ML101241060
| ML101241060 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Kewaunee  |
| Issue date: | 03/24/2010 |
| From: | Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation |
| To: | |
| Doyle D, NRR/DLR, 415-3748 | |
| References | |
| NRC-120, TAC MD9409 | |
| Download: ML101241060 (20) | |
Text
Official Transcript of Proceedings NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Title: Kewaunee Power Station License Renewal Draft EIS Public Meeting Afternoon Session Docket Number: 50-305 Location: Kewaunee, Wisconsin Date: Wednesday, March 24, 2010 Work Order No.: NRC-120 Pages 1-19 NEAL R. GROSS AND CO., INC.
Court Reporters and Transcribers 1323 Rhode Island Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 234-4433
1 1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 2 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 3 + + + + +
4 PUBLIC MEETING ON 5 ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES PERTAINING TO 6 KEWAUNEE POWER STATION LICENSE RENEWAL 7 + + + + +
8 WEDNESDAY 9 MARCH 24, 2010 10 1:30 p.m.
11 + + + + +
12 CITY OF CARLTON TOWN HALL 13 N1296 TOWN HALL ROAD 14 KEWAUNEE, WISCONSIN 15 + + + + +
16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 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
2 1 PRESENT:
2 NRC STAFF:
3 Drew Stuyvenberg - Project Manager, Facilitator 4 Daniel Doyle - Project Manager, Division of 5 License Renewal 6 Peter Tam - Project Manager, Division of Operating 7 Reactor Licensing 8 Jeremy Susco - Project Manager, Division of 9 License Renewal 10 Kevin Barclay - Resident Inspector 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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3 1 P R O C E E D I N G S 2 (1:30 P.M.)
3 MR. STUYVENBERG: Good afternoon. I would 4 like to take this opportunity to welcome you all to 5 the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's public meeting to 6 receive comments on the Draft Environmental Impact 7 Statement for the proposed License Renewal of the 8 Kewaunee Power Station.
9 My name is Drew Stuyvenberg. And I'm a 10 Project Manager in the Division of License Renewal at 11 the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. You may hear us 12 refer to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission as the NRC 13 this afternoon. We often go by that acronym because 14 it's easier each time than to say Nuclear Regulatory 15 Commission. So, you'll hear that a number of times.
16 The first thing we'd like to do this 17 afternoon is thank the Town of Carlton for allowing us 18 to have this meeting in their town hall here. We 19 appreciate the use of the facility and your 20 hospitality as well. So, thank you very much.
21 The other thing I'd like to do is just 22 talk a little bit about my role today. I'm going to 23 be facilitating this meeting. So, I'll be making sure 24 that the meeting runs smoothly, that we get to hear 25 from the members of the public who are here about NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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4 1 their comments on our Environmental Impact Statement 2 so that the NRC Staff can take those into account when 3 we go back on our, on our final version of the 4 Environmental Impact Statement.
5 Joining me here today are several others 6 members of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission Staff.
7 I'll introduce them in a moment, but the first thing 8 I'd like to do is thank all of you for joining us.
9 We're going to be presenting the 10 preliminary findings that we got in our Draft 11 Environmental Impact Statement which is one of the 12 documents that we make during our Environmental Review 13 of the proposed License Renewal for Kewaunee Power 14 Station that would allow potentially the power plant 15 to operate for an additional 20 years.
16 Dan Doyle is up here with me. Dan Doyle 17 is another Project Manager in the NRC's office, I'm 18 sorry, the Division of License Renewal. He'll be up 19 here in a few minutes specifically to give a 20 presentation about the findings in the Draft 21 Environmental Impact Statement, and tell you more 22 about the Environmental Review.
23 Once Dan is done, we'll have a few minutes 24 of question and answer during which we can make sure 25 everybody has an understanding of what Dan's presented NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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5 1 and answer any questions that you might have 2 specifically about the review process, so that part's 3 clear about what NRC is doing out here today.
4 I'd also like to give a little more 5 information about some more of what we'll be doing 6 today in one moment. During this, or I'm sorry, after 7 the question and answer period, we're going to have a 8 period during which we take your comments on the 9 Environmental Review.
10 During that time, NRC Staff are going to 11 be listening to what you all have to say. We won't be 12 specifically responding. We will have our court 13 reporter, Greg Duncan, who's over in the blue vest who 14 will be recording any of the comments we get.
15 We'll be taking those comments back to NRC 16 Staff who will be reviewing those comments and then 17 determining how and whether to make changes to that 18 Environmental Impact Statement based on the comments 19 that we receive from you all. So, those are very 20 important to us in our review process, and we 21 appreciate your time.
22 If you do wish to speak during this 23 afternoon's meeting, please fill out a yellow Comment 24 Card. There are yellow cards back at the table that 25 you saw when you walked in. That's kind of the way we NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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6 1 keep track of the folks who are going to speak.
