ML11272A237
| ML11272A237 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Limerick  |
| Issue date: | 10/26/2011 |
| From: | Lisa Regner License Renewal Projects Branch 2 |
| To: | David Wrona License Renewal Projects Branch 2 |
| Regner L, 415-1906 | |
| References | |
| Download: ML11272A237 (199) | |
Text
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NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION WASHINGTON, D.C. 20555-0001 Iii ;:
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- iC MEMORANDUM TO: David J. Wrona, Chief Project Branch 2 Division of License Renewal Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation
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FROM: Lisa M. Regner, Sr. Project Manager i.'*- "
Project Branch 2 ."
Division of License Renewal Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation SUBJECT.
SUMMARY
OF PUBLIC SCOPING MEETINGS CONDUCTED ON SEPTEMBER 22, 2011, RELATED TO THE REVIEW OF THE LIMERICK GENERATING STATION, UNITS 1 AND 2, LICENSE RENEWAL APPLICATION The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) staff conducted overview and environmental scoping meetings related to the review of the Limerick Generating Station, Units 1 and 2 (LGS),
license renewal applications submitted by Exelon Generation Company, LLC (Exelon). Two public meetings were conducted on September 22, 2011, at the Sunnybrook Ballroom, 50 Sunnybrook Road, Pottstown, PA 19464. Approximately 100 people attended the meetings.
The attendees included members of the NRC staff, members of the public, representatives from Exelon, news media, local and State government officials, and a representative of a U.S.
Congressman. Public comments and questions were split between the benefits of nuclear power operation and its detriments. The environmental impact concerns mainly focused on water usage, water contamination, radiation risks, and severe accident impacts.
Two Public Meeting Feedback forms were received from the public. One form included environmental scoping comments and has been processed for consideration by the staff. The other form expressed appreciation of the tnformation presented by the overview and the supplemental literature provided during the open house.
A combined listing of attendees for both sessions is provided in Enclosure 1 Enclosure 2 is a copy of the meeting agenda. Enclosures 3 and 4 contain the official transcripts for the afternoon and evening meetings, respectively. Enclosure 5 contains a copy of the slides used dunng the NRC's presentation Enclosure 6 is a handout, provided at the: 'Yleetings.
Docket Nos. 50-352 and 50-353 Enclosures' As stated cc w/encls. Listserv
LIST OF ATTENDEES LIMERICK GENERATING STATION, UNITS 1 AND 2, LICENSE RENEWAL ENVIRONMENTAL SCOPING MEETINGS SEPTEMBER 22, 2011 PARTICIPANTS AFFILIATION Lisa Regner U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC)
Robert Kuntz NRC David Wrona NRC Dennis Morey NRC Rich Barkley NRC Region I Neil Sheehan NRC Region I Nancy McNamara NRC Region I Jo Ambrosini NRC Resident Inspector Office Nicole Sieller NRC Resident Inspector Office Kurt Imhof U.S. Senator Robert Casey's Office Thomas Quigley State Representative Michael Stokes Montgomery County Planning Committee Rich Janati PA Department of Environmental Protection Dave Allard PA Department of Environmental Protection Michael Murphy PA Department of Environmental Protection Terry Derstine PA Department of Environmental Protection Henry Tamanini PA Emergency Management Agency Alan Brinser PA Emergency Management Agency Eileen Dautrich Tri-County Area Chamber of Commerce Tim Fenchel Schuylkill River Heritage Area Andrew Stein Sustainable Energy Fund Traci Confer Energy Justice Network Jim Derr Pottstown Energy Advisory Committee Jeff Norton PA Energy Alliance Dr. Lewis Cuthbert Alliance for a Clean Environment Donna Cuthbert Alliance for a Clean Environment Vaughn Shirey Student Marisa Somich Student Andrew S. Fluck Student Sylvia Pollick Resident Nancy Leaming Resident Mellissa Anthim Resident Nancy Ludwig Resident Daniel Ludwig Resident Camilla Lange Resident Jay Beckman Resident Jim Troutman Resident Tom Lindauer Resident Jeff Chomnuk Resident Charlie Koenig Resident David Trexler Resident Nick Lampe Resident Debra Kolarz Resident Tom Wojton Resident ENCLOSURE 1
2 PARTieI PANTS AFFILIATION Janet Stokes Resident James Patrick Resident John Matthews Resident Marcy Matthews Resident Judy Ferreri Resident Dan Ely Resident Gloria Romano Resident Ray Romano Resident Charlene Padworny Resident Deb Schnidel Resident Lorraine Ruppe Resident Ed Gavin Resident Dr. Fred Winter Resident Joanne Kolsch Resident Fred Van Ryn Resident Thomas J. Neafcy, Jr. Resident Bill Keohine Resident C. T. Bossler Resident Ed Keating Resident Kevin Haslan Resident Bill Albany Resident Bill Vogel Resident Julia Jackson Resident Mr. & Mrs. Charles Shank Residents Suzanne Tidmore Resident Dorothy Barkley Resident Rebecca Barkley Resident Laura Fake Resident P. Timothy Phelps Resident Daniel Ely Resident Ken Morgan Retiree Richard Kotsch Retiree Mike Gallagher Exelon Generation Company, LLC (Exelon), Vice President for License Renewal Bill McGuire Exelon, Limerick Site Vice-President Marshal Murphy Exelon Thom Chiomento Exelon John Hunter Exelon April Schilpp Exelon Jeanie Liggett Exelon Shannon Rafferty-Czincila Exelon Chris Wilson Exelon Nancy Ranek Exelon Leanne Birkmin Exelon Chris Conroy Exelon Bob Tarr Exelon Evan Brandt The Pottstown Mercury
3 John B. McGowan, Jr. Jaeco/GasBreaker/UMAC, Inc.
Agron Cohen Excel Solutions PJ McGill MMI Engineering Thomas Saporito* Saprodani-Associates
- Per teleconference call
AGENDA FOR PUBLIC MEETING TO DISCUSS ENVIRONMENTAL SCOPING PROCESS FOR LIMERICK GENERATING STATION, UNITS 1 AND 2, LICENSE RENEWAL APPLICATION THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 2011 Two Meeting Sessions: 2:00 - 4:00 p.m. and 7:00 - 9:00 p.m.
I. Welcome and Purpose of Meeting 15 minutes (Richard Barkley)
II. Overview of Safety Review Process 15 minutes (Robert Kuntz)
III. Overview of Environmental Review Process 15 minutes (Lisa Regner)
IV. Public Comments As Required (Richard Barkley)
V. Closing/Availability of Transcripts 5 minutes (Richard Barkley)
- The NRC staff will host informal discussions one hour prior to each meeting session. No formal comments on the proposed scope of the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) will be accepted during the informal discussions. To be considered, comments must be provided either at the transcribed public meetings (see agenda, above) or in writing, as described in the attached Federal Register Notice.
ENCLOSURE 2
October 26, 2011 MEMORANDUM TO: David J. Wrona, Chief Project Branch 2 Division of License Renewal Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation FROM: Lisa M. Regner, Sr. Project Manager IRA!
Project Branch 2 Division of License Renewal Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation
SUBJECT:
SUMMARY
OF PUBLIC SCOPING MEETINGS CONDUCTED ON SEPTEMBER 22, 2011, RELATED TO THE REVIEW OF THE LIMERICK GENERATING STATION, UNITS 1 AND 2, LICENSE RENEWAL APPLICATION The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) staff conducted overview and environmental scoping meetings related to the review of the Limerick Generating Station, Units 1 and 2 (LGS),
license renewal applications submitted by Exelon Generation Company, LLC (Exelon). Two public meetings were conducted on September 22, 2011, at the Sunnybrook Ballroom, 50 Sunnybrook Road, Pottstown, PA 19464. Approximately 100 people attended the meetings.
The attendees included members of the NRC staff, members of the public, representatives from Exelon, news media, local and State government officials, and a representative of a U.S.
Congressman. Public comments and questions were split between the benefits of nuclear power operation and its detriments. The environmental impact concerns mainly focused on water usage, water contamination, radiation risks, and severe accident impacts.
Two Public Meeting Feedback forms were received from the public. One form included environmental scoping cornments and has been processed for consideration by the staff. The other form expressed appreciation of the information presented by the overview and the supplemental literature provided during the open house.
A combined listing of attendees for both sessions is provided in Enclosure 1. Enclosure 2 is a copy of the meeting agenda. Enclosures 3 and 4 contain the official transcripts for the afternoon and evening meetings, respectively. Enclosure 5 contains a copy of the slides used during the NRC's presentation. Enclosure 6 is a handout, provided at the meetings.
Docket Nos. 50-352 and 50-353
Enclosures:
As stated cc w/encls: Listserv DISTRIBUTION: See next page ADAMS Accession Nos.:
ML11287A215(Pkg.), ML11272A237(Sum.), ML11287A207(Enc. 3),
ML11287A211 (Enc. 4), ML11264A012(Enc. 5), ML11287A214(Enc. 6)
"Concurrence via e-mail OFFICE LA: DLR/RPB2" PM: DLR/RPB1 PM DLR/RPB2 BC: DLR/RPB2 PM: DLR/RPB2 NAME IKing RKuntz LRegner DWrona LRegner DATE 10/6/11 10/19/11 10/26111 10/26/11 10/26/11
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Memorandum to David J. Wrona from Lisa M. Regner dated October 26, 2011
SUBJECT:
SUMMARY
OF PUBLIC SCOPING MEETINGS CONDUCTED ON SEPTEMBER 22, 2011, RELATED TO THE REVIEW OF THE LIMERICK GENERATING STATION, UNITS 1 AND 2, LICENSE RENEWAL APPLICATION DISTRIBUTION:
HARD COPY:
DLRRF E-MAIL:
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NSieller, RI NMcNamara, RI DScrenci, RI NSheehan, RI
Official Transcript of Proceedings NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Title:
Limerick Generating Station License Renewal Public Meeting: Afternoon Session Docket Number: (n/a)
Location: Pottstown, Pennsylvania Date: Thursday, September 22, 2011 Work Order No.: NRC-1128 Pages 1-77 NEAL R. GROSS AND CO., INC.
Court Reporters and Transcribers 1323 Rhode Island Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 234-4433
1 1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 2 + + + + +
3 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 4 + + + + +
5 PUBLIC MEETING TO DISCUSS THE LICENSE RENEWAL PROCESS 6 AND ENVIRONMENTAL SCOPING FOR LIMERICK GENERATING 7 STATION, UNITS 1 & 2 8 + + + + +
9 THURSDAY 10 SEPTEMBER 22, 2011 11 + + + + +
12 13 The Public Meeting met in the Sunnybrook 14 Ballroom, 50 Sunnybrook Road, Pottstown, Pennsylvania, 15 at 2:00 p.m., Richard Barkley, Meeting Facilitator, 16 presiding.
17 PRESENT:
18 RICHARD BARKLEY, Meeting Facilitator, NRC 19 ROBERT F. KUNTZ, Project Manager, NRR/DLR 20 DENNIS C. MOREY, Branch Chief, NRR/DLR 21 LISA M. REGNER, Sr. Project Manager, 22 NRR/DLR 23 DAVID J. WRONA, Branch Chief, NRR/DLR 24 25 PUBLIC COMMENTERS:
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2 1 WILLIAM ALBANY, Limerick Township Police 2 Department 3 ANITA BALY 4 LEWIS CUTHBERT, Alliance For a Clean 5 Environment, PhD 6 EILEEN DAUTRICH, TriCounty Area Chamber of 7 Commerce 8 TIM FENCHEL, Schuylkill River National &
9 State Heritage Area 10 TED DEL GAIZO, Main Line Engineering 11 MICHAEL GALLAGHER, Exelon Nuclear 12 WILLIAM MAGUIRE, Exelon Nuclear 13 JOHN McGOWAN, UMAC 14 TOM NEAFCY, Limerick Township 15 TIMOTHY PHELPS 16 THOMAS QUIGLEY, Pennsylvania State 17 Representative 18 LORRAINE RUPPE 19 BILL VOGEL 20 FRED WINTER, MD 21 22 23 24 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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3 1 TABLE OF CONTENTS 2 Welcome and Opening Remarks, Richard 3 Barkley, Meeting Facilitator 4 4 Statement by Robert Kuntz, Project 5 Manager, NRR/DLR 7 6 Statement by Lisa Regner, Sr. Project Manager, 7 NRR/DLR 20 8 Public Comment Period 30 9 Adjournment 77 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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4 1 P-R-O-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S 2 2:04 P.M.
3 FACILITATOR BARKLEY: Good afternoon.
4 Wow. I'll try to get it adjusted to the sound system.
5 This is a great room, but I'm not used to such a 6 large venue to be speaking in.
7 My name is Richard Barkley. I'm the 8 meeting facilitator for this meeting and what I'd like 9 to do is just lead off initially with asking who in 10 the audience are members of an elected position with 11 either state, county, or local government? Would 12 somebody like to identify themselves? Go ahead.
13 MR. QUIGLEY: State Representative Tom 14 Quigley.
15 FACILITATOR BARKLEY: Thank you.
16 MR. NEAFCY: Tom Neafcy, Chairman of the 17 Limerick Township Board of Supervisors.
18 FACILITATOR BARKLEY: Thank you. Would 19 anyone else like to acknowledge themselves? Okay.
20 What I'd like to do quickly is just talk a 21 little bit about the ground rules for doing this 22 meeting as we go through. We have a lot of people who 23 want to speak, lots of issues to cover, so I need to 24 talk about how to make this meeting go fairly and so 25 that everybody is heard to speak as we go through.
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5 1
2 I have a couple of ground rules that are 3 typically used at these meetings and they work very 4 effectively for me. One of them is asking you to sign 5 up on a speaker card or the sign-up sheet in the back 6 and so far I already have 16 people who have signed 7 up. So in the time allotted I'll have to limit you 8 about five minutes. Typically, I find -- yes, it was 9 a yellow card, but we still work with the same cards.
10 I would like to try to see if you can 11 finish your statement within five minutes. That's 12 typically what's needed to make a statement on an 13 issue and it's fair to everyone involved. If we go 14 through 16 speakers in five minutes with the 15 transition, we should finish right on time.
16 I'll try to call a couple speakers up so 17 that the first person who is coming up, the other two 18 people are kind of queued up and ready to go, so that 19 makes for a smoother and faster transition as we go.
20 And I try to alternate early on a little 21 bit to make sure our elected representatives get to 22 speak early on, but it's not all elected 23 representative speaking at the start, so we mix it up 24 a little bit. It seems to be one that's been 25 considered very fair to the audience.
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6 1 Can we go to the next slide then, please?
2 I would ask you to silence all cell phones, please.
3 Please speak clearly into the microphone.
4 Again, I'm getting a strange echo in this hallway 5 here. We have fantastic acoustics, but it is going to 6 be a little awkward I think sound-wise. So try to 7 speak into the microphone clearly and we'll make 8 adjustments as needed as we go through.
9 I would ask in all fairness, please do not 10 interrupt the speaker when you're not at the 11 microphone, just in the interest of fairness. If we 12 for some reason don't get to all your comments or you 13 have more than five minutes of comments, I'll give you 14 a little bit of leeway, but if you have much more than 15 that I would ask that you turn it in in a written 16 form. If you are uncomfortable with speaking, you can 17 always turn your comments in in a written form and we 18 accept them and consider them the same way we do as a 19 verbal comment.
20 This meeting is a transcribed meeting. We 21 have a transcription specialist here and so we will 22 record all your comments and then address them in the 23 course of this proceeding.
24 And finally, if you have any questions 25 regarding the conduct of this meeting, you have some NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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7 1 issue with whether you get to speak or some issue of 2 fairness or you have a schedule constraint and you 3 need to speak earlier, please come see me. I'll be 4 standing over here to the corner.
5 With that, I'd like to turn it over to 6 Lisa Regner. Bob, do you want to -- yes. And Lisa 7 asked me that when you start out, please speak your 8 name clearly. That will help with the transcription 9 as he works through and tries to record all your 10 comments as clearly as possible. If you have your 11 comments all typed out and you're reading from a typed 12 arrangement, you're welcome to turn them into me and 13 I'll give them to the transcriptionist so that we 14 actually make sure we do this in a very clear and 15 precise manner.
16 With that, Rob Kuntz is going to go first.
17 Thank you.
18 MR. KUNTZ: Is this a good volume? Good.
19 Good afternoon. My name is Rob Kuntz. I 20 am the Safety Project Manager with the Division of 21 License Renewal and I am coordinating staff's review 22 associated with the Limerick Generating Station 23 license renewal application.
24 I'd like to thank you all for taking the 25 time to come out to our meeting this afternoon.
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8 1 Today, we will provide an overview of the 2 license renewal review process which includes both a 3 safety and environmental review. We'll describe to 4 you the numerous ways and opportunity the public can 5 participation in the Limerick license renewal process 6 through either the safety or environmental component, 7 or both.
8 We also will describe in more detail the 9 environmental review process associated with license 10 renewal review. But the most important part of 11 today's meeting is to receive any comments that you 12 might have on the scope of the environmental review.
13 We also will give you some information about how you 14 can submit comments if you prefer not to speak at this 15 meeting.
16 At the conclusion of today's presentation, 17 we'll be happy to answer any questions that you may 18 have on the license renewal process. However, I must 19 ask you to limit your participation to questions only 20 and hold your comments until the appropriate time of 21 the meeting. Once all questions are answered, we can 22 begin to receive any comments that you have on the 23 scope of our environmental review.
24 Next slide.
25 Before I get into the discussion of the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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9 1 license renewal process, I'd like to take a minute to 2 talk about the NRC in terms of what we do and what our 3 mission is. The NRC is a federal agency established 4 by the Energy Reorganization Act of 1974. We regulate 5 the civilian use of nuclear material. The Atomic 6 Energy Act of 1954 authorized the NRC to grant a 40-7 year operating license for nuclear power plants. This 8 40-year term was based primarily on economic 9 considerations and antitrust factors, not on safety or 10 technical limitations.
11 The Atomic Energy Act also allows for 12 license renewal. The National Environmental Policy 13 Act of 1969, often referred to as NEPA, established a 14 national policy for considering the impact of federal 15 decision making on the human environment. Lisa will 16 discuss NEPA in greater detail.
17 The NRC's regulations governing nuclear 18 safety, security, and environmental protection are 19 contained in Title 10 of the Code of Federal 20 Regulations, often referred to as 10 CFR. In 21 exercising its regulatory authority, the NRC's mission 22 is three-fold: to ensure adequate protection of 23 public health and safety, to promote a common defense 24 and security, and to protect the environment.
25 The NRC accomplishes its mission through a NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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10 1 combination of regulatory programs and processes such 2 as establishing rules and regulations, conducting 3 inspections, issuing enforceable actions, assessing 4 licensee performing, and evaluating operating 5 experience from nuclear power plants across the 6 country and internationally.
7 The NRC has resident inspectors at all 8 operating nuclear power plants. These inspectors are 9 on the front lines of ensuring acceptable safety 10 performance and compliance with regulatory 11 requirements.
12 Next slide.
13 Here's some background on the Limerick 14 license renewal. The license renewal application was 15 received by the NRC on June 22nd of this year. The 16 operating licenses for Unit 1 and 2 are set to expire 17 in 2024 and 2029, respectively. The licensee can 18 submit an application up to 20 years prior to the 19 expiration of their license, but they cannot be 20 granted a license for longer than 40 years. The 21 renewed license is superseding and it replaces the 22 existing license.
23 Next slide.
24 The first of the license renewal process 25 is to perform an acceptance and sufficiency review.
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11 1 When the NRC receives a license renewal application, 2 the NRC staff examines it to determine whether the 3 application contains sufficient information to justify 4 the staff's review. The staff looks to see whether 5 the applicant has provided enough in terms of 6 technical information, technical specifications, and 7 the environmental report so that the staff can begin 8 its work, the application has enough in it to warrant 9 the staff's review. Then the application is 10 considered acceptable and sufficient and it is put on 11 the NRC's formal docket.
12 General information such as the 13 applicant's name and address, business and 14 administrative information, technical information 15 about plant structures and components and how the 16 applicant proposes to manage aging pertaining to aging 17 management. This information is the focus of the 18 staff's safety review.
19 Technical specifications define the 20 operating parameters of the plant. The application 21 indicates what, if any, changes or additions to 22 technical specifications are necessary to manage the 23 effects of aging during the period of extended 24 operation. The applicant also includes the 25 environmental report which is the applicant's NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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12 1 assessment of the environmental impacts of continued 2 operation. This information is the starting point for 3 the staff's environmental review which will be 4 discussed a bit later in the presentation.
5 Next slide.
6 I would like to mention a few very 7 important areas of NRC oversight that routinely come 8 up during our interactions with members of the public.
9 NRC staff addresses these areas of performance every 10 day as a part of the on-going regulatory oversight 11 provided for all currently operating power reactors.
12 They include current, safety performance as defined by 13 the NRC inspection findings, violations, and general 14 assessment of plant performance; emergency planning 15 and security. For specific information on current 16 performance of Limerick, you can use the link 17 provided on the slide.
18 The NRC monitors and provides regulatory 19 oversight of activities in these areas on an on-going 20 basis under the current operating license. Thus, we 21 do not reevaluate them in license renewal. That's not 22 to say that they're not important. We just do not 23 duplicate the regulatory process in this area for 24 license renewal.
25 Next slide.
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13 1 Since the accident at Fukushima, the NRC 2 has taken multiple steps to ensure the safety 3 operation of nuclear power plants both now and in the 4 future. As part of its initial response to the 5 accident, the NRC issued temporary instructions to our 6 inspectors directing specific inspections in nuclear 7 power plants in order to assess disaster readiness and 8 compliance with current regulations.
9 The next step in the NRC's response was 10 the report of the NRC's Near-Term Task Force. The 11 purpose of the Near-Term Task Force was to develop 12 near-term recommendations and suggest a framework for 13 us to move forward in the longer term. The Near-Term 14 Task Force issued its report on July 12th of this year 15 and discussed the results of their review in a public 16 meeting on July 28th. As a result of the review, the 17 Near-Term Task Force presented 12 over-arching 18 recommendations for improvement. These 19 recommendations are applicable to operating reactors 20 regardless of license renewal status.
21 Based on the results of the Near-Term Task 22 Force, the Commission has directed the NRC staff to 23 evaluate and outline which of the recommendations 24 should be implemented. The staff submitted a paper to 25 the Commission on September 9th providing the staff's NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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14 1 recommendation on which task force recommendations, 2 and in the staff's judgment, should be initiated in 3 part or in whole without delay. On October 4 3rd, the staff will submit another Commission paper on 5 its prioritization of 11 of the 12 task force 6 Recommendation 1 of the task force, the 7 recommendation to reevaluate the NRC's regulatory 8 framework will be evaluated over the next 18 months.
9 To date, the NRC has not identified any issue as part 10 of these activities that call into question the safety 11 of any nuclear facility. Additionally, this review 12 process is going on independent of license renewal.
13 Any changes that are identified as necessary will be 14 implemented for all licensees regardless of license 15 renewal status.
16 More information on the NRC's post-17 Fukushima activities, including the results of the 18 Near-Term Task Force, can be found on the NRC's 19 website by clicking on the Japan Nuclear Accident NRC 20 Action Link on the home page or directly through the 21 web address on this slide. There are also a 22 limited number of copies of the Near-Term Task Force 23 report available at the back of the room.
24 Next slide.
25 Now on to license renewal process. Here's NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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15 1 a simplified diagram of the license renewal process.
