ML073240288
| ML073240288 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Wolf Creek  |
| Issue date: | 11/08/2007 |
| From: | Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation |
| To: | |
| References | |
| NRC-1855 | |
| Download: ML073240288 (17) | |
Text
Official Transcript of Proceedings NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Title:
Draft EIS Wolf Creek Generating Station Public Meeting: Evening Session Docket Number: (n/a)
Location: Burlington, Kansas Date: Thursday, November 8, 2007 Work Order No.: NRC-1855 Pages 1-15 NEAL R. GROSS AND CO., INC.
Court Reporters and Transcribers 1323 Rhode Island Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 234-4433
1 1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 2 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 3
4 DRAFT SUPPLEMENTAL ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT STATEMENT 5 for the 6 LICENSE RENEWAL of WOLF CREEK GENERATING STATION 7 PUBLIC HEARING 8
9 10 Thursday, November 8, 2007 11 12 Coffey County Library 13 Burlington Branch 14 410 Juanita Street 15 Burlington, Kansas 66839 16 The above-entitled public hearing was conducted 17 at 7:00 p.m.
18 BEFORE:
19 RANI FRANOVICH 20 CHRISTIAN JACOBS 21 TAM TRAN 22 23 24 25 NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.
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2 1 INDEX 2 SPEAKER/TOPIC PAGE 3
Introduction:
4 Rani Franovich 3 5 NRC Presentation:
6 Christian Jacobs 3 7 Public Comment:
8 None 9
10 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.
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3 1P RO CE E D I NGS 2 MS. FRANOVICH: I'm Rani Franovich. I am the 3 chief of the projects Branch of the Nuclear Regulatory 4 Commission in Rockville, Maryland, and my staff prepared 5 the environmental impact statement for Wolf Creek license 6 renewal, and we're here tonight to present the preliminary 7 findings of that environmental review.
8 Chris Jacobs, who is the project manager for 9 the environmental review for Wolf Creek license renewal is 10 going to give a brief presentation of what we found, and 11 then we're going to spend just a few minutes answering any 12 questions from the audience that you may have on what 13 Chris has presented, and after that, we'll open the floor 14 for public comments on the draft environmental impact 15 statement.
16 And so with that, *Chris, I'll turn it over to 17 you.
18 MR. JACOBS: Thank you for taking the time to 19 come to this meeting tonight. I *hope the information we 20 provide will help you to understand the process we're 21 going through, what we've done so far, and the role you 22 can play in helping us make sure the final environmental 23 impact statement, or EIS, is accurate.
24 I'd like to start off by briefly going over the 25 agenda and the purposes of tonight's meeting. We're going NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.
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4 1 to present the preliminary findings of our environmental 2 review which assesses the impacts associated with renewing 3 the operating license for Wolf Creek Generating Station.
4 Then we'll give you some information about the schedule 5 for the remainder of our. review and how you can submit 6 comments in the future. And then finally, really the most 7 important part of tonight's meeting, is where we receive 8 any comments that you may have.
9 The Atomic Energy Act gives the NRC the 10 authority to issue operating licenses to commercial 11 nuclear power plants for a period of up to 40 years. For 12 Wolf Creek, that license will expire in 2025. Our 13 regulations make provisions for extending plant operation 14 for an additional 20 years. Wolf Creek Generating 15 Station -- from here on I'll just refer to it as Wolf 16 Creek -- operated by Wolf Creek Nuclear Operating 17 Corporation, has requested license: renewal.
18 As part of the NRC's review of that license 19 renewal application, we perform an environmental review to 20 look at the impacts of an additional 20 years of operation 21 on the environment. We held a meeting here in December 22 2006 to seek your input regarding issues we need to 23 evaluate. Now we are here to present the preliminary 24 results in the draft supplemental EIS. Afterwards, we 25 will open the floor for comments on the draft supplemental NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.
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5 1 EIS.
2 This slide illustrates the environmental review 3 process. This review which is the subject of today's 4 meeting evaluates the impacts of license renewal. It 5 involves scoping activities and the development of a 6 document called a supplement to the generic EIS for 7 license renewal. The draft supplemental EIS provides the 8 staff's preliminary assessment of environmental impacts 9 during the period of extended operation. The draft 10 supplemental EIS for Wolf Creek was published for comment 11 in September.
