ML113630077
| ML113630077 | |
| 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: ML113630077 (35) | |
Text
Official Trans cript of Proceedings NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Title:
Watts Bar Nuclear Plant EIS Public Meeting: Evening Session Docket Number:
(n/a)
Location:
Sweetwater, Tennessee Date:
Thursday, December 8, 2011 Work Order No.:
NRC-1313 Pages 1-34 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 www.nealrgross.com 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 Evening Session 14 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.
15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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P R O C E E D I N G S 1
(6:30 p.m.)
2 MR. CARPENTER: Good evening. We're ready 3
to go ahead and get started now. I'm Gene Carpenter.
4 I'm with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
5 Thank you for coming. This is the second meeting 6
today of the Public Meeting to discuss the Draft 7
Supplement to the Final Environmental Statement for 8
Watts Bar Nuclear Plant, Unit 2.
9 What we will be doing today is Patrick 10 Milano and Jeremy Susco will be giving presentations 11 at the beginning of this meeting. Then we will go 12 into a question and answer portion. And then once we 13 finish with your questions, we will go into a comment 14 period. And that will allow everyone here to ask 15 questions specifically related to the Environmental 16 Statement Supplement. And then if you have comments 17 about related to Watts Bar, we will go into that.
18 We do not have -- because this is a 19 meeting between the NRC and the public, we will not be 20 taking questions specifically for the licensee. If 21 there are TVA people here who would like to talk to 22 someone about something after the meeting, certainly 23 welcome to do so. But today's meeting is specifically 24 for the NRC to interact with the public. And we do 25
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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appreciate your taking your time to come and chat with 1
us.
2 Now as I said, Pat will be giving the 3
presentation. And then Jeremy will be giving a 4
presentation. Let's go ahead and get started.
5 We also have Steve Campbell. Steve is the 6
Branch Chief for the Watts Bar Special Projects 7
Branch. Alan Howe, he is the Deputy Commission 8
Director for the Division of Operating Reactor 9
Licensing. These folks are all in the Office of 10 Nuclear Reactor Regulation in Rockport, Maryland at 11 the NRC Headquarters.
12 We also have some folks here from the 13 Regions. If you have questions about that, we can 14 talk -- introduce those.
15 And we also have a representative from our 16 Office of General Counsel if there's any legal 17 questions that we need to answer.
18 Couple of administrative aspects first.
19 Obviously everybody came in this door; that's one of 20 the fire exits. The other fire exit is the other side 21 of the room. There are the restrooms right there on 22 the left. So if you need to do something like that, 23 you don't have to run downstairs.
24 We do have some sign-in sheets right over 25
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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here. And I would like to encourage anyone who is 1
interested in asking questions or providing comments 2
to go ahead and sign in. You're obviously not 3
required to, but we would like to be able to keep a 4
record of who's asking questions and who are giving 5
comments in case we need to get something back to you.
6 Also we have here at the table also some 7
public meeting feedback forms. And as with any NRC 8
public meeting, we do encourage you if you do have any 9
comments about the meeting, how it runs, anything we 10 can do to improve it, please provide that. We always 11 appreciate that.
12 Also there are some handouts on the table.
13 There are some hard copies of the book in case some 14 of you have interest in that. They have electronic 15 copies of those again for your personal use and feel 16 free to take them. If you do sell them, more power to 17 you, but they're free for you to take, okay?
18 The other thing is I do encourage everyone 19 to please turn off your cell phone or at least put it 20 on mute just to give everybody a chance.
21 When we go to the question and answer 22 portion of the meeting, anyone who has signed in and 23 has indicated that they'd like to do questions, I will 24 take those people first. And then we will throw it 25
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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open to anybody else from there. And the same with 1
comments from that point. We will try to go in as 2
much as possible around the room and give everybody a 3
chance.
4 So I will initially limit the question and 5
answers to three minutes for each question and three 6
minutes for each comment. If we have fewer or more 7
comments than that after we've gone through the first 8
or second round, we'll expand the time as appropriate.
9 With that I think we're good to go. At 10 this time we'd like to introduce Pat to come and have 11 a talk -- present his talk.
12 MR. MILANO: Thank you, Gene.
13 Again as Gene indicated, my name is 14 Patrick Milano, Pat Milano. I'm Licensing Project 15 Manager with the NRC's Office of Nuclear Reactor 16 Regulation. We commonly refer to it as NRR and you 17 may hear that again repeated several times tonight.