2 The review involves two parallel reviews, the safety 3 review and the environmental review. These two 4 reviews evaluate separate aspects of the license 5 renewal application, but also features three other 6 considerations in the Commission's decision of whether 7 or not to review an operating license.
8 One of these considerations is the 9 independent review performed by the Advisory Committee 10 on reactor Safeguards or ACRS. Statutorily managed by 11 the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, the ACRS is a group of 12 scientists and nuclear safety experts who serve as a 13 consulting body to the Commission. The ACRS reviews 14 the license renewal application, the NRC's staff 15 evaluation, and inspection findings. The ACRS reports 16 their findings and recommendations directly to the 17 Commission.
18 Hearings may also be conducted if 19 interested stakeholders submit concerns or contentions 20 and their request for a hearing is granted. The 21 Atomic Safety and Licensing Board referred to as ASLB, 22 and adjudicatory panel will conduct the hearings. The 23 Commission considers the outcome of the hearing 24 process in its decision on whether or not to renew the 25 license.
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16 1 As part of the environmental review, the 2 staff consults with state, local, federal, and tribal 3 officials such as the EPA and the staff holds public 4 meetings to receive comments on the Draft 5 Environmental Impact Statement.
6 Now I'm going to describe the license 7 renewal process in a little more detail, starting with 8 the safety review.
9 Next slide.
10 To better understand the license renewal 11 process, it's good to know the safety principles that 12 guide license renewal. The first principle is that 13 the current regulatory process is adequate to ensure 14 that the licensing basis for all operating plants 15 provides and maintains an acceptable level of safety.
16 The second principle is that the current plant's 17 specific licensing basis must be maintained during the 18 renewal term in the same manner and to the same extent 19 as during the original licensing term. In other 20 words, the same rules that apply under the current 21 license will apply on the renewal term.
22 In addition, a renewed license will 23 include conditions that must be met to ensure aging of 24 structures and components important to safety is 25 adequately managed so that the plant's current NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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17 1 licensing basis is maintained during the period of 2 extended operation.
3 The regulations governing license renewal 4 are based on two principles. To effectively 5 communicate these principles, I need to describe a 6 concept, a term of art used by the NRC. That concept 7 is licensing basis. Licensing basis consists of a 8 wide range of design and operational requirements and 9 conditions that must be met for the plant to comply 10 with its operating license. The primary focus of 11 these requirements is to maintain public health and 12 safety. They serve as the basis upon which the NRC 13 originally licensed the plant. To continue to 14 operate, the plant must conform with its licensing 15 basis.
16 Next slide.
17 The safety review focuses on the aging of 18 passive and long-lived structures and components and 19 systems that the NRC has deemed important to safety.
20 Components within the scope of license renewal are 21 defined in 10 CFR 54.4 and include safety-related 22 systems, structures, and components, nonsafety-related 23 systems, structures, and components whose failures 24 could prevent satisfactory accomplishment of safety-25 related SSC functions. And systems, structures, and NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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18 1 components relied on in its safety analysis or plant 2 evaluations to perform a function that demonstrates 3 compliance with the regulations for fire protection, 4 environmental qualification, pressurized thermal 5 shock, anticipated transients without scram, and 6 station blackout.
7 Passive components are components who 8 perform the functions without moving parts or change 9 in configuration or properties. Long lived are those 10 that are not replaced on qualified life or specific 11 time period. Active components are generally excluded 12 from license renewal because degradation is more 13 readily detected by existing surveillance and testing 14 and performance monitoring and condition monitoring.
15 The staff's main objective in this review 16 is to determine if the effects of aging will be 17 adequately managed by the applicant. The results of 18 the safety review are documented in a Safety 19 Evaluation Report.
20 Next slide.
21 A safety review comprises numerous 22 aspects. The technical staff reviews the application, 23 the applicant's license renewal application and 24 supporting documentation that determines the 25 applicant's methodology to identify the systems, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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19 1 structures, and components within the scope of license 2 renewal and subject to an aging management review to 3 determine if the methodology has been properly 4 implemented and to determine with reasonable assurance 5 that the effects of aging for certain systems, 6 structures, and components will be adequately managed 7 or monitored by new and existing programs and 8 surveillance activities.
9 The staff uses site audits to verify the 10 technical basis of the license renewal application and 11 to confirm that the applicant's aging management 12 programs and activities conform with how they are 13 described in the application. The staff documents the 14 basis and conclusion of is review in a Safety 15 Evaluation Report which is publicly available. In 16 addition, a team of specialized inspectors travel to 17 the reactor site to verify that aging management 18 programs are being implemented, modified, and planned 19 consistent with the license renewal application.
20 Finally, as I've mentioned, the Advisory 21 Committee on Reactor Safeguards, the ACRS, performs an 22 independent review of the license renewal application, 23 the staff Safety Evaluation Report, and inspection 24 findings and makes a recommendation to the Commission 25 regarding the proposed action to issue a renewed NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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20 1 license.
2 Next slide.
3 This slide shows the important milestones 4 for the Limerick license renewal. Like I mentioned, 5 the application came in on June 22nd. Right now, 6 we're in the middle of the hearing process and that 7 runs through October 24th and that is the public's 8 chance to request the hearing and review of the 9 application. This meeting will serve as an 10 opportunity to solicit comment on the environmental 11 report, but you can continue to provide comment 12 through October 28th. The SER with Open Items, the 13 staff's evaluation is planned to be issued in July of 14 2012.
15 Let's see. And without a hearing, the 16 plan is to have a decision on the license renewal 17 application by April of 2013.
18 That concludes my portion of the 19 presentation. I'll turn it over to Lisa now.
20 MS. REGNER: Thank you, Rob. Can you hear 21 me okay? Good afternoon. As Rob said, my name is 22 Lisa Regner and my focus for the Limerick license 23 renewal review is on the environmental side. It's 24 equally important. It's separate from the safety 25 review that Rob talked about, but it's equally NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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21 1 important.
2 The review is performed in accordance with 3 the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 or NEPA, 4 as Rob said. NEPA established a national policy for 5 considering environmental impacts and provides the 6 basic architecture for federal environmental reviews.
7 So all federal agencies are required to follow a 8 systematic approach in evaluating potential impacts of 9 projects and also to assess the alternatives to those 10 actions.
11 By law, the NEPA process involves public 12 participation and public disclosure. That's primarily 13 why we're here today. NEPA established the U.S.
14 Council on Environmental Quality, the CEQ, within the 15 Executive Office of the President. And the CEQ 16 establishes policy for how NEPA is to be implemented.
17 The NRC's environmental regulations are contained in 18 10 CFR Part 51 and they are largely based on those 19 that the CEQ developed.
20 Our environmental reviews considered the 21 impact of the license renewal and any mitigation for 22 those impacts that we consider significant. We also 23 consider the impacts of alternatives to license 24 renewal including the impact of not renewing the 25 license. The staff documents its environmental review NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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22 1 in an Environmental Impact Statement which is made 2 publicly available.
3 Ultimately, the purpose of the staff's 4 environmental review is to determine whether the 5 environmental impacts of license renewal are 6 reasonable and in combination with the safety review, 7 the regional inspections and decisions by the Advisory 8 Committee on Reactor Safeguards to make a 9 recommendation to the Commission whether to recommend 10 to renew the license or not.
11 Next slide.
12 So for a license renewal review, the NRC 13 environmental staff looks at a wide range of impacts.
14 Additionally, we consult with various federal, state, 15 and local officials, some of whom are here tonight, 16 we're happy to see, as well as leaders on tribal 17 nations. We gather pertinent information from these 18 sources and ensure it's considered in our analysis.
19 So some of the examples of the groups that we consult 20 with are the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the 21 Environmental Protection Agency, and that includes the 22 Pennsylvania EPA as well who I'm happy to say is here 23 with us tonight; the Pennsylvania Department of 24 Conservation and Natural Resources, the Pennsylvania 25 Fish and Boat Commission, the State Historic NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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23 1 Preservation Office, and also Displaced Pennsylvania 2 Tribal Nations since you may or may not know there are 3 no tribal nations that exist in Pennsylvania, 4 federally-recognized tribal nations that still live in 5 Pennsylvania. But we do consult with those that have 6 been displaced.
7 Next slide, please.
8 The environmental review begins with a 9 scoping process which we're in the middle of right now 10 which is an assessment of the specific impacts and 11 significant issues that the staff should consider in 12 preparing the Limerick Environmental Impact Statement.
13 Information that we gather from you today and in the 14 next few weeks will be considered and included in the 15 Environmental Impact Statement.
16 We have recognized that some impacts are 17 similar, if not identical, at all nuclear power 18 plants, so to improve efficiency what we've done is to 19 develop a Generic Environmental Impact Statement or 20 GEIS, that addresses a number of impacts that are 21 common to all nuclear power plants. So what I will 22 prepare then with the staff is what we call a 23 Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement that's 24 specific to Limerick. But in addition to those site-25 specific issues, we also reexamine all the generic NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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24 1 issues for any new and significant information that 2 would change the conclusions in the GEIS, in the 3 Generic Environmental Impact Statement.
4 Next slide, please.
5 So the scoping period started on October 6 26th of this year when the Notice of Intent to prepare 7 an Environmental Impact Statement and conduct scoping 8 was published in the Federal Register. The NRC will 9 accept comments on the scope of the environmental 10 review until October 28th, so that's a few days more 11 than the hearing period which is different. Those are 12 two different dates, okay? So environmental comments 13 will be accepted until October 28th.
14 In general, what we're looking for in 15 those environmental comments is information about 16 environmental impacts from the continued operation of 17 Limerick. You can assist us in this process by 18 telling us, for example, what aspects of your local 19 community we should focus on, what local 20 environmental, social, and economic issues the NRC 21 should examine during our environmental review, what 22 other major projects are in progress or planned in the 23 area and what reasonable alternatives are most 24 appropriate for this region.
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25 1 headquarters. We don't live in your community and 2 while we do have NRC people that do live in your 3 community, we need you to provide those regional 4 environmental impacts to us. That will help us do a 5 thorough and comprehensive review.
6 Those are just some of the examples of the 7 input we're looking for and they represent the kinds 8 of information we seek through the environmental 9 scoping process.
10 Next slide, please.
11 So this slide kind of ties it all 12 together. But I do want to stress if you look at the 13 top, public comments are an important part of the 14 environmental review process. How do we use your 15 comments? All of your comments to us whether provided 16 verbally during this meeting, in a written letter, 17 fax, or email are considered and addressed in our 18 Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement. We 19 respond to each comment as part of the SEIS and the 20 SEIS as well as several other factors shown here in 21 the slide will all contribute to the Commission's 22 decision whether to renew the Limerick license or not.
23 Next slide, please.
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26 1 filled out the yellow card, you're good to go. We've 2 got the transcriptionist so all of those comments will 3 be accepted as formal comments.
4 Additionally, you can also go on line to 5 regulations.gov and it's a pretty easy process. If 6 you go to regulations.gov you'll see two search boxes.
7 If you put in this docket ID, NRC-2011-0166, 8 sometimes it takes a minute or at least for my 9 computer it takes a minute, you'll get a list of 10 hopefully Limerick-specific Federal Register notices.
11 The top one should be -- it should say Exelon 12 Generation Company, Notice of Intent to Prepare an 13 Environmental Impact Statement and Conduct Scoping 14 Process. And if you look on the right it should say, 15 it should have a link to submit a comment. If you 16 have any problems, my contact information is in here.
17 You can give me a call and I'll walk you through the 18 process.
19 Another alternative is fax. If you fax to 20 this number, you can reference RADB, that's just the 21 branch that collects and formally captures these 22 comments. You can also either reference the docket 23 number, that NRC 2011-0166 number or write Limerick, 24 okay?
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27 1 is October 28th. Next slide, please?
2 You can also submit by mail to this 3 address here and again they collect all the comments, 4 put them into our formal document management system 5 and they will be addressed by the staff.
6 Also, if you happen to be in Washington, 7 D.C. and want to come into NRC headquarters, you can 8 submit written comments in person as well. And you're 9 more than welcome to give me a call so that I can meet 10 you at the gate and help you with that, if you want to 11 come to headquarters.
12 Next slide, please.
13 So these are the environmental review 14 milestones. Again, scoping comments are due October 15 28th. Now this is not the last time that you'll see 16 myself or Rob. What we'll do is we will develop a 17 Draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement, as 18 I mentioned. We'll issue that formally, and anybody 19 that filled out a blue card and has an email address, 20 I will send that to you by email. And then we will 21 also have another public meeting where you can provide 22 comments on that Environmental Impact Statement. So 23 we'll be gathering again and that will happen barring 24 any unforeseen problems with this license renewal 25 application, we'll be doing that late August, early NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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28 1 September of 2012, next summer.
2 The final SEIS again, barring any 3 unforeseen problems that the staff identifies should 4 be right around February of 2013. And all of your 5 comments submitted in relation to the draft SEIS are 6 also addressed in the final SEIS.
7 Next slide, please?
8 Here's our, Rob's and my contact 9 information. We are the primary points of contact 10 within the NRC for license renewal issues at Limerick.
11 If it's not a license renewal issue, we'll do our 12 best to get you in contact with the appropriate 13 person.
14 Next slide.
15 Okay, if you don't happen to have a 16 computer, we've also provided a hard copy of the 17 license renewal application at two local libraries, 18 both the Pottstown Regional Public Library and the 19 Royersford Free Public Library have hard copies of the 20 license renewal application. They're pretty big.
21 It's two, four-inch, three-inch binders. So it's a 22 good -- three, three-inch binders. It's a good bit of 23 information. And that's both the safety and the 24 environmental report. I will also put the 25 draft SEIS in those libraries as well.
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29 1 Additionally, I did bring a bunch of disks 2 that have it on disk if you would like to take the 3 license renewal application. They're in the back of 4 the room as well.
5 And I did want to do one more plug for the 6 blue cards, if you do have an email address and you 7 would like to receive any NRC-generated Limerick 8 documents that would include both license renewal and 9 non-license renewal NRC documents, we have a listserv 10 and if you give me your email address on one of those 11 blue cards, I can sign you up for that.
12 This concludes my presentation and I think 13 we will open it up for questions at this time. I'll 14 turn it back over to Rich Barkley.
15 FACILITATOR BARKLEY: Yes. At this point 16 in time before we move into the comments section, I 17 wanted to see if there were any questions regarding 18 the presentation made by the staff? So if you have a 19 question, raise your hand. I'll take the microphone 20 to you. If not, we'll move into the question and 21 answer period.
22 Okay, let's move into the question and 23 answer period. At this point in time, I have 16 24 people signed up. I was interested in three of the 25 speakers. I had three people from the National NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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30 1 Resources Defense Council signed up, but they were 2 thinking of actually turning their comments in in a 3 written form. So I wanted to see if they're here this 4 afternoon. And since they're not, then I have 13 5 people to go through in the call order.
6 So what I would like to do if we could is 7 have you make your statement from this fixed 8 microphone here in the middle of the hallway and I'd 9 like to lead off with Dr. Lewis Cuthbert, followed by 10 Bill MaGuire, the site vice president for Limerick 11 Station and then followed by State Representative 12 Thomas Quigley.
13 Mr. Cuthbert.
14 MR. CUTHBERT: Good afternoon, members of 15 NRC, elected officials and members of this community, 16 I'd like to read the following statement and then 17 place it on the record in hard copy with some 18 supporting documentation and research summaries, if I 19 may.
20 The Alliance for a Clean Environment has 21 conducted an 11-year investigation of the harms and 22 threats from Limerick Nuclear Power Plant. The body 23 of evidence confirms unprecedented environmental and 24 meltdown threats posed by this plant. One event, one 25 worst case scenario can trigger a catastrophe of NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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31 1 unthinkable proportions. Whether a natural disaster 2 or terrorist attack occurs, by relicensing Limerick, 3 NRC would in effect be placing Russian roulette with 4 the lives of more than eight million people. NRC must 5 close Limerick Nuclear Plant by 2029.
6 There is no way for either NRC or Exelon 7 to ensure the safety of the environment or the 8 residents impacted by this plant. It cannot be made 9 fail safe. No other facility has the potential to 10 render the entire region uninhabitable, possibly for 11 centuries as the result of an accident or terrorist 12 attack. This is the highest-risk facility that could 13 exist in any community in this country.
14 Current 40-year operating licenses expire 15 in 2024 and 2029. Why the rush to renew these 16 licenses now?
17 We urge the NRC to say no to Exelon's 18 requested license renewals. The public was led to 19 believe that Limerick's generators, fuel pools, and 20 miles of underground pipes and cables could operate 21 safely for 40 years and then the facility would close.
22 Is Exelon fearful that the longer they wait the more 23 serious problems may arise?
24 After only 26 of 40 years, numerous signs 25 of aging and risk have been identified. Corrosion, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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32 1 deterioration, fatigue, cracking, thinning with loss 2 of material, loss of fracture toughness are all 3 documented in Exelon's own renewal application in the 4 aging management section. Instances of equipment 5 fatigue and cracking of vital equipment include the 6 reactor vessel and coolant system.
7 Aging equipment, after only 26 years 8 suggests that NRC should not just close the plant by 9 2029, but also ramp up their oversight vigilance 10 during the remaining 18 years of the current license.
11 In the past few years, Limerick has had numerous 12 unplanned shutdowns suggesting there are already 13 significant problems. Three occurred in one week in 14 June 2011. Loss of coolant leaks and accidents at 15 Limerick have already been documented. Serious 16 radioactive contamination could go undetected and 17 unreported for years from the corroding 18 infrastructure, much of it underground.
19 There have already been two near misses at 20 Limerick from 1996 to 2001.
21 This aging plant is an accident waiting to 22 happen. Large volumes, more than 6,000 assemblies 23 weighing more than a thousand tons of highly 24 radioactive waste in the form of spent fuel rods are 25 stored in densely-packed pools, elevated five stories NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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33 1 above and outside the reinforced containment 2 structure. This plant will produce about two more 3 tons of dangerous spent fuel rods every year that it 4 operates. Limerick, in addition, is now third on the 5 earthquake risk list for nuclear plants in the United 6 States.
7 With loss of cooling water, Limerick's 8 fuel rods could heat up, self ignite, and burn in an 9 unstoppable fire with catastrophic results. Exelon 10 has not been required to spend the money to guard 11 Limerick against terrorists, missiles, or air strikes 12 despite repeated requests to do so.
13 Dry cask storage and transport are also 14 very dangerous alternatives. It's time to close 15 Limerick and stop producing such deadly waste for 16 which there is no safe solution. As long as Limerick 17 operates harms to us and our environment will 18 increase.
19 Their harmful environmental impacts are 20 unprecedented. At the conclusion of our 11-year 21 investigation of routine radiation releases and review 22 of permits for major air pollution and a variety of 23 dangerous water contamination issues, it's clear that 24 this energy is not just dirty, it is in fact filthy.
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34 1 range of topics: routine radiation releases into the 2 air, radioactive wastewater discharges into the 3 Schuylkill River, radioactive groundwater 4 contamination, radioactive nuclides associated with 5 the plant detected in our soil, our sediment, our 6 vegetation, our fish, our water, and milk.
7 Research has confirmed radiation in our 8 children's baby teeth in this community. Major air 9 pollution issues under health-based standards of the 10 Clean Air Act, 32 individual sources listed. Drastic, 11 harmful increases permitted in particulate matter 12 known also as PM-10 from the cooling towers, other air 13 pollution increases also permitted.
14 Dangerous depletion of the Schuylkill 15 River, in and by itself, a singular reason to deny 16 this permit. The Schuylkill is a vital drinking water 17 source for nearly two million people from Pottstown to 18 Philadelphia. It is being depleted and contaminated 19 every day that this plant operates.
20 Alarming cancer increases that have been 21 well documented in this community repeatedly far 22 higher than national and state averages after Limerick 23 started operating until the late 1990s. The 24 findings of our investigation lead us to conclude that 25 this plant is in common language a recipe for NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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35 1 disaster.
2 While NRC is required to prepare a 3 supplement to the Limerick Environmental Impact 4 Statement for license renewal, we have little 5 confidence in the process based on NRC's regulatory 6 history. It would be difficult to enumerate a short 7 list, so I'm going to rely on written documents.
8 There are critics of the NRC out there who have done a 9 much better job than we have of generating such a 10 list, most notably a scathing indictment by the 11 Associated Press. I'm not going to re-enumerate that 12 information.
13 It's long past time for the NRC to summon 14 the courage to do the right thing in our judgment and 15 actually protect the environment and the public, 16 rather than the industry.
17 Today, I am going to be submitting on the 18 record summary packets of our research on Limerick's 19 major air pollution, harms to the Schuylkill River, 20 radioactive groundwater contamination, links between 21 Limerick's radiation and our elevated cancers in this 22 community and how Limerick's nuclear power can, in 23 fact, be replaced with safer sources today.
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36 1 increased population in proximity to this facility, 2 Limerick Nuclear Plant must be closed by 2029.
3 There is no amount of energy production that is 4 worth risking the lives of so many people. Thank you 5 very much.
6 (Applause.)
7 FACILITATOR BARKLEY: Thank you, sir.
8 MR. MAGUIRE: Good afternoon. My name is 9 Bill Maguire and I am the site vice president at 10 Limerick Generating Station. And I have overall 11 responsibility for the safe and reliable operation of 12 the facility.
13 I have been working in the nuclear power 14 industry for 25 years and my career began at the 15 Limerick Generating Station as an engineer. I 16 continued with a license to be a licensed senior 17 reactor operator supervisor in the operations 18 organization and was the on-shift senior manager of 19 that facility for many years.
20 I have also worked at a few other nuclear 21 stations across the country and before rejoining 22 Limerick as the site vice president in May of 2010, I 23 was the site vice president at the Peach Bottom Atomic 24 Power Station in southeastern Pennsylvania in York 25 County.
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37 1 Operating Limerick Generating Station 2 safely and reliably is a responsibility that everyone 3 at the power station takes very seriously. We 4 understand our obligation to the community, to the 5 environment, and to each other to operate the plant 6 safely.
7 A key component of a thriving community 8 like ours is the availability of safe, clean, and 9 reliable electricity. And as we look into the future 10 for the power needs of Pennsylvania and the United 11 States as a whole, we can see the increasing demand 12 for this very important resource.
13 At the same time, there's a growing 14 concern about greenhouse gases and climate change that 15 is a result of burning fossil fuels. To help meet 16 that growing power demand and to help keep our 17 environment clean, Exelon has applied to the U.S.
18 Nuclear Regulatory Commission for a 20-year extension 19 to the plant's operating license. Limerick's current 20 license for Unit 1 will expire in 2024 and Unit 2 in 21 2029. With license renewal, Limerick can provide our 22 region with clean power through 2049.
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38 1 continue that special trust as we operate the plant 2 well into the future.
3 The 104 nuclear reactors in the United 4 States provide roughly 20 percent of our nation's 5 electricity. More than 70 reactors nationwide have 6 already received approval from the Nuclear Regulatory 7 Commission for a 20-year license extension including 8 the Peach Bottom Atomic Power Station in York County.
9 Limerick Generating Station operates in a 10 manner that preserves the environment. The plant 11 produces almost no greenhouse gases. The plant 12 conducts approximately 1700 tests annually on air, 13 water, fish, soil, cow's milk, and other food products 14 to measure for environmental impact. We also maintain 15 a chain of radiation monitors surrounding the plant.
16 In 2005, the environmental management 17 systems at Limerick Generating Station achieved 18 certification under the strict criterion of the 19 International Organization for Standardization, ISO.
