ML113630069
| ML113630069 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Watts Bar  |
| Issue date: | 12/08/2011 |
| From: | Justin Poole Watts Bar Special Projects Branch |
| To: | |
| Poole Justin/DORL/ 301-415-2048 | |
| Shared Package | |
| ML113630081 | List: |
| References | |
| NRC-1313 | |
| Download: ML113630069 (53) | |
Text
Official Trans cript of Proceedings NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Title:
Watts Bar Nuclear Plant EIS Public Meeting: Afternoon Session Docket Number:
(n/a)
Location:
Sweetwater, Tennessee Date:
Thursday, December 8, 2011 Work Order No.:
NRC-1313 Pages 1-53 NEAL R. GROSS AND CO., INC.
Court Reporters and Transcribers 1323 Rhode Island Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 234-4433
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 1
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 1
NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 2
+ + + + +
3 PUBLIC MEETING TO DISCUSS 4
DRAFT SUPPLEMENT TO THE 5
FINAL ENVIRONMENTAL STATEMENT 6
FOR WATTS BAR NUCLEAR PLANT, UNIT 2 7
+ + + + +
8 Thursday, December 8, 2011 9
Magnuson Hotel 10 1421 Murrays Chapel Road 11 Sweetwater, Tennessee 12
+ + + + +
13 Afternoon Session 14 2:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m.
15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25
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P R O C E E D I N G S 1
(2:00 p.m.)
2 MR. CARPENTER: Good afternoon. Can 3
everybody hear me now? Okay, good. All right, 4
welcome. I'm Gene Carpenter with the U.S. Nuclear 5
Regulatory Commission. And thank you for joining us 6
today.
7 This is a public meeting, a Category 3 8
Public Meeting, to discuss the Draft Supplement to the 9
Final Environmental Statement for Watts Bar Nuclear 10 Plant, Unit 2. We have still two paper copies up here 11 and a variety of electronic copies of that if anyone 12 would like to get a copy of it.
13 Today we are going to be discussing the 14 various aspects of this report and where we're going 15 from here. We have at the table Patrick Milano. Pat 16 is the Project Manager for Watts Bar 2. We also have 17 Jeremy Susco; he is the Environmental Project Manager.
18 He'll be also detailing this.
19 Today we will be going over various slides 20 to give you some information about what is happening 21 to date. The slides are also up here at the table if 22 anybody would like a copy of the handouts. And of 23 course they will be up here on the screen.
24 Now as we go forward with this, my purpose 25
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for the meeting is to facilitate it, to ensure that we 1
do hear from the public. This is not only informing 2
you of what's going on but also to get your feedback.
3 That's the whole purpose behind a Category 3. So 4
after we go through the presentation materials, we 5
will then open the floor to questions and answers.
6 We have up here at the table some sign-in 7
sheets. We encourage you that if you will be asking 8
questions of the NRC to sign in and to just put a 9
check mark beside it because I will use that sign-in 10 sheet to have those people do the initial sign-in --
11 or pardon me -- the initial questions for this. And 12 then as we have time, we will open the floor to other 13 people who would like to ask questions.
14 Now as I said, I've introduced Pat and 15 Jeremy. We also have Steve Campbell. Steve is the 16 Branch Chief for the Watts Bar Special Projects 17 Branch.
18 A
couple of other things for your 19 information. Right over here at the corner there are 20 the restrooms. You see the fire escapes, the door 21 that you came in on right over there. Hopefully we 22 won't have any need for that, but just in case.
23 We also have here at the table public 24 feedback forms. We do encourage you that if you have 25
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any feedback, go ahead and fill those out and provide 1
them to us.
2 And the other thing that I'd like to 3
remind you -- and it's something that I always forget 4
so I did it before the meeting start -- please silence 5
your phones. Thank you very much.
6 For those of you who want to ask questions 7
but are feeling a little shy about asking them, I do 8
have 3x5 cards. Anybody who would like some, just 9
raise your hand, I'll hand them out. That way we'll 10 ask those questions from there.
11 And then going forward with this, again 12 this is a meeting between the NRC and the public.
13 This is not a meeting with licensee. We do have some 14 members from the TVA here. But if you have questions 15 specifically for the TVA, that will have to be in 16 another forum. Staff cannot answer for the licensee.
17 With that I'd like to introduce Pat. He 18 will give the first of the presentations.
19 Thank you for coming.
20 MR. MILANO: Thank you, Gene. Go to next 21 slide, please.
22 Good afternoon. Again, my name is Patrick 23 Milano. And as Gene indicated, I'm Licensing Project 24 Manager with the NRC's Office of Nuclear Reactor 25
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Regulation. And if I talk to it again as I go through 1
my portion of the presentation, I'll refer to it as 2
NRR. It's our headquarters organization. And again 3
we do the technical reviews of operating license 4
applications.
5 The office is responsible for the Agency's 6
review of the application for -- from TVA for a second 7
unit at the Watts Bar Nuclear Plant site. While today 8
I'll be talking just generally about what's been going 9
on from the licensing side, it's not where our 10 predominant focus is today. So I'm going to try to go 11 through my six or seven slides relatively quickly.
12 Along with me as Gene indicated is Mr.
13 Jeremy Susco. And he will be presenting some 14 information with regard to the environmental review 15 that took place to support the operation of Watts Bar 16 Unit 2.
17 On November 10th of this year, the NRC 18 published in the Federal Register the notice of the 19 Draft Supplement to the Final Environmental Statement 20 related to the operation of Watts Bar Unit 2. The 21 Draft Supplement documents the NRC's preliminary 22 review of the environmental impact associated with 23 operating a unit for the duration of the proposed 24 operating period, license period.
25
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I'll be providing you with some background 1
information, the details of which are for the overall 2
effort to review the application. And Mr. Susco again 3
will be addressing questions and on the results of the 4
staff's position on the application related to the 5
environmental impacts of operation.
6 I hope that the information that we 7
provide to you today will help you understand what 8
we've done so far and the role that you can play in 9
helping us make sure that the Final Environmental 10 Impact Statement is accurate and complete.
11 Next slide.
12 Thus here's the agenda for today's 13 meeting. Again I'm going to, like I indicated, I'm 14 going to try to keep it short. The real purpose of 15 the meeting today is to obtain comments and questions 16 from the public. However, we will be discussing a 17 little bit about the NRC's regulatory role. Some of 18 the summary of the environmental review that took 19 place itself, some upcoming schedule or milestones, 20 and then finally we'll go through some detail as was 21 presented in the Federal Register notice also how to 22 submit comments after this meeting if you want to do 23 so in writing or some other electronic way. And then 24 we'll go into a question and answer period and then 25
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also into discussing comments or obtaining comments 1
itself.
2 Next slide please.
3 For those of you that may be have not been 4
at some of our other public meetings, I'm just going 5
to spend a little bit -- just a few seconds here 6
describing the NRC's role. The NRC was established to 7
regulate civilian uses of nuclear materials, including 8
facilities that are used to produce electric power.
