ML103190125
| ML103190125 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Indian Point  |
| Issue date: | 11/09/2010 |
| From: | Boska J Plant Licensing Branch 1 |
| To: | |
| Boska J, NRR, 301-415-2901 | |
| References | |
| 2.206, G20100655, OEDO-2010-0854, TAC ME4920, TAC ME4921, NRC-559 | |
| Download: ML103190125 (20) | |
Text
Official Transcript of Proceedings NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Title:
10 CFR 2.206 Petition Review Board RE Indian Point Nuclear Generating Unit Docket Number:
50-247, 50-286 Location:
(telephone conference)
Date:
Tuesday, November 9, 2010 Work Order No.:
NRC-559 Pages 1-19 Edited by John Boska, NRC Petition Manager 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
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2 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 3
+ + + + +
4 10 CFR 2.206 PETITION REVIEW BOARD (PRB) 5 CONFERENCE CALL RE:
6 INDIAN POINT NUCLEAR GENERATING UNIT NOS. 2 AND 3 7
+ + + + +
8 TUESDAY, 9
NOVEMBER 9, 2010 10
+ + + + +
11 The above-entitled teleconference was 12 held at 10:30 a.m., TED QUAY, Petition Review Board 13 Chair, presiding.
14 PETITIONER: PAUL BLANCH 15 PETITION REVIEW BOARD MEMBERS:
16 TED QUAY, Chair, Deputy Director, Division of Policy 17 and Rulemaking, NRR 18 JOHN BOSKA, Petition Manager, Division of Operating 19 Reactor Licensing, NRR 20 TANYA MENSAH, PRB Coordinator, Division of Policy 21 and Rulemaking, NRR 22 RAO TAMMARA, Office of New Reactors 23 JIM TRAPP, Division of Reactor Safety, Region I 24 BRICE BICKETT, Division of Reactor Projects, Region I 25 26
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TABLE OF CONTENTS 1
AGENDA ITEM PAGE 2
A. Welcome and Introductions 4 3
John Boska, Petition Manager 4
B. PRB Chairman's Introduction 9 5
Ted Quay, PRB Chair 6
C. Petitioner's Presentation 12 7
Paul Blanch, Petitioner 8
D. PRB Chairman's Closing Remarks 18 9
Ted Quay 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
MR. BOSKA: We will proceed. So I would 2
like to thank everyone for attending this meeting. My 3
name is John Boska. And I am the NRC's Petition 4
Manager for this petition.
5 We're here today to allow the petitioner, 6
Mr. Paul Blanch, to address the Petition Review Board 7
regarding his 2.206 petition dated October 25th, 2010, 8
on the gas pipelines at Indian Point Nuclear 9
Generating Unit numbers 2 and 3, which are located 10 just north of New York City on the Hudson River and 11 are operated by Entergy Nuclear Operations, 12 Incorporated, who may also be referred to as the 13 licensee or Entergy.
14 Mr. Blanch also submitted a supplement to 15 his petition, which was dated November 5th, 2010. I 16 am the Petition Manager for the petition. The 17 Petition Review Board Chairman is Ted Quay.
18 As part of the Petition Review Board's 19 review of this petition, Mr. Blanch requested this 20 opportunity to address the Petition Review Board, 21 which also be referred to as the PRB.
22 This meeting is scheduled to conclude by 23 11:30. The meeting is being recorded by the NRC 24 Operations Center and will be transcribed by a court 25
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reporter. The transcript will become a supplement to 1
the petition, and the transcript will also be made 2
publicly available.
3 A. WELCOME AND INTRODUCTIONS 4
MR. BOSKA: I would like to open this 5
meeting with introductions. As we go around the room, 6
please be sure to clearly state your name, your 7
position, and the office that you work for within the 8
NRC for the record.
9 I am John Boska. I am a project manager 10 in the Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation, which is 11 referred to as NRR.
12 MS. MENSAH: I am Tanya Mensah. I am the 13 2.206 Coordinator in the Office of NRR.
14 MR.
BOYLE:
Patrick
- Boyle, project 15 manager, NRR.
16 CHAIRPERSON QUAY:
Ted
- Quay, Deputy 17 Director, Division of Policy and Rulemaking, NRR.