20 This certification is known as ISO 14001, a common 21 industry reference for the environmental 22 certification. The ISO 14001 certification requires a 23 commitment to excellence to prevent pollution and to 24 ensure continuous improvement in environmental areas.
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39 1 recognized Limerick Generating Station's commitment to 2 environmental stewardship by awarding us the Wildlife 3 at Work Certification. This distinction was awarded 4 to Limerick Generating Station for our commitment 5 towards establishing long-term wildlife habitat 6 enhancements that provided undisturbed habitats with 7 food, water, cover, and space for animal species 8 living on the plant station's landscape.
9 To ensure Limerick continues to operate 10 safely for years to come, Exelon is investing in 11 upgrades to plant equipment. Since 2010, Exelon has 12 invested more than $200 million into the plant 13 including installation of new safety equipment, new 14 electrical cables, new valves, and refurbishing the 15 cooling towers. In addition, Limerick has made more 16 than $40 million in physical security upgrades since 17 2001.
18 Our investment in the future does not stop 19 with equipment. We have hired and trained over 100 20 new employees over the last three years, mostly coming 21 from our native region here. We maintain a steady 22 workforce of approximately 850 people and during our 23 annual maintenance and refueling outages, we bring in 24 between 1500 and 2000 temporary workers that provide a 25 boost to our local economy. Hiring and NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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40 1 retaining top talent is a key priority for Limerick 2 Generating Station.
3 Over the past 25 years, Limerick has been 4 one of the best performing and most reliable 5 generating stations in the nuclear power industry.
6 During that time, the plant has set several records 7 for continuous days of operation and has been 8 recognized by the industry for our reliable operation.
9 In March 2010, Limerick completed a successful run of 10 727 continuous days for our Unit 1 plant. This 11 represented the second longest continuous run for a 12 boiling water reactor in the United States.
13 While we do not set out to break records, 14 continuous operations are on indicator of the 15 excellent human performance and equipment reliability 16 that Limerick strikes for every day.
17 We also take pride in our investments in 18 the community. In 2010, Limerick donated more than 19 $600,000 to the community in contributions to the 20 United Way, fire and ambulance companies, educational 21 health and youth organizations. And many of our 22 employees serve as volunteers in the local communities 23 around the plant.
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41 1 Commission as you review our license renewal. I 2 appreciate the opportunity to speak with you this 3 afternoon. Thank you.
4 FACILITATOR BARKLEY: Thanks, Bill.
5 (Applause.)
6 FACILITATOR BARKLEY: Representative 7 Quigley.
8 REP. QUIGLEY: Good afternoon, my name is 9 State Representative Tom Quigley. I represent the 10 146th District here of which lower Pottsville is a 11 party of that district, so I want to welcome the NRC 12 here today to the beautiful Sunnybrook Ballroom for 13 this meeting and thank them for coming out to listen 14 to the public and take commentary.
15 I'm here today to voice my strong support 16 for the relicensing of the Limerick Generating 17 Station. I wanted to touch on a couple points of why 18 I feel it is important for this facility to be 19 relicensed.
20 First is the amount of electricity that is 21 produced by this facility. One of the things that 22 myself and my colleagues in Harrisburg hear 23 consistently from businesses and the Commonwealth and 24 our citizens is the demand for energy and electricity 25 now and more importantly what that demand is going to NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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42 1 be in the future.
2 Right now this facility generates enough 3 electricity for two millions homes and without 4 producing some of the greenhouse gases that we hear so 5 much about that could be produced by coal, natural 6 gas, or oil. And I'm going to put a caveat in there 7 for my good friends out in the western part of the 8 state where coal is a big part of the Pennsylvania 9 economy and I'm suggesting that this be done to the 10 exclusion of coal and nevertheless, some of the 11 technologies that they're developing out there are 12 also important for that industry and important for the 13 Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
14 Again, one of the concerns we hear 15 consistently from businesses is how can we come here 16 into Pennsylvania with the infrastructure being what 17 it is which needs to be improved for the transmission 18 of the electricity, but more importantly the 19 generation of that electricity?
20 Number two, I think is important is the 21 jobs and overall economy. Again, in these tough 22 economic times that we're facing here in the 23 Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and also in this nation, 24 one of the top issues that we hear consistently about 25 is jobs.
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43 1 And as was mentioned by the site vice 2 president, over 860 people are employed here with an 3 annual payroll of $75 million. The direct impact that 4 is to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, of course, is 5 realized through the state income tax and also all of 6 these local municipalities most of them enact an 7 earned income tax which again sustains their townships 8 as well as their respective school districts. To have 9 that taken away I think would have an even more 10 dramatic impact on our local economy.
11 As was mentioned the impact for the local 12 area here, the temporary workers who show up here 13 during the outages and the refueling, there's already 14 been two hotels that have sprung up along the 422 15 corridor with another one planned right up here at the 16 Sanatoga area. Again, more jobs and more economic 17 growth here for our communities.
18 Thirdly, I want to talk about the 19 communication that I've experienced in the seven years 20 that I've been in office with Exelon and with their 21 Government Affairs people as well as with their site 22 people. I've been on the site three times, twice for 23 a tour and one to make a presentation during an 24 anniversary of the facility. And I have to say that 25 it is a very secure area. I know a lot of people are NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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44 1 concerned about terrorism attacks or people being on 2 the property. But unless you've actually gone over 3 there and gone through a tour, seeing how things are 4 set up, seeing the armed guards there, seeing the 5 security measures that are in place, I think you come 6 away much more relieved with that. And I'm able to 7 speak to my constituents more affirmatively about the 8 safety and security of the facility.
9 Any time that there's been the slightest 10 occurrence there, whether it will be a couple times a 11 hunter has wandered onto the property where the 12 authorities were called, the Government Affairs people 13 at Exelon are on the phone to me or with an email 14 right away to let me know what's happening before the 15 word gets out to the media or to the press. So 16 they're always very well prepared in their 17 explanations, not only of things that happen at the 18 plant itself, but also incidents and issues that occur 19 around the country and around the world.
20 Obviously, what took place in Japan with 21 the incident over there, they were on the phone with 22 me and met with me a few times to explain what took 23 place over there and how the safeguards are being put 24 in place here so that doesn't happen at this facility.
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45 1 storage where the spent fuel rods are now stored 2 outside in a dry cask storage facility. When that was 3 proposed back in 2005-2006, the Generating Station 4 held two open houses that were very well attended. I 5 went to both of them where they had people on there to 6 explain to the people what exactly was taking place 7 with this dry cask storage, why it was necessary. A 8 lot of questions and answers back and forth and I 9 think a lot of the people came away better informed 10 about that process.
11 Just recently at an open house, the site 12 VP who just spoke, Bill Maguire, came out to give some 13 initial comments and wound up spending the full hour 14 in an impromptu question and answer session and not 15 again just planted questions, a lot of tough 16 questions. And I think again the people came away 17 feeling confident in the openness and the transparency 18 that was displayed in that question and answer 19 session.
20 Another point of that is for relicensing 21 for the overall environment here is the good corporate 22 citizenship that the Generating Station has exhibited.
23 As was mentioned by Bill, some of the charitable 24 contributions that have gone on, not only for the host 25 community of Limerick, but also for the surrounding NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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46 1 areas. I attended a few dedication services where 2 they provided money to the Upper Providence Elementary 3 School and the Limerick Elementary School for an 4 outside environmental classroom.
5 One of the things we talk about as 6 political leaders, and I'm on the House Education 7 Committee, is the need for our children to be educated 8 particularly in the sciences and given these budget 9 constraints that we're operating under, both the 10 school districts and the Commonwealth, it's good to 11 see a corporate citizen stepping up to the plate and 12 providing that financial support, particularly in the 13 area of science. They've also partnered with the 14 Montgomery County Community College to provide 15 assistance in support for an associate degree in 16 nuclear engineering technology.
17 Again, we hear so much about our students 18 here not being well versed in technology and 19 engineering and things of that nature. So again, 20 stepping up to the plate to provide that assistance 21 when, in fact, perhaps in these tough budget times 22 where the government might not be able to do that.
23 Last, I want to talk about overall public 24 opinion and safety issues. One of the things that I 25 looked at when I talk about safety and the feeling of NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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47 1 comfort that people have here is how many of the 2 people who work at that plant live within the ten-mile 3 radius of the facility? And I asked that question 4 when I first was elected in 2004 and I just asked it 5 again in preparation for this hearing and 563 6 employees live within the ten-mile radius.
7 The population growth in my District in 8 the past ten years, we're getting ready to redraw our 9 lines based on the 2010 Census, so I broke it down by 10 township as to how much the population has increased 11 in those areas: Limerick Township, increasing by 33.5 12 percent; Upper Pottsgrove by 29.5; Royersford Borough, 13 where I live, 11.9; Lower Pottsgrove, 7; Pottstown, 2; 14 now this is a little bit skewed, but I have a small 15 piece of New Hanover Township which actually increased 16 by 54 percent.
17 When you look at the public opinion, and 18 again, we get calls on a lot of different issues and 19 as I mentioned that dry cask storage issue. Back 20 then, at the same time that that issue was being 21 rolled out to the public, Boyd Gaming had purchased a 22 property next to our plant was getting ready to apply 23 -- had applied for a license, casino license. At that 24 time, my office had received 2 calls in regard to the 25 dry cask storage project, over 200 calls regarding the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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48 1 casino application. So at the time, it appeared 2 people were more concerned about the prospect of a 3 casino being in their neighborhood than they were a 4 dry cask storage facility.
5 And lastly, as some of you heard, there is 6 a proposal right now to put a hold on Route 422. And 7 again, in the past six months with the incidents in 8 Japan, with the current earthquake we had here, with 9 the AP story telling you how these plants are all 10 falling apart, I received two calls regarding that one 11 where they could get the KI pills, one where they 12 could -- what was the evacuation plan for that, and 13 more calls and emails regarding the proposed 422. So 14 again, it appears that the constituents and the 146th, 15 they're more concerned about the prospect of paying a 16 toll to ride of 422 than they are about the nuclear 17 power plant issues.
18 So again, I strongly support the 19 relicensing of this for the reasons I mentioned.
20 Thank you.
21 (Applause.)
22 FACILITATOR BARKLEY: Thank you, 23 Representative Quigley.
24 The next three people I'd like to call, 25 first is Lorraine Ruppe, private citizen; and the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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49 1 next, Michael Gallagher of Exelon; and finally, I'd 2 like to call Dr. Fred Winter after that.
3 MS. RUPPE: Hi, my name is Lorraine Ruppe.
4 I am speaking here today to represent the children 5 and future generations, especially in our community.
6 Residents are fearful about the possibility of 7 disasters here in light of Fukushima in March 2011 and 8 since the earthquake and Hurricane Irene in August 9 2011 affecting our area. Climate changes, etcetera, 10 are causing disasters everywhere and continuing to get 11 worse.
12 Increasing floods, droughts, earthquakes, 13 tornados have made us all feel insecure, making 14 nuclear power increasingly risky, especially with the 15 Limerick plant basically in our backyards. Any 16 earthquake that comes through this area could be a 17 possible Fukushima, Chernobyl or Three Mile Island 18 which reminds me, four months have passed since the 19 NRC failed to get back to me when I asked how close 20 the Remapo fault line is to the Limerick nuclear 21 reactors? Maybe I can get an answer today.
22 Indian Point nuke plant was sketched as a 23 possible terrorist target in reference to 9/11 24 attacks. A suspected terrorist worked at Limerick for 25 years without the industry knowing it. How scary is NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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50 1 that?
2 The Pacific Ocean is now severely 3 irradiated by Fukushima. Radiation impacts of 4 Fukushima equalled over 20 Hiroshima bombs when I last 5 researched. Our drinking and bathing water here is 6 being continuously polluted by Limerick every day, 7 24/7 for years with radiation and unfiltered toxic 8 contaminated mine water, thanks to the NRC and Exelon.
9 This is disgusting.
10 Most of us have to depend on the water, 11 especially for bathing. Some of us pay extra for 12 water filtration or drink bottled water because we are 13 afraid to drink from the Schuylkill and because it 14 tastes really bad now. Imagine how toxic it would be 15 18 plus years from now if there was even any water 16 left.
17 There has been increased particulate 18 matter in the air and other toxics from Limerick 19 causing increased asthma, heart attacks, and strokes.
20 And to add insult to injury, Limerick was granted a 21 permit to allow an eight-fold increase in air 22 pollution since 2009. Cancer rates in our area have 23 skyrocketed since Limerick has been up and running in 24 the '80s and rates have steadily increased.
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51 1 of strontium 90, a radionuclide in baby teeth of 2 children nearest to nuke plants. Baby teeth near 3 Limerick plant had the highest levels in the whole 4 United States. This stuff and God knows what else is 5 in our bodies now thanks to a Nuclear Regulatory 6 Commission that to put it nicely is less than 7 enthusiastic about protecting us.
8 Solar wind, geothermal, ocean thermal, 9 energy conservation and efficiency are now cheaper 10 than nuclear power, along with being truly clean and 11 safe. The Department of Energy 2006 report stated 12 solar alone could provide 55 times our entire nation's 13 energy needs which leads me to a point, there have 14 been numerous studies proving the many dangerous and 15 deadly consequences of nuclear power. There's no 16 denying the massive devastation it has already caused 17 and will continue to cause indefinitely, but the 18 industry still goes on in their trance-like, 19 indifferent fashion as if everything is safe and 20 wonderful and will continue to be 18 plus years from 21 now or until 2049 for our community. This is what 22 really scares us the most.
23 The NRC has turned into a culture of 24 secrecy, hiding the dangers and sweeping the problems 25 under the rug. The industry's addiction to money and NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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52 1 power has blinded them to moral life and death issues 2 and facts set right in front of their faces. But my 3 big question of the day is why is Exelon applying for 4 an extension 18 years ahead of time? Thank you.
5 (Applause.)
6 FACILITATOR BARKLEY: Thank you, Lorraine.
7 Mike?
8 MR. GALLAGHER: Good afternoon. My name 9 is Mike Gallagher and I'm the Vice President of 10 License Renewal for Exelon. I have overall 11 responsibility for the Limerick Generating Station 12 license renewal application.
13 Exelon has a great deal of experience with 14 license renewal, as we have already obtained the 15 renewed licenses for our Peach Bottom and our TMI 16 plants in Pennsylvania, our Oyster Creek plant in New 17 Jersey, and our Dresden and Quad Cities plants in 18 Illinois.
19 Just briefly about myself. I've been 20 working in the nuclear power industry for 30 years. I 21 was a licensed senior operator and plant manager at 22 Limerick and I worked at two other nuclear plants and 23 our corporate offices.
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53 1 for Limerick. I'd like to speak briefly about the 2 process for preparing this license renewal application 3 and the amount of work and engineering analysis that 4 was put into preparing the application.
5 Because the license Generating Station can 6 be operated safely and reliably, Exelon decided to 7 pursue license renewal for Limerick. Limerick is a 8 very clean energy source which produces no greenhouse 9 gas emissions. Limerick is also good for the economy 10 in that it lowers market prices on electricity for the 11 citizens of Pennsylvania to the tune of $880 million 12 per year.
13 So in 2009, we announced our intention to 14 seek license renewal for Limerick. Later that year, 15 we started the work necessary to prepare the 16 application. After over two years of work, we 17 submitted the application to the Nuclear Regulatory 18 Commission on June 22, 2011. The application, as Lisa 19 had mentioned, when you print it out it's about 2100 20 pages. And when you put it in the binders it's three 21 large binders. It's a huge amount of information.
22 But that only represents a small part of the work that 23 was done for the engineering analysis to prepare this 24 application.
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54 1 if we printed it all out would be about 290 binders of 2 information. We invested over 60,000 manhours of 3 engineering work. Once we completed our engineering 4 work to prepare the application, we brought in experts 5 from outside Exelon to review the application to 6 ensure that it was complete, thorough and accurate.
7 Our total cost to prepare the application and get this 8 application reviewed by the NRC will be about $30 9 million.
10 There are two different parts of our 11 application, the safety review and the environmental 12 review. For the safety review, we took an in-depth 13 look at the history and the condition of the safety 14 equipment in the plant. We did that to determine 15 whether the necessary maintenance was being performed 16 on that equipment and to make sure that the equipment 17 will be able to operate when it's needed, not only for 18 today, but also for an additional 20 years of 19 operation.
20 When you look back at Limerick, when it 21 was built, all the equipment was new. It was 22 thoroughly tested to make sure it would perform 23 properly, but like anything else equipment does age.
24 That doesn't mean it won't work, but it does age and 25 certain activities need to be done to the equipment.
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55 1 So we perform preventive maintenance. Sometimes we 2 refurbish the equipment. Some equipment is replaced.
3 There may be modifications done to upgrade the 4 equipment in the plant and in fact, as Bill Maguire 5 has stated, Limerick had spent over $200 million in 6 the last couple years alone to improve and modernize 7 the equipment and enhance plant operations and safety.
8 We also then reviewed calculations that 9 were performed as part of the original design of the 10 plant that were done to ensure that the plant could 11 operate safely for 40 years. We analyzed those 12 calculations and were able to confirm that the plant 13 would be able to operate safely for 60 years.
14 Overall, our conclusion from our engineering review 15 was that Limerick could operate safely for up to 60 16 years.
17 We also took a look at the environmental 18 impacts of continuing to operate Limerick. We looked 19 at all the impacts of continued impact of the plant on 20 the environment. Our conclusion is that impacts on 21 the environment are small and I use the term small in 22 the sense that is in the regulation. The regulation 23 defines small as environmental effects are not 24 detectable or are minor.
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56 1 Limerick would not have its license renewed and 2 another source of electric generation would need to be 3 installed either here on site or someplace else to 4 generate the replacement electricity. We concluded 5 that any other means of generating the replacement 6 electricity would have more of an impact on the 7 environment than continued operation of Limerick. For 8 instance, if Limerick could be replaced by a wind 9 generation facility, the wind form would have to 10 occupy between 10 and 40 percent of all the land in 11 the state of Delaware and that would have a huge 12 impact on the land. If a solar facility could replace 13 Limerick, it would need to cover 32 to 50 percent of 14 the entire land area of Montgomery County.
15 In conclusion, we operate Limerick safely 16 and we can continue to operate it safely for an 17 additional 20 years. Limerick will provide 18 approximately 2340 megawatts of base-load generation 19 that's not only safe, but it's clean, reliable and 20 economical.
21 Continued operation of Limerick will 22 benefit this community, the Commonwealth of 23 Pennsylvania and our nation. Thanks for giving me the 24 time for this. Thank you.
25 (Applause.)
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57 1 FACILITATOR BARKLEY: Thank you, Mike.
2 Dr. Winter?
3 DR. WINTER: Good afternoon. Thanks for 4 letting me speak. We have heard a lot of pros and 5 cons, haven't we? And it's hard to make a decision 6 that's for sure. But let me get going here.
7 As a physician practicing radiology for 8 over 50 years, I still have strong concern about 9 cancer sensitivities from harmful radiation exposures, 10 naturally. My medical colleagues share the same 11 concerns because we have seen our cancer rates 12 increase since the Limerick power plant started, 13 especially thyroid cancer. It jumped to 78 percent 14 higher here than the national average. And some of 15 the people I talked to, this is because people are 16 aging more now, getting older, so there are more 17 cancers. But that's not true because in other areas 18 similar to our area in Pottstown, they're not nearly 19 getting the thyroid cancers that we are. This has 20 been well established by the state.
21 You wonder why some of our medical and 22 cancer fundraisers haven't reacted with more 23 responsibility in order to stop this. They're making 24 a lot of money, but not taking much effort to prevent 25 environmental damage.
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58 1 Yes, we are creating our own form of 2 terrorism. Now that sounds kind of funny, doesn't it?
3 But allowing any harmful environmental events to 4 occur, we are allowing our own form of terrorism, just 5 like foreign people would come in here.
6 Having attended a Hiroshima, Japan atom 7 bomb clinic right after World War II, naturally I had 8 a chance to see the worst results of harmful 9 radiation. All those little kids I saw who only lived 10 for a few days, it left me with a very sad memory. Of 11 course, what is happening here will be taking much 12 longer, but it sure is not good.
13 I don't know whether you've heard that 14 some scientists are already predicting that -- I'm 15 sorry to tell you this, but nuclear energy has the 16 capacity of destroying mankind. It may take about 100 17 years, but our whole world is exposed to the harmful 18 effects, maybe not so much here in the United States, 19 but the whole world can be affected.
20 Of course, what is happening here will be 21 taking much longer, but it is sure not good news.
22 Besides harmful power plant exposures, we have 23 environmental disasters and a concern about our nearby 24 earthquake fault and others in the eastern U.S.,
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59 1 the radioactive spent fuel deadly waste material 2 sitting around, supposedly protected. We can't 3 control the use of nuclear power in the rest of the 4 world, but can keep America safer and cleaner here.
5 So please, ask your politicians, reliable 6 politicians to close the Limerick power plant. Let's 7 save America for our kids and descendants. I hope you 8 will take my concerns seriously. And thank you for 9 listening.
10 (Applause.)
11 FACILITATOR BARKLEY: Okay, thank you, Dr.
12 Winter. The next three people I'd like to call is Tom 13 Neafcy of Limerick Township, followed by Dr. Anita 14 Baly, and then Tim Fenchel of the Schuylkill River 15 Heritage Foundation.
16 MR. NEAFCY: Good afternoon, thank you.
17 My name is Tom Neafcy. I'm the Chairman of Limerick 18 Township Board of Supervisors and I want to thank you 19 for this opportunity to speak at this forum today.
20 As the largest private employer in the 21 region, the Board is thankful for the 860 jobs that 22 Exelon provides, the positive impact of their 23 operation, the vitality of our local community. The 24 community and local economy are enhanced by the needed 25 services provided by the township, which includes the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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60 1 roadway network maintained by our Limerick Township 2 Public Works, public safety provided by the Limerick 3 and Linfield Fire Companies, and our local emergency 4 medical response, our public parks, our recreation 5 facilities and also the police protection that's 6 provided by Limerick's 21 sworn officers.
7 Because of Limerick Generating Station's 8 location within our borders,the Limerick Township 9 Police Department is the only municipal police 10 department in Pennsylvania with the primary 11 jurisdiction over Tier 1 critical infrastructure.
12 This Board prides itself on the services provided 13 directly both to the residents and the businesses of 14 this community and the township's ability to maintain 15 those current levels of service during these difficult 16 economic downturns. We are thankful for the 17 generosity of the Limerick generating plant and Exelon 18 for being good corporate neighbors and the assistance 19 they provide to the community. Without their 20 financial assistance that impact to provide those 21 services to the community would fall squarely on the 22 backs of the taxpayers. They assist in our fire 23 companies. They have been corporate sponsors of our 24 Limerick Community Days. And we are confident that 25 Limerick generating facility and Exelon will continue NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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61 1 that support in the future and be our good corporate 2 neighbor.
3 We also are in support of the relicensing 4 of the Limerick nuclear plant. Thank you.
5 (Applause.)
6 FACILITATOR BARKLEY: Dr. Baly?
7 DR. BALY: Good afternoon. I'm Anita 8 Baly. I'm a retired Lutheran pastor and my concern 9 today is with the speed at which this application 10 process is going. I mean it seems to me that to 11 predict what environmental factors will be in place 13 12 years hence and 18 years hence, posits a kind of 13 omniscience and prescience that we should attribute to 14 Almighty God, but certainly not to any of us human 15 beings.
