ML100850376
| ML100850376 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Diablo Canyon  |
| Issue date: | 03/03/2010 |
| From: | NRC/OCM |
| To: | |
| Andrew Stuyvenberg | |
| References | |
| NRC-092 | |
| Download: ML100850376 (118) | |
Text
Official Transcript of Proceedings NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Title:
Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant License Renewal Environmental Scoping Public Meeting, Afternoon Session Docket Numbers:
50-275, 50-323 Location:
San Luis Obispo, California Date:
Wednesday, March 3, 2010 Work Order No.:
NRC-092 Pages 1-117 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 HEARING 4
TO RECEIVE COMMENTS ON SCOPE OF LICENSE 5
DIABLO CANYON NUCLEAR POWER PLANT 6
+ + + + +
7 Wednesday, 8
March 3, 2010 9
+ + + + +
10 The hearing convened in the Embassy 11 Suites, 333 Madonna Road San Luis Obispo, California 12 at 1:30 p.m.
13 PRESENT:
14 CHIP CAMERON, Facilitator 15 MICHAEL FULLER, Co-Facilitator 16 ELIOT BRENNER, Director, Office of Public Affairs 17 BECKY SCHMIDT, Director, Office of Congressional 18 Affairs 19 TROY PRUETT, Deputy Director, Division of Reactor 20 Safety, Region IV 21 VICTOR DRICKS, Senior public affairs officer, 22 Region IV 23 LARA USELDING, Public office Officer, Region IV 24 AGNES CHEN, Region IV 25
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1 PRESENT:(Cont'd) 2 MICHAEL PECK, Senior resident inspector, Diablo Canyon 3
TONY BROWN, Resident inspector, Diablo Canyon 4
DREW STUYVENBERG, Project manager, Division of License 5
Renewal 6
KIM GREEN, Project Manager, Division of License 7
Renewal 8
DAVE WRONA, Branch chief, Division of License Renewal 9
10 11 12 13 14 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
(1:30 p.m.)
2 MR. CAMERON: I'd like to welcome you to 3
today's meeting and our topic this afternoon is the 4
Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the NRC's, 5
environmental review of Pacific Gas & Electric's 6
application to renew the license for the Diablo Canyon 7
Nuclear Power Plant.
8 And my name is Chip Cameron. I'm with the 9
Executive Director for Operations at the Nuclear 10 Regulatory Commission and it's my pleasure to serve as 11 your facilitator today, and in that role, I'm going to 12 try to help you all to have a productive meeting 13 today.
14 I'm going to be assisted by Mike Fuller 15 from the NRC staff. He's part of the NRC's 16 facilitator training program. So he's helping me out 17 today.
18 I just wanted to go over a few things on 19 meeting process, so that you'll know what to expect 20 this afternoon. I'd like to talk to you about the 21 format for the meeting, some simple ground rules to 22 help us have a good meeting today, and to introduce 23 the NRC staff that's with us today.
24 In terms of the format for the meeting, 25
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it's going to be a two-part meeting. The first part 1
is to provide you with information on the NRC's 2
environmental review of this application and how you 3
can participate in that review.
4 And we're going to have Drew Stuyvenberg, 5
right here, from the NRC staff. He's the project 6
manager for the environmental review and he's going to 7
do that presentation for you. It will be brief and to 8
the point.
9 And after Drew's presentation, we're going 10 to have some time for some questions on the NRC 11 process for you, and from there, we're going to move 12 on to the second part of the meeting.
13 And this is an opportunity for the NRC staff to listen 14 to you, your comments, your recommendations on what 15 the NRC should look at when it does its environmental 16 review of this license application.
17 And we're taking written comments, and 18 Drew will tell you about how and when to submit those.
19 But I just want to assure you that any comments we 20 hear today from you will carry as much weight as a 21 written comment, and you may hear something today from 22 other members of the audience, or the NRC staff, that 23 prompts you to file, submit a written comment, or you 24 may want to elaborate on any of the oral comments that 25
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you give us today.
1 So if you want to speak today, please fill 2
out a yellow card. I think most people have already 3
done that. And that just gives us an idea of how many 4
people we have to speak. That helps us to manage the 5
meeting. And if you decide you want to--haven't--if 6
you haven't filled out a yellow card and you decide 7
that you want to speak during the meeting, then please 8
fill out a card and we'll put you into the lineup, so 9
to speak.
10 And I'll ask you to come up here to the 11 podium to talk to us.
12 Ground rules. First of all, please wait 13 till Drew is finished with his presentation before you 14 ask any questions, and if you have a question, please 15 signal me. I'll bring you this cordless microphone 16 and ask you to introduce yourselves to us, and then 17 we'll try to answer your question.
18 And a lot of times questions can morph 19 into comments, and I would just ask you to try to keep 20 it to a question, and make your comments during the 21 comment part of the meeting.
22 And if we can't get to all your questions 23 before we have to go to comment, you can talk to the 24 NRC staff who are here. I'll introduce them to you 25
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after the meeting and they'll be glad to try to answer 1
any questions that you have.
2 The second ground rule is I would ask that 3
only one person speak at a time.
4 Most importantly, so we can give our full 5
attention to whomever has the floor at the moment, but 6
also so that we can get what I call a clean 7
transcript. We have Pam Hollinger right here, and Pam 8
is our court reporter. She's taking a transcript of 9
this meeting and that will be your record and our 10 record of what transpired today.
11 And a third ground rule is, I would just 12 ask you to be brief in your comments, so that we can 13 hear from everybody who wants to talk this afternoon, 14 and we have quite a few signed up.
15 I'm asking you to follow a 3-to 5-minute 16 guideline for your presentations, and I'll let you 17 know when it's about time to sum up. That's usually 18 enough time to summarize your major points and it also 19 alerts the NRC staff to the issues that people have, 20 and they may come over and talk to you after the 21 meeting about some of the things that you said, to get 22 more information.
23 I apologize to all of you, in advance, if 24 I have to ask you to stop talking before your time is 25
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up, because I know you spend valuable time preparing 1
your comments for meetings like this.
2 You can amplify through a written comment 3
for us, and I think there's some forms that we have 4
out by the desk, where you can actually write your 5
comments on those forms and leave them with us today.
6 Please note that the NRC staff is here to 7
listen carefully to your comments. They're not going 8
to be responding to your comments after your 9
presentations.
10 They're going to be taking those back to 11 Washington, and to Region IV, to carefully consider 12 them, and they're going to address those in what's 13 called a Scoping Report.
14 And they also won't be answering questions 15 that you might ask from the podium. But as with the 16 comments, they will note those and address those in 17 the Scoping Report.
18 The final ground rule is please extend 19 courtesy to everybody, and obviously that goes for the 20 NRC as well as everybody else, but you may hear 21 opinions today that differ from your own, and just 22 please respect the person who's giving that opinion.
23 And I would just thank all of you. This 24 meeting is just one data point, one point in time.
25
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The NRC staff is going to be giving you some contact 1
information for them, e-mail, phone numbers. If you 2
have a question or concern, please call or e-mail 3
them. Send in, so that we can maintain a relationship 4
with you throughout this renewal process, this review 5
process.
6 And I introduced Drew, who's going to talk 7
to you. I wanted to identify the other NRC staff that 8
are here, and we not only have staff from headquarters 9
but we have staff from our Region IV office in 10 Arlington, Texas, and this plant is in that region.
11 We have Eliot Brenner, who's right here, 12 and Eliot is the director of our Office of Public 13 Affairs in Washington, D.C.
14 We also have Becky Schmidt, and Becky's 15 the director of the Office of Congressional Affairs at 16 headquarters.
17 Troy Pruett is from our Region IV office 18 and he's the deputy director of the Reactor Safety 19 Division. Is that correct?
20 MR. PRUETT: That's correct.
21 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Reactor Safety 22 Division.
23 We also have Victor Dricks. Is Victor--
24 Victor's right back there, and Victor's our senior 25
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public affairs officer in Region IV.
1 And we also have Lara Uselding, who has 2
just joined the NRC staff. She's a public affairs 3
officer in Region IV.
4 And we have Agnes Chen, who's helping us 5
with administrative details, from Region IV.
6 We also have our two residents who are at 7
the plant. These are the, as we often call them, the 8
"eyes and ears" of the NRC at reactor sites, and we 9
have the senior resident, who's Michael Peck, right 10 here, and we also have Tony Brown, right here, 11 resident at Diablo Canyon.
12 We have the license renewal team. Besides 13 Drew, we have the branch chief of the Renewal Projects 14 Branch here. This is Dave Wrona. And we have Kim 15 Green. Where is Kim? Kim is right back there. Kim 16 is a project manager for the safety side of the 17 review, and I think Drew is going to tell you about 18 the different aspects of the license renewal 19 evaluation that the NRC conducts.
20 Darlene Fenton is here from our Office of 21 Administration, and Mike
- Fuller, here, who I
22 introduced, who's a project manager in our Materials 23 Office.
24 Did I miss anybody?
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 MS. EVERED: Can you ask those who are not 1
employed by the PG&E, or anything, to stand up, so we 2
can all see who's here for the meeting.
3 MR. CAMERON: Well, I just introduced the 4
NRC staff, so if you need to be directed to a PG&E 5
person, to talk to, we'll find out who that is and 6
direct you to them.
7 MS. EVERED: Well, I'd like to know how 8
many --
9 MR. CAMERON: I don't know, and you're not 10 on the transcript, and the question is how many PG&E 11 staff are here. Well, I'm not going to conduct a poll 12 on that. I'm sorry. And we're going to get on to our 13 presentations and then we're going to go to you for 14 questions.
15 And we'll come back to you, Ms. Evered.
16 Thank you.
17 So Drew, are you ready?
18 MR. STUYVENBERG: Yes.
19 MR. CAMERON: Okay.
20 MR. STUYVENBERG: All right. Good 21 afternoon. So I wanted to start off today by briefly 22 explaining what environmental scoping is as it 23 pertains to today's meeting. In short, we're here 24 today because we want your input on environmental 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 issues that we ought to consider in our review of the 1
proposed license renewal for Diablo Canyon Power 2
Plant.
3 There are two major pieces to this 4
process. One is that we are looking for your input on 5
the potential environmental impacts from the continued 6
operation of Diablo Canyon.
7 In short, what would happen to the local 8
environment if the two units are granted an additional 9
20 years of operation?
10 The second is that we're looking for your 11 input on the potential alternatives to license 12 renewal. We want your input on what other options to 13 generate electricity, or address electrical demand, 14 that NRC ought to consider in its analysis.
15 We're also interested in gathering 16 information about the environmental impacts of those 17 alternatives.
18 Now with that as preface, I'll begin my 19 formal presentation.
20 The purpose of today's meeting is for the 21 NRC staff to receive input from you all on 22 environmental issues in license renewal. We'll 23 generally be in a listening mode today. We'll have a 24 brief question-and-answer session to address any 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 questions you have on our process, and then we will 1
begin the formal comment period.
2 All comments that you present will be 3
formally transcribed for alter consideration and 4
response by NRC staff as we continue the environmental 5
review.
6 If you filled out a blue or yellow card 7
with your contact information, then you will receive a 8
compilation of all the comments that NRC receives, as 9
well as the NRC staff's responses to these comments.
10 We plan to publish that compilation prior 11 to the time that we publish the draft Environmental 12 Impact Statement.
13 Also, as you look around, you may have 14 noticed the video crew here. This meeting will be 15 recorded and rebroadcast on SLO-Span for the next 30 16 days.
17 As we discussed at our February 9th public 18 information meeting, license renewal involves two 19 parallel reviews. One review track is a safety review 20 that focuses on managing the effects of aging on the 21 power plant.
22 The other is an environmental review track 23 in which we address the potential environmental 24 effects of license renewal and possible alternatives.
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 As you can see, I will be focusing on the 1
environmental review today, which constitutes the 2
bottom path on this diagram.
3 In the course of the environmental review, 4
the NRC staff consults with local, state, federal and 5
tribal officials. We also request input from the 6
general public and interested groups. Part of that 7
process is today's public meeting to receive your 8
input.
9 You may also notice the box in this 10 diagram that refers to the NRC's adjudicatory hearing 11 process. That is another opportunity for the public, 12 groups, and governments to use to formally raise 13 issues related either to the safety or environmental 14 reviews. We have instructions on how to use that 15 process on the table in the hallway.
16 NRC's regulations implementing the 17 National Environmental Policy Act, often referred to 18 as NEPA, require that we prepare an Environmental 19 Impact Statement to document our environmental review.
20 In our Environmental Impact Statement, 21 we'll compare the likely environmental impacts of 22 license renewal to the potential impacts of 23 alternatives to license renewal. These alternatives 24 include other means of generating electricity or 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 dealing with electrical loads, other than the existing 1
power plant. These can include, for example, fossil-2 fueled generation, renewable generation, or other 3
means of addressing electrical demand.
4 Input from the public and agencies in the 5
scoping process can affect how the NRC considers 6
environmental issues and alternatives during the 7
course of the license renewal review.
8 We evaluate a wide range of issues in our 9
Environmental Impact Statement. This slide includes 10 issues for which we require site-specific evaluations 11 in our license renewal Environmental Impact Statement.
12 As you can see, this includes a number of 13 issues that are of concern in this area. I'll mention 14 two of these, in particular.
15 The first, at the top of this list, is the 16 impacts from the facility's once-through cooling 17 system. NRC staff will evaluate the impacts from 18 continued operation of the cooling system on aquatic 19 life.
20 Specifically, we look at how the cooling 21 system affects aquatic life through impingement, or 22 what happens when organisms are trapped against the 23 plant's intakes, entrainment, or what happens when 24 aquatic organisms are pulled through the plant, 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 15 finally, we'll look at thermal effects from the 1
plant's heated discharges.
2 The second item, I'll specifically point 3
out, is severe accident mitigation alternatives. This 4
analysis is the one area of the license renewal 5
Environmental Impact Statement where seismic issues 6
can play a role, and we know that seismic issues have 7
been a visible concern lately.
8 Now as most of you know, we deal with 9
seismic issues as they arise, as part of our ongoing 10 oversight. That is, we don't wait for license renewal 11 to address them.
12 For this plant, that means we continue to 13 monitor and respond to new seismic information. That 14
- said, in considering severe accident mitigation 15 alternatives in the Environmental Impact Statement, an 16 assessment of seismic risk is an input to determining 17 whether any of the proposed mitigation alternatives 18 will be cost-effective.
19 I apologize. I think we've gotten off on 20 the slides here. One moment.
21 All right. My apologies. I think I'm 22 going to have to continue with the presentation. The 23 slide show in your handouts should be complete.
24 All right. Okay. One moment.
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 The range of issues that we examine in our 1
license renewal review process also includes those 2
issues for which we have reached a
generic 3
determination, as documented in our generic 4
Environmental Impact Statement for license renewal.
5 In this scoping process, we're looking for 6
any new and potentially significant information that 7
may challenge our generic determinations.
8 One of these areas that is of substantial 9
local interest is the issue of waste management for 10 the facility during the proposed license renewal 11 period.
12 In the course of the environmental review, 13 we will look for scoping comments that may challenge 14 the determination on this topic that the staff reached 15 in the generic Environmental Impact Statement.
16 If you are interested in reviewing that 17 document, the generic Environmental Impact Statement, 18 we have several reference copies on the table in the 19 hallway.
