ML12297A063
| ML12297A063 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Indian Point  |
| Issue date: | 10/15/2012 |
| From: | Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel |
| To: | |
| SECY RAS | |
| References | |
| RAS 23653, 50-247-LR, 50-286-LR, ASLBP 07-858-03-LR-BD01 | |
| Download: ML12297A063 (205) | |
Text
Page 1252 1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 2 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 3 + + + + +
4 ATOMIC SAFETY AND LICENSING BOARD PANEL 5 HEARING 6 --------------------------------x Docket Nos.
7 In the Matter of: : 50-247-LR and 8 ENTERGY NUCLEAR OPERATIONS, INC.: 50-286-LR 9 (Indian Point Generating :
10 Units 2 and 3) : ASLBP No.
11 --------------------------------x 07-858-03-LR-BD01 12 Monday, October 15, 2012 13 14 DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Tarrytown 15 Westchester Ballroom 16 455 South Broadway 17 Tarrytown, New York 18 19 BEFORE:
20 LAWRENCE G. McDADE Chair 21 MICHAEL F. KENNEDY Administrative Judge 22 RICHARD E. WARDWELL Administrative Judge 23 24 25 Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1253 1 APPEARANCES:
2 On Behalf of Entergy Nuclear Operations, Inc.:
3 KATHRYN M. SUTTON, ESQ.
4 PAUL M. BESSETTE, ESQ.
5 RAPHAEL KUYLER, ESQ.
6 BRAD FAGG, ESQ.
7 of: Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP 8 1111 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
9 Washington, D.C. 20004 10 (202) 739-5738 (Sutton) 11 (202) 739-5796 (Bessette) 12 (202) 739-5146 (Kuyler) 13 (202) 739-5191 (Fagg) 14 ksutton@morganlewis.com 15 pbessette@morganlewis.com 16 rkuyler@morganlewis.com 17 bfagg@morganlewis.com 18 and 19 WILLIAM GLEW, ESQ.
20 Assistant General Counsel 21 Entergy Nuclear Operations, Inc.
22 440 Hamilton Avenue 23 White Plains, New York 24 (914) 272-3360 25 wglew@entergy.com Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1254 1 On Behalf of the Nuclear Regulatory 2 Commission:
3 SHERWIN E. TURK, ESQ.
4 BETH N. MIZUNO, ESQ.
5 DAVID E. ROTH, ESQ.
6 Office of the General Counsel 7 Mail Stop - O-15 D21 8 U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission 9 Washington, D.C. 20555-0001 10 (301) 415-1533 (Turk) 11 (301) 415-3122 (Mizuno) 12 (301) 415-2749 (Roth) 13 sherwin.turk@nrc.gov 14 beth.mizuno@nrc.gov 15 david.roth@nrc.gov 16 On Behalf of the State of New York:
17 JOHN J. SIPOS, ESQ.
18 Assistant Attorneys General 19 Office of the Attorney General of the 20 State of New York 21 The Capitol 22 State Street 23 Albany, New York 12224 24 (518) 402-2251 25 john.sipos@ag.ny.gov Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1255 1 On Behalf of the State of New York:
2 (cont.)
3 JANICE A. DEAN, ESQ.
4 KATHRYN LIBERATORE, ESQ.
5 Assistant Attorneys General 6 Office of the Attorney General of the 7 State of New York 8 120 Broadway, 26th Floor 9 New York, New York 10271 10 (212) 416-8459 (Dean) 11 (212) 416-8482 (Liberatore) 12 janice.dean@ag.ny.gov 13 kathyrn.liberatore@ag.ny.gov 14 15 On Behalf of Riverkeeper, Inc.:
16 PHILLIP MUSEGAAS, ESQ.
17 DEBORAH BRANCATO, ESQ.
18 Riverkeeper, Inc.
19 20 Secor Road 20 Ossining, New York 10562 21 (800) 21-RIVER 22 phillip@riverkeeper.org 23 dbrancato@riverkeeper.org 24 25 Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1256 1 On Behalf of Hudson River Sloop 2 Clearwater, Inc.:
3 MANNA JO GREENE, Environmental Director 4 STEVEN C. FILLER 5 KARLA RAIMUNDI 6 Hudson River Sloop Clearwater, Inc.
7 724 Wolcott Avenue 8 Beacon, New York 12508 9 (845) 265-8080 10 mannajo@clearwater.org 11 12 On Behalf of the State of Connecticut:
13 ROBERT D. SNOOK, ESQ.
14 Assistant Attorney General 15 Office of the Attorney General 16 State of Connecticut 17 55 Elm Street 18 Post Office Box 120 19 Hartford, Connecticut 06141-0120 20 (860) 808-5020 21 robert.snook@po.state.ct.us 22 23 24 25 Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1257 1 On Behalf of the City of New York:
2 MICHAEL J. DELANEY, ESQ.
3 Director of Energy Regulatory Affairs 4 Office of Energy Policy 5 NYC Office of the Mayor 6 253 Broadway, 10th Floor 7 New York, New York 10007 8 (212) 676-0756 9 mdelaney@cityhall.nyc.gov 10 11 On Behalf of the Village of Buchanan:
12 SEAN MURRAY, Mayor 13 Municipal Building 14 236 Tate Avenue 15 Buchanan, New York 10511-1298 16 (914) 737-1033 17 smurray@villageofbuchanan.com 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1258 1 T A B L E O F C O N T E N T S 2 Witness Direct Cross Redirect Recross 3 Dr. Jeffrey Horowitz 1293 4 Dr. Joram Hopenfeld 1317 5 Exhibits: Mark Recd 6 NRC Staff 3 1270 1270 7 Clearwater 4 1270 1270 8 Riverkeeper 9 1270 1270 9 New York 17 1270 1270 10 Entergy 7 1270 1270 11 Board 1-2 1315 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1259 1 P R O C E E D I N G S 2 10:56 a.m.
3 JUDGE McDADE: Good morning. We are here 4 in the matter of Entergy Nuclear Operations. It is 5 our docket number 50-247 LR and 50-286 LR. It 6 involves an application by Entergy for the license 7 renewal of Indian Point Units 2 and 3.
8 Let me just very briefly get started. We 9 are close to the end of a relatively long process, 10 that this started with an application that was filed 11 by Entergy, that included both safety aspects and also 12 an environmental report.
13 After that was submitted, the Nuclear 14 Regulatory Commission issued a Notice of an 15 Opportunity for Hearing. In response to that notice, 16 various entities petitioned to intervene and to 17 participate in this proceeding. Of those, several 18 were not found to have standing or to present 19 contentions that were viable, and others were.
20 We have the State of New York, Riverkeeper 21 and Clearwater as entities that have standing and were 22 admitted as participants. In addition to those 23 parties, we also have as parties Entergy, the 24 applicant, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission 25 staff.
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Page 1260 1 In addition, there are interested 2 government entities that have asked to participate.
3 We have the state of Connecticut, we have the City of 4 New York, we have the Village of Buchanan, we have the 5 Town of Cortlandt, and we have Westchester County.
6 I'll give a very brief background. After 7 the petitions to intervene were granted, there was a 8 period where there were mandatory disclosures, where 9 the parties had to turn over documents to each other 10 and information to each other.
11 During that same period of time, the 12 Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff continued to 13 review the application, the license application, and 14 also the environmental report, and based on their 15 review prepared documents referred to as a safety 16 evaluation report and an environmental impact 17 statement.
18 During the course of this hearing, you are 19 going to hear about two different kinds of 20 contentions: environmental contentions and safety or 21 technical contentions. Really, there's nothing that 22 involves safety that doesn't also involve the 23 environment and vice-versa. But there are some basic 24 differences for our proceedings.
25 With the safety contentions, Entergy has Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1261 1 the burden of demonstrating that they will be able to 2 operate the facility in a safe manner through the 3 period of extended operations. With regard to the 4 environmental contentions, the NRC staff has an 5 obligation to prepare an Environmental Impact 6 Statement, and the challenges on the environmental 7 side are to the adequacy of the NRC's Environmental 8 Impact Statement, which of course is based in part on 9 the environmental report that was submitted by 10 Entergy.
11 Now our purpose here is part of an 12 evidentiary hearing. Most of what is going to go on 13 over the next several days is these three judges, 14 myself, Judge McDade, Judge Wardwell and Judge 15 Kennedy, who have been designated to be the Atomic 16 Safety Licensing Board in this particular case, will 17 be asking questions of the witnesses that have been 18 presented by the parties.
19 We have already received from those 20 parties several thousand pages of direct testimony, 21 and I believe about 1,400 exhibits, that the parties, 22 the interveners, New York, Riverkeeper, Clearwater, 23 presented their direct testimony of their witnesses.
24 Then Entergy and the NRC staff had an 25 opportunity to respond, and then the interveners had Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1262 1 an opportunity to submit rebuttal testimony. So we're 2 not starting at square one. We're starting pretty 3 much in the middle. For individuals who have not been 4 involved with this hearing before, it may seem 5 difficult to follow. It would be sort of like coming 6 into "Lost" at Season 3.
7 But please try to bear with us. To the 8 degree that you can, if you are interested, all of the 9 testimony and all of the exhibits are available 10 through the NRC website. We will also ask the 11 parties, in many instances, and by the parties here I 12 mean the witnesses, to explain acronyms, at least the 13 first time through.
14 You're going to be hearing about AMPs and 15 SAMAs, and we will ask them to describe what an AMP 16 is, an Aging Management Plan. A SAMA is -- you know, 17 well, I'll let them explain what a SAMA is, because 18 that's part of what we're trying to figure out during 19 the course of this hearing.
20 This isn't the typical courtroom. A 21 typical courtroom is really only set up for two 22 parties, to have a plaintiff and a defendant. Here, 23 we have ten parties. Also we anticipated having 24 public interest, and most courtrooms do not have 25 enough room for a significant number of members of the Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1263 1 public.
2 Also, there was press interest and 3 interest from various elected and governmental 4 officials. So that's why we're located here instead 5 of a more traditional courtroom facility. But the 6 same decorum that happens in any, what you would see 7 in any federal court is going to apply here.
8 Most of what goes on is the judges ask 9 questions of the witnesses. We will direct our 10 questions to the witnesses; they will direct their 11 answers to us. They're not going to be arguing back 12 and forth between each other.
13 Likewise, if counsel have an issue, they 14 will raise it and address it to the Judge. They're 15 not going to be addressing it to each other. So it's 16 basically going to be a flow of information coming 17 from the bench, to the witnesses, to the counsel, and 18 back to the bench.
19 Likewise, this is not a public meeting.
20 This is an adjudicative, evidentiary hearing. So 21 other than the parties, nobody else is going to have 22 a speaking role, that individuals had an opportunity 23 to submit their limited appearance statements with 24 regard to the policy involved.
25 But for this particular hearing, we have Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1264 1 a lot of material to get through over the next couple 2 of weeks, and it really is going to be necessary for 3 us to stay on task and to move forward. We have 4 allowed the accredited press to have cameras, but just 5 to avoid any disruption, we are going to have to 6 insist that only the accredited press use photography 7 and ask that -- and insist that everybody turn their 8 cell phones off, so that they're not ringing during 9 the course of this particular proceeding.
10 We have studied the sworn testimony. We 11 have read the exhibits, and as I said, we're going to 12 be somewhat starting in the middle. We are going to 13 try to identify issues and make sure that we 14 understand what those issues are, and make sure that 15 we understand the testimony that has been submitted by 16 the parties.
17 Before we get into that, I want to go 18 through some just sort of nuts and bolts preliminary 19 matters. After that, we are going to have brief 20 presentations from an expert from Entergy and an 21 expert from Riverkeeper, on the first contention, 22 which is a technical contention.
23 You will hear it referred to as 24 "Riverkeeper TC-2," which is just it was presented by 25 Riverkeeper. It is a technical as opposed to an Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1265 1 environmental contention, and it was the second one 2 that they submitted.
3 Some of the contentions that we're going 4 to hear, there are going to be a lot of questions with 5 regard to. Others, there aren't going to be that 6 many, and it doesn't mean that one contention is more 7 important than another; it just means that on some of 8 the contentions, we have more questions to ask, to 9 ensure that we understand fully what the issues are 10 and fully understand what the positions are and the 11 basis for those positions of the expert witnesses who 12 are going to testify.
13 By way of preliminary matters, let me just 14 mention very quickly. We have had seven motions in 15 limine that we have not yet ruled on, and let me say 16 up front with regard to those seven, the first seven, 17 we are denying the motions in limine.
18 There was a motion by Entergy and a motion 19 by the NRC staff asking to strike certain filings of 20 Clearwater on their Clearwater Environmental 21 Contention 3, which was an environmental justice 22 contention.
23 There was also a motion by Entergy and the 24 NRC staff seeking to strike certain information 25 submitted by New York in their rebuttal contention on Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1266 1 New York 12, which is a SAMA contention having to do 2 with clean-up costs. There were two motions -- there 3 was a motion by the NRC staff with regard to the 4 rebuttal submitted by New York on New York 5, having 5 to do with buried pipes and aging management plans.
6 Entergy filed a motion seeking to strike 7 certain rebuttal testimony of New York on New York 16, 8 which has to do with population projections, and 9 Entergy also has one regarding New York 26, and that's 10 a Joint Contention Riverkeeper TC-1, having to do with 11 metal fatigue.
12 Those motions in limine are denied. There 13 is another motion in limine that was filed by 14 Riverkeeper, having to do with Contention TC-2, flow-15 accelerated corrosion. There were issues having to do 16 with the adequacy of discovery.
17 In an initial order, we indicated that we 18 were going to wait until we had a fully robust record 19 to make that decision, and accordingly, we are going 20 to continue to hold in abeyance Riverkeeper TC-2. We 21 are not going to rule on it until after we have heard 22 the testimony on that contention.
23 There was a motion that we have not yet 24 ruled on filed by Entergy to submit additional 25 questions regarding New York Contention 37, having to Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1267 1 do with the no action alternative, and that motion is 2 granted. Riverkeeper filed a motion to file 3 additional exhibits with regard to Riverkeeper TC-2, 4 the flow-accelerated corrosion contention. We have 5 granted that motion. We have issued an order to that 6 effect earlier today.
7 But it is although granted, it is somewhat 8 limited, and we have expressed what we intend with 9 regard to those exhibits.
10 Next, some basic things I wanted to run 11 through with the parties. With regard to New York 12 Contention 5, there was a motion in limine. That 13 motion in limine was settled, and we received 14 documentation to that effect.
15 We received a redlined version of the 16 testimony, which indicated what was to be stricken, 17 based on the agreement of the parties. In the 18 redlined version, on Exhibit 399, page 18, lines 16 to 19 18, it starts with "In my opinion."
20 On the redline that we received, the 21 following was indicated that it was going to be 22 excluded. But on the document we received, the 23 revised document, it wasn't. Was it the intention of 24 the parties that that be deleted?
25 MS. DEAN: Your Honor, Janice Dean for the Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1268 1 State. Could you read the sentence, if you don't 2 mind, that follows "In my opinion."
3 JUDGE McDADE: Okay. This is, as I said, 4 it's on page 18. It starts "No, I don't understand 5 Mr. Hollison's opinion, except that it appears to 6 believe leaks are acceptable." Then it starts a new 7 sentence "It is my opinion that the leak of a 8 radioactive fluid presents a danger to the population 9 in the vicinity of the radioactive leak."
10 As I said, that was on the redlined 11 version. But on the version that we received as the 12 final exhibit, it was still there.
13 MS. DEAN: That clause should have been 14 stricken, Your Honor. That's my error. I'll correct 15 that and make an additional filing this evening.
16 JUDGE McDADE: Okay. I don't think it's 17 necessary to make an additional finding (sic). Just, 18 you know, from the standpoint of the Board, that is 19 stricken and it's clear on the record that that is not 20 going to be considered.
21 What we are going to do is basically admit 22 exhibits that have been submitted. Each of the 23 parties have submitted exhibits lists, and we are 24 going to be admitting at this time all of the exhibits 25 listed on those exhibit lists, which a few minor Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1269 1 exceptions.
2 Now the exhibit lists have come in over 3 time, and given the amount of time that this case has 4 gone on, there have been certain modifications. So 5 I just want to make sure we're all playing off the 6 same sheet of music, that from our standpoint, 7 Entergy, their most recent exhibit list is their 8 Revision 7. It was filed on October 12th?
9 MS. SUTTON: That's correct, Your Honor.
10 JUDGE McDADE: And from the NRC staff, it 11 was Revision 3?
12 MR. TURK: One moment, Your Honor.
13 JUDGE McDADE: Okay. Just while you're 14 looking, let me go to the others. New York, we have 15 New York 17?
16 MS. DEAN: That's correct, Your Honor.
17 JUDGE McDADE: Riverkeeper 9.
18 MS. BRANCATO: Yes, that's correct.
19 JUDGE McDADE: And Clearwater 4?
20 MS. GREENE: Yes, Your Honor.
21 JUDGE McDADE: Okay. We are admitting 22 those. Am I correct, Mr. Shepp (sic), that it's NRC 23 is Revision 3?
24 MR. TURK: NRC 3 dated October 9th.
25 JUDGE McDADE: Okay, thank you.
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Page 1270 1 (Whereupon, the documents 2 referred to as NRC Staff 3, 3 Clearwater 4, Riverkeeper 9, 4 New York 17 and Entergy 7 were 5 marked for identification and 6 received in evidence.)
7 JUDGE McDADE: Okay. There are a few 8 exceptions to what is listed on there. We issued an 9 order back on March 6th that Riverkeeper Exhibit 60 10 was modified and Riverkeeper Exhibits 79 and 89 were 11 struck.
12 Also, Clearwater Exhibit 13, which as 13 identified is a letter dated February 4th, 1981. The 14 exhibit list is being augmented to add and additional 15 correspondence, because in the exhibit, there's more 16 than just that original letter.
17 Clearwater Exhibits 43 and 44 are 18 accurately described on the exhibit list, but the 19 exhibits themselves are not stamped. The Board will 20 have those stamped as Clearwater 43 and 44 and admit 21 them. Clearwater lists New York Exhibit 133-E on its 22 exhibit list.
23 We're only going to be admitting exhibits 24 once. So it was originally a New York exhibit. It 25 will be admitted through New York, not through Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1271 1 Clearwater.
2 On Entergy Exhibit 267, it is identified 3 on the exhibit list as a Census Bureau Summary File 4.
4 The exhibit itself actually is Summary File 3, and we 5 will modify the exhibit list accordingly and admit 6 File 3, which is the exhibit that was presented.
7 Staff Exhibits 2 through 14 are basically 8 from the exhibit list, placeholders for New York and 9 Entergy exhibits that their experts make reference to.
10 We're not admitting them as NRC exhibits; we're 11 admitting them as Entergy and New York State exhibits, 12 and they will stay as placeholders on the NRC exhibit 13 list.
14 Also, and hopefully this is the last one.
15 Well, it's not quite the last one, NRC on the exhibit 16 list, you have the exhibit listed 114-A. The exhibit 17 itself is stamped 114. We'll restamp it and accept it 18 as Exhibit 114-A.
19 There are certain documents that were 20 filed both public and non-public. We are going to 21 accept both of those into evidence, and we will take 22 care of stamping those as public or non-public. There 23 are also Riverkeeper 53. It is listed on the exhibit 24 list as Riverkeeper 53. There are actually several 25 parts to it, Part A through O, and we will admit Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1272 1 Riverkeeper 53 A through O.
2 New York 13 and New York 14 originally 3 were on the exhibit list as excerpts. They included, 4 when you open the files, different files. So it's New 5 York 13 A through K and New York 14 A through J, and 6 we are admitting all of those.
7 I think those are all of the corrections 8 that we needed to make with regard to the exhibits.
9 There is also a motion pending before us having to do 10 with a proposed settlement, having to do with 11 Riverkeeper Environmental Contention 3, and it's a 12 joint contention with Clearwater, Clearwater 13 Environmental Contention 1, having to do with spent 14 fuel pools.
15 One of the questions that we had, the 16 first question, and I'll go to each of those three 17 parties, is from the settlement agreement itself, the 18 enforcement mechanism for the agreement. What do you 19 envision? Do you envision that becoming part of the 20 current operating basis, becoming a license condition?
21 How does Entergy envision that the agreement would be 22 enforceable?
23 MR. BESSETTE: Your Honor, we don't 24 envision this as a license condition. Similar to the 25 settlement of the concrete containment issue with New Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1273 1 York, we would believe it would be enforced like any 2 settlement agreement between the parties, as a legal 3 agreement between the parties.
4 We will, if this is settled, include 5 certain additional commitments in our radiological and 6 environmental program, which will be implemented, in 7 accordance with an Entergy procedure.
8 JUDGE McDADE: Okay, and the court 9 reporter is sort of facing in one direction. We kind 10 of know everybody, this has all gone on so long. So 11 if you would, at least when you first speak, mention 12 your name, Mr. Bessette, so that the court reporter 13 will not attribute your remarks to anybody else, and 14 hopefully you'll be proud of the remarks you make and 15 will want that, you know.
16 But in any event, in the event that you 17 don't, at least nobody else will be blamed for them.
18 That goes -- I realize, you know, it's sort of a 19 difficult thing, and particularly to the witnesses as 20 well.
21 We're not asking you to repeat your name 22 every time you talk, but if a question is directed to 23 you, it would be helpful if you would say "Dr. Alan 24 Hiser, so that the court reporter would have an 25 opportunity to identify you as the speaker, and that Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1274 1 the appropriate person would be either credited or 2 blamed for the testimony.
3 Okay. Riverkeeper, is that your view as 4 well?
5 MS. BRANCATO: Yes, Your Honor. It's our 6 understanding that Entergy's commitments to monitor an 7 additional sampling location would become part of 8 Entergy's REMP, which sounds like that's consistent 9 with Mr. Bessette's representations. So yes.
10 JUDGE McDADE: Well, if it -- if it was 11 part of the REMP, wouldn't that become part of the 12 current licensing basis?
13 MR. BESSETTE: It's a plant procedure, 14 Your Honor. I'm not sure it's part of the current 15 licensing basis, no.
16 JUDGE McDADE: From the NRC staff's 17 standpoint, if this is made part of it, how would the 18 NRC staff monitor this and enforce it?
19 MR. TURK: Your Honor, Sherwin Turk. It 20 is not our intention to enforce the agreements between 21 Entergy and the other parties in the proceeding. Just 22 as in the case of the containment contention, which 23 was settled and then dismissed by Your Honors, the 24 staff do not intend to enforce that agreement, and we 25 will not.
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Page 1275 1 This is a matter between the parties who 2 have reached the settlement agreement. If the 3 additional provisions become part of the radiological 4 and environmental monitoring program, I do not know, 5 as I sit here, whether or not we enforce that 6 provision. I can check and get back to you on that.
7 But our intention is not to take on 8 enforcement responsibility unless it is part of an 9 enforceable document, and I would simply have to check 10 to see if that document is one that we enforce.
11 JUDGE McDADE: Okay. If you would, I 12 appreciate that, Mr. Turk. Clearwater, what is your 13 view on this, of how this would be enforced? And let 14 me just sort of go back here a second. Once we write 15 our opinion, this Board ceases to exist. We have been 16 assigned to serve as the Atomic Safety Licensing Board 17 for this contested litigation.
18 We, the Judges, hopefully will continue to 19 exist, but we will not have continuing jurisdiction 20 over this particular matter. We have every reason to 21 believe, and certainly all the parties have every 22 reason to believe, that if the commitment is made, the 23 commitment will be followed.
24 But you know, what we're trying to do is 25 just make sure that we understand what the Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1276 1 understanding of the parties is down the road, in the 2 event that one of the parties believe that the 3 commitment was not fully being honored.
4 Clearwater, what is your view on what you 5 would do in the event that that occurred?
6 MS. GREENE: It was our understanding --
7 JUDGE McDADE: Ms. Greene.
8 MS. GREENE: Yes. Manna Jo Greene, 9 Environmental Director for Clearwater. We had long 10 negotiations, and at the very end, this was actually 11 one of the issues that Clearwater Board of Directors 12 asked for clarification. We felt that with the 13 impending hearing, we were kind of running out of 14 time.
15 But it was our understanding that this 16 would be enforced by NRC as part of the REMP.
17 JUDGE McDADE: Okay. One other thing. As 18 is required under the regulations, the motion itself 19 indicated the review by all of the parties, and what 20 their view was of this particular proposed settlement.
21 The Town of Cortlandt, however, has 22 expressed a significant interest in EC-3 and 23 Clearwater EC-1. Have the parties consulted with the 24 Town of Cortlandt, and have they offered a view on 25 this?
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Page 1277 1 MR. BESSETTE: No, Your Honor. We have 2 not consulted with the Town of Cortlandt. But also I 3 do want to add, with regard to your original question, 4 again, this is Paul Bessette from Entergy. Entergy 5 will internally control all of these agreements with 6 commitments in its procedures.
7 Any additional sampling will be reported 8 in periodic reports to the NRC. So it will certainly 9 be documented, and Entergy's other commitment with 10 regard to disclosure of groundwater reports will be 11 made publicly. So we believe it will all be clear to 12 the parties, and that Entergy intends to and will meet 13 its commitments in the settlement agreement.
14 JUDGE McDADE: And part of our role here 15 is just to make sure it's very clear on the record 16 that the understanding of Entergy and the 17 understanding of Riverkeeper and the understanding of 18 Clearwater on this is consistent.
19 Riverkeeper or Clearwater, have you 20 consulted with the Town of Cortlandt, and have they 21 expressed an opinion as to the -- whether this 22 settlement is in the public interest? Riverkeeper?
23 MS. BRANCATO: This is Deborah Brancato 24 from Riverkeeper. With specific respect to the 25 settlement, we have not consulted with the Town of Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1278 1 Cortlandt.
2 JUDGE McDADE: Clearwater?
3 MS. GREENE: No, we have not, Your Honor.
4 JUDGE McDADE: Okay. We are not going to 5 rule on this proposed settlement right here. What we 6 would ask is if the three parties could at least 7 nominate one of you to contact the representatives of 8 Cortlandt, and to get them either to come here first 9 thing tomorrow morning to express their views, or to 10 articulate it through a representative, either 11 Riverkeeper, Clearwater or Entergy.
12 And also, Mr. Turk, if you could advise us 13 in the morning with regard to the NRC's position with 14 regard to, you know, specifically how and this would 15 be treated by the NRC, that the REMP would be handled 16 by you.
17 MR. TURK: Yes, thank you, Your Honor.
18 We'll do that.
19 JUDGE McDADE: Okay. What we are 20 proposing to do at this particular point in time, and 21 by proposing to do, we had specifically requested from 22 the parties that there be a presentation. The first 23 contention we are going to hear and ask questions 24 about is a technical contention having to do with a 25 phenomenon called flow-accelerated corrosion.
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Page 1279 1 One of the ways in which flow-accelerated 2 corrosion is handled, according to the Aging 3 Management Program by Entergy, is through a program 4 called CHECWORKS, and we have asked first Entergy to 5 have their expert, Dr. Horowitz, explain an overview 6 of the CHECWORKS program.
7 This has nothing to do with Indian Point 8 itself or how it operates at Indian Point. What we 9 want to do is to understand and make sure that we 10 properly understand what the program is, how it's 11 supposed to work and then we will get into specific 12 questions about how it works or doesn't work at Indian 13 Point.
