ML092050114
| ML092050114 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Fermi  |
| Issue date: | 08/04/2009 |
| From: | Tanya Smith NRC/FSME |
| To: | NRC/FSME |
| Theodore Smith (301) 415-6721 | |
| Shared Package | |
| ML092050128 | List: |
| References | |
| Download: ML092050114 (70) | |
Text
August 4, 2009 NOTE TO:
File FROM:
Theodore Smith
/RA/
SUBJECT:
TRANSCRIPT OF FERMI-1 LICENSE TERMINATION PLAN PUBLIC MEETING The document below is being submitted at this time for public release with the above date as the release date.
Official Transcript of Proceedings NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Title:
Fermi Nuclear Plant License Termination Public Meeting Docket Number:
(n/a)
Location:
Monroe, Michigan Date:
Tuesday, June 30, 2009 Work Order No.:
NRC-2915 Pages 1-68 NEAL R. GROSS AND CO., INC.
Court Reporters and Transcribers 1323 Rhode Island Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 234-4433
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 1
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 1
NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 2
+ + + + +
3 PUBLIC MEETING ON FERMI-1 4
ENRICO FERMI NUCLEAR POWER PLANT 5
LICENSE TERMINATION PLAN 6
+ + + + +
7 Tuesday, June 30, 2009 8
Monroe County Board of Commissioners Chambers 9
125 East Second Street 10 Monroe, Michigan 11 12 The above-entitled hearing was 13 conducted at 7:00 p.m.
14 BEFORE: LANCE RAKOVAN, Facilitator 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25
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P R O C E E D I N G S 1
(7:00 p.m.)
2 MR. RAKOVAN: Good evening everyone.
3 My name is Lance Rakovan. I am a Communications 4
Specialists at the U.S.
Nuclear Regulatory 5
Commission, or NRC, as you'll hear it called NRC 6
tonight. And it is my pleasure to facilitate 7
tonight's meeting.
8 I am going to do my best to make sure 9
that we keep on track, answer your questions, 10 hear your comments, and basically make the 11 meeting as productive as possible for everyone.
12 It is certainly my pleasure to visit 13 this area. I grew up just a little bit south, so 14 I actually pulled in a little early so I could 15 visit with friends and family. So when I say it 16 is "my pleasure" to be here, I am not joking 17 about that.
18 The purpose of tonight's meeting is to 19 provide you with an opportunity to get some 20 information about the proposed License 21 Termination Plan for Fermi 1, and for you to give 22 us your comments on that plan. Today's meeting 23 is just one of the ways that you can provide 24 comments, and you'll be hearing more about that 25
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soon.
1 The meeting tonight is essentially 2
going to have two parts. First, we'll hear some 3
presentations on the NRC license termination 4
process, DTE Energy's License Termination Plan 5
for Fermi 1, and NRC's Decommissioning, Oversight 6
and Inspection activities.
7 There were copies of the NRC 8
presentations on the same table as the signing 9
cards outside. In case you didn't grab one I'll 10 bring some around and just kind of hold them up.
11 So just get my attention and I'll make sure you 12 get a copy as we get started.
13 We're going to try to keep the 14 presentation short so we can get to the real 15 reason tonight, which is to listen to you, get 16 your comments and answer your questions. There 17 were yellow and blue cards that was asked that 18 you fill out when you came in, and I think just 19 about everybody did.
20 We are going to start, once we get to 21 the comment period, with the people who signed up 22 for the yellow cards, give them an opportunity to 23 approach the microphone and give us their comment 24 on the Decommissioning Plan or ask some 25
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questions.
1 Please keep in mind that we're going 2
to do our best to answer your questions, but we 3
may not have the NRC expert here with whatever 4
topic you ask on. So if we can't answer your 5
question at the meeting tonight, we'll do our 6
best to get your contact information and get back 7
to you with the information that you would like.
8 We are transcribing tonight's meeting, 9
which is why I am speaking into a microphone, 10 even though we're in such a small setting. So if 11 you would please make sure that you use a 12 microphone every time that you ask question or 13 make a comment, that will help us keep a clean 14 transcript of tonight's meeting. You can also 15 help us by silencing or putting your cell phones 16 or pagers or other devices on vibrate so those 17 don't go off during the meeting, keeping side 18 conversations to a minimum, and again, making 19 sure that you are using a microphone each time 20 that you make a comment.
21 One item, that I hoped you picked up 22 on the table outside, is our Public Meeting 23 Feedback form. The NRC uses these to kind of get 24 an idea of how our public meetings are going, and 25
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if you fill it out you can drop it in the mail.
1 It's no postage on your part, and just let us 2
know what you thought of the meeting tonight, 3
maybe some suggestions on how we could improve 4
things. We really do take those into account.
5 So if you could take a moment to fill that out we 6
would really appreciate it.
7 Just in case you weren't
- aware, 8
restrooms are back out the door you came, keep on 9
heading to your left and make a U-turn and 10 they'll be on your left.
11 The presentations are going to be on 12 this side screen over here. So if you are in a 13 seat that you can't see them very well, I suggest 14 if you really do want to see them that you move 15 to a place that you can see them. Again, we have 16 copies of the NRC presentations so you might not 17 necessarily need to see the screen to follow 18 along. But I just wanted to warn you that that 19 is where the presentations are going to be seen 20 tonight.
21 I wanted to take a moment to introduce 22 some of the NRC staff in attendance tonight.
23 First, we have Drew Persinko. Drew is a Reactor 24 Decommissioning Manager at the NRC. Ted Smith, 25
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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is the Project Manager for Fermi 1. And finally, 1
Jeremy Tapp. Jeremy is a Reactor Decommissioning 2
Inspector out of Region III office which is near 3
Chicago.
4 Although this is an NRC meeting we 5
wanted to make sure that you got the information 6
that you needed about DTE Energy's plan, so we 7
have a representative from DTE Energy here 8
tonight who is going to be speaking as well. Her 9
name is Lynne Goodman, and I believe that Wayne 10 Colanellow is going to be introducing her.
11 With that, I am going to hand things 12 over to Drew, and I am going to be back once we 13 start the second part of the meeting.
14 I'd ask that you hold your questions 15 until everyone has finished speaking, and that 16 way we can fully open the floor to questions and 17 comments once we're done with the presentations.
18 So, thank you.
19 Drew.
20 MR. PERSINKO: Good evening. My name 21 is Drew Persinko and I am the Branch Chief of the 22 Decommissioning Branch at the NRC Headquarters.
23 My branch has licensing and project management 24 responsibilities for the Fermi 1
nuclear 25
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facility.
1 Detroit Edison has submitted its plan 2
to terminate the license for the Fermi 1 unit, 3
and my branch and the NRC has begun review of the 4
plan. Part of our review process includes having 5
a meeting with the public, which is why we're 6
here tonight.
7 As Lance said, tonight we are going to 8
discuss the NRC's processing criteria for 9
licensing termination, and we're also going to 10 discuss the NRC's inspection process and the 11 inspection program. And as Lance said, Detroit 12 Edison will talk -- briefly discuss the plan 13 itself, and then we will obtain comments form the 14 public, we'll open it up for comments.
15 I'd like to introduce the rest of the 16 NRC staff who is also here tonight that Lance 17 didn't introduce. We have Bruce Watson, who is a 18 Senior Health Physicist, Steve Geeble (ph) who is 19 a
Health Physicist
- also, Matthew
- Meyer, 20 Hydrogeologist, Hans Ault, a Senior Assistance 21 Performance
- Analyst, Sarah Michonski, our 22 Licensing Assistant. So, with that, I am going 23 to turn this over to Ted Smith. Thank you very 24 much.
25
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MR. SMITH: Good evening. Thank you 1
all for coming to participate in the public 2
comment process. As Lance said, our primary 3
purpose is to hear your comments tonight, but to 4
kind of kick that off we want to talk about how 5
the process
- works, what is in a
license 6
termination plan, and then Jeremy will come and 7
talk about the oversight activities and then 8
we'll do the comment section.
9 So, how does decommissioning work.
10 There is a handout on the table, and there were 11 posters, that describe in a generic fashion, the 12 decommissioning process for a power reactor.
13 It's a
stylized representation and doesn't 14 represent exactly, but it does give you an idea 15 of how that process works, and these are the same 16 kind of steps repeated.
17 So, operations cease, and as you can 18 see noted here for Fermi 1, that official note 19 certification was November 1972. After that, 20 fuel is removed from the reactor. That was in 21
`73. After that there's a submission of a 22 planned decommissioning report. And depending on 23 the timing, that document can have a couple 24 different names. But for Fermi, it is a 25
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Decommissioning Plan.
1 As part of that Decommissioning Plan 2
there's some requirements.
There was a
3 requirement for a public meeting. There was a 4
public meeting on April 22nd `98, and we took 5
public comments about that phase of the 6
decommissioning process. And I think some of the 7
folks may be here tonight that were at that `98 8
meeting.
