ML11256A036
| ML11256A036 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Cooper, Fort Calhoun  |
| Issue date: | 08/29/2011 |
| From: | Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation |
| To: | |
| References | |
| TAC ME6622, TAC ME6681 | |
| Download: ML11256A036 (74) | |
Text
Official Transcript of Proceedings NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Title:
10 CFR 2.206 Petition RE Fort Calhoun Station Docket Number:
(n/a)
Location:
(teleconference)
Date:
Monday, August 29, 2011 Work Order No.:
NRC-1099 Pages 1-72 NEAL R. GROSS AND CO., INC.
Court Reporters and Transcribers 1323 Rhode Island Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 234-4433 N
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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 2
NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 3
4 10 CFR 2.206 PETITION REVIEW BOARD (PRB) 5 CONFERENCE CALL 6
RE 7
FORT CALHOUN STATION, UNIT 1 AND 8
COOPER NUCLEAR STATION 9
+++++
10 MONDAY 11 AUGUST 29, 2011 12 13 The conference call was held at 1:00 p.m.,
14 Brian Holian, Chairperson of the Petition Review 15 Board, presiding.
16 PETITIONER:
THOMAS SAPORITO 17 18 PETITION REVIEW BOARD MEMBERS:
19 BRIAN
- HOLIAN, Director, Division of License 20
- Renewal, Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation 21 VIJAY
- GOEL, Electrical
- Engineer, Office of 22 Nuclear Reactor Regulation 23 MARK HAIRE, Branch Chief, Operator Licensing 24 Branch, Region IV 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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PETITION REVIEW BOARD MEMBERS (CONTINUED):
2 DAN
- HOANG, Structural
- Engineer, Office of 3
Nuclear Reactor Regulation 4
ED SMITH, Reactor Systems Engineer, Balance-of-5 Plant, Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation 6
JUAN URIBE, Civil Engineer, Office of Nuclear 7
Reactor Regulation 8
LYNNEA
- WILKINS, Project
- Manager, Office of 9
Nuclear Reactor Regulation 10 11 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION STAFF:
12 MARRILEE BANIC, Petition Coordinator, Office of 13 Nuclear Reactor Regulation 14 STEVE LYNCH, Federal Engineer, Office of Nuclear 15 Reactor Regulation 16 TANYA MENSAH, Petition Review Board Coordinator 17 GEORGE WILSON, Acting Deputy Director, Division 18 of Engineering, Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation 19 20 LICENSEE REPRESENTATIVE:
21 SUSAN
- BAUGHN, Manager of Nuclear Licensing, 22 Omaha Public Power District 23 24 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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10 ii 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 T-A-B-L-E O-F C-O-N-T-E-N-T-S AGENDA ITEMS Opening Remarks........
Introductions........
Description of Petition Review Board's Role Summaries of the Petition that has been Submitted..........
Petitioner's Comments....
Close of Meeting PAGE 4
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P RO C E E D I NG S 2
(1:05 p.m.)
3 MS.
WILKINS:
Okay.
We'll begin.
4 First I'd like to thank everyone for 5
attending this meeting.
My name is Lynnea Wilkins.
6 I am the project manager for Fort Calhoun Station, 7
Unit 1, and Cooper Nuclear Station.
8 We are here today to allow the Petitioner, 9
Mr.
Thomas Saporito, to address the Petition Review 10 Board regarding the 2.206 petitions dated June 26th 11 and July 3rd, 2011.
I am the petition manager for 12 these petitions.
13 The Petition Review Board Chairman is 14 Brian Holian.
15 As part of the Petition Review Board's, or 16 PRB's, review of the petition, Thomas Saporito has 17 requested this opportunity to address the PRB.
This 18 meeting is scheduled from 1:00 to 3:00 p.m. Eastern.
19 The meeting is being recorded by the NRC Operations 20 Center and will be transcribed by a court reporter.
21 The transcript will become a supplement to 22 the petition.
The transcript will also be made 23 publicly available.
24 I'd like to open this meeting with 25 introductions.
As we go around the room, please be NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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sure to clearly state your name, your position, and the office that you work for within the NRC for the record.
I'll start.
- Again, I am Lynnea Wilkins.
I'm a project manager in the Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulations or NRR.
MR.
HOLIAN:
Yes, good afternoon.
My name is Brian Holian.
I'm the Division Director for the Division of License Renewal in NRR.
MR.
GOEL:
This is Vijay Goel.
I'm an electrical engineer with the NRR Office.
MR. SMITH:
Ed Smith, reactor systems engineer, Balance-of-Plant, NRR.
MR. HOANG:
- NRR, structural engineer.
MR. LYNCH:
Steve Lynch, federal engineer, NRR.
MR. URIBE:
Juan Uribe, civil
- engineer, NRR.
MR. WILSON:
George Wilson, acting Deputy Director, Division of Engineer, NRR.
MS.
BANIC:
Lee
- Banic, petition coordinator, NRR.
MS.
WILKINS:
We've completed the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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introductions here at the NRC headquarters.
2 At this
- time, are there any NRC 3
participants from headquarters on the phone?
4 (No response.)
5 MS.
WILKINS:
Not hearing any, are there 6
any NRC participants from the regional office on the 7
phone?
8 MR.
HAIRE:
- Yes, this is Mark Haire in 9
Region IV.
I'm the Branch Chief of Operator Licensing 10 Branch.
11 MS.
WILKINS:
Thank you.
12 Are there any representatives for the 13 licensee on the phone?
14 MS.
BAUGHN:
Yes, this is Susan Baughn.
15 I'm the manager of Nuclear Licensing for Omaha Public 16 Power District.
17 MS.
WILKINS:
Anyone else?
18 (No response.)
19 MS.
WILKINS:
Thank you.
20 Mr. Saporito, would you please introduce 21 yourself for the record?
22 MR.
SAPORITO:
- Yes, my name is Thomas 23 Saporito.
I'm the senior consultant with Saprodani 24 Associates based in Jupiter, Florida.
And I'm the 25 Petitioner in this proceeding.
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MS.
WILKINS:
Thank you.
2 It is not required for members of the 3
public to introduce themselves for this call.
4
- However, if there are any members of the public on the 5
phone that wish to do so at this time, please state 6
your name for the record.
7 (No response.)
8 MS.
WILKINS:
Not hearing any, I'd like to 9
emphasize that we each need to speak clearly and 10 loudly to make sure that the court reporter can 11 accurately transcribe this meeting.
If you do have 12 something that you would like to say, please first 13 state your name for the record.
14 For those dialing into the meeting, please 15 remember to mute your phones to minimize any 16 background noise or distractions.
If you do not have 17 a mute button, this can be done by pressing the keys 18 star
- 6.
To un-mute, press the star 6 keys again.
19 Thank you.
20 At this time, I'll turn it over to the PRB 21 Chairman Brian Holian.
22 MR.
HOLIAN:
Good.
Thank you.
23 First thing I'd like to do is this is 24 Brian Holian I'd like to just check how we're 25 coming across on the phone, mainly court reporter, I NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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guess, can you hear everything?
2 COURT REPORTER:
- Yes, I
can hear 3
everything fine.
4 MR.
HOLIAN:
Good.
We were just checking 5
to make sure you're still there, too.
How about that?
6
- Well, good, I'll assume if you can't on the phone, 7
just butt in any time during the presentation so we 8
make sure we get a
good transcript of today's 9
discussion.
10 My job here is threefold really.
It's 11
- one, to give some background on the 2.206 process.
12 I'll introduce members of the Board that will be 13 reviewing this petition.
And then give some summaries 14 that are here of the petition that's been submitted.
15 And then by the agenda, we'll turn it over to the 16 Petitioner for comments.
And then we'll close.
17 Background on the process, Section 2.206 18 of Title 10 of the Code of Federal Regulations 19 describes the petition process.
It is the primary 20 mechanism for the public to request enforcement action 21 by the NRC in a public process.
22 This process permits anyone to petition 23 NRC to take enforcement-type action related to NRC 24 licensees or licensed activities.
Depending on the 25 results of its evaluation, NRC could modify, suspend, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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or revoke an NRC-issued license or take other 2
appropriate enforcement action to resolve a problem.
3 The NRC staff guidance for the disposition 4
of 2.206 petition is in our Management Directive 8.11, 5
which is publicly available.
6 The purpose of today's meeting is to give 7
the Petitioner an opportunity to provide any 8
additional explanation or support for the petitions 9
before the Petition Review Board's initial 10 consideration and recommendation.
11 Some reminders here, the meeting is not a 12 hearing nor is it an opportunity for the Petitioner to 13 question or examine the PRB on the merits or the 14 issues presented in the petition request.
No 15 decisions regarding the merits of these petitions will 16 be made at this meeting.
17 Following this
- meeting, the Petition 18 Review Board will conduct its internal deliberations.
19 The outcome of the internal meeting will be discussed 20 with the Petitioner.
21 The Petition Review Board typically 22 consists of a Chairman, which is myself, a manager of 23 usually the SES at the NRC as a petition manager and 24 a PRB coordinator.
Other members of the Board are 25 determined by NRC staff based on the content of the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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information in the petition request.
2 At this time, I just highlight some of the 3
or the members of the Board here.
I am Brian 4
Holian, the Petition Review Board Chairman.
Lynnea 5
Wilkins the petition manager who introduced this call 6
here for the petition under discussion today.
Tanya 7
Mensah is the Office's PRB coordinator.
8 Our technical staff includes you've 9
heard a few of these people introduce themselves if 10 not all of them.
Here I'm checking myself.
