ML083190734

Transcript of Kewaunee License Renewal Afternoon Scoping Meeting Afternoon Session, October 22, 2008

ML083190734
Person / Time
Site:	Kewaunee
Issue date:	10/22/2008
From:	Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation
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References
NRC-2475, TAC MD9409
Download: ML083190734 (70)

Text

Official Transcript of Proceedings NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION

Title:

Kewaunee Power Station License Renewal Public Meeting: Afternoon Session Docket Number:

50-305 Location:

Kewaunee, Wisconsin Date:

Wednesday, October 22, 2008 Work Order No.:

NRC-2475 Pages 1-*

NEAL R. GROSS AND CO., INC.

Court Reporters and Transcribers 1323 Rhode Island Avenue, N.W.

Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 234-4433

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 1

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BEFORE THE NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION

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DOMINION ENERGY KEWAUNEE, INC.

KEWAUNEE POWER STATION Regarding the Renewal of Facility Operating License WEDNESDAY OCTOBER 22, 2008 1:30 P.M.

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Town Hall of Carlton N1296 Town Hall Road Kewaunee, Wisconsin 54216

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P R O C E E D I N G S 25

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(1:30 P.M.)

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9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 MR. HOLIAN: Good afternoon. My name is Brian Holian. I'm the Division Director for the Division of License Renewal back at headquarters. And we'll start the meeting.

And I'm glad to be here today. Beautiful day out there. Came into Green Bay last night. I'm back to headquarters for license renewal for only about two months now. I've been with the Agency probably 18 years and I worked for a few years in industry before that and the nuclear navy before that.

I spent the last nine years out in Region One, so I was a division director in all the technical divisions in Region

One, which is outside of Philadelphia. And a lot of times they'll rotate us back to headquarters. And I had been to headquarters for about nine years before I headed out to Region One and Nuclear Reactor Regulations.

So it's good for me to come back to headquarters and hopefully that will be my last move.

I don't know. I was just talking to one of the regional folks about their moves.

But I am glad you're here today. I know it's taking time out of your busy schedule and I appreciate you coming out today.

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This probably seems a little bit a lot.

You know, license renewal, you know, it comes in frequently, and out of headquarters this is a traveling show. We actually pack up and bring out to that, so you're getting the same displays and the same items that we do for every plant.

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9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 And we will have a meeting this afternoon.

There will be a similar meeting tonight. And I don't mean it to be a formal presentation. We will do that and we'll go as quickly as possible. But I know the gist of it is really for you to hear this and also just ask questions about the process and where we go from there and public input.

So with that let me just introduce some other NRC staff that are here today. We did cut down from headquarters a couple staff members that were going to come.

I'll mention John Daily as one individual that works for me. He's the project manager. And David Pelton. And we also had a formal facilitator that we decided not to come out. A lot of times they'll come out for meetings where we have several hundred people.

But let me introduce Sarah Lopas the Environmental Project Manager and you'll hear from

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Sarah. We have about 20 slides. I'll cover the first half and Sarah will cover the second half. And we'll go from there.

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9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 I also wanted to introduce three people from Region Three that are here today. One is Kevin Barclay, Reactor Engineer here, gets out quite a bit to the plant and works with the resident inspectors out of the Chicago office.

Vyktoria Mytling, Public Affairs Officer from Region Three. And a new individual from, Harral Logaras. New but not to the federal service or to the Chicago area. Harold was in the nuclear industry in Chicago for awhile. Went and worked for FEMA and is now back to the Region Three office as a government liaison officer.

So with that those are the NRC folks that are here today. I'll go right into the presentation unless we have any other issues or questions.

Really the purpose of today's meeting and this is a repeat of tonight's meeting is to just describe the process for license renewal.

And we will talk about the license renewal process and get a little more in depth into the environmental review process.

On some locations we'll come out for a

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meeting just on the license renewal process but quite often now we try to combine the first two meetings into one meeting which is today and talk about license renewal process in general and then also accept comments on the environmental scooping issues. And that's why we have a, you know, recorded session here today because we take your comments back as we start the environmental review in particular back at headquarters.

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9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 And even this week we had three of our environmental people from our division out at the plant. So they were out walking around the plant, actually took a boat ride on the water there and looking at the intake structure and other items there.

So they start their environmental review is already started.

And as I said, well we'll go through schedule in awhile here but this is just the start of what is up to about a two year process.

Next slide. I'll just talk briefly about NRC's governing statutes. You know, we go, NRC goes back to 1954 for the Atomic Energy Act and a lot of people don't realize that in the Atomic Energy Act they did talk about license renewal.

A lot of people also don't realize how did

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a plant get its original 40 year license.

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9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Well, the original 40 years was not based on the life of the reactor vessel. It wasn't based on technical issues. It was really based on antitrust economic considerations and antitrust factors.

Back then the politicians just thought hey antitrust is a good term of reference for any kind of power plant is about 40 years.

But the Atomic Energy Act did allow for license renewal. We're about half way through license renewal for the plants in the country. 104 plants.

And I think we just issued the 48th or 49th license renewal a couple of months ago to Fitzpatrick out in New York.

So we're about half way through. It's an established process. It has two pieces. The other one I wanted to talk about and you'll get more when Sara is up here is the National Environmental Policy Act.

That followed in 1969 and the NEPA as it's called establishes a national policy for decision making on impacts to the environment.

Now why is license renewal under that?

The NRC's commission, the commissioners, the five commissioners a few years after NEPA came out

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established by policy what a significant action is.

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9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Under NEPA if you have a significant action to the environment you have to do an environmental impact statement, an EIS. And so the commission

stated, hey if there's any major modifications to the plant that might be considered under NEPA but for sure license renewal where you, where a plant would plan to operate 20 additional years mandates that an environmental impact statement be done for every plant that undertakes that process.

Next slide. Just a quick slide on the NRC's mission. We do work for you members of the public. I know there are some plant people here today and there's some county folks here. But the NRC works for you.

We want to remind you of that. The public that we're here as public servants. So our job is to maintain the safety of the plant. Our job is not to keep Kewaunee operating. That's not our job.

You know, we license plants and we oversee their safe operations. And so it's important that the public understand that. And it's important that the county folks that, you know, you pass that on to the people as they question what the NRC's role is.

You know, we do it from a variety of ways.

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I mentioned that I have a regional background also and, you know, I'm glad to have the regional folks out here today because the day to day safety of Kewaunee is maintained by, you know, folks like, you know, Kevin and the resident inspectors at the plant and, you know, Pat and Steve have been there for years and are there on a daily basis maintaining the safety of the plant.

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9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 The regional inspectors that come out do the same thing.

That continues at 40 years plus day one if Kewaunee gets its license extended. You know, that reactor oversight process continues and that's the mainstay of our review is the ongoing safety review that the NRC does.

Next slide. Just talks about Kewaunee.

Once again the original 40 years does expire in 2013.

That's not the first one to expire. It is one of the older plants. Out in Region One the region I came from has the first plant that expires coming up here in 2009 Oyster Creek in New Jersey.

And then there's another plant in Upper State New York that expires also. And they have put in for a license renewal.

One of them is in the hearing process

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right now so they're actually waiting to see if they get their license renewal prior to April, April of 2009 coming up here is when the first plant's 40 year license expires.

