ML103620789
| ML103620789 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Levy County |
| Issue date: | 12/28/2010 |
| From: | Olson M Nuclear Information & Resource Service (NIRS), Ecology Party of Florida, Green Party of Florida |
| To: | Anthony Baratta, Karlin A, Murphy W Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel |
| SECY RAS | |
| References | |
| RAS 19336, 52-029-COL, 52-030-COL, ASLBP 09-879-04-COL-BD01, +reviewedbca1 | |
| Download: ML103620789 (128) | |
Text
United States of America Nuclear Regulatory Commission Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Before Administrative Judges:
Alex S. Karlin, Chair Dr. Anthony J. Baratta Dr. William M. Murphy In the Matter of:
Dockets Numbers 52-029-COL and PROGRESS ENERGY FLORIDA, INC. 52-030-COL Combined License Application for Levy County Units 1 & 2 December 28, 2010 Interveners Reply to NRC Staff Answer: New Contention 12 In the above captioned proceeding, we review:
On November 15, 2010 the Ecology Party of Florida, the Green Party of Florida and Nuclear Information and Resource Service (Interveners) jointly filed a new contention (12) to which the NRC Staff has Answered (December 21, 2010); Interveners now reply. The November 15 date was established by a combination of negotiation (60 days from the publication of the Levy County Units 1 & 2 Draft Environmental Impact Statement for new contentions based on that document was part of the initial scheduling) and further extension was approved due to medical causes. This second extension applied only to matters pertaining to hydroecology. Contention 12 was filed timely in terms of this hybrid deadline insofar as Contention 12 is based on the DEIS and concerns hydroecological matters; in addition it is based on NEW information and was filed within 30 days of the event that created new information. Several of these points require additional clarification since apparently NRC staff do not understand the plain language of Contention 12. Interveners will also clarify that we did not understand certain terms of art that NRC Staff assert to have special meanings.
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First it is necessary to paint the issues of Contention 12 since NRC Staff has clearly not understood the issues we are bringing. We shall do so briefly - and wish to emphasize that while the language of Contention 12 may assume a certain level of comprehension, all of information was contained in the original filing if the reader had any basic knowledge of the physical elements that are referred to.
At present time, the Cross Florida Barge Canal (CFBC) flows from East to West - except for the tidal action, when it obviously fluctuates in direction. Since the flow is from East to West, there is a considerable amount of water that does not originate from the Gulf of Mexico. The assertion that all the water that the Cooling Water Intake Structure (CWIS) would consume would come from the Gulf of Mexico is wrong. The CWIS will obviously pull water from the Gulf, and will thereby reverse the predominant direction of flow in the CFBC, but it will also continue to consume the fresh water that is in the canal now. Currently that fresh water reaches the coastal waters including the estuary of the lower Withlacoochee River - and in fact is a surrogate for part of the flow that part of the river does not receive due to the construction of the CFBC. The restoration of a direct flow pathway of waters from the Upper Withlacoochee to the Lower Withlacoochee, while prospective, and not part of this proposed Federal action - is a plan (not a proposal) that predates the proposed nuclear reactors, and would have enormous hydroecological impacts on both the lower river, and the biologically diverse estuary and coastal waters. The construction of the CWIS is in direct conflict with the implementation of the Withlacoochee River restoration plan. This is clearly a hydroecological issue for an Outstanding Water of Florida. It is true that the matter of the CWIS is not new. What is new, and could not have been anticipated prior to the publication of the DEIS is Staffs approach to the assessment of alternate sites, which is greatly expanded over the ER, but nonetheless does not address these issues in terms of the incompatibility of the CWIS with the restoration plan. Interveners not only find that the matter of river restoration was not weighed in the assessment of the Levy site 2
as compared to other sites, but also note that NONE of the other sites would incur the very long-term delay of any prospect of implementing River restoration and that this LARGE impact should have been factored into the DEIS. The delay in river restoration would be for the term of the license, any license renewal and then whatever time through the decommissioning of the CWIS.
The admission of this contention for a hearing would certainly allow the development of the specific details of the river and estuary impacts and expert judgment in the matter.
Interveners have perhaps erred in providing some of the relevant documents that we think could form a basis for that development; perhaps in future we should simply provide references.
The second element of Contention 12 turns on a new proposal that has recently been acted on - that could not have been reviewed in the DEIS because it happened on October 20, 2010, after the publication of the DEIS. We note again that Contention 12 is filed within 30 days of the NEW information. This proposal would rededicate the CFB canal (while not impinging on navigation) by creating an in-land head of 2 feet that would reduce the inflow of tidal salt water, for purposes of impounding the fresh water that flows into the canal for municipal supply. Even with the restoration of flow from the Upper Withlacoochee, directly to the Lower Withlacoochee, the springs along the CFBC will continue to supply fresh water to the canal basin. While NRC Staff may not view this as a hydroecological issue - we remind Staff that Homo sapiens and its environment is in fact the primary purpose for the National Environmental Policy Act process that it has implemented, and that a species drinking water is a primary ecological issue.
In plain language: if the proposal is moved to the Crystal River Energy Center, both of these socially important, hydroecologically vital projects could proceed unhindered. The AP1000s would in fact be cooled with Gulf Water - rather than partially with Gulf Water; the 3
Withlacoochee River could be revived and the barge canal could serve an additional beneficial function.
Let it be noted that Interveners do not venture to endorse any site for the proposed reactors. Interveners hold a clear wish that this project will be withdrawn by the applicant altogether and not put on any site. Nonetheless, the transcript from the NRCs September 23, 2010 public meeting on the DEIS held during the evening in Crystal River (Attachment 1) clearly reflects a strong wish on the part of some of our Members, and their neighbors, that if the reactor project will be built, that it be an addition to the existing Crystal River Energy Center, rather than located on the proposed site in Levy County. See the comments of: Mr Hopkins (page 52, also invoking comments of Bette Burger at the afternoon meeting); Ms Foley (pages 65-67); Mr Jones (pages 75-77); Ms Sieling (page 94). Other speakers register concerns about the ground water impacts if the reactor is sited in Levy County and broad hydrological and hydroecological concerns.
It was NRC Staffs attack on the good reasons which form the basis for Interveners to bring matters late to the table, that caused sufficient reflection to remember hearing these voices at the public meeting in Crystal River, urging the reconsideration of the site selection.
The NRC Staffs answer have caused Interveners to note that an additional good reason to venture into these large matters at this juncture: the local people are asking for this outcome.
Whether the applicant or the Commission is willing to serve these voices (who are, by the way, more supportive of the project than the Interveners) remains to be seen; we, however, cannot turn away.
Whether one talks about preferable or superior the point of Contention 12 is that with respect impact to the human environment, the designated site is inferior - and the ways in which it is inferior should be weighed in the determination that is made under NEPA with respect 4
to viable alternatives: billions of gallons of drinking water and the restoration of a degraded river are priorities that NRC has an obligation not simply to note but rather to factor in to the outcome of its NEPA analysis - with whatever terms of trade it so chooses.
As for the newness of our action: as noted in the contention filing, the Withlacoochee Regional Water Supply Authority (WRWSA) met on October 20, 2010 and heard the proposal to create a freshwater impoundment in the CFBC. The minutes of that meeting are now available and attached here (Attachement 2) and state in part:
Mr. Hubbell recommended to the Board to accept this project as a long-term (20 to 25 years) alternative water supply project to be studied for consideration and development in the future when other alternative water supply projects are further analyzed. (WRWSA Minutes from Oct 20, 2010 page 2)
As stated on page 3, the Board unanimously passed a motion to accept Mr. Hubbells (Executive Director of the governor-appointed WRWSA) recommendation.
It is true that this action is prospective; so is Progress Energys. The function of the National Environmental Policy Act is to ensure that major federal actions are fully informed. This action on October 20 is material: the approval of 52-029-COL and 52-030-COL on the proposed Levy site would preclude the implementation of this alternate water supply for 1/2 century; likely longer. We do not think that this action was reasonably foreseeable by NRC Staff; it is NEW.
We find it to be a good reason to re-open the matter of where Progress Energy Florida would construct its proposed reactors. The existing Crystal River Energy Center (CREC) would remove the need to use water from the CFBC and would allow the restoration of the upper and lower Withlacoochee.
If the process of identifying alternative sites results only in a paper trail to support a fete a compli decision of the applicant, then Interveners have made a bad calculation as to the value of the time invested in this project. We do not judge the new generation of regulators be 5
so futile. We stand by our submission of Contention 12. We find that although it is a bit of a patchwork quilt, all of the relevant admissibility requirements have been met, an Contention 12 should be admitted for a full hearing.
Respectfully Submitted,
__________/s/__________________
Mary Olson Nuclear Information and Resource Service Southeast Office, PO Box 7586 Asheville, North Carolina 28802 828-252-8409 on behalf of the Co-Interveners December 28, 2010 6
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Official Transcript of Proceedings NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Title:
Levy Nuclear Plant Draft EIS Public Meeting: Evening Session Docket Number: 52-029, 52-030 Location: Crystal River, Florida Date: Thursday, September 23, 2010 Work Order No.: NRC-443 Pages 1-112 NEAL R. GROSS AND CO., INC.
Court Reporters and Transcribers 1323 Rhode Island Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 234-4433 1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
2 1 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 2 + + + + +
3 PUBLIC MEETING 4 + + + + +
5 DRAFT ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT STATEMENT FOR THE 6 LEVY NUCLEAR PLANT UNITS 1 AND 2 7 COMBINED LICENSE APPLICATION 8 EVENING SESSION 9 + + + + +
10 Thursday 11 September 23, 2010 12 + + + + +
13 The meeting convened at the Plantation Inn, 9301 14 West Fort Island Trail, Crystal River, Florida, at 15 7:00 p.m.
16 BEFORE:
17 FRANCIS "CHIP" CAMERON, Facilitator 18 ROBERT SCHAAF, Presenter 19 GORDON "DON" HAMBRICK, Presenter 20 DOUGLAS BRUNER, Presenter 21 22 23 24 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AI"D TRA~ISCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE I, W (202) 23H433 WASHII':;TOII, D,C, ICC5;J701 WWN. nealrgross,com
3 1 I N D E X 2 AGENDA PAGE 3 Welcome and Introductory statements 4 4 u.s. Army Corps of Engineers statements 14 5 Overview of NRC Environmental Review Process 20 6 Public Questions 33 7 Public Comments 59 8 Closing statements 110 9
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4 1 PRO C E E DIN G S 2 7:03 P.M.
3 MR. CAMERON: Good evening, everyone, and 4 welcome to the public meeting. My name is Chip 5 Cameron, and I'm going to serve as your facilitator 6 for the meeting tonight. And in that role, I'm going 7 to try to help you all to have a productive meeting.
8 Our topic tonight is the NRC, the Nuclear 9 Regulatory Commission, and the Army Corps of Engineers 10 environmental review of the license application that 11 the NRC received from Progress Energy Florida to build 12 two new nuclear power plants here in Levy County. And 13 the environmental review that the NRC and the Corps of 14 Engineers conducted is documented in a draft 15 Environmental Impact statement.
16 And I just wanted to talk a little about 17 meeting process, so that you'll understand what to 18 expect during the meeting tonight. And I'd like to 19 tell you about the format for the meeting. I'll talk 20 a little bit about some simple ground rules and then 21 introduce the speakers from the NRC and the Corps of 22 Engineers, who will be talking to you tonight.
23 In terms of the meeting format, it's a 24 two-part format, or at least there's two segments to 25 it. And the first segment is to give you information NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AI"D TRA~ISCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE I, W (202) 23H433 WASHII':;TOII, D,C, ICC5;J701 WWN. nealrgross,com
5 1 on the environmental review process and also on what 2 the findings are in the Draft Environmental Impact 3 statement. And we're going to have a couple of 4 speakers from the NRC and one speaker from the Army 5 Corps of Engineers to give you that background.
6 We'll have some time for questions after 7 those presentations to make sure that we were clear 8 about everything. And then we're going to go to the 9 second segment of the meeting. And that's an 10 opportuni ty for the NRC staff and the Army Corps of 11 Engineers staff to listen to you, to what your 12 concerns, your recommendations, your advice are 13 advice is on these environmental review issues.
14 And if you want to talk to us about that 15 tonight, if you could fill out a yellow card that's 16 back at the desk, if you haven't already done so, and 17 then we'll ask you to come up to this podium to speak 18 to us.
19 The NRC staff is going to tell you about 20 their written comment process. We're also taking 21 written comments on these issues. But I want to 22 assure you that anything that you say tonight will 23 carry the same weight as a written comment, and you 24 can feel free to amplify what you say tonight by 25 sending in a written comment.
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6 1 In terms of ground rules for the meeting, 2 the first one is please wait until all the 3 presentations are done before you ask questions. And 4 that way we'll give you a complete picture of what's 5 going on. And if you do have a question, to signal me 6 and I'll bring you this. I t used to be well, it 7 was never a cordless microphone, but usually it's 8 cordless. But I'll try to get this out to you. If 9 not, I'll have to ask you to come closer to me and 10 just introduce yoursel f and we'll try to answer your 11 question for you.
12 If we can't get to all the questions 13 before we have to go onto the comment period, the NRC 14 staff and our expert consultant staff, they have the 15 white name tags on, they will be glad to try to answer 16 any questions that you have.
17 And the second ground rule, I would ask 18 that only one person speak at a time. First of all, 19 so that we can give our full attention to whomever has 20 the floor at the moment. And secondly, so that 21 Gretchen, our court reporter, our stenographer, will 22 be able to get a clean transcript. She will know who 23 is talking at the moment.
24 Third ground rule is, I would ask you to 25 be concise in your comments so that we can make sure NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AI"D TRA~ISCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE I, W (202) 23H433 WASHII':;TOII, D,C, ICC5;J701 WWN. nealrgross,com
7 1 that we can hear from everyone. Usually, we have a 2 three to five minute guideline for speaking, because 3 we might have 4C or 50 people that we need to hear 4 from. We don't have anywhere near that tonight, so we 5 can be a little bit flexible on the time.
6 So, I'll just start watching at the five 7 minute point, and I may have to ask you to sum up, if 8 you get into the, you know, the seven or eight minute 9 range. Not that you have to take that much time. But 10 if I do ask you to sum up, I apologize in advance 11 because I know that you spent a lot of time preparing 12 for these meetings.
13 And during the comment period, when you're 14 talking to us from up there, the NRC and the Army 15 Corps of Engineers staff, they're not going to be 16 responding to things that you say. They're going to 17 be listening to what you're saying. But they will 18 document their response to your comments and any 19 questions that you ask from up there when they prepare 20 the Final Environmental Impact Statement.
21 And, finally, just please extend courtesy 22 to everybody. You may hear opinions that are 23 different from yours. But please respect the person 24 who's giving those comments.
25 And let me go to introductions. And I'm NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AI"D TRA~ISCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE I, W (202) 23H433 WASHII':;TOII, D,C, ICC5;J701 WWN. nealrgross,com
8 1 going to tell you a little bit about the background of 2 each of these people, so you'll get a clear picture of 3 what their areas of expertise are.
4 And we're going to start with Bob Schaaf.
5 And Bob is the Chief of the Environmental Review 6 Branch that's managing the review on this application 7 from Progress Energy Florida, and that branch is in 8 the Division of Site and Environmental Review in the 9 Office of New Reactors at the NRC.
10 And Bob's been with the NRC for about 20 11 years and doing a lot of environmental reviews, not 12 only for these new reactor applications, but also for 13 the license applications that the NRC gets to renew 14 the license for existing operating plants.
15 He's also been a project manager for 16 operating reactors, and before he came to the NRC he 17 was at the Charleston Nuclear or the Charleston 18 Naval Shipyard, working on nuclear submarine overhaul.
19 He has a Bachelor's Degree in Mechanical Engineering 20 from Georgia Tech. Bob is going to give you an 21 overview of the NRC responsibilities.
22 And then we're going to go to the Corps, 23 U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and we have Don Hambrick 24 with us. And he's the Project Manager for the Corps 25 of Engineers on their review aspects on this license NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AI"D TRA~ISCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE I, W (202) 23H433 WASHII':;TOII, D,C, ICC5;J701 WWN. nealrgross,com
9 1 application. And he's been with Corps for a number of 2 years and I always forget the number, but 3 MR. HAMBRICK: Twenty-four.
4 MR. CAMERON: Twenty-four. Twenty-four 5 years. And he's the Senior Project Manager with them 6 and he's in the Northern Permits Section of the 7 Jacksonville District of the Corps of Engineers. He's 8 a biologist. His Bachelor's Degree is in Chemistry 9 and Biology, and he has a Master of Science Degree 10 from Louisiana State University. He's going to tell 11 you about the Corps review so that you can understand 12 that.
13 And then we're going to go to the real 14 substantive part of the presentation and go to Doug 15 Bruner, who's right here, who is with the NRC and he's 16 the Proj ect Manager on the Environmental Review of 17 this license application. He is in Bob Schaaf's 18 branch. And Doug has been with the NRC for three 19 years. He's been working on environmental reviews for 20 new reactors.
21 And before that, he was with the Army 22 Corps of Engineers, working as an Environmental 23 Specialist and a Geologist. And in his work with the 24 Army Corps of Engineers, he spent some time in Iraq 25 working on the Iraqi electricity program. And he was NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AI"D TRA~ISCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE I, W (202) 23H433 WASHII':;TOII, D,C, ICC5;J701 WWN. nealrgross,com
10 1 also in Afghanistan on construction proj ects for the 2 Afghanistan National Police Force. He has a 3 Bachelor's in Geology from the University of Southern 4 Maine and he has a Master's Degree in Engineering 5 Geology from Purdue University.
6 And just let me introduce a couple of 7 people briefly so that you know who they are. We have 8 Scott Flanders here. And Scott is the -- he's the 9 Division Director of the Division of Site and 10 Environmental Reviews in the Office of New Reactors, 11 and that's where Bob's environmental review branch is.
12 We have our Safety Project Manager.
13 You'll hear about the two parts to the NRC review and 14 that's Brian Anderson, the Safety Project Manager.
15 I don't know if is Roger here, our 16 resident? Okay, Roger's not here now. But we have a 17 number of NRC staff in various disciplines; radiation, 18 safety, emergency planning here tonight so that we can 19 try to answer all of your questions.