20 As I mentioned at the beginning of this 21 presentation, we are not only looking for information 22 on the impacts that may result from the continued 23 operation of Diablo Canyon, we will also look at 24 potential alternatives to continued Diablo Canyon 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 operation, and the impacts that could result from 1
relying on those alternatives.
2 In this case, alternatives are other means 3
of generating electricity or dealing with electrical 4
load. We've already heard that considering an array 5
of energy alternatives is an important issue in this 6
area.
7 While we'll be evaluating a wide variety 8
of environmental impacts from license renewal, and 9
possible alternatives during our environmental review, 10 I wanted to point out that there are several of the 11 issues that we'll be evaluating in areas in which the 12 State of California has ultimate jurisdiction.
13 For example, when it comes to actually 14 planning for energy demand and dealing with approving 15 or denying means of generating electricity, the State 16 Energy Commission and Utilities Commission, 17 respectively, have authority.
18 We've already been in touch with staff 19 from both organizations as part of this review, and 20 several staff from the Energy Commission are currently 21 in attendance today. The Utilities Commission, in 22 addition, also holds authority over electrical rates.
23 While NRC staff will consider issues 24 related to water use and quality, the state's water 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 control boards exercise permitting authority over 1
these matters. In addition, the Coastal Commission 2
specifically addresses coastal land use, and the Air 3
Resources Board addresses air quality and air 4
permitting.
5 NRC's evaluations of environmental issues 6
relating to these matters do not preempt any decisions 7
made by these state-level authorities. NRC does, 8
however, have primary oversight for plant safety and 9
the plant's operating licenses.
10 We want to make sure that you know that 11 there are a number of ways you can submit scoping 12 comments to us, and that you're not limited to 13 providing spoken comments during today's meeting.
14 If you have a written statement, or 15 written comments, that you'd like to provide to any 16 NRC staff person, you may do that today. If you come 17 up with additional comments after today's meeting, you 18 may also submit them via e-mail or U.S. mail, and 19 we'll provide those addresses at the end of this 20 presentation.
21 We will handle all of your comments in the 22 same manner, and afford them the same consideration, 23 whether you've submitted them in person, in hard copy, 24 or electronically. We will continue to accept 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 comments on the environmental review through April 12 1
of this year.
2 As I
mentioned earlier in this 3
presentation, anyone who provides contact information 4
on either a blue or yellow card will be added to the 5
mailing list to receive the compilation of all 6
comments that NRC staff receives, as well as the staff 7
responses to those comments.
8 Today's meetings are part of a broader 9
environmental review for the proposed license renewal 10 of Diablo Canyon.
11 Later this year, we plan to return to the 12 power plant site for an on-site audit. After 13 reviewing the information we gather from scoping, from 14 that on-site audit, and from any information requests 15 we make of PG&E, we plan to publish our draft 16 Environmental Impact Statement in October of 2010.
17 We then plan to hold an additional set of 18 meetings, similar in format to this meeting, in this 19 area, in December of this year.
20 Many of you may be mindful that we've 21 received several requests to delay the license renewal 22 review until PG&E completes certain studies for the 23 state.
24 We are currently reviewing those requests.
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 We plan to have a decision in response to those 1
requests by the end of this month. Until that time, 2
we'll proceed with the review, as scheduled.
3 While it's not listed here on the 4
schedule, I wanted to let you know that NRC staff will 5
return to this area as part of ongoing safety 6
oversight, in six to eight weeks, for the end-of-cycle 7
meeting. This meeting will provide an opportunity for 8
questions and
- answers, as well as extensive 9
interaction with staff.
10 We'll issue a press release and take out 11 ads in local papers, prior to that meeting. If, 12 during the course of this meeting, you wish to review 13 the environmental information that PG&E submitted to 14 the NRC as part of its license renewal application, or 15 to review NRC guidance or background documents on 16 impacts of license renewal, we have hard copies of 17 those available for your review out in the lobby, as 18 well as copies on CD that you may take with you.
19 In addition, copies of the license renewal 20 application are available for your review at local 21 libraries in San Luis Obispo and in Paso Robles. You 22 can also link to them through the NRC website.
23 If reviewing any of these documents 24 triggers additional comments, you may submit them 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 through April 12th.
1 As I mentioned earlier, you may submit 2
additional comments through a variety of means. I 3
will leave this slide up for you during the remainder 4
of the meeting.
5 With that, I will conclude my presentation 6
for this meeting session, and you'll note that there 7
are a few remaining slides in your packets. Those 8
contain contact information for me, for Kim Green, and 9
also some additional information on how to petition 10 the NRC for an adjudicatory hearing.
11 With that, I'm going to turn the meeting 12 back over to Chip. Thank you.
13 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you very much, 14 Drew. We have some time for questions about the NRC 15 process. Judy, did you have a question from before, 16 that you wanted to ask?
17 MS. EVERED: Well, I'm wondering about the 18 five minute talk versus the questions. But are the 19 questions asked for now? Are they?
20 MR. CAMERON: Yes; yes. This is the 21 appropriate time for questions, and we're going to 22 limit them to questions about the NRC review process, 23 to make sure that everybody understands what's going 24 on with that.
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 If we have questions, other types of 1
questions, we're going to have the NRC staff talk to 2
you after that. So you had a question?
3 MS. EVERED: Well, yes. Well, I'm very 4
grateful for this opportunity for the community to 5
make an input, and I'm grateful for the way this is 6
organized.
7 My questions would be what are the 8
testings being done on the ocean these days, because 9
as you originally got your permit from the Water 10 Board, the State Water Board, there were many poisons 11 that were going to be accumulating in the ocean, like 12 mercury and cadmium and arsenic, and so on, and these 13 are very worrying as they build up, and I'm wondering 14 what testing you'll be doing, or will do.
15 MR. CAMERON: Okay. This is Judy Evered 16 who asked that question, and this is a matter for the 17 state agencies who do that.
18 Drew, do we have a quick answer for the 19 types, the agencies who might who might be doing that, 20 or should we talk to Judy after the meeting?
21 MR. STUYVENBERG: [off-mike]
22 MR. CAMERON: Yes, please. If we have 23 that other mike, I think we'll bring it up to you.
24 MR. STUYVENBERG: I would actually offer a 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 couple of things to Judy. First of all, I think 1
actually stating the concern about what kinds of items 2
might be added to the ocean is actually a good scoping 3
comment, and I'd say if, you know, when you have a 4
chance to, for your three to five minutes--we've 5
already got it on the record, but if there's anything 6
you'd like to elaborate on, please mention it. So, 7
you know, it's something we can look at, how we'd 8
consider it in our review. I would say, in general, 9
in regards to the amounts of those things that are 10 discharged, allowed to be discharged by the plant, 11 that's generally a matter that is under state control, 12 under the pollution discharge elimination system 13 permit.
14 So in terms of oversight, it's state level 15 oversight, but if there's something that is of 16 particular concern, we'll see how it may fit into our 17 environmental review process.
18 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you. And Drew 19 made a good point. There may be questions that you 20 have, that really imply a comment, and we will make 21 that, we will record that as a comment also. So thank 22 you, Judy.
23 Yes, sir?
24 MR. JACK: Let me ask: is there some place 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 24 that I can get hold of a copy of an outline for your 1
planned EIR?
2 MR. STUYVENBERG: You mean in terms of 3
what the--
4 MR. JACK: Yes. In other words, what are 5
youre currently planning to look at?
6 MR. STUYVENBERG: Actually, what I could 7
use, I could show you the generic electricity 8
statement we have in the hallway, and it lays out some 9
of the issues that we have to address. There are some 10 parts of the formatting for that that are mirrored in 11 some of the site-specific impact statements.
12 Other than that, I can also direct you to 13 some spots on our Web site where we have other site-14 specific Environmental Impact Statements for other 15 plants. We can take a look at those, to see 16 specifically what something like this is likely to 17 look like.
18 MR. JACK: My point in the question was, 19 if you're already going to address certain issues, 20 there's no point in redundancy, and asking you to do 21 that. So that by having that information, then we can 22 be more selective in the requests that we make. Thank 23 you.
24 MR. CAMERON: And your name, sir?
25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 25 MR. JACK: Sandy Jack.
1 MR. CAMERON: Sandy Jack. Thank you, 2
Sandy. Let's go to Barbara and then we'll go to this 3
gentleman back there. Barbara.
4 MS. BYRON: I was just wondering when the 5
NRC expects to put out the Scoping Report?
6 MR. STUYVENBERG: The Scoping Report will 7
be out some time before the Environmental Impact 8
Statement. So it will depend on how lengthy the 9
scoping comment is. I anticipate, at this point, that 10 we're going to have a relatively large volume of 11 scoping comment. So I would expect it some time early 12 this coming fall, but I don't have a specific date for 13 that. Staff will certainly be looking through that as 14 they start their review, though.
15 MR. CAMERON: That was Barbara Byron from 16 the California Energy Commission.
17 Yes, sir. Please introduce yourself to 18 us.
19 MR. BOYSON: Yes. My name is Joe Boyson 20 and I live in Sunset Palisades, and have for almost 22 21 years.
22 My question is about these environmental 23 review milestones, a procedural question, and I am 24 curious, and I hope you can amplify. It says here the 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 26 application was received November 24th of 2009, and it 1
moved quite rapidly. There was a public information 2
meeting on February 9th, and this, two sessions today, 3
this afternoon and this evening, March 3rd--it's my 4
understanding that this is the final meeting. It's 5
kind of a "speak now or forever hold your peace" 6
situation, such that a little over three months have 7
passed. That's my definite impression, because I have 8
been aware that this business about applying for a 9
hearing--and I think it's called an adjudicatory 10 hearing--and that deadline is March 22nd, and my 11 impression is that this is a front-loaded process, and 12 our chances to--we're the customers and the sovereign 13 people, and so forth, and our chances to impact it are 14 sharply controlled, and I'm wondering if that's true, 15 because I'm seeing here scoping comments, you know, 16 that date, and then I'm seeing this Environmental 17 Impact Statement, which I understood that that generic 18 one was something provided by PG&E, by the way.
19 And I thought that maybe your EISs, your 20 response to that and so forth, I see here that--and 21 you said that there's a public meeting in December of 22 2010. But is this subject still open, or what is 23 happening today, that is narrowing down this process?
24 Am I correct, that this is the--and I 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 27 don't know why it is that you can't have more 1
meetings. In other words, this has happened rather 2
rapidly and, you know, I've had some--I think a lot of 3
people would be interested in this, if they realized 4
this. I attempted to place an add to generate more 5
knowledge of these, and there isn't even an article in 6
today's paper.
7 The paper allowed me to put a very small 8
ad in. They would not permit a larger one. So I'm 9
very concerned about--
10 MR. CAMERON: Mr. Boyson, let's--Drew, can 11 you make sure that everybody--Mr. Boyson and everybody 12 else knows about--
13 MR. STUYVENBERG: Yes.
14 MR. CAMERON: --what the process is, and 15 the fact that it's not--that what we finally end up 16 with is going to be dependent on what the public 17 comments are. Can you just go through that again, for 18 him, and for everyone.
19 MR. STUYVENBERG: Absolutely. And I'm 20 sorry, I didn't mean to try to jump in there, there 21 were a lot of questions that I wanted to try to 22 answer. First of all, with regard to whether this is 23 the last opportunity for public comments, the public 24 comment opportunity comes back again on the draft 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 28 Environmental Impact Statement. But I'm going to talk 1
a little bit about the general process and hope to 2
address some of the other concerns that you mentioned.
3 First of all, the generic Environmental 4
Impact Statement is an NRC staff document. The NRC 5
staff wrote that, put that together through a process 6
in the 1990's, and as many of you are aware, we're 7
currently going through the process of updating that 8
document.
9 But that's
- ours, and they're our 10 determinations, those are not PG&E's determinations 11 and that's not PG&E's document.
12 The license renewal application is a 13 document that PG&E put together, and we brought some 14 copies out there, so any members of the public who are 15 interested in taking a look at parts of that 16 application can do so.
17 They'll at least have the environmental 18 report out there, which is PG&E's assertions about 19 environmental impacts.
20 So they're two separate documents. As far 21 as the public comment process goes, what we do right 22 now is try to make sure that as we get our 23 environmental review started, that we've got a good 24 picture of what the environmental issues are in the 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 29 area.
1 That's what today's meeting, and the 2
process through April 12th is about. So that is an 3
early-stage process, by design, because you want to 4
have an idea of what's of concern before we really 5
kick off the main part of our environmental review.
6 What we do then is take that input and 7
figure out how to address the various issues that 8
folks have raised in scoping, how to put that 9
information to work in our review. Then we go on to 10 the plant site, we'll talk to some local--or we'll 11 look at some local environmental issues. We're going 12 to talk to some folks at the state level, and some 13 federal folks who have oversight over particular 14 natural resources, and get their input as well.
15 And then we're going to write our draft 16 Environmental Impact Statement and come back to you 17 all, to get comments again, have you provide input on 18 how you think the staff did. Did we miss things? Are 19 there other things we should be considering, before we 20 go back and figure out how to incorporate that extra 21 comment, and how to address those issues again?
22 As far as the hearing process goes, there 23 is an initial opportunity for hearing that goes 24 through March 22nd. If there is, if it does end up 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 30 being a hearing, there are later opportunities to 1
petition for a hearing opportunity, if new information 2
comes up, that appears to be problematic from 3
somebody's perspective.
4 So it's not the only set of opportunities 5
but it's the one that's formally mentioned at the 6
start. So there are a number of other options.
7 MR. CAMERON: Okay, thanks, Drew. And I 8
would just ask Mr. Boyson, or anybody else in the 9
audience, if you have any suggestions on how the NRC 10 can notice these meetings, in terms of cable TV, or 11 whatever, if you could just talk to our public affairs 12 representative, Lara Uselding, who's right there, and 13 tell them about that, that would be helpful.
14 Let me see if there's anybody else besides 15 Mr. Boyson who has a question now.
16 Yes, sir.
17 MR. FRYER: I'm Richard Fryer. I live in 18 Pismo Beach. I'm interested that you're asking for 19 input on other options for power generation in this 20 case. I wonder if there's any way that your EIR, or 21 some related part of the, I guess documentation, can 22 be provided in a form that's easy for the public to 23 understand.
24 For example, if we didn't have Diablo, if 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 31 it was not licensed, what would a comparable coal or 1
oil-fired plant do to the environment? I think that 2
kind of thing can speak to the citizen perhaps better 3
than an over-extensive report that is full of 4
technical jargon.
5 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Two important points 6
there, and Drew, you might want to talk to this. One 7
is an analysis of what the costs and benefits of other 8
options are in terms of generating electricity.
9 But I think also, to make it as user-10 friendly, understandable as possible. Can you just 11 talk, briefly, to that.
12 MR. STUYVENBERG: Sure. In terms of the 13 alternatives analysis, which you described, comparing 14 the environmental impacts from other means of 15 generating electricity to the environmental impacts of 16 Diablo Canyon, that's what our document strives to do.
17 So that's what we'll be putting together over the 18 coming months.
19 In terms of making it more accessible, I 20 definitely hear what you're saying. You know, we're 21 looking at it on an ongoing basis and how to make that 22 more readable and more accessible to the public. I 23 would like to take your suggestions for how to do that 24 later on, if you're still around.
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 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you very much.
