ML090350071
| ML090350071 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Indian Point  |
| Issue date: | 01/14/2009 |
| From: | Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel |
| To: | |
| SECY RAS | |
| References | |
| 50-247-LR, 50-286-LR, NRC-2616, RAS E214 | |
| Download: ML090350071 (88) | |
Text
Official Transcript of Proceedings NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Title:
Entergy Nuclear Operations Indian Point - Pre-hearing Conference DOCKETED USNRC February 2, 2009 (8:30am))
Docket Number: 50-247/286-LR OFFICE OF SECRETARY RULEMAKINGS AND ADJUDICATIONS STAFF Location: (telephone conference)
Date: Wednesday, January 14, 2009 Work Order No.: NRC-2616 Pages 748-833 NEAL R. GROSS AND CO., INC.
Court Reporters and Transcribers 1323 Rhode Island Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 234-4433 0 -3,a- bs 63
748 1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 2 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 3 +++++
4 ATOMIC SAFETY AND LICENSING BOARD PANEL 5
6 PRE-HEARING CONFERENCE.
7 ---------------------------x 8 In the Matter of: : Docket No.
9 ENTERGY NUCLEAR OPERATIONS : 50-247-LR 10 : 50-286-LR 11 (Indian Point Nuclear 12 Generating Station 13 Units 2 and 3) 14- ---------------------------x 15 Wednesday, January 14, 2009 16 Teleconference 17 18 19 BEFORE:
20 LAWRENCE G. McDADE, Chair 21 KAYE D. LATHROP, Administrative Judge 22 RICHARD E. WARDWELL, Administrative Judge 23 24 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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749 1 APPEARANCES:
2 On Behalf of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission 3 SHERWIN TURK, ESQ 4 BRIAN HARRIS, ESQ 5 BETH MIZUNO, ESQ 6 BRIAN NEWELL, Paralegal 7 BO PHAM 8 MARCIA SIMON, ESQ 9 ANDREW STUYVENBERG 10 of: Office of the General Counsel 11 Mail Stop 15 D21 12 U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission 13 Washington, D.C. 20555-0001 14 (310) 415-1533 15 16 On Behalf of Entergy Nuclear Operation, Inc.
17 PAUL M. BESSETTE, ESQ 18 KATHRYN M. SUTTON, ESQ 19 MARTIN J. O'NEILL, ESQ 20 of: Morgan, Lewis, & Bockius 21 1111 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
22 Washington, D.C. 20004 23 (202) 739-3001 24 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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750 1 On Behalf of Entergy Nuclear Operation, Inc.
2 ELISE ZOLI, ESQ 3 of: Goodwin Proctor, LLP 4 Exchange Place 5 53 State Street 6 Boston, Massachusetts 02109 7 (617) 570-1612 8
9 On Behalf of the State of New York 10 JOHN J. SIPOS, ESQ
- 11. Assistant Attorney General 12 MYLAN DINERSTEIN, ESQ 13 Deputy Assistant General, 14 Division of Social Justice 15 JANICE A. DEAN, ESQ 16 Assistant Attorney General 17 of: Office of the Attorney General of the 18 State of New York 19 The Capitol 20 State Street 21 Albany, New York 12224 22 (212) 416-8334 23 24 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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751 1 On Behalf of the State of New York 2 JOAN LEARY MATTHEWS, ESQ 3 Senior Attorney for Special Projects 4 of: New York State Department of 5.- Environmental Conservation 6 625 Broadway, 1 4 th Floor 7 Albany, New York 12233-5500 8 (518) 402-9190 9
10 On Behalf of the State of Connecticut 11 ROBERT D. SNOOK, ESQ 12 of: Office of the Attorney General 13 State of Connecticut 14 55 Elm Street 15 P.O. Box 120 16 Hartford, Connecticut 06141-0120 17 (860) 808-5318 18 19 On Behalf of the Town of Cortlandt 20 DANIEL RIESEL, ESQ 21 of: Sive, Paget, & Riesel, P.C.
22 460 Park Avenue 23 New York, New York 10022 24 (212) 421-2150 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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752 1 On Behalf of Clearwater 2 MANNA JO GREENE 3 Environmental Director 4 of: Hudson River Sloop Clearwater 5 112 Little Markey Street 6 Poughkeepsie, New York 12601 7 (845) 454-7673 8
9 On Behalf of Riverkeeper, Inc.
10 VICTOR M. TAFUR, ESQ 11 PHILIP MUSEGAAS, ESQ 12 DEBORAH BRANCATO, ESQ 13 of: Riverkeeper, Inc.
14 828 South Broadway 15 Tarrytown, New York 10591 16 (914) 478-4501 ext. 224 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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753 1 PROCEEDINGS 2 (10:02:05 a.m.)
3 CHAIRMAN McDADE: First of all, with 4 regard to the NRC Staff, who is on the line for the 5 NRC Staff?
6 MR. TURK: Good morning, Your Honor. This 7 is Sherwin Turk, and I'm joined today by numerous 8 other people. I'd like to identify them for the 9 record. Here with me is Marcia Simon, Beth Mizuno, 10 Brian Harris, Ian Newell, Andrew Stuyvenberg, Kimberly 11 Green, and David Wrona. Reporter, his last name is W-12 R-O-N-A. We'll be joined by other people during the 13 course of the session, but I expect most of the 14 discussion will be handled by myself, Beth Mizuno, and 15 Marcia Simon.
16 CHAIRMAN McDADE: Okay. And what I would 17 ask is, given the fact that this is all being done 18 telephonically, everybody thinks their own voice is 19 distinctive, and I guess to a degree it is, but when 20 you do speak during the course of the proceeding here 21 this morning, please identify yourself by name and the 22 entity for which you are speaking. In other words, 23 Mr. Turk of the NRC Staff, Mr. Sipos, New York 24 Attorney General.
25 Okay. So next, Entergy, from Morgan Lewis.
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754 1 MR. BESSETTE: Good morning, Your Honor.
2 This is Paul Bessette from Morgan Lewis. And I have 3 with me Martin O'Neill. We have other people from 4 Entergy on remotely. I would have them introduce 5 themselves separately.
6 MS. SUTTON: This is Kathryn Sutton, also.
7 of Morgan Lewis.
8 MS. DOWELL: Kelly Dowell with Entergy.
9 MS. ZOLI: Elise Zoli with Goodwin 10 Proctor.
11 CHAIRMAN McDADE: Okay. And from New York 12 State?
13 MR. SIPOS: Good morning, Your Honor.
14 This is John Sipos from the New York State Attorney 15 General's office. And with me on separate lines are 16 Joan Leary Matthews, Janice Dean, and Anthony 17 Royceman.
18 CHAIRMAN McDADE: From Riverkeeper?
19 MR. MUSEGAAS: Good morning, Your Honor.
20 This is Philip Musegaas, and I have in the office with 21 me here Deborah Brancato and Victor Tafur. I will 22 probably be doing most of the speaking for us, but 23 other people may chime in, and we'll identify 24 ourselves. Thank you.
25 CHAIRMAN McDADE: Okay. And just as an NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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755 1 aside, I realize there are a number of people who are 2 listening in. You don't necessarily have to introduce 3 people who are inherently not going to be taking a 4 speaking role. If someone is possibly going to be.
5 speaking for a particular party, then they should 6 introduce themselves at this point. But, otherwise, 7 there's not a need to.
8 From Clearwater?
9 MS. GREENE: Good morning, Your Honor.
10 This is Manna Jo Greene from Clearwater. And I 11 believe that Ross Gould is also on the phone.
12 MR. GOULD: Yes. Good morning, Your Honor.
13 This is Ross Gould from Clearwater. I'm here, as well.
14 CHAIRMAN McDADE: Okay. Good morning.
15 From the State of Connecticut?
16 MR. SNOOK: This is Bob Snook from the 17 State of Connecticut.
18 CHAIRMAN McDADE: Good morning. From the 19 Town of Cortlandt?
20 MR. RIESEL: Good morning, Your Honor.
21 This is Daniel Riesel of Sive, Paget & Riesel for the 22 Town.
23 CHAIRMAN McDADE: All right. Now, in 24 addition, interested Government entities, Westchester 25 County has been admitted as a interested Government NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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756 1 entity here. We have not heard specifically from a 2 representative from Westchester with regard to this 3 proceeding. Is there anyone from Westchester County 4 present? Apparently not. Likewise, the New York City 5 Economic Development Corporation representing theCity 6 of New York. Is there anyone from the New York 7 Economic Development Corporation on the line?
8 MR. DELANEY: Yes, Michael Delaney.
9 CHAIRMAN McDADE: Okay. And is there 10 anyone from the Village of Buchanan? Okay.
11 Apparently not. I think t-hat -- have I missed 12 anybody? Is there anybody representing any entity 13 that is on the line that I've not gone through so far?
14 Okay. I was specifically advised that the 15 NRC Public Affairs wished to monitor, to listen to 16 this. Is Mr. Sheehan on the line, Neal Sheehan?
17 MR. SHEEHAN: Yes, I am, Your Honor.
18 CHAIRMAN McDADE: Okay. Thank you.
- 19. Okay. Let's get started. The first issue 20 that I wanted to discuss, let me mention, New York 21 State had indicated that given the number of people 22 who have come in and out of this proceeding, an issue 23 with regard to who is and who is not a party, and who 24 is and need not be served in this.
25 One issue I wanted to raise with all of NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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757 1 you at this point in time, when this case was 2 originally filed, it was not part of the electronic 3 filing system of the NRC. That system had not yet 4 been incorporated. The rules provide, however, that 5 if all of the participants wish, it can be transferred 6 to the electronic system, in which case all you would 7 do is just simply serve once. You would file through 8 the electronic system, and then everybody else would 9 automatically be served through that. Given the 10 current status, given the fact that it was not 11 originally an electronically filed case, we need to 12 have all of the parties agree in order to switch to 13 that.
14 What I would suggest you do, rather than 15 having you give an opinion at this point in time, is 16 go onto the NRC website. When you click on the NRC 17 website, if you go to that section that says "Dealing 18 with the NRC", there is a specific website that will 19 then take you to electronic filings, and you can read 20 about the electronic filing system. What I would ask 21 you to do is to take an opportunity to review that, 22 and perhaps within a week from today, if the -- put 23 the burden on the NRC Staff to coordinate this. If 24 you could coordinate with the other parties to this, 25 and advise just simply by an email to all of the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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758 i parties and the Board whether or not the group desiies 2 - and, again, it has to be unanimous - whether they 3 desire to go to the electronic filing.
4 Absent that, in the interim, let me 5 indicate that we do have the filings that have been 6 made in the most recent motions, and the certificates 7 of service. The participants in this litigation at 8 this point are the NRC Staff, Entergy, the New York 9 Attorney General, Clearwater, Riverkeeper, the State 10 of Connecticut, Westchester County, the Town of 11 Cortlandt, the Village of Buchanan, and the New York 12 City Economic Development Corporation representing New 13 York City, and the Board and SECY are also entities 14 that need to be served if we stay in the current 15 system.
16 The current system has also been that 17 service has been made on a number of different 18 individuals from each group. There is no requirement 19 that that be done, but it's done as a courtesy. And 20 one would anticipate basically in for a penny, in for 21 a pound, that if you expect to have a number of people 22 from your organization served as a convenience so you 23 don't have to then transfer it. And also, if one 24 person is out of the office, to make sure that it's 25 received promptly, so I would suggest that we continue NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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759 1 - I would urge you to continue with that; although, we 2 can only require that you serve one party, one person 3 within each group. So is there any question with 4 regard to that from anybody?
--5 MS. GREENE: Yes, Your Honor. This is 6 Manna Greene from Clearwater. Would that mean that we 7 would no longer have to serve by paper, by mail?