20 And I just want to make one little note on 21 the Army Corps of Engineers and the NRC to make sure 22 that you know what that relationship is like. There's 23 two federal agencies involved here, two decisions.
24 The NRC's decision on whether to grant the license to 25 Progress Energy Florida and the Army Corps decision on NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AI"D TRA~ISCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE I, W (202) 23H433 WASHII':;TOII, D,C, ICC5;J701 WWN. nealrgross,com
11 1 whether to grant the permit for the work that Progress 2 needs to do.
3 There's one Environmental Impact statement 4 that's going to provide support for each agency's 5 decision under the National Environmental Policy Act.
6 NRC is the lead agency because that's the 7 broader decision, whether to license the plant. And 8 the Corps of Engineers is a cooperating agency. They 9 have the very important job of deciding whether to 10 issue a permit for the work that's going to be done in 11 wetlands and navigable waters. And Don' s going to 12 tell you more about that.
13 Each of these agencies has a public 14 participation process. This public meeting on the 15 Draft Environmental Impact statement is the 16 traditional part of the traditional NRC public 17 participation process.
18 The Corps of Engineers public 19 participation process involves what's called a public 20 hearing. NOW, that public hearing is being satisfied 21 by this NRC public meeting tonight.
22 And with that, I' 11 let everybody get to 23 the substance of tonight's discussion and turn it over 24 to Bob.
25 MR. SCHAAF: And thanks, Chip. As Chip NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AI"D TRA~ISCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE I, W (202) 23H433 WASHII':;TOII, D,C, ICC5;J701 WWN. nealrgross,com
12 1 said, my name's Bob Schaaf. I'm Chief of one of the 2 branches responsible for Environmental Reviews for 3 proposed new nuclear power plants. I would like to 4 welcome everyone to this meeting about our 5 environmental of Progress Energy's application to 6 construct and operate two new nuclear power units at 7 the Levy County site.
8 I'd also like to take a moment to thank 9 you all for coming out. Public participation is an 10 important part of our environmental review process and 11 so we appreciate your attendance. We do find that 12 local communities are often aware of issues that can 13 help us in completing our review.
14 First, I'll take just a few moments to go 15 over the purposes of tonight's meeting. I'll begin 16 with a few words about the mission of the Nuclear 17 Regulatory Commission. Then, as Chip mentioned, Don 18 will discuss the Corps role in the environmental 19 review and in -- and their permit decision.
20 You'll hear Don describe, as Chip 21 mentioned, you'll hear Don describe tonight's meeting 22 as a public hearing for the Corps' purposes. The 23 Corps hearing is distinct from the NRC's formal 24 licensing hearing process.
25 Today's meeting is not part of that formal NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AI"D TRA~ISCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE I, W (202) 23H433 WASHII':;TOII, D,C, ICC5;J701 WWN. nealrgross,com
13 1 hearing process for the NRC. Rather, we are here to 2 gather comments for consideration in completing our 3 environmental review.
4 Following these introductory remarks, 5 Doug, the Project Manager for the environmental review 6 of the Levy County application, will describe the 7 review process, preliminary findings, and ways that 8 public comments may be provided on the Environmental 9 Impact statement.
10 And most importantly, as Chip mentioned, 11 we're here tonight to receive your comments on the 12 Draft Environmental Impact statement. After our 13 presentations, you'll have the opportunity to provide 14 comments. And as was mentioned, the meeting is being 15 transcribed so that we can accurately capture your 16 comments and reflect on them.
17 So, now I'd like to provide a brief 18 background on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The 19 NRC was created by Congress in 1974 and began 20 operations at the beginning of 1975 to provide 21 independent oversight of civilian uses of nuclear 22 materials, including the generation of electricity in 23 nuclear power plants. Our mission is to protect 24 public health and safety, promote common defense and 25 security, and protect the environment. The NRC is not NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AI"D TRA~ISCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE I, W (202) 23H433 WASHII':;TOII, D,C, ICC5;J701 WWN. nealrgross,com
14 1 a proponent of any project. We do not propose, build, 2 or operate any nuclear facilities.
3 In this case, Progress Energy Florida has 4 proposed to construct and operate two new nuclear 5 power units on the Levy county site. Our 6 responsibility is to ensure that this facility can be 7 constructed and operated safely and securely and in a 8 manner that protects the environment from radioactive 9 materials. We must make those determinations before 10 we decide whether to issue the requested licenses.
11 That concludes my introductory remarks.
12 Again, I would like to express my thanks to everyone 13 for coming out and joining us tonight.
14 MR. HAMBRICK: Good evening, everybody.
15 As Chip said, my name is Don Hambrick. I am a Senior 16 Project Manager with the Army Corps of Engineers 17 Jacksonville District in the Regulatory Division. I 18 work for our North Permits Branch, which covers the 19 northern two-thirds of Florida and includes four 20 sections with offices in Pensacola, Panama City, 21 Jacksonville, Gainesville, and Cocoa. I personally am 22 stationed out of Panama City.
23 The Corps of Engineers Jacksonville 24 District, as co-sponsor with the NRC of this public 25 hearing, welcomes you and encourages your NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AI"D TRA~ISCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE I, W (202) 23H433 WASHII':;TOII, D,C, ICC5;J701 WWN. nealrgross,com
15 1 participation by the submittal of your written or 2 spoken comments during this public hearing, or 3 submittal of written comments that you may send 4 directly to the NRC.
5 Review of your comments are an important 6 part of the Corps' evaluation of the proposed 7 construction of Progress Energy Florida's Levy Nuclear 8 Power Plant units 1 and 2. And it includes the 9 upgrade or construction of approximately 180 miles of 10 transmission lines. Next slide.
11 Now, a lot of people say, why is the Corps 12 of Engineers involved in projects like this? And, of 13 course, it's because of various Federal statutes and 14 Regulations.
15 The Corps of Engineers, we also refer to 16 ourselves at USACE, is the Federal agency responsible 17 for administrating section 404 of the Clean Water Act 18 and section 10 of the River and Harbors Act of 1899.
19 The Corps regulates the discharge of dredge and fill 20 material into all jurisdictional waters of the united 21 states, including wetlands.
22 And we also regulate dredging and the 23 construction of structures in, over, or under all 24 navigable waters, including wetlands located wi thin 25 those navigable waters.
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16 1 Corps permit decisions are federal actions 2 and must comply with the National Environmental Policy 3 Act, commonly called NEPA.
4 We are also charged to review projects 5 through when they involve the discharge of dredged 6 or fill material into waters of the United states, 7 that they comply with the requirements of the section 8 404 Ib) (1) Guidelines. We also are charged for all the 9 proj ects for review to determine whether or not that 10 project is contrary to the public interest. That's 11 called our public interest review.
12 But be aware, the standard is not that we 13 have to find that the project is in the public 14 interest. The standard is that the proj ect is not 15 contrary to the public interest. And the next slide.
16 The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is the 17 lead agency in the preparation of the Environmental 18 Impact statement under NEPA, and as already been 19 mentioned, the Corps is the cooperating agency in the 20 preparation of the Environmental Impact statement.
21 The Corps evaluation decision whether to 22 issue a Department of Army permit, will be documented 23 in a separate Record of Decision, which we will refer 24 to as ROD, and also is combined with our statement of 25 findings, no earlier than 30 days after issuance of NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AI"D TRA~ISCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE I, W (202) 23H433 WASHII':;TOII, D,C, ICC5;J701 WWN. nealrgross,com
17 1 the Final EIS. The ROD will reference information in 2 the FEIS and present any additional information 3 required by the Corps to support the permit decision.
4 Under our regulations, the Corps is 5 neither a proponent nor opponent of any project 6 undergoing our regulatory review. The Corps has not 7 made a decision as to whether or not a permit will be 8 issued. The solicitation and review of the comments 9 provided in response to the DEIS are part of our 10 evaluation of this project. Okay. The next slide.
11 This is just a general overview of what 12 the Corps is regulating, what we are being asked to 13 permit. As far as on the actual project site itself, 14 at the reactor site, including the associated 15 structure, such as administration building, parking 16 lots, roads, switch yards, et cetera, about 312 -- no 17 excuse me, 372 acres of fill material -- 372 acres of 18 wetlands would be impacted.
19 Associated with the transmission lines, an 20 additional approximately 319 acres of wetlands would 21 be impacted.
22 For the blowdown pipelines that would 23 carry the cooling water and discharge it from Levy 24 down to the Crystal River Energy Complex a distance of 25 about 13 miles, approximately 30 acres of wetlands NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AI"D TRA~ISCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE I, W (202) 23H433 WASHII':;TOII, D,C, ICC5;J701 WWN. nealrgross,com
18 1 would be impacted.
2 Then, at the Cross-Florida Barge Canal, 3 PEF proposes to construct the boats -- excuse me, a 4 barge slip and boat ramp in order to transport large 5 components of the facility up to the site. And 6 approximately 1.1 acres of wetlands and open waters 7 would be impacted by that.
8 We will also be evaluating for whether or 9 not to issue a permit for structures in navigable 10 waters, which would include the cooling water intake 11 structure at the Cross-Florida Barge Canal and the 12 cooling water discharge structure at the Crystal River 13 Energy Complex. Okay. Next slide.
14 Under our regulations, the Corps will not 15 provide responses during this hearing to your 16 comments. All oral testimony will be recorded and a 17 transcript prepared by the NRC. Comments, as I said 18 before, may also be submitted in writing through the 19 end of the DEIS comment period to the NRC, which is 20 October 27th.
21 All received comments will become part of 22 the official record for the project and will be 23 addressed by the Corps with the NRC in the Final EIS 24 or separately by the Corps in its combined Record of 25 Decision and statement of Findings.
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19 1 At the bottom, the last two bullets, the 2 third one provides there our permit application 3 number. Tha t' s how we reference this proj ect, SAJ-4 2008-00490 (IP). That stands for Individual Permit and 5 that's the type of permit that we're evaluating for, 6 and my initials. And then my name, e-mail, and phone 7 number.
8 And you're free to contact me if you have 9 any questions in regard to the actual process that 10 we're going through in the evaluation. Your 11 opportunity, again, to comment on the merits and 12 concerns of the proj ect are afforded through this 13 public hearing, plus the comments you can submit up 14 through October 27th.
15 If you do have any comments in regard to 16 the Corps permitting process this evening, I'll be 17 happy to answer them after the public hearing or after 18 this meeting.
19 I do want to offer my thanks to the NRC 20 and to their consultants with the Paci fic Northwest 21 National Labs and Information Systems Laboratories for 22 all of the hard work, and it really has been a lot of 23 work that went into the preparation of the DEIS, the 24 work that will be continuing on through the 25 development of the Final EIS, and for putting on this NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AI"D TRA~ISCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE I, W (202) 23H433 WASHII':;TOII, D,C, ICC5;J701 WWN. nealrgross,com
20 1 workshop and meeting. Thank you.
2 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Don. We're going 3 to hear from Doug Bruner right now.
4 MR. BRUNER: Thank you, Chip. Again, my 5 name is Doug Bruner. And I would like to thank 6 everybody for coming out here and giving us your 7 feedback on the Draft Environmental Impact statement.
8 It's interesting how quickly time passes.
9 It's been almost two years ago since we were last here 10 seeking your input for the Draft Environmental Impact 11 statement. This evening, I would like to provide a 12 brief overview of the environmental review process, as 13 well as the environmental review.
14 In July 2008, Progress Energy submitted an 15 application to the NRC for combined licenses for the 16 Levy proj ect. The combined licenses, if granted, 17 would be authorization to construct and operate two 18 new nuclear units on the Levy site.
19 For the Levy combined license application, 20 the NRC is conducting two reviews at the same time, a 21 safety review and an environmental review. And this 22 evening I will be discussing the environmental review.
23 Oh, we're on the wrong slide. There you 24 go. The product of our environmental review is the 25 Environmental Impact statement and it's called an EIS.
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21 1 The staff began its review of Progress Energy's 2 application for combined licenses for the Levy site in 3 October of 2008, which included the review of the 4 applicant's environmental report that was included as 5 part of the application.
6 The staff conducted site audits, visits to 7 alternative sites, and interacted with local 8 officials, and state and other federal agencies, as 9 well as Native American tribes.
10 The staff gathered information through 11 scoping to help us determine which issues should be 12 considered in the review. We also requested 13 additional information from Progress Energy.
14 All of this information was used to 15 prepare the Draft Environmental Impact statement, 16 which was published this past August, last month.
17 As a member of the team, the Corps has 18 been on site visits and has actively participated in 19 agency interactions and technical reviews in 20 developing the EIS. Next slide, please.
21 This slide is an overview of NRC's 22 environmental review process. This step-wise approach 23 is how we meet our responsibilities under the National 24 Environmental Policy Act. We are currently in the 25 comment period stage for the Draft Environmental NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AI"D TRA~ISCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE I, W (202) 23H433 WASHII':;TOII, D,C, ICC5;J701 WWN. nealrgross,com
22 1 Impact statement, which is the fourth bullet down.
2 Previously, the NRC and Corps were seeking 3 your input for the EIS during the scoping period. And 4 your comments were presented in a Scoping Summary 5 Report which was published in May of 2009. It is also 6 inc I uded as Appendix D to the Environmental Impact 7 Statement for those comments that were within scope of 8 the environmental review.
9 To assist us in our review, the NRC and 10 Corps are currently seeking public comments on the 11 Draft Environmental Impact Statement. The 75-day 12 comment period on the Draft EIS began on August 13 and 13 will remain open until October 27th.
14 Once the comment period is over, the staff 15 will start processing all of comments that were 16 received on the Draft Environmental Impact Statement.
17 That includes anything that you would like to share 18 with us this evening.
19 Based on the comments that we receive, we 20 will adjust our analysis as needed and finalize the 21 Environmental Impact Statement.
22 The target date for issuing the draft --
23 for issuing the Final Environmental Impact Statement 24 is July of 2011. The comments and responses on the 25 Draft Environmental Impact Statement will be included NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AI"D TRA~ISCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE I, W (202) 23H433 WASHII':;TOII, D,C, ICC5;J701 WWN. nealrgross,com
23 1 as an Appendix in the Final Environmental Impact 2 statement. Next slide.
3 To prepare the EIS, we have assembled a 4 team with backgrounds in the necessary scientific and 5 technical disciplines. The NRC has contracted with 6 Pacific Northwest National Labs, as well as 7 Information Systems Laboratories to assist us in 8 preparing the Environmental Impact Statement.
9 The NRC team, which includes the PNNL and 10 ISL contractors, is comprised of a wide range of 11 experts knowledgeable in environmental issues and in 12 nuclear power plants.
13 As mentioned before, the Corps has also 14 provided technical expertise in developing the EIS.
15 This slide shows most of the resource areas that were 16 considered in the EIS, and many of these staff experts 17 are here this evening to receive your comments.
18 The NRC would like to provide time for you 19 to present comments this evening; therefore, I will be 20 discussing the results of the analysis of some of 21 these resource areas depicted here. But before I do 22 that -- next slide, please.
23 This slide depicts how the impacts to the 24 environment are categorized in the Environmental 25 Impact Statement. The NRC has established three NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AI"D TRA~ISCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE I, W (202) 23H433 WASHII':;TOII, D,C, ICC5;J701 WWN. nealrgross,com
24 1 impact category levels; small, moderate, and large, to 2 help explain the effects of the project in consistent 3 terms for each of the resource areas.
4 As the team was developing its analysis, 5 the team members would ask, is the effect minor, which 6 would be a small effect. Does the effect noticeably 7 alter important attributes of the resource, which 8 would be a moderate effect. Or, does the effect 9 destabilize important attributes of the resource, 10 which would be a large effect.
11 So, throughout the Environmental Impact 12 Statement for each of the technical areas, like the 13 ones we saw in the previous slide, the team would 14 develop its analysis and then assign a level of 15 significance of small, moderate, or large. Next 16 slide, please.
17 Now we'll get into a little more detail 18 about some of the technical areas. First, is water 19 resources. Our evaluation considered groundwater and 20 surface water, both the use and quality of these two 21 resources.
22 Groundwater will be used during the 23 building of units 1 and 2, for controlling dust, 24 mixing concrete, for soil compaction, and other 25 construction uses. Later, during operation of the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AI"D TRA~ISCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE I, W (202) 23H433 WASHII':;TOII, D,C, ICC5;J701 WWN. nealrgross,com
25 1 plant, groundwater will be used for drinking, 2 sanitation, fire protection, and cooling of smaller 3 plant components.
4 The primary source of water to be used 5 during operation is surface water, which will be used 6 to cool units 1 and 2. The source for surface water 7 is the Cross-Florida Barge Canal, which is directly 8 connected to the Gulf of Mexico.
9 Water being discharged from the plant will 10 be directed to the existing Crystal River Energy 11 Complex and discharged. Progress Energy would be 12 required to comply with all state and federal permits 13 for groundwater withdrawals and discharges to the Gulf 14 of Mexico.
15 Therefore, the review team determined that 16 the impacts of building and operation of units 1 and 2 17 on the use and quality of groundwater and surface 18 water would be small. Next slide, please.
19 Next, is ecological resources. Our team 20 evaluated the terrestrial impacts on local wildlife 21 that either live on the Levy site and the surrounding 22 area or in nearby water bodies. The evaluation 23 covered many species. Some examples are the 24 Loggerhead Turtle, the Gulf Sturgeon, and Wood Stork.
25 The NRC staff, along with the Corps, is NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AI"D TRA~ISCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE I, W (202) 23H433 WASHII':;TOII, D,C, ICC5;J701 WWN. nealrgross,com
26 1 consul ting with other agencies, such as the Florida 2 Department of Environmental Protection, the u. S. Fish 3 and wildlife Service, and the National Marine Fishery 4 Service, on impacts to ecological resources.
5 The review team concluded that the 6 terrestrial impacts from building units 1 and 2 would 7 be moderate, primarily due to the loss of wetlands 8 habitat, and small to moderate during operation 9 because of the range of possible impacts to wetlands 10 from groundwater withdrawal. Impacts on the aquatic 11 ecosystems are considered small for both building and 12 operation. Next slide, please.