18 Our office is responsible for the Agency's 19 review of the application from Tennessee Valley 20 Authority to operate -- to license and operate a 21 second unit at the Watts Bar Station, Watts Bar 22 Nuclear Plant, Unit 2. And I will be discussing a 23 little bit about in general what's going on with the 24 licensing process for Watts Bar.
25
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And Jeremy will be taking and talking 1
about the environmental related activities for this 2
operating license application.
3 As all of you are probably aware, on 4
November 10th of this year, the NRC published its 5
notice of availability of the Draft Supplement to the 6
Final Environmental Statement related to the operation 7
of Watts Bar Unit 2. The Draft Supplement documents 8
the NRC's preliminary review of the environmental 9
impact associated with operating this unit for the 10 duration of the proposed operating license period.
11 Next one.
12 Oh, excuse me. Before we start, a 13 question came up earlier this evening with regard to 14 the docket number for this the operating license 15 activity at Watts Bar. And in general the docket 16 number is 50-391. However, if you're trying to find 17 information in our document control system that the 18 NRC maintains, it's called ADAMS; that's the acronym 19 for it. It's the Agency-wide Document Access and 20 Management System. And if you're using that, it's got 21 a field to put in the docket number and rather than 22 using the dashes, they use 05000391 there.
23 So we put it up on the screen just in case 24 somebody wants to find some of the information related 25
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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to overall as to what's been going on with Watts Bar 1
Unit 2 and the flow of information both from TVA and 2
from the NRC.
3 Next slide.
4 On this slide we're showing you the basic 5
agenda for today's meeting. I will be discussing, 6
like I said, a short discussion about the NRC's 7
regulatory role. Then we will provide you with a 8
summary of the environmental review, some of the 9
upcoming milestones, and then also how to submit 10 comments after this meeting if you'd like to submit 11 them either electronically or by some other written 12 method.
13 At the end of the presentation, like I 14 indicated, there will be some time for interested 15 parties to ask questions on the environmental review 16 process and more importantly time for you to present 17 your comments on the Draft Supplement too to the Final 18 Environmental Statement for Watts Bar Unit 2.
19 Next slide.
20 The NRC was established to regulate 21 civilian uses of nuclear materials, including 22 facilities that produce electric power. The NRC is 23 responsible for licensing and regulating the operation 24 of commercial nuclear plants in the United States.
25
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Watts
- Bar, like the other currently 1
operating nuclear plants, is being licensed under a 2
two-step process described in Part 50 of the NRC's 3
Regulations. And when I say two-step process, what 4
I'm saying there is there was a process to -- wherein 5
TVA was granted a permit to construct the facility.
6 And then separate from that there's the process that 7
we're currently in right now where we're evaluating 8
TVA's application to operate the facility.
9 In all aspects of the NRC's Regulation, 10 the Agency's mission is to ensure adequate protection 11 of public health and safety, to promote the common 12 defense and security, and to protect the environment.
13 Next slide.
14 All nuclear power plant applications must 15 undergo a safety review, an environmental review, and 16 an anti-trust review by the NRC. In order to 17 construct or operate a nuclear plant, an applicant 18 must submit a Safety Analysis Report. This document 19 contains basic design information criteria for the 20 proposed reactor and comprehensive data on the 21 proposed site.
22 As part of the application for an 23 operating license, an applicant provides more details 24 in its Final Safety Analysis Report, commonly referred 25
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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to as the FSAR, that provides further details about 1
the facility, presents the design basis and the limits 2
on its operation, and presents the safety analysis of 3
structures, systems, and components and the facility 4
as a whole.
5 It also discusses various hypothetical 6
accidents and the safety features of the plant that 7
would help to either prevent or to lessen the effects 8
of an accident. The NRC Safety Review covers a broad 9
range of areas, including those that are shown in the 10 upper portion of this slide.
11 The National Environmental Policy Act, 12
- NEPA, requires federal agencies to integrate 13 environmental values into their decision making 14 process by considering the environmental impacts of 15 the proposed actions and reasonable alternatives to 16 those actions. To meet NEPA requirements, federal 17 agencies prepare a detailed statement known as an 18 Environmental Impact Statement. And this is in part 19 what we're here today to do. The NRC has prepared a 20 supplement to the Environmental Statement that was 21 done for Watts Bar Unit 1 and 2. And this supplement 22 is for Unit 2.
