with 3 the purchase power agreement, VY spends between $55 and 4 $60 million on direct expenses within Windham County 5 and the state annually, those expenditures are for 6 taxes, payroll, contracted services, and supplies and 7 equipment. These local expenditures will continue 8 throughout any life extension period. By 2012, Vermont 9 Yankee will have invested about $25 million to the, or 10 paid about $25 million to the state's green energy 11 fund, that's at a rate of about $4.5 million a year.
12 The green energy fund supports energy efficiency 13 efforts and the development of renewable energy sources 14 in Vermont.
15 Last night I had the opportunity to speak 16 with Dr. Moore, who I understand spoke earlier today 17 before this meeting, and he feels that our energy 18 future will require a combination of conservation, 19 renewable energy sources and nuclear power to meet our 20 energy needs. The green fund is a major source of 21 funds for development of the non-nuclear aspects of 22 that approach here in Vermont, $25 million will go a 23 long way in Vermont towards future developments 24 throughout the state. Vermont Yankee supplies 34 25 percent of Vermont's electricity consumption and, Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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48 1 without it, Vermont would be even more dependent on out 2 of state sources to meet its electricity needs.
3 Currently, Vermont purchases approximately 50 percent 4 of its power from outside sources.
5 Long-term safe operation, a major source 6 of energy for the State of Vermont, significant 7 contributions to the State of Vermont green energy 8 fund, substantial local and statewide expenditures 9 during, directly into the economy, it's for these 10 reasons that I believe VY should receive an extension 11 of its operating license.
12 Again, thank you for all you do and for 13 listening, being here to listen to our thoughts this 14 evening.
15 MR. CAMERON: Thank you. Thank you very 16 much, Bruce.
17 (Applause) 18 MR. CAMERON: Is Andy Davis here? Okay, 19 we are going to go to Chris Williams, then Anthony 20 Stevens and then Mike LaPorte. Oh, this is Andy Davis?
21 Great.
22 MR. DAVIS: Good evening.
23 MR. CAMERON: Good evening.
24 MR. DAVIS: I think it's always 25 unfortunate when people say things that kind of cast Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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49 1 this as neighbor against neighbor. We all know that 2 good people work at Vermont Yankee, good people have 3 worked at Ford Motor Company, General Motors and we 4 still have global warming from all the release of all 5 the automobiles. It's not about who works at Vermont 6 Yankee and how good they are, it's not about how much 7 it contributes to the economy, obviously a large 8 company contributes a great deal. S.D. Organ Factory 9 for many, many years was the major employer in 10 Brattleboro, it's not today, Brattleboro is still a 11 thriving community.
12 I think it's wrong to mix those kinds of 13 issues into an environmental impact statement review, 14 we know those of you here tonight that work for Vermont 15 Yankee are great folks, that's not why we are here. I 16 know we are not supposed to ask questions, I always 17 seem to come to a meeting when I can ask a question, 18 and I ask it and it doesn't get an answer, and then I 19 come to other meetings where I have questions and I'm 20 told it's not a meeting to ask questions. This has 21 been going on since I moved to Vermont in 1976, and 22 Diana Sidebotham did a good review of some of the 23 frustrations and the shell game that has been played 24 with issues of great concern.
25 There are many people not here tonight, Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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50 1 but each of these empty seats represents many people in 2 this community who are extremely concerned about the 3 long-term environmental impacts that we are passing on 4 to our children's children, children's, children's, it 5 goes on and on.
6 Excuse me, sir, I've listened to you 7 politely many times.
8 I have a simple question and I hope the 9 NRC can answer this because it's, who owns the spent 10 fuel? Is there an answer to that question? I mean who 11 owns it?
12 MR. CAMERON: Andy, if you could--
13 MR. DAVIS: I just want, that's a simple 14 question and it would just help me clarify the final 15 comment I want to make before I sit down.
16 MR. CAMERON: Okay.
17 MR. DAVIS: But is there an answer to 18 that?
19 MR. CAMERON: I believe that the--
20 MR. DAVIS: Who owns the spent fuel?
21 MR. CAMERON: The contracts, there is 22 contracts between the Department of Energy and each 23 company that has spent fuel where the Department of 24 Energy will take the spent fuel and I believe take 25 title to that.
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51 1 MR. DAVIS: We have a lot of really 2 knowledgeable people from the Nuclear Regulatory 3 Commission here, that seems like a simple question, who 4 owns the spent fuel? Like if I have a used car in my 5 backyard, I own it.
6 MR. CAMERON: The Department of Energy is 7 going to take title to the spent fuel.
8 MR. DAVIS: It's going to take title?
9 When is it going to take title? Does it, who has title 10 to it now? Because this is the number one 11 environmental concern of people in this area, besides, 12 you know, fence-line radiation and some other things, 13 but the long-term health of this community. Our 14 governor still believes, I asked him on the radio, he 15 still thinks the federal government is coming to get 16 this. Harry Reid, the senator from Nevada, the most 17 powerful man in the United States Senate has on his web 18 site, unequivocally, that Yucca Mountain will not open.
19 Where is it being taken that our governor still 20 believes it's being removed?
21 This is an environmental review, 22 environmental as in ecological, one of the rules of 23 ecological science is that there is no away in throw 24 away, away does not exist. They don't want it in 25 Nevada and Harry Reid, the senator from Nevada, says Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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52 1 the reason they don't want it is the health and safety 2 of the people of Nevada. Well if they don't want it in 3 Nevada, why do we want it here? Okay, we are not sure 4 who owns it now, who will own it in 100 years? Someone 5 from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, who will own 6 the spent fuel in 100 years when the casks need to be 7 replaced? Who will own them?
8 And that's only the first little baby step 9 in the life of this material. Who will own it? Simple 10 question, someone from the Nuclear Regulatory 11 Commission? There is a lot of people here making a lot 12 of money.
13 MR. CAMERON: Andy, I'm going to have to 14 ask you to finish your comments, instead of sitting 15 here--
16 MR. DAVIS: Yeah, but these are the 17 issues--
18 MR. CAMERON: --asking your questions, I'm 19 sorry.
20 MR. DAVIS: --that concern me and my 21 neighbors and until you approach them and take them 22 seriously, many of us walk out of this meeting with the 23 same kind of frustration that has been expressed by 24 other speakers. And it's not about the good people 25 that work at Vermont Yankee, I love you all dearly as Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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53 1 fellow members of this community, but that's not why we 2 are here tonight. The environ, this industry has a 3 cycle to it, we like to talk about it for electrical 4 generation, the uranium is pulled out of the ground, 5 there is a whole mining process.
6 It doesn't take but a few minutes of 7 looking at a web, at the worldwide web, to find the 8 environmental problems wherever the uranium is mined.
9 There are connections between the fuel cycle and 10 military uses. You look at the countries that have 11 nuclear power, many of them have nuclear weapons, 12 that's the history of it, depleted uranium, all kinds 13 of things. It just feels like what you all do with 14 your environmental impact statement is you narrow it 15 down to just this tiny little thing and then say it's 16 all fine, but environmental deals with the fuel cycle, 17 the final resting place of the waste and those 18 questions. I have not heard them addressed by the 19 Nuclear Regulatory Commission in a public meeting.
20 And I'm just pleading with you to really 21 respond to these concerns because, so far, the generic 22 environmental impact statement, the environmental 23 impact statement don't seem to address these questions 24 and they don't give me confidence that we should be 25 parking this stuff on the banks of the Connecticut Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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54 1 River for an indeterminate period of time, and we are 2 not quite sure where it's going and it doesn't seem 3 like that scenario deserves a little check, okay.
4 Thank you very much.
5 (Applause) 6 MR. CAMERON: Thank you.
7 Chris Williams?
8 MR. WILLIAMS: Good evening. My name is 9 Chris Williams, I live in Hancock, which is in Addison 10 County, probably about 100 miles from here.
11 I'm happy to be on the record with the NRC 12 tonight, I want to state for the record that I'm not 13 compensated for my appearance here tonight, there is no 14 compensation connected to my words here tonight. I 15 want to start out by thanking our new senator, Senator 16 Sanders, Senator Sanders has recently sent a letter to 17 the Nuclear Regulatory Commission requesting that a 18 meeting just like this one be held in the very near 19 future in the state capitol, in Montpelier, where all 20 of our legislators are now in session, that's why many 21 of them aren't here tonight. It makes a lot of sense 22 to me, I think the NRC can afford it. It's happening?
23 Well, that's great.
24 I would like to, just for the record, 25 again, put a little information into the record that I Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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55 1 think is new and relevant to this process. By the way, 2 I was here for the matinee today, there was lots of 3 great testimony and they have a very impressive record 4 here. I read recently where Commissioner McGaffigan, 5 who I understand is the longest sitting Commissioner on 6 the NRC, is that correct? Right, he is the 7 Commissioner who is still on the Commission and is the 8 longest serving, has basically publicly stated that 9 Yucca Mountain was mismanaged from the get-go and that 10 they ought to give the order to stop digging. This 11 isn't coming from me, an anti-nuclear activist, clean 12 energy advocate, it's coming from the longest sitting 13 Commissioner at the NRC. That information I think is 14 relevant to this process, as previous witnesses have 15 pointed out, because we are still dealing with the 16 frustrating problem of the waste.
17 As for a nuclear renaissance, which I 18 believe people at Entergy and possibly people at the 19 NRC may be interested, in the last two weeks, in 20 financial reports coming out of Wall Street, two CEOs 21 in this country, one by the name of Jim Rogers, who is 22 the CEO of Duke Energy, and another by the name of John 23 Rowe, who is the CEO of Excelon Corporation which, for 24 the most part, is made up of Commonwealth Edison, 25 serving the City of Chicago, both of these high powered Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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56 1 CEOs who control a significant portion of the nuclear 2 fleet in this country have stated for the record that 3 they think building new plants is risky, that they've 4 been sold a bill of goods about waste disposal and that 5 they are not convinced, at this point, that their 6 companies should go ahead and build new ones. Which 7 brings us to the Entergy Corporation.