8 CHAIRMAN McDADE: If we went to the 9 electronic filing, it would mean you would no longer 10 have to serve paper copies, that you would just simply 11 serve an electronic copy.
12 Now, let me also mention two things from 13 that. One, it is an awful lot easier to do if you are 14 PC as opposed to MAC. And what you may -- and if 15 you're a MAC user as opposed to a PC user, you may 16 want to call. On that website, there is a phone 17 number with a Help Desk, and they can explain to you 18 in much better detail than I can exactly what is 19 required in order to do this. So what we want to do 20 is we don't want someone to commit to something that's 21 then going to be a technological problem for them to 22 comply with. But in the event we went to an 23 electronic filing system, it would mean you would not 24 have to do paper, serve paper copies. It would just 25 be the one service, and then the electronic filing NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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760 1 system would take care of serving everybody else.
2 MS. GREENE: Thank you very much.
3 CHAIRMAN McDADE: Okay. Any questions 4 with regard to that from anybody else? Any questions 5 with regard to who needs to be served, or what the 6 expectations of service are?
7 MS. MATTHEWS: Your Honor, this is Joan 8 Leary Matthews from the New York State Department of 9 Environmental Conservation. I don't know that you 10 intended to leave the DEC off as a separate entity for 11 receiving service, but I would like to receive 12 separate service.
13 CHAIRMAN McDADE: Okay. Well, I had 14 considered you part of the State of New York. I hope 15 the State of New York does, as well. As I said, the 16 current practice has been to serve all of the people, 17 and you name had been on the list. In the event that 18 we go to electronic filing in this, what we would do 19 is just make sure that your address were included in 20 the electronic filing, and then it would just go 21 automatically to you.
22 MS. MATTHEWS: Great. Thank you, Your 23 Honor.
24 CHAIRMAN McDADE: And what we would do 25 with the electronic filing is for each of the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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761 1 entities, you would just indicate who you wish to have 2 service made to within your organization, and then the
.3 service would automatically be sent to them from the 4 NRC server. Any other questions on that?
5 MR. TURK: Your Honor, this is Sherwin 6 Turk. I have one point I wanted to note. We, the 7 Staff, have been serving until this past week other 8 petitioners who sought intervention whose petitions 9 were subsequently denied. They include Richard 10 Brodsky, FUSE, The Phase WestCan Group, and the New 11 York Affordable Reliable Electricity Alliance, and 12 also Nancy Burton for CRORIP, C-R-O-R-I-P.
13 In light of the Board's rulings and the 14 Commission's rulings on appeal, we are deleting those 15 names from our official service list. But I notice 16 that other people are still serving them. I just want 17 to note that we do not consider a requirement to serve 18 people whose petitions have been denied, effectively, 19 and we will no longer serve those individuals and 20 participants, prior participants.
21 CHAIRMAN McDADE: Okay. We do not 22 consider them parties. They are not parties. They 23 need not be served, so that if anybody else serves 24 them, it's just simply they're doing it because they 25 want to. But there is no requirement that anyone NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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762 1 other than those that I just listed be served-. And, 2 also, I would ask that if you do serve other people, 3 don't put it on the certificate of service, because 4 it's not part of this proceeding. They are no longer 5 part of this proceeding. Any question with regard to 6 that? Okay. Apparently not.
7 The first issue that I wanted to take up 8 is, there was a motion by New York State and 9 Riverkeeper for an extension of time to file 10 contentions related to the draft Supplemental 11 Environmental Impact Statement that was issued on the 12 2 2 nd of December. We received a motion dated January 13 9 th with a very prompt reply filed by Entergy, Morgan 14 Lewis on behalf of Entergy. We have not received 15 anything from the NRC Staff. Mr. Turk, do you wish to 16 speak to this motion?
17 MR. TURK: Yes, and I think perhaps I 18 could just address it now, and avoid having to file 19 the written paper. I'll be very brief.
20 We do not believe that the State has shown 21 good cause for essentially a five or six-week 22 extension of time to file contentions on EIS. As I 23 read the timely filing requirements, they would 24 normally be required to file within about 30 days 25 after publication of the EIS, or the draft EIS. And NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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763 1 that would be with respect to any new matters 2 contained in the EIS, not matters that already were 3 part of the ER, the Environmental Report, prepared by 4 Entergy, or other matters which are public knowledge, 5 or- which they could have obtained knowledge of prior 6 to issuance of the draft EIS. I do recognize that the 7 Christmas and New Year holidays came shortly after 8 publication of the draft EIS, and I would not oppose 9 a two-week extension of time to account for that 10 period, but I don't see that a five week, or a six 11 week extension has been justified.
12 I would also note that the Staff is on the 13 verge of issuing the SER and the audit report, as well 14 as publishing the hearing file, so there will be quite 15 a lot of documentation that is going to come out in 16 the next week or two. And whatever schedule the Board 17 adopts for filing of contentions concerning the EIS, 18 I think should take into account the intervener's 19 interest in addressing those other documents that are 20 about to come out. So I think a uniform schedule 21 should be devised for filing contentions based upon 22 new documents.
23 CHAIRMAN McDADE: Okay. Thank you. Does 24 anyone else wish to be heard on this motion?
25 MR. GOULD: Yes, Your Honor. This is Ross NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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764 1 Gould from Clearwater.
2 CHAIRMAN McDADE: Yes.
3 MR. GOULD: We had intended to file a 4 letter joining in with Riverkeeper and the State of 5 New York.
6 CHAIRMAN McDADE: Okay.
7 MR. GOULD: We'd like to join in at this 8 time.
9 CHAIRMAN McDADE: Okay. Thank you.
10 MR. SNOOK: This is Robert Snook from the 11 State of Connecticut. We also were considering 12 joining in with New York. I would point out that as 13 a governmental agency, there are a series of different 14 groups within the State government I have to liaise 15 with to coordinate just getting the technical review 16 done of the DEIS to determine what contentions, if 17 necessary, have to be addressed.
18 I would also point out that the point of 19 a DEIS, as well as this entire pleading, is to allow 20 a full and public review of these matters. Certainly 21 an extension of time, not so much because of the 22 holidays, but because at least from our perspective 23 the number of government agencies that are involved in 24 reviewing this, as well as getting a thorough and 25 complete review of the DEIS and potential contentions, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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765 1 it would be very helpful to have an extension of time.
2 I have no objection to coordinating that extension of 3 time, or whatever schedule with the other documents 4 that are coming through, which, in fact, sort of 5 reinforces the point. There's an awful lot of paper 6 to go through here, and an awful lot of people that 7 have to look at it.
8 CHAIRMAN McDADE: Okay. Thank you.
9 I think the Board is -- we've had some 10 discussions on this and are ready to rule on this 11 particular motion. And before I do, let me discuss a 12 couple of matters.
13 The first has to do with one of the 14 issues, and there were two significant issues, in my 15 view, raised by Entergy in their response to the 16 motion. The first had to do with the timeliness of 17 the motion. They indicated that under the rules, the 18 motions are to be filed within 10 days after the event 19 that gives rise to the motion. Under that rule, they 20 opine that it is not a timely filed motion.
21 I understand and appreciate the position 22 that Entergy has taken here. However, viewing it 23 somewhat different, and not necessarily the filing of 24 the DEIS, but rather a recognition on the part of New 25 York of when they would need an extension of time NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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766 1 would be the circumstance which gave rise to the 2 motion. Under those circumstances, it seems that it 3 would be reasonable to expect that New York would take 4 a reasonable amount of time to review the DEIS in the 5 hopes of being able, to file within an appropriate 6 period of time without seeking an extension.
7 Here, I think they filed for an extension 8 in a timely manner given the nature of the document, 9 and also sufficiently before the period of time when 10 it would have been due. One of the things that we 11 always want to discourage, and which we will 12 discourage is when requests for extensions are filed 13 at the very last minute, where basically people come 14 in at the last day. Here, the State of New York did 15 not do that, so it is our view that the motion is 16 timely filed.
17 The next, which is more disturbing to the 18 Board, has to do with the requirement for consultation 19 under 2.323(b). We have indicated in earlier orders 20 that we have issued in this particular case that the 21 requirement for consultation is not just simply giving 22 notice. It's not just simply calling the opposing 23 parties and saying we're going to be filing a motion 24 in ten minutes unless you agree to something.
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767 1 be a reasonable attempt to resolve the issues. For 2 example, on a motion for an extension it may well be 3 that a 37-day extension is requested. The parties 4 would agree to a 30-day extension, and it simply could 5 be a joint motion submitted, and the Board wouldn't 6 have to get involved, and wouldn't have to rule on it.
7 That said, we are somewhat surprised that 8 in this particular instance it appears that rather 9 than true consultation, it was just simply notice.
10 Nevertheless, we are going to entertain the motion, 11 but we do want to put all of the parties and 12 participants on notice that in the future we do 13 expect, if a motion is going to be filed, that there 14 will be a real effort on the part of the parties to 15 resolve the issues presented before the motion is 16 filed, not just simply a notice at the last minute 17 that the motion is going to be filed. It's not 18 intended as a pro forma, just check off the block.
19 It's intended as a mechanism to resolve issues so they 20 won't need to be litigated.
21 That said, with regard to the substance of 22 the motion, this was a voluminous document. I mean, 23 we're talking about a several hundred page document.
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768 1 Christmas, New Year's, within the period of time, 2 there was many days off normally as there would be 3 days on. Particularly here, when we are dealing with 4 a number of government entities that have a 5 significant number of bases to touch in formulating 6 responses, it seems to me that giving an additional 7 period of time in order to allow that is in the 8 Board's interest, and also in the interest of this 9 particular litigation.
10 Our experience is that well thought out, 11 well written contentions are much easier to adjudicate 12 than contentions that need to be pushed together very 13 quickly at the last moment under a very stringent time 14 frame.
15 That said, it is our predisposition to 16 grant the motion, and allow the request for 37-day 17 extension. In doing that, of course, all we're saying 18 is just as far as a general filing. As Mr. Turk 19 pointed out, this does not allow an opening up of 20 every environmental issue that could have been raised 21 back before the original contentions were filed.
22 We're not looking at information that was in the 23 environmental report, but simply anything that is new 24 that comes out as a result of information that is in 25 the DEIS. Again, new information. But if so, we will NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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769 1 look at the substance of any contention to see whether 2 or not it truly is based on new information, when and 3 if it is received. But as far as a presumptive date 4 for timeliness, we will allow until February 27.
5 Now, with regard to the additional 6 documents that are going to be submitted, such as the 7 Safety Evaluation Report, the hearing file, we are not 8 necessarily giving carte blanche for an additional 9 period of time for each of those documents. Again, I 10 think it has to be looked at on its face. I think 11 this was an unusual circumstance here where you had 12 the holidays, whether it be Inauguration Day, King 13 Day, New Year's, Christmas, Hanukkah, you don't get 14 that many holidays in a normal 30-day period of time.
15 In addition, you had a significantly voluminous 16 document, so basically what' we're going to do, 17 although what Mr. Turk suggests of having a uniform 18 policy on this makes sense; nevertheless, at this 19 point in time, we're going to handle it on a case-by-20 case basis if and when those -- well, I assume not if, 21 but when those documents are filed, if any party 22 believes that they wish to file a new contention based 23 on that and need additional time, we will review it 24 based on the motion that they file. Again, the motion 25 that they file timely, and after consultation and an NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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770 1 attempt to resolve it with the other parties.