14 After Dr. Horowitz for Entergy has had an 15 opportunity to express his overview of the CHECWORKS 16 program, we're then going to ask an expert from 17 Riverkeeper, Dr. Hopenfeld, to do the same. Again, 18 this initial presentation is not going to be getting 19 into specifics about how the program operates at 20 Indian Point.
21 It's only going to be an overview of the 22 design of the program and how theoretically the 23 program works or doesn't work. To Drs. Horowitz and 24 Hopenfeld, we are going to ask a lot of questions of 25 you about the program and its application at Indian Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1280 1 Point, and I'm sure you're probably going to be very 2 tired of answering our questions by the time we're 3 done.
4 But at least through the original 5 presentation, if you could just again focus on the 6 overview of the program. Mr. Turk, you had a 7 question?
8 MR. TURK: Thank you, Your Honor. I don't 9 want to interrupt, but we do have three housekeeping 10 matters that I'd like to raise at the appropriate 11 time. If you were willing, I'd raise them now, just 12 so we can get them out of the way.
13 JUDGE McDADE: Well, let me just a couple 14 more housekeeping matters here, and then we'll go to 15 your housekeeping matters. What I would propose to do 16 is after the presentations by Dr. Hopenfeld and Dr.
17 Horowitz, which should be about 15 minutes each, is to 18 take a very brief break at that point in time, no more 19 than ten minutes.
20 We will come back. We will then take 21 another break in the mid-afternoon, and continue 22 through until approximately six o'clock. There's not 23 any particular magic with that time. If we reach an 24 appropriate breaking point a little before six or if 25 we go a little after six, that may be the case.
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Page 1281 1 For the rest of the proceeding, we are 2 going to be starting at nine o'clock. We are going to 3 go through until again approximately six o'clock. If 4 we, you know, have a few more minutes to go in order 5 to finish up a contention and allow a group of 6 witnesses to go on their way, we will run a little bit 7 later.
8 Likewise, if we finish up a particular 9 contention just a few minutes before six, we're not 10 going to impanel a new group of witnesses only to have 11 them then go on their way a few minutes later. We 12 envision we will take a break in the morning and a 13 break in the afternoon, and that we will also take a 14 lunch break of approximately an hour.
15 So you please make accordingly your plans.
16 I'm not familiar with the areas around here, as far as 17 how long it's going to take you to go and get out and 18 get something to eat, and whether you bring something 19 with you or go out. But in order to make sure we get 20 through as much as we can, we're going to try to keep 21 the luncheon breaks to about an hour. Mr. Turk?
22 MR. TURK: Thank you very much, Your 23 Honor. We have three housekeeping matters. The first 24 one relates to the testimony on flow-accelerated 25 corrosion. Your Honor has issued an order, I believe Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1282 1 either late yesterday or this morning, allowing the 2 admission of four additional exhibits from 3 Riverkeeper.
4 The staff has not yet had an opportunity 5 to read those exhibits. I know the Board is allowing 6 us to question on them. But until we read them, we 7 won't be able to develop questions.
8 So I would like to ask that during one of 9 the breaks today at least, we be afforded enough time 10 to read them, to determine if we have questions and to 11 formulate questions. Or alternatively --
12 JUDGE McDADE: Well, you don't need to go 13 through the alternative. I am relatively confident, 14 given the number of questions that we have about flow-15 accelerated corrosion, that we are not going to be 16 turning to you before the end of today, to have the 17 opportunity to do any questioning with regard to it.
18 So you will have all night to look at the exhibits.
19 MR. TURK: That's terrific. I would still 20 ask my alternative, though. I'm not sure the purpose 21 of the admission. The four exhibits, I believe, were 22 intended to be admitted to help the Board in 23 understanding Dr. Hopenfeld's presentation, not for 24 all purposes.
25 So I'm not sure the intent, but I would Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1283 1 ask that given the Board's decision to admit them, 2 that they be admitted only for the purpose of 3 elucidating his presentation to the Board.
4 JUDGE McDADE: Well actually, it's 180 5 degrees opposite, that based on the representations of 6 Riverkeeper, those are documents that Dr. Hopenfeld 7 may well refer to in offering his opinion.
8 But at least in the opinion of the Board 9 and based on the order that we issued today, they are 10 four more directed to flow-accelerated corrosion and 11 flow-accelerated corrosion at Indian Point, than they 12 are to the CHECWORKS program.
13 So we do not envision that Dr. Hopenfeld 14 will be referring to those documents during his 15 initial presentation. But if he believes that it is 16 helpful to him, as we understood the representations 17 of Riverkeeper that they would be in answering our 18 questions broader, not just on the design, the 19 theoretical design of CHECWORKS, but broader on flow-20 accelerated corrosion and how flow-accelerated 21 corrosion is monitored and the use of the CHECWORKS 22 program at Indian Point to monitor and control flow-23 accelerated corrosion, that we will allow Dr.
24 Hopenfeld to use and refer to those exhibits for that 25 purpose.
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Page 1284 1 But not for the original presentation, 2 which again, as I indicated and we specified 3 specifically in our order, is directed towards a 4 theoretical overview of the CHECWORKS program alone, 5 how it is designed, what it's designed to do and 6 theoretically how it would operate in any facility, 7 not just in the Indian Point facility. Anything 8 further, Mr. Turk?
9 MR. TURK: Yes. Our second item, Your 10 Honor, relates to another fast-breaking news 11 development. Approximately one week to ten days ago, 12 Entergy filed some new exhibits. One of those 13 exhibits refers to underground piping at Indian Point.
14 I don't know if the Board recalls as you 15 sit here, but our testimony indicates that there is no 16 underground piping within the scope of license 17 renewal. So the staff is considering that new 18 exhibit, and may need to revise our testimony to 19 address it.
20 So we have not yet developed the 21 additional words or the change in words in our 22 testimony, but we'll be doing that as the week 23 progresses, and we will then propose some revisions to 24 our testimony.
25 JUDGE McDADE: Okay, and I believe that's Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1285 1 New York 5?
2 MR. TURK: Yes.
3 JUDGE McDADE: And as far as New York 5 4 goes, it is either going to be late in this week or 5 early next week before we get to New York 5. So you 6 should have plenty of time to further review that and 7 to make any changes you believe are necessary.
8 MR. TURK: Thank you, Your Honor. And 9 then the third item, I will turn to Ms. Beth Mizuno.
10 She has one additional late development that she needs 11 to address.
12 MS. MIZUNO: The late development in this 13 instance is New York's submittal of its exhibit New 14 York State 444. That came in on Tuesday, and the NRC 15 staff has proposed questions for the Board to consider 16 asking, based on that exhibit. It came in on Tuesday, 17 so we have some proposed questions for you.
18 I have four copies, one for each of the 19 Judges and one for your clerk, that I can provide at 20 the break, if that's acceptable to you.
21 JUDGE McDADE: That would be fine. Thank 22 you.
23 MS. MIZUNO: And one other thing related 24 to New York State Exhibit 444. That exhibit is the 25 New York State DEC Statement of Environmental Quality Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1286 1 Review for the Cricket Valley Natural Gas Plant, and 2 it's certified, it provides a certification based in 3 large part on the Cricket Valley FEIS and DEIS, i.e.,
4 the final environmental impact statement for Cricket 5 Valley and the draft environmental impact statement 6 for Cricket Valley.
7 We believe that for a full, for 8 development of a full, sound, robust fair and complete 9 record, it would be useful for the judges to have the 10 FEIS and the EIS, the DEIS -- sorry, the final and 11 draft EISs for Cricket Valley.
12 However, they are quite voluminous, and 13 the staff has pulled excerpts that we think are 14 particularly useful in this regard, and would like to 15 submit those as additional exhibits at this time. I 16 have ten copies of those.
17 JUDGE McDADE: Okay.
18 MS. MIZUNO: And oh yes, electronic 19 versions as well.
20 JUDGE McDADE: Okay, and what numbers have 21 they been marked as?
22 MS. MIZUNO: Those would be NRC 165, which 23 is the FEIS, the final, and NRC 166, which consists of 24 excerpts from the draft Environmental Impact Statement 25 for Cricket Valley.
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Page 1287 1 JUDGE McDADE: Okay. We will receive 2 those, and if you can, at the break; we're not going 3 to admit them at this time, since the other parties 4 haven't had an opportunity to review them. Before we 5 rule and admit them, we will give the other parties an 6 opportunity to review them, and if they have any 7 objection, to so state it.
8 MS. MIZUNO: Thank you, Your Honor.
9 That's all.
10 JUDGE WARDWELL: Will we be getting --
11 this Judge Wardwell. Will we be getting electronic 12 versions in camera of the proposed questions also?
13 MS. MIZUNO: Yes. This afternoon. I 14 think we can manage it later on this afternoon, Your 15 Honor.
16 JUDGE McDADE: Thank you.
17 MR. SIPOS: Your Honor --
18 MR. TURK: For clarification, the proposed 19 exhibits that Ms. Mizuno is referring to are actually 20 a part of the same document that New York has just had 21 admitted. Am I right? Or they're supporting 22 documents for those documents that New York had 23 admitted on their own motion.
24 JUDGE WARDWELL: Another reason -- this is 25 Judge Wardwell again, to identify ourselves is that we Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1288 1 have many parties. Someone starts speaking, and we 2 really don't even know who's speaking ourselves, 3 because if it's where we get back and forth like we 4 do, it sometimes gets very confusing. You don't even 5 know where you're at. So remind me to make sure I 6 introduce myself when I speak.
7 JUDGE McDADE: And actually one of the 8 really neat things about the set up here as you may 9 notice, when you start to speak, the microphone, the 10 little red light goes on on the microphone. So if you 11 can't figure out who's talking, look for the red 12 light.
13 JUDGE WARDWELL: It may be you.
14 (Laughter.)
15 MR. SIPOS: Your Honor, could I give that 16 a try then? This is John Sipos, Assistant Attorney 17 General for the State of New York. Do I understand 18 that NRC will also be submitting electronic copies of 19 these proposed exhibits to all the parties today?
20 MS. MIZUNO: This is Beth Mizuno. That's 21 something that we can do. I'm just not very 22 technologically savvy. I will do my best. It's 23 certainly within our ability. I'm just not sure it's 24 within mine.
25 JUDGE McDADE: Okay.
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Page 1289 1 JUDGE WARDWELL: Well, are we able to do 2 that under EIE? This is Judge Wardwell again.
3 MR. TURK: That's a difficult question.
4 Because we are remote from headquarters, I'm not sure 5 what our EIE filing capabilities are. We can try.
6 If nothing else, we do have a PDF version 7 of the proposed exhibits. We can email them, so that 8 all parties can obtain and the Board members can 9 obtain a copy by email. I don't know if we can EIE 10 file remotely, but we can try.
11 JUDGE McDADE: Well, let me ask --
12 MR. TURK: I'm told by -- I'm sorry. I'm 13 told by Mr. Roth, who's much more technologically 14 advanced than I am and much younger as well, that we 15 can. So we'll try.
16 JUDGE McDADE: Okay. Before we admit the 17 exhibits, they're going to be received through the 18 EIE, the electronic system that we have, and all of 19 the other parties, you're going to have an opportunity 20 to review them.
21 Again, you know, we're not going to be 22 getting to that contention for the next couple of 23 days, and you know, we will see, you know, the 24 relevance, I assume from New York 444.
25 That's the part of the exhibit that the Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1290 1 documents that New York considered to be relevant, 2 that if there are areas that the staff witnesses 3 believe need to be drawn to our attention, in order to 4 put that in context, that's what these are going to be 5 received for.
6 But we do want to make sure that New York 7 has a full opportunity to see the whole document. I 8 assume that they do; otherwise, they wouldn't have 9 been able to excerpt it. But we just need to make 10 sure that you and they are singing off the same sheet 11 of music, and the document that they think you're 12 using is the document that you're using.
13 That's why it will come in through the 14 electronic, the EIE, before we admit. Mr. Sipos.
15 MR. SIPOS: Judge McDade, John Sipos.
16 Just a point of clarification. I believe New York 17 State Exhibit 444 is the entire SEQR finding statement 18 for the Cricket Valley facility. I believe what Ms.
19 Mizuno is talking about is other documents that were 20 prepared or presented as part of that proceeding.
21 So New York 444, it's my understanding, is 22 the entire finding statement. There are other 23 documents from that proceeding, and that's what I 24 think she's referring to. So ours was not an exhibit.
25 Ours was not intended to be an except.
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Page 1291 1 MS. MIZUNO: Similarly, Your Honor --
2 JUDGE McDADE: Okay, and as I sit here 3 right now, excuse me, as I sit here right now, as I 4 said, we've got 1,400 exhibits and somebody mentions 5 Exhibit 444. The full extent of it does not 6 immediately spring to mind. We'll have to go take a 7 look at it, and you will then have an opportunity to 8 see the proposed staff Exhibits 165 and 166, to see.
9 Again, we haven't seen them yet. You 10 haven't seen them yet. They may be extremely 11 relevant; they may not be. But we'll take that up 12 later in the week.
13 MR. SIPOS: Thank you, Your Honor.
14 MR. TURK: And just one last point, Your 15 Honor. The document that New York had admitted is a 16 state environmental review document prepared by the 17 New York State Department of Environmental 18 Conservation.
19 What Ms. Mizuno is proposing to offer is 20 the EIS prepared by the same state agency for that 21 same facility. It's the FEIS and the DEIS for that 22 same facility, prepared by the New York agency.
23 JUDGE McDADE: No, I understand. Judge 24 Wardwell, anything before we begin the presentations 25 by Dr. Horowitz?
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Page 1292 1 JUDGE WARDWELL: No, I'm okay.
2 JUDGE McDADE: Anything?
3 JUDGE WARDWELL: No, I'm ready.
4 MS. SUTTON: Your Honor if I may, Kathryn 5 Sutton on behalf of the applicant.
6 By way of reminder, during a recent 7 prehearing conference, we noted that Dr. Horowitz has 8 some health issues, and may require some assistance 9 from his companion on the Board over there, Rob 10 Aleksick. So we're asking the Court's indulgence to 11 please allow Mr. Aleksick to help Dr. Horowitz, to the 12 extent necessary during his presentation.
13 JUDGE McDADE: Of course, and we also 14 indicated Dr. Horowitz, if during the course of the 15 questioning, as you're going to be a witness and we're 16 going to have a lot of questions on specifically with 17 regard to the use of CHECWORKS at Indian Point, if you 18 need a break or you need to take a few minutes, please 19 don't be shy about letting us know.
20 MS. SUTTON: Thank you.
21 JUDGE McDADE: Okay. Now Dr. Horowitz, 22 we're advised that you had prepared a PowerPoint 23 presentation to assist you in giving your overview of 24 CHECWORKS; is that correct?
25 DR. HOROWITZ: Jeff Horowitz for Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1293 1 applicant. That's correct, Your Honor.
2 JUDGE McDADE: Okay. What we are going to 3 do before we begin the presentation, because the 4 presentations themselves will be evidence, we are 5 going to swear the entire panel of witnesses at once.
6 If you would, you don't need to stand, but please just 7 raise your right hand.
8 [WITNESSES SWORN.]
9 JUDGE McDADE: Okay, thank you. Dr.
10 Horowitz, our IP person will pull it up. If you just, 11 when you want to move to the next slide, just simply 12 say "next," and Mr. Wilkie will move to the next slide 13 for you.
14 DIRECT EXAMINATION 15 DR. HOROWITZ: Thank you, Your Honor.
16 This afternoon I'll present a brief overview of 17 CHECWORKS, talk a little about its history, its 18 development, inputs and outputs and how it's used.
19 Next slide.
20 We begin back in 1986 with the accident at 21 Surry Unit 2, which was a failure of a condensate 22 line. It demonstrated the need to affect single-23 phased piping. There were very limited U.S. programs 24 in place that were doing the single-phase FAC. In 25 1987, EPRI and NUMARC --
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Page 1294 1 MR. ALEKSICK: This is Robert Aleksick for 2 the applicant, and with Your Honor's position, I'll 3 pick up the presentation where Dr. Horowitz left off.
4 Following the accident at Surry, EPRI, the R&D 5 organization, and NUMARC, the Nuclear Utilities 6 Management and Resources Council, committed to 7 developing a computer program to assist identification 8 of inspection locations.
9 In addition, NUMARC at that time, or in 10 that general time, issued programmatic guidance, 11 including guidance on how to use CHEC or equivalent 12 methods. Since that time, in 1986 and 1987, CHEC has 13 gone through a number of evolutions into following a 14 code called CHECMATE and ultimate today to a code 15 called CHECWORKS. But they all stem from the same 16 genesis. Next slide, please.
17 JUDGE McDADE: And Dr. Horowitz, in the 18 CHECWORKS, you're the "H" in there, right?
19 DR. HOROWITZ: That's correct.
20 JUDGE McDADE: Okay. I just mentioned 21 that, that he was one of the original authors of it, 22 and the initials were based on the original authors.
23 He was the "H" in CHECWORKS. Please continue.
24 MR. ALEKSICK: In terms of the development 25 of the CHEC code, it was released seven months after Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1295 1 the Surry accident, based on data largely but not 2 entirely from Europe, laboratory data from England and 3 France, plant and lab data from Germany, and that 4 included all the known laboratory data at the time.
5 There was some limited use of data from 6 U.S. plants as well, and the empirical data was used 7 in conjunction with existing scientific knowledge at 8 the time, to put together the algorithms internal to 9 the code, to predict rates of FAC. And by FAC, that's 10 an acronym from flow-accelerated corrosion. Next 11 slide, please.
12 CHEC and all the way up to today 13 CHECWORKS, is based on extending work done by Keller 14 and Kastner and Berge, European researchers, and the 15 algorithm internal to CHECWORKS today considers seven 16 distinct factors including temperature and the other 17 factors listed on the slide show here.
18 I would point out that the factors, the 19 seven factors are interrelated and some of them are 20 functions of one another. So the actual algorithm 21 internal to CHECWORKS is not quite as simple as it 22 would appear. You just simply multiply those seven 23 factors together. But there are just the seven basic 24 inputs.
25 Next slide. CHEC represented a Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1296 1 significant improvement over previous approaches, 2 partially due to the use of a larger data set. Also, 3 largely due to the ability of the CHEC family of codes 4 to consider local conditions. Although FAC is really 5 a line level phenomenon, the local situation, the 6 local geometry, for example, does play a role in the 7 FAC rate at that point, and CHEC and CHECWORKS account 8 for that.
9 In addition, the geometry factors within 10 CHECWORKS were developed using some insight from 11 copper modeling tests, and that correlation internal 12 to the code has been continually validated and refined 13 and improved over the years since it was originally 14 developed, using both plant and lab data.
15 Next slide. The data input to CHECWORKS 16 is segregated into five primary categories. One is 17 the heat balance diagram, which is essentially a 18 definition of the major plant equipment, the turbines, 19 the heaters and so forth, and how those are connected.
20 That's used to calculate -- that, in conjunction with 21 the global plant conditions, is used to calculate the 22 distribution of oxygen and pH around the steam cycle.
23 The plant component information, which 24 comprises the bulk of the data, these are things like 25 materials, component geometries, wall thicknesses, Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1297 1 operating design conditions, etcetera, are input to a 2 section of the program under plant components.
3 And finally, if applicable, as it usually 4 is, component replacement information and inspection 5 data from the field is considered, and there's a place 6 to input that into the software as well.
7 Next slide. In terms of the actual 8 analysis, the plant for the purposes of analysis is 9 divided into a number of lines that have similar 10 chemistry and operating conditions. So for example, 11 the pipe in between two sets of feed water heaters 12 would comprise one of what we call an analysis line.
13 Typically, there are 20 to 50 analysis 14 lines per unit. At Indian Point, we have about 40 per 15 unit. So it's in line with the rest, with the 16 standard -- with what we would expect. Using the 17 information that's input, including the global 18 information, where is calculated for each operating 19 period?
20 When I say "operating period," I mean the 21 18 to 24 month period of operation between plant 22 outages. What that means is that CHECWORKS calculates 23 the wear at each operating period and cumulates it, so 24 that at the time you were analyzing it, say today, the 25 predicted total wear represents that cumulation of Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1298 1 wear at each operating cycle, and at whatever 2 operating and chemistry conditions prevail at that 3 time.
4 So for example, if we had a power uprate 5 and the wear rate were different before and different 6 after, CHECWORKS cumulates those to give an integrated 7 a total value of wear, based on the individual 8 conditions in the past.
9 I might also like to point out that not 10 every line in the plant is suitable for CHECWORKS 11 modeling. There are a variety of reasons that that 12 might not be the case, and those sorts of lines are 13 addressed separately.
14 Next slide. CHECWORKS was designed to 15 handle changes in operating and chemistry conditions, 16 in particular -- well, I should say in particular 17 operating conditions and chemistry conditions, and 18 those sets of operating conditions are associated to 19 those operating periods, a period of time in the past.
20 The basic design consideration in 21 developing CHEC and CHECWORKS was to enable the 22 analyst to model changes in conditions, and to 23 forecast the effect of such changes. In addition, the 24 primary design consideration was to be able to handle 25 both inspected and non-inspected components.
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Page 1299 1 This is important, because once we inspect 2 a component, the CHECWORKS prediction becomes much 3 less important. Once we've inspected it, we know how 4 thick it is, we know what its thickness profile is and 5 what its wear rate will be. But for those uninspected 6 components, it's extremely important to have the 7 CHECWORKS predictions.
8 And then CHECWORKS is one of the tools 9 that the plants use to help select inspection 10 locations, to increase that population of inspected 11 components.
12 Next slide, please. There are two basic 13 analyses that can be performed in CHECWORKS, Pass 1 14 and Pass 2. They're very similar. Pass 1 is the 15 analysis that one might conduct at the very beginning 16 of plant life, when no inspection data was available.
17 The Pass 1 output from CHECWORKS consists 18 of predicted wear rates and so on that are calculated 19 based on operating and chemistry conditions, without 20 regard to field data or measurements of pipe wall 21 thicknesses. Pass 2 analysis is the same thing, with 22 the addition of inspection data from fact components, 23 that is imported to the model to calibrate its 24 predictions.
25 I'd like to note that those Pass 2 results Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1300 1 are a good way to assess the validity of the model's 2 predictions, and that the software uses a best 3 estimate approach in comparing the field observations, 4 the measured pipe wall thicknesses, to the predicted 5 pipe wall thicknesses. It draws a correlation line 6 through the center of that data.
7 JUDGE WARDWELL: This is Judge Wardwell.
8 In your Pass 1 analysis, is that done building upon 9 all the previous Pass 1's and any corrections that 10 were made as part of Pass 2 in the past, and only 11 adding on the next 18 month changes in conditions for 12 the estimate?
13 MR. ALEKSICK: No, Your Honor. We don't 14 do it that way. In practice, the Pass 1 analysis 15 isn't used very much. We're introducing it here 16 because it's one of the principles of the program.
17 But day-to-day operation of the program, now that 18 we're decades into the life of the FAC program, Pass 19 2 analysis are the -- 99 percent of what we'll discuss 20 in this hearing will be Pass 2.
21 JUDGE WARDWELL: Thank you.
22 JUDGE KENNEDY: This is Judge Kennedy.
23 Just following up on that, is the wear calculation of 24 Pass 1-Pass 2, is that the same calculation? I mean 25 is it using the same analytical model?
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Page 1301 1 MR. ALEKSICK: Yes, it is identical 2 between Pass 1 and Pass 2. The only difference is 3 that the Pass 2 result has a calibration factor 4 applied to it, a single number that multiplies it. It 5 may increase the Pass 1 wear rates by ten percent, or 6 decrease it by 23 percent sort of across the board, to 7 make the Pass 1 predictions match as closely as 8 possible the field observations.
9 JUDGE KENNEDY: This is Judge Kennedy 10 again. So there is an adjustment of the wear rate in 11 the Pass 1 calculation, or it may be after the Pass 2 12 calculation, to adjust the wear calculation to 13 incorporate the measurement data?
14 MR. ALEKSICK: Yes, Your Honor. The Pass 15 2 calculation, part of the analysis that the software 16 does when it's doing this Pass 2 analysis is reports 17 to the user the -- it's a value called LCF or line 18 correction factor, and that is that single number.
19 It's just a -- it's a calibration factor. But it 20 increases or decreases the Pass 1 results too.
21 JUDGE KENNEDY: One last follow-up, and 22 let's go back to Pass 1. There's been an evolution 23 from CHEC to CHECWORKS, and there's probably been 24 versions of CHECWORKS I would assume.
25 What I'm after is the data that's been Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1302 1 collected at various operating plants, either in the 2 United States or worldwide, is that data used to 3 inform the wear model or the wear calculational model, 4 or is there a unique model developed for each plant 5 application and the wear calculation is unique to that 6 plant?
7 I guess I'm trying to look to see if, you 8 know, we started off with just laboratory data. Then 9 we, it appears that the model used some operating 10 plant data, and now a lot of time has passed. I'm 11 just trying to find out if the model is informed by 12 the operating data at not just the, let's say for this 13 case Indian Point, but other operating plants in the 14 United States? I mean is there --
15 MR. ALEKSICK: Both of those are true, 16 Your Honor. The CHECWORKS code itself and the 17 algorithms internal to it, based on these seven 18 factors I mentioned before, is continuously enhanced 19 and revised as we go forward in time, and as more data 20 become available and so forth.
21 So and EPRI, the Electric Power Research 22 Institute, is the institution that has responsibility 23 for that. They maintain an active user's group and 24 issue updates to the software and so forth. In 25 addition to the software improvements, each user Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1303 1 incorporates inspection data from their particular 2 site, to make a plant-specific calibration of the 3 model.
4 JUDGE KENNEDY: And this may be the same 5 question. You introduced a concept of global 6 parameters. Again, this is Judge Kennedy. What are 7 global parameters?
8 MR. ALEKSICK: Plant global data is a term 9 used in CHECWORKS modeling to refer to input data that 10 is used across the model. So for example, the pH, the 11 oxygen concentration, the heat balance diagram, you 12 know, what's the flow rate through the final feed 13 water and so forth.
14 These are sort of fundamental inputs that 15 affect the entire model. In addition to that global 16 data, there is component data, what's the geometry, 17 what's the material, what's the size and the thickness 18 and so forth.
19 JUDGE KENNEDY: Is the global data for a 20 whole line, or is it applied to many lines in the 21 CHECWORKS calculation?
22 MR. ALEKSICK: The global data applies 23 essentially to the entire plant. Part of what 24 CHECWORKS does is represent the heat balance diagram 25 internally, for purposes of calculating pH around the Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1304 1 whole thermodynamic cycle. So it applies to all 2 components in the CHECWORKS model.
3 JUDGE KENNEDY: Thank you.
4 MR. ALEKSICK: Thank you, Your Honors.
5 Next slide, please. I think we've anticipated some of 6 this material through these questions. An important 7 part of the program, the CHECWORKS program, is the 8 ability to adjust the Pass 1 predictions, based on 9 inspection data, to create a model that reflects 10 reality in the field as closely as possible.
