ML11312A233
| ML11312A233 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | North Anna  |
| Issue date: | 11/01/2011 |
| From: | Division of Engineering |
| To: | |
| Khanna M | |
| References | |
| NRC-1242 | |
| Download: ML11312A233 (120) | |
Text
Official Transcript of Proceedings NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Title:
North Anna Power Station Restart Readiness Inspection Exit Meeting Docket Number: (n/a)
Location: Mineral, Virginia Date: Tuesday, November 1, 2011 Work Order No.: NRC-1242 Pages 1-120 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 NORTH ANNA POWER STATION RESTART READINESS 6 INSPECTION EXIT MEETING 7 + + + + +
8 TUESDAY 9 NOVEMBER 1, 2011 10 + + + + +
11 The Public Meeting met in the Louisa 12 County Middle School, 1009 Davis Highway, Mineral, 13 Virginia, at 7:00 p.m., Bret Leslie and Richard 14 Barkley, Meeting Facilitators, presiding.
15 PRESENT:
16 BRET LESLIE, Meeting Facilitator, NRC 17 RICHARD BARKLEY, Meeting Facilitator, NRC 18 RODNEY CLAGG, NRC 19 GENE GRECHECK, Vice President of Nuclear 20 Development, Dominion Virginia Power 21 ROGER HANNAH, Office of Public Affairs, NRC 22 DAVID HEACOCK, Chief Nuclear Officer, 23 Dominion Virginia Power 24 ERIC HENDRIXSON, Dominion Virginia Power 25 EDD HOUCK, State Senator, Virginia NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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2 1 MEENA KHANNA, Chief of Mechanical and Civil 2 Engineering Branch, Office of Nuclear 3 Reactor Regulation, NRC 4 GREG KOLCUM, NRC 5 LARRY LANE, North Anna Power Station Vice 6 President, Dominion Virginia Power 7 ERIC LEEDS, Director of the Office of Nuclear 8 Reactor Regulation, NRC 9 YONG LI, NRC 10 KAMAL MANOLY, NRC 11 GERRY MCCOY, Branch Chief, Dominion Virginia 12 Power 13 VICTOR MCCREE, Regional Administrator, NRC 14 ANDREW SABISCH, NRC 15 DAN STODDARD, Senior Vice President of 16 Nuclear Operations, Dominion Virginia Power 17 18 PUBLIC COMMENTERS:
19 BILL AKERS 20 JIM ADAMS, Not On Our Fault Line 21 G. PAUL BLUNDELL 22 PAXUS CALTA 23 JOHN CARROLL 24 VODJKTA TA CHAI 25 MARIANE COBB NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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3 1 ANDREW COOK 2 BARBARA CRAWFORD 3 JOHN CRUICKSHANK, Sierra Club, Virginia 4 Chapter 5 ELENA DAY, People's Alliance for Clean Energy 6 JEREMY DUNAY 7 DARLA EATON 8 JOHN FARMER 9 EDMUND FROST, Not On Our Fault Line 10 LYNN GAINES, Lake Anna Business Partnership 11 ERICA GRAY 12 PAUL GUNTER, Beyond Nuclear 13 RAY JURGEL 14 LAURA KAY 15 KIRBY MACLURIN 16 SCOTT PRICE, Alliance for Progressive Values 17 JERRY ROSENTHAL, Concerned Citizens of Louisa 18 County 19 AL SMITH 20 CHRISTINA TOWNS 21 SCOTT ZIEMER 22 23 24 25 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 (6:58:30 p.m.)
3 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Welcome and good 4 evening. You're attending the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory 5 Commission's North Anna Power Station Seismic Event.
6 And I want to thank the very energetic and large crowd 7 tonight.
8 My name is Bret Leslie, and I'm Senior 9 Project Manager at the NRC. And I'm one of two 10 facilitators for this meeting tonight. The other 11 facilitator is Rich Barkley back there.
12 And before we really get started, I've got 13 some housekeeping issues to go through, talk a little 14 bit about agenda, and a couple of other things.
15 As you may have noticed, we have some 16 microphones around. This meeting is being transcribed 17 for Tony over there. He's our court transcriptionist, 18 so we're going to ask the speakers to use the mics.
19 And later in the meeting when there is a question and 20 answer period, again we're going to ask people who 21 have questions to come up to the mic and state their 22 name, and then their question so that it can be on the 23 record. In addition, this meeting is being videoed.
24 The video will be put on as a web video -- well, it's 25 not being videoed live, but it will put on the NRC as NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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5 1 a file there on the website.
2 Another thing, this meeting also has a 3 bridge line tonight, and at a point later in the 4 question and answer period, we'll go to any people who 5 are on the bridge who might have questions. But I 6 want to focus on the people here in the room first 7 when we get to the question and answer period.
8 For those of you who didn't sign in, there 9 are sign in out front. There are also some question 10 cards. And the idea for the question cards is so that 11 Rich and I can help insure that everyone gets their 12 question asked, so if you don't have a question card 13 you can raise your hand and Rich or I will give you 14 one.
15 Also, during the business portion of the 16 meeting, should anything from Dominion or NRC spark a 17 question and you don't have a card, again Rich and I 18 will be looking for you to see if you've got a 19 question that you might want to submit.
20 Let me talk a little bit. NRC is a safety 21 organization. I was going to say your egress and 22 emergency exits are straight out those doors and 23 outside. I would suggest not going straight out the 24 back because we have a lot of the media here and 25 equipment, so I wouldn't go up the middle aisle. But NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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6 1 in case of an emergency, you will exit these two doors 2 and go outside.
3 A couple of things. Again, kind of on the 4 logistics. This meeting is a discussion of what both 5 Dominion has done since the earthquake and also what 6 NRC has done since the earthquake. The NRC's 7 presentation will provide an overview of what are the 8 requirement regarding restart, the NRC Staff review 9 process, and an overview of some of the key technical 10 areas that have been -- are associated with the safety 11 review, and a summary of the restart readiness 12 inspection activities, and next steps and path 13 forward.
14 Kind of -- I've got a few ground rules to 15 insure that everyone's voice is heard. And I put them 16 here, they're pretty simple. Because we're 17 transcribing things, we need to only have one person 18 at a time speaking. And, again, that's the idea of 19 having the question being asked at the microphone.
20 And also, again, let's try to respect each other, and 21 we'll try to get all the questions asked, and all the 22 questions answered.
23 So, that's pretty simple. That's really 24 Rich's and my job, is to insure that we have a good 25 and open communication of information from the NRC and NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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7 1 that we try to answer your questions as well as we 2 can.
3 A couple of other things. The agenda is 4 pretty simple. We're right now in the opening remarks 5 by the meeting facilitator. One other thing, if there 6 are members of the media, Roger Hannah from the NRC is 7 somewhere in the back, and he'd be -- he's over in the 8 corner back there. He just waved his hand, so if 9 there's any media concerns that the NRC can address, 10 Roger would be happy to help you.
11 Overall, we'll have the meeting facilitation 12 comments, and we'll open up with the Dominion 13 presentation. And, as I said, this will be a 14 description of what Dominion has been doing since the 15 earthquake. And then we'll go into the NRC 16 presentation.
17 Before we really get started, I want to have 18 the speakers introduce themselves, or the people at 19 the front table. And could I get you to start with 20 Gerry?
21 MR. McCOY: Hello, my name is Gerry McCoy.
22 I'm a Branch Chief for the North Anna Plant. That 23 means inspectors who are here at the plant work for 24 me.
25 MR. McCREE: Good evening. My name is Victor NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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8 1 McCree. I'm Regional Administrator for the NRC's 2 Region II office in Atlanta, and responsible for all 3 the commercial nuclear power plants in the Southeast, 4 including Dominion's North Anna and Surrey Stations.
5 MR. LEEDS: Good evening. My name is Eric 6 Leeds. I'm the Director of the Office of Nuclear 7 Reactor Regulation. My office is responsible for the 8 programmatic safety of the 104 operating plants in the 9 country.
10 MS. KHANNA: Good evening. My name is Meena 11 Khanna. I'm the Chief of the Mechanical and Civil 12 Engineering Branch in the Office of Nuclear Reactor 13 Regulation.
14 MR. HEACOCK: Good evening. I'm Dave Heacock.
15 I'm the President and Chief Nuclear Officer for 16 Dominion.
17 MR. GRECHECK: Good evening. I'm Gene 18 Grecheck. I'm Vice President of Nuclear Development 19 for Dominion.
20 MR. STODDARD: I'm Dan Stoddard. I'm the 21 Senior Vice President of Nuclear Operations for 22 Dominion.
23 MR. LANE: Good evening. I'm Larry Lane, the 24 Site Vice President in North Anna Power Station.
25 FACILITATOR LESLIE: And before we get NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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9 1 started with the business portion of the meeting, I 2 have one more administrative thing to talk about.
3 This is a Category One meeting, so this is a meeting 4 between the NRC and the licensee talking about a 5 specific topic. And at the end of the business 6 meeting after the presentations by both Dominion and 7 NRC, I'm going to turn to both sides to see if they 8 have any questions. And if not, then we'll open up a 9 question and answer period. And, at that time, I'll 10 also reiterate some of the things.
11 Again, I'm collecting quite a stack of 12 cards, so just a kind of a head's up, we are going to 13 have a time limit initially of three minutes, and a 14 few other things. Again, I'll remind you folks to 15 come up and identify yourself for the record when you 16 ask your question.
17 MR. McCREE: Bret, if I might; in addition to 18 the four NRC representatives here at the table, there 19 are a number also here. And if during the question 20 and answer session you have any questions that we 21 invite one of our colleagues to answer, they'll 22 introduce themselves and respond to your question.
23 And we also recognize, by the way, that a 24 number of you, particularly those of you sitting up 25 top can't see us well here, so during the question and NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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10 1 answer session we'll make sure that we stand so that 2 you can see us, as well as hear us.
3 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Thanks, Vic. I was going 4 to get around to that, too, as well, but thanks.
5 At this point, I'm going to turn it over to 6 David Heacock to make the presentation for Dominion.
7 And, again, after that, if NRC has any questions 8 please ask them then. David.
9 MR. HEACOCK: Bret, thank you very much. I 10 think I'll start off with Dominion and the NRC have 11 the same goal in mind here, to make sure the safety of 12 the plant is at its utmost best for restart.
13 I'm going to cover what happened at the rd 14 plant on August 23 , what's happened since then, what 15 we looked at, and what the results were.
16 So far, we had a very comprehensive plan.
17 We put together a restart plan. We used the guidance 18 that the NRC has previously approved and designed a 19 plan to go through and do a comprehensive inspection 20 and examination, walk down, testing, surveillances of 21 all the plant equipment. We spent over 100,000 hours0 days <br />0 hours <br />0 weeks <br />0 months <br /> 22 of time doing that, spent $21 million to date.
23 The EPRI guidance that the NRC has 24 sanctioned has you establish the level of intensity or 25 level of damage at the plant, Level 0 being the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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11 1 lowest, Level 3 being the highest. This was clearly a 2 Level 0 or lowest level event. The level event then 3 determines what the required surveillances, and 4 testing, inspections are.
5 Dominion decided to go one level above that.
6 We did the Level 1 inspection, testings and 7 surveillances, more than was required by the EPRI 8 guidance.
9 The Restart Readiness Plan has been 10 complete. The last letter was signed out today back 11 to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. We've gotten 12 over 200 some odd questions, and very, very detailed 13 answers were provided to each of those questions. In 14 some cases there was follow-up questions, we answered 15 those questions. So, the restart plan is complete.
16 To date there's been no functional damage 17 found at the plant, and I'll describe what that means 18 in just a few minutes. And the units are ready for 19 restart.
20 Now, there's been a lot of discussion in the 21 media about the plant was -- this earthquake exceeded 22 the design basis of the plant. What we're talking 23 about there is accelerations. This is the physical 24 ground movement, and I'm going to show you in just a 25 minute what we're talking about in that regard.
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12 1 Accelerations is one of three elements that 2 determines how much energy is transferred to the 3 plant. When you hear about seismic events, you 4 normally hear about Richter scale. Richter scale is a 5 measure of energy at the epicenter, not the amount of 6 energy somewhere else. So, it's important to remember 7 that's measurement of the energy at the epicenter.
8 For us, we designed the plants for 9 acceleration, a very conservative measure, but the 10 frequency and duration event are very, very important 11 factors. The three factors combined determines how 12 much energy is imparted on the station. The larger 13 the amplitude the larger the acceleration, the shorter 14 the duration for a given energy earthquake. They're 15 inversely proportional.
16 So, the seismic acceleration, even though 17 it's a good tool for making a conservative design, 18 it's not a good tool for assessing the damage at a 19 power plant. The duration is not included in that 20 analysis.
21 What is an important measure is called 22 Cumulative Absolute Velocity, and rather than writing 23 equations on the board and going through that, this is 24 a measure that combines all three elements into one.
25 It's been well recognized by seismic experts that this NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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13 1 measure determines how much energy is imparted on the 2 station and takes into account all three of these 3 elements.
4 This is an actual seismograph printout of 5 the three directions of the event on August 23rd. The 6 black squiggly lines represents the actual event that 7 occurred. We measure it in three directions, two 8 horizontal directions and one vertical, North-South, 9 East-West, and a vertical direction. The top graph is 10 the East-West accelerations. The green band 11 represents the design basis of the plant. That's the 12 accelerations the plant was designed to withstand. As 13 you can see from the graph quite clearly, on the East-14 West directions those lines didn't exceed the green 15 band.
16 Now, what's also important is the duration, 17 the effective strong motion duration. This is a 18 duration that takes about 70 percent of the energy 19 from the earthquake to be dissipated at the plant.
20 So, the bigger the squiggly lines are, the shorter the 21 duration, the smaller the squiggly lines are the 22 longer it takes.
23 The top line for East-West in the horizontal 24 direction took about 3.1 seconds for what's called 25 Effective Strong Motion Duration. The next one down is NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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14 1 vertical. You can see some of the lines slightly 2 exceeded the design basis lines. That was even 3 shorter, 1.5 seconds. And the bottom graph, the North-4 South exceeded it the most but only for a fraction of 5 a second. So, that was only about one second of strong 6 motion.
7 Now, the green shaded area is what the plant 8 is designed to withstand. In other words, you assume 9 that the shaking occurs, the maximum amplitude for 15 10 to 30 seconds. So, a lot of energy is imparted there 11 over that time period, so the area, or the size of 12 that big green bar is how much the plant is designed 13 to withstand. The area within the small black 14 squiggly line is how much actually was imparted on the 15 plant. You can see that the amount imparted was way, 16 way below the amount the plant was designed to 17 withstand.
18 This is a different way of looking at it. I 19 mentioned earlier the Cumulative Absolute Velocity of 20 the CAV is a better measure of the energy imparted on 21 the plant. The NRC a while back used some folks from 22 EPRI and some industry experts and looked at 23 earthquakes around the world, and determined what 24 Cumulative Absolute Velocity would cause no damage to 25 normal buildings like houses and office buildings, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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15 1 that kind of thing. The value of 1.6 constitutes a 2 value at which below you'd see no damage to normal 3 building, not nuclear seismic structures, just normal 4 buildings.
5 The black line across the bottom of this 6 graph represents that limit, the 1.6. It's in G 7 seconds, that's the unit of measure. The blue bars 8 represent the actual event. And you can see in two of 9 the three directions the event didn't exceed the value 10 for which you'd expect to find no damage in non-11 seismic structures. The yellow bars represent the 12 design basis earthquake energy levels.
13 Now, back in the mid-1990s, all the plants 14 in the U.S., including North Anna, went through and 15 did a review for individual plant evaluation external 16 events, IPEEE. This was an evaluation done to a much 17 stronger earthquake to verify that plants were able to 18 withstand a much larger event, about two and a half 19 times the design basis earthquake for North Anna.