8 Is Wayne Leonard in the house? I wish he 9 was. Wayne Leonard, the CEO of Entergy Corporation, is 10 somebody that I've actually been dealing with for about 11 20 years, I think he is a pretty straightforward guy.
12 As a matter of fact, Wayne got his accounting degree at 13 Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana, he is a 14 pretty straightforward, bean counting kind of guy. I 15 know I could have a conversation with Wayne Leonard 16 about the good employees of Entergy Vermont Yankee here 17 in Brattleboro, Vermont and their concerns about their 18 jobs.
19 I would rather see this decommissioned as 20 soon as possible because there is no waste answer, but 21 I would also like to make sure that Mr. Leonard uses 22 his power, as your boss, to see to it that all of you 23 are employed until it's time to retire and employed in 24 the capacity of diligently, prudently and 25 professionally decommissioning the high level Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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57 1 radioactive waste dump in Vernon.
2 In closing, I would like to urge everybody 3 in the State of Vermont, and I just heard the former 4 CEO of Vermont Yankee talk about Vermont Yankee's 5 commitment to green energy, the $25 million 6 contribution to the green energy fund. Well there is 7 something we can all do as Vermonters if we care about 8 the energy future of this state and it's to contact our 9 legislators, all of you, please, and those of you that 10 don't want to, you won't, but I'm going to implore all 11 of you to call your legislators and ask them to support 12 House Bill 127, currently under consideration in 13 Montpelier by the legislature.
14 House Bill 127 provides for an expanded 15 portfolio standard for renewable energy, which I know 16 my colleagues in the clean energy and anti-nuclear 17 movement agree, as well as Patrick Moore, who was here 18 earlier, the folks from the Vermont Energy Partnership, 19 as well as the Entergy Corporation which has made a 20 generous $25 million contribution to clean, green 21 energy here in the State of Vermont.
22 And finally, I just want to say something 23 that in my community, which stretches around the world, 24 in terms of people committed to stopping the production 25 of high level nuclear waste and providing for clean Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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58 1 electricity with renewable, sustainable sources, we've 2 already won.
3 Thank you.
4 (Applause) 5 MR. CAMERON: Thank you. Thank you, 6 Chris. Is Anthony Davis with us?
7 Okay, Mike, why don't you go up and we'll 8 find out if Anthony is here. This is Mike LaPorte 9 MR. LAPORTE: Good evening. My name is 10 Michael LaPorte, and I'm an employee of Vermont Yankee 11 and I'm here to lend my support for renewal of Vermont 12 Yankee's license.
13 I would like to let you get a little bit 14 of my credibility by making that statement, I've been 15 working at Vermont Yankee for over 30 years. For the 16 last 30 years, I've been a member of the operations 17 department, part of my career there, I obtained an NRC 18 license to operate the controls in the control room of 19 the reactor and the plant. I feel that, working in the 20 operations department for as long as I have, I really 21 know the equipment of that plant and how it operates, 22 how it's been maintained, how it's been surveilled and 23 tested and inspected.
24 Based on that knowledge that I have, and 25 I'm telling you that, that I feel that Vermont Yankee Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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59 1 is a good candidate for license extension. And you 2 know what? I don't have to stand here in front of you 3 people right now because, in a couple of months, I'm 4 going to go to that happy place called retirement, but 5 I did feel that I'm passionate about my plant, I love 6 Vermont Yankee, I've been working there my whole life, 7 and I know it's a good plant and I know that adding 8 another 20 years to its license is a good thing, it's 9 good for a number of reasons.
10 First of all, it's good for my company, 11 Entergy, it's also good for my fellow employees that I 12 love dearly, and a lot of them probably now will be 13 able to have a career like I have had there. But 14 foremost, foremost, it's good for Vermont, it's a good 15 thing for Vermont, it's good for the United States and 16 it's good for our Planet Earth, believe it or not.
17 Thank you very much.
18 (Applause) 19 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Mike, thank you 20 very much.
21 Our next three speakers are going to be 22 Dart Everett, Bill McKin and Bill Maguire. Is Dart 23 Everett here? Okay, how about Bill McKin? You're not 24 Bill McKin, right? Okay, Bill Maguire?
25 Mr. Maguire is here.
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60 1 MR. MAGUIRE: Good evening. My name is 2 Bill Maguire and I'm the general manager of plant 3 operations at the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant.
4 I started in the power generation industry 24 years ago 5 and I spent the last 20 years in nuclear power 6 generation.
7 And I want to tell you a little bit about 8 the people at Vermont Yankee and how we conduct our 9 business at the plant. First, I want to tell you that 10 the employees are committed to excellence, by that I 11 mean they are committed to their continuing education 12 and training. I, myself, have received thousands of 13 hours1.50463e-4 days <br />0.00361 hours <br />2.149471e-5 weeks <br />4.9465e-6 months <br /> of training in my career in this industry, I have 14 also been supported in attaining a masters degree.
15 Our employees are also committed to 16 continuous process improvement, something that existed 17 at Vermont Yankee long before Entergy purchased the 18 plant but is now part of the Entergy culture as a 19 result of the process improvement culture that existed 20 at Vermont Yankee. Employees are dedicated to safety 21 and reliability, all employees start their day with a 22 safety briefing not only for their personal safety but 23 for plant safety. Every task starts with a safety 24 briefing, again reviewing their personal safety and the 25 plant's safety.
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61 1 The reliability of the plant is ensured by 2 a robust corrective action program, it's also ensured 3 by a robust predictive and preventive maintenance 4 program to ensure our plant runs reliably day in and 5 day out. Vermont Yankee is a reliable source of 6 economic power generation to the New England grid. As 7 such, we supply electricity to the power grid 24 hours2.777778e-4 days <br />0.00667 hours <br />3.968254e-5 weeks <br />9.132e-6 months <br /> 8 a day and have done so for the last 447 days 9 continuously, since our last scheduled refueling and 10 maintenance outage which, by the way, was Vermont 11 Yankee's best.
12 I'm proud to be part of the committed and 13 dedicated Vermont Yankee team of professionals and I 14 look forward to providing a clean, safe and reliable 15 source of energy into this community well into the 16 future.
17 Thank you.
18 (Applause) 19 MR. CAMERON: Okay, thank you, Bill.
20 We are going to go to Mr. Ed, we are going 21 to go to Ed Sprague, then we are going to go to Norman 22 Raymond, Bernie Buteau and Ann Howes.
23 So this is Mr. Sprague.
24 Mr. Sprague?
25 MR. SPRAGUE: My name is Ed Sprague, I Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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62 1 stand here tonight to recommend to relicense the 2 nuclear plant here in Vernon. I have, my property is 3 bounded on two sides by Vermont Yankee, I have never 4 been one of their employees, their list of employees, 5 I've certainly been a resident next door to them and I 6 can say this, that in all the time that they've been 7 there, and I've been, I moved in in 1955, when it was a 8 diary farm. So we have lived there throughout the 9 entire life of Vermont Yankee and I can say this, the 10 only thing that's been disagreeable for me, personally, 11 is the poison pens up at The Reformer and all the 12 poison pens that they sponsor. It is just, you can't 13 pick up a newspaper and find anything positive said 14 about Vermont Yankee, it's a shame, it's a crime.
15 Changing a little bit here, I was very, 16 very upset when President Carter shut down a brand new 17 reprocessing plant in South Carolina, about to come on 18 line, and he just did two things with that one move, he 19 took away the initiative of our people to run 20 reprocessing and he also gave a hammer to the people 21 who oppose nuclear energy, namely disposing of waste.
22 Now I was in attendance last night when 23 Dr. Patrick Moore gave his presentation and I came away 24 with two things, one, we are in the process of building 25 a recycling or reprocessing plant in Salt Lake City, so Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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63 1 there is hope on the horizon for reprocessing all of 2 this waste that everybody is so concerned about. It 3 will turn the waste into a resource which will keep our 4 nuclear power plants running for hundreds of years. It 5 also, another thing I came away with was, one, that ten 6 percent of the energy, of the fuel now going into our 7 power plants is coming from Russian made bombs, it's 8 taking away the threat of terrorists or abuse of that 9 raw material.
10 So, to me, the future is great, we don't 11 have to worry about storing fuel for hundreds of years 12 when we can reuse it and come away with a token amount 13 of fuel that could be put in glass and buried deep in 14 the earth. I think they've taken away, the weapons is 15 about to be taken away.
16 Thank you for letting me speak.
17 (Applause) 18 MR. CAMERON: Okay, thank you. Thank you, 19 Ed.
20 Norman, Norman Raymond? How about, is 21 this Norman? Okay.
22 MR. RAYMOND: Good evening. My name is 23 Norman Raymond, I'm a resident of Putney since 1999, 24 currently a new employee to Entergy since `05 as a 25 technical instructor.
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64 1 I want to voice to the NRC that I believe 2 that we should extend the license to Vermont Yankee, 3 not just to save my job, but in my time being there, I 4 received lots of training and have come to understand 5 the preparation and the work that goes into running 6 this plant to make it safe and reliable. I also 7 believe that nuclear power is a safe, clean alternative 8 with low and no emissions.
9 And also I would like to thank Mr. Sprague 10 for bringing up the recycling using of fuel, I think 11 that's a very positive way to handle that situation for 12 the future.
13 Thank you.
14 (Applause) 15 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Norman.
