ML093580125
| ML093580125 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Prairie Island  |
| Issue date: | 12/16/2009 |
| From: | Division of License Renewal |
| To: | |
| Keegan E, NRR/DLR, 415-8517 | |
| References | |
| NRC-3241 | |
| Download: ML093580125 (20) | |
Text
Official Transcript of Proceedings NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Title:
Prairie Island Nuclear Plant Public Meeting: Evening Session Docket Number: (n/a)
Location: Red Wing, Minnesota Date: Wednesday, December 16, 2009 Work Order No.: NRC-3241 Pages 1-19 NEAL R. GROSS AND CO., INC.
Court Reporters and Transcribers 1323 Rhode Island Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 234-4433
1 1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 2 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 3 + + + + +
4 PUBLIC MEETING TO DISCUSS THE 5 PRAIRIE ISLAND NUCLEAR GENERATING PLANT, 6 UNITS 1 AND 2, SUPPLEMENTAL ENVIRONMENTAL 7 IMPACT STATEMENT RELATED TO LICENSE RENEWAL 8 + + + + +
9 Held At The 10 Red Wing Public Library 11 225 East Avenue 12 Red Wing, Minnesota 13 On 14 Wednesday, December 16, 2009 15 6:30 p.m.
16 17 NRC PARTICIPANTS:
18 Michael Fuller, Moderator 19 Lance Rakovan 20 Elaine Keegan 21 Andy Imboden 22 Jeffrey Rikhoff 23 Allan Barker 24 Prema Chandrathil 25 Karla Stoder 26 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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2 1 P-R-O-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S 2 6:30 P.M.
3 MR. FULLER: Good evening. My name is 4 Mike Fuller. I'm a Project Manager at the Nuclear 5 Regulatory Commission, or NRC as you will hear it 6 referred to many times tonight. It is my pleasure to 7 be here to facilitate tonight's meeting along with my 8 colleague, Lance Rakovan. There is Lance. Our job 9 today is to hopefully help make this meeting as 10 worthwhile and productive as it can be.
11 We're here tonight to discuss the license 12 renewal process and, more specifically, the 13 environmental review process for Prairie Island 14 Nuclear Generating Plant, Units 1 and 2. We are here 15 more importantly, however, to hear from you. We're 16 here to receive your comments tonight.
17 Tonight's meeting will be divided into two 18 parts. First, we will have a presentation from NRC 19 staff on the license renewal process and the 20 environmental review process, sort of where we are and 21 what lies ahead for us.
22 We'll try to keep the first part of the 23 meeting, the presentation, fairly brief so that we can 24 get to the real reason we are here, and that is to 25 receive comments. We want to hear your comments NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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3 1 regarding the draft Supplemental Environmental Impact 2 Statement that was issued in October.
3 When you arrived here tonight, you were 4 asked to fill out a yellow card or a blue card. The 5 yellow cards are for those of you who wish to speak 6 and provide us with your comments. This is important 7 because we are transcribing the meeting and we need to 8 make sure that we spell your name correctly, and if 9 you are representing an organization, we need to know 10 that information as well so we get that transcribed 11 correctly.
12 The blue cards are -- we ask that you fill 13 out the blue cards if you don't want to speak so that 14 we'll have an accurate record of who is here and so we 15 can have you on our mailing list for other documents 16 related to the renewal process and get those to you.
17 So far we don't have anyone here who has 18 filled out a yellow card, but we do have some if 19 someone wishes to make comments. We can get those to 20 you by just raising your hand.
21 As I mentioned before, this meeting is 22 being transcribed. In order to get a good 23 transcription, we're going to ask that everyone speak 24 into the microphone.
25 Now, we have a microphone up here at the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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4 1 podium which is where we'll ask people to come if they 2 want to make comments. We also have another remote 3 microphone that we can use if we need to bring it out 4 into the audience.
5 When you do make comments, we ask that you 6 identify yourself and also identify any group that you 7 might be representing when you speak. We also ask 8 that you keep side conversations to a minimum; and if 9 any of you haven't done so already, we would ask you 10 to please silence your cell phones at this time.