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9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 And you see Kewaunee's due, application filed in 2008.

We get plants to put their applications in at least five years prior to license renewal to ensure for a timely process and review process.

Next slide. Well, the license application itself. If you want to read it. Get it at the public library. I think Sarah will tell you that later.

There is one copy back here. It is an extensive document. Four binders there is their license renewal application.

It comes into the NRC and it gets divvied up between, you know, scores of NRC reviewers at headquarters.

That process, you know, it's got plant information in it again. But in particular it's got information on technical aging of systems. And that's predominately what we do over the next year and a half at headquarters is look at the aging of their programs and aging management.

You know, we decide whether they have a

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10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 good program for cable management or cable aging, electrical cabling.

One of the in depth reviews we do is the reactor vessel itself as I mentioned. Reactor vessel, you know, neutron embrittlement they call it, where the neutron, the fluence on the vessel and the belt line welds, the weld materials is something we look at in-depth.

And, you know, get independent experts also to look at calculations for that.

You know, interestingly at a plant, you know, most of you realize it if you're following the plant a majority of equipment gets replaced over the life of the plant.

So that's a key aspect that it's not the plant it was when it was originally licensed 40 years ago. It's an ongoing maintenance program, an ongoing replacement program for large components so all the way up, you know, to steam generators and pressurized water reactors. No one has replaced a reactor vessel so that's a key component, you know. I guess it could be done but economically that would be tough.

Overseas they do something called an anealing process to kind of regain years on a reactor vessel.

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10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 But you need to know that. That it's, you know, it's a, it's a maintenance issue and it's a program issue that, that really limits the life of a plant.

What else do we look at? We look at changes to the plant tech specs. We call them tech specs. Technical specifications. They actually tell the plant when to shut down or not.

You know, you have so many systems that are, need to be operable every day. You take a train out, well, if there's any changes to the plant tech specs we also look at that for the extended period.

And of course we do an environmental report. It's a good fresh look at what's changing or what's impacting in the environment of the plant.

Next slide. You know, a little bit more on that safety review. I talked a little bit about it already. We do focus on aging effects and whether they'll be effectively managed.

Right now the plant has some programs.

And a rule that came in a few years ago back before I headed out to the region was something called the maintenance rule. And it's kind of considered an aging management type rule that was put in place by a smart commission ten years ago or so and it put more

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10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 of the impetus on the plant management to hey you operate the plant every day you should come up with programs for replacement, preventive maintenance and ensure you do that.

That's part of our regional people's job is to go out and through their normal inspections to look at that part of the program and make sure that the licensee is finding their own problems and fixing them pro actively.

What do we do? We as I mentioned look in depth in some of the areas like cabling and reactor vessel for some of the aging management.

Even some of the structures them self, concrete structures are they able to withstand an additional 20 years of management so of the environment or throughout the extended period of operation.

On the environmental review Sara will talk about more about that in a minute but in general we look at under NEPA it requires us to look back and determine if there's any impacts that are adverse.

You know, do you make a yes or no on the environmental and NEPA really calls for just put it out in the public whether it's a small or moderate or a large impact.

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10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 So NEPA is really kind of an information sharing item that the public should not be surprised at something. Put out a report that describes in this case a 20 year license renewal and the NRC your staff's best estimate working with state officials, local county officials what the impact of continued operation would be on the environment.

Next slide. You know, this is a key slide because if you're going to get questions at a, as a county person or if you're a public person here a lot of times we get questions on these areas here.

This is a re licensing of the plant. It's not a new license for the plant. And I say that not to just parse words but when we licensed the plant originally and I met with an emergency, or a couple of emergency planning officials here from the county as I was outside talking to people coming in, you know, we did an environmental or an emergency planning kind of review.

What's the population? How would you have to evacuate if you had to? Do you have a processes for sheltering in place should you need? Do you have a siren system?

All that was done as a licensing of the plant.

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10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 We get a lot of questions in these areas and in the post 9/11 area we get a lot of questions in security and really even current safety performance.

You know, do we at headquarters consider these aspects when we make a decision to re license or not. And the answer is no.

You know, we do not look in depth at these areas. So the public needs to know that.

Now why is that? That's because it's an ongoing NRC process or day to day. We have processes that look at all these.

When the new census comes out, you know, the applicant or the licensee has to update their census data and make sure that emergency planning at the plant incorporates the new population around. So that gets done no matter whether they're going to re license the plant or not. They should have done that on the last census. And our folks can follow that.

Security aspects, you know, we, a good example is following 9/11. We went ahead and ordered all plants Kewaunee included to do more with guns, guards and programs for what would happen.

You know, a lot of the plants along the Eastern coast were bothered about this. What would be the impacts of a large jetliner that would crash on

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10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 the site. The NRC did a lot of research, looked at that, put out some orders, you know, under security.

So that's an example of where we wouldn't wait for license renewal to reevaluate the security of the plant. If the security issue comes up or there is an issue that we hear from intelligence we would take an order and put it out to the plant and operate.

And in current safety performance right now the residents in the region come out annually and have an annual assessment meeting. And they tell you what column your plant is operating under at Kewaunee.

How are they doing this last year. What were the significant findings that our inspectors had.

And as you know if they marched across our action matrix that's up to and including a plant shutdown at the end of that action matrix.

So under those processes is how we control kind of plant safety as we go on.

Next slide. And on those, on those topics though we continue to get criticized, you know, as an agency about that position. We've been taken to court. I think out in California on issues post 9/11 why don't you re look at the security of a plant. Why don't you do that in a license renewal process.

And the courts and the commission has held

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10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 their line that originally when Congress said re look at license renewal it was, you know, not a re, not a new license of the plant. You're not to go back in and say should it be sited here. Should it be sited near New York city.

Those issues are off the table. There's other processes for that. You know, they call it a 2206 petition where you can petition to shut down a plant based on any of those reasons. So there are processes to do that. It just doesn't fall under license renewal.

Once again just a diagram of what I've talked about a little bit. You do come in with the application. You go through two prongs and we actually have kind separate staff at headquarters doing safety reviews and environmental reviews.

An independent review gets done by the advisory committee for reactor safeguards. That's a, and you can look at those on the NRC web site. It's a collection of really doctorate level and some industry folks but a lot of, you know, even people retired from national labs that perform an independent review.

They want to look at the application that comes in. And then they look at the staff safety evaluation report and will give us an independent look

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10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 and an independent meeting to question both the plant applicant and the NRC staff on their review.

So that gets done near the end of the process somewhere around, you know, 15 month process or so once the safety evaluation reports out.

The hearing process is if the public or a member of the public requests a contention or an issue in the application and it gets accepted by a judicial panel.

The hearing process can also come into play near the end of the license renewal application process. A lot of times if it does go that way that usually adds six to eight months at the end of the process if a hearing contention has been put in by a stakeholder in the community.

How often does that happen? Out of the 48 plants I think we're now up to about five or six hearings, plants with hearings. A couple of them are still in that process right now. A couple of them I mentioned earlier on the, out in my old region, Region One.

Next slide please. Just talk about, you know, these are kind of two of our guiding principles we call them and I talked about them a little bit.