1 We would go for one more question to Mr. Boyson, and 2
we'll go over here, and then we're going to go to 3
being able to listen to your comments.
4 Mr. Boyson, you had a follow-up on the 5
environmental review?
6 MR. BOYSON: Yes; a follow-up. On this 7
business about this adjudicatory hearing, you had--I 8
want to ask you, do you have any applications, or 9
whatever is the correct terminology, for that now, and 10 are you likely to call for adjudicatory hearings?
11 I had the definite impression from the 12 earlier meeting, and I guess that's the February 9th 13 meeting, that--from you, I believe--that you thought 14 that it was likely that there would be an adjudicatory 15 hearing. At least that's what I understood.
16 And so my question is: Do I have to apply 17 for that? Or have other people applied already, and 18 are you likely to--my whole question is: What's the 19 hurry here? Because it does seem like we're narrowing 20 down very quickly. And that's my question.
21 Are there going to be--is there going to 22 be an adjudicatory hearing, in your judgment?
23 MR.
CAMERON:
And
- Drew, whatever 24 information you have on that for everybody would be 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 33 useful, but I know that often, until the requests to 1
participate in the hearing don't come in until almost 2
the last day of the 60 day period. But Drew, any 3
further information on that?
4 MR. STUYVENBERG: To my knowledge, no 5
requests have yet been filed. I would anticipate, 6
given the environment around the plant, and some of 7
the strong interest we've seen in having some issues 8
addressed in particular ways in this review, that it's 9
likely that there will be an adjudicatory hearing.
10 But I don't know. That's going to be up to 11 individuals to file.
12 So it is something, that if you were 13 interested in petitioning for it, you can do that, and 14 what we have out in the hallway is the Federal 15 Register notice that provides instructions on how to 16 specifically file for that opportunity.
17 So if you don't have a copy yet, we'll 18 make sure you get a copy. I would note that the 19 deadline is the 22nd of March. You'd probably want to 20 start looking at that at least, you know, a week or 21 two weeks out, because some of the things, like filing 22 for the agency's electronic document system, you have 23 to do prior to the last day.
24 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Drew, and if Mr.
25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 34 Boyson, or anybody else, wants to know a little bit 1
more about the hearing process, we'll be glad to, 2
myself included, talk to you about that. But we 3
really need to go on right now.
4 Yes, ma'am.
5 MS. LEWIS: Hi. I'm Sheri Lewis from San 6
Luis Obispo. In Title 10 of the Code of Federal 7
Regulations, Part 73, Section 55, there are--
8 MR. STUYVENBERG: I have to apologize, I 9
don't have my copy with me, but I'll--
10 MS. LEWIS: Well, it's called Physical 11 Protection of Power Plants and Materials, and it's 12 dealing with sabotage and terrorism and stuff. When 13 I--it was made effective May 2009, in a very detailed 14 way. I read it before that--not before that time--but 15 I read what they had before that, and it was much more 16 general.
17 The newer one, of last year, is very 18 detailed, and explicit, and the nuclear industry has 19 had ten months to comply to these.
20 Several plants have asked for extensions 21 of varying lengths. For example, Virginia Electric, 22 and Carolina, and others, and PG&E has asked for an 23 extension.
24 The deadline for compliance to that 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 35 physical protection is March 31st of this year, that's 1
the end of this month, and PG&E has asked for an 2
extension to next June, or a year, so June of 2011.
3 I'm wondering if there has been any 4
nuclear power plant that has not asked for an 5
exemption to the deadline, because I'm thinking, if 6
you have rule that must be followed, that are very 7
detailed, very explicit, and everybody asks for an 8
exemption, and it's granted, to they ever have to 9
comply, or can--then the rule is ineffective, if 10 people don't have to comply.
11 So my question is--of course there's still 12 a month to go and you may get some more exemption 13 requests--has any nuclear power plant not asked for 14 exemption to the deadline?
15 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you. Thanks, 16 Sheri. I don't know if we have information on that 17 but we certainly might be able to find out about that, 18 and point noted about how many exceptions are granted.
19 Drew, any--or Troy--I think Troy Pruett 20 may be able to give us some information on that.
21 MR. PRUETT: Again, my name's Troy Pruett.
22 I'm the deputy director for the Division of Reactor 23 Safety in Region IV, and I will agree that a large 24 number of facilities did ask for exemptions to delay 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 36 the implementation date, pieces and parts of that rule 1
change. Some of those--the rule change required some 2
fairly detailed modifications to be made at certain 3
facilities, and they just couldn't complete those in 4
the timeframe specified by the rule.
5 But those same facilities have implemented 6
compensatory measures, until they can implement some 7
of those design changes in order to comply with the 8
rule. And the regional--I'll just add to that. The 9
regional offices will begin inspection of the 10 facilities' implementation of the new rule changes 11 beginning April 1st, when they go out and do their 12 security baseline inspections.
13 And I think I might--I don't have an 14 answer for has anybody not? but I can make a couple 15 of phone calls, and maybe you can approach me after 16 the meeting today, and I'll get you an answer today, 17 if at all possible.
18 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thanks, Troy. Troy 19 Pruett from our Region IV office, and Sheri, you might 20 want to talk to him in more detail.
21 We're going to start with our comment 22 period now, and I'm going to ask you to come up here, 23 and we'll use a 3-to 5-minute deadline.
24 We're going to go to Adam Hill, first, 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 37 from the San Luis Obispo County Board of Supervisors, 1
and then we're going to go to Betsy Umhofer from 2
Congresswoman's Capps' office, and then we're going to 3
go to Bill Denneen.
4 Yes, please.
5 MR. HILL: Good afternoon, and I'd like to 6
thank the NRC for being here in our community. I'm 7
Adam Hill from the San Luis Obispo County Board of 8
Supervisors, representing District 3 in which Diablo 9
Canyon Nuclear Power Plant resides. Next week, our 10 board has on its agenda a letter supporting PG&E's 11 application to the California Public Utilities 12 Commission, to fund further seismic studies that would 13 include three-dimensional reflection mapping and other 14 advanced geophysical techniques.
15 Thus, I am here today to ask the NRC to 16 consider two requests.
17 First, I ask the NRC to fully integrate 18 and assess all the information that will come from 19 these seismic studies in both your safety and 20 environmental reviews.
21 Furthermore, it is imperative that you not 22 rely on your generic frameworks, but, rather, than you 23 incorporate site-specific criteria and data into your 24 reviews.
25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 38 Secondly, I have sent the chairman of the 1
NRC a
letter asking that the license renewal 2
application for Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant be 3
delayed until the seismic studies are complete.
4 I do so because I believe this is the most 5
logical and responsible way to proceed. If, however 6
the NRC believes it is best to allow the license 7
renewal process to proceed concurrent to the 8
additional seismic studies, I'm going to ask the NRC 9
not to complete the process until those studies are 10 complete.
11 Our community fully recognizes the 12 significance of the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant 13 to our county and to our state. PG&E is a crucially 14 important component of our local economy and it is a 15 good corporate citizen.
16 That said, I believe my constituents, PG&E 17 and the NRC, would be best served by a process that is 18 comprehensive, site-specific, and also logically 19 graduated.
20 Thank you.
21 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you very much, 22 Supervisor Hill. And this is Betsy Umhofer from 23 Congresswoman Capps' office.
24 MS. UMHOFER: Thank you. Hello. I'm 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 Betsy Umhofer. I'm the district representative for 1
Congresswoman Lois Capps, and I'm here to read the 2
following statement from the congresswoman.
3 Thank you for the opportunity to comment 4
on the environmental issues the Nuclear Regulatory 5
Commission should consider in its review of the 6
proposed license renewal application for the Diablo 7
Canyon Nuclear Plant.
8 I
represent the 23rd congressional 9
district in which this facility is located. As a 10 member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, I 11 am very interested in issues relating to the 12 relicensing process of the nuclear power plants. I 13 appreciate the NRC holding this forum to assess all of 14 the environmental impacts that would result if this 15 plant were to be relicensed.
16 Given the complex scale of this renewal, 17 as well as the complex technical issues contained in 18 the licensee's application, it is critically important 19 that this assessment be comprehensive and independent.
20 The NRC must fully assess and address 21 safety and security impacts, including any measures 22 available to mitigate them as they relate to the 23 environmental reveiw.
24 That means the assessment must include 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 40 updated and completed analyses to ensure the 1
surrounding natural and marine environment is 2
protected; the plant, including aging infrastructure, 3
can withstand potential earthquakes and is not 4
vulnerable to a terrorist attack; and that any on-site 5
storage of waste be done safely.
6 I believe failure to fully assess these 7
issues would do a disservice to the review process, by 8
disallowing a look at the overall collective impacts 9
of this renewal on the environment.
10 For
- example, the recently-discovered 11 shoreline fault, less than one mile offshore of the 12 plant, has not been thoroughly studied. This clearly 13 exacerbates an already precarious situation.
14 The central coast of California has a 15 number of major and active earthquake faults. To 16 reduce the likelihood, or severity of a severe 17 accident due to these faults, the NRC must include 18 severe accident mitigation alternatives, supported by 19 new seismic hazard data as part of this review 20 process.
21 Only with an all-inclusive review of the 22 safety and security impacts, will the NRC ever be able 23 to come to an accurate conclusion as to the degree of 24 the severity of a planned, or unplanned event, at the 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 41 plant.
1 Accordingly, the NRC must require site-2 specific assessments to address the potentially 3
catastrophic and far-ranging impacts on the 4
environment during the license renewal process.
5
- Again, I
urge the NRC to act 6
deliberatively in this matter, based on a thorough 7
public record. My constituents deserve assurance that 8
everything possible is being done to ensure this 9
facility is operated in a safe and sound manner, and 10 that the relicensing process is focused on protecting 11 their health and safety. Thank you for this 12 opportunity to comment on this process.
13 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you very much, 14 Betsy, and please thank the congresswoman for us. And 15 this is Bill Denneen. Bill.
16 MR. DENNEEN: My name is Bill Denneen and 17 I come from Nipomo, and I'm 85, and my first advice to 18 everyone--don't get this old. It's terrible. I have 19 a bunch of Sierra Club publications in which Rochelle 20 Becker has a wonderful article. If you want a copy, 21 you can come up and take the whole bunch and pass them 22 around, anybody that wants, and leave what you have 23 left on the table that says Information. I don't know 24 if they'll allow this or not, but it's a wonderful 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 42 publication and I urge you to read Rochelle Becker's 1
article.
2 Rochelle Becker goes way back with me when 3
she was a young kid, and she came to me and said, how 4
do I become active, environmentally? And I think I 5
got her started. Yes!
6 Okay. I want to go back to the 1960's.
7 No one wants a copy? No one wants to hand them out?
8 Oh, well. They are here, and he's going to hand them 9
out. He said he's going to hand them out. One.
10 I go back to the 1960's, in which I was 11 asked to talk about the--see, I'm a biologist--about 12 the biology of nuclear radiation, and I was speaking 13 with a guy named Ralph Vernon--maybe you heard his 14 name--Ralph was wonderful. He was a geologist.
15 Anyway, I talked about the effects of nuclear 16 radiation on DNA. That's what I was concerned with.
17 Ralph talked about an earthquake fault 18 near Diablo. PG&E said there's no earthquake faults, 19 we've studied it, there's none within 50 miles of 20 Diablo. And as you may know, two have been discovered 21 since. PG&E missed them, and they had it--No. There's 22 no earthquake faults near Diablo. And they were 23 adamant. That's just the beginning of PG&E's 24 influence. And by the way, they have Proposition, I 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 43 think it's what? 15, on the next election. Vote "no,"
1 by the way.
2 Okay. We'll move along in time to the 3
sixties, and in '78, I'm proud to say that I was 4
arrested. How many people can brag about being 5
arrested? I was arrested in front--yes! Compliments.
6 I was arrested in front of Diablo. My question was:
7 What are you going to do with the nuclear waste? I 8
was told: Don't worry about it, we'll take care of it, 9
we're all set, we're working on it. That was back in 10
'78.
11 They didn't know what they were going to 12 do with the nuclear waste, and they said don't worry 13 about it, we'll take care of it. I think they were 14 talking about a place called Yucca Mountain, or 15 something like that.
16 Anyway, here we are, a few years later 17 from back in '78, when I was arrested. What are they 18 doing with the nuclear waste? Storing it on site, 19 upwind from where I live. I am--I'm old, but I would 20 like to live as long as I can and not get irradiated.
21 Anyway, I suggest--I'm going to finish up, 22 I think my time's running out--by suggesting this 23 nuclear waste is being stored, stored--stored right 24 next to the nuclear power plant, subject to terrorist 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 44 attack, subject to earthquakes that they said weren't, 1
wouldn't happen around here. It's being stored there.
2 What's going to happen when there's a 3
earthquake fault like down in Chile. Woo-woo. It's 4
going to be interesting. Anyway, that's what--I 5
suggest they take that nuclear waste, put it in those 6
big cement storage things, and put them in the 7
backyards of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the 8
members of PG&E, the CEOs of PG--they deserve that in 9
their backyards. Thank you.
10 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you. Thank you 11 very much, Bill. Eighty-five. That's quite a 12 testament.
13 We're going to go to Sheri Lewis, David 14 Weisman and Judy EvereD.
15 Sheri.
16 MS. LEWIS: Hi. I'm Sheri Lewis from San 17 Luis Obispo. Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant is 18 located in an area of known and newly-discovered 19 earthquake faults. NRC guidelines do not permit a 20 reactor to be on or near faults, and yet, because 21 Diablo Canyon was already built, the license was 22 grandfathered in. Now there is a new fault, the 23 shoreline fault, and PG&E wants to relicense the plant 24 for 20 more years.
25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 45 How many faults are to be found before the 1
grandfathering will stop? If the NRC had the caution 2
not to allow a nuclear reactor near fault lines, why 3
are they ignoring that wisdom
- now, to allow 4
relicensing? I'd like to address the storage of high-5 level radioactive waste. Spent fuel rods are stored 6
in pools under 20 feet of water, for years, and then 7
need to be removed and stored elsewhere as the pools 8
fill up.
9 There still has not been a viable solution 10 to the problem of permanent long-term storage. The 11 dry cask system on site is only temporary and is 12 guaranteed safe for 100 years.
13 But some of the isotopes being stored 14 inside are extremely dangerous, if accidentally 15 exposed to the biosphere. Some of these isotopes have 16 half-lives of thousands and even millions of years.
17 Are we really able to protect these casks for such a 18 long period of time? Will we be around that long?
19 And all this is for energy now?
20 Consider that length of time. The 21 pyramids in Egypt were built less than 5000 years ago.
22 It's unbelievable. I always thought that was a very 23 long time. Can you imagine keeping these casks intact 24 for 5000 years? The cave paintings in France are 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 46 thought to be 16,000 years old. Native Americans have 1
been here for 20,000 years and more. The half-life of 2
plutonium 239 is 24,000 years. Are we going to be 3
able to keep these casks safe for about as long as 4
native Americans have been on this continent?
5 The first Homo sapiens were only 150,000 6
years ago in Africa. That's still not the half-life 7
of uranium 235, which is 700 million years.
8 So we are creating high-level nuclear 9
waste that lasts forever, and all for energy we need 10 now. This is absurd. It's ridiculous. Who is going 11 to be responsible for keeping this storage? Our 12 grandchildren? Our descendants way down the line, 13 four or five generations each century? How many 14 centuries? All for energy now.