11 We also provided, and hopefully you picked 12 up, a feedback form. Now, this form is one that we 13 would like you to fill out and provide us with your 14 comments about how the meeting went this evening. Your 15 opinion on how the meeting went is very important to 16 us and will help us to improve future meetings such as 17 this.
18 That form can be handed to anyone here 19 that's with the NRC tonight or it can be mailed 20 postage free at your convenience, but we really would 21 like to have your feedback on how the meeting went.
22 I want to introduce one of our staff 23 members here who is going to make a brief 24 presentation, but before I do that, I want to say to 25 please hold any questions that you might have until NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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5 1 the end of her presentation. That way, again, we can 2 make sure that everyone hears the questions.
3 At this time I want to introduce Elaine 4 Keegan. Elaine is a Project Manager and the lead for 5 the environmental review and has prepared some slides.
6 I'm also going to ask Elaine to introduce some of the 7 other NRC staff who are with us tonight.
8 And also, if you did not pick up a copy of 9 the presentation and you'd like one now, please raise 10 your hand and I'll make sure that I get that to you.
11 Okay. Elaine?
12 MS. KEEGAN: Thank you, Mike. Thank you 13 everybody for coming out tonight. I am Elaine Keegan.
14 I'm a Senior Project Manager in the Division of 15 License Renewal and Office of Nuclear Reactor 16 Regulation at the NRC.
17 First, I would like to introduce Andy 18 Imboden, who is the Chief of the Environmental Review 19 Branch; Jeff Rikhoff, who is a socioeconomist in 20 Andy's branch; Allan Barker, he's the Senior 21 Government Liaison Officer in our Region 3 office in 22 Chicago; and Chandra -- Prema Chandrathil -- I am so 23 worried about her name -- Prema Chandrathil, who is 24 with the Office of Public Affairs in our Region 3 25 Chicago office.
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6 1 I will provide a brief overview of the 2 license renewal process to date. I will talk a little 3 bit about the draft Supplemental Environmental Impact 4 Statement that was published in October of 2009. I 5 will tell you how to submit comments on the draft. And 6 as Mike said earlier, the main purpose is to get 7 public comments on the draft so we can make it the 8 best document we can.
9 NRC's regulatory oversight, the two 10 governing statutes are the Atomic Energy Act and 11 National Environmental Policy Act. The Atomic Energy 12 Act gives the NRC the authority to issue operating 13 licenses to commercial nuclear plants for 40 years.
14 The 40 years is based on economic 15 consideration and antitrust matters, not based on 16 safety or technical issues. The Atomic Energy Act 17 also gives the NRC the authority to renew the licenses 18 for 20 additional years.
19 The National Environmental Policy Act, or 20 NEPA, was established as the national policy for 21 considering the impact of federal decision-making on 22 environmental actions. An EIS, an Environmental 23 Impact Statement, is prepared for all major federal 24 action. License renewal is considered a major federal 25 action.
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7 1 License renewal consists of two concurrent 2 reviews. Northern States Power applied for a license 3 renewal in April of 2008. If the licenses are not 4 extended, Unit 1 expires August 9, 2013, and Unit 2 is 5 October 29, 2014.
6 The safety review looks at operational 7 safety aspects. It includes plants' aging management 8 program and also looks at operational experience.
9 The final Safety Evaluation Report was 10 published in October 2009. On December 3rd, the NRC 11 staff presented the findings to the Advisory Committee 12 on reactor safety. On December 10, the Advisory 13 Committee sent their letter to the commission giving 14 their acceptance of the staff's findings.
15 The environmental review basically starts 16 when a license application is received. The scoping 17 period begins shortly after the license application is 18 submitted. The scoping period is when the NRC is 19 looking for comments from the public on all the new 20 and significant information regarding the 21 environmental information that we are not privy to 22 since we're in D.C.
23 The staff's review resulted in the draft 24 Supplement 39 to the generic Environmental Impact 25 Statement for license renewal, which is NUREG-1437.