And that's that the ongoing processes

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10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 ensure safety of Kewaunee really. Our review will have a safety aspect of it for the continued operation of the 20 years. But as we look at this it's really the ongoing NRC processes that I mentioned that maintain it safe from day 40 to day 40 or year 40 plus one day. It's the ongoing reviews that get done.

Our safety evaluation

review, it's interesting. I went to a meeting with the ACRS just last month and it was for a plant that's probably ten years away or 10 to 12 years away from their license renewal. They're just closing in on the 30 year mark and they've already got their application for the additional 20 years in.

And the ACRS meeting we went to saw a commitment for 2025 that the licensee will have this program in place by then. And they kind of looked at me and they said, you know Mr. Holian, are you going to be around in 2025 to make sure the licensee, you know, fulfills this commitment.

It's written in our safety evaluation report. It's in there. And I said well I might be around still but either way the staff will be around.

I'll have resident inspectors there. I'll fold these commitments from the plant into our reactor oversight process.

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10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 And so a lot of times the licensee will commit to have a certain aging management study done by, you know, right about the time they go into license renewal which is a good thing really.

It's, we put on the licensee the requirement to learn, you know, over the next ten years on cable management and reviews. There might be, you know, new issues that come up, new operating experience we call it that comes up that they need to factor into their program.

So in some ways, you know, people are bothered when you see a commitment that far out to have a program but what the public needs to be reminded about it's like a, it's a living program.

It's, NRC inspectors will still be here and it puts the burden on the licensee themselves to maintain a knowledge base about in that example I gave you what are the kind of the aging mechanisms or and cable degradation.

All right, we talked about that. Let's go to the next slide.

You know, the safety review by the plant.

I talked about the application. A lot of it does get done at headquarters for some of the in depth detailed reviews on the safety documentation.

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10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 We've grown into it to be more efficient really is we'll take a team of people out from headquarters. We found after the first ten plants or so, 10, 12 plants our people can do more onsite so we'll actually bring them out to site even from headquarters and do onsite audits.

Because as big as that application is from the licensee a lot of the supporting documentation in their programs are just referenced in that.

So when we take our team out for a week or two on site we'll do audits and verify what they have actually going on in the plant.

And then we'll do our safety evaluation report.

Another key inspections that are done are those inspections done by the region. So regional inspectors now will be versed in license renewal inspections.

So as they, as they get a plant like Kewaunee that's going near license renewal they'll do an initial safety evaluation, I'm sorry inspection where they'll go down and walk down the systems and make sure, hey when you walk down the systems you didn't include this tank in, in this system.

Why is that? Why did you cut the boundary

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10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 from there? And the licensee will have to have an answer for that. Well, it's outside. It's not safety related. Questions like that.

So our inspectors go out in the plant and do that.

Not only will they inspect it as an input or a decision on giving licensee renewal, you know, they'll also go back and we're planning the first inspections that we'll do right before they go in to the extended period of operations. So those couple plants I mentioned in Region One we'll actually start those inspections in the outage right before they go in to the next 20 year operation and make sure that the commitments that I told about where they said they'll have their program in plan, that they have procedures written and they're ready to go into the next operation.

So it's not just a one time inspection.

The region will keep on sampling on licensee renewal aspects.

And then I talk about the advisory committee on reactor

safety, safeguards as an independent review.

I'm going to broach right into the environmental. Let Sarah take over and talk about the

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10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 environmental review and then we'll pause right after Sara is done and we'll take general questions just about the process just to make sure you understand the license renewal process.

We did bring a wealth of information with us that gets boxed up and taken back there. Reference documents. They have booklets called frequently asked questions on license renewal.

So I, feel free at any time here in the meeting to grab some information back there or take that with you. That information is here for you.

And but we'll answer questions on that and then we'll, the other part of the meeting is really just to take your comments about hey what about this environmental aspect.

NRC we want you to look at this, we want you to look at the water supply. We want you to look at environmental justice. Those type, type of things.

With that I'll turn it over to Sara.

MS. LOPAS: Okay. All right. Is this good. Okay next slide.

All right. So as Brian mentioned earlier the review is performed in accordance with the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969, NEPA.

NEPA provides the basic architecture for

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10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 federal environmental review requirements.

It requires that all federal agencies follow a systematic approach in evaluating potential environmental impacts associated with major federal actions such as license renewal.

By law the NEPA process involves public participation and public disclosure. NEPA also established the U.S. Council on Environmental Quality or CEQ within the executive office of the president.

And CEQ establishes policy for implementation of NEPA.

The NRC's environmental regulations which are contained in 10 CFR Part 51 are largely based on those that the CEQ developed.

Our environmental review considers the impact of license renewal and any mitigation for those impacts that we consider to be significant.

We also consider the impacts of alternatives to license renewal including the impact of not issuing a renewed license.

Next slide. The license renewal. The NRC looks at a wide range of environmental impacts. We consult with various

federal, state and local officials as well as interested Indian Nations and we gather pertinent information from these sources to ensure that it's considered in our analysis.

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10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Some examples of agencies that we might consult with would be the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service regarding threatening endangered species. The EPA. The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources and the Wisconsin Historical Society.

Next slide. The environmental review begins with the scooping process which is why we're here today. The purpose of the scooping process is to identify significant issues that should be considered in the environmental review.

We are now gathering information that we will use to prepare environmental impact statements.

And as part of that process we are here to collect your comments on the scope of the environmental review.

The staff has developed a

generic environmental impact statement that has addressed a number of issues that are common to all nuclear power plants.

The staff is going to issue a supplemental EIS to this generic EIS that will be specific to Kewaunee.

The staff will also reexamine the conclusions that we reached in that generic EIS to see if there are any new and significant information that

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10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 would change those conclusions that we made.

Next slide. The environmental scooping period started on October 9th, 2008 when we published a notice of intent to prepare an EIS and conduct scooping.

The NRC will be accepting comments on the scope of the environmental review until December 9th, 2008.

In general we're looking for information about the environmental impacts from continued operations of Kewaunee.

You can assist us in this process by telling us for example what aspects of your local community we should focus on. What social and economic issues the NRC should exam during our environmental review. And what are some reasonable alternatives to license renewal that you think are appropriate for this region.

These are just some of the examples of input we're looking for and they represent the kind of information we're seeking through the environmental scooping process.

Your comments today will be helpful in providing us some insights in this.

Next slide. This slide illustrates the

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10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 commission's various considerations for deciding if a renewed operating license will be issued.

So how do we use your input today and through December 9th? Public comments are an important part of our environmental review process and we will consider all your comments. Hence why we mentioned earlier that our court reporter is here.

Next slide. In addition to providing comments here today there's other ways you can submit comments through December 9th.

You can mail them to the address up here.

Just make sure you put Kewaunee license renewal at the top of that address.

Also you can e-mail them to Kewaunee.eis@nrc.gov. And if you are in Maryland you can always pop in as well, just call ahead. Call myself or John Daily, the other project manager.

But these, rest assured that no matter how you submit your comments they'll all be taken into consideration.

Next slide. This slide shows important milestone dates for the environmental review process.

The opportunity to submit contentions for a hearing which is different from the scooping, that's December 1st, 2008.

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10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 And then the

comments, the scooping comments that deadline is December 9th, 2008.

And we plan to issue a draft supplemental EIS in August of 2009.

While this slide lists the milestones of the environmental review the safety review also has its own schedule to adhere to as well.