16 I would favor a slower process. As we 17 look around, we see that the population in this area 18 is getting denser all the time. The roads are not 19 being improved. And that leaves me with concerns 20 about how we would effect an evacuation were one 21 needed. I suspect strongly that we couldn't perform a 22 good evacuation today. And I also suspect that the 23 population will be increasing and the roads 24 deteriorating. In fact, just this morning in the 25 Pottstown Mercury, they were reporting on the hearing NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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62 1 that was held on Route 422 which is our main road 2 around here. And Barry Seymour is quoted, he's the 3 Executive Director of the Delaware River Valley 4 Regional Planning Commission, and he told last week's 5 forum audience that population projections anticipate 6 a 50 percent increase in the region and if we don't 7 increase capacity on 422, we will have virtual 8 gridlock all the way to the Berks County line.
9 Maybe we'll improve that situation, but 10 it's way too early to know if that will happen. And 11 so my plea and my concern is can we slow this down so 12 that we know, in fact, what the environmental impacts 13 are going to be closer to a time that the decision is 14 made. Thank you.
15 (Applause.)
16 FACILITATOR BARKLEY: Thank you. Tim?
17 MR. FENCHEL: Good afternoon. My name is 18 Tim Fenchel and I'm on the staff of the Schuylkill 19 River National and State Heritage Area. We are one of 20 49 congressionally-designated Heritage Areas in the 21 country and our mission is to use recreation, 22 conservation, education, cultural and historic 23 preservation and tourism as tools for community 24 revitalization and economic development with the 25 Schuylkill River Valley.
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63 1 The Heritage Area has had the opportunity 2 for almost seven years now to partner with Exelon 3 Nuclear and the Limerick Generating Station on several 4 local and regional projects and programs. These 5 programs have proven to have a positive impact on our 6 local communities, residents, and natural resources.
7 And I would like to take a few moments to highlight 8 those now.
9 In 2005, Exelon Nuclear approached us 10 about the possibility of partnering together on a 11 grant program that would work to restore our area's 12 critical natural resource, the Schuylkill River. The 13 river has been detrimentally impacted by hundreds of 14 years of abuse and neglect, primarily as a result of 15 our nation's history related to the Industrial 16 Revolution. But even more recently, due to 17 deforestation, farming practices, and continued open 18 space development.
19 Beginning in 2006, after the creation of 20 grant program guidelines, an advisory committee and a 21 necessary accounting and reporting structures, Exelon 22 began making annual contributions to the Schuylkill 23 River Restoration Fund. The Schuylkill River Heritage 24 Area acts as the administrator and the manager of this 25 grant program, redistributing Exelon's contributions NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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64 1 to local and regional watershed groups, conservation 2 organizations, and local government agencies for 3 projects addressing the quality and quantity of 4 Schuylkill River water. Projects focusing on 5 agricultural remediation, abandoned mine drainage, and 6 stormwater runoff are supported through this program.
7 To date, Exelon has contributed over $1.2 8 million to the restoration fund for watershed-wide 9 projects. Twenty-two grants have been awarded and 11 10 projects have been completed. These projects have 11 made an impact on the water quality and quantity of 12 the Schuylkill River which is a source of drinking 13 water for over 1.75 million people in southeastern 14 Pennsylvania.
15 Exelon's establishment and contribution to 16 the restoration fund has been a model program and is 17 now a uniquely valued public/private partnership as 18 several new partners have joined efforts and made 19 their own contributions to the fund. Both the 20 Philadelphia Water Department and the Partnership for 21 the Delaware Estuary have brought funding to the 22 program and supported regional watershed projects.
23 The contributions made by Exelon have been the 24 catalyst to leverage additional funds well over 25 $600,000 for area restoration.
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65 1 The goal of the Restoration Fund Advisory 2 Committee is to be able to support a sustainable level 3 of half a million dollars annually for the fund and in 4 turn, conservation projects that will continue to 5 ensure the future health of the Schuylkill River.
6 In addition to our work on the restoration 7 fund, we have assisted Exelon Nuclear, East Coventry 8 Township, and Chester County in a planning effort to 9 begin the process of restoration and preservation of 10 the historic Fricks Locks Village. Earlier this year, 11 Exelon Nuclear, the current owners of the village, 12 signed an agreement with East Coventry Township to 13 stabilize, rehabilitate, and protect several of 14 Chester County's oldest buildings. Exelon has agreed 15 to spend $2.5 million to restore the exterior of 16 several buildings as stabilized ruins. A fence will 17 be built around the grounds and the corporation is 18 donating four houses to the township worth an 19 estimated $1 million.
20 In addition, the corporation has agreed to 21 continue to do routine maintenance on the village and 22 work with the local historical society to host guided, 23 historic and educational tours for the public.
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66 1 dedication and personal commitment of Exelon staff and 2 management. Based on the very positive community 3 programs and involvement we have experienced and 4 witnessed first hand as a regional organization, we 5 would like to communicate our support for the 6 relicensing and continued operation of Limerick 7 Generating Station. Thank you.
8 (Applause.)
9 FACILITATOR BARKLEY: Okay, thank you.
10 The next three people I would like to call, Bill 11 Vogel, followed by Eileen Dautrich, is that how you 12 say that?
13 MS. DAUTRICH: Dautrich.
14 FACILITATOR BARKLEY: Dautrich. Okay.
15 And then Bill Albany.
16 MR. VOGEL: Hi, my name is Bill Vogel. I 17 live in Phoenixville. Units 1 and 2 had an initial 18 life expectancy of 40 years. They are now asking to 19 increase that 20 years, a full one third increase.
20 Everything has a life expectancy, machinery, as well 21 as people. Demographically, my life expectancy is 74.
22 If I was to get a one third extension, like the 23 Limerick plant wants, that would take me to 111. What 24 do you think is going to happen to me between age 74, 25 my life span, my nameplate capacity, and the year when NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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67 1 I reach 111? It's going to go down hill. That's 2 lifecycle. Machinery has them. You don't need an 3 engineer to tell you that. Just like human beings 4 have them. We become less effective, less efficient, 5 less competent.
6 The significant difference is my failure 7 will be containable. Limerick's most likely will not.
8 If I drive over you with my car because I no longer 9 see as well or have the reflexes I once had, that's a 10 tragedy for you, your family, for me and my family.
11 The sphere of the tragedy is containable. If Limerick 12 Unit 1 or 2 fails, all hell breaks loose, no 13 disrespect. That's what a nuclear failure is, hell.
14 It affects everybody in this room, everybody in the 15 community, everybody in the tri-state area, not for a 16 week, but for decades. It's very, very last thing we 17 want to happen.
18 And I think we're putting ourselves in 19 harm's way by taking something that had a lifespan of 20 40 years and adding another 20 to it. It doesn't make 21 sense. The only way to rationalize it is through our 22 personal fear of being inconvenienced because we lose 23 a very, very good source of power. It's done a great 24 job for us. But like me, you get to a point where 25 your ability to provide a great job is at an end and NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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68 1 things start deteriorating. Let's not put ourselves 2 in that position. Let's make an intelligent decision 3 now and allow these two units to expire at their 4 nameplate time. Thank you.
5 (Applause.)
6 FACILITATOR BARKLEY: Thank you, Bill.
7 Eileen.
8 MS. DAUTRICH: Good afternoon. My name is 9 Eileen Dautrich. I'm president of the Tri-County Area 10 Chamber of Commerce. I'm happy to be here today to 11 provide examples of how Limerick Generating Station is 12 a valued community and business partner and echo the 13 statements already shared by several others.
14 They're one of the tri-county area's 15 largest employer, providing professional employment 16 opportunities for local residents. Those local 17 residents employed by Limerick Generating Station are 18 supporting the entire tri-county business community.
19 They're purchasing personal goods and services from 20 local small businesses. The annual outage is a 21 tremendous benefit to the local economy and our local 22 businesses. Limerick encourages their outage 23 employees to visit and purchase from tri-county area, 24 local businesses, and small businesses.
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69 1 residents, they're making a significant investment in 2 our local communities. Municipalities and residents 3 benefit from assistance received from Limerick to 4 start, maintain, expand parks, recreation, and quality 5 of life opportunities.
6 Their corporate culture of giving back to 7 the community is practiced by their hundreds of 8 employees. Nonprofit organizations are supported by 9 Limerick Generating Station and the efforts of their 10 employees. Financial donations, as well as volunteer 11 hours1.273148e-4 days <br />0.00306 hours <br />1.818783e-5 weeks <br />4.1855e-6 months <br /> and time are donated, enabling our local 12 nonprofits to provide the much needed services that 13 impact those in need throughout the tri-county area.
14 The Limerick Generating Station is 15 confident in the clean and safe environment they 16 maintain in our community. The community has been 17 invited to experience the generating station 18 firsthand. The chamber hosted a membership breakfast 19 and the site vice president, Bill Maguire provided the 20 keynote presentation. He summarized safety measures 21 and advancements at Limerick and answered questions 22 pertaining to the Limerick plant and its safety in the 23 wake of the tsunami in Japan.
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70 1 meeting Limerick was holding for the community at 2 large, as well as participate in a tour of Limerick 3 Generating Station that was scheduled as a follow up 4 to our breakfast.
5 These opportunities for the community are 6 provided ongoing for the community to be informed and 7 educated about Limerick Generating Station. Thank 8 you.
9 (Applause.)
10 FACILITATOR BARKLEY: Bill?
11 MR. ALBANY: Good afternoon. My name is 12 Bill Albany. I'm the Chief of Police for Limerick 13 Township Police Department. As stated earlier the 14 Limerick Township Police Department is the only 15 municipal police department in the State of 16 Pennsylvania with primary law enforcement 17 responsibility for a nuclear power plant.
18 I am badged at the site and I am also a 19 co-chair of a subcommittee for the Joint Terrorist 20 Task Force Southeast Region.
21 I didn't want to talk too much about 22 environmental issues, but about my relationship with 23 LGS, particularly as it applies to their Security 24 Department, their Emergency Planning Department and 25 their management. In a lot of companies today, you NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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71 1 see policies and procedures that people talk about and 2 they're put up on a shelf and they're followed at best 3 haphazardly with a wink and a nod and deviation from 4 the policy is not addressed.
5 One of the things that I'm continuously 6 impressed at LGS when I visit is their sound adherence 7 to policy and procedure. They don't deviate from it.
8 I've been to numerous drills at the plant, numerous 9 exercises at the plant, some of which were run by the 10 NRC and I've never seen them fail. They always come 11 out on top. In fact, in 2009, Limerick was selected 12 as a site for the first comprehensive pilot exercise 13 involving federal, state, and local law enforcement 14 SWAT teams to actually go into the power block and 15 conduct tactical operations in there, and that drill 16 was used as a boiler plate to develop policies and 17 procedures for implementation in power plants 18 throughout the country.
19 One of the -- I'm sorry, I don't believe 20 that continued operations of the power plant would 21 have any detrimental effect on public safety in the 22 southeast region. Thank you.
23 (Applause.)
24 FACILITATOR BARKLEY: Okay, thank you.
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72 1 signed up, John McGowan, Ted Del Gaizo, and Timothy 2 Phillips. John?
3 MR. McGOWAN: Thank you very much. My 4 name is John McGowan and I am a life-long resident of 5 the Delaware Valley. I have lived half of my -- or I 6 should say the Limerick Nuclear Power Station has been 7 operating for half of my life. I own three 8 manufacturing companies in the Malvern area and employ 9 a number of people in those facilities who rely 10 tremendously on the Limerick Power Generating Station 11 to supply safe, reliable electrical power to keep us 12 operating.
13 Today, I would like to say that in all of 14 the years that I've lived in this area, I've never 15 worried at all about the safety of the nuclear power 16 plant. I see it every day. And it bothers me not in 17 the least. I have never seen any credible evidence to 18 suggest that there are safety problems with this 19 plant. In terms of reliability, it is the same. It 20 is running 24/7, 365 days a year and it has been doing 21 so for a quarter of a century and I hope it continues 22 to do so for many more years to come.
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73 1 possess today throughout the world and to dismiss it 2 is I think a foolish notion.
3 The impact of the Limerick plant in our 4 region has been extraordinarily positive. It 5 provides, as we all know and have heard today, lots of 6 jobs, lots of good jobs, tax revenues for schools, 7 local governments and for those who live in the area 8 to enjoy the fruits of public services and it also 9 provides a lot of charitable donations to the 10 community which is very important.
11 I think that to not keep this plant 12 running and not consider a renewal of its license for 13 an extended period would be a tragic mistake for all 14 of us and I would like to end this by saying that the 15 only meltdown that would concern me is the economic 16 one that certainly would happen to this area should 17 this plant not continue to operate.
18 (Applause.)
19 FACILITATOR BARKLEY: Ted, go ahead.
20 MR. DEL GAIZO: Hi, my name is Ted Del 21 Gaizo. I'm a registered professional engineer in the 22 Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. I'm also president and 23 CEO of a small business engineering firm in nearby 24 Exton, Pennsylvania.
25 My experience in nuclear power goes back NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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74 1 to the 1960s where I spent 14 years in Navy submarines 2 and I personally operated, maintained, and refueled 3 nuclear power plants during that period.
4 But I'm here today as a private citizen, 5 as a resident of the area and as a member of the 6 Pennsylvania Energy Alliance to go on record and say I 7 strongly favor license renewal for the Limerick 8 Generating Station. I say that because in my personal 9 experience I know in spite of some of the things 10 you've probably heard here today, nuclear power is 11 safe, reliable, secure and clean. But in addition to 12 that, I would like to go on record, I would like my 13 neighbors to know we are lucky to have the Limerick 14 Generating Station in this area. In the industry, it 15 has a top reputation. It is one of the finest nuclear 16 power plants in America. And Exelon, if not the best, 17 is certainly one of the finest nuclear operators in 18 the world.
19 I have nothing but confidence that Exelon 20 will work together with the NRC, will run through the 21 process and we will come up with the right conclusion 22 here which is license renewal should be granted to the 23 Limerick Generating Station. I think we need to keep 24 Limerick operating as long as we can.
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75 1 you may have heard here today, I'd like to thank the 2 NRC for the fine job they do on protecting the health 3 and safety of the public. I think as a regulatory 4 agency you're one of the finest in the world.
5 Certainly, the world follows everything you do. And 6 I'm sure you'll come up with the right conclusion here 7 and thank you for what you do for the United States.
8 (Applause.)
9 FACILITATOR BARKLEY: Timothy?
10 MR. PHELPS: Good afternoon. My name is 11 Tim Phelps. I'm the former president of the Tri-12 County Area Chamber of Commerce, but I'm here as a 13 citizen, not a citizen of the Limerick community, but 14 a citizen of East Whiteland. After I left the 15 Chamber, I still stayed involved in the Exelon 16 Generating Station through their CAP program. I 17 thought was extremely important because of the 18 information that was provided to the community through 19 the CAP. And I'm able to share this information, 20 share the benefits and share what's happening here at 21 the nuclear power plant.
22 I have to thank the NRC for actually 23 hosting -- this is a part of their process of making 24 the transparency available to everybody, for the press 25 to be here in the room. That shows that there's an NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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76 1 openness in the thinking process that goes into place 2 for renewal of any nuclear power plant.
3 And so from my perspective as a citizen, 4 as a business person who has worked in this community, 5 I understand the value this is to the region. And for 6 me, I applaud the NRC for what they're doing here. I 7 applaud Exelon for the great work that they're doing 8 there and I encourage the renewal process to take 9 place. Thank you.
10 (Applause.)
11 FACILITATOR BARKLEY: Thank you. With 12 that, I have all 15 people who had signed up for this 13 meeting, have been called. Is there anyone else who 14 would like to make a short follow-up remark or would 15 like to still speak at this point?
16 Okay, if not, I'd like to make two points 17 before we wrap up. One, the NRC does have public 18 meeting feedback forms which give us feedback on how 19 you think this meeting was conducted, so I would 20 greatly appreciate you filling out one of those forms 21 for us so that we can learn how to improve. There is 22 another session of this meeting at 7 o'clock tonight.
23 You're welcome to speak again tonight.
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77 1 and I find groups have very differing opinions on both 2 sides of this issue and often are not respectful or 3 civil towards each other. I thought the audience this 4 evening was marvelous and exemplary towards each other 5 and I greatly appreciate that. I did not have to 6 interrupt or intervene, so I very much thank you for 7 that.
8 With that, I'd like to wrap up this 9 meeting and the NRC will still stay around to answer 10 questions and please talk with them some more. Thank 11 you very much.
12 (Applause.)
13 (Whereupon, at 3:45 p.m., the public 14 meeting was concluded.)
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Official Transcript of Proceedings NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Title:
Limerick Generating Station License Renewal Public Meeting: Evening Session Docket Number: (n/a)
Location: Pottstown, Pennsylvania Date: Thursday, September 22, 2011 Work Order No.: NRC-1128 Pages 1-87 NEAL R. GROSS AND CO., INC.
Court Reporters and Transcribers 1323 Rhode Island Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 234-4433
1 1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 2 + + + + +
3 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 4 + + + + +
5 PUBLIC MEETING TO DISCUSS THE LICENSE RENEWAL 6 PROCESS AND ENVIRONMENTAL SCOPING FOR LIMERICK 7 GENERATING STATION, UNITS 1 & 2 8 + + + + +
9 THURSDAY 10 SEPTEMBER 22, 2011 11 + + + + +
12 The Public Meeting met in the Sunnybrook 13 Ballroom, 50 Sunnybrook Road, Pottstown, Pennsylvania, 14 at 7:00 p.m., Richard Barkley, Meeting Facilitator, 15 presiding.
16 PRESENT 17 RICHARD BARKLEY, Meeting Facilitator, NRC 18 ROBERT F. KUNTZ, Project Manager, NRR/DLR 19 DENNIS C. MOREY, Branch Chief, NRR/DLR 20 LISA M. REGNER, Sr. Project Manager, 21 NRR/DLR 22 DAVID J. WRONA, Branch Chief, NRR/DLR 23 24 PUBLIC COMMENTERS 25 CATHERINE ALLISON NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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2 1 JIM BECKERMAN 2 JEFF CHUMNUK, Pottstown Borough Council 3 TRACI CONFER, Energy Justice Network 4 DONNA CUTHBERT, Alliance For a Clean 5 Environment 6 LEWIS CUTHBERT, Alliance For a Clean 7 Environment, PhD 8 JIM DERR 9 DAN ELY 10 MICHAEL GALLAGHER, Exelon Nuclear 11 DANIEL LUDEWIG 12 JEFFREY G. NORTON, Pennsylvania Energy 13 Alliance 14 WILLIAM MAGUIRE, Exelon Nuclear 15 LORRAINE RUPPE 16 THOMAS SAPORITO, Saprodani Associates 17 FRED WINTER, MD 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 P-R-O-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S 25 7:01 p.m.
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3 1 FACILITATOR BARKLEY: Good evening. Could 2 everyone take a seat so we can start the meeting?
3 It's actually about two minutes after 7:00. Okay, 4 good evening. For those of you who were not at the 5 afternoon meeting my name is Richard Barkley. I'm the 6 meeting facilitator for this meeting. We had a very 7 successful meeting this afternoon, 15 individuals 8 spoke and the meeting went very, very smoothly.
9 Hopefully that's the same situation this evening. If 10 you are interested in speaking hopefully you've signed 11 up. If not there is a sign-up sheet at the back or 12 you can see me and we'll work with signing you up.
13 I wanted to go briefly over some of the 14 ground rules for this meeting as we go through it. It 15 worked very well again this afternoon and hopefully it 16 will be fine this evening. First of all, one of them, 17 we ask you to sign up on a yellow speaker card and I 18 have that for individuals, or on a white piece of 19 paper that we had back there in the back. At this 20 point I have 12 people signed up. We had 15 this 21 afternoon but I'll probably pick up two or three as 22 this meeting goes on. To be fair the amount of time 23 allotted will be limited based on the number of 24 speakers who speak up or who ask to sign up. This 25 afternoon we went through 15 speakers in 75 minutes.
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4 1 It works out to about five minutes a person. Some of 2 them had a little variation but that seemed to be 3 adequate to present your remarks in a concise manner.
4 I typically call three people at a time so 5 the first person comes up, the other two people know 6 they're going to be called shortly thereafter. That 7 makes for a smooth transition from one speaker to the 8 next. And we do have one or two members of elected 9 officials here who have signed up and so I'll call 10 some of them and alternate between them and individual 11 members of the public.
12 At this point in time I believe there was 13 one representative of an elected representative in the 14 audience. Would any members who are elected officials 15 want to speak up? That was represented. Yes, sir.
16 MALE PARTICIPANT: I'm representing 17 Senator Casey.
18 FACILITATOR BARKLEY: Okay, thank you.
19 Anyone else? Yes, sir. Let's go on to the next slide 20 here. Yes, sure.
21 MS. ALLISON: I wondered if earlier today 22 you said you had 15 people speak.
23 FACILITATOR BARKLEY: I had 15 people 24 speak, yes.
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5 1 speak at this meeting?
2 FACILITATOR BARKLEY: Right now I have 11 3 signed up but if more want to sign up it's fine. If 4 we work smoothly there's 15. I'm hoping this evening 5 we'll have roughly 15. Many of the same speakers that 6 spoke this afternoon will speak this evening.
7 MS. ALLISON: Okay. One other question.
8 I would like to know why sometimes according to this 9 we get five minutes and I know there are people who 10 have to speak but it's hard to say something so 11 important in five minutes. Something that -- it's 12 just --
13 (Applause) 14 FACILITATOR BARKLEY: And again, I 15 understand your point. There were several speakers 16 that actually went seven to eight minutes who I gave 17 latitude. If you have much longer comments this is 18 only one format to handle these comments. You can 19 also supply them in a written form. We have some 20 flexibility, I will give you flexibility but just to 21 follow the time that's -- go ahead.
22 MS. ALLISON: How many meetings do we have 23 like this to speak? How many opportunities do we have 24 to speak? That we have like this.
25 FACILITATOR BARKLEY: Meetings with the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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6 1 license-holder or just this facility?
2 MS. ALLISON: Where the public is allowed 3 to speak.
4 FACILITATOR BARKLEY: We have public 5 meetings on a very frequent basis but regarding 6 Limerick this is the first one related to license 7 renewal. But we have many, many comments that are 8 received in a written format versus in a verbal 9 format.
10 MS. ALLISON: Well, I'd like to know how 11 many opportunities the public gets to speak and why we 12 get five minutes.
13 FACILITATOR BARKLEY: Continuing on I 14 would ask you to silence your cell phones so we don't 15 have interruption. Yes, sir, I'm sorry.
16 MR. TROUT: If people who speak from the 17 floor could use their microphones then we could all 18 hear what you have to say.
19 FACILITATOR BARKLEY: Okay, understood.
20 The gentleman had difficulty hearing the question.
21 But I can summarize that. I'll talk to you privately 22 about that. Again, if we could speak clearly into the 23 microphone. This afternoon we had the microphone 24 facing backwards. You weren't facing the audience.
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7 1 audience. That seems to be a little bit more 2 desirable for speakers. Again, written comments are 3 welcome during and after this meeting. At some of our 4 licensees we have had many, many times as many written 5 comments provided regarding the Environmental Impact 6 Statement as we have in verbal comments. Some of our 7 stations, I think Indian Point had almost 2,000 8 comments submitted, only about 50 of them in a verbal 9 format in a meeting such as this. And then again if 10 there are questions or concerns regarding the conduct 11 of this meeting please see me and we'll work through 12 them. All right? Go ahead, Rob. I'd like to turn it 13 over to Rob Kuntz now, please.