2 Jeremy, in, Jeremy in the back of the room, is holding 3 up the yellow cards.
4 In addition, if you supply your address on 5 those cards, we'll add you to the mailing list for 6 this project so that you get a copy of the Final 7 Environmental Impact Statement when it comes out.
8 That will contain all the comments we've received as 9 well as how the Staff has addressed those comments.
10 If you just wanted to be on the mailing 11 list but don't actually wish to speak, there are also 12 blue cards in back. Put your address on that, and 13 we'll be sure to add you to the mailing list as well.
14 I also want to let you know that today's 15 meetings are not the only opportunities to present 16 comments on the Environmental Impact Statement and the 17 Environmental Review for Kewaunee Power Station. In 18 addition, we have an opportunity to take those via 19 email, and via US Mail through April 23rd.
20 When Dan stands up to give his 21 presentation, he will be able to present those 22 addresses to you so you can supply additional comments 23 if there is something that comes up during the course 24 of the meeting or after the meeting that you'd like to 25 share with us.
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7 1 I'm now going to introduce the other 2 members of the NRC Staff who are here with us this 3 afternoon.
4 First, I'd like to introduce Kevin 5 Barclay. Kevin, if you could stand up please?
6 Kevin's in the back of the room.
7 He's one of our Resident Inspectors at 8 Kewaunee Power Station. Our Resident Inspectors are 9 our eyes and ears. They're at the power station on a 10 daily basis, keeping an eye on how things are going, 11 and corresponding with NRC Staff, both in our regional 12 office in Illinois, and also in our headquarter's 13 office in Maryland.
14 So, they are a very important part of 15 NRC's oversight of nuclear power plants. So, Kevin, 16 we're glad you could join us this afternoon.
17 Also today, we have Peter Tam. And Peter, 18 if you could stand up for just a moment? Peter is 19 our, our Project Manager in the Division of Operating 20 Reactor Licensing.
21 Peter handles a lot of day-to-day 22 licensing operations for the power plants. So, he 23 plays an important role in oversight for the power 24 plant as well. And he'll be on hand a resource today, 25 too.
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8 1 In addition, we have Jeremy Susco at the 2 back of the room. Jeremy is also a Project Manager in 3 License Renewal.
4 He's here as kind of a training 5 opportunity to see how a, a public meeting works, and, 6 and, and see how the NRC interacts with the public.
7 So, again, we appreciate everyone's time 8 being here today, and hope this is a useful 9 opportunity.
10 Before we get started, I'd just like to 11 address a few basic ground rules. First of all, we're 12 transcribing this meeting.
13 So, please be sure to speak only at a 14 microphone. So we'll have, when you actually present 15 comments, we'll have you come up to the stand mike.
16 If you have questions during the question period, I'll 17 come to you with a microphone. But, please do wait to 18 speak until we get a microphone in front of you so we 19 can catch it clearly on the transcript.
20 The second piece, please state your name 21 clearly so we can get those items on the transcript as 22 well, so we know who's speaking. And speak only one 23 at a time. I don't think that should be an issue, but 24 at some of the more contentious meetings, sometimes 25 that is. These rules also go for NRC Staff.
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9 1 And then finally, I'll be calling 2 speakers. And we'll try to move smoothly through 3 individuals who'd like to offer comments.
4 So, one last note. Restrooms, as most of 5 you probably know, are here on my left down the 6 hallway. Exits are at the back of the room, and also 7 down the hallway on the left.
8 With that, I'm going to turn the meeting 9 over to Dan Doyle. Thank you.
10 MR. DOYLE: Great. Thank you, Drew. My 11 name is Daniel Doyle. I'm the Environmental Project 12 Manager for the License Renewal of Kewaunee Power 13 Station.
14 Greg, does it sound good? Okay, great. I 15 just wanted to double-check that.
16 So, today I'm going to present the 17 preliminary results of the NRC's review of the site-18 specific issues related to the proposed License 19 Renewal of Kewaunee Power Station. I'm going to be as 20 brief as I can be.
21 I hope the information we will provide 22 will help you understand the process we're going 23 through and what we've done thus far, and the role you 24 can plan in helping us make sure that the Final 25 Environmental Impact Statement is accurate and NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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10 1 complete.
2 I'll start off with a brief project 3 background, and then move on to presenting the 4 preliminary findings of our Environmental Review which 5 assesses the impact associated with renewing the 6 Operating License for another 20 years.
7 Then I'll provide some information about 8 the schedule, and the remainder of our Review, and how 9 you can submit comments in the future.
10 And finally, the most important part of 11 the meeting is receiving comments that you may have.
12 The NRC was established to regulate 13 civilian uses of nuclear materials including 14 applications that produce electric power.