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8 1 The Prairie Island Indian Community is a 2 cooperating agency with our review. Their expertise 3 is in the area of historic and archeological 4 resources, socioeconomic, land use, and environmental 5 justice.
6 For the environmental review, in the 7 middle of the 1990s, to help improve the efficiency of 8 the license renewal process, the NRC performed a 9 generic assessment to look at what the environmental 10 impacts are of licensing plants.
11 92 issues were identified that were 12 important environmental issues. 69 of those issues 13 were considered to be generic across the board to all 14 nuclear plants. They are given the designation of a 15 category 1 issue. And essentially, it means that 16 unless there is new and significant information, not a 17 lot of additional information is reviewed for those 18 issues. 21 issues remained, plus, environmental 19 justice and electromagnetic fields are issues that 20 have to be evaluated on a site-specific basis.
21 Impacts are evaluated and quantified, and 22 these are the three designations; small, moderate and 23 large. For a full explanation of the areas that are 24 impacted by this and explained further, Appendix B to 25 Title 10 of the Code of Federal Regulations, Part 51, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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9 1 which is our environmental regulations, that specifies 2 all the issues and how they fit into these categories.
3 The decision standard for environmental 4 review is to determine whether or not adverse 5 environmental impacts of license renewal are so great 6 that preserving the option of license renewal for 7 energy planning decision-makers would be unreasonable.
8 Basically, all this is, is, is the renewal of the 9 operating license acceptable from an environmental 10 standpoint.
11 This slide shows some of the areas that 12 have been evaluated on a site-specific basis. Staff 13 also consulted with a number of federal and state 14 agencies. One of them was the U.S. Field and 15 Wildlife, Fish and Wildlife, whatever, and they did 16 provide the list of endangered and threatened species 17 for this area.
18 We looked at the cumulative impacts from 19 all the issues, because an issue considered by itself 20 may have a very small impact; but when it is evaluated 21 with the other issues, it could have a greater impact.
22 Staff looked at alternatives.
23 Alternatives include no action, which means the 24 license would be -- the licenses would not be 25 extended, that they would expire on the 2013 and 2014 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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10 1 dates. We looked at alternative energy sources that 2 are listed, gas-fired generation at the plant site and 3 gas-fired generation at a different site, and then a 4 combination of alternatives, and it basically was 5 determined that the replacement power for the two 6 units could result in a moderate to large impact to 7 the environment.
8 These are the preliminary conclusions from 9 the draft Supplemental EIS, that the potential 10 environmental impact for license renewals are 11 basically small for the resource areas, and the 12 primary or the preliminary recommendation is that the 13 environmental impact of license renewal for Prairie 14 Island is not so great that license renewal would not 15 be unreasonable.
16 This gives a history of the milestones 17 that have been met to date. The comment period ends 18 on January 30, 2010. Once we get all the public 19 comments, we address them, we revise the Environmental 20 Impact Statement, as necessary, and we will issue the 21 final Supplemental EIS.
22 If you need additional information, the 23 phone number I can be reached at, my email address.
24 The draft can be viewed. There is a copy in the Red 25 Wing Library, and this link should work. We're hoping NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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11 1 it does.
2 To submit comments on the draft, email to 3 prairieislandeis@nrc.gov or by mail to the Chief of 4 the Rule Making and Directives Branch. And like I 5 said, we will be addressing the comments, the comment 6 period ends January 30, 2010, and we appreciate your 7 comments. We look forward to them. And that's all for 8 me.
9 Mike?
10 MR. FULLER: Thank you, Elaine.
11 Before we get to the public comment part 12 of our meeting tonight, is there everyone who has any 13 questions for Elaine who would like any clarification 14 on anything that she went over during her 15 presentation? If you do, just raise your hand and 16 I'll bring you a microphone.
17 (No response.)
18 MR. FULLER: Okay. This brings us to our 19 public comment portion of our meeting, and this is 20 really the important part for us. The main reason 21 we're here tonight is to hear from you and to hear 22 your comments on the Supplemental Environmental Impact 23 Statement, and we ask that you keep those comments 24 focused on that particular issue.