Ed Smith, 11 from the Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation, 12 Balance-of-Plant Branch, Vijay Goel, from the Office 13 of Nuclear Reactor Regulation, Electrical Engineering 14 Branch, Dan Hoang --
Dan, you're from --
15 MR.
HOANG:
NRR, Division of Engineering.
16 MR.
HOLIAN:
it's Division of 17 Engineering.
And what branch there?
18 MR.
HOANG:
- EMCB, Mechanical 19 MR.
HOLIAN:
Okay, Mechanical and Civil 20 Engineering Branch.
That's what I had.
I was just 21 checking.
And Juan, Juan Uribe from the Office of 22
- NRR, Mechanical and Civil Engineering Branch also.
23 And Mark Haire, on the phone, you heard him come in 24 from NRC Region IV, Division of Reactor Safety, the 25 Branch Chief from the Operator Licensing Branch.
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That's it for the Board.
2 As described in our process, the NRC staff 3
may ask clarifying questions in order to better 4
understand the Petitioner's presentation and to reach 5
a reasoned decision whether to accept or reject a
6 Petitioner's request for review under 2.206.
7 Now I'd like to summarize the scope of the 8
petition under consideration and NRC activities to 9
date.
10 On June 26th, 2011, Mr. Saporito submitted 11 to the NRC a petition under 2.206 regarding his 12 concerns with the adequacy of the current flood 13 protection measures and station blackout procedures 14 used at Fort Calhoun Station, Unit 1, to address a 15 loss of off-site power resulting from a natural 16 disaster such as flooding or terrorist attack.
17 On July 3rd, 2011, Mr. Saporito submitted 18 a similar petition under 2.206 to the NRC regarding 19 his concerns with the adequacy of the current flood 20 protection measures and station blackout procedures 21 used at the Cooper Nuclear Station to address a loss 22 of off-site power resulting from a natural disaster 23 such as flooding or terrorist attack.
24 In these petition request, Mr.
Saporito 25 identified the following areas of concern.
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petition regarding Fort Calhoun, Unit 1, Mr. Saporito 2
requests that the NRC one, take escalated enforcement 3
action against the above-mentioned licensee and 4
suspend or revoke the NRC license granted to the 5
licensees for operation of the Fort Calhoun Station in 6
the United States; 7
Number two, issue a notice of violation 8
with a proposed civil penalty against the collectively 9
named and each singularly named licensee in this 10 matter in the total amount of 500,000 dollars; 11 Number three, issue a confirmatory order 12 to the licensee prohibiting the licensee from 13 restarting any nuclear reactor at Fort Calhoun station 14 until such time as: one, the flood waters subside to 15 an appreciable lower level or sea level, and two, the 16 licensee upgrades its flood protection plan, and 17 three, the licensee repairs and enhances its current 18 flood protection
- berms, and
- four, the licensee 19 upgrades its station blackout procedures to meet a 20 challenging, extended loss of off-site power due to 21 flood waters and other natural disasters or terrorist 22 attacks.
23 As the basis for this requests, Mr.
24 Saporito states, in short, that on June 26th, 2011, a
25 2,000-foot berm constructed at Fort Calhoun collapsed NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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from the forces of flood waters surrounding the plant 2
resulting in the use of on-site diesel generators.
3 The Petitioner also states that flood water surrounded 4
the plant's auxiliary and containment buildings.
5 The Petitioner is concerned that the flood 6
protection measures and station blackout procedures at 7
Fort Calhoun Station are not sufficient to adequately 8
protect the reactor from a full meltdown scenario and 9
extended loss of off-site power resulting from a
10 natural disaster or terrorist attack.
11 In the petition regarding the Cooper 12 Nuclear Station, Mr.
Saporito requests that the NRC 13
- one, take escalated enforcement action against the 14 above-mentioned licensees and suspend or revoke the 15 NRC license granted to the licensees for the operation 16 of Cooper Nuclear Station in the United States; 17 18 Number
- two, issue a
notice of violation with a
19 proposed civil penalty against the collectively named 20 and each singularly named licensee in this matter in 21 the total amount of 500,000 dollars; 22 Number three, issue a confirmatory order 23 to the licensee prohibiting the licensee from 24 restarting any nuclear reactor at Fort Calhoun station 25 until such time as: one, the flood waters subside to NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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an appreciable lower level or sea level, and 2, the 2
licensee upgrades its flood protection plan, and 3, 3
the licensee repairs and enhances its current flood 4
protection berms, and four, the licensee upgrades its 5
station blackout procedures to meet a challenging, 6
extended loss of off-site power due to flood waters 7
and other natural disasters or terrorist attacks.
8 Number two, to issue a notice of violation 9
with a proposed civil penalty against the collectively 10 named and each singularly named licensee in this 11 matter in the total amount of 1,000,000 dollars; 12 Number three, issue a confirmatory order 13 to the licensee requiring the licensee to bring the 14 Cooper Nuclear Station to a cold shutdown mode of 15 operation until such time as one, the flood waters 16 subside to an appreciable lower level or sea level, 17 and two, the licensee upgrades its flood protection 18 plan, and three, the licensee repairs and enhances its 19 current flood protection berms, and four, the licensee 20 upgrades its station blackout procedures to meet a 21 challenging, extended loss of off-site power due to 22 flood waters and other natural disasters or terrorist 23 attacks.
24 As the basis for this
- request, Mr.
25 Saporito states, in short, that on June 19th, 2011, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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the Cooper Nuclear Station notified the NRC of an 2
unusual event related to flooding of the Missouri 3
River.
The licensee continued to operate the reactor 4
at 100 percent power and communicated to the NRC that 5
it expected the Missouri River to remain above an 6
elevation of 899 foot for most of the summer of 2011.
7 The Petitioner also states that the 8
licensee failed to notify the NRC of the unusual event 9
within one hour of the declaration of the event.
10 The Petitioner is concerned that the flood 11 protection measures and station blackout procedures at 12 the Cooper Nuclear Station are not sufficient to 13 adequately protect the reactor from a full meltdown 14 scenario and extended loss of off-site power resulting 15 from a natural disaster or terrorist attack.
The 16 Petitioner is also concerned that the licensee 17 continues to jeopardize the public health and safety 18 by failing to bring the Cooper Nuclear Station to cold 19 shutdown.
20 I'll now touch on NRC activities to date.
21 On July 7th and 12th,
- 2011, the petition manager 22 contacted you, Mr.
- Saporito, to discuss the 2.206 23 process and to offer you an opportunity to address the 24 PRB by phone or in person.
You requested to address 25 the PRB by phone, which is the purpose of today's NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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call, prior to the Board's internal meeting to make 2
initial recommendations to accept or reject the 3
petition for review.
4 As a reminder for everyone,
- again, as 5
Lynnea said, please identify yourself if you make any 6
remarks as this will help us and really the court 7
reporter in the preparation of the meeting transcript.
8 We'll help police everybody to do that.
9 Mr. Saporito, I'll turn it over to you to 10 allow you now to provide any information you believe 11 that the Petition Review Board should consider as part 12 of these petitions.
Mr.
Saporito?
13 MR.
SAPORITO:
All right.
Thank you.
14
- Yes, sir, can you hear me?
15 MR.
HOLIAN:
- Yes, great, you're coming 16 through great.
17 MR.
SAPORITO:
All right.
Thank you.
18 Thank you, Mr.
Chairman.
19 Before I begin, this is a public meeting 20 and, therefore, at the conclusion of my presentation 21 to the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission, 22 any member of the public or media who may be attending 23 this meeting by phone will have an opportunity to ask 24 questions of the NRC directly or questions of me for 25 a response regarding either of these two petitions.
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Before I
get into the gist of the 2
petitions and because this is a public meeting where 3
we are creating a transcript, which will be provided -
4
- which the public will be provided access to through 5
the NRC document reserve called ADAMS.
6 Let me give you an outline of a concern I 7
have with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's 8
performance overall and specifically with these two 9
plants.
First of all, everyone here at this meeting, 10 who may be attending this meeting by telephone, is 11 fully aware that in March of
- 2011, this
- year, 12 Fukushima Nuclear Facility, which is located in the 13 country of Japan, sustained significant damage to four 14 to six nuclear reactors, three of them are currently 15 melting down as the result of an earthquake which 16 spawned a tsunami, a huge wave which took out the 17 emergency power to cool the reactor.
18 And those three nuclear reactors continue 19 to meltdown to this day and they have not been brought 20 to a cold shutdown.
They remain out of control.
They 21 continue to spew high level radioactive
radioactive iodine throughout 23 the country of Japan to this date.
24 Following that event, we have this event 25 in June of 2011 where we had flood waters surround two NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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nuclear plants, the Fort Calhoun Nuclear Plant and the 2
Cooper Nuclear Plant.
And the
- NRC, who is the 3
regulator for some 104 nuclear power plants in the 4
United States, did not take any aggressive action to 5
secure public health and safety in these 6
circumstances.
The NRC did not issue a confirmatory 7
order requiring the Cooper Nuclear Plant to bring its 8
nuclear units to cold shutdown.
The Fort Calhoun 9
Nuclear Plant in question was already in shutdown 10 because they were doing a refueling cycle where a
11 portion of the reactor's nuclear fuel is replenished.
12 At the time of the flooding event in June, 13 the NRC Chairman, Gregory Jaczko, J-A-C-Z-K-O, he's 14 the Chairman of a five panel Commission.
The five 15 commissioners head up the United States Nuclear 16 Regulatory Commission and have authority over four 17 regions, which have jurisdiction over all the -- which 18 have jurisdiction over so many nuclear plants within 19 their jurisdiction of the four regions.
20 In any event, the Chairman Jaczko took a 21 helicopter ride at the public's expense to look at the 22 flood waters from above.
