ML101320618
| ML101320618 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Cooper  |
| Issue date: | 04/07/2010 |
| From: | NRC/OCM |
| To: | |
| bennett Brady, DLR/NRR, 415-2981 | |
| References | |
| NRC-151 | |
| Download: ML101320618 (16) | |
Text
Official Transcript of Proceedings NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Title: Cooper Nuclear Station License Renewal Public Meeting: Evening Session Docket Number: (n/a)
Location: Auburn, Nebraska Date: Wednesday, April 7, 2010 Work Order No.: NRC-151 Pages 1-2 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 7:00 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
2 P-R-O-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S 3 (7:00 p.m.)
4 MR. IMBODEN: Good evening, everyone. My 5 name's Andy Imboden. I'm the Chief of the 6 Environmental Review Branch and the Office of Nuclear 7 Reactor Regulation in the Division of License Renewal.
8 And I'd like to thank everyone for coming out this 9 evening to discuss. The NRC's here to receive public 10 comments on our Draft Supplemental Environmental 11 Impact Statement for the License Renewal of Cooper 12 Nuclear Station, so, what are the environmental 13 impacts of extending the license of Cooper Nuclear 14 Station by 20 years.
15 This meeting is one way to participate.
16 We have also -- we're accepting written and e-17 mailed comments as we'll hear later, the details on 18 that. This meeting will be in three parts. The first 19 part is a presentation by the NRC staff, Bennett 20 Brady, the project manager. And the second part will 21 be open to the public to receive comments that you 22 want to say on the record. The meeting is being 23 transcribed, so please come up to the podium, state 24 your name, your organization, if you represent one, so 25 that way we can get a clean transcript.
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3 1 After the public comment period is over, 2 we're going to stop the transcript and then we're 3 going to hear a presentation from Greg Pick. He was a 4 team leader for the inspection team at Cooper, and 5 he's based out of our Arlington office. And he'll 6 present, you know, what they found at the inspection.
7 I don't believe anyone has signed up to 8 speak, but we'll open the floor anyway. And just as a 9 matter of business, the restrooms are right through 10 here. Please silence your cell phones. And there are 11 feedback forms provided. Postage is free. Give us 12 your comments so we can improve our public meetings.
13 Pop them in the mail or hand it to one of the NRC 14 staff. There's also copies of the presentation, too, 15 as well. If anyone needs one, raise your hand and 16 I'll give it to you.
17 With that, I'd like to invite Bennett 18 Brady to come up. Thank you.
19 BENNETT BRADY 20 Good evening. As Andy told you, I'm 21 Bennett Brady, and I was the Environmental Project 22 Manager for the Cooper Nuclear Station license 23 renewal. My role as the Environmental Project Manager 24 was to coordinate the environmental review. We have a 25 lot of environmental engineers in the NRC to review NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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4 1 the various aspects, the impacts that might be 2 associated with license renewal. I've gathered their 3 comments and completed this document, which is the 4 analysis that we did on the site-specific impacts.
5 Why do we do this? The National 6 Environmental Impacts (sic) Act, NEPA, as we call it, 7 requires that all federal agencies making certain 8 decisions must evaluate the impact of those decisions 9 on the environment. They have a very systematic 10 approach for doing this and the NRC follows that in 11 doing their review for license renewal.
12 As Andy also mentioned, at the end of my 13 presentation, I would welcome comments to you. Of 14 those of you who don't want to give oral comments, 15 written comments -- there are several ways I'll talk 16 about where you can input your written comments.
17 Just to give you an outline of my -- of 18 the meeting today, I'll try to be very brief in my 19 comments and telling you something about the license 20 renewal process, the two types of reviews we do. I'll 21 give you a summary of our environmental findings, our 22 findings related to various aspects like the air, 23 water, surface issues. I'll give you the schedule 24 that we have for producing our final Environmental 25 Impact Statement. This is a draft now. And then I'll NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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5 1 also explain how you can provide written comments to 2 us. Next slide, please.
3 The NRC's regulatory responsibility is to 4 manage all civilian uses of nuclear materials, and 5 this, of course, includes licensing and monitoring of 6 nuclear power plants. We conduct the license renewal 7 reviews as a safety review and environmental review.
8 Tonight, we're talking about the results of our 9 environmental review. But in all of these aspects, 10 the NRC's mission is threefold. First, to protect 11 public health and safety. Promote common defense and 12 security. And to protect the environment. Next 13 slide, please.
14 This slide presents a very high level 15 diagram of license renewal process. It begins, of 16 course, when the licensee submits their application.
17 As I mentioned, there are two parallel reviews that 18 are going on at the same time. The upper part of this 19 diagram shows the safety review. The lower part is 20 the environmental review, which I will speak more 21 about on the next slide.
22 During the safety review, we have on-site 23 inspections. Greg Pick will be talking about one of 24 those at the end of this meeting. We also have audits 25 in which we visit the Cooper Nuclear Station to look NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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6 1 at their Aging Management Programs and the scope of 2 license renewal at their plant. We review the 3 application in depth and then we do an independent 4 review of practically all aspects of the application.