9 The NRC is responsible for licensing and regulating 10 the operation of commercial nuclear plants in the U.S.
11 And Watts Bar, like the other currently 12 operating nuclear plants, is being licensed under a 13 two-step process that's described in Part 50 of the 14 NRC's Regulations. This process requires both a 15 construction permit and an operating license. NRC 16 approval is necessary before a nuclear plant can be 17 built and operated. The NRC maintains oversight of 18 the construction and operation of a
facility 19 throughout its lifetime to ensure compliance with the 20 Commission's Regulations. In all aspects of the NRC's 21 Regulations that the Agency's mission is to assure 22 adequate protection of public health and safety, to 23 promote common defense and security, and to protect 24 the environment.
25
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Next slide.
1 All nuclear power plants must undergo a 2
safety review, an environmental review, and an anti-3 trust review by the NRC. In order to construct and 4
operate a nuclear plant, an applicant must submit a 5
Safety Analysis Report. This document contains the 6
design information and criteria for the proposed 7
reactor and comprehensive data on the proposed site.
8 As part of the application for an 9
operating license, an applicant provides more details 10 in its Final Safety Analysis Report, commonly referred 11 to as an FSAR, that describes the facility, presents 12 the design basis and the limits on its operation, and 13 presents a safety analysis of the structures, systems, 14 and components of the facility as a whole.
15 It also discusses various hypothetical 16 accident situations and safety features of the plant 17 that would prevent accidents or would lessen their 18 effects. The NRC Safety Review covers a broad range 19 of areas, including those that are shown on this 20 slide.
21 The National Environmental Policy Act, 22
- NEPA, requires federal agencies to integrate 23 environmental values into their decision making 24 process by considering the environmental impacts of 25
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the proposed actions and reasonable alternatives to 1
those actions. To meet NEPA requirements, federal 2
agencies prepare a detailed statement known as an 3
Environmental Impact Statement. Because TVA is also a 4
federal agency, it was required also by NEPA to 5
prepare an Environmental Impact Statement to support 6
the operation of Watts Bar Unit 2.
7 The NRC's Regulations define criteria 8
wherein licensing and regulatory actions require an 9
Environmental Impact Statement. One of these criteria 10 is the issuance of a full power, or it's also 11 sometimes called the Design Capacity License, to 12 operate a nuclear reactor. That criteria for an 13 identification of licensing and regulatory actions of 14 requiring Environmental Impact Statements are found in 15 Part 51 of the NRC's Regulations.
16 The regulations require that an 17 application for a license contain a comprehensive 18 assessment of the environmental impacts. And because 19 an operating license applicant would have already had 20 to prepare an environmental report at the construction 21 permit
- stage, the environmental report at the 22 operating license stage expands on that initial report 23 and focuses predominantly on plant operation and is 24 submitted only in connection with the first licensing 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 10 action authorizing full power operation.
1 During the licensing of a plant, the NRC 2
issues its own Final Environmental Statement, which 3
identifies these potential impacts and evaluates them 4
and the benefits of the proposed plant. After 5
completing this review, the NRC issues a Draft 6
Environmental Statement for comment by appropriate 7
federal, state, and local agencies as well as the 8
public. Afterwards the agency issues its Final 9
Environment Statement that addresses all comments that 10 were received.
11 Lastly I'd just like to indicate to you 12 this chronology is not all inclusive. It's just some 13 that are more appropriate towards the environmental 14 review that took place. As you can see here, the TVA 15 submitted an Environmental Impact Statement for the 16 construction of Watts Bar Unit 1 and 2 back in 17 September of 1972. The original operating license 18 application came in and was docketed by the NRC in 19 1976 with the application coming in about June of 20 1976. And I believe the Environmental Impact 21 Statement for operation came in around September of 22 that same year.
23 Based on the information that was provided 24 by TVA and the NRC's own analysis, we issued our Final 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 11 Environmental Statement for operation of both Watts 1
Bar's Units 1 and 2 in a form of an NRC report, the 2
number of which is NUREG-0498. And that was done in 3
December of 1978.
4 And as all of you are aware, between that 5
time and the start of operation of -- or the licensing 6
of Watts Bar Unit 1 -- a number of things occurred.
7 And there was a period wherein TVA was stopped 8
construction for a period of time and then had to 9
correct a number of both corporate and site specific 10 issues. And because of that, because of that long 11 duration between the 1976 or 1978 environmental 12 statements, TVA supplemented its review of its 13 Environmental Impact Statement for Watts Bar Unit 1 in 14 May of 1994. And likewise the NRC supplements its 15 Final Environmental Statement in April of 1995. Both 16 of which supported the operation of Watts Bar Unit 1.
17 Watts Bar Unit 2 was not completed at the 18 time and it was not until 2008, when TVA made the 19 decision to take Watts Bar Unit 2 out of the deferred 20 plant status and to complete construction, ultimately 21 leading to operation of Watts Bar 2. And that was 22 done -- it was a supplemental Environmental Impact 23 Statement that was done by TVA to support operation of 24 Watts Bar 2. And that was submitted in July of 2008.
25
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There were several items that TVA also 2
needed to provide to further supplement its 3
supplement. And those things came in in January of 4
2009.
5 Lastly based on -- based in part on a 6
direction from the NRC's Commission, we requested that 7
TVA update the original operating license application 8
because of the long period of time that had progressed 9
from the original application until 2009. And as such 10 in March of 2009, TVA provided an update to its 11 operating license application and the NRC in May of 12 that same year issued a Notice of Availability and 13 Opportunity for Hearing based on that updated 14 operating license application.
15 And with that, that's about all my 16 prepared notes are for a little bit of the background 17 of Watts Bar and where the plant currently stands.
18 And with that I'm going to turn over the 19 floor to Jeremy Susco, who's going to go into the 20 details of the Environmental Review, which is the 21 reason why we're here today.
22 MR. SUSCO: Thanks, Pat. My name is 23 Jeremy Susco and I work for the Environmental Review 24 Team that helped put together the document that we're 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 13 here to discuss today. So some of you may find it a 1
little bit confusing to kind of describe how we got to 2
where we are today. So first thing I guess I want to 3
make I guess a little bit clear. We're talking about 4
two different user terms. TVA has their EIS and then 5
we have our Environment Impact Statement that we're 6
putting out. So I'm not going to call TVA's EIS their 7
EIS. It's part of their application.
8 So TVA put in their application. It also 9
happened to include their assessment of environmental 10 impacts. We use that as one of the sources of 11 information put together our Environmental Impact 12 Statement. So we have TVA's application. And we 13 have the Environment Impact Statement that we wrote 14 that we're here to describe today.
15 So back in '78, assuming the plants were 16 going to get done then, we put out our Final 17 Environmental Impact Statement. And that never 18 happened. So come back in the `90s, then we decided 19 to supplement that. When TVA came in, they said we 20 want to build Watts Bar 2. And then we said, okay, 21 we're going to take what we've done. We're not going 22 to throw away what we did back in '78. We're going to 23 supplement that. It's got a lot of good information.