Now mind you the media had 23 fully covered this event for days on end, numerous 24 helicopter rides, you know tons of footage available 25 to see these flood waters but the NRC Chairman chose NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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to take a helicopter ride at the public's expense so 2
he could see for himself.
3 He did no physical inspection of the 4
plants after his helicopter ride or before his 5
helicopter ride.
But, you know, he made assurances to 6
the governor that all was safe.
And the public read 7
in the newspaper that the governor said well, you 8
know, the NRC, the head of the NRC said it's safe so 9
if he says it is safe, then it is safe.
10 So you can see the problem there with 11 these false assurances being given to the public by 12 the chairman of the NRC who simply took a helicopter 13
- ride, did no physical hands-on inspection of any 14 nuclear facility at that time.
15 Consequently, the Chairman of the NRC, 16 Gregory Jaczko, was subsequently the subject of an 17 investigation by the NRC Inspector General's Office, 18 which was summoned at the request of several members 19 of Congress, because of his conduct in several areas -
20 and I'm not going to get into those areas but 21 anyway the gist of the report was there was wrongdoing 22 on the part of the Chairman of the NRC.
And his 23 behavior was it was questioned and he created a 24 hostile work environment for his fellow panel members 25 on the Commission because of his conduct where he NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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appointed emergency situations so that he had 2
authority over them where they couldn't question his 3
actions.
4 And then around this time, the Associated 5
Press had concluded a year investigative report on the 6
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and found that the 7
Agency was complacent in its oversight of the some 104 8
nuclear power plants in the United States, so much so 9
that they were bending and modifying safety 10 regulations so that these nuclear power plants, which 11 were licensed for 40 years of operation could operate 12 another 20 years beyond the original safety design 13
- basis, notwithstanding the fact that the nuclear 14 reactor core sits inside of a metal vessel, which 15 becomes brittle after 40 years of being bombarded by 16 neutron --
high level neutron radiation.
17 And if that reactor vessel cracks, the 18 games over.
You are going to melt down.
Nothing on 19 this planet will prevent a loss of coolant accident of 20 that magnitude, yet the NRC, over the years, has 21 continued to rubberstamp 20-year license extensions 22 for these old, old nuclear power.
23 And there's legislation going through 24 Congress by Senator Ed Markey to try to put a
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stamping these plants, to stop new licensing of new 2
plants until the event that happened in Japan can be 3
fully analyzed and until the NRC can assure the public 4
that these nuclear reactors in the United States are 5
safe and that they have been modified and that they 6
have learned from the lessons of Fukushima.
7 But that's not the case here.
What has 8
happened instead is the NRC has accelerated its use of 9
its rubber stamp in extending 20-year license 10 extensions to these old nuclear power plants because 11 they know Congress wants to put a stop to it.
12 And then we come to August of 2011 where 13 a 5.9 magnitude earthquake rocked the --
was centered 14 somewhere in Virginia, as I understand it, but had 15 ramifications that encompass many states and tripped 16 at least one nuclear facility off line automatically.
17 And that was quickly followed by Hurricane Irene, 18 which walked up the entire eastern seaboard of the 19 United States and fortunately it was far enough away 20 from the coast of Florida where we did not have any 21 significant damage here.
22 Nonetheless, during these two major 23
- events, the earthquake and the hurricane, the NRC 24 didn't issue any confirmatory orders requiring any 25 nuclear power plant to bring their nuclear reactors to NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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cold shutdown.
They sent extra inspectors
- here, 2
there, and everywhere but that's not going to protect 3
public health and safety if there is a nuclear 4
accident because of one of these natural disasters.
5 And the earthquake is particularly 6
troublesome because it was a 5.9, which in the area 7
that it happened in the northeast United States, 8
that's very unusual.
And that's a pretty severe 9
earthquake which hadn't occurred in approximately 60 10 years in that area.
11 And then the next
- day, they had an 12 aftershock, another earthquake of 4.2.
And still the 13 NRC did nothing.
No confirmatory orders to require 14 any nuclear plant to come to cold shutdown.
15 So this is the atmosphere that we're 16 talking about.
We have a nuclear regulator here 17 that's asleep on the job in my opinion, who does not 18 take aggressive action, and has a sit-back-wait-and-19 see-what-happens attitude.
And, you know, I think it 20 is important for the public to understand just how 21 much or how little the regulator is doing to protect 22 your public health and safety.
23 With respect to these petitions, the 24 petition filed against the Fort Calhoun Nuclear Power 25
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against the Cooper Nuclear Plant, dated July 3rd, 2
- 2011, the petition manager briefly touched on the 3
petition process.
But I want to enhance that a little 4
bit for the public's benefit.
5 These enforcement petitions were filed in 6
connection with a Congressional mandate that the NRC 7
act to protect public health and safety in connection 8
with licensed activities at the some 104 nuclear 9
plants across the United
- States, where Congress 10 further intended that members of the public have a 11 legal recourse and opportunity to engage the Nuclear 12 Regulatory Commission and its licensees under Title 10 13 of the Code of Federal Regulations, Section 2.206, to 14 further protect public health and safety and the 15 environment from the adverse effects of a serious 16 nuclear accident similar to the three nuclear reactors 17 currently in a full meltdown in the country of Japan, 18 which continues to spew radioactive particles into the 19
- air, water, and food
- chain, and has caused the
- 20.
evacuation of thousands and thousands of people from 21 their homes and communities, never to return again.
22 In so empowering members of the public 23 under the 2.206 petition process, Congress clearly 24 sought to enhance the NRC's oversight and regulation 25 of all United States-based nuclear power plants.
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Now the July 19th, 2011, with respect to 2
the Fort Calhoun Nuclear Plant, the NRC cited the 3
nuclear plant and I'm not going to go into the 4
whole thing but during a scheduled test on June 14th, 5
- 2010, one of four electrical contacts failed in a
6 system used to trip or automatically shut down the 7
reactor.
The condition appears to have existed for 63 8
days before it was discovered.
9 The NRC says the failure did not pose a 10 danger to public health and safety because other means 11 existed to perform that safety function, if necessary.
12
- Well, excuse me, NRC but I do feel that the public 13 health and safety was endangered because the condition 14 existed for 63 days before it was discovered.
What 15 was the NRC resident inspector doing for those 63 16 days?
And why didn't he discover this before 63 days 17 were up?
18 This plant, Fort Calhoun Station Uhit 1, 19 was licensed by the NRC August 9th, 1973
- 1973, 20 that's a very, very old nuclear power plant.
And here 21 we have a situation where we have a critical nuclear 22 safety system that is used and relied upon by the 23 plant operator to bring this nuclear reactor to a cold 24 shutdown quickly in the event of a nuclear emergency.
25 And they would not have --
it wasn't discovered for 63 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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days.
Amazing.
2 With respect to the Cooper Nuclear Plant, 3
June
- 14th, 2011, NRC inspectors said some df the 4
station's procedures for manually operating valves, 5
which are part of systems for releasing coolants under 6
high pressure, wouldn't work in the event of a fire.
7 The independent emergency cooling system is one means 8
available to provide water to coolant reactor in the 9
case of an emergency.
10 The NRC cited the plant with an 11 enforcement action a white finding.
Now for the 12 public's information, the NRC enforcement activities 13 are color coded, green, white, yellow, and red.
Green 14 is the lesser of the evils.
And red is a very serious 15 issue.
16 They gave them a white --
a white.
You 17 know here we have a nuclear power plant, the Cooper 18 Nuclear Plant, we're talking about, it was issued an 19 operating license by the NRC on January 18th, 1974 --
20 1974.
And just now, you know, this is 2011, the NRC 21 finds that some of the station's procedures for 22 manually operating valves don't work.
And they 23 wouldn't have worked had they needed to work in the 24 event of an emergency.
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Nuclear Station, is the General Electric Mark 1. Oh, 2
my goodness, that's the same reactor that's melting 3
down over there in the country of Japan.
There are 4
three of them.
They're melting down right now.
5 And they had problems manually opening 6
their valves because they wanted to release the 7
hydrogen that was building up in the containment 8
buildings because those plants were melting down.
The 9
water was boiling away and the hydrogen and oxygen 10 were separating.
The containment filled up with 11 hydrogen.
They couldn't open those valves.
And the 12 containments blew up on all three of their nuclear 13 reactors.
And that's why the radiation is leaking 14 over there.
15 And here we have a similar situation here 16 in the United States.
And it has been going on since 17 1974 because they just found out now that these 18 procedures don't work.
My goodness --
I don't know.
19 In any
- event, let's look at these 20 petitions now.
And as I discuss these petitions, the 21 record will show two different scenarios two 22 different scenarios with respect to two NRC licensees 23 and their actions with respect to protecting public 24 health and safety or not protecting public health and 25 safety.
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The Cooper Nuclear Plant and I'm not 2
going to go through the whole petition because the 3
Chairman did a fine job of talking about the gist of 4
the petition -- but the enforcement action requested, 5
again, here deals with having the NRC do something 6
instead of just wait for something to happen and then 7
do something.
8 These enforcement actions I talk about, 9
the Fort Calhoun and the Cooper Plant where the NRC 10 did something, it was done after the fact.
They have 11 resident inspectors on those sites but they didn't, 12 you know, to prevent these events from happening.
But 13 after the problems existed for quite some time, then 14 the NRC does something.
And even then what they did 15 is not sufficient in my point of view.
16 In any event, with respect to the Cooper 17 Nuclear Plant, let the record show that I am citing to 18 a June 22nd, 2011 news article from the Valley News 19 Today, Shenandoah, Iowa is where they are located, and 20 they talk in here the gist of this is they're 21 talking about the Cooper Nuclear Station and the flood 22 waters.