9 They have to identify the 10 decommissioning option. Fermi's decommissioning 11 option has been safe store, and that's why 12 they've been in safe store condition since that 13 shutdown in `75. That's why you see the time 14 difference now.
15 There must be a site specific cost 16 estimate. That was provided in July `90, and 17 some later dates where other information was 18 provided.
19 I note here that NRC approval is not 20 required for that report. There are some 21 requirements about what you can do after you've 22 submitted that report, which I'll highlight next 23 in the next slide.
24 After that report is provided the 25
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 10 licensee then goes and starts doing 1
decommissioning activities consistent with what 2
they've indicated they plan to do. And so that's 3
been an ongoing effort since that time.
4 When they get within two years minimum 5
of wanting to terminate their license, they 6
submit a Decommissioning Termination Plan. They 7
submitted their's on March 25th.
8 Requirements for the License 9
Termination Plan: There must be a public meeting 10 to solicit public comments, which is part of why 11 we're here tonight. Certainly, we want to do it 12 not just because it's required but because it's a 13 good idea to get the -- hear the local concerns 14 of the local public about activities at the site.
15 NRC approval is required for that 16
- document, but it's incorporated by license 17 amendment. And part of that license amendment --
18 there's a process that will control how the 19 licensee can go about doing the termination and 20 what kinds of activities might trigger them to 21 have to come back to NRC. But as long as 22 they're consistent with their plan they proceed 23 through the decommissioning phase of it.
24 And so once we approve the license 25
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 11 termination plan they'll begin implementing that 1
plan. They'll begin conducting surveys, and 2
we'll begin our oversight inspection process.
3 And
- then, finally, when that's 4
completed and they've demonstrated that they've 5
met our criteria for cleanup, the license is 6
terminated.
7 So, just going back to thinking about 8
the decommissioning activities, which are the 9
things that the licensee has been doing since 10 they submitted their decommissioning activities 11 report. They can do lots of decommissioning 12 work, as long as it doesn't trip these three 13 broad requirements, which is: It doesn't cause 14 them to have a restricted release of the site, 15 there's no new significant environmental impacts 16 that haven't been previously considered, and 17 there's no expectation of not having sufficient 18 money to complete the decommission work.
19 And so as long as the licencee 20 complies with those broad criteria, they can do 21 the decommissioning. And in fact, they've been 22 doing a lot of work over the years at Fermi 1.
23 So what has to be in a license 24 termination plan? As specified in the CFR 25
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 12 citation there, they have to characterize the 1
site conditions, including a historical site 2
assessment. They provided that in Chapter 2 of 3
their plan. They have to have a list of the 4
remaining activities that need to be done.
5 That's in Chapter 3. They give plans for how the 6
additional remediation that needs to be completed 7
before they're ready to terminate. That's 8
indicated here, Chapter 4.
9 They also have to provide plans on how 10 they're going to do their final surveys. It's a 11 very elaborate process of statistical evaluation 12 of this site to confirm that it meets our license 13 termination criteria. They have provided an 14 updated estimate for the cost for all that work, 15 and they give us updated environmental 16 information so that we can make our evaluation of 17 the environmental impacts potential 18 environmental impacts of their action.
19 So the criteria that they must comply 20 with in the plan and what the plan demonstrates 21 is that they'll meet our unrestricted limits as 22 specified in 10 CFR 20.1402. Which says: "25 23 millirem per year total dose, above background."
24 I know that's kind of a complicated term. I did 25
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 13 bring some booklets on radiation to help explain 1
that. They were at the table as you came in. If 2
you want to understand some context for what that 3
number means, I think that will be helpful for 4
you.,
5 It also needs to be as long as 6
reasonably achievable. And, you know, in a quick 7
word what that means is, things that they can do 8
that are a reasonable expectation that aren't 9
exorbitantly expensive that can make the dose 10 even lower than 25 are expected to be done. And 11 it needs to consider all pathways. It needs to 12 be from any media that could potentially be 13 contaminated by a site. If it's in air, ground, 14 water, as in all pathways it does, which not 15 every agency regulates that exactly the same way.
16 But that's our criteria in Part 20.
17 So, how does the license amendment 18 review process -- remember, we approve the 19 termination plan by a license amendment. So 20 there will be an amendment to their license. And 21 so, like other license amendments that are large, 22 we offer an acceptance review. And that's for a 23 license termination plan, that's a 90-day period.
24 We have been doing that acceptance review and 25
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 14 that acceptance review is an evaluation at a very 1
rough level if the licensee's application is at 2
least responsive to the requirements in the 3
regulations.
Do they have something that 4
responds and talks about the sections that's 5
required. In fact they do, as the previous slide 6
show. They've got a chapter on each of the 7
sections of requirements.
8 We've completed that acceptance 9
review. That will be noted in the Federal 10 Register. The date here of June 30th. I think 11 we just missed the cutoff, and so it will 12 actually go out -- it should be July 14th.
13 That's part of a bi-weekly set of notifications 14 that come out in the Federal Register.
15 What that notification provides is a 16 60-day public comment period. And so if you're 17 wanting to look at the license termination plan, 18 it's a big document. We don't expect you to have 19 been able to read it tonight and look at it. But 20 there's CDs on the back table, and there's also 21 some -- I think there was in the newspaper ad, 22 the ML
- number, which is the way you can 23 electronically find that document at NRC's web 24 page in the public reading room. You can go look 25
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 15 at that and there's a 60-day period plus two 1
weeks for which you can go and provide us any 2
comments or questions you might have about it.
3 So after that acceptance review is 4
done we begin the technical review, and that's 5
been ongoing since we've completed the acceptance 6
review. And the staff that Drew introduced are 7
in the process of looking through that in some 8
detail. We expect to have discussions and 9
exchange of correspondence on some topics where 10 we've got some questions about things. So that's 11 going to be an ongoing process.
12 If we find their application 13 acceptable, ultimately we approve that by 14 amendment, and that will incorporate the LTP.
15 Our time line for doing that, our goal is about 16 one year from the time of submission.
17 So just a few notes about the way we 18 do that technical review. It is specified by 19 regulation to protect the public environment, and 20 those are, as we see, as quoted here:
21 "Not inimical to the public heath and safety of 22 the
- pubic, and will not have a
23 significant effect on the quality of 24 the environment."
25
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 16 Further amplifying that, there's a lot 1
of NRC guidance that is available, NUREGs. That 2
is also accessible on our NRC web page 3
electronically if you want to see what that 4
guidance is for everyone to see.
5 I listed a few of the key documents 6
that we use when we conduct our reviews. There's 7
a standard review plan for license termination 8
plans. That's NUREG-1700. There's a three-set 9
volume on Consolidated Decommissioning Guidance, 10 there is additional guidance on the environmental 11 reviews that we do, and a generic environmental 12 impact statement for decommissioning. They're 13 all listed here.
14 The disciplines of the folks who are 15 doing the technical
- reviews, that Drew 16 introduced, the guys that are here tonight, just 17 before the meeting I briefly added up the years 18 of experience of the team that's going to be 19 doing this review, and it came up to about 125 20 years of experience in their specialties. And 21 you can see their specialties are listed at the 22 bottom of the slide.
23 They are, Health physics, performance 24 assessment, financial review. The financial 25
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 17 review person actually isn't here, but there is a 1
significant effort on financial reviews.
2 Groundwater hydrology. And we bring in others as 3
needed if questions arise that we need other 4
specialties.
5 If there's another question, I just 6
wanted to point out another NUREG document that 7
may be useful to you.
It's available 8
electronically. The URL is there on the page.
9 It dates from about 2000, but it's got a lot of 10 good information that's still applicable, to just 11 generic questions you might have about the 12 decommissioning process. So I'd recommend that 13 to you to look at if you just want to understand 14 a little more. And certainly you can ask staff 15 anytime if you've got other specific questions.
16 In fact, I want to include my boss and 17 I's phone numbers and e-mail addresses. If you 18 have any questions, contact us at any time. And, 19 that's all I have. Thank you for your time.
20 MR. PERSINKO: I think that DTE Energy was 21 going to give you some information about their 22 decommissioning plan.
23 So, if you guys would like the stage for a 24 short time.
25
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 18 MR. COLANELLOW: Good evening, and thank 1
you everyone. I'm Wayne Colanellow. I'm Director of 2
Support at Fermi 2 station. I'm responsible for most 3
of the online (sic) functions at the station, one of 4
which includes Fermi 1. And Lynne Goodman, who I'll 5
introduce, is our Manager of the Fermi Decommissioning 6
project, and she's going to have some information for 7
you tonight, so.