24 And so we supplemented that. That's the first 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 14 supplement we did back in '95 for Watts Bar Unit 1.
1 Now we get to that really long complicated 2
name we put up in the first slide, we're Supplement 2.
3 And so now we're talking about Supplement 2 to that 4
1978 document. So again we're taking what was in that 5
'78 document and we're building on it. And that's 6
where we are today. We've got Supplement 2 to that 7
document.
8 And now we get to the word draft. And now 9
that Supplement 2 is in its draft form. And that's 10 what we're here to talk about and get your comments 11 on. The Draft Environmental Impact Statement is not 12 final and it won't be final until -- I think our 13 schedule now has it being put out in May. But after 14 we receive your comments and after we examine them and 15 take a look at how it might impact our Environmental 16 Impact Statement, then get put out as a final 17 statement, very similar to the final statement that 18 was put out back in '78.
19 So as Pat said if you're interested in any 20 of requirements that go along with what's in TVA's 21 application and in our review, those are in Part 51 of 22 the NRC's Regulations and as well another publicly 23 available document is the last document on the bottom 24 there. That discusses what we look at and how we put 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 15 together an Environmental Impact Statement.
1 This is not an all-inclusive list, but I 2
wanted to give you an example. I mean you can see the 3
same thing in our Table of Contents. These are some 4
of the issues that we looked at and again why we're 5
here today.
6 So one of the things to think about is did 7
we miss an issue? Great source of public comments.
8 Is our analysis complete? Again we encourage you 9
today to make comments on that and as well any written 10 comments.
11 The next slide, please.
12 So where did we get our information from?
13 License applications, that is TVA's EIS. I wanted to 14 make that clear. That's one of the sources of 15 information. Public comments, we were here back in I 16 think it was October 2009 to receive public comments 17 on the scope of what we should look at. Different 18 permitting authorities that are also involved in 19 different permits that TVA is required to get as part 20 of operation. We talk to many federal, state, and 21 local agencies as well as some tribal organizations in 22 the area.
23 And we also came here back in -- oh, so it 24 was November of '09, October, November of '09. And we 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 16 did a site on it where we actually went to the site 1
and it's a very -- we all live and work in Washington.
2 So we wanted to make sure we got out to the plant to 3
see what everything looked like, what species were 4
here, and the representative things. And so that's 5
why we came here.
6 But again another good source of 7
information we're looking for is you see all this 8
stuff that we kind of looked at and you'll see all the 9
references in our document.
10 Did we use all the best available data?
11 Another great source of public comments. And you can 12 either tell is that we didn't or even better yet you 13 point us to -- if you have data that we didn't use, 14 point us to that data in your public comments.
15 So the conclusion -- I'm sorry, our 16 preliminary conclusion. So the staff have preliminary 17 recommendations to our Commission that the 18 environmental impacts are not significant enough to 19 forego issuing Watts Bar Unit 2 license.
20 I'm a full-time bureaucrat and I probably 21 would have a
hard time making that any more 22 complicated than it already sounds. So I'll just kind 23 of break that down a little bit. So there's a couple 24 important key words in there.
Number on is 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 17 preliminary. And it synonymous with a draft. It's 1
not a final yet. And that's again why we're here 2
today to hear your comments.
3 Second one is the word recommendation. So 4
the Watts Bar 2 license is not going to stand alone on 5
the Environmental Impact Statement. We're going to 6
give our recommendation in this document to the 7
Commission, the ultimate decision maker on whether or 8
not Watts Bar Unit 2 is going to get a chance to 9
operate.
10 And the Environmental Impact Statement is 11 going to be one part of the things that go to those 12 decision makers to make that decision. It's going to 13 be the Environmental Impact Statement, the Safety 14 Evaluation the NRC performs as the result of 15 inspections. So this is just -- it's one component 16 and it's just our recommendation on the environmental 17 impact associated with operating Unit 2.
18 And the last one is not significant enough 19 to forego. So just to say that in more plain English, 20 it's would not be unreasonable to go forward. The 21 impacts would not be so unreasonable that it wouldn't 22 make any sense to possibly operate this plant. Now 23 that's not to say that there will be no impacts. But 24 what we're trying to say is that they will not be 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 18 significant enough that this decision would be totally 1
ridiculous.
2 So those are the kind of key breakdown of 3
what that really means. And it will go from 4
preliminary to final with our Final Environmental 5
Impact Statement that we put out next year.
6 So this particular side is just the 7
environmental review milestones. So we are down at 8
the black one down there. Since we're here today for 9
the public meeting, we're going to receive your 10 comments here in the microphone after a short Q&A 11 session. Your comments are due by December 27th.
12 So the next slide does show other ways 13 just to make comments.
14 And it's May 2012 after examining all 15 these comments when we're anticipating putting out the 16 Final Statement.
17 So other ways to submit comments. So 18 first one, the microphone. I've got transcriber here.
19 And so today or you can come back to the meeting this 20 evening. Also you can do mail. And there's the 21 address there. Probably the easiest way now to do it 22 is on the internet, regulations.gov. That's where 23 actually all federal agencies post -- do all their 24 rule making and ask for comments.
25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 19 The important thing you note there is the 1
docket ID.
And that's so when you go to 2
regulations.gov and you enter that docket ID, you'll 3
go right to this particular -- I don't know the right 4
word. It's not rule making, but this particular 5
document will give you a chance to make the comments 6
there.
7 And the last thing is if you want you can 8
fax them as well. But again remember December 27th is 9
the due date for comments.
10 And so that's all I have. And we'll turn 11 it back over to our Facilitator, Gene.
12 MR. SAFER: Can we ask a question?
13 MR.
SUSCO:
- Yeah, Gene's going to 14 facilitate it.
15 MR. CARPENTER: We're going to leave that 16 one on up here for a little while so that everybody 17 who'd like to write it down will have an opportunity 18 to do so.
19 Now this is -- we've gone through the 20 formal presentation portion of the meeting. Pat and 21 Jeremy have told you what it is that we're doing now.
22 Now is the time that we are going to throw 23 this open for questions that we have. The way that I 24 will do this, first off is when you came in we asked 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 20 you to sign in. And the individuals who signed in and 1
told us before the meeting started that they wanted to 2
ask questions put a little check mark beside their 3
name. I've got the list.
4 So Ms. Ferris, we're going to start with 5
you. And then Mr. Safer, you'll be the second 6
question. The reason for that is simply that Ms.
7 Ferris' name is first on there and you're the second 8
name on there. Okay.
9 And what we'll do, if you don't mind, 10 we'll going to start this with a three-minute time 11 limit for questions and answers. That's to give 12 anyone else here a chance. If we go through the first 13 set of questions and there's nobody else, we'll throw 14 it open for a second round, a third round, however 15 many we need. And then we'll go into -- once we're 16 through with the questions and answers, we'll go into 17 the comment period. Okay? Very good.