And it says here the southeast Nebraska 23 Nuclear Station came within about 18 inches of 24 shutting down early Monday when the Missouri River 25 level at the plant rose to 43.8 feet.
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River must reach 45.5 feet, or 902 feet above sea 2
level before officials will shut down the plant.
3 And representative this fellow Mark 4
- Becker, a
representative of the Nebraska Power 5
District, he was quoted as saying we're operating at 6
full capacity.
What we're seeing is the river 7
leveling itself off.
But we continue to watch and add 8
protection around the plant.
9 And then July 12th, 2011, a news article 10 by the Lincoln Journal Star says that the Cooper 11 Nuclear Station is no longer at emergency status.
At 12 9:47 a.m.
- Tuesday, the plant exited that emergency 13 status because the river levels near Cooper had 14 dropped to 895.8 feet above sea level, which is more 15 than three feel below the average sea level at which 16 Cooper is required to enter the emergency 17 classification status.
And that was quoted from a 18 news release from the licensee.
19 So here you have a very serious situation 20 where we have a nuclear power plant operating at 100 21 percent while it is completely surrounded by flood 22 waters from a swelling river.
And they are within 18 23 inches of being required to shut the plant down --
24 being required.
I mean let's use a little common 25 sense here 18 inches.
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nuclear power plant if you are within 18 inches of 2
having to be required to shut it down.
I mean it 3
makes no sense at all.
4 What would happen if the dam, which the 5
Army Corps of Engineers was bleeding water off because 6
it was swelling from the rain waters and residual 7
coming into that dam --
that's the reason this river 8
was flooding in the first
- place, what if that dam 9
would have broke?
Who would care about 18 inches?
10 You would have a massive, massive influx of water from 11 that dam.
12 And that dam, if there's any levis and 13 whatever between that dam and this Cooper Nuclear 14 Plant, that would have been blown away by the force of 15 that water.
I mean everyone on this Petition Review 16 Board panel here today is fully aware, I'm sure, of 17 the force of the water in Fukushima.
It just picked 18 up tractor trailers, houses, bridges like they were 19 toys.
And threw them thousands of feet away from 20 where they were lifted.
The force of water is 21 tremendous.
22 And you would have a tremendous flow of 23 water stemming from that dam through all those levis 24 which have been busted one after another.
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protections that the licensee at the Cooper Nuclear 2
Plant maintains.
3 That's a very, very serious situation.
4 Here you have an attitude that's right it is an 5
attitude by the licensee of the NRC where they are 6
going to run that nuclear plant until they are forced 7
to shut it down by regulations, which say they have 8
another 18 inches -- okay, they have another 18 inches 9
so we're going to run at 100 percent power.
10 That's totally ludicrous given the events 11 of Fukushima and the situation that unfolded there and 12 the fact that the NRC has a task force that was 13 assembled at the direction of the Commission to 14 inspect all the United States-based, some 104 nuclear 15 power plants and to make recommendations to the 16 Commission based on and relevant to the accident that 17 is continuing over there in Japan.
18 And they did that.
The task force went 19 out there and made all these recommendations to the 20 Commission.
And the Commission has yet to enforce or 21 implement any of those recommendations.
I mean all 22 these debates and rhetoric and arguing inside the 23 Commission and nothing is getting done.
24 And here -- here we have a situation where 25 the licensee says I've got 18 more inches.
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know that the NRC isn't going to order them to shut it 2
down because I've been following the NRC since -- oh, 3
my gosh, it has to be going on 25 years now and I have 4
never known the NRC to order a nuclear power plant to 5
shut down.
Not in my lifetime.
6 So, you know, the licensees of the NRC 7
know what the NRC will and will not do as far as 8
enforcement actions.
So they're going to push it to 9
the limit because they want the money and the revenue 10 that they are generating from that nuclear -power 11 plant.
That's the reason that they're willing to put 12 public health and safety in grave jeopardy and let 13 that water rise 18 within 18 inches of a forced 14 shutdown.
It is incredible.
15 And the government regulator, the Nuclear 16 Regulatory Commission, sits by and watches it.
Region 17 IV administrator, Mr. Elmo, you know, maybe he should 18 retire.
Maybe we need some fresh blood over there in 19 Region IV.
20 With respect to the June 26th,'
2011 21 petition, the Fort Calhoun Nuclear Plant, a completely 22 different situation because number one, the reactor or 23 reactors were shut down because there was a refueling 24 going on.
Now the question that comes to mind, of 25
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operating at 100 percent power, would the licensee 2
have voluntarily shut that nuclear power plant down 3
because of concern for public health and safety due to 4
the rising waters that surrounded the nuclear power 5
plant.
And we may never know the answer to that 6
question.
7 But nonetheless, the nuclear power plant 8
was shut down and the licensee's actions since the 9
flood waters and during the flood water events, are --
10 serve to protect public health and safety.
And they 11 should be commended for that.
12 In a June 26th, 2011 article published in 13 the World Herald, they talk about the Fort Calhoun 14 plant.
They talk about a
2,000-foot berm. that 15 collapsed on a Sunday due to on-site activities.
16 Apparently it was punctured by a vehicle somehow.
And 17 this berm is filled with water.
And if you puncture 18 it, the water comes out.
And that's what happened.
19 It says according to the NRC, the berm was 20 eight feet tall and 17 feet wide at the base.
It was 21 designed to provide protection for the plant's power 22 block for up to six feet of water.
It goes on to say 23 on Sunday, the flood water surrounded the nuclear 24 plant's main electrical transformers and power was 25 transferred to emergency diesel generators.
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They say the OPPD officials, which is the 2
licensee here, said the transfer was precautionary 3
because of water leaking around the concrete berm 4
surrounding the main transformers.
The article goes 5
on to say the Missouri River is at 1,006.3 feet.
And 6
they say that the facility is designed to handle water 7
up to 1,014 feet.
8 And then on July 13th, 2011, KETV talks 9
about the Fort Calhoun plant.
They talk about a new 10 eight-foot water-filled barrier installed to replace 11 that one that was punctured.
12 And then on July 27th, 2011, an article 13 published by the Nebraska affiliate, says here that --
14 oh, this was by Associated Press it says the 15 Nuclear Regulatory Commission met with Omaha Public 16 Power District officials to discuss what steps will be 17 needed before the plant can reopen.
Utility officials 18 and regulators emphasized safety throughout the public 19 meeting.
20 And that the Chief Nuclear Officer, Dave 21 Bannister, for the licensee, he's quoted in this 22 article as saying regardless of the river level, we 23 will not restart the plant until it is safe to do so.
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where they said we got 18 more inches to go.
Let's go 2
100 percent -
keep it running.
And here they say 3
regardless of the river level regardless of the 4
river level, we will not restart the plant until it is 5
safe to do so.
6 It goes on to say utility officials say 7
they have no set timetable for restarting it because 8
they won't know what work is needed until after the 9
water level drops.
The licensee is saying we're not 10 going to restart this plant on any set timetable.
And 11 the reason is because we have to inspect it, you know, 12 there could be damage that we don't know about because 13 this water is so high.
14 Well, what about Cooper?
Well, Cooper is 15 running at 100 percent power and that nuclear plant is 16 surrounded by the same water let alone that they've 17 got 18 more inches to go.
But over here at Fort 18
- Calhoun, they're quoted as saying
- well, Elmo 19
- Collins, the fellow I talked about early, the NRC 20 Regional Administrator for the Nuclear Regulatory 21 Commission, he is quoted as saying is what we need to 22 do to verify the station is ready to return to power 23 is we'll do what we need to do to verify the station 24 is ready to return to power.
25
- Well, that's great.
You are going to NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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verify with the licensee.
But what about the Cooper 2
Nuclear Plant, Mr.
Collins?
You're letting them 3
operate at 100 percent power and they're flooded, 4
surrounded by water, just like Fort Calhoun.
But 5
you're letting them run at 100 percent power.
It 6
don't make any sense, Mr. Collins.
7 The article continues.
It says the main 8
building at Fort Calhoun is 1,004 above sea level, 9
which is about two feet below Wednesday's river level 10 of 1,005 feet 9
inches.
Last
- month, Nuclear 11 Regulatory Commission Chairman Gregory Jaczko visited 12 the Fort Calhoun and the state's other nuclear power 13 plant, run by the Nebraska Power District, of course 14 that's
- Cooper, Jaczko said both Fort Calhoun and 15 Cooper were safe.
And that the utilities had taken 16 prudent steps to protect the public.
17 What a revelation from the Chairman of the 18 Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
He visits which one 19 plant in which the licensee took responsible, 20 meaningful
- action, and made public statements to 21 reassure the public that they weren't going to restart 22 that nuclear power plant on any set timetable until 23 that water receded so they could inspect the facility 24 and make whatever repairs that were needed.
And here 25 you have the same power plant, the Cooper over here, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, through their own 2
- chairman, it's just as safe.
It's running at 100 3
percent power because they've got 18 more inches 4
before they've got to shut it down.
5 This is just ludicrous.
This is not 6
protecting public health and public health and safety.
7 This is putting public health and safety at grave 8
- risk, in grave jeopardy of a significant nuclear 9
accident, just like happened in Japan and continues to 10 happen in Japan.
Perhaps we need a new NRC chairman.
11
- Next, on July 28th, 2011, a World Herald 12 article talks about Fort Calhoun.
And in the gist of 13 this it says much of the plant is surrounded by about 14 two feet of flood waters behind various barriers 15 ranging from an earthen berm to sandbag walls to a 16 temporary water-filled tube.