2 Okay. Now, the next thing has to do with 3 disclosures. Specifically, one of the things that has 4 come up, Connecticut filed a document saying they want 5 to insure that they receive, as an interested 6 government agency participating in this litigation, 7 all of the disclosures that are made to the specific 8 parties, to New York, Riverkeeper, Clearwater. Is it 9 the intent of the NRC Staff to do that with regard to 10 each of the interested government entities, Mr. Turk?
11 MR. TURK: Yes.
12 CHAIRMAN McDADE: Okay. And with regard 13 to Entergy?
14 MR. BESSETTE: Paul Bessette. Yes.
15 CHAIRMAN McDADE: Okay. So, basically, we 16 don't have an issue there. Okay. Next, with the 17 disclosures under 2.336, Mr. Turk, you alluded to a 18 little bit earlier -- (coughing). Excuse me. I hope 19 I make it through all of this. One of the other 20 things that happens this time of year is everybody 21 gets colds, which slows things down, as well. Anyway, 22 bear with me here.
23 With regard to the disclosure of the 24 hearing file, when do you anticipate that will occur?
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771 1 during the next week, some time between the period of 2 January 21 to 2 3rd.
3 CHAIRMAN McDADE: Okay. And has Entergy 4 begun making disclosures under 336?
5 MR. BESSETTE: Your Honor, we are on the 6 same schedule. This is Paul Bessette, again. We're 7 on the same schedule as NRC.
8 Just as a preliminary matter, we're making 9 our initial disclosures through logs, and we plan on 10 providing a log listing all the documents to all the 11 parties and interested states approximately mid-week 12 next week in accordance with the obligations under 13 2.336.
14 CHAIRMAN McDADE: Okay. Now, I should 15 note for the record that one thing we have received is 16 a letter from Ms. Sutton and Mr. Bessette, actually 17 signed by Mr. Bessette of Morgan Lewis indicating that 18 they are submitting this on behalf not only of 19 Entergy, but the NRC Staff, New York State, 20 Riverkeeper, and Hudson River Clearwater Sloop. It 21 has to do with various agreements that they have come 22 to with regard to disclosure of information.
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772 1 on this call, specifically -- let me just sort of go 2 through, from Connecticut?
3 MR. SNOOK: No objection.
4 CHAIRMAN McDADE: Okay. From Cortlandt?
5 MR. RIESEL: No objection, Your Honor.
6 CHAIRMAN McDADE: Okay. And who else do 7 we have on? From New York City?
8 MR. DELANEY: Yes. Michael Delaney. No 9 objection.
10 CHAIRMAN McDADE: Okay. And that was Mr.
11 Snook from Connecticut. And speaking for Cortlandt 12 was Mr. -
13 MR. RIESEL: Mr. Riesel.
14 CHAIRMAN McDADE: Okay. Thank.you.
15 MR. TURK: Your Honor, this is Sherwin 16 Turk. One point I would make is the Staff when it 17 produces the hearing file, will do that along with the 18 mandatory disclosures that we're required to produce 19 under 2.336. And we will, like Entergy, be producing 20 this electronically. We'll provide a log, and I guess 21 that will be a paper log, which we'll also file 22 electronically, which will indicate all the documents 23 that compromise the hearing file, and where they can 24 be located. And we will also produce any logs that 25 we're required to produce under the agreement reached NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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773 1 by the parties with respect to documents that are 2 withheld under a privilege.
3 CHAIRMAN McDADE: Okay. Consistent with 4 Paragraph 3 of Mr. Bessette's letter.
5 MR. TURK: Yes.
6 CHAIRMAN McDADE: Okay. The next has to 7 do with sort of anticipated scheduling. We now know 8 when the DEIS, December 2 2 nd. At this point in time, 9 what is the Staff's estimate as to when the SER will 10 be filed?
11 MR. TURK: Well, there are two components.
12 One is the audit report, and the second is the SER 13 with open items. The audit report has been finalized, 14 and that will be released within the next day or so.
15 The SER, which refers to the audit report, is also 16 nearing completion, and that should be out within the 17 next day or so, as well.
18 CHAIRMAN McDADE: Okay. I think the last 19 that was issued sort of on the internet indicated a 20 date of July of '09 for the SER. Are you now ahead of 21 schedule on that?
22 MR. TURK: There are two SERs that will be 23 issued. The first one is the SER with open items, and 24 that's the one that we're on the verge of issuing now.
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774 1 upwards of -- it's about 900 pages I'm told. I don't 2 know how that will come out in the printed version, so 3 that SER with open items is about to come out. I 4 believe there's something like 20 or so open items.
5 Then after the open items have been 6 resolved, the Staff will issue the final SER, and 7 that's what's scheduled for July of 2009.
8 CHAIRMAN McDADE: Okay. And on the 9 original schedule, the Safety Evaluation Report 10 without open items was originally scheduled I think 11 January 5 th, so you're pretty much on schedule with 12 regard to that. Is it reasonable to anticipate that 13 the final SER, late July is still a reasonable date?
14 MR. TURK: As far as we can tell at this 15 point, yes. And, by the way, there will be two 16 intervening events before that is issued. After the 17 SER with open items is issued, the Staff will refer 18 that to the Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards, 19 and there will be a Subcommittee meeting of the ACRS 20 in March. Subsequently, there will be a full ACRS 21 Committee meeting, and I believe that's scheduled -
22 CHAIRMAN McDADE: I think it was 23 September, wasn't it?
24 MR. TURK: Is that September? That'll be 25 after the SER itself is issued. And then at that NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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775 1 point, all of the safety-related documents that we 2 expect to be issued will have come out.
3 CHAIRMAN McDADE: Okay. One of the issues 4 that were before us was a discussion of whether or not 5.- it would be appropriate in this particular case to 6 bifurcate the issues; in other words, to have a 7 hearing based on safety issues, the next half on 8 environmental issues. Mr. Turk, what is the Staff's 9 view of that? Are you ready to speak to that at this 10 point, or have you formed an opinion?
11 MR. TURK: Yes, we have. We believe that 12 the principle of bifurcation is a good one, because in 13 a case especially like this where we have so many 14 contentions admitted, it would be difficult to go to 15 hearing on all of them at the same time. So we see 16 that there is a benefit to bifurcating the case into 17 safety and environmental cases. The precise timing of 18 when you would go to hearings on those, we don't have 19 a comment on at this point. Presumably, the SER will 20 be finalized and safety issues will be completed 21 before the environmental issues are completed, so it 22 would seem to make sense to go to hearing on safety 23 issues before environmental issues.
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776 1 on safety issues, we're busy trying to get the final 2 EIS out, so whenever we adopt a schedule for hearings, 3 I hope that we can consider the conflict that will 4 occur between publication of the final EIS during the 5 hearing phase on safety issues, if you do bifurcate.
6 CHAIRMAN McDADE: Okay. Entergy, do you 7 have anything further to say on the issue of the 8 possibility of bifurcation?
9 MR. BESSETTE: No, Your Honor. We just 10 wanted to raise it for the same reasons that Mr. Turk 11 raised. We believe due to the number of contentions, 12 the number of parties, and the substantial time frame 13 differences between the SER and the final EIS, we 14 thought it would be a prudent use of the resources of 15 all the parties, and allow this proceeding to move 16 forward on the most effective path.
17 CHAIRMAN McDADE: Okay. From New York?
18 MR. SIPOS: Good morning, Your Honor.
19 This is John Sipos. New York State believes that this 20 suggestion, or this request is unprecedented. It is 21 premature, the premise is not correct. It is 22 inefficient, and it will unduly complicate things.
23 And if I could, I would like to expand on each of 24 those.
25 CHAIRMAN McDADE: What you're saying is NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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777 1 you fully support it?
2 MR. SIPOS: Not exactly, Your Honor.
3 CHAIRMAN McDADE: Well, let me say, at 4 least at this point, I don't know that we need to hear 5 a whole lot more on it. I think that what we're going 6 to do is defer a ruling on this. I think that at this 7 point, one of the things that you did say is that it's 8 premature, and I do think that our ruling on this is 9 somewhat premature. I think we really need to wait 10 until the SER is issued. At that point, we will be in 11 a position to know when we would be able to move -- if 12 we did bifurcate it, when we would be able to move 13 forward with a hearing on the safety issues. And then 14 also have an idea of when we would be able to move 15 forward on the environmental issues.
16 At that point, depending what the facts 17 show, it may well be that there is a relatively short 18 period of time in-between, and that by going ahead and 19 bifurcating it, we would be making it much more 20 complicated, and interfering with the Staff getting 21 out the final Environment Impact Statement. It may 22 well be that there is, at that point, a significant 23 period of time between the two, and we may want to 24 entertain the possibility of getting part of what we 25 need to do out of the way. But I think at this point, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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778 1 in a vacuum when we're pretty far down the road, 2 there's no need for us to commit ourselves one way or 3 the other on it. The possibility has been raised, and 4 I think at this point it's premature. And as we get 5 closer to a hearing, we can entertain it at that 6 point.
7 Is there any objection to that proceeding 8 that anybody wishes to address at this point?
9 MR. SIPOS: Judge McDade, this is John 10 Sipos. When you say that you might take a look at it 11 when the SER is issued, do I take that to mean that is 12 a reference to the final SER in the July '09 time 13 frame?
14 CHAIRMAN McDADE: Yes.
15 MR. SIPOS: Thank you.
16 MR. BESSETTE: Your Honor, this is Paul 17 Bessette. We appreciate that clarification, but we 18 want to assure you we weren't seeking a Board ruling 19 on this at this time. We understand there are many 20 intervening factors that could occur. We just wanted 21 to raise it as a topic of discussion at this point for 22 further consideration down the line.
23 CHAIRMAN McDADE: Okay. I understand.
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779 1 whether or not bifurcation will simplify or complicate 2 ultimately what we need to do. And, particularly, 3 also taking into consideration that there are a number 4 of contentions that really implicate both safety and 5 environmental issues, at least in the Board's view.
6 So as we get closer to the hearing, we need to take a 7 close look and see whether or not this will make 8 things go easier, or just make it more difficult.
9 JUDGE WARDWELL: This is Judge Wardwell.
10 I'd like to ask a clarifying question for myself, as 11 we think about this over the upcoming months, for Mr.
12 Turk, if I might?
13 MR. TURK: Yes, Your Honor.
14 JUDGE WARDWELL: I just want to make sure 15 you heard me. You mentioned when you stated that you 16 want to make sure we consider the workload you would 17 have involved in preparing the SEIS and the FEIS. Are 18 you implying that you would not want to have a hearing 19 between the issuance of the SER until the final 20 Environmental Impact Statement is out?
21 MR. TURK: That would be my preference.
22 But also, I think it's unlikely that we go to hearing 23 in that time frame. Based on my past experience, I 24 would expect that after the final SER comes out, there 25 might be motions for summary disposition, there might NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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780 1 be rulings on what issues are actually going to go 2 forward to hearing on safety issues. And before all 3 of that takes place, I think we'd be on the verge of 4 issuing the SEIS anyway. So I'm not saying that there 5 would be.a conflict, necessarily, but I would Like to 6 avoid it, if possible.
7 JUDGE WARDWELL: Okay. Thank you.
8 CHAIRMAN McDADE: Okay. The next thing 9 that I wanted to discuss has to do with the 10 disclosures, an issue that has been raised having to 11 do with how documents are -going to be provided, 12 specifically having to do with electronic documents, 13 and whether or not they would be electronically 14 searchable.
15 From the standpoint of the disclosures at 16 this point in time, as I understood it, the primary 17 documents that are going to be disclosed are going to 18 be disclosed electronically. From the Staff's 19 standpoint, are the documents that you are going to 20 identify that are going to be available electronically 21 going to be searchable?