23 Because TVA is also a federal agency, it 24 was also required by NEPA to prepare an Environmental 25
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 10 Impact Statement to support the operation of Watts Bar 1
Unit 2.
2 The NRC's Regulations also define criteria 3
wherein licensing and regulatory actions require an 4
Environmental Statement. One of those criteria is the 5
issuance of a full power, or also you may hear it 6
called a Design Capacity License, to operate a plant.
7 The criteria for an identification of licensing and 8
regulatory actions of requiring Environmental Impact 9
Statements are found in Part 51 of our Regulations.
10 These Regulations require that an 11 applicant for a license contain a comprehensive 12 statement of the environmental impacts of the proposed 13 plant. And because of the two-step processes, as I 14 was indicating, an Environmental Statement was 15 prepared to support the construction permit. And this 16 environmental report at the operating license stage 17 that we're at right now expands on that initial report 18 and focuses specifically on the plant operation and 19 also it's submitted only in connection with the first 20 licensing action authorizing full power operation.
21 During the licensing of a nuclear plant 22 the NRC, like I indicated, also issues a Final 23 Environmental Statement, which identifies those 24 potential impacts and evaluates them and the benefits 25
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 11 of the proposed plant. After completing the review, 1
the NRC issues a Draft Environmental Statement for 2
comment by the appropriate federal, state, and local 3
agencies as well as the public. And then once all 4
those comments are received, the NRC addresses the 5
comments and issues the document in the final form 6
called the Final Environment Statement.
7 Next slide.
8 Here's a simplified chronology of some of 9
the major things that have taken place at the plant as 10 it relates to the environmental review. As I 11 indicated, because of the fact that TVA is a federal 12 agency and it was required to submit its own 13 Environmental Impact Statement, that was done 14 initially in September of 1972 to support the 15 construction permit. And the operating license 16 application came in several years later in June of 17 1976. And although I don't have it on here, the 18 Environmental Impact Statement to support operation at 19 that time of Watts Bar Unit 1 and 2 was submitted by 20 TVA in about September of `76.
21 The NRC evaluated the information that TVA 22 provided along with its doing some of its own reviews 23 and issued its Final Environmental Statement for Watts 24 Bar's Units 1 and 2 as an NRC document or an NRC 25
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 12 report. And the number of it is NUREG-0498. And that 1
was done in December of 1978.
2 As some of you are aware, in around 1985, 3
when TVA thought that Unit 1 was about ready to be 4
issued an operating license, a number of issues came 5
up and construction stopped at both Unit 1 and Unit 2.
6 And subsequently after a number of those issues were 7
corrected and TVA completed the remainder of the 8
plant, in the mid-`90s TVA did a review of its 9
Environmental Impact Statement for Unit 1 in May of 10 1994. And in April of 1995, the NRC supplemented that 11 December 1978 Environmental Statement for Unit 1 and 12 specifically for Unit 1 operation.
13 In July of
- 2008, TVA submitted a
14 Supplemental Environmental Statement to support 15 operation for Watts Bar Unit 2. And as indicated in 16 the report, there was some additional information that 17 was necessary to be submitted to support some aspects 18 of the environmental review. And that information was 19 submitted in January of 2009, wherein the staff felt 20 it had a complete submittal from TVA.
21 And also at the time that TVA informed the 22 NRC of its intent to reactivate construction of Watts 23
- Bar, our five member Commission provided some 24 direction to the staff on how they wanted the review 25
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 13 to be conducted. And one of those things that they 1
did tell the staff to do was they wanted to offer the 2
public another opportunity to request a hearing if 3
need be.
4 And because of that the NRC issued a 5
Federal Register Notice of Availability of an updated 6
operating license application and opportunity for 7
hearing. This March 2009 date here is the date that 8
the information that updated the original operating 9
license application came in from TVA. And then May 10 2009, the NRC issued its Federal Register Notice for 11 the updated application.
12 And so that basically takes you up to 13 today with regard to what's been going on licensing 14 wise for Watts Bar Unit 2. If you've got some more 15 questions about some of the details, I know I went 16 through -- a lot has taken place in the last three 17 years. So if you've got other questions or want to 18 know a little bit more specifics about it, feel free 19 to ask me after the environmental review.
20 In any case I'm going to turn over the 21 floor now to Jeremy Susco, who's going to go into the 22 specifics about the staff's Environmental Review.