Water has been kept out 17 of critical plant buildings, the NRC said, but both 18 regulators and the utility are concerned about damage 19 to underground pipes and cables as well as any damage 20 from current, debris, and unstable soil.
21 So here at the Fort Calhoun Nuclear Power 22 Plant, you have the licensee, the plant operator, the 23 people that have the license issued by the government, 24 the NRC, to operate this Fort Calhoun Nuclear Plant, 25 and the regulator, the NRC
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agreement that this plant has to be kept shut down.
2 There could be damage to underground pipes.
There 3
could be damage to underground cables.
As well as 4
damage from currents and damage from debris and 5
unstable soil.
You got to keep it shut down to 6
protect public health and safety.
7 But wait a minute.
What about the Cooper 8
Nuclear Plant over here.
It's running at 100 percent 9
power.
And it's got the same flood waters that could 10 do the same damage to critical buildings.
It could 11 have damaged the underground pipes and cables.
It 12 could do damage from currents.
It could have damage 13 from debris.
And it could have damage from unstable 14 soil.
15 But the NRC found it is safe.
Run it at 16 100 percent power because you've got 18 more inches to 17 go.
Amazing.
Just incredible.
18 The article continues, and it's quoted --
19 the licensee is quoted in here as saying we're experts 20 in making power.
We're not experts in
- flooding, 21 Bannister said.
We're going to need extra help.
We 22 know that.
What a responsible, meaningful statement 23 and meaningful and responsible actions on the part of 24 a Nuclear Regulatory Commission licensee.
25 These people are to be commended.
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realized the seriousness of operating a nuclear power 2
plant under these extreme weather conditions.
And 3
they know the consequences of a nuclear accident.
4 So they're saying to this public through 5
this new article and to the NRC hey, we know how to 6
make the power but we don't know what the hell to do 7
about the flood because we're not experts in flooding.
8 But you know what, we're going to get help.
We're 9
going to hire experts.
10 And we're going to take their advice.
And 11 we're not going to start this power plant back up --
12 this nuclear reactor not going to become critical 13 until we fix and repair what needs to be fixed and 14 repaired.
And we're going to listen to what the 15 contractor has to say because they're the experts on 16 flooding, not us.
That's the responsible position.
17 But over at Cooper, run that baby 100 18 percent because, you know, we've got 18 more inches to 19 go.
Amazing.
20 And then on August 23rd,
- 2011, by the 21 Journal Star, it was reported --
and then parts of 22 this, it says here, on Monday, the Missouri River at 23 Fort Calhoun was 1,005 feet elevation or one foot 24 above the threshold at which it must be shut down --
25 at which it is shut down.
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Earlier this month,
- OPPD, who is the 2
- licensee, submitted 1,013-page plan to restart the 3
plant to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
The 4
utility is also hiring a consultant to help with 5
inspections and damage assessments.
6 The licensee is quoted here as saying we 7
told the NRC we would bring in a third party to help, 8
Jones said, we are in the business of running plant.
9 We do not necessary know what to do after a flood.
10 OPPD will not set a timeline for restarting until it 11 can assure the NRC and the public it can be done 12 safely he said.
We hope we can do it by the end of 13 the year, Jones said.
14 Now that is a
responsible Nuclear 15 Regulatory Commission licensee.
This attitude and 16 this conduct and these measures taken by this licensee 17 to protect public health and safety with respect to 18 this commercial nuclear reactor should be the actions 19 and conduct of the regulator, the NRC.
It should be 20 the actions and the conduct for the licensee also but 21 these are the types of actions the public needs to 22 have the government do to protect their public health 23 and safety.
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here at the Cooper Nuclear Plant, I've got 18 more 2
inches before they have to shut the nuclear reactor 3
down.
And the NRC is just going to sit there and keep 4
taking measurements until they get the 18 inches.
5 Then maybe the NRC will encourage them to shut it down 6
because we know the NRC is not going to issue the 7
confirmatory order, okay?
8 So here, again, the disparity between the 9
two licensees --
one risks public health and safety 10 and the other serves to protect public health and 11 safety.
12 Now that's the basic outline and the 13 issues central to the petition.
However, this review 14 Board is here to entertain additional statements.
And 15 let's just clarify the record at this point with 16 respect to the petition, all statements made today by 17 myself as a representative of Saprodani Associates, 18 are to be considered a supplement to the original 19 petition for the Cooper Nuclear Power Plant, which is 20 dated July 3rd,
- 2011, and the petition filed with 21 respect to the Fort Calhoun Power Plant, dated June 22 26, 2011, all say misrepresentations made here on this 23 public record are to be considered a supplement to 24 these petitions.
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Director 8.11 to be considered by this Petition Review 2
Board just as if these matters and issues raised today 3
have been put in writing on the original dates in 4
these petitions.
Just so we're clear on that point.
5 Now with respect to the Fort Calhoun Plant 6
excuse me, the Fort Calhoun Nuclear Power Plant, 7
- again, before I get into these other substantive 8
- issues, again on this public record, commend the 9
actions of the licensee in protecting public health 10 and safety by keeping that nuclear power plant in the 11 cold shutdown mode of operation, by hiring a
12 consultant to help assess the flood damage, if
- any, 13 caused by the natural events of the swelling of the 14 Missouri River.
15 But having said that, there are other 16 issues here.
And first of all, for the public's 17 information and understanding and very -- this is just 18 a very simple explanation because it is very --
you 19 know, a nuclear power plant is a very complex piece of 20 equipment, but just for the public's awareness and 21 understanding, let me say that when the Nuclear 22 Regulatory Commission or a licensee of the Nuclear 23 Regulatory Commission reports that a nuclear power 24 plant has been brought to a cold shutdown mode, you 25 know, the public automatically thinks oh, everything NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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is safe because the nuclear power plant, you know, the 2
government told us it is in a cold shutdown mode of 3
operation.
4 Just like when the Hurricane Irene came up 5
the eastern seaboard, the North Anna Nuclear Power 6
Plants, they automatically tripped off line.
And it 7
was reported well, these nuclear power plants, it was 8
in a cold shutdown mode of operation.
It
- was, you 9
know, yes, I forget the exact verbiage the NRC used to 10 the reporters but they said oh, it automatically 11 tripped like it was supposed to.
It was a safety 12 function in a cold shutdown mode of operation.
You 13 know public health and safety is protected,
- blah, 14 blah, blah.
15
- But, in fact, what happens is this.
When 16 a nuclear power plant is operating like the Cooper 17 Nuclear Plant, under full power, you have control rods 18 inside --
you have a metal vessel which has nuclear 19 fuel in it.
And inside between these fuel assemblies 20 or these poison rods, they absorb neutrons.
I mean 21 when you have a nuclear fission process, neutrons are 22 split.
And the heat generated from billions and 23 billions of these neutrons spitting or these atom 24 splitting cross the wire to heat.
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theme and make electricity by turning a generator.
2 Okay, well when we pull these control rods out, the 3
reactor fission process starts.
Okay so the reactor 4
is very dangerous at that point.
It is a continuing 5
chain reaction of nuclear events happening within that 6
metal vessel, like a pressure cooker if you will.
7 When a reactor trips offline for whatever 8
reason, these controls, they automatically drop them 9
inside these fuel rod assemblies and it causes the 10 nuclear fission process to stop.
And that when 11 that process stops, they call that well, their reactor 12 is a cold shutdown mode of operation now.
13
- Okay, well when a reactor is operating 14 under power, a tremendous amount of heat is built up.
15 And some of that heat -- the majority of that heat is 16 released through the steam that's created in that 17 process, which goes to the turbine generators to make 18 electricity and then part of that steam is condensed 19 and reused.
And some of that the other part of 20 that heat is discharged to the environment.
21 Now that continues on and on.
So what you 22 have to do is you have to keep water flowing, you know 23 hundreds of thousands of gallons a minute through that 24 reactor vessel so that that nuclear fuel doesn't heat 25 up and melt like what happened in Japan.
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- cooling, the fuel melted all the way through the 2
vessel, all the way through the containment building, 3
into the environment.
4 So that's the process what's offering.
5 When it goes into cold shutdown, the poison control 6
rods, they come down, they stop the fission process.
7 But there is decay heat.
That reactor fuel is really, 8
really screaming hot.
And you have to remove that 9
decay heat.
If you didn't, the reactors would melt 10 down.
11 That's what happened in Japan.
They had 12 the earthquake.
They had a big tsunami, a big wave.
13 And it inundated the emergency diesel generators.
So 14 they lost off-site power.
It's the power that cooling 15 the water pumps the cools the reactor.
And then the 16 diesel generators couldn't start.
So those cooling 17 pumps couldn't provide cooling water to the reactors.
18 So the fuel heated up and it melted down.
19 And that's what would happen at the Fort 20 Calhoun Nuclear Plant or the Cooper Nuclear Plant if 21 that dam would break that holds back all those tons 22 and tons of gallons of water.
But here at Fort 23 Calhoun you have the situation where it is in cold 24 shutdown, which means that if the rods, the control 25 rods are dropped into the reactor, there is no nuclear NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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fission taking place but you still have to have these 2
water pumps pump this cooling water through the 3
reactor core to remove the residual heat.
4 And you have to do that for a long, long 5
time.
Even when the licensee, like they're doing at 6
Fort Calhoun, they have to shut it down, open the lid, 7
take out approximately one-third of the nuclear fuel 8
and replace it with new fuel.
And then that old fuel, 9
which is called spent nuclear fuel, is put in a
10 nuclear fuel pool in water.
And that water is 11 circulated with boron and other stuff to keep that 12 those fuel rods from become critical, having their own 13 nuclear reaction over there.
