ML101320545
| ML101320545 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Cooper  |
| Issue date: | 04/07/2010 |
| From: | NRC/OCM |
| To: | |
| bennett Brady, DLR/NRR, 415-2981 | |
| References | |
| NRC-151 | |
| Download: ML101320545 (21) | |
Text
Official Transcript of Proceedings NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Title: Cooper Nuclear Station Licnese Renewal Public Meeting: Afternoon Session Docket Number: (n/a)
Location: Auburn, Nebraska Date: Wednesday, April 7, 2010 Work Order No.: NRC-151 Pages 1-20 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 COOPER NUCLEAR STATION LICENSE RENEWAL 7 + + + + +
8 Wednesday, April 7, 2010 9 Auburn City Council Chambers 10 1101 J Street 11 Auburn, Nebraska 12 13 1:30 p.m.
14 MEETING FACILITATOR:
15 Andy Imboden 16 PROJECT MANAGER:
17 Bennett Brady 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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2 1 P-R-O-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S 2 (1:30 p.m.)
3 MR. IMBODEN: Good afternoon, everybody.
4 My name's Andy Imboden. I'm the Branch Chief of the 5 Environmental Review Branch in the Division of License 6 Renewal. And I'd like to thank everyone for coming 7 out today and signing in, if you haven't yet. We're 8 here to discuss and collect comments on the Draft 9 Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement for the 10 License Renewal of Cooper Nuclear Station. It was 11 published not too long ago and we'll be accepting 12 public comments from now until the 5th of May, as 13 opposed to what it says in the document. So, this is 14 one way for the public to comment on this document.
15 We're also accepting written and e-mailed comments up 16 until midnight on the 5th of May.
17 This meeting's going to be in two parts.
18 The first, there's going to be a brief presentation by 19 the NRC staff to discuss the license renewal, 20 Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement, or EIS.
21 And then there will be a period of time you could ask 22 some questions about the presentation. But, if there 23 aren't any, we'll go right on, open up the floor to 24 receive comments from the public on the record on the 25 Environmental Impact Statement. And it's important to NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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3 1 help get comments on the record. We can't change the 2 Environmental Impact Statement unless there's a 3 written record of it. And so that's why we have a 4 transcriptionist, and that's why the sign-in sheet and 5 the cards. And when you get up here, please state 6 your name clearly and the organization you represent, 7 if you do represent an organization.
8 Nobody's really signed up to speak, so I 9 don't think there's going to be a time constraint. I 10 don't think that will be necessary. And just a matter 11 of business, the restrooms are right through here.
12 Please silence your cell phones. And there's NRC 13 feedback forms that we handed out. Postage is free.
14 Write your comments, drop it in the mailbox, or hand 15 it to one of the NRC staff. We'll take it back and it 16 will help us improve our public meetings in the 17 future. There's also copies of the presentation, as 18 well, and I believe most people got as they went in.
19 If you need one, raise your hand and I'll hand it out 20 to you.
21 I would like to introduce the NRC's main 22 speaker today. Bennett Brady is the project manager 23 for this little operation, and she's from the Division 24 of License Renewal in the Office of Nuclear Reactor 25 Regulation. So, does anyone need a copy of the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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4 1 presentation or any other materials before Bennett can 2 start?
3 (No response.)
4 Go ahead.
5 BENNETT BRADY 6 MS. BRADY: Good afternoon. As Andy 7 mentioned, my name is Bennett Brady. I'm the 8 Environmental Project Manager of the Cooper License 9 Renewal at the NRC. As project manager, it was my 10 responsibility to coordinate the reviews of our 11 environmental engineers. We have an excellent staff 12 who's looked at all the different environmental 13 issues, provided me their reviews, and we've used this 14 to publish the document that we're talking about 15 today, the Draft Supplement to the Environmental 16 Impact Statement for License Renewal for Cooper 17 Nuclear Power Plant.
18 The National Environmental Policy Act of 19 1969, which we refer to as NEPA, says that all federal 20 agencies before they make certain decisions have to 21 analyze the environmental impact of that decision.