20 We inspected about 1,800 components, and all 21 but about 50 were able to withstand that higher, two 22 and a half times higher earthquake. The last 50, the 23 lowest component, is about 30 percent above the design 24 basis. This event did not exceed that. There's a lot 25 of design margin built into the plant from day one.
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16 1 Here's a couple of layers of conservatism in 2 the design margin. When the plant was designed, the 3 calculations that were used to design it had 4 substantial design margin built into them. The other 5 thing to remember is that we also assume that we have 6 multiple events, not just a seismic event occurs. You 7 assume you'd have a loss of coolant accident, you have 8 thermal changes, you have pressure in the pipe. All 9 these pressures and stresses are combined at the same 10 time.
11 This event we didn't have all those stresses 12 at the same time. For piping systems, for example, the 13 seismic load is about 20 percent of the total stress, 14 so you can see it's a small fraction of the overall 15 stress. And the reactor coolant system, for example, 16 the seismic loads are about 30 percent of the total 17 stress. The vast majority is a loss of coolant 18 accident, which did not occur.
19 In addition, the individual plant evaluation 20 external events, IPEEE inspection that was done 21 previously insured large margins in all these areas.
22 The bottom line is the EPRI document that we 23 follow for restart says that the plant tells a story.
24 It said don't rely upon what happened at the 25 epicenter, or in Washington, D.C., or somewhere else.
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17 1 The plant tells a story. So, it tells you to look at 2 what happened at the plant. Did the windows crack, 3 for example? Windows are a good indicator of seismic 4 damage. There's no windows cracked at North Anna, for 5 example. Very, very sensitive things like windows, 6 bookcases tipping over, ceilings falling down, those 7 kind of things will happen long before a seismic 8 structure gets injured.
9 This is inside the power plant itself. The 10 turbine building is a very tall building. It's about 11 100 feet tall, about 10 stories. And one thing to 12 remember with a seismic event is the higher up you go 13 the more motion you will feel. If you're on the top 14 story of a high-rise you'd feel more motion than you 15 would at the bottom story. So, high up in this 16 building, this is non-seismic structure. This 17 building is going to move the most of one of the 18 buildings at North Anna.
19 On top of the top floor in that building are 20 these water tanks you see in the lefthand side. These 21 are demineralizer tanks. The feet of those tanks you 22 can see in the right-hand picture, is called the base 23 pedestal. That's what those tanks bolt to the 24 concrete floor. As the tanks rocked, the feet shift 25 out some of the concrete. This is the worst damage in NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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18 1 North Anna right here.
2 One other indicator of seismic events is 3 cracks in unreinforced cinder block walls. We have 4 hundreds of these walls on site. We saw two or three 5 walls that had slight cracking. One thing to remember 6 is a seismic crack is almost always diagonal, not 7 vertical, not horizontal. Generally, settlement 8 cracks in concrete structures are different, either 9 vertical or horizontal. The seismic cracks tend to 10 follow a stair step fashion, just like this drawing, 11 this picture here.
12 This is inside the Unit 1 containment. It's 13 not the outside containment wall. It's an interior 14 wall. This wall had a horizontal crack in it, not 15 typical for a seismic event, but in this case this 16 wall was poured in two different sections. It was 17 called a cold joint. The bottom part of the wall was 18 poured, allowed to cure, then the rest of the wall was 19 poured on top, so there's a cold joint. And concrete, 20 as you probably know, will not stick to itself, so 21 there's no adhesion between the two layers.
22 When those two cold pours were done, gapping 23 between was filled in like you would plaster on sheet 24 rock at your house with a thin layer of concrete 25 called grout. The grout cracked on this wall, but the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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19 1 concrete wall was undamaged.
2 This is a dry cask storage facility at North 3 Anna. There's 27 dry casks that have been in service 4 for quite a while, over a decade at North Anna.
5 During the event, some of these casks, 25 of the 27 6 casks moved from one to four inches. Now, these casks 7 have continuous pressure monitors on them. They're 8 filled with helium gas. The pressure monitors the 9 entire duration, before and after, indicated no 10 alarms, no problem with the pressure in the canisters.
11 The canisters are totally undamaged.
12 The bottom line is we complied with and went 13 beyond the regulatory guidance. Let me talk briefly 14 about what that is. The NRC many years ago without a 15 seismic event having just happened established the 16 criteria. The title of Reg Guide 1.167 is "Restart of 17 a Nuclear Power Plant Shutdown by a Seismic Event,"
18 precisely what North Anna is doing right now. So, 19 this guidance is very, very detailed.
20 The EPRI document that references is nearly 21 100 pages long, establishes a very detailed protocol 22 for how to determine what the damage is, how to 23 inspect for that damage, and what the steps are for 24 short and long-term resolution. We followed that 25 protocol.
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20 1 The definition in the federal law is there 2 can be no functional damage before the plant can be 3 restarted. And this is the definition of functional 4 damage; it's damage that's sufficient enough to 5 safety-related equipment that prevents it from 6 performing its safety function. We had no functional 7 damage at North Anna. This isn't moderate cracks, 8 this isn't moderate hairline issues. This is a 9 functional damage issue; didn't have any of that.
10 The bottom line is let the plant tell the 11 story. As I mentioned earlier, this particular 12 earthquake you saw some higher accelerations up in 13 Washington, D.C. than you saw farther south, so the 14 rock carried the earthquake in different ways to 15 different places. So, it's important to look at the 16 plant and not somewhere else for your information.
17 In addition to the hundred thousand plus 18 contractor hours, were about 12,000 Dominion hours of 19 inspections for testing and surveillance. We've had 20 multiple external experts, seismic experts, we've had 21 people come in from other power plants that are 22 seismic experts and do walk downs and inspections in 23 our plant, and verify our protocol is in accordance 24 with the EPRI protocol.
25 Another thing we looked as is we look for NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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21 1 hidden damage. In addition to looking at things that 2 could be obvious visually, there might be things you 3 can't see. So, it's important to do testing and 4 surveillances that look for hidden damage.
5 In this case, one thing that we looked at is 6 underground piping, and I'll show you some pictures of 7 that in just a minute. But this is the largest single 8 underground pipe there is at North Anna. It's about a 9 20 foot by 20 foot square section circulating water 10 pipe. Lake water flows through this, about one 11 million gallons a minute per unit.
12 Square pipes, as you know, probably isn't 13 the strongest structure, so these are most susceptible 14 to seismic damage. So, we went inside this entire 15 piping and checked for seismic damage; there was none 16 underground. In addition, we went into one steam 17 generator on Unit 1 and two steam generators on Unit 18 2, inspected over 10,000 steam generator tubes with 19 eddy current and other non-destructive examination 20 techniques. Look at the secondary side of these steam 21 generators. There's over 700 snubbers at North Anna.
22 These are hydraulic supports for piping systems and 23 for components. We visually inspected all 700 24 snubbers. We functionally tested about 10 percent of 25 those snubbers, and we also did some weld inspections, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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22 1 and a number of other non-destructive examination 2 techniques.
3 We did extensive fuel inspection. If you 4 were to have a leak in fuel, that could be detected 5 quite easily with a chemistry sample from the water.
6 You have to look at the water very carefully looking 7 for any leakage in fuel; saw no change in before, 8 during, and after the event, so there's no impact on 9 the fuel directly.
10 On Unit 2, we took apart the reactor vessel, 11 inspected the most susceptible fuel assemblies.
12 There's about 20 assemblies around the outside of the 13 vessel. We inspected a total of about 35 fuel 14 assemblies. We tested each of the control rod 15 mechanisms on Unit 2, and the 48 control rods in the 16 fuel assemblies that they were in during the seismic 17 event, and also in the fuel assemblies that they were 18 loaded into for the reload for the next cycle; no 19 issues with any of those tests. We had 18 new fuel 20 assemblies stored in dry storage. We inspected those 21 assemblies with no damage found.
22 A tremendous amount of inspections done. We 23 did a rod freedom test on both units, and as part of 24 the start-up sequence we have committed to do hot rod 25 drop testing on both units as part of that startup NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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23 1 sequence.
2 Now, buried piping, we have quite a bit of 3 this on station. We have 1,119 feet of buried piping 4 that could contain radioactive fluids of some sort or 5 another. We pressure tested -- about 720 of those feet 6 have liquid in them, the rest are dry most of the 7 time. We pressured tested about 90 percent of that 8 piping, and we dug up over 100 feet of it. And we 9 chose to dig up a spot -- you can imagine if a 10 building has moved and the pipe is going through the 11 base of the building, that will be the most 12 susceptible spot for seismic damage; if you were to 13 have any, that's where you would expect to find it.
14 So, we excavated these pipes here right adjacent to 15 the concrete structures to verify that there was no 16 damage. These were verified visually, and we used 17 ultrasonic testing to verify the thickness of the pipe 18 wall was undamaged. In addition, as I mentioned, 90 19 percent of this piping was pressure tested.
20 One other piping system is the fire 21 protection piping. That's a cast iron piping, it's 22 relatively brittle. We unearthed a piece of that and 23 verified that it was in tact, and we also did pressure 24 testing on the vast majority of that piping. We did 25 over a mile of underwater underground piping pressure NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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24 1 tests.
2 Next steps. We installed a new seismic 3 monitor, that red device you see up there. It's a 4 relatively small device. It's called a free field 5 monitor. That's been installed temporarily already.
6 It's installed outside next to our training facility, 7 and this can measure the seismic accelerations in 8 three directions. You can use a computer and very 9 quickly within minutes to an hour or so, you can 10 gather the data from this device. It's got a battery 11 backup and will run for a long period of time without 12 any AC power.
13 We also revised our procedures to allow us 14 to extract this information much more quickly in the 15 future. We've also completed all the surveillances up 16 to and ready to begin the startup sequence. About 445 17 surveillance tests were done on each unit. We ran 18 pumps, stroke valves, we did our functional tests from 19 the very beginning of the circuit all the way through 20 all the electronics to the very end of the circuit.
21 We calibrated all instrumentation to verify the 22 seismic event hadn't affected anything. We really saw 23 no damage to any safety-related components at all.
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25 1 instrumentation. We're also going to reevaluate these 2 components I mentioned earlier that didn't reach the 3 two and a half times threshold. We're going to 4 reevaluate those and bring those values up.
5 We're also going to perform a seismic 6 analysis of the recorded event. We're going to do 7 seismic floor spectrum for each floor in each building 8 and analyze that against the equipment in the 9 building. If there are exceedances, we'll evaluate 10 that equipment on a case-by-case basis.
11 The plant has tremendous seismic margins 12 built into it. What we want to do is while we're 13 doing that analysis, we're going to put in place 14 controls so we don't undo any of the margin that we 15 have built in already. So, we're going to put extra 16 care in our modifications going forward that will look 17 at the existing seismic design basis in this event to 18 make sure anything new installed in the plant will 19 exceed both of those. We're also going to revise the 20 North Anna Safety Analysis Report to include this 21 extra information.
22 If I could summarize what we found, the 23 acceleration criteria was briefly exceeded for a 24 couple of frequencies for a very, very short duration.
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26 1 fraction of a second. And for seismic events to cause 2 damage, it has to push over, and over, and over at a 3 fixed frequency to cause a device to get excited or to 4 move in such a way as to cause damage. That did not 5 occur.
6 Previous evaluations, including the IPEEE 7 established tremendous margins for the safety systems, 8 structures, and components. We saw no damage to any of 9 those components. This was anticipated by the CAV 10 values we calculated. It shows that the energy was 11 insufficient to cause damage to safety-related 12 components.
13 The bottom line is consistent with federal 14 law, the restart readiness demonstration is complete.
15 No functional damage to safety systems has been 16 found. The units are ready for restart.
17 Thank you. That concludes my remarks.
18 Thank you.
19 FACILITATOR LESLIE: David, thank you very 20 much.
21 Let me get the next presentation together.
22 Did the NRC have any questions for Dominion at this 23 point?
24 (No response.)
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27 1 it over to Gerry.
2 MR. McCOY: Hello. My name is Gerry McCoy, 3 like I said before. I'm a Branch Chief for the 4 Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and what that means is 5 the inspectors here on the site work for me.
6 NRC has at least two inspectors assigned to 7 each nuclear power plant called Resident Inspectors 8 that live in the local community, report to the plant 9 each work day to inspect activities at the plant.
10 Here we have Greg Kolcum. Greg is a Senior Resident 11 Inspector, and Rodney Clagg is in the back there.
12 These are the two Resident Inspectors that work here 13 at the plant. They report to the plant each day for 14 their work day, and on a regular basis they watch the 15 licensee's activities.
rd 16 On the afternoon of August 23 , the Senior 17 Resident Inspector, Greg Kolcum, was in the control 18 room of the North Anna Power Station observing a test 19 run of an auxiliary feed water pump. Another inspector 20 who specializes in emergency planning was also on site 21 performing a different inspection.
22 At about 2:00 in the afternoon when the 23 earthquake occurred, 12 power stations felt the 24 earthquake and declared an unusual event. The NRC 25 activated its Operation Center in White Flint, and the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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28 1 Regional Incident Response Centers to monitor the 2 plants which were affected.
3 North Anna was the only site to experience a 4 reactor trip following the earthquake. Mr. Kolcum was 5 in an excellent position to observe activities in the 6 control room, and to respond to the plant.
7 The NRC subsequently learned that the ground 8 movement at North Anna during the earthquake exceeded 9 the levels at which the plant was originally licensed.
10 Later that day, Region II dispatched an additional 11 inspector to the site to assist the inspections being 12 conducted by the residents. Seismologists from the 13 headquarters office were also directed to the site 14 within days of the event.
15 After the earthquake, the licensee commenced 16 inspections of the site to evaluate damage and prepare 17 an evaluation of the affect of the earthquake on 18 safety systems. In order to make the NRC's 19 expectations perfectly clear, Mr. McCree, the Region 20 II Regional Administrator sent a letter to Dominion 21 which confirmed that the North Anna Power Station 22 Units 1 and 2 will not restart until the NRC had 23 completed a review of their evaluation.
24 Because of the complications from the loss 25 of offsite power and the malfunctioning of an NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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29 1 emergency diesel generator, an augmented inspection 2 team was formed and dispatched to the site to better 3 understand the circumstances of the earthquake and 4 Dominion's response.
5 I'd like next to introduce Mark Franke.
6 Mark, please stand up. Mark Franke you might 7 recognize as a Branch Chief in Region II in Atlanta.
8 He was the team leader for the augmented inspection 9 team that was on the site. He led this inspection and 10 provided the results of his inspection at a public rd 11 meeting on October 3 , 2011.
12 He led a team of seven inspectors, including 13 a seismologist, two structural engineers, two 14 electrical engineers, and two resident inspectors. The 15 purpose of this augmented inspection was to collect 16 factual information and evidence of what occurred in 17 the plant as a result of the earthquake.
18 The team's primary focus was on the plant's 19 response to the event itself, rather than on the 20 identification and evaluation of facts to support the 21 plant startup.
22 During the same time as this inspection 23 Dominion, like I said before, was conducting tests and 24 inspections of the plant's structure and components.
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30 1 team while they were doing their inspection did take 2 time out and observe some of the tests that Dominion 3 did, and their observations are part of the restart 4 assessment process.
5 Now, we already had a public meeting for 6 this, but as we discussed in the meeting on October rd 7 3 , the augmented inspection team concluded that the 8 licensee responded to the event in a manner which 9 protected public health and safety. The ground motion 10 from the earthquake did, in fact, exceed the plant's 11 licensed design basis.
12 The safety systems' functions were 13 maintained, no damage was observed to safety-related 14 systems, and the plant's operators responded in a 15 manner that was consistent with plant procedures.