14 MR. KUNTZ: Good evening. My name is Rob 15 Kuntz. I'm the Safety PM for the -- in charge of the 16 review for the Limerick Generating Station License 17 Renewal Application. I'd like to thank you all for 18 taking the time and attending the meeting this 19 evening. Tonight we will provide an overview of the 20 license renewal review process which includes both a 21 safety review and an environmental review. We will 22 describe to you the numerous ways and opportunities 23 the public can participate in the Limerick license 24 renewal process through either the safety or the 25 environmental renewal review. But the most important NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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8 1 part of today's meeting is to receive any comments 2 that you may have on the scope of the environmental 3 review. We also will give you some information about 4 how you can submit comments if you prefer not to speak 5 at this meeting.
6 At the conclusion of today's -- tonight's 7 presentation we'll be happy to answer any questions 8 that you may have on the license renewal process.
9 However, I must ask you to limit your participation to 10 questions only and hold the comments until the 11 appropriate portion of the meeting. Once all 12 questions are answered we can begin to receive any 13 comments that you have on the scope of the 14 environmental review. Next slide.
15 Before I get into discussion of the 16 license renewal process I'd like to take a minute to 17 talk about the NRC in terms of what we do and what our 18 mission is. The NRC is a federal agency established 19 by the Energy Reorganization Act of 1974. We regulate 20 the civilian use of nuclear material. The Atomic 21 Energy Act of 1954 authorizes the NRC to grant a 40-22 year operating license for nuclear power reactors.
23 The 40-year term was based primarily on economic and 24 antitrust factors, not on safety or technical 25 limitations. The Atomic Energy Act also allows for NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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9 1 license renewal. The National Environmental Policy 2 Act of 1969, also referred to as NEPA, established a 3 national policy for considering the impact of federal 4 decision-making on the human environment. Lisa will 5 discuss NEPA in greater detail.
6 The NRC's regulations governing nuclear 7 safety, security and environmental protection are 8 contained in Title 10 of the Code of Federal 9 Regulations, often referred to as 10 CFR. In 10 exercising its regulatory authority the NRC's mission 11 is threefold: to ensure adequate protection of public 12 health and safety, to promote the common defense and 13 security, and to protect the environment. The NRC 14 accomplishes its mission through a combination of 15 regulatory programs and processes such as establishing 16 rules and regulations, conducting inspections, issuing 17 enforcement actions, assessing licensee performance 18 and evaluating operating experience from nuclear 19 plants across the country and internationally. The 20 NRC has resident inspectors at all operating nuclear 21 power plants. These inspectors are considered the 22 eyes and ears of the NRC. They carry out our safety 23 mission on a daily basis and are on the front lines of 24 ensuring acceptable safety performance and compliance 25 with regulatory requirements. Next slide.
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10 1 A little bit about the Limerick license 2 renewal. That application was received on June 22nd 3 of this year. The operating license is expiring in 4 2024 for Unit 1 and 2029 for Unit 2. A license can be 5 -- a licensee can submit an application up to 20 years 6 prior to the expiration of their license. The length 7 of the license cannot exceed 40 years and the renewed 8 license supercedes the previous license. Next slide.
9 The first step of the license renewal 10 process is to perform an acceptance and sufficiency 11 review of the application. When the NRC receives a 12 license renewal application the NRC staff examines it 13 to determine whether the application contains 14 sufficient information to justify the staff's review.
15 The staff looks to see whether the applicant has 16 provided enough information in terms of technical 17 information, technical specifications and the 18 environmental report so that the staff can begin its 19 work. If the application has enough in it to warrant 20 the staff's review then the application is considered 21 acceptable and sufficient and is put on the NRC's 22 docket. General information such as the applicant's 23 name and address, business and administrative 24 information, technical information about the plant 25 structures and components and how the applicant NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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11 1 proposes to manage aging, pertaining to aging 2 management. This information is the focus of the 3 staff's safety review.
4 Technical specifications define the 5 operating parameters of the plant. The application 6 indicates what, if any, changes or additions to 7 technical specifications are necessary to manage the 8 effects of aging during the period of extended 9 operation. The application also includes an 10 environmental report which is the applicant's 11 assessment of the environmental impacts of continued 12 operation. This information is the starting point for 13 the staff's environmental review which will be 14 discussed a bit later in this presentation. Next 15 slide.
16 I'd like to mention a few very important 17 areas of NRC oversight that routinely come up during 18 our interactions with the public. NRC staff address 19 these areas of performance every day as part of the 20 ongoing regulatory oversight provided for all 21 currently operating power reactors. They include 22 current safety performance as defined by NRC 23 inspection findings, violations and general assessment 24 of plant performance, emergency planning and security.
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12 1 at Limerick you can use the link that's provided on 2 the slide here. The NRC monitors and provides 3 regulatory oversight of activity in these areas on an 4 ongoing basis under the current operating license.
5 Thus, we do not reevaluate them in license renewal.
6 That's not to say they're not important, we just don't 7 duplicate the regulatory process in these areas for 8 license renewal. Next slide.
9 I'd like to talk briefly about the NRC's 10 response to the incident in Japan. Since the accident 11 at Fukushima the NRC has taken multiple steps to 12 ensure the safe operation of nuclear power plants both 13 now and in the future. As part of its initial 14 response to the accident the NRC issued temporary 15 instructions to inspectors directing specific 16 inspections of nuclear power plants in order to assess 17 disaster readiness and compliance with current 18 regulations. The next step in the NRC's response was 19 the report of NRC's Near-Term Task Force. The purpose 20 of the Near-Term Task Force was to develop near-term 21 recommendations and suggest a framework for us to move 22 forward in the long term. The Near-Term Task Force 23 issued its report on July 12th and discussed the 24 results of their review in a public meeting held on 25 July 28th. As a result of its review the Near-Term NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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13 1 Task Force presented 12 overarching recommendations 2 for improvement. These recommendations are applicable 3 to operating reactors regardless of license renewal 4 status.
5 Based on the results of the Near-Term Task 6 Force the Commission has directed the NRC staff to 7 evaluate and outline which of the recommendations 8 should be implemented. The staff submitted a paper to 9 the Commission on September 9th providing the staff's 10 recommendation on which task force recommendations can 11 and in the staff's judgment should be initiated in 12 part or in whole without delay. On October 3rd the 13 staff will submit another Commission paper on its 14 prioritization of 11 of the 12 task force 15 recommendations. Recommendation 1 of the task force, 16 the recommendation to reevaluate the NRC's framework, 17 will be evaluated over the next 18 months. To date 18 the NRC has not identified any issues as part of these 19 activities that call into question the safety of any 20 nuclear facilities. Additionally, this review process 21 is going on independent of license renewal. Any 22 changes that are identified as necessary will be 23 implemented for all licensees regardless of license 24 renewal status.
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14 1 Fukushima activities including the results of the 2 Near-Term Task Force can be found on NRC's website by 3 clicking on the Japan Nuclear Accident NRC Action link 4 on the home page, or directly through the web address 5 on the slide. There are also a limited number of 6 copies of the Near-Term Task Force Report that are 7 available in the back of the room.
8 Now on to the license renewal process.
9 Here's a simplified diagram of the license renewal 10 process. License renewal review involves two parallel 11 paths, the safety review and the environmental review.
12 These two reviews evaluate separate aspects of the 13 license renewal application. It also features three 14 other considerations in the Commission's decision of 15 whether or not to renew the license. One of these 16 considerations is the independent review performed by 17 the Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards, also 18 known as the ACRS. Statutorily mandated by the Atomic 19 Energy Act of 1954 the ACRS is a group of scientists 20 and nuclear safety experts who serve as a consulting 21 body to the Commission. The ACRS reviews license 22 renewal application, the NRC staff's safety 23 evaluation, and inspection of findings. The ACRS 24 reports their findings and recommendations directly to 25 the Commission.
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15 1 Hearings may also be conducted if 2 interested stakeholders submit concerns or contentions 3 and their request for hearing is granted. The Atomic 4 Safety and Licensing Board, an adjudicatory panel, 5 will conduct the hearing. The Commission considers 6 the outcome of the hearing process in its decision on 7 whether or not to renew the license.
8 As part of the environmental review, the 9 staff consults with local, state, federal and tribal 10 officials such as the EPA and the staff holds public 11 meetings to receive comments on the draft EIS, 12 Environmental Impact Statement. Next slide.
13 To better understand the license renewal 14 process it is good to know the safety principles that 15 guide license renewal. The first principle is that 16 current regulatory process is adequate to ensure the 17 licensing basis of all operating reactors provides or 18 maintains an acceptable level of safety. A second 19 principle is that the current plant's specific 20 licensing basis must be maintained during the renewal 21 term in the same manner and to the same extent as 22 during the original term. In other words, the same 23 rules that apply under the current license will apply 24 in the renewal term. In addition, a renewed license 25 will include conditions that must be met to ensure NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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16 1 aging of structures and components important to safety 2 is adequately managed so that the plant's current 3 licensing basis is maintained during the period of 4 extended operation. Next slide.
5 Safety review focuses on the aging of 6 passive and long-lived structures and components and 7 systems that the NRC has deemed important to safety.
8 Components within the scope of license renewal are 9 defined in 10 CFR 54.4 and include safety-related 10 systems, structures and components, non-safety related 11 systems, structures and components whose failure could 12 prevent satisfactory accomplishment of safety-related 13 functions, and structure systems and components relied 14 on in safety analysis or plant evaluations to perform 15 a function that demonstrates compliance with 16 regulations for fire protection, environmental 17 qualification, pressurized thermal shock, anticipated 18 transient without scram and station blackout. Passive 19 components are components who perform function without 20 moving parts or change in configuration or properties.
21 Active components are generally excluded from the 22 scope of license renewal. Degradation is more readily 23 detected by existing surveillance and performance 24 condition monitoring for these active components.
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17 1 is to determine if the effects of aging will be 2 adequately managed by the applicant. The results of 3 the staff's review are documented in the Safety 4 Evaluation Report. Next slide.
5 The safety review comprises numerous 6 aspects. The technical staff reviews the application 7 and supporting documentation to determine the 8 applicant's methodology for identifying systems, 9 structures and components within the scope of license 10 renewal and subject to an aging management review.
11 Also determined if the methodology has been properly 12 implemented and to determine with reasonable assurance 13 that the effects of aging for certain systems, 14 structures and components will be adequately managed 15 or monitored by new and existing programs and 16 surveillance activities. The staff uses site visits 17 called audits to verify the technical basis of the 18 license renewal application and to confirm that the 19 applicant's aging management programs and activities 20 conform with how they are described in the license 21 renewal application. The staff documents the basis 22 and conclusion of its review in a Safety Evaluation 23 Report which is publicly available. In addition, a 24 team of specialized inspectors travel to the reactor 25 site to verify the aging management programs are being NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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18 1 implemented, modified or planned consistent with the 2 license renewal application. Finally, as I've 3 mentioned, the ACRS performs an independent review of 4 the license renewal application, the staff's SER and 5 inspection findings and makes a recommendation to the 6 Commission regarding the proposed action to issue a 7 renewed license. Next slide.
8 The next slide shows some milestones for 9 the review of the Limerick license renewal 10 application. As you can see today, September 22nd, 11 the Environmental Scoping Meeting. October 24th, the 12 opportunity to file hearing closes, and there's some 13 other dates as we progress through. And these are 14 pending any unforeseen circumstances related to the 15 review. All right, that concludes my portion of the 16 presentation. I'll turn it over to Lisa Regner.
17 MS. REGNER: Good evening. Thank you, 18 Rob. Good evening, thank you for coming out tonight.
19 I know it's hard to take a night out and listen to 20 government officials but we do want to keep you 21 informed of our process. My name's Lisa Regner. I'm 22 going to talk about the environmental review during 23 the Limerick license renewal review. I'd like to 24 explain to you briefly about this separate but equally 25 important review.
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19 1 This review is performed in accordance 2 with the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969, or 3 NEPA, as Rob mentioned already. NEPA established a 4 national policy for conducting -- considering 5 environmental impacts and provides the basic 6 architecture for federal environmental reviews. All 7 federal agencies must follow a systematic approach in 8 evaluating potential impacts for projects, for federal 9 projects, and also to assess alternatives to those 10 actions. By law the NEPA process involves public 11 participation and public disclosure.
12 NEPA established the U.S. Council on 13 Environmental Quality within the Executive Office of 14 the President and the Council on Environmental Quality 15 establishes policy for implementation of NEPA. The 16 NRC's environmental regulations contained in 10 CFR 17 Part 51 are largely based on those that CEQ developed.
18 Our environmental reviews consider the 19 impact of license renewal and any mitigation for those 20 impacts that we consider to be significant. We also 21 consider the impacts of alternatives to the license 22 renewal, including the impacts of not renewing the 23 license. The staff documents its environmental review 24 in an Environmental Impact Statement which is made 25 publicly available. Ultimately the purpose of the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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20 1 staff's environmental review is to determine whether 2 the environmental impacts of license renewal are 3 reasonable and in combination with the other reviews 4 that Rob mentioned, the safety, inspection and ACRS, 5 Advisory Committee for Reactor Safeguards review, we 6 take that information and make a recommendation to the 7 Commission whether to renew the license or not. Next 8 slide.
9 During the review, the NRC environmental 10 staff looks at a wide range of impacts. Additionally 11 we consult with -- and the impacts are listed up here 12 on this slide. We also consult with various federal, 13 state and local officials as well as leaders of Indian 14 nations. We gather pertinent information from these 15 sources and ensure it's considered in our analysis.
16 So some of the agencies that we consult with are U.S.
17 Fish and Wildlife Service, the Environmental 18 Protection Agency, the Pennsylvania Department of 19 Conservation and Natural Resources, the State Historic 20 Preservation Office, and again, displaced tribal 21 nations. Next slide.
22 The environmental review begins with a 23 scoping process which is an assessment of the specific 24 impacts and significant issues that the staff should 25 consider in preparing the Limerick Environmental NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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21 1 Impact Statement. Currently this is where we are in 2 the process and it's an important part of this meeting 3 as well. Information we gather from you today and in 4 the next few weeks will be considered and included in 5 the Environmental Impact Statement. We recognize that 6 some impacts are similar if not identical at all 7 plants so to improve efficiency the staff developed 8 what we call a Generic Environmental Impact Statement 9 and that addresses a number of impacts common to all 10 nuclear power plants.
11 So we then supplement that generic EIS 12 with a Site-Specific Environmental Impact Statement in 13 which we address issues that are specific to the 14 Limerick site. In addition, we also reexamine the 15 conclusions reached in the Generic Environmental 16 Impact Statement to determine if there's any new and 17 significant information that would change the 18 conclusions in the GEIS. Next page, please.
19 The scoping period started on October 26th 20 of this year when the Notice of Intent to Prepare an 21 EIS and Conduct Scoping was published in the Federal 22 Register. The NRC will accept comments from you, from 23 the public on the scope of the environmental review 24 until October 28th, 2011, this year. In general what 25 we're looking for is information about environmental NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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22 1 impacts from the continued operation of Limerick. You 2 can assist us in that process by telling us for 3 example what aspects of your local community we should 4 focus on, what local environmental, social and 5 economic issues the NRC should examine during our 6 environmental review, what other major projects are in 7 progress or planned in the area, and what reasonable 8 alternatives are most appropriate for this region.
9 These are just some of the examples of the input we're 10 looking for and they represent the kinds of 11 information that we seek through the environmental 12 scoping process. We don't know your community like 13 you do, we at headquarters, so your comments tonight 14 provide insight and ensure a thorough review. Next 15 slide.
16 So this kind of gives you an overview of 17 what goes into our decision. Public comments are an 18 important part of the environmental review process.
19 So how do we use your comments? All of your comments 20 to us, whether provided verbally during this meeting 21 or in a written letter, fax, email, delivered 22 personally to the NRC, as long as they're written they 23 are accepted and they are considered. We respond to 24 each comment as part of the Supplemental or plant-25 specific Environmental Impact Statement. The NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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23 1 Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement is one of 2 the factors as well as -he several other factors shown 3 here that influences the Commission's decision to 4 renew the license or not. Next slide.
5 In addition to providing verbal and 6 written comments at this meeting there are several 7 other ways that you can submit comments for our review 8 process, and there's no limit to the length of those 9 written comments. You can submit comments online 10 using the federal rulemaking website which is 11 regulations.gov. And up at the top of that website 12 you'll see a box where you can enter a keyword or ID.
13 If you type in the NRC-2011-0166 docket ID then it 14 will list, it should list up at the top Exelon 15 Generation Company Notice of Intent to Prepare an 16 Environmental Impact Statement and Conduct Scoping 17 Process for Limerick. Okay. And then on the right 18 side of the screen you'll see a link to submit a 19 comment. Okay, so that's one way at regulations.gov.
20 You can also fax your comments to the number here.
21 And it might be easier if you reference Limerick or 22 put the docket ID number when you fax your comments.
23 That way we know it's for Limerick. Okay, next slide.
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24 1 D.C. you can come to headquarters, NRC headquarters, 2 and submit written comments. And you're welcome to 3 give me a call and I can help you with that.
4 Actually, and you can, if you have any problems with 5 any of these submittal methods feel free to give me a 6 call and I can help you through that process. Okay?
7 And I did want to remind people that comments, we'd 8 like to have comments submitted by October 28th, 9 please. Next slide.
10 So here are environmental review 11 milestones. These are a little more specific to the 12 environmental review but I did list the hearing 13 opportunity because those are two dates that are 14 coming up. And this is not the only time that we will 15 have a public meeting. These two public meetings that 16 we have on scoping today are, one of the two major 17 public meetings that we will have, the next one will 18 be once the staff has prepared a draft Supplemental 19 Environmental Impact Statement for Limerick. We will 20 issue that publicly and then again we welcome public 21 comments on that draft SEIS. And right now that's 22 tentatively scheduled for either late August or early 23 September 2012, so next summer, early fall. Okay.
24 And again, we will have two meetings. Next slide.
25 So this is our contact information. Rob NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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25 1 and I are the primary points of contact within the NRC 2 for license renewal issues for Limerick. Okay.
3 Again, Rob is safety and I am environmental. Next 4 slide, please. Now, if you don't have a computer and 5 would like to view the license renewal application 6 there are -- we've placed hard copies at the two 7 libraries listed here. Pottstown Regional Public 8 Library and Royersford Free Public Library both have 9 the application available in hard copy. Also if you 10 do have a computer and want your own personal copy I 11 do have some disks in the back and you're welcome to 12 take those. The draft SEIS will also be available at 13 these libraries when it's published for comment.
14 They'll also be on the NRC website at the address 15 shown here on the slide. As you came in you were 16 asked to fill out a registration card at our reception 17 table. If you include your email address we'll sign 18 you up for the Limerick listserv which will provide 19 any NRC documents associated with Limerick, but if you 20 put your address on the card we will send you a hard 21 copy of the Environmental Impact Statement. This 22 concludes my presentation. I'd like to open the floor 23 up for questions.
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26 1 regarding this presentation? Yes, sir.
2 MALE PARTICIPANT: Did you say in the back 3 of the room there's a disk -- there are disks with the 4 licensee application and submission? What's that?
5 FACILITATOR BARKLEY: Yes, so we'll be 6 glad to give you a copy of that. The entire 7 application is on that disk. With that I'd like to 8 move to our -- sorry. Yes, sir.
9 MALE PARTICIPANT: Are copies of these 10 slides available?
11 MS. REGNER: They will be, yes. Copies of 12 the slides will be available in our agency-wide 13 document management system. And I can either give you 14 that number, if you want to see me after the 15 presentation I can give you that number or you can 16 email me and I'd be happy to send you a copy.
17 FACILITATOR BARKLEY: Is there another 18 question? Okay. With that what I'd like to do is 19 call the first speaker.
20 MS. REGNER: Are we going to do Mr.
21 Saporito?
22 FACILITATOR BARKLEY: Yes. This meeting 23 is open to members of the public and some of the 24 members of the public are not in this local area. We 25 did have one request for a gentleman to attend this NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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27 1 meeting via conference bridge. And due to the 2 arrangements of the audio in this room it wasn't 3 possible to do it any other way than a cell phone. So 4 we're going to go to him and ask him to make a 5 statement for the period and move from there. So our 6 first speaker will be Mr. Thomas Saporito who is a 7 senior consulting associate and he actually lives in 8 Florida. So as soon as we can work having him on the 9 microphone we will have him make his statement. Are 10 we free to give it a try?
11 MS. REGNER: Go ahead. Yes. Go ahead, 12 Mr. Saporito.
13 MR. SAPORITO: Is it my turn to speak?
14 MS. REGNER: Yes.
15 MR. SAPORITO: Okay. Can you hear me 16 okay?
17 FACILITATOR BARKLEY: As best we can, yes.
18 MS. REGNER: Yes, go ahead.
19 MR. SAPORITO: All right. My name is 20 Thomas Saporito. I'm the senior consultant with 21 Saprodani Associates and I'm located in Jupiter, 22 Florida. I would like to comment on the NRC's 23 environmental review but before I do that I want to 24 state that, you know, I'm very upset at the NRC's 25 refusal to honor my enforcement petition filed under NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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28 1 10 CFR 2.206 with respect to the Limerick nuclear 2 plant. The NRC denied that petition on the basis that 3 I would have an opportunity to intervene on this 4 proceeding through the NRC's judicial process.
5 However, that's not available to me. I made that 6 quite clear in the 2206 petition. Now, I don't have 7 standing as a United States citizen because of my 8 physical location in Jupiter to intervene in a 9 proceeding in Pennsylvania where this plant is 10 located. The NRC staff is incorrect in their opinion 11 and they have a legal obligation to honor that 12 enforcement petition and to provide an opportunity for 13 me to address the Petition Review Board. So I want to 14 put that on the record and I'm asking the NRC to look 15 into that issue.
16 With respect to this environmental 17 petition the fellow who spoke earlier from the NRC, I 18 don't recall his name. It was very hard for me to 19 hear through this communication his name. But anyway, 20 one of his comments was exceptionally incorrect and he 21 misinformed the public. And I'd like to correct that 22 statement. He stated that the NRC is extending the 23 original operating license which was granted by the 24 NRC for a 40-year period of time that that initial 40-25 year license was not based on safety considerations or NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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29 1 technical considerations. But that's absolutely not 2 true and there was recently a year-long investigative 3 report done by the Associated Press who interviewed 4 expert nuclear personnel, engineers, safety engineers 5 in the nuclear industry who told them that the 40-year 6 licenses issued by the NRC for 104 nuclear plants in 7 the United States was based on safety and technical --
8 safety technical analysis. So these proceedings, 9 these license extension proceedings like the one we're 10 currently at are a rubber-stamping of these 20-year 11 license extensions. This is in fact a foot race 12 between the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the 13 United States Congress where Congress wants to stop 14 this process, put a moratorium on the re-licensing 15 until the Fukushima disasters can be fully understood 16 and the enhancement enacted in August for our power 17 plants here. This particular nuclear plant, these 18 plants, you know, their license is already good till 19 2024. Why are we here now 12 years ahead of time 20 trying to extend this license? And the only reason is 21 because it's a foot race the NRC's in with Congress 22 and nothing more. This has nothing to do with 23 protecting public health and safety, it's the NRC's 24 zeal to continue to rubber-stamp these license 25 extensions without allowing citizens due process like NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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30 1 I already talked about and without doing a cost-2 intense and thorough environmental review.