Next slide. These are the points of contact for the Kewaunee license renewal. John Daley who couldn't be here today he is the point of contact for the safety review. And I'm obviously the point of contact for the environmental review. But feel free to contact either of us.

Also as Brian had mentioned earlier the Kewaunee public library has agreed to make the license renewal application available for public review.

When it's published, when the draft environmental impact statement is published it will also be available at the library as well.

But also note that the license renewal application and when the draft environmental impact statement is published they're both be available online at that e-mail or that web address at the bottom.

Also if you'd like to be mailed a copy of

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10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 the draft EIS and the final EIS you can fill out one of those registration cards at the back table before you leave today.

And that concludes all I have to say. I think Brian is going to come up and we can start taking questions.

MR. HOLIAN: Well, we didn't necessarily mean to rush through everything but we also didn't want to waste your time if you only came here and had a question or two we didn't want to spend too much time on the slides or the process. And there is a lot of information.

One thing I didn't mention and we'll just open it up to questions on the process. We do have a meeting feedback form. It's a single sheet a paper right on the circular table right there and it's already franked for, you know, postage and that so you can just fold it up and put in the mailbox.

These types of meetings, you know, the license renewal ones we come out two or three times in the process and the region has these same forms at their meetings like the reactor oversight process meetings.

But we do take your feedback. If the location wasn't right. You'd rather meeting in

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10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Kewaunee or, you know, somewhere else, you let us know on there. Location wasn't right, time of day is not right. The fact of having two meetings like this.

Why is the NRC wasting government time and resources in some of your minds having two meetings. Well, a lot of times that's because people have given us feedback before we can't make the evening meeting and we'd rather, you know, help our kids with the homework, you know, come at the daytime if you can.

So that's why we try to open up these two opportunities like this. It's a result of meeting feedback.

But if there's anything like that you have feel free to comment on it or if we use too much jargon let us know.

So that opportunity is back there and as I mentioned other documents for you to review.

Let's just open it up now for questions or comments about anything you saw, what, you know, and about the process. Yes.

MS. HARDTKE: Okay. Ms. Lopas you said that your committee oversees the, like land use and the water and the natural resources and all that.

I have a question about the land use. I'm from the town of Carlton. I live about three miles

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10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 north of the nuclear plant.

The way I understand it right now the utility taxes that we get from having that plant here just about equals the taxes that we would have gotten from homes that would have been built on that property.

That means that in my opinion that means that nothing is gained by having the nuclear waste being stored here on this property which is what is going on right now. Above ground is the waste storage. The pools are full.

So my question is what, what's going to happen when the plant closes and then the utility tax no longer applies? The waste is still going to be there. We're not getting anything for that waste.

What do we have to gain by extending the license, having more and more waste being piled up there, high level waste--

MR. HOLIAN: Well, let me just comment and Sarah can add to it if there's any specifics on, on land waste.

There are about three or four documents back there for everybody really on high level waste which is the tougher waste to take. The low level waste that hospitals make and even a nuclear plant

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10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 makes can usually be shipped off to a compact or something and/or stored safely.

High level waste is, is a tough issue for a lot of people to take. You know, is it a license renewal issue by itself. No it's not. It's kind of a separate issue. Is it, does it have impacts with license renewal yes clearly. I mean you're operating, if you're letting a plant operate for an additional 20 years you're letting them make that much more waste to stay in your environment here. And you're close by the plant.

Was it envisioned that way originally? No it wasn't. I mean we all know that, and it's not the NRC and I'm proud to say I guess, one federal agency we weren't tasked with solving the high level waste problem, you know, Congress put that on the Department of Energy. That bad federal agency, no I'm just kidding, yeah.

Bigger federal agency and they've had problems. They've had problems. As you all know Yucca Mountain was selected, I mean the Department of Energy went and studied four or five sites, came back to Congress, Congress said Nevada will be the place and the Department of Energy went off and studied it for a long time, a long, long time with a lot of

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10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 taxpayer money. With a lot of your money because and the licensee's money because they all contribute to this fund for high level waste repository.

That's going on now. They finally have sent in their application, Department of Energy did for Yucca Mountain. That came to the NRC. Just within the last two months we did an acceptance review on that which said okay there's enough information in there to start our review process to whether that's a suitable thing.

So the NRC does have the licensing aspect of we will license that hole in the mountain, tunnel in the mountain to see if it's safe.

So the NRC does have licensing aspect of that.

Now in the meantime what have the utilities had to do. Well, the utilities did have their spent fuel pools. They were not meant to store 40 years of spent of fuel. And they re racked them for a while. They, they put the fuel closer together in metal racks. It sits in there and there's some good pictures if you haven't seen them in some of those background documents there to show you that.

Can that be safely done? Yes. You know, as the fuel ages even in that water it, the older fuel

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10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 eventually can be put in dry cast storage where you don't need to keep it under water. And plants have had to do that. They've had to, you know, quote, on their own, or with their money buy caskets and locate them on their land because the federal government has not come through with the promise for a high level repository.

We do have what we call a waste conference decision that says that it's okay to keep it there.

Will the casks be there forever? No. That's the government's position is that they won't.

Now will Congress if Yucca Mountain gets put down will that change, you know, we all, we'll have a say in that but I know that's a question, what, what state. But right now it's meant to stay there safely and the NRC does do safety reviews of those so we do license those casks and have agreed that they're safe to be there.

So that's one piece. I, most of that maybe you didn't, you knew already, studied up on it but I wanted to cover that aspect first and then we'll take follow on questions.

As for the land use questions and the tax base, you know, that's probably something between the counties and the, and the licensee that issue. And I

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10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 was aware of that from the region that that's an issue of particular interest here to Kewaunee is that tax base issue between the counties and the state.

And that's something the NRC unfortunately we're aware of but we don't get an in or a say on that. That's more your county governments.

But there was some follow up questions I can see. Yes, sir.

MS. LOPAS: Hang on one moment. If everyone, if you have a comment or a question if you could speak into the microphone for purposes of getting our transcript correct-and give your name prior.

MR. HOLIAN: Thank you.

MS. LOPAS: Too.

MR. LACROSSE: I can speak loud enough. My name is Stanley Lacrosse and I've lived in this town for 54 years and I've heard nothing but lies all the way through.

I've attended every meeting. And what I'm against, strongly oppose licensing this plant until we get these issues solved for the simple reason we have these caskets up there.

We have to take your word for it, the NRC word for it that they're safe. And you say they'll be

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10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 moved. That's not true. They'll never move because I got the CRS report updates since October of 2008 and it says right in there possibly the year 2020 they might start receiving.

But it also states that if everyone goes there there's not enough room.

So you know the furthest one away will never go.

You know, it, it's a shame to listen and we have to listen and it's not fair because I can tell you right now the perception of our town of Carlton by the public service commission, the NRC and all our elected officials as being a tax free township is not true.

We pay more taxes than our neighboring town.

And this is not right for the simple reason we had 480 signatures out of a possibly I think there's maybe a little over 600 people that are voting in this town and we had 480 signatures against letting them put the caskets on top of the ground unless we get compensated.

And our town officials gave them the building permit. They scared them into it. Giving them a line. And this is what's all wrong because

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10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 they ruined our zoning book because they said they didn't need a variance, they didn't need a conditional use, they didn't need that so they turned around and gave them the building permit and now they don't even, they don't know us no more.