13 As part of the NRC staff's analysis, we 14 evaluated potential doses to workers during 15 construction, doses to members of the public and plant 16 workers during operation, and doses received by 17 wildlife.
18 The NRC's regulation limit the whole body 19 dose to a member of the public to around 5 to 10 20 millirem per year from a nuclear power plant. The EPA 21 standard is 25 millirem per year for the entire fuel 22 cycle.
23 Radiation exposure is a very well-studied 24 health risk. To put the above radiation exposures 25 into perspective, the average dose to an individual in NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AI"D TRA~ISCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE I, W (202) 23H433 WASHII':;TOII, D,C, ICC5;J701 WWN. nealrgross,com
27 1 the united states from natural background, such as 2 cosmic radiation, naturally occurring radioactive 3 material in the soil, and building materials, is 4 around 300 millirem per year.
5 The NRC's regulated limit is less than ten 6 percent of the total of natural background. The 7 impacts on all three groups: doses to members of the 8 public, plant workers and wildlife would be small, 9 since Progress Energy must continue to comply with 10 stringent NRC and EPA regulations. Next slide, 11 please.
12 Socioeconomics and environmental justice.
13 It's about people. The socioeconomics review 14 encompasses many different things, such as local 15 economy, taxes, housing, education, traffic and 16 transportation, populations, infrastructure, and 17 community services.
18 The adverse socioeconomic impacts range 19 from small to moderate for the building phase of units 20 1 and 2. The moderate adverse impacts are primarily 21 in Levy and Marion Counties due to the impacts on 22 public services and schools. There would be a 23 moderate impact associated with traffic in Levy 24 County. Additionally, a moderate aesthetic impact is 25 expected from transmission lines and corridors.
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28 1 On the other hand, there is a beneficial 2 impact from taxes that range from small to moderate 3 during construction, and small to large during 4 operation, particularly in Levy County.
5 The environmental justice review focuses 6 on low income and minority populations to understand 7 if they would be unevenly and adversely affected by 8 the proposed action. During our review, we did 9 identify several minority and low-income census 10 blocks, but did not find any evidence that minority or 11 low income populations would be affected 12 disproportionately by construction and operation of 13 the new plant. Next slide, please.
14 An important part of the environmental 15 review under the National Environmental Policy Act is 16 the evaluation of cumulative impacts. In Chapter 7, 17 the team evaluated the impacts of units 1 and 2, in 18 addition to other proposed and existing activities in 19 the review area, such as the existing Crystal River 20 Energy Complex, the proposed Tarmac King Road 21 Limestone Mine, and the expansion of the Suncoast 22 Parkway.
23 So, as an example, surface water quality.
24 In Chapters 4 and 5, the team determined that the 25 impacts on surface water quality from the building and NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AI"D TRA~ISCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE I, W (202) 23H433 WASHII':;TOII, D,C, ICC5;J701 WWN. nealrgross,com
29 1 operation of units 1 and 2 would be small.
2 However, in Chapter 7, when those 3 construction and operation impacts are added to the 4 impacts from other past, present, and reasonably 5 foreseeable future development acti vi ties, the impact 6 on surface water quality would be categorized as 7 moderate.
8 Overall, the cumulative adverse impacts 9 ranged from small to moderate, with the exception of 10 the generally beneficial impact from taxes, which 11 would range from small adverse to large beneficial.
12 Next slide, please.
13 As part of our review, the team needs to 14 make a determination of whether or not there is a need 15 for additional power from the licensee. For proposed 16 units 1 and 2, the area evaluated was Progress 17 Energy's service territory.
18 The Commission has acknowledged the 19 state's primary role in assessing their need for 20 power-generating facilities. For this reason, the NRC 21 staff's review was targeted at determining whether the 22 Florida Public Service Commission's order was 23 adequate. Based on this review, and that it meets the 24 four criteria listed in the second bullet here on the 25 slide, the staff gives deference to the FPSC's NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AI"D TRA~ISCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE I, W (202) 23H433 WASHII':;TOII, D,C, ICC5;J701 WWN. nealrgross,com
30 1 conclusion that the power produced by the proposed new 2 units would be needed. You can read more about the 3 power analysis in Chapter 8 of the Environmental 4 Impact statement. Next slide, please.
5 Alternatives is often referred to as the 6 heart of NEPA. In Chapter 9, the staff evaluated 7 alternative energy sources, alternative sites, and 8 alternative system designs, as well as the no-action 9 alternative.
10 In our al ternati ve energy analysis, the 11 review team evaluated generation of baseload power, 12 which is continuously produced 24/7. For baseload, we 13 examined sources such as coal and natural gas, and a 14 combination of energy sources, such as natural gas, 15 solar, wind, biomass, and additional conservation and 16 demand side management programs. The review team 17 determined that none of the feasible base load 18 energies would be environmentally preferable.
19 The review team compared the proposed Levy 20 site to four other alternative sites in Florida, 21 including the site adjacent to the Crystal River 22 Energy Complex. The NRC staff determined that none of 23 the alternative sites would be environmentally 24 preferable to the Levy site.
25 And lastly, the review team determined no NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AI"D TRA~ISCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE I, W (202) 23H433 WASHII':;TOII, D,C, ICC5;J701 WWN. nealrgross,com
31 1 alternative cooling system would be environmentally 2 preferable to the proposed design. Next slide.
3 In Chapter 10 of the EIS, the NRC staff 4 makes a preliminary recommendation to the Commission.
5 This recommendation is based on the mostly small 6 environmental impacts, mitigation measures, and the 7 NRC staff's conclusion that no alternative site or 8 base load or alternative baseload energy source 9 would be environmentally preferable.
10 Based on the results of the environmental 11 review, the preliminary recommendation to the NRC 12 Commission is that the combined licenses for Levy 13 units 1 and 2 be issued. The recommendation is 14 considered preliminary until we evaluate your comments 15 on the Draft Environmental Impact statement.
16 This preliminary recommendation is for the 17 environmental review only. As mentioned earlier in 18 this presentation, there are two concurrent reviews.
19 One is the environmental review and one is the safety 20 review.
21 The safety review is ongoing and is 22 anticipated to be completed in July 2011, with 23 issuance of the Final Safety Evaluation Report. The 24 Final Safety Evaluation Report will present the 25 results of the staff's safety review.
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32 1 If you don't already have a copy of the 2 Draft Environmental Impact statement, there are hard 3 copies in the lobby, as well as CDs, or you can call 4 me, using the number on this screen, to request a 5 copy. My contact information is provided on this 6 slide.
7 There is also a toll free number that you 8 can call and that's and if you can approach me 9 later after this meeting and I'll give you that 10 number, as well. But it's 1-800-368-5642. That's 1-11 800-368-5642. And it would be the same extension on 12 my number, 2730. You could also find it online at the 13 website presented on this slide, or you can find them 14 in the Reference section of the four libraries -- the 15 four local libraries listed here on this slide. Next 16 slide, please.
17 As Bob stated earlier this evening, the 18 main purpose of this meeting is to listen to and 19 gather your comments on the environmental review.
20 Many of you have already signed up to speak during 21 this meeting; however, if you are not comfortable 22 speaking in front of large crowds or if you need to 23 leave early, there are forms on the table at the back 24 of the room. And you can write comments and mail it 25 into us or hand it to an NRC staffer, or you can type NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AI"D TRA~ISCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE I, W (202) 23H433 WASHII':;TOII, D,C, ICC5;J701 WWN. nealrgross,com
33 1 it and submit it electronically.
2 We also know that some of you have come 3 here to collect information at this time; however, if 4 you think of something later and would like to submit 5 comments to us, there are other ways to do that, as 6 you can see on the slide, as well. You can e-mail 7 them to the NRC, you can submit them online, you can 8 mail them or you can fax them.
9 And please note, as we had mentioned 10 earlier, this is a 75-day review. It began on 11 September 13 and it ends on October -- it remains open 12 until October 27th.
13 And with that, I conclude my presentation.
14 I appreciate your time and look forward to hearing 15 your comments. Thank you.
16 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Doug. We've 17 gotten a pretty good overview of the process and some 18 of the findings and preliminary recommendation in the 19 Draft Environmental Impact Statement.
20 Can we clear up anything about the review 21 process for you or anything that you heard in the 22 presentation? Is there any questions?
23 Yes, Barbara, right?
24 MS. SIELING: Yep.
25 MR. CAMERON: Barbara, could you -- would NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AI"D TRA~ISCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE I, W (202) 23H433 WASHII':;TOII, D,C, ICC5;J701 WWN. nealrgross,com
34 1 you --
2 MS. SIELING: I've got a big mouth. I may 3 not need that.
4 MR. CAMERON: Well, I'm not going to 5 comment on that, but --
6 MS. SIELING: That's good. It's better 7 for you.
8 I'm still confused, and I've talked to 9 quite a few people and the one question that I still 10 haven't gotten cleared up is like everyone's 11 contradicting themselves, and it has to do with why 12 it's not going on the old site.
13 I talked to people before the meeting and 14 they say that, well, we can't tell you why Florida 15 or Progress Energy chose to have it here instead of 16 over on the current site, the nuclear plant. But then 17 here I hear them saying that it was because you guys 18 determined that that the site wasn't better than this 19 site. And so I'm still confused on that.
20 MR. CAMERON: Okay. And let's see if we 21 can help you with that. And I think that partially 22 it's a question of timing also, in terms of the 23 license applicant's business decision versus the NRC's 24 evaluation of alternatives. And Bob, are you going to 25 do this one?
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35 1 MR. SCHAAF: Yeah. Let me see if I can 2 take a stab at this.
3 MR. CAMERON: Okay.
4 MR. SCHAAF: Basically, it is Progress 5 Energy's business decision to propose where they want 6 to site the facility.
7 Applicants provide an application, a 8 request to the NRC, and we basically have two options.
9 We can tell them, yes, here's your permit, or, no, 10 that's not an appropriate location.
11 As part of the environmental review, we 12 look at the potential alternatives, including the 13 alternative site analysis. And we look for, are there 14 any other sites that are, what we call, potentially 15 environmentally preferable to the proposed site.
16 And if we were to find one, which we 17 determined might be environmentally preferable, we 18 would go the additional step of then evaluating, is 19 that other site obviously superior. In other words, 20 it's so much better that we really shouldn't grant the 21 applicant's request.
22 In this case, in evaluating the 23 alternative sites, the decision of the review team was 24 that none of those sites met the environmentally 25 preferable threshold. And--
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36 1 MS. SIELING: (Inaudible.)
2 MR. CAMERON: Barbara, Barbara. We need 3 to -- Barbara, we need to get you on the transcript.
4 I'm going to ask you to do one follow-up question, if 5 this still isn't clear to you. And then I'm going to 6 ask the staff to talk to Barbara after the meeting to 7 see if they can explain it.
8 But, do you have a follow-up question 9 based on what Bob said?
10 MS. SIELING: Yes. It's basically the 11 same thing. I'm being told that it was -- you're now, 12 in the conversation we had, was that it was Progress 13 Energy's choice to go here. But when the other 14 gentleman, whichever one it was, was speaking, he said 15 that you all had already determined that there wasn't 16 one that was better.
17 MR. CAMERON: Well, let's -- let's --
18 MS. SIELING: How is that?
19 MR. CAMERON: Let's focus not on what the 20 other gentleman was saying, but on what Bob -- on what 21 -- on what 22 MS. SIELING: Well, like what he said is 23 just as important.
24 MR. CAMERON: Bob -- well, Bob is trying 25 to clear this up for you. The first decision that was NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AI"D TRA~ISCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE I, W (202) 23H433 WASHII':;TOII, D,C, ICC5;J701 WWN. nealrgross,com
37 1 made, as I understand what Bob's saying, the first 2 decision that's made in any of these new reactor 3 applications, is that the company, the license 4 applicant, is going to come in with an application 5 that has a site specified on it. That's their 6 decision. And there could be many reasons why they 7 chose that site.
8 NRC has nothing to do with what is in that 9 license application, as far as the site is concerned.
10 But, once the NRC gets the application with that site 11 in it, then they have to do their environmental review 12 of that site.
13 As part of that environmental review, the 14 NRC looks to see whether there is any site that is 15 obviously superior from an environmental point of 16 view. NRC did that analysis and said they could not 17 find that none of those sites were environmentally 18 preferable.
19 MS. SIELING: Why?
20 MR. CAMERON: Okay. NOW, that's a fair 21 question and if you want to just address that, Bob.
22 MR. SCHAAF: Well, I guess, you know, I'm 23 not prepared to go into all of the details of the 24 evaluation. I mean, that's all spelled out in the 25 Draft Environmental Impact Statement. And if there is NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AI"D TRA~ISCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE I, W (202) 23H433 WASHII':;TOII, D,C, ICC5;J701 WWN. nealrgross,com
38 1 some logic there that -- that you have a question or 2 concern about, we would certainly welcome comments 3 regarding that, for us to take and consider, you know, 4 did -- did we miss something in our evaluation of --
5 of that alternative site analysis.
6 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you. Yes?
7 MS. FOLEY: I have a question regarding 8 the way this hurts --
9 MR. CAMERON: Could you I'm sorry.
10 Could you use this, please? And introduce yourself, 11 please.
12 MS FOLEY: My name is Beth Foley. And I'm 13 just curious about so, the Nuclear Regulatory 14 Commission is a government agency, right? And we, the 15 taxpayers, pay for your and you did the study, not 16 Progress Energy. So, we paid for this study, not 17 Progress Energy. I guess that I was just confused. I 18 thought it was Progress Energy that --
19 MR. SCHAAF: Two studies.
20 MR. CAMERON: Right. Actually the 21 analysis is initially provided by the applicant.
22 MS. FOLEY: Okay. Then I'm back on track.
23 MR. CAMERON: They do as part of their 24 decision on where to request.
25 MS. FOLEY: You look at then carefully and NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AI"D TRA~ISCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE I, W (202) 23H433 WASHII':;TOII, D,C, ICC5;J701 WWN. nealrgross,com
39 1 say, is this okay or not.
2 MR. SCHAAF: Right. We evaluate their 3 analysis, do independent analysis, and come to our 4 conclusion regarding whether there is an obviously 5 superior site.
6 MR. CAMERON: So, the applicant submits 7 what they call an environmental report. And then the 8 NRC uses that, plus its own independent analysis to 9 prepare the Environmental Impact Statement. And 10 that's the government document that we're talking 11 about tonight, the Environmental Impact Statement.
12 MS. FOLEY: But you're using those that 13 Progress Energy's information? Or you --
14 MR. CAMERON: We have to again, I'm 15 sorry. This is awkward, I know, but we have to get 16 you on the transcript, so 17 MS. FOLEY: So, are you using scientists 18 that are your scientists or Progress Energy selects 19 the scientists or I guess I'm just a little 20 confused, because I really thought it was Progress 21 Energy's study that you were evaluating and reviewing, 22 really reviewing. But that's not really the case.
23 It's --
24 MR. CAMERON: Well, no. It is the case.
25 MS. FOLEY: That is the case?
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40 1 MR. CAMERON: Then does someone want to 2 I shouldn't be explaining this as the facilitator, 3 because I might get it wrong, too.
4 MR. MASNIK: I'm Mike Masnik. The 5 licensee, in their environmental report -- part of it 6 has to do with alternatives. And they do an analysis 7 in which they use a series of criteria to identify 8 some alternative sites. Okay. They use their own 9 scientists, their own consultants to produce this 10 document, which looks at the area -- the service area 11 and comes up with some alternatives.
12 We then take that as part of our review 13 and look to see if the the way in which they 14 identified the site was a reasonable and thorough and 15 comprehensive manner. And then we also independently 16 review each of the sites, looking at what we call 17 reconnaissance level data. So it's a review of what's 18 submitted to us, plus additional work on the part of 19 our contractors and our scientific personnel to look 20 at various components related to those particular 21 sites.
22 MR. CAMERON: Okay.
23 MR. MASNIK: Maybe we can talk afterwards 24 and I can give you a little bit more information on 25 that.
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41 1 MS. FOLEY: Well, we the taxpayer aren't 2 paying from the ground up. You did get a lot of 3 information 4 MR. MASNIK: Oh yes.
5 MS. FOLEY: from the Progress Energy.
6 MR. CAMERON: Beth, Beth, I'm going to 7 repeat this again. We need to get you on the 8 transcript. So, that means you need to speak in to 9 this thing.
10 MS. FOLEY: I guess unless I understand 11 where the money is, I don't understand things. And if 12 Progress Energy paid for most of this, or did they?
13 MR. CAMERON: You keep -- you keep saying 14 "this." Progress Energy 15 MS. FOLEY: The Draft Environmental Impact 16 Statement is what I meant.
17 MR. CAMERON: The Draft Environmental 18 Impact Statement -- does anybody dare we go in to 19 the fee business? But I can explain that, but Scott, 20 why don't you -- why don't you just try to give Beth 21 an idea of how this works.
22 MR. FLANDERS: Let me just take a minute.
23 MR. CAMERON: Okay.
24 MR. FLANDERS: I don't want to get into 25 the fee aspect of it.
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42 1 But simply put, if you look at our 2 regulation in 10 CFR Part 51, the applicant is 3 required to submit an environmental report. An 4 environmental report is a technical analysis product 5 that they generate that examines what they believe the 6 environmental impacts would be from their proposed 7 action. And their proposed action is to build, 8 construct, and operate a nuclear power plant at a 9 particular location.
10 When they come in with their application, 11 they have done, through their own business process and 12 other evaluations, have picked a particular location.
13 They submit the application to us. So, that's their 14 scientific work and analysis that's done.
15 We get that scientific work and analysis 16 and that's a starting point for us. We take that 17 information in and we have scientists and experts. We 18 reference some of our contractors that we have and we 19 analyze that information in their particular areas of 20 expertise.
21 Also collect other information by going to 22 the site and examining the site and the environment, 23 and also through their own knowledge and understanding 24 of the various technical subj ect matter. They have 25 information from other journals and research NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AI"D TRA~ISCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE I, W (202) 23H433 WASHII':;TOII, D,C, ICC5;J701 WWN. nealrgross,com
43 1 documents, et cetera. And those references are 2 identified in the Environmental Impact statement. All 3 that information that they use.
4 And they take all that information in and 5 they analyze it. And they make a judgment as to what 6 the Nuclear Regulatory Commission believes would be 7 the environmental impacts associated with the proposed 8 action.