23 Thank you.
24 MR. SUSCO: Thanks, Pat. My name is 25
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 14 Jeremy Susco and I work for the Environmental Team 1
that put together the document that we're here to 2
discuss today. And for those of you who heard me 3
speak earlier, my presentation hasn't gotten any 4
funnier or more interesting. So I hope you can stay 5
awake until we get to the Q&A period.
6 So why we're here today is to talk about 7
the Draft Supplement to the Final Environmental 8
Statement, which is kind of a confusing thing to say.
9 So to help kind of clear that up, so there's two 10 Environmental Impact Statements we're talking about, 11 one submitted by TVA and one done by the NRC. The one 12 submitted by the TVA I'm not going to call it an 13 Environmental Impact Statement. That was their 14 application, just so we can make that a little less 15 confusing.
16 TVA submitted their application. And 17 we're working on our Environmental Impact Statement 18 now.
19 So why are we doing a supplement to what 20 used to be a final and now it's a draft?
21 So back in '78, we put out our Final 22 Environmental Statement related to Watts Bar 1 and 2.
23 If they had gone up and operating since then, that 24 would have been it. There was a 20-year hiatus. And 25
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 15 so we decided back in the `90s, when they started up 1
Unit 1, that was going to be Supplement 1, so 2
Supplement 1 to their 1978 document. Worked on that 3
while the conditions were still the same so we wanted 4
to supplement that and build on it for Unit 1.
5 That brings us up to Unit 2 and now we're 6
talking about Supplement 2. And so now we're also --
7 we're supplementing that `78 document, kind of 8
building on what was in there, building on Supplement 9
1 that was in the `90s. Again a lot of similar 10 issues. And now we're here at Supplement 2.
11 And this is draft and so that's what we 12 just put out a couple of months ago is the Draft 13 Statement that we're here to receive your comments on.
14 And if you're interested the third bullet on there, 15 our Part 51 requirements, that discusses what's 16 supposed to be on TVA's application as well as the 17 issues that we look at at the NRC. And further 18 guidance at the NRC is that fourth bullet down there, 19 another report called our Standard Review Plan.
20 That's what we look at.
21 And really what the Environmental Impact 22 Statement looks at is what would be the environmental 23 impact of granting that second license to our Watts 24 Bar 2 to operate.
25
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 16 Next slide, please.
1 So putting together our Environmental 2
Impact Statement, this is not complete, but it's a 3
very good example of why the issues that we looked at.
4 And so some of the things that we're looking to hear 5
from the public on today are did we miss an issue.
6 And for the issues that we did examine is our analysis 7
complete? Is there something that we missed?
8 And so if we hear up at the podium and we 9
speak later as well in written comments you provide 10 later, those are the kind of things that we're looking 11 to hear about. That's why we have this public comment 12 period when it goes from draft to final.
13 The next slide, please.
14 So to give you an idea of some of the 15 information sources that we looked at, you can see it 16 there, the license application. That is TVA's 17 Environmental Impact Statement.
18 Public comments, we were here two years 19 ago about this time to hear public comments on the 20 scope of our view, what things should we look at, what 21 shouldn't we look at.
Different permitting 22 authorities, the NRC is not the only person that TVA 23 has to answer to as far operating and a lot of their 24 permits they have to receive. We talked to those 25
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 17 authorities and agencies, different state, federal, 1
and local agencies as well as some local tribal 2
councils, and NRC staff site eyed.
3 We actually came here back in October of 4
'09. And we actually examined the site and the 5
environmental issues to get a better idea of what was 6
really going on at this than we can realistically do 7
from our Headquarters in Washington, D.C.
8 But as part of this -- again everything 9
we're looking to hear public comments on is did we use 10 the best available data? And if we didn't, in your 11 public comments, let us know. Point us to that -- to 12 a particular reference and we will definitely take a 13 look at that.
14 Next slide, please.
15 So our preliminary conclusion -- and I'll 16 read this, "The NRC staff preliminary recommendation 17 to the Commission is that the environmental impacts 18 are not significant enough to forego issuing operating 19 license for Watts Bar Unit 2."
20 I just wanted to kind of break down that 21 overwrought statement and kind of highlight some of 22 the salient points there. The first one I want to 23 point out is preliminary. And synonymous we're using 24 here the term draft. We put out a Draft Environmental 25
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 18 Impact Statement. And our preliminary recommendation 1
is we haven't considered everything yet because we 2
haven't seen our public comments. And so that will 3
become a final recommendation after we do so. And 4
we're looking to put out our final document in May.