14 And that fuel has to be kept at least five 15 years.
It has to be kept cool in the spent fuel pool 16 for at least five years before it can be taken out and 17 put into what's called a dry cask storage for long-18 term storage for tens of hundreds of thousands of 19 years.
We won't be here to worry about that.
20 But this fuel inside the Fort Calhoun 21 Nuclear Plant right now that's in cold shutdown, it 22 has to have water circulating through it to remove 23 this residual
- heat, which is approximately five 24 percent --
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continually removed while it is in cold shutdown.
2 So it's serious because if you lose the 3
ability to cool -- to remove that heat, and then the 4
unit is going to melt down.
Even though it is cold 5
shutdown, the public, you need to understand that the 6
nuclear power plant, the fuel is going to melt down if 7
you lose cooling.
8 So that's
- why, even though it is shut 9
down, which is the right mode of operation, you know 10 it's the responsible mode of operation by the licensee 11 for the Fort Calhoun, you still have an issue because 12 if that dam breaks the tremendous you
- know, 13 probably millions of gallons is going to come at the 14 nuclear power plant, it is most likely going to take 15 out your off-site power.
16 It's going to take out the switchyard.
17 And most likely inundate those emergency diesel 18 generators.
And you're going to melt down.
The fuel 19 is going to lose cooling and you are going to melt 20 down.
And, you know, how do you --
how would you not 21 melt down?
And how would you keep the emergency 22 diesel generators functioning in such a scenario, you 23 know?
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when the whole plant is surrounded by water, you know?
2 There are a lot of issues that are involved in this 3
type of emergency situation.
4 There was a I believe in
- June, one of 5
the emergency diesel generators failed.
- Well, no, 6
excuse me, that was the aqua dam.
I'm sorry.
But the 7
concern there was that the switchyard would be taken 8
out.
- Well, here again, we talk about I
talked 9
about the residual heat that has to be removed.
You 10 have off-site power that comes into the nuclear power 11 plant.
And if you lose the off-site power, then your 12 cooling water pumps won't be able to pump water 13 through the reactor core to remove the residual heat 14 in the case of the Fort Calhoun Nuclear Plant.
15 And so therefore you have to depend on the 16 emergency diesel generators to automatically start and 17 pick up that load to keep power to those cooling water 18 pumps so that the residual heat can be removed from 19 the Fort Calhoun nuclear fuel in that reactor.
And 20 the concern here is can those diesel generators be 21 operated for an extended period of time.
22 When I say extended period of time, I'm 23 talking at least 30 days or more.
Because if that dam 24 breaks, you know, the NRC has never experienced that 25 nor has the licensee experienced that type of NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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emergency situation.
So the NRC should be of a mind-2 set by now after witnessing and continuing the 3
witnessing the nuclear accident in
- Japan, the NRC 4
hopefully would be of a mind-set to think outside the 5
box just a little and to entertain emergency nuclear 6
accident scenarios that the Agency has never before 7
fully evaluated and anticipated.
8 And here is such a scenario.
What if the 9
dam breaks?
How much water is going to come at that 10 nuclear plant?
Are the emergency diesel generators 11 going to be able to carry the load for an extended 12 period of time of at least 30 days or more because 13 you're going to lose off-site power because you're 14 going to lose that switchyard?
And how is the 15 licensee going to be able to provide fuel for the 16 emergency diesel generators for 30 days or more?
17 If the licensee loses the emergency diesel 18 generators, you know, you're down to battery backup 19 power.
And that's approximately four hours, maybe 20 eight in the best case scenario.
But I think that 21 plant has four hours' worth of battery backup power.
22 And then it's over.
You're melting down.
You're 23 melting down in a nuclear accident scenario.
It's too 24 late then.
25 So what I'm trying to point the NRC at NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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here at this meeting is the flood protection is 2
inadequate because it doesn't foresee or anticipate a 3
breaking of that dam or, for that matter, any of the 4
levis, barriers or levis, whatever they're called 5
between the dam and that nuclear plant that hold back 6
water.
Because if one of those breaks, you're going 7
to have a tremendous amount of water slamming into the 8
next one.
And that's going to be multiplied when that 9
one breaks.
And that's going to keep cascading all 10 the way through this nuclear plant.
11 You may not even need the dam itself to 12 collapse.
You could have a subsequent failure of any 13 one of these water barriers between the plant and the 14 dam, which would swell the river to a sufficient level 15 to inundate that plant to a degree where you could not 16 remove the residual heat from the Fort Calhoun Nuclear 17 Plant.
And it would result in a nuclear fuel core 18 meltdown.
And that's what everyone wants to avoid.
19 So the flood protection and the procedures 20 at the Fort Calhoun Nuclear Plant are not sufficient 21 in my view to handle a nuclear accident scenario where 22 either the dam breaks or one or more of the subsequent 23 water barriers between the dam and the Fort Calhoun 24 Nuclear Plant are breached.
And you have a tremendous 25 in-rush of water.
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So, you know, the NRC --
I'm requesting 2
that the NRC take measures and actions to cause an 3
evaluation of those accident scenarios, to get 4
professional engineers involve to anticipate the 5
amount of water that would be headed towards the 6
nuclear facilities, both Fort Calhoun and Cooper 7
because it's the same river.
And the same analysis 8
for any and all barriers -- water barriers between the 9
dam and these nuclear power plants.
10 How much water would be released?
How 11 much damage?
Would it take out the switchyard?
Would 12 it take out the switchyard and the emergency diesel 13 generators?
Would it prevent the diesel generators 14 being refueled the licensee even if they weren't 15 completely inundated and not operational?
These are 16 all issues that serve to protect the public health and 17 safety by removing the decayed heat from the Fort 18 Calhoun Nuclear Plant.
19 And with respect to the Cooper Nuclear 20 Plant, the NRC has some serious internal issues and 21 policy issues and compliance to safety regulations and 22 compliance to Congressional mandates to protect public 23 health and safety where the NRC has allowed the Cooper 24 Nuclear Plant to operate under such dire circumstances 25 where that licensee's flood protection plans and NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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procedures and policies are just as bad as those at 2
Fort Calhoun.
And where that nuclear power plant 3
could have sustained significant damage from the water 4
that surrounds that nuclear power plant on the 5
underground cables, wiring, et cetera.
6 And so the NRC's this public record, 7
I'm going to request that a copy of this public record 8
transcript be provided to the NRC's Office of the 9
Inspector General because that's the correct agency to 10 investigate the NRC's staff and this Petition Review 11 Board's actions with respect to why the Cooper Nuclear 12 Plant was allowed to continue to operate in these dire 13 circumstances in contrast to the actions that were 14 brought by the licensee for the Fort Calhoun Nuclear 15 Plant where public health and safety was protected.
16 It seems to me that the NRC did not act 17 correctly to protect public health and safety with 18 respect to the Cooper Nuclear Plant.
And I think the 19 NRC Office of the Inspector General needs to focus an 20 investigation on how the NRC functions to meet its 21 objectives in protecting public health and safety 22 where it obviously failed with respect to the Cooper 23 Nuclear Plant.
24 I mean you can't protect public health and 25 safety if you allow the licensee, the Cooper Nuclear NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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Plant to continue operating the plant where you have 2
the same dire circumstances as you have at Fort 3
Calhoun where the NRC takes the position, you know, 4
that you can have all this damage to underground-power 5
cables and debris and systems, et cetera, and you 6
really don't know until the water recedes and you can 7
have a professional entity investigate and inspect and 8
validate and confirm and do post-maintenance and 9
operational testing.
10 So here you have the same region, Region 11 IV, and the same administrator and staff overseeing 12 two different nuclear plants, which are subject to the 13 same harsh environmental threats to public health and 14 safety.
And the NRC takes two different courses of 15 action.
16 So in an effort as a public citizen, 17 all I can do is invoke whatever authority Congress has 18 given me through 2.206 and through the NRC Office of 19 the Inspector General to hold the NRC accountable in 20 its oversight of these nuclear power plants in these 21 circumstances.
22 Fort Calhoun Nuclear
- Plant, to my 23 understanding, has two off-site power lines, two 24 emergency diesel generators for power, emergency power 25 in the event that you lose the two off-site power NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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lines or sources.
And then you go to batteries of 2
last resort.
And it is my understanding that they 3
currently operate for four hours.
4 So even though Fort Calhoun is in a cold -
5 a so-called cold shutdown mode of operation, as I 6
explained earlier, you have to remove the residual 7
heat or you are going to have a meltdown scenario.
8 The nuclear fuel will melt and you'll have a serious 9
situation like you have over there in Japan right now.
10 And the extent of the flooding is extreme.
11 And even though the emergency diesel generators were 12 functional and operative, I would like the NRC to look 13 into and evaluate how the licensee intended to refuel 14 those emergency diesel generators had the licensee 15 been required to rely on their operation for an 16 extended period of time.
Let's talk at least 30 days.
17 And how were they going to refuel them?
18 Were they going to float a barge in there?
Were they 19 going to airlift some fuel by helicopter?
Or were 20 they going to have a Navy SEAL team try to get fuel 21 over there?
How were they going to do it?
I mean I'd 22 like to have an answer to that.
23 The Fort Calhoun
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understanding there were cracks found in that intake 2
structure.
And so therefore, you know, you have all 3
this water surrounding the plant and, you know, the 4
intake structure provides, you know, service water 5
pumps.
They could fail and you could have core damage 6
if the service water pumps fail through the intake 7
structure's operation.
8 And so it is vulnerable.
The nuclear 9
reactor at Fort Calhoun is vulnerable to a nuclear 10 accident, a meltdown if you lose the intake structure.