8 MS. GOODMAN: Thank you, Wayne. Good 9
evening. With me today are also Ken Lindsey, the 10 Fermi 1 Health Physicist, Christie Aldridge-Nunn, 11 also from the Fermi 1 staff, and I'd also like -- I'm 12 also happy to see Don Ferencz, Evelyn Madsen, Phil 13 Harrigan, Dave Masserant, Earl Page, all who worked at 14 Fermi 1 during its operation. And, they're in 15 attendance because they are still interested in what's 16 going on at Fermi 1 today.
17 I thank you all for attending and I am 18 going to talk about the goal of the decommissioning 19 project. I'll briefly discuss each of the chapters 20 and our license termination plan.
21 Building on what Ted Smith discussed, the 22 plan itself is about 500 pages long, and Ted supplied 23 some disks out there for you to pick up if you want, 24 and it's on the NRC website. We also have a brochure 25
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 19 out there, a one-pager that's a summary of this 1
presentation and our license termination plan.
2 I am going to start with the goal of our 3
decommissioning project. Our goal is to perform 4
activities to remove the radioactive materials to 5
achieve Fermi 1 license termination. Plain and 6
simple: We want to do this and we are doing this in a 7
safe and controlled manner. And by "safe and 8
controlled,"
by safety I
mean workers
- safety, 9
radiological safety, public safety. Safety is very 10 important to everything we do, as well as 11 environmental protection as we go about our 12 activities.
13 Fermi 1 has a very interesting history.
14 It's an experimental sodium-cooled fast breeder 15 reactor.
It was owned by the Power Reactor 16 Development Company during its operation. It was the 17 largest breeder reactor in the world in 1963 when it 18 first started up. It was designed for 430 megawatts 19 thermal, and operated at its first core design of 200 20 megawatts thermal.
21 It was one of the first of a kind. People 22 came from all over the world to study here and learn 23 about nuclear power, about breeder reactors, and then 24 bring that technology back to their own countries.
25
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 20 I've met some of them.
1 The plant was permanently shut down in 2
1972, and partial decommissioning was performed at 3
that time. For example, the nuclear fuel was sent 4
offsite. Since then it's been in safe storage with 5
monitoring, and we're currently in the final phase of 6
decommissioning.
7 I thought I'd show you an aerial view of 8
the site. This little portion there, which is about 7 9
acres, is Fermi 1. The rest of the site is basically 10 the Fermi 2 site, Fermi 2 plant over here. So when we 11 talk about license termination we are talking about 12 specifically terminating the license for this area 13 right around here.
14 Ted discussed some of the Nuclear 15 Regulatory Commission's guidance. We wrote our 16 license termination plan based on the guidance, and 17 also the experience of other plants going through 18 nuclear decommissioning. The plan describes how we're 19 going to meet the license termination criteria. We do 20 plan to terminate the license with the building 21 standing, and afterwards the area where the Fermi 1 22 plant facility is remains part of the Fermi 2 site.
23 I'm now going to go through a little more 24 detail about what's in the license termination plan.
25
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 21 The first chapter is a description of the facility, 1
the site, and the surrounding area around the site.
2 The second chapter is the characterization. It 3
contains many survey results. Most of those surveys 4
included were performed last year. We surveyed to 5
determine the extent of the contamination, what areas 6
are currently contaminated, and how much the 7
contamination is. We did it building by building, 8
room by room, throughout the plant.
9 We've also been monitoring groundwater 10 around the plant for several years. We installed some 11 wells around the perimeter of the plant, especially 12 between the plant and the lake. And we have detected 13 no contamination from the operation of Fermi 1 from 14 our sampling.
15 The Chapter also addressed the history of 16 the facility. Especially concentrates on which areas 17 could have been contaminated by the plant operation.
18 And so we take this information on our surveys, the 19 history of the plant, to determine what could be a 20 contaminate, what has the potential for being 21 contaminated. From there we help design a final 22 status survey.
23 The next Chapter is on the remaining 24 dismantlement. During this chapter we talk about what 25
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 22 it is we still have left to do. We estimate the 1
amount of radioactive waste we're going to dispose of 2
during the rest of the project, what is the 3
occupational dose.
4 Currently what we're working on is the 5
reactor vessel and large component removals. We're 6
also currently working on removing our liquid waste 7
system, and also few pool liners. So we have a lot of 8
work going on at the plant now.
9 The fourth chapter talks about remediation 10 plans and methods. It talks about what methods we 11 might use to remediate, basically cleanup where we 12 have contamination, so that we will meet the proposed 13 residual radioactivity levels.
14 When we talk about methods: Example 15 methods are scrubbing the wall, shaving concrete, if 16 we have concrete that is contaminated. We also 17 address our method of determining whether additional 18 actions are reasonable to reduce the remaining 19 contamination below the 25 millirem criteria per year.
20 The ALARA, which Ted Smith earlier discussed, and 21 what was the reasonable achievable level.
22 The next chapter is on our final radiation 23 survey plan. This is the heart and soul of our 24 decommissioning plan. It tells you all, tells the 25
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 23 NRC, how we plan to demonstrate Fermi 1 will meet the 1
release limits. We are going to take thousands of 2
measurements, we're going to be taking soil samples, 3
concrete samples.
4 We'll have very detailed instructions on 5
how to do this surveying. We have a quality assurance 6
program specifically for our final status survey; 7
involves things such as duplicate measurements of the 8
same area by a different technician, sending duplicate 9
samples to the laboratory to see if the laboratory 10 comes with the same results. It's a very detailed 11 quality assurance program as well as the statistical 12 methods of analyzing the data.
13 The next chapter provides the scenarios 14 for meeting the NRC's license termination criteria of 15 25 millirem per year dose level for members of the 16 public. This dose level is too low to measure 17 directly. Background radiation on the average in the 18 United States is 360 millirem per year. So we're 19 talking 25 millirem per year compared to 360 millirem 20 that's already in background and in natural sources.
21 Very hard to measure. Just for example, the 25 22 millirem per year, that's about the same radiation 23 you'd get if you had one chest x-ray per year, to put 24 it in perspective.
25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 24 So what we do is we develop criteria that 1
we can measure, and for that we use two scenarios.
2 One scenario assumes that a farmer moves onto the 3
site. The farmer plants crops, eats the produce, 4
drinks the water, raises livestock, and we look at all 5
the pathways that could result in exposure to that 6
farmer.
7 The second scenario we look at assumes a 8
worker works in the buildings after we leave, and 9
renovates the buildings. And again, we look at what 10 radioactivity level, what contamination level would 11 correspond to a dose of 25 millirem per year for 12 either the farmer that's living there, or the worker 13 that's working in the buildings. And from there we 14 end up with what is the criteria that we can measure 15 that correlates the 25 millirem per year that is our 16 license termination criteria that we can compare to in 17 our final status surveys.
18 We do provide an update of our 19 decommissioning cost.
It also addresses the 20 combination of the trust fund and guarantee that 21 provide assurance that Detroit Edison will have 22 sufficient funds to perform the remaining of the 23 decommissioning.
24 The last chapter is a supplement to our 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 25 environmental report. It addresses the interaction of 1
the remaining activities with the environment. We 2
basically look to see whether or not we are bound by 3
what we are going to be doing by the generic 4
environmental impact statement for decommissioning, 5
which Ted Smith earlier mentioned. And where we are 6
not, we address that separately.
7 We have concluded that there is no 8
significant environmental impact based on remaining 9
decommissioning activities. We also looked at the 10 historical significance of the facility under this 11 Chapter, and we did determine that Fermi 1 is 12 historically significant. We have provided to the 13 State Historical Preservation Office for review a 14 report on the historical significance of Fermi 1. But 15 with us decommissioning with the building still 16
- standing, we will have minimal impact on the 17 historical significance of the facility.
18 I've talked about how much we have left to 19 do. Now I'll go over the time line. This is an 20 approximate time line. We're going to be doing the 21 reactor vessel and large component removal between now 22 and next spring. We expect to continue the component 23 removals through the end of next year. They will be 24 doing decontamination and surveying into 2011. In 25
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 26 2011 submitting our final reports on the results of 1
our final status survey to the NRC. And if they deem 2
it's ready, then we expect them to terminate our 3
license in 2012.
4 The NRC does provide oversight, both the 5
reviews that Ted Smith mentioned and Jeremy Tapp will 6
talk about the inspections. Those inspections will 7
be continuing. One inspection has already been 8
conducted on our final status survey methodology. We 9
had a reason to do an excavation onsite, and so the 10 NRC had the opportunity to come out and monitor how we 11 write our survey plans and how we perform our 12 surveying.
13 We also do internal audits. Some of our 14 internal audits are performed by representative from 15 another decommissioning facility, so we can have an 16 outside look at ourselves. And it was reviewed by the 17 State of Michigan.
18 So, that's what our license termination 19 plan is about and what we're planning on doing. And 20 with that, I'll turn it back to Lance.