3 And with respect to the NRC's 4 environmental review the NRC in my view failed to 5 properly consider the embrittlement of this nuclear 6 reactor vessel. When these nuclear reactors are 7 operating the neutrons cause the metal in the reactor 8 vessel to become brittle over time. And after 9 numerous years of operation these reactor vessels 10 could crack because they're so brittle. But the NRC 11 doesn't properly evaluate that and the NRC doesn't 12 require the licensee to do destructive testing and 13 analysis of the reactor's metal vessel prior to 14 rubber-stamping a 20-year extension to these licenses.
15 Twenty years from now, oh actually 20 years from 2024 16 which will be 2044 this reactor is going to be even 17 more critically brittle and the NRC's not going to 18 understand the dynamics of that and the reactor could 19 crack and it's going to melt down because you can't 20 recover from a loss of coolant accident of that 21 magnitude. So that's one point.
22 The other point is the NRC's Commission 23 over there in Rockville, in the White Flint Building, 24 they recently adopted a new policy with respect to 25 evacuations. They want these licensees to update NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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31 1 their evacuation plans. Now, I would hope that the 2 NRC staff has made that requirement to the Limerick 3 licensee so that the people near and around within 15 4 miles of the nuclear plant can properly and timely 5 evacuate the area. Again, the Associated Press's 6 investigation, year-long investigation shows that the 7 populations around these nuclear plants increased 8 tenfold over the years and that the roads and the 9 congestion, you can't timely evacuate these areas.
10 And the NRC keeps pushing these evacuation plans onto 11 the licensee but the NRC doesn't enforce its 12 regulation or properly review if these plans are even 13 effective.
14 The NRC is required under the law in this 15 review, the environmental review to consider renewable 16 energy sources, alternatives. And that means need.
17 Is there really a need for these two nuclear plants to 18 operate and the answer is no. Simply stated if all 19 the customers who receive power from these nuclear 20 plants were to simply remove their hot water heaters 21 and replace them with on-demand electric water heaters 22 you would reduce the electric base load demand by 50 23 to 70 percent. You wouldn't need either one of those 24 nuclear power plants to operate. If you take that 25 further and introduce other energy conservation you NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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32 1 would actually have the licensee shut down more of 2 their other power plants because of you would need a 3 demand. If you take wind energy which is plentiful up 4 there in Pennsylvania and even the new solar panel 5 which can operate when the sun isn't shining on a 6 cloudy day you could replace even more operating power 7 plants. So these renewable energy sources even with 8 respect to wind energy since you have a common grid 9 throughout the United States you can have wind farms 10 generate power to a common grid point and supplying 11 the power that these nuclear plants are now providing.
12 The NRC's required under the law to consider these 13 alternatives to extending this license. And I would 14 hope that the NRC's final evaluation and review shows 15 a complete and thorough analysis of all these 16 renewable energy sources including installing on-17 demand hot water electric heater and doing an analysis 18 of how many megawatts you're going to take off the 19 grid and based on those evaluations make a licensing 20 determination whether or not this license should be 21 extended. Because 20 years from now all these 22 renewable resources are going to be all that much more 23 advanced and capable of supplying all that much more 24 power than they're currently supplying. So those are 25 my comments and I would hope that the NRC takes them NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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33 1 seriously and applies them to this license renewal.
2 And I hope everybody heard me.
3 (Applause) 4 MS. REGNER: Can you hear that? They're 5 clapping.
6 FACILITATOR BARKLEY: Okay, at this point 7 I'll call back Mr. Saporito later and thank him for 8 his remarks and for being succinct in his remarks.
9 It's awfully awkward to provide comments via this 10 avenue.
11 The first three people I would like to 12 call are actually individuals who did not speak this 13 afternoon so I'd like to start with them. Firstly, 14 Jeff Chumnuk, then Daniel Ludewig, and then finally 15 Catherine Allison. So Jeff, if you could lead off.
16 MR. CHUMNUK: Hi, my name is Jeff Chumnuk 17 and I'm a member of Borough Council with Pottstown 18 Borough. And my comments tonight are more I guess 19 from my perspective as a newly elected official with 20 the generating station. About a year ago I had the 21 opportunity to go down to the generating station and 22 meet with Joe Saffron and the first part of my meeting 23 had to do with looking for some support for the 24 Pottstown Soapbox Derby. Through some conversation 25 while we were standing outside you know Joe NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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34 1 enlightened me a little bit on what Exelon and the 2 generating station do for the surrounding communities, 3 whether it's supporting our firefighters, police 4 departments and other civic organizations. You know, 5 from a Pottstown perspective they help us with our 6 yearly borough cleanup, our Salvation Army and now the 7 Soapbox Derby. Thank you.
8 And we were standing outside that day, it 9 was pretty nice out, and our conversation led to the 10 power plant itself. We were standing there looking 11 around, it's a pretty impressive sight. So I asked 12 him about, you know, possibly having a tour for 13 municipal officials. He said he would look into it 14 and see what he could do. A couple of months later he 15 got a group of about 20 of us and gave us a tour of 16 the plant one evening. And I have to say that from 17 the time we walked through the front gates and past 18 the security as our tour progressed, you know, 19 throughout the plant safety was paramount. Whether 20 you were having explained what the different colors 21 are on the different panels and what they mean to 22 different failsafes, why you walk certain areas 23 certain ways and what lines you had to stand behind, 24 you know, safety was paramount with them. You know, 25 from the environment, I'm looking around and this NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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35 1 place is spotless. And I asked why and it's because 2 they can't afford to have dirt or lint or fuzz balls 3 around because of static electricity because it could 4 create issues. So from that aspect I thought it was a 5 good tour and it made me feel good about the safety 6 aspects there.
7 To finish our tour we ended up in the 8 control room upstairs. And I'd say maybe a dozen or 9 so individuals up there monitoring you know everything 10 going on within the plant and around the plant. And 11 again, explaining the failsafes and why they're 12 double-, triple-checked to eliminate human error. It 13 was just very impressive and as an elected official to 14 go down and take a tour of the plant and understand 15 how it operates. I know when I left I personally know 16 how to issue a concern with the generating station. I 17 know I felt a lot better and a lot safer going home 18 that night. And it was also good to realize, you 19 know, as one of our region's largest employers now 20 that they are willing to give back to the community 21 and keep safety first. So thank you, I just wanted to 22 make those comments.
23 (Applause) 24 FACILITATOR BARKLEY: Thank you, Jeff.
25 Daniel?
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36 1 MR. LUDEWIG: I'm Dan Ludewig. Just two 2 questions. One would be what are we going to do with 3 the 20 years of spent rods and how are you going to 4 take care of those. And secondly, if we don't get the 5 license which I doubt but what would -- how would we 6 get electric if the license were canceled? I don't 7 know who answers this.
8 FACILITATOR BARKLEY: I'll ask Lisa to 9 speak.
10 MS. REGNER: Yes, the spent fuel rods.
11 Limerick is licensed for an individual spent fuel pool 12 facility. They offload the spent fuel. Once they've 13 cooled to a certain level they will put those into dry 14 cask storage and store those onsite. In the 15 environmental review that's looked at generically.
16 Limerick does have storage for the spent fuel rods.
17 That's an ongoing, it's onsite and part of their 18 reactor oversight process as well. So the residents 19 that work at the plant monitor the safe operation of 20 those facilities.
21 The second question, where would the power 22 come from if Limerick were shut down? There are 23 alternate power facilities in the area. Dave, you 24 want to give that a try?
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37 1 chief in the Division of License Renewal with the 2 Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The choice of what 3 electricity is used is not the Nuclear Regulatory, 4 it's not under our purview. As Rob and Lisa had on 5 their slides our mission is to protect the public 6 health and the safety from the commercial use of 7 nuclear power. So if the decision is to have a 8 nuclear power plant then the Nuclear Regulatory 9 Commission is here to ensure the public health and 10 safety of that plant. But we don't get involved with 11 the decisions of exactly what type of power plant will 12 be used to power, put electricity on the grid.
13 In terms of the spent fuel, spent fuel is 14 an issue that we will address in our Environmental 15 Impact Statement. So when -- we're still developing 16 that report. We're very early in the stages of that.
17 When it's published you'll be able to see our 18 analysis on spent fuel and we'll be back in 2013 --
19 2012, sorry, to receive comments on that report.
20 FACILITATOR BARKLEY: Okay, thank you.
21 Catherine? Catherine, our longest speaker today was 22 Mr. Cuthbert, eight minutes. I will not interrupt you 23 before eight minutes.
24 MS. ALLISON: I appreciate that. He was 25 very concise and he had some great information for us.
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38 1 Can everyone hear me in the back row? I am Catherine 2 Allison and I was born and raised in this area so as 3 far as the NRC wanting to know how this impacts the 4 area I know it very well. I've also traveled the 5 world so, Europe, et cetera. So did anyone not be 6 able to hear me, just raise your hand. You're good?
7 Okay.
8 One thing I wanted to say is the NRC 9 tonight is doing a scoping basically for environmental 10 purposes for the re-licensing. What I wanted to say 11 is for years everyone, I'm being general here, but 12 most people have been talking about the effects of 13 like, you know, cancer, you know, the impact on the 14 clean air, clean water which things we are all 15 concerned about and a lot of us just didn't do 16 anything about it even though we were very concerned.
17 Now lately with the -- unfortunately it's 18 a reality now that we have hurricanes, more tornadoes, 19 tsunamis throughout the world. And I hate to say it 20 but it is a reality now that we have terrorist attacks 21 and Limerick is definitely one. I don't want to be 22 blowing this out of proportion but it's just something 23 that I know that we've all been concerned about, not 24 wanting to say yes, Limerick, and all the people that 25 built the power plant and the company say oh, there's NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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39 1 no impact to the air and the water pollution and so 2 forth. So we've kind of just blinded our, you know, 3 selves to that and let's believe then, okay, let's 4 take a minute. Let's really believe that there is no 5 impact in our clean air, clean water and those type of 6 things and cancer, et cetera. Let's just go into the 7 new reality which is terrorist attacks which would 8 happen. Let's just say for example there was human 9 error there with the spent fuel rods and something 10 happened, or a radiation leak. I just drove tonight 11 from King of Prussia. Talk about evacuation when 12 these natural disasters and realities hit us. One 13 accident, two hour backup, almost no exaggeration, one 14 thousand cars. There will be no evacuation. I don't 15 want to be like scare tactics here but like I said, 16 the weather and so forth, natural disasters has really 17 been hitting the whole United States and the world 18 lately so it's a reality.
19 There was flooding after the hurricane 20 that we just had. Five days later there was roads 21 closed in Pottstown, in North Coventry, East Coventry.
22 There were, when I tried to get home from work right 23 on Route 724, no exaggeration again from all the back 24 roads about 500 cars. There will be no evacuation and 25 I certainly hope that people understand I'm not trying NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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40 1 to be scare tactics. I see this. I'm sure a lot of 2 you have seen this and been in these situations. All 3 with a little bit of flooding. What this does to the 4 roads. Again, there will be no evacuation.
5 So from day one I think power plants never 6 should have been built but now that they are here why 7 would we ever want to re-license. And as our 8 gentleman caller just said, I believe his name was 9 Thomas, he was very eloquent. He was stating the fact 10 why are we re-licensing them, what, 12 years ahead of 11 time. To me that is absurd. Like maybe a year before 12 or they have to do some studies, two years before.
13 Why do they want us, and I love Thomas's words, 14 rubber-stamp something? Twelve years beforehand to go 15 into what, 2024 for Unit 1 was it and 2029 for Unit 2?
16 Why do they need to push this licensing renewal?
17 You've got to stop and think. People, go home, think 18 about that. I'm not an expert like evidently our 19 caller Thomas was but again, I'm concerned about human 20 life. This is what I have at the top here. We are 21 talking about human life. What's more important, not 22 all this electricity that we need for all our cell 23 phones and everything. In a way we are responsible 24 for the fact that PECO and all these other Exelon 25 companies are building power plants. I myself you NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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41 1 know am guilty of a lot of this but let's just maybe 2 for a solution besides the wind and solar power and 3 everything stop using all this new technology. Yes, 4 you need it for some jobs and businesses, it's good 5 for certain things, but let's not overindulge where we 6 need so much electricity that we are willing to risk 7 our lives. Cancer, polluted water. There's no 8 drinking water anymore. People have to pay to buy 9 water that comes from natural springs. But you're 10 using plastic bottles, you can't even trust that.
11 But this whole world has kind of just 12 changed from you know nature. Let's get back to 13 nature, let the -- instead of having all the young 14 teenagers on their cell phones texting, using more 15 electricity, that again it's going to cause cancer for 16 them. Everybody has to stop and think why do we need 17 the power plants? We really don't and again, Thomas, 18 our wonderful caller mentioned some alternatives like 19 the solar power, wind, but I'm just saying we are 20 using so much electricity and stupid little video 21 games on the computers. People get on the computers 22 for hours at a time doing nonsense. That's taking up 23 electricity where again why do you need all this 24 electricity? It could be causing cancer in your 25 children. I am not that old but I'm not that young, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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42 1 but I hate to tell you I have so many friends and 2 coworkers and people that are only 35, 40, 50 years 3 old, cancer. And why? We have to stop and think. Go 4 home, don't just always, you know, just go watch TV 5 and get on your computer. Stop and think what we're 6 doing to ourselves, our bodies, our children, our 7 grandchildren.
8 This is again, this licensing renewal is 9 coming down to human lives, the quality of our lives.
10 Again, why all this cancer? Microwaves and 11 electricity. So I won't go on and on, but I just 12 think us as a group can't just all be just complaining 13 about the power companies, we are the ones using the 14 electricity. That's all I'm saying. Maybe we should 15 cut back and we won't need power plants. Thank you.
16 (Applause) 17 FACILITATOR BARKLEY: Thank you, 18 Catherine. The next three people I'd like to call 19 would be Jeffrey Norton of the P. Energy Alliance, 20 then Bill Maguire and then finally Lorraine Ruppe.
21 Mr. Norton?
22 MR. NORTON: Good evening. My name is 23 Jeffrey Norton and I'm here to represent the 24 Pennsylvania Energy Alliance which is an independent 25 grassroots diverse organization made up of community NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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43 1 leaders and organizations who promote nuclear power as 2 a clean, safe, reliable and affordable source of 3 power. I'm going to be making essentially five points 4 in support of license renewal for Limerick Generating 5 Stations and they are that, number one, nuclear energy 6 lowers electricity prices, it protects our environment 7 against greenhouse gases, it strengthens our local 8 economies and it is safe.
9 With regard to my first point in lowering 10 electricity prices the Limerick Generating Station has 11 reduced wholesale energy costs in Pennsylvania by $880 12 million in 2010 thus lowering electricity prices for 13 all consumers. It operates around the clock thereby 14 stabilizing the nation's electricity distribution 15 system and the electricity marketplace. The average 16 electricity production costs at nuclear plants have 17 actually declined more than 30 percent in the past 10 18 years due to various efficiencies. Nuclear power is 19 cheaper to produce than other forms of electricity 20 generation such as coal and natural gas, and helps 21 moderate the price of electricity for consumers.
22 My next point is that Limerick Generating 23 Station and nuclear plants strengthen our local 24 economies and it is a valuable economic driver for the 25 Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Limerick Generating NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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44 1 Station contributes $113 million annually in direct 2 economic contributions to the Pennsylvania economy 3 through various employee wages and salaries, purchase 4 of goods and services from other Pennsylvania 5 businesses and in property tax payments to the local 6 governments. Limerick Generating Station also 7 contributes generously as we've also heard and in fact 8 in 2010 contributed $600,000 to various community 9 organizations. Limerick has over 800 full-time 10 employees and employs more than 1,000 skilled 11 temporary contract employees during annual refueling 12 outages. A significant percentage of the current 13 nuclear plant workforce will reach retirement age in 14 the next 10 years creating a demand for high-paying 15 jobs in the nuclear industry. Yes, Limerick 16 Generating Station is one of Pennsylvania's most 17 valuable economic and energy assets and the 18 commonwealth should embrace it.
19 My third point is that nuclear energy 20 protects our environment from greenhouse gases and 21 reduces the need to generate electricity from fossil 22 fuels. If Limerick Generating Station were retired 23 from service replacing the electricity would require 24 increased natural gas-fired or coal-fired generation.
25 Nuclear energy is the nation's largest source of NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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45 1 carbon-free electricity and is critical to our 2 nation's environmental, security and energy goals.
3 My next point is that nuclear energy is 4 safe. It's always on, it's stable, it's a reliable 5 source of electricity and the station here at Limerick 6 has been built with multiple redundant safety layers.
7 And the workforce is committed to best practices and 8 continuous improvement. It is also important for our 9 nation's quest to be energy-independent. According to 10 the Bureau of Labor Statistics it's safer to work at a 11 nuclear plant than in industries such as 12 manufacturing, real estate and finance. And according 13 to the Department of Energy a person receives more 14 radiation exposure flying from Baltimore to Los 15 Angeles than by standing near a nuclear plant 24 hours2.777778e-4 days <br />0.00667 hours <br />3.968254e-5 weeks <br />9.132e-6 months <br /> 16 for a year.
17 On a personal note I've been inside 18 Limerick Generating Station several times. I've also 19 lived within 30 miles with my four boys and wife next 20 to the Limerick Generating Station and also Three Mile 21 Island. I feel safe, secure and comfortable. That is 22 why I'm in support of the re-licensing of the Limerick 23 Generating Station. Thank you very much.
24 (Applause) 25 FACILITATOR BARKLEY: Thank you. Mr.
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46 1 Maguire?
2 MR. MAGUIRE: Good evening. My name is 3 Bill Maguire and I'm the site vice president at 4 Limerick Generating Station and I have overall 5 responsibility for the safe and reliable operation of 6 the facility. A little bit about my background. I've 7 got 25 years of experience in the nuclear industry 8 starting my career at Limerick station as an engineer.
9 I went on to receive a license to be a senior reactor 10 operator at the plant and was involved in the direct 11 supervision of the operators of the plant and was the 12 on-shift manager of the facility for many years. I've 13 worked at a few other nuclear facilities around the 14 country in capacities such as operations director, 15 maintenance director, plant manager and was recently 16 the site vice president at the Peach Bottom Atomic 17 Power Station before coming back to Limerick station 18 in May of 2010.
19 Operating Limerick Generating Station 20 safely and reliably is a key responsibility for all of 21 the employees at Limerick Generating Station, one that 22 the folks at the station take very seriously as a 23 personal commitment to themselves and to the industry 24 and to the community at large. An important part of a 25 thriving community is safe and reliable electricity, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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47 1 and Limerick has been a part of that key aspect of a 2 thriving community for the last 25 years. And as we 3 look at the growing demand for energy, safe and clean 4 energy in the future for Pennsylvania and for our 5 nation Limerick is a key component of that future.
6 And we have petitioned the NRC through the license 7 renewal process to extend our operating license for an 8 additional 20 years.
9 The U.S. nuclear industry consists of 104 10 nuclear reactors and those 104 reactors provide 11 approximately 20 percent of the U.S. electrical 12 supply. And that's been a pretty steady number over 13 the years. Even though there haven't been a lot of 14 new nuclear plants brought onto the grid in those 15 years the plants continue to run more and more 16 efficiently, keeping up with the growing demand for 17 electricity. Seventy percent, or excuse me, 18 approximately 70 of the 104 reactors have already been 19 through the license renewal process and have received 20 approval for a license renewal.
21 Limerick Generating Station operates in a 22 manner that preserves the environment. We perform 23 over 1,700 tests per year that look at the water, air, 24 fish, land, cow's milk, vegetation and the like to 25 ensure that we are not adversely impacting the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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48 1 environment. We also maintain a chain of radiation 2 monitors around the plant to make sure that we do not 3 have an adverse impact from the operation of the 4 facility.
5 In 2005 the environmental management 6 systems at Limerick Generating Station received 7 certification under the strict criteria of the 8 International Organization for Standardization (ISO).
9 This is a common industry recognition and the 10 certification that we received credit for is ISO 11 14001. And this is an internationally recognized 12 benchmark for environmental management. And the ISO 13 14001 certification requires a commitment to 14 excellence not only in meeting our regulatory 15 requirements but also in the prevention of pollution 16 and to ensure continuous improvement in our 17 environmental systems.
18 In 2010 the Wildlife Habitat Council 19 recognized Limerick Generating Station's commitment to 20 environmental stewardship by awarding us the Wildlife 21 at Work certification. And this distinction was 22 awarded for our commitment towards establishing long-23 term wildlife habitat enhancements that maintain food, 24 water, cover and space for animal species that are 25 living in the power station's landscape.
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49 1 To ensure Limerick continues to operate 2 safely for years to come Exelon continues to invest in 3 Limerick. Since 2010 over $200 million of investment 4 has been made into new safety systems and the 5 reliability of our electric generation components.
6 And since 2001 over $40 million have been invested in 7 our security systems.
8 Our investment in the future doesn't stop 9 with investment in equipment. We've hired over 100 10 new employees in the last three years and we maintain 11 a steady-state workforce of approximately 850 12 employees. And during our annual maintenance and 13 refueling outages that population grows temporarily 14 for about a month by another 1,500 to 2,000 employees, 15 bringing a boost to the local economy.
16 Over the past 25 years Limerick has been 17 one of the best performing and most reliable plants in 18 the nuclear power industry. During that time the 19 plant has set several records for continuous days of 20 operation and has been recognized by the industry for 21 our reliable performance. In March 2010 Limerick 22 completed a successful run of 727 continuous days on 23 our Unit 1 plant and this represented the second 24 longest continuous run for a boiling water reactor in 25 the United States. While we do not set out to break NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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50 1 records, continuous operations are one indicator of 2 the excellent human performance and equipment 3 reliability that Limerick strives for every day.
4 We also take pride in our investments in 5 the community. In 2010 Limerick Generating Station 6 donated more than $600,000 in the community in 7 contributions to the United Way, fire and ambulance 8 companies, educational, health and youth 9 organizations, and many of our employees serve as 10 volunteers in the local community and around the 11 plant. In conclusion, Limerick Generating Station 12 looks forward to working with the Nuclear Regulatory 13 Commission in the review of our license renewal 14 application. And we thank you for this opportunity to 15 address the public this evening. Thank you.
16 (Applause) 17 FACILITATOR BARKLEY: Thank you.
18 Lorraine?
19 MS. RUPPE: Hi, my name is Lorraine Ruppe.
20 Thanks for letting me talk again this evening. I am 21 speaking here tonight to represent the children and 22 future generations, especially in our community.
23 Residents here are fearful about the possibility of 24 disasters here in light of Fukushima in March 2011 and 25 since the earthquake and Hurricane Irene in August NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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51 1 2011 affecting our area. Climate changes, et cetera, 2 are causing disasters everywhere and continuing to get 3 worse. Increasing floods, droughts, earthquakes, 4 tornadoes have made us all feel insecure making 5 nuclear power increasingly risky, especially with the 6 Limerick plant basically in our backyards. Any 7 earthquake that comes through this area could be a 8 possible Fukushima, Chernobyl or Three Mile Island.
9 Four months had passed since the NRC failed to get 10 back to me when I asked how close the Ramapo fault 11 line is to the Limerick nuclear reactors. I was told 12 today earlier to call Andrew Rosenbaum so I will 13 hopefully receive that information.
14 Indian Point nuke plant was sketched as a 15 possible terrorist target in reference to the 9/11 16 attacks. A suspected terrorist worked at Limerick for 17 years without the industry knowing it. How scary is 18 that?