5 And then, at the end of this top level process, we 6 publish our Safety Evaluation Report. The Draft 7 Safety Evaluation Report was just produced yesterday.
8 A month from now on May 5th, we will have another 9 public meeting with one of our advisory counsels to 10 review the -- what we call the Draft SER.
11 There's also, on occasion, there may be 12 hearings associated with the license renewal process, 13 and that provides input into our final decision. We 14 don't anticipate or expect that there will be any 15 hearings related with the Cooper Nuclear Station. Next 16 slide, please.
17 This is a more in depth review of the 18 bottom part of the previous diagram in which it shows 19 the environmental review process. All of the yellow 20 boxes there are parts where we welcome input from the 21 public in our process. When the license applicant 22 submits their application for renewal, part of that 23 application is their environmental assessment. The 24 NRC reviews that, and then we begin our environmental 25 review in which we may have a meeting in the local NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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7 1 area to meet the public officials, talk to the public 2 there, and learn more about the plant. And then we 3 have another meeting, a scoping meeting. Some of you 4 may have attended that, in which we try to define the 5 scope of the environmental review and get public 6 comments on that.
7 We also conduct a site environmental audit 8 with our environmental reviewers. All of this goes 9 into what we call the Draft Supplement to the GEIS.
10 I'll use the word Draft SEIS several times, 11 supplement. I'll explain that a little bit more in 12 the next slide. We're now at the middle yellow box 13 here in which we get comments from the public on our 14 Draft SEIS. These comments, written or oral, are then 15 -- all of them are considered by our staff and they 16 could change our findings that we've published in the 17 draft.
18 At the end of the comment period, which is 19 May 5, we produce our final supplement to the GEIS.
20 And this is one of the inputs that goes into the NRC's 21 decision on applications. Next slide, please.
22 I've been mentioning what we call the 23 GEIS, G-E-I-S. That is short for Generic 24 Environmental Impact Statement. This was a document 25 prepared by the NRC that looks at all of the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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8 1 environmental areas that might be impacted by license 2 renewal. They, then, divided the issues, impacts, 3 into two categories. Category 1 are the issues that 4 respect to be applicable to all plants that have the 5 same impact at all plants. And the staff, in the 6 GEIS, categorized these issues according to the 7 environmental impact, either if they were small, 8 moderate, or large. And then -- that was the Category 9 1. Then there were the, what they call the Category 2 10 issues that were expected to be site-specific that 11 might depend on -- the environmental assessment might 12 be different for different plants. And those are the 13 issues that the NRC focuses in on in this volume of 14 the site-specific issues that apply to Cooper Nuclear 15 Station.
16 And again, when staff looks at these site-17 specific issues, they determine whether they should be 18 small, moderate, or large. Next slide, please.
19 This slide shows all the, what we call 20 site-specific issues that apply to Cooper Nuclear 21 Station. These -- we analyze these in depth and our 22 conclusions are there on the right. We found that all 23 the issues, site-specific issues related to Cooper, 24 that their impact on the environment would be small.
25 Next slide, please.
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9 1 Here is an example of some of the site-2 specific issues that relate to Cooper's cooling 3 system. As you likely know, the Cooper withdraws 4 water from the Missouri River, through the plant, 5 heats it, and then puts it back into the Missouri 6 River. This has impact on the small fish and 7 shellfish. In particular, there are three impacts.
8 The first two being entrainment and impingement of 9 fish and shellfish. By entrainment, which is primary 10 the smallest type of fish, they may be sucked in and 11 dragged through the plant. The impingement for larger 12 fish refers to pinning them on the intake structure of 13 the plant. We analyzed this. We noted that NPPD has 14 taken measures to reduce entrainment and impingement 15 with equipment they're installing. They have plans to 16 do more. And NRC staff concludes this would have a 17 small impact on entrainment and impingement and maybe 18 even a positive impact.
19 The other environmental impact here is the 20 heat shock, that is, the impact of thermal discharge 21 on fish and shellfish. We also reviewed a lot of old 22 studies. We've looked at the permits that NPPD is 23 using. We read a lot of old field studies and our 24 conclusion from this was that this also would have a 25 small impact. Next slide, please.
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10 1 To this point, I have been discussing what 2 the impact of relicensing Cooper would have on the 3 environment. In addition to looking at the impact of 4 license renewal, we also examine what we call the 5 cumulative impacts, that is the impact over time and 6 over all other actions, not necessarily license 7 renewal. What of other federal decision, what other 8 people are doing, and we try to determine what is the 9 environmental impact. And this, when you talk about 10 the past, present, and future, by the past, we mean 11 the time when Cooper began operation. The present, 12 the current operation. And then the future activities 13 go through 20 years of license renewal. Again, this 14 is looking at all impacts on the environment, not 15 necessarily license renewal. All the aquatic 16 resources, as I just mentioned, in the last slide, as 17 far as license renewal is concerned, the impact is 18 small on aquatic resources. However, when you look at 19 everything that is going on to the Missouri River, our 20 license reviewers found that the Missouri River is in 21 an unstable state and possibly degraded beyond the 22 thought of return. And so our conclusion is that that 23 would be large cumulative impacts on aquatic 24 resources.