11 That's our alternate goal. The means by 12 which we accomplish this is we divide the model up 13 into, remember I said analysis lines. There are about 14 40 per unit. An analysis line represents a collection 15 of piping that experiences similar operating and 16 chemistry conditions.
17 So for each analysis line, there's a 18 calibration factor calculated by CHECWORKS. It's 19 called the LCF, the line correction factor. So 20 because we have 40 analysis lines roughly, we have 40 21 line correction factors roughly.
22 CHECWORKS also creates charts, scatter 23 plots showing predicted values versus measured values, 24 so that the analyst can assess, for each analysis 25 line, the degree to which the program accurately Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1305 1 reflects field conditions.
2 Some of those lines do not agree very well 3 with the observations in the field, for various 4 reasons. Some of those lines do agree very well with 5 the field observations. So part of the modeling 6 process is to go through each analysis line, apply, 7 you know, apply predetermined criteria, to determine 8 whether each line can be considered well-calibrated or 9 not.
10 A well-calibrated line is an analysis line 11 in CHECWORKS that we believe represents actual 12 conditions in the field fairly well, and they can 13 therefore be relied on with some degree of confidence.
14 A non-calibrated line, conversely, is a 15 set of output from the model that we don't think 16 represents reality as closely as we would like, and 17 therefore we treat those sorts of lines quite 18 differently, primarily by increasing the level of 19 inspection coverage for such a line.
20 JUDGE KENNEDY: This is Judge Kennedy 21 again. The adjustment that you're making with the 22 line correction factors, is that an adjustment to the 23 wear calculation or a reset of the min wall thickness, 24 or both?
25 MR. ALEKSICK: It is solely an adjustment Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1306 1 to the wear prediction.
2 JUDGE KENNEDY: So when you talk about an 3 outlier, and you do the assessment of well-calibrated 4 line or not so well-calibrated line --
5 To say it differently, is there a 6 balancing between what the model predicted for wear 7 rate, versus what's being measured in the field, and 8 if the field measurements conflict with the wear rate, 9 is that termed a non-calibrated line, or do you go 10 through the adjustment process? I'm trying to 11 understand how you get to this outlier decision.
12 MR. ALEKSICK: A typical analysis line 13 might contain 20, 30 or 40 inspections, components 14 that are inspected, and it might contain 50 or 100 or 15 150 total components. Each one of those inspected 16 components, the inspection data set is imported to 17 CHECWORKS.
18 CHECWORKS compares its prediction of wear 19 rate to the wear rate shown through the inspections, 20 and plots each one of those inspections as a distinct 21 point on the scatter plot. So you might have 40 or 50 22 points on that scatter plot.
23 The outliers are the points that are 24 extremely high or diverse significantly from the ideal 25 45 degree angle line. I'm not sure. Have I answered Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1307 1 your question, sir?
2 JUDGE KENNEDY: You're getting there.
3 MR. ALEKSICK: Can you remind me of our 4 end goal on this question please?
5 JUDGE KENNEDY: I think end goal is to 6 really understand. The outliers, are they just 7 segregated from the population and then treated 8 through say additional inspections?
9 I'm trying to make, I'm trying to 10 understand if the outliers are used to adjust the wear 11 rate for, and consequently also the min wall 12 thickness, or are they really just segregated from the 13 data population, so that you wouldn't do an adjustment 14 of the wear rate model.
15 You would just call -- in other words, 16 these data points conflict with what the model would 17 predict. So there's something else going on there, 18 either a measurement error or some phenomenon that 19 isn't being treated by the wear rate model.
20 So instead of adjusting the wear rate 21 model, you just treat it as an outlier. I'm trying to 22 understand where that point is.
23 MR. ALEKSICK: Okay. Well, I think it 24 would helpful to distinguish here between the line and 25 the component, and when we're doing a CHECWORKS model, Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1308 1 we think about both. But the discussion we're having 2 so far really is about the line. Do we have an 3 adequate characterization of what's really going on in 4 that line? Does our model really agree with it in 5 general?
6 There are always edge cases and outliers.
7 But overall, do we have a good correlation between our 8 predictions and our measurements? I guess that's 9 question one. With respect to how do we address 10 individual outliers, by definition any outlier has 11 been inspected. If it's on the scatter plot and it's 12 got a measurement to be compared to the prediction, it 13 has been measured.
14 Once a component has been measured, it 15 moves into a different stage, and although we still 16 care what CHECWORKS predicts about it, we're not going 17 to hang our hat on that. If we have a set of 18 inspection data and we know how thick it is, we're 19 going to use that information to make our decisions 20 going forward.
21 So we don't really need to, for the 22 purposes of fitness for service and component 23 integrity, we don't need to worry too much about the 24 CHECWORKS prediction once we've collected the data.
25 That said, we do care a lot about the integrity of the Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1309 1 model, and any time we have an outlier, we go through 2 and disposition those, and ensure that we understand 3 why that outlier exists.
4 JUDGE KENNEDY: Okay. Thank you.
5 JUDGE McDADE: Before you continue on, 6 this is Judge McDade. Could you for me just explain 7 very briefly how you determine the line correcting 8 factor, and then also then how it is used in the 9 CHECWORKS program?
10 MR. ALEKSICK: Certainly, Your Honor. The 11 first point is CHECWORKS calculates the line 12 correction factor; the analyst does not. The way that 13 CHECWORKS calculates that line correction factor is it 14 takes the set of ratios of measured to predicted 15 wear.
16 So if we've inspected ten components, we 17 have ten predicted values and ten measured values.
18 CHECWORKS takes the ratio, those ten ratios, they can 19 be represented as ten points on a graph, and selects 20 the median value of those. That is the correction 21 factor.
22 So your median value, if you're predicting 23 50 mils per year and you're measuring 51 mils per 24 year, and that happens to be the median value, then 25 your line correction factor is that ratio. That works Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1310 1 quite well, especially in the cases where all the 2 ratios are close to one.
3 In a case, however, where the ratios, 4 where there was a great deal of scatter and a large 5 number of outliers, then we might end up calling that 6 situation non-calibrated and inspecting it more, 7 rather than relying on a model.
8 JUDGE McDADE: But it would still 9 calculate, the program would still calculate out a 10 line correction factor; is that correct?
11 MR. ALEKSICK: Yes, Your Honor. In every 12 case, for every analysis line, there is a line 13 correction factor calculated at each time of analysis.
14 JUDGE McDADE: And that's measured divided 15 by predicted?
16 MR. ALEKSICK: It is measured-predicted or 17 predicted-measured?
18 DR. HOROWITZ: Measured over predicted.
19 MR. ALEKSICK: Right, that makes sense.
20 It's measured over predicted, because you're 21 multiplying that ratio against the prediction.
22 JUDGE McDADE: So if the measured as a --
23 and we're doing this based on wear rates or thickness?
24 MR. ALEKSICK: Wear rates.
25 DR. HOROWITZ: Judge, you're doing it Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1311 1 based on the total wear calculated. The program 2 integrates up the amount of wear, and says I have this 3 much wear and I have this much measured wear, and I 4 compare the two.
5 JUDGE McDADE: So if our measured wear is 6 higher than the predicted wear --
7 DR. HOROWITZ: LCF is greater than one.
8 JUDGE McDADE: Then the LCF would be 9 greater than one, and that's not desirable, right, 10 because if you didn't -- if you wanted to somehow be 11 aware of a problem, you would rather have the line 12 correction factor below one, because at least your 13 predicted wear is higher than your measured wear.
14 I'm saying this only in a theoretical 15 basis, so I see if I understand the line correction 16 factor.
17 DR. HOROWITZ: As a theoretical basis, 18 that's correct. Practically, there are a lot of 19 complexities involved with that.
20 JUDGE McDADE: And then the second half of 21 my question. Once you've identified what the line 22 correction factor is, how does the CHECWORKS program 23 use that? Say the line correction factor is 1.5.
24 What happens then?
25 MR. ALEKSICK: The line correction factor Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1312 1 is a multiplier, and the Pass 1 wear rate times the 2 multiplier equals the Pass 2 wear rate.
3 JUDGE McDADE: All right. Please 4 continue.
5 MR. ALEKSICK: Thank you. Next slide, 6 please. CHECWORKS gives us a lot of output. The most 7 important outputs are the predicted wear rate. That's 8 provided in mils per year; the predicted thickness; 9 and the predicted time to reach critical thickness.
10 In this context, critical thickness is a user-entered 11 variable that represents some sort of minimum 12 allowable wall thickness.
13 Often we use the hoop stress minimum, and 14 the predicted time to critical thickness or time to 15 Tcrit, that's a capital T, lower case C-R-I-T, is a 16 value in hours that CHECWORKS presents, that is an 17 estimate of the remaining life of the component.
18 In addition, for Pass 2 analyses, which 19 again are pretty much all of the analyses that we do 20 on a day-to-day basis, the LCF is provided, as well as 21 the measured thicknesses in the output deck.
22 Next slide, please. In addition to all 23 that, there is -- CHECWORKS is used, I believe in 24 every single power plant, nuclear power plant in North 25 America, as well as across the globe, and it's Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1313 1 supported by EPRI, the Electric Power Research 2 Institute. EPRI offers training, hotline support.
3 There's a twice annual gathering of 4 nuclear professionals under the auspices of CHUG, 5 which is the CHECWORKS Users Group, and finally 6 CHECWORKS, as we mentioned before, is periodically 7 updated. The software itself and the algorithm within 8 the software is periodically updated, based on new 9 information and user feedback. That concludes my 10 remarks. I thank you for your attention.
11 JUDGE KENNEDY: This is Judge Kennedy.
12 Just one quick question. Once you've performed a Pass 13 2 analysis, is all subsequent analysis on that line a 14 Pass 2 analysis, or is -- I mean Pass 1 means it's 15 never been informed by an inspection base?
16 MR. ALEKSICK: Yes. Essentially that's 17 correct. There is a facility and a program. You can 18 flip a switch, telling CHECWORKS to ignore all of the 19 inspection data. So if for some reason you wanted to 20 do a Pass 1 analysis. But in general, you know, in 21 the real world, all the analyses are Pass 2 analyses.
22 JUDGE KENNEDY: Thank you.
23 MR. ALEKSICK: Thank you, Your Honors.
24 JUDGE McDADE: Okay. Dr. Horowitz, do you 25 have anything to add to that?
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Page 1314 1 DR. HOROWITZ: Jeff Horowitz. No, I think 2 Rob did a very good job in presenting the 3 presentation. I think the thing to keep in mind is 4 that practically, there are complexities to everything 5 we talked about. I'm sure it will come out during the 6 rest of the hearing.
7 JUDGE McDADE: But there's nothing that 8 you would disagree with, with how he characterized 9 your presentation?
10 DR. HOROWITZ: No, absolutely not.
11 JUDGE McDADE: Thank you. Judge Kennedy?
12 JUDGE KENNEDY: I have nothing, thank you.
13 JUDGE McDADE: Dr. Hopenfeld, are you 14 ready to proceed?
15 DR. HOPENFELD: Absolutely.
16 MR. KUYLER: Your Honor, if I may, this is 17 Ray Kuyler for the applicant.
18 JUDGE McDADE: I didn't notice the red 19 light. Okay.
20 MR. KUYLER: Thank you, Your Honor. We 21 had an opportunity to review Dr. Hopenfeld's 22 presentation that was filed on Friday, and we would 23 like to say that given the Board's guidance that this 24 should be a theoretical presentation about how 25 CHECWORKS works at any unit, in our opinion, Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1315 1 essentially from Slide 5, unnumbered Slide 5 in the 2 PDF onward, it does appear that most of the material 3 is Indian Point specific, attempts to raise issues 4 that are either briefed in the testimony or raise new 5 and related issues to the testimony and are not really 6 a theoretical consideration of CHECWORKS.
7 So I would object to, unless there are 8 questions from the Board, to Slides 5 and forward, at 9 least given the Board's guidance.
10 JUDGE McDADE: Okay, thank you, and I hope 11 that we've been clear from our order, the PowerPoint 12 presentations themselves are not evidence in this 13 proceeding. They are accepted, one from Dr. Horowitz 14 as Board Exhibit 1; the one from Dr. Hopenfeld as 15 Board Exhibit 2, both for identification.
16 (Whereupon, the documents 17 referred to were marked for 18 identification as Board 19 Exhibits 1 and 2.)
20 JUDGE McDADE: They're not admitted into 21 evidence, that we are allowing them to use that to 22 help them articulate their position. But the evidence 23 is the testimony that they give. They're under oath, 24 there's sworn testimony. That's what we're 25 considering, as opposed to the PowerPoint presentation Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1316 1 itself, which is just there for identification.
2 I think, as we indicated in our order, 3 that the PowerPoint presentation of Dr. Hopenfeld, 4 that was furnished to the parties last week, addresses 5 both CHECWORKS theoretically and also CHECWORKS as it 6 is applied, and Dr. Hopenfeld may well be referring to 7 it later during his testimony, because we do have a 8 lot of questions of him as it is applied.
9 But we're not going to strike the 10 PowerPoints and, you know, we will go ahead with Dr.
11 Hopenfeld, again with a focus on the theory behind 12 CHECWORKS, how it works generally, and then get into, 13 after the break, a lot of questions on the specifics 14 with regard to Indian Point. Dr. Hopenfeld --
15 MR. FAGG: Your Honor. I'm sorry Brad 16 Fagg for the applicant. Just one question, if I 17 could, for clarification. We don't want to be 18 unnecessarily disruptive here, but we also do want to 19 sort of protect the record.
20 As my colleague, Mr. Kuyler indicated, we 21 expect when Dr. Hopenfeld starts talking, he may well 22 get into Indian Point-specific testimony. Is it the 23 Board's preference that we note our objections at that 24 point on the record, or how -- we'd like some 25 guidance, I guess, as to how to proceed.
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Page 1317 1 JUDGE McDADE: Okay. I think you've 2 already pretty well noted your objections and, you 3 know, I think you've noted your objections. We issued 4 the order clarifying what we had requested. That was 5 furnished to Riverkeeper, and I'm sure Riverkeeper has 6 spoken with Dr. Hopenfeld.
7 And, you know, if we believe Dr. Hopenfeld 8 is becoming premature in getting into the specifics of 9 its application and Indian Point, we will ask him to 10 hold that off until after the break, when we get into 11 questions.
12 But your objection has been noted, and 13 there will be no need to be unnecessarily disruptive.
14 MR. FAGG: Thank you very much, Your 15 Honor.
16 JUDGE McDADE: Okay. Dr. Hopenfeld?
17 DIRECT EXAMINATION 18 DR. HOPENFELD: I would like to thank you 19 for allowing me to make those comments to Entergy's 20 presentation. Could I have the next slide please?
21 Entergy failed to mention ani important 22 fact, and that is that CHECWORKS was designed to 23 produce non-conservative predictions, that are as much 24 as 100 percent, and they're off as much as a factor of 25 a ten, 900 percent. That is not consistent, it is not Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1318 1 compliant with existing regulations.
2 I would like to make another note about 3 the comment that was made with regard to the fact that 4 the experience that was gained at Surry was indicated 5 that we need more inspection. That wasn't the case at 6 all. It wasn't an issue of inspection. There was 7 inspection before. There was inspection since 1980.
8 What really was learned that's being 9 missed here is the message that we got out of Surry, 10 that engineering judgment alone is not enough. It's 11 not enough just to say well, based on my 45 years of 12 experience, that's okay.
13 Now there is a unique difference between 14 operating these plants, nuclear plants, and operating 15 conventional plants, operating up to nine facilities.
16 They operate differently. They have different 17 procedures. One thing they have and you don't have in 18 nuclear plants, and I've asked this for the last 40 19 years, and that is they usually supplement their 20 information, their judgment with coupons.
21 You put coupons in the line and you get a 22 feel for the chemistry. You get a feel for what's 23 going on. In a nuclear facility, it's a difficult 24 thing to do, because of radiation. Let me go further.
25 JUDGE McDADE: Well before you go further Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1319 1 a little bit, if we can focus again on CHECWORKS.
2 We're going to be getting into, and your testimony 3 went into a great deal of detail, saying that in your 4 expert opinion, one, they rely too much on CHECWORKS, 5 that the other factors they utilize are not adequate 6 standing alone to assess flow-accelerated corrosion, 7 and that in your opinion, the CHECWORKS program does 8 not add value because it does not produce conservative 9 results.
10 That said, we're going to get into that, 11 and we've got hours' worth of questions, I'm afraid, 12 on that.
13 DR. HOPENFELD: Yes.
14 JUDGE McDADE: But what I'd like you to do 15 right now is to focus on the design of CHECWORKS, not 16 the fact that it doesn't produce conservative results, 17 but why you think it is defective as a program.
18 DR. HOPENFELD: Thank you. I will try to 19 focus. Could you go ahead with the next one, please.
20 First, I'll tell you a little bit about my background, 21 because it has been misrepresented.
22 I have a firsthand knowledge about the 23 background that led to the development of CHECWORKS, 24 because at that time, I was the NRC project manager on 25 a big, large thermohydraulic cooperative program with Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1320 1 CEGB and EPRI.
2 I visited their facilities. I talked to 3 a lot of people on this area. I visited the MIT 4 laboratories. I visited the Penn State laboratories.
5 I visited a lot; I talked to a lot of people. I'm not 6 coming in from the moon to tell you about what 7 happened there.
8 So could I have the next slide please?
9 I'm sorry. Could you come back to the previous one.
10 The development of the computer code to predict 11 corrosion or wall thinning in a plant is a monumental 12 job. The problem, nobody's ever tried that before 13 EPRI came with it.
14 They came up with it within seven months.
15 So you ask yourself, how did they do that? How can 16 you do something like that in seven months, and people 17 hadn't been doing it for a hundred years before? Even 18 now, I think there's only one code, and it took 20 19 years to develop.
20 So this is not a trivial thing, but they 21 came up in seven months. Now how did they do that?
22 First of all, they changed the definition and the name 23 of what used to be called erosion-corrosion, and they 24 called it FAC. I have no problem with that. You can 25 call it anything you want.
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Page 1321 1 Secondly, and this is the problem, what 2 they said FAC is only controlled by one mechanism.
3 Take a look at the equation that I put on the board 4 here. You'll see FAC or corrosion is known to be 5 controlled by two mechanisms: one corrosion, which is 6 usually just dissolution. If you put metal in acid, 7 it will dissolve.
8 Second is erosion. That's more than a 9 mechanical effect, where you erode the oxide that 10 usually protects the material. If you fly on the 11 plane, if there was no oxide layer, the aluminum would 12 evaporate. So the oxide layer is the protective 13 thing.
14 Now the erosion aspect of that, if you 15 lose that oxide layer, then you have a synergy between 16 the two. Now the corrosion part of it, the mass 17 transfer control, the one that they have the F1 18 theorem in that equation, it's fairly easy to 19 calculate. That's not very difficult, if you have the 20 right input.
21 If you don't have the input, you can't 22 calculate either. It so happened that Entergy doesn't 23 have the right input, even for that particular case.
24 JUDGE McDADE: Okay, Doctor. Is what 25 you're saying is you think it is a defect in Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1322 1 CHECWORKS, that it focuses on corrosion --
2 DR. HOPENFELD: Absolutely, yes it does.
3 (Simultaneous speaking.)
4 JUDGE McDADE: And it's your view that 5 corrosion and erosion have to be considered together, 6 and that in your view CHECWORKS is defective?
7 DR. HOPENFELD: All the experts, yes.
8 JUDGE McDADE: Well apparently not all the 9 experts, but certainly one.
10 DR. HOPENFELD: Well, can I have the next 11 slide please.
12 JUDGE McDADE: Okay, Doctor. I just want 13 to make sure I understand.
14 DR. HOPENFELD: Yes.
15 JUDGE McDADE: You're saying, it's your 16 expert opinion and we've already accepted you as an 17 expert, your Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from MIT, 18 40 years in the industry --
19 DR. HOPENFELD: No, UCLA.
20 JUDGE McDADE: Okay, I'm sorry. We've 21 accepted you as an expert. We're just focusing on 22 CHECWORKS, and you're saying one of the defects in it, 23 one of the reasons why it is not a reliable predictor, 24 is because you have to consider corrosion and erosion 25 in tandem, and it focuses on corrosion and dismisses Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1323 1 erosion as outside the scope of --
2 DR. HOPENFELD: Absolutely, you got it.
3 Yeah. It's not one, it's the major one. That's the 4 one I'm going to focus on, and please, you know, take 5 me to task. I'm not telling you what I'm -- could I 6 have the next one, please.
7 Okay. Let me -- let's go back. Okay.
8 How did they do that? First of all, what they did, 9 they neglected, they completely ignored what was in 10 the literature. For example, there is a paper, which 11 I bought here into evidence; there's a paper by Dr.
12 McDonald, who was at that time, the head of the 13 Department of Electrochemistry at Penn State, one of 14 the top experts in the field in this country.
15 He has a theory about erosion/corrosion 16 that makes it very clear that this is not a mass 17 transfer control project. They just picked it up 18 because it was an easy way to handle. I have no 19 problem with that. I would have done the same thing 20 if somebody told me I want an answer in seven months.
21 But then I would work further, and I 22 believe the French have done that. But they haven't.
23 Then they made some other assumptions. Well, let's go 24 to the next one.
25 Number two assumption that you see, which Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1324 1 is really critical, and I think it was mentioned, but 2 Entergy did not get into the details of that. When 3 you buy a piece of equipment, the manufacturer tells 4 you well, you've got chromium, maybe as much .5 or 5 whatever, it gives you an upper limit.
6 It doesn't tell you what the range is, and 7 then they you give you the lower limit. It doesn't 8 tell you what the sensitivity that you need, the 9 accuracy that you need in order to predict what the 10 corrosion is. It so happened that the corrosion is 11 sensitive, very sensitive to the chrome content.
12 So what can you do? The only, you can't 13 put input in there, without -- which will give an 14 answer within a factor of ten, if you don't know what 15 the input is. What you can do or what you should do 16 is, which EPRI is apparently not doing, is to measure.
17 How do you do it? There is an excess for 18 fluorescence, a peak that you can measure, but they're 19 not doing that. So this is another one --
20 JUDGE WARDWELL: But how is that a 21 criticism of CHECWORKS? I'm not clear on that.
22 DR. HOPENFELD: I'm sorry?
23 JUDGE WARDWELL: How is your last 24 statement, that energy is not measuring chrome content 25 --
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Page 1325 1 DR. HOPENFELD: Because that's --
2 JUDGE WARDWELL: Let me finish my 3 question, okay? How is your last statement, accusing 4 or alleging that Entergy hasn't measured chrome 5 content a criticism of the CHECWORKS model?
6 DR. HOPENFELD: Okay. The corrosion rate 7 -- if you remember there was a term there, F1. The 8 corrosion rate, the mass transfer control rate has 9 been proven time and time, and they wouldn't dispute 10 that, because they've stated the same thing, that it's 11 very sensitive to the chromium content.
12 JUDGE WARDWELL: I understand that. But 13 why is the criticism of that a criticism of the 14 CHECWORKS model? Let me rephrase this. Can't the 15 CHECWORKS model incorporate wear rates associated 16 with various percentages of chrome, if it was known?
17 DR. HOPENFELD: No, because you don't know 18 the type of chromium. You don't know what is in 19 there.
20 JUDGE WARDWELL: But if you did know, if 21 you did know the chrome content, would CHECWORKS be 22 able to handle that?
23 DR. HOPENFELD: Much better, yes sir.
24 JUDGE WARDWELL: So it's not a criticism 25 of CHECWORKS; is that correct?
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Page 1326 1 DR. HOPENFELD: I'm sorry?
2 JUDGE WARDWELL: So your statement is not 3 a criticism of CHECWORKS; it's a criticism of what's 4 being inputted into CHECWORKS?
5 DR. HOPENFELD: In that aspect, yes. But 6 it is the same. I don't see the distinction.
7 JUDGE WARDWELL: I think we're supposed to 8 focus on what is criticism of CHECWORKS or what was 9 stated previously, rather than all these other items, 10 which we're going to get into. We have a time for 11 questioning those indepth.
12 DR. HOPENFELD: Well, I don't know about 13 that, because I don't know how to distinguish between 14 the two.
15 JUDGE WARDWELL: Can we just wait? Can we 16 just get into the testimony, then, and forego this, or 17 do you want to still go through this?
18 DR. HOPENFELD: No, no. I'll continue.
19 If you call them separately, that's fine.
20 JUDGE McDADE: Okay, Doctor. I am 21 correct. I had thought that the chemical composition 22 of the steel, it was the metallurgical factor, was one 23 of the factors that was inputted into CHECWORKS. So 24 therefore the chromium content of the steel was 25 something that CHECWORKS took into consideration. Am Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1327 1 I incorrect there?
2 DR. HOPENFELD: Yes, yes. But there's an 3 uncertainty --
4 JUDGE McDADE: I am incorrect or I'm --
5 DR. HOPENFELD: No, you're correct. But 6 there's an uncertainty, and my point is that that 7 number is not known within a factor of six at least.
8 That six results in a factor of ten in the 9 predictions. That's my point.
10 JUDGE McDADE: Okay, and again, I think 11 getting to what Judge Wardwell was asking about, is 12 that a criticism of the CHECWORKS program itself, as 13 opposed to the input that is being put into the 14 CHECWORKS program at Indian Point? In other words, 15 it's there because the, as you said in your testimony; 16 I'm not -- we haven't found any facts, but your 17 testimony "can be off by a factor of six."
18 If it was accurate, then it wouldn't 19 adversely impact the reliability of the CHECWORKS 20 program?
21 DR. HOPENFELD: That is correct. It was 22 reduce it, but that's only one. Yes, it would reduce 23 it.
24 JUDGE McDADE: Okay.
25 DR. HOPENFELD: But I don't want to get Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1328 1 into that. I don't make a distinction, but that may 2 be moot, okay. Well, so let me go on. One thing that 3 they have done, in presenting the -- would you please 4 run the next slide now?
5 Okay. As a result of this, CHECWORKS 6 predictions are non-conservative, because of all these 7 assumptions that were made. Now that presents 8 conservative and that as much as a factor of ten.
9 However, the way the data was presented by EPRI 10 originally, it misrepresented what really CHECWORKS 11 was doing. Let me go to the next --
12 JUDGE McDADE: Okay. Again Doctor, I'm 13 sorry to interrupt here, because it's important to me 14 that I understand what you're saying, and issues with 15 regard to input and the program itself. We have 16 talked about, you know, what the quality of the steel 17 was.
18 It was my understanding that CHECWORKS did 19 take into consideration things like the geometry of 20 the pipe flow, the flow velocity, the pipe roughness, 21 the void factor, the temperature, the oxygen content, 22 the pH content, the impurities in the water, that that 23 was all taken into consideration the CHECWORKS 24 program.
25 Now if the inputs are incorrect, if you're Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1329 1 not putting in the correct data, then it's not going 2 to be a reliable predictor. But the question right 3 now is just are those factors considered in the 4 CHECWORKS program, and if the input were correct, 5 would it result in a reliable predictor of flow-6 accelerator corrosion?
7 DR. HOPENFELD: Yeah. This is only one.
8 There were others, F1, F2 or F3. There was F3, for 9 example, which you're using right now. They're 10 talking about an average. They're not talking about 11 a local value.