18 Justin here is going to help me. He will 19 raise his hand whenever we get to three minutes. So 20 again, just give everybody an opportunity to have 21 their time to talk. Okay?
22 Ms. Ferris. Would you like to stand up?
23 Would you like me to hold that for you?
24 MS. FERRIS: No. My question has to do 25
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 21 with the geology, the underground structures that this 1
plant has been built upon. And my question is whether 2
this is karst, k-a-r-s-t. Don't ask me what that 3
stands for. But it's limestone. And I'm wondering 4
whether this is being built and has been built on 5
limestone topography?
6 MR. MILANO: Sorry about that. There were 7
too many switches. Although today we're not here to 8
discuss the safety analysis that was done for the 9
plant, the aspects of geology were discussed and can 10 be seen in Section 2 of the staff's Safety Evaluation 11 Report of which is in it's also an NRC Regulation.
12 No, that's the Final Environmental 13 Statement, Gene. The Safety Evaluation Report is also 14 another NUREG document. And it's NUREG-0847, zero 15 eight four seven. And it's -- you can observe it on 16 the NRC's website. And both the original that was 17 done to support the operation of Watts Bar Units 1 and 18 2 when TVA at the time was proposing licensing both 19 units at the same time.
20 And it has been supplemented. It was 21 supplemented through Supplement 20 to support Watts 22 Bar Unit 1 and right now we're at Supplement 25 --
23 Supplements 21 through 25 have been specifically for 24 Watts Bar Unit 2 operation. And I'm sorry. I'm not a 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 22 geologist or seismologist. So all I can do is refer 1
you to those documents and it's discussed in there.
2 And also there's some -- there is information in TVA's 3
Final Safety Analysis Report and also in Section 2 on 4
site characteristics that describes that.
5 MR. CARPENTER: Mr. Safer.
6 MR. SAFER: I have a couple of questions.
7 I don't think it will take three minutes. The first 8
one is since the public comment period is over 9
December 27th, right in the middle of the holidays, I 10 think that's extremely inconvenient. Those of us that 11 think the NRC is not that cooperative to the public 12 comments feel like it's by design. But we would ask 13 for an extension of 45 days so that people have an 14 opportunity to comment on this outside of the holiday 15 period. And I don't know that that can be granted 16 today, but I think that's a formal request, as formal 17 as I can get right here.
18 So I don't know if there's a response to 19 that. And I have another question.
20 MR. SUSCO: Very reasonable request, and 21 we've in many other proceedings we've entertained 22 extensions. Andrea, can you speak to -- we've one of 23 our lawyers here -- what the process is as far as 24 requesting an extension?
25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 23 MS. JONES: Sir, I am a lawyer for the 1
NRC. I'm actually not very clear on what the 2
extension process is. But I do know that the timeline 3
-- I don't mean this to patronize you either. But I 4
do know that the timeline is set according to 5
Regulation. But as far as extensions are concerned, I 6
think that would be a matter we'd have to take back to 7
the office and ask them. That would be a decision for 8
the office to make.
9 MR. SAFER: And how would we get the 10 answer? When would we expect an answer?
11 MS. JONES: I'm not sure, because I'm not 12 sure what the process for getting an extension would 13 actually be. We don't necessarily have a process for 14 that in our Regulations, not that I can recall.
15 MR. SUSCO: We will grab your information 16 and we can discuss that afterwards about the exact 17 process for making that occur.
18 MR. SAFER: Okay, well, that would be 19 something that of course other members of the public 20 would be interested in.
21 Then another technical question. In 2.6, 22 the radiological environment, it references a report, 23 Annual Radiological Environmental Operating Report, 24 RAMP, and also the Annual Radioactive Affluent Release 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 24 Report. I believe those are from TVA, but -- and I 1
know you all are not TVA. But I'm just wondering how 2
to get a hold of this document.
3 MR. MILANO: Both of those documents are 4
available through -- they were submitted on the docket 5
by TVA. And if you're familiar with our Agency-wide 6
Document Access and Management System, ADAMS, you can 7
find them in ADAMS. They're probably -- since both of 8
those documents are generally to support operation of 9
the facility, probably use the Watts Bar Unit 1 docket 10 number which is 50-390. So in ADAMS they use a bunch 11 of zeros so you go like zero five zero zero zero three 12 nine zero.
13 THE REPORTER: Zero five --
14 MR. MILANO: Zero five zero zero zero 15 three nine zero.
16 MR. SUSCO: If you look in the references 17 to that particular chapter -- actually any chapter --
18 almost everything that we reference will give that 19 specific ADAMS number. So if you go on our website 20 and you go in ADAMS, type in that number, it'll pull 21 up that report for you. So look in the references for 22 Chapter 2 for the ADAMS number.
23 MR.
CARPENTER:
Thank you.
Other 24 questions?
25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 25 MS. HARRIS: We've got a new guy here. We 1
have a lot of people from headquarters that should 2
come here more often to see what's really going on.
3 The other thing is -- my name is Ann Harris. And I'm 4
with We the People. And I want to second Mr. Safer's 5
request that an extension be given to this because 6
that right now I'm looking at 13 different comments 7
that has been requested that I make on. And all of 8
them are due within like 6 days of each other.
9 And then when we can't get the documents, 10 because this document is -- it's a nightmare. I'm 11 seeing a lot of information that has not been updated 12 from 1972. I'm a local resident so I know.
13 So I don't know where you got your 14 information. You may have gotten it from different 15 agencies. You said federal, state, and local. Well, 16 some of these with information in here that whenever I 17 went, I got different information. So I'm having a 18 hard time dealing with your numbers and the 19 information that you're giving as opposed to what I'm 20 getting from the same agencies.
21 Because they said, "Oh, they've already 22 been here." And I asked. I said, "Give me the 23 information you gave them." And they said, "Oh, we 24 can't do that." So I said, "Okay." So they're making 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 26 me do FOIA requests over your documents that you 1
requested to put into this. So this is a nightmare.
2 And I don't know how that somebody that 3
can read and write out of the third grade could 4
discover what you've done here. It's so convoluted.
5 It's really, really a written nightmare. Now I've 6
been through about half way through it. And it's 7
taken me two and a half weeks. And I spent at least 8
two to four hours at night trying to go through it.
9 But some of the information -- let's go 10 over one issue. You talk about the tritium in the 11 water. And I know nobody don't want to hear about it.
12 And you're here sick and tired of hearing me talk 13 about it. I'm sick and tired of having to deal with 14 it. But the other thing is, you've not dealt with the 15 tritium. You call it a spill.
16 Three years of over the limit and then you 17 didn't even do anything to TVA about it to begin with.
18 That is still sitting out there. Don't tell me the 19 tritium is gone because I know better.
20 And the other thing is you're relying on 21 these local state agencies through your agreement 22 state letter to do a lot of your work for you. That's 23 just so that you're further removed. The state is not 24 testing for a lot of this stuff. So there's no 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 27 records and no benchmark for you to start with. And 1
you're using old data to do that. Well, somebody's 2
got to go back in there and do some real work instead 3
of just dropping it into this.