5 The next key word there is recommendation.
6 And the Watts Bar 2 license is not just resting on 7
this Environmental Impact Statement. This is just one 8
of the documents that goes up to the Commission when 9
they're looking to make the decision on whether or not 10 to grant that operating license.
11 They have the Environmental Impact 12 Statement, the Safety Evaluation Report that Pat 13 talked about earlier, different inspection reports.
14 And so this is just one component to the Commission 15 making that decision.
16 And then the not significant enough to 17 forego. What that legal term of art what that really 18 means is that it's not an unreasonable environmental 19 choice to make to issue an operating license. It's 20 not to say that there will be no impacts. It's that 21 there not will be impacts that are great enough that 22 it would be a ridiculous option environmentally to 23 grant the operating license.
24 So that's what we really tried to examine 25
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 19 when we put together this Environmental Impact 1
Statement.
2 And next slide, please.
3 So this milestone review, this is just the 4
documents that we're talking about here. The black 5
text here that's where we are now. We put out the 6
draft for public comment in October and we're here to 7
the public meeting to hear your public comments just 8
very shortly. And the public comment period is going 9
to close on December 27th.
10 And I do want everyone to know there were 11 several commenters in our meeting earlier today who 12 did ask for an extension. I just want everyone else 13 to know that we're going to take that request back to 14 Headquarters and look at the option of extending that 15 comment period for a little longer, especially past 16 the holiday period. And we're looking to put out our 17 final document after we consider and respond to all 18 the public comments in May.
19 Next slide, please.
20 So four other ways to submit public 21 comments. Number one, you have the podium today after 22 we're done speaking. And I promise this is my last 23 slide. Next way is by mail and you have the address 24 there.
Probably the easiest way is on 25
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 20 regulations.gov. And that docket ID is what's 1
particularly important there. When you go to 2
regulations.gov, you can put that docket ID and it 3
will bring up the web page for this particular 4
document. And there's a pretty easy form where you 5
can -- just a blank space for you to submit your 6
comments. And you press the Submit button and it 7
heads out to the NRC. And the last way if you so 8
choose, we do also have a fax number for comments.
9 It's like I said the current due date for 10 comments is December 27th. But we are going to look 11 at potentially extending that based on public request.
12 So that concludes my do. And I'll turn it 13 back over to Gene.
14 MR. CARPENTER: Thank you. All right, now 15 this is the real meat and potatoes part of the 16 meeting. Well, the reason that we're here today, and 17 that is to get your questions and comments to the 18 staff. Now the first part of this that we're going to 19 go into is the question and answer portion of this 20 meeting. And specifically if you have any questions 21 that the staff here they can answer, that we will 22 write down and take back and respond back to you in 23 writing. This is the portion that we would like to 24 have you go ahead and ask your questions.
25
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 21 As soon as we're finished with all the 1
questions that we may have from the floor, then we 2
will go into the comment period so that any comments 3
that you have that you'd like us to consider then we 4
will take those. All right?
5 Now I'd ask at the beginning of the 6
meeting anybody who was interested in having to be 7
asked first for questions, comments to sign in and to 8
mark it that they would like to do so. With that 9
there is nobody who has done so, so I'm just going to 10 throw it open to the audience. Does anybody have any 11 questions of the staff?
12 Because we are having this transcribed 13 when I bring the mic over to you, please stand up and 14 tell your name when you do so. Or you can sit.
15 MS. HARRIS: Earlier today we talked about 16 17 MR. CARPENTER: Give your name.
18 MS. HARRIS: He knows. Ann Harris.
19 MR. CARPENTER: Thank you.
20 MS. HARRIS: Earlier today we talked about 21 some of the documents that you used to make your 22 judgment in here and some of them refer to 40-year-old 23 documents. Now I realize some things haven't changed, 24 but a lot more has changed than has not.
25
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 22 And I'm wondering on these documents where 1
you used TVA's documents when you did use them and did 2
you just accept TVA's documents without going back and 3
checking to verify in those old documents and did you 4
go and look for new information concerning those same 5
documents because I'm not finding consistency between 6
what you've put in and some things that I personally 7
know about? And I'll put those in my comments. But 8
I'd like to know how you made those determinations.