22 And the decision, of course, we're talking about today 23 is whether or not to renew Cooper's Nuclear Station 24 license renewal. We have completed our review, and at 25 this phase, we have published it for comment on NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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5 1 February the 18th, and we are here to briefly describe 2 what it presents and to get your comments.
3 Today I'm going to talk -- I'll try to be 4 very brief, about what our document covers. I'll 5 describe the license renewal process, and then I will 6 summarize our findings and issues related to the 7 environmental impact, and also then tell you about our 8 schedule for producing the final Environmental Impact 9 Statement. And then, the remaining time will be for 10 your comments.
11 Although we're taking comments today, I 12 should mention, like Andy, we also take written 13 comments. People who prefer to send them in, we're 14 happy to take them. They receive the same 15 considerations as the oral comments.
16 The NRC was established to regulate 17 civilian uses of nuclear materials, including 18 licensing of nuclear power plants. NRC licenses 19 plants to operate for 40 years with the option to 20 renew their license for an additional 20. This is 21 part of the process as a safety review NRC uses, and 22 then there's also the environmental review license 23 renewal.
24 But in all aspects of our work, we have 25 three primary missions. Number one is to protect NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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6 1 public health and safety. To promote common defense 2 and security. And to protect the environment. Next 3 slide, please.
4 This is a very high-level diagram of the 5 license renewal process. Along the top is our safety 6 review, and along the bottom is the environmental 7 review, which I'll talk more about on the next slide.
8 These two reviews are going along in parallel, and at 9 the end, there, you see, they feed into our final 10 decision on license renewal. Our process begins when 11 the applicant submits their application. Then we go 12 through -- going along the top there, the safety 13 review, which looks at the application to see if it's 14 complete and sufficient information for us to make our 15 decision. We have a number of on-site inspections.
16 After the evening meeting today, the regional 17 inspector will be giving his presentation. We visit 18 the site with a number of audits and then we, after 19 that, the staff reviews the application in very great 20 detail and comes out with their Safety Evaluation 21 Report. We've just yesterday released that Safety 22 Evaluation Report -- Draft Evaluation Report. We'll 23 be presenting it to our ACRS Committee on May the 5th.
24 And all of these documents, inspection reports, 25 environmental review, safety evaluation review, feed NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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7 1 into NRC's decision. There is also optional hearing.
2 At this point, we haven't had any requests for 3 hearings and we really don't anticipate in connection 4 with Cooper's license renewal. Next slide, please.
5 This is the bottom half of that diagram I 6 was just showing you. The yellow boxes there are 7 points where the public can provide input to our 8 process. When the license renewal application comes 9 in, that's also an environmental report that's 10 submitted as part of that and that's partly from what 11 -- uses information that partly provides for our 12 review on the environmental impact. NRC usually has a 13 meeting in the area to talk to the local officials, 14 meet the public, and get a background for the license 15 renewal process.
16 We then begin our environmental review 17 around the lower left, and we again have another 18 public meeting to receive comments on the scope of our 19 environmental review. Some of you may have attended 20 that meeting that we held here back in February 2009.
21 We also have a site environmental audit to 22 look at the site and learn about what may be impacted 23 by license renewal.
24 All of these reviews then feed into what 25 we call the Draft Supplement to the GEIS, the document NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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8 1 here. I'll speak a little bit more about what I'm 2 talking about, what the GEIS is and why this is a 3 supplement on the next slide. And then we are right 4 here in this process of the orange -- yellow box in 5 the middle of where we have this meeting to present 6 our results and to get comments on our draft SEIS. As 7 I mentioned before, we'll be receiving hearings until 8 May the 5th. We will then take into consideration all 9 the comments that we receive. These comments could 10 change our views on the environmental impacts, and 11 then these will fit into our final supplement, which 12 also, again, as I mentioned, goes into the NRC's 13 decision on the application. Next slide, please.
14 A couple times I mentioned GEIS. That 15 stands for Generic Environmental Impact Statement.
16 This is a document that the NRC staff developed in 17 1996 and 1999 which looked at all the impacts that 18 relicensing a nuclear power plant might have. They 19 looked at all the issues or impacts and they 20 categorized them into two types, what we call Category 21 1 issues are issues that -- very general and would 22 apply to all nuclear power plants in the same way.