4 So I'm making a formal request that we 5
have an extension for 45 days. And this is strictly 6
up to the staff, ma'am. I don't know how long you've 7
been in General Counsel's office. But this is just --
8 it's not something that's a big deal. These guys 9
here, they can do it today or Bob Petty has the 10 authority to say I will see that the extension goes 11 through.
12 Thank you.
13 MR. CARPENTER: Thank you. Appreciate the 14 comments.
15 Any questions? No other questions for the 16 staff?
17 And now we'll go on to the comment section 18 since we've basically already have been in comment's 19 section. So do we have comments?
20 MS. FERRIS: Can we comment more than 21 once?
22 MR. CARPENTER: You may comment as many 23 times as you wish. But we'll go one time each. And 24 then everybody else has a fair term before we go to 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 28 the second.
1 MR. SAFER: Is there a time limit on these 2
comments?
3 MR. CARPENTER: Want to say again, three 4
minutes.
5 MS. FERRIS: Well, my first comment is 6
that last Christmas, I had 20 people coming to dinner.
7 And I was spending time trying to get the NRC to give 8
us a public hearing on the German waste that's being 9
imported into Tennessee to be burned at Oak Ridge.
10 And I had -- I was working on my computer by night and 11 cooking by day.
12 It is not a dot away. If you put these 13 comments and these deadlines right at Christmas time, 14 you're going to get a lot fewer of them. And you 15 probably are aware of that. Donnie took it from 16 there. The time my company arrived, he worked on the 17 proposal yet.
18 Of course we were told we had no standing 19 after spending untold hours trying to get an appeal to 20 the NRC to at least give us a public hearing on the 21 fact that radioactive waste is being imported into the 22 state.
23 So I think this matter of a deadline is 24 extremely important.
25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 29 MR. CARPENTER: Any comments?
1 MR. SAFER: Hello, everybody. I think we 2
were here in, what was it, 2007, you said, or '09 --
3 nine. I read some of my comments in the book. If you 4
didn't listen the first time, you probably don't 5
listen this time. But I'll say it again because maybe 6
it makes a few people squirm in their seats.
7 I
speak today for all the future 8
generations that have no voice in this proceeding but 9
will be terribly affected by the decisions that are 10 being made that are allowing this plant to be built.
11 I think we all have seen what has gone on 12 at Fukushima and it's terrible. People are having to 13 leave their homes. School children's tennis shoes are 14 contaminated with radiation.
Whole areas are 15 evacuated. Farms that have been in families for 16 generations are now abandoned and probably never to be 17 returned to.
18 So when you talk about the environmental 19 impact of this type of reactor, of any nuclear 20 reactor, you have to realize that the effects are not 21 small. And that was what in this document what they 22 came up with was that the environmental impacts are 23 small. Now tell that to the people in Fukushima.
24 Tell that to the people in Chernobyl. That's really 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 30 the crux of it.
1 I realize that there's nothing that I can 2
say here today that's going to turn this thing around.
3 I feel like David and Goliath. And I don't have the 4
magic stone that he had and I wish I did. And I 5
wouldn't throw it to hurt anybody, but I would sure 6
throw it to stop this reactor because I think the 7
effects of it -- unfortunately if something goes 8
wrong, something go monumentally wrong.
9 And I do find it troubling that in this 10 document there is -- I didn't see the word Chernobyl 11 one time. I understand from the discussion earlier in 12 the informal period with Mr. Susco that it's included 13 in the computer model. But including 6,000 thyroid 14 cancers into the computer model is not quite the same 15 thing as stating that when that reactor blew up the 16 effect was 6,000 at least documented cases of thyroid 17 cancer. And if we understood us to say, oh, it was a 18 minor thing. The effects aren't that great.
19 But you know, they're still monitoring a 20 lot of the agricultural products in that region.
21 There are still great areas that are uninhabitable for 22 many years. It's the *cesium that's going to stay 23 positive for 300 to 500 years. That's what we're 24 talking about here.
25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 31 Now Fukushima you've got enormous releases 1
of radiation. You've got just today in the newspaper 2
the announcement that baby food is being recalled, 90 3
containers of baby food because the Japanese are 4
catching it. But the rice has been contaminated.
5 It's a nightmare. The economic effects, the human 6
effects, and the ecological effects are going to 7
reverberate around the planet till kingdom come 8
basically. And that's what's at stake here.
9 And I'm just going to keep saying it even 10 though it seems to fall on deaf ears because 11 everything that was brought up leading up to that 12 document there was always an answer to it and don't 13 worry, pat us on the back and say --well, when I went 14 to the Atlanta hearing on the Blue Ribbon Commission 15 for high level waste, they kept on saying that the 16 more -- it's just you're not educated.
17 Listen, I've been studying this stuff for 18 about 15, 20, 30 years. I mean I was involved in this 19 process back the first time around with TVA and the 20 nuclear plants. The more I know, the more it troubles 21 me. So don't be saying that, oh, all you need to do 22 is know more about it and you won't be so concerned.
23 The more I know, the more concerned I get.
24 MR. CARPENTER: Any other comments?
25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 32 MR. KURTZ: I feel like I'm in the middle 1
here and I ought to stand somewhere where everybody 2
can see me. Where shall I go? I'll go up here with 3
Donnie.
4 I'm Sandy Kurtz. I'm with Bellefonte 5
Efficiency and Sustainability Team and we are a 6
concerned citizens group, a chapter of the Blue Ridge 7
Environmental Defense League. And of course we don't 8
care much for the idea of building yet another nuclear 9
plant in the Chattanooga region.
I live in 10 Chattanooga.
11 And it just -- I guess I can summarize my 12 comments with these words, more is not better. And as 13 I told the press, it makes no sense to say there will 14 be no significant environmental impacts when you 15 double the number of nuclear plants at the same site.
16 The only reason I can think that they could possibly 17 say that is because the environment has already been 18 ruined with the first plant. Two plants in the same 19 place makes twice as much risk for accidents, for 20 human error, for radiation in the water, for tritium 21 in the water, and for ongoing aquatic danger to the 22 aquatic species, not to mention the health of our 23 people themselves.
24 And I just think that we should not 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 33 continue to add more risk to what's happening already.
1 We already had six nuclear reactors in this area and 2
we don't really need another one.
3 The Environmental Impact Statement, I just 4
can't believe that there would be no more impacts when 5
you're actually doubling the possibilities.
6 Thank you.
7 MR. CARPENTER: Other comments?
8 MS. HARRIS: Questions?
9 MR. CARPENTER: You have a question? Yes.
10 MS. HARRIS: At what point -- cause we 11 don't seem to have a benchmark of what -- how far TVA 12 can go that you won't let them go any further? You're 13 saying in here I see about the tritium. TVA managed 14 to fill a leak so they're containing the tritium.
15 Now whatever that magic thing is, Mr.
16 Stinson (phonetic), I hope, will sell it to the other 17 100 nuclear plants in this country which leak every 18 day during their operations. So it's worth bazillions 19 of dollars to stop the tritium leaking into the river.