19 The Pacific Ocean is now severely 20 irradiated by Fukushima. Radiation impacts of 21 Fukushima equaled over 20 Hiroshima bombs when I last 22 researched. Our drinking and bathing water here is 23 being continuously polluted by Limerick every day, 24 24/7, for years with radiation and unfiltered toxic 25 contaminated mine water thanks to the NRC and Exelon.
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52 1 This is disgusting. Most of us have to depend on 2 this water, especially for bathing. Some of us pay 3 extra for water filtration or drink bottled water 4 because we are afraid to drink from the Schuylkill and 5 because it tastes really bad now. Imagine how toxic 6 it would be 18-plus years from now even if there is 7 any water left.
8 There has been increased particulate 9 matter in the air and other toxics from Limerick 10 causing increased asthma, heart attacks and strokes.
11 And to add insult to injury Limerick was granted a 12 permit to allow an eightfold increase in air pollution 13 since 2009. Cancer rates in our area have skyrocketed 14 since Limerick has been up and running in the '80s and 15 rates have steadily increased. The Tooth Fairy 16 Project showed high levels of strontium-90, a 17 radionuclide, in the baby teeth of children living 18 nearest to the nuclear plants. Baby teeth near 19 Limerick plant had the highest levels in the whole 20 United States. So all this stuff and God knows what 21 else is in our bodies now thanks to the Nuclear 22 Regulatory Commission that, to put it nicely, is less 23 than enthusiastic about protecting us.
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53 1 than nuclear power along with being clean and safe.
2 The Department of Energy 2006 report stated that solar 3 alone could provide 55 times our entire nation's 4 energy needs which leads me to the point: there have 5 been numerous studies proving the many dangerous and 6 deadly consequences of nuclear power. There is no 7 denying the massive devastation it has already caused 8 and will continue to cause indefinitely. But the 9 industry still goes on in their trance-like 10 indifferent fashion as if everything is safe and 11 wonderful and will continue to be 18-plus years from 12 now on until 2049 for our community.
13 This is what really scares us the most.
14 This is beyond unethical behavior from the industry.
15 The NRC has turned into a culture of secrecy, hiding 16 the dangers and sweeping the problems under the rug.
17 The industry's addiction to money and power have 18 blinded them to moral life and death issues and facts 19 set right in front of their faces. But my big 20 question of the day is why is Exelon applying for an 21 extension 18 years ahead of time. Thank you.
22 (Applause) 23 FACILITATOR BARKLEY: Okay, thank you. We 24 have had seven people speak and we have six more who 25 signed up for the remainder of the evening. The next NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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54 1 three people I'll call are Donna Cuthbert, followed by 2 Mike Gallagher and then followed by Dr. Fred Winter.
3 Okay, Donna.
4 MS. CUTHBERT: You know, after hearing 5 some of these gentlemen speak tonight I feel like I'm 6 living in fantasy land. For somebody to get up here 7 and actually say that there's no adverse impacts from 8 Limerick nuclear power plant is insanity. It is 9 unbelievable. I have spent the last 11 years 10 reviewing permits from Limerick nuclear power plant.
11 They are a major air polluter under the Clean Air Act 12 and to say they're not doing it anymore, they just 13 asked for the conditions that would allow an eightfold 14 increase in dangerous air pollution that actually is 15 claimed to kill people, thousands of deaths per year.
16 And they asked for an eightfold increase.
17 As a matter of fact, these are all the air 18 pollution sources and the pollutants they list in 19 their own permit. If you add that to all the 20 radiation emissions there's a broad range of 21 radionuclides. For somebody to just claim that it's 22 only tritium going into the water is insanity. It's 23 unbelievable what they expect people to believe. I 24 encourage everybody to go back to the table we have 25 and take a good look at that Schuylkill River board.
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55 1 They are destroying the Schuylkill River. There was 2 never enough water in the Schuylkill River to sustain 3 this nuclear plant from the very beginning and now 4 we're seeing the consequences of that and they put 5 more and more pollution in it. They want to pump mine 6 water in to supplement the flow for Limerick. It's 7 contaminated and they don't filter it. And they're 8 actually asking for a huge, four times Safe Drinking 9 Water standard increase in total dissolved solids 10 which carry a lot of toxic pollutants. So they put 11 radiation into the river 24 hours2.777778e-4 days <br />0.00667 hours <br />3.968254e-5 weeks <br />9.132e-6 months <br /> a day, 365 days a 12 year, and now they're asking for these huge increases 13 and people have the nerve to get up here and say that 14 they have no environmental impacts. Frankly I've had 15 enough of this deception at the expense of public 16 health. I am sick of it.
17 The facts show, when we looked at Exelon's 18 thing for environmental harms they say they were clean 19 energy. The facts show Limerick isn't clean, it is 20 filthy. It's not safe, it's a ticking time bomb. And 21 nuclear power, they say it's always on. That's not 22 true either as evidenced by shutdowns, some for long 23 periods caused by earthquakes, tornadoes, hurricanes, 24 fires, heat and drought and more. It clearly isn't 25 always on in Japan. So when you take all of this NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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56 1 together and you look at all the ways that they 2 pollute our environment with radiation and all the 3 other toxics, every day Limerick operates our children 4 face more risk. And that's what it's all about. It's 5 about the health of our region.
6 The sooner this place closes the better 7 off we'll all be. Even if you look at infant 8 mortality rates we have higher infant mortality rates 9 and neonatal mortality rates far above state averages 10 and even above Philadelphia and Reading, and we've had 11 these for quite awhile. The fact is when babies are 12 the most vulnerable in the womb what else would we 13 expect? And by the way, for those of you who have 14 been saying that ACE data is anecdotal today I have 15 news for you. This infant mortality report for 16 example is state data reported by EPA in 2003. Every 17 cancer statistic that you see back there is based on 18 Pennsylvania Cancer Registry statistics or CDC 19 statistics. So it is not anecdotal, those are the 20 cancer increases, those are the cancer above the 21 national average that have happened here since 22 Limerick started operating. That is a fact.
23 So it's not anecdotal and the fact of the 24 matter is I thought this was about the environment but 25 apparently it's about money. So I decided that NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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57 1 between the sessions I was going to change things 2 around a little bit. I could talk about the 3 environmental impacts of this place for a whole week 4 it's so bad. And I've got all the documents in our 5 office to prove it. Let's talk about, let's take a 6 minute now though and we're going to talk about the 7 cost. What is this place actually costing us? Let's 8 just think about cancer for example. We have so many 9 cancers above the national average. Childhood cancer, 10 92.5 percent higher than the national average. Think 11 about that. We track the cost of one child with 12 cancer diagnosed at six months to two years and up 13 until that time it was $2.2 million. How many more 14 kids have that above the national average? Cost that 15 out and how many other cancers are above the national 16 average? You do the math. Figure that out.
17 How about the customers that paid -- I 18 hear them talk about how great the costs are for 19 Limerick. We paid for Limerick from 1985 to 2010 in 20 our electric bills. And in fact the electric that was 21 supposed to be too cheap to meter turned out to be 55 22 percent above the national average by 1997. So that's 23 how cheap Limerick electric is.
24 Then you take the property taxes. They 25 tried to get zero for their property taxes by the end NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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58 1 of the '90s and didn't pay any property taxes until 2 the early 2000s at which time they paid $3 million 3 instead of the $17 million they were supposed to pay.
4 So when you think about that no wonder Exelon's 5 willing to throw around a couple million in the 6 community. They owe this community a lot more than 7 what they're giving out.
8 (Applause) 9 MS. RUPPE: So then there's the cost for 10 the pollution they're putting in the river. They're 11 asking for increases in pollution. They want to put 12 more mine water in. They want to increase the total 13 dissolved salts. That's going to cost water treatment 14 systems a lot of money to try to -- for extra 15 treatment for that. It can even break down their 16 equipment, some of the stuff that's coming out of the 17 mines. And when you think about it who actually 18 ultimately pays that cost? We do. We pay for 19 increased costs for our water because they're having 20 to do that at the water treatment systems. And it 21 seems to me that if you really take a good look at 22 things Limerick has got to be the major cause for the 23 radiation in Philadelphia's water.
24 So all in all taken as a whole this place 25 has unprecedented environmental harms. There is no NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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59 1 question about that. Anybody that doesn't believe it 2 come look at the permits with me and I'll show you 3 exactly what's going on. I invite anybody to do that.
4 And the one thing that's really important 5 is that NRC and the nuclear industry are claiming that 6 age is no issue while at the same time they admit that 7 some parts are too big and too expensive to replace.
8 I frankly am really concerned about NRC accommodating 9 the nuclear industry with weakened regulations, lax 10 enforcement, negligence and unsubstantiated denials.
11 It's happened right here even with their fire safety 12 regulations that are -- we're on weakened fire safety 13 regulations even though we know that that can 14 eventually lead to a meltdown. I know my time's up.
15 Thank you.
16 (Applause) 17 FACILITATOR BARKLEY: Thank you, Donna.
18 Mike?
19 MR. GALLAGHER: Okay, good evening. My 20 name's Mike Gallagher and I'm vice president of 21 license renewal for Exelon. I have the overall 22 responsibility for the Limerick license renewal 23 application. Exelon has a great deal of experience in 24 license renewal. We've obtained renewed licenses for 25 the Peach Bottom and TMI plants in Pennsylvania, also NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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60 1 our Oyster Creek plant in New Jersey and our Dresden 2 and Quad Cities plants in Illinois. Just briefly 3 about myself, I've been working in the nuclear power 4 industry for 30 years. I was a licensed senior on a 5 reactor operator at Limerick and also the plant 6 manager at Limerick previously. I've worked at two 7 other nuclear facilities and in our corporate offices.
8 So Mr. Maguire, the site vice president of 9 Limerick, spoke about the reasons for renewing the 10 license for Limerick. I'd like to speak to you 11 briefly about the process that we took for preparing 12 this license renewal application and the amount of 13 work and engineering analysis that we put into 14 preparing the application.
15 So because the Limerick Generating Station 16 can be operated safely and reliably Exelon decided to 17 pursue license renewal. So Limerick is a very clean 18 energy source. It produces no greenhouse gases.
19 Limerick is also good for the economy in that it 20 lowers market prices of electricity for the citizens 21 of Pennsylvania to the tune of $880 million per year.
22 So in 2009 we announced our intention to 23 seek license renewal. Later that year we started the 24 work necessary to prepare the application. After over 25 two years of work we submitted the application to the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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61 1 Nuclear Regulatory Commission on June 22nd, 2011. The 2 application when you print it out is about 2,100 pages 3 and when you put it in binders it's three large 4 binders. That's a huge amount of information but that 5 only represents a small part of the work that was done 6 for the engineering analysis to prepare this 7 application. The total amount of engineering analysis 8 that we produced if printed out would be about 290 9 binders of information. We invested over 60,000 man 10 hours1.157407e-4 days <br />0.00278 hours <br />1.653439e-5 weeks <br />3.805e-6 months <br /> of engineering work to prepare the application.
11 Once completed our engineering work to 12 prepare the application we brought in experts from 13 outside Exelon to review the application to ensure 14 that it was complete, thorough and accurate. Our 15 total cost to prepare the application and get it 16 reviewed by the NRC will be about $30 million.
17 So there are two parts of this 18 application. It's the safety review and the 19 environmental review. For the safety review we took 20 an in-depth look at the history and the condition of 21 the safety-related equipment in the plant. We did 22 that to determine whether the necessary maintenance 23 was being performed on that equipment and to make sure 24 that this equipment will be able to operate an 25 additional 20 years of operation.
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62 1 So when you look back at Limerick when it 2 was built all the equipment was new. It was 3 thoroughly tested to make sure it performed properly 4 but like anything else equipment does age. That 5 doesn't mean it won't work but it does age and certain 6 activities need to be done with that equipment so we 7 perform preventative maintenance. We refurbish 8 equipment. We replace equipment. There's 9 modifications done to upgrade the equipment in the 10 plant. And in fact, as Mr. Maguire had stated 11 Limerick has spent over $200 million in the last two 12 years to improve and modernize equipment and enhance 13 plant operations and safety.
14 We also reviewed the calculations that 15 were performed as part of the original design basis of 16 the plant that were done to ensure that the plant 17 could operate for 40 years safely. We analyzed those 18 calculations and were able to confirm that the plant 19 would be able to operate safely for up to 60 years.
20 So overall our conclusion from our engineering review 21 was that Limerick could operate safely for up to 60 22 years.
23 We also took a look at the environmental 24 impacts of continuing to operate Limerick. We looked 25 at all aspects of continued impact of the plant on the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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63 1 environment. Our conclusion is that the impact on the 2 environment are small and I use the term "small" in 3 the sense that's in the regulation. The regulation 4 defines "small" as the environmental effects are not 5 detectable or are minor. We also reviewed the 6 alternatives if Limerick would not have its license 7 reviewed and another source of electric generation 8 would have to be installed either onsite or someplace 9 to generate the replacement electricity. We concluded 10 that any other means of generation, the replacement 11 electricity would have more of an impact on the 12 environment than the continued operation of Limerick.
13 So for example, if Limerick could be replaced by a 14 wind generation facility the wind farm would have to 15 occupy between 10 and 40 percent of all the land in 16 the state of Delaware and its associated land impacts.
17 If a solar facility could replace Limerick it would 18 need to cover 32 to 50 percent of the entire land area 19 of Montgomery County.
20 So in conclusion we operate Limerick 21 safely and can continue to operate safely for an 22 additional 20 years. Limerick will provide 23 approximately 2,340 megawatts of base load electric 24 generation that's not only safe but clean, reliable 25 and economical. Continued operation of Limerick will NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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64 1 benefit this community, the Commonwealth of 2 Pennsylvania, and our nation. Thank you.
3 (Applause) 4 FACILITATOR BARKLEY: Thank you. Go 5 ahead, Fred.
6 DR. WINTER: Thanks. That's fine. Good 7 evening, folks. As a physician practicing radiology 8 for over 50 years I still have a strong concern about 9 cancer sensitivities from harmful radiation exposures.
10 Now my medical colleagues are sharing the same 11 concerns because we have seen our cancer rates 12 increase since the Limerick power plant started as 13 Donna was saying.
14 Now especially the Pennsylvania thyroid 15 cancer rates are the highest in the United States, 16 according to the National Centers for Disease Control, 17 jumping to 78 percent higher here than in the national 18 average everywhere. Now, some of my friends have 19 argued with me and they say Fred, the reason why we're 20 having so many more cancers is because people are 21 getting so much older. Well, I don't think that makes 22 sense because there are other areas like Pottstown 23 around with the same healthy environment that don't 24 have nearly this high cancer rate. So that doesn't 25 make sense.
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65 1 Now, you wonder why some of our medical 2 and cancer fundraisers haven't reacted with more 3 responsibility in order to stop what's happening.
4 Yes, we are creating our own kind of terrorism. It's 5 the same, almost a form of terrorism by allowing all 6 these harmful exposures to exist. Now, I attended in 7 Japan a Hiroshima clinic right after World War II when 8 I was in the service. Excuse me. I have to sit down?
9 Oh. Anyway, when I was in the service at this 10 Hiroshima clinic after the atom bomb hit and you can 11 just imagine what I saw and what awful memories I 12 have, particularly of little kids that were going to 13 die any day and so many people injured. Anyway, it 14 left me with very sad memories. Now I can't help but 15 worry about our kids who are actually more vulnerable 16 than adults. And of course what is happening here 17 will be taking a lot much longer to happen than what I 18 saw but it sure is not good.
19 Besides harmful power plant exposures we 20 have environmental disasters and a concern about our 21 nearby earthquake fault and others in the eastern U.S.
22 And then there are radioactive spent fuel materials 23 that somebody mentioned sitting around but supposedly 24 protected.
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66 1 in the rest of the world. Everywhere nuclear power is 2 being used. Now I don't know whether -- by the way, I 3 should remind you that there are some scientists who 4 are predicting that it may take a little while, maybe 5 a hundred years, but they're predicting that mankind 6 will be completely destroyed by the effects of nuclear 7 energy. That's saying a lot, I know.
8 So please ask your reliable politicians to 9 close the Limerick power plant. Let's save America 10 for our kids and our descendants if this ever happens.
11 So I hope you will take my concerns seriously. And 12 thank you for listening.
13 (Applause) 14 FACILITATOR BARKLEY: Thank you, Dr.
15 Winter. We have four individuals who would like to 16 speak before the meeting is over with so let me call 17 all four in this order. Dan Ely to start off, then 18 Jim Beckerman, then Dr. Lewis Cuthbert, and then 19 finally Jim Derr. So Dan, are you still here?
20 MR. ELY: Thank you, Rich. It's 21 pronounced Dan Ely. I'm a resident of Limerick. We 22 are pigs. We are energy pigs. Nuclear power is a 23 great resource for us. It is particularly clean and 24 in this day and age of understanding about carbon 25 dioxide and the effect on our environment it's a very NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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67 1 important part of what we should consider. When I 2 went away to college to study physics I realized, 3 well, maybe I should be in nuclear engineering and get 4 into this sea. And I'd look at my elementary physics 5 book, elementary particle physics book and it looks 6 like hieroglyphics to me today.
7 I worked at Limerick nuclear power plant 8 and I worked for Bechtel Power Corporation in building 9 that plant. And I worked in quality assurance.
10 Quality assurance has been my life. It's very 11 important to understand that in the design of a 12 nuclear power plant there are criteria that are used, 13 particularly any engineer who has studied properly 14 knows failure mode effects analysis has to be done to 15 evaluate what possible effects come out of an incident 16 at any design, whether it's an automobile design or 17 any other design. And I have to ask because I read 18 most recently that the earthquake that occurred with 19 an epicenter in Virginia, the closest nuclear power 20 plant I understood actually took a Richter reading 21 that was higher than what the design criteria for the 22 failure mode effects analysis would have predicted.
23 It withstood that. I don't know, Bill, do you know 24 that? Did you understand that, that that was a 25 published fact?
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68 1 FACILITATOR BARKLEY: We have an 2 inspection ongoing at that point right now regarding 3 the North Anna facility. So yes, it did experience an 4 earthquake beyond its original design. So far the 5 inspections have revealed no -- minimal damage. I've 6 only heard of one piece of equipment that experienced 7 even visible signs of problems. But the overall 8 analysis, this is continuing and the licensee has to 9 have permission from us to restart after an extensive 10 inspection.
11 MR. ELY: My concern is that this hastened 12 license renewal process is inappropriate for 13 engineering reasons. I worked in a variety of 14 different areas in the construction of that power 15 plant and there were continual deviations that were 16 provided, whether it was in-storage maintenance 17 monitoring of the condition of the components that 18 were used to the actual construction of that plant. I 19 could cite you several examples.
20 What I would like to ask of the public is 21 that the people that had worked at that nuclear power 22 plant take a look at this licensing renewal and 23 understand that they need to review those failures and 24 those deviations that were provided to go ahead with 25 the construction of that plant with non-conformances NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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69 1 that were reviewed, but not reviewed in light of what 2 we understand and know today about earthquakes or 3 other anomalies. We need to have enough time to make 4 the evaluation on those deviations. The cooling 5 pools. The fuel pool girders that are placed there.
6 There are rebar concrete reinforced supports where a 7 quality engineer, he was supposed to be accepting the 8 very highest grade of concrete to be placed in a 36-9 hour pour there and he didn't pay attention. And the 10 cofferdam was being built down in the river and up 11 comes this sand mix with a very low strength and gets 12 pumped up into those fuel pool girders in a layer and 13 the engineer said well, boy, that was a terrible 14 mistake, but it'll be okay. We need to go back and 15 take a look at all of those mistakes and make sure 16 that they're not written off because a layer in a 17 structure under load caused by an earthquake, that's 18 an issue. It might not be an issue for the strength 19 of the fuel pool girders to support those fuel pools 20 that when we see them in Japan and they catch fire 21 because they're extremely hot and you need to address 22 that. I was on that pour but I wasn't the engineer 23 that made that error, but there's a number of errors 24 that were made. And I don't see or understand that 25 the NRC or the review or the licensing application is NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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70 1 taking a look at those failures and those errors and 2 addressing them in light of the knowledge that we have 3 today.
4 Some people don't understand about 5 radiation and I read when the Japanese thing occurred 6 and I heard on the news a radiologist talking about 7 oh, the radiation is such a low amount. It really 8 isn't the low amount of radiation exposure that we get 9 incidentally in standing next to a nuclear power 10 plant. It's three ten-thousandths of a gram of 11 plutonium that is death for you if you breathe that 12 dust particle. It's almost certain death. And the 13 problem becomes you can't have -- and it's not going 14 to be a nuclear bomb. It's going to catch on fire if 15 the fuel pool girders were to fail and you'll have a 16 cloud of a material that in and of itself you might 17 not have radiation exposure to it but that particle 18 when it deposits itself can be an issue much the same 19 as fluoride is what causes thyroid cancer when it's a 20 radioactive fluoride. That's why we're very careful 21 in building a plant with no Teflon and no fluoride 22 components.
23 So we need to pay attention to some of 24 that engineering and I'm not certain that that's being 25 done. I'd like to see an agency or for somebody to NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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71 1 contact me if they know about a variety of different 2 flaws that they saw during the construction. And my 3 email address is asqchair@yahoo.com. Yes, I will be 4 the chair of the Philadelphia section of the American 5 Society for Quality coming up and I've been past chair 6 in the past so yes, I'm very quality-oriented and I'd 7 appreciate any feedback from people that have issues 8 with that construction. Thank you.
9 (Applause) 10 FACILITATOR BARKLEY: Okay. Thank you, 11 Dan. Jim Beckerman?
12 MR. BECKERMAN: Good evening. My name is 13 Jay Beckerman. I'm a resident of Phoenixville. I 14 found out about this meeting because I scan a lot of 15 newspaper websites. I found the notice of the meeting 16 on the West Chester Daily Local website. Didn't find 17 it in the Phoenixville paper, didn't see it in the 18 Philadelphia newspaper, didn't hear about it on any of 19 the local radio stations, didn't hear about it on 20 cable, didn't hear about it on any of the television.
21 Once a month, what is it the first Tuesday 22 about 2:00 I hear the siren that we all hear. What 23 should happen in terms of people getting notice is 24 everybody who's within the plume area should something 25 happen at Limerick should find out about this meeting NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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72 1 and I seriously doubt that that actually happened. I 2 think it was pure accident that I found it. Something 3 as serious as license renewal should get the same kind 4 of outreach that occurs when Limerick does what it 5 should which is to mail out every year or two to all 6 of the possibly affected homes the maps and the 7 notifications of how do you evacuate. If you're going 8 to renew a plant which happens once every 20 years I 9 don't understand why the NRC doesn't require the same 10 kind of outreach public notification so people get a 11 chance to come to one-time meetings like this. I 12 think that is a basic flaw in the NRC's licensing and 13 re-licensing procedure and I think it should address 14 that.
15 The slide behind me documents exactly two 16 libraries that the documents are going to go in. Why 17 not in my library in Phoenixville? Why not in 18 Montgomery County and Norristown and all of the other 19 public libraries that are in areas that can be 20 affected by the plume should something happen here?