9 So, that's how the entire process works.
10 And that process is the same process that's done when 11 you go through the alternate site review. The 12 applicant has a process that they use, which we ask 13 them to describe, how they come to and arrive at the 14 site that they selected. And then we analyze that.
15 And as part of that analysis, we look at 16 other sites that filter through our process that to 17 compare whether or not there is a site that is 18 would be what one would consider environmentally 19 preferable. And what we mean by "environmentally 20 preferable" is, if you look at all the environmental 21 impacts, whether it be water or ecology or 22 radiological impacts in terms of impacts to the 23 public, all those things, historic properties, all 24 those activities.
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44 1 them from one site to the next, as Mike said, using 2 reconnaissance level information, which includes our 3 scientists go into these alternate sites and looking 4 through and making sure that we have a good 5 understanding of the site, as well as not just solely 6 relying on the information that's submitted.
7 And take that all in, and then we make 8 some evaluations; is there a site that is really 9 environmentally preferable, where all the impacts were 10 much less than what was proposed.
11 If we see something like that, then the 12 next question is, is it so much better, such that if 13 the license or the request shouldn't be granted for 14 the proposed site.
15 So, that's the process that we use. So, 16 we do our own scientific work. It's not solely relied 17 on by the applicants.
18 And I think -- I guess in the interests, 19 maybe we can have further discussions.
20 MS. FOLEY: One quick question. Have you 21 ever changed a site?
22 MR. FLANDERS: Have we ever changed a 23 site?
24 MS. FOLEY: Have you ever made a change to 25 a site and said, no, no, no, this is not good?
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45 1 MR. CAMERON: Okay. I hear someone 2 speaking.
3 And it's Beth. Beth. And this is going 4 to be the last one.
5 MS. FOLEY: Real quick question. Have you 6 ever changed the site?
7 MR. CAMERON: Okay. The question, I think 8 you understand it, is when we did do the 9 environmental alternate site review, have we ever 10 found one that's been environmentally superior?
11 Michael? Mike Masnik.
12 MR. MASNIK: When we had a flurry of 13 applications back in '70s, there were several 14 instances in which the site was actually changed from 15 the preferred site, from the applicant's preferred 16 site. So, the answer to your question is, yes.
17 MR. CAMERON: Okay. And Beth are you 18 going to be can you stay till the end of the 19 meeting?
20 MS. FOLEY: Yes.
21 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Well, I think we'll 22 talk to you -- staff will talk to you more about this 23 if you have any questions. And of course, that goes 24 for Barbara too.
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46 1 and then I think we're going to have to -- we're going 2 to go to comment and let's see how much rope I have.
3 UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: That's it.
4 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Why don't you go 5 first and then we'll go there, and then we'll go to 6 you and then we'll go to Mr. Hopkins.
7 MR. JONES: I'm hopefully a quick -- my 8 name is Art Jones. I live here in Crystal River. And 9 I hopefully have a quick, easy question for somebody.
10 As I was learning from the slides we have 11 over a total of over 720 acres of fresh water 12 wetlands that will be destroyed and lost at the Levy 13 County site. And I was wondering, how many acres of 14 fresh water wetlands would be lost at the in Crystal 15 River site if the new power plant was built there?
16 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Peyton, can you 17 can you do this for us? This is Peyton Doub with the 18 NRC.
19 MR. DOUB: I'm Peyton Doub. I am the 20 terrestrial ecologist and wetland scientist on the NRC 21 staff and the one responsible for reviewing the 22 analyses in those fields, you know, in the Draft EIS.
23 To answer your question, we do provide 24 wetland impact acreage data for the alternative sites 25 in Chapter 9 of the DEIS. The level of detail that we NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AI"D TRA~ISCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE I, W (202) 23H433 WASHII':;TOII, D,C, ICC5;J701 WWN. nealrgross,com
47 1 collect for the alternative sites is based on public 2 information and brief reconnaissance, whereas for the 3 Levy site, it was more detailed of site specific data 4 collection. But we did use published wetland maps and 5 other sources of published data to quantify wetland 6 impacts at the alternative sites, enough to a degree 7 that we could determine whether or not any of those 8 sites is could potentially be environmentally 9 superior and obviously were environmentally 10 preferable and obviously superior to the Levy site.
11 One thing to bear in mind about the 12 Crystal River site is that even though there is the 13 existing nuclear power plant there, the land that 14 would be used at that site for developing the new 15 uni ts, is, at the present time, supporting natural 16 vegetation over -- over most of that land.
17 So, that even though the Levy site is 18 greenfield and Crystal River is not. Most of the land 19 that would be impacted at Crystal River does, at the 20 present time, support natural habitats, including 21 wetlands.
22 So, it's not like the Crystal River site, 23 were it used, everything would be builtin an area 24 that had previously been disturbed.
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48 1 the Draft EIS for more detailed quantitative data.
2 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thanks, Peyton.
3 Could you come up here, please? And just introduce 4 yourself to us, please.
5 MS. CASEY: Emily Casey, and I just have 6 two questions. I believe it was you. You said 7 something I couldn't really understand what you had --
8 the complete sentence.
9 You said something about the -- if it was 10 reliable, based on cognitive blank data or 11 cognizance blank data? I couldn't understand the 12 content.
13 MR. DOUB: Reconnaissance.
14 MS. CASEY: Could you explain that, 15 please? Because I didn't understand at all what you 16 said.
17 MR. DOUB: Reconnaissance level data.
18 It's a term of mine that we use. And basically, it 19 means data that's readily available. We don't 20 necessarily require a lO-year study to collect data on 21 alternative sites. But data that's readily available 22 in the literature other published reports.
23 MS. CASEY: Okay. I just couldn't 24 understand it.
25 MR. DOUB: Sorry.
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49 1 MR. CAMERON: And another one?
2 MS. CASEY: The other question was 3 partially answered by the gentleman there.
4 What I was wanting to ask you is, if there 5 was there more scientific data on the alternative 6 si tes, and even more than what was explained in the 7 Draft Review that we could get a hold of and look at.
8 MR. CAMERON: So, is there, for example, 9 references that were given in the Draft Review?
10 MS. CASEY: Right.
11 MR. CAMERON: Peyton?
12 MR. DOUB: The analysis of potential 13 impacts to terrestrial ecology and wetlands in Chapter 14 9 was based on the best available data that we had at 15 our hands, both provided by the appl ican t in the ER 16 and that we could obtain from published sources and 17 general reconnaissance, just like Mike Masnik 18 previously explained.
19 However, we did not actually require the 20 applicant to go out and do detailed, long-term field 21 studies for the alternative sites. That, we believe, 22 would not be necessary for the purposes of determining 23 whether or not we have an environmentally preferable 24 site or an obviously superior site.
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50 1 MR. CAMERON: And yeah. Are the 2 references listed?
3 MR. DOUB: Yes. There are references 4 listed in the reference section for Chapter 9.
5 MS. CASEY: Thank you.
6 MR. CAMERON: Thank you. Yes?
7 MR. HOPKINS: Good afternoon. My name is 8 Norman Hopkins.
9 My understanding is that the scoping 10 period which -- upon which the Environmental Impact 11 Statements are based, was concluded in December of 12 2008. I believe that to be true.
13 More information is being developed 14 continually by these sort of meetings and other 15 meetings, which qualify information which was 16 considered to determine whether there was an 17 alternative site which we which would be as good as 18 or better as -- or better than.
19 Is there a mechanism which continually 20 updates the comparison between the chosen site by PEF 21 and any of the alternative sites?
22 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Norman. Doug, do 23 you want to try that?
24 MR. BRUNER: I think Andy would be the 25 best one to answer that one.
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51 1 MR. CAMERON: Okay.
2 MR. BRUNER: It falls under new and 3 significant information.
4 MR. CAMERON: Oh, good. All right. Well, 5 thank you, Doug. Andy? This is Andy Kugler.
6 MR. KUGLER: In terms of a continuous 7 process, I'd have to say, no. The environmental 8 review process is not completed yet. So, information 9 that we're provided in these meetings or that come to 10 us in any other comments we receive in writing on the 11 draft, we will consider before we issue the Final 12 Environmental Impact Statement.
13 So, up until that point, if there's new 14 information that we're provided with, we can consider 15 that information. But I don't know of anybody who has 16 any process in place where there's some sort of a 17 continuous search and update for environmental 18 impacts. Because, really, if you look at National 19 Environmental Policy Act it's not set up that way.
20 It's to reach a certain point and reach a decision on 21 an action.
22 So, I think -- does that -- hopefully that 23 answers your question.
24 MR. CAMERON: Okay.
25 MR. HOPKINS: If I could just follow that.
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52 1 If a decision is taken based upon the more 2 detailed and thorough case which is put forward by the 3 applicant, then the odds are that any other competing 4 site would always fall short and it will be an 5 automatic decision process that would result in going 6 wi th the applicant, if there was no mechanism for 7 assessing alternative sites.
8 Now, we've had today, this afternoon and 9 this evening, a considerable opinion expressed that it 10 would be better -- and I'm thinking particularly about 11 the testimony from Betty Berger that it would be 12 better placed, for all sorts of reasons, at the 13 Crystal River site.
14 Now, the odds are stacked in favor of 15 Levy, but it may be quite wrong, because of what 16 happens in the interim and also, as Betty explained, 17 there were many other factors arguing in favor of 18 Crystal River.
19 MR. CAMERON: And we'll count that as a 20 comment.
21 MR. HOPKINS: Oh, sorry.
22 MR. CAMERON: Okay. That's all right.
23 MR. HOPKINS: Well, I could have another 24 question.
25 MR. CAMERON: Let me get to this young NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AI"D TRA~ISCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE I, W (202) 23H433 WASHII':;TOII, D,C, ICC5;J701 WWN. nealrgross,com
53 1 lady behind you. And if you could just please 2 introduce yourself.
3 MS. RICE: Yes. Thank you. My name is 4 Darden Rice. Mr. Schaaf, just a quick clarification.
5 The rejection of the alternative sites was 6 based on environmental standards or on business 7 standards? Because I've heard you use the phrase 8 business considerations went into the rejection of the 9 practicable alternative sites as well.
10 MR. SCHAAF: Well, in the applicant's 11 decision on their request, it is a business decision 12 on their part. But our evaluation is strictly on --
13 of the environmental criteria and assessment of the 14 environmental impacts at the proposed site against the 15 -- our assessment of the environmental impacts at the 16 alternative sites.
17 MS. RICE: So, you took the applicant's 18 considerations about business factors into 19 consideration in you recommendation?
20 MR. SCHAAF: No. It's strictly 21 environmental environmental factors in reaching a 22 decision on environmental on environmental 23 preference.
24 MS. RICE: Okay. Thank you.
25 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Norman, please make NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AI"D TRA~ISCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE I, W (202) 23H433 WASHII':;TOII, D,C, ICC5;J701 WWN. nealrgross,com
54 1 this quick. We're going to have to get to comments.
2 So, you have one more question. Let's go.
3 MR. HOPKINS: This concerns used fuel rods 4 and how frequently and how many are changed. And 5 they're frequent termed "spent fuel."
6 Is it true that the rods, once they've 7 been used in a reactor, are in fact more radioactive 8 after they've been used than when they were put in?
9 MR. CAMERON: Brian or Richard? Who's 10 Richard? Richard Emch.
11 MR. EMCH: I'll take a stab at it and then 12 if Brian needs to follow-up.
13 My name is Richard Emch. I'm the Senior 14 Health Physicist for the Nuclear Regulatory 15 Commission.
16 Okay. Just a few bits of information.
17 They go through about three cycles in the reactor from 18 where they're new. Three cycles later is usually 19 where they're replaced. At that point, the amount of 20 usable Uranium 235 has diminished. It's been used up.
21 It's to the point where it's not economically viable 22 for them to use it anymore.
23 Okay. Now then, of course, as you know, 24 you could actually put your hand on fresh fuel. You 25 could put your hand right up on the cladding. It's NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AI"D TRA~ISCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE I, W (202) 23H433 WASHII':;TOII, D,C, ICC5;J701 WWN. nealrgross,com
55 1 not hot. There's no big dose rate coming off of it.
2 All right.
3 Once you put it inside the reactor and it 4 starts going -- and it makes electric -- it makes heat 5 by fission, okay. Now, the fission causes with 6 each fission you get about two fission products. In 7 other words, two atoms are created that are 8 radioactive. Okay. And so, yes, at the end of life 9 it is much more, to use your terminology, radioactive.
10 I would simply say it has a much higher dose rate at 11 the end of active -- at the end of its life, yes.
12 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Richard. And 13 thank you for those questions. We are going to go to 14 the comment part of the meeting at this point and --
15 UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: One more question.
16 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Please introduce 17 yourself.
18 MS. LOTT: My name is Phyllis Lott. I'm 19 at 31 Magnolia Avenue in Yankeetown. I understand 20 that when we're up there to make our comment, they 21 won't respond, so just make our comments.
22 My question is, is there a place to store 23 all this -- this tons of toxic nuclear waste that this 24 plant will produce? I mean, I know that President 25 Obama has ordered Yucca Mountain to be closed at the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AI"D TRA~ISCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE I, W (202) 23H433 WASHII':;TOII, D,C, ICC5;J701 WWN. nealrgross,com
56 1 end of this month. There are other places in Maine 2 and other storage sites throughout the country, and 3 right now everybody's in a battle royale of not taking 4 any more nuclear waste products, not storing anymore.
5 So, my question is, is this site set up 6 for the storage of all this tons of nuclear waste, 7 because it will be quite expensive, I understand, to 8 do that. You just can't build a shed and put stuff in 9 there. So, what are they prepared to do this?
10 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you. Thank 11 you, Phyllis. A good question. And does someone want 12 to explain to Phyllis what the on-site storage is and 13 put the whole thing in context? Thank you, Richard.
14 MR. EMCH: Hi. This is Richard Emch 15 again, Senior Health Physicist with Nuclear Regulatory 16 Commission.
17 I'm going to break your question into two 18 parts: One that I am going to call high level waste 19 and spent fuel, and then the other part I'm going to 20 talk about is what we generally refer to as low level 21 waste.
22 Okay. And let me start with the high 23 level waste. Yucca Mountain had been the 24 Administration and DOE's path forward. Their plan for 25 what we were going to do with high level waste and NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AI"D TRA~ISCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE I, W (202) 23H433 WASHII':;TOII, D,C, ICC5;J701 WWN. nealrgross,com
57 1 spent fuel. Okay. You've already heard all the news, 2 just like we have, about what the Administration has 3 decided, what the Congress has decided to do, what DOE 4 has decided. I would also add in, and probably not 5 everybody reads about it, but there's all kinds of 6 legal machinations going on. So, this was the plan.
7 Okay. That plan appears to no longer be viable.
8 Okay.
9 And so, right now, and for the foreseeable 10 future, nuclear power plants will be storing spent 11 fuel either in their spent fuel pool or in what we 12 call "dry cask storage." It's large concrete 13 canisters that they maintain control of. After about 14 five years, the fuel can't melt itself anymore and 15 they put it in these canisters. Okay.
16 Now let's switch to the because the 17 only game in town, if you will, was Yucca Mountain.
18 And that game doesn't seem to be viable right now.
19 Okay.
20 So, DOE, the Administration is going to 21 have to come up with another plan. I don't know what 22 that plan. Okay. I don't think anybody does.
23 Okay. Let's talk about low level waste 24 for just a moment now. Okay. Low level waste, there 25 were some places in the united States that accepted NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AI"D TRA~ISCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE I, W (202) 23H433 WASHII':;TOII, D,C, ICC5;J701 WWN. nealrgross,com
58 1 various kinds, and you'll hear people talk about Type 2 A, Type B, Type C. All it means is the concentrations 3 of radioactive material in the waste. Most of the 4 waste produced by nuclear power plants in the united 5 states is Type A, and a little bit of it is higher B's 6 and C's, et cetera. Okay.
7 There are waste repositories, like 8 Barnwell, that are sort of in the act of closing down.
9 There are new ones that are being developed in other 10 places. There's a place in Utah that takes certain 11 kind of waste. There's a place in Texas that is, as 12 best I understand it, getting licensed to take certain 13 kinds of waste. But it's a business. Okay. And 14 where there's a business need, somebody' s going to 15 come is going to come up and fill it. They're 16 going to develop new places to put it.
17 In the meantime, until all that gets taken 18 care of, they do have the facility, the AP-1000 19 design has storage capacity built into it for these 20 lower level wastes. And it is a relatively simple 21 matter for them to install additional storage 22 additional temporary storage capacity. In fact, a lot 23 of the nuclear power plants in the United states have 24 already done it. If they need to, that's probably at 25 this point what they will do.
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59 1 MR. CAMERON: Great. Thank you very much.
2 Thanks for that question, Phyllis.
3 We're going to go to publ ic comment now.
4 And we're going to hear from both Beth Foley and 5 Phyllis Lott.
6 And in a minute we're going to start off 7 with usually people would like to know about what 8 the rationale division of the company is and why 9 they're going forward with this.
10 And our first speaker is going to be John 11 Elnitsky, who is right here, who is the Vice President 12 of New Generation Projects and Programs for Progress 13 Energy Florida.
14 And then we'll go to Beth Foley and then 15 we'll go to Phyllis Lott as our next speakers after 16 that. And then we'll continue on.
17 MR. ELNITSKY: Well, thank you, Chip. And 18 good evening. As Chip mentioned, my name is John 19 Elnitsky and I'm Progress Energy's Vice President for 20 New Generation Programs and Projects. And I 21 appreciate the chance to speak with all of you and 22 thanks for being here this evening.
23 This is a very complex subj ect, but I'd 24 like to talk just about three simple points regarding 25 our plans to operate two new state-of-the-art plants NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AI"D TRA~ISCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE I, W (202) 23H433 WASHII':;TOII, D,C, ICC5;J701 WWN. nealrgross,com
60 1 at Levy County.
2 First, I want to talk about our continued 3 focus on safety. Secondly, our continued commitment 4 to engage with the citizens of Florida. And third, 5 our dedication to the long term energy and economic 6 security of Florida.