15 And it's not just the casks. Earthquake, 16 sabotage, terrorist attack, all expose the biosphere 17 to these poisons.
18 The dry cask storage they have now will be 19 filled up by the time the present license has expired.
20 Do we want to allow for even more radioactive waste 21 by relicensing?
22 Thank you.
23 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Sheri.
24 Now David. It's David Weisman.
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 47 MR. WEISMAN: Good afternoon. David 1
Weisman, Alliance For Nuclear Responsibility. The 2
words I would read this afternoon are not my own. I'd 3
just like to read the following letter into the 4
- record, in the hopes that it will shed some 5
clarification on what we believe is a procedural and 6
timeframe issue surrounding the relicensing of Diablo 7
Canyon. So I will just read this one-page letter into 8
the record.
9 The letter is on the letterhead of the 10 California Public Utilities Commission, Office of the 11 President, June 25th, 2009.
12 Mr.
Peter
- Darby, president, chief 13 executive officer of Pacific Gas & Electric.
14 The letter begins: "
Dear Mr. Darby:
As 15 required by Assembly Bill 1632, Blakeslee, the Energy 16 Commission completed a comprehensive assessment of 17 Diablo Canyon and San Onofre, and adopted the study 18 and assessment of California's nuclear power plants, 19 AB 1632 report, as part of the 2008 Integrated Energy 20 Policy Report. This AB 1632 study recommended that 21 the CPUC take certain steps to ensure plant 22 reliability when we review PG&E's license renewal 23 feasibility study for Diablo Canyon.
24 "In particular, we need to ensure that 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 48 thoroughly evaluate the overall economic and 1
environmental costs, and benefits, of a license 2
extension for Diablo Canyon, especially in light of 3
the facility's geographic location vis-a-vis seismic 4
hazard and--excuse me, pardon me--seismic hazard and 5
vulnerability assessment.
6 "As part of this evaluation, PG&E should 7
report on its progress in implementing AB 1632's 8
report, recommendations on Diablo Canyon. The CPUC 9
will be looking to the Energy Commission's independent 10 Energy Progress Policy Report for information and 11 input to its license renewal decisions for Diablo 12 Canyon.
13 "It has come to my attention that PG&E 14 does not believe that it should include a seismic 15 study and other AB 1632 report recommended studies as 16 part of its Diablo Canyon license renewal study for 17 the CPUC.
18 "Apparently PG&E bases its decision on the 19 fact that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's license 20 renewal application review does not require that such 21 a study be included within the scope of a license 22 extension application.
23 "That position, however, does not allow 24 the CPUC to properly undertake its Assembly Bill 1632 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 49 obligations to ensure plant reliability and, in turn, 1
ensure grid reliability in the event Diablo Canyon has 2
a prolonged or permanent outage.
3 "Therefore, the Commission directs PG&E to 4
perform the following tasks as part of its license 5
renewal feasibility study for Diablo Canyon."
6 And I will report only those ones that 7
directly pertain to the seismic issue.
8 "One. Report on the major findings and 9
conclusions from Diablo Canyon seismic tsunami studies 10 as recommended in the Assembly Bill 1632 report as 11 well as studies that are directed by any subsequent 12 legislative mandates, and report on the implications 13 and findings, and conclusions for the long-term 14 seismic vulnerability and reliability of their plant.
15 "Two. Summarize the lessons learned from 16 the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant experience in response to 17 the 2007 earthquake, and discuss the implications that 18 an earthquake of the same, or greater magnitude, could 19 have on Diablo Canyon. In particular, the Commission 20 needs PG&E to evaluate whether there are any 21 additional pre-planning or mitigation steps that the 22 utility could take for the power plant, that would 23 minimize plant outage times following a major seismic 24 event.
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 50 "Three. Reassess the adequacy of access 1
roads to the Diablo Canyon plant and surrounding 2
roadways, for allowing emergency personnel to reach 3
the plant and local community plant workers to 4
evacuate. This assessment needs to be, to consider 5
today's local population and not rely on the situation 6
extent when the plant was constructed.
7 "Four. Conduct a detailed study of local 8
economic impacts that would result from a shutdown of 9
the nuclear plant and compare that impact with 10 alternative uses of the Diablo site.
11 "Five. Assess low-level waste disposal 12 cost for waste generated through a 20 year plant 13 license extension, including low-level waste disposal 14 costs for any major capital project.
15 "Six. Study alternative power generation 16 options to quantify the reliability, economic and 17 environmental impacts of replacement power options.
18 "And seven. Include PG&E's response to 19 the nuclear-related data requests and recommendations 20 in future integrated energy policy reports.
21 "PG&E's rate case, D0703044, specifically 22 linked PG&E's license renewal feasibility study for 23 Diablo Canyon to the Assembly Bill 1632 assessment and 24 PG&E is obligated to address the above-itemized issues 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 51 in its plant relicensing application.
1 "This Commission will not be able to 2
adequately and appropriately exercise its authority to 3
fund and oversee Diablo Canyon's license extension 4
without these AB 1632 issues being fully developed.
5 Sincerely, Michael R. Peavey, president, California 6
Public Utilities Commission." Thank you.
7 MR. CAMERON: Thank you very much, David.
8 We can go to Judy Evered now. Then we're going to go 9
to Ed Valentine, Lauren Brown and Hugh Wadman. And 10 this is Judy, Judy Evered.
11 MS. EVERED: Thank you. Good afternoon.
12 I've come a long way to this hearing, because I think 13 it's the most important issue we can deal with. We 14 have a little control over, we hope.
15 I live in Santa Barbara and we're 40 years 16 overdue for The Big One, and they've researched 17 underneath of Santa Barbara and it doesn't look good.
18 And I don't think any area along this coastline is a 19 safe area because we're in the Ring of Fire, and it's 20 in a place where there have been numbers of point nine 21 earthquakes, many more than I had thought. I thought 22 there was just the Alaskan one.
23 And now the 8.8 one in Chile has moved the 24 axis of the Earth one second plus. And if it could do 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 52 that, I'm sure it can ruin Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power 1
Plant. And another thing about the Chilean earthquake 2
was it stretched 300 kms. That means that if 3
something happened in Santa Barbara, 80 miles away, it 4
could happen here too.
5 So it's--I concur with Congresswoman 6
Capps' assessment that this has to be truly 7
comprehensive.
8 So I'm suggesting that the NRC has great 9
responsibility now to not only stop 20 more years but 10 potentially close the plant, and I'm very curious, 11 right now, of how many people would consider--it seems 12 like a dramatic and uncalled-for need, but I would 13 suggest it's the only rational thing to do. Humans 14 can be rational, at times. So I'd like to see how 15 many people in the audience today would consider 16 closing the plant to prevent future deaths and 17 destruction, and terrible, terrible times.
18 Oh. There are a few. We have two--oh, 19 quite a few. How many? Two, four, six, eight, ten.
20 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you.
21
[Applause]
22 MS. EVERED: I think that that's the only 23 way to go--personally.
24 MR. CAMERON: Thank you very much, Judy.
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 Now this is Ed Valentine, who's superintendent of the 1
school district.
2 MR. VALENTINE: Thank you. I think my 3
comments, in looking at the topics that were shared 4
with us earlier, fall into the category of Other. My 5
name is Ed Valentine. I'm the superintendent of the 6
San Luis Coastal Unified School District, and I 7
thought that as the NRC takes commentary on the 8
environmental impact of Diablo Canyon, I thought I 9
might share some of the economic implications of it 10 for us. Within our budgetary prospects, Diablo Canyon 11 generates about 15 percent of the school district 12 budget, or appropriately $11 million.
13 If we look at it in another way, proceeds 14 from the Diablo Canyon Power Plant funds the education 15 of about one in every seven children in or community.
16 As this licensing moves forward, obviously 17 from that perspective, we're very supportive that that 18 would move forward, but we would expect that to occur 19 in a prudent and timely way. And thank you for the 20 opportunity to speak.
21 MR. CAMERON: Thank you very much, 22 Superintendent Valentine.
23 Lauren. Lauren Brown.
24 MS. BROWN: I'd like to thank the NRC for 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 this opportunity to solicit input from the community.
1 My name is Lauren Brown. I live at 7 Chuparross 2
here, in San Luis Obispo. I'm retired, and I'm 3
speaking on behalf of what I consider to be important 4
concerns for this community.
5 Among the most important environmental 6
concerns that I
think should be taken into 7
consideration is the fact that nuclear power is one of 8
the alternative ways of generating energy that does 9
not put additional carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
10 I'm very concerned, personally, about the 11 risk of extensive climate damage to the entire Earth 12 because of the enormous amount of CO2 going into the 13 atmosphere.
14 I think the fact that this plant is not 15 emitting CO2 is something that should definitely be 16 taken into consideration from an environmental 17 standpoint.
18 I personally feel so strong about this, 19 that I am installing solar panels on our roof in the 20 next month. In terms of alternative, I think 21 absolutely, there should be no consideration to 22 additional fossil fuel-generating facilities. The 23 only alternatives that I would consider acceptable 24 would be solar. For this region, it's about the only 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 55 one that is practical.
1 And the license time, the period of time 2
required for planning, for the development, siting, 3
environmental studies for such a extensive facility, 4
one that would generate 20 percent of the power that 5
comes from Diablo Canyon--it would be a very, very 6
lengthy and daunting process. Hence, it's essential, 7
from my standpoint, that this application run 8
concurrent with the current seismic assessment.
9 I certainly support that the NRC should 10 take fully into consideration all of the security and 11 safety issues around this in terms of completing their 12 application. But I do urge that the NRC run this 13 concurrently.
14 To conclude, I'd just like to comment that 15 my impression of PG&E is that it's been an outstanding 16 community member. Its contribution to our economy is 17 enormous. I have seen also how they support the 18 community in so many ways, helping nonprofits, and a 19 variety of other ways.
20 And so I'd like to support this process 21 going forward concurrently. Thank you.
22 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Lauren.
23 Hugh. Hugh Wadman. And then we're going 24 to go to Sandy Jack, Sally Krenn and Jane Swanson.
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 56 This is Hugh Wadman.
1 MR.
WADMAN:
Thank you for this 2
opportunity to speak. I'm a retired chemist. I was 3
first trained in atomic issues as an undergraduate. I 4
was trained in radiochemistry as a graduate student.
5 I did graduate work using radiochemistry traces in 6
biochemical systems of photosynthesis for my PhD, and 7
I've subsequently taught courses in radiochemistry. I 8
think I have some background.
9 I have one issue which I think is 10 appropriate to the scope. It is the in-scope 11 environmental issues for generic determinations. The 12 one I am concerned with is, I think, of relatively low 13 impact. It is the one which cites the impacts from 14 uranium fuel cycle and waste management. In general, 15 I feel that there is little or no waste risks 16 associated with the present storage of the fuel. I 17 think it is a gross exaggeration to imagine that there 18 is any conceivable way in which that nuclear waste 19 could possibly release, on this society, even a tiny 20 fraction of the radiation exposure which is rooted--we 21 are all routinely subject to from the relatively high 22 levels of radon in this area from rock, volcanic 23 rocks, or from medical sources.
24 It is simply a failure to look at numbers, 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 57 and I challenge the critics to start delivering 1
numbers instead of wishful thinking. My one concern 2
is that the waste in those casks is two types--fission 3
products that diminish in their intensity of radiation 4
to one-half in every 30 years.
5 It takes a long while. There is a large 6
level of radiation, initially, but it diminishes very 7
rapidly, and ultimately, what is left is the so-called 8
transuranics of which the one which we've all heard of 9
is plutonium, and that plutonium could conceivably be 10 used for evil purposes. It is in fact a very--the 11 primary purpose that comes to mind is to build a bomb 12 out of it. It is not bomb-grade material. It is 13 almost impossible to make a bomb from the plutonium 14 that is in those casks.
15 I think that I may misinform, but in fact 16 the "bomb boys" have succeeded in making a very poor 17 quality nuclear bomb directly from that nuclear waste.
18 It would be a tremendous challenge to any terrorist 19 organization to accomplish that fact.
20 But as a matter of sort of wearing belt 21 and suspenders, I would like to see the present fuel 22 cycle modified gently, over the next decade or so, to 23 refrain from contributing to that plutonium waste, and 24 remodification is to modify the burning process by 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 58 possibly a modification of the charging of the 1
reactors but more likely by the new fuel charges 2
containing some recycled fuel, which diminishes the 3
availability of the plutonium for bomb-making 4
processes.
5 I would reiterate the last gentleman's 6
comments, that it is very important, in health issues, 7
not to spread false information about cures, and hence 8
because people from taking appropriate actions. For 9
example, scares about vaccines prevent effective 10 vaccination of children and children die as a 11 consequence.
12 I think we should remember that every 13 single unit of nuclear power that comes out of that 14 nuclear reactor can and will be, for a long time into 15 the future, one unit of power that was not produced by 16 the carbon-based fuels, coal, oil, and the risks 17 associated with carbon dioxide in the atmosphere so 18 transcend any other risks that society faces, that it 19 is absolutely trivial to be concerned with radiation 20 from nuclear power. It stands in the way of dealing 21 with a far more serious challenge from global warming.
22 Thank you for this opportunity to speak.
23 MR. CAMERON: Thank you very much, Hugh.
24 We're going to go to Sandy Jack, Sally Krenn and Jane 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 59 Swanson. This is Sandy Jack.
1 MR. JACK: Good afternoon, everyone. It's 2
my pleasure to be here. It's something different for 3
me. What should the NRC look at in the EIR? I've 4
heard a lot of comments; a lot of good things. The 5
job of the EIR is to identify all of the potential 6
impacts on the environment, and I would like to see, 7
among some of the others, first of all, you start with 8
the history of Diablo
- Canyon, its
- safety, 9
transparency, and air quality.
10 We have to be cognizant of, and should 11 review the replacement cost to the consumer and 12 business as a comparison for all other types of 13 alternative energy that might be undertaken. Impact 14 on jobs. I mean, let's face it. This state, right 15 now, we need some jobs. The whole country needs jobs.
16 And Diablo Canyon I think has somewhere 17 around 15-, 16-, 1700 jobs. I'm not sure of the 18 number. Tax revenues. You heard from the school 19 superintendent. There are a lot of different 20 organizations, all the way from charities to school 21 programs, some of the arts programs, that receive 22 monies as a result of Diablo Canyon. What is the 23 replacement cost?
24 How is that going to impact everyone?
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 60 Risk to human life versus the economic impact to the 1
region. I think those have to be done in detail and I 2
think that ties into some of the other comments.
3 Degree of impact to the environment. It has to be a 4
balanced approach.
5 We look at air quality, we look at water 6
quality, alternative types, impacts on the communities 7
within the region. Based upon what I've learned so 8
far, I see no particular reason to delay the 9
application process, and would concur with the 10 previous speaker, that the seismic study be concurrent 11 with the application process. Thank you.
12 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Sandy.
13 Sally. Sally Krenn.
14 MS. KRENN: Good afternoon. Thank you for 15 the opportunity for giving me to speak. My name's 16 Sally Krenn and I'm a Pacific Gas & Electric 17 biologist, and I've worked along the Diablo Canyon 18 lands for over 30 years now. I'm not as old as Bill 19 Denneen, but up there. This is in reference to the 20 state level oversight of coastal land management, and 21 I just wanted to share with you the team that PG&E 22 has, of biologists, archaeologists, engineers, and 23 some of the programs that we conduct to protect our 24 local natural and cultural resources.