22 MR. TURK: Yes. They will be produced in 23 ADAMS in PDF format. That is searchable.
24 CHAIRMAN McDADE: Okay. And, Entergy, are 25 you going to be producing documents in the same way?
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781 1 MR. BESSETTE: Your Honor, we are 2 producing, or making our initial production, what's 3 called a TIFF format, which is standard for us in 4 large litigation like this. It's a format, it's an 5 electronic format, but for a party to search it, they 6 would have to take one additional step, which I 7 believe is called OCR'ing those pages to make them 8 word-searchable. But it's in a format that 9 facilitates that next step.
10 CHAIRMAN McDADE: Okay. Is there anything 11 by way of additional software that they would need to 12 purchase in order to go through the OCR process?
13 MR. BESSETTE: I'm not aware that there 14 is, Your Honor, but I haven't asked that of each 15 party. Just to add, that the OCR'ing adds significant 16 cost to each page, and so we believe if a party would 17 like to word search a document, we believe that's 18 appropriate for them to incur that cost.
19 For instance, I believe we could meet our 20 obligations by providing paper copies, which would 21 require them to both scan and OCR the pages, so we 22 believe we're meeting our obligations, and 23 facilitating that process should the parties wish to 24 do that.
25 CHAIRMAN McDADE: Well, when you're saying NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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782 1 it adds significant cost to each page, I guess 2 significant is in the eye of the beholder. I mean,
- 3. from our standpoint, what we would like to do is to 4 have this thing move forward as quickly as possible.
5 We would, -therefore, like people to be able to make 6 prompt meaningful use of the documents that are 7 disclosed to them; also, recognizing specifically that 8 some of the entities involved, probably New York State 9 does not view itself as having an unlimited bank 10 account, but other people may view it as having that, 11 but, certainly, entities like Riverkeeper and 12 Clearwater, and the other government entities, not to 13 say that Connecticut isn't as well-heeled as New York, 14 but the other government entities, such as Buchanan 15 and Cortlandt, have limited resources. How much are 16 we talking about?
17 MR. BESSETTE: Your Honor, we have already 18 -- just to -- I really don't want to go into too much 19 detail, but we have spent a substantial amount of time 20 and money culling through thousands and thousands of 21 documents. Our log production itself is over 500 22 pages, and each page includes many documents and many 23 thousands of pages of documents. It is several cents 24 a page in addition to the cost we've already incurred 25 to OCR each page.
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783 1 As I stated, the format we're producing is 2 our standard format that facilitates that next step if 3 people would like to do that. If they would like us 4 to OCR the pages, we'd consider that on a case-by-case
_-5 basis, but we'd also like to discuss cost-sharing on 6 that.
7 JUDGE WARDWELL: This is Judge Wardwell.
8 If we went to the electronic filing, is TIFF an 9 acceptable method for submittal under the Electronic 10 Hearing process?
11 MR. BESSETTE: Your Honor, I think we're 12 talking about two things, because under the Electronic 13 Hearing documents, you submit on PDF, but I don't 14 believe the disclosures would be submitted under 15 electronic. It would still be to each other, 16 disclosures and discovery intends to be directly to 17 the parties.
18 CHAIRMAN McDADE: Okay. Why don't we do 19 this at this point in time, and not make any statement 20 or further ruling with regard to this. We're in a 21 relatively close window here indicating that during 22 the week of the 2 1 st these disclosures should be made.
23 Let the people who receive the disclosures take a look 24 at it, see how useful it is to them, what, if 25 anything, they need. We would expect that if they NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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784 1 need more than they have, that the first step would be 2 to get together, reach a conclusion as to what is 3 needed to enter into discussions with Entergy through 4 Morgan Lewis, as to how that would be accomplished.
5 And then only if there's a failure of agreement 6 between the parties, and the government entities, and 7 Entergy on this, need you get back in touch with us on 8 it.
9 MR. BESSETTE: Your Honor, we appreciate 10 that. And, also, I appreciate, the parties have 11 already had substantial discussions, and we do 12 appreciate the cooperation we've seen of all the 13 parties. I think, I can be corrected if I'm wrong, 14 but all the parties have agreed that at least the 15 initial production would be in TIFF format, and that 16 reasonable requests on further or subsequent 17 production would be the subject of this call. But I 18 believe all the parties have agreed at least for the 19 format of the initial production.
20 CHAIRMAN McDADE: Okay.
21 MS. GREENE: Your Honor, this is Manna 22 Greene from Clearwater. I want to say that I agreed 23 reluctantly, and I want to -- I don't want to prolong 24 this discussion, because I see a window for coming to 25 resolution on this in the future. But what I do want NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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785 1 to say is that Clearwater will be severely handicapped 2 by having to apply OCR. We don't have that software 3 in our office, and we'll work with whatever comes 4 through next week, or within the next two weeks. But 5 for moving forward, the amount of resources that went 6 into using TIFF could have gone into creating PDFs 7 that are searchable without any additional cost to 8 Entergy or to any future parties. And in the name of 9 accessibility of information, I would like the Board 10 to be aware that it's much preferable when a document 11 has no handwritten information or other information 12 that would have to be scanned, and if it's simply a 13 document that optical character recognition would make 14 searchable, it's much better to use -- to create a 15 searchable PDF initially.
16 CHAIRMAN McDADE: Okay. Thank you.
17 MS. GREENE: You're welcome.
18 CHAIRMAN McDADE: Okay. The next thing I 19 wanted to mention is, there had been an issue raised 20 about setting a limit on pleading length, and that's 21 not something that we're predisposed to doing at this 22 point in time. Quite frankly, we have been very 23 pleased with the parties that are currently before us.
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786 1 currently before us have written documents that are 2 appropriate in length to what it is that they are 3 trying to say. And, therefore, given the fact that 4 there's been no abuse of burying people in unnecessary 5 paper, our predisposition at this point is to allow 6 the parties to make the initial determination if they 7 have a motion of how long it needs to be in order to 8 say what they need to say, and how long the response 9 needs to be, because our experience with the parties 10 currently before us is that that has not been abused, 11 that the pleadings have been very well done, and not 12 overly wordy, unlike my explanation of this. So we're 13 not going to rule on that at this point in time. If 14 it becomes a problem later on, we may revisit it.
15 At this point in time, the question of 16 whether or not any additional discovery pursuant to 17 2.704 will be necessary seems premature, given the 18 fact that the initial disclosures have not yet been 19 made. And that's something that we would take up at 20 a later point in time. The only issue would be how 21 long after the mandatory disclosures are made before 22 any such requests should be submitted. And rather 23 than putting a time limit on it at this point in time, 24 what we'll do is just use a rule of reasonableness, I 25 think depends to a large degree on the volume of the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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787 1 disclosures that the individual groups have to go 2 through, and then what the nature of the additional 3 discovery requests might be.
4 Next, there was an issue with regard to 5 various codes, specifically, Checkworks and the MACC 6 codes, and the disclosures of those. From the 7 standpoint -- let me just go through at this point, 8 from the standpoint of New York, is there -- does 9 there remain an issue with regard to that, at this 10 point?
11 MR. SIPOS: Good morning, Judge MQDade.
12 This is John Sipos. Yes, the State understands that 13 there is still an issue that there has not been 14 closure or agreement yet with respect to the State's 15 ability to get the MACCS 2 code in native format, so 16 that the State can observe the inputs, observe the 17 runs and the results of the runs, and work with that 18 code.
19 I would also note there was some 20 discussion of the code in the recently issued DSEIS, 21 so it is, New York State submits, an important 22 computer program for the State, and other participants 23 here, to obtain.
24 CHAIRMAN McDADE: Okay. In your letter 25 that you submitted on the 7 th of January that raised NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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788 1 that particular issue, you indicated that one of the 2 issues, from the standpoint of New York, is that these 3 codes had been paid for by the American taxpayers; 4 therefore, could not properly be viewed to be 5 proprietary. And that, therefore, there should be no 6 reason why they could not be disclosed. Is that still 7 your view?
8 MR. SIPOS: Yes. New York State 9 understands that the codes were developed for the 10 Department of Energy, or for the U.S. Nuclear 11 Regulatory Commission by a gQvernment-financed lab, 12 the Sandia Lab, and their employees.
13 CHAIRMAN McDADE: Okay. What is the view 14 of the NRC Staff, Mr. Turk, on this?
15 MR. TURK: Your Honor, two of us will 16 address the question. I'd like to begin, and I'm 17 going to pass the microphone, as it were, or the 18 telephone to Ms. Mizuno.
19 The first thing I would note is that the 20 MACCS 2 code is not the MELCOR code. Mr. Sipos' 21 letter of January 7 th confuses the two. The MACCS 2 22 code, as I understand it, utilizes inputs from MELCOR.
23 The MELCOR code is used to predict the consequences of 24 a loss of cooling accident. That information -- I'm 25 sorry. May I go on hold for one second?
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789 1 CHAIRMAN McDADE: Sure.
2 MR. TURK: I'm sorry for that 3 interruption. The MELCOR code, apparently, is used 4 not just for the LOCA, the loss of coolant accident, 5 but for other accidents, as well. And it provides a 6 source term, which is then utilized in the MACCS 2 7 code. So the State's letter confuses the two.
8 Apparently, they have information about MELCOR, but 9 they're not really addressing the MACCS 2 code. The 10 MACCS 2 code was developed by Sandia for use by the 11 NRC. That much of the letter is correct. The MACCS 12 2 code is available to the State. But because the 13 MACCS 2 code was costly to produce, there is a user 14 fee, which the NRC charges, and then turns that money 15 over to Sandia. I believe that's a user fee of 16 $1,000. So upon payment of the fee, the State is able 17 to get access to the code.
18 We don't understand what the State means 19 when they say they'd like to get the code in native 20 format. That's above a lawyer's knowledge here at the 21 table, so if Mr. Sipos can explain that, we would 22 appreciate it. And I don't know if Ms. Mizuno has 23 anything she wants to add at this point to that 24 discussion. No, we'll wait for the discussion.
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790 1 Sipos. Would you wish me to respond?-
2 CHAIRMAN McDADE: Yes.
3 MR. SIPOS: Based on what Mr. Turk has 4 just described, the State would be interested then in 5 obtaining the MELCOR program, and what its results 6 are, as well as the MACCS code, and how it was used.
7 And these two programs, if I'm understanding Mr. Turk 8 correctly, do work as part of the SAMA analysis. And 9 it would be appropriate, given the proposed SAMA 10 conclusions here, for the State to have both.
1 Mr. Turk asked about native format, and in 12 response to that, the State is interested in getting 13 the application, the DVD, if you will, or however 14 these two or more programs are stored, and used by the 15 NRC, and by Entergy, and being able to use it on its 16 own computers, so that we may have a thorough working 17 understanding. A PDF of various computer commands, a 18 static PDF document, if you will, with various 19 computer commands and code is not going to meet the 20 State's needs for this with respect to the overall 21 SAMA issue, and the subordinate MELCOR and MACCS 22 components of it.
23 CHAIRMAN McDADE: Okay. Why don't we do 24 this, and rather than our trying to fashion some sort 25 of perhaps unnecessary solution at this point in time, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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791 1 let me direct that within the next two weeks if 2 representatives from New York acting on behalf of the 3 Petitioner's, government entities, and your legal and 4 technical people could get together with the legal and
-- 5 technical people of the NRC Staff to discuss this 6 issue, to see what they can make available to you, 7 what format they could make available to you, and 8 whether or not then that will satisfy your needs in 9 this regard. And in the event - hopefully, you'll be 10 able to work this out - in the event that you can't, 11 if you would then just simply notify the Board, and at 12 that point, hopefully, at least the issues will be 13 fully clarified, and we will be able, at that point, 14 to move on.