12 What they call a local value is not really 13 a local value; it's an average value, and I'm going to 14 be very specific and show you in a few slides what I'm 15 -- what you call specific and what you call local, you 16 have to have an understanding of what I'm talking 17 about.
18 So let me show you how the data was 19 misrepresented. Could you please give me the next 20 slide?
21 JUDGE McDADE: If we could, Doctor, as far 22 as the data being misrepresented, we're going to be 23 asking you about the data, and you've presented us 24 with a lot of exhibits and a lot of testimony, 25 specific to Indian Point and the data. Again, what Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1330 1 we'd like to do is just get the overview of the 2 CHECWORKS program.
3 Then we're going to take a short break, 4 and then we're going to go into, you know, perhaps for 5 everybody else except you and me, excruciating detail 6 about the specifics. But again, just sort of focusing 7 on the structure of the program and things not that 8 you feel are inadequate of what Entergy plugged into 9 the system, but what you think are the defects in the 10 system.
11 DR. HOPENFELD: I understand your point 12 100 percent, and I don't want to harp on stuff like 13 that. Honestly, I don't. The reason I brought that 14 up is they brought up the issue of history. One 15 reason of history, and I was there; I knew what 16 happened, and when it happened.
17 One reason that this CHECWORKS, if you go 18 to NUREG-1801, you will see what NRC was talking 19 about. They're talking about this bounds the data.
20 That's why this was accepted, because they believed 21 that it bounds the data. I've talked to people in the 22 industry. Oh, it's great. It's plus or minus 50 23 percent.
24 It's not. So but I'll skip it. Let's go 25 to the next. Could you have the third, skip the next Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1331 1 two please? Hopefully, we can back to it. Well, this 2 has nothing to do with the input data. This has to do 3 with the mechanism. Remember I told you that 4 corrosion is two, three components. Corrosion, 5 dissolution by erosion and by synergy.
6 Now one way of comparing whether it really 7 is that way, what you do, you compare the number lost 8 of the wall thickness in this fairly well clean 9 geometry. What's a clean geometry? A pipe. If the 10 Entergy plant, the IP was a straight pipe, I wouldn't 11 be here, because everybody can calculate that. That's 12 not the problem.
13 If it was running -- but we know that this 14 is not one straight pipe. It's got elbows, it's got 15 arcs, it's got valves, it's got all kind of things.
16 That's what the issue is. I mean the accident at 17 Surry didn't occur in a straight pipe. It occurred in 18 an elbow. We know how to handle straight pipes.
19 That's not an issue.
20 What they talk, but the whole theory is 21 for straight pipes. I have no problem with that.
22 Here's an elbow. This is one out of maybe hundreds 23 that I looked at. You see the straight section? You 24 can calculate what the corrosion rate is there. It's 25 very accurate.
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Page 1332 1 Now by comparing the corrosion rate of the 2 straight section to what happens in the elbow, 3 especially at the curve, comparing the two, you can 4 say whether -- you can demonstrate that this not the 5 mass transfer control. If it was a mass transfer 6 control, that ratio would be about 1.6, and this is 7 based on the latest CFD type of calculations, that it 8 would be 1.6.
9 Take a look what you've got here. You 10 have at minimum 6 to 52. There is no way that 11 CHECWORKS would calculate anything. What they have 12 over there, which is the F3, that's for averages.
13 That's what an engineer does when he makes heat 14 balances.
15 But to get individual, local 16 characterization of that wall, you have to use a very 17 sophisticated numerical code.
18 JUDGE McDADE: So what you're saying, what 19 you're saying, Doctor, is in your expert opinion, you 20 do not believe that the CHECWORKS program can 21 adequately take into consideration the geometry of 22 pipe corrosion?
23 DR. HOPENFELD: Absolutely. You can get 24 an average, but that's not -- the input is not 25 average. The code is entered with the minimum. You Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1333 1 don't care that -- I mean you take a look. The whole 2 elbow here is one and a half inch thick, okay.
3 But you've got one point there, that for 4 some reason there were some bugs in there, and it 5 became (indiscernible), and when that start leaks, 6 that's what the concern is. That's what the critical 7 wall thickness is. That's what you calculate the hoop 8 stress for.
9 The hoop stress is based on the internal 10 pressure, on the radius, which is the size of that 11 pipe, and which is the size of and the thickness, and 12 that's how you calculate it. And you're interested in 13 the critical. That's what the ASME code does. That's 14 where the safety comes in.
15 Now let me go to the next one, and show 16 you where I'm getting with that. If you look, this is 17 the grid, and I look for maybe 50 or 40 of those.
18 That just shows you that corrosion is a local 19 phenomena. Take a look. This grid is a six-inch 20 grid. What it is is a grid you make, it's just like 21 on a map. You draw boxes.
22 Then you take a transducer and you go one 23 after another and you measure the thickness. What you 24 have they report the thickness. Take a look at one of 25 them, and that's not the worse; there are worse than Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1334 1 that. If you look at it, you can see here's .513, and 2 they report that this is the minimum.
3 Then you have next one, 1.492. So over 4 six inches, that much, okay. You have one inch loss.
5 Now think about that.
6 JUDGE McDADE: Okay. Well Doctor, we are 7 going to think about it, and we're going to talk about 8 it for quite a bit. Again, this is getting into the 9 specifics of Indian Point, which we are going to get 10 to in detail after the break.
11 Again, what we're looking for right now is 12 just the structure of the system, and again, as I 13 understand, your point here is that in your opinion, 14 the geometry of pipe flow is not adequately taken into 15 consideration in the design and implementation of the 16 program.
17 DR. HOPENFELD: Which goes back to the 18 assumption that this only metal dissolution control.
19 That's what this is. This goes back to control, and 20 next one, please. I appreciate you cutting me off.
21 I get carried away.
22 (Laughter.)
23 DR. HOPENFELD: This is another one, just 24 a smaller, thinner line, but basically sends the same 25 message. I gave you a reference here for Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1335 1 convenience, to see where they said that FAC is not a 2 local phenomenon. The question was asked in that 3 particular reference, is it a local phenomenon? The 4 answer was no, and then the gentleman went and 5 redefined something completely different what I said.
6 Well, the next one please. One component 7 at IP that is not being monitored by CHECWORKS is the 8 steam generator. Steam generators are very important 9 components. It's a safety-significant component.
10 That reactor vessel is a number two. It's not being 11 monitored.
12 JUDGE McDADE: Again, at this point, 13 Entergy concedes they don't use CHECWORKS with regard 14 to steam generators.
15 DR. HOPENFELD: No, but I'll tell you, but 16 that's true. But here's the other point that I want 17 to bring, and if this is not the point, I'll keep 18 quiet. What they're saying, and that's what bothers 19 me, because it goes to the heart of the whole problem 20 of operating the plant in a non-safety way.
21 They say we're going to wait until the 22 thickness is something, and then we decide whether it 23 can take the local loads or not.
24 JUDGE McDADE: We'll get into -- I mean 25 this afternoon, we'll be talking about whether or not Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1336 1 the Aging Management Program for flow-accelerated 2 corrosion is adequate or not. Right now, just 3 CHECWORKS.
4 DR. HOPENFELD: Absolutely.
5 JUDGE McDADE: Anything further on the 6 program itself?
7 DR. HOPENFELD: No. Next please. This is 8 a summary, so I don't want to harp on the thing again.
9 Basically, it's hard to draw the line. I understand 10 where you're coming from, Your Honor. But it's hard 11 to draw a line. The two are intermarried.
12 Next please. My conclusion is basically 13 as follows. First of all, I'd like to say something 14 to Entergy. If I may, can I tell something to 15 Entergy?
16 JUDGE McDADE: No.
17 DR. HOPENFELD: Of all the bad things I 18 said --
19 JUDGE McDADE: Doctor, to me. If you talk 20 to me, I'll betcha they'll hear you, okay. So just 21 direct it to me. We don't want arguments back and 22 forth.
23 DR. HOPENFELD: Obviously, they are the 24 best people I have ever met. But I want to tell you 25 that I don't -- all the bad things I'm telling you Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1337 1 about this code, and that includes them. They bought 2 it. They bought it. NRC has it on the books. So 3 they had to buy it. They had no choice. The NRC does 4 have it in NUREG-1801. They were crazy enough to buy 5 it.
6 But the point I'm trying to say, it's not 7 them that I'm talking about. What my problem with 8 this is that it was developed fast, and that was good.
9 It was response to what industry wanted. But they 10 stopped. They didn't go further. That's the problem.
11 It stopped 20 years ago.
12 Okay. My main point here, I believe that 13 Entergy shares some of the thoughts about CHECWORKS 14 with me, because otherwise, they would have used this 15 for most, for the rest of the components. They hardly 16 use CHECWORKS in the plant. So if it was such a great 17 code, they would have been using it.
18 But they testified that they're only using 19 it 15 percent of the time. Now we've asked them what 20 are the other programs being used to control aging, or 21 control wall thicknesses, and we never got an answer.
22 Thank you very much for listening to me. I'm sorry I 23 got carried away.
24 JUDGE McDADE: Not a problem. Let me ask 25 one question for Dr. Horowitz or -- one of the things Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1338 1 that was mentioned, I think back on Slide 7 of your 2 presentation, was that there are some systems for 3 which CHECWORKS isn't an appropriate predictor. Can 4 you define what those are, what the criteria area for 5 the kinds of components, kinds of systems where 6 CHECWORKS is appropriate and where it isn't?
7 DR. HOROWITZ: Jeff Horowitz for the 8 applicant. Yes, Your Honor. Most of them are small 9 bore systems, which are known as socket-welded piping, 10 and also lines which operate intermittently or 11 occasionally, and there are log lines, vents and 12 drains in this category.
13 JUDGE McDADE: Okay, thank you. We've got 14 a lot of questions about, as I said, flow-accelerated 15 corrosion and the Aging Management Program in place 16 at Indian Point. Before we get into that with our 17 questions, it might be appropriate to take a brief 18 recess.
19 I have right now that it's about quarter 20 of three. If we could take a ten minute recess and be 21 back at five minutes of three. We are in recess.
22 (Whereupon, the proceedings in the 23 foregoing matter went off the record at 2:44 p.m. and 24 went back on the record at 3:02 p.m.)
25 JUDGE McDADE: We are going to get Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1339 1 started. We have at least somebody here from all of 2 the parties. We are going to come to order.
3 And I would ask, you know, during the 4 course of this hearing, we do have a lot to cover, and 5 we want to make sure we get through it. We only have 6 this facility for a very limited amount of time.
7 So if we are going to take a 10-minute 8 break, let's try to keep it to a 10-minute break. If 9 we are going to take an hour for lunch, let's try to 10 keep it to an hour. We started off with a 10-minute 11 break, and we are now at about 18.
12 So we have come to order. Judge Kennedy, 13 you had some questions on this contention?
14 JUDGE KENNEDY: This is Judge Kennedy.
15 Let me start by taking us back and refocusing us on 16 the entire contention. So I am going to take a minute 17 and just at least describe, in my words, what this 18 contention is all about.
19 And we are talking about Riverkeeper-TC-2, 20 and this is a contention challenging the adequacy of 21 the Aging Management Program, which Entergy is 22 proposing to use to manage the aging effect of flow-23 accelerated corrosion for select components within the 24 scope of license renewal.
25 This has been termed a safety contention Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1340 1 because of the components for which the program is 2 being applied.
3 In Riverkeeper's initial petition, and as 4 this contention was admitted, they have focused on a 5 couple of issues, the first of which is that the Aging 6 Management Program is deficient because it does not 7 provide sufficient details. Specifically, they listed 8 inspection method and frequency of inspection and 9 criteria for component repair and replacement.
10 They then went on to challenge the Aging 11 Management Program for relying on the results of 12 CHECWORKS without benchmarking or tracking worker 13 performance at Indian Point at the uprated power 14 levels.
15 So that is the contention as we see it.
16 The issues focus, in my mind, in two major areas.
17 One, for want of a better term, is the level of detail 18 that is provided in the application or on the record 19 for what constitutes this Aging Management Program.
20 The second, and will be much more into the technical 21 details of CHECWORKS and how it is benchmarked, very 22 similar, getting much deeper into the testimony of Dr.
23 Horowitz and Dr. Hopenfeld as we go forward.
24 But I would like to take us away from all 25 of the pure technical data and talk and interrogate Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1341 1 some of the witnesses about the level of detail that 2 is -- that should be in the Aging Management Program, 3 since there is a direct challenge to the information 4 that is or isn't provided within Entergy's Aging 5 Management Program.
6 I guess I would like to start, and I have 7 some sight line issues to the witness table with some 8 monitors and stuff. I will try to first start by 9 directing a question either to Entergy, to staff, or 10 Riverkeeper. And then, once we get someone responding 11 from one of those parties, maybe I can do a better job 12 of directing the question to a specific person. But 13 I do have -- I do have some sight line issues.
14 Let me direct this question to Entergy.
15 If I was to go look for a description of the Aging 16 Management Program for flow-accelerated corrosion, 17 what would I be looking for? Where would it be 18 contained? And what information is provided for that 19 Aging Management Program?
20 Do I look in Appendix A? Do I look in 21 Appendix B? Do I -- where do I -- where would one go 22 to understand what is within the flow-accelerated 23 corrosion Aging Management Program?
24 Again, to Entergy first.
25 MR. COX: Judge Kennedy, this is Alan Cox Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1342 1 for Entergy. The Aging Management Programs are 2 primarily described in Appendix B of the license 3 renewal application. Appendix A also has a summary 4 description of those programs.
5 JUDGE KENNEDY: So we would look in either 6 place, Appendix B or Appendix A.
7 MR. COX: That's correct. Both places 8 refer to the industry guidance document, the NSAC-9 202L, which is the basis for the program.
10 JUDGE KENNEDY: If my memory serves me, 11 there is maybe a paragraph or two paragraphs contained 12 within Appendix B of the license renewal application 13 related to flow-accelerated corrosion?
14 MR. COX: That's probably correct. The 15 format that we use for describing programs in the LRA 16 is based on the guidance in NEI-9510, Appendix D I 17 believe it is, and four programs that are considered 18 consistent with the GALL program.
19 There is not a lot of discussion there, 20 because those programs are described in the GALL 21 Report. We do include a reference to the GALL Report.
22 We include a statement of whether those programs are 23 consistent. We talk about any exceptions that are 24 taken to what the GALL Report specifies for that 25 program. And in this case, we said there were no Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1343 1 exceptions to what is in the GALL Report for the FAC 2 Program.
3 JUDGE KENNEDY: And I'm not trying to be 4 too clever here, but I think that is what I am trying 5 to get at. As you continue to expound on your answer, 6 we have moved from I'll say Appendix B to other 7 documents that may -- or appear to be referred to from 8 Appendix B.
9 You reference -- you mention GALL. That's 10 what I'm trying to get to is, what would be a concise 11 view of what is contained within flow-accelerated 12 Aging Management Program for Indian Point?
13 MR. COX: Well, I think Appendix A and the 14 first paragraph, the program description section of 15 Appendix B, have a concise description, and it talks 16 about the methods that are used, the predictive 17 capability of the model.
18 The details are incorporated through the 19 reference to the GALL Report, NUREG-1801, so it's --
20 I mean, you can't separate the FAC -- you can't 21 divorce yourself from the NUREG description of the 22 program to give a description of the details that are 23 included within that.
24 JUDGE KENNEDY: So GALL is certainly a 25 major player, if, as has been done in this case, the Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1344 1 consistency with GALL appears to subsume a reference 2 to the contents of GALL for this flow-accelerated 3 Aging Management Program.
4 And, again, I don't want to put words in 5 your mouth. That's what I heard. Is that what you 6 meant to say?
7 MR. COX: What I meant to say is that the 8 GALL program description is essentially incorporated 9 by reference into Appendix B of the license renewal 10 application.
11 JUDGE KENNEDY: And is that done through 12 this consistency evaluation done first by Entergy I 13 would assume? In other words, you did some -- some 14 assessment was performed of GALL.
15 MR. COX: That is correct. We evaluated 16 the implementing procedures at the site against the 17 program description in the GALL Report and determined 18 that the procedures that we used required the same 19 steps, took the same actions that are specified in the 20 GALL Report.
21 JUDGE KENNEDY: Maybe while we're talking 22 about GALL, this term "consistent with GALL" is used 23 time and again, both in staff testimony and in 24 Entergy's testimony. Could you describe for us what 25 it means to be consistent with GALL?
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Page 1345 1 MR. COX: We treat that to mean it is 2 essentially the same program. You can kind of look at 3 that statement along with the statement that we say 4 there are no exceptions taken to what is in GALL.
5 We take that to mean if GALL says your 6 program includes a predictive model, then we have to 7 have a procedure that shows that we are using a 8 predictive model. If it says we are going to use UT 9 inspection techniques, our procedures have to say we 10 are going to use UT inspection techniques to be able 11 to say that we are consistent with the GALL Program.
12 JUDGE KENNEDY: So does the flow-13 accelerated Aging Management Program cascade down into 14 plant procedures? Is that a part of what is -- I 15 guess would be included as the description of GALL, of 16 the Aging Management Program? Or how do I connect 17 those two entities, the plant procedures, either 18 implementing the Flow-Accelerated Corrosion Program --
19 I'm trying to see the linkage, because it seems like 20 we have got a summary level document that would 21 provide a linkage to GALL, and then it sounds deeper 22 into plant implementing procedures.
23 And I'm trying to figure out where we, as 24 the Board, would look to assess whether there is an 25 adequate level of detail in the Aging Management Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1346 1 Program. Again, when we started this, and when 2 Riverkeeper first filed the contention, there was just 3 -- I mean, just the summary paragraph was provided.
4 And I didn't know if we -- if the process has evolved 5 beyond there to include and incorporate more 6 documents.
7 I'm really looking for, where do I go 8 look? Do I only go look at Appendix B, or possibly 9 Appendix B plus GALL?
10 MR. COX: Well, I think Appendix B plus 11 GALL does provide an adequate description of the 12 program. You know, again, when you go to the GALL 13 Report, you have the reference to NSAC-202L, which is 14 a fairly detailed description of an effective FAC 15 management program. So --
16 JUDGE WARDWELL: I'm sorry. Could you 17 repeat that again? You tend to talk pretty fast, and 18 I missed that reference that you just said.
19 MR. COX: I said the GALL Report 20 references NSAC-202L, which is the EPRI guidance 21 document for a FAC program. So --
22 JUDGE WARDWELL: So now we have another 23 document we are interested in, this --
24 MR. COX: Right. I mean, that's -- you 25 know, like I said, the link is there. You go to the Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1347 1 GALL Report and it says this is a program -- you have 2 to have a program that is based on the guidance in 3 NSAC-202L. So, yeah, there is another document 4 involved here.
5 JUDGE McDADE: Excuse me. So that is 6 Riverkeeper Exhibit 000012, correct?
7 MR. COX: It is one of the exhibits. I 8 don't --
9 JUDGE McDADE: Can you pull up 10 Exhibit 000012, Riverkeeper? This is the document you 11 are referring to? Do you see it on the screen?
12 MR. COX: Yes. That is correct.
13 JUDGE McDADE: Okay. And just sort of 14 going back a second, you are starting -- Appendix B is 15 in your license application. The GALL Report is an 16 NRC guidance document labeled NUREG-1801.
17 MR. COX: That's correct.
18 JUDGE McDADE: Okay. So you are saying 19 you make reference, and Appendix B incorporates by 20 reference, the GALL Report. The GALL Report 21 incorporates 202L, which is Riverkeeper 000012 --
22 MR. COX: That's correct.
23 JUDGE McDADE: -- exhibit, yes, 24 Riverkeeper 000012.
25 JUDGE WARDWELL: Do we have a good exhibit Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1348 1 number for GALL and/or the license renewal 2 application? Because I think at some point we will 3 want to pull those up, and I don't have that.
4 MR. KUYLER: Your Honor, this is Ray 5 Kuyler for the Applicant. I believe GALL Rev 1 is New 6 York State 000146, and the GALL -- the FAC sections 7 are in C, 000146C, if I'm not mistaken.
8 JUDGE McDADE: Thank you.
9 JUDGE WARDWELL: And actually that's 10 GALL 1, did you say?
11 MR. KUYLER: Yes, Your Honor.
12 JUDGE KENNEDY: That brings up a question.
13 In terms of the Flow-Accelerated Corrosion Program for 14 Indian Point, is it consistent with GALL Rev 1 or GALL 15 Rev 2 or --
16 MR. COX: This is Alan Cox for Entergy.
17 It is consistent with both. There was -- you know, 18 the changes between GALL Rev 2 and Rev 3 were largely 19 administrative, didn't affect any great deal the 20 technical content of that program description.
21 JUDGE KENNEDY: So for all intents and 22 purposes, it is consistent, then, with GALL Rev 2?
23 MR. COX: Right. GALL Rev 2 added the 24 reference to Rev 3 of the NSAC-202L document. GALL 25 Rev 1 had referred to Rev 2. And, again, the changes Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1349 1 between Rev 2 and Rev 3 of the EPRI document were 2 fairly minor.
3 JUDGE KENNEDY: So now we have proceeded 4 from Appendix B through GALL to NSAC. And maybe just 5 to use a specific example, if Riverkeeper is 6 interested in understanding what the inspection method 7 or inspection frequency is, where in that lineage 8 would we be pointed to?
9 MR. COX: I think the evaluation for how 10 you determine the inspection frequency would be in the 11 NSAC-202L document.
12 JUDGE KENNEDY: So I guess I'm trying --
13 if we're at the plant level implementing procedure, 14 somewhere in the procedure there is going to be a 15 specified frequency that is based on the guidance of 16 the NSAC document. Is that what I should understand?
17 MR. COX: That's correct.
18 JUDGE KENNEDY: So now if Entergy wants to 19 change that inspection frequency, what sort of process 20 would be used to do that? It's a plant procedure. Is 21 it just a plant procedure change? Is the NRC 22 involved?
23 MR. COX: It's a plant procedure change.
24 It would be -- you know, because the program 25 description in Appendix A of the LRA references NSAC-Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1350 1 202L, the change would have to be consistent with 2 202L. It would be -- it would require a 50.50 change 3 to evaluate it against the SAR, which is the licensing 4 basis document that states that it is consistent with 5 the NSAC-202L program.
6 JUDGE KENNEDY: So Entergy would then have 7 to justify the basis for that change if it went 8 outside the guidance of the NSAC document, is that 9 what you are thinking?
10 MR. COX: That's correct.
11 JUDGE KENNEDY: And does the NSAC document 12 provide a sufficient degree of accuracy or preciseness 13 on numbers of inspections, or is it truly a guidance 14 that provides criteria for inspection frequency?
15 MR. COX: Do you guys want to speak to 16 that?
17 MR. AZEVEDO: Your Honor, this is Nelson 18 Azevedo for Entergy. The actual inspection frequency 19 is actually based on the measurements that we take.
20 So once we go out in the field and inspect a 21 component, the inspection frequency is derived from 22 that -- from those results.
23 JUDGE KENNEDY: How?
24 MR. AZEVEDO: What we do is we calculate 25 the wear, because we know what the thickness was in Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1351 1 the beginning when the system was put in service. We 2 compared that to the measured thickness remaining, and 3 then we also calculate the critical thickness for the 4 component. And that is the thickness required to 5 carry all of the design loads and still be within the 6 required stress allowables.
7 And so we take the measured thickness. We 8 account for future wear, and then we calculate the 9 point in time in the future where we are going to be 10 reaching the critical thickness, and we schedule an 11 inspection before we reach that point.
12 JUDGE McDADE: Okay. Now, is there some 13 place that I could go in your documentation that would 14 lead me through that? If the result is X, this is 15 what we do? Or does that rely primarily on 16 engineering judgment? In other words, you look at the 17 result, and then you make an engineering judgment as 18 to what to do as a follow up. Or is the precise 19 mechanism written out?
20 MR. AZEVEDO: This is Nelson Azevedo 21 again. It is pretty precise, Your Honor. The actual 22 guidelines are provided in EN-DC-315. That is the 23 Entergy fleet procedure governing FAC programs, and 24 there are a few other documents that reference -- in 25 that procedure that tells you exactly what to do.
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Page 1352 1 JUDGE WARDWELL: So did I just hear a 2 fourth document crop up here now?
3 MR. AZEVEDO: There are documents 4 referenced in EN-DC-315. That's correct.
5 JUDGE WARDWELL: And what is -- could you 6 just say more about what that is?
7 MR. AZEVEDO: Do you mean precisely which 8 document covers --
9 JUDGE WARDWELL: What is EN --
10 MR. AZEVEDO: I'm sorry. EN-DC-315 is the 11 Entergy fleet-wide procedure that covers FAC programs 12 for the entire Entergy fleet.
13 MR. KUYLER: Your Honor, this is Ray 14 Kuyler for the Applicant. If I can just point to 15 Entergy Exhibit 000038, that is EN-DC-315.
16 JUDGE KENNEDY: Thank you. This is Judge 17 Kennedy again. Mr. Cox, I think I cut you off when we 18 started our discussion of the consistency with GALL 19 assessment, and how Entergy in this case views, what 20 does it mean to be consistent with GALL, so that you 21 can make that linkage to NUREG-1801.
22 MR. COX: Okay.
23 JUDGE KENNEDY: Should I repeat it?
24 MR. COX: Yes, please.
25 JUDGE KENNEDY: I'd like to take -- about Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1353 1 halfway through this long discussion through the trail 2 of documentation, we started at the reference --
3 incorporation by reference of the GALL Aging 4 Management Program, and in this case for flow-5 accelerated corrosion. And that reference is 6 supported by an assessment that the program that 7 Entergy is promoting or offering for this aging effect 8 is consistent with GALL.
9 And I think I cut you off when you were 10 giving an answer to the question of, how does Entergy 11 perform the assessment of consistent with GALL? What 12 does that entail?
13 MR. COX: That would entail looking at the 14 implementing procedures. Mr. Azevedo mentioned EN-DC-15 315. That's one of the implementing procedures for 16 the FAC program. And we looked at that procedure to 17 make sure that it included the elements that are 18 described in the GALL program description, including 19 a reference that says the program is consistent with 20 -- or implements the guidance of NSAC-202L, the EPRI 21 guidance document.
22 We would find that in the procedures.
23 Ultimately, before we entered the period of extended 24 operation, we would annotate those procedures to 25 indicate that those specific steps that implement the Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1354 1 elements of the GALL program are flagged to indicate 2 that they can't be changed without going and looking 3 at that procedure.
4 We treat those as commitments, licensing 5 commitments, that would require an individual to 6 specifically look at that commitment, that step, to 7 make sure that the changes to that step don't undo any 8 of the things that we have taken credit for for 9 license renewal.
10 JUDGE KENNEDY: Is this -- should I read 11 this to be a verbatim compliance to the attributes of 12 GALL? Or is it -- are there -- is there some room in 13 there for interpretation of what meets a GALL 14 attribute, if you will?
15 MR. COX: We treat it as essentially 16 verbatim compliance. Now, there are statements in 17 GALL that -- you know, and they may be called 18 statements of facts, that don't really tell you any 19 action that the program needs to take. And we may not 20 address each of those statements there that are 21 provided kind of for information.