16 Okay, Ann Howes is stepping up to the 17 microphone right now.
18 Ann Howes?
19 MS. HOWES: I'm Ann Howes, I'm a resident 20 of Brattleboro, I grew up outside of Detroit in 21 Michigan and I've been in this area some portion of 22 every year of my life. I think of energy or the 23 generation of energy as a hidden art and I see it only 24 in my dreams. I'm concerned for safety because I have, 25 you know, found radioactive substance in day to day Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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65 1 living with no personal connection to environmentally 2 sensitive areas. That factor of felonious use of waste 3 materials is something that is of I think paramount 4 concern to the individual in our society, but the 5 generation of energy is something that we correlate to 6 personal betterment through warmer homes, and clean hot 7 water and those factors of comfort and domestic 8 maintenance.
9 When you come into Vermont, you have the 10 opportunity to try the older forms of lifestyles that 11 are wood burning stoves and a pedestrian lifestyle. I 12 do have great worry about nuclear waste storage and I 13 don't think that it's a money issue because it's not 14 going to, it's not going to phase my life as a money 15 issue, it's something to do. I don't think that it's, 16 I don't think it's insurmountable to dismantle and I do 17 think that this community would feel excited by 18 transforming our engineering capability into a very 19 large hydro electric community, starting with this 20 project.
21 We know we like electricity a lot and we 22 know we have a water system that we can harness.
23 Packing radioactive substance for infamy is a task we 24 can do, I don't, I'm very selfish, I don't want to 25 store it in this soft loam. I think I was convinced in Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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66 1 the `70s that we were going to put it in a desert far, 2 far from where we are living, but I'm most afraid of it 3 being used against humanity in a kind of vengeance of 4 psychological neglect.
5 Those who work in the plant feel that it's 6 safe, I think there are some members of the employment 7 league who think that it would be exciting to shut it 8 down, and clean it up and take it away, that we don't 9 even think we had one, and to concurrently figure out 10 how to generate the hydroelectric potential that we 11 have to compensate our needs with probably a small 12 interaction of just shutting off the highway lights and 13 I guess, in the winter time, the ski resorts, which 14 constrains your night behavior, and that's all I have 15 to say.
16 Thank you.
17 (Applause) 18 MR. CAMERON: Okay, thank you, Ann. Thank 19 you.
20 Bernie, Bernie Buteau?
21 MR. BUTEAU: Good evening. My name is 22 Bernie Buteau, I too work at Vermont Yankee, I've 23 worked there for over 30 years, although I'm not as old 24 as Mike, if Mike is still here.
25 I think it is the people and I think that, Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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67 1 as part of the process, you need to consider that and 2 consider some of the things that you've heard from 3 Vermont Yankee employees tonight, consider the 4 mentality that has developed over the 30 years that 5 I've been involved in the business. When I got my 6 nuclear engineering degree way back when, I was very 7 excited about nuclear power and remain so today, and I 8 believe there will be a resurgence, there is a 9 resurgence already going on across the globe, we just 10 need to get on board here in the U.S., and Entergy is 11 one of the companies that is pursuing new technology, 12 ESBWR, looking at sites down in Mississippi.
13 One of the things I was thinking about and 14 I guess I subconsciously dressed in all green tonight 15 for a reason, and I've always considered myself to be 16 concerned about the environment and I think that 17 nuclear power is an overall positive contributor to the 18 environment in that it does not create gasses, global 19 warming. The fuel that we have, you've heard people 20 talk about it tonight, and they classify it as waste.
21 Those that might have heard Dr. Moore speak last night, 22 they said a very profound statement in that because of 23 recycling, it's not waste at all.
24 And we, as humans, have relatively short 25 life spans on this planet and, over the course of time, Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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68 1 our lives are very small, compared to the ecology 2 itself, and I fully believe that the fuel that we are 3 taking out of the reactor now that has not been used 4 will be able to be used in the future in mixed oxide 5 fuels and other ways that we may not even perceive 6 right now.
7 I just want to say one thing about safety, 8 and working in the nuclear power industry has had a 9 very profound effect on me, and Bill Maguire spoke to 10 you and told you a moment ago about how we start 11 everything off with safety, and the safety moments and 12 that type of thing.
13 From my own personal perspective, when I'm 14 at home, I think more about safety than I ever would 15 have if I had not worked in the nuclear power industry.
16 I go out to mow my lawn and go out, I have two acres of 17 grass, so I go out to get my John Deere, I've got a 18 little John Deere that I drive around in but, before I 19 do that, I grab my leather gloves. People from Vermont 20 Yankee are snickering, going oh, I've heard this 21 before, but I grab my leather gloves, I grab my hearing 22 protection, my eye protection, sometimes I'll put my 23 steel-toed shoes on, which I have on now, but I have to 24 admit not always.
25 But it profoundly has effected the way Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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69 1 that I do things in my own life and I know it has the 2 same effect on the folks who work at Vermont Yankee and 3 that innately permeates the culture that we have there 4 that continues us to be able to operate the plant 5 safely, to design new and different ways of operating 6 the plant, the systems that we maintain that you've 7 heard, the systems that we add to the site, everything 8 is done with safety in mind.
9 So I think it is the people that has to be 10 considered in the equation when we are looking at the 11 environmental impact, it's the people, it's the people.
12 Thank you.
13 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Bernie.
14 (Applause) 15 MR. CAMERON: We are going to go to our 16 next three speakers who are Jim Herrick, Larry Cummings 17 and David Mannai.
18 Is Jim Herrick here? Okay, Jim?
19 MR. HERRICK: My name is Jim Herrick, I 20 live in Marlboro, Vermont and, for those of you that 21 might not be familiar with that town, it's a little 22 area that Vermont Yankee's emergency evacuation map for 23 years showed as a non-town. It was a little airbrushed 24 white space sort of stuck to the side of Brattleboro.
25 We are to the west of Brattleboro and the north of Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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70 1 Halifax, and part of our town extends within the ten 2 mile circle which is the evacuation zone.
3 Because our town fathers, in their wisdom, 4 decided that the evacuation plan was really bogus and 5 was nothing more than a placebo to try to appease the 6 demands of the citizenry, the nuclear power plant 7 decided we just weren't there, and I've always used 8 that as a sort of a pivotal point in my process of 9 looking at the way the nuclear industry works. Because 10 we didn't get shown on the map, we weren't there.
11 Therefore, there was no problem.
12 My remarks tonight are aimed at the NRC 13 and directly really to them, mainly. I'm here tonight 14 with a real feeling of embarrassment and shame. As a 15 responsible adult member of this community, I am once 16 again, by my presence, complicit in this process of 17 charade, this circus of obfuscation, this shell game 18 without end to which you, the NRC, write the rules.
19 One simple clear question stands front and center and 20 towering over these interminable Kafkaesqe theater 21 sessions, would sensible, caring people choose to live 22 with a massive, huge bomb in their midst which, should 23 it ever explode, would destroy lives, homes, lands and 24 the future of all for many generations?
25 Of course the answer is a resounding no Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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71 1 and yet, for 35 years, we have been manipulated and 2 forced into accepting that very condition by you hired 3 men of power who write the rules, mark the cards, set 4 the time clock and, at the end of the day, pack up and 5 ride far away to live comfortably distant from the 6 consequences of your machinations. We live in a 7 society that is so sensitized to danger that report of 8 a knife on a schoolground or a screwdriver in an 9 airport will shut down the entire system, yet the 10 shockingly vulnerable spent fuel pool at Vermont 11 Yankee, with enough potential radiation released to 12 make uninhabitable this entire three-state region, sits 13 within sight of two school systems, sits on the very 14 banks of our only river system which carries an entire 15 multistate watershed south to our neighbors, sits on 16 the unstable tectonic fault line that once divided two 17 separate continental land masses, and finally, sits at 18 the very gateway to the economy of all points north, 19 and as always, the NRC and the power industry finds 20 this all acceptable.
21 Sitting on my doorstep and considering the 22 nuclear reactor and its endless spew of deadly 23 radioactive waste, it is easy to enclose the scenario 24 in one simple metaphor, that of some loathsome, hell 25 sprung beast risen to paradise to sew ruination. As a Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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72 1 logical pragmatist who loves and honors this paradise 2 in which I live, my response is simple, shut it down, 3 secure the waste, decommission it and never build 4 another. But you, the NRC, the hired guns of a very 5 profitable industry, don't view the issues from the 6 same perspective and you bend your full energy towards 7 making the beast ever bigger and giving it life without 8 end.
9 To this purpose, you stifle my voice and 10 power as a citizen by building a regulatory maze of 11 ever shifting aisles with no attainable objective 12 except your own. Where logic decrees a straight, 13 continuous line of purpose that ends at shut it down, 14 you, the NRC, break that line into an infinite number 15 of points, each of which must be dealt with as a 16 separate battle and each which must be fought in 17 endless, tedious meetings and hearings that break the 18 will and finances of committed individuals and groups 19 who fight for a future of community, home, neighbor and 20 child.
21 Against all sanity, you have designed a 22 glide path for this tired old reactor to increase its 23 output in waste generation by 20 percent and extend its 24 life for another 20 years. As has been the case over 25 the past 35 years, our comments and concerns regarding Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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73 1 issues will be voiced with absolute sincerity but have 2 no choice, excuse me, have no chance of achieving 3 amelioration of your predetermined result. The 670 4 page environmental impact statement will be absorbed 5 into the dull grey labyrinth of your calculated 6 process, calculated to render us powerless and useless 7 against your total control of the outcome.
8 When I recently read that the NRC had 9 ruled that guarding against the threat of a terrorist 10 air attack on the reactor was the responsibility of the 11 Department of Defense, thus rendering Entergy as not 12 accountable for efforts in that direction, I knew the 13 shell game had been ramped up a few notches. Entergy 14 cannot protect the exposed fuel pool against an air 15 attack, the Department of Defense will not protect the 16 fuel pool against an air attack, so the NRC states that 17 the core containment structure is of a robust nature to 18 withstand most air attacks and totally ignores the real 19 danger of the spent fuel pool.