23 Then there was the Category 2 issues that 24 we call the site-specific issues where the staff 25 couldn't come to an agreement of the impact of those NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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9 1 issues except by doing a site-specific study. And 2 that's the main thing that we're focusing on this 3 document and talking about today are the site-specific 4 impacts.
5 The staff then reviewed the impacts and 6 they assigned a level of environmental impact to each 7 of the general issues, the Category 1 issues. Either 8 they were categorized as small, moderate or large.
9 But the SEIS, as I mentioned, they have certain issues 10 that were site-specific and required the site to do a 11 site-specific analysis. And these are the ones that 12 are published in our draft. That's why we call it 13 Draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement, the 14 site-specific issues.
15 Although I say we're talking about site-16 specific issues, we also look at the general issues to 17 see if there might be some new or additional 18 information that might change our assessment on the 19 assessments that were given when the GEIS was 20 published. This we also, in addition to looking at 21 the impacts, we look at what we call cumulative 22 impacts which I'll talk about, and we also look at 23 alternatives. How might the energy needs that Cooper 24 now provides be met with alternate energy sources?
25 All of this goes into the final review of our proposed NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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10 1 action as I'll talk about later. Next slide, please.
2 3 I mentioned that there was site-specific 4 issues that required the staff to do more detailed 5 analysis. This table here shows all of the site-6 specific issues related to Cooper Nuclear Station that 7 our staff analyzed in depth. For all of these issues, 8 as you can see on the right, the staff determined that 9 the environmental impact of license renewal would be 10 small. I'll talk a little bit more about some of 11 these issues on the next slide, please.
12 These are the site-specific issues that we 13 found that might have an impact on the aquatic 14 resources at Cooper. These set of issues right here 15 on this slide, they all relate to Cooper's cooling 16 system. As you probably know, Cooper withdraws water 17 from the Missouri River, returns it heated to the 18 Missouri River, and this has an impact on small 19 animals, small fish and shellfish. And this document 20 contains the large discussion on the Missouri River 21 and the impact that this might have.
22 We found that as far as entrainment and 23 impingement of fish and shellfish -- entrainment means 24 pulling little fish through the plant's system.
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11 1 structure. We analyzed it. We found that there was a 2 very small level of impact on entrainment and 3 impingement of fish and shellfish.
4 NPPD has installed new equipment that 5 should improve this. They have plans to install more 6 equipment. And overall, license renewal might have a 7 positive impact on the entrainment and impingement of 8 fish.
9 And then there's also heat shock, the 10 impacts of thermal discharge on fish and shellfish.
11 After reviewing all of these extensively, the NRC 12 found that that would just be a small impact on 13 aquatic resources. Next slide, please.
14 So far, I've just been talking about what 15 would be the impact of renewing the license of Cooper.
16 The staff also looks into what we call cumulative 17 impacts. This is looking at, over time, and over all 18 other actions that might be taking place during this 19 time, past, present, and future. By the past, we 20 mean, when Cooper first started operation. The 21 present is the current operation. And the future is 22 the next 20 years license renewal. And we're not just 23 looking at, say, as a license renewal. We're looking 24 at all -- everything that's going on that might have 25 an impact on the environment during this period.
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12 1 For example, on the aquatic resources, we 2 did an extensive analysis of what's going on with the 3 Missouri River and we found that it's an unstable 4 ecosystem, maybe even to the point of being called 5 degraded. Because it is unstable by NRC's definition 6 of large impact, we said that there was a large 7 cumulative impact on aquatic resources. But recall 8 for the single impact of license renewal, we said it 9 was a small impact.
10 Terrestrial resources. When NRC looked at 11 license renewal alone, we said that might be a small 12 impact on terrestrial resources, but when we look at 13 the cumulative impact over all time and all actions, 14 that may be a moderate impact on terrestrial 15 resources.
16 For all other areas, environmental areas, 17 we found that there would be a small cumulative 18 impact. Next slide, please.