18 MS. SEXTON: Kimberly Sexton, attorney 19 with the Office of the General Counsel.
20 MR. GULLA: Gerry Gulla, Office of 21 Enforcement.
22 MR. TAMMARA: Rao Tammara. I'm the 23 technical reviewer for external hazards in NRO.
24 MR. BOSKA: All right. We have completed 25
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introductions in this room. At this time, are there 1
any NRC participants from NRC headquarters on the 2
phone?
3 (No response.)
4 MR. BOSKA: Are there any NRC participants 5
from the NRC regional office on the phone?
6 MR. BICKETT: This is Brice Bickett, NRC 7
Region I, senior project engineer.
8 MR. McCARVER: Sam McCarver, NRC Region I, 9
project engineer.
10 MR. MEYER: Glenn Meyer, senior inspector, 11 Region I, DRS.
12 MS.
SCRENCI:
Diane
- Screnci, public 13 affairs officer.
14 MR. TRAPP: Jim Trapp, Branch Chief, 15 Security, Region I.
16 MR. BICKETT: That's it from here, John.
17 MR. BOSKA: All right. Thank you.
18 Are there any representatives for Entergy 19 on the phone?
20 MR. WALPOLE: Yes, John. It's Bob 21
- Walpole, Licensing Manager.
Tom
- Orlando, our 22 Engineering Director, is here also.
23 MR. GAGNON: Danny Gagnon, Site Security 24 Manager.
25
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MR. SKONIECZNY: John Skonieczny, lead 1
senior engineer for design engineering, Civil-2 Structural.
3 MR. WALPOLE: Are there any other Entergy 4
personnel on the phone?
5 MR. DENNIS: Yes. Bill Dennis.
6 MR. WALPOLE: Anyone else?
7 (No response.)
8 MR. WALPOLE: All right. John, that's it 9
for us.
10 MR. BOSKA: All right. Thank you.
11 Mr. Blanch, would you please introduce 12 yourself for the record?
13 MR. BLANCH: Yes. My name is Paul Blanch.
14 I reside in West Hartford, Connecticut. I am the 15 author of the 2.206 petition along with supplement 1.
16 And I would like to make sure that the 17 court reporter confirms that he/she is on the line. I 18 didn't hear confirmation there.
19 MR. BOSKA: Do we have the court reporter 20 on the line?
21 (No response.)
22 MR. BOSKA: Mr. Blanch, what will occur is 23 that since this call is being recorded in our 24 Operations Center, a recording will be sent to the 25
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court reporter, and they will transcribe the call from 1
the recording.
2 MR. BLANCH: Okay. And I assume that I 3
will have, like in the past, a copy of the transcript 4
to review.
5 MR. BOSKA: That will be done, yes.
6 MR. BLANCH: Okay.
7 MR. BOSKA: All right. Are there any 8
others, such as members of the public, on the phone 9
that wish to introduce themselves?
10 MR. SHADIS: Yes. This is Raymond Shadis.
11 I am with New England Coalition.
12 And I have reviewed Mr. Blanch's 2.206 13 petition. I would like to comment on it after Mr.
14 Blanch is finished and after NRC, if they have any 15 questions, have had their questions satisfied.
16 MR. BOSKA: All right. Thank you, Mr.
17 Shadis.
18 Any others from the public?
19 MS. CONLEY: This is Maureen Conley with 20 Platts, McGraw-Hill.
21 MR. BOSKA: Thank you, Ms. Conley.
22 Any others?
23 MR. LOCHBAUM: This is Dave Lochbaum with 24 the Union of Concerned Scientists.
25
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MR. BOSKA: Thank you, Mr. Lochbaum.
1 Do we have any others?
2 MR. EDDY: This is Paul Eddy, New York 3
Public Service Commission.
4 MR. BOSKA: Thank you, Mr. Eddy.
5 Any others?
6 (No response.)
7 MR. BOSKA: All right. I would like to 8
emphasize that we each need to speak clearly and 9
loudly to make sure that the recording will correctly 10 pick up on this call. If you do have something that 11 you would like to say, please first state your name 12 for the record.