20 I end up by just asking this rhetorical 21 question, is there anything that could get you, the 22 NRC, to care more about the many people whose lives and 23 future your hold in the palm of your hand and less 24 about the industry robber barons who own you as shield 25 and armor?
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74 1 Thank you.
2 (Applause) 3 MR. CAMERON: Thank you.
4 Larry Cummings?
5 MR. CUMMINGS: Good evening. My name is 6 Larry Cummings, I'm a employee at Vermont Yankee, I've 7 been here for about two years and two months, but I've 8 been in nuclear power for a little over 20 years. And 9 I would recommend that we extend the license of Vermont 10 Yankee for another 20 years.
11 I want to share with you a couple of my 12 experiences outside of nuclear power. In the late 13 `70s, I was working in Southwestern Pennsylvania, I was 14 actually working on a nuclear power plant construction 15 project, but I lived in a town that had three coal 16 fired units, those units had 960-foot smokestacks so 17 that they could deliver the sulfur dioxide and the coal 18 dust to Vermont, New Hampshire and places like that.
19 In 1996, I was living and working in 20 Louisiana and I had an opportunity to go to work in the 21 chemical industry. After about five months of 22 witnessing the environmental and safety issues there, I 23 decided that I should tuck my tail between my legs and 24 go back to the safety of the nuclear power industry.
25 Of course you don't know much about refineries, you Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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75 1 just burn the oil and burn the gas and put the sulfur 2 dioxide into the atmosphere without thinking about it, 3 but if you witness it and see what's going on, you will 4 appreciate the environmental friendliness of nuclear 5 power.
6 And I can assure you, as an employee of 7 Vermont Yankee, that the people that work there are 8 very, very dedicated to the safety and health of the 9 environment and the people of this community.
10 Thank you.
11 (Applause) 12 MR. CAMERON: Okay, thank you. Thank you 13 very much.
14 And, David, David Mannai?
15 MR. MANNAI: Good evening. My name is 16 Dave Mannai.
17 First of all, I would like to let you know 18 I'm a resident of Vermont, I live in Westminster West, 19 which is located just west of Putney, it's an 20 agricultural part of Windham County. I'm also the 21 father of two children. About ten years ago, I moved 22 to Vermont. I'm a native New Englander, originally a 23 flatlander, and I wanted to live and raise a family in 24 Vermont, I have two children, and I mentioned, and I 25 wanted to live in the Green Mountain State because of Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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76 1 the great things I can do here.
2 I also happen to be a farmer and I raise 3 sheep, I have about 30 acres of land out there and I'm 4 in the process of turning it into certified organic 5 pasture. I consider myself an environmentalist and 6 also a good environmental steward of the farm and land 7 that I own and operate. I have also been employed in 8 the nuclear industry for the last 25 years in various 9 capacities. Prior to moving to Vermont ten years ago, 10 I was a resident inspector for the U.S. Nuclear 11 Regulatory Commission at a couple plants that were not 12 Vermont Yankee but were in Region I.
13 In the last ten years at Vermont Yankee, 14 I've had responsibility here in fuel cycle management, 15 core design, core management, reactor engineering and 16 some involvement with the dry fuel storage project that 17 is presently ongoing. I understand and view the 18 license renewal of Vermont Yankee from the perspective 19 and insights as a local resident, a farmer, a former 20 NRC regulator and that of a Vermont Yankee employee.
21 Not many people here tonight can say they share that 22 same vantage point and perspective. And from each and 23 every one of those perspectives, I can only reach one 24 conclusion and that's the license renewal for Vermont 25 Yankee is the best environmentally sound choice to meet Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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77 1 Vermont's energy needs, since it's safe, it's 2 non-greenhouse gas emitting, it's clean, reliable, 3 efficient and cost effective, and it's local, a source 4 of vitally needed baseload supply of electricity.
5 There has been mention here tonight the 6 fuel is going to be recycled in our lifetimes, that's 7 going to be happening, that will happen. Vermont 8 Yankee has a strong, safe, high quality and reliable 9 performance record over the last 35 years, it's a real 10 testament to the men and women of Vermont Yankee and 11 Entergy who are absolutely committed to both safety, 12 and quality and continuous improvement, as was 13 mentioned earlier this evening, that's who we are.
14 And since 1972, safe, clean, reliable 15 operation of Vermont Yankee has prevented millions of 16 greenhouse emissions, millions of metric tons of 17 greenhouse gas emissions, including carbon dioxide, 18 from entering the Vermont environment.
19 In conclusion, looking at Vermont's future 20 energy needs and the impacts on our environment, there 21 is no alternative that is more beneficial to both the 22 environment and the ability to meet the energy demands 23 of Vermont. When all the facts are considered, not 24 just part of them, simply said, it's the green choice.
25 Thank you.
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78 1 (Applause) 2 MR. CAMERON: Thank you.
3 We are going to go to Judy Miller, then 4 Nick Caristo, then W.H. Schulze. Judy Miller?
5 Okay, Nick, Nick Caristo?
6 MR. CARISTO: Good evening. My name is 7 Nick Caristo and I've been employed at Vermont Yankee 8 for the last 12 years. I came here from the State of 9 Maine where I previously worked at Maine Yankee. I'm 10 still a resident of the State of Maine and, since the 11 closing of our nuclear power plant, my electric bill 12 has increased 300 percent over the past ten years. We 13 now receive two combined electric bills each month, one 14 from Central Maine Power and the other one from 15 Constellation Power Company which doesn't even reside 16 in our state.
17 I'll give you a little history of what 18 happened to Maine after the power plant was shut down, 19 the nuclear power plant was shut down. Two gas power 20 plants were built in Maine to replace the Maine 21 Yankee's production of electricity, these two power 22 plants cannot run on a routine basis because of the 23 escalating costs of gas today, they only operate when 24 the peak demands require their electricity, which costs 25 a lot more than the regular price, so Maine Yankee now Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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79 1 imports a majority of its electricity from surrounding 2 states and Canada.
3 I started my career in nuclear power in 4 1965, 42 years ago, I have a bachelors degree in 5 radiological health, and working at Vermont Yankee for 6 the past 12 years, it is my observation that its 7 management and my coworkers, me included, their top 8 priority is to operate the plant safely and 9 efficiently.
10 The citizens of the State of Vermont can 11 be proud that they have the lowest per capita 12 greenhouse gas emissions in the United States, I think 13 that was hard work and it wasn't done overnight. The 14 State of Vermont can be very proud of that rating and 15 the culture at Vermont Yankee to operate safely 16 directly contributes to this status of the lowest 17 overall greenhouse emissions, we don't produce any.
18 In addition, the efficient operation of 19 Vermont Yankee also contributes to affordable 20 electricity in Vermont. I ask you to learn from the 21 mistake that the State of Maine has allowed to happen, 22 closure of our nuclear power plant, which I believe has 23 contributed to the escalating costs, 300 percent, to 24 the people of the State of Maine. And I haven't even 25 mentioned what impact this has had on the economy which Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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80 1 has not recovered in midcoast Maine as a result of the 2 closure and the thousand people who were displaced 3 because of the closure of the plant.
4 I'm asking the people of Vermont and the 5 NRC to maintain the State of Vermont's status as the 6 lowest emission of greenhouse gasses per capita and to 7 keep Vermont electric rates competitive, so I ask the 8 NRC to continue and to approve, to approve the 9 continued safe and efficient operation of Vermont 10 Yankee.
11 Thank you.
12 (Applause) 13 MR. CAMERON: Okay, thank you. Thank you 14 very much, Nick. Okay, great, we can put that in the 15 transcript.
16 We have W.H. Schulze and then we are going 17 to go to, we are going to go to Dick Brigham and then 18 we are going to go to Ida Belivet, and I'm sorry if I 19 mispronounced that, and to Kent Belivet. And this is 20 W.H. Schulze.
21 MR. SCHULZE: Representatives of the NRC, 22 ladies and gentlemen, good evening. My name is William 23 Schulze, 27 years ago this month I started work at 24 Vermont Yankee in the operations department, I later 25 transferred to the training department where I've Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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81 1 worked for the last 11 years.
2 I came here for two reasons, Vermont 3 Yankee had a good reputation as a well run plant and 4 the State of Vermont seemed like the idea place to 5 start and raise a family. I'm very proud to be part of 6 a company that has provided safe, clean and reliable 7 energy to Vermont for 35 years.
8 A large reason why the Vermont environment 9 is where it is today is because of our operation, it 10 produces no acid rain or greenhouse gasses. In a year, 11 a typical 1,000 megawatt coal fired plant emits 100,000 12 tons of sulfur dioxide, 75,000 tons of nitrogen oxides 13 and 5,000 tons of fly ash into the environment. It 14 also contributes large amounts of CO2 to the global 15 warming problem. Going forward in Vermont, we need to 16 have a diverse mix of energy options for the good of 17 the state and the people. Solar, wind power, hydro and 18 nuclear should all play a role in Vermont's energy 19 future. Extending Vermont Yankee's license is the 20 smart thing to do both economically and 21 environmentally.
22 For 27 years, I have been sincerely and 23 graciously thankful for the opportunity to give my 24 absolutely best to the State of Vermont and my 25 coworkers at Vermont Yankee, it continues to be my Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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82 1 pleasure and privilege to do so.
2 Thank you for the opportunity to speak.
3 (Applause) 4 MR. CAMERON: Thank you. Dick? Dick 5 Brigham?
6 For those of you who were with us this 7 afternoon, I'm going through the people who have not 8 had a chance to speak today, but we will get to Gary 9 Sachs, and Sally Shaw and others. This is Dick 10 Brigham.