16 Now, again, as we mentioned during the 17 augmented inspection team exit meeting on October 3rd, 18 the NRC started an inspection of Dominion's readiness 19 to restart the North Anna units on October 5th, 2011.
20 The objective of this ongoing inspection is to 21 independently evaluate Dominion's assessment that no 22 functional damage had occurred to the safety systems.
23 This inspection is being led by Andy 24 Sabisch. Andy, would you please stand up. Okay. Mr.
25 Sabisch is the NRC's Senior Resident Inspector at the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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31 1 Oconee Nuclear Station in South Carolina. He is 2 leading a team of eight inspectors, including 3 participation from NRC offices throughout the country 4 with experience in structures, piping, electrical 5 components, and plant operations.
6 Thus far, they have completed several weeks 7 of inspection, including independent assessment of 8 Dominion's inspections and testing of systems and 9 components. Selected portions of a number of plant 10 systems were visually inspected by NRC inspectors, and 11 these observations were compared with those made by 12 Dominion.
13 One example of an observation by the team 14 was the inspection of the reactor vessel supports. The 15 team was interested in the supports for the reactor 16 coolant system and identified that the licensee had 17 not performed a visual inspection of the physical 18 supports for the reactor vessel, which are designed so 19 that they could slide a limited distance.
20 Licensee determined that since these 21 supports were covered by sheet metal they were not 22 accessible, and they did not need to perform a visual 23 inspection. NRC inspectors voiced their concerns and 24 the licensee decided to remove the covers and perform 25 the visual inspections. No unusual conditions were NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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32 1 identified with the reactor vessel sliding supports 2 during this inspection.
3 Another example was a large number of 4 observations made by NRC inspectors as they visually 5 inspected the systems in the plant. During these 6 inspections, they raised a number of questions which, 7 while they were not seismic issues affecting the 8 operability of the plant, they should have been 9 identified during the licensee's inspections. These 10 included loose valve handles, unidentified cracks in 11 concrete walls which were less than a critical width, 12 chipped concrete on missile shield blocks, or 13 individual improperly installed pipe hangers.
14 Individually, each of these observations was 15 determined not to affect the operation of the systems 16 in question, but due to the number of observations the 17 licensee determined that they would do visual 18 inspections of additional systems in order to insure 19 they captured all of the non-standard conditions.
20 During the inspection process, the team 21 noted that the licensee had not performed an 22 inspection for seismic damage in an underground tunnel 23 which contains steam filled pipe. Due to the NRC's 24 concerns, the licensee performed an inspection of the 25 tunnel and identified gaps in the wall between the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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33 1 tunnel where the steam filled pipe was and another 2 room where there was safety-related equipment present.
3 These gaps were around piping which was passing 4 between the two rooms.
5 The inspectors -- the presence of such large 6 gaps were questioned. Further review by the licensee 7 determined that by design these gaps should have been 8 sealed to prevent steam from going into where the 9 safety-related equipment was in the event of a leak in 10 the steam pipe. The licensee sealed one of these gaps 11 and the team and the licensee are still evaluating the 12 significance of this observation.
13 As I said before, this inspection is still 14 in process. At this point in time, the team had not 15 identified any significant effects on safety-related 16 equipment due to the seismic event.
17 Two issues, the two hotel emergency diesel 18 coolant leak which was described in the previous 19 public meeting, and the gap in the steam pipe tunnel 20 that I just mentioned are still under evaluation.
21 These issues were identified as part of the inspection 22 process, but neither of these issues are a result of 23 the earthquake. These problems have been repaired.
24 The NRC has continued to evaluate the regulatory 25 response we'll have to these issues.
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34 1 At this point, I would like to turn the 2 microphone over to Ms. Meena Khanna, who is leading 3 the analysis of the Dominion report.
4 MS. KHANNA: Thanks, Gerry. Good evening.
5 Again, my name is Meena Khanna, and what I'd like to 6 do this evening is just provide you with an overview 7 with respect to the NRC Staff's technical assessment 8 of Dominion's Restart Readiness Plan and their 9 submittals.
10 First of all, I'd like to address the 11 restart requirements. Okay. As far as the restart 12 requirements, the regulatory requirements governing 13 this event are delineated in 10 CFR 100, Appendix A, 14 Part 100, Appendix A. It states that, "If the 15 vibratory ground motion exceeds that of the operating 16 basis earthquake, shutdown of the nuclear power plant 17 is required." The operating basis earthquake is 18 approximately half of the design basis earthquake, so 19 that obviously occurred in this event.
20 The regulations also state that, "Prior to 21 resuming operations, the licensee is required to 22 demonstrate to the NRC that no functional damage has 23 occurred to those features necessary for the continued 24 operation without undue risk to the health and safety 25 of the public."
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35 1 Now what I'd like to do is address the NRC 2 technical review approach. As Mr. Heacock indicated 3 earlier, the regulatory review guidance that the NRC 4 is following was established in the mid-1990s.
5 Regulatory Guide 1167 which is restart of a nuclear 6 power plant shutdown by a seismic event endorses the 7 Electric Power Research Institute NP 6695 guidelines, 8 which are the guidelines for nuclear plant response to 9 an earthquake.
10 I'd like to note that the EPRI document also 11 gives guidance to the plant as far as what they're to 12 do if they exceed its design basis earthquake. The 13 guidelines also address short-term and long-term 14 actions.
15 Also, in addition to that, in 2007 there was 16 an earthquake that occurred in Japan, and it also 17 resulted in the exceedance of its design basis 18 earthquake of the Kashiwazaki -- I'm sorry, I always 19 pronounce this incorrectly -- Kashiwazaki Nuclear 20 Power Plant. And with regards to our review, we are 21 also considering the Lessons Learned from the event 22 that occurred at the Kashiwazaki Nuclear Power Plant.
23 And these are documented in the International Atomic 24 Energy Agency Safety Report 66.
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36 1 accordance with the Reg Guide, as well as the EPRI 2 guidelines, we also did look at the Lessons Learned 3 from the IAEA Report, Safety Report 66.
4 Okay. In addition to that, the NRC has used 5 -- our review is going beyond that, as well as what 6 I'd indicated earlier, because we're also utilizing 7 our expertise that we have which goes beyond the 8 guides. And a few examples of this is where we 9 requested Dominion to conduct additional evaluation 10 and testing of walls throughout the plant, and also 11 I'll be discussing a little bit as far as the fuels.
12 We conducted a couple of audits with respect to the 13 fuels, so those both are examples of where we went 14 beyond what -- the guidelines that I indicated 15 earlier, as well as the IAEA report.
16 As you can see, significant level of NRC 17 effort was being placed to independently evaluate the 18 impacts of the seismic event on the North Anna plant.
19 Experts throughout the Agency from multiple technical 20 areas, including electrical, instrumentation and 21 controls, mechanical, structural, et cetera are 22 involved in this review. The reviews are currently in 23 progress; however, to date the Staff has not 24 identified any significant safety concerns that 25 resulted from the seismic event.
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37 1 The overall review and evaluation will 2 assess the scope and adequacy of the licensee's 3 inspections, testing, and evaluations. The reviews 4 are also being informed by the results of the NRC 5 inspections, as Gerry had mentioned earlier.
6 As indicated, the NRC inspection and 7 assessment activities have included a wide spectrum of 8 technical disciplines, and there's been close 9 coordination between the inspection and review 10 activities.
11 The NRC is performing an independent 12 technical review to ascertain whether it is acceptable 13 for North Anna to restart. This slide lists many of 14 the technical areas being reviewed, including reactor 15 vessels and internals, mechanical and structural 16 engineering, and electrical systems just to name a 17 few.
18 The NRC review is relying on inspections and 19 audits performed by the NRC Staff, as well as a review 20 and analysis of Dominion's documents to insure that no 21 functional damage occurred at the North Anna site.
22 Now I'd like to highlight a few examples 23 demonstrating the independent nature of our review.
24 To address the integrity of the fuel, as I had 25 indicated earlier, we audited the fuel. The NRC sent NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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38 1 several staff members to the site to review Dominion's 2 efforts for confirming the integrity of the fuel. In 3 response to our review of the fuels, Dominion 4 performed additional calculations to demonstrate that 5 the integrity of the fuel assembly components were not 6 compromised.
7 With respect to our review of the piping 8 systems, Dominion performed additional analyses to 9 provide the NRC Staff confidence that the earthquake 10 did not adversely impact the piping, and that previous 11 analyses were not invalidated as a result of the 12 earthquake.
13 Also, Dominion performed additional 14 functional testing on the Unit 1 snubbers as a result 15 of our review. The function of a snubber during an 16 earthquake is to resist sharp motions of a pipe or a 17 component. It is most similar to a shock absorber on a 18 car, although many times larger. They have been 19 periodically tested to insure that they are operating 20 properly, and refurbished or replaced as their seals 21 can develop hydraulic fluid leaks over time, just like 22 an automobile shock absorber.
23 Okay. As far as path forward, the NRC is 24 continuing to conduct an independent safety review in 25 accordance with established acceptance criteria. A NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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39 1 review is ongoing. The technical review will be used 2 to inform the restart decision to insure that it is in 3 accordance with Appendix A of 10 CFR Part 100 4 requirements.
5 We will issue the results of our review when 6 it is complete. The NRC will insure that Dominion has 7 demonstrated that the plant is safe to operate prior 8 to approving restart.
9 As we indicated earlier, to date we have not 10 identified any safety-significant issues as a result 11 of our independent inspection, and technical review 12 activities that could preclude plant operations as a 13 result of the seismic event. And as far as schedule, 14 our review and decision could occur as soon as next 15 week.
16 Okay. I'll also address follow-up 17 activities. Should the results of the review 18 determine that the plant may be restarted safely, the 19 NRC inspectors will perform enhanced oversight 20 inspections during startup and after restart. These 21 inspections will assess the licensee operations, 22 additional surveillance testing, and other activities 23 to confirm that the systems, structures, and 24 components are functional.
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40 1 not allow the plant to restart unless we're confident 2 it will be operated safely and without undue risk to 3 the public.
4 As you heard previously, Dominion has 5 committed to perform the long-term evaluations in 6 accordance with the NRC-endorsed guidance. We are 7 completing our reviews regarding these evaluations.
8 As indicated earlier, the earthquake caused 9 the plant to exceed its design basis ground motion.
10 As a result, to address this issue Dominion has 11 committed to update it's Final Safety Analysis Report 12 to include the new seismic ground motion experienced rd 13 from the earthquake of August 23 .
14 Many people continue to express great 15 interest in this event. We continue to provide venues 16 to communicate the status of our results of our 17 review. A large number of people attended our 18 September 8th meeting that was held with Dominion at 19 the headquarters office, and as Gerry indicated, we 20 conducted an exit of the augmented inspection team at rd 21 the site on October 3 . We will continue to maintain 22 our open communications.
23 We have provided information regarding the 24 North Anna seismic event on our NRC web page, as 25 identified at the site address here. We have posted NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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41 1 information, such as our Reg Guide 1167 guidelines, 2 the EPRI document, as well as an overview of event, 3 and questions and answers related to the event. We 4 will continue to make the information available.
5 Okay. This concludes our presentation. I'll 6 turn it now back over to Bret.
7 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Meena, thanks for that 8 presentation. At this point, I want to turn to 9 Dominion to see if they have any questions of the NRC 10 Staff.
11 (No response.)
12 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Okay. At this point, 13 we're in the process of wrapping up the business 14 portion of the meeting. And in my excitement to get 15 started with this meeting, I neglected to acknowledge 16 a few people. As Vic already pointed out, I forgot to 17 introduce the NRC Staff that are here. But, also, I 18 want to acknowledge that State Senator Ed Houck is 19 here in the front row. Sorry about not doing it 20 earlier.
21 One of the other things is, I really wanted 22 to thank Principal Schott for allowing us to use this 23 facility. I know the middle school is being used both 24 as a high school and a middle school. Classes are 25 running late, and we do have a time limit that we're NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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42 1 going to have to be out of here tonight, so we're 2 going to try -- one of the things, in an ideal world 3 the NRC likes to stay as long as possible, but that's 4 literally not possible tonight. So, that's one of the 5 reasons why I have a short time frame.
6 Kind of a reminder for folks. I now have 7 about 20-25 people who want to ask questions. And for 8 those of you who have not gotten a comment card and 9 have a question, Rich Barkley back there, raise your 10 hand, and he'll be happy to do that.
11 We provide a few more ground rules, just to 12 remind folks. Because this meeting is being 13 transcribed, when you come up and ask your question 14 please identify yourself for the record. And we're 15 going to be using the central microphone right here.
16 And to facilitate this, I'm going to treat this a 17 little bit like the World Series that just ended.
18 We'll say who's up to bat, who's on deck, i.e., the 19 next person that we're going to ask a question of, and 20 then who's in the dugout ready to come back out. And 21 that way we can try to keep things moving.
22 Time limit is three minutes. I'm trying to 23 keep the NRC Staff as short as possible, but to answer 24 your questions, and likewise we're focused on the 25 questions, again using the microphone.
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43 1 After we get through most of these cards, 2 we'll try to go to the bridge line to ask additional 3 questions. A couple of people that I want to bring up 4 to start this portion of the meeting, is Barbara 5 Crawford here? Could you come on down? And if you 6 can't make your way down, I think Rich, wherever you 7 are.
8 The next person that's going to -- to come 9 up will be Jim Adams, and then Scott Price. You can 10 stay right here and I'll bring the microphone to you.
11 MS. CRAWFORD: Okay. I'm feeling a little bit 12 glass half empty, as I usually do after a meeting with 13 the NRC and Dominion. So, I'm assuming that next week 14 or the week after you're going to give Dominion 15 permission to start up both reactors.
16 So, what I want to know is will you allow 17 them to start them up simultaneously? Will it be one 18 at a time? What staff from the NRC will be on site 19 when they are started up, and will you please give the 20 residents of this county and those of us who live near 21 the nuclear power plant plenty of notice in our local 22 newspaper, "The Central Virginian," and also on the 23 Richmond TV channels so that if we opt to evacuate the 24 county in Central Virginia, we have opportunity to do 25 that.
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44 1 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Thank you very much. And 2 that was Barbara Crawford. Eric?
3 MR. LEEDS: Thank you. My name is Eric Leeds.
4 I'm the Director of the Office of Nuclear Reactor 5 Regulation in headquarters, and I'll answer part of 6 the question, and then I'll turn it over to Vic to 7 answer part of it.
8 Your last part of that question, ma'am, we 9 will provide notification to the community when that 10 decision is made, and we'll try to do it with plenty 11 of ample time for you all. It takes a while to startup 12 these nuclear power plants. And the way that we 13 envision it today when we do grant permission is that 14 the licensee is going to have to do a very 15 deliberate, methodical startup, and we will have hold 16 points along the way where they will do functional 17 testing of those systems and components that assure 18 the safety of this plant. And as they do those, 19 they'll have to report the results to us as they move 20 up, even before they get to power operations. So, we 21 envision a very deliberate process that they're going 22 to have to go through to start up the plant.
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45 1 staggered.
2 You also asked a question about our 3 presence, the NRC's presence on site. Let me turn 4 that over to Vic. Vic runs all the residents out of 5 Region II.
6 MR. McCREE: Thanks, Vic. The two residents 7 assigned here were introduced to you, Greg Kolcum, the 8 Senior Resident, and Rodney Clagg. And, in fact, 9 they're always available whenever there is an issue at 10 the plant, and they're on hand to observe startup 11 activities. And they'll be available for both startup 12 of both of these units.
13 In addition to Rodney and Greg, there are 14 several additional inspectors that we'll have come out 15 and assist them in that effort, in part because we'll 16 be in 24-hour coverage, if you would, around the clock 17 observation as the units restart. So, there will be 18 ample oversight of unit restart.
19 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Thanks, Vic. Jim?