22 But if it is an action that the program 23 says you need to do to take as part of your program, 24 we would evaluate that as saying we have to do that.
25 We treat it as verbatim compliance with that Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1355 1 statement.
2 JUDGE KENNEDY: I mean, for argument's 3 sake -- GALL doesn't say this, but if for argument's 4 sake GALL specified the inspection frequency, do I 5 understand it that -- and, again, this hypothetical 6 case, Entergy would look at the plant procedures to 7 see if that is consistent with their inspection 8 frequency? And, if it is, would they declare that 9 consistent with GALL then?
10 MR. COX: That's correct. If GALL said 11 you inspect it once every refueling outage, we would 12 have to have a procedure that implemented an 13 inspection once every refueling outage, before we 14 would say we were consistent with GALL, for that 15 element.
16 JUDGE KENNEDY: And in this case, what we 17 have is that GALL is calling out this NSAC-202 18 document for these level of detail issues, is that --
19 MR. COX: That's correct.
20 JUDGE McDADE: And just to make sure I'm 21 understanding it correctly, I mean, as I read GALL it 22 is sort of a statement of objectives rather than 23 specifics. This is what a program should/must 24 incorporate. It has 10 separate areas. You start 25 with your application, Appendix B. It makes reference Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1356 1 -- it says, "We comply with the requirements of GALL."
2 After you look at that, and that's New 3 York Exhibit 000146C, you then go to NSAC-202L, which 4 is Riverkeeper 000012. That now contains more detail 5 on how to actually accomplish what GALL says you must 6 do. And then the last exhibit referred to 7 Entergy 000038, which is the EN-DC-315, in your view 8 is the specifics of how the NSAC-202L will be applied 9 by Entergy in your plant. That's where the specific 10 details are for the people on the ground to get 11 guidance.
12 MR. COX: That's essentially correct. The 13 EN-DC --
14 JUDGE McDADE: Well, "essentially" is a 15 big word. Where is it not correct?
16 MR. COX: The EN-DC is an implementing 17 procedure. That is correct. That is the implementing 18 procedure. The NSAC-202L document does provide the 19 details, we believe, to adequately describe an 20 effective program. And we use the EN-DC-315 procedure 21 to ensure that we are taking those actions described 22 in the NSAC document.
23 JUDGE McDADE: But if we are looking to 24 see what Entergy actually is going to do in making a 25 decision as to whether or not it will adequately Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1357 1 control the effects of aging, we should focus on the 2 Exhibit 000038, EN-DC-315, because that's what the 3 people in the plant are actually going to be looking 4 at when they are carrying through the program? Or do 5 we need to move back from that to the earlier 6 documents?
7 MR. COX: Well, you know, we typically 8 don't provide implementing procedures as part of the 9 LRA. So I guess my position would be that the GALL 10 Report, with this reference to NSAC-202L, does define 11 the program.
12 Now, the implementing procedure is EN-DC-13 315. So, I mean, you can look at that, and you should 14 find that it is consistent with what is in the GALL 15 Report and NSAC-202L. But I don't think you are going 16 to find a lot of additional level of detail beyond 17 that that is necessary to be able to say that you have 18 an effective program.
19 In other words, I believe that the GALL 20 Report, in conjunction with the reference to NSAC-21 202L, is a pretty robust description of an Aging 22 Management Program for FAC that it will be effective.
23 MR. AZEVEDO: Your Honor, may I address 24 what Mr. Cox has said?
25 JUDGE McDADE: Please.
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Page 1358 1 MR. AZEVEDO: Again, this is Nelson 2 Azevedo. Some interface -- for example, EN-DC-315 3 requires that we do ultrasonic inspections. But it 4 doesn't tell you how to do ultrasonic inspections. So 5 if you look into that level of detail, there is 6 another procedure that actually tells the inspectors 7 how to perform the inspection.
8 If you are going to do a calculation to 9 calculate the critical wall thickness, that level of 10 detail is not provided in EN-DC-315. It is a 11 different procedure. It is a reference in the EN-DC-12 315 that gives the details that you need to perform 13 those calculations. Those are just two examples.
14 JUDGE McDADE: Okay. Thank you.
15 JUDGE WARDWELL: In GALL, and maybe we can 16 pull that up, New York State 000146 I believe is --
17 someone said was -- and we want to get to -- where I'm 18 referencing is XI.M62. You've got to scroll down, a 19 long way. You'll eventually pick up some page 20 numbers, I believe. Let me watch you do it.
21 There you go. Go until you get to 22 whatever I just said, which I can say again -- well, 23 I can look here. XI.M1.6.2 or 6.1. That's where it 24 applies. XI.M17 is the flow-accelerated corrosion 25 portion of that. Is that correct, Mr. Cox?
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Page 1359 1 MR. COX: That's correct.
2 JUDGE WARDWELL: And that's where we are 3 trying to get to on this exhibit here. Now we're 4 getting close. Go down to -- you may have gone too 5 far. Just go back up a page. Let me see what that 6 is. Yeah, you've got to go down to M17. Keep going.
7 No, no, sorry, it was the top header.
8 Go to the previous page. Keep going.
9 Where it says XI.M3, we want to get to XI.M17. That's 10 61. If you want to go by page numbers, it's 61.
11 We're getting close. There we are.
12 This is GALL, correct, Mr. Cox?
13 MR. COX: That's correct.
14 JUDGE WARDWELL: And could you scroll down 15 one -- can you make that one page, Andy, I think would 16 be best. Okay. There you go. Now let's jump down a 17 page. Yeah.
18 So it's two pages of dialogue. Is that a 19 correct assessment?
20 MR. COX: That's correct.
21 JUDGE WARDWELL: On the second page of it, 22 for that first paragraph, the second -- the second 23 line right at the end, a new sentence starts, "The 24 inspection schedule developed by the licensee on the 25 basis of the results of such predictive code provides Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1360 1 reasonable assurances." And then it goes on to talk 2 about inspections results are evaluated.
3 How long have you been using predictive 4 codes at the plant? Has it been two years? Ten 5 years? Twenty years? I don't need the exact number.
6 MR. COX: It has probably been since late 7 '80s/early '90s.
8 JUDGE WARDWELL: Okay. So we've got a 9 decade or so of you utilizing and monitoring for flow-10 accelerated corrosion, is that correct?
11 MR. COX: That's correct. At least two 12 decades.
13 JUDGE WARDWELL: Mr. Azevedo -- did I 14 pronounce that correct, or close enough, or whatever?
15 With all of that history, aren't you pretty well set 16 on where your inspection points are, or the numbers of 17 them? Or can at least say where you are going to go 18 in the near future on inspection points with that much 19 history?
20 MR. AZEVEDO: Yes, that's correct, Your 21 Honor. For the locations that we have inspected, that 22 is correct.
23 JUDGE WARDWELL: And the frequency must be 24 pretty well set, isn't it?
25 MR. AZEVEDO: Yeah. It is -- basically, Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1361 1 what we do, like I said before, we calculate the 2 critical thickness and we implement an inspection 3 before we reach that point.
4 JUDGE WARDWELL: Why don't I need to see 5 that information in order to convince myself that, 6 yes, your inspection program meets what is written 7 here in GALL? Why don't I need to see that as part of 8 your aging management plan? Program, excuse me.
9 MR. AZEVEDO: Do you mean the actual 10 inspection, the actual --
11 JUDGE WARDWELL: No. Just, this is how 12 often we are going to do it, and we are going to do it 13 at blankety-blank number of locations.
14 MR. AZEVEDO: Well, because that number is 15 going to change every time we do an inspection.
16 JUDGE WARDWELL: Sure. But by how much?
17 MR. AZEVEDO: It could change quite a bit.
18 JUDGE WARDWELL: A hundred percent? Would 19 it double?
20 MR. AZEVEDO: It is hard to say. Really, 21 it's --
22 JUDGE WARDWELL: Have you ever doubled it?
23 MR. AZEVEDO: We have had instances where 24 we go out and do inspections, and I think that the 25 component could be reaching its useful life. And it Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1362 1 has a number of cycles left. It is not unusual.
2 JUDGE WARDWELL: I am not talking about 3 cycles. I am interested in how many -- frequency of 4 inspection. What I'm driving at here is you have some 5 plant experience at Indian Point. Where is that 6 experience reflected in your Aging Management Program 7 that allows me to make a decision that, yes, you have 8 demonstrated consistency with GALL, rather than merely 9 stating, "It is," or, "Trust me, it is," is the way 10 someone might read what you currently have before us.
11 MR. ALEKSICK: If I may, Your Honor. This 12 is Rob Aleksick for the Applicant.
13 JUDGE WARDWELL: Sure.
14 MR. ALEKSICK: I guess I would start by 15 saying that -- a clarification. When we talk about 16 inspection frequency in the world of FAC, it is 17 different than in, say, ISI or other programs. There 18 is no set schedule or set percentage coverage or 19 things like that.
20 Because the rate of FAC varies widely from 21 different -- from component to component, there is an 22 individual inspection frequency for each component, 23 and that inspection frequency is determined primarily 24 by the measured wall thicknesses, and the information 25 that you are asking about, so that you could look at Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1363 1 the history and say, "Have we complied with GALL in 2 the past?"
3 It is in several places, but I would point 4 Your Honors -- probably the best place is in Entergy 5 Exhibits 000050 and 000051, which are the 6 documentation of the CHECWORKS model, which includes 7 essentially every inspection of all modeled components 8 dating back to the program inception, back as early as 9 1992.
10 So there are 3- or 4,000 inspections that 11 have been conducted in that period of time that are in 12 the CHECWORKS database, and that are available, and 13 they are printed out in numerous places in those 14 exhibits.
15 JUDGE WARDWELL: But why isn't the heart 16 of that program not summarized, as it applies to 17 Indian Point, in your Aging Management Program?
18 MR. COX: Well, I think -- I'm looking at 19 NSAC-202L, and it has a section that addresses 20 remaining service life.
21 JUDGE WARDWELL: Is that a site-specific 22 document?
23 MR. COX: No, that's not. That's part of 24 the program where we describe --
25 JUDGE WARDWELL: And GALL isn't site-Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1364 1 specific, correct?
2 MR. COX: That's correct.
3 JUDGE WARDWELL: Plant-specific, and nor 4 is NSAC, is that correct?
5 MR. COX: That's correct.
6 JUDGE WARDWELL: So we have no Indian 7 Point plant-specific document before us, that correct?
8 MR. COX: Well, I mean, there are --
9 JUDGE WARDWELL: Besides the results. I 10 mean, we have a document, but we haven't referenced 11 those yet in our hierarchy of how we get to an 12 inspection program. We have just been notified of 13 some CHECWORKS reports, or whatever, 000050 and 14 000051, that we could go look at. But what I am 15 looking for is some type of plant-specific --
16 MR. COX: I guess what I was looking --
17 JUDGE WARDWELL: -- characterization of 18 the Aging Management Program or a reason why that is 19 not feasible to be done.
20 MR. COX: Well, I think -- this is Alan 21 Cox for Entergy. Again, I thought your question was, 22 how can you look at what has been submitted as part of 23 the LRA to get an appreciation for how the program 24 would be effective for that demonstration?
25 JUDGE WARDWELL: I'm looking for your Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1365 1 Aging Management Program, and I have been directed to 2 four different documents now of your Aging Management 3 Program. And I don't see any specificity as it 4 applies to Indian Point, and I don't find it 5 particularly easy to see what is a program.
6 And I'm curious as to, why isn't that? I 7 mean, I have been involved with numerous programs 8 development and -- for various projects, and usually 9 that is what is done. And I'm curious as to, why 10 hasn't that been done, and is it -- and the reasons 11 for why it hasn't been done. So that someone can look 12 at it and judge the program to then compare to GALL 13 and say whether or not it is consistent at Indian 14 Point.
15 MR. COX: Well, I guess I'm trying to 16 separate program description from implementing 17 procedures, and I think sometimes it is hard to draw 18 the line between those. You know, I think the fact 19 that we have a commitment that says we are going to 20 follow the GALL Report and, by reference, NSAC-202L, 21 is a demonstration that we are going to have an 22 effective program.
23 NSAC-202L is a program that has been 24 developed through the industry, has been demonstrated 25 as an effective program, so that's -- it is kind of a Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1366 1 situation where if you're consistent with the program, 2 it has been looked at and evaluated and assessed by 3 the NRC as being an effective program, and you have a 4 commitment to do that, that is a demonstration that 5 you are going to have an effective program.
6 Now, the implementing procedures provide 7 -- you know, if you are onsite doing audits or 8 inspections and you wanted to look at implementing 9 procedure details, operating experience -- and all of 10 that information is available, and a lot of it is in 11 our exhibits that we have submitted here -- that those 12 are not exhibits that are included as part of the 13 license renewal application.
14 JUDGE WARDWELL: Do you consider a 15 statement something to the effect that, "Over the past 16 20 years, we have conducted an average of X number of 17 inspections at X number of locations on a frequency 18 of, oh, every 18 months at Indian Point," do you 19 consider that an implementing procedure? A general 20 statement like that?
21 MR. COX: That would be kind of a general 22 statement of operating experience or I guess of 23 program inspections. But, again, as Mr. Azevedo 24 explained, you know, each outage we look at all of the 25 components that are in the program and do this Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1367 1 projection of remaining service life.
2 So that is how -- you know, it is not a 3 set frequency. It is not always going to be the same 4 number of components. It is going to be based on 5 looking at all of the components in the program before 6 each outage to see what the remaining service life is 7 and make sure that we have inspections scheduled prior 8 to meeting that expected service life.
9 JUDGE WARDWELL: I can appreciate possibly 10 some of the challenges with drawing a line on where or 11 how you describe your program at Indian Point, and 12 certainly would not expect to see -- this is the 13 details of our calculations as you suggested, Mr.
14 Azevedo, and I appreciate that. And I am not 15 expecting that.
16 But, likewise, a general discussion of 17 what you think will take place in the future, so a 18 person can then look at it and say, "Yeah, they've got 19 an inspection program," or, you know, that is just one 20 example. There is other things that are called for in 21 GALL that to me have no corollary to what has been 22 presented for how we are doing these at Indian Point.
23 Let me ask you this one question, and then 24 I'll get -- I'll let Judge Kennedy, which is his area 25 doing this anyhow -- but do you consider -- and any of Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1368 1 you can answer this, but I'll direct it to Mr. Cox to 2 start with -- do you consider GALL to be a program?
3 Or do you consider GALL to be a description of the 4 attributes of a program?
5 MR. COX: I'm not sure the distinction 6 that you are drawing there. The --
7 JUDGE WARDWELL: Well, the distinction 8 would be, could I, as an applicant, say, "Oh, we'll do 9 everything consistent with GALL, because GALL is an 10 Aging Management Program for Indian Point"? Or would 11 I be required to present my AMP and point out how my 12 AMP, by having some descriptions of those types of 13 things that will be conducted at Indian Point, I am 14 able to demonstrate that in fact it is consistent with 15 GALL? Is GALL by itself a standalone program, or do 16 I have to demonstrate a consistency with GALL?
17 MR. COX: I think all GALL programs are 18 not necessarily the same. I think in the case of the 19 Flow-Accelerated Corrosion Program, the GALL Report 20 defines the program. The standard review plan talks 21 about the 10 elements of a program, and the way we 22 consider that is those 10 elements define your program 23 and defines the preventive actions. It defines the 24 inspection methods. It defines the acceptance 25 criteria.
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Page 1369 1 And so, you know, I think particularly in 2 the case of the FAC Program, the GALL Program is a 3 program.
4 JUDGE WARDWELL: Okay.
5 MR. COX: It is not just a list of goals 6 and objectives. It is an effective program.
7 JUDGE McDADE: Well, let me --
8 JUDGE WARDWELL: Before you is accepted 9 criteria on your screen. It just happened to be up 10 here, and this is from GALL. We haven't moved off of 11 this. So we can take a look at that. And this is 12 what you state is the acceptance criteria for Indian 13 Point.
14 And I will just quickly read it.
15 "Acceptance criteria. Inspection results are input 16 for a predictive computer code such as CHECWORKS to 17 calculate the number of refueling operations --
18 operating -- refueling or operating cycles remaining 19 before the component reaches the minimum allowable 20 wall thickness.
21 "If calculations indicate that an area 22 will reach the minimum allowable wall thickness before 23 the next scheduled outage, the component is to be 24 repaired or replaced." That, in your opinion, is the 25 sufficiency of the acceptance criteria that is needed Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1370 1 at this point in time for your license renewal 2 application?
3 MR. COX: Yes, sir. I believe it is.
4 JUDGE WARDWELL: Okay. Thank you.
5 JUDGE McDADE: Okay. Let me focus, again, 6 on what we have here on the GALL Report. And I don't 7 mean this in a pejorative way, but would you disagree 8 that the GALL Report could be viewed as sort of a list 9 of 10 platitudes?
10 I mean, basically, this is saying, like, 11 what should happen. You know, sort of like, you know, 12 promote the general welfare, ensure the blessings of 13 liberty for ourselves and our prosperity. Now, it's 14 a goal. It's something that we want to have happen, 15 but the devil is in the details.
16 So if I look at the GALL Report, and the 17 NUREG, it specifies in those 10 criteria what I need 18 to do, but it doesn't tell me very much about how I'm 19 going to do it. And as I understand from what you 20 have said, that we start off with this list of 10 21 things that the aging management plan should include, 22 what it is supposed to accomplish.
23 It is -- you know, inspection results are 24 evaluated to determine if additional inspections are 25 needed to assure that the extent of wall thinning is Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1371 1 adequately determined, and assure that intended 2 function will not be lost and identify corrective 3 actions. Clearly, that is something that we need to 4 have accomplished, but that doesn't tell me very much 5 about how to accomplish it.
6 And when we are told that the Applicant 7 has said, "We will be consistent with GALL," it is, 8 again, sort of a general statement that you want the 9 plant to work properly. You want flow-accelerated 10 corrosion to be adequately managed during the period 11 of extended operation.
12 But then, we get down to the specifics of 13 how you are going to do that, and, as I understand it, 14 you are saying that you take these goals, you then 15 look to NAC-202L, Riverkeeper Exhibit 000012, and then 16 you look to Entergy Exhibit 000038, which is your EN-17 DC-315.
18 Now, is there anything more specific than 19 EN-DC-315, that you can go and follow and say, "If 20 this happens, then this is what I am going to do"?
21 And you know ahead of time what the criteria are. Is 22 there anything more specific than EN-DC-315, or is 23 that what we have to make our determination on as to 24 whether or not the program is adequate?
25 MR. COX: Well, I think you could make Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1372 1 your determination on EN-DC-315. I mean, there are 2 some things that are not included there. When you 3 start talking about determining minimal, acceptable 4 wall thickness, that is kind of an engineering 5 function that structural engineers at the plant --
6 they have -- you know, they have procedures for doing 7 that.
8 Nelson mentioned the actual procedure for 9 doing the UT inspections. There is going to be 10 procedures for how a technician in the field actually 11 uses the ultrasonic testing probe to do that UT 12 thickness measurement. So, I mean, there are certain 13 things that are kind of within the skill of the 14 personnel that are implementing the program that may 15 be covered by other procedures, as far as the details 16 of how to do the inspection and use the equipment.
17 But, you know, I think in general the 18 program is -- even up to NSAC-202L, I think that 19 defines enough of the essence of the program that a 20 competent mechanical engineer can take that and go put 21 in place a program, and another engineer can come 22 behind him and review it and say, "Yeah. Your program 23 is consistent with NSAC-202L and with the GALL 24 Report."
25 JUDGE McDADE: Is there any place -- for Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1373 1 example, if there were a particular elbow in a piping 2 that was tested, and it indicated that the wall 3 thickness was X, that tells your engineer that that 4 thickness is adequate there as opposed to inadequate 5 there, or do they just have to use their general 6 judgment with regard to what the speed of the flow is, 7 what the pressure is, and what the thickness of the 8 wall is?
9 MR. COX: You know, that is all built into 10 the CHECWORKS program as part of the NSAC-202L program 11 and the site procedures. The --
12 JUDGE McDADE: You know, CHECWORKS just 13 tells you where to test. I'm asking once you have 14 tested.
15 MR. COX: Okay. Once you have tested it, 16 then you also have steps -- in fact, some of what we 17 just read here for acceptance criteria -- that says we 18 need to look at the time to critical thickness.
19 So we need to look and see what is the 20 expected service life of that component, and we are 21 going to do that based on looking at how long it is 22 going to take to get to the minimum critical wall 23 thickness, which, again, that is a number that is 24 derived from a structural engineer based on looking at 25 the design loads that are defined in the current Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1374 1 licensing basis for the plant, you know, plant-2 specific parameters on the piping wall thickness and 3 that sort of thing.
4 So I guess to answer your question, I 5 think the details are there in the method that we 6 would use to evaluate that actual measurement. We are 7 doing trending based on what is the thickness now 8 based on what it -- compared to what it was the last 9 time it was inspected or based on what the nominal 10 thickness was when the pipe was installed.
11 So that is -- I mean, that is what the 12 engineer would have to use. He would have to do that 13 projection, maybe draw a straight line through two 14 measured points and say, "When is it going to reach 15 the minimum thickness? And I've either got to repair 16 it or replace it before I get there, or I've got to do 17 another inspection to confirm my results."
18 JUDGE McDADE: Okay. Generally, in these 19 pipes, is it a linear progression as far as the flow-20 accelerated corrosion? In other words, if it is X 21 today, and then X minus one next outage, and X minus 22 two next outage, that you could predict it is going to 23 be X minus three the outage after that? Or is it --
24 you know, again, is it linear?
25 MR. ALEKSICK: This is Rob Aleksick for Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1375 1 the Applicant. Yes, Your Honor, it is a linear 2 process, and your example is exactly correct.
3 JUDGE McDADE: Would it ever not be? In 4 other words, where that rate of erosion would be 5 inconsistent, where it would -- and, again, assuming 6 certain things like the temperature, the water 7 chemistry, those kinds of inputs remain basically the 8 same. Would one expect that the rate of corrosion at 9 any particular point in the system would remain 10 consistent?
11 MR. ALEKSICK: Yes, Your Honor. Given 12 steady-state operating and chemistry conditions, one 13 can reasonably expect the flow-accelerated corrosion 14 wear rate to be linear with time.
15 JUDGE WARDWELL: Just one quick question.
16 JUDGE McDADE: Go ahead.
17 JUDGE WARDWELL: So are you saying, Mr.
18 Cox, that you really -- if you did not have EN-DC-315, 19 would you feel as comfortable in stating that you are 20 consistent with GALL?
21 MR. COX: Well, I think, you know, we have 22 to look at the implementing procedures to see -- if an 23 NRC inspector was coming onsite to look at whether we 24 are consistent with GALL, that is what he would have 25 to look at is the implementing procedure.
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Page 1376 1 I mean, you can look at -- we have a 2 commitment that says, yes, we are going to be 3 consistent with GALL, we are going to do what GALL 4 requires, what GALL recommends, but to actually see if 5 we are doing that in the field, you've either got to 6 go look at the data, you've got to look at the 7 implementing procedures.
8 I mean, you've got to look at the plant-9 specific information to see if we are actually doing 10 what it is that we said we would do. I mean, we 11 could --
12 JUDGE WARDWELL: I guess I didn't make 13 myself clear. If you did not have EN-DC-315, would 14 you be as comfortable in saying you are consistent 15 with GALL? Let me ask it another way. Is EN-DC-315 16 really your aging management plan for flow-accelerated 17 corrosion?
18 MR. COX: EN-DC-315 is the implementing 19 procedure for the Aging Management Program for flow-20 accelerated corrosion. I guess to answer your 21 question, no, I would not be as comfortable without 22 EN-DC-315.
23 JUDGE WARDWELL: And just to fix another 24 point, because it may come up later. When you are 25 saying "implementing procedures," it's implementing Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1377 1 procedures, it's not the implementation of those 2 procedures. There is just a description of how you 3 are going to implement it, not an actual 4 implementation of it yet.
5 MR. COX: Right.
6 JUDGE WARDWELL: When we are dealing with 7 license renewal, because --
8 MR. COX: It is not necessarily the 9 results and the actual applications procedure, but 10 it's the procedure itself that tells you how to 11 implement the program as described in the GALL Report.
12 JUDGE WARDWELL: Thank you.
13 JUDGE KENNEDY: Just following on Judge 14 Wardwell's question, I envision that to mean that 15 below -- if EN-DC-315 is a fleet-wide procedure, would 16 there then be specific implementing procedures at 17 Indian Point for the -- to implement the fleet-wide 18 procedure? Or am I trying to push this long rope too 19 far?
20 JUDGE WARDWELL: You can't push a rope.
21 I'm a civil engineer.
22 MR. AZEVEDO: Your Honor, this is Nelson 23 Azevedo for Entergy again. No, EN-DC-315 is the 24 implementing procedure as far as the program is 25 concerned. As I mentioned before, for each specific Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1378 1 test there are other procedures -- I mentioned the 2 ultrasonic inspection, how to implement the actual 3 steps there are other procedures. But from a 4 programmatic standpoint, EN-DC-315 is applicable at 5 Indian Point.
6 JUDGE KENNEDY: Where would the scope of 7 the Flow-Accelerated Corrosion Program be contained?
8 Would that be in EN-DC-315? Or is there -- I mean, 9 what constitutes the components that are within the 10 scope for license renewal?
11 MR. ALEKSICK: Rob Aleksick again for the 12 Applicant. Your Honor, EN-DC-315 provides guidance on 13 how to identify that scope, and the actual 14 implementation of that is provided in -- I don't have 15 the exhibit number, but it's what we call the system 16 susceptibility evaluation, and it is an extremely 17 detailed listing of every single line that is 18 susceptible to FAC and the reasons for that.
19 JUDGE KENNEDY: And that would be specific 20 for Indian Point --
21 MR. ALEKSICK: Yes.
22 JUDGE KENNEDY: -- Units 2 and 3?
23 MR. ALEKSICK: Yes, Your Honor, it would.
24 JUDGE McDADE: Can we put up Exhibit 25 000048? Is that it, Entergy 000048? Do you see it on Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1379 1 the --
2 MR. ALEKSICK: Yes, Your Honor. This is 3 the exhibit for Indian Point Unit 2. There is an 4 equivalent document for Unit 3.
5 JUDGE McDADE: Okay. Which is the next --
6 we don't need to pull it out, but it's Exhibit 000049 7 for Indian Point 3?
8 MR. ALEKSICK: Yes. Yes, Your Honor. It 9 is -- Exhibit 000049 is the equivalent document for 10 Unit 3.
11 JUDGE KENNEDY: I think we have now -- we 12 have started at what is in the application and, for 13 argument's sake, the Appendix B description for flow-14 accelerated corrosion. And we have now weaved our way 15 through NSAC-202 to EN-DC-315 down to some I'll say 16 plant-specific implementing procedures at Indian 17 Point.
18 The original focus of this question was 19 really trying to understand, is there a bright line, 20 when an applicant writes an application and 21 subsequently interacts with the staff, to document 22 what constitutes the program for Indian Point for 23 flow-accelerated corrosion?
24 How is that determination made? Because 25 what it appears from this is once you pass NSAC-202, Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1380 1 we are now down into a large number of either fleet-2 wide or station-side implementing procedures. And I 3 am trying to understand, from -- let's say from 4 Riverkeeper's perspective, how they would have gotten 5 there.