11 MR. BRIGHAM: First off, I would like to 12 say to the workers at Vermont Yankee, we look at you as 13 Simon and Peter, whether you are fishermen or whether 14 you are not, we are all fishing for the right thing, 15 that's not part of my testimony, particularly. My name 16 is Dick Brigham, I'm here representing myself, my 17 family and hundreds of Vermonters who could not be 18 here, we are addressing the relicensing of Vermont 19 Yankee. We complement the NRC and review board for 20 doing a wonderful job, doing a wonderful job of playing 21 charades.
22 Vermont has one if not the highest, one of 23 if not the highest rates per capita of radioactive 24 waste in the nation, maybe in the world. This 25 radioactive poison is, as we all know, stored in an Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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83 1 overfull, unprotected precarious place in our state.
2 Obviously the NRC is wanting to relicense a dangerous 3 old plant to add to an unsolvable problem. We have 4 seen this same NRC fox guarding our hen house of health 5 before. To those of you at the NRC wanting to add to 6 an unsolvable problem, to relicense Vermont Yankee, it 7 is past time your consciences, obviously based on 8 tilted education and money, begin to kick in since, no 9 matter how much electricity we produce, it will never 10 be enough.
11 What is essentially important for future 12 life on earth is what poison we produce in making 13 electricity. Obviously Vermont Yankee produces the 14 worst type of poison that man can fathom, carbon in the 15 atmosphere is nothing compared to radioactivity. All 16 this talk of millions of dollars for the green fund is 17 total manure compared to any small radioactive mishap 18 or your grandchild's cancer. For the life of your 19 grandchildren and the health of the world, we demand 20 the NRC deny Vermont Yankee the relicensing permit. As 21 we say in Vermont, smarten up, NRC, we all see through 22 your charade.
23 (Applause) 24 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Dick. Ida?
25 And are you bringing Kent down with you?
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84 1 Okay, and if you could just give is the correct 2 pronunciation of your last name? Belivet? Belivet, 3 this is Ida Belivet and Kent.
4 MR. BELIVET: Ida Belivet and Kent 5 Belivet.
6 MR. CAMERON: Thank you.
7 MS. BELIVET: Good night, everybody. I 8 just wanted to come down and say that this isn't 9 actually a public hearing at all, this is gigantic, 10 steaming pile of shit. I'm tired of hearing a bunch of 11 bureaucrats blowing hot air up each others asses, I'm 12 not buying it. What I'm really here to talk about is 13 my main concern which is the radioactive waste that 14 will outdate this reactor by tens of thousands of 15 years. I wanted to bring down a diagram of the kind of 16 waste that I produce in this community, it's a bag of 17 returnables. Trading recyclables for radioactive waste 18 can't really compare, no one has ever died from 19 exposure to returnables. I don't think Entergy can say 20 the same for their waste.
21 Despite this fact, I was not permitted to 22 bring my bag of trash into this room, while that 23 reactor continues to produce some of the most dangerous 24 materials on this planet. I don't think there is any 25 negotiation for relicensing before anyone can anything Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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85 1 to say about what's going to happen with that waste.
2 Thank you.
3 (Applause) 4 MR. CAMERON: And now we are going to hear 5 from Kent.
6 MR. BELIVET: Good evening, everybody. I, 7 unlike my wife, am a proponent of nuclear power. I 8 would like to thank Chip, you are doing a great job 9 tonight emceeing. I would like to thank Bill Maguire 10 for coming up here, he said some wonderful things.
11 Patrick Moore, I heard him earlier, star on 12 performance. I liked what he had to say about green 13 effects, and Rich and really the whole NRC, thanks for 14 coming and putting us on. I'm glad and I hope we can 15 get this relicensing to pass.
16 My favorite part of the PowerPoint was the 17 four references to the small environmental impacts of 18 nuclear power, I really liked that and that truly is 19 what I appreciate most about nuclear power is its 20 effect on the environment, and that's why I'm here 21 tonight at this environmental impact study, hearing or 22 whatever.
23 I'll get on with my comment here.
24 The things I look forward to with 20 more 25 years of Vermont Yankee running here 15 miles from Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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86 1 where I was born and raised are pretty exciting, I look 2 forward to my children or perhaps my wife getting 3 breast cancer, I look forward to the time when I can 4 hug them and feel only one of their breasts up against 5 my breast because the other has been removed because of 6 a tumor because there is 88,300 cubic yards of 7 radioactive waste stored on the Connecticut River.
8 I look forward to my kids having Downs 9 Syndrome and I look forward to this community growing 10 in all its new and mutated ways. I look forward to 11 spending a hard life with my father or perhaps my 12 children as they die a slow death of prostate cancer.
13 I look forward to swimming in a warmer Connecticut 14 River. I look forward to my friends returning from the 15 Iraq War with post traumatic stress syndrome and 16 something unknown, something that's killing them that's 17 caused by depleted uranium which comes from nuclear 18 power. I'm really into that, I think that will be 19 great to hang out with my friends as they die a slow 20 and painful death.
21 I'm looking forward to more wars, I'm 22 looking forward to more waste reprocessing and more 23 efficient smart weaponry, and increased infant 24 mortality is something I can barely hide my excitement 25 about. And finally, I look forward to a time when I Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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87 1 can abandon my home, the place where I grew up, because 2 of a nuclear accident or simply because too much waste 3 has accumulated and the environment becomes unsuitable 4 for human habitation. So thanks a lot and thanks for 5 everyone for encouraging this relicensing, keep it up, 6 NRC.
7 (Applause) 8 MR. CAMERON: Okay, Kent.
9 We're going to go to Roy Ramsdell, Brian 10 Tietze, Karen Murphy and Gail Elnell. Is this Roy?
11 All right.
12 MR. RAMSDELL: Good evening. My name is 13 Roy Ramsdell, I am an employee of Vermont Yankee.
14 I want to thank the NRC for holding the 15 hearings to talk where everybody in the community can 16 get together and share their view. Not all views are 17 the same, it's good to hear the differences and work 18 out those differences. There is a lot of technology, a 19 lot of data, a lot of number crunching that went into 20 the study that the NRC is looking at, I would like to 21 focus on the human face at Vermont Yankee. I have a 22 human factors background, it's also what I think makes 23 it at the end of the day is the people.
24 We look at our community and a number of 25 folks have acknowledged that it isn't the people we Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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88 1 don't like, it's nuclear power. Well guess what? It's 2 the people that run the nuclear power plant, it's the 3 same people that are in the community, the same people 4 that are teachers, the same people that lead scouting 5 groups, the same ones that volunteer at the hospital or 6 Rescue, Inc. These are the people that work at the 7 power plant, they are not different than the other 8 folks. The one thing they have in common is the common 9 purpose to run that plant safely and keep it that way 10 for another 20 years.
11 They are in the fabric of this community, 12 they are here to stay, they live in the three 13 surrounding states and they are not going to endanger 14 their homes because this is home. So, at the end of 15 the day, we have all the technology and all the 16 studies, but what we are really left with is the people 17 and it's the people that run that and keep it safe.
18 Thank you.
19 (Applause) 20 MR. CAMERON: All right, thank you. Is 21 Brian here? Brian? And then we are going to go to 22 Karen Murphy, if she is still here, and Nina, Nina 23 Keller who is definitely here.
24 MR. TIETZE: Good evening, thank you. My 25 name is Brian Tietze, I am an employee of Vermont Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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89 1 Yankee and have been for 25 years.
2 A lot of people have made a lot of 3 comments and I'm not going to repeat it, I know some 4 people think that we shouldn't talk about the people 5 but I would like to talk about the people. In the 25 6 years I've been with Vermont Yankee, I've been on a lot 7 of different assignments, one of the ones I'm currently 8 involved with is our donations committed. We work very 9 hard, working in the tristate area, looking at all the 10 people that need our help and we diligently review, and 11 we go out and we help these people.
12 Last year, we gave over $250,000 to the 13 tristate area and a lot of it had environmental impact.
14 A lot of the things we do are with scouts, with other 15 organizations that are doing great things in the town.
16 Without our finances, and our help and our employees, 17 those initiatives wouldn't happen, so I do encourage 18 that you consider us with a licensed extension for the 19 next 20 years so that we can continue to be an 20 important player in the community and that we can show 21 you, as we have, as I've listened to comments for over 22 10 years for every time we try to do something, that we 23 just show you that we are doing better and better, I 24 guarantee you the employees that I work with are 25 dedicated to doing that.
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90 1 As was stated, we work safely, we are well 2 controlled and we do want to be a part of your future.
3 Thank you.
4 (Applause) 5 MR. CAMERON: Thanks, Brian. And this is 6 Karen.
7 MS. MURPHY: Good evening. My name is 8 Karen Murphy, I do not work at Vermont Yankee, I'm also 9 not going to be giving my own comments tonight, I've 10 been asked to read a document sent by Ray Shadis, he is 11 a consultant for the New England Coalition, and I have 12 agreed to do that. I am not going to read the entire 13 document but I do have a copy to submit. In the 14 environmental scoping process, the New England 15 Coalition raised new, significant and site-specific 16 issues affected by license renewal which the NRC, in 17 responding to scoping meeting comments, ignored, 18 trivialized or otherwise failed to answer.
19 The relevant comments are four in number, 20 high radiation readings inside the Vernon elementary 21 school have correlated by vector and occurrence with 22 high radiation readings on certain fence line 23 instruments. New England Coalition expressed our 24 belief that these high radiation readings in the school 25 because of high correlation by vector and occurrence Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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91 1 with high TLD readings on the site fence line warrant 2 investigation in order to determine if licensee 3 off-site radiation dose estimates are correct and then 4 to quantify the actual off-site radiation dosages as 5 they would be effected by 20 years of additional 6 operation at extended power uprate levels.