11 And if that building has cracks in it, then that's 12 something the NRC should focus their attention on and 13 find out how long the cracks have existed there and 14 how did the cracks come to be.
- And, you know, how 15 significant or how vulnerable is the intake structure 16 to damage from these flood waters.
And would it lose 17 its capabilities ultimately to cool the nuclear 18 reactor core --
the fuel in there?
19 The water, as I
already talked about 20
- earlier, even the NRC admitted in that news article 21 that they --
so the nuclear site is submerged in mud 22 and there's underground electric power lines.
- And, 23 you know, these power lines also provide these 24 underground power lines also provide power to the 25 service water pumps, you know.
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pumps, again they serve a function to cool the-nuclear 2
fuel.
3 So it is very serious if those underground 4
cables fail.
And they are sitting under mud and 5
water.
And they weren't designed for that for any 6
extended period of time.
7 And then there's concerns I have about the 8
plant -- the physical structure of the plant.
Did all 9
this water and muck from being surround by -- you know 10 the plant is sitting in a riverbed when it is flooded 11 by the river water.
It is part of the river, you 12 know.
13 When it wasn't originally designed, it 14 wasn't -- you know the licensee didn't come to the NRC 15 and say could we have a license to build a nuclear 16 power plant in the middle of the river?
No, it was 17 dry ground when they built the plant.
So it's sitting 18 in the middle of a river now when it is surrounded by 19 water.
So you've got to have a concern and I have a 20 concern that the physical structure may have shifted.
21 There could have been a seismic event because of the 22 muck and the water surrounding the facility.
23 So I would like the NRC to have that 24 analyzed.
And hopefully the licensee's private 25 contractor that they talked about is going to do that.
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And probably they will.
They sound like a very 2
responsible licensee.
3
- okay, so in summation with this Fort 4
Calhoun Nuclear Power Plant, the United States should 5
be concerned and I am concerned, I'm requesting the 6
NRC to be concerned and to take action with respect to 7
the scenario where the dam would actually fail and the 8
Missouri River would be inundated with tons of water, 9
millions and millions of gallons of water headed for 10 the Fort Calhoun Nuclear Plant and the Cooper Nuclear 11 Plant.
12 I'm concerned with respect to the Fort 13 Calhoun Nuclear Plant about also the failure of the 14 service water intake cooling water system.
And all 15 the underground cables and systems we talked about.
16 I'm concerned about their flood protection 17 systems.
In my view, they're not adequate.
And, you 18 know, when a piece of equipment punctured their aqua-19 berm and we all see what happened after that 20 punctured, it failed and all the water came out and 21 they lost that protection even though that was 22 supposedly an enhancement.
23 The fact is Fort Calhoun's flood 24 protection system is just flat out not adequate to 25 ensure public health and safety.
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addressed there were all the underground facilities, 2
the intake structures, physical systems, all the water 3
barriers between the nuclear facility and the dam, and 4
the dam itself.
5 With respect to the Cooper Nuclear Plant, 6
you know, the concern is heightened for public health 7
and safety because the
- NRC, as the government 8
regulator, continued to allow the nuclear operator, 9
the licensee, to operate its nuclear power plant at 10 100 percent power.
And that, to me, is irresponsible 11 on the part of the NRC and it jeopardized, placed 12 public health and safety in grave jeopardy.
13 You can't it's just common sense tells 14 you don't wait and allow that plant to continue to 15 operate because they've got 18 more inches to go.
You 16 have to think outside the box, NRC.
This is, you 17 know, this is a different environment now.
You have 18 terrorists.
You have earthquakes going on.
You got 19 hurricanes going on.
You have an example of a Mark 1 20 nuclear reactor --
three of them out there melting 21 down in Japan right now.
22 The Cooper Nuclear Plant is a GE Mark 1 23 nuclear reactor.
The NRC has already cited them for 24 failure of these manual valves.
And because the 25 reactor is operating at 100 percent power, if you had NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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a nuclear accident --
let's say the dam broke and you 2
had all this water flooding that nuclear plant, the 3
Cooper plant, well even if the operator would manually 4
scram it or it would scram itself scram, for the 5
public's information, is where the rods automatically 6
fall into the core to shut the fission process down --
7 even if that would scram, coming from 100 percent, the 8
decay heat removal is tremendously much larger than 9
the decay heat removal at the Fort Calhoun Nuclear 10 Plant, which is already in cold shutdown.
11 You're only talking about removing 12 approximately five percent of residual decay heat from 13 Fort Calhoun but the residual decay heat removed from 14 Cooper would be tremendously larger.
What if you had 15 the emergency service water failure because of the 16 dam, you know?
And it is 100 percent power.
17 On March 31st, 1994, there was a report, 18 a June 1993 record flooding, okay?
And there was a 19 concern about flooding protection for the Cooper 20 Nuclear Plant.
21 The 1993 flood design basis that's what 22 the plant was built around a
1993 flood design 23 basis, the final safety analysis report, which is the 24 safety document for the safety margins
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Cooper Nuclear Plant to operate under NRC license --
2
- well, it would now appear that the plant has been 3
allowed by the NRC to operate outside its final safety 4
analysis and safety design basis because if the flood 5
of '93 met or exceeded --
if that was a record flood, 6
and it met or exceeded the licensee's final safety 7
analysis design basis at that time, this current flood 8
of 2011 is greater than that flood.
9 So in my view, and as a matter of common 10 sense, the licensee has been operating their nuclear 11 power plant outside their final safety analysis 12 report, technical specifications, and safety design 13 basis because the flood is greater now than it was 14 then.
And the NRC has allowed this to happen.
15 Again, with Cooper, the flood waters could 16 take out off-site power.
If the dam breaks, all that 17 water is coming in.
Or just because the Army Corps of 18 Engineers was releasing water from that dam, the river 19 level was rising, you could lose off-site power from 20 the switchyard.
21 You could lose the service water pumps and 22 the service water pumps, you know they also serve to 23 cool the emergency diesel generators.
So even though 24 if you lose the switchyard and your emergency 25 diesel generators start up automatically as they're NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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supposed to, let's hope they do, those emergency 2
diesel generators could shut down because if you lose 3
service water to cool the diesel generators, they're 4
going to shut down.
Now how are you going to have 5
residual heat removal from the nuclear core?
You're 6
not.
You're going to melt down.
7 So that brings us to the final concern 8
here.
A terrorist attack, okay?
Now this plant is 9
unique from other nuclear plants that I am aware of 10 because terrorists have at least two grand 11 opportunities to cause a core meltdown at either the 12 Fort Calhoun Nuclear Plant or the Cooper Nuclear 13 Plant.
14 They could do it by blowing up the dag-15 gone dam and I talked about what would happen if that 16 dam fell, all that water would come down here and take 17 out the switchyards for both plants, which is your 18 off-site power.
The emergency diesel generators would 19 have to kick in but they would probably get inundated 20 by the amount of flood water, which is not anticipated 21 in the licensee's flood plans or license documents or 22 emergency preparedness documents to the extent that 23 the plant could be protected.
And you're going to 24 have two nuclear plants simultaneously melting down.
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power.
And you'd be in the same scenario.
You 2
wouldn't be as bad because you would have the 3
emergency diesel generators but like I said before, my 4
concern is even the NRC's task force, in my view, did 5
not adequately address this fact this issue of 6
7 They --
in my view, they need to be --
the 8
licensees, both Cooper and Fort Calhoun and all other 9
NRC licensees need to be able to keep their emergency 10 diesel generators running continuously for at least 30 11 days or more because I tell you, these terrorists and 12 acts of God are unpredictable and the damage could be 13 significant where the licensee could not reestablish 14 off-site power.
And they would have to depend on 15 emergency diesel generators to prevent a nuclear core 16 reactor meltdown.
17 So the NRC needs to focus its attention on 18 requiring a minimum of 30 days.
You know I know the 19 NRC Chairman talked about increasing battery 20 sustainability up to at least eight hours or more, you 21 know.
Let's not even talk about having to go to 22 batteries.
I mean let's talk about making sure the 23 emergency diesel generators can run for at least 30 24 days or more.
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public health and safety than increasing the battery 2
life.
Although I think the Chairman is correct that 3
the batteries need to be able to sustain power for a 4
longer period than four or eight hours.
But I think 5
right now we have an immediate need to address 6
increasing the operability of the emergency diesel 7
generators and that includes the ability to bring fuel 8
to the site.
9 And here we have two nuclear plants that 10 are surrounded by water.
How is the licensee going to 11 continually bring fuel to those emergency diesel 12 generators in the scenario where the dam breaks.
I 13 mean you have to think out of the box.
This is a new 14 day where you have bad people in this world and you 15 have more and more acts of God happening.
And very 16 significant acts of God.
And you have to take in 17 these accident scenarios to protect public health and 18 safety.
19 And with that, I'm going to end the 20 presentation.
And I will remain on this line to 21 entertain any questions from the NRC or from anybody 22 in the public or the media.
23 MR.
HOLIAN:
- Good, Mr.
- Saporito, thank 24 you.
A good discussion and good supplement to the 25 issues.
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This is Brian Holian, the petition manager 2
or Board Chair, I guess, get the terms right.
3 I will open it up to NRC staff that may 4
want to ask you any questions.
I had a few here --
5 not necessarily questions, really just comments.
I 6
wanted to reiterate some of what you said.
I want to 7
see you go from this call with the assurance that we 8
do have your additional messages captured.
9 First off, you know, I will reiterate what 10 you stated.
And concur with that.
That your comments 11 here, you know, will be considered as a supplement to 12 the petitions on Fort Calhoun and Cooper.
That is 13 part of our process.
That's the reason for this call.