15 The next thing has to do with -
16 MR. TURK: Your Honor, this is Sherwin 17 Turk. May I interject one more note on that last 18 discussion?
19 CHAIRMAN McDADE: Yes.
20 MR. TURK: Just so there's no confusion, 21 I stated that the MELCOR source code is then used by 22 MACCS. It's not necessarily the source code from 23 MELCOR that is used by MACCS. The Staff has not used 24 MELCOR inputs here for the Indian Point license 25 renewal application. It is the applicant which is NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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792 1 using MACCS 2, and the applicant, as I understand it, 2 uses a different source code, which is used by the 3 industry. And I believe that's called the MAAP code.
4 So Mr. Sipos asserts that he needs to have the MELCOR 5 code, I think he really needs to talk to his experts 6 to see if he needs that, because apparently no one 7 here is using the MELCOR inputs. But we can address 8 all of that later when the State contacts the Staff, 9 and we can then have a good discussion about what they 10 really need, and what we can get them.
11 CHAIRMAN McDADE: Okay.
12 MR. SIPOS: Your Honor, this is John 13 Sipos. Just for point of clarification, Mr. Sherwin 14 Turk mentioned another code, and I couldn't quite 15 hear. Was it MAAP?
16 MR. TURK: -A-A-P.
17 MR. SIPOS: Thank you. And, Your Honor, 18 we would just also note that under Council of 19 Environmental Quality regulations, the State and other 20 parties would be entitled to documents like this as 21 part of the NEPA review; But we will follow up with 22 NRC Staff, as you have directed. Thank you.
23 CHAIRMAN McDADE: Okay.
24 MR. TURK: I would also add that the MACCS 25 2 code used by the applicant, and the MAAP inputs are NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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793 1 in the applicant's possession, certainly, so you may 2 want to talk to the applicant about what it is that 3 you really want them to get copies of, or in your 4 possession.
.5 CHAIRMAN McDADE: Well, in that regard, 6 let me ask this. I mean, at one point in Riverkeeper 7 Contention EC-2, in support of that, Dr. Lyman said 8 something along the lines of we've used the MACCS 2 9 code to conduct an independent evaluation of severe 10 accident consequences for Indian Point. That seemed 11 to imply to me that Riverkeeper had access to the 12 MACCS 2 code, or Dr. Lyman had access to the MACCS 2 13 code. Is that correct?
14 MR. MUSEGAAS: Your Honor, this is Philip 15 Musegaas at Riverkeeper. Are you -- you're asking 16 about the MACCS 2 code, or the MAAP code?
17 CHAIRMAN McDADE: The MACCS 2.
18 MR. MUSEGAAS: MACCS 2. Yes, my 19 understanding is Ed Lyman had access to that code, 20 because that was the source of our challenge on that 21 contention, was to the source terms, to the use of one 22 source code versus the other. So yes, the answer is 23 that he has access to that.
24 CHAIRMAN McDADE: As I remember back when 25 we had the oral argument, I kept confusing the source NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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794 1 term and source code, and using the two as if they 2 were synonyms, except usually always using the wrong 3 one. But, anyway, that's another matter. If New York 4 would check with that, and, again, with regard to the 5 availability of that MACCS 2 code. And then, again, 6 if there is an issue that remains after those 7 discussions with regard to that, if you could get back 8 to us.
9 The next has to do with -
10 JUDGE WARDWELL: And, Judge McDade, this 11 is Judge Wardwell. You're also asking New York State 12 to coordinate that with both Entergy and the Staff.
13 Is that correct?
14 CHAIRMAN McDADE: Yes.
15 JUDGE WARDWELL: Yes. Thank you.
16 CHAIRMAN McDADE: And then the next has to 17 do with Checkworks. What is the current status on 18 that? Is this something that New York, Riverkeeper, 19 Clearwater believes that they need access to?
20 MR. BESSETTE: Your Honor, this is Paul 21 Bessette. We would like to clarify one thing. The 22 Checkworks issue is only a contention relevant to 23 Riverkeeper. It's not an issue, it hasn't been 24 admitted for the other parties.
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795 1 that was a contention nobody else piggybacked on at 2 this point? I believe that means adopting the 3 contention.
4 MR. MUSEGAAS: This is Philip Musegaas at 5 Riverkeeper. No, Your Honor, I believe Riverkeeper is 6 the only intervener currently with that contention.
7 CHAIRMAN McDADE: Okay.
8 MR. BESSETTE: Your Honor, this is Paul 9 Bessette. I think we can address this. This was an 10 issue that I think perhaps Judge Wardwell is very 11 familiar with. Checkworks, like many of these 12 software packages, are subject to licensing 13 agreements, non-disclosure agreements, proprietary 14 agreements, and we cannot just release them without 15 the appropriate legal protections and approvals from 16 the licensing agencies who gave us these products.
17 In the VY proceeding, my understanding 18 that the expert who Riverkeeper used, I believe 19 they're using in this current proceeding, they never 20 reached an agreement on the non-disclosure agreement.
21 So I think the same issue stands here. This is an 22 EPRI product subject to licensing agreements, and 23 release of that product would need full approval by 24 EPRI and appropriate legal protections. And the last 25 time this went around, Riverkeeper's expert was not NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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796 1 amenable to agreeing to that. So I think the issue 2 kind of stands where it was in Vermont Yankee. We 3 haven't had any further substantive discussions on it, 4 but legal restrictions on that product still exist, 5 and they haven't changed.
6 CHAIRMAN McDADE: Okay. From the 7 standpoint of Riverkeeper, have there been discussions 8 with regard to the possibility of a protective order 9 with regard to the release of this information? If 10 not, why not? And if so, what is the current status 11 on that?
12 MR. MUSEGAAS: Your Honor, this is Philip 13 Musegaas at Riverkeeper. We have not entered into 14 discussions as of yet with Entergy counsel. I 15 anticipate that we would like to do so, and we would 16 do so. I would just note, we were not a party in the 17 Vermont Yankee proceeding, so I understand that we are 18 using an expert that was used by Human Coalition in
- 19. that proceeding, and that's -- I think our approach.
20 may be different. So at this early stage, I don't see 21 any -- there's no hesitation on our part to entertain 22 entering into a protective agreement.
23 I think we agree with Paul that the 24 Checkworks code is, from my understanding, the 25 property of EPRI, and would have to -- Entergy, from NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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797 1 what Paul has said, would have to talk to EPRI about 2 the conditions under which they would be allowed to 3 release that code. So, Paul, you can correct me if Im 4 wrong, but I think this is something that we can 5 discuss, and hopefully work out.
6 MR. BESSETTE: This is. Paul Bessette. I 7 agree with you, Philip; although, I think we do need 8 to involve your expert, because I believe the 9 restrictions apply to him, because he has a potential 10 competitive role in this process.
11 CHAIRMAN McDADE: Okay. Well, why don't 12 you engage in those discussions in the next couple of 13 weeks, hopefully be able to resolve it. And in the 14 event that you can't, get back in touch with the Board 15 so we can review it further.
16 MR. BESSETTE: Of course, Your Honor.
17 MR. MUSEGAAS: Thank you, Your Honor.
18 CHAIRMAN McDADE: Okay. The next has to 19 do, there was a request that we set a schedule for the 20 filing of new or amended contentions. We're not 21 predisposed to doing that, going back to our page 9 of 22 our December 1 8th order on this matter. I think We're 23 just predisposed to sticking with the language of 24 2.309(f) (2). And, again, the big issue is whether or 25 not the information was previously available, whether NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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798 1 the new information is materially different than the 2 information that was available, and whether or not it 3 was submitted in a timely fashion under the 4 circumstances. Case law seems to indicate there's 5 sort of a presumptive 30-day period, but under certain 6 circumstances, depending on where we are in the 7 proceedings, 30 days may be either too short, or too 8 long a period of time. So, at this point, we believe 9 the case law under 309(f) (2) (3) on submitting timely 10 is the basis of what we're going to rely on, rather 11 than set a date just specifically in a vacuum.
12 The next has to do with the time period of 13 responding to any new contentions. 2.309(h) has a 14 presumed 25 days to respond. These are not treated as 15 motions under 2.323, which has a presumptive 10-day, 16 and we are predisposed to stick with the language of 17 2.309(h), sort of presumed 25 days. And, again, a 18 timely filed motion after discussions to resolve with 19 the other side, to shorten or to extend that period of 20 time may well be appropriate.
21 The next having to do with adopting 22 contentions. Previously, in our order we had to adopt 23 them within 30 days of their being granted with any 24 new or amended contentions. We think that that would 25 be an appropriate period of time, as well, to keep it.
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799 1 If a new or amended contention is accepted by the 2 Board, then any of the other parties would have up to 3 30 days to adopt that.
4 Okay. The next has to do with
-5 discoverability of documents reviewed, but not taken 6 into possession by the NRC Staff. I'm not really sure 7 if there are documents that have been not taken into 8 possession by the NRC Staff, they obviously aren't in 9 a position to make those documents available.
10 However, if they were reviewed by the NRC Staff and 11 they were relevant to this, it seems like they would 12 have reviewed them from Entergy, and they would be 13 part of the mandatory disclosures by Entergy in any 14 event.
15 Let me first ask the NRC Staff, Mr. Turk, 16 if there are documents reviewed but not taken into 17 possession, would there be any kind of a listing of 18 those documents? How would anybody know what 19 documents have been reviewed, but not taken into 20 possession?
21 MR. TURK: Your Honor, the issue that 22 you're being asked to look at there is an issue that 23 I believe was framed by a motion filed by Riverkeeper, 24 and by the State, if I'm not mistaken, concerning 25 documents reviewed, or created during the Staff's NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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800 1 audit on site at the facility. By the way, I don't 2 believe there was a ruling on that motion yet.
3 The Commission has addressed the issue.
4 If you recall, the Commission issued CLI 08-23, which 5 responded to a filing by Riverkeeper, and by 6 interveners in other proceedings, in which they 7 challenged certain aspects of the Staff's audit 8 process, and documentation of the audit.
9 In that decision by the Commission, the 10 Commission indicated that the Staff does not take into 11 possession various documents that it looks at during 12 the audit. And the Commission had no problem with 13 that practice. The Commission also indicated that 14 documents that are created by an individual staff 15 reviewer that are not shared with other members of the 16 staff, and that do not contain unique information, are 17 the personal records of that individual, and need not 18 be retained. So if the Board is going to issue any 19 ruling on this issue, I would suggest that the 20 Commission's directions in CLI 08-23 be considered.
21 There are documents that the Staff looks 22 at on site that are in the possession of the applicant 23 that we do not take possession of. We will be issuing 24 an audit report shortly, as I mentioned, in the next 25 day or two. There will be a letter that goes to the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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801 1 Licensing Board with the audit report attached. There 2 are actually two audit reports. One was a TRIP report 3 that consists of about eight or nine pages, and the 4 other is a more extensive audit report. The Staff 5 does list in the audit report the documents that it 6 reviewed on site, but they are not in our possession, 7 and we will not be making them available. We don't 8 have them to make available. But the interveners 9 should be able to see in that larger audit report what 10 documents were considered by the Staff.
11 CHAIRMAN McDADE: Okay. The short answer 12 to my question then is, the audit report would 13 indicate those documents reviewed on site but not 14 taken into possession by the NRC Staff.
15 MR. TURK: Correct.
16 CHAIRMAN McDADE: So that the interveners 17 and the other government entities would be able to 18 identify those documents.
19 MR. TURK: Yes.
20 CHAIRMAN McDADE: And then a significant 21 number of those documents, and this is addressed to 22 Entergy, would be disclosed by Entergy. And in the 23 event that they were not disclosed as part of the 24 mandatory discovery, they could be requested of 25 Entergy by the parties. And in the event Entergy did NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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802 1 not believe that they were appropriately disclosable, 2 the parties having identified documents would be able 3 to come to the Board and represent why they should 4 have them. Do you agree with that?