25 Similarly, for terrestrial resources, when NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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11 1 we look at license renewal for Cooper, it was small, 2 but when we look at the cumulative impacts, it's 3 moderate impact.
4 In all the other environmental areas that 5 we considered, we found that the cumulative impact was 6 small. Next slide.
7 NEPA also requires that when a federal 8 agency is making a decision that might have an 9 environmental impact, that we also consider what 10 alternatives to our decision could we possibly make 11 and what are the environmental impacts of these 12 alternatives. And then the federal agency must 13 compare these alternatives to the alternative they are 14 considering.
15 The NRC staff began with 19 possible 16 alternatives to meeting the energy needs that Cooper 17 now provides. You see some of these would be to build 18 another coal- or gas-fired plant at the site, to 19 purchase power from other companies, to build a new 20 nuclear site, wind power, solar power, hydroelectric 21 power. Some of these were dismissed because they 22 couldn't meet the current nuclear needs. Some of 23 them, obviously, have a higher environmental impact.
24 But in the end, we selected three alternative energy 25 sources that we analyzed in depth to determine what NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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12 1 their impact was. These were the supercritical coal-2 fired power plant, natural gas-fired combined cycle 3 unit, and then a combination alternative that would 4 include one combined cycle gas-fired unit, 250 wind 5 turbines, and energy conservation, that's cutting back 6 on the energy use.
7 When we -- And there was also another 8 alternative, which was -- I guess it's not really an 9 alternative. It's what we call the no-action 10 alternative. That is, NRC takes no action on the 11 application and Cooper has to shut down on or before 12 2014. This would not meet the energy needs now served 13 by Cooper. Next slide, please.
14 Our preliminary findings from this review 15 of alternatives was that the coal-fired alternative is 16 the least environmental friendly due to the air 17 emissions and construction impact. The gas-fired 18 alternative has little slightly less environmental 19 impacts due to air emissions and construction. The 20 combination alternative that we talked about would 21 have large impacts due to construction costs. And 22 thus, all other alternatives capable of meeting the 23 energy needs served by Cooper have greater impacts 24 than the proposed action of license renewal. Next 25 slide, please.
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13 1 So, this is our preliminary conclusion 2 from our review of the impacts, the cumulative 3 impacts, and alternatives, the staff concludes in this 4 report that the environmental impacts of license 5 renewal for Cooper Nuclear Station are not so great as 6 to make license renewal unreasonable. However, this 7 is our preliminary conclusion with still more to be 8 done. Next slide.
9 This shows our schedule for the 10 environmental review. We're down here now, April 7, 11 holding the Draft SEIS Public Meeting. We've been 12 receiving comments and will continue to receive 13 comments until May the 5th, when our comment period 14 closes. The staff will then consider all of these 15 comments that could possibly change our conclusions 16 that we have in this document. And we will publish 17 our final SEIS in July of this year. Next slide, 18 please.
19 Here is some information about how you can 20 reach me, e-mail me, call me. Also, our Safety PM, 21 Tam Tran, who could not be here because he was getting 22 out the final SER report that I mentioned. The Draft 23 SEIS, there's copies over here, there are copies on 24 some CDs that we have here, it's also available at the 25 Auburn Memorial Library, and it's online at the NRC NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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14 1 website, and that is the address. You can go there 2 and get it. Next slide, please.
3 As I mentioned and Andy mentioned, we also 4 welcome written comments. Here's the address where 5 you can send them to us by -- either by e-mail or by 6 regular mail, our address. And also there is a new 7 website, regulations.gov that has all of the documents 8 and rules that the federal government is proposing.
9 And you can go to this site and get documents and 10 submit comments, and check back and see that your 11 comments are there and see comments that other people 12 are making. And, finally, you can come see us and 13 bring it to us in Rockville, Maryland.
14 That concludes my comments now, and I'll 15 turn it back over to Andy for comments people may 16 have.
17 MR. IMBODEN: Thank you, Bennett.
18 So, just to recap, there's a typo in the 19 Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement. It's in 20 -- In the written one, it says that comments are due 21 by April 6th, so I just want to reiterate the point 22 that they're really due May 5th.
23 So, does anyone have any questions to 24 Bennett on her presentation? Or, if not, we could go 25 to accepting general comments from the public. Nobody NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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15 1 signed in indicating that they would like to make a 2 statement, so I would just open the floor. Raise your 3 hand and I'll invite you up here.
4 Thanks everyone for coming out. And I'm 5 going to close the formal part of the presentation and 6 then we're going to hear from Greg Pick and what he 7 found on his inspection and his team's inspection.
8 Thanks.
9 (Whereupon, at 7:25 p.m., on April 7, 10 2010, the public meeting was concluded.)
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