7 Number two, in 2002 Entergy Nuclear 8 Vermont Yankee amended its discharge permits to include 9 water treatment with a new list of chemical additives 10 including proprietary formulas of biocides, detergents, 11 surfactants and anti-corrosives to be applied, along 12 with chlorine and fluorine compounds. These toxins and 13 otherwise harmful materials may be incorporated in 14 cooling tower drift, these are droplets which are 15 expelled laterally from the towers as spray which have 16 been found to travel and deposit up to a mile from the 17 plant.
18 There has been no formal evaluation of the 19 environmental and human health impact Vermont Yankee's 20 cooling tower drift, which is site-specific with 21 respect to the chemical mix, solution, periods of use, 22 tower spray physical characteristics, characterization 23 and susceptibility of effected biota, weather patterns, 24 terrain, and characterization and location of 25 potentially affected human populations. The impact of Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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92 1 cooling tower drift over 20 additional years of 2 operation at extended power uprate conditions must be 3 quantified and verified prior to any assertions of no 4 significant environmental impact for license renewal.
5 Three. In the mid 1990s, Vermont Yankee 6 applied for and received permission for outdoor on-site 7 storage of up to 35 cubic yards of radiological 8 contaminated soil per year, this soil is drawn from 9 building excavations and from traction sand and salt 10 that have been applied to and gather from VY roads 11 during winter. In 2003, Entergy Nuclear Vermont Yankee 12 applied for and received permission for outdoor on-site 13 storage of a one-time dump of approximately 300 cubic 14 meters and an annual deposit of up to 150 cubic meters 15 of radiological contaminated soil.
16 This soil will be stored south of the 17 cooling towers on what may be fairly characterized as 18 the banks of the Connecticut River, VY irradiating 20 19 percent more uranium under increased flow turbulence 20 will produce in excess of 20 percent additional low-21 level waste and contamination due to extended power 22 uprate. NRC cannot credibly assert that this excess 23 site contamination will remain within regulatory bounds 24 with quantification and verification of potential 25 radiological effects, as they may be aggravated by Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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93 1 leeching, stratification, migration and bio 2 accumulation. The presence of this low-level waste 3 dump on the banks of the Connecticut is a new, since 4 the original licensing and not included in any license 5 amendments and it is site-specific, it should be 6 considered in any license renewal evaluation.
7 And number four, the NRC fails to consider 8 the potential environmental effects of the spent fuel 9 pool accident or major spent fuel pool radiological 10 release as a result of an act of terror. NUREG-1738 11 characterizes potential impacts as up to 25,000 12 fatalities at a distance of up to 500 miles and this 13 presumes 95 percent early evacuation. The model plant 14 chosen for this study referenced in NUREG-1738 was 15 Millstone One, a plant very similar to VY, albeit in an 16 area of high population density. NUREG-1738 also 17 references seismic fragility of the Vermont Yankee 18 spent fuel pool specifically. It also admits that BWR 19 Mark 1 containments would present no substantial 20 obstacle to aircraft penetration.
21 Further, it admits that it is impossible 22 to assign probability to acts of terror. This is new 23 information and has yet not been considered for its VY 24 site-specific references and implications. No credible 25 assessment of potential accident consequences or Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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94 1 mitigation at Vermont Yankee can be undertaken without 2 including consideration of the information in NUREG-3 1738.
4 And last, New England Coalition's 5 preceding comments, as presented during the June, 2006 6 scoping meeting, are site-specific and present new and 7 significant considerations. Although we can find no 8 place in the regulations that specifies how comments 9 taken on the draft part shall be considered and 10 incorporated, New England Coalition now respectfully 11 requests that the NRC staff give these comments 12 individual evaluation for potential environmental 13 impact before the license renewal process goes forward.
14 Thank you.
15 (Applause) 16 MR. CAMERON: Thank you for putting that 17 on the record, thank you for putting that on the record 18 for us.
19 And this is Nina, Nina Keller.
20 MS. KELLER: I'm Nina Keller and I live 21 about 14 miles from the Vermont reactor.
22 I've been to many hearings before and 23 usually the NRC is seated where we can see them, and 24 tonight they are kind of dispersed into the crowd, and 25 it makes me feel like some of our words are melting Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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95 1 into a shroud of dark mist. I don't know exactly who 2 I'm talking to, I didn't really come to talk to an 3 audience.
4 So the NRC said, and it was on the slide 5 show, that they really wanted to hear us, that that's 6 part of their job, to listen to us responsibly, and 7 yet, if the NRC is not listening to the Supreme Court 8 of this nation, then how are we to believe that we are 9 being respected? That we are being heard? I don't 10 quite get it.
11 The Supreme Court recently ruled, they 12 ruled --. Are they not the highest court in the land?
13 They ruled that relicensing must include the 14 consideration of terrorism, period, not for the NRC to 15 then say, no. The Supreme Court ruled it so it must be 16 included in the relicensing consideration of Vermont 17 Yankee, period. I also was somewhat stunned, actually 18 disgusted to see a slide up there that said it would 19 have a large impact to go alternative. Well they are 20 comparing all kinds of interesting little financial 21 tidbits but, if you read the papers, if you understand 22 more about the reactor sitting right over there and it 23 not creating greenhouse gasses, then you are forgetting 24 the entire, the entirety of the nuclear process, the 25 mining, the milling, the tailing, the reprocessing, the Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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96 1 storage, the transportation, the transmission, the 2 decommission and so on, and all the multi megawatts 3 that are consumed in those processes, so don't tell me 4 that nuclear is green.
5 People think they are talking to idiots 6 when they say things like that and we are no longer 7 stupid, we are educated, we are reading more than what 8 the NRC is professing, and it's an insult to talk to us 9 like that. I proposed this before and someone 10 mentioned it this evening, that the workers who are 11 keeping us safe right now and doing as good a job as 12 can be done at the reactor, that you be retrained as 13 part of the shutting down of Vermont Yankee because I 14 know it's going to be shut down, it's not going to be 15 relicensed.
16 So wake up all you people who came up here 17 tonight and said you work at Vermont Yankee and you 18 have masters degrees and whatever, the wonderful 19 education and training you've had, wake up because you 20 should not be put out of a job, you should be 21 retrained, and you should start being your own 22 advocates right now and make sure that Entergy, your 23 bosses, your company who you are so loyal to, that they 24 are going to retrain you and they are starting to look 25 at that immediately. And it shouldn't be up to the Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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97 1 alternative energy people to come up with jobs for you, 2 we are going to work with you, but we need to hear that 3 you are thinking about the future too because some 4 people need it the way they want it.
5 Well we have, the environmentalists 6 haven't had it the way we want it, and the tide is 7 turning and it's going to happen, and Vermont Yankee is 8 shutting down. So terrorism must be included in the 9 environmental impact statement and in relicensing, and 10 there must be an independent safety assessment, there 11 must be.
12 Thanks.
13 (Applause) 14 MR. CAMERON: Okay, thanks, Nina.
15 We are going to go to Norm Redemacher, 16 Clay Turnbull, Chuck Edwards, and then we are going to 17 go to Gary Sachs and Sally Shaw.
18 And this is Norm? All right.
19 MR. REDEMACHER: Good evening. My name is 20 Norm Redemacher, I'm an Entergy employee and we are 21 here to talk about the environmental impact of Vermont 22 Yankee.
23 On balance, over the last 35 years, if you 24 look at the current proposed environmental impact, it 25 provides a strong report card for Vermont Yankee Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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98 1 relative to being an environmental and economically 2 sound unit. What other kind of facility operates for 3 almost 35 years and still is considered by experts, 4 both within the federal government, and local and state 5 government, as an economically sound, safe and 6 environmentally friendly source of electric power? In 7 my opinion, we should renew the license for Vermont 8 Yankee.
9 Thank you.
10 (Applause) 11 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Norman.
12 And Clay? Clay Turnbull?
13 How about Chuck Edwards?
14 MR. TURNBULL: Good evening. This is a 15 great document, I wish I had time to read all of it 16 front to back twice, but I've only had a chance to 17 browse through it. I refuse to believe that we can't 18 do better, I refuse to believe that we have to stay on 19 this same course that we've been on. I'm still seeing 20 way more lights on than we need and I see it in every 21 aspect of our society, we are gluttonous consumers of 22 energy in all of its different forms. Before any 23 discussion of a license extension or relicensing, is 24 it, can someone clarify is it relicense or license 25 extension? Is it a whole new license or is it an Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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99 1 extension?
2 Well, whatever it is, before we have any 3 additional discussion on that, I believe it's 4 imperative that we have an independent safety 5 assessment, just like they had in Maine. I'm very 6 pleased to see that there are some senators in New York 7 that are moving in that direction on the national level 8 and I would think that any employee at Entergy would be 9 pleased to see an independent safety assessment as 10 well.
11 One concern I have is that, as I've heard 12 employees speaking, there is a gentleman that spoke 13 earlier who said he will be retiring in two years and 14 two months, and that he thinks of Vermont Yankee as his 15 nuclear power plant. My concern is how many guys like 16 him are retiring that are familiar with the 17 idiosyncracies of that facility? I know how to drive 18 my car, I know it might pull a little bit to the left 19 because of the brakes up front, I know what to expect 20 in operating that vehicle. The retiring folks are the 21 ones that have that ingrained knowledge and they are 22 leaving, and they are replaced by someone else who has 23 been here for, you know, the fellow from Maine who has 24 been here for I think 12 years, and that's a drop in 25 the bucket.
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100 1 I would like to follow the course of Maine 2 Yankee in several respects, one of having an 3 independent safety assessment. The State of Maine 4 right now is contemplating withdrawing from the ISO New 5 England because they, I believe, considered, I believe 6 the reason that they are considering withdrawing is 7 they have their energy needs met in the state. We've 8 heard some scare tactics about what's happening in 9 Maine, perhaps the gentleman that spoke should buy his 10 electricity from a renewable energy source, clean, 11 safe, reliable, conservation, solar, wind, biomass.