12 Next, I would like to give information on the 13 statute that governs the environmental review. That 14 statute is the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969, 15 commonly referred to as NEPA.
16 NEPA requires that all federal agencies follow 17 a systematic approach in evaluating potential 18 environmental impacts associated with certain actions. We 19 at the NRC are required to consider the impacts of the 20 proposed action which is license renewal and also any 21 mitigation for those impacts. We are also required to 22 consider alternatives to the proposed action.
23 The NRC has determined that an EIS will be 24 prepared for any proposed license renewal of a nuclear 25 plant.
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6 1 NEPA and our EIS are disclosure tools. They 2 are specifically structured to involve public 3 participation and obtain public comment. This meeting 4 facilitates the public participation in our environmental 5 review.
6 In the 1990s, the NRC staff developed a generic 7 EIS that addresses a number of issues common to all 8 nuclear plants. As a result of that analysis, the NRC was 9 able to determine that a number of environmental issues 10 were common to or similar for all nuclear power plants.
11 The staff is supplementing that generic EIS with this 12 site-specific EIS that addresses issues specific to the 13 Wolf Creek facility. Together, the generic EIS and the 14 supplemental EIS document the staff's analysis of the 15 impacts of license renewal for the Wolf Creek site.
16 Also, during the review, the NRC staff looks 17 for and evaluates any new and significant information that 18 might call into question the conclusions that were 19 previously reached in the generic EIS. In addition, the 20 staff may identify new issues not addressed in the generic 21 EIS.
22 This slide shows our decision standard for the 23 environmental review. Simply put: Is license renewal 24 acceptable from an environmental standpoint.
25 We used information in the environmental report NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.
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7 1 submitted as part of Wolf Creek Nuclear Operating 2 Corporation's license renewal application. We conducted 3 an environmental audit in March 2007 where we toured the 4 facility, observed plant systems, and evaluated the 5 interaction of plant operations with the environment. We 6 talked to plant personnel and reviewed specific 7 documentation of plant operations. We also spoke to 8 federal, state and local officials, permitting authorities 9 and social services. We considered the comments received 10 during the public scoping period. In total, we received 11 comments form the U.S. EPA, U.S. Fish and Wildlife 12 Service, and one comment from the general public.
13 All of this information forms the basis of our 14 preliminary conclusions presented in the draft 15 supplemental EIS.
16 The overall team expertise for the Wolf Creek 17 environmental review includes various disciplines, as 18 represented on this slide.
19 In the mid 1990s, NRC evaluated the impacts of 20 all operating nuclear power plants across the U.S. NRC 21 looked at 92 separate impact areas and found that for 69 22 of these areas, the impacts were the same for all plants 23 with similar features. The NRC called these Category 1 24 issues and they were able to make generic conclusions that 25 all the impacts on the environment for Category 1 issues NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.
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8 1 would be small. The NRC published these conclusions in-2 the generic EIS in 1996.
3 The NRC was unable to make similar 4 determinations for the remaining 23 issues. As a 5 consequence, NRC decided that we would prepare 6 supplemental EISs for each plant to address the remaining 7 23 issues.
8 This slide lists some of the areas that were 9 addressed during the Wolf Creek environmental review.
10 This slide outlines how impacts are quantified.
- 11. The generic EIS defined three impact levels as shown on 12 the screen: small, moderate, and large.
13 Now I'm going to use the fishery in Coffey 14 County Lake to illustrate how we use these three terms.
- 15. The operation of Wolf Creek plant may cause loss of fish 16 within the lake. If the loss of fish or species of fish 17 is so small that it cannot be detected in relation to the 18 total population in Coffey County Lake, the impact would 19 be small. If losses cause the population to decline and 20 then stabilize at a lower level, the impact would be 21 moderate. If the losses to the fish population declined 22 to the point where it cannot be stabilized and continually 23 declines, then the impact would be large.