21 MR. RAKOVAN: Okay. We've got one more 22 quick presentation that we wanted to go over before we 23 open up the floor.
24 Jeremy.
25
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 27 MR. TAPP: Good evening everyone. My name 1
is Jeremy Tapp. I am out of Region 3, which is closer 2
to Chicagoland, and we do both inspections for the 3
Midwest region, so Fermi comes under our purview.
4 I've been inspecting for about three years 5
out of Region 3, and just transitioned 10 months ago 6
over to Reactor Decommissioning Inspection.
7 First thing I'm going to go over is some 8
of the general objectives that we have for our 9
inspection program. I will go into a little more 10 detail on the focus of when our inspections are going 11 to be over at Fermi. And then look a little bit more 12 of how we kind of plan and do our inspections.
13 First objective that we have: Obtain 14 information through direct observation and 15 verification and licensee activities. I want to point 16 out that obtaining information is used to assess the 17 performance of the licensee so we can make a judgment 18 on how well the performing activities, and then 19 depending on that, how often we come out to do the 20 inspections.
21 And we are onsite for these observations.
22 We plan those the year before, how many times we're 23 going to come out through communication with the 24 licensee so we know when they're in need of performing 25
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 28 work and we always have good communication between the 1
two, ourselves and also Fermi.
2 Now also in verification of the licensing 3
activities, we're going to be looking at are they 4
also implementing the LTP, or the license termination 5
plan with those inspections. So when they approve it 6
at headquarters, and that goes into their license, 7
then that's part of their -- I guess what they're 8
supposed to be doing. So we make sure that they're 9
doing it in accordance with that.
10 And when we do inspect decommissioning 11 activities we look at -- there's a lot of things that 12 the licensee is performing all the time, a lot of work 13 going on. So we want to inspect what we had the most 14 recent or significant decommissioning activities so 15 we get the most, I guess, bang for your buck. And we 16 do pick these decommissioning activities based on risk 17 such as, you know, activities that would have a lot of 18 radiological significance, would have a lot of public 19 interest. So we want to be out there for that to make 20 sure those are going well, safely, and in accordance 21 with their license termination plan, their procedures, 22 and our regulations.
23 Ensuring decommissioning activities are 24 adequate and in accordance with the regulatory 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 29 requirements. I spoke to that as well in my previous 1
comments, so we'll go onto the next one.
2 Two more objectives: One, verify residual 3
radioactivity is reduced to a level that permits 4
unrestricted release of property and termination of 5
license. This is the ultimate goal of the project, is 6
to decommission the reactor and then have the site 7
recertified (sic) or be a potential that it could be 8
released for unrestricted use, and as Lynne said, it 9
would be for the 25 millirems, we would be assuring 10 that there is at least that much ALARA. And we also 11 want to ensure that safety decommissioning workers, 12 members of the public, and the environment. And those 13 are our goals at the NRC. That's why we're here, what 14 we're working for.
15 Now, just a little background on Fermi.
16 Compared to other sites that have been going through a 17 decommissioning process, Fermi has a very low amount 18 of total radioactive material onsite compared to other 19 sites decommissioning. So this would make it a little 20 bit, you know, easier on their part and ours as well, 21 to be able to have assurance that they'll be able to 22 clean this up to what we expect them to do it to. And 23 for unrestricted release.
24 For focus of the inspection program, it 25
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 30 kind of goes back. It's all similarly related to the 1
general objectives I just talked to before. But we 2
will verify that licensing activities, organization, 3
and controls are effective to provide reasonable 4
assurance that decommissioning can be conducted safely 5
and in accordance with all our regulatory 6
requirements.
7 And just to give you a couple examples for 8
activities that we will watch. We'll be watching when 9
they will be doing work in the reactor building. We 10 are going to be taking apart the reactor vessel, 11 cleaning up, doing deconning or activities, and we 12 want to make sure those are done safely. So that's 13 our number on thing that we're looking at right away 14 is, are they performing these safely. And we're 15 always looking around, making sure that everything is 16 in a safe condition; the workers are following the 17 procedures, that they have the correct protective 18 equipment to ensure their safety.
19 For the organization, we want to make sure 20 that the organization or the management-type tier, 21 that they are conducting adequate oversight of the 22 activities going on in the plant. One of those could 23 be procedure adherence: Are they making sure that the 24 workers are going towards the procedures, making sure 25
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 31 they're looking at them, using them throughout their 1
job activities. And that ensuring that there's 2
trained individuals performing these activities, that 3
they're qualified to do the work that they're doing.
4 And that they're always communicating a strong safety 5
focus. Safety verse production: Is it being 6
communicated at the site that safety is our goal.
7 For controls that we look it, they can be 8
both physical
- controls, they can also be 9
administrative controls. Example, a physical control 10 that we would be looking at if there is work being 11 done in the plant and it's causing airborne 12 radioactivity: Is it controlled by barriers, physical 13 barriers; are the workers wearing breathable units so 14 they're not breathing in the contaminated material.
15 For administrative controls, we're looking 16 at the procedures and making sure they're following 17 them, as I spoke to before. Those would be an 18 administrative control and making sure that everyone's 19 safe.
20 Ensuring the licensee radiation and 21 radioactivity measurement programs provide accurate 22 quantification and classification of radioactivity.
23 As Lynne mentioned, they're going to be 24 performing final status surveys. And in those final 25
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 32 status surveys we will make sure that the information 1
that they're getting, make sure it's trusting and 2
reliable information. So what we do is we come out as 3
a third party in order to verify the results that 4
they're getting. And so we'll perform side-by-side 5
surveys. While they're actually doing them we'll be 6
doing it at the same time, making sure that we're both 7
getting the same readings.
8 We'll be doing independent surveys so that 9
they finish a survey, have a quality assurance go 10 over review and make sure it's okay, and then we go 11 out and we see if we get the same results.
12 And that would be mostly done in a 13 building type setting. And we have our own equipment 14 that we bring out as well, so we're not using their 15 equipment to do the same sort of surveys.
16 If there's any land or soil that they had 17 contamination in it, we'll come out, perform a 18 sampling of that soil, and we send ours to an 19 independent -- or not a lab that the licensee will be 20 using, but we'll be sending that to ORISE, Oak Ridge 21 Institute for Science and Education -- that's our 22 contract laboratory -- and seeing what results they're 23 getting compared to ours.
24 And I just want to reiterate that we would 25
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 33 not be releasing the site before we would approve 1
their final set of surveys and approve the license 2
termination. So we'll have a final check there before 3
the site gets released.
4 We also verify that licensing documents 5
are adequately maintained -- or implemented and 6
maintained and reflect the size of decommissioning.
7 As I talked before the procedures are barrier, 8
control, administrative barrier for workers' safety, 9
public safety, and the environment.
10 A lot of times we can't be out for every 11 single activity that's going on at the site. So 12 records and procedures are relied upon, that we have 13 assurance that they will be doing it this way the 14 entire time, even if we're not there. So we want to 15 make sure that these procedures are reasonable, they 16 are consistent, and that when we come back to look at 17 those at our onsite inspections, that we can see what 18 they've done when we were not there, have a good 19 record of that. And we do look at the activities that 20 they perform when we're not there, but records that 21 they have.
22 And another thing I would like to point 23 out with procedures and the program in place, that a 24 lot of times there can be changing of employees at the 25
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 34 licensee's site, and when you have strong procedures 1
and a strong program in place, then you can assure 2
that with the next person coming on board being 3
trained, they have those procedures right there 4
waiting for them that will help them do their job that 5
much better and that much quicker. So to make sure 6
that when we look at that, that the procedures they 7
have in place are good and we'll be able to make sure 8
from then on they'll be able to have a good program in 9
place.
10 Also, we will ensure that NRC project 11 oversight and inspection resources are effective, 12 consistent, and appropriately focused. We want to 13 maximize the amount of information that we get during 14 our visits. We don't want to be out there and then 15 not have a plan what we're going to do. So we are 16 constantly communicating with the licensee, with our 17 managers in the region on our plan of the inspection, 18 the focus of the inspection, and then also with the 19 results of our inspection.
20 And all this planning is captured in a 21 master inspection plan for on a yearly basis. And 22 I'll talk about that in more detail in a later slide.
23 But basically we want to make sure that all that 24 we're doing is effective and consistent and proper 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 35 focus is there so that we don't waste any time that we 1
have on site.
2 Going to the inspections. We call them 3
performance based inspections. So depending on the 4
performance of the licensee that's where we want to 5
focus our attention when we're out on site. We want 6
to take a balanced look at the cross section of 7
licensee activities important to the conduct of safe 8
decommissioning. And the balance can be changed each 9
time you're out there, depending on what activities 10 we're looking at. What, you know, if there have been 11 any deficiencies in some program areas, we can take a 12 larger look at that. But we want to be flexible in 13 how -- what we want to look at while we're onsite, but 14 also balance that we don't leave anything out.