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 One of our--we have over 12,500 acres of 1
coast land, and as you, when you conduct your on-site 2
environmental audit, you'll--you cannot overlook the 3
fact that it's a spectacular coastline. It's just 4
gorgeous. And some of the programs we do to keep it 5
so pristine is we use managed grazing.
6 On the East Coast I know you mow a lot, 7
but we use cows, and our grazing program has actually 8
been used as a field school by Cal Poly, San Luis 9
Obispo, because of the program's use of high density, 10 low impact cattle movement. One of our lessees is 11 actually Bob Blanchard and Mr. Blanchard couldn't make 12 it today.
13 He was voted, awarded the Cattlemen's Beef 14 Association environmental stewardship award for his 15 practices in San Luis Obispo County. And Bob 16 Blanchard has commented that our goal is to manage 17 this land in such a way, that we are confident that we 18 are not using it at the expense of future generations.
19 We've been able to see and better 20 understand the importance of grazing animals and 21 maintaining healthy and diverse grassland ecosystems.
22 By alternating the grazing patterns--he calls it the 23 "Pecho Ranch," because historically, this piece of 24 property was a Spanish land grant. So goats are--he 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 62 also uses goats. By alternating the grazing patterns 1
on this ranch, goats are allowed to eat the more 2
mature brush, open the canopy which then allows more 3
sunlight to reach the ground and new grass to grow.
4 Areas that previously were undesirable or 5
had overmature plants are now livened up by the impact 6
of animals, thus eliminating any dependence on 7
substitute feeding.
8 And for any of you have hiked the Point 9
Bouchon or Pecho Coast Trail, which are public hiking 10 trails that we provide, we provide over seven miles of 11 our coastline for recreational hiking, you'll notice 12 that you see more predatory animals. We're a 13 predatory-friendly ranch, and we have bobcats, we have 14 mountain lions, and lots of burrowing owls and 15 critters that prefer grassland habitat over shrubland.
16 Grasshoppers, sparrows, horned larks.
17 We work--we have a lot of partners. We 18 also work with Cal Fire, and just recently, we burned 19 about 200 acres of a bishop pine grove which is--it's 20 necessary for fire to regenerate new--it's necessary 21 to have fire to regenerate new bishop pine trees.
22 We also have partnerships with a lot of 23 agencies, such as Fish & Game. We recently, in the 24 last two years, restored steelhead trout habitat. 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 63 I'm just--I'm pretty proud of PG&E for participating 1
in these programs, and I just want to share with you 2
the fact that PG&E is making incredible efforts to 3
keep this coastline a pristine state, and the 4
knowledge that this program is shared with many of our 5
partners and agencies. Okay. Well, thank you.
6 MR. CAMERON: Thank you. Thanks, Sally.
7 Jane. This is Jane Swanson of San Luis Obispo Mothers 8
For Peace.
9 MS. SWANSON: Yes. I am Jane Swanson. I do 10 speak for San Luis Obispo Mothers For Peace. The 11 statement I will be making this afternoon is kind of a 12 long-range perspective, Big Picture statement, and 13 this evening, Mothers For Peace will point out three 14 specific issues that we are quite sure belong within 15 the scope of the environmental studies. So that will 16 be more specific in this evening.
17 For now, a review. Our nonprofit group 18 has served a unique role since 1973, when Mothers For 19 Peace made the commitment to pursue available legal 20 challenges to oppose the licensing of the aptly-named 21 Diablo, a nuclear power and radioactive waste storage 22 site built next to an active earthquake fault. Sheri 23 Lewis reviewed that history, so I won't repeat it.
24 But over the decades, Mothers For Peace 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 has conducted an ongoing assessment of the scoping of 1
issues considered, and not considered, by the Nuclear 2
Regulatory Commission. So now, 37 years later, we 3
offer the executive summary of our decades-long study.
4 Mothers For Peace sees an adverse trend in 5
the NRC's failure to interface with the real world.
6 The Agency has created a fictional reality bubble, a 7
labyrinth of rules and regulations that does not 8
connect with the world inhabited by other federal 9
agencies or by the general public. I will offer just 10 three examples of issues that have great potential for 11 damaging the environment.
12 Example number one. The California coast 13 is an earthquake zone. The Nuclear Regulatory 14 Commission, at that time the Atomic Energy Commission, 15 in 1984 and '85, licensed Diablo's two reactors, 16 despite the fact that it was, and remains against NRC 17 regulations, to allow nuclear facilities to be sited 18 next to major active earthquake faults.
19 The Hosgri Fault is still there and will 20 be forever. New faults have been discovered but not 21 thoroughly studied. Include seismic information, new 22 seismic information as you consider another 20 years, 23 and then say no.
24 Example number two. There is still 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 65 nowhere to store radioactive waste virtually forever.
1 The NRC consistently ignores the reality that there 2
is no location, no plan, no technology in place, or on 3
the horizon to isolate radioactive waste from the 4
biosphere for the required quarter of a million years, 5
or one million years, if you take EPA standards.
6 The NRC Web site still refers to Yucca 7
Mountain as the solution. It's still there. And the 8
Agency has already given 57 license extensions to 9
other plants. Include the problems of additional 10 wastes as you consider another 20 years and just say 11 no.
12 Example number three. Nuclear plants are 13 targets of terrorists. The Department of Homeland 14 Security, the FBI, and other federal agencies state 15 that nuclear facilities are, by definition, targets of 16 terrorists. And yet the NRC does not protect nuclear 17 facilities with no-fly zones.
18 Neither does it require nuclear plant 19 operators to protect reactors or radioactive wastes 20 from attack by air.
21 NRC regulations consider it sufficient to 22 outsource, quote, mitigation, unquote, of any such 23 attack to the military. In the real world, a fire in 24 a spent fuel storage pool, or a cask, would release 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 cesium, radioactive cesium 137 into the atmosphere, 1
and even the armed forces would not be able to stop 2
its lethal spread.
3 Open your eyes to the danger of terrorist 4
threats as you consider another 20 years, and then say 5
no.
6 In conclusion, the NRC must include within 7
its scope of study all the outstanding environmental 8
issues, before seriously considering allowing another 9
20 years, which means 35 years from now, of Diablo 10 Canyon operations.
11 The excuse of, quote, ongoing monitoring, 12 unquote, is not a substitute for a thorough assessment 13 of serious problems before considering taking such a 14 drastic and unrealistic step.
15 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Jane.
16 We're going to go to Robert Lewin, who's 17 the deputy fire chief. Hi, Robert. And then we'll go 18 to Rebecca McMurray and Lynne Levine.
19 MR. LEWIN: I'm Robert Lewin, a deputy 20 chief for the county fire department. Thank you to 21 the NRC staff for allowing us to contribute to the 22 scoping of the environmental review. During the 23 licensing process of Diablo Canyon, during the late 24
'70s and '80s, our fire protection was addressed, MOUs 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 67 were developed as well as emergency plans, and those 1
plans and MOUs have been annually updated.
2 The County Fire does have jurisdiction for 3
fire protection at the plant.
We value the 4
cooperative relationship that we share with PG&E's on-5 site fire dept.
6 The MOU states who has what responsibility 7
for fire protection at the plant. And over time, the 8
last 30 years, the plant has experienced numerous 9
incidents, and those MOU's and emergency plans have 10 been put to good use.
11 The current level of service is effective.
12 It meets the minimum level. the transformer 13 explosion/fire last year clearly demonstrated the 14 value of the on-site PG&E fire department. Their 15 quick response, modern equipment, aggressive training 16
- program, and adequate
- staffing, effectively 17 extinguished a growing fire.
18 No question. Had this not been the case, 19 the plant would have experienced more damage and a 20 longer outage, and could have been not just to one 21 unit, but to both units, resulting in a loss of 22 millions of dollars and a potential threat to the 23 power supply of California.
24 This environmental review should include a 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 review of the existing fire prevention programs, 1
including public education and vegetation management.
2 The review should look at the fixed fire protection 3
systems that are currently in
- place, and the 4
inspection programs, to ensure their adequacy.
5 The review should include that the fire 6
protection personnel, equipment, and training, are 7
adequate to meet the needs of the county for the next 8
licensing period.
9 Further, the review should include a 10 review of the emergency response processes. We are 11 confident that the current level of fire protection 12 service meets the minimum industry standard for fire 13 protection. We need to ensure that over the next 14 licensing
- period, and ensuring decommission, or 15 conversion, that that fire protection continues to 16 meet or exceed those standards.
17 Fire protection should be included in the 18 environmental review. We are prepared to assist the 19 NRC in providing input to that process. Thank you.
20 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, sir.
21 Rebecca McMurry and Lynne Levin, and then 22 we'll go to D.J. Boyson.
23 MS.
McMURRAY:
Thank you for this 24 opportunity. I'm Rebecca McMurry, CEO of the Pismo 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 69 Beach Chamber of Commerce. Pismo Beach Chamber is 1
supportive of the relicensing application submitted by 2
PG&E to the NRC.
3 Diablo Canyon Power Plant is a significant 4
driving force to the economy not only in Pismo Beach, 5
but all over our county and the surrounding areas. We 6
believe that this study should take a long, strong 7
look at the socioeconomic impacts on our county and 8
our communities. As PG&E and Diablo are huge 9
contributors to our tax base, to unemployment, both at 10 the plant and in outside contractors and suppliers 11 outside of the plant, the impact that it has on our 12 tourism industry in Pismo Beach, with the annual 13 outages and the outside workers that come in, as well 14 as contributions to various charitable organizations.
15 Additionally, we feel that the seismic 16 study should take place concurrent with the 17 application and review process. As PG&E continues to 18 study the seismic issues, as is regulated by the NRC, 19 all along, not just in a relicensing application, and 20 as a delay of the application process would not result 21 in additional safety benefits. Thank you for your 22 time.
23 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Rebecca.
24 And Lynne. Lynne Levine.
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 70 MS. LEVINE: Well, good afternoon. I come 1
to the NRC meetings almost all the time, if they're 2
here, and I'm very grateful to them for coming to our 3
community and listening and hearing us.
4 I don't know that they altogether hear us, 5
but they do listen, and I'm happy about that. I am a 6
very grateful resident of San Luis Obispo. I am not a 7
scientist, but I do keep myself apprised and aware of 8
what the scientists say.
9 And I was really very shocked today, when 10 I read that when--I knew that it was against the 11 regulations of the NRC to license a nuclear power next 12 to a fault, and I read that they grandfathered Diablo 13 Canyon because PG&E was excused, because it was 14 unaware of the Hosgri Fault when they decided to build 15 this. And that is what is shocking to me.
16 I was aware of the Hosgri Fault. In 1984, 17 I was so aware of it, that I was one of those people 18 that did the civil disobedience and spent three days 19 in jail, to hope that Diablo Canyon would not be built 20 here on the Hosgri Fault.
21 So it is just so surprising to me that 22 PG&E didn't know about the Hosgri Fault. Isn't that 23 sort of shocking to you all? And that's why I'm still 24 here, hoping that they won't be here forever. Thank 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 71 you.
1 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you, Lynne.
2 We're going to go to Dwight Goggans and then O.V.
3 Harkee and Ann Harkee. This is Dwight Goggans coming 4
up.
5 MR. GOGGANS: Thank you. My name is 6
Dwight Goggans, a long-time resident, recently retired 7
from the California Highway Patrol. At the time of my 8
retirement, I was the assistant chief in our Division 9
Office, which is responsible for all the coastal 10 counties from Santa Cruz to Ventura.
11 Prior to that, I served as the commander 12 of our local San Luis Obispo Area Office. Prior to 13 that, I served as the commander of our local office.
14 I've also served in Los
- Angeles, 15 throughout the San Francisco Bay Area, and our 16 headquarters in Sacramento.
17 During my career, I spent a lot of time 18 involved in emergency planning and emergency incident 19 response. So I'd like to focus my comments today on 20 that area. I realize that's not specifically an 21 environmental issue, but I think it speaks directly to 22 quality of life in this county.
23 It's my belief that the cornerstones of 24 proper and effective incident response involve 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 72 planning and preparation prior to any incident, and 1
coordination and communication during the incident.
2 As a direct result of Diablo Canyon being 3
here, this county enjoys some of the greatest 4
planning, preparation, cooperation, and communication 5
among any emergency service providers I've ever worked 6
with. There's some obvious advantages. Because of 7
Diablo Canyon, we have one of the most state-of-the-8 art emergency operation centers in the state, located 9
on the Sheriff's Department grounds just north of the 10 city.
11 It's a
facility that provides all 12 emergency service providers, both public and private 13 agencies, the opportunity to get together whenever we 14 have any kind of emergency incident, not just an 15 incident involving Diablo Canyon, and manage that 16 incident in an effective, cooperative manner.
17 Diablo Canyon has also worked with the 18 local emergency service providers to develop what we 19 call the Diablo Plan, which s how we would respond to 20 any incident that occurs out at the facility.
21 But what I think is equally important 22 about the Diablo Plan is we can use that as a 23 framework for any kind of emergency incident that were 24 to occur in this county. If we were to have a train 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 73 derailment, that released significant amounts of a 1
hazardous material in this county, we could go to the 2
Diablo Plan and use that as framework to respond to 3
that emergency in the most effective way possible.
4 Additionally, Diablo Canyon coordinates 5
very regular drills for us to work no our response and 6
mitigation process. Because of those drills, we are 7
much more effective as emergency service providers in 8
this county than any other county I've ever worked in.
9 So basically, I'd just like to say that 10 because of Diablo Canyon, we have what I consider to 11 be one of the best, if not the best, emergency service 12 systems in the State of California.
13 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Dwight.
14 O.V. Harkee. Mr. Harkee? Are you guys 15 good? Okay. Thank you.
16 Let's go to Peggy Koteen and then Joanne 17 Main and Sheila Baker, in whatever order you want to 18 come up. And this is Sheila; right? Sheila Baker.
19 MS. BAKER: Hello. I am Sheila Baker.
20 Today, I emptied a five gallon bucket of water from a 21 bucket that had some algae in it, and this was on the 22 campus of Cal Poly, and about less than a half a mile 23 from that site is, exists a greenhouse that has been 24 conducting an algae study for bioenergy.
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 74 Cal Poly is very proud of this. It's 1
nationally known, it--algae is definitely considered a 2
potential energy source. Alternative energy consists 3
of bioenergy, and wind as well as ocean energy, and 4
solar.
5 I don't agree with those who put nuclear 6
energy in the same category as wind and algae and bio.
7 I am concerned, really, about the waste issue.
8 Actually, there are two very, very not clean, not safe 9
ends of nuclear energy. One is the mining of uranium 10 done in Colorado and Utah, with uranium mill tailings 11 in the water. The other end if the nuke waste as 12 Mothers For Peace, Jane Swanson, has suggested, that 13 there is not really an answer.
14 Before this licensing happens, before this 15 plant is licensed, PG&E and the NRC need to tell the 16 public what they will do with the waste. And several 17 options are out there.
Reprocessing, on-site 18 hardening, storage, and barging, and railing, and 19 trucking, and all kinds of things.