24 Through the staff's environmental review, we 25 have concluded that the potential environmental impacts NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.
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9 1 for all Category 2 issues are of small or small to 2 moderate significance. In the next few slides I will 3 discuss some of the key issues related to the Wolf Creek 4 environmental review.
5 . The first set of issues I'm going to talk about 6 relate to the make-up water for the cooling pond at Wolf 7 Creek. Water use conflicts have been a concern at nuclear 8 power plants with cooling ponds such as Wolf Creek where 9 make-up water is taken from a small river with low flow, 10 such as the Neosho River. The issue of water use 11 conflicts is considered a Category 2 issue. The staff's 12 analysis of the water use by the facility indicates that 13 although physical and administrative controls on water 14 withdrawal rates exist, water withdrawals can still occur 15 and have occurred during times when the natural low flow 16 rate in the Neosho River is already below the minimum 17 desirable stream flow established to be protective of end 18 stream and riparian communities. Although Wolf Creek has 19 been in compliance with the NRC regulations, state issued 20 permits and water rights agreements, there is the 21 potential for a water use conflict to occur during the 22 relicensing period.
23 There may be water use conflicts associated 24 with the long term availability of the current water 25 supply, John Redmond Reservoir, during the relicensing NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.
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10 1 period. The proposed action described in the applicant's 2 environmental report assumes that the John Redmond 3 Reservoir would continue to be the primary source of make-4 up water but does not address the likelihood that the 5 availability of this source is being reduced through 6 sedimentation. If no actions are taken, the volume of 7 water available within the Conservation pool would 8 continue to decrease and the supply of water to Wolf Creek 9 would begin to compete with the volumes of water available 10 to maintain adequate streamflow.
11 Therefore, the staff's preliminary 12 determination is that the impacts caused by water use 13 conflicts would be small to moderate.
14 Impingement, also considered a Category 2 15 issues, refers to juvenile or adult fish being pulled into 16 the cooling intake or the make-up water screen house and 17 getting pinned on the debris screens. Available data 18 suggests that impingement has had little or no effect on 19 fish populations in Coffey County Lake.
20 The staff also evaluated impingement due to 21 make-up water pumping from the Neosho River at the make-up 22 water screen house. During times of water use conflicts 23 when the make-up water screen house is withdrawing water 24 from the Neosho River and water levels are low, 25 impingement impacts to fish populations may increase. The NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.
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11 1 reduced volume of area and habitat in the Neosho River 2 would cause the density of fish susceptible to impingement 3 to be higher and could result in increased impingement 4 rates. Reduced area and volume of habitat could cause 5 fish to seek new habitat and refuges, and reduced flow 6 would make their upstream migration to the make-up water 7 screen house area from the downstream easier. Together, 8 these changes could increase impingement impact.
9 Therefore, if water use conflicts occur, the 10 staff's preliminary determination is that associated 11 impacts in the Neosho River due to impingement would be 12 small to moderate.
13 Threatened or endangered species is another 14 Category 2 issue which is related to the water use 15 conflicts mentioned previously. We prepared a detailed 16 biological assessment to analyze the effects of continued 17 operation of Wolf Creek on the federally listed threatened 18 or endangered species identified by the U.S. Fish and 19 Wildlife Service.
20 One of the three species identified, the 21 American bald eagle, has since been de-listed. The second 22 identified threatened or endangered species, Mead's 23 milkweed, is a perennial herb of the tall-grass prairie, 24 and it is not adversely affected by continued operations 25 at the plant. The only threatened or endangered species NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.
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12 1 that could be affected by license renewal at Wolf Creek is 2 a small catfish called the Neosho madtom, located 3 downstream of Wolf Creek's make-up water screen house.
4 The staff's preliminary determination is that 5 if no water use conflicts exist, the impacts on federally 6 listed threatened or endangered species from an additional 7 20 years of Wolf Creek operation would be small. However, 8 during low flow events or drought conditions, there could 9 be a reduction in the habitat available in the river to 10 the Neosho madtom.
11 Therefore, if small to moderate impacts occur 12 resulting from the water use conflicts, the staff's 13 preliminary determination is that under these conditions, 14 impacts to the Neosho madtom could be small to moderate.