15 Our schedule is based upon decommissioning 16 activities being planned or performed, and that comes 17 with the communications that we have at the site. We 18 have monthly phone calls with the site to get data, 19 and then planned activities. If things are changing 20 they call us, and if we have some, we call them. So 21 we're always in constant communication to make sure 22 we're out there for any significant activities that we 23 would want to watch.
24 We also want to provide for flexibility in 25
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 36 the application inspection resources to promptly 1
address any unexpected issues or problems. So, 2
there's multiple inspectors in the region that can 3
perform these same inspections. So if the lead 4
inspector for a site wasn't able to come out for any 5
certain reason, he's on another site inspection or 6
something else, we're going to be flexible in the 7
region in order to get the right person out there to 8
do the inspection when we need to. And we also can 9
get supplemented by headquarters as well with 10 personnel from there if we really are in a bind.
11 This just goes over the core inspection 12 areas that we look at when we're out there. I've 13 talked about most of these throughout the 14 presentation. Organization, management controls, 15 quality assurance. We do look at their quality 16 assurance group, look at what they do. An example 17 would be, they do self-assessments at the site. We 18 might look at some internal audits that they perform 19 on the groups, make sure those are being done on an as 20 required basis by their license.
21 Maintenance and surveillance.
Any 22 maintenance activities, surveillance activities on the 23 site, we verify they're being performed on the 24 required periodicity.
25
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 37 Radiation protection. That's one of the 1
largest areas that we look at since most of the work 2
has radiological hazards involved with it, and we make 3
sure that no one's getting any dose that is not 4
detected.
5 And for the final site surveys, radiation 6
protection is one of the largest sweeps there in order 7
to make sure the site's being cleaned up to the route 8
requirements.
9 Security. We do a review of security in 10 the site when we're doing plant tours. And safety 11 evaluation. Sort of if they're doing non-routine, you 12 know, maybe radiology complex work. Do they need to 13 do -- evaluate if they need to do a safety evaluation 14 and then we look at that and make sure that they've 15 planned everything accordingly.
16 In discretion inspections. That kind of 17 comes out of the performance based inspections. If 18 there's something that we really need to look at, do 19 we need to augment with more people, do we need to 20 more of a vertical look instead of a horizontal across 21 the board, look at one area really hard. And if we 22 need to evaluate any certain concern, we'll go ahead 23 and do an inspection on that.
24 For our master inspection plans. We 25
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 38 annually develop this. It's based on what the 1
licensee's performing at the time. And we plan this 2
for resource allocation from headquarters, make sure 3
we have the amount of resource that we need to perform 4
the inspections that we're planning for the year.
5 Which they can be changed. It's not set in stone, so 6
if we need to go out different times, more times, then 7
that's what we'll do.
8 This current year we had planned for three 9
inspections, and we performed one back in April of 10 this year already. The plan is communicated, it's 11 communicated to regional management, it's communicated 12 to headquarters of the NRC, to licensee personnel, 13 they understand what our activities are going to be.
14 And it's also communicated to state and county 15 officials, so they understand what our role is and 16 what we're going to be performing for the year.
17 And this will put or contact information.
18 Dr. Peter Lee's our Lead Inspector for Fermi, myself, 19 and Prema Chandrathil, Public Affairs Officer, is 20 actually over here today in the back.
21 So, that's all I have for my planned talk.
22 Thank you.
23 MR. RAKOVAN: Okay. We want to go ahead 24 and move onto the next part of the meeting, which is 25
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 39 hearing from you, hearing your comments and taking 1
your questions.
2 Before I do, though, actually I have one 3
question that I wanted to start out with, and then Ted 4
or Drew, if one of you guys want to handle this.
5 We've talked about this is one way that 6
people can give comments to this process at this 7
meeting. But do we have a date as to when comments 8
are due by, and can we let them know how they can get 9
the comments in? Can one of you guys address that 10 real quick?
11 MR. SMITH: Sure. There will be a Notice 12 in the Federal Register. There's a 60-day duration 13 for public comments. That notification should be 14 going out. I expect it to be dated July 14th.
15 Obviously we take comments before then, but 60 days 16 from July 14th would be anticipated close of the 17 comment period for comments on the LTP. And the 18 contact information is in the Federal Register. You 19 also have my contact information. You can certainly 20 get comments to me or Drew.
21 MR. RAKOVAN: Okay. So we're looking 22 about mid September then probably?
23 MR. SMITH: Yes.
24 MR. RAKOVAN: Thanks.
25
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 40 Okay. We do have a couple of officials 1
that I wanted to recognize. Hedwig Kaufman is a Board 2
Member of the Frenchtown Charter Township is present, 3
and we also have Floreine Mental from the Monroe 4
County Commissioner's Office. So I wanted to identify 5
those two.
6 Okay. What I'd like to do is start out 7
with the yellow cards that people filled out, saying 8
that they for sure wanted to speak. Once we've gotten 9
through all those then we'll go ahead and open the 10 floor to the others.
11 The first three that I have are for Evelyn 12 Manson, Richard Meyer, and Richard Micka. So, Evelyn, 13 if you could, we've got a microphone here set up.
14 When it's your turn, if you could, just come to the 15 microphone. If you have any questions we'll ask the 16 appropriate NRC person to come to the microphone over 17 there, and I'll just kind of be over here, hopefully 18 directing traffic.
19 Is Evelyn here, or is that possibly --
20 MS. MANSON: I don't have any questions.
21 MR. RAKOVAN: Oh, you don't have any?
22 Okay. All right. Then could we please go to Richard 23 Meyer?
24 MR. MEYER: I've had a long interest in 25
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 41 nuclear power, and it dates back to Prairie Island up 1
in Minnesota, and I've been in quality assurance and 2
project engineering in this construction phase of 3
quite a number of plants, both nuclear and fossil.
4 I also had a couple of sessions at Three 5
Mile Island writing radiological control procedures 6
under Dave Limroth, who is a retired submarine 7
commander, and another session with a gentleman that 8
was an engineer at Barnwell, South Carolina, doing the 9
reports to the NRC concerning the accident. That was 10 a very interesting project in my mind. I still have 11 the materials at home, the three quarterly reports 12 that I was in charge of producing, I have copies of.
13 Plus the logs on the report -- the report of the logs 14 on the control room.
15 My nuclear experience, I did manage to 16 suit up an operating plant for a short time. So I'm 17 familiar with the step off pads and all of the 18 procedures of the gloves and the tape and the suits 19 and the respirator. And I have a close kinship with 20 the people that do that sort of work.
21 I
am hopeful that during this 22 decommissioning that somehow cooling is one of the 23 major things that these people have to put up with.
24 It's very hot working in one of those suits, and also 25
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 42 it can be kind of hazardous. You don't know if you 1
get overheated. I don't know whether there's air 2
conditioning provided during this operation or not.
3 I also have reactor operator training 4
materials and health physics materials. My interest 5
was piqued way back after the war. The first thing 6
that came up that started to open up the secrecy was 7
the Report on the Atom by Gordon Dean. I bought that 8
book in 1953. And I have subsequently, in my military 9
experience I was a Nike Missile Guidance Instructor, 10 was at Red Stone Arsenal, and I had access then to the 11 effects of nuclear weapons, which is a very good 12 source of material for people who want to learn the 13 physics.
14 I live out very close to Fermi 1. I'm out 15 there at Pointe aux Peaux Farms subdivision, which 16 borders nearly on the site. And I have ha no bad 17 experiences. I've been there since 1977, and I have 18 enjoyed watching the deer and the wildlife that gather 19 there, including geese and goslings munching on the 20 grass in that area. I have no qualms about what's 21 going on out there, and I'm hopeful that the 22 successful decommissioning and also the permit for the 23 Fermi 3 goes through without any trouble whatsoever.
24 I've attended the ASLB meetings, plus two 25
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 43 of the NRC meetings previous to this, and have 1
maintained this interest. I have sufficient material 2
and background that I could probably teach quite a 3
number of these courses. So, if there's anybody that 4
needs to give me a call I'd be glad to discuss this 5
thing with them. Thank you.
6 MR. RAKOVAN: Thank you, sir.
7 I'd like to invite Richard Micka or Micka 8
from Lake Erie Cleanup Committee to the microphone.
9 After that we'll go to Michael Keegan, and third, to 10 Mark Farris.
11 MR. MICKA: Richard Micka, 47 East Elm.
12 I'm a secretary for the Lake Erie Cleanup Committee, 13 which has been involved in water quality issues in 14 Lake Erie since 1966. As a teenager I fished at 15 Laguna Beach, and hunted on Pointe aux Peaux. Today 16 that is no longer possible because of Homeland 17 Security Issues.
18 When I first stepped on Laguna Beach there 19 was no reactor, so I have some idea what was there 20 before power generation took place. Thanks to the 21 efforts of DTE Energy stewardship of the environment 22 received a high priority, and today we see eagles on 23 that site, which was not the case in 1954. The 24 American Lotus beds have returned as well. This is 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 44 something that I did not see in the 1950's.