20 But I think the--just as the earthquake 21 issue will need to be studied, so will the waste 22 issue. What will happen to the waste? What will PG&E 23 do with the waste? NRC needs to answer this. We need 24 to study 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 75 Before it is licensed, you need to say 1
what is going to happen to that waste. Thank you.
2 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Sheila.
3 Peggy, are you ready, or should we go--
4 Peggy. Okay. This is Peggy Koteen. And then we'll 5
go to Joanne Main.
6 MS. KOTEEN: Thank you for letting me 7
speak. I consider myself an environmentalist, and I 8
am terribly conservative about global warming and I do 9
support true, clean energy. I do not see nuclear 10 power as clean. How can it be considered clean when 11 there's no true disposal of the waste? Let's not fool 12 ourselves. There's no Yucca Mountain. And even if 13 there, how could we transport the nuclear waste safely 14 there?
15 I do not want to see Diablo relicensed.
16 It frightens me to hear those people in the audience 17 who have accolades about Diablo because of the jobs 18 they bring here, because of the tax dollars that work 19 to help our schools. You know, recently, it reminds 20 me of a company that's been in the news, a company 21 that we thought was reliable, that had high standards.
22 That company is Toyota. That company brings jobs all 23 over the world, you know, benefits its employees, 24 brings great tax dollars to different places, and I'm 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 76 sure their benefit nonprofit groups too.
1 But we now know that that company, Toyota, 2
chose to weight their own profits over human lives.
3 And that might be a few hundred human lives, a few 4
thousand, tens of thousands. Well, what is nuclear 5
waste? What's that risk? Very serious. It's not 6
going to be a few hundred lives, if there's a problem 7
there. It's going to be generations of lives.
8 Now we now more clearly understand the 9
government may have been faulty in their oversight of 10 Toyota. I'm concerned about that with nuclear plants 11 too. So I just want to reiterate that, you know, it's 12 better that we not begin the relicensing process until 13 we have a very secure storage for the rest of the 14 nuclear waste, and there are other alternatives. You 15 know, if we can take individual responsibility for 16 reducing our own, change our own lifestyles to reduce 17 global warming, on a very small minor level, each of 18 us. But if we're looking for energy to make our lives 19 easier, maybe we need to take that responsibility and 20 reduce our own energy consumption.
21 And if that means we need to do that, and 22 not have a Diablo, you know, that's what we need to 23 do. But we can't begin relicensing until we have a 24 clear, solid, secure place for the waste. So thank 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 77 you.
1 MR. CAMERON: Thank you. Thank you very 2
much, Peggy. And Joanne. Joanne Main.
3 MS. MAIN: Good afternoon. And I want to 4
thank the NRC for hosting this event today, and to 5
listening to all of our comments and considering them 6
with the mountain of work that you have ahead of you 7
to do.
8 I am currently the president and CEO of 9
the Atascadero Chamber of Commerce. The Chamber is a 10 diverse organization of business professionals working 11 together for a better community. The board of 12 directors developed, adopted and published a public 13 policy guide which provides direction for developing 14 positions on legislation and other public policy 15 issues.
16 The relicensing of the Diablo Canyon Power 17 Plant fits into this policy guide. We believe, in 18 order to maintain a solid economic base, and to 19 compete effectively in this century, we must continue 20 to improve our infrastructure systems, particularly in 21 the area of power.
22 Infrastructure investment provides the 23 foundation for accelerated business growth, capital 24 investment, and improved quality of life.
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 78 Issues we would like for you to take into 1
account, in addition to the obvious environmental 2
review, as you review the license renewal of Diablo 3
Canyon Power Plant, are as follows. We'd like you to 4
keep in mind the economic impact on our local economy 5
and schools. We'd like you to keep in mind the 6
effects of local taxes collected. The effects on the 7
local direct employment as Diablo is the largest 8
employer in our county.
9 Atascadero houses many of the workers, and 10 their purchasing power is evident in our community.
11 Finally, investigate the effects on local vendors and 12 contractors that have worked in unison, over the 13 years, to keep the plant operational and safe.
14 I would encourage the NRC to not delay the 15 relicensing process of the Diablo Canyon Power Plant.
16 I know the Diablo Canyon Power Plant operates in a 17 safe manner, always keeps seismic upgrades in their 18 sights at all times, and addresses this issue under 19 their current license.
20 If the plant is not safe, it would not be 21 operating at this time. Please do not delay the 22 process, as a delay would not result in additional 23 safety benefits. Thank you for your time.
24 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Joanne. Next, 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 79 we're going to have Richard Fryer, and after Mr. Fryer 1
we'll have David--and I'm sorry if I don't get these 2
names exactly right--Hafemeister. Sorry. And then 3
after that we'll have Duane Woddell.
4 Mr. Fryer.
5 MR. FRYER: Thank you. I'm Richard Fryer, 6
and these are my own words, that I just hastily jotted 7
them down, so I apologize if it's not as smooth as 8
some of you have been able to bring off.
9 I have MS degrees in physics and computer 10 science. I had a career in aircraft computers until I 11 retired from that, and I taught five years at Cal Poly 12 in the electrical engineering department.
13 First, I'd like to say that I think 14 nuclear power is a very important component of 15 California's energy mix, and I'm pleased that Diablo 16 has played a very safe role in that process. They've 17 got an admirable safety record. I also appreciate 18 NRC's, not only the opportunity to speak here today, 19 but also the due diligence you play in helping keep 20 nuclear power safe for us.
21 Mothers For Peace says that we need to 22 consider the real world, and we need to consider 23 what's real versus what's hypothetical. Well, in the 24 real world, we know that oil and coal-fired plants 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 80 have terrible side effects for the environment. Let's 1
see. Coal generates nitrous oxide, puts particulates 2
in the atmosphere, and even--not even mentioning 3
carbon dioxide output--also puts radioactive waste, 4
the ash that's produced.
5 Those are real effects and we know our 6
grandchildren are going to live with those side 7
effects, not the hypothetical ones that what happens 8
if there's a fire in the containment pond.
9 Another aspect of that is that in the real 10 world, we have to consider economics. I also am an 11 investor in solar panels, but I'm aware that if it 12 were not for the taxpayers kindly helping to pay for 13 those, and if it were not for--I don't know if the 14 taxpayers in this case pay for it, or if it's Diablo, 15 or PG&E has to pay for it, but somebody provides the 16 batteries that let me use my electricity at night 17 instead of during the daytime.
18 Were it not for that, I think solar power 19 would cost five times what ordinary power costs.
20 Already, power is almost as much of my budget as my 21 grocery bill. If it jumped five times, I'd probably 22 have to move out of state.
23 I think that's most of my comments here.
24 I would like to also say--unfortunately, I see Adam 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 81 Hill has left. I am a constituent of his, and also 1
Lois Capps. If they read their e-mails, they will 2
both know that their requests for delays do not 3
represent what I think my interests are, and I think 4
that any studies that need to be done--and I do hope 5
that such studies are done--that I think those should 6
be done concurrently.
7 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Mr. Fryer.
8 Next we have Mr. David Hafemeister, and 9
then we'll have Duane Waddell and then Jeff Lewis.
10 MR. HAFEMEISTER: Hi. Good to be here.
11 I'm almost as old as Bill Denneen, and you'll realize 12 that when you hear my talk. It's going to be a little 13 different today.
14 A little bit of history, and then where do 15 I come out today. In 1975, the--not that the United 16 States had a perfect record on nonproliferation, by 17 the way. In 1975, the Germans and the French were 18 about to export six or seven enrichment and 19 reprocessing plants, and it ended up, since I was 20 working initially with Senator John Glenn, who became 21 the lead senator on nonproliferation matters, who had 22 a
very large hand of writing the Nuclear 23 Nonproliferation Act of 1978, having hearings with 24 David Lilienthal, Hans Beta, Kissinger, and so forth.
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 82 And out of that, the law passed, and I 1
went on into the State Department. And also along the 2
way we passed laws on sanctioning, the big sanction 3
laws, later on, with the Senate Foreign Relations 4
Committee, that sanctioned India and Pakistan for 5
their explosions.
6 So what we did is we killed the plutonium 7
economy, and it was my job to go with the Carter lead, 8
Professor Joe and I, down to Oak Ridge, and Hanford--
9 not Hanford--whoops--South Car--Barnwell, South 10 Carolina, and basically shut down the fast breeder 11 reactor and reprocessing programs.
12 Okay. That's interesting, but what do you 13 do if you don't reprocess, is the bottom line? Our 14 theory then was, of course, that we were going to have 15 a viable Yucca Mountain, and we got laws passed that 16 said you'd have a mill per kilowatt hour to pay for 17 that, and when this policy was rolled out, we had--DOE 18 rolled it out, and it was seven or so DOE people and 19 one State Department person.
20 So that happened 25 years ago, and of 21 course we have above-ground storage. I'm not--if you 22 rank the problems with nuclear power, I believe they 23 are first, proliferation, second, safety, and third, 24 waste.
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 83 Now if you want to get rid of nuclear 1
power--now where do I come out in this today, 35 2
years? I've gone on to do other things. Where do I 3
come out today is that--I do want to talk about 4
process. I'm not going to give any bottom lines here.
5 But I think a process has to somehow use 6
quantification, and one of my favorite units is deaths 7
per kilowatt hour. So if you're promoting something, 8
and you've always got to consider the opposite. If we 9
don't do A, we've got to do B.
10
- Well, why don't you do a
simple 11 calculation, that if you really want to save lives, do 12 that calculation.
13 Now if we want to get rid of nuclear power 14 and you're really a good moral person, you'd say, 15 well, I want to save lives.
16 Well, then you come to a very interesting 17 situation. Should we shut them down near large 18 cities, first, or--I know there's a seismic fault here 19 of course--or in small cities, that somehow you have 20 to rationalize--is this really a local issue, or is it 21 an international issue?
22 Then you can say, well, let's get rid of 23 all of nuclear power. Well, now, then that's 20 24 percent, and remember, we're growing, unfortunately, 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 84 at one percent or so a year in electrical growth. And 1
yes, I have photovoltaics on my roof and I've passed 2
laws having to do with alternates, and written books 3
on alternates as well.
4 So those aren't going to come on that 5
fast. So in the transition region, we have this 20 6
percent, 100 gigawatts, that we've got to do something 7
with, and I of course hope it'll go away. But the 8
bottom line, if they all went away, well, I think what 9
else is there but coal. Natural gas, the price has 10 gone too high and the supply isn't as large.
11 So the process is that--in conclusion, 12 please try and quantify as much as you can, in terms 13 of both costs and deaths per kilowatt hours, and also 14 consider more than the local. I consider myself more 15 of an internationalist than a localist, and so I don't 16 know how I'll be received at the next parties I go to 17 after saying this. But that's the way I am. Thank 18 you.
19 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Mr. Hafemeister.
20 Next, we'll have Duane Waddell. After Mr. Waddell, 21 we'll have Jeff Lewis, and then Andrew Christie.
22 MR. WADDELL: My name is Duane Waddell. I 23 live north of Cayucos, Swallow Creek Ranch. Since we, 24 the public, will be subsidizing this business venture, 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 85 we have the right to know if it's a feasible, money-1 wise investment of taxpayer money. Before you allow 2
the licensing process to proceed, please furnish us 3
with the report containing the amount of public funds 4
already invested in this power plant, from conception 5
to the current date.
6 Then submit costs for the following 7
phases. Licensing process. According to the paper, 8
that was--that will be 85 million. Taking into 9
consideration the age--taking into consideration the 10 age of the plant, please submit an overall operational 11 budget for breakdown,
- repairs, extra
- security, 12 etcetera, for the relicensed 25 years.
13 Waste storage report and cost. How much 14 storage of waste and cost has occurred to date? What 15 is the cost and how much will be stored during the 16 16 years left under the current permit? How much waste 17 will be generated? How will it be contained and what 18 cost during the relicense, 125 years and the 19 additional 2000 monitoring years?
20 Please present a cost sheet showing the 21 source of funding, federal, state and new taxes 22 required. After you've completed the budget report 23 covering all the above, please submit an analysis 24 report comparing the cost of relicensing and operating 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 86 the nuclear plant, and an alternative wind/solar 1
project that would utilize the PG&E coastal property 2
and the areas below, above, and near the existing 3
infrastructure, power lines that stretch from the sea 4
for over a 100 miles inland.
5 I feel such a safe nonlegal approach will 6
be a much wiser and cost-effective development, 7
especially when the long-term waste containment is 8
factored in.
9 Please send copies of these reports to the 10 San Luis Board of Supervisors, and any other parties, 11 interested parties requesting them.
12 in the ad that you submitted, it said 13 issues that should be considered as part of NRC's 14 environmental review of the license application for 15 Diablo Nuclear Power Plant. I think that should say 16 issues that will be considered. Thank you.
17 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Mr. Waddell.
18 Next we have Jeff Lewis. Then we'll have Andrew 19 Christie, and after that we'll have Richard Krenzdorf.
20 MR. LEWIS: Good afternoon. My name is 21 Jeff Lewis, and I live in Los Osos. Before I get 22 started, I'd like to state that I am a retired PG&E 23 employee, and I mention that only because when I 24 worked for the company, it was my job to speak to 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 87 public and the media on behalf of PG&E and Diablo 1
Canyon.
2 But I want to make it clear that I no 3
longer speak on behalf of the company and that I'm 4
here representing myself, and I hope some other people 5
in this community.
6 I'd like to thank the NRC for being here 7
and listening to us today.
8 I made a couple a notes on things I heard, 9
that I wasn't going to mention. You know, as far as 10 the used fuel issue, the waste goes, I'd like to have 11 some consideration given to reprocessing, because 12 ultimately--I mean, the rest of the world is going 13 this successfully and it certainly would be a solution 14 to on-site storage which, for the interim, is more 15 than adequate.
16 The other point I've heard, and I kind of 17 agree with, is that I don't see an advantage to 18 delaying relicensing to conduct seismic studies, 19 because there is an ongoing, robust, seismic studies 20 program that PG&E is required to maintain, and it's 21 not some 20-year-old report sitting on a shelf in a 22 three-ringer binder. It's a very dynamic process.
23 And seismic issues should be looked at when they 24 arise, and that's whats happens now.
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 88 The notion that I'd like to suggest, 1
overall, for the environmental studies related to 2
relicensing, is pretty simple. Be reasonable and 3
fair. There's a vast amount of evidence, in many 4
studies, which show that PG&E, and its employees, have 5
been good stewards of the land and waters around the 6
power plant.
7 And they should be required to continue 8
that as part of relicensing. As some people know, 9
some of the most beautiful and pristine tide pools 10 that can be found anywhere, exist around Diablo 11 Canyon, and it's because of restrictions on public 12 access and the efforts of PG&E.
13 Those healthy tide pools also help show 14 that the surrounding environment is flourishing. The 15 actions taken by PG&E to preserve and improve the 16 native vegetation and natural wildlife out there could 17 fill a book, if not more. So I would say please don't 18 require any unnecessary, redundant type of studies 19 that may be put forth.
20 The water around the plant is clean, with 21 healthy sea life. I watched, on more than one 22 occasion, humpback whales feeding in front of the 23 plant for hours, along with seals, dolphins, sea 24 gulls, pelicans.
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 89 But there is much more than anecdotal 1
evidence. There are volumes of existing documentation 2
and
- science, showing that any impacts on the 3
environment are minimal.