They're supposed to work without trying to get a little more money out of the state. The state gets six million, very close, for utility tax but none of it stays. We have to share it with the county for 19 percent.

And I have to sort of correct Cindy a little bit.

If they could put this town back the way it was without the nuclear plant we would pay less taxes. And this is what really makes it bad because in 1968 when they broke ground they bought this land real cheap.

And the state says the assessor will be within ten percent of 100 so the assessor has to keep raising the rest of us to make up the difference so that's why our taxes are higher than the Town of Franklin or the Town of Kewaunee.

And I don't think this is right and that's why I'm opposing it and all the 480 signatures are opposing relicensing that plant until this gets

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10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 settled.

MR. HOLIAN: Okay.

MR. LACROSSE: I've got them all, all our officials, even the governor. They want to take the moratorium off to build a nuclear plant because it's the safest, the cleanest.

Like I wrote in a letter to them when I sent them all the signatures. Where are you going to put the waste. We've stored it for 34 years under water and we finally got 50,000 and then Dominion devaluated the plant and we lost, how much? $37,000.

Now you just said just a few minutes ago that they update, update, update. It's running at full capacity. How come you can devaluate it?

I mean that's not your doing, --

MR. HOLIAN: Yeah.

MR. LACROSSE: -- but it, that's lost us -

MR. HOLIAN: Yeah.

MR. LACROSSE: -- $37,000.

MR. HOLIAN: I understand those issues and some I won't be able to answer. The, the tax issues I won't be able to answer. I, you know, that's the county and the state issues. And I don't mind you taking this forum to voice those because they are joined a little bit. I mean the continued operation

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10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 of 20 years will continue that burden on you.

So I, this is the right opportunity to do that and, you know, from the view of getting that message out again.

But, you know, for that issue I can't answer.

The other issue though on is the waste meant to stay there.

Well, there is a little bit of a fear that if a plant does shut down there's some examples out on the east coast there. There's a couple plants that have shut down prematurely, did not go in for license renewal and decommissioned. They decommissioned the plant early.

Economically a small owner had it and didn't want to do it and I think these plants decommissioned, you know, before this deregulation where a bunch of the utilities were buying up plants and that.

So there's one out in Maine that I'm familiar with and have gone there now and you see a beforehand picture and you see a plant that looks like Kewaunee sitting on the water source and you see an after picture and it's green field. It really is all green field expect for one item. The casks are still

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10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 there. The cask storage is still there.

Now are they meant to be there forever.

No. The answer is still is no. Will Congress change that view, you know, I can't say. But they, Congress has stated and the good thing you have also going for you is your local state politicians, your senators and your congress people they recognize that even though they might not be for nuclear power or, you know, that type of plant or high level waste and I'm not talking about the State of Nevada senators because they're different.

But other states when we're there usually you get your state politician saying we understand that a central repository is the way to go whether it's Yucca Mountain, you know, sir you're right that it doesn't have maximum capacity, you know, it's going to be quickly filled.

We'll deal, we have to find another repository or expand Yucca Mountain, possibly. I think that's been talked about. Right now they're having enough trouble getting the initial one done.

But what I was getting at with state senators and congressmen are pretty universal in the fact of it does make sense to get it into a central location.

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10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 I know out west a little further west they were looking at another central above ground storage location. Just to store it until Yucca Mountain is ready.

So those things are being talked about and once again that's by Congress. You know, NRC it's, it's not our issue. Our issue though is to make sure that those casks are safe where they sit.

So, so that is an aspect that we inspect and license and, and review and there are some good background informations on the different cask designs back there.

MS. LOPAS: That mic is wireless so you can pass it around, you know.

MS. HARDTKE: That's part of my concern.

How can it be just as safe above ground with a fence around it compared to being under the ground about a mile under the ground with a 5000 I believe, 5000 foot high mountain on top of it?

How can it be just as safe sitting out there a few miles from my house and who knows how long it's going to sit there?

MR. HOLIAN: Well, yeah, the safety kind of reviews we do are, are a couple areas. And is it adequately safe in either location. The NRC's

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10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 position has been yes.

The casks themselves for sitting there, the concrete casks, you know, they're looked at for a couple of varieties.

One for impacts of anything to hit them.

But two just the radiation shielding itself. A lot of the science that goes into it is how thick do the walls need to be for radiation shielding.

So we actually have some states that will actually take, you know, measurements by themselves to confirm the NRC's studies that the, any radiation dose at the site doesn't go up, you know, from a cask sitting however close it is to the, to the gate boundary.

You know, you can, our inspectors walk right up to the casks themselves and check the temperature readings, the temperature gages on them themselves.

So, you know, the safety aspect I know some people say well underground storage and even some of the casks designers are now talking about putting berms around casks to make them more safe.

But the aspects from our security reviews have shown that, you know, they're, they're safe against any kind of incident that could occur.

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10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 I know we had one that was even a cask that was being sent with fuel through the Baltimore tunnel four or five years ago and actually got in a car collision in the Baltimore tunnel and the truck carrying the cask, you know, was enveloped in, in flame inside a tunnel.

And the NRC went back and looked at the maximum temperatures that were in that tunnel to verify that, you know, should the cask have had spent fuel would it have safely been able to maintain that fuel and the answer was so.

So those kind of things get looked at. I, let's go on from the nuclear field. We can come back around to it and even when this meeting ends and if it's not in this session still just talking to you get you as much information as you need on the cask designs.

But let's move on.

Sir, you had another question?

MR. PAPLHAM: Well, I'm on the, Ken Paplham. I'm --

MR. HOLIAN: If I did, I'm sorry I did have four other comment cards. I was just quickly covering so I, I only had four but I believe you're on here also. You had signed up to speak so --

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10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 MR. PAPLHAM: I'm Ken Paplham. I'm on the town board here for 34 years as supervisor.

And back in January of '93 the town board passed a resolution that there would be no outdoor storage at the power plant. We passed a resolution at that time.

And now we're getting these stored outside and I think the municipality should be compensated from the federal government of $250,000 a year plus

$40,000 for each containment that's stored there as long as they're stored there.

I don't know why these municipalities have to put up with this storage when we had a resolution back in '93 that there was going to be no storage.

I know the plant is in problems with Yucca Mountain but so I think something has to be done. Why should we live with that and like Cindy said right out in the open and Yucca Mountain is going to be a mile under the ground or in the, in a shaft there so.

MR. HOLIAN: Yeah. Well, let me just comment on that again on that aspect.

On the reimbursement the only thing I'm aware of and I don't know if the plant can help more if they have a comment afterwards to, some plants have sued the federal government, you know, for and I've

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10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 looked at that in the press and seen that and, you know, they're kind of suing DOE because you've taken so long and that's exactly right.

It's a longer burden and it's a, it's a, you know, a promise that wasn't fulfilled, you know, when the plant was originally licensed it was, you had promised a repository. It should have been gone by now so we wouldn't have that and whether, you know, you can claim one you're not getting the tax revenue, other people might say our property values are going down or not raising as much because some people might fear that waste there.