5 MR. BESSETTE: Your Honor, this is Paul 6 Bessette. We do agree. Of course, we believe we're 7 making very fulsome initial disclosures, but we 8 recognize there is a supplemental disclosure process, 9 and I think in the spirit of cooperation, we would 10 certainly agree to proceed as you discussed.
11 CHAIRMAN McDADE: Okay. Is there any 12 objection to that on the part of New York, 13 Riverkeeper, Clearwater, Connecticut, Cortlandt, et 14 cetera?
15 MR. SIPOS: Judge McDade, this is John 16 Sipos. So long as the audit report contains a full 17 and comprehensive list of the documents, at this 18 point, New York State would not object to that 19 scenario that you proposed.
20 CHAIRMAN McDADE: Okay. A problem that I 21 don't want to suggest is likely to occur, I don't 22 think it will, but, obviously, if the audit report 23 doesn't meet that standard from the standpoint of New 24 York, the difficulty then is how do to identify those 25 documents that were reviewed, unless there's some sort NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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803 1 of a listing of those documents. But at this point in 2 time, there's going to be disclosures made in a couple 3 of weeks. The audit report is going to be coming out.
4 At that point, we will be. able, if there is a problem, 5 to revisit it, again consistent with the policy 6 expressed in CLI 08-23.
7 The next has to do with the schedule for 8 summary disposition in this particular case. At this 9 point, setting a date for the submission of summary 10 disposition seems to be premature, given the fact that 11 we have no idea at this point exactly when we will go 12 to hearing, or whether we'll be going in a single 13 hearing, or a bifurcated hearing.
14 It is the strong feeling of the Board that 15 there not be late filed motions for summary 16 disposition. And when you start getting very close to 17 the hearing date, all of the motion for summary 18 disposition does is tend to distract people from 19 getting ready,for the hearing, and really multiply the 20 work. Also, at this point with regard to the nature 21 of the hearing, at this point we haven't ruled on 22 whether we're going to be proceeding as an L, or a G, 23 or primarily as an L, or primarily as a G. And one 24 could argue that the role of motions for summary 25 dispositions in an L hearing are somewhat less NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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804 1 helpful, than a G hearing.
2 We don't want to set a specific date of 60 3 days, 90 days, 120 days prior to the hearing at this 4 point in time, but we do wish to advise all of the 5 parties that we will set a date for submission of 6 summary disposition motions that is significantly in 7 advance of the hearing, so that it won't just 8 typically interfere with the preparation of the other 9 parties and the Board for the hearing.
10 The next has to do with an issue that was 11 raised in a motion by New York, having to do with 12 notice of communications between the NRC Staff and 13 Entergy. We were originally asked to direct that all 14 of the parties be given advance notice of those. In 15 our order of December 1 8 th, we denied that motion.
16 But one of the things as part of our denial of that, 17 the Staff had indicated that they would generally give 18 notice after-the-fact, which, to us, appeared to be 19 satisfactory. We did not want to inhibit 20 communications between the NRC Staff and the 21 applicant, as we viewed that that would just simply 22 delay and diminish the review process.
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805 1 of communications that occur between the NRC Staff and 2 the applicant as part of the review?
3 MR. TURK: Yes, I'd be happy to. There 4 are two types of communications. There are telephone 5 communications, and there are meetings. I guess 6 there's a third type of communication, that would be 7 written communication. Let me start with the last 8 one, written communication.
9 When the applicant submits documents to 10 the Staff in writing, I do not believe that the 11 applicant copies all parties on the adjudicatory 12 service list. Those documents, however, do become 13 part of our hearing file. And I imagine also they 14 might be part of the mandatory disclosures that 15 Entergy makes, although I can't verify that. I can't 16 be sure without looking at the rule. But they will be 17 put into the hearing file, and they will be available 18 on ADAMS.
19 The Staff's documents that are sent out to 20 Entergy are copied to whoever appears on the Technical 21 Staff Service List, and that includes approximately a 22 half a dozen people from New York State, and it could 23 include any other individual or party that sought to 24 receive a copy of the correspondence from the Staff to 25 Entergy. In addition, those documents are placed in NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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806 1 the hearing file and in ADAMS. And that will take 2 place, the parties have agreed to roughly, I think a 3 30-day update of the hearing file, and of mandatory 4 disclosures, so every 30 days there'll be a new update 5 that would include any other documents that have been 6 sent out either by Entergy, or by the Staff.
7 CHAIRMAN McDADE: All right. In that 8 letter of January 1 3 th that was submitted by Mr.
9 Bessette, it indicated in Paragraph 8 of that that 10 there would be a 30-day period for that.
11 Turning to New York, is that adequate? Do 12 you have any objection to that procedure?
13 MR. SIPOS: Your Honor, it's John Sipos.
14 One thing New York would like to insure, and I hope 15 this will be the case, that the documents coming in 16 from the applicant to the Staff will be-in a OCR'd, 17 PDF format so that when they are placed on the hearing 18 files that they are searchable. We have encountered 19 situations in the past, and I'm not saying what 20 happened in the past may continue, but where we have 21 not seen documents coming in from the applicants for 22 upwards of four or more weeks after the event. And if 23 there is a prompt ability to put these documents, 24 these correspondence on the hearing file, that may --
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807 1 have encountered in the past. We've included folks 2 from Entergy on our service list whenever we file 3 something, the attorneys here, and in the past we just 4 haven't seen things with the same speed that we'll 5 send things out. And Mr. Turk is right, there are 6 documents coming in from the applicant that are not 7 copied to the parties on the adjudicatory service 8 list, and that's where some of the delay -- that's 9 where the delay and the disconnect has occurred. But 10 if there's a willingness and an ability to get this 11 done promptly, and if it's OCR'd, I'd like to be 12 optimistic, and hope that going forward that would 13 obviate the issue.
14 CHAIRMAN McDADE: Well, under Paragraph 8 15 of the agreement, we're talking about a 30-day period 16 for updating, you indicated it's a problem if it might 17 take as long as four weeks. Four weeks is less than 18 30 days, usually. Is the 30-day period adequate? If 19 not, why not? And if not, why did you agree to it?
20 MR. SIPOS: Your Honor, I had understood, 21 and perhaps mistakenly, that documents might be placed 22 by Staff on the hearing file on a schedule that could 23 be shorter than the 30-day period.
24 CHAIRMAN McDADE: Mr. Turk, is there any 25 reason why the obligation on the Staff can't be that NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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808 1 these documents are put there as soon as possible, but 2 in any event no later than 30 days? I mean, it seems 3 like in most instances, it would be possible to do it 4 almost immediately.
5 MR. TURK: Your Honor, this is Sherwin 6 Turk. The State is confusing a few things. When the 7 documents come in from the applicant, they cross the 8 NRC's docketing desk. From there, they go into ADAMS, 9 regardless of the hearing file. So, actually, they do 10 appear in ADAMS, I'm told within a matter of 11 approximately a week after receipt by NRC. It's the 12 hearing file update, and the disclosure update that 13 we'll be doing through OGC that it will be done on a 14 30-day revolving, recurring basis. So the documents 15 should be available even sooner than the 30-day 16 period.
17 CHAIRMAN McDADE: Well, one of the 18 problems with documents going to ADAMS is the people's 19 reason to look for them there. In other words, if I 20 don't know that a document is going to be submitted in 21 ADAMS, I'm not necessarily going to be looking in 22 ADAMS for it, or to know that it even exists.
23 MR. TURK: No, the State -- if it really
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809 1 then they can have one of their people routinely, 2 every day or every week, do a search in ADAMS for new 3 documents related to Indian Point.
4 MR. SIPOS: Or the applicant could copy me 5 on the submissions to the Staff.
6 CHAIRMAN McDADE: Well, the problem is a 7 lot of the submissions to the Staff aren't going to be 8 going through counsel. They're going to be technical 9 submissions from the technical people at Entergy to 10 the technical people at the NRC Staff. They're not 11 necessarily - and maybe I'm wrong here - but they 12 wouldn't necessarily be going through Morgan Lewis, 13 and they wouldn't necessarily be going through the 14 Office of the General Counsel at the NRC Staff.
15 That said, I understand the difficulty of 16 why Morgan Lewis may not be able, as they would with 17 a pleading, to serve you immediately, just as you 18 serve them immediately. The question is, is there a 19 mechanism that could be set up, is there anybody 20 within the NRC, or within Entergy who is aware of 21 these communications as they happen, so that the other 22 parties, if not given a copy of the document, at least 23 could be notified of the communication, so that they 24 would be on notice that it's available to them in 25 ADAMS, as opposed to just simply having to go -- I NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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810 1 mean, it strikes me as somewhat burdensome to have 2 somebody going and searching through ADAMS on the 3 happenstance that something will be there.
4 MR. BESSETTE: Your Honor, this is Paul 5 Bessette. I think Sherwin Turk has addressed 6 appropriately. This hearing is very different from 7 the process of reviewing and processing the 8 application, and we have to treat them separately.
9 There's an ongoing technical issue with regard to 10 routine REIs that are not -- most of which is not the 11 subject of this proceeding. So we're following the 12 protocol that every other license renewal applicant 13 follows in this country in submitting these documents 14 directly to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
15 While it may be a slight burden for the 16 parties to wait a little bit to assure that the 17 hearing docket, or to take the effort to review ADAMS, 18 that's just part of the regulatory process. Similar 19 to parties have to follow and review the Federal 20 Register notices for notices of hearing. That's just 21 a routine part of doing business with the government, 22 so I think we need to maintain awareness that this is 23 -- a hearing process is different from the ongoing 24 license renewal process. And given the length of this 25 proceeding, and the obligations, I see no -- it would NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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811 1 be a significant burden on Entergy. It would be 2 contrary to the established process, established 3 regulatory process to do, to make any special 4 circumstances here, which we don't believe are 5 warranted.
6 MR. MUSEGAAS: Your Honor, this is Philip 7 Musegaas from Riverkeeper. May I comment on that?
8 CHAIRMAN McDADE: Please.
9 MR. MUSEGAAS: I would say, and maybe, 10 Paul, you could clarify, but I would disagree, if 11 you're suggesting that normal correspondence, whether 12 it's technical or written correspondence between 13 Entergy and the NRC Staff reviewing the application, 14 that only some of that is relevant to this proceeding.
15 If that were the case, then there would be no new 16 information that would come to light, that would 17 potentially be material for new contentions. So I 18 think that in terms of the technical staff review of 19 the license renewal application, while not all that 20 information is relevant to current contentions, I 21 think there is a good reason to have a mechanism by 22 which the parties in this proceeding are able to get 23 that correspondence, and that information in a timely 24 manner outside of or parallel to the mandatory 25 disclosure requirements. So I guess I'm asking for NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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812 1 clarification, perhaps, from Entergy, and also, Your 2 Honor, from the Board as to what kind of documents we 3 would be expected to receive, whether that's through 4 the NRC's hearing file, or through some other more 5 expedited process that wouldn't burden any of -the 6 parties.
7 I have to say, it is somewhat burdensome 8 from a small NGO's perspective to have to search ADAMS 9 every day, look for documents. And I think because we 10 are parties in the proceeding, it should not be -- I 11 don't think the volume of correspondence is so massive 12 that it would be a burden to include all that to the 13 parties.