7 So, let's start with what's most important 8 first and that's focus on safety. Progress Energy 9 Florida is committed to providing safe and reliable 10 energy for our 1.6 million customers in Florida. And 11 we plan to do that every hour of every day.
12 Planning for the region's future 13 electricity needs is a responsibility the company 14 takes very seriously. Our most important commitment, 15 though, is to safety. The safety of our customers and 16 our employees.
17 We have worked hard to achieve an 18 outstanding safety and environmental stewardship 19 record at our nearby Crystal River Nuclear Plant, and 20 that performance will continue with our operations of 21 the nuclear facility in Levy County.
22 Second, I'd like to talk about our 23 continued involvement with the local community and the 24 citizens of Florida. This new nuclear project isn't 25 only about energy, it's really about people. The 1. 6 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AI"D TRA~ISCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE I, W (202) 23H433 WASHII':;TOII, D,C, ICC5;J701 WWN. nealrgross,com
61 1 million families and business people we serve, who 2 count on us each and every day to make sure that when 3 they flip that light switch on, the electricity is 4 there to support it. And that needs to happen, 5 whether the wind's blowing or whether the sun's not 6 shining.
7 Progress Energy Florida has been working 8 with community leaders and property owners since late 9 2006, when we first announced our plans to build the 10 proposed Levy County nuclear power proj ect and the 11 associated 200 miles or so of transmission cables and 12 transmission lines that go with it.
13 Since we started this process four years 14 ago, we have remained committed to seeking community 15 input and encouraging public discourse like you hear 16 this evening.
17 In an effort to provide a meaningful 18 dialogue, the company used an innovative, first-of-a-19 kind public outreach process that we called the 20 Community Partnership for Energy Planning. This 21 process helped Progress Energy gather input and 22 recommendations from local governments and 23 communities.
24 We also helped create the Levy Neighbors 25 Group to give most up-to-date information to our NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AI"D TRA~ISCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE I, W (202) 23H433 WASHII':;TOII, D,C, ICC5;J701 WWN. nealrgross,com
62 1 neighbors who live closest to the site of our proposed 2 plant.
3 About 5,000 property owners and community 4 leaders attended 22 open houses across 10 counties as 5 we narrowed our choices for locating transmission 6 lines.
7 More than 40 other community informational 8 meetings were held across our region. And based on 9 the feedback from those meetings, more than 90 percent 10 of the preferred corridors for transmission lines are 11 located along, or adjacent to existing lines, thereby 12 minimizing the proj ect' s impact on the community and 13 the environment.
14 We are committed to being open throughout 15 and during this process, as we continue to seek public 16 input and move forward with this important project.
17 The Levy plant will play an important role 18 for our community, as well. At the peak of 19 construction, we will employ over 3,000 on the site at 20 Levy County. The plant itself, when it comes into 21 operation, will create 800 permanent, good-paying jobs 22 in our community.
23 Probably more significant than that is the 24 benefit to community service that these jobs will 25 create as employees forge partnerships with their NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AI"D TRA~ISCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE I, W (202) 23H433 WASHII':;TOII, D,C, ICC5;J701 WWN. nealrgross,com
63 1 local communities. For example, in Crystal River 2 alone, our employees have chartered schools, founded 3 churches, created Little League teams and contributed 4 countless hours to non-profit agencies and community 5 causes. Our employees live and work here and we care 6 deeply about our communities.
7 Finally, let me address the importance of 8 the Levy nuclear project to the long term economic and 9 energy security of Florida. Florida is the nation's 10 fourth most populous state, but we rank third 11 nationally in overall energy consumption. To properly 12 address the long term energy needs of our state, we 13 must have long term planning and long range solutions.
14 Progress Energy is able to meet the energy 15 needs today because of the careful planning that went 16 on in this state decades ago. Just as we need to make 17 investment in other infrastructure proj ects in our 18 state, whether it's roads or schools, we need to plan 19 ahead for what we will need for energy supply in the 20 future that is reliable as it is today.
21 Now, energy efficiency and renewable 22 energy sources are a vital part of our overall 23 strategy. But they alone cannot supply all of the 24 expected energy demand. That is why Progress Energy 25 Florida is planning on additional power plants and NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AI"D TRA~ISCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE I, W (202) 23H433 WASHII':;TOII, D,C, ICC5;J701 WWN. nealrgross,com
64 1 transmission infrastructure to provide sufficient and 2 reliable electrical service to our customers.
3 The Levy plant will also playa vital role 4 in our strategy to serve Florida's energy future.
5 This is a future that includes carbon-free generation, 6 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, the same way our 7 customers use their electricity.
8 By building fuel diversity and long term 9 fuel cost savings into our plans, Progress Energy 10 Florida is helping ensure the long term economic 11 competitiveness and viability of Florida. In short, 12 the Levy nuclear proj ect will help ensure the right 13 balance of reliable, environmentally-responsible and 14 cost-effective power tomorrow.
15 So, I said I would talk about three 16 things; our focus and commitment to safety, our 17 continued involvement with the community, and our 18 dedication to the long term energy and economic 19 security of Florida.
20 Energy for today and energy security for 21 tomorrow, that's our pledge. And I'd like to invite 22 you all to take the opportuni ty to meet the 23 professionals from Progress Energy that are here this 24 evening. I get to come up here and be the mouthpiece, 25 but they're the ones that do all the hard work. So, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AI"D TRA~ISCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE I, W (202) 23H433 WASHII':;TOII, D,C, ICC5;J701 WWN. nealrgross,com
65 1 talk to them afterward. Get your questions answered.
2 That's why we're here.
3 On behalf of the over 4,000 employees of 4 Progress Energy Florida, I'd like to thank you for 5 your time here this evening, and I'd like to thank the 6 NRC and the Army Corps of Engineers for their on-going 7 support of energy security for both the state of 8 Florida and our nation. Thank you very much.
9 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you. Thank 10 you, Don. Beth? This is Beth Foley. Then we're 11 going to go to Phyllis Lott. And we're going to go to 12 Mark Klutho next after that.
13 MS. FOLEY: My question is what about salt 14 drift and the nuclear -- Levy Nuclear Plant site is 15 located about ten miles inland and in the middle of a 16 fresh water wetland. Yet, the cooling tower source 17 will be salt water. Is that not working?
18 MR. CAMERON: Oh, it is. I just was going 19 to put it down a little bit.
20 MS. FOLEY: This freshwater wetland is a 21 recharge area for the drinking water for the people 22 who are living in the surrounding area since the upper 23 Floridan aquifer is at ground level in this particular 24 area of Florida.
25 Despite this unique location, the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AI"D TRA~ISCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE I, W (202) 23H433 WASHII':;TOII, D,C, ICC5;J701 WWN. nealrgross,com
66 1 introduction of salt, via drift from the nuclear plant 2 cooling towers to the environment, approximately 31 3 pounds of salt daily or 6.72 million pounds over the 4 60-year life of the plant, is only assigned a small 5 impact in Progress Energy's -- and I've given Progress 6 Energy credit -- I'm not sure if I'm supposed to do 7 the Nuclear Regulatory Commission credit Draft 8 Environmental Impact study. So, regardless of whose 9 study -- it's your study, I guess? Okay.
10 When addressing the effect of salt drift 11 in the Levy Nuclear Plant Draft Environmental Impact 12 Study, vegetation comparisons with Crystal River's 13 nuclear plant, that is located on the Gulf of Mexico, 14 are made, the results of salt drift at this plant 15 should not be equated with two nuclear plants located 16 ten miles inland in the middle of an aquifer recharge 17 wetland.
18 A search for other u.s. nuclear plants 19 located inland using saltwater for their cooling 20 towers resulted in none.
21 That's my other question. Are there any 22 that use salt water that are located ten miles inland?
23 Because of the unique circumstances of the 24 Levy Nuclear Plants 1 and 2 location, scientific 25 modeling must be arduously done to assure that NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AI"D TRA~ISCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE I, W (202) 23H433 WASHII':;TOII, D,C, ICC5;J701 WWN. nealrgross,com
67 1 drinking water and personal property and nearby 2 conservation areas will not be adversely affected by 3 the unnatural spreading of approximately 3,360 tons of 4 salt by the cooling towers drift over a period of 60 5 years.
6 The necessary modeling has not been done 7 in the apples and oranges comparison used in the NRC 8 Environmental Impact study, and is completely 9 inadequate.
10 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you. Thank 11 you, Beth.
12 And I know the NRC staff people will talk 13 to you after the meeting about that, as well as the 14 other issue.
15 Phyllis, are you ready? This is Phyllis 16 Lott, correct?
17 MS. LOTT: Yes.
18 MR. CAMERON: Yes, please.
19 MS. LOTT: My name is Phyllis Lott, and I 20 have a home at 31 Magnolia Avenue in Yankeetown. I 21 think the bottom line here, from what I understood, is 22 there actually is no plan in place to store this 23 nuclear waste.
24 Places -- you're right. It is a business 25 to set up facilities to store this. Places like Utah, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AI"D TRA~ISCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE I, W (202) 23H433 WASHII':;TOII, D,C, ICC5;J701 WWN. nealrgross,com
68 1 Texas, Maine, and other places are closing down their 2 facilities, and the citizens in that area are fighting 3 -- I've looked at all these places online and there is 4 a battle royale going on amongst the elected officials 5 and ci ti zens and they do not want any more nuclear 6 waste stored in their areas.
7 We do know that Yucca Mountain is closing, 8 and that was the main place that you had mentioned 9 that you were going to store this. So, I don't 10 understand why we're going to spend billions of 11 dollars building a facility and we don't have any 12 permanent place to store the nuclear waste. You 13 cannot leave it in those containers for any length of 14 time.
15 So, I'm very much concerned, because I 16 don't believe, when we were talking about building 17 this plant, that we thought this was going to be a 18 problem. Now I think it is a major problem, and 19 before we spend all this money building something, we 20 must have some place to store this nuclear waste. It 21 would be ridiculous to build this, and what are we 22 going to do with all that toxic chemicals that are 23 there, and rods and other things?
24 I would like to say I own about 400 acres 25 also next to where Progress Energy is going to be NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AI"D TRA~ISCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE I, W (202) 23H433 WASHII':;TOII, D,C, ICC5;J701 WWN. nealrgross,com
69 1 built, or the proposed site. The land, when it was 2 bought, was kept secretly. No one knew about it until 3 the deal was closed. And then we found out that it 4 was bought by Progress Energy to build a nuclear power 5 plant.
6 And then they come in and say, well, we 7 want your feedback. Well, at that point it was a 8 little too late, once they spend millions of dollars 9 buying up all this property.
10 Unfortunately, I'm afraid at this point.
11 All the meetings I've been to and all the different 12 programs I've attended listening to all of this, I'm 13 afraid once that land was purchased and it was a done 14 deal, that this will amount to nothing.
15 And that's -- that upsets me, because we 16 had a developer who had come in, the land that I own, 17 and was going to build upscale homes, a beautiful 18 neighborhood, and homes in the 250 to $500,000 price 19 range. And once he found out Progress Energy had 20 purchased this land for this nuclear power plant, they 21 pulled the contract that we had signed with them off.
22 So, I have a lot of reasons for not 23 wanting this plant built. But one of the ones that I 24 brought up tonight is, we cannot spend billions of 25 dollars on something and have absolutely no place to NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AI"D TRA~ISCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE I, W (202) 23H433 WASHII':;TOII, D,C, ICC5;J701 WWN. nealrgross,com
70 1 put this toxic nuclear waste. Thank you.
2 MR. CAMERON: And thank you, Phyllis. And 3 this is Mark Klutho coming up. Then we're going to go 4 to Art Jones, Ellen Avery-Smith, and Mary Olson.
5 MR. KLUTHO: Mark Klutho, Largo, Florida.
6 I'm here from a unique perspective. Here's form --
7 Army Form DA-3180. I was on a nuclear weapons 8 assembly team back in 1970. And here's the book, Non-9 Nuclear Futures: The Case for an Ethical Energy 10 Strategy, copyright 1975.
11 And when you came in tonight, you saw a 12 beautiful rendering out there of what the new nuclear 13 plants were going to look like. Well, the original 14 renderings that were in the newspaper from the 15 utility, they were -- the plants were surrounded by 16 some crown shaft palms. Well, the rendering changed 17 after I made note of this at the Pinellas County 18 Commission meetings.
19 And my point here is, perception and 20 reality. I spoke with a couple of people, the experts 21 I guess they're called, from regressive energy out 22 there. And they didn't know what a T12 light bulb 23 was, what an imaging specular reflector was. But yet, 24 we're told we need nuclear power.
25 And it's supposedly safe? But if you go NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AI"D TRA~ISCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE I, W (202) 23H433 WASHII':;TOII, D,C, ICC5;J701 WWN. nealrgross,com
71 1 to Vegas and you talk to the odds makers, and you want 2 to place a bet about whether or not there's going to 3 be a nuclear catastrophe, it's 50 percent, one in two, 4 that this might happen.
5 And I put this to regressive energy. If 6 it is so safe, then you need to demand that they take 7 that Price-Anderson Act off the books. Why do we need 8 that after all these years? I mean, I'm a child of 9 the '50s and I remember that it was supposed to be too 10 cheap to meter.
11 And then, what was in the New York Times 12 just months ago? That plant over in Finland, 50 13 percent over cost, and they won't give a completion 14 date. And this is supposed to be the blueprint for 15 what's coming here. Oh, things are smelly in Denmark.
16 And then, right outside here, regressive 17 energy has this Looking at Power in a New Light: A 18 Balanced Solution for the Future. Energy Efficiency 19 First. Well, here is this National Geographic, 20 Repowering the Planet, Energy for Tomorrow. And Amory 21 Lovins is interviewed here. He's the author of this 22 book, Non-Nuclear Futures: The Case for an Ethical 23 Energy Strategy. And he says -- he's interviewed, you 24 popularized the term megawatt. What are megawatts and 25 why should we care about them? Megawatts are watts NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AI"D TRA~ISCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE I, W (202) 23H433 WASHII':;TOII, D,C, ICC5;J701 WWN. nealrgross,com
72 1 saved by more efficient use. It's enormously cheaper, 2 probably eight times cheaper on average, to save 3 electricity than to make it. And nuclear power, as he 4 states in the Rocky Mountain Institute Newsletter 5 here, is the most expensive way to make electricity.
6 New nuclear reactors, same old story.
7 And it's really funny, because I hear from 8 the Nuclear Regulatory Commission that conservation 9 and efficiency are the same thing. No, they're not.
10 They're not synonymous.
11 Now, see, you people can't reasonably be 12 making a determination on something like these plants 13 when you think that conservation and efficiency mean 14 the same thing. I mean, we're in deep doo-doo here.
15 This is this is really bad. Look at all the 16 incandescent bulbs here.
17 When I went to that last hearing over 18 there at the training center, where they're learning 19 to work at the nuke plants, what does regressive 20 energy have burning? T12 bulbs. Archaic, obsolete 21 bulbs.
22 And they say we need nuclear power. Well, 23 guess what? They aren't paying for that. The 24 ratepayer pays for this. And then they add on their 25 12 percent.
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73 1 And we hear that it's not environmentally 2 friendly or favorable with the conservation, when you 3 meant to say efficiency. Again, using -- transposing 4 these two words? I mean, this whole gathering here is 5 nothing but a farce.
6 See, the problem is, if you read the u.S.
7 Today a couple of days ago, there was an article, and 8 it was about the economy coming out of the recession.
9 And it said, the energy States, these couple few 10 energy States are leading the way out of the 11 recession. No, no, it's not that at all. That's 12 what's causing the recession.
13 The u. S .A., less than 5 percent of the 14 world's population, and it's using 25 percent of the 15 world's energy. And the majority is feeding these few 16 and there never will be a vitality as long as there is 17 that equation. It isn't ever going to be that those 18 few will ever be able to throw it all back to the 19 majority.
20 It is a sad situation, like today when we 21 have light bulbs that can't be right, but you say you 22 need the technology of nuclear power and you still 23 have the Price-Anderson Act on the books.
24 MR. CAMERON: Mark, that's a great 25 summary. I'm going to have to ask you to finish up.
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74 1 MR. KLUTHO: Yeah, well --
2 MR. CAMERON: Thank you.
3 MR. KLUTHO: Again, it's the fox guarding 4 the hen house here. Oh yeah, here's here is one 5 more thing. Regressi ve energy saying they're green.
6 That's like Alfred E. painting the Hummer green.
7 That's regressive energy going green.
8 MR. CAMERON: Okay. And Art Jones. Now, 9 Art. Okay, this is Art Jones.
10 MR. JONES: Hello everybody. Yes, I'm Art 11 Jones. I live here in Crystal River and I've been 12 following this for a long time. And I went up to the 13 PSC and spoke up there. And I'm going to speak here 14 again and hopefully make a difference, because if you 15 don't speak out and if you don't at least try, then 16 you'll never know.
17 I believe that the Levy site is a bad 18 location to build a power plant for many reasons. And 19 some of them have already been spoken here tonight, 20 because it is right in the middle of fresh water 21 wetlands. It's right in the middle of the recharge 22 zone for our beautiful springs here in Florida.
23 And fresh water is so precious on this 24 planet. It's so precious here to our people here in 25 Florida. And it's only really 1 percent of the water NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AI"D TRA~ISCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE I, W (202) 23H433 WASHII':;TOII, D,C, ICC5;J701 WWN. nealrgross,com
75 1 on the planet is fresh water and drinkable. So, I 2 really think we need to protect it.
3 And when I asked that question, you know, 4 we're going to lose 720 acres of fresh water wetlands 5 and how many acres would we lose out at the Crystal 6 River site, I think they kind of dodged my answer.
7 I was expecting, you know, a number of 8 acres of fresh water wetlands that would be impacted, 9 and I think the answer would have been that it would 10 have been zero. There are no fresh water wetlands out 11 there right on the Gulf Coast. Those are salt water 12 marshes.
13 So, it makes sense to me that the plant, 14 if it has to be built, should be built out at that 15 site.
16 So, I think that, you know, that -- how 17 can anybody possibly say that the Levy site does not 18 have environmental impacts that should stop the NRC 19 from issuing the license for that location. Of 20 course, that site would have a very bad environmental 21 impact on many areas, you know, pumping over a million 22 gallons a day out of the aquifer there is -- that's a 23 million gallons less coming out of our springs.