9 MR. SUSCO: It's kind of a combination of 10 all of those things. So it really kind of depends on 11 the issue. For example, one issue that there's not 12 going to be a lot of new information is going to be on 13 the geology and soils of the area. Nothing has really 14 changed as far as what this -- what Watts Bar is built 15 on in the last 40 years. So we really could use some 16 of the older studies.
17 But for something like aquatic impacts, 18 now we might start -- as a starting point we might 19 look at something that was from when the plant was 20 initially built, but then we're -- I guarantee that 21 we're going to look at new information for that type 22 of impact, in particular because we really want to see 23 what has changed. And we already got the documents 24 from 40 years ago. We can see the delta and what sort 25
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 23 of impact the plant may have had on that particular 1
type of issue.
2 But as far as documents submitted by TVA, 3
yes, we do put a certain amount of trust in our 4
licensees that what they are submitting to us is 5
truthful. But that's not the only place that we look.
6 There's a lot if you look in the referencing section 7
for each of the chapters, you'll see 10 pages for 8
every chapter and all the references that we looked.
9 And only a small portion of those are TVA's. There's 10 a lot of expert studies that we look at from all sorts 11 of different sources. So it's kind of a combination 12 of all those things.
13 MR. CARPENTER: Any other questions for 14 the staff?
15 MR. RIDEN: David Riden from Riceville, 16 Tennessee. I signed the sign-in thing earlier. Had 17 no intent to ask a question, okay? What you said two 18 things that raise two questions in my mind.
19 The first one relates that I've lived 20 three years in Minot, North Dakota prior to 1968, when 21 the Mouse River flooded. And then recently I was a 22 contractor at Fort Calhoun on the Missouri River.
23 NRC was concerned about the data that the 24 utility had used for Fort Calhoun as far as the flood 25
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 24 projections were for the Missouri River. Fort Calhoun 1
had used data from the Corps of Engineers. And NRC 2
has a process to calculate each utility to calculate 3
that without utilizing the data from the Corps of 4
Engineers. And the reason why I was there was to look 5
back over their information that they were going to 6
present to NRC. And they did extensive updates.
7 Don't need to go into that.
8 But the bottom line is the information 9
provided by the Corps of Engineers was faulty. And 10 they made great improvements at Fort Calhoun and 11 they're still working on it. If you watch the news, 12 if they hadn't prepared for it, they'd be in a lot of 13 trouble, lot worse trouble. And I attribute NRC 14 pushing them to correct what they had there and it 15 made a bad situation a lot better.
16 And my question is has TVA depended on the 17 Corps of Engineers data for anything related to the 18 Tennessee River at Watts Bar? And if they have, will 19 NRC then go back to the Tennessee Valley Authority and 20 ask them the same prudent questions they asked the 21 utility owner on the Missouri River to do it in 22 accordance with the federal regulations and not depend 23 on the Corps of Engineers? So that's the first 24 question.
25
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 25 And if there's any response, you've got my 1
email address. If there's any response back, I would 2
like to know because I'm an old-time resident of East 3
Tennessee, okay?
4 And that leads into the second question.
5 You want me to go ahead with the second question?
6 So that was the first question. I don't 7
know the answer to it even though I'm a former NRC 8
employee and a former TVA employee. I was here in 9
1978, when we were originally trying to start up Watts 10 Bar Unit 1. And I was the Nuclear Assurance Engineer 11 at the time.
12 And TVA upper management gave up on Watts 13 Bar and said, "David, we brought you here to start up 14 Watts Bar. We want you now to go to Sequoyah because 15 we changed our mind. We want to put our effort in 16 Sequoyah." So I went to Sequoyah and I was there 17 helping them start up the Sequoyah units.
18 And for whatever reason they wanted to --
19 it doesn't hurt my feelings -- but TVA ripped me along 20 with everybody else that were supplement people that 21 they moved over to Sequoyah. And when they released 22 me, they said, "Oh, by the way, David, we like what 23 you do. You're going to be back cause we've got a lot 24 more in TVA to do especially at Browns Ferry." So in 25
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 26 the last 20 years I've spent over half of that time as 1
a contractor for TVA.
2 Before all that I mentioned I spent three 3
years in Minot, North Dakota. That's because I was 4
with the United Stated Air Force. I'm a Nuclear 5
Weapons Specialist. I was there to start up the 6
Minute Man Three Multiple Independent -- where you had 7
three vehicles.