14 And just, if I may ask for one other point 15 of clarification. I think it would be helpful from 16 the petitioner's perspective if we could arrive at 17 some kind of mechanism by which we determine if 18 documents are let's say publicly disclosed in ADAMS, 19 they're also put into the hearing file. Those may 20 occur at different times, so if we have timing of 21 public disclosures, documents that are occurring a 22 week or two apart, or even up to 30 days apart, it 23 would be helpful for the petitioner to know when the 24 clock starts to run on responding to those, to the 25 public disclosure of that information in terms of NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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813 1 filing motions and/or new contentions. Am I making 2 sense to everyone?
3 CHAIRMAN McDADE: Well, I have no idea.
4 This is Lawrence McDade, and we're not going to poll 5 everybody to see.
6 MR. MUSEGAAS: Okay. Well, am I making 7 sense to you, Your Honor?
8 CHAIRMAN McDADE: Let's start with a 9 couple of things.
10 MR. MUSEGAAS: Okay.
11 CHAIRMAN McDADE: First of all, as Mr.
12 Bessette pointed out, there are two things going on 13 here that are distinct. There is the review by the 14 NRC Staff, which is a technical review, and then there 15 is this adjudication. The two fields overlap 16 significantly, but they're not identical. That as Mr.
17 Bessette indicated, that documents from that technical 18 review are going to be furnished from the applicant to 19 the NRC Staff on a regular basis, and a significant 20 number, probably the vast majority of those documents, 21 aren't going to be relevant to this adjudication.
22 Nevertheless, that said, it's really, in 23 the first instance, the interveners and the interested 24 government entities who are going to make that 25 determination as to whether or not these documents are NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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814 1 available - excuse me - are relevant to the 2 contentions that they have raised, and to this 3 adjudication. What we're trying to do is develop a 4 procedure to set out so that the receipt of these 5 documents will be done in a as convenient a way, and 6 in as prompt way as possible, so that it won't delay 7 the proceedings.
8 Obviously, to me, anyway, that once 9 something is put into the hearing file, all of the 10 participants in the litigation are on notice. And if 11 there needs to be any action taken as a result of 12 that, they need to do so in a timely fashion. Simply 13 the fact that voluminous documents are furnished in 14 ADAMS does not necessarily, in my view, have that same 15 notice to the parties. There's a difference between 16 when somebody knew or should have known, and when they 17 might possibly have known. So what I am looking for, 18 and what I had hoped to do, is to get -- at the same 19 period of time, I don't want to put an overburden on 20 the NRC Staff to be updating this file on an hourly 21 basis.
22 The agreement, which I think is 23 reasonable, is that all of the information will be --
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815 1 trying to get is a understanding that although it will 2 be in there no later than 30 days, that it would be 3 put in there as soon as practicable from the 4 standpoint of the NRC Staff.
5 Also, Mr. Turk, we only addressed -- you 6 indicated that there were three types of 7 communications, the first one being written. And 8 that's the only one that we got through to address.
9 First of all, with regard to the 30-day requirement, i0 as I understood what you were talking about is there 11 would be an update every 30 days. Now, some of the 12 information in there might be a full 30 days, some of 13 it might be 20, some of it might be 10, but that you 14 would update the file on a 30-day sequence. Is that 15 correct? Is that what's anticipated?
16 MR. TURK: We will update every 30 days, 17 but there has to -- when we do an update, Your Honor, 18 we have to have a cutoff date for the actual 19 publication of the supplement to the hearing file.
20 We'll be reviewing documents up to, for instance, 21 approximately a week before the hearing file update 22 appears. And it may be that someone puts a document 23 into ADAMS after some number of days or weeks, or some 24 period of time after the document was created. So we 25 can't guarantee that the only documents that will NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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816 I appear in a supplement are those documents that were 2 created within the preceding 30-day period, or 23-day 3 period, or whatever. It's a monthly update, and we 4 will make our -- we will exercise our best efforts to 5 make sure that we're timely. But we can't give you an 6 absolute guarantee that there won't be a document that 7 appears in the hearing file supplement that is dated 8 more than 30 days before the supplement was made.
9 By the way, I do intend to address the 10 other types of communication, the emails, the 11 meetings, and the telephone calls. But before we 12 leave this one, I want to point out that the 13 preparation of a hearing file is a very burdensome 14 task for the Staff. Not only do NRC lawyers have to 15 be involved in reviewing the documents that are being 16 produced in the hearing file, and then supplemented, 17 but we have to have staff managers and technical staff 18 involved in the identification of documents, the 19 review of documents for privilege, and review of 20 documents in order to get the certification from NRC 21 staff managers that the hearing file supplement is 22 complete. So it's not just a matter of throwing 23 documents into a file and distributing it. There is 24 a lot of review time that goes into it. And for us to 25 undertake a review more than every 30 days would be NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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817 1 very onerous. And I note that in virtually every 2 other proceeding that has occurred that I'm aware of, 3 the parties have agreed to the 30-day update, and the 4 Boards have accepted this. There is nothing unique to 5 Indian Point, or to the State of New York, or to 6 Entergy that should mandate the use of procedures 7 different in this proceeding than are used in 8 virtually all other proceedings, notwithstanding the 9 fact that the State has expressed an interest in 10 timely updates.
11 And I would note that the ultimate effect 12 is possibly if a document is received by the State 13 late, or identified to the State late, then the State 14 would have grounds to say we received this late. We 15 need more time to file a timely contention, and we'll 16 deal with that on a case-by-case basis. But there's 17 no reason to go out from the beginning with procedures 18 that are more onerous than they have to be for other 19 parties.
20 CHAIRMAN McDADE: Okay. From the 21 standpoint of New York, why does that not satisfy your 22 legitimate needs?
23 MR. SIPOS: Well, that is a consequence, 24 and I'm glad to hear Mr. Turk acknowledge that that 25 would be a consequence of the late delivery and NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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818
- 1. production of a document. I guess I would also 2 observe on a practical level, Your Honor - by the way, 3 this is John Sipos speaking - that it doesn't take 4 that much effort to add a few CC's onto a letter from 5 the applicant coming in.
6 MS. SUTTON: Your Honor, this is Kathryn 7 Sutton on behalf of the applicant. We are not, as 8 counsel of record, aware of all of the communications 9 that go on with respect to the prosecution of the 10 application, so I don't believe that is at all 11 practicable.
12 CHAIRMAN McDADE: Actually, I tend to 13 agree with you. And I think I indicated that earlier, 14 given the fact that there really are two issues going 15 forward; one, the technical review, and did not 16 anticipate that all of the communications, or even the 17 majority of the communications between the NRC's 18 technical staff and Entergy's technical staff would be 19 run through their counsel representing them in this 20 adjudicative proceeding. If anything, I think that 21 would -- it might be a Morgan Lewis full employment 22 act, but it would be certainly very expensive, and 23 probably not needed from the standpoint of review.
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819 1 proceed in this, -and as a way that really satisfies 2 the legitimate interests of the parties. Mr. Turk, 3 was there anything further you had to say with regard 4 to the other forms of communication, other than -
5 MR. TURK: Yes. The other types of 6 communications are also matters that would be put into 7 the hearing file. Emails, for instance, we don't copy 8 other people on emails, but they would be collected 9 and put into the hearing file. When we have meetings 10 with the applicant, we try to give advance notice of 11 all interested persons. Again, the State of New York 12 has six or even more people on the Staff's technical 13 service list, so when we send out a notice to Entergy 14 saying that there will be a meeting on X date, the 15 State receives multiple copies of that notice. In 16 addition, after meetings are held, there will be a 17 meeting summary, and the meeting summary will be put 18 into ADAMS and the hearing file.
19 The same is true with respect to telephone 20 calls. We will not be notifying the State or other 21 interveners of when we'll be having a telephone call 22 with the applicant, but shortly after the call is 23 completed, there will be a summary of the call 24 prepared, and within approximately 30 days that will 25 be available in the hearing file.
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820 1 CHAIRMAN McDADE: Okay.
2 MR. SIPOS: Your Honor, this is John 3 Sipos. If I may just briefly, the telephone call REI 4 discussions have been especially problematic.
5 Oftentimes, the memo is not even written until four 6 plus weeks later, and then it is not circulated for an 7 additional period of time, and so we are hearing about 8 telephone communications between NRC Staff and Entergy 9 on occasion upwards of five, six weeks later. I just 10 want to note that for the record.
11 CHAIRMAN McDADE: I understand. The issue 12 then seems to be of giving you additional time based 13 on when you receive it, but it seems difficult for me 14 to direct Mr. Turk to turn something over that he 15 doesn't have. Just as you indicated in many 16 instances, the memo was not going to be -- the memo of 17 conversation isn't going to be written. Well, until 18 that memo of conversation is written, there's no way, 19 even if they wanted to, the NRC Staff could turn that 20 over and make it part of the hearing file. So I think 21 we just have to accept that people are being 22 professional, understand that this adjudication is 23 going on, that there's a reason to promptly 24 memorialize the communications that they have, so that 25 they can place them in the hearing file, with the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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821 1 understanding to the degree that it fails to meet 2 those standards, there's a very strong probability 3 that the hearing itself and the resolution of this 4 will be delayed, which is in nobody's interest.
5 At this point in time, what I would 6 propose is this, that we take a very short break, and 7 by a very short break I mean just simply put your 8 phone on mute for -- I've got -
9 JUDGE WARDWELL: We're just about through?
10 CHAIRMAN McDADE: Yes. Well, what I was 11 proposing to do. was that we put the phones on mute for 12 about five minutes, allow all of the parties to 13 discuss among themselves to see if anybody believes 14 that there are additional matters that need to be 15 discussed, to then come back together in five minutes 16 and see what, if any, additional matters need to be 17 discussed. Judge Wardwell, is that agreeable?
18 JUDGE WARDWELL: That's fine.
19 CHAIRMAN McDADE: Judge Lathrop?
20 JUDGE LATHROP: That's fine.
21 CHAIRMAN McDADE: Okay. Anybody have any 22 objection to that? Apparently not. What we will do 23 is put the phone on mute, and come back in five 24 minutes. So we would ask that all of you be back on 25 the line in and ready to proceed in five minutes.
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822 1 Again, don't hang up, don't get off the line, just put 2 your phone on mute, so that you can discuss issues 3 without it being -- everybody else being privy to it.
4 Are we all set? I guess we're all set. Hearing no objection, we're all set.
6 (Whereupon, the proceedings went off the 7 record at 11:42:31 a.m., and went back on the record 8 at 11:47:20 a.m.)
9 CHAIRMAN McDADE: And Judge Lathrop, we 10 have the NRC Staff on?
11 MR. TURK: Yes, Your Honor.
12 CHAIRMAN McDADE: Entergy?
13 MR. SIPOS: Yes, Your Honor.
14 CHAIRMAN McDADE: New York?
15 MR. BESSETTE: YE 's, Your Honor.
16 CHAIRMAN McDADE: Clearwater?
17 MS. GREENE: Yes, Your Honor.
18 CHAIRMAN McDADE: Riverkeeper?
19 MR. MUSEGAAS: Ye !s, Your Honor.
20 CHAIRMAN McDADE: Connecticut?
21 MR. SNOOK: Yes, Your Honor.
22 CHAIRMAN McDADE: I should have just said 23 who isn't on the line. Okay. Cortlandt? Cortlandt?
24 MR. RIESEL: Yes, Your Honor. We're here.
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823 1 Economic Development?
2 MR. DELANEY: Yes, Your Honor.
3 CHAIRMANMcDADE: Okay. Is there anything 4 else that anyone has that they wish to raise?
5 Actually, before we do that, let me just ask a 6 question and address it in the first instance to 7 Entergy.
8 We had the discussion about the TIFF 9 files, and whether or not -- and how these things, who 10 would pay for the OCR. Question; in creating these 11 files initially as TIFF files, as opposed to PDF 12 files, the PDF files would be sort of inherently 13 searchable. It seems like, from our standpoint here, 14 just creating a PDF file takes no additional time, 15 takes no additional resources. Is there any reason 16 why these can't be - haven't been prepared as PDF 17 files?