24 And it's been shown that it feeds two 25 spring sheds. And then just right next to that NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AI"D TRA~ISCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE I, W (202) 23H433 WASHII':;TOII, D,C, ICC5;J701 WWN. nealrgross,com
76 1 location is the whole Rainbow River spring shed and 2 estuary, one of the most beautiful spring-fed rivers, 3 I think, in the world. So, I think that really needs 4 to be protected.
5 And I was a little concerned to hear about 6 salt water drift or, yes, salt drift in the 7 atmosphere coming from these plants. You don't want 8 that near the Rainbow River. You don't want that 9 inland. Let's put it back out on the coast.
10 And God forbid there ever is an accident 11 and there's a radioactive leak. At least we've got a 12 50 percent chance that the winds may be blowing out to 13 the open water and not inland where the people and 14 plants and fresh water is. So, I think from a safety 15 concern, it would make more sense to put it out in 16 Crystal River.
17 I don't think you can chop down a forest 18 and not kill all the trees. And you're going to kill 19 everything else that used to live there. So, it just 20 makes more sense to put it out at Crystal River.
21 Sure, you're going to lose some more of 22 the salt water wetlands, but, you know, I'd rather 23 you know, the salt water is a little bit more abundant 24 than our fresh water.
25 So, I think that really, if it has to be NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AI"D TRA~ISCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE I, W (202) 23H433 WASHII':;TOII, D,C, ICC5;J701 WWN. nealrgross,com
77 1 built, if they have to build another power plant, it 2 really needs to go out there at the Crystal River 3 site. Thank you.
4 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Art. Thank you 5 very much. Ellen Avery-Smith? And then we'll go Mary 6 Olson. This is Ellen Avery Smith. There's a team.
7 MS. SMITH: There is a team.
8 MR. CAMERON: Okay.
9 MS. SMITH: We work best that way. I am 10 Ellen Avery-Smith and I'm an attorney with a firm 11 called Rogers Towers, and I practice environmental 12 law.
13 This is my client, Charles Smith, so I'd 14 like to let him give you some preliminary remarks.
15 Then I'm going to follow up with the legal disclaimer 16 part.
17 MR. SMITH: My name is Charles Smith and 18 I'm here this evening representing Robinson Estates, a 19 family-owned corporation. We own the 5,700-plus acre 20 tract immediately to the east of the proposed LNP 21 site.
22 with more than two miles of contiguous 23 border with the LNP site on our west and some three 24 and a half miles of contiguous border with the Goethe 25 National Forest to our north, we have definite NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AI"D TRA~ISCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE I, W (202) 23H433 WASHII':;TOII, D,C, ICC5;J701 WWN. nealrgross,com
78 1 concerns regarding the proposed plans for this 2 facility, primarily due to the ambiguity of the plant 3 itself and the uncertain effect of the plant upon our 4 property.
5 In early July 2008, having received no 6 communication of any kind from anyone regarding the 7 proposed plant, we contacted and arranged a meeting 8 with a Progress Energy corporate officer. He 9 indicated some concern and confusion, since he said 10 that the company had already conducted extensive 11 negotiations with someone who claimed to be Chuck 12 Smith and had the right to negotiate for the 13 corporation.
14 At two breakfast meetings, he indicated to 15 us that the company had considerable interest in our 16 property, both as a route for a proposed rail line 17 and, more importantly, as the site for wetland 18 mitigation associated with the future nuclear plant 19 construction.
20 He arranged for the real es ta te group to 21 contact us. This was the first notice that our 22 corporation received from anyone regarding the project 23 and their interest in our property.
24 Apparently, other previous information and 25 notices were delivered to someone other than to NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AI"D TRA~ISCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE I, W (202) 23H433 WASHII':;TOII, D,C, ICC5;J701 WWN. nealrgross,com
79 1 some other source and were never forwarded to our 2 attention.
3 We continue to have bi-weekly phone 4 conversations with Progress Energy regarding their 5 interest in the property. We were even advised that 6 their interest in the use of their own property and 7 the Goethe state Forest had been discarded as possible 8 alternatives.
9 This was not surprising, as the Goethe 10 Forest is already a protected public property, and the 11 use of their own property would hinder their 12 construction efforts. We, therefore, had no reason to 13 comment on the plan or express any concerns regarding 14 possible negative effects to our property.
15 On May 18th, 2010, during one of our 16 telephone conversations with Progress Energy, the worm 17 turned. We were informed that they would not have 18 they would have no need for the Robinson property, as 19 they were now planning to use their own property and 20 the Goethe state Forest for wetland mitigation 21 purposes.
22 We are not objecting to the need for the 23 nuclear plants. We are asking for assurances from the 24 NRC and the Corps of Engineers that the new mitigation 25 plan, if accepted, will not have any adverse effect on NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AI"D TRA~ISCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE I, W (202) 23H433 WASHII':;TOII, D,C, ICC5;J701 WWN. nealrgross,com
80 1 the value or on the usage of our property for future 2 development.
3 In addition, we would be seeking 4 assurances that the Progress Energy plan would not 5 adversely affect current water flow onto or through 6 the Robinson tract, as a result of alteration and 7 changes made to the Goethe state Forest.
8 We currently have a hunting club leasing 9 our property. Our immediate concern is that there 10 will be no adverse restrictions on the use of this 11 property for this purpose.
12 On a longer term basis, we are seeking 13 assurances that there will be no adverse affect on the 14 property for future residential and commercial 15 development.
16 Finally, it seems that it would be a shame 17 that the effect of the proposed plan would necessarily 18 create a situation which would result in the loss of a 19 large, protected habitat, which could enable wildlife 20 movement through the Goethe state Forest all the way 21 to the withlacoochee River, with the accompanying 22 ecological advantage which would result, as well. Few 23 areas of this size and magnitude still exist in 24 Florida. And acceptance of this plan would 25 necessarily result in the impossibility of this unique NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AI"D TRA~ISCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE I, W (202) 23H433 WASHII':;TOII, D,C, ICC5;J701 WWN. nealrgross,com
81 1 benefit.
2 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you, Mr. smith.
3 Mrs. Ellen Avery-Smith.
4 MS. SMITH: Not related, surprisingly.
5 Just to give you a little bit of 6 background about Mr. Smith's comments. He and his 7 family when you look at the environmental 8 mitigation report that was produced by Progress Energy 9 in January of 2009, Mr. Smith's property is referred 10 to as the Robinson property, or the Robinson Estate.
11 And so, when he was referring to his 12 discussions with Progress Energy, he was talking to 13 them over a period of two years about purchasing that 14 5,700 acre tract which lies immediately to the east of 15 the Progress Energy site, as part of the wetland 16 mitigation for the impacts on the Progress Energy 17 site.
18 He also owns a number of parcels 19 surrounding the property. And so, he was during 20 the State of Florida's review process under the Siting 21 Act, he did not participate in commenting on the 22 wetland mi tiga tion plan produced by Progress Energy 23 because he was speaking to them about purchasing his 24 property. He thought everything was fine.
25 And then Progress Energy, in April of NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AI"D TRA~ISCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE I, W (202) 23H433 WASHII':;TOII, D,C, ICC5;J701 WWN. nealrgross,com
82 1 2010, changed that proposed mitigation plan that 2 eliminated the Robinson Tract from consideration as 3 wetland mitigation for the impacts on the site.
4 And so, that's why we're here today, 5 because this is our only venue to voice his concerns 6 about potential environmental and other impacts to his 7 property.
8 So, with that in mind, I'd like to start 9 wi th talking about your Draft Environmental Impact 10 Statement, starting with the wetland mitigation.
11 As I said, the original Mitigation Plan 12 dated January 2009, Progress Energy proposed 764 acres 13 of wetland impacts, which resulted at a functional 14 loss under UMAM, or the Uniform Mitigation Assessment 15 Methodology, which is the recognized method in the 16 State of Florida under law, of 411 units.
17 The revised Plan, which is dated April 18 23rd, 2010 -- I have a copy here. In that, Progress 19 Energy proposed 722 acres of wetland impacts, with the 20 resulting functional loss of 289 UMAM units. So, that 21 was a reduction of 41 acres of proposed wetland 22 impacts, which is a 5.5 percent reduction. But the 23 proposed mitigation went down 121. 7 units, which is 24 almost 30 percent.
25 So, we're questioning the UMAM scores that NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AI"D TRA~ISCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE I, W (202) 23H433 WASHII':;TOII, D,C, ICC5;J701 WWN. nealrgross,com
83 1 are presented in the April 23rd, 2010 Mitigation Plan.
2 I will not bore you with the details of that. But, I 3 think that scientific judgment is required by the 4 rule, by Florida law, and we ask that you use that.
5 Also, point you to page (ii) of the 6 Revised Mitigation Plan. And it does say it focuses 7 on enhancing and restoring ecological functions to 8 large areas of wetland habitat and supporting uplands.
9 It provides landscape level ecosystem benefits that 10 exceed the value that would accrue if similar 11 mitigation activities were to occur on a piecemeal, 12 localized basis, without considering the values that 13 come from improving large blocks of habitat and 14 habitat corridors.
15 And we question whether this Plan actually 16 achieves that. Because if you look at page 1-11 of 17 that Plan, it specifically calls for mitigation to be 18 provided in the Goethe state Forest. The Goethe state 19 Forest is publicly owned land. And, so, we question 20 why the state of Florida and why the u.s. Army Corps 21 of Engineers would allow Progress Energy to swap 22 mitigation out to provide that mitigation on lands 23 that are already publicly-owned and therefore 24 protected, instead of buying privately-owned 25 properties and protecting larger areas of watershed, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AI"D TRA~ISCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE I, W (202) 23H433 WASHII':;TOII, D,C, ICC5;J701 WWN. nealrgross,com
84 1 larger ecosystems, larger wildlife habitat.
2 Also, the proposed on-site mitigation, 3 which has been heavily increased, talks about a UMAM 4 lift of 180.6 wetland UMAM lift units and 145 upland 5 UMAM lift units. And so, I'm curious as to why 6 uplands are being counted, because I don't see that --
7 it says rehabilitation and enhancement and 8 preservation as the action. I don't see any wetland 9 creation that's listed. And so, again, why are you 10 giving credit under UMAM for upland rehabilitation and 11 not wetland creation in those areas?
12 We would just, in summary, invite you to 13 take a closer look at this, this report, because it 14 does not provide adequate mitigation to offset the 15 impacts. And it certainly is not equal to some of the 16 other wetland mi tiga tion alternatives that were 17 provided in the January of 2009 report.
18 Going onto other ecological impacts.
19 Someone mentioned earlier the effects of the salt from 20 this being dispersed from the plant. And I'm 21 speaking, when I talk about these, specifically the 22 impacts on the Robinson tract property, which is the 23 largest, most heavily impacted property out there.
24 I also want to question the wildlife 25 corridors. If you've got preservation on the -- or NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AI"D TRA~ISCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE I, W (202) 23H433 WASHII':;TOII, D,C, ICC5;J701 WWN. nealrgross,com
85 1 wetland mitigation on the Progress Energy site and 2 then in the Goethe state Forest, the Robinson Estate 3 property lies in between those two. So, Progress 4 Energy is relying on the Robinson Estate property 5 remaining undeveloped in order to provide that 6 wildlife corridor. The same could be said for the 7 flow of water and similar ecological attributes.
8 Also, we question whether or not the 9 drainage pattern would be the same. Pre-development 10 runoff should be equal to post-development runoff.
11 And also the groundwater usage, will the pumping of 12 water on the Progress Energy site draw down the 13 wetlands and have other negative attributes on the 14 Robinson Estate property?
15 Going to safety concerns. Again, as Mr.
16 Smith said, there is a hunting camp that hunts on the 17 Robinson Estate property. We hope that that will not 18 -- that activity will not be preempted or in any way 19 minimized by the acti vi ties, especially the shooting 20 range, on the Progress Energy site that's proposed.
21 Also, the storage of the spent fuel will 22 occur close to the Robinson Estate property. We hope 23 that you will take those kinds of issues into 24 consideration.
25 The Robinson family also owns 28 acres NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AI"D TRA~ISCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE I, W (202) 23H433 WASHII':;TOII, D,C, ICC5;J701 WWN. nealrgross,com
86 1 near the heavy-haul route. We would like you to take 2 into consideration what revisions Progress Energy is 3 making to ensure adequate legal access to Highway 40 4 from that property.
5 What safety concerns are going to be 6 impacted or how is that property going to be impacted 7 by the use of that heavy-haul route?
8 And again, when -- and the main concern 9 also is, is there a diminution in value of either the 10 5,700 acres or this 28 acres by Progress Energy's 11 location next door and its, what will amount to an 12 assumption that the Robinson Estate property will not 13 be developed, and hopefully that will not occur.
14 MR. CAMERON: And Ellen, I'm going to have 15 to ask you to finish up. And I hope that you can 16 memorialize this in writing, also.
17 MS. SMITH: We will do that. So, I just 18 ask you to wrap up -- you presented a slide about how 19 impacts are quantified during your presentation. And 20 I would argue today that the impacts to the Robinson 21 Estate property from this project are going to be 22 large. And we're talking about environmental and 23 safety, as I've outlined. We will give you some 24 additional comments in writing. And we appreciate 25 your protecting Mr. Smith and his family's value.
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87 1 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you. Thank you 2 both. Mary Olson? And then we're going to go to 3 Barbara, Barbara Seiling. And Mike Seymour. This is 4 Mary Olson.
5 MS. OLSON: My name is Mary Olson. I'm 6 the Director of the Southeast Office of Nuclear 7 Information and Resource Service. I live in 8 Asheville, North Carolina. But I'm here tonight 9 because we have members here in the Levy and Citrus 10 Counties, and we also have status as a party to this 11 licensing process.
12 Combined with the Green Party of Florida 13 and the Ecology Party of Florida, we submitted a 14 peti tion to intervene two years ago, just about, at 15 the time that the opportunity to join in the licensing 16 process was made available by the federal regulator.
17 We offered 12 key issues and of the 12 issues, 3 were 18 admitted by the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board.
19 We've heard a lot about water tonight and 20 I'm pleased to hear the level of concern in this 21 community about the water. That is one of the large, 22 substantial issues that we have pending, on 23 hydroecology, both surface water and groundwater.
24 I want to mention a couple of quick things 25 tonight. The other two contentions are on waste. And NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AI"D TRA~ISCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE I, W (202) 23H433 WASHII':;TOII, D,C, ICC5;J701 WWN. nealrgross,com
88 1 the Nuclear Regulatory Commission will receive 2 comments in writing from us on these areas. I'm not 3 going to say much about them tonight.
4 But I do want to indicate that -- I think 5 it's page 15, where the water resources are discussed 6 in the handout. The regulator finds that the impacts 7 would be small. And our contention states that we 8 believe the impacts will be large. And so, we're 9 still in the process, and the hearing is not due for 10 another year, but in the process of building the case l I o n these issues.
12 And I'd like to make myself available this 13 evening or after this evening. I'll give anyone my 14 contact information. I'm more than happy to speak to 15 anybody here about what it means to be an intervener 16 and what this process is about. And I encourage you 17 to ask questions of everybody.
18 Okay. That said, I do want to say a 19 couple of things about waste, because I think that the 20 earlier comments were spot on. There is no place to 21 send any of the waste that would be generated at this 22 proposed site at this time.
23 And in fact, in the last month the Nuclear 24 Regulatory Commission has issued a new ruling saying 25 that their basis of confidence for approving a new NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AI"D TRA~ISCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE I, W (202) 23H433 WASHII':;TOII, D,C, ICC5;J701 WWN. nealrgross,com
89 1 reactor, whether it be in Levy County or anywhere 2 else, is that the high level nuclear waste, the 3 irradiated fuel rods that were described to us this 4 evening -- and just so you know, technical analysis 5 says that on average they're 6 million times more 6 radioacti ve than the uranium that's put in, and it 7 does give a lethal exposure if unshielded and in less 8 than 30 seconds. So, this is a very tricky material.
9 I'm not saying that Progress Energy or 10 anyone else is handling it in an unsafe manner, but 11 the fact is that the regulator has determined that the 12 basis for issuing a license to make more of this stuff 13 is that it can be stored where it is generated for up 14 to 120 years.
15 So, this community has a right to know 16 that (a) I cannot bring this issue in the licensing 17 process as an intervener because it is considered 18 generic and so, therefore, not subject to litigation 19 at the level of the license, and (b) you haven't 20 really been given disclosure, have you, that you're 21 signing up for 120 levels of high level nuclear waste 22 storage, unless a new option becomes available.
23 So, I want to use my time tonight to talk 24 about the things I can't bring in intervention, 25 because this is a different opportunity to comment.
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90 1 So, the so-called low level waste we are 2 litigating on. And I'll simply that, again, the 3 comment was spot on. The communities in this country 4 are standing up and saying no, we don't want to be 5 dumps. The dumps that are there have been closed, 6 except for there very few exceptions. utah is an 7 exception.
8 There are dumps that are taking waste from 9 specific states, like South Carolina's still taking 10 from Connecticut, New Jersey, and South Carolina only.
11 But that's what's forcing every reactor in the united 12 States to either store or ship to a temporary location 13 their so-called low level waste.
14 And the same would be true of Levy after 15 two years of storage that's in the AP-IOOO design, if 16 it's the average level of production of waste, which 17 it mayor may not be in the first year -- second year.
18 So, the whole issue of waste is very rife 19 for our consideration, for discussion, for local 20 action, because this is a community that has a right 21 to say whether it is going to be the next so-called 22 low level waste dump for Progress Energy, if it is 23 going to be the next so-called high level waste dump 24 for Progress Energy. Those need to be really 25 considered at the local level.
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91 1 Okay. I'm about done with what I'm going 2 to say. As I said, we will, of course, be giving 3 written comments pertaining to the Draft Environmental 4 Impact statement.
5 One last -- two quick comments that I want 6 to tag on. One has to do with jobs. I've been 7 spending a lot of time on the phone with people all 8 over the country for the last 20 years, because I've 9 had my job for 2C years. We work with a lot of people 10 in reactor communities. Our membership is in all 50 11 states, but a disproportionate number of members in 12 reactor communities.