20 MR. ADAMS: Hi, I'm Jim Adams. I'm with the 21 Not On Our Fault Line, and my big consideration is 22 the dam. And I'm curious, you have five emergency 23 generators to deal with two reactors. You have only 24 one dam to deal with the plant. And I believe NRC 25 says not our responsibility, and Dominion says not our NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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46 1 responsibility. Whose responsibility is this, FERC?
2 And I'd like to know, specifically, if the dam does 3 break and the lake drains, how long will the lagoons 4 that you have -- how long will they be able to cool 5 the two reactors?
6 Also, where can we find information about 7 the dam's capability to withstand things like 8 earthquakes in the 18 to 20 inch range that we've 9 sometimes been known to have in our area? These are 10 some critical questions to what I think is one part of 11 the infrastructure that nobody is paying any attention 12 to.
13 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Jim. Thank you. Gerry, 14 just before you answer that question.
15 MR. McCOY: Yes. Oh, I'm sorry, go ahead.
16 FACILITATOR LESLIE: I want to let you know 17 Scott Price and Eric Gray will be the next two people.
18 Sorry about that, Gerry.
19 MR. McCOY: Okay. Thanks for the question 20 about the dam. That allows me to better describe the 21 functions of the dam, and how the dam relates to the 22 nuclear power plant.
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47 1 run the turbine. Now, also at the plant there is a 2 second cooling pond up behind the plant, and that 3 cooling pond is what is relied on to cool safety-4 related components of the plant.
5 So, in the case of the main dam, the main 6 North Anna dam, if that dam was to fail, then the 7 reactor plant itself would not be able to cool their 8 condensers. They would not be able to run their 9 turbines. They would not be able to generate power to 10 make money.
11 However, the critical components to cool the 12 core will still be cooled by the pond behind the 13 plant. So, from NRC's perspective, we are mostly 14 concerned with the dam that is on the pond behind the 15 plant.
16 Now, you asked about who's got 17 responsibility for the big dam, the main North Anna 18 dam. That is the FERC, Federal Energy -- the FERC.
19 (Laughter.)
20 MR. McCOY: Sorry, don't work with them. I'm 21 not even going to try to fake it, because I'd probably 22 screw it up.
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48 1 with that dam either.
2 PARTICIPANT: He did ask how long.
3 MR. McCOY: Oh, okay, you're right. Thanks.
4 He did ask how long. As far as how long the plant can 5 operate with that dam, if you read the Final Safety 6 Analysis Report for the North Anna plant, that cooling 7 pond is designed to provide cooling for the two units 8 for a period up to 30 days. So, they've got 30 days 9 to figure out what to do with that cooling pond. And 10 that doesn't affect the diesels that they have. The 11 diesels they have on the site are air-cooled, so they 12 are independent of that dam. Okay?
13 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Thanks. Scott Price, 14 and then again to remind folks, Scott, Erica Gray, and 15 then Else Spencer.
16 MR. PRICE: My name is Scott Price. I'm the 17 Public Policy Director for the Alliance for 18 Progressive Values.
19 What we're interested in is the NRC being 20 very cautious in this restart. And what we'd like to 21 see is further hearings and a little more information 22 going to the public.
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49 1 speak to us there because there's a large community 2 there that doesn't feel like it's getting a chance to 3 put input in.
4 MR. McCREE: Paul, thank you very much.
5 There were three points that you raised or emphasized.
6 The first was that you encourage NRC to be very 7 cautious. And, hopefully, I would hope that in the 8 information that you received this evening, as well as rd 9 from our meeting, public meeting on October 3 , as 10 well as the volume of information that's accessible to 11 the public from the NRC's website, that you recognize 12 that the NRC is being very cautious, very thorough, 13 very sincere in our efforts to assure that the plant's 14 safety systems and other systems have not been damaged 15 by the seismic event, and that they are safe for 16 restart. That's why we're here, and that's what we're 17 committed to do to inform the decision that will be 18 made regarding restart.
19 As far as more information available to the 20 public, we're doing our level best. We are a public 21 agency. Under the Atomic Energy Act of 1974, all that 22 we do that's not security or otherwise proprietary has 23 to be transacted publicly, so that's the reason why 24 we're here.
25 As for meeting in Richmond, I would --
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50 1 again, I would commend you for being here. I cannot 2 commit at this point to a public meeting in Richmond 3 associated with North Anna. I would mention, however, 4 that my boss, the Deputy Executive Director for 5 Operation for Reactors and Preparedness, in fact, 6 Eric's boss, as well, was just in Richmond I think 7 along with Mr. Grecheck here for a public meeting, and 8 he did speak to North Anna, as well as Fukushima. And 9 that was a public meeting, as well. So, we do take 10 advantage of opportunities in areas, major 11 metropolitan areas outside the emergency planning zone 12 to make ourselves available to the public, and will 13 continue to do that.
14 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Thank you, Vic. Erica 15 Gray?
16 MS. GRAY: Hello, yes. First of all, I'm 17 about 35 miles away in Henrico, Virginia. I'm a 18 mother, I'm a grandmother. And I'd like to know why 19 the NRC and Dominion, and the industry as a whole is 20 not even following the American Thyroid Association's 21 recommendations.
22 I have friends that live out here, as well, 23 within a 10-mile radius. The recommendations have 24 been that the potassium iodine be supplied to its 25 residents in a 10-mile radius. And, actually, the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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51 1 American Thyroid Association said it really should go 2 further because, and I quote, "No one can predict how 3 far a radioactive iodine cloud might spread. After 4 Chernobyl, higher than expected rates of thyroid 5 cancer were found more than 200 miles away from the 6 nuclear plant."
7 Their recommendation is families should have 8 iodine on hand. Does anyone in this room have any on 9 hand? Does anyone know how much to give their infants 10 or their children? It's imperative because the thyroid 11 gland is very sensitive, and it needs to be 12 administered immediately. So, as we're sitting here 13 talking about starting up a plant that was knocked off 14 line, when we could have even a higher seismic event, 15 no one is prepared. And a 10-mile evacuation zone in 16 planning is ridiculous. Thank you.
17 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Thank you, Erica. And 18 one of the things I neglected to say is, we brought a 19 lot of people here to try to answer your questions.
20 And I'm going to be using a parking lot in case we 21 don't address your question directly.
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52 1 that we follow-up. Eric.
2 MR. LEEDS: Yes. Thank you for your question.
3 And the -- addressing potassium iodide. As you 4 mentioned, potassium iodide provides very specific 5 protection for the thyroid gland from an uptake of 6 radioactive iodine. And those that are most affected 7 by it are really children and young adults.
8 The NRC does provide potassium iodide to 9 those states that request it. And we provide as much 10 as they need for that 10-mile emergency planning zone.
11 Off the top of my head, I don't know if the State of 12 Virginia actually gets potassium iodide from the NRC 13 or not, but we do provide it to the states that 14 request it. But it's up to the states to provide it 15 to their citizens.
16 You referenced two other items. Why not out 17 further, and why is the emergency planning zone only 18 10 miles? The NRC is going to examine both of those 19 issues. Those were both identified in a report that 20 we gave to the Commission just a few weeks ago as a 21 result of the Fukushima event. So, you raised two very 22 good issues, and the Staff intends to pursue both of 23 those.
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53 1 going to change our recommendation that states provide 2 it to their citizens within that emergency planning 3 zone, but we're going to reestablish based on what we 4 learned from Fukushima, is 10 miles enough, and is 10 5 miles for potassium iodide distribution enough? So, 6 we're going to go back and take a look at that.
7 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Thank you, Eric. And 8 before I get to you, Elsa, Jerry Rosenthal, if he's 9 here will be next, and then Kirby MacLaurin. And 10 pardon me if I don't pronounce your name. Elsa 11 Spencer.
12 MS. SPENCER: Hi, I'm with Not On Our Fault 13 Line right here in Louisa, Virginia. I have a 14 question for the NRC that has two parts.
15 I'm wondering if you're going to require 16 Dominion to reevaluate the design basis earthquake for 17 the North Anna site before allowing them to restart 18 and carry out all the necessary retrofits before the 19 restart. And the second part of my question is, if 20 that reevaluation does take place for the design basis 21 earthquake, how can we, the public, be certain that 22 Dominion doesn't cover up information about the risks 23 so the public -- like they have in the past in the 24 '70s. Thank you.
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54 1 Vic, you want to take first crack at it?
2 MR. LEEDS: Okay, I heard two questions. The 3 first was design basis earthquake, are they going to 4 do that before, are they going to reevaluate the 5 design basis earthquake before the restart? And then 6 the second question is, how do we know that they're 7 going to be forthright, and do the right thing, and 8 tell us the information as they need to tell us?
9 The first, and we did cover it in our 10 presentation, and I believe that Dominion covered it 11 in their presentation, with regard to the design basis 12 earthquake, and what they need to do going forward.
13 Because of the situation at the plant, because there 14 was no significant damage to any of the safety 15 equipment at that site, we are not going to require 16 the plant to perform a reevaluation of their design 17 basis before startup.
18 They are going to have to do two things post 19 startup. The first is, they have to do what Meena 20 referred to as long-term evaluations. And what that 21 is, is taking a look at all the equipment that they've 22 got in this plant against this new earthquake that 23 just happened to assure ourselves, to assure 24 themselves, but also to assure the NRC that that 25 equipment has all the margin it needs for design basis NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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55 1 earthquake.
2 The second thing that they're going to do, 3 and Dominion referred to this, is that they have to 4 update their safety analysis for this new earthquake.
5 And all new modifications, all new equipment, 6 anything that they add to this plant, they're going to 7 have to consider the actual earthquake that occurred 8 on August 23rd in those analysis.
9 So, it's two parts. First, assure yourself 10 that all the equipment that's already in the plant has 11 retained all of its margin. And the second, any new 12 equipment has to be evaluated to this new earthquake.
13 Now, how are we going to assure that what 14 they tell us is true? There's a number of ways that 15 we do that. First off, the licensee when they submit 16 items to us in writing, it has to be under oath and 17 affirmation, oath and affirmation. And secondly, as 18 you heard, we have Resident Inspectors on site. We 19 also send inspectors to the site regularly, 20 specialists to look at other items. So, whatever they 21 do here, we have been very, very deliberate and we 22 have been very intrusive with regard to what the 23 licensee has been doing, what Dominion has been doing 24 with regard to this earthquake. And we will continue.
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56 1 seen a beyond design basis earthquake at an operating 2 nuclear power plant here in the United States, and 3 that's one of the reasons why we're trying to be so 4 thorough, so deliberate, and make sure that everything 5 is right before we allow these plants to restart.
6 Our mission is public health and safety. We 7 take it very seriously.
8 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Jerry Rosenthal.
9 MR. ROSENTHAL: Hi, I'm Jerry Rosenthal. I am 10 with the Concerned Citizens of Louisa County. I also 11 serve on the Louisa County Board of Supervisors Dry 12 Cask Committee, and have been monitoring the storage 13 of nuclear waste at the plant since they allowed the 14 dry casks there. I'm also a member of PACE, People's 15 Alliance for Clean Energy.
16 The question gets straight to our hearts, 17 where Dominion and the NRC have already set a new 18 design basis for Unit 3. Why not make Units 1 and 2 19 meet those standards? They've already agreed on this.
20 Why can't we have that standard for our public 21 safety? If it's good enough for 3, why not 1 and 2?
22 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Thank you, Jerry. I'm 23 looking over here to who at the NRC wants to field 24 that one. Don't forget to introduce yourself so that -
25 - Yong.
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57 1 MR. LI: Hi, my name is Yong Li. I'm a 2 seismologist at the NRC. You're saying -- your 3 question is regarding Unit 3, why we don't use the 4 Unit 3 standard, seismic design standard to the Unit 1 5 and 2. It's a good question.
6 Okay. The Unit 3 seismic standard was 7 decided based on new methodology. It's called a 8 Probabilistic Seismic Hazard Analysis, PSHA. And the 9 old power plant Unit 1 and 2 was determined using old 10 Deterministic Seismic Hazard Analysis method, so it's 11 totally -- it's kind of different method. One 12 emphasizes the maximum side of story from the 13 historical earthquake observation. One look at the 14 200 miles radius over all situation, all the site 15 sources took into consideration. So, that's different 16 from that approach regulated by NRC 10 CFR Appendix A, 17 and 123.
18 So, this question -- this issue is already 19 considered by NRC since 2005, when we have this new 20 site under review, Unit 3, Early Site Permit issue.
21 So, it's still under review. There's an issue called 22 GI 199. If you go to NRC's website, you can find all 23 the information related to GI 199.
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58 1 reviewing this one. Actually, there's a big potential 2 there that the NRC is going to issue some kind of 3 decision to pursue this as quick as possible to 4 address this issue.
5 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Eric, did you want to 6 follow-up?
7 MR. LEEDS: Yes, I just want to augment Yong.
8 Thank you very much, that was a good explanation.
9 The Generic Issue 199 that Yong was talking 10 about, that's getting tied into the NRC's review of 11 Lessons Learned from the Fukushima event, and the 12 Commission has asked the Staff to move out as quickly 13 as we can to get all the nuclear power plants in the 14 United States to update their seismic analysis for 15 their plants using this Generic Issue 199. So, Yong 16 hit the nail on the head. We are going forward with 17 that, so all the plants are going to have to look at 18 that for their sites.
19 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Thanks, Eric. So, we'll 20 have Kirby MacLaurin, and then on deck will be Lynn 21 Gaines, and then John Farmer. Kirby, are you 22 someplace?
23 MR. MacLAURIN: You mentioned the Fukushima 24 plant, multiple plant meltdown. Those who are able to 25 access alternative media were able to follow that NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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59 1 closely. Unfortunately, it wasn't covered very well 2 with wide broadcast media, the corporate media. But I 3 have been following the events there, and the issues 4 on a site called Fairewinds Associates, and I 5 recommend that to anyone. That's F-A-I-R-E-W-I-N-D-S.
6 A nuclear engineer by the name of Arnie 7 Gundersen pointed out multiple design flaws with the 8 Mark I reactor. I believe it's Mark I, the same as 9 North Anna Plant.
10 I'm wondering what you're aware of, that has 11 been identified as design flaws in Mark I that might 12 be an issue here at North Anna, and what approaches 13 will be taken to address those design flaws. One in 14 particular was the very limited time span of battery 15 backup in the event that electricity is disrupted. I 16 believe it was four hours at TEPCO in Fukushima, it 17 might be eight here, or the other way around. I can't 18 remember exactly.
19 So, what happens if we run out of power to 20 cool the reactor? What happens if the energy is 21 disrupted before the shutdown can take place, for 22 example?
23 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Thank you, Kirby.
24 MR. LEEDS: Thank you for the question. The 25 question is about Fukushima, and a little bit about NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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60 1 the design. You raised some very good concerns, very 2 valid concerns, very important concerns, things that 3 the NRC is looking at. But I do need to correct one 4 thing; the North Anna site, the plant design is a 5 different type of design than was at Fukushima. At 6 Fukushima the design was a boiling water reactor, and 7 the Mark I was the containment, the shell that 8 surrounds the reactor that provides containment. It 9 provides protection and keeps all radioactive 10 materials within the reactor, a very different design 11 than the North Anna site, which is a pressurized water 12 reactor, which doesn't use a Mark I containment. It's 13 what we call a large dry containment, which is a very 14 robust, thick concrete structure that provides the 15 containment.
16 But that doesn't change the significance of 17 the issues at Fukushima. And, as you mentioned, there 18 are a number of learnings from the Fukushima event 19 that the NRC is looking at to incorporate at all 20 nuclear power plants, whether it's a boiling water 21 reactor or a pressurized water reactor. Certainly, 22 station blackout, loss of power at the site is one of 23 the primary issues.