20 Now the State of Tennessee, TDEC, they're 21 not even testing for anything like that. They don't 22 look at it. They say it's not -- they don't have the 23 money to test for it. Well, whenever I question an 24 NRC person, they look at me and say, "That's TDEC and 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 34 we don't have authority over them." Well, you gave 1
them a letter of authority under the agreement state 2
letter in -- I'm sorry, Roger. Yeah, it went into 3
your hair on your head, into your ears. But the thing 4
is that there has to be a limit of how far they can 5
go.
6 The other thing is that I want to know 7
what kind of security is around the intake pumping 8
station. And I'm talking about serious security and 9
about the outfalls. Now everybody says, oh, nobody 10 don't know where they're at. They don't know what's 11 going on with them. Get real. These things are not 12 secrets.
13 I mean when you live here on this river 14 like I have all my life, you know all the secrets on 15 this river. They ain't secrets. And then the idea 16 that there is a swimming hole within a thousand feet 17 of that plant is just sick.
18 I have -- the media that has come in here, 19 they wanted to talk and use this plant as a poster 20 child, some of it for good and some of it for bad.
21 But some of it has been good for the NRC. But I don't 22 see the NRC -- is it you don't have the regulations in 23 place? Is that the point?
24 Do I need to start pounding on Senator 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 35 Boxer's door more often? I mean I'm up there on a 1
regular basis with information and talking about the 2
problems and the things that are good and bad about 3
here because I want a safe plant cause I still have 4
relatives that lives in the evacuation zone. I just 5
buried my mother with colon cancer.
6 These things are significant to people 7
like myself who live here. I have children; I have 8
grandchildren; I
have great-grandchildren.
My 9
grandson just came back from Baghdad. He's fighting 10 for us to have clean air and clean water and go by the 11 rules and have rules to go by.
12 But I don't see the cooperation. I just 13 got told that whenever I make a statement about a 14 problem at this plant that if I won't give up my 15 sources, NRC just flips it over in the garbage can.
16 Now that pissed me off. I can tell you it did.
17 Because whenever I tell you something, I 18 don't have a problem; my credibility is not on the 19 line here. Whenever I tell you that there's a problem 20 in the area and you don't deal with it, then it 21 aggravates me to no end. And I'm not seeing when you 22 just fluff them off. It's like you're swatting at 23 gnats. This is our life and our community and our 24 future and our whole future of these communities and 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 36 these mountains.
1 I'm deeply resentful that there is a fan 2
crane 2,500 acre island down here that is so 3
contaminated that the geese are even -- they're not 4
even coming in there anymore. The cranes don't want 5
to go there. You can't entice them; you can't put 6
enough food on them to entice them in is what I'm 7
seeing.
8 Now come on, guys, let's get real about 9
this. Can we please tell me what rules you go by? I 10 mean some of the things that you say I can't even 11 find. So somewhere along the line you've got to put 12 some reality in here instead of all this fluff and pie 13 in the sky.
14 MR. CARPENTER: Any other questions or 15 comments?
16 MS. FARRIS: My name is Kathleen Farris.
17 I'm from Rutherford County, Murfreesboro, Tennessee.
18 And if you're wondering why I'm here, it's because 19 four years ago we discovered we had low level waste 20 going into our landfill. That landfill is right on 21 the Stones River, which provides the drinking water 22 for most of Rutherford County. That includes the city 23 of Murfreesboro.
24 My first interest was in water and it's 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 37 about water that I want to speak today. It's a source 1
of life. If our drinking water is polluted and we're 2
taking radiation or chemicals into our bodies, I think 3
that can very well account for the epidemic of cancer 4
that we have in this country today.
5 And furthermore, it's not just a question 6
of pollution. It's a question of consumption. Only a 7
very -- I wish I had all my figures with me today, but 8
I left my computer at home by mistake. But I had read 9
very recently the report that was done by the Union of 10 Concerned Scientists on water consumption and energy 11 production and it's available on the Union of 12 Concerned Scientists' website. And most of what I'm 13 going to say is taken from that information.
14 Only a very small fraction of the earth's 15 water is potable. And already huge corporations are 16 buying up water supplies all over the world, which 17 means that before long anybody who can't afford to buy 18 water won't have clean water to drink or may not have 19 water at all because there are water wars going on.
20 We've already had it over the Tennessee River here 21 where Georgia and North Carolina want their share of 22 our water, right?
23 Global warming and climate change, which I 24 see you have noted in your study, are going to affect 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 38 the supplies of water and threaten -- think about it -
1
- land masses are shrinking; populations are growing.
2 The demand for water will ever be
- greater, 3
particularly if we are able to continue in what we 4
think of as an advanced civilization.
5 The single largest use of fresh water in 6
the United States is thermal nuclear -- no, I'm sorry 7
-- the thermal energy, either by nuclear or coal. And 8
I have -- the study that I referred to has a pie 9
chart, shows that 41 percent of the water, the largest 10 usage is for these forms of energy production. Now if 11 you look at the chart, here is nuclear, here is coal, 12 oil, gas. Solar thermal uses a lot of water, so does 13 biofuel. However, solar photovoltaic and wind, look, 14 you can't even see a line for how much water is 15 required to produce energy in those ways.
16 Now it's not just on a global scale that 17 we have to think, although I think we need to think 18 that way as well. One of the things that the Union of 19 Concerned Scientists have pointed out is that in the 20 Southeast United States we have a particularly severe 21 problem of water and energy production. That drought 22 and heat have caused many -- and we all know this --
23 many closings, shut-downs of nuclear reactors because 24 the water is too hot or there's not enough of it.
25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 39 Same thing has happened in -- and the drought is 1
threatening the nuclear industry in Europe now.
2 Particularly Browns Ferry has been closed, 3
heavens knows, how many times.
4 I was in Texas this summer. The darker 5
the area, the greater the intensity of drought. People 6
are losing their crops. In Fort Worth they're telling 7
you don't use too much water, constantly reminding 8
people not to use too much water. That's this year.
9 If you look at 2007, this is right where 10 TVA is building all these plants, six, going on seven, 11 on the Tennessee River. And TVA wants to put four 12 more at Watts Bar. Now that Tennessee River provides 13 drinking water for the cities of Knoxville, 14 Chattanooga, Huntsville, all the communities in 15 between.
16 The TVA's plan is to become, as Mr.
17 Kilgore said, the foremost producer of nuclear energy 18 in the country. And that means this Watts Bar 2. It 19 also means the plant at Bellefonte, the first one, and 20 then three more.
21 And I propose that this is a threat to our 22 drinking water. It's not what your study says.
23 And I went through and I marked all the 24 sections in which you claim that the impact will be 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 40 very small. Section 4, 4221, surface water use 1
impact, based on the NRC staff's independent analysis 2
the staff concludes that because of the small amount -
3
- small volume of water consumed relative to the 4
Tennessee River flow, the impact on surface water use 5
of operating WBN Unit 2 is small.