So I know that that has occurred. The federal government has been sued. Some of those are still in court now on, you know, the government has their lawyers on, on why or whatever and I think there has been some pay outs to some or I won't even call it pay outs, some settlements with, with some utilities and we'll touch on it.

But, you know, that's a separate issue kind of from, from us at the NRC. That's, it is a federal government DOE and it is a federal promise that has not been maintained and I can only tell you that I, I agree with you.

And it's not an NRC issue. You know, at

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10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 the time of that Atomic Energy Act in '54 to just remind you they purposely, Congress purposely said, you know, we will not have, you know, we used to have the Atomic Energy Commission back after World War II and it was for promoting nuclear power, nuclear use and also regulating it.

And they quickly saw that well, we shouldn't have one organization doing the same. So they split those apart and they created the NRC and then they created Department of Energy and said you promote sort of Department of Energy does promote nuclear, it promotes, you know, coal and gas. It promotes all energy sources.

But nuclear they split off and they said, you know, your job, you're a small federal agency.

You're only about 3000 employees.

So, you know, as much as a dual unit plant sometimes has 3500 employees. That's what the NRC has in four regions. And your job is solely to look at is it safe to operate. You know, does it continue to meet the regulations.

And so that's what we go back to on that and the cask designs and can they be safely stored there both from heat generation, radiological generation and security aspects, you know, we look at

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10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 that.

And the national policy picture, you know, we don't, we don't the NRC doesn't get into that. I mean we have some commissioners. They're appointed.

And they get into it probably just a little bit from advise wise back and forth to Congress or letters back and forth.

But the NRC staff your inspectors or our technical reviewers, you know, don't get into that.

So I'm just reiterating, you know, we're here for looking at the safety review of the issue.

Some of these peripheral issues I only say peripheral because I know they're up front for you and they are rightly so.

But they're a little bit on the periphery for our safety review that we do. And I know that's not satisfying but, you know, that's the answer.

Let me just go to another person, sir, and then come back to you.

Yes, sir.

MR. WOJTA: Yeah, I'm Francis Wojta. I'm just a dairy farmer down the road. I'm probably just an average joe farmer.

But, whoops, I just, you know, the NRC takes care of the licensing process, the DOE takes

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10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 care of the energy process of it. And I know it's, the federal government is a big bureaucracy.

And if somehow they could get together because we say our concerns to you well that's the department, DOE, you have to talk to those people.

And we never, the local people never get clear cut answers, you know. You started out with public service they said no rods would be stored here.

Dominion came, we have rods stored here.

They're a good partner I feel and they do everything safely. We feel safe with the plant but now we're storing nuclear rods.

Part of the, part of our tax money goes to pay for the electric bill, goes to Washington for fuel storage which is supposed to go to Yucca Mountain.

So Yucca Mountain gets 95 percent of our tax money to build Yucca Mountain that was supposed to be done in 1998.

Now they're saying it's supposed to be done in 2018, okay. Or whatever date it's supposed to be done. We aren't sure of that, okay.

Here the rods sit here. There's no incentive for Yucca Mountain to have something done when the rods can be stored at the facility when they get 95 percent of the money. We get the five percent

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10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 of the money where I think if we got compensated at the very least maybe Yucca Mountain would say hey this is goes here we should get that.

That's just the way I feel.

MR. HOLIAN: Okay. I do understand that comment. And, you know, one good thing is it probably isn't much but, you know, in our draft safety evaluation report or in our EIS, you know, the comments here that you're gathering today that we are recording will get there. They'll get there. What was the main objection to Kewaunee license renewal.

Well, so far it's high level waste storage of the fuels there. I mean that's what we've heard.

Now that's the purpose of today's meeting.

Will it get very far? Will it get to the Department of Energy? Will it get to the Wisconsin senator? You know, I don't know. Sometimes a letter from you to the senator, you know, is just as powerful or as powerful.

But it will get in our records. So, you know, I, I will state that and get there as an issue from the population.

Did you have something to add, sir.

MR. LACROSSE: I just to inform you a little bit that 26 plants already have gotten billions

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10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 of dollars from the Department of Energy. One just got 56 million last March.

So it's, the Department of Energy is paying it out but it is not coming from the, the nuclear fund. It has come from us taxpayers.

MR. HOLIAN: Yeah. Yeah, no I followed that in the newspaper, sir, I just don't know the details on that. I, you know, I thought it was, I followed it for probably 10, 12 years when they started suing the federal government I thought it was novel.

I mean the licensees themselves were suing them so I did follow that and I know money has been settled is what I've heard from DOE that it's a settlement not a, but you're right. It's taxpayer money wherever it comes from.

Yes, sir.

MR. LANGAN: I'm from Congressman Kagen's office.

MR. HOLIAN: Okay.

MS. LOPAS: You do need to hang on, you do need to use the microphone.

MR. LANGAN: I will --

MR. HOLIAN: Thank you.

MS. LOPAS: I can let it, I can bring it to

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10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 you actually. There you go.

MR. LANGAN: Okay. When we talk about suing the federal government what happens is that anybody who is served by a nuclear power plant there's a surcharge put on your electric bill.

I live in Ashwaubenon and a couple of communities away. It's served by and I pay a surcharge. That surcharge goes into a big pot of dollars to the Department of Energy.

The Department of Energy holds these dollars for the formulation of a place like Yucca Mountain.

Now some of these nuclear plants are running out of room. So they're saying what do you want us to do about this federal government you're not taking our garbage. We want the garbage taken out.

And the federal government, DOE is saying sorry we can't accept it just yet. So what happens here now is that okay we're going to sue you. Well yes, that's fine, we're not suing the NRC we're going to sue the DOE because the DOE is charged with formulating Yucca Mountain here.

So Congress said okay if you're going to sue we're not going to let this money come from the Yucca Mountain fund. We're going to put a pot of

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10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 dollars over here in another pot from the general treasury of the United States. And if any nuclear plant is successful in suing the federal government the money will not come out of Yucca Mountain fund it will come out of the general treasury fund.

So what happens now is that that money that's coming out of the general treasury fund is not as, has never been issued or given out to municipalities. It has only been given back to the nuclear plant that has successfully sued the government and the only use of this money is for constructing dry cask storages, okay.

So that's the long and the short of it.

It's only going to be used for construction of casks and it's not going to go back to the municipality that is, right where the light waste is located.

So I hope that kind of gives everybody a little bit of heads up on when we are able to sue successfully sue Uncle Sam.

MR. HOLIAN: Thank you, sir. Other questions? I did have a few other cards filled out for speakers who either wanted to make a comment or a question. And once again we had started this session a little bit but as it often does if, whether you have a question on either the process or the environmental

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10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 impacts, you know, we'll take them both right now as we go.

But Bob Garfinkel signed up. I didn't know if you had known you were signed up to make a comment or a question or was that just well because you wanted more information?

MR. GARFINKEL: Well, I wanted to talk about how Dominion has helped our, our groups, okay.

First of all I, I was aware of, a little bit about the problems the town of Carlton is having through Linda Sincula, if you're a local you know who she is. I'm on the county board. We've talked about this but there's a lot of, a lot of stuff here that I had no idea about it.

And I guess I'm just kind of jumping into the fire here. I'm going to look at the other side of Dominion. The community, the involvement area, is that okay that I --

MR. HOLIAN: Oh, sure. You can comment on anything.