25 And if you have any questions, we would be NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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12 1 happy to answer any brief questions that you might 2 have; but if you want to get into any sort of 3 discussion, we would ask that you wait until the end 4 of the meeting and then find one of the NRC folks, and 5 we'll see if we can't take care of any other questions 6 that you might have.
7 So far tonight I have one person who has 8 indicated that they would like to make a comment. And 9 again, as I said earlier, if there is anyone else who 10 would like to make a comment, just raise your hand and 11 we'll get one of these yellow cards out to you.
12 But right now, I'd like to invite Michael 13 Schweyen.
14 MR. SWHWEYEN: It's Schweyen.
15 MR. FULLER: I'm sorry. Michael Schweyen 16 would like to make a comment. So Michael, if you 17 would, just come on up to the microphone. It's 18 important that -- as I stated earlier, it's important 19 that you speak into the microphone so that the person 20 who is transcribing this meeting can get your name and 21 everything accurately and also hear your comments 22 accurately.
23 I'd also ask that you state your name 24 because, obviously, I didn't do it perfectly. And 25 then if you have any affiliation, also let us know who NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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13 1 you are representing. So thank you.
2 Michael?
3 MR. SCHWEYEN: Thank you. My name is 4 Michael Schweyen, spelled S-c-h-w-e-y-e-n; and my 5 family and I, we actually live in Rochester, so we 6 drove here tonight so that we can just learn more 7 about what's happening here and just to express an 8 opinion. So thank you for having the hearing tonight.
9 There is basically three comments I wanted 10 to make, and before I do those, I would say that, 11 Elaine, you mentioned the website or the NUREG on the 12 website. I tried to download it a couple times and I 13 never really did have luck, either because our 14 computer is too slow or the internet is too slow, but 15 it was frustrating to try and enter in that whole 16 website. And so it was not user friendly. But I'll 17 still have time to do that before the comment period 18 is over, so I have not had a chance to review it in 19 detail.
20 My three comments are that, first of all, 21 one of the reasons why we're here is because we do 22 feel that nuclear power is an option that needs to 23 stay strong in America because we need to have less 24 reliance on coal, and air pollution goes with it.
25 So I support the continued operation of NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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14 1 the power plant here in Red Wing. We need to have 2 options because we face some serious issues 3 environmentally as time goes on.
4 Just a question, or not a question, but a 5 comment about reactor/plant safety. Again, I haven't 6 reviewed the EIS in detail, but when I studied Three 7 Mile Island, the operator error that happened there, 8 I'm sure or I would hope that the NRC and the 9 inspectors, you know, that that's a big emphasis is 10 training of the operators and running different 11 scenarios and just making sure that nobody is in there 12 that's not fully prepared.
13 My affiliation is with the Minnesota 14 Department of Transportation as a professional, but 15 I've also spent 10 years working for the United States 16 DOT, and we just -- you know, human factors are a big 17 issue. And human factors, probably more than anything 18 in terms of technical issues, can lead to an issue at 19 the plant.
20 And I've had some exposure limited to 21 plant evacuation procedures. Minnesota DOT would be 22 involved if there was some kind of incident, depending 23 on the plume that's involved or whatever would happen.
24 So I want to emphasize how important that is, and I'm 25 sure you've assessed that.
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15 1 The biggest reason that I'm here and the 2 thing I want to comment on is as part of the 3 environmental impact, you obviously assessed the fact 4 that the plant creates nuclear waste that has a 5 half-life of 10,000 years, and to me that's 6 phenomenal, you know, to create a product that lasts 7 that long. And to store it onsite here in dry casks, 8 I guess I'm comfortable with that as a person. I'm 9 sure that the engineering and the testing of the casks 10 is good.
11 What I'd like to comment about is Yucca 12 Mountain, and that is, what is the right thing to do 13 with this nuclear waste instead of just stacking it 14 out in the back lot?