14 That's why we gather the Board together for this call, 15
- one, to listen to it, and then two, to read the 16 transcript when we get the transcript back.
So I 17 wanted to reiterate that for you and you understand 18 that process.
And that is how it will work.
19 I'll cover just a few of the items in 20 particular.
You provided quite a bit so I don't mean 21 to go back down that whole list.
That's the purpose 22 of the transcript and we will study that.
But I
23 wanted to make sure that you heard --
that we heard 24 some of the issues.
And I'll key off some of the key 25 ones.
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- One, you know, you wanted you made a 2
good description of both what's occurred at Fort 3
Calhoun and Cooper.
And you're primary item there, 4
one of the primary items early on was to NRC show that 5
these are not disparate actions by the NRC, that, you 6
know, where are they consistent between Fort Calhoun 7
and Cooper.
8 You bring out the fact that one is still 9
operating so that shows an inconsistency, in your 10 view, so we should address that in a petition.
And we 11 have that down.
12
- Two, other --
oh, and along with number 13
- one, I'll just add in here, you did request that we 14 send this on to the Office of the Inspector General 15 primarily related to what, in your view, is disparate 16 action by the NRC, for them to do an independent look.
17 So we will offer that up to the IG and forward them, 18 you know, this transcript and that request.
So we did 19 capture that.
20 Two, you know, I think you went to greater 21 depth on issues about dam breaking and, in general, is 22 the flood protection still adequate even in the state 23 that the plants are now?
So we did capture that 24 point.
25 You made an additional point about NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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although one plant is shutdown and in cold shutdown, 2
you know, Fort Calhoun, and they were down for an 3
outage, you made the point, which is one, that plant, 4
even though you commended them for staying down, you 5
wanted us to know and the public to know that that 6
still plant is not without risk.
They still do have 7
some decay heat there.
There are still things that 8
could occur there.
- And, you know, we would concur 9
with that.
10 And then, of course, you made the point 11 that Cooper would, of course, have a higher decay heat 12 rate even after they were to shut down if that were to 13 occur if they exceeded their limit.
So we concur with 14 that.
15 Other items there, you know, you went on 16 to say that there's other issues with this flood 17 water.
One, not just what could happen, but the fact 18 the flood waters are in here now, what does that 19 change at the plant?
Are the intake structures --
20 one, you wondered about the intake structures really 21 at both plants, were they to fail and are they more 22 susceptible to failure in this flood condition.
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plant, we do have that noted as an item that you would 2
like us to comment on.
3 And in particular, you called out has 4
Cooper operated outside a good flood analysis.
And 5
you quoted a 1993 flood analysis.
So, you know, I
6 picked that up also as one of the items.
7 So those were a few of the items I picked 8
up.
Once again, the Board, as a whole, will study the 9
transcript.
Those were general areas and not to be 10 exclusive.
But I just wanted you to know that we were 11 following along on the discussion there.
12 I'll open it up really for questions from 13 the staff.
But I did want to --
in case and we 14 will open it up to members of the public also if there 15 are some on that didn't, you
- know, highlight 16 themselves.
17 I did want to comment just quickly again 18 on just a few statements you made.
It's not our point 19 here at the Board to answer any of those issues, 20 including the items I just had.
We'll answer them 21 formally.
But I did want to reiterate some of your 22 comments.
23
- One, just to make sure you are aware and 24 then -- of NRC actions or NRC perspectives on a few of 25 the things you brought up.
One, as you are aware of, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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the Fukushima report is out there.
And I don't know 2
if you've seen the Commission action that has been 3
taken recently.
I think it was just within the last 4
week they sent down a staff requirements memorandum, 5
you know, requiring Commission papers on certain time 6
frames, you know, a five-day look, a 21-day look, 45-7 day report.
8 So that's out publicly I believe.
So 9
you'll see in the bigger perspective, which is one 10 that you wanted to push the NRC to do, are you 11 looking, you know, one, outside the box?
Or are you 12 looking at these issues in light of Fukushima?
And I 13 know you are aware that that task force report is out 14 there.
15 I think the Agency is looking at all of 16 the plants with that bigger perspective.
So I wanted 17 you just to follow that and follow these Commission 18 papers that will be --
are demanded of us here and 19 we'll be responding to in that matter.
20 Number
- two, just in comments you made 21 really about, --
one was Commission I'm sorry, 22 Chairman Jaczko going out there and overseeing the 23 plants in a helicopter ride.
And you just made a
24 statement that, you know, he says it was safe from a 25 cursory review.
And I just wanted to comment on that.
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I'm sure you are aware that statements, 2
you know, made in the press and issues like that are 3
not based just on a cursory review by any one member 4
of the Commission, a Commissioner, or the EDO.
You 5
know they take into
- account, in this case in 6
particular, the Region IV inspectors and the on-site 7
inspection.
And that gets done both there and is 8
supplemented by headquarters.
So I mean I just wanted 9
to state that since you almost made it sound like he 10 was on his own in a cursory review saying that.
11
- Three, you know, you made a point about 12 the resident inspectors, in particular when you'cited 13 I believe it was at Fort Calhoun and then you also 14 cited Cooper but I don't think you mentioned it that 15
- well, they've been cited in the past.
And I
16 personally come from nine years, relatively recently, 17 out as a regional manager.
18 And so I just wanted to comment on that 19 also that when people ask where is the resident 20 inspector in those cases, you know, you could do it or 21 the public could do it or the NRC could do it on any 22 finding or violation, you know, can or should the 23 residents have found that earlier.
And that is 24 something the Agency always looks at.
25 But in particular, as you are aware, the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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residents are out there sampling a variety of plant 2
issues.
So these types of issues is one of the 3
reasons why we have reporting criteria that are on the 4
licensees to answer these types of things.
5 And finally, you know, going back to that 6
disparate design, you know, we did pick that up --
or 7
disparate actions.
But just on the phone call, you 8
- know, as you look at the different criteria for the 9
plants, you know, we will, as part of that, look at 10 many times plants have different design criteria built 11 into the design.
12 So even if they're, you know, relatively 13 close to one another, even the Fukushima plant, as you 14 mentioned, you know, the six units, a couple of them 15 were higher up on a cliff and had different design 16 criteria because of the different age of the plants.
17 So I just bring that out, that is something that's 18 one, always possible, but it is worth the NRC looking 19 at.
And we'll do that with these petitions.
20 Those are some general comments that I 21 had.
Let me open it up now at this time to just NRC 22 staff here in the room.
Any questions or 23 clarification for Mr. Saporito or questions you might 24 have?
25 (No response.)
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MR.
HOLIAN:
Looking around to the Board, 2
I think they were taking notes, Mr. Saporito.
And I 3
guess there's no questions here.
4 We had a regional rep on the phone.
Any 5
questions from NRC staff that are on the phone?
6 MR.
HAIRE:
- Yes, this is Mark Haire in 7
Region IV.
I don't have any additional questions.
8 MR.
HOLIAN:
Okay.
Thank you, Mark.
And 9
Mark is a member of the Board, Mr.
Saporito, just 10 repeating that again.
11 We did have --
I guess Lynnea --
and I'm 12 sorry, I mispronounced your name earlier.
I think I 13 said Lynnette, Mr. Saporito, it's Lynnea.
We had one 14 licensee on the phone.
15 Does the licensee have any questions?
The 16 one licensee rep or if another one
- joined, any 17 questions or comments?
18 MS.
BAUGHN:
This is Susan Baughn with 19 Omaha Public Power.
And I have no questions.
20 MR.
HOLIAN:
Okay.
- Well, going on to 21 members of the public, you know, before I conclude.
22 Members of the public may provide comments regarding 23 these petitions and ask questions about the process 24 also.
As I stated at the beginning, the purpose of 25 this meeting is not to provide an opportunity really NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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to examine the merits of any of these issues.
And so 2
even my comments weren't going to the merits.
I just 3
wanted to make sure that they are in the proper 4
perspective.
5 But members of the public, if there are 6
any on that might have any questions or comments at 7
this time?
8 (No response.)
9 MR.
HOLIAN:
Okay.
I hadn't heard anybody 10 identifying themselves earlier.
11
- Well, Mr.
Saporito, this is Brian Holian 12 again.
I thank you for taking the time today.
It's 13 a lengthy amount of time.
I thank you for the 14 petitions themselves.
It is a
very worthwhile 15
- process, the 2.206 process.
I hold it up as a
16 valuable tool that is in the regulations for the right 17 purpose.
18 So one, I appreciate the time you took to 19 submit the petition, working with our staff to 20 schedule this phone call, and I appreciate the time 21 you took today to lead us through some of the other 22 issues that aren't in your official petitions but that 23 you would like to be added.
24 One last item, the court reporter, I think 25 you've been able to follow along.
Do you need any NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 2
3 4
5 6
7 8
9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 72 clarification or any acronyms or anything.
COURT REPORTER:
No, thank you.
I think I'm all set.
MR.
HOLIAN:
Okay.
- Saporito, again, thank you again.
we're concluded.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Mr.
And with that, (Whereupon, the above-entitled Petition Review Board telephone conference was concluded at 2:40 p.m.)
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CERTIFICATE This is to certify that the attached proceedings before the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission in the matter of:
Fort Calhoun & Cooper Station Name of Proceeding:
10 CFR 2.206 Petition of Thomas Saporito Docket Number:
Location:
(n/a)
(teleconference) were held as herein appears, and that this is the original transcript thereof for the file of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission taken by me and, thereafter reduced to typewriting by me or under the direction of the court reporting company, and that the transcript is a true and accurate record of the foregoing proceedings.
Matthew MiYler Official Reporter Neal R. Gross & Co.,
Inc.
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