MR. GARFINKEL: Okay. I'm on the county board and I've, I'm the promotion and recreation committee. And the last couple of years Dominion has helped out, helped us out with various projects in our county parks providing people from Dominion who are

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10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 released for the day they come out and, and they help us fix up the, the parks, paint, repair things.

We have a

recreation and promotion department right of two full time people and they work on seven or eight different parks plus the fair grounds. And they've, Dominion has helped us a lot in that area.

I'm also the, the president of Literacy Partners of Kewaunee County. We, we teach adults how to read and write. And in some case speak English.

Dominion has been crucial in the, in the area of funding and not only funding, Mark Cans from Dominion has been in on our five year plan and helped us with other things.

We've developed a library. They've helped us with a recognition night which honors our students, our tutors and our donors.

So Dominion has been a good neighbor to us. Maybe not to the Town of Carlton but they've helped us a lot in our endeavors.

MR. HOLIAN: Okay. Thank you for that comment.

Another person that signed up is Jennifer Brown.

MS. BROWN: That would be me.

I am the

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10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 executive director of Kewaunee County Economic Development Corporation. And I also did not know the issues that the Town of Carlton was having. I certainly sympathize.

And the reason that I'm here today is to talk more about the economic environment. Obviously being from an economic development standpoint and I have worked closely with Mark Cans on a number of, of things.

And certainly from the health of Kewaunee County's local economy obviously Dominion has been and is one of our largest employers and certainly has provided quality jobs to the community and the county for a long time.

And certainly I think that, you know, that the wages that they provide to the community are certainly speak for themselves and the quality jobs and certainly the people that get active in the community obviously as Bob has stated is certainly raises the quality of life in the community to a level that is very important and has a significant impact on this county. So that's very relevant.

And also as Bob has mentioned already the level of giving, the corporate citizenship of Dominion has had a significant impact on, on this county as

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10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 well from an economic development standpoint.

Certainly they were significant in getting the economic development corporation off the ground and also they've been involved in the, the food processing incubator which has launched a number of small business owners and really that's instrumental.

It's, Bob and I were talking beforehand about how important it is and how, how difficult it is to really assist with, you know, businesses, business retention within the county and especially in these difficult economic times. It's so very important and to have good corporate citizenship is, is really important.

And Dominion has done that.

So that's really all I have to say, thanks.

MR. HOLIAN: Okay. Thanks for that comment.

And the last speaker I had that had signed up, I'm sorry we have two more, an additional one came in.

But Lori Hucek from Emergency Management.

MS. HUCEK: Well, thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak as well. Actually my name is Lori Hucek. I'm the Emergency Management director for Kewaunee County and I too want to just reiterate some of the things that we work with with the plant.

I have to say that if it wasn't for the

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10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 plant, Kewaunee County would not be as prepared as we are today for any type of an event that would happen.

With the plant and the planning that we have to do we are forced to work together under the incident command system to do what we have to do to respond to emergencies.

And I have to say with the planning that we've done we are ready for any type of an emergency that could happen in Kewaunee County because our people have worked together for a number of years, well since the plant has been erected here and they are familiar with the things that they have to do to accomplish that and work together as a team.

I work very closely with the emergency planning team at the plant and they integrate with us in our training programs so they understand at the plant's perspective on a local level what we need, what we have to train for, and they train with, right with us if we ask them to.

So I'm just happy with that, the type of partnership that we have formed with them and hope that we can continue that for future years.

MR. HOLIAN: Okay.

MR. LACROSSE: I would like to like to make a little comment on that. It's only pocket change for

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10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Dominion. But at the same time --

MR. HOLIAN: Go ahead, sir, microphone.

MR. LACROSSE: -- all this volunteer that we have to take is on our fire departments. And the fire departments don't get a penny to do exactly what Dominion wants to get in so that everything is perfect.

Us guys never get a penny. We don't even get paid for the gas in the, in the trucks that do all the running. So I don't --

MS. HUCEK: I'd like to differ that. They do get paid. Any type of response that they have with us whether it's training or for real they bill us. We pay them from our county's budget that we get reimbursed from the plant.

If a person has to take off of work we pay their wages that day because they have responded to a training or an exercise or a real event. That is not true.

MR. LACROSSE: The volunteer, the volunteer fire departments don't get paid.

MS. HUCEK: Absolutely.

MR. WOJTA: Yeah, let's just clear the issue up here.

This isn't against Carlton against

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10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Dominion. Dominion is a good electrical provider and that. We need, we need power. Nuclear power is, we hope it's safe.

The big problem with nuclear power is the waste issue. Dominion's good as far as civil projects and helping people out and being a good neighbor, okay. We're not against that.

We want to get the issue of the, the waste solved and we just don't like to have it here, you know.

MR. HOLIAN: Good. I appreciate that comment. And thank you for stepping in.

On that emergency preparedness type issues and disagreements. I see both sides of that and I see it in more communities than just Kewaunee here.

I, I understand that utilities do help out quite often the local fire and, and responders even with equipment and training and kind of even free training. I see that, from New York, I see that still here. So I know a part of that gets done.

I know on the receiving end it's always I won't say always but often times the case is it's not enough, you know, for the impact of what we might have to respond to we'd like to be better prepared, you know, we'd like to be better trained. We'd like

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10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 better impacts.

So I do see that tension across, you know, the country. I see it in New York. I see politicians often respond to that. I know that the Department of Homeland Security is one area also that some areas have gotten some relief on that from.

So besides looking at, at your, you know, local utilities or whatever, Department of Homeland Security has had some funds available to local, a lot of times it's gone to states and once again states aren't sure how they've gotten it out to the local communities. They've tried to do it on a risk based type review even by states.

But that's just another area I wanted to comment on.

I'm going to go to another speaker and then I am going to come back to that high level waste again right at the end just from a couple of items that I have.

But Jim Soletzki, state rep.

MR. SOLETZKI: That's great. Most people don't get it right the first time.

I'm not a Skoletzki I'm a Soletzki.

I'm a state representative in the City of Green Bay. And I serve on the Energy and Utilities

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10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Committee in Madison.

And we've had votes on lifting the moratorium on, on construction of nuclear plants in Wisconsin.

And in the spirit of complete disclosure I have worked at the Kewaunee Nuclear Plant from 1972 to 2006 off and on. And that's a number of years I spent out there.

So I wish to express my strong support for the Kewaunee Power Station being granted a 20 year extension to the reactor license.

Since 1974 almost 35 years now the Kewaunee Power Station has operated with exemplary performance.

It generates 560 megawatts of electricity from a single unit that is enough energy to meet the needs of 140,000 homes. The energy that it produces through the use of nuclear power is cheap, safe and reliable.

As we try to balance the growing demand for energy and the need for reducing carbon emissions the use of nuclear power is an important component.

It would be a major step backwards if Wisconsin did not continue to produce inexpensive non combustion able electricity at the Kewaunee Power Station.

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10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 And hopefully some day expand the use of this important component in addressing our energy and greenhouse gas environmental concerns.

Given its sound record and our need for clean reliable energy it would be a grave mistake not to renew the Kewaunee Power Station licensee.

Wisconsin currently imports 15 percent of our electric needs and it would be a mistake to allow that deficit to grow. Not only would we lose the support, the source of energy we would lose hundreds of good paying family supporting jobs creating a ripple effect and the loss of good neighbors.