19 NEPA also requires that any federal agency 20 who is planning on taking action that they also 21 consider alternatives to that action. In this case, 22 the action is license renewal, so the staff must also 23 provide an option that allows for power generation 24 capability beyond the term of a current nuclear power 25 plant operating license to meet the future generating NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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13 1 needs.
2 The staff began their analysis of 3 alternatives. They had 19 different alternatives for 4 meeting the energy needs. Some of these alternatives 5 were just not really technically feasible yet. Some 6 of them didn't meet -- probably wouldn't meet the 7 energy needs. Some just had more environmental 8 impacts, obviously, than options we were considering.
9 In the end, NRC decided to look at three of the 10 environmental options, energy options, in depth. The 11 supercritical coal-fired power plant, natural gas 12 combined cycle units, two of those, and then a 13 combination of alternatives, one combined cycle gas-14 fueled unit, 250 wind turbines, and energy 15 conservation, the public agrees to conserve energy, to 16 use less energy.
17 The first two, supercritical coal-fired 18 and the natural gas-fired combined cycle, are 19 considered to be more environmentally friendly, to 20 have less impact on the environment than the 21 conventional coal-fired and gas-fired plant.
22 And then we also, sort of a fourth option 23 was what we call the no-action alternative. NRC takes 24 no action, Cooper is required to shut down on or 25 before 2014. Actually, this is not -- it's not really NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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14 1 an option, because the energy needs that Cooper now 2 provides would not be met. Next slide, please.
3 This is our preliminary findings on these 4 alternatives. The coal-fired alternative is the least 5 environmentally favorable alternative due to the 6 impacts from air quality conditions and construction 7 impacts. The gas-fired alternative would have 8 slightly lower impacts due to air emissions and 9 construction. The combined alternative that I 10 mentioned would have greater impacts due to 11 construction. And all other alternatives capable of 12 meeting the energy needs served by Cooper have greater 13 impacts than the proposed action of license renewal.
14 When we compare the alternatives side by side with the 15 license renewal impact. That is the least impacts on 16 the environment. Next slide, please.
17 When we take together our review of the 18 single impacts, the cumulative impacts, and the 19 alternative options, the NRC concludes that the 20 environmental impacts of license renewal for Cooper 21 Nuclear Station are not so great as to make license 22 renewal unreasonable. This is our preliminary 23 conclusion, although we're not finished yet. Next 24 slide.
25 This is the schedule for producing our NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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15 1 final SEIS. We are, right now, at the SEIS public 2 meeting. We will continue to receive comments on the 3 SEIS until May the 5th. At that point, we will review 4 the comments and take it into consideration what the 5 public comments have been, would they change our 6 finding on any of these environmental impacts. As I 7 said, it can be either written or presented at this 8 meeting orally. And then our schedule is to produce 9 the final SEIS in July of this year. Next slide.
10 This just provides some information. As I 11 mentioned, I'm the Environmental PM. It's my 12 telephone and e-mail address. Tam Tran is our Safety 13 PM. Tam could not be here because he's been busy 14 getting out our Safety Evaluation Report. There are 15 also copies of our draft SEIS at your Auburn Memorial 16 Library and there are also copies online. The address 17 there is in our handout. Next slide.
18 As I mentioned, we welcome written 19 comments. People who prefer to send written comments, 20 we receive them by e-mail or by regular mail. There's 21 also a new Internet site, regulations.gov, and you can 22 go on there and get copies of any documents or 23 regulations and submit comments online. And there's 24 information on how to find our documents, submit 25 comments there. And then you can come see us in NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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16 1 Rockville, Maryland, give us your comments, if you 2 would like.
3 This completes my presentation. Now I 4 turn the meeting back over to Andy.
5 MR. IMBODEN: Thank you, Bennett.
6 Just two or three things. First, does 7 anyone have any questions about the presentation?
8 (No response.)