1 Cooperation with the U.S.
Fish and 2
Wildlife Service to enhance the Detroit River, 3
International Wildlife Refuge is a recent addition.
4 All of these things add up to a sustainable natural 5
resource on the west shore of Lake Erie, contributing 6
to protective wildlife habitat.
7 From what I can see, Fermi 1 did not 8
disrupt the back barrier wetland ecosystem, which is 9
the major natural feature on the Great Lakes. The 10 site is not an area of concern under the Great Lakes 11 Water Quality Agreement, which testifies to the 12 diligence of stewardship activities conducted by the 13 licensee.
14 The Monroe County shoreline on Lake Erie 15 is dominated by State game areas, state park, public 16 utilities, harbor activities, and residential areas, 17 plus some industrial activity.
There are 18 approximately 13,000 acres of wildlife habitat as part 19 of Lake Erie West in Monroe County.
20 The security provisions for public 21 utilities provide Lake Erie West with exceptional 22 wildlife sanctuaries unequaled on the Great Lakes.
23 Fermi 1 played a critical role in this process, and 24 even after being decommissioned its legacy will live 25
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 45 on through the environmental precautions taken during 1
its presence on Laguna Beach. It helped set the stage 2
for wildlife habitat conservation on the West shore of 3
4 And in conclusion, this hearing is an 5
opportunity for me to vindicate myself after 6
challenging a Corps of Engineer's Permit Notice on 7
Fermi 2 in 1980, and receiving a letter from Arthur 8
Schlesinger, who reminded me he did not see my name on 9
the attendance list for Fermi 2 hearings. He 10 indicated that would have been the time to let my 11 concerns be known. I learned my lesson. The NRC 12 keeps good records over long periods of time.
13 MR. RAKOVAN: Thank you, sir.
14 We'll go to Michael Keegan, and then to 15 Mark Farris.
16 MR. KEEGAN: Good evening. My name is 17 Michael Keegan. I'm a lifelong resident of Monroe, 18 Michigan. I hold graduate degrees in the social 19 sciences, and this is my 30th year of tracking the 20 Fermi 1, 2, and 3. So, I have a couple comments and 21 then I have a multitude of questions. So, interrupt 22 me as we need to, but I do need to get some answers, 23 so let me proceed.
24 First off, with regards to the history of 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 46 the Fermi 1. There were a couple items that were 1
omitted by Detroit Edison, and I would like to review 2
that just briefly, just for the record so the record 3
is accurate.
4 And I'm reading from the Atomic Energy 5
Commission, a
1951
- document, on the
- History, 6
Organization and Objectives of the Fermi 1. And on 7
page 18 of the history is the high rate of production 8
of fissionable materials. Forward: Where weapons 9
material production is the prime objective, as appears 10 to be the case in much of the Commission's program.
11 Objective No.
3:
Unique weapons 12 materials. So what Fermi 1 was about was to produce 13 weapons -- to have plutonium available for weapons.
14 So that's the first item I'd like to set straight for 15 the record. And that is an Atomic Energy Commission 16 document.
17 And the other item I would like to set 18 straight is, I notice that the partial core melt was 19 omitted from the presentation by Detroit Edison as 20 chronicled in the book, We Almost Lost Detroit, and 21 that occurred on October 5th, 1966.
22 And I would personally like to thank Phil 23 Harrigan for coming to the rescue on that situation, 24 but I wish we had not been in that situation to begin 25
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1 So those are a couple comments I have. I 2
do have some questions with regard to what will become 3
of the waste from Fermi 1. It's my understanding that 4
the Barnwell Low-Level Waste Repository is closed as 5
of July of last year. So, where will the Class B and 6
C waste go?
7 Should I go run through these first and 8
then you can maybe --
9 MR. RAKOVAN: If it's okay, why don't we 10 handle them one at a time because I think we might 11 have different people that we need to address that.
12 Drew, who should we bring up to do the 13 waste? Okay. It looks like Lynne from DTE is going 14 to handle that one.
15 MS. GOODMAN: I'm Lynne Goodman. And all 16 of our remaining waste is Class A waste. It will be 17 going to Enviros -- EnergySolutions in Utah.
18 MR. KEEGAN: So there is no Class B and C 19 waste, and it's going to EnergySolutions in Clive, 20 Utah?
21 MS. GOODMAN: There is only Class A waste, 22 and they are only licensed for Class A waste, and 23 that's all we have left.
24 MR. KEEGAN: Okay. Is the reactor vessel 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 48 still there?
1 MS. GOODMAN: The reactor vessel is still 2
there and it is a Class A waste.
3 MR. KEEGAN: It is Class A waste?
4 MS. GOODMAN: Yes, it is.
5 MR. KEEGAN: Do you know the total curie 6
count of the vessel and the total curie count of the 7
radiation onsite?
8 MS. GOODMAN: I don't remember the exact 9
number off hand. I know it is documented in our Fermi 10 1 Safety Analysis Report, which is on the NRC website.
11 MR. KEEGAN: Is that the 570 page 12 document?
13 MS. GOODMAN: No. This is in the Fermi 1 14 Safety Analysis Report, which is also a document that 15 we've been updating every other year, and is --
16 MR. KEEGAN: Is that the 970 page report?
17 MS. GOODMAN: It's about 100 pages, maybe, 18 at the most.
19 MR. KEEGAN: Okay. FASR. Okay. So I 20 could find it there?
21 Could you help provide it to the record?
22 Is this meeting being transcribed?
23 MR. RAKOVAN: Yes, it is.
24 MR. KEEGAN: Every good.
25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 49 Could you provide that for the record?
1 MS. GOODMAN: I'm not sure I understand 2
your question.
3 MR. RAKOVAN: We can take materials for 4
the record, but we need to receive them tonight. If 5
it's something that's already been posted in something 6
that's available, we can put a reference in the 7
transcript to it. Is that what you --
8 MR. KEEGAN: My point is, these documents 9
are huge.
10 MR. RAKOVAN: Yes.
11 MR. KEEGAN: And I've gone over them, I've 12 done searches, and it is very difficult to find things 13 at times. I would like to know the specific curie 14 count of what's on site, of the vessel, and of all the 15 radioactive waste.
16 UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: On site or all?
17 MR. KEEGAN: Onsite.
18 MR. RAKOVAN: It sounds like onsite.
19 MR. KEEGAN: And along with the total 20 volume, do cubic yards, cubic feet?
21 MS. GOODMAN: We have approximately 50,000 22 cubic feet of radioactive waste that we estimate that 23 we'll be making from the duration of the project.
24 MR. KEEGAN: Are the contracts currently 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 50 in place with Utah?
1 MS. GOODMAN: Yes. We have a contract 2
currently in place with EnergySolutions, which is the 3
operator of the disposal facility in Utah.
4 MR. KEEGAN: Do you have a price on the 5
cubic foot?
6 MS.
GOODMAN:
That is proprietary 7
information to the contract.
8 MR. KEEGAN: And -- from their end?
9 MS. GOODMAN: Absolutely from their end.
10 It's a commercial term that is proprietary.
11 MR.
KEEGAN:
Okay.
Is there any 12 radioactive waste that is below Class A which is below 13 regulatory concern?
14 MS.
GOODMAN:
The lowest level of 15 radioactive waste is Class A waste.
16 MR. KEEGAN: Will any of this waste be 17 going to incineration?
18 MS. GOODMAN: We are not sending any of 19 our radioactive waste to incineration that we are 20 currently planning on.
21 MR. KEEGAN: Okay. So the EnergySolutions 22 does not -- is not involved in the incineration of 23 radioactive waste? I don't know. It's not a 24 rhetorical question. I don't know. I'm asking.
25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 51 MS. GOODMAN: I'm not sure if they have a 1
current incinerator with EnergySolutions. I don't 2
know the answer.
3 MR. KEEGAN: Okay. Where will the vessel 4
go?
5 MS. GOODMAN: The Fermi 1 reactor vessel 6
will go to the EnergySolutions disposal site in Clive, 7
Utah.
8 MR. KEEGAN: Okay. Would it go by rail?
9 MS. GOODMAN: Yes. The reactor vessel 10 will 11 go by rail.
12 MR. KEEGAN: Do you know the weight on 13 that?
14 MS. GOODMAN: The reactor vessel will 15 actually be cut into several pieces. The largest 16 piece will be close to 150 tons.
17 MR. KEEGAN: In repairing the finances on 18 the decommissioning, I see that there's $3.8 million 19 still left, and it's estimated that it will take an 20 additional $26 million. An affidavit was signed in 21 March of this year. And Deloitte and Touche also 22 signed off on the accounting firm, that said that was 23 accurate. And that Edison was going to put forward 24
$30 million to guarantee that, unsecuritized bonds.