6 I think you have given the Board a path to 7 understanding where all of this information is, but 8 this -- recognizing that this started early on at a 9 level at which the application is written, and where 10 commitments were made -- and commitments have been 11 changed over time to where we sit today -- to 12 implement a specific flow-accelerated corrosion 13 program for Indian Point.
14 And I am really looking for how that 15 bright line of what is in Appendix B that goes forward 16 into the UFSAR or -- how that determination is made, 17 what -- where are the details committed to that 18 constitutes the program?
19 MR. COX: I think I just have to keep 20 going back to the Appendix B and Appendix A, which 21 both refer to NSAC-202L, and that is where the details 22 are. The NSAC-202L document tells us that we have to 23 generate this type of report to assess the system's 24 susceptibility.
25 JUDGE KENNEDY: So --
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Page 1381 1 MR. COX: It gives us details on 2 projecting service life and scheduling inspections 3 prior to reaching that expected service life, so --
4 JUDGE KENNEDY: And maybe this is a good 5 example. NSAC-202 is called out in GALL, and so 6 Entergy chose to carry forward that descriptive 7 information because that was a specific attribute of 8 GALL that pointed to a specific referenceable document 9 where inspection frequency, a specific number, isn't 10 called out in GALL.
11 That is what I'm trying -- I'm trying to 12 get to how we -- how Entergy decided what goes into 13 Appendix B of the license renewal application, and 14 then subsequently carried forward. Is it at that 15 level where attributes that are specific -- or help 16 me. This is -- I mean, I -- trust me, the discussion 17 of taking us all the way down to the plant procedures 18 was very instructive for the Board. But this is going 19 to come up on a number of Aging Management Program 20 contentions as we go through the next couple of weeks.
21 And I think we are all, as a Board here, 22 trying to struggle with what level of information 23 constitutes a documentable program inside the 24 application. And if you could help us, we will take 25 that help.
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Page 1382 1 MR. COX: Well, I think you have to go 2 back to Appendix B. That is where we describe the 3 program. And in this case, you've got to bring in the 4 reference documents that are described in Appendix B.
5 There are other programs where there is a lot more 6 detail in the actual words in the GALL Program to give 7 you things like inspection frequency, how many 8 inspections you have to do, what the frequency is.
9 Those details are typically in the GALL Program.
10 JUDGE KENNEDY: Would it be fair to say, 11 if the specifics are in GALL, the specifics will be in 12 Appendix B?
13 MR. COX: Well, the reference in 14 Appendix B, it may just say that we are consistent 15 with GALL, and that we will talk about the things that 16 are an exception. So if there is no exceptions to 17 GALL, you may not find -- again, this is based on the 18 standard format that was established in NEI-9510 back 19 several years ago. If you are consistent with GALL, 20 you are only going to talk about the things that you 21 are going to do that are exceptions to what GALL 22 specifies that you would do.
23 So if you are going to do a different 24 frequency, you would have to describe that. If you 25 don't describe an exception, then the frequency that Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1383 1 is in the GALL Report would be the frequency for your 2 program inspections.
3 JUDGE WARDWELL: Do you agree that 4 Appendix B for flow-accelerated corrosion consists of 5 a page and a half of narrative?
6 MR. COX: That's correct. I would agree 7 with that.
8 JUDGE WARDWELL: Do you agree that the 9 program description occupies two paragraphs -- that's 10 maybe a quarter of a page long -- and pretty much just 11 parrots what GALL says as a program description?
12 MR. COX: Yeah, that's true. But that --
13 again, you have to keep in mind that includes the 14 reference to the NSAC-202L document. So essentially 15 we are incorporating that description into our program 16 description.
17 JUDGE WARDWELL: Do you have any 18 understanding of what we are struggling with here?
19 MR. COX: I believe I do.
20 JUDGE WARDWELL: Okay. I just wonder if 21 you thought we were just somewhere in outer space, 22 what are these people even asking for?
23 MR. COX: I understand. I do. I 24 understand exactly why you are asking this question, 25 but --
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Page 1384 1 MS. SUTTON: Your Honor, Kathryn Sutton on 2 behalf of the Applicant. I think you are also 3 struggling with a legal issue with respect to the use 4 of the GALL. And, again, we would point you to 5 Entergy's Statement of Position that fully describes 6 the Commission's position, particularly in Oyster 7 Creek, on the use of the GALL and the incorporation of 8 the GALL-described program into an LRA.
9 And for that purpose, I will point you to 10 pages 9 and 10 of the Statement of Position for ease 11 of reference.
12 JUDGE McDADE: Okay. Thank you, Ms.
13 Sutton.
14 Let me ask, while we have this document 15 up, we haven't heard from you, Mr. Mew. Your name is 16 listed here, and you didn't approve it. Did you 17 disapprove it, or you just didn't get around to it?
18 MR. MEW: I didn't hear the question. I 19 didn't hear the question.
20 JUDGE McDADE: Okay. We have up Exhibit 21 000048, Entergy Exhibit 000048. Do you see the first 22 page right on the screen? You were part of the 23 approval chain?
24 MR. MEW: No, Your Honor.
25 JUDGE McDADE: Pardon?
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Page 1385 1 MR. MEW: No. I do not approve CSI's 2 document in this matter. Approval of this document is 3 done through the Entergy process, which is EN-DC-149, 4 which gives you steps in order to approve a document 5 from a vendor.
6 MR. COX: This is Alan Cox. I can clarify 7 that. If you go to the form from the EN-DC-149 that 8 Ian mentioned, you will find there is a cover sheet 9 there with his name on it approving these. This is a 10 vendor supply document, so the vendor prepares it, 11 reviews it, approves it, and then Entergy has another 12 form that goes on top of this that gives the Entergy 13 approval of that document.
14 JUDGE McDADE: Okay.
15 JUDGE KENNEDY: Maybe at this time we 16 could hear from the staff. And I think we are going 17 to walk down the same path of, from the staff's 18 perspective, what constitutes the Flow-Accelerated 19 Corrosion Program? Where is that description 20 contained? And then we will go on from there.
21 And I would like to hit on the consistency 22 with GALL and get the staff's perspective, what does 23 it mean to be consistent with GALL?
24 MR. HISER: This is Allen Hiser of the 25 staff. The GALL Program on flow-accelerated corrosion Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1386 1 is the program XI.M17. That we believe has the 2 necessary detail for an Aging Management Program. If 3 there is a need for specific information -- for 4 example, specific description of inspection 5 frequencies -- then they would be provided there. If, 6 for example, inspections needed to be performed every 7 outage, then that would be provided in the GALL AMP.
8 JUDGE WARDWELL: Sorry. Where?
9 MR. HISER: It would be provided in the 10 GALL AMP. It would be specified. For example, some 11 of the AMPs specify that inspections should be 12 performed every 10 years. This AMP does not have the 13 need for that specificity in this case.
14 JUDGE KENNEDY: So would you agree with 15 Entergy as to where we would find the flow-accelerated 16 corrosion description? Where would you look for it in 17 the application?
18 MR. HISER: In the application, it would 19 principally be in Appendix B.
20 JUDGE KENNEDY: And I think we are looking 21 for that bright line. How much material should be in 22 that Appendix B? Can you shed some light on what you 23 feel would be the right level of detail that should be 24 in Appendix B and carried forward?
25 MR. HISER: Consistent with the process Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1387 1 that is used for information provided in the 2 application, and the staff's review, one element has 3 not been discussed is the Aging Management Program 4 audits that we perform. And it is during those 5 audits, which are summarized in the SER and are 6 described in our testimony, where we do a deeper 7 review of the elements of the program. So that, for 8 example, is where we reviewed EN-DC-315 -- was a part 9 of that AMP audit.
10 JUDGE WARDWELL: Can you think of any 11 reason why some of those same things that you have 12 discussed and bring up in the SER could not or should 13 not be summarized in an applicant's Aging Management 14 Program for flow-accelerated corrosion?
15 MR. HISER: I guess what I would say is 16 the Commission has helped us to frame what is 17 necessary within the application. And for an existing 18 program and a program consistent with GALL such as the 19 FAC Program, the Commission has helped to indicate 20 what level of detail is necessary.
21 JUDGE WARDWELL: And what did they say?
22 MR. HISER: That describing consistency 23 with GALL was with a limited description of the 24 program, which --
25 JUDGE WARDWELL: Did they say that you Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1388 1 would take the applicant's word for it when they said, 2 "We are consistent with GALL"?
3 MR. HISER: No. And, again, that's why we 4 do the AMP audit is that we go to verify the --
5 JUDGE WARDWELL: And then, aren't we right 6 back to the beginning again? How -- it's not a matter 7 of just saying you are consistent with GALL. Doesn't 8 the Commission say you have to demonstrate -- they 9 have to demonstrate that they are consistent with 10 GALL. It is not just a statement of consistency with 11 GALL. It is a demonstration of consistency, is it 12 not?
13 MR. HISER: Yes, it is.
14 JUDGE WARDWELL: And you have done that 15 through your SER. I mean, you have documented your 16 approach to that in your SER.
17 MR. HISER: That's correct.
18 JUDGE WARDWELL: So why doesn't an 19 applicant just submit those types of things, or at 20 least a general description, oh, not probably to the 21 detail that you do certainly in your audits, but is it 22 that challenging and that onerous in a very expensive 23 application anyhow to go that extra step to provide 24 some specificity as it relates to Indian Point?
25 MR. HISER: Well, in the specific case for Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1389 1 the FAC Program, I think we do not want a high level 2 of specificity, because the program is an Aging 3 Management Program that relies on inspection results, 4 modeling, and predictions, to help to define the 5 inspection scope and the inspection frequency. If 6 that was specified in the application, then the 7 applicant -- well, then, rightly that's what they 8 should be doing, whatever they specified.
9 In this case, we think it is inadvisable 10 to provide that level of specificity. We want the 11 program to be a living program that responds to 12 findings within the plant, within the industry, and 13 makes accommodations based on those.
14 JUDGE McDADE: But, Dr. Hiser, once you 15 have blessed their program, how do you ensure over 16 time, over the next 20 years, that it will continue to 17 operate as you understood it at the time of the audit, 18 if it is somewhat ephemeral?
19 And, again, what I'm getting at is you 20 need to have adequate number of inspections. Well, 21 "adequate" is in the eye of the beholder. And you're 22 going to inspect at a certain number of locations, but 23 you have to decide which one of those locations are 24 going to be the most susceptible to flow-accelerated 25 corrosion.
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Page 1390 1 And the question is, in looking for 2 guidance to see whether or not in practice the program 3 is working as intended, where do you look? And, you 4 know, where do you then have your inspectors follow up 5 to ensure that? Is there anything that they can look 6 to, or are they required just simply to look to 7 something like the EN-DC-315?
8 And if Entergy or any applicant chooses to 9 change those procedures over time, how would the NRC 10 address that?
11 MR. HISER: Partly, that would be reviewed 12 through our reactor oversight process where the 13 regional inspectors look at the programs that are 14 being implemented at the plant. In general, for 15 license renewal -- let's get more specific to the FAC 16 Program.
17 The FAC Program is a longstanding, 18 existing program at the Applicant's facility. So we 19 have a high level of familiarity with what they have 20 implemented, and a high level of confidence that they 21 have appropriately implemented the program.
22 In general, for license renewal AMPs, we 23 have regional inspections that look at how the plants 24 have implemented the programs. One of those, the 25 IP-71003 inspection, is implemented just prior to Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1391 1 entering the period of extended operation to assure 2 that the plant has implemented programs consistent 3 with their application. So those would be some of the 4 ways.
5 The third, really, is based on operating 6 experience. If the plant suddenly finds that it is 7 doing inspections and finding that it needs to do 8 replacements, because they are no longer meeting their 9 acceptance criteria on wall thickness, that would be 10 an indication that maybe the program performance is 11 not what it should be. So that would be one way that 12 we would be able to detect if there is a problem 13 occurring.
14 JUDGE McDADE: And then, what does the NRC 15 do with that information, given, from our standpoint, 16 the somewhat vagueness of what is in the application?
17 And, again, I'm starting with the premise -- and 18 correct me if you disagree with this -- is that the 19 guidance in GALL is somewhat general in nature. That 20 not only does the NRC, but clearly the Applicant, has 21 a vested interest in following the principles set 22 forth in GALL.
23 They have a big investment in the plant.
24 They don't want failures within the plant. The 25 problem that is down the road, if there is a Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1392 1 difference of opinion between the engineers at the 2 Applicant and the engineers at the NRC as to whether 3 or not the -- and I don't want to use the word 4 "application" the wrong way -- the application of 5 these principles is no longer adequate, how is that 6 resolved when you have these sort of general guidance 7 criteria?
8 MR. HISER: Well, I guess to just touch on 9 the first part, I don't believe that we would say that 10 GALL is an implementable program. It is an Aging 11 Management Program description. The licensee, or the 12 Applicant in this case, does have procedures that they 13 use to implement the AMP -- EN-DC-315, for example.
14 In terms of disagreement between the staff 15 and the -- at that point the licensee on 16 implementation of the program, I think those are 17 things that the staff identified -- would identify 18 during inspections, and that would be resolved as many 19 differences of opinion are, regarding the 20 appropriateness and necessity of what the licensee is 21 doing.
22 JUDGE McDADE: Okay. But am I correct, 23 then, that as you look at it, as we are going down 24 this road from the Appendix B to NUREG-1801 to NSAC-25 202L to EN-DC-315 to the system susceptibility Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1393 1 evaluation, that each one of those progressively 2 provides more detail, and that is all part of the 3 Aging Management Program that they are committed to.
4 MR. HISER: Yeah. I think that is 5 correct. And, again, we do -- through our AMP audit, 6 we go down to that level of detail in terms of our 7 review to assure that the -- not only are the merits 8 of the program consistent with the GALL AMP, but also 9 the details of the program provide what we believe is 10 adequate aging management for FAC in this case.
11 JUDGE McDADE: And would it be accurate to 12 say, if down the road there were changes in EN-DC-315, 13 that in your view -- and "your view" not necessarily 14 meaning Dr. Hiser's view, but in the view of the NRC, 15 no longer were consistent with GALL, that that would 16 mean that it was no longer consistent with the current 17 operating basis.
18 MR. HISER: I think we would evaluate how 19 the changes were made to the programs, and we would 20 look at what impact those changes would have had.
21 JUDGE McDADE: Right. And I anticipate, 22 of course, that there is going to be changes over 23 time. As you indicated, you view this as a dynamic 24 program. But if there were a difference of opinion 25 between the engineering judgment of the Applicant and Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1394 1 of the NRC, if you concluded -- if the NRC concluded 2 that it no longer met GALL, that that would mean it no 3 longer met the current operating basis as well, and 4 that would be something that would require action by 5 the NRC.
6 MR. HISER: I think that's correct. Yes.
7 JUDGE McDADE: Okay.
8 JUDGE KENNEDY: May I -- just in following 9 up from that, if we talk about the regional inspection 10 prior to the period of extended operation, I'm trying 11 to visualize what sets the scope of that inspection.
12 I have in mind Appendix B, and we have got 13 a number of descriptions of Aging Management Programs 14 contained in the application. Maybe help us 15 understand how the scope of that inspection is 16 determined. Is it driven from Appendix B? You also 17 got quickly down into EN-DC-315, and I'm wondering --
18 you know, I keep getting there.
19 MR. HISER: Yeah. I have not performed an 20 IP-71003 inspection. But from some of the feedback 21 from the regions, they get to that level of detail 22 also.
23 So, but they are looking at it from 24 somewhat of a different perspective. We are looking 25 at it from the perspective of adequacy of the Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1395 1 procedure in meeting needed objectives. They are 2 looking at it from the perspective of, how has it been 3 implemented? So that they are looking at the results 4 and things like that, some of the documentation of the 5 inspection findings and things like that.
6 JUDGE KENNEDY: So what helped them get 7 from, for argument's sake, Appendix B down to that 8 level? How do they get there, since what we start 9 with, what we have in front of us -- again, we have 10 lots of testimony, but this all starts with the 11 program description in Appendix B and --
12 MR. HISER: Yeah. Well, partly it would 13 feed from the things that we have in the SER, the 14 things that we have reviewed as the pieces of the 15 program, if you will, that we think help to assure 16 consistency with the GALL program and would just 17 pretty much fall from that, using that as a starting 18 point in their inspection.
19 JUDGE KENNEDY: I mean, is it possible 20 that when the staff did its audit and inspection 21 during the technical review of the license application 22 they looked at a set of procedures that were X, Y, and 23 Z, and then the regional inspectors come in a year or 24 two, five years later, could there be a whole new set 25 of implementing procedures? And I'm just trying to Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1396 1 understand how this -- either whether it's the chain 2 of custody or the chain of data.
3 I mean, I think we have been walked 4 through this path a couple of times, and we all get to 5 the same point. And I'm more comfortable when I 6 understand it at the Appendix B level -- again, 7 Appendix B of the application. When we start moving 8 from there -- I am okay up to NSAC-202, but it is when 9 we start moving beyond that that I -- I don't know how 10 to think about that.
11 Maybe you could help us understand from 12 the agency's perspective how they look at it, 13 following, let's say, the technical review of the 14 application, how they start getting into the regional 15 inspections and the scope of the regional inspections.
16 MR. HISER: Well, I think the AMP 17 description in Appendix B provides sort of overarching 18 elements of the program. And if the Applicant were 19 to, say, eliminate EN-DC-315 and come up with some new 20 procedure, then it would have to meet the same 21 objectives as EN-DC-315. I mean, it may have 22 different methods for doing things, may use a 23 different code beyond CHECWORKS, for example.
24 But it would still have to meet the 25 essential elements of what is described in their AMP, Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1397 1 what is described in the GALL AMP, and what is in 2 Appendix B.
3 JUDGE KENNEDY: And maybe that is what I'm 4 struggling with. I think that -- let's say they stop 5 using CHECWORKS. I think that is a red flag, because 6 it is going to be described in the Appendix B, if they 7 no longer commit to using NSAC-202. That's a bright 8 line. I think that is -- it is when we start moving 9 beyond that.
10 And I really -- I think what I'm looking 11 for is, is it okay to move beyond that if it is not 12 called out in GALL? It is -- I'm getting the 13 impression that what is a clear attribute or a clear 14 criteria, a clear technical issue that is stated in 15 GALL, appears to make it to Appendix B.
16 Are we really only talking about the stuff 17 that, at least in this case, Dr. Hopenfeld is 18 concerned about, the inspection frequency, which isn't 19 in -- a clearly defined attribute in GALL, or the 20 acceptance criteria?
21 There probably was a question in there.
22 I'm not --
23 MR. HISER: Yeah. I --
24 JUDGE KENNEDY: Again, I think this -- it 25 -- is what we are trying to get to is, as Judge Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1398 1 Wardwell has explained, where do you cut off putting 2 the level of detail in the application? And now every 3 time we go down this path we move into an array of 4 plant -- either fleet-wide procedures, implementing 5 procedures, to get to where the detail is. But 6 eventually we end back up at Appendix B and start all 7 over again.
8 Now we are -- you brought up the construct 9 of the regional inspection, and I envision them going 10 back to the Appendix B and starting there.
11 MR. HISER: Judge Kennedy, could I give 12 you one example that might help here? We are talking 13 about inspection frequency and number of inspections.
14 I'm sorry.
15 MR. COX: This is Alan Cox. I'm sorry.
16 JUDGE KENNEDY: I'm looking for the light 17 to go on somewhere.
18 MR. COX: Alan Cox for Entergy. And I'm 19 -- you know, I'm going back to the Appendix B, the 20 reference to NSAC-202L. NSAC-202L -- this is speaking 21 specifically about inspection frequency and number of 22 inspections.
23 Section 4.7.3 of NSAC-202L is titled 24 "Remaining Service Life."
25 JUDGE KENNEDY: I'm sorry. Where are you Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1399 1 reading in Appendix B?
2 MR. COX: This is in the NSAC-202L.
3 JUDGE KENNEDY: Okay. Sorry. Hang on 4 just a second. Can I --
5 MR. COX: Okay.
6 JUDGE KENNEDY: -- just so I can call that 7 up.
8 JUDGE McDADE: Do you want us to pull up 9 Riverkeeper 000012 for that?
10 JUDGE WARDWELL: Yes. That's Riverkeeper 11 000012.
12 JUDGE McDADE: Mr. Cox, would it be 13 helpful for us to be viewing that while you're talking 14 about it?
15 MR. COX: It wouldn't hurt.
16 JUDGE McDADE: And what page are you on in 17 that document?
18 MR. COX: On page 4-25.
19 JUDGE WARDWELL: Okay. I'm there. I beat 20 you. Just scroll. You'll see the page. If you 21 select the whole page, it helps.
22 MR. COX: Right there.
23 JUDGE WARDWELL: Can you select the whole 24 page, Andy?
25 MR. COX: That was it right at the bottom Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1400 1 of that page. Basically, this is telling us -- it is 2 talking about remaining service life. This is what is 3 going to define the -- not necessarily the frequency 4 but the timing of the inspections and the number of 5 inspections. And the recommendation here is that we 6 determine the FAC, the remaining FAC service life, for 7 each component.
8 And once we do that -- if you flip over to 9 the next page, it has got -- the last part of this 10 section has got three bullets there. Depending on 11 what you find there, if the predicted service life is 12 shorter than the amount of time until the next 13 inspection, then you've got three options for how to 14 deal with that component.
15 You've got to shorten the inspection 16 interval, due the inspection sooner, you've got to do 17 a more detailed analysis to obtain more accurate value 18 of acceptable thickness, or you've got to repair or 19 replace the component. So using this approach, you 20 are going to look at that remaining service life.
21 This is going to define which components 22 have to be inspected during your next inspection. It 23 is going to define how long you have until you have to 24 do inspections for those that may still have a 25 remaining service life that is greater than the Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1401 1 minimum.
2 So I guess I would contend that, based on 3 this description right here, what is in NSAC-202L, 4 this tells you how you are going to define the 5 frequency and the timing of your inspections. I mean, 6 you could go to the EN-DC-315 procedure, which is 7 going to implement this. You are going to find very 8 little differences in that procedure in terms of level 9 of detail that go beyond this method that is described 10 here.
11 So, you know, when the -- when we look at, 12 are we consistent with the program, we are going to do 13 this again before we enter the PEO, we are going to 14 come in and look at our procedures and say, "Do we 15 meet what we said in the LRA? Do we meet what is in 16 Appendix B?" You know, we are going to look at this 17 and say, "Do we have a procedure that follows the NSAC 18 method?"
19 In Appendix A that is going to go into our 20 SAR, part of our current licensing basis, we are going 21 to have a statement that says we've got a program that 22 is based on NSAC-202L. This is a recommendation out 23 of 202L to do this, to define your inspection schedule 24 and frequency, scope -- scope and frequency.
25 You know, so if we do something that is Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1402 1 different from this, then we are no longer consistent 2 with what is now part of our current licensing basis 3 in the SAR. I think -- I mean, to me, this describes 4 the -- it gives you the controls that you are looking 5 for as far as how you would come in and say that we 6 are consistent with what we need to have for a program 7 that is described in Appendix B of the LRA.
8 This is example is on -- again, on 9 determining what components to inspect. And we talked 10 about the number of inspections and when to inspect 11 them. There is also a section in here that talks --
12 we talked a minute ago about the system susceptibility 13 evaluation.
14 There is a section in here that addresses 15 that, how you determine what systems are susceptible, 16 so that would all go into the system susceptibility 17 evaluation report as far as how you make that 18 determination about what is included in the program.
19 So I think you are going to find that 20 there is very few details that are missing from what 21 you have in Appendix B through the references to NSAC-22 202L that are found there.
23 JUDGE WARDWELL: And I think you have 24 selected probably a pretty good example, and it is one 25 that is of reasonable interest to parties that are Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1403 1 wondering whether or not there is any consistency with 2 GALL, whether you have an adequate Aging Management 3 Program.
4 Is it not feasible to paraphrase that, or 5 even just incorporate that entire thing into your 6 description of the Aging Management Program? And even 7 go a step further and say, you know, at Indian Point 8 we have -- there has been -- you know, this is the --
9 you know, the average results, or put some bounding --
10 I don't want to use that phrase, because we're going 11 to use "bounding" for something else -- but, you know, 12 get our arms around how often and to what degree you 13 have -- your experience at Indian Point has been to 14 date, so that someone has an idea of what may take 15 place in the future, because, as we say, it is -- at 16 least your position is that it is linear with time.
17 So things probably aren't going to change 18 drastically is what I referred -- inferred from that.
19 So what is -- is it not feasible to put that in your 20 Aging Management Program?
21 MR. COX: It would be feasible, and we do 22 put some things in -- we do put some operating 23 experience into the LRA that talks about the fact that 24 the program is finding wall thinning. It is being 25 able to tell us when we need to go make repairs before Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1404 1 we get to --
2 JUDGE WARDWELL: But this isn't --
3 MR. COX: -- loss of a function.
4 JUDGE WARDWELL: What you just described 5 isn't operating experience. This is how you are going 6 to move forward with your Aging Management Program.
7 MR. COX: You know, we could put more in 8 the LRA. You know, the yardstick that we are being 9 judged against is the GALL Report and the references 10 in the GALL Report. You know, if we put steps in 11 there that were identical to what is in the GALL 12 Report, you could look at that and say, "Yeah, you've 13 demonstrated you are consistent."
14 You know, by copying what is in the GALL 15 Report you could say that you are -- that's a 16 demonstration of being consistent with GALL. I mean, 17 you could copy it and say, "This is the ending point 18 program," but have you really -- I mean, I think the 19 thing that we struggle with is, have you really 20 included -- have you really added any additional 21 information to the process if you are repeating what 22 is in the GALL Report?
23 I mean, that's what -- you know, you could 24 put something in there that is not verbatim out of the 25 GALL Report. Maybe it's in our own words, maybe it's Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1405 1 paraphrased. And, you know, then depending on how 2 close it is to what the GALL Report is, we start 3 getting questions about, "Well, you're not using the 4 same words as in the GALL Report, so is this really 5 demonstrating that you are consistent with GALL, if 6 you don't -- if you describe it in some other way?"
7 JUDGE WARDWELL: People my age are 8 starting to look towards retirement, and some people 9 my age in retirement may be very interested in what is 10 going on at Indian Point. And they say, "Gee, I 11 wonder about this. I know a little bit about 12 mechanical stuff. I'm interested in flow-accelerated 13 corrosion."
14 Do you think it's very easy for them to 15 pick up or even find what is your Aging Management 16 Program, and then determine whether or not it is 17 consistent with GALL?
18 MR. COX: Well, I think, you know, is that 19 something you can do without coming onsite and 20 auditing implementing procedures? That is I guess the 21 quandary that we're in here is, how far do you -- how 22 far do you go in terms of putting procedures -- actual 23 procedures for how you are going to do this. You 24 know --
25 JUDGE WARDWELL: Could you get any less Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1406 1 words in your Aging Management Program than currently 2 exists?