As we are seeing happen, that's something that we are seeing happening in Kimberly and Janesville. When good jobs are lost all the community suffers.

Wisconsin can ill afford more lost jobs in our struggling economy.

I strongly urge that the license renewal be granted.

MR. HOLIAN: Okay. Thank you for that comment.

I just wanted to go back to, I'll open it up for any other questions. That's all I had on cards.

But a couple other items on the high level

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10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 waste issue that I might not have stated.

I realize the tax issues there. I realize only some of them and I, I probably don't understand those as well. And, you know, they're on the record here for an issue to be brought back kind of from an environmental aspect kind of the part of the environmental review that the population is, you know, worried about in one way you're double paying, you know, for that, the impacts there when you talk about, you know, having to pay out of the general treasury that's your money also as a taxpayer and then having to pay because, you know, you're a rate payer for the utility, you know, I, I can understand that argument and view from, from the population.

But from the NRC's view on the safety of the casks I want to mention two things.

One there's a, I mentioned that plant that decommissioned in the east. And the only thing left there is the casks of fuel that are left to be shipped.

And the licensee is not off the hook at that point. They've stopped producing electricity.

They've decommissioned their plant so they've gone ahead and put the rest of the 400 acres to green field.

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10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 They've sold off some of that land or are getting ready to sell it off to the local county that they belong to for fields or maybe a gas turbine plant there, I'm not sure what they're looking at in Maine because they already have the electric lines in.

They're talking about maybe some other plant going in there.

And the casks sit there. They sit there still with security around them manned with alarms, with local police force still supplying, you know, tests of the alarm system and their response time.

And they sit there waiting to be shipped.

And it is the national picture that they will be shipped when, when the time is right.

Will that change? I know you worry about that. And that can be a worry. And I can't promise one way or the other. I can just tell you what Congress has said so far. I do put that on Congress.

So that's an issue. But the issue of safety, you know, is one that the NRC can address.

And, you know, we license the individual cask manufacturer so you just need to know that.

That we go actually in the regulations and we, we have a hearing on the manufacturers and there's a certain number of them that are licensed to store

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10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 that fuel.

So you need to know that we go there and we visit their manufacturing capability. And we watch how thick the concrete barriers are and we watch how they weld the welds for those casks, those little mini containments that are sitting there.

We watch as they do the measurements. We watch as they do dry runs. We make sure the crane can lift them. We make sure that the path the crane will take them to the concrete pad is safe and we, we review their emergency procedures for, you know, what could happen.

If it snows so much will the snow stop the air flow, its natural air circulation. You know, we review the design for that and we review the plant procedures to make sure that, you know, that wouldn't happen.

So from the safety aspect of it, it does get reviewed and you just need to know that. It, it, somebody said how, it would be an awful lot safer for the people of Kewaunee if they're out in a tunnel in Nevada.

Yeah, I can understand that. The tunnel in Nevada has its own safety questions. You know, it's got to, if it stays there will it stay there for

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10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 a thousand or a million years. Will you have to worry about water leeching down and leeching around the casks.

So they have their own separate kind of safety issues they have to look at there.

The other piece just from a national perspective I want to touch on is there's a lot of money still left in that fuel.

You know, other nations have chosen to reprocess that fuel. You can still get 80 percent or so of the energy out of that fuel and then come up with maybe 5 to 10 percent of the waste product that's there.

That's part of what Congress is now started looking at again should the NRC, we were going along that process into the 70's, the late 70's I think and we abandoned it. It was costing a lot of money.

But France and, you know, Japan and that they do reprocess fuel so, you know, is that still possible. And when you strictly look at it from an economic viewpoint, you know, economics drives a lot of things. And that's resurfacing again.

So I just want to mention that and when economics get into play a lot of times that can be the

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10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 driver where somebody will come and I'll take that fuel. And I'll go reprocess it. And even Congress is looking at it.

So there were just a couple pieces I wanted to mention. I know that doesn't satisfy the answers. And it clearly doesn't satisfy the tax answers. But I appreciate them being mentioned and this is a good forum to do that in.

MR. LACROSSE: I just want to ask a question here.

MR. HOLIAN: Yes, sir.

MR. LACROSSE: Do anyone of these people that they would take one of those dry casks in their village or the City of Green Bay. Or like I asked Senator Cole if I put one in his parking lot --

MR. HOLIAN: Yeah.

MR. LACROSSE: -- over in the ballpark.

MR. HOLIAN: Yeah.

MR. LACROSSE: You know what the answer is?

You know what the answer is?

MR. HOLIAN: It's not --

MR. LACROSSE: No, no not in my backyard.

MR. HOLIAN: -- backyard. And I think --

MR. LACROSSE: And Mr. Soletzki said the same thing.

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10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 MR. HOLIAN: -- some of these other communities when they respond you said hey even their eyes were opened about that particular aspect of the plant that called, you know, deal with because you're a little bit closer to the plant.

But, you know, from our perspective on, on safety of the casks I know they're, they're an untoward just presence. Their presence being there is, is enough of a kind of an issue to deal with because you didn't sign up for that originally.

And so, you know, that's the first piece.

You didn't sign up for that, you know, back when the plant was built. And it is the, you know, the government's job to at least yes, and the NRC's job in particular to make sure that they are safely there.

I know it's got some tax impacts and you're still not sure if we've thought of everything that could happen to those casks.

MR. LACROSSE: Human error.

MR. HOLIAN: And --

MR. LACROSE: Human error is all it takes just remember that.

MR. HOLIAN: Yeah, yeah.

MR. LACROSSE: This is what we're all worried about is that human error.

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10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 MR. HOLIAN: Yeah.

MR. LACROSSE: Mr. Munsin said it's so safe. I told him I'll tell you what if it's that safe how about putting it in writing so I can have it recorded in the courthouse that it's good for a hundred years, so then I don't have to worry about my grandkids and my great grandkids.

MR. HOLIAN: Yeah.

MR. LACROSSE: You know I've been here first.

MR. HOLIAN: Yeah. I will talk about, you know, just to mention on a human error.

Human error gets talked a lot about and it's still an issue for the operating nuclear plants.

You know, these are complicated plants. They're, you know, the secondary side is very similar to a coal plant and that, but human error it's less of an impact on the casks because I just want to tell you that.

It's still an issue that the NRC regulates on the operating reactors.

You know, we ensure that the reactor operators, we still license them to operate their plants. So those operators are licensed by us not by the utility. We license the individual operators because of human error considerations, you know, the,

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10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 the tests we review their records and that.

On the cask though there's very little that can go wrong on, on human errors. I mentioned they do not need to be stored under water anymore. So just from the heat generation aspect they don't need to. They can have natural convection cooling of air that just goes through vents and comes out, you know, a few degrees hotter.

So there is much less to be involved with there and a normal security of a site can help provide the right security oversight of that.

Other people have not signed up and maybe have a question about just the process and if not, you know, we do have time here. Sara and I are here and a few of the regional folks.

We'll stay in the back and just answer your questions as, if you want a little informal session or more information we'll point you to the right information.

But with that I appreciate your coming out this afternoon. Thank you for your time.

(Whereupon, the meeting was concluded at 2:30 p.m.)