25
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1 MS. GOODMAN: That's very close. I 2
believe it's two-and-a-half million dollars in the 3
trust fund, and we also have a parent company 4
guaranteed by DTE Energy for $30 million, which more 5
than covers the rest of the cost.
6 MR. KEEGAN: Okay. Because in the 7
newspaper article written by Charlie Slat, who's very 8
very accurate and meticulous in his documenting, he's 9
citing $65 million is now the estimated cost?
10 MS. GOODMAN: Oh, I can help with that.
11 The
$65 million is the cost of the full 12 decommissioning, including what we have already spent 13 on the project.
14 MR. KEEGAN: Okay. And this is a 200 15 megawatt reactor?
16 MS. GOODMAN: The reactor was designed for 17 430 megawatts thermal. The first core, which is the 18 core design they used was 200 megawatts thermal.
19 MR. KEEGAN: 200 megawatt, thermal was it?
20 MS. GOODMAN: Thermal. Which is the 21 thermal energy in the core.
22 MR. KEEGAN: So, okay. So about a third 23 of that would be electrical. So roughly comparable 24 size to the Big Rock Nuclear Power Plant?
25
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 53 MS. GOODMAN: It was somewhat bigger than 1
the Big Rock plant.
2 MR. KEEGAN: Because at the Big Rock plant 3
it was -- $366 million was the decommissioning cost, 4
and I could tell you that it's still not clean. I 5
have the documents on that.
6 Recently the NRC came out, June 18th, 7
citing that there was concerns about decommissioning 8
-- enough decommissioning funds being in the coffers 9
for utilities. Of course utilities are invested and 10 the money grows on the stock market and so on, and of 11 course we had a collapse in the past fall. So, those 12 funds took a hit. So the NRC seems very concerned 13 about having adequate decommissioning funds.
14 And, I'm having trouble reconciling that 15 the cost of the Big Rock decommissioning was $366 16 million and the Fermi 1 is larger than that, had a 17 partial core melt, and yet we're hearing the total 18 cost is going to be coming in at $65 million.
19 And I'm wondering, are you doing it on the 20 cheap, or are you doing the job adequately?
21 How is it that that was 366 and Fermi's 22 65?
23 MS.
GOODMAN:
I'll go over a
few 24 differences between the Fermi 1 plant and Big Rock 25
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 54 Point. The Fermi 1 plant, over the course of its 1
operation, operated for 34 effective full power days.
2 The Big Rock Point plant operated for many years for 3
current full power days. So we had less radioactivity 4
generated in our plant.
5 The second item is, we were a sodium 6
cooled reactor, and along with the sodium cooled 7
reactor there was the radioactive material was more 8
contained. And so our levels of contamination on the 9
plant site are quite low.
10 MR. KEEGAN: I understand the sodium, the 11 barrels were removed in `84.
12 MS. GOODMAN: The barrels of sodium that 13 were drained form the primary system were removed from 14 site in the 1980's.
15 MR. KEEGAN: Okay. How much sodium is 16 still onsite?
17 MS. GOODMAN: Currently the amount of 18 sodium we have onsite is just what's been absorbed in 19 some graphite blocks that we've already removed from 20 the reactor, and some instrument lines that we're 21 currently in the process of cutting open. We have 22 very little sodium left onsite. We have processed all 23 the systems that contain sodium, and have basically 24 transformed the sodium into sodium hydroxide, and have 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 55 neutralized the sodium hydroxide, and we have 1
contaminated salt water.
2 MR. KEEGAN: Because it's my understanding 3
that sodium spontaneously combusts with water or air.
4 Is that --
5 MS. GOODMAN: It is true sodium reacts 6
with water or the moisture in the air.
7 MR. KEEGAN: And I recall, I believe, May 8
of last year there was a sodium fire at the Fermi 1 9
site? A piping got cut open and some sodium 10 spontaneously combusted.
11 MS. GOODMAN: We were processing last year 12 and we did have a small leak of sodium. There was a 13 small fire that was out within 10 minutes. We have 14 since finished processing that system.
15 MR. KEEGAN: Okay. An explosion like 16 that, what kind of risk would that be to workers';
17 potential contamination?
18 MS. GOODMAN: There was no injuries an no 19 contaminations due to the event. We did need to 20 cleanup from the event, which we did.
21 MR. KEEGAN: And there's a record of that?
22 Is that available? Do you --
23 MS. GOODMAN: We submitted a Licensee 24 Event Report to the NRC, which is on the docket.
25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 56 MR. KEEGAN: Okay. Specifically, what 1
work is going to be done in much of the seven acres of 2
the Fermi 1 location? The workforce, are they going 3
to be within that seven acres or are they going to be 4
elsewhere on the site?
5 MS. GOODMAN: The workforce that is 6
working, doing the Fermi 1 decommissioning is located 7
at the Fermi 1 facility, within the seven acres is 8
where our offices and break rooms are.
9 MR. KEEGAN: Okay. Now specifically, is 10 the work that is going to be done, is that spelled out 11 in the 570 page document?
12 MS. GOODMAN: A summary of remaining work 13 and all the final status surveys that will be part of 14 the remaining work is described in the license 15 termination plan.
16 MR. KEEGAN: Do you have an estimate of 17 the workforce that will be required?
18 MS. GOODMAN: Our workforce is going to 19 vary in size. Currently we have between 50 and 60 20 people. It's going to change as the remaining 21 activities change. We need different expertises to do 22 the work.
23 MR. KEEGAN: Will any additional roads be 24 built for that, access roads for workers?
25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 57 MS. GOODMAN: No, no additional roads for 1
workers.
2 MR. KEEGAN: Is there any need for that?
3 MS. GOODMAN: No. We're talking about 50, 4
60 people, compared to our workforce onsite that's 5
probably close to 900 people.
6 MR. KEEGAN: Okay. My understanding is 7
that the Fermi site sits on top of the Bass Island 8
rock formation, sits over the Bass Island aquifers.
9 Is there any potential -- what's the potential there -
10
- you said that the FONSI has been issued and a 11 finding of no significant impact. Is that addressed 12 in the FONSI?
13 MS. GOODMAN: What we have issued we've 14 actually submitted, and it's on the docket. A 15 groundwater monitoring report that specifies the 16 results of some years of groundwater monitoring around 17 Fermi 1 in wells we specifically installed for license 18 termination planning. The results of that groundwater 19 monitoring are also summarized in the license 20 termination plan.
21 MR. KEEGAN: Okay. So when you say 22 "around Fermi 1," what's the distance? How far out 23 does monitoring go?
24 MS. GOODMAN: The monitoring we do for 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 58 Fermi 1 is specifically right -- either basically 1
right at the boundary of the seven acres, or some of 2
the them are right within certain areas of the plant.
3 MR. KEEGAN: Is the Bass Island aquifer 4
monitored?
5 MS. GOODMAN: I don't know the answer to 6
that question.
7 MR. KEEGAN: Okay. Would that be in the 8
documents?
9 MS. GOODMAN: The document would describe 10 the specific areas monitored. That's not my area of 11 expertise.
12 MR. KEEGAN: Okay. Concern about worker 13 health. My understanding there was a large workforce 14 that took the plant apart from `72 to `75. Are there 15 health records of those workers? Was epidemiology 16 done? Are there records? And if so, how does one go 17 about gaining access to those?
18 MS. GOODMAN: I'm not aware of any records 19 that were specifically kept of those workers. I do 20 know some of those workers are in this room tonight.
21 MR. RAKOVAN: Sir, if you're going to make 22 a statement I'm going to have to ask you to come to 23 the microphone. Sorry. And if you could identify 24 yourself again, just to make sure that we have it 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 59 correctly on the transcript, please.
1 MR. MEYER: This is Richard Meyer, again.
2 When I was at Three Mile Island some of the chemical 3
technicians there had a certain amount of radioactive 4
exposure. And I knew their names to begin with, but 5
that information is considered private and the NRC has 6
those records, and I don't believe any of the personal 7
radiological records concerning personnel would be 8
allowed to be made public. That was the principle 9
back then, and I think it probably still endures.
10 MR. RAKOVAN: Thank you, Richard.
11 Sir, how many more questions do you have, 12 just to get a sense?
13 MR. KEEGAN: I have just a couple more 14 questions.
15 MR. RAKOVAN: Okay. I just wanted to make 16 sure. All right. If you could go ahead, if you just 17 have a couple more, because if not I was going to ask 18 if we could let some other people speak and then we 19 could let you take the stage again.
20 MR. KEEGAN: Okay.
21 MS. GOODMAN: Can I just make one more 22 comment? We also do monitor personnel exposure, and 23 the exposures are within all the regulatory limits.
24 We do do, currently in our annual report, and 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 60 previously we did document what the overall exposure 1
was to the personnel working on site.
2 MR. KEEGAN: Okay. How many TLDs so those 3
workers wear?