6 The same thing it says further on, on 7
ground water use, No. 4-11, Page 4-11, we're told that 8
based on the independent analysis of additional 9
information since the 1978 whatever this is, FES-OL, 10 the NRC staff concludes that the impact on ground 11 water from operating Watts Bar Unit 2 would be small.
12 Now I asked the question, is this karst 13 topography? And nobody really answered my question.
14 I'm sorry, sir.
15 MR. MILANO: It is.
16 MS.
FERRIS:
Karst topography is 17 limestone. It's got cracks and crevices everywhere.
18 If it gets into -- if radiation gets -- or pollution 19 gets into that, you have got an effect on the ground 20 water.
21 Now we know about that in Dickson, 22 Tennessee right now, which is also a landfill built on 23 karst topography. There are people who have become 24 terribly ill and they're bringing a lawsuit against 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 41 the county and state for that polluted landfill 1
because of the topography.
2 The same thing is true of the Stones River 3
in Rutherford County. It's built on -- this landfill 4
sits on limestone right over our drinking water 5
supply.
6 If we -- I'm sorry. I think I'm allergic 7
to something here.
8 MR.
SAFER:
It's the radiation.
9 (Laughter) 10 MS. FERRIS: I hope not. In any event I 11 want to say to you the population of the earth is 12 growing. The water demands are growing. And one way 13 we can make sure that other industry and agriculture 14 and people have enough clean water is to use clean 15 means of producing energy. And we've got them. I 16 couldn't get up here if I didn't know the technology 17 already exists for wind and solar energy production.
18 And I get this argument with people all 19 the time, both at these meetings and elsewhere. Say, 20 oh, they can't produce enough. Well, if we put the 21 billions of dollars into solar and wind energy that we 22 are putting into nuclear energy, we could do it. We 23 went to the moon. We're sending off explorers into 24 space. The technology is there. What's lacking is 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 42 the will.
1 And I would like to -- all of you would be 2
dead without water. Your children will die without 3
water. Other species will die without water. We have 4
got to preserve it. There was a documentary made on 5
water wars called Blue Gold and that's water that 6
they're talking about. We've got to have it and we've 7
got to preserve it while there's still some left to 8
preserve.
9 Thank you.
10 MR. CARPENTER: Other comments?
11 MR. SAFER: I can go again. I wanted to 12 get into some specifics. One thing in this document, 13 and I of course haven't read all of it. It was much 14 harder on the computer. I appreciate having a hard 15 copy now; that does make it a lot easier. I realize 16 it is more costly to the NRC, but this is an important 17 issue.
18 The Watts Bar -- this book says that no 19 other new nuclear facilities within 50 miles are being 20 considered. That's just false. Oak Ridge is within 21 50 miles.
22 TVA is on record as being far beyond 23 considering small modular reactors. They're in 24 communication with the NRC, other branches of the NRC, 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 43 daily. There's meetings; there's been several 1
meetings this month on SMRs and TVA. They plan to 2
build -- first they planned to build six up at the 3
Clinch River site; now I think it's down to two.
4 These are 125 to 150 megawatt reactors 5
that are modular built and they're sunk into a hole 6
150 feet deep in the ground, the same karst geology.
7 So I wish that would be corrected or you check that.
8 I know there was some discussion about whether that's 9
accurate or not.
10 I don't see -- if you speak English, 11 considered means considered. And they're certainly 12 being considered. So that's one thing.
13 The second thing, the highly irradiated 14 used fuel that's often called spent fuel is being 15 stored in fuel pools as long as possible. And that's 16 just the biggest danger that it can be. They need to 17 be moved to a hardened onsite storage. And I know 18 they have to be in the pools for about five years till 19 they cool down. But beyond that point the packing of 20 these pools with more and more rods that way beyond 21 what they were designed for is a real huge risk that 22 the community is taking on and needs to be aware of.
23 And the community needs to support the idea of 24 hardened onsite storage.
25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 44 The reason that's not happening is 1
strictly cost. And when you're talking about cost, 2
this whole reactor is nuclear power on the cheap. And 3
I don't know why we're accepting the cheapest possible 4
nuclear power plant. TVA tried to build a new AP 5
1000, two of them at Bellefonte. They found out they 6
was going to be so much more expensive than finishing 7
this reactor and the Bellefonte Unit 1 that they 8
backed off from it.
9 Well, excuse me, but this is not the place 10 to cut costs. If they want to build these things, 11 they have to be state-of-the-art. This is far from 12 state-of-the-art.
13 This ice condenser design is really a joke 14 in the industry. And I mean I talked to the operators 15 at Sequoyah and they just kind of grinned when I asked 16 them about -- the ice condenser design means there's 17 three million pounds of ice, literally three million 18 pounds of frozen water, that's in the reactor within 19 the containment structure. And should they have a 20 loss of coolant, all of that hot gas is supposed to go 21 through that ice room to lessen the pressure. And so 22 they've made the containment less sturdy than the 23 other reactors around the country and around the 24 world.
25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 45 Nobody else is building any ice condenser 1
designs ever again. They were built back in the `70s.
2 Sequoyah, ice condenser designs; Watts Bar 1 is an 3
ice condenser design. There's no justification for 4
finishing this thing.
5 I talked about this the last time in 2009.
6 Obviously it was not heard. But just so everybody 7
knows, it's a Rube Goldberg contraption. If you don't 8
know Rube Goldberg, look him up on the internet 9
because he was a fascinating guy. But, you know, I 10 could go on about that.
11 But the other specifics about this 12 particular Environmental Impact Statement, on Page H-13 3, Appendix H is the Severe Accident Mitigation Design 14 Alternatives. I'll quote, "TVA did not include the 15 contribution from external events in the Watts Bar 16 Nuclear Plant risk estimates."
17 External events. Now whether those is a 18 tornado like the one that almost hit Browns Ferry, a 19 F-5 tornado. The very same day, April 27th, tornadoes 20 came through here and they got pretty close to Watts 21 Bar. They went right across Bellefonte, where that 22 reactor was going to be built as soon as they finish 23 Watts Bar. And it's just kind of -- to me it's kind 24 of eerie, but in the same day all of TVA's nuclear 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 46 power plants were affected by tornadoes. If that's 1
not a message from on high, I don't know what is, to 2
be honest, folks.
3 So those kinds of things, plus terrorist 4
attacks, that's an external event. They just don't 5
even factor that into this. And I'm sorry that we 6
live in a world where that has to be factored in, but 7
we all know that it does. And that these things are -
8
- they're the biggest target for a terrorist that you 9
can imagine and the effects would be -- they'd put 10 9/11 into a footnote of history almost.
11 So these things are huge target for 12 external events and that really needs to be factored 13 into the design. And believe me, in 1970, they 14 weren't factoring in the possibility of a terrorist 15 attack on U.S. soil in the design of the containment 16 structure which, as I've said, is already thinner than 17 other nuclear power plants of that era.