9 One of the things I'm really excited about 10 is this regulations.gov. It's a new way to submit 11 comments. Instead of throwing your e-mail into a 12 black box and wondering if it ever got there, 13 regulations.gov, you could see your comment right away 14 when you submit it, so it gives you that assurance 15 that it will be responded to, and you could also see 16 everybody else's comments. You could see -- We're 17 going to put like, when the EPA comments on our draft, 18 you could see what EPA has to say and that kind of 19 thing. So, that's interesting.
20 The other thing is, with the alternatives 21 and the NRC's decision-making standard, we don't have 22 to pick the most environmentally friendly alternative.
23 But, in this case, the license renewal is, you know, 24 at least from what we could tell so far, that is the 25 most environmentally friendly alternative. So, that NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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17 1 should make the NRC's job easier.
2 And with that, I just would -- I don't 3 think there's anybody who's signed up to submit a 4 comment. Oh, is there a yellow card up there?
5 Would you like to come up, state your 6 name, your organization, if you have one, and then 7 your comment then. I'm not going to limit your time, 8 because --
9 MR. ENGLES: I got an hour?
10 (Laughter.)
11 MR. IMBODEN: Maybe not an hour.
12 BOB ENGLES 13 Thank you very much. My name is Bob 14 Engles and I'm the mayor of Auburn, and I have 15 submitted a letter of support to you. And I just 16 wanted to make a couple brief comments in regard to 17 this process.
18 First of all, from the environmental 19 standpoint, the people of Auburn and Nemaha County are 20 very much in support of the relicensing process and we 21 are very much comfortable with the environmental 22 aspects of Cooper Nuclear Station. I've talked to 23 literally hundreds of farmers and fishermen on both 24 sides of the river in regard to the impact 25 environmentally of Cooper Nuclear Station, and I've NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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18 1 never talked to anyone who has a problem with that.
2 So, we are very much in support of that.
3 Also, I'd like to comment that Cooper 4 Nuclear Station is not just a power-generating 5 facility for us here. We feel that the people who 6 work at Cooper Nuclear Station, the people that work 7 on site here, even some of the top executives from 8 corporate headquarters who are here today. These 9 people are our friends, our allies, they're part of 10 the fabric of our community. We are -- we feel very 11 blessed to have Cooper Nuclear Station here with us, 12 both the plant over there and the two support 13 facilities that are here in Auburn. I don't think you 14 will ever find a community, a county community, or a 15 region like southeast Nebraska that would be more in 16 support of the consideration that you would give for 17 relicensing Cooper Nuclear.
18 And I would be glad to answer any 19 questions you have now or at any time in the future in 20 regard to NPPD or Cooper Nuclear Station. Thank you.
21 MR. IMBODEN: Thank you so much and we'll 22 get this entered in on the record.
23 Is there anything else? Please come up 24 and state your name.
25 GLEN KRUEGER NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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19 1 My name is Glen Krueger, G-l-e-n, 2 K-r-u-e-g-e-r. I was a former hospital administrator 3 here for 31 years, retired in 2002. Totally great 4 cooperation with Cooper. There was some -- a couple 5 of small accidents. Went very well, the cooperation 6 between them and us. Cooper did a wonderful job of 7 educating, providing the necessary materials.
8 At first when, many years ago, '71-'72, 9 when it first started, we was a little concerned.
10 That was alleviated very quickly. Soon as we were 11 educated as to how to handle in case there was a 12 problem and we was very proud to find out that we'd 13 never had any great problems with them. Some small 14 accidents were handled quite well.
15 I am very much in support of this, though 16 I am not personally the hospital administrator at this 17 time, but those 31 years, we was very proud to have 18 them over there and had no problem at all with them.
19 Thank you.
20 MR. IMBODEN: Thank you.
21 Is there anyone else who would like to 22 submit a comment?
23 (No response.)
24 If not, we have this reserved for three 25 hours2.893519e-4 days <br />0.00694 hours <br />4.133598e-5 weeks <br />9.5125e-6 months <br />, is that correct? If not, I'm going to NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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20 1 temporarily pause the formal meeting for half an hour 2 and if nobody comes up before then, then we'll close 3 it from the record.
4 (Whereupon, at 2:00 p.m., on April 7, 5 2010, the public meeting was concluded.)
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