13 And one thing I hear over and over again 14 was that the job thing just didn't work out. And 15 there's a woman in Texas who's actually figured out 16 why. The reason is, is because most of the long term 17 jobs that would come with these new reactors won't be 18 hired locally, maybe a few. But most of those workers 19 for the long term positions, not the construction 20 jobs, but the other ones, will be hired from out of 21 the area.
22 But they're not monks. They're not single 23 individuals. They will come with a spouse. And 24 because they're technically skilled positions, they --
25 many of them will be mature individuals with teenage NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AI"D TRA~ISCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE I, W (202) 23H433 WASHII':;TOII, D,C, ICC5;J701 WWN. nealrgross,com
92 1 and older children. And so you get one worker, but 2 you get two to three potentially -- at least one, two, 3 or three work seekers. And so, incredibly, the 4 unemployment rate goes up in new reactor communities, 5 not down.
6 So, I wanted to bring that out. And 7 finally, I'm not allowed to attack NRC regulations in 8 the process of intervening on a license. And I 9 understand that because, you know, we're there to be 10 sure the process is done right. And since the process 11 is based on the regulations, okay, we're not going to 12 attack them in that process.
13 But I'm here to tell you that page 17 of 14 the handout is entirely misleading. This little pie 15 chart about radiation. Just imagine for a moment that 16 there's 104 operating nuclear reactors, and then 17 there's about a dozen nuclear weapon sites, and then 18 there's all their support industries, the laundries, 19 and the waste processors, and there's some 20 incinerators. But probably there's on the order of, 21 you know, a few hundred nuclear facilities. And yet, 22 they're showing up at a tenth of a percent. That is 23 one one-thousandth of all the radiation.
24 That means that the averaging is pretty 25 amazing when they give these numbers, because people NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AI"D TRA~ISCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE I, W (202) 23H433 WASHII':;TOII, D,C, ICC5;J701 WWN. nealrgross,com
93 1 who live in these areas are getting a lot of 2 radiation, okay? Because the radiation standards are 3 so permissive.
4 When I was a child, we argued about 1 in a 5 million people, was that acceptable for an industrial 6 operation to kill one in a million? Then we got to 7 Superfunding. It was 1 in 100,000, and in really 8 complex clean-up situations, it goes up to 1 in 9 10,000.
10 NRC admitted in 1990 that their own 11 standards and I'm taking the nicest, prettiest, 12 little, tightest number, 100 millirem a year, results 13 in 3.5 fatal cancers per 1,000 people exposed. What 14 does that mean? It means, if we're talking about men, 15 that there's there 1 in every 286 people. Not 1 in a 16 million, not 1 in 10,000. But one in every 286 17 allowable deaths from the radiation standards that 18 this industry is regulated under. I can't attack that 19 in intervention, but I can disclose it to you.
20 And then, finally, I can tell you that 21 women are more vulnerable. Why? Because we have more 22 vulnerable tissue, because our reproductive organs are 23 larger. We get one and a half times the rate. That 24 goes down to 1 in 191. You start talking about 25 children and unborn children and the numbers are like NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AI"D TRA~ISCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE I, W (202) 23H433 WASHII':;TOII, D,C, ICC5;J701 WWN. nealrgross,com
94 1 1 in 10.
2 And this is perfect performance with no 3 accidents. This is what our federal regulator allows.
4 So, for those who are concerned about the 5 local impacts, you have a right to know this. And I 6 traveled down here to say this, and I thank you for 7 listening.
8 MR. CAMERON: Thank you.
9 MS. OLSON: I invite you again to get my 10 contact information if you want to know more about 11 intervention.
12 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Mary. And 13 Barbara? And then Mike Seymour and Emily Casey. And 14 then Mr. Hopkins. This is Barbara Seiling.
15 MS. SIELING: Well, my t-shirt says what I 16 feel about most corporations. Not -- the government 17 isn't real high above that.
18 After all these questions I asked about 19 this, not understanding and they give me this book.
20 And the only difference between the Levy County and 21 the Crystal River -- and I did have questions about 22 that I'll ask later -- is that transportation to Levy 23 County would be small to moderate, whereas it would be 24 small to Crystal River. So, I still don't think I've 25 gotten my answer. That was something added on.
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95 1 And I was also curious about how they will 2 be transporting the uranium and how many houses it 3 will go by to get there.
4 with water being the most important yet 5 limi ted resource, I am appalled at the lackadaisical 6 atti tude I see towards these wetlands. Florida has 7 suffered from water shortages for years, even decades.
8 And now the destruction of our needed wetlands and the 9 effect on our aquifers is unacceptable.
10 I also understand -- and I understand a 11 little bit more now since the last couple of people 12 talked, that part of Goethe state Park is going to be 13 involved in the construction or at least the water 14 flow.
15 I live in Alachua County, barely, and part 16 of Goethe state Park is up there, too. And, so, I 17 went online when I first moved up there and found that 18 Goethe state Park and most of Goethe state Park has 19 foxtail squirrels, gopher turtles, and other 20 endangered or protected animals in the park. And I'm 21 wondering if not that I wouldn't trust a 22 corporation and that I would ever think they would do 23 something like make sure they are all eliminated 24 before the actual other people go out and check it.
25 But with gopher turtles, I didn't think there was a NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AI"D TRA~ISCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE I, W (202) 23H433 WASHII':;TOII, D,C, ICC5;J701 WWN. nealrgross,com
96 1 way around them, so they would have to have been 2 removed.
3 I talked to a gentleman from Progressive 4 Energy earlier and I and a woman, and instead of 5 spending they tal k about al ternati ve energy and 6 instead of spending all their money on building a 7 nuclear power plant, why don't they build it in their 8 backyard? Number one. But if they spent that money 9 towards helping everybody get alternative energy like 10 solar or wind power that they are now supplying energy 11 to, maybe there wouldn't be a need for a second 12 nuclear site.
13 I'm originally from st. Petersburg. We've 14 always had water problems. And it really scares me 15 that at times -- at the end of the -- at the lower end 16 of the beaches, south end of the beaches, you could 17 turn on a water spigot, there would be hopefully a 18 drop or two coming out. And now you're talking about 19 covering up a way to redo our refill our aquifers.
20 I live in an area called Watermelon Pond.
21 When I went to put in an ag well -- for anyone who 22 doesn't know what that is, it's a well so you can feed 23 have water for your animals cows, horses, et 24 cetera. EPA calls me because, guess what? Part of 25 the property goes into -- actually has contact with NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AI"D TRA~ISCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE I, W (202) 23H433 WASHII':;TOII, D,C, ICC5;J701 WWN. nealrgross,com
97 1 watermelon Pond.
2 So, the EPA's calling me because, being 3 part of SWFWMD and it's all State property, they want 4 to come out and examine to see where I'm going to put 5 my well not my septic, my well -- to make sure it's 6 not going to impact the property. Of course, I 7 already had a well, so I didn't they said, oh, 8 never mind then.
9 But here we are trying to and I'm 10 talking about a well. And EPA's in my -- coming to 11 me. I had to make sure my septic tank wasn't too 12 close. I had to make sure my property wasn't too --
13 my house wasn't too close.
14 And here we are talking about putting a 15 potential catastrophe waiting to happen on our -- on 16 our water our whole water flow and the most 17 important resource that we have. And I just don't 18 understand.
19 And then, of course, I figured I'd better 20 say this, otherwise, you would have cut me off in the 21 beginning. And as far as the Army Corps of Engineers, 22 I'm just wondering, is this the same group of people 23 who designed the levies in New Orleans, Rodman Dam, 24 and rerouted the rivers going into the Everglades 25 that's caused a lot of the problems down there? Just NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AI"D TRA~ISCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE I, W (202) 23H433 WASHII':;TOII, D,C, ICC5;J701 WWN. nealrgross,com
98 1 a thought.
2 I think that pretty well covers everything 3 I have to say.
4 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you. Mike 5 Seymour and then Emily Casey and Norman Hopkins.
6 MR. SEYMOUR: My name's Mike Seymour and 7 I'm a general contractor. I live in the Crystal River 8 area. I've been working with Mr. Smith on his 9 property for probably about two, two and a half years.
10 At one point in time, we were going to develop the 11 property ourselves into higher-end residential homes 12 and try to do a pretty unique type community there.
13 What I'd like to start out with telling 14 you guys about, if I can, is our first introduction to 15 Progress Energy. At first, we fought them because, 16 like the young lady there, we wanted to develop our 17 land, Mr. Smith's land. I had put a lot of time and 18 my own money into the plans for that piece of 19 property.
20 And we came here to the Plantation and we 21 heard Progress Energy giving their speech. And we 22 brought in our environmentalist; Ellen spoke at that 23 particular meeting. And we were -- we were upset.
24 You know, we had plans for the property ourselves.
25 Later on, we were contacted by Danny NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AI"D TRA~ISCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE I, W (202) 23H433 WASHII':;TOII, D,C, ICC5;J701 WWN. nealrgross,com
99 1 Roderick, who we came to know very well. We've had 2 several meetings here with Danny Roderick and 3 discussing the plans of Progress Energy. And one of 4 the things that I got to know about Danny, in talking 5 to him, his goals here seem to be so much different 6 than what I have seen here lately from Progress 7 Energy.
8 Danny's goals seemed to be creating a 9 project that the community would be proud of.
10 Something that he did not want to -- of course, he was 11 expense cautious about what he was doing, but he was 12 also and this is just my opinion of Danny. He 13 might have had a different view. But I'm just talking 14 as a businessman and our relationship with Danny.
15 He seemed to be more in tune to what the 16 community as a whole would be proud of out there.
17 Something that would create jobs for Levy County, 18 Citrus County, and benefit the surrounding properties 19 by, you know, what his outlook was for the piece of 20 property.
21 That all changed when Danny left. He's no 22 longer with Progress Energy. But one of the things 23 that he was always very concerned about was, in the 24 development of the property to make sure from the 25 feeling that we had with him, that the surrounding NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AI"D TRA~ISCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE I, W (202) 23H433 WASHII':;TOII, D,C, ICC5;J701 WWN. nealrgross,com
100 1 lands were as protected as they possibly could be. He 2 knew that they were going to have an impact. He was 3 willing to talk to us about how it would impact our 4 property; how it would impact the Goethe state Forest; 5 how it would impact the surrounding neighbors' 6 properties. We're not finding any of that from the 7 contacts we've had with Progress Energy.
8 I was involved in these bi-weekly 9 conference calls with Progress Energy, and I can tell 10 you right now, had we thought at any point in time 11 that they weren't going to use our property for their 12 mitigation plans, we would have been raising red flags 13 along the whole path of the process of permitting.
14 Because we had the team in place to do it and we could 15 have raised a lot of red flags at that point in time.
16 We took them at their word, insofar as 17 they were going to be buying the property, or at least 18 a sizeable portion of it, and it was our 19 understanding, based on what Danny was telling us, 20 that their goal was to preserve as much of that land 21 because of the land that they would be impacting.
22 They would be creating an access to wildlife from the 23 Goethe state Forest to the withlacoochee.
24 Even some of the state plans were to 25 purchase that property to be able to put it back into NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AI"D TRA~ISCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE I, W (202) 23H433 WASHII':;TOII, D,C, ICC5;J701 WWN. nealrgross,com
101 1 the public domain, to where they could create benefits 2 for the water sheds of both the withlacoochee and 3 sorry, I can't pronounce the other water shed that's 4 in that area, the Warkusi (ph) water shed. But 5 anyway, they both joined up in that particular area 6 and if I'm not mistaken, the boundary is almost 7 through that Robinson tract and goes up through the 8 Goethe state Forest.
9 And so, I do know that that was high on 10 the state's list, to try to preserve that particular 11 corridor in that area. And by purchasing that 5,700 12 acres, they would have been able to maintain that, and 13 they would have been able to spread the impact of what 14 they're doing on their property over a wider piece of 15 property, and it would not have had the same effects 16 as it's going to have now in that particular area.
17 And the only couple of things that I'd 18 point out. In the first January 15th or 13th, 2009 19 Mi tiga tion Plan and I don't know how many of you 20 had the time -- the chance to read that or look at it, 21 but I would suggest that you get a copy of it and look 22 at it, because it's drastic in the way that they've 23 changed from the 2009 to the April 2010 Mitigation 24 Plan.
25 And I have personally spoken to the DEP NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AI"D TRA~ISCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE I, W (202) 23H433 WASHII':;TOII, D,C, ICC5;J701 WWN. nealrgross,com
102 1 and the representatives of the DEP, and I can tell you 2 right now that the comment that they made to me was 3 they were surprised that that tract of land was pulled 4 out, because they didn't even know it.
5 And I do know this sitting board -- I'm 6 sorry -- the siting board, when they were reviewing 7 all of these documents also, they were basing their 8 opinion on that particular 2009 Wetlands Mitigation 9 Plan. And, so, any discussions that would have been 10 taking place between the public, or anybody else at 11 that time, would have been based on the 2009 12 Mitigation Plan.
13 And in that Plan, where they're talking 14 about their own piece of property, it says, because 15 much of the LNP site is proposed for development, 16 infrastructure, transmission corridors, security 17 buffers, and potential future development, there are 18 few areas available for mitigation.
19 And now you look at it and pretty much the 20 whole site is being cut up with -- with, you know, a 21 little bit of mitigation up on the northern boundary.
22 The bulk of the mitigation is going to cut off all of 23 the flow of wildlife from the Goethe state Forest to 24 the Robinson tract, down to the wi thlacoochee River.
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103 1 it's going to be completely blocked off by the heavy-2 haul road.
3 So, there's a if you really want to 4 look at what I think Danny would have been proud of, 5 or the community would have been proud of, is to look 6 at the alternative sites that they had, and the 7 alternative plans that they had in the 2009 Mitigation 8 Plan versus the 2010 Mitigation Plan that they're 9 planning on using now. Thank you.
10 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you, Mike, for 11 those comments. Emily? Emily Casey still here? Oh, 12 I'm sorry. Is that Emily? And then we're going to go 13 to Norman Hopkins.
14 MS. CASEY: Good evening. My name is 15 Emily Casey. I live in Citrus County, but I grew up 16 in Levy County and it's just some place that I want to 17 protect. And what I'm going to do right now is just 18 make a short address to water concerns, for the most 19 part.
20 I want to submit the Chronicle on 21 September 19th, is what we've all been talking about -
22 - Water Matters. It really sums up the importance of 23 water in this area, so I just want to put this into 24 the record.
25 And I want to talk about the uniqueness of NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AI"D TRA~ISCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE I, W (202) 23H433 WASHII':;TOII, D,C, ICC5;J701 WWN. nealrgross,com
104 1 this area. The proposed site in Levy County, as I 2 have said, is extremely unique greenfield and really 3 cannot be compared to other wetland areas throughout 4 the northern Tampa Bay.
5 In the groundwater modeling portion of the 6 section written in support of Progress Energy's water 7 use program application, it stated that and I'm 8 quoting here: SWFWMD presumes an adverse impact to a 9 wetland if the long term median water level falls 10 below the minimum wetland level. The District has 11 assigned the elevations to sentinel wetlands. The 12 District states, -- and the district is SWFWMD that 13 it can't extrapolate levels from wetlands that haven't 14 had official levels set by similar wetlands in close 15 proximity."
16 Okay. It means they can make an average.
17 And then you go ahead down a little ways 18 and you read that: A minimum wetland level is at 1.8 19 feet below normal pool and with a one-to-one 20 relationship. And it states that: The methodology 21 works at areas -- in other areas, that there are no 22 sentinel wetlands or published minimum wetland levels 23 in Levy County.
24 So, the data -- my statement is that the 25 data that was used is based on estimations from other NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AI"D TRA~ISCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE I, W (202) 23H433 WASHII':;TOII, D,C, ICC5;J701 WWN. nealrgross,com
105 1 areas.
2 And as I said before, this is a unique 3 area. As you have heard all night, people have 4 addressed concerns about the wetland impact. And it 5 is really unique because two surface water that 6 flows between two water management districts and into 7 two separate rivers, both the Waccasassa and the 8 withlacoochee.
9 The site is located south and west of two 10 separate potential high levels (sic). This would 11 result in both the Floridan aquifer water being 12 consumed from both the west and the east of this site.
13 And what that ultimately would mean, that 14 water that would flow, and should flow from the south 15 to the south and/or to the west and/or to the north 16 and the reason why I state it that way is because 17 it's at kind of a confluence of the waters. And then 18 it flows in many different directions; some flows 19 north, some flows toward the Gulf, some flows towards 20 the withlacoochee River. You really can't predict at 21 what point it's going to flow in which direction.
22 Anyway, so I've said that they will not be 23 available to other users or the environment, since 24 there is a 1.85 million gallons per day projected to 25 be withdrawn.
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106 1 And surface waters flow either, as I said, 2 into the two rivers or sheet floods flow to the Gulf, 3 and, the Gulf is also a very pristine estuary area and 4 the Big Bend seagrass beds.
5 Personally, I have observed water flowing 6 from a high water lake that exists at the northeast 7 corner of Progress Energy's property, flows under 19, 8 and in a very short distance, it's flowing northwest 9 and it goes into many swallets straight down into the 10 aquifer.
11 So, my question from there is, what will 12 the quality of this water be in 10, 20 years? And 13 also, what will the quantity of this water be? Or 14 will there be any water?
15 Then, the water that flows into these 16 swallets are most likely the water that feeds into the 17 springs that are there. These two springs happen to 18 be two out of the five known springs -- and I'd like 19 to stress "known" because it is what we know, but 20 there's kind of assumed that there's much more out 21 there that is not known.
22 Anyway, two out of the five springs 23 provide the fresh water into the Waccasassa Bay/River 24 area. The Waccasassa Bay River has already 25 experienced a dramatic decline in the amount of water NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AI"D TRA~ISCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE I, W (202) 23H433 WASHII':;TOII, D,C, ICC5;J701 WWN. nealrgross,com
107 1 that flows from there. So, what will happen in 10, 20 2 years? These are just questions.
3 What I'm proposing is, that due to many 4 features and these are only a few that this area 5 has, is not a place that can be compared to other 6 places.
7 And I ask you to understand that the 8 environmental impacts are not going to be small. They 9 are going to large to the water and to the people that 10 live around there and to the environment, in general.