4 In fact, there's just no way to squeeze 5
electricity out of Mother Nature without some kind of 6
impact on the environment. The question is what can 7
we reasonably do to manage those impacts. Wind power 8
kills countless birds, solar produces hazardous waste 9
materials, and both technologies take up lots of land.
10 But people still support those green 11 technologies. Nuclear is a green technology that 12 produces huge amounts of emission-free baseload power 13 24 hours2.777778e-4 days <br />0.00667 hours <br />3.968254e-5 weeks <br />9.132e-6 months <br /> a day, and I believe that most people want 14 that.
15 And finally, please look at and consider, 16 and weigh, those beneficial effects of providing clean 17 energy for 3 million California residents. And where 18 would you get that clean energy, if Diablo were to 19 shut down prematurely?
20 And consider the fact that PG&E is 21 preserving for the future thousands of acres of land 22 and miles of coastline out there, in what amounts to a 23 nature preserve. Thank you.
24 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Mr. Lewis. Next 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 90 we'll have Andrew Christie. After that, we'll have 1
Richard Krenzdorf, and then Ermina Karim.
2 MR. CHRISTIE: Good afternoon. I'm Andrew 3
Christie. I'm the director of the Santa Lucia chapter 4
of the Sierra Club. In its Applicant's environmental 5
report, operating license renewal stage, PG&E says the 6
following of a
marine environmental monitoring 7
conducted in the vicinity of the power plant since the 8
mid 1970's.
9 Quote. Various analysis reports have been 10 consistent in their conclusions, that biological 11 effects of the discharge are mainly confined to Diablo 12 Cove, and diminished with both depth and distance from 13 the point of discharge. End quote.
14 This statement might have been excusable 15 prior to plant start-up, when PG&E dramatically 16 underestimated the plant's impacts on the marine 17 environment, but there is no excuse for it now. The 18 Department of Fish & Game, in terms of PG&E's 19 assertion of minimal, narrow, geographically-limited 20 impacts, has directly refuted that statement.
21 They stated, quote: Overall, the effects 22 of the discharge include loss and degradation of 23 habitat, decreases in several species diversity and 24 intensity, and loss of entire species. It has been 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 91 shown that the effects continue to expand beyond 1
Diablo Cove and are greater than predicted.
2 The discharge does not provide for the 3
protection or propagation of species, and does not 4
provide habitat suitable for indigenous species. End 5
quote.
6 Per the Safe Energy Communication Council 7
and the Nuclear Information and Resource Service, 8
reading excerpts from their report, quote: PG&E's 9
original thermal plume pollution predictions were 10 literally off by more than a mile, significantly 11 affecting an additional area, 4.2 miles to the north 12 of the reactor. Where the utility's prediction prior 13 to operation had placed an area 3/10ths of a mile 14 around Diablo Cove at uncertain risk from thermal 15 pollution, the actual impacts from the reactors amount 16 to 1.4 miles of nearly complete loss of habitat in the 17 intertidal zone.
18 Summing up Diablo's effect on this once-19 vital densely-inhabited marine
- habitat, Michael 20 Thomas, the regional water board manager for the 21 Diablo Canyon studies said, quote: It's essentially 22 bare rock. End quote.
23 Diablo Canyon's operators were discovered 24 to have withheld information from environmental 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 92 regulators for two decades, revealing the true effect 1
of the reactor's hot water discharges. The concealed 2
data included infrared
- images, indicating more 3
extensive thermal plume concealed in PET zones than 4
previously admitted, and time series photographs 5
showing the progressive deterioration of biologically 6
important habitat in marine coastal waters around the 7
reactor.
The damage was catastrophic to the 8
indigenous marine life community, including the near 9
obliteration of the already-threatened black-and-red 10 abalone populations.
11 PG&E was required to reanalyze the effects 12 through an independent review, and settled with the 13 State of California for $14 million, a fine seven 14 times higher than any fine ever leveled by the Nuclear 15 Regulatory Commission for any violation. End quote.
16 It is a matter of concern, that more than 17 ten years after these findings and events, PG&E, in 18 its environmental report, accompanying its license 19 renewal application, is still attempting to minimize 20 the effects on the marine environment of its nuclear 21 power plant.
22 In preparing its Category 2 site-specific 23 assessment, the NRC should be mindful of this history, 24 and in your consultations with U.S. Fish & Wildlife, 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 93 and the National Marine Fisheries Service, ascertain 1
what PG&E's obligations are under the Endangered 2
Species Act, as per the power plant's impacts on the 3
black abalone, which is now, as of 2009, on the 4
Endangered Species list.
5 Mitigations for all of the plant's impacts 6
must fully mitigate impacts of the past, the present, 7
and the future. Thank you.
8 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Mr. Christie.
9 Richard Krenzdorf. After that, we'll have Ermina 10 Karim. And after that we'll have Mr. Ed Waage.
11 MR. KRENZDORF: Thank you so much. I'm 12 actually going to speak about--well, every time the 13 NRC comes to town, I talk about one subject, and I get 14 a thank you very much, and it goes into the vertical 15 file.
16 I'm pleased--I'm a "happy camper" this 17 afternoon because there's been more people speaking on 18 the issue of safety, and specifically on the emergency 19 plan, than I think I've heard in many years.
20 People who have serious questions with the 21 present setup, such as Jane Swanson who spoke, David 22 Weisman who spoke. People who said everything's fine.
23 The police person who spoke some time ago, the fire 24 person who spoke some time ago say not to worry.
25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 94 And so I'm very pleased individual, to see 1
this subject being talked about at some length. We're 2
dealing today with scoping, what should be in, as the 3
NRC looks through the wealth of material. What should 4
they be looking at? And yes, within safety, the issue 5
of the emergency plan has, like the phoenix, risen, 6
and I would hope the NRC would take a lot of time.
7 When I come to speak, when the NRC comes 8
here, I speak about the adequacy of our emergency 9
plan. Well, we heard people say that the on-site--I 10 think PG&E said the on-site plan works just fine.
11 Maybe so.
12 The police and fire people say it works 13 just fine. Maybe so. Though they don't know any more 14 than I do. Why? Because drills, including the public, 15 have never been held. I've been an employee, 25 years 16 or more, at Cal Poly. We have 20,000 people there on 17 Monday through Friday, and over those 25 years, and 18 more, zero has been tested, to find out the adequacy 19 of the plan.
20 In Paso Robles, a year or so ago, one or 21 two people died from an earthquake. In San Luis 22 Obispo, we realized the necessity of upleveling, and 23 therefore the retrofit program is going on.
24 And then there are the events around the 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 95 world, most recently in Chile, and then in China, and 1
so on and so forth. But we remain dumbstruck in terms 2
of making sure that we have an emergency plan that's 3
worth the paper that it's been written on.
4 And so I ask the NRC to make it as a 5
condition of going ahead, one of many, the condition 6
that full tests of the emergency plan involving 7
individuals, and not just officialdom, be held at my 8
university, in different communities in the county.
9 Otherwise, we're blowing smoke, and it's time that we 10 find out, in the event of an emergency--the odds are 11 against it--but the whole idea is what happens if it's 12 needed, what kind of program do we have?
13 And that we don't find out some time in 14 the future--whoops--sorry we didn't conduct that, we 15 didn't realize. And so I want to emphasize again, 16 that the NRC, in its scoping, look at the adequacy of 17 the emergency plan, not just on paper, not just for 18 officialdom coming in here, but actually testing it.
19 Schools, hospitals, etcetera, etcetera. Without that, 20 as I said before, we're simply blowing smoke.
21 Thank you so much for giving me the time 22 to speak to you this afternoon.
23 MR. CAMERON: Thank you. Thank you, Mr.
24 Krenzdorf. Ermina Karim.
25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 96 MS. KARIM: Hi. Good morning. Or good 1
afternoon. Sorry. Ermina Karim. I'm here today 2
representing the San Luis Obispo Chamber of Commerce 3
and our roughly 1500 small business members within the 4
region. I'd like to thank the Nuclear Regulatory 5
Commission for the opportunity to provide input today.
6 The San Luis Obispo Chamber of Commerce 7
believes that our community's quality of life, which 8
is the basis of our great economic prosperity, is 9
predicated upon, among other things, our clean air and 10 water, our healthy and balanced economy, our excellent 11 schools, and of course as a mother of a 4-year-old, 12 our great personal safety.
13 But better speakers than I have already 14 addressed safety in schools, so I'll focus my comments 15 on the environment and economy.
16 Our Chamber is very focused on the urgent 17 need to reduce fossil fuel consumption, minimize our 18 community's GHG emissions, and are very active in 19 promoting business involvement in energy and resource 20 conservation. To this end, PG&E has been a tremendous 21 community partner in this effort.
22 For this reason, we would like to better 23 understand the air quality emissions that would result 24 from replacement power. And like many other speakers 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 97 today, we are focused on the economic impact that 1
Diablo Canyon has on our community in the way of 2
taxes, direct and indirect employment, and of course 3
considerable charitable activities that the plant 4
currently has on our local communities.
5 We look forward to better understanding 6
the social, environmental, and economic impacts, and 7
we thank you again for the opportunity to comment.
8 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Ms. Karim. Next 9
we'll have Ed Waage. I'm sorry. I'm probably not 10 getting that right.
11 MR. WAAGE: It's "Waggee."
12 MR. CAMERON: "Waggee." Thank you. After 13 that, we'll have Shelly Higginbotham and then Joe 14 Boysen.
15 MR. WAAGE: Good afternoon. I'm Ed Waage.
16 I'm also on the city council for Pismo Beach but I am 17 speaking on my own behalf. I'd like to touch on three 18 benefits of Diablo Canyon to our local community and 19 to the State of California. The first is it does 20 complement California's push for solar power. I 21 installed solar panels on my rooftop about two and a 22 half years ago, and at nighttime, the sun sets and I 23 have no solar power. I rely on, for example, baseload 24
- power, like Diablo
- Canyon, for my nighttime 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 98 electricity. During the daytime, solar provides 1
additional energy when we have the peak load times 2
during the day. So it's a nice complement between 3
nuclear and solar.
4 Especially in 2024, when the current 5
license is up, we will need even more baseload to take 6
care of the nighttime, when there is no solar power 7
available.
8 Also the community is much better 9
prepared, as several others have mentioned, because of 10 Diablo Canyon. I think especially our own city is 11 much better prepared, because of additional planning 12 and preparedness that we've undertaken for Diablo 13 Canyon.
14 Also, our local economy is much better off 15 from Diablo Canyon. There's large numbers of very 16 well-paying jobs as well as additional stays in our 17 hotels, and people dining in our restaurants during 18 outages.
19 I would ask also that you do not delay the 20 licensing process because of the newly-found 21 earthquake fault. I think those two processes can go 22 forward in parallel.
23 And finally, on the issue of reprocessing, 24 even Energy Secretary Chu has stated that reprocessing 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 99 is something we should look at in the future, and I 1
know France and Japan are also doing that. It's 2
probably the best, the very best solution. Thank you.
3 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Mr. Waage. Next 4
we have Shelly Higginbotham. After that, we'll go to-5
-we just got a new one, Ms. Lawver. And then the last 6
speaker we'll have is Mr. Boysen.
7 MS. HIGGINBOTHAM: Good afternoon. I'm 8
Shelly Higginbotham. Thank you for the opportunity to 9
speak. When considering the relicensing, I'd like you 10 to consider these comments. The 20 year record of 11 Diablo Canyon. I've lived in the community for 30 12 years. I've raised my children here. I live 13 downwind. So I'd like you to consider the 20 year 14 record. The catastrophic implications, economically, 15 should the plant case to exist, and they've already 16 been addressed here, from the employment base, the 17 school districts, the tax base, and it's just not 18 coastal, it affects Lucia Mar, and it affects Paso 19 Robles, and we just read about that in the paper 20 today, and we'd be very naive not to consider the 21 economics of this plant.
22 The benefits of having inexpensive and 23 reliable power, that we all enjoy every single day.
24 And how will we substitute that power of 3 million 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 100 homes? How do we substitute that in a short amount of 1
time? Please consider that.
2 I am hopeful that you will allow the 3
relicensing process to continue while the seismic 4
investigations are continuing. They should be 5
parallel. And there was a comment, a few minutes ago, 6
from a gentleman about safety drills, and in Pismo 7
- Beach, I
did participate with our emergency 8
operations, and I can assure you that they are an 9
ongoing process with Cal Fire, with Diablo Canyon, 10 with all of the emergency personnel, in coordination 11 with the schools, and we have put our whole Public 12 Works Department
- online, and they've gone to 13 evacuation
- sites, and it is rehearsed, it is 14 practiced, and it is constantly ongoing, and we are 15 hyper-vigilant in that. So thank you very much.
16 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Ms. Higginbotham.
17 Next we're going to have Ms. Lawver, and then Mr.
18 Boysen. We're going to finish up with Mr. Boysen.
19 After Mr. Boysen, Dave Wrona from NRC is going to sum 20 up for us.
21 Ms. Lawver. I hope I'm getting that name 22 correct too.
23 MS. LAWVER: Perfectly. M.C. Lawver, 24 citizen, resident, San Luis Obispo County. I came 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 101 here today speaking, regarding license renewal. It 1
reminds me of us objectors to the nuclear chain in the 2
industry, and Diablo Nuclear Station, that we opposed 3
licensing in the beginning. We remember Hoskins and 4
- Griffith, Hosgri Fault
- namers, United States 5
Geological Survey, Union of Concerned Scientists as 6
against Diablo as a site of seismic concern.
7 The NRC, Public Utilities Commission, 8
Council of Governments, and PG&E, go along forming 9
thermally-intense fission
- products, appropriately 10 three miles from the Hosgri Fault on the Ring of Fire, 11 till today.
12 As a person who does oppose licensing 13 renewal, I'd like to speak to the fact that one 1000 14 megawatt reactor, such as Diablo, creates 500 pounds 15 of plutonium per year. Operating two reactors, two 16 1000 megawatt reactors at that site, on the average, 17 makes a 1000 pounds of plutonium a year.
18 Since 1984, the nuclear industry, you, 19 have made approximately 13 tons of plutonium, which 20 sits on the Ring of Fire, on the Hosgri Fault, and the 21 new fault.
22 No more plutonium production; no more 23 license. Promoters in the nuclear industry say that 24 no deaths result from this ionizing radiation 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 102 continuum.
Objectors and researchers seek 1
epidemiologists, cancer registries and mortality 2
records, anything relating to biological results of 3
environmental exposure.
4 We find agencies and the industry working 5
together. Who will show documents of true exposure, 6
mortality results? Please, no license renewal.
7 Please understand, as living
- souls, 8
nuclear radiation, as medically contraindicated for 9
biological
- units, and life forms.
Medically 10 contraindicated. 24/7, routine releases from a 11 nuclear facility, low level, high level, however you 12 want to term it, however you want to quantify it--
13 rads, curies. Effluent and environmental exposures 14 result in because for concern. Inform yourselves by 15 reading Dr. Helen Caldicott, Dr. Rosalie Bertell, Dr.
16 Sternglass, Harvey Wasserman, Coughman. No license 17 renewal. End safety concerns. End fission ionizing 18 radiation products in the nuclear chain.
19 Thank you for allowing public comment. I 20 appreciate this, part of the democratic process, very 21 valid in this community, in this society.
22 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Mr. Lawver. Next 23 we'll have Mr. Joe Boysen, and we're going to have one 24 more, Ms. Willow Walking Turtle will speak after Mr.