15 Personally, as a citizen living in 16 Rochester who could be subject to something that might 17 happen here, you know, I'm not really worried about 18 the plant, I'm not really worried about the nuclear 19 waste, although, I don't know much about it. Whether 20 the casks can tip over or if somebody could throw a 21 hand grenade at them or if an earthquake could knock 22 them over, I'm not really concerned about that.
23 What I would say about Yucca Mountain is 24 that we need a better site. I'm frustrated that our 25 government has spent so much money and we still don't NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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16 1 have a place to take the waste. And to approve an 2 Environmental Impact Statement to allow plants to 3 operate for another 20 years, at the same time 4 creating this waste that has a 10,000 year half-life 5 or whatever, to me is quite unbelievable.
6 So my biggest comment is that we need to 7 find a site somewhere in America, and Yucca Mountain I 8 think was selected, my opinion, based on political 9 reasons because it's a state that doesn't have much 10 population, doesn't have a lot of political clout; but 11 in the past few weeks, I did read an article by a 12 woman who is a national expert in nuclear waste, and 13 she said Yucca Mountain is not the right choice.
14 I realize it's a controversial topic and 15 everybody is going to have their own opinion, but 16 based on the geology of Yucca Mountain and what she 17 had to say, let's make a decision, let's quit wasting 18 the taxpayers' money, let's find the appropriate site 19 to store the nuclear waste.
20 Because if the nuclear plants continue to 21 operate, you know, obviously various plants that do 22 the underwater storage, they have to add on to just 23 keep storing this stuff under water. My opinion is 24 that it's safer to store all of it perhaps in one spot 25 deep underground than it is in all of these isolated NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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17 1 spots if there is an issue of, I don't know, terrorism 2 or whatever.
3 But I just would like to see the 4 government really be honest with all of us about Yucca 5 Mountain, and if we're going to spend more money on 6 Yucca, let's finish the job, study it, make a 7 decision. And if we need to go somewhere else, let's 8 do that, but it just shouldn't go on forever. We're 9 wasting a lot of money and we need a place to put the 10 waste.
11 That concludes my comments.
12 MR. FULLER: Thank you. Now, that 13 concludes all of the comments that we were told 14 beforehand that would be made. But again, if there is 15 anyone here that would like to make a comment at this 16 time, please let me know and come on up.
17 (No response.)
18 MR. FULLER: Okay. If not, I'd like to 19 introduce Andy Imboden. He's the manager for the 20 folks that are conducting the environmental reviews, 21 and this would be an opportunity for him to make a few 22 comments.
23 MR. IMBODEN: Thanks, Mike. As Mike said, 24 my name is Andy Imboden. I'm chief of the 25 Environmental Review Branch in charge of environmental NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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18 1 issues for all the operating reactors in the country.
2 The purpose of this meeting and the one 3 earlier in the afternoon was to collect comments on 4 the draft Environmental Impact Statement that we have 5 examining the license renewal of Prairie Island 6 Nuclear Generating Plant, Units 1 and 2.
7 We heard tonight and this afternoon from 8 folks at the Prairie Island Indian Community that are 9 600 yards away, folks from Red Wing, which is a few 10 miles away, and folks all the way from Rochester.
11 So that's good that we're all hearing 12 those comments, sharing our concern about the safe 13 operation of the plant, and a lot of important issues 14 were discussed now and prior in the afternoon: Human 15 factors analysis, waste generation, waste storage.
16 Very important considerations.
17 And so I thank everyone for commenting on 18 it, and I just wanted to reinforce that after this, 19 myself and other NRC staff are going to stay around 20 and answer any questions anyone may have. Thank you.
21 Mike?
22 MR. FULLER: Okay. Well, that sort of 23 concludes what we had hoped to accomplish tonight and 24 what we plan to do. Unless there are any other 25 questions or anything anybody needs, we'll go ahead NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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19 1 and adjourn the meeting at this time, and thank you 2 all for coming.
3 (Whereupon, at 7:10 p.m. the proceedings 4 were adjourned.)
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