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61 1 preparedness. There are a number of other issues that 2 get very deep into technical issues, containment 3 venting, and emergency equipment, but all of those 4 issues are being examined by the NRC.
5 And as I mentioned before, we've just 6 received a go-ahead from the Commission to go ahead 7 and start working those issues, such that we can 8 incorporate those Lessons Learned into the nuclear 9 power plants here in the United States. But those are 10 valid issues, those are things that we are pursuing.
11 One other item that I want to mention, what 12 we talk about with Fukushima, we call that a beyond 13 the design basis event, beyond design basis event. We 14 don't expect that type of event to occur during the 15 lifetime of one of the plants here in the United 16 States. We don't expect it to occur. There are events 17 that we do expect to occur, but for beyond design 18 basis we don't expect it to occur. That doesn't mean 19 that we don't learn from it, that doesn't mean that we 20 don't incorporate those Lessons Learned into these 21 sites, and it doesn't mean that we don't take it very, 22 very seriously. We've got to do everything we can to 23 make these sites as safe as possible. However, the 24 likelihood of one of those events is low enough that 25 we feel that we have some time to incorporate those NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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62 1 learnings into these plants. And over the next six 2 months to several years, our Chairman wants to have 3 them all incorporated and done for all the nuclear 4 power plants in this country within the next five 5 years.
6 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Eric, thank you very 7 much. Lynn will be next, John Farmer, and then Paxus 8 Calta. Lynn Gaines.
9 MR. GAINES: I represent the Lake Anna 10 Business Partnership. We represent about 140 11 businesses that do business in the Lake Anna region.
12 Our President is here tonight, and some of the other 13 members of our Board of Directors.
14 The reason I'm speaking is because of my 15 experience. I have -- and I'm joined by some of my 16 fellow retirees from the Navy's Nuclear Propulsion 17 Program Headquarters. We worked for Admiral Rickover, 18 the four of us that are here. You guys want to stand 19 up. We have about 160 years of experience in the 20 Navy's Nuclear Propulsion Program.
21 (Applause.)
22 MR. GAINES: My retirement home, the only 23 home I own, is one and a half miles from the power 24 plant. Bob Woodbury's house is 1.6 miles from the 25 power plant. Merill Pardee's house is three miles NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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63 1 from the power plant. We understand how difficult and 2 how dangerous the technology of nuclear power is, and 3 we know how difficult it could be if you don't do it 4 well.
5 We also know that Dominion is a good 6 corporate citizen, and does a very good job of 7 operating this plant. And if we were the least bit 8 worried about what happened in this earthquake, we'd 9 be thinking about moving somewhere else.
10 I want to put this thing in a little bit of 11 perspective, my perspective as a designer of reactor 12 plant foundations for Navy ships for 30 years. The 13 worst acceleration that this plant saw was half a G.
14 Okay, that's 50 percent more than what Mother Nature 15 is pulling on you right now, what you feel against the 16 back of your chair is 1G. It's almost impossible to 17 design foundations -- yes, I'm getting there.
18 (Laughter.)
19 MR. GAINES: It's almost impossible to design 20 foundations so fragile that they couldn't withstand 21 far, far more than the worst that this earthquake put 22 into this plant. So, my question for the NRC really is 23 that given that all of the inspections that you've 24 done have borne out the notion that there was no 25 damage done, where is the urgency? Let's get back to NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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64 1 operation ASAP.
2 (Applause.)
3 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Thank you. A couple of 4 things before Vic answers. One of the things is we do 5 have a lot of questions, so I was actually hoping no 6 one was going to be longer than Eric's answer, but 7 maybe that might have been -- but, anyway, if you can 8 get to your question, that will allow us to address 9 your question more quickly. Vic, did you want to 10 respond?
11 MR. McCREE: Yes, just a couple of -- first 12 of all, thank you for your service and that of your 13 colleagues. As an ex-Navy Nuke myself, I appreciate 14 your sacrifice and your commitment to this nation and 15 your service, so thank you for that.
16 A couple of things you mentioned I just want 17 to respond to. First of all, you're right. Dominion 18 is primarily responsibility for -- responsible, 19 rather, for the safety of the two units here. They 20 recognize and acknowledge that, and based on our 21 independent evaluations in response to this event, 22 they've been proactive in doing the inspections, and 23 the tests consistent with the NRC-endorsed guidelines 24 to make sure they have their arms around the event, 25 and its significance. And thus far, we haven't NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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65 1 identified any major issues associated with the work 2 that they've done.
3 And as a result, I'm sure you heard Meena 4 indicate that because we've not identified, and 5 Dominion has not identified any damage to safety 6 equipment that would affect the safety of operating 7 systems at the plant, it's likely that within the next 8 week or so the NRC would authorize restart.
9 There has been, and there will be no urgency 10 to that. We will take a very thorough, and we have 11 taken a very thorough, and calm, and measured look at 12 what has happened, as has Dominion, and when we get 13 there, we'll get there. Again, we expect that it's 14 near-term, but I would not ever use urgency to 15 describe what we're doing, because safety is the most 16 important thing that we do.
17 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Vic, thank you. We'll 18 have John Farmer next, and then Paxus Calta, and Ray 19 Terielle?
20 MR. FARMER: Thank you very much. I'm John 21 Farmer. In the interest of full disclosure, I'm a 22 retired Dominion employee, as well as a Dominion 23 customer. My question to the NRC is, knowing what you 24 know now, Dominion said it's ready to go, you found at 25 this time no significant problems. Will you allow it NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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66 1 to make a timely startup with the winter coming on.
2 As a customer I'm concerned. The customers need and 3 the company needs this low-cost reliable, sustainable 4 power.
5 Virginia now is the second largest importer 6 of power, second only to California. And with these 7 units not in the generating pool, this could result in 8 significant problems, particularly during a high load 9 situation. So, I would ask the NRC if they see them 10 being able to restart, realizing that safety is the 11 primary concern here. Thank you very much for 12 allowing me to speak.
13 FACILITATOR LESLIE: John, thank you. Vic, 14 you want to take that?
15 MR. McCREE: John, thank you again for your 16 question. It's a very good one. I'd just reiterate 17 some of what I just said. Yes, safety is what we're 18 about. That's our mission, to protect the public 19 health and safety from the peaceful uses of nuclear 20 energy, and that's what we're doing. In our mission 21 and the Code of Federal Regulations, you won't see 22 anything about productivity. Okay?
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67 1 there's a process we go through, and they can make a 2 safety case, if you would, a public health and safety 3 case for operating the plant when perhaps an aspect of 4 our regulations they may not be in compliance with.
5 But there's a process that we go through for that.
6 That's not applicable here.
7 So, we're focused, as we've talked about on 8 confirming that the safety systems have not been 9 damaged, and that the plant can restart. And even when 10 that decision is made, we will continue our very 11 thorough, intrusive oversight to make sure that the 12 plant can operate safely.
13 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Thank you, Vic. And to 14 remind folks, Paxus is going to be next, on deck is 15 Ray Terielle from Bumpass, Virginia. And then Elena 16 Day. Paxus?
17 MR. CALTA: I have a couple of quick 18 questions. The first one of which is how many hours 19 did NRC Staff spend doing actual physical inspection 20 at the plant, approximately?
21 MR. McCREE: Paxus, I don't have that number 22 but we can take your address or phone number and get 23 back to you. We don't have that.
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68 1 from Dominion is that Dominion did 100,000 hours0 days <br />0 hours <br />0 weeks <br />0 months <br /> of 2 inspection, and what we've heard from the NRC tonight 3 is that the Dominion missed a bunch of things, 4 including loose valves and proper installation of pipe 5 hangers and other things which I didn't catch as they 6 went by, so this makes us a little concerned that the 7 ratio -- the amount of time that the NRC has been 8 spending doing inspections to Dominion's seems like 9 the NRC finds much more than Dominion does.
10 MR. McCREE: I appreciate your question, and 11 I don't think we described it as a "bunch of things."
12 I don't think we used that word, but we did identify 13 some things, and we don't do a ratio of number of 14 hours1.62037e-4 days <br />0.00389 hours <br />2.314815e-5 weeks <br />5.327e-6 months <br /> per what we find. So, that's not a concern that 15 we have. In fact, I would offer that the tests, the 16 inspections, the walk downs, if you would, that 17 Dominion has done which have been substantial, and our 18 activities -- in fact, the NRC's inspection and 19 oversight activities is a sampling approach, so we 20 could not come close to expending the number of hours 21 that Dominion has on their inspections and tests, et 22 cetera. But based on what they've done, they have 23 done a very thorough job in inspecting and testing the 24 facility.
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69 1 Administrator if the people that we've assigned for 2 both the augmented inspection and the restart 3 inspection had not identified something. That's their 4 job. Our's is a glass half full approach. Okay? So, 5 of course they've going to identify something, and 6 they've done a very good job of that.
7 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Thank you, Vic.
8 MR. CALTA: At the last NRC public hearing, 9 the Nuclear Regulatory Commission refused to confirm 10 that it had issued a $32,000 fine for Dominion for not 11 reporting fault lines in the plants. Can the NRC 12 comment on this fine now, did that actually take 13 place?
14 MR. McCREE: I believe you're referring to a 15 fine that was given 37 or some odd years ago. I have 16 not been with the agency that long. In fact, no one in 17 this room has, but our records do demonstrate that 18 about 37 years ago a $32,000 fine was given. I'd have 19 to confirm that. I couldn't -- no one could before.
20 It's not that we refuse to, it's that we couldn't 21 answer that with any certainty.
22 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Thank you, Paxus. Again, 23 Ray Terielle. Could you repeat your name for the 24 record.
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70 1 live about three miles out of the plant. And I'm 2 curious about a few things. One, the NRC says you're 3 not responsible for looking at the dam, that other 4 agency that shall be unnamed is.
5 If you guys don't work with the other agency 6 and check out the dam, it seems to me that you're 7 seriously remiss. I don't know how long those little 8 cooling ponds would last unless they have a source of 9 water to refill them as the stuff evaporates off. If 10 you don't look at it, I mean, that's negligence as far 11 as I'm concerned.
12 Did anybody actually inspect visibly the 13 fuel rods in the casks? I realize there's pressure 14 testing and such, and you're looking for leaks, but 15 are they all in tact? Are the uranium pellets sitting 16 at the bottom in a heap on any of these casks? And by 17 the way, I'm glad they weren't bolted down because 18 they probably would be lying at the bottom.
19 And my last question is, at the time of the 20 earthquake I never lost power at my house, not once.
21 So, how robust is the nuclear power offsite supply 22 system? If I didn't lose it and they did, it doesn't 23 make a lot of sense to me. Thank you.
24 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Thank you very much, 25 Ray. So, again, there were three questions in there, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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71 1 one on the spent fuel, one on the dam, and then --
2 MR. McCREE: Yes, there were three questions.
3 The first had to do with the dam inspections, as I 4 thought Gerry responded to very well. There is the 5 North Anna Dam, Lake Anna Dam, and there is a service 6 water pond that's used, that's referred to as the 7 ultimate heat sink. It provides cooling to the reactor 8 in the event of an emergency available for 30 days to 9 keep the plant in a safe condition.
10 With respect to the service water pond, that 11 structure was inspected by both Dominion and by NRC 12 inspectors. There was no damage found whatsoever 13 following the seismic event. The North Anna Dam was 14 also inspected by Dominion, and another organization, 15 and no damage was found. FERC is aware, the Federal 16 Energy Regulatory Commission is aware and has an 17 inspection plan, but no damage was identified at the 18 Lake Anna, the North Anna Dam, nor at the service 19 water pond. And we, NRC, does have a relationship 20 with FERC, and we can call upon their services, or 21 call upon them to conduct inspections when we think 22 it's appropriate.
23 FACILITATOR LESLIE: I'll remind you. The 24 inspection of the rods inside the cask.
25 MR. McCREE: Okay, Al.
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72 1 MR. HOWE: Good evening. I'm Allen Howe, the 2 Deputy Director of the Division of Operating Reactor 3 Licensing in NRC headquarters office. I work for Eric.
4 With regard to the fuel rods, let me -- and 5 the spent fuel storage containers, I believe that was 6 the question. Has anybody done any examination of the 7 fuel rods at the interior of the dry fuel storage 8 cask. And the answer to that is no inspections have 9 been directly performed of the rods inside of the fuel 10 cask. However, the licensee did perform surveys. The 11 AIT did examine the results of those surveys and they 12 did not find any anomalies as a part of the survey.
13 The AIT team also walked down the casks themselves and 14 physically examined them.
15 Let me carry this a little bit further in 16 terms of the types of evaluations that are done for 17 these dry cask storage. When the design is done, one 18 of the evaluations is done is the movement of the 19 cask, the transport from the reactor facility out to 20 the pad. And the potential for the dropping of a cask 21 during that transportation is part of what's 22 evaluated. And the purpose of that is to confirm that 23 the fuel that is in those casks will not have any 24 adverse effects, will not leak out of those 25 containers. In other words, they'll maintain their NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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73 1 integrity.
2 As a part of this, the other aspects of the 3 fuel rods themselves in the casks is that there are 4 certain specifications for the intactness, if you 5 will, and the condition of those fuel rods before 6 they're put in those casks. And if they don't meet 7 those standards, they cannot be installed in those 8 casks.
9 That being said, again to close it out, no, 10 we did not look at the rods inside of the cask, but we 11 don't have any evidence or any reason to believe that 12 there was any damage based on the surveys and the 13 evaluations that have been done.
14 FACILITATOR LESLIE: And before Vic answers, 15 Elena Day will be next, Jim Adams.
16 MR. McCREE: There was a third component of 17 the question having to do with the robustness of 18 offsite power, and why you had power on at your home 19 and the North Anna site lost offsite power. I don't 20 know. I don't know.
21 As for robustness, the robustness of 22 electrical power at the station is not only based on 23 the provision of power from off the site, but also the 24 capability of emergency AC power on site. And as you 25 may know, when North Anna lost offsite power, the four NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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74 1 emergency diesel generators started and supplied the 2 safety buses. Less than an hour into it, they did lose 3 one emergency diesel but a standby diesel had started, 4 and that was aligned to the safety buses. So, at no 5 time was there a loss of -- did the loss of offsite 6 power result in a loss of a safety function, which of 7 most import certainly to Dominion, but also to NRC as 8 a regulator.
9 So, I apologize I can't speak to your 10 question about robustness other than to note that 11 there are multiple sources of offsite power to the 12 site. In response to this event, there were some 13 transformers lost, and they did have an interruption 14 of offsite power for a period of time.
15 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Vic, I think Dave might 16 want to add something to that.
17 MR. McCREE: Okay.
18 FACILITATOR LESLIE: David.
19 MR. HEACOCK: Yes, let me add to that if I 20 could. The offsite power was lost due to some 21 transformers on site. These transformers had some 22 sensitive protection devices that are designed to 23 protect the transformers from internal faults. And 24 the motion from the earthquake set these sensors off.
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75 1 from the outside grid. That's why offsite power was 2 lost. About four hours later we were able to restore 3 these transformers and bring offsite power back on. In 4 the interim, as Victor described, the diesel 5 generators provided power for all the safety buses so 6 they never lost power to the safety buses on site.
7 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Thank you, David. It 8 will be Elena Day, Scott Ziemer, and then John 9 Cruickshank.
10 MS. DAY: Hi, I'm with People's Alliance for 11 Clean Energy. Anyway, I have a question. I want you to 12 clarify to me regarding your thorough reevaluation of 13 the two plants. Like I understand that Unit 2 was 14 already down because it was being refueled, so you 15 were able to make a more thorough evaluation than that 16 of Unit 1. And Unit 1 was not down, and therefore I 17 can only assume that your evaluation of Unit 1 does 18 not compare to that of Unit 2. I just want you to 19 clarify that for me.