25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 103 Boysen. Then we'll go to Dave Wrona.
1 Mr. Boysen.
2 MR. BOYSEN: Thank you. I want to warn 3
all of you that I'm not ready for primetime. I'm not 4
an experienced speaker and I'm not very well 5
organized. My name is Joe Boysen. I live in Sunset 6
Palisades, which is where I have lived--my wife and I, 7
Mary, have lived for 22 years with our son Dane. And 8
I have quite a bit to say. I hope you allow me to say 9
some of it. I'm going to try to talk faster than I 10 usually do.
11 And this is kind a going to be jumping 12 around. I wanted also--I want to admit that I'm no 13 green, sixties flower child, and I'm not liberal. And 14 having said all that, I'm very much against this 15 license extension, and I'm very much against the 16 continuation of Diablo Canyon, in fact, any of the 17 other power, nuclear power plants for one moment 18 longer.
19 So I have a definite--I didn't enter this 20 with a bias, I don't believe, but I've become 21 interested over the last few months, and it's been an 22 interesting experience.
23 For the good of the order, I would like to 24 suggest that there be future meetings, and that they 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 104 be one meeting and not two meetings. I think the 1
media tends to cover this afternoon meeting, and I'm 2
very disappointed with the turnout. Last time, the 3
evening meeting, which the media did not cover, was 4
much better attended.
5 We feel like we have to go to both 6
meetings. I think, in some sense, there's a "divide 7
and conquer" element happening
- here, which is 8
certainly not intended. But I think there should be 9
one evening meeting, which more likely would be one 10 that could accommodate us, so that as a community, 11 we're at least together.
12 I want to comment that by my count, I'm 13 speaker number 29,and I would say that there's been a 14 sizeable number in favor of, more or less in favor of 15 PG&E and in favor of Diablo, and so forth, and I do 16 have the feeling that it was, there was some 17 orchestration going on here.
18 We've heightened our effort. I tried to 19 place an ad in the Tribune to stir up some more 20 attendance, and that ad was heavily censored, I'm 21 sorry to report.
22 I want to commend Adam Hill for coming 23 here today and for staying as long as he did. One of 24 the gentlemen said that he was going to protest that.
25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 105 Well, the other side of the coin, I'm very thrilled 1
by that and by the congresswoman's letter.
2 On this question of nuclear power, these 3
nuclear plants are unsafe, under any circumstances.
4 We are playing Russian roulette with Murphy's Law.
5 This is the most dangerous technology in human 6
history.
7 In our
- case, we're playing Russian 8
roulette with Mother Nature. We live where we live.
9 A history of tidal waves, of tsunamis. 1878 wiped out 10 Avalon. 1907 destroyed the power plant where I live 11 today. These, and other instances, which doubtless 12 are available to one who studies such things.
13 I won't even mention the earthquake thing.
14 You know, it would seem like this is--we don't even 15 need to have this meeting after what happened in 16 Chile. I would say that of the speakers here, many of 17 them were people--this is a county that has a lot of 18 government employees, and retired government 19 employees, and I think that the NRC should take that 20 into account. And there are people who--and by the 21 way, in all these things, the good people, good people 22 at the Tribune, good people at Diablo, good people on 23 the NRC, good people on the Safety Committee.
24 So none of these comments are directed at 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 106 any of those individuals, and it's a question of 1
disagreement.
2 This earthquake business. The tsunamis.
3 Spent fuel is forever. We're funding something on a 4
completely insane basis of--we're creating something 5
far into the future which we don't know how to handle.
6 This business about the 20 percent 7
argument. We're using power, way too much power, that 8
we don't need anyway, and we're doing it to fuel a 9
runaway growth situation where we have 300 million 10 people instead of maybe the 240 million which, at 11 most, we should have. And if we didn't have those 12 extra people--and those of us who have been fighting 13 growth--we wouldn't have those people, and close our 14 borders, and so forth--we wouldn't have the power 15 need.
16 Diablo funds excessive growth.
The 17 alternatives. There's plenty of alternatives, and I 18 want to point out in this business of global warming 19 and the carbon argument, there's two different 20 arguments there, whether global warming's occurring or 21 not and what role carbon has in it.
22 And there's a small body of scientists who 23 are routinely shut off. There's a recent movie on 24 this on Sundance channel, who maintained that the 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 107 carbon argument is not what's causing the global 1
warming, since the carbonization has been going on 2
heavily since 1940, and this warming didn't occur 3
until after that.
4 Rich PG&E. We're the ones who are rich.
5 We're the sovereigns. We're the land owners here.
6 PG&E is rich because they've gotten it from us. We 7
don't have to adopt a war economy, or a broken glass 8
economy, or employ our daughters as streetwalkers in 9
order to be able to have a future. We're the rich 10 ones, not PG&E, so we oughtn't go hat in hand to PG&E.
11 Of course they've been good citizens.
12 They're good people. What would you expect? But it's 13 our wealth. This "carbon bashing," I've mentioned. I 14 call it "carbon bashing theology." Jobs argument.
15 Ditto.
16 We have what we have.
In
- fact, 17 everybody's "on the ropes." The Tribune's on the 18 ropes. The Tribune was a strong organization when I 19 came here in '88. So in what way have they gained 20 from this wonderful economy? And the man said that he 21 can barely afford the power he already has. Well, why 22 is the power so expensive, if everything's so 23 wonderful? While I'm on it, the fellow who--Walsh, I 24 guess it was, he made it sound like there wasn't any 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 108 problem with these, this storage question.
1 Well, if there's no problem, what are we 2
talking about?
3 MR. CAMERON: Excuse me, Mr. Boysen. If 4
you could, please just go ahead and summarize.
5 MR. BOYSEN: I'm trying to.
6 MR. CAMERON: Thank you.
7 MR. BOYSEN: I'm trying to. Tax revenue.
8 And don't be hurrying us. We're the sovereigns here.
9 There is no hurry. The hurry is coming from the 10 process. You are our representatives, NRC. You work 11 for us. You don't work for PG&E.
12 Tax revenue argument. The costly cleanup.
13 I want to get this--
14
[Clapping]
15 MR. BOYSEN: Good; do it. Costly cleanup.
16 What kind of a cleanup will it be, if we have to do 17 it in a negative environment after a disaster has 18 happened? Think of that. What I'm recommending is 19 that we decommission all of these plants, but 20 particularly this one where we live, and that we 21 dismantle it.
22 The cleanup can occur in an orderly 23 fashion now. I can't even tell you what it would be 24 like, if we were in a post-tragic environment. Just a 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 109 second. There's terrorism. I won't go into that.
1 But that's an obvious point, that terrorism is so 2
frequently used as an argument to take more freedoms 3
from us.
4 I would question the timing of the 5
application and the degree of orchestration vis-a-vis 6
this business of the Obama plan to reinvigorate and 7
build a bunch more on kind of a "dirty '30s" make-work 8
public employment project. Everybody's using this 9
jobs situation as an excuse to do these things.
10 The plant wouldn't be legal now--licensed 11 now. Why extend a license which wouldn't be granted 12 now? If it weren't safe, they wouldn't be operating.
13 Well, I'll let--one of the speakers said 14 that. That I hope that this can be evaluated in the 15 way in which it was said.
16 We have illegal cars, like the Volkswagen.
17 You don't let them permit--permit them to be 18 manufactured anymore.
19 What about illegal plants? Shouldn't 20 there be illegal plants, that you permitted once but 21 no longer? We have cars that can't be made. You have 22 to buy an old one. Okay. Well, the same thing should 23 apply to nuclear technology.
24 Living within our means versus unbridled 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 110 growth. That goes without saying, and it goes without 1
saying as far as energy.
2 Reprocessing isn't an answer.
The 3
reprocessing leaves 90 percent. I think there's been 4
some orchestration here. I mention that--one-legged 5
birds versus pristine tide pools. One-legged birds.
6 Where do we see the one-legged birds? Well, maybe 7
they're all extinct by now, but they used to be down 8
at--what is it? Fat Cats. The birds down there were 9
one-legged birds, and that was a result of, you know, 10 birth defects. I say it--maybe you remember the one-11 legged birds. You still seeing the one-legged birds?
12 A government county, tide pools. We are, 13 again, the sovereigns, and I--we got to keep this 14 alive. This is not okay. Suppressing ads, and so 15 forth is not going to be a permanent thing. We're 16 going to be organized, we're going to be here, and we 17 want--I want to hear an assurance from you that this 18 process is going to remain open, and not rush to a 19 judgment.
20 Again, will you brief the people tonight 21 on what they missed today? I think that ought to be a 22 routine part of this, since you have had two meetings, 23 so that they are acquainted with what was said today.
24 And with that, I thank you. I may eventually have to 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 111 go to jail over this, but I don't think it will be 1
today.
2 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Mr. Boysen. Next 3
we have Ms. Willow Walking Turtle, and after her, we 4
will entertain one more, Ms. Tracey Vardas.
5 MS. KELTEY: I have my turtle here, so you 6
hear a turtle speaking. I dedicate this to all the 7
turtles who might be out in the ocean, dying of 8
ionizing radiation in different parts of the world.
9 Also I want to thank Mr. Boysen. He took a lot of my 10 ideas, and I'm glad he said them. I stand on a giant, 11 and I appreciate that.
12 I also dedicate this to my father who's a 13 vet in the Second World War. He went to Hiroshima and 14 Nagasaki and "mopped up," what they called "mop-up."
15 They didn't have any kind of protective gear. He 16 came home, and about 17 years later, he died of 17 lymphosarcoma from the exposure that he got at 18 Nagasaki. Clean up. Mop up.
19 I'm going to give you a poem. You've 20 probably heard this before. I don't want to stay 21 long.
22 "Humankind did not move the web of life.
23 We will remain a strand in that web. Whatever we do to 24 web, we do to ourself." It's a quote from Chief 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 112 Seattle in 1850.
1 I
feel that nuclear power
- violates, 2
tremendously, the web of life. And Einstein, the 3
father of relativity, made the statement: Splitting 4
the atom changed everything, save people's way of 5
thinking.
6 So I think we all need to start changing 7
our way of thinking, and not supporting a form of 8
energy that poisons the whole planet. I thank you, 9
choose safely.
10 MR. CAMERON: Thank you.
11 Next we have Ms. Tracey Vardas, and then 12 we'll finish up with Mr. David Wrona.
13 MS. VARDAS: Thank you for allowing me to 14 speak. My name is Tracey Vardas, and some of you may 15 have remembered me as working for the San Luis Obispo 16 County Office of Emergency Services. And I hope that 17 when I tell you that I'm currently a employee of the 18 Pacific Gas & Electric Company, that you don't lose 19 faith in what I have to say to you, because I 20 partnered with many of you for Mothers For Peace, and 21 Nuclear Alliance For Energy--sorry, I may have gotten 22 that one wrong--when we've done our emergency drills 23 and to provide you some information.
24 But what I'm doing today is talking as a 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 113 PG&E employee, not a PG&E spokesperson, and also as a 1
member of the community. I live in Pismo Beach, 2
again, directly downwind of Diablo Canyon Power Plant, 3
where I have two--I guess I can't say they're young 4
anymore, they're 12 and 10; but they're still young.
5 They go to school in the CMR Unified 6
School District. My husband is a council member for 7
the city of Pismo Beach. We're highly invested in 8
this community.
9 What I have to bring to you tonight is the 10 fact that I have 16 years as an emergency manager 11 under my belt, at both working--multiple places, 12 actually.
13 I started with the State Office of 14 Emergency Services where I dealt directly with 15 facilities that handle and process hazardous 16 materials. Those facilities are responsible to report 17 those materials they have on site, and if they have 18 the potential to cause harm to human health and the 19 environment, and if they think that they have that 20 potential, and if they may have spilled it, then they 21 have to report that information to the State of 22 California and to the local certified, unified program 23 agency.
24 I was directly involved in writing those 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 114 regulations and implementing them.
1 A lot of times we'd get a question: I had 2
a spill. Do I have to report it? Well, do you feel 3
it has the potential to cause harm to human health or 4
the environment? If they said no, they didn't have to 5
report it. If it was then found to cause a potential 6
for human health--harm to human health and the 7
environment, then they could be fined.
8 But it would come across, if people 9
happened to discover it, maybe when they went to get a 10 building permit.
11 What I have found since working with 12 Diablo Canyon is not only do they have to report when 13 they feel an earthquake, or if they have spilled 14 hazardous materials, but they have to report 15 everything that they do, to protect this population.
16 They have to drill on that ability to protect this 17 population, not only within themselves, but also 18 outside with the community.
19 So that gives me a very strong commitment, 20 that we have the ability to protect the population of 21 San Luis Obispo County. I didn't leave the county 22 Office of Emergency Services because I was unhappy or 23 because I didn't think things were going well. I left 24 because I feel that this company, PG&E, has an 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 115 extremely strong work ethic, and I like their views 1
and policies on safety.
2 I felt that I could contribute, as an 3
emergency planner, to Diablo Canyon, to continuing 4
those policies and those views on this side of the 5
bench rather than the other side.
6 I'm also very proud of the work that PG&E 7
does in the community. I have a lot of community 8
services that I do. I work with Public Health 9
Department in providing Christmas gifts to local at-10 need children. I work on a homeless dinner on 11 Christmas Day with my family.
12 And one of the things, as soon as I came 13 on to PG&E, I was given the ability to work with our 14 employees and our company on those efforts. So they 15 supported me, in my own personal efforts to work in 16 the community, by matching what we were doing.
17 So I'm really proud of the work that we do 18 in this community, and I believe that on a daily 19 basis, we're looking at our seismic ramifications on 20 any of the new studies that are out, and of our 21 environmental impacts, and I believe that we should 22 continue with relicensing, and that it should be 23 concurrent to the current studies, and that we will 24 continue to be a good partner with this community.
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 116 Thank you.
1 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Ms. Vardas.
2 Next we'll have Dave Wrona. Dave, if you 3
can sort of tell us what you heard.
4 MR. WRONA: I'm not going to summarize 5
everything we've heard tonight, but I do want to thank 6
you all for coming out, taking time out of your busy 7
day to participate in our environmental scoping 8
process. All of the comments that you've provided us 9
today will help us define the scope of our 10 environmental review. The comments will all be 11 addressed in our Environmental Scoping Summary Report, 12 which will be publicly available.
13 If you provided us your contact 14 information on one of those blue or yellow cards, we 15 will mail you a copy of that report.
16 Just a reminder. Coming up and speaking 17 here tonight, or providing us with written comments is 18 not the only way to provide comments to us. If you go 19 home tonight and a speaker prompted you to come up 20 with additional information--Drew had the slide up 21 there with information on mailing comments to us, or 22 e-mailing comments to us. We'll take those comments 23 until April 12th.
24 This isn't the last time that you'll be 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 117 able to comment on the environmental review process.
1 You'll be able to see how we've, besides addressed 2
those comments, how we've analyzed those things in our 3
Environmental Impact Statement. We'll publish a draft 4
around the October timeframe, and we'll be out here 5
again in December, asking again for your comments on 6
our draft Environmental Impact Statement.
7 It'll be a meeting very similar to this.
8 And with that, I'd just like to thank you 9
all again for taking the time, and providing us with 10 some very thoughtful and detailed comments.
11
[Whereupon, at 4:20 p.m., the 12 public meeting was concluded.]
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