3 MR. COX: We could try.
4 JUDGE WARDWELL: Thanks.
5 MR. COX: No. You know, that -- again, we 6 have kind of agreed with the -- through the industry.
7 We worked with NRC to come up with this format of 8 describing programs. And, again, I think there is a 9 lot more there than what appears to be, if you look at 10 that one paragraph. I mean, you've got to pull the 11 threads, and you've got to look at the other 12 references that are there.
13 JUDGE KENNEDY: I think this is a good 14 example because GALL doesn't point NSAC-202 15 specifically under this attribute. But you were able 16 to get us to inspection information without taking us 17 the EN-DC-315. And I guess if we keep working this 18 puzzle, is there more of this?
19 MR. COX: Well, I think you could find 20 other examples similar to this. The scope of the 21 program I believe does point you to NSAC-202L, 22 although it's not in this specific element. You're 23 correct on that. But I believe we are -- We do 24 consider that we're tied to implementing the 25 recommendation NSAC-202L for that element because of Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1407 1 what's stated in the scope of the program and the 2 program description before that.
3 JUDGE WARDWELL: How many aging management 4 plans have you written for other plants? Have you 5 only written Indian Point's or been involved with 6 other applications from Entergy?
7 MR. COX: I've been involved with all of 8 the applications for Entergy and several others in 9 addition to that.
10 JUDGE WARDWELL: How does the aging 11 management plan differ at your other plants compared 12 to what we're reading for Indian Point? I would 13 assume they'd be pretty much exactly the same.
14 MR. COX: When you say aging management 15 plan, are you referring to the --
16 JUDGE WARDWELL: What's in Appendix B of 17 your license renewal application.
18 MR. COX: Again, the program, for the FAC 19 program, it's going to be very similar to this for the 20 other plants.
21 JUDGE WARDWELL: Would you say it's 22 virtually identical?
23 MR. COX: Virtually, yes.
24 JUDGE WARDWELL: Thank you.
25 JUDGE McDADE: And again, Mr. Cox, your Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1408 1 position, you're the team manager for license renewal 2 for Entergy.
3 MR. COX: That's correct.
4 JUDGE McDADE: So you'd be involved in any 5 license renewal for any of the nuclear plants that 6 Entergy owns.
7 MR. COX: That's correct.
8 JUDGE KENNEDY: I think I would like to go 9 back to Dr. Hiser and talk a bit about this consistent 10 with GALL concept and what the staff does to ensure 11 that it's consistent. A two-part question. How do 12 you communicate what consistent with GALL means and 13 then how does the staff assess that a particular Aging 14 Management Program is consistent with GALL?
15 MR. HISER: Could you clarify what you 16 mean communicate what consistent with GALL means?
17 Communicate within the GALL report? Within?
18 JUDGE KENNEDY: I guess when you know 19 someone refers to a particular program for, say, 20 Indian Point as being consistent with GALL what does 21 that mean? Is it verbatim compliance? Is it -- I'm 22 looking -- Let's just stay on that one first and then 23 we'll go to the other part. I'm looking for --
24 MR. HISER: Yes. Verbatim compliance is 25 what we look for when we review when we perform, for Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1409 1 example, our AMP audit review. We look at the central 2 items that are called out in the GALL AMP. For 3 example NSAC-202L was one thing that is called out in 4 GALL.
5 When we did the AMP audit at Indian Point 6 we were at Revision 2 of GALL or Revision 1 of the 7 GALL Report. It called out Revision 2 of NSAC and it 8 appointed implemented Revision 3. So through our RAIs 9 they identified that as an exception to the GALL 10 Report because they used a different revision. And we 11 had not accepted it within GALL at that point in time.
12 So the verbatim compliance is one of the essential 13 parts of our review.
14 JUDGE KENNEDY: In this particular case 15 for flow-accelerated corrosion where the inspection 16 frequency is not explicitly specified nor is a 17 reference to NSAC-202 at least at that GALL element 18 specified, what would the staff do in that case?
19 MR. HISER: Well, I think in this case the 20 way the NSAC-202L is called out under the program 21 description, I think that permeates all of the 22 elements. So we would expect that each element would 23 be addressed by the NSAC in general. For example, 24 inspection frequency would be clearly something that's 25 --
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Page 1410 1 JUDGE KENNEDY: So because the NSAC 2 document is in the program description, that should 3 trickle or at least flow through the other attributes 4 I guess unless there's a conflicting guidance. Or 5 would that not be the case? Let's say it's specified 6 25 inspections.
7 MR. HISER: Yeah. Then we would expect 8 that to be in the applicant's description of their 9 program.
10 JUDGE KENNEDY: Is that true in other 11 Aging Management Programs if some overarching 12 reference is called out in the program description?
13 Does that generally flow through the other attributes?
14 MR. HISER: In some cases, but every AMP 15 is a little bit different because the aging concerns 16 are different. The materials, the component, 17 everything is different. So it's really hard to say.
18 In this case, the EPRI NSAC Report provides sort of a 19 self-contained program if you will because the way it 20 was developed and the purpose that it was developed 21 for.
22 And I guess the one thing that I would 23 just to go back I think I used the word or the phrase 24 "verbatim compliance with the GALL AMP." And it would 25 actually be "verbatim consistency." Since the GALL Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1411 1 AMP is guidance, it does not have any requirement or 2 really compliance aspect to it. So it would be a 3 consistency with the -- It's verbatim consistency with 4 what is in the GALL AMP that we would seek to 5 evaluate.
6 JUDGE KENNEDY: So the consistency is one 7 of a verbatim nature though. It's not -- It needs to 8 be within -- It's close and there are some engineering 9 judgment applied by the staff. Do we need to take 10 away from here that it is intended to be, if it's 11 consistent with GALL, a verbatim consistency? Is that 12 the best way to --
13 I'm looking to see if there is any wiggle 14 room in this consistency. And I think we're 15 struggling a little bit.
16 MR. HISER: I think there's very little 17 wiggle room.
18 JUDGE KENNEDY: And if there was such a 19 wiggle room, where would I go to find out what the 20 delta is? How much wiggle is in there?
21 MR. HISER: Well, the wiggle room would be 22 identified through exceptions to GALL, things like 23 that. And that would be the thing that would help to 24 identify the things that were not verbatim consistent 25 with the GALL AMP.
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Page 1412 1 JUDGE KENNEDY: So if there wasn't 2 verbatim consistency, then the staff would pursue a 3 path where we would see an exception to GALL here or 4 an enhancement to GALL or something. Is that what 5 you're trying to tell me?
6 MR. HISER: We would ask RAIs for example 7 with the Indian Point application, the Revision 3 of 8 NSAC-202L versus Revision 2 with something that we 9 identified that was not verbatim consistency.
10 JUDGE KENNEDY: So if we have verbatim 11 consistency, then it's consistent with GALL.
12 MR. HISER: Yes.
13 JUDGE KENNEDY: If we don't have verbatim 14 consistency, then we see an enhancement or an 15 exception to the GALL AMP in the program description.
16 MR. HISER: Then the --
17 JUDGE KENNEDY: Or in the application.
18 MR. HISER: Yeah, the application should 19 then identify enhancements or exceptions. Absent 20 that, then we would expect there to be verbatim 21 consistency.
22 JUDGE KENNEDY: Do the exceptions and 23 enhancements carry forward in the program description 24 or how do they move forward with -- You know, as we 25 move away from the application phase into the period Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1413 1 of extended operation, what captures enhancements?
2 MR. HISER: They would be captured within 3 the safety evaluation report. So, for example, we 4 would review an AMP that was purported to be 5 consistent with GALL. We would evaluate exceptions or 6 enhancements at that point. So that would sort of set 7 the criteria for what the AMP should meet.
8 Then as the applicant implements the 9 program, that would then -- Those would be embedded 10 within the program. So I'm not sure that it would be 11 possible to pull the thread and say, "Well, this 12 aspect of the program was enhancement. This part was 13 exception" other than going back to the SER.
14 JUDGE KENNEDY: I don't want to put words 15 in your mouth, but I'm almost hearing that if the 16 Aging Management Program is not verbatim consistent 17 with GALL there would be some verbiage in the program 18 description that would clue us in to this either 19 enhancement or exception.
20 MR. HISER: There should be, yes. There 21 would be multiple places within the application, 22 within RAI responses, within the SER.
23 JUDGE KENNEDY: Maybe that brings -- Maybe 24 that's where I'm getting confused. I'm perceiving 25 that the Appendix B to the application is what carries Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1414 1 forward. Is there more that carries forward the 2 commitments that Entergy's made that I'm missing here 3 than Appendix B?
4 MR. HISER: Yes, there are commitments 5 within Appendix A of the application.
6 JUDGE KENNEDY: So I may need to use 7 Appendix B plus Appendix A.
8 MR. HISER: Yes. And that, for example, 9 if an applicant needed to implement enhancements to 10 their existing program so that it met the description 11 of the GALL program -- so they wanted to implement a 12 program consistent with GALL, their current program 13 had gaps. So they had enhancements. That would be 14 called out through a commitment as the fact that the 15 applicant would implement those enhancements prior to 16 PEO through some other time frame.
17 JUDGE KENNEDY: And that would go in 18 Appendix A.
19 MR. HISER: That would be in Appendix A of 20 the application. And that would be specifically 21 subject to review of inspection during the IP-71003 22 inspection.
23 JUDGE KENNEDY: Can you clarify for me 24 exactly what the difference is between Appendix A and 25 Appendix B and why do we have both of these and what's Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1415 1 the difference?
2 MR. HISER: Appendix B is a description of 3 the AMPs. Appendix A provides I believe the UFSAR 4 supplement and our list of commitments normally. So 5 a list of commitments is that there are actions that 6 the applicant is committed to perform as a part of its 7 application.
8 JUDGE WARDWELL: Is Appendix A more what's 9 taking place right now at the plant?
10 MR. HISER: The UFSAR supplement is 11 implemented within a certain time frame after issuance 12 of the renewed license. Commitments would I believe 13 in almost all cases would be implemented prior to the 14 PEO, the period of extended operation.
15 JUDGE WARDWELL: And I'm looking at 16 Appendix A for flow-accelerated corrosion. It is four 17 sentences long.
18 MR. HISER: That's probably the UFSAR 19 supplement description. I guess I'm not certain for 20 Indian Point that commitments for implementation for 21 example, enhancements or exceptions may be in 22 different places. I know in many cases they're in 23 Appendix A application.
24 JUDGE WARDWELL: But the program it's 25 referring to here is what's in place at the time of Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1416 1 the application or current licensing basis or I don't 2 know what the right word is.
3 MR. HISER: In general that would 4 represent the program that they will have implemented 5 prior to entering PEO. In the case of the FAC program 6 because it is an existing program, then it also would 7 be consistent with what they're doing today.
8 JUDGE WARDWELL: That's where I got 9 confused because the very first sentence says, "The 10 Flow-Accelerated Corrosion Program is an existing 11 program that applies to safety related and non-safety 12 related..." and it goes on. And that's one sentence.
13 A one sentence paragraph.
14 And then the second paragraph starts off, 15 "The program..." which I assume you were referring to 16 the existing program there.
17 MR. HISER: Yes.
18 JUDGE WARDWELL: So that's unique in this 19 situation for flow-accelerated corrosion because they 20 do have an existing program. It's not -- This Flow-21 Accelerated Corrosion Program that's the existing 22 program, is that a single document or is that 23 something like our AMP that's kind of a hierarchy of 24 detail as we meander our way down as we pull the 25 thread to get down into further and further details.
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Page 1417 1 MR. HISER: Maybe I would be represented 2 EN-DC-315 and the other procedures that implement.
3 JUDGE WARDWELL: So there's no document 4 that sits on anyone's table with the title sheet 5 saying "Flow-accelerated corrosion program" that 6 exists more than four sentences long.
7 MR. HISER: Well, the EN-DC-315 if you 8 look at the title of it is "Flow-accelerated corrosion 9 program." So in essence that probably is the highest 10 ranked procedure if you will that then implements the 11 other procedures. But I would expect that the FAC 12 engineer probably has a notebook that's probably about 13 that thick that would have all of the procedures that 14 exist to implement the program.
15 JUDGE WARDWELL: Sure. So that is 16 somewhat what you just said. Isn't that consistent 17 with a statement that or a question I asked. I don't 18 know whether it was a statement or question. I guess 19 I hope it was a question. The transcript always 20 amazes me on how blabbering I am when I look it over.
21 But the EN-DC is in essence their AMP. Do you agree 22 with that statement?
23 MR. HISER: That is the implementable 24 program is probably the way that I would look at it.
25 Yes.
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Page 1418 1 JUDGE WARDWELL: Close enough to the same 2 answer I got from Mr. Cox.
3 JUDGE KENNEDY: So going back to Part 2 of 4 the question, could you describe the process the staff 5 uses to determine or assess consistency with GALL as 6 in this case the Flow-Accelerated Corrosion Program?
7 What's the process that it's gone through?
8 MR. HISER: The process has a couple of 9 steps. Probably the most significant is the AMP audit 10 that we perform where we go to the plant facility, 11 review all of their background documentation, normally 12 their implementing procedures for the program to make 13 our evaluation of whether their program is consistent 14 with the GALL AMP. So through that and then through 15 any RAIs or requests for additional information that 16 would be necessary as a result of that AMP or from our 17 review of what is in Appendix B of the application is 18 how we would evaluate that specific AMP.
19 MR. YODER: Matthew Yoder from the staff.
20 I'd like to add that even for an AMP that is verbatim 21 consistent with the GALL there is a potential for the 22 staff to ask for additional information. For 23 instance, if we had operating experience from that 24 plant or from another plant about a specific system, 25 we would ask questions to the licensee and probe that Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1419 1 issue. So just because there's this verbatim 2 consistency, there are additional things in addition 3 to the audit that the technical staff that are 4 reviewing that application probe those type of issues 5 as well.
6 MR. HISER: I think the one thing that's 7 in Appendix B that we haven't talked about is the 8 description of operating experience. And I think in 9 the case of the FAC program that actually has more 10 line space, if you will, than the program description.
11 JUDGE KENNEDY: As we were talking about 12 before this concept of verifying the consistency with 13 GALL, is this the process that I should take away as 14 how the staff does that, this audit and inspection of 15 the Aging Management Program possibly followed up by 16 RAIs and so on and so forth?
17 MR. HISER: Yes, that is the way that the 18 staff evaluates consistency with GALL pretty much for 19 all AMPs.
20 JUDGE KENNEDY: Did you mean pretty much?
21 MR. HISER: No, I do mean all AMPs. I 22 guess the thing -- This is an existing program. So 23 this one has a very long track record. So it's a very 24 well-worn path with this program. Some of the other 25 programs are not as longstanding.
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Page 1420 1 JUDGE KENNEDY: Is that to say the staff 2 has a lot of experience at interacting in this case 3 with Indian Point on a Flow-Accelerated Corrosion 4 Program related issues? Is that what?
5 MR. HISER: Well, we have a track record 6 in terms of Generic Letter responses and things like 7 that.
8 JUDGE KENNEDY: Okay.
9 MR. HISER: Also we're a part of the 10 review that we did of the Indian Point application.
11 JUDGE KENNEDY: Okay. Thank you. I've 12 got a couple of thoughts and unfortunately I can't see 13 Dr. Hopenfeld. You're behind the -- I've lost visual 14 site line.
15 DR. HOPENFELD: Sorry.
16 JUDGE KENNEDY: It's not your fault. It's 17 the big guy needs a monitor here.
18 DR. HOPENFELD: The background noise over 19 there has been annoying.
20 JUDGE KENNEDY: It's raining. There's a 21 skylight up here.
22 DR. HOPENFELD: Okay.
23 JUDGE KENNEDY: I think we're hearing 24 through the microphones is all the rain coming down.
25 DR. HOPENFELD: My hearing is not that Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1421 1 great. That's why.
2 JUDGE KENNEDY: I just wanted to ask you 3 a couple of questions before we leave this whole 4 topic.
5 DR. HOPENFELD: Sure.
6 JUDGE KENNEDY: Maybe I'm putting words in 7 your mouth. The focus on inspection frequency, 8 inspection methods and repair and replacement 9 criteria.
10 DR. HOPENFELD: Okay.
11 JUDGE KENNEDY: You've heard all the 12 discussion here. Is there something you'd like to 13 point out to us why you think that's significant? Why 14 you think they haven't possibly answered that question 15 here today?
16 DR. HOPENFELD: Yes, absolutely. Let me 17 just go slow. One thing there was a statement made by 18 this gentleman that the corrosion that they have 19 observed is linear with time. That's a very bold 20 critical statement.
21 And I've looked. I haven't seen any data.
22 They haven't provided us any data based on my 23 experience, knowing the literature and talking to a 24 lot of people and just the theory of it because the 25 geometry changes with time. Maybe it's uniform in a Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1422 1 straight section. I have no problem with that. But 2 the geometry changes.
3 The question is what happens in an 4 orifice, what happens in a bend, the one I showed you, 5 and there are many, many of those in the plant. They 6 haven't shown us on iota. They haven't shown us one 7 piece of data to back it up.
8 I have looked at some data from Japan over 9 4,000 or 5,000 or 6,000 hours0 days <br />0 weeks <br />0 months <br /> and these are average 10 values. Again, please just remember these are average 11 values. Of interest to the ASME code is the local 12 value. You don't know what it is. The only way you 13 can do it is by very close inspection and using a 14 smaller grid that they are using.
15 The probe sight that they are using for 16 these kind of variations that you have is too large.
17 They don't have the sensitivity. I don't know if I 18 answered your question.
19 JUDGE KENNEDY: Maybe we can get a 20 reaction from Entergy. The linearity issue first 21 maybe and then I guess it speaks to inspection method.
22 I think that's what Dr. Hopenfeld is trying to raise.
23 MR. ALEKSICK: Thank you, Your Honor.
24 This is Rob Aleksick again for the Applicant. I can 25 comment on the linearity part. I'm not the right one Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1423 1 to talk about the inspection technique.
2 I'm trying to find -- There are many 3 places where it's documented that as I said under 4 constant operating and chemistry conditions FAC rates 5 are linear. I read that say downstream of an orifice 6 if that orifice wears away over the course of many 7 years and the inside diameter thereby increase, then 8 FAC might not be linear there because the operating 9 conditions have changed. That's a somewhat unusual 10 circumstance.
11 And in general if you give me a moment 12 I'll find a reference if you'd like to point out the 13 fact that FAC is linear.
14 JUDGE KENNEDY: It would be most useful if 15 you could give us an exhibit that's within the record 16 here today.
17 MR. ALEKSICK: Certainly, Your Honor.
18 JUDGE WARDWELL: And what about an elbow?
19 We've heard a bit about elbows. Are they the problem 20 that -- How would you respond to that potential 21 problem of the change in direction of the fluids?
22 MR. ALEKSICK: Well, I would point out 23 that FAC wear rates are not consistent within an 24 elbow. One portion of the elbow may wear more rapidly 25 than another. But at each location under consistent Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1424 1 conditions the wear rate will be linear at that point.
2 In recognition of that fact, we inspect 3 the entire elbow as well as upstream and downstream of 4 it in a fairly extensive grid pattern so that we can 5 see wear patterns as they develop over time. That's 6 the reason for the inspection technique that we use.
7 JUDGE WARDWELL: Do you have a rough 8 dimensions of elbows and what is this grid pattern?
9 Give us a feeling for the coverage.
10 MR. ALEKSICK: Sure. That information is 11 spelled out in painful detail in various procedures.
12 But roughly speaking up to about a ten inch nominal 13 pipe size, we would be looking at a one or two inch 14 grid spacing. Between 10 and 20 inches we would be 15 looking at maybe two, three, four inch grid spacing.
16 And above 20 inches it would be a little bit higher 17 than that.
18 JUDGE WARDWELL: What's a little bit 19 higher?
20 MR. ALEKSICK: Six inches. I think six 21 inches is the maximum acceptable grid spacing.
22 MR. MEW: Ian Mew for the Applicant.
23 NSAC-202L gives you a recommendation for grid sizes 24 for different pipe sizes. Between one to six inches, 25 it's a one inch grid. Six to eight or eight to ten Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1425 1 it's like three inches. Twenty inch is five inches.
2 And above that is a six inch grid. Those are the 3 recommendations from NSAC-202L which is incorporated 4 in EN-DC-315.
5 JUDGE WARDWELL: And that grid spacing 6 wraps around the entire elbow.
7 MR. MEW: That is correct.
8 JUDGE WARDWELL: And that grid spacing is 9 what? Where you take measurements or where you 10 perform the CHECWORKS analysis or both?
11 MR. ALEKSICK: If I might, it might be 12 helpful since we have NSAC-202L up already. If we 13 could move to page 4-11, there's a figure there.
14 JUDGE McDADE: Also let me just interrupt 15 for a second particularly when we're bouncing back and 16 forth between witnesses. Again, it's important to 17 state your name. For example, Mr. Mew, you didn't 18 state your name beforehand. But I just want to make 19 sure that the court reporter has down who said what.
20 So after the fact, when we're going back and forth 21 between witnesses, start it off by saying your name 22 and then that way the appropriate person will be 23 attributed.
24 MR. MEW: Sorry, Your Honor.
25 MR. ALEKSICK: Thank you for the reminder, Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1426 1 Your Honor.
2 JUDGE McDADE: Thank you. I didn't mean 3 to cut you off. Go right ahead.
4 MR. ALEKSICK: Page 4-13. You went a 5 little too far. There we go. Just slide down a bit.
6 There we go. That's a nice illustration of what a 7 grid looks like. It's roughly to scale. And you can 8 see that the data points are collected at the 9 intersections. So when we unwrap that grid we end up 10 with a rectangular matrix of wall thickness 11 measurements.
12 JUDGE WARDWELL: What's the squiggly scan 13 mean?
14 MR. ALEKSICK: That is an indication of if 15 wall thinning is observed at a point on the grid the 16 procedures call for what's called a refined grid or a 17 scan. In other words, if we observe where at the 18 intersecting grid points we inspect in more detail 19 either through a scan and/or a smaller grid around 20 that area.
21 And I might point out that on the very 22 next page 4-15 is the table that Mr. Mew was referring 23 to earlier that provides guidance on the specific grid 24 sizes.
25 JUDGE KENNEDY: So how does CHECWORKS do Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1427 1 with elbows, predicted versus measured?
2 MR. ALEKSICK: I'm sorry. I didn't hear.
3 JUDGE KENNEDY: I guess I'm thinking back 4 to the opening presentation and the focus on elbows 5 and the challenge about erosion. Does CHECWORKS --
6 How does it predictive measure compare for these elbow 7 type?
8 MR. ALEKSICK: CHECWORKS provides a single 9 prediction of wear rates and wear for the entire 10 elbow. It does not predict on a grid basis like that.
11 So it gives us essentially the limiting case of wear.
12 And when we go and inspect it although we consider 13 every single measurement, there are typically 100 or 14 200, perhaps more, measurements for each elbow. But 15 we reduce that data to a single value of wear, the 16 maximum that is representative and limiting for the 17 entire component.
18 JUDGE WARDWELL: And how do you know it's 19 limiting?
20 MR. ALEKSICK: I mean limiting in the 21 sense that it is the maximum value of wear for the 22 component.
23 JUDGE WARDWELL: And you say that's what 24 CHECWORKS predicts?
25 MR. ALEKSICK: Yes. Yes, Your Honor.
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Page 1428 1 JUDGE WARDWELL: And how do you know it's 2 predicting the maximum?
3 MR. ALEKSICK: Well, the intent and the 4 design criteria for CHECWORKS were set up to do that.
5 CHECWORKS gives us a single wear rate per component 6 that is the maximum expected on the component.
7 JUDGE WARDWELL: For those conditions to 8 go into that, the various F factors that go into the 9 calculation, is that correct?
10 MR. ALEKSICK: Yes.
11 JUDGE WARDWELL: But that doesn't mean 12 that -- Does CHECWORKS know it's an elbow?
13 MR. ALEKSICK: Yes. Each component has a 14 specific geometry code to indicate it's an elbow or 15 reducer or etc.
16 JUDGE WARDWELL: I guess I still don't 17 understand on how you know it's a maximum. What do 18 you input that dictates it's a maximum?
19 MR. ALEKSICK: I think Dr. Horowitz might 20 want to answer that one.
21 DR. HOROWITZ: Jeff Horowitz. Let me try 22 it this way. We have defined geometry factors which 23 relate the corrosion rate in the straight pipe to a 24 given fitting. And we use that as a maximum value.
25 So whatever the number is -- Dr. Hopenfeld used 1.6 --
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Page 1429 1 say that's correct, it would be 1.6 X the straight 2 pipe. And that will be the maximum we expect to see 3 on the elbow.
4 JUDGE McDADE: Perhaps if I could before 5 we wander too far, this discussion got started when 6 Dr. Hopenfeld opined that the corrosion is not linear.
7 The question then passed back to Entergy to 8 demonstrate that it is. And in the preface to that, 9 you indicated I believe that you believed that it 10 would be linear except when there were operating 11 parameters that changed.
12 And my question from that is do you have 13 a way of predicting or identifying when those 14 operating parameters have changed so that you would be 15 alive to the possibility of a nonlinear progression of 16 the flow-accelerated corrosion.
17 MR. ALEKSICK: One of the duties of the 18 FAC program engineer is to maintain awareness of the 19 plant, the state of the plant. So design changes, 20 operational changes and other items that might affect 21 the rate of FAC, it's his responsibility to be aware 22 of those.
23 In some cases, it's a very obvious event 24 like the power uprates that occur. Then we knew the 25 pre- and post-operating conditions there. But in Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1430 1 addition to that if, for example, a train of heaters 2 is valved out for a period of a few months for 3 maintenance or other reasons, those are the sorts of 4 things that the FAC program owner maintains awareness 5 of and makes the appropriate determinations on how 6 that might affect the wear rates.
7 JUDGE McDADE: And showing more than a 8 minimal degree of ignorance in metallurgy, 9 particularly if you had a situation where you had an 10 elbow that you described, would it not be possible 11 there for a sum of the oxidized metal to break loose 12 creating a cavity and then having that cavity increase 13 the rate of corrosion or erosion where that cavity is?
14 And if that's not correct, tell me. But if it is 15 correct, how would you predict it or identify it?
16 MR. ALEKSICK: That is not correct, Your 17 Honor. Although the surface roughness can change over 18 time -- it does change over time -- it's not the case 19 that metal breaks off from the interior of the pipe 20 and leaves a cavity. The metal essentially dissolves 21 slowly over a period of time and a 10 or 20 year old 22 piece of pipe will have a greater internal roughness 23 than a newly manufactured one. That is true.
24 But through observation and through -- I'm 25 still looking up to find the right pithy reference for Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1431 1 you. But I can just tell you through experience of 23 2 years in this field the wear rates are linear and you 3 can plot a measurement that at 1992 and then inspect 4 the same component in 2002 and in 2012 and you will 5 see a linear progression of wear.
6 MR. KUYLER: Your Honor, Ray Kuyler for 7 Entergy. If I can reference the witness's 8 recollection, I believe the issue of linearity with 9 time is discussed in Answer 53 of Entergy's testimony 10 and there's a reference to Dr. Horowitz's book on 11 Flow-Accelerated Corrosion which is Exhibit 000036B.