15 The NRC conducts License Renewal Reviews 16 for plants whose owners wish to operate beyond their 17 initial license period.
18 The NRC License Renewal Review addresses 19 safety issues related to managing the effects of aging 20 and environmental issues related to an additional 20 21 years of operation, as well as any potential major 22 refurbishment activities the plant owner or operator 23 may undertake during or in preparation for an 24 additional 20 years of operation.
25 In all aspects of the NRC's regulation, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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11 1 the NRC's mission is threefold: to ensure adequate 2 protection of public health and safety; to promote the 3 common defense and security; and to protect the 4 environment.
5 We're here today to discuss the potential 6 site-specific impacts of License Renewal. The site-7 specific findings are contained in the Draft 8 Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement the NRC 9 Staff published on January 29th of this year.
10 There are three reference copies on the 11 table in the back of the room there. And there's also 12 a stack of CD's that has Adobe PDF versions of the 13 file as well as a lot of other NRC background 14 information reference files. There's a lot of good 15 information on those CD's. So, please feel free to 16 take one of those.
17 The document contains analyses of all 18 applicable site-specific issues as well as a review of 19 issues common to many or all nuclear power plants.
20 Issues for which the Environmental Impacts 21 are the same across some or all nuclear power plant 22 sites are discussed in the Generic Environmental 23 Impact Statement. NRC Staff reviewed these issues to 24 determine whether the conclusions in the Generic 25 Environmental Impact Statement are valid for Kewaunee NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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12 1 Power Station.
2 The NRC Staff also reviews the 3 environmental impacts of potential alternatives to 4 License Renewal, in other words, other ways to replace 5 Kewaunee's electrical generation capacity if it were 6 shut down, to determine whether the impacts expected 7 from License Renewal are unreasonable.
8 Before getting into the preliminary 9 environmental findings, I wanted to acknowledge that 10 most of the comments from the scoping period were 11 related to taxes and waste storage.
12 All the comments that were received during 13 the scoping period, whether at the scoping meeting or 14 via mail or email, are included in the Draft 15 Environmental Impact Statement in Appendix A. The 16 page is indicated there, page A3 to A9.
17 Chapter 2 has the discussion of the taxes 18 that were collected by the utility, and briefly 19 discusses how those are distributed.
20 The environmental, this process and the 21 Environmental Impact Statement, is essentially a 22 disclosure tool and includes these because they are 23 related to the continued operation of the plant.
24 However, they are not directly related. They are not 25 within the scope, as we would say, of the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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13 1 Environmental Review. So, there's not further 2 evaluation of those comments, but they are included 3 for a disclosure.
4 This slide lists the environmental issues 5 the NRC Staff reviewed for the continued operation of 6 Kewaunee Power Station during the proposed license 7 period.
8 Just to briefly define what the potential 9 impacts mean for each of the areas, a small impact 10 would mean where the environmental effects are not 11 detectable or are so minor that they would neither 12 destabilize nor noticeably alter any important 13 attribute of that resource.
14 A moderate impact would be environmental 15 effects that are sufficient to alter noticeably but 16 not to destabilize important attributes.
17 And a large impact would be where the 18 environmental effects are clearly noticeable and are 19 sufficient to destabilize the resource.
20 The Staff's preliminary conclusion is that 21 all site-specific impacts related to License Renewal 22 are small.
23 I'll just go through each of them briefly.
24 And, if you're interested in more information, we can 25 discuss that after or maybe address it in response to NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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14 1 comments where I can point to you in the draft 2 document where they're fully discussed.
3 For air quality, there are no major 4 facility construction or refurbishments planned to 5 occur during the license renewal period. The issues 6 are addressed generically and determined to be small.
7 For ground water, Kewaunee Power Station 8 withdraws less than 100 gallons per minute of ground 9 water. And its once through a cooling system does not 10 utilize cooling towers or cooling ponds. And there 11 are no Category I or Category II issues.
12 Service water, for example, altered 13 current patterns or discharge of chlorine biocides or 14 sanitary wastes, these issues are all addressed 15 generically and are determined to be small.
16 For aquatic resources, including subjects 17 such as entrainment where aquatic organisms are drawn 18 into the cooling system, or impingement where aquatic 19 organisms are pinned against intake structure screens, 20 or heat shock where aquatic organisms are exposed to a 21 sudden elevation in water temperature, these are all 22 analyzed in Section 4.5 of the Draft Environmental 23 Impact Statement and are determined to be small.
24 Terrestrial resources are addressed 25 generically and the impacts are determined to be NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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15 1 small.
2 For human health, generic issues such as 3 noise and radiation exposure were determined to be 4 small.
5 And for electromagnetic field, acute and 6 chronic effects are reviewed in the document and 7 they're determined to be small.