8 So I preface this question with I am pro-9 nuclear. I'm an environmentalist. And there's 10 nothing with a more green environmental impact than 11 nuclear power. Its carbon footprint is zero. So I 12 come from a pro stance, okay?
13 But the question is -- and I guess I 14 should preface it. Having come from the nuclear 15 weapons industry and then going to the University of 16 Tennessee and getting a degree in nuclear engineering 17 and then getting into the nuclear power part and 18 working for NRC, people would beg me, "David, counting 19 on you to make sure that what you're doing out there 20 is safe. We don't know enough to even ask the 21 question."
22 And this is general.
I get this 23 everywhere I go across the United States for the last 24 35 plus years. Will that thing blow up?
25
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 27 And my answer has always been no, there is 1
no nuclear special grades material in our commercial 2
reactors in the United States that is used to make 3
nuclear weapons grade material. That is all made at 4
Savannah River. Don't even concern yourself.
5 Well, now I have to eat crow because the 6
Department of Energy got into an agreement with NRC 7
and TVA to shut down Savannah River and make their 8
special nuclear grade material at Watts Bar. Doesn't 9
hurt my feelings one bit at all. It's closer to home.
10 That's fine with me.
11 But I happen to know back in 1978 we 12 didn't even consider having a special core in Watts 13 Bar Unit 1 or 2. It wouldn't in the Environmental 14 Impact Statement to even look at that question of that 15 special nuclear grade material in the rods to go into 16 the core for the Department of Energy then to 17 reprocess.
18 So what I would expect or what NRC taught 19 me to do back in 1978, come up with some good words.
20 And so even though I haven't had a chance to read 21 this, one of the good things was you are here to find 22 out if you missed an issue or has something changed.
23 Well, something has changed. And it could be for the 24 good. I'm all for it; I'm not against it.
25
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 28 What I'd like to see are words added to 1
the Final Environmental Impact Statement that address 2
the issue of the relationship with the Department of 3
Energy and the core that's being used that 4
everything's okay. That's what I'd like to see. Good 5
words to address it. And I don't know, maybe it's 6
addressed in here. But if it's not addressed at all, 7
then I think that leaves the door open for somebody 8
later on to raise an issue and I don't like issues 9
that fall under the area of assumptions or unverified 10 assumptions. I would like to know that NRC addressed 11 it and everything is okay.
12 That's the two questions I have.
13 MR. MILANO: Again it's Pat Milano. Since 14 my organization, the organization I'm with, has done 15 the Safety Evaluation Report, in Section 2 of the FSAR 16 and the final Safety Analysis Report as provided by 17 TVA and in Section 2 also of the staff's Safety 18 Evaluation Report, we address issues that relate to 19 site characteristics. And one of which is hydrology.
20 And that information has been significantly 21 supplemented in several of the last supplements to the 22 Safety Evaluation Report that the NRC has done.
23 And let me -- I'll try to give you a 24 little bit of a brief history of what's gone on. The 25
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 29 NRC staff was reviewing the code, the computer code, 1
and the input assumptions that were being used by TVA 2
to assess the overall operation of, you know, in the 3
Tennessee Valley, you know, the river operations. And 4
because of that the staff had a number of questions 5
and comments related to how well TVA had managed that 6
code.
7 And based on the staff's -- based on the 8
issues that the staff raised, TVA spent an over a year 9
effort to upgrade the computer code itself and 10 reassess all the input assumptions that go into 11 utilization of that code. And they did that for the 12 whole river system that's under their control. And so 13 that was recently done and you'll see that documented 14 in the staff's review as such.
15 So as you had originally indicated when 16 you were talking about the Corps of Engineers, it's 17 not -- the Corps of Engineers did not do the studies 18 for flood height and stuff like that. That was done 19 by TVA and utilizing these codes. And the staff, the 20 NRC staff, put a significant effort into reviewing 21 what TVA did in terms of upgrading the code and 22 rerunning it. So that's been documented in Chapter 2.
23 So does that answer your question?
24 MR. RIDEN: Yes.
25
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 30 MR. MILANO: Okay.