12 JUDGE McDADE: Thank you.
13 JUDGE WARDWELL: Was that a correct 14 refreshment of your memory?
15 MR. ALEKSICK: Yes, Your Honor. Thank 16 you. We are just opening that over here as well. So 17 in that answer we point to the flow-accelerated 18 corrosion in power plants book.
19 JUDGE KENNEDY: I guess, Dr. Hopenfeld, 20 let's come back to you and talk about the repair and 21 replacement criteria. It seemed like in Entergy's 22 testimony they ==
23 JUDGE WARDWELL: Wait. Can I just 24 interrupt quickly?
25 JUDGE KENNEDY: Yes.
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Page 1432 1 JUDGE WARDWELL: What's your response to 2 what they just said? Why aren't you satisfied with 3 what's there in regards to --
4 DR. HOPENFELD: I'm not a very good 5 communicator on stuff right there. Some of these are 6 complex problems. I was trying to explain that the 7 heart of the problem is in the definition of what 8 corrosion is.
9 If you say it's a dissolution problem, 10 these F1, F2, F3, what they had are okay. And the 11 conclusion that it's fairly linear, especially linear 12 for straight section, is also okay. It's also okay to 13 say that it's not that much different whether it's an 14 elbow or it's an orifice. It's maybe by a factor of 15 1.6, 1.2, whatever.
16 But when we're talking about the fact on 17 the high turbulence and that's what it is -- the key 18 is the turbulence -- it's not just only the velocity.
19 It's the local turbulence. It can be very, very 20 local. It can be just around a weld. Let me tell me 21 how my experience of it.
22 JUDGE WARDWELL: Before you do that 23 though, I just want to -- I'd like you to answer the 24 question I'm specifically interested in.
25 DR. HOPENFELD: Yes.
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Page 1433 1 JUDGE WARDWELL: And let's move on to the 2 rest of that. And that is as far as what they're 3 doing for elbows you do not have any criticism of that 4 approach. And is that not a pretty good approach for 5 measuring the elbow to reflect the changes in the wear 6 rates around the elbow?
7 DR. HOPENFELD: No. That's what I was 8 trying to answer. They are basing their measurement 9 on averages. Okay. What they report is not the 10 maximum. The equation cannot report maximum.
11 JUDGE WARDWELL: No, I mean in regards to 12 measurements. The grid measurements in ED, isn't it?
13 DR. HOPENFELD: The grid measurement is 14 okay.
15 JUDGE WARDWELL: EN-DC whatever. Yeah.
16 EN-DC-315 is what we were looking at. Is that correct 17 that? That had the grid sizes and all that stuff for 18 the elbow.
19 DR. HOPENFELD: Oh.
20 MR. ALEKSICK: Rob Aleksick for the 21 Applicant. No, Your Honor.
22 JUDGE WARDWELL: Okay. NSAC.
23 MR. ALEKSICK: Yes, we are looking at 24 NSAC-202L.
25 JUDGE WARDWELL: Okay. NSAC-202 shows a Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1434 1 grid pattern for what and requirements for grid 2 patterns around an elbow where they take actual 3 measurements. Are you satisfied with that approach?
4 Do you have any criticisms of that approach?
5 DR. HOPENFELD: I have a criticism with 6 this table in the sense that this is general. This is 7 for any situation.
8 JUDGE WARDWELL: As it relates to pipe 9 diameter.
10 DR. HOPENFELD: It's up to the user to 11 look at this data and say, "Hey, I'd better look, get 12 a better grid." And I don't see that here. I have no 13 problem with these general. I looked at it before.
14 I'm familiar with it. Then you get it everywhere.
15 That's what you do.
16 You're trying to minimize the amount of 17 money that you're going to spend on inspection. If 18 you make that grid too small, pretty soon you're going 19 to run out of money.
20 So I think this is good. There is no 21 question about it. But when you look at your own 22 plant and you have this idea that the whole thing is 23 not really local and you don't really understand it 24 because the equation tells you it's not that bad, the 25 only way you can do it is to run -- I said it before Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1435 1 and I'll say it again -- CFD codes.
2 And that those do, they go to the 3 fundamental equation to describe the turbulence 4 anywhere around. And they have models from this.
5 Twenty years ago, we didn't have those computer codes 6 that could predict that kind of stuff.
7 But now we are at a point that we can 8 predict very accurately using turbulence models. To 9 run the computer codes takes a long time. But you 10 come up with a fairly good prediction as to where 11 you're going to have the maximum corrosion rate. This 12 is still based on the assumption that it's based on 13 metal dissolution.
14 When you come to the situation when the 15 process is controlled by both corrosion and the 16 synergy, all bets are off. We don't have a theory for 17 that. You have to do something. You have to really 18 start from scratch from a clean piece of paper.
19 JUDGE McDADE: Okay. Dr. Hopenfeld, if 20 you could just for me to clarify something.
21 DR. HOPENFELD: Yes.
22 JUDGE McDADE: Could you explain your 23 understand of impingement corrosion and cavitation 24 erosion?
25 DR. HOPENFELD: Yes.
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Page 1436 1 JUDGE McDADE: And how those are 2 applicable here?
3 DR. HOPENFELD: Sure. They're all FAC 4 corrosion because -- Let's take cavitation erosion.
5 On ships you probably know that the propeller usually 6 gets a lot of cavitation corrosion. What it is, you 7 have bubbles that next to the surface explode.
8 As a result of their exploration, there is 9 a tremendous pressure and stress imposed on the 10 surface. When you have it many, many times, you've 11 achieved the surface and you basically corrode the 12 surface.
13 Now the reason I would call it also FAC 14 because usually these things happen when the pressure 15 changes suddenly. That's when the vapor pressure 16 changes. That's one cavitation.
17 Droplet corrosion occurs in wet steam and 18 usually an extraction line. And you can see it very 19 clearly because there are hundreds of components which 20 erode and they have many leaks of those, too.
21 Luckily, it's not in the major safety part of the 22 plant, but some of them are.
23 But what you have there is you have where 24 the droplet condenses it just impacts the surface. If 25 you do that thing many, many times, you erode the Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1437 1 surface. That's a mechanical aspect.
2 Now the other aspect of it which is more 3 common in other lines is where you have sand in the 4 line. Now in the case of nuclear power plants, we 5 don't really understand because most of the stuff that 6 you -- Once the corrosion -- are soluble, but there 7 may be some which are not. And if you sit there 20 8 years and bounce and bounce on that, what do you think 9 is going to happen if some of those are not soluble?
10 JUDGE McDADE: But as I understand your 11 testimony, part of your testimony is because CHECWORKS 12 does not take into consideration impingement corrosion 13 and captivation erosion. It is not a valid predictor 14 of wear.
15 DR. HOPENFELD: Correct.
16 JUDGE McDADE: Okay. Let me ask to 17 Entergy. You've indicated that neither of those are 18 really part of flow-accelerated corrosion. Is there 19 any way that CHECWORKS identifies either of those 20 impingement corrosion or captivation erosion? Does 21 CHECWORKS identify them?
22 MR. ALEKSICK: This is Rob Aleksick for 23 the Applicant. No, Your Honor, CHECWORKS is not 24 designed and does not predict degradation due to 25 cavitation erosion or liquid drop impingement.
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Page 1438 1 JUDGE McDADE: Now why do you consider 2 that those aren't part of flow-accelerated corrosion?
3 MR. ALEKSICK: Well, let me answer in two 4 parts. First, from a definitional perspective, 5 Entergy uses the term "flow-accelerated corrosion" in 6 the same manner in sort of a standard academic 7 definition that's used by EPRI and in many of the 8 documents that we have had as exhibits.
9 Flow-accelerated corrosion is a pure 10 corrosion process. That is not to say that other 11 degradation mechanisms are not active.
12 JUDGE McDADE: And by corrosion here 13 you're talking about a chemical as opposed to a 14 mechanical process.
15 MR. ALEKSICK: Yes. Precisely. Other 16 degradation mechanisms may occasionally or rarely be 17 active in the same piping systems that flow-18 accelerated corrosion is active. And in fact the 19 Flow-Accelerated Corrosion Program at Entergy does 20 address those degradation mechanisms, but not through 21 the use of CHECWORKS which is not designed to predict 22 those forms of well loss.
23 JUDGE McDADE: Okay. But your testimony 24 is although CHECWORKS doesn't address this there are 25 other aspects of the aging management program that Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1439 1 will identify those portions of the system that would 2 be susceptible to erosion as opposed to corrosion.
3 MR. ALEKSICK: Yes, Your Honor.JUDGE 4 McDADE: And what would those be?
5 MR. ALEKSICK: Well, I would point you to 6 Question 51 in our testimony. In general FAC is the 7 predominant damage mechanism active in the systems 8 that we're discussing here. However, if there is 9 impingement or cavitation or indeed any other 10 degradation mechanism the FAC Program is in a sense a 11 wall-thinning program. And so through the use 12 particularly of operating experience as well as 13 engineering judgment, those other degradation 14 mechanisms are addressed.
15 JUDGE McDADE: Right. And that's what I'm 16 trying to get you to elaborate for us here; whereas 17 how do you identify where those other mechanisms are 18 going to occur so that you can appropriately judge the 19 frequency of inspection?
20 MR. AZEVEDO: Yes. It's Nelson Azevedo 21 again. We identified those primarily through 22 operating experience both internal and external.
23 JUDGE McDADE: Okay. Now by operating 24 experience meaning you've tested in certain places and 25 you've identified either where there is or is not wall Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1440 1 thinning.
2 MR. AZEVEDO: Either that or through leaks 3 that have developed either at Indian Point or other 4 facilities.
5 JUDGE McDADE: Okay. When you say leaks 6 that have developed at other facilities, you've 7 identified sort of generically those kinds of places 8 that would be most susceptible to erosion so that you 9 could then focus on them.
10 MR. AZEVEDO: Yes, that is correct.
11 JUDGE McDADE: At the individual facility.
12 MR. AZEVEDO: That's correct.
13 JUDGE McDADE: Okay. Is there anything 14 other than -- And I don't mean to put words in your 15 mouth here. But it sounds like what you're saying is 16 engineering judgment is the basis for determining 17 these other locations or locations subject to erosion 18 as opposed to corrosion. Is there anything other than 19 engineering judgment based on past experience that 20 informs your decision?
21 MR. AZEVEDO: Well, I would say operating 22 experience. I would classify that as a little bit 23 different than engineering judgment. But, yes, you're 24 correct. We don't have a predictive code like 25 CHECWORKS if that's what you're asking.
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Page 1441 1 JUDGE McDADE: Okay. But what I'm 2 suggesting is the engineering judgment is based on the 3 inspections that you have done in the past and also 4 looking at inspections that have been done at similar 5 facilities to identify those areas that are 6 susceptible to corrosion or erosion here.
7 MR. AZEVEDO: Yes, that's correct.
8 JUDGE McDADE: Okay. Now I believe also 9 you indicated that it in your view is unlikely and 10 we'll hear back from Dr. Hopenfeld in a second because 11 I don't think he shares his view is that it's unlikely 12 that you're going to see corrosion and erosion in the 13 same pipe at the same time. Can you explain briefly 14 why you believe that?
15 DR. HOROWITZ: Jeff Horowitz. The reason 16 is for the corrosion you need an outside layer. And 17 the erosion tends to destroy the outside with 18 everything else.
19 JUDGE McDADE: Okay. Dr. Hopenfeld.
20 DR. HOPENFELD: The reason I brought you 21 that large elbow before and --
22 JUDGE McDADE: Lean into the microphone a 23 little bit if you could.
24 DR. HOPENFELD: The reason I showed you 25 that large elbow and many others but this one really Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1442 1 illustrated the point. Remember I had a number there 2 like 52 times. You notice the erosion on the top and 3 the erosion at the maximum point was 52 times larger.
4 If that's not a local thing on the same component, I 5 don't know what local means.
6 JUDGE McDADE: Dr. Hopenfeld and Dr.
7 Horowitz, correct me if I'm wrong. As I understood 8 the Entergy's position it's that if you have enough 9 flow that you're not going to have the corrosion 10 there. You're not going to have the oxidation. So 11 therefore if you have the corrosion, it is only going 12 to be in a situation where you're not going to have 13 significant erosion and visa versa. Dr. Horowitz, am 14 I correct?
15 DR. HOROWITZ: Yes, you are.
16 JUDGE McDADE: What's wrong with that 17 hypothesis?
18 DR. HOPENFELD: There's a lot of things 19 wrong. But let me go now. I have to go back. You 20 make a good point. And if you really want to get into 21 that, you may want to read the scientific article by 22 Dr. Dick MacDonald. I think that's his name. Dick 23 MacDonald from Penn State.
24 JUDGE McDADE: I don't need to read the 25 article. I've got you.
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Page 1443 1 DR. HOPENFELD: I know. Okay. Here's 2 what it is. You have a surface, a metal surface. And 3 then you have a protective layer, outside layer. And 4 then you have fluid. And when the flow is fairly low, 5 the level of turbulence is low. The whole process is 6 controlled basically by metal dissolution.
7 When you go beyond that and it's not 8 necessarily velocity and it's not very clearly defined 9 yet, but you go through very, very high turbulence and 10 at that point you have a situation that part of that 11 outside layer is weakened. And the reason it's 12 weakened, the adhesion is weakened because the number 13 of vacancies, the atoms are not that cohesive anymore.
14 The outside layer is not coherent with the metal 15 surface. It's easier for the flow shear to remove 16 part of the outside layer.
17 At this point, you get in the situation 18 that you have both, erosion and corrosion. And that's 19 a very difficult thing to describe. But that's what 20 you have. So you have a very low velocity. You have 21 a fairly smooth, slow situation where the corrosion 22 rate is roughly proportionate to the velocity.
23 Then you get over a certain critical 24 velocity where the turbulence becomes very high and 25 then the thing zooms. And if you go and look into the Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1444 1 data and the literature, you see sometimes people say 2 "Well, it's only a proportion only to the first power 3 of velocity." Others they say it's as high as five.
4 What I'm getting to is a very complicated 5 area. But we still don't know. But the point is it's 6 just not as simple as you heard it this morning.
7 JUDGE WARDWELL: When one takes a 8 measurement of the pipe thickness, what does it 9 measure? Corrosion or erosion or both?
10 DR. HOPENFELD: It doesn't know. The 11 probe doesn't know. It just measures whatever it is.
12 It could have been who knows.
13 JUDGE WARDWELL: Whoever wants to answer 14 from Entergy. Probably Mr. Aleksick.
15 DR. HOROWITZ: I'd like to try. Jeff 16 Horowitz. The presentation in Professor MacDonald's 17 paper is fine. But it's assuming that the path is 18 critical velocity. All the data and all the 19 experiments assume that you don't get there. Looking 20 at metal graphically at the surface, you see corrosion 21 period.
22 JUDGE WARDWELL: With the incorporation of 23 line correction factors into CHECWORKS, does not that 24 line correction factor use a measured rate?
25 DR. HOROWITZ: Yes, it does.
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Page 1445 1 JUDGE WARDWELL: Doesn't that measured 2 rate as Dr. Hopenfeld said include whatever is taking 3 place there if in fact you're wrong and erosion is 4 taking place there?
5 DR. HOROWITZ: Yes, it does, Your Honor.
6 But it's still corrosion.
7 MR. ALEKSICK: And if I might expand on 8 that. This is again Rob Aleksick for the Applicant.
9 Part of the process of modeling is to exclude degraded 10 pipe that was degraded by mechanisms other than flow-11 accelerated corrosion. So if we have a pipe 12 measurement of thinned wall that was due to liquid 13 droplet impingement, say, then the modeling analyst 14 will not use that data to calibrate the CHECWORKS 15 model.
16 JUDGE WARDWELL: But even if there was a 17 small amount of erosion occurring at a given location 18 the model somewhat handles it through a line 19 correction factor which by necessity looks at whatever 20 is thinning the pipe, not just corrosion if something 21 else was taking place. Is that correct?
22 MR. ALEKSICK: First, it's our position 23 that erosion and corrosion don't occur simultaneously.
24 JUDGE WARDWELL: I clearly understand 25 that.
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Page 1446 1 MR. ALEKSICK: But I think in general what 2 you said is correct. Yes. And that's part of the 3 reason for a calibration process.
4 JUDGE WARDWELL: Dr. Hopenfeld, what is 5 wrong with that position then? FAC CHECWORKS does to 6 some degree incorporate whatever takes place there 7 through this line correction factor.
8 DR. HOPENFELD: No. But first of all you 9 look at it. Then you have to go back to the 10 CHECWORKS. There is no prediction there because it 11 varies by a factor of 10. There is no correlation of 12 anything.
13 JUDGE WARDWELL: Yes. We'll get into that 14 later.
15 DR. HOPENFELD: But I'm sorry. I go back 16 to what the German said again.
17 JUDGE WARDWELL: The lack of correlation 18 at least incorporates whatever is wearing it at that 19 point due to line correction factor.
20 DR. HOPENFELD: Yes, it's still based on 21 averages. The only way you can do it, the only 22 possible way, is what has been occurring in the 23 literature or in the last ten years. It's people 24 using CFD codes. You go back to the stock equation.
25 You solve what's going on. And then you see exactly Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1447 1 what the maximum is.
2 Now there's a next step for somebody, 3 maybe somebody that's going to be younger than I am, 4 to look into how you can get over that critical 5 velocity that Dr. Horowitz said. But it's not the 6 critical velocity only. See, it's not only velocity.
7 It's the turbulence that affects it.
8 Velocity is an indication through the 9 Reynolds number of geometry and turbulence. But it's 10 much more than that. You have to go to the 11 fundamental how these are created. You have to do the 12 fundamental instability of the flow. That's the level 13 you have to go and look at it before you draw 14 conclusions.
15 It's just not -- I hate to sound very 16 complicated. It's not a straightforward answer. So 17 what it is you have a combined effect of erosion and 18 corrosion over a certain period of time for a certain 19 region. For low turbulence, it's okay. Everything 20 they do is perfect.
21 But most of the components are not in that 22 region. I wouldn't have any problem if they had a 23 plant running from here to China in a straight line.
24 That would be perfect. I wouldn't be here.
25 JUDGE KENNEDY: I almost hate to leave Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1448 1 this erosion/corrosion issue.
2 DR. HOPENFELD: I'm sorry.
3 JUDGE KENNEDY: I said I hate to leave the 4 erosion/corrosion issue because I'm not sure we've 5 really gotten closure. And I may want to ask other 6 members of the Board. Are we going to chase this 7 tomorrow?
8 JUDGE WARDWELL: Yes, I have more.
9 JUDGE KENNEDY: You've got more questions.
10 Yes.
11 JUDGE WARDWELL: We've jumped ahead of 12 things and I still need to go back and tie some knots 13 on.
14 JUDGE KENNEDY: If that's the case, then 15 I think we'll move on. I've got one final question 16 for Dr. Hopenfeld.
17 We're pursuing your issues about the 18 inspection frequency/inspection methods. And the one 19 last one I wanted to talk is the repair/replacement 20 criteria. It seemed when we went through the 21 testimony with Entergy that they pointed to GALL that 22 GALL had a criterion in there for minimal critical 23 wall thickness. And then a decision would be made for 24 repair and replacement.
25 I guess I'm really trying to understand Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1449 1 what your concern is over that issue. Have they 2 addressed it? Not addressed it? Is there more that 3 needs to be focused on?
4 DR. HOPENFELD: If you know when that 5 critical thickness would occur, I have no problem with 6 that. The problem is you don't know. There are two 7 and three uncertainties. You have the frequency. You 8 have another uncertainty. We haven't even gotten to 9 it and that has to do -- You have to realize what they 10 are doing. They are sampling.
11 This is an inspection by sampling. You're 12 taking a fairly small number of components. There are 13 a lot of other components which are not being 14 inspected.
15 Now this whole idea of using a line is --
16 I'll give you an example. I'll try to go very fast.
17 I went to Sequoyah after that accident or about the 18 time of the accident. They have a distribution ring 19 in the steam generator which has J-tubes. That's how 20 you get the water into the steam generator.
21 I saw one tube, one J-tube, which is 22 something like two inches in diameter gone. The one 23 next to it is in perfect shape. What does it tell 24 you? The small difference in the metal or the weld 25 itself could make a big difference.
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Page 1450 1 So when you hear about line that's an 2 academic thing. It's an ideal thing. You can take two 3 components. They look the same, but they don't smell 4 the same.
5 JUDGE KENNEDY: It seems to me that we're 6 going to get into this when we get into the 7 application of CHECWORKS at Indian Point and get into 8 the predictive mode of that.
9 DR. HOPENFELD: Did I answer your 10 question?
11 JUDGE KENNEDY: I think it's yet to be 12 answered. I understand what your concern is and I'm 13 not sure we can -- I think we've got to go much deeper 14 into how CHECWORKS is applied at Indian Point, what 15 its accuracy is, what the scope of components is that 16 they apply the code to to really get to the bottom of 17 it.
18 We're going to come back to your 19 repair/replacement criteria I believe.
20 DR. HOPENFELD: Thank you.
21 JUDGE KENNEDY: Now that I understand it.
22 Thank you.
23 JUDGE McDADE: I think we're going to 24 start to get into some additional areas here and the 25 question is whether we take a break for a few minutes Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1451 1 and then come back or break for the day.
2 I think given the fact that it's past 5:30 3 p.m. at this point that we probably would be best 4 served by coming back tomorrow at 9:00 a.m. We're 5 going to have the same panel of witnesses. I would 6 anticipate that we will probably go with this panel of 7 witnesses through the morning tomorrow.
8 MR. ALEKSICK: Yes.
9 JUDGE McDADE: And perhaps beyond the 10 morning. So I think at this point we're just about 11 ready to take a break. Are there any housekeeping 12 matters that any of the parties have that they want to 13 address now before we break for the evening? Entergy?
14 MS. SUTTON: Nothing on behalf of Entergy.
15 This is Kathryn Sutton. We have no issues, Your 16 Honor, housekeeping matters.
17 JUDGE McDADE: Okay.
18 MR. SIPOS: And, Your Honor, this is John 19 Sipos for the State of New York. The State likewise 20 has no issues at this time.
21 MR. MUSEGAAS: Sorry, Your Honor. We have 22 one housekeeping matter or perhaps it's a 23 clarification question going back to this morning's 24 discussion of the motion that's before you regarding 25 Riverkeeper/Clearwater EC-3 and the motion for Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1452 1 settlement. And we understand we've made some efforts 2 to do outreach to Cortland and do consultation during 3 the day today. I'm not sure if we've heard back yet.
4 But I'm just trying to understand how you 5 would like us to consider while the Board is 6 considering the motion. Are we to assume that we 7 should be prepared to go ahead and with that 8 contention over the next couple of weeks? Or do you -
9 - this is a little bit speculative. Do you presume 10 that you might be able to rule on the motion in the 11 short term so that we will know in the very short time 12 frame whether that is necessary?
13 JUDGE McDADE: It would be our goal to 14 rule on it in the short term.
15 MR. MUSEGAAS: Okay.
16 JUDGE McDADE: And fortunately it is one 17 of the contentions that was sort of at the backend of 18 our schedule for this particular session. Hopefully 19 we will be able to rule on it very quickly. But 20 before we do rule on it, what we did want to do is to 21 give the town of Cortland an opportunity either 22 directly or derivatively through the parties to 23 express their view as to whether or not it's in the 24 public interest and also to hear back from the NRC 25 staff, Mr. Turk, as to the NRC's position with regard Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1453 1 to enforceability of it. At that point, there 2 wouldn't be anything else that we would need by way of 3 input and hopefully we would be able to reach a 4 consensus on it very quickly after that.
5 Now at this point the Board has already 6 had the joy of reading through all of the testimony of 7 the parties and that contention and the exhibits. But 8 we hopefully will be able to decide what to do with 9 that very quickly.
10 MR. BESSETTE: Your Honor. This is Paul 11 Bessette from Entergy. I have tried to make initial 12 contact with the Town of Cortland on behalf of all the 13 parties. And as soon as we hear something we'll 14 inform the Board.
15 JUDGE McDADE: Okay. There's one other 16 housekeeping matter that I want to make and address 17 specifically to Clearwater. The Board represented 18 when you raised the issue a while back that one of 19 your witnesses was going to need a Spanish 20 interpreter. And based on my experience, long 21 experience, with the Department of Justice, that was 22 never a problem.
23 We have been reaching out to court 24 certified Spanish interpreters and have been having a 25 difficult time particularly given the fact that we are Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1454 1 not able to state with precision exactly when we will 2 be hearing that contention and the hearing from that 3 particular witness.
4 So the one question that I had for you to 5 consider is whether or not Riverkeeper would be able 6 to provide an interpreter for your witness and then to 7 any of the other parties whether or not they would 8 have any objection to the interpreter not being court 9 certified English/Spanish interpreter.
10 I think the questioning is not going to be 11 particularly either lengthy or complex and that we 12 would be able to -- If we were going to have one 13 witness on the stand for many hours, if we were going 14 to have the kind of testimony that we'd receive from 15 Dr. Hopenfeld or Dr. Horowitz, it would be necessary 16 to have someone who is very skilled and experienced 17 not just bilingual but as an interpreter.
18 In this instance, we may not. But the 19 question is, first of all, and we don't need an answer 20 right this minute, to Clearwater whether or not that 21 would be something that you would be able to provide 22 and to the other parties whether or not you have any 23 objection. And again we are still attempting to 24 secure the services of an interpreter English/Spanish 25 who has been certified by the Administrative Office of Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1455 1 the Courts.
2 MR. BESSETTE: Your Honor, Paul Bessette.
3 We would have no problems with an alternate 4 interpreter, although we would propose it not be one 5 of the lawyers assigned to this proceeding.
6 JUDGE McDADE: No, I agree. I think that 7 would probably be best because it would be difficult 8 for them to handle both roles simultaneously.
9 Anyway, Judge Wardwell, do you have 10 anything further for this evening?
11 JUDGE WARDWELL: No.
12 JUDGE McDADE: Judge Kennedy?
13 JUDGE KENNEDY: I do not. Thank you.
14 JUDGE McDADE: Anybody else before we 15 break for the evening?
16 MS. GREENE: Your Honor, I think you asked 17 me a question but didn't wait for my response.
18 JUDGE McDADE: I'm sorry. Ms. Greene.
19 Because I said that I didn't need a response tonight.
20 I didn't know if you would have it immediately.
21 MS. GREENE: Well, just in terms of 22 whether we would consider it. And if you don't need 23 a response tonight, my response to the question about 24 consideration is yes, we will consider it. And I do 25 know of somebody that might be appropriate if Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 1456 1 available. So I do need some time to check into that.
2 JUDGE McDADE: Okay. Thank you.
3 MS. GREENE: And I think everyone would be 4 very pleased with the services that this gentleman 5 could provide.
6 JUDGE McDADE: Okay. Thank you, Ms.
7 Greene.
8 MS. GREENE: Thank you.
9 JUDGE McDADE: Okay. 9:00 a.m. tomorrow.
10 And again anticipate we'll take a short break in the 11 morning, an hour at lunch, a break in the afternoon 12 and go until sometime between 5:00 p.m. and 6:00 p.m.
13 tomorrow evening. Thank you. Off the record.
14 (Whereupon, at 5:37 p.m., the above 15 entitled matter was recessed to resume the next day at 16 9:00 a.m.)
17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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