12 And I really would like to see some 13 additional radiation monitoring. There was an 14 incorrect, some discussion between the state, and 15 Entergy and the NRC about whose numbers were accurate, 16 and they haven't gone into, followed that in depth. I 17 would like to see radiation monitors in a grid pattern 18 throughout a ten mile radius of Vermont Yankee.
19 That concludes my comments.
20 (Applause) 21 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, thank you very 22 much.
23 Gary, Gary Sachs?
24 MR. SACHS: My opinion, I'm Gary Sachs, a 25 resident of Brattleboro, not affiliated, opposing Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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101 1 Entergy and opposing relicensing, opposing Vermont 2 Yankee.
3 Hi, Dave. Your EIS is flawed and 4 inadequate, I say that for starters. Vermont is the 5 only state where there have been interveners both in 6 the uprate case and the dry cask case, and I believe 7 now in the license, relicensing case as well.
8 Now I've got some concerns I want to raise 9 here, I have a concern that the NRC accepted Entergy's 10 recommendation that the spent fuel canisters be stored 11 outside along the Connecticut River. A concern there 12 has to do with I have a concern with the NRC's 13 awareness that the proposed location is in a flood 14 plain. I'm not sure how long the flood plain is, there 15 is some variation there. I have concern regarding that 16 such a location means that at least one every few 17 hundred, five hundred, thousand more years, a flood is 18 going to occur high enough to wash those 90 ton casks 19 directly into the Connecticut River. Mathematically 20 speaking, I have a concern whether or not the NRC has 21 evaluated the fact that if those canisters stay there 22 in the flood plain for 20 years, 50 years, there is a 23 higher increased chance of that flood occurring and/or 24 washing those casks into the Connecticut River. I'm 25 certain the NRC is aware that that flood plain Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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102 1 designation is based on historical meteorological data.
2 3 I have a great concern that world renowned 4 and credentialed meteorologists and environmental 5 experts are now stating that global warming will 6 undoubtedly change historical weather data, bigger 7 storms occurring far more frequently than charted or 8 anticipated. I certainly hope the NRC has done its due 9 diligence and research to make sure that 1, 5, 10 10 casks, 90 tons a piece, 50 feet away from the banks of 11 the river, who knows when that next flood is coming?
12 So the historical weather data is likely no longer 13 accurate.
14 I have a concern regarding the steps the 15 NRC has taken to reevaluate the critical environmental 16 data and its impact on the storage of the spent fuel at 17 Vermont Yankee. I also question what environmental 18 modeling data the NRC has used and is available for 19 these utilities to use to evaluate these upcoming 20 environmental changes. I would love to know what 21 regulations the NRC has put in place to ensure that all 22 utilities are considering the new environmental issues 23 of significant climate change in their evaluations and 24 permits for long-term waste storage.
25 What steps will the NRC take to assure Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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103 1 that the new environmental modeling will be used to 2 assure Vermont's citizens of protection from exposure 3 to this new risk to this long-term storage which, since 4 the beginning of the reactor has been temporary of 5 course, the pool, the dry casks or "interim spent fuel 6 storage installation"? What steps has the NRC taken to 7 review these new hazardous waste measures with the 8 States of Mass. and Connecticut, each of which would be 9 severely impacted by the release of radioactive spent 10 fuel into the Connecticut River?
11 I have a concern regarding the terrorist 12 issue regarding these spent fuel casks. I have 13 concerns for the lack of thermal syphoning ability when 14 a 90 ton cask slides or turns over into muddy, silty 15 water, and I also have a great concern regarding the 16 back 40 that was mentioned earlier, that low-level 17 waste dump allowed once on the south side by the 18 cooling towers, and how close it is to the water, given 19 the potential for being near the flood plain.
20 So, in regard to the license extension, 21 much of the recent talk of renaissance, rebirth, 22 relapse, if you will, of the nuclear industry is based 23 on the 2003 study by Moniz and Deutsch, MIT professors 24 and former government people, Department of Energy was 25 one of them, one of them was the Director of Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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104 1 Intelligence. And Moniz and Deutsch are these 2 professors from MIT, were the professors who were the 3 cosponsors of the 2003 future of nuclear power MIT 4 white paper. They also, however, in the September, `06 5 edition of Scientific American, which was the future of 6 nuclear, the future of energy, they stated in the 7 Scientific American, September `06 edition, that the 8 current generation of nuclear reactors have a safe life 9 span of 50 years. Correct me if I'm wrong but Vermont 10 Yankee Entergy is currently seeking a 60-year life 11 span.
12 No one in this room has a clue what the 13 price of electricity will be if this license is 14 renewed, so any talk of how great our electric rates 15 have been, we have the cheapest electricity in the New 16 England Region, I know that's been big news for Entergy 17 this year or last year, excuse me. None of us have a 18 clue what we are going to get charged after 2012, if 19 the license is allowed to be renewed or extended, and 20 the same is true for who knows what the cost to the 21 State of Vermont would be if the hydro energy, by the 22 way, when the talk has been so great tonight on how we 23 have the cleanest portfolio, I have heard nothing of 24 the fact that one third of our energy comes from hydro 25 electric.
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105 1 And I guess, to finish up, I would state 2 that the public comment form provided for tonight's 3 meeting by the NRC expired on 6/30/06 and, if you don't 4 mind my saying, so too did Vermont's desire for nuclear 5 power, it expired years ago.
6 Thank you.
7 (Applause) 8 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Gary, thank you.
9 Yeah, that's a good suggestion, thank you. Sally, do 10 you have a --.
11 MS. SHAW: I did speak earlier today, but 12 I had to leave before I got to hear a lot of the other 13 comments because I had to meet a school bus, so I am 14 going to pick up where I left off. My comments are 15 directly pertaining to the environmental impact 16 statement, as that's what I thought this hearing was 17 supposed to be about, and I talked earlier about new 18 and significant information regarding epidemiological 19 statistics from the National Center for Health 20 Statistics at the CDC that indicate that death rates in 21 Windham County are higher than they are in the other 22 counties in the state during the period that Vermont 23 Yankee has been operating. There are some questions 24 about that, I'm not going to read the whole thing 25 again.
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106 1 My second concern with the inadequacy and 2 incompleteness of the supplemental environmental impact 3 statement is the NRC's refusal to consider the 4 environmental effects of an act of terrorism upon the 5 spent fuel pool. I think this stance that the NRC is 6 taking is not only tantamount to criminal negligence, 7 it's silly, they know that it's only a matter of time 8 before the Supreme Court or Congress catches up with 9 them on this issue. Saying it's up to the military to 10 protect nuclear facilities, which I read in the paper 11 just a couple of days ago, that was supposedly a 12 decision on the part of the Commissioners themselves, 13 is irresponsible when there are technologies readily 14 available today that could make these predeployed 15 weapons of mass destruction, the vulnerable spent fuel 16 pools, much safer, hardened on-site storage, for one.
17 It's not clear to me why the nuclear 18 industry, in fact that amounts to just five companies 19 nationwide, there is no free market competition here.
20 Why can't the nuclear industry use a little bit of the 21 $12 billion corporate welfare package they were given 22 in the Energy Act of 2005 to show us that they are 23 responsible corporate citizens by stopping the 24 overfilling of spent fuel pools and putting the fuel in 25 hardened storage casks in bounds, far enough apart that Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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107 1 they are not likely to bonk into each other in a 2 terrorist attack, tip over and cause a cladding fire?
3 Can't the NRC show some backbone and require the 4 nuclear industry to use this money and do this? We 5 have all said it before, it's really puzzling to 6 understand who the NRC is really working for.
7 I'm concerned also about the NRC's 8 inability to grasp that the use of open cooling or 9 once-through cooling is a violation of the Clean Water 10 Act. The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in 11 Manhattan ruled Thursday, I think it was last week, 12 that it was improper for the EPA to let power plants 13 circumvent environmental laws. This decision was a 14 rejection of EPA's refusal to adopt closed-cycle 15 cooling as the best technology available.
16 About half of the nation's power plants, 17 these are both nuclear and fossil fuel plants, use the 18 closed-cycle method which operates like a car radiator, 19 reusing the same water and only requiring small amounts 20 of new water to replace what is lost to evaporation.
21 The system uses at least 95 percent less water than 22 once-through systems, these systems draw from waterways 23 and expel warmed water back into these waterways. It's 24 only common sense that if a technology exists to 25 minimize or mitigate the impacts on the natural Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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108 1 environment that a responsible corporation would want 2 to use them and a responsible regulatory agency would 3 want to require that they use them. This may, again, 4 be up to the courts to enforce and that's really sad, 5 that's really sad because we are paying the salaries of 6 these people who are refusing to regulate.
7 A few more specific criticisms, you claim 8 in the EIS that Vermont Yankee releases nearly no 9 liquid effluents. In section 2.2.31, you reveal that 10 Vermont Yankee has 11, and they are asking for a 12th, 11 outfall pipes that release directly into the 12 Connecticut River, one for cooling water and the others 13 apparently from storm drains, but it's also apparent in 14 your table in that section that there are no radiation 15 limits and no monitoring requirements at most of the 11 16 outfalls. I think 9 of the 11 have no limits set and 17 no monitoring.
18 Just preceding the uprate application, 19 Entergy was given permission to stockpile 150 cubic 20 yards of radioactive soil per year on-site, that's 21 about eight large dump truck loads per year dumped 22 apparently in an unlined and uncovered location near 23 the Connecticut River. These piles of radioactive dirt 24 will be subject to erosion and over land flow, rain and 25 snow melt tend to wash into the river. The storm Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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109 1 drains are designed to collect over land flow but no 2 monitoring is done on the storm drains, so how do we 3 know that the effluent that discharges from these storm 4 drains is within regulatory limits or that there is no 5 environmental impact from it? That's one.