18 MR. BESSETTE: Your Honor, this is Paul 19 Bessette. We wouldn't necessarily agree with you that 20 creating these in word searchable PDF is at no 21 additional cost. I don't have my technical folks 22 here, but there's several steps. You have to use 23 appropriate software and OCR the document.
24 Again, we believe we're producing these in 25 a format consistent with other litigations. And, in NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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824 1 fact, it's a format that we feel -- that we understand 2 and we have experienced, is requested, often requested 3 by other parties to facilitate searches of large 4 document databases.
5 CHAIRMAN McDADE: Well, when we discussed 6 this earlier, the way it was left is there were going 7 to be discussions over the next couple of weeks 8 between Entergy and New York on this. Please, as part 9 of those discussions, discuss the issue of PDF'ing 10 documents, and as a possible way of doing this. And 11 during that period of time, your technical people, and 12 their technical people should be able to discuss this, 13 as well, to get this done as quickly as possible, as 14 cheaply as possible, and in a format that is going to 15 be most useful to the parties, and most useful in 16 moving this thing along as quickly as possible, and 17 not having any unnecessary delays.
18 MR. BESSETTE: We understand that, Your 19 Honor, and I believe the issue is not with New York, 20 it's with Clearwater. And we'll work with them with 21 regard to format of subsequent productions.
22 CHAIRMAN McDADE: Okay. The other thing 23 that I just wanted to raise is that after the 24 mandatory disclosures are made, just to emphasize, in 25 the event that any of the parties believe that there NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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825 1 are additional documents that they would like to 2 obtain discovery on, just to make sure in the first 3 instance; go to the party to whom you are seeking the 4 document, explain to them what it is you want, and 5 why, and see if you could work out a resolution. But 6 the first step is not to file a motion, or a discovery 7 request with the Board, the first step is to go to the 8 party from whom you are seeking disclosures, and ask 9 them for it. And only if you can't work it out, to 10 then contact us.
11 Okay. That said, from the standpoint of 12 the NRC Staff, Mr. Turk, is there anything else that 13 you would like to take up at this particular 14 conference?
15 MR. TURK: No, Your Honor.
16 CHAIRMAN McDADE: From the standpoint of 17 Entergy?
18 MR. BESSETTE: No, Your Honor.
19 CHAIRMAN McDADE: Was that no? There was.
20 a lot of static?
21 MR. BESSETTE: No, Your Honor. This is 22 Paul Bessette.
23 CHAIRMAN McDADE: New York?
24 MR. SIPOS: This is John Sipos. No, Your 25 Honor.
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826 1 CHAIRMAN McDADE: Riverkeeper?
2 MR. MUSEGAAS: Your Honor, this is Philip 3 Musegaas. I just -- at the risk of belaboring this, 4 I just would like to ask for some clarification. And 5 I apologize for probably being confused about 6 something simple.
7 This question goes to Mr. Turk at NRC. My 8 understanding, and this goes to the issue of the 9 correspondence between Entergy and the NRC on the 10 license renewal application. Sherwin, I just want to 11 make sure I understand what you said. You're saying 12 that all the correspondence between Entergy and the 13 NRC Staff will be going into the hearing file, or only 14 the correspondence relating to admitted contentions?
15 MR. TURK: The Staff's obligation to 16 produce documents goes to all documents relevant to 17 the application. It is not limited to individual 18 contentions.
19 MR. MUSEGAAS: Okay. Thank you.
20 CHAIRMAN McDADE: Okay. Clearwater?
21 MS. GREENE: Your Honor, I have a 22 question, and a comment.
23 CHAIRMAN McDADE: This is Manna Jo Greene?
24 MS. GREENE: Yes, thank you. And the 25 question is, it's clear to me when the NRC Staff and NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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827 1 Entergy will be forwarding their disclosures. I am 2 not clear on the time line for the other parties, and 3 perhaps I should be. But I was not under the 4 understanding that it would be by the 21st to 2 3 r.
5 And maybe I missed that, or it is in the schedule that 6 I overlooked, but I'm not clear about that.
7 CHAIRMAN McDADE: Okay. What was it your 8 -- excuse me. What was your understanding?
9 MS. GREENE: I understood that we would be 10 given that direction at this call, and that's why I'm 11 asking now, because it's not clear to me. Perhaps New 12 York State or Riverkeeper are more clear about that.
13 I only heard the discovery deadlines that Entergy and 14 NRC were prepared to meet.
15 CHAIRMAN McDADE: Okay. Specifically, 16 what disclosures are you discussing, as far as what 17 disclosures, for example, would Clearwater be making 18 to the NRC Staff at this point?
19 MS-. GREENE: Well, again, I apologize. We 20 are pro se, but in terms of discovery, is there a 21 deadline under which we need to disclose background 22 information that we are in the process of -- I'm now 23 going through all of the files we used to prepare our 24 actual contentions, and it's not clear to me when that 25 information has to be forwarded to all the parties.
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828 1 CHAIRMAN McDADE: Okay. From the 2 standpoint of the NRC Staff, were you anticipating any 3 disclosures this week from any of the parties?
4 MR. TURK: This current week? No.
5 CHAIRMAN McDADE: Okay. I was not 6 anticipating that the parties would be, at this point, 7 making disclosures to the NRC Staff, or to Entergy.
8 Entergy, did you have a different understanding?
9 MR. BESSETTE: Your Honor, we believe the 10 disclosure obligations of 2.336, which are applied to 11 all parties.
12 CHAIRMAN McDADE: No, I understand. But 13 at this point in time, it seems like the information 14 that the other parties have, it would sort of be in 15 response to what they get from you.
16 MR. BESSETTE: No, Your Honor. That's not 17 our understanding. I mean, this is a mandatory 18 disclosure obligation under the party pursuant to the 19 admitted contention. The 30-day clock applies to all 20 the parties.
21 MS. GREENE: Okay.
22 MR. TURK: Your Honor, this is Sherwin 23 Turk. I wonder, maybe I can make a suggestion that 24 might help Ms. Greene, and maybe the rest of us, as 25 well. As I understand the timing for the first NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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829 1 disclosures, it would be 30 days after the December 2 1 8th order, which would get us to January 2 1 s'. We do 3 have intervening holidays, which makes the production 4 a little more difficult. For that reason, the Staff 5 was indicating that we think we'd be ready somewhere 6 between the 2 1 st and 2 3 rd 7 Because of the two-day holiday next week 8 in Washington, I wonder if we could possibly agree on 9 a single date for which all parties should make their 10 first disclosure, and possibly to make sure that 11 everyone is comfortable with that, make it in the 12 following -- some day in the following week? I might 13 even suggest January 3 0 th, and then the 30-day updates 14 would take place at the end of each subsequent month, 15 as sort of a convenient jumping off point.
16 MR. BESSETTE: Your Honor, Entergy would 17 be amenable to a common date. We understand 18 regulations are not easy to understand at times, and 19 we understand Ms. Greene's question, but we do not 20 believe it's appropriate for parties to prepare their 21 discovery based on our discovery. 2.336(a), we 22 believe it's clear that the obligations are on all 23 parties, but we'd be amenable to some common date that 24 adapts to all the parties.
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830 1 -- thinking of- 2.336(a), and then sort of- going 2 through the different categories of documents trying 3 to anticipate the documents that, for example, 4 Clearwater would have that would be discoverable at 5 this point in time. Given the volume of documents 6 that are involved, and also, as Mr. Turk pointed out, 7 both Monday and Tuesday of next week are holidays in 8 the D.C. metropolitan area. Even if they weren't, 9 it's extremely difficult for people to get to work on 10 those two days. I think all of the bridges from 11 Virginia are closed due to the Inauguration, so having 12 an extended period of time, I don't have a calendar in 13 front of me, but what day of the week January 3 0 th is.
14 Assuming it is a weekday, it seems like that would be 15 appropriate. And I would think that at least in the 16 initial instance, the volume of documents that would 17 be discoverable by the other parties to Entergy, and 18 the NRC Staff would be relatively limited in volume to 19 set the 30t as the date for.that, as well. If any of 20 the parties, after discussing it internally believe 21 that that date is going to be difficult for them to 22 meet, they should get back in touch with us 23 immediately, and actually, again, get back in touch 24 with us derivatively to, first of all, contact the NRC 25 Staff, and counsel for Entergy to see whether or not NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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831 1 you can agree to another date in the not too distant 2 future. And, if so, then get back to us to notify us 3 as to what date has been agreed upon. But to say that 4 the initial disclosures by Entergy and the NRC Staff 5 _- under 336(a) would be on January 3 0 th, or no later 6 than January 3 0 th, I think would be appropriate; also, 7 at this point, to suggest that additional disclosures 8 by the other parties, the initial disclosures under 9 336(a), sUch as they are, be made also on the 3 0 th 10 subject to reconsideration after discussions among the 11 parties.
12 Anything else to be discussed at this 13 point?
14 MS. GREENE: Yes. I had also a comment, 15 Your Honor. Manna Greene from Clearwater. And that 16 is just a final comment on the distinction between 17 TIFF files and PDF. And just to add clarity, that 18 whatever is going to be produced through January 3 0 th, 19 I realize a lot of work went into it, and we're not 20 asking for any change retrospectively. But in terms 21 of future documents, that is something that I think is 22 an important precedent to set in terms of 23 accessibility.
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832 1 layer of optic character recognition, has to be 2 applied to make documents searchable. I don't agree 3 that that's how it should be done moving forward. And 4 we will discuss that, and bring that information to 5 you, but it's really a future precedent that we're 6 interested in establishing, at least for this case.
7 But really, for accessibility of documents 8 universally.
9 CHAIRMAN McDADE: Okay. I understand.
10 And, also, let me just say one other thing. To the 11 degree that there is time or money involved in taking 12 documents that are now not searchable and putting them 13 into searchable format, the possibility of all of the 14 interveners and interested government entities doing 15 that on a cooperative basis so that you're not making 16 the same effort and expenditure several times. It's 17 only done once, that somebody take the lead on that, 18 as far as the resources go, having some way of sharing 19 those resources. Again, part of the discussions that 20 are going to be had during the next couple of weeks 21 are going to involve how these documents can be 22 produced in a way that is going to make them most 23 useful, most quickly, at reasonable expense both to 24 the entity producing the documents, and also to the 25 entity receiving them.
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833 1 Anything else? Judge Wardwell?
2 JUDGE WARDWELL: Nothing from here.
3 CHAIRMAN McDADE: Judge Lathrop?
4 JUDGE LATHROP: Nothing else.
5 CHAIRMAN McDADE: Okay. At this point in 6 time, I'm not going to set another date for a status 7 conference. Let's see what happens over the next 8 couple of weeks, whether or not you all are back in 9 touch with us on any particular issues. We'll issue 10 an order summarizing what we've talked about here.
11 Given the holiday that's coming up, there's a good 12 possibility that it may not get out during the 13 remainder of this administration, but we will get it 14 out as promptly thereafter as possible. And we will 15 be setting a date for a subsequent status conference 16 at a later date.
17 Nothing further from any of the parties or 18 interested government entities, we'll conclude this 19 status conference. Thank you.
20 (Whereupon, the proceedings went off the 21 record at 12:06 p.m.)
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CERTIFICATE This is to certify that the attached proceedings before the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission in the matter of: Entergy Nuclear Operations, Indian Point Name of Proceeding: Pre-hearing Conference Docket Number: 50-247/286-LR Location: (telephone conference) 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.
,-'John Mong en<S Official Reporter Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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