11 And not only would be large, it would be devastating.
12 Thank you.
13 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you, Emily.
14 And Mr. Hopkins? Norman Hopkins.
15 MR. HOPKINS: Good evening, ladies and 16 gentlemen. My name is Norman Hopkins and I live in 17 Ci trus County, and I run a foundation dedicated to 18 teaching environmental science.
19 I have a confession to make. And that is 20 that I can, after the years of research that I've done 21 into sources of energy for the purpose of constructing 22 a comprehensive of the energy situation in America 23 today and putting it on the website that we maintain 24 for teaching, leaves me without any confidence at all 25 that a case could be made for nuclear energy anywhere NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AI"D TRA~ISCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE I, W (202) 23H433 WASHII':;TOII, D,C, ICC5;J701 WWN. nealrgross,com
108 1 in the world. It just cannot be made.
2 The most important factor is the sheer 3 overwhelming cost of the capital expenditure and the 4 burden that it places on the capital resources, even 5 of this nation. Plus, the cost of kilowatt hour from 6 nuclear energy under any circumstances is a 7 significant multiple of any other form and a very 8 significant multiple of the cost that we pay for 9 kilowatt hour today.
10 However, this meeting is to consider the 11 environmental input -- Environmental Impact statement 12 and having said that, just remember it, I can't 13 justify having a nuclear energy source, a new one, 14 anywhere in the world today.
15 Why I'm standing up here is to talk about 16 water. And it is a scarce resource. We need to 17 husband that scarce resource. We need to look after 18 our wetlands for the job that they do to preserve the 19 water which is in the aquifers of this country.
20 And, furthermore, I've already referred to 21 the fact that the Environmental Impact statement that 22 has been published, and which we've reviewed, was 23 based upon scoping data collected up till December 24 2008.
25 Since then, a research study has been NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AI"D TRA~ISCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE I, W (202) 23H433 WASHII':;TOII, D,C, ICC5;J701 WWN. nealrgross,com
109 1 completed to find out how the water and where it 2 travels to in the aquifer. There are artesian flows 3 which are natural to balance the pressure wi thin the 4 aquifer, a confined aquifer, that is -- an artesian 5 aquifer. But when those flows -- and it's quite true 6 that they flow from west to east across the -- sorry -
7 - from east to west across the LNP site, immediately 8 to the west of that site is what is a fracture which 9 will divert the water to the south.
10 And the reason that I am concerned about 11 that -- and it is not mentioned in the Environmental 12 Impact statement draft is that the consequence of 13 that, ignoring the fact that it flows towards the 14 south, means that the whole of the Crystal River Kings 15 Bay complex, as an impacted environment, is omitted 16 from the Environmental Impact statement.
17 I have submitted a paper on this to the 18 NRC and I've already given a copy of that paper to a 19 representative of the NRC here today. I will be 20 sUbmitting a written report to the NRC.
21 And, we cannot afford to lose the waters 22 of Crystal River Kings Bay, which today contribute 23 something like $20 million a year to the local 24 economy.
25 So, they're important to those of us who NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AI"D TRA~ISCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE I, W (202) 23H433 WASHII':;TOII, D,C, ICC5;J701 WWN. nealrgross,com
110 1 live and dwell in Crystal River or in Citrus County, 2 and we can't afford to lose that water resource.
3 Furthermore, just one sentence. And that 4 is, that the flows underground are complex. And there 5 is every likelihood that, as I spoke this afternoon 6 about the accumulation of radionuclides in groundwater 7 from a plant in Levy County, as described in the 8 Environmental Impact statement, will most likely 9 influence the wells from which the domestic water 10 supply is taken for 135,000 households in Citrus 11 County.
12 Thank you very much.
13 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Mr. Hopkins. Mr.
14 Hopkins was our final speaker. And I'm going to ask 15 Scott Flanders, as our senior official, to close the 16 meeting out for us. Scott?
17 MR. FLANDERS: First, I want to thank 18 everyone for coming and attending the meeting tonight 19 and providing excellent comments. We find the 20 comments very useful. We intend to take all of the 21 information back and consider it as we work toward 22 finalizing the Environmental Impact Statement.
23 Again, as Doug mentioned earlier in his 24 presentation, the comment period does not close until 25 October 27th, so certainly all the comments you NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AI"D TRA~ISCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE I, W (202) 23H433 WASHII':;TOII, D,C, ICC5;J701 WWN. nealrgross,com
111 1 provided here, we will certainly take into account.
2 If there's other information, as you 3 continue to review the document, digest some of the 4 comments that you heard from some of the other 5 indi viduals and want to provide additional comments, 6 the comment period, again, does not close until 7 october 27th. So, there's an opportunity to also 8 provide additional comments, as well.
9 And as we said earlier today, as an 10 independent regulatory agency, our job is to ensure 11 that we fully consider the environmental impacts of 12 what's being proposed and make sure that we clearly 13 and accurately provide that information for public 14 review and for decision makers. And that's what we 15 intend to do.
16 So, we're going to take those comments 17 that we received today, analyze them closely, factor 18 them in. It's always a benefit to us to come to the 19 community and hear information and the perspective 20 from the communi ty. Oftentimes, we find information 21 that we weren't aware of and we need to take that into 22 account, as well. We certainly will do that in this 23 case.
24 So, in concl us ion, I would, on behal f of 25 the Army Corps of Engineers and the Nuclear Regulatory NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AI"D TRA~ISCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE I, W (202) 23H433 WASHII':;TOII, D,C, ICC5;J701 WWN. nealrgross,com
112 1 Commission, I want to thank you for attending this 2 evening. And that concludes our meeting. Thank you.
3 (At 9:34 p.m., meeting concluded.)
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!! " "
Board Meeting Package November 17,2010 4:30 p.m.
Meeting Location:
SWFWMD Headquarters Governing Board Meeting Room 2379 Broad Street (US 41 South)
Brooksville, Florida 34604-6899
WlTHLACOOCHEE REGIO~AL WATER SUPPLY AUTHORITY BOARD OF DIRECTORS MEETING :vTI~UTES October 20, 2010 TIME: 4:30 p.m.
PLACE: Withlacoochee Regional Planning Council th 1241 SW 10 Street (SR 200)
Ocala, Florida 34471-0323 The numbers preceding the items listed below correspond with the published agenda.
- 1. Call to Order Chairnlan Richard HolTman called the Withlacoochee Regional Water Supply Authority (WRWSA) meeting to order at 4:35 p.m. and asked Cor a roll call.
- 2. Roll Call Mr. Jack Sullivan, Executive Director, called the roll and a quorum was declared present.
- vTEMBERS PRESE~T Richard Horlillan, Chainnan, Sumter County Commissioner Barbara Fitos, Vice-Chainnan, Marion County Commissioner Rose Rocco, Treasurer, Hernando County Commissioner Mike Amsden, Marion County Commissioner Dennis Damato, Citrus County Commissioner Christine Dobkowski, Belleview City Commissioner Stan McClain, Marion County Commissioner Mary S. Rich, Ocala City Councilwoman Y1EMBERS ABSENT Jim Adkins, Hernando County Commissioner Gary Bartell, Citrus County Commissioner Joe Bernardini, Brooksville City Councilman John Druzbick, Hernando County Commissioner Ken Hinkle, Inverness City Councilman Randy Mask, Sumter County Commissioner John Priester, Ocala City Councilman David Russell, Hernando County Commissioner Dale Swain, Bushnell City Councilman Winn Webb, Citrus County Commissioner
- 3. Introductions and Announcements Mr. Sullivan introduced others in the audience.
Withlacoochee Regional Water Supply Authority October 20, 20 I 0 Minutes of the Meeting Page 2 01'5 OTHERS PRE SEl'i T Jack Sullivan, WRWSA Executive Director Larry Haag, WRWSA Attorney Diane Salz, WRWSA Legislative Liaison Alys Brockway, Hernando County Utilities Kim Dinkins, Marion County Al Grubman, TOO FAR Dan Hilliard, Withlacoochee Area Residents, Inc, Peter Hubbell, Water Resource Associates Cara Martin, SWFWMD James Morgan, Citrus County Darrell Muse, City of Ocala Joseph Quinn, SWFWMD Richard Radacky, City of Brooksville Peter Rocco, Hernando County Citizen Tahla Paige, Recording Secretary
- 4. Presentation of Plaqne of Appreciation to Commissioner Gary Bartell Chairman Hoffman announced that Mr. Bartell could not attcnd today's meeting, By consensus of the board, it was agreed to prescnt Mr. Bartcll with his plaque at the November meeting,
- 5. Approval of :win utes of September 15,2010 Meeting A copy of the minutes was provided in the board packet for review, Following consideration, a motion was made by Ms. Rocco to approve the minutes for the September 15, 2010 meeting. The motion was seconded by :vir. :vIcClain and carried unanimously.
- 6. Report on Use ofCFBC as a Water Snpply Mr. Sullivan stated the board packet included a memorandum outlining a proposal by Mr. Dan Hilliard, Withlacoochee Area Residents, Inc', to use the Cross Florida Barge Canal (CFBC) as an alternative water supply, Mr. Hubbell reviewed the idea, which included installation of a structure to help prevent saltwater intrusion and create a Cresh water reservoir six miles downstream of the Inglis Lock. He stated competition for the use of the Lower Withlacoochee River included planned withdrawals from the CFBC by Progress Energy for the Levy County Nuclear Power Plant, potential restoration projects developed by Southwest Florida Water Management District (SWFWMD), and development of Minimum Flows and Levels (MFLs) lor the Lower With lacoochee River by SWFWMD. Tn conclusion, Mr. Hubbell stated the project was an interesting proposal; however, it would require an in-depth level of analysis to determine the viability of the project. He said one concern was the low level of water quality. Mr. Hubbell recommended to the Board to accept this project as a long-term (20 to 25 years) alternative water supply project to be studied for consideration and development in the future when other alternative water supply projects are further analyzed. Mr. Damato agreed there were various issues with the project
Withlacoochee Regional Water Supply Authority October 20, 20 I 0 Minutes of the Meeting Page 3 01'5 Mr. Hilliard felt the assessment by Mr. Hubbell was correct However, he noted the water was not wasted (fresh water going into saltwater) as the Lower Withlacoochee River feeds a vibrant estuary, Mr. Hilliard also noted current studies showed a new bridge on US Highway 19 over the river as part or the expense ror the project, which he relt was an unnecessary expense. Discussion continued on the water quality of the river, location of the project, the intensive study needed for the project, and future grow1h's affect on water demand.
Mr. Sullivan's recommendation was to accept the Withlacoochee Area Residents, Inc.
proposal as a potential alternative water supply (AWS) project ror consideration as a long-term water supply project along with the other A WS projects approved in the WRWSA's Water Supply Master Plan. It is also recOillinended that further analysis of the project not take place until the time in which these long-term A WS projects are further analyzed for consideration and development in the future.
Following consideration, a motion was made by Mr. :vIcClain to approve the recommendation of the Executive Director on this project. The motion was seconded by Ms. Rocco and carried unanimously.
- 7. Executive Director's Report
- a. Bills to be Paid Mr. Sullivan provided a handout to the Board detailing October 2010 bills, which totaled $70,112.93. Mr. Sullivan requested the Board approve the payment of those bills.
Following consideration, a motion was made by :vis. Fitos to approve payment of the October 2010 bills totaling $70,112.93. The motion was seconded by
- vir. McClain and carried unanimously.
- b. 2010-11 Board Meeting Schedule Mr. Sullivan presented the upcoming year's meeting schedule for approval.
Following consideration, a motion was made by :vis. Rocco to approve tbe 2010-11 meeting schedule as presented. The motion was seconded by Mr. McClain and carried unanimonsly.
- c. Report on Progress re: FERC Inglis Hydropower Application Mr. Sullivan stated he had contacted Paul Williams, SWFWMD to discuss the issues or concern to both the Authority and SWFWMD. Pete Hubbell had also called Inglis Hydropower, LLC to schedule a meeting to discuss the project, and he hoped to conclude the meetings and have staff recommendations to present at the November WRWSA Board meeting.
- d. Follow-up on Recommendations ofFEMA re: Oil Damage from Hurricanes Mr. Sullivan included in the board packet the website address to review FEMA's Public Assistance Debris Management Guide and a copy of the letter he wrote to EPA requesting information on how a major stonn or hurricane may affect the spread of oil
Withlacoochee Regional Water Supply Authority October 20, 20 I 0 Minutes of the Meeting Page 4 01'5 inland. Mr. Sullivan stated he would report back to the WRWSA Board as soon as he received a response.
- e. Correspondence Mr. Sullivan reviewed a memorandmn from Dr. Martin Kelly, Minimum Flows and Levels Program Director, Resource Projects Department, SWFWMD, on the establishment of MFLs. Mr. Sullivan plans to request that Dr. Kelly give a presentation at the next WR WSA meeting.
This item was presented for the Board's infomlation; no action was required.
- f. ~ ews Articles Mr. Sullivan provided news articles on water supply Issues relating to areas both regional and statewide.
This item was presented for the Board's infomlation; no action was required.
- 8. Legislative Update Ms. Diane Salz stated there are currently various legislative members making campaign promises to repeal portions of the current SB 550. After the General Election, there will be new committee members and committee chairs. She stated there is a movement to change water law again. Ms. Salz expects to see a lot of activity in the upcoming month and plans to have a more extensive report next month. She gave a brief review of tile proposed changes to the SWFWMD's Water Shortage Plan. Ms. Salz asked the Board if she should ask Lois Sorensen, SWFWMD, to speak at the next meeting on the changes. The WRWSA board agreed they would like the presentation. Ms. Salz stated the EPA announced a short extension for the Florida Nutrients Tnland Water Rule until November.
Mr. Damato expressed his concem for the provision in SB 550 requiring septic tanks inspections and cost incurred by property owners. Mr. Damato asked Ms. Salz to find out how many Counties currently have a septic tank inspection program upon sale of a residential structure.
- 9. Attorney's Report Mr. Haag stated he did not have any additional items to report to the WRWSA.
- 10. Other Business None.
- n. Public Comment Mr. Richard Radacky, City of Brooksville, asked if the WRWSA Board knew what the use is for the 24" or 36" pipes being installed in the Progress Energy right-of-way in Citrus County. Mr. Damato stated it was a massive project to import natural gas from Alabama to Miami, Florida. Mr. Radacky expressed his concerns on the pipe work crossing thc Withlaeooehee River and possible efTects to the ecosystem.
Withlacoochee Regional Water Supply Authority October 20, 20 I 0 Minutes of the Meeting Page 5 01'5
- 12. I\ext Meeting Time and Location Next meeting is scheduled for November 17, 2010 at 4:30 p,m" at the Southwest Florida Water Management District Headquarters, Governing Board Room, 2379 Broad Street (US 41 South), Brooksville, FL 34604,
- 13. Adjonrnment Chairman Hoffman announced there was no further business or discussion to come before the Board and adjourned the meeting at 5 :20 p,ll1, Richard Hoffman, Chairman Jackson E, Sullivan, Executive Director
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION ATOMIC SAFETY AND LICENSING BOARD Before Administrative Judges:
Alex S. Karlin, Chairman Dr. Anthony J. Baratta Dr. William M. Murphy In the Matter of Docket No. 52-029-COL, 52-030-COL PROGRESS ENERGY FLORIDA, INC. ASLBP No. 09-879-04-COL-BD01 (Combined License Application for Levy County December 28, 2010 Nuclear Power Plant, Units 1 and 2)
Certificate of Service I hereby certify that copies of the Interveners Reply to NRC Staff Answer to Amended Contention 4 have been served on the following persons by Electronic Information Exchange on this 28th Day of December, 2010:
Administrative Judge Office of Commission Appellate Alex S. Karlin, Chair Adjudication Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel Mail Stop O-16C1 Mail Stop: T-3F23 U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Washington, DC 20555-0001 Washington, DC 20555-0001 E-mail: OCAAmail@nrc.gov E-mail: Alex.Karlin@nrc.gov Administrative Judge Office of the Secretary Anthony J. Baratta ATTN: Docketing and Service Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel Mail Stop: O-16C1 Mail Stop: T-3F23 U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Washington, DC 20555-0001 Washington, DC 20555-0001 E-mail: HEARINGDOCKET@nrc.gov E-mail: Anthony.Baratta@nrc.gov Administrative Judge Megan Wright William M. Murphy Law Clerk Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel Mail Stop: T-3F23 Mail Stop: T-3F23 U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Washington, DC 20555-0001 Washington, DC 20555-0001 E-mail: megan.wright@nrc.gov E-mail: William.Murphy@nrc.gov 1
Mary Olson Michael Mariotte NIRS Southeast Nuclear Information and Resource Service PO Box 7586 6930 Carroll Ave Suite 340 Asheville, NC 28802 Takoma Park, MD 20912 E-mail: maryo@nirs.org E-mail: nirsnet@nirs.org Michael Canney Cara Campbell The Green Party of Florida The Ecology Party of Florida Alachua County Office 641 SW 6th Ave PO Box 12416 Ft. Lauderdale, FL 33315 Gainesville, FL 32604 E-Mail: levynuke@ecologyparty.org E-mail: alachuagreen@windstream.net John H. ONeill, Esq. U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Michael G. Lepre, Esq. Office of the General Counsel Blake J. Nelson, Esq. Kathryn L. Winsberg, Esq.
Robert B. Haemer, Esq. Sara Brock Kirkland, Esq.
Jason P. Parker, Esq. Jody Martin, Esq.
Counsel for Progress Energy Florida, Inc. Kevin Roach Pillsbury, Winthrop, Shaw, Pittman, LLP Laura Goldin 2300 N. Street, NW Joseph Gilman, Paralegal Washington, DC Washington, DC 20037-1122 20555-0001 E-mail: john.ONeill@pillsburylaw.com E-mail: Kathryn.winsberg@nrc.gov; michael.lepre@pillsburylaw.com seb2@nrc.gov; jcm5@nrc.gov; blake.nelson@pillsburylaw.com jsg1@nrc.gov ;
robert.haemer@pillsburylaw.com Kevin.Roach@nrc.gov jason.parker@pillsburylaw.com Laura.goldin@nrc.gov
/Signed (electronically) by/
Mary Olson NIRS Southeast Office maryo@nirs.org 2