1 MR. SUSCO: So on to the second half of 2
that. To be perfectly honest I don't know if this 3
particular environmental statement we're talking about 4
now mentions or discusses that particular issue about 5
6 MR. MILANO: First of all, I'm sorry to 7
take it away from you, Jeremy, but I'll turn it back 8
to him anyway. What you're talking about is the 9
production of tritium. And TVA in their negotiations 10 and their Memorandum of Understanding with the 11 Department of Energy they -- TVA is currently only 12 producing tritium with Unit 1 and there are no current 13 plans at least before us right now for them in the 14 core for Unit 2 to produce tritium.
15 And they're not -- I can talk to you later 16 a little bit. Some of this is somewhat security 17 sensitive and stuff.
18 But it's not something that's done 19 throughout the core. There's specific rods that 20 produce the tritium and sequester it and stuff. And 21 again it's currently only planned for Unit 1.
22 TVA may ultimately elect to do that for 23 Unit 2, but if they do do that, they're going to have 24 to come in and request an amendment to the operating 25
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 31 license for Unit 2. And right now we're not 1
evaluating tritium production for Unit 2 because TVA 2
has not requested that.
3 And currently the core that TVA has 4
purchased from Westinghouse does not have that 5
capability with it. There are no tritium producing 6
rods in the current core.
7 When DOE and TVA requested to do this for 8
Unit 1, that came in as a specific request. It was 9
evaluated by the NRC staff and as part of that 10 evaluation the NRC staff is required to do an 11 environmental assessment of that. And so that 12 environmental assessment was done for Unit 1, not at 13 the original licensing, but as an amendment to the 14 operating license several years ago.
15 And if you want to know the specific 16 amendment, I'll have to get back with you because I 17 don't generally deal with Watts Bar Unit 1. But you 18 can find that type of information that you're looking 19 for in the information that supported that amendment 20 to the operating license for Unit 1.
21 MS. HARRIS: It's not hard to find in 22 ADAMS since TVA is the only one that makes it.
23 MR. SUSCO: Just to add a little bit.
24 When Pat was talking there -- Becky if you want to 25
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 32 raise your hand, she -- it actually is in Chapter 4.
1 And Becky is one of the engineers that worked on 2
putting together different parts of this Environmental 3
Impact Statement.
4 And so I do encourage you to do those.
5 Read Chapter 4. And if somehow we didn't properly 6
characterize it or if there's pieces of information 7
that we're missing, let us know in your public 8
comments and we'll take a look at that.
9 MR. CARPENTER: Any other questions?
10 MS. HARRIS: One of the things that you 11 should know about the tritium is that DOE worked on 12 the evaluations from Sandia when they were done out in 13 New Mexico for a long period of time, like 20 years.
14 And they've had to back off of the amount that they're 15 producing at Watts Bar because it was not designed for 16 that. There's a lot of information out there that you 17 can find.
18 MR. CARPENTER: Thank you. Any other 19 questions?
20 And again if you have questions and you'd 21 like to give it to us in writing, we have some 3x5 22 cards here on the table, or you can send it in via the 23 regulations.gov website, mail it to the Chief, Rules, 24 Announcements and Directives Branch, or fax it in to 25
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 33 us. We'll always take your questions at any time.
1 If there's no further questions, I'd like 2
to go ahead and open it up for comments. Do we have 3
any comments?
4 And we will take written comments also if 5
there's no public ones here.
6 None?
7 Pat, Jeremy, any last comments?
8 MR. SUSCO: No.
9 MR. MILANO: All I want to mention is I 10 don't want to take thunder away from Gene here, but 11 we're not -- the NRC we're not going to leave here 12 right away. If you've got anything else that's not 13 related maybe to the Environmental Statement, you want 14 to ask some general questions about and stuff like 15 that, we'll be here for a while. And if you want to 16 ask some more questions, we'll do what we can to 17 answer them for you.
18 MR. CARPENTER: Any other?
19 Well, thank you all for coming. We do 20 appreciate your taking the time and effort to come 21 here. I hope that this was informative for you. And 22 I do appreciate the questions and the comments, both 23 in this meeting and in the earlier ones.
24 We will of course try to get the answers 25
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 34 back to you if there's any other questions. We did 1
have written questions in the afternoon session. If 2
there's any further written questions, we will get 3
back to you on those.
4 So this is, as we put it out earlier, is 5
being transcribed.
The transcription will be 6
available later once that is completed.
7 So at this point unless questions, 8
comments? Thank you all very much for coming. We do 9
appreciate your time. Thank you.
10 (Whereupon, this meeting was concluded at 11 7:18 p.m.)
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