4 MS. GOODMAN: Each worker wears one TLD.
5 MR. KEEGAN: Then you collect that one TLD 6
and you do the analysis on that?
7 MS. GOODMAN: Each TLD is specifically 8
analyzed by the trained personnel.
9 MR. KEEGAN: All right. The point being 10 is there is not a split sample and the worker 11 themselves does not have that record. But that's 12 minutiae. I don't want to go down that, unless you've 13 got an answer for me.
14 MS. GOODMAN: I will say the worker gets 15 documentation of what that record is, what their 16 exposure is.
17 MR. KEEGAN: The record is read by Detroit 18 Edison or a private agency you contract with?
19 MS.
GOODMAN:
The
- TLD, the dose 20 monitoring, is read by Detroit Edison by a qualified 21 lab.
22 MR. KEEGAN: Okay. It's my understanding 23 that the Federal Register notification, and it's not 24 in the June 30th, it did not appear today. I heard it 25
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 61 was likely to appear June 14th.
1 Is there any opportunity for a hearing 2
before the Atomic Safety Licensing Board?
3 MR. RAKOVAN: Drew or Ted, can one of you 4
guys address this one?
5 MR. SMITH: Ted Smith, NRC. Since it's 6
going to be enacted as a license amendment, that is an 7
opportunity for request for hearing. Certainly that's 8
part of the process. And as it would be to the 9
informal process, anytime there's a licensing action.
10 MR. KEEGAN: Okay. And so after that 11 hearing before the ASLB, then work would commence?
12 When does work commence on the dismantling and the 13 decommissioning of Fermi 1?
14 MR. SMITH: Well, if a hearing was 15 requested and done, then that would have to be -- the 16 time would have to be considered through hearing.
17 MR. RAKOVAN: Don't be afraid to get 18 closer to the mic. I'm having a hard time hearing you 19 and you're a couple feet from me.
20 MR. SMITH: Excuse me. So normally -- if 21 there -- we would not expect there to be a hearing.
22 If a hearing is requested then the hearing process 23 will define when the LTP would be approved depending 24 upon the contentions. So that would have to be set up 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 62 when the hearing was allowed. Absent a hearing, after 1
the LTP is approved, then they would be authorized by 2
the license amendment to go do the work that's 3
specified in the license termination plan.
4 MR. KEEGAN: So the work could actually --
5 would commence after the hearing? But I got the 6
-- go ahead.
7 MR. SMITH: As I said, it depends upon the 8
proceedings of the hearing, what actions can take 9
place. Depending on what contingents are allowed in 10 the hearing and the impact of them, that hearing would 11 decide how they can proceed forward. So the answer 12 really is, it's going to depend upon how the Board 13 would decide to play that out.
14 MR.
KEEGAN:
Okay.
Because my 15 understanding is the work has commenced already and is 16 in progress and by this fall the vessel was to be 17 disassembled, and yet we haven't had the hearing. A 18 schedule's been established, and yet we haven't had 19 the hearing. So again, it's the cart before the 20 horse.
21 MR. SMITH: Well, let me back up and 22 explain the process. Yes, first the decommissioning 23 process has been underway since the site was shut 24 down. As I tried to describe and maybe I wasn't 25
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 63 clear, but activities have been going on since that 1
time. There was a public meeting in 1989 -- I believe 2
you were there -- I think it was April 22nd.
3 They discussed that -- that was where they 4
provided a discussion of activities that would happen 5
as they've shut down, which included many of the 6
things that they've been doing, sodium removal --
7 although they may not have been specifically discussed 8
they're allowed, under our regulations, as long as 9
they don't do those three things that I mentioned in 10 my slides: They don't require restricted release of 11 the site, they don't impact the environment, and they 12 don't cause them to have insufficient money to 13 complete decommissioning. And so the fact that 14 decommissioning has been doing work, there's been no -
15
- we had a meeting and we discussed that in `89.
16 MR. KEEGAN: So anything that would fall 17 under those three categories would be precluded from 18 being accomplished prior to a hearing?
19 MR. SMITH: Would be precluded, period.
20 They would be violation of their license.
21 MR. KEEGAN: Okay. All right. Well, 22 that's all the questions I have at this point, and I 23 look forward to reviewing the Fermi 1 documents.
24 Thank you.
25
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 64 MR. RAKOVAN: Thank you, sir.
1 Lynne, did you have something you wanted 2
to add?
3 MS. GOODMAN: Please. I just wanted to 4
finish answering the question about cost. The third 5
main item that is different in the cost between Big 6
Rock Point and Fermi 1's decommissioning is that Fermi 7
1 has already been through one decommissioning. That 8
was from 1972 to 1975. So many of the most 9
radioactive components and the nuclear fuel was 10 removed at that time.
11 MR. RAKOVAN: Thank you.
12 I've just got one more yellow card of 13 someone who knew they wanted to ask a question or make 14 a comment, and that is mark Farris.
15 MR. FARRIS: The couple questions I had 16 were answered in the previous --
17 MR.
RAKOVAN:
Your questions were 18 answered? Okay.
19 MR. FARRIS: I'm all set. Thank you.
20 MR. RAKOVAN: Thank you, sir.
21 Okay. That concludes the cards of people 22 who had pre-signed up to speak. At this point I want 23 to open the floor to anyone else who may not have 24 known at the beginning of the meeting that they wanted 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 65 to say something or ask a question. If you would like 1
to say something?
2 Sir, if you could just go ahead and 3
approach the microphone, and if you could let us know 4
who you are.
5 MR. HARRIGAN: My name is Phil Harrigan, 6
and I worked at the Fermi 1 plant from the time that 7
it was well under construction until the time that it 8
was shut down for decommissioning.
9 And unfortunately during that time I came 10 down with irritable bowel syndrome, you might call it, 11 ulcerative colitis, which is about as bad as colitis 12 can get. It runs in the family, stress related, that 13 sort of thing. My job was pretty stressful. So I 14 had to go under doctor's care. And during that time 15 they did a fair amount of fluoroscopy, using a 16 fluoroscope with a radiation while they observed the 17 motions within my abdomen. And of course I was 18 concerned about the radiation dosage, you know, from 19 the doctor. And I knew I had records being kept on my 20 dosage at the Fermi plant. So I always asked for the 21 dosage whenever I was given radiation treatments.
22 And at the end of the year, the end of the 23 period in which I was being treated, I got the total 24 dosage and then I got the total dosage from the plant.
25
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 66 I should say there's two figures you get from the 1
plant. You get the maximum allowable and you get your 2
own. I was well below the maximum allowable for the 3
plant. And, I found that the dosage I got from the 4
doctor was 10 times the maximum allowable at the 5
plant. And it settled my concerns an awful lot.
6 Thank you.
7 MR. RAKOVAN: Thank you, sir.
8
- Guys, if we're going to have 9
conversations, we going to have to get them on the 10 record. I apologize.
11 Any further questions or comments for the 12 transcript tonight?
13 Yes, please. Re-approach. One more 14 comment from the speaker who has just stopped.
15 MR. HARRIGAN: Am I dying of cancer or 16 anything? No. In fact, I remember a doctor's comment 17 recently. You know, I'm 83 so I have to, you know, be 18 checked up frequently. But the doctor said, "You're 19 in good shape. Whatever you're doing, keep it up." I 20 felt good about that.
21 (Applause.)
22 MR. RAKOVAN: All right. I think that's 23 an excellent way to end the meeting if we have to, but 24 we're still going to open it up for comments.
25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 67 Sir, if you could identify yourself, 1
please.
2 MR. LINDSEY: Ken Lindsey, I'm Fermi 1 3
Health Physicist. I'd just like to make one comment 4
about the dosimetry and TLD measurements.
5 All workers there do wear TLDs and those 6
are the legal records. Workers also carry secondary 7
dosimetry's, electronic dosimetry, what they can 8
measure and read themselves, and they can compare that 9
reading with their TLD readings that Edison gives 10 them. So they do have a way of measuring that 11 themselves and what they're getting.
12 MR. RAKOVAN: Okay. Thanks for that 13 clarification.
14 Okay. One more chance at hands? Of 15 course the NRC staff will be hanging out after the 16 meeting, so if you have questions you can approach one 17 of the speakers. And again, if we can't answer the 18 question directly we'll be sure to try to find 19 somebody who can provide the information to you at a 20 future time.
21 Drew, Ted, do any of you guys want to 22 close out the meeting? Drew.
23 MR. PERSINKO: At the outset we stated the 24 purpose of the meeting. I believe we've accomplished 25
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 68 that. I thank everybody for your comments. They're 1
on the transcript and we'll look at the transcript, or 2
course.
3 And so with that I would just like to 4
thank everybody for attending
- tonight, and 5
participating.
6 MR. RAKOVAN: Thanks, Drew.
7 (Whereupon, at 8:37 p.m., public meeting adjourned.)
8 9
10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25