15 During the environmental review, we found no 16 information that was both new and significant in regard to 17 the Category 1 issues. Therefore, we have preliminarily 18 adopted the generic EIS conclusion that impacts associated 19 with those issues would continue to be small.
20 In the Wolf Creek supplemental EIS, we analyzed 21 all the Category 2 issues and determined that the 22 environmental impacts resulting from these issues were 23 small in all categories with the exception of the issues I 24 have just discussed. Water use conflicts, impingement, 25 and threatened or endangered species were found to be NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.
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13 1 small to moderate in some cases.
2 Also, during our analysis we found that the 3 environmental impacts of alternatives in at least some 4 impact areas would reach moderate or large levels of 5 significance.
6 Based on the conclusions described in the 7 previous slide, the NRC staff's preliminary recommendation 8 is that the environmental impacts of license renewal are 9 not so great that license renewal would be unreasonable.
10 Listed are important milestone dates for the 11 Wolf Creek environmental review. In September, the Wolf 12 Creek draft supplemental EIS was issued. We are currently 13 accepting public comments on the draft until December 26, 14 2007. The final supplemental EIS is scheduled to be 15 published in May of next year.
16 This slide identifies Mr. Tam Tran, seated 17 right here at the front, as your new primary point of 18 contact with the NRC for the safety and environmental 19 reviews ongoing at Wolf Creek. I'm still working at the 20 NRC, however, I've moved on to another part of the agency.
21 Any future correspondence can be directed to Mr. Tran with 22 respect to completing the environmental review.
23 This slide also identifies where documents can 24 be found relating to the Wolf Creek review, and they're 25 right here at Coffey County Library, Burlington Branch.
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14
- 1 Also, at the bottom of the slide is the internet address 2 where you can directly access the Wolf Creek supplemental 3 EIS.
4 There are several ways you can provide your 5 comments on the Wolf Creek draft supplemental EIS. You 6 can provide comments today during the comment period of 7 this meeting. If you're not ready to provide a comment 8 today, you can send us your comments by e-mail to 9 WolfCreekEIS@nrc.gov. You can also send your comments in 10 via U.S. mail or hand deliver them to-the NRC headquarters 11 in Maryland.
12 This concludes my presentation. Thank you for 13 attending this evening.
14 MS. FRANOVICH: Okay. Thank you, Chris.
15 Before we move into the comment portion of 16 tonight's meeting, are there any questions from the 17 audience that we can answer on anything that Chris has 18 just, presented?
19 (No response.)
20 MS. FRANOVICH: Okay. In that case, we don't 21 have any one registered to make a comment tonight. Is 22 there anyone here who is not registered but would like to 23 make a comment on the draft environmental impact 24 statement?
25 (No response.)
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15 1 MS. FRANOVICH: Okay. Then we'll go on and 2 conclude the meeting. I want to thank everybody for 3 coming. I wanted to remind anyone who is interested in 4 providing comments that we will be accepting comments 5 until December 26, so if you change your mind and you want 6 to send something to us, we have the e-mail address or you 7 can mail it to us or bring it to us in person.,
8 And other than that, we have some feedback 9 forms for our public meeting. They're available at the 10 registration table right out here. If you can think of 11 any ways we can improve our public meetings, things we can 12 do different, things we can do better, please let us know, 13 fill out the form, hand it to an NRC staff member, or you 14- can fold it up and mail it in to us -- the postage is 15 prepaid.
16 And again, thank-you all for coming.
17 (Whereupon, at 7:15 p.m., the meeting was 18 concluded.)
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CERTIFICATE This is to certify that the attached proceedings before the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission in the matter of:
Name of Proceeding: Draft EIS Wolf Creek Public Meeting Docket Number: (Not Applicable)
Location: Burlington, Kansas were held as herein appears, and that this is the original transcript thereof for the file of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission taken by me and, thereafter reduced to typewriting by me or under the direction of the court reporting company, and that the transcript is a true and accurate record of the foregoing proceedings.
Official Reporter Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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