20 And the other question is -- it was brought 21 up earlier regarding the mitigating station blackout.
22 And right now, the onsite capability that's required 23 is only four to eight hours. That's not very much. Are 24 the NRC going to recommend increasing the amount of 25 time to mitigate for station blackout perhaps to 72 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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76 1 hours1.157407e-5 days <br />2.777778e-4 hours <br />1.653439e-6 weeks <br />3.805e-7 months <br /> or more? I mean, you know, in the event of a 2 disaster that just occurred in Japan, I think this 3 should be paramount.
4 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Thank you, Elena. Vic, 5 are you going to take this?
6 MR. McCREE: Yes, I will. Could she reiterate 7 -- I think there was a three-part question. I didn't 8 get the third -- it was just two parts? Okay.
9 MS. DAY: Okay. I just want you to clarify 10 for me that -- regarding your inspection of Unit 1.
11 Unit 2 you could inspect because --
12 MR. McCREE: That was your first question.
13 MS. DAY: -- it was down because of 14 refueling.
15 MR. McCREE: Yes.
16 MS. DAY: And I just want you to clarify that 17 for me. The second question is regarding station 18 blackout.
19 MR. McCREE: Got it.
20 MS. DAY: And the fact that you only require 21 four to eight hours of power capability to mitigate a 22 serious event.
23 MR. McCREE: I understand.
24 MS. DAY: Would you recommend a much longer 25 availability of power in the case of --
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77 1 MR. McCREE: Both very good questions. Thank 2 you. As for the first question, when the event 3 occurred both units were at 100 power, both Units 1 4 and 2 were at 100 percent power. And both units 5 tripped as a result of the seismic event, and we've 6 spoken to how the plant and operators responded to it.
7 Dominion opted to take Unit 2 into a 8 refueling outage, which they began and they've 9 essentially completed. The inspections and testing 10 that they've done consistent with the Electric Power 11 Research Institute guidelines -- Meena referred to 12 them, EPRI MP 6697 guidelines on actions to take to 13 restart a plant from a seismic event. Those 14 inspections and tests have been conducted, and we 15 independently evaluated them for both units.
16 And although there were some inspections for 17 fuel and reactor vessel internals that were done on 18 Unit 2 taking advantage of the outage, and those were 19 done. Those inspections were done on, again, Unit 2 20 because it was in an outage, but the bulk of the 21 inspections that were done were applied to both units.
22 FACILITATOR LESLIE: I'm looking to see who 23 will touch the Fukushima and station blackout. Eric?
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78 1 for hours, and I know that's not what you want to 2 hear. And they'll throw me back off the stage if I 3 do, but that's a great question, and I want to answer 4 it.
5 The station blackout, first -- and I'll try 6 to do this briefly. There are three sources of power 7 that go to the site. You've got offsite power, which 8 is the normal source of power. You also have those 9 emergency diesel generators that we talked about 10 before. They have five emergency diesel generators.
11 These are huge engines the size of locomotives. Four, 12 I'm sorry, four diesel generators. They only need two 13 to operate to keep those plants safe. During this 14 event, the diesels operated, kept the plant safe.
15 The third form of power and the one that 16 you're talking about is the battery back out. All 17 right? In case you lose offsite, in case the diesel 18 generators don't work, you've got batteries. And 19 depending on the site in the United States, the 20 batteries can last -- some last four, eight, some as 21 long as 16 hours1.851852e-4 days <br />0.00444 hours <br />2.645503e-5 weeks <br />6.088e-6 months <br />.
22 When we originally envisioned the need for 23 the battery backup it had to do with the reliability 24 of these diesel generators, and the reliability of the 25 grid. Well, we learned something different at NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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79 1 Fukushima. Fukushima was a horrific event where a 45 2 foot tsunami wiped out everything. Well, now we have 3 to go back and take a new look at what do we really 4 need for those batteries, and whether the answer is 5 eight hours, 24 hours2.777778e-4 days <br />0.00667 hours <br />3.968254e-5 weeks <br />9.132e-6 months <br />, 72 hours8.333333e-4 days <br />0.02 hours <br />1.190476e-4 weeks <br />2.7396e-5 months <br />, that's what we're 6 evaluating now.
7 And it's not just a case of how many hours 8 you want those batteries to work, it's also how 9 quickly can you bring in offsite power from other 10 sources? Can you have emergency equipment located 11 around the plant such that you can get a skid-mounted 12 diesel generator or some other type of power equipment 13 there quickly.
14 So, it's a very good issue. It's an issue 15 that we're working on. It's an issue that we need to 16 make progress on very quickly with regard to how long, 17 and how are we going to do this, and what are the 18 backup sources?
19 But thank you for your question. I hope I 20 answered your question.
21 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Before we move on --
22 MR. McCREE: Let me just add one other thing 23 to that. There is one design difference here in the 24 emergency AC power here at North Anna that Fukushima 25 didn't benefit from. Actually, Fukushima Daiichi Unit NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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80 1 6 did have an air-cooled emergency diesel generator 2 which was very critical to the event at Fukushima of 3 not impacting Unit 6. So, when you think about the 4 safety and capability here at North Anna, the fact 5 that the diesel is air-cooled and it doesn't require 6 forced cooling via service water, it provides a 7 distinct advantage in terms of emergency AC power 8 capability here at North Anna.
9 FACILITATOR LESLIE: We're going to go to 10 John Cruickshank, on deck would be Vodjtka Ta Chai, 11 and I believe Elsa Spencer has already asked a 12 question. Oh, sorry, Scott.
13 MR. ZIEMER: My name is Scott Ziemer. I live 14 in Crozet, and I'm worried about those two dams we've 15 been talking about. How were they built and to what 16 size earthquake were they built for?
17 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Vic.
18 MR. McCREE: For your question, and given the 19 fact that this particular question has been raised as 20 many times as it has, what I'd like to commit us to is 21 looking at the questions that were asked and putting 22 some information on our website that provides a 23 universal response to this, because apparently what 24 we're providing is not fully connecting. And I want 25 to apologize for that.
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81 1 We strive to do our best, and if we don't 2 hit it out of the park, to continue with Bret's 3 baseball analogy, although this is football season. I 4 thought you were going to talk red zone and stuff like 5 that. But we'll do better.
6 If I could try once -- to address your 7 question specifically, I don't know and I don't think 8 anyone here knows what the design basis, at least on 9 the NRC side knows what the design basis earthquake, 10 if you would -- that terminology may not even be 11 accurate for the North Anna Dam, for the Lake Dam.
12 For the service water pond, the ultimate 13 heat sink, the design basis earthquake is the design 14 basis for the site. And, as we know, that's what was 15 exceeded, if you would, for this particular earthquake 16 and the resultant inspections prove that there was 17 capability, that there was no damage.
18 But what we'll do -- I'll commit to do in 19 response to your question is provide a more thorough, 20 comprehensive response to all these dam issues.
21 (Laughter.)
22 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Again, it's John 23 Cruickshank. And, again, if I haven't pronounced your 24 name properly, please correct me for the record.
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82 1 already asked a question.
2 MR. CRUICKSHANK: I'm John Cruickshank. I 3 live in Charlottesville, so I live within 30 miles of 4 the nuclear reactors. And I'm representing the 5 Virginia Chapter of the Sierra Club, which has 15,000 6 members in Virginia. And I'm going to estimate that 7 about a third of them live within a 50 mile radius of 8 the North Anna Power Station.
9 I have two questions. First, I would like to 10 say that the Sierra Club believes that the NRC should 11 employ the precautionary principle at North Anna that 12 this nuclear power plant should not be permitted to 13 restart until all safety concerns have been thoroughly 14 addressed beyond any doubt. So, my first question is, 15 does the NRC believe that they are following the 16 precautionary principle. And my second question is, 17 considering the age of these reactors and of the 18 equipment, has the NRC considered embrittlement of the 19 metals in the containment vessel, the heat exchanger, 20 the piping, and other equipment?
21 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Thank you, John. Eric, 22 you want to take the first crack at that?
23 MR. LEEDS: Yes. Two questions. The first, 24 are we employing precautionary measures making sure 25 that all safety concerns have been addressed? Yes, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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83 1 I'll affirm that we are. As you've heard from Vic, 2 and as I've stated also, we think that we're doing a 3 very deliberate, thorough review. I urge you to take a 4 look at the website. On our website we have a link 5 that goes directly to North Anna. You can take a look 6 at all the questions that we've asked the licensee, 7 Dominion, and how Dominion has responded to all of 8 those. And when we finish our review, we will issue a 9 safety report on it, and I would urge you to read 10 that.
11 Besides the in-house expertise and all the 12 inspection that we've done, I think we've been doing a 13 very, very thorough review. And we need to do that, 14 and I'm proud that we're doing that.
15 Dominion is satisfying themselves, and to be 16 fair to Dominion I think they've done a very thorough 17 review. And they've been very, very cooperative, and 18 they're assuring themselves that they're being safe, 19 but I'm a skeptical regulator, and my staff more so.
20 And we're looking very hard at it. We will make sure 21 that we have reasonable assurance of safety before we 22 allow restart.
23 The second item that you talked about was 24 the age of the reactors and embrittlement.
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84 1 regulatory process. We have regulations that require 2 that we look at embrittlement specifically on the 3 reactor vessel which gets the most flux from the core.
4 And it's something that licensees have what we call 5 coupon samples within the vessel, and they take those 6 out, and we make sure that those are tested to make 7 sure that enough ductility remains in the reactor 8 vessel in the primary components to make sure that it 9 stays safe. So, it is something that we watch very 10 closely. Thank you.
11 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Thanks, Eric. Vodjtka.
12 Again, I'm sorry, if I mispronounced it, please 13 correct me for the record.
14 MS. TA CHAI: It's fine, everybody does.
15 Well, first of all, I'd like to know who the people 16 are with the Nuclear Energy shirts on. Are these paid 17 Dominion employees? Just nuclear fans? That's 18 bizarre.
19 Anyway, so we keep having -- I'm from 20 California, and we have lots and lots of aftershocks 21 and lots of earthquakes, so we keep having 22 aftershocks. Is anybody looking at the cumulative 23 damage that might be caused by continuing series of 24 aftershocks?
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85 1 difference between the construction standards for a 2 Virginia reactor as opposed to what was built in 3 California, because I am fairly certain that even 4 though this was a mild event, that you may incur a 5 bigger earthquake in the future. And I'm also fairly 6 certain that Virginia construction standards have not 7 included earthquake retrofitting or reinforcing.
8 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Thank you. And make 9 sure you introduce yourself, Kamal.
10 MR. MANOLY: Yes, my name is Kamal Manoly.
11 I'm a Senior Advisor in the Office of Nuclear Reactor 12 Regulation. And your first question was focused on the 13 repetitiveness or the cumulative damage from an 14 earthquake.
15 The earthquake that I think you mentioned 16 yourself was a minor earthquake. The data clearly show 17 that it was a very short duration earthquake. And due 18 to that, the equipment did not sustain any what we 19 call inelastic deformation. When the material is in 20 elastic range, you don't get the cumulative effect 21 that you're talking about when you have taken the 22 material in a different domain.
23 The second part of your question was the 24 design basis for the Virginia plants versus the 25 California plants. There's a major, major difference.
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86 1 The Virginia plants, North Anna designed to an SSE 2 .12G, and .18G; whereas, in California you have three 3 levels earthquake. You have an OBE .25G, you have an 4 SSE .5G, and then you have a Hosgrie is .75G. So, 5 you're talking a humongous difference between the 6 plants built in California versus a plant in the east 7 coast.
8 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Just a housekeeping 9 point at this point. We're scheduled to end in 10 10 minutes. I want to check with Eric and Vic to make 11 sure. Can we go over?
12 MR. McCREE: Why don't we take a few minutes 13 now, Bret, to check with folks on the phone. I'm sure 14 they've been very patient for this, to see if anyone 15 there --
16 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Would you entertain 17 going --
18 MR. McCREE: Yes.
19 FACILITATOR LESLIE: We still have about 13 20 people here that still want to ask some questions.
21 MR. McCREE: Okay. Then why don't we plan to 22 go on until --
23 FACILITATOR LESLIE: 9:30 is pretty much when 24 the principal told us --
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87 1 9:30?
2 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Thank you.
3 MR. McCREE: Okay. All right. Let's do that.
4 FACILITATOR LESLIE: While they're waiting, 5 Jerry Dunay, Al Smith, and Edmund Frost. Okay, Jerry.
6 MR. DUNAY: My name is Jeremy Dunay. I'm a 7 nuclear engineer at BCU. And, technically, from a 8 technical standpoint, there's a lot of questions in 9 here on TV that we see -- we as nuclear engineers, 10 people in school that we can easily defer and say we 11 can prove against just in our basic intro classes. And 12 I was curious what we can do as the people that are 13 upcoming, the future, what we can do from a social 14 standpoint that we're going against the media, going 15 against a lot of the subjective facts that are on TV 16 that people cling to but really don't necessarily go 17 behind and see the background behind. What can we do 18 as the upcoming generation to kind of push the pro 19 nuclear looks, so in the future when an earthquake 20 happens we can say how can we make this -- how can we 21 turn on North Anna faster versus how can we slow it 22 down?
23 FACILITATOR LESLIE: That's a little off 24 target, but if either Eric or --
25 (Laughter.)
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88 1 FACILITATOR LESLIE: I mean, it's a --
2 (Off mic comment and applause.)
3 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Vic. Again, let's --
4 actually, we're going to run out of time if we allow 5 a lot of conversation with the audience.
6 MR. McCREE: First of all, thanks for your 7 comment and question. The NRC, as you may know, we're 8 an independent federal agency. We're not pro, we're 9 not anti. Our role is if a utility such as Dominion 10 chooses to use nuclear power to generate electricity, 11 then our role is to make sure that it's done safely.
12 So, we're not in an advocacy role, and I just want to 13 take the opportunity to put that out there. But I do 14 appreciate your question. I think it's a good one.
15 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Next will be Al Smith, 16 Ed Frost, and then Paul Gunter.
17 MR. SMITH: Good evening. I'm Al Smith, a 18 retired employee of Dominion Virginia Power. For 19 several years, I had the responsibility and pleasure 20 of working with the citizens and officials of Louisa 21 County as Dominion's Senior External Affairs Manager.
22 I arrived a little early this evening, and had the 23 opportunity to speak with friends and former contacts 24 and colleagues.
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89 1 community-minded company that does what it says. It 2 has a record of a strong safety culture, and I believe 3 the plant is ready to restart. Inspections have been 4 done, and shown that there weren't any significant 5 damage or there wasn't any significant damage that 6 would make it unsafe to operate.
7 I think it is time to restart North Anna.
8 Will everyone who agrees with me and favors the 9 restart please stand.
10 (Applause.)
11 MR. SMITH: Thank you.
12 FACILITATOR LESLIE: I'd like to try to 13 remind folks that we really want to focus on the 14 questions, and not so much on the comments, because 15 there a lot of people who still have questions in the 16 audience. Thank you. Edmund Frost, Paul Gunter, and 17 G. Paul Blundell.
18 MR. FROST: An emergency enforcement petition 19 has been filed with the NRC by the group I'm part of 20 called Not On Our Fault Line and several other groups.
21 One thing we're calling for is a reevaluation of the 22 seismic risks at the site due to the exceedance of the 23 design basis. And we're calling for retrofitting of 24 the plant. We're calling for inspection of Unit 1 to 25 the same standard as Unit 2.
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90 1 I'm wondering when we can expect a ruling on 2 that petition. It seems like it's very timely since 3 you're talking about restarting.
4 And another question is, what other 5 organization inspected the dam. Vic mentioned that.
6 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Meena, do you want to 7 take that first question on the petition?