8 Socioeconomics are addressed in Section 9 4.9, such as housing impacts, public services, offsite 10 land use, transportation, historic and archeological 11 resources are also determined to be small.
12 Waste management is addressed in Chapter 6 13 and the impacts there were also determined to be 14 small.
15 When reviewing the potential impacts of 16 License Renewal on the environment, the NRC Staff also 17 looks at the effects on the environment from other 18 past, present, or reasonably foreseeable future of 19 human actions.
20 The NRC Staff preliminarily concluded that 21 there are moderate Cumulative Impacts on aquatic 22 resources due to factors like water quality issues and 23 native aquatic community destabilization due to 24 invasive species introductions.
25 In other areas that the NRC Staff NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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16 1 considered the preliminary conclusions are that 2 Cumulative Impacts are small.
3 A major step in determining whether 4 License Renewal is reasonable or not is comparing the 5 likely impacts of License Renewal with the 6 alternatives, including other methods of power 7 generation or not renewing the Kewaunee Power Station 8 operating license.
9 In the Draft Supplement, the NRC Staff 10 considered natural gas combined cycle generation, 11 super critical coal-fired generation, and, as a part 12 of a combinational alternative, 13 conservation/efficiency, wood-fired generation, and 14 wind power.
15 Finally, the NRC Staff considered what 16 would happen if no action is taken and Kewaunee Power 17 Station shuts down at the end of its current license 18 without a specific replacement alternative.
19 The Staff found that impacts from energy 20 alternatives would vary widely based on the 21 characteristics of the alternatives. In most cases, 22 construction of new facilities created significant 23 impacts. And that's discussed in detail in the 24 document.
25 Based on our review of likely NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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17 1 environmental impacts, from License Renewal as well as 2 potential environmental impacts of alternatives to 3 License Renewal, the Staff's preliminary 4 recommendation in the Draft Supplemental Environmental 5 Impact Statement is that the environmental impacts of 6 License Renewal for Kewaunee Power Station are not so 7 great that License Renewal would be unreasonable, 8 which is some pretty serious legalese, but is 9 basically just saying that License Renewal is 10 acceptable, would be acceptable from an environmental 11 standpoint.
12 The Environmental Review, however, is not 13 yet completed. Your comments today and all written 14 comments received by the end of the comment period on 15 April 23rd will be considered by NRC Staff as we 16 develop the final SEIS which we plan to issue this 17 summer.
18 The final SEIS will contain the Staff's 19 final recommendation of the acceptability of License 20 Renewal based on the work we've already performed and 21 the input we receive in the form of comments during 22 the comment period. Your comments can help change the 23 Staff's finding in the final SEIS.
24 I am the primary contact for the 25 Environmental Review. John Daily is the Project NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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18 1 Manager for the Safety Review.
2 Hard copies of the Draft SEIS are 3 available on the table by the door. Well, sorry, 4 reference copies are available over there. We have 5 three of those, and then you can get electronic copies 6 on the CD or from the website on the screen which is 7 also included in your handout.
8 NRC Staff will address written comments in 9 the same way we address spoken comments received 10 today. To submit written comments, you may send them 11 to the NRC via email or conventional mail to this 12 address listed here and in your handout. If you have 13 written comments this afternoon, you may give them to 14 any NRC Staff member.
15 That concludes my remarks. And I will now 16 turn the meeting back over to Drew.
17 MR. STUYVENBERG: Thank you, Dan. What we 18 want to do next is go into a brief question and answer 19 period, just to give everyone an opportunity to ask 20 any clarifying questions that they might have about 21 Dan's presentation or about the NRC review process 22 before we go into the formal comment period for this 23 afternoon.
24 What I'd like to do is, if anybody has a, 25 a question about the presentation or the review NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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19 1 process, raise your hand, and I'll come to you with 2 the microphone. And then state your name, and you can 3 ask your question.
4 Is there anybody offhand? Okay.
5 If there are no questions, we'll go 6 directly into the comment period. At this point, I 7 don't have any cards from individuals who signed up to 8 offer comments.
9 Is there anybody, after seeing the 10 presentation or in the time since they'd come, who 11 would like to come up to the podium to offer a 12 comment?
13 Okay. Well, in that case, if there are no 14 comments, no questions on the review, that would 15 conclude the NRC's portion of this meeting.
16 Just to confirm, we appreciate your time 17 this afternoon coming out to hear from us.
18 This is not your only opportunity to 19 provide comments. You can do so electronically and by 20 US Mail. We have the addresses here. And we look 21 forward to hearing from some of you by April 23rd.
22 So, thank you greatly for your time. And 23 that would conclude today's meeting. Thank you.
24 (Whereupon, the meeting adjourned at 2:40 25 p.m.)
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