13 For those dialing into the meeting, please 14 remember to mute your phones to minimize any 15 background noise or distractions. If you do not have 16 a mute button, this can be done by pressing the keys 17
- 6. To unmute your phone, press the *6 keys again.
18 Please do not place this call on hold 19 since many phone systems play music when a call is on 20 hold, which is distracting for the other callers.
21 Thank you.
22 At this time I will turn it over to the 23 Petition Review Board Chairman, Ted Quay.
24 25
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B. PRB CHAIRMAN'S INTRODUCTION 1
CHAIRPERSON QUAY: Good morning. I'm Ted 2
Quay, the Petition Review Board Chairman. Welcome to 3
this meeting regarding the 2.206 petition submitted by 4
Mr. Blanch.
5 The purpose of today's meeting is to give 6
the petitioner an opportunity to provide any 7
additional explanation or support for the petition 8
before the Petition Review Board makes an initial 9
recommendation on whether or not to accept this 10 petition for review.
11 This is our second call with Mr. Blanch.
12 In the first call on November 2nd, 2010, Mr. Blanch 13 requested time to review the redactions made by the 14 NRC staff in the public version of his petition and to 15 prepare a supplement to his petition. The transcript 16 of that call is publicly available from the NRC's 17 Agencywide Documents Management and Access System, 18 ADAMS, under accession number ML103081077.
19 This meeting is not a hearing, nor is it 20 an opportunity for the petitioner to question or 21 examine the Petition Review Board on the merits or the 22 issues presented in the petition request.
23 No decision regarding the merits of this 24 petition will be made at this meeting.
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 Following this
- meeting, the Petition 1
Review Board will conduct its internal deliberations.
2 The outcome of this internal meeting will be 3
discussed with the petitioner.
4 The Board members remain the same as 5
listed in the previous call. Would anybody like me to 6
review them?
7 (No response.)
8 CHAIRPERSON QUAY: Okay. Hearing not, we 9
also have legal advice from Kimberly Sexton from the 10 NRC's Office of General Counsel and advice from Gerald 11 Gulla from NRC's Office of Enforcement.
12 As described in our process, the NRC staff 13 may ask clarifying questions in order to better 14 understand the petitioner's presentation and to reach 15 a reasoned decision whether to accept or reject a 16 petitioner's requests for review under the 2.206 17 process.
18 I would like to summarize the scope of the 19 petition under consideration and the NRC activities to 20 date. On October 25th, 2010, Mr. Blanch submitted to 21 the NRC a petition, ML number 103020293, under 10 CFR 22 2.206 regarding the potential hazard to the Indian 23 Point Nuclear Generating Unit Numbers 2 and 3 from the 24 gas pipelines that cross the site.
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 The petitioner requests that the NRC order 1
the licensee to demonstrate that the licensee has the 2
capability to protect the public in the event of a 3
rupture, explosion, or fire on the gas pipelines. The 4
petitioner also requests that the NRC review all 5
available information, including demanding necessary 6
information from the licensee, to ensure compliance 7
with all regulatory requirements.
8 Allow me to discuss the NRC activities to 9
date. On October 25th, 2010, the NRC received this 10 petition. This petition was assigned to the NRC's 11 Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation for evaluation.
12 On October 26th, the Petition Manager contacted the 13 petitioner to offer the opportunity to address the 14 PRB, to which the petitioner agreed. On November 2nd, 15 the PRB held a call with the petitioner, as I 16 mentioned previously. On November 5th, the petitioner 17 submitted a supplement to his petition.
18 As a reminder for the phone participants, 19 please identify yourself if you make any remarks as 20 this will help us in the preparation of the meeting 21 transcript that will be made publicly available.
22 Thank you.
23 And, at this point, I am going to turn it 24 over to you, Mr. Blanch.
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 MR. BLANCH: Thank you, Mr. Quay.
1 C. PETITIONER'S PRESENTATION 2
MR. BLANCH: Again, my name is Paul 3
Blanch. I am the petitioner. I understand that Mr.
4 Shadis, when I am done with my brief comments, will be 5
making some comments. And Mr. Lochbaum may be making 6
some comments.