21 Why are the documents in such a restricted area?
22 I'd like to switch a little bit. I've 23 been researching, I didn't even know about this ACE 24 organization. Glad to find it. I've been researching 25 on my own information about nuclear power plants and NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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73 1 their risks for quite awhile. An organization I ran 2 across published this book titled Insurmountable 3 Risks. The organization is called the Institute for 4 Energy and Environmental Research. It's an amazingly 5 well-researched book. I doubt very many people have 6 read it but you should. This organization is at least 7 as interested in alternative energy sources as it is 8 in having put the effort in to document what are the 9 problems with nuclear power engineering-wise. The man 10 who's head of this organization is a nuclear 11 scientist, a guy named Arjun Makhijani. He's a PhD 12 nuclear scientist. These are first-class researchers, 13 this is PhD-level stuff written for popular 14 consumption. So I'll be glad to make more detail 15 about the book available to anybody who wants to know.
16 A few questions I have, one that I've been 17 thinking about for a long time. I wonder how many 18 people here are aware of something called the Price 19 Anderson Nuclear Industries Indemnity Act. Who knows 20 about that? The title alone should give you some 21 pause. Why do we need a nuclear industries indemnity 22 act? What does it do? What it does is it puts a 23 ceiling of a few hundred million dollars on the 24 liability that nuclear power plant owners have for the 25 damage their plants would cause. It's basically a NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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74 1 scheme, they pay into a pool. The problem is that 2 ceiling was set a very long time ago. It's totally 3 unrealistic in terms of the risk in just the value of 4 houses in areas that are covered by a plant like this.
5 When this plant was planned the population in the 6 area that its plume would cover probably wasn't 20 7 percent of what the population is now. That is I 8 think a valid environmental concern. The environment 9 in which this plant operates has changed because of 10 in-migration, population increase for all sorts of 11 reasons. Part of that's been discussed tonight in 12 terms of evacuation routes, would you be able to get 13 people out were there an accident. The roads haven't 14 changed very much, the population has. That I think 15 is a valid environmental concern that surely ought to 16 be addressed.
17 The question I ask about the money 18 liability is -- let's just go back to the Price 19 Anderson Act. The fact is that the nuclear industry 20 does not pay market rates for insurance to cover it 21 for the liabilities. This congressional act from way 22 back in the 1960s eliminates that need. Back then the 23 insurance industry didn't have the research to put a 24 price on what should the Limericks of the world have 25 to pay for a liability policy. I think there's plenty NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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75 1 of insurance industry experience now. So my question 2 would be if nuclear plants are so safe why do we need 3 the Price Anderson Act?
4 (Applause) 5 MR. BECKERMAN: I listened, I'm going to 6 switch subjects again. I listened to Mr. Gallagher 7 and I heard something I really didn't expect to hear.
8 He said that their studies said that this plant is 9 now safe to run for 60 years. That sounds to me like 10 advanced notice to the public that this isn't the 11 first renewal they're going to ask for on this plant.
12 Mr. Gallagher, are you going to ask for another one 13 20 years from now?
14 FACILITATOR BARKLEY: We haven't had any 15 licensee at this point in time ask for something 16 beyond that.
17 MR. BECKERMAN: You didn't make the 18 statement. Mr. Gallagher did.
19 FACILITATOR BARKLEY: I know and I'm not 20 going to have him address this from the audience.
21 This is a meeting with us.
22 MR. BECKERMAN: And I would like to 23 finally address an issue that the speaker on the cell 24 phone brought up. He talked about embrittlement of 25 concrete over the lifetime so far of the nuclear NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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76 1 reactor containment vessel. That's an internal 2 environmental matter. I don't know if it's quite in 3 the scope of what the NRC plans to talk about or plans 4 to look at, but something that I have not read about 5 at all is an NRC requirement for destructive testing.
6 For instance, if you want to know what a tree looks 7 like on the inside you put a borehole in it and you 8 pull a core sample out and you find out what that tree 9 looks like on the inside. If an engineer wants to 10 know what is the quality of the concrete that was 11 poured for a road -- I used to work for Florida 12 Department of Transportation -- they bore out a sample 13 and then you take a look at it. What I haven't heard 14 anything about except generalizations is has anybody 15 done any destructive even borehole testing of these 16 containment vessels and their support pourings to find 17 out has there been in fact any deterioration of the 18 concrete, the rebar and anything else that went in 19 there. The stuff that's buried in the concrete, the 20 wire, all of those things that are buried in the 21 concrete. If you haven't bothered to open that stuff 22 up since the plant was built how on earth do you know 23 what condition it's in? Shouldn't that be a 24 requirement to do some destructive, open the bottom 25 testing, go all the way through and make sure what you NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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77 1 think is there is what's there and in the condition 2 that it should be in to last for another 20 or 40 3 years? So these are questions that I'd like the NRC 4 to go into. I thank you very much for listening.
5 Overall it's been a very informative presentation by 6 both the proponents and people who have questions and 7 I thank you for the opportunity. I would like to see 8 a meeting like this occur at a bigger venue with more 9 notice. An example would be, as I've discussed with 10 Ms. Regner is it?
11 FACILITATOR BARKLEY: Regner, yes.
12 MR. BECKERMAN: I didn't have her name 13 correct. The Philadelphia Expo Center would be more 14 central to where the plume area for this plant is.
15 It's right off 422. This is not hard to get to, 16 that's not hard to get to. It's much more in the 17 center of the population. Thank you very much.
18 (Applause) 19 FACILITATOR BARKLEY: Okay, thank you.
20 Mr. Cuthbert? Again, following Mr. Cuthbert's remarks 21 it'll be Jim Derr to wrap up the evening.
22 DR. CUTHBERT: Good evening. My name is 23 Dr. Lewis Cuthbert. I'm the president of ACE, the 24 Alliance for a Clean Environment. And my comments 25 this evening are going to differ from this afternoon NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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78 1 because they're going to be focusing on as a general 2 topic documented evidence. We've heard a lot of 3 assertions, assumptions and claims throughout the day 4 many of which would be very difficult to substantiate 5 in our experience. Based on an 11-year investigation 6 conducted by the Alliance for a Clean Environment we 7 have formed a conclusion that we are presenting to the 8 Nuclear Regulatory Commission today and that is very 9 simply that Limerick nuclear power plant must be 10 closed by the NRC, not re-licensed until 2049. And 11 that's based on a substantial body of evidence in 12 terms of documented environmental harms, threats and 13 risks that have in fact gotten into our air, our 14 water, our soil, our food, our milk and our children.
15 The evidence is not refutable.
16 So I'll be presenting as part of my 17 remarks tonight what I'm calling a short list of 14 18 reasons why the NRC may feel free to with more than 19 adequate justification deny this permit. And I'm 20 going to categorize each of them very briefly without 21 any further description or analysis. The evidence 22 comes from a variety of permits, official records and 23 reports, and Exelon's own renewal application which is 24 sizable by their own admission and in our experience 25 in taking a look at it.
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79 1 The 14 items any of which in our judgment 2 should be adequate and sufficient to deny this permit 3 renewal include, number 1, radiation into air and 4 water from routine and accidental emissions. Number 5 2, major air pollution under health-based standards of 6 the Clean Air Act. A Title 5 permit being issued to 7 this facility means by definition that they are a 8 major air polluter under the federal Clean Air Act.
9 Number 3, Schuylkill River depletion and major 10 drinking water contamination. Keep in mind this is a 11 vital drinking water source for nearly 2 million 12 people from here to Philadelphia. Number 4, 13 radioactive groundwater contamination. Number 5, 14 radiation reporting levels increased dramatically 15 after the Fukushima Japan disaster. Number 6, 16 documented alarming cancer increases especially in our 17 children since Limerick started operating. Number 7, 18 deadly high-level radioactive wastes that are packed 19 in vulnerable fuel pools on this site and they are in 20 fact unprotected. They are above ground and 21 unprotected. Number 8, lax fire safety regulations 22 and multiple violations. Number 9, accidents and 23 leaks from corroding, deteriorating equipment plus 24 miles of buried pipes and cables. Many problems and 25 shutdowns have already occurred at this facility in NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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80 1 its first 26 years of operation. They are a matter of 2 record. Number 10, increased risk of meltdowns from 3 more frequent and stronger earthquakes and other 4 natural disasters such as tornadoes and floods, not to 5 mention mechanical failures. Number 11, threats from 6 unguarded terrorist attacks with planes and missiles 7 and a new threat, cyber attacks. Fuel pool are 8 vulnerable to attack.
9 Number 12, one that I think probably 10 should jump to the head of the list for the NRC based 11 on a lot of comments from a lot of other analysts and 12 elected officials, the need for an updated evacuation 13 plan and increased EPZ, a 10-mile radius. This plan 14 is seriously outdated. It is by many expert's 15 observations fatally flawed. There will be no 16 evacuation in the event of a worst case scenario.
17 Several people spoke to that this evening. The 18 population in this area has increased more than 180 19 percent since 1980 to 2010, U.S. Census data. Updates 20 are obviously needed and they should be reasonable, 21 comprehensive, detailed and accommodate all of the 22 demographics from 1985 to today and from today until 23 as far out as the NRC is willing to license this 24 facility.
25 Number 13, increased cost to the public.
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81 1 We've heard a little bit about this this evening, more 2 cancers, more illnesses, more emergency room visits, 3 more hospitalization from increased PM-10. Massive 4 research on what particulate matter in terms of PM-10 5 does to human beings. And there are a few other 6 things that contribute to those visits. The costs are 7 astronomical. One case that Donna mentioned, $2.2 8 million for a childhood cancer case. You do the math.
9 And number 14, the last item on my list.
10 We have had 26 years of insults to our environment, 11 and I choose that word purposely, insults to our 12 environment and costly nuclear power. We can replace 13 it with safe, clean, renewable energy before 2029.
14 That is a matter of scientific fact.
15 It is a scientific certainty that harms, 16 threats and risks to our environment and to our 17 community will increase continuously daily until 18 Limerick's current operating licenses expire in 2029.
19 It would be both unethical and irresponsible for the 20 NRC to cavalierly approve a license renewal without 21 the most rigorous review and justification in the 22 history of this agency. NRC, you have a rare 23 opportunity before you that most people and agencies 24 never are afforded. It's called a do-over, a chance 25 to correct a litany of mistakes and errors associated NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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82 1 with this facility and with your agency since 1985.
2 Twentieth century technology and infrastructure are no 3 longer sufficiently reliable for any of you to assure 4 us that there is nothing to fear and nothing about 5 which to be concerned. Denial of documented evidence 6 is no longer an option. We'll be submitting 7 additional packets of research documentation and 8 evidence tonight along with my comments which will 9 compliment what I did earlier today. The major 10 categories that you'll be getting for additional 11 reading and review, meltdown threats, evacuation 12 plans, Exelon's inaccurate and unsubstantiated claims 13 and a criticism of the NRC's oversight track record in 14 this community. Thank you very much and please accept 15 this for review.
16 (Applause) 17 FACILITATOR BARKLEY: Okay, thank you, I 18 will. Thank you. Mr. Derr?
19 MR. DERR: Good evening. I thought I 20 would add some comments just to make sure my 21 understanding is that this is essentially the NRC's 22 opportunity of listening for things specifically to be 23 included in the environmental site review of the re-24 licensing. And just a few things which are question 25 marks that lots of folks in the community I think will NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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83 1 be interested in. Most of these have been touched on.
2 Mine water issue, better defining that 3 quality and flow particularly in light of the likely 4 pending changes in stormwater concerns and regulations 5 in the area. Adding that flow to the Schuylkill is 6 going to affect all the municipalities around here who 7 have to deal with stormwater.
8 The emergency planning is an area which 9 needs to be seriously looked at. Hard and soft 10 infrastructure on that. Hopefully that's something 11 which is part of the ongoing operational requirements 12 for periodic review and update since obviously this is 13 not a static environment we live in. That has to be 14 changed on an ongoing basis. And then to -- I'm sure 15 that the generic plan includes a pretty good 16 discussion of fuel storage long-term and short-term 17 onsite but certainly the site-specific fuel storage 18 considerations. And I want to second the comments by 19 Mr. Ely of review of records of non-conformances and 20 anything that was done is part of the initial 21 construction record. And basically that's -- those 22 are the things that we're going to be looking for a 23 better understanding of. Thank you.
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84 1 request for an individual to speak. She promises 2 she'll only be two minutes so we'll have her up and 3 then we'll wrap up the meeting. Thank you.
4 MS. CONFER: Hi, my name is Traci Confer.
5 I'm with Energy Justice Network. We support clean 6 energy which we do not believe nuclear is. I would 7 like to put our name behind all of Buzz Cuthbert's 8 comments and I want to add that I want the NRC to look 9 into potential water depletion issues from shale gas 10 fracking upriver in both rivers. I also think that it 11 would be very prudent to put a lot of attention on 12 terrorist attacks on the fuel pools. And those are my 13 primary comments. Thank you for your time.
14 (Applause) 15 FACILITATOR BARKLEY: Okay, thank you.
16 With that I'd like to have Lisa Regner come up for a 17 minute and give closing remarks.
18 MS. REGNER: I just wanted to real quickly 19 thank our senior resident inspector who came out 20 tonight out of the goodness of her heart. She does 21 not get paid for this. Jo, would you mind standing 22 up?
23 (Applause) 24 MS. REGNER: Thank you. This is one of 25 the NRC inspectors who works at the plant day in and NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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85 1 day out. She's onsite, she watches these guys like a 2 hawk and she's there to help keep you all safe. So 3 thank you for coming out tonight, Jo. If you would 4 also pass on my thanks to Nicole as well who was here 5 at the 2:00 session. She's also a resident inspector 6 who lives in the community and works at the plant 7 every day. Are there other regional people here that 8 wouldn't mind standing up? Anybody I missed? Oh, 9 Nancy McNamara is in the back. She is our state 10 liaison officer. Thank you for coming out, Nancy.
11 Anybody else? Thank you again to everyone for coming 12 out tonight, taking time away from your families to 13 provide environmental comments and look for the 14 Environmental Impact Statement where we'll address 15 your comments. Anything else? Anybody else? Rich, 16 thank you.
17 MR. ELY: One question. You're saying the 18 --
19 MS. REGNER: License renewal application?
20 Yes, sir.
21 MR. ELY: Is that the final version?
22 MS. REGNER: Right. Right. There are 23 additional on the reviewer copies there's some 24 additional data that is -- some of it's publicly 25 available, some of it's not publicly available. But NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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86 1 and there are all kinds of drawings that the reviewers 2 use to look at those systems that are appropriate for 3 license renewal. There's a lot of extra information 4 that the public really didn't need, okay? But if 5 there is -- well, if there's -- okay. All right, yes, 6 I hear what you're saying. I'm sorry. You know, that 7 I didn't think you'd be interested in, can I put it 8 that way?
9 MR. ELY: The general public might not 10 have -- it might not be for them to see. Perhaps some 11 of them, it might not be -- for them to understand. I 12 don't know. But I wouldn't say that --
13 MS. REGNER: If you want me to go into 14 details of the other material that's on the disk 15 that's for the reviewers I'd be happy to go over that.
16 And if it's publicly available I'd be happy to send 17 it to you. Okay? And you have my email and phone 18 number, right? Okay. I've got the card for you.
19 Anything else?
20 FACILITATOR BARKLEY: Okay, with that I 21 very much appreciate your patience. We actually had 22 15 total speakers tonight, the same number we had this 23 afternoon. I tried to give everyone a fair chance to 24 speak their full mind so that's why we ran a little 25 long but hopefully that was considered fair to all NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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87 1 members of the audience. So with that I'd like to 2 wrap up this meeting. Thanks very much.
3 (Applause) 4 (Whereupon, the foregoing matter went off 5 the record at 9:14 p.m.)
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Limerick Generating Station License Renewal Process and Environmental Scoping Meeting September 22, 2011
Meeting Ground Rules Rich Barkley, PE, Nuclear & Environmental Engineer Meeting Facilitator Please sign up on a blue speaker card if youd like to speak To be fair, the amount of time allotted will be limited and based on the number of speakers who sign up I will call three speakers at a time to allow adequate time to prepare and to get to the microphone The speakers initially called will alternate between elected officials and members of the public 2
Meeting Ground Rules Please silence all cell phones!
Please speak clearly into the microphone, your remarks are being transcribed Please do not interrupt the speaker or speak when not at the microphone Written comments are welcome during and after this meeting - please give them to Lisa Regner Please see me if you have questions or concerns regarding the conduct of this meeting 3
Purpose of Todays Meeting Provide overview of license renewal review process Safety review Environmental review Receive public input on environmental review 4
NRC Regulatory Oversight NRCs Governing Statutes
- Atomic Energy Act
- National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA)
NRCs Mission
- Protect Public Health and Safety
- Promote Common Defense and Security
- Protect Environment 5
Limerick License Renewal License renewal application received on June 22, 2011 Unit 1 - license expires October 26, 2024 Unit 2 - license expires June 22, 2029 6
Docketing and Sufficiency of Application Acceptance/Sufficiency review Review contents of application Technical information Technical Specifications Environmental Report Docket 7
Ongoing Regulatory Oversight Current Safety Performance http://www.nrc.gov/NRR/OVERSIGHT/ASSESS/index.html Emergency Planning Security 8
NRC Response to Fukushima The NRCs response to Fukushima is as a current operating issue Increased inspections at operating facilities NRC Near-Term Task Force issued its report on July 12 Continued operations and continued licensing activities do not pose an imminent risk to public health and safety Staff paper on prioritization of task force recommendations due October 3 More information:
http://www.nrc.gov/japan/japan-info.html 9
License Renewal Process Safety Review by Review ACRS License Renewal NRC Renewal Application Hearings*
Decision submitted to NRC Environmental Consultation Review and Comment
- If a Request for Hearing is Granted 10
License Renewal Safety Principles The ongoing regulatory process is adequate to ensure the safety of all currently operating plants The same plant operating rules apply during the renewal term
- NRC applies additional conditions for aging management 11
Safety Review Focus Safety review focus is on the effects of aging on:
- Safetyrelated systems, structures, and components (SSCs)
- Nonsafety-related SSCs which, if they failed, could affect safetyrelated SSC functions
- SSCs relied upon for compliance with regulations for:
- Fire protection
- Environmental qualification
- Pressurized thermal shock
- Anticipated transients without scram
- Station blackout Safety review is to determine if aging effects will be effectively managed 12
Safety Review Process Technical review by NRC staff
- Review application and supporting documentation
- On-site audits
- Issue Safety Evaluation Report On-site inspections by NRC staff Independent review by the Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards 13
Safety Review Milestones (tentative)
Application Received June 22, 2011 Notice of Opportunity for Hearing August 24 Notice of Intent for Scoping August 26 Environmental Scoping Meeting September 22 Hearing Opportunity Closes October 24 Scoping Comments Due October 28 SER with Open Items July 2012 ACRS Subcommittee Meeting September 2012 Final SER Issued January 2013 ACRS Full Committee Meeting February 2013 Commission Decision (without hearing) April 2013 14
Environmental Review (10 CFR Part 51)
National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA)
- Informs Federal decision making
- Public disclosure of environmental impacts and other considerations NRCs Environmental Regulations 10 CFR Part 51 Staff prepares an Environmental Impact Statement 15
Environmental Impact Statement Staff Evaluates Impacts to Resources EIS
- Fish and Wildlife
- Water and Air Resources
- Historical or Cultural Resources
- Taxes, Community State Seal Development, Environmental Justice
- Human Health
- Land Use 16
Environmental Review (10 CFR Part 51)
Scoping Process Generic Environmental Impact Statement http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/nuregs/staff/sr1437/
Site-specific Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement New and significant information on generic conclusions reached in the GEIS 17
Scoping and Public Involvement What is unique about your community?
What local environmental issues should the NRC examine?
What reasonable alternatives are appropriate for the area?
18
Role of Public Comments Environmental Review Public Comments on Environmental Review Safety Evaluation SEIS Advisory Committee on Report Reactor Safeguards Independent Review Regional Inspections License Hearing*
Renewal License Renewal Decision *If a Request for Application Hearing is Granted 19
How to Submit Comments on the Environmental Review Online using the Federal Rulemaking Web Site:
At http://www.regulations.gov Enter Keyword or ID: NRC-2011-0166 By fax (reference Limerick license renewal):
RADB at 301-492-3446 Comments must be submitted by October 28 20
How to Submit Comments on the Environmental Review By mail (please reference Limerick license renewal):
Ms. Cindy Bladey Chief, Rules, Announcements, and Directives Branch Office of Administration, Mail stop: TWB-05-B01M US Nuclear Regulatory Commission Washington, DC 20555-0001 In person at NRC Headquarters Comments must be submitted by October 28 21
Environmental Review Milestones Application Received June 22, 2011 Notice of Opportunity for Hearing August 24 Notice of Intent for Scoping August 26 Environmental Scoping Meeting September 22 Hearing Opportunity Closes October 24 Scoping Comments Due October 28 Draft SEIS Issued August 2012 Draft SEIS Public Meeting September 2012 Draft SEIS Comments Due October 2012 Final SEIS Issued February 2013 22
Project Manager Information Lisa Regner (800) 368-5642 ext. 1906 Lisa.Regner@nrc.gov Robert Kuntz (800) 368-5642 ext. 3733 Robert.Kuntz@nrc.gov 23
Where to view documents Documents located at:
- Pottstown Regional Pubic Library 500 East High Street Pottstown, PA 19464-5656
- Royersford Free Public Library 200 South 4th Avenue Royersford, PA 19468-2548 Documents can be viewed on the NRCs Web site:
www.nrc.gov/reactors/operating/licensing/renewal/applications.html 24
Limerick Generating Station License Renewal Environmental Scoping Comments
Links to Relevant Information Limerick License Renewal Website:
http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/operating/licensing/renewal/applications/limerick.html License Renewal Fact Sheet: http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/fs-reactor-license-renewal.pdf Information on the NRCs license renewal process can be found at:
http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/operating/licensing/renewal.html NRC Response To Japan Accident: http://www.nrc.gov/japan/japan-info.html Japan Task Force Report: http://pbadupws.nrc.gov/docs/ML1118/ML111861807.pdf Emergency Preparedness Fact Sheet: http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/fs-emerg-plan-prep-nuc-power.pdf Seismic Issues for Nuclear Power Plants Fact Sheet: http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/fs-seismic-issues.pdf Nuclear Insurance and Disaster Relief Funds Fact Sheet: http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/funds-fs.pdf To subscribe to all outgoing public correspondence on Limerick Generating Station (and other operating reactors), go to: http://www.nrc.gov/public-involve/listserver/plants-by-region.html
- Enter your name and email address
- Check the box for Limerick in Region I (and any other plants you are interested in)
- Hit Subscribe, at the bottom of the page Links to Relevant Information Limerick License Renewal Website:
http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/operating/licensing/renewal/applications/limerick.html License Renewal Fact Sheet: http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/fs-reactor-license-renewal.pdf Information on the NRCs license renewal process can be found at:
http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/operating/licensing/renewal.html NRC Response To Japan Accident: http://www.nrc.gov/japan/japan-info.html Japan Task Force Report: http://pbadupws.nrc.gov/docs/ML1118/ML111861807.pdf Emergency Preparedness Fact Sheet: http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/fs-emerg-plan-prep-nuc-power.pdf Seismic Issues for Nuclear Power Plants Fact Sheet: http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/fs-seismic-issues.pdf Nuclear Insurance and Disaster Relief Funds Fact Sheet: http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/funds-fs.pdf To subscribe to all outgoing public correspondence on Limerick Generating Station (and other operating reactors), go to: http://www.nrc.gov/public-involve/listserver/plants-by-region.html
- Enter your name and email address
- Check the box for Limerick in Region I (and any other plants you are interested in)
- Hit Subscribe, at the bottom of the page