8 MS. KHANNA: Yes, thank you for that 9 question. That's a good question. There are a couple 10 of 2.206 petitions that we are currently reviewing, 11 and there is a separate process, part of 10 CFR 2.206 12 delineates the process. And we actually have 13 conducted a Petition Review Board for one of the 14 petitions, and the other one is scheduled in the very 15 near future.
16 This is a separate process from the restart 17 decision. However, there will be -- the PRB will meet 18 to determine if there's any immediate safety concerns.
19 MR. FROST: Okay, but you don't know when a 20 ruling can be expected.
21 MS. KHANNA: Well, as far as the schedule, I 22 don't have a schedule for it.
23 MR. FROST: Okay.
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91 1 2.206 guidelines. However, again, I will note that 2 this is a separate process. We will handle this 3 process separate from the restart decision.
4 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Allen.
5 MS. KHANNA: Allen, do you want to add 6 something on the schedule? Thanks.
7 MR. HOWE: Yes. Again, I'm Allen Howe. I'm 8 also in the Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation.
9 Meena mentioned that there were two petitions. One of 10 the petitions the Board has already met, and they have 11 notified the petitioner of the results of the initial 12 review. The second petition, the Board is scheduled to 13 meet, and they are meeting before we complete our 14 evaluation to address any of the immediate issues that 15 have been raised in the petition. Once the Board has 16 met internally and a decision has been made, the 17 petitioners will be notified.
18 MR. McCREE: Yes, your question, I think, 19 regarding what the other organization was. It's our 20 understanding that Dominion had experts from Virginia 21 Tech to also inspect the North Anna Dam. We have not 22 seen the results of those independently to consider 23 them, if you would, but we do understand that it 24 occurred, and that there were no issues. I don't know 25 if you want to speak to that.
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92 1 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Please identify yourself 2 for the record.
3 MR. HENDRIXSON: My name is Eric Hendrixson.
4 I'm the Director of Engineering in North Anna Power 5 Station. The main dam was inspected numerous times, 6 and there's several tests that we performed on the dam 7 itself over -- immediately following the earthquake, 8 and the following weeks. The FERC was involved in 9 providing oversight on those inspections of the dam, 10 and also licensed professional engineers inspected the 11 main dam.
12 FACILITATOR LESLIE: And you had one last 13 question?
14 MR. FROST: This is a quick comment. You said 15 that Dominion -- that the plant tells a story. And I 16 just want to say that time is the only thing that's 17 going to tell the story, and I'm worried about what 18 that story is.
19 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Thank you.
20 (Applause.)
21 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Paul Gunter next, and G.
22 Paul Blundell, and then Bill Akers.
23 MR. GUNTER: Thank you. My name is Paul 24 Gunter. I'm with Beyond Nuclear, and we're a public 25 advocacy group out of Tacoma Park, Maryland. And NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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93 1 we're also one of the petitioners that's filed.
2 I just want to begin my statement with a 3 remark with regard to the earlier question about the 4 $32,000 fine. I thought that was a fairly coy remark 5 from Vic. And I think that we need to be more 6 forthright in just recognizing that, first of all, 7 Virginia Electric Power Company was fined $32,000 for 8 making material false statements with regard to the 9 siting of this plant on a fault line. And that's a 10 matter of fact, and it's in the record.
11 More of concern, and more recent, which I'm 12 sure the NRC at least Office of Public Affairs is 13 aware of, is that the Fluvanna Review on October 26, 14 2011 wrote an article that basically cites that the 15 Department of Justice had a memo that was issued in 16 September of 1977 that concluded that it could not 17 press criminal charges against Virginia Electric Power 18 Company because of the collusion of the Nuclear 19 Regulatory Commission in covering up these 20 misstatements, these misrepresentations to its own 21 licensing board. So, you've got a Department of 22 Justice memo that concludes that you destroyed its 23 case.
24 Now, recognizing that was more than 30 years 25 ago, I think we all go by the standard that one lie NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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94 1 destroys a thousand truths. And that's what we're 2 facing here today, is that the agency and the industry 3 have undermined their own credibility. And the fact 4 that we have an earthquake now that has really shaken 5 things up, this is what's destroying public confidence 6 in this meeting today.
7 But more importantly to my questions, I 8 think that Eric, you had said that in the last 9 Commission briefing that the agency was not going to 10 require a backward look at the original seismic 11 calculations for the design basis earthquake. Now, the 12 fact is that you've destroyed your credibility by 13 basically colluding as pointed out by this Department 14 of Justice memo. So, why should we have any faith that 15 this agency is not just continuing in that collusion 16 to cover up for the financial concerns of this 17 industry over the public health and safety? I think 18 that's a fair question.
19 Why should we have faith in you now? But 20 more particularly, with regard to this cumulative 21 absolute velocity, if I was a civil engineer in 22 California, can somebody give an answer, would I be 23 using this CAV figure to look at the safety margin in 24 a bridge overpass after the North Ridge earthquake? I 25 mean, it's my understanding that this CAV calculation NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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95 1 is primarily being used for nuclear power, and not 2 being used in civil engineering for like bridge 3 structures. So, I'd like to know what the difference 4 is between what a civil engineer in California would 5 use, and what you're using to make this assessment at 6 North Anna.
7 And it's also -- an additional question is 8 that we have had dozens of aftershocks at this 9 facility. And as I read the transcripts to date, the 10 measurements and the calculations that you're making 11 right now do not bring into a cumulative evaluation of 12 all the earthquakes, the aftershocks that have 13 occurred. You basically have capped it at the August rd 14 23 event. So, what's the cumulative part of this 15 cumulative -- this CAV calculation.
16 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Thank you very much, 17 Paul. I heard three questions --
18 MR. LEEDS: I heard four.
19 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Okay. Well, Eric, since 20 you heard four, why don't you start it off.
21 MR. LEEDS: I'll try to do my best. Paul, 22 thank you for coming down from Tacoma Park. I'm glad 23 that you're here. I'm glad you're raising those 24 issues.
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96 1 at that exit from the NRC was familiar with the 2 $32,000 fine. As Vic said, it was before our time. I 3 may be the senior here, or maybe Kamal is the senior, 4 but I've been with the agency for 27 years. How long 5 have you been? Twenty-eight years, you've got me beat 6 by a year, so that puts him in 1983, maybe 1984. I was 7 in the Navy before that.
8 We went back and took a look at that, and 9 you do talk about Department of Justice memo says back 10 in 1974 there may have been -- there was collusion 11 according to the Department of Justice memo, 1974. I 12 got back to what Vic said.
13 MR. GUNTER: What's the design basis, though?
14 You sited the plant on that --
15 MR. LEEDS: Let me answer your question, 16 though. You asked me -- well, I'm trying to be clear.
17 You asked why you should have trust. You said that was 18 the NRC, that wasn't the NRC. That was the Atomic 19 Energy Commission. The NRC didn't exist. Yes, NRC --
20 MR. GUNTER: It was reported in the 21 Washington Post that it was the Nuclear Regulatory 22 Commission.
23 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Rich.
24 MR. LEEDS: In 1974, the Nuclear Regulatory 25 Commission didn't exist. You know that, as well as I NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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97 1 do.
2 (Off mic comment.)
3 MR. LEEDS: 1974, the time of the collusion, 4 the Nuclear Regulatory Commission didn't exist. Let 5 me get to my point, Paul. You asked why you should 6 trust us. And I believe as a government employee, as a 7 public servant, that's why we have these meetings.
8 That's the openness, that's the -- our website. I 9 implore every one of you to go take a look at our 10 websites, and take a look at all the documentation 11 that we put out there to allow the public to make 12 their own judgment.
13 All the questions that we have asked the 14 licensee and all the responses are there. All the 15 guidance documentation that we used to conduct this 16 review is there. All these meetings that we've had on 17 this issue, we've had two at headquarters, now we've 18 had two down here at the site. They've all been open 19 to the public. So, we're doing everything that we know 20 to do to try to build that trust.
21 And I understand the trust was broken in 22 1974. I understand that. And how long did it take to 23 build that trust? I don't know the answer to that.
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98 1 professionalism, so I'll say for the last 28 years 2 we've been doing everything that we can to enhance 3 public trust in what we do.
4 One last thing on that. For the past, I 5 believe, six years the NRC has been ranked the number 6 one place to work in the federal government. We're 7 very proud of that. One of the reasons I believe that 8 we've been ranked so high is because our mission, 9 public health and safety, it never changes. It doesn't 10 matter who's in the administration. It doesn't matter 11 if it's a Republican or Democrat.
12 We're an independent agency, as Vic 13 mentioned before. We only have one mission, public 14 health and safety. We believe in our mission, our 15 people believe in the mission. And these are all the 16 reasons why we do what we do, and we try to reach out 17 to build trust. That was your first question.
18 Your second question had to do with 19 something that I said at the last Commission meeting, 20 that we're not taking a backwards look. And perhaps I 21 wasn't clear enough. At this meeting, we talked about 22 two things going forward with regard to the North Anna 23 site with regard to the earthquake loading, long-term 24 evaluations to make sure that the margin is in tact, 25 that there is margin there for the earthquake. And the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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99 1 second is, the licensee is going to update their Final 2 Safety Analysis Report using the August 23rd 3 earthquake. So, we are going forward, and we are 4 looking -- we are incorporating what we've learned 5 from this earthquake into the design basis at this 6 plant. We're doing that.
7 The last two questions you asked about the 8 cumulative absolute velocity, and cumulative effects 9 of earthquakes. And I want to give that to one of our 10 technical experts. Did you want to add --
11 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Let's try to keep our 12 answers --
13 MR. McCREE: Don't worry, it'll be very 14 quick. Paul, first of all, I agree with everything 15 that Eric said. I'd just like to say for your benefit, 16 and just as well as everyone in the room. When you 17 mention words like "coy," and "coverup," and 18 "collusion," it's difficult not to take that 19 professionally, and that's exactly how we take it. And 20 that's exactly how we'll respond to it.
21 Whether it's the Atomic Energy Commission, 22 or the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, you're talking 23 about people. We're people. We're trying to do our 24 jobs, and trying to do them well. We all -- we're a 25 federal agency, so when we all come in, we take the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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100 1 same oath of office that everyone takes joining the 2 military. "I do solemnly swear to support and defend 3 the Constitution of the United States against all 4 enemies both foreign and domestic. I will bear true 5 faith and allegiance to the same, and I will well and 6 faithfully discharge the duties of the office of which 7 I'm about to enter, so help me God." So, the people 8 sitting over here are well and faithfully discharging 9 their duties.
10 (Applause.)
11 MR. McCREE: So, to suggest those 12 characterizations of what we're doing is really 13 counter to that, and I would --
14 PARTICIPANT: We just lost power.
15 MR. CALTA: We can't hear you.
16 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Is the power back? Okay.
17 Could we just answer the two questions.
18 MR. MANOLY: Yes, I just want to address the 19 question on the cumulative absolute velocity that you 20 raised. The cumulative absolute velocity number, it's 21 a number that was established endorsed in Reg Guide 22 1.166 to shutdown the plant not as a measure of the 23 fact that this damage has already occurred. It's a 24 metric that we use so the plant can shutdown and then 25 look, to show an exceedance of the operating versus NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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101 1 earthquake. When it exceed operating versus 2 earthquake, then you shutdown the plant and you 3 calculate the CAV value.
4 As we've seen on the slides that Dominion 5 showed, the CAV for the event was .17, and for the 6 design basis SSE was around .588, so we're talking 7 almost three times as much. And that gives you a feel 8 of the relativeness of what the plant was designed for 9 versus what it experienced.
10 The other question about the repetitiveness 11 of the event, again I answered that question before.
12 The material -- the components during that earthquake, 13 the short duration earthquake did not get anywhere 14 close to a range where you have permanent deformation.
15 In fact, the equipment of design, a lot of time the 16 piping designed for seismic SSE plus LOCA, Loss of 17 Coolant Accident. You only experienced only one thing, 18 which is the earthquake. And it was a short duration 19 earthquake that did not take the materials anywhere in 20 the range where you have sustained deformation.
21 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Okay. Thank you, Kamal.
22 To remind folks, we've got about 20 minutes left, and 23 we have 10 questions, so please try to focus very 24 closely. Bill Akers, and then G. Paul Blundell, Kelly 25 Taylor.
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102 1 MR. AKERS: Thank you. Bill Akers. At the 2 prior meeting with Dr. Green here, I did do some news 3 reporting, but I freelance. But this as a citizen of 4 Louisa, and I hate to take a shot over here, but I'm -
5 - I feel like I need to.
6 Paul, it would certainly be helpful since 7 you're -- one of your staff who stood next to me at 8 the North Anna meeting challenged Dominion Power that 9 video taping of the license tags out in the parking 10 lot had occurred. When I took that matter to the 11 Rutherford Institute, it sure would be nice if your 12 organization would respond to emails.
13 My question, I'm not sure whether or not you 14 can answer, but percentage of proximity to active 15 faults, I would be curious, and I don't even know if 16 there's an actual tracking of this, but as to the 17 distance, what, it's 15 miles. What percentage does 18 that place that in to reactors that are near faults?
19 For example, does that put it in the top 10 percent of 20 plants?
21 Now, a question was raised about California 22 construction standards. By the same token, if --
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103 1 stronger standards at a closer proximity, if you 2 follow what I'm saying. Should I elaborate, or wait 3 for an answer on that? I mean, go on to my next 4 question. Okay, go on to the next one.
5 All right. Well, you know, just as a lay 6 person, what I experience is what I would call a 7 rather harmonic shock wave. And I'm not an engineer 8 but those -- some of see things about this, that 9 harmonic tends to have a lot of metal fatigue and 10 stress fatigue. Should we presume that in the course 11 of the inspections and your testing that it certainly 12 includes for unseen fatigue in the way of materials?
13 This one I feel like it's almost a given. Your answer 14 is probably going to be yes, and I thank you.
15 And I would just -- well, I say yes in terms 16 of just affirm it and we'll move on quickly. Thank 17 you.
18 Could a critical mass incident cause a 19 radiation plume to fall within Washington, D.C.
20 affecting the 10 million people from there to 21 Baltimore?
22 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Thank you, Bill. And 23 we'll take the seismic questions first.
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104 1 regarding the fault approximately to the power plant.
2 According to design parameter for new reactor, you are 3 not allowed a capable fault beneath the power plant 4 period. For the existing power plant, we also have a 5 serious regulation addressing this issue. And 6 generally speaking, if you want to define a capable 7 fault, it has two aspects for that capable fault. One 8 is cannot -- fault itself cannot cause a vibration, 9 the earthquake vibration. Second, it cannot cause a 10 displacement. I mean, if you are located right beneath 11 the foundation it could display, cause the foundation 12 instability. That's a concern, so vibration and the 13 displacement, that's two concern for capable fault.
14 But not every fault is capable, because you drill a 15 hole right here underneath here to the bedrock, you 16 can find many, many faults, big or small, but 17 necessarily they are active faults or capable faults, 18 because they are very old faults. And they haven't 19 been active for many, many years. So, that's the 20 concern here.
21 MR. McCREE: And one other thing, with 22 respect to the third question, Bret, if we could get 23 his contact information with regard to the radioactive 24 plume affecting Washington, D.C., we'll get back to 25 you on that question.
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105 1 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Right, and one other 2 thing I was going to say. Even though we're going to 3 probably shut this meeting down at 9:30, the NRC Staff 4 are right there, so as we're breaking down the room, I 5 encourage people who still have questions to come up 6 and talk to the NRC Staff that are there.
7 Paul Blundell, is he someplace?
8 PARTICIPANT: Why can't you answer the 9 question about the nuclear plume? How could you not 10 know that?
11 FACILITATOR LESLIE: And I think one of the 12 things Rich is doing is -- what we're trying to do is 13 we're trying to answer questions --
14 (Off mic comment.)