7 Again, to reiterate, I filed a petition on 8
the 25th of October and supplemented it November 5th 9
of this year. And I assume that nothing will be 10 redacted from my supplement, as was done from my 11 original petition. That is a premise I am operating 12 because all of the information in my supplement came 13 directly from ADAMS and is available today.
14 I think the petition and its supplement 15 pretty much stands on its own. I reviewed it a few 16 times. And, as far as I'm concerned, it's pretty 17 clear unless the NRC has some questions about it.
18 What I would like to just add briefly are 19 some occurrences that have occurred in the nuclear 20 industry over the past few years. And Mr. Shadis and 21 maybe Mr. Lochbaum can amplify on some of these.
22 First of all, in the mid '90s, when 23 Connecticut Yankee went into decommissioning, shut 24 down permanently, there was discussion -- and I cannot 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 13 find any documentation, but I was actually working at 1
Northeast Utilities. And they were considering 2
tearing down Connecticut Yankee (Haddam Neck Nuclear 3
Plant) and putting a gas plant there. And the 4
internal decision -- and it may have involved the NRC 5
-- was "We don't want to put a gas plant there because 6
it is too close to the dry cask storage facilities."
7 We have seen at Fort Saint Vrain where the 8
NRC issued an information notice where there was a gas 9
line about a half a mile away and the NRC did not 10 believe that there was a proper analysis done.
11 We saw for the NEF facility out in Eunice, 12 New Mexico an analysis done on the dangers of having a 13 low-pressure small-diameter gas line and the analysis 14 showed that the results were unacceptable from that 15 standpoint.
16 Mr. Shadis will probably be commenting on 17 some of the occurrences that he observed at Maine 18 Yankee. And I will let him speak for himself when I 19 am done here.
20 We recently saw the transformer explosion 21 at Indian Point Unit 2 last Sunday and noticed by some 22 of the media reports there was a blast shield between 23 the transformer and some structures. I'm not going to 24 get into any, try not to get into any security-related 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 information.
1 Certainly the gas line has the capability 2
of having even more energy released from it should it 3
rupture. And you can see in my supplement where I 4
question the fact that this gas, natural gas, will not 5
explode unless it is in a confined space.
6 I
think I
have provided plenty of 7
documentation that gas lines do not have to be in a 8
confined space, as the NRC believes, to explode.
9 Again, there is the possibility of a blast or thermal 10 shield that could alleviate or reduce the probability 11 that a rupture or explosion of this gas line would 12 impact some of the vital structures that are within a 13 few hundred feet of Indian Point Unit 3 primarily, but 14 we see the numbers are pretty close to Indian Point 15 Unit 2.
16 And unless there's any questions about the 17 clarity of my 2.206 petition and its supplement and I 18 would also like to say that the energy contained and 19 released within this gas line, one could do an 20 engineering calculation, but the gas released in one 21 hour2.430556e-4 days <br />0.00583 hours <br />3.472222e-5 weeks <br />7.9905e-6 months <br />, the energy released from that brief rupture, 22 explosion, fire, whatever we want to call it, would 23 exceed the energy release from the atomic bomb, the 24 first atomic bomb, dropped on Japan in 1945. So we're 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 15 not talking about an insignificant amount of energy or 1
potential energy being released.
2 And if there are no questions from NRC 3
personnel, I would like to next turn it over to Mr.
4 Shadis. And then if Dave Lochbaum has anything to 5
say, I would welcome his comments on the whole 6
situation.
7 Thank you.
8 CHAIRPERSON QUAY: Are there any comments 9
here in headquarters, questions?
10 (No response.)
11 CHAIRPERSON QUAY: Do we have anybody from 12 the region with any questions?
13 (No response.)
14 CHAIRPERSON QUAY: Hearing none, I think 15 we can go ahead, Mr. Blanch, and turn it over to Mr.
16 Shadis.
17 MR. SHADIS: Thank you.
18 This is Ray Shadis with New England 19 Coalition.
20 I would just like to underscore the 21 seriousness of this issue as a safety issue. And I 22 think I would address that anecdotally.