18 I just have to make note that the 19 definition of risk in this document is it's the 20 product of frequency and the consequences of an 21 accident. Work on that one for a while. I don't 22 know.
23 As I said, it's in 6.2.4, where the staff 24 concludes that the environmental consequences of a 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 47 severe accidents are small, 6.2.4. I don't know how 1
you get that.
2 Severe accident mitigation alternatives in 3
6.3, there's a quote in here. I'll read it directly 4
because I didn't copy it all down. They eliminate the 5
severe accident scenarios that were "excessively 6
costly to implement such that the estimated cost would 7
exceed the dollar value associated with completely 8
eliminating all severe accident risks at WBN 2."
9 I take that to mean that some of the risks 10 it was just too costly to mitigate those risks, so we 11 just threw them out because, if it costs too much, we 12 couldn't possibly deal with it. So we'll just deal 13 with the risks. That's what that says to me.
14 And by the way that whole severe accident 15 thing was required of the NRC by the Third Circuit 16 Court's opinion in Limerick Ecology Action, Inc.
17 versus the NRC in 1989. It was a court ordered thing 18 for the NRC to have to take into account these risks.
19 It took a federal court to require that in 1989.
20 If you read this document, you'll see -- I 21 don't think you'll see the word Fukushima or even 22 Chernobyl in there. As I said earlier, they say it's 23 factored into the computer models, but that sure is 24 sanitizing the realities.
25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 48 Page 6-15, "It is noted that the risks 1
from deliberate aircraft impacts were explicitly 2
excluded since this was being considered in other 3
forms along with other sources of sabotage." I don't 4
know where the other form is. I asked an individual, 5
a couple of individuals, with the NRC here. They were 6
going to get back to me on that. But again deliberate 7
aircraft impacts were explicitly excluded from this 8
document.
9 And I think that concludes my comments.
10 Thank you.
11 MR. CARPENTER: Any other questions?
12 Comments?
13 MS. HARRIS: I'm not going to ask anything 14 else because you don't get an answer. You get fluffed 15 off and I'm not interested in that. So I'll just put 16 it online in writing. It's become a task to deal with 17 the NRC whenever you get kindergarten answers to 18 chemistry questions. And I'm kind of over it. I just 19 want the time so that I can do the writing. I want 20 the extension that should be granted.
21 MR. CARPENTER: Anything else?
22 MS. FERRIS: I would like to add something 23 to what Donnie said about terrorists. There was a 24 Newsweek article either last week or the week before 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 49 of an FBI undercover agent who was working with 1
extremist groups in the South. And some of the people 2
he encountered were planning an attack on Browns 3
Ferry. So this isn't some hypothetical. I mean there 4
are people out there who would love to attack these 5
reactors and probably many of them don't have any idea 6
of what the real consequences would be.
7 MR. SAFER: I'm sorry you have to listen 8
to me again. I think unfortunately a lot of people 9
that believe the same thing that Kathy and Ann and I 10 do have gotten so discouraged from this process that 11 they just don't show up at these meetings anymore. So 12 I feel like I have to speak for many, many people.
13 I think that one of the things that the 14 community needs to realize is that decommissioning of 15 these reactors, both Unit 1 and Unit 2, is going to be 16 a huge task on down the road. Now the decommissioning 17 fund, TVA and the other utilities put money into it 18 all the time, but they invest that money just like 19 anybody that has a little money tries to invest it in 20 the stock market or wherever to do the best they can.
21 Well, when the stock market took a big hit, that 22 decommissioning fund took the same hit. And there's 23 just simply not as much money as you need to 24 decommission these reactors.
25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 50 And we've all been through this thing 1
recently of the government shutting down and the 2
government saying no more loans, no more deficit. We 3
don't know who is going to be charge of our government 4
in 10, 20, 30 years. But the reality when it comes to 5
these nuclear materials that are being manufactured at 6
these sites is that they're going to have to be dealt 7
with.
8 But if the federal government refuses to 9
do it, it's going to be the community's problem just 10 to safeguard that plant from now until kingdom come 11 again, till eternity. And I think we've all been sort 12 of shaken in our confidence of the federal government 13 being able to continue its obligations into the 14 future.
15 And these materials, these radioactive 16 materials, need to be kept out of the environment for 17 half a million years. Now if you think the federal 18 government is going to be here half a million years 19 from now, I'd like to see your information.
20 But I'm just trying to point out that all 21 of these things are built on a best-case scenario, 22 that everything is going to go perfectly and the world 23 is going to operate in a way that we wish it would.
24 And I think we've all seen that the world does not 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 51 operate in that way.
1 And whether it's Chernobyl or Fukushima or 2
the fire at Browns Ferry or Three Mile Island, these 3
nuclear reactors are just as prone to accidents, 4
mistakes, failures, human error, whatever, terrorism, 5
or whatever it might be as any other human enterprise 6
and any other human activity. They will have 7
problems. They will have worse-case scenarios. It 8
may not happen very often, but that doesn't mean it 9
can't happen tomorrow here. And if you have two 10 reactors, it just doubles the chance.
11 And again the whole clean-up thing is a 12 whole nother issue that whether that money is really 13 going to be there. The same is true for the high 14 level waste that's in those fuel pools. The federal 15 government is trying to figure out how to take care of 16 its responsibilities on that and they're struggling 17 with that. They have struggled with it for over 50 18 years.
19 There's not a single deep repository for 20 radioactive waste that I know of in the world.
21 There's some talk in France about they maybe started 22 to experiment with one and maybe Finland has done a 23 little, but Finland doesn't have very many nuclear 24 power plants. So talking about the amount of high 25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 52 level radioactive waste we've been generating in the 1
United States, it's a lot of material and we simply 2
don't have any place to put it.
3 The Blue Ribbon Commission has been 4
working on it for over a year. They're due to release 5
their report which is highly controversial in my 6
opinion. But you can't take it on face value that 7
these materials are going to be able to be handled the 8
way they need to have been.
9 MR. CARPENTER: Thank you. Any other 10 comments? Questions?
11 Anything from the staff?
12 In that case I would like to thank 13 everyone for participating. We did have some very 14 good comments and questions today. We will get back 15 to those who have given us questions as quickly as 16 possible. I do know that we have at least one written 17 set of questions already. If there are any other 18 written questions that you'd like to provide, you can 19 do it both by submitting from here or leaving it with 20 us before you leave.
21 I would like to remind everyone that again 22 there is a meeting comment sheet. We do like to get 23 those. It tells us how to do these meetings a little 24 bit better each time. So thank you for doing that.
25
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 53 We will finish up now and reconvene for 1
the second part of this at 6:30 tonight. Anybody that 2
would like to come back, you're more than welcome.
3 We'd like to have you. It will be in this room again.
4 And with that I quit and close the 5
meeting. Thank you again for coming. Thank you.
6 (Whereupon, this portion of the meeting 7
was concluded at 3:20 p.m. to reconvene for the second 8
portion at 6:30 p.m.)
9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25