6 Number two, septic sludge too hot to send 7 to commercial septic haulers is also surface spread in 8 three or four locations on the site. This is a site, 9 by the way, that was deemed unsuitable for a low-level 10 waste dump by an independent environmental review a 11 number of years back, I think it was in the `80s. If 12 you don't monitor the outflow pipes that collect storm 13 drain run off from the site, how can the NRC claim in 14 this supplemental environmental impact statement that 15 there are no radioactive liquid effluents? They don't 16 know.
17 However, I did hear, in talking to Larry 18 Krist and Carla White at the Vermont Department of 19 Health, that Cobalt-60 and other radioisotopes have 20 been found in Connecticut River sediments. How do we 21 know, if no monitoring is occurring, whether these 22 effluents are from Vermont Yankee? On the section that 23 talks about radiological impacts, section 2.2.7, the 24 NRC says that the radiological monitoring plan, which 25 they abbreviate as RUMP, REMP, for the last five years, Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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110 1 indicates that radiation and radioactivity in the 2 environmental medium monitored around the plant have 3 been "well within regulatory limits" and the citation 4 is an Entergy report.
5 This is all that's really said here about 6 this environmental monitoring and I just want to submit 7 that Entergy is not independent and should be backed up 8 by more credible independent sources. In addition, the 9 regulatory limits are called into question by the 10 biological effects of ionizing radiation BEIR 7 report 11 and a number of other recent scientific studies, they 12 are called into question because they are based on 13 standard man and not the more vulnerable child, woman 14 or fetus who are 30 to 50 percent more sensitive to the 15 cancers and other biological effects of ionizing 16 radiation.
17 These regs are called into question 18 because the risk factor for these carcinogens, both 19 toxic and radioactive, which are emitted by nuclear 20 power stations is far more lenient than for all other 21 chemical carcinogens. Perhaps your review of radiation 22 standards will finally change all that but I think, 23 until the review is done, the environmental impact 24 statement is incomplete and it is not investigating 25 health impacts based on the numbers that it should be.
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111 1 Yeah, I can submit the rest in writing, it goes on for 2 pages and pages.
3 Thank you.
4 (Applause) 5 MR. CAMERON: And how about Mr. Akin and 6 then Howard Shaffer?
7 MR. AKIN: I didn't plan to speak tonight, 8 but I am Len Akin, a native Vermonter for 53 years, a 9 licensed electrician by trade. I've worked up and down 10 the Connecticut River Valley most of my working life, 11 the last seven years have been at Entergy.
12 Like I said, I am a licensed electrician, 13 I don't need Entergy, I work there because I want to.
14 And be assured of the point tonight what environmental 15 impact means to me, over my life, back in the early 16 `60s, `70s, a lot of talk about losing a national 17 treasure, the bald eagle, to DDT, and I'd never seen 18 one until I worked at Vermont Yankee.
19 And my point tonight is every time I see a 20 bald eagle flying over an intake structure, or cruising 21 over our buildings or up the river fishing, I look 22 around and I am proud to work at a company that I feel 23 is green and that proves it by the wildlife around 24 there. That's the only place in Vermont I have seen a 25 bald eagle, and that's all I've got to say.
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112 1 (Applause) 2 MR. SHAFFER: Thank you.
3 Howard Shaffer from Enfield, New 4 Hampshire, a retired nuclear engineer, I've consulted 5 for the Brattleboro Select Board, and I am licensed in 6 Vermont, and New Hampshire, and Massachusetts in 7 Illinois in nuclear engineering as a professional 8 engineer. We are here tonight as creatures of our 9 congress, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, before 10 them the Atomic Energy Commission, all the 11 environmental regulations. In 1954, Congress decided 12 they were the decider, along with the president, that 13 we ought to have nuclear power as part of national 14 energy policy, before there was a Department of Energy.
15 That has continued through every Congress, 16 they have not changed the national policy, and it is 17 the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's job to make sure 18 that we carry out that policy in a safe fashion, it is 19 not their job to decide we should not have nuclear 20 power and to shut it down. If you want to do that, 21 which is something that citizens can do and have had 22 that kind of effect in the past, you need to convince a 23 majority of congress and a super majority in the senate 24 to block a filibuster and whoever is in the White House 25 to change national energy policy.
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113 1 In that debate in Congress, should it take 2 place, and I don't think that it will because there 3 would be too many hard questions that would be asked 4 about how can you guarantee that the alternative 5 scenarios which are presented are going to take place?
6 And what shall we do if these rosy alternatives which 7 are presented don't take place on the schedule you have 8 recommended? And why is it that you think that 9 radiation from nuclear power plants is unsafe when it's 10 a small part of the natural exposure we get from the 11 environment and have before there ever was nuclear 12 power?
13 So, if you don't want nuclear power, start 14 with Senator Sanders and just convince a majority of 15 Congress and the White House to change national energy 16 policy.
17 Thank you.
18 (Applause) 19 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Howard. Is 20 Harvey Schaktman still here?
21 Well then let's go to Claire, Claire 22 Chang. Did you want to speak again, Claire? And 23 Claire is our final speaker. You want one minute?
24 Okay. Come on up and get on the mic so we can get you 25 on the transcript, okay?
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114 1 MR. SHADIS: I've heard a lot of 2 questionable facts and figures here tonight and they 3 will continue to be questionable, no doubt. Be that as 4 it may, I took the opportunity to travel to the Ukraine 5 and went on a tour of the now infamous exclusion zone.
6 So, if any of you would care to get the full sensation 7 of what the environmental impact of nuclear power is, 8 take a little waltz around there, it's huge, it's 9 global, it's absolutely terrifying. These people, it's 10 not only the land that's been corrupted, they have been 11 corrupted. They're entire genetic heritage has been 12 given the short end of the stick, their children are 13 deformed and will continue to be so.
14 This is the risk, it's that simple. Yes, 15 things are profitable, things are leaning this way or 16 that way for where the energy is coming from and how 17 comfortable you can live, but the true environmental 18 impact inevitably and invariably is what you are seeing 19 over there in Belarus and it in cities like Gomol in 20 Pripyat, which is eerie. It was a, the people there 21 too, the workers there, that was the flagship plant for 22 them, that was the a number one, biggest, safest 23 producer for the Soviets, and it ruined their empire 24 and that's what you are flirting with here.
25 So enjoy it while you can because, one of Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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115 1 these days, you are all going to be regretting your 2 adamancy for your position that it is safe, clean and 3 reliable, it ain't. And some of that fall out came all 4 the way around and dropped over here, more of it 5 dropped in Western Europe than in Eastern Europe, 6 that's why the European Union is so hot to get the 7 thing wrapped up again before it blows again because it 8 is going to. Once one of these puppies burns down, it 9 doesn't stop burning down for a very long time.
10 And I'm really happy to hear all the 11 employees going on about how safe they are, that's good 12 because that's your job and, God damn it, you'd better 13 be safe because, without all that, you are risking hell 14 on Earth.
15 Thank you.
16 (Applause) 17 MR. SHADIS: My name is John Shadis, I 18 live in Westminster. Thank you.
19 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, John.
20 Thank you all for comments, and for 21 courtesy and following ground rules.
22 And I'm going to turn it over to Rani 23 Franovich who is the chief of the environmental section 24 to close the meeting out for us.
25 MS. FRANOVICH: Thank you, Chip.
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116 1 I just wanted to reiterate the staff's 2 thanks for you all taking your time out from your busy 3 schedules to be here tonight, it's an important part of 4 the process. I know many of you probably don't believe 5 that, but it is, so thanks again for taking the time 6 out to be here. I wanted to answer one question that 7 was asked, whether or not when a license is renewed is 8 it an extension of the original license or is it the 9 issuance of a new license, and the answer is it's the 10 issuance of a new license for a period of up to 40 11 years.
12 I also wanted to remind everyone that we 13 will be accepting comments on the draft environmental 14 impact statement for Vermont Yankee until March 7th.
15 Richard Emch, the project manager for the environmental 16 review is the point of contact for those comments, his 17 contact information is in the slides and the handouts 18 that were provided when you came into the meeting 19 today, tonight.
20 And one final thing, the NRC has a public 21 meeting feedback form that you may have received when 22 you registered for the meeting. If you have any 23 suggestions on how we can improve our meetings, things 24 we can do different, things we can do better, please 25 don't hesitate to provide that feedback to us in this Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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117 1 form. You can leave it here, give it to a member of 2 the NRC, we are wearing these name tags tonight, or you 3 can fold it up and mail it in, the postage is prepaid.
4 And with that, thanks again for being here 5 and good night.
6 When we issue a renew license, the license 7 is for a period of up to 40 years. You're welcome.
8 It's 20 years of additional operation. If the plant 9 has been operating for more than 20 years already then, 10 from the time that they get the renewed license, they 11 have a period of up to 40 years, but it cannot exceed a 12 total of 60 years.
13 MR. CAMERON: Okay, we should, we should 14 get this on the record, but I think that we'll just let 15 you have this conversation with Rani.
16 MS. FRANOVICH: I can answer that 17 question, Chip.
18 MR. CAMERON: Okay.
19 MS. FRANOVICH: There is no limit on the 20 number of times an applicant can apply for license 21 renewal, as long as they meet the regulatory 22 requirements to ensure safety and adequate management 23 of aging of the plant. We evaluate it based on their 24 ability to effectively manage the effects of aging.
25 MR. CAMERON: Okay, I would just suggest Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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118 1 that you come down and talk to Rani.
2 We are adjourned.
3 (Whereupon, at 10:10 p.m., the 4 hearing was adjourned.)
5 6
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