23 The Maine Yankee decommissioning contract 24 in 1997 was initially issued to Stone and Webster 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 Engineering. Stone and Webster inserted a clause in 1
that contract which allowed them the option of 2
building a gas-fired plant on the Maine Yankee site 3
following decommissioning.
4 And at the time that Maine Yankee was 5
beginning to build its independent spent fuel storage 6
installation, the company let it be known that the gas 7
plant plans would have to be delayed until after the 8
spent fuel was removed, the reason being concern for 9
the potential impact of an accident or act of sabotage 10 with the natural gas pipeline, that would be required 11 to be built within about 300 yards of the ISFSI 12
[Independent Spent Fuel Storage Installation] should 13 they go ahead with the plans for a gas plant.
14 So it was very clear then that a gas plant 15 in proximity of stored fuel represented an untenable 16 hazard. In reviewing the photographs of the Indian 17 Point
- site, taking proximate measurements to 18 components and facilities that might be affected, I 19 can only, you know, look at this as an analogous 20 situation but without corresponding attention to the 21 safety hazard, a kind of double standard approach.
22 So I would urge NRC, at least at this 23 point, to recognize that there is significant, 24 sufficient safety concern here to at least take this 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 issue up for consideration.
1 Thank you.
2 MR. BLANCH: This is Paul Blanch. I would 3
like to just comment on what Mr. Shadis said.
4 Concern was raised at Maine Yankee. A 5
typical line feeding a gas power plant of about 800 6
megawatts or 500 megawatts is about 12 inches in 7
diameter and probably at high pressure similar to 500 8
to 700 pounds.
9 The gas lines at Indian Point are not 10 distribution lines, but they are transmission lines.
11 And one of them is 30 inches. And there are one or 12 two additional 24 or 26-inch lines operated at 700 13 pounds.
14 With respect to Connecticut
- Yankee, 15 because they couldn't put a gas plant on the site at 16 Connecticut Yankee, they decided to build a gas plant 17 across the river, away from the ISFSI. And on 18 February 1st of this year when the gas plant at 19 Middletown, Connecticut was just about complete, the 20 gas line exploded, a 12-inch gas line, killing 8 21 people, causing $800 million of damage.
22 So there is a risk. And it boggles my 23 mind that there appears to be no problem at Indian 24 Point, where the gas lines run within a few hundred 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 feet of vital structures. But, yet, if one wants to 1
put a smaller gas line, lower pressure in the 2
proximity of an independent fuel, dry cask storage, 3
that are protected by 12 inches or more of concrete, 4
then the NRC seems to have a strong reluctance to 5
allow that.
6 And Dave Lochbaum, if he has any comments, 7
I would welcome to hear them at this time.
8 MR. LOCHBAUM: This is Dave Lochbaum. I 9
appreciate the opportunity, but I have no comments.
10 CHAIRPERSON QUAY: At this point I will 11 ask one more time if there is anybody here in 12 headquarters who has any questions for Mr. Blanch, Mr.
13 Shadis, or Mr. Lochbaum.
14 (No response.)
15 CHAIRPERSON QUAY: Hearing none, does the 16 region have any questions?
17 MR. BICKETT: No, no comments or questions 18 from the region.
19 CHAIRPERSON QUAY: Okay. Does the 20 licensee have any questions?
21 MR. WALPOLE: No questions, no comments.
22 This is Bob Walpole. Thank you.
23 D. PRB CHAIRMAN'S CLOSING REMARKS 24 CHAIRPERSON QUAY: Before I conclude 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 19 meeting, members of the public may ask questions about 1
the NRC's process for 2.206 petitions. However, as 2
stated at the opening, the purpose of this meeting is 3
not to provide an opportunity for the public to 4
question or examine the Petition Review Board 5
regarding the merits of the petition request. Are 6
there any questions on the 2.206 process from the 7
public?
8 (No response.)
9 CHAIRPERSON QUAY: Hearing none, Mr.
10 Blanch, thank you for taking time to provide the NRC 11 staff with clarifying information on the petition 12 you've submitted.
13 With that, this meeting is concluded. And 14 we will be terminating the phone call. Thank you all 15 for your participation. Goodbye.
16 MR. BLANCH: Thank you.
17 (Whereupon, the foregoing matter was 18 concluded.)
19 20 21