15 PARTICIPANT: I'm flabbergasted.
16 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Right. And I think --
17 MR. LEEDS: I'll give it a shot. Would you 18 repeat the question?
19 MR. AKERS: Yes, I'm going to have to go by 20 what I think could happen at a plant, correctly or 21 incorrectly. So, my question was, in a critical mass 22 incident, could this cause a radiation plume to fall 23 on Washington, D.C., or the Baltimore Corridor, 10 24 million people, a lot more than that's here --
25 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Thanks.
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106 1 MR. LEEDS: If I understand your question 2 right, you're asking if there was a nuclear clad 3 meltdown, if there would be a plume that would go up 4 to Washington, D.C. Is that what you're asking?
5 MR. AKERS: Yes.
6 MR. LEEDS: We have a study called the State-7 of-the-Art Reactor Consequence Study. It's in draft 8 right now. I think it's about to be issued. Rather 9 than just hear what I have to say, I'd rather get your 10 contact information and send you the report. It's been 11 done by experts. It's been peer reviewed. It's been so 12 thoroughly looked at, and it goes right to the heart 13 of the issue that you're talking about. And it will be 14 very, very reassuring to you. But I'd rather -- the 15 answer is that no, that's not what you have to worry 16 about. No, that's not what you have to worry about.
17 But I'd much rather you take a look at the report and 18 read the report for yourself, rather than just hear it 19 from someone up here that's saying no, it's not a 20 problem.
21 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Eric, and I'll make sure 22 I get his comment card.
23 MR. LEEDS: Please.
24 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Contact information.
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107 1 to start by saying I'm very appreciative to Dominion 2 for all the hours they put into inspecting this plant.
3 I'm very appreciative to the NRC, obviously, for 4 keeping them honest. That's very nice. Nuclear power 5 is very dangerous, and it's important to have people 6 making sure these plants are operating safely.
7 I did want to say something that was brought 8 up by the other Paul's comment. It was a long time 9 ago. I'm sure you all are great people. The 10 Department of Justice is the one that said --
11 questioned the professionalism of the people back 12 then, so I hope that you are more professional than 13 the people in the '70s who committed these oversights, 14 inclusions, and whatnot according to the Department of 15 Justice.
16 As several people have brought up already, I 17 know as a small business owner in Louisa, I know that 18 like we need to make money, and the concerns of 19 business can be very powerful in wanting to cut 20 corners on safety. I'm very appreciative that you are 21 an independent body that's making sure that things are 22 -- time is taken to make sure this plant is operated 23 safely, even though as many people have noted, like 24 there are very strong business concerns to get it 25 operating, or up and running very quickly.
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108 1 My questions are mostly actually for 2 Dominion, which is that having this history back when 3 the plant was originally sited and built, there was a 4 fault line found on the site, and it was covered up, 5 or rather it was not reported to the NRC until very 6 late in the game. It was downplayed, and the 7 independent reports were not reported in a timely 8 fashion.
9 Why, knowing that when you're applying for 10 Unit 3, why didn't you take pains to report on the 11 known fault? And when you were asked by the NRC to 12 report, why did you give it such short shrift of only 13 two paragraphs, especially now that we know that it is 14 an active fault, and it is of concern?
15 The other thing that came up during your 16 report, I'm very -- I'll be really quick, is that I'm 17 appreciative to all the inspections that you've done, 18 but you mentioned like inspecting 90 percent of the 19 pipes. I'm curious why not 100 percent of the pipes?
20 Similarly, to like Reactor 1 or Reactor 2, why not do 21 the same level inspection as I think somebody else 22 that I read -- nicely did, said a nice quote which was 23 you wouldn't just check one of the tires on your car 24 since all the tires are the same for pressure, you 25 would check all the tires.
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109 1 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Thanks. Someone from 2 Dominion want to respond? Don't forget to identify 3 yourself.
4 MR. GRECHECK: Yes, I'm Gene Grecheck, Vice 5 President of Nuclear Development, and I have been for 6 many years responsible for the North Anna 3 7 information development and the North Anna 3 8 application.
9 First, just like with the NRC, none of us 10 were around back in 1974 when the original events 11 occurred, so we certainly cannot -- we don't have any 12 personal knowledge of what happened then. But the 13 question was in terms of what was in the North Anna 3 14 Early Site Permit Application and what is in the COL 15 application. And we did review the entire geological 16 situations and history of the North Anna site, and did 17 include a discussion of the fault that was discovered 18 during the North Anna -- the original North Anna 3 19 excavation back in 1974.
20 As one of the NRC Staff members pointed out, 21 the fault that was identified back in 1974 is not 22 capable. That means that fault has not moved in a 23 very, very long time. That was presented in the 24 application. The NRC Staff did an extensive review of 25 the geological history, and concurred in the Safety NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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110 1 Evaluation Report that that conclusion is correct.
2 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Okay, Dr. Andrew Cook, 3 John Carroll, and Christina Towns, if they're still 4 here.
5 DR. COOK: Thank you very much. My name is 6 Andrew Cook, and I drove here from Lynchburg. I'm very 7 impressed with how the meeting has been handled. I'm 8 really impressed by the independence of the NRC, and 9 the thoroughness of the review that Dominion has 10 undertaken.
11 And I just wanted to put a little bit of 12 perspective here, and maybe it's a question we can't 13 answer, but with the North Anna units down, the 14 electric power for Virginia is coming from coal and 15 natural gas, primarily.
16 When I drove here from Lynchburg, I went 17 under several Norfolk and Southern Bridges, and I 18 drove by very large natural gas transmission lines, 19 one of which was a 30-inch line which actually 20 ruptured three years ago in Amherst, and destroyed 21 three homes -- two homes, almost killed the families 22 there.
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111 1 lines and the bridges with the same thoroughness that 2 Dominion is reviewing the North Anna plant? And my 3 other question is, is there an independent regulator 4 with the credibility and thoroughness of the NRC 5 that's auditing their inspections? Thank you very 6 much.
7 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Thank you, Andrew. I'm 8 not sure we'll be able to answer the first one. It 9 might be one of the things we'll put on the parking 10 lot. But, Vic, are you going to try to address any of 11 his parts?
12 MR. McCREE: First of all, thank you for your 13 questions and your comments, and the observation about 14 the NRC's independence and thoroughness. We take that 15 to heart.
16 I don't know. I don't know if there's 17 another agency looking at pipelines, or looking at 18 railroads, if you would, in response to the seismic 19 event here, but it is a very good question. It's one 20 that perhaps we ought to -- I would encourage you to 21 ask to Department of Transportation and/or Railroad 22 Safety, as well as whatever regulator is responsible 23 for gas line safety. I'm not sure which one that is.
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112 1 but I apologize, I don't know the answer to that.
2 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Thanks, Vic. We'll have 3 John Carroll, Christina Towns, and Laura Kay. John, 4 fortunately, is right here.
5 MR. CARROLL: My name is John Carroll. I also 6 live about two miles from the plant, and I honestly 7 don't think I've ever seen, was there any detectible 8 or should I say dangerous amounts of radiation 9 released from the plant, released from the casks, or 10 anything in the water, the air, the food?
11 And also, Mr. Leeds, would you --
12 personally, would you raise your family within two 13 miles of North Anna? And, also, if there's a giant 14 flaming asteroid hurling to earth and it struck D.C.,
15 could it kill 10 million people?
16 (Laughter.)
17 FACILITATOR LESLIE: John, thanks. Eric, do 18 you want to answer the first question?
19 MR. LEEDS: I'm sorry, I missed the third 20 one. That was the best one.
21 (Laughter.)
22 MR. LEEDS: What was the first one?
23 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Was there --
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113 1 releases of the -- the Resident Staff here is assuring 2 me that there were no releases.
3 Second, would I raise my family within two 4 miles of this -- if I chose to live down here? That 5 would not influence me at all. In fact, I'd love to 6 have a lakefront house, but I don't.
7 (Laughter.)
8 MR. LEEDS: And then the third question, I 9 know we're strapped for time. The third -- what was 10 the third? I don't know anything about asteroids. I'm 11 sorry.
12 (Laughter.)
13 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Again, Christina --
14 MR. LEEDS: We'll take that as a lookup.
15 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Christina Town, Laura 16 Kay, Darla Eaton, and then the last person I believe 17 will be Mark Munokoff.
18 MS. TOWNS: Good evening, gentlemen. Thank 19 you very much for your presentation tonight.
20 I have one question about safety. You've 21 been very thorough about talking about the significant 22 damage -- no significant damage to any of the safety 23 equipment. My safety concern goes beyond just the 24 equipment, and part of it is because of what I heard 25 tonight.
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114 1 You had mentioned that there was gas between 2 two rooms, the steam room and the control room, and no 3 one knew how it got there and all of that, and how 4 it's going -- how you're going to rid that gas.
5 And secondly, you showed a picture of the 6 footings that were damaged, footings to the water 7 tanks, water tower tanks. Okay. My question is, in the 8 news right after the earthquake, they were showing 9 pictures on line, in the newspapers about damage to 10 the cement footings beneath the tower that houses the 11 spent fuel rods. And how it moved because it's not 12 secured, they're just sitting on top of each other.
13 And some of them were damaged. Have they been 14 repaired, have they been secured? What has been done 15 about that?
16 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Thank you, Christina. I 17 think, Gerry, you were the one who first mentioned, 18 and maybe you could amplify your explanation on what 19 was observed.
20 MR. McCOY: Okay, I'll give it a chance. My 21 name is Gerry McCoy, Branch Chief for North Anna.
22 One thing you brought up was the gap that I 23 was talking about. That gap is between a tunnel that 24 has a steam pipe in it, so you have a steam pipe, it's 25 in a tunnel, it's underground. And then beside that NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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115 1 tunnel is another room with safety-related pumps, 2 auxiliary feed water pumps. And when an inspection was 3 done inside that tunnel it was noticed that there was 4 a gap there that shouldn't have been there.
5 Now, the thing that has to happen is, in 6 order for that to become an issue you have to have a 7 leak develop in that steam line, so it's kind of 8 multiple things have to happen before it becomes an 9 event. And as of now, the gap has been repaired. And 10 that's unrelated to the seismic event. That is just 11 something we found while we were looking at other 12 things.
13 MS. TOWNS: How that gap came to be, there's 14 no explanation?
15 MR. McCOY: That gap, it was a seal that 16 should have been there that was never installed since 17 -- our indications are that gap was a seal that should 18 have been there since construction of the plant, and 19 it was just never there.
20 MS. TOWNS: And you've made sure things like 21 that with all of your inspections, things like that 22 will not occur in the future?
23 MR. McCOY: Well, we keep inspecting. That's 24 why we keep inspecting. It's a large plant, we keep 25 looking for more and more things.
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116 1 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Her second question had 2 to do with the spent fuel storage pad, and some of the 3 damage on the ventilation things.
4 Just as a point of information, there was 5 also a public meeting today in Washington, D.C. on the 6 storage aspects. And what we'll do is we'll link 7 those presentations to the North Anna Virginia quake 8 so that that additional -- where that was actually 9 talked about. So, I'll beg your indulgence to say that 10 was really where it was addressed.
11 MR. McCOY: Okay. And the spent fuel casks, 12 there are two different types of spent fuel storage 13 facilities there at North Anna, one are large metal 14 cylindrical casks, and those are the ones that shifted 15 about four inches during the earthquake. And those, I 16 think Allen Howe had a description of them, how you 17 have the large metal casks, they're designed for 18 certain drop criteria, and that the stresses of the 19 earthquake were much less than the stresses are 20 analyzed for.
21 There's also horizontal casks. These are 22 horizontal casks that are put inside of concrete 23 structures. So, the concrete structure is just there 24 for -- it's just there to -- the cask is inside a 25 sealed metal container, and then a sealed metal NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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117 1 container is put inside the concrete for extra 2 protection, missile protection.
3 Now, what's important about the concrete 4 casks is you have to have enough gaps there. You've 5 got to have screens and ways for air to flow past 6 these casks to provide cooling. And those are the 7 screens that had the spalling, and a couple of screws 8 were pulled out. So, it really doesn't affect the 9 integrity of the cask itself, it's more -- the screen 10 is actually there to keep animals, birds from flying 11 in and nesting inside there. So, it wasn't a safety 12 effect on the cask itself.
13 MS. TOWNS: To make sure that these things 14 wouldn't happen again.
15 MR. McCOY: Well, they were fixed.
16 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Laura Kay, Darla Eaton, 17 and Mariane Cobb. And, again, we're running -- we 18 really have to be out of this room by 10:00, so 19 please, your questions --
20 (Laughter.)
21 FACILITATOR LESLIE: I don't want to be in 22 detention tomorrow with Principal Schott, so please.
23 MS. KAY: How come 100 percent of the pipes 24 weren't checked? I hear only 90 percent were.
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118 1 take a quick stab at that?
2 MR. HEACOCK: I think you're referring to the 3 pipes that contain radioactive fluid. We did 90 4 percent pressure test, and we dug up about 10 percent 5 of the pipes, but there's no requirement to test 100 6 percent of those to begin with. We did about 90 7 percent of the buried piping that could contain 8 radioactive fluids. We did over a mile of other 9 piping, as well. It was really a sampling to make 10 sure there was no damage from the seismic event, and 11 we found no evidence of damage anywhere.
12 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Thank you, David. Darla 13 and Mariane Cobb, either of them still here? Okay, 14 Darla.
15 MS. EATON: When is the earliest possible 16 startup date?
17 MR. LEEDS: This is a constant question that 18 we've been getting since we came down here for the 19 AIT, is what is the date? And I'm sorry, I don't have 20 a date for you, the earliest possible. We believe it 21 could -- the startup could be authorized as soon as 22 next week. My Staff needs time to review the latest 23 submittal that we've received from Dominion.
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119 1 forward. So, I don't -- I didn't assign a date for my 2 Staff that they had to be done regardless of what the 3 information was. We're going to analyze our 4 information, we're going to make sure that everything 5 is safe before we authorize.
6 We're nearing the end of the review. We 7 haven't found anything significant. I truly believe 8 that as soon as next week we could be authorizing the 9 restart, but I don't have a date. I'm sorry.
10 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Thank you, Eric. And the 11 last question tonight will be Mary Anne Cobb.
12 MS. COBB: Dominion reported 56 leaks of 13 radioactive fluids back in 2004, and the NRC did not 14 require Dominion to release information about the size 15 of these leaks. Is the NRC willing to commit to public 16 release of all the information about these leaks now?
17 MR. LEEDS: Who's familiar?
18 FACILITATOR LESLIE: I think the NRC is 19 looking for --
20 MR. McCREE: Thank you for your question.
21 We're not aware of the 54 leaks, if you would, that 22 you're referring to. So, to provide you an informed 23 response, let me take 10 seconds.
24 MR. KOLCUM: I can provide some background.
25 I'm Greg Kolcum, I'm the Senior Resident at the site.
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120 1 The 56 leaks that you're talking about, NEI, Nuclear 2 Energy Institute, required that all nuclear plants 3 voluntarily report leaks. And in 2006, they reported 4 these 56 leaks, historical leaks that have been 5 stopped, have been mitigated, and are not 6 contaminating anything on site, or any drinking water 7 supplies, or anything on site. So, they voluntarily 8 reported this information, and we don't have any 9 current issues with those leaks on site.
10 FACILITATOR LESLIE: Thank you, Greg. With 11 that, I'm going to wrap up the meeting. And I really 12 appreciate everyone's patience with us, and hopefully 13 we provided you the necessary information. And, 14 again, I thank you for your participation. And the 15 NRC Staff is up here if you have additional questions.
16 Thank you for your patience. Thank you.
17 (Applause.)
18 (Whereupon, the proceedings went off the 19 record at 9:33 p.m.)
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